Ghostwriting for YouTubers
Diversify your ghostwriting income
There is not just one way to earn money as a writer.
It has been a long time since I have written about ghostwriting. As a writer, I mostly write books that can be published under my own name but before the pandemic, I started working with YouTubers to write scripts for their channels.
How did it all get started?
I joined Freelancer.com with the aim to earn some extra income.
The first ghostwriting work I got was to write a nice and engaging funny summary for the book — Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future by Ashlee Vance.
I was even getting paid to buy the book. The only condition the anonymous YouTuber kept in front of me was that it should be engaging.
The book was really big, with too many pages to fit in a small summary. And so sometimes I would read pages and sometimes will just read summaries by other authors. And after a week, I submitted my work. It was late but she wasn’t angry. So I was safe.
How much did I charge?
As this was completely new to me and I had no idea how much to charge, I simply let her pay me whatever she wanted. I even asked her to just leave a review instead of paying me. She refused and paid me around $13 dollars for the summary that I wrote in 2 hours… while watching TV!
I would advise you to do the same as you need reviews at the start. Once you have accumulated a good amount of reviews on any of the freelance websites then you can use the reviews to attract paid customers.
The more reviews, the better your chances of landing a high-paying customer.
Any Freelance.com alternative?
I haven’t worked on Freelancer before and that was the only work I did because I was mostly focusing on Fiverr at that time.
I will write about my Fiverr experience soon. And this is from only one account which was brand new. The other one is handled by someone else now.
Note — Opening two accounts on Fiverr now is not allowed.
So, if you are not familiar with Freelancer then you can also go for -
- Fiverr — my no.1 choice
- Upwork — low pay here as freelancers work for way less money than they should be actually making.
- Craiglist — had an account before but never used it. Listing here as my cousins had made good money, for part-time work only.
There are more but this was where I had my accounts. I actually didn’t make any money on Upwork as well but my friends did have a good experience with them.
I would say to make your ghostwriting account everywhere and see which one works for you.
Other ways for getting Ghostwriting jobs?
There is also one more way of getting this work. For that, you have to do all the work yourself.
Make a social media account and link your freelance profile to your account. Or you can also add your post with the link to your freelance profile and pin it to your social media profile (Twitter).
One more way to do it is to approach directly. Make sure before you do so, you should have a portfolio with good feedback. Do not try to buy it because customers are smart and they will notice it. Then try to visit the YouTuber in your niche. (It is always good to have a niche for ghostwriting like food, lifestyle, data science, etc.). If you try to target all then you are targeting none. So make sure you first have a niche that you already know about. It will be easy to write without doing much research.
Can this be done full-time?
For me, I couldn’t. I always wanted to write under my name because in ghostwriting, you are not allowed to talk about it openly. It’s like you wrote it but it won’t be connected with you in anyways. It would be under someone else’s name.
The script is okay because it’s short and can be done within a few hours. But if you are looking to get into books then it depends on what you actually want.
So, it will be a little difficult at the start. But with more time and more energy you put into your work, the portfolio will grow.
What is the biggest advantage of Ghostwriting for YouTubers?
If they like your work, then they can become your lifelong loyal customers. YouTubers are just like business owners. Most business owners don’t like to keep on changing their staff members. Once trained they would like you to stay with them for a longer period of time. It means you wouldn’t have to wait for new customers to come in.
And we all know that YouTubers keep on making new content. So you won’t be out of work.
Who can do this?
I haven’t met anyone who is doing this for a long time. But if you are a student or a starter then this can be the best opportunity for you as not many will be doing this. Most ghostwriters target ebooks.
Or if you are a stay-at-home mom looking for some side gig that requires fewer hours to complete?
Any investments?
Ghostwriting doesn’t require investing.
And you don’t have to worry about having a website or SEO as you don’t have to invest money anywhere.
You can have a bio link if you want.
So this was all! There are more but let’s keep it till here.
If you want to get into the Ghostwriting business then this ebook is useful for you — How I Make Money Ghostwriting for Youtubers and Writers
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