Ghostwriting has existed ever since man first put pen to paper – or the historical equivalents. By the year 3000BC the foundations of writing were being laid in Mesopotamia (modern day Iraq), and the foundations of ghostwriting were not far behind – kings and other men of stature were soon dictating to their writers who would ‘write up’ what they were being told. This practice has, in essence, remained the heart of the ghostwriter’s work for the last five thousand years, whilst the need for ghostwriters has increased with the relatively recent rise in media outlets; songs, speeches, blogs, social network updates and autobiographies are all areas in which ghostwriters earn their corn, 99% of which is kept under the radar. In that time many important works of literature have been assumed (or proven) to have had unaccredited help along the way, such as Murasaki Shikibu’s Tale of Genji, The Diary of Anne Frank and, most famously of all, The Bible.

Over time, ghostwriting has spread to other forms of the written word, nowhere more so than in the field of music. While classical composers have their works attributed to them (and rightly so), 20th century music saw the birth of a separation of artist and composer, with the former sometimes being inextricably linked to the song while the writer remained largely anonymous. Frank Sinatra for example recorded over a thousand different songs, yet contributed to less than 1% of his lyrical output. The other 99% were written by songwriters attached to the record label, most of whom are unheard of outside the industry. More recently, the rap industry has been rocked with allegations that high profile rappers use ghostwriters to come up with their lyrics, leaving some fans feeling cheated. This development however is an inevitable impact of the pressure on artists to continue to produce material that sells and is a reflection of the way the world of music has evolved. Equally, the days when politicians used to stand on soap boxes and address the gathering crowds with speeches either created off the cuff or from scribbled notes have long gone. Speeches are now crafted by specialist writers with expert care and attention given to the inclusion or exclusion of certain words and phrases, with the reactions to these small details monitored afterwards. In days where every little detail of an address is picked apart by critics, politicians can no longer afford the passion alone.

The rise of the internet and social networking has created multiple opportunities for those who need to stay in the public eye to do so. Rather than communicating through the press they can now communicate directly to their customers or fan base, but not all of them have the time to update Twitter, Facebook and Wordpress with all their goings on. Like Barack Obama (@BarackObama), Sarah Palin (@SarahPalinUSA), 50 Cent (@50Cent), Britney Spears (@BritneySpears), Kanye West (@KanyeWest), and Mallika Sherawat (@MallikaLA), they hire ghostwriters to do it for them.

Whilst it is difficult to know how much of what we read is truly the original work of the author, what we can be sure of is that the average bookshop contains much more ghostwritten work than many would suppose. A recent American phenomenon has seen individual novelists hiring other writers to pump out books in their name, thus using their name as the ‘brand’ but these ghosts’ work for the material itself (James Patterson is a prime example of this). A similar approach has long been adopted by the various writers of the Nancy Drew series – all of whom write under the name Carolyn Keene. The idea itself however doesn't seem to be anything new. Many scholars postulate that William Shakespeare was not a person at all but the name under which a collective group of writers published their work, needing a ‘celebrity’ through which to market their plays and sonnets.

If a ghost has been involved in a book you are reading however, you will likely not be able to tell the difference. The art of being a ghostwriter is to blend seamlessly in with the voice you are trying to replicate so that no-one would suspect otherwise. Almost any autobiography you have read will have been ghosted, and many novels by respected authors may have had the ghost treatment at some point – either they couldn’t finish it in time or had got so stuck they couldn’t see a way out themselves and the publisher has called in an old hand. With demand for the written word becoming higher and higher with every new step in the digital revolution, ghostwriting is an art that will be long required.