Member Spotlight: Matt Stern
How did you land your first book ghostwriting project?
My path into ghostwriting was somewhat unconventional.
I was serving on the board of directors in my community when residents began voicing concerns about a lack of transparency. The irony was that the information was available—profit and loss statements, budgets, forecasts, and financial reports—but most people simply couldn’t make sense of it.
Drawing on my Wall Street background, I dove into the numbers and translated them into a simple financial newsletter that everyone could understand. The response was immediate and overwhelmingly positive. It taught me an important lesson: information only creates value when people can understand it.
That experience sparked my interest in writing. I began creating real estate market content for brokers and financial content for business professionals. Eventually, I reached out to an entrepreneur friend and asked if he needed help with LinkedIn content. After hearing the story I just shared, he responded, “I don’t need LinkedIn content—I need help writing a book.”
That book became Awaken Your Potential, which included a foreword by renowned leadership expert John C. Maxwell. What started as translating financial statements into plain English ultimately led to helping people translate their life’s experiences, expertise, and ideas into books that move others.
What is your favorite type of project or client?
I love projects where the message is bigger than the author.
Whether it’s a memoir, leadership book, business book, or personal transformation story, I’m most energized when the goal is to create meaningful impact in the life of the reader. The best books don’t simply tell people what the author has done—they help readers see what’s possible for themselves.
I also have a special place in my heart for memoirs. There is something sacred about helping someone revisit the defining moments of their life, find meaning in them, and preserve those lessons for others. More than one client has joked that our interviews feel a bit like therapy sessions. I take that as a compliment. My goal is to create a space where people feel comfortable sharing not just what happened, but why it mattered.
What’s your favorite question to ask clients during an interview?
“What is the message, and who is it for?”
It sounds simple, but it is often the question that unlocks everything else.
Many authors begin with a story, an expertise, or a collection of experiences. Fewer begin with complete clarity around the message they want readers to walk away with. Once we identify the audience and the transformation we want for them, the structure, stories, and content become much easier to shape.
And when clients don’t yet know the answer, that’s often where some of the most valuable work begins. It’s where the magic happens.
What are the best parts of this career?
Watching an idea become reality.
There’s something incredibly rewarding about taking a vision that exists only in someone’s mind and helping bring it into the world. A book begins as scattered memories, notes, stories, lessons, and aspirations. Over time, it becomes something tangible that can influence people long after the author is gone.
In many ways, ghostwriting combines creativity, strategy, psychology, and problem-solving. I often joke that it’s like building an airplane and flying it at the same time. It’s challenging, meaningful, and deeply fulfilling work.
What’s one thing clients might be surprised to know about you?
People often assume writing is my greatest strength. In reality, writing is simply the vehicle.
My real gift is making sense of complexity.
Whether I’m helping an executive navigate a major transformation, distilling complex financial concepts, or organizing decades of someone’s life into a coherent narrative, the underlying skill is the same: I absorb large amounts of information, identify what matters most, create clarity, and build a strategy for moving forward. In other words, I take the complex and make it simple.
I’ve spent much of my career doing exactly that in business, and I also bring that same skill set to every book project I take on.
How can people reach you?
Email: matt@theimpactink.com
Phone/Text: 917-704-2019
And I’d love for them to see my latest project here:
