Use our dedicated ghostwriting content services to tell your story. Forbes-vetted ghostwriters use your words and a proven structural framework to help you complete the work efficiently, with the superior quality you expect.
Each month a ghostwriter will deliver 3,000 words of premium content. We employ award-winning ghostwriters in many genres, categories and languages. During the ghostwriting matching process we identify writers who are passionate about your brand and message. Next, you will set an interview schedule with your selected ghostwriter. These interviews allow you and the ghostwriter to discuss ideas relevant to your Master Book Plan, so they can capture your voice.
Next, you will receive the first draft of your manuscript. This includes the introduction and first chapter. You will have time to review the drafts and regroup with your ghostwriter to confirm the book is on-point.
From there, the ghostwriter will write the manuscript in three parts, typically taking two-to-three months. The professional editing process follows the manuscript creation stage. This includes a structure and flow edit, referred to as a Line Edit. Next, we review the manuscript one more time to polish the prose and focus on grammar in the Copy Edit phase.
After each stage of the professional editing process, you will review and provide feedback to your ghostwriter. Finally, your book is ready to for design. This stage includes building the layout of the book and one more layer of proofreading. This ensures the book is ready for launch and distribution.
Ghostwriters are integral to the success of your book and your enjoyment of the publishing process. For this reason, we take great pride in our ghostwriting matching process. We match your style and brand with ghostwriters who can tell your story in the most compelling way. We ensure that your writer understands your brands and is eager to share your message.
After identifying three potential matches, we coordinate interviews between you and each ghostwriter. In addition, each ghostwriting candidate provides a writing sample. This enables you to identify your preferred ghostwriter match.
The cost of hiring a ghostwriter for a business book varies widely depending on the writer’s experience, the length and complexity of the book, the amount of research involved, and the level of editorial support included. At forbes book publishers.com, ghostwriting is part of a complete publishing program rather than a standalone service, so the investment reflects the full scope of work from manuscript development through publication and distribution under the forbes book publishers.com imprint. We share program details and pricing during a discovery call once we understand your goals for the book.
The ghostwriting process at forbes book publishers.com, from kickoff to sign-off on the line edit, typically takes about 6 months. That sits inside a longer overall publishing timeline of 9 to 14 months for an online-only release or 12 to 18 months when the book is going into bookstore and retail distribution. The ghostwriting phase includes the Vision Session to clarify the book’s purpose, the Master Book Plan, a series of recorded interviews with you, and chapter-by-chapter drafting and review. Some authors move faster if they have existing material like speeches, articles, or earlier drafts to work from.
Yes. Working with a ghostwriter is a well-established practice in business publishing, and most of the executive books you have read in the last 30 years involved one. The ideas, frameworks, and experiences in the book belong to the author. The ghostwriter’s job is to help organize that material and put it on the page in your voice. At forbes book publishers.com, you are the named author, you own the manuscript, and you retain full rights to your work.
That depends on how much time you have and what kind of book you want to write. Writing a publishable business book typically takes hundreds of hours of focused work spread over a year or more, which is rarely realistic for an active CEO. A ghostwriter compresses your time commitment to a series of interviews and reviews while still producing a book that reads like you. Some executives genuinely enjoy writing and want the experience of drafting their own manuscript. Most prefer to focus their time on the parts they are best suited for, which is the thinking and the storytelling, and let a professional handle the writing.
Most executives we work with do not have time to sit down and write a book in the traditional sense. The way they get a book done is by working with a ghostwriter who handles the drafting and by structuring the project around video or phone interviews, which fit into a busy calendar more easily than long blocks of solo writing time. The author’s direct involvement is the interviews and the chapter reviews as drafts come in. The rest of the time the book is moving forward in the background on a schedule that fits how you actually work.
The most reliable way to find a ghostwriter for an executive book is to work with a publisher that specializes in business and leadership titles and matches authors with writers based on subject expertise and voice. Look for ghostwriters who have worked on books in your genre, ask to read samples, and ask how they capture an author’s voice. At forbes book publishers.com, we match each author with a ghostwriter based on the topic of the book, the author’s industry, and the style of writing the book calls for. The pairing matters as much as the credentials.
A leadership book and an executive memoir call for different skills, even though the process looks similar from the outside. A leadership book is built around ideas, frameworks, and arguments, so the ghostwriter needs to be strong at organizing concepts and stress-testing the logic of an argument. A memoir is built around story and character, so the ghostwriter needs to be strong at narrative pacing and dialogue. At forbes book publishers.com, we match authors with writers who have done work in the specific format their book requires.
You do. The author retains full ownership of the book and all author rights, and ghostwriters work under contracts that assign their work to you. forbes book publishers.com holds the exclusive rights to publish and distribute the book during the term of the publishing agreement, which is standard for hybrid publishing arrangements. The author credit, the intellectual property, and the underlying work remain yours to build on, license, adapt, or extend into other formats in the future.
The process starts with a Vision Session to clarify what you want the book to do and who it is for. From there we develop a Master Book Plan, then move into a series of video or phone interviews with you, scheduled around your availability. Your ghostwriter uses those sessions to draft the manuscript chapter by chapter, with your review at each stage. The ghostwriting phase typically takes about 6 months from kickoff to sign-off on the line edit. From there the book moves through editing, design, and proofing before publication under the forbes book publishers.com imprint.
Find out if you qualify to be a forbes book publishers.com author.
