How to Make Income as a Ghostwriter: Insights from Taylin Simmond

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How to Make Income as a Ghostwriter: Insights from Taylin Simmond

A recording from Natasha Tynes's live video

Natasha Tynes

and

Taylin John Simmonds

Jun 20, 2025

Transcript

In a recent Substack Live session, I had the pleasure of chatting with Talyn Simmonds, a former college teacher turned full-time ghostwriter and content marketing expert. Taylin shared his journey into ghostwriting, strategies for client acquisition, and how to stand out in an increasingly competitive market.

Below, I’ve distilled key takeaways from our conversation to help aspiring ghostwriters build a thriving career.

From Classroom to Content: Taylin’s Ghostwriting Journey

Taylin’s path to ghostwriting began with a desire for financial freedom. As a college teacher in Canada, he loved his job but struggled with the income. A chance coffee shop conversation led him to start writing daily on Twitter (now X), where he discovered ghostwriting through a mentor, Dakota Robertson.

After working for free to gain experience, Taylin landed his first client, charging premium rates right away by showcasing tangible results. Since 2022, he has run a content marketing agency, primarily ghostwriting for LinkedIn and X, with plans to expand to Instagram and newsletters.

Building a Moat in a Saturated Market

With more people entering the ghostwriting space and AI tools threatening to automate content creation, how does Taylin stay competitive?

He emphasizes two key strategies:

Stay Ahead of the Curve: Ghostwriting is challenging, and platforms are constantly evolving. To succeed, you must adapt to what works now, not last year. Taylin’s agency stays cutting-edge by researching trends and creating content that resonates with today’s audiences.
Focus on Revenue, Not Just Content: Instead of just building a client’s brand, Taylin’s agency acts as a “revenue partner,” delivering measurable ROI (e.g., 2-5x returns within months). This embeds them in clients’ businesses, creating a moat against competitors. For example, some clients rely on them so much that stopping services would hurt their bottom line.

Proven Strategies for Landing Clients

Taylin shared actionable tips for ghostwriters looking to attract clients:

Build Proof First: Early on, Taylin worked for free with agencies to gather social proof (e.g., screenshots of impressions, follower growth, and leads). This proof allowed him to charge $3,200/month for his first client, bypassing the low-rate trap many beginners fall into.
Leverage Referrals and Inbound Leads: Initially, Taylin avoided cold outreach, relying on referrals and inbound leads from viral content on X and LinkedIn. He wrote posts targeting founders, coaches, and consultants, using calls-to-action like, “If you’re a founder looking for these results, click here.” While inbound leads were plentiful in 2022-2023, market saturation now makes cold outreach necessary for consistency.
Optimize LinkedIn as a “Wall of Testimonials”: For LinkedIn, Taylin recommends posting case studies (e.g., “This founder struggled with leads until we implemented X strategy, yielding Y results”) 2-3 times a week, alongside value-driven stories about your ethics or leadership. This turns your profile into a persuasive landing page, boosting responses to cold DMs.

Navigating Platforms: X, LinkedIn, and Substack

Taylin’s approach varies by platform:

X: Write viral threads with a sophisticated tilt (e.g., summarizing a book like The Beginning of Infinity by David Deutsch) to attract high-caliber clients like founders. Case studies work better as thread add-ons than standalone posts.
LinkedIn: Focus on case studies or broad, top-of-funnel content like productivity hacks. These build authority and trust, especially when paired with cold outreach.
Substack: Taylin sees Substack as a “fun” creator platform, akin to “old Twitter.” While it’s great for newsletters and personal content, he’s skeptical about its potential for ghostwriting leads yet, as most Substack users prefer writing their own content. To grow on Substack, he spends 1-2 hours daily commenting and DMing to connect authentically, uses keywords like “ghostwriting” or “copywriting,” and drives subscribers from X and LinkedIn via lead magnets (e.g., journal prompts or a free AI ghostwriting course).

The Role of AI in Ghostwriting

Taylin isn’t worried about AI replacing ghostwriters—yet. While AI can generate decent posts, creating top-performing content requires detailed, 1,000- 2,000-word prompts, which demand deep platform knowledge and writing experience.

He challenges skeptics to outperform him using AI alone, noting that none have succeeded. His agency uses AI to streamline processes, but human creativity and strategy remain the core of their success.

Growing Your Substack Presence

Taylin’s Substack strategy is straightforward:

Port Existing Subscribers: He moved 8,000+ subscribers from Beehiiv to Substack for social proof, using Zapier to automate adding new subscribers from lead magnets on X and LinkedIn.
Engage Authentically: Daily commenting and DMing build community connections, driving organic growth.
Cross-Promote: Most of his 20-50 daily Substack subscribers come from other platforms, not Substack itself.

Taylin’s Long-Term Vision

Taylin’s current focus is scaling his agency to offer omnichannel services (LinkedIn, X, Instagram, newsletters) and refining his ghostwriting coaching program. However, his five-year goal is to transition to writing fiction, a lifelong passion. By building “high-leverage businesses” that run efficiently with minimal hours, he aims to create space for creative pursuits without financial stress.

Key Resources and Recommendations

Taylin credits Alex Hormozi’s YouTube and books for tactical business growth advice and The Almanac of Naval Ravikant by Eric Jorgensen for philosophical insights on leveraged income. For podcasts, he prefers Modern Wisdom for self-improvement and big ideas over business-heavy content.