Latest / The Daily Writer / Celebrity Ghostwriter Glenn Plaskin on Writing Habits, Getting Started, and Working with Clients

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Celebrity Ghostwriter Glenn Plaskin on Writing Habits, Getting Started, and Working with Clients · The Daily Writer

• 0:06
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the Daily Rider Podcast, where we bring you tips and inspiration each day to help you build habits for writing success.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_00: For more resources, including your free Daily Rider Starter Kit, visit DailyRiderLife.com.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_00: As you probably know, in addition to hosting this podcast and running the Daily Rider Club, which is my membership group for writers, I'm a ghostwriter as well.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: And today I'm excited to share a conversation with an enormously successful and what I would say a legendary celebrity ghostwriter, and his name is Glenn Plaskin.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_00: Glenn Plaskin is the best-selling author of 25 books, including Horowitz, The Biography of Vladimir Horowitz, Turning Point, Pivotal Moments in the Lives of America's Celebrities, and Katie Up and Down the Hall, The True Story of How One Dog Turned Five Neighbors Into a Family.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_00: Glenn is also a recognized collaborator and ghostwriter for CEOs, entertainment personalities, high achievers, newsmakers, performing artists, and public speakers.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_00: He's known for his in-depth interviews and human development stories, landing exclusives with film stars, politicians, TV personalities, business executives, and media figures.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_00: And he is ranked in the 2022 Publishers Weekly book, Publishing Almanac, as the lead ghostwriter in the nation.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_00: Now, I've got a little bit more I want to say on his bio here, but I want you to take note of that.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_00: His interview subjects have included such figures as Merrill Streep, Al Pacino, Robert De Niro, Catherine Hepburn, Nancy Reagan, Bill Gates, Calvin Klein, Audrey Hepburn, Elizabeth Taylor, Michael Jackson, Paul Newman, Dolly Parton, and I actually cut out a bunch of other celebrities in this list.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_00: But you get the point.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_00: He's talked to basically everybody.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_00: He has interviewed so many amazing and influential celebrities, it is absolutely mind-boggling.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_00: Glynn's TV appearances include The Today Show, Oprah, Larry King, Joan Rivers, Kelly Jesse Raphael, Geraldo, and Good Day New York.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_00: Glenn will also be appearing in two upcoming film documentaries in 2023, one on Katherine Hepburn on Netflix, and another on Leona Helmsley on HBO.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_00: Glynn lives in New York City.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_00: Now, as you can tell, I have a great uh fondness for Glenn.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_00: I've talked to him a couple times now, and he is such a blast and so knowledgeable and so kind and generous as well.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_00: And those are my favorite kind of people who are not just highly accomplished, but also really generous with their wisdom and knowledge.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_00: And I think you're going to see that today in this conversation, just as I have.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_00: In this conversation, Glenn shares his journey into becoming a writer.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_00: He shares some of his habits and routines, how to get started writing, and some thoughts on working with clients.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_00: You can find out more about Glenn at ghostwriteyourbook.com.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_00: That is ghostwrityourbook.com.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_00: Now, before I get to the interview, I want to give a special shout out to my good friend Paul Edwards, who is a mutual friend of Glenn and myself.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_00: So, Paul, thank you so much, my friend, for making the intro to Glenn.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_00: And with that said, here is my interview with Mr.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_00: Glenn Plaskin.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_00: Glenn, welcome to the Daily Writer Podcast.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_00: I am absolutely thrilled to have you on the show.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_00: Thrilled to chat with you about books and ghostwriting and the creative process and whatever else comes up.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_00: So thanks for making time to do this.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_00: I genuinely appreciate it.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_00: Oh well, thank you.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_01: I really admire your recent book about Elvis Presley.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_01: I think it's absolutely brilliant, and you did a great job on it.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_00: Well, thank you.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_00: That absolutely means the world to me, especially coming from you because you're such a seasoned and accomplished writer and you you sort of know how the sausage is made behind the scenes books.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_00: And uh so that means a lot coming from you.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_00: I really appreciate that.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_00: You're very welcome.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_00: Well, let's dive in.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_00: I've got about 85 questions, actually, not quite that many.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_00: Um I do have probably 12 or 14 questions.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_00: We probably won't get to all these, but I'm so fascinated by your journey because you've done a lot of different things related to writing.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_00: And you also write your own books in addition to doing client work and you have a background in journalism.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_00: So you have a super fascinating mix of all these things.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_00: And I guess the place that I would like to start is can you take us back to the beginning and how you got into writing in the first place?
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_00: And what was what was your entry point into the world of writing and books?
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, I have absolutely no training as a writer.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_01: Um, my dream in life was to be a classical concert pianist.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_01: So really starting when I was eight years old, um, I started taking piano lessons.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_01: And by the time I was 16, I was proficient enough to aspire to this dream.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_01: And so my parents um uh ultimately sent me to a conservatory music for college for nine years in a row, nine years.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_01: And so I remember uh there came a point when I was around 25 when I realized, you know, I'm good, but am I good enough to achieve this dream?
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_01: And I decided I wasn't.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_01: And what was ahead for me, finishing a doctoral degree in piano performance was teaching.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_01: And so when I was 25, I actually quit college.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't finish this doctoral degree, and I remember my parents thought I was crazy.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_01: We put so much money into your musical education.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_01: I bet, I bet.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_01: How can you quit now?
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_01: Well, most people would not have done it, and I always tell people that sometimes the decision you make when you're a teenager or a young person is not necessarily the right decision for later in your life, even in a decade later.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_01: And so I gave up one dream to start another.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_01: And the next dream I had was I had this idea for a book.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_01: Now remember, I had never written anything, I had never had any training, I didn't even write a college paper.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_01: And I was not interested in being a writer, that wasn't what this was about.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_01: I was interested in a subject.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_01: And I always tell people if you're trying to sell a book, you're selling the idea.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_01: You're not selling yourself.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_01: And particularly, I wasn't selling myself because I had no experience.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_01: But my idea was to write the first biography of the most famous pianist in the world.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_01: That was my dream.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_01: And you can see the connection between music and this dream.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_01: So I moved to New York with no money, no friends, no nothing.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_01: I sold my car to have enough money to move here.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_01: And I had this idea I was going to write this book.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_01: And I went to 15 publishing companies with my idea, including to former First Lady Jacqueline Onassis, who was an editor at Doubleday.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_01: Everybody liked my idea.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_01: Of course, they liked the idea because no one had ever done it.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_01: And then I went to the William Morse agency and I went to the chief agent.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_01: This was someone who handled people like presidents, film stars, you know, James Missioner, all these famous people.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_01: And he I remember him saying to me, What have you had published?
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_01: I said, nothing.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_01: He said, Well, what have you written?
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_01: I said, nothing.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_01: So he said, Well, then what do you have?
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_01: And I pulled out of my pocket my list of the publishing companies.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_01: And I said, All these companies are interested in my idea.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_01: He said, Well, where's your book proposal?
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't even know what a book proposal was.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_01: I said, Oh, I'll get you one.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_01: So, to make a long story short, he sold my book with my proposal, and he sold it for enough money to live on for the next three years.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_01: And I didn't know anything about writing a book, so I immediately hired a writing teacher who was the uh chief program writer for CBS Records and the New York Philharmonic.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_01: And I started giving him my writings and it would come back all blackened with corrections.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it was not good.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_01: And eventually I called the New York Times on the phone and I said, I have an idea for you.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_01: I'm writing a book.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_01: And I said, part of the book is going to be this idea.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_01: And to make a long story short, the first thing I ever had published was in the New York Times Sunday magazine.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_01: And I always tell people, you can start at the top or you can start at the bottom.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_01: It's your choice.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_01: I decided to start at the top.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_01: And after that interview, uh, I mean, that that article, they asked me to do celebrity interviews for the Arts and Leisure page of the New York Times, classical musicians.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_01: And I did it.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_01: And when my book was published three years later, I mean, it was very painful.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_01: It went through multiple drafts, and I learned a lot.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_01: It was a 650-page biography with 2,000 footnotes.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_01: And when it was published, it was literally on the front page of the New York Times serialized.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_01: It was in the London Times, the Chicago Tribune, the LA Times, everywhere, the Washington Post.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_01: And I remember thinking when I was on a book tour, geef, just four years ago, I was a piano student.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_01: And now I'm an imposter.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_01: I'm an author, you know, supposedly.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_01: And so I remember the agent calling me up and saying, Well, would you like to write another book now?
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_01: I said, no.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_01: I despised writing this.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_01: I said, I want to interview celebrities for interviews.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_01: And so for the next 10 years, that is all I did in full-time jobs at newspapers and magazines, interviewing everyone from first ladies to film stars to world figures in almost every field.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_01: And I met every single person that I'd ever dreamed of meeting, from, you know, going to the White House to Catherine Hepburn and Elizabeth Taylor and Michael Jackson and just about every and Meryl Streep and Al Bacino and Robert De Nier, just about anybody you would want to meet.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_01: Oprah, Peter Jennings, the it was literally hundreds of these people.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_01: And I found that I had some kind of a knack for talking to these people in some way that would elicit, you know, good emotional responses.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_01: And so the interviews went on like that for about 10 years.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_01: And ultimately, my second book is a collection of these interviews.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_01: And Oprah did an entire show on it.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_01: Um, it's called Turning Point: Pivotal Moments in the Lives of America Celebrities.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_01: And it was my idea to have a syndicated column every week where I would talk to a celebrity every week about a crisis in their life and how they overcame it and what they learned from it.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, throughout our lives, all of us are going through multiple challenges.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_01: It could be a health challenge, financial challenge, career problem, relationship problem.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_01: And these people would confide to me, you know, Dolly Parton confided at one point, you know, that she considered suicide, which nobody knows.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and Larry King talked about his heart attack, and everybody would talk to me about a crisis.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_01: So that was my second book.
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_01: And then my third book was probably my favorite.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_01: It's um a book about my dog, and about uh it's called Katie Up and Down the Hall, the true story about how um one dog turned five neighbors into a family, and um very a subject close to my heart.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_01: It's an intergenerational story about how a little kid who had no mom bonded with this 85-year-old woman who had no children with me and my dog, and it takes place before, during, and after 9-11.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_01: So when you ask me, you know, how did I get started as a writer?
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_01: I had and have no aspirations as a writer.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_01: The thing I was interested in doing was people, human psychology connections with people.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_01: So, yes, it turned out that I, you know, I did write all these articles and books.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_01: I'm up to about 25 books now.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_01: But when people say, Oh, I just love writing, I always wanted to be a writer, I always think to myself, that's not true for me.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_00: Because it's something you never set out to do, it just sort of happened as a result of your curiosity and and the unique journey that you went on.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_00: Because a lot of people set out to to think, I want to be a writer, but they don't really have a container to put that that aspiration into, you know, as far as I want to write this or this or this.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_00: So it's interesting to hear your journey and how you I almost want to use the word stumbled into it accidentally.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_00: That I feel like that's not quite the right way to express it.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_01: I actually wouldn't agree with that.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_01: It didn't just happen and I didn't stumble into it.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_01: No.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_01: What I tell people is that you need to um have a vision.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_01: You have to, they call it visualization.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_01: It's a technique that really works for people, which is that I had the single-minded vision that I was going to write this this book about Vladimir Horowitz, this famous pianist.
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_01: And I literally would rehearse it and repeat it in my mind and imagine how it would be.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_01: And I was extremely assertive and focused.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_01: Most people, they might have an idea, but I I think one thing that I had going for me, and maybe even people would say sometimes it was too much, is that they would tell you, oh, he's tenacious.
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_01: Like it didn't just happen, trust me.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_01: I'm the one who made it happen with phone calls and letters and and countless hours of planning.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_01: So it never would have happened.
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_01: Nobody handed it to me.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_01: It was a vision that was in my imagination.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_01: And I always tell people this that if you if you have an idea, um, I'm not saying you can necessarily make it true, but you have a greater chance of making it true if you're really my talent was not writing, my talent was this ability to be focused.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_01: So all of this, you know, this romantic, oh, I want to be a writer and it and I want to uh uh become a great artist and all this stuff, that had nothing to do with what I was doing.
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_01: I wanted to do this book because I needed a mission in life, I needed a new identity.
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, when they say desperation is the mother of invention, I really believe that's true.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_01: So when you said it just kind of I stumbled into it, trust me when I tell you, I didn't stumble into anything.
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_00: Can you apply that same?
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_00: And here I'm switching to ghostwriting a little bit because obviously this is something that I do.
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_00: Um, have you ever applied that to a ghostwriting project in terms of there's a certain person that you really wanted to work with or collaborate with?
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_00: You had a vision for it, and then eventually that happened.
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_00: Does that kind of visualization work in terms of you want to work with a certain type of person or you want to work with a certain celebrity or individual?
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_00: Can that can that rightly be applied to that kind of specific goal?
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_01: I guess you could, but actually I didn't do it that way for the ghostwriting thing, was was accidental.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_01: I had interviewed a um a celebrity who I liked.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_01: And when he read what I'd written in a national magazine, he called me up and he said, Have you ever thought about helping, you know, writing a book with somebody because I like what you I thought you captured my voice.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_01: And as you know, in ghostwriting, one of the goals is not to capture your voice, it's to capture their voice.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_01: And um, all those years of interviewing celebrities, if any, one thing that came out of it was that I was somehow naturally able to capture their voice authentically in an interview.
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_01: So it's a very, I'm sure you see that it's a short step to go from interviewing somebody for a magazine profile to interviewing them, you know, for an entire book.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_01: So he and he invited me to work with him on a book, and I had never done it.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_01: And um, he kind of had a whole system with uh digital tape recorders and transcribers, and uh he had the whole system kind of set up, and I actually learned a lot from working on this book, uh, techniques that I still use today.
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and I traveled all over the world with this particular person, and um and I learned so much from doing this, and then it was after I finished that book that um my agent came to me one day and she said, We have a new book for you, a Christian-based inspiration book.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_01: I said, Well, I don't know anything about religion.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_01: She said, Well, you don't have to really know too much.
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_01: And to make a long story short, I turned that down, but then they came back at me a second time because they didn't like the writer they had hired, and they said, Well, would you do it?
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_01: And I said, But I don't know anything about the Bible, and I don't want to know anything about the Bible.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_01: They said, Well, you won't have to.
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_01: You can write the whole chap chapter, and the pastor will put in the biblical stuff later.
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_01: So that's how we did it, and that was my um second ghostwritten book, but it wasn't really ghostwritten because I was, you know, we use the word ghostwriter, but I I like to view a ghostwriter more as a collaborator.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_00: Me too.
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_00: Me too.
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_01: And as you know, like your name is on uh the Elvis Presley book.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_01: Correct.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and my name is often on books, so I would call us more collaborators than uh maybe we are ghostwriters, but whatever you want to call us, um, you know, we're helping that person bring the story out of them, right?
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_01: And maybe we know more about writing than they might, so we're able to write it, but it's a collaboration.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_00: Totally, totally.
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_00: And and it, you know, and trying to gather my thoughts here.
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_00: I've got so many, you you've inspired so many questions in my mind here.
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_00: Um one thing that people sometimes ask me about, and I'm curious if if they ask you about this too, is people sometimes have questions about is ghostwriting legitimate?
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_00: In the sense of, well, if somebody else's name is on the book, is that really legitimate or is it dishonest?
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_00: Blah, blah, blah.
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_00: Of course, I know it's not because I know how the process works and that it is collaborative.
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_00: Do you ever deal with questions like that too?
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_00: And and if so, how do you respond to to that whole line of thinking?
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_01: Well, let me put it this way: if you have a Mercedes and your Mercedes uh has a problem, you don't try to fix it yourself.
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_01: You take it to the dealer, and they fix the Mercedes.
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_01: So um if you have a vision for a book, your vision is no less good because you can't write it.
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_01: You you're the one who lived it, but you need some technical help.
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_01: I think of a good ghostwriter or collaborator as your helper.
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_01: It's like uh a chef in the kitchen.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I'm gonna bring my help to you and we're gonna work together to bring your message out.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_01: There's no virtue in writing it yourself, or uh and there's great virtue in writing it yourself, but it can be either way.
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_01: So when people, I think I'm I don't hear this too much, but if there's any degradation of the idea of being a ghostwriter, um I don't see it that way.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_01: I think of it as being an artist who's helping the subject bring their story to life.
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_01: And um, you know, everybody, I mean, uh Prince Harry's using a ghostwriter, Hillary Clinton uses a ghostwriter.
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_01: They're not really ghosts because they're known to who they are.
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, Michelle Obama.
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_01: Um uh it's true that Barbara Streisand is supposedly writing it herself, but she has editors who are working with her.
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_01: So I think it's fine that um, you know, ghostwriting, uh, if anything, has grown, I believe, as a profession.
• 20:53
  SPEAKER_01: Um, there's a new almanac, and I wrote a listing in it.
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_01: It's called the um, it's from Publishers Weekly.
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_01: It's called the 2022 Publishers Weekly Book Publishing Almanac.
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_01: And the subtitle is a master class in the art of bringing books to readers.
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_01: And they asked me to write the main listing on ghostwriting in it.
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_01: So I talk about what it means to be a ghostwriter.
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_01: So I wouldn't put up with any negative commentary about ghostwriting.
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_01: I just think of it more like reportage.
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_01: In other words, we're working with a subject to bring out their authentic voice.
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I have three books that have come out in the last months um that are all medical.
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_01: They happen to be written by doctors with my help.
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_01: Now, what do I know about medicine?
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_01: Nothing.
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_01: But I wrote a book with called The Medical Jungle.
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_01: It's coming out in November with um one of the nation's most famous vascular surgeons, a pioneer in vascular surgery.
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_01: And when they brought me This book, they said other ghostwriters turned it down because they viewed it as a death march.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_01: And I said, What do you mean by that?
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_01: They said, Well, it's so difficult, the material is so complicated, and that it's just it'll kill you to write it, you know.
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_01: So I thought, Oh, I could do it.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_01: So I did do it, and um, you know, it has a lot of complicated medical terminology in it, but beyond that, there's a was a real story to tell.
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_01: So I believe a good ghostwriter is kind of like um uh one of those reptiles in the jungle, you know, those ones that change colors.
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_00: Totally, totally.
• 22:41
  SPEAKER_01: What do you call those?
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_00: Um like a chameleon kind type of a thing?
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_01: Chameleon, yeah.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_01: And a good ghostwriter can just take the shape of whoever it is you're working with.
• 22:51
  SPEAKER_01: So I often take subjects that I honestly don't even know anything about, I have no interest in, I have no expertise in.
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_01: And often I tell people not to hire me.
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_01: For example, I got a call from the CEO of a corporation, and this particular company manufactures menstrual products.
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_01: Well, the menstrual product industry is a multi-billion dollar industry worldwide, obviously.
• 23:19
  SPEAKER_01: And um, she said to me, Why should we hire you?
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_01: You're a guy.
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_01: What would you know about this subject?
• 23:26
  SPEAKER_01: Well, obviously, nothing.
• 23:30
  SPEAKER_01: So I told her, you shouldn't hire me.
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_01: I said, I really appreciate your calling, but you should hire.
• 23:36
  SPEAKER_01: I always tell people this: hire someone you are comfortable with, hire someone who has a good track record, who has written perhaps books in your field, hire someone that you like because personal chemistry is very important in ghostwriting.
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_01: You could be a great writer, but you could have a terrible personality for this particular client.
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_01: So I said, you should hire someone, a woman who you trust who knows about your field.
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_01: And so, of course, she hired me.
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_00: You convinced her.
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't, oh no, I did not convince her.
• 24:12
  SPEAKER_01: I told her not to hire me.
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_01: And I often tell people not to.
• 24:16
  SPEAKER_01: I said, if you find someone that you like better or that you think can do it better, even though underneath I don't really believe what I'm saying because I believe that I could write anything.
• 24:29
  SPEAKER_01: Because as a as a journalist, you know, you learn to write about all kinds of things.
• 24:34
  SPEAKER_01: But I don't like people, people have to feel comfortable hiring you.
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_01: And so, by the way, she did hire me.
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_01: And uh, it turns out the story wasn't really about menstrual products at all.
• 24:47
  SPEAKER_01: It was it was a mother-daughter story, it's an entrepreneurial story about how they started their business in their dining room table and turned it into a multi-million dollar empire.
• 25:00
  SPEAKER_01: How did they do it?
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_01: What was their vision?
• 25:03
  SPEAKER_01: What was driving them?
• 25:05
  SPEAKER_01: What made their product different than anybody else?
• 25:08
  SPEAKER_01: These were the questions that the general public could identify with and be inspired by.
• 25:15
  SPEAKER_01: So, what a good ghostwriter is trying to do is always capture a story, capture not only the emotions, but the facts, and try to engage and inspire the reader in whatever way they can, just the way you did in this Elvis Presley book.
• 25:32
  SPEAKER_00: Well, thank you.
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_00: And I sincerely appreciate that.
• 25:34
  SPEAKER_00: I really do.
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_00: So, for those who are listening who are considering doing client work, maybe some type of freelance writing, journalism, ghost writing, that they're they're doing some work for others.
• 25:48
  SPEAKER_00: What would you say to those people who also want to write their own books?
• 25:52
  SPEAKER_00: How how do you think about uh doing client work versus doing your own books?
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_00: Do you have a different type of emotional energy that goes into your own stuff versus client work?
• 26:00
  SPEAKER_00: Do you structure those books differently?
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_00: How how do you separate that in your mind?
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_00: And I've I asked you about seven questions at once.
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_00: I do that.
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_00: I have a bad habit of doing that, but hopefully my question's pretty clear.
• 26:11
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, I understand.
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_01: Um well, first of all, I will admit to you that when I write my own books, I'm probably most emotionally engaged because these are things that I, you know, are coming from the inside out and I care about the most.
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_01: However, that said, some of the ghostwritten books I wrote, you know, you become quite close to the person you're working with.
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_01: It's a it's a it becomes it can be a real friendship and an emotional bond.
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_01: And um, you know, sometimes there are tensions.
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_01: I've had situations where there is a lot of tension.
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_01: It that can happen once you you start moving along on the process, but you do get close to the person, and many times, you know, I get completely um caught up in the story.
• 27:07
  SPEAKER_01: And um, I will admit that you know, writing a book is not easy, and sometimes all these details are quite burdensome, and there are days when you know you just feel like, oh my god, is this ever going to end?
• 27:19
  SPEAKER_01: Are we ever going to get to the end of this?
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's very difficult.
• 27:23
  SPEAKER_01: And I often tell ghostwriters, if you think you're charging too much, uh, charge more.
• 27:29
  SPEAKER_01: Because I like that advice.
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_01: There's no we can talk about that if you want to, uh, the whole subject of fees, but you know, this is a very um uh complicated thing to do.
• 27:43
  SPEAKER_01: It takes many months to write a book.
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_01: Um, it's there are usually many drafts, and you go through many um cycles of the moon to get this done.
• 27:54
  SPEAKER_01: And it's emotionally and um physically quite draining.
• 27:58
  SPEAKER_01: I often and I sometimes have you know two to four books going at the same time in various stages of completion.
• 28:07
  SPEAKER_01: So my advice to anybody who wants to do this is number one, try not to.
• 28:13
  SPEAKER_01: Try to find a try to find a better job, something more secure, something more reliable.
• 28:20
  SPEAKER_01: I would say if you if you really love the idea of doing this, then if you want to do it and you need advice, you can always reach out to me.
• 28:29
  SPEAKER_01: I'll answer any questions you like.
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I think there are some techniques that you know you and I know that we use in writing a book.
• 28:39
  SPEAKER_01: Sure.
• 28:39
  SPEAKER_01: Yours may be different than mine.
• 28:41
  SPEAKER_01: Um, on my website, which is ghostwrityourbook.com.
• 28:46
  SPEAKER_01: There's one section at the top that talks about my, I think it's called my writing protocol or something.
• 28:52
  SPEAKER_01: It's just kind of like how do I do it?
• 28:54
  SPEAKER_01: And it's a pretty concise two-page document on some of the things that I do at the beginning.
• 29:04
  SPEAKER_01: Obviously, at the beginning of writing a book, you want to get the vision of the person.
• 29:07
  SPEAKER_01: Well, why are you writing this book?
• 29:09
  SPEAKER_01: What's driving you to write it?
• 29:11
  SPEAKER_01: You know, what's the purpose of it?
• 29:13
  SPEAKER_01: What do you hope to accomplish with it?
• 29:15
  SPEAKER_01: Because you'll find that people have many different reasons for writing a book.
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_01: Some of my clients are very wealthy, they're not writing a book for um the money.
• 29:26
  SPEAKER_01: The money has nothing to do with it, you know what I mean?
• 29:30
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so they're writing it sometimes for their legacy.
• 29:35
  SPEAKER_01: I do um some family legacy books, which are only they're not to be published, um, they're privately published for family, friends, and colleagues.
• 29:45
  SPEAKER_01: And um I wrote one that I really like called For Pete's Sake.
• 29:50
  SPEAKER_01: Pete is the name of the guy.
• 29:52
  SPEAKER_01: He owns Steel Factories.
• 29:54
  SPEAKER_01: It's a the book weighs five pounds, literally.
• 29:57
  SPEAKER_01: Oh my goodness.
• 29:58
  SPEAKER_01: It's a hundred thousand words, plus it has hundreds of color and black and white photos.
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_01: And it's really a beautiful book because from beginning to end it tells the story of his life.
• 30:10
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm not saying that anyone else in the world would be interested in it, although I do think it it's a rather inspiring Ragster Rich's story, but it was it was produced simply for him and his family.
• 30:22
  SPEAKER_01: It took me a year and a half to do it, and it had you know, an art director, an editor, a proofreader, a printer.
• 30:29
  SPEAKER_01: And the book is just as it would be, as if it were commercially published, but it's a family legacy book.
• 30:35
  SPEAKER_01: My point is that some people want to do that kind of book, some people want to do a business book, some people want to do a motivational, inspirational book, you know, um, some people want to do a um, you know, a subject-related book.
• 30:49
  SPEAKER_01: For example, one book I'm doing now is with the uh an elementary school principal of a very progressive school in North Carolina, and she wanted to write a book about her 40-year experience as a teacher and principal.
• 31:03
  SPEAKER_01: So, uh, and that's to be commercially published.
• 31:06
  SPEAKER_01: And the reason her book is timely is because, you know, we have chapters in the book about um school shootings and bullying and how did COVID impact schools.
• 31:17
  SPEAKER_01: So this particular subject is rather timely.
• 31:20
  SPEAKER_01: We have a lot of people in the country who might be interested in this kind of a book, whereas other books, you know, are not as commercially viable.
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_01: So my advice is um, you know, if you feel you really want to do it, um, then the whole question becomes how do you get clients, I guess.
• 31:42
  SPEAKER_00: True, true.
• 31:43
  SPEAKER_00: People are always interested in to circle back to what you mentioned a minute ago, fees and then how to get clients.
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_00: And and actually, if we can dive into both of those, I'd love to hear your thoughts on that.
• 31:52
  SPEAKER_00: Setting fees and how you think about that as a ghostwriter.
• 31:55
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, and then also your thoughts on how do you actually get clients as a ghostwriter.
• 32:00
  SPEAKER_01: Well, let me reverse the question because I am interested.
• 32:02
  SPEAKER_01: How do you get clients and how do you set the fees or that's a really good question?
• 32:09
  SPEAKER_00: Um boy, uh I would all of my clients have come through referrals.
• 32:13
  SPEAKER_00: Uh they have not come through any kind of advertising or marketing or promotion other than the marketing that I do through just trying to have good relationships and getting out there and meeting people and having awesome people like you on the podcast who I can get to know and then maybe they know somebody who needs a book that I could help with or something like that.
• 32:34
  SPEAKER_00: They've all really just come through relationships.
• 32:37
  SPEAKER_00: In terms of setting fees, I've just I've tried to I don't raise my fees necessarily with every single project, but I kind of go in tiers and over time it's raised.
• 32:46
  SPEAKER_00: And um but it but it's something in my own heart, just to be honest with you.
• 32:51
  SPEAKER_00: I always kind of wonder should I charge more?
• 32:53
  SPEAKER_00: Should I when should you charge more and at what point?
• 32:57
  SPEAKER_00: And uh I guess it's kind of a moving target a bit because ghostwriting fees can be all over the place.
• 33:04
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, they as I say in the uh in this almanac that I'm in, I actually go over the fee um issue.
• 33:13
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but I agree with you.
• 33:15
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, sometimes books come to me through referrals, sometimes they've come to me through a literary agents, sometimes I have advertised, um, sometimes I have done some marketing.
• 33:27
  SPEAKER_01: It just seems to be a combination of factors.
• 33:30
  SPEAKER_01: Often one client will lead you to another.
• 33:33
  SPEAKER_01: Like I wrote a book for one gentleman, a Wall Street guy, and then um he has um introduced me to three other people who became clients who live in his community, and then he came to me and he asked me if I would um work on a golf book.
• 33:53
  SPEAKER_01: Uh his golf club was having the 25th anniversary, a very uh uh you know, prestigious golf club in the United States.
• 34:02
  SPEAKER_01: And um I said, Well, I don't know anything about golf.
• 34:05
  SPEAKER_01: The only thing I know about golf is miniature golf.
• 34:10
  SPEAKER_01: And that didn't that didn't stop it.
• 34:12
  SPEAKER_01: So we did the golf book, and now we have a third one coming out that's a fable.
• 34:18
  SPEAKER_01: It's coming out in March uh for young adults and adult readers about the um it's called the Island of the Four P's.
• 34:26
  SPEAKER_01: Um, it's about the four P's to what he calls the four P's to success, which you'll see in the book.
• 34:33
  SPEAKER_01: But so yeah, sometimes they come from referrals.
• 34:36
  SPEAKER_01: Um, as far as fees go, it's I always tell people it's like buying a car.
• 34:41
  SPEAKER_01: You could buy a used car for$2,500.
• 34:44
  SPEAKER_01: And you could buy another car for$500,000 or a million dollars.
• 34:49
  SPEAKER_01: And so it just depends on the quality of the car.
• 34:52
  SPEAKER_01: And when you're when you're hiring a writer, there are some things to look at, like what is their track record, you know, what are the testimonials about the person, what what what is said.
• 35:05
  SPEAKER_01: Um for example, you can look up my name, you know, Glenn Plaskin in Google, just type it in, and there are literally thousands of listings which list all my interviews and so uh and and books and stuff.
• 35:20
  SPEAKER_01: So that provides some credibility, you might say, right?
• 35:25
  SPEAKER_01: And then there's so there's the credibility, there's your skill, there's your track record, there's um your past books.
• 35:32
  SPEAKER_01: So I think all of these things play into it, but ultimately you can only charge what the market can bear.
• 35:38
  SPEAKER_01: I think there are ghostwriters who charge$5,000 that they'll put something I know or$10,000.
• 35:45
  SPEAKER_01: There are others who$25, and then there are others 50, and then there are others who go much higher into the six figures.
• 35:54
  SPEAKER_01: So it's it really depends upon your experience and and also who is the client.
• 36:01
  SPEAKER_01: It's not only what you charge, but it's you know, what can the client afford.
• 36:05
  SPEAKER_01: I do have people who call me sometimes, and um they tell me that you know they have a budget.
• 36:12
  SPEAKER_01: And if the budget is, you know, obviously not where it needs to be for me.
• 36:17
  SPEAKER_01: I sometimes refer, you know, to other people who could do it.
• 36:22
  SPEAKER_01: So um, but I will say this in the almanac, um I put the average price for a straightforward memoir, a business book, a how-to guide, or a family legacy book will fall in the$30,000 to$60,000 range.
• 36:40
  SPEAKER_01: However, um uh more experienced ghostwriters uh, you know, who have books that have been published for publishers and have documented lists of former clients with full-fledged websites, which is an important thing, sample books, and multiple testimonials, those factors now put you into the next level, which would be 65,000 to 150,000.
• 37:11
  SPEAKER_01: And for ghostwriters who are celebrity journalists or established authors who have New York Times bestsellers or who have worked with national figures or high net worth individuals, their credibility is well established through book reviews, media appearances, and book sales.
• 37:32
  SPEAKER_01: And for those ghostwriters, it could go anywhere from 150,000 to 300,000 and beyond.
• 37:40
  SPEAKER_01: So what I'm saying is it really depends upon your credentials.
• 37:45
  SPEAKER_01: So if you were a young ghostwriter who doesn't have much of a track record, but you have a real ability and skill, I would say you would start more in the$30,000 to$50,000 range.
• 37:57
  SPEAKER_01: And then you go up from there.
• 37:59
  SPEAKER_01: So I hope that's helpful to some extent.
• 38:01
  SPEAKER_00: It is really, really helpful because people often ask me what they should charge and and what the standard rates are for ghostwriting and that kind of kind of a thing.
• 38:10
  SPEAKER_00: People are always interested in money topics, of course.
• 38:13
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes it's a struggle to know how to answer that question.
• 38:15
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes the answer depends on who's asking and where they are on their journey, because to somebody who's just getting into it, it can be really discouraging to hear okay, you've got to have all these established credentials and this track record and everything when they're just getting started.
• 38:33
  SPEAKER_00: Um, it's very much a moving target.
• 38:36
  SPEAKER_01: It's like show business a little bit.
• 38:37
  SPEAKER_01: It's like if somebody wants to become an actor, you know, at the beginning you may not have that many credits or anything.
• 38:45
  SPEAKER_01: And so um you take what you can get and you kind of build up from there.
• 38:51
  SPEAKER_01: Um, when I started, it was kind of strange because as you know, I didn't start as a ghostwriter and I didn't start with any desire to be a writer.
• 39:00
  SPEAKER_01: I started with a project that I thought was commercially viable.
• 39:04
  SPEAKER_01: And that's why the um the agent was able to sell it.
• 39:08
  SPEAKER_01: He wasn't selling it because of me, he was selling it because of the subject.
• 39:14
  SPEAKER_01: Um so I would keep that point in mind in a way, which is if you can hitch your wagon to a subject or a person that has commercial value, you're more likely perhaps to get a higher fee.
• 39:31
  SPEAKER_00: I'd like to circle back as we as we start to wrap this up because I want to respect your time, of course.
• 39:36
  SPEAKER_00: I'd like to circle, circle back to habits and schedules and those kinds of things and and what your daily life looks like.
• 39:47
  SPEAKER_00: Because this is a podcast uh called the Daily Writer, and I'm very interested in habits and routines and how people actually get the work done.
• 39:54
  SPEAKER_00: What is the what is a typical day for you look like in terms of when you start writing, how much time you spend writing, those kinds of things?
• 40:02
  SPEAKER_01: I'll tell you a good story on that.
• 40:03
  SPEAKER_01: I once had, when I was writing my first book, I often felt depressed and overwhelmed.
• 40:09
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 40:09
  SPEAKER_01: And there were days I did not feel like doing anything and just couldn't get started.
• 40:14
  SPEAKER_01: And one day I said to this therapist, um, I'm too depressed to write.
• 40:18
  SPEAKER_01: I can't do it today.
• 40:20
  SPEAKER_01: And she said to me one day, what makes you think I'm interested in your feelings?
• 40:27
  SPEAKER_01: And I said, and I said to her, Well, what do you mean?
• 40:29
  SPEAKER_01: You're a therapist.
• 40:30
  SPEAKER_01: This is your job.
• 40:31
  SPEAKER_01: You're supposed to be interested in my things.
• 40:33
  SPEAKER_01: She said, No, I'm interested in what you're doing because when you change what you're doing, you will change how you're feeling.
• 40:42
  SPEAKER_01: So she said, What I want you to do is sit at your desk and just sit there and do it every day, regardless of how you're feeling.
• 40:51
  SPEAKER_01: And it doesn't matter what you write or if you do write or if it's good or bad, just sit there.
• 40:56
  SPEAKER_01: So I started doing it.
• 40:57
  SPEAKER_01: I would just show up at my desk at the same time, which I do to this day.
• 41:02
  SPEAKER_01: I show up here, it could be, I can choose the time.
• 41:05
  SPEAKER_01: It's usually 8 or 9 a.m.
• 41:07
  SPEAKER_01: And I don't get out of my chair until lunchtime.
• 41:11
  SPEAKER_01: I just sit here and I have a whole bunch of things that I have to do.
• 41:15
  SPEAKER_01: I write them all down on these envelopes.
• 41:17
  SPEAKER_01: I use these envelopes.
• 41:19
  SPEAKER_01: These are my to-do lists of what to do.
• 41:21
  SPEAKER_01: Like this is one book I'm working on, and on this book, every check mark shows me what chapter and what order the chapter's in.
• 41:29
  SPEAKER_01: And I have loads of these envelopes.
• 41:32
  SPEAKER_01: Anyway, she she showed me that how you feel is irrelevant.
• 41:39
  SPEAKER_01: You don't even need to be inspired.
• 41:40
  SPEAKER_01: So, what I do is I sit down and I know what I have to do.
• 41:44
  SPEAKER_01: Like today, before this call, I was working on a book and I was just, I just do it.
• 41:51
  SPEAKER_01: I just sit there and do it.
• 41:53
  SPEAKER_01: And I usually work for about three to four hours uh pretty much nonstop.
• 42:00
  SPEAKER_01: I don't take phone calls, I don't look at email, I won't answer the phone, I won't do anything.
• 42:07
  SPEAKER_01: The only reason I'll even get up is to get a glass of water or to go to the bathroom.
• 42:11
  SPEAKER_01: That's it.
• 42:12
  SPEAKER_01: But then at lunchtime, I've had enough.
• 42:14
  SPEAKER_01: So then I get up and I sometimes come back, but I often don't.
• 42:20
  SPEAKER_01: In other words, the bulk of what I do is um done.
• 42:24
  SPEAKER_01: I can do I do administrative things sometimes later in the day, but I the actual writing I do in the morning, I find that the first um I would say three to four hours is the best of my day, and I can get the most done.
• 42:40
  SPEAKER_01: And then that's it.
• 42:42
  SPEAKER_01: But I think consistency is important.
• 42:44
  SPEAKER_01: And sometimes people say to me, like, I don't work in the afternoon.
• 42:48
  SPEAKER_01: After four o'clock, I won't do anything.
• 42:51
  SPEAKER_01: And I won't work at night ever, and I won't work on the weekend either.
• 42:55
  SPEAKER_01: So think about it.
• 42:57
  SPEAKER_01: No nights, no weekends, and most of the time, no afternoons.
• 43:01
  SPEAKER_01: What does that leave me?
• 43:02
  SPEAKER_01: So I like to do Monday to Friday, just the way you would do in a regular job.
• 43:07
  SPEAKER_01: And I think you should show up in a place that is not distractable.
• 43:13
  SPEAKER_01: There's no refrigerators, there's no children around, there's no spouses around, there's nothing.
• 43:19
  SPEAKER_01: I happen to have a separate, you know, office here, and I just show up and but my office is in my home.
• 43:28
  SPEAKER_01: There's a separate part, you know, where I work.
• 43:31
  SPEAKER_01: And I never come back in here later.
• 43:34
  SPEAKER_01: In other words, I keep a distinct uh separation between my living space and my working space.
• 43:41
  SPEAKER_01: And I literally won't come back to my desk, but I do think it's important that you have an organized desk, you know, with everything set up the way you want it.
• 43:49
  SPEAKER_01: Like I have a I work on an iMac, the bigger screen.
• 43:53
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I don't like working on the laptop unless I want to do a chapter in bed, then I'll do it that way.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_01: Um, there's a um there's a television in here, but I never turn it on.
• 44:05
  SPEAKER_01: There are two printers, there's a fax machine, there's a copy machine.
• 44:09
  SPEAKER_01: In other words, there's everything I need here.
• 44:11
  SPEAKER_01: So it's like your command center.
• 44:14
  SPEAKER_01: And I think people should treat writing just like going to a job.
• 44:19
  SPEAKER_01: In other words, I don't, I'm not showing up in my pajamas.
• 44:22
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, I show up just like I'm all dressed, I'm ready to go.
• 44:25
  SPEAKER_01: So I think writers should treat this like um, I mean, I can't tell other people what to do.
• 44:31
  SPEAKER_01: I'm just telling you what I do, which is I treat it like a job, and I'm very um kind of like organized about it.
• 44:40
  SPEAKER_00: So where where we're recording this interview right now, this is in your home, correct?
• 44:44
  SPEAKER_00: Your home office?
• 44:46
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, we're in um my apartment in New York City.
• 44:51
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 44:51
  SPEAKER_01: But we're not in where I live.
• 44:53
  SPEAKER_01: Uh there's a separate, I have two apartments that are connected.
• 44:56
  SPEAKER_01: One apartment is basically for work and one is for living.
• 45:00
  SPEAKER_01: So where you see me at the moment is um, you know, where I work.
• 45:06
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, okay.
• 45:07
  SPEAKER_00: So then do you have a separate office where you will do administrative kinds of things that are non-writing related?
• 45:14
  SPEAKER_01: No, if I understand correctly.
• 45:16
  SPEAKER_01: I don't have that much.
• 45:17
  SPEAKER_01: No, no, everything I do is um in this room.
• 45:20
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, okay.
• 45:21
  SPEAKER_01: But the administrative stuff stuff that I might do later, um, sometimes I do it from my iPhone, you know, sometimes I do it from the laptop.
• 45:31
  SPEAKER_01: But I don't really, you know, sitting isn't really good for you.
• 45:35
  SPEAKER_01: Uh so I would say three or four hours of sitting a day is is enough.
• 45:41
  SPEAKER_01: The I I have I have met and heard of writers um who the wall you're looking at now is in my office, it's just the wall that I'm facing rather than the wall that was behind me.
• 45:53
  SPEAKER_01: But I hear people who work, I have one ghostwriter friend, he said, oh, he works eight to ten hours a day.
• 46:00
  SPEAKER_01: I thought to myself, gee, either you're very slow or you're dumb.
• 46:04
  SPEAKER_01: Um no, I don't really mean that, but that was a joke.
• 46:08
  SPEAKER_01: But I literally physically and emotionally would never and could never do that.
• 46:16
  SPEAKER_01: I don't do that.
• 46:17
  SPEAKER_01: If I can get four good hours out of me, five at the most, that is that would be it.
• 46:27
  SPEAKER_01: How about you?
• 46:29
  SPEAKER_00: You know, that's a good question.
• 46:30
  SPEAKER_00: I try to follow something similar to that, and I always I actually always think of what Stephen King talked about in his book on writing.
• 46:38
  SPEAKER_00: It's actually well it sounds to me like it's identical to what you do, Glenn, because it seems to me I remember him talking in the book about he writes in the morning for a few hours and then at lunchtime basically he's done.
• 46:49
  SPEAKER_00: And he does administrative stuff or or whatever.
• 46:52
  SPEAKER_00: But but yeah, I I think I need to kind of re rework my schedule a little bit.
• 46:57
  SPEAKER_00: I sometimes have a lot of mastermind meetings in the mornings or, you know, sometimes podcast interviews or other things.
• 47:04
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm really going to take to heart what you talked about and start to think about how I can shift my schedule to doing at least the bulk of my writing in the mornings.
• 47:13
  SPEAKER_00: I think that would actually be a great energy shift.
• 47:16
  SPEAKER_01: It might work well.
• 47:18
  SPEAKER_01: Um, truthfully, I just think best in the morning, and that's when my my energy is best.
• 47:24
  SPEAKER_01: Um, having said all what we just said, there have been times when I'm in the middle of a deadline and I am so consumed with editing that I will uh it will go longer.
• 47:38
  SPEAKER_01: I have had days where it went off and on all day long until dinner time because there was just so much to do.
• 47:46
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm not saying there aren't times, there's certain crunch times when it's really time consuming and it does take more time, but just in the general creation process, which is the beginning part, right?
• 47:59
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 48:00
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and editing is easy compared to actually writing from scratch.
• 48:06
  SPEAKER_00: So I think so too.
• 48:07
  SPEAKER_01: I think um the beginning part is the part that you know there's a certain limit.
• 48:14
  SPEAKER_01: Now everybody has their own limit.
• 48:16
  SPEAKER_01: And maybe if you're um a young writer and you have, you know, just unending energy, maybe you could do it um all day.
• 48:25
  SPEAKER_01: But I I don't want to.
• 48:27
  SPEAKER_00: I don't want to either.
• 48:29
  SPEAKER_00: It's exhausting work, it really is.
• 48:31
  SPEAKER_00: It's so mentally taxing just to sit down and create create either from scratch or if you're working from transcripts or interviews, all that material has to be reworked and rethought out and rewritten.
• 48:43
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, it's it's just very just it requires such a vast amount of energy.
• 48:48
  SPEAKER_01: It does.
• 48:49
  SPEAKER_01: I think bottom line is you need a ritual, you need a routine that you're gonna use, something that gives you some consistency.
• 48:57
  SPEAKER_01: And the one thing I wouldn't do is say, Well, I'm only gonna write when I'm in the mood.
• 49:02
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 49:03
  SPEAKER_00: And how often are you actually in the mood to create?
• 49:08
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not in the mood very often.
• 49:10
  SPEAKER_01: I was about to say, not too often.
• 49:12
  SPEAKER_01: Um sometimes I feel driven to do it, but um I would say that I know what my mission is each day.
• 49:26
  SPEAKER_01: I decide what it's gonna be, and then I go into it.
• 49:31
  SPEAKER_01: And yesterday, for example, I was doing I had done an interview for one of the books with the with the grandson of the author, and I said, I'm gonna finish this interview in two hours.
• 49:42
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and I did.
• 49:44
  SPEAKER_01: And then uh when I was done, I didn't think what he said was particularly great, honestly.
• 49:51
  SPEAKER_01: But I sent it to him and I said, Here's a draft, it's just a first draft.
• 49:55
  SPEAKER_01: Why don't you correct it, change it, add to it, do whatever you want?
• 49:58
  SPEAKER_01: And I find sometimes throwing the ball back in their court is something that I didn't used to do as much.
• 50:05
  SPEAKER_01: But now I feel like saying, Here's what you said.
• 50:08
  SPEAKER_01: Now I know you and I know it's not good enough, but I think to myself, here, you fix it.
• 50:14
  SPEAKER_00: Right, right.
• 50:15
  SPEAKER_01: And then believe it or not, they often do.
• 50:19
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and I got a note this morning from him saying, Oh, yeah, there's some changes I want to make and um things I want to add.
• 50:26
  SPEAKER_01: And when is it due?
• 50:27
  SPEAKER_01: And I said, Monday.
• 50:31
  SPEAKER_01: That's it.
• 50:33
  SPEAKER_01: So now he knows it's due Monday, and he can give it to me, and um, then I'll, you know, I'll incorporate his changes and put it in.
• 50:41
  SPEAKER_01: Now, did I really want to do this?
• 50:44
  SPEAKER_01: Not really, but it was something I had to do, so I just tell myself uh I'm doing it, and then I do it.
• 50:51
  SPEAKER_00: Do you think there's a sense sometimes with clients where it's it's tempting to put yourself in kind of a of a subservient role to a client where you're waiting for them to take the lead?
• 51:03
  SPEAKER_00: But a lot of clients want you to take the lead and they want you to tell them what to do because you're the writer, you're the you're the expert, and and a lot of people like that that really clear direction in someone telling them what to do.
• 51:15
  SPEAKER_00: Have you found that to be the case at times?
• 51:18
  SPEAKER_01: It's a balance.
• 51:19
  SPEAKER_01: You are the leader because you're the expert they hired.
• 51:25
  SPEAKER_01: So they want direction from you and structure and structure from you, like this is the way we're gonna do it.
• 51:32
  SPEAKER_01: So I uh uh tend to be bossy to begin with, just as a person.
• 51:38
  SPEAKER_01: So I I fit the role perfectly.
• 51:40
  SPEAKER_01: I literally tell them this is what we're gonna do.
• 51:44
  SPEAKER_01: This is what we're gonna do today, and now we're gonna do this.
• 51:47
  SPEAKER_01: And then once we do this, then we're gonna do this.
• 51:50
  SPEAKER_01: And then please review this.
• 51:51
  SPEAKER_01: And I need it back by Thursday.
• 51:53
  SPEAKER_01: I tell them exactly what I want, and um, they don't always do it, but most of the time they do.
• 52:02
  SPEAKER_01: Some clients you'll find are more responsive.
• 52:04
  SPEAKER_01: I had one client who was too responsive.
• 52:06
  SPEAKER_01: It's like I would get I would get changes back daily, and there were like 10 drafts of every chapter.
• 52:13
  SPEAKER_01: Oh my goodness.
• 52:14
  SPEAKER_01: It was it was what you call a client who is extremely engaged and involved.
• 52:20
  SPEAKER_01: Whereas other clients literally don't write anything, they don't do anything, they they just don't do anything.
• 52:27
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I have one client who literally didn't write a word of the book.
• 52:33
  SPEAKER_01: And when I said to her, I'd like my name put on the front of the book as with me, you know what I mean?
• 52:39
  SPEAKER_01: She said no.
• 52:41
  SPEAKER_01: She wanted, she wanted to give me no credit.
• 52:45
  SPEAKER_01: And I had, but she said, Well, put you in the acknowledgments, and then I had another client who I wrote the entire book from scratch, and he didn't even put me in the acknowledgments, nor on the cover, which was the only which is the only time that has ever happened.
• 53:00
  SPEAKER_01: But you see, the one thing you mustn't do is ever take any of this personally.
• 53:05
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's all just it's business.
• 53:07
  SPEAKER_01: It well, I don't even know what it is.
• 53:10
  SPEAKER_01: I would just say it's a reflection of the personality of whoever you're working with.
• 53:15
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 53:16
  SPEAKER_01: And the bottom line is did they pay you?
• 53:18
  SPEAKER_01: If they paid you, I uh it truthfully, I don't really care that much about the byline because I don't think it matters that much.
• 53:25
  SPEAKER_01: I just like the way it looks if you can get it.
• 53:28
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, but I'm gonna put the book on my website anyway, you know.
• 53:32
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 53:33
  SPEAKER_01: But um, I think writers sometimes are too worried about um the byline stuff or or don't take any of this personally.
• 53:44
  SPEAKER_01: I think the writer should be more focused on um being paid fairly.
• 53:49
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 53:51
  SPEAKER_00: We get it's so easy to get emotionally wrapped up in these things as a writer because we we associate our worth and our value so often with our work, even if it's client work.
• 54:01
  SPEAKER_00: You know, if it goes well, we feel good about ourselves.
• 54:03
  SPEAKER_00: If it doesn't go well, we feel like a horrible person and our self-esteem goes down the toilet.
• 54:09
  SPEAKER_00: So I love this advice because basically you're reminding us to be professionals about this, because this is what professionals do.
• 54:17
  SPEAKER_01: This has nothing to do with you personally.
• 54:19
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, sometimes I get really close to clients, we become real friends, and then other times we don't.
• 54:27
  SPEAKER_01: But um there's always this golden um pink cloud period where the relationship is at its zenith, when things are really great and close.
• 54:39
  SPEAKER_01: And then once the book is finished, you'll find sometimes you know the client will slowly fade away because the whole reason you were together in class is because you were on the same boat, you were going in the same direction.
• 54:53
  SPEAKER_01: And so I do know, I do think you make a good point.
• 54:57
  SPEAKER_01: You you can't get your self-esteem or feeling good about only your work.
• 55:03
  SPEAKER_01: But I think being productive work-wise is esteem-enhancing.
• 55:08
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and I don't think it's different for a writer or a mechanic or a lawyer or somebody else.
• 55:15
  SPEAKER_01: Um, a lot of people invest a lot of their self into their work, yeah.
• 55:20
  SPEAKER_01: But but I think what I'm trying to say is maybe as a writer, especially because we tend to be maybe a little more isolated at times, um, you need a good work-life balance uh where you can literally turn off the switch and then I I like to turn off the switch, like I'm done for the day.
• 55:38
  SPEAKER_01: So now I'm gonna go do other things and that have nothing, and to the extent to which I can turn my obsessive mind off and not think about work, it actually is quite uh helpful for your work because it can refresh your battery.
• 55:57
  SPEAKER_01: Totally, totally.
• 55:59
  SPEAKER_01: So physical exercise or time with family or friends or fun activities uh or anything like that um is really quite conducive to productivity because you're not just droning away, you know.
• 56:17
  SPEAKER_01: And I do have trouble with that at times.
• 56:20
  SPEAKER_01: Sometimes I feel a bit overwhelmed by my to-do list, and I think, how am I ever gonna get through all this stuff?
• 56:29
  SPEAKER_01: But I I do declare defeat on a daily basis.
• 56:34
  SPEAKER_01: I tell myself, well, that's it for today.
• 56:37
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't do everything, but um, you know, that's it for today.
• 56:43
  SPEAKER_01: Like, you know, today, this is my envelope for today.
• 56:46
  SPEAKER_01: This is my to-do list for today.
• 56:48
  SPEAKER_01: And I don't know if I can do all those things or even want to do all those things, but you know, at least I know what I'm supposed to do.
• 56:58
  SPEAKER_01: They'll be there waiting for you tomorrow.
• 57:00
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know if you can ever get through your ultimate to-do list.
• 57:04
  SPEAKER_01: It's like even if you own a house, it's like, well, I want to clean the attic and then I want to do this, and it's like you never really get to the end of it, you know.
• 57:14
  SPEAKER_01: However, there is one thing you do get to the end of.
• 57:16
  SPEAKER_01: You get to the end of the book.
• 57:18
  SPEAKER_03: Yep.
• 57:19
  SPEAKER_03: Yep.
• 57:20
  SPEAKER_01: A book will end, and then it's a great sense of accomplishment.
• 57:24
  SPEAKER_01: I always tell people it's so magical when you actually hold the book in your hand for the first time.
• 57:31
  SPEAKER_01: I remember that feeling.
• 57:33
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, it was it was such an unbelievable feeling that all the work you put into this finally you have this tangible thing you're holding.
• 57:44
  SPEAKER_01: And um, I think that's a a great gift to every author, is that you finally hold your book.
• 57:55
  SPEAKER_00: It's uh just a wonderful feeling.
• 57:56
  SPEAKER_00: No matter how many times you've done it, you open that box from the publisher or from Amazon or from wherever, and it's the smell of ink and paper and glue, and there's just something really magical about that.
• 58:08
  SPEAKER_00: There really is.
• 58:10
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, nothing else like it.
• 58:12
  SPEAKER_01: I think uh somebody recently said to me, You're so lucky that you're in a field where you actually get a tangible result, because in the field uh this work person is in, she just talks all day long.
• 58:25
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, it's she feels like, well, what came out of this, whereas um we actually as authors, you know, we do produce a product, you might say.
• 58:36
  SPEAKER_00: Right, right.
• 58:37
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, there is something tangible at the end of it you can hold in your hand, which is which is a great gift because many people don't get that, especially if you work in digital marketing or any of a hundred other kinds of fields that are just it's just ones and zeros, you know, in computers, basically.
• 58:54
  SPEAKER_01: I have to tell you, you know, sometimes I give my books as gifts, as surprises.
• 58:59
  SPEAKER_01: And like there was this one guy in a restaurant who loves my dog.
• 59:04
  SPEAKER_01: So I wrote a book about my dog, and one day I just showed up with my dog book autographed to him.
• 59:11
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I don't think you could imagine how he feels suddenly, what?
• 59:16
  SPEAKER_01: I'm getting a book.
• 59:19
  SPEAKER_01: It's like it seemed shocking somehow.
• 59:22
  SPEAKER_01: But I if I put myself in somebody else's shoes, and if somebody were to give me a book, I would say, gee, this is um if I was like, you know, a younger kid or a teenager or and somebody gave me an autographed book, to me that would be really unbelievable.
• 59:40
  SPEAKER_01: So um it's important not to get numbed to the idea of what we're doing because it is quite an accomplishment, you know, to write a book or ghostwrite a book and to finally have it, you know, in an e-book and an audio book and a hardcover and a soft cover.
• 59:58
  SPEAKER_01: And uh it's it's a magical kind of thing.
• 1:00:02
  SPEAKER_01: One of my books, The Dog Book, we're in the process of trying to turn it into a motion picture.
• 1:00:07
  SPEAKER_01: And that's another dream of mine that may or may not come true, but at least I'm trying.
• 1:00:13
  SPEAKER_01: And um, you know, it's it's a man, it's amazing how a story could could have wings and it could travel, you know.
• 1:00:23
  SPEAKER_00: I would love to see a book of that.
• 1:00:25
  SPEAKER_00: That would be a phenomenal movie.
• 1:00:26
  SPEAKER_00: And everybody loves pets, everybody loves dogs.
• 1:00:28
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, what could be more heartwarming than a great movie about a pet of some kind?
• 1:00:33
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm I'm rooting for you, Glenn.
• 1:00:35
  SPEAKER_00: I think that's a fantastic idea.
• 1:00:36
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, thank you.
• 1:00:37
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 1:00:39
  SPEAKER_00: Glenn, this has been an absolute pleasure.
• 1:00:40
  SPEAKER_00: I I feel like I could talk to you for hours because you're so fascinating and you're such a great storyteller.
• 1:00:46
  SPEAKER_00: And I've learned a ton in this interview, actually.
• 1:00:50
  SPEAKER_00: Um even just the insight of of rethinking how I schedule my own week is that's really, really intensely valuable.
• 1:01:00
  SPEAKER_00: So I really appreciate you taking time to come on the show and share your wisdom and taking time out of your busy day and uh just telling some great stories and really inspiring us.
• 1:01:08
  SPEAKER_00: So thank you so much.
• 1:01:09
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, it's my pleasure.
• 1:01:10
  SPEAKER_01: And if um, you know, if you have any more questions or anybody else does, you know, I'm always happy to um do whatever I can to help.
• 1:01:20
  SPEAKER_00: Fantastic.
• 1:01:21
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you again so much.
• 1:01:22
  SPEAKER_00: This has been awesome.
• 1:01:24
  SPEAKER_00: Well, my friend, I don't know where you fall on the spectrum of doing your own books and writing or doing client work, or maybe you do a mix of both of those things like I do.
• 1:01:32
  SPEAKER_00: But no matter where you fall on the writing spectrum, there were so many great things to take away from this conversation today.
• 1:01:38
  SPEAKER_00: I took a lot of notes and I learned a lot from Glenn.
• 1:01:42
  SPEAKER_00: And boy, he's got quite a story and he's talked to so many amazing people over the years.
• 1:01:46
  SPEAKER_00: And I can't wait to have him on the podcast again.
• 1:01:49
  SPEAKER_00: I want to express my appreciation to Glenn for being a guest here on the Daily Writer Podcast.
• 1:01:54
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you all for listening, and I'll see you tomorrow.