Ghostwriting Gold — A Case Study From One of My Clients
I got started in internet marketing by ghostwriting. Before that, I was painting houses and it completely sucked — I’m philosophically opposed to manual labor. Within one day of deciding to do it, I had a website up, some article samples, and three clients. Within a week I was making $40 an hour as an internet ghostwriter.
(By the way I even created a system that anyone can follow and do that same — you can check it out at http://ghostwritingsystem.com)
Anyway, one day I was browsing the warrior forum, and noticed a thread where Mike Pomposello was talking about how my article writing methods allowed him to make even more than $40 an hour in less than week. He was really knocking it out of the park, and was giving a lot of praise to my article writing system.
I like when that happens.
So I emailed Mike and asked him if I could do a case study for my clients. He agreed and we got on the call.
Here’s Mike’s story…
First, he’s only 18 years old and a freshman in college. But he took my article writing formula, and just posted one simple thread in the Digital Point forum for his article writing services. Pretty soon, he was booked up. In fact, he quickly got so much work that he had to start employing other ghost writers.
In an interesting turn of events, he landed a huge corporate client… we’re talking about a company that does millions a year, and needs content all the time. He did good work, and pretty soon got a reputation, so a lot of big corporate clients started coming to him. (A great niche to work in, by the way)
Keep in mind, he was only 17 at the time!
What’s great is Mike then quickly made the transition from freelance writer to business manager. He got a team of writers to do the work for him, so he could just focus on marketing and booking clients. Now he works about 10% as hard to earn the same income.
Some of the strategies he shared with me on the call were amazing for how he handles clients. He uses a strategy I teach called ‘take away selling’ and also has some interesting techniques for handling clients that I think you’ll find valuable.
You can download the call here:
http://signaturementors.s3.amazonaws.com/mikecall.zip
The call starts off a bit slow, but really picks up at the end. If you use article marketing at all, do any ghostwriting, or just need to start making cash asap, you’re going to want to listen to this call. Mike has a model that’s easily to duplicate, costs practically nothing to implement, and can get quick results.
So do yourself a favor and check it out. Then, post what your comments, questions and takeaways from this interview below, as well as any other questions you have about ghostwriting.
-Jason
December 23rd, 2008at 6:02 pm
Hi Jason.
Thank you for sharing this case study with us. I really admire your growth and look to you as a mentor. I learned quite a bit from your beginning wso’s on article writing quickly.
I haven’t been able to afford your http://ghostwritingsystem.com yet, but I just posted a thread on my writing services at the digital point forum myself this week. Looking to try and generate some last minute quick Christmas cash.
I also have a “real job” I do in the spring summer and fall. I own my own ice cream truck. I am looking to learn this business model of hiring the writing out, as the customers who buy ice cream for their kids from me all during that season, are stay at home moms.
My goal is to have a system and private membership site set up before I start driving this spring, that I can just plug several of these, “wanna be work at home mom’s into,” when they always inevitably ask me, “what do I do in the winter months?”
I look forward to checking out this valuable gift you have just shared here. I also appreciate the price tag.
)
Laurie
December 23rd, 2008at 6:12 pm
Laurie,
Thanks for your quick response! I appreciate your compliments (they make great holiday gifts
I like your idea for serving a specific niche. That is very helpful. One thing I know about ghostwriting is that as long as you write good articles, are on time and have reasonable rates then you should never have trouble getting clients.
What will happen is that is soon as you get a handful, they will just keep coming back to you with more and more and more work, and soon you’ll have more than you can handle (a good thing — then you can raise your rates!)
Thanks,
Jason
December 23rd, 2008at 6:33 pm
Jason,
Thanks for such quality information! I have so many of your products, am a member of your Daily Seminar site, and a huge fan! I love how you implement systems and just get things done!
I have to say, my favorite part of the whole audio is when you had to go get the pizza you ordered, and the way you were eating it as you continued the call. Not only did it make me laugh, but it made me realize that I tend to take everything way too seriously and to need to have more fun with the process! I’m very shy and tend to try and perfect everything before I get it out in front of people. What a waste of time
Not only do you provide invaluable systems and instructions, you also exemplify the attitude and mindset I want for my business. THANK YOU 
April
December 23rd, 2008at 6:40 pm
I had a great time on the call Jason and can’t wait to have more discussions with you in the near future!
You’re so right! The formula for success is to deliver quality, deliver it on time, have great communication with your customers, and “STOP SELLING.”
Like you put it on the call – make the customer feel like they need you….not the other way around!
December 23rd, 2008at 6:50 pm
@April
hahaha — I am normally better with my social ettiquite, but I was starving that day! The snow was so bad I didn’t want to go out and had no food in the house. Michael was a total trooper with it. Thanks for your commments.
@Michael — thanks so much for doing the interview and sharing your insight with us. We’re thankful for it. You’re a natural sales person — you’re going to have a very bright future!
-Jason
December 23rd, 2008at 7:12 pm
Jason,
I don’t have time to listen to the call right now, but I certainly will. However, I did want to take this opportunity to share a little bit of my own story. I do fairly well with internet marketing. However, I just seemed to be slowing down, losing motivation, etc…A while back I had bought Jason’s product on how to make $40 an hour as a ghostwriter.
I’ve always been a good writer. I used to charge people $250 for 10 page research papers. I never got anyone less than a B, mostly they received a B+ or A. I figured this may be a way for me to add another income stream to my profits.
Well, I read it and I loved it. I had a lot of other stuff, personal, to deal with. I didn’t do anything with it. Well, as it was getting close to Christmas time, I realized that my money wasn’t really where I wanted it to be.
I put some of Jason’s tactics to good use. I made some great money for Christmas. However, this is the BIG part! I managed to do some article work for a pretty well-known marketer. Along with articles he bought one of my products. He was so impressed, he wanted to talk to me on Skype.
We talked, and now we’re entering into a partnership and launching a service that will eventually bring me in $3,000-$6,000 month in residual income.
I really seriously owe it to you Jason for giving me the motivation and the help in your book! I’ve also traded a few emails with you back and forth, and find you’re a really great guy!
Thanks Jason,
Jason
P.S. I hope your brother is doing well.
December 23rd, 2008at 7:20 pm
@Jason
That’s exactly how to do it!
Research papers huh? Hahah I’m pretty sure during the call I mentioned that I wish I could outsource my homework.
December 23rd, 2008at 7:57 pm
I posted my comment above before I actually listened. I got up this morning and wrote two articles, then went to the grocery store.
When I found your freebie, I listened to it while folding some clothes and straightening up my room. I actually sat down and started writing again before it was finished.
I need to relisten, becaused I missed the part where you explained about the guarantee.
I registered at digital point way last winter, and while waiting for that period and number of posts before you could post an offer, it took me a while to get back there.
Either the competition for writing is tough or it is slow right now, or I did a horrible job of copyrighting my ad, the orders aren’t coming as quickly as I expected.
I did have to turn one down, the articles he requested were what I would consider researching and giving illegal advice. He took it in stride, though.
I need to go back and reread your article wso’s Jason, it has been a while since I applied the process.
It is definitely worth listening too, your interview. I am impressed with your ambition, Mike being such a young age.
Laurie
December 23rd, 2008at 11:36 pm
@Jason
Wow man that’s freaking awesome! Way to get involved in such a great opportunity. That’s something people miss — there is a lot of timing involved between doing well and doing so-so, but as long as you keep putting yourself out there like Jason did, you’re bound to come in contact with the right opportunity eventually. Awesome stuff!
@Laurie
I talked about it in the interview with Mike, but a big part of selling your services as an article writer is you want to use short copy, get right to the point, an make a simple small offer. People just want to try you out, and you want to make it as easy as possible for them to do that. So it’s just “here’s my deal for you, here’s some samples to prove it, here are three quick benefits for choosing me, and here’s my 100% satisfaction guarantee.”
Selling a service like this is much different than selling an information product, so the approach needs to be adjusted. The biggest component of whether you’ll get hired or not has to do with writing samples.
If you write up your offer Laurie, send it to me before you post it and I’ll give you some quick pointers. You can email it to me and I’ll look at it.
Thanks!
Jason
December 23rd, 2008at 11:50 pm
BTW, what format/codec was the sound file containing? Windows Media Player refuses to play it.
December 23rd, 2008at 11:54 pm
Caleb,
Hmm that’s odd… it’s in standard mp3 format, 96k 8bit stereo encoding. I exported it from camtasia, like I do all my audio files. Were you able to play it in iTunes or another player?
-Jason
December 24th, 2008at 5:52 am
Hi Jason,
Thanks for the great call with Michael. Very inspiring. I bought your $40 an hour course a few months ago, and also your 7 Minute Article course. While I never got anywhere close to 7 minutes, you did help me double my speed to 4 articles an hour or more.
Anyway, I ran some “ad” posts on a couple forums, and before I knew it I was swamped. At first it was great, because even though I’m not charging enough ($5 per 300 words), I was making $20 an hour, which is more than I’ve ever made. I was pumped.
But I soon ran into a major hurdle which I hadn’t anticpated, and caused my progress to come to a screeching halt. People were ordering 20, 40, 60 articles at a time, which you’d think would be good. But here’s the problem. They’d want all of the articles written around basically the same KW phrase.
I’ll give you a hypothetical example of what I’m talking about. I’ll get an order for 30 300 word articles, and the KW list will look like this:
great deals used tires
great deal used tires
best deals used tires
best deal used tires
fantastic deals used tires
fantastic deal used tires
deals used tires
deal used tires
good deals used tires
good deal used tires
discount used tires
best discount used tires
find deals used tires
find deal used tires
etc, etc
You get the picture, I”m sure. And they’ll want 30 300 word articles written on each of these “different” KW phrases. And trust me, I’m not exaggeration at all. If anything, I’m downplaying the problem. A lot of them will also want me to use *exact phrases* which are completely nonsensical like “used discount best tires”, “deals discount best tire”, etc, three times in the article.
Anyway, after about 6 of these, I’m pulling my hair out to make each one unique and say something different each time, because they want to use them on their blog, and I’ve still got 24 to go. So I’ll get discouraged and take a day off, just because it’s driving me up the wall to sit here and think about this stuff. Then one day away from the keyboard becomes two. Then three. Before I know it I’m a week behind on a bunch of projects, and I wind up returning a lot of people’s money because I simply don’t know how to write 30 different 300 word articles on what is essentially the same KW phrase on a tiny, tiny topic. If people want to know why article writer’s sometimes disappear, or just quit taking work, this is one reason. At least in my case.
Any suggestions, Jason? Because I know the potential of this. I could be making a grand a week just writing articles, but instead I quit taking any more work until I can figure this problem out.
How would yo handle this problem?
Thanks for any help you can give.
December 24th, 2008at 7:30 am
@Jason
I found the copy from the WF post you were referring to:
http://www.warriorforum.com/blogs/pwebbiz/116-humble-beginings-how-i-started-my-freelancing-firm-almost-overnight.html
….and here is my DP copy:
http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=879397
BULLETS are GREAT….makes it fast to read by being straight and to the point
December 24th, 2008at 4:06 pm
@GTM
I know exactly what you mean. I’ve encountered that situation myself several times. The first thing is that the clients don’t really care if the content is unique in subject matter, just unique for SEO purposes. So you can rework the same article several different times. Which is, by the way, why I came up with my “turn 1 article into 8″ approach, because of the scenario you’re describing.
As for those awkward phrases, there’s ways around that, too. My favorite is combining the two sentences together. for example, “used discount best tires” can be handled like this:
“For the cheapest tires, shop at places that have a used discount. Best tires for your vehicle can often be found for way less than you think”.
Or, you can do the Subhead approach. In this case it would be something like this
“If money is tight, shop for tires that have a used discount.
BEST TIRES FOR YOUR VEHICLE?
The best tires are going to be….”
To the search engines, it’s all the same. the phrase used discount best tires has appeared as one string. To the user, they’re completely unaware.
The final solution is this: if you don’t want to do it, then don’t do it. Give the person their money back and apologize. Then, make sure you let future clients know up front that you either don’t do that kind of work, or that you’ll charge them extra for doing that kind of work because it requires more time on your part.
Hope that helps.
-Jason
December 24th, 2008at 6:13 pm
awesome info as usual Jason, I’m just reading the comments I’m going to listen to the audio right now. One thing though, is there anything you can do about the small font on this blog? I already wear glasses and it’s a real strain on the eyes to read this stuff. Any enlargement of the font would be greatly appreciated
December 24th, 2008at 7:29 pm
@Jason
I’m glad you brought up the 1 to 8 method. If you are having a hard time getting article clients look at DP’s content forum. Check out what topics people are selling articles on. Write 10 articles on each – then 1 to 8 them. Vary the types and put them into packs of 10 – one topic per pack.
Now you have 8 packs of 10, 100% unique articles on a hot topic that you can sell off.
Let’s play with some numbers. Let’s say the 10 (500 word) articles take you (I’ll be generous) 10 minutes each to complete. Rewriting each using the 1 to 8 method should only take 2 – 3 minutes per articles because you are only doing just that – rewriting what you already researched. So this means each article takes (10 minutes to be written the first time + [2 minutes per rewrites @ 8 rewrites each = 16 mins]) for a total of 26 minutes per 8 copies of one article. Repeated 10 times is 260 minutes. (4.3 hours in all)
Selling each article pack of 10 @ $80 each ($8 per is right on point) = $640 total profit at the end of the sale.
$640 for 4.3 hours of work – let’s round it up to 5. $640/5 = $128 PER HOUR!
Hell, work one hour a day – 5 days per week – sell the pack off on the weekend and you’re making $128 per day in a spare hour a day!
You can’t beat that!
December 25th, 2008at 2:18 am
Thanks for that audio, Jason. Very impressive.
I really liked when he talked about how all that article writing made writing essays for class a piece of cake! Indeed!
I wish I had found your stuff many years ago (of course it didn’t quite exist back than, but it would have made a lot of things a whole lot easier if it had).
And the outsourcing thing he has going… very inspiring.
Elisabeth
P.S.: So do you recommend Digital Point as a source for clients?
December 25th, 2008at 3:51 pm
@Elisabeth
Defiantly. I was used to writing and it makes the whole process come very naturally. Jason’s technique suggests to just keep going and work out the kinks in your writing later which makes a huge difference.
RE DP For clients:
It’s a GREAT launching pad for anyone. There are so many people looking to buy articles that you’re almost guaranteed clients. With a good guarantee you should reel some in. As long as you deliver quality and on time your clients should become repeat clients. Plus, you can have them post a review which will help you build your reputation.
December 25th, 2008at 9:40 pm
Thanks for the eye-opening interview you guys!
Question for Michael or Jason:
Can you give us an example of a “Corporate Client” without giving away the ones Michael writes for? You mean like a corporate blog or a corporation that runs multiple blogs and needs lots of posts or a website like Coca Cola or Proctor & Gamble that needs lots of articles? This is very interesting b/c I didn’t realize that large corporations outsourced some of their content.
Thank you,
Dan
December 25th, 2008at 9:59 pm
Dan,
I believe that is the calibur of clients that Mike writes for. Maybe not QUITE that big, but on a similar level. Corporations who are trying to gain a web presence with blog posts, and have several layers… for example I know that Mike’s blog posts are often run through an SEO team and another layer before they are approved, and that a billing cycle is 30 days, so that type of coporate clients.
Who would’ve known, huh? Just goes to show you how valuable content is, and how the big companies are becoming hip to it.
Thanks,
Jason
December 26th, 2008at 8:21 pm
Sure I’ll chime in. The only reason I don’t say who we work for is we never asked them permission yet. If / when I get around to it I’ll discuss it with them and post some form of list on my website.
One example is if you look at http://newegg.com – one of their direct competitors.
Another is a smaller end Anti Spyware software house.
A very well known Survey firm.
Pretty much how it works is I’m in a JV with their affiliate manager – he starts discussing the benefits of unique blog content with them and then sends them my way.
Michael
December 27th, 2008at 11:51 pm
Jason —
Well you convinced me and I just purchased the ghostwriting system. I paid my money and when I was redirected from PayPal, here’s what I received.
Forbidden
You don’t have permission to access / on this server.
Additionally, a 404 Not Found error was encountered while trying to use an ErrorDocument to handle the request.
Apache/2.2.10 (Unix) mod_ssl/2.2.10 OpenSSL/0.9.8i DAV/2 mod_auth_passthrough/2.1 mod_bwlimited/1.4 FrontPage/5.0.2.2635 Server at ghostwritingsystem.com Port 80
Now I know you’ll make this right but it’s disappointing.
Please send me the link through the email address above.
Best –
Tery
December 28th, 2008at 1:14 am
For anyone out there who is considering purchasing anything of Jason’s and is hesitating because well, you’ve heard all the hype and all…two words for you…DO IT!!
If you’ll notice in the above post, I just purchased the ghostwriting series and the PayPal link was broken. Well, I emailed Jason and he replied very shortly with the link. On a Saturday night…after a major holiday.
How can you beat service like this?
Thanks jason
January 9th, 2009at 10:53 pm
Jason,
Just ordered and I have same problem as Tery, above, but I got a 403 page.
“Forbidden
You don’t have permission to access / on this server.
Additionally, a 404 Not Found error was encountered while trying to use an ErrorDocument to handle the request.
Apache/2.2.10 (Unix) mod_ssl/2.2.10 OpenSSL/0.9.8i DAV/2 mod_auth_passthrough/2.1 mod_bwlimited/1.4 FrontPage/5.0.2.2635 Server at ghostwritingsystem.com Port 80″
Can you forward to the email addy included? Thanks
-Ed
January 9th, 2009at 10:57 pm
Jason
Got the automatic email. Please disregard the above.
Ed
January 17th, 2010at 11:28 pm
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