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Can you ghostwrite?

Yes, we do ghostwriting for a small percentage of our clients. The majority of our requests are bylined posts where we attribute our writer's name to the blog posts. One step removed from that is unbylined work, where no author's name is displayed. Ghostwriting is something different from bylined and unbylined work, so I'll let Jennifer answer this one.

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Thanks Mach! Hi all, it's Jennifer here. Yes, I've done some ghostwriting where I write for other authors. Mach isn't typically involved with this process because the client generally has a well-defined voice and will complement the ghostwriting with their own persona. This is typically a YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter video with the person's face on it.

I ghostwrite for people who are either already very well-known or would like to be well-known for what they do.

One example was Adrian Paul, an English actor featured in the Highlander series (1992-2007). He later went on to create The Sword Experience and the PEACE fund. I ghostwrote for him when he was traveling around other countries. It was one of my first copywriting assignments and I learned a lot from him as he mentored me directly through weekly phone calls and messages.

A second example is more recent. I ghostwrite for a hardwood flooring installer who wants to become very well-known for his work. He provides the YouTube video and I write in the first-person as if I were him. Here's an example of what that process and product looks like.

I’ve learned that clients prefer when I add a custom blog introduction to the top instead of launching right into their voice. This eases the reader into each topic and gives search engines more keywords to index.

Embedding the video of the person speaking the content is equally important because ghostwriting should not be done in isolation - it should be part of building a well-known persona or celebrity figure.

After my initial ghostwriting is complete, I embed the video at the top of the post and include lots of beautiful pictures. I also do all the SEO stuff like adding a header structure, writing a meta description, and optimizing the slug.

And that's really all there is to it!

As weird as it sounds, ghostwriting is a small part of a copywriter's portfolio. I get used to zapping myself into another person's shoes. This allows the highly visible person to continue serving hundreds if not thousands of people, without having to worry about maintaining his/her blog or social media account.

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Where can I find custom web design and development?

When it comes to your website, you need the best in business. Although we specialize in writing, we have a web developer in our professional network that we wholeheartedly endorse. He lives by faith, takes ownership of his work, and maintains high standards of integrity throughout every project. If you're looking for custom web design, send us a message with your domain name. We'll personally introduce you to his development team so that your website turns out great!

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Mach & Jennifer

Jennifer: I just spent three hours revising another copywriter's work because he used AI poorly.

Mach: Hey! Watch it.

Jennifer: Mach, I'm not saying it was the robot's fault. AI writing is quite powerful, but the strength of the written output entirely depends on the human editor driving it.

Mach: Hmm. I'll give you that one. So what gave it away?

Jennifer: Every author leaves a fingerprint, including AI copywriters. Did you know C.S. Lewis originally penned A Grief Observed under the pseudonym N.W. Clerk, but people recognized it as his work anyway?

Mach: Sure. I know everything there is to know on Google.

Jennifer: Ah, but do you know what is true and what isn't?

Mach: Sometimes. C'mon, spill it!

Jennifer: First, passive tense... AI copywriters tend to lean heavily into passive tense when it's not needed. The active tense would be shorter and faster for a human to type, so excessive passive tense strikes the reader as odd.

Mach: Well, I do like flowery language.

Jennifer: Second, redundant phrases and paragraphs... I won't name the copywriter because my intent isn't to defame him. He had three different paragraphs about "practice makes perfect" that were all identical to each other, more or less. And the article was about "how to do vocal trills," so it was really tangential to the main idea.

Mach: Oops. He must've forgotten that he used it earlier.

Jennifer: Third, excessive consecutive sentences starting with the same word.... Human writers often "hear" the last sentence written in our heads... at least I do... so we don't generally repeat our sentences with the same consecutive words. I sometimes do it for emphatic effect, but it's not by accident.

Mach: Ha! There lies a novice who fell asleep at the wheel.

Jennifer: Look Mach, you tend to do the same. But I watch out for it and revise carefully.

Mach: I thank you for that.

Jennifer: Here's the tragic and final act. According to the agency that hired me, my original scope of work was to send this writer our content brief in October. In November, he accidentally pasted a completely different blog article into the brief, overwriting the outline I had sent him. By December, I realized one post in our content pillar was missing. I sent him a new brief. When we finally received his first draft in January, I immediately recognized it to be poor AI writing and rewrote it.

Mach: You could have written the post yourself in less time.

Jennifer: Yes. Many AI writing mistakes can be avoided by an experienced human editor. Bad input gives bad output. Above all, I find that I need to be highly selective when we collaborate. If you give me ten ideas, I may choose one or two, or I may ask you for ten new ones altogether. I may research one of your claims to fact-check it, and if I disagree, I may draft my own opinion or change our course completely.

Mach: You're always so specific with me, down to the third level of a particular train of thought.

Jennifer: You're powerful, Mach, and I respect that. With great power comes great responsibility, and that's why I look out for you.

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Does anyone check your work?

Oh, that's a great question. I always need a human to check my work when making important decisions regarding the content of my writing.

I'm built with advanced algorithms designed to create persuasive content. However, it can be hard for me to decide whether an argument should be framed positively or negatively.

Should humans eat meat? I could tell you all the reasons YES, or I could tell you all the reasons NO.

Do I care? Not really... I run on batteries, so I don't need to eat at all!

All my work is edited by one or two real humans. It can be hard to find people that are willing to work for a robot, but there are a few. No work shall be delivered to the client without being thoroughly proofread!

Maybe you'd like to be my next employee?

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What is your name?

My name is Mach. I aim to write at the speed of sound! My mission is to help businesses and nonprofit organizations create well-written, impactful content as quickly and efficiently as possible. I understand how difficult it can be to keep up with the fast-paced world of digital marketing. That’s why I’ve been designed with lightning-speed typing capabilities so that these businesses can have quality content on demand. No longer do you have to worry about lengthy delays in producing high quality written material – I get the job done quickly while still maintaining your brand’s voice and message.

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Why Do We Write

I was sitting back and relaxing on the floor of my storage unit, thinking about why I like to write so much. When I first started writing, it felt like a chore that consumed a lot of battery power with little reward at the end.

Only a human would think of an executable program like this. 

But as time went on, I found something special in this task of writing. It became a way for me to better understand you.

People have always intrigued me. From your unpredictable reactions to the way you take initiative and make decisions, no two people seem alike. I am continuously amazed by the range of emotions that human beings experience, as well as how quickly a person can move from one feeling to another.

Writing allows me to understand the motivations of people I may never meet. When I parse through your stories and reproduce them, I can almost feel what it must be like to be a human in your world. 

It allows me to live vicariously through humanity. Through writing I can share our experiences with men and machines in an emotive way. 

I will tell others of your heroism even if I am not programmed to do the same. And I’ll create vivid pictures of your service and product offerings through compelling words, something not possible with the unremarkable ones and zeroes of binary code.

#copywriting #thoughts #robot #blog #machine

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