“What is this rubbish? I don’t talk like that! Y’all need to go back and re-write the whole dang thing. Make it sound more like me, or I ain’t gonna pay ye.” And, so went the opening volley of comments from my newest ghostwriting client after he read my first draft of his book. It was our first time working together and it became immediately apparent that we had a long road ahead of us. Or, as Desi Arnaz once said, I had a “lot of splainin’ to do.” As a professional ghostwriter, I’m in the enviable position of telling other people’s intimate stories, capturing their thoughts and emotions, digesting…
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How to Remember People’s Names A simple, yet effective way to gain people's respect
Way back in the 1970s, I stood at a fork in the road: should I go to college, or begin trudging down the path to a lifetime career? I did neither. Instead, I spent the winter teaching skiing at a popular ski resort just to get the adventure out of my system. As a full-time ski instructor, I taught two classes a day, each with twelve to fifteen students. That meant learning over a hundred new names a week… and remembering them. While other instructors caved into assigning deprecating monikers like, “Ms. Can’t Turn Left,” or “Mr. Sits Down When He Goes Too Fast,” I chose a more complimentary approach…
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What Makes a Successful Writer? Everything you need to be able to do besides write
The scene opens with the haggard writer hunched over a dilapidated Underwood, struggling to meet his midnight deadline. The air is stale and thick with cigarette smoke and there’s an empty bottle of scotch lying on the floor. By the smell of things, it’s obvious he hasn’t slept, eaten or washed his clothes in over a week. That was the Hollywood image of writers before the information highway arrived in the early 1990s. Since then, the business of writing has changed in more ways than anyone could have possibly imagined in 1939. These days, a writer’s job doesn’t end when they drop their query down the out-bound chute at the…
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15 Questions Your Ghostwriter Should Be Asking You And other tips for finding the right person to write your book
What do a Labrador Retriever, a poor Southern tobacco farmer, and a World War II survivor[1] have in common? If you guessed nothing, you’d be wrong. In fact, each was the basis of a best-selling book. Two of them even went on to become Hollywood box office smashes. The world we live in is a fascinating place, filled with thousands of entertaining stories. Some, like those of World War II survivors, will soon be gone—lost forever. Wouldn’t you like to make sure that your story isn’t? If so, you need to write a book! “Sure,” you say. “It’s easy for you to say. You’ve written books and know how to…
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Putting Lipstick on a Pig* How to avoid getting thrown under the bus while getting your ducks in a row
As someone who’s written professionally for a number of years, I always try to avoid euphemisms, choosing vernacular the average businessman or woman understands. Instead of going back to the drawing board for each game plan, I like to hit the ground running by thinking outside of the box. I’ll usually begin by going after customer-centric, low-hanging fruit, getting my manager’s blessing with the subject matter, to avoid getting thrown under the bus. After years of working with difficult editors, I’ve found drilling down and touching base with management helps deliver more bang for the buck when the marketing department keeps moving the goal posts. For instance, last week, I…
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