After having around this forum, I recently decided that I want to publish my own eBook and (hopefully) make a decent living of it. The topic is about entrepreneurship and small business because that is something I passionate about and I see a huge potential market there. I already have a rough concept in my hand, but it’s no more than 10 pages, not in chronological and structured order, and full of grammar and spelling mistakes. I’m not a native speaker and my writing skill is terrible. I probably will need someone to rewrite and develop my sketch into a 50-pages full report. I think it would be much better and effective if I let someone else to do this job to me. My question is, have you ever ghostwrite your own report/eBook to someone else? If so, how much do you typically pay for services like that? Where do you find high qualified writers that you can trust? I need some input and looking forward to hearing from you. Thank in advance.
To be honest, the Content Creation section will probably do, providing you find a good person. There are lots of people in there who say they are excellent at English grammar, but they aren't, so my advice would be to try and find a native English speaker and ask to see his/her samples, at least then you know for sure that you will be getting quality...
For that size of e-book I have charged my clients $600 before - I offer clients full rights to the product, I will not even use them as samples when looking for new contracts. I think this is a good sum for a e-book of around 50 pages, but you'll probably be able to find a writer who will do it for a lot less, just be careful who you hire. Make sure they are a professional.
E-lance has some good ghostwriters that I have used before. Just make sure they understand the concept of the ebook before you let them begin on it or else it might end up being a different message entirely (happened to me once) Scott
Many thanks for your valuable comments. I appreciate it. I have another question: How do you usually pay your ghostwriters? Is it 100% upfront or 50-50 or what?
@ widget - Ghostwriter fees vary, as does their payment schedule. I typically charge 25-50-25. It works well for me and my clients like to see what they're getting early on to make sure the draft is heading the direction they have envisioned. As for cost, keep in mind that it depends on how much you are providing the writer. I just finished ghostwriting an 80+ ebook for $1800. All I was given was an outline (that I still had to flesh out further) and some urls to research. Research AND writing were my responsibility. So I was paid accordingly. If you only have 10 pages of content and expect it to be fleshed out to a 50 + page book, then to keep costs down you will want to provide as much in terms of notes and research as possible. You can get it cheaper, of course. But you may have to sacrifice writing and organizational quality in order to do so. It's all dependent on your needs (and of course, your budget).
I was recently commissioned for an ebook and am splitting the payment. I asked for the research and first draft fee up front and then will be charging an hourly rate for the editing once my client has read the first draft and given me their thoughts and change requests. Like others have said, the price depends on the writer and the project. Make sure, especially for a project like an ebook (that can run you $$$), that you see previous work by each writer you are considering. The last thing you want is to hire someone who will turn around and give you fifty pages of spun copy from an article creator!
IOP is seeking to publish original content so I don't see how PLR ebooks or reports can contribute developing this work. By the way, I would say that hiring a pro is the way to go if you want to play safe with your original idea.
Check elance.com However my preferred method is to write an ebook and then get it proofread. Good luck