adviceon selecting a ghost writer for my e-book project

[graham41]

Hi,

Would appreciate your advice on this one:

After doing some research, instead of buying a website I have decided to write my own original e-book on something that though i am not a qualified professional in, i have a great deal of experience in.

However, I feel that it may be too time consuming to write it on my own.

Or maybe not, not sure as like you i have a lot of other things going on.

Could you please advise on the whole ghost writer process for me and selecting one or am i over-complicating writing the e-book myself thing?

Thanks in adv

[Miguel Oliveira]

I agree with John, it's better to write it yourself. At least you know you will get what you want. Ghost writer's are dangerous -- if you go for cheat most of the times you will get a crappy eBook/article, and a good ghost writer is not only expensive but hard to find. If you do want a ghost writer, I recommend Elance, because from experience writers advertising themselves through their own page or other services won't be as good, and with Elance you get to chose.

[graham41]

Thanks Miguel,

BTW who is john?

[Robin E. Anderson]

Why go to Elance when there are ghostwriters who are fellow Warriors?

[Bev Clement]

Graham, I just did a teleseminar on the subject, and I will give you some of the advice which was discussed there.

One thing many people don't consider is their marketing strategy. How are you going to market this ebook, and how well do you think it is going to sell?

Why is this important?

Because if you launch the book and it only make $100 you don't want to pay more for your writer. If however you expect to make $10,000 then you'll have a slightly better idea of how much you can pay a writer.

Also, when you hire a ghostwriter remember they are writers and not mind readers, this is important to get a good product from them.

Miguel, I disagree with you saying you won't get as good from a person advertising on their own pages. How many writers have you hired from their own pages? Most of the top writers don't use Elance and other service providers, they have their own sites. From your logic I would suddenly become good, if I go to Elance and bid on all the projects and undercut my prices on my website. That is crazy. How many people have been hired from Elance and had terrible work provided?

[jacktackett]

Graham,
one thing that will help is to put together at the very least a high level outline of your book. An ebook is basically a technology - pdf etc. Its still a book so the process used in creating books is just as apt for ebooks as for traditional books.

An outline is the very minimal thing to start with. The more detailed, the better! Also don't be afraid to go visit a library or bookstore and look at other books in your subject area. Look at their table of contents for ideas. Amazon sometimes lists the TOC as well.

As I said, the more detailed the better. This will help you, or your writer, determine how many pages and time it will take to develop. You can then decide if you want to write this yourself or outsource.

Another thing to consider is recording your thoughts/the book first - and then having someone transcribe it. Once you have that transcription you can re-write it. Lots of writers will say that writing is really re-writing - aka editing.

No matter what - seriously consider creating a detailed outline to help in your process. I've written lots of books, ebooks, and help produce several books as well so please feel free to ask me any questions. I'm kinda busy for the next week but after that will help out in any way I can!

Good luck,
best,
--Jack

[summer07]

Just an idea for another approach...you could write the draft yourself, then hire a ghostwriter to edit, proofread, "clean it up", make recommendations for additional sections and format it for you.

Not all ghostwriters will do this, but if you ask around the forum here, many will. You could save some money, yet still get professional polish and some help getting your project completed and out the door.

Cheers,
Audre

[graham41]

Guys thank you you.

This is so helpful.

Infact yesterday. I looked up another e-book on the subject that I purchased 3 years ago. It wasvery powerful then and helped me alot , but it was too detailed.

I was considering using its framework as a generic template that I could modify to my specific proposition, writing the book in rough as advised here and getting some professional assistance from some-one here.

As stated I am very grateful for your insightful thoughts on the matter and will be contacting for advise as has been offered.

I am in the process of moving to a quieter part of Greater London i.e Ickenham, so hello to any warriors there. It may be a few weeks before I come calling for advice but I hope you remember this thread cause I'll need your help!!

BTW one warrior has contacted me privately and I will be contacting him as well but this house move this is a pain.

I like Ickenham -seems very gentle -no yobs

[MovieFreak]

Originally Posted by Robin E. Anderson

Why go to Elance when there are ghostwriters who are fellow Warriors?

Hi Robin,
may i ask you what is your price for 40 ebook pages rewriting? Pls PM me details.

Thanks for your time.

[Karen Connell]

Have a look through the offerings on Warriors For Hire - you may find exactly what you are looking for.

Good luck with your move.

Karen

[Miguel Oliveira]

Originally Posted by graham41

BTW who is john?

He was someone who had answered before me, but I guess his message was deleted or he was banned.

Why go to Elance when there are ghostwriters who are fellow Warriors?

I have some experience with Elance and I know you can look at various writer's jobs and compare them. I only ordered writing from WF twice, one time they were great, the other not so. But if you find a good Warrior writer with lots of samples, great, there is no reason to chose Elance over Warrior Forums.