*Unfortunately, ghosts are rarely involved.*

For a while as a freelance writer, I supported myself using ghostwriting contracts. These included both informational blog posts and fiction projects like e-book series.

Some people would respond with awkwardness when I said I was ghostwriting, as if they were thinking, “How could you ever write under someone else’s name?”

But the two or three years I took ghostwriting contracts were hugely helpful to my development as a professional writer. Maybe those projects don’t have my name on them, but they helped me build discipline, confidence, and support myself as a writer so I could transition away from being a busy business woman.

Ghostwriting isn’t for everyone, but it might be a good option for you as you start your freelancing or writing career.

Let’s explore the pros and cons of being paid to write so someone else can take the credit.

What is ghostwriting?

Ghostwriting is the practice of being paid to write for someone else so they can publish it under their name. It often includes a flat rate per word or for the entire project, rather than royalties.

Types of ghostwriting

I’m sure there are many more configurations of ghostwriting contracts than I’ll list here, but these are the ones I’ve personally come across. I’ve listed them in order from worst-paying and easiest to best-paying and most complicated.

Blog mills

This is the easiest kind of ghostwriting contract to get. It also pays the worst and, in my opinion, requires the least amount of cognitive effort.

A blog mill is a middleman publisher who businesses use to provide keyword-stuffed blog articles.

A business will provide a topic and possibly some targeted keywords, and then the ghostwriters will pump out a blog at the requested length with the requested topic and keywords included.

You do not need to know anything about the topic to write for a blog mill. I once wrote an entire series on kayaks and kayak safety. I have never touched a kayak in my life.

How is this possible? Because the only way to output the required word count in a reasonable amount of time is by reading other articles and rewording what they include so that you are not plagiarizing.

This also taught me a valuable lesson: everything on the internet is copied from another unreliable source on the internet. Most blogs are unverified copies of other blogs and the circle of misinformation could go on forever.

Fiction series

You may wonder how some authors, especially romance authors, seem to pump out a never-ending constant stream of books.

It’s because many of them are not actually one person. They are a team of anonymous ghostwriters working through a publisher. This is especially common with Amazon e-books.

*Sometimes people just want to read about smoochin’ and they don’t ask for much more than that.*

I ghostwrote for several different fiction series under different author names with different publishers. I look forward to the day that people studying me in universities are debating which trashy contemporary romance novel was really my work.

This is the one where people ask me: How can you let them take your ideas and put them under a different name?

For starters, it’s not usually my ideas.

Fiction publishers who hire ghostwriters will usually give you a word count requirement and an outline, and you write to that outline.

Sometimes, instead of a full outline, they will only give you a title and one or two elements they want included. I liked those better because they give a greater range of freedom, but they also require more creative work on your part, because you have to make the plot.

*Romance readers generally expect a happy ending, and god help you if you don’t give it to them.*

These publishers sometimes have strict genre requirements because their readers have strict expectations of the genre, but if you can fulfill that requirement, you don’t need to worry too much about high-quality writing.

The readers just want to be comforted by a predictable plot with a happy ending, usually (some darker genres don’t need the HEA, or Happily Ever After).

I no longer take these kind of contracts, because I feel like I learned everything I could from them, but they were helpful and fun while I did them.

I’ll talk more about why I thought they were helpful and fun in the next section.

Clients with a dream

Many of the people I’ve ghostwritten for are entrepreneurs or creative types who just don’t have the writing chops to complete a book on their own.

These people will often have struggled for a while with an outline or a messy Google doc of ideas, but they have finally realized they need a writing professional to get their vision out in the world.

These clients fall into two camps: driven business people who see a book as a way to expand their client base, and goofballs with big dreams and too many ideas to handle at once.

*“Yeah can you make a book out of this please thanks.”*

They will present you with a messy bundle of thoughts and expect you to make a book out of it. If you want to succeed with these clients, you’ll want a heavy dose of empathy, patience, and professionalism.

Often, these clients want to see the book as a partnership they actually took part in, rather than a thing they paid for, which oddly enough makes them more amenable to including your name on the book as a co-author. I think it’s because, by acknowledging your contribution, they feel more honest about the project, which is genuinely important to them.

They also pay more but have higher expectations for quality. They will be the most time-consuming and least reliable clients, since if you don’t match their “vision” they will drop you.

But they can often be very interesting, because you have to get into their point of view to do a good job.

The Good News

During my two years or so as a ghostwriter, I learned a lot and became a more confident, prolific writer.

I recognize this won’t work for everybody, but if you’re curious, here are the best things about ghostwriting.

Build your word count muscles.

Depending on the publisher, ghostwriting tends to have lower expectations of quality. They value speed and fulfilling thematic requirements over really good prose.

When you are starting out as a writer, you need to learn how to get over your “editing brain” and get words on paper. Ghostwriting is SUPER helpful for this.

It’s a way to get paid and have a deadline for your writing, which are both hugely motivating factors, but the quality does not matter as much to you because your name isn’t on it.

At the peak of my ghostwriting days, I was writing 50,000 words a week.

You’ll hear me reference that in a lot of my older blogs and videos.

All of that practice helped me learn to write quickly, and more importantly, to actually finish projects. I believe these ghostwriting “workouts” helped me build up my writing skills enough to finish my debut novel and get and keep a contract with a publisher under my own name.

Build your confidence as a writer.

Ghostwriting built my confidence because I had people regularly paying me to write.

The fiction contracts in particular made me feel like I was supporting myself with the written word, even if my name wasn’t on it yet, and that helped me feel good enough about being a writer that I knew I could make it my full-time career.

It’s also a chance to try out ideas and characters in a safe space. After all, nobody knows it’s you!

For instance, I wrote a series for a client about a witch who uses a certain kind of magic for a client (I have to keep some secrets, hehe). I don’t think the series is very high-quality, though it was a ton of fun to write, but the character idea is AWESOME and will probably make its way into a later series of mine.

You have to be careful with this, of course. Don’t put details that are really precious to you into a ghostwritten work. For instance, I’m annoyed that I probably can’t reuse the name I gave the character, because it was PERFECT.

Additionally, you have to make sure you change the original idea enough that it’s not stealing from your contracted ghostwritten work. But for this example, the idea of a witch with this specific magic is general enough for me to tweak and use again.

*Me, watching people leave reviews on books they don’t know I wrote.*

Also, you can read reviews for books you’ve ghostwritten and learn from them. I learned that I generally rush endings, so I’ve worked on that to improve later books that appear in my own name.

Ghostwriting contracts are plentiful.

If you are willing to do it, there is plenty of work out there as a ghostwriter.

The need is huge for both blogs and genre fiction, so even if you don’t have much experience, you can probably find ghostwriting work fairly quickly.

Just have a sample ready that’s at least slightly similar, and be ready to complete a test article or test chapter quickly.

Publishers in these fields often use Upwork. There are probably other, better freelance websites out there, so check those out too, but Upwork brought me a lot of opportunities (although I don’t like how they have evolved, but that’s a rant for another article).

Ghostwriting contracts are consistent.

Blog mills and fiction contracts are never-ending. If you pass the initial test project, these streams of income do not dry up, and you can often write as much as you want and therefore make as much money as you want.

As soon as you finish one contract, they will have another lined up for you.

This is not the case with the “Clients with a dream” category. These have been some of my most interesting but least reliable clients.

But for other ghostwriting gigs, you could write for one publisher for years and often you can set the speed you write at. This is not always true, but most of my clients were pretty flexible and allowed me to set my pace.

Freelancing is notoriously sporadic, so having a ghostwriting contract that was definitely going to bring me in money every month helped me stay stable even in the earliest stages of my self-employment.

The Bad News

Here’s the part where I tell you the reasons you might not want to be a ghostwriter.

You don’t get credit.

This is obvious, but I feel like I should mention it. If you just can’t get past the idea of writing a book, and people buying that book, and reading it, and not directing their compliments at you, then this isn’t going to work.

Remember, you don’t have to do fiction contracts.

There’s plenty of blog and business book work out there, which may feel less like someone is taking credit for your ideas.

The pay is crap.

I’m not going to sugarcoat this. Once again, the “Clients with a dream” category is sometimes an exception to this, but not always.

Ghostwriting contracts are not looking for high quality writers with a lot of experience. They want people who are cheap, can fulfill basic requirements, and do it quickly.

This is why I only recommend this path for someone who can write a lot. Ghostwriting helped me improve my word count, but I was already a fairly speedy writer. I only made enough money as a ghostwriter because I could pump out blogs and even books at a fairly crisp pace.

Did I mention you have to write a lot?

Ghostwriting helped me get faster, but I was already able to write about 800-1000 words a day when I started.

*Get that pencil ready! jk you will not have time to use a pencil.*

I don’t think you need to be quite at that level to rev up successfully into ghostwriting, but really, if you are a person who can only write a paragraph a day and you have to meticulously edit it, this will not work out for you.

Ghostwriting is great because it helps you write more and get past your editing mind into writing mind. If you can’t or don’t want to do that, it’s not worth it.

Is ghostwriting worth it?

Here are the pros of ghostwriting as a freelance writer:

Increase your writing speed and stamina
Build confidence as a writer
Contracts are plentiful
Contracts are (usually) consistent

Here are the cons of ghostwriting:

You don’t get credit.
The pay is (usually) bad.
You have to write A LOT to make it worth it.

*Some people call it “angel writing” now but that’s just a branding change, not a substantial change. It’s the same thing.*

So, what do you think? Does ghostwriting sound like a valid option for you? Or have I only scared you away?

Whichever you pick, there’s no right answer… There’s just the right answer for you.

If you have any questions about getting into ghostwriting or freelancing in general, let me know in the comments! I’m happy to help.

We also have a lot more blogs and videos dedicated to helping freelancers. Check them out here: https://www.makegoodcreativetips.com/make-money/freelancing.

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Is ghostwriting a good gig?