In this segment of his YouTube video, Nicolas Cole walks viewers through a concrete pricing framework for ghostwriters looking to raise their rates and secure upfront cash. He explains how to anchor a higher monthly fee (e.g., $8K) and then negotiate down to a target price (e.g., $5K‑$6K) while offering a prepaid discount that brings the effective monthly rate back to the desired level. Cole illustrates the tactic with real client examples where he secured $6K‑$8K monthly contracts that were prepaid for three months, resulting in $18K invoices paid before any work began. He emphasizes that this approach works best once a writer has an existing client roster, so a rejected pitch doesn’t jeopardize income. The segment also promotes Cole’s free “Premium Ghostwriting Blueprint” masterclass and his book, positioning ghostwriting as a high‑earning, flexible career path for writers.
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now that you know that the $6K is possible, moving forward I would pitch everyone at $6K.
Yeah, I am.
So that's great. And if you, or if you wanted to get creative with it, what you could do is you could pitch it at $6K or even $7K or even $8K, but then say, or if you're willing to prepay, and then you make the number end up being $6K or $5K per month. So basically, you like anchor way higher. Yeah. And then if they prepay, you're giving them the original price that is really what you're charging anyways, but now you're collecting all the cash.
That's what I've done with the two $6K actually.
There you go.
I pitched one at $8K. She asked for $6K and I said, "I can do $6K if you pay up front." She paid for 3 months, $18K. I sent it. I've sent both— both $6K clients were actually prepaid. So I've sent 2 invoices for $18K and both were paid before I ever did a piece of work for them.
Yeah, that's, that's the way to do it. Just, I just want to like double-click on this little pricing technique for everyone here. If you like, a great pricing tactic is take your price. So let's say you charge 5K a month and you can know that that's where— like, you shouldn't do this when this is your first client. You should do this when you have more roster because that way it's like if they say no, you have like whatever, you already have a roster of clients, right? But the way that you start maximizing is you go, okay, take your price, 5K a month. This is where I want to end up. But when you pitch it, you swing for the fences, you're like, you know what, I'm going to pitch this at $8K a month. If the client says yes to that, you just increase the profitability of that client by 30%. Right. Like, that's great. If the client tries to negotiate and it's like, that's a little high, you're like, okay, well, what I could do is I could, I could get it down to say, and then you're the price where you want to end up. I could get it down to $5K a month. If, if you prepay for 6 months. So you're, you're at, you're ending up in the same place, but now you're collecting all the cash up front, which is different than what most people do, is they pitch the original and then they negotiate from there, and then they're like, oh, I'll give you a discount, you know, if you prepay, and then your, your, your monthly comes down to like $4K. Or $3,500, right? So what you wanna do is you wanna anchor higher and then land back where you actually wanna land versus pitching your pricing and then negotiating down from there. Hey, by the way, if you're brand new to the world of ghostwriting, maybe you've heard the term but aren't really sure what it is or how it's different from copywriting or content writing, check out premiumghostwritingblueprint.com. It's in the description below, okay? This is a free masterclass that I've put together for writers who wanna monetize their skills and love for writing. With ghostwriting. This is what I did, and ghostwriting completely changed my life. It's how I quit my job, it's how I quadrupled the amount of money I was making, it's how I've gotten to work with so many smart, amazing people, but also have time for my own writing, like writing this book, The Art and Business of Ghostwriting. Anyways, check it out. If you're at all interested in making money from your writing, I would really encourage you to get into ghostwriting, and this free premium ghostwriting blueprint in the description below is the best place to start.
