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Ghost Writing Payment Question


Joolissa

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So I've been looking around for some freelance writing jobs. I'd really like to break into that kinda thing, so if anyone has any suggestions I'd love to hear them.

 

Anyhow, in my search I came across a Ghost Writing job as follows:

We're looking for someone who can do the initial research and then write a rough draft based on that research. The client will then take it and customize and personalize it. No credit as a writer, but researcher credit is available.

 

They ask you to send samples, resume, credit list, and salary requirement. Since I have no idea what a fair price would be I was hoping one of you might have an idea. Also, what type of samples should I send and does anyone have any recommendations for how I should go about applying (if I do) when I don't have a credit list? (which seems kind of ironic to me, when they don't offer credit and I assume most ghost writing doesn't)

 

Anyhow, anyone's suggestion on this or how to best go about getting into freelance writing would be very welcome

 

Thanks!

 

Potential Ghost

- JooOOOOoooooools

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So I've been looking around for some freelance writing jobs. I'd really like to break into that kinda thing, so if anyone has any suggestions I'd love to hear them.

 

Hi Julia,

 

You could try asking Mark Steisel about the ghost writing market. He is a well-regarded and successful ghostwriter writer. He stopped by the Storyist booth at Macworld, so I can also say he is also a very nice guy and might be willing to point you in the right direction.

 

-Steve

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How much should you be paid?

 

That depends: a rough draft of a novel? A nonfiction text? If so $5000 absolute minimum. $30,000 on the high end. Are they asking for a newspaper article? How many inches? Charles Dickens was paid the equivalent of $560 for the 80 pages of A Christmas Carol but that was 1843. Rates have gone up since then.

 

Don't worry about your credits. If they're not telling you the nature and size of the job then they're not looking for experienced writers or researchers. I find the lack of detail a bit suspicious. IMHO they're trying to screw you.

 

I'd bet that Mark Steisel has more useful advice. This may also be useful to you.

 

ScrooOOOOooooooo.

- Thoth

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It's a non-fiction book. You can see the full ad here. I know they're not high end, since they're on craigslist, but hey, it's something right? I'd be plenty happy to get $5000-$30,000! As far as them trying to screw me, possibly, but hey, I don't have to commit, and it doesn't hurt to try. That's my theory anyway.

 

Thanks Steve, I'll check out that link.

 

I think I will send them a letter of interest and ask for more details about the project before I quote them a price, that gives me more time to research and find out what I'd be getting into.

 

Out of curiosity, if you ghost write a book, and aren't given credit as a writer can you then put it on a "credits" list or a resume?

 

In slightly different avenue, has anyone on here done any freelance writing? Articles.... poetry... stories... anything? I really want to develop my writing and get things on a writing resume.. not to mention getting published would be amazing. lol! So, I'm looking for advice, experiences, etc. etc.

 

Aspiring freelancer

- Jules

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It's a non-fiction book. You can see the full ad here. I know they're not high end, since they're on craigslist, but hey, it's something right? I'd be plenty happy to get $5000-$30,000! As far as them trying to screw me, possibly, but hey, I don't have to commit, and it doesn't hurt to try. That's my theory anyway.

 

Thanks Steve, I'll check out that link.

 

I think I will send them a letter of interest and ask for more details about the project before I quote them a price, that gives me more time to research and find out what I'd be getting into.

 

Out of curiosity, if you ghost write a book, and aren't given credit as a writer can you then put it on a "credits" list or a resume?

 

In slightly different avenue, has anyone on here done any freelance writing? Articles.... poetry... stories... anything? I really want to develop my writing and get things on a writing resume.. not to mention getting published would be amazing. lol! So, I'm looking for advice, experiences, etc. etc.

 

Aspiring freelancer

- Jules

See if you can't wring a per word rate (better yet, an hourly rate) out of them instead of a flat fee, since you don't know how much work it will involve. Writers Digest used to put out a Guide for Freelance Rates and Standard Practice, which was a great summary of what to expect (covered both writing and editing). The version I have must be 20 years old, so the rates are useless, but I bet they've updated it since then. Check Amazon.com for a new edition. You can also check the classified section of your local newspaper (yes, the print version!), where government freelance writing jobs are advertised. At least then you know the employer is legit.

 

When I've been paid for writing, the rate has been 10 cents/word (that's academic writing, so probably the low end). On ghostwriting itself—never done it, can't help you. But I wish you luck!

Best,

Marguerite

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It's a non-fiction book. You can see the full ad here. I know they're not high end, since they're on craigslist, but hey, it's something right? I'd be plenty happy to get $5000-$30,000!

That's experienced, high end.

 

As far as them trying to screw me, possibly, but hey, I don't have to commit, and it doesn't hurt to try. That's my theory anyway.

If they try to sell you something or require an investment in the book to get the job, walk away. If they say, "Nah, we're Christians. We don't need a contract," run. If they provide a contract but it only spells out your responsibilities and possible penalties levied against you, throw an overmuffin at 'em.

 

I think I will send them a letter of interest and ask for more details about the project before I quote them a price, that gives me more time to research and find out what I'd be getting into.

Smart.

 

Out of curiosity, if you ghost write a book, and aren't given credit as a writer can you then put it on a "credits" list or a resume?

They did say "researcher" credit is available. Available? Ask if they require a confidentially agreement.

 

A non-fiction "Christian" book? Is there such a thing? Maybe it's a biography thing.

- Thoth.

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Thanks Lady M! I'll take a look for that book. Don't know about the newspapers, I don't think I know anyone who even gets one, and since I'm in the middle of Amish land... I'm not sure there's too many gov. jobs! One never knows though, I'll have to check it out.

 

So how did you break into the academic writing/editing field, M?

 

Attempting a B&E into the world of writing.

- J

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Yea, lol I'd probably be happy with less. I guess it really depends on the work involved. As a photographer who had "don't under sell yourself" beaten into her head for 10 months during school, it's hard for me to be willing to accept less since I'm not experienced, though I know it's necessary. :P Gotta start somewhere!

 

I'd run from anyone not using a contract and trying to get me to invest in some unseen thing.. or sending money to Cameroon or some such far off place. :P Even you Thoth!

 

Yes there is such a thing, plenty of them, but I'll happily agree to disagree.

 

Peace in forums, good will to minions! :P

- J

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I'd run from anyone not using a contract and trying to get me to invest in some unseen thing.. or sending money to Cameroon or some such far off place. :P Even you Thoth!

That said, I have a nice bridge connecting Brooklyn and lower Manhattan which I can let you have for a song.

 

Yes there is such a thing, plenty of them, but I'll happily agree to disagree.

Sorry Mistress. I did not mean to offend.

 

Bad Thoth. Bad.

-Bad Thoth.

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Hm, can you toss in a free ocean?

 

Psh! I'm hardly offended. You're entitled to your opinion, even if you are a minion! :P

 

 

In other news, I sent my email of interest. We'll see if I get a nibble. I got a slightly canned response to my inquiry about a childrens book illustration job. I'll be receiving more instruction about drawing a rendition of the characters as an "audition" or so I'm told. I'm hopeful anyway! It'd be awesome.

 

Searching the interwebs

- Good Juju

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Thanks! Desk(top) size, just what I dreamed of! :P

 

 

Thoth, you glow? Are you genetically altered to include the glow gene?

 

Now dreaming of glow sticks

- Jules

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Thoth, you glow? Are you genetically altered to include the glow gene?

Why yes. I'm a transgenic mutant with a piece of the Giant California Jellyfish in my genetic makeup.

 

Tried to get a date with cat-girl Max (Jessica Alba) but she doesn't like the glowy thing. She prefers the room dark when we ... you know.

Still glowing.

-Thoth

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Thanks Lady M! I'll take a look for that book. Don't know about the newspapers, I don't think I know anyone who even gets one, and since I'm in the middle of Amish land... I'm not sure there's too many gov. jobs! One never knows though, I'll have to check it out.

 

So how did you break into the academic writing/editing field, M?

 

Attempting a B&E into the world of writing.

- J

Come to think of it, there are probably websites for government jobs, too, these days. The big point is that governments at every level are legally required to advertise employment opportunities, to prevent discrimination and nepotism and corruption of all sorts, and since most freelance jobs occur offsite, it doesn't matter where you are (and I live outside of Philadelphia, so I know exactly where your university is). The Writers Digest book, if it has been updated, will have the latest information. The idea is to build up a portfolio of completed assignments, regardless of topic.

 

As to how I got into editing, I spent years earning a Ph.D. and wrote my dissertation in a now long-dead, always rather rare software program that happened to be the one used by a company that was looking for freelance editors. I also published a book based on the dissertation and freelance for my publisher. And I have written articles and review essays in my field.

 

Compensation for most academic writing is the prestige of seeing your name in print—it's assumed that residence in the ivory tower does not require material sustenance—but I have occasionally earned fees large enough to cover coffee and donuts, so long as I don't try to treat more than one other person. :P

 

BTW, I just did a quick search on Amazon.com, and the Guide to Freelance Rates and Standard Practice was produced by the National Writers Union, not Writers Digest, and apparently has not been updated since 1995 (!). You might try doing a web search for the NWU and see if it is (1) still in existence and (2) has anything more recent on its website, since the book is the version I have and woefully out of date. You can also

try the 2009 Writers Market, which claims to list current freelance rates at the back.

 

Good luck with your attempted B&E. Let us know how it goes.

Best,

Marguerite

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As to how I got into editing, I spent years earning a Ph.D. and wrote my dissertation in a now long-dead, always rather rare software program that happened to be the one used by a company that was looking for freelance editors. I also published a book based on the dissertation and freelance for my publisher. And I have written articles and review essays in my field.

 

Compensation for most academic writing is the prestige of seeing your name in print—it's assumed that residence in the ivory tower does not require material sustenance—but I have occasionally earned fees large enough to cover coffee and donuts, so long as I don't try to treat more than one other person. :P

 

:blink: wow....

 

 

Hurray! I actually do have the Writer's Market 09 book. It was given to me for my birthday. I will definitely dive into that now.

 

As to building up a portfolio, and suggestions for that? What type of things should it contain? What is the best way to put it together? I can put together a photography portfolio, but the whole writing thing is new to me. Also, what is the best way to put a portfolio online? I'm a paranoid freak now about putting my writing online, since there is no good way to put a watermark on it like there is a picture. Should I just put excerpts from my work and then say full portfolio available in PDF format upon request or something?

 

The n00b

- Jules

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:blink: wow....

 

 

Hurray! I actually do have the Writer's Market 09 book. It was given to me for my birthday. I will definitely dive into that now.

 

As to building up a portfolio, and suggestions for that? What type of things should it contain? What is the best way to put it together? I can put together a photography portfolio, but the whole writing thing is new to me. Also, what is the best way to put a portfolio online? I'm a paranoid freak now about putting my writing online, since there is no good way to put a watermark on it like there is a picture. Should I just put excerpts from my work and then say full portfolio available in PDF format upon request or something?

 

The n00b

- Jules

Sorry, forgot you were a photographer. By "portfolio" I meant just a list of titles you can stick on your resume. If a potential employer asks for writing samples (some do), send whichever you like best or seem closest to the topic you're applying to write about. E-mail them if asked; otherwise send a printout. But whatever you do, don't stash them online. Text online is vulnerable to anyone who can reach it.

 

That's not to say it's always a mistake to post text. On my website I have a sample chapter of a completed novel as well as a short story that I don't plan to submit anywhere in its current form and summaries of work in progress. And I've toyed with posting the minimum 10,000 words on Authonomy but haven't done it, in part because I don't think the work is ready. But if someone steals one chapter, that person won't have the rest of the book. I also registered that book with the U.S. Copyright Office before I posted any part of it. The point is to be aware that you can't protect text effectively on the Web, so you can factor that into your decision.

One person's view,

M

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Most of the "jobs" I've found on craigslist want links to samples online (though some also want specific examples written for them) and not attachments (fear of viruses I suppose). For now I've been listing my two websites that I wrote all the content for, though I expect it really isn't enough or what they're looking for. It so far seems hard to find a balance between protecting my work and my ability to make money with what I write and being able to prove that I can write. All the ones who request specific examples or are "$$ for every story published" make me nervous, cause what's to keep them from using what I send without paying me?

 

I'm guessing by "Titles" you mean published works?

 

I've posted very little online for that exact reason and what I did post online is now private, except for the one thing, which I might end up deleting. In the art world I know there's a TON of art theft (online), so I'm sure there's just as much in the writing world.

 

As for the copyrighting, I need to either buy a cheap hard drive or a billion DVDs and put all my stuff on it and send it in. I need to go look up the submission guidelines to see if they've change at all since I was in school.

 

Pipe dreaming of an honest world

- Jules

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Most of the "jobs" I've found on craigslist want links to samples online (though some also want specific examples written for them) and not attachments (fear of viruses I suppose). For now I've been listing my two websites that I wrote all the content for, though I expect it really isn't enough or what they're looking for. It so far seems hard to find a balance between protecting my work and my ability to make money with what I write and being able to prove that I can write. All the ones who request specific examples or are "$$ for every story published" make me nervous, cause what's to keep them from using what I send without paying me?

 

I'm guessing by "Titles" you mean published works?

 

I've posted very little online for that exact reason and what I did post online is now private, except for the one thing, which I might end up deleting. In the art world I know there's a TON of art theft (online), so I'm sure there's just as much in the writing world.

 

As for the copyrighting, I need to either buy a cheap hard drive or a billion DVDs and put all my stuff on it and send it in. I need to go look up the submission guidelines to see if they've change at all since I was in school.

 

Pipe dreaming of an honest world

- Jules

By titles I mean written works, published or otherwise, produced for a client who paid for them. Especially if you're ghost-writing, you will be in a gray area in terms of "ownership"—one you should clarify with any potential client before signing a contract—but the work is yours, so you can use it as a sample and (probably) list it on a resume.

 

This whole Craigslist thing is beyond my ken. To me it sounds very fishy, but perhaps I'm just old-fashioned. Why do they need links to samples online? You could cut-and-paste text into the body of an e-mail message or send them work on paper if they're freaked out about viruses—which makes no sense anyway, since you could set up a website to download malicious code to their PCs. Isn't that how phishing scams work? Personally, I'd put a ten-foot pole between me and someone who insisted I post my work online for his/her delectation, but again, I may simply be out of touch with the contemporary scene.

 

The moral here may be "Stay away from Craigslist." Look for writing jobs elsewhere. For example, LinkedIn is free, more professional than Facebook, and if you join a couple of writing/editing groups you will occasionally see messages from people looking for writers. It's also a place to post questions like yours and get answers from others in the business (who will then know your name). You may also want to check the National Writers Union and other online writers' groups to find out where their members look for work. Ask your faculty members, your university job center, etc. Look for the government websites I mentioned before. None of these places should cost you anything, although the NWU may require a membership fee (in which case I would try somewhere else).

 

The sad truth is that writing jobs, like most jobs, are most often filled by people known to those advertising the job. Bosses like to hire people they know or people whose contacts they know; it helps them feel that they've found islands of certainty among a sea of options. People who don't have those contacts are likely to be the ones advertising on Craigslist (unless they're just placing the ad to satisfy a legal requirement). So your best bet is to become that known person by widening your own circle of contacts.

Make sense?

M

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As for the copyrighting, I need to either buy a cheap hard drive or a billion DVDs and put all my stuff on it and send it in. I need to go look up the submission guidelines to see if they've change at all since I was in school.

- Jules

You can now register works online, $35 per registration. It's very simple but requires you to upload a PDF of the entire work. You own copyright by virtue of creation; the registration merely gives you a recourse in case of copyright infringement: you can prove that on such-and-such a day you registered the entire text in your name. Even then, you'd have to hire a lawyer to prove that copyright infringement had taken place.

 

Which means, in brief, that you don't need to register everything you produce. I have registered manuscripts before sending them out, mostly for my own peace of mind, and especially before posting any part of them (literary agents or editors aren't going to steal your manuscript: they're desperate to reduce the piles of paper on their desks). Even Authonomy is probably safe, in the sense that everyone who posts there has a manuscript of his/her own and visitors have thousands to choose from, all of them previously viewed by other members who could vouch for them if necessary.

 

But there are certainly occasions when registration makes sense.

Best,

M

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Sorry this took me so long. Thanks M, I really appreciate the help. I'm checking into Linked In etc. etc. As far as craigslist goes... I take everything on there with a grain of salt (or a teaspoon....). Hopefully I will be able to find something eventually, via craigslist, linked in, etc. etc.

 

Thanks for letting me know you can register online now! That's great. That will make it easier to get my stuff registered.

 

Thanks again!

- Jules

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