Ghostwriters Should Listen
If they don’t, they’re not actually a ghostwriter
Photo credit: Alessandro Valli
I’ve spent most of my career listening. I work with executives and leaders to help them craft and share their messages. That has meant I’ve spent a lot of time over the past 15+ years listening to what they have to ask, asking questions when things don’t make sense (which happens more often than you think), and generally, putting myself in the back seat of a conversation or a project.
I enjoy this part of the job. I’m naturally introverted, so I don’t want to be at the center of attention too often. I also like to help people figure out what they want to say, and the best ways they could say it, through writing or some other means. I genuinely enjoy the collaborative nature of ghostwriting/ executive communications. I get as much thrill as seeing my own client’s name published somewhere as I do my own.
As I moved into ghostwriting full time, I suspected that most people in the profession would share my perspective on collaboration. We’re ghostwriters, after all, so I thought that others would try to be as silent and unobservable in the process as possible. The goal is to meet the client’s needs by producing a quality product in their voice that meets some kind of business goal. Everything should be focused on that.
However, as I’ve worked on more and more projects, I’ve been shocked to see how many ghostwriters and editors insert themselves into the process unnecessarily, complicating things. One of my clients hired a developmental editor for his manuscript, because he was planning on self-publishing the book and wanted to have another pair of eyes on the product before it went out. He found someone who was well respected and accomplished. I was anxious to get her comments back, hoping that she did not spill too much red ink over the pages.
When we did get the file back, and I started to read through her comments, I realized that she had not so much edited the book as given her own opinion on what she thought about the points the author was trying to make. This book was typical for what I work on: A successful CEO who wanted to share his perspective on leadership based on his career.
Instead of understanding what this client was trying to achieve with the book, based on his knowledge and experience, the development editor instead went through and started to argue with the author, in the margins of the manuscript, based on her own opinions and political perspectives. She did not have a problem with the structure of the book, or how it was written, or how we communicated the client’s ideas. Instead, she just disagreed with what the author wanted to say about leadership.
She had made everything about herself.
This happens so much more frequently than I would have thought. I have heard of ghostwriters refusing to make edits requested, because they like the way they wrote it, or because they are offended that the client doesn’t accept their work. I’ve also heard of issues with even simpler things, like a ghostwriter refusing to create a full outline of a book their writing because it’s not a part of their “process.”
When collaborating with someone, it’s not about you. You have to understand their goals, and put them first throughout the project. If you don’t, you aren’t doing your job.
Of course, I’ve learned that sometimes you have to be a little bit more prescriptive as a ghostwriter or collaborator and push a bit to help your client get to where they need to be with the book. You can just sit passively by, and let them guide you the entire way. If you do that, you aren’t really a collaborator. You are operating more like a glorified transcription service.
However, the pushing and perspective should always come back to the goals of the client. Any feedback I give to my clients, or any pushback I have, will always be in service of helping them to attain their goals for the project.
If you are working with a collaborator that does anything less, it’s time to find a different collaborator.
