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 is the only person on earth who has won the Writer’s Digest Book Award three times: twice for novels and once for a nonfiction book about an historical event. He's also won First Prize for Visionary Fiction from Independent Publisher magazine, First Prize for Nonfiction from USA Book News, and two top awards from Readers' Choice Book Reviews, a Bronze Medal for visionary fiction and a Five Star Winner Award for a romantic suspense novel. He’s written a shelf full of books, many that became bestsellers in their categories, and he’s ghostwritten more than a dozen, including a business title that became an international bestseller and catapulted his client to a CEO position with a Fortune 500 company. Do this: ask Google what you’d likely pay an experienced ghostwriter, and you’ll find it’s between $40,000 and $75,000. But since he’s between projects, Stephen will charge only $15,000 for the next project he agrees to accept. Click the red bullseye to get in touch with Stephen today to discuss the book you have in mind, and you may be the lucky one to snag this deal. By the way, if you want to know more about Stephen, Google his full name. You'll learn a lot more about him.
Have your book ghostwritten by the world's only three-time winner of the Writer's Digest Book Award for 62.5% less than his competition would charge.
ACT NOW - this offer won't last for long
Frequently asked questions about working with Stephen to bring your book to market
How can Stephen help me grow my business?
Stephen was Senior Vice President & Director of Client Plans & Strategy Development for The Martin Agency, the ad firm that created the GEICO Gecko, “Virginia is for Lovers,” and was named Adweek's U.S. Agency of the Year in 2020 and 2021, and Ad Age's Agency of the Year in 2023. The firm was also named to Ad Age's A-List in 2008, 2009, 2010, and 2021. Needless to say Stephen can develop and execute a strategy for you. For example, if you provide a service, he can work with you to write a book, and he can publish it, that shines a light on what you do that should attract more customers or clients. 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. He’s even ghostwritten two different books for clinical psychologists. Simply click the red bullseye and send him an email so he can set up a Zoom call to discuss the possibility. It won’t cost you anything to talk.
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?
If you have already written a draft, Stephen like to review it so that he can estimate how much time and effort will be required to bring it to the level it needs to be in order to be published. Then he will give you a proposal, which will include a set fee for editing and helping to flesh out the book if that's what's needed. To ghostwrite a book from scratch, Stephen typically charges $30,000 to create a book that in finished form is between 200 and 300 pages. But since he is currently between projects, he will lower his fee to half the amount, assuming the project is of interest to him. This can be paid in equal installments, usually over four months at $3,750 per month, which is typically how long a book project takes from start to publication. Please understand tha this is a true bargain. Experienced ghostwriters such as Stephen normally charge from $40,000 to $75,000 or more to write books of that length.
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. Stephen is the world’s only three-time winner of the Writers Digest Book Award, having won twice for fiction and once for nonfiction. 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 and will 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.