Prospective clients call and email me. The best really know what they want. Maybe it’s a ghostwriter for a book. Or maybe it’s a writing coach to help them get a book or other piece of writing done, or for more general help with their freelance writing career.
Then there are the clients who either don’t know what they want or, if they do, I can’t understand them.
I took such a call today. As near as I can tell, the potential client has some 600,000 pages of source material he wants boiled down to a 200 page book, but he doesn’t …read more

Perfection is a trap for writers. It’s a trap simply because there’s no evidence procedure, no way to know if you’ve reached it or if you’re even getting close.
The way I talk to myself about this is:
Hmm, Anne. You wouldn’t recognize perfection if it knocked on the door and introduced itself!
Another way to see this is when you recognize that, perhaps poetry aside, there isn’t a piece of writing out there that couldn’t be improved. That includes the classics as well as everything else.
I think the goal for any piece of writing is effectiveness. That’s much easier to determine …read more

Two weeks ago I got an email asking me what I’d charge to write four articles in the financial management field. Although the correspondent didn’t say so, I assumed these would be SEO articles and since that’s not my favorite kind of writing I put a high price on the project, expecting to hear no more.
Much to my surprise another email arrived a few days later asking for my credentials and explaining they hoped to get placement of the articles in four specific magazines. I wrote back with a link to www.annewayman.com and said I, of course, couldn’t guarantee placement.
There …read more

I think self-publishing is a viable option for at least some book writers.
Over at Writing With Vision I’ve added an article called Self-Publishing Overview.
You might also want to look over the article index there.
Write well and often,

Two newsletters:
Abundant Freelance Writing – a resource for freelance writers including 3x a week job postings.
Writing With Vision – for those who want to get a book written.

As a writing coach I sometimes do what I call a manuscript critique. It’s a way an author can get an idea of what works and what doesn’t in either a book or a book proposal.
Over at Writing With Vision, I wrote an article about the process you might find interesting.
Write well and often,

Two newsletters:
Abundant Freelance Writing – a resource for freelance writers including 3x a week job postings.
Writing With Vision – for those who want to get a book written.

I was surprised when Devon Ellington, who blogs at Ink in My Coffee, wrote a screed more or less against ghostwriting over at Deborah Ng Weekend Discussion. She wants the books she reads written by the author on the cover, even if that name is a pseudonym. She is, I gather, particularly leery of celebrities who use ghosts.
It’s interesting because as people discover I’m a ghostwriter I get a variety of reactions.

A surprising number of people have no idea that many books are ghostwritten.

A few, like Devon, find ghostwriting disconcerting and somehow cheating.

Some think it’s a …read more

When I’m ghostwriting, I no longer transcribe the interviews I do to gather the material from the author. The reason is simple – I work better from word files than I do from the audio. And I can’t charge my regular rate for transcribing. These days, I make it clear in my ghostwriting contracts that if there’s any transcribing to be done, the author will pay for it.
But this, I think, is more a matter of personal style – my own learning style perhaps. I know other ghosts who find transcribing well worth the time and effort.
So much of how …read more

I’m often asked how I actually do ghostwriting. How am I able to get into someone’s head enough to write in their voice and how do I get them to provide the information I need? I’ve been thinking about that today, probably because I’m writing a chapter for a client from a very bare outline.
First of all, we’re well into the book in questions. I’ve spent several hours with the client over the phone and I’ve written the bulk of the book which he loves. So I’ve internalized a lot of information, including:

His passion for the topic.

What …read more

Several days ago I posted about a copywriting class I’d signed up for. It’s taught by Mark Silver (Heart of Business) and we had our first class yesterday. I was totally blown away!
Yes, it’s about copywriting, but it’s way more than that. Mark is what I would call a Sufi Master – everything he does is grounded in spiritual principals. He draws the spiritual and the practical together in a way that’s magic, proving, as he puts it: You can make a profit while making a difference.
My biggest take-away yesterday is that I can base my writing and coaching business …read more

I’ve just started rewriting/ghosting a new project. In this case, the client has provided me with several draft chapters. I’ve managed to work through the first four pages of Chapter 1, rewriting, clarifying, editing like mad. But the last two-hundred words or so, I’ve bogged down. You know the symptoms – playing solitaire, checking email every five minutes, doing the wash….
At first I thought it was just fatigue, so I printed the chapter, made a fresh cappuccino and moved away from the computer to do my reading and editing by hand.
Voila! There on page 3 is my problem. I’m …read more