I took a booth at an art and craft fair to sell my own book and reference books on writing. 
I could not believe that some people thought that a ghost writer would  write their memoir for FREE.  If you want it written for free you need to write it yourself,I said.Even then it would be wise to learn how before you start as it is a huge investment in time. I would advise learning how first.

What is memoir?

The word memory comes from the same root as the word mourn. That expresses how emotionally confronting writing a memoir can be.

Read more: How to Write a Memoir  and click link below to read more or order Hoe to write your memoir at a discounted price.

Books » Arts & Photography » Language Arts » General
Teach Yourself Make Money from Freelance Writing

By Claire Gillman


Make Money From Freelance Writing takes you step by step through every avenue for making an income from professional writing. Covering everything from travel writing to writing self-help features and full-length book commissions, it also includes writing for new media and the practicalities of finding a route to market/self-publicity. Each chapter contains a diagnostic test, case studies, practical exercises and Aide Memoire boxes. Each chapter concludes with a reminder of the key points of the chapter (Focus Points) and a round-up of what to expect in the next (Next Step) will whet your appetite for what's coming and how it relates to what you've just read.


About the Author

Claire Gillman (Cumbria, England), Author and Professional Freelance Writer: writing professionally for over 25 years. Claire has written over a dozen non-fiction books ranging from a documentary style review of The Parachute Regiment to guides on raising teenage sons and living with ageing parents. Claire is currently an editor for Writers' Workshop, specialising in non-fiction. Her critiques and advice to potential authors have helped several of them secure an agent and obtain a publishing deal. She has also run and organized numerous writing courses and workshops, both in London and at residential centres.

There are “no chance encounters.” All encounters offer us the opportunity to transform fear to love and create a miracle. Accept that relationships are assignments to learn and grow.” Gabrielle Bernstein...


found myself late at night repeatedly checking facebook pages for updates and Google analytical fo a positive swing on my blog posts and I gave myself a huge kick in the Ass and told myself that that was not only time wasting but it was a sign of depression.  I did something about it I applied the 80/20 rule.

Do you know what that is?

It is when you stop doing that 80% of things that do not positively affect your life and you only keep the 20% that does. Then you have the 80% of your time free to try new things.  I'm off to do those new things now while keeping the important 20% of what I do that works well.

Well Reading and writing are two of the things that are positive for me so I am going to read a book on adding more to my life.


Books » Health & Wellbeing » Self Help » Personal Growth » Happiness
Add More Ing to Your Life A Hip Guide to Happiness

By Gabrielle Bernstein
Discover the thirty-day "-ing" Equation to sharpen your intuitive senses and activate untapped inspirations!
Lots of people are selling "happiness" these days, but in her hip self-transformation book, "Add More -ing to Your Life, " motivational speaker and life coach Gabrielle Bernstein truly shows you how to make happiness a way of life by accessing your "-ing"--your Inner Guide.
In her thirty-day "-ing" Equation, Gabrielle will show you how to bulldoze negative thought patterns and create personal change through positive affirmations, physical activity, and visualization meditations.
Get prepared to change your life by accessing a state of "flow" to help you connect with your "-ing." You'll release your negativity and choose happiness!

Sharing some of the small paid writing jobs an author can do while waiting for the book contract.:-)
Ghost Write.

Heaps of opportunities - look for them and ask for them.
You could make up flyers, Vista Print is a popular firm to get flyers and business cards though. Walk around your commercial estates and ask businesses if they need a writer to assist them.

If you are reading a magazine or local newspaper and consistently see articles you think you could write better - and would like to. Go and see the editor and ask for assignments or find and write up a local news story yourself and take it to the editor and ask for payment. You have to let people know you write for a fee.

I have done ghost writing for decades.
I was paid my affiliate fee today from a book publisher because I write reviews on the books I read and receive commission from some book sales - that's called being an affiliate - select a company you are happy to try products from and write honestly about them for that income. It is small but it all helps.

I quit my mystery shopper job this morning. It is worth doing if you have the time and love shopping I would recommend it. I found the job advertised in Gumtree and applied and was accepted straight away.

My dog got a job to write about a bathroom stool (I kid you not) it is amazing the writing jobs that come in requesting the dog writes about it in her blog  :-).  When I started the blog I thought the dog's blog would attract interest from dog product advertisers but know, the dog gets asked to ghost write mostly for universities.

All the ghost writing you do belongs to the person who employs you to write it. You do not own it. 


Why it's so important to own your own content for your major writing work, your novels or anything you wish to keep receiving royalties for or own the copyright. See the following example of an author who worked for contract fee and then wanted to own that work.  You cannot have it both ways.

Vampire Diaries Author Loses Rights to her Book www.lulu.com

If you think writing a series of acclaimed supernatural thrillers, which get made into a successful television show and sell thousands of books, would be considered a job well done, think again.

One form of ghost writing work you can do is in market research.

I received my current assignment in the form of a phone call earlier this week and today I will be sent a detailed email containing a lengthy questionnaire. I print the questionnaire out and study it then I go to a jewellery store to try on gold and diamond jewellery while noting everything about the experience.  This requires a great deal of memory skill which I find quite challenging as I will be asked questions about the experience including security, and every word that is spoken to me they way people are dressed including others in the story the appearance of the display and the items I look at all need to be remembered in great detain and written about. 

That is only the first half of the assignment. 

Before I do the second half of the assignment I head to a coffee lounge and spend a little of my Mystery Shopper earnings on lunch for two with my husband and he os quiet while I write down everything I remember and then I return to the store to ask about obtaining finance to purchase an item of my choice. I do not actually buy it. Again it is a challenge to the memory as everything needs to be remembered, right down to the names of those people who speak to you and details about their clothing, name badge and everything they say and how they say it and the surrounding room details and other people in the room.

If you love to be paid to write and have a reporter sleuth's memory then a Secret Shopper job might interest you. 

The rest of the week gets busy now - I have a job over the next days that involvement, every ladies dream I am sure (wasted on me because I'm still a tomboy) - I get to wear diamonds and gold and write about it
for money. lol...that's my end of week job. I would rather be in my nighty writing than all glammed up but :-), those little paid writing jobs are good to have.


I will be looking at this before I head out.

 Books » Home & Garden » Antiques & Collecting » Reference
Gem and Jewelry Pocket Guide A Traveler's Guide to Buying Diamonds, Colored Gems, Pearls, Gold and Platinum Jewelry

By Renee Newman

The perfect pocket-sized companion for those travelling and thinking about purchasing jewellery or stones. Renee Newman, author of the highly respected gem and jewellery guides including 'Diamond Ring Buying Guide' and 'Gold and Platinum Jewelry Buying Guide', has written a concise buying guide covering gems, gold and platinum that's a perfect handy reference. Here is important information on how to select jewellers and appraisers; a chapter on notable gem sources and which countries are noted for specific gems; information on coral, ivory and amber; precautions one must take when buying from an unfamiliar source; and customs regulations, duties and how to use lab reports. This guide will become an indispensable resource that will be used time and time again.

 Nuance Dragon NaturallySpeaking

A friend is learning to use  Dragon Voice Recognition software with my computer, so they can  dictate instead of typing.

So far, they are impressed by it. Dictating is awkward, they are not used to it yet, but  can see that it's a lot faster than typing or writing by hand.

They are interested in hearing from other writers who dictate their work -- either with software like Dragon or a recorder or some other method. What do you like about it?
What obstacles did you have to overcome when you first started using that method?
What do you think are its drawbacks?

My answers:
I got my novel started with Dragon Speaking. For five years before I actually began writing my novel I was on exhibition painting tour throughout the country a lot of this time in the outback where I was researching stories I wanted to turn into fiction - I was not writing fiction at that point . I wrote the stories in notebooks beside my sketches.
The when I finally settled down to write the fiction I had volumes of hand written notes to get into the word processor so I bought Dragon Speaking software and dictated 5 years of notes in three days. It would have taken me a month to type them in.

Drawback is the third step. Now I am writing I find using the iMac keyboard I don't get the repetition strain I get from using my laptops and I have an iPod I can use in the bush so I prefer to work directly into the computer and avoid the middle step of setting up the Dragon Speaking equipment.

Books » Fiction & Literature » General
11.22.63 By Stephen King


WHAT IF you could go back in time and change the course of history? WHAT IF the watershed moment you could change was the JFK assassination? 11/22/63, the date that Kennedy was shot - unless ...King takes his protagonist Jake Epping, a high school English teacher from Lisbon Falls, Maine, 2011, on a fascinating journey back to 1958 - from a world of mobile phones and iPods to a new world of Elvis and JFK, of Plymouth Fury cars and Lindy Hopping, of a troubled loner named Lee Harvey Oswald and a beautiful high school librarian named Sadie Dunhill, who becomes the love of Jake's life - a life that transgresses all the normal rules of time.With extraordinary imaginative power, King weaves the social, political and popular culture of his baby-boom American generation into a devastating exercise in escalating suspense.

About the Author
Stephen King has written some fifty books and novellas, all of them worldwide bestsellers. Among his most recent are FULL DARK, NO STARS, UNDER THE DOME, JUST AFTER SUNSET, the DARK TOWER NOVELS and his acclaimed non-fiction book, ON WRITING. He won America's prestigious National Book Award and was voted Grand Master

 Books » Reference & Language » General
Ghost Writing How to Ghost Write for Others (Aber Writers Guides)

By Lynne Hackles, Dr. Graham Lawler (Edited by)


Who else wants to be able to earn by ghost writing? Being a creative writer means being adaptable to different markets since that is exactly how writers earn their living. Writing for the famous and the just plain busy is an extremely good way of earning a nice living and developing yourself as a writer. This book includes explanations on how to: * start a ghost writing business * work with clients to get the best from them for their book * develop your writing style so that it becomes compelling writing Market * All students of creative writing in colleges and universities * College and university central and department libraries * Teachers, tutors and lecturers * Public and reference libraries * General readers

About the Author
Lynne Hackles is a very experienced writer and creative writing teacher. She writes as Lynne Hackles, Elizabeth Wilden and Lynne Crayford and has written children's books, novels, non-fiction books and of course she has ghosted a number of books. Lynne has also appeared with TV celebrity Noel Edmonds on Deal or No Deal and won a substantial amount of money.

Are you happy to write and not receive credit for your work?
Can you keep a secret?


If you would like to be  a ghost writer you need to understand  what Ghostwriting is.

Ghost Writing is simply choosing to give or sell your writer's talent and work to a client and allowing them to take the credit for it.  It can be advertising, a memoir, short stories, poems, articles, ebooks, sales letters, press releases, you name it. The only thing I have ever said no to at this stage is advertising for cigarettes, gambling, pornographic writing and I will not endorse diet pills. Well that knocks out a huge potential income, but I still get heaps of work.

There is another field of ghost writing that has a huge market and I have been turning away work in this area for decades. Writing student assignments. I know that this is now commonplace and is part of why the wealthy achieve higher academic scores than the public school child does. Many students do their own written assignments and many actually pay a ghost writer to write them for them.  Needless to say there are a lot of ghost writers out there who earn a living writing school assignments for the children from wealthy families and sometimes fir families who have struggled to find the month to pay a ghost writer to write that assignment.   The attainment of academic status these days can be purchased.

If you are willing to swap your name and byline for a substantial paycheck, then you could be on your way to becoming a ghostwriter.  If on the other hand you are looking for fame and fortune then this career choice won’t be for you.

I was studying science and had to do a written and illustrated presentation before a class of my peers on a subject related to science that had applied in my own live.
I chose the topic of genetics in dog breeding. I received top marks in my science class, that achieved due to intense study. I love throwing myself into a subject I love.

Later I wrote some self help booklets for an organization
I was approached by and latter as a result of that, I found myself writing articles for a Doctor to be published in his name for the Australian Medical Journal.   

I have also held fill in spots as the relieving editor of several magazines.
Well that is how I got my start as a Ghost Writer.

I have had no difficulty receiving enjoyable ghost writing work by selecting topics that actually interest me and I believe this makes for a better ghost writer, it has never been, 'just a job,' to me. I have felt as involved in all my ghost written works as if I myself were the accredited author.  I simply cannot use the published work on my writer's resume.


How to Ghostwrite Tips for Writers on Writing an Article in Somebody Else's Voice
Read more at Suite101: How to Ghostwrite: Tips for Writers on Writing an Article in Somebody Else's Voice | Suite101.com http://norman-kolpas.suite101.com/how-to-ghostwrite-a54126#ixzz1mJhGWpKO