A ghostwriter’s best work is the work nobody can see.
That’s the job.
The client’s name goes on the cover. The ghostwriter signs a nondisclosure agreement and walks away. Most of the books I’ve written for other people will never carry my name, and I can’t tell you which ones they are. That’s the promise I make, and keeping it is most of what makes me worth hiring.
Now try proving your experience to a marketplace that wants to see your books.
Reedsy is the best known of the screened marketplaces for book professionals. It lists editors, cover designers, marketers and ghostwriters, and it works hard to keep the quality high. Authors use it to find help they can’t judge on their own, and that’s a real service. I respect the goal. But the way it measures quality runs straight into the way ghostwriting works, and the rules for working on the platform make the job harder for both the writer and the author.
What does Reedsy require from ghostwriters?
Reedsy publishes its selection criteria, and they’re strict on purpose. The company says it accepts only around 3% of applicants. By its own count, more than 130,000 professionals have applied and about 3,400 have been accepted.
For ghostwriters, the bar is at least three years of professional ghostwriting experience and demonstrated work on a minimum of five published books. Those books are supposed to be recent and well-reviewed on Amazon, Goodreads, Apple Books or Google Books. Reedsy also wants ghostwriters to be discreet professionals. Hold that thought.
Reedsy knows the problem exists. Its criteria say that ghostwriting can make involvement hard to prove, and the company gives applicants alternative ways to describe the work. It also says applicants who miss a minimum can make up for it with other experience, like years at a well-known traditional publisher. The review takes up to ten days, and Reedsy admits the decision is somewhat subjective. Meeting every criterion still doesn’t guarantee you get in.
Why can’t experienced ghostwriters get on Reedsy?
Because the evidence Reedsy wants is the evidence we promised never to show.
I’ve never been able to get listed. I can’t disclose the books I’ve ghostwritten, and only a few of my books have come out through traditional publishers. On paper that makes me look less experienced than a writer with five public ghost credits, when the reverse is closer to the truth. I’ve ghostwritten 54+ books. I can point to almost none of them. A writer with five public ghost credits and a fraction of that history can clear a bar I can’t.
The NDA starts early in my practice. Clients are under nondisclosure from our first call, and I can list a book in my portfolio only if the client acknowledges me in it or tells me I can. Most don’t.
They hired a ghostwriter so the book would read as theirs. If I broke that to win a listing on a marketplace, I’d be proving I’m the wrong person to trust with the next one.
So when a screening process asks a ghostwriter for five recent, well-reviewed books, a lot of us have the same answer. The books exist, and we signed agreements that forbid us from pointing at them.
That’s the trap. A ghostwriter whose clients let them take credit can build a beautiful Reedsy profile. A ghostwriter who works for executives, athletes and coaches under strict NDAs can’t do that. The more discreet you are, the worse you look to a screening process built on public proof.
A ghostwriter’s best work is the work nobody can see. Any marketplace that screens on public credits is filtering out the writers who keep their promises. – Richard LoweShare on X
That doesn’t make the Reedsy ghostwriters bad. Many of them are very good. It means the filter catches a particular kind of ghostwriter, and misses another kind entirely. I wrote about the same wall from the buyer’s side in how to vet a ghostwriter when NDAs hide the portfolio.
Does Reedsy let ghostwriters and clients talk off the platform?
Not if they want Reedsy’s protection.
Reedsy’s trust policy says all communication, written and verbal, must take place exclusively on Reedsy. Its project protection, the mediation and possible refunds it offers when a collaboration goes wrong, only covers projects managed entirely through the platform. Move the conversation to email or the phone and Reedsy says it can no longer mediate disputes or protect either side. It also warns users that it only operates through its official website. Every email from its team comes from an @reedsy.com address.
The video call rules go further. Reedsy runs its own calls on Zoom, at no charge, and professionals can schedule them through the platform or share Calendly availability. Its help pages tell professionals not to send external phone numbers, video-call links or scheduling links during ordinary marketplace conversations.
For a ghostwriter, that’s a strange way to start. Ghostwriting is a relationship business. I need to hear how a client talks, how they tell a story when they’re relaxed and what they leave out when they’re nervous. All of that comes out over many hours of conversation, on the phone, over Zoom and in person. A platform that wants every word of that inside its walls is building a fence around the most important part of the job.
Does using Reedsy’s video calls break a ghostwriting NDA?
Not in most cases. It does raise a question every ghostwriter should answer before the first call. My NDAs promise that what a client tells me stays between the two of us. On Reedsy, the call runs through Reedsy’s own Zoom account, and the trust policy makes Reedsy the referee in any dispute, judged on what happened on the platform. That puts a company in the middle of the conversation that never signed my NDA.
The client agreed to Reedsy’s terms when they joined. That covers most of it, and plenty of NDAs allow sharing with service providers bound by their own confidentiality rules. Still, read the agreement. If it limits disclosure to named people or rules out third-party platforms, the marketplace’s rules and the NDA’s rules pull in opposite directions. Reedsy’s help pages describe how the calls work. They don’t say whether the calls are recorded, or who can see them if they are.
Why do marketplaces insist on keeping everything on the platform?
Because the fee depends on it.
Every marketplace that charges a commission has the same worry.
Once a writer and a client have met and started trusting each other, they don’t need the middleman anymore. If they take the project off the platform, the platform loses its cut. Fiverr has an off-platform policy for the same reason, and I’ve written about why Fiverr is a bad place to hire a ghostwriter anyway. Reedsy frames its rules as protection for both sides, and the protection is real. The rules also protect the commission. Nobody puts that on the help page.
I don’t blame a company for wanting to get paid. I do think the cost falls on the kind of project that needs the most freedom. A book is long, personal and built on trust, and it runs for months.
How much does Reedsy charge?
Reedsy charges a 20% commission on each collaboration, split down the middle. The professional pays 10%, and the client pays 10%. UK-based freelancers also pay VAT on the service fee.
On a $50,000 ghostwriting project, that’s $5,000 from the author and $5,000 from the writer. Some of it buys something useful. The screening means an author isn’t wading through the bottom of an open gig site, and project protection gives a nervous first-time author somewhere to turn if things go badly.
But a ghostwriting project runs for months. The client pays a percentage on top of the fee for the whole length of it, and the writer gives up a percentage too, in exchange for rules that make the work slower. That’s a trade some people will happily make. I wouldn’t.
Is Reedsy a good place to hire a ghostwriter?
As a starting shortlist, it’s a lot safer than the open gig sites. Reedsy screens harder than most, and I’ve said as much in my guide on where to find a ghostwriter. If you’re nervous about scams and want a referee, the platform gives you one.
Just know what you’re seeing. You’re seeing the ghostwriters who could prove five public books, accepted at a rate of about one in thirty-three. You’re not seeing the ones who couldn’t prove it because their clients’ names are on the covers. Some of the most experienced writers in this business are in that second group.
You’re also agreeing to keep the whole relationship inside a system that limits how you talk to the person who’ll be writing your book. On a short project that won’t matter much. For a memoir or a business book built on dozens of hours of interviews, it matters a lot.
What should authors do outside the marketplaces?
Vet the writer. The platform’s badge is a starting point at most.
A ghostwriter who can’t show you client work can still show you plenty. Look for books under their own name, a website with years of writing on it, podcast and interview appearances where you can hear how they think, and a clear, written process. Ask them to walk you through how they handle NDAs and how they’ll show you the work those NDAs hide. Then talk to them live, at length, before you sign anything.
Ask about the contract, too: who owns the copyright, how many revision rounds are included and what happens if either side walks away. Those questions protect you whether you hire through a marketplace or directly.
A platform can screen for credentials. It can’t screen for chemistry, and in ghostwriting, chemistry decides whether the book gets finished.
And trust your gut on the first long conversation. If the writer asks good questions, listens more than they talk and wants to understand why you’re writing the book, you’ve learned more than any profile badge can tell you. If they spend the call selling, keep looking. The decision framework for choosing between ghostwriters walks through the rest.
The work you can’t see
Reedsy built a careful filter, and it does what it was designed to do. It keeps out the worst of the open market. It also keeps out a lot of ghostwriters whose best books are sitting on shelves under somebody else’s name, where they belong.
If you’re looking for help with a book, the Ghostwriting Hub covers how to find, vet and work with a ghostwriter. If you’d like to talk with me directly, without a platform in the middle, my ghostwriting service lays out how I work. I can’t show you most of my books. I can show you how I’ll write yours.
