Why Hire a Ghostwriter?

by Robin Quinn

Part One of Robin Quinn’s Ghostwriting Series

Have a concept for a book that’s been running through your mind, but somehow it never gets written? Maybe it’s time to consider hiring a ghost.

I’m not taking about those spirits who haunt mansions in the countryside. I’m talking about a professional writer who will get your ideas down on paper so you can take your book out into the marketplace. Because your ideas serve as the foundation of the book, you are the author, not the ghostwriter.

Why do people hire a ghostwriter? Here are the reasons my clients have hired me in the past.

1. A ghost hires a ghost. For my first project, I was hired by a ghostwriter who had become busy with a web writing job and couldn’t get to the book project.

2. Busy expert doesn’t have time. Like that ghost, many subject experts don’t have time to write their books. My second client was a health and nutrition expert who was too busy with her practice to fine-tune a very rough draft of the book.

3. Want to replace your current ghost. My third client was looking for a writer to replace the ghostwriter who wrote his first book. A health coach, he was referred to me by my second client.

4. Repeat performance. The health coach was so pleased with my work on his second book, that he hired me to write two more manuscripts (one on health and one on nutrition).

5. Weak writing skills. My fifth ghostwriting client had a fun idea for a self-help book but writing wasn’t his thing.

6. Can’t get beyond writer’s block. My sixth client was a smart professional who had great ideas but a mental block that kept him from writing.

For all of these books, I used the clients’ ideas to create the book. Once again, that’s why their name, not mine, appears on the cover. Right now I am in the process of collaborating on a psychology book with a therapist. This time, I will get a co-authoring credit. But I would ghostwrite again because I love writing, working with new ideas, and engaging in the creative process with experts.

In the Part Two of this ghostwriting series, I’ll discuss the advantages of hiring a ghostwriter with subject expertise in your area of interest. For example, my specialties are health, psychology, spirituality, self-help and book publishing.

Ciao for now!

Robin Quinn
Senior writer and editor of
http://www.writingandediting.biz/