What’s your EZPass for ghostwriting gigs?
What’s your EZPass for ghostwriting gigs?
Drivers in the Northeast no doubt are familiar with EZPass, the automated system that allows you to travel various toll roads without having to stop to throw coins into a collection basket or hand over a paper card and some bills. By linking your bank account with an EZPass device, you can pay for your trips on the thruway through direct debit from your checking account. My mom signed me up for an EZPass account more than a decade ago to help me avoid long lines at toll booths going into Maine, where we used to vacation annually. It used to save me at least 45 minutes each way, making travel quicker, easier, and must less stressful.
Now, whether I’m traveling through New York state or visiting other parts of the region, I can zip through toll booths without even stopping (granted, you do have to slow down, however).
Today, as I was driving to an out-of-town party, I was surprised by how long the line was in the cash-only lane – that is, for people who do not have EZPass accounts. There must have been more than a dozen cars and trucks in the single lane available to manually pick up a ticket from a toll booth operator. And there were no cars in either of the two available EZPass lanes. Which got me thinking. Why do these people continue to waste time sitting in a cash-only lane? Why haven’t they signed up for an EZPass account to make their lives so much easier?
And then I thought about how this applied to ghostwriting. There are thousands of ghostwriters worldwide but my sense is that only a fraction of that population has steady work. Where other ghostwriters are struggling to break in or land more assignments, some ghostwriters have it easy. They routinely get work, rarely have a slow-down, and are much less stressed about their careers.
So what’s their secret?
One thing that separates the ghostwriters with career EZPasses is that they network regularly. In addition to being fairly active on social media, they also take the time to establish personal relationships with fellow writers and influencers. They attend conferences, they schedule lunch dates, and they form bonds of friendship with people they respect. Those bonds then result in referrals, which is certainly one of the very easiest ways to get work. Not only do they benefit from such relationships, but they also regularly nurture them by sharing information, leads, and referrals back into their network.
If you’d like to have a ghostwriting EZPass, I’d strongly recommend exploring professional writing associations you could join, local writing clubs or groups you could become part of, or general networking organizations consisting of like-minded professionals. These are the best places to become connected with people who could help your career along.
What have you found to be instrumental in building your ghostwriting business? What’s your EZPass?
