How to Pitch Your Book Idea To a Ghostwriter
You’ve hired a ghostwriter, and now it’s time to organize your notes so you know how to discuss your idea with them clearly.
Decide what you need to communicate
When you hired your ghostwriter, did you have notes, an outline, and several chapters ready to discuss with them?
Whether you entered the battle of words yourself and hired a writer to review and revise your work, or you want to pursue your idea through the writer’s pen, you’ll get the most out of your meeting when you know what you want to say and how you want to say it.
Know how to talk about your idea
How do you classify the story you want to tell? Is it for a work of genre fiction, memoir, a business book, or self-help? You don’t need to categorize your idea, though it helps to view it through the lens of how readers will see it.
If your idea is crystallized in your mind, great! Practice your elevator pitch. How well can you convey your story in thirty seconds? How about ten seconds, or a single sentence? The clearer you can speak about your core concept, the faster your ghostwriter can brainstorm an outline with you.
It’s completely normal for a great idea to have black holes separating its most vivid aspects. Succinct plots rarely have every detail figured out in the beginning. Your ghostwriter should also act as a supreme consultant who can offer complementary ways to sew those gaps together. Use your writer to turn those unknown blank spots into active parts of your story.
For example, let's say you have an idea for a science fiction novel about a detective in Los Angeles who specializes in identifying artificial intelligence. He gets hired by the LAPD to find a group of cyborgs working together to secretly survive among humans. That idea sits in your brain for a while until you give it a timeline—placing it in the year 2075.
With that framework in mind, imagine the world you want to build:
Are there flying cars or motorcycles in 2075, and how do they work?
Describe what Los Angeles looks like, and what life is like there for the general population.
Describe the United States of the future. What are the food and water supply like, and what is the health of the general population like?
Be prepared to share as much or as little realistic detail as your narrative requires. Some science fiction authors, like Arthur C. Clarke, demonstrated a deep enough understanding of physics and technology to draft intricate plots around space travel. On the other hand, Philip K. Dick operated from a more philosophical stance, maintaining a layman’s relationship to hard science (I lifted elements from his novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? for the example above).
Share your idea with anyone
The best way an author can understand their idea is to get it out of their head and onto the page. It doesn’t matter where you start; clarity materializes as your pen meets the paper. Talk through your idea out loud. Share it with someone you trust. As you express your concept in broad strokes, its inherent charisma will begin to show.
In doing so, you will inevitably face questions you haven’t considered yet:
How many cyborgs is the detective actually tracking down?
Is he hunting a rogue pair, or a hidden faction of thousands?
You can make up an answer on the spot, but you don’t need to force certainty. It simply means you haven’t thought every detail through yet. Very few ideas are so airtight that they can’t be stumped by a good question.
All of this preparation helps, especially when it can be unpacked easily for a writer. But it’s not necessary to have every answer locked down. What matters most is being clear on what you do know, and standing convicted in that clarity. If a missing detail keeps stopping you, let your ignorance stand. Ghostwriters work with ideas. They can make the structural decisions for you that agree with the internal logic of your story.
Practice until you tell the story with ease
Some authors unpack their thoughts systematically, with or without an outline. It’s simply how their minds work. From beginning to middle to end, they deliver every plot point along the way, tossing in an anecdote here or a punchline there for good measure.
Other authors spiderweb across their thoughts to tie points together. Some do it quickly, some slowly. Many authors return to the main topics they anchored at the start of the conversation.
While systematic unpacking is easier to digest quickly, both ordered preparation and a spontaneous outpouring of ideas can produce a first-rate book. Only one thing from the author is truly crucial: know your idea, and be ready to talk about it.