Best Careers 2009: Ghostwriter

Overview. Ghostwriting is one of the more likely ways to get to write for large and important audiences. Plus, you get paid—often well—to write about a range of topics you otherwise never could, and to meet interesting, otherwise inaccessible people. All that, plus a flexible schedule.

But you must forgo the glory of seeing your name in print. Tip: Consider any writing career only if you like the process of writing, whether or not your name appears on the product.

Of course, to be a professional writer, you must write powerfully and quickly—those with writer's block need not apply. Ghostwriters also must be excellent interviewers, able to unearth the factual and emotional nuggets that lie within your client. Too, you must be able to capture your client's voice and, often, to gracefully accept their seemingly foolish edits.

One way to land a good ghostwriting project is to contact a famous person you respect and ask if he or she would like you to ghostwrite an autobiography. If so, you develop an outline together and submit the proposal to publishers, usually through an agent.

Another source of celebrity ghostwriting work: writing speeches and articles for politicians or business leaders. You can also ghostwrite for just plain folks: websites, family histories, or Grandpa's memoir.

You'll have an edge if you specialize in science, autobiography, history, politics, or business.

The main potential downside of ghostwriting is that you're writing your clients' ideas, not your own, and in their voice, not yours. Of course, by handpicking for whom you're writing, you're likely to feel OK about that.

Ghosting is a great option if you're looking to get well paid for writing without having to write ad copy or for trade publications.

A Typical Book Project. An architect would like to write a book to help boost her business. You interview her and look at her previously completed projects. Impressed, you agree to ghostwrite it with her. She offers you half the royalties, but you insist on a flat fee—most books earn little in royalties. You negotiate a flat fee of $40,000.

Next, you collaboratively develop a list of chapters and a rough outline of each. Over the next week, you spend eight hours a day watching her work and interviewing her to elicit how she came to be an architect, how she has evolved, compelling insights, success stories, tales of failure, and her hopes, worries, and predictions.

After you're sure you have more than enough content to fill two good books, you spend the next three months actually writing the book. You E-mail her each chapter for comment.

Next, it's time for the big read: She reads the whole book and asks for more changes, not all of which you agree with. Your most stressful session is in trying to disabuse her of her ill-advised edits, but you often end up having to swallow hard.

Finally, you try to help her get the book published, but she's unable to even get an agent, let alone a publisher. So, you refer her to a service that helps people self-publish print-on-demand and E-books, and you're off to find your next project.

Salary Data

Median (with eight years in the field): $56,900

25th to 75th percentile (with eight or more years of experience): $49,800-$111,000

(Data provided by PayScale.com)

Training

The art of writing well is usually best acquired outside the halls of academia—with private coaches or writers' groups—but always by reading lots of good writing and most of all by writing, writing, writing. Always try to get feedback, not just from writing experts but from your target audience.

Learn More

Articles:

• "What a Ghostwriter Does and Why" by Andrew Crofts
• An interview with ghostwriter Bob Olson
• An interview with ghostwriter Clifford Thurlow
• "How to Launch a Career as a Freelance Ghostwriter" by Brian Konradt

Books:

• Ghostwriting by Eva Shaw
• Ghostwriting by Andrew Crofts