I’ve been writing professionally for more than six years.
But I’ve only been ghostwriting for the last two.
In that time, I’ve made just over $200,000 writing content for other people.
And despite having years of writing experience before I started, the transition wasn’t as straightforward as I expected…
Because writing for yourself and writing as somebody else are two different skills.
When you’re writing for yourself, you:
Control the ideas
Determine the arguments.
Set the voice.
… and if you want to change direction halfway through a piece, you don’t need anybody’s permission.
Ghostwriting doesn’t work like that…
You must learn how to take what’s inside somebody else’s head and turn it into content that sounds like something they would say.
This means you must learn how to:
Generate and develop ideas.
Extract someone else’s expertise.
Recognize what makes something worth reading.
Adapt your writing to different voices.
Continually find new ways to communicate similar ideas.
And despite already being an experienced writer, I wasn’t particularly good at all of this when I started.
I had to learn.
Some of that came naturally from doing the job over and over again.
But a lot of my improvement came from simple habits I picked up along the way.
And they’re nothing revolutionary.
You don’t need to spend thousands of dollars on courses or study writing for years to start doing them.
You just need to put in the reps.
So if I were trying to become a better ghostwriter today, these are five simple things I’d spend more time doing:
Tip #1: Do copywork
One part of becoming a better ghostwriter is improving as a writer.
And the best way I’ve found to improve as a writer is through “copywork.”
Copywork is exactly what it sounds like.
You find a piece of writing you admire, grab a pen and paper, and copy it word for word.
It might sound ridiculously simple.
But writers have been using variations of this technique for generations.
Benjamin Franklin famously taught himself to write better by studying essays from The Spectator.
He would take notes on the ideas, put the original aside, and later try to reconstruct the argument himself.
Hunter S. Thompson famously typed out The Great Gatsby and A Farewell to Arms because he wanted to understand what it felt like to produce writing of that quality.
Gary Halbert, who is widely considered one of the most successful and highest-paid direct response copywriters in history, encouraged aspiring copywriters to hand-copy successful sales letters to internalize how effective copy was constructed.
Tracing great writing forces you to pay attention to how it was constructed.
At one point in my journey, I spent the first hour of every morning doing copywork.
I had several writing styles I wanted to get better at, and I’d dedicate an entire month to studying one at a time.
For example, I spent one month copying viral LinkedIn posts from some of my favorite creators.
Every evening, I’d archive 5-10 viral posts, then the next morning I’d grab my notebook and write them out by hand.
The following month, I switched to long-form content and started copying articles and longer pieces from some of my favorite writers.
Note 💡
If you want somewhere to start with copywork, The Boron Letters by Gary Halbert is worth checking out.
In the series, Halbert lays out a list of classic ads and sales letters he recommends copying by hand.
These days, I don’t spend an hour doing copywork every morning anymore…
But whenever I want to learn a new writing style, it’s still one of the first things I return to.
I simply find examples of the style or voice I’m trying to learn, then copy the work of people who already do it successfully.
As you repeatedly trace good writing, you start noticing patterns you might completely miss when casually reading it.
For example, you’ll be able to spot:
Where the writer creates tension.
How long they spend setting up an idea.
Where they introduce an example.
How they transition between arguments.
Why they use a short sentence in one place and a longer one somewhere else.
How they keep you reading without you consciously realizing it.
But I strongly recommend doing copywork with pen and paper.
Typing makes it far too easy to move quickly.
Writing by hand slows you down.
You’re forced to spend more time with every word, sentence, transition, and structural decision the writer made.
That friction is part of the point.
It forces you to pay attention to what’s happening.
So, the first tip to becoming a better ghostwriter:
Develop a habit of copywork.
Find writers who are already good at the type of writing you want to learn and repeatedly trace their work by hand.
Over time, you’ll start recognizing patterns you previously couldn’t see.
And eventually, some of those patterns will begin showing up naturally in your own writing.
Tip #2: Study interviews
The hardest part of being a ghostwriter is extracting good ideas from somebody else’s head.
Some clients make this ridiculously easy.
For example, one client I work with was creating content for two years before we started working together.
He single-handedly built his LinkedIn following to 50,000+ followers and simply brought me in so he could focus more on other aspects of his business.
So he knows what he wants to talk about.
For him, I created a space in his client dashboard where he can drop ideas he’s been thinking about.
All I have to do is interpret those ideas and turn them into content people want to consume.
But other clients can make the extraction process a living hell…
And it’s not intentional.
They simply haven’t spent years thinking about their experiences through a content lens.
So you’ll ask, “What’s something you’ve changed your mind about recently?”
And they’ll say, “Hmm. I’m not sure.”
Or you’ll ask about an interesting experience and get a two-sentence answer.
You can’t blame them for that.
And it’s not their job to know what makes good content…
It’s yours.
This means you can’t simply arrive at an interview with a list of 20 questions and mechanically work your way through them.
You have to learn how to probe.
If your client casually mentions something interesting, dig into it.
“Why did you think that?”
“What happened next?”
“Can you give me an example?”
“What did you do differently afterward?”
“Why do you disagree with that?”
“How did that make you feel?”
Sometimes the best material from an hour-long conversation will come from a five-minute tangent you never planned to discuss.
And your ability to recognize those moments and pull on the thread is what will help you create highly personalized stories and arguments that could only come from your client.
One of the easiest ways I’ve found to improve this skill is to study good interviewers.
Watch how people like Joe Rogan or Steven Bartlett interview their guests.
Don’t only listen to the guest’s answers…
Pay attention to the interviewer.
Notice how they:
Follow up on interesting answers.
Ask for clarification.
Challenge assumptions.
Get people to provide specific examples.
Let certain conversations develop instead of rushing to the next question.
Ask questions based on something the guest said 30 seconds earlier.
You’re essentially studying how somebody turns another person’s knowledge and experiences into an interesting conversation.
Personally, I don't naturally gravitate toward podcasts.
I prefer practical content tailored toward a specific subject I’m interested in.
But I do watch the news every day, and you can learn exactly the same skill there.
One of my favorite parts is when they bring in different experts to discuss geopolitics or whatever random niche subject I happen to be interested in that week.
I’ll listen to what the expert says.
But I’ll also pay attention to how the interviewer gets them to say it.
What question opened up the conversation?
What did they challenge?
Which answer did they decide to probe further?
When did they realize there was something interesting underneath the initial response?
Because these are essentially the same decisions I have to make when interviewing a ghostwriting client.
Don’t interview them just to fill an hour of conversation.
You’re searching for raw material.
Study how great interviewers find it.
Pay attention to the questions they ask, the answers they pursue, and the threads they choose to pull.
The better you become at asking questions, listening carefully, and knowing when to dig deeper, the more interesting material you’ll extract from your clients.
And better raw material makes writing great content a heck of a lot easier.
Tip #3: Create client-specific swipe files
No matter how good you become at writing, you’re going to have days when your mind goes completely blank.
You open a document.
Stare at the cursor.
And think, “What the hell am I going to write about today?”
That’s perfectly normal.
Unfortunately, your client doesn’t care.
They’re paying you to do a job.
If you’ve agreed to produce five posts that week, you can’t deliver four because you couldn’t think of anything interesting for Friday.
You need somewhere to turn when your creativity isn’t cooperating.
This is why I recommend creating swipe files.
A swipe file is essentially a library of interesting content you encounter that you can return to for inspiration.
Whenever you find an interesting:
Hook.
Format.
Story.
Visual.
Argument.
CTA.
Content series.
Way of explaining something.
…save it.
I’ve maintained swipe files for years.
But when I started ghostwriting, I made a pretty stupid mistake.
I only built them for myself.
The problem is that I create content in a completely different niche from all of my clients.
So whenever I ran out of ideas for a client, I had a massive library of inspiration I could use…
But very little of it was useful for them.
Fortunately, I found ways to bail myself out.
One of them was repurposing older client content.
I’d go through posts we published months earlier, find an idea that performed well, and figure out another way to approach it.
And there’s absolutely nothing wrong with doing this.
In fact, I still do it.
Your audience doesn’t remember everything you’ve ever published, and a good idea doesn’t suddenly become useless because you’ve discussed it once.
But you can’t rely on repurposing every time you run out of ideas.
Eventually, I realized I needed to start creating client-specific swipe files.
This meant paying closer attention to the content being created in each client’s world.
The easiest way to start doing this is simply to ask your client, “Whose content do you enjoy consuming?”
Then go and study those people.
Look at:
What subjects they discuss.
Which specific posts your client likes.
Interesting formats they use.
How they package complicated ideas.
Stories they tell.
Posts that generate unusually strong responses.
Save the best examples in a swipe file specifically for that client.
This gives you another advantage:
You learn your client’s taste.
If they regularly send you posts and say, “I love how this person writes,” that’s useful information.
They’re showing you the types of content they’d probably feel comfortable publishing themselves.
Obviously, the goal isn’t to copy those creators.
You’re studying them for inspiration.
Maybe you borrow the format but apply it to one of your client’s ideas.
Maybe an argument makes you wonder what your client thinks about the subject.
Maybe a hook gives you a completely different way to package something your client has already discussed.
The original piece is simply the spark.
Don’t wait until you’re staring at a blank document with a deadline in three hours to start looking for inspiration.
Build the library before you need it.
And don’t make the mistake I did by maintaining one giant swipe file for yourself.
Build one around each client.
Because sooner or later, you will run out of ideas.
When that happens, you’ll be pretty damn glad you did.
Tip #4: Experiment
As a ghostwriter, you’re ultimately being paid to produce an outcome for your clients.
So don’t be afraid to try things.
New formats.
New hooks.
New CTAs.
New ways of promoting an offer.
New ways of communicating an idea.
Some experiments will work.
Others will completely flop.
Both are useful.
About two weeks ago, I read a marketing piece that said, “Telling your audience not to do something can sometimes make them want to do it.”
I thought it was interesting.
So I pitched an experiment to one of my clients.
We were promoting one of their paid courses, and instead of approaching the promotion the way we normally would, we incorporated this idea into the campaign.
Did it work?
Nope.
The experiment flopped.
But I don’t consider that wasted effort.
It gave us another data point.
We now have slightly more information about what this audience responds to, what they don’t, and how we might approach the next promotion differently.
That’s the mindset I think you need as a ghostwriter.
You can study successful content all day.
You can build enormous swipe files.
You can analyze everything your competitors are doing.
But eventually, you have to put something into the market and see what happens.
There’s a famous story about Thomas Edison being asked about repeatedly failing while trying to develop the electric light…
The exact wording attributed to him varies, but the idea is that he didn’t view the unsuccessful experiments simply as failures.
He’d discovered thousands of approaches that didn’t work.
Every experiment eliminates another possibility or gives you information you didn’t have before.
Ghostwriting works the same way on a much smaller scale.
Maybe you try a new storytelling format and engagement tanks.
Good to know.
Maybe you change the way you introduce your client’s offer and suddenly more people click.
Good to know.
Maybe you write about a subject you’re convinced the audience will love and nobody gives a shit.
Again, good to know.
You’re collecting information.
And the longer you work with a client, the more of those data points you accumulate.
Eventually, you start developing a much clearer picture of:
What their audience cares about.
Which ideas resonate.
Which formats work.
How they respond to different CTAs.
What you should probably stop doing.
What deserves further experimentation.
So don’t become so obsessed with producing a winner every time that you stop taking risks.
Obviously, you shouldn’t experiment for the sake of it.
You’re still responsible for your client’s outcomes.
But when you have a reasonable hypothesis about something that might work, test it.
If it works, you’ve potentially found something worth repeating.
If it doesn’t, you’ve learned something.
Either way, you leave the experiment knowing more than you did before.
Tip #5: Read widely
You do not have all the answers.
And neither do the other ghostwriters in your niche.
So one of the simplest ways to become a better writer is to read widely.
Don’t only consume LinkedIn posts.
Don’t only read books about writing.
And definitely don’t only consume content from other ghostwriters.
Read:
Newsletters.
Articles.
Essays.
Sales pages.
Books.
Advertising.
Journalism.
Fiction.
Content about subjects that have absolutely nothing to do with your work.
Because every time you expose yourself to a different type of writing, you expose yourself to another way of communicating an idea.
I’m currently reading a book about chess openings.
I want to improve my chess game, so the reason I picked it up had absolutely nothing to do with becoming a better ghostwriter.
But while reading it, I started paying attention to how the author teaches complicated sequences of moves.
They can’t dump everything on you at once.
They have to:
Explain one move.
Show you why it matters.
Explain the opponent’s likely response.
Introduce the next move.
Then gradually build those individual decisions into an entire opening.
The book is teaching me chess…
But indirectly, it’s also teaching me another way to think about teaching new ideas.
Before that, I was reading about Mortal Kombat.
In the newer Mortal Kombat universe, certain fighters possess something called Arcana, essentially a unique supernatural ability that manifests differently depending on the person.
It’s essentially another way of exploring the idea of discovering something unique within yourself.
But what interested me was how the Mortal Kombat scriptwriters took a familiar concept like finding your purpose and gave it a name that belonged specifically to their universe.
“Arcana.”
This is something you can learn from as a writer.
If you’re writing for someone who wants to become a thought leader, part of your job is helping them develop distinctive ways of communicating familiar ideas.
Sometimes that means creating language, analogies, frameworks, or concepts that people begin associating specifically with them.
Reading outside your usual bubble exposes you to different ways to:
Introduce characters
Explain unfamiliar concepts
Build worlds
Create tension
Communicate information without overwhelming the audience.
And that’s the broader point...
Not everything you read needs to have an obvious professional purpose.
When you read widely, you start collecting different ways of...
Explaining complicated ideas.
Structuring information.
Building arguments.
Creating tension.
Teaching processes.
Telling stories.
Using analogies.
Keeping somebody interested.
Then those influences start showing up in your work.
You probably won’t know exactly what you’re going to take from something before you read it.
This is partly why reading broadly is so valuable.
If every piece of information you consume comes from the same people, on the same platforms, talking about the same subjects, eventually you're all drawing inspiration from the same pool.
The wider your inputs, the more material you have to draw from.
Get outside your bubble.
Read things because they’re useful.
Read things because they’re interesting.
You never know which idea, structure, analogy, or way of explaining something will eventually find its way into your writing.
Bonus Tip: Be open to clients’ suggestions
Occasionally, your client will come to you with an idea they want to post about.
And sometimes you might think, “I don’t think that’s going to work.”
But don’t dismiss their ideas straight away.
Probe further.
This happened to me last week…
One of my clients told me they wanted to create a post about an event they’d been invited to speak at, but they didn’t want to invite anybody to attend.
I was super confused by this.
If we weren’t trying to get people to attend the event, what were we trying to achieve with the post?
So I started asking questions.
The more we spoke, the more I realized the event itself wasn’t really the point.
They wanted to demonstrate credibility.
They were being invited to speak at a reputable industry event, and they wanted their audience to see that they were increasingly being recognized as an expert in their field.
Once I understood the outcome they wanted, I could think about how to package the post.
And after probing a little further, we realized there was no problem with including the registration link either.
So we created the post.
But here’s the important lesson:
This post wouldn’t have happened if I’d simply dismissed the original idea because it didn’t immediately make sense to me.
…and I’d probably piss off my client by ignoring what they wanted.
As a ghostwriter, you’re going to have moments where a client proposes something that doesn’t fit neatly into your content strategy.
Sometimes, the problem isn’t the idea…
Maybe, you just don’t have enough context yet.
So ask:
What do you want people to take away from it?
What outcome are you hoping it produces?
Why is this important to you?
When you understand the intention behind the idea, you can use your expertise to figure out the best way to execute it.
At the end of the day, it’s their content.
Your job isn’t to force every idea through your own definition of what good content should look like.
Your job is to understand what your client is trying to achieve and help them get there.
So when a client suggests something you don’t think will work, don’t immediately reject it.
Get curious first.
You might discover there’s a good idea underneath it.
Final thoughts
Becoming a better ghostwriter takes time.
I’d been writing professionally for years before I started ghostwriting, and I still had plenty to learn when I began writing for other people.
Two years later, I’m still learning.
There will always be another writing style you haven’t mastered.
Another client who communicates completely differently from everyone you’ve worked with before.
Another format worth experimenting with.
Another writer you can learn from.
Another way to extract a better idea from a conversation.
You’re never really finished developing your craft.
But improving doesn’t need to be complicated.
None of the tips I shared will transform your skills overnight.
But if you practice them consistently, you will:
Develop better instincts.
Recognize good ideas faster.
Ask better questions.
Become more adaptable.
And gradually, you’ll become much better at taking what’s inside somebody else’s head and turning it into something worth reading.
Which, ultimately, is what good ghostwriting is all about.
Thanks for reading!