With the widespread popularity of Kindle and other electronic publishing platforms, more small businesses are using publishing as a way to build a reputation. By publishing an eBook, a business has a tangible way to reach out to a local or even national or global market.
Hire A Writer is a ghostwriting service that specializes in working with individuals and small companies who want reports and eBooks published quickly. These reports can be given away online, published on Kindle or, in some cases, published as traditional print books.
Depending on the company’s marketing plan, free reports can be used to build a mailing list or pre-sell a product. eBooks can also be sold to generate revenue. Either way, if potential clients or customers are impressed with the information, they are likely to contact the person whose name is on the book.
Says Larry Christopher, the founder of Hire A Writer, “We are finding that everyone from dog training schools to real estate agents can use eBooks as a foot-in-the-door strategy to find clients. The advantage of using a ghostwriter is that you can put your own name on the book and people will assume you wrote it.”
He adds, “Some people have the mistaken idea that using a ghostwriter is unethical or even illegal. Nothing could be further from the truth. It’s a simple business arrangement, like any other. When you pay a ghostwriter for a piece of writing, you obtain full rights to it and you can do whatever you want with it.”
While eBooks have been popular for some time on the internet, it is only recently that they have found a sizable mainstream audience. Now that people can download books to their smart phones, laptops and iPads, many experts predict that this will soon be the dominant form of publishing. In fact, the Association of American Publishers (publishers.org/) has reported that in the first quarter of 2012, eBook sales surpassed print book sales for the first time.
Ghostwriters have traditionally been used by celebrities who want to publish autobiographies but lack the time or skills to do the actual writing. Today, however, ghostwriters are commonly hired by both online and offline businesses to publish articles, reports and eBooks relevant to their industry.
Not everyone who hires ghostwriters is looking to promote a business, though. According to Larry Christopher, “Some of our clients hire us to write novels or nonfiction books that they can quickly publish on Kindle and make money from.” Hire A Writer also offers clients help with promoting their books, using strategies such as blogging, videos and social media marketing.