1 Fine Ghostwriting Secret: Many are Journalists

I once wrote about why journalists make good ghostwriters. (See it here.) Little did I know that I wasn’t setting a ghostwriting trend but rather following one.

And yet I should have seen it coming. Consider:

• According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 77% of all journalism staff positions have been lost in the last 20 years. That likely includes the 26% drop in newsroom employment between 2008-2021, as reported by Pew Research. Pew said there were about 114,000 total newsroom employees in 2008, but by 2020, that had declined by 29,000. I was one such casualty; my last newspaper job ended that year due to COVID.
• The Associated Press reported that the news website The Messenger folded in January, putting 300 journalists out of work. 
• The Los Angeles Times recently laid off 100 journalists.
• Business Insider and Time magazine cut staff.
• The Washington Post bought out more than 200 staffers.
• The Wall Street Journal eliminated 20 spots in its Washington DC bureau.
• BuzzFeed News no longer exists. Sports Illustrated appeared to be done before a ten-year rescue by the London-based digital media publisher Minute Media saved it.

As far back s 2016, people were writing about journalists and ghostwriting. Denise Dorman, on the American Society of Journalists and Authors website, wrote about how “grizzled journalists out there (are) tired of being the target of public distrust, or mentally exhausted by the demands of editors.

“The time has come for us to reinvent ourselves. Again,” Dorman wrote, and she suggested ghostwriting.

The reasons journalists are heading into ghostwriting are similar to mine. According to journalism.co.uk, the opportunities can be lucrative and abundant, unlike today’s journalism.

According to Nieman Lab, a journalist’s 2023 median income of $57,000 falls behind inflation or jobs in public relations or corporate communications.

Any ghostwriter with a track record can command between $15,000 and $50,000 for a full-length book, with celebrity tomes fetching six or even seven figures. All one needs is between one and three projects a year to be able to live well and raise a family. 

But to get those jobs, you need leads, and I’ve seen the quantity and quality of leads increase since I switched to ghostwriting. There’s no reason others haven’t or won’t experience the same.

Another factor: People get into journalism because they want to be paid to do work that they find interesting, satisfies some curiosity of desire to tell a story, and benefits an audience. That’s what ghostwriting does.

I spoke to a New York-based journalist who’s thinking about going into ghostwriting. His reasons included wanting better hours and better pay, plus wanting to write about subjects he wanted to write about, which were music and movies. He loves writing. Ghostwriting might be a way for him.

Journalists want to feel like what they write about has value, that heals people, highlights injustice and corruption, teaches about people and their very human natures, and proves the First Amendment is integral to our democracy and way of life. In some ways, I have ghostwriting does this, too.

Journalists are willing to sacrifice higher pay and job security for work that allows them to express themselves and demonstrate the values they hold dear. In other words, they want careers that cannot be just about money. Ghostwriting is that, but when you add money, ghostwriting becomes that much more rewarding.

As I’ve said, ghostwriting is the most rewarding, emotionally and economically, job I’ve ever had. And I was a journalist. Why wouldn’t other journalists want the same?

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