How Does Working With A Ghostwriter Work?

So you’ve reached the pinnacle of your business. Now you want to take the next step that will push you over the top by writing your book. But business is booming, and the people flock to you because you’re the best.

You can’t very well neglect your business to write your book, right? But do you trust handing over something this important to a ghostwriter?  By the end of this article, you’ll know exactly what to expect if you hire a ghostwriter to help you write and publish your book.

What would happen if you hired a ghostwriter for your book?

Making your voice heard

Many clients came into the call with the same fear that if they hired a ghostwriter for their book, it wouldn’t sound like them anymore, that the ghostwriter would inject so much of their personality that it wouldn’t be able to capture their voice. And yes, that can happen, but it’s not always the sign of a bad ghost rider—more of a bad project.

Many things have to happen for a book to go that wrong in the hands of a good ghostwriter. So yes, you want to be mindful of this possibility as you work with a ghostwriter.

 Think of a ghostwriter as a writing coach. You aren’t hiring a ghostwriter to write your book for you. But rather, you are hiring a ghost rider to put your thoughts, feelings, expertise, influence, and story into works. Moving on, if you’re looking for ghostwriters in the UK, then you can find them online easily.

Providing the right amount of information

Objectives in terms of your readers

When you first hire a ghostwriter, expect there to be a lot of meetings. Clients often think that once they hire one, they just need to tell them what they want the book to be about, and then what? The ghostwriter will come calling one day with a completed rough draft and invoice that is done. But there’s more to that.

If you hired a ghostwriter to write a book about social media marketing 101, sure, they could write that, but do you know what that book will end up sounding like without more information from you? A book report to sound like you. The ghostwriter needs your stories, your struggles, your methods. To know your vision, impact, objectives, and intentions, they need to know all of it. 

One of the first things they will ask you about is your audience. Who is your ideal reader? Who is your primary audience, and what is their question? What pain are they experiencing that you are about to help them with? The second thing they will ask you for is your objective, your hook. What benefit do you want the audience to get from reading your book? What are they going to walk away with? What’s your promise to them?

Your objectives

And while we’re at it, how about objectives for yourself? What do you plan on getting out of this book once it’s published? If you’re thinking about writing about right now, what’s your primary objective for that book? Would it be to build your email list, establish your authority, or get a few more speaking gigs?

Your personal story

The third thing that ghostwriters will ask for is everything. And I do mean all the things. Everything that will teach them about you, your answers, and your story: this might be one you’ve written or courses that you’ve taught, speeches that you’ve made, videos that you’ve produced—all the things.  The more materials you send your ghost rider about your ideas and solutions, the better they can incorporate those into your book.

The process of ghostwriting

The ghostwriter will grab the information out of the materials you provided and will include any personal stories you have to help emphasize those points. They will write up the first Chapter 2 depending on the length and send it to you for review of the voice.

This review is to make sure that the book sounds the way you hear it in your head. If it doesn’t sound right, if it doesn’t sound like you, if they use the wrong word or something, this is the time to tell them so they can fix it before moving on through the rest of the book. The reason they do this is that fixing the tone of voice is much easier when the project is still new.

At this point, your ghostwriter should have everything they need to put the rest of your book together. But if not, if you think of something else, then send it along. Hopefully, your ghostwriter will continue giving you regular updates about your project.

Just make sure your ghost rider knows how to get a hold of you. If any questions come up and the best time to contact you and send those updates to you as they come.  Every writer has their own process that includes writing, research, and reflection. And yes, sometimes the process includes staring at a blank document, trying to get the right word to come out sometimes. No news really is good news.

Once your ghostwriter gets a finished draft over to read it through again, make sure it sounds like you, that it’s your tone of voice and that it answers the questions the same way you would. And then you’re done. Congratulations, you’ve got a manuscript. Not quite a book. But you’ve got a finished draft that will be a book.

What’s after your first draft is ready?

What happens after that depends on the agreement you have with a ghostwriter. A lot of ghostwriters will include at least one or two revisions. Some will offer editing or formatting services. Others will help you navigate the entire publishing process.

So refer back to your contract with your ghostwriter to find out what you should do next to finish getting that draft into book format and published.

Tips for working with a ghostwriter

Depending on the ghost riders, some ghost riders like to just sit down and talk and record the conversation and then go home and write. But I often think what works better is if the author has actually written something down, preferably in chronological order.

If it’s, you know, your life story, don’t just kind of randomly pick memories, or if you do that, at least date them so that the ghostwriter can put them in the proper order.

You must have thought through what you want to say, thought through who your target audience is, who are you writing this for? Is this, you know, mainly for your family and friends so that you can have a recording, a record of your life experiences, and that’s perfectly valid.

But it’s a different process, and the results are going to be different. If you really want your book to be read by people you don’t know, who are just going to be walking to a bookstore and find your book and say, yeah, I gotta get that book.

Conclusion

The more you have a clear idea of who your target audience is and how to reach those people, I think that really helps. Get the material that the ghostwriter needs in order to make sure that your book meets the needs that you’re trying to make. Thank you for reading.