Jessie Sin asked, What are your thoughts and opinions on ‘ghost writing’?

This is a difficult question to answer, because the answer depends greatly on the circumstances behind each book. So, being the total cheater that I am, I am borrowing from another blog post. What can I say? I promised to answer each question; I never promised complete originality. What? Novelists are supposed to be original? Darn. Oh well.

First, if you want to learn more about ghostwriting, head on over to the new blog Ghostwriting Revealed and read all about it. Sunday’s post addressed eight reasons why people hire ghostwriters. Rather than writing an overly-long, incoherent post, I decided I would just add my thoughts to each of these reasons and write an overly-long, slightly more coherent post.

And the reasons are:

1. The author has a great idea for a book, but doesn’t have time to write it.

I just don’t buy this. Stephen King said, “Talent is cheaper than table salt. What separates the talented individual from the successful one is a lot of hard work.” This can be applied to ideas as well. People get great ideas all the time. What makes an author special is the time and work put into writing it. If we were all to use time as an excuse, no books would ever be written.

Writing takes time. To me, saying, “I would love to write a book, but I just don’t have the time,” is equal to saying, “I would like to have my name on the front of the book, but I am not willing to work hard enough to make that happen.” Those who really want it carve time away from anything they can in order to have more time to write.

2. The author is famous and an agent and/or publisher has talked this famous person into doing a book. The famous person likes the idea of having his or her name on a book, but he/she has no idea what the book should be about. A writer like me is then brought in to work with the famous person and try to get an idea to gel.

This happens a lot. I would like to see it stop, but I know it will not. After all, publishing is a business, and publishers need to make money. Books with the big tabloid-catching, celebrity names have a tendency to sell. A lot. So, no matter my opinion on it, celebrity books will continue to sell, and many will continue to be ghostwritten.

There are some circumstances where I am okay with this. Some celebrities credit their ghostwriter on the front cover (I am sure you have all seen a book written by “Beautiful McTabloidfixture with Joe Nobody”). At least the celebrity acknowledges that she did not write the book herself.

3. The author has a great platform and lots of credibility. The author might even have great writing skills, but the author doesn’t know how to take what she/he knows and turn it into a book with a unique commercial message. Someone like me is then brought in to help the author develop the “hook.”

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4. The author has a great platform and lots of credibility, but writing is not one of his or her strong suits and he or she knows this. Such authors usually breathe a great big sigh of relief once they learn that it’s really okay to hire someone else to put the words on the page.

I completely support ghostwriting in a circumstance like this. Platform is hard to build, and this author has done the work to do it. The most knowledgeable person in banana slugs might not know thing one about commercial writing. But there needs to be a comprehensive–and commercially appealing–guide to banana slugs in our bookshelves! People have different talents, and while Mr. Banana knows his slugs, he doesn’t know his writing. This is where a ghostwriter is a perfect solution.

Of course, I would like the situation even more, if Mr. Banana hired a collaborator to help him write about his slugs.

5. The author already has one very successful book. Now the author and the publisher want to extend this book into a series. The author feels completely tapped out—as if he or she only had one book to write. Someone like me is then brought in to find the words that belong in the rest of the books in the series.

This is something that should have been discussed with the author’s agent and publisher before the first book was ever picked up. I understand the publisher’s (and probably the author’s) desire to turn to a series and make more profit, but if the story is not there, it’s just not there.

Reading this reason for hiring a ghostwriter makes me cringe the same way I cringe every time I get a notice at work informing us of a sequel in the works. Seriously, sometimes a stand-alone is the way to go. It made a ton of money and a sequel will too? That’s great, but it doesn’t mean the sequel will be any good (take note, Paramount–please).

6. The author thought he/she could write a book, but he/she got 20,000 words into it and then ran out of things to say. Then someone like me is brought in to find the rest of the words.

Well, darn. I guess nobody let the author know ahead of time how much work writing a novel is. Guess what? It is hard. That does not mean it is time to go out and hire someone to write it for you, it means it is time to buckle down and do some work.

7. The author thought he/she could write a book but now the book deadline is just a couple months away (or it already came and went) and the author still has writer’s block. Then someone like me—who rarely suffers from writer’s block—gets hired to make things happen quickly.

This is a tough one. Sometimes life happens, and an author really is unable to meet a deadline. And maybe a ghostwriter is the way to go in this case, but I personally think keeping open (and prompt) communication with the editor is a better idea.

8. The author thought he/she wrote a great book, but the publishing house does not agree. Someone like me is brought in to help the author and the publishing house meet in the middle.

Eeek! This is a scary thought.

However, this is where editorial letters help. Or, in the case of both the author and editor not budging on a certain issue, where the agent comes in to moderate and negotiate. A big part of writing is the editing and rewriting. I see no reason why a ghostwriter needs to be hired for this. The author really should be able to edit, revise, and improve her own book.

Wow, reading all that, it would be easy to think that I just don’t like ghostwriting, which is not exactly the case. In some instances, I think it can be beneficial. James Patterson is very open about his use of ghostwriters. He says he is much more proficient at generating ideas than he is at writing sentence after sentence. So, he hires ghostwriters (how else is he going to fulfill a three year, seventeen book contract?). While it might be disheartening to discover that her favorite author’s books weren’t actually written by her favorite author, there are some good things here.

Mr. Patterson often credits his ghostwriter on the cover of his books as a co-author, and some of his ghostwriters have gone on to get deals of their own. James Patterson is now a brand, not just an author, and successfully writing for the James Patterson brand is a way for a struggling author to get her foot in the door.

I am sure that a lot of my opinions on ghostwriting come from my opinions on my own writing. I love coming up with ideas, and I love putting them on paper. I have no desire to write someone else’s ideas, and would probably write poorly (or fizzle out before finishing the book) if I were to try to write a book that was not my own. Because of that, it blows my mind a little bit to think of someone doing just that.

I know there are people out there who just love writing, and don’t care one whit what they are writing. They enjoy ghostwriting, and are happy to do it. More power to them, and more power to those who hire them.

As for me, I would rather write my own books.