Authors
How real authors used their books to create leverage, clarity, and lasting impact
These are not influencer stories or overnight success narratives.
They’re professionals who used a serious book to do serious work.
How to Read These Stories
Every author comes to Manuscripts with different goals, fears, and constraints. This page is designed to help you find stories that feel familiar, not aspirational. Filter by what matters to you, and see how others navigated the process.
While the majority of authors we work with are publishing thought leadership nonfiction, we also support select memoir and fiction projects where editorial depth, originality, and long-term intent are central to the work.
Founder of GoPositiv and a long-time talent development leader who spent decades inside organizations designing learning experiences that actually worked. A dynamic presenter with a sharp sense of humor, Don became deeply interested in how the brain learns and what enables people to bring their best selves to work.
Senior global business executive and award-winning public speaker who has scaled partner ecosystems from seed-stage startups to Fortune 500 companies, generating over $200M in revenue. Parallel to his business career, Satish completed full marathons on all seven continents, including Antarctica.
Veteran hostage negotiator and leadership trainer with nearly three decades in law enforcement who needed a way to translate high-stakes field experience into a durable leadership philosophy. The book became the vehicle to capture lessons learned under real pressure and make them usable outside crisis situations.
Emmy Award–winning journalist and media professional who translated decades of interviewing leaders, politicians, and public figures into a conversational, action-oriented book focused on communication, courage, and showing up fully.
The book became the centerpiece of Nicole’s leadership platform. Organizations began using it as the foundation for workshops, executive programs, and multi-touch engagements. Instead of one-off speaking, the book created demand for deeper, longer-term work, including bulk orders tied directly to leadership development initiatives.
Founder and CEO of a behavioral science and product design firm who wanted a clearer way to communicate how his team thinks and works to higher-stakes, enterprise buyers.
Andrea Goulet is a founder and UX leader who understands how trust and positioning are built.
She entered the Manuscripts process not to “become an author someday,” but to turn her expertise into a clear public framework, one that could create authority, demand, and opportunity in real time.
Stefaan van Hooydonk is one of the world’s leading voices on workplace curiosity.
After three decades in global executive roles across Asia, Europe, and the U.S., he founded the Global Curiosity Institute to measure and operationalize curiosity as a performance advantage.
Peter Parnegg is a sales strategist, instructor, and the author of Why Bother Asking?: Unexpected Keys to the Kingdom of Connection, a book that turned conventional sales wisdom on its head and redefined what leadership and connection look like in today’s world.
Randi Braun is the Founder and CEO of Something Major, a coaching and training organization helping women leaders navigate power, performance, and progression at work.









