Over a period of many years I conducted some seminal research that is
directly relevant to our increasing concerns on social/societal issues
within a global context.  For over three years I have trouble
documenting the results and implications of that work and it is time
to face the fact that more time will not overcome my blocks.
I know that biographers have the exceptional skill to convert
narratives into a sensible and internally structured end product. 
Naturally their skills are pricy.  It is my intent to explore the
possibility of a collaboration with a "ghost writer" for my work and
to entice foundations working in the area related to my work to fund
that writer.  The benefit to foundations is that for the relatively
low cost of funding a writer they will enable a substantial work
product to become available in support of their mission.
The question is, where can I find such ghost-writing skills and what
should be the provisions under which such colaboration can be
structured?

Dear Cereb, 

Before I'll give you tips and links on finding a ghost-writer, let me
refer to several issues you raise with your question.

First, the type of writer you need. You mentioned writers like the
ones employed in writing one's biography. However, if possible, it
would be advisable to concentrate on writers who specialise in
semi-academic, societal or journalistic writing, because of the topic
of your research.

Many ghost-writers are in fact employed by publishers. When there is a
book whose marketability is certain (a biography of a celebrity,
sensational news story, etc.), publishers are willing to pay someone
to write the piece for someone else.

However, if I understood your case, you are not known in the academic
or otherwise circles, and your scholarship is not easy to market as,
say, a Madonna biography or a Princess Diana conspiracy theory.
Therefore, you'll either need to convince a publisher to support your
idea without reading a full manuscript, and to provide you with a
ghost-writer, or - to fund the project yourself.

One trap you should consider (although it might be actually a bless in
disguise) is small publishers who offer ghost writing in exchange for
publishing rights. If you are convinced that your project could
attract one of the big publishers, be weary of such offers. The small
publishers have usually very little power in the market, and this
might mean that you'll find yourself self-publishing and selling very
few copies. Look very carefully at the list and type of books
published by those publishers; check the publisher's reputation, and
how much is usually sold through this house. However, a small
publisher could be useful of two reasons:
- Some of them specialise in certain types of publications, for
example Christian, ecology or social themes.
- It prevents a situation where you already had a book ghost written
for you, paid a hefty sum to the ghost-writer (see details bellow) and
now unable to find a publisher.

I'm afraid, that unless you've managed to convince a good agent,
through a synopsis (as offered by the wise Probonopublico in his
comment), that your book could be well received once written (and this
is not as easy as it sounds, for every book that gets published,
dozens of other good manuscripts are rejected), you'll have to fund
the project yourself. This might be costly, as ghost-writing for a
book is not cheap, especially if you need someone who could discuss
the issue in para-scientific language.

It might be a good idea to try, at least, to go through a writing
course and to begin the work yourself (maybe also with several self
help books on organising books and scientific dissertations) - and
later to give it to an editor, which might prove more affordable than
having a ghost-writer going through it all. You could read more about
the charges here:
"Ghost-writing, as told to: This is writing for a celebrity or expert
either for a self-published book or for a publisher. Author gets full
advance plus 50 percent of royalties, typically $15,000/low, $25,000
high/project plus a percentage of ownership and 'with' credit line.
Hourly rates for subjects who are self-publishing are $25 low, $55
mid-range, $85 high/hour; $125 low, $175 high/book page. In Canada,
author also gets full advance and 50 percent of royalties or
$10,000-20,000 flat fee per project. Research time is charged extra.

Ghost-writing, no credit: Projects may include writing for an
individual planning to self publish or for a book packager, book
producer, publisher, agent or corporation. Rates range from $5,000
very low, $15,000 low, $25,000 mid-range, $50,000 high/project (plus
expenses) per project; packagers pay flat fee or combination of
advance plus royalties. For self-published clients, ask for one-fourth
down payment, one-fourth when book is half-finished, one-fourth at the
three-quarters mark and one-fourth upon completion."
(SOURCE: How much should I charge Writers' Market
<http://www.writersmarket.com/content/howmuch3.asp>).

Places where you could place your project and get pricing from
different ghost-writers for it: you write a description of the project
(for example: "Ghost-writer needed for a 10,000 page popular science
book on social/societal issues within a global context") and people
who think they could complete your project propose their price. You
choose between those you deem as acceptable. These services usually
claim that they screen their service providers (and you could always
also look at the rating and feedback received from previous
transactions). However, in practice, especially in fields such as
ghost-writing (where anyone could claim to be an experienced writer),
once cannot be too careful.

eLance - http://elance.com 

Guru.com - http://www.guru.com/ - ghost-writers could be found under
<http://www.guru.com/find-guru.cfm/11/ghost%20writers>

Freelance Work Exchange - <http://www.freelanceworkexchange.com/index.html>

Craiglist <http://www.craigslist.org/> - publish your classified ad.  

These two specialise in writers: 

Authorlink in Monster.com - http://authorlink.monster.com/ - the huge
jobs search engine has a writers' section, with cooperation with
Authorlink.

Sunoasis - <http://www.sunoasis.com/> 


On- and offline, you could also post an ad, looking for a ghost-writer
in the classifieds of writers? journals such as:

Writer's Digest - <http://www.writersdigest.com/> 

Writers Write - <http://www.writerswrite.com/> 

Writer Magazine - <http://www.writermag.com/> 

There are some places where you could locate and directly contact ghost-writers: 

Writerfind - <http://www.writerfind.com/> - including a special
section for ghost-writers <http://www.writerfind.com/editors/> - they
are in fact a combination of a listing and a marketplace as described
before (Guru.com, etc.), since you can post your project to their
mailing list, and have interested ghost-writers contact you with their
price offer and CV.

San Diego Professionals Network - http://www.sdpen.com/findwriter.htm
- a long list of writes. Despite the name, some of them are not based
in SD, or would be able to travel and meet you.

Writers.net - <http://www.writers.net/writers.php> 

ACT Writers Centre -
<http://www.actwriters.org.au/find_writer/register3.htm#ghost> -
Australian Ghost writers

Thousands of ghost-writers offer their services online, and it would
be unfair to refer only to few. This list does not represent the
"best" ghost-writers, only few of the most popular ones:

eBookhelper Ghost-writer <http://www.ebookhelper.com/Ghostwriter.html> 

Ghostwriters.org <http://www.ghostwriters.org/> 

Brian Tarcy <http://home.capecod.net/~btarcy/> 

The Holton Consulting Group
<http://www.holtonconsulting.com/ghost.htm> - however, they are also
the publisher, which means that you'll have to publish through them.

Para Publishing - <http://www.parapub.com/supplier.cfm#13> - a list of
ghost-writers they use.

Speaker News - <http://speakernetnews.com/post/ghostwriters.html> -
recommendations from members, for what it's worth.

Ghostwords - Ghost-writers Central - <http://www.ghostwords.com/> 

Hawkeye Editing <http://www.onlinefreelanceeditor.com/services/ghostwriting.html> 

The Writer Touch <http://thewritetouch.no-frills.net/> 

Strategic Solutions Inc. <http://4dw.net/strategics/ghostwriting.html> 

Schmidt Kaye & Company <http://home.swbell.net/moonshad/skc-contents.html> 

Audley Publciations <http://www.m-j-eardley.co.uk/audley/ghostwriting.htm>
- another publisher who'd demand that the book would be published with
them.



Once you have a shortlist of candidates, you'll have to check them.
Janet Attard suggests: "Evaluate writers' credentials and writing
samples carefully before choosing someone to work with. Ideally, you
would want to work with someone who has had non-fiction books
published by traditional publishers in the past [...]. The previously
published work will be an indication that the writer has writing skill
and persistence to actually complete a book project. Working with a
previously published author may help reduce the publisher's concerns
about whether the manuscript will be delivered on time and be
well-written. Someone who has written only a few short magazine
articles or newspaper articles may not be good at putting together a
whole book or may not realize the time it takes to complete a book."
(SOURCE: Janet Attard, 2000. "Finding Ghost-writers", Business Knowhow
Q&A, <http://www.businessknowhow.com/QandA/ghostwrite.htm>).

In interesting (but irrelevant) information for you, you can find a
list of ghost detective/thriller writers: apparently, even famous
writers used ghost-writers!
Ghost Writers Have Pen, Will Travel
<http://www.thrillingdetective.com/trivia/triv240.html> 

I hope that answered your question. Please contact me if you need any
further clarification on the answer before you rate it.

Search strategy: ghost-writing, ghost-writers, etc.

---

Request for Answer Clarification by cereb-ga on 21 Aug 2004 08:54 PDT

Dear politicalguru
In terms of how I posed the questions, you offered 200% more guidance
than I had expected.  It would have helped had I been more specific. 
The aim is to present the core of my work product on a web site where
it is freely available to everyone.  At age 71 I am not driven by
ambitions of fame or by economic motives.  Once the core of that work
is presented, I know I will be able to continue from there to write
about implementing the findings that work yielded.  My latest attempt
to introduce the core of that work is now on the site
www.mundi-causa.org together with some vitae and collateral material. 
My friends have suggested that I create a narrative "brain dump" video
of that work, and that yielded 14 hours of tape.  These tapes, or a
person-to-person verbal delivery of that work would be the source
material for a writer.

I had already resolved that the traditional book publishing venue does
not apply for what I intend to achieve.  I will eventually use POD
venues to offer a book format for those who prefer books, because a
properly designed web site will make it much easier then to create
one. POD will reduce production and inventory cost, the web site
demand will gauge volume, and since profit maximization is not an aim,
a minimal book prize may make the demand more elastic, in economic
terms.  My aims for content disemination override all other
considerations.

You have been fully responsive to the question as I posed it.  Would
you be inclined to take into consideration what I said here, and
possibly scan the minimal material on the mundi-causa site in case
that triggers another suggestion or two?  I thank you for what you
have already offered.

---

Clarification of Answer by politicalguru-ga on 21 Aug 2004 11:24 PDT

Dear Cereb, 

I began to read your site with great interest. Your level of writing
is very high - I don't see a reason why you'd need a fully pledged
ghost-writer: maybe an editor. Some of those mentioned in my links
offer assistance in web-publishing. In fact, the fact that you're
publishing this on an Internet site might prove to ease the process:
you could take any writer who specialises in e-Books or websites, from
anywhere in the world.

The freelance hunting sites (eLance, Guru.net, etc.) are still your best bet. 

eBook Helper (mention on my list) mentions a specialisation in eBooks.
However, several other ghostwriters are mentioned here:
Google Directory - Ghost Writers
<http://directory.google.com/Top/Business/Business_Services/Communications/Writing_and_Editing/Writing/Ghost_Writing/>

Some of the writers on FindAwriter
<http://www.worldwidefreelance.com/writers.htm> show examples of
e-books and sites they accomplished.

I understood you're not "in it for the money". However, in order to
have as much readership as possible, it would be advisable to have
someone who knows also about the nuts and bolts of website publishing
and promotion. It doesn't have to be a SEO (search engine optimiser),
but it would be good if you'll check that your writer (or someone
else) is also able to market the site and the book.

I hope this helped.

The precision of the question formulation determines the utility of
the answers offered.  Watch what you ask for because you DO get
answers.  Thank you - fine job

Some ghostwriters are prepared to work for a cut but generally only
after a publisher has committed to the book.

I know of a case where a publisher liked the idea and then suggested a
ghostwriter whose work they liked.

You should first write a short synopsis to see if you can encapsulate
the thrust of your work and then float it around a few agents.

If you can get an agent interested then you are on your way.

But you have to produce that synopsis first.

So what are you waiting for?

Good luck!

I answered a question about ghostwriters... perhaps something in the
answer will be helpful to you.

http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=370706


Best regards,
tlspiegel