What Lies Around Us by Andrew Crofts
Red Door | 13 June 2019 | Hardback | £12.99
Why would one of Silicon Valley's most powerful billionaires offer a British ghostwriter a million dollars to write the autobiography of one of Hollywood's biggest stars?
Only once he is living and working amongst the world's richest and most beautiful people does the ghost realise that there is way more than a publishing deal at stake. Everyone he meets seems to have a hidden agenda and someone is willing to kill to ensure that their plans work out. But what are those plans, who are the ultimate puppet-masters and how far are they willing to go?
What Lies Around Us takes us to a world where ghostwriters work with presidents, (James Patterson and Bill Clinton writing The President is Missing), and create presidents, (Tony Schwartz who ghosted The Art of the Deal , setting President Trump on the road to becoming the most famous name in the world).
This is the world of myth-makers, story-tellers and media manipulators – the people who really run the world and the ones who shape the global conversations.
Talking points
How exactly does it work when a rich and powerful man like Trump decides they want to write a book? Who shapes the message? How is the message sold?
Who is more likely to be telling the true stories today – ghostwriters, who are paid to create bestselling books, or journalists, who are paid to sell newspapers and create click-bait?
Why are books still such powerful media weapons, as illustrated by the multi-million selling political books of 2017 from authors like Michelle Obama, Bob Woodward and Michael Wolff?
How much power do ghostwriters and speech writers exert when telling the stories of political and business leaders and other celebrities?
Do traditional publishers add any value to a book? In this story every publisher in the world wants the book that the ghost is writing, but if the subject can afford to publish it themselves, why would they need a traditional publishing deal?
There is so much written about how hard it is to make a living as a writer, less about how much in demand ghostwriters are.
About Andrew Crofts
Andrew Crofts has published more than 100 books, including Confessions of a Ghostwriter, Freelance Writer’s Handbook and Ghostwriting, a dozen of which were Sunday Times bestsellers. Best-selling author, Robert Harris quoted Ghostwriting extensively in his novel The Ghost, later filmed by Roman Polanski with Ewan McGregor in the lead.
Travelling all over the world Andrew has worked with victims of enforced marriages in North Africa and the Middle East, sex workers in the Far East, orphans in war-torn areas like Croatia and dictatorships like Romania, victims of crimes and abused children everywhere. He has also worked with celebrities from the worlds of film, music, television and sport.
Andrew’s fiction includes the critically acclaimed Secrets of the Italian Gardener, in which the same ghostwriter finds himself dangerously enmeshed in the Arab Spring while ghosting for a Middle Eastern ruler.
More information is available from: http://andrewcrofts.com/ and you’ll find Andrew on Twitter at @AndrewCrofts
Andrew is available for features, interviews and events.
More information
For more information about this book, don’t hesitate to get in touch.