How To Find a Ghostwriter or Copywriter

 You can hire a copywriter or ghostwriter to do many things, write your website copy, write articles, write an e-book or PDF guide, basically anything that requires creating content that you can or don't want to write yourself.

There are lots of places like, elance for example, that offers these services at a reasonable cost. But whether you use a service like elance or search on your, own here are few tips to help you find someone that will meet your expectations, deliver the information that you expect at the price that you want to pay.

Posting your project

Start by posting level of experience you need. For example, you may want someone with 2-3 years of article writing experience or you may require someone with 5-10 years of e-book writing experience.

In order to find an experienced writer in your topic of interest, post the topic or project idea in your request. If you are worried about someone seeing your posted idea and stealing it, use generalities.  For example, if you need a book written about menopause say something like, 'in the area of women's health care' . Simply specify the topic category, you don't need to be any more specific than that at this point.

Specify when you would like the project to start and when it must be completed.

Indicate that the chosen candidate may be considered for future projects. Adding this to your post encourages a candidate to work hard for you but it may also inspire a candidate to bid a lesser amount in the hopes of more work in the future.

Indicate how much money you are willing to spend. Using a cost range is preferred, for example $10-$25.

How much research a candidate has to do is often figured into their price. If you can tell them where to do their research, provide items of information or perhaps have them speak to an individual for obtaining information, then you won't be charged for the research portion of the project.

Describing Your Expectations before hiring

Specify that you get 100% of the copyrights when the document has been completed.

Be clear that you want the document written in 100% original quality content

Discuss the tone of style you are looking for. This is not often easy for a copywriter to determine so send them an example of some of your writing so they can pick out the style you write in. This helps a lot in getting a document that you will be happy with.

Clearly specify that the document must be written with perfect grammar and there are to be no spelling errors. Also specify spelling preferences, for example, U.S., British or Canadian, there are differences, for example, the word aluminum is a U.S. spelling, the British spelling is aluminium

You could get bids from individuals all over the world so be clear that the candidate is fluent in English, in other words, English cannot be their second language.

Get a sample of their work before choosing a candidate. If your choice has been narrowed down to 2 or 3 candidates, consider having each of them write you a sample page on a topic of your choice and use that as a tie breaker.

Once you've narrowed your choice down to a single candidate ask for references of those they have previously written for.

Make sure the candidate guarantees 100% of their work before you commit to hiring them.

When dealing with writers

Keep in constant contact with your writer.  There have been horror stories where writers simply stopped in the middle of projects and were never heard from them again.

For places like Elance or other qualified bidding services this is a big “No No” and it goes against the writer's quality score.  But when it comes to private individuals, this can be a problem, for this reason asking for references is always a good practice.

When the candidate has written the first few pages, have them send it to you before continuing, that way you can see if they are delivering what you expect.

Provide the copywriter with as much information as you can, specifically with regard to research. The more research information you can provide up front, the better off you'll be with regard to getting the information you want and the less it will cost you in time and effort. 

Get your bid or settled price in writing.  Be clear and document carefully any changes to the original price. 

Where to Find a Ghostwriter or Copywriter

Elance - This is one of the top online bidding services that has a very good reputation for providing quality content services.

Your favorite topic forums. This is a really great way to get interested candidates, just be sure you follow the guidelines above.

Use your favorite search engine by typing in the following:

freelance copywriter or
freelance copywriter + topic name or category