THE BUSINESS OF GHOSTWRITING
Want to write a book, but don’t have the time to or don’t know how? Here’s a look at how some people become authors without writing a word
What if you were told that many of the books you’ve read have not been written by the authors on their covers?
It’s difficult to believe, but it’s true. An anonymous world of ghostwriters lies hidden behind the glitz and glamour of the books business and literature festivals that most readers are unaware of.
Sample this: “Don’t have time to write a book, but still want to be a published author? Go for our worldfamous book ghostwriting option.” Absurd as it may sound, that’s the tagline of Power Publishers, who, in their own words, are the world leaders when it comes to ghostwriting. And they are not alone — the Internet is full of platforms that provide ghostwriters to those who cannot write but still want to be writers.
A ghostwriter is an anonymous figure, who, by contract, agrees to write a given book for somebody else. They are paid a fairly good sum of money, but have no rights over the book or its royalties. When the book hits the stands, it carries someone else’s name — the perceived author for its readers.
And, as a breed, ghostwriters are gaining prominence in the publishing industry. Forget self-publishing platforms or smaller publishers, many of the leading publishing houses too have, at some point, sought the help of ghostwriters.
Nirmal Kanti Bhattacharjee, former director of the National Book Trust (NBT) and former editor of a bi-monthly literature journal, explains why: “Successful people are gradually becoming more and more ambitious and want to talk about themselves, and they do that via autobiographies and memoirs. But they do not have wherewithal to write books. So, they employ ghostwriters. Most autobiographies and memoirs of popular figures in the past 20-25 years have been written, partially or wholly, by ghostwriters.”
Poulomi Chatterjee, the editor-in-chief and publisher of Hachette India, which has many bestsellers to its credit, says that there are “certain segments” for which ghostwriters are used. “You wouldn’t find ghostwriters, I hope, for fiction, because you are actually looking for the author’s art and craft and voice and story. But for non-fiction, there might be experts in various subjects that you want information from. They could be entrepreneurs, business professors or academic historians and you would want them to collaborate with a ghostwriter when they have time or don’t necessarily have the skill to [write],” says Chatterjee.
For Udayan Mitra, publisher-literary of Harper Collins India, ghost writing has become much more prevalent and organised than it was before, and this, he feels, benefits the publishing industry in the long run. “It has become a lot more professional... It used to be that the author or an editor knew a particular person who was capable of the task. But now, there are many more people who are doing it. They have the experience to do it, and they know how to turn an idea into a book,” says Mitra.
Sharing an interesting anecdote about working with with a a ghostwriter ghost writer before before he joined Harper Collins, Mitra said that some five years ago, a big industry leader wished to write a memoir about himself and his corporation, and so they launched a hunt for a ghostwriter, which ended with a foreign journalist who turned out to be quite expensive.
Ghostwriters as well as several online platforms suggest that they are paid decently. Ghostwriters are available at about ` 700 per page (typically containing 250 words) for fiction books on several online platforms.
In some cases, many wellto-do people are willing to pay ghostwriters astonishing amounts to write a book on their lives or their businesses, with the amounts sometimes running into several lakhs of rupees.
Ghostwriting has become more professional. Many more people are doing it, as they have the experience. UDAYAN MITRA, PUBLISHER