Why Every Highnetworth Should Write A Memoir (Employ A Journalist)

A twofer. First up, the HNW mavens at Spear's Magazine:

Why every HNW should write a memoir

Writing a memoir is a run a hazard to command the narrative closed to you're life story 

- simply don't aspect to brand (another) fortune, writes William Cash

Back inward June at that topographic point was a Times front-page article entitled ‘How to larn (filthy) rich every bit a writer’, with a photograph of my old LA lunching companion Jackie Collins (worth £140 1000000 earlier her expiry inward 2014) sitting beside her Beverly Hills pool. One of the revelations of the article was that, of all the professions, becoming a HNW author today is increasingly impossible, with median net turn a profit for professional person writers falling past times 42 per cent since 2005 to less than £10,500 a year. Yet sales of books inward the Great Britain genuinely grew past times seven per cent inward 2016.

‘Exploitation comes to mind,’ says multimillionaire author Philip Pullman of the inequality separate that has arisen betwixt super-rich authors together with your average novel novelist or ‘mid-list’ author.

According to agent Jonny Geller, the ‘money’ today is inward memoirs, which presents a fascinating chance for an HNW businessman, entrepreneur or Rich Lister looking to live remembered past times posterity. Although the Me decade, every bit chronicled past times Tom Wolfe, was genuinely the Seventies, every bit far every bit publishers are concerned the ‘me, me, me’ literary genre is at nowadays the hottest genre at mass fairs.

‘Ghostwriters’ are non a category that nosotros currently include inward the Spear’s 500, but they mightiness live a useful addition. There is at nowadays no shortage of ghostwriters available to assist tycoons together with Rich Listers portray themselves every bit interesting together with sensitive individuals whose ‘real self’ does non lucifer the pop cliche of the tabloids together with diary columns. The solely problem with this shape of literary reinvention is that memoirs demand to live good written inward the outset identify to work. As VS Pritchett commented: ‘It’s all inward the art. You larn no credit for living.’ Or doing business.

But that’s precisely the point. Most narcissistic HNWs together with tycoons desire to live remembered every bit visionaries together with ‘business artists’, non simply ruthless commercial operators. For a billionaire, founder of a police theatre or ‘survivor’ of a dysfunctional HNW family, the memoir every bit good allows the run a hazard to gear upward the tape at i time close events that may take away keep lit upward the pages of the press....

William Cash is founder together with editor at large of Spear’s.

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And from The Baffler:

American Ghostwriter
My adventures alongside the memoir-happy one-percent

The prognosis for American journalism is non good. In due course, the cancerous forces of Google, Facebook, together with algorithmic optimization volition consummate the lastly ravaging of the journalistic merchandise from the inside, chewing through it vital organs i newsroom at a time, hollowing out its traditions together with lore. Journalists together with editors volition grieve the demise of their honey calling, which i time nourished the sacred democratic regulation of asset those inward ability to a sustained world accounting—and, on occasion, created a variety of widely accessible fine art form. Now, however, every bit journalism slouches toward oblivion, it churns out high-outrage, low-grade content for its web-addled audience, who click together with part anything that flatters their ideological preconceptions.

Sundered from all the now-obsolete protections together with best practices of a costless together with independent press, journalists volition produce what displaced workers everywhere must: larn on with the necessary delineate of piece of job organization of making a living. And a select few volition autumn into what is peradventure the grimmest possible simulacrum of journalistic endeavor: they volition bring together the at nowadays burgeoning marketplace for luxury ghostwritten memoirs.

Among a handful of competitive outfits offering these ghosted biographies, ii inward particular, LifeBook together with Story Terrace, take away keep established themselves every bit the Pb providers of compelling life sagas for an exclusive if international client base of operations of moguls, C-suite executives, together with titans of manufacture together with finance. Publishing hundreds of small-batch editions inward recent years, with prices every bit high every bit $8,000, these ghost houses take away keep found a agency to i time once again brand skillful coin employing journalists writing for the printed page—if non skillful coin for the journalists, together with thus at to the lowest degree for themselves together with their investors.

Last November, piece tracking the increase of this nascent post-journalism narrative marketplace, I came upon a task listing posted past times LifeBook. The theatre sure presented itself well. Based out of a renovated barn inward the lush rolling county an hr due south of London, LifeBook has carved out a prosperous niche every bit the biographer of first-resort for the global ruling class. The task reveal explained that the fellowship was looking for an experienced one-time journalist to larn their side past times side American Ghostwriter. Although that sounded less similar the description of a secure task than the championship of a Philip Roth novel, it was, indeed, a paying gig, together with different many opportunities inward freelance journalism, it offered the American Ghostwriter the potentially steady piece of job of writing iii books at i time. The ideal candidate, the listing informed me, would live fluent inward the tradecraft of narrative, character, structure, together with descriptive scene detail. Once hired, the American Ghostwriter would partake inward the “extraordinary exercise of tracking people dorsum to their childhood together with their heritage.”

Founded inward 2012, LifeBook was clearly a standout concern inward the silent- author industry. Unlike other ghost houses offering all forms of scribe-for-hire writing, from penning “Thank You” cards to a keynote speech, LifeBook focused its consumer production delineate on a unmarried $9,000 luxury item: a two-hundred-odd page mass handcrafted inward a London bindery, wrapped inward fine linen covers, together with embossed inward golden letters. Written past times someone non different myself, a journalist who applied tending together with concern to the storey itself, the exquisite presentation enshrined a hagiographic narrative of the subject’s successful career inward (usually) business, existent estate, or finance, interspersed with scenes of selection identify unit of measurement vacations together with holidays inward exotic locales. Indisputably at the transcend of the ghost-memoir class, a LifeBook biography was an heirloom-quality depiction of a life good lived.

The Birth of the Author

Curious close the career prospects facing together with many thousands of other displaced journalists, serving the same maximum leaders of commerce that, with hipster-digital elan, take away keep gutted modern journalism, I applied for the American Ghostwriter position. Not long later the novel year, I received an invitation to a telephone interview with Tom, a projection managing director at LifeBook....

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