The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – The Ghostwriting Advantage: Everything You Need to Know About Ghostwriting Your Book by Richard G Lowe Jr

Episode Date: May 11, 2025

The Ghostwriting Advantage: Everything You Need to Know About Ghostwriting Your Book by Richard G Lowe Jr

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Now, here's your host, Chris Voss. Hi folks, it's Voss here from thechrisvossshow.com. The Chris Voss Show. Ladies and gentlemen, the hourly sings that makes official welcome to the show. As always, the Chris Voss Show is a family that loves you but doesn't judge you. Well, go to goodreads.com, fortresschrisvoss, linkedin.com, fortresschrisvoss, chrisvoss1 on the TikTokity, and all this crazy place on the internet. Opinions expressed by guests on the podcast are solely their own and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the host or the Chris Voss Show. Some guests of the show may be advertising on the podcast, but it is not

an endorsement or review of any kind. Timmy, an amazing young man on the show. We're talking about his books and some of the stuff he's done and some of the writing services that he does as well. He's the author of the latest book to come out April 24th, 2025 called The Ghost Writing Advantage. Everything you need to know about ghost writing your book. Richard G. Lowe joins us on the show today. We're going to get into it with him and find out some of his details. What he's been up to.

He's a bestselling ghost writer who helps professionals turn their expertise into powerful books that build credibility, attract opportunities, and leave a lasting legacy. that build credibility, attract opportunities, and leave a lasting legacy. With 63 published books and 48 ghostwritten titles and 1000 plus articles, he's a trusted authority in business, technology, and leadership writing. Previously director of computer operations at Trader Joe's and VP at two tech firms, Richard Blinn's corporate insight with storytelling mastery. His notable works include focus on LinkedIn, cyber heist, digitize your die. And here he is now. Welcome to the show, Richard.

How are you? Thank you for that great introduction. It almost makes me blush. Yeah. You know, I just, your bio, I just read it. I know, I know, but it's, it's all that work you've been up to. It's still amazing. I've written over 110 books. Yeah. So give us a 30,000 overview. What's in this new book, the ghost writing advantage,

the ghost writing advantage. When I went out there and looked on link on Amazon, I noticed that there's really no books on ghost writing from the client side. Now, how do you find a ghost writer? How do you get an idea for a book? What does a ghost writer do? How do you market a ghostwriter? How do you get an idea for a book? What does a ghostwriter do? How do you market it and so forth? So this is everything you wanted to know about marketing a book, writing a book, marketing

a book and everything else from A to Z, put together in one place and in nice human readable form with lots of stories and how people get things done and so forth. Yeah. So make it understandable so that before you go see a ghostwriter, you can go say, okay, this is what I'm looking for. This is what I'm not looking for. This is what I want to watch out for and so forth. Inside the new book, you help people from the ghostwriting advantage.

What do you do at your website to tell us what you do at the writingking.com? The writing king, that's just, that's my website for my business, which is the writing king, which I'm a ghostwriter. I write books for executives and influencers and high level people, plus anybody else who wants to write a book. And that's, that's primarily what I do. I also do some blogging and things, but mostly books. And the books can be anywhere from 10,000 words, which is relatively short, up to 100,000

words, which is pretty long. Game of Thrones is about 150,000 words to give you an idea of length. I've written fiction, a couple of science fiction books, including one for a pretty famous rock star. I've written memoirs for people, several memoirs, a young adult book, children's book, and just about everything else you could name on the gauntlet, primarily for executives though who want to create a name for themselves. Wow. So people can hire you to ghost write their book.

They can read the book on how to find a ghost writer and deal with one, et cetera, et cetera. What's the importance of writing your own book? What do people get if they try and write their own book in your words? I thought you'd never ask. writing your own book. What is the, what is, what, what do people get if they try and write their own book in your words? I thought you'd never ask. Basically what they get from a book is they get credibility and authority. So when you, when you, if you look through coaches and things, the ones who really made it, they have a book generally. And the book lays out their whole program or whatever they're doing, their story,

their, their life, everything, all their failures. Generally a book is good if, all their failures, generally a book is good if it shows their failures and how they recovered. That's very important sometimes because nobody's perfect. What? I didn't hear about that. Except for you. Obviously their philosophy, their philosophy, what they do, what they

want, and sometimes their, their methods. That also gets them, you can also gets them paid speaking engagements. They can use it for that. They can use it as the basis of their marketing. They can use it for getting a TED Talk speech or on TV or anything like that. It basically becomes a fulcrum for them to boost themselves into a career. Oh, wow. So, give us a little bit about your story, your history.

When did you start writing? And you said you had how many books you've written? It's well over 110 now. Holy crap. Written and published. And published. So tell us how your life went, how it would influence you when you started writing and when you kind of knew you were wanting to be a book author.

When I was 17 years old, a wee lad, arrogant, conceited, you know, typical 17 year old, I met my grandfather. I'd known him before and I decided for some reason that I wanted to get to know him. He was old. He was kind of cranky. Everybody says, no, very introverted. Everybody says, stay away from him. You know, he's going to bite your head off. So I side that the heck with you guys because they never listened to my parents and

And went over and talked to him and before you know it we were having a great conversation about what happened to him He was a World War two vet. He was in the Yangtze River Patrol in 1938 He was captured on Corregidor by the Japanese was the baton death march and he spent four years in a POW camp well, and I wrote him a little book which since been lost and One of the things I concluded was a I like writing people's stories. That was very very cool I got to give me to get to know him in a kind of a non confronting way and me to get to know him in a kind of a non-confronting way. And second, he'd be as cranky as he wants. And, you know, after that kind of experience, he earned whatever he wanted. Yeah. Yeah, no kidding. I'd be cranky after all that too.

And I gained a profound respect for vets. Yeah. That's carried all the way to now. Yeah. And I imagine it was an amazing story. The, you know, the, the, the crazy stuff that went on in world war two was in Korea and Vietnam was just insane. Some of the stories, you know, was a Senator McCain who was, who was there for five years. I think it had no hit in Hilton. Correct. I can't imagine being tortured. You know, you're not just in prison. You're in prison where they torture you. They broke his arms and legs and yeah, we broke them, I should say. So yeah, they're, they're not fun folks. That's

the point I'm making. Yeah, they're not. It's not a hotel. Yeah, it's not, it's not really a hotel. So, so after that I had to leave my parent, leave home. There were reasons. And so when I was 19, I left home and then I had to make a living. Cause surprise, surprise. You have to do things like pay for electricity. Nobody told me. Nobody told me about the electricity trick.

Electricity and phones and things like that. But I managed and I had a good job. And I became VP of a tech company and then VP of another tech company within a short time. And then I worked for Trader Joe's and I'd forgotten all about writing, except I was always the tech writer. And I didn't know everybody hates being tech writer. And that's why I did it because I could write, but I was also the VP or the

director of computer operations at trader Joe's. Then I decided, okay, getting up there in years in my fifties. I don't like working for corporate anymore. Let's try it on our own. I've got some money saved up. So let me go out and see what happens. So I quit, moved to Florida from California and started my writing career. Stumble around a little bit, got some nice, big juicy projects.

And after that was all over, I was in it for the, for, for life. That's pretty wild. I the, for, for life. That's pretty wild. I mean, you, you start a whole new career at 50, you know, it's never too late to start and then pound out a hundred, a hundred, what was it? A hundred and 10 books, I think over a hundred and 10. Yeah. Wow.

Wow. I've really got my first book published and, and you, you got me by a long way. So I, I'm at this pace. It's going to be another 50 years before I get mine. I don't know why. Well, you can always hire me. Oh yeah. That's the idea.

See, we've got the right idea. But, but there was something in between. I became a photographer also. Okay. And while I traded Joe's, I wound up photographing. I was kind of introverted and kind of depressed wife passed away and stuff. So I decided to become a photographer. So I went out and photographed Renaissance Fairs.

And then from there, I met some of the belly dancers at the Renaissance Fairs. And sitting here back, back in the back row with my telephoto lens, cause I'm super shy taking pictures of all the dancers. I put them up on the internet. One time this one approaches me. Super scary lady to me because I'm, I was conservative as heck back then conservative in that, not in a political way, but in a, the way I looked in the way I acted and stuff like that. He's got piercing.

She's got tattoos that she did herself on her arm, you know, all kinds of stuff. Scary lady to me. She comes up and puts her arms around me. Name's Marjani. You're his friend now. Scared the heck out of me. She said, Richard, we love you. We love the photographs. We want you to keep doing it. We want to encourage you. You need to sit in the front row center. Thank you. And they gave me a front row center suite. Then they got me in all the other belly dance shows. And before you know it, I was photographing three or four shows a week.

And belly dancers, salsa dancers, ballroom dancing, well, mermaids, WWE wrestling matches. That's something Friday night at my house. Masquerade balls. So in eight years, I photographed 1200 photo shoots, a million photos, made a lot of friends and it was a lot. And I had a birthday party every year where about a hundred dancers and models and stuff came and said, hi, happy birthday.

Just for me. Nobody shows up at my birthday parties except bill collectors. Yeah. Yeah. Sooner or later. Yeah. You have to change your address to get rid of those guys. Oh, damn it.

I already did the fake your death thing to get away from my last 10, 11 divorces. But yeah, now you write books for people. So when you, when you work with somebody and you're ghost writing a book for them, give us an over idea of how that process works. Are you spending a lot of time interviewing them? Are you recording them and then writing what they say? Are you do the research maybe as well? How does that work? The first thing we do once we do the signing and all that kind of stuff and making an agreement

is we do a series of interviews and we do a Socratic method questioning. I'm asking a lot of questions about them and their purpose for life and what they want to achieve, who they want to talk to, their audience, et cetera, et cetera. The goal is, is so that I get to know them and I get to know their voice and their point of view and what they want out of life and what they want out of the book and who they're trying to talk to. A lot of other questions. It's usually around 100, 150 questions. They go pretty quick. It only takes a few weeks. And then I got a good picture of them. And then from there, I come up with an outline and we come up, I come up with basically a

pitch for the book and, and then start writing it. And we go back and forth till we get the voice right. Cause the voice is very important. I had one client, he cursed like a sailor. He made a sailor, he'd make a sailor blush. And I said, do you want the book to do that? He said, yeah, let's do that. Started, wrote the first chapter and he said, maybe not that much. You really have so much use for it. Yeah. That would probably, if, if I didn't have an editor, my book would probably be the F word every five letters or something, I don't know. Once that's done, then I write the book and it's kind of collaborative.

I do a few pages or chapters, send it to them, they review it, comes back to me with changes and we go back and forth until we got it pretty good. That's pretty interesting. You, you, you try and gauge the voice. One thing I, one thing I, I, I didn't fully understand when I went into editing is, is I had someone to edit, but I had a couple of friends that wrote me and they go, Hey, why do you use me as an editor? And I go, I didn't know you were an editor. You know, just Facebook friends and they they go, yeah, I edit books,

send me a couple samples and, or a couple pages or something, and I'll edit them and tell you like a chapter or something. And I go, okay, but you know, the person I have seems to get my voice. And I really understand I kept hearing that, you know, needs to be in your voice sort of thing. you know, needs to be in your voice sort of thing. And, and then they sent me back their edits and both were women. And I make that point because my editor was also a woman, but she was still able to write in my voice. The two female editors, they wrote in a feminine voice and just turned my logic into feminine feelings.

And you could, you could read it. it. It sounded like a woman writing something. And yet the woman who was my official editor, she knew how to write my voice. So I, I, that's when I woke up, when I read the comparisons given to me, where I was like, wow, okay, this is really important to be able to write your voice. And it's, it's, it's wild that you can take an adapt to that. Cause that's probably really key for writing for a lot of people. It's very key. Cause that's what a person wants when they write their book is they want it to

be them as if they were talking to whoever their audience is, whether it's their clients or in the case of us memoir for seniors, whether it's their grandchildren, I do a lot of those, whoever they're talking to, they want to talk to it as if they were them for the most part. Sometimes they want some of the imperfections removed, just fine. Yeah, sure. Yeah. I mean, they took out all the ums and ahs and the worst, I put all the commas in the

right wrong place. That's my gig. The editor was like, just, we threw we're through, we threw all that out. Cause that's just you. Yeah. I spent a lot of months in Toastmasters getting rid of the ums and ahs for the most part. Oh yeah.

Yeah. I still got them. That's why we used the script to remove those in the final edit of the show. Yeah. They only show up in the live. So I just go, I go right to it. What are some other aspects of, of features that you think you offer that maybe other ghost writers don't that make their experience with you work with you unique?

First of all, I have a lot of empathy for people. I understand people because I think so, because I've had a lot of dealings with people, even though I'm an introvert, believe it or not, I tend to get out and I photographed a lot of people and I've interfaced with them as a leader and as a tech person. So I've got this very wide background, plus I've published over 110 books. So I've got this wide background that most ghost writers don't have, especially in the area of tech. And I like military history and geopolitics. So that makes me ideal for those kinds of books too. So if you want to sprinkle in a little of tech. And I like military history and geopolitics.

So that makes me ideal for those kinds of books too. So if you want to sprinkle in a little of that in. That's one of the things I'm really good at is the leadership and the technical aspect. So if you wanted to book, one of my books was somebody who wanted to write about digital transformation, which is a very technical subject. And they wanted to write it for an audience of leaders.

Leaders don't want to hear about all the bits and bytes and how this works and stuff. They want to know, am I going to make money on this? And stuff like that. So what I had to do was translate from tech speak, geek speak, to leader speak. And that's something that a really good ghostwriter can do. That's essential. You have to translate. Leader speak. Leader speak or if you're writing a book for technicians, you

want to write in tech speak or engineer speak or woman speak. If you're writing a room, woman's group, uh, man speak, if you're writing a man's group, I mean, you got to speak the language. What about dog books? Are you able to write in dog speak? I just pictures, maybe pictures, maybe that would be a trip. I have no idea what it means. What, what if people made a book?

Here's an idea for a book. What if people made a book for dogs about dogs doing stuff? And so you basically there and read your dog, you'd be like, roo roo roo roo roo roo. And you don't know what they're saying, but clearly, you know, maybe the dogs are understanding completely. Yeah. Wow.

Maybe a little bit of riding hood shouldn't have gone to the bear's house. Maybe with their own leg, you know, maybe the dogs understand completely. Yeah. Wow. Little riding hood shouldn't have gone to the bear's house and maybe with their own link, you know, maybe, you know, maybe that or you know, the barking like a dog. If you go under a link, I think that's how it works. It's the same experience. If you buy a cyber truck, yes, yes. The cyber truck jokes never end. Yes, of course. Of course.

I've actually written, I've been writing a book for myself about a cat from the cat's point of view. The cat's point of view, really? Yeah. So the cats looking up at people and people are really, and they're, the people are strong, you know, and, but protectors. So it becomes interesting. It's a different point of view, just as a, as a way to write. I've also written several books that are from women's point of view.

And that's, that's, I think, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's protectors. So it becomes interesting. It's a different point of view, just as a way to write. I've also written several books that are from women's point of view. And that's, that's interesting. And you pointed out with the editors, trying to write a feminine book or something like that. Pete Slauson Yeah. So I'll pull the Jack Nicholson quote. How do you think like a, how do you think like a woman, Jack? I take away accountability and reason. That's a joke from the movie. Anyway, that's a, that's one of my favorite lines, but yeah, it's gotta be interesting to try and write from a woman's

point of view. I imagine very emotional, maybe you're emotion friendly or something. I don't know. It does have more emotion in it generally. And when that happens, I often consult with a woman to make sure that I got the right point of view, especially if it's fiction. Pete Slauson I've seen those around town. Pete Slauson Women? Pete Slauson Yeah, yeah. There's a few of them. Pete Slauson One or two.

Pete Slauson Yeah, yeah, yeah. Depends on where you go. And I think it's cool you can adapt to people's voices and help preserve them. And then of course, you got the leadership, author sort of thing. Let's see, why do you feel the stories are important, or the context, or how they're delivered and presented? Why do you feel it's important? When did you figure that out? It took me a little while.

My first books that I wrote were, because I was technical, were kind of technical geeky books. And they worked. In fact, the first book that I ghost wrote professionally, the guy turned it in. He wanted to get the notice of the CEO of his company. It was one of those really big Fortune 50 companies. He wound up not only getting the notice of the CEO, he got a forward from the CEO. Then he got a promotion.

Wow. And he got a promotion. Then he got a raise, got put in libraries and then he got, he went off and got venture cap and started his own company based on the book. Wow. And he's doing, but it was very, very geeky. It was very nerd, techno, techno advanced sort of stuff, you know? Yeah.

But that's really interesting. I've, we've had a few people on the show that I always assume they're like the CEO or president of the company and they're like, no, I just the, you know, they're down the line somewhere. And I'm like, okay. And I've often wondered that if they're using it as an advancement tool, that's pretty darn smart. It increases your value, it shows your wares.

And, you know, the one thing I totally agree with you on, I totally agree with you on everything else we've talked about. I'm not sure why I'm saying it that way, but I'm stalling for time clearly. And it's some sort of segue that I'm just kind of rolling through as I forgot the question and now I'm trying to figure out if I can find it again. But no, we talk about this on the show, sometimes in the green room a lot, it's really interesting how, you know, I did a lot of shit in life for most of my life. I did some things and hundreds of thousands of people followed me and you know,

we have millions of downloads on the show. You know, so people, a lot of people saw me doing shit. That's my point. And then I wrote a book and I put it out and people like, Oh, you're kind of smart there. Right? Yeah, that's what happens. I was like, where were you guys the rest of the time? 50 fucking years of doing shit. And you guys, now you guys figured I'm smart because I got a book, but it's, it's so interesting how much authority gives you and power it gives you. Like when you, you know, I used it to pick up chicks at the bar, hair and a book. Huh? You did like that works, but yeah, you, you sit in, you know, people just kind

of hold you in a different sort of stratosphere. Pete It raises you above everybody else. Pete It does. So, I can lord this around and more, and claim that I am morally superior to most people? Or is that just religion? Pete That's probably, probably something else, but you can certainly claim, at least you put yourself out there. Pete Dude, I'm gonna get my book and then I'm gonna be one of them king robes with a king chair there. Pete Slauson Dude, I'm gonna get my book and then I'm gonna be one of them king robes with a king chair and maybe a scepter, you know, to walk around

with and I'm just gonna lord around carrying my book. I'll probably do that throughout the house. Everyone who visits the house must worship the Almighty Chris. Why? Because he has a book. I need to see myself now. We got the crown and everything. And you're like, why are you walking around in a king's outfit and crown, like we're at Walmart. That looks weird. And I'm like, this is my book right here. It's on tour. Interesting. Yeah. Interesting.

Walmart's probably the most interesting place to take that, baby. I don't know. People at Walmart would be like, oh, great king. Whatever. The, what was the other question I had for you? Yeah. So it's interesting how it establishes authority. Why did it, was it risky to feel like moving from a safe job with Trader Joe's to becoming a solo entrepreneur? This is a big deal for people.

It's a, it's a huge jump. It was scary as hell. It was just, it was terrifying. Not as terrifying as when I got married, but it was terrifying. After, before, during. Yes. Good reply. Yes. It was, it was, because I'd never done it before. I'd never been, I'd never even done a gig before. So I was like, I'm going to do this and I'm going to move to Florida. So I'm gonna do this and I'm gonna move to Florida So I uprooted myself and I'm gonna have no friends out here and I don't know anybody in Florida is that weird state on the East Coast Yeah, eat your face off and the alligator. Yeah

By the way after the hurricane, I had two alligators on my porch and a bobcat in the tree Really? Yeah, that sounds like a book right there a story. I don't know. Yeah Two alligators and a bobcat in a tree. Welcome to Florida. I never really answered your, I'll answer this question first, but we've still got to go back to the stories. So I moved to Florida and it was a big change. First of all, Florida is a great state. I think we got a pretty good governor. He's still young and he's, it's probably too early for him to make a bigger run and succeed, but we'll see. So I like, I like our governor and I like, would you like it during the hurricane?

He had trucks out here. I mean, electricity was up within six hours. I mean, he had trucks on the road. He had supplies built up. He had all kinds of stuff that made it really nice. I'm sure he screwed up here and there. I mean, people do. He's a person.

Yeah. And I thank you politics out of all this stuff. I mean, I don't He's a person. Yeah. Yeah. And I thank you politics out of all this stuff. I mean, I don't care whether he's red or blue or purple. It's, it's, you know, he's, he's good at his job for the most part. Don't always agree with him. I don't need to, I don't need to agree with him all the time. We should always be critical over politicians. I'm more critical than ones I vote for. Oh yeah. I'm, I'm, I'm always like, whoever I vote for, I'm usually about 50% of the time going, okay, I like what you did there. And I never do anything to look like some sort of lemming follower because the cheerleader,

we're all, what do I always say? We're all the curators of democracy. So it's all of us to keep it up. I'm more concerned about the constitution in America than I am about individual governorships. We have governors on the show and congressmen, but to the non-toxic people that are nice. We don't do the toxic ones, but you know, I, in 50% of the time, I'm super critical.

I'll call them out and be like, I voted for you piece of, you know, whatever. And you're doing stupid shit. Now you're embarrassing me. I think we need more of that. There doesn't seem to be an embarrassment to some of the. Behavior that's going on in politics and in the shamefulness. And it used to be that our politicians kind of knew where that line was and operated with some sort of decency.

I'm not saying all politicians, but see, I think we need to get back to that because it seems like too much, you know, and then sports, my contact, you know, I'm a Raiders fan, but I'll knock the Raiders for all the stupid shit they do. You know, they'll, they, they over-penalize themselves by pulling shit and you know, they'll lose the game by seven points, but 300 yards and in penalties, you know, they don't do that so much anymore.

Like they used to fuse back, but, but I'm like, you lost the game in penalties. You know, if you could have, that was three touchdowns right there. You just do stupid stuff, but no, I think it's great that you can do that. And this Florida, does Florida you find make for a better place to write? Maybe weather, climate, you know, you can go out maybe in the environment more, or just, you know, you got wild shit happening, like two alligators and a, and a bobcat and a pear tree or whatever. Florida's, Florida's actually pretty calm.

At least in my area, there's not a lot of things happening, which is great for writing. I'm also down to that Miami. Yeah. I'm on the shores of the lake. So, you know, there's not a lot of things happening, which is great for writing. You go down to that Miami. Yeah, I'm on the shores of the lake. So, you know, there's nobody behind me, so forth. But when I came out here, some calmness there and stillness where you can hear your thoughts. There's some stillness. But when I came out here, it's an interesting adventure. So I was, I knew all these dancers and things. And one of them is an Indian and I'm probably a Sri Lankan.

I'm probably picturing the name, Barthentamom dancer. She, that's the one of the Indians who have the bells on their feet. Oh, yeah. So good. I do that on Fridays around here at the house. So she said, you're not going to Florida alone. You're not driving alone. I'm going to come with you.

So she hopped in the car and we drove across the country. Took about four days, met the truck here, helped me unpack, you know, all the usual things and then flew home. And then she calls me up and she says, I had a gig in Jamaica and I want to, I'm going to do a layover in Tampa. So tell you what, I'm going to come by and I'm going to Thanksgiving. I'm going to come by and I'm going to make some vegan Turkey and you're going to love it. And it's going to taste just like Turkey. So after she did it, it sounds like a trap after we ate it. First, my first question was, okay, how do you know it tastes just like a turkey? If you're a vegan, I didn't ask her that question.

Yeah. And my second thought was it doesn't taste like Turkey. Yeah, it wasn't bad. I've done the vegan-y thing. It kind of tastes, you know, if you close your eyes, maybe. If you close your eyes, it doesn't smell like Turkey is the thing. So it doesn't have that. Anyway, so this is what I mean about stories.

Stories are important because they engage people and they pull them in. You get stories. I'm sure when you're in your podcast, you probably notice that the people who are most boring are the ones who like, I do this and I do that and I'm selling this and blah, blah, blah. And you're like, come on, just shut up. Let's make this short. And then you get the ones who've got the stories kind of like I'm doing and you're engaged. A book's the same way. A book's the same way. You want to engage- It's actually in the show, NoteW show note writer that they get sent over.

They're like, bring your stories. And then they don't. So yeah, they're just, they're just people interested in selling whatever they've got or whatever. Yeah. Everybody has a story. Everybody has a bazillion stories. Yeah.

Even big brands have gotten good at telling stories. Yeah. Except when they're not, but yeah. Sometimes like boxed. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, there's the good, the bad and the ugly, I guess. That was a're not, but yeah, sometimes like, yeah, yeah. I mean, there's the good, the bad and the ugly, I guess. That was a great movie by the way. That was a great movie. It will always, it will always be one of the greatest movies of all time.

I am a movie buff. Are you a Kira Kurosawa fan? I don't know who that is. Oh, you're not a movie buff then. I'm sorry. I'm just teasing. So Akira Kurosawa, check him out. He started making films in Japan, pre-World War. He made some of the greatest movies of all time. Every director that's an American director, every great director has ripped him off, both in how he did cinematography. He basically wrote the book from whole cloth on how to do film. And you want to go watch his movies because every movie came from it. Mel Gibson, remember the movie Ransom where he tells them, nah, I'm not giving you your money. In fact, I'm going

to put a reward up and bounty for your thing. That was, I can't remember the name of it. I just saw it a few weeks ago in the theater. There's a whole mess of movies. They're all black and white, so they're beautifully shot. But he also, not only did he, out of whole cloth, you know, directing and film making and storytelling and characters, but he had a great cinematographer that he worked with. And they basically wrote the whole cloth on cinematography. You know, they, they were the ones who invented like the track trains that you would do and the scenes and how you'd shoot them and layers. And they just, they were just making shit up as they go along. Cause there

was nothing like that even during the war. So if you get a chance to check out Akira Karasawa, I mean, movies like star Wars, George Lucas will fully admit he grew up watching Akira Kawasaki movies as a kid, made him want to be a director. He ripped off Star Wars. People are going to hate me from the Star Wars thing, but he ripped off and he admits to this folks, there's video of it. So go watch it. Don't throw shit and don't write me.

But he actually admits that he ripped it off from the Akira Kawasaki movie, The Fortress, the Hidden Fortress, I believe it's called. And the funny thing is, is when you watch the movie, the hidden fortress, you'll be sitting there crapping a brick because you're like, this is Star Wars just set in samurai era. Even the characters, like the, what do they call it? The comedic relief characters, the R2D2 and the robots. There's two of those jokers in the movie. They're not robots. They're just these, you know, doofy sort of goofy guys that are the thing.

That's funny. There's the princess Leia, there's the Wookie. They're just different sort of thing. But like, literally when you watch it, you're just like, this is freaking Star Wars and it almost kind of on ends. Did he do seventh Samurai? Seventh Samurai. Yes, that was one. And I believe that's been remade. This is freaking Star Wars. I was kind of on ends. Did he do seven samurai? Seven samurai. Yes, that was one and I believe that's been remade. There's yes. There's the seven

remember the movie when you're growing up the seven most of the infamous seven of the Seven oh, I know what you're talking about the Magnificent Seven the Magnificent Seven. Yeah So the seven samurai believe it is the Akira kasawa movie, all these movies are just ripped off from, from, from, yeah. Yeah, yeah, borrowed. That's the right word. And, and all these directors, you know, Martin Scorsese, George Lucas, Peter Spielberg, you name it. They all, I want to, Martin Scorsese, they all grew up watching Akira Karasawa movies in the theaters when they were kids. And then some of the actors in the movies are incredible.

He uses a lot of the same actors for the stuff. So now this has become the movie show, folks, the Chris Walsh show. We're talking about storytelling though. And yeah, good movies tell stories and they tell them good. One thing I do want to write is on my bucket was to start, I want to start writing movie scripts, but that's a whole different ball game than writing a book. Yeah. It's, it's a very different format.

It's as different as writing music. Yeah. We have a lot of people on the show that their books end up in, in being written. I think we had the author of Bosch on and probably a few other people that I know a ton of them got optioned in Hollywood. You know, sometimes they buy the option and it just keeps getting rolled over or flipped and you know, they make more money off the options. They do the book by never having the film made. It's kind of funny, but yeah.

It is kind of funny. Yes. Screenwriting. But it makes it hard for me to write a movie, to watch a movie, especially these days because never having the film made. It's kind of funny, but yeah, it is kind of funny. Yes. But it makes it hard for me to write a movie, to watch a movie, especially these days, cause I'll watch the movie and like, Oh God, you know, also I know CGI and stuff. So it makes it even worse. Cause I'm like, Oh my God, they ruined the CGI there and the story. You know, that's, that's the interesting thing. You know, they do have to cut parts out of a movie to cut it down to two or three hours or whatever they do. But, you know, and sometimes they cut some of the great parts of the story. You know, what's that old adage? The book

is better or whatever. But do you, do you, do you have a problem like I do where you watch a lot of movies nowadays and you just kind of understand how good, bad and evil plots work. And within about five minutes you got the whole movie in the ending. Typically I can, I can know how the movie is going to end within the first five minutes. Yeah. And I'm probably 90% on spot. As long as they really change six cents. I knew how that was going to end. It was pretty obvious, you know, I got about five minutes before the kids said it. Yeah. I got it.

Within five, within a few minutes after the movie started, I was like, ah, yeah, gotcha. Serious. Wow. That's pretty good. That movie got me. Yeah. Yeah. Those them night Shalaman movies, the early ones were definitely surprised for me, but I like movies like that. I don't want to see, I don't want to see it coming. I want, you know, I want to revel in the story. And I want a good story. I don't, I don't care if I see it coming or not. Cause I know all the plots. I want to see,

I want a good story with good characters and when we're in a movie, of course, good CGI and good acting and all that kind of stuff. And nobody beats the actors of old with the exception of maybe Keanu Reeves and a couple of others. Keanu Reeves is on my, I want to meet him just to say hi. I've met the guy who played Wolverine, whatever his name is. Yeah. For about five seconds.

I've met the undertaker from WWE for another three seconds, but I met him. He's tall. Yeah. He better be for all the slapping around. They do in those shows. Got a picture of him in the air flying. Yeah. I, those guys, man, I don't know.

And they must have a lot of surgeries and they do. Oh, we got a story here. I, one of my, okay. When we, my wife, for Mary, before she passed away, we, we basically didn't have a lot in common. We got married too fast. One thing you're married for how long though? 12 and a half years.

You made it last. Yep. Good for you. Yep. So one thing that we found that we had in common, just accidentally was we liked WWE wrestling, believe it or not. So she, she'd be screaming and yelling and stuff, standing on the couch. And, uh, one wrestler that I like is Mick Foley. He plays mankind. Uh, really nice guy. He's become a, he's since his wrestling career, he's become an author's best seller 10, 10 years ago. And one wrestler that I like is Mick Foley. He plays mankind.

Really nice guy. He's become a, since his wrestling career, he's become an author's best seller, 10, I think 10 books and a comedian. So in 2020, he was scheduled to come to Tampa and give one of his comedy shows. I had a VIP seat, front row center that I was gonna go meet.

Finally, Mick Foley, shake his hand, say hi, hopefully get him down to the table, talk to him for a few minutes, blah, blah, blah. What happened in early 2020? Oh, COVID that stupid thing. They canceled the all of his shows. Yeah. I was like, did you do this? I've been waiting my whole life and he hasn't come back in the area yet.

Maybe he'll watch this show and he'll come back. Maybe we'll have to find out if he's the thing. What we'll do is we'll have him on the show and you on the show and you guys can meet on the show. I would like to do that. I really would be like set it up. Yeah, I'll see what I can do. So as we go out, anything more we want to tease out about the work that you do for people,

how they can reach out to you, how they can onboard, how they can find out more, your dot coms, all that stuff as we wrap up. Pete Slauson One thing I want to say is what really differentiates me from other ghost writers is that I work very hard to get to the core of your story, put that in, and stories, put that into the book, and get your emotions and the reason for being and work collaboratively. A lot of ghost writers, and not all of them, there are others who do this too. They'll start from, do all the interviews and then they'll write the book and then you'll get

the book at the end. I don't like doing that because I hate the revisions. I want to write it as we go and make sure you're in agreement as we go and not have you look at the end and go, ooh, this isn't what I wanted. So I write it with you. We write it together. It's not a lot of time. And I have the background, a deep background in tech and leadership and a lot of other things as you can tell on this show. So that makes it makes me ideal to write a book on a variety of subjects.

I do use discretion. As you said at the top of the show, I think, I think it was in the show that you don't like toxic guests, toxic governors, whatever. I look very hard and I tell my clients this, we're during an initial interview, we're sizing each other up. And if I'm not right for you or you're not right for me, we need to tell each other now. And we need to keep it non-toxic and be adults in the room. That's very important to be the adult in the room. And so that's what I wanted to say about that.

You can find me at thewritingking.com. So T-H-E writingking.com. And there's lots of forms there to get hold of me and you can set an appointment and talk to me. You can also go to contact.theridinking.com. So that's the word contact, C-O-N-T-A-C-T dot writing, the writingking.com. And that'll bring you to a contact form. And then from there you can schedule something and talk.

I give a free hour for people to talk. And I also have a book discovery intensive where if you're not sure what you want to write about, we'll spend a few hours talking. That's on a reduced price now. It's actually having a 25% of his normal price. Well, grab it folks while you can. Grab it, come on. And of course buy my book on Amazon and leave a good review. Yeah, leave a good review on Amazon. The worst ones are the people, you know, never read the book. Yes. Yes. And this was a great interview. Thank you. Thank you. And it was, you were a great

interviewee. It was wonderful to have you, although we kind of turned into the movie show for there for a second, but definitely check out Akira Kurosawa. I, I will love his movies. They, the storytelling that he does in them, you know, and actually there's a lot of great Korean. A lot of people don't realize that the Japanese and the Korean movie makers and producers over there, they make really great film that we copy and rip off. You know, Kill Bill was a lot of the aspects of it were ripped off from Akira Kurosawa and other Japanese movies. There was the Dupati, the original that you can watch of that, that was not stolen from,

but lifted from, is much better than the Departed. And the Departed is amazing. It's got great actors, Jack Nicholson, Improv, a bunch of scenes, but the original is better. Old boy, the revenge series. If you haven't checked that out of the original old boy, not the one they made here in America, you want to walk. Original is beautiful. The new one is watchable. So is me, right? So is me, Drain.

The I've been finding Norwegian and Finnish movies are actually pretty good too. Oh really? I should check into those. If you have any directors or movies you think I should check out, send them over. I'm a purist on movies. We got to sit in the dark. You got to shut the fuck up. Everybody's got to, you get a pee break, but that's about it. There's no turn off the damn phones while we're watching the movies. Watching the movie, doing nice questions. Cause if you watch the fucking movie and you have a brain, you'll understand what's going

on. But if you're busy asking questions, you can't figure out what's going on. And if you're going to do that, go watch it on TV and leave me alone. I'm enjoying the movie. Exactly. I'll just throw them out of my house. That's what I'm doing. No, I love watching movies.

In fact, I love watching old movies in theaters. There's doing a lot of them. Like they brought the Godfather back. They remastered it. They released it in theaters. I just watched one of the Kira Kurosawa movies, the one that referenced the ransom one. And I can't remember what it, Kira Kurosawa movies, but he is, I mean, if you, if you're a film buff, you got to know his work because he is the greatest probably director.

I'll check him out. Of all times when it comes down to it. I probably have, I just don't know the name. You might. There's Seven Samurai, Rashima, Yo-Himbo, Dreams, High and Low, that's the one where there's the ransom one, there's the Throne of Blood. I mean, he just, spectacular things. And in his, I don't know how much of his effect it was, but the cinematography that he uses. There's all sorts of history first making cinematography that they used. And what was crazy was Japan was really struggling for resources during the war. They kind of forced them to be a war film, get people motivated to go to war. And

he didn't have a lot of resources, you know, because they were scrambling for, you know, everything, you know, plastics and so getting film to film on was hard enough as it was, but just extraordinary things. So I encourage everybody to go check them out. But yeah, I mean, if you go watch the hidden fortress and then you've watched Star Wars, you'll just be sitting there and just going, this is Star Wars down to almost the exact fricking lines about life savers. And it's set in Samurai or instead of, you know, 2050 or whatever in the future or something. So it's great.

We've told us a great stories on here, Richard. Thank you for coming to show. We really appreciate it. My pleasure. Thank you. And thanks for tuning in. Go to goodreads.com, Fortress, Chris Foss, order up his books wherever fine books are sold, the ghost writing advantage, everything you need to know about ghost writing your book and make sure you hire a real person to do the ghost writing. I hired Casper the friendly ghost and he still hasn't done anything with it. So I don't know what that's about. Anyway, guys, thanks for tuning in. Be good to each other.

Stay safe. We'll see you next time. That should have us out. Great show, man. We're going to be back. We're going to be back. We're going to be back. We're going to be back.

We're going to be back.