The Truth About Ghostwriting as a Profession

by Mary C Long

So! My name is Mary and I have a company called Digital Media Ghost. I ghostwrite for businesses and individuals. I ghostwrite all kinds of stuff - books, articles, ads, poison pen letters - that was a fun one - I've done ghost-tweeting ghost, everything. I mean just name it, I’d have to write a list of it, can't think of it off the top of my head. 

The reason why I'm making videos is because - I had, for years, I've been saying I'm going to - I’m creating a course about how to become a ghostwriter. And that has kind of morphed in my mind as I see all these courses out there that I think really don't give a true estimation of what the profession is because it's not passive income. It's not something that you can just do for a few hours a day or a few hours a week, which is ridiculous, and it doesn't offer you financial freedom.

It’s not what you think
Any job can offer you financial freedom if you're good at managing your money. But to say that ghost writing or any kind of writing will offer you financial freedom, that's just...I mean it implies that you don't have to work a lot and that's just not true.

Another thing that isn't true is that you don't even have to know how to write. Yeah, no! There are a lot of opportunities out there for writers but they're for good writers. So, if you're a crappy writer, you're going to get crappy pay and crappy jobs. If you're a good writer, same thing, you'll get a good amount of work and decent pay. If you're an exceptional writer then you can make a lot of money. 

So, that's really what  it comes down to. And I think that some people have been really super lucky with what they've done and they immediately, boom, create a course. And you know, their friends are like “Yeah! This person does such a good job!” and yeah and then people pay thousands of dollars. And there's even one site that offers ghostwriting certification. You  do not need to be certified to be a ghostwriter. Okay? You just need to be a good writer - you need  to have a portfolio, you need to have credibility, you need to have a network to refer work to you. 
  
What it’s really like
So, as it stands right now, I have a ton of work that's referred to me and I honestly, usually refer it out because I just don't have the bandwidth to accept it. And it's a great problem to have, it's one of the things that has prevented me from creating these videos. So, yeah. I have a choice where I could either scale up and have a bunch of ghostwriters working for me, I do have a few but I used to have up to 12. I had a lot of clients, I had a lot of work - and that was a lot of time, so you know, a lot of management stuff that I just wasn't interested in doing. I could do that or I could do this and make no mistake, I do plan  to offer classes, but they're going to be really useful. Things like ‘how to become a better writer,’  ‘how to promote yourself' - like very specifically - so, if you look at my site, Digital Media Ghost, that's what I do. I not only do ghostwriting for people, I also do Social Media Management and Digital Marketing and I know all about it, like all about it. But I'm also super busy, so I'm going  to really (sighs) commit myself to doing this. Okay, so, I have clients that wanted to re-engage - that you know I had from previous years, I don't like to drop anybody - and yeah, I'm not doing that right now because I'm doing this instead. 

Connections
I watch a ton of YouTube videos and I see people who, some are really great, like there are some people who I plan to give shout outs to and connect you with in the writing space and other communities that I think are really useful. And there are others that, you know, I just won't be talking about them. So, when I'm not talking about them...you can take whatever you want from that, so. And that's everything I wanted to say.

Appropriating downtime
One other thing is that I will be talking about hobbies because one great thing that I think really helps you power through writer's block, and you know, just power through writer's block and just have ideas for creating worlds and just have your imagination open up is to have a hobby. So I have multiple, like I have dolls and puppets and all kinds of things. I used to color. 

But think of something fun that you know that can take your mind off of the everyday. Um, it's important to have that kind of an outlet, so. Particularly when you're creative, when you have something that's very cerebral, and writing requires a lot of thought - it's mentally exhausting So, you need to have something that's like, just downtime foolishness. So, I hope you find your downtime foolishness and maybe you can pop over into the Ghostwriting For Profit group on Facebook and tell me about it. So, yeah, that's a good call to action, huh?

And that's something else we'll learn about are calls to action.