Ghostwriters Become Big News by Andrew Crofts

 

It’s been an interesting month to be a ghostwriter. The weekend before Prince Harry’s book was officially published, as the leaks and “exclusive” interviews piled up on both sides of the Atlantic, the media suddenly became interested in the idea of who actually did the writing and how the whole relationship with the subject works. 

I had been looking forward to reading the book from the moment I heard that J.R. Moehringer was going to be writing it, already being an admirer of his previous work, particularly the ghosting job he did for Andre Agassi. But the eventual book that he and Harry produced surpassed all expectations, providing a brilliant example of just how well a ghostwriting partnership can work if the story is strong, the subject is wanting to be open and honest, and the writer is skillful.

On the day Spare came out it broke all records for sales of non-fiction, shifting something like 1.4 million copies in English alone, not to mention the sixteen other languages it was published in.

I don’t know if the leaks over the preceding weekend were orchestrated by the publishers or not, but either way they did the trick of making the book the lead news item for several days, which I suspect hasn’t happened since Harry’s mother co-operated with Andrew Morton on a shocking tell-all biography thirty years ago. 

I read it in two days straight, unable to tear myself away. Obviously not everyone likes Spare as much as I did, although the majority of reviews online suggest that readers were pleasantly surprised by the quality of the writing and found themselves believing that Harry was trying to tell his side of the story honestly, even if he got one or two dates wrong while confessing that he wasn’t entirely confident of his powers of memory.

Nearly all the journalists and producers who contacted me, requesting interviews on how ghosting works, have asked if I would have liked to have been the chosen ghost and I certainly think it would have been a fun and interesting project to work on. Whether I would have been robust enough to deal with the resulting media intrusion and trolling I am not so sure. If there is one lesson to be learned from reading Spare, (and there are actually many lessons to be learned), it is that anyone who sticks their head above the parapet into the world of global celebrity has to be equipped for war, both actual and cyber. I think I feel safer staying here in the shadows.