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57 Emily Crookston | Ghostwriter
205 Plays3 years ago
Ghostwriter, Emily Crookston AKA The Pocket PhD talks about her process, how she likes to sit down with her clients and set up regular meetings. Emily explains the service she provides to businesses and brands looking to add literature to their marketing suites and how self-publishing is usually the best option in these cases.
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Transcript
Introduction to Right and Wrong Podcast
00:00:00
Speaker
So our podcast is called Right and Wrong.
00:00:01
Speaker
Are these your notes?
00:00:03
Speaker
These are your notes about what we're going to say.
00:00:06
Speaker
Anything.
00:00:06
Speaker
It's a short answer.
00:00:08
Speaker
So how many novels did you not finish?
00:00:11
Speaker
Oh my God, so many.
00:00:13
Speaker
It was perfect.
00:00:15
Speaker
What are you talking about?
00:00:16
Speaker
This is nonsense.
00:00:17
Speaker
Ooh, a spicy question.
00:00:19
Speaker
I love it.
00:00:20
Speaker
This
Emily's Unique Ghostwriting Niche
00:00:21
Speaker
is it, guys.
00:00:21
Speaker
The big secret to getting publishers is you have to write a good book.
00:00:25
Speaker
I heard it here first.
00:00:29
Speaker
Hello and welcome back to the Right and Wrong podcast.
00:00:32
Speaker
I'm Jamie and today I'm excited to be talking with ghostwriter and founder of the Pocket PhD, Emily Crookston.
00:00:41
Speaker
Hi, Emily.
00:00:42
Speaker
Welcome to the show.
00:00:43
Speaker
Hey, Jamie.
00:00:44
Speaker
It's great to be here.
00:00:45
Speaker
Thanks for having me.
00:00:46
Speaker
Well, I'm very excited to have you on.
00:00:47
Speaker
I know next to nothing about ghostwriting, so it'll be really great to get into that.
00:00:54
Speaker
But to start things off, why don't you tell me and everyone listening about what you do with Pocket PhD?
00:01:02
Speaker
Sure.
00:01:02
Speaker
Yeah.
00:01:03
Speaker
So, yep.
00:01:04
Speaker
As you mentioned, I'm a ghostwriter.
00:01:06
Speaker
I like to call myself the ghostwriter for rebels, renegades, and mavericks, because I really like working with authors who have something, you know, a little different to say.
00:01:16
Speaker
They might have disruptive ideas.
00:01:18
Speaker
They might have, you know, more innovative ideas than, than, than some others who, you know, are, you
00:01:26
Speaker
Could could more likely write their own stuff.
00:01:29
Speaker
You know, the people that I work with need some help navigating a little bit.
00:01:34
Speaker
You know, they're trying to write different books or trying to do something a little different, which that's fun for me because it's like a new puzzle to play with.
00:01:42
Speaker
Um, but yeah, so basically I write business books.
00:01:45
Speaker
I say business development and personal development type books.
00:01:49
Speaker
Uh, and I work with authors who, you know, they have a thought leadership idea.
00:01:55
Speaker
They have a big idea that they want to get out there and they have, don't have enough time to write it or they don't have the inclination to write it themselves.
00:02:03
Speaker
So I help them by
Business Books as Marketing Tools
00:02:04
Speaker
writing, doing the writing.
00:02:05
Speaker
Okay, brilliant.
00:02:06
Speaker
So when you say you write business books and that sort of thing, can you just elaborate a little bit on that?
00:02:15
Speaker
Yeah, sure.
00:02:16
Speaker
So, you know, if you have a business and you want to maybe go on the speaking circuit, or you want to have a piece of marketing, really great marketing material that you can share with clients and prospects, that kind of thing, you might want to write a business book.
00:02:33
Speaker
you know, if you have an innovative idea or a system that you've created, I work with a lot of coaches who have systems that they've built, um, and they want to put it into written form.
00:02:43
Speaker
Um, and so, you know, it's a really nice kind of mind meld.
00:02:47
Speaker
I always like to say, because, you know, I, I could never write these books myself and the person who I'm working with, the expert, uh, could never write the book themselves because they're too busy, you know, doing their thing.
00:02:58
Speaker
And, uh, so it's a really great marriage of those things, but,
00:03:03
Speaker
Yeah, I've written, I wrote a parenting book with a pediatric neuropsychologist.
00:03:09
Speaker
I wrote a book with a pelvic floor physical therapist about the pelvic floor.
00:03:15
Speaker
Currently, I'm working on a book about bootstrapping your business, your startup, rather than going the venture capital way.
00:03:23
Speaker
Here's another
From Philosophy Professor to Ghostwriting
00:03:24
Speaker
way to go, bootstrap your company.
00:03:27
Speaker
So yeah, it's really fun.
00:03:28
Speaker
I work on so many different types of projects with so many different
00:03:32
Speaker
entrepreneurs and, you know, people looking to get their ideas out there.
00:03:36
Speaker
Yeah.
00:03:36
Speaker
That sounds like quite the spectrum and then entrepreneurs all the way to like specialists and people who just want to talk about scientifics and things like that.
00:03:45
Speaker
That's great.
00:03:45
Speaker
Yeah.
00:03:46
Speaker
Yeah.
00:03:46
Speaker
Yeah.
00:03:46
Speaker
Starting to make sense a little bit here.
00:03:48
Speaker
Cause you, you, you were originally in academia, is that right?
00:03:52
Speaker
You were in philosophy.
00:03:54
Speaker
Yes, I was a philosophy professor.
00:03:57
Speaker
And when I was ready to leave academia, I didn't really know what I wanted to do.
00:04:01
Speaker
I said, well, I think I like marketing.
00:04:04
Speaker
So I actually started out ghost blogging.
00:04:06
Speaker
Someone was looking for marketing help.
00:04:08
Speaker
And it turned out that she had a small boutique website development and
Collaborative Process and Client Involvement
00:04:15
Speaker
marketing company.
00:04:16
Speaker
So she had clients who needed blogs and she needed blogs for her website.
00:04:20
Speaker
Um, so I, I figured I just realized, I didn't realize this was even a job people did for other people.
00:04:26
Speaker
Um, but yeah, so that's how I kind of got my toe dipped in the water of ghostwriting.
00:04:31
Speaker
And then I said, Oh, I can do longer projects.
00:04:33
Speaker
Um, so started doing books.
00:04:35
Speaker
Oh, okay, great.
00:04:37
Speaker
So let's, so I've not, I don't really know anything about ghostwriting.
00:04:40
Speaker
So let's get into the meat of it.
00:04:43
Speaker
First off, it's, it's just sort of academic business brand work that you do.
00:04:51
Speaker
Is that right?
00:04:51
Speaker
Yeah.
00:04:52
Speaker
Yeah, mainly business.
00:04:53
Speaker
Yes.
00:04:54
Speaker
I work exclusively on business books, nonfiction, you know, that kind of thing.
00:04:59
Speaker
Okay.
00:04:59
Speaker
Okay.
00:05:00
Speaker
And how does the process start?
00:05:04
Speaker
Do you approach them?
00:05:05
Speaker
Do they approach you?
00:05:07
Speaker
Most of my clients come to me, which is awesome.
00:05:10
Speaker
Really nice.
00:05:11
Speaker
Yeah, I'm not cold calling people and saying, hey, you have a book idea.
00:05:15
Speaker
That doesn't usually work in my experience.
00:05:18
Speaker
Yeah, so they will usually have, they will usually, you know, reach out and say, I'm thinking of hiring a ghostwriter.
00:05:24
Speaker
Can we talk?
00:05:24
Speaker
Here's my book idea.
00:05:25
Speaker
You know, they'll have a vague idea.
00:05:27
Speaker
And I always require them to come to me with an outline before we get started, because I really need my authors to think about the idea before we start talking about it.
00:05:39
Speaker
If they just, you know, have a topic in mind, it's going to be a tough go because I really need a lot.
00:05:45
Speaker
You know, this is a very collaborative process for me.
Challenges in Ghostwriting
00:05:48
Speaker
I need them to give me a lot throughout the process.
00:05:52
Speaker
And I meet weekly with them.
00:05:54
Speaker
And I have to kind of interview them to get out the information that we need.
00:05:58
Speaker
And if they haven't done enough thinking beforehand, it can be a real uphill climb.
00:06:04
Speaker
So I have them come to me with an outline.
00:06:07
Speaker
And the other thing is that it's...
00:06:11
Speaker
It's one of the challenges that I think people have when they come to Ghostwriters is they're not sure in the end if they're going to feel like it's their book.
00:06:19
Speaker
you know, and so having them be so involved in the process and having them really, you know, outline the whole thing, have the big picture in their heads really helps them own it in the end, which is exactly what I want.
00:06:32
Speaker
So, yeah.
00:06:32
Speaker
Right.
00:06:32
Speaker
Well, it sounds, it actually sounds very similar to pitching nonfiction books to publishers or literary agents in that you have to have that outline and that's the submission really.
00:06:44
Speaker
Yeah.
00:06:44
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, that's a really good way to think of it.
00:06:47
Speaker
They're almost pitching their idea to me to work with them.
00:06:51
Speaker
And yeah, that works very well.
00:06:54
Speaker
You know, I have one client right now and she has a really detailed outline and it's just a dream because, you know, I can kind of see the picture.
00:07:01
Speaker
She knows exactly what the picture looks like.
00:07:04
Speaker
And all I'm doing is putting the words on the page.
00:07:07
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So it's a really nice process.
00:07:09
Speaker
And yeah, I work with them over, it's a 16 week process.
00:07:13
Speaker
So over the course of four months, we meet weekly, I try to get a full draft done in eight weeks.
00:07:20
Speaker
So then we have plenty of time for editing.
00:07:23
Speaker
And that works pretty well.
00:07:25
Speaker
Depending on the length of the project.
00:07:29
Speaker
Not really.
00:07:30
Speaker
I always tell people to aim for around 40,000 words.
00:07:34
Speaker
That's about 100 to 150 pages printed.
00:07:37
Speaker
So, you know, it's a good length for a business book.
00:07:39
Speaker
You don't want it to be super long.
00:07:41
Speaker
I have written like a 60,000 word book.
00:07:45
Speaker
But, you know, most of these ideas don't need to be spun out for that long.
00:07:51
Speaker
Sure.
00:07:51
Speaker
That's more of fiction kind of length.
00:07:53
Speaker
Yeah, you know, who wants to read like a textbook, you know, you know, it's just people for I think what people want out of a business book is something they can sit down and read in an afternoon or over a weekend, you know, they are on a plane flight.
00:08:08
Speaker
I like to call them airplane books sometimes.
00:08:11
Speaker
Yeah.
00:08:12
Speaker
And I think that that's it's just a nice size for most of the material that I'd be writing for business type books.
00:08:19
Speaker
Right.
00:08:19
Speaker
And you, you touched on this earlier, but so when you write on behalf of a client, you are trying to sort of embody their voice.
00:08:28
Speaker
Yes.
00:08:29
Speaker
Does that like, when, do you ever work on multiple things at once?
00:08:32
Speaker
And is it hard to sort of move between those head spaces of sort of imitating how someone else would write?
00:08:38
Speaker
Right.
00:08:39
Speaker
Um, yeah, that's a great question.
00:08:40
Speaker
Um, I, I usually work on only one project at a time.
00:08:44
Speaker
Um, and that's helpful.
00:08:46
Speaker
Yeah.
00:08:46
Speaker
I really like to kind of immerse myself in one project.
00:08:50
Speaker
Sometimes it's not always possible and I, I will, you know, do ghostwriting plus editing a lot of the time.
00:08:55
Speaker
So I'll be editing a book while I'm also ghostwriting a different book.
00:08:59
Speaker
Um,
00:09:00
Speaker
I will overlap that way sometimes.
00:09:02
Speaker
Um, but yeah, you know, it's a little bit like method acting.
00:09:05
Speaker
I think, you know, I think of it that way.
00:09:07
Speaker
Um, it can, you know, kind of seep into my head.
00:09:10
Speaker
It's, you know, this is like a common thing, but you know, the book that I'm working on never really leaves my brain.
00:09:16
Speaker
Yeah.
00:09:17
Speaker
You know, I'm on the beach in Costa Rica and I'm thinking about, you know, the book I'm going to be working on next week.
00:09:22
Speaker
But, you know, but it's it's really fun.
00:09:25
Speaker
And I think that I do have a sort of talent for capturing voices.
00:09:29
Speaker
I hear the cadence.
00:09:31
Speaker
I hear the jokes that people tell.
00:09:33
Speaker
And I'll try to, like, weave some of that stuff into the book as I'm going.
00:09:37
Speaker
Sometimes I even will hear the person's voice in my head as I'm writing.
00:09:41
Speaker
Um,
Self-Publishing vs. Traditional Publishing
00:09:42
Speaker
which is pretty interesting.
00:09:43
Speaker
Okay.
00:09:44
Speaker
Yeah.
00:09:44
Speaker
So it's, so it's, it is important that you, you kind of see a writing sample as well as just kind of talking to the person and see how they would phrase things and how they kind of would explain something.
00:09:55
Speaker
Yeah, that's really helpful.
00:09:57
Speaker
The more material they have to share, presentations they've given, blog posts they've written, you know, interviews they've given, all that stuff is super helpful to have.
00:10:06
Speaker
Yeah.
00:10:07
Speaker
And then, so my experience widely with publication, and most of the guests we have on this show, it's largely fiction, had some nonfic, but it's a more, it's the very traditional route of, you know, literary agents to publishers, this, that, the other.
00:10:21
Speaker
But
00:10:22
Speaker
With that, there's always the editorial and sort of feedback loop to get a book ready and up to kind of scratch to be published.
00:10:32
Speaker
Is there a lot of back and forth with the drafts that you do and your clients?
00:10:37
Speaker
It depends a bit on the client, but typically, you know, a lot of them like to be editing along as I'm writing.
00:10:45
Speaker
And, you know, that's okay.
00:10:48
Speaker
You know, it's not ideal because sometimes they're, you know, I say, well, let's wait until we get to the end and then we can edit.
00:10:54
Speaker
Because this might change given this other chapter, you know.
00:10:58
Speaker
So there's a little bit of, you know, figuring out
Emily's Writing Aspirations
00:11:01
Speaker
how we can, how our styles work together that way.
00:11:05
Speaker
Other clients, you know, they just want to wait until the draft is done before they really dig into the editing.
00:11:10
Speaker
And that's when I think it works the best.
00:11:12
Speaker
But yeah, during that last kind of half of the eight weeks at the end of the project, there is quite a bit of hacking back and forth.
00:11:20
Speaker
And it's kind of fun because they're adding paragraphs sometimes and then I'm editing.
00:11:26
Speaker
And then other points, they're doing the editing on my writing.
00:11:30
Speaker
So yeah, it's pretty cool.
00:11:32
Speaker
Is it ever like a little bit strange because...
00:11:36
Speaker
As you said, it's kind of like method acting and you're sort of imitating them and then they're editing and imitating.
00:11:42
Speaker
Is that kind of weird?
00:11:45
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, it can be, you know, it can be there, you know, there's points where I'll go out on a limb, you know, like, I don't know if they're going to like this.
00:11:53
Speaker
This is a little bit edgier than they probably want, you know, and sometimes they'll say, what is this?
00:11:58
Speaker
You know, okay.
00:11:59
Speaker
Okay.
00:12:00
Speaker
okay, we can, you know, we can, we can back it off.
00:12:03
Speaker
So there's, there's a little bit of that, but I like to test those boundaries because, you know, I think that's the power of working with someone else to do the writing is, you know, the result should be something that is better than what you could have written yourself, you know, and there might be these moments where, you know, yeah, you wouldn't have thought to say it that way, but actually that's the perfect way to say it, you know, and that's always a fun thing.
00:12:27
Speaker
You're kind of telling that you're showing them.
00:12:28
Speaker
It's like, yeah, you wouldn't initially have thought to say it that way.
00:12:31
Speaker
But now that you've seen it, you're never not going to say it that way.
00:12:33
Speaker
Yeah, exactly.
00:12:35
Speaker
Exactly.
00:12:35
Speaker
There's so much clarity that comes with writing a book.
00:12:39
Speaker
You know, it's you don't even realize the magic until you're, you know, doing it.
00:12:44
Speaker
And you're like, wow, no, that's how I would say it.
00:12:46
Speaker
And it's just a matter of, you know, having to do that deep thought work.
00:12:51
Speaker
And I think it's helpful to have another person there to be part of that process.
00:12:56
Speaker
Yeah, 100%.
Advice for Aspiring Ghostwriters
00:12:57
Speaker
100%.
00:12:58
Speaker
And so it's mostly businesses or sort of individuals that you're working with.
00:13:05
Speaker
When it comes to publishing, does that mean it's a sort of self-published system that most of your books are going through?
00:13:11
Speaker
Yeah, most of my clients are self-published.
00:13:14
Speaker
So they'll take it to Amazon after they work with me and put it there, or they'll take it to someone to help them with book design and formatting, that kind of thing.
00:13:23
Speaker
Um, I have had one client who's trying to go the traditional route.
00:13:27
Speaker
Um, but yeah, most of my clients are self-published.
00:13:30
Speaker
And I think that that makes sense for most, you know, the clients I'm working with anyway, because they want to get it out there quickly.
00:13:37
Speaker
They don't really care so much about the, you know, having the best publisher.
00:13:42
Speaker
Um, they're, they're just mostly interested in using it as a marketing piece for them.
00:13:47
Speaker
Yeah, exactly.
00:13:48
Speaker
So they're not, they're not expecting it to be in bookshops and, you know, widely advertised and things that they look for events and this, that, the other.
00:13:56
Speaker
Okay.
00:13:56
Speaker
The, that one client that you're working on going the traditional route, does it, the order of events for that, was it, they were sort of working on something and then you worked with them and then they've, then they're sort of moving into a submission process.
00:14:08
Speaker
Yeah.
00:14:09
Speaker
Um, no, we've actually, yeah.
00:14:11
Speaker
And that's a good point.
00:14:12
Speaker
We've sort of done it backwards.
00:14:13
Speaker
We've written the book before she's really pitched it, you know, before she's really thought, thought through, you know, where she wants to, to have it published.
00:14:21
Speaker
And, you know, as you know, I'm sure that's a really slow and hard road to go.
00:14:26
Speaker
And I've been sort of trying to push her, uh, in a different direction because yeah, I can just see her finding an agent finally, and then coming back to me and saying, we need to rewrite this whole book.
00:14:37
Speaker
Yeah.
00:14:39
Speaker
which very well could happen.
00:14:40
Speaker
And I could say, okay, great.
00:14:42
Speaker
Then you're going to have to pay me again, pay me quite a fee.
00:14:46
Speaker
Yeah.
00:14:47
Speaker
So it does pay to think ahead about how you want to do this.
00:14:51
Speaker
Yeah.
00:14:52
Speaker
Because as I said, the way that you kind of take on new clients, the things you ask for from them, very similar to what agents and publishers ask for a nonfiction book.
00:15:02
Speaker
Because they don't usually ask for much actual writing sample.
00:15:08
Speaker
It's more about the layout and the kind of justifications and the reasonings.
00:15:11
Speaker
Yes.
00:15:11
Speaker
Yes, exactly.
00:15:12
Speaker
Because they're thinking about, you know, how this book fits into their, their set of books and in how they're going to market it and all of that.
00:15:20
Speaker
And yeah, that makes sense.
00:15:21
Speaker
And will this, you know, will this book sell?
00:15:23
Speaker
That's a question to ask before you write the book.
00:15:26
Speaker
I always ask my clients, the first question is, what's the business case for this book?
00:15:30
Speaker
Yeah.
00:15:31
Speaker
Because it costs a lot of money and, you know, to spend that kind of money just to have a book done doesn't make much sense.
00:15:37
Speaker
You know, you've got to be thinking about how it's going to return, you know, what's the return on the investment.
00:15:43
Speaker
Yeah, you're not expecting this to be like front page of all of the number one bestseller lists and things like that.
00:15:50
Speaker
That's not what the goal is.
00:15:51
Speaker
Right.
00:15:52
Speaker
Right.
00:15:52
Speaker
Yeah.
00:15:53
Speaker
You know, I have contacts with people who will help you market the book and get it, you know, into the bestseller lists on Amazon.
00:16:00
Speaker
So sometimes that's a goal for.
00:16:02
Speaker
But in category, because as you said, it's very business orientated.
00:16:06
Speaker
Yes.
00:16:06
Speaker
Yes.
00:16:07
Speaker
Amazon is funny.
00:16:08
Speaker
You know, it's like, oh, this book was in the top, you know, book, you know, top 10 under, you know, this very specific category.
00:16:16
Speaker
Yeah.
00:16:17
Speaker
And every book is a bestseller, you know, in some way on Amazon.
00:16:21
Speaker
So, yeah, I was chatting to one of my friends who was on the podcast recently.
00:16:26
Speaker
And she said after coming on the podcast, she looked up her book.
00:16:30
Speaker
And it had moved on Amazon to like, it was in the top, uh, it was in the top 50 or something for young adult runaway fiction or something.
00:16:44
Speaker
Or the bestseller list is like a hundred thousand books or, you know, something crazy like that.
00:16:49
Speaker
Yeah.
00:16:51
Speaker
It's nuts.
00:16:53
Speaker
So have you, um, have you ever thought about doing anything sort of slightly out of the business sector more sort of, um, I mean, the, the one thing that I think of as soon as someone says ghostwriter, which I imagine a lot of people do is biographies.
00:17:11
Speaker
Have you ever thought about doing something like that?
00:17:13
Speaker
Yeah, I did do a memoir.
00:17:15
Speaker
Actually, my very first ghostwriting project was a memoir.
00:17:18
Speaker
And I love the genre of memoir.
00:17:21
Speaker
I love to read memoirs.
00:17:23
Speaker
And so it was a fun project.
00:17:25
Speaker
And actually, you know, some often, you know, clients who want to write business books, they want some element of memoir.
00:17:32
Speaker
You know, they're telling their business story because, you know, here's how they figured out something, you know, it worked for them.
00:17:38
Speaker
And so they want to talk about it.
00:17:40
Speaker
Um, so yeah, there's almost always that kind of element in there, but yeah, I, I would love to write another memoir.
00:17:46
Speaker
I think they're really fun.
00:17:48
Speaker
Um, and like I said, I, I sometimes will work with people on personal development, um, type stuff.
00:17:54
Speaker
And so, you know, but, but again, those are always in the con almost always in the context of business.
00:17:59
Speaker
Sure.
00:18:01
Speaker
Yeah.
00:18:01
Speaker
And then my followup to that is, have you ever thought about writing your own book?
00:18:07
Speaker
Yes.
00:18:08
Speaker
Yes.
00:18:09
Speaker
Um, yes, that is one of my big goals.
00:18:12
Speaker
And I actually started the book last year.
00:18:15
Speaker
You know, I started tinking tinkering around, um, I should say.
00:18:19
Speaker
Um, yeah, you know, I, I really want to write a book on self-awareness and my self-awareness practice.
00:18:26
Speaker
Um,
Emily's Reflections and Future Aspirations
00:18:27
Speaker
the reason I kind of, well, there's a couple of reasons I stopped working on it.
00:18:30
Speaker
Um, for one, I had a hard time outlining the book that I've
00:18:33
Speaker
kind of have in my head.
00:18:35
Speaker
So that made it hard to write.
00:18:37
Speaker
And for a while, I just tried to write, you know, without an outline, but that wasn't working so well.
00:18:41
Speaker
But also, I don't see, you know, asking myself the question, what's the business case for this book?
00:18:46
Speaker
It's not clear to me how that, that kind of book would, you know, further my business.
00:18:51
Speaker
And right now, I'm very focused on that.
00:18:54
Speaker
So in October, I thought, well, I could write a book,
00:18:58
Speaker
you know, about owning your expertise, because I have a little video interview series where I interview experts and ask them kind of the same five questions.
00:19:07
Speaker
So that would be sort of the logical book to write, because it would be very easy.
00:19:11
Speaker
I've got all this material.
00:19:14
Speaker
So that might be the first book that I write.
00:19:16
Speaker
But yeah, I definitely have ideas for writing my own book.
00:19:20
Speaker
And once I have the time and space to do that, I'm sure it will happen.
00:19:23
Speaker
Yeah.
00:19:24
Speaker
That's yeah.
00:19:25
Speaker
It's always the finding the time is always, always a tricky thing.
00:19:28
Speaker
Yeah.
00:19:28
Speaker
Yeah.
00:19:29
Speaker
Yeah.
00:19:29
Speaker
Um, would you self publish it or would you look to go traditional?
00:19:35
Speaker
Oh, it depends on what it ends up being, I think.
00:19:38
Speaker
Um, but yeah, I will certainly publish, do the self publishing thing at some point because then I'll be a better advisor to my clients who are doing it.
00:19:47
Speaker
Yeah.
00:19:48
Speaker
Yeah, that's one thing.
00:19:50
Speaker
And also, I think for a business book, that that's the way to go.
00:19:52
Speaker
And I do want to write something along those lines.
00:19:56
Speaker
Yeah, sure.
00:19:57
Speaker
That makes a lot of sense.
00:19:59
Speaker
And you also have an online course.
00:20:03
Speaker
Is that still in existence?
00:20:05
Speaker
Yeah.
00:20:06
Speaker
Uh, actually it's not.
00:20:08
Speaker
Um, no, no, I, yeah, I had a thought about creating an online course and yeah, I probably should take it down from the website.
00:20:17
Speaker
Um, yeah, it's, it's, it was writing your book in 90 days and I just could not wrap my head around the marketing for that thing.
00:20:24
Speaker
So yeah, yeah.
00:20:25
Speaker
I've kind of gone in a different direction since that idea.
00:20:29
Speaker
Yeah.
00:20:31
Speaker
So that, that was, that feels like it was almost a book idea and then became an online course.
00:20:34
Speaker
Yeah.
00:20:36
Speaker
Yeah, that could be a book idea, too.
00:20:37
Speaker
That might be the best way to go for it.
00:20:39
Speaker
Yeah.
00:20:40
Speaker
Yeah.
00:20:40
Speaker
I mean, the whole idea was that, you know, you can write a business book in 90 days.
00:20:45
Speaker
And if you're going to write it yourself, I really think you should push to do it as quickly as you can.
00:20:51
Speaker
Because often I think new authors get into this place where...
00:20:56
Speaker
they're spending a year writing their book.
00:20:58
Speaker
And then by the time they're finished, they want to rewrite the whole thing because they've, their thought process has moved.
00:21:04
Speaker
Um, and I think of books as a snapshot of your brain.
00:21:08
Speaker
So, you know, the best thing to do is get it done quickly, you know, as quickly as you can.
00:21:13
Speaker
And then, you know, you can always write another book if, you know, the ideas change massively.
00:21:18
Speaker
Um, but if you, you know, you can get into the cycle where you're just constantly rewriting, um, for years and that's, you know, not a place to be
00:21:27
Speaker
Yeah.
00:21:27
Speaker
I mean, it's always interesting as well.
00:21:29
Speaker
And not just with books, with like sort of any art form, watching an artist, their kind of the evolution of their, whatever they put out, you know, from the early stuff as it goes on and on.
00:21:41
Speaker
So if you did put out a business book and you were like, this was my mentality in this year, and then you put another one out next year and you're like, this is my mentality.
00:21:49
Speaker
These are the reasons why I changed the ones from the last.
00:21:52
Speaker
But that's so interesting.
00:21:54
Speaker
It is.
00:21:54
Speaker
Yeah.
00:21:55
Speaker
And you're really sort of showing people your thought process in doing that.
00:21:59
Speaker
And I think it's great.
00:22:00
Speaker
And, you know, a lot of the time you're building on what you've already written.
00:22:04
Speaker
It's not like you, you know, you write one thing and you totally change your mind.
00:22:07
Speaker
You're like, no, what was I thinking?
00:22:10
Speaker
You know, occasionally that happens.
00:22:12
Speaker
But most of the time, you know, you're building on previous thoughts and it's cool to see that.
00:22:17
Speaker
Very cool.
00:22:18
Speaker
Well, I've learned a lot about ghostwriting.
00:22:20
Speaker
And that's, it sounds it's much broader than I thought it would be.
00:22:24
Speaker
I don't know why.
00:22:25
Speaker
But in my mind, it was just it was just a celebrity sitting opposite someone whose face is obscured.
00:22:30
Speaker
I don't know why their face is obscured, but in my mind, because they're a ghostwriter, I guess.
00:22:39
Speaker
I'm sure that that's the way it works sometimes.
00:22:42
Speaker
I prefer to do it this way.
00:22:44
Speaker
I worry that sometimes the ghostwriter has never even met the person that they're writing the book about.
00:22:50
Speaker
Oh, yes.
00:22:50
Speaker
There's no doubt.
00:22:52
Speaker
There's no doubt that that happens.
00:22:53
Speaker
And I have, you know, met people who say, what do you mean we're going to meet every week?
00:22:58
Speaker
I just want you to go away and write this book and go.
00:23:01
Speaker
And I just I don't like to work that way.
00:23:02
Speaker
You know, it's like it's yours and you should want to be involved in the process.
00:23:07
Speaker
I don't understand.
00:23:09
Speaker
Yeah, 100%.
00:23:10
Speaker
Ghost writing, the idea is that you are in theory, well, the ghost writer is not in theory writing the ideas of the book, right?
00:23:17
Speaker
Right.
00:23:17
Speaker
Yeah, you need to be involved if you want to get a ghost writer.
00:23:20
Speaker
Yes.
00:23:21
Speaker
Amazing.
00:23:22
Speaker
Well, for the future of ghost writing, what advice would you give people interested in getting into it as a career?
00:23:31
Speaker
Oh, yeah, that's a great question.
00:23:33
Speaker
Yeah.
00:23:34
Speaker
So I think what you need to be to be a successful ghostwriter is you need to be a fast writer.
00:23:40
Speaker
I think you need to be really adaptable.
00:23:44
Speaker
You need to be able to, you know, take those ideas and figure out how they can, you know, rework them and figure out how they fit into this bigger hole that you're trying to create.
00:23:54
Speaker
You have to be very creative and innovative about the ideas that are coming at you and how those are going to, you know, fit into this bigger picture.
00:24:03
Speaker
I think...
00:24:06
Speaker
The other thing about ghostwriting is really the pricing.
00:24:13
Speaker
It's very easy if you don't have a good process to get stuck into this place where you've negotiated a price, but suddenly this project is taking twice as long as you thought, or something unusual comes up, and all of a sudden now you're not really making out.
00:24:30
Speaker
Yeah.
00:24:31
Speaker
on the project.
00:24:31
Speaker
So you have to be really careful about pricing it out and making sure you can kind of stick to a deadline.
00:24:37
Speaker
I talk to ghostwriters often who say, you know, oh, I don't give anyone a deadline.
00:24:43
Speaker
I just, I'm just going to work on this book until it's done.
00:24:45
Speaker
And I think, whoa, that, that would not work for me.
00:24:48
Speaker
Yeah.
00:24:49
Speaker
Very scary.
00:24:50
Speaker
And I can't believe that clients are like, okay, hope it gets done this year.
00:24:56
Speaker
So I really like to have those deadlines.
00:24:58
Speaker
It helps me.
00:25:00
Speaker
And I think it helps the client as well get to the point where, oh, I can see the light at the end of the tunnel.
00:25:05
Speaker
This book is going to be finished.
00:25:07
Speaker
And that makes everybody feel good.
00:25:09
Speaker
Yeah.
00:25:11
Speaker
Yeah.
00:25:11
Speaker
So I think, you know, have a good process, make sure you're getting paid well for what it is.
00:25:15
Speaker
And it probably takes some practice.
00:25:18
Speaker
But but yeah, you can definitely get there if you're a good writer.
00:25:22
Speaker
You know, that's it's a really great I think it's a great career for someone who loves to write.
00:25:27
Speaker
Yeah, very cool.
00:25:28
Speaker
Very interesting career.
00:25:28
Speaker
And I think also hidden in there is some reverse advice as well.
00:25:33
Speaker
If anyone listening is looking to get a ghostwriter, make sure that you know what you are paying for and probably try and have a time limit on it.
00:25:43
Speaker
Yes, yes.
00:25:44
Speaker
Make sure you know what you're going to get and when you're going to get it.
00:25:47
Speaker
Because, yeah, I know that I've talked to people who have been in trouble with ghostwriters in the past, you know, where, you know, they've agreed to give you something in three months and three months comes and goes and you haven't heard from them, you know, these kinds of things.
00:26:01
Speaker
So make sure you've got a contract and make sure that everything is very clear.
00:26:05
Speaker
Yeah.
00:26:06
Speaker
Amazing.
00:26:07
Speaker
Well, that brings us to the final question.
00:26:10
Speaker
As always, the question is, Emily, if you were stranded on a desert island with one book, which book would you take with you?
00:26:20
Speaker
Oh, this is going to be funny.
00:26:21
Speaker
So my number one book for being stranded on a desert island is the complete works of Plato.
00:26:28
Speaker
It's a big, thick, heavy, you know, tome of a book full of, I don't know, hundreds of dialogues.
00:26:36
Speaker
So I think I could keep myself very entertained for a long time, reading all of Plato's dialogues and thinking about the ideas in that book.
00:26:45
Speaker
So.
00:26:45
Speaker
Going back to your academic roots.
00:26:47
Speaker
Exactly.
00:26:48
Speaker
Amazing.
00:26:49
Speaker
A great choice.
00:26:50
Speaker
And if you don't think Plato is a classic, then I don't know.
00:26:53
Speaker
It doesn't get more classic than that.
00:26:57
Speaker
And, you know, all the time I spent in grad school, I really only scratched the surface on all of those dialogues.
00:27:02
Speaker
So, you know, it'd be very cool to systematically go through.
00:27:04
Speaker
He was quite prolific, wasn't he?
00:27:05
Speaker
Yes, absolutely.
00:27:08
Speaker
Or he or whoever was helping him, his ghostwriter.
00:27:12
Speaker
Yeah, all his ghostwriters, his army of ghostwriters.
00:27:16
Speaker
Right, yeah.
00:27:17
Speaker
Amazing.
00:27:18
Speaker
Well, thank you so much, Emily, for coming on the podcast and sharing your knowledge and experience with us.
00:27:25
Speaker
It's been really amazing chatting with you.
00:27:27
Speaker
Yeah, thanks, Jamie.
00:27:28
Speaker
It was fun.
00:27:29
Speaker
And for everyone listening, to keep up with everything that Emily is doing, you can follow her on LinkedIn, Emily Crookston, or you can find her on Twitter at EM Crookston, on Instagram at The Pocket PhD, or the website, thepocketphd.com.
00:27:46
Speaker
And to make sure you don't miss an episode of this podcast, follow us on Twitter at RightAndWrongUK and on Instagram at RightAndWrongPodcast.
00:27:53
Speaker
Thanks again to Emily and thanks for everyone listening.
00:27:56
Speaker
We'll catch you on the next one.