The official website of Stephen Hawley Martin
Stephen Hawley Martin is a former principal of The Martin Agency, the ad firm that created the GEICO Gecko and "Virginia Is for Lovers." He has ghostwritten dozens of books, has written several dozen under his own name, and has won half a dozen national awards for his work. As an independent ghostwriter, he'll write your book for a lot less than you'd pay another experienced ghostwriter that you'd work with through a big national firm. Not only that, if you want him to, he'll also publish and promote your book.
Stephen Hawley Martin, the only three-time winner of the Writer’s Digest Book Award—twice for novels and once for nonfiction—has helped business executives, clinical psychologists, as well as management and marketing consultants create and publish books that have been the shot-in-the-arm needed boost their firms from doing just okay, or actually losing business, to “Katie bar the door, how do we keep up with this growth?” And no wonder. Stephen’s not only a bestselling, award-winning author, he’s a former Principal & the Director of Client Plans & Strategy Development for The Martin Agency, the ad firm that created the GEICO Gecko and “Virginia is for Lovers” that has been named “Ad Agency of the Year” three times by trade publications. Suffice it to say, he knows a thing or two about creating brands. If you’d like reassurance about that, read his book, Martin Brand Power.
To explore the possibility of having Stephen work his magic for you, just click the red bullseye to send him an email. He’ll set up a Zoom call so you and he can discuss the book you have in mind. And why not? It won’t cost anytime to find out.
The world's only three-time winner of the Writer's Digest Book Award wants to work with you to create and publish a book that can make you the one in your field "who wrote the book," and catapult you and your business to the next level.
Frequently asked questions about working with Stephen to bring your book to market
How can Stephen help me grow my business?
A brand strategy professional and an award-winning author, Stephen can develop and execute a winning strategy for you and your business. Do you have success stories? Case histories? Techniques you employ that set you or your firm apart and deliver results? All that can be covered in your book. Plus, Stephen can add to your story with information from his huge knowledge base. He’s written and ghostwritten business books on such topics as advertising, marketing, branding, lean enterprise and lean manufacturing, as well as leadership and process-based management. Simply click the red bullseye and send him an email so he can set up a Zoom call to discuss the possibility.
Please tell me about your ghostwriting process.
Following an exploratory Zoom call, if Stephen feels he can work with you and that the book you have in mind has potential, he will prepare and present you with a “Letter of Understanding” that spells out the details of the arrangement. Once you decide to move ahead, you and Stephen will meet in person or via Zoom for a detailed discussion of your vision of the book to be created and the subject matter to be covered. If you have made notes or started a draft, he'll ask you to share this with him. He will organize the information into a chapter outline and email it to you for your input and approval. Once agreement on the outline is reached, you will meet at least once a week for an hour or more and work through it, usually one chapter at a time. Stephen records these sessions, asks questions, takes notes, and within a few days will have a draft completed of the chapter that he will send to you to edit or comment upon. The two of you will go back and forth like this until you have a manuscript you both are pleased with. At that point, if you would like Stephen to publish the manuscript, he will do so through his publishing business that, by the way, now has more than 220 books in print. At no additional cost, Stephen will design the book’s interior, create two or three covers from which you can choose, and publish the book on Amazon, the Barnes & Noble online marketplace, and via IngramSpark, which will make the book available to bricks and mortar stores and chains and other online retailers.
What does Stephen typically charge to create a book?
Stephen typically charges between $7500 and $15,000 to ghostwrite a book of up to 40,000 words, and significantly less than that to edit one, but before quoting a fixed fee, he will want to discuss the book you have in mind in order to gauge how much time will be required to ghostwrite or edit it. Whether your book will be created from a draft or from scratch, he will give you a proposal, which will include a set fee for editing or ghostwriting as well as for creating an interior and cover for your approval and publishing the book on Amazon and Barnes & Noble online.
What if I have a contract from a large publishing company to publish my book?
If the book is going to be published by a large publishing house, a deal can be worked out whereby you share an agreed-upon percentage of the advance and the royalties with Stephen, in which case his fee would be covered by the publisher, and it won’t cost you anything out-of-pocket.
Other than a low fee compared to other experienced authors, why should I hire Stephen?
The number one reason is that you can be sure he will produce a book you will be proud of. Not only is Stephen is the world’s only three-time winner of the Writers Digest Book Award, he has also won First Prize for Visionary Fiction from Independent Publisher, First Prize for Nonfiction from USA Book News, and two awards from Readers' Choice Book Reviews, a Bronze Medal for Visionary Fiction and the Five Star Award for a romantic suspense novel. But his writing ability isn’t the only thing that sets him apart. You may be able to find another good writer or editor to work with, particularly if you are willing to pay top dollar, but his other leg up is that he owns a book publishing business and has established business relationships with Amazon, Barnes & Noble online, and the world’s largest book distributor, Ingram, and so he can also publish your book. Stephen is always on the lookout for good books to publish and promote and will not accept your project unless he believes your book idea has the potential to become a commercial success. This is essential because once he is finished working to make your book all that it can be, he will publish it, promote it, and pay you royalties on sales at the same or higher percentage that an author with a top publishing house would receive.
Wouldn’t I be better off to self publish?
It’s fairly easy nowadays to self publish, and if you do, it's certainly possible that you might come out ahead, assuming you are well known in your field, and have a large following, i.e., a platform, that will be interested in what you have to say. If that's you and what you want to do, and you worked with Stephen to write your book, he will for a very reasonable fee, usually $500, design the book’s interior and the cover and create the properly formatted computer files that will be required. He will even lead you through the self-publishing process.
How long does the ghostwriting process take?
The ghostwriting projects Stephen has undertaking in the past have almost always been completed within three to six months, with the average being about four months.
What kinds of books does Stephen typically ghostwrite?
Stephen has ghostwritten more than a dozen books, including one for the governor of a state, three for clinical psychologists, two for CEOs of Fortune 500 companies, and six for business management consultants. The books written for the governor and those for CEOs were memoirs that read very much like novels. He typically works out a plotline that resembles the classic “Hero’s Journey,” which is the underlying plot skeleton of most successful novels and films. Books he has written for business consultants typically cite success stories and case histories that illustrate the efficacy of systems, processes, techniques that set apart the authors’ firms. Those for clinical psychologists share insights and case histories to do with mental issues about which the authors have particular expertise. Once, Stephen worked with a retired Harvard Medical School professor whose first language wasn't English to write a novel that was based on events that actually took place.