Three Ways to Collaborate as a Ghostwriter

by Graciela Sholander
This post originally appeared on Ghostwriting Plus.

I have ghostwritten over 25 books for a number of clients, including doctors, lawyers, and motivational speakers. Today I want to share with you three effective ways you can collaborate with your client.

1. Rewrite a Raw Manuscript

These days, this is my favorite way to ghostwrite a book. If your client has written most or all of her manuscript, you’re in a great position to help her reach the next level. She’s written down her ideas. Now it’s your turn to do your magic.

Starting with what she’s put together, rework it to produce the most engaging, professional product possible. Hack away! Create new chapter titles and section headers. Rewrite to your heart’s content. Remove redundancies. Expand points. Add anecdotes and examples to support her points.

Keep the main messages, and make sure your client’s voice comes through. But use your own savvy to rework the manuscript, transforming it from amateurish to a highly professional work of art, with every sentence a joy to read.

2. Write a Manuscript from Interviews

At the other end of the spectrum is the client who has written nothing and has a million ideas floating in his head. He’s brilliant, and his ideas are worth sharing with readers, but as soon as he tries writing anything down, he loses them. He’s an eloquent speaker, not a writer.

In this case, schedule a series of interviews. They can be conducted in person, by phone, or through Skype. I interview clients by phone, and since I’m a fast typist I go ahead and type what they say, creating a written record in real time. This saves me the expense and extra step of having an audio interview transcribed. Then as I piece together a manuscript from scratch, I simply copy and paste sections from the written record, rewriting and expanding them as needed.

By the way, in this case it’s a good idea to charge separately for the interviews. I typically charge clients a per-page rate for ghostwriting plus a per-hour rate for phone interviews.

3. Piece Together What You’ve Been Given and Gather More

In this approach, the client has some material to give you. For example, she might hand you 19 pages she’s written with rough ideas for her book, plus five articles published about her in different magazines, and two YouTube videos of her being interviewed on the subject you’ll be ghostwriting about.

Your job is to take this hodgepodge and incorporate it into a new work. In addition, you’ll need to figure out what’s missing and schedule a few interviews to gather more information.

Since I enjoy writing a hundred times more than I enjoy talking, I try to conduct email interviews whenever possible. This won’t work for clients who love to talk and hate to write. It does tend to work for very busy professionals, though, since they can sit down and address your emailed questions at their leisure.

When I conduct email interviews, I do not charge extra. I charge only a per-page fee for ghostwriting the manuscript.

Graciela has been a professional writer for 21 years and focuses on ghostwriting, editing, proofreading, articles, social media, marketing, and website content. She is also the co-author of Dream It Do It: Inspiring Stories of Dreams Come True, a motivational self-help guide.

Your Speechwriter: An Operator’s Manual

by David Murray
This post originally appeared on The Strategist via PRSA

[ikon images/corbis]

As far as PR positions go, the speechwriter probably has one of the most interesting (and borderline absurd) jobs. One describes his marching orders from the CEO as: “Write down my thoughts as if I had them.”

Until recently, this group didn’t have a formal forum to share what they do. But with the advent of the Professional Speechwriters Association (PSA) this past winter, we can now look into the realities of this position, thanks to the recently released results of its first-ever membership survey. The survey yielded insights about modern speechwriters that their managers and colleagues might find useful, as they try to coax sustainable excellence from this peculiar, but potentially powerful PR position.

The first thing to know about speechwriters is that many of them prefer to be referred to as something else. In fact, an argument broke out among the delegates at the first World Conference of the PSA about this point:

“The term ‘speechwriter’ is limiting,” someone said, questioning the wisdom of the name of the new association. One suggestion was to call it the “Leadership Communication Association,” in order to acknowledge the broader role that so many speechwriters have: building thought leadership platforms, crafting executive messages for many media and coaching executives through various communication opportunities.

But other speechwriters rose to the defense of the old term. One person said it’s useful because “it fences me off” from others in the organization who would water the job down with other duties. A self-proclaimed “speechwriter” is a kind of brand that “excites people,” as opposed to broader but blander descriptors such as “executive communicator.”

Don’t hide your speechwriter

The PSA survey revealed that speechwriters are older, more likely to be male, better educated, and better paid than their colleagues in public relations. The typical speechwriter is a 51-year-old man with a master’s degree. More than half of the speechwriters surveyed make more than $100,000 annually, with 23 percent pulling in more than $150,000 (and half of those making more than $200,000).

Speechwriters are also more likely than their well-coiffed PR colleagues to be unkempt, unruly, unconventional—or all of the above. But do not punish them for this. Every organization should have one person who is deeply—and perhaps even a little single-mindedly—devoted to helping the leader articulate the organization’s point of view as compellingly as possible.

Most leaders know this and will tolerate—and sometimes embrace—a little eccentricity in a person who helps them sound, look, and feel better in front of important audiences.


Help out your speechwriter

Even with the best client-speechwriter chemistry—JFK called his speechwriter Ted Sorensen “my intellectual blood bank”—the speechwriter struggles to get sufficient access to achieve a real mind-meld with the boss.

Now add the litany of common troubles that PSA members listed in the survey: solitude, short deadlines, slow workflows, lawyers, and indifference.

Speechwriters resent clients who “don’t care about content”—and bureaucrats who care too much: “I have to contend with constant micromanaging by people who see risk lurking in every corner and are afraid of letting the CEO take any kind of position,” one survey participant said. “They also have no feel for what constitutes good writing, yet exert a huge influence over the process.”

A PR manager should not be one of those risk-averse bureaucrats. And when the lawyers or the HR staff or the compliance people start sucking the life from a piece of leadership communication, fight valiantly on your speechwriter’s behalf.

Even if you don’t win, your speechwriter will appreciate having an ally instead of one more institutional enemy.


Know what makes your speechwriter happy

Asked what they like most about their work, speechwriters said “shaping public debates,” “finding and telling stories,” “intellectual and creative challenge and reward,” “the variety of topics and amazing people that I get to work with” and “the silent hours when I, through writing, try to understand and share something important.”

Speechwriters are like snowflakes; some succeed precisely because they’re CEO whisperers. But many of the ones worth keeping around are the oddest and most difficult to please. They have razor intellects, a restless curiosity and healthy—if not slightly obese—egos.

But remember, lots of speechwriters are older. So they know by now that life in leadership communication will not lay itself neatly before them. So if they can see that they are achieving something significant with their work, if they can be intellectually stimulated, if they feel that someone, somewhere in the organization believes that the corporate strategy can be advanced by articulate rhetoric and communication, they will stick around and keep giving their best, despite it all.

Thirty years ago, a corporate speechwriter wrote, “No one is recording these speeches. There are no books of them that readers save and treasure. Our files will be tossed on the scrap heap when we leave or retire. But we have been sitting at a typewriter making land, a sea, a sky, burning words. That’s enough. It is more than most have.”

In the end, it’s all your speechwriter requires. That, and a salary somewhere in the low six figures.

But in exchange for helping your organization’s top leadership communicate compellingly, is that too much to ask?

To Write Well, Forget Everything Your High-School English Teacher Taught You

By Jonathan Rick

In today’s the-world-is-flat era, few things can differentiate you better than polished communication skills. Indeed, even at the world’s top PR agencies—among people who make their living off the written word—those who can write well are shockingly few (and increasingly well compensated).

Happily, the mechanics of good writing are eminently learnable. For most of us, the problem is readily diagnosable: our last English class was in college, and from our corporate perch today, we look down on continuing education—“Do I really need a two-hour seminar on something I do every day?”

Yes! We all do. (If you disagree, ask your boss.) In fact, the time you spend writing (emails, memos, reports, proposals, website copy, blog posts, social media content, e-newsletters, and so on and so forth) is a reason for training.

In that spirit, I hope you’ll page through the above presentation. A refresher on the myths and rules of good business writing, it contains cameos from House, Good Will Hunting, Saturday Night Live, Shakespeare, Churchill, Einstein, da Vinci, Orwell, and of course Strunk and White. Even the IRS makes an appearance.

Enjoy—and happy writing!

Jonathan Rick is the president of the Jonathan Rick Group, a communications consultancy in Washington, DC. For more linguistic learnings, pursue his blog, Sprachgefuhl.

Bidding on Elance: Here’s How Easily Freelancers Can Get Screwed

by Carol Tice

From my very first blog post back in 2008, I’ve advocated that freelance writers avoid mass bidding sites such as oDesk and Elance.

This past week, I learned in an unexpected way just how easily freelancers can get ripped off doing writing work through impersonal, third-party platforms like Elance.

Because I got ripped off, big time.

Here’s how it happened…

My first sign something was wrong was a series of emails I got from several different India-based SEO writers applying for “the post of content writer.” Asking if I would hire them.

I assumed they were interested in my writer’s guidelines for guest posting here on the blog, so I sent those over.

But something about it was weird. Just the way they were phrasing it didn’t seem right to me.

But I didn’t write anything for you…

Next, on the day after a religious holiday when I was out of the office, I got this odd email:

I assured her that I had never started article writing for her, and certainly wasn’t going to continue. I didn’t even have any idea what topics she was having articles written about!

When I asked what the deal was, I got this reply:

So there you have it, sports fans: An imposter created an Elance profile using my name, my photo, and my writer website, and was trying to get writing clients based on my reputation.

And if this one client hadn’t smelled a rat, who knows how long this might have gone on.

How’d they pull that off? They used a different, London-based Skype number and a different email address than my real one, thereby funneling responses to them rather than me.

And Elance was clueless.

Obviously, I was pretty steamed, given how strongly I’ve advocated for writers to avoid using places like Elance! I was quick to post about it on Facebook and Twitter, and start spreading the word around that I am not really hiring writers on Elance, hoping to warn prospective clients that they weren’t really hiring me.

I was hoping that would help resolve the problem.

But instead, things got worse.

Writers get sucked in

If the news that I was being impersonated on Elance so that someone else could earn a few bucks made me mad, I can tell you I totally hit the roof when I saw the next set of emails and Facebook messages that came in:

 

The complete picture emerged: Someone was impersonating me on Elance, getting clients, and then subcontracting out the work to other writers.

The final insult? The rates! This impostor was charging $20 a post… I opened that spreadsheet the client up top had sent over, and that was the per-piece rate.

I shudder to think what this person might have been paying the writers they hired to do the actual work. If, in fact, this fraud paid anyone at all.

Will writers get paid?

I contacted Elance immediately about all this, and it took them several days to get back to me. They let me know the bogus profile had been removed.

I think it’s notable that there wasn’t even an apology made for the damage to my reputation here. But OK — I’m breathing and letting go here, because suing is not a positive way to spend my time.

Who was the impostor? Elance isn’t saying. But I know they’re overseas, which would make legal action difficult to pursue anyway.

What about the writers who went busily to work, thinking they were writing for me? Given that Elance allowed this fraud to take place, will they be compensating the writers for their work?

Elance’s security team wouldn’t tell me how the writers would be dealt with…but one of the writers responded to me directly, saying they were told Elance’s payment protection policies would cover them — IF they could document their work to Elance’s satisfaction.

Here’s hoping Elance does the right thing and pays all of these freelancers for their writing.

Elance did indicate that it reached out to at least one freelance writer to warn them to stop writing for the impostor. But at least one other writer told me they got the word to stop work from the impostor, not Elance!

I guess it’s nice that Elance alerted at least one writer it was a bogus account, but from what the writers had to say above, it seems like the damage had already been done. Several writers had already wasted their time writing dozens of articles which they may or may not be paid for.

It just makes me sick to think about how these writers were excited to be writing for me, and then had to find out it was all a scam. Even though I’m only an unwitting participant in this ripoff, it really rankles.

Fighting writer exploitation is the core of my mission here on the blog! And then, this mess happens. I run a Google alert on my name, but it never turned this up. Makes me wonder what more we can do to monitor our online reputations.

The bottom line

This whole experience was a sad reminder that when you go on platforms where it’s easy for clients to mask their identities, you really don’t know who you’re dealing with. Which means it’s easy for that client to disappear without paying you.

Just another reason to go out and find your own clients instead of hanging around bidding on Elance for gigs posted by clients who may not be what they appear.

This article originally appeared on makealivingwriting.com

Writer Poll: How Do You Find Community?

Freelancers’ Union recently unveiled a new feature on their site called Hives. The intent is to give freelancers a place to connect, support one another, and discuss every aspect of the freelancing life. Freelancers’ Union encourages members to use the Hives to “talk, form groups, organize events, share videos and photos, and meet up with hundreds of thousands of freelancers.”

This got us thinking. Writing is notoriously a lonely job, and freelance writing can be even more so. So we polled our writers to find out what they do to build community, and we got some ingenious responses.

Unions and Workshops
Robert Woodcox is a member of the American Society of Journalists and Authors, as well as the Writers Guild, a writers’ labor union, which he finds is good for discussing political action, financial issues, and other writer-relevant topics that aren’t about the writing process itself.

Temma Ehrenfeld has run a monthly poetry workshop in her home for ten years, where she, a professional editor, and a grant writer read their own and others' poetry. She also has a friend who texts her most days telling her what creative projects he's worked on that day, and asking what she’s accomplished. She finds it’s good to be kept accountable: “Just having to report on what I've done helps,” she says.

Meet Ups
Sheila Lewis organizes “writing dates” with a buddy or two. “Barnes & Noble cafe is a favorite venue, and we reward ourselves with a break for novel browsing,” she says. Sometimes she’ll connect with others at a “destination writing” spot, like the Atrium near Lincoln Center. “Take it offline when you can—at the gym, the JCC, the Y, a school, church, synagogue, or weird hobby group. When you're with real people, something magical and synchronistic happens.”

Catherine Dold is part of a Colorado group called “Boulder Media Women,” which has been going strong for twenty-four years. The group, which started out as informal meetups of a few freelancers, has grown to more than 500 people who get together for Friday morning coffees, monthly potlucks, and Tuesday evening schmoozes.


Shared Space (Physical or Digital)
The Writers Room popped up several times, with several writers saying that the shared work space is where they go to find community.

Sarah Greesonbach stays in touch with other freelance writers and entrepreneurs through Facebook groups and blogs. “These groups give me a good opportunity to ‘check in’ with others throughout the day when I want to, and to not engage when I'm not in the mood.”

None of the Above
Alex Dwyer finds that he simply doesn’t interact with many other writers—and he’s fine with that. “Perhaps its the millennial work/life balancer in me, but I fully enjoy the four-hour blocks when I write in solitude. In non-writing hours, I do non-writing things and interact with all kinds of folks in other facets of life, but I relish and am protective of my solitary writing time.”

Do you have a different method for creating community? Let us know in the comments!

Just for Laughs: The Writing Process

For your Friday-afternoon enjoyment, here's a new way to look at the writing life, from "Savage Chickens."

Stage #1:  Brainstorming

Stage #2:  Writing 

Stage #3:  Final Drafts 

Stage #4: Querying 

Stage #5: Support Groups

Stage #6: Success 

For more "Savage Chickens" by Doug Savage, go here.

Book Spotlight: Where Are the Ghostwriting Jobs?

Our latest Book Spotlight focuses on a topic that's near to our hearts. Where Are the Ghostwriting Jobs? discusses more than 30 avenues for the novice or experienced ghost to pursue their next gig, whether you write books, blog posts, speeches, or tweets.

Before you click over to pick up your copy, check out our Q&A with the book's author, ghostwriter Graciela Sholander.

What’s your ghostwriting background? How did you land your first ghosting jobs?

I’ve been a freelance writer for over 20 years. This is a second career for me; I started as an engineer, but after my kids were born I left engineering to become an at-home mom, and that’s when my writing career began to emerge. To date I’ve ghostwritten 24 books. When I first started ghostwriting I was unfamiliar with the term. I was living in Albuquerque and had just completed an article about a local psychic for a regional women’s magazine. The psychic was impressed with my work and referred me to one of her clients, a recovering alcoholic who wanted her life story captured in a book she could share with other women struggling with addiction. That book ended up inspiring quite a few people, and the project was a rewarding one. I soon signed up with guru.com (which was in its early days) and landed my next ghostwriting jobs thanks to that site.

What attracts you to ghostwriting?

I love so many aspects of ghostwriting. It’s exciting to meet new people who are experts in their fields or have a compelling story to tell, and then help them get that story in writing. It’s fun to watch a book take shape, from maybe a handful of notes to a complete, full-length tome. I also enjoy capturing the client’s voice and crafting something that sounds like them. I really enjoy serving as the missing link, so to speak, a bridge between a brilliant person’s ideas and his or her audience.

What are some challenges an aspiring ghostwriter might face?

As with any field, the biggest question for newcomers is, “Where do I start?” While there are plenty of people who desperately need help with writing their books and articles, an aspiring ghostwriter may not know how to go about finding these potential clients. I always advise creating an online presence, as all writers benefit from having some form of online portfolio. Another challenge new ghostwriters might face is transitioning from writing short pieces, like articles and blog posts, to longer works, like books and ebooks. In this case, I recommend treating a book like a series of articles in order to get a handle on the project and estimate how long it will take and how much it will cost.

Were there any surprises during your research for this book?

I began writing Where Are the Ghostwriting Jobs? in 2011, and when I became busy with a number of other projects I put it aside. When I went back to complete it in late 2013, I was surprised by how many sites and businesses I was planning to include had disappeared. So the places listed in my guide are the ones with true staying power!

Do you see ghostwriting as an expanding market these days? 

I do. I’ve been watching this business for 20 years, and during that time it has grown by leaps and bounds. The beauty of ghostwriting is that there are so many sectors that utilize it; it’s not just about celebrity biographies. Businesses hire ghosts to create newsletters, website content, case studies, white papers, speeches, and more. Info marketers hire ghosts to write ebooks. Nowadays we even have ghost bloggers and tweeters! As the internet continues to create additional writing opportunities, ghostwriting will expand into these new arenas.

What are the most common kinds of ghostwriting work available?

Memoirs continue to be among the most popular, mainly because so many people of all ages have fascinating life stories they’d like to share with the world. A variation on the memoir is what I call the “expert book”: a doctor, an attorney, a movie industry insider, or an entrepreneur (to name a few examples) has developed a special technique or strategy and now wants to publish a book about it, so he or she seeks the services of a ghostwriter. I also often see people seeking a ghostwriter’s help with a first novel or screenplay. In addition, many information sites rely on ghostwriting. Years ago, I wrote medical articles for a health website. The site’s parent company assigned these articles with very specific instructions and had physicians review them for accuracy, but the writing was done by ghosts.

Can you reveal a tip or two from the book?

Absolutely! One tip is to take confidentiality requests very seriously. If your client does not want to reveal that his book was ghostwritten, you must abide by that. That means you can’t reveal the author’s name, the book title, or any other specific details about the project you’re working on. Confidentiality is a very important factor in the ghostwriting equation. The ghostwriter’s reward is not fame or recognition; it’s steady income and a fulfilling job. A second tip I’d like to share is this: avoid clients who demand perfection but are not willing to compensate you fairly. Ghostwriting is a collaborative process. Give it your absolute best, but be sure your client respects you and your services enough to pay you fairly.

Graciela Sholander has been a professional writer since 1993. As coauthor of Dream It Do It: Inspiring Stories of Dreams Come True, she had the privilege of interviewing Bill Nye the Science Guy and astronaut Eileen Collins, among other inspiring individuals. As a ghostwriter, she’s completed 24 manuscripts as well as dozens of articles. She has also worked as an engineer, a marketer, proofreader, copywriter, editor, content provider, and translator. 

Book Spotlight: The Indie Writer's Survival Guide by James O'Brien

We're pleased to spotlight a new book today: The Indie Writer's Survival Guide: Dos and Don'ts of Full-Time Freelancing, Year One by James O'Brien, just out from SlimBooks. It's a terrific overview of the freelance writing world, and a guide to transitioning from full-time writing to independent writing as a full-time career.

GG talked to James about cultivating clients, building networks, and anecdotal puffery.

What prompted you to write this book?

I found the publisher before the book was even an idea. SlimBooks is on to something when it comes to how business books work best, and how they don't work to the reader's benefit a lot of the time. They were looking for authors who could strip out the fluff and leave aside the repetitive anecdotal puffery that all too often pads business writing. I mean, anecdotes can be illustrative, and they can contextualize, but business-book readers have told me that they're annoyed by endless iterations of "Here's what Bob experienced one Monday in a meeting!" I like to think that we read business books to take away practical information, to receive a template or strategy that we can apply to what we're doing (or what we want to do). 

What do you think is the biggest challenge to being an independent writer?

After cash flow, it's cultivating the client list: building and maintaining one that will sustain you week after week, one that can survive, and allow you to survive, for months and years at the job. Getting clients is often a giant problem when you're starting out, but even after you've earned your way into outlets that will take your work, it's equally nerve-wracking to be in this reactive space all the time. Editors change, publishers' business models shift, networks bloom and then dry up . . . you're never not in entrepreneurial mode, really. And that can wear a writer down if the projects aren't fine-tuned to emphasize elements that keep you engaged—passions, interests, challenges. You have to stay in love with the stories, or the vicissitudes of the environment are going to burn you out. 

What do you find most rewarding about being an independent writer?

Freedom. And I don't mean the freedom to go sit in a coffee shop with your laptop all day; I mean the freedom to take on projects that you wouldn't be able to tackle if you were woking in a traditional full-time writing job. As an independent, you can write your way to a financial place that creates whole weeks without a deadline, and then you can start to explore. This kind of exploration, as a writer, takes you to places, literally, that you might never otherwise go. One morning you're answering an e-mail or pitching a piece to an editor, and then two weeks later you're on a plane, following a source or an idea that keeps you at the edge of your own skills and knowledge. This is the deeper kind of payoff that I think the happiest independent writers end up realizing and pursuing. 

The publishing landscape is changing dramatically. How do you see this affecting independent writers?

Mostly I see it as beneficial. There are so many outlets and so many developing spaces online that an entrepreneurial mind can find its way into multiple revenue streams. I know that this is often not the ideal scenario for traditional full-timers—there's a lot to be said for security and benefits and the comfort of a team that you grow to know and trust. But once I made the transition to independence, a whole world opened up. There's a real frontier in the digital publishing milieu. Don't listen to the voices that only say "No pay! No pay!" They're wrong: there is a lot of money on the table, but you have to be aggressively open to the way mastheads and editorial work now, and it's not what J-school taught back in 1985, 1995, or even 2005. What we mean when we say "news" or "article" or even "journalism" is subject to a number of new and interesting pressures that just weren't there ten years ago. This is not all bad, or even mostly bad, but it takes some flexibility and time and effort to sort out what works about this for the individual writer, and what does not.  

What other resources would you recommend for those who are transitioning into an independent writing career?

Avail yourselves of well-connected high-end networks such as Contently and Gotham Ghostwriters. That may sound like an advertisement, and I'm aware of where this interview is being published, but it's authentic advice, on my part, coming from what I know to be effective. Networks, especially online networks with well-funded projects, are more powerful than individuals, or at least they can save the individual a ton of time in the search for good work. There are lots of smart, young, successful people—writers, publishers, and network builders—who know this already. Be like them, and work with them, and with time and some humility, they'll change the way you work.

James O’Brien writes about business, technology, social media, film, wine, and travel. The Nieman Journalism Lab has called his work in the custom-content space "sponsored content done right." From 2008 to 2012 he reported and wrote extensively as a news correspondent for The Boston Globe. In 2012, he joined the caption-research team for photo-essayist Rick Smolan's The Human Face of Big Data. His fiction and poetry appear most recently in The Newer York and in Commas and Colons. New fiction is forthcoming in Space and Time and Footnote. O'Brien holds a PhD from the Editorial Institute at Boston University, where he researched Bob Dylan's other-than-song writings. 

The Writing Life Rocks

Our friends at Ragan recently published the results of a poll, in which they ask freelance writers and editors what they enjoy about the writing life. We thought this was a great question, and we were curious to know what keeps our Gotham Ghostwriters (and editors) going. So we asked, "What's the best part of having a job as a writer or editor?" We got a lot of creative and informative answers.  

The basic breakdown:

• I get to be creative every day: 5
• I get to write for a variety of platforms: 2
• I help others sound better: 5
• I produce a tangible finished product: 3
• Other (please elaborate!)
• I get to be alone
• I get to meet interesting (and famous) people
• I like seeing my name in print

And here are some of our favorite answers :

"Permit me to offer a quote from English writer W. Somerset Maugham (1874-1965), from his novel, 'Cakes and Ale': 'Whenever he has anything on his mind, whether it be a harassing reflection, grief at the death of a friend, unrequited love, wounded pride, anger at the treachery of someone to whom he has shown kindness, in short any emotion or perplexing thought, he has only to put it down in black and white, using it as the theme of a story or the decoration of an essay, to forget all about it. He is the only free man.'" - Harold Gordon

"...when people ask me what I do for a living, it's a kick to say, 'I'm a writer.' Always the same thing follows. 'Do I know your work? Have you written any books?' That I can say 'yes and 'yes' is rewarding. Books are not all I write or edit or direct. At this point in my career I write, edit and direct it all, and I've learned more about such an array of businesses, industries and topics that this in and of itself is very rewarding. I can even talk about hernia repair and medical conditions. Now that's something!" - Sandra Rea-McGinty

"The money, the travel, the danger, and the women." - Peter Roff