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.

You say this autobiography is sure to attract a large audience, but unless your name is Barack Obama, that’s far from a guarantee. I don’t mean to discourage you; if you have an interesting story you feel compelled to tell, go for it. But memoirs/autobiographies by people who aren’t celebrities, no matter how interesting, aren’t a sure sell any more than a novel is.

You have to approach the situation thinking realistically about the industry: even if you find a publisher, you may never earn back your advance and begin to get royalty checks. This happens pretty frequently. So the first thing to know when you approach a potential ghostwriter is that you should be offering them a percent of the advance, not of royalties.

Still, it’ll be tough to find a writer (and a good one at that) who’s willing to devote the time and effort to writing an entire book with no money up front. One question to consider is whether you need to have a full manuscript before approaching agents. Often, with nonfiction, a great proposal and one to three sample chapters are enough for an agent to take you on. Perhaps instead of asking authors to write an entire book on spec, you could ask that they help you polish the sample chapter you already have and sign on to write the book if you find representation, or if you find a publisher. If you have any money at all, perhaps you can offer them a small stipend for this, just as a token of good faith.

If you haven’t already, you should check out any websites whose purpose is to put editors or ghostwriters together with authors. WriterLance.com is one, and if you do a Google search for “ghostwriter,” I’m sure you’ll find others. Some people, of course, will want money up front, but you’ll also come across unpublished writers who might be willing to work on a story such as yours for a percentage of future monies, especially if they think it will sell.

If you’re willing, try offering incentives such as credit on the book jacket (e.g., “as told to Joe Smith”). And be as courteous and professional as possible when you approach writers, so they have no reason to think you’ll be difficult to work with—but don’t sound desperate. If you tell people you’re having trouble finding a writer, they’ll wonder why.

Finally, if you’ve exhausted every avenue you can think of and come up empty, try approaching agents with what you have and being up front about the fact that you need a ghostwriter. Many agents have clients who work as ghostwriters, and if they fall in love with your story, they may help you find someone to help write it and help negotiate a financial agreement between you. Again, if you can scrape together even a small amount to pay up front, it’ll be a sign of good faith and vastly increase your chances of finding someone whose talents are up to the task.

Good luck, Ed, and thanks for the question! Let me know how it goes. (And if any readers out there have any further suggestions to offer, bring ‘em on.)

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 12th, 2007 at 12:38 pm and is filed under Ghostwriters (Hiring One or Being One), Readers Q&A. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.