I’m Richard Lowe, and I write books for people who have something worth saying and not enough hours to say it. I work out of Clearwater, Florida. Unlike most of the “local” ghostwriters you’ll find online, I’m not an out-of-state agency with your city pasted into a template. I actually live here.
Why Clearwater
I moved to Clearwater in 2013, after leaving California. The choice was deliberate. I wanted somewhere quieter and a little out of the way, away from the noise and pace I’d left behind. Clearwater fit. It’s a calmer, more settled part of Florida, with an established, older community, and that quiet is exactly what good writing needs. Books don’t get written in chaos. They get written in the long, undisturbed stretches of focus this part of the Gulf Coast makes possible.
It didn’t hurt that Safety Harbor, a genuine art town, was right next door, or that the area offered something California’s sprawl never did: room to think. I came here to write, and I’ve been doing it ever since. If you want the full picture, here are my ghostwriting services.
There’s also the scenery. I’m a photographer as well as a writer, and Florida gave me plenty to point a camera at: the beaches, the Gulf light, the Clearwater Marine Aquarium, the long flat water at sunset. The same eye that frames a photograph frames a story: knowing what to leave in, what to cut, and where the reader’s attention should land.
A Local Worth Knowing: Winter the Dolphin
The most famous resident Clearwater ever had was a dolphin. Winter came to the Clearwater Marine Aquarium in 2005 as an injured two-month-old, lost her tail, and learned to swim again with a custom prosthetic that engineers built from scratch. Her story became a book, then the 2011 film Dolphin Tale, and it put a small nonprofit aquarium on the map worldwide. People dealing with their own hard recoveries, kids in chemotherapy, soldiers who’d lost limbs, wrote in by the thousands because one rescued dolphin made their own struggle feel survivable. Winter died in 2021, but the aquarium still carries her forward. As a writer, that’s the part that stays with me: a single well-told story reached millions and changed how they faced their own. That’s what a book can do when it’s told right.
The Critique Group I Started Here
Years ago I founded a science fiction critique group here in Clearwater. We met in the meeting hall at a local residential complex, usually six to eight writers around a table, and it ran for about three years while I had the time to lead it. Because I ran it, I ran it my way. We cared about craft over comma-hunting, the actual quality of the writing instead of the small stuff most groups get stuck on. I eventually stepped back because I had a living to earn, but the group outlasted me by several years.
One of the regulars was Ken, who was there for every meeting and kept the group going long after I left. Ken had been an engineer on early artificial intelligence research, and he’s the one who first explained the AI winters to me, the boom-and-bust cycles where the field overpromised, lost its funding, and went quiet for years before the next surge. That kind of long view shaped how I think about the technology I write about now. I serve clients throughout Pinellas County. Some of what I bring to a tech book started at that table.
What I Actually Do
I take your ideas, your expertise, your story, and turn them into a finished book that reads as if you wrote it on your best day. You stay the author. Your name’s on the cover. My job is to disappear into your voice.
I’ve written more than 113+ books under my own name, including the Kindle bestseller Focus on LinkedIn, and ghostwritten over 54+ for other people. Some of those clients were right here in the area. One of the resort books in my case studies was written for a client who lived in Clearwater, so when he described the place he wanted to capture, I already knew exactly the light and the feel he meant, because I lived here too.
How I Work
Every book starts with a conversation. I do an initial interview to draw out the shape of the book and build a working outline. From there we go deep, sometimes twenty interviews, sometimes as many as forty, depending on the size and complexity of the book. Those interviews are where your real voice and knowledge come out, and they’re the raw material everything else is built from.
I use AI tools to help structure the overview outline, which you then approve before any writing begins. Then we work chapter by chapter. For each chapter I build an outline first, write the chapter myself, and send it to you. I also work across Florida. You approve it or ask for changes, I revise, and we go back and forth until that chapter is right, usually about a week per chapter. You get revisions as we go, and one full revision pass at the end once the whole manuscript is drafted. Nothing gets locked in without your sign-off.
How long the whole thing takes depends on length. A 30,000-word book generally runs about four months through the writing; an 80,000-word book is more like seven to eight. I’d rather give you an honest timeline than a flattering one.
Local Clients Welcome
Most of my work is done remotely. The interview-and-draft process works just as well over a call as in person. But I genuinely enjoy working with local clients, and when someone’s nearby, we’ll meet up. Usually that means the Safety Harbor Resort and Spa or the little fish restaurant across the street from it, a few minutes from Clearwater. I also write for authors in Safety Harbor. There’s something about starting a book over a good meal, face to face, that a phone call can’t quite match.
The Technical Difference
Here’s what most ghostwriters can’t offer: before I wrote books, I spent decades in information technology: data centers, systems, the hard technical side of the business world. That background means I can write the books most ghostwriters quietly turn down. Artificial intelligence. Digital transformation. Cybersecurity. Machine learning. The Internet of Things. If your book lives in a technical or business space, you won’t spend the first month teaching your ghostwriter what you do. I already speak the language.
That’s rare. Most ghostwriters are generalists who’ll happily write your memoir and then struggle the moment the subject turns technical. I’m the opposite: a writer who came out of the technical world, not one trying to fake his way into it.
Common Questions
Do I keep the rights to my book?
Yes. You keep all rights and all credit. It’s your book and your name on it. I’m rarely listed on the cover, usually just acknowledged on the copyright page or in the back, if at all.
Is the book written by AI?
No. I use AI to help structure outlines, but I write every chapter myself, and you approve each one. The thinking, the writing, and the back-and-forth that makes a book sound like you is human work.
How long will my book take?
It depends on length. Roughly four months for a 30,000-word book and seven to eight months for an 80,000-word book, including the interviews, the chapter-by-chapter writing, and the final revision pass.
Do you work with clients in person or remotely?
Both. Most of my work is remote, but local Clearwater and Pinellas County clients are welcome to meet in person, usually in Safety Harbor.
Why is Winter the dolphin featured on this page?
Because her story is the clearest local example of what a book can do. Winter was the injured dolphin rescued by the Clearwater Marine Aquarium, fitted with a prosthetic tail, and made famous by the book and film Dolphin Tale. One well-told story reached millions of people and helped many of them face their own recoveries. I also write for authors in Largo. That’s the whole point of writing a book worth reading, and it happened right here in Clearwater.
Nearby and related
I work all over the bay area. If you’re nearby, you might also be looking at Safety Harbor, the art town next door, Largo, just south in central Pinellas, Palm Harbor to the north, Tampa, across the bay, and the wider Pinellas County area.
Let’s Talk
If you’re in Clearwater, Pinellas County, or anywhere in the Tampa Bay area, and you’ve got a book in you that isn’t getting written, let’s have a conversation. The first consultation is free and there’s no pressure. You tell me about your book; I’ll tell you honestly whether I’m the right person to write it.
Set up a free consultation, and let’s get your book started.