During one scene in the 1942 movie “Yankee Doodle Dandy,” George M. Cohan (James Cagney) admitted that he and his partner Sam Harris (Richard Whorf) did business for sixteen years with nothing but a handshake. Cohan said it was all they ever needed. They never had a written contract. They were lucky. Today, they’d probably…
What people see as pros and cons of ghostwriting, I see as pros. Last week, I wrote about why ghostwriting is expensive. Some people consider that a reason not to use a ghostwriter. I believe just the opposite: Since you get what you pay for, it’s actually a positive to fork over good money for…
Proof that ghostwriting is expensive: I remember speaking about ghostwriting at a networking event. Afterwards, a member came up and asked just one question: “How much?” What I wanted to say was, If you have to ask, you can’t afford it. Instead, I responded, “It depends on several factors, but if you want quality ghostwriting,…
Clients want publishing deals. I’ve recently had conversations with a client and a prospect. I ghostwrote the client’s manuscript, which she appreciated tremendously. Now, she’s trying to get it published and is finding it very difficult. She showed me how one publisher wanted $50,000 to edit, publish, and market her manuscript. “I can’t believe how…
I recently wrote about why ghostwriters don’t work on spec. It’s also true that ghostwriters don’t usually take a percentage of an author’s advance, sales or profits on the books they ghostwrite. Just like in my previous post, one reason comes down to money. Ghostwriters want to get paid. They want to guarantee the revenue.…
As I recently wrote, all ghostwritten work has to start somewhere, and that somewhere is the first draft, that often ugly, messy, incomplete, error-ridden, Frankenstein’s monster of a draft. Ghostwriters must impress upon clients that the first draft is just that: a beginning. Then comes the shaping, molding, building, forming, forging, and producing the work…
Ghostwriting is one of the truest forms of collaboration there is. On one side, there’s the story expert: the person who has the compelling story that simply has to be told for whatever reasons the person wants to tell it (also known as the client). Joining that person is the storytelling expert, the ghostwriter, who…
Recently, I turned down a potential ghostwriting client because he clearly didn’t have the money to pay me. He then asked me if he could pay me after the book sells. I responded, “No, I don’t work on spec.” That pretty much ended my conversation with him, but it made me realize that maybe not…
“I’m not a licensed therapist, but sometimes we must all act that way.” —Jodi Lipper, six-time New York Times bestselling ghostwriter I find these words, spoken during January 2024’s Gathering of the Ghosts conference in New York City, to be so true. Writing a book—with or without a ghostwriter—is a monumental undertaking. People who hire…
To ghostwrite is to have tact. Early in my ghostwriting career, I was not as tactful as I should have been with people I needed to interview to flesh out the story. This stemmed from my newspaper journalism days when I often strong-armed and aggressively got people to talk to me. This earned me several…
