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

Richard Lowe (The Writing King) joins Michael Bernzweig on the Consulting Spotlight, part of the Software Oasis Podcast Network, for a conversation aimed squarely at consultants and executives. Richard walks through the part of the process most authors never plan for: what happens after the manuscript is done. He covers the wall of marketing that stops most books cold, why the cover and first page decide whether a book sells, how to choose between Amazon, IngramSpark, and Draft2Digital, how to vet a book marketer, and why a book is the single best way for a consultant or executive to stand out. Along the way he talks about quitting a stable job after being told he’d fail, the client who turned a first book into $30 million in venture capital, and using a camera to conquer a lifetime of shyness.

The Consulting Spotlight is hosted by Michael Bernzweig, founder of Software Oasis, and is part of a podcast network reaching a community of B2B founders and executives.

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Interview

Michael Bernzweig: I’d like to welcome everyone to this week’s edition of the Consulting Spotlight. I’m your host, Michael Bernzweig, founder of Software Oasis. This week we’re joined live by Richard Lowe Jr., founder of The Writing King and Ghostwriting Guru. Richard, welcome to the podcast.

Richard: Well, thank you for having me. I’m honored to be here.

Michael: For any of our listeners who may not be familiar with you or your business, can you talk a little about your journey getting to where you are?

From a 17-Year-Old’s First Book to The Writing King

Richard: Sure, the quick synopsis. When I was 17, way back in the last century, I wanted to know more about my grandfather, so I talked to him and found out he was a World War II hero I’d never known about. I wrote a book on it and decided I liked writing, a lot. But life took precedence. I had to move out, get a job, and I went into the tech field.

I became a VP of a company, then a VP of another company, and then the Director of Computer Operations at Trader Joe’s. I also got married, became a widower, and became a well-known photographer of dancers, performers, WWE wrestlers, and reenactors. Then, come my 20-year anniversary at Trader Joe’s, I finally said, okay, it’s time for me to go off on my own. I’m done with corporate.

The $1,000 Afghani Politician Book

Richard: The Writing King came up after I went through about a million variations and the domain was available. I started working for a small ghostwriting company that paid me a whole thousand dollars, whoop-de-doo, for my first book, which is super underpriced by any standard. I wrote a book about an Afghani politician, the guy who built all the roads in Afghanistan before the Soviets invaded, before the Taliban even existed. He had to leave Afghanistan in a hurry because he was about to be executed when the coup happened. So I got to write all about that and learn lots of interesting things.

I wrote a second book and a third, then decided $1,000 a book is not enough. My boss at the time said, you don’t know how to market, you’re not going to make it on your own. So I quit. And two days later, I had $25,000 in business from two books. At that point I knew I could make it. I’ve ghostwritten 54+ books and written 113+ of my own in the 13 years since then. So I’ve been a little busy.

Michael: If you were to look back, is there a learning lesson, and are you glad you took the journey the way you did?

Don’t Live in Fear

Richard: There are several lessons. Lesson number one: don’t live in fear. I stayed at a lot of companies too long because I was afraid I’d lose my job or not have a way to support myself. There are easy ways around that: build up savings, have a retirement fund, the stuff any financial advisor would tell you. If you’re in a place where you think you can’t leave, you need to fix that. That’s the problem. I stayed in companies way too long after they became not the right fit for me.

The second lesson: life’s a journey, and you’re only here for so long. We all have the same destination, so make it as fulfilling and as fun as you can. Yeah, you have to work, you have to do the things that are drudgery, but you can also have some fun and make it a nice life.

A Camera to Conquer Shyness, Caves to Conquer Fear

Richard: When my wife passed away, I decided I didn’t want to live in grief, and I was tired of being shy, because I was basically curled up in a ball. So I picked up my camera and started photographing. National parks first, then state parks, wildlife, then Renaissance fairs and reenactors. I became part of the community, started photographing dancers, and used the camera to become not shy. I talked through the camera to talk to people. After 1,200 photo shoots, I didn’t need the camera anymore to talk to people.

I’m afraid of heights, so every few years I go up in a hot air balloon. I’m afraid of small spaces, so every few years I go spelunking, down in a cave, terrified the limestone is going to collapse on me. It’s all fun, to test those boundaries. There’s a hotel room in the middle of Carlsbad Caverns, deep in one of the caves, one room, 700-something dollars a night. They turn off all the lights, it’s pitch dark, and you’re all by yourself in a space the size of a football field with no roof. That’s one of my bucket-list items.

Michael: Looking back to that early transition, do you remember your first client?

The First Writing King Client and the $30 Million Book

Richard: The Afghani politician was my first client for another company. My first client for myself was actually one of my biggest books. He wanted to get well known to the CEO of his company so he could get promoted. The CEO wound up promoting him, giving him a raise, and writing the foreword for the book. He used it to get $30 million in venture capital for his own company, got his book placed in libraries, and went on the speaking circuit making $5,000 to $10,000 a speech. From the very first book I professionally wrote as my business, I was like, whoa, that’s cool.

Michael: For anyone thinking about having a book ghostwritten, what are the advantages? What’s the motivation, the end result?

Why a Book Is the Ultimate Differentiator

Richard: It gives you credibility, it gets you press, and it gets you out there. People are getting laid off all over the place and a lot of them are deciding to become coaches, because it seems relatively easy to start a coaching business. But if people are starting coaching businesses everywhere, it’s hard to stand out. The book differentiates you. It puts you head and shoulders over everybody else. You’ve got a book on your LinkedIn profile, the cover on your banner, you give it to press, you start doing keynote speeches. One of my clients did multiple TED talks. That book gives you the advantage over everybody who doesn’t have one. And if you use it properly, you’ll make back many times what you spend on it.

Michael: For someone considering a book, what are the steps involved?

Start With the Audience, Not the Writing

Richard: Most writers take the wrong path, which is to start writing the book. The path you need is to take a step backward and figure out who the book is for. Who is your audience? Why do they want this book? Why is it important to them? How are you going to sell it to them? What goals do they have? This is where I start in the initial consultations. Once you know who the market is, I don’t care whether it’s a science fiction book or a coaching book. What are your readers going to get? Until you know that, you’re just writing a bunch of words on paper that probably won’t sell. That’s why a lot of books don’t sell, they’re not aimed at anything.

The Book Discovery Intensive

Richard: I have a Book Discovery Intensive, my entry-level package, where you come to me and we spend a few hours talking and we game out who your audience is, why they want the book, what it’s about, and what they primarily get from it. Once you know that, then you can write a book. Without that, you’re just putting words on paper.

Michael: When you’re getting started with a new client, where are they typically coming from?

Three Audiences: Executives, Coaches, and Seniors

Richard: I have three main audiences. Number one is C-levels and executives, VPs, even directors. They’ve been in a company for a while and they’re leaving for one reason or another. Maybe they see the writing on the wall, maybe they work for the government and definitely see the writing on the wall, maybe they’re close to retirement and want to start a new journey. So the book becomes the foundation for that. It has their stories, their credibility, their journey. It becomes the content for everything they do from then on: the material for TED talks, speeches, everything. They can pull from that book, and if they need more, they make another.

Coaches want to improve their business. And seniors want to leave a legacy of their lives. They’ve had a whole long life and have some good things to say, like my grandfather.

Michael: A book is on a lot of people’s lists, but most never get to it.

A Book Is an Investment, Not a Cost

Richard: Just like any investment, they look at it as a cost, and that’s the problem. You should look at it as an investment. A new car is a cost unless you’re using it for business. A book is an investment in your business, which means it’s most likely tax deductible, talk to your accountant, I’m not an accountant. There’s always an excuse not to do something. Is it valuable to your business? Yes. Will you use it? You should, and I’ll help you with that through the whole process. If you were getting a new heart, would you pay the money? Of course. This isn’t as important as a new heart, but it’s important to your future. So use it.

Michael: If you were to bullet-point the mistakes you see people making over and over, what are the pitfalls?

The Biggest Mistakes: AI and Going It Alone

Richard: Number one, somebody decides they can write a book with AI. You can write a crappy book with AI. Anybody can. I’ve written crappy books with AI. You can spit one out really fast and it will be flat, passionless, with no emotion. There’s no heart in it, no soul. That’s mistake number one.

Mistake number two is trying to do it yourself. You’re not a professional writer. If I wanted to build a house, I’m not going to build it myself, I’m going to hire a contractor, because I don’t know how to build houses. Why on earth would you write a book yourself? You probably don’t know how to write, market it, promote it, or handle the whole process of publishing it. When you add in all the pieces, it’s not that expensive. It seems expensive, but it’s not.

Michael: If you were to break it down, writing is one component, but what are all the steps along the way?

Hitting the Wall of Marketing

Richard: The first part is the analysis I mentioned: figure out the contents, the audience. Once that’s done, there’s the writing and there’s the marketing. A lot of writers do a pretty good job at the writing. Then they hit what I call the wall of marketing. It’s like hitting a wall at high speed. They don’t know what to do, because they’re not marketers. So hire a professional marketer or take the courses and figure it out yourself. Marketing is hard. I have to do it to sell my own services. How do you convince somebody to spend money on a book nowadays? That’s what marketing is: not just convincing them, but finding who to convince.

And then there’s the constant promotion, even things like making a book cover that pulls. Did you know most books don’t sell because their cover is weak? Those are the two reasons a book won’t sell: you’re not marketing it, and the cover is weak. That’s 90% of it. Make a good cover with a title that’s readable on a tiny thumbnail on a cell phone, then get people to it, and they’ll buy it.

Michael: As far as a distribution channel, are there right and wrong ways to pick a distribution partner?

Choosing a Publishing Channel

Richard: One thing: don’t publish directly on Amazon. You can create a KDP account and publish on Amazon, and you’ll be fine. But a better way is to publish on platforms like IngramSpark or Draft2Digital, which then publish to Amazon. That gives you better control over the book and more rights, especially when you get into audiobooks. By publishing on Ingram and Draft2Digital, you get on the list for libraries and bookstores, so you can actually sell to those.

Find somebody who sells books for a living, and vet them. Call references. I had a client whose references on a marketer’s website were glowing. He actually called them, and they weren’t glowing at all. One said, these guys are terrible. So don’t just take the website’s word for it, they put those there. Book marketing isn’t cheap or easy, but it can be very worthwhile if you find the right one. Hybrid publishing is a way to go, that’s where you pay them to publish and market the book. Self-publishing is the free kind. Hybrid is you paying to publish. Traditional is them paying you, and traditional is really hard.

Michael: A question that came up from the audience: how do you handle confidential information with a ghostwriting project?

Confidentiality and the Ghostwriter’s NDA

Richard: A ghostwriter always signs a non-disclosure agreement. It’s usually part of their own agreements, and they take it very seriously, because breaching it has serious consequences for finding new customers and for the existing one. I’ve been told the most personal things in the world, to the point where I’d have to say, I’m not your therapist, we need to stop here. Some of these books, especially the memoirs, get into intense subjects.

Michael: What’s the level of involvement required from the author once a project is up and running?

How Involved Does the Author Need to Be?

Richard: It’s a little of both, I can do either. One book I finished last year, the client said, I want to write a book about this, we did an interview, and he said, go write it. That was it. I don’t think he’s even read it yet. The preferred end of the spectrum is where we collaborate through the writing of the book, working on it together, so when we get to the end you’ve got what you want. The worst thing is to get to the end and then go into what I call revision hell.

Michael: What’s a typical timeline for a ghostwritten book?

Timelines and Revision Hell

Richard: A book that’s say 200 pages could be 8 to 12 months. You can do them on a rush basis, you’ll get charged more for that. A book of 20,000 words can probably be finished in a couple of months. I generally write 10,000 words a month, plus an additional period for revisions. It’s very structured and organized, and I manage the project so it stays under control.

Michael: Other than the words, are there other components important to the level of interest? Do people still grab a book off the shelf, or are most buying online?

The Cover, the Flap, and the First Page

Richard: A mix of all of it. People read in bookstores, buy online, buy audiobooks. In a bookstore, the most important thing is the cover, then the book flap, then the introduction. The cover is always the most important, but then they read the flap, and if they’re engaged, they read the first page. If they’re not engaged by the first page, they put it back. So that first page is vital. That’s why a lot of movies now start with a big action scene, even though it often has nothing to do with the movie, it gets you engaged.

Michael: It’s the same with a podcast. If you haven’t got someone’s attention in the first little bit, the chances of them getting to the end are slim. Do you have a few tips for the executives listening?

Richard: A lot of executives have the dream of creating a book but don’t really know what it’ll be about. They have a vague idea, maybe they’re in cybersecurity and want to write something about cybersecurity, and that’s as far as it goes. But they know they’re good, they’ve got a story to tell. Your story is important. Set up an appointment, then do the Book Discovery Intensive, it’s not expensive, and we’ll narrow those things down so your idea gets put into concrete. Regardless of who you are, a celebrity, a CEO, a CFO, a director, a coach, a TikTok influencer, you’ve got a story to tell. You got there somehow. Get it into book form, because then it lasts forever and helps so many people. That’s the biggest thing about a book: you’re sharing your story, your successes, your beliefs, so other people can learn from it.

Michael: You sit in a unique space in the industry. Do you see the future of ghostwriting evolving in unique ways, given all the new content creation tools?

The Future of Ghostwriting

Richard: The low-end ghostwriter is probably on the way out, replaced by AI. The higher-end ghostwriters know how to weave emotion and feelings and stories together in a way AI never can. Well, I won’t say never, maybe 20, 30, 40 years from now. But we create a story that takes your heart and puts it into the book. I don’t know of any AI that can take your heart and put it into a book. I know how AI works, I’ve written four books on it, and it can’t do that. I can. That’s the future of ghostwriting: weaving stories in ways AI can’t, and in ways the lower-end ghostwriters can’t because they don’t have the experience. It’s going to evolve into an art form. And it is an art form.

Michael: Really appreciate you taking the deep dive with us on the Consulting Spotlight. Once again, Richard Lowe, The Writing King.

Richard: Thank you, glad I’ve been here.

Find Richard Lowe at TheWritingKing.com.

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