Working as a Ghostwriter

By Karen S. Cole of Ghost Writer, Inc.

To begin, ghost writing has been around for centuries. Many scholars agree that Shakespeare wasn’t the author of his own plays, and Sam Johnson used his friend Boswell as his ghost writer and the chronicler of his witticisms. Over the years, ghost writing has gained quite a foothold in the writing world. A lot of people seem to think that using a ghost writer is “cheating” or “surprising,” but in fact it is a great way to get a professional writing job done on your own personal writing project.

Ghost writing is useful for many purposes. You can hire a ghost writer to work on your book, manuscript, script or screenplay to make it read more professionally, so that when you submit it to literary agents and publishers it stands a better chance of getting published or optioned. You also may simply not have the time or inclination to finish your writing work, so if you hire a ghost writer or editor you will then be able to have it finished by a professional in an adequate manner.

To be a ghost writer can be a fascinating life.

You work your own hours, set your own prices and fees, and arrange to get paid every time, usually in advance during a ghost writing or editing job. You can choose to be primarily a ghost writer, or you can edit and proofread for people instead, and you don’t have to come up with your own ideas – your clients will do that for you. You will also learn a lot, as each writing job exposes you to new subject material every time.

So ghost writing is a time-honored profession, useful to clients who want to hire a professional writer in order to complete their writing work, and being a ghost writer is a terrific way to be a freelance professional writer. The Internet is also useful for a ghost writer to find writing and editing work, making the profession expand into brand new areas of expertise. The real use of ghost writing is its fulfillment, for both the clients and the ghost writers, in the completion of writing work that ordinarily would be difficult to professionally complete otherwise.