I want to be a Ghostwriter

I want to be a Ghostwriter ©

By Michael Casey

I’ve decided to be a Ghostwriter, it might be easier just to adopt a pen name but I think I’ll go all the way, there has to be a first time for everything. I mean if I am a ghostwriter nobody will know who I am. I can write horrible things about the man in the chip shop, he never gives me enough chips. I can write about that lolly pop lady who lets cars kill me, oh sorry love I did not see you. I wear bright red and I have silver hair.

But that’s more about the joys of having a pen name so you can be truly invisible, and really dig the knife in, all those people you hate, that man at the bus stop, or all those  driver bastards on mobile phones while you cross at the zebra crossings. Not to mention those who overtake a queue of stopped traffic at a zebra which you are crossing, just so they can try and kill me. It’s happened at least 5 times.

Well it’s good to get that out of my system, though I would like to vaporise all those bad drivers in the neighbourhood. I speak as a lifelong pedestrian and non-driver. So what would ghost writing be like? Would you meet lots of interesting people? I did when I was a concierge, would they have lots of good stories to share? And I’d get paid to tell them, for a good fee of course.

How much should you charge? £50 an hour and a minimum fee of £1000 up front, just to get rid of time wasters. How would they communicate their stories to you? One idea would be for them to record them then copy them to a usb stick which they’d post to you, with a cheque. If you like the story then you agree to write it for them. If you don’t then you keep the usb stick, and charge a £100 fee just for evaluation costs. If you like it they have to pay the £1000 up front.

If you google “fees for ghost writing” I’m sure you’ll get much higher costs.  You can also add on a 10% share of any book sale profits, plus if it’s optioned for a film you can ask 25% of film rights. It’s your writing that made the story interesting after all. So much for the theory, but did you know a film script writer gets 5% of the film budget, and a profit share, or so much for the theory.  

As for the writing, the ghost writing itself, it must be a story worth telling, you don’t want to be some sort of glorified copy typist. When I was copy typing my novel to have it on my computer, that was the most boring thing in the world, so instead I rewrote it and it doubled in size, humour and pathos.

So assuming you get a reply to your advert in the Daily Telegraph, it’s not really an advert, you posted a comment in the comment section and hoped somebody noticed. Then you make contact with somebody, or rather they contact you, and you sit there listening to the usb stick story. Every other word is, “you know, or init or erh, or I, I and I” people have to learn how to speak before they can learn how to write. Though I could teach people to Speak as well, see I am doubly gifted.

The trouble is people “think” they can speak, and then they think they can write. The truth is they cannot. To stand up and talk and hold and engage an audience does require training. I learnt to do it properly back in 1998, and the writing took me 1 year of doing it, with 20 years of constant listening to BBC Radio 4  BEFORE I picked up a pen.

I’ve gone sideways, so back to the ghost writing. You get a usb stick and you play it on your hifi, so it doesn’t get a chance of giving your computer a virus. You sit there with a can of Stella Artois in your hand, as you listen. You hear the accent and the tone, some accents are hard to understand, some just hurt your ears, like chalk on a blackboard, though I’m probably the last generation that knows about chalk and blackboards.

If the story is good you’ll put down the can of Stella and listen harder, as you listen your professional ear kicks in. When you watch a film, you enjoy the story and the way it’s acted, and you spot the telegraphed items. At the start is superglue, so that later in the story the superglue returns to save the day.

So the story is good, you just need to take out the cursing, yes it’s needed and it’s the way the story is, but less is more. Some kids think that saying %$£^ is clever, but when repeated 1000 times its just BORING. Same goes for the sex, less is more, if that’s a contradiction in terms. Jackie Collins is Jackie Collins or 50 Shades of Grey. So you listen and you see through to the heart and soul of the story. The teller may not be able to write nor even talk, but the ingredients make a very powerful story.

So you finish listening, you may have another Stella Artois or their new Cidre, then you sit in the chair thinking. Then you go to bed and sleep on it, literally. In the morning you write for an hour or two. You read it back, you’ve taking their story, their life and you’ve made it better, it’s a good piece of writing now.

As I write this I can remember once being asked did I ever write for others, I cannot remember when, that could have been my ghost writing chance. I was asked by a lawyer did I ever teach how to give a talk or was it writing. NOW today if either of those people is reading this I’d like to try both, but they are gone like ships in the night.

So back to the ghost writing, then you have to ring up or email the teller and ask them what they think of your writing. Have you make their life good, do you do justice to their story, to their life. It’s at this  moment you either get £100 for the evaluation, or they send you £1000. You never do a stroke more without payment. I have a friend a translator in Shanghai who was fleeced for a technical translation he had done. There are thieves out there, so trust nobody, this is work, even if it is work you love, you must be paid. And in advance.

Some people can write about anything and anybody, axe murderers and junkies, who don’t use trains but buses, all kinds of stuff. Or the life and times of the village organist. It can be either end of the spectrum. As a ghost writer you could be writing about anything, the guy interviewed on the BBC  claimed he got 3 offers a day. If he’s that lucky he can be choosey, very choosey, it said his books have sold 10,000,000 copies. 

How choosey would you be, would you be like a bar, open long hours to everybody, for everybody. Me, I wouldn’t be like that, I wouldn’t want to put up with an idea or a person for 3 months while I wrote the story. It’s like shop staff they have to put up with the likes of you and me, while they are working. Once outside the shop they can cross over the road to avoid us. So a story is like a uniform that you have to wear at work, you could really hate it. I had to wear a pink tie while I was a  concierge, I hated that tie.

You have to either like or at least tolerate the story and the teller, while you are ghost writing. Then once the work is done their name is on the front of the book, not yours. If you are lucky you may get a tiny credit. That’s why you must have a proper legal contract so that at least you get the money if not the praise for all your hard work.

So I hope all you would be ghost writers, and I include myself, have had food for thought by reading this piece. And as I said before I am available to teach public speaking and as a virgin ghost writer.