Some clients may be willing to hire you as a writer, but are unwilling to put your name on your work. Is it worth doing these kinds of jobs?

Should you ghostwrite as a freelance writer? Yes, ghostwriting is profitable and a large proportion of freelance writing jobs that are available out there. Ghostwriting jobs usually pay a bit better than writing blogs or articles where you’re bylined or get recognition for.

In this article, I’ll explain what ghostwriting is and whether or not I think you should do it as a freelance writer.

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What Is Ghostwriting?

Ghostwriting is basically any content that you write for someone else, but don’t get credit for.

This could be blogs or articles where the website owner publishes your content under their own name as if they wrote it, or they might just not put a name on the content at all.

Anything where you don’t get a byline stating that you wrote the piece is technically ghostwriting.

The big downside of ghostwriting is that you aren’t getting any credit for it. You can’t use those pieces in your portfolio to show prospective clients what you’re capable of. So you could potentially have a bunch of ghostwritten content that you’ve created in a particular niche, but have nothing to show for it.

Should Freelance Writers Ghostwrite?

When you’re starting off as a freelance writer, you might be on the fence about whether you should write if you aren’t getting credit for it.

In my opinion, yes you should definitely consider ghostwriting.

If you need to have some work for your portfolio to show clients, then you may want to prioritize finding bylined work to start with, even if it doesn’t pay as well. But you can always create your own example pieces instead.

I feel that ghostwriting is most of the freelance writing work that’s available. It also tends to be the most profitable. So it’s most likely how you’ll get started.

Almost every piece that you write for a content mill like Textbroker and Upwork is likely to be ghostwriting.

But even when you’re dealing with clients directly, you may find that’s still the case. In fact, the vast majority of what I personally do is ghostwriting.

You might start off by ghostwriting on content mills. Read my article Should You Use Content Mills Like Upwork or Textbroker? to learn about the controversy associated with these sites.

Why Do Clients Want Content Ghostwritten?

There are a bunch of reasons why clients want their content ghostwritten.

Since they are likely an expert in the space, it makes sense that all of the content appears that it’s written by them.

It also gives the appearance of a more consistent voice to the site overall.

It might be confusing for readers and look more like a news website if every piece seems to be written by a different author.

It’s more work for clients to set up different profiles for each author. In many cases this involves setting them up in WordPress, creating a page for their posts, and writing a few sentences about them. If there are dozens of freelancers writing for a site, this can start to add up.

And lastly, clients may not want to link out to your personal website. They can’t vouch for all of the content on your website, and they may worry that linking to a smaller site could look strange to Google and lower their search rankings.

Don’t Fall For The “Exposure” Line

Sometimes companies or websites will approach you and ask you to write for them in exchange for “exposure.” Basically what this means is that you write for them for free, in exchange for getting credit for your piece and having your name appear on their site.

Another way clients may ask for this is asking if you want to make a “guest post” on their site.

Most of the time, this has very limited benefit. I wouldn’t recommend it unless it was a really big and well-known website. And most big companies fairly compensate their writers anyway, so that’s unlikely to happen.

Sure, you’ll get bylined and be able to use that piece in your writing portfolio. But unless you’re just getting started, having one more piece of writing to show clients won’t really help that much.

How Much Content On The Web Is Ghostwritten?

Being a freelance writer, I’ve got to have a bit of a peek behind the curtains and see how a lot of the content on the web is made.

You may be shocked to learn, but I actually think that the vast majority of content on the web has been ghostwritten.

I’ve ghostwritten for some pretty big figures on the internet. Some of which you probably wouldn’t expect to be outsourcing their writing to other people.

I don’t want to give out specific examples for legal reasons. But if you take a look at most popular internet marketers, entrepreneurs, public figures, or anyone else, it’s pretty clear to see. If you look at their blog you may notice people who have been putting out 1 – 3 new blog posts every day for years.

That’s simply not possible for someone who is also running a business and has a bunch of other things on the go!

It makes sense and I don’t judge them for it. Once your business reaches a certain size, it almost doesn’t make sense to write your own blogs and content any more unless it’s something that you really enjoy. Why wouldn’t you pay someone $150 to write an article that will bring in $1,000 worth of sales for you in the next year?

How To Charge Clients For Ghostwriting

I do think that you should charge extra if you’re ghostwriting for clients.

There are a couple of ways to go about this. You might charge a premium on top of your regular rate for clients for ghostwriting. Or you may give a discount on your normal rate in exchange for a byline.

Personally, I would value getting a byline at about 2 or 3 cents per word. So I would be willing to write for about 2 cents less than my normal rate if my name is going to appear on their site, and it’s a website that I want to be associated with and use as a piece for my portfolio.

How much can you earn as a ghostwriter? My article How Much Money Do Freelance Writers Earn? provides more details.

Conclusion

Should you ghostwrite as a freelance writer?

In my opinion, absolutely yes!

Actually most of the work that is available out there for you as a freelance writer is ghostwriting blogs and articles for companies. So it’s really too big of a market to pass up.

At least for me, I would much rather get paid well than get recognition for my writing. Especially when I’m just doing fairly generic content writing.