The Secret Life of a Ghostwriter
A Writer Dishes the Dirt- and Tells Why She’s Ready to Publish Under Her Own Name Now.
When I was younger I swore that I would never do a lick of ghostwriting. Not a short story, an article, certainly not a novel. Anything I ever published would be under MY NAME. But as I’ve gotten older I’ve changed my thoughts on this, better understanding the nuances behind the reasons for a nom de plume.
First, there’s the whole crossover problem. The reputation of an established sci-fi writer might not transition well and easily to, say, the romance genre. It’s an odd sort of partisan disrespect from genre to genre that baffles me. If you write fab fantasy you can’t possibly write well on the literary fiction side?
Ergo, the occasional faux moniker.
There’s also the issue of being too prolific a writer. What?? Getting novels published too often (in the traditional bookstore way) can actually be a bad thing- over flooding the market, if you will.
Wanting to understand it all better led me to contact Loretta Anderson, who is a clean romance (ghost) writer. She clued me in to the inside scoop of what it’s really like to publish in droves under a false name- why she’s done it, what it’s been like, and why she’s choosing to publish her upcoming novel under her own name.
The first thing I wanted to know is what was personally revelatory about getting into the ghostwriting market.
What surprised me most about the industry is (simply how many) authors do not write their own work. I had never considered how often writers pay “unnamed” people to write for them. It also surprised me that in some instances there can be one person behind many author names.
Sometimes I will get into a series of books, or see books in a store and I can now tell if they are written by the publicly named authors or by ghostwriters. I suspect that many series with huge amounts of books [in a short time span] are done by ghostwriters.
As the conversation went deeper with Loretta the topic of romance writing took center stage. A very specific avenue of romance writing…
I was also surprised by the huge market for clean historical romance. There are several niche genres within this main genre, but the market is huge.
Okay, so until we spoke I had no idea what clean romance (or clean Western) novels were! Loretta and I talked about it. While sex sells is the ubiquitous phrase, it doesn’t always sell. Clean romance forgoes the explicitly naughty bits, including four letter words and scenes of sexy times, to focus on…well, everything else.
And it’s a really popular niche market that’s become not-so-niche!
This is not to be confused with novels focusing on asexual romance/aromantic characters and relationships. Rather, this is a more chaste approach to writing about falling in love. Think Christian romance or perhaps Amish territory.
Whether you write romance or fantasy or historical fiction there’s a market for ghostwriters. It got me to thinking…if I ghostwrote a novel for someone else, would I hold back my best stuff? After all, the credit goes to someone else, as would the praise, and no one would ever know that it was really my heart and soul that bled into those pages.
Loretta had an interesting take on this. As it turns out, when you are a ghostwriter, whether it’s short stories or novels, oftentimes there isn’t enough time allowed to truly put your hardcore best content into the manuscript.
It’s a bit of a Catch-22. Here’s why:
With short form romance novels you’re expected to get that content submitted within a matter of weeks. If you’re writing a book under traditional means it’s pretty standard to compose the rough draft, then have beta readers, then start heavy edits and round two on the manuscript. Etc. etc. This takes time.
Not so with ghostwriting work. According to Loretta, she says, “I typically do 25K-35K words per week of ghostwriting and then also on the side I do 5K-15K of my own work. It is important as a ghostwriter to develop systems for quick turnaround and improving your quality and speed at the same time.” She says that it can be tough to make the book as fabulous as you’d personally like to though, to make the characters as well developed, the manuscript as polished as you would under other circumstances.
As for the longer novels, the 80,000+ word count pieces?
There are some ghostwriting jobs which are not as urgent with turnaround and they do pay more. But these often span over six months to a year, so it makes it harder to create a steady income from them.
She admitted that there have been a few times when she’s had to turn in material she was rather glad to not have her real name on.
How does one get into ghostwriting? The reasons are as many and varied as any individual’s personal story. I think Loretta’s is pretty interesting. It starts with family missionary work…
There was a time when my family was really struggling with balancing our financial situation and our mission work. This pushed me to look into working online. I tried transcription and a few other online jobs. It was very discouraging at first because I had to get to know each of the sites and how they worked. I would send in piles of applications but get no response. I researched things on Google: how to make your proposals better, how to land your first client, etc. I told myself that I would give it my best effort for four months and if nothing came of it, I would quit.
At first, I landed a few article jobs. This was good, but I have found that the majority of clients looking for articles are very picky and often have unrealistic expectations. They also do not pay as well most of the time. Then I landed a small job in the clean historical romance genre.
After my first story, I started to do more research and slowly expanded my knowledge in the area and eventually grew my client list as well. In the span of two months, I was earning a decent income, enough to support us in Guatemala. I have continued to improve and learn ever since.
About this missionary work…
What do you and your family do?
My family started doing mission work nearly twenty years ago. We try to create a healthy environment in which kids can learn and thrive. We are a Christian organization, but we try to be available for the whole community.
My parents, siblings, and I spent several years teaching children and teenagers how to play violin, viola, cello and other orchestra instruments. And with the orchestras that we formed we visited hospitals, nursing homes, churches, the men’s prison in Guatemala, and other places to play and sing for people and try to bring an uplifting and encouraging experience to the community. We work in Guatemala and Mexico currently.
Our website is SymphoniesOfHope.org, for those interested in reading about some of our past adventures and you can see our videos on YouTube under Symphonies of Hope. We also have a Spanish and English page on Facebook.
Ghostwriting has given me the ability to continue to help with my family’s mission work as well as create an income for my family.
But I had to ask: what is the downside to working in the ghostwriting industry? Has she had any poor experiences?
Turns out there have been several, most of which involve paying your dues- or rather, not getting paid for the work you’ve done.
…I take these experiences as lessons and a way to grow and learn to not make the same mistake twice. Once you know the client, then you can be a little more trusting, but trust should be earned and not just given freely.
One bad experience was when a client published some of the stories that they had purchased under a pen name. The worst part of this instance was that the pen name they chose was my name with one letter changed. This was kind of hard for me to swallow since the story was not done the way I would have done it if I had been given control over it as the author. It was upsetting at the time, but I was able to get past it and move on.
To the nitty gritty: Loretta’s getting ready for a new novel to be published next month. This time, it’s under her own name!
So, how does one transition over to self promotion and recognition?
I’ve had many challenges since I started to do my own work and create a name for myself in the publishing industry. My first big challenge was the product itself. I had to decide whether to write stories that I am passionate about, or stories written to people’s expectations. I had to think about the editing and how much work I would do before publishing.
After settling on how to create the books I want to publish, I started to look into marketing and publishing. I have compiled a list of things I will be doing to prepare for my book launch. It is a very complicated scene and very confusing when you step into it for the first time!
My biggest challenge is marketing. It is a constant struggle, just like any business. But I am hopeful that with a lot of hard work things will take off with my career as an author.
Loretta Anderson’s book, “I Remember You” is being released on February 15th where it will be available for purchase on Amazon.
A little tag-line sneak peek:
“Alex never thought he would have something he was willing to forget but when his world comes crashing down, the memory drug he’s helping to develop might just be his only salvation.”
It’s a bit dystopian, a bit sci-fi, and I can’t wait to have a read!
Until next time~
Yours truly,
Vivie Valentina M.
