What to Charge for Your Ghostwriting Services

Measly sums of money for hours of writing, along with unreasonable expectations for working deadlines, the iterative process of writing, and the costs for each project.   Selling yourself short is easy to do when you're just starting out as a ghostwriter.  If you do decide to take on work that doesn't offer that much to you in the way of money, then you need to take a long hard look at how much your writing skills are really worth.

What I mean to say is that you can do a lot better than a mere pittance.

You need to do some research before you set your pricing, and look into the least amount you're willing to take.  Understanding that the bar should be set high,  and starting on a minimum rate won't bode well for future ghostwriting gigs.

Often many clients are inexperienced when it comes to hiring writers, it's your job to lay out the facts of what is required in order to complete a job.  You can tell them what kind of rates to expect, and extras including revisions that will add on to the final price.

Why On Earth Would Anyone Want to be Ghostwriter?

Ghostwriter's, the writer's who never get credit for the work they've done.  

So why on earth would anyone want to be a ghostwriter?

We're going to look at points that cover the positive and practical sides of ghostwriting that will help you understand why so many writer's decide to take up ghostwriting.

Ghostwriting Gives You Flexibility

When you're writing for someone else, the ideas and thoughts aren't yours they're someone else's.  This means you need to use your own skills to be able to:

• Help your client choose a topic
• Give the manuscript the right tone of voice, from their point of view
• Choose a writing style

If you're not flexible it won't work because the client is relying on your expertise to be able to choose the right tone and pick the right writing style for the project.

What You Need to Know About the Ethics of Ghostwriting

If you're a writer and not getting any credit for the work you've done, how is that ethical?

A question ghostwriters get asked again and again.  The truth of the matter is this kind of writing is legitimate and perfectly legal and above board.  When done properly ghostwriting should be a worthwhile experience, and not a painful one.

When this question pops up in conversation most ghostwriters will tell you that they're there to simply help the author put their voice on paper, in a simple and appealing way.  All ideas and knowledge have been handed over to the ghostwriter, but it's the author who gets the credit in the end.

As seen in a previous blog post, the job of a ghostwriter is to write in the voice of someone else, and not get any credit for that writing.  

How to Launch Your Ghostwriting Career and Sell Your Ghostwriting Skills

Half the battle of marketing yourself as a ghostwriter is knowing what kind of writer you are to begin with.  With so many people using the internet for commercial and personal use it's no wonder that people are turning to ghostwriters to get their works published.  Businesses are always looking for new ghostwriters to create brochures, web copy, social media posts, articles, blog posts, books, or even commercial publications.  

Selling Yourself as a Ghostwriter

Ghostwriting: Memoirs, Personal Histories, Biographies and Autobiographies

Ghostwriting opens up to more than just personal experience when writing about an author's life.  It also includes memoirs, biographies and autobiographies.

Let's take a look at each term.

Autobiography

An autobiography is the whole story of one person's life.  This includes a comprehensive overview of life experiences from birth right up to the present.  An autobiographical account contains both factual and historical data of things like names, places, dates and is usually more concerned with accuracy than artistic license.  It is the most traditional form of life storytelling with a comprehensive scope, which doesn't need to be hugely long.  But it is usually told in the first person (or the writer's point of view and using the pronoun "I").

Memoir

A memoir is similar to an autobiography in that it is also written in the first person, with the author writing about his or her life, with more importance put on past events seen through the eyes of the present.  Memoirs can also be someone's reminiscences about certain time periods, such as childhood, or coping with an illness.  It may also include stories from a wider range that eventually leads to a single theme.

Finding Ghostwriting Clients

Blog post updated 17/07/21.

Most people prefer writer's with experience, and ghostwriting is no exception, because of this many ghostwriting jobs may not be openly advertised.

Experience is the key to ghostwriting, and you're going to need it to break-in to this particular writing field.  Once you become established people will start to seek you out, and approach you to do work for them.  From then on it will be mostly through word-of-mouth.  

So how do you get established as a ghostwriter?

Businesses

There are thousands of companies all over the world looking for ghostwriters to write copy that can be anything from websites to slide shows and articles.  People know this today as "content marketing".  If you own your own website you're already familiar with this particular format of writing.  Content marketing has many different forms such as infographics, text or video.

Positives

There's always an abundance of this kind of work for writers, and with an ever increasing market it's sure to continue.

Negatives

Particular markets that pay well are usually flooded with offers from freelance writers wanting work, and the turnaround times can be really tight.  

Marketing Your Expertise

LinkedIn is a great platform to find potential clients because it contains so much information.  This data can be easily found by simply putting in keywords such as "content," or "content strategist". 

What Does a Ghostwriter Really Do?

People hire ghostwriters when they want someone else to write their literary or journalistic works, speeches and other content that can be officially recognised to someone else as the author.  Many celebrities, executives, political leaders, and sports personalities turn to ghostwriters to give them a draft or even edit their autobiography.  The ability to disappear is a sign of true mastery, and having the ability to impersonate someone else's writing.  Often screenwriters call upon the trusted eye of a ghostwriter to improve their scripts.  

The Legal Side of Ghostwriting

Confidentiality clauses are used between the ghostwriter and the author credited to the work which constrains the ghostwriter to remain anonymous.  Although, in some circumstances the ghostwriter may be acknowledged by the author or publisher for their writing services politely calling them a "researcher," but this is pretty unusual when it happens. 

Ghostwriting an Introduction

Blog post updated 17/07/21.

Introduction

Recognition is the thing most writers want from their writing career, to know that people will go out of their way to find their books makes a difference.  

But what if you were writing in someone else's name?

Would that matter to you?

Most experts in the publishing arena say that 80% of books on The New York Times bestseller list are written by ghostwriters.

The market for ghostwriting means more than writing a book for a celebrity these days, it also includes normal everyday people, big corporations and literary agents, to name a few, to write their books.

Ghostwriting no longer belongs to writing books for celebrities and the rich but also blog posts, articles, content marketing, white papers, and some people even require others to write content for their social media posts.

Which means million dollar corporations are willing to spend millions of dollars paying other people to write their social media posts.

Maybe you're a newbie and are looking for some lucrative writing niches to start on, or a freelancer who wants to branch out, either way there's a profitable market out there for the taking.