Once again, I came across what looked to be an appealing gig for a fiction ghostwriter: writing serialized romance (https://freelancewritinggigs.com/job/freelance-prose-writer-romance-fiction/#gsc.tab=0). This would make any ghostwriter with a penchant for the romance genre salivate. Of course, this particular ghostwriter has long since learned to do what doesn’t come naturally to many word nerds: calculate the numbers.

So, I’ll do it for you.

The average writing speed is 3:20 to draft, self-edit, revise, and polish. That’s the average. You may be faster or slower at producing good content.

Each chapter should be about 1,200 words, so that each chapter should take nearly 4 hours to complete. The requirement is to produce a minimum of 10 chapters a week which makes for 12,000 words of good content per week. At least you don’t have to develop the plot or characters: the company provides you with a plot outline. Regardless, you’ll be spending an estimated 39:40 for a week’s worth of work. That’s full-time employment without benefits.

With each completed and accepted chapter, the company will pay you $15-$20. Let’s be optimistic and say you get paid the full $20 per chapter. That full-time employment—miscategorized as freelance—will net you $200 a week. Your hourly wage: $5.07.

That gig doesn’t sound so appealing now, does it?

The Editorial Freelancers Association shows an average per-word fee of $0.09-$0.11 for fiction ghostwriting. At that rate, you’d earn a median fee of $10,800-$13,200 for a 120,000-word manuscript of 100 chapters (serials tend to run long) averaging 1,200 words each. But let’s be a little more reasonable as to manuscript length for the genre and figure 75,000 words: $6,750-$8,250 at the EFA average range.

If you do a bit of research into ghostwriting, you’ll soon learn that the EFA average is actually on the low side. High-powered, in-demand ghostwriters of fiction may earn $0.50-$1 per word. That makes this company’s paltry per-word rate of $0.016 even more insulting.

If you don’t hold your time and skill to a higher standard, then you undercut your colleagues and justify undervaluing yourself and your craft.

You’re not an elephant; don’t work for peanuts.