Nicolas Cole has ghostwritten for a number of the largest tech founders, Fortune 500 executives, New York Instances best-selling authors, Grammy-winning musicians, and plenty of different achieved enterprise house owners and creators.
Alongside the best way, he constructed a wildly profitable seven determine ghostwriting enterprise.
On this publish, you’ll be taught the step-by-step course of he used to turn into a seven determine ghostwriter.
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Step 1: Choose A Service Inside Ghostwriting
There are lots of sorts of ghostwriting alternatives, and every has nuanced variations.
So, grasp one ghostwriting format after which increase your companies.
Listed here are a number of of the best ghostwriting opportunities with freelance writing rates that Nicolas recommends for anybody excited about ghostwriting.
Social Media Content material
Enterprise leaders understand that prospects need to eat content material from different individuals – not manufacturers. So many founders, executives, coaches, and consultants rent ghostwriters to create social media posts for them.
Nicolas estimates that you may make wherever from $3,000 to $10,000 per 30 days ghostwriting social media content material for executives.
In truth, Chobani just lately employed a social media ghostwriter for almost $300,000 per year to put in writing content material for his or her executives’ social media profiles.
Touchdown Pages And Gross sales Scripts
YouTubers, coaches, startup founders, and different product and repair house owners want ghostwriters to create touchdown pages and gross sales scripts to promote their services.
As a touchdown web page or gross sales script ghostwriter, your job is to coach prospects and reply their questions concerning the services or products in order that they ultimately convert into patrons.
For instance, if you happen to’re promoting a copywriting course, prospects would possibly need to know:
- How a lot time will I’ve to dedicate to this?
- Will there be any accountability?
- What kind of copywriting will you train me?
Nicolas believes ghostwriters can simply cost no less than $2,000 for a touchdown web page or gross sales web page, and the perfect ghostwriters additionally negotiate a share on prime of the bottom worth.
Thought Management Articles
Nicolas’s first ghostwriting gig was writing thought management articles for an entrepreneur who bought a family-owned plumbing provides firm for over $1 billion.
This entrepreneur needed somebody to ghostwrite articles on Medium, Quora, and LinkedIn to determine himself as a thought chief on-line as he deliberate to publish a e-book.
That consumer ultimately referred Nicolas to a pal, which led to extra referrals and ultimately was a seven determine company.
You may cost wherever from $250 to $2,000 per article, and on the peak of his company, Nicolas was charging $5,000 per 800 phrase article.
E-mail Programs
Most companies make investments hundreds of {dollars} to generate web site guests, so that they’re additionally prepared to rent ghostwriters to create electronic mail programs to retain and remarket to these guests.
As an electronic mail course ghostwriter, your job is to coach the reader on their drawback and the way your consumer’s services or products can remedy it.
Nicolas believes that electronic mail course ghostwriting is among the greatest freelance writing alternatives as it’s extremely worthwhile to companies and, due to this fact, very profitable.
In truth, Nicolas quadrupled the opt-in price for his personal electronic mail checklist after publishing an electronic mail course, and the enterprise’s income doubled.
You may simply cost about $5,000 to $10,000 per electronic mail course if you happen to’re an ideal freelance author.
Video Scripts
Video content material is an efficient technique to construct relationships with potential prospects at scale, so many firms are investing in video script writers. So, if you happen to’re author who can distill advanced concepts into easy, compelling scripts, you’ll be able to simply make six figures as a ghostwriter.
In truth, these writers are incomes $100 per minute for video scripts.
Whereas it’s greatest to specialise in one service providing and turn into actually nice at it, you’ll be able to then scale your revenue by providing a number of companies for a single consumer.
Step 2: Ghostwrite For Free
Most aspiring ghostwriters attempt to get their first freelance client by by sending chilly emails to their target market or making use of for ghostwriting jobs on writing boards like Upwork.
Nevertheless, it’s troublesome to get a ghostwriting mission if you happen to don’t have any writing expertise.
As well as, most high-level founders and executives rent primarily based on suggestions from pals, so that you in all probability gained’t even get in entrance of your dream purchasers.
As a substitute, Nicolas recommends providing your companies without spending a dime to hone and enhance your copywriting abilities.
Nevertheless, don’t simply electronic mail individuals and generically provide to work without spending a dime. As a substitute, pay attention to varied interviews they’ve carried out and create a pattern piece of content material primarily based on that interview.
Then, ship them the pattern piece of content material and provide to proceed sending free content material every week.
Right here’s an instance of a script you can use:
This technique is very efficient as a result of it doesn’t require any effort from the potential consumer.
Nevertheless, writing a whole Twitter thread or article is time-consuming.
So attain out to solely your dream purchasers. Ideally, your dream purchasers also needs to have giant networks and a few authority of their trade.
That is helpful for a number of causes:
- These influencers will possible pay prime greenback in case your companies are passable.
- Influencers are likely to have bigger networks and might refer you to pals.
- Working for an influencer immediately offers you extra credibility, which is able to enable you to entice different purchasers as properly.
One other professional tip is to start by pitching influencers with numerous content material (ideally long-form video or interview content material).
That is superb since you gained’t even need to ask the influencer to get on a name with you as they have already got loads of content material out there on-line that you may pull from to ghostwrite your preliminary few items of content material for them.
When you’ve confirmed that you just’re a succesful ghostwriter, the influencer in all probability gained’t thoughts getting on a name with you to do an interview for extra content material concepts. Nevertheless, most potential purchasers gained’t get on a name with you in the event that they don’t have proof that you just’re a dedicated, good author.
Yow will discover your dream purchasers by choosing a distinct segment after which figuring out the leaders inside that trade.
Step 3: Conduct The Interview
The important thing to creating nice content material is extracting the distinctive experiences of your consumer after which organizing them into actionable insights that may assist their target market.
Purchasers usually simply need to discuss their accomplishments, however their viewers gained’t learn it if there isn’t an actionable takeaway.
To make sure Nicolas will get the perfect insights from the consumer, he has a few core frameworks to interview purchasers after which assemble his content material.
Template #1: The Errors And Classes
For this framework, Nicolas recommends that you just begin by asking the consumer a few massive mistake or main failure they skilled after which dig deeper to see all of the little errors that prompted that vital failure.
For instance, let’s say you’re ghostwriting for a founder whose first firm failed.
There are in all probability dozens of errors that prompted that first firm to fail.
So you’ll be able to simply ask, “What was a significant mistake that prompted that first firm to fail?“
One in all their responses could also be that they wanted assist hiring expertise. Subsequently, you can create a whole piece of content material round their hiring errors.
Template #2: The Framework
To get a framework out of the particular person you’re interviewing, all it’s important to do is ask them:
- What was the issue you have been experiencing?
- What have been a number of the stuff you have been doing that prompted this drawback, and the way did you remedy each?
- What was the end result?
Nicolas additionally talked about that most individuals have a tendency to leap instantly to the conclusion. Nevertheless, it’s the errors that occurred between when the issue initially arose and the decision that creates the framework.
For instance, let’s say that the issue the consumer was dealing with (and ultimately solved) was round recruiting.
In that case, the consumer might say that these three points of their system have been inflicting the recruiting drawback:
- They have been solely posting jobs on job boards.
- They didn’t have any pointers on what candidates have been required to submit.
- The CEO was sifting by means of the purposes alone.
Then, you’ll be able to ask the consumer how they solved every of these issues:
- They requested current workers to share open positions on their social media profiles to draw inbound candidates.
- They require candidates to submit Loom movies with solutions to some particular questions.
- They’ve a devoted committee for evaluating candidates.
As you’ll be able to see, the framework is now simply these options that you just teased out throughout the interview.
Template #3: The Future
The third template, which Nicolas calls “The Future,” is nice if you happen to’re working with a consumer who doesn’t have a lot time as a result of you may get numerous the knowledge your self.
You simply ask the consumer a few development they’re enthusiastic about, after which you’ll be able to go and discover statistics about that development your self.
Template #4: Class POV
The class POV framework takes your consumer’s distinctive standpoint on the place the class or trade is headed after which makes use of their very own expertise to again up their thought.
This framework is very efficient as a result of it establishes your consumer’s credibility whereas nonetheless offering worth to the viewers.
For instance, Nicolas might share his standpoint on the place he thinks the journalism class goes and help it together with his expertise ghostwriting for high-profile purchasers.
This manner, you’re nonetheless informing the reader about your consumer’s credibility, however you’re additionally offering worth by giving them a novel perspective.
Template #5: Myths
Oen of Nicolas’s most profitable items of content material was a publish utilizing this framework titled “5 Myths I Realized Weren’t True After Writing 400 Columns For Inc Journal.”
This carried out properly as a result of only a few individuals have had the distinctive expertise of writing 400 columns for a significant publication like Inc Journal, and other people find it irresistible while you pull the curtain again and supply unique insider data.
Step 4: Write The Content material
The writing course of is fairly simple after interviewing the consumer utilizing the frameworks above.
The skilled gives all the content material you want within the interview, so your job as a ghostwriter is to package deal it in a format that’s simple for readers to eat.
Nicolas’s method to writing is to take a seat down with the interview transcript after which basically minimize the fats and arrange it into the frameworks we talked about above.
Nicolas makes use of Rev, however you can too use a software like Grain or Otter to get a transcript of the interview.
It’s extra like assembling legos than writing a bit of content material from scratch.
Utilizing the transcript additionally ensures you write within the consumer’s voice since you’re utilizing the precise language they used within the interview.
“I simply undergo the transcript and pull out particular person sentences,” says Nicolas. “They’ve already mentioned it, so my job is to then simply work out the place that goes, and what goes forward of it and what goes after it.”
In truth, Nicolas feels that 80% to 85% of voice is simply making certain the content material reads properly. The final 15% to twenty% is studying the vernacular they use. That is the place utilizing the phrases they already mentioned within the interview may help.
Moreover, if you happen to specialise in one area of interest, you’ll in all probability discover that your whole purchasers have kind of the identical fashion. For instance, most tech startup founders have the identical voice and magnificence.
Professional Tip: How To Deal with Rewrite Requests Due To Model
Nicolas additionally talked about that some purchasers would possibly request a full rewrite as a result of the writing fashion doesn’t sound like them.
Nevertheless, it’s normally only a matter of enhancing a number of phrases and doesn’t require a full revision. So, if a consumer requests a full rewrite as a result of they really feel it doesn’t sound like them, the problem might be only one or two phrases or phrases.
Step 5: Value Appropriately
As you turn into a greater ghostwriter and earn extra referrals, you’ll attain a restrict the place you’ll be able to’t tackle any extra work.
First, you’ll be able to increase your costs as you stage up your ability set and turn into a greater ghostwriter. To remind you, listed here are the common worth ranges for every of the 5 hottest ghostwriting companies:
- Social Media Content material: $3,000 to $10,000 per 30 days
- Touchdown Pages And Gross sales Scripts: $2,000 to $10,000 plus a share of gross sales
- Thought Management Articles: $250 to $2,000 per article, although his company acquired as much as $5,000 per article.
- E-mail Programs: $5,000 to $10,000 per electronic mail sequence.
- Video Scripts: $500 to $2,000 plus per video script (depends upon how lengthy it’s and the experience required)
Nevertheless, you’ll ultimately attain a degree the place you’ll be able to’t increase your costs rather more. The following step to scale is to productize your services.
Basically, you write out your processes after which promote them to others to make use of and implement themselves.
He calls this the barbell pricing mannequin.
That is how one can infinitely scale your ghostwriting companies.
In truth, that is how Nicolas scaled his revenue.
He started ghostwriting without spending a dime, ultimately began charging, and shortly earned sufficient to stop his full-time job.
Then, he continued elevating his costs and constructed the company to $5,000 per article.
Now, Nicolas gives a ghostwriting course as a product. This enterprise is rather more scalable than merely ghostwriting for purchasers and has allowed him to earn seven figures.
Take The First Step To Grow to be A Ghostwriter As we speak
Following Nicolas’s playbook, you must have the ability to land your first ghostwriting consumer and construct a successful freelance writing business.
Nevertheless, if you need extra assist from different profitable ghostwriters to hurry up the training course of, contemplate becoming a member of the Copyblogger Academy.
Inside, you’ll be able to join with different extra skilled ghostwriters and content material creators to get suggestions in your writing, ask questions, and develop as an entrepreneur.
You’ll even have entry to varied content material advertising and copywriting courses you’ll be able to eat at your personal tempo.
So try the Copyblogger Academy at present to see if it’s match for you.
