Ghosts don’t just come out at Halloween. There’s a character called Beverley in The Echo Chamber, John Boyne’s new satirical novel about social media and cancel culture. Beverley is a bestselling author who secretly uses a ghost writer unbeknownst to her readers.
hostwriting may be considered publishing’s elephant in the room, but in the lead up to Christmas many of the bestsellers on bookshop shelves, from cookbooks to sports autobiographies, and especially memoirs, will have used the services of a ghostwriter.
Ghostwriting services have been booming on foot of the pandemic, as reported earlier in the year by StoryTerrace, which recorded a 400pc increase earlier this year from grown-up children who, spurred into action by Covid, wanted to hire a ghostwriter to preserve their parents’ memories.
Anna Wharton, a UK-based professional ghostwriter and novelist, who specialises in ghosting memoirs and works privately with people who want to write a memoir, says the pandemic has given us all pause for thought.
“People have stopped, got off their hamster wheel; they’ve had time to stare at four walls and think about their life,” she says. “It brought up a lot for people and writing a memoir can be quite a cathartic thing.”
Wharton has worked on books such as Cut: One Woman’s Fight against FGM, with Hibo Wardere (Simon & Schuster); as well as What I Wish People Knew About Dementia with Wendy Mitchell (Bloomsbury), which is out next January. She says there is no shame in having a ghostwriter.
“Someone told me 25 years ago that being in control means knowing when to ask for help. That applies to ghostwriting. There’s a myth that if you employ a ghostwriter, you’re letting go, and you’re not, you’re actually taking control.”
Conor Nagle, publisher at HarperCollins Ireland, says there’s an assumption that the involvement of a ghostwriter appears to undermine a book’s claim to credibility.
“Over the years, I’ve read quite a few opinion pieces questioning the claim of ghostwritten books to any sort of creative value,” he says. “It’s a sentiment I feel is misplaced, in part because publishing is very rarely the solitary pursuit people assume it to be.
“There’s an assumption sometimes that the only real book is one an author has pored over in solitude and published unassisted.
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“But publishing almost always involves collaboration of some sort, whether that’s between the author and a close-knit group of mentors, or larger teams that might include designers, illustrators, photographers. Ghostwriters are part of that creative conversation, too.”
Nagle says that there are plenty of reasons why an author might not be in a position to progress a manuscript unassisted, “none of which should be barriers to publication”.
“For authors with little writing experience, a ghost can help ease the technical burden, thus enabling the author to concentrate their energy where it’s needed most – on the substance of their story,” he says.
“In other cases, more practical impediments, like ill health or cognitive atypicality, can limit an author’s capacity to progress a manuscript alone. Ghostwriters can also help authors unlock creative potential, by introducing new perspectives or challenging long-held beliefs.
“The ideal author-ghost relationship isn’t one-way traffic; it’s a dialogue, a meeting of minds.”
Sue Leonard, a well-known journalist in Ireland, has also ghostwritten many books, including this year’s If Memory Serves me Wrong with Ronan Smith (New Island Books), An Act of Love with Marie Fleming (Hachette Books Ireland) and Whispering Hope, The True Story of the Magdalene Women (Orion), as well as one or two that she can’t talk about.
She says when she began ghostwriting, over a decade ago, it was not common policy to have the ghostwriter’s name on the book.
“I think that’s now changed,” she says. “Funny enough, as it’s changed, I care about that less. It is the person’s book; it’s their story.”
Leonard is currently working on ghostwriting the memoir of Who’s Eddie “the other band from Dundalk, who nearly made it,” for which she was referred by author Cecelia Ahern.
She says that ghostwriters bring “really important stories to life that might otherwise fall by the wayside.”
“A misconception is that you actually want to be a novelist, and this is second choice,” she says. “Which, for some people, might be true. For me, it very much is an extension of journalism.”
For Donn McClean, a racing journalist who has ghostwritten five books, the latest of which is jockey Pat Smullen’s memoir Champion (Gill Books), out later this year, the position of ghostwriter is a privileged one.
“You have a very precious entity at your disposal; you have to present the person’s career, or their life, as well as you can. They’ve only got one book, or one life, whereas you’re going to go on and write the next book,” he says.
“The key to being a ghostwriter is to get out of the way; to try and capture the person’s voice. When you agree to be a ghostwriter, you know exactly what’s involved: it’s called a ghostwriter for a reason.”
Ghostwritten: four of the most famous
Sarah Ferguson has made a tidy sum from putting her name and title to ghostwritten books
Her Heart for a Compass
Sarah Ferguson (Mills & Boon, 2021)
Ferguson’s novel, which is set in the Victorian era, was co-written by Mills & Boon veteran Marguerite Kaye and is loosely based on the Duchess of York’s ancestor, Lady Margaret Montagu Scott. In an author’s note, Ferguson writes that the novel was “15 years in the making”. The Guardian described the book as “chaste good fun”.
Roddy Doyle who ghosted ‘The Second Half’ for Roy Keane
The Second Half
Roy Keane with Roddy Doyle (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2014)
Having a Booker Prize-winning author openly ghost-writing your memoir has its advantages, not least because of all the column inches of publicity garnered by this partnership made in football and literary heaven. It also put ghostwriting on the map as a legitimate sideline for well-known authors. The London Times called The Second Half “a masterpiece”.
Katie Price (aka Jordan) signs a copy of one of her 14 ghostwritten books
Crystal
Katie Price (Century, 2007)
The glamour model formerly known as Jordan successfully reinvented herself as an author with the help of print and radio journalist Rebecca Farnworth, who ghostwrote 14 books under the model and businesswoman’s name, including autobiographies and novels. Farnworth died of cancer in 2014. When Crystal, a novel, came out in 2007, it outsold the entire Booker shortlist from that year.
Donald Trump waves a copy of ‘The Art of the Deal’
Trump: the Art of the Deal
Donald Trump (Random House, 1987)
The memoir of the man who would go on to be 45th President of the United States spent 48 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list. Ghostwriter Tony Schwartz told The New Yorker in 2016 that he regretted writing the book.
“I put lipstick on a pig,” he said. “I feel a deep sense of remorse that I contributed to presenting Trump in a way that brought him wider attention and made him more appealing than he is.”
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