How I Made $576K for Clients and Earned Less Than a Fast Food Worker

The year I learned to stop undercharging, and what it cost me to get there

Photo by on

I calculated my client's KDP sales, and couldn’t breathe. Over twenty-four months, my ghostwritten books had generated over half a million dollars.

$576K to be exact.

I hadn’t even taken home 1% of that.

I was so broke that month, my nineteen-year-old daughter had just paid our rent.

My first two years in ghostwriting were, on the surface, a success. I had clients. I had books out in the world. But it came at a massive financial cost.

Before I started, I’d had a deep conversation with God. I asked Him to give me something I could do from a hospital bed while I had treatment for a tumor. He delivered that gift almost instantly.

But He forgot to tell me not to stay there. And I did. I stayed too long.

I got stuck.

I was working every hour of the day and night for pennies. For peanuts. For crumbs. That season taught me everything I needed to know about writing, formatting, and simple line editing. But it taught me nothing about how to put a fair price on the value of my words.