About half the people who contact me for help with their books ask for the wrong service, and the mix-up makes sense, since with either service a professional is helping you produce a book. A ghostwriter and a book coach work with you in different ways, though, and you end up with a different result from each.
After 54+ ghostwriting projects and years of coaching fiction writers, I can usually tell within the first conversation which service someone needs. The distinction is simple once you see it.
When should a novelist hire a ghostwriter?
Hire a ghostwriter when you have the story and lack the time or the craft to get it onto the page. Hire a coach when you want to become a novelist yourself. I care more about getting that choice right than about which service you buy from me, because people who pick the wrong one lose a year, and some of them lose the book.
A ghostwriter takes your ideas, your experiences, and your voice, and writes the book for you.Share on X
A ghostwriter takes your ideas, your experiences, and your voice, and writes the book for you.
You’re the author. Your name goes on the cover. But the daily work of turning your material into chapters happens in someone else’s hands. For more, see why people with speechwriters still need a book and cheap ghostwriters, stolen bios, and bestseller scams.
The process starts with interviews. Before I write a word, I need to understand how you think, how you talk, what you find important, and what you leave out when you tell stories. Those interviews, usually ten to twenty hours spread across several weeks, produce the raw material I build the book from. The structure, the chapter breaks, the pacing, the transitions, I handle all of that. You review each chapter as I deliver it and provide feedback. The final product sounds like you because I built it from your words and your perspective. The craft that holds it together is mine.
Ghostwriting is the right choice when you have the story but not the time, the writing skill, or the interest in spending months at a keyboard. Most of my ghostwriting clients are business professionals, executives, and entrepreneurs who generate their value in boardrooms and meetings. They have strong material.
They don’t have 500 hours to turn that material into a polished manuscript, and they shouldn’t. Their time is worth more doing what they do than learning a craft they’ll use once.
One client had built a consulting practice around organizational transformation. Brilliant in a room, terrible on paper. His first attempt at writing the book himself produced 40 pages that read like a textbook. We started over with interviews. I asked him to tell me about the worst client engagement he ever had, the one where everything went wrong before it went right. That story became chapter one, and the book generated consulting inquiries for five years after publication because it sounded like him talking.
When is a book coach the better choice for fiction?
A coach is the better choice when the point is that you wrote it. If you want your name on a novel and the pride of having built every sentence yourself, a ghostwriter can’t give you that, and I’d tell you so before taking your money.
A book coach doesn’t write your book. You write every word. What a coach provides is the expertise to help you write it well, the feedback to show you where it’s working and where it’s not, and the accountability to keep you moving forward when the project gets difficult.
My coaching sessions focus on whatever specific problem the writer is facing.
Sometimes that’s structural. The novel has a saggy middle because the writer ran out of escalation after the first act. Sometimes it’s character work. The protagonist is doing things the plot requires instead of things the character would do. Sometimes it’s voice. The writer is producing competent, invisible prose that sounds like every other book in the genre instead of sounding like themselves.
Coaching is the right choice when you want to write the book yourself and you have the time and motivation to do it, but you need expert guidance on the craft decisions that separate amateur fiction from professional fiction. Most of my coaching clients are fiction writers who have been working on their craft for years and want to break through. They don’t need someone to hold their hand. They need someone who can read their manuscript and identify the problems they can’t see because they’re too close to the work.
A coaching client came to me with a mystery novel that was technically competent but emotionally flat. The puzzle worked. The clues were fair. The solution was surprising. But nobody cared about the detective. We spent three sessions rebuilding the detective’s internal life, giving her a personal stake in the case that had nothing to do with solving a crime and everything to do with a relationship she’d damaged. The mystery stayed the same. The emotional experience of reading it changed completely. She wrote every word. I showed her where to dig.
Do You Need a Ghostwriter or a Book Coach?
Heard elsewhere
Richard offers three models, writing it himself, collaborating as a ghost collaborator, or coaching the author through it. He laid out the differences on Business RadioX.
Whichever model you choose, be suspicious of anyone who promises a novel will be easy. Fiction exposes weak writing faster than any business book, because a bored reader closes a novel and never tells you why.
The deciding question isn’t whether your book is fiction or nonfiction. I ghostwrite both and coach both. The deciding question is whether you want to write the book yourself.
If your answer is “yes, I want to write it, but I need help making it good,” you need a coach. The work is yours. The guidance is mine. You develop the skills through the process and carry those skills into every project after this one.
The deciding question is whether you want to write the book yourself.
If your answer is “I have the story but I don’t want to spend months writing it,” you need a ghostwriter. The material is yours. The craft is mine. You get a finished book without becoming a writer, because becoming a writer was never your goal.
Some people land in between. They want to write parts of the book themselves and need help with other parts. They have strong chapters and weak chapters and need someone who can level the entire manuscript. Those projects usually start as coaching and shift to ghostwriting for specific sections, or they start as ghostwriting with the client contributing drafted material that I reshape and integrate. The arrangement is flexible because the goal is the best possible book.
| Factor | Ghostwriter | Book coach |
|---|---|---|
| Who writes the book | The ghostwriter, from your interviews | You write every word |
| What you bring | Your story, ideas, experiences and voice | The time, motivation and writing |
| How the work runs | Ten to twenty hours of interviews, chapter reviews | Ten to twenty sessions on specific problems |
| Professional’s hours | 400 to 600 hours | 10 to 20 hours |
| Your writing hours | None, you review and give feedback | About 400 hours on your own |
| Time to finish | Four to eight months to finished manuscript | Spread across the life of the project |
| Best fit | One book, busy professionals, book as business tool | People who enjoy writing or plan more books |
| Skills you keep | No new writing skills needed | Skills carry into every later project |
How Much Do Ghostwriting and Book Coaching Cost?
Coaching costs less because you’re doing the writing, and you pay the difference in your own evenings and weekends. I’d sooner see a client choose coaching and finish than hire a ghostwriter they can’t comfortably afford and quit halfway.
Ghostwriting costs more because the ghostwriter is doing the writing. One real example is a step-by-step coaching method guide. I set my rates by service, with milestone-based payments tied to project phases.
Current ghostwriting pricing is on the ghostwriting page. A typical book runs 40,000 to 60,000 words, and the price depends on scope. The timeline is four to eight months from first interview to finished manuscript.
Coaching costs less per project because you’re doing the writing. Most coaching clients work with me for ten to twenty sessions spread across the life of their project.
The cost difference reflects the time difference. Ghostwriting a book requires 400 to 600 hours of my time across interviews, research, writing, and revision. Coaching a book requires 10 to 20 hours of my time in sessions, with the writer doing the other 400 hours on their own.
What should you ask before choosing a ghostwriter or a book coach?
Ask a coach how many of their clients finished a book, and ask a ghostwriter to show you fiction written in someone else’s voice. Anyone who gets vague on either question is selling you a hope.
Do you enjoy writing? If the answer is no, ghostwriting saves you from spending months on an activity you dislike. If the answer is yes, coaching helps you do the thing you enjoy at a higher level.
Is the book a one-time project or the start of a writing career? If you plan to write one book and move on, ghostwriting makes sense. You get the best possible book without developing skills you won’t use again. If you plan to write multiple books, coaching develops skills that pay off across every future project.
How much time can you commit? Writing a book takes 400 to 600 hours of focused work. If those hours exist in your schedule and you want to spend them writing, coaching works. If they don’t exist or you’d rather spend them on revenue-generating work, ghostwriting is the practical choice.
Is your primary goal the book itself or what the book produces? If the book is the end goal, coaching ensures you have the experience of creating it yourself. This is what my writing coaching handles for you. If the book is a tool designed to generate business results, ghostwriting gets you the tool faster and at a higher level of craft.
How do you start working with a fiction ghostwriter or coach?
If money is the obstacle, start on your own. Writing with AI is fine when you treat it like a tool and keep the story yours; let it do your work for you and you’ll have problems. My 40+ writing handbooks use AI prompts to help you build a better protagonist and plot, and they leave the writing to you.
Most people figure out which service they need within the first fifteen minutes of talking to me. Start with a conversation about your book, your goals, and your situation. No commitment required. I’ll tell you which service fits and why, even if the answer is that you don’t need either one yet.
For fiction writers who prefer self-directed study before committing to coaching, my handbooks cover the core craft elements: the AI-Enhanced Deep Character Handbook, the AI-Enhanced Dialogue Handbook, the AI-Enhanced Novel Handbook, and the AI-Enhanced Pacing Handbook. Working through these before a coaching session means we spend less time on fundamentals and more time on the problems specific to your manuscript.
For a larger novel project, the Book Discovery Intensive can settle the story’s direction and produce a sample chapter before you commit.
Pick the model that matches what you want from the finished book. If you want it done and done well, hire the writer. If you want to say you wrote it, hire the coach and do the work. The arrangement I’d steer anyone away from is the one nobody admits to, a coach who secretly rewrites every page, so the author pays for a ghostwriter, learns nothing, and signs a book he didn’t write.
My take
Choose the writer if you want it done well, and the coach if you want to say you wrote it. One book that serves your business points to ghostwriting. A writing career points to coaching, because the skills pay off on every book after. Steer clear of a coach who secretly rewrites every page. You pay for a ghostwriter, learn nothing, and sign a book you didn’t write.
Ghostwriter vs. Book Coach FAQ
Novelists who decide ghostwriting is the right fit can read The Ghostwriting Advantage next. It explains how to get your book written for you, from someone with 54+ ghostwritten books.
Work With a Book Coach
If you want to write the book yourself with a professional guiding the process, book coaching keeps it on track from outline to publication. Explore Book Coaching Services.
