Click “Get Started” to send us a note, and we can set up a 30-minute consultation if we have space to handle your project.
Why Us + FAQ
A few years ago at a conference, I met the assistant to a CEO who’d just spent $75,000 on a ghostwriter. She just googled “Ghostwriting” and hired someone from their blog.
It’s a strange business, and most people should not be spending that much to publish a book. We prefer to work on projects that sell, so authors have a chance of making a return on their investment – but the truth is most story or book ideas aren’t commercial enough to warrant that kind of investment.
On the other hand, I have a PhD in Literature and have hit the Wallstreet Journal and USA Today Bestseller lists; I’ve been an editor, cover designer and book marketer for 2 decades. So I definitely have the right skills, and I hate to think of people paying more money to other people who will do a worse job.
Increasingly, I prefer the high-level ghostwriting work to developmental editing or proofreading, because I can actually help shape and form a viable manuscript instead of trying to fix it all after it’s been written.
How does ghostwriting work exactly?
We’ll work with whatever you have (or don’t have!) and help to turn your literary ambitions into a physical, professional book you can hold in your hands.
If you already have most of a manuscript, it’s just broken, unfinished or missing pieces, we’ll take all that and fill in the remaining 25% or so with original content that matches your voice.
If you’ve only got ideas of a manuscript – notes and outlines – we’ll do 75% of the work and get everything finished up neatly for you. We can even take a look at your platform, business, blog or anything else and pitch a great topical idea.
Both these packages include market research, developmental editing and proofreading, and publishing consultations (whether you’re going to self-publish or pitch agents; we can either help with your blurb and marketing copy, or your book proposal).
How we’re different
To be frank, most ghostwriters just aren’t that good at writing. It’s not their fault, writing a great book is hard. They don’t know any better. But you won’t know if they did a good job until the good (or bad!) reviews start coming in. Trust me, you want the confidence of knowing your book is actually solid, and doesn’t read like amateur fanfiction.
I need it in my own voice and writing style
No problem! We’ll match the tone of all the resources and materials you supply us with; or we can use voice recording transcripts (we’ll work on a chapter outline, you can ramble off some audio notes on each topic, and we’ll use all of that to fill in each section).
Although we’ll need to be writing fresh, original content, we’ll make sure it sounds like you… just better. You might even start feeling a little guilty when peers congratulate you and say “I didn’t know you were such a good writer!” But that’s OK – having a book ghostwritten is perfectly viable as an option, but it’s also a secret. You don’t have to tell anyone about us if you don’t want to.
I don’t have a manuscript yet, how much will this cost?
We’ll estimate the average word count by genre. Most nonfiction books or memoirs, for example, are around 70,000 words. So a ballpark estimate would be $8400 (gold) or $17,500 (VIP).
How long will it take?
Projects average 3 to 6 months, but at the VIP level I’ll basically drop everything and focus on you – it’s possible to get a book finished in just 1 month if you need it fast.
Will you sign a contract or NDA?
Sure! Feel free to draft one up, or we can use a simple agreement. We’re a very small business of literary geniuses, so legal jargon and forms are not our core strength.
We have a 100% refund guarantee in case we fail to deliver to your satisfaction (something you won’t find anywhere else), and in lieu of something more official this page will serve as the costs/deliverables promise of our ghostwriting offer.
Can you make me a bestseller?
We don’t really work on the marketing side of the publishing business. I have taught and sold courses on book marketing, but in general, a PR or book marketing campaign is a waste of money – because books on their own don’t convert well. It’s possible to buy a ton of copies and store them in your garage, but that’s silly.
It’s also very easy to be an “Amazon #1 Bestseller” at least for a few hours, but it doesn’t mean much. Sure, we can help you do it: but the MAIN way to help is to make sure your book actually sells to a cold audience (with great book design and great content). We’ll help you achieve that minimum hurdle of having a book that actually sells.
If you’d like to discuss a marketing budget or plan, we can absolutely do that as well; we tend to pretty freely offer personal and detailed publishing support to our clients, and we’re open to taking on a more active role.
As for “proof” that we’ve done this before, that’s a bit tricky, since we treat privacy seriously, but I’m happy to share dozens of testimonials (I’ll eventually add those to this page… but, this is a page for ghostwriting, not book marketing).
How does this service compare to a vanity press?
There are other “boutique” publishing companies that offer a bunch of services, including book editing and cover design. But generally, they will do the bare minimum – leaving you with a book that doesn’t sell – and then press you to buy marketing packages that won’t work!
With us you’re not paying extra for a big marketing team, customer support concierge and other frills. We don’t need to do any marketing or advertising, because we’re the best and it shows; that means every dollar goes directly towards making the product better.
Can I call you to discuss my project?
We understand this is a big commitment and you might want to talk with someone first before sending money to internet strangers; so we try to make ourselves available to serious inquiries.
However, this isn’t really a “writing coach” type of situation. I know a lot of writers just need a weekly check-in with support and critical feedback to help them write their book, but that’s currently not what we offer, at least not here.
There are two main reasons:
First, it’s useless to have you tell us all about your book for an hour, if we aren’t recording that and gathering the material direct from the source – we prefer to do everything once and do it well.
Second, we’ve had a lot of conversations where we’ve given absolutely brilliant creative gems away for free. My main channel and platform is basically “free publishing advice” to help authors, but for 1-on-1 consulting I charge for my time.
Third, we’d rather look directly at the source material and use our vast experience and expertise to provide real, direct suggestions, and we work best late at night fueled on coffee – we work hard to give you actual results.
That said, we are of course open to a quick phone call or zoom just to touch base and discuss the details. Payments can also be broken down into manageable sizes: we usually do 50% before and 50% near completion, but we’re flexible.
Ready to hire a ghostwriter? Just send us a note with some info about your project. Down below you’ll find a whole bunch of other stuff about ghostwriting; mostly we tried to make clever and fun service offers that match our brand, but ultimately decided the clear and simple approach above is best for everybody.
