Ghostwriting Do’s and Don’ts: Contracts, Scope Creep, and the Asimov Dream | The Exceptional Scribble Show, Episode 204

This is the complete conversation from Richard Lowe’s featured interview on episode 204 of The Exceptional Scribble Show with host Sage the Poet, joined by caller Gene Posniak, lightly edited for readability. The host’s extended opening and closing segments are condensed; Richard’s full interview appears as broadcast.

The introduction

Sage the Poet: Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to episode 204 of The Exceptional Scribble Show. I am your host, Sage the Poet, and tonight the feature artist in the spotlight is Mr. Richard G. Lowe Jr. He is a professional writer whose services meet all of the following needs: author blogs, blogging, book coaching, book formatting, copywriting, ghostwriting, LinkedIn profile optimization, personal and business branding, publishing, self-published author services, and technical writing. Richard Lowe Jr.’s dream has always been to be a professional author. In 2013, he decided to leave his job of 20 years and start a new career as a professional author, ghostwriter, blogger, and copywriter. In his words: “I’d been managing a team of IT professionals as Director of Technical Services and Computer Operations for Trader Joe’s for almost 20 years. I was on call 24/7, managed the just-in-time merchandising and warehousing systems, and my team operated the disaster site. It was time to go, move to a new place, start a new career, and build a new life.” You can read the full bio at thewritingking.com/ under the About tab. So now, without any further ado, rolling out the red carpet to present Mr. Richard G. Lowe Jr. Welcome, Richard.

Richard Lowe: Good evening. That was quite an introduction. Thank you, thank you. I’m humbled.

Sage the Poet: We’ll get started with tonight’s interview. Our caller queue is starting to fill. Good evening, Gene Posniak. Gene, introduce yourself to our special guest.

Gene Posniak: I’m a science fiction writer and poet and musician and part-time editor.

Richard Lowe: Nice to meet you.

The Asimov dream and the leap from Trader Joe’s

Sage the Poet: Richard, share with everyone when you first identified that you had this ability to write, what career you had at the time, and how that moment became the turning point when you realized professional writing is what you wanted to do for the rest of your life.

Richard Lowe: I’ll start from the beginning, going back before careers. I got the idea of becoming a writer when I was a young kid, probably 10 years old. I read some books by Isaac Asimov, and he became my idol as a writer. Isaac Asimov can write anything. That was what impressed me. I think he had a goal of writing 500 books, and he wrote 500 books before he died. And because he could write anything, I thought: I want to be a writer like that. I want to be able to write anything, write fast, and write to the public.

Now, life got in the way. I had to have a job and have a family, and I had excuses. I did a lot of writing for work, technical writing and some articles for technical magazines, so I knew I could write. And then in 2013, things changed at Trader Joe’s, and I decided it was time to start a new life. I’d been in the computer industry for 33 years. That was fun, a good career, and I made enough money that I could take a shot at being a writer. I moved to Florida, because I was in California at the time, and sat down and started writing: books near and dear to my heart about computer security, how to survive a disaster, and lots of books on business. Then I ran into a ghostwriter, and he asked me to work for him for a little while. I started doing it more and more, and I realized I’d found the right career.

Being a freelancer has its own set of challenges that are different from being employed. Not having a steady paycheck took some adjusting. Finding clients took some adjusting. And one of the things I want to do during this interview is talk about some of the myths writers have about finding work.

Sage the Poet: Perfect. Gene, any questions based on what Richard shared?

Gene Posniak: I’m really on the edge of my seat waiting for him to talk more about his journey. And Isaac Asimov is just a huge idol of every science fiction writer.

Sage the Poet: Richard, elaborate on that turning point, when you realized: I am a writer, and it’s my time.

Richard Lowe: I was working at Trader Joe’s 80 to 100 hour weeks, on call 24 by 7. The stress was very, very high; departments run thin on personnel. I looked first at the money I’d saved over the years and thought, okay, I can make this happen. I looked at my health and thought, the stress is hurting me. I looked at everything, the spiritual side, all the facets of my life, and decided: I’m going to go to Florida and write. I liked Florida because it’s a bit more conservative than California and as far away from California as I could get. Nothing against California; I was just tired of it.

The first book I started writing was actually a science fiction novel, which I’m still working on as what I call a betweener, in between things. It’s a space opera set a million years in the future, and I’m hoping to release the first set by the end of this year. I’m toying with releasing it as a series of shorter pieces, 20,000-word novelettes instead of the typical 80,000-word novel, so I can write it much quicker. It’s going to be a series of 10.

Stop trying to be Asimov: finding your own voice

Richard Lowe: One thing I ran into: I set this goal of being like Isaac Asimov as a writer. I liked his style, I liked all that. But I had to come to the realization that I’m me, not Isaac Asimov, not Robert Heinlein, not these other writers. I had to create my own identity as a writer, and that was an interesting confront. I had to tell myself to stop trying to be somebody else and instead find my own voice, my own style, my own interests, and write those things.

Why should you research the market before writing a book?

Richard Lowe: Now, something interesting: you have to temper that with what people will buy. I’ve written a lot of books that don’t sell, because they’re subjects I was interested in that nobody else is. When you’re looking for a subject to write, you have to do a little marketing first and decide: is anybody going to buy this book? That’s the first step of writing a book. If you skip that step, you’re rolling the dice. Unless you just want to write the book because it’s a memoir and you want to leave your stamp; that’s fine.

I’m a ghostwriter also, and that’s one of the things I work with my clients on. They’ll come to me with this great idea for a book, and we have to sit down, because I’m an ethical ghostwriter, and I want to find out why they want to write it. Who’s their audience, and what are they trying to achieve? Because you’re going to spend the money on a ghostwriter, and 99.9% chance you’re not going to make that money back selling copies. The way you make your money back is the book becomes your brand. It tells everybody about your competence, your expertise, your knowledge. It establishes you as the expert in that area.

I have one client who wanted an introduction from the CEO of his own company, a Fortune 50 company, and he achieved that goal: the CEO wound up writing the foreword for the book. Now he’s being introduced to other CEOs, and his career is going straight up, all because he worked with me on a book. I’ve got three more clients right now doing exactly the same thing with slightly different goals. The key point is to understand the goal and understand the market.

If you’re writing a science fiction novel, you’ve got an entirely different question: are there 50 million other books about a guy with a sword who goes out and kills dragons? Is yours unique, and will people buy it? Maybe it’s unique because nobody will buy it at all.

The coloring book lesson

Richard Lowe: I wandered into the world of coloring books, and I made 20 coloring books that are still for sale on Amazon. Turns out coloring books don’t sell. They used to, but everybody rushed in because people were making thousands of dollars on them, and before you knew it, there were millions of coloring books on Amazon. I probably make 40 bucks a month off those 20 books now.

Here’s the part that matters. I’m a photographer, and I did a lot of photography of belly dancers and renaissance faires. When I got into coloring books, I wanted to turn some of those photos into a coloring book. I got permission from the dancers, they loved the idea, and I found an artist who traced the photos. The first four coloring books I did were belly dancer coloring books, and those are the ones that actually sold, because all the dancers wanted them. That’s the point about finding a market: my market was the dancers, and they all bought them for Christmas presents. It was a limited market; the belly dance community is very small. I made a thousand bucks, which was cool because it didn’t cost much. Then I went kind of wild and made a bunch of other books, dragons and things, that didn’t sell because they had no market. It was a diversion and it was fun, but I wish I’d done the marketing research better up front. You live and learn. And watch out for the fads.

Sage the Poet: Were you self-published?

Richard Lowe: Everything I’ve got is self-published. I’m creating links with traditional publishers now, mostly for my ghostwriting clients, because they often want a traditional publisher. I’m what you call an indie publisher, an independent publisher. I’m actually an official publisher: I’ve got several blocks of ISBN numbers, I’ve got my own imprint, and I can publish other people’s books too. That’s a service I offer.

What kinds of books do ghostwriters write?

Gene Posniak: I’m wondering what the things you ghostwrite are. Are they mostly nonfiction? I can’t imagine why anybody would ghostwrite fiction.

Richard Lowe: It runs the entire gamut. I did a very technical book on the Internet of Things. I’m working on one on artificial intelligence. I’ve got a business book, a dental book, a book on retirement. And believe it or not, I’m ghostwriting a science fiction novel.

Gene Posniak: I’m curious about that one. What would their purpose be?

Richard Lowe: He has an idea of what he wants to write, but he isn’t a professional writer. We work together an hour each day, and we write together. It’s more of a collaboration; you could call me a ghost collaborator, because I won’t be listed on the cover unless he wants me to be. Every day, five days a week, we talk about what a character is doing, character arcs and story arcs, the backgrounds and scenery, and then we’ll get into the editing phase. I’ve done several other fiction books too. Several people have wanted me to ghostwrite books that fictionalize their business: they create characters, and we walk those characters through the business. Say a management firm: a novel about a company, how it ran before their firm came in, the process of changing it, and how it looked after. We’re creating a fiction book about a nonfiction subject. Quite interesting to do.

Gene Posniak: Are you getting your clients basically from word of mouth?

Richard Lowe: I get 50% of my clients straight off of LinkedIn. They see my LinkedIn profile and send me a connection or a message saying they want to talk. I get about 30% from my blog, and 20% just random, God knows where they come from. Somebody referred them, or they found my name in a ghostwriting group. Finding clients is about networking. You have to network.

What should be in a ghostwriting contract?

Sage the Poet: Define what ghostwriting is for those who haven’t explored it, and give us some do’s and don’ts.

Richard Lowe: Ghostwriting could be ghostwriting anything: a resume, a LinkedIn profile, a blog. I do a lot of ghost blogging. But usually when people say they’re a ghostwriter, they’re talking about books. It can be very lucrative. The vital elements to landing contracts: number one, you have to know how to write. Number two, you have to know how to interview. Number three, you have to know how to research. Number four, you have to know how to put all of that together into a book that is in the voice and style of the customer, not you. That’s what makes it challenging. I’ve got one client who curses all the time and wants his book to curse, symbols all over the page, and that’s what he wants, fine. Another had a very dry, technical style.

The very first book I ghostwrote was for an Afghani politician, which was a big challenge: I was totally unfamiliar with Afghan culture and the Muslim religion, he was a pre-Soviet-invasion politician with quite an interesting life, the first writer on the project had left, the ghost notes were lost, and the client barely spoke English and was hard to get hold of. I didn’t get paid very much, and we never finished the book, because he decided to go back to Afghanistan. I wrote about half of it.

Sage the Poet: Were you paid?

Richard Lowe: I was paid, and that goes right into do number one: you get a nonrefundable deposit up front. Then you do the rest in increments; sometimes a monthly retainer, sometimes 25-25-25-25. And you make sure that’s in the contract, which is do number two: always have a contract.

Your contract needs an indemnity clause, which protects you if the client gets sued. It’s not 100% protection, but it protects you a bit. An arbitration clause, so if he sues you, you go to an arbitrator instead of court, and make sure it’s in your local area, not his. The payment schedule. And make sure you include the words: anything paid is not refundable. Put it in bold. Make him initial it. Because you’re one person, and you can’t pay it back. And another do: be ethical. You’re getting paid to do a job; meet the schedules you set.

Don’t sell yourself short: rates and confidence

Richard Lowe: Some of the don’ts. Don’t sell yourself short. A lot of writers think they’re not as good as they are; they lack self-confidence. If you walk into a ghostwriting scenario where you’re bidding against other ghostwriters, which is quite common, and you’re not confident, you lost the project, or you’re going to get no money for it. One way to signal you’re not confident is a very low rate. Your rate should be high enough that you can make a living. If you want to make $50,000 a year, divide by the hours in a year, then double it, because of overhead and everything you’re never right about. My rate’s $150 an hour. Multiply your rate by how many hours you think the book will take, add research and interview time, then double it, because you’re never right.

Scope creep and the infinite revision phase

Richard Lowe: There are two things that will kill you hours-wise on a ghostwriting project, that will bury you so deep you can’t believe it. The first is scope creep. The client says: I want a book about rocks and minerals, 11 chapters long. Then sometime during the project: can we add a 12th chapter? Sure, no problem. Can we make each chapter a little bigger? Sure. Can we add some pictures? Sure. Every time you say yes, you’re reducing your hourly rate. You have to control that. Sometimes you give them something; most of the time it’s: yes, we can do that, and it costs this much more. Why should it cost more? Because it’s in the contract. That’s why your contract matters: 12 chapters, each chapter 3,000 words, one revision.

And that’s the second thing that will bury you: revisions. You write the book, and if you aren’t working closely with your client, he comes back and makes revisions, then his cousin looks at it and there are more revisions, then his wife, then five different people, and you find you lost money on the project. Limit revisions in the contract: once through each chapter and once through the book. If they want more, they pay by the hour. Be nice but firm.

How much of a writer’s day should be marketing?

Richard Lowe: And the big do: market every day. I don’t care what kind of writer you are; 20, 30, 40, even 50% of your time needs to be marketing and promotion. That’s your LinkedIn profile, branding yourself, networking with people, contacting agents or publishers, going to conventions, writing critique groups. You need to be out there. Writers have a hard time with that, because writers tend to be introverts. People skills? What are those? You’ve got to put that aside and do the marketing, or your book will not sell, and if you’re a freelancer, you will not get contracts. If you’re not getting contracts, it means you’re not marketing. You’re not out there hustling. If you’re not moving, you’re not going to get money. If you’re moving, you’re going to get money. It’s real simple.

Why do authors use pen names?

Sage the Poet: In terms of ghostwriting, I was thinking a ghostwriter can also write a book and remain anonymous. Would the writer use a pen name?

Richard Lowe: Let me answer a little more broadly. When you’re a writer, you should be using pen names to distinguish your brands. If you write science fiction and also computer books, choose two different pen names, because otherwise you confuse your audience. I made this mistake: I’ve got 50-some-odd books under my name, and I should have a separate name for each genre. I will be using a separate name for my fiction. Your audience sees a book by Joe Smith and runs to it; if they find out Joe Smith also does computer books they don’t want, they’re let down, and they don’t visit Joe Smith again. If Joe Smith is always science fiction, they grab it knowing they’ll like it. It’s a marketing strategy, and it protects your brand. You can also use a pen name for sensitive subjects you don’t want your name on.

And to your first question: ghostwriters tend to be anonymous. They’re not credited unless the client wants it. That’s the whole point: the ghostwriter gets paid, and the work belongs to the “author.” Every celebrity book you’ve ever seen, every politician’s book, every book by a CEO is almost certainly ghostwritten, because they’re not writers and they don’t have the time. You don’t think Hillary or Trump wrote their own books? They hired ghostwriters.

Sage the Poet: Does ghostwriting also encompass the music industry?

Richard Lowe: Yes. Ghostwriters can write songs, movie scripts, and anything else that has words. And I’m sure there are ghost artists and ghost illustrators too; I haven’t run into one, but I’m sure they exist.

Gene Posniak: I just realized I’d better create a new YouTube page with my musician tag on it instead of my author name. Thank you for that.

When the client already wrote their autobiography

Sage the Poet: What about writers who want a ghostwriter for an autobiography, but they’ve already pretty much written it themselves? How much would the ghostwriter actually do?

Richard Lowe: The ghostwriter would typically look at that pre-written book as a pile of notes, and write a new book based on it. Because typically, when I’ve gotten those, they’ve been, in all honesty, garbage. The story is good; the writing is awful. And often they’re too long. One person had 400,000 words of autobiography, and it’s like: dude, nobody’s going to buy an Encyclopedia Britannica volume about you. You need to find the thread that’s interesting and follow it.

There’s a book, ghostwritten by someone else, about a woman who survived the Holocaust; she was in Auschwitz. She had zillions of stories, and the ghostwriter had to narrow it down to the very interesting story of how she survived, and set aside the other stories. An autobiography is almost a nonfiction novel: you want it interesting and dramatic. When people write their own, they’re writing down words on paper, and to them, everything’s important. You find the one interesting thread and focus on it, a plot and a couple of subplots, with a goal at the end. If your goal is to show how you overcame bad things and became a good person, show a few of those; you don’t have to show every single one. Discard what’s important to you but not to the story. Of course, sometimes the client wants everything in, and okay, fine: you’re just going to pay more for it.

Picking your clients, and the ones to refuse

Richard Lowe: And there are books I have refused. I’ve refused quite a few clients because they were unethical, or too much trouble, or the client was wacko. One was a confidential informant for years who wanted to write an expose on the FBI and his snitches and the mafia. No. I’m not touching that. I like my life. Another had been in and out of psychotherapy for years and had brain surgery. He might have been a nice guy, but I’m not taking the chance. Use your own discretion.

That’s probably the other big do, for freelance writing of any kind: pick your clients. Some of them aren’t worth the trouble. You’re thinking, oh God, I need the money, I need that 500 bucks for rent. And you’ll get some client, and you’ll wind up not getting paid on time, doing more and more work for that 500 bucks, when you could have gone out and marketed and gotten five clients. Watch out for the ones who don’t have any money. When they start seriously negotiating you down, and you’re already at a pretty low rate: stop.

And you might have to lower your price in competition, but do it as part of a strategy, not a knee-jerk reaction. Have a base you won’t go below. It’s always better to ask for more than less, though you can go too high: if the client wants to spend $10,000 and you quote 15, you probably shot yourself out of the market. Good questions narrow it down: how much do you want to spend? The client will lowball you, but at least you have an idea.

And that’s the problem with the low end. If you’re writing at the low end of price, you’re competing with people in countries with a lower cost of living. I talked to a lady in Ukraine charging $100 for 10,000 words, and she said: in Ukraine, $100 is a month’s rent and food for a family of four. Not here in the US. When you drop down to typical Fiverr prices, you’re competing against people who don’t need to make as much as you to pay rent. You do not want to be there. Even if you win the bid, you lose, because you wind up working at a dollar an hour.

What can’t a ghostwriter do? Plagiarism and image rights

Sage the Poet: Can you share what things a ghostwriter can’t do?

Richard Lowe: Plagiarism is something a ghostwriter should never do. You don’t copy other people’s works. If you paraphrase or quote, you cite them, using the Chicago Manual of Style or another style manual; Word has it built in. Run an application like PlagScan, plagscan.com. It doesn’t cost much, you put your document in, it scans, and it tells you where anything came from, which saves you a lot of work hunting down things you might have forgotten.

The other thing to really watch out for, on the graphics side: if it’s on the internet, that doesn’t mean it’s public domain. Just because images are out there doesn’t mean they’re freely available to copy. When you’re looking for images for your book cover, use stock image sites; there are free ones and cheap ones. Don’t take something off a Google search and assume you can use it. You just committed copyright infringement, and you can get sued for it. If you take a Star Trek image and put it on the cover of your book, you can be sued by people with very deep pockets who will put you out of business. Ask permission; sometimes they’ll give it, and sometimes they won’t.

What does a book coach actually do?

Sage the Poet: On book coaching: what’s the best method for someone who finds themselves drafted into it by a friend with a first manuscript?

Richard Lowe: Let me approach it from what I do as a book coach; it might answer your question. If you’re an author and you’re stuck, and it doesn’t have to be a book, you can come to me, and for an hourly rate I’ll do book coaching or writing coaching to help with whatever your problem is: coming up with an outline, working out dialogue, helping you write, helping with a cover, publishing it. I’ve done it all.

Here’s the problem with relatives and friends: they’re going to be gentle or harsh, and they’re going to be biased. Ninety-nine percent of the time they don’t want to hurt your feelings, so you’re not going to get a very good coach. They don’t have the time, and they’re not getting paid. If you come to me, you’ve paid for the time, so you get the time, usually in a block of hours, and it’s unbiased. I’m not going to be harsh; that’s not the job. I’m not going to say “this is crap.” I’m going to guide you to write the best book, create the best cover, do the best publishing, whatever you need.

One common one: people want to self-publish, but it’s technically challenging. So we get on Zoom, get on their system, and I walk them through how to self-publish. They pay once, and after that they know how to do it; they don’t need a coach anymore. Another client couldn’t come up with an outline for his book, so we worked on the outline together, and then he said, let’s continue: we roughed out the character arcs, the arc of the whole novel, the climax, and started writing. Every day we get together and write a thousand words in an hour. And because you’re paying for the time, you show up. You can’t make an excuse. I mean, you can, but why would you? It becomes important to you because you’ve paid for it.

So it can be as little or as much as you need: help with the first couple of chapters, help with the whole book, help with the editing. The reason people hire a coach is they want to learn how to do it, with unbiased professional help. I’d recommend against family members or friends if you can afford it, and it’s not going to be as expensive as you might think.

Why “The Writing King”?

Sage the Poet: Richard, share with everyone why you’re best known by that title.

Richard Lowe: I was struggling, as most businesses do, to create a name that’s a good brand. What’s the name that says what I am? I realized I wanted to offer higher-end services. I’m not somebody who writes a blog for five dollars; I’m not a low-end writer. So King made sense to me, and I decided to pick Writing King. Unfortunately, there’s another king, his name is Stephen, who has “writing king” taken in spirit, so I got The Writing King. It sounds royal, it sounds confident; you get the mental image of somebody who knows what he’s doing. I got the logo created to back that up, the gold and the crown, designed with that in mind, just a slight amount of old style so it looks new but regal. The idea was to present myself as right up there with the best. If you need something written, I can write it. Anything to do with writing, that’s what I do.

As far as how to get hold of me: go to thewritingking.com/, spelled exactly like it sounds, and there’s a contact form. Or email rich@thewritingking.com, and that goes straight to me. All of my books are listed at coolauthor.com, which goes to my Amazon author page. And I guess I’m coming back next week, so I’ll talk about the fiction books then.

Sage the Poet: Yes indeed, part two next Tuesday. Our topic will move from ghostwriting to professional writing. And Richard, you mentioned homework for the audience?

Richard Lowe: I have a book called How to Operate a Freelance Writing Business and How to Be a Ghostwriter, which you can find at coolauthor.com. If you get it in advance of next week, take a look through it; you’ll come up with some questions, or it’ll give you some answers. It’s the stuff you need to know to get started.

Sage the Poet: Gene, any final questions before we wrap up the exclusive interview?

Gene Posniak: No further questions. I just want to thank him again for a really, really informative interview. One of the most informative guests you’ve had on the show in quite some time.

Richard Lowe: You’re welcome. My pleasure.

Sage the Poet: Thank you, Richard. We look forward to part two next Tuesday at 8 p.m. Eastern. Ladies and gentlemen, come with your questions.

Richard Lowe: Thanks so much. I look forward to next week. Have a good night.

Find Richard Lowe at thewritingking.com/.

Quotable moments

Frequently Asked Questions

Part of Richard Lowe on Air, his complete run of podcast, radio, and video guest appearances.