We’re exploring two newly revamped side gig platforms this week — one looking for freelance guides to host ghost tours. the other is looking for ghostwriters. Ghost writers and ghost guides must have excellent language skills and a flair for the dramatic.
Freelancers at both companies also say the jobs are interesting. Otherwise, jobs for ghostwriters and ghost tour guides differ in every way, including whether they’re worth checking out.
Let’s start with the best opportunity.
Ghost tours
A company called US Ghost Adventures is looking for tour guides in more than 60 cities nationwide to host ghost tours. Tours are generally 90-minute walking tours that take visitors through a section of a city.
In some cities, multiple tours are offered, including traditional sightseeing tours and “haunted bar crawls.” And you can book the tours all day and night. In somewhat smaller (and, apparently, less haunted) towns, only one tour is offered each day.
Most tours take place at night. So this might be a good after-work side effect for someone with a 9-to-5 job.
The website says tour guides are paid $50 per tour, plus tips, in most cases. And when you take a large group to a popular area, these tips can add up to real money. However, the site will schedule tours with as few as two people, so you can’t count on tips as a big source of revenue. And, half of the tour fee is a “bonus” that is discretionary.
So sometimes the payoff is great. Sometimes it brushes the minimum wage.
Tips are consistently cited as the key to making the payout worthwhile. However, most guides say the work is fun and exciting — perfect for an aspiring actor or dramatic story buff.
The bottom line: This seems to be a big tourist season, especially in areas that get a lot of visitors. The site works in Los Angeles, New Orleans, Boston, Austin, Alexandria and many other popular tourist destinations.
Driver Requirements
How do you land these jobs? You must pass a background check and an in-person and online “audition.”
Online auditioning involves memorizing a short script and filming yourself to deliver it. After that, you will have a personal audition where you will take one of the site tours for a Ghost Adventures staff member.
The site asks freelance drivers to be available at least three nights a week.
Ghostwriting
Meanwhile, a website called HotGhostwriter recruits freelancers to write, edit, narrate, and design covers for fiction and non-fiction books. The work and clients are interesting, say freelancers. But the pay is miserable.
To be specific, writers are paid a starting rate of $7 per 1,000 words. If you’re great, you can potentially join the site’s so-called “elite” writing team. That gives you $20 per 1,000 words — that’s 2 cents per word. Specifically, this fee is for everything involved, including attending client meetings to talk about the subject, style, and length of the book, as well as the writing. And you also need to provide the customer with reviews, at no extra cost.
Of course, the nature of ghostwriting is that someone else takes credit for the book. So unlike some content mills that at least allow you to build your reputation as a writer, here you are anonymous.
Pay for editing and narration
Authors also earn $7 per 1,000 words. So if you edit a 500-page — 150,000-word — manuscript, which is likely to take weeks, you’ll earn about $1,000. Storytellers earn $70 per 10,000 words of non-fiction and $90 per 10,000 words of fiction. For a sense of perspective, entry-level storytellers on Fiverr earn about 5x more.
And, if that wasn’t bad enough, while HotGhostwriter says it pays freelancers twice a month, freelancers say they often have to bug the company to get paid at all.
Better options
If you like the idea of ghostwriting, check out ServiceScape. ServiceScape allows writers to set their own pay rates to write everything from academic papers to books.
If you’re a seasoned book editor, check out PenguinFreelancers or Reedsy, both of which recruit freelance editors to get books in shape.
The best place to advertise your voiceover/narrative skills is Fiverr. Fiverr also allows you to set your own rates and determine exactly how many words you will narrate with any task.
3/11/2024
