Content marketing drives your business. Companies leverage content to build their brand, generate sales and nurture leads.
But producing content at scale takes time. According to data, it takes over four hours on average for businesses to write a blog post—an increase of 67% over a seven-year span! Ebooks can take twice as long as they are usually more custom and in-depth.
And many business leaders publish books to establish authority in their field and boost their company brand. If a blog post takes four hours, imagine how long a whole book would take!
That’s why finding a business ghostwriter is key to scaling content marketing. Outsourcing content to a ghostwriter frees up time to focus on strategy, and business ghostwriting services enable marketing departments & executives to increase output.
You first need to figure out how much it costs to hire a business ghostwriter. With so many factors impacting ghostwriting costs for businesses, how do you sort all this out?
And what are the benefits of business ghostwriting to weigh against costs? Without understanding both sides of the equation, you can’t calculate investment returns.
In this post, we’ll overview what business ghostwriting is all about, what criteria influence costs and how to optimize the efficiency of ghostwriting.
Once you master the ins & outs of the costs of ghostwriting on your business and how to turn those costs into an investment, you can improve your content marketing to increase traffic and convert more leads.
Or maybe publish that industry book to (finally!).
What Is a Business Ghostwriter?
Business ghostwriting is when you hire an external writer to write blog posts, ebooks or business books while you retain writing credit.
Simply put, you’re paying an expert writer to write your content marketing for you. This helps you save time and create content at scale.
Ghostwriters create content of all types, from 300-page business books to short blog posts designed to promote a product or service.
Business ghostwriting services are ideal when determining how to grow your business using content marketing because content development is a core principle of content marketing.
Successful ghostwriters come from a variety of professional backgrounds, from software developers who write technical manuals to creative writers who can connect with customers.
In other words, with the right team of business ghostwriters, you can solidify content production processes to improve your overall content marketing, get more leads and increase sales.
How Much Does a Ghostwriter Cost on Average?
The cost for a ghostwriter depends on many factors, such as what type of content you need, how long each piece needs to be, and how much research the project requires. A ghostwriter may also charge more if you ask them to include images, hyperlinks, and other content elements.
For example, business ghostwriting starts at $5,000 per book, according to wWriting coach Lisa Tener. If a ghostwriter charges hourly, the cost of a book could be between $30 to $200 per hour, depending on the project’s scope. Per-word rates for this type of work typically range from $1 to $3.
Book ghostwriting can be costly because of the prestige associated with publishing a book people can buy at a bookstore and hold in their hands. Other types of projects cost much less.
According to the American Writers & Artists Institute, professional writers typically charge at least $450 to create the home page for a website and $250 to $750 for an information page, which may include how-to guides, buying guides, and product reviews.
Case studies typically cost $1,200 to $2,000, according to the Professional Writers’ Alliance, while white papers cost anywhere from $2,000 to $10,000.
Of course, these are just averages. Ghostwriter costs across all types of projects fall into a few pricing structures:
- Per-word pricing
- Flat-rate pricing
- Hourly rates
- Per-project rates
Per-word pricing
Ghostwriting rates per word vary dramatically — from 1 cent to several dollars. These prices factor in both the writer’s experience and the specific project.
For example, it’s common for writers to charge more per word for projects that require a lot of research. You’ll also incur additional costs if you need your ghostwriter to interview people or watch lots of video content to get a feel for your brand.
While there’s no set rate across the board, you can expect to pay 5-10 cents per word for simple blogs and general web content written by entry-level ghostwriters. A writer with a few years of experience may charge upwards of 20 cents per word, and subject matter experts or technical writers command an even higher premium.
You’ll also pay more if you need an ebook or white paper. Creating an ebook can cost businesses at least 50 cents per word, depending on quality and research requirements, while a white paper requires a budget of up to $1 per word. Both types of content can easily cost you thousands of dollars, but they also showcase clear authority to cement your position within a niche.
Flat-rate pricing
Some ghostwriters use a flat-rate scale, where you’ll pay a specific amount for content up to a certain number of words or per page. This payment structure usually gets cheaper as the word requirement increases, so it’s better than straight per-word pricing for businesses needing long-form content.
While ghostwriting rates depend on the writer’s skill level, you should expect to pay about $50 to $75 for a 1,000-word blog post written by an entry-level professional. In comparison, expect to pay up to $250 for a blog of this length if you engage the services of more experienced ghostwriters.
Hourly rates
Like per-word rates, hourly ghostwriting prices vary considerably, depending on the type of content and the experience of the individual writer. For example, the median hourly rate of a copywriter is $28, but this rate ranges from $25 to $31.
Copywriters handle various types of marketing writing and related content, which is often an ideal match for businesses. However, general content writers typically charge a few dollars less per hour and can handle blogs and the most basic forms of website copy. Again, expertise plays a significant role in these prices.
Unless you’re looking to hire an in-house ghostwriter, you generally won’t encounter hourly rates as often as per-word and per-project fees.
However, accepting an hourly rate may be advantageous if you’ll need your ghostwriter to attend several meetings during the planning and publishing process. This way, you can cover the extra work without negotiating it into the project as a separate payment.
Per-project rates
Per-project ghostwriter fees make the most sense for anything that isn’t a simple blog post or web page because they allow your ghostwriter to factor in all the additional work required, such as SEO, image sourcing, and research.
This pricing structure is also ideal for social media posts and emails, since these types of content require extra planning and creativity that a per-word rate won’t cover. Social media content costs up to $10 per post, while emails may cost up to $50, jumping much higher for long lead-generation pieces.
Expect to pay about $400 for a 2,000-word blog post, $50 to $100 or more for product descriptions (depending on the length and complexity), and around $1,000 for a landing page. Additional requirements will add to these costs, but the benefit of a per-project rate is that you know how much you’ll need to pay upfront before you accept the contract.
How Successful Businesses Use Ghostwriting Services
You may be wondering how to use a ghostwriter.
Leveraging ghostwriters enables you to optimize cost-efficiency while scaling output and maintaining quality all at the same time.
And with bylines and writing credit, you retain your brand’s authority over your area of expertise. It’s a win-win!
While there are four main types of ghostwriting content: website copy, ebooks & business books, fiction and memoirs, businesses focus mostly on web content like landing pages, blog posts, ebooks, and business books.
Content for business ghostwriting services
- Landing pages: Business ghostwriters can write keyword-rich landing pages with compelling calls to action, helping you generate leads or convert your existing leads into paying customers.
- Blog posts: When you want to educate your target audience and demonstrate SEO authority, blog posts are a go-to. Ghostwriters deliver well-researched posts to engage audiences and increase your traffic and conversions.
- Ebooks: Think of ebooks as middle-of-funnel collateral for your content marketing. Users can download these mini-books as part of the lead nurturing process to move through your sales funnel. Ebooks are usually longer than blog posts, so it’s vital for the writing to flow well. Professional ghostwriters can write ebooks from scratch or take existing blog content and repurpose it for you.
- Business books: If you’re a growing business and want to establish a professional reputation in your industry, authoring a book is an excellent way to accomplish this goal. But writing a book can be incredibly time-consuming. A ghostwriter can alleviate the burden of researching and writing your book, giving you time to focus on the business.
Leveraging business ghostwriters where possible in your content marketing strategy can save you a lot of time.
Advantages of Hiring a Business Ghostwriter
Ghostwriters can help you achieve flexibility and reduce the cost of your content marketing efforts. They can also bring third-party knowledge and experience to the table to increase the quality of your content.
Time savings
As a business owner, you have to juggle everything from marketing and customer service to bookkeeping and inventory management. You may not have enough time to research and write the content necessary to help grow your business.
On the other hand, large companies may want their employees to focus on product development, customer service, and other roles, leaving little time available to create a content marketing plan and consistent production schedule. Outsourcing content production to ghostwriters can help you publish consistently without dedicating much time to content creation.
Cost savings
When you hire a full-time writer, their salary or hourly wage is only one of your costs. You may also need to offer benefits, pay extra taxes, and cover the cost of a new computer or other equipment the writer needs to do their job. These costs add up quickly, especially for small businesses. When you have a writer on your payroll, you have to cover these costs regardless of whether you need content.
Ghostwriter services are less expensive, since you only pay for the content you receive. You don’t have to cover the cost of their computer equipment or internet access, pay any extra taxes (since they’re responsible for their own taxes), or worry about finding space for them in your office. As a result, working with a ghostwriter can save you a significant amount of money.
Of course, you can also leverage both types of writers. Hiring a ghostwriter can maximize your in-house writing team’s performance by allowing them to focus on time-sensitive tasks and your most important pillar content.
Increased flexibility
If you hire a full-time writer, they may not have experience writing every type of content you need. You could get around this problem by employing part-time writers with different skill sets, but then you’d have to find space and purchase equipment for both of them.
A better alternative may be to hire different ghostwriters for each type of project. For example, you’d work with a business book ghostwriter if you wanted to publish a book. Then, you’d work with a second ghostwriter if you needed a case study or white paper. This gives you a tremendous amount of flexibility.
How to Hire a Ghostwriter
If you’re ready to take advantage of all the benefits of business ghostwriting, you have two options.
The first is advertising online, screening applications, reviewing work samples, and conducting interviews until you find the right ghostwriter for the job. If you go this route, set aside plenty of time for reviewing samples — you’ll want to find someone who can write in your preferred tone and keep your target audience engaged.
The second option is to seek an agency with many business ghostwriters available for immediate work. Working with an agency eliminates the need to advertise, screen applications, and conduct interviews, freeing up a lot of your time.
If you work with an agency, you can also request a business ghostwriter with experience writing about your industry. Writers with niche expertise will communicate the value of what you offer and match Google’s desire for topical authority.
Start Growing Your Business with Ghostwriting Services
If you’re ready to learn how to grow your business with content marketing, contact a business ghostwriter today. To make hiring a writer even easier, partner with a company that works with qualified ghostwriters who are ready to take on projects of any size.
At Crowd Content, we make it simple to find freelance ghostwriters for hire. We also have a team of SMEs who can review your content to ensure it demonstrates the expertise and authority Google loves.
