How To Become a Ghostwriter

Three years ago I began building a new side of my career - a dual main hustle - by becoming a ghost. Here is everything I've learnt in the process...

Having had a career working firstly as an editor on a fashion magazine, then as an influencer, I’m used to people quizzing me about my job. But it’s my most recent segue into ghost-writing which has piqued most interest—understandably, as it’s unlikely you’d ever find it on your career counsellor’s list. No matter where I go, be it a spit and sawdust pub with my dad and his anti-woke brigade, a swanky fashion dinner with Saint Laurent-clad gazelles or a hip design event with my other half and twenty lads wearing Common Projects, it is always a conversation starter.

The first question, no matter who I’m speaking to, is always about which celebrities’ books I’ve written. Sadly, this is a gossip cul de sac, because of the non-disclosure agreements I sign before starting any ghosting project. Indeed, it is this secretive aspect of ghosting which generates the intrigue, because you can’t speak about your work openly, nor reveal who you have co-written titles with. It’s like the literary version of MI6. You know, broadly speaking 😂. But my experiences with celebrities isn’t the only aspect of the job that I’m interrogated about, often to incredulous response. There are ethical questions and practical queries. And as I didn’t know anything about it until I became ghost myself, I thought it might be something worth sharing on this platform for writers and for anyone else who has ever been curious too.

In the simplest terms, ghost-writing means penning words for an author who will take full credit for your work. In my case that has been in the form of books (mine have all been autobiographical, but it can also be fiction), in which they are the named author. Ghosting has a long history, predating even the invention of the printing press and it has always raised moral issues with some describing it as plagiarism. From my experience, the extent to which the actual writing is truly collaborative varies greatly. Some authors are incredibly involved all the way up to the line edit (the last round of edits where you go through the material line by line) and will rewrite entire chapters or else add poetry and richness with their own words woven in between mine. Others give the pages a once over with their agents and move on.

Either way, my job is really to work as a conduit or a translator of their stories. I’m never under any illusions – it is their book, all I do is fish it out from their minds and get it on to the page. For an 80k word book, it usually takes me about 20 hours of interviews with the author to gather the content. I then personally transcribe all the interviews (I find it helps me get the feel of each chapter) and that takes me approximately two and half minutes per recorded minute (somewhere around 50 hours per title). The next step is to organise the words I’ve gathered, jigsaw the story together and then finally come out with a finished product. Most books will come with at least one round of edits baked into the contract, so there is always some to-ing and fro-ing before you get there. In some instances, an author and their editor come to me with a really clear vision, perhaps with a proposal sketching out the themes of different chapters. On other occasions, there is no brief – I’m the one who has to develop the story arc, unearth a focus, and come up with an idea for the book’s intention and structure.

The second question that always crops up concerns my feelings about the author taking all the glory (especially when the book does very well). While I can see the potential issue, I do think it involves a misunderstanding of the dynamic. Firstly, not to put too fine a point on it, readers buy these books for the author’s stories and viewpoints, not for my sonorous prose—I am under no misapprehensions. While inevitably some of my own ideas are refracted through the books – 20 hours of conversation means there’s going to be some influence– it really has very little to do with my opinions or lens. I hope that I can bring class and clarity to my projects as well as emotional authenticity, but that’s pretty much the sum of my input. These books live and die with the stories they tell, and those are the author’s and theirs alone. I get paid to do a job and once it’s done, I hand over the manuscript and say thank you very much for the opportunity. There’s no marketing, no month of free journalism (when you write a book, any articles you’re commissioned to do around it, even those only tangentially connected, are seen as promotion), no dealing with any online blowback or ruckus. No gut-wrenching anxiety about reviews or how people are going to respond to your soul-baring. No chance of being cancelled. It is the author who has to stand behind their words and face any music, all I do is get them into grammatical order.

As to whether I enjoy it, I can honestly say it is amongst the best work I’ve ever done. As a staff writer in my 20s and early 30s, I saw myself—with no false modesty here—as a middling journalist. I was never a star scribe and it’s taken me a hell of a long time to find my va va voom in verse. But I was an immediate ghost, from day one. For whatever reason, authors warmed to me, I found the structural side of the work exciting, and the sheer quantity of words sharpened my pen. One of the biggest joys is that I have helped to bring stories which would have once been hidden to light. Several of my authors have been neurodivergent with ADHD or dyslexia, while others come from backgrounds where education wasn’t a focus. I have ghosted for women and men of colour, disabled people and helped voices which have been long been excluded from the traditional towers of publishing reach their audiences. That feels like a massive privilege, way beyond any kind of recognition. Sharing my skill with others who might have never had the chance to develop their own gives the work meaning for me. It’s also a job which blends well with very young children – unlike freelance journalism. Deadlines are clear, I can manage my own workload and you can do it anywhere – on a train, at 8pm, wherever you can fit it in.

Of course, it’s not all roses and while I can’t contractually go into any of that, no job comes without issues. Sometimes the deadlines are perilous – I once wrote a book from first meeting to final handover in six weeks which obviously takes its toll. It also isn’t going to change my life financially, at least not for a few years. While it was reported that Hilary Clinton’s ghost was paid half a million dollars, I’ve been offered as little as £8k for a 6-month project (I didn’t take it). As an industry it can feel impenetrable, it takes a long time to create a track record and you really have to pay your dues at the beginning (much like magazine journalism). I wrote three 10,000-word proposals for free (with well-known people in the hope we would get a book deal) which never went anywhere. I managed to finish one of those proposals at 39 weeks pregnant, gritting my teeth right up to the end – and then ironically the author ghosted me, and I never heard from them again. Now my publishing CV has proven my abilities and I’ve built solid relationships and a reputation with editors at some of the world’s biggest publishing houses, I can charge for both proposal writing and command higher fees, so it feels like it’s on an upward trajectory. There are always books to be written and as an established ghost, I’ve been able to line one project up after another. But until I catch a Liz Truss (it won’t be me), it’s not going to imminently impact my mortgage potential.

If all the above hasn’t put you off, there are a few ways in, though none of them easily accessible to anyone outside of publishing or journalism. As a writer (or more likely, a journalist on the beat), there is always the chance to strike up a relationship with well-known personality and pitch yourself to them personally as a ghost. Sadly, for me, my celebrity friendships started and ended during my brief stint on the diary pages of Sunday Times Style. I’d finish work at 8pm after being driven like a donkey by my editors, then there would be the wait until a club or late-night venue opened some time around 10pm. Sometimes I’d go to the cinema with a Pret, before heading into the West End with my press credentials, heart pounding in my throat. With a fresh coat of makeup applied in the loos, I’d try unsuccessfully to ingratiate myself with C-listers—just imagine going to Mahiki on your own on a Tuesday night and chatting up Cheryl Cole’s mum in a bid to squeeze out a moderately interesting quote. It wasn’t my calling.

Alternatively, some celebs like to use writers with celebrated bylines, so there is a chance you might be approached that way, especially if you’re a leading journalistic voice in your industry.  My personal route in started with my celebrity interviews as a fashion journalist combined with my own book, Why Social Media is Ruining Your Life, as proof of stamina. Both gave my literary agent some material to start knocking on doors and offering me up as an entry-level ghost-writer. The first book is the hardest to get – someone really has to take a chance on you and I initially found it nail-biting (why did I say I could do this?) just like being the new girl in any job.

What I will say is that it has been such a welcome surprise to find a niche in my late 30s and a good reminder that your skills can be translated in ways you might never have considered, even 15+ years into your career. As with building anything valuable, it hasn’t been straightforward, but it’s not the first time (nor the last I’m sure) I’ve had to navigate doors closing in my face. Just because you’ve climbed the pole in one area of your career, doesn’t mean you arrive as top-dog, if you want it, you’ve got to come in with fight all over again. However, I would really encourage anyone reading here to keep having courage to push yourself beyond what you already know. Ferret out new corners of your industry and have a punt. You never know, just like me you could find something which suits your family set-up and brings you so much fulfilment. I now earn more money as a ghost than I ever did as a freelance journalist, so in that sense, it has already paid off and I’m only just getting started. Strap in, stay humble as you learn and doggedly follow what excites you - no matter what that might be.