Step 1
The first interview
Sixty to ninety minutes, recorded, wide-ranging. We are listening for positions and stories rather than collecting a brief.
Articles and written content · Thought leadership and ghostwriting · Sydney
Thought leadership ghostwriting
Almost every business has one person whose opinion the market would actually want, and almost none of them have the two spare days a month to write it down. That gap is the entire job.
Grab the snowball. Give it a spin, and watch it grow as you scroll. Just like your reputation.
1hour of the expert's time
4published pieces from it
Their voicenot an agency house style
Namedpublished under a real person
The short answer
What is thought leadership ghostwriting?
Thought leadership ghostwriting is writing under someone else's name, in their voice, from what they actually think. The writer supplies structure, research and time; the named author supplies the argument, the experience and the accountability for it being true.
It fails when the argument comes from the writer. A piece assembled from industry consensus and published under an executive's photograph reads as exactly that, and it damages the reputation it was meant to build. The opinion has to be theirs.
So we work from interviews rather than briefs, and we will not publish a claim the named author has not stood behind. It sits inside our wider content writing service, and because our Snowball SEO platform automates the search heavy lifting other agencies bill by the hour, more of your budget goes into the interviewing.
The difference
What makes thought leadership worth reading?
Two things, and only two: a position somebody could disagree with, and experience nobody else has. Everything published without both is content marketing wearing a suit.
What makes it credible
- A position the author would defend in a room, not a summary of the obvious
- Specifics from work actually done: numbers, cases, things that went wrong
- The author's own phrasing, including the words they overuse
- A willingness to say what they got wrong, which nothing else buys
What gives it away as ghostwritten badly
- Consensus dressed as insight, agreeing with everything
- A voice that is smoother than the person actually speaks
- Claims the named author could not defend if challenged
- The same piece publishable under any competitor's name
On what earns citation rather than clicks, our guide to thought leadership content sets out the argument in full.
The cost
What drives the price of ghostwriting?
Interview time and how distinctive the voice is. Capturing how someone actually argues takes longer than writing competent prose, and it is the whole value.
A single piece
One article
One interview, one published piece in the author's voice, with their approval on every claim. Useful as a test of whether the voice comes through.
An ongoing column
Monthly
A regular cadence from a recurring interview, which is where a voice becomes recognisable and the audience starts expecting it.
A body of work
Programme
A book-length argument broken into pieces, or a year of positions planned together so they build rather than repeat.
We quote per piece or per programme after a free consult and a first interview. See our guide to thought leadership for the wider argument.
What moves the number, in order
The writing is the fast part. Everything above it is about getting the thinking out of one person's head accurately.
- Interview time, which is the only real source of a genuine voice
- How technical or regulated the subject is
- Whether the author reviews heavily or lightly
- Original data or research the piece has to carry
- How many channels it is adapted for after publication
- Cadence, since a monthly column costs less per piece than four one-offs
One hour, done properly, is four pieces
The most expensive way to run this is a new brief each month and a fresh attempt to extract an opinion from someone who is busy. The cheapest is one long recorded conversation, mined properly.
A good hour with somebody who knows their subject contains several arguments, a handful of stories and at least one thing they believe that most of their industry does not. That is a quarter of published work, not one post.
So we interview long and publish from the transcript, which also means the author spends an hour rather than a day, and their voice is on the page because it was recorded rather than imagined.
The scope
What you receive
Published under a real name, with the author in control of every claim made in it.
The piece, in their voice
Written from a recorded interview so the phrasing, the emphasis and the arguments are the author's rather than a house style.
The transcript
Yours, and more useful than it sounds: it is the raw material for everything else the author is asked to write this year.
Claim-by-claim approval
Every assertion flagged for the named author to confirm, because their name carries the risk and they should see it.
A voice note
What makes this person sound like themselves, written down, so the next piece does not start from scratch.
Channel versions
The argument cut for LinkedIn and for a newsletter, since a piece published once and never adapted reaches a fraction of who it could.
What to watch
Which pieces are being cited and quoted, rather than which got the most impressions, since those are different things.
The return
How does one interview become a body of work?
The reason ghostwriting is affordable at all is that the expensive input, the expert's time, can be spent once and drawn on repeatedly if the conversation is captured properly.
Consistency matters more than brilliance
A merely good piece every month beats a brilliant one every eighteen months, because reputation is built by turning up rather than by any single argument.
That is also why the interview cadence matters more than the writing. A programme collapses when the expert's diary gets busy, and the way to survive that is to be two or three arguments ahead at all times.
So we bank material rather than working piece to piece, and the transcript is yours regardless of whether you keep working with us.
The process
How ghostwriting works in practice
Two to three weeks for the first piece, faster once the voice note exists.
Step 2
Arguments and choice
We come back with the three or four real arguments in the conversation and you choose which to publish first.
Step 3
Outline
The shape of the piece and its central claim, approved before drafting so nobody argues about the argument at the sentence level.
Step 4
Draft in voice
Written from the transcript, keeping the author's phrasing, including the constructions they habitually use.
Step 5
Claim approval
Every assertion flagged and confirmed by the named author, because it is published under their name and their reputation.
Step 6
Publish and adapt
Published, then cut for the channels where the author's audience actually is.
The brief
What to ask before you commission ghostwriting
The failure mode here is not bad writing, it is a piece that sounds like nobody in particular.
Will you interview, or work from a brief?
A written brief produces a piece in the writer's voice about the author's subject. Only a recorded conversation produces the author's voice.
Who owns the argument?
It must be the named author. If the agency supplies the opinion, the byline is decoration and any challenge to it will be embarrassing.
Do we get the transcript?
Ask for it. It is the most valuable by-product and it is the raw material for everything else that person is asked to write.
How will you keep the voice consistent?
Ask what happens when a different writer picks it up. A written voice note is the only answer that survives staff changes.
We are happy to answer all four and to run a first interview before you commit. See founder-led content for why the named person matters so much.
Start here
Ready to get it out of their head?
Tell us who in your business the market would actually want to hear from. The free consult is a working session, not a sales call, and you leave with three things whether or not you book us.
- The three arguments we heard that are worth publishing, from one conversation
- An honest read on whether the voice is distinctive enough to be worth ghosting
- A fixed price per piece or per programme, with the interview time itemised
Good questions
Ghostwriting FAQs
What is thought leadership ghostwriting?
It is writing under someone else's name, in their voice, from what they actually think. The writer supplies structure, research and time. The named author supplies the argument, the experience and the accountability for it being true.
How much does ghostwriting cost?
We quote per piece or per programme. What moves it is interview time, how technical the subject is, how heavily the author reviews, whether the piece carries original data, and the cadence, since a monthly column costs less per piece than four separate one-offs.
How much of our time does it take?
One recorded hour usually produces three or four publishable arguments, so a quarter of output for an hour of the expert's diary. Working from written briefs instead takes more of their time and produces a weaker voice.
Is ghostwriting honest?
It is standard practice for executives, and it is honest as long as the argument and the accountability belong to the named author. It stops being honest when the agency supplies the opinion and the byline is decoration.
What if the author disagrees with the draft?
Then the draft is wrong and we rewrite it. Every claim is flagged for approval before publication precisely so that disagreement happens before the piece is public rather than after.
Can you match a very distinctive voice?
Usually, and it is easier than matching a bland one. We work from a recording rather than a brief and keep a written note of what makes the person sound like themselves, so a different writer can pick it up later.
Where should thought leadership be published?
Usually on your own site first, then adapted for the channel where the author's audience actually is, which for most business audiences is LinkedIn. Publishing only on a platform means renting the audience rather than building one.
How long before it does anything?
Reputation compounds slowly and unevenly. Expect six to twelve months before people start referring to the author's positions, and expect the first evidence to be a conversation rather than a metric.