Should You Hire a Ghostwriter for Your Memoir?

Does this describe you? You have a story—an important story—but it's still in your mind and heart.

Or maybe you’ve started writing your memoir, but you just can’t finish it. You’ve tucked it away in a drawer, but it’s nagging at you to finish.

Perhaps you lack time or motivation or skills, or maybe all three, yet you long to get those stories into print for your kids, grandkids, friends, and colleagues.

If any of that sounds familiar, you’ll want to read today’s guest post by Wayne Groner, a personal historian, ghostwriter, blogger, and author of A Guide to Writing Your Memoir or Life Story: Tools, Tips, Methods and Examples. You’ll find Wayne’s contact information, below.

Here's Wayne's message for you today:

Students in my memoir-writing class give various responses when I ask why they haven’t written their stories, such as:

“I don’t have time.”

“Who would be interested in reading it?”

“What if my family disagrees with what I remember?”

“I’m not a writer.”

“I don’t know about spelling, grammar, and punctuation.”

“How do I start?”

These are legitimate concerns and precisely why they come to my class. You may have those same concerns. If so, you might want to consider hiring a ghostwriter.

A ghostwriter will finish the job, and most of the work can be done by telephone and email. Your ghostwriter will set a specific time—often once a week—to interview you in person or by telephone, record the interview, transcribe and edit it for your approval, and present you with a completed manuscript you can take to any printer or publisher. I give my clients a manuscript on compact disk so a printer or publisher can easily format it.

Each interview could become one chapter in your book. Even though the interview may have several stories, your ghostwriter will weave the stories into a theme for that chapter. After I finish editing an interview, I email the written version to the client to check for accuracy, flow, and a voice that sounds like the client. Then I make the required changes and email it again for the client to take another look.

We may do this several times by email or talk about the changes by phone or in person. This is the client’s memoir, not mine. My job is to help the client be real, so when people the read book they can say, “That sounds just like her,” or “Yeah, that’s something he would do.”

Your interviews are likely the smallest part of your project. Your ghostwriter will edit, rewrite, research, fact-check some of your remembrances for accuracy and credibility and may clean up photos and indicate on which pages they should appear. Be sure you own rights to the photos or have written permission from the owners to publish them in your memoir.

Your ghostwriter may engage the services of other professionals to proofread your manuscript and design the interior and cover of your book. A finished manuscript of approximately 200-300 pages could take eight months to a year.

What can you expect to pay a ghostwriter? There is no industry standard fee. It could be as low as $5,000 and as high as $100,000. The more experienced and successful ghostwriters charge more. Ghostwriters who do it for a living often are in the $20,000 to $50,000 range and are working on several projects at the same time. Some charge by the hour and some by the project.

Usually—unless you negotiate otherwise—the ghostwriter’s name does not appear on the cover of your book. You are the author and your ghostwriter is the invisible writer.

Ways to find a ghostwriter:

1. Ask members of local writers’ groups. If you are unaware of such groups, check with your librarian.
2. Contact the English Department of nearby colleges and universities for teachers who also are professional writers. Teachers may refer you to writers not associated with their schools.
3. Search your computer’s browser for ghostwriters, memoir writers, and personal historians. It’s okay to shop around. Besides individuals, there are companies that hire freelancers or staff to work with you. Because companies keep part of the fee, they tend to be more expensive than individuals, and companies have rules that may be difficult for you to go along with.

What to look for in choosing a ghostwriter:

1. Be sure you can talk with your ghostwriter by phone or in person. Either of you could set limits as to days and times. This oral contact can clear up a lot of confusion and help you have a happier writing experience.
2. Select someone with experience you can trust, rather than a first-timer. It will cost you more, but you will get a better result.
3. Since you are paying for a service, you need to be satisfied; your ghostwriter should be willing to make revisions until you are.
4. Get a written agreement you both sign that includes a firm fee, how you will pay it, approximately how long your project will take, and what happens when one of you wants to quit. Your ghostwriter should be willing for your attorney to review the agreement before signing.
5. Your ghostwriter should provide references from satisfied and dissatisfied clients.

Because you are the author, you have full control over the contents of your memoir. Your ghostwriter works for you. Even though your ghostwriter gives you her or his professional opinion on how your stories should look and feel, you have every right to insist the stories appear as you want them.

On the other hand, the two of you should be compatible and understand before your project begins just how your personalities may clash. If you expect clashes, both should be willing to work them out for the best result of your memoir.

Wayne E. Groner is a personal historian and author of A Guide to Writing Your Memoir or Life Story: Tools, Tips, Methods and Examples, available in paperback and Kindle at amazon.com. He blogs at waynegroner.com.

You may contact him at waynegroner@yourmemoriesyourbook.com.

Tuesday Tidbit: Offering readers hope

Here’s your 15 seconds of inspiration,

your Tuesday Tidbit:

“Hope is the answer your readers are searching for.…

We write hard things to inspire others.

We inspire them to overcome their fears,

and to tell them they are not alone

in their dark night of the soul.”

Kellie McGann,

guest blogger at Wayne Groner’s

“Your Memories Your Book”

Wayne Groner: Simplify Writing Your Memoir with Three Best Practices

You are in for a treat today: practical info and inspiration for writing your memoir from author and personal historian, Wayne Groner. Be sure to check out Wayne’s new book, A Guide to Writing Your Memoir or Life Story: Tips, Tools, Methods, and Examples.

Simplify Writing Your Memoir with Three Best Practices

The number one roadblock to writing memoir is where to start. Rolling in our heads are many wonderful stories involving a great number of learning and growing experiences. This is especially true as we consider God’s blessings and how he changed our lives. We want to get it all out and don’t know where or how to begin. The best way to begin is to simplify.

First, decide to write a memoir, not an autobiography or family history. This keeps you from wandering in uncontrolled directions and it defines your parameters for research.

Time periods are what distinguish the three story types.

Autobiography is from birth to today. It is an autobiography if you write about yourself and a biography if you write about someone else. Celebrities and politicians often are subjects of biographies and autobiographies.

Family history uses genealogy, photos, and stories to tell about your ancestors. You may start several centuries ago and stop at any date you choose.

Memoir covers a short time period or series of related events such as childhood, teenage years, military service, trauma, spiritual journey, and so forth. Your stories tell key experiences that influenced you and how you changed, such as Growing up Amish by Ira Wagler and The Liars’ Club by Mary Karr. 

Books of the Bible are mixtures of the three types. Biblical authors didn’t write to display types, but to show God’s compassion to humans with stories told through laws, history, wisdom, prophecies, hymns, poems, and letters.

Second, define your motivation for writing. All creatures feel the need to be connected, whether honeybees or humans, wolves or whales, amoebae or anteaters; whether by village, tribe, pack, household, school, work, neighborhood, city, county, state, country, religion, or politics.

What are your reasons for wanting to be connected?

Do you want to become famous?

Make loads of money?

Find personal enjoyment?

Honor family legacy?

Give back to the community?

Help your children and grandchildren

understand and appreciate their heritage?

Find personal or family healing?

Share your journey of faith to inspire others?

Set the record straight?

Marriage and family therapist, author, and memoir writing instructor Linda Joy Myers puts it this way:

“The most important ingredient in writing a memoir

is motivation–

a passionate reason to get the story on the page,

a ‘fire in the belly’ feeling

that what you have to tell is important

and significant.”

Aspiring Olympians become motivated by watching winning Olympians and noting their times or scores. The Olympians-to-be wrote the winning times on a note attached to a refrigerator door or cover of a spiral notebook. It’s okay to have more than one motivation, but more than three muddies your focus and can be overwhelming. Think of how your story not only will make a difference in your life but in the lives of those who read it.

Third, focus on key events by making a list of memory joggers, brief notes to help you remember experiences. Memory joggers speed up your writing process and give you freedom to write.

Your goal in listing memory joggers is not perfection in details; it is to remember that events occurred. 

You could outline your entire life story using memory joggers, similar to the approach Linda Spence takes in Legacy: A Step-by-step Guide to Writing Personal History. She divides a life into nine major segments: beginnings and childhood, adolescence, early adult years, marriage, being a parent, middle adult years, being a grandparent, later adult years, and reflections. In each segment, she lists questions to help you remember what might have been going on in your life. She has more than 400 questions throughout the book.

Start your list of memory joggers by preparing nine pieces of paper or computer files, each with one of Spence’s major life segments at the top, or whatever segments fit your memoir’s purpose.

In each segment, write a brief line or two about activities you were involved in during that time. Your list could include a handful of activities or dozens. Don’t write complete sentences or paragraphs and don’t try to write a story; just bits of information you will refer to later when writing your stories.

Here are a few prompts to get your juices flowing:

• Old family photographs
• School yearbooks
• Travel photos
• What you were doing when big news events occurred
• Your first car wreck
• When you learned to ride a bicycle
• Letters from family and friends
• Family Bible
• Newspaper on the day you were born or other dates you select; search your browser for vendors
• Family heirlooms: jewelry, books, furniture, clothing, dishes, and so forth
• Names of family members and friends
• Persons who most influenced you, for better or worse
• Those who guided your faith journey
• Firsts: first date, first driving lesson, first job, first child, and so forth
• Accomplishments and failures with lessons learned
• Saddest and happiest events
• Serious illness
• Death of a loved one
• Treasured friendships
• Friendships gone bad

      

With these three tools–story type, motivation, and memory joggers–you will be well on your way to a satisfying and successful journey of writing the memoir you want.

Personal historian Wayne E. Groner is author of A Guide to Writing Your Memoir or Life Story: Tips, Tools, Methods, and Examples, and other nonfiction books. He is president of Springfield Writers’ Guild (Missouri). Follow him at www.waynegroner.com and on Facebook.

Be a Storyteller, a guest post by Wayne Groner

This week we welcome author, editor, and writing coach Wayne Groner.

If you’re struggling to write your memoir, or to complete it, 

Wayne has a solution for you.

Today I’m guest posting over at Wayne’s blog. 

Click on over to Your Memories, Your Book.

Be a Storyteller Not a Writer, 
guest post by Wayne E. Groner

The Bible is the storytelling masterpiece of the ages; humans trying to make sense of their relationships with God and each other. It’s not likely these storytellers considered themselves writers; they were more interested in the larger meanings of their experiences and how those meanings would affect their children and grandchildren.

Today, writers have created thousands of books, classes, workshops, conferences, websites, and email newsletters to help you write your story. In group settings you benefit from questions and experiences of others and take home lots of handouts; armed with these, your own notes, and dozens of writing exercises, you are pumped to get the job done. Nothing like it was available to Bible writers—they were on their own to follow the leadings of the Holy Spirit.

Still, it can be daunting for you to look at a blank computer screen or blank sheet of paper and wonder how to begin. After all your exposure to the writing world you may be thinking, I’m not a writer.

Delete that thought. Nobody knows what a writer is, except that it is someone who writes. Stop thinking of what you are not and focus on what you are as far as your memoir is concerned: a storyteller. Forget about the blank computer screen or blank sheet of paper. Instead, buy a hand-held digital voice recorder. Tell your story to the recorder and then transcribe and polish your story at your convenience.

That’s how I helped Dorsey Levell write his book, Dumb Luck or Divine Guidance, a history of the Council of Churches of the Ozarks where he was founding executive director for thirty-one years. We scheduled a series of weekly face-to-face interviews which I recorded, transcribed, and polished into a narrative that became the book. Dorsey is a great story teller and readily admits he is not a writer. People who read his book and know Dorsey say it’s like sitting across from him over a cup of coffee and listening to him tell a story—precisely what we were after. You can do the same kind of thing in writing your memoir.

Digital voice recorders come in many models and range in price from thirty dollars to $600. I’ve had my thirty dollar model for five years and it meets my needs quite satisfactorily. It has four file folders and can record up to 148 hours per folder, more time that I will need. I use long-life lithium batteries and keep spares handy. 

Many of my interviews with clients are by telephone, so I bought a recorder with a cable to transfer recorded interviews to my computer; no additional software is needed. I create a computer folder in which to save the recordings and name the folder for the project, usually the name of the client. The recorder automatically assigns a number to each recording which I to a date with key words. I limit the length of each interview to one hour for ease of managing and to be sensitive to a client’s time and energy. 

Transcribing from a recording is a chore for me; I prefer to use a professional secretary. A secretary can do in an hour what takes me three hours, enabling me to concentrate on writing the narrative. I email computer-saved recordings to a secretary who emails to me Word documents from which I draft a client’s memoir. You may choose to do your own transcribing.

A digital voice recorder is an excellent tool to help you tell the stories of your memoir. Instead of focusing on being a writer you can focus on being a storyteller.


Author, editor, and writing coach Wayne E. Groner is the credited ghost writer of Dumb Luck or Divine Guidance. He teaches a monthly library class on writing memoirs, biography, and family history. He blogs at Your Memories, Your Book.