Working notes from a professional ghostwriter — on the craft of writing, the business of publishing, the psychology of authors, and the changing landscape of books in the AI era.
These articles come out of 113+ books authored and 54+ ghostwritten. They cover what's actually working in publishing right now, what isn't, how AI is changing the work for both writers and readers, what executives and founders get wrong when they try to write their own book, and what they get right when they bring in help.
No SEO listicles. No content-marketer fluff. Just observations from inside the work — written for people who care about books and the craft behind them.
Sometimes the ghostwriter relationship fails. The voice is wrong, the pace has stalled, communication has broken down, or trust is gone. A mid-project firing is rare but it happens. Here is how to tell the relationship is actually broken versus just having a rough patch, how to e
A good foreword does three things: it borrows credibility, it pre-positions the book’s argument, and it provides a sales hook. A bad foreword does the opposite of all three. Here is how to choose the right foreword writer, how to ask without sounding desperate, what to do when yo
Book blurbs are the social currency of authority publishing. The economy is real, it has rules, and most first-time authors get the politics wrong. Here is how the blurb system actually works, how to ask, what to do when your dream blurber declines, why fewer-and-better beats mor
Memoir, business book, or industry exposé, if your manuscript covers your time at a previous company you have to think about NDAs, non-disparagement clauses, trade secrets, and defamation. Here is what your old NDA actually restricts, what non-disparagement clauses prevent, what
Most pre-book platform advice is either build-on-LinkedIn or build-a-newsletter, with no specifics about how either turns into a book. Substack in 2026 is the underused option for authority authors who want to validate the book idea, build the launch list, and pre-sell the book b
Founders who sold their company sit on the most underused authority book in the market. The exit memoir does specific commercial work that no other book format can do. Here is what to include, what your acquisition documents prevent you from saying, when to write it (right after
A book is the credential that opens speaker fee tiers from free-with-meal-included up to $5,000-$20,000 keynotes. The path from book to paid stages goes through speaker bureaus, conference networks, and a working one-sheet that most authors get wrong. Here is which bureaus take g
The chapter or full manuscript landed in your inbox and the voice is wrong. The argument is your argument, the structure is your structure, but the prose reads like someone else wrote it. Here is why this happens, the four root causes you need to diagnose before deciding what to
Voice mismatch is the most common reason ghostwriting projects fail. The questions you ask before signing the contract determine whether your manuscript will sound like you when it lands. Here are 10 questions narrowly focused on voice and style. Every question has a right answer
Apple Books has 600 million active devices, a customer base that skews professional and affluent, and a serious authority-author opportunity that almost nobody writes about. Here is why Apple Books matters more for B2B nonfiction than for fiction, what its discovery actually rewa
Most authors who think they need full ghostwriting actually need a hybrid: ghostwriting on the chapters they cannot write (technical, complex, sensitive) and coaching on the chapters they can write but need help structuring. Here is when the hybrid model is cheaper and better tha
Almost every author who starts a book gets stuck at chapter 3. The reasons are predictable and the interventions are specific. Here are the four root causes of the chapter-3 stall (structure, voice, motivation, expertise) and the specific intervention each one needs. Most authors
ACX, Findaway, and Spotify all changed their AI narration policies in the past 18 months and the rules are still moving. Here is what each platform actually allows in 2026, when AI narration is the right call for an authority book, when to hire a human narrator instead, and how v
Most ghostwriters disappear at delivery. The best ones stay involved through launch and beyond. Here is what your ghostwriter should be able to help with after the manuscript is written: pitch packages, back cover copy, podcast tour materials, content repurposing, keynote scripts
The 50/50 co-author split is the default and rarely the right answer. Four variables determine the split that actually fits: who brings the audience, who brings the substance, who does the writing, and who handles the launch. Here is the math behind each common split structure an
The connective sections of a book, the chapter introductions, the transitions between scenes, the setup paragraphs that move the reader from one idea to the next, are the natural zone for AI drafting. They carry no specific voice, they follow predictable structural patterns, and they eat real…
AI handles research surprisingly well for one specific kind of work and dangerously badly for another, and the difference between safe use and a published embarrassment comes down to knowing which is which. Background reading, terminology, conceptual orientation, and overview synthesis are jobs AI…
The hardest part of writing a book is not the writing. It is getting the raw material out of your head and onto a page in a form a writer can work with. AI handles this surprisingly well when used the right way, by helping you talk a book into existence and then organizing the talk into usable…
An AI-assisted book through my practice runs at roughly half the per-word cost of full ghostwriting. The savings are real, not a marketing gimmick, and they come from automating a specific portion of the labor that has nothing to do with voice. Here is exactly what an AI-assisted book includes…
AI on a book is not a binary “use it” or “do not use it.” It is a labor split between specific tasks the machine handles well under supervision and specific tasks a human handles every time. The split is not arbitrary. It maps to whether the work carries voice and whether a human can verify the…
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