I’m Richard Lowe. I write books for people who have something to say and no time to write it down, and a good amount of that work happens right here in Safety Harbor. Not “served from a distance.” Here. I meet clients in town, I’ve given talks in town, and I’ve spent years pointing cameras at its streets. If you want a ghostwriter who actually knows the place you live, that’s a real thing I can offer.
Why Safety Harbor Suits a Writer
Safety Harbor is an art town, and it wears it honestly. There’s local art everywhere, including one downtown building that is itself a work of art, the kind of place people poured real craft into until the building became the thing worth looking at. Every year the town closes the streets for a chalk-art festival, and the pavement turns into a gallery for a weekend. I’ve spent time at these events, and they tell you something about the place: it takes making things seriously, in a relaxed, unpretentious way. That’s exactly the atmosphere a book gets written in.
I’m a photographer as well as a writer, and Safety Harbor has given me no shortage of subjects: the architecture, the waterfront, and the people, who are half the reason an art town is worth photographing in the first place. The same attention that finds a photograph in an ordinary street is the attention I bring to a manuscript: noticing what matters, and framing it so a reader sees it too.
How I Work Here
When clients come to town, they usually stay at the Safety Harbor Resort and Spa, the historic place on the springs, and we meet at the little fish restaurant right across the street. That’s where a lot of books have started: over a good meal, talking through what someone actually wants to say before a single word is drafted. It’s a better way to begin a book than a phone call with a stranger three states away.
I’ve also worked in the town’s creative life directly. I once gave a talk at that same artistic building, on how to declutter, for someone who, in the end, decided to write her own book rather than hire me. I count that a good outcome. Part of what I do is help people figure out whether they need a ghostwriter at all, and I’ll tell you honestly if you don’t.
My Process
Every book starts with an interview to find its shape and build a working outline. Then we go deep, anywhere from twenty to forty interviews depending on the size of the book. That’s where your voice and your knowledge come out, and it’s the material everything else is built on.
I use AI tools to help structure the overview outline, which you approve before any writing starts. After that we work chapter by chapter: I outline each chapter, write it myself, and send it to you; you approve or request changes; I revise; and we go back and forth until it’s right. That’s about a week per chapter. You get revisions as we go, plus one full revision pass at the end. A 30,000-word book usually takes about four months through the writing; an 80,000-word book, seven to eight. Most of the work is remote, but for local clients, we meet here in Safety Harbor.
Locals Worth Knowing: The Whimzey Twins
If Safety Harbor is an art town, a lot of the credit goes to Todd Ramquist and Kiaralinda, the artists known as the Whimzey Twins. In 1985 they bought a plain bungalow on 3rd Street and never stopped decorating it. Today it’s Whimzeyland, the Bowling Ball House, covered in mosaics, sculpture, and hundreds of hand-painted bowling balls, and people drive across the state just to grin at it. They didn’t keep the creativity to themselves either. They helped found the Safety Harbor Art and Music Center, turning a private passion into a place the whole town shares. That’s a quality I respect: they took something they loved and made it big enough for other people to step inside. A good book does the same thing, opening a private world up so a reader can walk around in it.
What I Actually Do
I take your ideas and your expertise and turn them into a finished book that reads as if you wrote it on your best day. You stay the author; your name goes on the cover. 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.
The Technical Difference
Before I wrote books, I spent decades in information technology: data centers, systems, the demanding technical side of business. That means I can write the books most ghostwriters turn down: artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, digital transformation, machine learning, the Internet of Things. If your book lives in a technical or business world, you won’t spend the first month teaching me the basics. I already speak the language: a writer who came out of the technical field, not one faking 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 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 work that makes a book sound like you is human work.
How long will my book take?
Roughly four months for a 30,000-word book, seven to eight for an 80,000-word book, including interviews, chapter writing, and the final revision pass.
Can we meet in person?
Yes. Local clients usually meet me in Safety Harbor, often at the resort or the fish restaurant across from it.
Who are the Whimzey Twins?
Todd Ramquist and Kiaralinda are the Safety Harbor artists behind Whimzeyland, the famous Bowling Ball House on 3rd Street, and among the artists who helped found the Safety Harbor Art and Music Center. They’re a big part of why Safety Harbor is known as an art town, and a good example of the creative spirit that makes it a fine place to write a book.
Nearby and related
I work throughout the area. You might also be looking at Clearwater, minutes away, Palm Harbor to the north, Tampa, across the bay, and the wider Pinellas County area.
Let’s Talk
If you’re in Safety Harbor or anywhere around the north Pinellas area and there’s a book in you that isn’t getting written, let’s meet, maybe at that fish place across from the resort. 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.