How to be a ghostwriter, with Dan Gerstein
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Grammar Girl here. I'm Mignon Fogarty, and today I am here with Dan Gerstein, founder of Gotham Ghostwriters, which is an agency that matches ghostwriters with projects, people who need ghostwriters. Dan has been a high-level, high-level speechwriter and a writing and communications professional for more than 30 years. He has a degree from Harvard and has taught courses in the NYU Master's Program in PR and corporate communications. Dan, welcome to the Grammar Girl podcast.

Thank you for having me, Mignon. I'm a big fan of yours. Oh, thanks. Yeah, well, you know, when I heard about your work, I was so excited because it seems like a type of job that writers could get that they maybe haven't thought of. So, you know, can you first explain sort of what kind of projects are available for gross writers? Sure. You know, just to provide some context here.

you know, when we think of ghostwriter, right, we think of someone who is anonymous, who writes for someone else. And it's really become an umbrella term for all kinds of collaborative writing, right? So there's a traditional book ghostwriter, but speechwriters kind of fall under that umbrella of a ghostwriter because they're working with a principal to help them refine their story and express it in a way that's really compelling. With the rise of brand publishing and

LinkedIn thought leadership. There's so many people who are now putting content out in the world that either don't have the time or the talent to do it themselves. And they are hiring experienced writers to help them do this. So the field is really exploding and the demand is exploding. And

It's coinciding with the decline in many ways, the disintegration of traditional media and journalism. And so you have all of this talent that's kind of migrating from traditional journalism roles and freelance journalism now to where they're doing writing for higher work. And, you know, we've had a front row seat on this transformation over the last 10, 15 years.

And I think it's overall a really great thing for writers because there's so much more work available for you. There's a diversity of demand and it pays very, very well. You know, we'll talk about this a little bit later, but we just released the results of the first ever podcast.

compensation survey for book ghostwriters. And a lot of people were earning well into the six figures from ghostwriting books. Yeah, that is great news, I'm sure, to a lot of writers. You know, and I think I do think of it primarily as book work. But, you know, you're describing all this other stuff. What would you say the mix is these days sort of percentage wise?

I would say there's a lot of growth in both sides of the equation, but I would say, you know, in terms of pure volume, it's on the thought leadership and business content side. And again, some of this work is done by traditional communications firms. Some of it's done by boutique editorial services firms, and some of it is done by independent freelance writers.

Yeah, that's what I was wondering is who's doing the hiring? Like, is it usually the person who needs a ghostwriter who is hiring an individual? Or is it more like agencies that are hiring people? It really is a mix. And a lot of it depends on who the principal is, you know, whose name is going to be going on the content. In some cases, it's, you know, a principal and a writer partnership. But a lot of times people are writing for brands or for companies or organizations in an institutional voice.

And that is, you know, it's still writing for hire and we still kind of consider ghostwriting, but it's a different format and often requires a different skill set and experience. You know, a lot of this is like, you know, writing white papers. And again, it's under no one's name. It's being released by, you know, a new tech startup, right, that wants to kind of show off its expertise.

More often than not, they don't have someone on their team who's capable of doing this. So they'll either go to their PR firm, that's usually the default or communications firm, or they'll leverage their relationships to find an independent writer who can do this kind of work.

That's so interesting. I mean, before I was Grammar Grill, I did tech writing for biotech companies. And, you know, I wrote white papers and marketing papers and, you know, even a couple of research papers. But I never thought of that as ghostwriting. I thought of it as marketing writing. So that's an interesting distinction that it's now falling under that group.

Yeah. So let's, you know, I put out questions on social media for my followers that they might have about ghostwriting. And before we get to the compensation stuff, which I'm sure in process, which I'm sure people will be really interested in, people did wonder, what is the motivation of people who are writing ghostwriters? And I think they were thinking more, you know, along the book lines. Is it someone who, you know,

It can't write or doesn't have the time. Like what are sort of the deeper level reasons that they're hiring someone to write their work for them as some people might think of it?

Sure. I would say that kind of fall into a few main buckets, right? So there are people in the public eye who have a story to tell, they have ideas to share, they want to promote their work, their company, they want to establish themselves as a thought leader, a lot of different motivations for putting a book out into the world. And for the most part, these are people who don't have the time or the ability to write a full book. And they want to leverage the expertise and the skills to

of an experienced ghostwriter to help them put out the best version of their voice into the world. But then there are certain people who, you know, may be capable writers, but don't have the time or haven't really written a full book, right? And maybe they're a little intimidated by the process. So they want to bring on someone who's more of a collaborator than a pure ghostwriter. And in our world, those two terms are kind of used interchangeably. And that's okay. But for, you know, I think,

precision purposes, a collaborator is more someone who is sharing the work of the creation of the text with the author. And oftentimes it's a role where the author may be writing some of the chapters or they may be writing the majority of the chapters, but the collaborator is working them on the front end with conceptualization of the book, coming up with the hook. If they're trying to sell it to a traditional publisher, really doing the heavy lifting on the proposal, using their expertise and

then advising the author through the process and actually maybe even look, function a little bit more like a coach. And then on the backend, you know, refining the text that's being produced, right? But the best way to think about it, there's a spectrum of,

of roles that a ghostwriter or collaborator is playing. And it really just depends on what the author's abilities and needs and priorities are. And that's one of the reasons we set up our agency the way we did, which is we have the really diverse network of writing and editing specialists and that we can pair our clients with someone who has the real right mix of skills and experience to

tied to what the authors need. So rather than forcing square peg round hole saying, you know, you have to work with a ghostwriter, we meet the author where there is and really trying to help them succeed in putting out the best version of their book.

Yeah, I feel like it might be hard because the it is so different for each different client. But, you know, what is the typical process? You know, how much work is done up front? You know, just getting to know each other before you even start working? Like, what does it look like to work on a ghostwriting project?

Yeah, I would say there are, you know, different formulas that people use. So there's not necessarily one, you know, one size fits all approach. But there are kind of certain best practices that we advise people to follow and the top ghostwriters we work with will use. So, you know, a big part of it is earning the trust of

and the confidence of the author, right? Because, you know, we like to joke, it's kind of like a shotgun marriage. And you're in this intimate relationship, and then there's not a baby at the end of it, there's a book. And usually that's a nine-month incubation process. It can be a little longer, but that's a pretty common timeframe. And the author really has to have a high level of trust and comfort in their writing partner because they're telling very specific

you know, intimate details of their life and their work. They're sharing proprietary professional information. They're getting vulnerable with this person. They may even, you know, sensitive information that for the purposes of writing the book, that may not make it into the book, but will inform the writing partner's work. And so, you know, there's a real premium on investing some time up front and spending time and spending time together, talking about

the not just the substance of the book, but the process for creating it so that both sides are on the same page and

We often recommend, and again, not everyone does this, but I think it's a pretty common first step is to develop a work plan on paper, right? That lays out a schedule so that there's a blueprint for the creation of the book, but also provides clarity about who's going to do what, what the author's responsibilities are, what the ghostwriter's responsibilities are, so that if you get bogged down a little bit, you always have this, you know, it's almost like a mini contract where you can sort of say, look, this is what we worked out.

If there's an issue, let's revisit it. But this is, you know, this is our blueprint for the construction. And then more often than not, there's going to be, you know, a series of interviews where the collaborator is going to extract information and stories from the author. They're going to talk through the structure of the book.

And then a lot of it in terms of the next steps depends on the publishing path of the author. If the author's dead set on trying to get a traditional publisher and sell their book, the very first step will be creating a proposal. And, you know, that's kind of a defined product.

in traditional publishing circles. And then once the proposal is done, you know, there'll be an agent involved. They'll try and sell it to a publisher. Once there is a deal in place, then they'll work on, you know, constructing the full manuscript.

But the work is very similar. It's just that it's kind of broken up into two phases. However, if the author is going to bypass traditional publishing and do, you know, work with a premium hybrid publisher or do more indie DIY self-publishing, then there's not the need for that proposal. And you'll get to work doing the full manuscript.

The reality is, though, whether there's actual proposal or not, the work that goes into doing the proposal is going to be very similar in the sense of, you know, you're kind of coming up with a concept. You want to come up with an outline, the narrative structure of the book, and then you're going to set about writing the chapters.

Does the writer typically get paid for that upfront work or do they have to wait and see if the proposal gets accepted if it's a traditional route? Very good question. I would say pre-digital era that there was a lot of pressure on collaborators to work on spec on the proposal. Right. And then if the book sells, then they would get paid and then, you know, they get some kind of split of the advance and potentially some royalties.

In recent years, as the demand for ghostwriters has risen, there's more balance and equity in terms of the negotiating power of ghostwriters. Most

professional ghostwriters who are working on traditionally published books insist on getting paid up front for the proposal. And a very common structure is you get half of your fee up front, right, to lock in your time, and then half upon completion. And that creates a balance between the author and the ghostwriter because the ghostwriter is getting some compensation up front to protect against, you know, the project falling apart or the author losing interest, whatever, because there's an opportunity cost to committing to working on the project.

But then the author is protected on the back end because the ghostwriter has a very strong incentive to do good work on time and produce a product that the agent could sell because half of their fee is dependent on the author accepting the proposal. You mentioned projects falling apart. A listener named Max said he had heard of ghostwriters being hired to sort of come in and save money.

failing project? Is that a type of work that's widely available? Widely available? No, but it does happen. Probably the most high profile example of that was on Britney Spears' book. This was widely reported in publishing circles that there ended up being three collaborators on the project. And... All sequentially or at the same time? Sequentially. Yeah. And, you know,

Without being privy to all the details, it's hard to tell how much of that was

any of the individual collaborators' fault or the, you know, the quality of their work versus working with, you know, a mercurial, challenging author. But, you know, that is definitely one example where, you know, there had to be multiple writers. And, you know, I would say that, you know, there's kind of a comparable or parallel situation in the movie world where, like, there's a script that

But the producer is not super happy with it. And they'll bring in what's called a punch up writer. And that writer comes in and kind of revises it and gets it to the next level. And that occasionally happens with ghostwritten books as well. Yeah. Yeah. I want to highlight the terminology because I was getting a little bit confused. So the author is the person whose book whose name is on the cover and the collaborator or the writer is the ghostwriter. Is that right? That's correct.

That's exactly right. Okay. And we have to be very careful because a lot of the times, you know, the clients who are coming to us will refer to the ghostwriter as an author. And we have to say, we have to make sure we're all on the same page here. You are the author. You're hiring a writing partner to work with you. Yeah, I can see how that can get confusing. Are your ulcerative colitis symptoms proving difficult to manage?

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Thinking about the process too, so Anne asked if the ghostwriter does fact checking. And I was wondering if a ghostwriter might, you know, interview other people besides the author, you know, maybe family members, if it's a personal story or something like that.

Yeah, there is kind of a range of responsibilities that a collaborator can have. And it really just depends on the nature of the book, the subject matter, the genre, as well as, again, how it's going to be published. Right. So if we're dealing with a very prominent public figure who's going to say things that might upset people, there will be fact checking. Sometimes they'll hire an independent researcher.

to do that. Sometimes the main responsibility falls to the publisher to do the fact checking after the ghostwriter turns in the manuscript. But on smaller scale projects, that might be part of the remit of the ghostwriter is that in addition to being the lead writing partner on the book, you're going to be responsible for checking the facts. The higher you go up in the pay

the pay grade and the stakes of the book, it's more likely that they'll bring on an independent researcher slash fact checker to handle that work. As terms of interviews, yes, there again, that's something to be negotiated up front. But in terms of like, you know, if it's a family history or corporate history, the writer will often be tasked with doing several rounds of interviews with stakeholders in the company, other family members to construct the narrative and

and have different, weave different voices in, even if there's a name author on the book. And then the unparalleled would be in a business book where someone wants to be a synthesizer of trends rather than just, you know, telling their own story, right? They want to draw on the expertise of others.

The ghostwriter will then come up with a list of other experts to talk with. They will schedule interviews. The ghostwriter will record those and then work with the author in terms of how to integrate those voices into the book. Yeah. And as someone who has written a bunch of my own books, when you finish the manuscript, you're not even close to finished with the project. So when it comes to copy editing and proofing galleys and marketing

jacket copy for the book and all of that, is it typically the ghostwriter who does all that work after the manuscript is finished? Or is it the author typically? A lot of the times it's the ghostwriter. But again, the workload of the ghostwriter after you turn in the manuscript...

will vary depending again on how it's published. If you're working with a major trade publisher, they're going to do the copyediting, they're going to do probably a lot of the fact checking. And the ghostwriter at that point probably becomes the project manager of the completion of the text.

And, you know, they'll check in with the author when they need to, but they're basically delegating to the ghostwriter to kind of oversee those last final tune-ups to the text. If you're working with a, you know, hybrid publisher, in particular, if you're doing indie self-publishing, then it really will fall to the ghostwriter to do a lot of that work.

Maybe not the copy editing, but, you know, again, finalizing the text and overseeing that. Yeah. Well, so let's talk about the compensation because I'm sure it's different depending on the scope of the project. Yeah. You know, so we've brokered, you know, I want to say close to a thousand collaborations over the last 10 years or so for, you know, a range of, you know, full book ghostwriting, proposal writing, writing.

developmental editing, you know, the full spectrum of work that working ghostwriters and professional book editors do. And what we've observed from that is that there is a lot of variation for, you know, the same work, two different writers will charge, you know, maybe 50% more than, you know, two other writers. And because it is, you know, negotiated in

secretly, right? There's no public, really public data available about individual book projects.

There's not like, you know, information in the marketplace. Authors really don't have an idea. So it's not standardized at all. And a lot of it depends on what the individual ghostwriter feels comfortable charging with asking for, right? Their level of confidence. But, you know, what we have told our clients in the past, you know, there's sort of a three buckets thing.

or tiers to think about, right? So there's the basic, you know, competent professional ghostwriter on a simple business book or a simple memoir. You know, you should expect to pay between anywhere from $25,000 to $50,000, right? And then if you want to work with a writer who's worked on multiple books that have been published by major trade publishers, has a certain level of accomplishment, maybe has a specialized skill set,

Then, you know, you're looking at more in the 60 to 100 thousand dollar range. And then for the elite writers who are working on really high stakes projects or very sophisticated, complex books and where it's going to either take a lot of their time or, you know, they're going to be asked to do what we talked about before interviews where the workload will be substantially different.

then you're looking at anywhere from $100,000 to $300,000. There are a few select projects that are even more in the $400,000, $500,000 range that we broker, but those are outliers. Yeah, wow. And on those high-end projects, do you find that the writer is typically focused on just that project for the whole time that it's going on, or are they still maybe juggling two or three projects? It depends on the writer. Some are more comfortable juggling than others, but, you know,

if you're getting paid $250,000 to work on a high stakes business book and there's a, you know, there's a deadline in the publishing agreement that you have to meet, um,

That's going to be your primary responsibility for the most part. It may be that like we discussed before, there's a prior book that you're working on that's in the post-production process. You have limited demands on your time. Or you may be talking to a new author and kind of like helping them think through the conception of the book and a proposal. But the demands on your time aren't that great. Chances are you're not juggling two things.

major ghostwriting assignments once you're getting to that level, you know, unless you are, you know, an insomniac and you sleep three hours a night. And what is the typical career path that takes someone to ghostwriting? Who do you find makes a good ghostwriter? Let me answer the second question first. I think the people who are

best suited for the work, you know, in terms of their makeup, it has to be people who are naturally curious, right? They like learning new things. They like meeting new people. They like trying to, you know, crack the code of a complicated story. And then secondly, they've reached a point in their journey as a writer where they don't have the...

where it has to be written my way. And then third, and they have to be able to sublimate their ego because there may be at certain points where you know the right way to tell the story is to take the left turn, but the author is saying, no, I want to go right. Because at the end of the day, it's their story and they're paying you. And even though it's your job to help them produce the best version of their voice in their book, at the end of the day, you

You have a boss of one and you have to respect wishes. But that leads to kind of like the fourth characteristic, which is

great diplomatic skills, right? And you have the ability to persuade the author you're working with to maybe go deeper, say things that are not willing to say, but also convince them that the path that you think is the right way is in their best interest, right? And then, you know, fifth, I would say that you have to kind of have

a thick skin and recognize that the relationship, because it's so intimate, there are going to be ups and downs, just like a marriage. And you have to be prepared for that emotionally, that there are times it's going to be a little bit of a roller coaster. The author is going to blow hot and cold. They may get distracted by other things, and you can't take that personally. How does one get this kind of work? Is it typically through personal connections, or are there other ways to sort of get these jobs? Yeah.

Well, we actually launched a professional development course last fall called Ghostmasters, which was designed to kind of help people both break into ghostwriting and then, you know, thrive ghostwriting.

in the profession. And the first course that we launched was, you know, focused on how do you launch and grow a ghostwriting practice. And it was primarily targeted at this universe of journalists that are, you know, pivoting either because they've been laid off or, you know, they could become frustrated with what the industry has become. And they're looking to maximize the

their skills and their potential income by pivoting into ghostwriting. And so I would say that's definitely a big source of new entrants in the field is people who've gotten paid to tell high level stories, but from a journalistic standpoint, and then they recognize that they have the ability to be a successful ghostwriter because a lot of what they've done is

extracted information and told stories about other people, right? And it's just now kind of doing it in a different relationship where it's not your name on the article, you're helping out someone else tell their story under their name. But then there's a lot of people who, like me, come at us speech writing, right? Speech writing is, you know, a form of ghostwriting. And you learn a lot of the most important skills and develop certain characteristics that are aligned with succeeding in book ghostwriting. So it's an easy transition over time

And a lot of times, you know, you see this great example is from my political days. John McCain's chief speechwriter was a guy named Mark Salter was also ended up being his legislative director. Terrific guy. Brilliant writer. McCain. He was McCain's alter ego. So when it came time to write McCain for to write his books, Mark became his collaborator. And that was, you know.

amazing relationship that spanned several books. Yeah, this leads to like three different questions I had. So let's talk about the secretly part. So you mentioned earlier that payment structure is often hard for people who are hiring ghostwriters to know because it's sort of secret. But, you know, from an

writer's perspective, like their name is often secret. It has been. My understanding is that it's becoming more common to acknowledge your ghostwriter. Yes. A listener named Bob, you know, asked questions about the ethical considerations of ghostwriting and speechwriting. You know, he said he doesn't like knowing that his politicians, none of them write their own speeches. You know, he wants to know what they think and have to say. And

He says, as a writer, you know, you're told all through school that, you know, plagiarism is bad and you shouldn't take credit for other people's words. So how do you sort of square that with the concept of ghostwriting where the author is, the writer is often hidden from the public? Yeah.

I would say this is one of the most misunderstood parts of ghostwriting. And one of the reasons why there was a stigma around it for such a long time, which is, you know, over the last 20 years is almost completely disappeared. And it shows a fundamental lack of understanding about storytelling. Right. From the beginning of time, storytelling has been collaborative. Right. Before there was the printing press, before there were even writing instruments, what was the form of storytelling? It was oral storytelling. Right.

Okay. And a lot of times those stories were constructed by a group. They were told communally. And how was the Bible written? The Bible was written by multiple authors throughout. And this goes on and on and on. It really is this kind of modern, very modern post-enlightenment construct of the author as auteur, right? It's an outlier, not just in the creation of books, but in all other forms of storytelling, you know, music, a

Often multiple writers, sometimes even ghostwriters in construction songs. You go on television, there's a writer's room, right? There might be a lead writer, there's a showrunner, but then there's multiple writers. And then in some cases, like we discussed, there's punch-up writers get brought in who don't get credit. So...

That goes to show that this idea that someone who is helping another person tell their story is somehow unethical is frankly ridiculous. The unethical part is when an author who worked with a collaborator or a ghostwriter says, I wrote the book all on myself.

Right. Because that's a lie. Then you are misleading your audience. Right. Aside from that, if we somehow thought that like the work that ghostwriters do is unethical, there wouldn't be any editors because throughout publishing history. Right. A lot of editors.

worked as book doctors, really, because some of the manuscripts that got turned in were ridiculously long, convoluted, and the editor wasn't just purely an editor. They helped rewrite the manuscript. They weren't credited anywhere as a co-author.

They contributed to the success of the book. Again, I think the key thing is just understanding that at the end of the day, if the author's name's on the book, it's their book. It's their words. They're accountable for it. And there is absolutely nothing wrong with relying on the skills of a professional to help them tell that story in a way that's really compelling, engaging, and enlightening for the audience. Yeah.

Yeah. And I noticed that I saw that the Society of Authors has called for all writers involved to be acknowledged. And the ghostwriter usually is mentioned in the acknowledgements. Isn't that true? That is true. That is true. I would also say, though, that the trend line, though, is not just the stigma fading away, but more and more authors, particularly if they're, you know, under, say, 45 or 50 years old, have no problem acknowledging they worked with a professional writer. Okay.

Prince Harry did it, right? Yeah. And, you know, Prince Harry's ghostwriter is a very well-known writer who got publicly credited. You know, Demi Moore's book, she actually did press interviews with Ariel Levy, who is, you know, again, another accomplished author and writer in her own right.

And you're seeing this. We're seeing this in our practice that more and more authors are just like they have no problem acknowledging they work with the writer. And in some cases, they feel, you know, that the only right thing to do is to give the collaborator some form of credit on the cover.

Again, that's not necessarily the majority of the cases, but that's becoming more and more common. And I think it has a lot to do with the fact that with the Internet and the rise of social media and digital culture, there really aren't any secrets anymore. Right. Everyone sees the wires behind the show. And if you're raised in that culture, you're a digital native, then you have a certain connection.

level of sophistication and understanding that there's not this mythology or this, you know, the shroud that, you know, my hero wrote their autobiography by themselves. And I feel like that's all for the good because we're actually now coming full circle where we're recognizing that the storytelling historically and at its best is collaborative.

Yeah. Well, I have one final question to wrap up our main section here. You know, you talk about all the trust that is built up between the author and the ghostwriter. And I wonder how often that leads to follow on work with the same person or maybe their, you know, close circle of colleagues or something like that. Is that common to have more work from the same person? Yes. Yes. We've had multiple authors who've

come to us, we source a writer and then the writer has worked with them now on two, three, even four books. Because I think it's, again, because it's such a trust-dependent independent

intimate relationship. And if you're pursuing multiple books or you're going to like continue to put content out in the world that may not be in book form, but is, um, you know, an amplification of what's in the book or an expansion of what's in the book. Um, you know, it's a little bit finding your soulmate, right? You, you, you're like this person is, can really, I can rely on them to help me succeed. Um, and it becomes a true partnership.

And that, you know, again, my original frame of reference was speechwriting. That's why you see in certain cases speechwriters stay with their principal for a long, long time because they have this mind meld and they have this trust that

And the speechwriters mastered the principal's voice so that, you know, they want to maintain that relationship. That's great. Now, I think with so many writers being laid off and struggling, I think it's great to know about this sort of possibility of work. And it sounds like it's really worth trying to develop because it can lead to these long term outcomes.

relationships and projects. You know, I imagine you want to let people know you're available for that kind of work. Maybe, you know, start posting on LinkedIn with that in mind, networking, just putting yourself out there if that's the kind of work you think you might be interested in. Yeah. And I would just, you know, um,

finish up by saying that, um, again, as a writer myself and someone who believes in the value of writers and writing, I think it is incredibly beneficial that attitudes are changing. And not only is the stigma of ghostwriting gone away, but this notion that you had to kind of pick a lane, right? You either had to be a writer for hire, a ghostwriter, and everything you do is anonymous or be a byline writer or author journalist. That is,

Church-state separation has been obliterated, and now you're seeing more and more professional writers have a portfolio of work. And sometimes they're doing brand writing, sometimes they're doing book ghost writings, and then some of the time they're writing under their own name. And as long as you are, you know,

transparent about who you're working for. And then secondly, you don't have conflicts of interest, right? So if you're a freelance writer and you're ghostwriting for Salesforce and you're writing about Salesforce, that's where you get into ethical problems. But as long as you're not crossing that line, then it's totally ethically acceptable to kind of wear different hats. And again, I think for people who aspire to be professional writers,

That creates more opportunities to make a living and get compensated well for your skills and your experience. Now that there's a greater diversity of professional opportunities for you.

Yeah, that's great. And so for our Grammarpalooza supporters, we're going to talk more in the bonus episode about ghostwriting for fiction and about the interplay between AI and ghostwriting and what Dan thinks is sort of going to happen there in the future. But for the main listeners, thank you so much for being here. Dan, where can people find you if they want to learn more?

Sure. Our website is www.gothamghostwriters.com. You can reach me directly at dan at gothamghostwriters.com. And whether you are an aspiring writer or a potential author, happy to do a free consultation to kind of help you understand what we can potentially offer as a resource for the client side and then to give advice to writers about how they might want to break into the field. That's wonderful. Thanks so much. Sure.