A few days after an article about cookbook ghostwriters ran in the New York Times Dining section, Gwyneth Paltrow took to Twitter to deny that she’d had a ghostwriter for hers, My Father’s Daughter: Delicious Easy Recipes Celebrating Family & Togetherness. The article’s author, Julia Moskin, identified Julia Turshen as Paltrow’s ghost not only for that book, but for a second forthcoming title that will bear only Paltrow’s name on the cover, and she quotes Turshen in the article about her work on the actress’s books.
A week later, Paltrow appeared on the Rachael Ray show via Skype, still insisting she had no help. Ray has similarly refuted Moskin’s Times article. She told Eater.com: “In well over a decade of writing recipes for many cookbooks, television shows, and magazines, I have not now nor have I ever employed a ghostwriter. I simply don’t use them.”
I wasn’t there when Paltrow and Ray did or didn’t write their cookbooks, but as a ghostwriter myself, who has dealt with a client denial, I have a hunch about what happened at least in the case of Paltrow, for which there is more information to sift through.
The way Turshen is quoted in the article, the detail with which she is introduced, the fact that on her website Turshen lists the book as something she’s worked on, and that she wrote an essay about working with Paltrow on her cookbook for Food & Wine magazine all give me the impression that Julia Moskin got it right, or pretty close to right, and that Paltrow’s denial is rooted in problems of semantics and misundersanding. I sense Paltrow believes that because the stories and recipes in the book were hers, even if Turshen did the editorial heavy lifting, she didn’t serve exactly as a ghost, and therefore Paltrow should be credited alone.
“Ghostwriter” is a problematic word. It gives people the idea that we have some kind of other worldly power; that we’re able to hover over clients somewhere in the ether and read their minds, then write their books using only our own words. But it’s nothing like that, at least not for me. That’s where misunderstandings arise.
In her denial, Paltrow tweeted, “I wrote every word myself.” The thing is, even if she did write every single word that made it into the book, it doesn’t mean she didn’t have the help of a ghostwriter or co-author whatever you want to call us.
In my work I never simply interview a person and then write their book using a whole different collection of words than they did. Typically, I use many of the same words that came out of their mouths, although likely in a different order, and surrounded by other words. I also move whole pieces of their narratives around for purposes of better storytelling. I remove boring expository chunks, and try to draw more interesting anecdotes from my clients to replace those – anecdotes they wouldn’t have thought to include until I prompted them; anecdotes I still have to seriously rework and bring to life.
Another way I work is to get clients to “free-write” bits for me, without concerning themselves with spelling, grammar, sentence structure, or “sounding good.” I have them do this because sometimes people are inclined to reveal more when they are in a room by themselves, writing privately, than when they are sitting and talking with some ghostwriter their agent or editor hired, whom they’ve just met. I find some clients also tend to remember and capture more details when they write things down and email them to me.
After I receive and rework the pieces they’ve written for me, I incorporate them with what came out of the transcriptions of our interviews. That synthesis is really hard work. Even if I were to use only words clients spoke and emailed to me, which is never the case, it would still take a lot of work to put those together in a way that yielded a book that’s readable and interesting. It’s a skill most ghostwriting clients – even the ones who can write beautiful letters and witty blog posts – don’t have and rely on us for. Maybe don’t realize falls under the heading of “ghostwriting.” Which is to say, even though the stories are not our own, and many of the words come from our clients, we still do a great deal of work transforming those stories and words into books.
This is where a client might get confused. In her mind, if she’s providing the stories, and I’m asking her to write, I’m somehow cheating or shirking my responsibilities, and she is no longer officially using me as a ghostwriter. Never mind that I’m neck deep in her manuscript, and I will be the one to piece it together, rearranging everything many times, creating transitions, finessing the order and wording again and again before turning it in. Even with chunks penned by the client, it’s still the same job for me. Actually, it can be an even harder job, especially when the client gets attached to problematic sentences she’s crafted and resists having them reworked, or insists on retaining sections that don’t move the story along.
So maybe Paltrow uttered or typed every one of the words in her cookbook. But I strongly doubt she strung them all together as they stand in the book without a great deal of Turshen’s hard work. Maybe “ghostwriting” is the wrong name for Turshen’s role. Maybe it’s the wrong label for this work, altogether, although I’m at a loss for a replacement that accurately describes taking raw verbal matter and transforming it first into rough jigsaw pieces, then smoothing and arranging those into a patchwork, and finally weaving it all into a seamless tapestry.
At the very least, it seems to me the book was a collaboration between Turshen and Paltrow. But it’s probably stipulated in Turshen’s contract that she can’t claim to have worked on it. That’s pretty standard – what ghostwriting is about – even though many people know that most celebrity books are not written by the celebrities themselves. That’s probably what Turshen assumed when she agreed to give Moskin an interview.
I hope Turshen is not penalized financially or otherwise for this potential breech of contract. It’s lousy enough having Gwyneth publicly deny her work on the book. I know that feeling. It’s happened to me.
No one goes into ghostwriting for the acclaim. You do it because it’s a flexible job, it pays at least decently (sometimes well), and because it can actually be gratifying to help someone who’s not really a writer tell his moving story. For the most part, I am happy to stay behind the scenes. While some writers accept a “with” credit on the cover, I never put my name on anyone else’s book.
I tend to think of myself more as a “memoir midwife,” as one client called me. Sometimes it feels akin to what I imagine being a surrogate mother is like.
The point is, in the end, I am ultimately delivering someone else’s story, not my own creation. And so I don’t think it makes sense to put my name on it.
Instead, it’s often written in my contract that I must receive the first acknowledgement, and that it must be worded in such a way that people in publishing will easily decipher what my role was. The acknowledgement usually reads something like, “I’d like to thank Sari Botton for helping me find the words.”
(Turshen’s acknowledgement in Paltrow’s book is more oblique about her editorial contributions: “I literally could not have written this book without the tireless, artful assistance of Julia Turshen. She quantified, tested, and retested every recipe, oversaw the production of the photos, helped brainstorm in a crisis, and, above all, was my intellectual and emotional support through the whole process.”)
Going otherwise unnamed is fine with me. It’s inherently not my ghostwriting clients’ job to publicize the work I did for them. By the same token, it’s not okay for an author to go to such lengths to vehemently deny having had help that she disparages her ghostwriter in the process.
One client of mine falsely insisted in interviews that she’d fired her ghostwriter after she’d found the first chapter to be unsatisfactory. She claimed she then wrote the book all by herself in five weeks.
Nothing could have been further from the truth. I labored hard on that one, especially since we were “crashing it out” in just ten weeks, including the interviewing time.
I was advised to send that author a legal cease-and-desist letter to get her to stop “publicly retracting the acknowledgement stipulated in my contract.” Later, when I got some distance from the incident, I realized her denial was consistent with others she’d made about having help in her life, from the first time I interviewed her.
We talked in her living room that day about, among other things, why she couldn’t imagine putting her son on a special diet. “Tonight, I’m making spaghetti for the whole family,” she said. “I can’t imagine what he’d do if he couldn’t have any of it.”
When we wrapped up interviewing at about 6 pm, we walked into her kitchen. There, in front of the stove, was a woman in an apron, already making spaghetti. “Oh my god,” I thought, “my client thinks she’s making spaghetti even though her hired help is clearly doing it.”
I get it now. She doesn’t like to admit to accepting help with things. No one does. Celebrities – especially those who went to fancy prep schools in Manhattan, as Paltrow did – perceive a stigma associated with needing a ghostwriter, even though they might not have experience writing books. Besides, what’s the point of having a secret ghostwriter if you have to talk about it publicly?
When I read my client’s false claim that I’d been fired, I cried. And then I thought about all the babysitters and nannies that in the book she denied having, as well. I figured they were all having a good cry, too.
***
Photos by Brian Macaluso.
33 responses
part of being a ghost writer, like part of being an advertising or copy writer, is that what we write does not belong to us. it’s not slavery, because we’re getting paid (and, as you said, handsomely) for it. to suddenly betray our clients for denying us “credit”—a useless little ego ribbon, in the end—does seems a breech of contract, of agreement, of understanding the situation to me. why, for turshen, was paltrow’s in-book acknowledgement not enough? if turshen wants to write a cook book with her name on it, then she should do it. if any of us wants to write books with our names on them, then we should. it seems to me that if a ghost writer does a good job and remains loyal to his or her client, then there will be future clients, which means, of course, more money. but making a huge stink probably only blacklists you from a good source of income. that kind of self-sabotage suggests, to me, some outpouring of shame. in the end, we have to decide what we want out of writing. is it acknowledgment or is it money, or is it that other intangible thing that got us started in the beginning? once we know the answer, it will be easier to make the right choices for ourselves.
“That synthesis is really hard work.” << I agree.
I pretty much hate the idea of ghostwriting. I would not be able to stand it to not get credit for my craftsmanship. I think you contradict yourself a bit here by saying that you put so much effort in, but that it would not be right to put your name on it. By definition, if you’ve put in effort without which there’d be no readable book, you are one of its creators. And, that does not mean you conceived or built the story; it means you worked it, made it, conveyed, translated into language people understand. That’s something, and something deserves its due.
I think maybe this hazy borderline of I-helped-but-it’s-not-at-all-mine is way to fuzzy for Paltrow or others to understand. And that’s not surprising. Like I said, I am not a ghostwriter. But it might be the responsibility of those who make a living doing this to say a loud no to stipulations in contracts that effectively cut you off from talking about an important part of your lives. You shouldn’t have to endure a gag order on your career to earn money. And you’re names should be front and center witht the celebrity.
Clearly, there’s a shame (in the minds of celebrities) that goes ghostwriting. Really, it’s a co-writer. I am quite sure other types of collaborations have been made, of lesser effort on one’ party’s part, and credit has nonetheless been shared. How many times do you here about co-writers passing work between them and re-writing the other in a check and balance way? Or one person is the idea person and the other good with putting it into words? How is this different? In some ways, I’m sure ghosts do more work than these co-writers do.
Why is it so hard to acknowledge a collaboration? Probably, celebrities want to add ‘author’ to their bios. But if it’s not completely true, it’s not completely true. On the other hand, being a co-author is. And that’s ultimately far more admirable a credit than legally keeping mum on the person who enabled your book to happen.
Acknowlegdement of the truth should be a given. It’s better for the ghostwriter, is honorable for the celebrity (or whomever is co-producing the book) and is good for the public to know. People need to know that there’s a lot more that goes into professional writing than spitting out words. And, there’s nothing wrong saying it.
It would make me insane. I was a celebrity personal assistant for years and I became inured to not getting credited for my efforts–parties, cooking, styling, handmade presents, you name it–but “I fired my ghostwriter because she was unsatisfactory and wrote it myself?” Gaaaah.
This is a wonderful essay. I would like to add that this is an occupational hazard, because a really good editor works in such a way that the writer comes away from reading his or her edited piece feeling like even more of a genius than they originally thought. A really good editor’s work is often invisible to the writer. We just make them better. I cringe whenever I hear clients tell others how I helped them with spelling.
Well done. I boil with the injustice of it. It’s infuriating.
What a thoughtful essay. Thanks for sharing. Like Shanna said, situations like that would make me insane. I can’t stand people like that–people who refuse to acknowledge the help they’ve received. It’s petty and fearful. “I fired my ghostwriter because she was unsatisfactory and wrote it myself” is an incredibly cruel thing to say–I would have cried too.
This was beautiful and heartbreaking. These “dark corners” of publishing need some light shed on them; I seriously admire your courage to bring all of this out in the open.
As someone who makes most of her living as a ghost writer (mostly celebrity memoirs), I loved every single word of this essay. You described the process so accurately that it actually made me even prouder of the hard work I do–I especially love your phrase “memoir midwife.” I also agree with you about not feeling slighted when my contract calls for my name to be buried in the back pages rather than appear on the cover. My job is to be someone else’s voice, and I do that to the best of my ability. However, I have been extremely fortunate to have clients (so far) who have been grateful for the hard work I do, just as I’m grateful that I’m not the one in the limelight who has to go around flogging the book on TV and radio.
Thanks for all the supportive feedback! Holly, it’s great to hear from a colleague. Glad to know you related, that I described what we do accurately – and that I’m not the only one doing it this way.
Nothing ghostwritten can be haunted as a work of art should be.
Thank you for this! I hope it will somehow find its way in front of people who don’t usually look into writing / publishing, so that there’s a better understanding of the process. You describe it so well—and I admire your personal guidelines of credit.
i love ghost writing. but i love it because the people i’ve worked with have been amazing. i wouldn’t want credit because i think it’s important for the author to take ownership of the work (or at least what’s being said in it).
i enjoyed this essay! here’s another great one on the topic: http://www.themillions.com/2010/06/the-happy-ghost.html
So, what is the difference between ghostwriting, as described here, and “developmental editing” or “substantive editing”?
It’s more than editing, because you do a lot of re-writing, and in most cases also generate a good deal of original writing.
Something occurred to me yesterday: People like Gwyneth and my client who denied my work are so used to having people help them with everything, they don’t even really notice they are being helped anymore.
Many “real” writers freely acknowledge the help they receive in producing a book. It is odd that Ms. Paltrow (spell check suggestion: paltry) cannot admit the same thing.
It is fun to look at the copyright. Often, the copyright will be given to a company, rather than a person. This is another clue that the celebrity had help with her book.
chamblee54
It’s breach, guys!!! Breeches are pants!!
Aaaaannd…this is why it’s not enough to hire a ghostwriter. You need a good copy editor, too!
Why can’t those do called “ghostwriters” be acknowledged as co-authors or secondary authors. In academia, a manuscript often has multiple authors, including the primary/main author. An honest and fair thing to do would be “Celebrity Writer” and (or at least with) “ghost writer”. Honestly I don’t believe it is humanly possible to have daily talk show, other merchandise businessess and also write couple of books a year. Give credit where it is deserved.
Perhaps there is just a disconnect between the way the term is used within the industry, and by the public at large. Speaking as someone in the latter camp, the term “ghostwriter” conveys a sense of actual authorship, of having written the material from the ground up based on, I don’t know, a series of conversations or maybe letter exchanges with the (nominal) author. In my head, a ghostwriter generates the actual copy and then takes it back to the “author” for fact-checking and approval. I suppose this is naive, or just ignorant (ghostwriters aren’t mindreaders after all), but it’s the connotation that the term carries for me. On the other hand, it seems to be well understood within the industry that a ghostwriter’s task is more nuanced and varied than that, and may entail quite substantial, maybe even predominant, raw input from the named author.
Nevertheless, to my layman’s ears, there comes a point at which when the ghost’s contributions are better described as editorial rather than original – at which point ghost”writer” seems no longer to correspond to the undertaking. It may be a very heavy edit – and the ghost may in fact contribute a lot of original connective prose in addition to shuffling, paring, supplying better words here and there – but somewhere in there it no longer seems like the ghost can fairly be said to be the (de facto) author, the “writer”. (None of this is to disparage or deprecate the effort or skill involved in the “mere” editing. I’m a lawyer and I spend a lot of time turning awful material into good material, so at at least that primitive level I understand what the task entails.)
There doesn’t seem to be a word in general use for this “heavy edit” ghostwriting. And indeed maybe all “ghostwriting” is more like that than what I understand it to be. My only point is that (issues of celebrity self-absorption aside) I completely get it when someone employing the services of a ghostwriter in this fashion insists, “this wasn’t ghostwritten – I wrote every word of it myself!”
Isn’t the whole idea of ghosting rather than co-authoring because the celeb wants to get the credit? The ghostwriter signs up for this contractually. A thank you in the acknowledgements is all that’s to be expected in this case. In the art world, do you think Thomas Kincaid paints all those pictures himself? Can you name one of his helpers?
As an editor, I’d like to chime in on the distinction between what I do and what Sari does. While she’s down in the trenches crafting and rearranging and even, yes, editing, I’m usually on the sidelines trying to get the writer to do the crafting him- or herself, though I have occasionally been given the go-ahead to just jump in there and do it when a deadline is approaching (I prefer not to–it really is the author’s job, or the ghostwriter’s). I don’t expect credit for what I do, though it’s nice to receive an author’s gratitude. I think Sari’s job is much harder. After all, I don’t ever take on a project that I don’t already have a lot of faith in. I shudder to think how difficult it would be to spin straw into gold. It’s too bad Gwyneth Paltrow is embarrassed to acknowledge Julia Turshen directly, but editors and ghostwriters everywhere understand that our work is and should be invisible. As for the jerk who claimed total credit for the project Sari helped with, my hunch is that all those who know this person also know she couldn’t produce a quality book by herself. Or quality spaghetti sauce either.
A very insightful read, thanks. (Interesting to note that the link to Turshen’s F&W piece is broken.)
I truly appreciated reading this, and you sharing it.
That last couple paragraphs regarding the former collaborator cut me deep.
Love your writing.
She has a “Write like a motherfucker” mug!
@Maryn, I see now that Julia Turshen’s whole website is down now. I have a feelings he’s paying dearly for this.
*she’s* (whoops)
I’ve become a ghostwriter following many years as an editor and publisher. Sometimes, when I’m asked by a publisher to sidestep the ‘ghostwriter’ tag for the sake of a celebrity’s ego, I describe my work as ‘extreme editing’. Works for me.
I’ve been following this story with Gwyneth, how I ended up here.
But now, going to follow you: solely, because of the way you write.
The F&W story is still up; the above link just has an extra %29 at the end.
SO DELIGHTED with this article. I’ve found my tribe! I’m a ghostwriter, too, and this article describes the job wonderfully. Unlike editing, where you ask the author to make changes, ghostwriters do it all, and it’s all on our computers. Moreover, our work has to actually sound like someone else. I know what words and phrases my clients use, what stories they tell, and so on.
I work with people who are bright and accomplished, and they often start a book project thinking they’ll just knock it out. They can READ – how hard can it be to WRITE? After a few weeks of failure and frustration they realize writing is an expertise like any other, and they are more willing to get help.
The spaghetti story illustrates a different kind of “author,” one who feels entitled to getting credit for waving her hands over the work of her minions and claiming it as her own. Gwyneth Paltrow, like the others, is most in ungenerous and insecure not to be able to admit she can’t singlehandedly do everything in the world perfectly all by herself.
Glad you can relate, Nellie. It’s been really good to hear from other ghostwriters like you on here, and in my email.
This is Rachael Ray’s “Ghostwriter”:
http://hakunafritatta.blogspot.com/2011/01/rachael-ray-ingredient-permutationizer.html
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