How I write your book

From the first call to the copy in your hands. One free conversation, a page in your voice, 30 to 60 hours of you talking, and six months of writing.

Begin the conversation

Written by Saurabh Garg, ghostwriter and biographer. He writes one book at a time. Updated 23 October 2026.

In October a daughter asked me how I would write her father’s life. He has lived and worked in five countries over sixty years. Before I met him, I sent her thirteen pages. What the internet knows about him. What only the family can tell. A first shape for the book. The questions I would ask him first. And every way the project could fail.

This page is that note, with his name taken out. It is how every book I write gets made, so you can read it before we talk, or send it to the brother who wants to know what he is signing up for.

The short version

1/ A free first call, about an hour.
2/ An NDA, signed before you send me anything.
3/ A page in your voice, from a five-minute recording. You read it and you know.
4/ The interviews: 30 to 60 hours for a full book, 15 to 20 for a gift book, in person or on video.
5/ A chapter plan you approve before I write a line of prose.
6/ The drafts, in phases, with three revision rounds.
7/ The final manuscript, the recordings and the copyright. All of it yours.

Before we sign

The first call is about the book. Whose story it is. Who reads it first. Whether it stays in the family or goes wider later. Whether there is a date behind it, a seventieth birthday or an anniversary. Most families have not agreed on all of this yet, and the call is where they do.

If the person has a public life, I read the record before we talk again. Interviews, articles, speeches, company filings, award citations. Then I write you a note with two lists. What the record already has. And what only he and the family can tell. The second list is always longer. The second list is the book.

The note also carries a first shape for the book, the first questions I would ask and the people I would want to talk to. You see how I think before you commit to anything.

The NDA comes before you send a single photograph. Yours or mine, I sign either. Then a page in your voice: you record five minutes, and inside a week I send back one page written as you. It costs US$1,000 and the fee is credited against the book. If it does not sound like you, you have lost five minutes and the price of a page.

Finding the shape

A long life holds together when the book follows the three to five habits that keep coming back in it. One man does nothing halfway, from engines to horses to deals. Another always picks the city he does not know. A daughter’s one line on a call can be one of them. I find the rest in the research and the first sessions, and the book is built around them.

Each part of the book opens with the world around the person at that time. A boy in Delhi in August 1947. A student who landed in America after the 1965 immigration act opened the door to Asians. A banker in Hong Kong in October 1987, when the market there fell 45.8% and the exchange shut for four days. A life makes sense next to the history it was lived in, and the grandchildren reading it in Toronto will not know that history.

All of this goes into the chapter plan: what the book is about, chapter by chapter. You and he read it, and approve it or send it back. That is revision round one. I do not write prose until the plan is right, because a wrong plan costs months and a wrong sentence costs minutes.

The interviews

Two hours a week, in one fixed slot, booked for the whole project. The first few sessions run longer. On video from anywhere, or in person where the book asks for it. If he can give me one week in one city, we run a sprint and the calendar shrinks.

One marathon session gets one side of him. People show a different side on different days. A weekly slot catches the funny day, the blunt day and the quiet one. Every session is recorded and transcribed, in English, Hindi or Punjabi, whichever he thinks in.

Then the other people. The family, for the stories he will not tell about himself. Partners and old colleagues, for the working side. A friend from college, if he is still in touch. We build that list together in month one, and the asks go out early, because time with busy people is slow to get. For one book it took me three months to get a single hour with one guest. Since then no chapter of mine waits on one interview.

Paper too. Letters, emails, speeches, photographs, the passport with the first visa, the file with the shop’s first lease. Anything he has written shows me how he sounds on paper.

Getting the voice right

The book has to read like him talking. In every session I listen for three things.

1/ Rhythm. How long he runs before he stops. Where he pauses. Whether he builds slow or lands fast.
2/ Vocabulary. The words and phrases only he uses.
3/ Register. When he goes blunt, when he goes funny, and how he moves from one to the other.

Every draft goes back to him with one question: does this sound like you? Anything that does not, I rewrite. The full method is on will it sound like me.

The drafts, and your notes

You see the book in phases, so nothing is a surprise at the end. There are three revision rounds: the chapter plan, the full first draft, and the final read.

Every family has strong views, and five people sending five sets of notes will stall a book for months. So we name two people for feedback, often the two siblings who started it. They send me one combined set of notes within 10 working days of each draft. Everyone else talks to those two.

The six months, week by week

This is a typical full book, built on the four payments and the three revision rounds in the contract. A father in his eighties moves the interview weeks. The payments stay tied to what you have in your hands.

You can stop after any stage and pay only for what is done. That is the point of four parts.

Every fact checked

Every date is checked against a document. Every fact goes back to him. Every quote goes back to the person who said it, before it goes in.

The public record disagrees with itself more than people expect. For the note in October I found two sources with two different dates for when he left one company. The book picks one, and the family knows why. The authorised biography I wrote of an industry stalwart, a bestseller, was built from records going back almost forty years, and it was checked this way, line by line.

If the book names living people or a listed company, I recommend a lawyer reads the final manuscript before it is printed. That read sits outside my fee.

What stays private, and what is yours

1/ He can take anything off the record, at any point, and it stays off.
2/ Everything he tells me stays between him, the family and me.
3/ The recordings, transcripts and drafts belong to you. They come to you at every stage, and in full at the end.
4/ The copyright is 100% yours, assigned to you on the final payment. I have no claim on it, whatever the credit says.
5/ The credit is your call. His name alone. A line in the acknowledgements. Or “as narrated to Saurabh Garg” on the cover.
6/ AI transcribes the tapes, sorts them into stories and timelines, and typesets the book. It never writes a sentence, and the recordings never go into a tool that trains on them. Strike any of those uses from the contract and I do that part by hand. The detail is in the AI policy.

The hard years belong in the book too, if he wants them there. A bankruptcy, a partner who left, the deal that went wrong. A book with every failure cut out reads like a brochure, and nobody believes a brochure. So the hard parts go in his words, with his view of them, or they stay out by his choice. Never by mine.

When there is a date

Most of these books have a birthday behind them. For a hardbound copy in his hands on the day, start about nine months before it: six months for the book, and the rest for design, sign-off and printing.

If a publisher wants the book too, I suggest two editions. A family edition, designed and printed for the date. Then a publisher edition from the same manuscript, on the publisher’s schedule. The date stays fixed, and the book still gets the time it needs.

Printing and publishing sit outside the fee, except the ten hardbacks of the gift book. If you print it yourself, self-publishing a biography and getting an ISBN cover the steps.

What could go wrong, and what we do about it

Books like this fail for a few known reasons. Here is each one.

What I need from you

1/ One fixed weekly slot with him, for as long as the book needs.
2/ Two people who read the drafts and send one set of notes.
3/ The boxes: photographs, letters, documents, anything on paper.
4/ Introductions to the people who were in the room.
5/ A date, if there is one, told to me on the first call.

What it costs

The full book starts at US$12,500 and typically goes up to US$25,000. The gift book starts at US$5,000 and typically goes up to US$10,000. Either is paid in four parts against four deliverables: signature, the approved chapter plan, the full first draft and the final manuscript. Travel is in no fee: you pay flights and hotels at cost, agreed before signing.

In India there is also a ₹5 lakh book, written by a biographer I train, on this same method, under my direction. It is on biographies for ₹5 lakh. The full breakdown, in eight currencies, is on what it costs. You can read a ghostwriting agreement on the same terms before we talk.

Who this process is wrong for

I write one book at a time, one or two a year. A full book takes six months and I cannot do one well in eight weeks. For a deadline like that, an agency with a bench is the right answer, and I will say so on the first call. Not in month two. I interview in Hindi and Punjabi and write in English, so a Hindi or Punjabi edition is a separate commission with a translator.

Common questions

How long does it take to write a biography?

Six months for a full book and four for a gift book, from signing to the final manuscript. Design and printing come after. For a book in hand on a birthday, start about nine months before it.

How many hours of interviews does a book need?

30 to 60 hours for a full book and 15 to 20 for a gift book. Two hours a week in one fixed slot, with longer sessions at the start.

Does he have to meet you in person?

No. Sessions work on video from anywhere. I travel where the book asks for it, and you pay flights and hotels at cost, agreed before signing.

Who reads the drafts?

He does, and two people you name. Those two send me one combined set of notes within 10 working days of each draft, across three revision rounds.

Can he take something back after he has said it?

Yes, at any point, and it stays off the record. The recordings, transcripts and drafts belong to you.

Who owns the finished book?

You do. The copyright is assigned to you on the final payment. The credit is your call: his name alone, a line in the acknowledgements, or “as narrated to Saurabh Garg” on the cover.

Does AI write any of it?

No. AI transcribes the tapes, sorts them into stories and timelines, and typesets the book. It never writes a sentence, and you can strike all three uses from the contract.

The people who can tell it from the inside are here now. Once they are gone, the book can only be built from the outside.