Publishing advice from someone who’s been in this business for more than 30 years. I will write as often as I can, so please keep checking back.
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Don’t Hire a non-Christian to ghostwrite, edit, or publish your Christian book. They won’t understand your message and denounce it as “foolish.” 1 Corinthians 2:14 (NKJV) says, “But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.” Some will even try to get you to take Jesus out of your book.
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Please let me worry about the schedule. If I can’t take your job for any reason, I will let you know. Otherwise, please feel free to assume that I’m available to work on your book and visit my contact page to let me know how I can help.
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Please know that your book project is important to me, as are all the others I accept. Just know that since I ghostwrite, edit, and publish Christian books full-time, I will almost always be working with more than one client at a time, as most full-time businesses do. It’s very difficult, if not impossible, to make a livable income from one project at a time. So, I ask you to keep in mind that all of my clients and their projects are important — including yours. 🙂 I’m looking forward to receiving your next Christian book project. 🙂
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If you are looking for editing, formatting, or publishing, please finish your manuscript before calling or emailing me for a quote. I can give you a price only on what you have finished, so if you want a price on the entire manuscript, be sure to finish it first. Then, please visit my contact page and let me know how we can work together. 🙂
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You, as the author, are the only one who can decide if your book is “worth publishing.” Ask God what He wants you to do, and if you believe He’s leading you to get your book done, please visit my contact page and let me know how I can help.
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If someone hires me to do a developmental edit on their book, that automatically includes copy editing and proofreading. But some people hire a different editor for each stage of the editing process. If this is you, remember that heavy editing is always done before light editing. Hiring someone to proofread a book when it still needs developmental editing makes no sense and wastes money.
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Please note that all ghostwriting work is confidential unless the author chooses to identify me as the ghostwriter of their book. As such, I do not send out ghostwriting samples. Besides, any samples, whether ghostwriting or editing, won’t have your voice; they’ll sound like someone else.
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Be sure all writing and editing work is completed before hiring me to format your book for publishing. Adding to or doing heavy editing work to your book after it’s been formatted will cause your formatted pages to reflow.
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Proofreading (checking for errors only) is always done last, either before you send your book to be formatted, to be published, or both. I suggest both.
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Most ghostwriting jobs start with completing the first 8,000 words of the book as stated on my process page, so be sure you have enough to fill at least 8,000 words before you commit to a ghostwriting project. You’d be amazed at the number of people who run out of things to say…lol. 🙂
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Please keep in mind that ghostwriting is usually a lengthier process than editing a manuscript that someone’s already written. Ghostwriting is doing all the work the author would be doing if the author were doing it. 🙂 So, it’s not instant. It takes time, interaction between the author and me, questions, etc. so patience is not just a virtue; it’s a necessity.
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While I can predict turnaround times for editing and publishing projects, I usually cannot do the same for ghostwriting. Ghostwriting is starting a book from scratch, so unlike editing and publishing projects, there’s no final word count from which to predict a turnaround time. Each job is different. Each client is different regarding their availability to answer questions and review what I send them. These are just a few of the variables that cause completion times for ghostwriting projects to be inordinately difficult to predict. Again, patience is a necessity in ghostwriting.
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Please keep in mind that I do not travel for work, as I have commitments where I am, just as most of you do. I also don’t have a laptop, and that’s not in the budget as of this writing. Everything I do can be done from my office. That includes interviews for ghostwriting projects. I have a wonderful phone app that allows me to record interviews and then transcribe them on my computer so I can work with them.
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For those of you who do everything in Google docs, invest in MS Word. Everyone in the industry uses it. It costs $6.99 a month, and your subscription includes other useful software in the MS Suite, plus a TB of storage in One Drive. You can subscribe by clicking here.
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If you’re working with .pages, please save your book in a Word format before sending me the file. It should be just a “File, Save As” command.
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In my opinion, NDAs (Non-Disclosure Agreements) are useless between two individuals working together on a book. I used to sign NDAs all the time for high-profile companies that I worked with because they didn’t want to lose millions of dollars if their competitors acquired their trade secrets. But with two individuals working together in publishing (such as an editor working with an author, or an author working with a ghostwriter), an NDA turns into nothing more than “I promise not to tell anyone about your book.”
I’ll sign any NDA anyone wants me to sign, though my advice for folks who are really worried about someone stealing their book is 1) to register the copyright at copyright.gov, 2) to ask God to help them overcome that fear before they hire me or anyone else to work on their books, and 3) if they still don’t feel safe, they should work with someone they know.
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Working with me or anyone else in this industry requires mature, two-way communication. Ghostwriting, in particular, is a regular back-and-forth exchange of information between author and writer until the book is completed. Even with editing, an author has to be able to give feedback and communicate any changes necessary after the editor sends the book back. Nothing in this industry is instant and takes a lot of work, time, and communication.
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People no longer have to change their phone numbers when they move from one state to another. It’s not like the “old days” when everyone had landlines. We now have to change our phone numbers only if we want to. So, don’t think you can tell where someone is by looking at a phone number on a website. If it’s a big deal that the person you work with lives in the same state as you, ask where they are. I get calls all the time from people who have had the same cell number for 20 years and have lived in multiple places.
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Stop looking for “signs” to tell you who you should work with. It turns your search for a ghostwriter, editor, or publisher into a game that forces the people you’re interviewing to say the exact words you have in your head so that you’ll work with them. When I look for a plumber, I’m not looking for the words I have in mind that he should say as a sign that I’m supposed to work with him. I’m looking for someone who can do the job required. God will lead me to the right person without having specific words in my head.
As you mature in your walk with the Lord, which includes above all things, staying in His Word and prayer, the Spirit, who lives inside you, will speak to you more and more. He’ll bring scriptures to mind, lead you, give you peace, warn you of dangers, etc. You’ll just need to rely on what He’s taught you and continues to teach you.