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Working with a ghostwriter is an intimate process. You share personal details of your life with another person and trust that person to portray your life as you wish it to be portrayed. Sharing can be unsettling, and this is where ghostwritten book examples can help assuage any unease you might retain.

A ghostwritten book is a collaboration between a person who for whatever reason wants to have help in leaving a written legacy and a memoir professional who serves as a sort of midwife for the book project. Let this ghostwritten book examples guide you.

What a ghostwriter does

Of course, an obvious function of the ghostwriter is to apply writing skills to your story. Your ghost is someone who loves to write and has spent years perfecting the craft of memoir writing. You speak your story, and your ghost writes it.

But, a good ghostwriter does more.

Memory—yours and mine—is false, flattering and failing. A prime function of your ghostwriter is to offer feedback on your recollection and help you align it with “what probably happened.”

Your ghostwriter may have to do some push back for the sake of the book. They are emotionally detached from your story and do not share your close—and sometimes blinding—involvement. They are in a solid position to point out inconsistencies in your story and to align parts of the story with other parts. The result is a more coherent and interesting story.

Ghostwritten book examples

We have ghostwritten many, many books in the last two decades plus. Below we share ghostwritten book examples gleaned from books we have co-authored, and the list is always growing.

In conclusion

Once you’ve read the ghostwritten book examples below, why not claim the free e-book, A Consumer’s Guide to Ghostwriting Services / How to Choose and Work With the Best Co-author For You?

Find more information about ghostwriting on our site.

For examples of some of our ghostwritten books, please click here.

WWNS and ASF Covers

Writing Another Person’s Memoir: Can you use the first person pronoun?

Shouldn’t writing another person’s memoir be called writing biography rather than writing memoir? You the writer are, after all, not the subject. Doesn’t that make it a biography?

But, are there occasions when a biography can justly be called a memoir?

In one of my books, A Sugary Frosting / Life in a 1960s Parsonage, I used lifestories that my late wife Martha Blowen had composed—and to which I added text. And…

I called the finished book a memoir.

Was this appropriate?

How did I presume to call it a memoir and not a biography?

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writing an old family story

Writing An Old Family Story

I was one of those fortunate children to have known well both sets of grandparents. My Ledoux grandparents lived upstairs for most of my growing up while by Verreault grandparents lived 10 miles away. Because of this, I’ll admit writing an old family story is somewhat easy for me as I heard so many of them when I was child!

My grandmother Marie Bilodeau Ledoux was the first to leave us. That was almost 60 years ago November 23, 1964.)

The following story is drawn from a booklet I wrote in 2001. It tells about le bonhomme Sept-heures who was also the bane of my childhood. [Free Membership required to read more. See below. ]

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becoming an American

Becoming an American—Why Not?

DL— Stories about immigration and citizenship form the backbone of our great American story as much today as in past times.  My ancestors were among the millions who came here in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Here is an excerpt about becoming an American from We Were Not Spoiled, the memoir of my mother Lucille Verreault Ledoux as told to me. For many more excerpts of my mother’s life, click here.

Memoir Writing

Joseph Verreault

My father had not come to the US to stay, but that’s what happened. After working here for a number of years first to support himself and then his growing family and eventually buying an apartment building that was his family’s home, it must have seemed obvious to him that this is where he would spend the rest of his life. So, why not give in to becoming an American citizen? Thinking this way, he was able to make the decision be an easy one. He was a practical man with a lot of responsibilities.

Becoming An American

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theme-focused memoir

Going Up in Flames: My Dream Shop Was Burning to the Ground!

This excerpt is from Business Boy to Business Man the memoir of Robert Verreault as told to Denis Ledoux. The memoir was published in 2013.

During the summer, I took a longer supper break and, after returning to the shop — where I had over a hundred and fifty employees — I might stay until the second shift went home at 11. The evening of July 18 was no different.

When I was young, I used to take care of emergencies at the shop myself, but no more. My summer camp’s telephone number was unlisted, and I had given it only to family and friends so I usually had a lot of quiet when I was there.

That night, however, the phone startled me awake at about 3:30. In the darkness, as I reached for the lamp, right away, I had a bad feeling. A middle-of-the-night call was not a compressor gone wrong. It was something much more serious. Could it be one of my parents was sick? Or, my wife’s? We had a lot of salesmen out on the road. Had one of them been in an accident? I stumbled through the camp to reach the phone in the large family room. When I answered, I heard a woman, announcing herself as a telephone operator, asking if I would take a phone call from a police officer. “He said you would want to be disturbed,” she added.

I said immediately, “Yes.”

Had the police caught a thief in the shop? But, what would a thief want with conveyors? I knew, of course, that was not what a thief would have come for—a thief would have been looking for cash in the office.

But it was not a thief the officer was calling me about. What he said next shocked me.

“The Diamond Machine plant is on fire, Mr. Verreault.”

“What?” I shot back stunned.

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The Pacific Theater

Crossing the Pacific to Reach the World War 2 Theater

This excerpt is from Business Boy to Business Man the memoir of Robert Verreault as told to Denis Ledoux. The memoir was published in 2013.

The military would never tell servicemen where we were going during World War 2, but it was a fairly easy bet that we were headed for Hawaii as a first leg to the Japanese front. The night before we were to board our ship, I had supper in San Francisco with the girlfriend of one of my friends. It would be the last time in a long while that I would have a home-cooked meal.

In the morning, my buddy and I headed out to the Mare Island Naval Shipyard where the ship we were to head out on had undergone some repairs. Like many other ships used by the Americans, this one was a foreign ship that had been more or less stranded far from its homeland and was now helping in the anti-Axis war effort. We were to board it at the yard and begin our trip from there. We reported in and then, hoisting our duffle bags onto our shoulders, took our place to board. There was a long line of men, thousands of men. The line moved slowly, the duffle bags grew heavy. It seemed that when finally we put them down to rest, the line moved again and we’d lug the bags once more. Eventually, we reached a narrow gangplank and walked up it to the ship’s deck. [Free Membership required to read more. See below. ]

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point of view in a memoir

My Son Denis Is Born

My second pregnancy was also easy enough. This time Albert was with me, and he and I could live it together. My mother had had most of her babies at home, but by the mid-1940s, women were…

memoir writing information

No Smile on my Face

Dr. Morin would say that my mother had not put a smile on my face when she carried me, but I think it was because, as the oldest, I was made to be a too-serious child.