Nicolas Cole has ghostwritten for some of the biggest tech founders, Fortune 500 executives, New York Times best-selling authors, Grammy-winning musicians, and many other accomplished business owners and creators.
Along the way, he built a wildly successful seven figure ghostwriting business.
In this post, you’ll learn the step-by-step process he used to become a seven figure ghostwriter.
Step 1: Select A Service Within Ghostwriting
There are many types of ghostwriting opportunities, and each has nuanced differences.
So, master one ghostwriting format and then expand your services.
Here are a few of the best ghostwriting opportunities that Nicolas recommends for any freelance writer.
Social Media Content
Business leaders realize that customers want to consume content from other people – not brands. So many founders, executives, coaches, and consultants hire ghostwriters to create social media posts for them.
Nicolas estimates that you can make anywhere from $3,000 to $10,000 per month ghostwriting social media content for executives.
In fact, Chobani recently hired a social media ghostwriter for nearly $300,000 per year to write content for their executives’ social media profiles.
Landing Pages And Sales Scripts
YouTubers, coaches, startup founders, and other product and service owners need ghostwriters to create landing pages and sales scripts to sell their products and services.
As a landing page or sales script ghostwriter, your job is to educate prospects and answer their questions about the product or service so that they eventually convert into buyers.
For example, if you’re selling a copywriting course, prospects might want to know:
- How much time will I have to dedicate to this?
- Will there be any accountability?
- What type of copywriting will you teach me?
Nicolas believes ghostwriters can easily charge at least $2,000 for a landing page or sales page, and the best ghostwriters also negotiate a percentage on top of the base price.
Thought Leadership Articles
Nicolas’s first ghostwriting gig was writing thought leadership articles for an entrepreneur who sold a family-owned plumbing supplies company for over $1 billion.
This entrepreneur wanted someone to ghostwrite articles on Medium, Quora, and LinkedIn to establish himself as a thought leader online as he planned to publish a book.
That client eventually referred Nicolas to a friend, which led to more referrals and eventually turned into a seven figure agency.
You can charge anywhere from $250 to $2,000 per article, and at the height of his agency, Nicolas was charging $5,000 per 800 word article.
Email Courses
Most businesses invest thousands of dollars to generate website visitors, so they’re also willing to hire ghostwriters to create email courses to retain and remarket to those visitors.
As an email course ghostwriter, your job is to educate the reader on their problem and how your client’s product or service can solve it.
Nicolas believes that email course ghostwriting is one of the best freelance writing opportunities as it is highly valuable to businesses and, therefore, very lucrative.
In fact, Nicolas quadrupled the opt-in rate for his own email list after publishing an email course, and the business’s revenue doubled.
You can easily charge about $5,000 to $10,000 per email course if you’re a great freelance writer.
Video Scripts
Video content is an effective strategy to build relationships with potential customers at scale, so many companies are investing in video script writers. So, if you’re a good writer who can distill complex ideas into simple, compelling scripts, you can easily make six figures as a ghostwriter.
