Updated May 2026 to reflect current data. Original recording: 2025.

Richard Lowe (The Writing King) joins Shatoya on the Las Vegas IT Management Podcast from K&B Communications for a conversation aimed at technical leaders thinking about their next career move. Richard covers the audience-first writing approach that almost ended his tech career when he didn’t follow it, why AI sits in the uncanny valley of writing, the Socratic interview process that captures the heart of a book, how a Fortune 50 VP turned his ghostwritten book into $30 million in venture capital and a keynote speaking career, the difference between premium and low-end ghostwriting (and why the price tag itself is one of the signals), and why every technical leader should have a book before they need one.

The Las Vegas IT Management Podcast covers technology leadership and career topics for IT professionals. Hosted by Shatoya for K&B Communications.

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Interview

Shatoya: Welcome to the Las Vegas IT Podcast. My name is Shatoya, and today I have the pleasure to be speaking to Richard Lowe. I’m super excited to get to know him a little bit better today. How are you doing, Richard?

Richard: I’m doing fantastic, thank you. It’s starting off to be a great week.

Shatoya: Yes, it’s a Monday. It’s always a great week.

Richard: Yes, yes.

Shatoya: And I know you are a senior ghostwriter. Could you just share with us how did you become a ghostwriter?

From 33 Years in Tech to a Cross-Country Move

Richard: Well, I was in tech for 33 years. I worked as a VP for two companies, and then I was Director of Computer Operations for Trader Joe’s for 20 of those years. And one day I looked in the mirror and said, I don’t want to do this anymore. I don’t want to work for somebody else. So I left, moved to Florida, had a big last party with all my dancer friends that I photographed. I was a photographer as well, and drove across the country. A Bharatanatyam dancer, that’s classical Indian dance, accompanied me, had a great time, got here, set up shop, found out that writing is really hard and been doing it ever since. That was 13 years ago.

Shatoya: Yeah. And I’m sure there’s been a lot of changes in that short amount of time. Just a couple. And then so you’ve been writing for about 13 years and then…

Richard: Writing professionally for about 13 years, yeah.

Shatoya: About professionally, awesome. And then what does the ghostwriting process actually involve from start to finish?

The Socratic Interview That Finds the Heart of a Book

Richard: Well, there’s obviously the first conversation. They call up, they want to know what it is, blah, blah, blah. That usually takes 30 to 60 minutes. Then from there, we come to an agreement. We schedule some time and we start having interviews.

The purpose of the interviews is for me to get everything about the book, the feelings, the emotions. I’m looking for the heart of the book. What is the heart and soul of the book? So I’m not just looking to write something. I’m looking to write something powerful, something that gets across them and what their goals are, what the goals of their customers are and so forth. And that’s hard to do. That’s the difference between a premium ghostwriter and just a regular ghostwriter or even AI is capturing that heart and soul can be very difficult.

I have a whole series of questions that do it. And then from there, I write the book and send occasional copies to the client saying, here, review it, please. They come back and we fix it as we go. And then at the end, we do one massive revision and then it gets published.

Shatoya: Got it. That sounds very interesting. And I’m sure that’s a skill that you’ve had to learn throughout the years on how to make it where it actually gets your audience’s attention.

Richard: 54+ ghostwritten books now.

Shatoya: Oh, 54 books. That is amazing. And what does that vary for, what type of books have you written?

Richard: A lot of books on technology. So I’ve written several books on AI, cybersecurity, IoT, digital transformation. I actually did the digital transformation for Trader Joe’s. I was in charge of that. So I got a little bit of experience at it. And then a young adult book on the dangers of the internet, another one on AI, and then a whole slew of other books. I’m writing a science fiction novel now. I’ve written a science fiction novel for a rock star, a famous one, triple platinum. So varied, lots of different things, a lot of memoirs. People like memoirs.

Shatoya: And I guess, what’s your favorite type of story to write?

Richard: Oh, I like them all. I get into the author, the author is them, I’m the writer. So I get into their head space and learn about where they’re coming from, who they are, what they want. Sometimes it’s scary, especially on a memoir, you can get into some real deep stuff and then write a book about it.

Shatoya: How are some of the ways that you’ve found to get into people’s heads to do that?

Richard: Well, I take a drill. No, sorry. No, I don’t do that. What I do is I have a series of questions. It’s a Socratic method. So I simply ask questions and they give me the answers. And then based on those, I ask more questions and more questions and more questions until I get to the point where like, yeah, I found it. Then they agree. We found the heart of this book.

Shatoya: Got it. And that does make sense. I’m sure one of the most powerful things is asking questions and asking the right questions, I would say.

Richard: Very much so.

Shatoya: Yeah, that’s something I’ve learned. And then how would you say your background prepared you for the work you do now?

Introvert Tech Background as Ghostwriting Training

Richard: I tend to be an introvert. So I sit in this office all day long. Most of the time, it’s the point I force myself to get out. Not shy, but I’m an introvert. So that background helped a lot for this. And like when the pandemic came, they said, you have to stay in your house. I’m like, okay, what else? How’s that going to be different? And everybody else is staying in their house too. So I actually got more business. It was actually more business for me.

The technical background really helped, leadership really helped. I also like to write. So I wrote technical manuals and things. That’s not what I do now, but I wrote technical manuals, user guides and things. Nobody likes to write. So I used to do all those for people and it all set me up for this.

Shatoya: And then, you know, the biggest trend that I’ve been talking about lately on this podcast is AI. And so what is the role of AI in writing today and where do you see it going in the next 5 to 10 years?

AI as Digital Assistant, Not as Writer

Richard: Well, the main role is as a digital assistant. For writing, if you don’t have an AI assistant up in another screen or you’re using regularly, you’re going to fall behind. For example, I’ll use it to take an interview and I’ll say, okay, make sense of this for me, because doing an interview can be, they’re all over the place and parsing those out can take hours. Hand it to AI and I’ve got 2 minutes. Tell me all the important points. Tell me what I committed to. Tell me what they said. Tell me what they meant. Tell me what their feelings were. You can interrogate AI. So I use it for that a lot.

I don’t use it to write. Only the lower-end writers, very low-end writers do that. It’s always a mistake to use AI to write. It’s very flat and emotionless, and the writing comes across that way. I know AI the second I see it. I had somebody come to me and say, please review my book. And I said, okay. He was on Zoom with me. I opened it up and I said, you wrote this with AI. He said, you have had one second to look at that book. How did you know that? And I explained to him why. He said, wow. And he actually did a couple of touch-ups and published it, so whatever. But it’s really easy to spot.

Shatoya: Got it. And what are the ways, is it searching words that AI uses? Is that the way you can tell?

The Uncanny Valley of AI Writing

Richard: No, it’s actually called the uncanny valley. In robotics, say CGI. So let’s say you’ve got a robot and it’s supposed to be a humanoid robot and you look at it and something’s off. But you can see this, especially in CGI. I like to use The Lion King, the remake, as an example. So you look at the remake of The Lion King and it’s a gorgeous movie, the effects, but something’s wrong about it. The mind goes, I don’t, some reason why I don’t like this. Then when you look really close and you read on the internet what’s really wrong with it, then you find out maybe the hairs are going in the wrong direction as opposed to the wind, or maybe there’s no shadows or those shadows are going the wrong way, or maybe the legs are too bouncy.

So it’s called the uncanny valley. It means your mind unconsciously knows this is wrong, but you don’t know consciously normally. Well, I’ve looked at a lot of AI stuff. I like AI because I’m a tech geek. So if you look at the writing, what you see is the same patterns, the same sentences. AI will often start with “in the digital age.” That’s a real common term. It starts with all kinds of things that are common because it’s just based on pattern recognition. So it’s just following pattern normal terms. And it’s really easy to spot.

Shatoya: Got it. Especially someone that’s been doing it quite a while. You did mention some of the process of using AI. So you’d say it’s more of a resource for you. And then when you say Uncanny Valley, can you share with us what does that mean?

Richard: Well, it means just what I said it meant. It means when your mind looks at something and it goes, there’s something off about it. And it’s usually robotics or anything artificially created by artificial intelligence, CGI. So your mind says there’s something off about this, but I don’t know what, but I don’t like it. And the Lion King really hit hard on that. A lot of the modern Disney movies that are CGI heavy or any movie that’s CGI heavy have the same problem.

I’ll give you an example. The Rings of Power. There’s these boats that are floating down this river. And there’s something off about the boats, and I don’t know, there’s something wrong with this scene. You know what it is? The boats aren’t going up and down like they’re in water. So they’re just flat. So it looks like an arcade game almost. They’re just running flat. The scenery is not moving like you would expect a boat to do. That’s the uncanny valley. That means you probably didn’t catch it, but your unconscious mind said, whoa, this isn’t a boat.

Shatoya: And I felt the same way with, I don’t know if you’ve seen this movie. It’s a kid’s movie. The Clifford, the big red dog.

Richard: I have not seen it, but I know about it.

Shatoya: So I felt that same way when I was watching it. I was like, wait, that dog does not look right.

Richard: Right. Now, in a movie like Toy Story, the original one, you’re expecting to see these things as animated stuff. So you don’t really run into uncanny valley on that. They’re not trying to be human. So at least I didn’t run into it on that movie.

Shatoya: No, that does make sense. So thank you for sharing that with us. How can a ghostwriter help a technical leader grow their influence or advance their career?

The Fortune 50 VP Who Turned a Book Into $30 Million

Richard: When I was back in tech, I made the mistake of not growing my network. I did not think it was necessary. I had a stable job. I was always going to have a stable job. Ha ha. I thought it was almost layoff proof. So I didn’t bother networking much. I went to a few events.

It’s changed a little bit these days. It actually always has been that way, but it’s changed a little bit. The economy is getting a little rougher. There’s some severe demographic and geopolitical changes going on. Just minor ones in case you haven’t noticed the news lately. Things are changing very rapidly. Well, it helps to have a network of people who can help you out or you can help.

Writing a book is something you can put out there that says, this is my expertise. This is what I do. Here’s my stories. Here’s what I’m good at. Here’s what I’m not good at. Here’s my failures. Here’s my successes. Here’s my heart. Here’s everything about me. You make a book, you put it out there. You can show it to potential employers. You can use it to get speaking engagements, podcasts. You can use it to get on TV. You can use it to get press, all these different things.

One of my clients, he was a VP of a Fortune 50 company. He was one of my very first clients too, which is interesting. And he wanted to get the attention of the president or the CEO of the company. So he said, I want a book. I want the CEO to read it. So we wrote it in that direction. The CEO not only read the book, the CEO wrote the foreword to the book. The CEO got promoted and he got raises and he started getting on the speaking circuit. And when you’re on the speaking circuit, you make $5,000 to $20,000 per speech. He got venture capital, he used the book, his credibility, to get $30 million in venture capital. So just because he had a book. Boy do I wish I had a different contract with him where I got a piece of that, but I don’t do that. He was able to create his brand in such a way that people knew who he was, knew what he stood for, knew where his heart was at, and he got all kinds of stuff based on that.

Shatoya: I just love that because I don’t think most people understand the opportunity that comes with having a book. For someone who’s just starting out, maybe they’re thinking about going through the process of creating a book. When or how should someone reach out to you?

The Unique Sales Position and the Short Book Option

Richard: Well, somebody who’s just starting out probably doesn’t have a lot of money or resources to create a book. And that’s fine because we can create a short book, 30, 40, 50 pages. Just the process of working with me and organizing your thoughts. One of the first things we’ll come up with is what’s called a USP, a unique sales position. So what do you have to sell that other people don’t? That’s your unique sales position. That’s one of the first things we’ll do in that case. What are you selling?

So if you’re an employee and you want to get raises and promotions, why would your boss look at you and say, this guy deserves a raise? So we would work that out as part of the book process. So it comes with a little coaching. It comes with a lot of talking and a lot of back and forth. And that book will then, even a short one, put that into the universe saying, yeah, this is what I do. This is how I do it. This is my story. This is why I’m the best at what I do. This is what I offer that nobody else in this company or any other company offers. And it can set you on the right path. It doesn’t have to be long. It just has to project you in a good light. But you don’t want it arrogant, of course.

Shatoya: Right. But that is one way to stand out from the crowd. I don’t think a lot of people are doing that.

Why 90% of Successful Coaches Have a Book

Richard: Yeah, now take coaches. Many people are going to coaches now because they’re getting laid off. They don’t have any income and they’re like, oh my God, I can just go out there and charge $300 for an hour of my time and make some money and I’ll pay the bills. I don’t want the wife yelling at me because I don’t have any money coming in. Or husband, depending on type of relationship.

But there’s a million coaches. There’s thousands and thousands of executive coaches out there, most of which aren’t qualified. Some are, some aren’t. Maybe they just put out their shingle. Maybe they took the courses. Maybe they’re good at it. Maybe they’re not. Who knows? But look at the good ones, the ones who have made it. What’s the difference? What’s the differentiator? Why did they make it? They have a book. They have written a book and it’s on their LinkedIn profile. It’s in all their promo. It’s everywhere. The book is everywhere. And the book says, I know what I’m talking about. I wrote a book on it. And that’s one of the big differentiators between all those zillions of other coaches and the ones who make it. And you’ll find that probably in 90% of the cases, the big ones have written a book.

Shatoya: No, that totally makes sense. So for someone that’s just starting out, thank you for sharing that tip. But for the people that’s probably been doing this for a while, what are the most common reasons people decide to hire a ghostwriter?

Richard: To basically build their brand up. So CEOs, CFOs, C-levels tend to hire me. We’ll say, okay, I’m in this company now. I’m not happy here, or I want to move somewhere else, or it looks shaky, or it’s government. And they want to move somewhere else, or at least want to be prepared. So they have a book written. They come to me and we write a book that starts that step. That book then becomes their networking tool. They start using content from it. They start making videos based on it. They use the content for blogs, they use the content for speeches. One of my clients got a TED talk. A lot of them go on the speaking circuit. So they start building themselves up a presence outside of their company. And then if worse happens, or maybe the best, depending on your circumstances, they leave, they’re more ready to go. They’ve already got their brand out there. And if they don’t do that, then they’re scrambling. So they should do this while they’re employed or as soon as they can.

Shatoya: No, that totally makes sense. I agree with that 100%. And what do you say to someone who wants to write a book but doesn’t think they’re a writer?

Richard: Well, they come to me. I’ll write it for them. That’s a simple answer. Most of my clients, they either don’t have the time or they don’t know how to write or both. So they hire me to fill in those two blanks. I write the book. I don’t know their story. So they’re the knowledge expert. They have the knowledge. That’s how come I can write a book about just about anything. I don’t need to know. I interview them and I find out. A memoir, I don’t know anything about them in a memoir usually. And then when I interview them, I know about them and I know about their story and I know all the stuff that I need to write the book. As we go, I find out even more.

Shatoya: And then when it comes to someone that’s wanting to go that direction with hiring your ghostwriting services, I don’t know if there’s a type of budget someone should have or like, what does that look like?

Why Price Is a Green Flag, Not a Red One

Richard: Well, it depends on the size of the book and the type of book and the type of project. So it could vary. I am not a low-end ghostwriter. You’re not going to see $1,000 or $2,000. That’s a low-end ghostwriter. Price is a good way to determine, okay, is this ghostwriter trustworthy. It’s one of the first green or red flags about ghostwriting or about any business, really. I used to hire a lot of people at Trader Joe’s and the low bid always got discarded because the low bid meant they weren’t the quality bid. The high bid probably got discarded because they were too high. The middle bid was the one I usually took.

But I think of it this way. Let’s say you’re building your dream house, and a book in many ways is like a dream house. Would you hire the low-end contractor? Probably not. Would you hire the high-end contractor, the one who’s more expensive than anybody else by far? Probably not. He might have a budget that’s way out of your range. Would you hire somebody who’s in the middle or maybe on the high side? Probably. So what you’re going to wind up with is, by having a higher price, they’re showing they have confidence. If they have confidence, that’s a green flag. They know that they can do it. And if they’re charging too low, they’re not as confident in it.

That’s a big indicator. Somebody just out of school, the first writing gig, probably isn’t confident at it because there’s a lot of pieces. There’s the marketing, there’s the interviewing, there’s the talking, there’s the trying to convince the customer. There’s putting all that together in a book. There’s how do you market it? I mean, I could go on and on. There’s a bazillion questions. And that’s in their mind. I know, because I went through it too. The most important of which is, why would they spend money on me? Well, if you’ve got the chops, then I’ve written 54+ ghostwritten books and 113+ of my own. So that’s a lot of books in 13 years. I know I can write a book. I know I can write a good one. So I’m confident. I walk in there and say, this is what it costs. And they go, okay, sometimes. And there you go. For a premium ghostwriter, we usually charge by the word. You’re going to wind up paying at least 50 cents a word and probably upwards more towards a dollar, a dollar and 25 a word.

Shatoya: That’s great for someone to know. Just so they know if it’s something that’s currently in their budget or something that they could work towards. And then also thank you for providing the red flags to look at, because a lot of people maybe haven’t been doing it as long as you.

It’s an Investment, Not a Cost

Richard: One last thing. You mentioned an important thing there, and that’s budget. You’re thinking of it as a cost. It’s not a cost. It’s an investment. So you’re investing in yourself when you invest in a book. So it’s not, oh no, this book’s very expensive and it costs this much money. It’s, I’m investing. So rather than buy that new car that costs $70,000 at the Ford dealer, how about writing a book that’s an investment in yourself or your business? It’s a one-time expense. If it’s for your business, it almost certainly is tax deductible. I’m not an accountant. You talk to your accountant about that. But almost certainly it’s tax deductible. And that means the government funds a good portion of your book.

A lot of my clients throw it on their Platinum Amex card or whatever they got. And they funded that. I do offer payment plans. So your ghostwriter will probably offer plans to pay for it because they know people don’t have that much money up front. We’re pretty smart when we get here. Been through a bit. So it’s not a cost, it’s an investment. When you think of it that way, the picture should change.

Shatoya: Use mindset is everything. And so if you go in as a budget, then you’re like, oh, this is an investment, which is very important. So thank you for adding that, Richard. When it comes to working with you, how long does it typically take to write a book with a client and what’s the collaboration look like?

Richard: A book that’s 20 to 30,000 words will normally take four months to write. Then there’s probably a month of revisions, and that’s if we can keep it tight. Revisions is where the process starts to wander off the timeline a little bit, because that’s where you’re going back and forth and back and forth. I try and limit that. So read the whole thing first and send it to me. It’s one big set of changes rather than a page at a time or a chapter at a time. That becomes the nightmare. And I typically will stop that as fast as I can because that just makes the process take longer. But it’s usually three to four months for the writing and maybe a month for revisions. And then you hit the publishing side.

Shatoya: And for publishing, is that around the same?

Self-Publishing Versus Hybrid Versus Traditional

Richard: Depends on how you publish it. So you’ve got self-publishing, hybrid publishing, and traditional publishing. Traditional publishing is the big publishing houses. They’re hard to get into. To get into them, you have to get an agent. So you’re selling to an agent who will then sell to the publisher, who will then buy the rights to the book.

Self-publishing should be pretty obvious. You’re basically going on Amazon. My book, I’m going on Amazon and I’m publishing it myself. That means you’re responsible for everything. So you got to do the cover. You got to do all of the text. You got to get it edited. Hybrid publishing is in the middle. The hybrid publisher, you’re going to pay them usually between 20 and $50,000 to take your book and do everything except for the writing. Some of them will even take that on. You could even go to them with an idea, but it’s going to cost. If you do that, it’s going to be over 100. Basically, you’re going to walk away with a few thousand copies in your garage because you have to buy the books. And then most of the time, they’re different. So it’s not all the same. And you’re going to have to pay for all the marketing, and you have to pay for everything to them. And they do all the editing, they do the covers. I don’t usually recommend hybrid publishing. Most of what I recommend for my clients is self-publishing because they’re using it to market themselves. They don’t care how many copies they sell.

Shatoya: That was actually my next question. So thank you for answering that for me.

Richard: I’ve done a lot of these.

Shatoya: You’re like, I got that. Those are the best of answers when I don’t have to ask you them. And you did mention that every entrepreneur should have a book, correct?

Richard: Every entrepreneur, every person who’s got their own business, everybody who wants to expand their business or themselves should have a book. The other purpose for a book is to leave a legacy. And I also do senior legacies. So that’s another reason to have a book. Say you’ve got kids and grandkids, you want to leave a legacy, you want to tell them about your life.

Shatoya: That’s very important. That way your grandchildren and your children know exactly who you were as a person and what you do with your life. And then in your opinion, what’s the best way to showcase your expertise and achievements without sounding arrogant or self-promotional?

Show the Failures, Not Just the Wins

Richard: We write a story. So when I write a book, I don’t just write like an encyclopedia, this, who did this, who did this. It’s a story. It’s the story of you and your experiences and things, and it has some failures in it. Everybody fails, whether they say it or not. So what did you learn from that failure? That first management experience where you ran over your head, what did you learn? And then we go from there.

So that’s how you keep yourself from looking arrogant. You include some of the false starts, the failures, the things that didn’t work out, maybe some emotional things. Show that you’re human. You want to show that you’re human. If you want to come across as arrogant, take the humanity out. Write it with AI and you’ll come across as arrogant.

Shatoya: As you said, we all fail. And that’s one way to relate to other people. Why do you see some digital transformation initiatives fail, especially when they have the right tech in place?

Digital Transformation Fails When You Forget the People

Richard: Well, this question is because I did digital transformation at Trader Joe’s, and I’ve written three books on the subject. Digital transformation fails when you think of it as digital transformation only. Digital transformation is not just putting in new equipment. First of all, you do what’s called PPT. People, processes, and technology. So you have to do the people first, then the processes and the technology. You have to do them in that order. So you have to do cultural transformation, financial transformation, all kinds of different transformations at the same time.

For example, these people are going to be frightened because they’re going to put in lots of AI and they’re going to think, well, my job’s gone. And they’re going to be frightened about that. You have to handle that. You have to say, okay, yeah, your job is going to change. We’re going to do this and this for you, or we’re going to transition you to this new position. All you need to do is get training. Or you be honest and you say, you know what? Yeah, your job is going to go away and you need to find a new position, but at least they know.

So you have to consider, it’s not just putting in equipment. In fact, a lot of the times it’s not putting in new equipment at all. You’re transforming your entire business. We did that at Trader Joe’s twice actually, went from paper to machine and then a second transformation after that. The paper one was definitely different. Going from an accounting system of all written down on paper and using old, old Excel spreadsheets to what they have now. So if you don’t consider the people, and you don’t consider the processes, and you’re just looking at technology, it will fail.

Shatoya: And I’m sure even just the short amount of time that I’ve been in the industry, I’ve seen the changes that have occurred. So as you said, the people are the most important. What advice would you give someone in tech or business who wants to build a personal brand but doesn’t know where to start?

The 10-Hour Coaching Block

Richard: You can hire somebody like me, not necessarily as a ghostwriter, but as a coach. So for example, I sell 10 hours at a time for coaching. So you come to me and say, I want to, I don’t know how to proceed forward and I need a little advice and coaching. We put together a 10-hour package and then we spend that 10 hours talking about you. It’s kind of interesting always talking about you. And we drill down to what your goals are, what you’re trying to achieve, where you want to be. And we start to map out, your unique sales position, that’s very important. And we’re trying to map out your future career.

And then how do you prepare for it? So if you’re just getting into tech right now, but you want to be a senior digital transformation person, maybe even a C-level, how do we get you there? You better have a good LinkedIn, for one. Resumes, that’s probably the least important thing out of it all, but you probably want a good one. AI is actually really good at making resumes because they’re just formulaic. Cover letters, you want to make sure you’re writing good articles, that you’ve got good videos, take advantage of all the social media that makes sense. If you’re a younger person, probably TikToks. If you’re an older person, probably longer form videos or articles. And start building up that reputation and start building your way to it. Because odds are you’re not going to be in the same company you’re in a few years from now. And you need to prepare for that, but not precisely. You don’t want to say, I’m going for this position at this company. You want to prepare in general.

A book can help get you there. That might be part of the plan. It might not. Especially if it’s an entry-level person, they’re not going to have money for a book. Maybe not. Unless they’re rich or something. But it could help. If they do, we could make a short book, more of like a 15, 20 pages that describes who you are and what you’re going for in your life history, and then add to it. So organize, basically, your thoughts and organize what you want to do. That can be tough. But I can help with that because I’ve been through it all several times.

Shatoya: And then when it comes to those 10 hours, is that completed, are you sitting down with them for an hour a week? Are you completing that within a couple of days? How long does that take for those 10 hours?

Richard: It’s generally a few hours a week. It generally takes under a month. It depends on their time and my time. So typically it would be two or three hours a week until done. They usually just come out to 10 hours. They don’t usually go over that kind of engagement. If they do go over, it’s just another 10-hour block. Or if it’s only going to be one hour, pay for another hour. I’m not going to charge you 10 hours for another hour.

Shatoya: Oh, that’s great. And then when it comes to leaders using storytelling to connect with teams, customers, investors, how can they do that?

Thrown Out of the Room for Not Speaking the Language

Richard: How can they use stories? Well, instead of walking in, I have a perfect example. I was a very technical person. I know that’s shocking to you. And I was very technical. I liked the technical part. I love, I was an assembly language coder. I was C, Fortran, COBOL. Now, I like getting into the lower level. ChatGPT, I’m making scripts all the time. I have to force myself back to writing.

So what you do, what I did was we had a project to sell, it was a multimillion-dollar project to sell to the CEO. We wanted the CEO to do this. It was disaster recovery stuff. And I walked in and I started to explain it. I had all my flip charts. I had everything ready. It was starting between, I’ve got about 5 minutes. And he put up his hand and I stopped. And he said, “Tom, ask him to leave.” And I’m like, what? And Tom’s like, what? And he said, “he’s not speaking my language. This is all tech stuff and I want to know business stuff.” So my boss took it over, he fumbled it. And the mistake I made is I didn’t learn the business terms and I used flip charts to show all this technical stuff and cybersecurity. And I was so impressed with myself. And that’s not what he wanted to hear.

What he wanted to hear was business terms, ROI, KPIs, how does this help the business expand? What does it cost? What’s the benefit, all these things. I didn’t speak the language. So I actually got thrown out of the room, literally thrown out of the room. And that was a big learning experience. And I quickly made an effort to fix that.

So if we wrote a book for you, we’re going to look at who your audience is. Who’s your audience? Is your audience other tech geeks? Or is your audience C-levels? Like mine was the CEO of the company. If that’s your audience, we’re going to talk business speak. If your audience is, say, project managers, we’re going to talk project management speak. That’s key.

Shatoya: That’s really true because making sure that you, as you said, speak the language of your audience, which is very important.

Richard: So later I went back and sold something else. And what did I do? I put together a story of another company that didn’t do what I was talking about, cybersecurity, and how they got breached and the cost of that breach and the results of that breach, liability issues, reputation issues, all kinds of issues, not to mention losing millions of credit card data. And I sold that one to him because I gave him a story and he understood.

Shatoya: Richard, you did mention that you have a book launching. Could you tell us a little bit about that?

Richard: Yes. It’s called The Ghostwriting Advantage. And I have never seen one of these before, so I decided to write one. It’s the ghostwriting from the client point of view. So you want to hire a ghostwriter. You want to write a book. And it’s everything from A to Z. It actually turned out a little longer than I expected. It’s a few hundred pages long. And it has everything that you want to know about, from you’ve got an idea for a book to you’re marketing that book. You’re getting it out there. And it’s very complete. It goes into what the advantages are for having your own book. Basically all the stuff we’re talking about here. Why would you want to do it? How would you do it? Why would you hire a ghostwriter to do it for you? What do you do? How do you get it published? Where do you publish? All the other questions that you have will be answered in this book.

Shatoya: Awesome. And then you said that would be found on Amazon.

Richard: It is on Amazon. I can send you a link.

Shatoya: Yes, and we’ll be sure to put that in the description. When it comes to, you did mention a one-hour book discovery call. Can you just share that with our audience, please?

Richard: Yes, if you go to contact.thewritingking.com, you can sign up for an hour. It’s a typical calendar. And we’ll talk for up to an hour about your writing project, your coaching project, whatever it is, and come up with what do you need, what’s the cost and so forth, or at least start that path. But it’s a free hour and take advantage of it.

Shatoya: What are the biggest myths or misunderstandings people have about ghostwriting?

The Myths About Voice, Cost, and What a Ghostwriter Actually Does

Richard: First, they think of it as a cost, and it’s not a cost, it’s an investment. Second, they think the ghostwriter’s going to not write in their voice. And a good ghostwriter, that’s why you want to hire a higher-level ghostwriter, like myself, is we’re going to keep your voice. I had one client who cursed a lot. I asked him, is that the way you want the book to be? He said, hell yeah. And then a lot more expletives, and okay, that’s what he wants. So that’s what we got. He has a book that curses a lot. Whatever their voice is, we have to capture it. And most people think the ghostwriter’s not going to capture that. It’s going to be facts, dull stuff. It’s going to take forever. All these types of myths are obviously not correct unless you hire the wrong one.

Shatoya: Hiring an experienced one.

Richard: But let me tell you an important fact in the few minutes we have left. The thing you have to think about is you’re going to have a relationship with your ghostwriter. It’s a business relationship, obviously, but you’re going to be in it for a few months, at least. Some books might take a year. That’s a relationship. So when you have that initial interview, you shouldn’t be looking so much at costs. You should be looking at, can I have a relationship with this person that’s on the screen in front of me? In person in front of me. And if the answer is no, you haven’t found your ghostwriter. If the answer is yeah, then based on other factors as well, you found your ghostwriter. This should probably be half of what you’re using to decide whether or not to hire your ghostwriter. Can this relationship work? If it doesn’t, don’t hire him or her. Look at the relationship because nobody needs toxic relationships in their life.

Shatoya: That’s true. And if someone’s looking to connect with you, how do they do that?

Richard: They can go to thewritingking.com or ghostwriting.guru. Both of those have places to set up a one-hour call. And they can also connect with me on LinkedIn at Richard Lowe Jr.

Shatoya: Awesome. And we’ll be sure to put that in the description. Richard, before we go, is there anything else you would like to share with the audience?

Take Control of Your Branding

Richard: That it’s important that you get your story out and that you get your branding done. And branding is a big word that people throw around a lot. Branding means that’s the way people perceive you, personal branding. So you can either take control of your branding, and a book does that, or you can let other people define it for you. So if you want your brand to be the college person who partied a lot and threw up all over the place and has drunk photos on TikTok, if that’s the only thing out there, that’s your brand. If you want to change that, you need to actively take steps to change it. One of the ways is to write a book. And you probably need to take those drunk pictures of you throwing up down.

Shatoya: Right. So we’re not 21 no more.

Richard: Right, right. We’re adults now.

Shatoya: Richard, today was a pleasure. Thank you so much. It was just a pleasure to get to know you a little bit better and what you have to offer. Have a great day.

Richard: You too. Thanks.

Find Richard Lowe at TheWritingKing.com.

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