I Need a Ghostwriter? Me??

A ghostwriting expert needs a ghostwriter??

I Need a Ghostwriter? Me??

I’m a professional ghostwriter. Been at it for over thirty-five years, nearly 250 titles. Created Ghostwriting Professional Designation Program (GPDP), the only comprehensive, university certified ghostwriter-training course in existence. California State University, Long Beach won an award for it. NYU called it “a million-dollar program.”

An interviewer once dubbed me the “Einstein of ghostwriting.” A former student claimed I’m “the godmother of ghostwriting.” One of our marketing associates pitched me “the Navy Seal of ghostwriters.” Some mucky-muck video-production lady at Penguin Putnum (before it became Penguin Random House) captioned me as “the world’s leading authority on ghostwriting).

So how is that I need a ghostwriter??

People like to think only celebrities and politicians are entitled to ghostwriting help, but that’s just not true. We also help executives (retired and active) write wisdom, leadership, and corporate-history titles. Doctors, lawyers, judges, and educators turn to us to help them organize—and simplify—their discoveries, philosophies, and lore. Entrepreneurs, nurses, LEOs (law-enforcement officers), heroes, former addicts, ex-CIA operatives, child-sexual-abuse survivors, all need a ghostwriter’s specialized skills, industry know-how, and professional objectivity to bring their experiences to the public. Even some well-known and overwhelmed novelists look to the kind of pros I teach to make their deadlines so they can maintain their fame and fortunes.

But me? I’ve launched more ghostwriter careers than anyone else in history. How is that even possible that I can’t put together my own titles?

After all, I’ve done it before. I wrote all five editions of This Business of Books: A Complete Overview of the Industry from Concept through Sales on my own. Had plenty of editors once I’d rewritten to the nth degree, sure, but did all those rewrites on my own. Wrote my first bestseller with my keyboard-playing husband and our road manager, neither exactly a literary insider. In fact, I wrote the entire 124,000-word first draft of My Life as a Turtle: how I made it to geezer by lying, hiding, and denying right here on Substack with naught but a handful of beta readers/editors, all of whom were fantastically helpful.

But not as ghostwriters.

They didn’t brainstorm ideas or direct my output. They didn’t structure or restructure my chapters. And now that I’ve written myself out of my suicidal ideation, I’m left with that book-business bane: a good first draft.

Most authors would look for a cover designer at this point, maybe have one last, cold-eye editor run through the whole work before buying a series of ISBNs so they could put out a hardcover, paperback, digital, and audio version. If they had the funds, they’d search for a decent hybrid publisher; if they had loftier goals or a huge platform, they’d write a book proposal and start pitching to literary agents and no-agent traditional imprints.

But I’m a pro, damnit! I know what it takes to convert a good first draft into an ATSB, an Anticipated Top Selling Book, and none of my beta readers analyzed my first draft to determine its best spine and spin and counterpoints. They didn’t apply abstract reasoning or focused ingenuity to suss out (and then accentuate) its market strengths or recognize (and then fix) its potential dealbreakers. They sure didn’t lead me through a collaborative musical line edit (MLE), nor do the industry research for a viable book proposal or effective bestseller strategy plan.

Most people think ghostwriting is just writing another person’s else’s ideas or stories as closely to that person’s voice as possible—and yeah, that is a necessary ghostwriting function. But to use today’s ubiquitous gaming lingo, it’s so… Level 1. Professional ghostwriting—the kind that develops and positions a title for tangible success—is far more extensive and complex.

I figured I could ghostwrite Turtle on my own, but as soon as I converted the individual files into a master document, I realized how wrong I was. I couldn’t even take the next step; the material was/is still too raw. Now that I’ve purged, I can’t bring myself to go back there. But I’ve heard from enough people to know my story has impact; I’ve touched a few nerves out there in the anonymous reading world. Some relate to my disability issues, some to the long-term effects of my abusive childhood. A few assured me I was/am on the autism spectrum—good to know, too late to care.

I suspect my writings come across as too personal for most people to leave public comments, but I’ve had some interesting DMs about spirituality and my ongoing relationship with Tom, dead now these past thirteen-and-a-half years. But most gratifying are the notes about my nonbinary/transgender struggles. I think, perchance, I’ve nudged a few needles about LGBTQ+. Of all my “otherness,” that seems to be the sliver that opens eyes, maybe even minds here and there.

Well, that, and the piece about why “everyone hates the Jews,” a line from Tom Lehrer’s “National Brotherhood Week” that outraged Instagram. Ah, censorship. An another-day subject.

But even that negative feedback means the work has at least some intrinsic value. I can’t just abandon it—I have to actually birth it. Which means I need a pro who can chart the damn thing and restructure it to an industry-standard template. Somebody who can recognize its critical number-three aspect, its dual abstract-reasoning elements, and its all-important “what if…?” component(s). Someone other than me has to lead the MLE that will elevate my emo-psych purge into an industry-acceptable, reader-appealing second draft, and help me deduce its four U’s, tie-in BISACs, and bulk-sale avenues.

All that is why serious authors need a ghostwriter—even serious ghostwriters like me. How can I put this in a nutshell? If writing is about feeling and sharing, then ghostwriting is about thinking, knowing, and fulfilling.

Which logically leads me to a rather skewed conclusion: now that I’ve shared the worst of me for coming up on a year, it’s only reasonable to share some of the better of me. If for no other reason that perhaps, someday, I can be of some help.   

The best of me is Wambtac, i.e., Wambtac Communications, LLC (WCLLC), the world’s leading ghostwriting-service innovator. We train our own ghostwriters, we make sure every author has both a primary ghost and a team leader (making us risk-free), and we can step in at any stage of a project, from  book concept to sales strategies. We have industry-insider savvy that guarantees Marketable Literary Property results. I’m very proud of the amazing people who’ve helped me build WCLLC, the ghosts who do the actual heavy lifting, and the authors whose literary dreams we’ve fulfilled.

Ghostwriting Professional Designation Program (GPDP) is the other side of WCLLC’s coin. Offered in partnership with California State University, Long Beach, GPDP is the first (and still only) comprehensive course that leads to university certification. It won the prestigious UPCEA Award for Outstanding Non-Credit Program, making it the world’s #1 ghostwriter-training path. I’m pretty darn proud of that, too.

So if you ever want to talk about your book, click the “Let’s Talk” tab or the Contact page on https://wambtac.com.

. If you want to learn how to become a professional ghostwriter, visit https://ghostwritertraining.com/gpdp.

And keep reading to find out if—how—I wrangle My Life as a Turtle: how I made it to geezer by lying, hiding, and denying into second-draft, salable shape.

All digits crossed!