Time Cooke

But no one ever told me you could make a living from it.

Perhaps that’s no surprise. I came from a backwoods part of the UK where most kids became apprentices in the local factories. My father wasn’t a great reader, but he inadvertently helped set me on my course. He was fascinated by gadgets, and he bought a plastic device to speed up our reading. It was a box with a slot covered by a shutter. When you clicked the shutter, you had a split second to read the flash card behind. It started with words. Then phrases. Then whole sentences.

I got quick at reading—the trick is to move your gaze down the middle of the page while you scan your eyes left and right—and I devoured even more books. Classics. Modern classics. Books in translation. Contemporary novels. Detective stories. Thrillers. Science Fiction. Nonfiction blockbusters. Anything I could get my hands on.

That must have helped me when I became the first-ever student from my high school to get a place at the University of Oxford. I rejected an invitation to read law to stick with English Language and Literature because by now words were my passion. That meant an overload of both reading and writing. I remember one fortnight in the first semester when we had to read all the novels of Charles Dickens and wrote two essays (“The Early Works” and “The Later Works”). For the first time, I felt the satisfaction of being able to acquire and share knowledge, which is the bedrock of all nonfiction writing.

The first time I realized that being able to write could be a way to earn a living was when I got a random call from a family friend asking if I knew anyone who wanted to go to Italy to help translate an encyclopedia into English. It sounded so interesting I didn’t tell anyone else. I volunteered myself, even though I couldn’t speak enough Italian even to order a beer. I was a terrible translator, and nearly got sent straight home, but I wrote better than the others, which convinced them to let me stay. I spent over a year in Italy, rewriting my colleagues’ literal translations and learning how to express knowledge in a concise, accessible way. (And learning how to order many, many beers.)

My next stage in becoming a writer was to get formal editorial training as a subeditor in the copy room in Time-Life, which was renowned for pioneering illustrated reference series that presented factual information in a way that was accessible for virtually any reader. I learned about fact-checking, accuracy, and clarity in an environment that was as demanding as you would expect from one of the world’s great publishers. I was once told off for an hour for missing out a hyphen from an adjectival phrase in a whole chapter of text. Lessons like that make you a better writer.

From Time-Life it seemed inevitable that I ended up in children’s reference publishing, once again presenting facts in a way readers found not just informative but engaging to read. I helped create illustrated encyclopedias for US school libraries on virtually every subject from math and science to sports and art, although my specialty was always history. Now and then if we couldn’t find a writer I’d write an article to complete a volume or I’d write a short book to complete a set.

This is when I really reinforced my writing skills in the time honored way: by doing hundreds and hundreds of reps, until the idea of writing 2,000 words in a morning or planning a reference set about a subject I had to research from scratch held no fear. Over a couple of decades, I wrote or edited more than 350 books, under my own and other names. A handful of them won prestigious awards from the American Library Association, which acknowledged my ability to communicate often-complex ideas in text that read easily and clearly.

When the pandemic threw schools publishing into turmoil, I joined Scribe Media, which was then the most prominent ghostwriting agency in the world. I started writing directly for authors on business books and memoirs and found that I had a gift for helping other people express themselves. I already knew I could write, but now I learned that I also found it easy to talk to authors, put them at their ease, and draw out their content through a combination of asking open-ended questions with genuine curiosity and pushing back on things I didn’t understand. I found my way to more demanding projects with complex subject matter, demanding personalities, or multiple authors and discovered two things: everyone who decides to write a book has a story to tell or wisdom to impart, and they all valued the contribution I could make. I was employing a talent I enjoyed using to help others to organize and articulate their ideas in a way that would benefit others. It’s become my mission to help as many authors as possible get their ideas into print in a way that helps them achieve whatever ROI they have identified, from getting speaking engagements, to attracting customers, to establishing industry-wide credibility, to recording a remarkable life for their families and friends.

That’s what I do now. I ghostwrite books for people who need help getting their thoughts onto paper. When I’m not writing or chatting to clients, I spend time with my new wife—we got married this year after a 40-year love affair filled with missteps and misadventures—and stepson, walking in Wales or Scotland, visiting our house in Portugal, or entertaining at our home in London. Perhaps one day, I’ll write a book about it …