A smoke alarm that never goes off is a decoration you’ve agreed not to test.
Plenty of people in this trade work that way. The client arrives with an idea, the idea has a serious problem, and nobody mentions it because mentioning it risks the deal. The deposit gets taken and the problem surfaces in month five when it’s expensive.
I say it in week one. That’s the whole of what people mean when they describe my style as blunt, and it’s a method and not a temperament.
Why say the uncomfortable thing early?
Because the cost of a bad structural decision grows.
A book built on a premise that doesn’t hold has to be rewritten heavily, after months of interviews organized around the wrong spine and with a client who has been picturing a different book the whole time. That’s the expensive version of the same conversation, and the client pays for every month of it.
Told in week one, the same conversation takes twenty minutes and costs nothing. The client either adjusts the idea, convinces me I’m wrong, which happens, or decides to work with somebody else. All three of those outcomes are better than month five. I’ve had projects end at that conversation. Revenge memoirs are the clearest case. I won’t write one, I say so the first time the idea comes up, and every prospect who wanted one has walked away. I’d make the same call again, because a book written to hurt somebody does its worst damage to the name on the cover.
The book on this: Sell Your Books opens with the twelve copies, because a launch that went badly teaches more than one that went well.
Does bluntness mean being unpleasant?
No, and conflating them is how people justify avoiding both.
There’s a version of directness that’s really just permission to be rude, and it’s common enough in this field that clients arrive braced for it. What I’m describing is narrower: saying the accurate thing about the work, once, clearly, without decorating it. That includes my own limits. I have a package for proposals to traditional publishers, the kind that goes to an agent first. I’ve only done one, so other people may well be better at it than me. I’m honest, and then I don’t have to remember who I lied to.
The difference is what the sentence is about. Your premise doesn’t hold up, and here’s where it breaks, is about the book. Anything that’s about the person is a different activity and it doesn’t improve manuscripts. I also say it once. Repeating a criticism the client has heard and decided against turns honesty into pressure, and it’s their name on the cover.
The book on this: The Ghostwriting Advantage includes the case against hiring one, the conversation most people in this trade avoid.
Where does the humor come in?
In the writing, because a reader who’s amused is still reading. Nonfiction has a default tone that’s somewhere between a report and a sermon, and readers endure it instead of enjoying it. A joke does two things at once. It holds attention through material that would otherwise be dry, and it signals that a person is present.
The constraint is that the joke has to be about the subject. Humor used to decorate a paragraph is filler and readers can feel the difference. Humor that makes a point faster than the explanation would have is the good kind, and it usually replaces two sentences instead of adding one.
Nonfiction has a default tone that’s somewhere between a report and a sermon, and readers endure it instead of enjoying it.
Self-deprecation is the safest version and the most useful. My first book sold about twelve copies, and that’s the opening of Sell Your Books. That’s funny, it’s true, and it does more to establish that I know what a bad launch feels like than any amount of credentialed explanation.
What does blunt feedback cost a consultant?
Clients who wanted reassurance, and I lose them at the first meeting.
Some people are looking for somebody to execute a plan they’ve already committed to emotionally, and any assessment of that plan reads as an obstacle. Those projects are unpleasant for everybody and they usually end badly, so losing them early is a benefit disguised as a cost.
The other cost is that it doesn’t scale as marketing. A page saying I’ll tell you when your idea is weak converts fewer visitors than one promising a smooth process. It converts different ones, and the difference is the entire business.
The book on this: My Boss is Insane is nine kinds of difficult boss described without softening any of them.
Does blunt feedback work with senior people?
Better, in my experience, and consistently.
Executives spend their working lives surrounded by people who agree with them professionally. Somebody who says the accurate thing is unusual enough to be valuable, and they recognize it immediately because it’s how they got to where they are.
What senior clients dislike is being managed, hedged at, or told what somebody thinks they want to hear. They spot it faster than most people because they’ve been on the receiving end of it for decades, and the advisors who do it to them lose their trust in a single meeting.
The one adjustment is that directness with somebody senior has to come with the reasoning attached. They’ll test it, and an assertion without support fails that test in one question. I hand them the reasoning up front, because a good point that dies for lack of support helps nobody.
| Principle | In practice |
|---|---|
| Say it in week one | Twenty minutes early costs nothing; month five means heavy rewriting the client pays for. |
| Talk about the book, not the person | Your premise doesn’t hold up, and here’s where it breaks. |
| Say it once | Repeating a criticism the client decided against turns honesty into pressure. |
| Be honest about my own limits | I’ve only done one traditional publisher proposal, so others may be better at it. |
| Make the joke about the subject | A reader who’s amused is still reading, and a person is present. |
| Bring reasoning to senior clients | They’ll test it, and an assertion without support fails in one question. |
| Accept the cost | Clients who wanted reassurance leave at the first meeting. |
My take
Bad news in week one costs less than bad news in month five. I say the uncomfortable thing early for that reason, and it costs me the clients who wanted reassurance. Those projects end badly anyway, so losing them at the first meeting suits me fine. Humor works the same way. A joke about the subject keeps a reader reading and proves a person is there. If you want someone to nod along, hire somebody else. If you want a book that works, expect the truth.
Can a ghostwriter disagree with the client?
Yes, and a ghostwriter who never does is shortchanging the client, because the alternative is a book nobody argued about.
The finished book is the client’s, in their voice, saying what they want it to say. That’s not in tension with being honest during the making of it. The honesty is how the book ends up being one they can defend instead of one that collapses the first time somebody in their industry reads it properly. My job is to make the book as good as their material allows and then get out of the way. Sometimes making it good requires telling them the chapter they love is the one to cut.
It runs both ways. I think it’s very expensive to lie, so I don’t lie, and if I do anything wrong I want the client to hit me right between the eyes and tell me. It might hurt my feelings, but it’s a hell of a lot worse to find out later. I’ve had toxic clients and toxic bosses. If a client finds something wrong, they tell me and we work it out, because the relationship comes first. That’s how I produce good books.
The rest of this series answers the questions people are usually too polite to ask: the honest case against hiring a ghostwriter, what if it doesn’t sound like me, and why don’t I just write it myself. The Ghostwriting Hub has the rest, and my ghostwriting service starts with the twenty-minute conversation nobody else wants to have.
Curious how a blunt ghostwriter works? The Ghostwriting Advantage is my book on how to get your book written for you, drawing on 54+ books I have ghostwritten.
