Ghost Writing is when you have a “great idea for a book” or you want to tell your story to the world, but you have no idea how to write, so you hire a professional writer to tell your story for you. Many biographies are done by ghost writers. Most ghost writers charge in advance. Some offer a split payment, where you can make a partial payment for the partial writing of your work and then decide if you want to continue with the writer. All payments are non-refundable, as no matter how you slice it, the ghost writer has already done the work, and most likely, the ghost writer has sent countless emails, made countless phone calls, and Skype calls to insure that you are satisfied with the work. You can expect that it can take up to a year of work before your book will be completed. How long it takes depends on the writer and on the client. Some writers work very fast. Other writers work a bit slower. Ghost writing services are costly, with a 200 page manuscript averaging a cost of between $20,000 and $35,000, depending on the project. Are there less expensive options out there? Sure. But remember…you get what you pay for. And some ghost writers won’t get out of bed and blink at your project for less than $100,000. So, you can see that it’s probably better to learn to write a great book yourself. But if you don’t have the time, or don’t know how to write, and you are someone who really wants that book idea out there, a ghost writer is definitely an option.
Writing requires countless hours of tedious work. It is exhausting. A good writer is worthy of his/her hire. Ghost writers spend hundreds of hours working with their client, gathering information, facts, and taping one-on-one sessions to ensure that they are getting a well rounded project and gaining enough information and personality features of their client to write a great book. And then they are spending hours, days, weeks, and months writing the project itself. It is a load of work.