Ghostwriting scams have been booming lately. I’ve had several clients come to have me write their book after being scammed by a faux ghostwriting company. As someone who has worked in the industry for two years now, I’ve developed an eye for ghostwriting scams. This issue is complicated. With the development of Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP for short), people are creating low-quality books with the hopes of bolstering their passive income. This has created quite a demand for low-caliber ghostwriters, who can charge less and create low-grade books. Alongside this rise in demand for cheap ghostwriters, we’re also seeing a lot of companies who will downright promise clients services and fail to return any manuscript, even a bad one. In this article, I want to discuss your different options as a client, what sort of quality you can expect from different companies, and what you should expect pricewise from all of your different options. I’m going to break up these discussions into three categories: scam companies (no manuscript services yielded), low-quality companies (poor manuscript services yielded), and legitimate ghostwriting companies (books written to traditional publishing standards.) 

Scam Companies 

So, you’ve finally decided you want to take the plunge and get your story written. You take a bight of that delicious, toasted bagel on your desk, sip your warm, creamy coffee, and google “ghostwriters” on your laptop. And low and behold, HUNDREDS of companies appear! You can get this manuscript written for as little as five hundred dollars. What a steal! 

But then, something starts to seem a little fishy. You notice that there are several websites that use this exact template, but under different domain names. Strange, you think, could this be a scam?  

If you see the template on the website above, don’t buy from them. I’ve had clients come to me with stories of losing $11,000 to these people. This is the kind of ghostwriting company that yields no services. So, if you end up buying from them, they’ll probably take your money and run. Here’s a few tip offs from the website above that indicate they’re a scam. If you see any of these elements in other ghostwriting websites, proceed with caution. 

They use high-pressure sales tactics 

The first thing I want you to notice is the timer at the top of their website. How convenient that the hour you choose to find their services is the exact same hour that their huge sale is almost up!  

You immediately receive a message from someone who is definitely not a chat bot. Prices aren’t posted anywhere on the website. You ask the chatbot what sort of prices they charge, but you have to answer several questions about your book before they can give you an estimate. This strategy is another high-pressure sales tactic. You have to invest your time in order to find out how much money you spend. Once your time is invested, it’s harder to walk away from the deal. High-pressure sales tactics are always a red flag. If someone is trying to bully you into buying their services, their services probably aren’t that great. 

They suggest that they have written books by career authors 

This tactic is hilarious to me. Did you know Dr. Suess used a ghostwriter for all sixty of his books? Neither did I! Career authors like Steven King and James Patterson don’t use ghostwriters. If they’ve written and sold books about how to write books they’re probably good enough writers to author their own novels.  

They don’t post their prices upfront 

People do this so they can charge whatever they think you’ll be willing to pay. Some legitimate companies don’t post their prices because they allow their authors to negotiate their individual rates. Normally, legitimate ghostwriting companies will have some services posted at flat rates, and then give some kind of range for their other services. A great example of this is Gotham Ghostwriters, who mention upfront that different authors charge different rates for their services. 

Tips to avoid scams 

In order to avoid scam ghostwriting companies, make sure you: 

1. Take your time. Don’t fall for high-pressure sales tactics. 

2. Interview the ghostwriter who will be writing your book. 

3. Avoid ghostwriters who claim they can produce error free manuscripts without hiring an editor. 

4. Keep an eye out for tell-tale signs of scammers: high-pressure sales tactics, claiming to have written career authors’ books, and not posting their prices. 

Scam artists are crafty, but they’re only so invested in their own lies. If you dig deep enough, eventually their true colors will come forth, and you can run for the hills, sloshing your coffee over your trousers all the way up. 

Low Quality Companies 

Now onto the more complicated side of this discussion: low-quality ghostwriting companies. These companies have come out of the woodwork in the wake of KDP’s spam disaster. Suddenly, anyone and their mom can be an author! It doesn’t matter what kind of quality your manuscript has; you can sell it all over Amazon! 

This has led to a lot of different kinds of scams. Some folks sell classes claiming you can make hundreds of thousands of dollars by commissioning and selling low-grade eBooks on Amazon or Audible. “This income is totally passive and has very low investment rates! All you have to do is hire a ghostwriter!” I’ve never taken one of these classes, so I can’t tell you for sure their methods won’t work. What I can tell you is that I’ve met dozens of authors in my time— at writing conferences, in my master’s program, in my undergraduate program— and anyone who is a legitimate writer will tell you don’t get into the industry for the money. Lots of authors have published tons of professionally edited and designed books to KDP only to barely breakeven of their design costs. Don’t get me wrong, I think self-publishing and KDP have their place in

this world (you can find my blog post about traditional versus self-publishing below), but it takes a lot of work for authors to make a living at writing, so I seriously doubt some shmucks who hire a ghostwriter for $1,000 is going to see a profit. 

So, how can you tell a low-quality ghostwriting company? 

Prices 

Quality ghostwriting companies charge at least $20,000 for their manuscript services. There are some ghostwriters who charge less, because they’re building up their portfolios, but it is rare to find a ghostwriter who can write a manuscript at traditional publishing standards for less than $20,000. So, you might see companies like My Story and Urban Writers who will give you a product, but their product will likely be a low-quality book. 

Why I left Urban Writers 

I started my ghostwriting career at Urban Writers, if you can believe it. They paid me $250 a manuscript and demanded a turn-around time of less than a month for the books I wrote. I had to stop selling manuscript services with them for the same reason I had to leave public education: there were too many systems in place that actively kept me from working with absolute excellence.  

Were the clients I worked with on Urban Writers happy with their manuscripts? Sure. They left me great reviews. But I can say with confidence that those manuscripts were the worst books I have ever written and will ever write. Producing a quality 30,000-word manuscript in 21 days is just not possible, even for a professional. 

When looking at what companies charge and deciding whether or not they can fund high quality ghostwriters with their prices, you need to ask yourself a couple of questions. If someone were to charge under a thousand dollars for a manuscript, how many manuscripts would they need to write a month in order to make a livable wage? Let’s take a look at what I was making with Urban Writers: $250 a book. I’d price barely making it by at my home in Colorado at about $4,000 a month. Really, this number should be much steeper, but my husband and I lived in a camper when we were in Colorado, and so our housing expenses were less than they normally would have been. So, to earn even half of our expenses, I’d need to be making $2,000 a month. In order to make that in manuscript sales with Urban Writers, I’d have to write eight books in a thirty-day period.  

If I’m writing eight books a month, do you really think those books are my best work? Do you think I let each story simmer in my mind as I go about my day, listening to the radio and taking walks in the cool breeze, letting the words sort themselves out in my brain while I chop celery for my chicken stew? Do you think I spend hours mulling over how to best express sensory and suspense details in each chapter, so the manuscript is hard for the readers to put down? 

Of course not! If I’m writing eight fricken books a month then I’m cranking out almost eight thousand words a day, while tackling edits from customers and Urban Writers alike. I can write about one thousand words an hour, so maybe I could get it done. But, for quality work, I spend hours thinking about the words I’m going to write. Then I spend hours rewriting what I’ve already written. If I’m doing eight manuscripts a month, I just don’t have the time to give each book the attention it deserves. 

Honestly, the reason I could manage a few manuscripts with Urban Writers was because it wasn’t my full-time job. I worked Urban Writers as a side-hustle alongside my teaching career. But still my writing suffered. I would get off from teaching so drained that I felt like a puddle oozing into the carpet. The words that I wrote were hardly better than what my seventh graders put together for class. 

Now, Urban Writers was created for a specific purpose: to build people’s career capital by having them publish a book. They do accomplish that service, so I wouldn’t call them a scam. I actually have kept my account with Urban Writers, even though I tell customers that I won’t sell manuscript services through them anymore. I’ve found their platform to be a great way to meet new clients. 

And I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t thankful for the Urban Writers. Without my profile on their website, I wouldn’t have received message after message from people telling me that I had to be the one to write their book; no one else could do it. It was because of Urban Writers that I realized I needed to charge enough for my services so that I could have the time to produce my best work for my clients. 

Their Products 

You can also tell low-quality companies from the products they sell. Do yourself a favor and go on Amazon to buy one of the books associated with My Story. Give it a read. If it’s up to the quality that you want for your story, then buy their services. 

If you’re looking to build a low-grade book so you can call yourself an author, then these companies may be for you. I don’t want to speak too harshly of low-caliber ghostwriters. I was one. In fact, the reason my manuscript prices are so low right now is because I’m still building my portfolio. So, if you want to pay less money for a lower quality ghostwriter; do. People have lots of different reasons for writing a book. The folks who end up hiring me want their stories told with absolute excellence, and those are the kinds of manuscripts that I love to write. That’s why I charge enough so I can buy my own time and give each story the attention it deserves. 

Legitimate Ghostwriting Companies 

The two legitimate ghostwriting companies that I am aware of are: Gotham Ghostwriters and Kevin Anderson and Associates. I’m sure there are more legitimate agencies out there, but these are the ones that I’ve heard good things about. These two companies will produce a manuscript that is up to traditional publishing standards. I would still tread carefully with them, just because you might end up paying a lot more money for your ghostwriting services than you need to if you buy through their platforms. 

For example, one of the services Kevin Anderson and Associates (KAA) offers is to ghostwrite a professional book proposal. You need a book proposal to shop around to agents and land book deals when selling nonfiction manuscripts. Their full book proposal packages start at $12,000. One time, I met an acquiring editor who had taken a job as a ghostwriter for KAA. We’ll call him Mike. I kept Mike’s card, as I prefer to commission my book proposals from acquiring editors rather than write them myself. (Acquiring editors always know exactly what publishing houses and agents are looking for in a proposal.) When I requested a quote for a full book proposal from Mike, he said he only charged $5,000 for that kind of service. So, since I knew Mike personally, I could buy his book proposal services for $5,000. If I had gone through KAA, I’d be paying $12,000 for the same service from the same person for more than double the price. 

These companies are great in that they deliver what they promise. But they’re not so great because they upcharge their services. I can commission professional book proposals for less than half the price that they charge, because I go directly to the ghostwriter instead of through a big company. 

You don’t have to buy my services, really and truly. Writing someone’s memoir or biography is a very personal task, and my writing style just isn’t for everyone. But I would highly recommend that you go directly to a ghostwriter to get your book written, instead of a company. Doing so will give you a higher quality manuscript for less money.