Why I didn’t use an AI or a “ghostwriter”  to help write my book

When I wrote the first draft of my latest book, “Human resilience, Keep running your life,”  [https://shorturl.at/HGpyo]  it looked quite different from the version I ended up publishing.  As an example, the subtitle was originally “Keep Running For Life” rather than the current  “Keep Running Your Life,”   And none of the  35 life lessons were explicitly highlighted.  I also didn’t have the following words in the front of the book suggesting how the reader should use the material in this book. 

“…The 35 life lessons presented in the book should not be viewed as a recipe for human resilience. They are lessons that worked for me in achieving a degree of resilience in my life. My running stories provide examples of the “how.” Runners may want to think about the details in these stories more carefully. If you are a non-runner, I suggest you think about the life lesson first in the context of your own life. Then read enough of the running story to get the idea. It’s the idea I hope you take away and hopefully find a way to apply to your own life…”

A big thank you to all my reviewers who helped by giving me good suggestions that helped to make the book better by making these changes.

But let me make one point perfectly clear.  I wrote my book. I did not use a “ghostwriter” or any AI  tools to help.  Not only that, it is also written in my words with a style I  am comfortable with.  In fact, I also narrated the Audible version of this book and when doing so I actually went back and changed certain words in the written text because I didn’t feel  comfortable verbalizing parts of the book with words I didn’t feel would naturally flow from my lips.    That said, I did have many  great suggestions from my many reviewers who I will be forever indebted to.  I also want to make it clear that none of my reviewers  were professional  paid book reviewers. They were friends who gave me suggestions that I thoughtfully considered, before making any change.

So, when a friend suggested I consider using a professional book writing  agency  to do a professional editing of the book and  help market the book by writing a few articles and blogs about the book I was more than a bit leery.  Nevertheless, I agreed to give at least part of his suggestion a try by contracting the agency to write a few blogs and articles about the book.

When I received the first few blogs I gave them to my wife to review without telling her who wrote them.  She responded by telling me how surprised she was at how much  my writing had improved.   That is when I broke the news to her that I had not actually written these blogs, but they  had been written by a professional book reviewer who had obviously read the book, understood my points, and was able to communicate my message, arguably,  better than I.

So now I was starting to question my own thinking about needing the words to “feel”  like they flowed naturally from my lips.  Was it so important that a book be written in the exact words of the author?  If the author’s  message could be better conveyed using other words, was there anything wrong with that?

This was leading me to understand why many people use ghostwriters, yet something just didn’t feel right about it.  And,  at the same time, to make this problem even more complicated  the professional “ghostwriter” who had really written these blogs had gone beyond just changing some of my words.  They actually did what I had suggested any reader of my book do.  They had taken away the “ideas” in the book, as I suggested, and provided  examples beyond running that could easily be understood by anyone—runner or non-runner.

I was now seriously wondering if I should have let this company, not only write a few blogs and articles about the book, but also do a complete professional editing.  It had become clear to me that the skills of these professional writers far exceeded my own skill as a writer.   But still, something didn’t feel right about it, and it led me to do a little investigation into the ethics behind using ghostwriters. 

I found the following words  that resonated with me on the internet – “Using a ghostwriter can be considered ethical as long as there is full transparency about the practice and the author does not attempt to deceive the reader by claiming full authorship of the work; the key is to disclose the use of a ghostwriter when appropriate, especially in situations where public credibility is important.”

 So, in conclusion, to be clear, maybe I’m old school, but if I am going to tell people I wrote a book, I want it to sound just like it would if I was talking to them. That is why I decided not to use a “ghostwriter” or any AI tool to help.  That is just the way I feel about it.

However,  in the interest of transparency and full disclosure I have also engaged some highly qualified professional “ghostwriters” to help me market the book through blogs that share ideas found in the book with  interesting examples that hopefully can help both runners and non-runners keep running their life. 

When I post these blogs over upcoming weeks/months I will make this point clear in the interest of transparency and full disclosure. 

P.S. By the way, I did write this specific blog with no help from a “ghostwriter” or AI tool. –:😊)