Occupational therapy has a role to play in writing in many areas and on different levels. It could be assisting children to write, it could be assisting children or adults to type and improve their keyboard skills. It could be exploring the area of writing for leisure or for work. This post addresses some learning I am doing in the area of ghostwriting, which obviously relates to work. Ghostwriting has the potential to be a very good income stream, however it takes a lot to learn how to master this area of writing.
Yesterday I read an article by a newbie ghostwriter who shared some tips he had learned from his first ghostwriting job. He had 5 tips to share and the article did offer some valuable information but I got stuck fairly early on. You see, this ghostwriter mentioned working on a project of 25 000 words for a novella. So far it sounds good but the starting price mentioned in the article upset me. He mentioned that some ghostwriters start out at $0.01 per word. This is slave labour.
If you are looking to have a stable income, to cover your bills and have some spare to enable you to live. If you are looking to prepare for your retirement effectively, then don’t consider a job that will give you only $250 for hours upon hours of work.
To give an idea, I began writing a novel as part of a challenge to write a novel during the month of November. I don’t have the time available to concentrate on just writing, certainly when the pay is just further down the line, so I set myself a goal to write for half an hour daily. Thankfully, I have kept up my goal. November has been and gone and I am still working on my novel. It is currently at about 31 000 plus words. Yes, I do agree that I exceeded 25 000 words quite a while ago. But the point is that writing a novella takes many hours of writing. When the writing is complete one has to proof read the work a few times and edit. Editing can take many hours and days and even weeks or months. How long it takes obviously depends on your speed, time available to focus on editing and your familiarity with the topic. A good command of the language you are writing in and editing helps a lot too.
If research is required at any stage of the writing process then more time, work and effort will go into ensuring a polished finished product. The point is that writing a novella is work. It requires skill and time and these are not commodities to be brushed off with a token tease.
If you are considering getting into ghostwriting, do your research, be honest with all the steps in the process and cost your rates accordingly so that you can progress and live a productive life.
If you are the one looking to hire a ghostwriter, be honest with the work involved and recognize that their work will be of benefit to you for years to come. So pay your ghostwriter honestly. If you do not have a budget to outsource for someone else to write your novel / novella or other written material, schedule in some time for you to write the material yourself. Rather take a little extra time to get the book or product out honestly than take advantage of someone who needs to earn to cover bills. Or save up until you can pay your ghostwriter appropriately, so that the person doing the hard work for you can live. Really live. This means being able to pay all their bills with ease. After all, having a working computer, lights, electricity and telephone line, internet, somewhere to put the computer, a chair to sit on etc are all necessary to enable the ghostwriter to do their job. All these items require money to obtain and maintain them.
In addition, being able to cover one’s bills and to pay for the necessary food for a healthy diet and time for regular exercise are all important to enable your ghostwriter to concentrate on the work you assign to them. So respect your ghostwriter and pay them accordingly.
