The pros and cons of ghostwriting
Plus a little birthday surprise.
Photo by @tandemxvisuals from Unsplash.
Something I’ve been thinking about for a while is ghostwriting. It was a good way to practice writing in different styles - not to mention how lucrative it is. An expert ghostwriter can charge up to $100,000 for a novel, while someone like me, who has never ghostwritten before, can expect to make somewhere between $1,000 - $9,000 for a book.
So when I got the opportunity to ghostwrite a short story for someone on a freelancing website, I thought, why not give it a shot?
Well, it’s not that I regret it. I definitely learned a lot from the experience. And while it wasn’t about the money for me in this instance, since I just wanted to see if it was something I was interested in, I am willing to say I was severely underpaid for the amount of work, words, and time I put into it.
Let’s get into some of the pros and cons, of this singular experience. I can’t say if this is a common experience for all ghostwriters, but these are broad takeaways I had while working on this story.
Pros:
I learned A LOT. It was a genre I don’t typically write it, plus with characters that usually wouldn’t be my favorite to write. But there was something interesting about doing a deep dive and figuring how they should act and what the setting should look like.
I got to work on my own schedule. Granted, I had deadlines I had to meet every day, but I was writing late at night, early in the morning, and during my lunch hour. It was up to me when and where I wanted to write.
There were parts I genuinely enjoyed writing. Plus, it was nice to have an outline written out for me. I didn’t have to come up with the storyline on my own and go through the often tedious task of, you know, figuring out what happens.
Cons:
In response to the last bullet point, I had very little creative say in what went into this story. That’s fine. That’s not my job, nor is it my story. But as a writer, it was a bit suffocating. I like to have input, I like to supply my ideas, but, as a ghostwriter, that wasn’t my place. I offered suggestions, but it’s ultimately up to the client how they want the story to look.
Note: This is not the same with every client. Some clients want your input as a writer.
To be honest, it wasn’t a rewarding experience for me either. Again, this is just my one try as a ghostwriter. Maybe, if I try to pursue it again, later on, I’ll find it to be different. But here, I felt less like a writer and more like a receptacle for an idea. If it didn’t turn out exactly the way they pictured it in their head, it was a problem.
This relates to having very little freedom in my writing. It was a fine experience. But, yeah, I was bound and shackled.
SO underpaid. I wrote over 10,000 words and got less than $75. That’s less than 1 cent per word. Like I said, I took the job less for the money and more for the experience, but it was a bit ridiculous.
So would I ghostwrite again? Probably. But I would definitely be more discerning about my client. A lot of the clients on the freelancing site I use only pay a cent or two per word, which is still under market for a ghostwriter. So I’ll likely take a look at other sites and see what I can find there.
In other news, today is my birthday, and I turned the big 25. In a lot of ways, I feel like I’d be further along in life, but I’m also grateful for the pace I’m going. To be fair, I had pretty unrealistic expectations as a kid. I thought I’d have my first book published at 18. I thought it would be a bestseller. Oh, to be young and naive again.
In honor of my birthday, I’m offering a pretty cool deal on my Patreon. If you sign up at the $7/month tier or above, I’ll be sending you a signed copy of my forthcoming book, Just Us. When the book comes out, it will be priced around $16 (plus it won’t be signed if you just order it online), so grab this deal while you can!
Are you lovelies asking for anything reading/writing-related for the holidays? I’m hopeful for a new journal. I’d like to start writing poetry again.
