This article was written for Annabel & Grace, which is now part of Rest Less.
Have you ever thought you had a book in you, but didn’t quite know where to start? You might just be in need of a ghost writer.
Mary Alexander has worked as a ghost writer for some years.
“The old saying, ‘everyone has a book in them’ has a lot of truth in it, it’s just in my experience, some people need some help getting the book down onto paper,” she said.
To date, she’s written several memoirs for clients, including one book that ended up as a Sunday Times bestseller.
“Everyone’s family has a story to tell,” she said, “and I love to help people to tell them. With self-publication being more available than ever before, a book feels like the family portrait of the 21st century. Where once you had a painting, or a photograph, now you have a book, that sits on the family’s bookshelves, telling future generations all about who and what went before.”
Mary became a ghost by accident. She began working as a journalist in her twenties, following a course in periodical journalism at the London College of Printing. Some years later, following that well-known career move of having two small children in quick succession, she started to work from home and to write books instead.
“Books offered much better lead times than articles when my first two children were small and I was at home with them,” she said. “If one of the children went down with chicken pox, losing two weeks from a six month deadline wasn’t an absolute disaster. Losing all of an article deadline, was.”
So how does the ghost writer process work?
“The first step with any client is to have a chat with them to hear about the story they want to tell and to see if we click. It’s quite a personal process, being a ghost. I don’t think I could be a ghost for someone I don’t like. If you’re writing a person’s memoir, you do so in the first person, and really have to inhabit their voice. So if you don’t like them, I think that would come shining through. Luckily, I’ve met some amazing human beings through my line of work. As a ghost I think you end up knowing more about a person than anyone else other than their therapist.”
Getting to know someone that well means quite a few hours spent gathering their story and looking at any supporting information available such as letters, photographs and diaries, before starting on the writing process. Mary can also assist with other types of writing projects, and to the level of input the client would like. She’s currently helping a lecturer with a book on gender and is researching and writing the memoir of a businessman for self-publication. She can also advise on the various routes to self-publication.
Based in Oxford, with two grown up children, a teenager who’s delighted to have his GCSEs cancelled and “a slightly bonkers dog”, in more normal times she happily travels to meet clients in their homes or wherever is convenient to them. However, given the nation’s currently in lockdown, What’s App Facetime calls are proving a good alternative.
“Being stuck at home with hardly any distractions is actually a fairly ideal way to start to write a book,” Mary said.
Prices vary according to the length of the book and how much input is required.
She said: “Every project is unique. To date, I’ve written several full length books of around 60,000 words. These obviously take a considerable amount of time, and so the price is quite high. However I can see there could be a demand for a shorter book, of say, 20,000 words with photographs, which would take less time to research and write, and therefore would be less expensive. I also charge on small projects on an hourly or daily basis for general advice. Moving onto publication, there are a range of options. I regularly work with a small publishing company, who produce very attractive books, although they aren’t the cheapest option. If a person’s budget is small, I recommend they look at some kind of print on demand option.”
In the first instance, Mary is always happy to have a chat on the phone. “I love hearing new ideas and about the books people want to write. This is such an interesting job, you never know what the next phone call will bring.”
So if you’ve dug out a pile of family photos and don’t know where to start, maybe you should drop her a line.
To contact Mary: [email protected] or go to her website www.maryalexander.co.uk to find out more.
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