Solo Professionals Ideas

It is generally okay for you to write articles, as a ghostwriter for business folks, but beware, as there are some laws now in a few industries, which makes it illegal for the clients of such articles to send them to their customers and claim that they in fact wrote them, when they didn't.

It is not against the rules for the writer to write them, as they are not selling articles that someone else has written pretending that the ghostwriter wrote. The sole responsibility lies on the purchaser of the articles not to misrepresent the facts to their end user. Think of it in this way; a writer can write a paper for a college student and get paid, that is a legal transaction, but if the purchaser, the college student, turns it in and claims to have written it - they might indeed, be thrown out of school.

In some industries, not sure if you are in one of them, but in some industries licensed professionals are not allowed to send information directly to consumers or clients, that they did not write without telling their customers that someone else wrote it, as the customer assumes that the professional wrote it. So, this is because the government does not want licensed professionals to hold themselves out to having written something that they did not and send it to a client in an email for instance. I do not know if your industry is one of those industries that is being scrutinized however, you might want to check and see.

Financial Planning is on the industries that has such regulations against this type of practice, and the SEC will not allow it - it's a new law. The writer would NOT be breaking any laws selling them the content, but the professional buying the content probably should not copy ghost written articles into "brochures" of any kind and send it to clients, without re-writing them or stating that they did not actually write them.

An Industry Blog is completely a different issue, it is designed for the industry, like a trade journal online, not for the consumer directly, thus, it not an issue. The government wants to protect consumers, not those in the industry. Consumers break the laws all the time, but get away with it; for instance falsifying loan applications, misrepresenting their resumes or not disclosing various things to licensed professionals.

Now realize, I am not a lawyer, and this is my personal opinion based on how I understand the law to read, so you have to decide if this is an issue you. I have not heard anything about that yet in any other industry but the financial industry, but even if it is not here yet, it will be someday soon. How can someone protect them selves?

Well, if they ever change the laws in your industry, you can merely put a little notation on the brochures, "Consumer Oriented Blog" or newsletter that "Not all content was written direct by - name of professional" and that would suffice, as it is in keeping with the spirit of full discloser. Can you imagine if the government regulators and lawyers ever gave us "full disclosure" that would be the "Blue Moon" of the century? Something to contemplate in 2008.