Ghostwriting has been in the news a lot lately. Most famously, Prince Harry’s ghostwriter shared some strong opinions about his client. One well-known celebrity ghostwriter was caught plagiarizing. And a third was hired to write a taxpayer-funded project for over a million dollars…even though her husband was a long-time official in the county.
All that public attention has raised a lot of questions about how ghostwriting works.
We can’t speak for every ghostwriter. Since our field is unregulated, many people learned through trial and error (rather than an established ghostwriter certification program), so different companies use different processes.
Read on to learn about how DAS Author Services can help you get your thoughts—and voice—on the page.
DAS Ghostwriting & Publishing System
What is Ghostwriting?
Ghostwriters are professional writers who work with authors—like you—to write their books. We organize your ideas and stories to create something clear and marketable. And don’t worry, you aren’t signing away your story’s rights and vision. At DAS Author Services, we stay in contact with you throughout the entire process through interviews, meetings, and emails. We send chapter drafts every week so that you can read them over and make revisions—and we meet with you to go over each and every chapter we write. You are fully in control of what goes on the page, and you are the sole author of your final, published work.
What am I agreeing to?
Before the writing process begins, we will both sign a contract agreement. This document clarifies that any and all writing, ideas, content, and discoveries—as well as all publishing rights—belong solely to you. Our ghostwriter will also sign a Nondisclosure Agreement to ensure that your work remains strictly confidential. Finally, the agreement clarifies the anticipated project timeline, compensation terms, and other technical details.
What are the steps?
Meeting
As with most professional partnerships, there will be an initial intake meeting. This is exactly what it sounds like. Before the work begins, our ghostwriter will reach out to establish a time to meet and discuss your goals, vision, hopes, and fears.
“Hiring a ghostwriter is not cheating. It is not co-authoring. Hiring a ghostwriter is simply bringing together your expertise—your experiences, ideas, or story—with the expertise of an experienced writer.”
This meeting will establish a connection and determine whether your manuscript is a good fit for DAS—and whether we’re a good fit for you.
Interviews
Once we’ve established our working relationship, we move onto step two: interviews! This is where our ghostwriter gets the information for your story. The standard plan for DAS is to record approximately eight hours of interviews, spread out into shorter sessions. Our ghostwriters are skilled at drawing out your story in a way that captures the visceral, sensory detail of your experiences. To prepare, you’ll just need to refresh your memory of the events and ideas.
Outline
Once the interviews are transcribed and organized, we draft your book’s structured outline. This could look like a list of chapters with brief summaries of the content or simply a bulleted list, depending on the book. When it’s finished, we will review the outline with you and correct any inaccuracies, sequence changes, content additions, or omissions. While you will receive a copy of this document, it’s not necessary to correct grammatical or spelling errors at this stage, unless they are specific to your story (names, places, etc.).
Chapter Drafts
After you’ve given the go-ahead on the outline, we’ll draft the first chapter of your work. The first draft will be proofread and revised, then sent to you for your revisions. Keep in mind, your revisions should be focused on content changes. We’ll polish things like word choice, transitions, and other details later. If you’d like to add something to the chapter, leave a comment. At our recurring, weekly meeting, we’ll ask you for your revisions, deletions, and additions. This process will continue with weekly drafts of each new chapter.
Organization and final revisions
With all of the drafts written and revised, we’ll compile the manuscript into a single document for your review. Our ghostwriter will incorporate any final revisions and send the manuscript to one of our copyeditors to tighten the language, ensure consistency, highlight unclear arguments, remove redundancies, and polish the manuscript. Then a proofreader will comb through to correct any stray typos.
Finalization
Once the manuscript is finalized, DAS can—and most often does—guide you through the publication process. Sometimes that involves creating a proposal, finding literary agents, and crafting customized query letters. In other instances, we complete the independent publishing production process for you. Either way, those components will be completed with the same level of care and communication as the ghostwriting itself.
You will notice that there is constant contact between author and ghostwriter. Beyond what I’ve mentioned, there may be several email exchanges and extra meetings during the writing process to re-evaluate and discuss all of the little details that make your book stand out from the crowd.
Rest assured, hiring a ghostwriter is not cheating. It is not co-authoring. Hiring a ghostwriter is simply bringing together your expertise—your experiences, ideas, or story—with the expertise of an experienced writer. It involves constant and open communication, so the ghostwriter has the means to embody your voice and style.
So while ghostwriting isn’t for everyone—authors who want to do the writing themselves may prefer our coaching services—it’s a great option if you need to share your ideas efficiently, effectively, and professionally.
