We recently connected with Alegra Loewenstein and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Alegra thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. The first dollar you earn in a new endeavor is always special. We’d love to hear about how you got your first client that wasn’t a friend or family.

Oddly enough, my first client was seen as a one-off at the time. I was in graduate school for creative writing, and I responded to an add on a bulletin board from someone looking for a ghostwriter! I worked together with the client over the course of the year to write his memoir about his time working as a driver (AKA bouncer) for strippers. It was an interesting project, and I have remained friends with that client to this day almost 20 years later (with several more books planned for the future).

I wrote that book more as a fun side project. I worked in science education for a non-profit at that time, and continued down that pathway for over a decade. From there I jumped into the health coaching world, and while I loved the client work, there was a lot about it that wasn’t a good fit. I learned a lot about entrepreneurship and business along the way, though. I wrote & published my first book of my own content, Emotional Eating Detox, to promote my coaching business. However, I discovered very quickly that there was much more interest in my services as a writer/ghostwriter/self publisher, and never looked back!

I spent some time figuring out the exact best role I could serve in that regard, and laughed when “ghostwriting” finally dawned on my as the best option! The wheel had come full circle, it seemed.

Alegra, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

When I decided to pursue writing/publishing as my primary focus, I still wasn’t sure exactly what role I wanted to serve. I decided to create a community-focused project as an investment of my own time and money to explore a variety of aspects of this line of work. I decided to create a book with each chapter contributed by an expert in their field, covering great advice on a health, balanced life. At the time I thought to myself, “This will be so easy. I don’t even have to write it!”

Well, that was a funny thought, because I quickly realized that even amazing, smart, well spoken, talented people are often not good writers, and the project was much more difficult and time consuming (and expensive) that I expected. Yet one of the people I recruited to write a chapter was too busy to write it, and ended up asking me to ghostwrite it. It was then that everything clicked, and I realized that I could best serve busy, talented entrepreneurs with my full service writing to publication skills.

The book, It’s Not About the Food, turned out great. I made quite a few more friends and colleagues along the way, and I got clarity on my services going forward.

My services and offerings:

-I solve the problem of an entrepreneur/speaker/business owner who thinks, “I need a book, but I don’t have the time to write it.” (Or “I need a book, but I don’t know where to start / not sure my writing style is right for this project / etc.)

-When someone comes to me, they come as an author, and I do the work of taking their creative content, doing the writing and publishing, and taking their expertise from an idea to a manuscript and/or published book.

-I offer full service ghostwriting, taking the ideas and genius inside of busy business owners heads, and I write their book for them, while honoring them as the author and creator.

-Ghostwriting is the most efficient way to get the book to promote a business or service, as I use a personalized approach based on interviews as well as any available content from the author to create the perfect book for my client’s business.

-Based entirely on the expertise, talents, ideas, stories, and personal experience of the author, I play a role more akin to a “translator” – taking the author’s concepts and “translating” them into a book format.

-I credit “authorship” to the originator of the ideas, no matter who does the writing. (When I write my own books, I am the author and the writer; when I write for clients, the client is the author, while I am the writer.)

-I am most proud of my ability to offer a quality, customized product at a great price with a quick turn around time, by operating with a lean team as well as managing and streamlining the editing and publication steps myself.

-As a fully custom service provider, I can also work with an author who has already started a book but gotten stuck, to complete the project for them. (But for full ghostwriting services, the author does not actually need to start the writing process!!)

How’d you build such a strong reputation within your market?

I credit my reputation to the relationships I create with my clients. I write for a variety of authors (and I also write content besides books, though books are my focus and my favorite). Every project is 100% unique and custom to the author I am serving. I don’t do any boilerplate type writing. I start with an interview, and by watching or reviewing any previous content the author may have (workshops they teach or have taught, talks/presentations they have given, classes they have taught, interviews they’ve given). This allows me to capture their voice and write with the goal they have in mind. Having had a couple iterations of my own business, I have learned a lot about the mechanics of how a book may serve a marketing plan, and this allows me to seamlessly integrate the author’s story with the business goals of the book. This personalized service creates a great partnership and a quality product!

If you have multiple revenue streams in your business, would you mind opening up about what those streams are and how they fit together?

I actually think of myself as having two businesses, though an outsider would likely see it as one. I serve my clients and their writing needs, writing books or any other content they need (blogs, letters, publications, etc). My writing for my clients is a skill that I use to help them reach their goals, share their passion, educate their clients, or share their ideas. I meet most of my ghostwriting clients through my personal network, and I keep in touch with them exclusively through personal communication.

I also write my own books, based on my own passions and ideas. In addition to the writing and publishing of my books (paid product), I maintain an email list, create additional content (blog posts, email list, educational videos, guided meditations, social media), and I utilize these as part of my marketing plan. I grow my email list and promote my books mostly through my promotional content. These folks do not necessarily even know that I am a writer for hire!

However, these two businesses do cross over as I see the promotion and marketing of my own content as a marketing tool for those products (books) as well as my services (ghostwriter/writer for hire), especially as many of the ghostwriting books are confidential. It works very well to keep my creative passion alive, as I feel free to grow my email list at my own rate without feeling the pressure to sell sell sell; selling books is more of a slow burn business, while selling my services has a faster turn around time.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.alegraloewenstein.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/alegraloewenstein/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alegra-loewenstein/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/user/AlegraMarcel

Image Credits
Alegra Loewenstein