Finding a Ghostwriter
These work very much like eBay, except they are a services and therefore inherently “reverse” auction. You as the owner of a project and person seeking the service post an ad for your project. In this ad you can describe in detail what you want to achieve, how long you expect it to take, what kind of expertise you require of any potential partner, what your budget is, how you prefer to pay, whatever you like.
Then freelance resources will submit bids to you, stating their plan, their qualifications, their price, and so on.
In many cases you don’t need to specify your budget. You can say you’re unsure, or even if you are sure, you can say you don’t want to say. Like any buyer, you are in control.
You’re free to craft the ad any way you like, bearing in mind that different kinds of writing resources will respond to different kinds of descriptions and budgets.
Typically auction durations are about as long as eBay, ranging from 3 days to 10 days, in some cases longer.
When we say “open access” project auctions we mean those where
· There is no professional qualification or certification required to bid
· There is no special fee or membership required, other than perhaps a basic auction system membership, to bid
· There is no restriction on location or other factors
Essentially we mean “anyone can bid” on your project, and given the nature of the Internet, “anyone” probably will. We’ve seen writing project postings get proposals from 10,000 person shops in Bangalore India as well as proposals from one-man writing firms in Bangor Maine! And everything in between.
There are dozens of project/freelance auction sites and they come and go all the time.
To see the latest at any time we’d recommend running some Google searches on words like “freelance” and “freelance auctions” and “freelance marketplace” but there are two main project auction sites that remain among the highest-traffic, have reliable payment and feedback systems, five year histories and are likely to be around for a while.
These are:
www.elance.com
www.guru.com
These and most other similar sites are organized categorically by work type – generally you’ll find ghostwriters lurking in whatever section is called “writing” or “copywriting,” which, for arcane reasons, is often joined with “translation” services though these are hardly related at all other than in, obviously, dealing with words.
The major auction sites are free to browse, and often free to join as a buyer (just like eBay).
And because they also offer restricted-access (as do other more exclusive services) we’ll discuss them further in the next section.