No, I haven't strayed into the paranormal world. Not yet anyway.What I have done is to hire myself out as a ghostwriter. This was a new experience for me, and I did it for a number of what I thought were good reasons:
1) The freelance company who acted as a broker for my services was new to me and I wanted to test their practices.
2) The job was small enough (8000 words)
3) It was within my wheelhouse, being a historical romance.
I'm proud to say I turned the job in before the deadline, the client loved it, and has asked me to consider a longer work. Always, it's the mark of a job well done if the client wants to hire you again.
So, why am I hesitating? This job paid me better than some of the books I've written, so the money associated with it is not the issue.
I won't even go into the amount of my own work that needs to get done and sent off to various publishers, agents, etc. Not to mention the promotional work that comes with each new release, of which there will be three by the end of the year.
My hesitation comes from this sweet little story I wrote for the client. I can never attach my name to it, or claim it as my own. All rights have reverted to the client. It's no longer mine.
It's like sending your kid off to school for the first time and have them never return home to tell you how their day was.
Before I take on another ghostwriting job, I need to answer the question of whether I can live with the anonymity. Can I live with the fact I might write the next bestseller, but someone else will claim it as theirs? And take all the royalties? Would I be better off focusing on my own career rather than provide one for someone else?
It's the nature of a ghostwriter to remain in the background. I'm just not sure if that's where I belong.
Hi Becky, I wonder if you'll feel the same after the next ghostwriting job. I imagine most ghostwriters adapt to the anonymity and use the experience to further hone their skills. BTW...If you write one bestseller, you can certainly produce another.
ReplyDeleteGood points, Joanne, although it's sad to abandon characters i've become attached to. Maybe the trick is to write something outside my genre.
DeleteI ghost wrote a military book about a man who served in WWII. The fact that the woman who hired me is getting all the credit is difficult to handle. I got paid well for the job, which I keep telling myself, but I didn't expect to feel the way I did. She calls herself an "international best-selling author." Grrrr. When her sister-in-law found out I wrote the book (not from me) she said, "I knew she couldn't have done that herself."
ReplyDeleteLove it. I'm anxious to see if she puts it up on Amazon under her own name.
DeleteThat is quite the dilemma. I suppose if you were writing on a topic that you don't care as much about (I do this all the time on my day job), you wouldn't feel as attached. But writing fiction similar to your own books and not attaching your name to it would be hard in my opinion. Maybe you should freelance in the corporate world for extra cash and save your fiction efforts for your own books?
ReplyDeleteIf I could find something in the corporate world I was an expert in, I'd think about it, but I've been out of that realm for so long. I'll have to be more careful about what I take on in the future.
DeleteFirst off Becky congratulations, you might as well get a few kudos. Great question. I've been asked to ghostwrite a few times and have turned it down. The money would be great, but the time to write someone else's story was a price to dear. It's a dilemma.
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing,
Tema Merback
Writing as Belle Ami
Thanks, Tema, for visiting today. I think time is going to be a definite factor in the coming months, so it's a good time to step away and reevaluate.
DeleteWow. That's a tough one. I'd find it easy to ghost write somebody's memoir or some other non-fiction project. But "giving away" something as personal and creative as fiction, I dunno. Maybe the question is, does the ghost writing enhance and stimulate your own writing, or does it suck up all your creativity???? Good for you, though, for finding a way to make money with your talents.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Barbara, for leaving a comment. In answer to your question, the writing didn't suck up my creativity, but I had a hard time letting go of my characters. Ah, well, on to the next.
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