Julie Broad from Book Launchers walks through five tips for working with ghostwriters, starting with knowing your hook and outline, organizing materials by chapter, and reviewing the first 5,000 words to check voice. She stresses planning ahead, clear communication about expectations and timelines, and that a delivered manuscript still needs editing and design before it's finished.
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We recently had a manuscript come in that was written by a ghostwriter and the client hated the book. He said it's not my voice and the writer put his own spin on the subject and I don't like it. So he hired us to fix it and we tried to keep some of what was there but we couldn't keep much and really we just said it's easier to start over. If you're hiring a ghostwriter to work on your book, stick around for this video to make sure that doesn't happen to you. Hey, I'm Julie the Book Broad, an award winning author and the founder of a fantastic company called Book Launchers. We're your fabulous professional self publishing team helping you write, publish and sell nonfiction books that grow your business and make you money. Many people can't or don't want to be the ones to put the words down on paper when it comes to writing a book. Whether you're busy, you hate writing, you're dyslexic, or you just don't want to do it. Hiring a writer to help you write a book can be a great solution. We've already talked about what a ghostwriter does here and how to find a good one. Right here I have a fabulous new ebook to download for free to help you with all of this. You can get That@book launchers.com GetAGHost Today I'm going to give some tips for working with your writer so that you can get the best possible results with your book. First, a little caveat. How we do ghost writing at Book Launchers is a little different. We actually call it a writing assist, and I chose that name very deliberately. Our writers give our authors an assist to get the manuscript done, but our writers are not doing research or driving the content. The content of the book is 100% coming from our authors, whether they have interviews that they transcribe or talks that have been transcribed, training programs, articles they've written, podcasts. The author is providing the material, the stories, and the expertise. The writer is providing the words and teasing out some additional content through questions and discussions. So the advice I'm giving you is based on that kind of ghost writing because it's what I know really, really well. With that in mind, here are five tips to help you get a great result with the writer that you hire. Number one, know your hook and ideal reader before you begin, our clients work with a story expert on our team to uncover what makes them cool and unique. What the big benefit for the reader is in reading their book. The Hook. We've talked about that a lot around here. And develop an outline or a treatment for the manuscript. Once that's complete, we pair our author with a writer that's a great fit for their project. The plan is essential, and without the plan in place before a writer begins, your project can take a wrong turn. Number two, organize your materials in advance. We had one client give our writer 300 pages of transcribed podcasts and expected the writer to find the nuggets in those pages. The client was frustrated with how long the project was taking, and the writer was frustrated with trying to figure out what was cool and interesting for each chapter out of 300 pages of conversations. It was a bad experience for all, and now we prevent that from happening by having our books planned planned out before they go to a writer. And the client provides the material organized by what will go in what chapter and section. It's not the writer's job to find what's most important because you are the expert, so you should be guiding that process and the writer follows your lead. Read the first chapter or the first 5,000 words of your writer's work before you authorize the writer to move on. When you read these first pages, ask yourself, is this my voice and is it the one I want to use or the tone I want to use? Does it fit well with my hook? Will my ideal reader be engaged and interested? Don't worry if every word is one you'd use. At this point, you're looking for an overall tone and feeling that the words are the ones that you would use. If the writer's way off, now is the time to coach them and try to fix it. And if you coach them and try to get them to fix it and they don't, it's time to move on now, not later. Number four, be involved, but don't micromanage. We had one client who wanted to speak to our writer twice a week and see the words hitting the page in real time. But that was really taking away from the writing time for our writer. Writers have their own problem processes and needs space to think and write and read and rework material. The situation was one part fear and one part just super enthusiasm on the part of our client. But we had to politely ask him to just step back and let the writer do their work. So while I want you to be involved enough to know if the book is going the wrong direction or your voice is getting lost, I also want you to give your writer enough space to work. Number five, remember, your writer is not a robot. They have feelings. Most of the clients we work with at Book Launchers are pretty awesome people. Every once in a while we seem to get someone who's seems to forget that there's humans working on the book. And they also forget that human beings tend to work harder when they feel liked, respected, and appreciated. That's not to say you avoid giving your writer hard feedback. It's your book. Tell them when they are missing the mark and pull the project from them if you have to, but do everything with kindness and respect. And if you love what they're doing, tell them. Thank them. Ghostwriting is in many ways a thankless job. They don't get credit and in many cases they can't even tell anyone anyone they wrote your book. So treat them like the amazing secret weapon they are and be forgiving of little things and complimentary of the great things, and direct but respectful of the things they need to do better on. All this assumes you've clearly communicated timelines, expectations, and expected results from the start, and you've hired someone that can do the job to meet all that. But if you do that and follow these five tips, I'm confident you'll be much more likely to have a manuscript you're happy with at the end of the process. And that's another quick point. You're not getting a book from your ghostwriter. You're getting a manuscript. The manuscript is still going to need editing and more editing and design work before it's actually a book. Remember that. Have you hired a ghostwriter? Or are you a ghostwriter with tips on how to work with you? Share that in the comments below. And when you comment the day a video is released, you'll be entered to win some sweet book launcher Swag like this no boring books mug like this Tip Smash that thumbs up button. Go ahead. It feels so good. And make sure you subscribe to the channel and turn those notifications on so we can hang out every Tuesday and Friday when new videos come out. If you want to learn more about finding and hiring great ghostwriters, check out this video right here. Or if you're looking for the video that YouTube thinks you most need to see next, that is right here. Either way, click one because I am so excited to keep hanging out with you. See you over there.
