My Ghostwriting Experience

Sometimes, we look around for answers on how to be successful in the profession that we chose. As a ghostwriter, I am unknown to the Internet world. However, I never stopped improving myself.

The knowledge I have acquired from my experience is a reward from the challenges I have faced before. Many people use their skills as their asset because without their experiences, and they would never have learned and stood by themselves. We may have different insights/views about this, but at this very moment, when you look at yourself, you will remember all the challenges that you had encountered before. You become a different person, ready for a new battle in life.

I always wanted to have a private life where people would see me differently. Frankly, I have a mysterious yet straightforward life outside the real world. I had a job that never existed, and in the real world, we are nobody. This kind of profession helped many people on the Internet industry, politics, business, music, advertising, and many more. They become more successful and known to the public with the help of ghosts in our industry.

Ghostwriters can only follow what their clients tell them to do. Including me, we may spend a lot of time and effort for a particular material, but we will never get the credit, our names will never appear on the articles we have created. A well-known composer named Mozart is one of the most popular ghostwriters in history; wealthy patrons hired him to ghostwrite extravagant music.

A ghostwriter is a writer, who writes articles, books, stories, reports, or other text that is officially credited to another person.

Celebrities, executives, political leaders often hire ghostwriters to draft or edit autobiographies, magazine articles, or other written materials. In music, ghostwriters are commonly hired for writing songs and lyrics. Screenplay authors can also hire ghostwriters to either edit or rewrite their scripts to improve them, increasing their chances to be optioned or produced. Also, ghostwriters may also work on accompanying documents, such as treatment for screenplays.

In the 2000s, a new type of ghostwriting developed as blogs became famous: the blog ghostwriter. Companies or organizations are hoping to generate interest in their blogs sometimes hire ghostwriters to post comments while posing as different people and pseudonyms. Blogs are sometimes rated according to web ‘hits’ they get from users viewing the page, and this rating is used by advertisers considering paying for ad space on a blog website.

I started as a regular article writer on a website about dentistry and tourism. At first, I thought it was hard to combine them because I never even heard about this business before. Tourism is not even connected with dentistry, but my mentor online gave me all the materials I needed to learn more about the website that I was assigned to. She also introduced me to some of her team, each team consists of 30 people, and they are required to create at least 150 articles a day for a specific website.
At first, I made many mistakes with my first article assignment, and I was not able to follow the rules that the website provided for our team. After revising it three times, I was able to complete my first project. However, seeing my first article published online under a different name was hard for me. Some of my fellow ghostwriters told me, “Maia, without us these people are helpless, they need us to keep their websites running online. We help different kinds of people for them to stand; we are their structure.”

Our conversation lasted for a few minutes, we used Skype as our communication, my fellow writers may also feel the same way, but that is what ghostwriters are for, to be somebody’s structure.

You may think that we are like zombies, we follow every word they say, every keyword they send us, and every article structure they need. We do not have a choice but to make things the way they want it. However, we put our minds in every article we make; our characteristics are always connected and attached to it.

What I can leave for you today are the tips that I have learned from the people whom I worked with.

• BE HUMBLE. Having an arrogant character will not give you any success. If you are humble enough, while making your way up to the top of your career, people around you will never forget how you achieved it. Never pull other people down for you to take another step toward success.
• BE HONEST. Our industry has a lot to offer. You can always follow the easiest way to get your dream job. The CEO of your company may be a family's friend or a distant relative. Either way, why not ask yourself if you deserve that position before getting another promotion. The easiest way you think maybe the right way to do it, but for us to learn, we should take the path where challenge awaits.

• RESPECT OTHERS. A leader who does not know how to respect his co-workers or employees will never achieve any contentment, even their company has gained a lot of success in our industry, and admittedly, that person will always feel that something has been missing. If you are not humble and dishonest, you will never earn respect from your staff nor the people surrounding you.

• HELP OTHERS. If you want to be successful, then you also have to look back. Using your own experience, as an effective leader you should know how to help your teammates be on top of their game. You can also be an icon for other people who want to start with their career. You could be the answer on how to be successful with their dream job; an adviser is not always there to spoon-feed but to support.

In real life, we may be silent and even unknown to many people out there. We work hard to please our clients, we may receive incentives from them, but we will never have any work credit. We will never succeed if we are not humble enough to do something without credit, being honest is already a person’s achievement in life, having a reputation with a lot of respect is everybody’s dream. We call ourselves ghosts to have a private experience, and we help others without any accredited effort.

Before I end, I hope you have learned something from this short article. Writing is part of my daily ventures online, dealing with different people whom I cannot even see, nor hear how they speak. However, though I never met them personally, I became a different person. I learned to be independent in this industry because of them. I thank God for sending these unseen angels to guide me along the way.