Break into Ghostwriting – Top Tips

Who hasn’t dreamed of being a ghostwriter? It can be a very rewarding lifestyle. You can create the freedom to work when it suits you. You can also work with some wonderful clients. It also allows you to learn new things each and every day and focus on a skill you enjoy. However, competition can be difficult and it’s not always glorious. Do some research before you break into ghostwriting.

Being a writer, even if you work for yourself, you still have a job. Maybe it’s not 9-5 and maybe you do get to set your own hours, but it’s still a job. You have clients, you do the work, you get paid.

Sometimes the hours are even long. If you take on more work than you can handle, you still have to deliver a finished product, on time. I’m not saying this to scare you away. If you love to write, you should get paid for it and enjoy your job. Just be careful with how much work you take on at one time.

You should also start thinking about creating other streams of income as well. I’ll cover that in another post. For now, let’s get on with the ghostwriting business.

Breaking into ghostwriting can have its challenges. These five tips should help you make the transition into ghostwriting a little easier.

Tip #1 – Focus on a niche. A niche is a specialty. As a ghostwriter, a niche can help you establish credibility and authority. Your niche can be a topic, for example “parenting,” or your niche can be a format like articles or blog posts. A niche will also help clients find you. They may search online for “parenting blog writers.” If you’ve established yourself and created a website around that niche, they’ll find you.

Tip #2 – Remember customer service. One of the most important aspects of being a ghostwriter doesn’t have anything to do with writing. It’s your customer service. This means professional communication, reliability, timeliness and of course a professional approach to requests, revisions and feedback. You’re providing a service to a customer – if they have a good experience they’ll recommend you to others.

Tip #3 – Network. Breaking into ghostwriting can simply be a matter of being in the right place at the right time. In order to create more opportunities, you may want to network online and off. The more people who know about your service, the more opportunities you’ll come across. Other ghostwriters may outsource work to you if they get a full workload.

Tip #4 – Price competitively. There are a number of ghostwriters who seem to write for next to nothing. And there are those who charge ten times what the market demands. Your job is to price yourself competitively. You want people to be willing to pay to try out your services and sometimes that means working for a little less than you’d like – especially in the beginning. Know that you can raise your rates once you’re established. You might even consider doing some work on spec. It can pay off handsomely.

Tip #5 – Brag. Often writers are introverts. They also struggle with confidence. Half the time they think they’re an amazing writer and the other half of the time they think everything they write is the worst ever. However, in order to instill confidence in your clients you’re going to need to at least fake it, in a sense. Never fake writing credentials, but show pride in your work and being a writer. Don’t hesitate to list your writing accomplishments, credentials and experience.

Breaking into ghostwriting isn’t difficult. It takes a plan, a commitment to succeed and the willingness to go out and market yourself. Trust that you’ll soon have a full schedule, wonderful clients and you’ll be living the writer’s life.

If you’d like more information, you can grab Tiffany Dow’s guide to help you break into ghostwriting. I haven’t read this one personally, but I do have several of her other courses. She is very straight-forward, uses visuals and good examples. This course is on my review list as soon as I get through her other ones.The one I’m going through right now has a lot of videos, so it’s taking some time.

And if it helps, she’s known as the “Ghostwriter to the Guru’s.” She’s been there-done that!