Looking for a Ghostwriter on Google? You're Wasting Your Money

If you're searching for a ghostwriter and are looking on Google, you're looking at paid ads put up by ghostwriting companies, freelancers, or ghostwriting marketplaces like fiverr, Upwork, and Odesk.

Ghostwriting has no oversight or regulation, and only 4% of people claiming to be ghostwriters are qualified to write a book. The websites you see in a Google search are filled with grammatical errors, even those with slick sites like the ghostwriting companies. Ghostwriting companies all call themselves "industry leaders." It's a lie. They subcontract work to freelancers all over the country, and these, according to one sales rep from a company I talked with recently, are "student and apprentice ghostwriters." Some companies have as many as 200-300 inexperienced writers who will write for low wages because they are moonlighters or unemployed and are desperate for money. They can's write.

How do I know this? Because I know who the ghostwriters are and have spoken with them. I have called the companies as a "mystery shopper" and discovered their secret, dishonest business models. I know the business from the inside.

Some companies claim that their writers are "on staff" and "in house." This is a lie. Again, I know their writers, and they are spread across all fifty states and other countries. And their writers produce some of the worst prose ever written.

As for the marketplaces, I've read thousands of resumes posted on these sites for years. I have never read a single one that was free of a major grammatical error and didn't have awkward phrasing in the one-paragraph pitch. These are the worst ghostwriters in the world.

As for most independent ghostwriters, their writing is pretty awful and filled with basic errors committed by grammar and high school students. And they know almost nothing about publishing. The reason that all of these people advertise is because the internet allows them to do so, and when people see their websites, they assume that they are legitimate or that Google somehow screens the sites for honesty and fair business practices. Google has no interest in anything except making money. Only 2% of those on Google are professionally trained writers who are qualified to be ghostwriters. But if you can't spot grammatical errors and know nothing of the publishing industry, you're not going to be able to select a competent writer.

I talk with people every week who tell me that they are interviewing several online ghostwriters. The problem is that everybody they interview is unqualified as a writer and ignorant of the publishing industry. No one they interview is remotely qualified to write a book. Millions of dollars are wasted every year since online ghostwriting is a scam industry except for the extremely small number of ghosts who are actually trained to write and edit, who know publishing, and who have a stellar track record.

But here is where the problem lies: people searching for a ghostwriter are always looking for a bestseller for the cheapest price they can find. But great ghostwriters don't work for low or "affordable" rates. People ignorant of writing and publishing invariably end up with bad work, and the irony is that they may not even know just how bad of a manuscript they've received because they can't spot the errors. The bottom line is "Gimme something cheap."

Most people want traditional publishing, but they don't understand how to get an agent or that getting an agent is next to imposible. They know nothing of small, regional, and independent presses, and they know little about Print-On-Demand. I have always tried to educate people on my website about the above issues, but people have been taken in by ghostwriting companies, thinking that a corporate image, as well as the hype and lies on company websites, means that they're about to become part of mainstream New York City publishing. This is as ridiculous as it is sad. Ghostwriting companies are nothing more than glorified POD companies.

And if you see glowing testimonials on company websites, it's because the companies use bait and switch techniques. They will give a very small number of celebrities or CEOs a good writer for a price of $75,000 to $150,000. This is to lure people into thinking that they are major players in the publishing industry. But the truth is that most clients pay small fees to inexperienced writers--subcontractors--all over the country.

If you don't educate yourself about ghostwriting and publishing, you're going to choose a bad writer. And almost everyone is bad because online ghostwriting is a business model, not a craft or an art. I am amazed at how few pages people read on my website, pages that alert people to these hard facts. They want a cheap book, and that's what they get: cheap.

Caveat emptor. Buyer beware.

Dan Brown's ORIGIN

Dan Brown's new novel, Origin, is causing people to debate this very successful author yet again. The first question people ask is, "Is Dan Brown a good writer?" The answer from most is a resounding, "No." His style is quite simple and written at grade-school level. A prose stylist he is not, a point that a majority of literary critics agree on.

Many say that Brown just keeps writing the same book over and over again. Robert Langdon, who we know little about after five novels, trades female companions and goes on great adventures to save the world in one or two days, maybe three. He does so with his encyclopedic knowledge of history, symbols, and ancient culture since he is, after all, a symbologist. Are his books formulaic? Yes, without a doubt, but that can be said about a lot of successful series of genre fiction. One must ask, however, how many times can an author keep going to the same well?

One of the things I find aggravating about Dan Brown's novels is that he seems hell-bent on disproving God in the vein of the New Atheism. Science can't prove God, so God doesn't exist. Well, that's just BS. God is defined as a supernatural being, and science, therefore, cannot be expected to find a supernatural being using the tools of natural science. Let me say that again. The natural cannot prove the supernatural. It's Philosophy 101. So I find some of Brown's novels, or sections therein, to be a bit tedious. Yawn. Give it up, Dan.

I've noticed that about fifty percent of reviews for Origin on Amazon are not glowing, shall we say, and point to the above issues--and many more. So what makes people keep coming back for more? He seems to be a novelist people love to hate--and hate to love.

I was amused by one review that stated, "Dan Brown's books have become long, tiresome reference books chock-full of history that become downright boring." Point well-taken. And excuse us, Robert Langon, if we don't all know the history of every monument in Italy or haven't read every arcane text written three thousand years ago. You really are quite insufferable and elitist sometimes.

Dan Brown's novels are as poorly edited as they are poorly written. And I've never read any of his novels in which I couldn't find dozens of major grammatical errors. But the publisher hears those sales ring up and, well, you get my point.

Whatever Brown's faults may be, he is a master at narrative pacing, which caught everyone's attention in The Da Vinci Code. People then went back and read Digital Fortress and Deception Point, and Brown became a household name. Don't get me wrong. I enjoy reading Dan Brown, although I skipped Inferno and will wait for Origin to hit the remainder bin at B&N.

It occurs to me that I'm almost finished this post and haven't really talked about Origin. I've gone on too many tangents. Well, so do Dan Brown and Robert Langdon.

The phenomenon of Dan Brown shows that publishing is about making money, as well it should be. But the truth is that if anyone other than Brown submitted these novels, they would be rejected. Once you get fame and fortune, the old saying goes, you can publish your laundry list. I'm sure Robert Langdon could find meaningful clues to saving the world in such a list. If you rearrange the letters in "laundry detergent," you might get words like "dry," "deter," "gent," "laud," "great," "ten," and many others. I could combine them and find meaning for the combinations if I tried hard enough, but no one would me a twenty million dollar advance. Go figure.

One of these days, I'm going to self-publish my laundry list just for the hell of it. Really.

~William Hammett

Poetry Collection: Day and Night

I'm pleased to announce that Word Wrangler Press will publish my collection of poems titled Day and Night in 2018. I've been away from poetry for a while, but this will be a nice change of pace although I will still be ghostwriting and publishing fiction under my own name.

I have previously published poetry in literary journals such as American Poets & Poetry, The Rockford Review, Lynx, Poem, The Lyric, Pegasus, Twilight Ending, Mojo Risin', Creative Juices, Tight, Angelflesh, The Black Buzzard Review, and others.

Not very many people read poetry, classic or modern, and that's a pity since the form is as old as writing. The number of people who read poetry is about the same as those who listen to classical music, which is about five percent of the population.

Reading poetry, of course, is more challenging than reading a modern novel, especially genre fiction. The syntax is challenging, and that is especially true of modern poetry from T.S. Eliot on, where the compression of language makes scanning lines difficult. In some cases, modern poetry has no syntax at all and is highly experimental. But is reading such poetry any different than listening to a symphony or complex string quartet? Not really.

The rewards of reading poetry or listening to classical music are great. Anything worthwhile requires a little effort. Or a lot.

Thanks for stopping by.

~William Hammett

My Cousin Dashiell Hammett

After many years of researching my family tree, I have learned definitively that legendary mystery writer Dashiell Hammett (The Maltese Falcon, The Thin Man, The Dain Curse, Red Harvest, and others) is my cousin.  Hammett, or "Dash" as he was known, is the fourth generation grandson of my fifth generation paternal grandfather.  That makes him my fifth cousin once removed.  While I can't therefore say that we were ever drinking buddies, I'm proud to share a little DNA with a man whose books are still in print and whose novels were made into very successful films.

Samuel Dashiell Hammett was born in 1894 and died in 1961.  The New York Times said that he was "The dean of the . . . hard-boiled school of detective fiction."  Later, Time magazine said that his novel Red Harvest was one of the top 100 novels published in America between 1923 and 2005.  Famed mystery writer Raymond Chandler said that "Hammett was the ace performer.  He was spare, frugal, hard-boiled, but he did over and over again what only the best writers can ever do at all.  He wrote scenes that seemed to have never been written before."

Hammett was a detective for The Pinkerton Detective Agency, which spurred him to write in the mystery genre.  In addition to writing bestselling novels and numerous short stories, he also worked in Hollywood as a screenwriter.

I look back over my life and have to smile when I recall that the first novel I read was a Perry Mason mystery when I was seven years old.  I was so taken with the genre that I wrote a three-page Perry Mason mystery and sent it to the author of the Mason series, Erle Stanley Gardner.  Gardner was kind enough to write back, encouraging me to keep writing.

I won't make the claim that I love to write because Dashiell Hammett is a cousin, although it's a nice thought during one of my Walter Mitty moments.  It does make me reflect, however, on how people are connected and what those connections mean.  It's said that everyone is seven steps from Kevin Bacon.  Turns out that I'm five steps from Dashiell Hammett on the Hammett family tree.  I'll take it!

~William Hammett

Contact wmhammett@aol.com 

Index of Articles

Hiring a Qualified Ghostwriter

There are many individuals who have sites on the internet, sites advertising their services as a ghostwriter.  Additionally, there are thousands of resumes posted on the sites of ghostwriting clearinghouses, such as elance, odesk, and upwork.  The problem is that many people who are seeking a ghostwriter because they don't have the necessary writing skills to write a book are blind to the poor phrasing and grammatical errors on these sites and in the clearinghouse resumes.

Also, many people don't know a great deal about the publishing industry or what qualifications a competent, professional ghostwriter should possess.  I invite people searching for a qualified ghostwriter to click the following link and read the many articles on William Hammett's How to Hire a Ghostwriter.  The site contains an index of all articles on the subject.  The index may be found at the bottom of each post and also in the right sidebar.

The articles cover a wide range of topics, such as how to query a ghostwriter, what credentials one should look for, how to spot unqualified writers, the pitfalls of hiring a ghostwriting company, and much more.  Always due your due diligence, but before you begin, learn the issues involved and what questions need to be asked.

William Hammett's How to Hire a Ghostwriter

Good luck!

~William Hammett

Contact: wmhammett@aol.com

Getting the Words Right

I have to shake my head sometimes at the advertising done by some ghostwriters.  I recently stumbled upon the website of a pricey ghostwriter who will write your book for $65,000 to $75,000.  Okay, but she also says that she will write your "fictional novel" with professionalism.  Here's the rub: all novels are fiction.  Editors and agents usually don't take a second look at a query when an aspiring author pitches a "fictional novel."  Only someone totally unfamiliar with writing and publishing would pay such high prices to someone who doesn't know that "fictional novel" is a redundancy.  If a ghostwriter can't get the words right on his or her website, what's going to happen during the composition of a book.

And then there is the ghostwriting website I saw a few moments ago.  The ghostwriter said, "I'll write your novel, fiction or non-fiction, for $50,000."  First, non-fiction isn't hyphenated.  Second, and more importantly, a nonfiction book isn't a novel.  As mentioned above, a novel is a work of fiction.  I'm not going to pay someone $50,000 if he can't handle advertising copy and doesn't know the difference between fiction and nonfiction.

Both of the above ghostwriters omit hyphens dozens of times on their sites.  They talk about "full length books" and "book length manuscripts."  The words should be "full-length" and "book-length."

One ghostwriter wrote a sentence that read, "My vast writing experiences covers a wide range of topics, from travel to how-to."  The phrase "experiences covers" is a subject-verb agreement error worthy of a high school student."

The same ghostwriter says, "Always be careful when selecting a ghostwriter, if you choose the wrong one, you might regret the finished product."  "If you choose" begins a new sentence.  The ghostwriter has therefore produced another high school error: a comma splice.  Also, how does one "regret a product."  That's awkward phrasing.  One might regret "reading the finished product," but not the product itself.

And then there are the hundreds of ghostwriters who call themselves ghost writers.  "Ghostwriter" is one word, ladies and gentlemen.  "Ghost writer" as two words implies that the writer authors books on ghosts.

Always examine ghostwriting websites carefully, remembering that if you need or want a ghostwriter, you may not notice the kinds of errors I have listed above.  You need to get as much information as possible about the profession of ghostwriting and then do your due diligence for any ghostwriter you're considering.

It always pains me to say this, but online ghostwriting is, for the most part, a scam industry with unqualified people trying to get your money.  This is not to say that every ghostwriter has criminal intent, however.  Sad to say, some people don't know enough to know what they don't know.

~William Hammett

The Ghost of Richard Brautigan by William Hammett

I love the works of 1970s counterculture icon, port, and novelist, Richard Brautigan.  Brautigan (1935-1984) wrote short, quirky, surrealistic novels.  The best-known is his 1976 Trout Fishing in America.  Others include In Watermelon Sugar, A Confederate General from Big Sur, Sombrero Fallout, The Hawkline Monster, and So the Wind Won't Blow It All Away.

Over the years I've used many different prose styles and written in several genres.  I've always been partial to what literary agents call quirky fiction and really love the offbeat novels of Kurt Vonnegut, Tom Robbins, and yes, Richard Brautigan.  Several years ago I had a rather outrageous idea for a novel and decided to use Brautigan's short chapter format and incorporate Brautigan himself into the story.  Agents failed to sell it, but a small press eventually published an earlier, shorter version of the novel, called Salamander Illusions.  I'm happy that Word Wrangler Publishing has given the work a second chance under the new title of The Ghost of Richard Brautigan.

The ad blurb is as follows.

"Lamont Bistro, a writing teacher married to Bourbon Street exotic dancer Jaguar Montaigne, receives regular visits from the ghost of Richard Brautigan, novelist, poet, and counterculture icon of the 1970s.

In this short, quirky, fast-paced novel reminiscent of Brautigan's dark humor and satire, Brautigan challenges Bistro to write a novel about his sexy young wife, snake-handling evangelicals, a swamp monster, Babe Ruth, a gaudy theme park named Gatorworld, Mount Kilimanjaro, the Gulf War, a deity named Bob, and a planet diagnosed with Narcissistic Personality Disorder.

As Bistro writes, however, he wonders if he himself has become a character in a surrealistic novel by the late great Richard Brautigan."

The book is available through Amazon.  All books recently published will also be available through the Word Wrangler Publishing online store.  Click on the book cover in the right sidebar to be taken to the book at Amazon.

Thanks for stopping by!

~William Hammett