The Oaklea Press Inc.
Publishing Books Since 1995
If you have a story to tell, you have come to the right place. I'll help you get it down on paper, I'll publish it, and you will become the one who wrote the book.a who wrote the book.
I’m a former principal and the Client Plans & Strategy Director of the internationally renowned ad firm, The Martin Agency, that created the GEICO Gecko among other wildly successful advertising and marketing campaigns. I’ve written and I've ghostwritten dozens of books, including one for the governor of a state, three for clinical psychologists, two for CEOs of Fortune 500 companies, and six for business management consultants. In the process, I’ve won half a dozen national awards.
I’ll work one on one with you to flesh out, develop and write your story or how-to book. Then I’ll publish it, pay you a generous royalty on sales, and it won’t cost you the arm and a leg you’d likely pay a ghostwriting and publishing cookie-cutter factory that will likely assign a wet-behind-the-ears novice writer to work with you.
Who am I? I’m Stephen Hawley Martin. Google my full name or ask AI to tell you about me, and you will find that I’m well known in the book writing and publishing business. I’ve written half a dozen business management books under my own name as well as five novels and a plethora of self help and nonfiction books. If we agree to work together, we will meet at least once a week by Zoom. I’ll ask questions, you talk, I listen, record, and write. Once we have a manuscript we both agree does a great job of communicating what you want to say, I will design the book, create a cover, and with your approval, I will publish your book.
If your book has anything to do with business leadership, management or marketing, I can bring a great deal to the table. Here, for example, are six business books I’ve written under my own name:
Pricing & Promotion
What do I charge for my services? For a book of up to 70,000 words, I charge $30,000 to be paid over four months at $7,500 a month, which is usually how long it takes from our initial working session to publication. There are no hidden fees and there is no fee for designing and publishing your book. The Oaklea Press will also promote your book to readers interested in the genre of book that's been created. For example, we will have Amazon make the Kindle edition free for 24 hours and promote the opportunity to acquire a free copy to an email list of more than 200,000 readers that have professed an interest in the type of book that's been created. The objective will be to generate positive word of mouth. We will also send galley proofs of the book accompanied by a press release to media outlets ought to be interested in a new book such as yours.
Frequently asked questions about working with me
to bring your book to market
Please tell me about your ghostwriting process.
Following an exploratory Zoom call, if I feel I can work with an author and that the book he or she has in mind has potential, I will prepare and give my potential client a “Letter of Understanding” that spells out the details of our arrangement. Once we decide to move ahead, we will meet via Zoom, if not in person, for a detailed discussion of his or her vision of the book to be created and the subject matter to be included. If the author has made notes or started a draft, this will be shared with me. I will organize the information into a chapter outline and email it to my client for his or her input. Once we agree on the outline, we will meet at least once a week for an hour or more and work through it, usually one chapter at a time. I record these sessions, ask questions, take notes, and within a few days I will have completed a draft of the chapter that I will send to the author to edit or comment upon. We will go back and forth like this until we have a manuscript with which we both are pleased. At that point, assuming the author would like The Oaklea Press to publish the manuscript, I will at no additional cost design the book’s interior, create two or three covers from which the author can choose, and publish the book on Amazon, the Barnes & Noble online marketplace, and via IngramSpark, the latter of which will make the book available to bricks and mortar stores and chains and other online retailers.
What do you charge for ghostwriting a book?
For a book of up to 70,000 words, which will make a book of between 200 and 300 pages, I charge $30,000 to be paid at the rate of $7,500 a month over four months, which is usually how long the project will take from start to publication. For longer books, I charge proportionally more. I’ve found that other experienced ghostwriters charge anywhere from $40,000 to $75,000 or more, which makes my fee more than highly competitive. I am able to do this because I’m counting on making a profit on sales of the book through The Oaklea Press once it is published.
What if I have a contract from a large publishing company to publish my book?
If the book is going to be published by a large publishing house, we may work out a deal whereby you share a an agreed-upon percentage of the advance and the royalties with me, in which case my fee would be covered by the publisher, and it won’t cost you anything out-of-pocket.
Other than that you charge a low fee compared to other award-winning authors, why should I hire you?
The number one reason to hire me is that you can be sure that I will produce a book you will be proud of. As you apparently know, I’m an award-winning author with a track record of success. I’m the world’s only three-time winner of the Writers Digest Book Award, having won twice for fiction and once for nonfiction. I have also won First Prize for Visionary Fiction from Independent Publisher, First Prize for Nonfiction from USA Book News, and a Bronze Medal for Visionary Fiction from Readers’ Choice Book Reviews. But my writing ability isn’t the only thing that sets me apart. You may be able to find another good writer or editor to work with you, particularly if you are willing to pay top dollar, but my other leg up is that I’m the editor and publisher of a successful and established book publishing company—not a vanity press. I’m always on the lookout for books to publish that Oaklea can profit from and will not accept your project unless I believe your book idea has the potential to become a commercial success. This is essential because once I’m finished working to make your book all that it can be, The Oaklea Press will publish it, and then you will receive royalties on sales at the same or higher percentage that an author with a top publishing house would receive.
You say Oaklea is a legitimate publisher and not a vanity press. What is the difference?
A vanity press will charge you to publish your work, whereas Oaklea Press will not charge you to publish it. I can guarantee that your book will be available on Amazon and at Barnes & Noble online and that it will be available to every bricks and mortar chain and bookstore as well as to every online retailer.
Wouldn’t I be better off to self publish?
It’s fairly easy nowadays to self publish, but you will likely have to pay someone to design the book’s interior and the cover and to create the properly formatted computer files that will be required. This can cost several thousand dollars, which raises the question, why spend money to self publish if Oaklea Press will publish your work at no charge and pay you a royalty that meets or exceeds industry standards?
How long does the ghostwriting process take?
The ghostwriting projects I undertake usually are completed within three to six months with the average being about four months.
What kinds of books do you typically ghostwrite?
I have ghostwritten dozens of books, including one for the governor of a state, three for clinical psychologists, two for CEOs of Fortune 500 companies, and six for business management consultants. The books written for the governor and those for CEOs were memoirs that read very much like novels. I typically work out a plot line that resembles the classic “Hero’s Journey,” which is the underlying plot skeleton of most successful novels and films. Books I’ve written for business consultants typically cite success stories and case histories that illustrate the efficacy of systems, processes, techniques that set apart the authors’ firms. Those for clinical psychologists share insights and case histories concerning mental issues about which the authors have particular expertise. Once, I worked with a retired Harvard Medical School professor whose first language was not English to write an historical novel that was based on events that actually took place.
