Looseink Freelance Ninja

Talk About A Curveball

3/31/2020

Brenda and I getting some yard chores done on a day off from writing.

I can’t ignore the fact that the world is currently dealing with an incredible situation with the COVID-19 virus. It became big news during this month (March 2020) and was declared a pandemic partway through the month. In British Columbia, where we live in Canada, there have been many restrictions put in place that have impacted us directly and indirectly. One of the direct hits to our household was a restriction on the gathering of 50 or more people. That forced a temporary shutdown of the venue Brenda and I use to vend our JamBusters! product – Brenda’s home-based business. We are unsure of when that business will be able to restart.

Web Content Seems To Still Be Needed

What we were hoping to avoid was a decrease in work for my ghostwriting home-based business. So far, although the volume has taken a dip, the revenue hasn’t. Let me explain. March 2020 saw me receive a total of 12 jobs. Out of those jobs came 39 articles totaling 38,325 words. Compared to February 2020 (36 jobs, 66 articles, 64,695 words) there is an obvious drop. However, the rates charged differ quite a bit. I earn between $10 USD/1,000 words to $50 USD/1,000 words. It depends on the client. Most of the work I completed this month was at the higher pay rate end of the scale.

With the shift in buying habits these days resulting from social distancing protocols in place, and other restrictions related to essential services, some businesses have had to temporarily close. Where this interests me is that the buying habits are moving more to an online format as has been happening in the past decade. I see this trend picking up to where many smaller businesses that did not see the value in an online presence start to consider eCommerce options. With this in mind, it will mean more work for ghostwriters like me who work exclusively on these types of projects providing the content.

The Sources For The Work In March 2020

The majority of my writing jobs this month came from agencies I write for in the United States. Other jobs came from web entrepreneurs and regular clients of mine from Australia, Canada, and Israel. For a change, nothing ordered from the United Kingdom. Topics for this month’s work revolved around data loggers, socks, dental care, data recovery, fuel economy, vocabulary, t-shirts, music therapy, guitar maintenance, and a series of book reviews.

Are You Staying Indoors?

I truly feel for those who have lost jobs due to layoffs connected to the spread of COVID-19. It has put a lot into perspective for us since we had to temporarily close one of our businesses. The upside is that the work I do as a ghostwriter is all online and a work-from-home gig. Not everyone can do that with their career. I also see a trend developing that will see more remote workers taking care of the day-to-day tasks of many businesses once the world gets back to normal, whatever format that takes and whenever it happens. But for now, I’m grateful to my loyal customers and by working together, we will get through this. As I work from home, social distancing and self-isolation have been easy for both Brenda and me. We have a large yard and when we need some fresh air, we are out there doing something. We are purposely staying to ourselves to slow the spread of the coronavirus and encourage you to stay home as well if you don’t need to be out there.

Follow Me Online

To find out what jobs I am working on today, you can follow my Facebook Page. On it, I share some details on the work I have scheduled daily.

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Nothing Scary About Being A Ghostwriter

2/27/2020

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I have been writing steadily since mid-December last year. When I got sick in November I feared that I was going to lose a number of my clients and would have to spend time rebuilding my ghostwriting business. As it turned out, not a single client was lost and all of the ones I managed to get in contact with when I was ill told me they would wait for me to let them know when I was back at the keyboard. So far, 2020 has been a solid year for me although my numbers don’t reflect that.

By The Numbers

I thought I was pumping out high volumes of content until I calculated the totals for the past couple of months. In January 2020 I had 35 different jobs compared to 36 in February 2020. I wrote a total of 87 different articles in January but only 66 in February with a total word count of 64,695. When I look at the totals recorded from before I got sick last November, I see an interesting change. In October 2019 I had 58 jobs which included 90 different articles for a word count of 69,500. In September 2019 it was 35 jobs, 90 articles, and 58.405 words. Going back to August 2019 there were 48 jobs, 77 articles, and 63,600 words.

The dip in September was because I was away for a week-long convention otherwise, the totals run at about 50 jobs in a month and 75 articles. Why are my 2020 job totals so low in comparison? Well, I think I can answer that easily. Since October I’ve been writing a lot more 1,000-word and 1,500-word articles. Before that, I was writing a lot more 500-word articles. Fewer jobs, fewer articles but higher word counts. There are three content marketing agencies I write for that order 1,000-word or more articles and that is the logical reason I can come up with. I am back to writing between 3,000 and 5,500 words per day now.

What Do I Write About?

I was asked this question earlier today. I write about almost anything you can imagine. As a ghostwriter, my name does not appear as the author and whatever it is the client wants the article about is what I compose. Some clients provide a brief outline, others do not. Most of the time I get a title, some keywords, a link or two for reference (I will find others on my own) and a deadline. The rest is up to me and usually, that means few revisions as a lot of the work I do is for bloggers or business websites with a blog section in need of new content.

In February 2020 the topics I wrote about included CBD, data loggers, environmental monitoring, SEO, playground equipment, granite countertop installation, workplace drug testing kits, responsible drinking programs, dentures, customized t-shirts, CPAP machines and accessories and geo-targeted landing pages (almost 40 of those alone this month). As you can see, there are many different things I write about for my clients. As for where the work came from in February, most of it was from regular clients of mine in the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, and Israel.

What Are My Favorite Topics To Write About?

I enjoy writing about SEO. I also have a fair deal of knowledge about CBD, casino basics and different forms of marketing. I have also found that writing geo-targeted landing pages for websites is an interesting form of reaching specific geographic regions. It’s a form of SEO (search engine optimization) and possibly that is why I find it so fascinating. I also write some product reviews for “review websites” and I find those interesting in that I am writing about products I have never used, touched and in some cases knew existed before I started writing about them.

Where To Find Out More

You can follow me on my Facebook Page where I post a schedule of my daily ghostwriting projects and share some other related information from time to time. 2020 will mark my 42nd year in the Media industry. It started with Radio, switched to Newspaper Print Media and I'm now ghostwriting exclusively for Digital Media. I really like what I do and that I can do it from home.

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6 Years Later, I'm Still Writing

1/3/2020

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Although I have been writing poetry, fiction, news and more since high school, I consider my official start as a freelance writer on January 4, 2014. That was the day I opened my account with an online freelancing service named oDesk (now known as Upwork). Exactly six days later, on January 10, 2014, I received my first ‘professional’ writing job. It was for a US client and was for a set of 5 x 600-word articles on “How To Get Into Radio.” I still find that to be funny and ironic considering I had spent 23 years in that industry.

By the end of January 2014, I was writing articles almost daily. It only made sense to me to help cross-promote myself online so I registered the domain name www.looseink.net on February 25, 2014, and launched a website soon after. I added a Facebook Page on December 24, 2014. When I discovered the internet TLD .ninja, I saw some marketing opportunities and registered www.looseink.ninja on January 28, 2015. I started calling my freelance content writing service “Looseink Freelance Ninja” and stayed busy with writing jobs.

Switching Online Freelance Platforms

Although I enjoyed “bidding” on writing projects at oDesk/Upwork, I had some clients I picked up there contact me directly and that enhanced my freelance business greatly. Then I discovered Fiverr. I liked that there were no bids required but didn’t like the $5 price structure. Anyway, in April 2016 I joined Fiverr. I wasn’t active on that site as I just didn’t like the way rates were controlled. Anyway, I started using Fiverr to hire people for other things I needed. My first time was April 19, 2016, when I hired someone to “promote my Kindle book” on their Facebook.

I wasn’t convinced that Fiverr was for me and on December 7, 2016, I posted my first gig – “sell your message on Twitter” thinking I may be able to pull in a few $5 ads that I could blast out on my Twitter accounts. At the time, I had 5 different Twitter accounts with a reach of over 15,000 followers. No one bit. So I kept using oDesk/Upwork and working with a group of web entrepreneurs from Australia who hired me direct for article jobs.

Then I Had Another Interesting Idea

It was on February 3, 2017, when I finally posted an actual writing gig on Fiverr. Up to this point, my profile was mostly bare as I didn’t see myself using the service for anything. Regardless, I gave it a try. On February 20, 2017, I received my first Fiverr writing job. It was for a single 500-word article titled “Even Your Pooch Needs A Paws From Winter.” It was my title and for a US client. I earned a whole $5 before Fiverr took their cut. I got two more writing jobs that month and it soon grew to a steady flow of article writing work.

After I had passed a specific set of milestones set by Fiverr I could add more gigs, add more options to each gig and increase my rates from $5 an article. In 2018, Fiverr was bringing me the majority of my business along with outside writing work adding to it. The following year saw me increase my Fiverr rates more than once and to rates that were better than I was getting anywhere else for my writing service. Fiverr essentially built my writing business.

My Current Situation

As I mark my 6th anniversary as a freelance ghostwriter, my jobs come from many different sources now. I have a couple of ad agencies I provide content to regularly in addition to about ten other regular clients who hire me directly via email. I had to “pause” my Fiverr account more than once in the past five months as I was getting swamped with work and didn’t want to start falling behind or punching out sub-standard product. I was also sick during November and December 2019 but regardless, 2019 has so far been my most successful ghostwriting year.

The funny thing about the success of my home-based business is that I originally started it to earn a few extra bucks on the side thinking it could help us get through the slow economic dip our other business had experienced. I never intended to be a full-time, professional freelance writer but it soon became apparent that this was the path I should be following. I thank all my past and current customers for their support and look forward to working throughout 2020 on many more interesting ghostwriting projects.

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My name is George Elliott. I have been in the Media Industry since 1978. I spent 23 years in Broadcasting and worked in a total of six different radio stations located in southern British Columbia Canada during my career. In 2000 I switched gears and moved into the Print Media Industry at a small town, local weekly community newspaper. In 2004 I bought the paper and operated it with my wife, Brenda until July 2016 when we closed it. I launched a freelance web content and article writing business from my home in January 2014.

Talk About A Curveball

Nothing Scary About Being A Ghostwriter

6 Years Later, I'm Still Writing

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