The Word Cloud

Why do publishers hate ghostwriters?

I have written two ‘autobiographies’ for clients, which have been published within the past thirteen months. Although I do not expect any ‘ghostwriting’ credits, all clients with the firm I use sign a contract in which they are required to thank me in their acknowledgements for ‘my help and advice’. Nothing more.

Yet despite one client even arranging for me to attend a meeting with the publishers who wished some additional material, so they knew her book was ghostwritten, she was pressured not to mention me at all. In the end, at her insistence, only because of her contractual obligations, they allowed the standard ‘help and advice’ thing, but only after a list of people including four of their own people. I checked the original manuscript to see what these four people could have done to merit such gratitude and found a few minor changes, some of which altered good grammar to bad!

Later in a published interview on her book, the interviewer asked a very astute question about how she could have written so accurately about some of her physical reactions, when technically she shouldn’t have been able to, as she couldn't see herself. In response, she described a technique that I used for getting her to detail her story and the particular observations of her reactions, which I included in her book, were my own . To which the interviewer, clearly sceptical responded, ‘Spooky!’ I had to laugh.

The second client has now informed me that her book has been short–listed for an important prize (she has now completed an interview before the panel), and she contacted me in case I found out about it and said that I had ghostwritten it. Not that I would have. But ... yep! The rules apparently state that books that are ghostwritten would not be considered. Why ever not? Her story was no less powerful for that!

So why this hatred for ghostwriters. If the book is good enough to be published and to win prizes, what does it matter? By keeping us hidden, you lose us opportunities.

Mel
http://hireghostwriterandeditor.com

I think it's the obsession with 'authenticity'. If the writers of novels can catch some considerable flak for not having actually experienced the things they evoke so vividly, (Graham Swift got hate mail after it emerged that he'd written Waterland not from a lifetime's living in the Fens, but from a two-week visit after the first draft was written) how much more trouble would be caused, I guess, if it was known that some of what was so real in an autobiography was owed to the writer, not the 'writer'... However much we know that in any storytelling process the telling is as important a part of the effect as the story is, readers persist in believing that the only guarantee of genuineness is that it was experienced by the writer.

Publishers, of course, don't care about you, they care about selling books, and if they feel that if it's known that it was ghostwritten, readers won't want it and sales will fall, then that's that.

It seems to me that there should be no shame in having a fascinating life, but not the writerly skills to make the best account of it - no one thinks the worse of a great sportsman or woman if their autobiog is 'With Jane Smith' after all. But the subjects, too, have their vanities, according to an editor of this kind of book, who I sat next to, and want it to be thought that they wrote the book.

The rules apparently state that books that are ghostwritten would not be considered.

In which case she and her publisher were acting fraudulently in submitting it...

Are you a member of the Society of Authors? They have vast experience of all these issues: not all contracts are so concerned to wipe your efforts from the record.

Emma

If the book is good enough to win a prize, the ghost writer should be the one to get the award. Admittedly they are the ones that provide the story, but the way it is written is the key thing. It must be hard to have written good books and not get any credit for them.

Wow! Thanks for all the contributions. This is amazing!

I do sometimes have an ambivalent reaction to not getting credit for my effort. In a way, I don't mind being kept quiet by the client. I have written many other books, both fiction and academic for other people without any problems, and would not normally be bothered by it. However, ghostwriters live off their successes, and to know that it is the publisher who vetoes their existence, while actively seeking them out when they need them, seems to smack of hypocrisy to me.

I write for other people because some of them have the most wonderful stories, though not the writing skills, and those stories scream out to be told. Regarding royalties, etc. I understand that if I were an architect and designed an awarding winning house for you which you then sold for a fortune, I would not expect any further fee. However, my conflicting attitude leads me to accept that the architect would get the credit for his work and it would be illegal for anyone to claim otherwise.

This is the kind of hypocrisy that does us no good.

Mel
http://www.hireghostwriterandeditor.com

I'm sympathetic Mel. And I think Emma is right - there's a cult of the 'authentic' which ignores and diminishes the writer's great knack which is of finding an authenticity of the imagination. It's especially strange in a context where more books than ever before are being ghosted.

Thanks for all the tips and ideas. I will follow up on some of them.

Emma, I think the client acted on her own. And yet, it was the 'fraud' that started my concern about this whole business of sweeping the ghostwriter under the carpet. If she does win the prize, I will say nothing, but I'm now writing a new contract for my memoir clients.

Most of them use fictitious names to protect family members etc., but I know their stories are authentic because I will not write them without seeing appropriate documentation. I often have to find these aliases for them and I'm reworking contracts so I 'own' a small part of that name. It's something I have done successfully with some of my fictional work, where all the client did was produce an idea and I did just about everything else.

That will at least allow me some credit for my work.

Mel
http://www.hireghostwriterandeditor.com