You can’t avoid ethical questions

One of the questions on the United Ghostwriters tweetchat on 20 January was whether a ghostwriter would ever turn down a project for which they were qualified, had the availability, and the fee was good. In other words, are there issues of principle that would prevent you from taking on a project?

So far in my ghostwriting career, I have been fortunate to have clients who I consider to be honest in the story they tell, and justified in telling it. On occasion, I have turned down offers to work on a book that promises to reveal the secrets of a lucrative and unconventional investment strategy – but where there is no registered company address, and there would be difficulty in carrying out due diligence. It is a case perhaps both of ethical principles and basic fear on my part! I wouldn’t want to be accused of peddling propaganda around what turns out to be a Ponzi scheme.

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Trial by media can be fairer

The law’s delay and the insolence of office are listed, in arguably the English language’s most sublime speech, as examples of the natural shocks that we humans will encounter, simply through the act of being born. This has not changed since Shakespeare’s day. When the wait for justice becomes unacceptably long, people look for other ways to have their case heard.

From time to time, as a ghostwriter, I am contacted by individuals who declare themselves to be whistleblowers. They have witnessed health and safety breaches, bullying, price fixing or worse, and they feel that they haven’t been heard. Each time, naturally, I carry out checks to see if their story has merit. And each time it has. There may be some self-declared whistleblowers who exaggerate, or who are fantasists, but I haven’t encountered one yet. Read more “Trial by media can be fairer“ →

If the facts change, the story changes

There was a controversy a few months ago of major significance for all involved in the writing, ghostwriting or publishing of nonfiction books. The US author Naomi Wolf was taken to task for some historical errors in her book Outrages: Sex, Censorship and the Criminalization of Love, on the persecution of gay men in 19^th Century Britain. Sex between men was criminalized – indeed, it was not decriminalized until the 1960s. Almost unbelievably for a modern, liberal mind, in the 19^th Century it could carry the death sentence.

Unfortunately, Ms Wolf misunderstood an archaic legal term used in Victorian British courts. ‘Death recorded’ meant a commuted sentence and was the norm in these cases; the death penalty was not actually carried out, so her case that dozens of gay men had been executed did not stand up. More seriously, in one case she either made an error in research or omitted to point out that the individual involved, Thomas Silver, was prosecuted for a serious sexual assault on a boy of just six years old, not consenting sex with another adult. Read more “If the facts change, the story changes” →

Ch, ch, ch changes

A first draft never goes straight to print. In my experience the first ‘final’ draft never does, either. This is especially the case when you are working as a team – whether it’s an editorial team, or author and ghostwriter. In nonfiction, a ghost is sometimes working with two, or even three, named authors, so it becomes a small business project.

Quite early in my career I learned never to call a version of a document the ‘Final’ draft, because before long you have the ‘Final Final Final draft v5’, and someone else has created a ‘Final Final draft v6’. Which is the later? Instead, what you learn to do is simply put the date on the version, as well as the initials of those who have edited it. Read more “Ch, ch, ch changes” →

Someone else’s shoes

I have two live projects at the moment: ghostwriting a book on teamwork in modern businesses, and doing the development edits for my third novel, to be published by Unbound in late 2019 (I would give the title a plug, but that’s currently under discussion …).

They appear to be very different projects, but one issue is common to both: finding the right voice. On the ghostwriting side, the style obviously has to be my client’s, not mine; an early chapter draft was not quite there – which is to be expected. To this end, we make sure we chat generally, for example over lunch, to help accustom me to the right tone and personality; writing a nonfiction book is so much more than just imparting information. In the world of business literature, some people like a formal, academic tone; others like to be very chatty and inviting in style, while others go for somewhere in between. Read more “Someone else’s shoes” →