By- Michael McKown
Founder & President, Ghostwriters Central, Inc.

Why would you need to find and hire a ghostwriter? Usually, there are two reasons:

1. You know you’re not a writer, or
2. You don’t have the time to write.

Where do you find one? You already have, right here. Just scroll down to our gallery of highly-skilled writers. They’re featured on every page of this website. They are under contract to this company. They’re the survivors. They’re the ones who got through my screening process.

But let’s suppose you’d prefer to hire a ghostwriter from elsewhere. I can’t imagine why you’d want to, but I can certainly provide advice.

Freelancer websites

How about those freelancer websites you find everywhere? If you are located in the United States and don’t want to pay our rates, you can find a really cheap freelance writer. The cheapest writers are probably outside the USA and they will not have the language skill required to create a well-written, polished manuscript or screenplay. That is why our writers are in-country.

The other major problem with those outfits is ease and speed of communication. Generally speaking, those websites want all comms to be in writing and go through their in-house message system. Trust me, that is no way to deal with a writer on any complex project. With us, you’ll have direct access to the writer, and vice-versa.

Investigation

There an old guy in Hawaii who wants to write a book about his life of crime and hired a ghostwriter, who took the money and ran. Over the years, he’s called me five times, but when he remembers that Ghostwriters Central is located on the mainland, he refuses to do business with us. He refuses to deal with anyone who’s not in Hawaii. But he can’t find anyone in Hawaii.

Periodically, I get outraged calls from clients of other ghostwriting services who accuse us of having taken their money and not delivered the work. It’s just confusion, they think we’re the ones they’d been dealing with. However, I try to help them get in touch with the people they hired.

In one case, I did online investigation while I had the client on the phone, and I traced the scamming ghostwriting company to Iceland, of all places. Why do I do this? Because we’re not like the bad guys.

An easy way to do research is to do a query for the domain (example.com) at whois.com to find out when the domain name was registered. Someone may claim to have been in business for a long time but if the domain was registered last year, that’s a red flag. Another thing to do is an internet search for the business name. If they’ve been stealing, victims will tell the world about it.

Who to hire

Hire someone good. When I’m considering signing a writer to a contract to do client work, I want to see a well-composed inquiry. I want to see samples of what they’ve done. I want to see mastery of the language. Dialogue must be naturalistic. Grammar problems, such as typographical errors, are red flags. I want to know about their experience. I want to get a sense about their client service attitude. A writer who creates problems for clients is going to get his or her contract canceled.

My job is to make sure I find the best ghostwriters I can. They know they must deliver client work in excellent form, on time and on budget. If you’re a client of Ghostwriters Central, you’ve got me in overall charge. But if you’re on your own, the risk goes up.

What to spend

Hiring a professional of any sort is expensive, but the advantage is that the pro writer will deliver the project without need of further revision. The fee is for convenience. What is inconvenient (and wasteful) is having to hire someone to fix the first writer’s problem-plagued work.

Pricing is all over the map. Famous writers will charge famous rates. Cheap writers will deliver work of questionable quality, and if you’re really lucky, you’ll get that project of questionable quality delivered on time. You can find our published pricing on the Rates page. The link is on the menu, above.

Some writers want royalties (a percentage of sales). We don’t do that.

Credit

The word “ghostwriter” means they write the work in your voice then they disappear without receiving credit. By contract with us, the client gets sole credit. However, you do have the option of giving credit to the writer, but doing so will not affect the amount we bill you.

Some other writers will demand co-author credit. Typically, when a celebrity publishes a book, you will see the writer’s name alongside the celebrity’s on the front cover.

A.I writing

Be careful here. Artificial intelligence chatbots are not skilled writers. They may be able to write a convincing legal dissertation, but the writing is usually bland and unimaginative. If your project is an autobiography or a how-to book or a novel or a TV pilot or a screenplay, stay away from A.I.

If you’re going to pay for a professional writer to write, that’s what you should get, not some guy who will take the easy way out by using A.I. then telling you that he wrote it. You can use an A.I. chatbot too, and probably for free. This is a paragraph from our current writer contract:

 

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28. The Writer shall produce wholly original Client work. The Writer shall not plagiarize any work. Further, the Writer assumes full legal responsibility in the event of plagiarism. The Writer shall not include AI-generated content in any Client work (“AI” refers to Artificial Intelligence. AI example: ChatGPT.) Plagiarism or use of AI is cause for immediate termination of the 1099 contract.

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Bottom line

We can help you. We’ve been in business since 2002. We’ve got an excellent reputation; do the research and find out for yourself. We’re not the cheapest writers you’ll find but we’re among the best. And you can easily find writers more expensive. We’re well known for superb client service.

Call, write or text. Let’s discuss your project; there is no obligation. You’ve already found world-class ghostwriters. We’d love to be the ghostwriting firm that you hire with confidence.