Sometimes I’m a ghost.
Top executives, CEOs, medical professionals and more have called on me to ghostwrite content for them, and I don’t mind at all. After all, they have excellent ideas to share and simply need a professional writer to polish their insight into captivating text — as I go transparent in the background — and their name shines on the piece.
Ghostwriting isn’t uncommon. Think of how many public speakers, politicians, celebrities and others have a writing team to help them formulate and organize their thoughts.
Writing has always been a valuable service. So, today on the blog I thought I’d share how I get ghostwriting right. It’s not easy to step back from my voice, and emulate another, but it’s possible! Here’s how I do it. Maybe you can borrow a few of these strategies too.
1. Ask Your Client What They Want to Produce
As with any project, you need to first clarify what it is that you’re working on and plan to create. When you’re ghostwriting for someone, I feel the best technique here is listening. Truly understand what they want to create and why it matters to them, then offer your professional writing insight on how it can be refined or amplified to best reach their audience.
In my years of ghostwriting experience, the same content and goals seem to pop up over and over again. The client wants to polish their professional voice, offer thought leadership on a topic and be present with their audience. This often takes the form of a letter, a bylined blog post or a landing page on their business website.
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2. Talk to the Client Directly
After some initial outreach (usually by email or direct message), I want to get on a phone call with my ghostwriting client. I want to hear not only their ideas and plans for the project, but also how they speak.
- Where do they make pauses?
- What industry language and lingo do they use?
- What’s the cadence and flow of their conversation?
- How do they explain things? Do they use analogies, statistics, colorful language, insight from their customer interactions, refer to things they’ve read on the topic… or something else?
Remember, as a ghostwriter, you are not only sharing your client’s insight, but also their personality. I find that having a few phone calls allows me to get to know the person better so I can mirror their style in the content we are creating together.
3. Get a Rough Draft if Possible
Some ghostwriting clients are really good writers themselves. They are! They often simply lack the organization and structure needed for the type of content they want to produce. So, I love it when a client offers me a rough draft, or notes, about the topic. This can also be a great option for those who are too busy for a phone call, who use lots of technical language or share numbers that are best comprehended in written form.
Seeing a rough draft of my client’s ideas gives me a good idea of what’s important to them, and also how their mind works. Which topic did they mention first? What information did they repeat a few times to make their point? What words and tone are they using? All of this gives me clues about how to organize the content and how it should sound.
4. Read Their Other Published Work
As you gather information and learn how to emulate your ghostwriting client, consider reading other content they’ve put out there publicly. How does it sound? How does it look? How does it make the reader feel? Take note of what they’ve approved of sharing in the past and use it to guide your current project.
On the other hand, if your client shares something previously published that they don’t like, you can learn a lot from that too! Do they think the topic sounds confusing, too textbook-like or not how they would communicate? Take note and don’t recreate something they hate!
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5. Let Them Give Feedback
Finally, as a ghostwriter you absolutely have to listen for feedback and make revisions as needed. This is not your writing with your name on it. So, listen to your client and let them give you constructive feedback so it aligns with their goals, their voice and their preferences.
I find that after writing a few pieces for a ghostwriting client, all the little details are worked out and I can become their voice pretty easily.
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