You bring the ideas. We’ll bring them to life on the page.
Partner with an expert ghostwriter to transform your book vision into a legacy.
Ready to bring your big idea to the world and looking for a thought partner who can challenge and communicate your ideas?
At Intelligent Ink, we aren’t just here to document. We’re here to push your thinking, expand the potential of your ideas, and make your book the very best it can be.
Book a free consultation.
Why Intelligent Ink?
We’re the people creatives and deep thinkers go to when they’re ready to share their big idea with the world. We’re experts at bringing strands of stories together and helping you weave them into a dynamic whole.
Our model is focused on quality and complexity above all else, enabling us to invest ourselves fully into every ghostwriting project we work on. The difference?
→ 9-12 months of development. We believe the best ideas come from maturity and collaboration. Our process is thorough, iterative, and all about deepening your thinking and bringing all the strands of your ideas and stories together into a compelling whole.
→ Our full focus. Each ghostwriter focuses on only one book at a time. We treat our projects with the attention and the diligence of an author – because that’s how great work is born.
→ Collaboration. Every one to two weeks, we sit down with you – the author – to gather your ideas, challenge your concepts, and expand your research.
How it works
Over the course of up to a year, we’ll take you from concept to completed manuscript. By the end, you’ll be ready to take your work to a publisher or begin self-publication.
Set pricing. Unlimited potential.
Writing a book is complicated enough – so we like to keep things simple where we can.
That’s why we offer a clear, transparent, set price for ghostwriting projects.
Full, publisher-ready manuscript: $75,000 NZD
Paid in 12 monthly installments
What does this include?
What is a thought leadership book?
We specialise in writing books that push unique thinking and purpose-driven work. Thought leadership books celebrate out-of-the-box and game-changing or boundary-pushing ideas that drive meaningful change in a particular industry or area.
Our goal with every book project is not only to encapsulate your expertise in the best possible way – but also to help you solidify your reputation as a visionary in your field.
What a book can do for you
The possibilities are endless but our clients have leveraged their books to:
- Gain more paid speaking opportunities
- Generate leads for more high end (and higher paying) work
- Create new paid offerings based off the ideas and thinking in their book
- Generate media coverage and greater awareness
- Become podcast guests and get in front of new audiences
- Grow their social media connections and followings
- Gain entry into bigger clients who they may not have been able to access previously
- Become known as thought leaders in their industry if they weren’t already
FAQs
We like to say that if you’re having these thoughts, you’re exactly the right kind of person to be writing a book. These kinds of questions and doubts indicate a level of self awareness that shows you’re already thinking critically about your potential audience and messaging. That being said, we complete some qualifying in our initial catch-up to help you establish what you want to say and whether or not you have the experience and original insights to contribute to the conversation on your topic.
Every project is different, but we typically are able to complete a ghostwritten manuscript in 9 to 12 months. Publishing times vary, but you should expect to wait 6 to 18 months from your manuscript completion to launching your book.
Self-publishing typically requires 6 months, while traditional publishing houses often take at least 3 months to return your application and often a full year to produce your book.
Your time investment will vary depending on the phase of the project. To start with, we ask for 1 hour every week to every other week for interviews, plus another hour or two for collating research and sending through information to us. Once we are in the feedback and editing stages, it’s best to block 2-4 hours per week for reviewing written material we send through.
That detail is entirely up to you! That being said, most of our authors are proud to have a professional collaborator for their book project and prefer to leverage the visibility we offer by sharing your work with our network.
Of course! As ghostwriters, we are here to support your ideas – not claim them or capitalise on them. Before commencing the project, we have an in-built NDA to ensure that your ideas, your intellectual property, and your stories are fully protected. Following the completion of the manuscript, you maintain 100% copyright ownership of the work and any future profits or royalties it accrues (note that you may have a different agreement if you publish traditionally).
Ghostwriting is a very personal, meaningful, and occasionally vulnerable experience for an author – and it is so important to work with a writer who you can trust through the whole process.
In our sales process, we’ll match you with the person on our team who we think will be the best fit for you personally and professionally. You’ll have the chance to talk to your ghostwriter before starting the project too!
There is no right or wrong answer when it comes to how much or how little you’d like to contribute of your own writing. In our experience, the most successful projects are the ones where the author stays engaged with the book throughout the process – whether that’s through adding to the content themselves, conducting interviews or research, or simply bringing their attention and focus to every meeting with their ghostwriter.
For most thought leadership books, we offer a set pricing package of $75,000 New Zealand dollars, paid in 12 monthly instalments.
However, if your book will require an exceptionally long manuscript (generally 70,000 words or more), extensive research, in-person travel, or other project-specific requirements, we may propose an alternative budget to suit your needs. Similarly, if your project is unusually short – such as a short book under 20,000 words – we can discuss with you directly a more appropriate budget.
We begin every book with a thorough planning and review process so that this doesn’t happen. While it may feel like a long entry ramp, this intensive process ensures that your book topic is well-aligned, thought through, and relevant to the market before we start writing.
In the rare case that the project must change tact or direction after we’ve begun the ghostwriting process, we often will propose an alternative payment plan that reflects the extra time needed to finish the project.
While we do not publish works in-house, we are well-equipped to set you up with the best in the business in your local market. Our past experience in the publishing world also means we can help answer questions as you have them, and help you screen and choose the right partners for the next stage of your book journey.
