I see dead people

I see dead people. Ghosts, spirits, spooks.

 

But only with an appointment, I don’t want them turning up any time, surprising me in the toilet.

 

I ask them to submit scripts same as a normal agent. Well, not exactly the same, rather than double-spaced, single-sided pages in Times New Roman I get writing scribbled onto the wall in blood, any way they can manage basically.

 

And I’m choosy, I only accept the best scripts. Only one in a thousand makes it, just because you’re a ghost who writes doesn’t mean you’ll make it as a ghost writer.

 

The standard varies, as you’d expect, some just write ‘Death, death, death,’ a thousand times, but it’s the same with normal publishing. Occasionally, however, there’ll be something truly great. Whereas the best you can hope for with a mortal writer is that their story will somehow convey a rich life experience, all of my clients have not just experienced a full life, they’ve been through death as well.

 

There’s no risk of one of my authors dying mid-novel, indeed ghosts are essentially immortal, no longer prone to mortal injury nor death. The downside of this is that their work can sometimes lack the contemporary feel, the language can be a bit medieval and in a few cases their cultural reference points need updating to the post-Christ era.

 

Most of the profit doesn’t come from sales, that’s not where the money is in publishing any more. 93% of my income comes from selling the rights of completed novels to rich, talentless, wannabee writers, who love having ‘a book they wrote’ published, but don’t have the patience or skill to write their own.

 

Of course, not all of the ghosts are good enough to be published, but I do everything I can to encourage them, helping them to post their stories on abctales.com. One of them was chosen as story of the week recently, I wonder if you can guess which story that was.