It’s YOUR book idea, not mine!

This freakishly hot summer has turned lots of people’s brains into wobbling messes, mine included.  But that’s no excuse for the surprising lack of thought some potential clients show when they ask me to write for them.  In particular, potential clients who ask me to ghostwrite their books.

“I don’t know… I’ll leave that up to you.”

If I had a penny for every time a client has said this to me, I could treat myself to a fancy afternoon tea at the Ritz and hire a helicopter to take me there (and back home again, possibly).

If I’m writing your book as you, certain things should be left up to me.  Things like which bit of the story works best with which other bits, sentence structures, or what aspects of the book are most likely to appeal to your ideal reader.

What shouldn’t be left up to me is the story.  That’s all yours.  You should also know who your ideal readers are, or at least who you’d like them to be.  Don’t say things like, “my book will appeal to everyone,” because in the entire history of the world, no book ever has.  Not even the one co-authored by God.

Worse still are the AI-generated story ideas people send me, that don’t make sense.

They’re worse because when I ask questions about their long barrages of hazy, bullet-pointed ideas, I’m met with blank looks, or the standard (repeat after me), “I don’t know… I’ll leave that up to you.”

AI chatbots aside, there are writers out there who will think up an entire story based on a silly sentence.  They’ll write it, then slap your name on the book cover as a done deal.  But I’m not one of those writers.  If you don’t care enough about your story to have any opinions about it, why should I waste my time on writing it for you?  Why should anyone else waste their time on reading it?

There are enough terrible books in the world to want to add to them, and I don’t.  My own forthcoming novel aside.

If you do care, I can help.

I love chatting with people who care about their stories; it’s why I choose to write for them.  For me, writing a book as someone else is a fun and interesting partnership. That means I’m happy to answer as many questions, and listen to as many ‘mad’ ideas, as you want to throw at me.

All you have to be is bothered.