The Surrogate Author: The Craft, Ethics, and Business of Ghostwriting in the age of AI
Edition: 1
Copyright: 2026
Pages: 260
Edition: 1
Copyright: 2026
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In The Surrogate Author, longtime professional ghostwriter and professor Autumn Karen guides readers through the real work of shaping another person’s story while protecting your own creative identity. Blending personal memoir, case studies, and story craft lessons, this book illuminates the art, ethics, and emotional labor of writing as someone else.
You’ll learn how to:
- Build authentic collaboration with clients while maintaining clear boundaries
- Develop voice, structure, and story that balance art with professionalism
- Protect your mental health when writing trauma and truth
- Set contracts, milestones, and revision expectations that actually work
- Navigate the shifting boundaries between human storytelling and AI
- Create community, sustainability, and creative joy in the long term
Designed for either individual learning or classroom study and organized into 14 lessons with dozens of practical exercises and student samples, The Surrogate Author is part manual, part memoir, and part mirror. This book offers real world guidance for the new or working writer and deep honesty about the cost and beauty of this work.
To write for another person is not to vanish behind the pages but to prove that your voice can carry more than one story.
Autumn Karen is a filmmaker, journalist, ghostwriter, and educator who uses writing to elevate traditionally unheard stories. She's English faculty at High Point University and holds an MFA in Screenwriting from UNCSA, an MAT in Special Education from WCU, and a BA in Women's Health from UNC Asheville. As an educator, she has developed and regularly teaches courses on ghostwriting, constructing novellas, narrative medicine, professional writing, science fiction, and film analysis. Her award-winning work as a journalist, author, and screenwriter centers on themes such as gendered life experiences, grief, and complex societal relationships.
With over a decade of experience as a professional ghostwriter and script doctor, Autumn has written more than 30 books for clients across diverse genres and backgrounds. Her work includes memoirs, business books, and fiction, always maintaining her commitment to challenging conventional narratives.
In The Surrogate Author, longtime professional ghostwriter and professor Autumn Karen guides readers through the real work of shaping another person’s story while protecting your own creative identity. Blending personal memoir, case studies, and story craft lessons, this book illuminates the art, ethics, and emotional labor of writing as someone else.
You’ll learn how to:
- Build authentic collaboration with clients while maintaining clear boundaries
- Develop voice, structure, and story that balance art with professionalism
- Protect your mental health when writing trauma and truth
- Set contracts, milestones, and revision expectations that actually work
- Navigate the shifting boundaries between human storytelling and AI
- Create community, sustainability, and creative joy in the long term
Designed for either individual learning or classroom study and organized into 14 lessons with dozens of practical exercises and student samples, The Surrogate Author is part manual, part memoir, and part mirror. This book offers real world guidance for the new or working writer and deep honesty about the cost and beauty of this work.
To write for another person is not to vanish behind the pages but to prove that your voice can carry more than one story.
Autumn Karen is a filmmaker, journalist, ghostwriter, and educator who uses writing to elevate traditionally unheard stories. She's English faculty at High Point University and holds an MFA in Screenwriting from UNCSA, an MAT in Special Education from WCU, and a BA in Women's Health from UNC Asheville. As an educator, she has developed and regularly teaches courses on ghostwriting, constructing novellas, narrative medicine, professional writing, science fiction, and film analysis. Her award-winning work as a journalist, author, and screenwriter centers on themes such as gendered life experiences, grief, and complex societal relationships.
With over a decade of experience as a professional ghostwriter and script doctor, Autumn has written more than 30 books for clients across diverse genres and backgrounds. Her work includes memoirs, business books, and fiction, always maintaining her commitment to challenging conventional narratives.