About a year ago, I wrote about a reason ghostwriting can be expensive: Time is money. Read all about it here. There is another reason, however. Ghostwriting is definitely a specialized skill. Not everybody can do it, Just like critical thinking, public speaking, problem solving, leadership, driving, cooking with charcoal, predicting the weather, and taking…
I had an idea for a post, inspired when I recently found this quote on Reddit: “Your first published story or novel will have to be better than the average published ones.” The unnamed writer explained: Writers at a workshop wanted to know why one student’s story didn’t sell and it was better than these…
Tenth in an occasional series about about compelling stories and ideas worth telling. I recently received an email from a New Jersey woman. It said, “Hello. I was wondering if this story could become a book. Below are 2 articles, but there are many, many more articles out like this.” So far, so normal. I…
A recent newsletter I received from Ally Machate, who runs a editing and marketing firm, mentioned three costly mistakes authors make when publishing. The first mistake is rushing to publish without proper editing. “Skipping professional editing might save time (and money in the short term),” she writes, “but it often lead to … negative reviews.”…
Ninth in an occasional series about compelling stories and ideas worth telling. Have you ever been in a relationship with a con artist? Did you lose a lot of money? Did you try to get him or her back, against your better judgment? Did that con artist try to kill you? Did you survive and…
Here’s a story about stories. I recently gave a speech at a networking group of which I have been a member for eight years (and am quitting this month, but that’s not important right now). I had 10 minutes to talk about ghostwriting, since we were expected to talk about our business. I had previously…
Early in my career as a book editor, and edited a manuscript of an expository essay in which the author asserted that the presence and existence of ISIS signaled that Armageddon, as described in the Book of Revelation, is here. I had to do a lot of fact checking, especially making sure the author correctly…
Eighth in an occasional series about stories and ideas worth telling. Everybody, brothers included, makes choices, and there always are repercussions and consequences of the choices everybody makes. One can choose to live near nature, hear the sounds of birds and insects chirping; enjoy the clean, crisp air, and feel peace—and be susceptible to wild…
I’m going to begin by stating something incredibly obvious: Words matter in speeches. Trust a speech writer in NYC. Duh, I hear you thinking. Fair enough, let me continue. A speech should be written concisely, meaning the speaker gets up, gets it done quickly, and gets out. That means the speaker (and by extension, the…
To AI or not to AI, that is the question. See what I did? I, a human, took something famous written by another human and put a twist on it. I wanted to see if I could get AI to write the same line, so I went to ChatGPT and asked it to “Take Shakespeare’s…
