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0:48

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Bethann Patrick. This is

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the podcast where we examine some of

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the most surprising, industry-shaking controversies in the

0:57

literary world and try to make sense

0:59

of them. This is

1:02

a bonus episode of our series about

1:04

ghostwriting. In this episode, you'll

1:06

hear from a ghostwriting agent and

1:08

a successful ghostwriter. We've

1:10

been talking a lot about ghostwriting

1:13

because ghosting, that's the industry term,

1:15

is big business. Nonfiction

1:20

ghostwriting, I think, is a huge industry.

1:22

I mean, it's a major, major part

1:24

of the book publishing industry, and I

1:26

suspect that quite often at

1:29

least 60% of all books on the

1:31

nonfiction bestseller list are probably ghosted. That's

1:34

Madeline Morrell. She's known

1:37

as a literary matchmaker, and she's

1:39

fabulous. I love talking with her. I

1:41

don't think anyone knows the business of ghosting

1:43

better than Morrell. She's been in

1:45

the business for more than 40 years. And

1:48

she says on her website she's always looking

1:51

for new clients who have books to be

1:53

written in order to

1:55

maintain her prada habit. Well,

1:57

I'm the only agent, I

1:59

think, who does not. but

2:01

represent ghostwriters to the

2:03

book publishers and I worked strictly

2:06

within the book world.

2:09

Tell us a little bit about that

2:11

role and how you came to represent

2:14

ghostwriters exclusively. Well

2:17

for many years as an agent

2:19

I packaged books and then in

2:21

the early aught I recognized that

2:23

publishing was changing and was becoming

2:26

more and more like Hollywood where

2:28

it was all about the platformed author and

2:31

these platformed authors were clearly going to

2:33

need writers and I

2:36

never considered myself to be a particularly

2:38

good agent and I hated selling but I

2:40

loved giving good phone as I

2:42

say and so I

2:44

decided I would hang out my

2:46

shingle or we hang it out

2:49

and just representing writers to agents

2:52

and publishers who'd signed up what

2:54

we called platformed authors and who

2:56

needed somebody to write their books

2:59

for them. And what

3:01

changed in publishing? How did the

3:04

importance of a platformed author start

3:06

to grow? I think some of

3:08

it has to do with the fact

3:10

that so many formerly independent publishing houses

3:13

were acquired by publicly

3:15

quoted companies were really

3:17

more interested in the bottom line than anything

3:20

else. I think that had a tremendous effect

3:22

on types of books that publishers bought.

3:24

They wanted to buy brand

3:27

name, it's almost product

3:29

actually, and attach writers

3:31

to these books and pay

3:34

quite good money, often far

3:36

too much, for these

3:38

books and sort of go the way of

3:40

Hollywood you know. Everybody had to have marquee

3:43

quality to them. The

3:45

ghostwriters whom I represent they

3:47

all have just phenomenal phenomenal

3:50

CVs and have done major

3:52

major books. I mean since I've been doing this

3:54

I've been behind fixing New York

3:57

Times bestsellers and the writers are getting

3:59

better and better. So what

4:01

makes a good ghostwriter,

4:04

a good collaborator in effect? People

4:07

ask me that. I always say two things, high

4:09

pain threshold and no ego. We've

4:13

met a few of these successful ghosts who

4:15

have what it takes this season, but

4:17

there's a one who's worth hearing from again,

4:20

Andrew Croft, the bestselling ghostwriter who's

4:22

based in England and also

4:25

has a lovely accent like morale. He's

4:28

a successful writer who's authored and ghostwritten

4:30

a number of books. I

4:32

was a freelance writer right from the beginning, right from

4:34

the age of 17. I

4:36

was doing any sort of writing I could get,

4:39

some of which was public relations writing and things.

4:41

So I was getting in the, I had the idea that

4:43

you could write in other people's voices. And

4:46

then I was doing an interview for a

4:48

magazine called The Director, which is a business

4:51

magazine, as it sounds, for the Institute's directors.

4:53

And I was interviewing a business guru and

4:55

towards the end of the interview, he saw

4:58

off the interview, he said, listen, I've been commissioned to

5:00

do some books by publisher and I just haven't

5:02

got time. He said, so if you were to

5:04

come to my office and look through my files

5:07

and come to my talks or whatever, and I

5:09

give you the material, will you go and write

5:11

the books and I'll get glory and you can

5:13

have the money. And I

5:15

was insulted for about two seconds. And

5:17

then I thought, actually, actually, that's not

5:19

such a bad deal because the best

5:21

bits about writing are finding out stories

5:23

and writing them and telling stories. The

5:26

worst bits about writing and trying to

5:28

find a publisher, trying to get paid,

5:30

trying to keep your head above water and

5:32

all that disappears because I think as he

5:34

already had a publisher, he could afford to

5:36

pay a fee. And he also

5:38

had all the information in one place. One

5:40

of the big problems, particularly nonfiction, is you have

5:43

to go and research for months or years. And

5:46

that makes the whole thing un-cost effective because if

5:48

you're going to get twenty thousand dollars or twenty

5:50

thousand pounds for a book, it takes you six

5:52

months or a year to research it and you

5:54

then have another three, six months to write it.

5:56

It's not very conducive to earning a living. But

5:59

if you... can just give you

6:01

everyone can give you the material within a

6:03

couple of days or a week, you

6:05

can then go off and write the book immediately. You don't

6:07

have to do any other research. It's all so

6:10

I thought, well, there must be other

6:12

people who need this service because in

6:14

those days, this was about 30 years

6:16

ago, nobody ever mentioned ghostwriters. I just

6:18

didn't, it wasn't a term anybody ever

6:21

mentioned or was all terribly secretive. You

6:23

were always sworn to absolute secrecy. Nobody

6:26

ever said they were ghostwriter. Every writer would

6:28

do it if they were hard up and

6:30

they were asked by a publisher but nobody

6:32

ever admitted it. So I thought, well, why

6:34

don't I just go looking for ghosting work?

6:36

So I took a small ad, like

6:38

a classified ad in the books on a magazine,

6:40

which is our version of publishing, waiting to

6:43

think guestwriter for hire with my telephone number.

6:45

And I ran that ad for 15 years,

6:47

every week, 15 years. And

6:50

for most of that time, I was

6:52

the only person who actually in

6:54

England, there were one or two in America, but there was anyone

6:57

in England who actually laid out

6:59

their stall and said, I am a ghostwriter,

7:01

any help I can give you. The idea

7:03

of getting the bookseller was that I didn't

7:05

want to talk to the whole general population

7:08

at that stage, because I was a bit

7:10

nervous. I get a million letters from totally

7:12

hopeless cases. I wanted to get to everybody

7:14

in the industry. I wanted anybody who wanted

7:17

help with their writing would go to a

7:19

publisher or a librarian, agent, somebody in

7:21

the industry. And if I was the only

7:23

telephone number they could find, then

7:25

I had an advantage. In

7:28

other words, if I can give you writing,

7:30

if I can provide my services as a

7:32

writer, and you can give me

7:34

money, that works. I don't have to

7:36

have this entire thing about being

7:38

a literary, you know, genius

7:41

or character in the mix. Would

7:43

you say that's accurate? Yes, I often

7:45

equate to other craftsmen. If you're a

7:47

carpenter, and you want to make one

7:49

great big beautiful piece of furniture, which

7:51

you can sell for £50,000, and you're

7:53

very and you're just starting out, well,

7:55

you've got to buy the materials, you've

7:57

got to spend the time and your

8:00

business after, because you've then got to find somebody

8:02

to pay an enormous amount of money for your

8:04

beautiful piece of furniture. If, however, you go around

8:06

your neighbourhood and you knock on doors and you

8:08

say, I am a carpenter, is there anything I

8:10

can do for you? Would you like some new

8:12

doors? Would you like a new kitchen? I

8:15

can lock you up a coffee table. And then

8:17

in your spare time, because you're now earning a

8:19

living, you can then build your great beautiful piece.

8:21

And it might take you a little bit longer,

8:23

but you will at least be able to do

8:25

it. And you won't have to sell it immediately.

8:28

And you can. So you can, you know, taking

8:30

that back to writing, if you're writing your

8:32

great novel, you can be doing that at

8:35

the same time, this A, hones your skills

8:37

and also gives you time because you've got

8:39

money. The other thing about starting

8:41

very young, as opposed to going through university,

8:44

is that you don't need so much money

8:46

to live on, which is enormously important when

8:48

you're a freelancer. You cannot go freelance if

8:50

you've got a mortgage and two children in

8:52

school can, obviously, but it's

8:55

a million times more difficult. Why

8:57

is there such secrecy around ghostwriting?

8:59

In the old days, the

9:02

publishers thought the reading public

9:05

needed the idea that the people were writing

9:07

the books themselves. I mean, they

9:09

did it didn't get them that if you

9:11

actually thought about it, nobody thinks that a

9:13

film star has time to sit down and

9:15

write 80,000 words or, or a footballer or,

9:17

you know, if they could, they

9:20

don't have the time. Why did they bother?

9:22

They thought that it took away from the

9:24

experience that you wouldn't believe

9:27

you're inside that person's head, which

9:29

is just awesome. When

9:31

I first started, we were still invisible.

9:33

I never, I mean, you sign, I

9:36

sometimes you still sign NGA's because people

9:38

want everyone to believe they wrote the

9:40

book. But quite soon, the sort of

9:42

celebrity thing started and at home with

9:44

the Osborne something kicked it off, didn't

9:47

it? And everybody suddenly reality and slept

9:49

in all that. And I hit a

9:51

number of different winners

9:53

of television competitions or

9:56

stars from soap opera and things. And I've

9:58

seen one soap opera star and she's actually

10:00

said, well, I don't agree.

10:02

I think I don't want to not

10:05

have your name on it, because I don't want my friends

10:07

to think I'm putting on airs and graces and pretending that

10:09

I'm writing a book. And

10:12

so she demanded that they be on

10:14

the cover and the publishers realised that

10:17

it made no difference to sales whatsoever.

10:20

And then people started to actually get

10:22

angry, readers became angry when they found

10:24

out that their favourite celebrity was pretending

10:27

they'd written it, in fact they weren't. It's never

10:29

the celebrity's fault, it was always the publishers who'd

10:32

made the decision. They felt cheated.

10:34

But if they were told right from the beginning,

10:36

I'm getting help with the writing, everybody

10:38

was fine with it. You know, you

10:40

wouldn't expect, you don't expect Barack

10:42

Obama to be able to write all his own

10:45

speeches. And you don't feel, you know, mortified to

10:47

find out that there was a speechwriter who, you

10:49

know, wrote something that they have got him into

10:51

the White House or whatever. And

10:54

now I know it's become much more common. In

10:56

fact, once or twice recently, because I had

10:58

been quite successful, one of

11:01

the publishers have actually put my name in as

11:03

large a print as the author, which is a

11:05

bit embarrassing, I don't really like that. Coming

11:08

up after the break, Kross discusses

11:10

his work process and

11:12

what changes he anticipates with the introduction

11:14

of AI. Hey

11:22

there, it's Beth Ann. I want to tell

11:24

you about another show I think you'll love,

11:26

Talk Easy with Sam Pergoso. Every

11:29

Sunday on Talk Easy, Sam invites

11:31

an artist, musician, writer or activist

11:33

to come to the table for

11:36

an in-depth long-form conversation. He's

11:38

gotten some of the most wonderful

11:40

candid interviews with everyone from actor

11:42

Michelle Williams to politician Beto

11:45

O'Rourke to performer Janelle Monae. He

11:47

does an incredible job of talking to

11:49

a person, like they're a person,

11:52

and they just really open up. If

11:54

you're new to the show, I'd recommend his

11:56

latest talks with the New Yorker editor

11:58

David Remnick and... and actor Willem

12:00

Dafoe. Don't miss out. Listen

12:03

to Talk Easy with Sam Pergoso wherever

12:05

you get your podcasts. Hi,

12:09

it's Beth Ann. Are you

12:11

looking for a new storytelling podcast

12:13

filled with interviews, field recordings, and

12:15

music to add to your rotation?

12:18

May I recommend one of the first

12:20

and the best ever, the Kitchen Sisters

12:22

Presents. You'll find a

12:24

beautiful marriage of sound rich, deeply

12:26

layered audio and unexpected, compelling stories

12:29

that flip over to the B-side

12:31

of history. Learn about

12:33

rogue librarians, famous people like

12:35

Ray Eames and Linda Ronstadt,

12:38

and not-so-famous people like Susan

12:40

Rogers, the technician who became

12:42

Prince's sound engineer with no

12:44

training in sound engineering. You'll

12:47

get something surprising every episode.

12:50

From Radiotopia, the Kitchen Sisters

12:52

present. Listen everywhere you

12:54

find podcasts and at kitchensisters.org. The

13:02

real joy in it for you, Andrew, it

13:04

sounds like, is in the doing.

13:06

So do you have a staff?

13:08

Do you have a research assistant,

13:10

an admin, a bunch of,

13:12

you know, interns? How do

13:14

you work? I just, I do the whole

13:17

thing myself. I think there

13:19

are people who do. There are these

13:21

sort of ghostwriting factories where you get, well,

13:23

there's the interview and then they pass it

13:25

on and suddenly it costs, you know, you

13:27

get 20,000 words on, you

13:30

know, my time in Vietnam. I sound, I'm

13:32

disparaging, I'm not, and that's great. But it's

13:34

not, they're not the sort of stories that

13:36

I find really interesting. I want to do

13:38

all the listening myself. I want to ask

13:40

all the questions myself. I want to be

13:43

the reader. I want to ask all the same

13:45

questions that the eventual reader is going to. I want

13:47

to structure the story. So

13:49

what will happen is I'll get, I will basically

13:51

go in with a tape recorder. If I can,

13:53

I'll say something, give me two or three days

13:56

total, nothing else. Because

13:58

if you break it down into one or two hour. interviews

14:00

like a journalist has to, you

14:02

just each time you go back you've got to

14:04

start a game with all the presenters, you know,

14:06

how are you and you can't remember what you've

14:08

talked about last time and you

14:11

know one of you's late and the other one

14:13

can't find their tape recorder or you know then

14:15

it's just a mess. But if

14:17

you could take them away, especially if you

14:19

take them off to a hotel somewhere and

14:21

just for two or three days you just

14:23

sit down and you make them talk through

14:25

the story chronologically, fact or fiction,

14:28

you just make them tell you everything that's

14:30

in their memory, in their heads, what they're

14:32

thinking. That way you get that

14:34

voice on tape, you get the idea of what

14:36

they would and wouldn't talk about, what they do

14:39

and don't say and you

14:41

get the actual facts of the story, hopefully

14:44

the chronology of the whole thing. I then go

14:46

away with the tape and I would not exactly

14:49

transcribe it but I will listen again and then

14:51

I, in the very best stories

14:53

when the story really flows and really holds

14:55

my attention, I can type it, the first

14:57

draft I didn't get and going back to

14:59

the tapes. I can just remember it then,

15:02

I'll check on the tapes that I've remembered

15:04

everything and I've remembered it correctly and maybe

15:06

put in actual bits of dialogue that they

15:08

remembered that I'd forgotten they told me or

15:10

whatever and then seeing what we've got.

15:13

I will have found the narrative art

15:15

while talking to them and listening, I

15:17

mean the chronology won't necessarily be the

15:19

final manuscript because of word processing, it's

15:21

now very easy to write it all

15:23

chronologically because you can then swap it

15:25

around later and think of it.

15:28

An exciting incident, chapter one and things

15:30

flash back and all that. So which

15:32

used to be a real pain for

15:34

word processing but showing my age

15:37

now but when you had to do it

15:39

with actual paper and arrows

15:41

and cutting bits out and pasting them,

15:43

I mean dreadful. Very yeah,

15:46

traumatising. Last question

15:48

or two for me, what does

15:51

the rise of artificial intelligence mean

15:53

for ghost writing? I know

15:55

for example, I teach creative writing and

15:58

I can't ignore chat teaching. GPT

16:00

or GPT-4 and

16:02

I wonder how do we use this?

16:05

Will it help? Will it hurt? What

16:07

are your opinions? Well, I

16:09

think, I mean, it's

16:11

a threat to writers' incomes, but

16:14

I suspect for it, certainly initially,

16:17

the writing is going to be

16:19

fairly pedestrian. It'll be like corporate

16:21

brochures. I mean, you know

16:23

the difference between a corporate brochure and something

16:26

that's written by a statute is

16:28

very obvious quickly. I think

16:30

that people just will get bored

16:32

with AI writing, but

16:40

for stuff that's actual, actual stuff need

16:42

to know stuff. I mean, newspapers may

16:44

be in more trouble than perhaps some

16:47

books because you buy a newspaper for

16:49

actual facts written clearly and concisely and

16:51

AI might be able to do that

16:54

more quickly than it can

16:56

do a novel which or

16:58

a non-fiction that delves into

17:00

people's feelings. I again feel

17:02

threatened myself by AI, but I might if

17:04

I was 20. You know, another 10, 20

17:07

years, it could be very

17:09

sophisticated indeed. Missing

17:12

Pages Season 25 might

17:15

be all about AI, but

17:17

I hope not. It's hard

17:19

for me to imagine a technology that

17:21

brings as much authenticity to the craft

17:23

and business of publishing as people like

17:26

Morrell and Crofts. And

17:28

isn't that what all great stories possess?

17:31

Ghosting works because there's human connection

17:34

involved. Relationships are fostered

17:36

through agents like Morrell and

17:38

the stories are channeled through talented

17:40

writers like Crofts who develop a

17:42

deep knowledge and bond with the

17:44

author. So here's hoping

17:47

that humanity continues to reign in

17:49

this industry and that books, whether

17:51

they're ghost written or not, continue

17:54

to fly off the shelves. In

18:00

the next episode of Missing Pages, we're

18:03

revisiting a story that captivated the literary

18:05

world a couple of years ago. The

18:07

Bad Art Friend. That's

18:09

next time on Missing Pages.

18:15

Missing Pages is a podglamorate

18:17

original produced, mixed, and mastered

18:19

by Chris Boniello with additional

18:21

production and editing by Jordan

18:23

Aaron and Caitlin Bogeky. This

18:25

episode was produced by Claire Tai,

18:28

marketing by Joni Deutsch, Madison

18:30

Richards, Morgan Swift, Vanessa

18:32

Ullman, and Annabella Pena.

18:34

Art by Tom Grillo. Produced

18:37

and hosted by me, Bethann Patrick.

18:40

Original music composed and performed

18:43

by Hasham Asadulahi. Additional

18:45

music provided by Epidemic Sound. Executive

18:48

produced by Jeff Umbro and the

18:50

Podglamorate. Special

18:53

thanks to Dan Christo, Matt

18:55

Keeley, Madeline Morel, and

18:57

Andrew Croft. You can

18:59

learn more about Missing Pages at

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thepodglamorate.com, on Twitter at

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MissingPages at thepodglamorate.com. If

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you for watching.