The Art of Ghostwriting: Voice, Pricing, and the Whole Process | Sustainable Success with Chris Salem

This is the complete interview from Richard Lowe’s guest appearance on Sustainable Success with Chris Salem, broadcast on the Voice America Influencers channel on March 21, 2019, lightly edited for readability. Breaks and off-air production chatter are omitted. Historical book counts appear as spoken; current figures are bracketed.

Who hires a ghostwriter, and what does the market look like?

Richard Lowe: I’ll tell you about some of my clients, just vaguely, because they’re under non-disclosure. One lady came to me wanting a book of her dreams; she’d had these dreams for years, and the book was a retirement present to herself. Others, like the Internet of Things book and the AI book, were written to establish their authors. These people aren’t rich, so I do payment plans: a down payment, and then they pay as I write. That makes it really easy.

Now, the higher-end ghostwriters are expensive: a quarter million dollars for a book. What you’re paying for at that level is a name; usually they’ve been a journalist or had a couple of bestsellers, and they write one book a year. Me, what you get is a very competent writer who understands technology and can write about just about anything, priced for the small-to-medium business owner or middle-level manager who can afford it without shock. But I’m not low-end either, because I’ve got to make a living.

Ghostwriting as method acting

Chris Salem: When you’re writing, you’re writing in somebody else’s voice. It’s like an actor taking on a role: you need the message, but also a feel for the person, to articulate it with their energy. Is that fair?

Richard Lowe: Very true. In the first couple of interviews, I’m listening very closely to how they talk, what they’re saying, and the pile of notes or manuscript or journal they send me, and establishing: how does this person want the book written? The first question is always the audience. One of my books is about artificial intelligence for high school students, so no big words, but complex thoughts are fine. Another is aimed at children; another at college age. Then the voice: first person, third person? Business casual, more casual, more formal? It’s all up to the author.

We go through the first chapter or two several times until it clicks. One client now is a doctor, and we’re on his first chapter. He says: I don’t think like that. Okay, what do you think like? He tells me, we change the chapter, he says: you’ve almost got it, a little more like this. By the end of the first chapter or two, it clicks, I understand what he wants, and the rest of the book proceeds very quickly.

And it gets more interesting when you realize I’m writing anywhere from six to twelve books at the same time, plus three or four of my own. I switch between them all day long: an hour on one, then another, then back. By the end of the week, I’ve worked on all of them, changing voices and styles all day. It is very much like method acting. How does a method actor take on a persona? He just does. I keep notes, jump back in, and start writing. And between books: walks. The walks are important to free the mind. Writers get writer’s block because they sit at their desk all day staring at the screen; that’s one big reason for it. Get up and get out.

Chris Salem: I can relate 100 percent. My best ideas come on walks, or in the shower; never at the desk.

Advantages, disadvantages, and the hungry ghostwriter

Chris Salem: Let’s talk about the advantages and disadvantages of ghostwriting.

Richard Lowe: The advantage: the work is taken from you. The ghostwriter writes, helps with ideas, and, importantly, challenges you. When the audience is young adult and the client uses words young adults won’t understand, I say so. When something would slander somebody, I say so. You gain a partner who’s engaged in getting your book done, with the knowledge of how it all works.

A ghostwriter, by the way, generally delivers a good solid draft. From there you need an editor, a proofreader, a cover, and a publisher, and if you’re selling the book, a marketing plan. Your ghostwriter should be upfront about those additional steps. And the ghostwriter should never be your editor or proofreader; you want those to be outside resources.

Disadvantages: the cost, and the risk of the wrong fit. That’s why the first interview matters far more than references and samples. Samples matter, but talk to your ghostwriter and understand who they are: that they care, that they have a passion for your book, that they’re not just doing it for your money. They should be asking you questions, trying to get a feel for who you are. And you know how you can feel when somebody’s hungry? Watch out for that. A good ghostwriter doesn’t negotiate much on rates, because he’s a professional and that’s what he charges. If someone says “do it now and I’ll do it for half price”: ooh, this guy’s desperate, and you might have a problem. Pay a good price for good quality rather than the lowest price, and skip the content mills, where the lowest bid usually wins and usually isn’t the best bid.

Chris Salem: Why can’t the ghostwriter just edit the book too?

Richard Lowe: Because when a person writes something, their mind skips over the errors when they go back. I’ve proofread things five times, handed them to somebody else, and watched them uncover a pile of errors. Why? Because I wrote it. A third party makes the book smoother, and then the proofreader catches the grammar and spelling. The order is: write the manuscript, edit it, proofread it, get the cover, publish. If you go traditional, the publisher handles editing, proofreading, and covers. If you self-publish, it’s all on you. And if you do sign with a traditional publisher: they own a license to the content for a certain time and markets, not the content forever. Read the contract. Keep your movie rights. Maybe your foreign rights. Make sure you’re not giving up too much.

What does a ghostwritten book actually cost?

Chris Salem: When it comes to pricing, what’s a range where you’re getting a quality ghostwriter?

Richard Lowe: Ghostwriters charge by the page, the word, or the hour, depending on what they’re writing. A blog, I price per blog. A book, I price by the word: say you want 30,000 words, which is pretty average for a smaller business book, at 50 cents a word, that’s $15,000, plus research billed hourly if there’s research, and it’s normally far less than the 100-hour worst case. Then I take a 25 percent down payment and spread the rest over the life of the project: a down payment of $2,500 to $4,000, then monthly payments of $1,000 to $2,000 depending on the project length. Business people can budget that. And keep in mind it’s a business expense: in the United States, you write it off on your taxes, which reduces the real price further, and a lot of clients put it on cards. For a business doing well, $15,000 is not a lot of money.

Now, if somebody offers to write your 30,000-word book for $2,500: that’s way too low, and here’s the math. Think about whether this person is making a living wage. A freelancer at $60 an hour loses about 30 percent to the government, so they’re really making $40. If you’re paying so little that they can’t live on it, it’s not enough, and you’ll get what that buys. For a 30,000-word business book, $15,000 is about the right price, a little less or more. Unless you want a famous name attached, and then you’re in the $100,000 range; I know quite a few of those.

The book is marketing, not a revenue stream

Chris Salem: Some people will ask: is my book going to be a bestseller? Will I make it back on Amazon?

Richard Lowe: I always bring this up in the initial conversation, because the thought is usually there: I could sell this on Amazon. And what I tell them is: you’re not going to make the money back on your book on Amazon, period, unless you go with a real traditional publisher with a good marketing plan. And that’s not why you’re writing the book. You’re writing it to market yourself. It’s a component of your marketing program, and it pays for itself through speaking engagements, media, and something to hand your customers. A car dealer can keep books on the desk and give them to customers: you want to know how this works? Here’s a book about it. It makes you the expert.

Amazon sales are totally secondary. A lot of my customers donate their Amazon royalties straight to charity, because it isn’t much money, and they’re making what they need through everything else the book opens up. Think about it: one keynote at a good conference pays $10,000 or $15,000. There’s your money back in one engagement. And it can cascade into coaching programs, products, services, six figures downstream, with the book as the credibility foundation. Like all marketing: if you print business cards and put them in a drawer, they do no good. You’ve got to use it.

On formats: for credibility, paperback works best, and do the ebook too since it’s essentially free. First person, business casual, works really well for most of my clients, because they’re the expert: “I am telling you this is the best way.” Some want third person, and that works too.

On illustrations: two of my current books have them. I can subcontract it, but I prefer referring the client to three or four illustrators I know; they collect samples and pick, I’m out of the loop, and they don’t pay my markup for something that isn’t my forte. One client is an artist illustrating her own book, which is kind of interesting.

The process, start to finish

Chris Salem: Let’s walk through the process of doing a book, and where ghostwriting fits in.

Richard Lowe: Step one: if you’re even thinking about a book, even a glimmering, even if you don’t have the money right now, make an appointment. I give a free 30-minute-to-an-hour consultation, we go over your goals, and from there you’ll know: yes, this sounds great, or no, it’s not for me. Just send an email and we’ll set it up.

Step two, once you say yes: a very short contract, which is normal for ghostwriters, a statement of work, and the down payment invoice. Then we start with the first interview, sometimes two, to organize everything: the outline, the voice, the target audience, the global shape of the book, and a preview of the publishing steps and resources ahead. I keep interviews to an hour, because anything over an hour gets lost, and your time is valuable.

Then the first chapter phase. That might mean more interviews; you might have written pages. I actually prefer working from interviews rather than deciphering manuscripts, but I can do both. I write, we go back and forth, sometimes several passes, because those first two chapters establish what the rest of the book will be. Then we proceed through the whole book at a pace set in the contract, matched to what you can pay: say, one 3,000-word chapter a month. I deliver the chapter, you pay the next invoice, and on we go.

All of my contracts have a clause: if we don’t like each other, we shake hands and we’re done. You get everything I’ve written; there are no refunds, but everything you’ve paid for belongs to you, because you’re paying as we go. And that’s never happened. Nobody’s ever left, and I haven’t left any client. By the way, I just started my 27th ghostwritten book [54+ as of 2026].

At the end, we go over the whole thing together. Sometimes that’s fast; sometimes the client has changed their mind mid-book, like one 80,000-word project where we needed a joint editing pass to clean up the loose ends, because the book was different at the end than at the start. Jargon gets cleaned up. And then it’s ready for the editor.

The legal layer: citations, plagiarism, and slander

Richard Lowe: A very, very important part of my job: making sure sources are cited. You don’t want to be challenged for plagiarism or sued. Anything referenced goes in the citations and bibliography. I do as much of that on the first pass as possible, because it’s harder to retrofit. Fair use exists in the United States, which is how movie reviews work: you can use snippets with citation, but you can’t paste whole pages in.

And understand what plagiarism actually is: you cannot copyright ideas, only words. That’s why there can be 50 books about artificial intelligence all saying roughly the same thing, each from its author’s own expertise. But you can’t just change the words around and call it yours; that’s still plagiarism. Beware of the ghostwriter who doesn’t know that.

Same with slander: if other people can recognize somebody from your book, it’s still slander even though you changed the name. If you’re going to write badly about somebody, change enough that they can’t be recognized. For my part, I don’t take on negative books; if somebody wants a book tearing down her ex-husband, I refer that to another ghostwriter. I write books with positive themes. And I’m not a lawyer, but I know the things that trip people up, and I make sure the book is not only well-written but legal; if something might be borderline, I’ll tell you to send it to a copyright lawyer. The low-end ghostwriters won’t do any of this. That’s why they’re low-end.

Chris Salem: I can relate: somebody once took my process verbatim into their marketing, word for word, and I only knew because I was on their email list. We got it corrected once I mentioned lawyers.

Richard Lowe: So to summarize the whole process: you have the idea, we have a free interview, you decide, we contract, we interview and outline, we lock the voice in the first chapters, we proceed chapter by chapter at your budget’s pace, and at the end we review, fix, and hand off to the editor. Straightforward. Obviously a lot of work, for me.

Closing

Richard Lowe: You can reach me at thewritingking.com/; there’s a contact form, or email rich@thewritingking.com. My writing training courses are at fictionmasterclass.com. I’m in central Florida, East Coast time.

Chris Salem: Everybody, we highly encourage you: if you’ve got a message and you want to build a legacy, raise your influence, and be looked at as a thought leader, focus on what you do best, and let somebody like Richard do what he does best. Everyone wins, and ultimately your audience benefits. Richard, thank you for joining us; the on-demand version will be on the Voice America Influencers channel. We’ll be back next Thursday. Have a great day, everyone.

Richard Lowe: Thank you, Chris.

Find Richard Lowe at thewritingking.com/.

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