Build Your Ghostwriting Business in Five Minutes a Day

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Build Your Ghostwriting Business in Five Minutes a Day

When you’re starting out as a ghostwriter, the vision of a busy, fully booked ghostwriting business may seem like a fantasy. It’s hard to imagine how you’re going to get from no work, or a few small freelance projects, to the point where you’re turning down assignments because you’re so busy.

Yet it is possible. Many experienced members of the Association of Ghostwriters will confirm that.

Consistent Over Sporadic

The good news is that it doesn’t have to take years of struggle or working 20-hour days for months on end. In reality, you can build a solid ghostwriting business in an average of five minutes a day.

Yes, some days will take a little more time and others will take a little less, but the key to finding and attracting paying writing work is taking action daily – kind of like working out regularly. Regular effort pays off over time.

Completing even one marketing task a day will yield better results than inconsistently promoting your business when the mood strikes. Then even when you do get busy, it’s critical that you continue to market yourself, to develop a steady stream of opportunities, rather than falling back into the feast or famine cycle that is more typical of freelance writers.

5-Minute Tasks

So what are these small tasks you could be doing to market yourself as a ghostwriter? Here are 10 quick ones I cover in my 30-Day Get More Writing Assignments Challenge to help get you thinking and taking action, today:

• Create an email signature that highlights your ghostwriting services. Set it up to be automatically added to any outgoing email. Then consider updating it weekly with links to new published works, such as articles or blog posts.
• Write a LinkedIn testimonial. Type up a brief statement about a client, colleague, or supplier to share why they are superstars on their LinkedIn page. This associates your name with a positive experience, since most people will be pleasantly surprised and appreciative that you took the time to do this.
• Comment on a colleague’s, prospect’s, or admired person’s blog. This small act lets them know you recognize the time they invested to prepare the post, and it boosts their online engagement numbers.
• Set up Google Alerts. Position yourself as an authority on a topic of interest, or your ghostwriting niche, and support that by getting daily alerts whenever that phrase appears in an article or blog post online. Google Alerts will email you when that happens.
• Update your LinkedIn profile. Make sure the top line of your bio has the word “ghostwriter” there, plus perhaps your writing niche. This helps prospects who are searching for ghostwriters like you to find you more quickly.
• Swing by Upwork. Yes, Upwork has a well-deserved reputation for lower-priced writing projects. However, there are hidden gems as well, which you’ll only find if you spend a minute or two skimming newly posted writing tasks.
• Register on Reedsy. Granted, Reedsy is super, super picky about who they consider to be qualified enough to be listed on their site, so don’t be upset if, at the moment, you don’t make the cut (I think I heard they want to see five published books). But check in every few months to see if you may then. There are qualified prospects lurking there, in search of a ghostwriter.
• Confirm you’re listed in organization directories. If you’re a member of a writing-related association or group, check to be sure you’re listed in any member directories for which you’re qualified. Also check directories of organizations where your target clients are members to confirm you’re listed there as a ghostwriter. (Clients sometimes do their own research using these directories.)
• Explore public speaking. If you enjoy speaking to a group, which may be via Zoom rather than in-person, research whether there are organizations who might be interested in hearing about how a ghostwriter works, or how you approach the writing process. You could start local, such as with Rotary, and then fan out from there, depending on your level of initial success and excitement for speaking.
• Look into joining a networking group. Groups formed for the sole purpose of sharing leads and information with each other can be a terrific way to get to know local business owners. Business Network International (BNI) and LeTip are two of the best known.

These are just a few ideas to get you started with marketing every single day – the more important aspect of all, however, is your consistency.

You’ll see better results faster if you commit to doing at least one thing daily to promote yourself or your business, rather than investing hours and hours only on the weekends, for example. That’s intermittent activity, not continual, and it’s less effective (voice of experience here).