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.
Jeanie Duncan is an executive and team coach who works with Fortune 100 and 500 companies, higher education institutions, and nonprofit organizations navigating complex change.
Michael Biarnes works at the forefront of healthcare strategy, focused on improving patient outcomes and advancing meaningful innovation.
But beyond healthcare, he’s become known for something deeper:
Helping people redefine success.
John Thompson has been a senior executive at GE and Northwestern Mutual, leadership coach, and team builder with more than two decades of experience across operations, sales, and leadership roles in corporate America. Known for his practical, no-excuses approach, John focuses on helping individuals and teams take ownership of their choices and outcomes.
Steve Tang is a CEO and leadership speaker who came to authorship through lived responsibility, not aspiration. During the COVID pandemic, he found himself navigating high-stakes decisions, cultural strain, and leadership ambiguity with no existing playbook.
Henna Pryor is an award-winning author, keynote speaker, and executive coach who helps leaders navigate moments of social risk, visibility, and uncertainty.
Michael Dumlao is an award-winning Vice President of Marketing & Communications with 15+ years of experience leading brand transformations across Fortune 500, federal, academic, and nonprofit organizations.
Technology and business strategist with a 20+ year career leading transformation across Fortune 500 telecom, ecommerce, and retail organizations, most recently as Vice President of Strategy at a $12B North American retailer.
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.
Senior marketing and strategy executive with decades of experience at companies like AWS, Intel, and Honeywell, known among peers as an “idea machine,” who had long been fascinated by how decisions actually get made, but had never consolidated that thinking into a single framework.
Senior renewable energy marketing leader with nearly two decades inside the clean energy transition, deeply embedded in the industry but seeking a more reflective, lasting contribution beyond day-to-day deal flow.
Technology executive, investor, and board member of the Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship who felt a growing responsibility to prepare young people for the future of work. The book emerged at a personal inflection point, driven by fatherhood, loss, and a desire to leave something meaningful behind.
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.
Senior fintech product leader and VP of Product at high-growth payments companies who had accumulated years of internal writing, diagrams, and explanations, but lacked a single, durable way to codify his thinking for investors, operators, and the broader fintech ecosystem.
Dean of The Ohio State University College of Veterinary Medicine and nationally respected veterinary leader who had spent decades studying and living the human–animal bond, but had never formalized that work into a single, accessible body of thought.
Edwige Robinson is a global technology executive leading digital transformation across Fortune 500 organizations. Recognized as the #3 leader in Telco & Innovation by Mobile Magazine, she is a Forbes Technology Council member, Crain’s Chicago Notable Woman in STEM, 30 Black Stars Pinnacle Award recipient, and finalist for the 2026 Women in Tech Global Awards.
Cheri Mason is the former Chairman of the Board of Veterans’ Appeals at the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, where she led one of the largest federal adjudicatory bodies in the country.
Alyce Dailey is an entrepreneur, leadership coach, and mother of four who spent nearly two decades building a successful referral-based real estate business while mentoring women in leadership and personal growth.
Senior global HR executive preparing for a major career transition who had deep experience and research but lacked a structured way to turn it into a defining body of work.
