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

Richard Lowe (The Writing King) joins Michael A. Forman on News Wire’s Success, Motivation, and Inspiration for a wide-ranging, unusually candid conversation about the business of getting a book written and published, including the parts most people never warn you about. Richard walks through what ghostwriting actually is, why a book makes a consultant or executive the authority in a crowded market, the full process from interviews to cover design, and then into the territory that sets this conversation apart: the scams. He breaks down the ISBN and account-ownership trap, advance-fee fraud, pig-butchering romance scams, and how to vet a publisher or marketer before you hand over a dollar.

News Wire’s Success, Motivation, and Inspiration is hosted by Michael A. Forman, owner of Newswire Magazine, which has been around since 1997.

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Interview

Michael A. Forman: Welcome back to Success, Motivation, and Inspiration. I’m on the show with Richard Lowe, The Writing King. Richard, what made you decide to transition from a 33-year career in IT and tech, even working with Trader Joe’s, to become a ghostwriter?

From 33 Years in Tech to Ghostwriter

Richard: I’ve enjoyed writing ever since I wrote a book for my grandfather, a World War II hero, when I was 17. I spent a long career in corporate IT, but in my 50s I decided to go out on my own. I drove across the country to Florida, started with LinkedIn profiles, joined a small ghostwriting company, and soon realized I didn’t need anyone else. Within the first week, I had $25,000 in contracts. So, yep, I can do this.

Michael: Tell me what ghostwriting is, and then the common misconceptions.

What Ghostwriting Is, and the Emotion That Sets It Apart

Richard: Ghostwriting is where I write a book for you. You hire me, I interview you and do research, because you’re the knowledge expert, not me, I don’t read minds, not yet. Then I take that knowledge and create a book out of it. My unique slant is that I don’t just create a book. I interview for feelings, emotions, voice. Anybody can write a book, AI can write a book. I want a book that resonates with your audience and meets your goals. Each chapter ends on an emotion. The book ends on an emotion. A political book might end with the reader angry, or motivated. An entrepreneurial book ends with them motivated to achieve a goal. A coaching book builds to a call to action. The whole book leads up to it. That’s unique, I think, for most ghostwriters.

Michael: One host once told me, they talk about somebody being an expert, but you literally wrote the book on the subject. If someone’s Googling for an answer and you show up as the author of the book on it, is that a big reason clients come to you, to be seen as the authority?

You Literally Wrote the Book: Authority for Executives and Coaches

Richard: That’s exactly why most of them come to me. My main audiences are executives and coaches. Executives want to pivot their career, get a promotion, get TED talks. Coaches want the extra boost that takes them over the edge, because in today’s economy a lot of people are becoming coaches and the market is swamped. How do you get above everybody else? A book does that. If you’re looking to hire a coach and you’ve got ten who all claim to be the expert, the one who wrote a book or two or five on the subject is almost always the one you hire.

Michael: Do you help with editing and promotion as well?

Richard: I’m not a book marketer, I contract with people for that. If you came to me, I’d be the ghostwriter, and I have an add-on package where I manage the whole process from beginning to end: your audiobook, publishing, finding a book promoter, finding an editor, and interfacing with those people, because now you’re getting a team together and a busy executive doesn’t have time for all that. There are a lot of moving parts to publishing a book. It becomes not your problem, which is ideally what you want in somebody you hire.

Michael: As a ghostwriter, is there any legal requirement to disclose that a book was ghostwritten?

Do You Have to Disclose a Ghostwriter?

Richard: No, unless your particular industry requires it. I don’t think I’ve ever been disclosed as a ghostwriter on the cover. A few have acknowledged me in the acknowledgments, usually as their coach or assistant. Most celebrities and a lot of politicians use ghostwriters. They’re not writers, they’re celebrities, so they hire ghostwriters and pay a lot.

Michael: Do you prefer a client who’s hands-off, or one who pays attention to every detail?

Hands-On or Hands-Off: It’s About the Relationship

Richard: It depends. I’ve done books where we do one or two interviews and they say, okay, it’s your book now, give it to me when you’re done. That’s a little scary, because you deliver a book you spent months writing and they haven’t even read it yet. And then there’s the book where we’re together every single day for an hour writing it together. I don’t mind either, as long as it’s a good relationship. It’s all about the relationship. That’s one thing I tell my clients before they come to me: whether you choose me or not, make sure the relationship is good. If it’s not good, you’re not going to get a good product. Experience counts, other things count, but the relationship is by far the most important thing to consider.

Michael: If someone’s comparing five ghostwriters and you’re at the top of the price range, what’s the difference between a $1,500 ghostwriter who’s basically using AI and your service?

The $1,500 AI Book and the Uncanny Valley

Richard: Let me put it this way. In robotics there’s a term called the uncanny valley. There’s a humanoid robot, you look at it, you think it looks human, but something in the back of your mind says there’s something wrong. You see it in CGI all the time, the new Lion King remake. Something’s wrong with that movie but you don’t know what: the grass is slightly off, the shadows go the wrong direction, the characters are too bouncy. You don’t notice consciously, but something’s wrong. That applies to writing too. A guy came to me, gave him a free hour, said here’s my book, what do I need to do before I publish it. I opened it, two seconds, and said, you wrote this with AI. I can tell. Uncanny valley, and I’ve looked at enough that I know.

The other thing I do is I get the emotions, the feelings, the heart. I get your heart and put it into your book. That’s something AI can’t do, and probably never can: get your heart, your spirit, your passion, your goals, and put it into that book. I can use AI, I’ve even written a whole book with AI, and it’s a pain because it wanders and it’s weird. I put your passion, heart, soul, spirit, and leadership into the book so it actually resonates with your audience.

Michael: Someone asked you why their book wasn’t selling, they’d only sold 50 copies, and figured their audience was too narrow?

Your Audience Isn’t Narrow Enough

Richard: I said, nope, your audience isn’t narrow enough. That’s probably the problem. You’re trying to market to everybody. Think about your absolute perfect client: their age, their situation, the name of their dog, and talk to that exact person about the problem you solve perfectly for them. Then other people can jump in and gain something too. But if you say, I can help anybody with anything, nobody wants to talk to you. Even at the pinpoint, there are thousands and thousands of people. You cannot sell to everybody unless you’re Coca-Cola with billions to spend, and I’m not Coca-Cola. If I had that kind of money, I wouldn’t be doing this.

Michael: What are the steps involved in your ghostwriting process?

Inside the Process: Interviews, Voice, and Revision

Richard: First is the initial engagement, we decide if we’re a match. Then, for a 60,000 to 80,000 word book, there might be four weeks of interviews, literally five days a week, an hour a day. I interview you for who your audience is, what you want from the book, your emotions, your passions. It’s the Socratic method: I ask questions, you give answers, and from those come more questions. What I’m getting to is the heart and soul of the book. Once I have that, about halfway through, I get the rest. I’m not as interested in the information. Writing a book about blockchain, I want your passion with blockchain, why it’s important to other people, why you got into it, who your mentors were.

The second phase is writing, month to month. We go back and forth on revisions until the chapter is polished, then move to the next. In the first chapter or two, I’m dialing in your voice. I put out a few pages, you send it back, that’s not my voice, we get on the phone, I send it back, better but still off, and after three or four rounds I’ve got your voice. By the time we’re done, the book’s mostly done. Then there’s one full revision, sometimes two, where you read the whole thing and correct it. We keep that minimal so we don’t go into what I call revision hell. We’re not concerned with spelling or grammar in that pass, that’s for the editor. I want you telling me: is the content right, is the passion coming across, is the voice right.

Covers, Editors, and Why Not to Use AI Art

Richard: Then it goes to an editor, an external person, extra cost, for line and content editing. For self-published, you need a book cover, and don’t use AI for your cover, please, and don’t use clip art, everybody uses the same clip art. Hire a real artist. You want a designer who knows things like women tend to prefer curly fonts and men tend to prefer square fonts, and that moving the title three pixels changes how many books sell. I didn’t know that, but they do, they’re experts. Then you need ISBNs, and this is why you’d engage me with the publishing package, to coordinate all the pieces: audiobook, hardcover, paperback, spiral-bound, ebook, all different formats.

Michael: What about the distribution and publishing routes?

Self, Traditional, and Hybrid Publishing

Richard: Self-publishing is the free kind. You publish through IngramSpark or Amazon, which go to the same place, but you lose certain rights on either one, so you need to know that. Traditional publishing means we write three chapters and a book proposal that goes to an agent. You’re marketing the book to the agent first, the agent says this looks marketable and sells it to publishers, and once it’s accepted, we finish the book. That’s a tough process and adds one to two years. If your goal is to sell a lot of copies, that’s the route. If your goal is to use the book as a marketing tool or to get TED talks, self-publishing is fine. The middle ground is hybrid publishing, pay-to-play, you pay them anywhere from $10,000 to $100,000 and they do everything after the writing. Some even do the writing, but I wouldn’t go that route.

Michael: What about marketing the book?

Marketing Starts Before the Book Is Done

Richard: Start marketing it when you start writing it. Don’t wait until it’s published. Publish little blogs and videos about your journey of writing. By the time the book comes out, you’ve built up a following, maybe tens of thousands, of which some want to buy the day it launches. Then you have a book launch, sell as many copies as you can that first week, even at a discount, because Amazon uses those first couple of weeks to prime its algorithm. If you miss selling copies early, Amazon doesn’t know who to promote it to.

Michael: Why do most books fail to sell?

Why Books Don’t Sell

Richard: Two reasons. Number one, you’re not promoting it. If you’re not promoting a book, it isn’t getting sold, unless you’ve already got a name like Stephen King, who sells a million copies the day he publishes, and even he promotes the heck out of it. Number two, the cover is bad. That’s why I say don’t use AI, don’t use clip art, don’t make it yourself. One thing that makes a good cover is the size of the title, because it’s getting shrunk to a thumbnail read on a smartphone. Hire a professional cover designer. If you’ve got your market right, you’re promoting to the right people, you’ve got a great cover and good copy on your Amazon page, your book will sell. And if you’re using it for marketing yourself, the sales don’t really matter, you’re after the speaking engagement or the TED talk.

Michael: One common scam I see is publishing companies that aren’t really publishers, who buy the ISBN and own the rights. What other mistakes do you see?

The Scams: ISBN Theft, Advance-Fee, and Pig Butchering

Richard: Let me correct that a little. It’s not just the ISBN, the ISBN is just a number. The bigger issue is they publish it under their own account, so you don’t have access, and you sign an agreement. Web designers sometimes do the same thing, they publish your site under their own hosting account and don’t give you the keys, so you fire them and you’ve lost everything. Same with a book: you don’t have the keys to that KDP account.

You also have to be careful of advance-fee scams, the 419 scam. I got hit by one. A supposed ghostwriting client said, I want to write a book and pay you a lot, I’ll send you a deposit plus a little extra that I want you to forward to a consultant. That forward-to-the-consultant part gets your money, and then the wire transfer they sent bounces, so they’ve got your money and you’re dead in the water. All the Nigerian-prince scams are advance-fee scams. There’s a particularly nasty one I love the name of: the pig-butchering scam, a romance scam where you’re the pig and they slice off pieces of flesh. They build a relationship until you really like them, then it’s, my laptop died, I need money for the car. You fall into the sunk-cost fallacy, I’ve already spent $1,000, I’ll spend a little more, and often you’re being pulled into something illegal too. I’m into cybersecurity, so these things fascinate me, especially the name.

Read the Contract, Use a Lawyer

Richard: Watch out for hybrid publishers that don’t deliver. Read your contracts, and actually send them to an attorney who’s good at this. You can use LegalZoom if you want, they’re a little pricey but convenient, you only need a couple of hours. Vet anyone you hire and call their references. I had a client whose marketer’s website references were glowing, he actually called them, and one said these guys are terrible. Don’t just take the website’s word for it, they put those there.

Michael: Have you ever had to fire a client?

When to Fire a Client (or a Ghostwriter)

Richard: I’ve fired several clients who simply turned out to be, I’ll keep the expletives out, jerks. It was a relationship that wasn’t working. I have a clause in my contract that says we can both exit at any time, no refunds for work done, but we can exit. Who wants to be in a toxic relationship on either side? Make sure you read your contract and know the termination conditions, you don’t want to be stuck. And if a relationship with a ghostwriter isn’t working, correct it by being assertive: you said something I don’t like. They’re human, and some aren’t great at human relations. I always tell my clients, we both need to be the adults in the room. If you’ve got something to tell me, tell me, and I’ll do the same, because we want this relationship to work, not decay over time.

Michael: Researching you, it says you’ve published over a hundred books between ghostwriting and your own. Is that correct?

Richard: It’s 113+ of my own and 54+ ghostwritten, plus a few under pen names, in 13 years. So I’ve been a little busy.

Michael: Why would an author publish under a pen name?

Why Pen Names

Richard: Number one, it’s not part of their brand. Number two, they write in multiple genres, like westerns and science fiction, and you almost certainly want a different name for each because you’re building a brand in each one. And then you might have a book on a controversial subject. Mine was political, I didn’t want to be associated with it but I wanted to write it, so I published it under a pen name many years ago. The biggest reason is branding. If you write both fiction and nonfiction, you almost certainly want to separate the brands into two names.

Michael: What advice would you give someone looking to use a book for career change or advancement?

A Book for Career Change

Richard: Say you’re an exec who wants to pivot, you’re a CIO who wants to be a CEO. Write that book. Make it substantial, a couple hundred pages, and write it from the heart, then base your branding around it. It positions you above everybody else. When you go to an interview and they ask your background, you say, here’s my book about me. And part of your marketing is getting blurbs from peers and people above you, so the book carries social proof: I read it, it’s great, this person’s been great to work with. You’ve gone way above just handing over a résumé. And at the exec level, it’s not going to cost more than a new car. Are you going to spend it on the car, or invest it in yourself? Invest in yourself, buy the car later.

Michael: What legacy do you hope to leave through ghostwriting?

What’s Most Fulfilling About the Work

Richard: That I get to help people meet their goals. I help with their messaging, I get to write, and they get to build an income, and the three merge together. One example: an older woman named Doris brought me a lifetime of handwritten dreams and asked me to turn them into a novel. We did, it’s on Amazon as Gators in the Soup, and handing her that finished book is one of the moments that told me I was in the right profession. That was about 20 ghostwritten books in, roughly halfway to where I am now.

Don’t Be the Person With Regrets

Michael: Give me one final thought.

Richard: Don’t be the person sitting in the hospital bed at the end of their life who regrets not doing something. One big regret people often have is they didn’t write their book. Write it yourself, hire a ghostwriter, or hire me as a book coach to help you. Get it done so you don’t have that regret, and so you leave something for future generations, for your family, for the people who come after you. Whether you’re 30 or 78, you’ve lived a whole life of experience that’s different from anybody else’s. You might think you don’t have anything to say. Yes, you do. Write it, get it done, and do it now.

Find Richard Lowe at TheWritingKing.com.

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