In l962, I started my career in publishing as an acquiring editor at Macmillan, went on to World Publishing in 1967, and became Editor-in-Chief at The Dial Press in l972. During this time, I acquired the manuscript of a first novel called The Scarlatti Inheritance by an unknown author named Robert Ludlum, worked on it with him for over two and a half years, and saw it become a national bestseller. I edited Bob’s next eight novels (the editing process became easier!), and acquired and edited books by such writers as James Baldwin, Mira Rothenberg, John Yount and David Morrel. In 1978, I was given my own imprint (“Richard Marek Publishers”) at G.P. Putnam’s, and moved it to St. Martin’s Press (“St. Martin’s/Marek”) where, among many other books, I acquired Thomas Harris’ The Silence of the Lambs. (No editing was required; the book was perfect as Tom had written it.) In 1989, I became President and Publisher of E.P. Dutton, where I edited such bestselling authors as Judith Rappoport, Truddi Chase and Peter Straub.

After Dutton became a subsidiary of Viking/Penguin, I spent four years as Editor-at-Large for the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House, but I tired of the corporate world and quit to start my own business: evaluating manuscripts, editing and ghostwriting, something I will do for the rest of my life.

In my publishing career, I edited well over 300 books, all of which were published; in my present one, I've edited some 100 books at the behest of publishers, agents and unrepresented writers (one of my services is to try to pair their edited books with an agent), of which a good percentage were published - no freelancer can guarantee publication of all the books he edits. In the past five years, I’ve turned more and more to ghostwriting, but editing remains my first love and I divide my days between writing in the morning and editing in the afternoon. I was the ghostwriter of Stephan Rechtschaffen’s Timeshifting and of a novel published in the late 90’s which was a full selection of the Literary Guild and netted well over 1,500,000 copies in hardcover and paperback. I ghostwrote Lionel Sosa’s The Americano Dream, a book for Latino entrepreneurs; Sexual Radiance by Susan Taylor; The Listening Hand, Ilana Rubenfeld’s book on how her mind/body therapeutic techniques can be used by the lay reader; Touchstone, a Johns Hopkins Hospital book on spirituality and science in healing; the eminent cardiologist Dr. Gerald Lemole’s Diet for a Healthy Heart; Dr. David Grand’s Emotional Healing at Warp Speed, a book on EMDR; and a memoir of the most decorated soldier in American history.

My last two books are I Am the Central Park Jogger, Trisha Meili’s 2003 bestselling account of her brutal rape and subsequent miraculous recovery, and Same Soul, Many Bodies by the renowned psychiatrist Brian Weiss, whose previous book on reincarnation, Many Lives, Many Masters, sold over 5,000,000 copies worldwide.

In ghostwriting, I look for prominent men and women who excel in their professions and have a unique story to tell. In editing, I look for writers with promise who need that promise fulfilled. I hope you are looking for me.