Ghostwriting Pricing
How ghostwriting is priced at The Writing King, and what moves the number. The current rate is published on the ghostwriting services page.
How is ghostwriting priced?
Full ghostwritten books are priced per word, so length drives the number, followed by type and research load. The current rate is on the ghostwriting services page, and proposal pricing is on the book proposal page. Most projects finish in three to six months. I take on six to eight clients a year, so each book gets the attention it needs.
If those numbers sit outside your budget, better to know it before a call than after one. Book coaching costs far less, because you write and I guide. That and the DIY path cost less, and both are honest options for the right project.
Books by project type
| Project type | Typical length | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Memoir / personal history | 60,000–80,000 words | 60,000-80,000 words from structured interviews. The full method is on the memoir process page. |
| Executive / business book | 35,000–70,000 words | Structure and thought-leadership books. Price scales with research depth and source verification. |
| Fiction | 30,000–90,000 words | Novels developed from your concept, outline, or partial draft. Genre and length drive the range. |
| Celebrity / public figure | 30,000–90,000 words | Books for people whose name is the platform, with the confidentiality that work requires. |
| Coach / consultant book | 30,000–60,000 words | Turning a coaching structure and client results into a book that brings in clients. |
| Book proposal | Proposal package | The agent-facing sales document: overview, market analysis, chapter summaries, sample chapter. |
All full ghostwriting is priced at the same per-word rate, published on the ghostwriting services page. Every project gets a fixed written quote before work begins.
What changes the cost of a ghostwritten book?
Length. A 40,000-word business book and an 80,000-word memoir are different amounts of work. The fee reflects that.
Research load. A book built entirely from your interviews costs less than one that needs external research, citations, and fact-checking against primary sources.
Source material condition. Clean interviews are the fastest input. Decades of journals, prior drafts, and scattered documents add organizing time, and organizing is real work.
Timeline. Three to six months is standard. Compressed schedules, where possible at all, cost more.
What does not move the number: haggling. The quote is a real price for real work, and this is spelled out in the Code of Conduct. No bait pricing. No vague fees appearing later.
How do you pay a ghostwriter?
Payment is due in advance of services rendered, on a monthly schedule for word-rate projects. Fees and terms go into a written Statement of Work before any writing starts. Either party may terminate in writing. You receive all completed work and owe nothing beyond work in progress.
Copyright transfers to you on final payment. No royalty share, no credit expectation, no residual claim. The book is yours.
Why the cheap options cost more
Content mills and offshore services quote $2,000 to $8,000 for a “book.” What arrives is usually unusable: template prose, invented facts, no voice. The client then pays a professional to redo it, and the mill fee bought nothing. The full analysis is in Why Ghostwriting Costs So Much and Why Cheap Writers and AI Content Are Like Discount Parachutes.
For the industry-wide picture of what ghostwriters charge, see The Complete Guide to Ghostwriting Costs and What Ghostwriters Charge.
Frequently Asked Questions About Ghostwriting Pricing
Get a real quote for your specific book
Your book becomes a fixed number after a discovery call: your material, your timeline, your word count. The quote you get is the price you pay.