UK Ghostwriting Service
The London Ghostwriting Company is a unique ghostwriting organisation servicing clients with our specialist story development, mentoring and editorials programme. Our writing services are professional and our ghostwriting services are anonymous – we will consider each new project on its own terms, designing a unique approach based on the project’s nature and your publishing goals. We invest our creativity in every project and commit to a rigorous, open and flexible process, reflecting high standards with a view to publication.
Unlike other ghostwriters and ghostwriting companies, we do not want the ‘and’ or ‘with’ credit and agree to absolute confidentiality. We are committed to supporting you, taking care of your wants and needs from start to finish. This is the professional and full ghostwriting service that is available with us.
We work on each project differently with a tailored approach that is fitting and specific to the nature of the creative idea. This will be in keeping with the purpose of the book and the individual requirements of the company, person or family we are working with. It is a highly customised service that adjusts as it develops: a creative service because it is a creative process, but for a general guide to the process, please see below:
1. Your first step will be to just get in contact. We’d love to hear about your project.
2. Someone will get back in touch by e-mail or phone. Following this, a video call will be arranged and if you are in London someone will meet you for a 1:1. While the project is being considered, and now conversations have begun we will start producing an outline document of your project. This will normally be kept internal as we get closer to visualising what the book is and where we are taking it. If you have any work already written, this is the time when you would submit it through.
3. We will chat through the process, timeline and contract terms and a paid instalment will be made upon signature of a ghostwriter for hire agreement. Around this time you will have met a number of the LGC team.
4. At the first meeting, you and your project manager or ghost writer will jump straight into conversation. Be ready for some deep dives from the get-go! This may be done in a workshop environment with our whole team depending on the project but is normally quite intimate and private. We gather as much information as we can from you over a period that averages 30 hours.
5. As the conversations progress, we begin writing which will quickly take the form of a step outline, also known as an outline or a skeleton. This is a breakdown of the book or screenplay into small sections and becomes an initial blueprint for the project. We agree on the project’s steps in terms of content and tone and we start writing a first draft manuscript (evolving the outline into the first draft). It’s normal for us to write a few sample chapters or trial chapters to test out certain writing methods at around this stage.
6. After a period of time we will have a manuscript ready for review. This is where you will need to invest your time in the process of review as we gather team feedback before we start any official editorials. Due to how we operate at LGC, this is not as long as it can be with a traditional publishing house, which lasts between six to twelve months. Having established strong foundations at the start of the writing with all of the interviews and behind the scenes workshops, the fundamentals will all be strong and the first draft often resembles the submission-ready manuscript.
7. We spend time upgrading the writing from a first draft to a final polish via our editorials system. At this stage, we strengthen the proposal and start shortlisting agents and publishers to submit to.
8. We will submit the final polished book to you along with all other items and start submissions. During this period, minor changes can be made.
9. Once you have your items, you will want to take advantage of our contacts in the literary, publishing and UK film industries. Our contacts become your contacts and we will help you in any way that we can to move the project forward into the market. We also submit to the agents shortlisted and wait 12 weeks for all responses.
Sometimes our clients do not want agents to know the book was ghostwritten, and often the project has taken on a form of co-writing so we may not submit to agents from the ghostwriting company account, and not as your ghostwriter. Instead, we can help you with cover letters and help you with the submissions, so you can address any agent directly. Sometimes it is best for us to ‘introduce’ your project via submissions and we can do that as your editor, not as your ghostwriter, as this is often the service that we have delivered. There is a fine line between developmental edits or re-writes and what is ghostwritten.
We help you negotiate any offers or run a 2nd round of submissions. In certain circumstances and with certain projects self-publishing options can be considered but largely, our goal will be to secure you a strong publishing contract with a publishing company via an agent.
Of course, the above process is quite general and no project will ever follow this method so cleanly. The creative process can be quite chaotic. Our job is to keep the order, manage the development process and leverage opportunities when they present themselves. We are development experts with experience managing a lot of moving parts that present themselves during the publishing process, and hiring a ghostwriter is the start of it all.
The LGC ghostwriting service is not distinct to the UK. We are UK ghostwriters but welcome projects from international customers.