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.
The problem is, you haven’t written it. Yet.
Who I Work With
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, or 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 you’re in the right place.
Maybe you’re at the top of your professional game and want to take your career to the next level. Maybe you’re ready for your book to serve as a capstone of your life and career. Maybe you want something to pass on–not only to your grandchildren, but your grandchildren’s grandchildren.
Maybe you can already write well, but simply don’t have the time to complete an entire book. Maybe you can barely string a 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 also in the right place.
A few of my past clients:
• The businessman who taught himself IT technology on YouTube, became the head of IT Security for a major US airline, formed his own company, then helped over six hundred other Black men follow in his footsteps during the Covid pandemic.
• The Colorado doctor who beat cancer twice and climbed one of Colorado’s 14,000-foot peaks before her hair grew back.
• The tenacious woman who went from straight-A student, to sales prodigy, to alcoholic–then conquered her demons to become a devoted wife, mother, Christian, CEO, and serial entrepreneur.
• The woman who grew beyond her dysfunctional family to build a multimillion-dollar company without a college education, then transcended unthinkable personal tragedy and earned both her bachelor’s and MBA in her sixties.
• The octogenarian banker-turned-businessman who survived a parachuting accident while serving in The 101st Airborne, lost his business to the malfeasance of a colleague, and found spiritual redemption on a ten-day solo canoe trip through the Minnesota wilderness.
These people couldn’t be more different, but the process just works–if it worked for them, it will work for you.
I’m Alec Quig. Interviewer first, writer second.
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 feel natural and true.
There’s an alchemy to turning conversations into a 200+ page book. My core job is to capture not only what you say, but how you say it, and translate that to the page. It’s a unique skill, and I didn’t learn it overnight. 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 dozens 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 Books, where I turned interviews with CEOs, founders, and entrepreneurs into several career-changing books.
Interviews First
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, 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, where you speak your life story into existence as only you can. When you’re able to bounce your ideas off a creative collaborator, they’ll evolve beyond what you thought possible.
Collaborating with a ghostwriter is a fundamentally different way of creating a book than writing one alone. Above all, speaking to another human is simply more fluid and natural than trying to translate the voice in your head into words on the page. The difference is exponential–while most writers are happy to sweat out two pages of writing a day, each and every one of our conversations will easily produce 40-60 pages of raw transcript.
Once I have all of that raw material to work with, then the writing part begins: editing, refining, cutting, pasting, and all the rest. As you’ll see, the process is very much like whittling a sculpture from a big block of marble.
The Process
My process is designed to produce a manuscript of approximately 200 pages in six to twelve months. For the first several months, you’ll be in the driver’s seat, telling your story, your way, as I act as navigator and co-pilot. We’ll speak once or twice a week for 90-120 minutes at a time.
Our first month is huge: after a handful of interviews, I’ll deliver your book’s blueprint and, more importantly, a draft of your first chapter. When you read that chapter, several things will click. You’ll see how your voice translates into print. You’ll instantly get a feel for how the 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. Over and over again, my clients say that this is the main advantage of my process: it makes them examine their lives in ways they never would have on their own.
The rest of your book will proceed as above, and I’ll deliver it to you in three parts: beginning, middle, and end. Once you’ve approved all three parts and said all you have to say, your manuscript will be reviewed and refined by two seasoned editors. When they’re done, you’ll meet with a handful of designers and publishers as I make a top-to-bottom edit. Upon your final approval, the manuscript will undergo a final revision by a professional proofreader. When their work is through, your manuscript will be ready for print and publication.
FAQ
What do you require of your clients?
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.
Do I get to keep all of the rights to my book?
Yes! They’re all yours.
How do payments work?
I charge 5% of my total project fee for your first chapter and book plan as a “test drive” so you can get a feel for me and the process before making a bigger commitment. From there, I bill in four equal payments, each tied to a deliverable: drafts of the first, second, and final third of your manuscript, and the final draft.
Does the book have to be done in six months? Are you strict about length? Do you charge more if it takes longer?
No. I’ve managed to complete one book after just sixteen two-hour phone calls, and others have taken well over a year. Some of my clients’ books have been complete at around 45,000 words, and others have stretched to over 90,000. Each book is ultimately as different as its author, and your book will take as long as you need it to take. Some people need to crank out their books to meet a tight deadline, and others need time to stretch out and let their projects evolve in unexpected ways. Either way, I’m with you until the end, and my fee won’t change.
Will you work for percentage or split of future book sales?
No–those are all yours, too.
Pricing
I charge $100,000 to produce a complete ghostwritten manuscript.
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 right where you need it: between your ears. Let’s get your story out of your head and into a book while it’s fresh.
If you have a few hours a week to spare, you have enough time to become an author. Choose me as your ghostwriter and you’ll be crossing this off your bucket list in a matter of months. My contact is below–let’s talk about you, your story, your goals, and how we'll turn it all into your book.