What Can I Expect When Working With a Professional Writer?
If this will be your first time working with a professional writer, there are several things you need to know.
 | When shopping for a contract writer or ghostwriter, interview
several. Your story is very personal, and you should find a
person with whom you feel comfortable working. Review samples of
their past work and follow up on references provided. |
| Once you've found a writer with whom you're
comfortable, get an agreement in writing. The contract
should specify what is expected of each of you, how much the project
will cost, how authorship will be shown, and a timetable for payments,
royalties, and delivery of the manuscript. Make sure the contract
specifies that you retain the copyright to the work. The
usual legal boilerplate information should also be included, to protect
you both. Your writer will likely require a signed contract and a
deposit on the total amount in order to start work. |
| Your writer will want to meet several times
with you to interview you and get your story. After a few
meetings, there should be enough information for the writer to develop a
basic outline of the story and how the chapters will break down
in the book. The interviews will likely continue during the time
the first draft of the manuscript is being written, which will likely
take at least four months from the time work begins. Even if you
have recorded your entire story, the writer will have developmental
questions that will require some interviews. You usually pay for
the writer's time hourly at this point. |
| As the first draft is written, additional
questions will emerge. Your writer will include these in the
manuscript so that you may address them during a subsequent meeting.
You may receive the first draft a few chapters at a time, or all at
once. |
| When you receive the first draft, read through
it and be prepared to answer any additional questions. Make notes
on these and any changes you want to make in the manuscript and return
it to your writer within the timeframe specified in your contract.
Upon receipt of your information, the writer will incorporate it into
the manuscript, resulting in a second draft. Writing time
may be billed hourly or by the word, depending on how your writer does
things. |
| You'll need to carefully review the second
draft for any additional changes you want made. You may elect to
send it off to an editor for a content edit. It's strongly
recommended that you have the manuscript professionally edited. No
writer can edit their own work, no matter how good they are. By
this time, both of you will have looked at the manuscript so many times,
you practically know it by heart. Major flaws in the book may
escape you. It needs a pair of fresh eyes to review it at this
point. An editor will make sure your plot flows smoothly and that
the book is marketable. You will likely contract separately with
the editor for these services, and pay the editor directly for them.
Some publishers offer editing services in addition to their publishing
packages, or your writer may be able to recommend one she's worked with
in the past. |
| Your writer should incorporate any manuscript
changes suggested by the editor. Review the third draft of
the manuscript again after these, and make your final changes. You
should also have a line edit done on the manuscript once all the
changes are made. This will proof it for any errors in spelling,
grammar, word usage, punctuation, etc. Some editors include this
in their rate for the content edit, while others bill separately for it.
Make sure you understand how you will be billed for the line edit prior
to having it done. A final copy edit should also be done after
you've made the changes from the line edit. |
| Once the final line and copy edits have been completed,
you'll be ready to send your manuscript off to a publisher.
There are many options available in publishing today, and it's quite a
complicated decision to make. Most first-time authors elect to self-publish their books, and there are many companies offering this service. The old stigma of the "vanity presses" of years past is no more. Costs can be reduced by using a print-on-demand, or P.O.D. publisher. Advantages of self publishing include getting the book to market faster, maintaining control over all aspects of your book, including title, cover, inside design and content, as well as keeping more of the proceeds from sales of the book on the back side. The main disadvantages include more up-front costs for you to cover, and the possibility that your book may not be available through one or both of the distributors who supply most bookstores, Ingram and/or Baker & Taylor. You can get a book published at a P.O.D. publisher for under $500, with additional per-copy costs for each book ordered. You may prefer to publish your book through a traditional publisher. They cover all the up-front costs for design, printing and distribution, but they may change anything about the book, from its title to the cover and contents. You'll also earn a lower amount from the retail price of each book, sometimes as low as 5%. Be aware that many larger publishers will not accept unsolicited manuscripts from unagented writers, so you will need to hire a literary agent to shop your manuscript around to them. Beware of any potential agents who want to charge you a fee for reading your book or who want some type of continuing fee during the time they are trying to sell your manuscript. An agent will charge you a percentage of whatever they sell your book to the publisher for. Don't count on any up-front advances in royalties from a traditional publisher; those are a thing of the past for all but the most well-established authors or celebrities. Your agent should negotiate the best deal possible for you, but still make sure you carefully review the contract before signing on the dotted line. Don't ever sign away "all rights" to your book, as these are valuable commodities you can sell later on. A new option available now is that of a co-op publisher. With this type of publisher, the author and publisher split the costs of publishing the book, then split the proceeds on the back side from sales of the book. Your writer may have experience in working with one or more publishers, and can advise you on which way to go. She may even work with you to submit your manuscript to the chosen publisher. If so, you should expect to compensate the writer for this time. Carefully review your publishing contract for items like distribution, author discounts, subsidiary rights, and royalty payments. |
| You're not finished once your book is
published--your work is only beginning! Now, it's up to you to
market your book. Even traditional publishers offer only
minimal marketing support. There will be costs associated with
this, as well. They include printing of post cards,
business cards and posters with the book's cover and where-to-buy
information, as well as travel expenses if you plan to make any
trips for personal appearances to promote your book's sales. There
are also many other opportunities for marketing that will have costs
associated with them. You'll need press kits about the book to
send out to the media, and galley copies of the book to send out
for reviews. If you don't have a lot of time for all of this work, you may want to consider hiring a publicist to do it for you. You'll still have responsibilities--you're the only one who can sign your books or make personal appearances in the media to promote it, after all. What the publicist will do is the ground work, such as handling the mailings and phone calls to set up those appearances, speeches and book signings. The publicist will also get reviews of your book printed in the media to generate interest in it among the public. You likely don't have enough contacts or time to do what a publicist will do for you. Make sure you sign a contract with your publicist that specifies exactly what services will be performed, and the costs for each. Even though a publicist can be expensive, you may only need their services for about six months, just before and after your book is released. Whether or not you hire a publicist, you'll still be busy using your own contacts to sell your book. Mail your post cards, which have the book cover on the front and a blurb about it and your where-to-buy information on the back, to all your contacts. Keep a handful with you and leave them wherever you go. Make sure you have a good ten-second summary (also known as an "elevator speech") of what your book is about, so you can share it when people ask you. Prepare a presentation about the book so you'll be ready for any speeches you can get. If your ghostwriter is listed on the book as a co-author, and especially if she is due any royalties from sales of the book, she may even help you market it. That doubles the manpower for getting your book in front of the buying public. Remember, though, the ultimate success of your book lies with you. Nobody can sell your story the way you can. |
Estimated Costs for Your Book
These price ranges are based on a 200-page manuscript. They are only estimates; actual costs may differ considerably.
Ghostwriting services, $8,000 - $40,000
Editing services, $1,600 - $2,800
Publishing (P.O.D.), $300 - $1,000 up front, plus per-book costs
Publishing (self-published, with own company), $21,000 & up
Marketing (with publicist), $6,000 - $20,000
Marketing materials, $200 - $1,000
To be sure, writing a book is not a ticket to riches. Authors who find financial success usually use a book to promote something else they sell, whether products or services.
Estimated Timeline for Your Book
Writing a book is a long-term project. Be prepared to commit several hours each week to meeting with your writer to discuss the project and convey your story (or to spend that long recording your story for the writer), followed by several months of revisions. Here's an estimate:
Initial consultation --> first draft completion,
4-6 months (includes time for your revisions to chapters as delivered)
Content editing of first draft by a freelance editor, 3-4 months
Revisions --> second draft completion, 1-2 months
Line editing of second draft by a freelance editor, 1-2 months
Revisions --> third draft completion, 1-2 months
Copy editing of third draft by a freelance editor, 1 month
Delivery of manuscript to publisher --> published book delivery, 3-6
months (assumes self-publishing, not traditional)
Determine when you want to release your book, and work backwards to find the best time of year to start work on it. For example, if you want to sell a lot of books during the Christmas season, you need to release your book about six months before, to give the bookstores time to become aware of it, order it and have it in stock by the shopping season. This means starting work on it about 18 months--minimum--before the Christmas season in which you want to sell it! Many authors release their books on the Tuesday after Book Expo America (BEA), which is annually held the first weekend in June, to maximize their chances of selling subsidiary rights to it during the expo.
Marketing Your Book
Before undertaking getting your story written, there are two important questions you need to ask yourself:
| Who is my target audience for this book? |
| How do I plan to sell it to them? |
If you don't know the answers to these two questions, even after doing some preliminary research, then you probably don't have a marketable story. Looking at the expenses and time commitments outlined above, could you ever recoup your costs in getting the story out there? If not, think about why you want to write this book, and carefully consider whether or not you want to proceed. Publishers are interested in producing books that will sell, and sell big. This is why they usually insist that you have a marketing plan for your book before they'll even agree to publish it. Don't sell yourself short; do the same groundwork, even if you're self publishing.
Knowing what to expect up front can avoid any misunderstandings on down the road. Writing and publishing a book is not an inexpensive or short-term project. Be prepared to invest the time and money it takes if you want a good product. Thoroughly investigate all options, carefully review all contracts before signing them, and by all means, get agreements in writing at each step along the way. You won't regret it!
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