I scaled my ghostwriting agency from $0 to $180k/mo in 2 years.

How?

With this Ghostwriting Money-Making Formula.

Here's a quick guide (and how you can use it to land high-paying clients):🧵 The Formula in a nutshell:

• Solve 1 specific problem
• For 1 specific type of person
• In 1 specific way

Use this to get clear on who you serve and the outcomes you deliver.

Let's dive in:

I'm 34.

At 24, I was a Columbia alum, broke copywriter, and a World of Warcraft addict.

But 2 years later, I cracked the code and made $200K as a writer. Just me and my busted Macbook.

Here's my story and 3 ways you can make money writing online in 2025: 🧵
Growing up, I dreamed of going pro in hockey. But life had other plans.

I fractured my spine at 14 and again at 17.

Suddenly, my NHL dreams were shattered. I turned to World of Warcraft for an escape.

My paid newsletter Write with AI just crossed $300k/year in revenue.

• It took 578 days
• I ran zero ads
• It takes less than 4 hrs/week

Here’s my 6-Figure Paid Newsletter Blueprint:🧵 In this thread, I'll cover:

• The 2 types of paid newsletters
• The 4 criteria for a successful paid newsletter
• And how long to give your newsletter to see if it has 6-figure potential

Let's dive in!

5 dead-simple steps to write a 60,000-word book in 30 days—even if you've never written a book before:

THREAD 🧵 For context:

It took me 4 years to write my 1st book and it took me 4 months to write my 2nd book.

Now, I can write a 60,000 word book in 30 days.

Here's the framework:

The most creative company of the last century:

Pixar.

Back in 2017, Pixar storyboard artist Matthew Luhn shared their frameworks for Oscar-winning storytelling.

Here's the breakdown of 4 rules everyone should know to tell captivating stories:🧵 The human brain is a forgetting machine:

After 10 minutes, you'll only remember 5% of the data and statistics you hear. But if wrapped in a story, retention jumps to 65%.

This is why Pixar's storytelling framework is worth billions.

This is Greg Hoffman.

He is the marketing genius behind Nike.

His message? Emotion by design is the key to great marketing.

Here’s his framework that made Nike one of the most iconic brands of all time:🧵 Adopted into a white family in 1970s Minnesota, Greg Hoffman faced racial discrimination.

But art and sports became his retreat.

Those experiences fueled his marketing genius in his 27+ years working as Nike's Chief Marketing Officer.

Justin Welsh found the secret to creator storytelling.

This landed him 1.2M followers and generated $2,317,000 in 2023.

Here's Justin's 7-Step Backstory Framework (with an AI prompt to help you create yours in 2 minutes): 🧵 Why does Justin's backstory work so well?

Because people buy from people they know, like, and trust.

So, how do you make yourself known at scale?

• Be relatable
• Be vulnerable
• Share perspectives
• Share how you solve problems

Let's dive in!

I've made over $5,000,000 ghostwriting.

• No fancy website.
• No expensive tools.
• No complex funnels.

Just these 4 dead-simple pricing rules that helped me scale to $180k/month.

Here's the breakdown:🧵 Golden Rule #1: Give the MOST value you can for a NO-BRAINER price.

• Create 1 Packaged Service
• List ALL the things the client gets
• Anchor the service to huge time/money savings

It should feel like they’re buying a Ferrari for 99%-off.

This man was one of the most influential writers of the 20th century.

His 14 novels sold 20+ million copies for over 50 years.

Here is the secret storytelling technique Kurt Vonnegut used to write some of the best-selling fiction books of all time:🧵
Kurt Vonnegut, a top American sci-fi/fantasy writer, wrote 14 novels including, "Slaughterhouse-Five" & "Cat's Cradle."

His writing made him a vocal critic of American society in the 20th century.

But he's most famous for his storytelling framework, the "Shapes of Stories":

7 proven steps to monetize what you know, quit your job, and join the creator economy (this is exactly how I did it):🧵 Step 1: Start free. Monetize later.

Biggest initial barrier isn't making money.

It's being able to do something worth being paid for.

Fastest way to remove friction to learning?

Write for free. Create for free. Work for free.

Prove you can do "it."

Look at this guy.

He has 6 billion-dollar companies, 11 kids, and 200+ million followers on X.

In 2015, he asked Tim Urban to decode his companies and mental models behind his $258 billion net worth.

5 interesting takeaways you must understand:🧵 As the Wait But Why writer, Urban was known for dissecting complex topics from EVs to space exploration.

In 2015, Musk contacted him to write about his companies.

6 months and 1,000s of hours of research later, Urban found 5 cornerstones to the Elon Universe:

I’m 34.

When I was young, I wasted years as a horrible writer.

But then I found Tim Ferriss's writing routine and the mental models behind his 5 New York Times best-selling books.

4 mental models you can steal today:🧵 As a senior at Princeton, Tim almost died writing his thesis. He vowed never to pen anything longer than an email again.

Fast forward to 2004. A cheeky student in Tim's entrepreneurship class says he should "write the book" on his lecture.

Here's a snippet: ↓

The dead-simple path anyone can take to go from $0 to 7-figure writer:

(without a college degree, 10 years of experience, or a mentor) Step 1: Write for free.

From 2017-2020, I built a 7-figure ghostwriting agency.

We sold 800-word articles for $1,000 each.

But writers on Upwork did the same for $100.

Here's the exact framework I used (steal this):🧵 This is my "Irresistible Offer" framework.

But first, internalize these truths:

• We value the things we are told to value
• We only value solutions when we first understand the problem
• We value solutions relative to the value, cost, or urgency of the problem

Let's go:

I bet my life savings Quentin Tarantino is the last great screenwriter of this century.

Not because of Kill Bill, Pulp Fiction, or Reservoir Dogs.

But because he found a secret method to irresistible storytelling:🧵 It's called Non-linear Storytelling.

Quentin Tarantino's special technique in arranging scenes helps create suspense and gets viewers hooked.

3 examples, why it works, and how you can master it:

This is Mark Manson.

• 3 NYT best-selling books
• Sold 20,000,000+ copies
• Wrote The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck

But one day, Will Smith came knocking.

Here's what happened next:🧵 Will Smith wanted to write a memoir but struggled with the writing process.

Mark Manson, a best-selling author, was seen as a serious contender to be his ghostwriter.

So Will got in touch.

But Mark quickly saw how this would be unlike any other project he'd worked on before:

Writing Excuses 101.

These are the 6 lies we tell to shut our creative selves up:

(And the brutally honest reasons why you're holding yourself back) Lie #1: "It needs to be perfect before I hit publish."

You're calling yourself a "perfectionist" because that's easier than:

• Putting yourself out there
• Getting feedback
• And beginning the iteration process

Perfectionism is just an advanced form of Procrastination.

The first step to writing any book:

Deciding on the title.

But most writers have no idea where to start.

So, I studied the titles of *hundreds* of best-selling books.

Here are 7 mini frameworks to help you write the perfect book title: 1. Write in a best-selling category

The top 7 categories are:

• Personal Development
• Personal Finance
• Insights/Thinking
• Leadership
• Case Study
• Personal Excellence
• Relationships

Everyone talks about legendary writers like:

Hemingway, Stephen King, or Henry David Thoreau.

But there is a British author who redefined the game forever.

Here’s the secret technique J. K. Rowling used to write one of the best-selling book series of all time: At 32, J.K. Rowling was a single mom on welfare, struggling to make ends meet.

One day, while stuck on a delayed train, the character Harry Potter came to her fully formed.

And she spent the next 5 years meticulously planning the 7-book series before writing a single word.

I bet my life savings Christopher Nolan is the last great director of this century.

Not because of Inception, Interstellar, or Oppenheimer.

But because he found a secret method to irresistible storytelling:🧵 Nolan uses the Plot Map Technique to visualize his storyline.

He doesn’t want “constraints” to hold him back when writing the story.

So he uses this technique to help his production team visualize & then create it on screen.

Here he explains how he comes up with his ideas:

I’ve made $250,000+ from self-publishing.

But it sometimes makes sense to take the traditional publishing path.

Here are 7 questions every writer should ask themselves before trying to land a book deal: Q1: Do you want Status or Money?

Most traditional book deals are horrible financially for authors. The reason they want them isn't really money—it's status.

"A publisher chose me!"

99% of the time, you will make more $$$ with self-publishing (but get zero status).

Here's why: