Ghostwriters and ghost tours: Two newly reviewed gigs

We explore two newly reviewed side gig platforms this week — one looking for freelance guides to host ghost tours; the opposite looking for ghostwriters. Ghostwriters and ghost tours guides will need to have excellent language skills and a flair for the dramatic.

Freelancers with each corporations also say that the roles are interesting. Otherwise, the roles for ghostwriters and guides for ghost tours differ in every way, including whether or not they’re price testing.

Let’s start with the higher opportunity.

Ghost tours

An organization called US Ghost Adventures is looking for tour guides in greater than 60 cities nationwide to host ghost tours. The tours are generally 90-minute walking tours that take visitors through a piece of a city.

In some cities, there are multiple tours offered, including traditional sightseeing and “haunted bar crawls.” And the tours may be booked all day and into the night. In somewhat smaller (and, apparently, less haunted) cities, there’s just one tour offered every day.

Most tours are given at night. So this may be a very good after-work side hustle for somebody with a 9-to-5 job.

The positioning says that tour guides are paid $50 per tour, plus suggestions, typically. And if you’re taking an enormous group in a preferred area, those suggestions can add as much as real money. Nevertheless, the positioning will schedule tours with as few as two people, so you’ll be able to’t count on suggestions as an enormous income. And, half of the per-tour pay is a “bonus” that’s discretionary.

So, sometimes the pay is great. Sometimes it’s brushing against minimum wage.

Suggestions are consistently mentioned as the important thing to creating the pay worthwhile. Nonetheless, most guides say the job is fun and interesting — ideal for an aspiring actor or dramatic history buff.

The underside line: This appears to be an ideal tourist-season side hustle, particularly in areas that get a number of visitors. The positioning operates in Los Angeles, Latest Orleans, Boston, Austin, Alexandria and many other popular tourist destinations.

Guide requirements

How do you nab these jobs? You’ve got to pass a background check and each an in-person and a web-based “audition.”

The web audition involves memorizing a brief script and video-taping yourself delivering it. After that, you’ll have an in-person audition where you’ll conduct one in all the positioning’s tours for a Ghost Adventures staffer.

The positioning asks that freelance guides make themselves available not less than three nights every week.

Ghostwriting

Meanwhile, a site called HotGhostwriter enlists freelancers to write down, edit, narrate and design covers for fiction and non-fiction books. The work and clients are interesting, freelancers say. However the pay is miserable.

To be specific, writers are paid at a starting rate of $7 per 1,000 words. If you happen to’re great, you’ll be able to potentially join the positioning’s so-called “elite” writing team. That gets you $20 per 1,000 words — i.e. 2 cents per word. Notably, that pay is for all the pieces involved, including attending client meetings to speak concerning the book’s topic, style and length, in addition to writing. And also you’re also speculated to provide the client with revisions, for no additional money.

In fact, the character of ghostwriting is that another person gets the credit for the book. So, unlike some content mills that not less than can help you construct your popularity as a author, here you might be anonymous.

Pay for editing and narration

Editors also earn $7 per 1,000 words. So in the event you edit a 500-page — 150,000 word — manuscript, which is prone to take weeks, you’ll earn about $1,000. Narrators earn $70 per 10,000 words of non-fiction and $90 for 10,000 words of fiction. For a way of perspective, entry-level narrators on Fiverr earn about 5 times more.

And, if that wasn’t bad enough, while HotGhostwriter says it pays freelancers twice a month, freelancers say they often must badger the corporate to pay them in any respect.

Higher options

If you happen to like the thought of ghostwriting, try ServiceScape. ServiceScape allows writers to set their very own rates of pay to write down all the pieces from academic papers to books.

If you happen to’re a seasoned book editor, try PenguinFreelancers or Reedsy, each of which enlist freelance editors to get books in shape.

The most effective place to advertise your voice-over/narration skills is Fiverr. Fiverr also lets you set your individual rates and specify precisely what number of words you’ll narrate with any given job.

3/11/2024