Growth Ghost

Growth Ghost: the leading coaching program for aspiring freelancer writers, 9-to-5ers, and digital writers. Teaching writers how to land high paying clients, scale their online ghostwriting business, and build a life they no longer feel the need to escape from.

50+ students served. Multi 7 figures in revenue generated for students. 

https://www.growthghost.com/optin1736208224612

Partner

Ghostlii Inc

The leading ghostwriting agency for founders, coaches, and personal brands.
50+ clients served. 200,000,000+ total impressions. 7 figures of revenue generated through social media content.
https://ghostlii.com/

Co-Founder

Centre for Arts and Technology

College Instructor

College teacher turned ghostwriter | Scaling founders, coaches, and consultants to $100K+ /mo | Writing to build wealth and better self | 98,000 on Twitter (X)

Taylin John Simmonds

My first ghostwriting client made me rich. Not with the money they paid me. But with the mindset shift they created in me.

When I first started, I’d see other ghostwriters online landing clients and think:

"Good for them. But could that ever be me?"

I acted on blind faith that if they could do it, so could I.

(Some Tony Robbin's sh*t, you know?)

But for six months, nothing happened.

No clients.
No money.

No proof it would work for me.

It made it hard to keep going when the only evidence I had what that it was possible for someone else.

But then, I landed my first client!

$0.50 per follower, which came out to about $3,000 a month.

That small win radically shifted my mindset.

I was no longer acting on possibility.
I was acting on probability.

A week later, I signed another client.

Within a few months, I was making over $10K a month from ghostwriting.

Looking back, this shift wasn’t just financial.

it was psychological.

Because when you get your first “yes,” everything you once doubted about yourself disappears.

You realize this isn’t just possible for others.

It’s possible for you.

That’s the moment your life changes.

Not because of the money but because you're no longer held back by disbelief.

—Taylin

♻️ Repost. Follow Taylin John Simmonds for more on how to earn as an AI assisted ghostwriter without sacrificing income or your love of hard shell tacos.

College teacher turned AI assisted ghostwriter | Helping writers, creatives, and storytellers earn on the internet | 2 billion impressions | $4,000,000+ revenue generated | All in on Substack

In the last 60 days, I've gained 943 newsletter subs from organic content on Substack. No lead magnets. No trendjacking. Here's how I did it:

Most people on LinkedIn have no idea how f*cking incredible Substack is right now.

It's like LinkedIn 2023, only better because you attract subscribers instead of followers.

Imagine this:

You write a short social post—just like you would on LinkedIn—and it gets you 500 newsletter subscribers.

No lead magnet.
No DMs.
No funnels.

You write a newsletter that goes semi-viral, and it brings you new 80 subscribers, $1,000 in customer sales, and 2 podcast invites.

All from a newsletter that went viral on a social media timeline.

Then you launch a paid newsletter, where people happily pay you for your deepest work, and suddenly you’re earning $100 per day from content you’re already writing.

This isn’t theoretical.

Those are all real wins from my Substack.

I’m growing faster on Substack than I ever did on LinkedIn—just by repurposing my old content and adapting it to Substack’s culture.

My newsletters are going viral.

They’re attracting new clients, podcast invites, and collaborations every week.

My paid newsletter alone is on track to gross $4,000 this month.

This is insane.

If you’re a business owner, get on Substack.
If you’re a creator, get on Substack.
If you’re selling courses or digital products, get on Substack.

This platform is insane and it’s still early.

If you’re thinking about migrating, but aren't sure how Substack works, just comment "Substack" below.

I'll shoot over my free growth guide so you can make the most of Substack while it's easy.

Because once everyone figures it out, the easy growth window closes.

—Taylin

I didn’t start believing in myself because I had results. I started believing in myself because I ran out of reasons not to try.

Back in 2022, all I wanted was to make a living as a creative writer.

Not a novelist or a journalist.

Just someone who could write online and get paid for it (if it was even possible).

But everyone around me was saying the same thing:

"Writers don’t make real money."

Still, I kept seeing people on Twitter doing it, and a small part of me hoped that if they could pull it off, maybe I could too.

So I gave myself permission to write for one year straight.

After work.
On weekends.
After eight-hour days teaching college classes.

And I did all of that without earning a single dollar for 6 months.

No clients.
No validation.
Not even much traction on my posts.

Just a lot of self-doubt, 5-9 exhaustion, and the constant fear that I was wasting my time.

Then another ghostwriter referred me a client (thank god).

On the call, the client agreed to pay me fifty cents per follower.

When the Stripe invoice came through for $3,000, it pretty much broke my mind.
It was more than I made in a month as a teacher.

And that moment was all it took...

I finally had proof this path could work (for me).

Within 30 days, I landed two more clients and hit around $10K per month.

Looking back, the biggest shift wasn’t the money.

It was realizing that when you don’t have evidence something will work for you, you have to borrow evidence from people it already worked for.

That borrowed belief keeps you going long enough to get your own proof.

And once you get your first yes, it gets a lot harder to quit.

—Taylin

♻️ Repost. Follow Taylin John Simmonds for more on how to earn as an AI assisted ghostwriter without sacrificing income or your love of hard shell tacos.

Many of LinkedIn’s biggest creators just joined Substack.

Are you going to join them or get left behind?

Whenever a new social platform is easy to grow on, the big creators quietly migrate there first.

They don’t talk about it.

Because they want to grow fast while the growth is easy.

Right now, Substack is that platform.

But why is it easy to grow on?

It's easy to grow on because there is more attention than quality content.

That means when you post something, it gets shown to more people and it stays visible for far longer.

On LinkedIn, my posts last roughly 3-7 day.
On Substack, my posts go viral for up to 40 days.

But how long will this easy growth last?

6 to 12 months (max).

Recently, Justin Welsh joined Substack.
Dan Koe joined Substack.
Dan Go joined Substack.
Naomi Kins joined Substack.

And if I had to guess, Lara Acosta will join soon too because she just launched a newsletter course. Which makes sense for her to sell on the platform.

It’s no coincidence.

All the big creators are moving quietly to Substack because it’s easier to grow and easier to go viral.

I’ve personally gained 1,000+ newsletter subscribers in the past 60 days from short Notes that take me two minutes to write.
I've landed 3 podcast appearances with top Substack creators.
I've gotten more inbound leads from Substack than LinkedIn.

Can a new creator easily do this on LinkedIn without jacking trends?

Not in 2025.
And it won't happen in 2026.

So you have a choice:

Wait around debating whether to join or make the move while growth is still easy.

I missed the early growth window on LinkedIn because I was too focused on X.

I’m not making that mistake again.

That’s why I’m all in on Substack.

P.S. I’m putting together a free Substack Growth Course that breaks down how I'm growing on the platform (because it is different from LinkedIn).

I'll be publishing it only on Substack, so if you want access when it drops, you can subscribe here: https://lnkd.in/gb6dr2mF

—Taylin

How to grow fast on LinkedIn. Don't. Just write on Substack instead. In 30 days, I gained 729 newsletter subs + $3,000 with a paid newsletter.

It got harder to grow fast on LinkedIn over the past year.

So I ran a five-month experiment to see what would happen if I went all-in on Substack, tried to grow, and launched a paid newsletter.

What happened surprised me.

Once I figured out how the platform worked, I started gaining 500–700 newsletter subscribers per month organically.

Think about that.

When was the last time you pulled 500+ newsletter subscribers on LinkedIn without a viral lead magnet or trendjacking?

This was all organic.
No lead magnets.

Just repurposed content from LinkedIn & X.

My most viral Substack post was literally a LinkedIn post I copied over. 
It brought in around 100 subscribers by itself.

If you’re already writing LinkedIn posts, there’s zero reason not to post them there and let the platform hand you free subscribers.

Then I launched a paid newsletter.

In 30 days, 48 people subscribed.

The dashboard says $6,260 annualized, and the actual cash received was around $2,000 USD.

But here’s the wild part:

People started DMing me asking for other things they could buy.

Now they want me to start a writing community.
I sold $1,000 worth of ghostwriting courses I don’t even have publicly available.
I booked 2 consulting calls worth $3,000–$5,000 each.

So in one month of a paid newsletter, I’ll probably end up with $3,000–$7,000 of additional revenue—completely outside of LinkedIn.

This is why I’m posting about Substack so aggressively.

It’s one of the best attention arbitrage opportunities on the internet right now.

It feels like early Twitter.
It feels like early LinkedIn.
And people on LinkedIn are completely sleeping on it.

They’re not growing on Substack.
They’re not using a paid newsletter as an intro product to sell courses, coaching, or services.

It’s insane.

And the excuse is always:

“I don’t have time. I’m focused on LinkedIn.”

That’s exactly what I used to say—right before LinkedIn got hard.

I’m not making that mistake again.

If you try Substack for 30 days, you’ll be shocked at how much faster you grow your audience and your business.

I put together a free Substack growth guide—you shouldn’t have to pay for the basics. 
I’ll link it at the bottom of this post.

I’m going to keep FOMO’ing you into existence until you finally get on this platform and take advantage of it.

You probably have 6–12 months.

Stop grinding on LinkedIn for 100 followers a month.
At least give Substack a shot.

Free Substack growth guide: https://lnkd.in/gffnDFcD

—Taylin

I’m building my paid Substack newsletter to 500 subs in public. I launched 7(ish) days ago. The update: Paid subs: 24; Revenue: $1,079.25

I looked at the market—most people price their paid tier at $5/month.

Then I asked myself:

“What would I need to offer to price mine 4x higher?”

My answer came in two parts:

1) Value proposition

Help new writers earn $1,000+/month writing online

2) Deliverables

* Weekly custom GPTs & prompt flows (the same ones I’m using now)
* Biweekly manifestos (more in-depth than most people’s courses)
* AI-assisted writing manifestos
* Monetization roadmaps on money models, offer stacks, and marketing ecosystems
* Monthly live Q&A calls (no selling, just having fun and shooting the shit)

With this setup, I can grow revenue 4x faster per subscriber.

That’s what I recommend to new writers with smaller audiences—you don’t need a ton of subs, just high trust per sub. (More on that another time.)

This week’s marketing breakdown (rough numbers):

I built no hype. Did no prelaunch.

Just woke up, decided to launch a paid tier. And launched it by end of day (my attempt at not overthinking it haha).

* One scrappy launch newsletter → 4 subs
* One email to previous buyers → 7 subs
* One email to subscribers with 4–5 star activity scores → 5 subs
* Two paid newsletters with paywalls → ~5 subs
* One Substack Live with Landon Poburan → ? subs

Hard to track where the rest came from.

Next steps:

1. Finish the new AI workflow for writing long form content (relevant to LinkedIn as well)

2. Release the next roadmap: *How to get 100 paid subscribers on Substack in 3–6 months*

3. Host one Substack Live per week to build trust faster (some fun collabs coming up)

That’s it.

If you found this valuable, let me know. It helps me decide whether to keep doing this series weekly.

PS - Substack feels like early Twitter with a newsletter option. It's an arbitrage opportunity for the right creators/founders who get in early. 

We're looking for a few founders or coaches who want us to grow their presence on Substack. Done-for-you content creation and lead generation. Send me a message if that's you.

—Taylin

I just learned this crazy idea from a Harvard Psychiatrist: It’s called Cognitive Drain. And it’s why most people are exhausted 24/7.

Every single:

* Undone task
* Unrealized goal
* Unfinished project

Is causing your brain to leak mental energy.

Basically, your brain is a dusty PC running Windows 99 with 100 tabs open.

No wonder most people are so burnt out.

They're not tired because of working too much.

You’re tired because of *thinking* about too much.

Psychiatrist, Dr. K says there are only two ways to get your energy back:

1) Relieve - finish, delegate, or delete a task

2) Grieve - accept you'll never do it and let it go (goodbye my dream of being a famous DJ)

Grieving might sound dramatic, but it's what unburdens your mind.

If you’re still clinging to a version of yourself who “should” have achieved something by now, that’s energy trapped in a closed loop.

If you're still day dreaming about a goal you haven't worked towards in years, that's wasted focus and mental bandwidth.

Exhaustion doesn’t only come from doing too much.

It comes from carrying too much sh*t in your head.

You might not need to rest more.

Just try thinking less. Committing less. And grieving more (I recommend a weekly journaling practice).

It's the only way to free up bandwidth for what truly matters.

—Taylin

♻️ Repost. Follow Taylin John Simmonds for more on how to earn as an AI assisted ghostwriter without sacrificing income or your love of hard shell tacos.

My lil' writing biz did $200K in its first year. Every year since, I’ve done multi–six figures. How you can do the same (steal my strategy):

1. Start with a validated offer and good positioning

If your offer is too different, no one buys it.

If it’s too similar, no one remembers it.

I’ve made both mistakes:

a) Creating a course so similar to competitors that no one bought it
b) Launching a community that was so different no one wanted it

The sweet spot?

Find 5 successful people in your niche:

a) Validate what's working—steal the similarities amongst their offers.

b) Position with what they're not doing—find what they’re *not* offering and make that your edge.

2. Become your own case study.

Don’t expect clients to trust you before you’ve proven results for yourself.

Treat yourself like your first client.

* Learn the skills
* Get yourself wins
* Document everything in public

Authority is built, not borrowed.

3. Create long form content to build trust

Sorry, but you won’t win by posting only on LinkedIn.

That’s awareness, not trust.

Trust is built with long form:

* Newsletters
* YouTube
* Podcasts
* Lead magnets (that don't suck)

If you don’t have a place to send people deeper, you’ll lose to those who do.

4. Serve beginners and experts, not the middle.

Build only two clear offers:

a) A low-ticket, beginner friendly product under $200 to attract beginners and earn trust.

b) A high-ticket program ($3K–$20K) for advanced clients where you can go deep and deliver huge results.

That's why my 2 core offers are:

a) Paid Substack on how to write assisted by AI ($19 /mo or $149 /yr)

b) Ghostwriting coaching program for those looking to transition our of their 9-to-5s ($3,000+)

No middle, no mess.

Just building trust. And upselling to high ticket (where the real money is).

That's it.

Just do these few things, really well, really consistently.

That’s how you go from zero to six figures in a year.

And if you skip my mistakes, you’ll probably do it faster than that.

Where are you at in this roadmap?

—Taylin

♻️ Repost. Follow Taylin John Simmonds for more on how to earn as an AI assisted ghostwriter without sacrificing income or your love of hard shell tacos.

I have 37,892 LinkedIn followers. I earn more per month from my 5,724 subs on Substack.

What? How?!

Too many people still believe the “big audience = big income” myth.

I did too.

I optimized for LinkedIn virality earlier this year.
I wrote posts I didn’t like.
I told myself the money would show up once the numbers got big enough.

Spoiler:
It never did.

I didn't realize what actually happens when you chase audience size:

You create content for dopamine, not depth.
You grow followers, not trust.

You’re “known,” but not believed.

And without belief, nobody buys.
Nobody invests.

Nobody respects you as an authority.

So I decided to try a different strategy on Substack and this is what I learned:

You don’t need a big audience.
You need high trust per follower.

Because one person who trusts you is worth more than a hundred who barely register your existence.

I have 100,000 followers on X. 
37,892 on LinkedIn.

I have 5,724 subscribers on Substack.

Guess where most of my money comes from?

Substack.

Because that’s where I write what I actually care about:
Creating your life's work.

That’s where I build trust instead of reach:
Publishing hour long podcasts (you might like them).

And trust converts at a level many “big audience” people never experience.

When someone trusts you, they buy the expensive thing.

They tell their friends.
They get excited to work with you.

You don’t need thousands of customers.
You need a few hundred believers.

Stop trying to get famous.
Start trying to get trusted.

That's the real game where you can actually win.

PS. In the past 30 days, I got 700 new newsletter subscribers from organic content on Substack.

If you don't want to miss out, here's a free guide on how to do the same:
https://lnkd.in/gffnDFcD

—Taylin

Grow your LinkedIn & business without wasting hours a day on content · Helped 100+ business owners build their personal brands · Ghostwriter for founders scaling to 7 & 8 figures

My life changed the day I got the call...

Until September 2022, I thought I’d made it.

I got into Bioengineering at one of Portugal’s top universities.

All the years of late nights and hard work finally paid off.

But one day, the phone rang.

It was our landlord.

His voice was cold and final: “I want you out as soon as our contract ends.”

With no money and the new sky-high rents, I was left in a pit of anxiety.

With little savings and skyrocketing rents, my mother and I were soon going to be homeless.

My grades, once a source of pride, began to plummet.

Anxiety and despair took hold.

I was on the verge of depression.

Faced with no other choice, I took the biggest bet of my life...

I was going to go all in on learning how to make money online.

I didn't want the Lambo or fancy Rolex.

I just wanted to make money so my mother and I could survive.

So, with 0 idea what I was doing, I decided to hire a business mentor I had been following on social media for a little over a year.

I was going to build my personal brand and learn how to get paid to write online as a ghostwriter.

I knew the next few months would determine whether:

1) My mother and I would have a roof over our head 

Or...

2) My mother and I would be begging in the streets just to get by.

So, I went 100% in.

• I quit college
• I drained my savings
• I even took out a loan so I could afford the mentorship

Starting from 0, I faced many challenges...

• Months of no income
• Feeling like I didn’t belong
• Wondering if I’d even make it

But through many failures (and lessons), I slowly got better each day.

I went from 0 followers to growing by over 30 followers a day.

I went from being a nobody to talking with high-value entrepreneurs daily.

But most importantly, I started making enough money to pay for rent and put food on our table.

Nickolas Carlos Grothe

If I were a founder trying to grow my audience on LinkedIn, here’s the 1 thing I WOULDN'T do: 

Write with AI.

Sounds ironic coming from a social media ghostwriter who uses it daily, but hear me out.

ChatGPT wasn't very advanced when I began creating content. 

I had prompts, but their results were mediocre, so I learned to ideate, write, and edit all my clients' content manually.

Was it slow? Yeah.

But it taught me how to think like a content marketer and, more uniquely, what great writing feels like.

Your brain starts picking up on small nuances:

• What a good idea looks like
• Which emotions resonate with your audience
• How switching two words can radically change your entire post

If you use AI too early, you'll never develop these nuances.

But if you're serious about building authority online...

Write your first 50 posts yourself.

Don’t worry if they're bad. 

You’re training your brain to understand good content.

Then, use AI to refine your ideas, find new angles, and analyse resources like client calls and market data.

Solidify your foundations before you amplify them with AI.

It's been 2 years since I quit bioengineering to build personal brands.
I still know nothing. Here's some advice:

1) Don't try to reinvent the wheel

See what others in your industry are doing. Emulate their hooks, content ideas, and post structures. Use your own positioning.

2) Tell more stories

There are no original ideas, but there are 1000 original stories. Humans have used them to share information for millennia. They're literally ingrained in our DNA.

3) Impressions ≠ money

Virality is useful to get eyes on your profile, but it doesn't guarantee sales. Build a funnel to convert the attention into clients.

4) Don't overthink it

Yes, it's worth going into deep psychology to write the perfect hook, but don't let that paralyse you from posting at all.

5) Teach as much as you can about your industry

You won't lose business from showing the strategies. People still need to know how to implement your lessons in their specific case. That's when they hire you.

These two years have been wild.

Excited for what's to come!

My post last week went viral for my audience size.

- 16,000 members reached
- 85 profile views
- 97 followers since it went out
- 26 reposts
- 24,000 impressions
- 19 saves
- 6 sends on LinkedIn

And it's still climbing.

It's led to several connections and conversations with founders and decision-makers inside my ideal clients' companies.

Going viral is only useful if...

1) It's within your industry
2) You have a funnel to turn it into opportunities

You don't need to go viral to be successful on LinkedIn.

But make sure that when you do, it's monetizable.

P.S.

I've opened up a slot for my DFY ghostwriting services. 

Current and past clients include real estate investors, financial liquidity providers, ecom coaches, and boutique marketing agencies.

If you want to build your LinkedIn personal brand and attract your ideal clients...

DM me "GROWTH" to see how I can help.

Last year, I worked on the personal brand of a founder who had an investment bank with a revolutionary technical feature in the industry.  

He had an incredible life story with the potential of going viral multiple times. 

(Unfortunately, I can't tell it due to NDAs.)

But he'd say it wasn't worth sharing, because the types of clients they needed to attract (startups and investors) didn't react to those.

Yet, I kept forcing them into the strategy instead of aligning with his goals.

He eventually stopped posting.

After 1.5 years, I can confidently say I knew nothing.

I still believe it would be worth testing his stories to see if they worked.

But I've grown a lot more brands since then, and I see it differently now...

• We could've told stories about clients
• We could've told stories about famous figures
• We could've told stories from people similar to his ICP

Our method wasn't the only method.

There are a thousand roads that lead to the same destination.

Choose the one that suits you best.

The true worth of your personal brand isn't in your impressions.

It's in something much more powerful...

Your:

• Influence
• Reputation
• Bank account
• Quality of engagement
• Number of people helped

There are accounts with > 100,000 followers with no power.
There are personal brands with < 10K followers changing lives.

Most business owners are working in the 1st domain.

But smart founders operate in the 2nd.

Become part of the top 5%:

• Inspire action with personal stories
• Educate to prove you're follow-worthy
• Build your tribe by voicing your opinions
• Share case studies to show you're competent
• Eat cucumber with sugar to gain superpowers

Would you rather be viral for a day or valuable for a lifetime?

♻ Repost | Follow Nickolas Carlos Grothe for more on building a personal brand that attracts your ideal client.

The founders with the best-performing personal brands I've helped grow have 1 thing in common:

They're interesting.

• A Dubai-focused entrepreneur
• A real estate investor who works in law
• A capital raiser who fled an ex-communist country

Your story and personality become your competitive advantage because they're unique to you.

Now, the founders above obviously lead unique lives.

But what if you don't have that "spice"?

As a business owner, there are 2 sides to this:

1) Your life (personal stories)

You don't need to jump off a plane without a parachute to have something to say.

You just need to be you.

People resonate with real experiences and the emotions behind them.

No matter how simple they seem.

2) Your business

Your ICP wants to see your day-to-day life and get an insight into how you're doing business:

• Results for a specific client
• A new mechanism you created
• What you're up to (in real time)
• Your philosophies around your work
• Stories about how you failed a customer

Being interesting doesn't mean being extraordinary.

Being interesting means showing up as yourself.

taplio

The Battle

Taylin John Simmonds

Nickolas Carlos Grothe

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Performance ScoreTaylin John Simmonds's LinkedIn Performance

Performance ScoreNickolas Carlos Grothe's LinkedIn Performance

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

taplio

The Battle

Taylin John Simmonds

Nickolas Carlos Grothe

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}Taylin John Simmonds's LinkedIn Performance

Performance ScoreNickolas Carlos Grothe's LinkedIn Performance

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

Performance ScoreTaylin John Simmonds's LinkedIn Performance