16. Should You Become A Ghostwriter?

Prince Harry’s memoir ‘Spare’ has revived questions about ghostwriting, how it works, and what credit can ghostwriters get. 

Aishwarya answers all of these questions in this comprehensive breakdown of all things ghostwriting. What does it take to be a ghostwriter? How much can you earn? And how can you get started? Tune in to find out!

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Aishwarya Javalgekar is a writer, book editor and podcast producer. As the Head of Originals she specializes in creating stellar content across formats - books, podcasts, newsletters, etc. She is a member of WICCI - Print Media and has a publishing certificate from Humber College and previous experience in  Zubaan Books and Simon and Schuster Canada. Follow her on Linkedin, book a consultation call with her or drop her an email at aishwarya@boundindia.com. 

Bound is one of India’s leading storytelling companies that helps you grow through stories. Follow us @boundindia on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook.

Produced by Aishwarya Javalgekar
Edited by Kshitij Jadhav

Transcript

Aishwarya  00:10

Welcome to the book people. I'm your host, Ashley as a writer, a book editor, Podcast Producer, and the head of originals at bound. In this past video podcast, I demystify the publishing and creative industries, and uncovered the biggest opportunities and challenges for writers in India today. On this brand new episode of the book, people, I'm trying something new. Instead of just interviewing someone, I want to take a complex topic that writers always have a lot of questions about. And I'm going to break the topic down into small small pieces and sort of cover all the questions that writers usually ask me to provide a comprehensive idea of what that looks like, what the reality is, and whether you can get into that or not. And so this time, I'm looking at ghost writing. So suddenly, ghost writing has become this hot topic, right? In the beginning of the year, Prince Harry came out with his memoir called spare, I'm sure you must have heard of it. And obviously, this was his story. This was his book. It had his face on the cover. But what was really interesting about this book was that it actually named the ghost writer who helped Harry write this book. And the fact that the ghostwriter was named and credited, which is a very rare thing and doesn't usually happen in the book industry when it comes to ghost writing. It has brought up all of these questions again, about know what ghost writing even is, why do people need ghost writers? And for a lot of writers, it brings up these questions of, you know, should they try out ghost writing? Is it worth it? You know, what are the pros and cons? And what would that reality look like for them? So today, I'm going to answer all of these questions for you. And truly, truly get into the code of what does ghostwriting look like? And is it a good option for you? So let's dive in. So what exactly is ghostwriting? Very simply put, being a ghostwriter means that someone hires you to tell their story in their words. So essentially, you are providing a service as a writer, you're providing your skill as a writer and your time to understand someone's story and sort of write it down. And you're getting paid for it. But what this also means is that most of the time, you won't get credited as the writer of the story. And that's where the term ghost writer also comes from, because you're essentially invisible. In the final sort of output of this book, you're a ghost, right? But now and then, you know, there are some famous ghost writers who have built a name for themselves. And that's a very rare occurrence. But that has started happening more and more in the industry. Like the example I mentioned, which is Prince Harry's memoir, spare. People who need ghostwriting are, you know, people who are experts in their fields, or they're celebrities, or they are Royals, in this case, or their politicians, their sports people. And they have a lot of great insights, or they have knowledge, or they have very interesting life stories that a lot of people want to know more about. Right? So they have a ready audience who will buy the book who is willing to sort of consume the stories, but they don't have the skills or the time or the sort of availability to actually be able to put their experiences into this book. And that's the gap that the ghostwriter essentially is filling. And because there's a great demand for these books, you know, readers are always ready to read them. And publishers also know that there is already demand. So this book is something that will guarantee a number of you know, copies being printed or a number of copies being sold. So publishers also don't mind investing in, you know, ghost writers are working very closely with these celebrities to get these books out. Because these are books that publishers also know will do really, really, really well. So in the case of Prince Harry, his ghost writer is actually a Pulitzer award winning journalist called Jr Moringa. And he is also known for writing open, which is the biography of tennis legend Andre Agassi, right. So he again is someone who has built himself as a ghostwriter, and is almost a celebrity ghost writer in that sense. So essentially, famous people need ghost writers to write books for them. Sometimes even fiction authors hire ghost writers to help them you know, create their first draft or to basically write an extensive part of the book after which they sort of just put the finishing touches. Sometimes Even fiction authors use ghost writers to kind of write most of the book, flesh out most of the story, you know, based on points that obviously they are giving. And then they sort of just do the final touch up before the story goes out. So that is also something that ghost writing is kind of becoming, you know, a huge part of, then you have publishers hiring ghost writers themselves. So instead of, you know, the celebrities or the influencers go into the ghost writer, publishers are going to ghost writers to kind of work with these celebrities, and get these books written. Then we also now have the novelization of movies and shows, right? So say you have a movie, or say for example, you know, Star Wars, which was then turned into, you know, novels. So that, again, is done by ghost writers. And it's actually in the case of Star Wars. It was Alan Dean Foster who novelized it, which is actually credited to George Lucas. So that again is an example of where the writing skill becomes an important sort of part or a gap that ghost writers are then able to fill with their writing. This is just about books right? But ghost writing has now even gone beyond books. So sometimes, ghostwriting is just about the content matter knowledge or the domain knowledge or domain expertise. For example, Gwyneth Paltrow cookbook is actually ghostwritten by Julia tertia, who is again, a cookbook writer, right? So because she's kind of also writing in the same domain, she's able to, you know, add her domain expertise, her knowledge, and her writing skills to kind of go strike something together. So that again becomes important. And finally, what is now a new trend is you know, so far even talking about books, but it's also ghostwriting for LinkedIn rate, a ghost writing blog, articles, ghost writing, thought leadership pieces, whether it's LinkedIn, whether it's a blog, whether it's magazine articles, whether it's a CEO speech. So again, this is why ghost writing becomes important with domain expertise with SEO knowledge, and these additional skills added to the writing skills to kind of do well as a ghostwriter and be successful and kind of pick and choose the kind of work you want to do. So what are the pros and cons when it comes to ghost writing? So let's talk about the pros first. The first pro obviously, is that you make money, right? In a field where, you know, we talk about how, with book publishing writers don't often make a lot of money with royalties. But ghost writers definitely are well paid, make a substantial amount of money. In fact, there have been cases where the ghostwriter has made more money than the author by putting a memoir out because the author's money is then based on, you know, the book sales is based on what the royalty percentage is, and a lot of these other factors, right. Then another thing is, obviously, a lot of people do ghost writing as a way of developing their skills, because they're writing more and more, they're challenging themselves by writing different kinds of narratives. And that's a way to develop their own writing skills, while they're also simultaneously say, writing their own book or you know, developing their own writing to publish something that they will be credited for, and that will be in their name. So this is also not, you know, you can either only be a ghostwriter, or you can only be an author kind of a thing, you can do both. And you can kind of do both simultaneously. Then another pro is that, you know, the more projects you do, you build your portfolio, you you know, can ask for better payment, you can pick interesting, you know, jobs, like you can pick interesting projects, and you don't have to sort of pick up every single project that you come across. But you can start being more selective about what kind of projects you want to go strike. And obviously, pick and choose in terms of also your interests, your expertise, your ethics, what kind of projects you want to do. And you can build your expertise in a particular domain, or field. Now, let's go to the cons, right? What are the cons of ghostwriting? The biggest con, I think, is the fact that you don't get credit, right? A lot of times you will be signing these nondisclosure agreements with your client, whether it's the influencer or the publisher. And most of the times what this means is, once that book is out, you can't even post on your social media and say, Hey, I worked on this book, right? Or you can't even tell anyone, you can't take that book to sort of future clients and say, Hey, these are the books I worked on because of the NDAs that you have. So credit here becomes super important. You know, you don't get your name on the book cover. You're not able to sort of take credit for the amount of effort you've put in. And for some people that's you know, not okay and so have. So that's the decision that you need to make whether you're okay with not being credited while doing the work as long as you're getting paid for it. And obviously, because you've signed NDA, you're not able to discuss, you know if things go wrong or you're not able to use that work as a reference to get more work. Beyond that, you know, some people also have ethical concerns with ghostwriting. It's a little bit of a gray area. For some people, you know, it's completely acceptable. This is just sort of a gap that is being filled. You know, it's an industry. But some people sort of have a lot of concerns in terms of you know, who is actually writing and who is getting credit for the work? These kinds of questions, right? So this is something that now you have to decide for yourself, if you want to become a ghostwriter. Or if you are considering hiring a ghostwriter to write your work, you kind of have to take a call as a ghostwriter. Whether you want to do this, if you are gonna do this, then is it a full time hustle? Is this a side hustle? Are you okay with doing this full time? Are you just doing it right now? Because you immediately need something and there's a very specific goal you have in mind. And once you achieve that goal, you're not gonna do it? And whether you're okay with this whole credit question, because that dissatisfaction later will not help. The second question to ask yourself is, what kind of stuff do you want to write? You know, do you want to write books? Do you want to write LinkedIn posts? You know, then even within books, what kind of books? Are there specific? Domains are subjects that you're willing to write about? You know, is it like a fiction versus nonfiction kind of question? Is it expertise based versus you know, personal memories versus family history versus fiction? So these are the kinds of decisions that you have to make to kind of figure out if this is the best option for you. Now we get to the real real question, which is, how much can you actually earn by ghostwriting? Right, so now this depends a little bit, there is no fixed price, it depends on the field on the scope of work on your level of expertise. ghost writers usually get paid based on the number of words or the number of pages. So rates by word will usually look like something like one to 10 rupees per word. And again, this depends on what the scope of work is, what the timelines are the deadline, how much research do you need to do? Right? How much of your time overall is going into basically working on this project? Do you have to meet with the client a lot, or shadow them for six weeks on end in order to get the stories in order to write this book? Or is it something where they're kind of just handing over all of this research material to you, and you essentially need to read through it and, you know, write something. So that really varies and obviously, like subject matter, your expertise, your background, kind of factors into what you can quote, from one to 10 rupees per word, total project prices as a whole can range from say, 10,000 to five, six, even eight to 10 lakhs. And usually, like a five six lakh project will last more than like, three, four months. So these are also long term projects, right? These are not short projects, where you're doing them in two weeks, or you're doing them in a month. But this is where you're extensively spending time with the people that you're writing about with the client. And so one thing to also think about is, you know, do you want to spend time with these people like are, you know, is this someone likable, where you see yourself being able to spend five months with and spend a lot of time with sort of figuring out their life story, and writing it. It's also that level of commitment that I think becomes really important when you're working as a ghostwriter. And again, the final sort of price of the project will depend on what the scope of the work is, and how well you are able to you know, present your portfolio how well you are able to demand a certain price that you think is valid and how you are able to negotiate that amount to something that makes sense for you in terms of the time that you are putting in the effort that you are putting in. So for those of you who have followed me through this journey so far, and are actually really seriously considering becoming a ghostwriter, this is how you actually go about doing it. So the first most important thing is put yourself out there. Say I'm a ghostwriter. You know say that to people say that to your friends say that on social media on your LinkedIn you know create this portfolio for yourself. And a lot of times you know ghost writing and freelance writing projects can blend together so if you've done you know freelance writing before or if you're currently a freelance writer, then you can definitely use the freelance writing skills to kind of say that okay, you know, now I'm also doing ghost writing because essentially the difference Is that with freelance writing, you still do sometimes get credit, most of the times get credit. And with ghost writing, you don't. Right. So that's basically the only difference. Then the second most important thing is that before you take on any project for ghost writing, make sure you have complete clarity on what the project is. Right? So what is the length of the work needed? Like? How many words how many pages scope of work, essentially, you know, you need to need to know your timelines, you need to know the level of effort and time and energy that is going to go in this, how much research are you going to have to do? What is it that they're gonna give you? What is it that you need to go find yourself? Do you have to physically go to places and do research, I think that's the most important thing is also how much field workers is going to need, right? Are you going to have to travel all over the city and hunt things down yourself, and do the research, because then that is something that you need to factor into your pricing, in terms of how much time this is going to take you. Then another important thing to ask about is, you know, whether you're just writing or whether you're also editing the work. And obviously, most of us as writers also edit our own work. So we're used to it. But it's an important distinction to kind of know that you know, whether you're writing this and there's going to be someone else who is going to do the editorial part of it and go through your work, or is the expectation that say once you're finished writing a book write like a full, say, 200 page manuscript, are you then going through and you know, doing developmental edits, and copy line edits and kind of also doing that work? Because that, again, is an additional skill and additional work that you should also be sort of charging separately for other things to know about with these projects is? Who is your point of contact? You know, who are you going to be coordinating with? Who is going to be giving you information and approvals? How often are you going to be in touch with them? Often, ghostwriting is, you know, something where you're working very intimately with people. So whether you know, it's the person that you're actually writing about, whether it's in point of contact, you need to constantly be in touch with them, you need to, you know, be checking in with them once a week, or even more often than that, you need to be able to have the skill of talking to people and getting them to reveal the stories, right? Which becomes very important when it's sort of personal stories, that are you able to ask the right questions, get the right details, get these nuances, get the tone, get the stories out of the people. So again, that is something that you know, this element of having people skills, and you know, being very emotionally intuitive also becomes important. Then finally, the most important thing to know is, what is the payment, How is it broken down? Right? Because they're not going to pay you everything upfront. So you also need to make sure that it's not that you're finishing the entire project, and then you're getting paid. So usually payment will be staggered, based on certain milestones in the project. So how is the women being staggered? What are these milestones? These are the kinds of things you need to know, then you need to know, you know, what are the rights? Do you have to sign an NDA? Who owns the copyright of the written piece? In the end? If you are, you know, also an illustrator, you're making some graphics, or you're a photographer, and you're adding photographs, you know, do these belong to you? Will you be getting any form of credit? Right, so are you getting any kind of credit? Can you use this in your portfolio? Are you gonna get testimonials? Can you tell people in the future that this is a project that I did, again, super important question to ask. And once you're asked all of these questions, and gotten all the answers for them, make sure all of this is written down, that you have all of this in writing, you're completely clear, there are no misunderstandings, and that you have a signed agreement with the client or with whoever you're dealing with before you get started. So most of these things, if you actually notice are very similar to the kind of tips that people give to freelance writers. So if you're a freelance writer, definitely follow most of this as well. Because I think it's equally valid. But it's important to really be able to, you know, be upfront, know all the information and get everything in writing. So, if all of this that I just revealed to you has got you all excited and pumped up and not intimidated, then maybe it's time to take that leap and get into ghost writing. Also, if you don't know bound actually does a lot of ghost writing as well. We help people write really meaningful, impactful books, whether it's about documenting their expertise, or you know, their memories, their family history. We do that a lot through books through articles, you know, through thought leadership pieces. In fact, Tarakan del Valle, who is our founder, She recently wrote a book, you know, got a book written about her own grandfather's life to kind of document his History and his memories. So that's definitely something that you know, we are extensively doing. So if you're already working as a ghostwriter, or if you're a freelance writer, and you're just getting into ghost writing, what I'm gonna do is I'm actually going to add a link in the description of this episode. And we actually have a database where we work with a lot of freelance writers and ghost writers and other kinds of freelancers as well, for different projects, for bounce on originals, and also for all of this work that we do in creating, you know, stories for other people. So if you fill that form, you can join our database. And hopefully, we can work on something together. And if you are someone who is, you know, thinking about getting a book ghostwritten, or thinking about, you know, creating something else based on your expertise, or on your sort of personal experience, then definitely reach out to us for that as well. And you can do that by sending us an email at connect at bound india.com. Or you can reach out to me personally as well, I am always available to talk to anyone who needs it. I hope you found this breakdown helpful. I'm going to be doing a lot more episodes like this, where I take something very specific and complex that I think that we will have a lot of questions around and really try to break down the entire thing. So definitely give me feedback on what you liked about this, what you didn't like about this, if you think that there's anything that I missed out on or that I should have covered. And if you have any suggestions for other topics like this that I should be covering in the book people, then definitely let me know that as well. And you can do that by getting in touch with us at bound India on social media. Or you can get in touch with me personally on my LinkedIn or at Aishwarya at bound india.com. I hope you liked this episode, and I'll see you next time.