Ghostwriter
Celebrities, executives, participants in timely news stories, and political leaders often hire ghostwriters to draft or edit autobiographies, memoirs, magazine articles, or other written material.
A consultant or career-switcher may pay a ghostwriter to write a book on a topic in their professional area, to establish or enhance credibility as an expert in their field.
A controversial and scientifically unethical practice is medical ghostwriting, where biotech or pharmaceutical companies pay professional writers to produce papers and then recruit (via 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.
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.
[4] Ghostwriters will often spend from several months to a full year researching, writing, and editing non-fiction 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, a percentage of the royalties of the sales, or some combination thereof.
In 2013, literary agent Madeleine Morel stated that the average ghostwriter's advance for work for major book publishers was "between $40,000 and $70,000".
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".
[8] 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.
[12] 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.
In some cases, a ghostwriter may be called in just to clean up, edit, and polish a rough draft of an autobiography or a "how-to" book.
In other cases, the ghostwriter will write an entire book or article based on information, stories, notes, an outline, or interview sessions with the celebrity or public figure.
[16] A consultant or career-switcher may pay to have a book ghostwritten on a topic in their professional area, to establish or enhance their credibility as an "expert" in their field.
For example, a successful salesperson hoping to become a motivational speaker on selling may pay a ghostwriter to write a book on sales techniques.
The first two books in the Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell franchise were written by Raymond Benson under the pseudonym David Michaels.
Sometimes famous authors will ghostwrite for other celebrities, such as when H. P. Lovecraft ghostwrote "Imprisoned with the Pharaohs" (also known as "Under the Pyramids") for Harry Houdini in Weird Tales in the 1920s.
[21] Another Jesuit translated the draft encyclical into Latin, presenting it to Wlodimir Ledóchowski, then the General of the Society of Jesus who had chosen Gundlach and Desbuquois for the project.
[20] Sebastian Tromp, a Dutch Jesuit, a Thomist theologian and close to Pius XII, is considered to be the main ghostwriter of Mystici corporis.
[23] The Vatican later answered these accusations and Cardinal Ottaviani later regretted that his name was misused to berate the pope, of which, his questions about the Pauline Mass were already clarified.
[26] There are ghostwriting companies[27] and freelancers[28] that sell entrance essays, term papers, theses and dissertations to students.
[41] Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart is an example of a well-known composer who was paid to ghostwrite music for wealthy patrons.
When a record company wants to market an inexperienced young singer as a singer-songwriter, or help a veteran bandleader coping with writer's block (or a lack of motivation to finish the next album), an experienced songwriter may be discreetly brought in to help.
Legal disputes have arisen when musical ghostwriters have tried to claim royalties when an allegedly ghostwritten song becomes a money-making hit.
In 1987, Darryl Neudorf was asked to work on a project for Nettwerk Productions involving newly signed artist Sarah McLachlan.
The judge in the suit eventually ruled in McLachlan's favour on the songs; stating that although Neudorf may have contributed to the songwriting, neither regarded each other as joint authors.
Frank Ocean started his career as a ghostwriter for artists such as Justin Bieber, John Legend and Brandy.
Currently in hip-hop, the credit given to ghostwriters varies: "silent pens might sign confidentiality clauses, appear obliquely in the liner notes, or discuss their participation freely."
In the early 2010s, hip-hop ghostwriting services like Rap Rebirth[47] appeared online, which provide recording artists who wish to purchase ghostwritten rhymes a greater degree of anonymity.
The extent of the master artist's contribution varies widely, as little as composition adjustments and corrective brush strokes, or as much as entire works.
