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.
Cleola Davis is a U.S. Army veteran and author of Forged in Battle: African American Officers Serving in the United States Army.
Her work documents the stories of African American officers whose leadership and sacrifice shaped military history.
Katie Joy Duke is a mindset coach, retreat leader, and former disability attorney.
Her memoir, Still Breathing, chronicles love, loss, Stage IV breast cancer, and reinvention.
Sam Perez is a weekend morning anchor, traffic anchor, and multi-skilled journalist at WBIR 10News in Knoxville, Tennessee.
She was named the 2024 South Carolina Reporter of the Year after covering major statewide stories including the Alex Murdaugh trial, legislative updates, and high-profile sporting events.
Amnoni Myers is a social impact founder, speaker, and #1 Bestselling author of You Are the Prize: Seeing Yourself Beyond the Imperfections of Your Trauma.
Victor Barnes is a CPA and MBA with a career grounded in financial rigor, analysis, and professional standards. He approached authorship with skepticism, not sentiment, and evaluated the book process the same way he would any serious professional undertaking.
Dr. Miriam “Dr. Z” Zylberglait Lisigurski is a physician and wellbeing expert who has spent her career inside the systems that reward endurance, perfection, and self-sacrifice. Like many physicians, she was trained to prioritize competence over connection and performance over presence.
Lori Mazer is a strategist and leader whose work centers on helping individuals and organizations clarify their voice, sharpen their reputation, and expand their impact.
Dr. Ardeshir Mehran is a psychiatrist and public thinker whose work sits at the intersection of mental health, identity, and personal agency. Trained to diagnose and treat, he increasingly felt constrained by systems that prioritize comfort over truth.
Former corporate leader turned executive coach who spent 25 years inside the systems that reward stoicism, status, and self-sacrifice. Despite professional success, Jim experienced severe burnout driven not by workload alone, but by the isolation and emotional suppression baked into traditional definitions of masculinity and leadership.
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.
Former Wall Street executive who rebuilt her life from childhood poverty in Brazil, climbed to senior leadership at top financial institutions, and ultimately faced a pivotal question: could her value exist beyond the career she spent decades building?
Founder and CEO of Level Up For Life Coach, a professional coach working with women leaders to overcome self-doubt, who had long believed she was meant to write a book but lacked a clear path to turn that identity into a finished, usable asset.
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.
Leadership consultant and advocate focused on closing the leadership and wealth gap for Latinas who wanted to turn a deeply researched point of view into a credible, visible body of work.
Award-winning broadcast journalist, Bloomberg host and reporter, and adjunct professor of journalism at Georgetown University, with a master’s degree from Northwestern’s Medill School of Journalism. Deeply experienced in reporting, storytelling, and teaching others how to write clearly under pressure.
Ty Pinkins is a 21-year U.S. Army veteran, former White House staffer, Georgetown Law graduate, TEDx speaker, and U.S. Senate nominee from Mississippi. His book 23 Miles in Running chronicles his journey from chopping cotton in the Mississippi Delta to serving in the White House.
Physician and nonprofit leader carrying a deeply personal story that required care, structure, and emotional safety to translate into a finished memoir rather than remaining an unwritten burden.
Founder, entrepreneur, and advisor with deep Silicon Valley experience who had built and exited multiple businesses but hadn’t yet formalized her core philosophy into a single, shareable point of view.
