Hello friends with pens, and those of you familiar with the Complete Freelance Writing Course will know that in it we explore good writing, versatile writing and profitable writing. This month here’s a profitable writing update, a scoop around the internet with some interesting insights for you, I hope.

Ghost Writing

Thanks to the Recommendo newsletter, I spotted this thread on Reddit: what industry secret do you know that most people don’t

We’ve already covered in the course how ghost writers build successful careers, and with ‘ghost writing’ uppermost in my brain, I was excited to read a Sunday Times article on Elizabeth Day at the weekend. A British author, journalist and broadcaster, Elizabeth originally made her name with her ‘How To Fail’ podcast, interviewing successful people about what they’ve learnt from failure. She’s gone on to have five successful books published and has just launched Daylight Productions, a podcast company that aims to bring more female and diverse voices to the format. In the article, it reveals:

An early guest on the podcast was Gina Miller, the anti-Brexit campaigner, who opened up to her about the failure of her second marriage and surviving domestic abuse (her ex-husband denies the allegations). Miller enlisted Day as a ghostwriter for her memoir, Rise. 

So two pointers here then to profitable markets for writers – there seems to be a lot of ghostwriting opportunity and some very high profile writers may have ghostwriting on their not-so-well-known-for cvs…with a podcast a great way of getting contacts…

Self Publishing

So the online world of self-publishing has been somewhat rocked recently by plagiarism allegations against Mark Dawson, founder of Self Publishing Formula, now renamed Learn Self-Publishing. He’s taken a step back from the business.

In the Writers Helping Writers facebook group, the subject of traditional publishing advances has generated a lot of discussion and there’s also lots of helpful information about this in the 20booksto50k facebook group. These two groups are consistently useful on what to expect and anticipate financially.

Now I’m a hybrid writer, having had traditional publishing deals for 9 psychology books and self-publishing a novel ( which I was lucky enough to get made into a tv film). Like a lot of authors in these groups, my last advance seems very generous compared to what most writers are getting today.

For several reasons – like enjoying the creative side of marketing, living in the rural far west of the UK, enjoying direct engagement with readers and valuing rapid publication – I’d almost certainly opt for self-publishing on future projects. Many writers I reckon, think an agent and a publishing deal are magic wands to live the successful author dream…but this is very very rarely so…

Good counsel on self-publishing can be had from Jane Friedman, the Creative Penn, ALLi and lots of other generous and successful self-publishers.

Journalism

Anne Gould is a former journalist and champion of mid-lifers using social media effectively and being bold on instagram and tik-tok. Storm, her kitten has just been sponsored for some tik tok posts and in a post, Anne compares the kitten’s going rate to recent rates for journalism:

Storm has just become a “Content Creator” with a $250 brand deal for a 30-second smartphone video for an upmarket cat food brand.

Yet, according to 2022 Press Gazette figures, if I were to source, research, write, and then pitch to the nationals, I’d be paid £120/£130 for a page lead in the Daily Mirror or £117 in The Times.

This is rather depressing for journalists, and my quite limited experience of sponsorship is that it may not be sustainable over any length of time. BUT creators like Elizabeth Day set a bar for the journalists of the future; she’s podcasting, networking, writing, broadcasting and performing on her chosen subject, what might be called confessional psychology and relationships. (Yes, it probably does help that she looks like a supermodel and her best friend is Fleabag).

But in a fragmented world of attention and platforms, this strikes me as a most sound strategy. With clear focus on subject, get lobbing out in several directions, through different media and something sometime may surely land!

As ever, if you’re a writer studying with me, please do ask any questions, either here or on the Udemy platform.