What the role is on LinkedIn
A LinkedIn ghostwriter, in this practice, is an executive writer with one public surface in the brief. The job is the leader's line: words the leader will sign, that match what the company says inside. It is not a job to keep a profile busy.
If you want a person who runs several networks, maintains the visual system, and treats LinkedIn as one tile in a wider social plan, you are describing a social media manager. That is a different hire. The comparison is there so you do not buy the wrong role. This page assumes you want the writing.
The shorter checklist, for hiring a ghostwriter in general, is hire a ghostwriter. Stay on this page if the question is how the LinkedIn work should be set up.
The brief you write first
Do this before you speak to anyone, including us.
Write the message in one or two sentences. It should be something you already believe. A writer cannot supply a view you do not hold, and should not be asked to hunt for one in a stack of themes.
Name the reader for the next quarter. A buyer, a candidate, a peer, or the team. One of them. If the brief says "the industry", you have not chosen.
Write the limits. What you will not claim, which topics are not yours to discuss, and who inside the company must see a sensitive line before it is public.
Say how approval works. Who reads, on which day, and what happens when you are away. An undefined queue is how a line goes stale, or goes out unseen. Agree the day.
That is an executive communications brief. It is the same briefing you would give a careful in-house writer. Someone who wants a calendar of slots before they want this page is planning to fill the slots.
How to read a sample
Ask for a piece that started from a real conversation about a real decision. Then do one edit in your head. Remove the company's name and the product. If the piece still contains a choice only that person would have made, the writer was listening. If it becomes a general essay any leader could sign, it was a pattern with the details dropped in.
Do not grade a sample on polish. Grade it on whether a decision is visible. If the paragraph still works after you swap in a rival's name, the writer has not begun.
Ask, in the same conversation, whose hand the draft is in. If the person on the call will not say who writes the words, you have not met the writer yet.
The working arrangement
In-house style means the writer is close to the message, and you remain the author in the only sense that matters. You can stand behind the line, and you can stop it.
You approve before anything is public. The notes on your voice, your limits, and your arguments stay with you if the work ends. The writer does not keep that record as a private file.
The first fortnight is for learning how you explain a decision. Clients live within two weeks, which means the public record starts while that learning is still incomplete. Waiting for a finished voice is how the record stays empty. If the voice is wrong, there is a 21-day get-out clause.
Your part does not shrink to nothing. You still supply the decision, you still refuse a line, and you still reply when a serious person answers. A writer who needs a full essay from you every week is handing the job back. A writer who stops asking after the opening conversation will start filling gaps with views you have never used. The useful middle is a short working conversation and a clear approval.
Questions about judgement
Ask these of anyone, including us. If the reply is fog, do not book another call to decode it.
- Which sentences would you send back, even if I liked them?
- If we part, what record of how I explain a decision do I keep?
- Who drafts, and who inside my company reads a line that might be a claim?
- What happens in the first fortnight, before anything is public?
- What does the monthly figure include, and which decisions stay mine?
We will not put a sentence in your mouth that you have not already decided. We will not put a number on your pipeline. The standard we write to is on this site, in the guides, so you can read it before a call.
When to walk away
Walk away if the offer is a guaranteed commercial result. Walk away if the fee appears only once you are booking time. Walk away if the sample praises you and never shows a decision. Walk away if you are told the writing can begin before your limits are written down.
Also walk away from a ladder of packages. A serious practice can say what the work is and what it costs to begin. If the conversation is a set of levels, you are being offered a menu, not a writer.
The fee
The published starting point is from $2,500 a month, for founder-led LinkedIn and X ghostwriting. There is no second figure on this site, and there are no tier names. If a brief is wider than that, we say so on a call rather than inventing a band. Read the pricing page before you book.
If you are still unsure whether to hire at all, the guide to writing it yourself is the other half of the decision. If the company is in financial services, read the fintech founder's guide before you write the limits. Those limits are the brief.