Executive ghostwriting is a collaborative process in which a writer helps a founder, executive or specialist turn their knowledge, opinions and experience into content published under their own name.
The writer handles much of the research, writing and editing, but the ideas should still come from the person whose name appears on the finished work.
That is an important part of the relationship. Hiring a ghostwriter doesn't mean handing over your LinkedIn account and asking someone to invent opinions for you. A good ghostwriter should make it easier to communicate what you already know without requiring you to spend hours writing it yourself.
What does an executive ghostwriter actually do?
The exact work depends on what is being produced.
A ghostwriter might help with LinkedIn posts, articles, newsletters, speeches or longer pieces of thought leadership. They may research subjects, interview the executive, review existing material, develop ideas, write drafts and handle revisions.
A large part of the job happens before the first draft.
The writer needs to understand what the executive knows, how they think about their industry and which subjects they can genuinely speak about with authority. That is where interviews, voice notes and previous writing become useful.
The aim isn't to manufacture expertise. It is to find the useful material that already exists and turn it into something other people will want to read.
How does a ghostwriter learn your voice?
Previous writing helps, but voice isn't something that can be captured simply by analysing vocabulary or sentence length.
Conversation is often more useful.
People tend to explain ideas differently when they're speaking about something they know well. They give examples, qualify statements, disagree with things and mention experiences they might never think to include when sitting down to write a formal article.
Those conversations give the writer much more than a collection of phrases to imitate. They help reveal how the person approaches a subject and what they actually think about it.
Existing articles, emails, presentations, interviews, podcast appearances and social posts can provide additional context.
Over time, the writer should need less explanation because they become familiar with the person's subjects, preferences and way of communicating.
How much time does the executive need to spend?
One of the main reasons to hire a ghostwriter is to reduce the amount of time writing takes, so the process shouldn't require the executive to effectively write everything themselves first.
They do, however, need to provide something.
That might mean a regular interview, occasional voice notes, comments on current issues or access to existing material. The exact arrangement can depend on how frequently content is being produced and how technical the subject is.
A 30-minute conversation with someone who knows their subject can provide considerably more useful material than asking them to stare at an empty document and send over “some ideas”.
The writer can do the heavy lifting afterwards.
What should the executive provide?
The most useful input isn't necessarily a finished brief.
A ghostwriter can work with things such as:
- opinions about developments in the industry;
- examples from previous work;
- questions clients repeatedly ask;
- mistakes the executive regularly sees;
- decisions that worked or didn't work;
- advice the executive disagrees with;
- presentations, articles or interviews they have already produced;
- notes and voice messages recorded when an idea occurs.
Not everything needs to become content. Part of the writer's job is deciding which ideas are worth developing and which probably aren't.
What should you delegate to a ghostwriter?
Research, structure, drafting and editing are all sensible things to delegate.
The writer can also help identify potential subjects, turn conversations into article ideas and decide whether an idea is better suited to a LinkedIn post, newsletter or longer article.
What shouldn't be delegated completely is the thinking behind the content.
If a writer has to invent the executive's experiences, opinions and conclusions, the finished work might sound polished but it won't say very much about the person whose name appears on it.
This becomes particularly important when the subject involves specialist knowledge. A lawyer, accountant, consultant or technology founder has expertise the writer does not have. The writer's job is to help communicate it, not pretend to possess it.
Can a ghostwriter use AI?
Yes.
AI can be useful during research, transcription, organisation, drafting and editing. The important question is not whether AI appeared somewhere in the workflow but what material it was given to work with and how the finished content was reviewed.
If an executive has explained a real experience or developed an opinion over years of working in their industry, using AI to help organise those thoughts doesn't make the experience any less theirs.
Problems arise when AI is expected to supply the expertise as well as the writing.
This is why a good ghostwriting process should still begin with the person behind the content rather than with a prompt asking for ten thought-leadership ideas.
Who approves the finished content?
The executive should.
A ghostwriter can research, draft and recommend changes, but the person publishing the work should be comfortable that it accurately represents what they know and believe.
This is particularly important for technical, legal, financial or regulated subjects where an apparently small wording change can affect the meaning of a statement.
The approval process also helps the writer learn. Feedback on early drafts gives them a better understanding of the executive's preferences, which should make future drafts easier to review.
How do you know if executive ghostwriting is working?
The first test is simpler than follower counts or engagement statistics: does the finished content genuinely sound like something the executive would be comfortable saying themselves?
It should also contain ideas that belong to them.
Over time, other measures may matter depending on the objective. These could include engagement from relevant people, conversations generated by particular subjects, newsletter subscribers, enquiries or opportunities that can be traced back to the content.
Those results take time and won't look the same for every executive.
The writer's immediate job is to make sure that worthwhile expertise isn't being lost simply because the person who has it doesn't have several hours each week to turn it into content.
Working with an executive ghostwriter
A good ghostwriting relationship should make publishing easier without separating the content from the person behind it.
The executive brings the knowledge, experience and opinions. The writer asks questions, finds the useful parts and does the work required to turn them into clear content.
The executive shouldn't have to become a writer.
They should still have something to say.