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Serious freelance writers know their income may come from other sources, not just writing articles for magazines or clients. Ultimately, their freelance writing leads to writing books or e-books for themselves or as ghostwrites. If you decide to ghostwrite e-books and trade paperbacks for clients, consider the following:

If a client hires you as a “work-for-hire” ghostwriter, then the client pays you for your work, and he owns all rights. Make sure: 1) You receive a 50% retainer before you begin the work; and 2) You receive the balance at or right before delivery. That’s it. If the book turns out to be a great success, great! That’s wonderful! You should be extremely proud — but from a distance! To be a successful ghostwriter, you must enjoy your glory as a ghostwriter in the shadows. Many ghostwriters prefer it that way.

I know a great speaker in the industry who commands $10,000 or more per speaking engagement. He is phenomenal to listen to and even more dynamite to read. However, he doesn’t write his books alone. He contributes to them but he never writes any of them himself. His ghostwriter, Shelly, is known only to a few writers in a close-knit writer’s group. Why does Shelly let this speaker take all the glory for her work? She is painfully shy and exceedingly talented as a writer. She once said, “I am where I need to be and he is where he should be.” If you are going to ghostwrite, stay where you belong (invisible) and accept payment for the job as payment enough.

TIP #1: As a ghostwriter, you should always try to meet the needs of the true “author” of the work. Cover the content they want and do your best to make the client happy.

TIP #2: As with writing any book, ghostwriting involves lot of revisions and changes as far out as two months, especially if the book needs to go through an editor or publisher. You should make changes as needed. However, don’t wait on final payment if your client hasn’t received final approval from his publisher.

TIP #3: Always write your ghostwrites as if they are your own. Write with quality and professionalism in mind.

TIP #4: Never sign a non-compete contract on the subject of the book. It is crazy for the client to ask but crazier for you to do it. If a client asks for one, walk away. You have your own work to protect as well as the client’s work. Remember the saying, “to thine own self be true”? Well, in writing, there’s no truer statement.

TIP #5: You owe the client exceptional work and the client you work for owes you money for a job well done.

TIP #6: If your client is dissatisfied with the end result, even after he’s paid you, make it right for the client. Satisfied clients usually become repeat clients; they will bring you steady work and referrals.

TIP #7: Consider using a pen name as a ghostwriter. Jeanine Anne, a freelance writer and ghostwriter, said she uses a pen name when she ghostwrites. She said, “I’ve written most of my ghostwrites and presented them to my clients under my pen name, Jeanine Anne. First, if someone decides to spam me, there’s no harm done to the name for which I write my own work under. Secondly, when I write for a client, I have no idea what the client will do to the work, after all it is his work once it leaves my hands. The client may add content which I may not like or he may write something that is not my style of writing.” This is something to remember if you write for clients as ghostwrites. The client hires you to do a job and the client owns the work after it leaves your hands.

You can find many ghostwriting gigs on .FreelanceWriting.com, Elance.com, Guru.com, GetAFreelancer.com, Indeed.com, .WritingCareer.com, and CraigsList.com. The other way is to create your own ghostwriting gigs by networking and marketing.

The two central pillars in effective personal marketing are the establishment of credibility and the quest for exposure. You could have a large business or you could be an independent professional. You could be selling a product or a service. Regardless why you’re marketing yourself, writing a non-fiction book is one of the best ways to achieve those two pillars.

Writing a non-fiction book is a daunting exercise. But most people don’t understand the extent to which it will change your life forever. Writing your first book happens only once in your life, if ever. And those who have done so will tell you their lives break down into before the book and after the book. Everything changes once you have written your first book.

The title of this article singles out non-fiction books and there’s a reason for that. Authors of fiction works get tremendous benefits from the effort as well but the finished product validates their writing ability and their creativity, nothing else. For the authors of non-fiction books, the finished product validates their writing ability and their personal knowledgebase. In other words, it positions them as an expert in their field. That feeds directly into effective personal marketing, which is the objective behind this discussion.

Once you have written and published your first book, you will forever more be referred to as an author. No longer will you be a regular human being like everybody else. No. From then on, you will be part of an exclusive club. You will be an author. That label will be used in written references to your name. It will be used when introductions are made. And it will be used when people talk about you behind your back.

Being an author comes with an automatic baseline of respect from most of your peers, whether they know you or not. But it comes with more than that. It comes with immediate credibility within the topic. And if you’re in a professional field, the days of justifying your expertise will come to an end. In fact, the days of looking for new clients may come to an end as well.

Books are a tremendous tool to leverage your time. The finished product presents your knowledge in a structured and optimized format. But at the time it is received by the reader, it requires no effort by you. The reader can read your book while you’re on vacation or sleeping. Indeed, you invest the time and energy once but then you reap the rewards over and over again. That allows countless perfect strangers to experience your highest intellect, all at the same time.

Writing a book also opens the door to a variety of other opportunities that might be quite different than your underlying profession. Not only can the book be sold, leaving you with a profit, but it can position you for speaking engagements in your area of expertise. These opportunities can be very profitable and position you as an industry guru rather than an actual practitioner.

Admittedly, some people would prefer not to be such a guru and that’s fine. But writing a book gives you that option. You can choose either path. You can publish the book and remain in the trenches, doing the same work as before except with tremendous new-found credibility, or you can accept the opportunities and redefine your identity around your new position.

Writing a book is a big job to say the least but it will change your life forever. Tactical Execution provides a lot of guidance aspiring authors can use to complete the job and promote the finished product. Please visit the website to take advantage of the resources available there.

So you’ve made the decision to publish your own community magazine, but what now? Where do you go for advice, information and above all, inspiration?

Despite its growing popularity, the business of publishing local community magazines is not covered to any great extent on the internet and there are very few web sites where you can get informal advice and communicate with like-minded people. Unlike normal publishing, the business of publishing local community magazines is very often the domain of individuals working alone for much of the time, and it can become a solitary existence.

Basically, there are two types of local community magazines favoured by aspiring local publishers. The first comprises booklets, usually in A5 size, containing local trade and business advertisements, and this type of magazine is generally distributed around your local area free of charge, with income being made from advertising revenue alone.

There are several franchise opportunities available for this type of community magazine which can prove to be a great way to get started as almost everything you will require is included in the package, including software, advertisement templates and on-going support. The drawback to this type of opportunity is the initial cost of your investment, which can be as high as several thousand pounds. A number of companies now offer local community magazine publishing franchises and a search on the internet will enable you to obtain further information from those readily available.

The second type of local community magazine offers a much more personal reflection on your community, comprising the recollections of local people and a study of your town’s local history, which are compiled into a saleable product. It is unlikely that you will find a franchise opportunity available for this type of magazine and if you decide to go along this path then much of the groundwork will have to be done by yourself. However, in terms of overall interest, this type of magazine will offer much more appeal to your readers.

Establishing a local community magazine featuring the recollections of people from within your home community along with studies of your town’s local history can be accomplished with very little financial investment. It is possible to begin printing your magazines from home using a suitable laser printer until you have established a circulation sufficient to meet the cost of commercial printing. Even if you opt for commercial printing from the outset your initial investment could be relatively small.

The main difference between these two very different types of magazines is that one is distributed free of charge, while the second has to be marketed and sold, although as we have already learned, the second type of magazine produces a very saleable product.

A magazine based primarily on local advertising can be highly lucrative but the competition can be intense as there are already a large number of similar publications in circulation and you may well find yourself competing against large-scale organisations. On the other hand, a magazine featuring personal recollections will generally have very little, if any, competition.

Whichever option you choose there is a fair amount of work to be done in order to become established. You must either contact local businesses and sell your advertising space or you must obtain interesting accounts of your town for publication. As always, getting started is the most difficult part.

In terms of appeal among your intended audience, the more personal community magazine is easily the better option and can soon generate sufficient interest to ensure that once you have obtained content to begin publishing, additional content will be submitted directly to you by your readers.

It must be borne in mind that a magazine based on advertising can also incorporate features providing local interest, and in much the same way, a magazine featuring personal recollections can include local trade and business advertising as a source of supplementary income.

Publishing local community magazines can either be simply a business or a very enjoyable and extremely satisfying business - but that is for you to decide.

As an author, it’s never fun to get your manuscript back with red through all of your precious words. In fact, it’s probably one of the worst moments you can have as a writer. Self-doubt can fill you and make you wonder why you ever bothered to write such poor quality stuff. But don’t fret. Just because there is a mass of red markings doesn’t mean that your work is poor quality.

Other author’s are not only your best resource; they arealso your best source of support. The life of a writer can be difficult at times, full of ups and downs and the desire to throw in the towel. Chances are if you talk to another author they would not only give you great tips and advice, they will offer you the support and encouragement we all need when we put ourselves out there as we do when we present our writing.

One way that authors support each other is to review each other’s work. A second set of eyes and objective opinion are always worth having. Too many times when authors get their manuscripts back, they feel discouraged. The one sure way to avoid this is to realize three things:

First, it is one person’s opinion.

Second, if you stand back and consider suggestions made you might see something that you didn’t before.

Third, it’s a learning experience. Every author should learn something from each critique offered.

As the author, you have complete control over whether you want to make a change in your story or you don’t. When reading someone’s assessment of your work, if you don’t feel the same about a person’s comments, just skip it and move on to the next suggestion. If several people make the same suggestion, then you may want to rethink your lack of desire to make a change.

Don’t allow personal feelings to prevent you from getting the most out of critiques. It can be difficult when you have worked so hard to perfect a scene and others don’t see the perfection that you do. In this case, it is best to take a step back. Don’t make changes right away, or close your mind to suggestions made. Give yourself a day or two, keep working, see where your story is going and then go back and look at the critique once again.

There is a reason that authors write in drafts. First drafts are meant to be changed and torn apart. So are second, third and fourth drafts. A manuscript isn’t complete until you as the author feel it is what is should be. In each draft, that you write you should learn something about your characters, your setting, your plot and ultimately your writing style. When you allow others to review your draft, allow yourself to learn. Store away ideas, techniques and phrases to use in your revisions.

Keep in mind your goal when reading through another’s analysis of your work. You are preparing your manuscript for the biggest reviewers of all–a publisher. It is an authors job to give a publisher the cleanest manuscript possible. Remember when a publisher considers your piece for publication; they will take into account the amount of editing time necessary. If an author has presented a piece that will require an excessive amount of editing, there is a great possibility that the manuscript will be rejected.

Finally, goal achieved you have received a contract on your manuscript. You may think that the majority of your work is done. The reality is, you have only just begun. Once a manuscript is accepted by a publishing company, the next step is for an editor to be assigned. An editor will be nit-picky. They will analyze every word, every comma, sentence structure, phrases and writing style. Your editor’s job to take what you have written and make it the best it can possibly be.

It’s not uncommon for the niggling feelings of self-doubt to return when you receive your ‘perfected’ manuscript back from the editor, once again torn apart. Bear in mind that if your work was not good, it would not have been accepted. An editor is that final set of eyes that will read your work before it goes to publication. They want to make sure that you have a book that will sell.

Once again when reading an editors comments, look at it from an objective point of view. Talk to other authors who have supported you along the way, and think of an editor’s suggestions as help rather than criticism. At this point, you still have the power to decide what changes you will and will not make, however, it is in your best interest to strongly consider advice an editor gives.

Writing is not a field for those without tough skin. Even those with tough skin can fall into the trap of self-criticism when they receive their work marked up beyond recognition. But if you take the time to learn from those red marks, the chances of your next edit being less “bloody” are good. Don’t give up! Keep writing, it will keep you motivated despite the less than wonderful feedback you might sometimes receive.

If you are a student, writing a book report is something you will probably have to do at some time whether you want to or not.It has never been a favorite activity for most but it is always valuable. It is valuable because it allows you to think about the book you have read, in terms of the setting, characters, plot and finally examine your feelings and thoughts about what you have read. You learn how to give an analysis and develop your own point of view. Is it any wonder that teachers continue to give students book report assignments? With this in mind let’s examine the components that will allow you to write good book reports.

Writing a Book Report is in some ways similar to writing a review. You don’t want to give away the entire plot. However you do want to give an effective summary and give a firm analysis of the story.

The first thing you should do is to tell the title of the book and the author, the year the book was published and state whether the work is fiction or non-fiction. A book report should tell your readers about the setting of the story, that is, the country, state or city in which it takes place. You should also mention the time frame in which the story takes place. Is the story set in our time, the past or the future? You need to report on the main character or protagonist. Who is this person? Describe their character but never give away too much detail. You can report on other characters as well, discuss their role in the story but remember not to give away too much here either.

When writing a book report your feelings and point of view become very important. Which part of the story did you enjoy the most? Why did you enjoy it? Who was your favorite character? Why was this person your favorite character? A book report requires that you examine the impact that a story has had on you personally. Some other questions you should ask yourself are: What did you learn from the story? Did it teach you anything that you think would be valuable to your daily life? If it did don’t hesitate to mention it. What were the strong points and what were the weaknesses that you found?

Every story thrives on conflict. Conflict is necessary for good drama. In writing your book report you must speak about the conflict or conflicts in the story. Again you want to summarize and not go into unnecessary details. Conflict in a story is usually resolved in some way by the end of the story. Here you can also summarize the resolution and give your opinion on why you think the conflict was resolved satisfactorily or unsatisfactorily. If you don’t like the way the conflict was resolved you may suggest other ways it could have been resolved.

Book reports can sometimes seem like a chore but if you use the steps outlined above it should make the whole process a lot easier.

Most of us have dreams of writing a book one day but the statistics verify that the vast majority never complete the task. There are lots of reasons for this failure but one of the most important is that would-be authors have heard that publishers accept only a tiny percentage of the book proposals they receive. People have heard how difficult it can be and they give up on the task as a result.

Technology has changed a lot of things in the publishing industry, not to mention just about every other industry you can imagine. Not only is it easier for an entrepreneur to start a book publishing company but the costs of printing a small number of books has come down dramatically, allowing authors to avoid the prohibitive minimums that used to characterize the book printing business.

With these recent developments in mind, we need to re-introduce would-be authors to the new book-publishing landscape so they can re-evaluate the possibility of finally making their dream a reality. This article will review the three primary ways of getting a book published in the modern world. Future articles will cover the opportunities and challenges of each strategy.

The first way of getting a book published is the path that has existed for years and years. There are a number of huge publishing houses including Penguin, Random House and McGraw Hill that can do the job. But these industry elephants only work with proven authors and generally require you have a literary agent before they’ll even review the proposal. Of course, the upside is that these publishing giants are well respected, leaving you with better credibility and preferential shelf space within the major retailers.

The second strategy is to use a smaller independent publisher. There are more and more of these popping up everyday and they tend to specialize in one genre or another. Of course, there’s a wide variety of publishers within this category &ndash some very small and others quite well established &ndash but they all generally have full distribution channels in place, allowing your book to reach the same shelves as the big boys. Proposals are sent directly to the Acquisitions Editor for consideration and literary agents are optional.

The last strategy is by far the most common: self-publishing. Because printing minimum order quantities have come down so much in recent years, authors can quickly and easily print a few copies of their new book and risk less money than ever before. Obviously, this virtually eliminates one of the major barriers to entry and an estimated 90% of all books being published today are self-published.

The clear upside is that nobody can reject your proposal. If you want to write it and print it, go right ahead. And in many cases, the printing houses you would use to get the book put on paper have respectable distribution channels in place as well, meaning your book could theoretically reach the same shelves as those published by larger publishing companies. The downside is a lower degree of credibility but for many, that’s a small price to pay for their dream to get realized.

The important thing to remember is that regardless of the publishing method you choose, the majority of the marketing effort is left to the author. Even with the industry majors, it’s the author’s job to promote and sell his or her book. So if you have ambitions to publish your own book, sit down and think about how you’re going to sell it. If you have an answer to that question, you have a much better chance of getting accepted by the big boys.

My publishing journey has been unusual enough that friends and publicists alike have suggested I write about it, especially the part about being a man writing love stories in a woman’s genre. But it’s not just the genre. The whole publishing and agency world I encountered was dominated by women. Sound interesting enough? Okay. There’s just one little hitch. Now that I’m sitting in front of the keyboard, I find that there’s not much to tell that’s dramatic. Most of the women editors treated me fairly, and I worked well with the ones who gave me room to turn in.

If anything, being a man may have given me a certain advantage, you know, from a novelty standpoint. Not only was I a male engineer (of all things!), with no detectable writing credentials, daring to show up with a love story, but I was touting it as a love story unlike any other, one written of love at a higher level. Well, at least it made them look up from their keyboards. Even from clear across the Internet’s vast ether, I could feel their skeptical smiles.

I did have advantages related to temperament. Women have always been my epitome of beauty, and I have long admired the feminine spirit and disposition, the nobility of her biological calling, the sophistication of her romantic instinct. As a result, I have always worked well with women. Plus I am grateful. Everything I ever learned about romantic love at a higher level I learned from a woman.

The other advantage I had was acquired: I had studied love stories for decades and I knew the intricacies and jargon of the genre. At one point, an editor who was intrigued by my sample chapters started an e-mail conversation that escalated to a phone discussion. I knew this was curiosity bringing opportunity to my door. She was a Romance novelist as well as a Romance editor, so I was nervous as I dialed her office number. I could tell that she was surprised then delighted to meet a man who could discuss nuances of love story plot and characterization ranging from risk factors in portraying heroines as less than physically perfect, to pet theories for best lead up to denouement. I knew before the conversation was over that she would offer a contract. Not only did I address some reservations she had about my characters, but I had done so in the professional jargon she knew. As a result, she knew she could work with me for the editorial portion of the project.

With all this said, let me offer an opinion based on what I experienced. To the question about whether the bar is higher for a man writing in this genre, I would say yes, at least in a certain sense. If you are a man who writes mediocre romances, then I think it will be harder for you to get published than a mediocre woman writer. But if you are a man producing material that matches the top ten percent of the genre, then the reservations that woman editors naturally have about you won’t matter. You will get the consideration you deserve. Know the audience you are targeting. That counts for a lot. And be sure you can defend the theory you have chosen for how you spun your characters and how you wove your plot.