Questions to ask before hiring a ghostwriter for your book project
Questions to ensure a good fit with your potential writer
Are you thinking about hiring a ghostwriter to help transform your great book idea into a great … literary reality?
If so, book ghostwriters are the perfect writers for the job.
Ghostwriters are freelance writing specialists who work with authors to capture their tone of voice and produce books, blogs, and articles that are published in their name.
Ghostwriters are hired by individuals ranging from celebrities to businesspeople and technology leaders. If you have something worth writing about but lack the time and/or skill to write it, hiring a ghostwriter might be one of the best investments you can make.
In order to make sure that you find the best ghostwriter for your project, however, it’s prudent to prepare a few questions. Ghostwriting doesn’t come cheap and you may even need to budget for a five to six figure sum if you’re planning on having a book ‘ghosted’.
Here are some potential questions to help guide the evaluation process.
Would you be interested in ghostwriting my book?
As literary guns for hire, ghostwriters tend to work with a variety of clients at any one time. While it’s not an essential prerequisite for the job, it certainly helps if they’re at least somewhat engaged in the material they’re writing about.
You might consider asking your prospective ghost:
- Have you helped clients with this type of book before?
- What, in particular, about my story interests you?
How much will ghostwriting this book cost?
Naturally, you’re also going to want to get a sense of costs.
Ghostwriting tends to fall into three price bands:
- Marketplace ghostwriters, who sell their services on platforms such as Upwork, tend to be the cheapest ghostwriters for hire.
- Mid-tier ghostwriters offer book ghostwriting services at rates above marketplace ghostwriters but below high-end ghostwriters. For a typical length non-fiction project, you can expect to pay between $2,000 and $10,000 for a project.
- Private ghostwriting fees tend to start from around $10,000.To hire a high end ghostwriter, you can expect to pay up to a six figure sum (in US dollars).
What is your process for ghostwriting books?
Every writer has their own preferred means for transcribing your ideas into paper.
Many book ghostwriters, for instance, will start with an intensive period of informational “onboarding.” This could take the form of remote or in-person meetings during which the ghostwriter will record the dictated thoughts of the client.
Additionally, clients may send source material in the form of:
- Private written material
- Transcriptions of previous interviews
- Unpublished material such as the client’s own previous, self-directed attempts to write a book
What kind of timeline are we looking at?
Ghostwriters are seasoned professionals who should have strong organizational and project management skills in addition to strong abilities in writing and editing.
After you’ve briefed your writer on the project, he/she should be in a position to provide you with a good estimate for how long the project is going to take.
Book ghostwriting projects can range from as little as one month (extremely rushed; quality: highly dubious) through to more than one year.
What does the book ghostwriting service include?
Many prospective first-time authors are under the (mis)impression that ghostwriters also offer a publishing service.
In reality, ghostwriters are effectively contract writers. Their scope of service is limited to actually doing the writing.
For publishing, there are two directions through which prospective authors typically navigate the market in order to bring their book idea to reality:
- Self-publishing through a service such as Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP)
- Traditional publishing through a publishing house or an imprint of one
Whichever direction a prospective author chooses, one may have to deal with third parties who take the written text (manuscript) and then prepare it for publication and then publish it.
This list of professionals might include:
- Typesetters
- Layout specialists for print and/or digital
- Cover art designers
- Publicists
- Literary agents
Better questions for better projects
Getting a book written is a major undertaking.
Before engaging a ghostwriter prepare a list of questions to get a sense for what kind of budget you should be prepared to invest in the project, how long you might expect the project to take, and who else you may need to deal with in order to bring your book idea through to publication.
Interested in learning more about DSR Ghostwriting’s non-fiction book ghostwriting service? Click here to learn more.
