‘This is like therapy’ – four words I hear all the time, and ones that I take as a compliment, because making people feel comfortable enough to open up about their life with real emotional depth is an absolute key skill of a best-selling ghostwriter.

Think about the people in your own life who you’re most likely to open up to and chances are they’ll be trusted friends who you’ve known for a long time. As a ghostwriter I come into somebody’s life out of the blue. They don’t know who I am. I know who they are – but only in so much as I have read or watched whatever exists in the public realm. In other words, I know them through a filter. Who knows if that’s the real them?

I never go into any book project assuming I know the person whose life I need to translate to the page. I don’t. And that’s why what goes on around the ghostwriting is as important as the ghostwriting itself. I need that person to have faith in me as a human being as well as a professional. I never, for instance, want them to feel ‘interviewed’. Even the word ‘interview’ creates a barrier – me and them. Forced and uncomfortable. I ask a question – you answer it. Compare that to how you might feel if you met a friend for coffee. You walk into that café with no expectation of how the subsequent conversation will go. No boundaries have been set. No pressure to talk about a certain subject. There’s every chance you’ll work through a few troublesome topics, but at the same time there’ll be plenty of time for lightness and cheer.

That is exactly the atmosphere I am looking for. Same as I’m happy to let the conversation meander all over the place – again as it would with a friend. So often it’s the tangents that deliver the detail, the emotional truth, the ridiculous anecdote, that bring a person – and their book – to life.

Over the years, I have sat with those who’ve faced serious mental health issues, early onset dementia, sexual abuse, drug addiction, online hate, bankruptcy, and the loss of loved-ones in the most awful of ways. It is only through trust that people open up completely. And trust only comes from showing you are someone who is genuinely interested in others’ truth, and will treat them and their story with the respect it deserves. It’s then that they will truly open up, potentially exploring their thoughts and emotions in a way they’ve never done before. Hence the therapy comparison. I don’t, by the way, employ either couch or chaise longue.

Of course, encouraging people to talk openly works at the other end of the scale too. Ghostwriting is the broadest of churches – as much about light as shade. I remember Phil Tufnell telling me a story about an encounter with a fortune-teller in India. It was, as you’d expect with Tuffers, already a fairly entertaining story. And then, as I sought that extra detail, he mentioned the presence of a one-legged parrot with a missing beak. Well, I’m sorry, but one-legged parrots with missing beaks are ghostwriting gold. As I climbed back on to my chair I made a mental note to make sure the parrot received appropriate prominence. It did, and Tuffers’ book, The Tourist, became a Sunday Times bestseller.

A few months later I was with Tuffers when he picked up the award for Sports Entertainment Book of the Year.

Really, he should have had the parrot on his shoulder.