We Record You Talking
Discovery interviews, transcribed in full. The phrases you reach for, the jokes you make, the order you tell things in: that is the raw material.
- Interviews by video or phone
- Full transcripts kept
- Your own words as source
Home/Book Writing
Ghostwriting Studio · Tasman PublishersYour Book, Written The Way You'd Tell It
For Australian and New Zealand authors: most people who want to write a book have the material and not the time. Our writers do the drafting, you do the deciding, and nothing goes in that you have not signed off. Your name, your rights, your royalties.
- Covered by an NDA
- You keep 100% of royalties
- No shared bylines
- Recorded interviewsYour material captured properly before any drafting
- An outline you approveChapter by chapter, before a word is written
- Drafts as they happenChapters to read and mark up, not a surprise at the end
- Your book, legallyNDA, full copyright, all royalties and the only byline
From Your Notes To Written Pages
This is what ghostwriting actually looks like. Pick a genre to see the brief, the author's raw notes, and the draft that came back.
Memoir
Red Dirt Road
June Macaulay · Ghostwritten from interviews
- Voice: plain, dry, Australian
- Reader: loves outback memoir
- Goal: open chapter one on the day she left home
The author's notes82 words
ok so chapter one should start with the day I left. I was nineteen. Mum didn’t come out to the gate, which still gets me. Dad drove me to the bus at Cobar, February, stinking hot, one suitcase and his old thermos. Red dirt for forty k before the bitumen. Nobody said much. He gave me twenty dollars at the bus and I’m pretty sure he cried but he’d never admit that. Don’t make it sad, just true.
The written draft144 words
The road out of town was red dirt for forty kilometres, and I knew every corrugation of it by heart.
Dad drove. I sat with the case on my knees and Mum’s silence still in my ears, because she had not come out to the gate. It was February. The air through the window was the temperature of a held breath, and the thermos between us was the one he had carried to every shearing shed in the district.
At Cobar he pulled up behind the bus and left the engine running. He gave me twenty dollars, folded twice, the way he gave money to anyone he loved.
‘Ring your mother Sunday,’ he said.
He did not look at me, and I understood that he was crying, and that we were both going to spend the next forty years pretending he was not.
Business
Lead Without Noise
Daniel Okafor · Ghostwritten from workshop recordings
- Voice: calm, practical, first person
- Reader: new managers
- Goal: turn a workshop story into the chapter three opener
The author's notes66 words
in the workshops I always tell the Thursday story. A team I coached cancelled every internal meeting for a week. Everyone panicked, thought the wheels would fall off, and then they shipped the thing they’d been putting off for two months. Point is interruptions cost way more than the interruption itself. Keep it practical, no jargon, and land on the three habits at the end.
The written draft135 words
A few years ago, a team I was coaching cancelled every internal meeting for a week.
Nobody was comfortable with it. Two of the managers told me privately that the wheels would come off. What actually happened was quieter than that: people arrived, worked, and went home, and on the Thursday they shipped a piece of work that had been sitting half-finished for two months.
The lesson was not that meetings are evil. Plenty of them earn their place. The lesson was that the cost of an interruption is never the interruption. It is the twenty minutes on the other side of it, when somebody is trying to find their way back into work they had only just got into.
Calm teams are not less busy. They are more deliberate about when they are available.
Thriller
The Last Tide
Mara Ellison · Co-written from scene notes
- Voice: tight third person, short sentences
- Goal: raise the tension in the opening scene
- Rule: hold the sister reveal for the last line
The author's notes75 words
scene: Nora hears knocking at about two in the morning, takes the torch down the cliff path in the storm, finds a man on the rocks holding a letter in a plastic sleeve. Don’t reveal whose name is on the envelope until the very last line. I want it to feel cold and wet and a bit claustrophobic. She’s been out there eleven winters so none of it should surprise her except this.
The written draft137 words
She did not know the sound she heard at a quarter past two.
It came once, and then again: a hollow knocking from the landing at the foot of the cliff, where no boat had tied up since the pier collapsed. Eleven winters on the point had taught her every noise the tower could make. This was not one of them.
She took the torch and her father’s coat and went down the path with the rain coming at her sideways.
The beam found the water first, black and heaving, and then the shape on the rocks that she took, for one long second, to be a seal.
It was not a seal. It was a man, and he was holding a letter sealed in plastic, and the name on the envelope was her sister’s.
Children's
Wombat's Big Day!
Lily Tran · Written from a one-page idea
- Voice: playful, built for reading aloud
- Reader: ages three to six
- Goal: twelve spreads of text from a one-page idea
The author's notes60 words
story idea: Wombat has a big plan to cross the creek and get to the best grass on the other side. He keeps getting distracted by friends along the way, ends up in a muddy puddle, and decides the puddle is better than the grass anyway. Funny, not preachy. I’d love a line that repeats: “a VERY big plan”.
The written draft73 words
Spread 1Wombat woke up early.
Today was going to be a VERY big day.
Spread 2He had a plan.
A very, very big plan.
Spread 3“Where are you going?” asked Echidna.
“Across the creek,” said Wombat. “The grass is better there.”
Spread 4“Better than here?” said Echidna.
Wombat did not stop to answer.
He had a VERY big plan.
Spread 5Then came the puddle.
It was brown. It was deep.
It was perfect.
Self-Help
Begin Again
Priya Nair · Ghostwritten from coaching notes
- Voice: warm, second person, never preachy
- Reader: people starting over
- Goal: open with a small, concrete scene
The author's notes62 words
please don’t make it sound like a motivational poster. Maybe start with the kettle story from my coaching notes: the client whose whole fresh start was making a cup of tea before she looked at her phone. She kept it up for a year when nothing else had stuck. The book is about steps small enough to survive a bad week.
The written draft132 words
Her fresh start was a kettle.
She had tried the big versions before: the gym membership in January, the app that woke her at five, the notebook with the first four pages filled in. None of them lasted past a bad week, and there is always a bad week.
So she picked something smaller than her own resistance. Every morning, she made a cup of tea and drank it before she looked at her phone. That was the whole plan. It took nine minutes.
A year later, it was the only thing she had never stopped doing, and it had quietly changed the shape of every morning that followed.
That is the method of this book. Pick something so small that it survives a bad week, and let it carry the rest.
Sample briefs, notes and prose written for fictional books to show how the process works. The authors and titles are not real.
How We End Up Sounding Like You
A ghostwritten book only works if readers who know you recognise you in it. That takes method, not guesswork.
We Build A Style Sheet
Sentence length, formality, humour, how much you swear, what you would never say. Written down, so every chapter matches the last.
- Voice and tone rules
- Words to use and avoid
- Spelling and names locked
You React To A Sample Chapter
One chapter first, so you can say "that's me" or "I'd never say that" before the whole book is written in the wrong voice.
- Written from your outline
- Marked up in your words
- Voice agreed before drafting
Writing Services For Every Kind Of Book
Whether you are starting with nothing or stuck at forty thousand words, there is a way in.
Ghostwriting
We write the book from your interviews and material. Your name on the cover, ours nowhere.
Co-Writing
You write some, we write some, and one of us holds the voice steady across the whole book.
Manuscript Completion
You have thirty thousand words and no ending. We finish it in the voice you already set.
Book Proposals
The document agents and publishers actually read: hook, market, chapters and sample pages.
Memoir From Interviews
For a life story you can tell but do not want to type. We interview, transcribe and write.
Research & Fact-Checking
Dates, places and details checked, so a reader never stops trusting the book halfway through.
Author protection
100% Rights, Royalties And Authorship
We act strictly as your writing production partner. Your manuscript is your intellectual property from the first interview.
- Legally binding NDATotal discretion before any manuscript material is shared
- 100% royalties keptNo back-end royalties or revenue splits claimed
- Full creative controlEvery scene, line of dialogue and chapter needs your sign-off
- No shared bylinesYour name is the only author name on the cover and spine
How long is a book?
Typical finished lengths by category. We agree your target in the outline.
Picture book
500–1,000 words
Children's chapter
10,000–20,000
Business / self-help
35,000–50,000
Memoir
60,000–80,000
Novel
70,000–100,000
Epic fantasy
100,000–150,000
How A Book Gets Written
Four stages, each one signed off by you before the next begins.
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01
Discovery
Recorded interviews about the book, the reader and the story you want to tell, transcribed in full.
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02
Outline & Sample Chapter
A chapter-by-chapter plan and one written chapter, so the shape and the voice are agreed early.
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03
Drafting
Chapters written and sent to you as they are finished, with your notes folded into the next pass.
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04
Revision & Handover
A full revision pass, then the finished manuscript handed to you, ready for editing and publication.
Ghostwriting Questions
The things authors want settled before they hand over their story.
Whose book is it when you ghostwrite?
Yours, completely. You hold the copyright from day one, your name is the only name on the cover and spine, and you keep one hundred per cent of the royalties. We claim no byline and no share of revenue.
Is the project confidential?
Yes. Every engagement is covered by a legally binding NDA before any manuscript material is shared, and your writer works under the same agreement.
How do you capture my voice?
With recorded discovery interviews. We listen to how you actually tell the story, build a style sheet from your own phrasing, and write a sample chapter for you to react to before the full draft begins.
What if I have already started writing?
That is common. We can finish a partial manuscript, rewrite chapters that are not working, or edit and shape what you already have rather than starting again.
How long should my book be?
It depends on the category. A business or self-help book usually runs 35,000 to 50,000 words, memoir 60,000 to 80,000, and a novel 70,000 to 100,000. We agree a target length in the outline.
Do I have to approve the writing as it goes?
Yes, at every stage. You approve the outline chapter by chapter before drafting starts, and nothing goes into the book that you have not signed off.
Ready To Get The Book Out Of Your Head?
Tell us what the book is about and what you have so far. The first call costs nothing and is covered by an NDA.
Work with an Adelaide-based author services team today.