Be a ghostwriter like myself or scan help-wanted on Craigslist and you realize that the old-fashioned fantasy of publishing a best-seller is still embedded in the national consciousness, at least outside southern California. There, the fantasy is the screenplay which will become the film to blow records at box-offices and leave critics fawning.
So concrete is the fantasy of the book that captures America that the real authors-to-be really believe they will be able to obtain assistance from seasoned ghostwriters by offering a percentage of the profits instead of upfront compensation. They are clueless how few books ever even sell more than 1000 to 7000 copies and how much fewer do that today. There's more. They are also clueless about the power of promoting a book and especially about being cunning in doing so. They're not thinking promotion. Perhaps what they assume is that like Honda their book will be one that sells itself.
What puzzles me is this mass delusion exists in a digital age. The odds would be better for getting a message out there, recognition, and getting rich if they configured a compelling YouTube series. Remember Lonely Girl? They could test-run that themselves. If there is interest, they can hire a production crew to make the series for less than the cost of contracting with an experienced ghostwriter like myself.




