most freelance writers are broke zip recruiter says the average part-time freelance writer makes between $ 18 and $31 per hour and salary.com says most full-time freelance writers only earn salaries of 56 to 64k per year which is shocking because in our premium ghost Writing Academy we show writers how to find pitch and land clients for $5,000 a piece okay so meaning with just one or two clients you're effectively out earning 99 % of freelance writers out there how is that possible well in today's video I'm going to walk you through the five levels of pricing power to make more and more money as a Ghost Rider charging per word charging per hour charging per month charging per asset and ultimately charging per outcome when you learn how to climb up these five levels you can go from being an overworked underpaid freelance writer to making 10 or $20,000 per month as a Ghost Rider very quickly and if you don't well you're going to stay stuck living in that that cliche nobody makes a living as a writer here's an easy quiz to tell which of the five levels you're currently at are you waiting for clients to find you on upw workk and you're probably stuck at level one charging per word are you working 60 hours a week churning out blog posts for minimum wage and you're probably stuck at level two charging per hour do you have two or three clients but you're always swamped and burned out because you're doing different things for different clients well then you're probably at level three charging per month now if you're charging per asset and you're able to create that asset over and over over again then you're probably at level four making pretty good money but if you can get to level five price anchor list tangible benefits and charge per outcome you're going to start Landing High ticket clients no problem so if any of these resonate or maybe you're saying to yourself God Cole you're right I I'm clearly stuck at level two then good because in the next 6 minutes I'm going to show you how to move up these five levels and start charging a premium for your talents but real quick if you haven't subscribed to my channel yet I don't know why you're making your life harder I've been writing on the internet for over 15 years I founded five different companies I created the first ghost writing Agency for Founders I've written over 10 books I now run a portfolio of writing related businesses that do millions of dollars a year and I'm also the author of this book The Art and business of ghost writing so if you want to accelerate your talents and your trajectory as a writer subscribe or don't and figure it out on your own Level One charging per word here's a hilarious example of why this business model of charging per word makes absolutely no sense let's say a client is willing to pay you 10 cents a word which is typically the going rate that means they're measuring your value by how many words you write okay 10 cents a word purple alligator Jamaican smoothie lilac tarantula bazooka you just made 70 cents hooray right except here's the problem if you send that to a client they are not going to be very happy why because the client might be paying you per word but they aren't actually valuing you per word which means you're getting a terrible deal so stop word count is a horrible measure of value level two charging per hour I want you to write this Mantra down on a note card and duct tape it to your desk stop trading hours for dollars the problem with charging per hour you're capped by time you can't manufacture more hours in a day and you're capped by perceived value at a certain point a client won't be able to rationalize paying you $1,000 per hour the same way you don't want to measure your value by the number of words you write you also don't want to measure your value by the number of hours you work if you want to get above $110,000 per month as a writer you have to stop trading hours for dollars level three charging per month how a lot of writers get out of charging per hour is they move to a retainer model where they charge per month you might even be doing this already and in the beginning the retainer model seems great because you're getting paid this lump sum of money each month so it feels like a lot but here's what ends up happening in the words of Michael Scott I've got two tickets to paradise taking her to sandals Jamaica allinclusive all-inclusive you know what that means you know what that means when you agree to a retainer model and don't Define the scope think of yourself as an all-inclusive resort if the client wants a blog post you write them a blog post if the client wants a newsletter you write them a newsletter if the client wants a couple Instagram captions you give them captions and before you know it you're right back to essentially being an overwork underpaid salaried employee except you don't have a salary and you don't have any benefits no bueno level four charging per asset here's where you want to get to instead of charging per word or per hour or even per month you want to sell a productized service and charge per asset so what is a productized service it's an asset you can create over and over again that you can build efficiencies around tempti and scale so for example this is what we train Ghost Riders to do in our premium ghost Writing Academy and we also show them how to charge a premium for it and the asset they learn how to write build and sell is a 5-day educational email course just like the one we have at start writing online.com which has driven over $3 million in revenue for our beginner writing program ship 30 for30 when you're selling a productized service the client isn't buying how many words it is the client also isn't buying how many hours it took you to create what the client is buying is the creation of an asset that you have educated them would be valuable to their business in some measurable way this is how you start having some pricing power and leverage level five charging per outcome this is the last level and this is what separates profitable writers and millionaire writers just so you know where this is coming from and I'm only sharing this to show you what's possible but this framework that I'm giving you here is how I've made millions of dollars as a writer I used these same principles to scale my ghost writing agency to several million dollars in revenue and today I'm the co-founder of a portfolio of writing related companies ship 30 for 30 premium ghost Writing Academy type share and write with AI that collectively do millions of dollars in yearly Revenue I've also spoken at Mastermind events with other worldclass millionaire writers and marketers and do you know what millionaire writers do that most other Writers Do not they price anchor to an outcome so here's a really easy example recapping the five levels of pricing power so you can really see how this plays out let's say you're being hired to ghost write a pitch deck for a startup a ghost riter at l one will charge per word written inside that pitch deck so assuming 5 cents a word and maybe 500 words in the whole pitch deck that's $25 not great a Ghost Rider at level two will charge per hour so assuming say $50 an hour and maybe 20 hours a work that's 1,000 bucks better but not great a Ghost Rider at level three will charge per month so assuming it takes 20 hours spread over the course of a month maybe this writer can get away with charging something like $3,000 but chance CH are they're going to have to lump it in with some other tasks and make it all inclusive to get away with charging this amount a Ghost Rider at level four though who charges per asset and positions themselves as someone who specializes in the creation of pitch decks for example can charge upwards of $5,000 maybe even more $10,000 because they're selling an asset but a Ghost Rider at level five who charges per outcome can charge the most and they do it by Price anchoring to the outcome a great pitch deck can lead to for a star up so for example a pitch deck for a startup might help them raise something like $2 million so if you can help create an asset that unlocks an outcome of successfully raising $2 million all of a sudden charging $25,000 for a pitch deck seems pretty reasonable same work same effort same number of hours but the value of your value is perceived completely differently I Ed to be that writer scraping by charging a penny per word or $15 per hour so trust me I get it but I've also been fortunate to have had some really great mentors over the years who have helped me break out of some of these faulty Frameworks and beliefs and that's what I want to be for you so consider me your digital writing ghost writing Mentor so any questions you have drop them in the comments hit subscribe if you want to know when my next video goes live probably sometime next week and if you want to go down the rabbit hole of becoming a premium Ghost Writer I really encourage you to grab a copy of the art and business of ghost writing this has everything you need to get started let me know what you think after you give it a read see you next week