Be Your Own Editor

Ed is faced with a difficult situation:

How does one go about finding ghostwriters who will work for royalties? A partner and I are working on an autobiography. The story is a fantastic one and I am sure it will find a large audience. We have almost completed the proposal and have many of the notes already written down and a sample chapter finished. Our problem is financial in that we can not afford to pay up front for someone to write the book. I have contacted a few authors but as of yet have not found anyone with the time or interest to collaborate. Any help would be used to its fullest.

This is a tricky one, Ed. The trouble is, no matter how good the book ends up being, you can’t guarantee any ghostwriter that they’ll ever actually receive any royalties.

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Some time ago, I was hired by a woman with a harrowing family story to tell. She desperately wanted to share her tale, believing that it would expose truths and help other people, but she recognized that her writing was not at a professional book author’s level. So I agreed to ghostwrite the manuscript.

I had never done such a job before—editing books was my thing, not writing them—and I soon came to regret it. The woman lived far from me, so I never met her, and she had a difficult time understanding the level of detail I needed from her to effectively turn the events of her life into a potential book. The experience led me to ask: Can a deeply personal story be told in a deeply personal, affecting, true way—by someone who didn’t live it?

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Contributed by Laura College

These days, nearly every business has consultants, and now you can have one of your own! The ghostwriting profession has expanded significantly in the last ten years, and now there is a middle ground between writing your own book and hiring a ghostwriter. When you hire a ghostwriter as a consultant, the ghostwriter will help you to write your book.

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