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Do you want to make $5000, $10,000 or more every month as a freelancer? Does your current published materials earn you that much or are you still struggling looking for new jobs every month? Well, ghost writing articles and books for businesses could earn you a lot of money and end your painful quest for writing jobs.
Making money as a freelance writer can be tough especially for newbies with no samples or prior experience. Most editors want published writers with a proven track record. And the few acceptances you will receive may get you paid $50 or $100 an article. With these figures you can only imagine whether you can make a living freelancing.
Well, its not all doom and gloom as there are other better alternatives. One of these, is ghost writing of articles, books, manuals, e.t.c. for business for fees ranging from $500 to $5000 or even more for big work. A single how-to article could be ghost written for businesses for a fee of $1500 or $3000 depending on the work involved writing and the publications placed in. Surely this is much more than many magazine and newspaper editors pay for single articles from newbies. Sell four or five articles per month and you can consider going full time into freelancing.
GETTING STARTED
To begin with, you need to identify a niche area of you expertise .It could be in medical writing, business writing or a narrow area which you are knowledgeable in or you can make easy inroads into. Not that this limits your market potential but having a niche area of specialization would make it easier to operate, as you will be constantly drawing ideas from a rich and ready knowledge base.
Next, you should research a few ideas and convert them into a few how-to articles in your market niche. Post the finished articles to article submission databases such as:
Use the published articles as samples of your writing ability and work. At the same time the articles will be picked and published in hundreds of ezines and high traffic sites, thus gaining free publicity for you and your business.
FINDING BUSINESS
To get business you will need to send letters or e-mails to your local businesses and even those beyond with proposals to write articles for them. Explain to them the benefits of your business such as boosting their business's image and credibility as well as generate leads for later follow - up. Enclose a few samples, a tentative contract agreement and a cover letter.
You can also purchase or rent business names and addresses from direct mail list brokers, fish out names from your business and yellow pages directory.
Before writing to them, you could do some background check and find out the status and details of the business. If they have a website, you could check it out and get the name of their marketing executive. Address your letter to him/her and offer to call or visit for a detailed business presentation. For businesses which are far away, you could refer them to you website or offer to send them more information by post or e-mail.
WRITING THE ARTICLE
Once you have secured the business's acceptance and you have signed a contract, you should ask them to send to you brochures, press releases, manuals, e.t.c. Write down a list of questions and send to the marketing executive seeking answers about the business or industry.
You can also do further research at the local library, online libraries and databases and read trade and industry publications for further information to write an outline for a how to-article.
However, do not make a mistake to think that the article will be about your client or load it with so many facts that bore you reader. That could be suitable for a custom -made booklet, manual or newsletter for the client. For articles, it is a different matter. Offer tips, solutions to consumer or business problems or give a valuable insight into a common issue or problem. The article could be about self-improvement, making more money, improving health, planning finances, training e.t.c.
The article would contain the client's by line and bio. The bio would explain briefly who the client is, the client's websites URL and e-mail address. This is very useful and will be the centrepiece of the credibility and viral marketing campaign.
Once you have written the article, you need to send a draft to your client for suggestions and revisions. Adopt the suggestions, proofread it and prepare a final draft. Send the final draft to your client and post it to article databases, ezines and syndicates online and offline. In the course of time, the article will be distributed and circulated online and off generating wide publicity for you client.
How long should the articles be? For how-to articles 500-750 words is the standard but where the subject needs exhaustive treatment 1000 to 1500 words is good length. For a higher word count, you should advice your client to consider an ebook, booklet or book. Of course, the longer the article, the higher the fees.
SETTING YOUR FEES
There is no standard way of pricing your article writing services. You should set your fees based on the research work involved, the hours you spend on the work, and expenses involved in producing and publishing the article and a profit.
For a 300 to 500 words article $200 to $300 is fair but as the word count leaps into the hundreds, figures of $1500 to $5000 are reasonable. To convince your customers to cough such amounts, you will need to tell them the benefits of your service and business promotion through articles. You could also offer them various packages laden with bonuses and offers. For example, I offer a package, which includes paid placements to article databases and syndicates, ezines solo ads and press releases writing and posting. All this is done to assure the client cheap maximum and wide exposure no matter what. For booklets and ebooks of less than 50 pages, rates of $3000 to $10,000 are not uncommon. For books a ghostwriter may be paid anything from $20,000 to $100,000 depending on expertise, length and research involved.
At those rates obviously, you will not get everybody in, but for prospective clients who are used to paying hundreds of thousands in advertising dollars they would see it s reasonable and beneficial in the long term.
To ensure that you do not miss business from those who have small budgets to spend on promotion, you can structure your packages according to ability to pay. Those who pay less would get good exposure with no assurance of leads while those who pay more will get an almost guaranteed response.
BENEFITS
Everyone wants to know how he/she will benefit from a product or service. For yourself as a freelancer, you will get booming business and enjoy making money as a freelance ghost writer. You will get more business by collecting and showing testimonials of your satisfied clients and establish a reputation as a prolific writer.
For the clients, you will need to explain to them the benefits of your service. Here are some benefits you can tell them:
Free publicity to millions of prospects online and offline.
The published articles may be used by the client to mail to existing and prospective customers as a free service, building credibility and a positive image of the business in the process.
Leads will be generated for future follow -up. Enquiries will be made about the business and some sales will be made.
The publication of the article online which contains relevant keywords with the clients website URL will increase its link popularity and improve its search engine ranking. This may bring in more targeted visitors to the website.
The client will be given progress reports for at least six months on the places where the articles has been published .You can inform him/her to also search for it on search engines using his/her by-line or article title.
The article could provide spin-offs for other article ideas, which you could slant for various businesses and markets. You could also write new articles every month, post them to article databases and send to prospective clients with a cover letter to market your services.
This ghost writing service could be very lucrative. You could earn tens of thousands of dollars every month from it. You could even get clients worldwide through your website and e-mails to direct response mailing lists.
Only the sky the limit!
