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Ghostwriting 101: Why Writing Books for Others is a Great Business · The Daily Writer

• 0:06
  SPEAKER_00: Hey friends, welcome back to the Profitable Writer Podcast.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_00: If you're new here, my name is Kent Sanders.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: I'm an author and a ghost writer, and this is the show that helps you grow your impact and your income as a writer.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I've got to say that it's really, really good to be back.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_00: I have missed actually the last few weeks of the show because I've been recovering from bronchitis of all things, which I have not had in a really, really long time.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_00: But basically the whole month of January, my voice was pretty much shot, and it would have been really difficult to do a podcast during that time, but I'm pretty much up and running now and really, really excited to be back with you.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_00: And I also want to say a huge thanks to those of you who have gotten in touch the last few weeks, asking, hey, where are you?
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_00: Are you okay?
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_00: When's the show coming back?
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_00: We miss having Kent Sanders in our ears.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_00: And gosh, I can't tell you for those of you who sent me those kind of messages, it really, really does mean the world.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_00: You know, sometimes things like blogging and writing and doing email newsletters and social media, sometimes those things can be a little bit lonely because you put stuff out there and even though there's technology to help us see who um, well, I don't it's really hard to see like who listens to podcast episodes, but you can see who opens your emails and you can see who makes comments on social media posts and those kinds of things.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_00: But still yet, it's really, really cool when you get those personal messages from people saying that a specific episode has impacted them or that they miss your episodes and hey, when are you coming back?
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_00: That's really, really cool.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_00: So thanks to those of you who have reached out the last few weeks.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_00: I really truly appreciate it.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: Well, let's dig into today's topic, which is ghostwriting.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_00: You know, the number one topic that people ask me about is ghostwriting.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, nothing else even comes close.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_00: There is seldom a week that goes by when I don't have at least one person ask me about ghostwriting in one form or another.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_00: And the questions that people ask me about ghostwriting usually fall into several categories.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_00: They ask things like, What is ghostwriting?
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_00: Why would you want to write books for other people when you could just focus on writing your own books?
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_00: Or why don't people just write the books for themselves?
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_00: Why do they need somebody else to do it for them?
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes people ask, is ghostwriting even ethical in the first place?
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_00: Like, is it really okay ethically for you to write a book and for then somebody else's name to be on the book?
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_00: And then, of course, the question that everybody wants to know, but sometimes people don't really ask, but they always are curious about is how much money can you actually make as a ghostwriter?
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_00: And I gotta tell you, these are all really good questions, and I get versions of these so often that I thought it would be kind of fun to do a podcast series covering the basics of ghostwriting, hence the title of this series, which is called Ghostwriting 101.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_00: And since this is primarily a business-focused podcast for writers, I'm gonna talk about ghostwriting as a business primarily, and I'm not gonna really get into the mechanics or get into the weeds of like the art of writing books and like how to write a book and book structure and those kinds of things.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe we'll do um it would have to be a long series, probably.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe I'll do a series on those kinds of things a little bit down the road, but this series, Ghostwriting 101, is really gonna be focused on these kinds of questions.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_00: Why would you want to do this?
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, what is ghostwriting all about?
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_00: How do you get started?
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_00: Those kinds of questions.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_00: So let's dive into the question that is probably the most obvious one, which is what is ghostwriting to begin with?
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_00: Really simply put, ghostwriting is writing books in somebody else's name for hire.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_00: Basically, they pay you, you write the book as the writer, and their name goes on the book.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_00: Sounds pretty simple, right?
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_00: Well, maybe that's the case, but in practice, there's actually a lot of variations to this simple sounding definition.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_00: Ghostwriting can actually work a lot of different ways.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_00: First of all, in my experience, ghostwriting is almost always a collaboration between the author, in other words, the client, and you as the ghostwriter.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_00: And that collaboration can take a lot of different forms, but in my experience at least, it's almost never a situation where the author is not involved in the book at all.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_00: And you as the ghostwriter are doing a hundred percent of the book planning and writing and creative work.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_00: Uh the closest that I've ever had that happen was a project that I did a few years ago where um where the authors basically said, Hey, can you do a book on XYZ topic?
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_00: And I said yes, and they gave me a few stories for the book.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but otherwise the book was basically mine, and I was fortunate to have cover credit on the book, and it was actually a really, really fun project.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_00: Uh the clients were fantastic to work with, but essentially they just kind of let me go off and do my thing, and I wrote the book fairly quickly, and they were happy with it, and we went through the normal editing process and all that stuff.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_00: Um, that's not usually the case, though.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_00: My experience, at least, has been that it's almost always some measure of collaboration where the author slash client is providing stories, we're planning the book together.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_00: They're giving me some kind of framework for either the story they want to tell or some kind of business process or whatever it is.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_00: And that's actually one of my favorite things about ghostwriting is just the collaboration that happens with really, really cool people.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_00: So I'll get into that in a little bit.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_00: Let me answer this other question that people sometimes have about ghostwriting, which is why don't people just write their own books to begin with?
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_00: And that's that is absolutely a fair question.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_00: You know, if somebody wants to write a book so bad, why don't they just go do it themselves?
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_00: Well, the short answer is that not everybody is a writer.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_00: And the people who tend to hire ghostwriters are typically busy, successful people whose time is better spent building their business or doing other kinds of high-value work rather than spending hundreds and hundreds of hours struggling to figure out how to write, publish, and market a great book.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_00: Basically, it's the same exact reason why I don't try to repair my vehicles.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_00: And I'll give you a quick story.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_00: Just this happened just three or four months ago.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so I drive an old 2002 Ford Ranger.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_00: Now, when I say that, people are always like, oh gosh, why in the world do you drive this old, you know, crotchety truck that's like on its last legs and whatnot?
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_00: Well, the reason is actually pretty simple.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_00: It's because um I'm, you know, cars are not really my thing.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_00: Like other other items are my thing.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_00: I love nice computers, I love nice guitars, I love other nice things.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_00: I've never really been a car person, so I can drive an older vehicle and it's totally fine with me.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, my wife and my son, they have the nicer vehicles because I want them to be safe and comfortable.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_00: Meanwhile, I kind of drive the old uh the old truck that's you know like 20 at this point, 22 years old.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_00: And also, I like I rarely go anywhere.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_00: Whenever I go on a trip, I usually just rent a car.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_00: So I basically drive a few miles at a time, a couple times a week, but but I work from home, so that's that.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_00: Um but I did have a thing a few months ago where I needed to replace the alternator in my truck.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_00: I knew that was what was wrong with it, and I tried replacing it myself, and I actually just made a bigger mess of it.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I got the tools and I was like, I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna watch some YouTube videos and do it, you know, kind of a typical man attitude.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_00: But I got into it and I was like, I don't have any clue what I'm doing, and I think I messed something up.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_00: So I ended up having to take it into the shop and they did it.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_00: And the process of me taking my vehicle into a mechanic is exactly the same reason why people hire me as a ghostwriter.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_00: It's because we don't want to spend the time to mess with something that is not our area of expertise.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_00: We'd rather pay the expert to do it rather than having to do it ourselves because I have better things to do with my time.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_00: Apparently, I didn't on that particular Saturday back in November or December, but I have better things to do with my time generally than mess around in the guts of my truck's engine trying to figure out things that I don't really know what's what.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_00: So therefore I took it to the mechanic.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_00: People hire me as a ghostwriter for the same reason.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_00: They're too busy running their business, they're too busy doing other high-value work for them to try and mess around with trying to figure out how to write a book themselves.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_00: You know, ghostwriting is actually really, really common in a lot of parts of society that maybe you have never considered.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_00: For example, if you've ever heard a president give a speech like a State of the Union address or some other speech, you have absolutely heard the work of a ghostwriter.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_00: Presidents always have speechwriters.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_00: It's extremely rare that a president will write their own speeches.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_00: Now, they almost always edit them and put things in and they go through drafts and all that stuff, but a president doesn't have time to sit down and write a speech.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_00: That's why they have a speechwriter.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_00: So anytime you've heard a president give a speech, you've almost always heard the work of a ghostwriter on some level.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_00: Now, let's bring it down to a more personal level.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_00: If you've ever purchased a Hallmark card for somebody's birthday or for Valentine's Day, we recently celebrated Valentine's Day, you have used the work of a ghostwriter yourself.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_00: There's a writer who created the words on that card, and you purchased that card because it expressed something that you wanted to say.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_00: You didn't have the time or the skill to make your own card for the birthday or for Valentine's Day.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_00: So in essence, you hired a ghostwriter to express those thoughts for you.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_00: That's all that a ghostwriter is.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_00: A ghostwriter is a person that somebody hires to express the thing that they would express if they had the time, the talent, or the skill to do it themselves.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_00: When it comes right down to it, that's all that ghostwriting is.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_00: You are a mouthpiece, you are a voice that is speaking on behalf of that person because you have the skill and you have the desire and the ability to say it in a way that they can't say because they don't have the time or the skill to say it themselves.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_00: It's really, really common once you start to think about ghostwriting, it's super common for people to do that on behalf of others.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_00: So you probably know I used to be a college professor.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_00: It was super common there, as it is in every business or organization or college or church.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_00: It was super common for the president's secretary or administrative assistant to write a letter to donors or to other people on behalf of the president, and then the president would make changes and sign it and send it out.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_00: Because the president has other things to do besides just sitting down and like drafting all these letters.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_00: Super, super common.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_00: That's all that we do as ghostwriters.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_00: We are a mouthpiece, we are a voice for people who don't have the time or the skill to write themselves.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_00: Now, let's talk about why ghostwriting is a great business for writers.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_00: Now that I've kind of set some context for this topic, let's get into the guts of what this episode is all about to begin with, which is why writing books for others is a great business.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_00: Let me give you 10 reasons, and this is kind of taken from David Letterman's top 10 list.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_00: So let's dive in.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_00: Number one, ghostwriting is a great business because you can work on your own time.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_00: And this is one of the primary things that drew me to ghostwriting in the first place.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_00: I became a full-time ghostwriter in uh I guess it was 2021.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_00: So I've only been doing this a few years.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_00: I got into ghostwriting in 2019.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_00: I was still a college professor back then, and then I built up my business over the next couple years, and I left left my uh day job, which was teaching, and went into ghostwriting full-time in 2021.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_00: That's like a short version of the Kent Sanders ghostwriting history, I guess.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_00: But reason number one is that you can work on your own time.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, as much as I loved being a college professor, after doing that job for 17 years, day in and day out, I was ready to finally be in charge of my own schedule.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_00: Now, let me let me add in kind of a balanced viewpoint with that though.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, a lot of people love this idea of like, I'm my own boss and I work from home and I'm in charge of my own schedule and I set my own hours and blah, blah, blah.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_00: But I've got to be honest with you though, I easily work two to three times as hard as I used to when I was a professor.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_00: However, these days I'm doing work that I have created for myself.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_00: I make more money, I do it on my own terms and on my own schedule.
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_00: And that freedom to me is really, really priceless.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_00: It's really important to me to have time freedom.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_00: I don't like to be locked down by somebody else's schedule or agenda.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_00: I will happily work a lot of hours and I'll work really hard as long as I can do it on my own terms.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_00: So if as a writer, it's important to you to have time freedom and schedule freedom, and you're willing to work hard, but you want to do it on your own terms, ghostwriting or really any kind of freelance work is really fantastic.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_00: Reason number two, books are pretty straightforward to write.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_00: Now, I don't want to minimize the creative thinking and planning that goes into writing books because the best authors and the best ghostwriters, for that matter, are very good at what they do.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_00: Writing compelling books is a really specialized skill.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_00: However, I want to say this kind of on the flip side, writing nonfiction books is a repeatable process that a solid writer can learn how to do at a really high level.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_00: It's very much like writing a Hollywood script.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_00: There's only so many templates or organizational patterns that you can follow.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_00: You know, whenever you go see, let's say, a Marvel movie, um, not that anybody's going to see Marvel movies these days in the theaters, that's another topic altogether.
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_00: But let's take superhero movies in general.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_00: There's typically a very familiar template that those stories follow, especially Marvel, uh, now that I'm kind of thinking about it.
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_00: They all follow kind of a especially if it's an origin story, they all follow really the exact same template.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_00: But people like those stories because it's familiar to them and it's kind of comforting, and that formula or that organizational pattern really works well for those movies.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_00: Nonfiction books, specifically business books, are really much the same way.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_00: They follow a familiar pattern.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_00: And that pattern is not difficult to learn.
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_00: It's difficult to master, but it's not difficult to learn because most of business books follow kind of a similar structure.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_00: And whenever you write those nonfiction books, you're not reinventing the wheel each time.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_00: You can learn this process if you're willing and you're motivated to put the work in.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_00: And that's one of the reasons that I think ghostwriting is a great business because it's a repeatable process.
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, let's go to reason number three that ghostwriting is a great business.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_00: It's because you don't need that many projects per year to make a really good income.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_00: And this is one of the big reasons why I wanted to get into this type of work.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_00: I started my freelance writing career writing podcast show notes for a couple of clients.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_00: Started off with one, then I got into two, and then three, and so on.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_00: And even though I was really grateful for those opportunities, it was a lot of work doing podcast show notes.
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_00: It didn't really honestly pay that well.
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it it paid well compared to like, you know, working at a grocery store or something like that, but um but it didn't pay very well in terms of like what I could be doing over the long term.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_00: And all things being equal, I grew to realize that I wanted to do a few big projects per year that paid really well instead of doing a bunch of little projects that didn't pay very well.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_00: And this is why I really encourage freelancers who are focused on services like social media or blog posts.
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_00: If you're doing those kind of services, I really encourage you to consider ghostwriting.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_00: Ghostwriting is a, don't get offended by this, um, if you're doing those things, ghostwriting is perceived as a higher value service than things like blog posts or social media or editing.
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_00: And that's and that's not to denigrate those things at all, don't get me wrong.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_00: It's because there are a lot of people out there that people can choose from who do those services typically, but most people don't know that many ghostwriters.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_00: And if you can position yourself in a specific niche as a ghostwriter, or you can present yourself as a high value or elite kind of ghostwriter, then you're immediately going to set yourself apart.
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_00: And it doesn't take that many projects per year to earn a good living as a ghostwriter.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_00: That's one of the one of the things that really drew me into this, is I was like, man, I'm already a professor who's creating all this material.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, basically for every class, every semester, it's like writing a book.
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_00: If you're creating material, especially for a new class, so you know, why shouldn't I just be making more money doing this and doing it on my own time and on my own terms, and I can work from home and all those, all those things.
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_00: So suffice that to say, you don't need that many projects per year to make a good income as a ghostwriter.
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_00: Um, reason number four is that ghostwriter, now this is kind of a weird one, but hang with me.
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_00: Ghostwriter is a compelling term that makes people curious.
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_00: Now, I didn't realize this until I became a ghostwriter, but people were fascinated whenever I would mention that term.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_00: Almost everybody has heard of ghostwriters, but they generally don't know what's involved in it, or more importantly, why someone would want to do ghostwriting.
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_00: And the lesson here is that if you have a job title that makes people curious and it causes them to ask follow-up questions, you really have a winner.
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_00: It's an open door to a conversation about how you can serve people and what kinds of things you do that can help people.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_00: And when you can make people curious about what you do, that's the best kind of marketing.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_00: So I just call that curiosity marketing.
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_00: So even the very term, if you tell people I'm a ghostwriter, nine times out of ten, they're going to ask you some question about what is that exactly, or I've heard of ghostwriters, or is that legit, or I didn't, or why do you do that, or whatever the question is.
• 17:43
  SPEAKER_00: People are always curious about how it works and why you'd want to do that.
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_00: And as soon as people ask that follow-up question, you know you've got a grade in to then start talking about what it is that you do, which is really, really cool.
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_00: Now to follow up with that, point number five here is that ghostwriting is easy to explain to people.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_00: So as people ask me about ghostwriting, this is what I typically say.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_00: I say I write books for business leaders and celebrities that helps them build their authority, tell their story, or get more of what they want in their life or their business.
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_00: I say some kind of version of that.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_00: It's not a memorized elevator pitch that I just, you know, that's like just a spiel that I recite from memory like the Pledge of Allegiance or something.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_00: It's something that I just work organically into a conversation.
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_00: But the point is that it's really easy to explain to people.
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_00: I write books for people.
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, literally, you can say it in four or five words right there.
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_00: I write books for people who don't have the time or the skill or the interest in doing it themselves, more or less.
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_00: And I think when you can explain what you do to people very succinctly and very simply, like you're explaining it to a kid, that's a winner because if people get confused by what you do, they're going to tune out.
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_00: But if you can explain it very simply and straightforward and they understand what it is and why people would want to hire you, that's a real winner.
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_00: Number six is, and I really like this reason.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_00: Number six is that everybody wants a book.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_00: And it's been said that 80% of people want to write a book, and that statistic has been st has been tossed around so many times over the years.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_00: Nobody really knows if it's true, but it seems to me to be pretty true because most of the people that I know want to write a book.
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_00: They've talked about writing a book.
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_00: They've expressed, man, it would be fun to write a book sometime, or I wish I'd written that book all those years ago, or man, this is the summer I'm going to sit down and finally write that book.
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_00: And if you provide a service that meets the desire that most people have, that's a really good starting point for a business.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, think about, let's take McDonald's for example.
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_00: There's a McDonald's on every corner, just about, in any town of almost any size, you know, there's at least one or two McDonald's restaurants.
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_00: Um, how many times have you been have you been driving down the road and you weren't really hungry, but you see that McDonald's and you're like, or you smell McDonald's and you're like, oh man, a cheeseburger sounds kind of good.
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_00: Uh now I I will confess I really love McDonald's french fries, so all I have to do is see those golden arches and that subliminal subliminal, is that the right word?
• 20:17
  SPEAKER_00: That mental connection.
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, folks, I'm a professional writer.
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_00: I can't even pronounce my own words.
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_00: Um, yes, I'm totally professional.
• 20:25
  SPEAKER_00: Anyway, I pass that McDonald's and I think of those crispy, salty french fries, and I just go, oh my gosh, I wasn't even hungry until I saw those golden oranges, and now I kind of want some McDonald's french fries.
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_00: That's kind of the way that writing, that ghostwriting can work.
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_00: Because when you explain to people that what you do is something that everybody wants, there's going to be a certain small percentage of people who are intrigued by that because you are providing something that is a deep emotional need that they have, which is telling their story by writing a book.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_00: I had somebody just last week, completely out of the blue.
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, this is somebody I had not talked to in probably 25 or 30 years, literally, reached out totally out of the blue and said, Hey, I was talking with somebody about the fact that I wanted to write a book, and this other person who's a mutual connection, they said, Oh, you've got to talk to Kent Sanders about that.
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_00: And lo and behold, we got on a conver we got on a call, and and now we're talking about maybe partnering on a project together.
• 21:24
  SPEAKER_00: We'll see what happens with it.
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_00: But it's interesting because I never knew that this individual had uh such a compelling story.
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, they're a very successful business person, but they've been through some life stuff the last few years, and they have a story they want to tell, and they're looking for somebody to partner with them as a collaborator or a coach or a ghostwriter.
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_00: You have people like that all around you in your life, I promise you.
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_00: You could probably go to any gathering of people that you know, and I guarantee probably at least half of them have a book that they're thinking about.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_00: They have a story they want to tell, they have something they want to share about their business.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: Business or about their life or whatever it is, everybody wants a book.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_00: And if you are a person who writes books for people who don't have the time or the skill to do that, then you are absolutely going to knock it out of the park if you let people know that you're a ghostwriter and you build up your business in the right way by being relationship-oriented and generous.
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, enough about that point.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_00: Let's go on to point number seven, which is one of my favorite points, which is you can set your own income as a ghostwriter.
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_00: And this is one of the most incredible aspects of ghostwriting, in my opinion, because the better you get and the more you connect with high-income clients, the more that you can charge for your services.
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_00: And it's really just that simple.
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, the best ghostwriters make over a million dollars a year, some of them multi-millions of dollars a year, because they're charging multiple six figures per book and they write a lot of books and they do it fast.
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_00: You know, one of my big frustrations with teaching college was that I felt like there was always a low ceiling on my income.
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_00: And I understood our, you know, I understood our industry, I understood why we weren't paid that much, and I was okay with that.
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_00: I eventually wanted to exit that type of work because I wanted um I wanted to make more money, just to be honest with you.
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_00: I wanted to have a better, a better financial future for my family.
• 23:19
  SPEAKER_00: We needed some things that we wanted to do, uh, money-wise and all that.
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but I was also frustrated because I felt like I didn't have any opportunities there to make more income.
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, you could teach like an extra class or two per year, but I was only going to get maybe, you know, like$3,000 extra dollars per year if if I taught two or three extra classes, or if I took on some independent studies, or when I was teaching guitar, if I did a bunch more guitar lessons or whatever it was.
• 23:48
  SPEAKER_00: Um even if I worked a lot extra hard, um, my income wouldn't go up by you know that much, just a few thousand extra dollars.
• 23:58
  SPEAKER_00: And so I was always frustrated by that.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_00: But the cool thing is that with ghostwriting, there really is no ceiling on your income.
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_00: You can basically earn as much as you want to if you're willing to grow your business over time and you're willing to become more skilled at what you do.
• 24:12
  SPEAKER_00: It's really all just a matter of getting better at what you do and growing your network so that you're you're being put in touch with people who can afford to hire a higher value and more expensive ghostwriter.
• 24:26
  SPEAKER_00: That's really just what it comes down to, to be honest.
• 24:28
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, but I think it's pretty cool because as a ghostwriter, you can set your own income.
• 24:32
  SPEAKER_00: There's no ceiling on it really.
• 24:35
  SPEAKER_00: Now, one of the reasons for that is reason number eight, which is that ghostwriting is not a commodity-based business.
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_00: Now, this is connected to the previous point, and I want to point out a big difference between ghostwriting and other services like writing blog posts or doing podcast show notes, social media posts, doing podcast production, doing editing and other freelance kinds of services.
• 24:57
  SPEAKER_00: There are pretty standard market rates for those kinds of services.
• 25:01
  SPEAKER_00: But let's be honest, it's it's kind of a challenge to make over six figures a year offering those commodity-based services because you're competing with a lot of other people.
• 25:11
  SPEAKER_00: And oftentimes clients are comparing a bunch of service providers and they're choosing the lowest priced ones.
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_00: And um, I have high respect for editors.
• 25:19
  SPEAKER_00: I truly do.
• 25:19
  SPEAKER_00: Editors are amazing people.
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_00: But one of the downsides of, let's say, doing something like copy editing or line editing is that it's going to be a challenge for you to raise your rates very much above what the market rate for that service is.
• 25:35
  SPEAKER_00: Most of the the pro editors I know charge somewhere between five, uh, I'm sorry, somewhere between four and five cents a word for line and copy editing.
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_00: And the truth is that there's there's only so many of those projects that you can do.
• 25:48
  SPEAKER_00: You know, that there's really I've actually never heard of like an elite line editor or a copy editor who charges like 10 cents a word for that service or 20 cents a word.
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_00: It just is not a thing that I've ever heard of.
• 26:01
  SPEAKER_00: But there is such a thing as elite ghostwriting where people charge way, way more than the standard market rate for professional ghostwriting, sometimes several times more than the market rate.
• 26:13
  SPEAKER_00: Why is that?
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_00: It's because ghostwriting is perceived as a higher value service than more commodity-based things like podcast show notes, social media posts, blogging, those kinds of things.
• 26:25
  SPEAKER_00: Now, if you're doing those kinds of things, I'm not please don't misunderstand me or mishear me.
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not trying to be insulting or I'm trying, I'm I'm definitely not denigrating those services or anything of that nature because I've offered most of those services myself.
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_00: But I think if if you want to increase your income over time, then you have to increase the type of thing that you're offering and you have to shift over to a type of service where you can charge a lot more for it because it's perceived as more valuable.
• 26:57
  SPEAKER_00: Um and that's because the client is perceiving it as a higher value service.
• 27:01
  SPEAKER_00: Right or wrong, that's just the way that it is.
• 27:03
  SPEAKER_00: And so if you want to make more money by doing a service-based type of work for clients that involves writing, then I would suggest ghostwriting or copywriting as one of the two things that you can, you know, the better you get, you can just keep charging more and more and more for it because you're offering a higher and higher value to those clients.
• 27:23
  SPEAKER_00: So again, if you're involved in those things, don't get offended.
• 27:26
  SPEAKER_00: I'm just kind of the messenger.
• 27:28
  SPEAKER_00: This is just how it is in these industries.
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_00: And um, if you want to increase your income, then you have to kind of play by the business rules that are a part of it.
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, let's go on to reason number nine that ghostwriting is a great business, which is you can become a trusted confidant to your clients.
• 27:45
  SPEAKER_00: And I think one of the coolest aspects of ghostwriting is that you can become this really important trusted advisor if you have the right kind of relationship with them, and if you I would say if you position yourself the right way.
• 27:59
  SPEAKER_00: A ghostwriter is a position of high trust and high value with people.
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_00: And clients will oftentimes tell you things that they rarely tell other people.
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I mean, I've had situations before where clients have said, you know, I've never told anybody this, then they will proceed to tell me something that's very, very personal to them.
• 28:17
  SPEAKER_00: Um, in fact, I'm working with several clients right now who, on a regular basis, share details of their lives and their businesses that few people in their life know.
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_00: And I consider this an extremely high honor.
• 28:30
  SPEAKER_00: And I would never ever want to do anything to violate their trust, ever.
• 28:35
  SPEAKER_00: And I think this is what it means to be a quote unquote elite ghostwriter.
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_00: Being an elite ghostwriter is not just about earning more money.
• 28:44
  SPEAKER_00: You earn more money when you become higher value to people.
• 28:47
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so there is a relationship between those two things.
• 28:51
  SPEAKER_00: You don't just get to earn more because you want to earn more, you get to earn more and you also earn people's trust more when you become a person who is worthy of more trust.
• 29:02
  SPEAKER_00: So it's the same thing financially.
• 29:05
  SPEAKER_00: You earn more money whenever you become a person who's worthy of earning more money.
• 29:09
  SPEAKER_00: And the way that you become that kind of a person is you increase your skills with communication, with listening, with writing, with um with all the things that are involved in having a high trust-based business.
• 29:23
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, I came from the worlds of of teaching and but my job before that was I was a pastor.
• 29:31
  SPEAKER_00: And I find it really, really interesting, to me at least, it's interesting to me that there is actually a very close relationship to being a to pastoring and ghostwriting.
• 29:42
  SPEAKER_00: What I mean is this when you're a pastor, but most pastors spend a lot of time, it's a very people-based business, right?
• 29:50
  SPEAKER_00: Um being a pastor is a very people-based kind of thing.
• 29:54
  SPEAKER_00: And you spend a lot of time listening and comforting, and oftentimes as a pastor, you're there with people in their darkest moments.
• 30:02
  SPEAKER_00: I I I would I can't even begin to count how many funerals I've attended.
• 30:06
  SPEAKER_00: Um I've officiated a lot of weddings over the years.
• 30:10
  SPEAKER_00: I have officiated a ton of funerals over the years.
• 30:14
  SPEAKER_00: And I can tell you that I find it I find a lot of how would I put this?
• 30:21
  SPEAKER_00: It's really meaningful to me as a human being to be able to stand with a family at a funeral and be a comfort to them and to serve them in a moment of deep need.
• 30:33
  SPEAKER_00: That is really meaningful to me as a person.
• 30:35
  SPEAKER_00: It's one of the things that attracted me to to church ministry in the first place, is because I am just kind of wired to be that kind of a person.
• 30:43
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not really an upfront, got to be in the spotlight kind of a person.
• 30:46
  SPEAKER_00: I'm a behind the scenes, be in the background type of guy.
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_00: And for whatever reason, I am wired in a way that I am drawn to listening to people and trying to be emotionally attuned and to serving them as best I can in a very deep way.
• 31:02
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that's one of the reasons why um why I enjoy ghostwriting so much.
• 31:07
  SPEAKER_00: It's not really the writing part.
• 31:09
  SPEAKER_00: Um, writing is a skill that you can learn.
• 31:11
  SPEAKER_00: Now, there is some craft to it.
• 31:13
  SPEAKER_00: There's a lot of craft to it, obviously.
• 31:15
  SPEAKER_00: But it's not, but ghostwriting is not just about the writing part.
• 31:18
  SPEAKER_00: It's also about, I would say it's even more so about the listening.
• 31:22
  SPEAKER_00: It's about the human element where you try to become attuned and really deeply listen to what somebody needs and what they want from this project.
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_00: What do they want from their business?
• 31:31
  SPEAKER_00: What are their goals in life?
• 31:33
  SPEAKER_00: All those things are tied to a book project.
• 31:36
  SPEAKER_00: Whenever somebody invests with you in a book project, they're not just wanting a Word document, they're wanting something that is going to get them more of what they want in life.
• 31:44
  SPEAKER_00: Whether that's growing their business or telling their story that's really important to them.
• 31:49
  SPEAKER_00: And gosh, I take that responsibility really seriously.
• 31:52
  SPEAKER_00: Like whenever people share their personal story with me, that is like they're handing me their child and they're saying, hey, I've been trusting to you this thing that I have thought about my whole life.
• 32:02
  SPEAKER_00: It's deeply connected to my identity, it's part of who I am.
• 32:06
  SPEAKER_00: Can you take this?
• 32:08
  SPEAKER_00: Can you take my baby and can you dress it up in a way that makes it look really good and that's going to share where I can share my baby with the world in a way that is really, really special to me and that's going to serve people.
• 32:21
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I'm kind of butchering my analogies here, but you hopefully you understand what I mean.
• 32:25
  SPEAKER_00: That to me is one of the most special elements of being a ghostwriter.
• 32:29
  SPEAKER_00: It really the writing part is uh the writing part is is wonderful too, but this is the part that I really emotionally get locked in on because I love I love tr I love being that person for other people.
• 32:43
  SPEAKER_00: That to me is very special and it's a very honored position, and I never take it for granted that people trust me with their stories, with their business framework, or whatever it is that we're baking into a book.
• 32:53
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, enough on that point.
• 32:55
  SPEAKER_00: Let me go to number 10, then I'm gonna wrap up this episode here.
• 32:58
  SPEAKER_00: Wow, I'm already at like 33 minutes.
• 33:00
  SPEAKER_00: I did not intend for this episode to go this long, but here we are.
• 33:03
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for listening.
• 33:04
  SPEAKER_00: Number 10 is one of my favorite things about being a ghostwriter, and it's this.
• 33:10
  SPEAKER_00: As a ghostwriter, you can explore your curiosity.
• 33:14
  SPEAKER_00: And I think one of the most interesting aspects of this work is the opportunity to write books on a wide array of topics.
• 33:21
  SPEAKER_00: And if you're a person who likes to learn, ghostwriting is going to take you down all sorts of interesting roads.
• 33:28
  SPEAKER_00: Now, including the books that I'm currently working on, I have written books on government, healthcare, neurodiversity, Elvis, spirituality, the future of big data and algorithms, wealth management, investing, marketing, saving for college, social security, generosity, construction, the construction industry, and several more topics as well.
• 33:52
  SPEAKER_00: And I've I've learned from every single one of those projects.
• 33:56
  SPEAKER_00: Every project that I do on whatever topic, it adds to my wealth of knowledge personally, and it also makes me more valuable to future clients.
• 34:04
  SPEAKER_00: The cool thing about writing books on different topics is that the stuff that you learn from one book, you can apply that in interesting ways to the next book that you work on.
• 34:13
  SPEAKER_00: And so the more of these that you do, it all kind of builds on each other until you have this uh your wealth of knowledge just builds and builds and builds over time.
• 34:23
  SPEAKER_00: And it also builds your wealth of knowledge for your own books as well.
• 34:26
  SPEAKER_00: So it's not like it's not like people are just like paying you to do a thing for them and then you do it, and then you're both just kind of even.
• 34:34
  SPEAKER_00: Your client comes out with a lot more value because now they have a book, but you also come out with a lot more value, and not just because you got paid for your services.
• 34:43
  SPEAKER_00: You're coming out with this incredible value because now you've learned some things in life.
• 34:47
  SPEAKER_00: You've learned about an industry, you've learned about that person.
• 34:50
  SPEAKER_00: You've probably learned if you're working with good clients, which I hope that you are, you've probably also learned some things about business, or how to be a better human, or uh how to be more empathetic toward a certain type of person, whether it's people who work in a certain industry or a specific type of group or whatever it is.
• 35:09
  SPEAKER_00: Um, maybe it's a certain cultural group or uh whatever whatever the thing that that person kind of represents to you in terms of what you're learning from them.
• 35:20
  SPEAKER_00: It's really, really cool because it's kind of like you're getting paid to learn.
• 35:23
  SPEAKER_00: So my ghostwriting mentor, uh Nick Pavlitas, he's the one who got me into ghostwriting a number of years ago.
• 35:30
  SPEAKER_00: He says that a lot.
• 35:31
  SPEAKER_00: It's like he says ghostwriting is kind of like getting paid to learn, which is pretty cool, you know.
• 35:36
  SPEAKER_00: Like, don't you want to have a job?
• 35:37
  SPEAKER_00: Don't you want to have a career that is not just paying you for a service, but don't you want to have a career that's enriching you as a human being and helping you to be more valuable to your family and to society?
• 35:49
  SPEAKER_00: I think that's pretty cool.
• 35:50
  SPEAKER_00: And for me, ghostwriting has very much been that kind of a thing.
• 35:54
  SPEAKER_00: Now, in future episodes of this ghostwriting 101 series, uh, we're gonna get into some other topics like how to get started as a ghostwriter, how much money you can make, and also some mistakes to avoid.
• 36:05
  SPEAKER_00: So we've got lots more to do.
• 36:07
  SPEAKER_00: These are gonna come out on Tuesdays, so make sure and stay tuned.
• 36:11
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I don't even know why we say that anymore.
• 36:13
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes you listen to podcasts and they're like, stay tuned.
• 36:15
  SPEAKER_00: And then there's a part of me that's like, hey, it's not 1985 anymore.
• 36:19
  SPEAKER_00: People don't, you know, we don't tune into a podcast like you tune into a radio station.
• 36:24
  SPEAKER_00: But anyway, I'm a child of the 80s, what can I say?
• 36:28
  SPEAKER_00: Uh in the meantime, if you have never considered making ghostwriting part of the portfolio of ways that you can serve people and that you can make a great living, I really, really hope that you're going to do so.
• 36:39
  SPEAKER_00: And I want you to do a favor for me.
• 36:41
  SPEAKER_00: Um, a little small favor.
• 36:43
  SPEAKER_00: I am considering putting together a course on ghostwriting.
• 36:48
  SPEAKER_00: And I would love to hear from you.
• 36:50
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm I'm completely serious about this.
• 36:52
  SPEAKER_00: You know, sometimes on podcasts people say, Hey, I'm thinking about doing this or that, and and they don't really ask for a response.
• 36:58
  SPEAKER_00: I'm asking you, literally, for you to get in touch with me and let me know if you would be interested in some kind of formal course on ghostwriting.
• 37:09
  SPEAKER_00: I am very seriously considering putting this together because people ask me about ghostwriting so much that um I kind of feel like I'm doing people a disservice if I don't package this in a way that's digestible and that that is that makes it easy for you to get started.
• 37:24
  SPEAKER_00: I think there's a lot of things that are involved in getting started successfully as a ghostwriter that nobody's talking about.
• 37:30
  SPEAKER_00: And very little of it has anything to do with business.
• 37:32
  SPEAKER_00: It I think a lot of it has to do with relationship building.
• 37:36
  SPEAKER_00: And something that drives me crazy.
• 37:39
  SPEAKER_00: I try not to rant on this podcast, but I'm gonna take 15 seconds to do a little tiny rant, is that there are a lot of people out there who are teaching others how to build a business by sending cold emails and cold pitching and reaching out on LinkedIn with all these cold messages, and and and cold pitching basically means you don't have a relationship with that person.
• 37:58
  SPEAKER_00: I think that's an awful way to build a business.
• 38:00
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't work, and it's not relationship driven, and you will never ever hear me teaching that's the proper way to build the business, because in my opinion, it's not.
• 38:10
  SPEAKER_00: I am a relationship-driven person.
• 38:13
  SPEAKER_00: I think the best way to build a business is by giving and serving, being a person of excellence and delivering value before you ask for anything.
• 38:22
  SPEAKER_00: That's how I built my business, and it has worked really well, and I would encourage you to do the same thing as well.
• 38:28
  SPEAKER_00: So, long story short, if you would be interested in a go a formal ghostwriting course that probably would be cohort-based, um, it would be like a ghostwriting one-on-one type of a course.
• 38:41
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know how long it would be or any details, but you would probably go through with a group over a period of weeks or or something like that through some basic material to get you started on the path to ghostwriting.
• 38:52
  SPEAKER_00: I would love to hear from you.
• 38:53
  SPEAKER_00: You can email me at Kent at theprofitable rider.com.
• 39:00
  SPEAKER_00: It's Kent at the Profitable Rider.com.
• 39:03
  SPEAKER_00: Shoot me an email and let me know if you're interested in that.
• 39:05
  SPEAKER_00: And if so, I would love to hop on a call with you and hear what kinds of things would you like to see in a course on ghostwriting.
• 39:13
  SPEAKER_00: And yes, by call, I literally mean let's set up a quick chat and I would love to talk to you about what you would find valuable in that kind of a course.
• 39:21
  SPEAKER_00: I'm just kind of doing some art market research for this.
• 39:24
  SPEAKER_00: So anyway, let me know.
• 39:25
  SPEAKER_00: Kent at theprofitablewriter.com, would you like to see some kind of formal ghostwriting course from me?
• 39:31
  SPEAKER_00: I think it would be a lot of fun.
• 39:33
  SPEAKER_00: Well, you know, to wrap this up, um I just want to say ghostwriting has been a really great career choice for me.
• 39:39
  SPEAKER_00: I will be forever grateful that it has helped me transition from my former day job and it has helped my family get on a better financial footing and has helped us to create a better path for the future.
• 39:51
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I really enjoy ghostwriting.
• 39:53
  SPEAKER_00: I really truly do.
• 39:54
  SPEAKER_00: And I think it can be something that if you want to build a writing business, it can be something that can really help you and your family as well.
• 40:01
  SPEAKER_00: All right, before I wrap up, I do want to give a big thanks to our sponsor of today's episode, which is Vellum.
• 40:07
  SPEAKER_00: For years, my go-to choice for book formatting software has been Vellum.
• 40:11
  SPEAKER_00: The reason why is it gives you the power to build, style, and preview your book and have a ton of fun while doing it.
• 40:18
  SPEAKER_00: Vellum is the go-to choice for Mac users who care about creating beautiful ebooks and print books and they want to save tons of time in the process.
• 40:26
  SPEAKER_00: Now, the coolest thing is that you can download Vellum and play with your book's formatting to your heart's content, and you only have to purchase Vellum when you're ready to publish.
• 40:35
  SPEAKER_00: And when you do, Vellum creates eBooks for every platform.
• 40:39
  SPEAKER_00: If you want to download Vellum for free, go to trivellum.com slash daily.
• 40:44
  SPEAKER_00: That's trivellum.com slash daily.
• 40:47
  SPEAKER_00: Alright, my friend, thanks so much for listening, especially because this has been kind of a really long solo episode.
• 40:53
  SPEAKER_00: Wasn't my intention, but here we are.
• 40:55
  SPEAKER_00: I really hope this has been valuable to you.
• 40:57
  SPEAKER_00: And don't forget, if you're interested in the ghostwriting course uh that I may be developing, I would love to chat with you.
• 41:03
  SPEAKER_00: Just shoot me an email, Kent at the profitablerider.com.
• 41:07
  SPEAKER_00: All right, my friend, thanks again for listening, and I'll see you next time.