Fab Freelance Writing Blog

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A month ago I received a HELP ME message from Mary, (not her real name) a writer, who didn’t know where else to turn.

Her mortgage was overdue; her husband was in hospital and would be unable to work while he recuperated so she had to start bringing in money fast. She was trying to land a job.

This message wasn’t unusual. I receive at least 20 HELP ME messages a month from writers who are starving in the midst of the Internet’s plenty. I pass most of them on to my assistant who tries to help.

Maria’s message included a rundown of her credits, so I wrote a quick response, making a couple of suggestions, one of which was that she get some ghostwriting gigs, and forgot about it.

Amazingly, Maria took my advice. Better yet, she got fired up about the opportunities the Internet offers for making money from writing skills, and actually started to market herself.

She’s just written to say that not only did she land a couple of great ghostwriting gigs, one of which pays just under $4000, and the other an on-going blogging gig making $1000 a month, she’s also started to write PLR material, which she’ll sell from her blog.

Her husband’s recovering, she’s well on the way to making much more than she could make at a job, and she’s made the connection between promoting herself and making money.

I’m thrilled for her. Not so much for the gigs, but because she’s GOT IT: she understands the connection between promoting herself and her writing services, and making money.

It’s all about self-promotion - you MUST do it

I know that many writers are shy. They’re squeamish about self-promotion and fear rejection.

If you feel this way, and you know that this squeamishness prevents you from making great money as a writer, here’s the answer: JUST DO IT.

You may hate marketing yourself at first, but once you see the results, you’ll change your attitude. It’s just a matter of confidence.

Imagine… $1,000 A Week For Just Ten Hours

You can get paid to blog. The current rate for experienced bloggers is around $1,000 to $1500 a week for from two to five posts a day - VERY nice writing income.

Find out how to blog with the blogging best-seller “Blogging For Dollars: How to become a career blogger — in your PJs, if you want”. It’s my complete new ebook package, with free coaching/ consultations as well.

Technorati Tags: writing, writing tips, ghostwriting, writing skills, freelance writing, writing jobs

This week’s issue of Fab Freelance Writing Ezine is online now, with the article “How to Get Started As a Ghostwriter”.

Subscribe so you don’t miss an issue; subscription is free.

Technorati Tags: freelance writer, freelance writing, ghostwriter, ghostwriting, write for money

A ghostwriter* produces material, usually books or articles, which will be published under someone else’s name. Publishers hire ghostwriters to write books for celebrities in various fields like news, entertainment, business and sport.

It works like this. Someone convinces the celebrity that he/ she should write a book by waving a large advance, or offering another inducement, such as the opportunity to get publicity. The celebrity agrees, and the publisher hires a writer, who will gain (limited) access to the celebrity in order to write the book.

The books are published under the celebrity’s name, with no credit given to the ghostwriter. Occasionally you may see a book appear with “as told to” and a writer’s byline, but usually the writer writes in obscurity.

How to get ghostwriting gigs

If you’ve published a couple of books, you can offer your services to publishers as a ghostwriter. Or, you can approach a well-known person and suggest that they might like to “write” a book. If you have an agent, you can suggest to him that you’re up for ghostwriting gigs that he can hunt up for you.

Business people often have writers “ghost” articles for them. These ghostwritten articles are published under the business person’s name, in print or on the Web. I do a lot of ghostwriting for business people in my copywriting practice.

Ghostwriting has its pitfalls, as do most kinds of writing, and I’ll look at those in another blog post.

* Sometimes appears as “ghost writer” online.

Technorati Tags: ghostwriter, ghost writer, book editor, POD, print on demand, self-publishing