Ginny Carter: 5 Secrets of a Top Ghostwriter Revealed!
Ginny Carter is a bestselling ghostwriter of 25 books, a book coach, and an award-winning author in her own right. She takes entrepreneurs, coaches, and consultants from everyday expert to respected thought leader and in-demand speaker, through the book that grows their reputation and expands their business.
She loves writing, and it frustrates her when she talks to business owners who have books trapped inside them for the want of some expert help. Her talent lies in enticing their ideas, their signature programme, or their talk, out of their heads and into business and self-help books that are engaging, insightful, and persuasive.
Her guide to writing a standout business book, the award-winning Your Business Your Book, takes you through the process of planning, writing, and promoting your own book. And her most recent book, How to Write a Self-Help Book, explains how to write a personal development guide that transforms people’s lives.
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Ginny Carter Interview Transcript
Richard Lowe 00:01
Good day. My name is Richard Lowe, the writing King, I’m a ghostwriter, a book coach and a LinkedIn branding expert. And I’m here today with Jenny Carter. She’s a best selling ghostwriter of 25 books, a book coach, and an award winning author in her own right. She takes entrepreneurs, coaches and consultants, from everyday experts to respected thought leaders and in demand speakers, through the book process to grow their reputation and expand their business. He’s the author of your business, your book and how to write a self help book. Welcome, Jenny.
Ginny Carter 00:32
Thank you. I’m delighted to be here.
Richard Lowe 00:35
Excellent. Well, I’m happy you decided to come on. And watch. Tell me a little bit about yourself.
Ginny Carter 00:41
Yeah, well, I have a background originally in marketing, I was working on the dark side for quite a while. So I worked with various different companies, big and small ones. And for about 18 years, I did that kind of role in the in the corporate world. And then I left and started working as a social media manager. And this was this was at a time when social media was really exploding, and a lot of companies needed social media expertise. But the smaller businesses couldn’t really afford to have their own in house experts. So I worked as a freelancer managing their social media accounts for them. So posting tweeting them, building their audiences, using my marketing expertise, I guess, to to do that job, and really enjoyed it. And it was going very well. But it just became a bit relentless. Really, you know, social media isn’t something that you can get away from very easily so. So I decided to, that I needed a new direction, and I really didn’t know what it should be. And I started work with a coach actually, to help me to work out, you know, what I wanted to do with my life. And so I, through a process of exploration, I kind of realized that one of the things that my clients always said to me, was, You sound just like us when you’re posting for us, you know, when you’re tweeting and blogging. And so when you sound you come across in our voice really well, it how do you do it? And I just remember thinking what I thought everyone could do that I didn’t think it was really that big a deal. But I realized that actually, I did have this talent for it for writing and other people’s voices. And I always love writing. I did an English degree many years ago. And I always been a big writer and a big reader. And so the idea came to me that I could be a ghostwriter for business books, because I had all this business experience. So I slowly transitioned away from social media into into business, but ghost writing and, and what I realized, I think, once I started to do that was actually this was a very diverse world of books, business books, I mean, it encompasses many things. It can be books about HR, or it or how to be an entrepreneur. And you know, there’s all sorts of different things that you can write about. But also things like personal development topics. I memoirs as well, particularly business memoirs, you know, memoirs about the, for people’s lives, where they’ve had a lot of career success, and they want to talk about how they’ve achieved what they have. So these are all business books in in their own way. And I’ve really enjoyed getting to know all those different niches and markets and as long as the book so kind of as a potted history really how I’ve got to where I am now.
Richard Lowe 03:28
Well, very nice. It’s it sounds like an interesting journey. Yeah, I started ghost writing 10 years ago, and I jumped off the cliff, I just jumped straight to quit my job and jump straight into it. And it was scary.
Ginny Carter 03:40
It well, you’re very brave. I had my
Richard Lowe 03:43
Yeah. And and I made it work, and got some big clients to begin with, which is very helpful. And well, one thing I’m curious about is you’re a ghostwriter. How do you promote yourself?
Ginny Carter 03:55
Yeah, well, I suppose my social media experience really helped with that. So I had the right skills already lined up. But the thing like when I first started that I’d never done was promoted myself through. So that was that was a big learning curve to kind of get over that. I’ve got to talk about myself and sell myself and you know, people gonna think I’m really arrogant. If I say I’m good at what I do. And I have to sort of, maybe that’s a British thing to get over that. So the way I mainly promote myself now is through my website and my blog. Mainly clients find me through that. Also, through LinkedIn, I enjoy that and of course, talking to people like your good self on podcasts and interviews. And that’s another way to promote what I do. So I say that those are the main areas I’m not big Instagram or Facebook person. And I’ve never found things like those kinds of channels are very helpful for me. And I think because it’s more of a business audience. LinkedIn is just a better, you know, better place to talk about what I do.
Richard Lowe 04:58
I actually got to start with LinkedIn. Make over when I first started out, and they do LinkedIn profiles for people, so I did about 300 of them, I got trained by Donna’s to do live herself. She wrote, she wrote on LinkedIn for dummies. And so I got a bit of a start there. So I was naturally favoring LinkedIn. I’m spreading out to Facebook now, but I’m doing CDC, a b2c business to consumer, because that’s more of my writing coaching is aimed at writers. And then, of course, b2b with on LinkedIn, and I’m expanding into YouTube videos. And it’s a brave new world.
Ginny Carter 05:35
Yeah, and I think one of the lovely things about being a writer is that there’s always something new to learn. I mean, you know, I started doing more memoirs now, and, and that’s a really different skill set, I think, to business books and personal development books. And you have to work with people in a different way, you know, clients who’ve got much more personal issues they want to talk about, it’s a much more of a immersive experience, I guess. So I’m learning all sorts of new things in that, and, and every book is just a new journey. It’s just a whole new set of challenges. And you said, wonderful things you learn in? I think the great thing about being a ghostwriter is you get to become a world expert in something for six months. And you just learned so much. And then of course, you then put it to one side and start on the next book.
Richard Lowe 06:27
Yeah, I know what you mean. I read books about the metaverse, and I’d never even seen the metaverse before. I didn’t know what it was. I mean, other than the vague stuff you read in the news. And by the time the book was done, I’m an expert on the metaverse. Something else you know, then it’s AI, then it’s security. And then it’s children’s book. And now I’m doing a memoir. Yeah, that’s that’s always interesting. Work. I just did the first draft. He is not thrilled with it. So I’m have to tell him it’s a first draft. We’re gonna go through it and fix it up. Don’t worry. We’re gonna spend a couple hours together tomorrow. You know, the drill. I’m not I have to explain him. I’m not used. So I don’t know your life very well. You know, I got some details wrong. Of course I did. Because he got it. We’ll talk tomorrow.
Ginny Carter 07:13
Yeah, yeah. And I think what’s really rewarding about working with the client as a ghostwriter is, is that you kind of when you get it, right, eventually, you know, there will be ups and downs along the way. And it won’t always go smoothly. But at the end when you’ve got it right. And they’re really pleased with their book. It’s like you’ve kind of made their dream come true, really, isn’t it? They’ve got that book that they’ve been wanting for years sometimes. And there’s just a real sense of satisfaction in that which I love.
Richard Lowe 07:40
I have to tell you about my first book, I was working for a ghost writing company, and he was paying the whole $1,000 for a books. And that Yeah, first one. And then I left there that because I, you know, $1,000 wasn’t enough to do all the revisions and things. And my boss told me, You’re not gonna find business, you’re not a marketer, it’s not going to be easy for you, blah, blah, blah. The next day, I had a $10,000 contract in my hand, the very next day, two days later, I had a $15,000 contract in my hand. It’s like, boss, I think you’re wrong. Or excuse me, ex boss, I think you’re wrong. And pretty much sometimes, you know, it’s, I’m sure you know, this, it’s feast or famine sometimes sometimes. Like now it’s a little bit tougher to get business, I guess, the economy. But last year it was pouring in. And it just depends on whatever, you know. And I’m sure you’re aware of this.
Ginny Carter 08:31
Yes, exactly. I mean, I found during the pandemic, I had a lot of work, because suddenly people were sitting at home, in this book that they’d been thinking vaguely thinking about for the last however, many years, you know, suddenly they don’t want no, I’ve got tons of work with a ghost writer, and that will be the coach. Because I coach people as well. And so, so yeah, so that was a very busy patch for me. And I think I’ve been steadily working really, for the last five years. I mean, the first few few years, at first sort of three or four years, it was probably a bit more touching go because it was either feast or famine, as you say. But I think I’ve built up enough of a reputation now that I’m getting steady work coming through. And I can also to certain extent I choose what I do as well, which I think makes a massive difference and if something comes along, but I just think for me, it’s a lovely feeling to be able to just do the work you enjoy.
Richard Lowe 09:22
It’s the best, isn’t it? Where you can say, sorry, I can’t take on that project. I am not going to write your book about the mafia informants and stuff. Because I do like my life. I got one of those and it’s like, no, no, no. Give me a lots of money. And he named a figure six figures and I was like, not gonna do it.
Ginny Carter 09:40
Oh, that’s yeah, that’s, that’s Yes. Your prerogative?
Richard Lowe 09:43
Yeah, it happens in the ghostwriting world. You see, you’ve also written some of your own books. What are they about?
Ginny Carter 09:48
Yeah, so I’ve written two books. One is called your business, your book. So it’s a book. It’s a book about how to write a book. It’s a book about how to write your own business book. So it’s most people who write a business book they will Want to share their knowledge and help people but they also want to make themselves an authority figure in their field. And so this is all about how you do that. And then I’ve got another book, How to Write a self help book, which is coming out towards the end of September. And that’s, that’s, that’s really based actually, on my experience of being a judge for a Book Awards, which I don’t do for a few years on the trot. And I did do a fair bit of judging for the personal development category in that, in that awards, and one of the things I realized, when I read it must have been about between 50 and 100, personal development books in the space of two years. I mean, it was really kind of baptism of fire. And a lot of them made the same mistakes. Some were very good, but the ones that didn’t work, they all did the same things wrong. And I thought, Well, why didn’t I write a book about how to do it? Right, so. So that’s where that came from? So I’m excited to see how it goes.
Richard Lowe 11:02
Very nice. Yes, yes. When I first started, I had the idea that I could make it as an author. So I wrote and wrote and wrote, I wrote like, 60 books. About two years. They’re not long books, most of them, but some of them are, and found out that the problem with making this author is promotion, promoting the book, and I put my heart and soul into one on security, and it sold like 10 copies, because there’s like 10 billion security books out there. And what are you gonna do you just learn, live and learn? So I lived in learned?
Ginny Carter 11:35
Yeah, well, that’s the great thing about being a ghost writer is you just hand the manuscripts over to your clients? And then they go off and do all of that themselves? Yes, I mean, I do sympathize. I’m not an actual promotion. And I’m bit lazy with it. Really, to be honest, I probably could do more. But I just enjoy it. I just find it really satisfying to have my own book out there. And I enjoy it. And if people want to buy it, that’s great. And if they don’t, well, that’s a shame. But actually, I don’t really see having a lot of sales has been the mark of success for this book. It’s more, it’s more about, you know, does it help people? And also, do I gain any clients from it? Because your business, your book, I mean, I gained, I mean, in fact, that was one client I get into, he said, he went onto Amazon, typed in how to write business. But recall, something along those lines, came up with my book, along with a few others bought, I think three books, decided to really like mine, like my approach, and contacted me, and then I became his ghostwriter for his next book. So I mean, that, you know, if I hadn’t written that book that that job would never have come to me. You know, that’s how it works, isn’t it? Yeah, that’s that
Richard Lowe 12:43
is how it works. I got my feelers all over the place, just like you’ve got to and somebody comes in, how do you find me? Well, I found you went from this and this and this. I wrote that like five years ago, we forgot about it.
Ginny Carter 12:56
And it still it still is the gift that never stops giving. And I often think as well, that people look in various different places, when they want to work with someone, it doesn’t matter whether it’s a ghost writer, or a leadership coach, or whatever else it is, or a LinkedIn expert. And they often they often look in different places. And if you’re in, you’ve got a website here, and you’ve got a profile on a different site there, and you’ve got a book there, and you’ve got, you know, a blog over there a podcast, you know, people just join the dots, and they slowly get to you. But the less places you are, the less likely people are to find you because you never know where they’re going to start.
Richard Lowe 13:34
That’s that’s the approach that I’m taking. Although it can be tiring to have so many channels.
Ginny Carter 13:41
Yeah. And you have to know where to draw the line, don’t you? There has to be a stop point. And everybody’s got their own personal line.
Richard Lowe 13:49
Well, since it’s just me, and I’m hiring a va, a virtual assistant, it and I heard a lead generator also for LinkedIn. So he’s busy creating leads. You do a pretty good job at it. Okay. That’s interesting. Somebody from India? Yeah. And we’ll see how that goes. But other than that, I don’t tend to hire people because I’m just I’m a solopreneur. And it’s a lot of work. Yes, a lot of work. And I have to draw the line, as you say, certain places. Yeah. As you I’m sure.
Ginny Carter 14:23
Yeah, I find my line becomes kind of closer and closer. As the years go by. I’m less and less inclined to do think but actually, I do think sometimes it is good to put do something new a bit like I’m doing now with you. I haven’t done one of these for a while. It’s nice. I think it doesn’t hurt to step outside the zone from for once.
Richard Lowe 14:43
I got the idea to help promote authors and Ghost Riders and things and get to know them a little better. Because we’re all part of the same community. You know, we don’t have to cut each other’s throats so to speak. can be fun, but you know,
Ginny Carter 14:57
no, I think it’s really great getting to know each other right? I suppose there’s nothing like it. And it’s a very, I mean, I’ve always found it to be a very supportive community, the whole book worlds, you know, it’s this is a, it’s a nice world to be in, I think, and people generally help each other out.
Richard Lowe 15:13
So let me ask you a question that’s on a lot of people’s minds, I’m sure. Yeah. And I’ll ask it a lot of features. Also, this podcast is, how’s AI affecting your business? No, yeah,
Ginny Carter 15:22
no, that’s really interesting. Well, I mean, I’ve actually, uh, first I was probably like many writers, I was thinking, Oh, my goodness, this is the beginning of the end, you know, I’ll start my sort of retire now kind of thing. And then I and then I found it actually, interestingly, this is a book called ghost writing, where it’s not about AI, but AI features in it fairly heavily for a business author. And he gave me a quote, which was from somebody in the tech world, I can’t remember who now but basically saying that you will lose your job to somebody who knows how to use AI, before you use it to AI. And this really, really kind of resonated with me. And I decided, actually, I need to learn how to use it, because it’s no good just pretending it’s not going on. You know, it’s it’s happening. So I’ve been doing a bit of educating myself, trying out different platforms. And actually, I’ve been really both impressed, but also somewhat smugly kind of disappointed in what it can and can’t do. So I mean, I have tried some things which have really stumped me with how well this works. And I think a lot of it is learning how to use it and how to ask the right questions. And I found that, that it’s helping me, you know, it’s helping me be a better writer in a relatively minor way at the moment. I mean, that may change. But it’s giving me ideas, I think a lot of what it’s doing is giving me it gives me suggestions, most of which I won’t take because I don’t think they’re right, or they’re not good enough, but then sparked an idea to do something else. And I know a lot of people use it to help them do editing. And I’ve been very pleased. But again, you have to apply your own judgment. Just take what it gives me use it. And that’s kind of where I am with it. Really, you know, I’ve got a bit more of a positive attitude about it now, because I think it can be helpful, but quite where it will lead the writing profession. We don’t know.
Richard Lowe 17:20
Well, I’ve been using it. Sorry, I’ve been using it to read. Sometimes doing an interview, it’s all over the place. So it’s recorded. So take the transcript and shove it at chat GPT and say, make some sense of this for me that just That’s my prompt. It spits out a page and says, This is what we you talked about blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I was like, Oh, that was pretty cool. Because usually it takes several hours to go through those darn things. And stuff like that I’m finding it very useful for but I’m amazed at how inconsistently stupid it is. Okay, yeah, there’s some times where I say do this, and it’s brilliant. Yeah. And then there’s other times where it’s like, what did you turn into a brick?
Ginny Carter 18:00
Yeah, this inconsistency. That’s the difficult thing, because it’s not always the same things. It gets wrong. You’re right.
Richard Lowe 18:05
It gets things wrong. I asked him for a biography of me. And it said, I have three wives at the same time. six children and all this all this stuff going on. Like you didn’t actually look me up online, did you?
Ginny Carter 18:22
Oh, maybe it’s a different one person with the same name. You never know. Maybe there’s another ghostwriter with the same name. But this was an exotic lifestyle.
Richard Lowe 18:30
Well, my dad’s an artist, but he didn’t pull any of that or wasn’t artists. It didn’t pull any of that stuff in. Who knows? But it’s you had to have there’s a lawyer who got disbarred because he, his paralegal probably didn’t fact check it. And the judge was furious.
Ginny Carter 18:46
Yeah, yeah, we know what else goes right, as we do make sure that we fact check things anyway. How are we?
Richard Lowe 18:53
What’s that word? Again? Fact check. I’m supposed to do that. Of course, of course, you have to you have to. Although my contracts, I’ll say that that’s my clients responsibility, because I am not the knowledge expert. I still, obviously and
Ginny Carter 19:06
I say the same here as well, and we do it but we don’t take responsibility, ultimate responsibility.
Richard Lowe 19:11
I’m not an expert on what they’re talking about. I’m just, I’m translating and doing research and stuff. So it’s important to keep that they understand that. But let’s see, where do you see your journey going? As we go as you go forward?
Ginny Carter 19:28
Well, I don’t see. I mean, I’m really enjoying what I’m doing. I like to do more of the same really, but I would like to do more memoirs. I’m finding those really rewarding and interesting, quite challenging. But I always think it’s good to keep challenging yourself as a writer, it’s, you can get stale, otherwise if you keep doing too many of the same things. And I yeah, I just want to keep on working from all my interesting people. I find that every time I start a book, I always wonder, what am I gonna be able to do this? You know, is this going to be interesting and then the more you get it into a subject or interesting against, I think it’s almost impossible to write a whole book about something without getting really fascinated by it. It’s just the nature of it really, because you just become immersed in it. So yeah, more of the same for me. You haven’t
Richard Lowe 20:15
gotten into the role of technical writing, which can be really dry. I,
Ginny Carter 20:21
I’ve done a bit of that. And I do quite enjoy making kind of boring things interesting. But there is sometimes only so much you can do. I didn’t quite agree. Yes. Maybe that wouldn’t be my thing.
Richard Lowe 20:31
Pretty much why I get hired technical writing occasionally is because they simply don’t want to do it. It’s so dry. Like, I can do that. Whatever. Yeah. And, you know, cybersecurity type stuff is, I’m a cybersecurity person also. So I can do a lot of that. Yeah. That’s very good. Let’s see, what’s your worst or your don’t give any names, of course. But what’s your most difficult client, or difficult project? Oh.
Ginny Carter 21:00
I did once work with a guy who it kind of became apparent, I think, fairly early on that he didn’t have as much to say, as he thought he did. He kind of we burned through the material fairly quickly. And then he started to become quite uncooperative and not turning up for our meetings and all this kind of thing. And so in the end, we did have to sort of bring it to a close because I wasn’t. So I can’t really carry on working with you if you’re going to be canceling things at two minutes notice. So that was kind of my most difficult experience. But I’ve really not had that many actually. Luckily, I think maybe I have been lucky. I’ve had the odd, I think maybe unreliable clients is always the hardest thing to deal with people who change their mind at the last minute and decide they don’t want to do a book after all, and that kind of thing. But you have to complete idea of a complete nightmare experience.
Richard Lowe 21:50
Well, let me get the ghosting experience is frustrating when you got a client who says yeah, I’m gonna go ahead and do it. And then you never hear from him again. Yeah. I’ve had him ghost me after they’ve paid me and then they just disappear. For me. They’re gone. And that’s really weird. You know,
Ginny Carter 22:05
I know, I’ve had a client who paid me for the entire book and then never published it.
Richard Lowe 22:10
If that happens, that’s me on several books. Yeah. And
Ginny Carter 22:13
that Well, same here, actually. And I think I’m my interpretation of that is they just get cold feet at the last minute, I just don’t want to expose themselves. And because he does expose you having a book on it, it is a bit scary. I can’t understand why somebody wouldn’t make use of the manuscript they paid good money for, but
Richard Lowe 22:32
well, especially if I’m, you know, self published over 100 books. So I can do it for them. And, you know, for an hourly rate of probably four hours, and I publish the darn book. And I think that they’re scared off by the publishing process. They get really busy, because I’m working with CFOs, and CTOs and things like that. My Nightmare experiences have been, haven’t really had that many, mostly in the pre sales where I’ve had the mafia guy. Yeah, was a confidant who was a confidential informant. And he wanted to expose everybody, I’m like, Nope, not gonna do that. I’ve had several people try and con me where they, they pretend like they’re a client, and they say, Okay, we’re gonna send you a bunch of money. And then they send a check. That’s way too big, and they want a refund. Twice. And, you know, I’m a security guy. So thank you for the check. I’m gonna watch it bounce to the ceiling, and you can have fun with your life. That was the first time was $190,000 project. And he wrote a check for $220,000. And it obviously didn’t go through and I knew it. I knew it wasn’t going to know, those kind of things. And I wasn’t getting excited about it, because nobody pays a whole price on a $200,000 project all at once. Never
Ginny Carter 23:53
know. Exactly. I mean, that would be crazy. Yeah, that is Red
Richard Lowe 23:56
flag number one, that he didn’t even negotiate, which is Red flag number two, at least one to negotiate. Yeah. But most of my clients, virtually all of them have been pretty good. The bigger clients, you know, they’re pretty understanding
Ginny Carter 24:13
what most people are good. You know, most people are good to work with most people are nice people, most people are reasonable. And the beauty of what we do is we get to talk to some very interesting people. So I think
Richard Lowe 24:24
the most interesting thing is when I get a memoir, from somebody who wants to who’s using it as therapy, and I’m working on one of those now, and I have to remind him, I am not a therapist. You need to back off from this concept. I had a lady who it was a really tough book about really bad things that women go through and she went through the worst that you can possibly imagine. And if you can imagine it, it’s worse. And she was just crying and every interview and stuff. And finally we just said we both looked at each other. We can’t do this, because I’m not your therapist. I’m your writer. and you’re just you’re just burning hours. Somebody who’s not your therapist, and she agreed, and that was best for both of us. Yeah, I liked the book, it was gonna be a really good book.
Ginny Carter 25:12
I know. It’s a shame, isn’t it? Maybe she’ll come back to it when she’s feeling when she’s in a better place.
Richard Lowe 25:19
Maybe doubt it, but maybe, maybe she’s hopefully in a good place now. She’s a really nice person. Yeah. And she went through hell. So, you know, it’s just interesting.
Ginny Carter 25:34
People go through such terrible things. And and you never really quite realize it until you do a job like I was when you talk to somebody who’s been to really extraordinary life experiences, very tough, tough experiences, some people have.
Richard Lowe 25:49
I felt I went through some tough experiences. But now that I’m a ghost rider
Ginny Carter 25:53
gives you a different outlet.
Richard Lowe 25:55
I mine was tough. There was some people who’s like, beyond beyond beyond tough, and they’re still alive. And they’re still wanting to write a book. So okay, fine. If they can do it, I can do it. For you know, I got firstworldproblems you know?
26:10
Yeah.
Ginny Carter 26:12
Yeah, yeah. I mean, I’m not really worried about where my next meal is coming from. I’m not worried about anything like that. Yeah. Other people are? Yeah, that’s not first of all problems. I’m not gonna worry about apples coming out with a new smartphone, and they changed their cable. Oh, my God. Yeah, whatever, you know, but also, there’s
26:37
something reassuringly old fashioned about books as well, isn’t there? So you know, it’s, it’s always just you always get back to that same world that’s been around for hundreds of years. I think he keeps you grounded, actually, as well. It keeps you grounded in what, what people what really matters and what people have been doing for centuries.
Richard Lowe 26:54
And you see the books behind me. They’re all hardcovers.
Ginny Carter 26:57
Yes, that’s right. Yeah. Fine, impressive display got there.
Richard Lowe 27:01
And of course, I haven’t read any of them. But I didn’t tend to,
Ginny Carter 27:05
you know, you don’t want to you don’t want to come clean on that. Just getting the collective works of Charles Dickens behind. You.
Richard Lowe 27:12
Know, I was more like, you know, the complete comic book collection of some artists from the 20s and stuff like that. Okay. 19 point. He’s not the 2020s Yeah, that sounds interesting. Janice, two minutes, cartoons. Oh, yeah. The whole sets up there for me a bit to find those and then some other ones, then the whole dune series and you know, Game of Thrones and stuff like that.
Ginny Carter 27:39
Okay. I think we never you’re interested it that way, then yeah.
Richard Lowe 27:42
I see. I’m like, I’m a geek. I like Star Trek. nerds like Star Wars. Let’s see, there’s a difference.
Ginny Carter 27:48
This is a subtle distinction that escaped me. So they learn something. And
Richard Lowe 27:53
I don’t know if that’s true or not, but this Star Trek tends to be more sciency and Star Wars since the more fantasy. Okay, right. Yeah, I get the way the written and stuff. Anyway, I’m putting I’m doing on my blog, I put out a blog every day. And I’m putting out stuff about critiquing movies in the writing of movies. Okay. And from a positive viewpoint, I’m trying not to be too negative. Some of these, it’s really hard to be. It’s easy to be too negative, because they give me lots of ammunition.
Ginny Carter 28:25
Yeah. I think actually, sometimes it’s hard this thing is to be to say something nice to give constructive, or to be nice about things actually. Because often, it’s difficult to hone in on what you like about something, whereas you can easily see what you don’t like about it. So I think I think the hardest thing is to be really positive about a book or a movie or whatever, and explain what really works. Because often you just don’t actually understand it yourself.
Richard Lowe 28:52
Well, I’m doing these articles as a, like, I did one on Captain Marvel, which is pretty terrible movie. And I did it as a writing lesson. So here’s what you need to do to avoid falling into this trap of a flat character with no character arc at all. She doesn’t grow through the whole thing. She has no personality, blah, blah, blah, not the actress did the character. You don’t know about the actress because I’m not I’m whatever, I feel that the actress is not part of this. This is about. And so their lessons for writers. And it’s working pretty well. It’s working pretty well.
Ginny Carter 29:29
Interesting as well to when you see something that doesn’t work to analyze why so I often go, there’s local film club that I go to where it movies that didn’t quite hit the big time. And sometimes there’s a reason for it. So it was great, but there was just one floor. And it’s interesting from a writer’s perspective to think well what what was that slow?
Richard Lowe 29:50
Yep, well,
Ginny Carter 29:51
why didn’t that work? And then you realize how hard it is to do a really good movie, you know, or
Richard Lowe 29:57
movies are tough because you write it you’re in the writers rooms. It’s not just you. It’s a lot of people, right? Yeah. But why did Lord of the Rings work? And Rings of Power is an utter failure. And Rings of Power had a billion dollars. Yeah. And rotary rings didn’t have anywhere near that. I wrote an article on that. What’s, what’s the problem? But what is what’s bad about? What could be better about Rings of Power? And what is Lord of the Rings shine where it doesn’t? No, no offense, anybody who likes to brings the power? Of course. It just has to do with the writing. It’s the writing. It’s written poorly. Okay. The cinematography. Oh, my God, the clips from there are just breathtaking. You know, where the billion dollars went.
Ginny Carter 30:41
But yeah, that didn’t pay the roses well enough today, compared to all the special effects that they’ve gotten.
Richard Lowe 30:46
There are some parts of it where I think they hired their small children to write it. That bad. And, you know, if I had a billion dollars, I would certainly chip away some money for some better writers. Yeah.
Ginny Carter 30:58
Yeah. Well, we would, of course, because we know what good writing entails.
Richard Lowe 31:03
Yeah. But I guess that extra $50,000 for somebody who could actually write it was too much for the budget of a billion dollars. So anyway, we’re coming up on the end. So any last words to your fans? I’m sure you have many fans.
Ginny Carter 31:16
Oh, well, oh, goodness, somebody’s talking about me like I’m a movie star myself. Now. I just want to say, if you’ve got a book that’s waiting to come out, you know, just get whatever help you need to do it. So it could be a coach, it could be a ghostwriter. It could be an editor. It could be, you just need to free some space up for yourself to write it. But I just talked to so many people who have this desire to write a book and haven’t done it for one reason or another. So just work out, you know, what is it that’s stopping you, and go for him. And if you want to talk to me, then talk to me. And if you want to talk to Richard and just, you know, just do
Richard Lowe 31:53
- I have so many potential clients come to me and say it’s their lifelong dream, literally their one bucket list item and then they decide not to do it as like, it’s your lifelong dream. Gotta do good writing coach, get somebody and write it yourself. Just get it written. Never do.
Ginny Carter 32:15
That’s a difference. And I do work with many people as a coach who, who either get their book written or they don’t, you know, there’s kind of just two types of people. I worked with one guy who had a terrible accident, knocked off his bike, partway through writing his book, it ended up breaking his arms, he couldn’t even hold him couldn’t write couldn’t tight. And he still managed to finish his book, you know, just because he was always going to do and then other people who just get bored partway through and just don’t carry on. So maybe it’s not for you if you don’t want to, if you don’t want to finish them that maybe that was that was the way it was meant to be. But
Richard Lowe 32:50
yeah, I met a guy named John Morrow. John Morrow is quadriplegic? Oh, yes, I
Ginny Carter 32:55
know. Yeah. No, I
Richard Lowe 32:55
have him. Yeah, he does blogging, he says blogging. He went from nothing to a $75 million business in just a few years, with no feeling in his arms or legs and only talking with a machine. Like, if he can do that. Yeah. I have no excuses.
Ginny Carter 33:15
Yeah, that’s quite extraordinary, isn’t it?
Richard Lowe 33:16
It’s I don’t know what’s happened to him. It’s been years since I’ve looked, looked him up. But he always astounded me first. And he was a nice guy.
Ginny Carter 33:24
Yeah, I’ve done some of these trainings as well. Yeah, but he’s very inspiring guy. I’m a hugely talented man capable.
Richard Lowe 33:34
I gotta run. It’s been a great interview. Yeah. I hope you enjoyed it. Yeah. It should be. I’m gonna go ahead and thank you for coming on board.
Ginny Carter 33:43
Thank you for having me.
Richard Lowe 33:45
And it’s been a great interview. Thanks.
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Thanks for having me on your show Richard, I had a great time!
My pleasure. It was a great interview.