I’ve been told that someone at the head of a security company is thinking of getting a ghost-writer to write his autobiography. Rather than advise about which ghost-writer or publisher to seek, I’d ask these questions: why do you want to write it, and who’s your intended readers (or listeners, if it’s audio)?
I suggest you’d do it for one or more of three reasons. 1) to make a name for yourself among your peers, to set yourself up as a ‘thought leader’ (a phrase I neither understand nor like). 2) sheer vanity. 3) to explain yourself to your grandchildren. Not that they will pay attention, given that they always seem to have their heads stuck in tablet; except that one day, you hope, they will give some time to it, enjoy it, and be glad you took the time to do it.
1) It’s valid that you are proud of what you’ve done, and feel you have a story to tell. Plenty of other people who have done well in their lives tell their stories, lately Boris Johnson in his memoir Unleashed (the hardback is already on offer in bookshops at half price). Also Metropolitan Police commissioners, England football managers and cricket captains, if they choose. To give two examples from the wider world of security: Richard Fenning, whose What on Earth can go Wrong told of his years as CEO of the consultancy Control Risks; and Lucy Easthope, whose When the Dust Settles told of her work in disaster recovery. If you want to succeed like them (Lucy’s book was a ‘book of the week’, read mornings on Radio 4) why not just reach out to them? Or go through the online book reviews on this Professional Security Magazine website and see the numerous security practitioners who have published or self-published memoirs, and pick their brains? Better still, read their books first to see how it can be done? There’s no better way to bond with an author than to show that you’ve read them (which implies you’ve paid for their book – you don’t have to tell them you bought it second hand online, or got it free from the public library, or got the gist of it off the internet). Welcome to the vanity of writing.
2) Talking of vanity; it’s valid if you have no better reason for wanting to go to the time and trouble of giving your life story over 60,000 or more words. Except that; will that impress a publisher, who wants to be convinced enough that an audience is out there who will part with money for your story?! No doubt you can find ‘vanity publishers’ who in return for a fee will get your story ghost-written and will present you with the printed work. You may be happy with the value for money; provided that you go about it with open eyes. Consider this comparison with security work. Your company has a client who’s doing something in, say, Uganda. As you don’t know anyone in Uganda, you will have to find a local partner. Naturally you search online first, and find two possibilities. It’s wise to visit. One turns out to work off a laptop at his home. That may be fine, if he’s competent, has good contacts and so on; indeed, not only might he not need an office, if he’s without that overhead, he may come cheaper. Except that if his website gives the impression he has a flash security operations centre, does that raise a red flag about his integrity? To return to vanity publishing, it’s easy enough to knock up a digital or even a printed book, thanks to ‘print on demand’ services. Is the vanity publisher promising to market your memoir, to place it in shops? That may well not be true and you may well be ripped off.
3) A reputable commercial publisher will not ask you for any money; they will make enough money on the strength of your book. That’s not to deny that you can pay for someone to collect your life story, and package it nicely, whether as a printed book or a scrapbook, alongside photos and memorabilia. Why not do that yourself? Why feel tied to the written or typed word? Record any passing recollection on your phone, make a podcast. Be creative!
My advice, then, does not stretch beyond what’s true of sourcing any product or service; do due diligience, your homework. As for what to look for in a ghost-writer; a publisher could probably assign a ghost-writer to you, if they regard you as worth it – they’re not charities. As for the style and content, read around and copy what appeals to you. Do you want to give an account of your life, stage by stage, to explain to yourself how you’ve got where you are; or does one part of it stand out? One of the most insightful memoirs about Auschwitz was by the Frenchman Paul Steinberg, written only after he retired, which gave him perspective to better describe what he’d (barely) survived. Likewise the author of No Moon Tonight, one of the finest memoirs of the Second World War, Don Charlwood, returned to his past on retirement and published Journeys into Night; which deserve to be read as a pair.
Are you writing out of nostalgia for your bygone youth, to recall dear parents, simpler times? The musician Joe Jackson in his memoir A Cure for Gravity told of his upbringing and early years in music as far as his debut album Look Sharp; counter-intuitively, he showed his story was more interesting before he was famous. Or do you want to tell stories of adventure, violence, or brushes with death? And then point to a moral? You’re without experience of writing, and unsure of how to? If you’ve got a remarkable enough story worth telling, you can do it, even if you have to write long-hand in a child’s exercise book, as Albert Facey did to tell of his extraordinary youth as a cowboy in western Australia in the 1900s (pictured).
