A client almost gave $30,000 to a ghostwriting agency.
Full service. Book, publication, promotion. Whole package. Website looked professional. Testimonials glowed. Everything polished and ready to take his money. One thing saved him. He picked up the phone.
This story is a good one, and a maddening one. Calling references is the cheapest protection a book buyer has, and most people skip it because a polished website feels like proof. A testimonial page is marketing copy, chosen by the people selling to you, and I’d never let a client treat it as evidence. Most people don’t call references. Read testimonials on the website and assume they’re real. Or call one, get a good response, stop there.
This client called all of them.
Most were negative. Book didn’t sound like them. Process felt rushed. Got something back that looked like their story shoved into a template. Parts didn’t fit. Agency forced them anyway. One reference said she barely recognized her own life in the manuscript they delivered.
What do ghostwriting agency references tell you?
These agencies run a production line. Writers cranking out books on deadline. Your story comes in, and they assign it to whoever’s available and process it.
No deep interviews. No understanding of structure. No time figuring out where your story starts.
They’ve got a template. Your life gets shoved into it. Doesn’t matter if pieces don’t fit. They force it. Hand you something that looks like a book from a distance. Up close, gaps show. Nothing lines up.
You paid $30,000 for something you barely recognize.
The promotion they promised is usually a press release nobody reads and an Amazon listing you could have set up yourself in an afternoon. I think selling that as “full service” is a con dressed up as a package, and the people it hurts most are first-time authors who have no way of knowing what real promotion looks like.
What Did the References Say?
He booked a call with me next.
First thing I told him: I don’t work like an agency.
People who come to me after a bad experience with another ghostwriter tell me the same things over and over. The writer couldn’t keep to the schedule, wanted more money halfway through, or handed back a book that didn’t sound like them. Those are exactly the failures a reference call exposes, and a sales page will never mention a single one of them.
Books aren’t the product. I solve problems. Book is how we solve it.
What do you want this book to do? Build your authority? Attract clients? Leave a legacy for your grandchildren? Close a chapter of your life so you can move on?
Once we know the problem, we build the solution. Book is the vehicle.
I interview. Deep. Multiple sessions over weeks. Figure out where your story starts. Not always where you think. Listen for scenes that matter and ones that feel important but add nothing.
I ask questions you haven’t asked yourself, the ones that make you pause and hurt a little, because the story is in the answers. Then I outline. Structure first. We agree on the shape before I write a word. You see the skeleton. Approve the bones before we add muscle.
Then I draft. Then we revise. Together. Multiple rounds until it sounds like you.
| Stage | Agency package | Problem-first process |
|---|---|---|
| Starting point | Your story is assigned to whoever is available | What do you want this book to do? |
| Interviews | No deep interviews | Deep, multiple sessions over weeks |
| Structure | Your life is shoved into a template | Outline first; you approve the shape before writing |
| Drafting and revision | Processed on deadline, gaps forced shut | Draft, then multiple revision rounds together |
| Promotion | Usually a press release and an Amazon listing | The book is the vehicle for your goal |
| Result | Looks like a book from a distance | A book that sounds like you |
His book sounds like him. Because I took time to learn who he is and what he needed. Didn’t shove his story into somebody else’s template.
Which memoir did the references never mention?
Another client came to me with a life story spanning sixty years. Multiple careers. Family drama. Trauma she’d never told anyone. Moments of triumph buried under decades of just getting by.
Her problem wasn’t that she needed a book. She’d been carrying this weight alone for six decades. Needed to get it out. Make sense of it. Leave something true behind.
Book was the solution.
She’d tried writing it herself. Kept getting lost. Started chapter one a dozen times. Too many threads. No idea what to include or leave out. Every time she sat down, weight of sixty years crushed her. We spent weeks talking. Not writing. Talking. Asked questions she’d never considered. What did that moment feel like in your body? What didn’t you say that day? What do you wish you’d done differently?
Found the throughline connecting a chaotic childhood to the woman she became. Identified five scenes to build the whole book around. Cut decades of noise that felt important but didn’t serve the story. Then we built it. Piece by piece. Chapter by chapter. Each one reviewed before moving to the next.
The Memoir Writing Bundle teaches this same process. How to find your story’s shape. Identify what matters. Build without getting lost.
Some stories need a partner. Someone to hold the structure while you do the hard work of remembering. Someone who’s done this before and won’t let you skip steps. An assembly line does its worst damage on a memoir. A woman carrying sixty years of history can’t be processed through a template built for business books, and an agency that tries is taking her money for a book she won’t want to hand her family.
Which novel shouldn’t have worked, but did?
My own book, Shield of Ashes, runs 120,000 words. Multiple points of view. Ukrainian military. Russian forces. International politics. Journalists, soldiers, civilians, intelligence officers. Different cultures, different languages, different agendas, all colliding in a war zone. On paper, shouldn’t work. Too complex. Too many threads. Too easy to lose readers in chaos. One wrong move and whole thing collapses.
Works because I mapped it first. Every character has an arc before I wrote chapter one. Every subplot connects to the main spine. Every timeline tracks on a master document so nothing contradicts. Every scene justifies its place or gets cut, no matter how much I loved writing it.
Spent weeks on structure before writing a single scene. Boring work. Essential work. Work most writers skip because they’re excited to start. I get impatient with writers who skip structure because they’re eager to start drafting. They’re spending the client’s patience on their own excitement, and the client pays for it later in rewrites that never quite fix the shape.
The Plot Structure Handbook breaks down how to manage complexity without losing your reader. Multiple POVs. Subplots that serve the main story instead of distracting from it. Timelines that weave instead of tangle.
My take
Call the references. Almost nobody does, and they’re the most useful thing a prospect can check. One prospective client did, and most of what came back was negative. It still won me the job. Praise tells you little. Complaints tell you how a writer works, and you can decide whether you can live with that. Ask what went wrong, and listen to how the writer answers for it.
Why Did the Negative References Win Him the Job?
Agencies sell you a product. I build you a solution. Book is how that solution is implemented.
Takes longer. Costs more. And it lasts.
Those bundle packages sell speed and promises, and I understand why they’re tempting. What they leave out is attention. To the agency your story is a slot on a production calendar with a template waiting to be filled, and I think anybody paying for a book about their own life deserves better than being a line item.
Your story is yours. Shape of it. Weight of it. Parts hard to tell and parts that surprise even you. Deserves more than an assembly line.
Client who called the references? His book is done. Sounds like him. Structure holds. No gaps. No forced pieces. Does what he needed it to do.
He’s glad he made those calls. References saved him thirty grand and six months of frustration. All because he did what most people don’t. He picked up the phone.
Call every reference, and track down past clients they didn’t list if you can find them. A ghostwriter or agency that gets nervous when you ask to talk to former clients has already answered your question, and I’d walk away from them without a second call.
References are one step in hiring a ghostwriter. The Ghostwriting Advantage covers the rest of how to get your book written for you, from someone with 54+ ghostwritten books behind him.
