I’ve been a professional ghostwriter for 30 years, and I’ve hired dozens of writers to work for me over the course of completing 700 books. So I may know better than most people just how hard it is to find a great ghost writer who can transform the ideas of an individual into a work of nonfiction or fiction.
It’s been my privilege for all these years to know Claudia Suzanne, who is the world’s leading trainer of ghostwriters. We have been colleagues and friends for more than a decade, and it’s been my privilege to witness the transformation of her program for teaching writers the art of ghostwriting into an accredited university type of level program.
Claudia in fact, runs the only academic ghostwriter training program on the planet – a degree-granting program, which is called the Ghostwriting Professional Designation Program at Cal State Long Beach. The program is offered online in a synchronous form, which is a fancy way of saying that you take the classes when you can.
In addition to the 34 recorded instructional modules, there are also weekly question and answers/demonstration sessions.
Ghosting in an extremely satisfying career. You’re constantly meeting people, you’re constantly learning, and you’re paid to write. If you love people, ideas, and words, what could be better? The challenge is knowing what it takes to ghost write a book, and even writers who are terrific at their craft need to understand the specifics of what it takes to become a great ghost.
How do you structure a book? How do you find clients? How do you price and close a deal? How do you plan a book? How do you interview so that you make the best possible use of the client’s time? How do you balance working on one project with other projects and also the rest of your life? How do you edit? How do you construct a marketing strategy so that the book becomes a best seller?
You can be the greatest writer in the world when it comes to your own work, but these matters are not necessarily intuitive. The good news is that they can be learned, and the better news is that those skills can be taught.
Hundreds of writers have won their ghostwriting certification from Cal State Long Beach. Americans had an advantage simply because of the time zone issue. Suzanne’s students in Australia had to get up at 4:30 in the morning to watch sessions live. Her students in Europe head to get up in the middle of the night doing the same thing. We’re up in the middle of the night doing the same thing. That’s why the program is now asynchronous, so that everybody can learn to become a ghostwriter and still get a good night’s sleep.
Perhaps the biggest challenge for anyone writing a book is to create the appropriate structure for the book. If you’ve ever picked up a book and stopped reading after the second chapter, then you experience a piece of writing that might have great ideas but was so badly organized that you despaired at the idea of finishing. How do you construct a book plan so that leaders will hang with you until the very end? That’s one of the key things writers learn in Suzanne’s program.
If clients aren’t satisfied, of course followed up with generally great manuscripts, they want that manuscript to become a book that gets into the hands of the largest possible number of readers. The ghostwriter program therefore teaches students how to put together a best seller strategy plan, which creates enormous value for the clients and at the same time creates a higher level of appreciation for the work of the ghost. When you can show the client how to maximize the marketing, you are providing a service that few writers can offer.
If you’ve ever thought about becoming a ghostwriter, or if you’ve ever thought about finding a way to make a living as a writer, it’s time to explore the ghostwriting professional designation program at Cal State Long Beach. It can set you on the path for long, fruitful, fulfilling, and lucrative career in which you are constantly learning, writing, and best of all, growing.