The rates really depend on the project. For example, an autobiography project involves quite a bit of teamwork in order to formulate your story and ensure that what you want to be covered is covered in your autobiography. As a result, there is quite a bit of pre-flight (interviews, discussions, feedback, questions, etc.) that goes into the project even before it is written. For an autobiography project (not including final editing) there is about 33% of the work that is the writing part and 2/3 that is pre-flight, ensuring that everything is laid out exactly the way that you want it to be presented in your autobiography. There is more work that goes into an autobiography than, say, a novel. A basic starting rate for an autobiography can be around $23,000. Need a point of reference? Picture how much time is involved in the autobiography and then picture a ghostwriter devoting that time to your project. Let’s say that it takes six months. Would you be able to feed your family on, say, $7,000 for six months? When you look at it from the perspective of the level of effort, it helps to give a visual picture of the level of effort and what is required, in this case, for an autobiography.
It is best to request a quote for your specific project so that we can identify areas where possibly more work is needed (i.e. research, marketing, etc.) or possibly less work (i.e. you have already written a portion of your book and only need editing).
