Before You Start… What’s Your Purpose?

Call me Ishmael.

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.

Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again.

On the final day of my sophomore year of high school, I was hit in the face with a baseball bat.

Yep, you want your book to start out with a bang* (*above, the first sentences for, respectively, Moby Dick, A Tale of Two Cities, Rebecca, and Atomic Habits), but every successful book begins long before the first sentence is written. It begins with clarity. As a business leader, you’re used to steering teams, shaping strategy, making tough decisions. Why would writing a book–which will broadcast who you are and what you stand for –be any different? Before you bring a ghostwriter into the fold, know your purpose. It doesn’t need to be perfect. Or polished. Just real.

If it’s not immediately clear how to get there, here are some questions to ask yourself:

What do you want this book to do? For you? For the reader?

Is it to expand your thought leadership? To cement your legacy? To open doors for speaking engagements? Support a company mission? Offer common-sense guidance to a broken industry that desperately needs it? When you articulate to yourself why the book matters, you give the entire project its backbone. A ghostwriter cannot supply your ultimate ambition, your worldview, or your reasons for wanting this book out in the world. Only you can.

Once you have a clear purpose, a skilled ghostwriter can help to turn it into a roadmap. Their role is to shape your goals into an organized, compelling narrative that readers will understand and appreciate; and that they will want to read. Ghostwriters know how to structure chapters, pace ideas, and guide the reader from the first page to the second to the tenth to the last without losing momentum. It’s your clarity that serves as the compass. It’s their craft that provides the map. Put another way: You bring the mission, they bring the method.

Know your purpose and the bookwriting will go smoother, faster, and be more enjoyable for both of you. Do not skip this step and dive into writing straightaway. Purpose is not an add-on. It’s not a nice-to-have. It’s the foundation of the entire project.

And this: When you set the direction (purpose!) and your ghostwriter sets the path, you not only create a better book; you create a partnership that supports you all the way to publication.

Madeleine Morel is a premier New York-based literary agent with over 30 years of book publishing experience. As the founder of 2M Communications, she focuses exclusively on matching thought leaders, experts, and personalities with industry-leading ghostwriters and book collaborators.