Not long after Michael Levin graduated from Columbia Law School in 1985, he realized he didn’t want to be an attorney. “I worked briefly for two firms in Boston, was all but fired by the first and was sat down and fired by the second for not really belonging or having my head in the game,” Levin says.
Levin had another passion: writing.
Image Credit: Courtesy of The Meaning Company. Michael Levin.
By the time he was in his late 20s, Levin had sold three books to Simon & Schuster. Unfortunately, coming to terms on a fourth deal proved difficult, and as Levin’s former law school classmates became partners at New York firms, he struggled to pay the bills — until he met the man who would be his mentor in business and life for the next three decades.
Levin’s mentor sat him down at a Dunkin’ Donuts in Boston and showed him how to start a business that would help him cover his expenses while pursuing his craft. He suggested Levin teach creative writing classes. “He said, ‘I’ve worked with you creative people before, and you cannot do your best work if you don’t know how you’re going to put food on the table or pay your rent,'” Levin recalls.
So, in 1994, Levin taught his first writing class. The decision to teach would launch the next phase of Levin’s writing career, where ghostwriting and entrepreneurship went hand in hand. That was more than 35 years and 1,000 books ago.
Entrepreneur sat down with New York Times best-selling author Levin, founder and CEO of The Meaning Company, to learn more about how he built two successful ghostwriting firms throughout his decades-long career.
“I wrote down on a piece of paper what I was earning at the time from ghostwriting versus what I was earning from teaching and coaching.”
Levin taught his first classes at his yoga teacher’s studio and then in a church basement. He also traveled to teach at UCLA a few times a year. As more people took his courses, they started requesting consultations and then for Levin to write their books for them. Levin balanced his teaching, coaching and ghostwriting gigs for the next seven years.
Then, in 2002, Levin did some math. “One day, I was at lunch, and I wrote down on a piece of paper what I was earning at the time from ghostwriting versus what I was earning from teaching and coaching,” he says. “And there was just no comparison. It was obvious.”
Levin went all in on his ghostwriting business. He took sales training and marketing courses, attended the Disney Institute to learn customer service and “learned the hard way, getting sued twice, about how to have a good agreement.” When a college student shadowed him for a day, he was so impressed he hired her while she was still in school. She became the first writer to join Levin’s BusinessGhost team.
As BusinessGhost expanded, Levin hired people to helm the firm’s publishing and financial operations, as well as an assistant. “Learning to delegate is hard for entrepreneurs because whatever we let go of has some claw marks on it,” Levin says. “There are a lot of skills necessary to run a business. So, little by little, I acquired them enough to not be a menace to my own business. Let’s put it that way. I’m no Bill Gates, but I’m okay.”
“[I look back] and have tears in my eyes because I realized how much I was impoverishing myself out of fear.”
Setting prices for his business was one of Levin’s biggest challenges. He remembers calling his mentor as he considered raising his consulting fee to $90 an hour. Who’s going to pay that amount? He thought at the time. Levin admits that even as recently as a few years ago, he could have changed more for the value of his writing.
“[I look back] and have tears in my eyes because I realized how much I was impoverishing myself out of fear,” Levin says. “One of the things I learned in marketing is that sellers overestimate the number of credible options buyers have. So, when I was pricing, I wasn’t pricing deals. I wasn’t, for the most part, competing against other writers. I was competing against myself.”
These days, Levin can charge more than $100,000 per book. Now, when he speaks at ghostwriting groups, he tells people to charge what they’re worth because there aren’t starving clients — just starving writers.
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“I’d always been embarrassed about the fact that I was ghostwriting, because to me it felt like taking in laundry, compared with the dream that I had.”
In 2012, Levin’s business got a major boost when he appeared on Shark Tank.
Levin hadn’t heard of the show before interviewing the executive producer for one of his client’s books. “I had four little kids at the time, so I’m not [up] on TV,” he explains. “And he’s telling me about all these cool businesses, and I’m feeling so less than. Because two guys on Capitol Hill are making pork sauce, and they’re getting rich, and what am I doing? Typing.”
Then the producer turned the tables — and asked Levin if he’d consider applying for the show.
“I looked at him like he had two heads,” Levin recalls. “I said, ‘No, there’s nothing sexy about my business. It’s me in a room typing.’ And he said, ‘I think it’s very sexy, and I want you to apply.'”
So Levin did. That year, 30,000 people applied to be on Shark Tank; 110 taped segments and 35 made it to air. Levin was one of them. He looks back on the experience “as an intervention on national television.”
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“I’d always been embarrassed that I was ghostwriting because to me it felt like taking in laundry, compared with the dream of tossing a novel a year to New York, which ended after the third novel,” Levin explains. “I sold some more later, [but] not for a livable amount. So it was embarrassing.”
Although the business wasn’t scalable enough for the Sharks to invest, the judges commended him for doing “what .0001% of all writers have ever done, which is to make a living from writing.”
Levin’s episode aired every 10 weeks for years. The phone rang constantly, transforming Levin’s business and his understanding of himself as an entrepreneur. Ultimately, BusinessGhost grew to an extent that was difficult to manage while devoting enough time to his writing. At the end of the day, Levin’s happiest when he’s outlining a book or interviewing a client, not analyzing a P&L statement, he says.
“People no longer care who published your book. It’s no longer part of the buying criteria.”
Levin sold BusinessGhost in 2018 and went on to launch The Meaning Company, which writes, publishes and markets books “for the most discerning, quality-driven individuals, families and businesses on five continents.” Levin isn’t interested in churning out as many books as possible. He wants to focus on quality over quantity, positioning the firm as “the Ritz-Carlton of ghostwriting.”
These days, getting nonfiction traditionally published is difficult for authors who aren’t well-known to large audiences. Typically, traditional publishing deals are reserved for high-profile people like Prince Harry or Michelle Obama, Levin explains. Most of Levin’s clients aren’t necessarily interested in selling as many books as possible; they view independent publishing as a tool of influence rather than a revenue stream.
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“I used to do about a book a year with New York publishers, and today, I just don’t want to bother,” Levin says. “With independent publishing, you can have the book published in 60 days. It’s finished. You can do a second edition a month later. You control everything. You keep your IP. And your book has the same standing on Amazon as a book published by Random House. People no longer care who published your book. It’s no longer part of the buying criteria if it ever was.”
“The ability to listen for what the person is almost saying is not something that AI can do yet.”
Last year, Levin hired a company to provide guidance on branding. Through speaking with past clients, the company determined that Levin is particularly adept at identifying what’s most meaningful in people’s careers and lives and then centering books on that. The company suggested Levin go to market that way and write a book focusing on his work — so he renamed his business The Meaning Company and penned The Meaning of Your Life: Writing a Book About What Matters Most to You.
The publishing landscape has shifted significantly over the decades, and AI is the latest frontier. However, as it stands now, Levin isn’t concerned about the technology’s potential to derail the ghostwriting business. Although he acknowledges that AI is “basically wiping out” lower-tier ghostwriting services that don’t attract customers prioritizing a premium product, AI can’t do what he and other quality-obsessed writers can: listen for what someone’s not saying and hear what they’re almost verbalizing, or wish they could.
“I could be talking with a client for an hour-long interview, and we’re about 35 minutes into it, and all of a sudden the client says something, [and I’m like], ‘Whoa, whoa, whoa, wait a minute, what did you just say?'” Levin explains. “I’ve written so many books in so many verticals that I know what people are saying in that field, and I know that I just heard something that no one else is saying. So now we’re going to turn the chapter around and make the chapter about that idea, or we’re going to make the whole book about that idea. The ability to listen for what the person is almost saying is not something that AI can do yet.”
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To anyone interested in starting a ghostwriting business of their own, Levin suggests finding someone who wants to publish a book. Complete their project at a lower rate to get a blurb and photos for your website, then significantly raise your prices.
“People tend to assume that if you charge a lot, it must be worth it,” Levin explains. “Because otherwise, nobody else would pay for it. There was a guy in my yoga class where I rented space to start my business, and he was very wealthy, and he said, ‘My attitude is why pay less?’ So don’t compete on price — compete on quality.”
“Watching smart people think is like watching great athletes or or musicians.”
Levin is also about to launch a writing course called The Best Earning Author System, which teaches people how to organize, write, edit, publish, market and monetize their own business books. He says it can also be a resource for writers hoping to break into the ghostwriting field.
“Writing is an odd way to make a living,” Levin says. “It’s not like you go somewhere where there are nine other people, or you meet somebody on a flight, and they’re also an attorney or an accountant or whatever. But I call it the greatest graduate school in the world because the people who are best in their fields are paying me to watch them think, and watching smart people think is like watching great athletes or musicians. I’m really lucky.”
