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Table of contents:

• Ghostwriters Help Articulate Your Lived Experiences
• Subject-Matter Expertise and Writing Skill Are Different Talents
• Ghostwriters Help Translate Thoughts and Ideas
• Collaboration and Compromise Are Not the Same Thing
• More Experts are Acknowledging their Ghostwriters

Of all the possible reasons not to hire a book ghostwriter, fears of inauthenticity top the list, it seems. Authors have expressed concern that working with a ghostwriter will make their book less theirs.

When authors are worried about authenticity, they say something like: “I couldn’t use a ghostwriter. If I published a book, it would need to be my work.”

What I then try to explain is that a ghostwriter will only enhance your ideas, your framework, and your stories. A ghostwriter will not make up stories and insert ideas that are not your own.

In fact, I would go so far as to say that hiring a ghostwriter can actually help maintain authenticity, not dilute it. Here’s why:

Ghostwriters Help Articulate Your Lived Experiences

Your knowledge, perspective, and experiences are what make you uniquely you. A ghostwriter has no interest in making up stories to fill pages—their goal is to help you tell yours. They want to hear your insights, lessons learned, and observations to share on the page. In many cases, a ghostwriter can help you express your thoughts and ideas more clearly because they are not as close to them as you are. The content is all authentically yours, though it may be organized or communicated in a way that is more accessible to others.

Subject-Matter Expertise and Writing Skill Are Different Talents

You could be the preeminent guru in your field and have a hard time conveying what you know. Ghostwriters, on the other hand, do not know what you know, but they do know how to tell stories, make ideas clearer and stronger, and make dry writing more interesting. Writing is a specialized skill that few CEOs, founders, business owners, nuclear physicists, tech execs, or nonprofit leaders have. That’s why they hire ghostwriters as writing partners and collaborators—to make sure their book reflects their subject-matter knowledge and is easy to read and understand.

Ghostwriters Help Translate Thoughts and Ideas

Having brilliant ideas and insights does not necessarily mean that you can convey them in a way that other people understand and recognize your brilliance. Many experts can make presentations and share their ideas verbally, but struggle mightily when they sit down to write. Again, it’s a different skillset. But a ghostwriter can take your spoken words and translate them into paragraphs and chapters that form a book. They capture your ideas in your voice.

Collaboration and Compromise Are Not the Same Thing

When you hire a ghostwriter to work alongside you on your book, to help gather relevant thoughts and ideas and structure them into a narrative arc that makes sense, you are retaining a consultant, essentially. You’re hiring a publishing expert, but you still have the final say. Actually, you have a say at every step of the way. You decide which information to include and which to leave out, how to frame certain situations or stories, and how you want to be perceived. You are the decider, not your ghostwriter, because it’s your intellectual property. There is only compromise if you decide to allow it.

More Experts are Acknowledging their Ghostwriters

Until the last decade, leaders and experts who relied on ghostwriters to help produce their books were very quiet about it. Ghostwriters were hush-hush. But recently, frequently in the name of authenticity, more business leaders, celebrities, and influencers have openly admitted they had help. “Of course, I hired a ghostwriter,” many have said, because they are not writers or publishing pros. Hiring a ghostwriter is like hiring a tutor to help you do the best job possible; it’s not hiring someone else to take the class for you or take your tests.

Ultimately, people hire ghostwriters for a variety of reasons besides writing skill and publishing expertise. The biggest reason is time; few busy leaders have the time to write a book, while others may have the time but choose not to spend it typing away on a computer on their days off. Some have the time but are slow writers and understand that a ghostwriter can help get their book out in months, not the years it would take them on their own.

Authenticity is going to become even more of an issue as artificial intelligence (AI) gains the capability of looking and sounding like humans (fake videos are already in circulation), but working with a ghostwriter will not weaken your message, ideas, or stories.

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Table of contents:

• What Makes Up Your Personal Brand
• The Authority that Books Convey
• Repurposing Your Ideas for Greater Visibility
• Choosing the Right Topic is Key
• Your Long-Term Brand Strategy

In a recent article for Chief regarding the importance of a personal brand for senior executives, Danielle Hughes, founder of branding consultancy More Than Words Marketing, said, “A personal brand has gone from being a nice-to-have to a need-to-have.”

This is especially true for ambitious business leaders.

Everyone has a personal brand. Your brand is based on what you’ve accomplished, what you’ve shared online, where you’ve spoken, and other evidence of your ideas and interests. However, your current personal brand may or may not represent how you’d like to be perceived.

Yes, blog posts, media mentions, TED Talks, and other recognition help establish your presence—your brand—but nothing else elevates your professional reputation like publishing a book.

Authorship is one of the most powerful ways you can build a credible, authoritative personal brand. Here’s why:

What Makes Up Your Personal Brand

At its core, your personal brand is made up of three components that together shape how others see you professionally: 1) Expertise, 2) Reputation, and 3) Visibility.

Your expertise consists of your experience, knowledge, skills, abilities, and insights. It’s what makes you a professional standout.

Your reputation reflects how others see and describe you. Your reputation is made up of your track record of success, your credibility, and authority. How people describe you when they tell others about you contributes to your professional reputation.

And visibility is determined by how well people remember you and recommend you to others, often based on how easily you can be found online. If people need to dig deep to come across your profile or anything that has been said about you online, your visibility would be considered low.

Unless you’re already a celebrity in your industry, it’s very likely you’re weak in at least one of these areas. For example, you might have a tremendous reputation within your company but be a complete unknown outside of it. Or maybe you have recognized expertise, but people don’t know you well enough to be able to speak out in support of you.

The good news is that writing and publishing a book can address all three of these components in one fell swoop.

The Authority that Books Convey

No matter how many speeches you’ve given, presentations you’ve made, or consulting engagements you’ve won, none of those impact your personal brand like claiming author status. Being able to call yourself an author instantly elevates your reputation.

Sure, there are industry icons who blog or have a podcast or YouTube channel, and many may be considered “influencers.” However, writing and publishing a book signals a different level of influence, of commitment to your field, as well as a higher level of expertise. You can write hundreds of articles and blog posts, but penning an entire book is an entirely different accomplishment, and everyone knows it.

In part because of the space that books provide, you have the freedom to articulate original thinking and innovative ideas that distinguish you from your colleagues. That’s the power of long-form content. When you have 50,000 or 60,000 words to use, you can delve deeply into your area of expertise and define new frameworks, point out coming industry trends, and speak out for or against what’s already headed your way. That’s harder to do in a 1,000-word blog post or article. Books can shift your career in new ways more quickly than any other tool.

The fact that media outlets and websites prefer to interview authors, or view them as credible sources for stories, confirms this enhanced credibility and authority. When you take the time to organize your ideas and insights into a book-length work, your efforts and serious engagement with your ideas are respected and even rewarded with increased attention.

With more credibility and attention comes new opportunities. Those new opportunities often include speaking invitations at events, podcast guest offers, as well as magazine columns or guest blogging requests. Landing consulting engagements, expert witness gigs, and board of directors offers are not unheard of. Your book becomes your business card.

Repurposing Your Ideas for Greater Visibility

Although a book is a way to package your expertise, it doesn’t have to restrict you. Once you’ve written a book, you can then deconstruct it and slice and dice it in new and different ways, for greater reach and impact.

For example, each of your chapters could become a related blog post. Pithy quotes can become graphic posts on Instagram. You could take an idea from your book and record a 30-second explanation or example to share on YouTube. You can create a course or courses based on your book or host a webinar or masterclass. That book becomes the center of a new content system to which you can return for more ideas over time.

Choosing the Right Topic is Key

Of course, your book has a better chance of being a jumping-off point for your personal brand if you select a topic that is at the intersection of your interests and expertise as well as your audience’s interests and information needs. No matter what, your book needs to offer a unique take on a topic or provide a new way of understanding it, such as through a framework, blueprint, or system.

When faced with a choice between what you want to write about and share and what your target audience wants to hear about, choose the topic they want to know more about. No, it may not be what they need, but by giving them what they want, you have a shot at attracting their attention. Over time, you can start to serve up what you know they need, but if you lead with what you want to write about, you may never sell enough books to have the impact you hope to.

As you’re evaluating topics and angles, think about where you want your personal brand to go. What do you want to be known for in the future? If you want to shift into doing more consulting, for example, weave in success stories and hit hard on corporate strategy. If you want to be considered for a global role, make sure you include content that addresses a global perspective. And keep in mind that long-term, you may write several books, so this first title does not have to include everything you have to say on a subject; go with the most relevant and perhaps unconventional, to attract attention and raise some eyebrows.

Your Long-Term Brand Strategy

The good news about a book is that it has staying power. Although LinkedIn users may come across your post once and promptly forget about it, your book may sit on their desk or bookshelf for several weeks or even years. For that reason, a book can have a larger impact on your brand-building efforts. A book can demonstrate that you have the experience, the insights, and the expertise worth paying attention to.

Some of the most successful authors started with one book that made a splash and they followed that one with another, in between speaking engagements and other invitations that quickly heightened their visibility. Their books sparked movements that positioned them for many more revenue-generating opportunities even years later. Just look at Malcolm Gladwell, James Clear, or Cal Newport, for example. They’re no longer just authors; they are massive brands. But their careers really took off when they decided to invest the time in writing a book.

You have a similar opportunity to make your mark.

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The LinkedIn Algorithm Reality Check

We all know that LinkedIn is the social media platform for business professionals. It always has been, and that specialization makes it a powerful tool. However, the Algorithm Insights Report for 2024 shows that LinkedIn organic reach is on the decline. Currently, only about 2-6 percent of your followers ever see your posts.

At the same time, LinkedIn posts are really only relevant or viable for about 24-48 hours, at the most. Unless your followers catch it within that timeframe, they will likely never see it. Your efforts are wasted.

Additionally, the size of your LinkedIn follower account doesn’t necessarily equate to thought leadership or authority. The more connections you have, the greater the potential for business opportunities, but there isn’t always a direct connection with business results.

The Permanent Authority of Books

Granted, the same can be said of books—there is no guarantee of success or of new business opportunities. However, books do create permanent authority. That is, authority that is longer-term and not attached to social media platforms or trends.

When you’re introduced as the author of “The foremost book on [your topic],” your expertise is solidified in a way that LinkedIn will likely never be able to.

That permanent authority doesn’t wane either. In fact, it can compound and amplify over time. Your book can continue to build and enhance your reputation in the background, attracting opportunities to be quoted by the media, be invited to speak at events, be interviewed on podcasts, and participate in online summits.

As I’ve pointed out before, journalists and writers are encouraged by media outlets to use authors as sources for articles they write because publishing a book suggests a depth of knowledge that non-authors can’t demonstrate as easily.

Besides attracting marketing opportunities, a published book is also a powerful marketing tool in itself. Send a prospect your book and you immediately earn respect, even if they never read a word of it. Several of my clients have stated that they view their book as a conversation starter.

Book authorship is a permanent credential, even if your book eventually goes out of print. You will always be able to differentiate yourself as the author of [your book’s title].

The Synergy Strategy: Book + LinkedIn

The good news is that we’re not talking about competing marketing tools. LinkedIn and your book are complementary, not competitive. Actually, they multiply each other’s effectiveness. Your book becomes the foundation of your authority that gives everything else you post on LinkedIn more weight.

The credibility you earn from your book carries over to positively impact engagement on your LinkedIn posts. As an author, you’re an expert sharing your expertise rather than an average person sharing their opinions.

You can also mine your book for LinkedIn content, so that the two support each other. You could take a chapter and slice and dice it into separate posts, or take examples and expand them into case studies. As new research is shared, you can post about it and tie it back to content you shared in your book, so that you’re constantly updating it and keeping it relevant.

The same is true of speaking gigs. You can draw from your book to craft interesting presentations and speeches, and you can write LinkedIn posts about questions you got from the audience at a recent keynote or conference at which you spoke. You can share photos you take at these events to continue to remind your followers of your industry leadership.

Just look at successful business authors like Wharton Professor Adam Grant or entrepreneur Kim Perell and how they amplify their stature through their books. Their books establish their thought leadership and authority, which enhances their social media reach, which then helps increase awareness of them and their books, which drive more sales and speaking opportunities, and create a cycle of influence that has a positive long-term impact.

Your Implementation Plan

If creating a virtuous cycle of opportunities sounds good to you, your first step needs to be to write that business book you’ve been meaning to. Yes, you need to keep up with the LinkedIn posting to continue to grow your network and establish your credibility in the meantime, but your book will be the foundation of your authority.

Once your book has been released, you can use it as the basis of many weeks of articles and blog posts. You can turn chapters into several series of articles, you can pull out facts and figures and expand on them to create social media posts, and build on points you’ve made with related news, to keep your points up-to-date.

You should also reference your book as often as possible. When you’re being invited to speak, try to negotiate a deal that includes a bundle of books for attendees, for example. When you’re on a podcast, mention your book. When you’re on TV, bring a book to hold up on camera. When you’re being quoted in a magazine or newspaper article, mention that you’re the author of [your book’s title].

Hopefully, you can see how your book can support your LinkedIn posting, as well as other marketing activities, and how LinkedIn can create opportunities to mention your book or segue to topics you cover in its pages.

I heard someone say, “LinkedIn can get you noticed, but your book will get you remembered,” and I think that’s true. So, you don’t need to choose one or the other. Choose both and leverage both to amplify your results to an even greater extent than either method on its own.

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Table of contents:

• Traditional Publishing Advantages
• Types of Control at Risk
• Retaining Control

Many CEOs and business leaders assume that a traditional publisher is the best path for them to take in getting their newly written book produced and distributed. Given how traditional publishers were the only option available for centuries, it makes sense that authors start the process of writing a book thinking that they will be traditionally published.

However, today, that’s not always the case. You have other choices now.

Traditional publishing may also not make the most sense for your particular book.

The disruption that has occurred in the publishing industry in the last 20 years, thanks to innovations in printing technology and entrepreneurial ventures, has led to new publishing business models and companies. No longer are major publishing houses, such as Random House, Simon & Schuster, Penguin, HarperCollins, and John Wiley & Sons, among others, the only way to become a published author.

In fact, the odds of landing a traditional publishing deal are unlikely unless you’re well-known or already have a large social media following.

Publishers today are risk-averse and are reluctant to sign a new author who may not be able to sell at least 10,000 copies. Unless you can almost guarantee that your community will buy that many books, you may have an uphill battle landing a traditional publisher. Not to mention the need for a literary agent to represent you and a strong book proposal prepared to market your book.

Traditional Publishing Advantages

Historically, major publishing houses were the gatekeepers, determining which books were worthy of publication and which were not. For that reason, some authors believe having a traditional publisher’s name on their book’s spine enhances the book’s credibility and prestige, as well as their own.

In some circles, that may be the case. Academicians and scholars, for example, may receive enhanced stature by landing a traditional publishing deal.

In the business world, however, the only real advantage is that traditional publishers agree to cover the costs of production. In that case, CEOs, founders, and business owners don’t need to come out of pocket to have their book edited, proofread, laid out, cover designed, printed, and distributed.

Authors who are cash-strapped may find this the only advantage that matters to them. Production and printing costs start at around $10,000 and go up from there.

By opting to sign with a traditional press, however, authors may inadvertently or unknowingly give up control of elements that may be important to them.

Types of Control at Risk

If you have the ability to pay upfront for the design, production, and printing of your book, you are in a strong negotiating position. You can consider a traditional deal as well as other alternatives, such as hybrid publishers and author services companies.

Where traditional publishers can offer:

• A potential advance against future royalties
• No-cost production and printing
• Well-established distribution network
• Sales representatives to help promote your book
• Potential enhanced credibility

Some of the potential downsides of traditional deals are:

• Long potential production timetables – 18-24 months after manuscript receipt
• Little to no input on cover price
• Input but no final say on cover design
• A requirement for a buy-back of a certain number of copies that ends up costing you money upfront

Depending on your topic, these considerations may be significant.

Timetable: Most business executives live and work with a sense of urgency. When their manuscript is written and ready for production, few are willing to wait another two years before it hits bookstores. And for tech topics, there is a very real risk that the content could be obsolete by that point, or have been overshadowed by a similar book.

Cover price: Publishers set a book’s cover price based on what similar, competing books cost, as well as what number is going to make their financials work. It’s possible that where competing titles are selling for $24.95, yours could be priced at $34.95 in order to make the financial model profitable. And you may not want to be the highest-priced book in your space. But it’s not your call.

Cover design: Publishers employ skilled graphic designers who know what types of covers sell. They are specialists at grabbing a customer’s attention. You wouldn’t want someone without publishing industry experience designing your cover; however, you may also want to offer input. For example, perhaps you want to include a pop of color that matches your company’s corporate colors. You can request it, but the final decision is not your own.

Buyback: If you were leaning toward a traditional deal in the hopes of not having to pay for production, a buyback effectively does the same thing. You commit to buying a certain number of copies, which you purchase at an author’s discount. Depending on the size of the buyback, this could end up costing you more than a hybrid press.

Where you may lose control of these elements of production in exchange for not having to pay for production and printing, by considering hybrid and author services companies, you can take back control of some or all of the above-mentioned items.

Retaining Control

With hybrid publishers and author services companies:

• You decide on the title
• You choose the cover design, with input from your publisher
• You decide on the cover price, with recommendations
• You have near-100 percent control of the content, within reason
• The production timetable is more like 10-12 months, not 18-24 months
• Many independent publishers have distribution arrangements with Ingram or Simon & Schuster
• You pay a fee for services upfront
• With hybrid publishers, you also pay a 15 percent commission, much like you would pay an agent

If you want to play a big role in making decisions about your book, you can try to write that into a traditional contract, if you’re offered one, or choose to work with a hybrid publisher or author services company where you retain full control.

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Table of contents:

• The Hidden Goldmine in Your Executive Journey
• The 3 Pillars of CEO Thought Leadership Gold
• Pattern Recognition
• Decision Frameworks
• Contrarian Insights
• From Raw Experience to Refined Thought Leadership
• The Advantage a Writing Partner Provides

All CEOs, founders, business owners, and entrepreneurs have stories to tell about their companies — the ups, the downs, the great decisions, the poor ones, the sudden crises, and the risks taken along the way. These anecdotes, case studies, and recollections are a potential goldmine for thought leadership content.

However, very few business leaders take the time to reflect and capture those experiences in written form. They have the expertise, but rarely is it documented and then transformed into compelling, thought-provoking thought leadership material.

Part of the challenge is recognizing which aspects of those experiences will be most interesting and educational to others. Your perspective on what happened and why, as well as your thinking behind your decisions, are all critical to your position as a visionary and thought leader.

There is significant value in your stories, but sometimes an outside perspective, such as from a professional ghostwriter, is what you need to clarify your ideas and turn them into thought leadership content.

The Hidden Goldmine in Your Executive Journey

Think back to your biggest wins and your most embarrassing failures. Did you launch a new product that absolutely flopped? Did you acquire a company that was supposed to be a slam-dunk addition and turned out to be nothing but HR headaches? Or, on the positive side, what about how you convinced the CTO of your competition to jump ship and join you, impressing your entire industry?

These are all more than mere business stories. They’re masterclasses in strategy, research, persistence, pivots, and timing. And they’re all the bases for frameworks you can share for handling difficult situations that other CEOs want to learn.

Like you, many CEOs see their daily activities as nothing unusual. They frequently discount their own thought process and decision-making approach, which is where much of their genius resides. Your thought leadership assets lie in the pattern recognition, decision frameworks, and insights applied from other industries that you’re able to overlay and use.

The key is in finding a way to view and share your expertise as broader universal principles rather than your personal experiences.

The 3 Pillars of CEO Thought Leadership Gold

CEOs and executives who are visionaries, who make connections and spot opportunities that others overlook, rely on three abilities that they’ve honed.

Pattern Recognition.

At the core of thought leadership abilities is an intuitive sense of how events impact future opportunities. Not that you’re psychic, but you have a sixth sense that not everyone does in business. You can spot occurrences that frequently trigger other scenarios or that somehow impact other industries, for example. Maybe you’ve identified a series of steps that consistently need to be taken during an economic downturn that can result in rapid growth. Or maybe you’ve recognized leadership characteristics that are essential when a company scales beyond $50 million.

Several years ago, a CEO client of mine wrote a thought leadership book that was very well received. In it, he predicted a Black Swan event within five years that would disrupt normal business operations. Want to know what happened two years later? The pandemic. Those who read his book expressed increased respect and admiration for his insights.

This ability to recognize patterns and articulate them is what separates you, a thought leader, from a subject matter expert, who only knows one aspect of an industry or business inside and out.

Decision Frameworks.

Decision frameworks are how you process complex problems. They’re your unique internal system for compiling information, filtering it, and analyzing the relevant facts and figures. Every CEO develops their own frameworks for assessing and addressing problems and opportunities, whether they’re potential acquisition targets, competitive threats, a shifting regulatory environment, or emerging technologies, to name a few.

Another of my CEO clients wrote about how mentorship by his predecessor helped shape his decision frameworks, which made possible continued growth and profitability within the business for decades. The business memoir we worked on together shared his perspective, decisions, and the impact those had on the corporation’s growth and success.

What differentiates thought leadership books from memoirs, however, is how well the underlying strategies and lessons learned are extracted from the personal experiences. Memoirs are stories and personal reflections where thought leadership titles help the reader understand how they can apply certain approaches or methodologies in their own businesses. It has a how-to element that offers valuable takeaways.

Contrarian Insights.

Spotting patterns and developing your own decision frameworks are foundational for writing a thought leadership book. The third piece is the lessons you’ve learned and the experiences you’ve had that fly in the face of generally accepted business wisdom.

Contrarian insights are the realizations of when conventional insights are dead wrong. For example, maybe you’ve observed that hiring from within only reinforces continued bad policies. Or that a matrixed organization makes decisions faster than flat org structures.

These types of perspectives, when backed with examples from your personal experience, form the backbone of thought leader books.

One of my most recent projects for a CEO lays out his contrarian insights and ideas alongside his forecasts for the future. I know it’s going to receive strong buzz as soon as it’s released because what he shares is unconventional, but it makes a lot of sense.

From Raw Experience to Refined Thought Leadership

What makes thought leadership writing different is that it takes specific stories and lessons and widens the lens to make the lessons learned universal. The focus shifts from talking about what you witnessed and grappled with to how others can face similar situations and know how to handle them. So, instead of “How I Led My Team in Pivoting During the Recession,” you could write about “A Framework for Assessing and Leading Through Downturns.”

Your personal experiences give you credibility as an industry leader, but the universal framework helps your reader recognize how they can apply your wisdom to their situations. That’s what makes you a thought leader, by shaping the thinking and actions others take. This ability to break down complex ideas into accessible, actionable content is what differentiates CEOs from CEO thought leaders.

The Advantage a Writing Partner Provides             

However, recognizing what makes thought leadership writing different doesn’t necessarily make it possible for all CEOs. You can be a brilliant, articulate CEO who can also benefit from working alongside a professional ghostwriter/collaborator/writing partner.

Your ghostwriter can help you identify those patterns you instinctively see, communicate the frameworks you use routinely, and shape your experiences into universal insights that others can learn from. Having someone else to bounce ideas off, to talk through what examples will hit home the hardest, and to help structure your message can turn your book into an award-winning, celebrated thought leadership title that captures attention. Just ask your colleagues who’ve worked with ghostwriters about their experiences.

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Table of contents:

• The Authenticity Misconception
• How Amateur Writing Actually Obscures Authenticity
• How Professional Ghostwriters Amplify Your Voice
• The Professional Parallel

“I plan to write my own book because I want it to be authentically mine” is one of the most common objections I hear from aspiring authors about working with a ghostwriter.

Some business leaders, CEOs, business owners, entrepreneurs, and experts are under the impression that working alongside a ghostwriter will somehow make their book less authentic, less theirs. That by working with a ghostwriter, the resulting book would be an inaccurate or artificial representation of their message.

The opposite is actually true.

The Authenticity Misconception

Some aspiring authors seem to equate the physical act of taking notes or typing on a computer keyboard with authenticity. That unless they personally peck the keys, the words that appear on the page do not represent their own thinking or experiences.

That understanding of authenticity is inaccurate, or at least flawed.

Think back to middle school or high school when you encountered a subject you struggled with. For me, it was geometry. My brain loves algebra, but geometry? Not so much.

To help, my parents hired a tutor to work with me weekly. She sat next to me, asking questions to figure out where I was getting confused and then showed me alternative perspectives that helped me grasp the concepts.

When I took the tests in that class, the answers were all mine. No one would ever claim that the answers I gave belonged to my tutor, right?

The same is true in ghostwriting.

A ghostwriter can help you clarify and refine your thinking, organize your core message, and draw out memories and stories you may even have forgotten, but which are perfect for some of the lessons you want to share.

They work alongside you, asking questions, pushing back, or playing devil’s advocate to be sure that you’ve considered all aspects of your topic, and then assist in explaining your ideas or message clearly.

The ideas are yours, as are the words.

The same is true of speechwriters. Speechwriters work alongside CEOs and leaders to refine keynote speeches and presentations, but the speeches themselves are always attributed to the person who gives them. There’s rarely any question of authenticity there, so I’m always surprised when it surfaces with respect to ghostwriting.

How Amateur Writing Actually Obscures Authenticity

What gets in the way of authenticity, of you revealing your best self, is amateur writing.

Let’s face it, most business leaders are not professional writers. Yes, they may be brilliant strategists and skilled negotiators, but that doesn’t automatically make them adept communicators. Unless they routinely write as part of their job, what they create on the page is likely to be less eloquent than they’d like.

Many non-writers focus so much on the mechanics we learned in English class that the resulting material is forced, even clunky. Trying so hard to be grammatically correct with accurate punctuation can lead to writing that is awkward or dry.

Of course, what makes writing effective is emotion and expressive language. Sometimes writing is more evocative when the rules of the English language are thrown out the window. Ghostwriters understand this.

Unless you’re confident your writing skills are on par with well-paid professionals, meaning ghostwriters, it’s likely your book will be underwhelming if you write it yourself, without support. It will be authentic, certainly, but it may not be worth reading in that case, and it may not help you achieve your ultimate objective (the reason you wrote your book in the first place).

How Professional Ghostwriters Amplify Your Voice

A ghostwriter’s job is to amplify all of your best qualities. Not to cover them up or hide them, but to shine a spotlight on how you communicate.

The best ghostwriters pay close attention to how you explain concepts, which words and phrases you rely on heavily, as well as your cadence and style. That’s what makes them ghostwriters. They reach a point at which they think like you, too.

Their job isn’t to put words in your mouth, which is probably what you’re most afraid of, but to translate what you’re saying into an even better version of what you’ve shared. They may take out the pauses or the tangents you like to go on when you’re explaining something, and bring the message back to what you most want to say. And they write it just like you would say it.

It’s your message in your words, only maybe a touch more organized.

The Professional Parallel

Working with a book ghostwriter is very similar to working with a public relations firm on a press release you want to issue about a new initiative or a big announcement. You want to share a message, but you rely on professional communicators to capture the essence of what you want to say.

If you use a PR firm, you probably also rely on a marketing communications team to design PowerPoint slides for presentations. You provide the key talking points and main message, and you leave it to them to organize and supplement it with graphics.

The same is true with speeches, as I pointed out, and other documents, such as white papers or submitted articles.

The ideas are yours, the words are yours, just amplified and improved.

Does that make them any less authentic? I don’t think so. They’re still all yours.

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Table of contents:

• What “Bestseller” Actually Means
• The Major Bestseller Lists Explained
• Why Other “Bestseller” Claims Don’t Count
• How to Talk About Your Success Honestly

Several years ago, a local author proudly proclaimed that she had written a bestseller.

I hadn’t heard of her book, so I was curious how she had made it onto the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, or USA Today bestseller list, especially since she self-published. How many copies had she sold, I asked.

Her response? Around 100.

“A hundred thousand?” I asked.

No, 100.

Selling 100 copies does not come close to qualifying your book for any bestseller list. Perhaps she had hit an Amazon category bestseller for a few hours, but that’s very different from landing on an esteemed bestseller list.

If you claim to have written a bestseller, be sure you can back it up.

What “Bestseller” Actually Means

A bestseller is commonly understood to mean a book that has landed on a major national bestseller list. These specifically include the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and USA Today lists. (However, the Wall Street Journal discontinued its weekly bestseller list in 2023.)

These are the gold standards, and being named to them carries real weight with the media, publishers, authors, and readers.

Amazon has developed its own bestseller rankings based on relative sales at any point in time in each of its categories. A book could be the top-selling title in its category and win the #1 spot for an hour with two books sold, for example, because no other titles in its category sold during that window.

Sure, you can claim Amazon bestseller status if your book achieves that, but it’s important to clarify that it’s an “Amazon bestseller.”

The Major Bestseller Lists Explained

I would love to be able to break down exactly how many copies you need to sell, and for how long, to be named to one of the major bestseller lists. But as many news reports have found, qualifying is not at all simple. Making one of the lists is part science and part projection.

Some major publishers used to recommend that their authors work with ResultSource, a service provider that could help them improve the odds of becoming a bestseller. However, after a Wall Street Journal article (sorry, it’s behind a paywall) years ago, I haven’t heard much about them.

My understanding is that bookstores report numbers of copies sold weekly, and book buyers weigh in on how many copies they expect some titles to sell. This is akin to a budget versus actual numbers in your sales projections.

So, there is no instruction manual for how many copies will qualify you, though I have heard from multiple sources that the minimum count is 5,000 per week. To start.

Why Other “Bestseller” Claims Don’t Count

Despite how unclear the process is for selecting bestsellers, we all know the bar is set high.

Claiming to have written a bestseller when your book has not made it on one of the big lists only undermines your credibility when you speak to other authors and publishing professionals.

It’s a lot like claiming to be a Harvard graduate when you only attended a certificate program there. Yes, you attended a Harvard program, but no, you are not a member of the Harvard University Alumni Association alongside graduates who earned degrees (I verified this).

How to Talk About Your Success Honestly

Landing atop an Amazon category is worthy of celebration and pride. Even Amazon bestsellers don’t necessarily hit the top 10 or #1. So let everyone know if your book is selling well enough to earn that accolade, if it does.

But don’t overstate that accomplishment.

When you exaggerate, you lose credibility, which is why so many authors write books in the first place — to enhance their credibility. Claiming otherwise undermines your authority.

And if your book hasn’t yet landed on a bestseller list, it’s in the majority. So few ever do. Nothing to be ashamed of.

However, there are other ways you can attract attention to it, such as by entering publishing awards programs. If you win, you’ll then have an “award-winner,” and you would be an “award-winning writer.”

Ghostwriters can enter the annual Andy Awards program, sponsored by the American Society of Journalists and Authors (ASJA) and Gotham Ghostwriters. There are also plenty of independent publishing awards programs out there.

You could also think back to why you wrote your book in the first place. Your purpose probably wasn’t to make a bestseller list.

It was likely much more important than that.

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