A few people have asked me over the past few months about my thoughts on ghostwriting when it comes to selling erotica on Amazon.
In general, I’m not a big fan of ghostwriting. And this is because of several reasons.
First, they can be expensive (if you want a good one). And verifying their quality of work can be difficult.
Second, ghostwriters can just use the same stories over and over again and you’d never know.
Finally, you just lose control out of a lot of the process.
Let’s discuss each of these factors in more detail.
Ghostwriters Can Be Expensive
They say you pay for what you get, right?
Well, that’s really true when it comes to ghostwriting.
If you just search “erotica ghostwriter” on Upwork, you’ll get a bunch of results. The cool thing about Upwork is they display people’s stated rates.
A freelancer on Upwork will cost between $15 and $50+ bucks. That’s a HUGE amount to pay for someone.
Even if you’re doing a large volume with one ghostwriter and negotiate a lower hourly rate, you’ll still be paying a lot for the stories.
Let’s say it takes them 3 hours on average to write a 3,000 word story. At a $30 bill rate, you’d be out $90 bucks BEFORE you even sold the book!
And that’s assume the ghostwriter already knows the niche you want to write in and construct a good story people will want to buy.
Sounds like a tall order.
In all likelihood, you’re probably paying for someone who has never written in the niche. And that’s not good at all.
Verifying their work is difficult as well. If they give you samples of their work, how do you really know they are the ones who wrote it?
…which brings me to my next point!
No Way To Check for Plagiarism
To my knowledge, there’s no way to check your ghostwriter’s work to make sure they didn’t just blatantly rip off another author.
For all you know, they could have copied the story from another author on Amazon. Or they could have ripped the book from a free site like Litrotica.
And guess what? You’re going to be the one holding the bag of poop when you publish it on Amazon.
When you publish on Amazon you are liable for violating someone else’s copyright!
If they find out you’ve been “copying” other people’s work, they may ban your account. And that’s it…no more money!
Another thing to be worried about is a ghostwriter just recycling stories all over again.
All of these are super big concerns on my head before I even think about interviewing a ghostwriter.
No Control In The Writing Process
I think one of the scariest things about hiring a ghostwriter (aside from the stuff I’ve already talked about), is losing a lot of control on the writing process.
Sure, you can give them a prompt or outline of the story you want to be written, but you’re still giving away the majority of the creative process over.
And not only that, but you still have to edit their work once they’re finished.
All of this just frankly gives me nightmares!
It would just be much more efficient (and profitable) to write the stories yourself.
Final Thoughts Why I Don’t Use Erotica Ghostwriters
Overall, I’m just not a big fan of hiring a ghostwriter to write erotic stories for me.
There are just too many variables you can’t account for. And the disadvantages don’t outweigh the benefits.
You are MUCH better off writing your own stories.
Readers, what are your thoughts on this? Have any of you used ghostwriters? And did you have a good experience using them?
Let me know in the comments!