Hostwriter

Hostwriting: ghostwriting for select scholars and experts.

A custom-built, collaborative team curates your voice, your argument, and your ambitions to draft your book for your audiences. You stay the author. We help you write it.

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You're a scholar of a subject the wider public wants to understand but you have never written for general readers. If that's you, consider hostwriting. It is collaborative, iterative, and always mindful of the expert-scholar's nonfiction contract with readers: persuasive, entertaining, and memorable nonfiction must always rest atop research and source material.

An open book resting atop a tall stack of reference works and research volumes

How the collaboration works

It begins with a conversation about your book, its subject, who it's for, and your ambitions for it. From there, you lead the team's research. We build out the book's table of contents. We interview you to make sure we're translating that research into your argument, and your argument into a compelling narrative structure and voice. We draft, you review, revise, and we redraft, an iterative process that ensures your thumbprints are on every sentence. The result: we efficiently arrive at a manuscript tailored to meet your expectations.

Whose name is on the book?

Yours. The hostwriting model is author-credited by design — you're the expert and the author, and the book carries your name.

Waking Up by Sam Harris — Scientists, scholars, and experts — Sam Harris, Avi Loeb, Cass Sunstein, Iris Bohnet — whose ideas reached a general readership. The kind of author hostwriting is built for.

Extraterrestrial by Avi Loeb — Scientists, scholars, and experts — Sam Harris, Avi Loeb, Cass Sunstein, Iris Bohnet — whose ideas reached a general readership. The kind of author hostwriting is built for.

Lastly, know that we're picky.

Hostwriting isn't for everyone and not all nonfiction authors and subjects benefit from the process. Which is why we take on just a few hostwriting projects a year. If we think we can help, we'll let you know; if we can't, we'll promptly let you know that too. Pricing varies with projects.

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Questions

Ghostwriting and hostwriting, answered.

What's the difference between a ghostwriter and a hostwriter?

A ghostwriter writes a manuscript someone else puts their name to, often working alone behind the scenes. A hostwriter is a custom-built, collaborative team that curates your voice, argument, and ambitions to draft your book with you — and you keep the byline.

Do I need a ghostwriter or an editor?

If you have a complete draft that isn't landing, you likely need editing. If the book lives mostly in your head, your talks, or scattered notes — and you don't have time to write it — you need drafting help. Hostwriting is built for that second case, for experts who can't spend two years at the keyboard.

What does ghostwriting a serious nonfiction book cost?

Full-book nonfiction work spans a wide range; experienced practitioners commonly fall somewhere around $18,000 to $50,000, depending on length, complexity, and how much original drafting versus shaping the book needs. We scope and price every project individually after seeing the material.

Whose name goes on the book?

Yours. The hostwriting model is author-credited by design. You're the expert and the author; we're the team that helps you get the book written. How any collaboration is acknowledged is something we settle openly with you up front, in writing.

Do you ghostwrite for academics and scientists?

Yes — that's exactly our niche. We help serious sciences-and-humanities experts turn deep knowledge into trade books a general reader will follow. Thomas LeBien spent three decades acquiring, editing, and helping write books by exactly these authors.

Get the book written — and keep your name on it.

Tell us about the book and the time you have. We'll show you, candidly, how a hostwriter could draft it with you.

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