No Regrets: Hire a Ghostwriter or Editor and Finish Writing Your Book This Year!

By Corey Radman

12/30/25

Zoom forward in time with me for a moment. Pretend I’m the ghost of your Christmas future. Will the end of 2026 have you looking at your goals list with satisfaction? Or regret?

Will you be saying, “Challenge met! I did it!” or sighing, “Another year gone by, and my book is still not done.”

As a ghostwriter, I encounter a fair number of writing-related laments.

A common regret is having waited so long to pull the trigger on a book project.

My clients are all different kinds of people—entrepreneurs, professionals, retirees, folks whose experiences need to be written to be believed (and made sense of). They all have one commonality: They hired help. Many of them messed around with manuscripts for years, stolidly rearranging chapters and paragraphs as they aimed for perfection. Others had an idea in their head but lacked the time or the confidence to say, “Enough thinking—I’m doing this.” After wrestling on their own, they eventually gave themselves permission to ask for help and moved that goal to the accomplishment column. That could be you, too.

In the fallow period of holiday lull (the lolliday!), this is your moment to consider your 2026 goals and the strategies you will employ to complete them. Unlike that goal to spend more time at the gym, you can delegate this one.

Finishing Your Book With Help: The Steps

How to hire a ghostwriter or editor and finish your book:

• If you have a manuscript that you’d like feedback on, perhaps help restructuring for better story flow or suggestions for polishing, you want a developmental editor.

• For someone you can just tell your story to and send them off to do it, you want a ghostwriter. It’s also possible to find someone who can do a little bit of both. (Like me!)

Steps to finish writing your book:

• Develop as much as you can independently. Use a self editing guide like The Artful Edit by Susan Bell or a genre-specific manual like The Art of Memoir by Mary Karr.

• As you write and plan, think about your basic message and your target audience. What is the arc of your “sales pitch”? In other words, who wants to read this and why? Have you answered the questions they will have?

• Consider your path to publishing. Are you pitching to agents? Self-publishing? Knowing where the book is going helps us tailor it appropriately.

• Then, reach out to a few ghosts whose online presence you appreciate and schedule a get-to-know-you meeting. Listen for experience, knowledge, project management skill, marketing/publishing knowledge. See if your personalities fit and ask for writing samples or references. (Ghosts need so many skills!)

What’s required from you after hiring an editor or ghostwriter?

• Time – Weekly interviews and manuscript review takes hours, especially in the first stages

• Attention – Not only must you show up to the meeting with your ghostwriter, you have to prepare for it by thinking through your argument or story and bringing sources for them to use as they write

• Money – Your book is a product. A professional shouldn’t come cheaply.

TL;DR

• It's easy to get lost in the process of writing your book.

• Delegating the book work to a ghostwriter or editor is okay!

• Decide what service you need and go interview some ghosts.

• Be prepared to invest your time, attention, and funds into the process.

It’s on your bucket list. Don’t let another year go by without finishing your book!

About the Author

Corey Radman is a ghostwriter and book editor who, since 2015, has helped dozens of authors write captivating, informative business books, self-development books, and memoirs. Learn more at www.coreyradman.com.