An Australian author who waited a lifetime to write her book, then turned that dream into a ghostwriting practice, on everyone having a story to tell and getting paid to tell it.

Terri Tonkin wanted to write a book from the time she was five. She got there at 60, and then turned that long-deferred dream into a ghostwriting practice helping other people tell their stories.

In this conversation she talks about her conversational ghostwriting method, the realities of pricing the work, and her conviction that everyone has at least one story worth telling.

Terri Tonkin is an Australian author and ghostwriter based in Brisbane, with a background spanning retail, banking, the public service, and the defence community. She wrote her own book, My Time to Shine, at 60.

She has contributed to fifteen compilation books and now ghostwrites nonfiction and memoir, referring clients to her network of editors, publishers, and designers.

DISCUSS YOUR BOOK

Full transcript of the interview follows.

Richard Lowe: Hello, this is Richard Lowe with author talks. I’m the writing King. I’m a ghost writer. I’m a LinkedIn branding expert and I am a writer. And I’m here today with Terry Tonkin, who has really embraced the power of dreams and aspirations, from a young age very nurtured a deep desire to write her own book.

She fulfilled that dream at the age of 60. Terry has written her own book, my time to sign has been a contributor to 15 compilations, and is now a ghost writer, writing for others. Welcome to the show.

Terri Tonkin: Thank you for having me.

A Lifelong Dream Fulfilled at 60

Richard: My pleasure. My pleasure. So why don’t you tell me a little bit about yourself?

Terri: Okay, my name is Terry Tonka. And I’m based in Brisbane, Australia. We’ve lived in Brisbane now for coming up on 30 years. And prior to that, my husband was in the defence forces, and we’ve travelled around Australia with his work. So I’ve had a variety of life experiences, I guess, different employment styles.

I’ve been retail, I’ve worked in banking, I’ve worked in youth transition space, I worked for the public service and public services are government agencies. And then I’ve started my own business. I actually started that as a life coach transitioned into author ghostwriter.

Richard: I see. That’s very interesting. So what made you start writing in the first place?

Terri: I wanted to write a book from a very early age, I can remember when I was probably five or six saying to my mum and dad that I was going to write a book took me a little while to get there. But that’s how how life happens. We lived in western Queensland, which is quite remote.

So we had no TV, and the radio. But that, you know, that was something that mom and dad listened to. And books were my escape, right, from a very early age. So I’ve been an avid reader all of my life, and I still am, I still read every day.

Sometimes it’s nonfiction. Sometimes it’s fiction, sometimes I read a bit of both. So transitioned into authoring at the age of 16

Richard: are very interesting, I got my start at about 53. I did a little bit of writing before that for work, exit quite a bit, but didn’t actually get out on my own and start writing for others. And myself until I was 53. And it was it’s been an interesting journey.

Terri: It is an interesting journey. When I decided to actually write my book, I called my mentor at the time and said, It’s time to write the book. And she said, Okay, why now, and I sort of run out of excuses as to why not so. And my mum had been placed in care, suffering with dementia.

So it was really to get that book written so that she was able to read it. And to her to know that I had fulfilled a dream.

Becoming a Ghostwriter

Richard: Very interesting. That’s a good idea. That’s a good motivation. Yeah, my motivation was I left corporate and decided to strike out on my own. Become a writer and then a ghostwriter. How many? So you decided to become a ghostwriter. Why did that? Why did you do that?

Terri: I wrote my book in 2018. My own book, I contributed to a book in 2019. I contributed to two books in 2020, and two books in 21. And I’ve decided, if I’m going to write I may as well get paid to do it. That is the universe.

Richard: That is excellent. That is excellent. Are your clients mostly in Australia?

Terri: Ah, the manuscripts that I’ve done have been in Australia. I have written for a lady in Oregon, and I’ve written for a gentleman in Florida.

Richard: Well, my next door I’m in Florida. Wow. Interesting. Yeah, that’s

Terri: true. The connections of the compilation books, the connections that you make.

Richard: Yeah, it’s interesting how in modern technology, we can have clients all over the world. I’ve had clients in Kazakhstan. I’ve had clients in Singapore. I mean, go figure, you know, yeah. It is easy. Well, there’s still hard some because of the language barriers and time zones and stuff, but it’s nowhere near like getting on a plane and flying somewhere, or a boat or whatever.

Terri: It was amazing actually, like I said, I’d wanted to do it since I was a little girl and to actually achieve it. And I self published, I didn’t do the whole lot. I had a mentor, but I did all the work. So that felt pretty good.

How She Works With Clients

Richard: Interesting, interesting. So you do ghost writing now is your method where you do a bunch of interviews, and then you go write it, then you give it back? Or do you collaborate more? How does that work?

Terri: The way I work is that we do a call like this zoom call or something like that. I have done it through email as well, which is interesting. But it’s having that conversation. So I’ll have a conversation. And then I’ll write and I’ll hand that back and go, are we on the right track?

Have I got the right context? And then we keep moving forward? And then at the end, it’s a case of you start at the beginning and you go right through? Is it all in sequence? Have I got the right language? Have I got the right emotions. And then I hand the manuscript back, I don’t do the publishing or the, I always suggest they get an editor.

Me too. Because it’s my eyes looking at it all the time. So I always suggest my clients get an editor, and I have a network of publishers that I can refer them to. So

Getting Into Libraries and Bookstores

Richard: yeah, I’ve had done 48 books ghostwritten. And three of them were traditionally published, the rest are self published. And traditional is found that they had to wait, it has a long, about a year long wait time, whereas the Self Publishers could publish right away. And they liked that.

And they could change and stuff. There’s advantages and disadvantages to each because the traditionals got more sales. And they got in bookstores and libraries. Whereas the self published I don’t think anybody got in bookstores and libraries. But what one did, excuse me one did, he got in, he got an A university library.

Terri: Unless you do the work yourself. It’s it’s much harder to get into the bookstores and the libraries. And what’s what I’ve found, what my clients have done with their books, I don’t really know because once it leaves me, I’m done.

Richard: Well, here in the United States, I don’t know how it works in Australia, to get into a library or a bookstore, you have to be on the appropriate list. And in an outpost on Amazon, they typically don’t put you on that list, because they don’t care. They’ll make money from that.

Yeah, you have to publish through like draft to digital or a different way to get it into the bookstores or the libraries. And get on the list. Once you’re on the list. You can start promoting you can even promote the library if you’re not on the list, nor bookstore.

And once you’re on the list, you can start promoting and that’s, that’s tough. You got to convince librarians to carry it on.

Terri: Yeah, yeah, our local councils control our libraries. They own our libraries. So you have to speak to the right person to get your book in there. So you can front up to the library, and they’ll go or you’ll have to put a request and an application through to the right person. So it’s getting in front of that right person as well.

Richard: My understanding is it’s similar here, but it’s more state to state. So each state has or each county even has their own rules.

Terri: Yeah. As a run by the local council, so

Richard: but there are 50,000 libraries here in the States. And the way it works is you sell you give them electronic books, and then they rent them out and you get a payment for that rental. Okay, annual payments. So it’s really useful to get your book into libraries. Because you get

Terri: to have to check that one out.

Richard: That’s that’s an electronic books course paperbacks, hardcovers, you sell the libraries. So that’s an advantage. And there was a group called the alliance of independent authors here. I don’t know if they’re in Australia, they probably are. They’re on Facebook, they, they help with a lot of these things and give you guidance. They’re very useful group to be a member of, and they’re not that expensive.

Terri: Or check them out.

Richard: Yeah, I would highly recommend it. I think there are 150 a month, 150 a year, kind of tiny kind of amount. And then you get a Facebook group and you get to talk to all these other people who are want to be authors, and you’re actually the authors.

Everybody respects you. And you’ve been published. Oh my god. And your ghostwriter. Oh my god. It’s kind of fun. Yeah. So yeah, I I do recommend people join groups that have reading groups. There’s a Florida writing group here. Probably something cool in Australia. Yeah.

Terri: There’s a lot of local ones. There’s a lot of national ones.

Richard: Yes. There are here to solve have requirements, like to join the journalism group, you have to have, I think two or three traditionally published books under your belt. So it’s got a high barrier for. It’s not really for Self Publishers. Some require self published books, some require other things. It’s useful. Yes,

Terri: yes. Just getting a different perspective from different authors of how things worked for them as well. Yeah, the the latest compilation that I did. It’s called get published. And there are 17 contributing authors, there was six from Australia, 10 from the US and one from Canada. So we had editors, we had formatters, we had designers, few publishers, we had a few light book coaches.

And I was the only ghostwriter in that one. And being in that book has expanded my networks as well. So for my clients, I can refer people to different publishers, because they do different genres on different styles. Couple of ladies in there that were designers, just having that information for myself and for clients.

And yeah, how are you having your book cover design? Who’s doing it for you? Who’s formatting the book? Just having those connections is wonderful as well.

What She Has Learned as a Writer

Richard: Interesting. Yes. Yes. So what have you learned as a writer that you didn’t know before? What would what would be like your astounding things that you’ve learned?

Terri: Everybody has got at least one story to tell at least one story. People have a list of excuses, reasons, challengers issues as to why they can’t. And there’s a solution to probably each and every one of them. If you don’t have the time, but you’ve got the story, there’s people like ourselves ghostriders that can help you out.

If you don’t know where to start, but you wanted to do it yourself. There are coaches available. If you’ve written that you don’t know how to tidy it up. There’s BETA readers as editors to help you through that. How do I publish, nobody’s going to read it, somebody is going to read it.

And if one person reads it, and they get benefit out of it, they’ll pass the word along. You’re not going to make a million dollars, like I said, unless you’re in some of those bigger publishing houses for the one of the better word. And because they have the more exposure, they can put the books anywhere and everywhere.

But as a single author, you’ve got to be prepared. If you want to make a million bucks, you can probably do that. But you do have to do a lot of work to do it.

Richard: That’s for sure. That’s for sure. I’ve actually had two Kindle bestsellers. One sold 15,000 copies in three days. Yeah, one 5000 copies in a week. And that was probably the most work I’ve ever done.

Terri: Yeah. Because it’s constant. You have to be constantly on top of it.

Richard: Yeah, I did a burst. So I did a whole bunch of promotion all at once. And then it was just too much work. And I was selling it at a reduced rate. So I got a lot a lot a lot of sales. And I’d rather be a ghostwriter is it’s easier

Terri: to think, different. It’s different because you can disassociate from it. You’re telling the story. You’re not emotionally involved. There’s no triggers, generally, depending on the genres, I guess, I only write nonfiction books. So it’s the memoirs, the well being lifestyle. I have done some for small business. But that’s a lot of work if you don’t know the business as well.

Richard: Yeah, I’ve done children’s books. I’ve done young adults I’ve done most of my work is nonfiction technology related. Because I’ve got 33 years in tech industry. It’s really weird to say I have 33 years in tech industry wow,

Terri: I don’t even want to touch the tech industry. On the other way, show me the system. I can use it. That’s That’s it.

Richard: I read books about AI and augmented reality and the metaverse and and stuff like that, for the most part, but I also jumped into children’s books and adult books, things like that. And I asked for a pretty, I guess it’s an it’s a normal rate here and among good quality ghostwriters. It’s not a low rate, and it’s not a high rate. I don’t get celebrity rates.

Terri: No, I don’t get celebrity rates either. Yeah,

Richard: they started what two to five bucks and word kind of thing.

Terri: Yeah. Some of the people that I know who are ghost riders there, and they haven’t been doing it a lot longer. I’ve only been doing it two years. I shouldn’t say only that. I’ve been doing it for two years. ghostwriting and I don’t consider my price as expensive.

However, I do know that there’s some in America charging 75 $80,000 for a book. Yep. That’s the package. You know,

Richard: I’m one of those. Yeah.

Terri: So I don’t do a package, I write the manuscript.

Richard: Well, that’s all I do is write the manuscript from beginning to end, and then do one revision, and then it’s done. I kind of guide them and give them the resources for the remaining things, but I don’t do them.

Terri: No, that’s right. I can, I’ve got like I said, I’ve got a great network of editors, publishers, formatters, and things like that. So that’s a really thorough process.

Richard: Yep, I do do self publishing if they want. Because I’ve done it over 100 times. It’s, you know, I could self publish a book in a few hours. But I don’t do covers, I don’t do any of the other accoutrements. I do recommend, like you said, sending to an editor. That’s important. Editors are weird. They have a different way of thinking than I do. They do.

Terri: They do. Absolutely. Because you go, do you really think that works?

Richard: They definitely think differently. And that’s a good thing. And weird as a, as a as a compliment? Not as an insult, you know?

Terri: Yeah. Because they’re looking at it totally different. Whereas if you’re trying to, and I mean, I always self edit anyway. But you’re also looking at the same words over and over and over again. So you’re seeing the same things. You’re not picking up any of the the errors?

Richard: Yep, yeah. Although, of course, my books never have any errors.

Terri: Like, like I said, I’m not an editor. But I have helped other authors complete their books, of course, because so it’s not that I’m actually writing the book on their behalf as a ghostwriter. And I’m not actually a book coach. But I do all these things, as a as a paid service. So I’m using my experience to help other authors bring their books to

Richard: the fore. So yeah, exactly, exactly. I do book coaching as well. That was a whole different game. So I’ll do a do the, you know, the Front End call for free, and find out what the problem is, and then give them a plan. And then I charge them by the hour after that for whatever they need, usually in 10 hour blocks.

And that seems to work pretty well. They get the help they need for whatever problem they’ve got whatever it is, it’s one on one, and it’s just for them. Sometimes writing writer’s block, sometimes they can’t come up with the idea, sometimes the they don’t even know how to use English.

So that sometimes it’s it’s sometimes it becomes a grammar course. And I actually refer them to grammar courses for that I don’t do.

Terri: I haven’t had a client who who was referred to me through a publisher. And they’d sort of done the shell of this story. And we had a conversation and I asked them what they wanted. And I said, Well, I’ll do the first chapter and see what you think.

And I had another conversation with the lady. I wrote the first chapter. Now write the first chapter. And then they said, no, no, that’s not really what we want. So I had another conversation with the lady and I rewrote it. And I said to her now, how do you want this to be she said, I want it to be like, I’m telling a story.

I’m having that conversation with someone. And I went fantastic. I write in a conversational style. This is a really good match. So I’d had the conversation with her and I rewrote this chapter. And she came back and she said, it was just like, we were having a conversation.

That’s not what I want. Okay. She said, I think I need a copywriter. I went go for it. Totally different genre.

Richard: Yeah, hopefully you still got paid for all that.

Terri: I got paid for the work. Yes, because I was only going to do one chapter and that was it. To see if we were a match, but I don’t do copywriting it is something I tried everybody. When I said I was going ghost running. So Many people said to me, do you do copywriting?

And I went, No, no, maybe I better have a look at it. And I did. I did a couple of short courses. And it just not my thing. That’s not my thing. I’ve had people say to me, I had a request to do. And it was almost copywriting.

It was a sponsorship package. Could I write it? And I’m like, Well, gee, I’ve never done one of these. And I, I asked around a few different people that I have contact with. And I said, My thoughts are around about the two and a half to 3000. And they went, Oh, absolutely.

There’s a lot of work in it. So I went back to the potential client, and I said, 3000, I can always negotiate down. And they went, Oh, we were thinking about 300.

Richard: I did that all the time. Yeah. Somebody’s not happening. recently asked me for a 60,000 word book. And we started negotiating. And he I told him my pricing. He’s like, Well, I was thinking more like 1500 Yeah, good for 60,000 word book. I said, Well, you know, Fiverr will Reezy.

You know, those places where you could probably find somebody, but you’re not going to get me? Not for that price. I can’t make a living on that. I can’t pay the rent. You know,

Terri: I’ve had people ask me about a manuscript, and I’m under the 10,000. And there’s a couple of reasons for that. But even when I say it’s under the 10,000, but you will need to, you know, have a costing built in for your publishing and all that and then like, oh, we thought it’d be about five or $600 And I’m like, you’re talking about four to six months. work? Do you get paid $500 For six months work?

Richard: Yeah, and you’re coming to me because it’s hard and you expect me to do it.

Terri: And you’ve got no time. And you’ve got all these other reasons. Not happening.

Richard: I do find the high end clients who will pay my rates. And the fortunate thing about asking for the higher end clients is I don’t need a lot of them. Yes. So I guess it’s sometimes tough to find them. But I’m looking for more of the CTO CFOs and things like that, who generally generally can’t afford me. Yes. Director level sometimes. Yeah.

What Ghostwriting Actually Is

Terri: It’s it interests me too, that a lot of people still don’t know about ghostwriting, or understand what we do. And they go, what does it go strive to do? And I go, okay. Do you think Andre Agassi wrote his own book? And they look at me? And I think about it. Do you think Prince Harry wrote his own book? He even talks about his ghostwriter.

Richard: Exactly, exactly, or Hillary Clinton here in the States. So that’s what

Terri: we do. We write the book on behalf of somebody else. And for me, it’s their name that goes up on the book, if they wish to acknowledge me and go thank you very much, Terry Tonkin couldn’t have done this without you. Fantastic. If they want to take it all, they paid me I’m out of the picture.

Richard: out of 48 books, ghostwritten books, five, allow me to put on my website, and they acknowledged me, the rest would rather not and that’s fine, I got paid. I’m happy. I got paid a lot.

Terri: And the ones that the authors that I have helped complete their books, they’ve all acknowledged name. So it’s individuals.

Richard: When you get to the world of tech, they’re a lot more reticent. They don’t want my name associated with it. Not even in the acknowledgments. They want people to think they wrote it. Yeah. And, okay, that’s fine with me. You paid me, you’re paying me? Whatever. And whatever you want.

Terri: That’s what people send me. Don’t you want your name on the book? It’s not my rock.

Richard: I’ve published 60 books under my name. Yeah. And a bunch of them under pseudonyms. So I, I have already done that, then they’re done.

Terri: Yeah, like I’ve been in some, well, in some of the compilation books that I’ve been in, the person who’s actually put it all together, has gone through and put each done separate covers, and shuffled the chapters around. So my name is on the front cover and my chapters the first.

So she’s, you know, they’ve done that with 20 authors. So, um, different people do compilation books differently as well.

Richard: So, yeah, I’m about to be published in a compilation book. Road publishing, I just got accepted into Vim, and I had to read a chapter about me. And that was kind of fun. Like talking about me?

Terri: Well, we know that topic, you

Richard: know, pretty well. And one of the the hardest barrier of being a writer of all was, I have been promoting as I have to promote me. So I don’t know how it isn’t Australia. But in the United States, you’re typically taught you don’t talk about you, you don’t promote yourself, because it’s considered arrogant. Yeah. And I haven’t.

Terri: I don’t know that it’s necessarily USA or Australia. I think that’s just from my perspective, it’s a generational thing. Our parents, you hear in Australia, we’ve got tall poppy syndrome. So if you’re at the top of the head, somebody’s going to knock you down. You shouldn’t be up there.

They’re going to knock it down. So I think it’s a generational thing. Because I know my parents. They wouldn’t ever braggers they were never, I’m better than this, or I’m better than that. So it’s something that we have to learn to do is to be okay, in promoting ourselves. We’ve achieved it. So why not let everybody know that we’ve been changed? Well, you

Richard: have to because they’re gonna ask you, what have you done? Why should I hire you? You know, you don’t want to say well, I am the best there is in the entire world. That’s just arrogant, but you you have to tell them how good you are and stuff like that.

And that was a tough barrier to get through. It is I’ve kind of licked it now. I mean, I don’t have any problem writing about myself now. And I’ve learned how to write so it’s not arrogant. doesn’t come off all who do 2d. Yeah, I love that saying but doesn’t mean anything at all.

But yeah, promotion was I’ve been an introvert most of my life. I mean, severe and shy. So promotion was very hard. Like, there was a time I’m in my life where I won a major award and they wouldn’t couldn’t even get me on stage talk about it. Do accept it even quit wouldn’t do it.

And, and now look at me, I’m doing three of these author talks, podcasts and to conversation with influence on podcasts every week. Partially because I figured I’m sitting here on my butt riding all day, I need to talk to people just to keep them Yeah. And it’s kind of fun to get other other things, especially people outside the country, and learn about them.

I’ve always been fascinated by other cultures and things. I mean, I’ve always loved diversity is a big thing here now, and I’ve always loved the, it’s a to me, it’s like, why is it a big thing? It should just be normal. You know, you hire people for their, their talents and their skills and their how and their how well they do the job.

I don’t care what color their skin is, or what race they are, what religion they are, as long as they’re not assholes? Yes, absolutely. I don’t care. What I care about is can they do? Can they achieve what they’re supposed to achieve? Or are they nice people? Or are they going to be good friends, or whatever I’m looking for at the time.

And they’re going to do the job I’ve asked them to do if I’m hiring somebody, are they going to do the job? And I actually, it’s, it’s, it’s been tough because through my entire life, I’ve hired people. And I’ve always hired diverse staff. And sometimes my my managers had trouble with that.

You know why you’re hiring so many people from India or whatever? Because they’re good. I don’t care where they’re from. And because not a single American applied for this job.

Terri: Yes. That makes it hard to employ an American when they haven’t applied.

Richard: I sent out a note for database administrator didn’t get a single us person at all. Got a whole bunch of 8181 V people. That’s the the visa thing. But not a single us person, which was interesting to me. And we’re talking 700 resumes, you know, we’re not talking five.

And sometimes it’s changes sometimes I get lots of them, sometimes not. It depended on the on the what I was trying to get. Yeah, database administrators, it was really hard to find, to find people from the US for a long time, security people could find diamond doesn’t you know, they’re all over the place.

I don’t know why. And I say the thing I had the hardest time finding was women in technology, there just weren’t women at all. And I hired a couple I managed to get a couple. Yeah, they weren’t even applying.

Terri: They they’re out of the norm. And it’s something that we’re pushing here in Australia, is women in STEM, so science, technology, electronics and math. So they’re pushing it in the high schools now, because they were finding here in Australia, there were just no women going into those areas. So it’s it is being promoted more here.

Richard: Yeah, and I couldn’t find, for most positions, I couldn’t find a woman to save my life. And I was trying, and I get 1000 resumes and there wouldn’t be a single woman in the middle. And finally, I did find some women and hired them. And they worked out pretty well.

And why wouldn’t I hire women who applied you know, I mean, as long as they can do the job and have the skills and like I said aren’t assholes, I don’t care. You want them to do the job, I want them to do the job and get along, to be able to do the job.

I want them to do the job and get along with the team and be part of the group. And so it was a big eye opener. That that it wasn’t even at the corporate level, it was outside of that school level, I guess, or you know, the education level or their own choice or whatever.

And I don’t think that’s changed that much. I still think that in this in tech field, there’s still difficulty finding women. And that’s a shame. Shame. We need more women. They have a different viewpoint than men. I mean, women are weird. No.

Terri: No, we are. We are different we women have been conditioned to and again, it’s that generational thing sort of our generation, and maybe the one below us, but we’ve been conditioned that their men jobs, their boy jobs. It’s the woman’s job to look after the home. It’s the woman’s job.

Like my when I went to high school, I think I think I had 120 in my final year in high school. And there were two of us whose mothers worked. It just didn’t happen. I’m staying home. So

Richard: my mom. My mom stayed home but she did what would now be called the gig economy. She went out and did Avon and Tupperware and all those kinds of things and it’s T. Teacher’s Assistant in the school, stuff like that. And then later she’s she, she my dad co owned a shop and worked it together.

But yeah, yeah, it’s definitely I think it is a generational thing. Speaking of generations one thing I don’t get we move talking about promotion is I see these people on Tik Tok and, and we YouTube, just being wild and goofy and an ex extroverted, I don’t even know how to do that.

I would love to know interested in learning. I would love to start a Tik Tok channel that has millions of followers, I don’t even know how they, how they get on stage and act like that. I guess I’m still an introvert in a lot of ways.

Terri: Yeah. Like I said, I was I was in life coaching for a while as well. And one of the guys that I sort of went through my training with, he’s living overseas now and having a blast living the life that he wants. And he coaches, teachers, mentors, people, to be able to sell without the guilt, the shame and all of that sort of thing, in an ethical way.

And he put a post up the other day, and he said, Oh my god, don’t ever tell me you can’t sell anything. He’d come across this woman on Tik Tok, I think it was, who was selling pictures of her under here?

Richard: Okay. She’s probably being successful.

Terri: And she has she’s got like, you know, 100,000 followers or something. And it’s just like, Oh, my God. So totally different generation, then don’t worry about it. Just don’t worry about it. They just go for it. That’s right. Totally.

Richard: Yep. So we’re out at the end of the the interview, or conversation and it has been fascinating. Is there anything you’d like to say before we finish up?

Closing Advice for Aspiring Authors

Terri: If you think you can, writing a book and you do have that list of excuses, reach out and talk to someone a ghostwriter, a book coach, even a publisher because the publisher can give them some ideas. For every reason not to write it more. There is a solution to each and every one of those. And as I say, let me help you to tell write and share your story.

Richard: Very good. Very good. Well, this has been author talks with Richard Lowe. I’m the writing King. I’m a ghostwriter. Also, I’m also a writing coach, and I’m a LinkedIn branding expert. So if all of the contact information for both of us will be in the description for this video, so feel free to contact either one of us for what you need. If you want to really go to go this route, or contact me and you know,

Terri: and if you want a better one.

Richard: Exactly, exactly. Yes, not that we’re arrogant or anything? Not at all. See you next time. Thank you. Thank you.

Quotable moments

Frequently asked questions

Who is Terri Tonkin?

Terri Tonkin is an Australian author and ghostwriter based in Brisbane. She wrote her own book, My Time to Shine, at 60, has contributed to fifteen compilation books, and now ghostwrites nonfiction and memoir for clients.

How does Terri Tonkin ghostwrite?

Conversationally. She talks with the client, drafts, and hands the work back to confirm the context, language, and emotions are right, building the manuscript in sequence from there.

What does Terri Tonkin write?

She writes nonfiction, memoir, and wellbeing and lifestyle books. She refers clients to a network of editors, publishers, formatters, and designers rather than offering a full package.

What is Terri Tonkin’s message for aspiring authors?

That everyone has at least one story to tell, and that every reason for not writing, whether time, uncertainty, or skill, has a solution through a ghostwriter, coach, or publisher.