Producing content yourself can be difficult when you’re also trying to run an entire business. Thankfully, there are solutions to creating content that don’t involve you having to give up your main money-making activity, or miss time with your family. Instead of creating the content yourself you can hire a content writer to do it for you, as a ghostwriter.

This means that they will take your ideas and create the content to your specifications, and you get to put your name on it as your own. Once you pay for the content, you own all rights to it and can do whatever you want with the content. However, before you try to hire a ghostwriter or content writer, it’s important to understand what to look for and how to ensure that you hire the right person.

Ask Your Associates

If you have friends who also produce content for their online marketing needs, ask them if they do all the writing themselves or if they have a contractor to do it for them. If they have a contractor, ask for a referral so that you can try out the same person. You will be surprised when you put the word out that you’re looking for a content writer how many people you know who are using ghostwriters right now.

Look at the Writer’s References

When you contact a new writer, ask them if they have any references or testimonials that they can share with you. It’s a good idea to find out if you can contact the real person who gave the testimonial as well. If you talk to the person directly, you can ask questions about issues that are important to you – such as whether or not the writer was good with meeting deadlines. Whatever issues are important to you should be discussed with the reference and the writer.

See Samples of the Writer’s Work

It’s better if the writer has some samples you can see online that they’ve written that are similar to the type of writing you will want the writer to do. It also helps if the writer understands the subject matter; however, it’s more important that the writer knows how to do research as well as write in the form you desire. For instance, all writers can’t write good press releases and all writers can’t write eBooks.

Try Them Out

If the writer you’re looking at passed all the other areas of consideration, try them out on a small project. In fact, the first couple of months keep the work small to find out if there are any issues such as being late with work, missing deadlines, or simply being a poor writer. You don’t want to hire any writer for a large project without having worked with them before, especially if deadlines and quality are important to you.

Get a Signed Contract and NDA

When you decide to work with any writer, it’s imperative that you get a detailed contract as well as a non-disclosure agreement (NDA). The contract should spell out exactly what you’re paying for and the quality expected of the contractor. It should list both your responsibilities and theirs, as well as the fee for the work to be done.

The NDA should spell out who owns the work, and whether or not the writer is allowed to reuse or keep any of the work including derivatives. Finally, it should be very specific so that your contractor knows they cannot disclose the nature of your work together without your permission.

Once you have hired a writer, signed a contract, and begun to work together, it’s important to give the relationship some time. You want to give the writer feedback, both positive and negative. It might feel hard to critique someone’s writing but you want the person to learn what type of writing you like. The more information you give them, and the more specific you are about your needs, the better the writer can please you.