Become an author.
All you have to do is talk.
Writing a book is not only life-changing. It’s identity-changing.
The instant you release your finished book into the world, you officially become an author. Just like that, you’re in a new league. You’re no longer CEO and Founder–now, you’re CEO, Founder, and Author. Forever. It’s something your loved ones and colleagues will never cease to mention, from wedding speeches to your obituary.
Becoming an author means authority, credibility, visibility, influence, bigger stages, and better clients. New doors will open. People will respond to you differently. When they hand you their business cards, you’ll hand them a book. Whether your goal is advancing in business or cementing your legacy, the book is just the beginning.
The problem is, you haven’t written it. Yet.
Who I Work For
I ghostwrite books for people whose extraordinary stories contain extraordinary lessons. I specialize in rags to riches memoirs, where the rags and riches aren’t only financial, but spiritual, emotional, creative, and philosophical.
If you’ve lived a remarkable life, accomplished something special in the face of serious odds, and want your book to help and inspire your readers, then I will supercharge your story.
Maybe you’re at the top of your professional game and want to take your career to the next level. Or maybe you’re ready for your book to serve as the capstone of your life and career.
Maybe you can already write well, but simply don’t have the time to complete an entire book. Maybe you can barely string a written sentence together, but you still have a story that needs to be told.
Maybe you’ve already done a fair bit of writing, but you can’t seem to organize it all into something gripping and coherent. Maybe you don’t know if you’re ready, or if you have what it takes.
If any of these sound like you, you’re in the right place.
I’m Alec Quig, the interview-first ghostwriter.
If you take one thing away from reading this page, make it this:
The key to ghostwriting a great book isn’t the writing. It’s the interviews.
Why? Because when you work with a ghostwriter on a book, the raw material comes from you. The interviews are where you make your core contribution to your book. They’re where the spontaneous creativity, unexpected revelations, and synergistic magic happen. They’re where you speak your life story into existence as only you can.
I’m a little different from other ghostwriters in that I see myself as an interviewer first and a writer second. Over and over again, I’ve seen that when you really nail the interviews, the writing that follows can’t help but sparkle with life.
My function is similar to what McCartney and Lennon did for each other: when you bounce your ideas off a highly creative collaborator, those ideas will evolve and improve beyond what you thought possible. The key is to get the creative gears in motion before the writing even starts.
…but interviews alone don’t make a book.
There’s an alchemy to turning conversations into 200+ page book. My job is to capture not only what you say, but how you say it, then translate it all to the page so it feels both natural and true. It’s a unique skill, and I didn’t learn it overnight–I’ve been dedicated to interview-first writing for twenty years.
I cut my teeth at the mecca of long-form interviews, BOMB Magazine in New York, where I transcribed and edited hundreds of pages of interviews before conducting my own. I later conducted hundreds of interviews with complete strangers as the “Man on the Street” for The Chicago Tribune’s Redeye, The Portland Mercury, and beyond. I later became a business ghostwriter at Forbes, where I turned interviews with CEOs, founders, and entrepreneurs into several career-changing books.
Some examples of my past clients:
• The businessman who emigrated from Hong Kong to Toronto, formed his own personal symphony orchestra, and learned to conduct Beethoven at the age of 70.
• The Colorado doctor who beat cancer twice and climbed a 14,000-foot mountain before her hair grew back.
• The “slacker dropout”-turned-CEO who traded his Lamborghini for an international journey of psychedelic self-discovery.
• The professor who developed a telehealth app for academic research, then watched its user base explode into the millions over the first weeks of the pandemic.
These people couldn’t be more different, but my interview-first process just works. If it worked for a Victoria’s Secret supermodel from Brazil, a Singaporean roboticist, and the trainer of a celebrity hippopotamus in Cincinnati–also past clients–it will work for you.
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“Raw, inspiring memoir of business, faith, and finding a path to success.”
Booklife by Publishers Weekly
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“Her narrative skill enables her to tell this tale from a confident, healed perspective, so we know that no matter how dark the world gets, we’re in good hands to guide us back through to the light.”
Readers Favorite
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“A vivid, engrossing account of spunk, determination, and forgiveness.”
Kirkus Reviews
How Ghostwriting Works
My interview-first process produces a print-ready 200-page manuscript in exactly four months. You’ll be in the driver’s seat, telling your story your way, while I act as your navigator and co-pilot.
For the first three months, we’ll speak once or twice a week for 90-120 minutes at a time. Our first ten days are huge: after a handful of interviews, I’ll deliver your book’s blueprint, table of contents, and most importantly, its first chapter.
When you read that chapter, several things will click. You’ll see how your voice translates into print. You’ll get an instant feel for how the ghostwriting process works. This will make us better collaborators, and our subsequent interviews will run like a well-oiled machine. Insights, buried memories, and epiphanies will arise. We’ll address them in further interviews one by one.
The rest of your book will proceed as above, and I’ll deliver it in three parts: beginning, middle, and end. Each part will be reviewed by two seasoned editors. Once you’ve approved all three sections and said all you have to say, I’ll spend the final month making another comprehensive edit from top to bottom. After a final edit by a professional proofreader, your manuscript will be ready for print and publication.
How The Interviews Work
My process is designed to make our conversations natural and effortless. I’m not the kind of interviewer you see on 60 Minutes, lobbing hardball questions at public figures. I don’t need to say much–the more you talk, the better. My role is about posing the right question, the right way, at the right time. I will be trying at all times to shake up your perpspective, and to push your story further and deeper. If you tend to take a 30,000-foot view, I’ll get you looking through a microscope.
For us to succeed, I’ll need two things from you. First, you need to come to each interview on your A-game, ready to go deep and talk expansively. Second, you must be willing and able to respond promptly and constructively to drafts of our work in progress. Beyond that, I’ll do the heavy lifting while you sit back and focus on the rest of your life.
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"What sets this book apart is its ability to interweave personal anecdotes with practical advice. It delves into personal transformation as a way of navigating life."
D. Moreno
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"This is an exhausting, inspiring, and almost unbelievable story–she doesn't hide the struggles, or the failures. Her honesty is beautiful."
B. Pagett
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"The story managed to communicate a powerful message of resilience and determination. No matter the challenges, we must continue to forge ahead."
M. Lujan
Pricing
I charge $100,000 to ghostwrite a print-ready 200-page manuscript in four months.
If the thought of writing a book won’t stop rattling around in the back of your head, I want to work with you. If the idea of becoming an author has been eating at you for years, I especially want to work with you.
Don’t put it off any longer. Everything you need is already between your ears. Let’s get your story out of your head and into a book while it’s still fresh. If you have a few hours to spare a week, you have enough time to become an author. Choose me as your ghostwriter and you’ll be crossing this off your bucket list in four months to the day.
Get in touch however you’d like. My contact info is below, or you can schedule a Zoom intro call here.
