Why You Need to Hire a Ghostwriter For Your Business with Diane Faulkner

Uncategorized Jan 28, 2021

Content marketing is targeted at a specific audience. It aims to hold the audience’s attention for quite some time to convert them to clients. Thus, the process may be time-consuming. As a business owner, what you can do is hire a ghostwriter.

Companies don’t have the time to do all of these on their own, so they get ghostwriting services. Ghostwriting is not merely for manuscripts — it’s also useful for blog writing and content marketing to generate more clients.

In this episode of Profit with Law, Diane Faulkner, a ghostwriter, editor, and content marketing strategist, discusses the difference between being a regular writer and being a ghostwriter. She also talks about the writing process and how ghostwriting can help leverage businesses.

Tune in and learn why you need to hire a ghostwriter for your firm.

Here are three reasons why you should listen to this episode

Understand how ghostwriting can help leverage law firms and other businesses.
Discover the importance of content and SEO marketing for your business.
Learn how to kickstart your writing journey for your company.

Resources

The Law Firm Growth Summit is back! February 9-11, 2021, and it will be better than ever! You can purchase tickets today at https://www.lawfirmgrowthsummit.com.
Diane Faulkner's website
Connect with Diane by calling 904-233-3331 or sending her an email: [email protected].

Episode Highlights

How Diane Started with Ghostwriting

She was a Vice President for Human Resources for Railroad Credit Union. The president asked her to write a feature for them.
When her father had health issues, she decided to leave work. However, she continued writing for trade journals.
She later met a couple who owned an international business. They asked her if she could ghostwrite for their book.
She did not intentionally want to be a ghostwriter, but the ghostwriting opportunity found her.

Diane: “You don't find people who start out wanting to be a ghostwriter because to be a ghostwriter, you really need to have a lot of clips behind you, a lot of—you have to have been published for quite a while.”

How Diane Became a Labor Law Geek

Diane grew up in an environment where her parents discussed labor law.
She has heard different aspects of labor law, as well as the union side of it.
When Diane entered the human resources field, she got to see the employer side of labor law.
As a clinical, industrial, and organizational psychology major, she took a lot of labor classes.
She loves writing and speaking about labor laws.

What Is Ghostwriting?

With ghostwriting, someone else gets to claim the credit for the writing.
In some cases, some ghostwriters have their names on the cover.
The new aspect of ghostwriting is that the author admits that he did or she did not write the book.

The Writing Process of a Ghostwriter

Diane looks at ghostwriting as sharing one year of the author's life with her.
It can take seven to nine months for Diane to put a manuscript together.
She updates the author every week about the progress of the book or article.
Hiring a ghostwriter can be expensive. Diane charges $30,000 to $60,000, but it’s an investment.

Diane: “The more outside interviews that I have to do, the more expensive it gets. The more research I have to do, the more expensive it gets. So if you know what your story is, and basically have everything at your fingertips then, and that's the ideal for you and me.”

Criteria for Hiring a Ghostwriter for Content and SEO Marketing

Most of Diane’s clients are busy professionals. They know that they need to do some marketing but do not have the time.
Once they realize this, they reach out to a ghostwriter to work for them.
Both the client and ghostwriter need to have synced personalities.

Diane: “Well, they need to vet the ghostwriter as much as the ghostwriter needs to vet them because there's got to be a personality sync there.”

The client or author must be open to general conversation because the ghostwriter needs to pick up on different personality traits that she needs to write.

Difference Between a Regular Writer and Ghostwriter

A regular writer has a unique voice. Even without putting the name on the writing, you’ll know who the writer is because of their style.
A ghostwriter can pick up the author's voice and write as if they were the author. If a blog post is ghostwritten, the reader will not know who wrote the article.

Diane: “They're writing in their own style. They're not putting the author's style into that writing.”

To find out if a writer is a good ghostwriter, you need to know how much they vet you.
Diane asks personality-based questions and requests writing samples to catch what the author wants to be done.

Information Accuracy for Ghostwriting

The author needs to sign off on the written content to know whether it's ready for publishing.
The ghostwriter should ensure that the information is cited correctly.
If the author cannot review the writing, someone should check and examine it. Diane won't give up the copyright to an article unless the author has approved it.
It is unusual for ghostwriters to ask for royalties. They usually get paid upfront and get steady pay.

Publishing Process of a Ghostwriter

As a ghostwriter, Diane is involved with the publishing process for as long as the contract says that she is to be involved. People usually come to her with an idea.
Some authors already have an agent; what they need is a ghostwriter. Securing an agent takes time.
There is a different process when they need to secure an agent, submit a proposal, and wait for who will accept the manuscript first amongst agencies.
After that, it can take up to two years to traditionally publish a book. You must submit another proposal for the publisher.
Some clients want the manuscript and to self-publish their book. An author can self-publish through the Amazon platform.

Writing Blogs for Websites

Diane has clients that have a list of keywords to rank for SEO. What she does is merely to write an article around that keyword.
She has stepped into the role of a content marketing strategist, where she lays out a plan for the year of different articles that can be written. Her work here depends on the strategy of the client.
In writing and publishing blog posts, you don't want to publish more than once a week — publish once a month at least.
She does a combination of getting essential information from the clients and extra research to ensure the blog’s or article's coverage. The more detail in it, the more expensive it gets.

Diane: “Well, for something that gets really detailed like that, what I suggest is that they do a white paper or an ebook. And then that way they'll have a lead generator that they could offer on their website, like ebooks, more so than white papers for law firms.”

If the article or blog is too lengthy, you can create an ebook and charge for that ebook. Ebooks are still being charged for, although they’re not as expensive as they used to be.

Selecting a Ghostwriter

Diane emphasized that you want to ensure that the ghostwriter has publications representing what you want to write.

Moshe: “I'm guessing that a ghostwriter, choosing a ghostwriter and then finding that you're happy with is kind of like a marriage. And once you find the right person, you want to stick with them.”

Diane charges less for recurring clients; the more she works for someone, the less expensive it is for them.

Diane: “There isn't less research, there's still the same amount of research. There's still the same amount of Facetime because if they're coming up with different ideas, I'm still having to interview them.”

Long-Term Content Planning

She gets started by doing three blog posts. In the first post, Diane and her client are still in the process of getting to know each other.
On the second, they can sort things out. By the third post, they should have ironed out the details and how they can work together.
She first enters into short-term contracts to check whether it would be good for her before entering long-term contracts.

Writing Business During the Pandemic

Diane’s business almost tripled during the pandemic because of people wanting to write COVID-related pieces.
If she can’t take a client, she will refer them to her colleagues.

Diane: “I guess, kind of unique in the writing industry, where we don't really see each other as competitors. We're always referring work to each other.”

Key Takeaways

If you ghostwrite for lawyers, the audience you write for is your client's potential clients: CEOs, CFOs, CHROs, and CIOs.
If you think that you are ready to take the next step, Diane says to check out LinkedIn, search for ghostwriters, and see what comes up.
Check a ghostwriter’s website, referrals, and work samples.

About Diane

Diane Faulkner is a freelance business book ghostwriter, award-winning editor, and content marketing strategist for more than twenty years in North Florida. She has written about labor law, leadership, corporate culture, and human resources for various publications — trade journals, news outlets, magazines, companies, and websites.

If you want to know more about her, you can visit her website or call her at 904-233-3331. You can also send her an email to [email protected].

Enjoyed this Episode?

If you did, be sure to subscribe and share it with your friends!

Post a review and share it! If you enjoyed tuning in, then leave us a review. You can also share this with your friends and family so that they can gain more insights about starting and expanding their respective careers.

Have any questions? You can contact me through Facebook and LinkedIn. To request a show topic, recommend a guest, or ask a question for the show, please send an email to [email protected].

For more episode updates, visit my website. You may also tune in on Apple Podcasts.