How To Be A Ghostwriter | The Authors Unite Show - Diane Faulkner

All right everyone, welcome back to another episode of the Authors Unite Show. Today I got Diane Faulkner with us, and welcome to the show.

Thank you.

Of course, grateful to have you on. Um, I know you're, you're in Jacksonville, so I know it's— this is live, hurricane's coming. Um, so thanks for taking the time. Um, so to kick us off, tell us a little bit more about you and what you do.

Well, I am a ghostwriter. I'm also a content marketing strategist and editor, so I'm busy on all fronts, as you can probably imagine.

Oh yeah.

I write for— I've written 4 books. I just finished my 4th book, and I can't tell you what it's about, obviously, because I ghosted it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But I write for people like Forbes and trade journals like Credit Union Management Magazine and the Federal Credit Union. Publications like that, Human Resources Professional.

Yeah. So how do you, how do you do it? How do you, how do you, how do you approach a ghostwriting project? Because I, I, you know, my company, we are a book publishing company and we do have ghostwriters, but we more lean towards the marketing. Like I understand marketing of a book very well, but I can personally never edit somebody else's book and definitely never write somebody else's book. So tell us the process of that. It's just, oh, it's fascinating to me.

Well, it's, it's, you know, it's a bunch of interviews. Sometimes it's a bunch of interviews along with a lot of research. Just depends on how helpful the author, which is what you call your client, the author. Um, it just depends on how helpful they want to be. Sometimes you're, you're just writing all of it just like you would your whole, you know, your regular writing a book for yourself and they just slap their name on it. Um, but most times you're, what you're doing is you're interviewing them a lot. You'll— one way to do it is to just lock yourselves away in a hotel over, you know, a weekend, a long weekend, and just interview the crap out of the person and just get as much out of their— I call it a brain dump. You get a brain dump from them. And then from there, you know, you shoo them off and then And then you just start piecing together what they said because, you know, people don't speak linearly. They have a topic and then they'll think of something else and they'll just talk all over the place. Oh, I've got to plug my computer in. Hold on. It's going to die. There we go. Can't have electronics die during a hurricane.

No, no. I've actually used that term before, brain dump. So I know exactly what you're talking about. And when I— when people ask me like how to write a book, I always admit this is just my opinion, that's what works for me, is just like get everything out of your head, a brain dump first, and then you actually have something to work with. And I think that's where most people like trip up, is they're trying to perfect a mess that's in their head and like, you know, title, subtitle, introduction, first chapter, and like make it such a perfect process. And in reality, it isn't so perfect. Like, you know, there's like all these ideas in your head. You got to get it out, look at it, and then organize from there. It's hard to organize all that info up here without seeing anything.

Yeah. I've only done my first book. That's, that's kind of what I did. I had everything organized in my head. I use Scrivener now.

Oh, okay. Yeah.

Yeah. It's a, it's a great tool. Then it's only like $45. I don't know why more writers don't use it, but I can take the transcripts and take them apart and put them in their own little folders so I can— I'll have a theme for each folder and I can pretty much line up the chapters that way and easily see what's missing. And I can go back and do some follow-up interviews with the author. But I've That's how I work now.

Got it, okay. And do you have any of your own books or you've only ghostwritten?

I've only ghostwritten. I'm working on my own book, but it's not a business book. I generally write business books, ghostwrite business books, but I'm writing a mystery. Got it, okay.

Oh, nice, okay. When did you decide to do that? Has that been like something you've been wanting to do for a while?

It's been something that I've wanted to do for a while. I've had an idea, actually what I had was a title and everything just kind of grew around that title. The title was Espresso Yourself.

Okay.

So it's a cozy mystery, which I don't know if you know what a cozy mystery is, but it's like an Agatha Christie. Do you know Agatha Christie? She wrote, she's like the queen of the cozy mysteries where you have some, it's not a police procedural where you have, you're following around a detective. It's some regular person who winds up, you know, in the middle of something and then winds up solving the mystery or helping the police solve the mystery. So, but I've got it set in a fictional town which is around Jacksonville, south of Jacksonville, north of Ponte Vedra.

Yeah.

I'm calling it Osprey View. And I had to go through and do a Google search on I was going to call it Osprey, but there's apparently— there's already a town named Osprey in Florida. I didn't want it to be named anything.

Yeah, yeah. No, yeah, and I think we talked about that prior, I believe, about, um, like Ponte Vedra and like all that. Like, I've been— I've, you know, I've been all over there. Jacksonville, for everybody listening, I'm sorry to let the secret out on the show, but it's a cool place. And like, I feel like nobody— I think it's really cool. I like it. Like And maybe for me it's like kind of like the, the hustle and bustle of Miami. When I went to Jacksonville, it just felt like a breath of fresh air. I was like, this place is nice. It's relaxed. Um, especially like Ponte Vedra and like up there in Neptune, it was like some of these, like, it almost had like a saloon type of feel. I think a little below Neptune. I can't remember the name of that. Atlantic, I think. Atlantic. Yeah, it was, um, it's cool. I just, I thought I mentioned it because I, I never, I knew of Jacksonville, but I never really heard anything about it. So I never had any reason to go there until I had a client that lived in Ponte Vedra, and I was like, wow, this is a cool place. And I think real estate's starting to go up. You know, people are starting to figure this out.

We don't want too many people to figure it out.

Traffic's bad. Um, so, okay, so you got that. Now, your approach to writing fiction and nonfiction. What's the— is there a big difference or is it similar?

That's a good question. My approach to writing nonfiction is— well, my approach to writing nonfiction is I have to find what the theme is, find what someone else's theme is. For fiction, I already know what my theme is. So I can pretty much build my characters. You don't have to build characters, obviously, with nonfiction, doing the ghostwriting. But with ghostwriting, it can pretty much— or with ghostwriting business books anyway, it can pretty much lay itself out as long as you've got someone who's willing to talk and give you all the information that you need. But with fiction, you know, you're sitting there, you're dreaming up scenarios and trying to dream up some red herrings. There's a lot to piece together with fiction, I'm finding.

Yeah, that's what I would— that's why I like to write fiction. I can't even imagine, like, already, okay, writing a whole— not somebody else's nonfiction, mind blown. But to do like a fiction, there's so many loose ends you got to tie up, you know, like I feel like I would get lost. I would be like, I don't know where I am in this story, you know.

There's a lot of going back and rereading, especially because I'm having to do this in between doing other people's books. So I'll have to go back and reread what I wrote. But again, that's another— I feel like I'm an advertisement for Scrivener here, but That's another good thing about Scrivener is, you know, you've got it, you can outline it, outline your story in Scrivener with your chapter files.

Yeah.

And move them around as needed, and you can see very easily what's missing and what isn't, you know, what is, where your trajectory is going with your story.

Got it, yeah. No, that makes sense. So how do you get into like writer's flow or do you get into like some sort of flow? Cause I feel like to write like that, you gotta, I don't know, you gotta be able to tap in pretty often, you know?

Yeah, you do. Um, for me, I'm with, with business writing, with the, with doing other people's books, that's totally a day, daytime endeavor. I have to, I have my things that I have to do to get myself ready. I'll go on a walk, exercise, I'll walk 7 miles that morning, every morning, so that I get all my energy out and allow myself to be able to sit for hours on end to write someone else's book. But again, you know, you're pulling from you're basically pulling quotes all day long and then writing around those quotes. So it's writing— ghostwriting is much, much easier than doing the fiction work. With fiction, I need to tap into another side of creativity there, so that's nighttime work for me. There, I don't do that in the office, I do that in bed.

Yeah, got it. Okay.

Quiet. Yeah, you know, I can't have interruptions with, with nonfiction. I can have interruptions and get right back into the flow, but I can't with fiction. I just can't because you're holding that, that story is in your head, you know.

Yeah, yeah, take a psychedelic and go in.

Yeah, really, I wish. Yeah, no, no, we don't.

Um, no, but I, I'm very similar. Like, I have to do that With almost any type of work, like every morning I need to— I go work out and usually it's cardio related. And I found that that's definitely like a flow trigger, if you will. Like if I don't do a workout in the morning, my whole day is a mess. Like it's just—

it's shot. I'm not productive if I don't do that in the morning.

Yeah, like it's bad. Yeah.

So whether I feel like doing it or not, I just have to force myself to do it because when I do give in and every once in a while and don't walk, or if it's raining, I won't walk when it's raining. I walk outside. But I find my day is just shot. I have no productivity.

Yeah, I think outside's better, I think, too. Like, I'll do the treadmill and stuff if I have to, but I like an outside walk. And same as you, there's a— right near here, at least, where I'm currently at, there's like a lake and it's 6 miles around. So, okay, I think it takes me like an hour and a half to walk around it. So yeah, and, um, yeah, I mean, I'm always— I, I know what you're saying, like before sometimes I question it, but like every time after I do the workout, I'm glad I did it. So I've gotten smart enough now to just realize like, dude, I know you don't want to do it today, but like you'll be happy after, so just do it.

It's very true.

Yeah, it's always a good thing afterwards though. Um, okay, so now what else? Or so you ghostwrite books, you're doing your mystery. Is there anything else on the plate of, of business? Like, are you gonna— do you have like a ghostwriting course, or is it you just like to strictly stick to those things?

Uh, no, I also do, uh, content marketing, content marketing. So And that I'll do, I do that with, you know, through companies by contacting the company, seeing if they need any writing, whatever. I'll develop clients that way. I've written for Forbes, their posts, I've done theirs.

Yep.

Let me see. And then different magazines, I'll write for the different magazines for their online version. So there's quite a bit of work out there.

Now, how did you become a writer for Forbes? Am I saying that correctly?

Yeah, a contributing writer. Well, I kind of backed into that. I wrote something for ADP, which is a great big payroll company.

Okay.

And the company that had hired me to do that I guess they also had Forbes as a client, so Forbes wound up buying out the piece. And they did that a few times with my work, so which, you know, I'm fortunate, you know, because I never thought to pitch Forbes. Didn't think I had anything to write for Forbes, but apparently I did because they liked what I wrote. So that's how I became a contributing writer for them.

Got it. Okay, nice. It just kind of natural through a relationship or previous business partnership. Yeah, that's sick. See, and sometimes it's just like relationships, it's just like, it's natural. It doesn't have to always be like a target, you know, that you're going towards. It just happens.

Yeah, this last book that I did, um, I belong to a group called Women Business Owners, and one of the other members had, she just wanted to get to know me and asked me to lunch and asked, and asked me, you know, what I did. And I was telling her, and she happened to mention to a friend of hers who had wanted to write a book that, you know, that she knew a ghostwriter.

Yeah.

And then that's how that book came about, just from networking that way. I didn't, I didn't really even do it. Well, in the first, the first book that I did, I was interviewing a couple who owned an international consulting company. They're based out at the beach, and I was interviewing them, doing a profile on them for the Jacksonville Business Journal. And while they were get— they wanted me to meet their staff and everything. So as they were gathering their staff, or their staff was gathering into the room, they took me aside and said, you know, listen, we've been trying and trying and trying to write a book. And we just can't do it. Do you ghostwrite books? I had never done it before, and I just said, I can do that for you.

Yo, that's like a Richard Branson quote.

No problem. So I went, that was my first ghostwriting gig, and that was my first editing gig also. Yeah, I had to edit the book. And, um, and the editing, book editing, is, is through relationships also. So I've done book after book.

Yeah. And the thing is too with books is like, you know, I feel like almost everybody wants to do a book. So it's like, if you do— this is what I just— with us, what we realize, like every book launch we do that goes well, we'll get a few clients from them.

Yeah. I mean, yeah.

So just like for you, like every ghostwriting book that you do and it comes out really good. Like, a book is something that you share. So it's like, you know, obviously there's marketing involved and stuff. We do Facebook ads and all that, but there's nothing better than just having a happy client with a book because that person wants to give their book to everybody and then just naturally kind of grows. So, which is— you're a prime example of that. And I noticed that you got some books behind you. Uh, yeah, so What's like your favorite, what's your favorite book? Do you have, are you an avid reader as well?

I'm an avid reader. I have like 4 books on my bedside right now. For nonfiction, I've got a couple favorites. One is The Introvert's Edge, which is by Matthew Pollard and Derek Lewis. And it's great. It's a great book on sales, which sounds very boring, but it's, the book is not boring at all. And it's great for writers because chapter 10, I have, I've been a walking commercial for Matthew's book because chapter 10 is Derek Lewis who ghostwrote the book. He goes, he wrote all of chapter 10 by request of the author and revealed himself. And he goes through exactly how he sells his ghostwriting business.

Oh wow, okay.

It's wonderful. I closed a deal based on that chapter 10. I read the chapter 10, I reread the chapter 10, I wrote some notes, took that with me to my meeting, and I closed it just like that. So that's a favorite book. Profit First by Mike— I'm going to get his— I'm going to mangle his name. Mike Michalowicz, or Michalowicz. Got it.

I've heard of that book.

It's great. It's wonderful. It is, it shows you exactly what you should do to make a profit, how you can make profit, how you should take your profit first, and then, and then, you know, take your taxes out. It's a You just, you have different accounts for all of these things. And people who have— I'm in a book club, and this is one of the books that we read, and everyone in the book club, or almost everyone in the book club, had read this book before, the first version of it, and tried this. And one lady said that she had been in business for 13 years. She's been doing the Profit First activities, whatever, for 7 months. And she says the first time in 13 years she's shown a profit.

Wow.

Yeah. So, and another lady who runs the, the, the book club, who's an attorney, she did it for a year and a half. She's been doing it for a year and a half, and she said she just, she would not do anything, do anything else. She makes sure that she has her accountant knows Profit First and She does her books like that. For writers, a great book for writers is The Freelance Content Marketing Writer by Jennifer Goforth Gregory.

Okay, I haven't heard of that one.

Oh, she's fantastic. She tells you exactly how to structure your business, what you should be doing, even day-to-day what you should be doing, week-to-week, quarter-to-quarter. If you are just starting out or even if you've been in business, I've been in business for 20 years actually as of May 7th of this year, that was my 20th anniversary. But I learned a lot from that and I'm implementing a lot of what she, well not a lot, I'm implementing everything that she, just seeing the business grow. For fiction, I like J.A. Jance. She's, uh, I actually met her when I was, I spoke at a conference out in Seattle, and she was selling her books on the same floor as my, as where my session was, and during a break I just happened to, you know, tool on over to her table and I just, you know, I asked her what genre she wrote in, and she said, well, it's mystery, and boy is it good. It's her, one of her series is set in Seattle, another of her series is set in Arizona. I really like this, the J.P. Beaumont series that's set in Seattle because I remember the places that she describes in the book. And then the J— the, um, Joanna Brady series, which is set in Arizona, is just fast-moving. I like, I like her style. Um, it's not a style that I, I can copy for myself because I'm writing cozies. Yeah, you can— you're supposed to be able to write cozies faster than a true mystery. So, well, we'll see. We'll see.

I don't know the fiction world that well. I'm trying to think. I don't even know if I've really— this is kind of messed up, but I don't think I've ever really read a full fiction book ever. Actually, oh yeah, maybe when I was younger, when I was— I think I read the book Holes. It's called Holes.

Have you ever heard of that book?

Yeah, yeah, I think I've read that. And I tried Harry Potter when I was in like 8th grade. I picked it up and I didn't finish it. I know, like, I don't know. I'm I'm just so like about— but I want to try. I want to like try it again. I want to go back and like just give it a try, like read one. So, um, what's it called?

Um, the author's name is Lee Child.

Okay.

Um, uh, what's his name? Um, Tom Cruise did, uh, made one of his books into a movie.

Oh, okay.

Lee Child is, um, where are his books? I can't see the books. Um, but anyway, Lee Child, he's, he's a great author, great author for men.

Okay.

His, um, his writing is very fast-moving, um, lots of action and, um, not a lot of romance.

So yeah, yeah, no, that was— yeah, I mean, yeah, start me off slow. I'll tiptoe in there. Um, no, I appreciate that because like, you know, I'm just— I'm curious. I, I should give it another chance because when I was in 8th grade, I didn't even like reading to begin with. So I think like that's probably why Harry Potter didn't really— just, just, I was like, I'd rather not. I don't know at the time, but, uh But now I love reading, so it might actually be something I enjoy is sometimes throw in a fiction, you know, or a cozy, maybe a cozy.

You might not like cozy. Well, maybe you like cozies. I don't know. That's kind of a female thing.

I'll start with Lee and then I'll go to the cozy.

Well, that movie Jack Reacher.

Oh, that's the one. Okay.

That's, that's his character.

Oh, okay. Yeah, I've seen, I've seen, I think there's multiple of those. I've seen the first one.

Yeah, there's— there was one before that, but that's, that's kind of like 6 books into his series.

Okay.

If you're— well, you're obviously don't— you don't read a— read series, but when I find a book that I like, I'll go back and find the very first book in the series and I'll read each book.

Okay.

I'm through.

Good.

And it's— I don't know, they just creates a whole new world for you that you can just escape to, which is why I like reading fiction. Because I don't have to put on the thinking cap and remember, you know, this tactic or, you know, whatever it is.

It's just like you go, just—

Yeah, you go, step out, you're into a different world, you got all these different characters and they're interesting and they're funny and some are really mean and just live a whole different life through these characters. Great.

Well, you've inspired me. I'm going to try it. Good. Well, listen, it's always a pleasure talking to somebody else in the business. So it was great chatting with you. Tell us two things. First, where can people— what's the best social for you to connect with you? And then two, like website, if somebody's interested in ghostwriting or content marketing.

Okay. To kind of— the best way to contact me on social is through LinkedIn, and it's my name, Diane Faulkner, all one word, and the D is capitalized, the F is capitalized. I don't know if that makes a difference, but it is. And for— for my website is DianeFaulkner.com.

Oh, easy enough. There you go, keep it simple. That's how I like it.

Nice.

Well, thanks for coming on, Diane. I appreciate it.

I appreciate you asking me. Thank you. You're very welcome.