Lessons Learned Hiring Ghostwriters
Or: How I Hired a Ghostwriter to Write About How I Hired a Ghostwriter
Hi, I’m Andrew. I’m a digital entrepreneur. Now, I’m a writer. I’m writing this article the exact same way I wrote a book.
Say hello Robert “Hi.” That’s Robert, one of many ghostwriters I hired to help me write the book.
Just to recap, I’m Andrew and I’m talking. Robert is writing. And you’re reading.
I’m going to tell you how I did what seemed impossible to do just a few months ago. That is: Release my first self-published book: IG For Businesses: 12 essays to teach businesses to grow and sell more on Instagram. I’m going to tell you exactly how I did it, all the dirty details. I’m even going to tell you how much it cost me to hire writers and how much it cost me to hire Robert to write this. I’ll let Robert tell you.
“It was $50.” — Robert, The Ghostwriter
Before you ask me why I didn’t just write the book myself, I’ll tell you. I tried. Just kept thinking about it, writing outline after outline, but could never really get started writing the actual book. The core. The central theses. After four months, a few long plane rides through asia and hours sitting at my computer, I had dozens of small paragraphs, and outlines, oh gosh so many outlines, spread out over a bunch of Google docs and sheets. I outlined and outlined and planned and planned…and had one massive headache.
I like talking about this stuff, not writing about it. Clients literally pay for my thoughts and expertise. I like hearing their responses and responding to them in real time. A computer just stares.
By Spring of 2017, the book was becoming a giant beast, and I needed help. I needed a miracle if I was ever going to slay the beast. In month 2 of my writing period I joined Product300: A mastermind led by master of digital products, Chris Osborne, founder of GrowthList and FoundersGrid.
Each week, on the call, I would relate what my progress was. “Slowly” is a good word for it. “Stuck” is another word. Chris would propose something poignant each and every time, without fail. In Month 3 he recommended I cut from 22 probable chapters to 12 doable chapters. Which felt scary when he said it but absolutely freeing the moment I accomplished it. What could he come up with next?
In Month 4, I received the advice that would finally help me slay the beast. Chris said, “Why don’t you get someone to interview you for 4 hours and write an essay.” BOOM! Like angels heralding. It just clicked. All the information I wanted to put in the book was born out of conversations, why didn’t I just make it conversational? Why not get someone to interview me? It’s just perfect. Immediately I was on this!
During the next few minutes we discussed:
Who to Find: Native English Speaking Writers with a Journalist background.
How to Find Them: Craigslist ads.
Where to Find Them: South East Asia.
Expats want small projects and will do it for much less than freelance counterparts in U.S.A. While on the mastermind call I wrote and submitted the first ad, see it here. We waited. Chris mentioned he got a hundred replies from his similar attempt to find writers this way.
The beast’s days were numbered. I could see the book being written in a dreamy kind of way. I went to sleep that night thinking the worst was over. Day 1 of my new life was starting in just a few hours. It was not all sunshine and rainbows. My quest was not over, by a long shot.
While I slept, almost nothing happened. Like Chris, I was expecting hundreds of applications. In reality I got about 2 a day. Which is not a failure. I posted another with slight variations a few days later. Even a month later I was still getting applications. It’s steady. And I found wonderful people to work with. That’s all I cared about.
I took a queue from noah kagan’s great essay on how he hires. I had a key phrase for the writer to use in their subject email to me. If it didn’t have it, I skipped it. This saved me a lot of time with people who just didn’t read the ad.
If they had the right keyword, I’d briefly read their email and then send them a challenge. I asked them to read 15 tactics on social media, (reading time around 6 minutes). Pick one and respond to it in a google doc in only about 3–5 sentences. Could they follow my instructions and use Google Docs? Also I looked for how they organized their thoughts. I said this to them in the email request.
If they completed the google doc challenge for me. I said I’d like to get on the phone within a couple days and that this was paid.
Once I started getting a handful of people to send me google docs,I got scared again. I was scared to do a 4 hour interview with someone I never knew. In the ad I offered $100 for the final essay and asked for a four hour interview. Instead of just picking one person and going all the way with them, I broke it up into 1 hour sessions, paid at $25 each. I asked that they talk with me for an hour, record the conversation, write a 500 word draft and 10 questions.
This way we could test each other out to see if we wanted to continue working together. It gave them the ability to stop the process at anytime if they choose to do so. I also had to agree to move on after each draft. Each step was a test for both of us. Did they send a draft on time? Would I pay on time? Was the material easy enough for them to write in less than hour?
Before the first call I’d write an outline. I would send that outline to the writer just before the call. Why not send it a day or two before the call? I didn’t want to waste their time. If they got it, they’d read it and think about the material. One writer even said he’d do research. I didn’t want him doing that. They are writing an essay I should be writing. Bringing outside information unapproved by me is going to just cause problems. I’d also send a brief email beforehand explaining that we’d talk for 10–15 minutes to get to know each other and then I would relate for 30–45 minutes the topic at hand.
Here’s how it usually went:
First Meeting:
We talk for 15 minutes or so, to get to know each other a little (this might be business, but we’re still people). I’ll also describe the context a bit. Then, 30 to 45 minutes of going over the topic sticking to the outline as best I could. I’d even keep notes and after the conversation email the notes I kept. Just short little things that I could see was not in the outline.
First Draft:
Within 48 hours I requested 500 words and 10 questions. The questions, I tell them, should range between asking clarifying questions, asking to explain something again, to asking for examples. I was actually surprised at the quality of questions they asked. Almost everyone gave me great questions to work with. During the call I would sometimes stop and say “Here’s what a good question might be”. I think it helped ease them into writing the questions which before the call might have sounded daunting.
After I end the call, I pay. Instead of waiting for the draft I felt that they had already put in substantial work in doing the call and I had gotten a good amount of value by just being able to go through the topic. Nobody burned me.
My belief, is that the payment before the draft freed up the writer to get out of their own head and just produce the work for me. It might feel odd writing about a topic they don’t know and perhaps thought they couldn’t do a good job. In reality the first drafts were all terrible. We had 3 more sessions to fix it.
Only once did a writer give me really broad questions and didn’t include any questions I mentioned might be good questions. This immediately ruled that writer out for any additional work. Two other writers were not native english speakers and didn’t understand 40% of what I was relating to them. I gave them a chance because their samples were good. They also didn’t get invited for more drafts. I told them this and they were all thankful for the opportunity.
I did not edit anything about the first draft. Sure, I could have taken 3 hours to edit and sculpt it into a workable piece of writing but it’s just not worth it. The writing just shows me what they heard. If I find that the writing is wrong, it’s really that I was lacking in my explanation. Fixing the writing isn’t going to solve anything. I need to fix how I relate the material.
Second meeting:
I will usually have 2 to 3 notes for myself to clarify or explain something in better detail. It’s at the 2nd meeting that I discuss possibly restructuring the esay and ask that they restructure it for the 2nd draft.
Most of this 2nd hour long meeting is answering the questions they brought up. If I really know my topic well I can keep the answers to under 5 minutes which allows follow up questions, filling the 60 minutes allotted for the meeting.
Second Draft: I’m still not editing grammar here or even trying to redlining. I could but at this point it’s better to spend time rewording my explanation of a topic. I’m making notes on clarity and if they say something that is just wrong.
I’ll make notes as to the structure of the essay too. If I get a good structure in time for the 3rd meeting, I’ll know it by their reaction. It makes sense to them now. I make notes if a section is light on content. I will go into more detail in our next meeting. Even though they heard it maybe they don’t realize it’s an important part.
Third Meeting: I honestly tried to keep these meetings 45 minutes or less. Sometimes if there are more follow up questions we can go longer. The writers aren’t interested in hearing more than they need to. I found that I stuck with the writers who were inherently interested in the subject. I didn’t get to a 3rd meeting unless we both felt good about it.
Each chapter ended up with 2–4 major points. Before our meeting I’m deleting whole paragraphs to get to the point. And then spending 5–10 minutes on that point again. The 4th meeting will be about tidying up but for now we need to make sure the content is all in there.
Third Draft: It gets serious. I felt structure needs to be in place, At this point it’s too late to introduce new ideas. If I have talked for 3 hours about a topic and didn’t talk about something, it’s not important. The questions I get shouldn’t be about explaining anything deeper, they should be about examples, more examples, better examples, or clarifying subjects. It’s also this draft where I do major redlining. Hopefully by this point we have between 1,500 and 2,000 words. And it’s time to do major cutting! Redline and read through every single line twice or three times.
Fourth Meeting: At the beginning I thought this final meeting would be hard. It’s actually really easy. By now, the writer and I are both at the same level of knowledge about this topic. And I know this is the last time you’ll talk so just getting to the point is easy. If something is yet to be explained, I cut it. And it’s not too much pressure because while it’s the last time I have a chance to get something across, there might be two more sessions with other people, Designer and Editor. The Editor can fix some things, but it’s up to me right now to make sure I’ve covered the subject as well as I can.
Fourth and Final Draft: I get what I get. It’s done. We wrote the first draft of my essay, a chapter a the book. While the writer feels like it’s their last and final draft, for me, it’s the First Draft.
Now, I’ve told you about the experience from my perspective. But, what about the ghostwriter’s perspective. I’ll hand it over to Robert to let you in on what the process was like for him. Take it away Rob.
“Hi, I’m Robert. This was the first time I had ever written something for someone else. The chapter I wrote of the book and this article were both totally new experiences for me. I had never used Instagram before. I prefer fiction over reality. It was a struggle at the start, figuring out how to take notes, what things were important, what things could be left out, what things had to be put in. Although the questions were most important to Andrew, for me, it was the recordings of our conversations. No matter what, whenever we were through talking, I could never seem to remember what we had talked about. It was only after listening to the recording that I was able to really get what was important.
The first draft felt awkward, since I was trying to use Andrew’s voice and not my own. I just put down whatever seemed like it was right and tried to focus on the ten questions, since that was what Andrew was focused on.
Notes ranged from small corrections, to structural things, to saying flat out a part wasn’t right. He was never harsh about it, but he always told me what needed a fix. He never gave me a strict deadline, but he did always ask if I could get something to him within a couple of days. I’m not a fast writer, so, most of the time I was at least half a day late.
On a business note, I can say quite happily, he always paid me for what I did. Every interview/draft combo was twenty five dollars. I didn’t have to beg him for it either. It made me work harder knowing that Andrew was keeping up his end of the bargain. It also made me feel a bit of pressure. I didn’t want to hand him a lousy draft after he had paid me.
It wasn’t always easy, but working with Andrew was a good experience for me and I’m glad he gave me a chance. I’ll pass it back to Andrew to finish this off.”
Thanks Robert, I hope all of you who read this article learned something. I’d like to thank all the writers who helped me slay the hideous beast. This story is not over yet. I’m still going through the final 6 chapters with one of the writers I discovered this way. I’ll see you in four weeks to tell you how I, we, slay the rest of the beast.
Want to read the book? check out my other medium posts. Posted all 12 chapters here in Medium
Thank you Robert, Chris, and all the Ghostwriters for getting me this far.
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