Ahoy and happy Monday!
Welcome to another week of Start Writing Online—where every week we dive into the biggest problems all writers face stopping them from writing on the internet, building an audience, and monetizing their writing.
(And, of course, if you want to defeat these problems and master the fundamentals of Digital Writing in just 30 days, we'd love to have you in the next cohort of Ship 30 for 30!)
This week, we want to show you the quickest way to monetize your talents as a writer.
We get this question all the time:
"Dickie... Cole... What's the fastest way to start monetizing my skills as a writer?"
And you might immediately think:
- Digital products
- Paid newsletters
- Affiliate marketing
But ultimately, all these options boil down to becoming a full-time creator.
The truth is, the creator game takes time.
Even when you're doing all the right things, it will take some time for compounding to do its work and for your Opportunity Flywheel to start generating income on autopilot.
So how can you start earning some extra cash right now?
You might look outside of writing, to other income streams like:
- Real estate
- Dropshipping
- Investing in crypto or the stock market
Again, these options take time AND require some initial up-front investment—and typically means putting some of your cash at risk.
But luckily, there is another (lucrative) path you can take—one that’s suited to every type of writer.
The way to level up your earnings in the short term and get paid to keep sharpening your writing skills:
Premium Ghostwriting.
This is a lucrative way of monetizing your skills as a writer. If you know how to position yourself and solve your client’s problems, you can easily make $5k-$20k per month.
Let’s dive into the 5 reasons why Premium Ghostwriting is the quickest and easiest way to start monetizing as a writer:
Reason 1: Ghostwriting has low start-up costs.
Your start-up and running costs for a one-person ghostwriting business are tiny.
Here’s what you need to get started:
- An email address—free.
- A social media account (like on X or LinkedIn)—free
- A website builder like Carrd—only $9 per year
That’s all you need.
This is a small upfront cost compared to other ways of making money, either online or in “real life”.
And even if other businesses (like digital products, crypto, or real estate) might seem more lucrative, they take time to compound.
This leads us to our second reason.
Reason 2: Ghostwriting is a shorter path to success.
Let’s dig a little deeper into how long it will take you to make money as a ghostwriter.
There is nothing stopping you from going out today and using your social media account to find your first ghostwriting client. Hundreds of millions of people and businesses need help with their digital writing, scaling their message, capturing leads, converting customers, and standing out online.
So as long as you:
- Pick an expensive problem that your potential clients need solving
- Pitch those clients and explain why they need to solve that problem
- Educate the client on how you solve that problem
Then you can start landing $5,000 clients quicker than you’ll be able to sell a digital product or scale your paid newsletter.
Reason 3: Ghostwriting gives you time freedom.
As a Premium Ghostwriter, you don’t charge by word or by the hour.
You charge by outcome.
Here’s a quick breakdown of the different Pricing Levels you have as a Ghostwriter:
Most writers are stuck at Levels 1 to 3.
But as a Premium Ghostwriter, you move between Level 4 and Level 5. At these levels, you create an asset for your clients—an asset that generates an outcome. The clients don’t care about how many hours you work or how many words you write. All they care about is whether they have the asset and/or outcome they are paying you for.
This means as you become more efficient as a ghostwriter, you can work fewer hours but still charge more for your expertise.
This is how you reach $20,000 months while working only a few hours a day.
Reason 4: Ghostwriting gives you location freedom.
Your ghostwriting business can be 100% digital:
- You can do your outreach online
- You can do your sales calls online
- You can deliver your services online
This means you’re able to work from anywhere you want.
Not being tied to a particular location and having the time freedom we saw above means you have full flexibility while earning good money as a writer.
Reason 5: Ghostwriting is a skill accelerator.
When you start any business, you will learn a ton.
As long as you’re taking action (and not stuck in the “learning” phase), then your business ideas and strategy will be tested when they make contact with reality. You will learn all about how to run a business along the way. But again, all the other ways of making money we spoke about earlier take time and the feedback loops are a lot longer (think about the timeline for investing, for example).
With ghostwriting, you can start today and build all these skills:
- Perfecting cold outreach
- Mastering sales calls
- Building a content marketing machine
- Providing premium customer service & delivery
All of this is on top of honing your writing skills.
These skills will work for you over and over again, no matter the direction you take in your career and life.
So, when we’re asked: “What’s the quickest way to monetize my skill as a writer?”
The simple (and only) answer is:
Premium Ghostwriting.
And if you want help landing your first high-ticket client, then we have a free email course for you.
Click here to get instant access to our Premium Ghostwriting Blueprint: 5 Steps To Land Your First $5,000 Client
That's it for today!
Chat next week!
–Dickie Bush & Nicolas Cole
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