Ghostwriting services
Discreet, contract-bound ghostwriting where you own everything and the writer is permanently silenced on attribution.
from $11,400
Start here · discreet
The book your board does not need to know we wrote.
Confidential ghostwriting for founders, executives, public figures, and high-profile professionals. Mutual NDA before the first call. Permanent non-attribution on the writer. Optional pre-publication legal read.
What discretion actually looks like
The contract has teeth. The teeth have never been used. They are the point.
Most agencies in this category sell confidentiality as a clause and then anonymize the writer instead. We do not. The writer on your project is a senior named professional whose contract with the studio includes a permanent non-attribution clause that survives the company. We have not enforced it once in seven years. We would. Knowing we would is what keeps it true.
- Mutual NDA signed before the discovery call (yours or ours, mutual either way)
- Encrypted manuscript handling, no shared cloud without your approval
- Project codename in any internal communication
- Permanent non-attribution clause on the writer — survives termination and the company
- Optional pre-publication legal read by a partnered media-law attorney
The stack for an executive memoir
Five services, scoped to the way these projects actually run.
Most engagements layer ghostwriting, two rounds of editing, cover, KDP setup, and a targeted PR sprint at launch. Audiobook conversion follows for about half of executive projects.
Book editing services
Four levels of editing, real editors with real bibliographies. We start with a $250 sample edit so you can see the work before paying for the full pass.
from $0.018 per word
Book cover design
Custom book covers designed for the Amazon thumbnail first, the bookstore shelf second. Three concepts, two revisions, all rights to you.
from $640
Amazon KDP publishing
End-to-end KDP setup and listing optimization. Your book live on Amazon US, UK, EU, IN, AU, JP, and CA. You own the KDP account.
from $890
Book PR & press release
Pitched outreach to named journalists, podcasters, and outlet editors in your category. Press release distribution as a supplement, not the strategy.
from $2,400
Your lead writer
Ravi opens every executive call with a question about your business, not your childhood.
An ex-McKinsey strategist who pivoted to writing. The reason he asks net-retention-rate questions on the first call is the same reason he writes founder books that survive the board read.
Leads Business book ghostwriting
Ravi Balakrishnan
Lead Ghostwriter, Business & Founder Books, 9 yrs
Ravi spent five years as a strategy consultant at McKinsey before pivoting to writing. That background is the reason he asks operating-metric questions on the first call. He prefers founder books to celebrity memoir because the founder usually still has a company that needs the book to do a job.
- Ghostwrote the founder book for a Series B SaaS CEO; book cited in the Series C deck
- Two NYT bestselling business books under an NDA
- Contributor, HBR.org, on writing for founders
24-week executive engagement
The realistic shape of a 70–90k executive memoir.
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Week 0
NDA + brief
Mutual NDA before the discovery call. Codename assigned. Engagement letter signed.
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Weeks 1–8
Interview series
Six to twelve 90-minute interviews. Recorded on encrypted devices, transcripts in your private folder only.
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Weeks 2–4
Outline + voice sample
Outline plus 1,500-word voice sample. Sign-off before drafting.
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Weeks 5–20
Drafting in chunks
Fortnightly chunks of 8–12k words, reviewed by you and your designated counsel.
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Weeks 21–22
Legal read (optional)
Pre-publication read by a media-law attorney. Adjustments to any flagged passages.
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Weeks 23–24
Final delivery + launch path
Edit, design, publish. Launch as soft, hard, or private distribution as you prefer.
Case study
Operating Under Constraint
- The brief
- Miguel had a 90-page Notion doc of frameworks and a calendar booked out 14 weeks. He needed a book ready for a Series C narrative in nine months and could not personally afford 250 hours to write it. He had been pitched by three ghostwriters; none had founder-stage business book experience.
- The outcome
- Published 4 months before the Series C close. The framework appeared in the deck, in the investor IC memo (the lead's), and in two TechCrunch pieces post-close. Sold 4,200 copies in launch month and crossed 11,000 inside six months without paid promotion outside Amazon Ads. Miguel has booked 23 paid keynotes off the back of the book in the year since.
- $84M Series C raised, book cited in lead's IC memo
- 11,000 copies sold in 6 months, no traditional press
- 23 paid keynotes booked off the book
- 9 months kickoff to Series C close
Executive memoir FAQ
Questions executives ask before signing.
How discreet is discreet?
Mutual NDA before the first call. Encrypted file handling, manuscripts never stored in any shared cloud you have not approved. Project codename in any internal communication. Writer is contractually bound by a permanent non-attribution clause that survives the company. You can publish under your legal name, a pen name, or anonymously. Roughly 35% of our executive memoir projects are published with no acknowledgement that we exist on the page.
Can the book go through a legal read before publication?
Yes, and we recommend it for public-figure memoirs. We have working relationships with three media-law attorneys in California, New York, and London. Legal read adds $4,800–$11,200 depending on the manuscript and the issues identified. We schedule it after the second structural revision.
What if my book includes confidential business information?
Standard for founder memoirs. We work with your General Counsel from outline stage. The contract restricts us from using anything we learn during the project, including for any other client. The NDA is mutual and has actual teeth — we have refused to take a similar project from a competitor for that reason in the past.
Will the book read like a memoir or like a business book?
Either, both, neither — depends on the outcome you want. A book intended to drive inbound deal flow has more memoir; a book intended to land keynotes has more framework; a book intended for board-level distribution has more 'lessons learned.' We decide on the discovery call before the outline.
Can the book be ready in 9 months for a Series C narrative?
Yes, if we start by month -10. Our Miguel Torres Velasco case study did exactly that. The constraint is interview cadence — we need 6–10 sessions of 90 minutes spread over months 1–4, plus your time on 3 review windows. If the executive cannot make that commitment, 12–14 months is more realistic.
Ready when you are
Talk to Ravi or Jordan in confidence.
Mutual NDA before the call if you want one. 30 minutes by Zoom or phone. No follow-up sequence if we are not the right studio.