You made a good decision hiring a ghostwriter. You have the expertise, the story, or the business knowledge that deserves a book. The ghostwriter has the craft to turn it into a manuscript that reads well, holds together structurally, and represents you at the level your audience expects.
But hiring a ghostwriter isn’t like hiring a contractor to remodel your kitchen. You don’t hand over the keys and come back when it’s done. The best ghostwritten books come from active collaboration between the client and the writer. How you participate in that process directly affects the quality of the final product.
After 54+ ghostwritten books and 113+ published titles, here’s what I’ve learned about what clients can do to get the best possible book out of the collaboration.
Show Up for the Interviews
You have the expertise, the story, or the business knowledge that deserves a book.Share on X
The interview process is where the book gets built. This is where the ghostwriter captures your voice, your stories, your expertise, and the specific details that make your book yours instead of a generic treatment of your subject. For more, see powerful ways to make money from a book.
The best clients treat interviews like they matter. They show up prepared. They answer thoroughly. They tell the stories behind the stories. They share the details they think are too small to mention, because those details are usually what makes a chapter come alive. For more, see capturing the client’s voice.
If you rush through interviews, give surface-level answers, or cancel repeatedly, the ghostwriter has less material to work with. Less material means a thinner book. A thinner book means a product that doesn’t represent what you actually know and have experienced.
Be Honest About What You Want
Tell your ghostwriter what you actually want the book to accomplish. Is it a credential that positions you as an authority in your field? A memoir that captures your life for your family? A business book designed to generate leads? A manifesto that lays out your philosophy?
Each of these requires a different approach, and the sooner the ghostwriter understands the real goal, the better the book serves that goal. Clients who are vague about what they want end up with a book that doesn’t quite fit anywhere.
If you change your mind about the direction, say so early. A course correction at chapter three is manageable. A course correction at chapter fifteen means rewriting half the book.
Trust the Process
Writing a book takes time. A quality manuscript of 50,000 to 70,000 words takes months of interviews, writing, revision, and polish. The ghostwriter isn’t being slow. They’re being thorough.
The temptation is to check in constantly, ask for daily updates, or request to see chapters before they are ready. This interrupts the writing process and can actually slow the project down. A good ghostwriter will give you regular updates and deliver chapters on the agreed schedule. Trust that schedule.
If something isn’t working, you’ll know when you see the first chapters. That’s when feedback matters most, not during the drafting process when the writer is still building momentum.
Give Real Feedback During Revision
When you receive chapters for review, read them carefully and respond with specifics. “I like it” is nice but not useful. “This chapter captures exactly how I felt during that period” is useful. “The section on supply chain management needs more detail about our vendor relationships” is useful. “Something feels off about chapter seven” followed by silence isn’t useful.
The revision process is where a good book becomes a great book. Your ghostwriter needs to know what landed, what missed, and what needs more depth. The more specific your feedback, the fewer revision cycles the book needs and the stronger the final product.
Don’t disappear during the review cycle. If you take three weeks to respond to each chapter, a six-month project becomes a twelve-month project. Your ghostwriter has blocked time for your project. When you delay, that time goes to other clients.
Provide Your Materials
If you have speeches, presentations, articles, previous interviews, or any existing content related to your book’s subject matter, share it with your ghostwriter early. This material provides additional source material, helps the writer understand your existing voice, and can surface stories or ideas you might not think to mention in interviews.
Clients who hand over a folder of twenty years of keynote speeches give their ghostwriter a goldmine. Clients who say “I’ll get that to you later” and never do are leaving quality on the table.
What Can Your Ghostwriter Not Do for You?
Your ghostwriter writes the book. That’s the job. What happens after the book is written is your responsibility.
Promoting the book and building a platform around it. Using it to generate speaking engagements, consulting leads, or media appearances. Sharing it with your network. Getting it into the hands of the right people. All of that falls on you.
The best ghostwritten books in the world fail if the client publishes and then does nothing. Your ghostwriter can advise you on publishing strategy and point you in the right direction, but the promotional energy has to come from you. It’s your book, your name on the cover, and your audience to reach.
Leave a Review
Once your book is published, leave a review on Amazon. Ask people who read it to do the same. Reviews drive visibility. A book with zero reviews is invisible to potential readers no matter how good it is.
This is the simplest thing you can do to support the investment you made in having the book written. Five minutes of your time can determine whether the book gets discovered or sits quietly in a catalog.
Recommend Your Ghostwriter
If you’re happy with the book, tell people. The best ghostwriting clients come from referrals. When a colleague mentions wanting to write a book, that’s your opportunity to connect them with the person who made yours happen.
Ghostwriters cannot promote themselves the way other professionals can. The nature of the work is confidential. Most of my best client relationships started because a previous client said “You should talk to Richard.”
The book on this: The Ghostwriting Advantage is 48 chapters on the whole relationship, including what a client can do that makes the book better and what only you can supply.
Schedule a free consultation to discuss your book project.
