Taran-tara! A book is being published this month, and it has already attracted the kind of publicity that would make a JK Rowling novel look unheralded. Admittedly, the author is very prolific, having written more than 80 books, which have sold more than 10 million copies. And yet you’ve never heard of him, which is precisely why he’s getting so much attention.
That goes against the grain not just of the modern publishing industry, where only writers who already get media coverage get more media coverage, but of this particular author’s entire career. Because this book, you see, is called Confessions of a Ghostwriter, and it was written by a chap called Andrew Crofts, who has built a career on writing books for people more famous than himself.
You’d think it was the first time a ghostwriter had ever revealed their corporeal form, but it’s not even the first time this decade. Robert Harris mined this fascination in The Ghost, in which the characters were ghosts of Harris himself and Tony Blair. Roman Polanski then made it into a film that, despite being a melange of confused accents (every single actor is speaking in an accent other than their own – and, boy, you don’t forget it), was his most enjoyable movie for years. Jennie Erdal wrote hilariously about her time as a ghostwriter for Naim Attallah, a London publisher who is usually described as “larger than life” which is invariably a euphemism for “a pain in the arse”. Much hay is always made of what the rise of ghostwriters says about the state of publishing and people’s reading habits (short answer: nothing good). More telling, though, is the interest in ghostwriters themselves.
I find this interest amusing, partly because it’s treated as a more cerebral way of admitting that what you’re actually interested in is fame. So meta, you see. But the main reason I find it amusing is because I have been in the ghostwriting game – and that is, by some measure, the only thing I’ve done in my life that anyone is interested in. When I was 26 I got a call from my agent, the now sadly late Kate Jones asking if I would help a certain celebrity write a fashion guide. As I was then the deputy fashion editor of the Guardian, this didn’t seem too wildly beyond my capabilities. Plus, I needed the money. So I asked who the celebrity was. “Victoria Beckham,” she replied. And we both burst into giggles. By the end of the week I was officially signed up to be what was described as “Victoria’s co-writer”.
Like most ghostwriters or “co-writers”, I had to sign a confidentiality agreement in my own blood, so I won’t be able to share stories about the Beckhams’ regular animal sacrifices or reveal that David is actually a giant hologram projected out of Simon Fuller’s brain. But I can tell you what it’s like to be a ghostwriter. And what it is is boring. This is no slur on the Beckhams, who were extremely sweet to me and extraordinarily patient with my absolute ignorance of football. After the book was done, they invited me to a dinner with, as Victoria put it, “some of David’s friends”. This turned out to be pretty much every major international football player at the time, not that I had a clue who any of them were. I like to think that Zinedine Zidane was more charmed than insulted when I asked him what he did for work.
There are many boring things about being a ghostwriter, and only one of them is that you’re writing in someone else’s voice, which is a very weird thing to do. The really boring thing is that you’re living with famous people, and famous people lead very boring lives. They are trapped by their own fame, unable to go anywhere without it being some kind of ordeal. The Beckhams themselves seemed perfectly happy, mainly because they have each other. But famous people are watched now to a degree they never were before, and so can get away with less. It’s hilarious that fame has become the ultimate currency of our age, the thing that is now given as a prize on TV game shows instead of money, because being famous has never been more boring. All those people who compete so desperately on The X Factor should spend just a day with a really famous person and see if what they think they want is what they actually want.
I’ve since been asked to ghost a few other books but I lack the capacity for self-surrender, so I always say no. But not a week has gone by since without someone asking me about it. That ghostwriters exist proves we live in an era obsessed with fame; that people are interested in ghostwriters proves how ridiculous this obsession is.
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