Most executives who contact me have been thinking about writing a book for years. They’ve given the keynote, maybe even a TED Talk, mentored teams, and found a solution to a problem organizations in their industry keep running into. Friends and colleagues have been telling them, “You should write a book!”
They know they should. The problem is time, or the lack thereof.
Leading a company leaves little time to shut themselves off in their office and draft a manuscript on their own. It just doesn’t get done. That’s why so many CEOs, founders, and business owners partner with a ghostwriter.
That way, they can hand off the parts of the process that take up so much time: structuring, drafting, researching facts and figures, editing, and keeping the whole process moving. They’re not handing off the thinking, the storytelling, the insights, or experiences, which are solely theirs, but they’re delegating the process management.
Here’s how you can write a book as an executive by partnering with a ghostwriter, and what your role looks like at each stage.
Start with What You Want the Book to Do for You
Before you get into the meat of what the book will cover information-wise, take a step back to get clear on why you’re even starting this process at all. What do you hope will happen as a result of writing this book?
Do you want speaking engagements? Do you want consulting gigs? More leads for your business? Board seats? Or are you looking to leave a legacy for the next generation of leaders?
Being able to articulate this will help your ghostwriter advise you on the best way to achieve that goal. Knowing the purpose of your book will help shape decisions about the book’s angle, the examples used, who you’re writing for, and what publishing path makes the most sense.
Then, distill your idea into one or two sentences. This will become your north star as you get underway, to help keep you focused.
Choose a Partner, Not Just a Writer
A skilled book ghostwriter wears many hats, from interviewer to writer, editor, project manager, and publishing consultant. When you’re evaluating candidates, look for the following:
- Relevant experience. The right ghostwriter for you will depend in part on your book’s topic and target audience. Ideally, you’ll find someone who has ghostwritten books similar to your own. That is, if yours is a thought leadership book, a ghostwriter who has experience in that genre will be able to guide you better than someone who specializes in memoir, and vice versa.
- A clearly articulated process. Someone who has ghostwritten multiple books has a preferred way of working, and they should be able to describe that to you. Do they prefer to conduct all interviews first and then start drafting chapters, or interview a chapter at a time? How about editing—when does that start? They should be able to paint a clear picture for you.
- Confidence. You want a ghostwriter who will speak up when they aren’t sure about something and disagree with you when a particular example doesn’t fit, or the order in which you’ve shared information doesn’t flow. You don’t want a “yes-man” or woman.
- Publishing expertise. It is much better to decide on a publishing path long before you finish writing your book, so that you can get it released sooner rather than later. If you opt to pursue a traditional publisher, you’ll want to start now to find a literary agent and draft a book proposal before you write the book. Don’t write the whole book and then start shopping it around because it could be years before it ever gets published. Find a ghostwriter who can explain your options.
- Chemistry. Maybe more important than writing experience is whether you two click. Do your energy levels match? Do you like them? Are you confident they will help you produce a terrific book? The answer to all of those questions needs to be yes for your project to be a success.
Since you likely haven’t published a book before, you want to hire someone who is going to lead you expertly by the hand, rather than learning alongside you how the process of writing a book works. That won’t save you time.
How a Ghostwriting Collaboration Works
Although there is some confusion about how a ghostwriter works, in the nonfiction world, a ghostwriter is a writing partner, not a surrogate, and you need to be very involved in providing input. Usually, the creation process follows four general steps. This is what my process looks like:
- Create the roadmap. I always start with designing the book’s outline. Most business books are between 10 and 15 chapters and 55,000-65,000 words long. Figuring out the general structure up front helps ensure your book does what you want it to.
- Talk it through. I always start with Chapter 1, sending you questions in advance, based on the outline, so that you can come to our input session prepared to tell me what belongs in this chapter. That’s how each chapter discussion is designed to proceed, with me sending questions, you thinking about them in advance of our call, and then a 60- to 90-minute discussion to talk through the chapter.
- Review the draft. Once we talk through each chapter, I draft it for your review. With Chapter 1, we talk through it in detail, since it will become the template for the rest of the chapters, but once that first chapter is finished, the rest of the chapters aren’t edited until the end. Your job is to review each draft and give general feedback to ensure we stay on course according to the outline.
- Refine during the editing stage. After the whole manuscript has been drafted, it’s time to go back through it twice, the first time looking at the structure and overall information flow. The second time, we’re looking more at tone and style.
Your ghostwriter will work hard to make your manuscript sound like you, weaving in your stories, your experiences, your frameworks, and your lessons. You have the expertise, and they have the writing skill and publishing know-how.
Be Realistic About Your Time
Working with a ghostwriter will take a fraction of the time it would have taken for you to write your book on your own, but it’s not nothing. You still need to allocate time regularly to provide input and review drafts.
When clients ask how long it takes to write a book, I typically say anywhere from four to twelve months, assuming regular meetings. That’s only for the writing. The design, production, and printing come later and have their own timetable.
Honestly, the biggest variable here isn’t typically your ghostwriter’s availability; it’s yours. If you have a lot of travel coming up or know you’ll be unavailable for big blocks of time, tell your ghostwriter so that you two can create a schedule to take advantage of windows when you will be available, so they can write while you’re unavailable. That will keep things progressing even in your absence, ideally.
One of the best ways to help avoid pauses in work is to pick a regular day and time when you’ll be able to commit to a call, then block it off. That way, you know that Wednesday at 3:00 pm or Thursday at 10:30 am is when you work on your book with your ghostwriter.
Executives who finish their books aren’t the ones with the most free time—they’re the ones who decide what they want to accomplish, hire a writing partner, and commit to a schedule.
If a book has been on your to-do list for a while, could 2027 be the year you finally write it? You have all the expertise. Now you just need a collaborator to help get it onto the page, in your voice, while you keep your day job.
Interested in learning more about what working with a ghostwriter could look like? Email me at marcia@marcialaytonturner.com to request a free copy of my Insider’s Guide to Finding and Working with a Ghostwriter.