How to Hire a Ghostwriter: 5 Questions to Ask First

I’ve ghostwritten 54+ books, and I’ve heard plenty of horror stories from people who hired the wrong writer before they found me. Most of those disasters were preventable with a few questions up front.

Hiring a ghostwriter is like hiring a contractor to build a house you’ll live in for the rest of your life.

You’re trusting someone to translate what’s in your head into something permanent that everyone will judge as yours. A cheap contractor who cuts corners leaves cracks you’ll be staring at for years, cursing yourself every time. A good one asks the right questions, works to code, and hands you something you’re proud to stand in front of.

These questions are your inspection checklist, and the answers separate the professionals from the people who’ll leave you with an abandoned foundation. Ask every one of them, of me included. Finding out in month four that you hired the wrong person costs far more than an awkward half hour on a first call.

Before the questions, two practical notes. You find ghostwriters through referrals from published authors, search engines, writing groups, professional directories, and ghostwriting service websites. Content mills like Upwork will hand you a writer at a low rate, and I’ve been paid to rescue what comes back often enough to call that a gamble instead of a saving. Once you find someone, nearly every professional ghostwriter gives a free initial consultation. Use it to judge compatibility and project-management sense. Come with questions, and don’t feel pressured to decide on the spot or before talking with others.

Have your books been published, and can you see samples?

The point of writing a book is getting it published. A ghostwriter with completed manuscripts that reached publication has shown they can manage a project from concept through delivery, and that counts for a lot. Books stall constantly: clients lose interest, run out of budget, get busy, or change scope without paying for it.

Across 54+ ghostwritten books I’ve seen clients take new jobs that consumed their attention, clients who were enthusiastic at the start and vanished at the 25% mark, and projects that needed renegotiation when scope grew. A ghostwriter with published credits has worked through all of that and still delivered. If contracts prevent showing ghostwritten titles, ask about books under their own name. I’ve published 113+ books, all publicly available.

A ghostwriter without published credits isn’t automatically disqualified, but it’s a caution flag.

Nondisclosure agreements often prevent sharing client work directly. That’s normal.

The NDA protects the client, and a ghostwriter who freely shares client manuscripts should worry you more than one who can’t. Ask instead for books under their own name, sanitized excerpts, or a portfolio that shows range. When I send samples I include fiction, nonfiction, technical, and biographical writing, because a ghostwriter has to adapt to your voice instead of writing everything in their own.

Check whether the samples read like different people wrote them. A ghostwriter who sounds the same on every project is putting their own voice on your cover, and keeping it off is the whole reason you’re paying them.

What is your process, and will any work be outsourced?

Writing a book is far more than typing.

A competent ghostwriter runs the whole show, from interviews, research, outlines and drafts to revisions, plus the editors and designers on top of all that. The ghostwriter is a project manager as much as a writer. Ask them to walk you through their process. They should explain the stages clearly, from the first interviews about your goals, through content interviews, research, and drafting, to the steps between finished manuscript and published book.

Watch how they handle client management. Some clients want daily updates and others want to be left alone until a milestone. Your ghostwriter should ask which you prefer and adapt.

Outsourcing parts of a project is common and often suitable. Specialists frequently handle proofreading, editing, cover design, illustration, indexing, and marketing, and the ghostwriter should be open about what they outsource and who pays. The ghostwriter should never outsource the writing itself without your knowledge.

I’ve seen ghostwriters run arbitrage operations, accepting projects and farming the writing out to low-cost content mills without telling the client. One got caught when the client noticed the quality was far below the consultation, and when confronted he admitted someone else wrote the entire manuscript. Ask directly whether they’ll personally write your book. Get the answer in the contract.

Do you understand the NDA, the legal issues, and my subject?

Heard elsewhere

Because an NDA prevents showing client work, a ghostwriter should have books under their own name on Amazon in several styles. Richard set out the vetting checklist on So You Want to Hire a Ghostwriter.

The decision to disclose that a book was ghostwritten belongs to you. A professional treats the relationship as confidential regardless of the contract, but the NDA makes it enforceable, so it should be part of the contract or statement of work. If it’s not, insist on a separate NDA before work begins. Keep it simple. Simple NDAs work better than complicated ones.

Legal exposure is real. Nonfiction must be factual, properly cited, and free of plagiarism. Memoirs risk defamation when real people come off badly. Even fiction can get you sued if a character is obviously your old business partner. I once heard of a ghostwriter who wrote a book for an ex-convict that named real people as prostitutes, drug dealers, and smugglers without changing names or details. The lawsuits were predictable and expensive.

Your ghostwriter should understand defamation, privacy law, and intellectual property, but regardless of their knowledge, hire a lawyer who specializes in publishing law to review the manuscript before publication.

Jesse Ventura’s lawsuit over American Sniper shows how expensive this gets.

Chris Kyle’s memoir described a 2006 confrontation at a California bar with an unnamed celebrity who, according to the book, told Navy SEALs, “You deserve to lose a few.” Kyle later identified the man as Ventura, the former Minnesota governor, and said he’d punched him. Ventura said it never happened and sued.

In 2014 a federal jury awarded Ventura $1.8 million against Kyle’s estate: $500,000 for defamation and $1.35 million for unjust enrichment. As Variety reported, the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals threw out both awards in 2016, ordering a new trial on defamation and dismissing the unjust enrichment claim. According to CBS News, the two sides agreed to dismiss the case in December 2017.

The book never used Ventura’s name, and the estate still spent more than three years in court after the verdict. A publishing lawyer’s review before release costs a fraction of that, and I’d insist on one for any memoir that puts a recognizable person in a bad light.

Your ghostwriter doesn’t need to be an expert in your field.

You’re the expert. Their job is to draw your expertise out through interviews and research and structure it into a readable manuscript. Some familiarity with your subject still means less ramp-up time and fewer explanations, so ask about their research process and how they handle unfamiliar topics. Experienced ghostwriters include research time in their quotes, set limits on allocated hours, and state a rate for overages.

How is a ghostwriter’s rate calculated?

If a ghostwriter doesn’t use contracts, walk away. The contract defines what gets delivered, when, at what cost, under what terms, and what happens if things go wrong. Without one there’s no agreement, and the result is almost always anger on both sides. It should cover deliverables, timeline, total cost, payment schedule, termination, indemnity, arbitration, the NDA, and project scope. Spell out what happens when scope changes, because scope always changes.

Good contracts tend to be short and clear. Long volumes of legalese usually protect one party at the expense of the other. A fair, simple contract tells you something about how the ghostwriter does business.

People who come to me after a bad experience with another ghostwriter tell the same stories over and over: the writer missed the schedule, asked for more money halfway through, or handed back a book that didn’t sound like them. A short, clear contract heads off the first two before they start. I don’t have much patience for writers who treat the contract as a formality and the client’s budget as an open tab.

You need to know the cost, and the ghostwriter needs to understand your project before quoting it. Be wary of anyone who names a price without asking about your project first.

Rock-bottom rates are a warning. A ghostwriter charging a fraction of the going rate for a full-length book is outsourcing to cheap labor, cutting corners, or undervaluing their own time, and all three of those arrive in the manuscript. The 2024 Business Book ROI Study found ghostwritten books produced four times the revenue of self-written ones, and a cheap job throws away the reason you hired somebody in the first place.

Ghostwriters charge by the word, hour, page, or project, or some combination.

Make sure you know what the rate covers: whether it includes interviews and research or the ghostwriter bills them separately, how they handle expenses, and what happens if scope expands. Get all of it in the contract. If it’s not written down, it doesn’t exist.

What research, what language fluency, what credit, and how are scope changes handled?

There are no industry standards for ghostwriting. No required certifications, no licensing, no union, no governing body. The “certifications” that exist carry none of the weight of a credential in medicine or law, and I’d treat one as evidence of nothing. Most reflect coursework built on one instructor’s experience. Quality varies enormously.

A ghostwriter who can manage a project finishes books. One who only writes leaves you with an abandoned manuscript. Ghostwriting requires project management, interviewing, research, client coordination, and voice matching. Writing a book in another person’s voice, from their perspective, with their ideas, is far harder than writing your own.

Fluency matters too. If your book is in English, your ghostwriter must be fluent in English. Hiring writers from other countries can reduce costs, but fluency problems show up in the manuscript and raise editing costs. This is about the quality of the final product, whatever the writer’s nationality.

Two final questions. You can list your ghostwriter as a contributor, co-author, writing coach, or editor. Some will take a reduced rate in exchange for a cover credit, because it lets them add the book to their public portfolio. The choice is yours. If you don’t want them on the cover, you can still credit them on the copyright page or in the acknowledgments.

Projects always change. Books get longer, chapters get added, interviews reveal new material. A professional expects scope changes and has a process for them.

I recently finished a project contracted at 5,000 words per chapter where two chapters ended up past 20,000 words each, because the client saw that more depth was needed, and we renegotiated to cover the extra work. Ask how they handle scope changes before they happen, and make sure the answer matches the contract.

Treat your ghostwriter as a professional and pay accordingly.

Insist on samples, a clear contract, transparent pricing, and straight answers. The right one delivers a book you’re proud to put your name on. For more, see the difference between a co-author and a ghostwriter, whether ghostwriting is ethical, and what it produces for clients. The ghostwriting hub covers the rest, and if you want an honest assessment of scope, timeline, and cost, that’s the work I do.

A good ghostwriter will answer every question on this list plainly and put the answers in the contract. If somebody gets vague about their process, their contract or their past work, walk away. Vagueness at the sales stage is the cheapest preview you’ll ever get of how that person handles trouble, and ignoring it because the price looked good is how people end up paying twice for one book.

The safest way to judge a ghostwriter is on your own material. My Book Discovery Intensive is ten hours of interviews, a book strategy and a sample chapter in your voice, so you can see the work before you hire me for the whole book.

Frequently Asked Questions