Julie Broad walks through hiring a ghostwriter for a business book: use a screener question, test their editing on sample pages, interview for fit, check references, and run a paid trial article first. Cheaper writers often mean faster, sloppier work, and you'll still need editors and designers after they deliver the manuscript.
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Foreign. Hey, I'm Julie rod of book launchers.com we help people write, publish, and sell a great nonfiction book that will build your business. And while we have spectacular writing coaches to help you write, not everyone wants to write their book. Which means ghostwriters can be a fantastic solution. But where do you find a great ghostwriter? We talked about that. Right here. Now, how do you know when you found the right one Isn't as easy as you might think, because most people who hire ghostwriters don't want you to know they didn't write their book. So this presents a pretty big challenge. How do you evaluate a ghostwriter's work if they're not allowed to tell you the books they've written? In many cases, the ghostwriter has signed an NDA, so they can't tell you they wrote that book or this book. The more experienced ghostwriters will be able to point to a few projects they've worked on, and they may be able to give you samples of their writing. But how do you know if they've captured the author's voice if you don't actually get to know who the real author is? There's a lot of ways to approach approach this, and I'd love to hear how you've done it or would do it. But here's how I hire ghostwriters. Number one, I put something in the job ad that acts as a screener. For example, I ask a weird question, like their favorite fruit. Or I request that they do not send a resume, but rather send a short writing sample. If they don't follow that instruction, I immediately eliminate them. If they lack care and attention to detail at the start, when they should be showing their best self, it's not a good sign for me. And. And it's an immediate rejection. Number two, Initially, I want to make sure that they've worked on similar projects. Have they actually written several business books before? Not just articles, but full books. Have they done any of their own? Ideally, I want to check out their writing somewhere. Assuming that the writing was decent and they had relevant experience, we'll move on to number three. I send them a content editing test. Actually, what I've been using is the first five pages of a client's manuscript. I ask them to read it, provide five suggestions to make it more engaging and easier to read without impacting the author's voice. Number four, assuming they've identified some things that were really important for improving that manuscript, or maybe even offering something that surprised me with their ideas that were valuable, I then Set up a time to chat when we're talking. I'm really looking for personality, fit, engagement and dedication. I'm not really looking for a writer that says they really would prefer to be doing fiction, but it doesn't pay. So I'm going to ask about their process. Ask about their preferences. If you like everything they're saying, ask to talk to their past clients. Ask to speak with their past clients. Clients number five if you like what they've had to say so far, ask to speak to their past clients. References are important, but when you talk to the references, ask what was it like to work with them? What was challenging about working with them? What did you have to do to help them with the project? And then even ask them what did you think the process was like. Now, before you hire them for the full project, you may want to do a tester. Maybe you have them write an article for you. See how it is to work with them. See if they can capture your voice before you hire them to write your full book. Once you've hired them, here's a few things you need to know. The cheaper the price, the faster they're going to need to go to get to a first draft. This isn't a bad thing, but know that they're making money on quantity, not quality. You have to manage them, set deadlines, lay out expectations and provide feedback they're working for for you. So you have to be the boss and manage them. You're getting a manuscript, not a book. You still have to hire editors, layout designers, cover creators and more. Writers can't give you a guarantee because it sets themselves up for a world of pain if they get a really picky client. You can set a number of rewrites or revisions in your contract, but it will not be unlimited. If all this sounds like a giant pain in the behind. And it is. Which is why I did it for one of our clients and then decided to bring ghost writing in house. We now have writing coaches who help clients to write their book. Or if you prefer to have an experienced ghostwriter do the writing for you, we can do that too. And we can do it for less than it would cost if you hired one of these amazing writers on your own because they have guaranteed income. No more hunting for the next gig. We always aim to create massive success stories, so we'll probably get it right. Reach out if you want help. And if you're a ghostwriter or you've worked with a great one that let people know in the comments below down there. And if you want more costumes in these videos, hit that, like, button and make sure you've hit that subscribe button so we can hang out again soon and make sure you've subscribed.
