Business 2 - Lesson 47 Ghostwriting Page !1 Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghostwriter A ghostwriter is a person who is hired to author books, manuscripts, screenplays, speeches, articles, blog posts, stories, reports, whitepapers, or other texts that are officially credited to another person. Celebrities, executives, participants in timely news stories, and political leaders often hire ghostwriters to draft or edit autobiographies, magazine articles, or other written material. A common form of literature ghostwriters are hired for is a celebrity's memoirs. In music, ghostwriters are often used for writing songs and lyrics. Screenplay authors can also use ghostwriters to either edit or rewrite their scripts to improve them. Ghostwriters may have varying degrees of involvement in the production of a finished work. Some ghostwriters are hired to edit and clean up a rough draft, others are hired to do most of the writing based on an outline provided by the credited author. For some projects, ghostwriters will do a substantial amount of research. Ghostwriters are also hired to write fiction in the style of an existing author, often as a way of increasing the number of books that can be published by a popular author. Ghostwriters will often spend a period from several months to a full year researching, writing, and editing nonfiction and fiction works for a client, and they are paid either per page, per each word or via total word count, with a flat fee, with a percentage of the royalties of the sales, or by using some combination thereof. The ghostwriter is sometimes acknowledged by the author or publisher for his or her writing services, euphemistically called a "researcher" or "research assistant", but often the ghostwriter is not credited. A consultant or career-switcher may pay a ghostwriter to write a book on a topic in their professional area, to establish or enhance their credibility as an 'expert' in their field. Public officials and politicians employ 'correspondence officers' to respond to the large volume of correspondence. A number of papal encyclicals have been written by ghostwriters. A controversial and scientifically unethical practice is medical ghostwriting, where biotech or pharmaceutical companies pay professional writers to produce papers and then recruit (via a payment or as a perk) other scientists or physicians to attach their names to these articles before they are published in medical or scientific journals. Some university and college students hire ghostwriters from essay mills to write entrance essays, term papers, theses, and dissertations. This is largely considered unethical unless the actual ghostwriting work is just light editing. Ghostwriting (or simply "ghosting") also occurs in other creative fields. Composers have long hired ghostwriters to help them to write musical pieces and songs; Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart is an example of a well-known composer who was paid to ghostwrite music for wealthy patrons. Ghosting also occurs in popular music. A pop music ghostwriter writes lyrics and a melody in the style of the credited musician. In hip hop music, the increasing use of ghostwriters by high-profile hip-hop stars has led to controversy.[1] In the visual arts, it is not uncommon in either fine art or commercial art such as comics for a number of assistants to do work on a piece that is credited to a single artist. Roles The division of work between the ghostwriter and the credited author varies a great deal. In some cases, the ghostwriter is hired to edit a rough draft of a mostly completed manuscript. In this case, the outline, ideas and much of the language in the finished book or article are those of the credited author. If it is agreed upon, for example in a signed contract, the ghostwriter will sign over all the rights to everything he or she adds into the work that is not otherwise copyrighted to someone else. In many cases, a ghostwriter handles most of the writing, using concepts and stories provided by the credited author. In this case, a ghostwriter will do extensive research on the credited author or their subject area of expertise. It is rare for a ghostwriter to prepare a book or article with no input from the credited Business 2 - Lesson 47 Ghostwriting Page !2 author; at a minimum, the credited author usually jots down a basic framework of ideas at the outset or provides comments on the ghostwriter's final draft. For an autobiography, a ghostwriter will interview the credited author, their colleagues, and family members, and find interviews, articles, and video footage about the credited author or their work. For other types of nonfiction books or articles, a ghostwriter will interview the credited author and review previous speeches, articles, and interviews with the credited author, to assimilate his or her arguments and points of view. Most of this work can be done over email via the Internet, through postal mail, phone or video calls, and other methods of instant communication. Ghostwriters are hired for numerous reasons. In many cases, celebrities or public figures do not have the time, discipline, or writing skills to write and research a several-hundred page autobiography or "how-to" book. Even if a celebrity or public figure has the writing skills to pen a short article, they may not know how to structure and edit a several-hundred page book so that it is captivating and well- paced. In other cases, publishers use ghostwriters to increase the number of books that can be published each year under the name of well-known, highly marketable authors, or when in a 'race' to release a topical book that ties in with a recent or upcoming newsworthy event.[2] Usually, there is a confidentiality clause in the contract between the ghostwriter and the credited author that obligates the former to remain anonymous. Also, ghostwriters may work on accompanying documents, such as treatments for screenplays. Often, ghostwriters will work on related projects beyond the scope of professional ghostwriting, such as marketing, promotions, sales, publishing or other related services for pay, in order to procure more clients and increase the total amount of their business. Remuneration and Credit The ghostwriter for Hillary Clinton's memoirs received a $500,000 fee for collaborating with her. Ghostwriters will often spend from several months to a full year researching, writing, and editing nonfiction and fiction works for a client, and they are paid based on a price per hour, per word or per page, with a flat fee, or a percentage of the royalties of the sales, or some combination thereof. Some ghostwriters charge for articles "$4 per word and more depending on the complexity" of the article.[3] Literary agent Madeleine Morel states that the average ghostwriter's advance for work for major book publishers is "between $40,000 and $70,000".[4] These benchmark prices are mirrored approximately in the film industry by the Writer's Guild, where a Minimum Basic Agreement gives a starting price for the screenplay writer of $37,073 (non-original screenplay, no treatment).[5] However, the recent shift into the digital age (15-20% world market share of books by 2015) has brought some changes, by opening newer markets that bring their own opportunities for authors and writers[6]—especially on the more affordable side of the ghostwriting business. One such market is the shorter book, best represented at the moment by Amazon's Kindle Singles imprint: texts of 30,000 words and under.[7] Such a length would have been much harder to sell before digital reader- technologies became widely available, but is now quite acceptable. Writers on the level of Ian McEwan have celebrated this recent change, mainly for artistic reasons.[8] As a consequence, the shorter format makes a project potentially more affordable for the client/author. Manhattan Literary, a ghostwriting company, states that "book projects on the shorter side, tailored to new markets like the Kindle Singles imprint and others (30,000-42,000 words) start at a cost of $15,000."[9][10] And this shorter book appears to be here to stay. It was once financially impractical for publishers to produce such novella-length texts (they would have to charge too much); but this new Business 2 - Lesson 47 Ghostwriting Page !3 market is, by 2015, already substantial and has been projected to be a solid part of the future of book publishing.[7] So, with its appearance the starting price for the professional book writer has come down by about half, but only if this shorter format makes sense for the client. On the upper end of the spectrum, with celebrities that can all but guarantee a publisher large sales, the fees can be much higher. In 2001, the New York Times stated that the fee that the ghostwriter for Hillary Clinton's memoirs will receive is probably about $500,000 of her book's $8 million advance, which "is near the top of flat fees paid to collaborators."[11] There is also the consideration of different benchmarks in different countries. In Canada, The Writers' Union has established a minimum fee schedule for ghostwriting, starting at $40,000 for a 200-300 page book, paid at various stages of the drafting of the book. Research fees are an extra charge on top of this minimum fee.[12] In Germany, the average fee for a confidential ghostwriting service is about $100 per page.[citation needed] The Editorial Freelancers Association also suggests rates of 26 cents to 50 cents per word, which would be about $15,000 to $30,000 for a 250-page book.[13] A recent availability also exists, of outsourcing many kinds of jobs, including ghostwriting, to offshore locations like India, China and the Philippines where the customer can save money.[14] Outsourced ghostwriters, whose quality levels vary widely, complete 200-page books for fees ranging between $3000 and $5000, or $12–$18 per page.[citation needed] The true tests of credibility—the writer's track record, and samples of his or her craft—become even more important in these instances, when the writer comes from a culture and first- language that are entirely different from the client's.