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    I Am Ghost: How to Make a Living as a Ghostwriter
    I Am Ghost: How to Make a Living as a Ghostwriter
    I Am Ghost: How to Make a Living as a Ghostwriter
    Ebook64 pages44 minutes

    I Am Ghost: How to Make a Living as a Ghostwriter

    By Darin Michael Shaw

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    About this ebook

    Darin Michael Shaw walked away from his day job and launched his freelance writing career from scratch. Today he is a sought after literary ghost and collaborator—a successful freelance writer.

    In his book I Am Ghost: How to Make a Living as a Ghostwriter, Darin Michael Shaw shares the strategies he’s employed to transition into a full time writing career. He discloses how he’s built his clientele, shares his methods—bids to billing, and reveals the things that have worked and the things that haven’t along the way.

    There are many books out there that offer advice and suggestions for launching a freelance writing career. They all share time-tested methods—submitting to magazines for publication, signing up with content mills, offering cut-rate service initially to get your feet in the door. That is solid advice. But it all takes time. What if you have no time to waste? What if you had three months to go from zero income to enough to support your family of six? That is the situation Darin Michael Shaw found himself in. That’s the context in which this story was born.

    If you have considered leaving your day job for a full time literary career, especially if you’re interested in the fascinating and lucrative field of ghostwriting, this book will serve to encourage you—you can do it! I Am Ghost will help you get there.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherDarin Michael Shaw
    Release dateMay 29, 2014
    ISBN9781310331954
    I Am Ghost: How to Make a Living as a Ghostwriter
    Author

    Darin Michael Shaw

    Darin Michael Shaw is the world’s foremost expert on the conjunction but. He has written a bunch of blurbs, once maintained a huge blog, and spoke to gatherings of mostly wonderful folks every Sunday for more than twenty years. Today he is an in-demand freelance writer and ghost. His proudest accomplishments to date are that he married far above his head, and has managed to produce four wonderful daughters, with a little help from his wife Shari. Darin lives with his wife, daughters, and the world’s most adorable Cocker Spaniel Mali-Boo. They all drive Fords ... but the dog.

    Read more from Darin Michael Shaw

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      Book preview

      I Am Ghost - Darin Michael Shaw

      I. Am. Ghost.

      How to Make a Living as a Ghostwriter

      Darin Michael Shaw

      Smashwords Edition

      Copyright 2014 Darin Michael Shaw

      Discover more at http://www.darinmichaelshaw.com

      Smashwords Edition, License Notes

      This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for you, please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy.

      Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

      There are those who say that they love you and those who really do.

      Nothing reveals the difference more clearly than a season of adversity.

      I’m very thankful for those who were on the right side of the equation for me.

      I. Am. Ghost.

      Table of Contents

      Introduction

      1. You Gotta Be Good

      2. Off the Beaten Path

      3. Choosing the Write Hat

      4. Get Organized

      5. Toe in the Door

      6. Bread & Butter

      7. B.I.C. & W.O.P.

      8. The Art of Ghosting

      9. Clients to Cash Flow

      10. Ghost Ethics

      Epilogue

      Appendices

      About the Author

      Introduction

      Now this is the story all about how, my life got flipped, turned upside down …

      Okay, so I’m not the Fresh Prince of Bel Air, but my heart resonates with the premise of that old sit-com: a kid plucked out of one world and dropped suddenly into another, from the familiar to the unknown, east coast to the left coast.

      It doesn’t work as a hip-hop lyric, but let me tell you my story:

      One day I was a preacher. The next, I was a ghost.

      That could be the start of a pretty good tale. I guess, in one sense, it is. It’s my story. Or at least the start of a new chapter in my story. What will people think when I start to change all my online profiles, changing my career listing from Preacher to Ghost?

      Dictionaries define ghost as an apparition, a disembodied spirit, something remarkable or startling. Yep, that about sums me up.

      Of course, I’m not talking ghost in a paranormal sense, but in a literary sense. I. Am. Ghost.

      You read my work. But you don’t know that it’s mine. And I like that. You ask me Who have you written for? I don’t tell. And I like that, too.

      My method is simple. I view the authors I represent as characters in a novel. I observe. I draw up a character sketch. I build a continuity file. I intersect with them at a particular point of their story arch. And as I write, they speak. The best compliment I receive is when someone says, I heard the author’s voice so clearly! Yes you did! I know, because I spent months living inside of them, to capture every nuance of their passion, voice, tone and style. I’m now more the literary them than they are. Gotcha!

      The reality that I’m out here should make you wonder with every book you read: Did the person named on the front cover, whose picture is on the back, whose bio is listed in the flap really write this? I’ll never tell.

      I. Am. Ghost.

      I’ve been writing for years. I’ve published a couple of books, penned dozens of articles, and composed epics-worth of blog and web posts over the last decade. I even had it in mind to, one day, quit my day job and be able to meet the needs of my family by

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