Clients who want to tell their side are more common than you’d think, but the story is usually quieter than a viral scandal. It’s a firing, or a resignation that wasn’t really voluntary. They want to explain why the firing was wrong, or why they left and how the company was wrong. Once in a while a client surprises me and wants to come clean about what they did instead.
The louder version, the online pile-on, raises the same questions with higher stakes. It’s the one that worries me more, because a crowd of strangers can take apart somebody’s business in a single weekend.
A small-business owner posts a clumsy joke on a Friday night, and by Monday people have stripped it of context, strangers have flooded her reviews and two suppliers have dropped her. (She’s a composite, with the details changed.)
I’ve written a whole series about pile-ons because I’ve watched them wreck people over mistakes that deserved, at most, an apology. A book can help someone take their story back. Written at the wrong time or in the wrong spirit, it hands the crowd a fresh target.
Can a ghostwriter help me tell my side after a public scandal?
Yes. A pile-on gives you about two hundred characters to defend yourself against thousands of people who’ve already made up their minds. A book gives you two hundred pages and readers who chose to hear you out. That difference is why so many people who’ve been publicly shamed eventually want to write about it.
A good ghostwriter helps you tell the whole story: who you were before, what happened, what you did and didn’t do, what it was like to be on the receiving end, and who you’ve become since. They’ll help you keep it honest, keep it measured and keep it legally safe. All of that is harder than it sounds when you’re still angry.
Does a ghostwritten book after a scandal help or make it worse?
It depends almost entirely on timing and tone.
A book published while the pile-on is still raging tends to feed it. It gives the crowd something new to attack, and anything defensive in it gets quoted out of context the same way the original offense was. A book published after things have calmed down, one that’s honest about the author’s part and generous toward readers, lands very differently. People who half-remember the scandal get the fuller story, and the people who were piling on have moved on to someone else.
The tone that works is steady. Angry books read as bitter and groveling ones read as fake, while a book that says plainly what you got wrong, what was unfair, and what the experience taught you reads as the work of a grown-up, and readers respect that.
| Choice | What helps | What backfires |
|---|---|---|
| Timing | Publishing after the pile-on has died down. | Publishing while it still rages, which feeds it. |
| Tone | Steady: plain about what you got wrong and what was unfair. | Anger reads as bitter; groveling reads as fake. |
| Apology | Specific about what you did and who it affected, with no “but.” | Apologizing for things you didn’t do. |
| If you did nothing wrong | Saying so calmly and showing the evidence. | Pages about how unfairly you were treated. |
| Naming attackers | Describing the crowd and the mechanics, with legal review. | Naming ordinary people, inviting legal risk and a new pile-on. |
| Legal matters | Talking to your lawyer before saying anything publicly. | Speaking publicly while a proceeding is unresolved. |
| Expectations | Putting your full story next to the scandal. | Expecting the internet to forget. |
How long should I wait before a ghostwritten book about a scandal?
Long enough that you can tell the story without re-fighting it. For most people that means months, and for a large public scandal it can mean a year or more. You can start the interviews sooner. Talking the story through with a ghostwriter, privately, is often part of how people get enough distance to write it well. Publishing is the step to delay. If you’re involved in any legal proceeding connected to the scandal, talk to your lawyer before you say anything publicly, including in a book.
The people who get hurt worst are the ones who rush. They publish while they’re still furious, the book reads like a rebuttal, and the crowd gets a second round. A few months of waiting costs you very little next to a book that reopens it all.
Should I apologize in my ghostwritten book?
If you did something wrong, yes, clearly and without hedging. Readers can tell the difference between an apology and a performance, and they forgive the first far more easily. An apology in a book should be specific about what you did, honest about who it affected, and free of the word “but.” It shouldn’t apologize for things you didn’t do, however loudly the crowd insisted you did them. Owning your real part gives you the credibility to describe the parts that were unfair.
If you did nothing wrong, and the pile-on was based on a misreading, a fake screenshot or someone else’s lie, say so calmly and show the evidence. Then spend most of the book on what the experience did to you, since readers remember that part.
Owning your real part gives you the credibility to describe the parts that were unfair.
Evidence does more here than eloquence. A calm paragraph that puts the doctored screenshot next to the original will help you more than ten pages about how unfairly you were treated.
Can my ghostwriter name the people who attacked me online?
Carefully, and with legal review. Public figures who led a pile-on can sometimes be named, because their public statements are part of the record. Ordinary people who joined in are a different matter. Naming them invites both legal risk and a second pile-on, this time aimed at them. Your book is arguing against exactly that.
Most strong books about being shamed describe the crowd as a crowd and focus on the mechanics: how the story spread, how context disappeared, how fast strangers decided they knew the author. My article on writing about real people without getting sued covers the legal side.
What should a ghostwritten book about being publicly shamed include?
The strongest ones share a shape:
- ► Who you were before, so readers know the person the crowd never saw.
- ► What happened, told with the context the pile-on stripped away.
- ► Your part in it, owned without excuses.
- ► What it was like inside the storm: the messages, the fear, the people who stood by you and the ones who didn’t.
- ► What it cost, in work, relationships and health.
- ► How you rebuilt, and what you’d tell someone going through it now.
Jon Ronson’s So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed is the best-known book on the subject, and worth reading before you start. It looks at the phenomenon from the outside. Your book is the view from inside.
The strongest books about public shaming move from who you were before to how you rebuilt.
Will a ghostwritten book make the internet forget my scandal?
No, and don’t write one expecting it. The internet keeps everything, as I wrote about in Every Little Stupidity, Enshrined Forever. What a book can do is change what people find next to the scandal. Someone who searches your name finds your version too, told calmly at full length, and many of them will read it.
Over time, that fuller story can become the one people remember, especially if the book is good and you keep building your life and work around it. I think that’s the fairest result someone who was shamed can hope for, since most of the crowd that judged them never heard the whole story in the first place.
My take
Wait until the crowd has moved on, then write the long version. A book won’t make the internet forget, so don’t write one hoping it will. What it can do is sit next to the scandal in a search, told calmly, by you. Own your part without groveling, and don’t use the pages to punch back at the people who piled on. Give readers the whole story most of them never heard.
When is a scandal book ready to write?
When you can tell the story without re-fighting it, when any legal matter is settled or cleared by your lawyer, and when you can name your own part in plain words.
Until then, wait. When it’s ready, describe the crowd without targeting individuals, have a lawyer read anything about real people, and give the book a second half about what you did after. I’d tell a client to wait another year before I’d help publish a book that starts the pile-on again.
The Book Discovery Intensive is a confidential place to work out whether now is the time, and my memoir ghostwriting page explains how I approach memoirs. The Dogpile series covers pile-ons from every angle. My ghostwriting services cover the book itself once the timing is right.
A side of the story worth telling needs distance, honesty and a writer who can shape it. The Ghostwriting Advantage explains how to get your book written for you, the way I’ve done it on 54+ books.
Frequently Asked Questions
- So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed, Publishers Weekly
- attorney-client privilege, Legal Information Institute, Cornell Law School
