Shortly after graduating from Columbia Law School in 1985, Michael Levin realized he didn’t want to be a lawyer. “I worked for two firms in Boston for a short time, and the first one almost fired me, and the second one put me on the job and fired me because I didn’t belong or have my head in the game,” Levin says.
Levin had one other passion: writing.
Image Source: Courtesy of The Meaning Company. Michael Levin.
By the time he was almost 20, Levin had sold three books to Simon & Schuster. But a fourth deal proved difficult to secure, and when Levin’s former law school classmates became partners at New York firms, he struggled to pay his bills—until he met the man who would mentor him in business and life for the next three many years.
Levin’s mentor sat him down at a Dunkin’ Donuts in Boston and showed him how to start a business that may help him cover expenses while he honed his craft. He suggested Levin teach creative writing classes. “He said, ‘I’ve worked with all of you creative people, and you can’t do your best work if you don’t know how to put food on the table or pay the rent,’” Levin recalls.
So in 1994, Levin taught his first writing course. The decision to teach launched the next phase of Levin’s writing profession, in which ghostwriting and entrepreneurship went hand in hand. That was greater than 35 years and 1,000 books ago.
Entrepreneur sat down with New York Times bestselling creator Levin, founder and CEO A big companyto learn more about how he built two successful ghostwriting corporations over the course of a decades-long profession.
“I wrote down on a piece of paper how much I was earning at the time as a ghostwriter and how much I was earning as a teacher and trainer.”
Levin taught his first classes in his yoga teacher’s studio, then in a church basement. He traveled several times a yr to teach at UCLA. As more and more people took his courses, they began asking Levin to seek the advice of, and then to write books for them. Levin spent the next seven years combining teaching, coaching, and ghostwriting.
Then, in 2002, Levin did some math. “I was at lunch one day and I wrote down on a piece of paper how much I was making at the time ghostwriting and how much I was making as a teacher and a coach,” he says. “And there was just no comparison. It was obvious.”
Levin threw himself into his ghostwriting business full-time. He accomplished sales and marketing training, attended the Disney Institute to learn customer support, and “learned the hard way, by being sued twice, how to get a good deal.” When a college student shadowed him for a day, he was so impressed that he hired her while she was still in college. She became the first author to join Levin’s BusinessGhost team.
As BusinessGhost grew, Levin hired people to run the publishing and finance operations of the company, in addition to an assistant. “Learning to delegate is hard for entrepreneurs because everything you get rid of has claw marks on it,” Levin says. “There are a lot of skills that go into running a business. So I gradually acquired enough of them that I wasn’t a threat to my own company. Let’s put it this way. I’m no Bill Gates, but I’m OK.”
“[I look back] and I had tears in my eyes because I realized how much I had impoverished myself through fear.”
Pricing for his firm was one of Levin’s biggest challenges. He remembers calling his mentor when he was considering raising his consulting fee to $90 an hour. Who can pay this amount? He thought then. Levin admits that even a few years ago he could have modified more because of the value of his writing.
“[I look back] and tears in my eyes because I spotted how much I used to be impoverishing myself with 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 set my prices, I didn’t set transaction prices. For the most part, I wasn’t competing with other authors. I was competing with myself.”
Levin can now charge greater than $100,000 per book. Now, when he speaks at ghostwriting groups, he tells people to charge what they’re value, because there are no ravenous clients—only ravenous writers.
“I have always been ashamed of writing on behalf of others, because compared to the dream I had, it was like doing laundry.”
In 2012, Levin’s business gained momentum when he appeared in Shark tank.
Levin hadn’t heard of the show before interviewing the executive producer of one of his client’s books. “I had four little kids at the time, so I didn’t [up] on TV,” he explains. “And he tells me about all these cool businesses, and I feel so inferior. Because two guys on Capitol Hill are making pork sauce and getting rich, and what am I doing? I’m writing.”
The producer then turned the tables and asked Levin if he would consider applying to 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 away.’ And he said, ‘I think that’s very sexy, and I want you to apply.’”
That’s what Levin did. This yr, 30,000 people applied to be Shark tank; 110 segments taped and 35 aired. Levin was one of them. He recalls the experience “as an intervention on national television.”
“I was always embarrassed to write for hire because to me it was like doing laundry, compared to the dream of throwing a novel a year in New York, which ended after the third novel,” Levin explains. “I sold more after that, [but] not for a living wage. So it was embarrassing.”
While the business was not scalable enough for the Sharks to invest in, the judges praised him for doing “what 0.0001% of all writers have done, which is earn a living from writing.”
Levin’s episode aired every 10 weeks for years. The phone rang continuously, changing Levin’s business and his perception of himself as an entrepreneur. Eventually, BusinessGhost grew to a size that was hard to manage while still giving enough time to write. At the end of the day, Levin is happiest when he’s outlining a book or interviewing a client, not analyzing a profit and loss statement, he says.
“People don’t care who published your book anymore. It’s not part of the purchasing criteria anymore.”
Levin sold BusinessGhost in 2018 and founded The Meaning Company, which writes, publishes, and sells books “for the most discerning, quality-oriented individuals, families, and businesses on five continents.” Levin isn’t interested in publishing as many books as possible. He wants to focus on quality, not quantity, positioning the company as the “Ritz-Carlton of ghostwriting.”
Traditional nonfiction publishing lately is hard for authors who aren’t well-known to the general public. Traditional publishing deals are typically reserved for celebrities 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 see independent publishing as a tool for influence, not a source of income.
“I used to do about one book a year for New York publishers, and now I just don’t want to bother,” Levin says. “With an independent publisher, you can publish a book in 60 days. It’s finished. You can do a second edition a month later. You control everything. You keep your intellectual property. And your book has the same ranking on Amazon as a book published by Random House. People don’t care who published your book anymore. It’s not part of the buying criteria anymore, if it ever was.”
“The ability to listen to what a person is almost saying is not something that AI can do yet.”
Last yr, Levin hired a firm to provide him with branding advice. In talking to previous clients, the firm determined that Levin was particularly adept at identifying what was most meaningful in people’s careers and lives, and then focusing his books on that. The firm suggested that Levin go out on a limb and write a book centered on his work—so he modified the name of his company to The Meaning Company and wrote The Meaning of Your Life: Writing a Book About What Matters Most to You.
The publishing landscape has modified significantly over the many years, and AI is the newest frontier. But because it stands, Levin isn’t anxious that technology could derail the ghostwriting business. While he acknowledges that AI is “essentially wiping out” lower-end ghostwriting services that don’t attract clients who prioritize a premium product, AI can’t do what he and other quality-obsessed writers can: listen to what someone isn’t saying and hear what they almost are saying, or wish they might.
“I can talk to a client for an hour and then after about 35 minutes of talking, the client suddenly 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 space, and I know that I just heard something that no one else has said. So now we’re going to turn the chapter over and do a chapter about that idea, or we’re going to do a whole book about that idea. The ability to listen to what a person is almost saying is not something that AI can do yet.”
Levin advises anyone interested in starting their very own ghostwriting business to find someone who wants to publish a book, complete their project at a lower cost so you’ll be able to get a description and photos for your website, and then raise your prices significantly.
“People tend to assume that if you charge a lot, it must be worth it,” Levin explains. “Because otherwise no one else would pay for it. At the yoga class where I rented space to start my business, there was a guy who was very wealthy and he said, ‘My approach is, why pay less?’ So don’t compete on price—compete on quality.”
“Watching intelligent people think is like watching great athletes or musicians.”
Levin also plans to launch a writing course called The best earning authoring systemwhich teaches people how to organize, write, edit, publish, sell, and monetize their very own business books. He says it could actually even be a resource for writers who want to break into the ghostwriting industry.
“Writing is a strange way to make a living,” Levin says. “It’s not like you’re going somewhere where there are nine other people, or you’re meeting someone on a plane who’s also a lawyer or an accountant or whatever. But I call it the best grad school in the world because people who are the best in their fields pay me to watch them think, and watching smart people think is like watching great athletes or great musicians. I’m really lucky.”