What people who do not write books do

When we read books we spontaneously wonder what the author is like, how much of what he writes reflects his personality, and we often immediately go looking for him on social media to get in touch with his world.

The truth is that a book is not just about one person. Whether it relies on traditional publishing or self-publishing, the writer is necessarily surrounded by a host of figures who remain behind the scenes, but ensure the good quality of the finished product.

Let us therefore see the main differences between the roles of the writer… what a writer does not write.

PROOFREADER

At the bottom of the food chain, the proofreader essentially does the job of cleaning up the manuscript. The work is scrutinised for syntactical, grammatical and spelling errors, and finally checked for formatting and layout. The proofreader’s work is performed at the ‘skeleton’ level of the text. It is the most objective of all, since he/she does not judge the content, only the structure.

The economic compensation for this task is based on the concept of the ‘editorial folder’, i.e. the unit in which a typed text page of standard size is measured. One folder corresponds to approximately 1,800 keystrokes and average prices are between €1.50 and €2.50 per folder. Of course, this figure is indicative and does not take into account the amount of work of the proofreader himself, which from case to case may cost more or less depending on the amount of corrections to be made to the text.

BOOKS EDITOR

The name speaks for itself. The ‘modifier’ has the task of suggesting changes to the manuscript, notifying the author of plot holes, inconsistencies from a syntactic or structural point of view. In general, he/she checks everything that is part of the content of the novel: characters, geographical information, double or poorly flowing sentences, and so on.

It is not excluded that one person may edit as well as proofread a manuscript, but the two tasks remain separate. The editor works closely with the author, who naturally has the right to accept or reject his suggestions. It is a work in progress, which can take a few weeks as well as months.

Again, the price varies depending on the number of folders to be viewed (and the amount of changes to be made), with the cost varying between €4 and €6 per folder.

BOOKS COPYWRITER

This figure is the fusion of an editor and a proofreader, but flies much higher. He does not just check the spelling of a text or the syntax of a sentence. He researches, defines and writes the most suitable language to promote the author in advertising. Whether it is a slogan, a newsletter, a landing page for a website or a brochure, the copywriter must not only be aware of the target audience and the context in which he or she operates, but also know the mechanisms and keywords for optimising texts for search engines.

He is to all intents and purposes a professional of language, but also of marketing. This is why his remuneration varies according to the services performed and is significantly higher than in the first two professions.

GHOSTWRITER

The ‘ghostwriter’ writes short stories, biographies, speeches, letters and manuscripts… but commissioned by another person, i.e. the holder of the rights to the work when finished. Smell of fraud? Actually, many famous people rely on them for their publications. Books by singers, actors or footballers are mostly commissioned by ghost writers, who contractually hand over ownership of the manuscripts to their clients, thus remaining in the shadows.

In these cases, the most popular genre is the biography. The ghostwriter does not write fiction. He interviews the client and stays by his/her side during the day to understand habits and personality. The same applies to political speeches or cover letters. In short, a serious and tiring job, which has little to do with the halo of mystery and fascination with which it is surrounded in the common imagination. This is why commissioners sometimes decide to acknowledge and mention ghost writers in the acknowledgements, preface or even on the cover.

Publishing houses also make massive use of these undercover figures. It is not unusual for a ghostwriter to be hired to complete (or write from scratch) a book that will later be published under the name of a more famous writer. Again, the work is multi-handed and of course expertise and professionalism are needed to develop a manuscript that remains true to the original idea.

There can be many reasons for this. Lack of time or material, for instance, or the inability or impossibility of the ‘original’ writer to produce content that meets certain marketing objectives.

Depending on all these variables, the ghostwriter’s work can be remunerated very differently. Large publishing houses can pay as much as €5,000 for a medium-length book, while prices halve with smaller ones or even go as low as €1,000 for freelance work.

TO WRITERS: THE FUTURE?

There is also a fifth ‘figure’, that of the writer… who does not exist. Digital services such as Writesonic provide assistance in many writing-related fields: blog articles, advertisements, product descriptions, landing pages and so on. Depending on the number of words and the required quality, the AI writer is able to independently produce even very long texts, in different languages and with different templates. He does not simply duplicate content from the web. The AI reworks it and transforms it into unique texts, just as a flesh-and-blood person would do. The results? Realistic and often (unfortunately) far superior to the average, both in terms of processing concepts and correctness of language.

It seems unlikely that artificial intelligence can completely replace human creativity, at least when it comes to personal writings such as novels and short stories. But if we think about the age-old debate between eBooks and paper books, can we rule out the possibility that a totally digital future awaits us?