Do Your Morals And Values Affect Your Writing?
Ghostwriting -- Is it morally right? If so, when is it and when isn't it?
Celebrities such as 50Cent, Barak Obama, and Britney Spears recently revealed they hired writers and others to add content to social networks like Twitter and Facebook. Guy Kawasaki furthered this debate when he spoke at a conference about having other employees update his Twitter account as well as using Twitterhawk and CoTweet to promote Alltop.
Twitterhawk brings up the issue of spamming. In my opinion, having someone else run your account for you is no different. I can understand that these people are busy. I can even see them avoiding these types of platforms purely for safety reasons. After all, you never realize what you have revealed to the public until it’s too late. However, I honestly feel that if you are going to brand these things as personal rather than as a general business thing, having someone else do all the work defeats the purpose.
Ghostwriting is not a new idea. It’s a popular form of writing that happens all the time, and it has been around for years. I would estimate that 95% of all the writing I do is under someone else’s name.
Is it morally wrong? No, but it depends on several variables. What image is that person projecting? What points are they trying to make? Today’s world is all about transparency and honesty, and if you haven’t got that, you are going to be left behind..
If someone offered the right amount of money, would I write content for a celebrity to send out on Twitter or Facebook?
I would like to say no, but I’m not sure. It would really depend on how the material was being presented. If it was no secret that writers were supplying the information or if there were a few personal posts or tweets in between and others knew. I could live with that.
When would I refuse a writing project?
Adult content pays a lot of money. And when I say a lot, I mean a lot more than any other topic, generally speaking of course. Would I take these projects? Anyone who looks at my copywriting services page knows I won’t take adult content. I also won’t take anything that could wind me up in jail.
I’m no prude and I even enjoy the odd romance novel (ok, ok, more than just the odd one…Ok, fine, pretty much any of them that gives an image of Fabio on the cover. If he’s wearing chainmail and swinging a sword, all the better.) I just would never feel right about writing them myself. Also, in my opinion, there is a big difference between a romance novel and all-out porn.
I have nothing against the porn industry. I mean, if you are involved either in the production or on the buying side, that’s fine. It’s completely your choice. It just isn’t something I choose to be involved in.
For me, it’s all about morals and respect. Think about this: you’re in the middle of writing some smutty article and you look up to see your kid standing right there…yeah. It just isn’t going to happen.
I had trouble writing for a women’s lingerie company. Still not something I write with my kid around, but my opinion on lingerie is that it’s all about building self-confidence in the women who wear it; it has nothing to do with guys.
What about you? Do your morals and values enter into your writing? Does it dictate what you write about something, or what subjects you take on?
(image for today’s post taken by striatic)
March 28, 2009 at 9:26 pm | For the Writer | 4 comments
While I don’t write for a living, I have turned down jobs because I did not like the purpose of the website. Without getting into the details of the sites they were just not the kind of job that I wanted to be associated with.
LGR’s last blog post..Color Scheme Designer
Glad to hear I’m not the only one.
I discovered that many don’t think the same way. ‘If they’re paying me, I don’t care what they’re doing with it’ seems to be a common belief. Thanks Lee!
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