Practitioners say the perception of ghostwriting is changing. For a long time, any book written by a ghostwriter was dismissed as merchandise. Many potential readers still might consider a book with an additional writing credit on the cover to be less intimate, as if the collaborator were a barrier between the reader and the subject.
The fact is that most people don’t have the time, or the ability, to write a good book, practitioners said.
“Writing is a technical skill,” said Jon Sternfeld, whose collaborations include a best-selling memoir by the actor Michael K. Williams. “People don’t give it the technical credit it deserves.”
In recent years, the stigma has started to melt away, in part because some of these books, like “Open,” are very good.
“The analogy I always draw is in the old days, nobody would ever admit to internet dating, and now everybody talks about it,” Morel, the agent who connects ghostwriters and subjects, said. “In the old days, nobody would ever admit to working with a ghostwriter or collaborator, and now, it’s accepted, by and large.”
Though the stigma has lessened, it is not gone. There are public figures who take more credit for the writing than they should, publishing professionals say, and celebrities who insist they wrote a book all by themselves when they didn’t.
Agassi, on the other hand, said he wanted to put Moehringer’s name on the cover of “Open.”
“One of my strengths is knowing my weaknesses,” said Agassi. “Doing a craft like I did for so long at the highest level, you understand the difference between the best and the rest.”
But Moehringer declined such public credit, Agassi said. He preferred to disappear.
