Family Histories.

Finding someone to “ghost” your book is pretty easy – just search the Internet and they come up like a shoal of mackerel! But finding the one for your book that will produce the result you want is not that easy.

For a start there’s the terrible feeling that we’re all a bit high falutin and expect to be paid a minor king’s ransom for putting your words in order. This is all due to the media who report with glee that a celebrity (?) is being paid a fortune for his memoirs and that they will be penned by a ghost writer who will, presumably, have a pretty good chunk of the fee for his work.

But the reality is that most of us work in the lower echelons of the business, helping embryo authors to get their thoughts into book form. It’s not usually so much creative writing as intelligent and helpful editing – and, of course, this is reflected in the price, which is relative to the amount of time and research that has to be spent on the project.

These thoughts were sparked off by an enquiry I had yesterday from someone who would like to have their family history recorded in book form. As it seems that there is a more than adequate amount of detailed records available and that the chronological account is pretty much in place, it makes it relatively easy to produce a worthwhile publication at a very reasonable price.

I think more people have fascinating family stories hidden away than we can ever imagine. And most of them make much better reading than the “ghosted” memoirs of a here today-gone tomorrow “celebrity.”

And, after all, it’s my bread and butter!