Shannon Kyle has ghostwritten eight books, including three Sunday Times bestsellers. The ‘authors’ have included Jade Goody, Katie Piper and other unnamed celebrities, as well as ordinary people with what she calls “extraordinary stories”.
Working with Goody was “a very humbling experience”, she says. “I was only able to visit her house after dark as so many paparazzi were camped on her doorstep during the day, hoping for a final picture. By the time work started on her book she was already very ill, but I had her diary to refer to, and was helped with interviews from her mum, boyfriend and friends.”
Right up to the last few days Jade’s humour “shone through”, alongside her determination to leave as much as she could to her boys. “It was all so unfair. If Jade’s life story had been written as a novel readers wouldn’t have believed such a tragic ending. Over the following years however, she has saved many lives from cervical cancer as test rates skyrocketed thanks to the publicity. It was one of the many things she should be remembered for.”
Shannon has lived in Gospel Oak for 15 years, and is “obsessed” with Hampstead Heath. “I can often be found running or climbing trees there. Ever since I moved to London after university I’ve lived within walking distance and can’t imagine living anywhere else without such a huge green expanse on my doorstep. My grandmother was in Highgate for 30 years, so although I was bought up in Kent, I had memories of the area from when I was little too. It’s always felt like home.”
Shannon’s 14 ghost-writing tips
1. Prepare for a very intense time. Usually publishers only give ghosts about eight weeks to deliver the first draft so you’ll spend days holed up with your subject during the day then writing furiously at night. Interviewing and writing is fun, fascinating and absorbing, whereas editing drafts always brings me to my knees.
2. Don’t be precious. Ever. That’s not my job, that’s the job of the authors, although I’ve been lucky so far to work with lovely people. At the end of the day it’s their book and I’m capturing their voice, not my own. My ego is left at the door when I leave my flat.
3. Always make notes as well as taping interviews. if the recorder is going to fail on you it’s likely to be just as a golden nugget is spoken.
4. Listen and be patient. Like a psychotherapist with a patient, you can’t expect all the insights all at once, memories emerge in their own time.
5. Never turn up with a list of specific questions. Best to sit down, have a cup of tea and chat like friends, not a roving nosy reporter desperate for scoop.
6. Never ask for your name to be acknowledged in the book – but pray that it will. Acknowledgements are usually buried at the back of the book, or sometimes I’m thanked at the front somewhere. Only once did my name not appear at all. That made me cry a bit.
7. Don’t get drunk and spill any of the author’s secrets with your friends. You never know who is listening behind the bar.
8. Don’t try to do an interview over dinner. You can’t use a knife and fork at the same time as writing shorthand, or speak with your mouth full. Well I can’t.
9. Expect whoever you’re writing for to start speaking in your head. I often end up ‘thinking’ like the author to try and capture their voice. Gives myself a little holiday from my own inner ramblings I suppose.
10. Understand your role as a ghostwriter. On my book contracts it always states the people I write for are ‘authors.’ It means I don’t officially exist; including at book launches, press dos and interviews. Once I was listening to my favourite breakfast radio show when the presenter interviewed the author of one of my books. He asked how they’d thought of such an amazing opening line and I nearly choked on my toast. But then I smiled and told myself: ‘Well done’… after all nobody else will.
11. Ignore any pre-release publicity. In the middle of writing Jade Goody’s book, it was listed as the number one new release on Amazon, so I knew it would go straight to number one on the best seller list. Except at that point it was only half written on my laptop in my kitchen. No pressure then!
12. Famous people are like the rest of us. If anything fame breeds insecurity. Money doesn’t buy you happiness or even peace of mind, that’s very true.
13. Don’t give up the dream of one day writing your own book. I’ve attempted two novels and the first got to the acquisition department of a major publisher but they pulled out at the last minute. I love ghostwriting but one day I will write in my own voice.
14. People think writing in cafes all day is romantic and glamorous. It isn’t. But there’s little else I’d rather do.
For more on Shannon Kyle head here
