Comments on: All We Have Are Our Love and Our Guts, Baby…and They’re All Over the Road

By: Bryon Foley

Bryon Foley — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 22:06:42 +0000

Lindsay-

Kudos to you! Your response is both professional (odd we place a priority on professionalism huh?) and passionate. Always remember as we rise to the top of anything you pursue their will be those who hate your success!

Bryon

By: Arik

Arik — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 16:34:01 +0000

If ghost writing is done the right way, and all parties are happy, then what is the problem?

I don’t seem one.

Rock on!

@aflander

By: Deborah Farrar

Deborah Farrar — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 15:52:13 +0000

Seriously, I can’t even believe this whole issue – it’s ridiculous! Lindsay you ARE a rock star. Keep doing what you’re doing – you’re amazing!!!!

By: Lindsay Manfredi

Lindsay Manfredi — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 14:43:41 +0000

Wow. Thank you all for your contribution and responses. I hope this issue is put to rest. It’s time for me to start blogging about how to be the best ghost writer/blogger you can be for your clients. Since I’m on this path, you’re on this path, and the many more that will follow, it’s just best to do it right. Yes?

Thank you again. No, SERIOUSLY. Who knew?…

By: Robby Slaughter

Robby Slaughter — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 14:38:30 +0000

@susan: It’s only an issue if readers care. Your blogs all say: “Written by Susan.” But what if they *actually* were written by a certain rock star? Would your readers be upset?

By: Susan (5 Minutes for Mom)

Susan (5 Minutes for Mom) — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 06:42:17 +0000

It’s crazy how people are inventing all these rules for social media that don’t even align with the rest of the publishing or entertainment world.

All I have to say is… if the President isn’t writing his own speeches, then why should ghost blogging be an issue?

By: joeshoe

joeshoe — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 03:49:04 +0000

grace and maturity, absolutely.

thanks or demonstrating it, Linz.

By: Steven Shattuck

Steven Shattuck — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 03:34:36 +0000

When I reflect, in later years, on ghostgate ‘09, I won’t remember the ridiculous vituperation that spawned it, but rather the grace and maturity shown in response.

By: Robby Slaughter

Robby Slaughter — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 02:16:06 +0000

The real question here is not whether or not what Lindsay does is right. She believes it is, and many of us support her. Rather, it is how much she could change her behavior for it to become wrong.

Integral to her process today is knowing the client. She interviews them and they discuss ideas. She researches key points and crafts posts. Clients provide feedback and final approval. This is not pure writing, but a collaboration. She is the voice for the brand of others.

But take all that away, and the ghostwriter truly becomes a incorporeal being. If Lindsay were to recruit clients and then provide copy without a conversation, without approval, without interaction, she would merely be a font of content. This theoretical skill is both impressive and terrifying. Only the most adroit writer could sufficiently emulate a client without a word of feedback. This same non-existent ghost simultaneously proves that publication without attribution enables anyone to appear infinitely capable. That’s the fear of ghostwriting: if you don’t talk to your clients, how do readers know if they are consuming the words of the wise or merely the rich?

@robbyslaughter

By: Doug Haslam

Doug Haslam — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 00:59:00 +0000

I come here via Chris Brogan Tweeting about his comment. I’ve been all over this ghost-blogging “debate” for years.

I’ve not been much for the holier-than-thou purist attitude toward a medium, blogging, that hasn’t existed in popular form for very long. What standards? What purity? The precedents you laid down in your posts apply, and apply well.

In a former life, I was a radio news producer. Part of my job was to write scripts for the anchors, and I damn well better know how to write in their voice and in their style– which was a real challenge. Yup, I was a (disclosed, in a way) ghost-writer. Noone spit on me– unless I wrote the word “particularly” into a script. Once anchor had a hard time saying that and gave us crap is we used it.

You strike me as someone who approaches this work honestly and openly. I’m not going to judge. More power to you.