Ghostwriters: Who Are They?

There are tens of thousands of people online advertising their services as "ghostwriter."  But who are they and what qualifies them to be ghostwriters?

Regrettably, most people who ghostwrite have no formal training in writing or editing and know very little about the publishing industry.  Internet ads, however, make ghostwriting seem like a glamorous and lucrative field.  It isn't.  It can pay the bills only if one has a great deal of experience in writing and publishing and has used a sound business model built on solid credentials.

Internet ads at yahoo.com, ask.com, about.com and other sites make breaking into ghostwriting sound easy.  "Get a website, decide what you want to write about, and determine what you want to charge.  Then you're ready to go!  Work from home!"  This is naïve in the extreme.

In order to be a successful ghostwriter, one needs to be skilled in advertising and marketing, web design (even if you hire others to build your site), social media, blogging, fee structures, contract law, copyright law, negotiation, time management, and bookkeeping.  A writer also needs to know how to assess high and low risk clients, must be aware of what the competition is doing, and have an extensive knowledge of the current climate in publishing.

What is most needed, however, is writing and editing expertise, preferably as a result of formal training in editing, writing, textual criticism, and any specialty areas that one wishes to write about.  Ideally, a seasoned ghostwriter should network with agents, editors, and publishers and should belong to one or more professional associations for ghostwriters and editors.

With the advent of the Internet, thousands of people decided to become ghostwriters because they "did well in writing school term papers" or because they helped a friend pen a novel or nonfiction book.  If one goes to odesk.com, elance.com and other ghostwriting "clearinghouses," where people advertise their services, it is easy to see that something is amiss.  Grammatical mistakes and awkward phrasing are abundant in the first lines of far too many posted resumes.  I recently read twenty-five such resumes and found grammatical mistakes in twenty.  Three others had awkward phrasing.

Writing a book is labor intensive and calls for skills that are honed over many years.  Unfortunately, people who are seeking to have books written don't have the slightest clue that the ghostwriters they speak with are not qualified to write books let alone charge fees for doing so.

~ William Hammett

Contact wmhammett@aol.com

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