Everyone has an opinion about AI and fiction these days. Most of those opinions are wrong, or at least incomplete.

The arguments I hear most are about craft. AI doesn’t understand emotion. AI produces generic prose. AI can’t develop character. All of that is true, but those are problems of quality, and quality problems have workarounds. Give the AI better prompts. Edit more aggressively. Use it for scaffolding and rewrite everything in your own voice. People figure out workarounds.

The real reason not to use AI to write your novel has nothing to do with whether the prose is good enough.

The real reason is that the novel you’re trying to write doesn’t exist yet in any place except your head, and the only way to find out what it actually is, you have to write it.

Writing it down makes it sound obvious. It isn’t.

The Unplanned is the Gold

When I sit down and grind through a scene, I discover things. Not things I planned. Things that come out of the friction between what I intended to write and what the story turns out to want. A character says something that surprises me. A relationship that seemed minor in my outline becomes the emotional spine of the book. A plot point I thought was essential turns out to be dead weight. I find all of this by writing badly through the hard parts and then looking at what I made.

AI doesn’t go through that friction. It generates the average of what plausibly comes next. It does not have the equivalent of a 3 AM session where you’re 40,000 words into a draft that isn’t working and you suddenly understand what the book is actually about. That moment is not a side effect of the writing process. It is the writing process.

When you hand the novel to an AI, you don’t skip the hard part. You skip the part where you learn what the hard part is trying to teach you.

Now, I can hear the counter-argument already, because writers who use AI make it constantly. They finish a novel in days instead of months. Their audience doesn’t care. They’re getting sales. And look, they’re not entirely wrong about the sales part, at least in the short run. There is a market for fast, cheap, readable fiction and AI can serve it. If that’s your goal, fine. The market will sort it out eventually, and it is sorting it out. Readers who felt burned by AI-generated books are already talking about it, already warning each other, already leaving one-star reviews that say the same things: it felt hollow, it felt like every other book, I couldn’t finish it. Readership built on volume and speed erodes. The writers who built it know this on some level, which is why they don’t talk much about their long-term plans.

But that’s a business argument, and I’m not really interested in the business argument. I’m interested in what gets lost.

AI Doesn’t Have a Life

A novel is a record of a specific human mind working through specific material at a specific time in its life. Readers don’t consciously notice this. They don’t read my books and think, this guy was clearly working through something in 2019. But they feel it, and books they can feel stay with them. Books they can’t feel read fine and disappear.

AI has no life to work through. It has training data. The output is polished in the same way that a hotel lobby is polished: designed to bother no one, to belong nowhere in particular, usable by any guest who checks in that day.

My novels bother some people. They belong somewhere specific and sound like I made them on purpose.

Most of the conversation about AI-generated fiction focuses on the sentence level: purple prose, generic descriptions, dialogue that sounds like no human being who has ever existed. That stuff is a real problem, but it’s also the easiest one to fix with enough editing time. And yes, I’ve done it myself. I know what AI writing looks like at the sentence level and I know how to clean it up. It works, to a point. You have to become genuinely expert at recognizing the patterns, and the patterns shift with every new model, and you will still miss things. The cleanup gets you closer. It doesn’t get you there.

The harder problem is structural.

The Biggest Tell – AI has a Recognizable Spine

AI builds novels with a recognizable spine. Not recognizable to casual readers, necessarily, but recognizable to editors, agents, and anyone who reads widely enough to have internalized what stories actually feel like from the inside. The chapters are laid out in a pattern. The transitions land in predictable places. The pacing beats hit at intervals that feel correct on a story-structure checklist and feel wrong on the page. Tension rises and releases in the same rhythm across every act. Subplots get introduced and resolved with the tidiness of a math problem.

Real novels are messier. A subplot that goes nowhere for 80 pages before it explodes. A chapter that should be transition material but turns into the emotional center of the book because the writer followed something unexpected. Two scenes that sit in the wrong order by every conventional standard and work better because of it.

AI doesn’t have accidents. It has the average of what structure is supposed to look like, applied consistently, which means the bones are always technically correct and the book never quite breathes.

A reader picking up an AI-written novel will often feel something is off before they can name it. This is called the Uncanny Valley, a term from robotics. The story moves, the scenes function, nothing is technically broken, but the book has no weight. It sits in the hand like something made of the right materials assembled by someone who has never held a thing that mattered. The AI spine holds the book up and keeps it from feeling alive at the same time.

You can fix prose-level AI problems with enough editing. A spine is closer to rebuilding the book from scratch.

Genre fiction is where the safety problem gets exposed fastest.

AI is a Coward

AI will not stay in the uncomfortable place. Push it toward anything genuinely ugly and it retreats. Violence softens. Sex goes vague. Cruelty gets explained so the reader understands it rather than feels it. The narration always finds a way to step back from the edge.

A horror novel that pulls its punches isn’t a horror novel. It’s a suspense novel with pretensions. You are taking the reader somewhere they did not want to go, and the only way to do that is to go there yourself first and stay long enough to know what it looks like.

I recently finished writing a horror novel with a scene where a spirit watches its own body decay. Not a tasteful fade to black, not “signs of decomposition.” The full progression, catalogued in detail, observed by the consciousness that used to live there. The horror isn’t the decay itself. The horror is the relationship between the observer and what’s being observed, the specific wrongness of watching yourself become something you no longer recognize.

Ask AI to write that scene and you get one careful paragraph before the plot moves forward. AI has no instinct for how long to keep the reader in the room. I do, because I’ve written enough to know when a reader wants out and how long to ignore that. AI retreats from discomfort, and in horror, discomfort is the entire product.

Horror isn’t a special case. Every genre has a place where the writing has to go somewhere hard or it fails at the one thing it was supposed to do. Literary fiction cuts somewhere unexpected and doesn’t apologize. Crime fiction needs genuine menace. War fiction needs to smell like what it is. AI flinches every time.

I want to make this specific.

Let’s Talk Specifics

I just finished a book called Buttercup. It’s narrated by a cat, who tells the story of ten years in an apartment in Los Angeles with a man and a woman named Claudia, who had severe asthma and died on January 31, 2005. Buttercup died two weeks later. The vet said she died of grief.

Writing that book taught me something I couldn’t have learned any other way. POV from an animal sounds like a gimmick until you’re inside it, and then it becomes one of the hardest technical problems in fiction. You can only show what the animal knows and perceives. Buttercup has better senses than a human, so she can hear an ant moving across the carpet from the other side of the room, track a person’s heartbeat through a closed door, smell the difference between ordinary fear and the specific fear that means something is about to go seriously wrong. Every scene had to be rebuilt around what a cat would register. I didn’t know that going in. I found it by writing badly through the first chapters and then understanding what I’d gotten wrong and fixing it. No prompt produces that discovery. You find it by doing the work wrong first.

Here is what AI would have produced with that material.

The narrator thinks like a cat for a chapter and then drifts. Buttercup understands the world through smell, sound, vibration, and body temperature in the first few scenes, and then somewhere around chapter four she starts having feelings described in language that belongs to the author, not the character, because that’s what the training data normalized and because the model doesn’t hold a constraint across four hundred pages the way a writer holds it in their head for months. The POV in Buttercup holds without cheating once. That came from grinding through it, not from prompting.

Claudia is described directly. “She was 320 pounds by the end, and she left wet footprints when she walked, and her skin was always damp and warm.” AI would not have written that sentence. It would have described her kindness and her laugh and softened everything else into abstraction. The wet footprints are on the page because a human being observed them and understood they were true and put them there anyway. An algorithm trained to avoid discomfort would have cut them before they reached the page.

Claudia dies off the page. She gets on the flat surface. He follows. The door closes. The cat waits by the couch. He comes home numb. AI would have written the hospital, the machines, the moment, the goodbye, because the death scene is what its training data told it a death scene looks like. Buttercup understood that the cat wasn’t there and the cat’s not knowing is the whole point. AI would have cheated its way to the emotional payoff and lost everything in the process.

The chapter lengths are structurally wrong in the right way. One chapter is three pages. Another runs for miles. Another is almost comedy. The last room is measured syllable by syllable. AI normalizes chapter length because consistency is what it optimizes for. Buttercup has the shape of actual time, where some things take an afternoon and some things take years. You cannot prompt your way to that shape. It comes from living inside a story long enough to know how long each part of it lasted.

There’s a cat in the book named Midnight who has asthma. Claudia has asthma. That parallel is so specific and so quiet that I want to stop on it. I noticed I had a cat with the same condition as the woman she loved, and built an entire chapter around what that recognition does to the people involved, then paid it off with Claudia pressing her face to the top of Midnight’s head after the inhaler. AI would not have seen that connection. It generates scene by scene, and the observations don’t accumulate meaning across a manuscript the way they do when a human being has been sitting with the material for months.

The grief in the book is entirely behavioral. He removes the medical equipment from the shelves. He goes up into the hills with the dog. He sits on a bench in a botanical garden. He fed the cat until the cat looked at him like it was going to keep looking until he ate. AI would have described grief. Buttercup shows a man who cannot stop moving because stopping means the thing that is waiting for him to stop. The behavior does the work a lesser book would hand to a paragraph of interiority.

At the end, a cat named Zeya the Second was diagnosed with bone cancer and given two months to live. That was three years ago. She’s fine. The book offers no explanation, because there isn’t one. AI cannot write that ending. It will find the meaning. It will hand you the lesson. It cannot sit with the fact that sometimes a cat survives something she shouldn’t and there is no reason and you’re glad anyway.

The Author’s Voice

This is what voice means in practice. Not style, not sentence length, not word choice. The accumulation of specific observation over time by a specific person who was paying attention. The book says it in the last line of the author’s note: he was paying attention. So was she.

AI produces the average of what attention looks like. Paying attention is something else entirely, and no amount of prompting closes the gap between them.

There’s also the practical side that people don’t say out loud. If you use AI to write your novel, you will not get better at writing novels. You will get better at prompting AI, which is a different skill with different applications and nothing in common with what you wanted to learn. Five years of AI-assisted fiction production will not make you a better novelist. Five years of grinding through bad drafts and figuring out what went wrong will.

AI has a place in the fiction writing process. Research, plot brainstorming, structural questions about an outline: those are uses that don’t replace the actual writing. Pick them up, put them down, keep the work.

Think of writing a novel like taking a road trip. You can take shortcuts the whole way. You’ll get to your destination faster. But you’ll miss the views that weren’t on the planned route, the roadside find you never would have looked for, the detour that turned into the best part of the trip. You get to the end, but the trip was bland and it looked like everyone else’s trip, because everyone else took the same shortcuts and ended up at the same places seeing the same things.

The primary problem with AI writing isn’t that it’s bad or that it’s detectable. It’s that it’s like everyone else’s. It goes where the training data points, which is everywhere the average novel goes, which means it goes nowhere new.

There’s one more thing. AI will make your novel perfect. Every scene ends properly. Every arc gets closed. Everything tied up nice and tidy with a big bow. Humans don’t write like that. Real novels leave things hanging, unresolved, messier than when they started, because that’s how life works and readers know it. The perfection is its own tell.

If that’s what you want, more power to you. The sales might even be real for a while.

But if you want to write something that could only have come from you, something a reader feels instead of just follows, something with a view nobody else found because you took the long way and got lost twice before you figured out where you were going, then you already know what I’m going to say.

Write the damn book yourself.

Richard Lowe is a professional ghostwriter with 54+ completed engagements and the author of more than 113 published books. He writes at thewritingking.com.

The post The Real Reason Not to Use AI to Write Your Novel appeared first on Association of Ghostwriters.

I have a confession to make.

After ghostwriting hundreds of books and articles for CEOs, I can tell you I once was tempted to kowtow and let them tell their story the same drab way: with too many facts, too many insights, and no overarching story. But that became, as the cliché goes, “the hill I was willing to die on.”

Because here’s the truth—readers are not moved by facts and figures. Take a cue from Hollywood, the “emotion” picture capital of the world. People are moved by stories that touch the emotional part of their brains.

In my work as a ghostwriter and as a freelance contributor to Forbes and the California Business Journal, I’ve seen firsthand that trying to persuade with logic alone falls flat.

If you’re a ghostwriter tasked with turning a CEO’s expertise into a compelling book or article, let me offer some hard-earned advice: stop writing words that only make people think. 

Recently, an editor at Forbes told me that writers who can tell compelling stories need not worry about being replaced by AI.

To be a better storyteller, let one of the eight great stories be your guide (this was inspired by the classic book by British journalist Christopher Booker, The Seven Plots).

Human beings are hardwired for narrative. Across cultures and centuries, we return again and again to the same core story types. In my book Persuade With a Story!, I call them the eight great meta-stories: the monster, the underdog, the comedy solution, the tragic solution, the mystery, the quest, the escape, and the rebirth.

Every successful CEO book you admire fits one of these patterns—whether the author realizes it or not.

Your job as a ghostwriter is to figure out which one.

When you choose the right story structure, everything else gets easier. The message becomes clearer. The examples become sharper. And most importantly, the reader becomes engaged.

You also need to tell smaller stories within the overarching story. When it comes to these smaller stories, I confess that formulas are my writing friends. Here is my six-step formula for telling a tale:

One.    Start with a main character. Every story starts with the name of a character who wants something. This is your client. Make your main characters likable so the listeners will root for them. To make them likable, describe some of their good qualities or attributes.

Two.   Have a nemesis character. Stories need conflict to be interesting. What person, institution, or condition stands in the character’s way? The villain in the story might be a challenge in the business environment, such as the pandemic, tariffs, or new IRS regulations (the government is always a classic nemesis character).

Three.  Bring in a mentor character. Heroes need help on their journey. They need to work with a wise person, such as your CEO. This is where you come in. Be the voice of wisdom and experience. The hero does not succeed alone, they succeed because of the help you provided.

Four.   Know what story you are telling. Human brains are programmed to relate to one of eight great meta stories. If the story is about overcoming a huge problem, that is a monster problem story. If the company was like a David that overcame an industry Goliath, that is an underdog story.

Five.  Have the hero succeed.  Typically, the main character needs to succeed, with one exception: tragedy. The tragic story is told as a cautionary tale. Great for teaching lessons, but not great for attracting clients.

Six.  Give the listeners the moral of the story. Take a cue from Aesop, the man who gave us fables like The Tortoise and the Hare (the moral: slow and steady wins the race). Another confession: I used to forget to include the moral. Don’t count on the reader to figure out the right moral to the story on their own.

Also, keep your stories, as one of my crusty magazine editors once said, “Light, tight, and bright.” Provide just enough detail to spark imagination, not overwhelm it. I like the adage:“Be brief, be brilliant, and be gone.”

Or to quote a Hollywood Classic, Ocean’s Eleven, “Don’t use seven words when four will do.”

So here is my closing confession: the best ghostwriters aren’t really writers at all. They are storytellers, which a Disney executive once told me is “a long and noble profession.”

A business leader, heading out the door for a speech, once asked me for advice.  “Oh, it’s simple,” I said. “Just tell stories that make them think, laugh, and cry.”

Henry DeVries is the author, ghostwriter, or editor of more than 200 business books, including his international bestseller, How to Close a Deal Like Warren Buffett—now in China! He is the chief book architect and ghostwriter at Indie Books International in Oceanside, California.

The post Confessions of a CEO Ghostwriter appeared first on Association of Ghostwriters.

Table of contents:

• AI is Actually Driving Up Demand for Ghostwriters
• The Sudden Rise of the Luxury Book
• Ghostwriters Need to Increase Their Own Visibility
• A Legal and Ethical Reckoning is Coming
• The Publishing Landscape is Changing
• Industry Consolidation is Creating Both Risk and Opportunity
• The Bottom Line

Spend any time around ghostwriters, and you’ll probably pick up on the anxiety many are feeling right now. We’re being told that artificial intelligence (AI) is coming for our jobs. AI tools can “write” a book in a matter of hours. And that author-clients are opting to write their book themselves. Is the profession in trouble?

No. Not by a long shot.

To get a sense of what’s actually going on in the ghostwriting industry as we wrap up the first quarter of 2026, I turned to the people who know: ghostwriting agency owners, publishing veterans, and acquisitions executives. These are the people who are on the front lines with us, who are watching these trends play out first-hand with clients and manuscript drafts. Their assessment was not nearly as dire as others have predicted. In fact, there is a lot of optimism.

Yes, there are changes underway in the ghostwriting and publishing landscape that surfaced a few years ago, primarily due to the rise of AI. However, what these industry leaders are seeing isn’t a decline in the need for human ghostwriters, but an upturn.

What all of these pros confirmed was that the services a ghostwriter provides — the real value they bring to the process — is the ability to build trust with clients, ask insightful questions, probe the responses to get to the most interesting aspects of their stories and insights, and then organize all of that rich material into a compelling book. This isn’t something AI can do. The more we see and read about AI-generated content, it’s clear that what makes us human makes our writing so much more interesting to read.

Here’s what the industry insiders shared about what we’re seeing and can expect this year.

AI is Actually Driving Up Demand for Ghostwriters

So far, artificial intelligence (AI) has been the dominant topic across both the publishing and ghostwriting industries. However, AI isn’t necessarily having a negative impact on demand.

Dan Gerstein, CEO of Gotham Ghostwriters, observed “anecdotally what we’re seeing is that instead of depressing demand for our services, AI is actually making what we do more valuable. Indeed, over the last year we are encountering whole new sub-class of prospective clients we refer to as AI refugees — non-writer authors who tried to use ChatGPT to write their book and found the results at a minimum unsatisfactory and often unusable.” 

He continues, “I suspect this trend-line will not only hold but grow in the next few years. That’s because A) the exponential growth of AI slop will create powerful market pressure on authors to tell original, differentiating stories; and B) as our AI refugee clients have discovered, the bots can’t come close to approximating or replacing the role an accomplished human collaborator plays in developing distinctive, high-quality books. A technology that relies on human prompts can’t come up with concepts and book hooks that are original to the author’s unique ideas and life experience. It can’t extract insights and stories that can’t be found in any LLM because they exist only in the author’s head. And perhaps most notably, it can’t win the author’s trust, break down their walls, and get them to be vulnerable and go deep in a way that they would never do on their own.”

Gerstein also made an important point that not all authors who use AI are prospects for ghostwriters: “There’s no doubt some authors who might have considered hiring a ghost have opted to stick with AI as their writing partner and more will continue to do so. But in most cases, I would contend that these are clients that would never have hired a true pro ghost pre-AI or that pro ghosts would not really want regardless, because they either don’t really need our services — ChatGPT is serving as a coach/tool more than a true writing partner for them — or they don’t value what we do enough to pay for it.”

Joseph Quaderer, CEO and Editor-in-Chief of Quaderer Media Group, says, “I don’t foresee Fortune 100 CEOs sitting down with a large language model to write their books. AI will assist with research, workflow, etc. — but readers still want the human element. Chess computers have been able to beat the best humans for years, yet nobody lines up to watch two machines play each other — and writing isn’t all that different. Readers want to engage with a human mind, not just perfectly generated language.

Quaderer then addresses the difference between AI-generated and ghostwritten material, explaining, “AI can generate sentences, but it still can’t access what’s inside someone’s head. That’s where ghostwriters come in — extracting stories, ideas, and perspective, then shaping them into something cohesive. In many ways, ghostwriting may be one of the safer creative disciplines in the AI era. Language models can remix what already exists, but they can’t train on ideas that haven’t been expressed yet.”

Kevin Anderson, CEO and Editor-in-Chief of Kevin Anderson & Associates, says, “AI rearranges patterns; humans originate insight. AI predicts language; humans invent ideas. AI synthesizes the past; authors create the future.” In a nutshell, AI can churn out words that make up sentences, but it can’t produce original thought.

And, addressing the industry-wide concern that ghostwriting work is drying up, Will Wolfslau, VP, acquisitions, Amplify Publishing Group, says, “I believe the negative impact of AI on the ghostwriting profession hasn’t been quite as bad as most predicted.”

Interestingly, ghostwriters seem to be of “two tribes” when it comes to AI usage, according to Gerstein. He says, “As we learned from the groundbreaking survey on AI and the Writing Profession we spearheaded last fall [2025], writing partners who have embraced the technology are bullish on the future. They report that AI has been a boon to their business — it makes them more productive and improves the quality of their writing. Nonusers, by contrast, are deeply distrustful and resistant to the technology, seeing AI as an existential threat to both craft and career.” 

The Sudden Rise of the Luxury Book

However, not everything going on in ghostwriting is AI-driven. Leah Nicholson, Book Production Manager at Jenkins Group, Inc., is seeing a surge in demand for high-end hardcover books. “Clients are requesting premium features such as sprayed edges, ribbon markers, pull-out posters, and custom slipcases. They are investing in high-quality print books that give the reader a luxury experience.”  

Nicholson suspects this is a reaction to the “nonstop email marketing efforts and an increasingly noisy digital marketplace.” In response, clients are opting to invest in beautiful, printed books. She says, “We believe our clients are working to differentiate themselves by creating exceptional, physical products that will be remembered.”

This is all good news for ghostwriters because it is a sign that there are clients who are willing to spend money on their books. If authors are willing to invest in a luxury production experience, odds are high they will also be willing to invest in high-quality writing that only human ghostwriters can produce.

Ghostwriters Need to Increase Their Own Visibility

So, if there is still plenty of demand for ghostwriting services, what can ghostwriters do to get a piece of that work? They need to advocate for the value that human ghostwriters provide and become thought leaders themselves.

Wolfslau says, “Increasingly, the ghostwriters who succeed will be those who have a public thought leadership profile and who forcefully advocate for the quality difference in human writing and the value of the concierge support an AI can never provide to an author.” 

He clarifies, “I don’t believe that ghosts need to take a hard line against AI, which could put off some potential clients. But they do need to strongly advocate for the value of human writing and human relationships. Even if AI writing improves, AI takes a sycophantic approach, regurgitating ideas while constantly telling users how brilliant and correct they are. If an author is going to write anything good enough to break through a crowded publishing landscape, they need someone to hold their feet to the fire and really make them refine their structure, thinking, and prose.”

A sign that ghostwriters are already stepping up as advocates is that they are increasingly bringing projects to publishers rather than the other way around. 

Madison Johnson, Discovery and Acquisitions Coordinator at Greenleaf Book Group, has observed that “one interesting trend is that more and more often, we’re seeing projects come to us from ghostwriters themselves. Experienced ghostwriters tend to have the network and industry connections to recommend the best publisher fit for an author. This is a huge benefit to authors, who may otherwise spend years searching and querying to find a home for their book. It’s a benefit to publishers as well — when they already know the editorial caliber of a ghostwriter’s work, it’s easier to say yes to a manuscript, knowing the product will be clearly developed and well-written.”

Johnson also highlights another advantage of working with a ghostwriter from the publisher’s perspective: “Publishers also like to work with ghostwriters because there’s a greater guarantee of delivery. It’s not uncommon for inexperienced authors to struggle to hit their due dates, which delays production. Having a ghostwriter on the project often makes it more attractive to publishers, since they will prevent the book from getting caught in limbo. Ghostwriters have the experience to complete books on much more predictable and usually shorter timelines.”

Ghostwriters are stepping out of the shadows to become more than mere scribes; more like trusted publishing partners and more visible players in the publishing ecosystem.

A Legal and Ethical Reckoning is Coming

We’ve already seen signs of some legal issues bubbling up in the last couple of weeks, with the shelving of Shy Girl due to AI claims (which are under investigation). This is likely the tip of the iceberg.

Anderson is seeing sharpening contract language around AI usage, for the protection of the ghostwriter and the publisher. He says, “Contract language around AI is already becoming as standard as clauses about rights and royalties and is sharpening month by month.” In particular, “when it comes to ghostwriting, clients will demand clear guidelines and assurances about exactly how AI is being used, and there will be a bit of a cat-and-mouse game between generative AI advancements and AI detection software. Expect lawsuits between authors and ghostwriters over the use of AI.”

He’s also witnessed AI-supported copyright violations first-hand. “Amazon and the industry at large will need to step up to the plate in a big way to counter the mass proliferation of AI-generated junk that is currently being self-published. When we released Oz Pearlman’s New York Times bestseller, at least 100 fake copycat books — complete with AI-generated photos of his likeness on the cover — popped up on Amazon, some of them releasing ahead of his publication date and claiming to be authorized by Oz. A search of Oz’s name on Amazon would reveal a complete list of books with his image and name on them, none of which were from him — and, sadly, some of these books sold fairly well. It’s dishonest, and it should be a crime for Amazon to allow these books to be published and sold. Distribution without curation creates chaos, and platform responsibility is going to be one of the defining issues of the next five years.”

Gerstein is taking a proactive stance in shaping how AI is used in publishing, explaining, “To address these concerns, and help ghostwriters effectively navigate this fast-changing new terrain, we recently formed a working group of leading practitioners to develop a framework of best practices for collaborators using AI. We hope this guide, which we plan on releasing sometime in the next few months, will provide greater clarity for both ghosts and the authors they work with and enable our profession to maximize the opportunities AI presents while minimizing the risks.”

Ghostwriters should look closely at the language in their contract related to AI and decide what boundaries they want to draw and agree to.

The Publishing Landscape is Changing

If we pull back from examining ghostwriting to look at what’s going on in the larger book publishing industry, there are shifts occurring there, too.

Quaderer points to more of an “author-centric” publishing phase emerging. He says, “For decades, the only credible path to meaningful distribution ran through traditional publishers. That’s no longer entirely true. Advances in printing technology, the rise of discovery platforms like TikTok, and the growth of direct-to-consumer channels are reshaping how books are sold. Hybrid and assisted publishing are no longer fringe – they’re becoming a professional middle lane between traditional deals and self-publishing.”

Legacy models are also being challenged, Quaderer says, pointing to news of Madeline McIntosh’s move from CEO of Penguin Random House to founding Authors Equity as one example. He sees this as a step toward “building structures that offer authors more equitable financial arrangements.”

Bigger picture: “Like music and other creative industries, publishing is flattening: fewer gatekeepers, more pathways, and more competition,” according to Quaderer.

Anderson also anticipates a change in what publishers may buy. He predicts, “We will continue to see an increase in experts sharing their unique wisdom, guidance, and inspirational stories. But the basic how-to books and glorified instruction manuals are almost certainly going to be commoditized by AI and lose much of their standalone value.”

This is good news for ghostwriters, since expert-driven books with rich storytelling and intriguing insights are exactly the type of projects where ghostwriters can add the most value.

Industry Consolidation is Creating Both Risk and Opportunity

Consolidation within the publishing industry is already underway. Wolfslau says, “Last year [2025] was the biggest year on record for mergers and acquisitions within the hybrid publishing and author services sector, and I’m expecting that momentum to continue into this year, with some of the remaining smaller companies rolling up into more competitive conglomerates.” 

Anderson made a very similar observation, stating, “There is a great deal of consolidation happening in the hybrid publishing industry with private equity.”

With the number of upstarts in ghostwriting and publishing in recent years, we should absolutely not be surprised when more companies are bought up. The impact on individual ghostwriters will depend on where their work currently originates. Ghostwriters who attract work directly through referrals and their own professional network will be more insulated from the ongoing consolidation, while those who rely heavily on projects through agencies and publishers will be most affected by fewer potential channels.

The Bottom Line

Despite doom-and-gloom predictions, the ghostwriting industry is still going strong. In fact, for many, work continues to pick up. Anderson says, “2025 was by far our best year yet in business.”

The good news is that ghostwriting as an industry is not going under — far from it. Demand is picking up as authors begin to recognize AI’s limitations. That is, ghostwriting skills are valued. And ghostwriters who are working to differentiate themselves and advocate for the interviewing and writing skills they bring to the table have big upside potential.

“Authenticity, voice, originality, transparency, and authority will become more and more valued in the AI age,” says Anderson.

The post What’s Ahead for Ghostwriting and Publishing in 2026 appeared first on Association of Ghostwriters.

By Jeff Raderstrong

AI’s writing abilities have dramatically improved in the last few years – it can produce compelling fiction and (in certain cases) humans prefer AI writing to human writing. Writerly responses fall anywhere from outright outrage to maybe-this-isn’t-so-bad. While the philosophical debate continues on, the reality remains: AI can write, maybe better than 90% of the population, and maybe better than you. What’s a writer to do?

This is an especially important question for those of us in the “business writing” community, where there’s creativity, sure, but things are a little more rote. Taking a blog post and turning it into a series of LinkedIn posts isn’t that complicated. AI can’t write books yet (although I’ve worked with some clients who’ve tried!) but it can easily take a series of articles and re-work them into a pretty compelling chapter draft.

AI will likely reshape a lot of business copywriting, in the same way we no longer have typists at a CEO’s beck and call. But I am slowly dipping my toe into using AI for its generative qualities, meaning its ability to write sentences that are designed for humans to read. I think a lot of business writers are as well. I’ve begun to notice some unmistakable traces of AI quietly seeping into content creators’ newsletters. It doesn’t announce itself—it shows up in more muted, subtle ways.

Giving in to Generative AI?

Yet outsourcing too much to AI can cause our writing muscles to stagnate and wither away. (Just like how most people’s handwriting has become atrocious or few can parallel park without a back-up cam.) So we need to be honest and realistic about how AI will transform business writing and the skill of human writers. Our response cannot be as simple as “use it” or “don’t use it.” The writing tasks I do for clients run across a wide spectrum and generative AI can be helpful in some part of that spectrum. Many of my clients are actively using AI and I feel it’s my responsibility to help guide them through what’s helpful and what’s not.

I’ve created somewhat of a framework for myself on when to use AI, somewhat inspired by a similar framework from the good people at Move 37. While others discuss AI use in ethical or moral terms (which is an important and separate conversation), I am trying to keep this a little more grounded in what AI can do, what it can’t, and what we want to do about that.

Let AI do it

Like I said earlier, about 85%-95% of my AI use is for research. There’s no reason for me to use Google anymore. I used to spend time painstakingly researching every individual claim a client would make for background evidence and now I can put a list of research prompts into AI and it does that searching for me in about five seconds.

I’m also increasingly using AI to do the task I described above: Take one piece of writing and then turn it into something else. For example, I’ll upload a draft of a blog post I wrote and ask it to turn it into a fundraising email message. Or two newsletters and have them reduced into one blog post.

To be honest, I don’t know how much time this saves me, and I worry that letting AI complete this task is the equivalent of letting my leg muscles atrophy while I’m strengthening my arms. But I find it very boring to take something I wrote prior (or someone else wrote) and then translate that into a different form of writing for a different purpose. I find that AI-speak can sneak its way into the final product (see below) and it takes time to then edit.

Other writers I’ve spoken with about how they use AI do it for creating outlines, and I think there is some value in it. However, I’ve found that the outlines it produces are best when there’s some “input” already created other than prompts, such as a set of blogs or article series. So, I’d place that task into the category described above. To be clear, I have never uploaded a full draft of a book into AI, as there are privacy and IP concerns in doing this (although my clients have done this despite my best efforts to educate them!) I pay for a pro-level AI subscription for confidentiality purposes—it keeps my data private and does not use any of my inputs to train the model.

There are other minor tasks that fall outside these areas that are helpful: I’ve had AI format citations (a lifesaver!) and also with some help with tricky grammatical structures, similar to what I assume Grammarly would do if I had a subscription. There are also times where I’ve been staring at a sentence or paragraph for too long and I don’t know what to do about it, so I ask AI: What’s wrong with this? Its answer is helpful probably 50% of the time.

AI is terrible at this

I’ve found that generative AI breaks down with anything longer than several hundred words. It’s pretty good at taking a blog post and turning that into an email, but it can’t take a blog post and write a book chapter. Filling in gaps is very, very hard for AI. Which makes sense, because all it’s doing is regurgitating its inputs. Telling it to build out sections of an outline with no additional information is like trying to fill in the missing pieces of a puzzle with ketchup.

I’ve had a few experiences now where I’ve edited books that were clearly written by AI in full or in part. They made some kind of sense at the start, but the longer it went, the thread was lost and everything dissolved into nonsense.

The problem of lack of input and direction basically negates most of the value of generative AI to produce text that humans will want to read. It’s why all posts on LinkedIn now sound the same – people are not doing the work of trying to distill down their ideas in an actionable and engaging way, and just hoping that AI will do that for them.

AI is very good at producing output, but not good at shaping that output into something that matters. (I’d say a lot of humans have this same problem.) That’s why I’m not really worried about my job – even if AI moves past its “slop” phase, I think people will still come to me to help them figure out what they want to write and why.

I can’t let AI take this from me

This last category is separate from the previous because there are some things I will never let AI do even if it’s way better at it than me. Maybe one day AI can write better than any living human. That’s fine. I’m still going to write.

Because writing is thinking (a frequent phrase but one I saw most recently from Professor Matthew Connelly so I’ll cite him). The act of writing transforms someone, whether you do it alone or in collaboration. Every single client I’ve worked with on a project has ended up with a completely different perspective on their work, their business or their life.

So anything I want to think about, or discover, I’ll write about. This includes all my fiction work, because it’s personal and I cannot do it without the self-discovery that comes from writing. That also includes any of the deep, long-form writing I do with clients or any new writing where we are thinking through what they want to say and why. They pay me not to produce content, but to help them transform themselves and their business. Writing is the best way to do that – and the pieces we create are a nice output.

I know a lot of writers are worried about AI, but I hope this way of thinking about it can help people understand what AI can be a tool for, and what it can’t. And maybe allow us all to focus more on the transformation that comes through writing and worry less about everything else.

Jeff Raderstrong is a writer and ghostwriter that helps people feel seen. He works with executives, entrepreneurs, coaches, consultants, and speakers to establish credibility and create authentic connections with others. His work has been featured in TIME, Forbes, Newsweek, MSNBC and more. Learn more about him at www.raderstrong.com. 

The post Resisting the Pull of Generative AI appeared first on Association of Ghostwriters.

The best emails writers receive are from potential clients expressing an interest in working together. So, when someone who represented themselves to be an individual named “Alice Smith” emailed about a potential project, with a subject line of “Writer Services Needed ASAP,” I, of course, wanted to learn more. Alice Smith said:

Top of the day to you, I am Miss Alice Smith and I am an academic consultant. I am also a sociologist.

I came to your contact from the writers write forum that you are a wonderful writer on science related topics, I would like to engage in your service. I would like to know if you are available to take on jobs at the moment. I need you to help write an Article. Please get back if i can engage in your services and how much you charge per word.

I have already come up with a title for the article and have created an outline to assist you in the writing process. Please reach out to me for further details.

Best regards

Alice Smith

Normally, an opportunity like this might intrigue me, but, alas, I knew from this first message that Alice was going to try to scam me out of some money.

Telltale Signs of a Scam

What tipped me off?

First, the message was not addressed to me by name. It was a generic message sent to many other writers, including most of the membership of the Association of Ghostwriters, I soon learned.

Second, the fact that the assignment was vague was another clue. Many such scams start with a request for an article, often to serve as a handout at an upcoming webinar or workshop.

And, third, the name “Alice Smith” was in a lighter font than the rest of the message, as if the sender had copied and pasted it from a list of aliases.

In other scams, the mention of a condition called Apraxia, where the client can’t communicate verbally and needs to only correspond via email, is another clue. Because of this medical condition, they won’t get on a phone call or Zoom session, they’ll explain, so you can’t confirm their identity. Be forewarned.

Curious, I asked for more details about the assignment and how much science would be required, since I specialize in business. She told me:

Good Morning,

This article should be around 3,000 words The submission deadline date is March 19th, 2026. What would be your rate per word? 

This article is for an audience of students and young professionals aged 14 to 28, and the topic is “Clean Energy & the Future: The Benefits and Risks.” You will be responsible for researching and writing the article, which should be delivered in PDF format (no graphics needed). The content will be fairly basic, written in clear and simple language for a general audience, without in-depth scientific research or expert interviews. There is plenty of material available online to support your research. I don’t have strict tone or style requirements, just make sure it is informative and engaging for the readers.

Outline:

    Introduction: Clean Energy & the Future

    Impact of Clean Energy & the Future
     2.1 Positive Impacts of Clean Energy & the Future
     2.2 Negative Impacts of Clean Energy & the Future

    Types of Clean Energy

    Why Clean Energy Matters for the Next Generation

    Mitigating the Negative Effects of Clean Energy & the Future

    Conclusion

I can make arrangements for a partial or full payment for the proposed budget, and I recommend using a certified bank check as the payment method, Is this acceptable to you? I would like you to know that this article will not be published but it will be translated to other languages and your certification on the article will be highly needed.

Looking forward to hearing from you soon.

Best regards,

This time she didn’t even bother signing a name.

Playing Along

I responded that I was interested and when asked for a per-word fee, I quoted $1.50.

She came back and asked if I would accept $1/word, for a total of $3,000, and I accepted, knowing that this was going nowhere.

After providing my mailing address, she told me:

Thank You very much for the discount, How many weeks will it take you to get it done? I will be issuing your certified bank check to you on Monday so we can finish ahead of time.

A few days later, she told me the check should have arrived via FedEx, stating:

Top of the day to you, I will like to confirm the payment you received yesterday via FedEx with Tracking number 37825XXXXXXX

However, there was a misunderstanding regarding the amount. The remitter issued a check for $5500 instead of the $3000 I initially requested. I sincerely apologize for this confusion. Due to personal circumstances, including my illness, I missed reconfirming the correct amount before the check was mailed.

Given this situation, I have decided to proceed with paying you the full article amount and to include additional compensation for the inconvenience caused.

Please go ahead and deposit the check at your bank or via an ATM, and kindly let me know once the deposit has been completed.

Thank you very much for your understanding. I look forward to hearing from you soon.

Fraud in My Mailbox

On Monday, I went to my business mailbox and picked up the FedEx mailer, which contained a plain white envelope and a check drawn on a company based in Seattle, Washington, that she had never mentioned. The name on the FedEx account was “Chris” from another part of Washington state.

Fortunately, the check was drawn on a national bank with a local branch, so I took the check in to be evaluated. Almost immediately, the teller confirmed my suspicions: it was fake.

At first glance, it appeared legitimate. It was printed on paper used for many printed checks, had a company name, and account numbers running across the bottom. The format was correct.

However, a closer look by the teller revealed the truth. The security seal at the bottom of the check was invalid. When you apply heat, the image is supposed to vanish, and it didn’t.

Additionally, the bank name was spelled incorrectly.

When she looked up the account, she confirmed that the company existed, but that the account did not. It was a bad check.

Knowing this but intrigued about what would happen next, I went back to my office and told Alice that I had picked up the check and deposited it—exactly what she wanted to hear.

I was curious how long it would be before I’d get a response.

Timing is Everything

Typically, it takes checks over $5,000 up to seven days to clear, the bank told me, so I expected I would hear back from Alice within that window.

Less than 24 hours later, she wrote:

Top of the morning to you, 

Hope all is well with the writing of the project, i would like to ask if you are sending the project in batches before the final PDF? so i can also read it too and see if there is any point i want you to develop or if there is something i want you to remove.

Please, I would like you to get me a Cashier check for the remittance of the balance of the funds. I want you to send the  cashier check via fedex next day delivery service. I want you to remove the fee incurred from the balance of the funds.

I will appreciate it if you can help me get it done today so i can send you the information required to get it done for me.

Regards

My response?

Well, since the check is fraudulent, I will be unable to comply.

And that is how I saved myself the $2,500 she was asking me to return from the overpayment originally made.

How to Block Future Attempts

This is how the scammers get their money. They mail you a fraudulent check in payment for services, often for more than you quoted for the work. As soon as you deposit their check, but before you are alerted by your bank that it has bounced, they request that you send them back the overpayment.

If you proceed to refund the overpayment, you will be out that money.

Plenty of writers have been taken in by this scheme, so don’t be embarrassed if this has happened to you. But keep an eye out for inquiries that have red flags, and if you are ever unsure, take checks to the issuing bank so they can confirm the payment is valid and the money is available. Your bank can’t check the validity of a check drawn on another bank, unfortunately, which is why you have to make contact with the bank named on the check.

Scammers are getting trickier, so be careful out there.

The post A Writer’s Scam Thwarted appeared first on Association of Ghostwriters.

Despite being one of the oldest professions on record, ghostwriting as an industry continues to evolve and grow. This past year was no exception, thanks in good part to technological advances and shifts in reader preferences.

Seven of the developments having the greatest impact on book ghostwriters in 2025 included the following:

1. Artificial Intelligence (AI)

The rise of AI use in the publishing industry is creating a schism, with human writers on one side and aspiring authors desiring fast turnaround on the other. No one disputes the speed at which AI tools can process data and generate content; however, in 2025, the difference in quality between human-generated writing and AI-generated writing became clearer.

As AI capabilities continue to improve and strengthen, its current skill level is very likely to improve over time. However, in 2025, AI-generated writing was often referred to as bland and emotionless. It was considered weaker than human-created writing, and for that reason, publishers, agents, editors, and readers pushed back on the use of AI in writing. Many publishers will flat-out not accept AI-generated works.

But that doesn’t mean that writers and ghostwriters aren’t using AI to some degree in their work—they are. According to a study of writers and their use of AI conducted in 2025 by Josh Bernoff and Gotham Ghostwriters, 61 percent of writers are relying on AI for support. The most common uses are for research, help with titles, and brainstorming, among others. Only 7 percent of writers reported using AI to generate content.

Across the board, however, ghostwriters agree that using AI to generate material for clients without revealing their reliance on it is unethical. It is also problematic since AI-generated content cannot receive copyright protection. The Library of Congress will not register AI-generated books. So, authors who use AI are likely to find that their works are effectively in the public domain with no recourse available. Authors hoping to leverage their book to achieve thought-leader status will have difficulty if they opt to use AI instead of a human ghostwriter.

But back to the issue of authorship: it is clear that, at the moment, human-authored works are superior in quality to AI-generated ones. Ghostwriters who agree not to rely on AI for content generation are positioning themselves as premium writers and a better quality choice by setting boundaries regarding their AI reliance.

2. Rising Plagiarism Concerns

Ghostwriters work hard to avoid the chance of plagiarizing other writers. They fact-check quotations, statements, and references and credit ideas and statements to the original source. Of course, when they’re doing the research, interviews, and drafting content themselves, they are aware of the source of reports or ideas they opt to include in client materials. For that reason, the chance of plagiarism is very low.

The challenge that has arisen in 2025 is that authors are using AI to generate outlines or rough drafts, which they then hand over to ghostwriters and editors as a starting point. Unfortunately, not everyone admits they relied on AI to generate their draft, and that can cause issues down the line.

When authors aren’t up front about their use of AI or patently deny it, their ghostwriter doesn’t know they need to search for the source of statements, ideas, or concepts, or confirm their legitimacy. They assume their author-client is the source of the content; if that’s not the case, plagiarism can inadvertently occur and expose the author to a lawsuit.

3. Heightened Publishing Transparency

Discussions regarding cover credit for ghostwriters became much louder in 2025, or at least more frequent. More authors indicated an interest in giving a “with” or “and” credit on the cover to their ghostwriter in the name of transparency and authenticity. That is, they wanted to be honest that they had help with their book, and they weren’t particularly worried about admitting that.

This signals a new era in ghostwriting. More authors divulging the name of their ghostwriter continued to reduce any embarrassment or stigma surrounding reliance on a ghostwriter’s services. Rather than being perceived as surrogate writers or behind-the-scenes authors, ghostwriters are being recognized as the collaborators and writing partners that they actually are.

In fact, in the UK, the Society of Authors (SoA) is pushing to get cover credit for ghostwriters on celebrity-authored children’s books in the name of transparency. They want to make it standard procedure for ghostwriters to receive cover credit.

4. Increased Rate Stratification

Ghostwriters have always had the power to determine what they charge for their work. Keep in mind, however, that authors and ghostwriting agencies can dictate or propose a certain pay level, which the ghost can opt to accept or refuse. Ghostwriters may not be able to convince their potential clients to pay more for their services, but they can always say “no” if they believe the pay is insufficient.

For the past 10-15 years, the fees ghostwriters have charged have ranged anywhere from $1,000 to $500,000+ per book, with ghostwriters falling somewhere on that spectrum based on experience, bestseller track record, and testimonials/references, among several factors. However, in the last couple of years, that spectrum has morphed into more of a set of tiers, which ghostwriter Laura Schaefer expertly detailed in a graphic she created to explain this.

Rather than a wide range of fees, we’re starting to see more clusters around certain price points. Early career ghostwriters with few ghostwritten books to their credit often charge $10,000-25,000. Given the amount of work involved, over several months, this range is low. Consequently, these ghostwriters typically have to take on multiple projects at a time.

From there, you’ll see ghostwriters clustered around the $50,000 mark, ranging from $30,000 to $95,000, based on my own observations. This is where the bulk of experienced ghosts reside.

However, six-figure ghostwriters (those earning $100,000 and up) are becoming more common and often land such lucrative work by being recommended by agents for traditionally published book projects, though not always. Celebrity ghostwriters can charge multiples of that and earn it because of their track record.

While the center of the bell curve right now is moving above $50,000 for books, we’re also seeing that split I previously mentioned, where some project values are moving lower and expect AI usage for the completion of some of the work, while talented human writers are moving upmarket, closer to $100,000, with a promise not to use AI.

5. Clients Prioritize Storytelling Ability

Books that sold best in 2025 and 2024, too, were based on compelling stories. Readers want to be entertained and enthralled, to become engrossed in what they’re reading. Consequently, authors have been choosing ghostwriters who demonstrate they can do that for them.

Story became a more important element even in how-to, self-help, and business books, where readers want more than dry instruction. Yes, they want takeaways and recommendations regarding how they can apply what the author suggests, but in between the lessons learned, they want inspiring stories, case studies, and anecdotes. And ghostwriters need to know how to deliver them.

6. Preference for a Turnkey Solution

With the majority of nonfiction books now being published by hybrid and independent presses, authors are required to make many more decisions about book production than ever before. Unless they have publishing experience or a literary agent to guide them, it can quickly become overwhelming. Pulling together their dream team of service providers required to structure, write, edit, proofread, index, layout, design, print, distribute, and market their book is time-consuming and expensive.

For that reason, many opt to partner with ghostwriting agencies or one-stop publishers that can manage all of the relevant players. Increasingly, however, ghostwriters are stepping up and partnering with skilled service providers themselves, positioning themselves as general contractors, effectively, for authors who don’t want to manage the entire publishing process themselves.

Ghostwriters are adding project manager and publishing consultant duties to their services in order to ensure authors have a path to publishing built in when they start writing the book. No one wants to end up with a stellar manuscript and no publisher in place.

7. Successful Second Annual Ghostwriting Conference

For the second year in a row, the Gathering of the Ghosts was held in New York City, co-hosted by Gotham Ghostwriters and the Association of Ghostwriters, with Kevin Anderson & Associates as the lead sponsor. While the inaugural event in 2024 was more of a level-setting event, 2025 focused on relationship-building.

The continued success of the sold-out event provides evidence of the strength of the ghostwriting market as a whole. Participants in the conference included leading literary agents, traditional publishers, hybrid and independent presses, author services agencies, public relations firms, and other vendors, on top of close to 200 book ghostwriters.

The ghostwriting industry ends 2025 on an up note, with demand for services increasing again, now that authors are recognizing AI’s limitations. Those who had hoped they could feed some ideas into ChatGPT and have it churn out a 60,000-word book in a matter of hours are realizing that even if it could, that may not be their best course of action. The market dip that many experienced in 2024 appears to have reversed.

We look ahead with hope for an even busier 2026.

The post The 2025 Ghostwriting Industry Report appeared first on Association of Ghostwriters.

Now that we’re officially in the last month of 2025, some ghostwriting clients are going to be shifting their focus to 2026 and putting off starting any new initiatives right now, while others may be trying to squeeze in some last-minute projects to spend any available funds.

If you’re in the former camp and are experiencing the typical holiday slowdown between Thanksgiving and Christmas, now is the perfect time to prep your business for the coming new year.

Here are 7 steps you can take to ready your ghostwriting business for a more profitable 2026:

1. Audit your online presence

Before you ramp up your marketing efforts and send more prospects to your website and social media accounts, stop and take a look at what they currently convey about you. What message and positioning are they communicating?

Most ghostwriters don’t keep their online assets completely up to date, especially when work gets busy, so stop now, before year-end, and clean up the sites that represent your personal brand.

Start by taking a look at your website, your LinkedIn profile, your AOG directory listing, and any other platforms where clients find you. Update your bio, refresh testimonials, remove outdated information, and ensure your messaging clearly speaks to your ideal client. If you don’t have a strong online presence yet, now is the perfect time to build one.

2. Review your current pricing structure

How long has it been since you’ve raised your rates? Most ghostwriters wait longer than they should before instituting an increase. It’s time.

Not sure what your rate should be? Ask what colleagues are charging, take a look at online rates cited at Gotham Ghostwriters or the Editorial Freelancers Association (though I have long said those rates are below market), and consider how long it’s been since you changed your pricing. If it’s been a year or two, you’re due for an increase. After all, prices everywhere else are going up; why shouldn’t the cost of your services?

Could you lose some work? Yes. Some clients will be unwilling to pay a higher rate. That’s true in every business. But could you attract a less price-sensitive clientele? Also yes.

The truth is that by charging lower-than-market rates, you’re positioning yourself as less qualified, and I suspect that’s not where you belong. Bring your rates at least in line with what ghostwriters of your experience level and caliber are charging today.

3. Strengthen your referral network

Next, with all of your online information up to date, start taking steps to drive traffic to those online platforms. Reach out to past clients, collaborators, agencies, editors, and other professionals who know your work. A simple year-end check-in or thank-you note keeps you top of mind for 2026 referrals.

Also, consider formalizing how you acknowledge referrals so people know you appreciate them sending business your way. You might let them know that you offer a certain percentage as a referral fee, or a gift to express your appreciation. Or ask what their organization’s process is for being added to their preferred vendor list. Find new sources of referral and stay in touch.

4. Let go of low-profit services or clients

Look back over the past 12 months and assign grades to each of your clients. You get to create the rubric, or the factors to consider, but then it’s time to grade your clients based on how well they match your business’s future plans.

As part of each grade, you might consider how easy the client is to work with, how quickly they pay, how much they pay, whether scope creep is ever an issue, whether you receive positive feedback or expressions of appreciation for your skills, and anything else that’s important to you. Each client should receive between an A and an F.

After you’ve graded all of them, it’s time to stop working with any client who received a D or an F. If your project was a one-time engagement and you’re done, make a note not to accept additional work without some changes to your working relationship. You might even consider dropping those that earned a C, unless you think expectations can be reset.

Clearing out clients that drain your energy, are not aligned with where your business is headed, and are not willing to pay your rates in a timely fashion, will make time and space for better clients in 2026.

There’s no need to make an official announcement or to let clients know that you’re dropping them. Simply decline future work opportunities they may offer you. Yes, you could let them know that you can no longer take on work unless x, y, or z happens, or you can thank them and refer them elsewhere. It’s just business.

5. Outsource administrative tasks

Another way to make more time and space for better clients and to maximize your revenue potential is to outsource all of the tasks that are not the best use of your time or talents. For ghostwriters, that typically means delegating non-writing work, such as administrative activities, some marketing tasks, and even some research or editing.

Some of the tedious tasks I’ve successfully offloaded are online research, payroll, graphic design, website monitoring, bookkeeping, and tax prep. This way, I can rely on expert professionals who are up-to-date on these important topics, and I can stay focused on becoming a better ghostwriter and business owner.

If you want to check out some of the service providers I use regularly, here are some links: Gianna Palma at ADP for payroll (affiliate link), Bench.co for bookkeeping (affiliate link), Speechpad for transcription (nonaffiliate link), and website monitoring through SUMY Designs (nonaffiliate link). I use and highly recommend all of these.

6. Pay ahead for 2026 products and services

In addition to clearing your schedule for new work in the coming weeks, it’s a good idea to prepay expenses if you can, to reduce your taxable business income for 2025.

I’m not an accountant, so this is not financial advice, but if you end up with some extra profits this year, consider paying in advance for products and services you know you’ll need next year. Stock up on ink cartridges, paper, and pens, for example. Buy any new computing equipment you were planning on getting in the next few months. You could even switch from monthly tech subscriptions and pay the annual rate instead.

7. Make a retirement plan deposit

Another smart financial move is to maximize your retirement savings. In the U.S., you have until April 15^th of the following year to make deposits into your retirement accounts. However, you need to make them before year-end in order to reap the tax benefits in 2025.

Again, I’m not an accountant, and this is not tax advice, but it’s always a good idea to make sure you’ve deposited as much as you can each year into your retirement savings accounts, such as a SEP, IRA, or Solo 401(k). Maximums vary by account, income levels, and your age, so check first before shifting funds there. But moving profits into tax-advantaged accounts can benefit you in the short and long term.

If you take these seven steps and clean up your online image, follow up with past and current prospects, let go of low-profit work, raise your rates, outsource tasks you shouldn’t be handling, and fortify your financial situation, you’ll be in a great position for all of the new opportunities 2026 is going to bring.

The post 7 Things Ghostwriters Should Do Now to Start 2026 Strong appeared first on Association of Ghostwriters.

Although I go to writers conferences expecting to take pages of notes from experts on the panel discussions I attend, I frequently pick up even more gems from the people around me.

This year at the 2025 Gathering of the Ghosts was no different. Co-hosted by the Association of Ghostwriters (AOG) and Gotham Ghostwriters, the event went smoothly due to the tireless efforts of Gotham’s own Alison Schwartz and Tommy Pagano. Yes, there were plenty of ghostwriters who provided backup, including several generous AOG members, but Alison and Tommy ran the show.

What Was Different this Year

Where the inaugural Gathering of the Ghosts in 2024 was a single-day convention, the 2025 event was one-and-a-half days, with breakout sessions that offered many more learning opportunities.

The focus of this year’s Gathering was two-fold: artificial intelligence (AI) and networking.

What that meant in practice was more sessions on both the big picture of what AI means for writers and practical tips on how to use it effectively—except for writing. Careful distinction was repeatedly made that no one should be using AI to generate writing, primarily because it is bad at it.

Networking-wise, there were agents, editors, and publishers in attendance both days, but the morning of the second day was devoted almost exclusively to meeting with agents and editors about their need for and use of ghostwriters. Many of those in attendance stated that aspect of the conference was among the most valuable for them.

There were also several other panels that delved into how to market yourself, find more work consistently, collaborate effectively with clients, guide clients on the best publishing path for them, and make more money, among other topics.

Some of the Conversations I Had at The Gathering of the Ghosts

Here are just some of the notes I took from conversations with knowledgeable panelists, sponsors, and friends in the hallway between sessions:

Kevin Anderson, of Kevin Anderson & Associates (KAA), the event’s lead sponsor and who moderated the marketing panel I was on, indicated that work has not slowed down for his ghostwriting agency, fueling the optimism I continue to feel about the ghostwriting profession. KAA helps more than 500 authors a year write and publish their books.

I think it was ghostwriter Josh Bernoff who made a point on his AI panel that eventually we will reach a point at which we don’t need to indicate how we have used AI platforms in our work, just as we don’t currently cite every time we Google something.  Josh is at the leading edge of AI use in writing, and his recent report on “AI and the Writing Profession” is a must-read.

Dan Gerstein, CEO of Gotham Ghostwriters and the mastermind behind the event, and I chatted about the types of ghostwriters who were in the room, many having to overcome obstacles that arose thanks to flights being cancelled. I don’t know that we came to any conclusions other than being in awe of the depth and breadth of talent on-site, but it was clear that wanting to uplevel skills and connections was one commonality.

Joanne Gordon, a ghostwriter who worked with Chairman Emeritus of Coach Lew Frankfort on his bestseller, Bag Man, shared that Harvard Business Review Press, their publisher, wants authors to have a framework. “Magic and logic” were this book’s secret to success.

Ghostwriter Becca Grischow shared her success in using TikTok to attract ghostwriting clients—lots of them! She had great tips for using social media to get noticed and attract the kind of clients you’re after.

Business strategist Naomi Haile has integrated AI into several aspects of her business, including using AI to research prospects. She built an AI agent to sift through existing content and prep her for upcoming meetings with experts who are considering writing a book.

Leah Nicholson of Jenkins Group, Inc., and I discussed the slew of commemorative and anniversary books the firm is currently producing. Jenkins Group has earned a solid reputation as the go-to firm for stunning coffee table books and published mementos that tell corporate histories.

On an AI panel, ghostwriter and speechwriter Mike Long stated that “Writers unwilling to use AI are being held back,” much like people who are unwilling to use a dictionary or calculator. As someone who has been tentatively exploring how AI could improve my business operations, this hit home.

Joseph Quaderer of Quaderer Media Group and I caught up and talked about a recent project we are working on together that is going well. Joseph’s network of thought leaders and big thinkers is impressive, and it’s no wonder his firm is scaling quickly.

Ghostwriter (and AOG member) Jeff Raderstrong discussed the importance of trust-building in the marketing and sales process. Given that we’ve been in a trust recession for a few years, with new ghostwriting scams popping up regularly, his advice is spot on.

Katia Walsh of Apollo says to never upload drafts of manuscripts or documents to AI platforms like ChatGPT or Claude if you’re using a free plan; “AI consumer versions expose your data.” Instead, pay for the Enterprise-level subscription.

Other Useful Notes I Took

My notebook overflows, but in many cases, I didn’t have time to identify who offered these nuggets of knowledge. Please speak up here and take credit:

• iThenticate can be a useful online tool for confirming whether AI was or was not used in the creation of a draft. Although ghostwriters aren’t using AI for writing tasks, clients increasingly are, sometimes without admitting to it or even outright denying it. This can be extremely problematic, so tools like iThenticate can offer a way to “trust but verify.”
• The Authors Guild offers a “Human Authored” certification for books that may become increasingly useful.
• During dry spells, it can be easy to become excited about the prospect of work. However, before you agree to take on a project, ask yourself: “Do I want to get the project, or do I want to do the project?”

This year’s Gathering of the Ghosts reconfirmed the power of in-person learning and connecting with colleagues, clients, and ghostwriting industry influencers. I had so many more conversations than the few I highlighted above, and I enjoyed every single one! It was such a pleasure to confirm that people I’ve conversed with online are just as funny, kind, and interesting as they are on Zoom.

What were some of your takeaways? I’d love to hear them!

The post Ghostwriting Gold: What 200+ Ghostwriters Taught Me at Last Week’s Conference appeared first on Association of Ghostwriters.

As Julie Andrews sings, “a bell is no bell until you ring it.” And a book is no book until people read it. Before they write the first word of a manuscript, ghostwriters should ask authors this question: “How do you plan to market the book?”

Writing a book takes an enormous amount of effort. Ghostwriters and authors often work together for a solid year, from book conception to publication. Yet publication is just one finish line. Whether or not our authors realize it, when the book releases they’re at the starting blocks of an entirely different race. That race is called “marketing.”

Luckily, book marketing needn’t feel like a Sisyphean task. There are loads of high-touch and low-touch methods to market a book. Ghostwriters can offer authors marketing guidance and customized support. Bonus: offering strategic marketing support increases the value we bring. Consider that when you’re quoting your next project.

Here are 13 ways ghostwriters can help authors market their books:

1. Tell the author to put a link to the book in their email signature. Every time people receive an email from the author, they’re presented with an opportunity to buy. This is called “low-hanging fruit”–might as well take it.
2. Help the author plan a podcast tour. Did you know 34% of Americans ages 12 and up listen to at least one podcast every week? If the author knows people who have their own podcasts, start there–help the author craft a pitch that can be tailored to different podcasters’ tastes and audiences. Then, help the author broaden their scope: pitch podcasts aligned with their future readers’ needs.
3. Help the author pitch articles to outlets aligned with the book. (Pro tip: ghostwriters can offer this as an additional service.) For instance: for business books, pitch articles to Forbes and HBR. For memoirs, try outlets that accept personal essays, such as the New York Times’s “Modern Love” column.
4. Related to #4: if the author is already publishing on a certain writing platform, such as Medium, plan an article or blog series. The author’s bio should include the name of the book (and if possible, a pre-order link) attached to every story.
5. Plan “behind the scenes” social media and newsletter content. People love behind-the-scenes looks. Help the author lift the curtain and share the good, bad, and ugly of the writing and publishing journey (while, of course, respecting confidentiality agreements).
6. As an additional service, write pitches to local news stations on behalf of the author. For instance, are they launching a healthy eating book? Pitch a spot in which the author and host cook a standout recipe.
7. Help the author plan a speaking tour. Develop a pitch that can be tailored to various stages. This tour could be cross-country or simply ‘cross-town.’
8. Help the author gather a “street team” of promoters. These are people who have the author’s back, no matter what. The author tells this street team specifically what they can do to promote the book, from pre-orders to social media posts to writing reviews on Amazon. The author can reach out with action items for the pre-order campaign, launch day, and afterward. (The ghostwriter can craft these emails as an additional service.)
9. Help the author with their elevator pitch so they can feel comfortable talking about the book. You know…with their mouth. An author will always be a book’s number one marketer.
10. Create a pre-order campaign with the author. For example, if the author has a podcast,  listeners who pre-order get access to special bonuses and giveaways.
11. Coordinate an ‘after the book launch’ email campaign for the street team. In these emails, the author will ask readers for book reviews. Create a cadence for when these check-ins will occur.
12. Help authors who are speakers put together a package centered around the book. For example: a workshop for a specific team for the cost of 50 books plus the cost of the workshop.
13. Master Amazon’s algorithm. Get your authors to bestseller status. Adjust your fees in relation to the reach you’re promising (and delivering).

There’s no getting around it: book marketing falls primarily to the author, whether they self-publish or traditionally publish. Ghostwriters can impress this upon our authors at the earliest possible juncture. The more we’re able to strategize with our authors–not just on the book, but on how it will be promoted–the more value we bring to the relationship.

Jennifer Locke is a USA Today bestselling ghostwriter specializing in personal development and memoir projects. Connect with her on LinkedIn or email jennifer@jenniferlockewrites.com.

The post How Ghostwriters Can be Marketing Geniuses for their Authors appeared first on Association of Ghostwriters.

I’m always surprised to receive emails from individuals who are trying to get in touch with a particular member of the Association of Ghostwriters (AOG). In fact, I probably receive an email a month from prospects who are having difficulty reaching an AOG member. These are people who have a need for ghostwriting services and are trying to make contact with a ghostwriter they think can help them.

I’m glad they took the time to email me to ask for support in connecting with a member, but it also makes me wonder why ghostwriters have made it more difficult for potential clients to reach them. I can’t believe that they’ve done it on purpose — set up barriers to being contacted — which leads me to think that somewhere along the line there was a glitch, or that they forgot to include their updated contact information.

In the hopes of helping ghostwriters everywhere who want to be sure that all lines of communication are open and functioning, you may want to verify that all of these ways of connecting with you are operational.

Your Contact Me Page

Your professional website should include a page that enables potential clients to easily contact you. They should feel confident that if they click on that tab on your website, they will be taken to a mechanism to get in touch.

On that page, you may have a form for them to fill out as well as a link to your email, for those folks who just want to send a note.

Make it easy for people to reach you.

Your Social Media Profiles

Many social media platforms offer a way for people to send a direct message or an email to get in touch with users. Ghostwriters who are on LinkedIn, Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, Threads, or other social media sites should be sure that their contact information is findable and current, to make it easy for prospects to connect with them.

For example, on LinkedIn, there is a Contact Info link where you can share your email address or website. Instagram and Facebook have direct messaging capabilities, though you can also add your email or website in graphics there.

Don’t try to hide your contact information online if you are hoping to attract more ghostwriting business.

Your Online Directory Listings

I always recommend that ghostwriters take every opportunity to be listed in public member directories. That’s a smart idea for professional members of the AOG or other writing organizations like the American Society of Journalists and Authors or the Nonfiction Authors Association.

But think beyond writing groups and consider alumni directories, such as for your college or university or your high school. Consider other professional organizations you belong to that your prospects are also members of. How about local social or country clubs? Networking groups? Make a list of everywhere you are a member or a subscriber and confirm that you are listed and that your information is up-to-date.

Your Email Inbox

I’m usually the last to know when my email inbox overflows and people start receiving bounce-back messages. In case no one has told you, it’s a good idea to confirm you still have plenty of space in your inbox and can receive messages from people trying to contact you.

Otherwise, they will likely give up and turn to the next ghostwriter on their list of potential writing partners.

Making it obvious and easy for people to find a way to communicate with you is an important first step in identifying prospects and scheduling discovery calls.

The post Help Ghostwriting Prospects Find You  appeared first on Association of Ghostwriters.