Helen Croydon Biography

 

Helen Croydon is an author, ghostwriter, writing coach and former journalist.

 

Her specialism is memoir and non-fiction, having written two high-profile memoirs of her own. Her first was a dating memoir, Sugar Daddy Diaries: When a Fantasy Became an Obsession (Mainstream Publishing), which made the WHSmith bestseller list in 2011. Her third book was another memoir, about discovering endurance sport. This Girl Ran: Tales of a Party Girl Turned Triathlete (Summersdale) was longlisted for the William Hill Sports Book of the Year award in 2018. Her other titles include Screw the Fairytale: A Modern Girl’s Guide to Sex and Love (John Blake Publishing) and a ghostwritten memoir due to be published in early 2025.

 

Helen has a 15-year journalism career behind her, during which she wrote for all national UK newspapers, was a news producer for ITN and a regular commentator on Sky News, ITV This Morning and more. She left journalism to found a PR agency specialising in ghostwriting and promoting thought leadership content for entrepreneurs. After busting a gut to grow the business to six employees, she scaled it down in 2023 after a strong calling to go back to her roots of writing - through ghostwriting.

How I Found the Agency

I went to a talk given by Andrew for The London Writers Club and was very impressed by his knowledgeable and entertaining insights into the mysterious publishing world. At that point I had just got my first book deal without an agent. However, I was finding that I was walking around blind in an industry that I knew nothing about. Not wanting to bombard my publisher with ridiculous ‘first-time author’ questions, I felt I had so many queries but no one whom I could seek advise from. I mentioned my book deal to Andrew at the end of his talk that evening and he seemed genuinely interested and enthusiastic about that and potential follow-on ideas. We met up several weeks later to talk in more detail. In one hour he answered everything I had been worrying about over the last four months. If only I had found an agent earlier to guide me through the daunting editing process, contract negotiations and publicity planning!