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Hello, and welcome to this week’s WEN-zine nuggets.

How quiet it is here in New Hampshire today ... no ringing robocalls every 5 minutes ... so peaceful again. Love it! Also love it when ...

1. Early writings of favorite authors are discovered

Max Chapnick, a postdoctoral teaching associate at Northeastern University, believes he found about 20 stories and poems written by Louisa May Alcott under her own name as well as pseudonyms for local newspapers in Massachusetts in the late 1850s and early 1860s.

When first contacted about the writings, Gregory Eiselein, president of the Louisa May Alcott Society, said he was curious but skeptical. But he has come to believe that Chapnick has found new stories, many of which shed light on Alcott’s early career.

Another Alcott scholar at Kansas State, Anne Phillips, said she was “excited” by Chapnick’s scholarship and said his paper makes a “compelling case” that these were her writings.

Read the AP News story for more on the clues and the writings themselves.

2. “It’s good to be a ghostwriter” ...

... according to an agent who specializes in matchmaking book projects with ghostwriters, who then clarified: “I’ll paraphrase Dickens: It’s the best of times because there’s never been so much work out there. It’s the worst of times because it’s become so competitive.”

Other nuggets from a one-day conference held in Manhattan on Monday, called Gathering of the Ghosts, that brought together around 140 ghostwriters:

• The profession has a history of being undervalued, and one panelist advised everyone in the audience to double their current rates and add 20 percent.

• The writer must effectively channel the subject’s voice, so readers feel like they’re hearing directly from the person whose face is on the cover. One writer diffuses a different scent for each client. For one project she might put lavender essential oils in her diffuser, and for another, she might use lemon. This helps her slip into her subject’s voices, she said.

• Collaborators for celebrity memoirs — which can be enormously lucrative for publishers — are in increasingly high demand, with some making six figures for their work.

• The field’s growth has been good for writers, too. Often, professionals want a book to their name: Books can spruce up a résumé, or help land keynote speeches or consulting gigs. Those “authors” also need ghostwriters.

Follow this gift link to read the New York Times story.

3. What you do with what you create can lead to extended profits.

A science channel with 20 million+ YouTube subscribers details its financials. What’s most amazing is that nearly 40% of its revenue comes from sales of science education products and merch it developed. Source: Simon Owens’s Tech and Media Newsletter

4. FYI item

▪ In case you didn’t register to receive the notice, the replay for “Developing Your Author Brand” with Andrea Guevara & Jane Friedman is now available on YouTube at https://bit.ly/3CHONwK

Enjoy!

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To Your Writing Success,

Dana K Cassell

Editor

(Dana Cassell is founder of Writers-Editors Network, and has been freelancing/creating full-time for 47 years. In addition to writing, editing, and fact-checking for numerous business clients, she has published more than 2,000 articles and has ghosted or authored more than a dozen books.)

Not a Network member? Join now: https://freelancekeys.com/join-now/ Temporary discount codes:

Save $10 on Basic options: use TESTING coupon code

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