Ghostwriters

A ghostwriter writes the book you have been carrying around, in your name, in your voice. People hire a ghostwriter for a memoir they cannot get onto the page, a business book that needs to sound like them, a novel stalled at chapter three. The need for professional writing help usually starts the same way: a story or an argument that matters, and no clear route from notes to finished manuscript.

The tags split the category along two axes. One is form: novels, short stories and nonfiction ask for different muscles. A novelist needs someone who can hold a plot across chapters and keep a narrator's voice steady. A nonfiction client usually arrives with expertise and a folder of notes, and needs structure pulled out of it. The other axis is geography: United States, United Kingdom, Australia and Canada. That matters less for prose style than for the practical side, since a memoirist in Melbourne or Toronto may want calls in their own time zone and a collaborator who knows the local publishing ground.

Choosing a branch changes who you end up talking to. Bernadette Schwerdt and Cheryl Rickman work with authors building a platform around a business or a body of advice. LifeBook Memoirs and Shannon Kyle sit closer to personal history, the family story or the life worth setting down for relatives. Gotham Ghostwriters and Kevin Anderson & Associates run as agencies, matching a project to a writer from a roster. Scribe Media and THGM Writing Services handle the whole route from manuscript to published book. Robin Storey, Mark Graham Communications and Tobi Nifesi round out the list for fiction and shorter work. Start from the tag that matches your manuscript, not the one that sounds most impressive.