Kindle outsourcing

Prices for ghostwriting will be all over the board, but in general, the higher the level of writing required, the greater the amount of research and/or knowledge needed, the higher the price will be. My general impression gathered from writers I know is that you can expect to pay a few hundred dollars for a decent manuscript.

As for the number of pages, that's not how it works. I can read my Kindle books on screens from my 7" tablet to my 17" auxiliary monitor, with variable font sizes. The number of screens will vary depending on the combination.

That said, when you upload your book to the Kindle market, they will attempt to estimate the number of pages the book would require if printed as a standard paperback. For example, the book in my sig is estimated at 58 pages. What I uploaded was basically one long web page.

Something that was suggested to me was to post your project as writing "articles" - not "books". You can generally get a much better price on articles than you can for writing something that would naturally be deemed more valuable, like a book.

You could advertise on Elance.com, Odesk.com, etc for a person that has a background in (your niche) and has strong research skills.

Be sure to ask for examples of their work. Example, you could have them write 3 articles of 1000 words each in order to check their writing style, how well they follow instructions, etc. Note: the minimum is $25.00 at Elance last tme I checked. That's why I recommended 3 articles. If it's really bad you'll only be out $30.00.

Also check their work portfolio, if they have one, to see what kind of projects they've done for others, the kind of feedback they've received, etc.

Once you've found someone to hire, be sure to have a written agreement that includes at least 1-2 rewrites, edits, etc. Some people request unlimited rewrites, but I think that's overkill. If you're really that unhappy with the work you should simply move on to the next writer.

In addition, you should set small project milestones. This breaks the project into smaller chunks. Example, if you had 20 articles of 1000 words that each you need written you should break it up into 4-5 parts. That way if the work quality begins to decline or if the relationship soured for another reason (hard to reach the writer, they're not following instructions carefully, making up excuses for not getting the work completed, etc) you can fire them and get out with only a minimal loss.

If you hire someone to write 20 articles of 1000 words each that's enough content for a book over 20,000 words. You could easily do this for $200.00 and get good quality work. You'd simply need to write an introduction and a summary at the end. I'd also add a simple "hook" after the introduction in order to let readers know what they're about to learn, what they should be able to accomplish when they've finished reading (if it's a "how to" book), etc to help to get them engaged. That's what I'd do, anyway.

Also, be sure to run each article through Copyscape.com premium service or Grammarly (mentioned below) to be sure it's not plagiarized.

Keep in mind, you'll still need to have the content edited and formatted and you'll need a really good book cover, as well. Not some Fiverr gig! Another Warrior member was kind enough to recommend using www.Grammerly.com for editing. I'm pretty sure you can get the formatting done on Fivver.com.

By the way, I've just begun to do this myself. Outsourcing the writing is something I learned about long ago through trial and error. Someone else taught me how to present the project for a book and everything else.

There are a couple great Kindle courses out there that you can buy. Geoff Shaw is awesome, though none of the advice above came from him. You can also check out Steve Scott at www.SteveScottSite.com for more great information.

Everyone else feel free to chime in if they have additional or better resources than I mentioned. Once again, I'm just getting started with this myself.

HTH,

Joe

You either want "low budget, low quality" or you want "fair budget and good quality."
It would be rare to find something in between so figure out if price is your driving factor and then make your decision.

Having said that, I write "per word" and not "per page" because, as has been said, a page can have 200-600 words.

It also depends on your topic, how much direction you give the writer and how much knowledge they have in the niche. I hope that all makes sense and helps a little.

It is not necessary that the first book you publish on Kindle is going to earn you a large amount of revenue. In fact most Kindle authors have been successful only after publishing 3-4 books.

If you're starting out it may be better for you to begin with offering a service. This will form a source of income for you that will help you to spend on expenses associated with outsourcing.

don't think you'd wanna go below $10 per 1,000 words..