Are you a blog ghost writer?

Well I came across the word through a blogger. He mentioned to me that somebody ghostwrites for him since he is so busy to do the clicking and subscribing to different sites to earn "internet money/income". I checked wikipedia and it mentioned about blog ghostwriters. I quote here:

“A ghostwriter is a professional writer who is paid to write books, articles, stories, or reports which are officially credited to another person. Celebrities, executives, and political leaders often hire ghostwriters to draft or edit autobiographies, magazine articles, or other written material. In music, ghostwriters are used in classical music, film composition, and popular music such as hip-hop. The ghostwriter is sometimes acknowledged by the author or publisher for their assistance.

One of the newer types of ghostwriters is the web log, or 'blog' ghostwriter. Blogs are websites where a person keeps a journal of thoughts and holds online discussions with other web users, typically on political, social, or cultural issues, and current events. As well, many blogs cater to special interests ranging from handgun collecting to knitting. Blogs are rated according to how many web 'hits' they get from users viewing the page, and this rating is used by advertisers considering paying for ad space on a blog website.

New blog operators hoping to generate interest in their blog site sometimes hire ghostwriters to post comments to their blog, while posing as different people and using pseudonyms. With more posts and more comments, it is more likely that a blog will have more key words which will bring up the blog during a search engine's search. Once a blog gets more traffic, eventually the number of 'real' posts may increase, and the blog ghostwriters may no longer be needed. While companies providing blog ghostwriters claim that falsely-attributed postings are a legitimate marketing tactic, the practice has been deemed unacceptable by a major US paper, The Los Angeles Times. The Times fired Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Michael Hiltzik for fabricating postings in his blog using alternate 'identities'.

Some celebrities, CEOs, or public figures set up blog websites as a marketing, public relations, or lobbying tool. However, since these individuals are typically too busy to write their blog posts, they hire discreet ghostwriters to post to the blog under the celebrity or CEO's name. As with non-fiction ghostwriting, the blog ghostwriter models their writing style, content and tone on that of the credited author.”

I never thought that writers, who, with the advent of blogging seems to be pulled now to do ghost-technical writing for bloggers.

I thought of ghostwriters as those who write lofty speeches and highfalutin promises or words for politicians. And once these politicians get elected their promises are gone by the echo that reverberated from the sound system.

I did write speeches for presidents of a Computer Society in the Middle East. I find it awkward listening to the speech I've written improperly emphasized. But it was affirming when those written words are given voice and applauded to. Well I also told the toastmaster club I once belonged to that I’d rather write speeches than delivering them. Am still a struggling writer.

So ghostwriters have found their way to the blogosphere as well. At least they still maintain a livelihood, so the income of the blogger is shared with them. I just hope that not all writers would turn into technical writers as the internet is becoming more and more an arena of published works. It would be less interesting and wonderful cyberworld if prose is absent in writing.

So I think I need to learn how to write technical stuff more creatively, what about making the technical more poetic, hmmm...

Any writing coach available?


( The original post different from this was posted at Qassia. Will the site is an incentive now to me to do more and be regular with bloggin, hehehe...)