Never Underestimate the Value of a Ghost Writer

As you are aware, I occasionally participate in the various Internet business forums out there on the web. And, occasionally, I see comments that I cannot let pass without comment. Today was just such a day.

Here is the message that prompted my typing fingers to get to work. This post was seen at: http://ozemedia.com/cgi-bin/webbbs/webbbs_config.pl?read=19271

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Subject: Re: Article Submission Marketing

Affiliate marketing is, after all, supposed to mean more money for less work and becoming a full-time writer certainly isn't my idea of less work.

Heather ----------------------------------------------------------->

Here is my response:

Heather,

Article writing and submission works. Of course, if you know who I am, you also know that I have a reason to be biased.

I run http://thePhantomWriters.com , so I have been involved in this industry for a long time. In the early days, my business model was designed around writing articles for people who did not have the time, skills or confidence to write their own articles.

From the beginning, I understood full well that the value of an article is not in the words and the flow, but in the ability of getting the article in front of the greatest number of publishers who would actually consider reprinting the article.

I dedicated a portion of my program to developing methods to get articles written for my clients into the hands of the largest possible audience.

In November of 2002, I began offering my distribution service as a stand-alone service. In September of 2003, I stopped writing articles for clients and devoted my entire business to growing my distribution service and my distribution reach with the service. Right now, I am able to reach more than 12,000 publishers and webmasters who have requested to receive articles for consideration.

As you can see, I really am biased to this method of Internet promotion. Despite this, the method does work. Until 2004, I promoted my business utilizing ONLY article writing. In the early days of 2004, I purchased two long-term ads in targeted websites. In July of 2004, I opened up my first Google Adwords account.

When it comes to advertising, I play it very conservatively. When it comes to growing my distribution reach, I make it a daily journey. When it comes to writing my own articles to promote my own business, I try hard to do one article per week averaged over the month.

Promoting with articles works for me and my business. Promoting with articles also works for the more than 100 online writer's my company represents. If promoting with articles did not work, then my clients are throwing their money away. Instead, they keep coming back, and some have made a commitment to themselves for one article per week to be written and distributed.

I have taken the long way around here, but I have a reason.

While I do not offer ghost writing services at this time, there are in fact 100's of writer's out there in the world who would be happy to write your articles for you. Many of these writer's are very good at what they do.

You might have to pay $300 to get one article written, but if your time is worth anything at all, this $300 investment will more than pay for itself down the road.

Remember what Kathy said previously in this thread, "I have articles that bring me steady streams of traffic even though the articles were published years ago."

This applies even to articles I have written. I wrote my first in March of 1999. My second was written in July of 1999. My second article has been distributed twice in those five years and does get published again and again. It was last published in July of 2004. I have more than 65 in circulation and all of these articles still generate traffic for my sites.

If you honestly believe that writing your own articles is too much work, then you should shop around for a ghost writer whose style you like and whose article topics appeal to your target markets.

Thank you for listening to my ramble.