Born in 1953 in England, Crofts was educated at Lancing College, a school renowned for producing writers, (Evelyn Waugh, Tom Sharpe, Jan Morris, David Hare, Christopher Hampton and Tim Rice).

Moving to London at 17, Crofts took a variety of jobs as he struggled to establish himself as a freelance writer, (including a stint running a modelling agency in London's Bond Street), while submitting work to every kind of magazine and publisher. For a number of years he worked as a freelance business journalist and then a travel writer, spending a great deal of his time in the Far East, the Caribbean and the South Pacific. His career as a ghostwriter seems to have started seriously in the early 1990s.

In 2006 his name was openly linked to a book by the popular winner of Big Brother, Pete Bennett, who wrote movingly about his childhood and the problems of having Tourette syndrome in Pete-My Story (Harper Collins).

Pete Bennett caused some controversy at the time of publication by cheerfully admitting to a Guardian journalist that he hadn’t even read the book he was supposed to have written. Rumours have circulated about other controversial titles and how much or little input Crofts might have had in their creation.