Latest / The Daily Writer / Ghostwriting Roundtable | Maria Chapman, Karen Anderson, Blake Atwood

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Ghostwriting Roundtable | Maria Chapman, Karen Anderson, Blake Atwood · The Daily Writer

• 0:09
  SPEAKER_01: Hey friends, welcome back to the Profitable Rider Podcast.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_01: If you're new here, my name is Kent Sanders.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_01: I'm an author and ghostwriter, and this is the show that helps you grow your impact and income as a writer.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks for joining me for this episode of our Summer Expert Series.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_01: Let me tell you about each of our three guests.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_01: Maria Chapman is the founder of Connected Ghostwriting, a writing agency built on one clear principle.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_01: Connection drives success.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_01: Her agency does a variety of services, including books, web content, marketing materials, and more.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_01: Her site is connectedghostwriting.com.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_01: Second, Karen Anderson is a strategic book coach and associate publisher for Morgan James Publishing.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_01: She has worked in various roles in the book business and has a marketer for over 25 years.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_01: One of her most notable collaborations is The Bezos Letters, which she wrote with her husband, Steve.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_01: Her site is strategicbookcoach.com.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_01: And last but not least, Blake Atwood is a ghostwriter and editor who recently had two books he helped edit appear simultaneously on the New York Times bestseller list.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_01: Those two books are Atomic Habits by James Clear and The Next Conversation by Jefferson Fisher.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_01: Blake's site is BlakeAtwood.com.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_01: Now I've asked each of these friends to be part of this roundtable discussion because I not only respect their work, but I also appreciate their philosophy and wisdom when it comes to ghostwriting.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_01: A few of the topics that we talk about include how to get started as a ghostwriter, the money side of ghostwriting, how to balance between writing for clients and writing for yourself, some of the biggest mistakes that ghostwriters make, and much more.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_01: So whether you are interested in ghostwriting, whether you're currently a ghostwriter, or whether you're watching from the sidelines and maybe not considering as part of your services as a writer, but something you're just kind of curious about, or maybe even whether you are wanting to hire a ghostwriter and listening to this episode, I think you're going to find this conversation really interesting and inspiring.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_01: So wherever you're coming at this from, hope that you really enjoyed this conversation with three good friends of mine who are experts in their own right.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_01: So, with that, here's our conversation about ghostwriting.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I am super excited for this episode.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, as I mentioned to you guys before I hit record, this is the first ever roundtable episode that I've done for my podcast.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_01: I've been wanting to do this for a long time, and I've been wanting to do this with ghostwriters for a long time too.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_01: So, this I feel like a kid in a candy store because I have three great friends joining me on today's episode.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_01: So you guys have already heard the introductions for each of my esteemed guests today.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_01: So let me dive in with this question.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe this will kind of get the ball rolling.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_01: Is how did you get into ghostwriting and why did you decide this was a career path that you wanted to go down?
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe give us a quick snapshot of the story of how you got into ghostwriting.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_01: And Karen, let's start with you.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, great.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_00: Um, well, thanks, Kent.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, I I don't know that many little kids grow up say when I grow up, I want to be a ghostwriter.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and I fell into it like a lot of people do, just sort of by accident.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_00: Um I had gotten trained as a direct response marketing copywriter editor, and I did a lot of copywriting and editing.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_00: And uh I worked actually, was fortunate to work with some of the really great people in direct response um marketing.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_00: And we were all kids then, but um it was it was great, and I learned so much.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, you're you're basically in in those days, and and if you can't see me, um I have white hair, so I'm sort of dating myself here.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_00: But in those days, we were doing direct mail, it was really expensive, like it was really expensive, so it had to be clean, it had to be clear, it had to be compelling, it had to be good.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_00: There was a lot of pressure, and so um the the really great copywriters were really looking at how to how to get feedback on what they were writing because it was so expensive.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_00: So I ended up doing a lot of copy editing and copy chiefing, that's what it was called in those days, um, indirect response marketing.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_00: And then I had a friend in the book business, and he said, I've got somebody with a great message, but he can't write.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so would you be interested in collaborating with him?
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_00: And I, you know, for me, it's sort of like, well, like what's the worst that can happen?
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_00: And so I ended up ghostwriting a bunch of books for him with his with his authors.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_00: He was publisher, and then, you know, and then it sort of took off from there.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_01: Blake, how about you?
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_01: How did how did you get into this fantastic realm of ghostwriting?
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_01: And thanks, Karen, by the way.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_01: Love that story.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, if you can't see me, I have no hair.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_04: Which conceivably happened.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, which conceivably happened because I went into ghostwriting.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_01: I was gonna say, did ghostwriting accelerate that process?
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_04: We'll get in, we'll get into that, you know.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_04: Uh so I I I never thought I would wind up here, honestly.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_04: I'm I'm so glad that I am here.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_04: Um, I was an English major in college and thought I would teach, but I did not teach as much as we need good teachers.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_04: Uh Kid would know about that.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_01: Um did that for a long time, correct?
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_04: Following college, I was actually a proofreader in the Texas Senate, and I worked in the basement of the Capitol building.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_04: I did not know that.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_04: One of the most fascinating jobs I've ever had, and it was only for one session.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_04: Um, following that, I worked at a church for a while, and then uh following that, I worked as an SEO writer for a law firm.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_04: That was also a pretty interesting job.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_04: And then I also worked as a content editor for a couple of websites for a few years before I went full-time freelance.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_04: And so my freelance career is actually in two parts.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_04: First was in 2014 to 2019, and that is when I I mostly relied on copy editing.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_04: And I think we'll get more into this um in terms of uh just the route that new people can take to try to break into ghostwriting.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_04: And at that time, I also worked on this, it was very fortuitous, coincidental, that I got to be a developmental editor on atomic habits for an early uh version of that book.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_04: And then I also ghostwrote a couple of books during that time.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_04: Uh, and then I wound up taking a five-year uh gig with a nonprofit as their chief editor, and I only recently returned to full-time freelancing uh earlier this year.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_04: And and I ghostwrote a book earlier this year, too.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_04: Uh, so it's been just a really fascinating series of events that led me here.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_01: I saw I got on Instagram earlier today, and so is that the book that you had mentioned in a one of your Instagram posts?
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_04: No, no, I have to be clear about that too.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_04: That's this this is where my uh career gets dicey in terms of having to very very expressly state the the book that Kent is talking about is The Next Conversation by Jefferson Fisher.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_04: He hired me as a book coach.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_04: Every word in that book Jefferson wrote, uh, but I was there just to help him bounce ideas.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_04: And uh yeah, so essentially my freelancing now is ghostwriting, developmental editing, book coaching, all non-fiction.
• 7:37
  unknown: Okay.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I had to laugh at that a little bit because I don't know if any of you, and Maria, I'll get to you in just a second, but I don't know if any of you play this game.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe this, maybe I'm weird, or maybe ghostwriters are weird.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_01: I don't really want to know the answer if I'm the weird one.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_01: But I play this game sometimes where you have friends who are ghostwriters, or you go into a bookstore and you see a book by a celebrity or a well-known person, and you know that a ghostwriter was behind that.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_01: And so I kind of play this little game where I try to figure out who the ghostwriter was with something.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_01: Or if a friend of mine is a ghostwriter and they mention a book, you can kind of read between the lines and often discern whether they were the writer behind that.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_01: And that's just a really fun game I love to kind of kind of play, and you know, because this is what we do for a living.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_01: So and I have so much respect for editors and writers and people behind the scenes who make books happen.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_01: So maybe I'm just the weird one, which is entirely possible.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_05: I love when people ask me, Well, have you worked on anything I might know?
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_05: And I say, Well, I know nothing about your reading habits.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_01: So how that's a good point.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_05: Let's start there.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_05: What do you like to read?
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_05: And then and then it turns the conversation in a different direction.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_05: So we don't have to even have the conversation about which books I've written.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that that's true.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_01: Uh so Maria, share with us your story of how you got into ghostwriting.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_05: Oh, okay.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_05: So uh long version or short version.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_05: I'll I'll do the medium.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_05: Uh, so I was a teacher and a literacy facilitator for a school district um for, you know, in a previous life.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_05: And uh I was medically retired after developing two different neuromuscular conditions in 2019.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_05: And um I was too disabled to continue working in education, but not disabled enough for Social Security or any kind of thing.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_05: So I said, well, I gotta figure something else out.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_05: And I started freelance writing um at that point.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_05: And you know, in in um my spare time with my pile of children and trying to build a new career, I I wrote a book and um I submitted that book and won a Martha's Vineyard Creative Writing Fellowship and said, Oh, I might actually have some talent here.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_05: Maybe, maybe I can do something with this.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_05: And then I ran into a hurdle, and that hurdle was paying for editing of my book.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_05: Right.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_05: And so I said, Well, I need to make more money than I'm making right now if I want to pay for editing of my book.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_05: And so I started talking to my phone about how to make more money, freelance writing.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_05: And then um, I actually, there's this interesting Facebook ad, Kent, from someone we both know, um, that said freelance writing is a what is it, a race to the bottom?
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_05: And I said, Oh, wait, I have an experience with that.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_05: So um I actually around that same time I joined Ghostwriter School with Nick.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_05: Um, I also had my one of my freelance clients say, Hey, you've been writing for my website for a long time.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_05: Do you think you could write my book?
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_05: And I said, I think I probably could do that.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_05: So um, so that's sort of how I fell into it.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_05: And I wrote that first book while I was doing ghostwriter school.
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_05: Um and then at this point, my business has been mostly referral-based, although we did just get our first website Google search client, um, which is exciting because, well, my agency does SEO web content as well.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_05: Um, so I finally started doing it with my own business.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_05: And about four months later, we had someone find us on a Google search and sign a contract.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_05: I was like, oh, look at that case study.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_05: It works.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_05: Um, and so we've been 100% referral-based up until this point.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_01: But we that's really cool.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_05: We're kind of we're flipping into playing around with some SEO and other types of marketing.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_05: So um, so started freelance and then pivoted to ghostwriting.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_05: Um, and then once I had too much work, I started an agency model.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_05: And that's where we are now.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_01: So one of the common themes, and and this is the case with me too, one of the common themes for for the discerning listener, I think, is that none of us really started out with the goal of getting into ghostwriting.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_01: You know, probably all of us began with the idea was I want to write my own books, I want to do blogging, I want to do, I want to make some kind of living related to books and writing.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_01: And the vast majority of ghostwriters that I know would describe it as I kind of stumbled into ghostwriting, or I found myself, people were asking me to help with something or another.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_01: And I then all of a sudden you kind of find yourself, oh, I'm ghostwriting books for people.
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_01: Do you do all of you find that that is a common theme with ghostwriters?
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_01: Is you come from the world of freelancing or um some other kind of writing for hire, or copywriting, or some other, some other realm of writing for hire, but then you kind of wind up ghostwriting books.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_01: That does that seem to be a common theme, or is that just me?
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_05: I I would say that more than just being common, I think it's an important theme.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_05: And the reason for that is, you know, I've hired a couple of writers who they start working for me on test articles.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_05: I always start people off doing um article work for our clients as opposed to starting them off on a book project.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_03: That's good.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_05: And um, you know, a lot of people come in and they say, Oh, I've never been paid for my writing before.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_05: And I find them because they're writing on LinkedIn about business or they're writing on Medium about social about mental health, which is one of the areas we write in.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_05: And um, so that's how I'm finding them.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_05: So they're out there, they're writing, and they're writing maybe freelance.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_05: Um, but the flip to getting paid to write is a big switch.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_05: And I think if you can find a way to flip that switch, the rest of it becomes a little bit easier because otherwise there's this idea that it's art or it's creative, it's a hobby.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_05: I mean, I don't know how many people told me that this was a little hobby of mine that it was really cute.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_05: Um so I think finding a way to get paid for writing is a good button to hit.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_01: I I'd be curious to see.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_01: Um, yeah, that's a boy, that's such a great theme.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_01: Um Blake, how did how did that flip switch for you in terms of of was there something mentally that needed to happen or something that needed to happen internally for you to go from, hey, I like being I like the idea of being a writer to okay, I'm I I want to put myself out there as somebody who deserves and wants to get paid as a writer.
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_01: How did that process work for you?
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, as Maria was talking, I was flashing back to when I actually wrote my first book.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_04: This isn't really a plug because it's kind of one of the book that I look back on.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_04: It came out in 2014, I think, maybe earlier.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_04: And I'm like, it was fine.
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_04: There are a lot of reasons I shouldn't have written the book.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_05: And now we're all gonna go buy it.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_05: Was this the breaking bad book?
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, it's called The Gospel According to Breaking Bad.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_04: It's so good, it's such a good book.
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_04: And I and I well, thank you, Ken.
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_04: It's very kind.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_04: But it it's also like, you know, I'm what are we, 10 years removed from that.
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_04: And so I look back at it, I'm like, well, I I see what I could could have done better.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_04: That's that's another conversation.
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_04: Um, but writing that book, and that was even before I went full-time freelance, just the discipline to write it is really what I got the most out of it.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_04: I was like, I don't care if this book sells, I just want to finish it.
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_04: Like I had this idea, I want to see it through.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_04: And so I had the discipline to like wake up at five, I had a full-time job, I was married, you know, like wake up at five, write for an hour, do that over and over and over.
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_04: Eventually, you have a book, and that really unlocks something for me.
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_04: I I liken it to I don't run marathons, I don't think I ever will.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_04: But I have to liken it to like somebody who runs a marathon for the first time.
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_04: They they don't think they can do it, and then they accomplish it, and then they're like addicted to it.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_04: They're like, it just really unlocks something in me.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_04: And then when the book sold a few copies, I thought, oh, I'm getting paid for writing.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_04: And so that just leads from one thing to the next.
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_01: There's almost this element of once you get a little taste of it, and once you earn those first few dollars as a writer, no matter how it comes, and no matter if it was client work or book sales or whatever, there's something addictive about that.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_01: I think you're you're exactly right.
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_01: I felt that too.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_01: Karen, how about you?
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_01: What was that experience like for you as a writer?
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_01: How how how how would you describe that process of that flip getting switched?
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I you know what, I cut my eye teeth as an editor.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_00: And uh so I I spent a lot of years um editing.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_00: And I I think it it served me, that served me well because I so I we all a lot of us have first careers.
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_00: My first career was I was a marriage and family therapist.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_00: And so I I I basically was listening to people all the time and helping people overcome, you know, whatever the issue was and communicating clearly and all those kinds of things.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_00: I just that translated easily for me into editing.
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_00: And I really, really love developmental editing.
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_00: I like line editing.
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_00: I I love the editing process because I love making copy clear.
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_00: I I love I I love it.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_00: And I think part of what happened for me was uh because I spent so much time editing, um editing this this may sound a little strange, but um I you know one of the things about being a ghost writer is you gotta write in somebody else's voice.
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_00: And so you got to be able to figure out either, you know, what their voice is because they don't know it, or how to be able to help that, you know, help write in that voice because you're trying to communicate for that person in their their voice.
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_00: I think I spent so much time editing that I was able to clearly hear what people's voices were and to be able to look at doing that.
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I'll just tell you this funny story.
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_00: I ended up kind of coaching development editing and ghostwriting, like a book for someone, and and it went really well.
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_00: She was really happy.
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_00: It was great.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_00: And um, she actually needed somebody to write the foreword for her book.
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_00: And and so we, you know, we kind of looked in the the pool of people who could write the forward, and she finally came around and she was like, I've got the perfect person to write the foreword for this book.
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, that's great.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_00: Because I can write forwards and I can write endorsements and I can write, but you know, I can do all that.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_00: And she came back and she said, It's actually you.
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_00: And I went, Oh, okay.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_00: And she and she spelled out all the reasons why I would be the great person to write the foreword.
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, great.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_00: But to find my own voice after writing for so many people and then writing for this particular client and making it sound different enough that it sounded like me and not her, was a real challenge.
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_00: I had to go to some of my friends who are ghostwriters and go, help me find my voice because I need it to be different.
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_00: And so I think there's something that comes from when you when you have an opportunity to read a lot, read a lot of copy, read a lot when you're doing that, and then you're you're I mean, I I I've probably written, I don't know, 20 some odd books.
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_00: And then and then going, okay, and so how do I how do I get my voice and remember what my voice is, and at the same time be sensitive and aware to helping other people figure out their voice.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_00: I think that's not the answer to your question, but that's where where I ended up at.
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_01: No, that's great.
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_01: That's great.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_01: I think that's wonderful.
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_05: I I often describe when I'm talking to a writer who's interested in working for me, I I describe ghostwriting as a combination of acting and writing.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_05: Because you have to sort of take on the persona of the person you're writing for first in order to be able to write for them.
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_00: And part of the challenges is when they don't know what their persona is.
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_01: You will find that.
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_00: That's a month's worth of work at the beginning.
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I I was a um I would describe myself as an artist, probably first and foremost, and probably at times have struggled a little bit in my own mindset with the business aspects of like just, you know, some people come to the the world of writing as a natural business thinker, they're very strategic and all that.
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_01: I come from the world of I'm kind of a very creative, curious person, and the business stuff has not always come very easily to me.
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_01: And I find that whenever I write for somebody, uh, most of the time I feel like I absorb a little bit of that person into my own psychology.
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_01: And it's exactly what you're and I Maria, I love the metaphor of acting and writing because sometimes you hear actors talk about when they're a character, they sometimes have a hard time getting out of that role, especially if it's something that psychologically requires them to go to a certain place or whatever that is.
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_01: And I have found that that's true as a ghostwriter because you spend so much time kind of in the head of somebody else.
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_01: Um sometimes you take on little slices of their persona in your own writing.
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_01: Have any of you ever experienced that, or am I just weird when it comes to this?
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_01: I'm curious your perspective on that.
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_05: No, I the what Karen said about um struggling to find her own voice resonated with me.
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_01: Right, me too.
• 20:53
  SPEAKER_01: Me too.
• 20:53
  SPEAKER_05: I when I first started ghostwriting, I was really enjoying making money.
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_05: That was so fun.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_05: And so I sort of stopped writing my own content and focused really on writing my clients' content.
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_05: And I would caution anyone who's getting into this not to do that because then I had to go through what Karen went through with finding my own voice again.
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_05: And so one of the things I've had to be disciplined about is making sure I have time in my world for my own writing.
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_05: Um, and I find first thing in the morning before I start thinking about my clients and their needs and their content.
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_05: If I for you know, I mean I have the kids and get them off to school, but after that's done, um, I can typically sit down as my most authentic version of me and do some writing before I jump into my clients' content for the day.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_01: That's really, really good advice.
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_01: That's really good advice.
• 21:49
  SPEAKER_01: Blake, how about you?
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_04: So many thoughts.
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_04: And I'm I'm a little nervous that we have an LMFT in the room with us.
• 21:59
  SPEAKER_04: So it Get diagnosed as I'm talking about this and thinking those are my people.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_04: I agree.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, I've worked with some too.
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_04: Um, so what am I thinking?
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_04: Um sometimes I wonder, as a ghostwriter, if I'm just an insecure writer for myself.
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_04: In terms of, I remember first launching out into freelancing thinking, I'm gonna have all this time to write my own stuff.
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_04: It's gonna be great.
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_01: We're all laughing because it's related to that.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_04: You absolutely should be laughing.
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_04: I'm laughing at myself 10 years ago.
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_04: Um, I did not have a business mind.
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_04: I am still trying to grow in that.
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_04: Um, thankfully, there are podcasts like a certain one that I may be on right now that can help me with that.
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_04: So what would that be?
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, it's called the Profitable Writer, and everybody should subscribe.
• 22:49
  SPEAKER_04: There's you don't even have to run your ad now.
• 22:51
  SPEAKER_04: Um there you go.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_01: There you go.
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_01: There's my plug.
• 22:55
  SPEAKER_04: So eventually, to get back to the question, um I saw it as I'm likely not going to make money on what I write for myself, but I can make money writing for other people.
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_04: And what's funny is I have a lot more confidence when I'm working on other people's content than I do when I'm working on my own stuff.
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_04: And so that's a really weird kind of emotional, um, insecure place to be.
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_04: But I absolutely agree with Maria that you need to write your own stuff.
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, we have to, we have to, we have to do all the things that we tell our authors to do.
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_04: And I know I forget that all the time.
• 23:31
  SPEAKER_04: And I have to remind myself, you may not see dividends on this work immediately, but it's still worthwhile to do, even if it's just like I said when I wrote my book, even if it's just for the discipline of it, much less like just doing it for like your mental creative health.
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_05: Well, and I think it's important to keep in mind that you don't have to profit from everything you write for yourself, right?
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_05: I mean, I have some things I've written that like I if I decide I want to publish them, my family, we're gonna have to get really comfortable talking about some things real quick.
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_05: And I don't know that everybody's ready for that.
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 24:09
  SPEAKER_05: So, you know, some of that's not getting published yet.
• 24:13
  SPEAKER_05: And that's okay, but I still have to create it.
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_01: And isn't the whole point of all this anyway?
• 24:21
  SPEAKER_01: Is to build the kind of life and career that you want to build.
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_01: There are ghostwriters who I've got a good friend who uh successful ghostwriter, and I don't think she has any aspirations that I know of of writing her own stuff.
• 24:33
  SPEAKER_01: She's told me before, I just want to write other people's stuff.
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_01: And in a way, I'm kind of jealous of that because I'm like, man, if I if I didn't have the desire to write my own stuff, life would be so much easier.
• 24:43
  SPEAKER_01: I could just focus on client stuff and not have to sort of do this juggling act of the creative impulse that I have to write my own stuff and all that.
• 24:51
  SPEAKER_01: But then there are ghostwriters who who write their own stuff and they do client work.
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_01: And then there are really, really successful authors who still do ghostwriting on the side.
• 25:01
  SPEAKER_01: In fact, I learned of a very successful author who's been very successful for decades, and I just learned about a book that he ghostwrote uh for somebody just about a year ago.
• 25:11
  SPEAKER_01: And I was like, what?
• 25:13
  SPEAKER_01: That's crazy.
• 25:13
  SPEAKER_01: And occasionally, you know, probably all of you are like me, you'll hear about these really successful authors who kind of secretly are doing, you know, book doctoring or ghostwriting for other people.
• 25:23
  SPEAKER_01: And um, I guess it's kind of like the godfather, you know, I keep trying to get out, but they keep pulling me back in, sort of thing.
• 25:29
  SPEAKER_01: I think once a ghostwriter may be always a ghostwriter.
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_01: I I would love to throw out this question.
• 25:35
  SPEAKER_01: And Maria, you suggested this question, which I think is really good for us to wrestle with and something that a lot of people are curious about in terms of building your writing career.
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_01: So, Maria, you said that sometimes people have asked you the question, is ghostwriting selling out?
• 25:51
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm curious each of your responses to this question, because sometimes there is this the the assumption from from certain writers that, well, if you're a real writer, you only write your own novels or you write your own nonfiction or you have this big author platform.
• 26:10
  SPEAKER_01: And if you're a ghostwriter sort of toiling away in the shadows for other people, you're kind of a sellout.
• 26:16
  SPEAKER_01: And I I know some people assume that.
• 26:18
  SPEAKER_01: Those of us who are ghostwriters, you know, probably have something to say about that.
• 26:22
  SPEAKER_01: So uh Maria, let's start with you since you posed that question.
• 26:25
  SPEAKER_01: I I would be curious also, uh, Blake and Karen, your your thoughts on that that topic as well.
• 26:32
  SPEAKER_05: So I mentioned that I sort of fell into freelance writing and ghostwriting after writing my own stuff and realizing, oh, I need to make some money if I want to take this over the finish line.
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_05: And um I at the time I was part of the Martha's Vineyard Creative Writing Fellowship, but I also attended, you know, local writers' groups or virtual writers' groups during COVID, things like that, um, where we'd you know get together and and write for an hour and share and uh and all of that.
• 26:58
  SPEAKER_05: And the camaraderie was really great.
• 27:01
  SPEAKER_05: And when I mentioned in some of these groups that I was ghostwriting, the the term sellout came up.
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_01: Interesting.
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_05: And I I first of all, I love that people were like calling me out in the middle of this group, and well, you're just a sellout, and so I sort of I took two different tracks with that, and but both are true.
• 27:23
  SPEAKER_05: Number one, um, if by sell out you mean make a profit as a writer, absolutely selling out.
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_05: Like if that's what you mean by it, then yes, I am.
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_05: Right.
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_05: And the other thing I I I would say is the people that I'm writing for, you know, my agency focuses in mental health, wellness, and social justice spaces.
• 27:47
  SPEAKER_05: And so the books that we're writing are books that people use when they're in a dark place and want some help getting out of there.
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_05: And when I was sick, when I was disabled, I that that's what I used books for.
• 28:04
  SPEAKER_05: Um, because a lot of my life was spent just trying to make it through the day.
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_05: And so I'm writing books that I needed at that time or that other people need when they're in in that space.
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_05: So if by selling out you mean I'm making profit, absolutely.
• 28:28
  SPEAKER_05: But I would argue that making sure messages get into the world that need to be in the world is not selling out.
• 28:37
  SPEAKER_05: Because the people I'm writing for don't have the words or don't have the time or don't have the expertise in writing to get their message out.
• 28:45
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 28:45
  SPEAKER_05: But they have a message and it needs to be there.
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_01: Yep.
• 28:49
  SPEAKER_01: And I wonder if if the people who who think that ghostwriting or doing any kind of behind-the-scenes writing work is selling out, I wonder if they say that because your name isn't on everything that you create.
• 29:01
  SPEAKER_05: So I I get that question a lot.
• 29:03
  SPEAKER_05: That's the assumption behind it.
• 29:04
  SPEAKER_05: Well, how do you feel about having done all that work and then you don't get any credit for it?
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_05: To which I pause and say, but I got paid.
• 29:12
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
• 29:13
  SPEAKER_01: Which would you rather have?
• 29:15
  SPEAKER_05: Well, I like both.
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_05: Both are great.
• 29:17
  SPEAKER_01: But both are great.
• 29:18
  SPEAKER_01: But uh I like getting paid.
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_05: But it you know, you sometimes you have to pick one, and that's okay.
• 29:25
  SPEAKER_01: There's kind of the assumption behind that, I think that anything of value has the person's name on it, which is not true.
• 29:30
  SPEAKER_01: There are if you're if you're an attorney, your name is not on things.
• 29:35
  SPEAKER_01: You know, the person who built my house, their name is not on the front of my house.
• 29:39
  SPEAKER_01: The mechanic who works on my truck, their name is not on my truck.
• 29:42
  SPEAKER_01: Why does your name have to be on everything?
• 29:44
  SPEAKER_01: There's there's kind of a cadre of writers who just think, well, mine, you've got to get credit for everything publicly, but that's that's kind of a silly notion.
• 29:52
  SPEAKER_05: I mean, Bill Gates' name isn't on every Microsoft product.
• 29:57
  SPEAKER_01: Right, right.
• 29:58
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
• 29:59
  SPEAKER_05: I think we're doing okay.
• 30:00
  SPEAKER_01: I I think so.
• 30:01
  SPEAKER_01: Karen, I was curious your perspective on this.
• 30:03
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, go ahead, Lick.
• 30:05
  SPEAKER_04: Just gonna say Bill Gates' real name is Bill Windows.
• 30:08
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 30:09
  SPEAKER_04: I'm so sorry.
• 30:10
  SPEAKER_05: So sorry.
• 30:13
  SPEAKER_05: I mean, they both open gate window.
• 30:17
  SPEAKER_00: Um, well, you know, I I I haven't I haven't I haven't had that experience where people have said that to me.
• 30:24
  SPEAKER_00: So I, you know, um but but I would say when people ask me about ghostwriting, you know, one of the things that I think highly successive, successful people do is they play to their strengths.
• 30:38
  SPEAKER_00: And there are people that are really, really good at what they do, and writing their own book isn't isn't one of their strengths.
• 30:49
  SPEAKER_00: And so they're smart enough to go, I I could use some help in this area, and I want the best because I want it to reflect who I am.
• 30:57
  SPEAKER_00: I'm very successful.
• 30:59
  SPEAKER_00: And and so to me, I'm providing a service to someone who is wise enough to go, you know, if I wrote my own book, it wouldn't do what I wanted it to do because that's not my skill set, that's not who I am.
• 31:15
  SPEAKER_00: That's you know, I'm really good at running a multi-million dollar company, but I, you know, I didn't get trained up as a writer.
• 31:22
  SPEAKER_00: And so for me, I feel like I'm I'm providing a huge service to people.
• 31:27
  SPEAKER_00: Um, if if you don't mind me sharing an example, um, I ended up, I didn't ghostwrite it.
• 31:34
  SPEAKER_00: I ended up um being a co-author with my husband on his book, The Bezos Letters.
• 31:39
  SPEAKER_00: And um great book, by the way.
• 31:41
  SPEAKER_00: So much.
• 31:42
  SPEAKER_00: We just hit 700 reviews today.
• 31:44
  SPEAKER_00: I was happy with that.
• 31:45
  SPEAKER_01: Wow, congrats.
• 31:46
  SPEAKER_00: Um uh so the um the thing about Steve is he's brilliant at what he does.
• 31:53
  SPEAKER_00: He's really, really good.
• 31:55
  SPEAKER_00: He just couldn't write a book, and so it was it was a great opportunity to um to get in and help him practice message, which has helped him help the message.
• 32:06
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's it's just been a great opportunity to help.
• 32:10
  SPEAKER_00: Could he have written, and I I mean, I know him well, could he have written a book?
• 32:14
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 32:15
  SPEAKER_00: He, you know, he's writes articles and he's a speaker and he's like all of those things.
• 32:19
  SPEAKER_00: But honestly, when it came to writing a book, that that wasn't his wheelhouse.
• 32:23
  SPEAKER_00: And so the fact that he had someone collaborate on the book and the fact that we're still married, um, you know, I I I give him credit for that because it has served what he needed it to serve, but it wasn't his skill set.
• 32:37
  SPEAKER_00: So for me, providing that kind of service for someone, you know, I don't think of it as being as diminishing me in any way.
• 32:45
  SPEAKER_00: I feel like my role is to really enhance, enhance people.
• 32:50
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, Beth Beth McCord is another one.
• 32:51
  SPEAKER_00: I wrote a book for um Beth and Jeff McCord called Becoming Us.
• 32:54
  SPEAKER_00: It's a great book.
• 32:55
  SPEAKER_00: She's got a bazillion followers on Instagram, she's got an amazing business.
• 33:00
  SPEAKER_00: And um, and I mean, if you see her on on Instagram, she's extraordinary.
• 33:05
  SPEAKER_00: She has a um a learning disability and she she can't write.
• 33:10
  SPEAKER_00: And so she's like, I need somebody to write my book.
• 33:12
  SPEAKER_00: Great.
• 33:12
  SPEAKER_00: We've collaborated together.
• 33:14
  SPEAKER_00: It was better together than it would have been if if you know, if either one of us had done it.
• 33:18
  SPEAKER_00: And it ended up being a great book.
• 33:20
  SPEAKER_00: She was really clear that that was not for strength.
• 33:23
  SPEAKER_00: So for me, it's it's it's an opportunity to provide service to people um in an area that they they need support in.
• 33:30
  SPEAKER_00: So I feel really good about it.
• 33:31
  SPEAKER_00: Yep.
• 33:32
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, that's a that's a really good point, Karen.
• 33:34
  SPEAKER_05: I I actually just um I just lost a client this week, last week.
• 33:40
  SPEAKER_05: Um she had cancer, and we were hoping to get her book done before um before she passed, and she just took a turn.
• 33:50
  SPEAKER_05: And um, but I was able to last week finish the book and send it to her family.
• 33:58
  SPEAKER_03: Oh wow.
• 33:59
  SPEAKER_05: And holy cow.
• 34:02
  SPEAKER_05: I mean, she did she did not have the time or the energy to write it herself.
• 34:06
  SPEAKER_05: Um, but she had all her podcast episodes that we were writing from.
• 34:09
  SPEAKER_05: And so what you just said about providing a service to someone who really needs it.
• 34:13
  SPEAKER_05: I mean, I've worked with people who are non-native English speakers.
• 34:17
  SPEAKER_05: Um, I have an author that I've worked with who's dyslexic and couldn't write on their own.
• 34:22
  SPEAKER_05: Um, my background is in dyslexia remediation, so that was a really, really good fit.
• 34:27
  SPEAKER_05: And so so that that idea of providing a service to people who really need it resonates really deeply.
• 34:33
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 34:34
  SPEAKER_01: Love that.
• 34:35
  SPEAKER_01: Love that.
• 34:36
  SPEAKER_01: We'll get back to the conversation in just a minute, but I want to take a moment to give a big thanks to today's sponsor, Vellum.
• 34:42
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• 34:51
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• 35:24
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• 35:29
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• 35:32
  SPEAKER_01: Now let's get back to the conversation.
• 35:35
  SPEAKER_04: The only thing I would add, and I think what Maria just said uh underscores it, is that it sounds like accusations like that come from a place of ignorance, just in terms of they don't really know the full scope of what the work really is.
• 35:49
  SPEAKER_04: Right.
• 35:50
  SPEAKER_04: And so don't they they may not understand that it's not just uh a financial transaction and you spit out the words, but there's so much more to it, and especially what it sounds like the kinds of clients that we all work with.
• 36:02
  SPEAKER_00: Well, but these are I'm I'm sorry.
• 36:07
  SPEAKER_04: What is that, Karen?
• 36:09
  SPEAKER_00: Sorry.
• 36:10
  SPEAKER_00: No, I just I'm I'm sorry, I interrupted.
• 36:13
  SPEAKER_00: Um, my apologies.
• 36:15
  SPEAKER_02: That's okay.
• 36:16
  SPEAKER_00: Um no, but uh to to just support you in that, I think part of what what has happened is in the old days, if if if we go back, there was a stigma around ghostwriting.
• 36:27
  SPEAKER_00: There was there was somebody who purported that this was their message, and there was somebody hidden in the back that was doing it, and that person never got acknowledged.
• 36:36
  SPEAKER_00: They they never they like they were persona non grata, they like were out there, and there was there was this huge stigma.
• 36:42
  SPEAKER_00: And when you found out somebody didn't actually write their book, that there was a ghostwriter, then there was this, oh my gosh, that they were disingenuous and they were being political and blah, blah, blah, blah.
• 36:52
  SPEAKER_00: I think the world has changed.
• 36:54
  SPEAKER_00: And and and in terms of ghostwriting now, I feel like people are are going, yeah, I'm just I'm I'm okay with owning the fact that you know that's not my strong suit.
• 37:04
  SPEAKER_00: And and there are a lot of ghostwriters.
• 37:05
  SPEAKER_00: I'm getting more, I don't know about y'all, but I'm getting more, you know, collaborative, I'm getting more andts and withs and acknowledgements that people are going, yeah, they helped me write my book.
• 37:15
  SPEAKER_00: And and you I think you're seeing that more.
• 37:17
  SPEAKER_00: So that to me, that's a huge step to be able to say, yes, we're doing something in a collaborative way that's going to be the you know better for all of us.
• 37:27
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 37:28
  SPEAKER_01: Blake, anything to add to that?
• 37:30
  SPEAKER_04: No, that's a good point, though, because I I do I agree that the perception has changed over time, and I think it's been for the better for us as ghostwriters.
• 37:38
  SPEAKER_01: And it's good for writers in general.
• 37:40
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I operate on the the assumption that I've told people this many times that I don't think anything of value happens in culture without a writer behind it.
• 37:48
  SPEAKER_01: And I mean that really sincerely.
• 37:50
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, yes, you have people who do work that is not writing related.
• 37:53
  SPEAKER_01: That's not really what I mean.
• 37:54
  SPEAKER_01: But anytime that you hear a president give a speech, anytime you read a graphic novel, anytime you go to a movie or go to a play or hear something on the radio or hear a song, that there's a writer, sometimes multiple writers behind that.
• 38:08
  SPEAKER_01: So I just kind of work on the assumption that culture is created by writers and artists.
• 38:14
  SPEAKER_01: And gosh, there to me, there's no greater glory than knowing that you had a hand in creating something that can literally change somebody's life, or a book that helps somebody like Maria you were talking about in a dark time, a book that maybe saved them, saved their life in some way or gave them some essential piece of knowledge or whatever it is.
• 38:33
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, that's that's pretty cool when you step back and and take a look at it.
• 38:37
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, what we do is really life-changing.
• 38:40
  SPEAKER_05: You know, it's as Karen was talking, I just made this connection um for myself and you know, my background in education.
• 38:48
  SPEAKER_05: Uh a lot of times I'll say things like, Well, I have three master's degrees in education, but I'm not using any of them.
• 38:54
  SPEAKER_05: And when Karen was talking, I was like, Oh, wait.
• 38:56
  SPEAKER_05: Like I've known that that's not necessarily true, right?
• 39:01
  SPEAKER_05: But the same way that I would scaffold learning when I had students with dyslexia, we would have a scribe for them, someone to write their ideas down.
• 39:11
  SPEAKER_05: What I'm doing now is not different.
• 39:14
  SPEAKER_05: It's scaffolding so that every piece of the writing and publishing process is accessible to writers who maybe don't have those skills themselves.
• 39:23
  SPEAKER_05: Um and obviously writing a book, structuring a book is not that different from structuring a lesson when you're teaching, right?
• 39:30
  SPEAKER_05: And so I had always made that link, but the link between, you know, how I would scaffold for students who had trouble writing and what we do for our clients to make sure that they can get their ideas out.
• 39:41
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I would contend you you're using all of that.
• 39:44
  SPEAKER_00: I'm using all of them in a way that actually optimizes all of that, just in a different arena that you may have originally intended it.
• 39:54
  SPEAKER_00: Because because really one of the things, and I think we kind of opened opened with this idea, when you come from diverse backgrounds, when you have diverse experiences, you're able to, you're able to bring a perspective that sometimes the person who has the message, you know, isn't able to bring.
• 40:11
  SPEAKER_00: They're just so close to it and they're so focused on it.
• 40:13
  SPEAKER_00: So I I think, you know, um, you know, as ghostwriters, we bring something to the table that's not just taking the message and translating it into words that are easy to understand.
• 40:27
  SPEAKER_00: We bring a perspective and a depth and a I don't know, gravitas, maybe too big a word, but you know what I'm trying to say, just uh a real sense of connectedness because of our life experience.
• 40:39
  SPEAKER_05: Um well, and then the longer we're in in this world, right, with the more knowledge we have about what publishers are looking for, what bookstores are looking for, and so we can help structure a book in a way that is going to be noticed and not just finished.
• 40:53
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 40:55
  SPEAKER_01: I'd love to get into the money piece of this a little bit, which is what everybody wants to know about, you know, with ghostwriting.
• 41:00
  SPEAKER_01: Um, before I do that though, I would love if each of you could share any advice that you might have.
• 41:06
  SPEAKER_01: And and I know all of all of us get asked by people all the time related to this is I'm interested in ghostwriting.
• 41:14
  SPEAKER_01: I think I might want to do that as a career path.
• 41:16
  SPEAKER_01: How do I get started?
• 41:18
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, what are some pieces of advice that that you all would share with somebody who wants to get into ghostwriting?
• 41:26
  SPEAKER_01: And um maybe Blake, let's start with you.
• 41:28
  SPEAKER_01: You look like you're interested to say something.
• 41:30
  SPEAKER_04: So there are no more ghostwriting jobs available, so don't don't even break into it.
• 41:36
  SPEAKER_05: The market is saturated.
• 41:37
  SPEAKER_04: I'm just kidding.
• 41:38
  SPEAKER_04: There are plenty, but it is hard to find the kind of jobs, the kinds of jobs that I would say are worthwhile, both in terms of like your experience, the kind of people you want to work with, and hopefully the kind of money you would like to make.
• 41:49
  SPEAKER_04: Um, one of the things that uh I employed when I first started out, and I and I really do think like getting that first client is the hardest.
• 41:56
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, because you can you can definitely build off of that.
• 41:58
  SPEAKER_04: Um so what I tend to suggest to people who ask me about that is figure out who you want to work for.
• 42:05
  SPEAKER_04: Figure out the cli the kind of client you want to work for, whether it that's like a tech CEO, maybe that's your your specific niche, and then tell everybody you know online and offline that I'm looking to help write books or even just write content for a tech CEO and see what what happens.
• 42:23
  SPEAKER_04: Um, I I I definitely want to share later what I charged for the first book that I ghostwrote, because it's hilarious and sad.
• 42:34
  SPEAKER_04: And but I I preface that because I got that first job through a friend of a friend because I put the word out, I said, I'm looking to, I don't even know if I said ghostwrite, but essentially I'm looking for writing work, and I was really vague, but I encourage people to really think about the kind of people they want to work with, be very specific and angle themselves, angle themselves toward that.
• 43:00
  SPEAKER_00: And Jeff Goings Jeff Goings always makes a great point that um the first step is just call yourself a writer.
• 43:08
  unknown: Yep.
• 43:08
  SPEAKER_00: Like you go to a cocktail party, you go to a soccer game, and somebody says, What do you do?
• 43:13
  SPEAKER_00: You open with the fact I'm a writer.
• 43:15
  SPEAKER_00: You can say I'm a ghostwriter, you can, I mean, if you're not ghostwriting, but you know what I'm saying.
• 43:20
  SPEAKER_00: Open with the fact that that you're a writer because things freelance writer, professional writer, whatever things will bubble up.
• 43:27
  SPEAKER_00: And um, but if you don't think of yourself as a writer, then it's hard to sell yourself as a writer.
• 43:33
  SPEAKER_01: Yep.
• 43:34
  SPEAKER_04: So true.
• 43:35
  SPEAKER_04: I remember going to like a gathering of creatives in Dallas early on when I first started freelancing, and I could not meet anybody's eyes when I said I'm a writer.
• 43:47
  SPEAKER_04: Because I didn't I didn't believe it.
• 43:49
  SPEAKER_04: So that's a that's a great point.
• 43:51
  SPEAKER_05: You know, um, to pick off what Blake was saying was uh about think about the type of person you want to write with or write for.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_05: Um what I did is I was freelance writing in the mental health and sexual health realm.
• 44:07
  SPEAKER_05: And I specifically sought out jobs in those sectors because I knew that that was something I enjoyed writing about and that I was good at.
• 44:16
  SPEAKER_05: Um oddly enough, my first majors in college were journalism and social work as a double major.
• 44:21
  SPEAKER_05: I changed it eight times and then, you know, but now I'm writing about mental health.
• 44:26
  SPEAKER_05: So that's hilarious to me.
• 44:28
  SPEAKER_05: Um, but the reason I did that is because I wanted to be writing for those types of people.
• 44:35
  SPEAKER_05: And what I ended up doing, how I landed my first book contract, was I reached out to someone I knew in that field and said, Hey, I'm writing an article about X.
• 44:46
  SPEAKER_05: Can I interview you for it?
• 44:50
  SPEAKER_05: And this was someone I had known for years and years and years through different areas of life.
• 44:56
  SPEAKER_05: But that was enough for her to say, Oh, is that what you're doing now?
• 45:01
  SPEAKER_05: And I said, Yes, I'm a freelance writer.
• 45:04
  SPEAKER_05: And then it became well, could you write for my website?
• 45:08
  SPEAKER_05: Do you do blogs?
• 45:10
  SPEAKER_05: Can you write my book?
• 45:11
  SPEAKER_05: And so I was already writing in that field.
• 45:15
  SPEAKER_05: And even if if you're not writing for someone else, writing on Medium or writing on LinkedIn.
• 45:22
  SPEAKER_05: I'm writing an article about the X topic.
• 45:24
  SPEAKER_05: Can I interview you?
• 45:27
  SPEAKER_01: Great strategy.
• 45:31
  SPEAKER_01: Karen, anything to add to that?
• 45:33
  SPEAKER_01: Advice for people who want to get into ghostwriting?
• 45:38
  SPEAKER_00: Um Yeah, I mean, I guess I would just underscore uh what Maria and Blake have said, in that um, you know, the answer to, you know, if it's like what kind of books do you like to write?
• 45:51
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's like, well, I don't write all kinds of books.
• 45:54
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it it really, it really is looking at what's your passion?
• 45:57
  SPEAKER_00: What do you and I and I've written a I've written a lot of books in a lot of different areas.
• 46:02
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but I I think if you're starting out, it's it's good to pick a lane and and get in that lane.
• 46:09
  SPEAKER_00: And so, you know, you've got some bumpers there.
• 46:12
  SPEAKER_00: And I I think that will help you.
• 46:14
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I remember um, I mean, a long time ago, but you know, I remember in some of the the early books that that I was doing, you know, part of what I was looking for are things that I had in common with the author, like things that I could bring to the table.
• 46:29
  SPEAKER_00: And so it because it's not just, and maybe I'm I'm belavoring this point, but it's not just writing the right words to getting it on getting it on the page, like AI can do that.
• 46:39
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's bringing perspective, it's bringing your your expertise, it's bringing your life experience to be able to really amplify that message and make that message clear for the author.
• 46:52
  SPEAKER_00: So I, you know, I think being able to know what lane you want to be in and starting there, and like Maria was saying too, you know, if you're if you're writing small and getting paid to small, then you, you know, stair step your your way up.
• 47:05
  SPEAKER_00: I think a lot of people want to jump into the big books, like, oh, I'm willing to ghostwrite your book.
• 47:10
  SPEAKER_00: And and they, and I'm not saying that they haven't paid their dues.
• 47:14
  SPEAKER_00: I'm saying more um, you know, you build on your experience.
• 47:20
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 47:20
  SPEAKER_01: And reputation and whatever past books you've done.
• 47:23
  SPEAKER_01: And there's so many.
• 47:24
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm glad you mentioned that, Karen, because that's actually our next topic.
• 47:27
  SPEAKER_01: Um, is I I would love, let's have a conversation about what should people be charging for ghostwriting.
• 47:33
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm a little hesitant to even kind of broach the subject because pricing can be all over the map and it's it can be very complex, and it depends on so many factors.
• 47:43
  SPEAKER_01: You know, the complexity of the book, the length of the book, what kind of book it is, how busy you are.
• 47:48
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, sometimes it depends on the clients and uh whether you feel they're going to be high maintenance or not.
• 47:54
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, let's just be honest, that that is a factor that does affect your willingness to work on a book and time that you have available and all kinds of things.
• 48:01
  SPEAKER_01: So maybe let's frame the discussion a little bit this way.
• 48:04
  SPEAKER_01: Um what do you what would you recommend somebody who is a beginning ghostwriter charge for their first one or two books?
• 48:13
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe that's a good place to start.
• 48:14
  SPEAKER_01: And once somebody is established, um once they get into doing it full time, what do you think is a reasonable range somebody could charge for a full-length book?
• 48:26
  SPEAKER_01: I'm just gonna throw out somewhere between 40 and 60,000 words.
• 48:30
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, and and and any of you can change those parameters any way that you'd like, but but how do you think about pricing and what do you recommend that ghostwriters consider charging for what they're for for their work?
• 48:45
  SPEAKER_01: So maybe I'll just open it up that way.
• 48:48
  SPEAKER_01: And uh Maria, let's start with you.
• 48:50
  SPEAKER_05: I love talking about money.
• 48:52
  SPEAKER_05: Um I don't think we talk about money enough in this world.
• 48:55
  SPEAKER_05: So I will just say uh my first writing, my first paid writing assignment, um, I got paid$15 for a thousand-word article.
• 49:04
  SPEAKER_05: Don't do that.
• 49:07
  SPEAKER_01: But you got paid something, it was a start.
• 49:09
  SPEAKER_05: Right.
• 49:09
  SPEAKER_05: Well, and that's we talked earlier about flipping that switch to oh, I'm getting paid to write.
• 49:13
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 49:14
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 49:14
  SPEAKER_05: Okay.
• 49:15
  SPEAKER_05: And so I got paid something.
• 49:17
  SPEAKER_05: And so if you need that switch, if you need to be paid to write in order to feel like you are a professional writer, then go ahead.
• 49:29
  SPEAKER_05: Otherwise, don't do that.
• 49:31
  SPEAKER_05: Um, I will never pay my writers that little because that seems terrible.
• 49:37
  SPEAKER_05: Um, my first full-length book was a client that I'd been writing for for two years.
• 49:43
  SPEAKER_05: And so I was already immersed in her website, her blog content, and all of that.
• 49:48
  SPEAKER_05: And I had a business coach at the time um who was also in the writing industry.
• 49:55
  SPEAKER_05: And he said to me, if you charge less than$15,000 for that book, we are no longer working together.
• 50:02
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 50:03
  SPEAKER_05: Which is a hard line.
• 50:05
  SPEAKER_05: That was a hard line, but that's what I charged.
• 50:08
  SPEAKER_05: And the client said yes, and we got the book done, and it was it, it actually launched some really great stuff for her career.
• 50:15
  SPEAKER_05: So from an ROI perspective, she made out.
• 50:19
  SPEAKER_03: Nice.
• 50:20
  SPEAKER_05: But it also started me off in a place where, well, I'm not going below that for my next book.
• 50:27
  SPEAKER_01: Right, right, which is always the case, isn't it?
• 50:29
  SPEAKER_01: It's like you you reach you reach kind of a new level in your business and you're like, well, now I'm at this level, whatever that is.
• 50:36
  SPEAKER_05: And so when when we're talking about pricing, um one of the things that I would caution people to do is to think about the value that the client is getting from working with you as opposed to the time and energy you're putting in, the expertise you have.
• 50:54
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 50:54
  SPEAKER_05: Right?
• 50:55
  SPEAKER_05: Great point.
• 50:55
  SPEAKER_05: And so um, I actually before I get on a call with someone, um, whether it's the first call or we've had a couple of calls and they're closer to a buying decision, um, I actually will make a list of all of the value that they're going to get.
• 51:11
  SPEAKER_05: And I'll keep that list in front of me because like I come from a teaching background.
• 51:17
  SPEAKER_05: I've come from a background where I'm used to taking nothing for lots of work, right?
• 51:22
  SPEAKER_05: Right.
• 51:22
  SPEAKER_05: And so um, so that so that focus on the value really helps shift my thinking.
• 51:30
  SPEAKER_05: Because if I'm writing a book, so I I wrote a book for a client uh last year and it was a how-to business guide kind of book.
• 51:38
  SPEAKER_05: And before the book was released in bookstores, she had sold five fifty thousand dollar coaching contracts because of writing the book.
• 51:50
  SPEAKER_01: That that definitely helps frame the value of it.
• 51:53
  SPEAKER_05: So I didn't charge her enough for that book based on that, and that ROI was before we have any royalties, before we have any speaking engagements, before we have that's all within that first year before the book is even released in bookstores.
• 52:10
  SPEAKER_05: Right.
• 52:11
  SPEAKER_05: And so um, so if you think about it from a value add perspective, it's a lot easier to charge an adequate amount.
• 52:20
  SPEAKER_01: That's good.
• 52:22
  SPEAKER_01: Karen, what would you what would you add to that?
• 52:24
  SPEAKER_01: Um, what are your thoughts on beginning ghostwriters, maybe kind of of a range that they should charge?
• 52:30
  SPEAKER_01: And then once somebody is established, how how should they think about pricing?
• 52:36
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I you know, I hate the it depends, but I it depends.
• 52:41
  SPEAKER_01: It does, doesn't it?
• 52:42
  SPEAKER_00: It just does.
• 52:43
  SPEAKER_00: Like, you know, if I'm working, if I'm working with a client and they totally get the that how the book is a lead gen.
• 52:52
  SPEAKER_00: And and I mean, I've written some really good lead gen books and um and that have made millions and millions of dollars for people.
• 52:59
  SPEAKER_00: Like if they get it, then then negotiating price is a very different ball game than somebody who's going, oh, I you know, I I need to make in order to you know pay for dinner, I need to make royalties off my book.
• 53:13
  SPEAKER_00: And they're just really on selling the book.
• 53:16
  SPEAKER_00: How many books am I going to sell?
• 53:18
  SPEAKER_00: And if they don't understand, they don't understand where the book fits in their overall business scheme, then I think you're you're negotiating at a different disadvantage.
• 53:27
  SPEAKER_00: So that's why I say it really depends on you know what the vision is for the book, what the the goal is for um, you know, if it's a lead gen book.
• 53:36
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I'm in the nonfiction world.
• 53:38
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I I read fiction all the time because I think that's a requirement.
• 53:41
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, but to be a good nonfiction writer, um, you know, but it it depend it depends on how a person is going to use a book.
• 53:51
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 53:51
  unknown: Yeah.
• 53:51
  SPEAKER_05: You know, and to Karen's point, I actually I just closed a contract with a family who wants help writing a family cookbook with grandma's recipes.
• 53:59
  SPEAKER_05: That's a different price point than a how-to business guide for a business coach with a$50,000 program.
• 54:07
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 54:07
  SPEAKER_05: It's a different price point.
• 54:09
  SPEAKER_05: It's also a different amount of work and it's a shorter book, and it's a Kindle Direct Publishing, and we're not doing liaison with publishers.
• 54:15
  SPEAKER_05: And there's a lot of different factors that go into it.
• 54:18
  SPEAKER_05: Um, but to Karen's point, even at this point with my agency model, the pricing depends on how the book is being used and positioned.
• 54:27
  SPEAKER_01: Yep, totally.
• 54:28
  SPEAKER_01: So, Karen, what would you recommend somebody starting out charge?
• 54:31
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, Blake, I have a Blake, but Blake hasn't chimed in on this yet.
• 54:34
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, Blake.
• 54:38
  SPEAKER_04: So when I I tried to find the spreadsheet, I made a ridiculous spreadsheet for my first ghostwritten book that was essentially me trying to figure out my time and my effort.
• 54:51
  SPEAKER_04: The total opposite of what Maria's advising.
• 54:54
  SPEAKER_04: And I completely agree that Maria is correct.
• 54:57
  SPEAKER_04: Um, I didn't find the spreadsheet, but I did find the contract, and I won't give you all of it.
• 55:01
  SPEAKER_04: But one example, one bullet point was$84 for 2.8 hours of editing at$30 an hour for half of chapters one, three through six.
• 55:10
  SPEAKER_04: I had multiple bullet points like that.
• 55:12
  SPEAKER_04: Total cost for a 50,000-word book,$3,776 for months of work.
• 55:20
  SPEAKER_04: Don't do that.
• 55:22
  SPEAKER_02: Don't do that.
• 55:23
  SPEAKER_04: If if I were starting out today and if I were advising somebody, I would say conceivably, depending on their experience level, it's it's really dependent on experience level and what kind of clips you have in your background and your and your expertise.
• 55:37
  SPEAKER_04: Um I would say like starting point, maybe 30 cents a word.
• 55:42
  SPEAKER_04: So if that's 50,000 words, I I had to pull up my calculator.
• 55:45
  SPEAKER_04: That that'd be$15,000, which is super low for ghostwriting.
• 55:48
  SPEAKER_04: Super low.
• 55:49
  SPEAKER_04: I saw a post on LinkedIn just today that said, you know, if you're writing um, I don't know if I had a word count on it or not, but it said don't accept anything less than$50,000.
• 55:58
  SPEAKER_04: But there's so many, I mean, it's just like Karen said, there's so many variables that have to be taken into account, especially when you're um some of the questions that I would tell people to take into account.
• 56:13
  SPEAKER_04: Well, I like working with this client.
• 56:15
  SPEAKER_04: What do I think their actual budget is?
• 56:17
  SPEAKER_04: What's my schedule currently like?
• 56:20
  SPEAKER_04: And then I would always say, you know, come up come up with your base answer and then like add 40%.
• 56:26
  SPEAKER_04: One to cover the taxes and all the fun stuff we have to pay for as freelancers, but also to leave yourself room for negotiation.
• 56:33
  SPEAKER_04: Uh I can't tell you, and it's happened.
• 56:36
  SPEAKER_04: I'm a lot more confident now in pitching prices, but even now, I I remember I pitched something recently, and I thought, no, this is too high.
• 56:45
  SPEAKER_04: And then and and then it got accepted almost immediately.
• 56:49
  SPEAKER_04: Um and so and so then I go back and I'm like, well, should I have pitched higher?
• 56:54
  SPEAKER_04: That was that still too low.
• 56:56
  SPEAKER_04: Um but I I do think it's very difficult for a starting ghostwriter to come up with their pricing.
• 57:04
  SPEAKER_04: The the other thing I would say is that person should consider contacting an established ghostwriter and having them review it and just say, what do you think?
• 57:14
  SPEAKER_04: Is this fair?
• 57:16
  SPEAKER_04: Am I devaluing myself for the amount of work that's gonna that it's gonna take?
• 57:20
  SPEAKER_04: And I guess that also leads into another point I was thinking about in terms of like, well, if you're gonna pitch$15,000 for 50,000 words and it's gonna take you six months to write, how much is that per month?
• 57:31
  SPEAKER_04: Is that is that really livable for you?
• 57:33
  SPEAKER_04: Is that really what you're doing?
• 57:34
  SPEAKER_04: Right, right.
• 57:37
  SPEAKER_00: I I also think though when you're starting out, I mean, at least for me, you know what?
• 57:45
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I'm assuming we've all undercharged for books.
• 57:49
  SPEAKER_01: Um I I think that's a good assumption.
• 57:52
  SPEAKER_00: And and and part of it is so so what?
• 57:54
  SPEAKER_00: Like if you get paid for your book, like and you're and and somebody's paying you and you do the very, very best job, now you've you've got you can say, I just wrote this book for this person, and then and then you go on to the next person.
• 58:07
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm not sure that there's like a you know, there's a barrier, like, oh, if you charge less than X, then it's not worth your time because this is not a labor theory of value.
• 58:17
  SPEAKER_00: Like this is not, you're not paying for time.
• 58:19
  SPEAKER_00: You're paying for expertise, you're paying for passion, you're paying for all sorts of things.
• 58:24
  SPEAKER_00: And so you lowball your first book or two or whatever.
• 58:28
  SPEAKER_00: If you don't learn from that, then you know, then that's on you.
• 58:32
  SPEAKER_00: But for most people, you know, you go, it gives you confidence and you go, oh yeah, you know what?
• 58:37
  SPEAKER_00: I did too much work for this amount of money in my next book.
• 58:39
  SPEAKER_00: I'm I'm not gonna do that.
• 58:40
  SPEAKER_02: Absolutely.
• 58:41
  SPEAKER_00: So I think that, you know, the idea of actually getting out there, charging something and putting it out there.
• 58:47
  SPEAKER_00: I remember I I did a book and uh this was years ago.
• 58:50
  SPEAKER_00: I did a book and I charged um I was charging$20,000 for the book.
• 58:56
  SPEAKER_00: And Ray Edwards looked at me and he was like, I know somebody who would have paid 60.
• 59:00
  SPEAKER_00: And I went, shoot.
• 59:03
  SPEAKER_00: Like, oh.
• 59:04
  SPEAKER_00: And he he was just saying, you know, the issue's in your head, not in the client's head.
• 59:08
  SPEAKER_00: Like you you need to get out of your head.
• 59:10
  SPEAKER_00: And I was just like, oh, okay.
• 59:12
  SPEAKER_00: So then I didn't make the mistake next time.
• 59:14
  SPEAKER_00: So I, you know, I think it's like, don't be afraid to try.
• 59:17
  SPEAKER_00: Don't be afraid to go out there and go, okay, this is my first book or this is my second book or whatever.
• 59:22
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm gonna, you know, if I want to do this long term, I'm gonna do it, do the best I can, and I'm gonna learn and grow from it.
• 59:31
  SPEAKER_05: Oh, Blake, go ahead, Maria.
• 59:33
  SPEAKER_05: Blake, your finger was first.
• 59:34
  SPEAKER_05: Go.
• 59:35
  SPEAKER_04: Well, now I'm gonna forget what I got what I wanted to say.
• 59:37
  SPEAKER_04: Uh, just two quick replies, Karen.
• 59:41
  SPEAKER_04: That first client is still a client, and it led to more books from other people that he knows.
• 59:48
  SPEAKER_04: So absolutely spot on uh insight.
• 59:52
  SPEAKER_04: And I had one other one, but I already forgot what it was.
• 59:54
  SPEAKER_04: So go ahead, Maria.
• 59:55
  SPEAKER_05: Well, so I actually I was gonna say something similar.
• 59:57
  SPEAKER_05: So my first book client actually became my biggest referral source.
• 1:00:01
  SPEAKER_05: And because of writing that first book at$15,000, I've now written book after book after book, online, and I do online courses because of my curriculum development background.
• 1:00:13
  SPEAKER_05: So, you know, we write the book and then we turn it into an online course for the client and we're doing the website, we're doing the SEO.
• 1:00:19
  SPEAKER_05: And I've had so many projects come as a result of that first project.
• 1:00:23
  SPEAKER_05: Um, because I had someone who said, Oh, you want to write a book, I know who you need to talk to.
• 1:00:30
  SPEAKER_05: And so when you're when you're thinking of pricing, especially at that first for that first client, it might be helpful.
• 1:00:37
  SPEAKER_05: You know, you have the value list of what the client's gonna get, but maybe you have a value list of what you're going to get out of the experience.
• 1:00:43
  SPEAKER_01: That's good.
• 1:00:44
  unknown: Right.
• 1:00:45
  SPEAKER_01: That's really good.
• 1:00:45
  SPEAKER_05: And because Blake mentioned before that establishing that writing habit of getting up at 5 a.m.
• 1:00:50
  SPEAKER_05: and writing for an hour every day, establishing the habits necessary to not just write a book, but get it over the finish line, which is the hardest part.
• 1:00:59
  SPEAKER_05: Right?
• 1:00:59
  SPEAKER_05: It's like when all of the writing is done and then there's all those like minor details that need to be wrapped up before it can be finished.
• 1:01:07
  SPEAKER_05: Um for me, that's the hardest part because I've run out of dopamine by that point.
• 1:01:13
  SPEAKER_05: But um, but yeah, so so getting that first client, you have to think about how you can trade on that client.
• 1:01:23
  SPEAKER_05: And it might be, you know what, I'm gonna do this one for you for$10,000 or$15,000.
• 1:01:29
  SPEAKER_05: But could I have a Google review?
• 1:01:32
  SPEAKER_05: Or would you mind inviting me to your next event?
• 1:01:37
  SPEAKER_05: But like, ask for something.
• 1:01:40
  SPEAKER_01: And it's all in our perspective, too, isn't it?
• 1:01:42
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, at some point it's kind of all relative.
• 1:01:45
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I charged$15,000 for my very first book two number of years ago.
• 1:01:49
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, I never told the client that that it was my first ghostwriting project.
• 1:01:53
  SPEAKER_01: She had never asked, so I never volunteered that information.
• 1:01:57
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, I don't know if that was being dishonest or not, but she never, she literally never asked if this was my first ghostwriting book.
• 1:02:02
  SPEAKER_01: I had written a couple of my own books before that.
• 1:02:05
  SPEAKER_01: Went off really well.
• 1:02:06
  SPEAKER_01: She was very happy with the book.
• 1:02:07
  SPEAKER_01: At the time, I was a college professor and I was making after taxes and health insurance and all that jazz, my take-home pay every month was like$2,500 a month, which I know sounds insane, but that was that was my salary for many years as a college prof at a little Christian college.
• 1:02:24
  SPEAKER_01: But this book, because we had a six-month agreement, it was$15,000, and so you know, for six months, this that book literally doubled my my income.
• 1:02:35
  SPEAKER_01: And I was absolutely thrilled with that.
• 1:02:37
  SPEAKER_01: I had never seen so much money in my life at that point.
• 1:02:40
  unknown: Yeah.
• 1:02:41
  SPEAKER_01: So there is kind of a point to this where you go, hey, when you're starting out, you know, you don't have to charge an arm and a leg, just to get that first project under your belt, learn from it, increase your rates, increase your value and skills.
• 1:02:53
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm sure there are people listening to this right now who are like, man, I would love to have a$15,000 project.
• 1:02:59
  SPEAKER_01: That would mean the absolute world to my family.
• 1:03:01
  SPEAKER_01: But then, you know, over time, you know, as we we make more money, we can you know increase our value and all that.
• 1:03:06
  SPEAKER_01: So as we head into the home stretch of this conversation, um my final question to you all, actually, my second to the to the final one, because my last question will be how can people get in touch with you and find out more about your services?
• 1:03:18
  SPEAKER_01: But my last sort of conversation question is aside from getting paid, which we all agree is a good thing.
• 1:03:25
  SPEAKER_01: This is the Profitable Writer Podcast, after all, aside from the financial aspect of ghostwriting, what is the number one thing that you have taken away from your work as a ghostwriter, either personally or professionally?
• 1:03:36
  SPEAKER_01: How has it helped you to become a better leader or writer or human being?
• 1:03:41
  SPEAKER_01: I'd be really be curious your responses to that.
• 1:03:43
  SPEAKER_01: And uh, Karen, maybe let's start with you.
• 1:03:48
  SPEAKER_00: Um you know, I remember I remember being really, really young and very idealistic and wanting to change the world.
• 1:04:03
  SPEAKER_00: And always feeling like, wow, I would have to do something like really big deal, major, significant to change the world.
• 1:04:12
  SPEAKER_00: And now that I'm on the other end of the spectrum, I can look and go, I've changed the world.
• 1:04:20
  SPEAKER_00: I've changed the world because I've helped people write their books.
• 1:04:24
  SPEAKER_00: I've changed marriages, I've changed businesses, I've had an impact in a way that is just extraordinary.
• 1:04:32
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's an incredible, it's an incredible privilege and opportunity.
• 1:04:37
  SPEAKER_00: I I look on my shelves and I I see the books I've either published or written or both, and I go, oh my gosh, you know, I I'm just one little person, and I've been able to have huge impact because of what I've been able to do to help other people.
• 1:04:56
  SPEAKER_02: Wow.
• 1:04:57
  SPEAKER_00: And so for me, that that's that's I mean, yes, it's a business and it's making money and feeding my family and all those kinds of things, but I'm driven by impact.
• 1:05:07
  SPEAKER_00: And um helping helping people to have better lives is an extraordinary um opportunity that I think you can get as a you know in a variety of ways in the book world.
• 1:05:21
  SPEAKER_01: Wow, that's beautiful.
• 1:05:22
  SPEAKER_01: I love that.
• 1:05:23
  SPEAKER_01: Love that response.
• 1:05:25
  SPEAKER_01: Uh Maria, let's go to you and then we'll finish up with Blake.
• 1:05:28
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, so um I have I have two pieces because there are really two parts of my life, right?
• 1:05:33
  SPEAKER_05: There's the professional part and then there's my personal life.
• 1:05:35
  SPEAKER_05: And they're connected, but they there are things that I've gotten out of ghostwriting and out of running my agency that are different.
• 1:05:43
  SPEAKER_05: So um, from a professional standpoint, the idea of connection is a really big one for me.
• 1:05:48
  SPEAKER_05: Um it's my agency is connected ghostwriting.
• 1:05:52
  SPEAKER_05: And um, that's because I've always believed that words connect us to one another, they connect us to our world, and they connect us to the truest part of ourselves.
• 1:06:00
  SPEAKER_05: And the way that I've been able to form connections with not just my clients, but through my clients to the readers of their books and then to other people in the industry, those connections are so important to me.
• 1:06:14
  SPEAKER_05: And um I'm I'm like tearing up.
• 1:06:18
  SPEAKER_05: I'm thinking about the client we had that passed last week.
• 1:06:21
  SPEAKER_05: Um the connections I've formed with other people have changed my life.
• 1:06:33
  SPEAKER_05: And not and not just my life, you know, the the things you can see, but my internal life as well.
• 1:06:38
  SPEAKER_05: Um, and then you know, from a personal standpoint, yeah, I'm a parent of five kids and my youngest two are 14 and 8.
• 1:06:47
  SPEAKER_05: And um, their older sister is 22, and all three of them talk about their adulthood as entrepreneurial, as starting businesses, as working for themselves, as creating something that they own.
• 1:07:06
  SPEAKER_05: Um, you know, one of my daughters is in marketing and graphic design and she talks about starting her own agency.
• 1:07:11
  SPEAKER_05: Um my son is into gaming and talks about doing game design work and and things like that, um, but never through the lens of working for someone else.
• 1:07:21
  SPEAKER_05: And um my eight-year-old knows that she is going to be an artist and an illustrator.
• 1:07:32
  SPEAKER_05: And she actually believes it's possible because while my mama's a writer.
• 1:07:39
  SPEAKER_05: And so I actually I have a message on my wall from her that says, Yes, you can do it.
• 1:07:44
  SPEAKER_05: You're the best.
• 1:07:45
  SPEAKER_05: I love you.
• 1:07:46
  SPEAKER_05: Wow, mom.
• 1:07:46
  SPEAKER_05: Wow, wow, mom.
• 1:07:49
  SPEAKER_05: That's what I get out of ghostwriting.
• 1:07:51
  SPEAKER_05: It's having them see that you can just make up your own job.
• 1:07:56
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:07:57
  SPEAKER_01: And isn't that one of the coolest gifts of all is if we do if we love our work so much and we take so much joy out of it that our kids see that and they want to emulate that in some way.
• 1:08:08
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, wow.
• 1:08:10
  SPEAKER_01: That's a gift that we've really given to our kids or grandkids.
• 1:08:13
  SPEAKER_01: That's cool.
• 1:08:14
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 1:08:15
  SPEAKER_01: Appreciate that.
• 1:08:16
  SPEAKER_01: Uh Blake, how about you?
• 1:08:18
  SPEAKER_04: I really wish you wouldn't have ended with me, because those are two really good answers.
• 1:08:22
  SPEAKER_04: And I I can agree with both of them.
• 1:08:24
  SPEAKER_04: Um Maria, you made me think about our son.
• 1:08:27
  SPEAKER_04: He's nine.
• 1:08:29
  SPEAKER_04: And like you said, it's funny what you said earlier because he wants to be either an actor or a writer.
• 1:08:35
  SPEAKER_04: Um, so maybe he's gonna be a ghostwriter.
• 1:08:37
  SPEAKER_05: Uh fine the two.
• 1:08:38
  SPEAKER_04: But it is just the freedom that freelancing has offered in terms of being able to be home and also being a model um to my son of what's possible just through writing.
• 1:08:53
  SPEAKER_04: When when when growing up, I never I never thought this was a possibility.
• 1:08:57
  SPEAKER_05: Um, you'll never make a living as a writer, right?
• 1:09:00
  SPEAKER_04: Oh, yeah, yeah.
• 1:09:01
  SPEAKER_04: Like, how does that happen?
• 1:09:02
  SPEAKER_04: It's it's also mysterious, and you know, money just has to fall out of the sky from the publishers.
• 1:09:08
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 1:09:08
  SPEAKER_04: So I really feel that.
• 1:09:10
  SPEAKER_04: And then just in terms of the people that I get to work with, I'm so inspired by so many of them.
• 1:09:16
  SPEAKER_04: Um, especially the ones who uh like I get a glimpse into their life, and I could not live that life because of how much either how much pressure they're under or how how much they work, right?
• 1:09:28
  SPEAKER_04: And yet they're still trying to produce really they're trying to produce a really great book, and they're also just trying to help people.
• 1:09:35
  SPEAKER_04: Like my my simplest tagline that I think we can all agree with is I help people who help people.
• 1:09:41
  SPEAKER_04: You know, it's just it's that simple, but but seeing how passionate they are about their specific um avenue, their their specific argument, whatever they're trying to get out into the world to change the world, like Karen said, is very inspiring and it keeps it keeps me inspired.
• 1:09:57
  SPEAKER_04: Um I'll just leave it at that.
• 1:10:00
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 1:10:02
  SPEAKER_01: There should be a book with all this kind of stuff in it.
• 1:10:04
  SPEAKER_01: Somebody should ghostwrite a book about why ghostwriters should do ghostwriting.
• 1:10:09
  SPEAKER_01: That's a very meta.
• 1:10:10
  SPEAKER_04: Okay, I'll charge you$3,776.
• 1:10:13
  SPEAKER_01: Let's make it a really short book.
• 1:10:16
  SPEAKER_01: So a ghostwriter doesn't have to spend six months doing it.
• 1:10:19
  SPEAKER_01: Well, this has been absolutely fantastic.
• 1:10:21
  SPEAKER_01: I feel like I could talk to all three of you for hours on end.
• 1:10:23
  SPEAKER_01: Unfortunately, we don't have hours on end.
• 1:10:25
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, but I appreciate you sticking around a little bit longer than we had kind of initially anticipated.
• 1:10:30
  SPEAKER_01: This has been fantastic.
• 1:10:31
  SPEAKER_01: I hope that you've benefited from this, um, just in this conversation.
• 1:10:35
  SPEAKER_01: I know I have.
• 1:10:36
  SPEAKER_01: Um, let's let's wrap up with this.
• 1:10:38
  SPEAKER_01: Where can people find out more about your ghostwriting and anything else that you want to share about uh your own books or just anything else?
• 1:10:46
  SPEAKER_01: Um let's do Maria, then Blake, and we'll end with Karen.
• 1:10:50
  SPEAKER_05: Sure.
• 1:10:50
  SPEAKER_05: Um Connected Ghostwriting is the name of my agency.
• 1:10:53
  SPEAKER_05: So we're at connectedghostwriting.com and connected ghostwriting on all social media channels.
• 1:10:58
  SPEAKER_05: Um, you'll notice our marketing is new, but that's because we were busy writing books.
• 1:11:04
  SPEAKER_05: Um, and then I do have my own social media and website under my name, Maria F.
• 1:11:10
  SPEAKER_05: Chapman.
• 1:11:11
  SPEAKER_01: Very cool.
• 1:11:12
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks so much, Blake.
• 1:11:15
  SPEAKER_04: I am online at Blake at wood.com.
• 1:11:18
  SPEAKER_04: I just released a free ebook called the four eye method, the letter I, not your eyeballs.
• 1:11:25
  SPEAKER_04: Uh, it's about developmental editing for nonfiction authors.
• 1:11:28
  SPEAKER_04: Oh nice.
• 1:11:29
  SPEAKER_04: I have a twice, twice a month newsletter I send out.
• 1:11:33
  SPEAKER_04: And I'm most often on LinkedIn.
• 1:11:37
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 1:11:39
  SPEAKER_01: And your newsletter is really good, by the way.
• 1:11:40
  SPEAKER_01: That's one of them that I always look forward to.
• 1:11:43
  SPEAKER_04: I appreciate that.
• 1:11:44
  SPEAKER_04: Now I feel very pressured.
• 1:11:45
  SPEAKER_04: Thank you.
• 1:11:47
  SPEAKER_01: No pressure, no pressure, but I wait with bated breath at my email inbox.
• 1:11:51
  SPEAKER_01: But it is seriously good.
• 1:11:53
  SPEAKER_01: You know, and all of us, you know, we're all writers.
• 1:11:54
  SPEAKER_01: You can tell the newsletters that people put time and energy into and the ones that that that they don't.
• 1:12:00
  SPEAKER_01: And I always really appreciate it whenever I get newsletters from writers.
• 1:12:05
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, I know they they put probably several hours into this, and and it's really, really good stuff.
• 1:12:11
  SPEAKER_01: So so thank you.
• 1:12:12
  SPEAKER_01: Uh Karen, let's wrap up with you.
• 1:12:14
  SPEAKER_01: Where can people find you?
• 1:12:15
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, thank you.
• 1:12:16
  SPEAKER_00: Karen Anderson.co.
• 1:12:18
  SPEAKER_00: Um, there's no M because Karenanderson.com was$95,000.
• 1:12:23
  SPEAKER_00: And I put I didn't even need, didn't need the M that badly.
• 1:12:27
  SPEAKER_00: So Karen Anderson.co.
• 1:12:29
  SPEAKER_00: Um, there's a tab for free ebooks, a bunch of ebooks that I've either uh written or published there.
• 1:12:34
  SPEAKER_00: People can help themselves.
• 1:12:36
  SPEAKER_00: Um, if I I do this shameless self-plub.
• 1:12:41
  SPEAKER_00: I did this book I wrote for Steve called The Bezos Letters, 14 Principles to Grow Your Business like Amazon, is a good book.
• 1:12:47
  SPEAKER_00: And for if if you're starting out um in any kind of business or you've got a small business or you've been mature in business, it's a good book, really talking about principles for growing your business.
• 1:12:57
  SPEAKER_00: So they can grab a free copy there.
• 1:13:00
  SPEAKER_00: Um and um yeah, and I'm also an associate publisher with Morgan James Publishing, um, because I like helping people get their messages out to the world.
• 1:13:09
  SPEAKER_01: And how many languages, by the way, Karen, has the Bezos Letters been translated into at this point?
• 1:13:15
  SPEAKER_00: We're in 20 languages right now.
• 1:13:17
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 1:13:17
  SPEAKER_01: So um I love seeing those covers that you occasionally share.
• 1:13:20
  SPEAKER_00: Those it's just it's um, like I said, like you know, you don't when you think about having like I want to have global worldwide impact, but that's the power of a book.
• 1:13:31
  SPEAKER_00: A book can have worldwide impact.
• 1:13:33
  SPEAKER_00: And so that's that's what drives me.
• 1:13:35
  SPEAKER_00: That's what I love to do.
• 1:13:36
  SPEAKER_01: Wow, I love it.
• 1:13:37
  SPEAKER_01: Well, thank you all again so much for for being uh guinea pigs in a way.
• 1:13:42
  SPEAKER_01: This is my very first round table.
• 1:13:43
  SPEAKER_01: Uh you've convinced me I want to do a great job, Kent.
• 1:13:46
  SPEAKER_01: Well, thanks.
• 1:13:46
  SPEAKER_01: You convinced me I want to do more of these because I like talking to cool people, and you three absolutely qualify for that above and beyond.
• 1:13:52
  SPEAKER_01: So thank you again.
• 1:13:53
  SPEAKER_01: I can't wait to get this episode out and start.
• 1:13:56
  SPEAKER_02: I always wanted to be cool.
• 1:13:58
  SPEAKER_01: Me too.
• 1:13:58
  SPEAKER_01: I never have succeeded.
• 1:14:00
  SPEAKER_01: But uh maybe, maybe one day I'll get there with some luck.
• 1:14:03
  SPEAKER_01: So thank you all again.
• 1:14:04
  SPEAKER_01: This has been a blast.
• 1:14:05
  SPEAKER_05: Thanks, Kent.
• 1:14:06
  SPEAKER_01: Hey, thanks so much for joining me for another episode of The Profitable Writer.
• 1:14:10
  SPEAKER_01: As always, I appreciate you taking time to listen.
• 1:14:12
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm looking forward to the next episode, which features a fascinating conversation with Shell Honaker, publisher of Indie Author magazine.
• 1:14:21
  SPEAKER_01: Looking forward to seeing you then.