by Giovanni Casali, editorial coordinator
Anyone with a story can turn it into a book: you don't need to be famous, you just need someone to write it well.
The actual writing can be done by three people: you, a willing family member, or a professional biographer. Three honest paths, each with its own merits and flaws: we'll tell you about all of them, including the two that are none of our business.
It can be done, and it costs nothing. But anyone who has tried knows: it takes years, discipline and a rare gift, distance from your own life. Those who write about themselves tend to take for granted what the reader would love most, and to get lost in details that matter only to those who lived them. The real risk is not writing a bad book: it is never finishing it. The world's drawers are full of autobiographies stuck at chapter three.
It is the most affectionate path, and for a short collection of memories it works beautifully: a few recordings, some patience, a family notebook. On a whole book, though, it usually stalls. Not for lack of love, but of time and craft: turning eighty hours of stories into a narrative that reads in one breath is technical work. And there is a paradox: those who know you well cut the things they already know, which are often exactly what a reader would want to know.
The ghostwriter, or biographer, does this for a living: interviews you calmly, records (only with your consent), transcribes and turns your words into a book written in the first person, with your voice. You tell, they write: in the end the book is yours in every way, name, rights and proceeds, in black and white in the contract. Confidentiality is part of the trade: our name appears nowhere.
It is not the free path, but it is the one that reaches the finish line: in a few months you hold a finished book, not a hope in a drawer.
It is the question we hear most often, and the answer is yes, to the right people. Autobiographies are not written for the bestseller lists: they are written for children and grandchildren, before the memories fade; to set down the story of a business built from nothing; to close the accounts with a piece of life and pass it on to those who come next. The most precious books we have written are not in bookshops: they are in the homes of the families who wanted them.
A biography starts at €3,500; in the full-length format, with a journey that can go all the way to a printed book on sale, €6,000. We devoted a whole, honest page to prices: How much does a ghostwriter cost?
No: talking is enough. We ask the right questions, and there is more gold in everyone's memories than people believe.
You decide what goes into the book, chapter by chapter: you read and approve everything before it becomes final.
As many as you like: from ten printed copies just for the family to full publication on the stores. The book is yours.
The first consultation is free and without obligation:
tell us in a few lines the story you have in mind.
info@dualpenbooks.com
Giovanni Casali, editorial coordinator, will reply.
Want to get a sense of how we write first? Read a few excerpts.