¶ Ghostwriting
Here we go . This is how we do it .
We just this is how we Okay . Copyrighted can't do copyrighted .
I know it is copyrighted . Hey , everyone , welcome to All About the Joy . We're so glad to have you here , rick , high as always Hello , hello , but I wanna welcome Douglas . How are you ? I'm so glad you're here and on the show .
Well thanks for having me yeah , and I'm doing great Doing great Welcome .
So I wanna welcome our guest and I wanna tell everyone who he is before we start interviewing him . But Douglas Glenn Clark , who I kept calling Glenn , I think forever . We met back in . I don't know if we met , but we talked in 2016, .
Right , and forgive me , because I know it has something to do with the AMR Foundation , where I worked with Arlene Rosen , but what do you remember ? Because I was really trying to figure out how we connected .
You know I'm in the same boat with you . I remember Tashi and being connected and thinking how did that happen ?
I think it was through the foundation . So here's what I remember . For me , it's really important to kind of always have context while I bring people on the show . You were helping us or you were going to help us with our website and our press release .
That's the only thing that I remember and that's how we started talking and at some point we went back and forth on LinkedIn . That's what I remember .
Yeah , and I was writing for businesses primarily back then .
Right . So here's my thing . We're going to talk about you being a ghost writer , but I want to talk about how you started writing to begin with , like did you know as a kid ? Did it happen to you some other time ? Tell me , when did you become inspired to become a writer ?
Well , you know , oddly enough , when I was very young , I had three things I wanted to do , and they were all in the arts performing , making some music . My father was a musician , okay , and I wanted to write a book . Now , no one in my family was an author .
Okay .
I have no idea why so young maybe 12 , I had this distinct choice or made these distinct choices and I proceeded .
But you didn't just proceed . You're not like everyone always says , I'm a writer , but you're a writer of everything . You've done screenplays , you've done , a play on Broadway , you've done books , you've done I'm trying to remember everything that was on your website but you've written in every genre .
You also write music , which I thought was mind-blowingly crazy , but I think that's pretty unique , to have kind of such an overall love of the art that you can fit in every genre .
Well , thank you , I'm having to look back now . You're right , you , all those things , and it's been so odd to start in one place and then , 10 years later , you touched all these different bases .
I think one of the best things that happened to me , though .
I began writing as a playwright and I had some plays done , got some grants and those sorts of steps forward .
But when I became a journalist which I did kind of through the back door I didn't go to Columbia Journalism School but when that started I really felt that that taught me how to write professionally , in the sense that there were gonna be some tough deadlines .
I was sure they have to draw from interviews and research and various points of reference to be able to create something . And I use all of that today because eventually newspapers died yeah .
Or they're still dying . They're still dying . There's some holding on . There are some holding on .
Yeah , and they certainly have made a rebound because I was working for the Los Angeles Daily News . And as a turn of the century . I mean when the internet rose and it all was glory and everything had to be free .
Right .
But since then , yeah , I mean jobs were lost then and I had no future in journalism then as a daily newspaper guy .
Oh , wow , okay .
So that forced me into freelancing , thank you . Led to boss and Led to you and I meeting because I was ready for businesses .
Yeah , so tell me about your business and Okay , but here's the thing I , you know , I had to do some research on the whole ghost writing thing .
So of course I know Rick has questions too , but I think it's , I Think it's I don't want to say weird , but that's the word coming out of my mouth For you to go from being this journalist and being you know I were were you also a reporter , because you said you were interviewing too . So you were a reporter .
How did you end up becoming a ghost writer , which first ? Can we tell people what that means ? Because I didn't realize how extensive of a definition that was .
Yeah , you know , it's why it is still a mystery , I don't know , but it does . Oh , it creates some anxiety sometimes and the people are right for and Other people are fine with it and they just need some help . Right ?
Basically , a ghost writer helps , the author will call the author to be a business person , theater person , whomever Decides they want to tell their story . Yeah , so they , they need help . They don't have the time or the skills . And I got into ghost writing because at one point I realized how do I , if I'm going to freelance , how do I describe what I do ?
I can't , I can't have 20 things that I say I do . Right , and I finally settled on . You know , I have written so many people's story as a news writer . I Can write your book .
So , yeah , I was shocked to find out . I was heartbroken today and , like I want you to walk me through this , I was looking up books that were Written by other people , ghost written , right .
So some of the famous ones we already know , which everyone no one is surprised by this one , I tell you , but the art of the deal by Donald Trump was actually by Tony Schwartz , and Tony Schwartz has then said he's regretted writing that or whatever .
So I want to get into that in a minute , not so much about the Trump part or the Tony Schwartz part , but about , kind of , how do you go through that process with the author ? I am Malala , so Malala , who we all love , right , she's an amazing young woman . Her book was also ghost written by Christina Lam , who's a foreign correspondent , right .
But here's the one that I was heartbroken about , because it's one of my favorite books and actually I love the idea of it was profiles and courage . Yeah , is how did I not know that that was a book that was ghost written ? Ted Sorensen , that's right . Ted Sorensen wrote , yeah , profiles and courage . So how do you deal with that ? Do you does ?
Does anyone know that you are the ghost , that you are the actual writer . Does the author take over the work ? How does it work ?
Yeah , I would say too , could we for like the seven-year-old watching and you just said ghost , right , like , oh , is it ghost stories ? No , sweetheart , like explain yeah what it means ? I think a lot people still don't know what that means .
Well , the ghost means I Need to be invisible mmm . You like , let's start with JFK . Mm-hmm . That book won the Pulitzer Prize and and everyone thought , oh , yeah , wonderful . We have such a literate political leader and he wins the Pulitzer as well as becoming well-known and eventually to the White House . Well , how do you ?
How do you deal with that ?
How does JFK then say oh , by the way . I didn't write it , or the son or Pierre Salinger , whoever they thought at the time , how ?
does he ?
give up the identity of being a writer and it pull a surprise when you write that . That's tricky .
Just kind of explain it in a different way , because I think that's what Rick is getting at a ghost writer in the layman's term .
My , my way of looking at it is if you're a business , or you're somebody who has an idea of a book but you're not a writer , or you don't have the time and you don't really want to sit down and , you know , write all these chapters out , whatever you hire somebody else to write the book , I'm gonna say with you , but it is kind of for you , isn't it ?
I mean , that's where it gets confusing . That's , yeah , kennedy thing .
Well , there are so many different situations . For example , I have a new client and he very successful businessman , but he was a very successful young college athlete . Okay and that's part of what makes the story unique and fun . But we were on the phone the other day and we've just started .
He said by the way , doug , your name is gonna be on the front cover with my name , and I rarely See that . I , you know I I don't fight for it , it's just it becomes so you'd be co-author .
Is that what it is , or ?
yeah , it would probably be title by clients name , and maybe with Douglas Glenn Clark , right , but you see any number of non-fiction books with two names , right ? Then I asked a ghost writer they might have just collaborated on the book , right ? So you taught me off charge of that .
And his point was it's an integrity thing , I don't want to pretend I didn't write that . I'm gonna help , I'm gonna be . You need me to write the book , but I'm not actually technically the right . So there's a scenario .
Okay , but that's an interesting . I mean , is that about integrity ? I mean , okay , let's just bring it back to John F Kennedy . He has a great idea about profiles and cards .
If people don't know the book , basically it's about honoring each Person in politics who I mean I'm really dumbing it down here , but it's essays , right of each individual person who he believes are doing something . That's a profile in courage .
They're doing something so extraordinary and they might lose their election or they're taking a big risk because they're doing what's in the best interest of the country first . So it's a great idea , it's an amazing idea . But he didn't sit down and start writing page for page .
He hired someone like you and said here's my idea , and then what's the process after that ?
Yeah , but he was usually not so easy or simple as saying hey , here's the idea . Go disappear and go write that jfk probably had His own stories , the reason he loved the people he focused on . So there would be a dialogue . Right , let's pretend we know .
Right happened there , but you know , jfk , or the author would be in conversation regularly and say , right , so I have this other idea for a chapter . This is the story I want to tell you .
You know , me and my mom were walking down the street and we came across this car , whatever , and then you would take that information and you would put it in A story form that was written down in a way , because , look at , here's the thing it is rare , in my opinion . Most people do not write the way they speak and tell stories .
The reason why I know this is because I am pathetically exactly that person . I write exactly the way I speak , which gets me in trouble a lot when it comes to grammar and spelling and Using words like suffage , that don't really exist , like making up .
So one of the things that's really interesting is that when you have an editor that works with you right and that's different and editors different , if they don't know you well enough , they're going to change the way in which you write . It's really a hard , difficult one .
So my question for you , douglas , is this how do you get that person's tone , that person's like that's what the mastery is of what you do , because if not , it would just be you , the you writing for somebody else and it's your voice , right .
Well interesting when Sarah Palin remember her yes yes , it became famous . She got a publishing contract and that first bull was obviously a ghost writer . Yeah , you know and in fairness , sarah Palin never claimed to be an author and was in the midst of A campaign .
Right . The whole thing that happened with John McCain . Right , was it John McCain ? Yeah , john McCain . Right , right , right .
And one of the book was reviewed and one reviewer said this doesn't sound anything like so exactly right , and that was a complaint , because Palin actually has a voice , right . Yeah , whether you like it or not , she has a distinct sound exactly and rhythm . Yeah , so I wrote a book for a dentist .
Actually , his son was funding it and forcing his dad to write a story , that's good , yeah , his father was actually not fame , but had become well known for training young athletes , and so , in any case , I wrote the book and the son said to me hey , my mom and I agree that you really captured his voice , maybe a little too well .
I would think that's the . I would think that's the mastery of what you do . You have to be able to catch that person's voice a compliment .
Yeah , I would say that's the ultimate compliment . Yeah , and that's what you hope for . But I also say to the author look , you know the way you sound on the telephone or the zoom meeting .
By all means , I'm listening but , we have to write 50,000 words and there are going to be some times when we just have to be dramatically correct and it's a chapter or a sentence and it may not be exactly the way you talk .
I'm laughing because you know my first manuscript was like 600 pages or something and my friends took it in sections first to go through it and I mean most of it was cut out . You know , I don't want to miss Melanie's question . She asked this what's the difference between a ghost writer and using a pen name ? Great question , melanie .
Great question yeah , excellent a pen name . You remember that , that somewhat famous author JK Rowling ?
Yes , harry Potter .
There you go .
¶ Pen Names and Ghost Writers
Well , she used a pen name when she decided she wanted to write crime novels . And I think Robert Galebreath is the name . Well , initially , when that first Robert was published , they kept it secret and her point was she wanted to break from Harry Potter . And so she's not the first author to start a new series and style using a pen name .
So she still is the woman we know her to be . But for those other detective , those other novels she did .
Yeah , I didn't read them , but yeah , oh , really , I've never read them . I've read all the Harry Potter's , of course , when they came out . So a pen name , melanie , also is used by a lot of actors as well . You know we were talking about , I mean , I guess it's , I mean , I don't know if you'd use the same verbiage , right , pen name .
Well , people change their names all the time . They don't use their real names in order to break away , like we were talking about Martin Sheehan in one of our last episodes , or as Rick likes to call him , martin . What is it ? You call it Martin ?
Sheen .
Right , but his name is . It's very Latin and I forget what it is , but it's this I mean that's his last name . No , no , it's his last name , but his name is .
Oh , yeah , yeah , yeah .
You know what , rick ? Your mic is really hot . I don't know if you knew that , but you wouldn't know that if I had let you talk to like even a little bit . You know , I mean like you would have seen it already .
I was going to say too . Stephen King's son did the same thing because he didn't want if he got popular , he didn't want it to be well , that's because everybody loves my dad , so he used a different name , and that makes total sense .
And so , melanie , that's what a pen name is , and yeah , actors other people may choose a different name , but a ghost writer is not the name on the book . You know , let's pretend JK Rowling decided I've got a hairy powder thing in my head but I don't know how to write it , so she hurries me I write it , and that's a ghost writer . I'm behind the scenes .
I'm invisible .
Nobody knows it's you . They all think it's JK Rowling's who wrote the book . Right , let's be clear . Jk Rowling's did write the Harry Potter , but you know . Just just to talk about that too , her name is actually not J K Rowling's or Rowling's . She had to do that because nobody would would take her book , because no one thought it was a Bible book .
So she went with JK , so people would assume she was a man . Other conversation yeah , I mean , her parents didn't name her JK . She did that on purpose because she got so many rejections , rejections , rejections , and then she was like I'm gonna use a different name , so she used her initials . Yeah , that's how that happened to .
What kind of people hire you or do you work with , and are there people that you choose not to work with ?
Yeah , well , there are a couple I wish I had chosen not to work with . Let's do the first part of the question . You know , non-fiction became so big in these last 20 years . It was always a Large present presence in the publishing world , but I think the advent of Kindle not . I think I know when self publishing became available in a brand new way .
Men and women in business , for example , medicine . What have you realized ? They should have a legitimate book Without feeling it was a vanity press Meaning that they wrote a book , paid somebody a lot of money and they published it .
Oh , okay they could actually do that me legitimately do something creative unique to their background , their expertise , and I started Joe's writing at about that time you know , 2008 . Yeah , and for the reasons I've mentioned so often , I'll be writing for , or someone with a business background .
But I always say to the the author Look , here's my job , I'm gonna help you write the story that only you can write oh . Okay , wait a minute . That sounds weird , right Well meaning , it has to be personal . In other words , if I Let me back up a little bit , you said who you work with and who would you rather not work with okay .
Well , I would rather work with someone who understands I Know you have been through tough times , as well as All the business success you've had . If you're willing to be vulnerable and Tell me the low points as well as the successes , that story is your story and only you can tell that story because you have lived it right .
So we may be writing a , a business book , but my technique is to get the author to tell us their , their story , their whole story , and then we blend that in with whatever they want to share .
But you only work with a . You know what I have to be quiet now , I promise . Well , hey , rick .
Well , questions I had was so you generally have like a contract and say , like you know , if this makes it big , I wrote the thing , so I better get some money out of this thing too .
I know that that's an interesting point now .
¶ Ghostwriting and Book Publishing Contracts
When we were talking about someone like Tony , who wrote Donald Trump sport Right now that level in the publishing industry , he would have been paid a lot of money and he would have had I'm pretty sure , listening to what he said about the book that he had a nice deal of sharing in the royalty of that book and it became a best seller .
Yeah , so that's one thing . Wouldn't we all love to have that ?
No , that's it . I don't think you could pay someone enough money to do that .
To do that now ? Yeah , but back in the day he was happy to have the gig . Yeah , and it turned out , he's a terrific writer .
You say his name like you know him , I'm just spilling tea here . You say , like you know Tony , I'm just yeah , so so don't . So his publishing company paid him probably an upfront money and then turned around and he got Royalties afterwards .
Well to rich question . That would have been worked out in the contract . You know they didn't just say later hey , you did a great job , we're gonna give you all this money . That has to be set in place . But you know , some of my contracts , of course , are not with traditional publishers .
I have a contract with the author , and sometimes with an author and what I'll call partnership publishing right . And so it's really to be frank .
In my situation , it's better to have a fee for the book , not worry about what happens down the road , but create a good book , and Once you've done , you done , and that's the money you made from the work you've done right .
So you get paid a fee upfront . So let's say you and I were gonna work on a book together and I wasn't gonna write it . You're gonna be my ghost writer . I would pay X amount of dollars . I know all your fee structure is up on your website so people can go check that out at your ghostwritercom .
And there are slashes in between each word as it is On the ticker at the bottom . But but then that's it right . I mean , then if my book becomes a best-seller , you don't get anything .
Right there , but well you know yes or no . It's kind of . Let me put it this way let's say we have a stack of money on the table and I can either take all of that money and write the book , or I can take I'm just naming a number 75% of that money to write the book with the hope that later down the road I'll make even more money on a royalty .
Right .
Well , that's speculation .
Right .
Right . So that's the issue , that's the risk Are you willing to speculate . Right , and it just depends .
Well , if somebody's a celebrity or you know somebody's book I mean , if Barack Obama he wrote his own book . But if Barack Obama was like , hey , I'd love you to be the ghostwriter on this book , you'd be a fool to be . You take 75% and know you're going to get royalties on the end . You know what I mean .
Yeah right , Sure you would you would yeah . The president has joked that Michelle hired a ghostwriter .
Yeah , that I knew .
And no embarrassment , you know she .
Yeah , she's me out , though I don't know why .
Well , that's an issue that a lot of people have . It feels dishonest sometimes , I think , if I don't mean to put words in your mouth , but I had a client who had a great concept .
I really liked the concept and so I was hired to write this book Non-Fiction and she was so paranoid about anyone knowing that I wrote her book that when it was published , although we had a contract that said in the acknowledgments my name would be there and in some simple way of saying thank you , douglas , for the publishing and writing consultations , right .
Well , when the book was published it wasn't there . Oh no , and it was too late for me to do anything , and it's not as if it became a bestseller but I was proud of that book and Ghostwriter has to find a way of making an agreement with a client .
Look , I have to be able to tell someone that you hired me , Otherwise who's going to hire me to do their book ?
I know , but that is a legal document too . I mean , not that I think you're wanting to sue people or whatever , but actually what she did showed more about who she was . It was actually more unethical than what she thought having a Ghostwriter would be about . You know what I mean .
Yeah , yeah , yeah , well , yeah , middle kinds Exactly . Oh my God .
See , rick , I'm giving you space , jump in .
Okay .
So other question was so everybody's different , everybody's case is different , obviously , but what would you say , maybe on average percentage of people , that actually give you a really good skeleton , at least , of what they want , versus just a very brief idea and here just write it , if you know what I mean , like as far as guidance , I mean how does it ?
what do we start with ?
Yeah , like if I came to you and I , as if I said , can you write a book about birds ? And I give you almost nothing else , just about that , as opposed to I've got to outline and here's all my points and then here make a book out of that . Like , how often is it one way versus the other way ?
Well , it's really hard to begin if you don't , if the author hasn't put something together and that might mean a very loose biography or one client actually works out . It's just happened to time out this way . It was a book I really wanted to do . I really love the book .
It's called Maintenance man to Millionaire and it's done pretty well and Glenn Gonzalez tells his story of wanting to be in real estate . Glenn is fine with me saying that we work together , but the way it began was an interview much like this that he did for a podcaster in real estate .
And for an hour Glenn sat on camera and went through his whole life story . So that was ideal . I didn't have to ask him to take the time to do that and because he was speaking to the audience that the book would speak to , he hit the major points and it was even then . It was just the beginning .
How long is the process ? Like someone comes to you and says I have an idea for a book and then it's a collaborative effort . I assume you speak on a pretty regular basis , right ? Until you're done with the book , right ? It's not like here's my template , here's my idea about birds .
Let me know , when you're done so from beginning to end , what would be a time frame ? Is it a year it takes to write a book , or is it three months ?
Well , you know , getting back to a risk question , it does depend . How much do you have , I think , of those books in the six month time frame ?
Okay .
You know that's a thousand words , but some , even some shorter books might still take six months , because I have to drag it out , I have to be an attorney in a courtroom Right ? I have to drive fast , and so forth .
I find that fascinating you need to pull stuff out from people so that you have something to work with yeah .
But six months is not a long time to write a book , in case people don't realize it takes a long time to write a book , Even a bad book . It takes a long time to write a book . So six months is nothing .
It's more me saying you know , I can only book so many projects per year .
Right how efficient .
Can I be ?
Let's talk about this website . Authorlaunchgumroadcom . Yeah , it's down on the ticker here . I replaced your other one , which is yourghostwritercom , which people should go and check out . There are links there , and Rick just put it up in the chat as well . Do you want to talk a little bit about this website ?
Yeah , this is very simple courses and some guidance . You know , I even put in the headline on the authorlaunchgumroadcom site hey writer , how about another course ? No , you don't need another writing course . You just need to know .
So there are a few courses that you can download for free there and they're very simple , but they're put together to help people who are trying to get going and they can't get started as a writer . They want to be a writer .
Oh .
Or they're stuck and they need a few ideas to get out of that rut , and so go there visit , it won't hurt you . There are three courses which you'll see have a zero right next to them that you can download . And then what I'm also saying is hey , contact me .
I'd love to have 15 minute conversations with people who are trying to figure out where they belong in their writing , and sometimes they do it themselves . It's not a business call , it's try to help them get started .
Is it is the call a free consultation , would you ? Are you doing a free consultation to 15 minute ? Yeah ?
Is that ?
what you're doing I don't like . I just want to make sure I read the email right and Rick has a saying that I love that . He says all the time what is it , Rick ?
If it's free , is for me .
If it's free , it's for me , yeah , yeah . So it's courses , but also people . Anybody who's interested in writing a book and doesn't know where to start , doesn't know what to do .
Go and visit Douglas's website , your ghostwritercom , or the one that's in the ticker right now at the bottom , author launchgumroadcom and reach out to him and he at least will give you some nice time and energy and tell you what your next steps might be . Is that fair enough ?
That's fair enough .
Yes , I think that's fair enough . Yeah , that'd be great . I might take you up on that . I don't know . I don't know , I don't know .
Yeah yeah , what a pleasure to be here and really enjoy speaking with you both . I hope we offer something useful to your audience .
No , absolutely so , everyone . Thank you for stopping by again and we'll be back next week . Thank you everyone , bye .
Bye , good night .
Thanks for stopping by . All about the joy Be better and stay beautiful . Folks have a sweet day .