Читать книгу Confessions of a Ghostwriter - Andrew Crofts - Страница 9

My first invitation to ghostwrite came from a management guru I was interviewing for Director magazine, the house journal for the Institute of Directors, which is a sort of gentlemen’s club for business people housed in one of those grand buildings in Pall Mall.

The guru and I were driving back to his gleaming white Surrey mansion in his powder blue Rolls Royce, having had a very long lunch and feeling exceedingly mellow.

‘You’re a writer,’ he said, apropos of nothing.

‘Yes,’ I replied, liking the sound of that phrase.

‘I’ve been commissioned by a publisher to produce a series of business books,’ he went on. ‘I’d like to do them because it’s good for business, but I don’t have the time. Why don’t you write them for me? I’ll get the glory and you can have the money.’

I was insulted for about five seconds and then I saw the potential of what he was offering. The books already had a publisher. It was definite money. All the information was in one place and would be relatively easy to collect. He was an interesting man with a lot to teach me. When I reflected a little further I realised that I had actually been doing much the same thing in journalistic form for clients of public relations companies, writing articles and speeches on their behalf. This was merely a protracted version of the same process.

I accepted the job and it went without a hitch. There must, I thought once it was over, be millions of people with books in their heads who don’t have the time, ability or inclination to write them themselves. I just need to find them. That was when I hit upon the idea of taking a small ad in The Bookseller – ‘Ghostwriter for Hire’ – in the hope of reaching every publisher and literary agent who had a client with a great story but no time or inclination to write it themselves.