HOW TO EARN A LIVING GHOSTWRITING EBOOKS IN 2021

I’m trying to remove the cobwebs from this blog because it’s been so long. 

The last time I wrote on this blog was in February, and two months later, we have a new blog post, yay!

 

If you subscribed to my blog, I’m sorry. I will try my best to be consistent. Work and adulting have been biting my ass, but I’m gradually learning to navigate that right now. I wanted to give you guys an update regarding what has been up with me, but I have a YouTube channel, and I post consistently there. So, you might want to check that out.

 

This blog post will throw more light regarding my side hustle which is freelancing, and how I am making it work. If you’ve been following me for a while, you should know that I am a freelancer. I freelance on Upwork, where I’m a Top-Rated Freelancer and Fiverr, where I’m a Level 2 Seller, and I’m pretty generous with the tips of how I’m managing to get work done on these platforms and earn money as a Nigeria.

 

Many people have asked me questions on how they can become freelancers and how it works. I’ve shared a post on how I make a living writing romance fiction; read here. However, this post focuses on writing an e-book, especially if you are a beginner.

 

 

On freelancing websites, I do a lot of things. However, towards the end of last year, I started focusing on fiction and non-fiction e-book ghostwriting. I figured that I was not too fond of little money littered around, like $30 for one article or $15 for the other, I wanted bulk money, and e-book writing gave me that. I earn anywhere from about $500 to $2k writing an e-book, which works for me if you ask me. I’d rather have my money in bulk.

Fiction and non-fiction e-book ghostwriting is a hot niche and if you want to dive into it, this article is for you.

How can you get started writing an e-book with no experience?

Brainstorm

Writing an e-book is not Rocket Science, and the excellent part about e-book writing is that you don’t need to have experience in the topic. If you are lucky enough, the client might give you an outline. If not, you need to brainstorm and be sure it’s something you can do before accepting the job. You don’t want to accept a job that you clearly cannot do. I always brag about my ability to write books on various topics, but there are some topics that, after brainstorming, it becomes clear that accepting that project is not a good idea.

Reviews are essential in freelancing so instead of accepting the job and getting a bad review, that will ruin my profile in the long run, and I pass on it.

Do your research

By this, I mean making sure that every material you need to make that book a success is available. If it’s a book that is supposed to be sold on Amazon Kindle, you might want to check the bestselling book in that niche, read it so you can have an idea of how to create a masterpiece for the client. For some readers, you might need to have the experience. Last year, a client hired me to write an e-book on mediation for him. I sent out a good proposal, and he was convinced that I was the one for the job. Because I had brainstormed and researched, I felt that trying to meditate will make me more immersed in the project, and that’s what I did.

I downloaded a meditation app and started meditating. I got a tip, a 5-star review, and guess who still meditates? Me! I use it, especially when I’m battling with insomnia: research, research, and research.

Get a plagiarism checker

One thing I’ve noticed is that most people don’t take plagiarism seriously. They go online, lift the content of others, and intentionally refuse to give them credit. No one is saying you can’t be inspired by what others are creating, but don’t copy. This also happens on social media, where people copy from Pinterest without giving credit to the owners to have the perfect feed.

It is terrible, and if you want to be an e-book ghostwriter, you’d need to learn how to be original. By original, I mean creating e-books on things that are not plagiarized. If this hard for you, you’d need a plagiarism checker. There are a couple of free and paid ones. Get one and make sure as you are writing, you are checking to see that it has 0.5% plagiarism or less. If you must copy, make sure you master the referencing style the client wants and make use of it.

Write an outline

I love clients that come with outlines, but if the client doesn’t give me an outline, I don’t mind. I create the outline myself. The outline will help you write a good book because you’d generate a chapter structure to help you. I discussed more on my YouTube video with the same topic. Check here.

Make it engaging

We don’t want to read a book that will make us sleep; we also don’t want to read a master’s thesis. If we're going to read one, we know where to find one. Make sure your grammar is simple to the extent that a layperson can understand it. We don’t want to have to open our dictionary to understand every line so write in a way that a 4th grader would understand. Even Cathrin Manning agrees with this. Keep your big grammar toy yourself.

Read this aloud

It helps to do this because you’d know if your thought process flows or if it doesn’t. It’s important to read aloud. It also helps with the grammatical errors, and you can be the judge to know if it makes sense.

Write for audio

Most books are converted to audio books and sold on Audible. Most clients who pay people to write for them on the freelancing websites also pay voice over artists to convert the book to audio. Audio books are here to stay, and some people would instead listen to audio books than. Keep this in mind when writing; remember to make the voice over artist’s job easier.

Get a grammar checker

I use the premium version of Grammarly, but if you cannot afford it at this time, you can make use of the free version. A grammar checker helps eliminate minor grammatical errors. Most clients would still have the book go through an editor, but you don’t want a situation where it seems like you made zero effort to check the grammar. Get a grammar checker and get one today.

Learn how to format for Amazon Kindle

To learn more about writing an e-book and how I make a living ghostwriting e-books for Amazon Kindle, watch the full video here.