“Ask your accountant.”
That’s my answer every time a client asks whether the book is deductible. Many of them have deducted the fee. Whether you can depends on your business, and your accountant knows your business far better than I do.
Where the money comes from gets far less thought than the tax question, and it matters just as much. A book takes months of planning, and deciding how to pay for it in an afternoon is backwards. It bothers me, because a book that stalls for lack of money leaves the author with half a manuscript and a bill.
A book gets paid for a lot like a college degree. There’s savings, the employer who covers tuition, the scholarship from people who believe in you, and the loan you’re still paying off ten years later. Any of them can work, and the loan can wreck you if there’s no plan behind it. Like a degree, the book pays you back through what you do with it afterward, never through the diploma itself.
How do most people pay for a ghostwritten book?
Savings and business funds are the two common sources. A memoir is a personal purchase, so it comes out of personal money. Business books are business tools, so they come out of the business, and the tax question goes to your accountant.
The cleanest way to pay is from savings. You owe nobody, and if the project runs longer than planned, you’re not paying interest while it does. Book ghostwriters bill in stages over the months the book takes, so you can set the money aside as you go.
Know the total before you decide where it’s coming from. I price by the word, with an “up to” word count in the contract, so the length of the book sets my price and a longer book means a change order. Ghostwriters who don’t price by the word charge by the project, the page or the hour, and some set a floor, since a shorter book still carries heavy interviews and research. My current rates are on the ghostwriting service page, and the ghostwriting costs article explains what drives the price in general.
Can a sponsor or my company pay for my book?
Yes. I’ve ghostwritten several company-paid books, and the largest project of my career was one of them.
Ownership is where company money gets complicated. Most of the company-paid books I’ve written were for small companies owned by the person who hired me, so who owned the book never came up. When a larger company pays, the company can end up owning the book, and on that largest project it did, with the executive’s agreement. If you leave, the book stays behind. Settle that in writing before anyone signs, and read who owns a company-paid ghostwritten book if you leave first.
Sponsors are a different animal. A sponsor, such as an industry association or a partner company, pays toward the book in exchange for something, like a mention or copies for their own clients. That’s a business deal, and it needs its own contract, as the sponsorship model for funding a book explains. Have a lawyer read the sponsor agreement, and ask your accountant how the sponsor’s money gets treated.
Watch what the sponsor wants for the money. A mention in the acknowledgments is fine. Keep chapter approval out of any sponsor agreement, because a sponsor who approves your chapters controls your voice.
How do I ask my employer to pay for my book?
Pitch it as a business tool, since that’s how the company will judge it. Show what the book will do for them: a credential for the sales team to hand out, a platform for talks at industry events, a reason for the press to call. Companies don’t pay for vanity projects, and they shouldn’t.
Expect three questions and answer them before anyone asks. Who owns the book, who approves the manuscript before publication, and what happens to it if you leave? A company that pays will want a say, and you need to know how much of a say before the first interview, because a legal review that rewrites your chapters six months in is a miserable way to finish a book.
Get the answers in writing, signed by someone with the authority to sign them. A manager’s verbal yes won’t survive a reorganization, and a promise from someone who has since moved on is worth nothing when the legal department reads your manuscript.
Can I crowdfund a ghostwritten book?
Yes, and it’s a legitimate way to fund one if you treat your backers as customers. On a rewards platform they’ve paid in advance for a book, and you owe them that book.
Kickstarter, for one, runs all-or-nothing funding and doesn’t release money to a project that misses its goal. So your goal has to cover the ghostwriter, the editing, the printing and shipping of rewards, and the platform’s fees, all before any of it reaches you. Set the goal too low and you’ve promised books you can’t afford to make.
Count the cost of every signed copy and shipped hardcover before you set the goal, since those come out of the money raised. Keep the reward tiers simple, too. Every extra tier is one more thing to produce and mail while the book is still being written.
Budget your hours along with the money. A campaign is a part-time job for its whole run, with updates to post, messages to answer and reminders to send your network, and the weeks you spend running it are weeks you’re not spending in interviews.
Then there’s tax. The IRS says crowdfunded money can be taxable income. It also says a true gift, given with nothing expected back, may not be taxable. It explains both in its guidance on crowdfunding. A backer waiting for a signed copy expects something. Ask your accountant how to handle the campaign money before you launch.
Delivery dates trip people up too. Backers want a delivery date, and a ghostwritten book depends on the ghostwriter’s schedule and on you showing up for interviews. Launch once you’ve got a writer booked and an outline approved, and promise a date with slack in it. A campaign that promises a book in four months and delivers it in fourteen burns the goodwill it was built on, and those backers were supposed to be your first and most loyal readers. Whether you mention the ghostwriter on the campaign page is your call.
Treat the campaign as a test. If the people who know you best won’t back the book, that tells you something about the book or about the pitch, and it’s far cheaper to learn it before the writing starts than after. A fast-funding campaign also hands you a list of readers waiting for the launch.
Should I put a ghostwriter on a credit card or take out a loan?
Only if you can pay it off from something other than book sales. You’re very unlikely to earn back a ghostwriting fee through sales, and I tell every client so before they sign.
A loan can make sense for a business owner with a plan. If the book is the foundation of a speaking career, a consulting practice or a course, borrowing for it works like borrowing for equipment, and you should run the numbers the same way. How many engagements do you need to cover the payments? And how confident are you of getting them? If you can’t answer both, you’re not ready to borrow.
Credit cards are the worst way to do it. Interest on a carried balance runs high, and a fee you meant to clear in a few months can turn into years of payments if you only cover the minimum. I hate the thought of anyone carrying that kind of debt for a memoir they wanted to leave their grandchildren. Have whoever manages your money look at the plan before you charge anything.
Unfortunately, some outfits in this business are happy to push you into debt. If an agency or a so-called publishing company offers you financing before it has asked what the book is for, it’s selling you debt with a book attached, and I’d run. A good ghostwriter wants to know how you’ll use the book long before the subject of payment comes up.
Is a ghostwritten book a business expense?
Ask your accountant. Whether you can deduct the fee depends on your business, your country and how the book gets used, so the answer has to come from someone who knows your finances. Is hiring a ghostwriter tax deductible? goes through the questions to bring to that meeting.
Have that conversation before you sign, because the answer can decide who pays. A book that’s deductible for your company and not for you personally is a reason to have the company pay, and then the ownership question from the company section comes straight back.
Keep the paperwork whoever pays: the contract, every invoice, and a note of how the book gets used once it’s out. Your accountant will ask for all of it, and reconstructing a year of payments from bank statements in April is a lousy way to spend a weekend.
Can I pay a ghostwriter in installments?
Book ghostwriters bill in installments as a matter of course, since a book takes months. The common structures are monthly payments and payments tied to milestones, like an approved outline or a batch of delivered chapters. Expect a payment up front before work starts, because the writer is reserving months of their calendar for your book, and expect a larger one on a rush job.
Installments make savings workable. You pay over the life of the project and set the money aside in stages. Don’t sign a schedule you can only meet if everything else in your life goes right, though. Ask how the schedule handles delays on your side, like a month when you can’t make interviews, because a payment due for work that’s stalled on your end is a fight waiting to happen. Missed payments stop projects, and what happens if a ghostwriter terminates the contract shows how that ends.
Pay someone you’ve spoken to. I require a phone or Zoom call with every prospect, and I treat email-only negotiation as a scam signal no matter which side it comes from. Pay against a signed contract with the schedule written into it, and never send money to a writer who won’t get on a call.
What are my options if a ghostwriter is out of my budget?
Then don’t hire one yet, and don’t borrow to do it. Write the book yourself with help.
Book coaching gets you a guide while you do the writing, and the hybrid model of ghostwriting some chapters and coaching others costs less than full ghostwriting. For people without the budget for either, writing with AI is fine, as long as you use it as a tool and do the thinking yourself.
You can also wait, and it’s a good option. A year of saving lets you pay cash and skip the interest. Use the year to gather your material, and the book you commission will cost less because you’ve done part of the work already.
Should I expect book sales to cover what I pay a ghostwriter?
Almost never through sales. What you do with the book can pay the fee back many times over. The return comes from using the book as the foundation of your marketing, in speaking fees, consulting contracts, courses and promotions.
That’s the degree again: the job a diploma opens up pays the salary, and a book works the same way for a consultant or a coach. If you can’t name what the book will open up for you, sort that out before you sort out the money. How to calculate the ROI of a ghostwritten book helps you put numbers to it.
Pay for it like a degree you’ll use
Write down three things before you talk to anyone about price: where the money will come from, what the book is supposed to do for you, and how you’d cover the payments if the project ran long. Take that page to your accountant. Then check my rates on the ghostwriting service page, and if you want to work out what the book is for before paying for all of it, start with the Book Discovery Intensive. The Ghostwriting Hub has the rest.
I’d rather you wait a year and pay from savings than put your book on a card and resent every chapter. I’m furious at the outfits that sell financing along with a book package, because they turn somebody’s proudest project into a monthly bill.
Nobody frames a diploma for the tuition receipt. It goes on the wall because of what it let you do, and a book you paid for with a plan belongs on your shelf for the same reason.
