Ghost writers are people who write and compose for other writers. These are people who are not credited for their work, which is generally published under the name of the person hiring these ghostwriters. The most common examples of ghost writers are people who write for known writers, executives, celebrities and political leaders, where their work is credited to the leader or the author. Ghost writers are usually hired by people and publications for many different reasons. People who hire ghost writers to write for them do not have the time, discipline or the writing skills to properly complete a finished piece of literature. In some cases a person might have the necessary writing skills but may not have the skill to polish and edit their writings. In other cases, famous personalities who do not have the time to write or research a several hundred page autobiography end up hiring ghost writers.

Enter the ghost writer who will either write as per instructions and guidelines provided or will edit a roughly written manuscript and thus end up completing a novel, an autobiography or a training manual that will be published under another name. Usually the publishers who hire the ghost writers do it to increase the number of publications that have to be published during a particular time period under the name of the well known authors, who are highly marketable authors. In some cases the ghost writer and the writer divide the work amongst themselves while in other cases, the main manuscript is already written by the credited author and the ghost writer is hired only to polish and edit already written material. The outline, the ideas, and the language are those of the credited author in this case.