Hello everyone! I received an e-mail from my online friend Lina who wanted to share information about how she writes and works from home. She has a quick Youtube video to summarize the post below. Enjoy!
There is a ton of work available in the marketplace through various sites and brokers. The challenge is definitely not in finding work.
The challenge of the process is making enough money while writing for a reasonable amount of time so that there is enough time left over to spend quality time with children and handle other tasks at hand.
It is easy to spend 12 hours a day writing in order to make a decent amount of money, and first of all, writing for a 12 hour stretch is insane.
Also, spending 12 hours a day writing in order to make ends meet sort of defeats the purpose of working from home because there is not much time left to spend with family or to take care of yourself.
Often times good writers will get caught up competing with “going rates” when it comes to writing, and end up becoming a slave to the content they are committed to produce. You do not have to charge what “everyone” else is charging in order to be competitive in today's writing market.
Ghostwriting is not just a service that involves a delivery of words.
The truth of the matter is that ghostwriting is not just a service that involves a delivery of words. People who seek ghostwriters will often look for other assets in a writer that could justify a higher rate.
I spent about a year of my life ghostwriting almost-full-time, when I lost my job while I was pregnant and was trying to figure out how I was going to make ends meet.
I quickly learned that I just did not have the stamina to write for other people at low rates while still making enough money to sustain myself. I did not have a very high standard of living – I just was looking to survive.
I quickly learned how to produce loyal clients that was willing to pay me more for my writing, simply by being attentive to their needs that went beyond delivering word counts within a certain number of days.
There are many writers out there.
The first thing to understand about writing is that the market is completely saturated with people who want to write. However good writers and reliable and consistent writers, are hard to come by.
If you are a good writer, and you are reliable, and you can deliver your work fast (I used to deliver most of my orders the same day or next day), then you have a basis to charge more than “going rates”.
On top of that, if you are a native English speaker and you write well, you also have a basis to charge higher rates.
By charging higher rates for your work, even just by a little bit, you will cut down the number of hours that you write per day to make the same amount of money – just increasing your rates by 50% would shave 25% of the time that you spend writing while still earning the same amount of money.
That is extra time that you can spend with your children or relaxing and enjoying your work-at-home lifestyle.
In my case, I had my own projects and my own books that I wanted to work on, so I really did not want to ghostwrite full-time and expend all my energy writing for other people.
I was able to successfully make money by working part-time ghostwriting, and manage my personal projects the rest of the time, until I really did not have to ghostwrite anymore.
Today, I definitely do not have to ghostwrite, but because of the foundation I established, if I am ever in a bind and I need money today, I have a set of loyal clients that would be more than happy to pay me today to ghostwrite content for them.
Finding loyal clients is important.
By following my specific process, I was also able to cultivate loyal clients that ended up commissioning me for work that went beyond writing.
In fact, I have one client that I met just from writing a 250-word piece of content for $5 who I have now billed well over 6 figures for the various work I have billed out to them over the last several years.
In fact, if you get to know your clients, and you offer quality work, your clients will want to pay your rates and you will be able to work more comfortably and produce better quality work.
The key is to hone in on clients that can produce recurring work, which is pretty much everyone who seeks ghostwriters nowadays – the typical person who is looking to hire a writer pretty much always has recurring work available.
If you are looking to make a living as a ghostwriter in order to get some other personal projects of yours off the ground, following is my personal recommendation from someone who has been there and done that:
Evaluate your rates – don't undercharge. If you are producing quality work and are delivering your work fast, look into charging more. There are easy ways to do this – I talk specifically about how to do this in my book, Ghostwriting Blueprint. In fact, you can get a free preview of my book's first chapter at http://preview.ghostwritingblueprint.com.
Thank you very much for your consideration today – I will check back on this post regularly, so please post a comment if you have any questions or concerns.
Written by: Lina Trivedi, Author of Ghostwriting Blueprint and many other books available on Amazon.com
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The struggle you mention here is very real. I’ve been pushing my rates up and it’s really hard. I think something is ingrained in me… maybe the whole “starving artist” thing or perhaps the fact that I started my career in journalism where I was paid a pittance but that was expected and normal.
But when I read and hear about the very successful writers who do this long term they look at their work as a business, set competitive rates and deliver high-quality content. I remind myself that for each opportunity I may pass up, there is a client out there who will be a better fit!
Yes, it can be hard to increase rates, but if you keep looking there are other clients out there!
This is great information! I’d love to get into ghostwriting. I am just getting into freelance writing, and love it so far. I can see that it’s definitely a process, and honing ideas, writing well, and editing are key components. Thanks for your advice.
I’m glad you love freelance writing 🙂
I used to do some ghostwriting, but that has almost come to a stop for now.
I don’t have any experience in the matter, but this makes sense to me. High end luxury stores can compete and be profitable just as Walmart can. So, while I’m sure there is some supply and demand involved, charging premium rates for quality and finding loyal clients sounds like the best approach.
Yes, it is the best approach. Some people charge $5 a post and it takes them hours to do, just doesn’t make sense.
Today, I got an offer to write a blog post for $3. When I explained that my hourly rate was much, much higher than that, they scoffed at me! Of course there are people out there who will write a blog post for $3! But I’m worth so much more. If they cant see that or they insist on hiring low wage, inexperienced writers, then I think I won in the end!
$3 is way too low!
I used to charge a lot less when I first started writing, now I am asking for much higher rates. Some people do get a little mean (just like how Michelle @fitisthenewpoor just stated), but for the most part clients agree with my pricing. Just over the last few months I have been able to triple my price.
I did a lot of freelance writing a couple of years ago. I ended up stopping because when I figured out how much time I was spending I actually wasn’t even making $10 an hour. If I wanted to make extra money I could make a lot more money in my actual profession by picking up per diem shifts and whatnot. If I did freelance writing again, I’d definitely charge more for my time.
Yes, if you’re not charging enough, then the time you spend probably isn’t worth it.
My dream is to write for a living, and I actually found the courage to submit my first blog post to a website last week. The blog contacted me and told me that they currently already have hired enough writers so I don’t really know if I was rejected or not. I didn’t care I was just happy to get over the hump of being afraid to submit an article. As a new writer, where do you think I should start?
This information is great and I will keep it in my toolbox for when I start landing some jobs. Thank you so much for sharing.
That is great that you applied for your first job. Just keep doing that! 🙂
I think writing is probably one of the most difficult ways to be self employed. Kudos to the people who support themselves with it!
I agree, it can be difficult!
I’ve been negotiating my first couple freelance writing gigs and I am holding fast at my “minimum” rate. I think knowing what your time is worth and knowing what rate you can command is extremely important for making efficient use of your time.
I agree DC! I have a minimum rate and I never go below that.
I have nothing but respect for those who can make a full time living writing.. I know that there is probably a lot to deal with out there from distractions to deadlines to greedy site owners. I have always tried to treat anyone who writes for me with great respect, but I have heard of many who have gone through some struggles.
Yes, it can be hard to make a full-time living writing. I don’t know how others do it!
Like you said, part of it is just being reliable. I know for a fact that I get (and keep) many jobs just because I am easily accessible by email. No one wants to spend three days trying to get ahold of you, no matter how good your writing is!
Being easily accessible is important!
On average I spend 4 hours per day, 6 days a week writing for others. I also do my fair share of ghost writing. I think in order to increase my income that I’ll have to increase my rates (which I’m slowly doing) or branch out to another topic. After writing a dozen or more posts per week in the same niche it becomes hard to produce somewhat original ideas. However, when topics are given to me it’s much easier to produce content and comes at a much faster pace.
You’re right – it is insane to write for twelve hours a day. I find if I write for more than four hours that my writing (and my brain) really start to suffer.
Yes, I think it’s much easier to produce content when the topics are provided.
That’s awesome that you write for 4 hours a day for others. I don’t know how you do it!
I think sites like eLance and ODesk are a double-edged sword for writers. They’re great resources for connecting writers with gigs, but they also opened up the competition and have driven prices down. Still, the price for quality – REAL quality – writing seems to stay above the “starving artist” threshold.
I agree. If you look at Fiverr, you can get a blog post for $5. Just crazy!
I’m a freelance writer, and it definitely isn’t an easy way to make a living! I started out writing for really low rates, simply because I didn’t know my own value. Now I won’t write for less than I feel comfortable with. It’s easy to get burned out if you’re trying to write a lot of content for low pay. It’s much better to only take on the work that earns you a fair amount.
Great advice and I love how you included a video as well. 🙂 I’ve been freelance writing for 2+ years now and although it’s challenging it’s also really rewarding. Congrats on all your success!
My friend has started to work as a freelance writer since 2011 and her rates that time was still very low but now she’s already a rock star her rate is pretty high too! She’s an English teacher that’s why being a freelance writer is just her side hustle.
So true that writing for 12 hours at a stretch is insane… and yet there are a lot of people out there who think $2 an hour and 12 hours of work is perfectly reasonable to ask of writers! Lina’s definitely right, though, that finding loyal clients who respect your value AND their readers is the key.
Luckily, I think the new Google algorithm will help businesses begin to understand the value of good online content!
This makes sense to me and is brilliant advice but I know how difficult writing can be. I’m doing a Masters at the moment and even though I love writing sometimes, I feel as if I’m tearing my hair out! Thanks for sharing!
i was a freelance writer for a small paper that paid me $75 for each article, most being under 500 words but required interviewing, etc. I met some wonderful people, was made an honorary Italian, flew a plane, skydived and rode in a hot air balloon.
The benefits of writing are not always cash. I was also able to say yay or nay to any piece I did not want or any timeframe that didn’t work for me.
I am thinking of parlaying my experience into a new genre but don’t know how to start since I moved across the country and left that paper.
Oh, I also charged then $25 for each picture I took that they used (usually 2, sometimes more).
I do not need the money as my husband makes a very comfortable salary and I have stayed home with my kids since being kregnwnt with the first one 18 years ago. Yes, I’m lucky BUT the first rule of saving money is not to take on the expenses. Kids are expensive. A tough topic, I know, but we didn’t want to scrimp or worry by having 4 so we had 2. Logic, love and money don’t always make the best of friends.