Make Money as a Ghostwriter
Excerpted from the book, Portable Writing, by Kay Kennedy

One of the more financially rewarding writing assignments that I’ve discovered is ghostwriting. This is a huge field loaded with opportunities if you’re ready to step into it. You don’t have to be an expert on anything, nor do you have to “know someone.” You can choose to specialize in articles or you might want to seek out individuals who want a book written. Articles are the easiest to start with and tend to pay better for the amount of work done.

Ghostwritten articles
If your interest is in writing articles for publication, consider approaching professional and business clients who might need a ghostwriter. Ghostwriting pays really well, and corporate clients generally will pay more than small business owners for articles. And they pay well even if they’re not personally receiving any payment from the publication. Sometimes their only goal is to share important information they have about a particular subject, or it could be only for recognition and prestige. They hire you because they can’t write well enough for publication, or they don’t have time, or because you charge less by the hour than they receive for their position.

The greatest benefit to you as a ghostwriter is that the pay is generally higher than you would ever receive from a magazine or trade journal for the same type and length of article.

The best way to get started in this lucrative field is to first, research an interesting topic in any industry you wish, write an article and submit it to an industry trade magazine. After it is published, you’ll have a sample with which to approach corporate prospects and show what you can do, and this sample will prove that your articles can and do get published. This is your “foot in the door” to write for corporate bigwigs. Hiring you will be cheaper than paying for advertising in the magazine they want the article submitted to.

If a magazine charges $10,000 for a full-page ad and you only charge $4,000 to write an article for them, the corporation will save $6,000 plus receive bigger coverage (possibly several pages) and better publicity from a published article with the byline of one of their top executives. These figures are only examples, but are relative to the amounts charged for advertising and the amount you could make, depending on the length of the article.

Of course, you always want to have a signed contract before proceeding with any work. The contract should state what the article will be about, number of words, how many rewrites or corrections you will provide, completion date, and your fee. You should collect one-half of the total fee in advance, but state that final payment is due upon completion and approval by your client. Do not agree to wait for payment until after the article is published because the newspaper or magazine may decide to hold it for several months for a special issue.

The biggest reward for a client from published articles is credibility and establishment as an expert in his field. Remember that this type of client pool can include not only corporate executives, but also medical doctors or people with advanced scientific and education degrees.

Your marketing presentation to your prospect should include a brief biography about yourself, plus writing samples and a brochure that outlines what services you can provide, including ghostwriting articles and/or books. It will also be helpful to provide a list of former clients you’ve written for, with their permission, after you gain experience.

Who gets the byline?
Realize that your name will not appear on ghostwritten articles unless your client agrees to share the byline, so you can’t use copies to find more business. They’ve paid for the byline, and most expect to get both the credit and privacy.

If they agree to let their name be used as a reference and they’re contacted, it’s up to them to volunteer or withhold information about the types of writing you have done for them. You should never reveal that you’ve ghostwritten articles without their prior permission.

Your own articles that are published in trade magazines may be the only ones you can use to generate new business, so keep publishing on your own to build credibility and to have a supply of up-to-date samples to show prospective clients. Mail copies to your list of prospects each time a new article is published to keep yourself in their thoughts. Eventually prospects will see how articles written by you, but with their byline, will benefit them.

The payment you receive for a ghostwritten article will often depend on whether you place the article or your client does. One of my clients developed a working relationship with a magazine editor and could place almost any article he wanted to propose. I was assured of having continuing writing assignments from this client with virtually no work except for producing the article, so I could afford to charge him less than clients who needed my help placing articles.

Typically, though, I would propose an article to a trade magazine in my client’s name, then proceed to research and write the article, although the client would usually supply the research material. I wrote articles about taxes, small business record keeping, and financial planning for accounting and finance clients. I wrote about investments for a client who was a stockbroker. By the way, that was a field that I knew absolutely nothing about in advance! And I wrote a variety of articles for other clients.

Clients usually hire ghostwriters who have marketed their services to them. Corporate and business executives don’t normally ask their friends or colleagues for referrals because they don’t want their peers to know they are using a ghostwriter. So don’t be shy about getting your name and information out to prospective clients so they’ll know what you can do, and how well you can do it.

The really rewarding part of ghostwriting articles is that some of your more successful clients may want help writing a technical book or an autobiography about themselves. Naturally, you will land on their short-list of writers to help them produce a full-length book. I’ll cover ghostwriting books in next month’s newsletter and tell about one former acquaintance who made an excellent living doing only ghostwriting.

Another source of information about magazines

A good article by Christine Venzon appeared in July 25, 2008 issue of Writers Weekly about checking the media kits from magazines to understand their readership and focus. These are the information kits that magazines send out to the media and advertisers, and as writers, we are also part of the media and can get access to the kits to help us understand the magazines market, especially if they don’t have writers guidelines to send writers. Read the article by clicking here: http://writersweekly.com/this_weeks_article/004767_06252008.html, or go to www.writersweekly.com and click on “articles” at top of page, which will take you to the archived articles.

Gas Prices Got You Down?

Gas prices reached record highs this spring and summer, then dropped a little, and now they’re climbing again. What’s an RVer to do?

The day before we left Arizona on our trip on March 15th, we gassed up in town. Gas had zoomed up overnight from $2.89 to $3.02. “Oh well, what’s new” we asked ourselves? Our next tank of gas the following evening was purchased in California at a whopping $3.50, and it climbed steadily upward as we made our way northward to Washington. Before we would head back to Arizona in July, it had reached well over $4.00 per gallon, then on our last day of travel, July 17th, it reached the highest price ever recorded! Such is our luck every time we travel in the motorhome! As we pulled into our campsite back in AZ, local gas stations were already lowering their prices by a few cents.

But we learned long ago how to compensate for volatile gas prices. Our previous trip back from Washington happened over Labor Day weekend in 2005, and I guess you can all remember what happened. Katrina hit the Gulf Coast and gas shot up from $2.50 to over $3.00 per gallon overnight. Ouch! When we’re traveling in an RV and something like that happens, nothing is going to stop us from reaching our destination, especially if we’re in the north and it’s getting up into fall. We don’t do cold! Well, not intentionally! This was one time when we had to get back right away.

So how do we compensate when we have the luxury of being able to plan ahead? By traveling slowly and spreading our travel costs out. We plan to go as far as we feel comfortable traveling, which is usually decided by a set budget. Then we settle in for anywhere from a week up to a month. Rates for RV sites are always a little cheaper by the week, and usually quite a bit lower per month. We’ve also kept our overnight costs down by joining Passport America, which provides one-half price camping spots scattered across the country, and Escapees Club, which owns several parks around the country. We also belong to Thousand Trails and can stay in their parks for free for up to two weeks before we have to move on or start paying. Unfortunately, these campgrounds are not always located on the routes we want to travel, but sometimes they are. And sometimes we route our trip specifically to take advantage of them.

Also, while traveling, we always watch for Walmart Supercenters, where there is room to park the motorhome to shop, and where grocery prices are generally lower than nearby chain supermarkets. We also watch for produce stands that we can pull into to buy fresh fruits and vegetables. Before we leave on a trip, I usually cook up some hearty soups and bread and freeze them in meal-size portions. Then we only have to find a spot off the highway big enough to pull over and run the generator for a few minutes to thaw and heat them for lunch.

One of our biggest expenses is eating out, which is both an educational and culinary treat as we travel through different regions, so if we need to cut back on expenses, that is often the only area we have to seriously cut.

So what are the best ways you can cut expenses to make up for expensive and rising gas prices?

1. Join a discount camping club so that you can cut costs of overnight stays. Make sure you talk to other campers before you join anything, and go back to your rig and figure out just how much you will actually save before signing on the dotted line. Salesman will tell you that you must make up your mind immediately to get their “special” price, but we’ve found that going back the next day hasn’t cooled their enthusiasm for selling us a membership. Meanwhile, we’ve been able to make an educated decision.

2. If you really can’t afford higher gas prices AND an overnight RV site, you might try bookdocking or dry camping. That means finding a place to park overnight for free, and with no hookups. Some county parks around the country provide free overnight camping, and some states allow overnighters to spend the night in rest areas, but always check first and make sure it looks safe. Some Walmarts also allow overnighters, but check with the manager before attempting it because you don’t want be awakened in the middle of the night by authorities threatening to haul you away because it’s illegal in that particular municipality.

3. If you use gas cards, make sure they aren’t for gas stations with the highest prices, and get one that offers a cash rebate. We’ve found that Sam’s Club gas prices are almost always cheaper than surrounding gas stations. You can purchase a Walmart Road Atlas and pay less for it at (guess where?) that lists all the Walmarts and Sam’s Club locations across the country.

4. Don’t leave home without signing up for emergency road service. We use Good Sam’s, which costs around $100 per year, and they will send a tow truck no matter how far you may be from civilization and haul you to the nearest reliable repair facility. There’s never any money out of pocket for this service.

5. Plan out your trip to fit your budget. If you want to travel for a few months, determine just how far you can afford to go each month, then find a nice but inexpensive place to put down roots for a short period. It’s a perfect way to really explore an area in your toad (towed car). Don’t haul one, or you travel with a trailer or a Fifth Wheel, and your only drivable vehicle is an expensive, fuel-guzzling truck? Then get together with some of your fellow campers and see if you can maybe join them on jaunts around the area, and split the fuel costs.

6. If gas shoots sky high and you’re thousands of miles from home, it pays to have a Visa or Mastercard, or a savings account that you can access on the road for just this type of emergency. Believe me, that’s what’s saved our “can’t stand the cold” booties more than once! There also may be times when an equipment break-down breaks your budget, and you need that extra cushion to tide you over.

For most RVers, there’s no reason to panic about gas prices yet. We may hang up the keys when it reaches $5.00 a gallon, but until then, we plan to continue our journey along America’s backroads. Maybe we won’t travel as far each trip, or we’ll take longer to get to our destination, but we’re not letting fuel prices determine our RVing future just yet.

P.S. Don’t tell the oil companies, but we may take a trip back East in a couple of months. This time though, we plan to leave the motorhome parked on its site and take the car, which gets around 35 miles per gallon. Won’t that just upset the order of things for the gas stations along our route?