What is good writing? Does it have more to do with what’s being written, or does favour fall on the writers themselves? On a more pertinent note, does hiring someone else to write your book make you a bad person?
Before we continue, let’s define ghostwriter. Any freelance writer who types or pens a book, fiction or nonfiction, for a paying customer is a ghostwriter. They do get paid, and the amount varies based on talent, experience, and workload.
Credit for their work goes directly to the person who hired them. No such writer gets their name, even an alias, mentioned in the finished work. They apparently live up to their calling – ghosts, indeed.
Why Do People Hire Ghostwriters In The First Place?
The most important reason is time. Hundreds, if not thousands, of writers are hired every day for all sorts of content, because their employers lack the time to do the work themselves. Considering the nuances and intricacies involved in good writing, not to forget editing the finished work, hiring writers is never a bad idea if good content is what you seek.
The next reason why brands or people hire ghostwriters is because they personally lack the skill needed to create credible and concise content. Anyone will want crafted the best or apt chapters that convey their message in a language style that earns them the trust and adoration of readers.
Let’s branch out and explore some of the pros and cons you can expect once you’ve found the best ghostwriting services online.
Ghostwriters Benefit 1 – They Ensure Brand Awareness
Whether you’re a personality or a company, good ghostwriting can help you build brand awareness much faster than some digital marketing alternatives. It again comes down to time. Publishing quality e-books on a deadline can put immense pressure on the time of select business owners who already have a lot on their plate.
With reputable ghostwriters, you can get that book started, which will be a miracle in itself. Speed up your brand-building process without worrying about burn-outs or low-quality content. You get to focus on what you’re great at. Meanwhile, writers get to do what they do best.
Ghostwriters Benefit 2 – They Help Expand Your Brand
Third-party guest posting articles or personal blogs are important for your brand. But most executives decide they can do without it. Their reasons include the fact that a good ghostwriter is either hard to find or too expensive to hire.
Delegating writing tasks, no matter their length (word count), to a good ghostwriting service provider helps you essentially multi-task. While you focus on getting your brand to all the right audiences, your preferred e-book ghostwriter is busy doing the same based on the needs of your brand.
Instead of scrapping your writing tasks altogether, save time and establish good brand-building by hiring competent ghostwriters.
Ghostwriters Benefit 3 – They Impart Credibility
Professional ghostwriters come with enough training and experience to write great content, including and especially using words that enhance your particular brand or business. Customers are clever when it comes to spotting a fake. Good writing will improve your credibility among diverse readers.
Competent ghostwriters help you stand tall and proud by gaining written content that ‘speaks’ to people without offending their intelligence. You can’t put a price on authenticity. Quality ghostwriting services avoid clichés like the plague. They work facts into your e-book that will stand up to critique by harsh reviewers and lay readers alike.
Good ghostwriters capture your ‘voice’, which adds to your brand value. This is also the reason why some companies hire the same ghostwriting service providers for future e-books, because it ensures their voice remains consistent and genuine.
Ghostwriters Benefit 4 – They Are Keyword & SEO Experts
E-books benefit from the use of pertinent or important keywords. This not only carries your message to the people reading your book, but it also attracts new readers who see excerpts of your work and wish to know more. Chances are, these new readers spotted words that called to them.
This is possible thanks to ‘keywords,’ a term known to all professional ghostwriters. As and where needed, they are also adept at working in SEO (search engine optimisation) techniques to help your book rank higher on Google and other search engines.
This improves your e-book’s chances of being ‘discovered’ by potential readers who are typing select keywords into the search bar, wishing and hoping there’s a book out there that has everything they need to know about that topic. Yours could be that book. But will the people find it? That’s up to the ghostwriter you hired.
Ghostwriters Downsides 1 – Availability
Not all writers are sat waiting to pen a great e-book that is indeed going to help them pay the bills but not get their own name out there. This goads ghostwriters to search for multiple clients who can give them enough work to keep their ship afloat.
One of the biggest disadvantages of ghostwriters is hiring a professional whose time and talent align with what you’re looking for. Such writers are not rare; in fact, many of them are already working for established branding agencies.
By enquiring with such organizations, you can strike gold by finding the right ghostwriting services for your e-book. If you like what they bring to your brand, you may even start planning a series of e-books, which may someday bloom into a recognisable franchise on sites like Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) or elsewhere.
Ghostwriters Downsides 2 – Location
You might not always be able to find reliable and professional e-book writing services near you. Many of the best writers you need for your brand live and work elsewhere, often in different countries.
Timezones pose quite a disadvantage. If you can slot your ghostwriting demands into a proper outsourcing schedule, that would be great. However, not everyone seeking e-book services can do that. In such instances, exactly where the writers are located becomes a major point of concern.
However, some branding agencies work based on your time zone. This means they are often willing to adopt your deadlines and implement all your writing requirements while you are still awake and ready to respond to any questions they may have. Such branding companies more than makeup for any anxieties you may have about completing and publishing your e-book.
How Much Do Ghostwriters Charge?
Unlike their professional titles, some ghostwriters charge you a number solid enough to hit you like a brick wall. The good news is, their prices vary. Numerous writers are always on the lookout for work. Your e-book can get the quality writing it deserves without you having to break the bank, or your head for that matter.
Your writing budget should essentially comprise the writer’s fee as well as a marketing or publishing budget. If you aim to take the self- or indie-publishing route, you will only have to worry about marketing costs to get your e-book the attention it needs. In some cases, like Amazon KDP, you will be charged a printing fee only if a reader chooses to buy a paperback version of your e-book.
If, on the other hand, your aim is to take the traditional publishing route, you can either pay for the self-publishing process or have your book ‘accepted’ by a major publishing house, at which point they will cover all the printing and marketing costs. Why? Because your manuscript is ready, complete, and reads great. You can thank your ghostwriter for that.
Quick Pricing Notes:
- A ghostwriter charges based on workload and e-book genre. This can range anywhere from $40,000 to $70,000.
- This can be much less, depending on your chosen ghostwriter or branding agency, so don’t be alarmed at the cost just yet.
- According to Reedsy’s 2021 data, “ghostwriters charge upwards of 30 cents a word to write memoirs, while manuscripts for children’s fiction can see a rate of 24 cents a word.”
- Non-fiction e-books often cost more to write, purely because of the sheer amount of research and factual accuracy they demand.
Will Royalties Be Acceptable Payment For A Ghostwriter?
This is not always a reasonable proposition, particularly for writers striving to make ends meet. The amount of work needed to write and edit your e-book is itself going to demand several months of a professional ghostwriter’s time and skill. If you defer part or all of their fee and suggest they await royalties from the sale of your e-book, there is every chance you will hurt their professional pride.
You are only going to pay them if you like what they wrote. You are only going to pay them to write what you like.
Ghostwriters apply all their time and effort to completing your e-book based on your preferences. They are, therefore, correct in expecting to be paid in full because, at the end of the day, they provided you with a professional service. So, to summarise, that’s a big ‘no’ for royalty-related payments for ghostwriters.
Less Fancy, More Finesse
Ghostwriters, especially ones with experience, will go the extra mile to learn everything they need so they can write a great e-book for you. Their work will ensure that your ‘voice’ is embedded in every chapter and page and that your brand puts its best foot forward into the lives of all those who read your book.
Branding agencies like Left Write Digital have a network of writers whose experience and skill promise excellence for anyone seeking quality e-book writing services. If you believe you have a book whose message needs to be shared with the world, or even just a few select audiences, reach out to Left Write via our contact page here.
“A ghost[writer] who has only a lay knowledge of the subject will be able to keep asking the same questions as the lay reader, and will therefore open up the potential readership of the book to a much wider audience.” – Robert Harris.