If there is anything I learned from being a ghostwriter to the gurus it’s that you don’t have to get mad – get even. Learn what they know and use it to your benefit. By doing this, you will not waste precious time and energy thinking about all the money that you lost as a result of NOT learning Internet Marketing before now. Instead, you will use your marketing skills to make huge profits for yourself.

Internet Marketing is extremely powerful, and once you combine it with your writing skills, there is absolutely nothing that you can’t accomplish. In fact, one successful writer-turned-Internet-Marketer that I personally know has actually befriended the gurus and become one herself.

Her name is Tiffany Dow and she is outstanding. I’ve known Tiffany for about eight years now and we both started off as struggling ghostwriters on Elance. The only difference is that Tiffany left ghostwriting years ago and while I was still struggling to pay the bills, she has been working as a full-time Internet Marketer. As such, she is now a guru herself, does joint ventures with the gurus, and makes some serious cash.

Well, I recently contacted my buddy Tiffany and asked her for some advice on skyrocketing my eBook profits. Well, she immediately suggested that I read her eBook on Building an eBook Empire, and I must say that it is outstanding. I have been writing eBooks for years but never knew how to market them. That is the key.

Tiffany basically broke it down about how one one can use their outstanding writing skills to amass TONS of residual cash just like the big boys do. She candidly discussed such topics as: choosing a profitable niche, importance of thorough research (and how to do it), writing hard-hitting sales copy, successfully compiling and selling your product, branding your product, developing an affiliate program, back-end tactics to boost profits, and more.

In Building an eBook Empire, Tiffany even talked about how she took one aspiring writer and transferred her from broke freelancer to $4,000-a month-eBook empiress. And no, it isn’t me, but if it were up to me, it would be! LOL!

The thing I love about this book is that Tiffany doesn’t leave anything out. Unlike some gurus, she lays it on the table and doesn’t leave you wondering or guessing if there is more. She wants you to learn and apply the lessons that she teaches. All you have to do is read and implement the techniques that she gives you, and I do believe you will become successful in eBook publishing.

I give Building an eBook Empire two thumbs up and if you’re interested in taking your Internet Marketing writing eBooks to a new level, then you have got to read this book. Once you do, you will have the tools you need to get even with the gurus, too.

As for me, I plan on implementing Tiffany’s techniques on my two current eBook projects and will be producing and successfully marketing one eBook or short report a month on “hot” topics for “desperate buyers.” Join me, won’t you? Let’s give those gurus a run for their niches and profits!

As a writer turned Internet Marketer, your talent is writing. Although you may want to give up ghostwriting altogether, you may find that you need to complete a few projects for clients in order to finance your internet marketing endeavors. If that is in fact the case, don’t fret. Here are five rules to ensure that you effectively deal with your ghostwriting clients and that you get paid well for your efforts. 1. Do not negotiate your price (especially for a new client). If your client attempts to negotiate at the beginning of a project for a lower price, you may or may not want to work with them. Often times those prospects who try to negotiate for lower payments at the beginning are the very same clients who don’t pay at the end. Therefore, if a prospect tries to negotiate your price, you may want to see this as a red flag and move on to the next client.2. Get a deposit. Always make sure that you get a deposit from your client or, better yet, get paid up front. This ensures that you are working with a client who not only values and respects your writing craft but is in a financial position to pay you for your services. Typically, I recommend that you receive payment up front for projects under $100, or 50% down and the balance upon completion of the project.3. Don’t give out free personalized writing samples. If a client requests a sample article or chapter, then make sure they pay for it in advance. As an Internet Marketer Writer, you are not in the business of doing free work. You must get paid for your efforts. There is nothing wrong with completing samples, just not free ones.4. Be clear about your payment terms. For instance, if you require payment up front, say so. If you require milestone payments, indicate this as well. In addition, clearly indicate if you’re selling all rights or only PLR rights.5. Secure your copyrights and only transfer those rights when you get paid in full. When you submit drafts make sure that you only send the client a PDF format and not an editable document. Also, make sure that you include your copyright information as a background. In addition, you may want to use the lock feature so that the document can only be viewed and not printed or copied. (This is available on Adobe Acrobat.) Trust me, this feature alone will encourage your clients to pay you quickly, as they will only be able to review the documents and not edit them.

Bidding websites like Elance can make you a lot of money, but only if you know how to work the system to your benefit. Take me, for instance, I win a lot of projects on Elance and have developed a good reputation there. However, I don’t just blow the money I make ghostwriting. Instead, I use ghostwriting to support my growing Internet Marketing business.

I have to be honest with you, though. It wasn’t always this way. When I was just starting out, I was so excited because I received an eBook project to write a book on How to Teach Your Parrot to Talk. I put my heart and soul into this project. I researched and wrote the heck out of that book, and you know what? I was ecstatic. I got paid $500 for 50 pages and spent it all. Woohoo.

What I only realized about a year ago, when I started studying Internet Marketing was that the guru who hired me to write the How to Teach your Parrot to Talk book then went on to make hundreds of thousands of dollars off my ghostwritten eBook.  And, to make it even worse, he boasted all over the Internet about how he could get cheap writers to write eBooks for him and make a killing using Internet Marketing strategies. In fact, he even created thousand-dollar courses to teach other Internet Marketers how to get one over on writers, too. Makes you cringe, doesn’t it?

Anyway, the key to succeeding on bidding sites like Elance is to realize that you are only ghostwriting as a means to an end. The end is financial security.  So, be smart and use the funds you make from bidding sites to build your Internet Marketing business. Use a portion of the funds to create more websites, build a membership site, or do something that will actually make you some money long term.

Don’t spend all your earned money frivolously. Instead, do something to build a sustainable business and don’t “piss all your earnings away.”

Here are some additional tips to ensure success when bidding on websites:

1.    Don’t lowball. You are worth so much more than the lowest bidders on those sites. Although you shouldn’t try and bid the highest bid if you don’t have the experience to demand that much, you shouldn’t bid $5.00 or so per page, either. Instead, bid an amount that you can make a profit with.

2.    Pay attention to your feedback. Feedback can make or break you. Although you should do everything you can to secure great feedback, don’t let clients bully you into free work in exchange for good feedback.

3.    Study your competition and do better than them. When you lose a bid, you should study the wining bidders carefully. Did they write a more convincing bid? Did they have more relevant experience? Did they offer better value for the money? Did they have better feedback?

4.    Build a solid online reputation. If you work hard to build a solid reputation for delivering quality work every time, you’ll always be able to make money ghostwriting to support your IM efforts.

Over the past nine years that I worked as a freelance writer, I have come across many writers who have experienced writer burnout. To me, writer burnout is when writers lose their passion for writing. Instead, they begin to dread the writing process, procrastinate about writing-related tasks, and feel an overwhelming sense of career stagnation and frustration.

When writer burnout happened to me, it was a scary feeling indeed. I have always loved to write and can literally write for hours when I am writing about a subject that I’m passionate about. However, when I experienced writer burnout, I even considered leaving my writing career behind.

For a brief moment, I considered pursuing a career as a Natural Labor Coach or Doula. Now mind you that I have had three kids naturally, believe in natural childbirth, and believe that women can have miraculous natural births (if they so choose.  But coaching other women through the natural birth process is not my passion. It is not something that motivates and excites me. It was something that I was trying to do to avoid writer burnout.

Anyway, I believe that you can avoid writer burnout if you follow these tips:

1.    Put your IM goals first. If you’re serious about Internet Marketing, then every single day, whether you feel like it or not, you have to do something to further your IM business before you do anything else. This includes writing articles, blog entries, conducting niche research, whatever will help you achieve your IM goals. You must do this before you handle your client’s projects and before you surf on the ’net, or do other tasks.

2.    Have realistic expectations. Remember there are only 24 hours in a day, not counting the eight hours need for sleep, personal and family time, etc. Never take on more work than you can realistically handle. If you ignore this rule, you’ll be increasingly stressed out and frustrated because you won’t be able to get everything done and you’ll feel a sense of failure for not meeting high expectations.

3.    Don’t be so hard on yourself. As a ghostwriter turned Internet Marketer, you’ll experience highs and lows. Clients may or may not like your work, you may experience the dreaded Google slap, your eBook may be a success or a complete flop. However, you must not dwell on the negative. Instead, figure out what works and what doesn’t and then do more of what works and less of what doesn’t.

4.    Enjoy the journey towards success. Keep your eye on the prize but enjoy the journey. Although financial security is a worthwhile goal, you enjoy your life. For instance, if you like going to plays then take a portion of your earnings and treat yourself to theater tickets once in awhile. This will motivate and entice you to keep going.

5.    Don’t ever give up on your dreams. With Internet Marketing, you’ll try a bunch of things.  Some will work and some won’t. The key to ultimate success is to never ever give up. You have to keep at it. Just like Edison didn’t give up with the first failed attempt at the light bulb, you have to keep improving and using failure as feedback.

Every day, I meet writers who make a good living ghostwriting, and although many of them have taken the plunge into Internet Marketing, a lot of them don’t see the benefit in it. Here are the benefits of IM.

1. With ghostwriting, you only make money when you actually work. With Internet Marketing you can make money even when you’re not working. For instance, if you go on a vacation as a Internet Marketer, you could still make money from advertising, selling books, members joining your site, etc.  However, as a ghostwriter, you’ll only make money per page of actual content written.
2. Ghostwriting has a negative image. People are used to hiring cheap ghostwriters from foreign countries and are not open to paying you what you’re worth.  Therefore, it is extremely hard to make a great income ghostwriting. On the other hand, Internet Marketing has a positive image. Internet gurus make large sums of money by promoting products.
3. With ghostwriting, you work super hard and you sell all your rights to your clients in exchange for chump change. With Internet Marketing, you don’t have to be the chump. You can produce and market your own products and call ALL the shots. You get paid over and over again for a few hours of work, which is wonderful.
4. Ghostwriting can be stressful because your client may or may not like your work. They can request refunds and give you negative feedback as punishment. With Internet Marketing, you don’t have to worry about this. The only people you have to please are your customers, and if you’ve got a good product, it will sell.
5. Internet Marketing is motivating. Every day you hear stories of Internet Marketers who have achieved success. You hardly ever hear stories about six-figure ghostwriters. Although it may happen, it is harder to achieve this goal.