Technology
David Brewster
My book ghostwriting tools in 2021

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.

My book ghostwriting tools in 2021
Work Life
David Brewster
When to avoid showing your vulnerable side

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!

When to avoid showing your vulnerable side
Write a book
David Brewster
No time, money or skill? You can still get your ...

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

No time, money or skill? You can still get your book written
Reviews
David Brewster
The ghostwriter's nightmare scenario

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.

The ghostwriter's nightmare scenario
Writing
David Brewster
The joy of a good yarn

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…

The joy of a good yarn

Opinion

Donald Trump's co-writer and the ethics of ghostwriting

Donald Trump's co-writer and the ethics of ghostwriting

There's been some interesting debate in the ghostwriting community over the last few weeks since The New Yorker published an interview with Tony Schwartz, co-author of The Art of the Deal with Donald Trump in 1987.

In the interview, Schwartz pulls back the curtains on his time with Trump, essentially to make a case that the Trump he worked with is manifestly unsuitable to be president of the USA.

Debate has arisen from a perception by many who feel that Schwartz has broken a golden rule of ghostwriting by speaking out.

There's a reason why ghostwriters are so-called. We are 'ghosts' in the sense of being invisible.

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Books without borders: the electoral threat to Australian publishing

Books without borders: the electoral threat to Australian publishing

One of the debates taking place on the fringe of the current Australian federal election campaign centres around our local book publishing industry and the Turnbull government's intention to remove the so-called 'parallel import' rules. 

Unless you are associated with or particularly interested in book publishing there is a good chance this issue has passed you by. However, if you are a book reader who believes in the importance of an Australian writing culture, now is the time to take notice. Your vote in the July 2 federal election could influence the future of the Australian writing industry.

Let me explain as best I can. Unfortunately this is a complex issue that really requires more than a blog post to fully describe so I'm going to have to summarise. However many others have also written on the issue (here, here and here are just three examples) so a bit of googling will get you a long way.

A little industry background

The global publishing industry operates on the basis of 'territorial rights'.

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'Likes' are worthless. It's time to get real.

'Likes' are worthless. It's time to get real.

By now you’ve probably heard the story of Essena O’Neill, who made headlines after very publicly ‘outing’ herself as having been paid for numerous posts to Instagram, Youtube and other sites. After building up a base of over half a million followers on Instagram – a dream for many Instagrammers young and old – she has now left it all behind.

Essena’s story touched a nerve for many. Even for those of us who are much older, much less attractive and much less likely to attract the attention of potential sponsors, there is something alluring about being ‘liked’ on social media. I count my own Instagram following in the tens rather than thousands, but I still enjoy it when a picture I post gets noticed. I also can’t help but feel a little miffed when another photographer posts what I think is a mediocre image and it is ‘liked’ by hundreds or even thousands.

The problem with all this is that we (by which I mean those of us who have a blog or post to social media sites) have started to equate the level of attention we manage to garner as an end in itself. When – as Essena obviously worked out – it simply isn’t.

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Are you keeping your creative side at arm's length?

Are you keeping your creative side at arm's length?

Last week I found myself sitting through a full day’s worth of corporate presentations, each of them supported by the usual array of PowerPoint slides. And when I say ‘usual’ I really mean it. Amongst the dozen or so presentations, there was not one that stood out in any way. Putting aside the fact that most of the slides broke the cardinal rule of including far too much text, there was simply no evidence of any creativity on display at all.

The speakers themselves were fine. They all seemed comfortable behind the lectern, were properly prepared and presented structured information. They all, thankfully, were conscious of the time.

It’s just that there was nothing vaguely memorable about any of them. 

The myth of the non-creative type

Superficially the reason for this lack of inventiveness could be sheeted home to the fact that most of the presenters were public servants and all worked in a science- or engineering-related field. They were likely the kids who did science and maths at school, not art and music. 

But I’m almost certain that wasn’t the reason for the blandness. The idea that engineering types aren’t capable of being creative is simply wrong.

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Don't kid yourself. There are no shortcuts to writing a good book.

Don't kid yourself. There are no shortcuts to writing a good book.

They pop up now and again, either in my email inbox (as uninvited guests) or floating around social media. ‘They’ are the latest wonder solution to writing a book. ‘They’ are usually accompanied by a very long sales-pitch website featuring long lists of benefits, numerous glowing testimonials and, right at the bottom, an ‘order now’ button and a money-back guarantee. Either that or a great ‘limited time offer’.

The promise is to help you get a book written, easily and in quick time, by following a secret formula or revealing some other shortcut such as recording yourself speak and having those recordings transcribed. A bit of tweaking and … voila! It’s a wrap!

Unfortunately it is not that simple, and it can’t be. Not if you want to write a good book.

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If a picture's worth a thousand words, why write?

If a picture's worth a thousand words, why write?

It was the power of a single image, writ large. A picture’s worth a thousand words? More like millions. The recent photograph of drowned three-year-old Syrian Aylan Kurdi lying face down on the beach came after months of news reports about other drownings, including of children, in the Mediterranean and the ever-growing toll of the Syrian civil war. Yet none of those previous reports ‘cut through’ in the way that the picture of Aylan did.

And of course it’s not the first time this has happened. The picture of a terrified, naked girl, later identified as Kim Phuc, in Vietnam in 1972 is credited with shifting the world’s response to the war in that country. And there have been numerous other examples of iconic, opinion-changing images going back through history. 

It makes you wonder. Why write at all? Why not just tell our stories with pictures? Imagine the effort that could be saved. All that ploughing through writer’s block, all that tedious editing.

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#BorderFarce. Shooting the messenger 101

#BorderFarce. Shooting the messenger 101

Inept. Unfathomable. Hopeless. I’m not sure my thesaurus has enough words to describe the complete and utter shemozzle that was last week’s Border Force debacle, aka #BorderFarce, in Melbourne. The coals of this event-that-wasn’t have been well scraped over by now but there is one aspect of the story that deserves a little more fanning.

It has to do with writing or, more specifically, writers writing on behalf of other people.

The fuel of this issue was a media release issued by the Australian Border Force on the morning of Friday, August 28. Australian Border Force is the new militaristic name of what used to be Customs and Immigration – the people who work in airports and ports making sure that people entering Australia have permission to do so via their passport and/or visa and don’t carry potential nasties in their luggage. Presumably the name change is designed to make visitors to this country that little bit more wary of trying to enter without having their paperwork in order, lest they incur the wrath of the Force.

But I digress.

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I've stopped reading the news and feel better for it. Which is not good.

I've stopped reading the news and feel better for it. Which is not good.

I’ve always been a politics junkie. As a teenager I avidly read the papers and watched the news, providing a running commentary on the politics of the day to whoever would listen (even if that was just the dog). I can’t imagine not subscribing to a daily newspaper. For someone like me the greatest godsend of the internet has been the gift of access to more online news than I could ever read. 

At least that was the case. Not any more. 

A couple of weeks ago I declared that I will no longer read about politics, listen to political interviews or watch the television news. I’m unsubscribing from Crikey, turning off Q&A and listening to more music.

Why? Because it has got to the point that tuning into politics makes me physically tense. At times it makes me so angry I feel like … like … Damn it!

Today’s political leaders are treating their audience – we voters – with complete contempt. Being true to your values no longer matters. Nor does saying what you really think. Don’t be authentic – it’s too risky.

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In 2017, 1984 will finally catch up with Australians: you WILL be watched

In 2017, 1984 will finally catch up with Australians: you WILL be watched

You’re driving along, minding your own business. As you round a corner, a police car pulls out and follows you down the road. Logic tells you that the police officers are probably heading back to the station for lunch; that their presence should make you feel safe, not nervous. You know that you have nothing to worry about because you’re driving safely and legally and your car is roadworthy. 

And yet … there is something about being followed by a police car that makes your heart rate increase just a little. Against your better judgement you feel yourself ease off the gas the tiniest amount and become that little bit more attentive to the road in front of you. Your eyes flick up to the rearview mirror more often than they need to.

Eventually the police car turns a corner, leaving you alone, and you silently chide yourself for being silly as your grip on the wheel relaxes and your back melds back into the seat.

Now, imagine the same thing happens with your communications.

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Don't be fooled: publishers ain't publishers

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Don't be fooled: publishers ain't publishers

I feel the need for a note on the publishing industry. In particular I feel the need to set things straight about what it shouldmean to get your book published. Unfortunately it is not as straightforward as it seems, as more than one of my ghostwriting clients has discovered.

What every author needs to understand is that there are essentially two types of publisher out there: mainstream ‘trade’ publishers and ‘vanity’ publishers. Put simply: one is good, and one isn’t. Here’s how they compare:

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