Last December, we asked YOU, our blog readers, to suggest topics you'd like us to address in 2021. One of the topics you suggested was - More light on the services that ghostwriters offer.
Let's start with preliminaries. A ghostwriter is someone who writes a book, blog post, business plan, article, or other written work for someone else who is the named and credited author. Sometimes, the credited author has an outline or submits a rough draft of the final product, and the ghostwriter finishes the project. Other times, a ghostwriter will spend several months to several years researching, writing, and editing a work of nonfiction for their client.
If writing an autobiography, the ghostwriter will interview the client/credited author, interview friends and family members, review news articles, speeches, awards, etc by the client, then write the book.
Sometimes the book will include a credit for the ghostwriter in the author byline like - BY [FAMOUS PERSON] "with [name of ghostwriter]". Sometimes the ghostwriter is thanked in the acknowledgement section but that's the only mention. Sometimes there is no mention of the ghostwriter at all. And sometimes, the ghostwriter is required to sign a non-disclosure agreement.
The Hardy Boys and the Nancy Drew children's mystery books were all written by ghostwriters under a common author name - Franklin W. Dixon and Carolyn Keene.
A ghostwriter can be paid per word, per page, a flat fee for the whole, a percentage of royalties or sales, or a combination of those.
Famous ghostwriters
https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/12689/your-favorite-authors-are-frauds-6-famous-ghostwriters
Famous people who used ghostwriters
https://www.thewritersforhire.com/10-famous-people-who-used-a-ghostwriter/
Famous ghostwritten books
https://www.commonwealtheatre.org/famous-ghostwritten-books/
Five attributes of a successful ghostwriter
https://www.writersdigest.com/there-are-no-rules/the-5-attributes-of-a-successful-ghostwriter
Are you interested in ghostwriting? Tell us in the comments!
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