Ghostwriters: the basics... or at least an idea

Based on my previous article about ghostwriting (you could check that here: https://read.cash/@Hanzell/ghostwriting-a67e6c42) I gave an idea about what a ghostwriter is, the range of things that they can do for you, and my own experiences as a ghostwriter for books. I also talked about a few issues I’ve experienced as a ghostwriter for those books but i also experienced ghostwriting lots of academic papers back in my college days ;;-;; so I just wanted to expand that. 

A ghostwriter is someone who will write something and another person will be called the author of that written piece. The practice has been around for so long, honestly so tracing back in history would be near impossible. The only records people have of people using ghostwriters date back to the 5th century; when people in court and in high positions used them to make a more appealing announcement to their subject. No leader has gone without a ghostwriter but in their time, I believe they were called scribes. Even in films, and especially in Hollywood. The trace of ghostwriters is everywhere. From a celebrity’s social media post to the script of your all-time favorite movie, they’re just everywhere.  

There was also a case where people used ghostwriters to write love letters. If you’ve watched the anime Violet Evergarden, it’s the first anime I’ve ever seen that showed how ghostwriting works. It’s a very emotional one that shows why there are ghostwriters and what they do on an emotional level. But I’m not gonna dive deeper into that. 

Why do people hire ghostwriters? 

There are plenty of reasons why other people need them but the main one is that the claimed author doesn’t have the skills nor the time to focus on writing. this is the most basic excuse you'll hear when you try academic ghostwriting.

Writing is a commitment and if you plan to make a living out of it, you have to develop your own writing style with the help of another author’s works. But what if you, as a writer, can’t manage that? It would make your work a bit hard to sell on the market. Also, the case where you don’t even have the time to sit down to think about how to go about with your ideas. 

There’s also the case where the claimed author just doesn’t have the patience to write. (again, applies on both academic content and novel contents) They don’t want to write in general yet they want a book or papers made for them (I’ve encountered plenty of these people :< ). They don’t have the patience to think of how to expand the idea, nor the interest to do a bit of research on their idea yet they're so fixated on their idea. 

There are also people that really can’t manage to piece their ideas together. Not because they don’t know how to, but because they lack the skills and educational background to do so. Then there are just some that hire ghostwriters to improve and elongate their already written ideas (also experienced this and it was the smoothest and most chill project I had back in college)

The last addition to your clientele list is the successful authors who are riding on their fame while it lasts (this was the case with my very last client who really begged me to stay solely because I could write like how they write). The best example I can think of with this kind of client is R.L. Stine. Although it wasn’t proven that he hired ghostwriters, it’s honestly quite suspicious how he could produce 2 books a month when his Goosebumps series was all the rage. 

These are the usual clients you’ll get or find when you enter the ghostwriting business (A lot of them are such whiney ass b!tches though, I swear-). And if you plan to then here are some things you need to keep in mind.

You really need to be patient and tolerant because the clientele can range from people who never had a proper educational background, to people who are just plain whiney and indecisive. Each of those people gave me a different kind of headache I never want to go through again, especially those whiney a$$es, they don’t understand chill and your brain capacity, they just know that they want their book done ASAP! Also, when you get clients that aren’t English natives… you need a whole lot of patience with them because of the language barrier.

You also need the skills and the capability to proofread your own work.  So yes, that includes having a basic understanding of the English language or the language you’re writing in. The punctuations, the expressions, and the figures of speech, they’re all important to know because there are so many people in the market who are really looking for someone who can efficiently proofread their own works so that they won’t need an editor service anytime soon. But then you have to really understand what the client wants you to do too, especially with academic projects because they require certain methods so you need to check those too.

You need to learn how to adapt to a certain tone and way of writing. Yes, you honestly do, especially if you got hired by a famous author already or a student that wants you to write in a specific way just so it doesn't look like they didn't do their own homework 😂. This is where some people struggle when it comes to ghostwriting because it means that you’ll need to abandon the writing style that you’ve worked so hard to establish and not everyone can do that unless they practice adapting different author's styles every few months (I do when I get fixated on a book and an author tbh).

After I'm done writing about my ghostwriting venture. I might try publishing one of the rejected books I wrote for this one client.