Ghostwriting: Bonus - Big Business

Bethanne Patrick: Welcome back to Missing Pages, I’m your host Bethanne Patrick. 

This is the podcast where we examine some of the most surprising, industry-shaking controversies in the literary world and try to make sense of them. 

This is a bonus episode of our series about ghostwriting. In this episode, you’ll hear from a ghostwriting agent, and a successful ghostwriter.

We’ve been talking a lot about ghost writing, because ghosting – that’s the industry term – is BIG business. 

Madeleine Morel: Ghosting, I think is a, is becoming  a huge industry. Mm-hmm. I mean, it's a major, major part of, of the book publishing industry and I suspect that, you know, quite often, at least 60% of all, uh, books on the non-fiction bestseller list are probably ghosted

Bethanne Patrick : That’s Madeleine Morel. She’s known as a literary matchmaker and she’s fabulous – I loved talking with her. I don’t think anyone knows the business of ghosting better than Morel. She’s been in the business for more than 40 years. And she says on her website, she’s “always looking for new clients who have books to be written in order to maintain her Prada habit!”

Madeleine Morel: I'm the only agent I think who, who does nothing but, um, represent ghost writers. To the book publishers and I, I work strictly within the book world. 

Bethanne Patrick: Tell us a little bit about that role and how you came to represent ghost writers exclusively. 

Madeleine Morel: Well, for many years as an agent, I packaged books and then I recognized that publishing was changing and was becoming more and more like Hollywood, where it was all about the platformed author and these platformed authors were clearly going to need writers. And I never considered myself to be a particularly good agent and I hated selling, but I. Giving good phone, as I say. And so I decided I would hang out my shingle or rehang it out and just represent, uh, writers to agents and publishers who had, uh, who were who'd either who'd signed up what we call platformed authors and who needed somebody to write their books 

Bethanne Patrick: What changed in publishing? What it it, how did the importance of a platformed author start to grow?

Madeleine Morel: I think some of it has to do with the fact that so many, uh, formally independent publishing houses were acquired by, by, uh, publicly quoted companies. Who were really more interested in the bottom line than anything else. I think that had a tremendous, uh, effect on types of books that publishers bought. They wanted to buy brand name. It's almost product actually. Yeah. Um, and attached writers to these, to these books and paid quite good monies, often far too much for these books and, and sort of go the way of Hollywood, you know, everybody had to have marque, um, uh, quality to them.

The ghost writers whom I represent, they all have just phenomenal, phenomenal cvs and have done major, major books. I mean, since I've been doing this, I've been behind 60 New York Times bestsellers, and, and the writers are getting better and better.

Bethanne Patrick: So, what makes a good ghost writer, a good collaborator in. 

Madeleine Morel: When people ask me that, I always say two things. High pain threshold, and no ego.

Bethanne Patrick: We’ve met a few of these successful ghosts who have what it takes this season. But there’s one who’s worth hearing from again: Andrew Crofts, the best-selling ghost writer who’s based in England, and also has a lovely accent like Morel. He’s a successful writer who’s authored and ghost written a number of books.

Andrew Crofts: I was a freelance writer right from the beginning, right from the age of 17. I was doing any sort of writing I could get, some of which was public relations, writing and things. So I was getting in the, in, in, I had the idea that you could write in other people's voices, and then I was doing an interview for, um, a magazine called The Director, which is a business magazine as it sounds for the institute's directors. And I was interviewing a business guru. And towards the end of the interview, um, he, or after the interview, he said, um, He said, listen, I've been commissioned to do some books by a publisher and I just haven't got time.

He said, so if you were to come to my office and look through my files and come to my talks or whatever, um, and I give you the material, will you go and write the books and I'll get the glory and you can have the money? And uh, I was insulted for about two seconds. And then I thought, actually, actually that's not such a bad deal because the best bits about writing are finding out stories and writing them and telling stories.

The worst bits about writing are trying to find a publisher, trying to get paid, trying to get, you know, keep your head above water and all that disappears. That goes shutting. Cuz he already had a publisher. He, he could afford to pay a fee and he also had all the information in one place. One of the big problems, particularly non-fiction, is you have to go and research for months or years.

Um, and that makes the whole thing un cost-effective. Cuz if you're gonna get. $20,000 or 20,000 pounds for a book. If it takes you six months or a year to research it and you learn another three, six months to write it, it's not very conducive to earning a living. But if you've, he can just give you, everyone can, someone can give you the material within, you know, a couple of days or a week.

You can then go off and write the book immediately. You don't have to do any other research. It's, it's all there. So I thought, well, if he, there must be other people who need this service, because in those days, this was about 30 years ago, nobody ever mentioned ghost writers. I, I just didn't, it wasn't a term anybody ever mentioned or it was all terribly secretive. You were always sworn to absolute secrecy. Uh, nobody ever said they were a ghost writer. Every writer would do it if they were hard up and they were asked by a partnership, but nobody ever admitted it. [00:05:00] So I thought, well, why don't I just go looking for ghosting work? So I took a, um, a small ad, uh, like a classified ad in the book Seller Magazine, which is our version of publishing Weekly, uh, just in ghost writer for Hal with my telephone number.

Um, and I ran that ad for 15 years, every week for 15 years. Um, and for a good, well, most of that time I was the only person who actually in, in England there were one or two in America, but there was anyone in England who um, actually laid out, um, their stall and said, I am a ghost writer. Any help I can give you.

The idea of getting the bookseller was that, um, I didn't wanna talk to the whole general population at that stage cuz I was a bit nervous. I get a million letters from totally hopeless cases. I wanted to get to everybody in the industry. I wanted anybody who wanted help with ghosting, um, or, or did or help with their writing would go to a publisher or a librarian, um, an agent, somebody in the industry. And if I was the only telephone number they could find, um, then I had an advantage.

Bethanne Patrick: In other words, if I can give you writing, if I can provide my services as a writer and you can give me money that works, I don't have to have this entire thing about being a literary, you know, genius or character, um, in the mix. Would you say that's accurate? 

Andrew Crofts: Hmm, yes. Um, I, I often equate it to other craftsmen. If you are a, a carpenter, um, and, uh, you, you want to make one great, big, beautiful piece of furniture, which you can sell for 50,000 pounds, um, and you are very, and you're just starting out, well, you've got to buy the materials. You've got to spend the time and you are gonna start.

Because you've then gotta find somebody to, to pay an enormous amount of money for your beautiful piece of furniture. If, however, you go around your neighborhood and you knock on doors and you say, I am a carpenter, is there anything I can do for you? Would you like some new doors? Would you like a new kitchen?

I can knock you up a coffee table. And then in your spare time, cuz you're now owning a living, you can then build your great beautiful piece and it might take you a little bit longer, uh, but you will at least be able to do it. And it won't, you won't have [00:08:00] to sell it immediately and you can, so you can, you know, so it, uh, taking that back to writing, if you are writing your great novel, uh, you can be doing that at the same time.

This a hones your skills and, uh, being, you know, being a, a professional ghost writer, um, uh, and, and also gives you time because you've got. Um, the other thing about starting very young, as opposed to going through university, uh, is that you don't need so much money to live on, which is enormously important when you're a freelancer. You cannot go freelance if you've got a mortgage and two children in school. Um, I mean, you can obviously, but it's a million times more difficult.  

Bethanne Patrick: But why is there such secrecy around ghost writing? 

Andrew Crofts: Well, in, in the old Days pub, it was the fault of the publishers. The publishers thought that the, that the reading public, um, Needed. The, the idea that the people were writing the books themselves, um, I mean they, it, it didn't occur to them that if you actually stopped and thought about it, nobody thinks that a film star has time to sit down and write 80,000 words or a, or a footballer or a, you know, if they could, they just don't have the time.

Why would they bother? Um, so, um, so it was sort of, they thought that, that, that it took away from the, the experience that they, that you, you wouldn't believe you were inside that person's head, which is just nonsense. Um, when I [00:15:00] first started, I, it was, we were still invisible that I never, I mean, you sign, I sometimes you still sign NDAs cuz people want everyone to believe they wrote the book.

But quite soon, um, the, the sort of celebrity thing started, um, and um, you know, at home with the Osbornes and, you know, kicked it off, didn't it? And, and everybody suddenly reality and celebrity and os and I did, um, a number of different people, winners of television competitions or, or, um, Stars from soap opera operas and things.

And I was doing one soap opera opera star, and she actually said, um, well, I don't agree that I think you're, I don't want to not have your name on it, because I don't want my friends to think I'm putting on airs and graces and pretending that I'm writing a book. Um, and she, so she demanded that the name be on the cover, and the publishers realized that made no difference to sales whatsoever.

Um, and then people started to actually get angry. Readers became angry when they found out that their favorite celebrity was pretending they'd written it. In fact, [00:16:00] they weren't. It was never the celebrity's fault. It was always the publishers who'd made the decision. Um, they felt cheated. But if they, if they were told right from the beginning, I'm getting help with the writing, um, everybody was fine with it.

Uh, you, you know, you wouldn't expect, you don't expect Barack Obama to be able to write all his own speeches and you don't feel, you know, mortified to find out that there was a speech writer who, you know, wrote something that may have got him into the White House or whatever. So, It became gradual. And now, and now it's become much more common. And in fact, once or twice recently, because I had been quite successful, um, one of, one or two publishers have actually put my name as in as large a print as let ask the author, which is a bit embarrassing. 

Midroll:

Bethanne Patrick: Coming up after the break, Crofts discusses his work process….and what changes he anticipates with the introduction of AI.

Bethanne Patrick: Your work process, which is, it sounds as if, because you, the, the, the, the real joy in it for you Andrew, it sounds like is in the doing. So, do you have a staff, do you have a research assistant at an admin, a a bunch of, you know, interns? What do you know? How do you work?

Andrew Crofts: I just, I do the whole thing myself. I think there, I think there are people who do, there are the, there are these sort of, um, ghost striking factories now where you get, one person does the interview and then they pass it on and somebody, and it costs, so, and tape me and you get 20,000 words on, you know, my, my time in Vietnam or something, or my grandma's home cooking recipes or something. And it's fine. Everybody's happy. It's it's great. And it's a nice button. You get 10 copies and it's lovely. I mean, I mean, I'm, I sound, I'm disparaging. I'm not, I'm, that's great. Um, but it's not how, they're not sort of stories that I find really interesting. Um, I want to, I want to do, I want to do all the talk, listening myself.

I wanna ask all the questions myself. I want, I, I want, I want to be the reader. I wanna, I wanna ask all the same questions that, that the eventual reader's going to. I want to structure the story. Uh, so what will happen is I'll get, I, I will basically go in with the tape recorder if I can. I'll, I'll say to them, give me two or three days total. Nothing else. Because if you break it down into one or two hour interviews, like a, like a journalist has to, you just, each time you go back, you've got to start again with all the pleasantries. You know, how are you and you can't remember what you talked about last time. And, and, and, you know, one of you's late and the other one can't find their tape recorder or, you know, and it's just a mess. But if you take them away, uh, especially if you take 'em off to a hotel somewhere and just for, for two or three days, you just sit down and you make them talk. Mm-hmm. Through the story chronologically, fact or fiction, you just make them tell you everything that's in their memory, in their heads, what they're thinking.

That way you a, get their voice on tape. You get the idea of what they would and wouldn't talk about what they do and don't say, um, and you get the actual facts of the story. Hopefully, um, the, the chronology of the whole thing, I then go away with the tape and I would not exactly transcribe it, but I will listen again and then I, in the very best stories. When the story really flows and really holds my attention, I can type the first draft without even going back to the tapes. I can just remember it. Then I'll check on the tapes that I've remembered everything and I've remembered it correctly. Um, and maybe put in actual bits of dialogue that they remembered that I've forgotten they told me or whatever.

And then see what we've, what what we've got. Find an, I will have found a narrative arc while talking to them and listening. I mean, the chronology won't necessarily be the final manuscript, but you can, because of word processing, it's now very easy to write it all chronologically.

Cause you can then swap it around later. Um, and, and take an, an exciting incident to chapter one. You know, then flashback and all that stuff, which used to be a real pain before word processing. But I mean, showing my age now, but you know, when you had to do it with, with, with actual paper and dreadful arrows and cutting bits out and pasting them, I mean, dreadful.

Um, so it, it was a, to ask, this is, yeah. Traumatizing. Perhaps an unfair question 

Bethanne Patrick: Last question or two from me. Uh, what does the rise of artificial intelligence mean for ghost writing? Uh, I know for example, I'm, I teach creative writing and I can't ignore chapter p t or g t four, and I wonder, you know, how do we use this? Will it help? Will it hurt? What are your opinions?

Andrew Crofts: Well, I think, hmm, I mean, it's a threat to writers incomes, but I, I suspect for certainly initially, um, it's, it's going, the writing's going to be fairly pedestrian. Um, it'll be like corporate brochures. Um, I mean, you know, the difference between a a, a corporate brochure and something that's written by a journalist, don't you?

It's very obvious quickly that one is better for one or better than the other. Uh, and I think that, that, um, that that will be so, so books just, people just will get bored, um, with AI writing. Um, but for stuff that's actual factual stuff, need to know stuff. I mean, newspapers may be in more trouble perhaps than books because you buy a newspaper for actual facts written clearly and concisely.

Um, and AI might be able to do that more quickly than it can do a, um, a novel which, um, or a, or a non-fiction that delves into people's feelings.  I mean, I suppose he could have talked into a tape recorder and that, that could've no's there's no advantage to that is the, um, I don't feel, I mean, I, yeah, I don't, I don't feel threatened myself by ai, but I might, if I was 20, um, you know, another 10, 20 years, it, it could be very sophisticated. Indeed.

Bethanne Patrick: Missing Pages season 25 might be all about AI…but I hope not. It’s hard for me to imagine a technology that brings as much authenticity to the craft and business of publishing as people like Morel and Crofts – and isn’t that what all great stories possess? 

Ghosting works because there’s human connection involved. Relationships are fostered through agents like Morel, and the stories are channeled through talented people (writers) like Crofts who develop a deep knowledge, and bond, with the author. 

So, here’s hoping that humanity continues to reign in this industry, and that books – whether they’re ghostwritten or not – continue to fly off the shelves.

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In the next episode of Missing Pages, we’re revisiting a story that captivated the literary world a couple of years ago…The Bad Art Friend. That’s next time on Missing Pages.

Missing Pages is a Podglomerate Original, Produced, mixed, and mastered by Chris Boniello with additional production and editing by Jordan Aaron and Katelyn Bogucki.

This episode was produced by Claire Tighe.

Marketing by Joni Deutsch, Madison Richards, Morgan Swift, Vannessa Ullman, and Annabella Pena. 

Art by Tom Grillo. 

Produced and Hosted by me, Bethanne Patrick. 

Original music composed and performed by Hashem Assadullahi, additional music provided by Epidemic Sound. 

Executive Produced by Jeff Umbro and the Podglomerate.

Special thanks to Dan Christo, Matt Keeley, Madeleine Morel, and Andrew Crofts.

You can learn more about Missing Pages at the podglomerate dot com, on twitter at miss pages pod and on Instagram at missing pages pod, or you can email us at missing pages at the podglomerate dot com. If you liked what you heard today, please let your friends and family know and suggest an episode for them to listen to.