I agonized about whether I should put this thread in here or GQ but decided that there wasn’t really a factual question to CS it is. If I have erred, mods please move it.
A friend of mine wants me to write his biography. I don’t know why he asked me, I have never written anything longer than a 20 page research paper. But he seemed to think I would do a good job and I thought it would be a good challenge anyways. I am not sure if he wants me to ghost write it for him or if I am to write it as a biography totally independently or if I am co-writing. We haven’t hammered out these details but it’s been a topic on discussion for about a year. Anyways, he called me today and emphatically told me that he wanted to begin on it. I haven’t even read many biographies so I am not even sure where to begin. The entire process of it boggles me. What kind of structure should I go for? What sort of questions should I ask? What is relevant, and what is not? Are there any resources out there to get me started? I understand of course that alot of these questions should be answered by my friend but if someone could give me an idea of what to shoot for I would be forever grateful.
Who’s paying you? Who’s in charge of getting it published? Who has editorial control of the final product?
If he’s paying you to interview him and then write his deeds down in narrative form, then go ahead. Hand him the manuscript when you’re done and let him do what he wishes with it.
Curiosity compels: is your friend famous, or has he had a particularly unusual life otherwise?
Are you happy to do this for nothing? How much is he going to pay otherwise? Why would anyone want to read his biography? What’s the potential market? Who is going to sell the book to publishers? If he’s selfpublishing, negotiate a fee upfront and don’t agree to a royalty – you would be very unlikely to see a cent. Biographies are also fairly hard to sell to a mainstream publisher unless it is the bio of a famous person (and in that case, it’s unlikely a publisher would be interested in a book ghostwritten by someone who has never written professionally before) or it’s disease of the week time or there is something really outstanding about the book.
Writing biography is a skill. Read, read, read and think about what biographies or memoirs worked for you and how the structure was effective/not effective.
Thanks for the feedback, Primaflora and Little Nemo. We haven’t started on negotiating payment but that is not really that big an issue to me.
Sampiro, he suffers from Osteogenesis imperfecta (Type III) and is a small business owner. He is an extraordinary individual to say the least and easily one of the cooler people on the planet that I have met. I’d like to think his life story would make interesting reading.