It’s the strangest thing to talk about an author client without mentioning their book!

Technically, this was not my first project as a ghostwriter, but my first paying client. My second paying ghostwriting client was Dr. Melissa Mondala.

Although I’ve done lots of ghostwriting on behalf of clients since around 2017, my first book project as a ghostwriter was with one of my best friends in early 2023. He’d wanted to publish a book about his story, but wants to land a book deal, so we don’t know when that will be published. He’s put the project on a backburner for now.

But that was a great experience for the first client willing to pay me for ghostwriting later that year. This was an interesting project because initially, they wanted to publish a novel about their own story. So they wanted the story out there, but didn’t want to be attached to it.

What’s even more fascinating is that my name came to this author and Spirit had told them I would help with a book. They found me on social media and reached out. And no, I don’t always get author clients this way 😂 But I say if Spirit tells you to do something, listen!

Recording the story

My client already had a working outline for the book, which was great. We started our Zoom sessions in late summer 2023. We’d agreed that I would change characters’ real names to different names. I started a list of the character names and added to it as we went on.

Every session’s transcript went up within the week for the client to review, but they didn’t. This client was busy, running multiple companies and a family.

When they finally had a look at what I’d drafted in October 2023, we were about three-quarters through their story.

Undergoing a change in writing style

When they had a look at (what was currently) the first chapter, they wanted to change the style of it and sent me a sample back. I’m almost certain they had edited it with AI. They asked me to rewrite the rest of the book in that style.

This was frustrating because had I known they wanted to change the style of their book from what they sound like (which is my preference) to something else, I could have applied style changes at the same time I was cleaning up our audio sessions. However, they had approved my hourly rate for overages in our agreement, so I agreed to do the rewrites.

Had we finished when our audio sessions did, the project would have cost around US$5K, but it ended up being about double that amount.

After finishing our last few sessions around December 2023, I suggested we go back and insert some dialogue, since there were points where the author mentioned a conversation but there was barely any dialogue in the entire book—very atypical of a novel.

In February 2024, I delivered the “final” manuscript draft for their approval. They also wanted to see a version that wasn’t chronological, so I sent a restructured version over in March.

Further changes after manuscript delivery

The author decided they would own their story after all, and changed the narrative from third to first person. I’m glad they did this because it makes marketing and interviews a lot easier when you can say it’s a memoir and not a novel, and you can say these were your stories and not just something you imagined.

The author made the changes themselves, and then I didn’t hear about the status of the book for a while.

I’d also helped with some other writing projects for them, including the skeleton of a potential TEDx talk. I’d hoped they might hire me to design their book interior and ebook, and kept checking in on the status of the book over the year. I couldn’t offer editing because I believe if you ghostwrite a book, you can’t edit it because you’re too close to the material.

By the time I heard from the author in 2025, the book was in editing mode and also being designed. It does make sense for the person who designs a book cover to also work on the interior.

The book launch

The author finally announced their pre-order period in early 2026. They created a beautiful site to announce the book and offered a couple of other things with the book for US$40. I figured shipping to Canada was going to be really expensive, so I waited until the book was available on Amazon.

When I shared about the book on social media, the author asked me to change it because they didn’t know I would reveal that I helped with the content (even though I knew it had gone through several iterations since we’d worked on it). They also wanted to choose how they acknowledged their book team. So I took my post down.

It was a good lesson for agreements with future ghostwriting clients: do they want me to announce that I worked on the book with them, or not? It should be up to them to reveal who helped them, and to own their story or not. Or I could make a clause in my agreement saying I may market the service(s) I helped with when the book launches. We’ll see next time!

The book went up on Amazon in March, but the author didn’t announce it. I bought my copy so I could read it; I was so curious to learn what had changed since I’d last worked on it.

The title had changed from what it originally was, but I like the new title a lot more.

There actually weren’t a lot of changes from what I wrote, but because of the third to first-person narrative change, the writing hit differently. I seriously wondered if this book was even copyedited because there was so much repetition. I noticed two blatant errors. The author had changed one of the character’s names—but left the original name in one instance, which obviously made little sense in that part.

My guess is they had a tight deadline, and the editor skimmed the book and missed this stuff. I would not recommend that editor!

I had also spoken to the author about having little symbols throughout the book where there were section breaks, since this was a spiritual memoir. The designer did none of that. Again, I believe it probably came down to a deadline, and the book needed to get out there.

This is why I hate publishing deadlines; the final product ends up rushed and not what it could have been.

Since it had been two years since I’d worked on the book, I wish I could have done a copyedit, as there is a lot I would have changed to improve it.

I also saw that some parts got cut, but it’s understandable since the book became a memoir and the author probably didn’t want to include certain stories about real people in their life.

The author is very well known in their community and had a big book launch party in one place they live (their other home is in another state) and they are touring other cities across North America with it.

They’re coming to Vancouver in June, so I’ll get to meet them in person, which is awesome.

Need a ghostwriter, editor, or formatter to help you publish your book so you can get it in the hands of readers? Read more about my services here and contact me if you’re ready to begin!