Hello,

I am looking for a ghostwriting expert to help shine the light on
where I should look to hire a ghostwriter.

I have been using eLance.com and Guru.com to date, but have found
mostly less experienced writers there, so I am trying to learn how
exactly people found ghostwriters before the internet came around.

For instance, what organizations, associations, job boards, guilds,
agencies, newspapers, etc. did people use before to find ghostwriters?

To put this into perspective, our goal is to find ghostwriters who are
subject matter experts in particular non-fiction areas, such as
relationships, employment, personal finance, various hobbies (cooking,
gardening, fishing, etc.), sports, etc.

We are a how-to publisher like the Dummies series and need to have
subject matter experts to give the books credibility.

Thanks.

Perhaps these 2 links will be helpful to you.

http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=370706
http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=390694

I suggest you post on a board dedicated to professional writers of all
kinds Mediabistro.com, which has writers all over the world on it.

http://www.mediabistro.com

You can also search on the forums there for free -- so if you type
"ghostwriter" into the search engine, you'll turn up all kinds of
conversations about this.

I think I remember seeing such ads in writers' magazines such as The
Writer and Writer's Digest long before we had the use of an Internet. 
Those magazines are still around.  There might also be offers in the
classifieds sections of magazines of the quality of Harper's and
Atlantic Monthly.

Also, don't you think book publishers probably had their own lists of
writers who could be assigned to "collaborate" with, say, celebrity
authors and specialists in subject matter areas such as health and
business?

I'm confused, though:  you say you want ghostwriters who are SMEs. 
Don't you want ghostwriters who are *writers* and who can work with
the SMEs?  One big reason for ghostwriters is typically that the
person who is the SME can't write.  If the ghostwriter *is* the SME,
then what's the ghost part?--who are they ghosting for?

Archae0pteryx
(not a researcher)

What you seem to be describing is not ghostwriters (who write the
text, get paid for it, but don't receive a byline), but "contributing
editors" or experts who are also writers. Usually, publishing houses
find books in the genre, read them, then choose a few authors to
contact. For example, if you wanted to do a book about herb gardening,
you'd read some current books on the subject, choose the author you
liked best, and contact him or her, asking if they'd be interested in
a book deal. You may make the initial contact through their publisher
or agent.

Kriswrite