How to land your first ghostwriting client

$91,000 a month.

$50,000 a month.

$35,000 a month.

These are real numbers I’ve helped real people make with the new and lucrative industry of ghostwriting.

But like I talked about two emails ago…

Most people never even hit $10,000 a month because of one thing:

Time.

They don’t make their goal of building an online business a priority.

So, it remains a dream instead of becoming a reality.

And in the email before this…

I showed you a simple 3-step framework for using your time to learn the skill needed to build a successful personal brand and ghostwriting business:

Writing.

Now, in this email I’d like to piece those 2 emails together.

That way, you can use your time and skill of writing to land your first ghostwriting client and start your path to making $10,000 a month online.

So you can build your life of freedom.

Freedom to travel where you want.

Freedom to enjoy work that’s fulfilling.

Freedom to live a life doing what you want.

What Is Ghostwriting?

Now, before I dive in, it’s important you know what the hell I’m referring to when I say “ghostwriter.”

I’m talking about a content ghostwriter.

A content ghostwriter is someone who takes over their client’s social media or newsletter and writes content for them under their:

• Name

• Voice

• Style

With the goal of either generating:

• Sales

• Followers

• High-value connections

And with the rise of the creator economy, the demand for ghostwriters is skyrocketing.

But with ghostwriting being such a new industry, there’s little information on how to make money doing it.

So, let’s break down how to get your first client with ghostwriting.

How To Get Your First Ghostwriting Client

Getting clients with ghostwriting is like trying to catch a fish.

Before you do anything, you need to have the right equipment (i.e. the right skill set).

I know a ton of social media ghostwriters who have fewer than 200 followers who offer social media growth as a service.

And it’s not a surprise that these people never land clients.

It’s like being an obese person trying to be a fitness coach…

Or a 17-year-old trying to be a life coach.

Whether you’re a social media ghostwriter or a newsletter ghostwriter, you need to practice doing it for yourself first.

You don’t need to be an expert, but you do need to build experience and credibility.

Where To Find Potential Clients

To catch a fish you need to find where the fish are.

If you want to land corporate clients, you probably want to fish for them on LinkedIn.

Fitness coaches?

You probably want to fish on Instagram.

Agency owners?

You probably want to fish on X.

Whichever type of client you want to land, do your research on where they hang out and look for them there.

It can be as simple as going on the different social media platforms and searching up keywords related to the clients you’re going after.

Once you find one, look at who they’re following and you’ll find a bunch of people in the same niche.

The 2 Methods To Land Clients

Now, once you’re in your fishing spot, you want to pick the right fishing method to land your first ghostwriting client.

You can simplify the methods into 2 categories:

1) Inbound (attracting potential clients)

2) Outbound (reaching out to potential clients)

For example:

Inbound is like catching fish with a fishing rod.

• You create a piece of content

• A potential client sees it

• They reach out to you to inquire about your services

And the bait you use (content) will attract different fish.

Similarly, the content you create and share should be tailored to attract the type of clients you want.

If you create content about motivational quotes, sure you might get a lot of likes…

But you won’t attract clients.

The content that attracts clients is anything that shows you can solve potential clients’ problems or get them a desired result.

This type of content would be:

• Testimonials

• Case studies

• Client results

Showing how you’ve grown their following or made them money.

Now, if you’re just starting out and trying to land your first client, you won’t have any of these.

So, you’ll want to go with method 2:

Outbound.

Outbound is like catching fish with a spear.

You spot a potential client who seems like a good fit for your ghostwriting service and you reach out to them.

Now, I’ll admit…

When I started ghostwriting, I was one of the only content ghostwriters on social media.

So I had most of my clients come to me.

But the game has changed…

Although there aren’t many skilled ghostwriters, there are still a bunch of them looking to land clients.

Which means they’re spamming DMs and creating content trying to attract potential clients.

And this makes it harder to stand out and have clients come to you.

So, this begs the question…

Are you just f*cked?

Yes, give up now.

Kidding.

Although I have little experience with outbound…

I happen to be good friends with a marketing giga genius who’s landed clients like Alex Jones and The Wolf Of Wall Street.

Mr. Nicholas Verge.

He has a ton of experience with landing high-paying copywriting clients.

And this method I’m about to show you will work perfectly with ghostwriting too.

How To Reach Out To Clients

Here’s what Nick recommends for outbound cold outreach:

Step 1) Make a list of 50-100 potential clients

You can do this by going on social media and finding one ideal client you’d wanna work with.

If you’re a social media ghostwriter, these potential clients should be trying to grow their social media.

If you’re a newsletter ghostwriter, these potential clients should be publishing a newsletter.

We want to target people who are already putting in effort in social media or a newsletter because they see the benefit of growing on the platform.

Although you can land clients who aren’t posting content, it’s easier to land clients who already see the value in doing so.

And if you look at who these potential clients are following, chances are you’ll find similar clients.

Repeat this process until you have a list of 50-100.

Step 2) Pick one of the potential clients and reach out to them

If you can’t access their DMs or you think their DMs are too crowded, you can use a tool like hunter.io to get their email.

When you reach out, Nick recommends following this structure:

Give a specific compliment about the potential client (make it genuine).

Then ask them if they’re open to hearing some quick thoughts you have about [insert specific thing] (ie. growing their LinkedIn/Twitter/Newsletter). 

Say you had some thoughts on how you could improve this for them and you wanted to make sure they were cool with you sending those over, because there’s probably a lot of people reaching out to them.

So from here, 1 of 3 scenarios is gonna happen…

How To Handle The 3 Potential Responses To Land Your First Client

Scenario 1: The prospect says they’re not interested.

If this happens, don’t waste your time or theirs.

Say thanks for their time and move on.

Scenario 2: The prospect doesn’t respond at all. 

If this is the case, no worries.

Keep reaching out to other prospects.

But be sure to follow up with those who didn’t respond a few more times. 

Eventually, if they’re still not responding, you can just send over the sample content you wrote for them (I’ll talk about what that is in scenario 3). 

And we just follow up with them until they either say “f*ck off, burn in hell” or “I’m not interested, thank you.”

Or..

They respond and we move on to scenario 3.

Scenario 3: The prospect says they are interested.

If they respond, go through their content and make a list of 6 to 8 things they should be talking about more.

And then go ahead and actually write out a few examples for each one of those sections.

For example, you could be something roughly like this::

 “Hey I noticed that on your podcast you talked a lot about your childhood, but you don’t really talk about it much on your LinkedIn. 

This could really drive up your growth and engagement. 

Here’s some posts where you can do that…”

Then send them some posts you wrote for them in their style and voice.

And this shouldn’t be some ChatGPT BS you create in 5 seconds.

It should be a good amount of work. 

You should be able to spend about an hour on this and make it super valuable.

After you send that to them, just respond with something along the lines of:

“You know, here’s what I was thinking. If you need any help with this, I’d love to hop on a call and show you how I can help.” 

And then just go from there.

Now, sales calls are a story for another newsletter, so we’ll wrap it up here, boys and gals.

And remember, this is a rough roadmap to follow.

Over time, you’ll refine your process and get better.

But if you’re consistent, you’ll land your first ghostwriting client.

Much love and have a kickass day.

Your Canadian friend,

Dakota “Ghostwriting” Robertson

P.S.

Want to skip the line and speed up process to growing your personal brand and building a ghostwriting business?

I’m opening up my program, Growth Ghosts.

In it, you get:

• Live coaching calls

• An exclusive community of cohort members

• A complete course on how to grow and monetize your social media

These are exact systems and frameworks I’ve used to help members grow their online following by thousands of followers and build a ghostwriting business to $10K and beyond.

I’m limiting spots to 100 total, so if you want to secure your application, join the waitlist.