Everything you ever wanted to know about ghostwriting
How do you break into ghostwriting? How much money do ghostwriters make? How fast can I depress aspiring ghostwriters in a single newsletter? Read on and see.
At least twice a week, I get cold emails from ghostwriters and the ghostwriter-curious: journalists, speechwriters, copywriters, and the like, all interested in writing books “by” other people. They’re trying to figure out if they have what it takes—not just to ghostwrite, but to make a living ghostwriting.
If you’re wondering the same, this week’s newsletter is for you.
And I’m afraid most of you are going to find it rather depressing.
Don’t get me wrong: many people make a living—or at least a substantial chunk of one—as ghostwriters. This very well might include you, now or in the future. Ghostwriting absolutely can be a viable career path.
It’s just…how do I put this… far, FAR fewer people are actually capable of doing this job than those who believe they are. As both an intellectual challenge and viable living, ghostwriting is quite a bit harder than publishing your own work—which of course isn’t easy in itself.
In order to make it as a commercial ghostwriter, you need to be a highly, highly specific type of person. It’s an outlandishly rare type.
Beyond that, you need to have the connections and/or career opportunity to demonstrate to publishing professionals that you are this type, which presents its own separate set of challenges.
The good news, however, is that if you are this type of person—and you find an opportunity to demonstrate it; more on how in a moment—you will likely get lots of ghostwriting offers. You will also likely and forever become one of just a handful of people on publishing professionals’ go-to ghostwriting lists. Editors and agents will not just throw work at you on the semi-regular—they’ll sob with gratitude that you exist, which is always a nice feeling.
Why? Because—as I said—VANISHINGLY RARE is the individual who can truly hack it as a ghostwriter. If you’re one of them and publishing types find out about it, they will try to devour you.
So what kind of skills do great ghostwriters need? Why are they so uncommon? And if one has those skills, how can one dangle them like so much 19th century ankle to the suitors of contemporary book publishing?
I’ll tell you in a moment — but first, let’s run through…
Some Definitions
What kind of ghostwriting are we talking about here?
I’m not talking about a paid copywriter or speechwriter or anything like that. I’m also not talking about the people whom moneyed randos hire to write self-published memoirs or family histories. Those gigs are out there for sure; I just have no idea how to get them for you.1
Instead, what I’m talking about is a very specific type of ghostwriting gig: one in which an author who has (or wants) a book deal with a large national publisher (Big 5 or similar) hires an individual to help them write that book.
These individuals are generally referred to as “ghostwriters” in pop culture. For clarity’s sake, I’ve heretofore referred to them as such. Inside the industry, however, we generally use the more flexible term collaborator, which encompasses editorial as well as writing work and also preserves authors’ dignity. That or we just call them writers. (“Is she going to need a writer to get this done?”)
For the rest of this newsletter, therefore, I’m going to use that language.
Collaborators are most often hired (and paid) by authors, not publishers. Sometimes authors pay them out of personal funds and sometimes out of book advances. Publishers occasionally pay for them, too, but only rarely and in situations where they know they themselves have fallen down on the job.
Collaborators most often work on nonfiction.
They work on fiction, too, although not nearly as often and not in situations to which I am often privy.2 This newsletter is therefore going to be about nonfiction.
Nonfiction collaborators generally work with two kinds of authors:
Prominent people with amazing platforms, experiences, and ideas—and also, crucially, money—who lack the time and/or skill to convert their wisdom into a compelling 80,000+-word manuscript for the general public. Think: celebrities, CEOs, popular experts, politicians, etc.
Career authors who had every intention of writing their own book but find themselves the victim of circumstance under contract. People in this category include but are not limited to jargon-encumbered academics, journalists paralyzed by the size and scope of their unprocessed reporting, authors who have to deal with unexpected crises while finishing time-sensitive books, etc.
For those authors, collaborators will come on board to do one or more of the following:
write a book proposal from scratch, based on notes, interviews, and other raw materials provided by the author
ditto for a book manuscript
rewrite a manuscript currently too janky or shaggy for prime time
punch up underdeveloped scenes or arguments; brighten dull language; move things around—a suite of services sometimes referred to as “book doctoring”