Category: Confessions of a Ghost Writer

No comments

Confessions of a Ghost (Writer)—Zombie Apocalypse

  By ,
Share

I’ve never sat down and counted all of my ghostwriting/editing clients. Every once in a while, when I go in to clean up my file folders, I realize that I’ve had more than I thought and that I’ve actually forgotten about some of them. Some I work with once and that’s that; some I’ve been working with for years. A lot of them, in one way or another, came to me from one of several editorial services I’ve done work for—companies who, in turn, came to me through a wonderful (but, alas, deceased) freelance resource called Freelance Daily.

The clients that puzzle me most stand at two ends of a spectrum. At one end are talented people who have no desire or who lack the confidence to take the next step toward getting published. At the other are people with little or no writing talent, a seeming inability to understand how either the writing craft or publishing works, and the ambition and sheer moxie to believe that they can be or are writers just as good as Ray Bradbury or Shirley Jackson or Umberto Eco (you may add your favorites to the list).

Take the fellow who wrote a brilliant murder mystery set in the dotcom boom and bust then hired me to edit it. He decided to self-publish despite my strong belief that the book—which was 200,000 words in length and riveting through just about every one of them as far as I was concerned—could be a bombshell. His reason for self-publishing: he was unwilling to let anyone else control any aspect of his work. Having read the book—which was autobiographical in part (he really did write what he knew)—I understood the impulse. Still . . .

Then there was the fellow who penned rough drafts of one novel after another set in different time periods and who hired me to rewrite them. He had a few issues that . . . well, let me share a handful. Continue reading

No comments

Confessions of a Ghost (Writer)—Who Does That?

  By ,
Share

I have been a full time writer since 2005. During that time, I’ve penned eight original or shared-world novels, had five of them published, with my first mystery-crime novel due out in October 2018, and am working on a ninth book (well, and a tenth and an eleventh . . . you get the picture.)

That activity not withstanding, at least half of my income in a given year comes from work I do that 1) may never see print and 2) doesn’t have my name on it and which I did not count in the above paragraph.

You see, I am a ghostwriter and an editor in addition to publishing under my own byline. When I tell people this, they usually assume that I ghostwrite biographies or autobiographies or memoirs. I have done all three things. I’ve also ghostwritten or edited how-to books, self-help books and exposés. I’ve written about business, fashion, religion, and the Mafia all on behalf of clients who wanted to tell their story or sell an idea or right a wrong.

But most of what flows from my invisible pen has been fiction. This revelation inevitably leads to the question (delivered in a you’ve-got-to-be-kidding tone of voice): Who hires a ghostwriter for fiction? Continue reading

No comments

Confessions of a Ghost Writer: the Big Scary

  By , ,
Share

I read a column this morning in CodeLikeaGirl (on Medium) in which Kira Leigh eloquently expressed the sheer scariness of pursuing a career as a freelancer. I was compelled to respond because while Kira is fairly new at freelancing, I’ve been doing it for a while now and I wanted to share my story.

It seemed somehow fitting that I post it here, too.

I’ve been freelancing as a ghostwriter, editor, book doctor and cover designer for about twelve years now. The good news is that it becomes mostly less scary. The bad news is that you may still have bouts with poser syndrome. My particular variety has to do with the quality of my writing—which has won me a “New York Times Bestseller” banner that I can put on my own books—and my qualifications to be attending professional writing or genre conferences. I suffer Poser Heebee-jeebies before every convention I attend.

I first toyed with the idea of quitting my day job as the manager of a software development team back when my third novel came out. I didn’t pull the trigger, though. I told myself I liked my job too much. I liked the people I worked with too much. Both of those things were true, but the real reason I didn’t quit my job to write full time was that it was scary. It took several years of watching the company I worked for go down hill to get me to hang out my “moonlighting” freelance shingle. I punched up my high tech resume, though I really no longer wanted to do high tech. My heart was no longer in it.

Within days of me creating a moonlighting page on my website, I and my entire department got laid off and I was drop-kicked out of a company I’d worked for for 15 years. Oddly, I was ecstatic. Energized. I took it as a tap on the shoulder from God: “Follow your calling. Do what you love.” I spent the rest of the day working on my website, put my CV out on a number of freelancing and job search sites, and by the end of the week, I had my first freelance writing job—from a Monster.com connection, believe it or not. I have not looked back.

🙂 I’ve even gotten cheeky enough to fire a particularly difficult client.

I wish you all the success in the world. And share some advice I got early in my writing career: If the world is blowing up, write. If chaos is breaking out all around you, write. If everything in your world is falling apart, write. And if everything is going better than you could possibly have expected, write. No matter what, just write. It is our way (to borrow a phrase from my hero, Ray Bradbury) of making reality behave by pretending to look the other way.