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What Famous Books Were Ghostwritten?

The answer to the question of which famous books released throughout history were ghostwritten is one that is both simple and hard to answer. First of all, we can name those that are publicly known to be ghostwritten – that’s simple. But after that, there are also many ghostwritten books that were never confirmed or announced by the people involved, so that makes it pretty hard to make a comprehensive list.

I’ve already written about how you can tell a book is ghostwritten, though it’s never 100% black and white unless someone involved in the production has confirmed that a ghostwriter was involved.

The bottom line is that many, many books out there are ghostwritten – probably a lot more than you would imagine. The percentage is higher in the non-fiction category, but it’s also not unheard of or even unusual for fiction books to be ghostwritten.

Here is a list, though by no means comprehensive, of some of the best-known ghostwritten books.

Memoir

It’s very common for celebrity memoirs to be ghostwritten. If you think about it, this makes total sense. Someone who is famous for being highly skilled in one area can’t be expected to be an expert writer as well! On top of that, it’s very difficult for someone at that level of public scrutiny to find the time to write a book. Their days are often taken up with appearances, interviews, events, new launches, and – of course – doing the actual job they are famous for. Business owners are also very likely to have their memoirs or business books ghostwritten for the same reason – they’re too busy running the actual business to put pen to paper.

These memoirs are known to be ghostwritten:

Spare – Prince Harry

Open – Andre Agassi

Shoe Dog – Phil Knight

Paris, The Memoir – Paris Hilton

Under Construction – Chrishelle Stause

Inside Out – Demi Moore

Becoming – Michelle Obama

The Secrets of My Life – Caitlyn Jenner

Miles to Go – Miley Cyrus

Moonwalk – Michael Jackson

Fiction

How about some ghostwritten fiction? Some of these are celebrity books where the celebrity came up with the concept but didn’t write it, or simply wanted to put their name on a cover. Others are well-known series that were always intended to be ghostwritten from the start, with the publisher creating a fake name for the “author” so that they would be able to hire multiple people to write the same characters.

Nineteen Steps – Millie Bobby Brown

Girl Online – Zoe Suggs

Rebels: City of Indra – Kendall and Kylie Jenner

Nancy Drew series – Carolyn Keene

The Hardy Boys series – Franklin W. Dixon

The Bobbsey Twins series – Laura Lee Hope

The Rover Boys series – Arthur M. Winfield

Tom Swift series – Victor Appleton

Sweet Valley High series

The Count of Monte Cristo – Alexandre Dumas (co-written by Auguste Maquet, who was never credited after the two of them fell out)

Posthumous Series

Finally, when a well-known and well-respected author dies, this can sometimes leave behind a lot of open ends in their books. If they were writing a series, fans may be galled by the fact that they will never know how it ends. But it doesn’t have to end there. Another seasoned writer can step in and take over! In these cases, the author is often credited, though it is not always done this way. It can also be that an author simply gets tired of writing a series and wants another writer to take over, while they still benefit from holding the copyright to the series.

Michael Crichton

Robert Ludlum

Ian Fleming

VC Andrews

Stieg Larson

Mickey Spillane

Ann M. Martin of The Babysitters Club

  1. A. Applegate of Animorphs

There are many, many more examples of ghostwritten books out there. There are also grey areas, like the James Patterson books – these days, Patterson writes with a co-writer who is credited, though rumour has it that he often does little more than check the work over to approve that it fits with his style. When you add up all of these cases, it’s clear to see already that ghostwriting is a very common practice – one that not all readers are aware of.

If you’re thinking about hiring a ghostwriter, you’ll be in good company. Get in touch with me today to start discussing your book and figuring out what your next steps should be.

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