They all employed a ghostwriter to help them write their books.

What’s a ghostwriter? A ghostwriter is someone who writes all or part of a book without getting credit for being author. Depending on circumstances, person who is named as author contributes anything from all information, as in an autobiography, to practically none of it, as occasionally occurs with diet and exercise books.

Sometimes ghostwriter’s name is on cover or title page in small letters. Sometimes she’s thanked in acknowledgements section of book. And sometimes her name isn’t mentioned at all.

But she is one who actually takes information that author wants conveyed and turns it into a book.

Why would you want to hire a ghostwriter, rather than write a book by yourself?

Maybe you don’t have time to write a book. Maybe you’re not quite Shakespeare when it comes to writing. Or maybe you’re more of a people person, and you don’t want to spend your life alone in front of a laptop.

Whatever reason, hiring a ghostwriter is a legitimate way to take what you know and turn it into a publishable manuscript. And in many cases, you can actually write a book without lifting a finger.

How Do You Work With A Ghostwriter?

There are many of ways to have someone write a book for you. Here are a few:

* Let ghostwriter interview you for an hour a week over phone until she has enough information to finish your book. Or meet in person for a massive three-day interview and let ghostwriter create book from that. * Give writer whatever material you already have, whether it be a manuscript, videos, tapes or CDs, and let him turn it into a book. He can interview you as needed to fill in blanks. * Have your ghostwriter do library work as well as interview your clients and other experts in your field. He can then add your comments to create your book.

You can mix and match any of above, or find another way to work together.

What Does It Cost?

The price you pay for a ghostwriter depends on a) what you want them to do b) how much experience they have c) how much credit you plan on giving them and d) whether you are offering them a percentage of what you will earn from sale of each book.

If you plan to sell your book to a traditional publisher like HarperCollins, Penguin, etc., you need to submit a sample of your work, called a book proposal, first. A book proposal consists of an outline of your book, a sample chapter or two, some marketing material and your bio.

Most experienced ghostwriters will charge between $3000 and $7500 to write one. And if ghostwriter has written a bestseller or two, she might charge as much as $15,000.

Generally, more you pay, more confident you can be that you will receive a high-quality product. This is what you need if you want to impress a publisher. Not only that, but higher-priced writers will usually have connections to literary agents and editors that they will share with you when your proposal is complete.

Born in Mytholmroyd, a remote mill town in West Yorkshire, Ted (as he was known to his friends and family) was enormously affected by desolate moorland landscape of his childhood, and also by his father's vivid recollections of brutality of trench warfare. Indeed, his father, who was then a carpenter, was one of only seventeen men from his regiment to have survived at Gallipoli during First World War.

At age of seven his family moved to Mexborough (also in Yorkshire), where his parents opened a stationery and tobacco shop. Here he attended local grammar school, where he first began to write poetry - usually bloodcurdling verses about Zulus and cowboys - before doing two years' national service in Royal Air Force. He later won a scholarship to Pembroke College, Cambridge, where he started reading English Literature but switched to archaeology and anthropology, subjects that were a major influence on development of his poetic awareness. Here he immersed himself in works of Shakespeare, W.B. Yeats and read Robert Graves's “The White Goddess” (1948).

Following his graduation in 1954, he moved to London, where he had a number of interesting jobs, including zoo keeping, gardening and script reading for J. Arthur Rank. He also had several of his poems published in university magazines. In 1956 he and some Cambridge friends started up a literary journal called St. Botolph's Review. It lasted for only one issue but at inaugural party Ted met his future wife, then unknown American poet, Sylvia Plath. Much has been written about Hughes/Plath relationship since that first portentous meeting, but few can doubt that these two brilliantly creative people were enormously attracted to one another, almost from moment they were first introduced. Within just a few short months they were married and living in USA, where Hughes taught English and creative writing at University of Massachusetts in Amherst. And before year was out, he had won an American poetry competition, judged by W.H. Auden, Sir Stephen Spender and Marianne Moore. Hughes once said of this contented period:

"We would write poetry every day. It was all we were interested in, all we ever did." – Ted Hughes