Ask people how many books are ghostwritten and most guess a handful: celebrity memoirs, maybe a politician or two. In fact it’s a large share of the nonfiction on any shelf, and a steady stream of business books, memoirs and family histories that never reach a bestseller list at all. I’ve ghostwritten 54+ books, so I see this industry from inside it.
People used to whisper about hiring a ghostwriter as if they were confessing to cheating, and I’m glad that’s fading. Hiring me is the same kind of decision as hiring an accountant or a lawyer: a skilled job goes to somebody who does it every day. The shame was always misplaced, and it kept a lot of good books from ever getting written.
How big is the ghostwriting industry?
Larger than most people assume. Market research firms estimate the global ghostwriting services market at over a billion dollars, with projections of growth near 8 percent a year through the end of the decade. Treat any single figure with some caution, since private work is hard to count, but every estimate points the same way: more people are hiring writers for books, articles and speeches every year.
I care less about the market total than about who’s doing the hiring, because the real change shows up in the clients.
Who is driving the growth in ghostwriting?
Most people who hire a ghostwriter aren't famous.
Hiring me is the same kind of decision as hiring an accountant or a lawyer: a skilled job goes to somebody who does it every day.
Mostly people who aren’t famous. Executives who need a book for authority. Founders raising money. Coaches and consultants who want a book that sells their method. Families who want a parent’s story written down in time. People who speak English as a second language. The 2024 Business Book ROI Study, a survey of 301 published business authors, found that only about 8 percent used a ghostwriter. Their books were four times as profitable as the rest. That gap is part of why the market keeps growing.
That last group counts for more than the market reports let on. Clients with limited written English, or none at all, are common in my practice, and they’re one of the main reasons I get hired. Somebody who built a company or raised a family in a second language has a book’s worth to say, and it would be a waste to let grammar decide that story doesn’t get told.
Where did the stigma around ghostwriting come from?
From a romantic idea of the solitary author that was never really true.
Speechwriters have written for leaders for centuries, publishers have always shaped famous books, and teams produced series fiction under house pen names long before anyone called it ghostwriting. The belief that real authors work alone made people quiet about help they’d always used. It didn’t make the help go away.
Discretion still has a place, just a different one. Clients have never worried that I’d steal their idea. They worry about other people learning it before the book comes out, and that’s a fair worry, so I tell every prospect on the first call that they’re under nondisclosure, and the statement of work marks everything proprietary. Keeping a project quiet until launch is ordinary business sense, and it has nothing to do with the old embarrassment.
My article on the history of ghostwriting goes back further.
How did the internet change ghostwriting?
It made the arrangement visible and more valuable. Speechwriters became public figures in their own right. Self-publishing let experts publish without a traditional deal. And a book became the anchor for everything else an expert does online: articles, talks, courses and consulting. Once people saw how many of the voices they admired had help, the question shifted from “is it allowed?” to “who’s good at it?”
Growth also brought the agencies, and I’d almost never send anyone to one.
You talk to a salesperson, the pitch feels wonderful, and then you’re handed to writers you’ve never met who aren’t the person who sold you. Agencies promise writers referral business and never send any. Hire an experienced solo practitioner. The one exception I respect is Randy Peyser, who isn’t really an agency at all; she outsources.
What is AI doing to the ghostwriting industry?
Splitting it in two. AI is replacing the commodity end, cheap “books” written to a brief by content mills, and often badly. The professional end is growing. More and more of my clients arrive after trying to produce a book with AI and getting something that sounds like everyone else. What AI can’t do is interview a person for hours, find the story they didn’t know mattered, and write it in their voice. My article on how AI is changing ghostwriting covers this in detail.
| Option | How it works | Where it is headed |
|---|---|---|
| Content mill | Cheap “books” written to a brief, often badly | Being replaced by AI |
| Agency | A salesperson pitches you, then hands you to writers you never met | Grew with the market; the author would almost never send anyone to one |
| Experienced solo practitioner | Interviews you for hours, finds the story, writes in your voice | Growing, including clients who tried AI first |
Is it still acceptable to use a ghostwriter?
More than ever, as long as the substance is yours. The ethical line has always been whether the expertise and experiences in the book are real. My article on whether ghostwriting is unethical draws that line.
My take
Professional ghostwriting is growing while the cheap end shrinks, and AI is the reason for both. If you want a book, hire an experienced solo practitioner who interviews you for hours and writes in your voice. Skip the agency where a salesperson pitches you and hands you to a stranger. Skip the content mill too. The stigma is gone. What still matters is whether the expertise and the stories in the book are yours.
What does the growth of ghostwriting mean for you?
That hiring a ghostwriter is a normal professional decision you don’t need to hide. If you have something worth a book and not the months to write it, you’re exactly the person the industry has grown up to serve. The question worth your time is how to choose a good one. Start with how to hire a ghostwriter. I tell clients to ask their accountant about the fee, and many of them have deducted it, the same way they’d handle any other professional service their business pays for.
If you’d like to see professional ghostwriting on your own material first, the Book Discovery Intensive ends with a book strategy and a sample chapter in your voice. My ghostwriting services cover the full book. Anyone who still describes ghostwriting as a dirty secret is behind the times. The expertise and the life story in these books belong to the people who lived them, and every author who hid the help made it harder for the next person with a real story to ask for any.
Growth in the industry means more people asking how it works. The Ghostwriting Advantage is my book on how to get your book written for you.
Frequently Asked Questions
- A Comprehensive Study of Business Book ROI, Gotham Ghostwriters and Josh Bernoff
- 64% of business books are profitable. That’s the bottom line from our study of Business Book ROI, Josh Bernoff (study co-author)
