Professional Designation Program
Your gateway to an elite, professional career.
Ghostwriting Professional Designation Program prepares you to launch your own solopreneur ghostwriting business
Registration opens July 1, 2024.
Materials available as of July 15, 2024.
Instruction begins August 15, 2024.
Prerequisites:
Introduction to Ghostwriting
Action Steps 1-6
Creative Analysis Pondering #1
Ability to move beyond current habits/perspectives
Willingness to accept new protocols
Facts
Demand for excellent ghostwriters higher than the supply
Most profitable career for 21st century writers
UPECA 2018 Outstanding Non-Credit Program Award
Graduates report annual income increases of 50% to 150%
100% of 2019–2021 participants rate faculty as Excellent
Comprehensive curriculum
Stats
Instruction: 75 videos (20.7 hours)
Live Q&A/demo: 43 weeks (64.5 hours)
Independent Action Steps: 6 steps (10 hours)
Creative Analysis: 5 non-literary ponderings (10 hours)
Total commitment required: 2-10 hours/week
Benefits
Empowering real-world results that can be applied immediately
Cutting-edge research, trends, and skills
Committed to inclusive and diverse environment/student body
Online instruction structured for working adults
Refunds
If student drops
Refund requests accepted by email or phone
Refunds calculated based on the date the drop request is received by WCLLC
- 100% refund of the course fees paid prior to the start of class minus a $100 processing fee
- 65% refund of the course fees paid if student drops on or before November 1st
- $0 refunded thereafter
If student is dropped
- 100% refund of any monthly payment prior to the 7th of the month minus a $35 processing fee
- 50% refund of the monthly payment prior to the 15th of the month
- $0 refund of the monthly payment as of the 15th of the month
- If student originally paid in full
- $0 refund for completed months of the course
- $0 refund if dropped after Nonfiction Ghostwriting
Curriculum
Unit 2: Structure
Welcome Back: Theory: GPDP scope and expectations
Structure: Theory, Strucure: Slinky flow, auto read, and the nonfiction structure and fiction architecture process.
Chart and Map: Mechanical Skills: Reading-for-purpose, nonfiction charting, and fiction mapping.
2nd Pondering: Creative Skill, Ghostwriting Psych: Critical thinking, debate protocol, abstract reasoning, and focused ingenuity applied to an uncomfortable topic/situation.
Mine for Gold: Professional Skill, Ghostwriting Psych: Identify and consisely state a manuscript’s strongest industry-oriented sales points.
BISACs: Professional Skill: The Book Industry Standards and Communications system to categorize books into major subjects and branches.
Markets: Theory: How a title moves through the sequence of market, sales, and audience.
Nonfiction Templates: Creative Skill: Most common templates used to covey nonfiction material.
Nonfiction Content Disruptions: Professional Skill, Ghostwriting Psych: The most common issues that disrupt reader attention and/or a manuscript’s forward motion and why ghostwriters do not dwell on them in client communications.
Nonfiction Deal Breakers: Professional Skill, Ghostwriting Psych: Most common nonfiction issues that turn off agents, publishers, and reviewers, why they occur, and how to fix them; the most common memoir deal-breaking issues, why they occur, and how to fix them.
Nonfiction Project: Choose a nonfiction exceprt and prepare a book blueprint comprising all of the above for it.
Fiction Parameters: Theory, Ghostwriting Psych: The differences between writing and ghostwriting fiction, the 3 types of novelists and the scope and limitation of ghostwriting fiction.
Plot & Characters: Creative Skill: How to extract Perspective, Motive, and Agenda from character action, and how to impose those attributes to rectify implausibilities and sequence-of-events v. plot issues
Meet in the Middle: Creative Skill, Ghostwriting Psych: Insider technique to create a plausible, dyamic plot outline or remedy plot holes.
Fiction Disruptions & Deal Breakers: Professional Skill, Ghostwriting Psych: Most common fiction issues, their causes and solutions, and the ghostwriter’s limitations for fixing them,
Convert Movel to Novel: Professional/Creative Skill: Identify movel elements, recognize industry & reader issues with movels and why they occur, and how to fix them.
Fiction Project: Choose a fiction exceprt and prepare a book blueprint comprising all of the above for it.
Unit 3: Analysis & Recommendations
A&R Purposes & Outcomes: Theory: Wambtac’s proprietary, multi-function sales tool.
Ghostwriting Psych: Theory: The human-nature elements of the A&R, ghostwriting in general, client relations, and project management.
Snapshot: Mechanical Skill, Creative Skill: Blueprint data’s effective presentation and how to craft an industry-standard one-sentence pitch.
The Analysis: Creative Skill: How to befriend, impress, and establish authority and value without selling yourself.
The Recommendation: Creative Skill: Explicit, easy-to-follow instructions for fixing deal breakers.
Close and Format: Mechanical Skill: Most effective A&R closings and formatting.
Unit 4: Ghostwriting Technique
Ghostwriting Theory: Theory, Ghostwriting Psych: Parameters, purpose, A&R/blueprint application, and the multi-layered creative process of ghostwriting a book.
Voice: Mechanical/Creative Skill, Ghostwriting Psych:Recognize author tells, intent, flavor, and perspective.
Chart to Chapter: Mechanical Skill: Use blueprint elements to organize/outline, impose chapter breaks, clump-and-dump, establish chapter theses, and develop individual chapters.
Write Nonfiction: Creative Skill, Ghostwriting Psych: Variables of creating/revising nonfiction book content.
Nonfiction Drafts: Mechanical Skill: Steps to take before submitting a nonfiction assignment.
3rd Pondering: Creative Skill, Ghostwriting Psych: Apply citical thinking, debate protocol, abstract reasoning, and focused ingenuity to an uncomfortable topic/situation.
Map to Chapter: Mechanical Skill: Use blueprint elements to organize/outline plot-action sequence, impose chapter breaks, clump-and-dump, impose PMA, and develop individual chapters.
Prompt to Chapter: Creative Skill, Ghostwriting Psych: Use raw transcripts and blueprint elements to organize/outline plot-action sequences, impose chapter breaks, clump-and-dump, impose PMA, and develop individual chapters.
Fiction First Chapters: Creative Skill, Ghostwriting Psych: The elements of an effective, page-turning opening chapter for a novel.
Ghostwrite Fiction: Creative Skill, Ghostwriting Psych:The various corrections we can make while staying within the limitations of ghostwriting fiction.
Fiction Drafts: Mechanical Skill: Steps to take before submitting a fiction assignment.
Unit 5: Musical Line Editing (MLE)
Note: This unit is currently under revision
Words and Music: Theory: The musical equivalent of MLE illustrated by Scott Joplin’s “Maple Leaf Rag.”
Introduction to MLE: Theory: Parameters, purpose, and literary decisions of MLEing nonfiction or fiction.
Ghost-MLE Bridge: Theory: MLE remedies for specific manuscript challenges.
More Techniques: Mechanical Skill: Basic Writing Conventions as they apply to MLE.
4th Pondering: Creative Analysis, Ghostwriting Psych: Apply citical thinking, debate protocol, abstract reasoning, and focused ingenuity to an uncomfortable topic/situation.
Unit 6: Submissions & Sales
Return on Investment (ROI): Theory, Ghostwriting Psych: Books’ various sales channels/typical ROI ranges.
Proposals #1: Professional Skill, Ghostwriting Psych: Book Contents, Details, Author Bio, and Promotion parameters, purposes, and guidelines.
Proposals #2: Professional Skill, Ghostwriting Psych: Market, Competition, Overview parameters, purposes, and guidelines.
Fiction Proposal: Professional Skill: Synopsis, fiction proposal elements parameters, purposes, and guidelines.
Submissions: Professional Skill: Query letters, agent/publisher research, submission-log tool.
Bestseller Strategy Plans: Mechanical Skill, Professional Skill: Wambtac’s proprietary added-value tool for word-of-mouth, bulk, and high-volume sales.
5th Pondering: Creative Analysis, Ghostwriting Psych: Apply citical thinking, debate protocol, abstract reasoning, and focused ingenuity to an uncomfortable topic/situation.
Unit 7: Business & Professionalism
Business Model: Business Skill (Solopreneurship): Parameters of the ghostwriter’s business model.
Bids: Professional Skill: Parameters and templates for project proposals/sales tool.
Options and Alternate Bids: Professional Skill: Parameters and templates for optional and add-on ghostwriting project proposal/sales tool.
Contracts: Business Skill: Wambtac’s vetted ghostwriting-project agreement template.
Business Plan: Business Skill: Parameters for creating a business plan with standard and ghostwriting-specific considerations.
Sales Funnel: Business Skill: Wambtac’s 6-step sales funnel from first introduction to closing the deal.
Ready, Set, Launch: Business Skill: Six steps to opening a ghostwriting business.
Apprentice Program: Business Skill: How to do your first gig with Wambtac Ghostwriter mentorship,
Final Words: Theory: Last thoughts to chew on and encouragement from our founder.