I signed my first book deal on Christmas Eve, and at the time it seemed like Santa was going way above and beyond. I had spent the previous six months pitching a proposal for Earl Greenwood, who had been beating the journalistic bushes for someone to write his story about being Elvis Presley’s first cousin and their childhood together, first in Tupelo and then in Memphis. He’d later work as Elvis’s publicist in the meteoric first years. I eventually found an agent who was able to set us a handsome advance at Penguin Inc. I thought that getting the proposal written and bought would be the hard part. What’s that old line about God laughing?

Nine months later, after transcribing dozens of hours of conversations with Earl, and trying to revise the narrative as per the copious notes from the editor that followed every chapter sent in, it seemed my author career would be over before it had a chance to start. I had sent in the completed manuscript and it was flat-out rejected. The irony wasn’t lost on me that many of the complaints stemmed directly from the editor’s micromanaging. Fortunately, my agent had included a provision that guaranteed me the opportunity to do a rewrite.

With nothing to lose but a career, I tossed the first version completely and started from scratch, this time just telling the story Earl had shared with me, focusing on what I thought was the heart of the narrative. The book’s narrative ended in the late 1960, which is when Earl and Elvis drifted apart, their lifestyles going opposite directions. Plus, everyone knew how Elvis’s story ended.

When I sent this second draft in, the editor actually accused me of having someone else write it. Needless to say, we demanded and got a new editor. That book, The Boy Who Would Be King, would go on to be a Literary Guild selection and helped make me a homeowner. But the most important thing it did was teach me the true job of a ghostwriter/cowriter: Let the words spoken and events recounted provide the sense of place and voice that will engage readers and make them feel like a fly on the wall as the story unfolds. Because whether fiction or nonfiction, books tell a story. And the goal of every writer should be to engage the reader so they want to keep turning the page to see what happens, or what they learn, next.