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May 20, 2011 by Lisa Tener Leave a Comment

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About Lisa Tener

Lisa Tener is an award-winning book writing coach who assists writers in all aspects of the writing process—from writing a book proposal and getting published to finding one’s creative voice. Her clients have appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show, CBS Early Show, The Montel Williams Show, CNN, Fox News, New Morning and much more. They blog on sites like The Huffington Post, Psychology Today and WebMD.

Red Flags That This Ghostwriter May Not Be the One for You

We asked California intellectual property attorney Dana Newman for her thoughts about what makes a good ghostwriting relationship.

“Two things are particularly important to a good author/ghostwriter relationship: sharing the same vision for the book, and having a clear written agreement in place covering delivery, approval, payment and ownership.

Red flags that this relationship may not work include:

A ghostwriter who wants to fundamentally change the voice, structure, or purpose of the book (and the author does not).
A ghostwriter who doesn't agree to give the writer access to all the research materials he or she has gathered.
A ghostwriter who doesn't turn in work on an agreed schedule.
A ghostwriter who doesn't address changes the author wants to make in the substance or style of the manuscript.
A ghostwriter who expects payments for writing services or expense reimbursements that weren't agreed to in advance.
A ghostwriter who wants credit and/or demands an interest in the book's proceeds when the arrangement was supposed to be a flat fee work-for-hire, not a co-author collaboration."