7 Great Steps to a $100,00 Income

Many people make new-year resolutions and set goals. Common ones include paying off debt, creating a rainy-day fund, sticking to a budget, boosting retirement savings, investing more or better, improving credit scores, and updating insurance coverages.

The one I want to address is increasing income. If your 2026 goal is to make a six-figure income as a ghostwriter, I’m here to tell you it’s possible, and I have some tips for you that have served me well.

1. Build a Foundation First. To earn a $100,000 income, a ghostwriter first has to have a team. That can mean a lot of different things to different ghostwriters. For me, it means having the right people backing the ghostwriter.

My team includes:

• A business advisor to teach me what I don’t know about running a ghostwriting business, how to script the right words when talking to a prospect, and encouraging and applauding when I do things right.
• A web designer to build a killer site that is attractive and easy to navigate. (Ghostwriters probably don’t need a writer because they can write the website themselves.)
• An SEO company that uses white-hat strategies to make sure the website is found and ranks high on the search engines and AI.
• A wife who has a really good medical benefits package that allows me to pursue a solo ghostwriting proprietorship.
• An economic advisor who holds an MBA and can help me make better choices in the face of various different economic conditions.
• Editors, book cover and page designers, publishers, and marketers. As I’ve previously written, a book-writing process takes seven steps, and I am not an expert in all of them, so I need to have experts in those other areas who I can refer my clients to so they successfully navigate the entire process. And I have more than one of each so I can refer who I think will best fit the client.

Your team might include some or all of these, plus other components. What’s important is having that foundation, which will allow you to focus on the ghostwriting.

2. Specialize So Hard You Become the Obvious Choice. I once was a jack-of-all-trades copywriter selling my ability to write more than twenty-five different types. Now, I basically ghostwrite only four non-fiction types: books, speeches, blogs, and websites. And I only ghostwrite three types of books: memoirs, business books, and expository essays.

Generalists compete on price. Specialists compete on fit, and I make it a point to spend at least two (and usually more) Zoom sessions just discussing a prospect’s project, motivations, and goals, followed by at least one (and usually more) sessions in which the prospect asks about me, my philosophy, process, and experience.

Doing it this way leads to faster trust and a prospect recognizing the value you bring. High value equals higher fees with less pushback. And if you mention price before establishing value, you lose all leverage, so make sure price is the last thing you discuss. This will help you price your service higher, which results in a larger income.

3. Build One Flagship Offer (Not Many Services). My one service is ghostwriting, but my flagship offer is connecting clients to other experts. As I wrote above, part of my team includes others who specialize in areas I don’t. People who want a ghostwriter often want a one-stop shop, and those that can provide have the edge. 

High earners don’t offer menus. They offer paths, and that leads to the prospect perceiving the ghostwriter for hire as having higher value, making it easier for the prospect to buy what the ghostwriter is selling—at a higher price, too, meaning a higher income for you.

4. Master Executive Interviewing. It starts with the open-ended questions that begin with who, what, where, when, how, and why. It continues with active listening in which the ghostwriter critically hears the client’s responses and finds more questions to ask.

Top ghostwriters challenge vague answers and demand the clients get specific, get the clients to give their opinions, identify what should not be said publicly, and offer insights into the client’s answers (“It sounds like you mean…”).

By doing this kind of in-depth interviewing, you will have fewer revisions with each draft, your client’s voice will come across stronger, and the client will feel intellectually partnered, not serviced. This alone justifies premium pricing that will get you that target income.

5. Be AI-Fluent, but Never AI-Dependent. As much as I dislike artificial intelligence, I realize it’s here to stay, and a recent study reported that people who use AI make more money.

The good news is that clients expect efficiency, not automation, and I’ve had some prospects recently tell me they insist I don’t use any AI.

The truth is that six-figure writers use AI for research, synthesis, and voice analysis, but they never let AI generate the final prose. After all, AI helps a ghostwriter move faster, but final judgment is still human.

So, trust technology, but only to a point. After that, trust yourself.

6. Control Their Access to You. I have a client who likes to change our appointment times. We have agreed to meet for ninety minutes every Sunday and Tuesday. The dates aren’t the problem, it’s the time. Sometimes, it’s 2 p.m, but then I get an email requesting it be an hour earlier or later to accommodate him. 

Because he is a therapist, I once asked him, “Do you let your clients change times like this?”

“No,” he replied.

“Then why do you think you can do it with me?”

He got the hint.

Six-figure ghostwriters are selective and set boundaries. They keep their calendar updated and include times that they block so they can focus on their work and not be bothered.

Scarcity increases perceived value, and protects your energy.

7. Think Like a Partner, not a Vendor. Reaching $100,000 in income will come when clients say, “I trust you with my story. I trust you will tell it in my voice.”

That means a ghostwriter will push back when needed, advise on what not to include, and protect a client’s long-term reputation over any short-term consideration such as what goes in the book.

This is where ghostwriters serving Philadelphia and across the country become indispensable.

I’m not saying these tips guarantee a six-figure income immediately. It takes some years to build the necessary foundation to make that income a reality. But if you have patience, fortitude, and the right attitude, you can (and will) get there because you will understand that ghostwriters who make $100,000 don’t sell words, pages, or speed.

They sell teamwork, specialization, pathways, clarity, authority, reputation, and relief.