#063: Ghostwriting Business Books — A Realistic Six-Figure Opportunity for Strong Writers

Welcome to the High Income Business Writing Podcast, helping you propel your writing business.

To a whole new level.

And now, here's your host, Ed Gandia.

Hey there and welcome to episode 63 of the High Income Business Writing Podcast. My name is Ed Gandia and this is the podcast for business writers and copywriters who want to take their writing businesses to the six figure level or the part time equivalent. As a quick reminder, you can find details, show notes to this episode by going to b2b launcher.com episode 63. You know, it's not every day that I come across an idea in the freelancing world that gets me super excited. But when I recently sat down with freelance ghostwriter Derek Lewis, I found myself taking a ton of notes and just thinking of different ways that I could shift the writing part of my business to do what he does. Derek, for those of you who don't know him, is a very successful business book ghostwriter. He's also the author of the new book, the business book Bible, everything you need to know to write a good business book. And in this interview, he gives us a detailed and very exciting kind of insider's look into the world of book ghostwriting. He talks about what this is, what these projects are like, what they're about, what they involve, the best target markets for this kind of work, what you can charge as a business book ghostwriter, how you can find clients and even who's best suited for this type of work, for this type of writing. This is a realistic six figure opportunity for strong writers who enjoy longer format projects and who like working closely with a client for an extended period of time. You know, this is the kind of work where you're kind of birthing a baby with your client. So, you know, it's, it's not for everybody. And by six figure opportunity, I don't want to give the impression that there's no work involved, you have to hustle, but this is the kind of work you like. This is a very realistic way to earn a very, very great living. So I'm not going to keep rambling on. I want to get right to the meat of this conversation. I hope you enjoy it and I'll come back at the end with a couple of really quick announcements. Hey Derek, welcome to the podcast, man. It's so great to have you here.

Thanks. This is pretty neat for me. I've been following you for so long. I read the Wealthy Freelancer whenever it first came out. I almost feel like I'm talking to kind of a minor celebrity Here.

Well, my wife would disagree with you, but yeah, thanks. So, you know, I'm really, really excited to talk to you because this is actually a topic before you and I connected that I've been wanting to touch on in the show, but I hadn't found someone who could cover it at the level that I know you'll be able to cover here. So I'm just absolutely thrilled. And I know this is going to be of interest to a lot of people. So before we get into that, why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself, the work you do, the types of clients you work with, that sort of thing.

Sure, My pleasure. Well, I'm a business ghostwriter, which means that I help business thought leaders write their business books. And I've been fortunate to work with authors on five different continents on topics spanning from technology to leadership to economics. And my clients work either with or for SAP, Daimler Chrysler, Disney, Walmart, Microsoft, Microsoft, the International Monetary Fund, and the Red Cross. So I've been fortunate to work with some, just some wonderful people. Now, they are almost always business owners, often consultants or their business provides some kind of intangible service. And so they really need a book to help people understand what it is that they're offering, what they do. And a book just offers a chance for them to get inside somebody's head and vice versa that no other media really allow. I mean, you don't have the space and the permission in a blog or a report or a white paper.

Yeah, it is.

And in some ways it absolutely was, but it's at the same time, it is. It's a horse of a different color. It's a. It's a whole other different skill set to go from being a copywriter to being a ghostwriter. But I had a great client. She was wonderful to work with, and she let me make, I guess, a couple of kind of, how do I say, she was patient with me as we both figured out how to make it work and we ended up writing a great book together.

What kind of client was she? What work did she do?

She was a sales marketing consultant. So she had a sales methodology that she used with business to business companies, a sales process. She was kind of felt it. I guess it's her way of giving back. She was taking that process and applying it to how entrepreneurs. I'm sorry, not entrepreneurs, the unemployed. So she was adapting her methodology to help people find jobs. She had a very smart, very intuitive type of system, and she wanted to use it to help people. This was whenever the Great Recession was going on, we were just getting into it. She wanted to help people, her employed colleagues and friends find jobs. So we adapted her methodology into basically a career book.

Interesting. So this is your first project. How long ago was that, by the way? When was this?

Was that about five or six years ago, I think.

Okay. Okay. So it's been a few years. Yeah. So kind of give us an idea of how this developed then. See, obviously you enjoyed the process. You enjoyed writing this book with her. And how did your business kind of grow from there?

Well, I discovered that I was a lot better at long form than I was at Short Farm. So I had been doing some blogs and, like I said, ebooks and reports and that kind of stuff up to there. But I found that with a book, I was just a lot better at it. I was just a lot more naturally suited for it, I guess. So after the success of that first book, and she loved her book, by the way, she was just overjoyed with how it turned out. So at that point, I kind of redirected my business to be from copywriting to really being about ghostwriting and started seeking more of those types of jobs. So I got some more jobs. In fact, I helped her with another project. But then it wasn't until I found a mentor that it really took off. So my wonderful wife was very supportive of me making the transition from being an employee to being self employed. And thank God she had great benefits so we could take care of ourselves and our child. We only had one child at that time. So with her support and with her having a decent job that had good benefits, I was able to, you know, kind of struck out on my own. And so during that, during that first year of making the transition into being a ghostwriter, this, I guess this is fast forwarding a little bit. I found a mentor who really showed me what ghostwriting was all about. Claudia Suzanne out in Long Beach, California. So she's been ghostwriting since the 1980s. So she took me under her wing. She has a ghostwriting course for people like me, budding ghostwriters. And so after taking her course, it gave me. It gave me the skills. But more than that, Ed, it really gave me the confidence. Up to that point, I had been severely undervaluing my skills as well as the value that a book brings to a business. And so because of that, I had been severely underpricing myself. So with her coaching and with the confidence that she instilled in me, I began actually charging market rates for what I was doing. And that's whenever my business really took off and I became, in fact, in the two years that followed that we were blessed. My business did so well that we were able to completely replace my wife's income and she was able to finish her graduate degree and become a midwife. So that was kind of one of her dreams.

Oh, that's all. I love that. So she helped you and then you helped her. What a wonderful thing.

Yeah, it's the story of our marriage, really.

All right, so walk us through a little bit. I want to talk more about market rates that in a little bit. But before we get to that, walk me through at a high level, what's involved in these types of business book ghost writing projects.

So most people, whenever they hear ghost writing, what they think is somebody else wrote the book and then the author just put their name on it. And that's not really ghost writing, that's a hack. That's somebody passing themselves off as a fraud. What ghostwriting is about is a true collaboration between the literal author who is the thinker of the thoughts, if you will, and then the ghostwriter who is the writer of the thoughts. So with my authors, they are the source of the content. I can't write a book on data analytics or business to business methodology because I don't have those ideas. It's uniquely theirs, but they aren't able to take everything that they know and turn it into a well crafted book. That's my skill. So it really takes the two of us working in close collaboration together in order to create their book.

Gotcha. That makes sense. So tell me about what clients you look for. I mean, I know you kind of give us a high level overview of the types of clients. But as your business evolves, what have you found make the best clients for you?

Hmm. That is a great question that I could attack from a couple of different angles. I'll give you the general profile of my client. My client, my ideal client has been, I'll say the clients who seem to be attracted to me. That's probably the better way to say it.

Yeah, that's, that's a good way to do it.

Yeah, they are, they're generally in their, they're generally like 40 to 55. They've been in business for, you know, probably a good 15 years. And they have probably. Well, I mean, they've been in business probably longer than that, but they have owned their own business usually 10 to 15 years. For sure. They are, they're usually usually guys. Guys write a lot more business books than women do. But I have worked with a couple of wonderful female authors as well. And they've, they've just, they've been great to work with. They're usually a consultant of some type if they own the, their own business. They probably started out as some type of consultant and they are looking to write a book. Not, I think business books get a bad rap because there are so many bad examples out there. There are some business books that are just, I mean, they're basically inflated infomercials. Right. They're just ego trips. There's really nothing in there. They don't say anything new or anything different. And it's almost as if they, they wanted a book just so they could say that they wrote a book. They haven't really added any kind of.

Value to the world or to sell their coaching programs.

Yeah. And for no other reason. They just, they know that a book is a good marketing tool. So they wrote the book expressly for that purpose. So any good business book are going to have some of those elements. I mean, you can't just, you don't want to invest that much money to write a book that's not going to have any kind of return on investment. But my authors, without exception, the ones that are, that are attracted to me want to write a real book. They know that they have enough insights gleaned, they know that they have enough experience and they feel something in them saying, I need to write a book. So it's, it's as personal of a project as it is a professional endeavor.

So when they're coming to you, it sounds like they already understand the value. They already have this desire. They don't need to be talked into it. You're starting the conversation with I want to do this. Are you the right person to write this with me?

Yeah. Yeah, that's exactly what happens.

Have you, and I'm curious, have you had any success with people in the corporate world like let's say a high level VP or CEO who wants to write a book and get their message out there?

Actually, I'm in the middle of one of those projects right now. It's two authors and they work for a pretty well known company. They are, they're not at the, it's not the CEO, but they are only like two steps removed from the CEO. And this is like a global company and we are having, we're having a great time. We're not finished with the book yet, but all signs point to success.

Wonderful. Wonderful. So there you feel there are, there are definitely opportunities in the corporate Market as well. Not just in the entrepreneur, consultant type sector.

Oh yeah, absolutely. So for whatever reason I've, you know, given you a profile with people that are attracted, that are attracted to me usually, but I've, I know a couple of ghostwriters that they, they only work for executives in the, in the corporate world. In fact, one of them specializes in, in Wall street finance and technology when it, she can, she gets that, that specific. So yeah, they're absolutely. It's a different, I mean, you know, Ed, being a commercial, you know, copywriter yourself, there's a difference between working with, you know, a business owner of a small to medium sized business versus working with executives at a large company. It's just, it's a different culture. It's, there's some different, you know, things to do and it's, I'm not going to say that it's completely different skill set, but it's a, it's a very different market. But absolutely, there are wonderful opportunities there.

Let's talk a little bit about fees and the opportunity doing this kind of work. Can you give us an idea of market rates? What fees do these projects command on average?

Well, let me give you the whole shebang. What I'm about to tell you is there aren't any statistics. We don't even have ghostwriters. We don't even have an official organization yet. Our first ever conference in the history of mankind in the spring of 2013, we had almost 60 or 70 ghostwriters from all over the world got together. It was headed, spearheaded by the mentor I was telling you about, Claudia. We all got together in Long beach, had a great conference. So everything that I'm about to say is not official. It's the equivalent of water cooler talk. Okay.

Okay, sure. It's fair enough.

So professional ghostwriting, I mean real, like if you actually want a real ghostwriter, not you know, somebody who says I can write your book for $10, a real ghostwriter, that you're going to have a real manuscript when you get finished with, start at $25,000. And that's a junior, like a junior ghostwriter. Most ghostwriters are going to be in the 35 to 55 range. Publishers, depending on the publishers, publishers usually look in the 50, 80 range and then kind of your like your really experienced ghostwriters, some of them that have written or ghostwritten 50 or 60 or 70 books, they're probably going to be in the 75 to 6 figure range. Now that's the majority of ghostwriters. Okay, now there are Some ghostwriters, this is kind of the long tail, you know, if you will, are far upwards of $100,000. There are some that ghost right. For not even big named celebrities, like minor celebrities. And they'll start at 120 or 150. I'm personally acquainted and I've been mentored by one ghostwriter who does strictly memoirs for $250,000. And then there are, I guess, kind of the legends in the ghostwriting field. General Norman Schwarzkopf's ghostwriter got a half million dollars and then Hillary Clinton's ghostwriting team for not her most recent book, but before that, it's the book between the one she just put out and then it takes a village, whatever whichever one is, is between that. I forget which one it is. Anyway, it was a team of them. They got a half million dollars. Wow.

Yeah, yeah. So, yeah, that's definitely the long tail. You got your outliers, like in any business. Right. But it sounds like the, the sweet spot in the professional level ghostwriting field is the 25 to 55,000 range. Is that fair to say?

That's probably, yeah, that's probably where most like actual professional ghostwriters fall.

Sure. And you know, it sounds like a lot of money. Right. So let's put that in perspective. I mean, someone working full time, someone who's efficient, who does great work and is, you know, looking to work up again kind of a full load every week. What's, what's the income potential there? I mean. Well, let's not, let's not go there. How many books you think someone can reasonably take on in a year?

Ed, it's, it's not hard at all if you, if you have a little bit of experience, if you know what you're doing and you have, you know, just decent sales and marketing, it is not out of the, the league of imagination to, to expect to be able to make 100,000 a year. 100,000. 120,000 a year.

That's what it sounds like. Yeah.

And yeah.

Which is wonderful. I mean, that's a great income.

You do three books at 35,000 dol, and that's 105. Well, that's gross. You know, I mean, that's gross for a business, but I mean, in ghostwriting, like, your expenses are, I mean, negligible. You can work from home. You just need a laptop. You know, depending on what you want to offer, you may include, you know, some transcription or some proofreading or something like that. But yeah, you can absolutely make Six figures with. No, I mean without. Year after year. I can give you the names of ghostwriters who do it. They've made six figures every year for, I don't know, probably better, part of a decade or two. Wow.

Wow. So that's wonderful. I love the fact that these projects are big, you know, and one thing I learned a long time ago when I was in sales is, look, man, you can go after little, little opportunities or big opportunities for the most part, until you get to the really big opportunities, you're spending about the same amount of time and effort, might as well go after the bigger ones, you know? And I mean, that piece of advice changed my game. And I know it's the same thing here, right? Each project is worth quite a bit. So let's talk about how you get clients today. And obviously that's changed over the years, but I'm curious to hear how you got clients early on and then how that's different today.

Well, again, I could give you the long version, but I guess the short version is that all of my clients, with the exception of one referral, all of my clients have found my website and called me up. So it's all been organic SEO on my site. I did for probably the better part of a year. I did run some Google AdWords, and that did bring me one gig, I think. But it's all been SEO on my website. Now, that doesn't mean that I haven't tried to find clients in other ways, implemented a number of your strategies. And the fact that they didn't work is not a reflection on you. It's probably a reflection of me just not being a master marketer with those types of things. I've done some direct mailing, I've done some targeted emailing. I've done cold calling. And the problem, Ed, is that with. With people who want to go straight a book, there's a couple of problems. One is they have to have the money to be able to do that. And it is surprising how many people that look like they should have the money to be able to ghostwrite don't. And how many people, look who don't appear to be able to ghostwrite actually do. So appearances can absolutely be deceiving. Two, to find someone who is ready to write a book. Now, from the surveys that I've looked at, the one that I'm quoting for in particular, they interviewed or surveyed over 2000 business professionals worldwide. Over 2000, like 2100 or 2300 or something like that. And of those of those 2000 plus people, 90% said that they wanted to write a book. So finding people who want to write a book is not the problem. Just about every business professional does. It's finding somebody who A, has the money and who B, is ready to do so in the next six months to a year. It doesn't do me any good if somebody says, well, yeah, I'd like to, but I'm going to wait for five years until my business gets to this point or until I retire, until I get the kids out of the house and I have the time.

Time.

And so those are things that you can't really identify. Like I can buy lists of, you know, people who live in, you know, wealthy neighborhoods or business people who are affluent and are business owners. And I could, you know, blanket America with them. But the actual number of people who fit those criteria and who on top of that, actually want to write a book with me, because my personality, I'm a nice guy, but I'm not a great fit with everybody. There's some people that I don't know, just for whatever reason, they don't personally feel the connection with me. So that is incredibly hard to hit all of those things. So I have almost given up trying to do proactive marketing. You probably have a better word for it, but that's how I think of it. Whenever I'm trying to find people and I'm targeting stuff to them instead, I have switched almost entirely to attractive marketing. So on my website, I try to give content to write good blog posts that aren't just salesy blog posts. They've actually got some good content in them. I've written a number of resources that are. I mean, I put everything in there. I pour my heart and soul and everything that I know and probably some stuff I made up into them. Then I'm writing a book that I'm going to release, should be at the end of next month or the beginning of November. And that's where I really see becoming the cornerstone of my marketing. So instead of trying to go out and find people, I'm trying to put a wealth of content out there to let people find me. Because this is whenever I talk to the actual clients who give me a call and that we begin working with whenever I start talking to them about their thought process. Well, you know, how did you find me? Or, you know, some of the other ghostwriters that they may have spoken to. What I found is that them finding ghostwriters is not the problem. I had one client, I did a substantial editing project for and he had a spreadsheet of over 100 ghostwriters that he had looked at. He had done his homework, he was very thorough. And it's the same with all of them. They're making the investment the equivalent of a car. They're not just going to go out to the first dealership that they come to. They're going to research, do their homework, and they're going to know who they're talking to before they even pick up the phone for the first time. So I, instead of trying to go out and finding those people, I have to assume that they're already looking at me. I just don't even know it. What I have to do is put out the right signals and qualifiers of success and credibility to get them to trust me so that we can even have that initial conversation.

That makes sense. What I'm hearing here is that this is absolutely different from your typical kind of corporate environment. Right. If you're a commercial writer and a big chunk of your work is in, let's say, the corporate market, you need a combination of both. And I like that. Proactive, I call it outbound, typically outbound marketing, and of course, attractive inbound marketing as well. But I can see how in your specific specialty, you really can't afford to do all the sifting and all the legwork to find the right prospects. You really need to create a scenario where the right ones pre qualify themselves and come to you. Pre qualified.

Absolutely.

So that makes a lot of sense. So SEO is huge. Where it may not be as important for, let's say, my business, you know, where I typically work in the corporate market. Now, I'm curious as to how much of your business comes from referrals and word of mouth, because I would think that would play a significant role here. Maybe I'm wrong.

You know, it's funny, Ed, that I've only had one referral, one person come to me through referral. And I think, I think there's a couple of things. One, and as I've climbed. So what I'm about to say, I'll preface with as I've climbed up the ladder and I'm working with more successful and more fluent people, what I'm about to say has been less true. But the people are reluctant to talk about their ghostwriter because of the stigma that there comes with being a ghostwriter. Now, once you work with me, you know that you can truthfully call yourself the author of the book, because all the ideas, all the words, everything that's in that book is you It's a reflection of your expertise. But again, most people, whenever they hear ghostwriter, they hear one person wrote the book and somebody else takes the credit. So for that reason, it's. You know what, I'll say it like this. I was at a business meeting one time, and there just happened to be a pest control guy there. And he said, well, you know, in many ways, you and I are in the same business. I said, how do you mean? He said, nobody wants to tell anybody else that we showed up to do the work.

That's true. I can see some other parallels. Right. How do you find. How do you find a marriage counselor or something that might be a little embarrassing? It's personal. It's the. You don't really want to start that conversation with a friend or colleague at work. So I can see how this could be a funny thing, but you said it changes as you've kind of moved up the ladder.

Yeah, I just got finished earlier this year with a book with a couple of consultants actually, out of Atlanta, come to speak of it. Small worlds that do. They're data analysts, but they work primarily with the sales forces of suppliers and manufacturers who are trying to get their products into Target, Walmart, and Costco and these big retailers. It's primarily consumer packaged goods. They use debt analytics. They train frontline salespeople how to use data analytics to bring out the story of what's happening in their stores and on their shelves, to help them figure out how to sell more products and more merchandise. So salespeople are becoming kind of. I don't want to say amateur analysts, but they're becoming kind of at least proficient enough to be able to talk real numbers instead of just, hey, let me give you a couple of tickets to the ball game, and you buy my product.

Yeah, they're having to be more consultative, for sure.

Yeah. Yeah, that's the good word for it. So with this group, they were an awesome group to work for. One of the best clients that I've had, and I'm very proud of the book. It's Business Insights, how to find the gold nugget in your retail data. And the company is Delta Associates there in Atlanta. And so they. In their acknowledgments of their book, they named me not only as helping with the book, they named me as the ghostwriter. So, I mean, yeah, so I've had people allow me to associate, you know, with the book. They've allowed me to, you know, use the book in marketing on my website or other places. I've had Some, you know, authors who acknowledge my contributions. I've had some people who've called me an editor, and in some cases, I have been an editor, but in some cases, it's just easier for them to say my editor, Derek, instead of my ghostwriter, again because of the stigma. So that was neat for me. It's the first time I've been publicly acknowledged as the ghostwriter.

That's wonderful.

Yeah.

So I'm going to throw a different question at you here. What would you say is the single most important thing in a successful ghostwriting gig?

You know, we were talking a little bit earlier about that personal connection that is really the single most important factor in a successful collaboration. Because if you are a great thought leader, and I may be a great writer, but if you and I, we just. We don't connect, we don't fit. We have different modes and styles of communication. Maybe we just come from completely different, you know, value systems or ways that we grew up. We just have a clash of the cultures. If you and I cannot form a good relationship, then the book is going to reflect that because the book is the result, the direct result of that collaboration. So the better of a personal relationship that you can have with your ghostwriter, the better that that's going to reflect in the. The book itself.

You're making a baby together. That came off the wrong way, but you know what I mean. Right. Closely together for a long time. And you need to have that open conversation. It needs to feel right. I can see that. That's a very important point.

Point. Yeah. And sometimes we use the analogy of parents or even of a midwife, that the ghostwriter is an integral part of that process, and you may not be able to have a baby without the right midwife, and the midwife has to bring that baby out of you, if you'll pardon the visual image, you and.

I are striking out big time. Well, your wife is a midwife.

Yeah. So this kind of.

That is a proper analogy. So a question about specialization. You are a business ghostwriter. Right. Business books. Would you say that most ghost writers, you know, out there specialize and. And what would be the pros and cons of picking a specialty or a niche market?

Yeah. So whenever people call me up and they're talking about, you know, going with me versus some of the other ghostwriters, and they. Some of them, you know, are point blank enough to ask, you know, why should I choose you over someone else? I said, look, I said that the book that you're talking about is a business thought Leadership book. And that's all I do. If you want to write a western, if you want to write vampire erotica, that's not my bag.

Is there such a thing, vampire erotica?

Oh, my friend, Google is sometimes a strange and wonderful place.

I think I'm gonna let it, let it go.

Okay, so if you, so if that's what you're looking for, then I'll refer you on to somebody else because I don't, I don't have those skills. I'm not versed in those genres. I though those are alien worlds to me. But if you want to write a business thought leadership book, I mean, that's, that's, that's all I do. I know that inside out. I know the subtleties and the nuances that have to go into a business book, which are very different than a novel or a memoir or biography. So there are, I think it's probably, probably about half and half. I mean, if just off the top of my head, probably about half of your ghostwriters out there are going to be, they're going to be generalists. They're going to, you know, if you want to write a health book or if you want to write a book looking at a certain part of history or something like that, they can work with you. But generally the older and more experienced that a ghostwriter is, the more that they specialize, and that's because they're building off of previous success. If you have had a couple of successful ghostwritten romances to your name, somebody who's looking for that is more likely to hire you than someone else. Sure. The exception would be my mentor. She's ghostwritten 120 or 125 books and she can go straight on anything. But whenever I started out, I already had a background in business and so I went with what I knew. To me, it didn't make sense for me to write something that was completely alien and foreign to me because my learning curve would be so steep, I would be wasting my time and wasting my author's time. So I started with something that came naturally to me. And I have found, as Dan Kennedy says, there's riches and niches. So the more specialized I am and the more I can present myself as an expert in this small little world, being a big fish in a small pond, the more I've been able to make sales easier, the more I can directly speak to the person I'm looking for. So I'm not just looking. Whenever people look at my marketing, they're not just looking at Somebody who can go straight their book. They're looking at somebody who understands that they are business owner. I can speak directly to their problems and to their world. That's very powerful in marketing to be able to speak directly to somebody's problems. For example, I found out that my authors, that they're not bad writers. Usually they're great writers. They write reports, they write marketing copy, they've written summaries, they've written manuals. But whenever it comes to writing a business book, it's not that they don't know how to write. It's that they don't know how to get all of their ideas out of their head and onto paper. They can't be objective about what they know. That's really the problem that I solve. Not that they don't know how to write, but that they don't know how to write a business book.

Man, you just hit on something that's so important. We need to emphasize that, because I see this over and over again. A lot of writers think, well, I'm great technically, and I think it's wonderful if you're a wonderful writer and. And that's great. I think the biggest gift you can offer is what you just said is the ability to organize information, synthesize information, come up with unique angles and unique ways of explaining the issue, and then do it in a logical way and tell a story that engages the reader. That I think is rarer than the ability to write alone.

Yeah, absolutely. I've got a ghostwriting buddy, and he makes an analogy that goes kind of like this. Well, I'll use my own explanation for it. When it comes to music, Ed. Like, I know what I like, but I'm not a professional musician, so I can listen to two different artists and I think, oh, well, you know, they both sound good. But my friend, I have a friend who's a professor of music, and he can rip one song just up and down the other. Oh, there's not original. And they do this and they don't do that. He can hear things that, I mean, just go way over my head. I have no concept of the degree of quality. I mean, to me, they both sound decent. And so with clients looking to ghostwrite, looking for a ghostwriter, it's kind of the same for them. If they were to look at one of my ghostwritten books and somebody else's a decent ghostwriter's book, they might not notice the difference in quality between the two. And so for them, if the product is the same, even if it's not from their perspective. If the product is the same, then what they're really looking for is somebody who's easier to work with or somebody who can instill more confidence, or somebody that they more personally connect with, which is really all about sales and marketing. So the product for them is a commodity. It's the sales and marketing that makes the difference. So even if I am the best ghostwriter in the world, I don't have good sales and marketing. And if I can't convincingly speak to the author's problem, then for them, they're just going to go with the person that they like the best.

So I want to go back real quick to our conversation about specialization. You specifically talked about business. You're a business coastwriter. Do you think that it makes sense to go even deeper than that? And I think you alluded to this when you said some colleagues have gone a little deeper. Wall street this and the other. Do you think it makes sense either early on or as you, your business progresses to get even more specific?

Well, those are two different questions. So one is, should you get even more specific early on in your career? And two, as you go through your career, should you get even more specific? Let's take the easy one first. I absolutely think that as I get further into my career, even further down the road, that I'm probably going to specialize more. I've done a lot in technology and I've done a lot in, I guess basically sales methodology, business to business, sales methodology. So I could absolutely specialize in those two fields. And you. And I mean, we could talk to, you know, for two or three hours about how best to go about that. But I think so. I mean, the deeper that I have specialized, the easier it has been to sell and the easier it has been to raise money, fees and the better of clientele that I've had to work with. And that's not saying anything about my early clients. They're great people, but it's just a different way. I guess it's a different market. But at the beginning, should you start out specializing? I think there's a sweet spot. I think that it's a lot easier to sell a specific solution rather than a general solution. But at the same time, if I would have started out and said, okay, I'm going to be a technology ghostwriter and that's all I'm going to do, specifically with ghostwriting. I think it had been harder to get some of my early clients and it took me getting some clients and kind of getting my feet wet. Before I really understood, understood my clientele. So if I would have been, I think, too narrow in the beginning, I would have missed a lot of great learning opportunities and I'm not sure how it would have turned out. Probably I'd have gotten to the same place it have just been. I think it had been a much different road. I don't know if that answers your question.

It does, it does. It makes perfect sense. And I agree with that, by the way. I do believe that that early on when you're not entirely sure, it's best to leave it open. And I do believe, and I agree with you, that there's a sweet spot. Go deep enough where, and this is the same advice I give writers and copywriters, not just ghostwriters. Go deep enough where you've kind of declared a target market, but not so narrow where you're walking away from opportunities that would be wonderful for you. So as you get to know the market and you get your feet wet, I do agree, agree that it might make sense to narrow down your field. So as we wrap up, I have a couple of quick questions for you. One of them is if someone listening is thinking, you know what, I love this. I know I have what it takes to do this. I would love to ghostwrite books. How would you suggest they get started? Assuming, and let's just assume, they're already a freelance commercial writer.

Okay, so step one is to go take Claudia's course. She has actually had it folded into California State University at Long Beach. It's an actual graduate program now. It's a two semester course ghostwriting fiction and ghostwriting nonfiction. And that is absolutely the place to start for any ghostwriter. And that's if you want to do books, if you want to just do ghostwriting. I'm sorry, I lost my train of thought.

Any type of ghost writing. Right, because she does. And we'll include the link to her program, by the way. So I'll look it up and make sure to include that in the show notes.

Yeah, that is the place to start. The other thing to realize, like I said, I got a bachelor's and a graduate degree in business. But Ed, one of the reasons that your book the Wealthy Freelancer was such a light bulb moment for me was because the education system, university, doesn't teach you how to start and run your own business. It teaches you how to manage someone else's business. So even though I had years and impressive credentials with formal education, whenever it came to actually being an entrepreneur and running a freelance business and independent Practice, I was almost starting from zero. So that's why your book was such a lifesaver in so many ways for me. So my advice is, if you're. If you're looking at ghostwriting and you're already a successful. Okay, if you're already a successful freelancer, and that kind of precludes, I guess, the advice I was about to give. But the other two big pieces for me, I got confidence in being a ghostwriter. So I had a ghostwriting coach. Then I had someone reach out to me as a marketing coach, and then I had someone I reached out to who became my sales coach. So it's the sales and marketing, I think that that have really flipped. Really flipped my business. That's where the kind of quantum leaps, if you will, have come from having coaches, but then realizing that the sales and marketing knowledge and whatever that I had through the university and for working for somebody else, that it is not directly applicable to. To doing it for myself. So I had to realize that I was ignorant, realizing that I had a skill gap and then finding people to coach me to fill those gaps.

So would you recommend that someone, you know, they're already established, they're doing okay, they have a website. Do you recommend them kind of creating a separate page for ghostwriting services, putting it out there, and maybe even approaching their existing clients who might fit the profile. I mean, just starting, we talked about the disadvantages of doing that outbound, proactive. But do you think that would be a good starting point as well, to go where you already known?

Yeah, I don't think that it can hurt. In my experience, that probably won't net a sale, but you start planting the seeds. And the more seeds that you plant, the more you're known, the easier it is. So I think it's probably easier for a client who's used you for copywriting or something like that to refer you as a ghostwriter. Hey, this guy's done good writing for me. He could probably write your book versus I use this guy as a ghostwriter for my book. He could probably write your book too. Yeah, so, yeah, absolutely. And I think you probably say this in the wealthy freelancer or if not in some of your other training programs, tap every resource that you've got available. If you think of a marketing strategy, try it. See how it turns out. If nothing comes of it, you're that much wiser for it. And if something does come of it, then you're glad me you told took the route.

Sure. In fact, now as we're talking through this I'm thinking, you know, how could I do this? Because this sounds fascinating and honestly, I'm tempted to kind of play with this idea for a little bit. And I'm thinking, you know, I probably wouldn't go to my existing clients, but I would go to, I know several consultants and if they're not a good candidate, they might know someone who would. So, you know, based on the profile you described that's worked for you, I think I can probably get kind of an initial project which would at least get my feet wet. Right. And it would give me something tangible that I could point to.

And you've already have a great selling book. I mean the wealthy freelancer. I mean, it's a great book. So the very fact that you've got that puts you head and shoulders above other people that are starting out because you've got the goods, more or less.

Great, Great. So I want to talk about something you mentioned earlier because you have a new book coming out and why don't you tell us a little about that, the topic and the title.

So I am, I did not understand how exciting having your own book was as well as how personally invested you get until I wrote my own. So I've worked with so many authors and part of being a ghostwriter, almost half of being a ghostwriter is as being a therapist. And so, you know, coaching people that, you know, people are not going to tell you that your, your book, you know, sucks and they're not going to throw eggs at you and boo you off the stage. You know, your English teacher isn't going to come back and paddle you for starting a sentence or ending a sentence with a conjunction. But until I, until I wrote my own book, I just, I really did not get. I couldn't be truly empathetic about how emotionally invested you are. So now I am. And I'm much nicer to my or much more patient, I guess, with my clients now. So I've been working on it for, well, I guess Christmas actually be two years is whenever I started to sit down to write is the world's first and only full length book on how to write a business book. And it's titled the business book bible, Everything you need to know to write a great business. So hopefully with business book in this title and subtitle, the SEO will be off the charts.

It should be. And you know what, you're too humble to say it, but I'm going to go ahead and do a plug here because I asked you where could people start who are interested in doing this, I read a manuscript of your book, which you were so generous to send me. Guys, it's fantastic. It really, really is. And if you're serious about this, I wouldn't just check out Claudia's course, which I'm not familiar with. But you know, Derek, I know you. You sing its praises. But check out the business book Bible. It is fantastic and it will give you a really good primer. Not just a primer, but detail on what it takes to do this and how to work these projects. So you've done an amazing job, Derek. And where can people find it? I'm not sure when this show will air live, but I'm hoping that it will be available by then.

Well, first, thanks, Ed. I really appreciate that. Again, I didn't know what it felt like to have somebody praise your book until I had one of my own. And there's just not another feeling in the world like it. It's like having a baby and then people coming up to you in the grocery store and telling you what a beautiful baby you have. It's just this. This parental glow that goes all over you. So thanks for that. I am self publishing my book. One, because I think that there's a pretty narrow market for it. And two, a little over half of my clients self publish. So I wanted to know exactly what that process was for them again, so I can be empathetic and I can be a better service provider for them. So it's with my typesetter right now. I am looking for it to be available probably at the very end of October or the beginning of November. And I'm doing print on demand, which means that it is going to be. You don't have to order it directly from me. It's going to be available through Amazon, Amazon as well as Barnes and Noble and a couple of other places. It's going to be available in hardcover with a dust jacket, which is just incredible. I mean, just the state of publishing these days. To be able to do print on demand with a dust jacket is just unbelievable. And also self cover as well as ebook. And the ebook, of course, will be through just about every ebook distributor that there is. Also, I'm going to be running some kind of special through my website, DerekLewis.com so if you go there and if you do order the book directly from me, I'll give you a couple extra goodies.

Awesome. Well, here I'm getting ahead of myself. But we'll. You and I will talk. We'll figure out when we can best Air this so that you know it's available and people can jump right on it. And again, I don't usually recommend a lot of books. I really have to get behind it and get it and have read it. This is a must, a must read if you're considering this. So, Derek, thanks for, thanks for coming on to the show. This has been fantastic. I'm inspired and I appreciate your generosity in sharing so much content and great insights with us.

Well, Ed, you did so much of that with the wealthy freelancer and all the training that you've done since then. It was, it's nice to be able to return the favor in some small way.

Well, now you can probably see why I was so excited just listening to Derek describe his business, what he does, the kind of clients he works for with in the potential here for a really, really strong income. I hope you enjoyed the interview. I hope you got a lot out of it, some great ideas. And you know what, I would really appreciate a quick comment there in the comment section. Let us know what you think. If you got any questions for Derek. As you can tell, he's a super, super nice guy and I'm sure he'd love to address many of your questions and give you any feedback. So I wanted to remind you that you can grab the details show notes@b2b launcher.com forward/episode63. I try to provide some really good notes for you guys. For those of you who are kind of in a hurry or who want something to reference back to. If you're listening to this in the car or while you're out walking or exercising, if you enjoyed this episode, I would be very grateful if you shared it with friends. The best way to do that is just to use any of the social media sharing buttons you'll find on the show notes page. And it would also mean a lot to me if you gave the show a quick rating or review in itunes. One quick way of doing that is by going to b2b launcher.com iTunes and I wanted to just say a quick shout out to some of the recent reviewers on itunes reviewers of the show. So These are the usernames 35978, Aaron J. Bernard, Ron Tester, J. Ktil from Lisa2Lifestuff.org Corbin 111 and Caitlin CBS Inc. So thank you so much guys for leaving a quick review. You know, you have no idea how much that means to me. I know you guys appreciate this, the show and the content, but when I see it there, when I see the star ratings man, that just keeps me going. So thank you, thank you, thank you. That brings us to the end of the episode. I am your host, Ed Gandia. I appreciate you listening today and I hope you have an awesome someday.

The High Income Business Writing Podcast is a production of B to B business launcher. Learn more at b2b launcher.com.