Most executives who hire a ghostwriter on the company’s dime never ask who will own the finished book. The company is paying, the executive is the author, and everyone assumes the two things line up. Unfortunately, they only line up on paper when someone puts them there.
For the small businesses I work with, the question barely exists.
The company is one person, or a handful of people, and the person signing my contract owns the company and the book. For a larger company it’s different. The executive may leave in two years, the company may be sold, and a book that carried the executive’s name and the company’s money can end up belonging to someone nobody expected.
I think this is a badly neglected question in business publishing. Too many executives learn the answer too late. Nobody sets out to cheat anyone.
The company’s lawyers are watching the business, the executive is watching the book, and ownership falls into the gap between them. I’ll take an awkward conversation in the first week over a fight after the author has changed jobs.
Who owns a ghostwritten book when a company pays for it?
The contracts decide it, and that surprises nearly everyone who asks. People assume some default rule protects the person whose name is on the cover. There’s no such rule you’d want to bet a career on.
If you’re paying for the book yourself, my article on whether you lose ownership and control of your book covers the two-party version. This one is about the three-party version, where the company is paying.
Executives assume the book is theirs because their name is on it and the stories are about their career. Companies assume it’s theirs because they paid for it. Both are guessing. Copyright goes to whoever the agreements give it to: the ghostwriter’s contract, any agreement between the executive and the company, and the executive’s employment terms all play a part.
A ghostwriter’s contract transfers all rights in the manuscript to the client, so it matters a great deal who signs as the client. If the company signs the ghostwriting contract, the rights flow to the company. If the executive signs it and the company reimburses the cost, the rights flow to the executive, and the company’s claim depends on whatever the two of them agreed separately. If nobody agreed anything, you’ve got an argument waiting to happen.
What if the ghostwriting contract doesn’t say who owns the book?
Then, under U.S. copyright law, the ghostwriter most likely owns it. That shocks almost everyone who hears it, clients and companies alike. Copyright belongs to whoever writes the work unless something in writing moves it. The U.S. Copyright Office says the creator is the author and owner unless a written agreement assigns the copyright to someone else, and Section 204 of the Copyright Act requires any transfer of ownership to be in writing and signed.
A commissioned book doesn’t count as a “work made for hire” just because someone paid for it. The Copyright Office’s Circular 30 on works made for hire explains that commissioned work only qualifies in a short list of categories, and only with a written agreement. Books mostly fall outside that list.
So if the contract is silent, or there’s no contract at all, the person who typed the words holds the copyright. The executive and the company are left arguing that they have an implied right to use a book they paid thousands of dollars for.
Courts do sometimes find that a client who paid for work has an implied license to use it. An implied license is a weak thing to build a career on, though. It isn’t exclusive, it doesn’t let you stop anyone else from using the book, and it gives you nothing to sell if a publisher, a film producer or an acquirer comes calling later.
Contracts that are silent on ownership are more common than they should be, especially with cheap writers, templates pulled off the internet and handshake deals between friends.
I don’t have much patience for writers who work that way. A ghostwriter who leaves ownership out of the contract has either never thought about it or hopes you won’t, and I wouldn’t trust either one with a book meant to carry your career. The clause takes one sentence to write.
If you’re in that situation, fix it now. Ask the ghostwriter to sign a short written assignment of copyright to whoever is supposed to own the book, and have your lawyer draft it. A professional ghostwriter will sign it without argument, because they never expected to own your book in the first place. A writer who hesitates or asks for more money at that point has told you a great deal about how the rest of the relationship would have gone.
The same gap can exist between you and your company. If the ghostwriting contract names you as the client and the company paid, but you and the company never wrote anything down, the company’s claim rests on your employment agreement and whatever everyone remembers saying in meetings. Memories get creative once a book turns out to be valuable.
What are the three ways to set up ownership of a company-funded ghostwritten book?
Company-funded books fall into one of three arrangements, and any of them can work. I don’t have a favorite. The one I can’t stand is the fourth arrangement, where nobody picks one and each side assumes the other agreed to its version.
In the first, the executive owns the book and the company gets a license.
The executive holds the copyright. The company pays for the writing, and in exchange gets written rights to use the book: buying copies at cost for clients and events, quoting it in marketing, featuring it on the company site, maybe using the company name in the subtitle. Most executives want this one, and it’s the cleanest when the book is about the person and their career.
In the second, the company owns the book outright.
A professional ghostwriter will sign it without argument, because they never expected to own your book in the first place.
It signs the ghostwriting contract and holds the copyright. The executive is the named author, but the book is a company asset, like a white paper or a brand campaign. This fits books that are really about the company’s methodology, product or history, where the executive is the face of it more than the subject. The executive gets limited rights to use the book personally, and the contract needs to spell those rights out, because otherwise they don’t exist.
The third splits the rights, with the company owning some things and the executive owning others. A common version gives the executive the copyright but grants the company an exclusive corporate edition, or gives the company ownership but guarantees the executive the right to keep selling and speaking from the book after leaving. Splits take more drafting, and they fit the way most executive books work better than either extreme.
What happens to my ghostwritten book if I leave the company?
I’ve seen more heartbreak here than anywhere else in these projects. You spend a year on a book about how you lead and what you’ve learned, then you take a better job or get pushed out after an acquisition, and you find out the book isn’t yours to take with you.
If the company owns the copyright, the book stays with the company.
They can keep selling it or let it go out of print. Your name stays on a book you no longer control. A company in the middle of an ugly departure can pull the book entirely, and the executive loses a major authority asset overnight. That’s a miserable thing to watch happen to someone.
If you own the copyright, the book goes with you. The company’s license continues or ends according to what you agreed, and your agreement sets the limits on using company names, trademarks or confidential information in future editions. The book and your stories stay yours. Decide this before the book exists, while everyone is still friendly. People don’t negotiate generously when someone is leaving.
Who gets the royalties from a company-funded ghostwritten book?
Royalties follow ownership unless the agreement says otherwise. If the company owns the book, royalties go to the company. If you own it, they go to you, even though the company paid for the writing.
Some companies are happy to let the executive keep royalties as a perk, since what they want out of the book is visibility. Others want the royalties back to offset what they spent. Either is fine, as long as someone writes it down before the first royalty statement arrives.
For most business books, royalties are the smallest part of the return.
I tell every client they’re very unlikely to earn back what the book cost through sales. The value arrives as speaking invitations, consulting work and board seats, and whoever owns the book keeps using it for all of that. An executive who negotiates hard over royalties and shrugs at ownership has put the energy into the wrong fight.
Can a ghostwritten book I create while employed belong to my employer?
Yes, and executives almost never see it coming.
Under U.S. copyright law, work an employee creates as part of their regular duties belongs to the employer automatically, as Circular 30 spells out. If writing thought leadership content is part of your role, or your employment agreement has a broad intellectual property clause, your employer can claim a book you think of as personal, even one you paid for yourself.
Most executives have never read their IP clause closely.
Read it before you start. If it’s broad, get a written agreement with the company that says the book belongs to you, or exactly which rights the company keeps. A lawyer can draft that in an hour, and it’s far cheaper than sorting it out after publication.
I find it maddening how many executives sign an employment agreement with a sweeping IP clause and never look at it again. The company’s lawyers wrote that clause to protect the company, and it does its job. If you want the book to be yours, ask for that in writing, because nobody at the company is going to offer it.
The same goes for confidential information. A company-funded book includes stories from inside the company: deals, turnarounds, product launches, internal fights. Your employer has a legitimate interest in what gets disclosed. Expect a review step and build it into the timeline. A good ghostwriter helps you tell those stories in a way that shows what you learned without handing competitors anything they shouldn’t have.
What mistakes do executives make with company-funded ghostwritten books?
I see the same few over and over. The most common is assuming the byline settles ownership. Executives who discover otherwise during a departure are always stunned, because being the named author and owning the book are two separate things.
Another is letting the company’s marketing department run the project. When marketing approves every page, the book turns into a long brochure that nobody finishes. If the company is funding it, agree up front that review covers facts and confidential information and leaves your opinions alone. I feel strongly about this one. A book that marketing has sanded smooth builds nobody’s authority, the executive’s or the company’s. Readers can tell when every sentence has been through brand review, and they stop trusting the voice long before the last chapter.
People also forget about acquisitions. Companies get bought. The new owners inherit whatever the old company owned, including your book. If you’ve got a strong personal brand tied to that book, you want it protected from whoever buys the company next year.
And plenty of executives wait until the manuscript is done to raise any of this. By then the launch date is set and you’ve lost your bargaining power. Bring it up at the kickoff meeting, when it’s an ordinary question.
What should my agreement with my company say about my ghostwritten book?
You want a short written agreement between you and the company, separate from the ghostwriter’s contract, that answers these questions before the writing starts:
- ► Who owns the copyright, and who signs the ghostwriting contract?
- ► What rights does the company get: copies at cost, marketing use, a corporate edition, exclusive periods?
- ► What rights does the executive keep, especially after leaving?
- ► Who gets royalties, advances and any speaking income tied to the book?
- ► What review and approval does the company get over content, and on what timeline?
- ► Can future editions use the company’s name, trademarks and case studies?
- ► What happens to the book if the executive leaves voluntarily, is terminated, or the company is acquired?
People skip that last question because it feels awkward. Ask it anyway. Planning for a departure protects both sides, and a reasonable company won’t take it as an accusation.
How does the ghostwriter fit into a company-funded book?
The ghostwriter’s contract has to line up with whatever you and the company decide. If you’ll own the book, you should be the client on the ghostwriting contract, or the contract should assign rights to you directly even though the company pays. If the company will own it, the company should be the client, and the contract should name you as the author and the source of the material.
I’ve written several company-paid books. Most came from small companies owned by the person who hired me, so the company and the author were effectively the same person and ownership never became a question.
The largest project of my career was different: a communications book for an executive at a larger company.
The company paid for it and the company owned it. He knew that from our first conversation and was comfortable with it, because the book served the company’s goals as much as his own. Settling it at the start made everything after it easy.
When I take on an executive book, my first question is who’s paying and who’s going to own it. If the answer is “we haven’t talked about that,” I’d rather slow down for a week than write for six months into a fight. The statement of work should name the client, the author and the rights holder in plain language, so nobody has to interpret anything later.
A ghostwriter should never be the one deciding ownership between you and your employer. That’s between the two of you and your lawyers. My job is to make sure the question gets asked and the paperwork I sign matches the answer.
Is a company-funded ghostwritten book still worth it?
Yes, if you set it up right. Some of the most successful books I’ve worked on were company-funded. One client, a Fortune 50 executive, used his book to help land $30 million in venture capital, and the company got real visibility out of the same book.
Companies that handle this well treat the book like any other significant asset and settle ownership in writing early. The ones that handle it badly assume everybody agrees and find out otherwise during a departure.
My take
Nobody should start writing a company-paid book until everyone knows who owns it. I’d slow a project down a week before I’d write six months into a fight. The executive who knows from day one that the company owns his book is fine. The one who assumes and finds out during his exit isn’t. Get the client, the author and the rights holder named in plain words, have your lawyer read it, then hire the ghostwriter.
What should you settle before your company pays for a ghostwritten book?
Settle ownership, royalties and what happens if you leave, in writing, before the first invoice is paid.
If you own a small company, that’s a short conversation with yourself and your accountant. If you work for a larger one, it’s a conversation with legal, and don’t let anyone talk you out of having it. An executive who skips it is betting a major career asset on everyone staying friendly forever, and I think that’s a bad bet every time.
Bring the agreement to your ghostwriter along with the outline, so the book gets written for the right owner from page one. My ghostwriting services are set up to work with a company as the client, and a Book Discovery Intensive is a way to scope a company book before anyone commits the budget.
Ownership questions get easier once you know how ghostwriting works from the inside. The Ghostwriting Advantage is my guide to getting your book written for you, drawn from the 54+ books I’ve ghostwritten.
