Ghostwriting - How to Get Started Writing for Others

If you love to write and do research, but don't care if you get the credit then you might enjoy ghostwriting.

What's more there's a growing market for this kind of freelance writing as more and more celebrities are having their stories told, hiring writers to do the job. It's not just biographies that are ghostwritten. Often business people hire ghostwriters to write press releases, as well as sales letters and other promotional pieces. Articles, e-books, and speeches are also ghostwritten. Simply put, ghostwriting is trading your by-line and rights to your work for money.

However, this isn't for the beginning freelance writer as you must have better than average writing skills. If you feel less than confident, then it may be best do some preliminary writing before jumping into ghostwriting. Before signing up as a ghostwriter, you could....

*Writer letters to the editor----Just by saving your clips you can prove your write skills when landing a ghostwriting job.

*Sign up and write for Associated Content---Although the pay is low, Associated Content is an excellent opportunity to not on horn your writing skills, but put together an online portfolio of your work. Before starting, you need to first set up a paypal account at www.paypal.com.

*Helium---Writing for Helium is an excellent opportunity to learn how to do research, as well as receive feedback from other writers. You don't get upfront payments, but are paid for page views.

Once you feel more confident of your writing skills, how do find ghostwriting jobs?.

*Job boards---Check out the job boards on internet sites. Some of the more popular ones can be found at RentAGhostWriter.com., RentACoder.Com, Guru.Com and Elance.Com. These are web sites where where clients post jobs for freelance writers. For example at Elance.com, you'll find writing jobs from editing, web copy, to creative writing. For a monthly fee of $30 you sign up as member. Then you go and bid on jobs listed. (However, unless you're sure you can make money ghostwriting, I wouldn't recommend paying a site a monthly fee unless you're confident you'll get regular guaranteed jobs.)