Commissioned writing · Less obvious
Ghostwriting
You write the book. Someone else's name goes on the cover. The fee should reflect that fact.
Ghostwriting is a professional disappearing act: memoirs, business books, thought-leadership titles, the odd novel. You interview, structure, write, and absorb another person's voice until the pages sound like them on their best day. Credit ranges from none, to 'and', to a discreet acknowledgement. The money is a project fee, sometimes with a royalty kicker, and it is one of the few literary jobs that can pay a full year in a single contract.
- Typical pay
- From the low five figures for a short business book to several times that for a big memoir. Celebrity and politician books can reach six figures. Royalties, if any, are extra and not to be assumed.
- Ceiling
- Uncapped
- Speed
- First money in months
- Effort
- A job in itself
- Needs
- Needs a name
How it works
- 01
A publisher, agent, or subject hires you. You agree credit, confidentiality, schedule, interviews, and money — in a contract.
- 02
You extract the book from the person (and from their WhatsApp voice notes) and deliver drafts to a standard the publisher will accept.
- 03
You get paid in staged fees. The subject's name sells the book. That was the arrangement.
How to start
- 01
You need a track record of finishing books, or a sample that proves you can vanish into a voice.
- 02
Agents who package non-fiction, and publishers' special-sales and memoir lists, are the usual market.
- 03
A first ghost job often comes from someone you already know who cannot write their own book and has finally admitted it.
Watch out
- 01
Without a contract covering credit, confidentiality, kill fees, and what happens if the subject disappears to a yacht, you are volunteering.
- 02
Do not accept a pure royalty split unless the advance is already life-changing. You are doing the labour now.
- 03
Your name may never appear. Make peace with that before the first invoice, not after the bestseller list.
A ghost is a craftsman in a borrowed coat. I have no snobbery about it. Some of the most professional writing I have seen has no name on the spine. Charge as if you were the author — because, in every sense that makes the arms tired, you are.