The ability to collaborate is important. Unlike the novelist who works alone, the ghostwriter can expect to communicate with the client on a regular basis. A firm understanding of the publishing industry is important. Getting a degree in English or journalism could be useful, but your real card up your sleeve will be your work portfolio. Think a ghostwriting career is in your future? Be Inspired. By Yvonne Shiau. This method is only used when the book is nearly guaranteed to be published and to sell at high profits.
Alternatively, the ghost can take a lower fee if credit is shared with the book author. However you slice it, the ghostwriting business can be quite lucrative. In order to become a well-paid ghost, you should have plenty of experience as a freelance writer. This could be demonstrated by having books published under your own name or years of experience writing website and other types of copy for businesses.
Even when the economy suffers, there is always room in the writing profession for another freelance writer. Once you know how to handle its ins and outs, and how to deal with clients professionally, ghostwriting can be very lucrative. Karen Cole from Rainbow Writing, Inc.
Writing a manuscript? If conflicting advice on format has left you confused, the following tips should help clarify the issues. You may write fine memos, reports, or literally any other kind of document. When you do your business writing, consider incorporating the principle of Excite, Delight and Entice. What this means is that you emotionalize your writing.
To boost your chances of getting that lucrative ghostwriting contract, check out our three contract negotiation secrets and tips. We are proud to post your contest here, free of charge. I joined my first one when a client gave me access as a favour and it provided a very welcome boost to my networking as well as some long-term work.
Look for a group in your chosen niche, which has a strict prohibition about advertising to other members, and has no more than a few hundred members too many and the group gets too noisy to be useful. Another alternative is to start your own group. If you want to know more, I recommend following me on Medium. Which means you need to get them hooked. I was fortunate enough to be paid for this work, but you could just replicate the role by starting a blog or a newsletter in your chosen niche.
So I tried another approach. All they had to do was send me some bullets, or a minute audio recording explaining what they wanted the article to say. I got to feature an expert who got a great ghosted article for free, and I introduced a potential future client to the joys of ghostwriting. Over the years, some of these experts have come back to me with more job offers for ghostwriting ebooks, print books, blogs and newsletters. Think of this strategy as highly-targeted networking.
The offer to ghost the article shows that you respect their time and makes it easy for them to agree. The positive experience shows them the benefits of ghostwriting and puts you front of mind when they one day decide they want to write a book or start a blog.
A while back, I interviewed my father about his career in freelance writing. He was paid to produce articles and training material that were published under his own name which is how you know it was pre-Internet , and he picked up most of his work by writing to training businesses in his field of expertise and asking them if they had work available.
Eventually, clients started coming to him with opportunities. At least not to begin with. To make the transition from freelance writing to ghostwriting, you need to build your profile in a specific niche, proactively look for work beyond the ones posted online, and work hard at building a network of contacts. Freelance services such as Reedsy are a fantastic tool, but in the long run you must be prepared to put yourself out there and use marketing strategies that may take months or even years to pay off.
Read the article on SEO Copywriting by Ahrefs — it covers a lot of ground on writing ranking-worthy content. Which brings me to the next point. Look, Contently and those other writing portfolio websites are great. A brand needs a full-fledged website even freelancers are advised to have a freelancing website of their own. This interview of Chintan with Harsh Agarwal talks more about why a website is crucial to your brand:. A strong foundation of your brand showcases that you are a serious full-time ghostwriter.
It builds trust and makes it smooth to build long-lasting relationships with potential clients. Mike Towle , a book ghostwriter, demonstrates experience in publishing, writing books for himself, and editing with s of published pieces under his name.
This shows credibility to any potential client:. If you want to start ghostwriting stories or eBooks, learning how to write one for yourself is one of the best ways to garner experience, build your brand, and learn along the way. You made your writer website. Now what? Should you put in your portfolio as a blog or copywriting ghostwriter? If you have a niche, awesome. Use them in your portfolio. Get a few guest posts up on websites that your prospective clients frequent. Your first ghostwriting client might end up coming to you through one such guest post.
Your own blog is even crucial when you pitch for a guest post. The reason is that they have been extensively edited. Once you have established your brand by either publishing your own eBooks or getting your name in major guest-post publications, you can actively start looking for clients. There are a couple of ways to do the same. Ryan Robinson did something similar, cold emailing a startup founder to get a quote in one of his blog posts.
A great way to get started is reverse-engineering the clients of another ghostwriter in your industry. You can look at their testimonials or scan their website through Ahrefs and dissect their backlinks.
The idea is to find the businesses that are mentioning their site and reaching out to them if they might need your services. Even job boards like Upwork often have requirements for long-term ghostwriters for fiction writing. Become a ghostwriter for an agency : There are tons of ghostwriting agencies out there. Most of these agencies require you to fill an application along with a writing sample. Ensuring that you provide your best original writing in these writing samples is the surest way of getting hired by these agencies.
Even if you want to become an eBook ghostwriter, you must have at least one published eBook under your name. This is why, as mentioned in 1, building a body of work is a crucial step in becoming a book ghostwriter.
Preferably, have a consistent stream of work being published under your name — could be a client site or your own blog or your own books.
If you build genuine relationships and keep adding value without any expectations , then in all likeliness these prospective clients will turn to you when they want to hire someone. For instance, Chintan had mentioned a content marketing influencer in one of his guest posts at a high-profile publication. They remembered his name since Chintan had mentioned them in his articles an ample number of times. After a few months of email exchanges, a video call, and social media love, the influencer reached out to Chintan.
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