Chances are you might not be so familiar with the term “ghostwriter” or what ghostwriting services really entail. If that’s true, you’ve come to the right place. In the following article, I’ll demystify these terms for you and help you determine if a ghostwriter is someone you want to consider hiring.
A ghostwriter is a professional writer who has the skills to write articles, books, and other content for another person. Customarily when a ghostwriter is hired, it means she writes the original content, while the credit officially goes to the person who publishes the piece. These days, however, the “ghost” isn’t always uncredited.
Professional ghostwriting services are largely used by celebrities, political and religious leaders, executives, and high profile experts and business owners who want a ghostwriter to either a) rework material such as blog posts, presentations, manuscript drafts, and notes written by them originally, or b) to write original content from scratch.
50 Shades of Ghostwriting
Ghostwriters work in a variety of sectors doing many different things, and they contribute at varying degrees. One example is an academic ghostwriting service. The academic services mostly undertake the work of scholars who need significant help with dissertations and scholarly papers. Other field work handled by academic ghostwriters may include case studies, course work assignments, reviews, and journal articles.
Apart from the classic ghostwriters who create content for articles, blogs, and books, there are ghostwriters of a more musical variety who are called on to help in composing songs, lyrics, and even film score compositions.
And there are more types of ghostwriters yet! Some specialize in corporate histories meant for large companies’ employees to enjoy. Others work with C-suite executives to create thought leadership missives, or help experts turn their programs and systems into useful self-help books. There are professional ghostwriters who are on a mission to help extraordinary people share their stories. Web ghostwriters will often design an article using SEO techniques so it is easily accessible by search engines. Some ghosts work with complete confidentiality, while others may be thanked publicly in a book’s acknowledgments or they may even receive cover credit as a collaborator.
The Benefits of Hiring a Ghostwriter
There are many reasons why a person would seek out a ghostwriting service, but here are just a few of the most common benefits:
- Exposure: Professional ghostwriters enhance a person’s or an organization’s exposure because the more content you have out there, the more roads lead back to your website or company. But that content must be of the highest quality in order to attract the best opportunities and leads. Many successful entrepreneurs use ghostwriters to help launch their products or businesses with articles, guest blog posts, and books designed to increase their visibility and expert status among their peers.
- Efficiency: Professional ghostwriting services are efficient in every aspect. While you focus on doing what you do best, your ghostwriter will take your existing content or interview you to create complete drafts of articles, speeches, presentations, books, and more. And though every written work should be edited before publication, working with a pro writer virtually guarantees your editorial process will be simpler, shorter, and less expensive.
- Enhancement: The fact is, there are a lot of super smart people out there who can’t write very well, let alone structure and write a full-length book. It’s also incredibly common for experts who’ve been in business a long time to choose too broad a topic for their books, or worse, try to cram everything they’ve ever learned into one volume. Whether you’re pivoting your business or growing in your current niche, a professionally conceptualized and written book is the key to enhancing your public persona and playing at a higher, more lucrative level.
4 Top Tips to Remember When Hiring a Ghostwriter
Ghostwriting a book is arguably more difficult than any other type of writing project. This is because, in addition to stellar writing skills, a professional ghostwriter must also be a keen interviewer, great at organizing ideas and themes, know the publishing industry and how books are sold, have a strong work ethic, be good with people, and be an excellent project manager.
A skilled ghostwriter will generate original content that holds together. She will not merely compile ideas taken from different sites or books, nor should the result be a lightly edited transcription of phone interviews. Not only that, but once a ghostwriter has organized the client’s thoughts, the writer then may have to embed anecdotes, quotes, historical citations, illustrations, diagrams, exercises, worksheets, and more to round out the book. Performing additional research on a topic is often an important part of the work.
While keeping all of the above in mind, here are a few tips to help you when hiring a ghostwriter:
- Think caliber over cost. Many business professionals try to get the lowest price when it comes to content writing, but that is a big mistake. It’s very easy to hire a cheap writer from outside the U.S., or to find inexperienced writers eager to create your book for a fraction of what a pro would charge. However, if you hire a non-native English speaker or an amateur, you’ll save money on the writing but are likely to need a lot of editing. Not to mention the nightmare scenario of needing to hire another writer or book doctor to come in and fix things when you realize the draft is unpublishable. If you want quality content that will get ranked well in the search engines and reviewed well on book portals like Amazon, you need to hire quality writers.
- Ask around. The best way to find a good ghostwriting service is by asking for referrals from other people who have created books or other content like what you have in mind. Referrals are a great way to find good outsourcers for many different tasks in your business. You can also check out professional organizations like the Association of Ghostwriters. Writers who produce top quality content are not easy to find, so once you hire someone you like you should hang onto them tightly.
- Get the proof. Ask for references, credentials, and samples. If a writer sends back content that has been plagiarized or poorly written, steer clear. It’s important to note that your potential ghostwriter may not be able to share full details of his or her previous work, especially if those projects were created under a confidentiality clause. If they can’t give you a title or client name, they should at least be able to tell you where their work has appeared or been published, and what topics they’ve written on.
- Seek a seasoned pro. Make sure your writer has plenty of experience and is not just starting out in the business. This is especially true if you’re talking about a book—whether you self-publish or seek an agent and publisher, writing a book is an enormous undertaking that requires expertise not just in subject matter (that’s where you come in as the author-expert) but in what book topic is best, how to structure the information, and how to deliver it for best effect, reader engagement, and sales. Articles are often a better place to start with a new writer.
Hiring a ghostwriter can be an easy or painful process depending on how much research you do. But if you follow these four steps, you should be in good shape when you make your choice.