Hens Lay Eggs

food for thought

Let’s be reasonable

I found the above solicitation on freelancer.com. This is, unfortunately, not an unusual solicitation for ghostwriting services.

To those who may be new to my blog or to ghostwriting, let’s do the math and break this project down.

  1. The rate is $1 per 2,000 words or $0.0005 per word. That’s less than 1/2 cent per word.
  2. The prospective client wants anywhere from 500,000 to 1 million words.
  3. The average time needed to write and polish 1,000 words is three hours and 20 minutes, so 3.3 hours. (The writer you hire may be faster or slower.)

At the lower end of this project’s spectrum (500,000 words total), the ghostwriter may expect to spend 1,650 hours working on this project. The total project at the stated rate will net the writer $250. So, the writer’s expected hourly wage for this project would be $0.15.

Yes, that’s 15 cents per hour.

How is this reasonable?

Unfortunately, generative AI is driving down ghostwriting rates because anyone can type some prompts into the software and receive content within minutes. The fact that such content will be banal and much of it plagiarized from countless other documents is beside the point.

Clients such as the one offering this opportunity don’t value the craftsmanship of good writing.

If you want to write a book but don’t have the skill, time, or inclination to do the writing yourself, then hiring a ghostwriter may be a great solution for you. However, the ghostwriter must consider the realities of producing content: the time and effort necessary to research the topic, to generate the content, and to polish the content. No professional ghostwriter would consider such poor terms as this project offers, especially when the prospective client requires an initial first chapter of 2,000 words be submitted for free.

So, what does ghostwriting entail? This excellent article by Gotham Ghostwriters explains it: “Straight Talk: What to Expect About the Cost of Hiring a Ghostwriter.” The caveat to the article is that it focues on nonfiction, specifically business books. Fees for a memoir often run similarly to business books, but fiction goes for less—a lot less. Fiction depends more upon the ghostwriter’s expertise than the information which must be drawn from the client through multiple interviews and insightful questions.

Ghostwriting fiction often requires client interviews, too, but those interviews tend to be less on the “interview” side and more on the “bouncing ideas” side. For fiction ghostwriting, both Kindlepreneur and the Editorial Freelancers Association offer similar guidelines.

Of course, these rates are not prescriptive. Lesser known and novice writers tend to charge less—not the paltry amount specified by the solicitation above.

If you decide to hire a ghostwriter, there are some best practices to follow to ensure a good experience for both you and the ghostwriter:

  1. Review the ghostwriter’s writing samples. A professional ghostwriter will have writing samples of published work you may read to discern whether his or her style appeals to you. Do not ask the ghostwriter to write a sample for you unless you’re willing to pay the going rate for the work.
  2. Get a contract from the ghostwriter. If you decide to hire a ghostwriter, make sure you have a contract. The contract should establish a common understanding as to the scope of service and who is responsible for what. It should specify any deadlines, the fees for service rendered, allowed rounds of revision, payment schedule, delivery of completed work, and terms for cancellation. My contract also includes a confidentiality clause and transfer of copyright to the client.
  3. Remit payment promptly. Some ghostwriters charge a substantial deposit to begin work; others require payment in full prior to delivery. Regardless of the payment schedule, understand that while you may have come up with the story premise, characters, etc., the ghostwriter is doing the heavy work of developing the story. After the contract has been signed and countersigned is not the time to haggle the ghostwriter’s rates. In fact, haggling may result in quick dismissal as a client. Also, most ghostwriters work without corporate backing or a financial safety net: prompt remittance is expected and greatly appreciated.

There are many, many places where you can hire ghostwriters. From premium services aggregating freelance professionals (e.g., Gotham Ghostwriters, the Editorial Freelancers Association, Reedsy) to platforms swarming with low-bid vendors (e.g., freelancer.com, fiverr.com, upwork.com) to professional and social media sites (e.g., LinkedIn, Facebook), you’ll find an enormous range of writers eager to work on your project. When hiring a ghostwriter, it’s best to offer project specifics so as not to waste your time or the ghostwriter’s time:

  • Fiction or nonfiction
  • Genre or topic
  • Anticipated manuscript length (word count, not page count) (For genre length guidelines, go HERE.)
  • Deadline for completion
  • Budget.

With this basic information, a ghostwriter will know at a glance whether the project is potentially a good fit. For instance, I don’t take on horror or academic work. If your project is a horror novel or scientific treatise, then I won’t waste my time or yours by submitting a proposal for a project I don’t want and wouldn’t do well.

If you have a story burning to be told but you haven’t the storytelling skill or time to tell it, then consider hiring a professional to tell that story for you. Will you recoup your investment? Perhaps. No ghostwriter can guarantee sales, but hiring a skilled professional will give your story its best chance to turn a profit.

Every word counts.

Tropes, cliches, and crutches for lame literary devices

On LinkedIn, a colleague who edits mysteries mentioned the usefulness of a false confessions to serve as red herrings in mystery novels. They’re clever devices that distract the reader (and the sleuth) from solving the case too soon.

I commented on her post stating that I detested the device of having the villain confess his (or her) perfidy—cue Perry Mason and Matlock here—just so the hero could arrest him and/or send him to prison, because there was no eal evidence sufficient to convict him otherwise. That last-minute confession of evildoing reminded me of the often overly elaborate plots screenwriters and authors use to enable otherwise bumbling protagonists to defeat their villains.

If you’re of a certain age and/or enjoy watching 1980s reruns of MacGyver (starring Richard Dean Anderson, not the newer version with the kid), then you’ll remember that series’ recurring villain: Murdoch. Smooth, sadistic, and overly confident in his own cleverness, Murdoch concocts scenarios of absurd elaboration when simple expedience would have succeeded with much less fuss on his part. Instead, his reliance on complexity gave MacGyver adequate time to wriggle free from whatever death trap he found himself in to go on and thwart Murdoch’s evil plans.

It’s a weary cliche repeated in Star Trek, Star Wars, every James Bond movie ever made, and many other shows and books to elevate tension and drama and afford the hero ample opportunity to win. In reality, simple expedience is much more effective.

However, in a tongue-in-cheek nod to those cliched plot devices, Peter Anspach compiled the original “Evil Overlord List.” Before “viral” referred to anything but illness-causing viruses, this took on unprecedented popularity and grew. Contributors around the world contributed to it. Other lists, perhaps inspired by this one, were published. Eventually, the rules for the evil overlord were consolidated and published here: http://www.eviloverlord.com/lists/overlord.html.

Jack Butler also developed a similar list which may be found here: https://tropedia.fandom.com/wiki/Jack_Butler%27s_Original_Evil_Overlord_List.

For those authors writing their own mysteries or other complicated plots, either list serves as a gentle and humorous warning: Don’t make things more complicated than they have to be, and common sense goes a long way toward a successful plot. If your hero digs himself into a hole, then figure out something other than the villain’s overweening hubris and penchant for complexity to fail at a critical juncture, thus allowing the hapless hero to save the day. As with accuracy in detail and doing the necessary research to ensure plausibility, this is another element of realism that genuinely ratchets up dramatic tension and forces your hero to display grit and determination as well as cleverness and reliance on sheer dumb luck.

If you’re looking for a good laugh, check out either list. They’re worth the read!

If you’re looking for a skilled ghostwriter who won’t fall into this trap or you have a story that too complicated for its own good and you need an editor with common sense to simplify it, then look me up at https://www.henhousepublishing.com. Let’s talk about your project and your expectations.

Campaign madness

I generally don’t write on political topics—not because I don’t have opinions, but because no blog or meme or post anywhere is going to change anyone’s political opinion.

Last week during my regular morning perusal of LinkedIn, one of the many political posts in my news feed caught my eye. In it, the author alluded to a vote for the Republican candidate being indicative of the voter as being sexist or racist. The idea that someone might vote for the Republican candidate and not factor in the Democratic candidate’s gender and ethnicity into the voting decision apparently did not occur to this person.

I took issue with that and commented as such. The original poster then replied with a long comment linking several articles supporting her point that nearly three-quarters of people voting Republican were both sexist and racist. Since the sources she posted aren’t what I’d consider all that credible, I dropped out of the conversation rather than waste my time doing a bunch of research and debating with her.

This is one reason why I loathe posts such as hers and the many villifying the other party’s candidates. They demonstrate the polarization of our society and hold the other side in contempt without regard to those holding more moderate opinions that may align more or less with an opposing viewpoint.

For instance, my mother-in-law and mother, both of the generation preceding the Baby Boomers, are the least prejudiced people I have ever met. Neither of them subscribes to the concept of gender fluidity. Both favor prudent fiscal policies. Both take seriously their civic duty to exercise their right to vote.

I doubt either of them would deny a woman’s capability to serve as the president of the United States, although one wouldn’t vote for the Republican candidate and the other wouldn’t vote for the Democratic candidate, regardless of incentive.

There’s more to a person than his or her political leanings. A Democrat may be pragmatic and support business as much as a Republican may be idealistic and espouse peace on earth and goodwill toward all. In fact, what I have found is that those with the most extreme political affiliations are those who are the least tolerant of differing opinions.

I’ll be the first to admit that many people base business and personal decisions on politics, whether their own politics or someone else’s. This cannot be better demonstrated than the hit Budweiser took when they jumped on the woke bandwagon. This political positioning clashed with the values held by a large portion of their client base. The company is sufficiently diverse and robust to withstand the defection of those customers. Other companies, such as John Deere, have learned that painful lesson, too: don’t clash with your client base.

I have worked for clients whose politics opposed mine. It didn’t matter whether I agreed or disagreed with their opinions; what mattered to me was improving the quality of their content. When it comes to business, I’m agnostic. My focus isn’t on what you believe or don’t believe; my focus is on the project and helping the author make it as good as it can be while maintaining the author’s distinctive voice.

#henhousepublishing #editing #proofreading #bookdesign #ghostwriting

Author

Hard boiled, scrambled, over easy, and sunny side up: eggs are the musings of Holly Bargo, the pseudonym for the author.

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