Ghostwriting is a mysterious profession to most people. That’s because ghostwriters usually remain anonymous and don’t take credit for their work. Hiring ghostwriters is a part of many companies’ content strategy, too.
Ghostwriters are backstage workers — most of the content and books they have written are not publicly announced as being ghostwritten. After all, this would defeat the purpose of hiring a ghostwriter.
Some ghostwriters get credited for their work as collaborators or mentioned as co-authors in the section of acknowledgments in the book they’ve written. But more often than not, they sign a confidentiality agreement that legally prevents them from revealing which books or articles they’ve ghostwritten.
Still, there are many popular examples of work of art that has been produced by ghostwriters, as well as popular artists who had to work as ghostwriters at some point:
Some consider that Mozart himself, perhaps the most well-known composer in the world, used to ghostwrite music for wealthy patrons who wanted to be known for their artistic gifts.
David Raksin worked as a music ghostwriter and orchestrator for Charlie Chaplin.
Andy Warhol used to hire studio assistants to make his commissioned art for him in his ‘60s studio.
Tek-War, a sci-fi series by William Shatner, was ghostwritten by American writer Ron Goulart.
Best-selling author James Patterson has worked with nearly 20 co-authors, and, according to The New Yorker, largely owes his success to the fact that using ghostwriters enables him to consistently publish new books. With the help of ghostwriting, he has managed to become more of a brand than an author.
John F. Kennedy’s book Profiles in Courage is claimed to be written by Ted Sorensen.
Hiring a ghostwriter will help you capture your story or ideas and tell it to the world exactly the way you want to. Sometimes people have a lot to say but not enough time or the right skills to put their story into words. This is where ghostwriters step in and save the day!
However, hiring a ghostwriter can be a difficult task. As we mentioned earlier, most ghostwriters are bound by NDAs and can’t disclose most of the titles of the books or articles they have written. How can you hire a ghostwriter when their work is so elusive?
This article will tell you how to hire a ghostwriter successfully and what your ghostwriter recruitment process should look like. Read more to find out what a ghostwriter exactly does, which hard and soft skills are essential for the role, and, most importantly, how to identify these skills in candidates.
What is a ghostwriter?
Ghostwriters are the people who give others the opportunity to share their stories and experiences even when they don’t have the time or required skills to do so. It’s a profession that is sought out by various kinds of people, but most often by:
Celebrities who want to publish an autobiography or memoir
CEOs/executives
Content managers
Business owners
Political leaders
Coaches
News witnesses
Entrepreneurs
Consultants
Writers
Typically, ghostwriters don’t get credited for their work and sign a confidentiality agreement. If they get acknowledged, it’s usually as a co-writer, collaborator, researcher, or research assistant at the end of the book.
And these definitions hit close to home. Ghostwriters are paid to write content that will be published under someone else’s name, but their job includes more than that. A high quality ghostwriter does more than just write.
To write a story for someone else, ghostwriters must:
Act like journalists, drawing the right stories from their clients so they have enough raw material to work with
Be great researchers, regardless of the topic, so they can fill in the blanks
Write compellingly, even if the story isn’t personally relevant
Excel at communication so the client feels comfortable opening up and collaborating
Communication is a particularly important skill, because working with a ghostwriter requires making a lot of edits and revisions, as well as communicating your feedback.
Plus, a big part of the ghostwriter’s job is to interview potential and current clients, being sure to ask the right questions so they can get a better grasp of what they are expected to create.
Telling someone else’s story is not an easy task. Ghostwriters must get a clear picture of the tone, mood, and pacing their client is going for, and seamlessly unite these elements with the client-provided structure and details to make the whole thing come to life.
Usually, ghostwriters collaborate by spending some time recording your story. Then they write the first draft with the information they’ve collected and send it to you for feedback.
The feedback will give them clues about what they need to change, and after the necessary amount of back-and-forth, they produce additional versions until you are satisfied with the result. However, some clients have no time to participate further in the process and may hire ghostwriters to write things for them from scratch.
It’s important to make sure you know what to expect from the ghostwriter from the start and make it clear so both parties can feel satisfied with the outcome of your collaboration.
Ghostwriters can work in the writing or music industry. No matter what medium they use for their craft, ghostwriters don’t count on exposure and only request their paycheck and the satisfaction of a job done well in return for their hard work.
When hiring a ghostwriter, it’s best to consider first what kind of content you want them to write. Here are some examples of the types of published writing that can be created by ghostwriters:
Magazine articles
Autobiographies
Prose fiction
Public speeches
Song lyrics
Screenplays
Blog content
Memoirs
Academic and medical papers
Business books
Why do authors hire ghostwriters?
Authors hire ghostwriters frequently and for various reasons.
Ghostwriters are more common than you think, and the reason you don’t hear about them often is because part of their job is not allowing people to peek behind the curtain. This makes it harder to establish the percentage of ghostwritten writing.
So how will your company benefit from hiring a ghostwriter? Here are some of the most common reasons to hire a ghostwriter:
You have expertise on the topic but you don’t have writing skills
If you’re an expert in a field or skill and decide that you want to share your knowledge with the world, but you’re not the best storyteller, you can use a ghostwriter’s service to do the job for you.
Writing is a job like any other and it’s no easy business. Every organization needs powerful storytelling to grow. This is one of the most common reasons people hire ghostwriters for writing books, because books follow a particular set of rules and it’s much harder to write one if you haven’t studied them extensively.
A lot of celebrities and public figures hire ghostwriters to write their autobiographies or memoirs for this reason, too. Many of them have a lot of life experience they want to share with other people but they’re just not very good writers.
You don’t have much time
This is the main benefit of ghostwriting: It saves you a lot of time. Depending on the length of the book, it takes an author from three to 12 months to write a book.
If you have the opportunity to put that time into other things, why not take it?
Someone well-known in their field of work can receive a lot of demands to produce new content. Publishing high quality writing is a great way to reach people you wouldn’t otherwise and expand your influence, so finding a ghostwriter might help you claim back your time and concentrate on more strategic work.
Many entrepreneurs collaborate with ghostwriters to deliver a book or generate more content that will draw attention to them without devoting the time and energy required to achieve a satisfying result.
You want to create lots of content
Nowadays, keeping up with the competition is hard. Digital marketing attracts a lot of attention and helps you develop your brand so it’s easier to recognize and more memorable.
Content marketing might require you to publish dozens of posts and articles per month which is quite time and energy consuming. To do this, you need to hire a ghostwriter who can keep up the pace while engaging your audience with high quality content.
You don’t have expertise on all of the required topics
Sometimes, the ghostwriter is the one with the knowledge.
For example, say a famous architect wants to create a blog to share their knowledge with less experienced people to help them grow in the field. However, such an undertaking requires knowledge of the legal matters related to designing buildings or starting an architecture company.
If you find a ghostwriter with extensive legal knowledge, you can provide a white paper on the topic for your readers.
You struggle finishing your book
People underestimate how difficult it is to write a book. Sometimes you lose the energy or interest to put more into it. If you still want to publish it or you are legally required to bring it to your agent before your deadline, ghostwriters can carry it on to completion.
What’s the difference between a ghostwriter and a copywriter?
There are some similarities between ghostwriters and copywriters, so the two terms often get used interchangeably. This makes hiring a ghostwriter harder because you might have some difficulties accurately explaining the tasks your employee would be required to perform.
To help you understand the job role of a ghostwriter, we’ve listed three of the main differences between a ghostwriter and a copywriter.
Credit: Ghostwriters are hired to write for someone else but their name doesn’t appear on the finished product. It’s published under another person’s name. Copywriters are hired to write content for which they usually receive credit or can use in their portfolio.
Type of content: Copywriters are hired to write content for advertising purposes. They usually write text for digital ads, brochures, websites, product descriptions, and other marketing materials. Ghostwriters mostly write articles, speeches, and books.
Goal: A copywriter’s job is to persuade the public to take a certain action or to increase brand awareness. Ghostwriters usually aim to tell a story in the way that sounds most authentic to the author who hired them.
Ghostwriter hard skills
So, what are the qualifications to look for in a ghostwriter?
To ensure you’re hiring the right person for your project, some hard skills you’ll want your ghostwriter to possess include:
Research
Research skills are vital for the writing process because they allow the writer to find information and write confidently and truthfully about various topics. Being a good writer requires a perfect balance between creativity and realism.
The most compelling works of art are both presented imaginatively but also aligned enough with reality for the reader to be able to picture them clearly. That’s why a ghostwriter needs to be able to perform research well and use the information to enhance the value of the story.
For a ghostwriter, being good at research means:
Knowing how to find reliable and trustworthy sources
Being able to collect and compare information from different sources
Drawing interpretations from the uncovered knowledge
Managing to incorporate the valuable information into the structure of your story seamlessly
Planning and outlining content
To be efficient in their work and to avoid loopholes and inconsistencies in the story, ghostwriters build a solid structure that can help them organize their ideas. Planning an outline is an essential part of the writing process, which:
Helps visualize the story’s structure and development
Allows important points to be fleshed out and developed
Provides space to play with ideas easily without having to invest in whole paragraphs
Gives invaluable insights that help conceptualize the whole story easily
Spelling and grammar
Good spelling and grammar are among the most important ghostwriting skills.
Proper spelling and grammar are necessary for credibility, readability, and clarity. It’s the structure that makes language work. When the structure is strong, communication can be more clear.
Good grammar should be everyone’s business as it’s crucial for good communication and getting messages across successfully.
Poor spelling can:
Create confusion
Cost your company millions of dollars — a single spelling mistake on your website can make people leave because they fear it might be fraudulent
Make your general message unclear
Lower your reputation and credibility
Editing
Being good at editing significantly improves the quality of a ghostwriter’s work. It’s also a sign of good problem-solving skills, as editing involves identifying issues and following a plan to fix them. Ghostwriters with strong editing skills should be able to:
Fix mistakes
Clarify the message
Cut down or build up to a specified word count
Change the tone
Attune the language for the target audience
Improve the writing’s flow
Language proficiency
Language proficiency is crucial in most work environments. It’s particularly important when it comes to someone who writes text for a living. Language is the ghostwriter’s main tool and they should be able to wield it to excellence in your preferred language, including:
Speaking fluently
Reading with comprehension
Writing efficiently and creatively
Actively listening and understanding complex nuances and terminology
Ghostwriter soft skills
Soft skills are just as important as hard skills for a ghostwriter. Some of the most important soft skills for ghostwriters include:
Communication
Being a good communicator is essential for every writer. If you don’t know how to use words to convey your message and be understood by others, your written works are probably not going to be a great success.
Finding out whether your candidates are eloquent and capable of expressing themselves clearly and concisely is essential if you want to hire the right ghostwriter for your project.
Communication skills are important for a ghostwriter because they show:
A good understanding of words and language
The ability to convey a message clearly
Collaboration skills, which means they will be able to understand your idea and ask the right questions to clarify it as much as possible
Attention to detail
A good ghostwriter is careful, attentive, and doesn’t overlook any details. Being able to focus and evaluate all parts of their writing shows the sharpness which is essential for a high quality writer.
Candidates with strong attention to detail should be able to:
Read comprehensively
Distinguish textual details
Identify patterns
Spot errors and slight differences in text
Organization
For smooth and productive writing, you need to have strong organizational skills. There is no excellence without structure. It’s especially easy to get carried away with creative processes such as writing, so you need to make sure you’re hiring a ghostwriter who can stay organized and keep track of frames and deadlines.
Being organized at work:
Increases productivity
Reduces stress levels
Increases work speed
Empathy
Empathy plays a big part in all job roles related to writing.
A person with strong empathy will be more capable of putting themselves in another person’s shoes and seeing the story from their perspective. This helps them build a more personal connection with their readers. Finding a way to connect with the readers’ emotions will help capture their attention and hold it.
Another reason empathy is useful for ghostwriters is because it allows them to connect with their clients and understand the story better. This helps them find the right words to tell it to the world.
Time management
To ensure deadlines are met, you need to find a ghostwriter with excellent time management skills. This means they can:
Prioritize tasks effectively
Plan ahead
Execute their plans
Work ethic
A ghostwriter is a “ghost,” as far as credit goes. Ghostwriters are required to sign a confidentiality agreement that should be crafted by a legal professional. However, this might not be enough to ensure that the confidentiality of your collaboration with a ghostwriter remains intact. Word of mouth travels fast.
That’s why it’s essential to look for a ghostwriter with strong business ethics. Make sure you hire a candidate who values:
Honesty
Integrity
Reliability
Accountability
Confidentiality
How to test ghostwriter skills
Finding the right ghostwriter for your company can involve more challenges than hiring other specialists.
The reason for this is that ghostwriters sign non-disclosure agreements and are usually not allowed to “show off” their work. This way it’s more difficult to accurately evaluate their accomplishments and manner of work. Plus, there are plenty of scammers out there when it comes to an elusive profession such as ghostwriting.
Reading your candidates’ resumes simply isn’t enough.
Conducting interviews is the best way to see if you can establish a personal bond of understanding with the candidates. This is critically important since they’ll be telling your story.
However, interviews are costly and time-consuming, and it’s best to make sure you’re only interviewing the candidates who have the necessary skills for the job.
Pre-employment testing can help you minimize your hiring time and select the most qualified candidate for your vacancy.
Build a skills assessment for ghostwriters
We recommend using multiple pre-employment tests to build a skills assessment that will allow you to evaluate each of your candidates’ skills objectively and without human bias.
Our ever-growing test library at TestGorilla offers a wide selection of skills tests developed by subject-matter experts for every role.
We recommend picking five of the following tests for your ghostwriter skills assessment:
Language proficiency: These tests provide options for evaluating every aspect of your candidates’ language proficiency — there are questions that assess reading, writing, and listening. Speaking can be tested by asking candidates to record a video response to a question. Here you can find language proficiency tests in English, French, German, Spanish, Dutch, Italian, Mandarin, Russian, Japanese, Polish, Swedish, Norwegian, and more, for intermediate and advanced levels.
Reading comprehension: The Reading comprehension test evaluates your candidate’s ability to read a portion of text and comprehend its contents. Find out how good they are at processing text and using their analytical skills.
Negotiation: This test allows you to identify candidates who can influence and drive the discussion, and use emotional intelligence in conversations. It’s an important skill for job roles such as ghostwriters in which there’s a lot of collaboration.
Communication: Use a data-driven approach to find candidates who can communicate clearly and effectively while following professional etiquette. This test assesses the candidates’ skills in both written and verbal communication, as well as in active listening and non-verbal cues.
Attention to detail (textual): Use this pre-employment test to identify candidates who pay great attention to details when they’re processing textual information. It will also give you insight into the level of their overall analytical skills.
Time management: This test assesses the ability of candidates to plan, prioritize, execute, and reflect on tasks. Find reliable ghostwriters who can meet deadlines consistently.
Business ethics: Make sure your future ghostwriter is familiar with policy and legal violations and understands the impact of ethical violations. This test will help you identify candidates who have a strong understanding of business ethics.
Typing speed: This test lets you assess your candidates’ abilities to type fast and write efficiently.
Culture add: The culture add test assesses how well your candidates’ values, behaviors, and interests align with yours. They will fill out a customized survey that can help you find the most suitable candidate for your organization.
16 types: Based on the work of the well-known psychologist Carl Jung, this test will help you learn more about each candidate’s motivation, source of energy, decision making process, and preferred way of living. You’ll get to know your candidates better and obtain important talking points to discuss in the interview.
Where to find ghostwriters
Once you know what you’re looking for, it’s time to decide which sources to use. However, sourcing ghostwriters can be a bit tricky.
How do you find a ghostwriter if you’re not in the publishing business? Usually, people use their connections and word of mouth to find a ghostwriter. But asking around isn’t always the best option for your business.
Most people are looking for freelance ghostwriters rather than in-house. When you plan to hire someone to write for more long-term projects, you should look for content creators or copywriters and specify that you’re interested in ghostwriting services.
However, hiring an in-house ghostwriter can generate a reliable source of content with a consistent writing style that leaves an impression on people.
You can also work with a ghostwriter agency that connects authors to approved writers and collects fees. This means you don’t have to jump blindly into a collaboration with a ghostwriter.
However, keep in mind that many ghostwriter agencies can be unreliable. There are a few ghostwriter agencies that have built a reputation of picking qualified ghostwriters which they stand behind.
Where to find an in-house ghostwriter
LinkedIn: You can start the general search here but be prepared to spend some time researching and collecting info. Many ghostwriters won’t publicly share what they do on their profiles, so it can be difficult to use standard job boards for hiring a ghostwriter. Posting a job description on LinkedIn can attract ghostwriters.
Google: Sometimes a simple Google search can do the trick. Look for ghostwriters in your town — most of them have their own websites, so searching that way can bear fruit. Don’t look only at the first few pages because they are usually full of fraudulent blogs.
Where to find a freelance ghostwriter
Reedsy: They have a large selection of quality ghostwriters and a systematic approach to finding and working with them that solves most of the issues a client may encounter.
MediaBistro: This platform attracts a lot of qualified writers so with some luck, you can find the right ghostwriter for your project there.
The American Association of Ghostwriters: This is a professional organization for ghostwriters of books, articles, speeches, blogs, and social media content.
Upwork: There are quite a few ghostwriters on Upwork, but it can be hard to filter them since it’s a large platform. However, if you put in the work, you can find a good freelance ghostwriter there.
Where to find a ghostwriter agency
Here are some examples of ghostwriting agencies that you could use:
Gotham Ghostwriters: This platform offers a large variety of professionals who can help tell your story.
2M Communications: This agency represents professional ghostwriters and collaborators that specialize in writing books. They work with about 100 carefully picked writers who excel in different areas.
Crowd Content: Crowd Content doesn’t focus on ghostwriters in particular but they offer professional content writing services and work with over 2,000 professional writers.
Ghostwriting job description template
[YOUR COMPANY’S NAME] is looking for a creative and reliable ghostwriter who can write compelling stories.
As [YOUR COMPANY’S NAME]’s ghostwriter, you will have to collaborate with other members of our team to turn our company’s ideas and big-picture concepts into engaging content.
Ghostwriter job requirements
Bachelor’s degree in English [or insert language of choice], Journalism, or a related field
Two years experience working as a ghostwriter or content writer (or equivalent)
Strong research skills
Good collaborator
Ability to meet tight deadlines in a dynamic work environment
Ghostwriter job responsibilities
Write content in a specific tone
Conduct extensive research on the assigned topics
Collaborate with experts to gather information and insight
Fact-check and edit your content
How much does a ghostwriter cost?
In the United States, the average salary of a ghostwriter is $40,532. This number can vary widely based on factors such as:
Education
Certifications
Experience
Ghostwriters’ salaries usually vary between $32,509 and $53,454.
Freelance ghostwriting rates and fees depend on each project’s scope, complexity, and deadline, so your best bet is to get a few cost estimates and compare them.
Ghostwriter interview questions
Here are some interview questions you can ask your candidates:
What are the three most important qualities that a ghostwriter should have?
If a client asks you to do something that goes against your values, what would you do?
What inspires you to get creative?
Describe your process for structuring writing.
What are some questions that you ask your clients to understand their story better?
Hire a reliable ghostwriter with the help of pre-employment testing
Hiring a ghostwriter can be challenging as it’s a job role that requires confidentiality, but if you have the right approach, you can streamline the process significantly — and skills tests enable you to do just that.
Evaluate your candidates’ skills objectively, and avoid scammers and bad hires by using pre-employment skills tests.
Sign up with TestGorilla today and optimize your ghostwriter hiring process by finding the best talent.
