If you are thinking of hiring a ghostwriter, but don’t know where to begin, this book is a great starting point. You can find out about what ghostwriters do, what skills they should have, how much you should pay them and much more. The book also explains what types of content ghostwriters might write for clients in order to benefit their business. Each chapter starts with a beautiful illustration by Nancy Houser.

Although it’s aimed at clients, the book also has a lot to offer budding ghostwriters. It will help you ask the right questions so that you get a good brief from clients. It outlines the parameters of different types of ghostwriting jobs and gives guidance on appropriate rates. The Secret World of Ghostwriters: And How to Work With One is written in a simple and easy to read style and is chock full of information. Whether you’re planning to work with ghostwriters or as a ghostwriter, it’s worth a read.

• Will Content Kill the Web?

‘PLR content drives down the market value of web content. Why buy pricier work when nearly-free (and sometimes free) is right there for the taking?’

• Handling Your Perfectionism

‘One of the biggest problems perfectionists have is setting realistic goals. I never realized I set the bar too high for myself. Halfway through whatever I was working on achieving, when nothing went according to my vision, I would give up in frustration.’

• What a Camera Can Teach You About Customer Service

Sorry, you’ll just have to read this one. No excerpt would do it justice.

There is so much good stuff in there it’s hard to give you a flavour of it. The blog focuses on blogging, business, design and writing, and currently has a great series on fiction writing. Just to round out the list, here are some posts with great titles that made me stop and look:

• Bloggers That Fake It
• Don’t Be Efficient if You Want a Successful Business
• Knitters Never Comment!

Over the past year, posts from this blog, and its predecessor, have turned up regularly in my links roundups, which shows how consistently readable it is. If you haven’t done so, check it out.

Technorati Tags: writing,blogging,reviews

• Katherine
• Suzanne Lieurance
• Michele Tune
• Sue Jeffels
• Kristen King
• James Chartrand
• Yoga Grl
• Laura
• Matt Keegan
• Jay
• Matt
• Valencia
• Rachel
• Writing The Cyber Highway
• Jessie
• Dana
• Hope Wilbanks
• Ryan
• Alexander Kohl
• Shelly
• Cindy
• Writing Nag
• Keala
• Jeanne Dininni
• WFU
• Laurie Lacey
• Misti Sandefur
• Colin
• Lori
• Jo
• Monika Mundell
• Jeana
• Allena
• Yuwanda Black
• pujutengineered
• Veronica Davis
• Gary V Carter
• L. L. Woodard
• Bob Younce

Thanks, everyone.

Where do you find ghost blogging jobs?

I find these in the same places that I find other ghostwriting jobs. I go to the Freelance Writing Gigs site as my first port of call. I also get updates from the Writer’s Bridge and from a number of other sites that offer blogging jobs, one of the best being Problogger’s job board (most of these are bylined jobs, but a few may not be). There’s also Craigslist, where you need to weed out the ones that are worth bothering with. Finally, I set up a Google Alert for ‘blogger wanted’ and see what it brings. This gives me a long list of jobs to choose from. Of course, because I am a ghostwriter, clients often ask me about writing blog posts for them, so I get a lot of work through referrals.

How do you prepare for ghost blogging?

The best preparation is to have a blog - or several blogs - of your own. This proves that you know how to blog. If you know the ins and outs of WordPress and other blogging systems, then that helps too. And you need to have some expertise in the topic that the client wants or be willing to learn.

I also find that guest blogging is good preparation, because it forces you to think about writing for other audiences, which you have to do when you ghost blog. I’ve blogged on a number of sites and these have helped me to further develop my blogging skills and to meet new readers. I also use these for my portfolio so that I have a range of published posts to show to potential clients.

How much does ghost blogging pay?

That’s a how long is a piece of string question. Pay rates range from a couple of cents a word to a respectable rate. Variables that affect the rate include:

• whether it is bundled with other writing services
• the client’s budget
• the ghost blogger’s experience

Some people only want short posts that take 10-15 minutes to write, so if they offer me $10, I might accept it. On the other hand, I would want more for a researched and well thought out post. My policy is to ask for what I want but to know what I’m prepared to accept. What I’m prepared to accept might depend on how busy I am and how the rate compares with the rates for other work.

Can you use your ghost blogging posts on your resume?

No, it’s work for hire. I tend to describe the gigs in general terms, like: ‘Here’s a list of topics I’ve blogged about.’ However, ghost blogging is confidential so I can’t put links to the posts in my resume.

Is it weird to blog for someone else?

I approach it like any other writing job, but it’s fun, because I don’t have to think too much about keywords and I do have to make it an enjoyable read. I love blogging, and ghost blogging gives me the chance to blog about topics that I might not blog about on my own blogs. As a born again blogger, this really appeals to me, and making money from it is the icing on the cake. If you want to make money from blogging, then this is certainly an option to consider.

Technorati Tags: blogging,ghostwriting,get paid to blog

Since most of my work is now done online, I now collect links to my work. I usually have the original articles stored on my hard drive and backed up to an external source. Even with offline publishing, it’s a simple matter to scan the article in and create a PDF. But how do I make this collection of writing and blogging credits make sense to anyone?

I faced this issue recently, as I was moving my main business site from doublehdesign.com to sharonhurleyhall.com. I looked at a lot of writers’ sites to see what they did. Here’s what I found:

• Some writers chose one example of each kind of writing they did and included it as an article on their site or blog.
• Some writers made PDF or Word samples available for download or viewing.
• Some writers said they would provide samples on request.
• Some writers listed all their stuff so potential customers could find what they needed.

That last approach was the one that made most sense to me, but when I listed all my stuff, the list was long, so I decided to make it more reader friendly. The result of that was my new resume page, which lists my skills, the topics on which I’m an expert (with links to examples), as well as other topics and examples of writing. At the end I give a short summary of my education and career.

I chose to do it that way because I figure that if people are looking for a writer, then the first thing they want to know is what you can write. Of course, as a ghostwriter, I can’t show examples of everything I’ve written, but I have an answer for that, too.

If you are a skilled writer, then why not do another version of an article or an ebook chapter that you’re particularly proud of? You won’t be flouting your ghostwriting contract, but you will be showing what you can do.

My writing portfolio is a work in progress, as I am adding to it all the time. It’s not really practical to have a blog page that goes on forever, so eventually I might have to create a page for each category and link to it on the main page. How have you handled your writing portfolio? I’d love to hear your tips and the reasons why your writing portfolio looks the way it does.

But what about the other times, where you publish a bylined article, and the publisher wants to own all rights. Is that right - or even legal? In my latest article on Garden and Hearth, I give a brief rundown of some of the basics of copyright, so you will know where you stand. Read Who Owns My Writing? A Writer’s Guide To Copyright and come back and ask questions if there’s anything else you want to know.

• The Importance of Socializing for Freelancers
• How To Blog a New Niche: 5 Steps
• How-To Be A Collaborative Blogger
• How Microblogging Can Help You
• Nightmare on Writing Street
• The Importance of Social Media Marketing: Why You Should Learn and Master it
• Value Blogging: A New Model For Success?
• Business Survival Guide: 8 Practices of a Long Term Freelancer
• Building On Your Success
• Setting Writer Rates: It Costs Money to Make Money from Web Content Writer Tips
• How to Market on Facebook
• Hidden Gems: The 100 .edu sites every Entrepreneur Should Read
• 5 Essential Time Saving Tips For Bloggers
• 25 Best Selling Words
• How To Write An Effective Press Release
• Copywriting Rates: How much should you charge?
• Legalese for Freelancers: Creating a Contract
• Knowing When To Walk Away From A Writing Job
• The Economics of Blogging: Minimal Cost and Maximum Benefits

Tidy Up Your Resume

When you’re busy every day, it can be hard to remember to add all the great stuff that you’ve done to your resume. But adding it will make you even more marketable, so it’s an investment in your career to do it. When writing work goes quiet, take a critical look at your resume and see if you can improve on it. Add some recent links to your work so that potential clients can see more of a range.

Improve Your Website Or Blog

At the same time, improve your site or blog by updating your online resume and adding some testimonials from satisfied clients. I always ask for testimonials when clients are happy and have added a few new ones to my site recently. Another’s on the way. Again, this is a good way to position yourself to take advantage of new opportunities. You can also spend some time adding your best posts or pages to the social sites. It’s an easy way to promote yourself.

Meet Other Writers

Now’s the time to join some writing forums, subscribe to some blogs and start talking to other writers. You can find out a lot about good and bad clients, ways of managing your writing career, and job opportunities just by doing this. You will also build a support network. Just because you work at home, you don’t have to be alone.

Write For Yourself

I don’t know about you, but one of the reasons I started writing for others was because I loved writing. For me, the best way to tap into that love is to write for myself sometimes. That means there’s no brief to follow, no keywords to include, no research to do (unless I want to). I can let my mind flow and write something creative. It’s a great way to recharge and the resulting creative juice will also improve the work you do for clients.

Enjoy Life

Finally, if you don’t need to sit at your desk all day, don’t. Enjoy the temporary freedom from writing and hang out with family and friends, treat yourself to some pampering, curl up with a good book or do whatever will restore your bliss. You work hard the rest of the time, so you deserve it.

Follow these strategies and you will be recharged, renewed and revitalised when clients come calling - and you’ll be ready to do some great writing.

Writing keyword fodder isn’t always easy, especially when you’ve written 70 article of a batch of 140 and are losing the will to live. Yet this is one of the tasks that many freelancers face, because clients know that content is king and want plenty of it for their sites. So what do you do when the creative well has run dry? Here are some of the strategies I have used.

Turn It On Its Head

We have to take our clients and our work seriously, but that doesn’t mean we can’t use humor from time to time. Instead of writing about how to raise the perfect child, write about how NOT to do it. Trying to reverse the normal order will help to boost your creativity, and I’ve found that clients don’t mind the occasional humorous piece in a large batch.

Do Some Research

Even if you’re not setting a client’s site up, it doesn’t hurt to use a keyword research tool to find keywords similar to the ones you’re writing about. Even better is looking at related searches, because that might give you a few new ideas for ways to tackle a subject. For example, when writing about credit cards, I was able to extrapolate and write about some of the issues that students faced in getting credit cards.

Talk To Friends

It’s amazing what talking to others will do. Whether they are online or offline, you can get a lot of inspiration from chatting with people about their experiences. Real life anecdotes can help make a keyword article more interesting. For example, if you’re writing about home decorating, you could use a real example of a decorating nightmare as a starting point for your article.

Use Your Archives
If you’re writing on a familiar subject, then you’ve probably got a lot of articles on your computer. Have a look at what you’ve done for other people and see whether any of the ideas apply to your current job. It’s a great way to reuse ideas without straining your brain.

Gut It Out
In the end, you still have to meet your deadline. Sometimes the only way to do it is to do it. I usually divide up my work across the week so that I can do some difficult tasks and some easy tasks each day. I do the hard ones in the morning, which is my best writing time, and the easy ones later on.

So those are some of my tips. What are yours?

• an annoying scraping noise as my neighbours rebuilt their wall
• drilling next to my office when the builders tried to repair something they should have got right in the first place
• plumbers and electricians asking me questions
•  excavation as the golf course opposite decided to lay the foundation for some new apartments
• thunder and lightning when the last hurricane was threatening to hit
• screaming children next door (not mine)
• loud music from someone’s car radio (the car was parked opposite our house)

In all those cases, I’ve kept writing because I had to. I had deadlines to meet and just because there was unbearable noise in the vicinity was no reason to miss them.  The things that stop me from writing tend to be more subtle. These are things that stop the creative flow, such as:

• worrying about an illness in the family
• wondering whether a particular client will pay on time
• concern about whether a member of the team will deliver on time
• my mind wandering to planning family occasions when I ought to be working (both my husband and daughter have birthdays in the next month)

In other words, I find it difficult to write when my brain is focusing on something else. What stops you from writing? How do you manage to concentrate through adverse circumstances?

On the plus side, I was able to do phenomenal amounts of work and I boosted my freelance writing income considerably. On the minus side, I didn’t spend much time with my family and I was always tired. Something had to give - and I didn’t plan for that something to be me.

I decided to do something about it. After all, if I plan correctly, then I shouldn’t need to work every evening and weekend. So I worked out how much I wanted to write in a day and I took jobs that would average out to that level.

It’s amazing what a difference it has made. In most cases, I complete my work while my daughter’s at school, leaving plenty of time for supervising homework and playing. And although I usually do a late night email check (mainly because I have some UK clients), I no longer spend all night at the computer. Instead, I catch a movie, chat with my family and relax.

At the weekend, I go to the beach or the coffee shop, and only work for a couple of hours. And guess what? It makes me a much more effective freelance writer. I’m not as tired and I have more balance in my life. And the world didn’t end. How have you changed your working practices since you first started writing?

But it’s not so easy for everyone. There are lots of reasons why you might be afraid to take the plunge. If you’ve been writing in your spare time and have never shown your writing to anyone, you might lack confidence. I understand. Although I’m very confident about my non fiction writing, it has taken me years to show my fiction writing to anyone.

Many people think that they can’t write. Ironically, some of these people make the best writers. Writing skills can be taught, and willingness to learn will take you a long way. That was one of the things I loved about teaching - helping students to realise their dream of getting paid to write.

For others, the barrier is the fear of being broke. If you’re making an essential contribution to your household income, then this is a very real fear. The answer to this is to sacrifice some of your spare time and start doing paid writing work on evenings and weekends. Many successful writers have started this way. There will come a time when you have so much work that you begin to think about freelancing full time. However, since freelance writing is seasonal, there’s no guarantee that you will earn the same amount every month, so that stops some people from taking the plunge.

In the end, you will become a full time writer when the fear of not doing it outweighs your fears about being broke or being a poor writer. As you submit more and more work and win more and more gigs, you will build confidence and you will soon find out that you can write. More importantly, you will find out what your writing strengths are, and build on them so that you can attract the paying clients that you need. This is a sensible time to take the plunge.

Of course, you could always do what I did. I left my job and started to promote myself after five years of doing more teaching than writing. I found that my writing skills hadn’t left me and what I needed was to get other people to see my work so they would hire me. That’s why I set up a website and started blogging. Now I have more outlets for my writing than I could have imagined (including about five blogs) and people find me and ask me to write for them. From the outside this looked easy, but don’t forget that I was building on years of experience. Now, I am proud to call myself a writer and I’m not afraid of the label. Stick with it, and soon you will lose your fear of the writing life too.

A friend asked me today how I handle working with new clients. What she really wanted to know was how I make sure that I get paid to write even when I don’t have a relationship with a client. The answer is simple. I always ask for a deposit. That’s the only way I can be sure that the client is going to pay me. And it means that if, as once happened, the client decided to disappear after receiving the work, I will still have had some payment for my work.

In most cases, I ask for 50 per cent up front for a content writing job. For a book project, I work out how long it is going to take, divide the overall cost by the number of weeks and ask for a proportion up front. In other words, if you are going to pay me every two weeks over four months, I will ask for the payment for the first two weeks as a deposit.

Of course, some clients worry that you will take their money and they won’t get a good job. That’s where testimonials come in. If clients can see that you have worked with others who have loved your work, then they can feel comfortable about paying the deposit. That way, you both get what you want.

Visitors in August spent nearly five days on my blog and did nearly 7,000 different things. Some people zipped in and looked at a couple of pages, while others spent more than half an hour browsing around the site.

About a third of you found my content through StumbleUpon, so thanks to all those who thought the content was worth stumbling. Of those who searched for my site and found it, most of you used the following phrases, in descending order:

• get paid to write
• paid to write
• get paid to write online
• get paid online
• get paid to blog

In addition to the home page, popular pages with visitors included:

How To Pick A Publisher, a guest post from Suzanne James
Get Paid To Freelance, a pointer to another writer’s article on freelance earnings
How Have You Promoted Your Writing Today, which explains itself
Big Payouts With PPP, one of my paid to blog review posts

More than two thirds of you visited from the US, with a substantial number from Canada and the UK, but I’d also like to say hi to those who visited from the Dominican Republic, Austria, Poland, Lithuania and Egypt. Those who sent traffic my way included BlogCatalog, Writing Thoughts, the Authority Blogger Forum and Communati (thanks, everyone) and I’ve now got double the number of subscribers at the end of the month than I had at the start. I found all of this out through Clicky, which has become something of an addiction.

I am incredibly happy with how the site is going. Thanks for reading, commenting and subscribing. Let me know if there’s anything you’d like to see more of, or less of. I’m looking forward to talking with you more as the site grows.

So, how does this work, and how does it benefit both the writer and the client? It works like this. If clients hire you to write web content, then suggest other related products that could help clients achieve their aims.  This might be in the form of an article marketing campaign or some ebooks related to the content. This is not a hard sell; this is you saying to the client: ‘Hey; if you want to improve your website and build traffic, here are a couple of tools that will help you do it.’

When I do this, I focus on how the technique works and how it will help the client (adding value for them). I also give examples of similar work that I have done, so that they know that I can do the job (adding value for me).  Even if they don’t use my suggestions right away, I am usually at the top of their list when it’s time to move to the next phase.

Another thing I do to give my clients value is to answer their questions. It may seem a simple thing, but many people who hire freelance writers and ghostwriters do so because they need some help in realising their goals. They often have questions about using one method over another, about what exactly you do and how it will help them.  As an old UK telecoms ad said, ‘It’s good to talk’. I try to answer questions as fully as possible, so that clients feel happy with the service that I offer.

When it is possible to do so, I deliver work early. Again, this works well for the client, who has the required content on time. It also means that the next time there’s a job, I’m more likely to be hired than someone who missed a deadline.  And, on the odd occasion that I need to reschedule, the client is likely to be understanding.

Adding value for clients means that my clients are happy and that I get plenty of repeat work. Even if six months passes between gigs, I know that there are some clients who keep me on their books for a suitable occasion.   And I sleep well at night because I know that I have done a professional writing job.

Today was different. We had to visit a family member, which ended up taking twice as long as I had thought. By the time I had run some errands, the day was pretty much shot for work. Instead of stressing about how little I had accomplished, I decided to revel in some family time, so we played in the pool then went out for dinner. It has been a day of much needed relaxation.

Don’t get me wrong. As a freelance writer, I firmly believe in having a writing schedule and sticking to it. That means that I always meet my deadlines and that all my clients are happy. However, as a mother, it’s important to spend time with my family. Since my daughter’s back at school next week, I will enjoy this last week of her company, and I’ll work evenings this week to make sure I complete all my work on time. How do you handle this balance during the school holidays?

There are two clients you may end up faced with. The first, the Passenger will be wanting you to take the wheel (whether they say so or not) and the second, the Driver will think they are driving very well (let’s call them Drivers).

Check out Your Clients: Dealing With Drivers And Passengers

When I was teaching journalism, I prepared a lecture on verifying internet resources, then promptly lost the reference. Luckily, I’ve found something similar again - this article on

Evaluating Internet Resources - Georgetown University Library

Unlike similar information found in newspapers or television broadcasts, information available on the Internet is not regulated for quality or accuracy; therefore, it is particularly important for the individual Internet user to evaluate the resource or information

Though it may be time consuming, you could use it to build  a list of trusted sources that would be your first stop when doing some new research.

4. How does the job match my work pattern?
If you are a morning person, that might be the time to do a job that requires more thinking, while you might leave a job that you can do in your sleep for the afternoon. Alternatively, you might decide to do a job that you can fly through first, because you will achieve so much more. I can write twice as much in the morning as in the afternoon.

Of course, another key issue for freelancers is knowing when to say no. Sometimes it is better to say that you’re fully booked than to say yes and find that you’re overstretched. It’s a lesson I keep having to learn.