What is the difference between “Ghost Writing” and co-authoring, or between co-authoring and “writing assistance”? Well, while there are nuances and differences of opinion on where to draw the lines, it really comes down to the amount of involvement and the division of the work, with ghostwriting being the most involved, and writing assistance being the least. What you choose depends upon your own skills, the time you have to commit, and how personally you want the work to reflect your thoughts.

We can’t all sing, we can’t all dance, and we can’t all write, but that doesn’t mean we don’t have songs, dances and stories within us.

Ghostwriting (sometimes ghost-writing) is where the main or titled author, also known as the “byline author”, has little involvement in the actual writing. The bulk, or sometimes all of the writing is produced by someone whose name doesn’t appear on the title page, and may not appear in the work at all – not even in the acknowledgements. So for instance a book called How to Make it Big by Joe Jones might actually be written by someone named Bob Smith. Joe would tell Bob some things about his career and his philosophy, Bob would write the book, then Joe would approve it (usually) and the publisher would put Joe’s name on it.

In this case, Joe isn’t really that involved in the production of “his” book, but he takes credit for it and Bob is paid as the writer even though he is invisible to the person buying the book. Thus Bob is a Ghost Writer – entirely (or mostly) hidden in the shadows. He has come up with the structure of the book, created the outline, written the book, and basically done all the work we would associate with authoring the work. While this may strike some people as a bit sneaky, it’s actually done all the time. Many people with great stories to tell don’t have the time or inclination to be great writers, and they would prefer to leave the writing to a professional.

Think of it this way: Many highly successful people in all walks of life – Business Professionals, Investment Gurus, Political and Religious Leaders, Sports Stars, Singers and Musicians, Actors and Artists already have full time jobs. They are successful at what they’re already doing, and simply don’t have the time to write a book. However, the world wants to read a book they’ve written – to learn more about them and to get their advice. For these successful people, the time and expense of hiring a ghostwriter costs far less than taking time away from their main jobs – the jobs for which they are famous in the first place – to do it themselves. It only makes sense for many people to hire a ghostwriter in that case, and sometimes they can hardly afford not to, as it only adds to and compounds their success. 

The next level is called coauthoring. In this case we will use the same book, but the title page will be by Joe Jones and Bob Smith. Sometimes Bob’s name will be much, much smaller than Joe’s on the cover, but he will still get at least some of the writing credit. This is often done when the main author feels the need to draw attention to the fact that he or she didn’t actually do the writing. This may be because they want the other author to get credit, or when it’s someone who clearly isn’t a writer and they want people to know the book will be readable. Some musicians and athletes, for example, aren’t known to be great writers, so they will often share the byline.

Now the amount of work the main author puts into a coauthored work can vary. Sometimes it’s nothing, sometimes just a bit, and sometimes it’s a very significant amount of the writing. There is no indication of how much of a proportion each of the named authors actually contribute to the work, just that they are sharing the credit. That’s why some writers would prefer to not be acknowledged as co-authors. It can tend to imply they did more or less work than they actually did. It can also dilute the name recognition of the more famous or better credentialed person. 

Next comes Writing Assistance, and this can be very broad, but generally it means helping in the writing process itself (as opposed to researching or proofreading). Imagine now that Joe wants to write down a lot of his stories, and then he wants Bob to structure them into a book. While this could still be considered co-authoring, it’s generally more like assisting. The writing assistant is like both a coach and a manager, helping the author with some of the tasks he or she finds difficult, and perhaps polishing the writing and connecting things, but most of the actual writing is performed by the author. Many, many famous authors have assistants, and many of the most famous autobiographies, self-help books and even novels simply could not be written without assistants – sometimes even a team of them.

One Size Doesn’t Fit All

As you can imagine, the lines here blur a lot. Sometimes a person will ghostwrite sections of the book and merely assist in others. Sometimes two or more different people will work that way – writing, structuring and assisting. Sometimes the Editor will take the role of assistant by telling the author how to change things to make them flow better or to better support their opinions and philosophies. Ideally, the end product,

Here at Visible Ink, we offer all of these services, but we approach it with a single mission, and that makes it easier to keep everyone on the same page (excuse the pun). Regardless of the number of people involved, our goal is always to produce a clear narrative, enjoyable to read, while preserving the voice of the author, and presenting them as a likeable and relatable person. Those are the sort of books people want to read, and those are the sorts of books we help produce – regardless of whether we’re ghostwriting, providing a little assistance, or somewhere in between.

If you have a story to tell, an idea for a book, or want to share your wisdom, you don’t have to be a great writer to create great writing, because we’re here to help you as much, or as little, as you need. From concept through publication, we can bring your stories, ideas and wisdom to light, and put them on the printed page for all to see, in visible ink (vsbl.ink). Just give us a shout!