I’ve Written Six Crime Fiction Novels
I can't tell you which ones. I can share what I learned.
It’s true. I’ve written six crime fiction novels. Those novels currently have an average Amazon rating of 4.6 based on 20,000+ overall reviews. I’ve also outlined a dozen more for other series in production at the book packager I worked with.
What’s that you ask? Can I tell you what the titles are?
Nope. Because I ghostwrote them and signed an NDA to never ever reveal the titles. All I can tell you are the stats.
Did I set out to become a ghostwriter? No. I’ve since hung up my shroud to focus on other things. To be honest, I fell into a ghostwriting gig due to pure luck. A friend of mine was approached by a book packaging company to write a series of crime fiction novels. My friend was too busy to take on the extra work and recommended me for the role instead. Voilà! I was officially a ghostwriter.
Almost.
First I had to pass a writing test. This involved writing a short story (which I was paid for) based on a series of parameters set by the editor and a plot summary a mere paragraph long. After that, the editor and I collaborated on revisions and I was approved. That was when I received my first assignment.
As I said, I can’t reveal the title of that first book or any of the others that followed. I can’t give you the faux author name that graced the covers of my books. I can’t do a lot of things, thanks to that NDA. I can, though, share some things I learned about ghostwriting as a side gig.
Keep in mind, I only worked with one book packager. My statements below are based on that specific experience. Your results, should you choose to pursue this avenue or if you’ve also ghostwritten, may vary.
What ghostwriters should consider before accepting a job
Your worth
Currently, the going rate for a ghostwriter creating full-length fiction is 9.0–11.5¢ per word or $55.00–110.00 per hour. This is according to the 2024 Editorial Rate chart compiled by the Editorial Freelance Association (EFA). A full-length novel in the mystery genre according to Nathan Bransford, a former literary agent at Curtis Brown Ltd, should come in between 75,000 to 90,000 words. If we just go by the lower estimates, a ghostwriter who drafts a 75,000 word crime novel should be paid $6,750 for their work. I negotiated a slightly higher rate for my jobs, but the bottom line is I was paid well during my ghostwriting adventure.
Unfortunately, there are many people out there who will take advantage of new or struggling writers. A quick search on Upwork shows job postings offering $1,000 for 40,000 words (so 2.5¢ per word) or $450 for 30,000 words (so 1.5¢ per word). For most people, writing so many quality words and morphing them into coherent, relevant sentences is not a quick process. It takes time, sometimes a lot, making the value of that 2.5¢ per word plummet.
Let’s break it down. I can write about 6,500 (up to 10,000 if I’m motivated with very few distractions) a week on part-time (20) hours. That’s roughly 6 weeks or 120 hours work for a 40,000 novel. If payment is only $1,000, ghostwriting that 40,000 word novel would earn me maybe a dollar over working a job earning the federal minimum wage. Considering that many ghostwriting jobs require you remain anonymous and you can’t even use the work in your portfolio, that’s no deal. Which brings me to the next thing you should know.
You’re writing is the product
Essentially, a ghostwriter is a hired contractor. You are assigned a project and are expected to deliver an end product (the novel). It’s highly likely that, if you plan to ghostwrite fiction like I did, you’ll have to sign an NDA. I’ve been told non-fiction projects are more open to letting you use them in your portfolio to promote your skills. I don’t know if this is the reality, though. So you’re possibly signing away all rights to royalties, author acknowledgement, and bragging rights.
At the book packager I worked for, a ghostwriter is paid a flat fee for the product. I was fine with this. They supplied detailed chapter summaries and main character lists. The primary people, places, and events were already mapped out. I crafted the story around these requirements. I got to provide input and had leeway on the non-essential portions of the story but, for the most part, I didn’t stray from the provided outline’s parameters.
This detachment kept me from pouring too much of myself into the novel. Yes, bits and pieces of me are in there, buried between the lines. A mention of my favorite restaurant. An extra character I wrote in resembling my best friend. A memory recalled by the heroine that’s a reflection of my own. I got to leave my stamp on my writing and when I go back through the novels (because, yes, I did buy my own copies once they were published), I find all the little easter eggs I left for myself to remind me that I wrote that. But I’m not sad that no one else sees them.
At the end of the day, I was a tool for telling the book publisher’s stories, not my own. For that reason, I’m okay with coming up empty handed in the credit department. I provided a product and was paid for it. Simple as that.
There is no you in teamwork
When I was ghostwriting novels, I had one editor who approved my work. I’d send her the drafts, she’d send me notes, I’d revise my writing and send it back. We’d do this until the draft was perfect. Usually, it didn’t take long to get approval from the head editor.
When I switched to ghostwriting novel outlines, things were a bit different. Instead of one editor, I had three to four. At the same time. Because the outline given to the ghostwriters are so detailed (about 35 pages or so printed out!), they had to be more than perfect, hence all the extra eyes.
And so many extra opinions.
One time I decided to give a side character a fishing hobby. The editors loved this and decided to weave the hobby into the killer’s MO. One editor wanted a victim to be gutted like a fish. Another preferred the victim get a fishing hook to the eyeball. The third hemmed and hawed between the two options and suggested a third—strangulation with a fishing wire and a body ravaged by the river’s rocks. This could happen several times during one outline’s revision phase, which meant long delays while each editor individually ran through the draft and noted their thoughts.
Sometimes, we’d get the draft to just where the editors like it. Then the head editor would take a look and make more changes. A couple of times, these changes would affect the entire plot. We’d have to go back to the drawing board and start revisions all over again.
The point here is that ghostwriting doesn’t happen in a vacuum. It’s not just the writer, happily writing a draft, submitting it, and getting paid. There will be revisions and complete rewrites and maybe even some hurt feelings. So you better play well with others, otherwise your ghostwriting career will be short lived.
Time is limited
My book packager was always releasing new books in various series. Several of my novels were released within a few months of me finishing the manuscript. Those manuscripts ran between 60,000 and 75,000 words. Because the book packaging company had a release schedule for the entire year already mapped out, dawdling between novels wasn’t possible. As soon as one was done, the next needed to be started.
This schedule isn’t for the feint of heart. I wrote and submitted 15,000 words every two weeks. That’s a mere two months to write an entire novel. It’s brutal.
When I think back to that time, I remember being happy I was writing but also so very tired and stressed. I have a day job, so my evening and weekend hours were consumed by writing. I had to work time into my life for my husband and pets. But the extra money was sooo good to have and, hey, I was living my dream. I was a professional writer!
Six novels and a dozen outlines later, I realized how damaging ghostwriting at that pace was to my health and relationships. If I did it all over again, I would set better boundaries for myself. My main boundary would be to write weeknights or weekends, not both. Keeping those hours is punishing to the body and soul.
Why I quit ghostwriting
When my first series ended, the book packager asked if I wanted to continue writing novels or pivot to outlines. At the time, I was writing 15,000 words every two weeks, the same amount of words as novel outlines. And I was burned out on it.
My favorite part of creating a story is outlining it. Foolishly, I convinced myself drafting outlines would be more fun and, hey, I might get them done at a faster rate than writing prose. Maybe enough to warrant an extra paycheck or two every few months. I wholeheartedly signed up for the gig.
Folks, ghostwriting a novel outline is as or more difficult than ghostwriting it. Remember those editors I mentioned before? The ones with varying opinions, scrutinizing every single word in the outline? They also took forever to get revisions back to me. Contrary to what I believed, the outlining process for one novel would take much longer than a month. Sometimes it took two or three. And the entire time I was continuing to make the revisions requested by the editors, sending them for approval, and getting more revisions. Like George Lucas, they just kept tweaking, over and over.
I get it. The outline had to be perfect.
But here’s the thing. I was a writer for the book packager first, so I knew what the outlines looked like. At least the one’s I had worked from. When I signed on to ghostwrite outlines, I expected to crafting similar items.
At some point, I noticed my approved outlines were bumping up to 20,000 or 25,000 words. Sometimes more. Much more than the 15,000 I signed on for. I was told to be more succinct. I did. That didn’t work out either because the editors kept tweaking and requiring more details.
When I was a writer, I did a lot of research on things. One time the outline had a character jumping out to the ocean from a rocky coast. The problem? The story was set in an area composed primarily of sand and devoid of any rocky matter. I caught that and corrected it.
I looked up company acronyms and scrutinized organization websites to find details for my stories. I explored different cultures to find rules and customs to enhance the narrative. When a storyline involving a lake or river or gorge was set near a real town whose terrain was near none of those, I told my one editor and we relocated.
Rereading the outline editors’ notes, I realized what the issue was. They were having me do the research and spell out the details for all of these things. Even simple things that could be easily looked up online. All of this was “too make it easier for the writer”. It had to be perfect so the novel writer wasn’t wasting time.
What?
Memories of digging through Reddit threads and government websites flooded my mind. The hours I, as a novel writer, had spent away from my family because I needed to know what color an EMT’s jacket was or what a prison’s visitation hours were. I was still doing that same research now, as an outline writer, so that the assigned novel writer wouldn’t suffer.
Plus, I was expected to complete more and more work for the same payment. I had recently completed a series outline and, after asking for payment and being put off for a month, was asked to make more revisions because the focus groups decided they like x better than y and things were going to need to be rewritten. It occurred to me that, if I ever ghostwrote again, I would only offer to provide a couple of revisions (not ten or twenty) before requiring a new agreement.
And that was it. Last straw. Sporadic paychecks and wasted time to make someone else’s job easier didn’t work for me.
So I quit.
Was my experience ghostwriting crime fiction worth it?
Yes!
Are you surprised? Don’t be. Ghostwriting was tough, but the pros outweighed the cons. Because of my ghostwriting side gig, I:
· Got into the habit of writing every day
· Honed my skills
· Learned the ins and outs (and struggles) of working with multiple ideas and viewpoints
· Wrote a novels. Actually, six of them!
Plus the book packager was, for the most part, good to work with. Things changed somewhere along the way and we went our separate ways, end of story. I’ve nothing but respect for the company.
That’s it. The story of how I wrote six crime fiction novels and why I can’t share any of them with you. Again, all of the above is based on my own experience ghostwriting crime fiction novels with one book packaging company. If you’ve been curious about the ghostwriting experience and why anyone would chose to be one, I hope this article answered your questions.
3/10/25 Quick edit to add this post by Victoria Strauss on ghostwriting company scams. Another thing to watch out for if you’re interested in fiction ghostwriting. There are a lot of dishonest companies out there, so do your background research before working with one 😁