Here's a bit of insider analysis that you can't find just anywhere: Writing a book is hard.
Okay, so that's not at all insidery.
If you ever tried writing a book but weren't sure where to start, or you started but didn't know where to go, or you just had a bad experience writing essays in school and think you could never be an author, then you know writing requires a lot of you—your time, your energy, your focus, your commitment.
But... what if it didn't? What if you didn't have to write a book to reap all the personal, financial, social, and reputational rewards that come with being a published author?
If that sounds appealing, then a ghostwriter is your new best friend. A certified, professional ghostwriter takes the burden of writing a book off your shoulders, leaving you only a few small review and approval steps away from being someone with a book that's ready to make its mark on the world.
If you have dreams of becoming an author, consider these five benefits to hiring a ghostwriter:
1. You'll Get the Recognition You Deserve
Do you grow tech startups like gardeners grow tomatoes? Do you count CVEs in your head while you fall sleep? Have you pulled a company back from the brink of disaster using only your market savvy, leadership skills, and bottomless pots of coffee?
If your answer to questions like these is Yes!, then consider this one: Are you adequately recognized for your talent, accomplishments, and vision?
If you’re an expert in your industry, having a book with your name on the cover is the premier way to show others you know your stuff—and open doors you never knew were there. Unlike press releases, social media posts, or even industry certifications, a book makes you stand out from the pack, establishes you as an expert in your field, and forces others to take notice of who you are and what you do.
Imagine you're giving a speech in front of a trade group you deeply respect. After you wow the audience with your passion and off-the-cuff industry knowledge and everyone in the crowd is keyed up to hear more, you could hand these curious potential customers, partners, and investors a business card—or you could hand (or sell!) them a book.
They've already gotten twenty business cards that day, and yours will probably go right into the pile, likely never to be looked at again until someone needs a makeshift bookmark.
But when you hand someone a book with your name on the cover, that's something they won't throw away, ignore, or forget. It gets read, talked about, displayed on shelves, and passed on to others, not to mention recommended and bought. It sticks in the right person's mind when they're trying to decide who to call when they have a problem in the field you happen to be an expert in, or who to book for a quick hit on their cable show or podcast.
I have yet to see a business card that can do that.
2. You Won't Fall Behind
Maybe you've had the idea for your book a long time, and you've been living with it like a roommate who can never seem to get their s#*! together and move out of the house. Maybe you've decided it's time to finally have that big talk with your "roomie," but you aren't sure where to start. What would it actually look like to make this book a reality? If the thought is overwhelming, it might feel better to keep pushing back the conversation altogether, to the point that it never happens.
Let's say you got started on your book and produced some pages, but maybe you've lost the thread and are worried that the book is spiraling out of control. Initially, you set out to write about your revolutionary formula for calculating profit per customer, but you've somehow found yourself detailing your life story instead, and are stuck on that time you got a nosebleed during your math quiz in second grade. Hey, it happens.
Or, maybe you’re writing exactly what you want to write, but you're doing it so slowly that your great-grandchildren will be forced to finish the book for you.
Whatever the case, working with a ghostwriter ensures that pages and chapters are written and delivered on firm deadlines. No more delays or indecision: However sprawling your book, however complicated the ideas within it, trusting a professional to carry the load means you can bank on having a finished manuscript in hand on a set date (determined during the initial contract signing). Usually, this is six months or less.
The only thing left to do will be deciding whether to convert your old roommate's bedroom to an office or a gym.
3. You'll Win Back Precious Time
Writing a book is an absolutely massive undertaking.
Because very few people have the freedom to sit in a mountain cabin and write their passion project all day, for most authors, writing happens wherever they can steal a few minutes here or there—after the kids go to bed, before the dog wakes up, when you'd rather be golfing. There are stories of William Faulkner writing As I Lay Dying on an upturned wheelbarrow during a break in his overnight shift at a Mississippi power plant.
For a full-length book, you'd have to steal a lot of minutes, and I can only imagine how many pencil tips you'd break on those wheelbarrows.
Of course, that's just getting the words on the page. That doesn't even take into account the brainstorming, notetaking, research, interviews, multiple drafts and structural edits and copy edits, false starts, changes of direction, creating and then ripping up and then taping back together chapter outlines...
It's a lot, is my point. If you have a job, a family, and a long list of other people, projects, interests, and responsibilities that demand your attention, then time is the most precious commodity, and not always easily stolen. Dedicating yourself to your book means sacrificing time with other people and things that matter to you.
A ghostwriter takes the work off your plate, allowing you to achieve your dream of being an author without having to put the rest of your life on hold, or scuff up a perfectly good wheelbarrow.
4. You'll Have Confidence in the Final Product
What do remodeling your kitchen, learning to skydive, and getting your tongue pierced have in common?
If you want to avoid a lot of pain and be happy with the end result, it pays to seek out professional help. The same holds true for writing a book.
When I was first training as a ghostwriter, I asked my instructor how many books in any given bookstore were ghostwritten. It's impossible to say for sure, given that so much ghosting is done confidentially, but her best guess based on decades of experience was something like 60 percent. Any book that's not written by a professional writer has probably passed through the hands of a ghostwriter or co-writer.
Why is that number so high? Because lots of books are authored by people with great ideas but no training or experience in writing. These people realized that, to be taken seriously by publishers and readers, they needed to produce a professional product with the help of a professional. They could've tried to write the book themselves—I'm sure many did at first—but it's likely that they would fall into the traps most novice writers do, and they wouldn't be happy with the end result.
A certified ghostwriter’s expertise in research, composition, editing, and revision helps set your work apart from books written by amateurs and gives you the peace of mind that your completed manuscript is the best possible version of itself. When you're jumping out of a plane, especially for the first time, it's wise to let a professional pack your parachute.
5. You'll Receive Invaluable Publishing Industry Insight and Market Guidance
When you write the first draft of a book, it's for you. Whether you use a ghostwriter or not, that first draft is the reason you started the project to begin with—the fruit of your thought, experience, and wisdom made real on the page.
Every draft that comes after that first one is for someone else, and you'd better know who.
You can't write a successful book without having a clear picture of who exactly you want to read it and how exactly they'll find it.
For example, are you going deep into an industry niche that only seasoned professionals in the field will understand, or do you want casual readers unfamiliar with those advanced concepts to be able to engage with the subject? Are you trying to explain or persuade? Are you not giving readers enough personal history to ground your leadership advice, or is your leadership guide getting bogged down by diversions into your biography?
On the publishing side, do you want your book to be bought by a "Big Five" publisher and sold at Barnes & Noble, or will you self-publish and sell the book through your vast social network platform? Do you know what gives your book an edge against similar titles by your contemporaries?
If it’s not focused on reaching the right audience through the right channels, even the most beautifully written book can get lost in all the noise of the publishing market.
As a publishing industry insider, a ghostwriter puts your book together with the ideal reader and the current market in mind. That means not only tailoring the content, pace, tone, and style to the exact audience you want to reach, but also producing a book proposal for potential publishers that features, among other things, a synopsis of your book, a marketing plan, and an assessment of your competition.
If you submit your book manuscript to agents or publishers without having clear answers to all the questions above, and more, the professionals will be able to tell, and you may find your book stuck with an audience of one.
These are far from the only advantages of using a ghostwriter to write your book. For many more, or to get talking about your project with a free consultation, call (800) 717-3314 or make an appointment.