"Write for you" and "Write with you": what is the difference?

Jerry Jenkins, author of dozens of The New York Times bestsellers, ghostwriter and writing mentor, guesses that a visitor to his site may want more than to be a writer he or she may want to be an author. But what does it mean to be an author?

A person who has published his/her own book is called both an author and a writer by readers. Usually, for readers, these words are interchangeable. But media and publishing professionals are used to distinguishing between author and writer, because often one person provides the content and another writes the text. This is why in most ghostwriting contracts in the United States, the client is also referred to as the author and the contractor as the writer.

In an ideal world, an author writes a book by himself, he doesn't even need the help of editors and consultants. In the real world, the author hires a writer to help him describe his ideas, thoughts, knowledge or another author, i.e. a person who should not only write the text, but also take care of its content — ideas, stories, conclusions, i.e. do all the work of the author. This makes us distinguish not only between an author and a writer, but also between a hired author and a hired writer (ghost author and ghostwriter). The customer of services should know the difference between these concepts in order to really be an author who has hired a writer, and not a person who has hired an author and is only pretending to be an author.

Assisting in writing a book and writing a custom book are differentiated as "writing with you" and "writing for you". Unfortunately, customers and book readers often mix up these two practices or don't see any difference between them at all, which has a negative impact on their attitudes toward authors who hire ghostwriters, as well as toward ghostwriters and ghostwritten books themselves. Let's find out what's what.

Writing a book with you

If you want to be the book's author, but do not want to or cannot write it yourself because of lack of time or skills, you can hire a writer and give him/her your ideas, thoughts, experiences, stories, notes, articles to work on the manuscript. In this case, the hired professional will do the writer's work, and you will do the author's work and be fairly listed on the cover of the book as the author.

The services of a writer or ghostwriter are quite common and ethical. For example, Henry Ford's memoir, My Life and Work, was written by Samuel Crowther. The fact that Henry Ford did not independently write the book did not make him cease to be the author of the ideas, knowledge, and stories it contains. The value of the book is not diminished by ghostwriting — quite the opposite.

Henry Ford could not and did not like to write, so his correspondence, articles and books were written on his behalf by his personal assistants and hired writers. No one would say that in such a case it would have been better if Ford had written nothing and let there be no books and articles because we would have all lost a part of the history described based on the information from the original source. Ford told Crowther about his life, decisions, successes and mistakes, reflected on his experiences, business and politics, Crowther himself observed Ford's life and work, which is why he helped write this outstanding memoir. In fact, Crowther helped Ford write three books of memoirs. Despite the involvement of ghostwriters, all of Ford's letters, articles, and books are invaluable material for historians and history buffs.

The author can be supported by various specialists, but only a ghostwriter works with the author's "raw" content — his rough notes, unfinished ideas, chaotic thoughts, fragmentary memories. An experienced ghostwriter can turn someone else's professional experience into a concept, a theory, a methodology. For example, when Alfred Sloan wrote My Years at General Motors in the 1950s, he hired business historian Alfred Chandler to work with the company archives, Catherine Stevens to type and edit his oral histories, and John McDonald to conceptualize the book and manuscript.

John MacDonald not only wrote down Alfred Sloan's story, but also helped the author turn his managerial experience into management theory. Alfred Sloan is considered the creator of the modern American corporation, it is unlikely that the fact that he did not independently write the book can shake the crown on his head. Sloan is a practitioner of management; MacDonald is a researcher and theorist of management ideas who worked as a business writer and editor. His collaboration with Sloan created a famous and important book that helped make management an academic discipline.

Ghostwriter can take on the most labor-intensive and time-consuming work with sources, collecting material through interviews and independently create a book entirely on the basis of the author's material or do only part of the work on the book instead of the author.

Often a ghostwriter writes a book on the basis of the author's old texts - articles, blogs, lectures, scientific papers, public speeches, extracting from their individual ideas and thoughts, supplementing them with his own thoughts and research of the topic. Such work with the author's ideas and knowledge is quite acceptable. Ghostwriter should structure the material received from the author, conduct fact-checking, remove repetitions, expand theses, turn oral speech into written speech, provide stylistic unity, find a way to make the book unique. Thoughts and ideas of the author will not put themselves into a coherent and convincing text, the concept of the book crystallizes in the process of work. What does it look like? The work of a lawyer.

A lawyer makes a statement of claim based on your words, documents, knowledge, arguments, adds something from himself, because he or she has special knowledge and skills, as well as additionally independently collects material, but the statement of claim remains yours, and only you sign it. In the same way, a ghostwriter writes a book based on the author's life and professional experience, adding something from himself, but the book remains the author's book, the author is responsible for it, and on its cover will be his name.

Writing a book for you

There are times when a customer has only an intention to write a book on a certain subject. It sounds like "I want a book about great ideas of management, but I have no materials for the book, I will not give interviews and notes, I just need the text of the book, which someone will write for me".

In this case, the hired specialist does all the work of the author and writer: develops the concept of the book, its structure or plot, conducts research, writes the main text, as well as auxiliary and additional texts (preface, afterword, notes), and then edits the manuscript several times. Such a professional should not be called a ghostwriter, but a ghost author because what it does is ghost authorship.

Linear structure or thematic? Reflection, description, or narrative? What is special about this book? Who will read it? All this is decided by the hired author (ghost author, to whom the customer gives carte blanche. When the book is published, the client is listed as the sole author, and the author remains unknown to the public.

While in the case of help in writing a book the ghostwriter may be mentioned in acknowledgements or on the cover, in ghost authorship the cooperation with the hired author is concealed, often with a non-disclosure agreement. The cover author has all the rights to the work and receives all the benefits from its publication, although it should be noted that he also solely bears all the financial, reputational and legal risks associated with the publication of the work.

Conclusions

A ghostwriter writes a book based on the client's content, knowledge and experience. A ghost author writes a book either on the basis of his/her own content or on the basis of other people's content that he/she adapts for the book. One hundred percent variations of ghostwriting or ghost authorship are rare. Usually they are mixed, but it is possible to clearly define which is more: ghostwriting or ghost authorship. We focus on the amount of the client's (author's) content that forms the basis of the book. If the author's content is more than 80%, we can say with certainty that it is the work of a ghostwriter and the author deserves to have his name on the cover of the book.

Change: Oct. 18, 2024, 12:57 p.m.