business

The Magic of Ghostwriting

The Magic of Ghostwriting

Part 1, By John Onorato

Do you need content created for your website?  ✅

Do you yearn to be an author?

Do you seek to make your content relatable and understandable? 😍

We can all write, sure.  It doesn’t take any special training to help others understand our thoughts and feelings.  Words are available to everyone!

We can all create a “first draft” of material we want to communicate.  Some of us can do that faster than the next person.  

Here’s the thing, though.  If a person doesn’t have a real affinity for writing, if they don’t really enjoy it, then they’ll rush their work.  They won’t take their time with it.  They won’t read it out loud just to see how it sounds, and how it comes across.  

And in circumstances like these, quality suffers.  

When writing quality suffers, your message suffers as well.  

Let that sink in.  In fact, let me say it again:  When writing quality is poor, your message suffers.

Tell me, what is the point of having content on your site, with your name on it, that people can’t understand?  Or even relate to?

Perhaps more meaningfully, what does poor writing like that say about a company?  What does that say about a leader’s thought process?

Clearly, it’s best to leave writing — especially mission-critical writing — to the professionals.  👍

Ghostwriters to the Rescue!

If you want to write a book, but don’t have the time …

If you want content on your website, but only have a few ideas …

If you want to improve the way you or your company is perceived …

If you want quality communications coming from your office …

Then you are not alone!  More and more business owners, entrepreneurs, and industry professionals want to write books and put quality content on their websites, just like you do.

Ghostwriter logo designed by calicoowl

This is where the ghostwriter comes in.

But what is a ghostwriter, anyway?

A “byline” is the attribution given to a written work.  Typically, it names the author of the book, article, or other piece of writing.  This article was written by me, so I put my byline under the title.  

A ghostwriter is simply someone that writes under someone else’s byline.  

That is, the ghostwriter creates the piece, and someone else gets credit for it. 

Many famous books have been written by ghostwriters.  To name a few:

  • Many of the popular Goosebumps books (by R.L. Stine) were ghostwritten after the series got too popular to keep up with demand
  • The Jason Bourne series, started by Robert Ludlum, was continued by Eric von Lustbader after Ludlum’s death in 2001 
  • Ian Fleming started the series, yet many of the James Bond books were ghostwritten

Politicians also use ghostwriters.  Hillary Clinton, Ronald Reagan, Sarah Palin and Donald Trump’s books were created this way.

And industry leaders use ghostwriters.  Billionaire Richard Branson wrote a book this way, as did Chrysler CEO Lee Iacocca, Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz, and Wal-Mart founder Sam Walton.

In fact, many of the books I read and treasured as a child, I am only now discovering were ghostwritten!

Photograph by Hugh Kretchmer
  • My father read me the Hardy Boys detective series, by Franklin W. Dixon.  Ghostwritten!
  • The Nancy Drew series was written by Carolyn Keene, yet that name is a nom de plume (pen name) for a larger collective of writers
  • Even Victor Appleton didn’t write all the “Tom Swift, Boy Inventor” books that I loved so much!

If so many famous people benefitted from employing a ghostwriter … shouldn’t you do that as well?

Yes, But Why Would You Do This?

Sure, ghostwriters create famous books.  They also write blog entries, white papers, social media posts, magazine advertorials, and even newspaper articles.

Ghostwriters are often part of a corporate team.  They create lots of content using the byline of an executive, or maybe under no name at all.  Alternatively, a ghostwriter may work freelance, working on only one or two projects at a time.

Many people want the acclaim and accolades that come with being a published author.  Having a book or two under your belt makes you seem credible, trustworthy and reliable.

It’s also worth mentioning that books and blog posts can grow your business.  Especially if you’ve got a personal brand, a well-written book attributed to you is worth a lot of street cred.  

And a freelance ghostwriter like myself can create content for your small business, helping you get more customers and driving more traffic to your website.  Or even to your fancy new brick-and-mortar store!  (Or your old store. We don’t discriminate 😁 ) 

Isn’t it better to focus on growing your business?  

Isn’t it better to concentrate on what you already know, rather than trying to master yet another new skill?

People who are busy changing the world don’t have time to write.  People who don’t have the skill or the time to write quality content have an alternative:  They hire ghostwriters.

Conclusion

Ghostwriters are an incredible resource to tap into.  They can position you and your business well — creating content, managing blogs, and generally making it seem like you are superhuman.  

I can see your readers now:  “They’re changing the world and they have time to write this fabulous content?  Wow! I wanna know more!”

In my next post, I’ll talk about how to hire a ghostwriter.  (Hint: it’s as easy as clicking the Contact link above!  😁 ❤ 🙏 ) And we’ll talk about some things to consider when hiring a ghostwriter, as well as how to prepare for hiring one.

Hiring a ghostwriter might not be the first thing you think of.  But when you do, the results can be downright mystical.  

Mystical, get it?  Because ghosts. 👻 (Did I mention I’m a father?  I sure do love me some dad jokes.)

Posted by John Onorato in Blog, Portfolio, 0 comments
IP Phones can be Six-Figure Liabilities Just Waiting to Happen

IP Phones can be Six-Figure Liabilities Just Waiting to Happen

by John Onorato (ghostwritten for Toshiba)

Bob Foreman’s seven-person architecture firm is using the latest technology in IP phones.  Thinking they were safe and protected, they went about their business normally, until one day they opened their phone bill to see that they had run up a bill of $166,000 in one weekend.  Quite odd, given that no one was in the office at the time.

Based on the firm’s normal phone bill, it would have taken them 34 years to amass those charges legitimately, as stated in the complaint filed with the FCC.  But the charges weren’t a mistake. Malcontents had hacked into the phone system of the company, and routed the calls to premium-rate numbers in Somalia, the Maldives, and Gambia.

The Fraud
The firm, based in Norcross, Georgia, is one of the latest victims of an old fraud that’s found a new life, now that most corporate phone lines are IP-based.  This swindle is easier to pull off on the web and infinitely more profitable. The targets are largely SMBs, and cost global victims $4.73 billion last year. That’s up almost $1 billion from 2011, states the Communications Fraud Control Association.

Tier 1 carriers have anti-fraud systems meant to catch hackers before they mount false six-figure charges.  They can also afford to credit their customers for millions of dollars in fraudulent charges every year. SMBs, though, often use local carriers, that lack these sophisticated systems.  And worse yet, some of these carriers are leaving their customers to pay for the calls they didn’t make.

The Law
There are no laws that assist in this area, as there are no regulations that require carriers to reimburse defrauded customers the way credit card companies have to.  Lawmakers have occasionally taken up the torch, yet little progress has been made.

How It Works
Hackers lease premium-rate phone lines, typically used for psychic or sexual-chat lines, from one of many web-based services that charge callers over a dollar a minute, then give the lessee a cut.  In the US, these numbers can be easily identified by their 1-900 prefixes; furthermore, callers are told they will incur a higher rate. Elsewhere, though, such as in Estonia and Latvia, these numbers can be more difficult to spot.  The profit for the lessees might be as high as 24 cents for every minute a caller spends on the phone.

The black hats then crack a SMB’s phone system in order to make calls through it to their premium number.  This is typically done on a weekend, when nobody will notice. Using high-speed computers, hundreds of calls can be made simultaneously, thereby forwarding up to 220 minutes’ worth of calls a minute to the pay line.  Ultimately, the hackers get their cut, usually delivered through MoneyGram, wire transfer or Western Union.

This plan can be quite profitable, when executed well.  This is why premium rate resellers are on the rise. In 2009 there were 17; in 2013 there were 85, says Britain’s Yates Fraud Consulting.

What’s Being Done
The problem is moving fast, say many industry groups, yet they are still trying to tackle it.  One slow solution is to routinely input known fake “hot numbers” into a fraud management system, then sharing that with carriers so they can be blocked.

Catching the elusive hackers is hard, if only because the crime can cross up to three jurisdictions.  In 2011, the FBI worked with police in the Philippines to arrest four men who used the ploy to collect $2 million in fraudulent charges.  This money was funneled to a militant Saudi Arabian group that US officials believe underwrote the 2008 Mumbai terrorist bombings.

Bob Foreman’s firm has turned to the FCC, the FBI, and several other agencies for assistance, yet they are still on the hook for their $166,000 phone bill with their local carrier, TW Telecom.  It now includes $17,000 in termination fees and late charges. The telecom’s VP for corporate communications said that Foreman’s firm ought to have taken measures to ensure the security of its equipment.

Mr. Foreman responded that his firm didn’t even understand that this was a possible risk.

To avoid this happening to you, be sure to turn off call forwarding, and ensure there are strong passwords for international dialing systems as well as voicemail.  Treat your phones as Internet-connected machines, because that’s what they are. Hackers are already doing that. When you put a computer or an IP phone system on the Internet, it immediately gets probed for a weak point.

published link:
IP Phones can be Six-Figure Liabilities Just Waiting to Happen

Posted by John Onorato in Portfolio, Technology, 0 comments