Hey folks! Looking for some feedback on how to go about adding a “done-for-you publication pitching” service for my clients. Some background: I’ve been pitching ideas and have been published with Biz Insider a couple of times and have a few other things in the works. One of my clients would like for me to pitch on their behalf and then ghostwrite pieces when our pitches are accepted. What’s the best practice for this? Should I have her set up an email address for me with her domain so I appear more officially “on her team” or is my own email sufficient? Should I present myself as a PR partner in pitch emails? Should I write the pitch emails and simply have her send them herself from her own email and help with the follow-up? Any and all feedback is appreciated! Thanks so much!

Don't know what Business Insider’s ethics are, but typically news outlets will not let anyone affiliated with a company write a piece, because there's an inherent conflict of interest. I say that having spent decades in daily journalism. If you mean for what's supposed to be a first-person piece, like as an op-ed or a thought leadership piece, legit news outlets typically won't allow that either. Those pieces are supposed to be written by the individual, not by someone else.

Thanks for sharing this, @white-potato-56800. I hadn’t considered that angle to the process.

Your own email, with personalized pitch

Hey Krissi! So typically for ghostwritten outreach you would send from the figurehead's email, and they would need to give you their email login OR create a separate email just for this. Unless you already have a PR company and are quoting your client, which it doesn't sound like you would be, I don't think it'll come across as very legitimate. You could use your own email if you have a title on her team, like CMO (even if it's just symbolic) but again I think you'll have a higher conversion rate if you send everything from the client's email, writing as her.

Thanks, @purple-monitor-35762! This is right along the lines of what I was thinking, too. I'm not looking to get into PR fully, so this seems like the best option. I may not offer this as a service for long! Thank you so much for your reply!

Sure thing, I'm interested to know how it goes 🙂 so post an update when you can!

FWIW: If a legit news outlet discovers that you're ghost-writing for a company or otherwise not acting aboveboard, they could end up blackballing you and your agency. That's because news outlets with ethics are concerned about conflicts of interest and nondisclosures that would damage their brand.