Every now and then I’m asked about the various resources I use when I’m working on ghostwriting a book. These things change occasionally, so I thought it would be a good idea to share what I am using as my main book writing tools in 2021. So here they are: from recording interviews to organising to drafting to (almost) collaborating.
Being willing to reveal a bit of yourself, especially through a bit of self-effacing humour, will lighten your text and give your readers something to connect to.
But this blog post is not about that sort of vulnerability.
No, this time I want to remind you of two of the less inspiring but just-as-important vulnerabilities every writer faces. Those vulnerabilities are backup and data security.
I was reminded recently about this by a rare computer crash that led to me losing a small amount of work. It wasn’t important and was easily recovered, but it could have been so much worse. Imagine losing a whole book to a hard drive crash!
If there’s one thing you learn from spending a chunk of your career in the world of books and writing, it’s that there are a lot of great stories out there. Personal stories of remarkable success against the odds. Business stories of risk taking and growth. Political stories of intrigue and persistence.
It would be great if all these stories could be told. As Spanish philosopher George Santayana famously wrote, ‘Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it’. Ideally, the stories would be recorded in books because books last. They go onto shelves and into libraries. They won’t disappear or become unreadable with new technologies.
Unfortunately, many terrific stories are never written down. Sometimes that’s because their owners don’t want to share them. Often
Ghostwriter characters don't make it into fiction very often, but when they do they always seem to find themselves in jeopardy.
In the 2010 Roman Polanski film The Ghost Writer, Ewan McGregor plays a ghostwriter working for a former British prime minister. In the end he knows too much and ... it doesn't end well.
In the Netflix series House of Cards, Paul Sparks plays ghostwriter Thomas Yates who, after struggling to extract a decent memoir out of the president, fails to keep his professional distance, you might say. It takes a while – three seasons in fact – but it doesn't end well for him either.
And now we have Australian writer Richard Flanagan's latest novel, First Person, in which the narrator is a ghostwriter hired to author the memoir of a notorious conman. The story was inspired by Flanagan's own experience, very early in his career, of ghostwriting the autobiography of fraudster John Friedrich in 1991.
I love that my work as a ghostwriter gives me the opportunity to help people get their stories told. What I love even more is the fact that working on other people's stories gives me a front-row seat to those yarns.
Take Around the Grounds, for instance – a book that will be released by Finch Publishing on August 1.
For this book I've been working with former ABC radio broadcaster Peter Newlinds. Peter's story is a celebration of sport, but from the spectator's side of the fence. This perspective gives the story a level of accessibility that most sporting memoirs, written as they are by former players, can't have. Few of us have the ability to play elite sport, but all of us are more than capable of joining in from the relative safety of the stands.
Of course we don't all have access to the commentary box as Peter did…
Every now and then I’m asked about the various resources I use when I’m working on ghostwriting a book. These things change occasionally, so I thought it would be a good idea to share what I am using as my main book writing tools in 2021. So here they are: from recording interviews to organising to drafting to (almost) collaborating.
Being willing to reveal a bit of yourself, especially through a bit of self-effacing humour, will lighten your text and give your readers something to connect to.
But this blog post is not about that sort of vulnerability.
No, this time I want to remind you of two of the less inspiring but just-as-important vulnerabilities every writer faces. Those vulnerabilities are backup and data security.
I was reminded recently about this by a rare computer crash that led to me losing a small amount of work. It wasn’t important and was easily recovered, but it could have been so much worse. Imagine losing a whole book to a hard drive crash!
If there’s one thing you learn from spending a chunk of your career in the world of books and writing, it’s that there are a lot of great stories out there. Personal stories of remarkable success against the odds. Business stories of risk taking and growth. Political stories of intrigue and persistence.
It would be great if all these stories could be told. As Spanish philosopher George Santayana famously wrote, ‘Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it’. Ideally, the stories would be recorded in books because books last. They go onto shelves and into libraries. They won’t disappear or become unreadable with new technologies.
Unfortunately, many terrific stories are never written down. Sometimes that’s because their owners don’t want to share them. Often
Ghostwriter characters don't make it into fiction very often, but when they do they always seem to find themselves in jeopardy.
In the 2010 Roman Polanski film The Ghost Writer, Ewan McGregor plays a ghostwriter working for a former British prime minister. In the end he knows too much and ... it doesn't end well.
In the Netflix series House of Cards, Paul Sparks plays ghostwriter Thomas Yates who, after struggling to extract a decent memoir out of the president, fails to keep his professional distance, you might say. It takes a while – three seasons in fact – but it doesn't end well for him either.
And now we have Australian writer Richard Flanagan's latest novel, First Person, in which the narrator is a ghostwriter hired to author the memoir of a notorious conman. The story was inspired by Flanagan's own experience, very early in his career, of ghostwriting the autobiography of fraudster John Friedrich in 1991.
I love that my work as a ghostwriter gives me the opportunity to help people get their stories told. What I love even more is the fact that working on other people's stories gives me a front-row seat to those yarns.
Take Around the Grounds, for instance – a book that will be released by Finch Publishing on August 1.
For this book I've been working with former ABC radio broadcaster Peter Newlinds. Peter's story is a celebration of sport, but from the spectator's side of the fence. This perspective gives the story a level of accessibility that most sporting memoirs, written as they are by former players, can't have. Few of us have the ability to play elite sport, but all of us are more than capable of joining in from the relative safety of the stands.
Of course we don't all have access to the commentary box as Peter did…
During the last year I've helped four separate books come to life: a business book and three memoirs. My involvement in these has varied from drafting and re-drafting all 80,000 words to heavy editing and rewriting. In three cases I've assisted with self-publishing while the other book will be trade published next month (more on that next time).
While I've thoroughly enjoyed working on each of these books, the challenge has been that I needed to work on all four at once. They were all at different stages at different times, but none of them could be left completely alone for very long. In addition the books were all quite different from one another in terms of their content, style and tone.
Moving between them without losing too much concentration was not always easy. The secret to my success, I believe, was that over the years I've become quite adept at compartmentalisation of my time and focus.
As I sit on the tram heading into central Melbourne, I lift my head from my phone and look around me. Sure enough, everyone else is staring at their phone as well. It's what we do in 2017. Hard to believe that just 10 years ago we didn't have these things to stare at isn't it? What did we do with ourselves in the pre-iPhone era?
Our phones give us 'something to do' from the moment we wake until the moment we turn out the light – and even beyond that. We can fill every spare minute of our day, whether waiting in line, waiting for a coffee or waiting for a partner outside the change room. Even walking the dog has become time to be filled by checking email, social media and news updates.
Does this matter? Isn't it just the modern way?
Well, yes, it does, according to psychologists. Especially if you're trying to do something creative such as write a book.
I'm currently working on the early stages of two separate ghostwriting projects. In both cases I'm starting with good quantities of raw material. In one case I have transcripts from interviews amounting to about 80,000 words, about three times the target length of the final book. In the other case I have an early draft to work with plus some new material – and a few gaps to fill.
My job now, in both cases, is to sort out the existing raw material and start to give it some shape. From there I'll be able to create initial rough outlines, which will help with refining the material (in the first case) and identifying gaps (in the second).
The sorting step is a point where many inexperienced book writers can get bogged down. The task often seems insurmountable, especially when you have a lot of material, some of which is written down and some of which is still in your head.
In my last blog post I explored the myth that writing and publishing a book is guaranteed to make you rich. A couple of posts before that I wrote about how self-publishing a paper book is easier, and less expensive than ever.
This time I thought it might be worthwhile bringing these two posts together and doing some number crunching. What do the economics of self-publishing look like in Australia in 2017? A warning: what follows may be a bit dry (unless you're an accountant and into such things).
To make these numbers real, I'm going to focus on a typical example. We're going to publish a 200-page non-fiction paperback book of about 30,000 words.
Recently a couple of people I've known for a short time learnt that I am a 'published author'. Immediately I felt a glow about me as my reputation in their eyes went up a couple of notches.
The aura didn't last long. Unfortunately I knew the truth: that my newfound esteem was misplaced. My new friends had fallen for the Great Author Myth.
There's always been a strange glamour associated with being an author, particularly a published author, i.e. a writer who a so-called 'trade' publisher has recognised as being worthy. It's this glamour that gives a book its power to bestow immediate credibility on its creator – something that also applies to a well-prepared self-published book. It also generates, in the minds of many, the notion that publishing a book is a good way to make money.
Here lies the myth, on both counts.
