Ghostwriting: I Write, You Own It
Ghostwriting is not something many people consider when they first begin writing. Yet it can become a more profitable career than writing articles and novels. A novelist may spend months or even years on a book, then more months or years querying agents and publishers, only to find the novel won’t sell.
With today’s technology they can self-publish, but many self-published books don’t sell well. Authors spend countless hours promoting their books in the hopes of raising sales.
What if a fiction writer could write a book, get paid, and leave the promotion and publicity to someone else?
That’s exactly what a ghostwriter does.
Career Outlook for Ghostwriters
The career field for ghostwriting is growing along with the explosion of celebrity tell-all books. Many of the books written by celebrities and famous personalities today are written by ghostwriters. This is because they are often too busy to take the time to write their own books.
Likewise, many professional publications about health, finance and other industries are also ghostwritten. The ghostwriter’s name doesn’t appear on these publications. One exception is memoirs. The client may choose to have the cover of the book say My Life, by Famous Person, as told to Ghostwriter Name.
Ghostwriters earn quite respectable incomes. According to an article, the average fee earned for fiction and nonfiction books of 50,000 to 75,000 words was $15,000 to $25,000. Fees might be charged based on word count, page count, or a flat fee for a project.
Once the writing is done, the ghostwriter’s job is complete. The author is the one responsible for the publicity and promotion of the book, a daunting and time consuming task. The ghostwriter is free to move on to another project, either from another client, or one of his own.
Three Ways Ghostwriters get Information from Clients
Interviews
In some cases the client has nothing more than an idea of what he wants to write. The ghostwriter will do in-depth interviews to obtain the information needed to write the book.
Outline
In some cases, a client may already have an outline. The ghostwriter will go over the outline with the client, do the necessary information gathering, then write the book.
Manuscript
Sometimes a client will already have a manuscript written. However, the manuscript needs substantial rewriting, revising, and editing. This is the job of the ghostwriter.
Ghostwriters need to remember that the book belongs to the client. Sometimes clients may want to include something in the book that the writer feels isn’t correct. Remembering that the client’s name will be on the book, not the ghostwriter’s, helps to put this in perspective.
The client is the one who needs to be happy with the final product.
Types of Ghostwriting
Everywhere one looks, online or in print, a large portion of the reading material available today is ghostwritten. The reason this isn’t well known is because the ghostwriter’s name doesn’t appear on the credits.
Some materials that are regularly ghostwritten are health books and how-to books, finance books and business literature, celebrity biographies, personal memoirs, dissertations, novel synopses, query letters, sales brochures, ebooks, and web content, including tweets.
These writing jobs can provide a comfortable income for the person willing to do them.
Finally, ghostwriting can be an extremely interesting career because of the wide variety of information the ghostwriter is exposed to. The writer might choose to specialize in one area, such as health, or insurance, or he might decide to write on any topic that sounds interesting.
Best of all, the ghostwriter gets paid for a project, whether or not the book sells. Selling the book to an agent or publisher is the client’s responsibility.
All the ghostwriter needs to do is what every writer loves to do. Write.