I don’t know about you, but one of my pet peeves when shopping around for services is lack of transparency around pricing. I don’t want to go through the trouble of sending an inquiry, filling out a questionnaire, or “hopping on a call” to get a sense of how much something is going to cost. I understand there are valid reasons professionals may not want to (or be able to) specify a number outright, but at least name a ballpark figure.

 

In running my own business, I make sure to state up front how much ghostwriting (or editing, or coaching, or the other services I offer) is going to run. I think it saves both of us time and it makes it easier for you, the prospective client, as you’re shopping around. (The answer: around $30,000 for a standard 40,000-word book, and less for shorter books.) That’s about the industry average, maybe a little above the average, for an experienced, quality ghostwriter, though in truth, the industry average is hard to pin down, since there’s really not one “industry” but a patchwork of niches and companies offering ghostwriting services.

 

As with most professions, what ghostwriters charge ranges widely. There are a few at the upper echelon of the field who charge a small fortune (six figures and beyond) and work exclusively with persons of prominence (movie stars, pro athletes, top-dog politicians). Ghostwriters who occupy this niche are likely to receive a generous up-front fee in addition to a portion of royalties they can expect to garner from the blockbuster sales figures of their celebrity client’s future bestseller.

 

The next tier is composed of highly qualified writers whose services cost less but are still genuine craftspeople, folks with unparalleled knowledge not only of how to string words together beautifully but who knows the ins and outs of structuring a book, as well as the attendant tasks (outlining, interviewing, editing) that constitute the ghostwriting process. This crop of scribes tend to have been born with an innate talent for the written word and have refined that skill over several decades of professional writing, and have worked in publishing or published books under their own name. They tend to charge between $20,000 and $50,000 for a book (still a broad range). Not cheap, but they are very good at what they do.

 

The lowest end of the pricing spectrum of ghostwriting is populated by teeming masses of dubious writers who work for the cut-rate price of $5,000-$10,000 or even less. This is abysmally low compensation for a full-length book and ghostwriters who charge so little should be viewed with skepticism. Now, you can occasionally get lucky and find that gifted, needle-in-the-haystack writer who is just starting out in her career, and who will one day be one of the top-dollar earners but is undercharging to earn her entrée into the industry, or the writer who is adroit but lacks the business sense to charge an appropriate market rate and is simply underselling himself. But that’s a rarity. Caveat emptor! (Fortunately, it’s usually fairly easy to spot the charlatans, whose poor command of the English language and overt lack of professionalism are as glaring as an inkblot spilled on a white piece of paper.)

 

In summary, if you’re looking for a quality ghostwriter to pen your book for you, $20,000 is the starting point and it’s reasonable to pay into the mid-six figures. That is, admittedly, an expensive proposition for most folks. For authors of business books, it’s an investment that can be expected to earn a return (in dollars as well as in prestige). Authors of memoirs and other genres may or may not earn their money back in sales, but a memoir is a legacy, a literary heirloom, and for many people a bucket list item, something they always wanted to do and never would accomplish without the aid of a ghostwriter. 

 

Regardless of the type of book, publishing is, for most, a once-in-a-lifetime expense that, in my opinion, justifies the cost. Choose an accomplished writer whose product will be worth every penny and who will be dedicated to producing a work of quality for which you’ll be proud.