What can a ghostwriter expected to be paid and what are the payment models used?

What a ghostwriter, or any other writer for that matter, is paid can be a touchy subject, but is one that needs to be addressed as clearly as possible and on this all the ghostwriters I spoke to agree.

“You’ve got to get the money right,” said Rick Reilly, who ghostwrote a number of autobiographies of US sports stars including ice hockey star Wayne Gretsky, “because it’s going to be hell if you don’t.” Reilly is no longer ghostwriting and now focuses on writing his own books.

Julie-Ann Amos also agrees, “I’m as transparent as possible about my fees. It makes things easier in the long run,” she told me.

There are a variety of models of payment used by ghostwriters and their clients that range from a per word price for writing a book to a percentage of royalties. Typically, though, payment models appear to fall somewhere between these two extremes with most ghostwriters receiving a portion of any advance offered by a publisher and then a percentage of royalties on book sales.

Which payment model is used depends on a number of factors. If a ghostwriter is approached by the potential subject/author of a book directly and if the subject/author has no track record in publishing most often a flat fee will be agreed for the ghostwriter’s work. This removes any risk of the ghostwriter not receiving their minimum payment for their time and efforts. However, if the subject/named author of a book has some track record in publishing or is already a celebrity in their own right, ghostwriters will often take a percentage of any advance from a publisher (according to my interviewees ranging anywhere from 30 to 50 percent) and then a percentage of royalties (of a similar percentage to the share of the advance).

As Tom Bromley put it when I spoke to him, “If it comes from the publisher then they’ve already done the deal with the celebrity or whoever and there’s a finite amount to pay the ghostwriter and those projects tend to be for a flat fee. If you’re in on the project from the beginning – doing the deal directly with the agent then you’ll get a percentage.”

In absolute terms payment varies greatly depending on the type of work being done and the area of the market that the ghostwriter services. Andrew Crofts, who was the only celebrity ghostwriter comfortable with revealing exactly what he charges, said he charged a flat fee of between 60,000 and 100,000 pounds sterling for each book he writes, although he occasionally also takes a percentage of royalties. On the other end of the scale Julie-Ann Amos said her preferred fee model was, “a per page rate from 12 pounds a page and upwards, plus daily rates for any research that needs to be carried out.”

Michael Gruber, who was the ghostwriter of the highly-successful Robert K. Tanenbaum crime novels, received no upfront fee for his work and shared royalties 50/50 with Tanenbaum. In his own words, however, “My ghost career was idiosyncratic in that I had a cousin, Tanenbaum, who wanted to publish novels based on his career as a New York District Attorney, but he couldn't write.”

From what I learned through my interviews with ghostwriters a straight royalties agreement is an unusual arrangement. Most often ghostwriters agree to a combination of the two, but it seems that payment can also be the sticking point of many ghostwriting contracts. According to Rick Reilly who ghostwrote a number of autobiographies for US sports stars, “You think you’re going to get half. The agent for the athlete tries to screw you completely. Often says, ‘we’re not going to get anything but we’ll give you a lot of royalties.’ You say, ‘I’m not going to do it unless I get half of the advance and X percent of the royalties (…) They say, ‘no way’ and offer you’re a third. The least I’ll take is 40 percent and they’ll begrudgingly give you 40 percent.”

Payment “negotiations” of this kind notwithstanding, payment models form a significant part of ghostwriting contracts and getting this right is paramount. Finding the right payment model may be tricky but once it’s been found, according to Michael Robotham, it’s best to stick with it. His model was the clearest of all the writers I spoke to. Before he turned exclusively to writing only his own work he took one third of the advance plus one third of all royalties including any future film rights etc. The advance was usually paid in three parts: First payment on acceptance, second payment on publication of hardback and third on publication of paperback.