Your Story, Your Voice: How a Ghostwriter Can Help

In my opinion, one of the toughest parts of writing a book—or a blog entry—is learning how to sound like myself. It’s challenging enough to arrange my thoughts into sentences and paragraphs, but once I do get the words out, I’m often left wondering, Do I really sound like that?

However, on certain occasions, I’ve stumbled across a piece of storytelling that beautifully articulates the thing I’d struggled to write. I experience a little reprieve, cherishing this precious work before going back to thumping my head against my keyboard.

It’s one thing to resonate with aspects of a work of fiction or another person’s life. However, it is truly a special moment when someone else accurately and authentically captures our own life, allowing us to feel both seen and heard. Such is the mission of a ghostwriter, offering catharsis to an author while giving readers a gripping story to read.

What is a Ghostwriter?

A ghostwriter is an individual who writes on behalf of another person, usually after getting to know them for some time. The purpose of having a “ghost” write a book is to remain anonymous so that the reader can focus on the subject of the story. Because of this, many ghostwriters choose to maintain their privacy and ensure that attention is not drawn to them.

The key to successful and ethical ghostwriting is making sure the ghostwriter is not coming up with new content themselves. Rather, the ideas being discussed should still belong to the client/author, with the ghostwriter merely transferring those ideas to the page.

When Should Ghostwriters Be Used?

Some of the most common reasons for hiring a ghostwriter are as follows:

• Limited time: Writing a book is already time-consuming, and various circumstances can cause delays that extend the process. To keep the momentum going, a ghostwriter can help ensure your draft is completed promptly using a consistent tone and structure.

• Linguistic assistance: Ghostwriters have a professional grasp of the language in focus as well as the writing style or genre being produced. Therefore, if a client is not fluent in a given language or is unfamiliar with certain genre conventions, ghostwriters can offer their expertise to craft a polished manuscript.

• Personal/emotional material: It can be difficult to write about deeply meaningful subjects to readers who’ve never met you and can’t read your body language. While ghostwriters are empathetic listeners, their separation from the events or topics can help them translate the material effectively into a written format.

At NextGen, one of our clients came to us with hundreds of hand-written journal entries that she had documented over decades of her life. Her vast journey focused on the trials she’d endured across her relationships, career, and living arrangements. She had a goal of publishing her story so that future generations could discover her extraordinary life.

This was a perfect situation for us to work with a ghostwriter. By combining our client’s journal entries with intimate interviews, our team weaved her story together while conforming to the professional standard of a published book.

Ghostwriting can be a highly valuable service to move a book along a professional track from the early stages of the publication process. If this interests you, feel free to reach out to NextGen for a consultation today.