Who else but ghostwriters help authors work on their books

In the book "Delivering Happiness", Tony Shay immediately warns the reader that there are imperfect sentences in the text, because he wrote the book without a ghostwriter. And he did it to reflect his normally talk and to annoy all his high school English teachers. Well, those are valid reasons. Tony Shay, however, had helpers in working on the book: his friend Jenn Lim served as the book project manager, and friends and coworkers provided feedback, recommendations, and encouragement.

A ghostwriter, or hired writer, as it was called in the Ukrainian translation of Tony Shay's book, is someone who can take on some of the hardest and longest work on a book instead of the author. Let's find out how an author may be helped by other people — editors, consultants, alpha and beta readers, coaches.

Book editor

Authors often neglect the services of a book editor because they doubt that someone who understands the subject of the book better than they do will be able to improve their text. It is not uncommon for an author to be afffraid that an editor will not understand his or her intent, corrupt the author's voice, and eliminate intentional errors (erratives).

Such concerns are well-founded; good editors are few and far between, but it is professional editing that can make a weak book good and a good book great. If you plan to write texts, articles, or books on a regular basis, look for a competent editor until you find one. Even when an editor writes a book, he needs an editor.

Sooner or later, the author's eyes "blur", he stops seeing obvious errors in the text, relatives and friends are not always objective in assessing the quality of our books, and readers cannot be shown drafts, so other people have to be involved to revise the text. Even if you do all the work on the book yourself, before it sees the light of day, it must work with at least one specialist, and that is an editor. You don't have to listen to the editor's recommendations or accept his or her revisions, but you need to see them.

The hardest thing to write is easy and simple, clear and consistent. For the sake of clarity and apparent simplicity, the author works on the text for months. If the author does not want to do this or fails, the text should be polished by an editor. The editing process includes improving the structure of the text, identifying and eliminating spelling, grammar, punctuation, semantic and stylistic errors, unnecessary repetitions and ambiguous expressions (while preserving the author's style), checking facts, correctness of quotations and references, etc.

A literary editor who is actually a ghostwriter

The editing of a raw text, which literary editors often complain about, is sometimes no different from the work of a ghostwriter. Sometimes an editor comes across a text that needs to be completely rewritten: change the idea, structure, or plot, add content, edit every sentence. In an ideal world, such a text would be returned to the author or given to a ghostwriter. In the real world, the editor has to do part of the author's work without recognition or additional payment. We have already written about what a ghostwriter does.

Some ghostwriters call themselves copywriters, writers, and some call themselves literary, copy or book editors, although they provide ghostwriting services in addition to editorial services and charge accordingly. Usually, you can recognize a ghostwriter by the amount of payment, because writing costs much more than editing.

Development Editor

This is such a rare specialist in Ukraine that his profession does not even have its own name, and the English name "developmental editor" has no established translation.

A typical editor works with the author's finished manuscript (with the author's original manuscript, preprint). A developmental editor is a skilled person who professionally supports the creation of a work from conception to finalization. In other words, he accompanies the creation of an author's work. His or her task is to ensure that the book is created that meets certain quality standards.

Such support requires extensive theoretical and practical knowledge, so the development editor can only be an experienced specialist who immediately sees plot holes, errors in structure, ill-conceived characters, stylistic discrepancies. His knowledge should be enough to help the author improve the genre, literary and linguistic level of the work.

Development editor is well known in the West, but in the Ukrainian segment of the Internet you will not find offers of development editor services. If you need such a professional, look for him/her independently among literary editors, writing teachers, writers, ghostwriters.

Literary Consultant

The book is composed of a main text, a supplementary text, and an auxiliary text. A preface is an introductory story about a work, a supplementary text to the author's work. A nonfiction book may have several prefaces, or it may have none. The purpose of the preface is to explain to the reader why he/she should read the book, what are its peculiarities, how it appeared, why it is relevant. 

An experienced writer, editor, or publisher knows this well; a new writer has many questions about how a book can be structured, how best to organize it, what readers and publishers expect, what is happening in the book market, how book fashions are changing (for example, blurb or edge painting), what are the best practices when working with a book of a certain type, genre, or style. A literary consultant can answer these questions.

As ghostwriters, we consult our clients in the process of our cooperation: we explain all our decisions, justify our proposals, answer questions about what and how to do after the manuscript is ready. This kind of consultation is usually needed by authors who are writing and publishing a book for the first time.

If you are writing a book on your own, you can call for literary consulting and can ask any question related to writing, publishing, and distributing your book:

How do you find an idea for a book?
How to develop a concept? 
How to decide on the target audience? 
How to decide on the structure of the text? 
How to understand what is superfluous and what is missing?
How to choose a title for the book? 
In what style to write? 
How to distinguish the book from other books on the same or similar topic? 
How do I find materials to work with? 
What is the best format to publish an e-book in? 
Where can I find examples to illustrate situations described in the book?
How to promote the book on the internet?
Writing consultations are usually provided by writers, ghostwriters, editors, publishers, i.e. people who work professionally with texts and know the book market. 

If you are writing a book, it is better to take a consultation from another writer or ghostwriter. If you are interested in publishing and promoting a book — ask a publishing house editor or publisher. In any case, it is better that the consultant has his or her own books, because the experience of writing your own book cannot be replaced by editing or critiquing other people's work.

As a rule, a literary consultation lasts an hour. You ask questions, you are given answers, and subsequently you work on your book on your own. You can take regular consultations from different specialists, and, in fact, if you need more than one consultation, go to different consultants to compare their answers.

Literary coach (mentor)

Writing is a complex job that requires specific knowledge, persistence and assiduity, some beginners are more comfortable doing it with professional support. A developmental editor is not the right person for this; he or she is in charge of developing the work. 

A literary coach helps the author to develop writing skills, grow personally and professionally. The result of working with a personal coach for the author can be books published at the expense of the publisher, published articles, popularity in social networks by creating content and the like. That is, in the end, a literary coach, or writing coach, helps develop an author's writing career. 

Often coaching and personalized mentoring are provided by people who can't write and can't make enough money from writing, so a competent and ethical coach is difficult to choose. Only experienced writers, editors, and publishers should provide such services. It is best to learn from someone who has their own published books with good reviews from readers and literary critics, and who has experience teaching in literary schools and recommendations from students.

Alpha reader vs Beta reader

Whether the author writes the book himself or hires a ghostwriter or developmental editor, sooner or later the manuscript will be ready and will have to be presented to the public.

To ensure that the public's reaction does not drive the author to a state of "unshaken confusion" (there is a Ukrainian meme that literally translates to "unshaken confusion"), it is important to get feedback from readers and critics before publishing the book. This is similar to pre-premiere screening of a movie or testing a program to see if something should be changed at the last minute, such as the title of the book, the fate of a character, the ending of the work, the target audience, or the marketing plan.

The alpha reader is the one who reads the first draft of a work, which means it must be someone who understands the inner workings of writing: an editor, another author, a writer, a literary critic. The average reader sees each text as final; for the professional reader, only drafts exist.

After finalizing the work according to the recommendations of the alpha reader and/or developmental editor (if there was one), it's worth showing the book to the people in your readership — the beta readers. Not specialists, but regular readers. Neither an editor, nor a consultant, nor a professional alpha reader can replace beta readers, because ordinary readers perceive the text differently than the people who created it. Of course, readers' opinions can be disregarded, but they need to be known.

Change: Oct. 18, 2024, 1:03 p.m.