Walk into a car dealership and the salesperson will happily sell you the car, the financing and the service plan in one signature. The monthly number looks manageable, and it takes a lawyer to find out you signed a lease.
A publishing package that includes the writing gets sold the same way. One price covers the ghostwriting, the editing, the cover, the publishing and some vague promise of marketing, and the contract underneath decides who controls your book for years. I hate this model. Authors hand these companies a life story and a check, and plenty of them learn afterward that the company’s name is on the spine and the company’s hand is on the rights.
Picture an author whose book sits under someone else’s imprint, with someone else’s ISBN and a contract that says the company controls the rights for years. When something goes wrong, that author can do nothing but write polite emails and wait.
Should I use a publishing company package that includes writing, or hire a ghostwriter?
Hire a ghostwriter if you want to own the book outright and decide how it’s published. Take the package only if you’ve read the contract, you know who will write the book, and you’re comfortable with the company controlling the imprint, the ISBN and part of the royalties.
The two models solve different problems. A ghostwriter hands you a manuscript you own, and you pick the editor, the designer and the publishing route, on your own or with advice. With a package, the paperwork of publishing is the product and the writing comes thrown in, all under one price. One number for five services is hard to judge.
I dislike bundles for books for the same reason I dislike the dealership finance office. When every service sits inside one price, you can’t tell what the writing costs, what the editing costs, or whether the “marketing” line is worth anything. You can’t compare any piece of it with anyone else’s.
Ask any package seller to price each service separately, and cross off anyone who refuses.
What is a hybrid publisher?
A hybrid publisher charges the author for publishing costs and, in return, is supposed to behave like a real publisher. The Independent Book Publishers Association defines one in its hybrid publisher criteria as a publisher “utilizing an author-subsidized business model for the majority of its business.”
The IBPA lists eleven criteria. Among them: a hybrid should vet submissions, offer contracts that are negotiable and understandable, publish under its own imprints and ISBNs, meet industry standards for editing, design and production, provide distribution, and pay authors a higher-than-standard royalty.
Look closely at two of those. “Vet submissions” means a real hybrid turns books down. A company that says yes to everyone with a credit card is a vanity press using a nicer word. “Publish under its own imprints and ISBNs” means the company’s name goes on your book as publisher. That’s normal for a publisher, and you should understand it before you pay one.
My article on traditional, self-publishing and hybrid publishing compared goes deeper into how the three models differ.
Do hybrid publishers include ghostwriting?
Some sell it as an add-on, and plenty of self-publishing service companies bundle writing into their packages too. The IBPA’s criteria for judging a hybrid publisher don’t mention ghostwriting at all, so a hybrid that meets every one of them tells you nothing about the quality of its writers.
That gap matters. The criteria measure how a company publishes a book an author already wrote. When the company also writes the book, you need to know who is going to interview you and put your life on the page.
Ask for that person’s name, and then ask to talk to them before you sign. A company that sells the package through a salesperson and assigns a writer later is running the agency model, where you’re handed to someone you never met and didn’t choose. I recommend an experienced solo ghostwriter over that model every time, because the person who has to become you for a few months should be someone you picked.
Check whether the writer works for the company or freelances for it, and whether they stay with your book through the edits.
Get sample chapters written by the person assigned to you, before you pay. Samples from the company’s best-of shelf tell you what its best writer did for somebody else once.
Ask how many interview hours the package includes, too. A book in your voice needs a lot of listening up front, because writing as someone means becoming them for a while, and a package that budgets two calls and a questionnaire will hand you a book in the company’s house style. I’d want the number of sessions written into the contract, next to the word count, before I paid a cent.
Who owns my book in a publishing package?
You should own the copyright, and the contract decides everything else. The imprint, the ISBN, the right to publish and sell the book, the length of that right, and your share of the money are all terms in a publishing contract, and each one deserves a slow read.
The Authors Guild’s guide to hybrid publishing contracts tells authors to understand exactly how royalties are calculated, whether on net receipts, net profits or list price. It argues that an author who pays for publication should have the right to terminate at will, and it names red flags including required author purchases of their own books, option and non-compete clauses, and marketing services that cost extra.
Put the ghostwriting terms next to the publishing terms. Who owns the drafts, the notes and the interview recordings? Can you take the manuscript to another publisher if the relationship sours? If the writing and the publishing sit in one contract, a dispute over one can freeze the other.
Would you sign a car lease without reading how many miles you’re allowed? A royalty clause deserves the same attention. Find out what the company deducts before your percentage applies, on what schedule it pays you, and whether you get to see the sales reports.
Have a lawyer read the whole contract before you sign it, including every clause about the ghostwriting.
How do I publish a book after a ghostwriter finishes the manuscript?
You pick a publishing route, and the manuscript goes with you. A ghostwriter delivers a manuscript. I deliver a solid manuscript draft, refer clients to editors I trust for editing, proofreading and formatting, and don’t design covers. I explain that split in whether a ghostwriter edits, proofreads, formats and designs the cover.
From there, you choose. You can self-publish under your own publishing account, hire a hybrid for the production and distribution alone, or look for a traditional deal. I’ve had three clients’ books go to traditional publishers, and each took twelve to eighteen months to reach readers. I don’t recommend that route for most people, because of the delays, the much lower royalties and the loss of control.
Self-publishing is what I do with my own books, through IngramSpark. You hold the account, you set the price, and you can change printers or distributors without asking anyone’s permission.
Keep the writing and the publishing in separate contracts, so a bad publisher can’t take your manuscript hostage and a falling-out with one vendor leaves the other untouched.
Is a publishing package cheaper than hiring a ghostwriter?
The headline price looks lower on plenty of packages. That number hides more than it shows. A package that looks cheaper can come with a smaller word count, fewer interviews, a writer you never meet, and a royalty split that keeps paying the company for years. It makes me furious that authors keep paying a company for years out of a book they wrote.
Add up the whole cost of each path before you decide. For a ghostwritten book, that’s the writer’s fee plus editing, design and publishing, and I cover it in the all-in cost of a ghostwritten book. A package costs its sticker price plus the add-ons they’ll pitch you later, plus the royalty share the company keeps. Only then compare them.
Pay for help you can see. A ghostwriter’s quote, an editor’s quote and a designer’s quote each stand on their own against the market, and you can swap any of them out. A bundle hides all three behind one number.
The Authors Guild’s contract guide lists extra-cost marketing services as a red flag, and I understand why. Add-on marketing is where a package’s price keeps growing after you’ve signed, and it’s the hardest line on the invoice to measure. A press release sent to a list nobody reads looks like marketing on paper. Ask what each add-on delivers, in numbers you can check, before you agree to any of it.
Don’t let anybody sell you a package on the promise of sales, either. I tell clients that a book is very unlikely to pay for itself through sales. The return comes from what the author does with it: speaking, consulting work, courses, a promotion. When a package seller starts talking about bestseller lists, ask to see sales reports for the last ten books the company published.
When does a publishing package make sense?
A package can work for an author who wants one bill and one point of contact, and who has checked that the company meets the IBPA criteria, named the writer, and read the rights terms with a lawyer. If you’ve done all of that and you’re still comfortable, the convenience has value.
There’s no shame in wanting somebody else to handle the details. Plenty of busy executives and retirees would rather write one check than manage four vendors. Buy the convenience knowingly, with the rights terms read and the writer named. If the company’s writer is someone you’ve met, liked and heard on a call, and the contract hands you the files, a package can produce a decent book.
Most authors want to control the finished book. They want to decide when the price changes and what the next edition looks like, and they want the right to walk away from any vendor who stops doing a good job. A package trades some of that control for convenience, and you should know the price of the trade before you make it.
Ask what happens to your book if this company goes out of business next year.
What happens to my book if the publishing company goes out of business?
Your contract decides, and a lot of authors find out what theirs says only after nobody answers the company’s phone. A good contract spells out when the rights come back to you, and it says you get your files: the final manuscript, the edited version, the cover files and the print-ready interior.
The ISBN belongs to the publisher, since a hybrid publishes under its own. If the company folds and you want the book back on sale, plan on getting your own ISBN and republishing it as a new edition. That’s a hassle, and a survivable one, as long as you hold the files and the rights.
When Amazon terminated my KDP account after I followed its own instructions to change a subtitle, I moved my books to IngramSpark, and I could do that because every file and every right was mine. An author with a package book and no rights-reversion clause has nothing to carry out of the building.
Ask any package seller to show you, in the contract, what happens to your book if they close or sell the company.
Keys and title in your own name
Get the writing and the publishing priced separately, even if you end up buying both from one place. Talk to the writer before you sign anything. Read the imprint, ISBN, rights, term and royalty clauses with a lawyer, and don’t pay a company that refuses to explain them.
I’m angry at every package seller who buries a rights grab under a friendly monthly payment and calls it “full service.” Authors trust them with a life story and find out later they don’t control it. The Ghostwriting Hub covers hiring and publishing in depth. My ghostwriting services page explains how I work, and if you’re writing the book yourself, book coaching keeps the manuscript yours from the first page.
Drive off the lot with the keys in your pocket and the title in your own name, and nobody can repossess what you wrote.
