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.
If you want it to, becoming an author will open all kinds of doors: authority, credibility, visibility, influence, bigger stages, better clients. People will respond to you differently. They’ll hand you business cards, you’ll hand them a book. It’s something your loved ones and colleagues will never cease to mention, from wedding speeches to your obituary.
The problem is, you haven’t written it. Yet.
Who I Write 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 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 sit down and hammer out 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 tried to have AI take care of it, and it didn’t sound like you. 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.
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 the interviews are where you make your core contribution to your book. When you work with a ghostwriter, the raw material comes from you, and the interviews are where we excavate that raw material. The better the raw material, the better the book.
Collaborating with a ghostwriter is a fundamentally different way of creating a book than writing one alone. It’s not just that speaking to another human is more natural than trying to translate the voice in your head into words on a page. Above all, the book you create with a ghostwriter is ultimately the product of a relationship.
That relationship is the most valuable part of working with a ghostwriter, because most people can’t see the contours of their own stories in their entirety–they’re just too close to them. Beyond capturing what you say and how you say it, my job is to bring to light powerful themes you can’t see because you’re literally living inside of them. Over and over again, my clients say that this is the main advantage of my process: it makes them see their lives in ways they never would have on their own.
I’m Alec Quig. Interviewer first, writer second.
There’s an alchemy to turning conversations into a 250-page book. 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. There I used a tiny digital recorder and a foot pedal to meticulously transcribe and edit hundreds of pages of interviews between artists before going on to do my own.
My next job was to conduct dozens of impromptu guerrilla interviews with complete strangers–from homeless video bloggers to A-list celebrities–as the “Man on the Street” for The Chicago Tribune’s Redeye and later, The Portland Mercury. After editing a wide variety of manuscripts, I became a business ghostwriter at Forbes Books, where I turned interviews with CEOs, founders, and entrepreneurs into several career-changing books.
I’m fundamentally different from other ghostwriters in that I see myself as an interviewer first and a writer second. Over and over, I’ve seen that when you really nail the interviews, the writing that follows can’t help but feel both natural and true. I’m not the kind of interviewer you see on 60 Minutes, lobbing hardball questions at public figures, and I’m not here to put words in your mouth. My role is more about posing the right question, the right way, at the right time. I don’t need to say much; the more you talk, the better. After a week, our interviews won’t feel like interviews at all.
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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
The Process
My process is designed to produce a manuscript of approximately 250 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 high-level blueprint and a draft of your first chapter. When you read that chapter, several things will click: you’ll get a feel for how your voice translates onto the page, and you’ll understand how the process works. This will make us better collaborators, and our subsequent interviews will run like a well-oiled machine. • Unexpected connections, buried memories, spontaneous detours, and other surprises will inevitably follow; we’ll address them in further interviews one by one.
• The rest of your chapters will proceed as above, and I’ll deliver your manuscript in three chunks: 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 final top-to-bottom edit.
• Upon your final approval, the manuscript will undergo a final edit by a professional proofreader. When their work is through, your manuscript will be ready for print and publication.
Throughout this process, I require 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
A few of my past clients:
• The Colorado doctor who beat cancer twice and climbed one of Colorado’s 14,000-foot peaks before her hair grew back.
• The businessman who taught himself the rudiments of technology on YouTube, became the head of IT Security for a major US airline, formed his own wildly successful company, then helped over six hundred other Black men follow in his footsteps.
• The tenacious woman who went from straight-A student, to working in a strip club, to sales prodigy, to alcoholic–then conquered her demons to become a devoted wife, mother, Christian, CEO, and serial entrepreneur.
• 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.
• The woman who grew beyond her dysfunctional family to build a multimillion-dollar company without a college education, then transcended unthinkable personal tragedy to earn both her bachelor’s and an MBA in her sixties.
These people couldn’t be more different, but the process just works–if it worked for them, it will work for you.
FAQ
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, while 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 info is below–let’s talk about you, your story, your goals, and how we'll turn it all into your book.