A friend of mine once called a ghostwriting company so we could actually hear the sales pitch in progress. The sales rep--there was naturally no actual writer or owner or executive to speak with--asked my friend how long his book was. He told her that it was 325 pages long--a thriller. The rep said that $20,000 was the price for a two-hundred-page book since, as she put it, "Books are shorter now. Publishers don't really put out long books anymore."
My friend and I exchanged startled glances. There was no trend in publishing toward shorter books, either in fiction or nonfiction. Was this sales rep not familiar with genre fiction, such a s thrillers, crime, mystery, science fiction, and so many more? Did she not know that the average thriller was 450 pages long? Where did she get this magic number of 200 pages?
Writing a book of 200 pages for $20,000 ensures a maximum profit for the ghostwriting company while minimizing labor. And keep in mind that the companies pay their subcontracted writers very little money, so they don't want to get embroiled in controversy with these underlings by handing them a project that's going to take 400 pages to complete. (The writer is sometimes offered as little as $5,000 for such a project, although the client is unaware of this.)
The result is that a potential client may indeed pay $20,000 for a short book--a book that needs to be much longer and will stand no chance to succeed in the literary marketplace. Ignorance of the publishing industry on the part of the client once again allows the ghostwriting companies to make a huge profit while fulfilling a contract that gives the client nothing but heartache when he or she learns that the book doesn't sell.
~William Hammett
Contact wmhammett@aol.com
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