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

Write a book

Stay on the path and reap the reward ... whenever that may be

Stay on the path and reap the reward ... whenever that may be

Yesterday I received from our publisher a 'uncorrected proof' of a book I've been working on ... working on for the last seven years. Scattered Pearls is a memoir of Iranian-born Sohila Zanjani that I have co-written with her; it will be released in mid-April. The proof is effectively the final book – fully laid out and bound with the final cover. The final version for bookstores will have a glossier cover and include a handful of last-minute corrections.

To hold this book in my hands and flick through its pages is a surreal experience.

It's not the idea of a finished book that is so outlandish – I've worked on many of those now, many in the intervening seven years. It's just that this book has been such a large undertaking, so it's hard to believe that it's DONE.

My point in relaying this is not to suggest that Sohila and I are legends in our own time for having finished this project. Nor is it to create the impression that writing your book will be a herculean effort.

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Writing a book? Dig deeper for a better story

Writing a book? Dig deeper for a better story

I’ve just finished watching the excellent television drama House of Cards – the US version starring Kevin Spacey as Frank Underwood. If you’re into politics, it’s a must see.

During the third and final season, one of the subplots involves a writer, Thomas Yates, who is commissioned by Underwood to write a biography of him. In many ways it’s a poisoned chalice for Yates. The book is always intended as a puff piece.

Nevertheless, there are some interesting interactions between subject and writer across a number of episodes – interactions I think many ghostwriters and biographers could relate to.

A theme that ran particularly true for me was Yates’s challenge in getting any level of detail out of Underwood.

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Write and publish your book in a year – Step 12: Get your book out there

Write and publish your book in a year – Step 12: Get your book out there

When you finally have your book in your hot little hands, take a moment to reflect and enjoy the feeling – there’s nothing quite like it. But don’t bask in your newfound glory for too long. Now that your book is finished, it’s time to get it out to the world. This involves a combination of publicity, so people hear about your book, and distribution so that once people hear about it they are able to buy it.

Needless to say this topic could fill a book on its own; what I’m sharing here is the equivalent of the sixpence inside your Christmas pudding. 

It should also be said that while this topic is the last of my ‘write your book in a year’ series, publicity and distribution would ideally be considered before you start your project. When people ring me for advice on self-publishing, my first question is usually ‘How will you distribute it?’ simply because there’s little point writing a book unless you have the means to spread it around.

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Write and publish your book in a year – Step 11: Printing

Write and publish your book in a year – Step 11: Printing

You’ve got the book written, edited and proofread, the administration done and a beautifully designed interior and cover. You’re only one step away from having that precious book in your hands: printing.

When it comes to printing there are basically two choices available to you: short run (aka ‘digital printing’ or ‘print on demand’) and long run (aka ‘offset’). Your choice will depend on how many copies you want to print, which in turn will depend on how many copies you think you might sell and how much money you want to spend up front. Often – but not always – you will want to print an initial short run to test the market.

As with design, book printing tends to be a specialist field within the broader printing industry. Whoever you use to print your book, you’ll generally be better off dealing with people who print books, rather than brochures, for a living.

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Write and publish your book in a year – Step 10: Proofreading

Receiving your fully laid out book back from the designer is often the first time it feels like a ‘real thing’. Even though all you get is an electronic file – usually a PDF – it looks like a real book for the first time.

But the job’s not done yet. From the outset I have talked about the fact that a book is different from most other writing projects. It needs to be done right. More than right. It needs to be done as perfectly as possible. So the next step – proofreading – is as important as any other.

Proofreading is not copyediting. Yes, there are similarities of course. But where copyediting is like the final quality control check on a car (checking that nothing is missing, and that everything is in the right place), proofreading is like the final detailing before delivery – making sure your book really shines.

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Write and publish your book in a year – Step 9: Design

Write and publish your book in a year – Step 9: Design

Visit this blog’s ‘Write a book’ category page for previous posts in this series.

When I set out to publish my very first book back in 2005, I never expected to sell many of them (and I met my expectations!). It was more of an experiment: I wanted to prove that it was possible to produce a self-published book that didn’t look self-published.

I couldn’t understand why so many independently published books look, well, amateurish.

What did I learn? I learnt that my hunch was correct. Trade published books look professionally designed because theyare professionally designed. In contrast, many self-published books look like their design was an afterthought … because it was.

Bottom line: if you want your book to look the part, invest in a designer. In fact you may even need two designers: one for the inside of the book (the ‘layout’), and one for the cover. The skills for these two tasks are fairly different and many designers are better at one than the other.

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Write and publish your book in a year – Step 8: Administration

Write and publish your book in a year – Step 8: Administration

Okay. Now we’re getting to the nitty-gritty of book publishing. Regardless of how far you’ve got into the writing and polishing process, and assuming you’re intending to self-publish, when you have a moment you can start thinking about the various administrative tasks you’ll need to complete.

Admin can be annoying, but it is important: a) because it will help people find your bookafter it is published, and b) because it will help give your book a professional ‘look and feel’.

And the administration required is not particularly onerous,

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Write and publish your book in a year – Step 7: Copyedit

Write and publish your book in a year – Step 7: Copyedit

By the time you’ve drafted your book, rewritten it once or twice and then given it a good polish, it would seem reasonable to think that you are just about done with it. And you are … sort of.

The good news is that once your manuscript has reached this point you are getting very close to the end. However, there is a very important step to undertake: the copyedit. This means going over of your text with a fine-toothed comb to correct ‘typos’ – like spelling mistakes and grammatical errors – and to ensure consistency of presentation.

Without exception I recommend that this task is given to a professional editor who has the skills, knowledge and experience, including an incredible eye for detail, needed for the job. Don’t give it to a well-meaning friend (unless they have that qualification) and never, ever try to copyedit your own work.

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Write and publish your book in a year – Step 6: Polish

Write and publish your book in a year – Step 6: Polish

In the context of this monthly series, this post is less of a ‘how to’ and more of a call to arms.
In season five of the brilliant television drama The Wire much of the action is set inside the newsroom of a fictional version of The Baltimore Sun. On a number of occasions we see journalists and editors debating nuances of argument, word choice and grammatical accuracy. It’s a nod to the seemingly old-fashioned idea that getting the words right actually matters.

Sadly, if many of today’s newspapers are anything to go by, the pace and pressure associated with survival in the modern media environment have put paid to this dedication to accuracy. Hardly a day goes by where I don’t find at least one blatant typo in our paper – usually more – along with a missing or duplicated line or an obvious hole in an argument.

However, there is one area of writing in which ‘getting it right’ still matters: the book.

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Write and publish your book in a year – Step 5: Re-write

Write and publish your book in a year – Step 5: Re-write

Perhaps the best kept secret of the book-writing fraternity is that – contrary to the belief of many non-writers – the vast majority of finished books are not written in just one draft. Few authors, including the best of them, have a ‘gift of the gab’ that allows them to churn out golden words like the mint churns out golden coins. It doesn’t work like that.

What makes a ‘good start’ into a ‘good book’ is the re-writing. This is where you take your draft – your rough piece of clay – and shape it into something beautiful.

The task of re-writing is easier than you might think. It is so much simpler to work with a draft than it was to work with a blank page.

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