William Hammett

Welcome to How to Hire a Ghostwriter.  I'm William Hammett, a ghostwriter and editor for the past sixteen years.  I've also published novels, short stories, and poetry under my own name for the past thirty years.  Additionally, I've written newspaper articles and held editorial positions and have an in-depth knowledge of the publishing industry.  And I've studied the craft of writing with some of the biggest professors and authors of my generation.

Ghostwriting has been around for a very long time.  Even Mark Twain and other well-known authors have ghostwritten books.  In fact, you might be surprised at the number of successful authors whose books you buy at Barnes and Noble, CVS, or the airport who also ghostwrite fiction.  And everyone has heard of The Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew, and Goosebumps.  All of these series were produced by ghostwriters.

With the explosion of the internet, many saw an opportunity to advertise themselves as ghostwriters.  When I myself started out, I had fifteen online competitors.  Today, I have approximately one hundred thousand.  Unfortunately, most of the people advertising on Google or Bing are moonlighters and don't have the experience or expertise to write a full-length book.  They often see internet ads saying, "Work at home!  Make big money as a ghostwriter!"  Many people decide to put up websites and call themselves ghostwriters because their high school and college English teachers (or friends) told them that they wrote "good papers."

As for ghostwriting companies, which are springing up like weeds, they are really POD companies that subcontract work to writers (and I use the term loosely) who are inexperienced, many being English majors, unemployed individuals, or moonlighters trying to augment their household incomes.

Here's the problem.  The new ghostwriting industry is filled with people who can't write a sentence without awkward phrasing or grammatical errors.  They're just following a business model to pick up some extra cash and never emotionally invest themselves in the projects they take on.

And then there are the ghostwriting clearinghouses, like elance, odesk, fiverr, and upwork.  People post their resumes on these sites and write books for a song, sometimes charging as little as a thousand dollars.  If anyone with some street cred examines the resumes these writers post, it's easy to see that they commit a dozen major grammatical and phrasing errors in the space of a single opening paragraph.  If they can't write a resume or simple paragraph, they sure as hell can't write a book.

With so many people trying to get published, or self-published as the case may be, people are turning to these ghostwriters who know as much about writing a book as a second grader.  Writing a book is a labor-intensive process that calls for consummate skill in planning, phrasing, organization, actual composition, revision, and yes, knowledge of the basic rules of grammar.  If you want a book to be published--and everyone does, right?--then it's imperative to know how the publishing industry works.  How does one choose an agent, write a proposal or query, and then actually submit a manuscript?  What are the odds of acceptance?  For self-publishing, one needs to know a great deal about the integrity of POD firms, as well as marketing, distribution, promotion, editing, and a dozen other areas.

I started this blog (and many others) to alert people to the scams, ineffective package deals, bad writing, and inexperienced writers working at the ghostwriting companies and clearing houses.  After sixteen years of producing quality manuscripts for clients, I am appalled whenever I am shown the work of my competitors or read their websites, which are riddled with basic grammatical errors.

So what sets me apart or qualifies me to write this blog?

I was formally trained in graduate school in writing, editing, textual criticism, research, and publishing.  And as noted above, I have decades of experience in the literary marketplace, working with agents and editors and producing my own work as well as writing for others.  It is my hope that readers of these posts, readers who seek to use a ghostwriter to write their books, will educate themselves by assimilating the information on this site.  Most people in need of a ghostwriter simply don't know very much about ghostwriting, the publishing industry, writing in general, or the scammers waiting to take their money.  I hope you will find these articles interesting and informative.  Most of all, I hope they enable you to make an informed, intelligent decision when selecting a ghostwriter.  If I can be of help, please email me.

Good luck!

William Hammett

Contact: wmhammett@aol.com 

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