Scribe – Scribe Media

Scribe

We call this role Scribe, but you could compare it to a “ghostwriter” or possibly even “co-writer.”

We’ve developed an interview-based book writing process that’s different than most book writing processes. (It’s not ghostwriting. This gives a pretty good high-level explanation of our process.)

We think our process is pretty cool, our Authors like it a lot, and the Scribes who work with us do tend to write faster and better because of it.

But, let’s be honest: our process is not why you want to work with us.

So why do you?

Because we’re offering a better way for most freelance writers and editors to work. Think about how most freelancing goes:

You probably started freelance writing and editing because you enjoyed helping people turn their ideas into impactful words-but how much time do you spend doing that? Doesn’t it seem like you hardly ever work with people you like on books that you’re interested in, because you’re busy with the crappy gigs that pay the bills?

What about the admin work? Does it seem like all your time is spent on the tedious “business” of freelancing instead of the writing and editing you enjoy?

And the inconsistency. It’s a cycle of famine-feast-famine, right? When was the last time you had a consistent flow of work you could plan around?

None of this even mentions the treatment. Does it ever feel like people look at you as less than human, just because you’re a freelancer? They make constant and often irrational demands that require you to give everything, and then treat you like you’re disposable.

Well, what if you didn’t have these problems?

What if you had an essentially unlimited number of really great authors and interesting books you could pick from, didn’t have to worry about any of the “admin work,” and could only focus on writing-and you got the support and resources of an entire company to help you create the best possible book?

And perhaps most important: what if you got that all while still making good money?

It might sound too good to be true, but it’s not. This is the what we try to create with the Scribe role.

It’s a dream freelance gig for high-level and experienced editors and writers. You’ll work with and learn from world-class experts, build intimate relationships, and help them record their wisdom into important books that are incredibly valuable to other people.

The best part is that you only spend time on the things you like. You’ll be interviewing, writing, and editing. You won’t have to spend any time finding clients, negotiating your pay, arguing over scope of work, getting them to actually send the check, endless “one more change” revisions, etc-none of it.

Instead, we handle that. When you work with us, you see several book projects a week you can bid on, you only bid on the books you’re interested in, and once you get a project, you have a huge amount of latitude to do the writing work (within the boundaries of our process), and you ONLY worry about writing and editing-nothing else.

You’ll spend a period of four months working on each book project. You’ll really get into the topic, become a mini-expert, and create a substantial book. You’ll get paid regularly throughout the project based on the hours you spend working. When you’re done, you move on to the next project, with your money in your account quickly, guaranteed.

Yes, this is not normal, but we do things differently in purpose. But don’t take our word for it, see what our actual freelancers have to say about working with us.

Who are we and what do we do?

We’re Scribe, and we’ve created a different way for people to write and publish a book.

Instead of authors spending years at a computer painfully typing it out themselves and then being frustrated by the confusing book publishing process, we take the hardest part of the work out of their hands. This allows accomplished experts to easily get their knowledge and wisdom out of their heads and into the world.

We do this with a structured interview process that walks them through everything-from positioning to outline to book content. But unlike ghostwriting, our interview process ensures that the book is entirely their ideas, in their words and their voice. We do not add content we only do the writing work to turn their ideas into a book.

This describes our process pretty well. You can see some press about us here. You can see some of the impact we’ve had on authors in these stories.

And you can see some of the books we’ve already published here.

Why this work matters

Our company started because a frustrated entrepreneur wanted to put her incredible knowledge and ideas into a book, but didn’t have the time to write it or the patience to deal with the frustrating publishing process. So we solved her problem. The origin story is here.

Her book became an amazing success for her, and we realized the world was full of these people-smart people who should share their ideas and knowledge in a book but don’t, because writing a book is needlessly hard.

These people want to write books but don’t have the time or desire to do it the old way, and that’s why Scribe exists: we help experts and professionals to turn their ideas and knowledge into books that help the world.

Our process has worked for almost 1,000 authors in four years, and we are growing fast. Our ultimate goal is to be the default publishing option for professionals. If we do that, we’ll help create thousands of books that would never have otherwise existed, changing the lives of millions of people.

That’s really exciting to us. Here are some author success stories and videos of authors talking about what their books mean to them and to their readers.

You in? Awesome, here are the details:

Location

• Remote, you can work from anywhere

Type of Employment

• Freelance (with possible option to move to full time)

Necessary Skills & Qualifications

Here is the list of skills we believe are necessary for this career.

• High-level book experience: In order to be considered for this role, you’ll need to have at least a decade of high-level writing and editing experience, especially experience positioning and structuring books.
• At a minimum this means you’ve worked on a lot of good and successful books.
• Credentials are not required but always helpful in your application. For example, experience as a full time editor at a publishing house, book agent, experience writing your own books, experience working on best selling books, etc, is great to have (though we have excellent full time and freelance Scribes without these credentials).
• Excellent writing and editing skills: This should be obvious and a given, but we’ll say it: you must be a very good writer and editor.
• Good people/interviewing skills: This is the big differentiator between who does and does not succeed with us: the good writers who are also really good with people tend to do well with us.
• You’ll be on the phone with authors a lot, so comfort with people and talking on phones is a necessity.
• What’s really important here, though, is good interviewing skills.
• You must be able to listen closely, understand what the author is saying, and then ask the pertinent questions that ensure he or she fully explained his or her point, and extract every piece of relevant knowledge.
• Furthermore, you must be able to help the author fully unlock and explore their idea.
• Though you’re not a ghostwriter and the ideas in their book are theirs only, you still need to be good at helping people flesh out and explain their ideas.There are many, many excellent writers and editors who do not succeed in our process because they have poor people skills.
• Organized and detail oriented: This is another obvious one, and if you’ve been successfully freelancing for awhile, then this should be easy: you need to be organized and detail oriented. In addition to writing, you’ll be asked to work within our project management system, which is simple to learn, but does require you to keep up to date. This is not a “free for all” writing system.

Salary & Benefits

• Competitive Pay: $60-$70 an hour
  Yes, I know what you’re thinking-if you are a successful freelance writer, this is probably less than your normal rate. But, remember that the reason you have to charge $100-$150 an hour to regular clients is because you have to bake into your fee all the unpaid time you spent finding the client, negotiating your deal, admin work, etc. Working with us, there is none of that unpaid time. What most freelancers find is that though the hourly rate is a little less with us, they actually make more money in total, and their quality of life goes up because they are doing less work that they don’t like.
• Be Part of a Tribe: This role is intended to begin as freelance, but we have several full time Scribes and would like more. There is real potential to move to full time, given you want this and you do a great job. We see ourselves as a tribe of people who are working hard together to accomplish a specific mission (become the default publishing option for professionals), in service of a larger purpose (create books that help the world). We also have a pretty cool set of principles that we live by as a tribe, you should check it out, because this is the operating system for our Tribe.
• Freedom: You can work from anywhere-we don’t care. We only care that you have reliable phone and internet connections and that you do your job well.
• Fun & Fast-Paced Work: We don’t have boring days. Some are hectic, some are hard, some are incredibly rewarding…but they are never boring and never exactly the same. That’s what happens when you’re solving real problems for people.
• Work with Interesting People: You’re not just working on any books. Past authors include major company CEOs, famous entrepreneurs, professional athletes, and people with amazing personal stories. These are books people read and use.

EEO Statement

At Scribe, we don’t just accept differences-we support them, celebrate them, and as a company, we thrive on them. Scribe is proud to be an equal opportunity workplace and we actively look for and hire people who bring new perspectives and experiences to our tribe.

Application Expectations

One last thing before you apply: this is a multi-step application process that is long and involved. Before you fret, know that we have many accomplished Scribes who have won Emmys and Pulitzers and other writing awards-and they all went through this application process.

We don’t do this to annoy you, and this is not a wasted, bureaucratic effort-we do it because it’s necessary. Like we said earlier, there are a lot of great writers who are not a good fit for our process, and much of what we test is not your actual writing ability, but more your people skills.

Please don’t take any part of the application process as an insult or a comment on you or your writing. If this were just a normal ghostwriting gig, then none of this would be necessary, but it’s not. After working with over 1,000 authors, we have a pretty solid idea of what it takes to do a good book in our process, but it takes us a few steps to really test for that.

Cool? Good, let’s get started!

How To Apply:

Use the custom link below (Apply button) for the further application process.