4 Tips: Go From Temporary Help To “Trusted Ghostwriter”

Credit: J Wynia on Flickr

Some great long-term client relationships, for writers, originate from the client’s lack of time rather than their perceived lack of skill. In other words, they bring on writing help because they do not have the time to handle all the internal demands for writing services. This may be a chronic overload, or it may be a short term bulge in demand.

Either way, the more quickly you demonstrate that you can write in the client’s voice – that you can not only “write,” but you can “ghostwrite” — the more likely that you will become a trusted resource for that client.

Hook Up Your Battery

What these clients are looking for, in many instances, is a “jump start.” They want you to draft the bulk of the content, whether it is a speech, an article, or some marketing piece.

And then they will do the final revisions, to ensure it fits with their company’s style, preferred language, history, legal constraints, and other requirements.

This is particularly common if you are preparing material for the company’s leadership. At one time in my writing career, I did quite a bit of work on presentations by executives at major corporations. For instance, they would (in those days) deliver videotaped messages to their employees to launch a major shift in policy or business practices, to correct problems or to grasp new opportunities.

High-level people are surrounded by staff dedicated to making them look good. In that situation, it wasn’t unusual for me to draft a presentation, or even a teleprompter script, that would get a final edit by someone from the Public Relations department.

And those PR people have to make some changes. They are compelled to demonstrate their contribution to the final product, really, no matter how brilliant a draft they receive.

Now, I have known writers who grumble about this approach, but it never bothered me. They hired me to give them a draft that they expected to tweak. I was paid well, and I was more interested in their money than in getting credit for being a brilliant writer.

On the other hand, being a really good ghostwriter made sure that the next time they needed a “jump start,” they called me.

Becoming the “Go-To” Writer

If you find yourself drafting content for final revision by the client’s own staff, there are several things you can do to make sure that grows into a regular gig:

Ask to see the final product after it is edited. Make sure to explain that you are only asking in order to provide a more final version to them in the future: to learn their style, vocabulary, and so on. Never let them feel that you are asking simply to “check up on them,” to see which pearls of wisdom from your original draft did not make the cut.
Make explicit notes on changes in key vocabulary and other patterns you see in their final version.
When you submit your next project, make sure you review those notes before you turn it in. With each iteration, your drafts should sound more and more like their final products.
Accept your role without looking for “credit.” Never, never try to “eliminate the middleman.” In the case of the executive presentations I mentioned, my customer really was the PR person who did the revisions, not the CEO of the company.

Remember that they hired you in the first place to help them manage their time. When your drafts reflect the client’s voice, they find it easier, and much less time-consuming, to “fix” things.

When you listen and learn, you save them more time than do other writers. That puts you at the top of their list, the first person they will call for that next project … and the one after that … and …

Photo credit: Some rights reserved by J Wynia.