Hiring a ghostwriter is like hiring a contractor to build a house you will live in for the rest of your life. You are not merely buying labor, you are trusting someone to translate what is in your head into something permanent that everyone will judge as yours. A cheap contractor who cuts corners leaves you with cracks that show for years; a good one asks the right questions, works to code, and hands you something you are proud to stand in front of. These 14 questions are your inspection checklist, and the answers separate the professionals from the people who will leave you with an abandoned foundation.
Before the questions, two practical notes. Ghostwriters are found through referrals, search visibility, and professional networks: writing groups, search engines, professional directories, referrals from other published authors, and ghostwriting service websites, while content mills like Upwork produce writers at low rates where quality varies dramatically and you get what you pay for. Once you find someone, virtually all professional ghostwriters offer a free initial consultation, so use it to evaluate compatibility and project-management sense, come prepared with questions, and do not feel pressured to decide immediately or before talking with others.
Five questions to ask before you hire a ghostwriter
You’ll work with this person for months — and your name goes on the cover
Published books & samples?
Completed manuscripts that actually reached publication prove they can finish.
What’s the process — and is anything outsourced?
Interviews, research, outlining, drafting, review cycles — and who actually does them.
NDA, legal issues, and your subject?
Confidentiality is yours to control; the writer should respect it by default.
Contract, rate, and how it’s calculated?
No contract? Find another ghostwriter. It defines deliverables, timing, and cost.
Research, language, credit, and scope changes?
There’s no licensing body, so their answers here are how you judge them.
Have your books been published, and can you see samples?
The point of writing a book is getting it published, so a ghostwriter who has completed manuscripts that reached publication has demonstrated the ability to manage a project from concept through delivery, which matters more than you might think. Books stall constantly: clients lose interest, run out of budget, get busy, or change scope without paying for it. In my experience ghostwriting 54+ books, I have seen clients get new jobs that consumed their attention, clients enthusiastic at the start who disappeared at the 25% mark, and projects that needed renegotiation when scope expanded, and a ghostwriter with published credits has worked through all of that and still delivered. If contractual obligations prevent showing ghostwritten titles, ask about books published under their own name; I have published 113+ books, all publicly available for quality evaluation. A ghostwriter without published credits is not automatically disqualified, but it is a caution flag.
On samples, nondisclosure agreements often prevent sharing client work directly, which is normal and expected, since the NDA protects client confidentiality and a ghostwriter who readily shares client manuscripts should concern you more than one who cannot. Instead ask for books under their own name, sanitized excerpts with identifying details changed, or a portfolio showing range. The portfolio should demonstrate range: when I send samples I include fiction, nonfiction, technical, and biographical writing, because a ghostwriter needs to adapt to your voice, not write everything in their own. Look at whether the samples read like they were written by different people, because a ghostwriter who sounds the same regardless of project is writing their book, not yours.
What is your process, and will any work be outsourced?
Writing a book involves much more than typing, so a competent ghostwriter manages interviews, research, outlining, drafting, client review cycles, revision, scope changes, and coordination with editors, proofreaders, cover designers, and publishing platforms; the ghostwriter is a project manager as much as a writer. Ask them to walk you through their process, and they should explain the stages clearly, from initial interviews to understand your goals, through content interviews and research and drafting, to the steps between finished manuscript and published book. Pay attention to how they handle client management, since some clients want daily updates and others want to be left alone until a milestone, and your ghostwriter should ask about your preference and adapt.
Outsourcing parts of a project is common and often appropriate, proofreading, editing, cover design, illustration, indexing, and marketing are frequently handled by specialists, and the ghostwriter should be transparent about what gets outsourced and who pays. But the writing itself should not be outsourced without your knowledge. I have seen ghostwriters set up arbitrage operations, accepting projects and farming the actual writing 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 admitted the entire manuscript was written by someone else. Ask directly: will you personally write my book? And 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, the client, and a professional treats the relationship with confidentiality regardless of the contract, but the NDA makes it enforceable, so it should be part of the contract or statement of work, and if it is not included, insist on a separate NDA before work begins, keeping it simple, since 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 are portrayed negatively; even fiction can create liability if characters are recognizably based on real individuals. 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 identifying details, and 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.
On subject matter, your ghostwriter does not need to be an expert in your field, because you are the expert and their job is to extract your expertise through interviews and research and then structure it into a readable manuscript. That said, some familiarity with your subject means less ramp-up time and fewer explanations, so ask about their research process and how they handle unfamiliar topics, since experienced ghostwriters include research time in their quotes and set clear limits on allocated hours with a rate for overages.
What about the contract, the rate, and how it is calculated?
If a ghostwriter does not use contracts, find a different ghostwriter, because the contract defines what gets delivered, when, at what cost, under what terms, and what happens if things go wrong; without one there is no agreement, and the result is almost always anger on both sides. It should include deliverables, timeline, total cost, payment schedule, termination clause, indemnity clause, arbitration clause, NDA, and project scope, and it should specify what happens when scope changes, because scope always changes. Good contracts tend to be short and clear, since long volumes of legalese typically protect one party at the expense of the other, and a fair, straightforward contract tells you something about the ghostwriter’s approach to business.
On rate, you need to know the cost and the ghostwriter needs to understand your project before quoting accurately, so be cautious of anyone who quotes a price without asking about your project first. Low rates are a red flag: a ghostwriter charging $5,000 for a full-length book is either outsourcing to cheap labor, cutting corners, or undervaluing their time in a way that will show in the manuscript, and you get what you pay for, a reality reinforced by the 2024 Business Book ROI Study, which found ghostwritten books produced four times the revenue of self-written ones. As for how the rate is calculated, ghostwriters charge by the word, hour, page, or project, or a combination, so make sure you understand what the rate covers, whether interviews and research are included or billed separately, how expenses are handled, and what happens if scope expands, and get all of it in the contract, because if it is not written down, it does not 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, and the “certifications” that exist do not carry the weight of credentials in medicine or law, typically reflecting coursework based on one instructor’s experience, so quality varies enormously. The difference between a ghostwriter who manages projects professionally and one who just writes is the difference between a finished book and an abandoned manuscript, because ghostwriting requires project management, interviewing, research, client coordination, and voice matching, and writing a book in another person’s voice, from their perspective, with their ideas, is substantially harder than writing your own. Language fluency matters too: if your book is in English, your ghostwriter must be fluent in English, and while hiring writers from other countries can reduce costs, fluency issues show up in the manuscript and increase editing costs, so budget accordingly, since this is about the quality of the final product, not nationality.
Two final questions. You can list your ghostwriter as a contributor, co-author, writing coach, or editor, and some will negotiate a reduced rate in exchange for a cover credit because it lets them add the book to their public portfolio, but the choice is entirely yours, and if you do not want them on the cover you can still credit them on the copyright page or in acknowledgments. And projects always change, books get longer, chapters get added, interviews reveal new material, so a professional anticipates scope changes and has a process: I recently completed a project contracted at 5,000 words per chapter for two chapters that, by the end, exceeded 20,000 words each because the client realized more depth was needed, and we renegotiated to reflect the additional work. Ask how they handle scope changes before they happen, and make sure the answer and the contract align. Treat your ghostwriter as a professional and pay accordingly, insist on samples, a clear contract, transparent pricing, and honest answers, and the right one delivers a book you are 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 is the work I do. Inspect before you build.
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Great questions, but I cringe at the first. I have had several clients. some of whom have finished their books and some not None has published for various reasons. So I cannot answer that truthfully.
Have you published your own book? That was the way I got around this when I first began as a ghostwriter.
Ghostwriting jobs are the highest paid writing jobs available on the internet. The ghostwriting might be a perfect job for the people who want to earn money from home. Thanks for the excellent writing.
Hi Richard, I really appreciate the way you’ve shared your expertise, particularly on pricing and also on research and out-of-scope tasks.
I’ll be working several of these ideas into my next contract.
Many thanks!
Brilliant ideas to ask before hiring a ghostwriter. Thanks writing this article.