Why You Need A Ghostwriter

Apr 27, 2012 by Lona

Search Google for the term “ghostwriter” and you get quite a few hits for the TV show and movie (see image) but very few hits for an actual professional. Most people don’t know quite what they’re looking for, and even if they did, they don’t understand how it works or why they need one – after all, everyone knows how to write. We all learned in high school, right?

Wrong. I spend most of my time un-teaching my clients what they learned in school. For fiction it doesn’t really matter if you split your infinitives if it helps make the point. No one’s really going to care about a few dangling participles.

In fact, I like to dangle my participles on occasion.

But a ghostwriter is an industry expert. Someone who knows how to find the real “deal-breakers” of your manuscript. The actual reasons New York will turn down your book. The real problems with the plot. The writing style is almost the last thing we do – that’s logistics. Your grammar and punctuation really don’t matter that much in the grand scheme of things, and any editor that says that’s all you need is lying to make a buck.

And also, because that’s all they know how to do.

A ghostwriter makes sure your plot is plausible within itself, reads well and compellingly, and resolves with a nice satisfying crunch. A ghostwriter makes sure your business book makes it’s point clearly and concisely, so that the average reader with no frame of reference can understand what you’re saying. A ghostwriter makes sure you’re not talking down to your audience and in fact, makes sure your audience is there, listening, and engaged.

A ghostwriter makes sure you have an audience.

A ghostwriter knows your market, your voice and your style. A ghostwriter knows why you need to write this book, even if no one else understands.

And a ghostwriter wants to hear about it, long past the point your parents, sisters, uncles, aunts, friends, cousins and co-workers are so sick of hearing about it they may puke and why haven’t you WRITTEN it already?!

A ghostwriter helps get it written.