(www.thegoldenpencil.com)
I came close to firing a client yesterday. It’s been a rocky relationship from the beginning, which was back in the beginning of February.
I’ve been ghostwriting for a number of years, and I have a rough process I’ve found usually works. It goes more or less like this:

First we do a Visioning which I do on an individual basis for ghostwriting clients.
Next I help the client create a 10 Word Purpose for their book.
We follow this with a Working Table of contents.

Once these three elements are in place, the ghostwriting usually goes fairly well. I should have stopped when the …read more

I seem to be referring to Joe Wikert’s blog a lot – but he keeps pointing to things I wouldn’t find on my own, like: The Life of a Ghostwriter. That post in turn points to an article in the New York Times by fellow ghostwriter Christine Larson called: Expressing Passions (Just Not Your Own)
The article, which is definitely worth a read if you’re at all interested in ghostwriting, talks, among other things, about how some of her friends and acquaintances seem to disapprove of the fact she earns her living ghostwriting. You know what? I often experience the same …read more

I’ve got a client who is doing a series of fairly short videos full of management tips, techniques, etc. They are used in her organization and we’re using them as the basis of a book. If we do this right, we’ll have two products to sell – the book and the video set.
Writing from videos, however, isn’t a cinch. Although it can help to see her talk and hear her voice, and she’s pretty good about leaving out all the umms and ahhhs and yaknows so many people use in speech, the spoken word is still a long way from …read more

How are you doing on the goals or the vision you set for yourself this year? You did set some, I assume, becuase most of us seem to. I actually believe in Visioning and goal work; I wrote about it at the end of last year in a post called: Sneaking Up on 2008 – Goals for Freelance Writers
For reasons that are totally obscure for me, I didn’t share my goals with you. I just dug them up, and, with some editing, here they are:
• Stay quit from nicotine
• Lose a pound a week which would put at around 120, yes …read more

A few days ago told you about a ghostwriting client who broke several telephone appointments and then requested a Saturday appointment even though I normally don’t work weekends. I asked you what you would do.
Most who responded felt there was no need to meet the client on the weekend, although one said they would if it was a well paying client and another felt I should be willing to make a Saturday appointment.
Here’s what I actually did and the result:

I sent a brief email saying, nicely, that I don’t work weekends and that I’d lost track of her schedule, …read more

I’m going through one of those periods that astrologers lay off to mars in retrograde… lots of smallish things going wrong, and a couple of larger ones too. I won’t go into all the details, but I’m also having trouble with a clients, and I’d like your advice.
The first is a smallish contract for a book proposal. The client wants me to create a sample chapter and the rest of the sales pitch so she can circulate it to agents and/or publishers. We get along well, have had several phone appointments and are, I think (and she’s so indicated) closing …read more

Most of the folks I ghostwrite for are professionals of one sort or another, and they are busy people. But then, so am I – both professional and busy. And I suspect most of you are too, or working to become so.
I bring this up because once again a major client of mine has changed a phone appointment. True, she only pushed it back some 30 minutes, but it’s a pattern, and the chances are she’ll be late for the new time too.
Although I’ve been accommodating, this time I pushed back. I agreed to the new time, but stated …read more

Does any of this sound familiar to you?

You schedule phone meeting with a client that’s to last at least an hour.
You make sure nothing interferes, including putting off at least one other client.
The appointment is confirmed the day before.
The hour arrives and there’s no phone call.
25 minutes past the start of the call, you call the client’s assistant…

Every now and again I run into a ghostwriting client who may actually be too busy to do what’s necessary to get a book written. Well, that’s not exactly what I mean. In this case I know the client wants it done… but …read more

How do you actually get your writing work done on any given day. I realized I’m not sure how I do it, so I thought I’d chronicle at least part of it here.
I need to generate a new chapter for a client. We know what it’s going to be about and the point, but the details are missing. Since the book is really an allegory, it’s the story I have to create, or the next phase of the story.

I started right at 9 by re-reading the notes I’d taken when my client and I talked last week.
I played the …read more

I was poking around our Business Channel when I ran into WorkBoxers post called: Who Holds Rights To Commissioned Designs?
Mark strongly suggests designers make sure ownership rights for designs are spelled out in contracts. I do exactly the same thing in ghostwriting contracts. I make sure that my clients retain all the rights unless, for some reason, we decide to do something differently. As a ghost I don’t want the rights to someone else’s ideas, even if I am the one who put them down in writing.
How do you protect yourself and your clients?
Write well and often,

Two newsletters:
Abundant Freelance Writing …read more