Credit cards don’t just strong-arm people; they strong-arm businesses, too. Or at least try to. Back in the day, MasterCard tried to force businesses to accept debit cards branded with MasterCard at businesses where those credit cards were accepted. Many businesses (including Wal-Mart) took umbrage, claiming that the move created, in effect, a trust situation and tied the acceptance of debit to the acceptance of credit cards. Businesses claimed MasterCard was threatening them with revocation of the ability to accept its credit cards if they did not also accept branded debit cards.
In 1996, an antitrust suit was filed. In 2003, …read more

When I tell people that I get paid to write for blogs, they’re usually interested to know about how that works, exactly. Writers who’ve been around the block a few times have likely seen this information before, but for those new to the field, I thought I’d share the different ways you can get paid to blog.

Ad Revenue

If you decide to run your own blog, this is typically the way you’ll get paid, unless you have an investor. You can use affiliate ads (where you get paid a percentage of every sale from clicks through to their site), Pay-Per-Click ads …read more

Late last year I had a face-to-face interview with a potential client. He wanted his story ghostwritten. We did a Visioning, for which I was paid and I promised to draft a contract.
The following day I send the contract draft, answered some questions and pretty much figured we had a deal. There was a delay of about a week, but since he travels I wasn’t concerned.
The next email from him asked if I thought he could write the book with me editing. He sent a sample chapter. It was pretty typical stuff and, in my opinion, needed a ton of …read more

Much of my writing is, as most of you know, ghostwriting. That means, among other things, I write, send it to the client and wait for their response. At the moment I’m waiting for a client to get back to me.
Last I heard, which was last week, he expected to get several chapters edited and back to me within the week – it hasn’t happened yet. I’ve send everything and the next move is up to him. I’ve emailed and asked when I can expect the chapters back and haven’t heard yet.
It’s a bit odd because he was, at one …read more

I sometimes get frustrated with my ghostwriting clients. Often they want to spend time with me just talking – not about the book I’m writing for them, but about anything and everything. I’m coming to realize, and it makes sense, that at least some of them need a sense of connection with me that goes beyond giving me the information needed for the book.
I too need a sense of connection, but apparently I develop one more quickly than some of my clients. Or a different sort of connection – I’m not sure.
Here’s what I mean. One of my clients calls …read more

Normally I write about ways to collect payments for writing from clients, but right now I’m pushing myself to write so I can get a payment. The payment on one of my ghostwriting projects says something like this: there will be 5 equal payments, each payment to be made when an additional 20% of the book is complete. The problem is, at my suggestion, we’ve added two new chapters. Which means instead of one more to write, I’ve got three more to write, and that has nothing much to do with 20%.
But I’d like a check next week. And I’m …read more