Ghostwriting and credits

MadScientistMatt said:

Just curious, as I'm not looking at ghostwriting anything at the moment. But if you do a ghostwriting gig and your name does not appear on the book (such as "with" or "as told to"), is that a case where you cannot in any way use the experience as a writing credit in a querry letter? Or is there some way to let the publisher know you have the experience, without "outing" yourself?

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Hi Matt, I've ghostwritten six (maybe 7) books and I put all of them on my writing cv. Unless you sign some kind of confidentiality agreement when you ghost a book, they are all viable credits that you can and should mention.

What about when you do sign a confidentiality agreement? I am ghosting a book, and I had to sign an NDA. So, I am not supposed to tell the name of the book, the author or the company. How in the world can I get better gigs and let anyone know what kind of experience I have without being allowed to disclose any of this info?

Or will that just depend on the client?

The one I'm doing now is a big jump from previous ghostwriting gigs, and I would really like to make an even bigger jump next time. But I'm not sure how I can land really good jobs if I can't prove that I've ghosted anything....

Well, I would suggest that next time you stipulate in your contract that your NDA doesn't apply to listing the credit on your writing cv for future work.