New Year’s for many is the point where they start something new. It’s often attached to a resolution of some kind. You know, I’m going to do something for my health/family/personal wellbeing or whatever. The start of a New Year just lends itself to new beginnings of all kinds. For me, the start of a New Year is an Anniversary. It was actually January 4, 2014 when I started my freelance writing/ghostwriting business from the upstairs of our home.
 
It was originally meant to generate some extra cash to help get us through the slow season in the newspaper business. For those of you who know my wife, Brenda and I, you’ll know that we had been involved in the local newspaper business. It was February 2004 when I bought the Similkameen News Leader, a weekly local tabloid – one of just a handful of independently-owned and operated community newspapers left in British Columbia at the time.
 
Writing Seemed Like A Perfect Fit
 
Ten years into the newspaper business the advertising landscape was changing. Social media gave small businesses the means to advertise and promote their services for free. There were free classified ad websites popping up everywhere and even large corporate customers were shifting their advertising budgets to the new technology of the internet. This continued to put pressure on smaller publications that relied on these revenue sources.
 
So, I determined that with some spare time in the evenings I could possibly pull together some additional business as a freelance writer. I joined an online community designed for this purpose and started bidding on jobs. It took a couple of weeks to get my first order and over the next six months writing on the side was becoming a steady flow of additional business. In July 2016 we closed the doors to the paper and that September I started ghostwriting full-time.
 
Many Goals Have Been Hit
 
Since that start in January 2014 I have worked as part of three different marketing agencies and have had hundreds of private web developers seeking content for websites, blogs, eCommerce sites, books and even audio scripts. To date I have clients in over 40 countries in the world with most of my work going to websites in Australia, the UK, United States, Canada, India and Romania. My daily workload sometimes resembles an international holiday itinerary.
 
Also, in those five years I have created several of my own websites that I use to promote myself and products I am associated with. One of those products is eBooks. I have published a total of seven different eBooks since launching my freelance writing business. It may sound like a lot of work, but it has taken five years to get to this place. It is something I truly enjoy and actually thought was not going to go much longer than six months or so. Clearly I was wrong.
 
Where You Can Find My Stuff
 
Two of my top website projects are Looseink Freelance Ninja (www.looseink.ninja) and JamBusters! (www.jambusters.ca). For a few of my eBooks I have websites including Surviving Midlife Career Changes (www.midlifecareerchanges.com) and The Foodie Guide To Farming Insects For Protein (www.insectprotein.net). The latter is my top selling eBook to date. I also have a personal website launched a year ago at www.georgeelliott.org.
 
If I Can Do It, So Can You
 
One of the messages I have tried to get across in my eBooks is that there is nothing wrong with walking away from a career and starting over with something new. I was 55 when we shut down the News Leader. It was scary and exciting at the same time to make a change before we were forced to make one. If you have a hobby, hidden talent or even an interest in something that you enjoy, you could make it your new career. I did and now five years later, it’s keeping me busy.

December 2018 was down slightly in the number of jobs I had to complete. There were a total of 22 booked and out of those were 68 articles to be written – also down from November. However, I expected that going into Christmas as I was going to take a short break over the holiday season. Well, that was provided that I was able to complete an extra project I wanted to write and publish before Christmas, if possible.
 
Drawing From My Experience
 
There was a project that was gnawing away at me as the end of 2018 approached. I wanted to complete a new eBook title and had a couple of ideas in mind. But they never really got further than that. Then one day in the beginning of December it hit me. I could write an eBook related to podcasting. I just needed some sort of hook to make it interesting.
 
I did some light research online to see what kind of articles and manuals already existed. I found a few that were clearly content written with affiliate marketing in mind. Essentially, that’s an article that discusses a topic and contains links to products related to the topic. What makes this an affiliate article is that the only products being promoted in the article are those that are providing the author with a commission based on sales from leads generated from the links in the article.
 
There’s nothing underhanded about this marketing tool. I’ve even written these types of articles for a number of my freelance clients. The downside is that some other great products may not get the exposure they deserve as a result of not being part of a particular affiliate network. Besides, I wanted my eBook to be about a different approach to podcasting and one that did not rely on affiliate links to generate revenue.
 
So I thought about how I got into podcasting and what was different about my entry into the industry compared to what I was finding online.
 
I got into podcasting with an expense of under $100. That became the hook I was going to create my eBook around. Once I searched titles and attempted to fit some keywords into it, I had some options. I quickly settled on “How To Start Podcasting – The Beginner’s Guide” and quickly mapped out an outline for the volume.
 
It Didn’t Take Long To Write
 
I decided that I wanted this eBook to be close to the length of the last two I had published. They were in the 15,000 word range and I set that as my target. Then I started writing, trying to fit writing sessions around my other commitments. In actual fact, I wrote the entire eBook in just over three sittings and ended up with 12,000+ words.
 
Then I walked away from it. I had to give my head a break before I went back and proofread the pages and made any corrections. Two days after completing the writing part, I tackled the proofreading part. There were a few things I changed or clarified but for the most part about 95% of the original draft was left as it was. I also only added links to my own projects.
 
Number 7 And 16
 
“How To Start Podcasting – The Beginner’s Guide” is my 7th eBook. It also happens to be the 16th manuscript I have self-published since 1987. I have plans for at least two more in 2019 as I really like the direction I have gone with my eBooks. I refer to them as basically being ‘how-to’ volumes and I like writing about different topics in a teaching manner.
 
That was the biggest job for me during the month and all I need to do now is put some effort into promoting it. I uploaded the finished manuscript to Amazon on December 24 and it went live late that evening. That meant I had met my deadline and was able to just kick back and relax for a couple of days with Brenda doing not much more than snacking and watching DVDs.
 
The Coming New Year
 
I expect to be writing a lot for a lot of new and existing clients in 2019. I already have a couple of large jobs coming together just for January. Next month also marks my 5th anniversary as a ghostwriter and I see no end in sight to the amount of work that will be coming my way. I may have thought at first this was going to be a ‘temporary’ job but I was obviously wrong.

​November was another month that didn’t feel as busy at times and was intensely busy at other times for me. As for my ghostwriting work I had a total of 31 jobs which was slightly higher than last month. Out of those jobs I had to write a total of 95 different articles, again a slight increase from October. The main difference this month was that the work contained four big jobs of ten or more articles in a set and several slightly smaller sets. I had very few single article jobs.
 
The Vending Piece
 
I look at my life these days as being a product of various pieces of a puzzle. My ghostwriting is a large piece of that puzzle. Vending JamBusters! with Brenda is another large piece. The past month has been a tremendous one in that department. I watched her work long hours in the kitchen to prepare for one major event in late November as well as keeping the inventory up for our regular vending dates. I even pitched in a few times to lighten the load.
 
Don’t tell her, but I rather enjoyed breaking apart a few pounds of garlic cloves and I really didn’t mind cutting disks for her labels. In a way, I found these ‘new’ tasks a welcome change from some of the hectic activity I experienced at times during the month. Regardless, vending JamBusters! appears to be an ongoing thing for us as I also designed an ad for JamBusters! and Watkins that will appear in the upcoming 2019 Oliver Tourist Information Guide.
 
The Town Council Piece
 
Probably the biggest piece is my extra duties as an elected member of our local Town Council. I was sworn in on November 5 and started attending committee meetings following our first official Town Council meeting on November 19. There have been several additional tasks related to the job and fortunately my home-based ghostwriting business gives me the flexibility to be able to participate in as many Town Council functions as possible.
 
One fun event for me happened to combine two of my puzzle pieces together. The annual Chamber of Commerce Christmas Craft Fair was November 24. JamBusters! has been attending this the past couple of years. It was also the same day as the Town of Princeton annual Christmas Light-Up and Santa Visit. Both events happened next to each other. I was asked to MC the Light-Up which was a fun experience for me and Brenda had a great day of sales.
 
The Gears Are Shifting Slightly
 
So as my ghostwriting volume is shifting into a reasonable place where I can stay caught up and not feel rushed, it has opened room for me to handle duties related to Town Council. I would have juggled them otherwise but I prefer to be able to take care of them this way as it really is much easier. The JamBusters! weekend vending is always fun but like Brenda, I kind of view it as a day off where we can spend it together doing something we enjoy.