About

I help people write books. That's it.

Sometimes it's Fortune 500 CEOs who know what they want to say but don't have time to wrestle with chapter structure. Sometimes it's professional athletes with incredible stories who need help getting them down on paper. The work varies, but the goal is always the same: take what's in someone's head and make it into something other people want to read.

I used to teach middle school. Turns out helping thirteen-year-olds find their voices is excellent training for helping adults do the same thing.

The Book Thing

My father is Nicholas A. Basbanes. He's a National Book Award finalist who writes about books, libraries, the whole world of literacy. Growing up in our house meant books everywhere—C-SPAN literally did a tour of our home library once. So yes, I come by this honestly.

Books matter. They're how ideas survive, how people leave something behind that lasts.

What I Do

Ghostwriting, mostly. I've worked with clients across every industry you can think of. Executives, entrepreneurs, scientists, artists. They all have something worth saying, they just need help saying it well.

Under my own name, I've written for The Sewanee Review, the National Endowment of the Humanities, and other outlets. I was Managing Editor at Literary Features Syndicate and a columnist for Fine Books and Collections Magazine. I translated a book from French to English, which taught me that good writing is about finding exactly the right words.

Other Stuff

I started DIYBook, a platform for people who want to write their own stories without hiring someone like me. Not everyone needs a ghostwriter, but everyone deserves to tell their story well.

I host a podcast called "Writing for Immortality" about storytelling, building things that last, and creating work that matters. The title says it all—whether you're writing a CEO memoir or a family history, you might as well write like it could matter to someone fifty years from now.

I can't stop building things, apparently. Recently, I founded HelloHans (coming soon!), which goes back to my teaching roots—helping kids develop literacy skills and learn to write and publish their own books with AI as a tool, not a replacement for independent thought or developing critical thinking skills.

Why I Do This

Every person has stories worth preserving. Some have time to write them down. Others try and realize they're better at running companies or winning games than they are at organizing 80,000 words.

That's where I come in. I listen to how people think, then help them put it on paper in a way that sounds like them—just clearer and more interesting than they'd probably manage alone.

Good ghostwriting doesn't sound ghostwritten. It sounds like the smartest conversation that person could have about something they care about.

The Bottom Line

I'm good at this work because I actually like people and I'm curious about what they know. Every project teaches me something new. Every client has figured out something the rest of us haven't.

My job is helping them share it.

Got a story to tell? Let's talk.