Journey of a Ghostwriter // Part 1: How I Went From an Office Job to Being Paid to Write for a Living
I have been thinking a lot about where I want to start taking my steemit account and if you read through some of my previous posts, you might find I have been jumping around quite a bit. The truth is, I want to focus on something that means a lot to me but also delivers value. I decided it might be best to start a series from my own personal experiences over the last year and the journey I am currently on every step of the way.
I Have No Idea What I am Doing
When I left high school, I only vaguely knew what I wanted to do. I never thought of myself as a writer, despite this being a dream of mine since I was about 8 years old. I had the self limiting belief that writers never made much money and it was an unstable career, so why bother?
While I regret having this attitude so young, it did open many doors for me which I would only discover later in life. I decided I would study business. There were parts of the business world I enjoyed such as the freedom of owning your own business (in some cases) and the fact you could take a passion and turn it into your livelihood, pretty neat right?
I decided immediately out of high school I would study hospitality at a fancy college with the idea that working in a hotel would be some magical adventure and a life of luxury. I discover through my degree that I infact really hated hospitality. The fact that the customer was always right and that you had to basically give up your work life balance to make sure someone else was pampered didn't sit too well with me. I enjoyed staying at hotels, not managing them.
I moved onto the real estate world and for a while I had decided that it was for me. Plenty of money, get to look at beautiful houses and you get to feel super important. I wasn't an agent, I was working in valuations where you basically tell banks how much a house is worth to put things simply. Once I hit the corporate world, I discover how depressing, unfulfilling and miserable it was. You can have a look through my introduction post for a bit of detail on this part of my life since this is not a focus of this story.
Long story short, I quit. I took on some casual work while also building a business of my own. I struggled for a bit on what that meant for me and what I really wanted to do but I started to discover more and more that my passions were in writing . I started to take on some freelance writing gigs. If you have ever tried to do this, you would know the type of jobs that you start to land in the beginning. Boring articles worth $10 - $25 a piece. I wasn't discouraged though, I actually enjoyed it and my clients were happy.
Making a Side Income a Booming Business
Times started to change, I took on more and more work and the quality of gigs started to really improve. I decided it was time to focus on a niche, this is after how you start making the big bucks. I didn't really enjoy blogging too much since I would be submitting work at the end of every day and I'm not sure why but I enjoy those jobs that I can sit on and work on for a while rather than smaller jobs that are pumped out. This is where I started to focus on ghostwriting.
This isn't exactly a niche but I wanted to pitch myself as a ghostwriting pro. When I talk about ghostwriting, I mean books, whether they are eBooks, kindle, manuscripts to be published, I wanted to be able to take the ideas of other people and put it down into words their audience could understand.
Once I discovered I was onto something that I actually enjoyed, it was time to make a career out of it. Another resignation letter was written up (this time much easier since it was just a casual job) and I packed up all my stuff, sold the car and moved to Thailand. When I had moved to Thailand, I had only ever left Australia once before in my life and that was only two months before. I took a plunge and dedicated myself to make this ghostwriting thing work or else I would become another broke traveler in South East Asia.
Making My Mark
It did work. I managed to get some steady clients, took on work for an agency and started an agency of my own (which will become a core part of this series as things start to grow). Not all the books I wrote were enjoyable. Some were complete headaches that I only just managed to scrape through without going insane. Some I absolutely loved and wish they never came to an end. One of the most important parts of my journey is overcoming that limiting belief that writers can never make much money.
Steemit is a great example of how this is definitely untrue and even if I still have a lot of beliefs to crush before I can make money with writing under my own name, I am still doing something I love and making a livelihood from it. I don't need to be chained to a desk in a cubicle with my eyes glued to the screen. Instead, I can work anywhere in the world, choose the work that I want to do and live the life that I choose.
I am still a long way from having things exactly how I would have dreamed them but every day I am getting closer and every day my own agency is growing, taking on new clients and making people's dreams come true. I hope that you will join me along this journey to see the developments, the challenges and the wins. If you have any stories of your own, feel free to drop them down in the comments as I would love to hear them and I hope that we can connect, making steemit the place to be for our community!
Keep in touch for more of my journey, I have some pretty awesome posts coming up and can't wait to share them with my community, follow and vote and you will make a friend for life!
Awesome story!!! Valuable info. Thanks for sharing. I was a freelance videographer for a while and now own a company with my other half. Very cool to see how that you've started an agency! Look forward to seeing more from you!
Thank you! Being a freelancer is an incredible journey. The ups and downs, the breakthroughs and the challenges. I am very excited for what the future holds and I want to be able to document and share this with the rest of the world, especially others who are thinking of embarking on their own quest ;).
Being a videographer is something I always wanted to learn, perhaps a little later on when I have the time. Just for fun though, I feel I would have a long way to go if I ever wanted to do work for others but awesome work on having your own company! I'll be following to keep in touch.
Wow @Zeydo you sound very dedicated to your craft. I'd love to work for myself or freelance but I dread dealing with clients and the business side of things.
Growing up I wanted to be a writer but as I got into high school I largely stopped reading and writing, it felt like a chore I had to do for schoolwork and wasn't as enjoyable anymore.
Recently I've been trying to catch up and get through this ever accumulating list of books I should have read.
One of my biggest fears with freelance writing was that I would start to hate writing or dread it. I thought that I would burn myself out and whatever aspirations I had would be long dead. The opposite actually ended up being true. I started to love it even more as it became a greater part of my life.
Dealing with clients can be scary at first especially when moving up from those small jobs to the bigger ones. Once you crack the next level, it isn't scary anymore but as you keep leveling up, there is always the thought in the back of your mind that you are not ready for it, best just ignore that and give it your best shot!
My first freelance writing job was just writing email copy for a client to pitch his service. I got paid $5 which is laughable now but I was so terrified of not doing a good enough job I swear I spent hours trying to get it right. The feedback was incredible which gave me the confidence boost I needed.
Push past the fear and you will be surprised where it can take you!
Very interesting. I will follow your journey. I know this limiting belief pretty well. I am fighting to think one could never live of writing myself. I am courious to learn more. :)