If you’re a copywriter, there’s a good chance you’re already a ghostwriter; you just may not know it yet.
As copywriters, we spend our working lives writing in someone else’s voice. We interview clients, extract their ideas, find the interesting angle, organise their thoughts and turn what they want to say into something other people want to read.
Interestingly, that’s exactly what a ghostwriter does.
Those same copywriting skills can be used to ghostwrite LinkedIn posts, thought-leadership articles, speeches, opinion pieces and, at the bigger end of the scale, business books.
I’ve spent nearly a decade ghost-writing books for entrepreneurs, and I truly love it. It’s some of the most interesting work I’ve ever done. I get to meet fascinating people, have permission to ask them almost any question I want, and gain access to their unique insights about success, failure, fear and joy.
I also love it because it’s such a meaningful project for the author. They care deeply about their book — how they’re perceived, the words they use and, ultimately, how their ideas and stories are presented to the world.
There’s also something satisfying about creating a tangible, hard-copy product that lives on long after an ephemeral blog post or web page has disappeared.
And I love the focus it gives me. I can work on one substantial project for a decent stretch of time, go deep into one person’s world and really immerse myself in their stories and ideas, rather than being pulled in a dozen different directions by multiple projects.
For a copywriter looking to expand their services, ghostwriting can be a natural next step.
What does a ghostwriter do?
A ghostwriter writes content that is published under someone else’s name, but good ghostwriting involves much more than simply taking somebody’s ideas and tidying up the words.
First, you need to understand what the client wants from the project, why they want it and, ultimately, how the book fits into their broader marketing plan — whether the goal is to build their business, raise their profile or create a personal legacy.
This is where being a good copywriter overlaps beautifully with being a good ghostwriter. As copywriters, we understand that a business book isn’t just a book; it’s a marketing tool. It should have a purpose and help the author achieve a particular goal or solve a particular problem.
Traditional ghostwriters don’t always come from a marketing background, so this is an area where copywriters have a real advantage. You can write a wonderful book, but if the client hasn’t been clear about what it’s meant to achieve, it can end up in the discount bin on sale for a dollar. A book needs to do something for the client, like:
- attract speaking engagements
- build their profile
- attract clients
- explain and promote their methodology
- document their intellectual property and establish clear attribution for their ideas
It’s wise to identify these goals before you start work, or you could write a whole book only to realise it doesn’t achieve what the client intended.
Then comes the deep dive.
You need to get inside your author’s head and understand how they think, what they believe, how they speak, what they’ve learned and, most importantly, what they know that other people might find useful.
For a shorter ghostwriting project, that might mean interviewing a CEO and turning the conversation into a LinkedIn article or thought-leadership piece.
For a business book, you might spend months interviewing one person, exploring their career and identifying the stories, ideas and lessons that deserve to get put on the page.
Why copywriters make great ghostwriters
Copywriters already have many of the skills required for ghostwriting.
We know how to interview people, write for different audiences in different tones of voice and identify the critical idea buried inside a long conversation. We also know how to structure information, tell stories, extract the benefits of why a reader needs to know something and keep them engaged.
That makes the transition from copywriter to ghostwriter less of a leap and more of a logical progression.
If you are making the transition to ghostwriting and think you have to start with a big, complex project like a 70,000-word book, think again, because you don’t. You can start with smaller, bite-sized projects: a LinkedIn post for a founder, a series of thought-leadership articles for a CEO, a keynote speech or an opinion piece. From there, a business book becomes a much more achievable next step.
Why business leaders use ghostwriters
There are lots of reasons entrepreneurs hire ghostwriters.
For the most part, they simply don’t have the time to write a book. They’re busy people with businesses to run and bigger priorities competing for their attention. They may not enjoy writing or feel confident doing it. English may not be their first language, so they may not feel comfortable writing an entire book in a second language. Or they may have decades of stories, ideas and expertise but not know what ideas are relevant, what readers will find interesting or how to turn them into a coherent manuscript.
At the other end of the spectrum are CEOs and founders who have already built a successful business, listed it on the stock exchange, sold it to private equity or passed it on to the next generation. They want to capture the knowledge they’ve gleaned, the lessons they’ve learned and the techniques they used to build it, and share the stories behind their success.
Why ghostwriters need to be curious
One of the key qualities that makes a ghostwriter good is their sense of curiosity. You need to have a deep desire to ‘know’ and the ability to ask a whole bunch of questions like:
Why did you do that?
What happened next?
What went wrong?
What were you thinking at the time?
What would you do differently now?
What do you know today that you wish you’d known 20 years ago?
I’m a notoriously curious person — some call me nosy, which is fine; it’s probably true — but curiosity is an essential quality for a ghostwriter, so it’s a perfect job for me. It’s important for a copywriter too, but when you’re ghostwriting a book, you need to be prepared to go much deeper.
You also need the courage to ask the questions other people might not ask. You’ll often stray into difficult territory, both personal and professional, and you need the discernment and judgement to know which stories belong in the book and which ones are better left out.
Because that’s often what the client is paying you for. Not just your ability to put words on a page, but your judgement about which words, ideas and stories should be there in the first place.
Could ghostwriting be your next move?
If you’re already a copywriter, you may be closer to becoming a ghostwriter than you think.
You already know how to ask good questions, find the story, understand an audience, capture someone else’s voice and turn a jumble of ideas into clear, compelling copy. Ghostwriting gives you the opportunity to take those skills further — into longer, deeper and potentially more lucrative projects.
If you’d like to sharpen the copywriting skills that underpin great ghostwriting, Copy School offers practical, industry-focused training to help you become a stronger, more confident and more commercially savvy writer. If you can write great copy for someone else, there’s no reason you can’t write their book too.
