About Crystal Adair-Benning
I've written 4x NYT bestsellers.My name isn't on any of them.
That's the job. You get the book and the byline. I get the NDA and a lot of very good stories I'm never allowed to tell at parties.
How this started
My first bestseller paid in dog food
Not a figure of speech. I was 15. Someone needed a book written, had more dog food than money, and asked if that would do. It did. The book went on to the NYT list, and I went on to feed the dogs.
That was thirty years ago, which I know because I am 45 and the arithmetic is unforgiving. Three more of those lists have happened since. The job hasn't changed: somebody brilliant has a book in them and no earthly idea how to get it out, and I get it out.
I've done it for founders, CEOs, coaches, a hotelier, a nonprofit director, and a man who wrote his manuscript by hand from a prison cell. Business books, memoirs, thought leadership, the occasional beautiful mess that needed rescuing. Different rooms, same job.
What I actually do
Three ways I get a book out of somebody
I write it
Ghostwriting for people who can't write the book themselves. Not can't-string-a-sentence-together. Can't-find-a-spare-decade. You talk, I write, your name goes on the cover. Four clients a year.
ApplyI coach you through it
For the ones who want their own hands on the keyboard and are tired of starting over every January. I bring the structure and the honest feedback. You bring the discipline.
Book a callI take you somewhere beautiful
Createcation™. Four days, six writers, one coastline, one framework. Nobody finishes a book in four days. What they leave with is the spine of one: the shape, the voice, and the first honest pages. That is the part everyone gets stuck on, and it is the part I will not let you leave without.
See the retreatsNo, it doesn't sting
People always ask whether it bothers me — someone else's name on a book I wrote. It doesn't, and here's the honest reason. I never wanted to be the person on the cover. I wanted to be the person that person calls at 11pm because chapter seven has stopped making sense.
That's the better job. It pays better. And I have never once had to do a book tour.
Fair warning
Things I'd rather you knew now
I'd rather lose the enquiry than the six months.
- I'm expensiveGhostwriting starts at $60,000 USD. If price is the first question, we're probably not each other's people, and that's fine.
- I take four a yearFour ghostwriting clients, three co-writing. That number has never moved and it isn't going to.
- I'll tell you if it isn't workingIf your book doesn't have legs, you'll hear it from me early, while it's still cheap to hear.
- I don't use AI. At all.Every word is human, partly on principle — machine-generated text can't hold copyright — and partly because it's bad at this. It writes competent sentences and no soul.
- Everything is under NDAAlways has been. Which is why this page is short on names and long on adjectives.
- I'm an introvertWho speaks on international stages. Both true. Neither comfortable.
The rest of it
Assorted true things
- I follow the summerHalf the year on Vancouver Island, half in New Zealand. I chase summer around the planet like a woman with no fixed address, because I am one.
- The glasses aren't a bitPink hearts. I own several pairs. Please don't crop them out.
- I ran a luxury events companyDistinct Occasions — offices in Canada, Scotland and Australia — until 2020 taught everyone a lesson. It's why the retreats run properly.
- Table of Stories™Intimate dinners I host around the world where everybody's story gets told before the night is out. No stage, no slides, one long table.
- Editor-in-Chief, RetreatBoss MagazineExactly what it sounds like.
- Four books of my own are comingThirty years of writing in other people's voices. Turns out I've got things I'd like to say out loud.
- Name
- Crystal Adair-Benning
- What I am
- Ghostwriter, book coach and speaker. 4× NYT bestselling ghostwriter.
- Experience
- 30 years in books. 200+ authors coached across 12+ countries.
- I write
- Business books, memoir, and thought leadership non-fiction.
- Company
- Word Magic Inc., based in Canada
- Also
- Createcation™ writing retreats · Table of Stories™ · Editor-in-Chief, RetreatBoss Magazine
- Works with
- Clients across the USA, Canada, UK, Australia and New Zealand
- Method
- The Quantum Copy Method™
- Contact
- hello@writewordmagic.com
What people in the business say
Crystal guides writers from the first brainstorming session through detailed outlines to polished manuscripts. Entrepreneurs, leaders, and mission-driven speakers often dream of writing a book—Crystal is the spark that turns those dreams into reality.
Crystal is an amazing mentor and coach. She has helped me find my writing voice so I am able to share my training information on breaking into the Industry as an actor, entrepreneurship and leadership with the world.
Stay wild. Write more.
Change the world.
That's the motto. I mean it, and I'd quite like it on a t-shirt.
So — what's your book?
30 minutes, free, and you’ll leave knowing where you stand. Tell me what you're sitting on and I'll tell you straight whether it's got legs, and which of the ways in actually fits.
