Your voice is yours. The way you think, the way you phrase things, the rhythm of how you speak when you get excited about a topic. It’s not surprising that you might find it hard to believe that someone else could capture the real you.
What if the finished book sounds polished but generic? Professional, but not quite you? Or just plain wrong?
Voice isn’t just word choice
Most people, when they think about voice, think about vocabulary. Do I say “however” or “but”? Am I formal or conversational? But more than that.
Your voice includes how you build an argument. Whether you lead with the conclusion or build to it. If you use stories to illustrate ideas or prefer data and structure. Is your voice dry and understated or warm and direct? It includes your habits, the frameworks you return to, the metaphors that come naturally to you, the things you find genuinely interesting.
A skilled ghostwriter isn’t just listening for your words. They’re listening for all the little details that make up you.
How does voice capture actually work?
In the early stages of a project, ghostwriters spend a lot of time just talking. Planning, strategising and preparing the book. In those discussions, ghostwriters are :
- Observing how you talk, listening for subtext and noting down rhythm, speed and tone.
- Reviewing existing material like talks, articles, emails, presentations. The less polished, the more useful. Unedited source material reveals more about natural voice than anything that’s been through a communications team.
My background makes this process different from most ghostwriters. I trained as an actor before moving into digital marketing and copywriting, and both help me capture voice. To me, a client is like a character that I have to understand: how do they think? How do they present themselves? What do they care about? And I search for clues that I can put onto the page. Marketing taught me how to strip an idea down to what actually moves an audience. When I’m working with a client, I’m doing both simultaneously and making sure all of that envelops the core message you want to share.
It’s a collaboration
No ghostwriter gets the voice exactly right on the first attempt. When I work with clients, I like to send the first few chapters for feedback and to establish a baseline voice. Your feedback on early drafts like “I wouldn’t say it like that” or “this sounds too formal” is crucial data helping me to hone in on how your book should sound.
As the draft continues, the voice gets clearer, so by the time a manuscript is complete, a good ghostwriter will have your voice down in a way that surprises most clients.
What experienced ghostwriters know
Ghostwriters have been used in publishing, speechwriting, and memoir for decades for a reason: they work. Readers don’t call out ghostwritten content when the collaboration is done well. What they do notice is its clarity, and whether the ideas feel true to the writer, not whether every sentence was typed out by the named author.
The most common feedback I hear from clients after reading their completed manuscript is some surprised version of: “It sounds like me.” That’s always pretty nice to hear.
When it doesn’t work and how to avoid it
When the ghostwriter isn’t skilled enough or hasn’t put in the effort to find your voice, if the process is rushed, or there isn’t enough source material, is when things go wrong.
The collaboration matters. Your feedback shapes the final voice more than anything the ghostwriter can do alone. So, showing up for calls and being as flexible as possible with the ghostwriter are important to the book’s success.
This is why choosing a ghostwriter you can comfortably talk to and trust is essential. You want to be able to talk to them without feeling like you have to hold anything back, or present an edited version of yourself. The ghostwriter needs the real you, and you need to feel comfortable doing that.
Always book a call first before hiring any ghostwriter. Think of it like a speed date. You’ll get everything you need to know from that first call.
A note on AI ghostwriting
Some services now offer AI-drafted manuscripts, often at lower price points. AI can produce fluent, well-structured prose. But as LLMs are trained to provide the most pleasing average of what it thinks you want, it cannot produce individual, nuanced and personality-led writing that is demanded of thought leadership today.
Be very careful when using AI. Most people can tell when you use AI, and it contradicts the ‘effort’ and ‘expertise’ that is signalled by having a book.
Want to know more?
Book a call with me and let’s talk about your book.