How to Choose a Ghostwriter or Book Coach with Kevin Anderson: An EOFire Classic from 2022

0:02Who's ready to rock today? Fire Nation JLD here and welcome to Entrepreneurs on fire brought to you by High Level, the all-in-one sales and marketing platform. On today's classic episode, we'll be breaking down how to choose a ghostwriter or book coach. To drop these value bonds, I brought Kevin Anderson onto EO Fire Studios. Kevin is a 30-time New York Times bestselling editor and founder and CEO of Kevin Anderson & Associates, a leading New York ghostwriting, book coaching, and publishing strategy firm. And today we talk about how you should choose someone that can really work with you from beginning to end, who can be your advocate and guide you through the whole process, and how to pick someone who knows, understands both traditional and hybrid publishing, and oh, so much more.

0:40And a big thank you for sponsoring today's episode goes to Kevin and our sponsors. Fire Nation, it's time to stop guessing and start winning with a proven playbook. Inside the Freedom Circle, you'll have access to my step-by-step systems for creating offers, building processes, and driving traffic, all in just 90 days. Ready for freedom? Visit freedom-circle.com to learn more. Are you ready for the ultimate all-in-one platform for entrepreneurs, marketers, coaches, and agencies? Build funnels, automate follow-ups, manage clients, and even white-label your own software. Say hello to our featured partner, High Level, and visit highlevelfire.com to start your free trial today.

1:28Kevin, say what's up to Fire Nation and share something that you believe about becoming successful that most people disagree with. Hi, Fire Nation. And something that some people might disagree with is, you know, while I agree that niching is an essential thing for a long term business success, don't be afraid to test the marketplace as a generalist. When I started my first company in grad school more than 15 years ago, I was not from the publishing world at all. I was on a PhD track to be an English professor, started a company that served anyone and everyone who needed help with communications, resumes, articles, formatting, dissertation, formatting, tutoring, ad copy, even books.

2:13It didn't take long to figure out which services were the most fun, which ones were in demand, which ones were profitable. And once that became clear, we used that data to form separate entities and niched each one of those companies, each with their own CEO and unique marketing strategy. And, you know, I went with the book writing company and never looked back. But finding that path included being a generalist for a while, really test the market and see what I really liked and wanted for me and my business. Well, you did never look back because as we talked about Fire Nation in the intro, Kevin's a 30 times New York Times bestselling editor.

2:45and today we're talking about how to choose a business book ghostwriter or book coach. So I want to start with step one. Let's talk about determining your publishing goals. Break down that process for us. Right. Yeah. So as you already know, writing a book can be a huge boost for your business, whatever that business is. Incredibility, enhanced visibility, a huge boost to your consultant or speaking fees, especially if you hit the bestseller list. It establishes you as an expert and thought leader. But you need help. You're not a professional writer. You don't know the industry. And you probably don't have time to go through the entire process and learn it and do it well.

3:27And really the first step in figuring out who you want to hire to help you through this whole process is to determine your publishing goals. So how do you figure this out? Well, there's a couple of different ways that you can go. If you want to be in bookstores and have a big mass market appeal and get lots of publicity and be in high demand for media, you're probably going to want to do a traditional publishing route rather than self-publishing. Traditional publishing, as you know, JLD, since that's a route that you took with your book, accounts for 99 % of the books on the shelf. They're the names you associate with publishing, Random House, HarperCollins, Simon & Schuster.

4:14We recently did a big New York Times bestseller with the cast and producers of NBC's The Office. That book, like 99 % of the other titles on the bestseller lists are all from traditional publishers. In that case, that book was published by HarperCollins. These publishers have wide distribution. They have strong ties to media. They offer a measure of prestige and credibility. And they give authors the best chance for mass market success. And, you know, this was the case with one of our clients and former JLD podcast guest, Ken Rusk, the author of Blue Collar Cash. We helped him from day one to plan his book, write it, figure it out, figure out his whole publishing path.

4:56And, you know, we got him a agent and his book was published with HarperCollins. And he got all the media that you'd expect, Forbes, Fox News, Fox Business, Adam Carolla's podcast. He hit the Wall Street Journal bestseller list. And it was a huge boost for invisibility for his brand and his mission. So if you want that for your book, you'll want to hire somebody who has experience with traditional publishing. So their client list should reflect the type of success that you want for your book. If you want your book to be a bestseller, like a legit bestseller, not like an Amazon bestseller where a hundred of your friends buy the book at the same time and you're a bestseller in some niche category for an hour, you're going to want to look for someone who really has experience with that traditional marketplace, if that's your goal.

5:46And you can look at their client list. If you want to be the next Seth Godin or Brene Brown, if that's your publishing goal, you're going to want to hire someone who's worked with that caliber of client, who knows exactly what it takes to get there. However, if your goal is a little different, and maybe it's more of a legacy piece, or you're okay with the self-published book, you just need it as soon as possible. You need it on your desk, something you're going to give away to clients. You're not too concerned about mass market appeal or the so-called prestige of a traditional publisher. Then you could definitely look at hybrid publishing, which is basically professional self-publishing.

6:24You pay them to handle all of the process and they do a good job of publishing the book, but you're essentially paying to play. And this is a really popular method for a lot of business owners because of the speed to market. It can be as quick as six months to go from zero book to published book. And for some business owners, waiting a year or two to get their book out costs them more in lost opportunities than the upside of waiting for a traditional publisher. So the hybrids are a sure bet. You don't have to worry about the dating game of trying to find an agent and a publisher and convincing them to publish your book and then waiting that whole time to get your book out, it's a sure bet.

7:07And some of the good hybrids can even put you in a position to hit the bestseller list. We've had multiple clients hit the Wall Street Journal bestseller list this year alone, and those were with hybrid publishers. And the speed to market in general is just a very important thing to consider when you're hiring a writer, a ghostwriter or a coach, because you've got to account for that entire process. Even once the book is finished, you could still be looking at four to eight months before the book is actually published, depending on the path you're choosing. So you need to account for all of that when you're thinking about your publishing goals and who you're going to choose for a writer or coach.

7:43Of course, there's a lot of options and a lot more to determine the right publishing path. I mean, it's a complicated question, but you definitely want to know what that path is before choosing a ghostwriter or book coach. So I definitely love this process of thoughts, Fire Nation, which is, you know, are you looking for a bestseller with wide appeal or are you looking for more of a legacy piece with maybe just a limited audience? And you need to be factoring in with all of this, how important is your speed to market? Like what's the opportunity cost of waiting? So a lot of good things to think about.

8:13And after we do determine, Kevin, these publishing goals, we have to decide if we do want or need that ghostwriter, that co-author, that book coach. Tell us more about this process. You know, there's different ways that you can work with a professional writer. And it doesn't have to be a ghost writer. A ghost writer handles all the writing for you. Most or all the content comes from you, but the ghost writer is doing the interviews and getting your message and stories and actually writing them out. They're taking the lead in developing and revising the book. They're like a sophisticated pen, turning your ideas and message into a professionally written book.

8:49With a book coach or an editor, you're the one writing the book and they're guiding you and editing your writing as you go along. And they're collaborating with you every step of the way. But you're doing all the original writing. They're just guiding you through the process and they can elevate your writing significantly all along the way. In either scenario, the ghost can and should, the ghost or coach, they should start with you right away, early, early on in the planning phases, right while you're still just building your book plan and outline from day one. So which one should you choose, a ghostwriter or book coach?

9:28A couple things to think about. One is how much do you want to spend? Two is how much time do you have to spend on the book, on writing the book? And three, how great of a writer are you? So number one, how much do you want to spend? A good ghostwriter, easily going to cost you$20 ,000 or more. A best-selling writer is easily going to cost$50 ,000 or more. And it easily gets into the six figures for a real notable ghostwriter. So, you know, costs can be a real factor with ghostwriting. But this goes back to your goals for your book and what matters most to you. And as for a book coach, you'll save a lot of money compared to ghostwriting.

10:08You can hire a best-selling book coach for as little as$20 ,000 on the low end and less experienced coaches or editors, you know, maybe even, maybe even less, maybe even closer to 10 or even under $10 ,000. Uh, so obviously, as you can see, it's a big difference in, in cost. Um, second question, how much time do you have to spend writing the book compared to book coaching or editing? Ghost writing will save you a ton of time. JLD, you, you wrote your own book. Your agent introduced us. We talked about ghost writing and I know you were considering it. Um, you chose to write your book. If memory serves me correctly, you spent, what was it, 180, 200 hours on writing that book?

10:45Yes. And it was an every day, multi-hour per day, which I had the bandwidth for. And a lot of people need to factor in, do you have the bandwidth for that kind of commitment? And it was important to you, right? You needed to write it. You felt like you needed that experience, that process of putting those words to page yourself, which is great, but you have to make sure you have that kind of time. And if you don't have that kind of time to put into writing the book, no problem. You can still author and publish an amazing book, but you're going to need to hire a ghost writer to make that happen because it does take a lot of time.

11:20And then the third, and this might be the most important factor, is how great of a writer are you? If you're an awful writer, even a book coach is not going to be able to save you. Uh, you know, if you cannot write at all, you, you, you're beyond the help of an editor or book coach, uh, and don't mix up book coaching and editing for rewriting. Rewriting is ghostwriting. It takes longer to rewrite and fix a mess than to just start from scratch. So if you've written a book that needs to be completely rewritten, you're going to, you got to expect to, to, to, to get a ghostwriter to help and pay the ghostwriter prices.

11:58So fire nation, I really want you to kind of go through this process that Kevin is talking about when we were determining your publishing goals and then deciding if you need or want that ghostwriter co-author or book coach, because there are pros and cons to every single one of these steps. And again, as Kevin mentioned, I went through this process. Like I had the conversations with people like Kevin and really had to sit down and say, do I have the bandwidth for this, the time, the energy, the mental bandwidth? And so these are all questions you have to be asking yourself. And I think where people really struggle when they get to this point, Kevin, is in the evaluation and the track record of these individuals.

12:33So what should we be looking out for? And what should we be on the lookout for? Great question. And, you know, it gets back to a little bit, it gets back to your goals for your book. If you want a bestselling book, you're going to need to hire a bestselling book coach or a ghostwriter. Check out their client list. Don't buy the BS about, you know, that they need to stick to a strict confidentiality about their clients. That might be true for some of their clients, but there isn't a legitimate ghostwriter out there who won't be able to show you some form of credit. Their name will be in the acknowledgments of a book or a testimonial.

13:11They'll have some kind of client list that they can point to that can show some credibility. If you don't recognize any of the books on their list and the authors that they've worked with, look them up on Amazon. See if they've been widely reviewed. See how many reviews they have and take a look at who the publisher is. Is it a self-published book? Is it their own name that's the publisher? Suss out what quality and caliber of publisher and author this ghostwriting person or service is used to working with. The better writers and coaches will typically have experience working on some traditional books, you know, the HarperCollins, the Random House Caliber publisher.

13:53They should be able to show you those credits. And again, you know, it's important not to fall for the Amazon bestseller status. It's a very niche bestseller that can be rigged very easily. And, you know, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the USA Today, these are legit lists that account for sales over a period of time and are a much better gauge of how successful that book really was. and also watch for scams. There's a lot of them out there. Be sure that you see their name, that ghostwriter or that company's name in the book. This is a big investment. Whether it's a coach or a ghostwriter, it's a huge investment.

14:33So pay the$9 or whatever it is for the Kindle copy and look at the acknowledgement section and see if you can verify that they were part of that project. Or better yet, read the book to see if it's any good as well while you're doing so. A lot of scammers out there will just say they've worked with these books or these authors because they don't expect you to really actually check. But any ghostwriter, any legitimate ghostwriter is going to have credits that you can verify. So again, Fire Nation, a lot of things to think about, a lot of things to go through. I mean, this is just a lot of great information that can save you countless hours of headache, of pain, just by listening to the professionals like Kevin on what to look for, what to look out for.

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17:49Kevin, we're back. And man, this has already been a master class on this topic, but we're going to keep going because there's more to talk about. And that is the quality. That is the timeline production. What should we prepare for in these two areas? It's so important to protect the quality of the work and your timeline. Even writers with great credentials. So you pick your great writer, everything checked out, but even they can lose, sorry, can get loose and sloppy and even, or worse yet, completely disappear, leaving you with just with a half completed project, if you're lucky, and lost money, time, and a lot of frustration.

18:30So how do you ensure that the quality will be great and that you'll hit your timeline? So accountability is key. Who is keeping the writing process and progress accountable? If you're with a writing firm like KAA, we've got project managers, we've got editors, we've got a whole team that's facilitating the production. So there's a lot of accountability there. If you're just working with a freelancer, be sure that there's a strict schedule. Be sure that you're not working with too many, that they're not working with too many clients at the same time. Be sure that previous clients can attest to their dependability.

19:06You know, ask for referrals. Just because they have credit on an impressive book doesn't mean they're dependable with a long-term project like this. You know, ghostwriting is complicated. It's a long process. Their credits might just have been an editorial credit. Do you have evidence that they have the capacity to finish a big, long ghostwriting project. So get those referrals. Get the references. Who's looking out for the quality of the book? You're a great judge of what you want to say, but are you a great judge of what makes a good book? You want to make sure that you have some impartial professional that's a part of this process, that's qualified to evaluate the marketability and quality of the book that's being produced.

19:52You don't want to be halfway through a book and then only to find out that, you know, you got to kind of start all over and elevate and maybe you've chosen the wrong ghostwriter because it's, it's, it's the, the book is no good. And of course, don't trust, you know, uncle Tom and aunt Jill, you know, that family does not count. You have to have a professional book editor looking at the material. And, you know, and, and, you know, even the best writers have editors. Every book you see on the shelf was heavily reviewed and vetted and edited by somebody. If you don't already have a publishing deal where you have an in-house editorial team that's working with you, you should definitely get a professional editor to review your material.

20:35As far as timeline, the worst thing for your timeline is if the writer relationship goes bad. If you and the writer break up or they just disappear, which happens a lot, we get a ton of clients that come to us that that's exactly the situation. They did all the right things and then their ghost writer and them just for some reason one day they just never call back. And it's like that girlfriend or boyfriend you never knew what happened. And you never hear from them ever again. Sometimes the match just doesn't work out. Sometimes it's not even their fault. Sometimes it's just not a good personality.

21:12It's not a synergistic relationship. You need to go into your ghostwriting or book coaching relationships with a prenup. It's very important that it's a very clear prenup and that there's a contingency plan for what happens if the relationship goes south. If you're working with a writing firm or a company, make sure that there's a clear plan for what happens. If your marriage doesn't work out, they should be able to replace the rider with a new one, usually for free, like we do. But others will maybe have a small fee. But regardless, they're going to make sure that there's a rider there to continue with the project.

21:51You absolutely, whatever you do, just avoid any arrangement. And all of this, by the way, is all part of the contract phase, right, where you're looking at the contract before you're actually signing the deal. make sure that with your arrangement that you retain all the rights to your material. Anything that's been developed by that ghostwriter or you or any of those conversations, that has to be your own material. You want to make sure that anything you've written or developed, you can take to a new writer and continue that process to finishing the book. You also don't want to pay all the money up front.

22:26There's going to be upfront costs for sure to get this thing going, but make sure that you're working in milestones. so that you're paying as you go. That way you're not going to get, it's really hard to get your money back from someone who's disappeared. Fire Nation, again, this can be information and knowledge that saves you so much time, so much energy, so much mental drain and bandwidth and financial pain if you just listen and implement. And I do also want to talk about the importance of more than just writing the book. Now, what does that mean? Because when I was kind of going through my process, I'm like, well, if I'm going to partner with somebody, they have to bring more value than just writing the book itself.

23:07Now, again, of course, I went a different direction and sat down and wrote the book myself. But when I was talking to people like Kevin, one of the reasons why I kept coming back to him was because it was just obvious that he understood this point more than anybody else that I talked to. but I want you to kind of really share this part, Kevin, about why it's important to choose someone, you know, that ghostwriter, that co-author, that coach who brings more value than just writing the book and what that exactly means with maybe some examples. Keep in mind, JLD, you wrote the book on your own, but you had a big, big advantage over almost, you know, over most authors starting out in this process that you had an agent.

23:44You had someone looking out for you and you had a really great agent that we work with a lot and they're fantastic. A lot of authors, they're starting out without that, right? And a writer or a coach, that's their skill set. That's what they do and they do it really well, especially if you picked a really great writer. but unless you have a separate publishing sherpa to really guide you through the whole process you may want to choose a service or a writer that can help you plan and achieve the bigger picture again this gets back to your reason for writing the book and what you want for your publishing goals did you hire a ghost or book coach just to have a nice manuscript saved in an MS Word file saved on your computer that never sees the light of day never mind a bookshelf A writer can write a great book, but you're probably thinking that once your book is all written and typed up, then you'll build a publishing plan and find somebody to help you cross the finish line and get it published.

24:47Right? Wrong. That's way, way too late. You need to have a plan and even start implementing that plan before you even write the first chapter. Otherwise, you may end up having to start all over. why is this the case well your publishing plan your goals will affect the type of book you write and most effective publishing strategies are built and started before writing the book this was the case with with ken rusk you know we we started working with him when he was still in the conceptual phase before we even put an outline together and it would have been a very different outline and a very different plan um had he had different goals if his goals wasn't to hit the bestseller list and get a traditional publishing deal, we would have done a totally different way.

25:35If your goal is to hit those bestseller lists and land a traditional book deal, which again, it's not for everybody, but if that is your aspiration, it's not going to work to just start writing whatever book you want to write. A lot of authors especially, and we get this a lot, Tom Golisano, the billionaire founder of Paychex, he came to us and wanted, obviously, Paychex,$30 billion company, he came to us wanting to write a memoir at first. And we had to work hard to talk him out of the memoir and to really give the readers something of value that they're going to want from him. He was the right author to write a book on entrepreneurship.

26:15That's the reason why he started the company from$3 ,000 credit card. That's what people want to learn. And so we had to kind of talk through that a bit. and we ended up writing the business book first. And then, you know, he still got to write his memoir second, but the market really wanted that business book. That was the right book for the traditional publishing path. So that completely changed the whole book and his whole publishing journey by just having that kind of discussion and figuring out what's a really viable route to go. You know, you'll need to make sure that you have an original concept that's never been written exactly that way before.