The Invisible Writers: Unveiling the World of Ghostwriters
Ghostwriters are the unsung heroes of the literary world, crafting stories, books, and articles that bear someone else’s name. Despite their significant contributions, ghostwriters often remain in the shadows, their work attributed to the credited author. This article explores the world of ghostwriters, their role, challenges, and the industries that rely on their skills.
What is Ghostwriting?
Ghostwriting involves creating content for someone else, usually without receiving public credit. Ghostwriters work in various genres, including fiction, non-fiction, memoirs, biographies, and even speeches. Their primary goal is to capture the voice, tone, and style of the credited author, making the content seem authentic and engaging.
Types of Ghostwriting
- Book Ghostwriting: Ghostwriters create entire books, including novels, memoirs, and self-help books, for authors who may not have the time, skill, or desire to write themselves.
- Article Ghostwriting: Ghostwriters pen articles, blog posts, and other online content for individuals, businesses, or publications, often under a byline that isn’t their own.
- Speech Ghostwriting: Ghostwriters craft speeches for politicians, executives, and celebrities, helping them convey their message effectively.
- Content Ghostwriting: Ghostwriters create content for companies, websites, and social media platforms, including product descriptions, whitepapers, and more.
The Role of a Ghostwriter
Ghostwriters wear many hats, including:
- Researcher: Gathering information, conducting interviews, and analyzing data to create well-informed content.
- Storyteller: Crafting compelling narratives, characters, and plotlines that engage readers.
- Voice Chameleon: Adopting the tone, style, and voice of the credited author to ensure authenticity.
- Editor: Refining content to meet the client’s expectations and publication standards.
Challenges Faced by Ghostwriters
- Lack of Credit: Ghostwriters often remain anonymous, making it difficult to build a personal brand or portfolio.
- Contractual Obligations: Ghostwriting contracts typically include non-disclosure agreements, limiting the writer’s ability to discuss their work.
- Creative Constraints: Ghostwriters must work within the client’s vision, which can be restrictive for creatives who value artistic freedom.
- Time Management: Ghostwriters often face tight deadlines, requiring efficient time management and writing skills.
Industries That Rely on Ghostwriters
- Publishing: Many bestselling authors rely on ghostwriters to produce high-quality content.
- Business and Finance: Companies hire ghostwriters to create thought leadership content, whitepapers, and marketing materials.
- Politics: Politicians and government officials use ghostwriters to craft speeches, policy documents, and press releases.
- Entertainment: Celebrities and public figures often employ ghostwriters to write memoirs, scripts, and social media content.
Benefits of Ghostwriting
- Flexibility: Ghostwriting offers the opportunity to work on diverse projects, genres, and styles.
- Income Stability: Ghostwriters can earn a steady income, as their services are in demand across various industries.
- Skill Development: Ghostwriting helps writers refine their craft, adapt to different styles, and improve their research skills.
- Networking Opportunities: Ghostwriters can build relationships with clients, editors, and other industry professionals.
Famous Ghostwriters
- Tom Clancy’s Ghostwriter: Grant Blackwood, who ghostwrote several Tom Clancy novels, is a notable example of a successful ghostwriter.
- Nora Roberts’ Ghostwriters: Romance author Nora Roberts has worked with several ghostwriters over the years, producing numerous bestselling novels.
- Andrew Nurnberg: A well-known literary agent and ghostwriter, Nurnberg has worked with prominent authors and celebrities.
The Future of Ghostwriting
As the demand for high-quality content continues to grow, the role of ghostwriters will remain essential. With the rise of AI-powered writing tools, ghostwriters will need to adapt and focus on creative, nuanced writing that machines can’t replicate.
In conclusion, ghostwriters are the invisible architects of the literary world, crafting stories and content that captivate audiences worldwide. While their work may go uncredited, their impact on the publishing industry and beyond is undeniable. As the demand for quality content continues to grow, the art of ghostwriting will remain a vital part of the writing landscape.
Dell Sweet provides articles, short stories or full-length novels on demand. Crime, Horror, Zombie, Apocalyptic, True Crime, Historical Fiction and more.
Example:
Long live the King
Put your copyright notice here
A legal notice here, IE: This story is a fabrication by the author. Any resemblance to actual places, persons or things is unintentional
This is copyright protected material, do not copy and or distribute or utilize this written material in any way.
Aaron walked slowly out of the bedroom, and into the kitchen area. The music had cut off, and suddenly too. And for just a second there. For just one small second there, he had felt as though the last ten years had slipped away, had been made unreal somehow, and he was back in the run-down trailer in good old Palmview trailer court, in Florida. Which was ridiculous, had to be ridiculous, and even he knew that it was ridiculous, but nevertheless it had felt that way.
It had, thank God nothing to do with that though. It was fifty years later, he wasn’t in Florida, and everything was… Well, regular. The damn breaker had flipped again.
A friend had helped set it up, and most of the time it worked just fine, but sometimes, like this time, he thought it didn’t.
Sometimes when the sun slipped behind a cloud the thing just shut down. And the reason was clear. The electricity was solar, and they had hooked up a battery back-up, but the back-up was shot, kaput, done, finished, the damn thing couldn’t hold a charge more than fifteen minutes on a good day, and the last several days had been far from good days. Barely any sunlight six days running and it didn’t look as though there would be any real quick.
No big deal, he thought, as he switched off the main breaker, and then reset the one that had tripped. It wasn’t like there were factories just pumping out batteries any longer.
He had come a long way since his days as the king of rock and roll. And he really had been the king for a while there, even after he died; after he was supposed to be dead, he had still been the king. Still on top and no one had come along to knock him out of that top spot either.
The Star Reporter had still been doing articles about him ten years ago. ELVIS LIVING AS A VEGETABLE IN BRAZIL, was his favorite.
Really? Please, give it a rest. How much, he wondered now did they have to pay those people to say those things? Probably, he concluded, as he always did with a dry chuckle absolutely nothing. They were glad to say it, needed to say it even and would say it regardless of whether they were paid or not.
Wouldn’t they be surprised to know that he had really spent those years since he was supposed to have died flipping burgers in a run-down diner on the outskirts of Miami?
No, he decided, that would be too boring to print. They would have never gone for that.
Aaron chuckled once more and walked back into the bedroom. His friend had stopped by just a few hours before, and invited him over to dinner, no time to think about Slander Sheets now, time only to get ready and not just for dinner. After all, there was some serious business ahead. Very serious, and his friend might not know it yet, but Aaron did he knew it for a fact. And he also knew, had a feeling really that this time… This time the king might really die. He might really die, and…
He chuckled once more, an uneasy chuckle and again began to trim the bushy sideburns that had been one of his trademarks so long ago. It made no difference. Not to him and most surely it wouldn’t make any to his friend. If it was time, it was time. Life hadn’t been so bad, at the least the last several decades hadn’t, not at all. In fact, the last several decades of not being the king, of not living in the shadow of being the king, of not reading all that garbage every day, those years had made all the other years more than worthwhile. If he died so be it, Mamma would be there and Aron would be there, and he had spoken to his friend about death, so he was no longer afraid of it. It was a known thing now, an understood thing and if he had to go he would.
The sound of a motor came to him from outside, slightly loud. The exhaust, he knew, was going on his friend’s old truck. It was too dark in here to see all that well anyway without the light. He set down the scissors and left the bedroom just as a short and feeble-sounding toot came from the truck outside. His friend could use a new horn too, Aaron thought, as he opened the front door, and walked to the truck.
The large speed boat moved quickly through the morning air across the choppy surface of the water. The dark-haired side-burned man at the wheel piloted the boat easily, although in truth it had been several years since he had been at the wheel of a boat of any kind.
For the last five, he had been holed up in the run-down trailer, leaving only to walk to his job at the fast-food restaurant down the road. Even he had begun to grow sick of his existence.
He tried to push the thoughts out of his mind. It no longer mattered, and he was determined to leave that part of him behind. It was too painful, a shadow existence, not at all what he had imagined it would be like. Despite his efforts to push it away, it all came back in a flood. All of it, not just the trailer, and his miserable existence there, but before the trailer, the life he had led before he had ended up there.
If the trailer and the crappy string of jobs he had worked to stay alive was bad, the time before had been even worse for him. It hadn’t started that way. In fact, it had started simple, innocently even, with just one small lie. The lie hadn’t been told by him, but by Mamma. That lie had blossomed into a huge deception. A deception that he’d had to live every day in the old life.
Times had been tough then, Mamma had told him. You could tell a person that times had been tough, but telling them didn’t mean they truly understood it. No matter, the times really had been tough, very tough, and she had been forced to decide. No man to care for the family, no money, and twin baby boys, one at each breast. The solution, although painful, had been obvious, and her sister had been agreeable. She could not support both of them, one more mouth to feed was enough to contend with.
Time went by. A lot of time and he had gone on to become a somebody, to use Mamas words, a big somebody. And Mama hadn’t expected that, she had seen nothing beyond the miserable existence they lived, let alone that he would make it big. People would look up to her boy? They would place him on a pedestal? No sir, she had told him honestly she had never even imagined it at all.
Then she had told him with tears and a great many stops and starts, but she had told him. His twin brother had not died at birth. There was a body, but it had belonged to Mamma’s sister and that child had been still-born, his brother was very much alive somewhere in the back country of Mississippi.
It had quickly become an obsession for him, at least until he had found him, and brought him to the huge mansion to live with his real family. He never realized until after, that it had been a mistake. If life had been hard for him to cope with, it had been doubly hard for his brother. He had been unable, or unwilling to deal with it. To the world he was dead, a non person, and it had finally caught up to him.
His brother had taken his own life. Mamma was long dead at that time, and her passing the way she had, had taken a lot of the heart out of both of them. No one besides Mama and Mama’s sister had known of the brothers existence. He had even managed to hide it from his own wife.
By that time he himself had grown tired of life. His wife was ready to leave him, Mamma was dead, what was the use, he had wondered, and then he had walked into the bedroom to find his brother dead. A scatter of empty pill bottles surrounding him.
Everyone he had loved, everyone who had loved him, had gone. He was alone, and . . . he had simply walked away. He had taken some money with him, not a lot, a couple of thousand dollars he had kept in the bedroom wall safe, along with the pistol he kept next to the bed, and just walked away.
The money he hadn’t understood at first, but the pistol he had plans for. He had intended to end it, the whole lie, one quick shot to the head, and he could join Mamma and his brother.
In the end he simply had not been able to pull the trigger, and, the way things had turned out, he supposed he was glad he hadn’t.
He had been riding in the cab of an old beat pickup early the next morning, when he had heard the news. The driver had picked him up hitchhiking, just ten minutes before. He had listened with shock, as the special news bulletin had broke into the music. The old farmer that had given him the ride, had gave him a strange look as he had reacted to the news. “Din’t you hear ’bout it?”
He had only wagged his head no.
“Yep, right on the shitter too, the king was on his throne at the end, that’s for sure.” he chuckled briefly at the small joke. “You know, you look sorta like him. Bet you heard that before though, huh?”
He had managed to snap his mouth shut, and thought quietly about it instead as they drove along. He was dead, or so the radio said, and wasn’t that a crock? And how had his brothers body gotten from the bedroom, to the bathroom? No answers.
At first he had felt nothing at all except a sense of sadness and a realization that once he surfaced he would have to set the record straight.
The old man driving the truck had dropped him off in the middle of Alabama later that day and as he stood hitching a ride further south it had suddenly dawned on him.
He had been about to climb up into the cab of an eighteen wheeler when it struck him, and he had stopped cold. The driver, after staring at him for a few seconds, had taken off like the hounds of hell were on his tail. The truck door slammed shut of its own accord, and he had been left standing in the dust, thinking.
That had been the start, and with the remaining money he had on him he had bought the trailer, which even then had been old and run-down and had begun his new life. It hadn’t been a bad life, much better than the one before, but it had slowly been suffocating him. Every time he picked up one of the slander sheets, as he thought of them his name was in it.
He was being kept alive on the moon, or working at a donut shop, whatever. Garbage story after garbage story, his ex-wife was doing this or that, his body guard had done this or that it was beginning to drive him crazy. That and the new music. At first it hadn’t been too bad, or at least not mainstream too bad, but then, as far as he was concerned, it had gone down hill fast. The only good thing had been the bargain bins at the local thrift store, stuffed with fifties music on cassette tapes for a buck a piece. It had been a gold mine, that and the cheap plastic cassette player he had bought used for five bucks. It had kept him going a long time, or at least as long as he had needed to keep going, he realized.
The press had found him. Just a odd chance in a million, maybe a billion, but they had found him. He had caught the photographer hiding out in the bushes at the edge of his driveway. A lady in a nearby mom and pops store had seen him and called the paper to report it. The reporter had thought it was bullshit, or so he had told Arron, but the very next day he had caught him nosing around his garbage. No good for him if the guy was digging that deeply into it. Although there was nothing in the garbage that would help him; if he really was that motivated he would eventually find something to prove who he was.
So, he had called his friend. In the early years he had done a little debt collection for a local bookie. Not something he was proud of, but you did what you did to survive, and the early years had been lean. That connection had been there for years. The bookie retired, the son took over and Aron still did a few favors for him. Now he needed a favor and so, he had asked.
It was no trouble for the son. He had made the arrangements in just a few hours. Louisiana. Swamp country, a place in the middle of nowhere where no reporters ever came, unless they wanted to leave in a box. The trailer home would have an accident. The investigators would find a body. That would be that. So, he had to die, but like the last time it was not a real death.
He glanced over his shoulder at the horizon as the boat plowed through the water. Now he had a new life, a real new life, and he could be any one he wanted to be. Live anywhere he wanted to live, and there would be no more shadows over his life.
He smiled into the wind. It felt good, really good, he told himself, and he was looking forward to being a real person.
As the boat plowed along through the Louisiana bayou country, he said a silent prayer of thanks. God had delivered him, he felt, to a life that was filled with possibilities. The best of which was just being a regular person, as they used to say back in Mississippi, just regular…
An example of a short story. If you need to check out some of my novel length work let me know. I also do cover design, Amazon Kindle and Paperback formatting and ePub production. Dell Sweet wendellsweet7@gmail.com Subject: Ghostwriter … Important, if you contact me via email make sure to mark the subject matter as Ghostwriter or I will not respond. Thank you. Phone number will be provided and immediate answer eMail upon hiring me.
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