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.

Don Sandel

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.

Haley Hoffman Smith

Early-stage entrepreneur and digital creator who used Her Big Idea to process failure, clarify her message, and articulate a mission centered on empowering women to pursue bold ideas. The book became the foundation for a speaking career, community, and long-term platform.

Roger Osorio

Reinvention expert, educator, and entrepreneur who had already lived multiple career transitions but needed a cohesive framework to connect his experiences into a teachable, repeatable model. The book became the backbone of his work at The School of Reinvention.

Morgan Wider

Former retail executive and economist who transitioned into entrepreneurship, Morgan entered the process believing a book should package her existing presentations. Instead, she confronted a deeper question: was she willing to step beyond service delivery and articulate a defensible point of view about identity, worth, and executive presence?

Traci Mitchell

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.

Ahmed Siddiqui

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.

Rachell Kitchen

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.

Nicole Bianchi

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.

Terry McDougall

Executive coach and former corporate marketing leader who wanted to turn years of experience helping high achievers into a clear, portable framework she could use across coaching, speaking, and media.

Steve Fredlund

Steve Fredlund spent more than two decades as an actuary, doing what he was “supposed” to do, building a stable career, and checking all the boxes of a successful life. Despite outward success, he felt constrained by people-pleasing, safety, and a quiet loss of agency.

Daniel Wakefield

Daniel Wakefield is the founder of Top Tier Headshots and a business strategist helping entrepreneurs and creatives grow through genuine connection, not empty algorithms or shallow tactics. With a background in photography, branding, and community building, Daniel turned early coaching conversations into a broader playbook for business growth.

Hailey Rodgers

Founder of the Women’s Nonprofit Network (6,000+ members nationwide)
Nonprofit Growth Strategist at Collective Results
National nonprofit leader recognized for innovation and impact

Nate Androsky

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.

Ian Lemke

Ian Lemke is a real estate investor and entrepreneur who built his business by prioritizing trust, transparency, and long-term relationships over transactional wins. His book, People Over Property, documents not just how he invests, but why—positioning ethical decision-making and partnership as competitive advantages in real estate.

Andrea Goulet

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.

Jim Camp Jr.

Jim Camp Jr. is a retired U.S. Air Force Major General, leadership advisor, and co-owner of Camp Negotiation Systems. After years commanding under pressure and coaching executives on high-stakes negotiation, Jim recognized a deeper pattern: leaders weren’t struggling to negotiate deals, they were struggling to lead decisively.

Jaime Jay

Jaime Jay is a systems-minded entrepreneur, former 82nd Airborne paratrooper, and the founder of Bottleneck Distant Assistants—a company that helps business owners reclaim 20–40 hours a week through smarter delegation.

Danny Lehr

Danny Lehr is a sought-after speaker, entrepreneur, and former competitive athlete obsessed with helping people accomplish their biggest goals—one hour at a time.

Zachary Green

Zachary Green is a US Marine Corps veteran, former firefighter, and award-winning entrepreneur who built a $30 million company after starting from the trunk of his car.

Jane Finette

Author, Unlocked: How Empowered Women Empower Women
Founder, The Coaching Fellowship
Former Senior Leader at Mozilla, eBay & Sotheby’s

Catherine Connelly

Catherine Connelly is a veteran tech entrepreneur who spent two decades building and scaling companies in the online dating and social discovery space. In 2020, she sold her company, The Meet Group, in a $500M acquisition.

Joe Heitzeberg

Joe Heitzeberg is the co-founder of Crowd Cow, a direct-to-consumer marketplace connecting customers with independent farmers producing high-quality, ethically sourced beef.

Yen Verhoef, PhD

Yen Verhoef is an educator and thought leader building a new model for how schools evolve inside outdated systems. Through Rebel Teaching, she challenges the inherited machinery of American education and offers a practical framework for repurposing it from within.

Randi Braun

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.

Jason Levin

Speaker, trainer, and coach with a decade-long idea around relationships and connection who had built a solid practice but hadn’t yet turned his core philosophy into a defining, market-anchoring asset.

Jen Marr

Crisis response leader, trainer, and former corporate executive who wanted to turn years of frontline experience and care-based work into a credible, teachable framework she could scale through training, speaking, and programs.

Scott White

CEO and Chairman of a public real estate company who had spent decades building businesses, teams, and results, but wanted a meaningful way to share his philosophy on happiness, purpose, and living fully beyond quarterly outcomes.

David Olivencia

David Olivencia is the founder and CEO of Angeles Investors, which has invested more than $11M into high-growth startups. A senior technology executive and investor with deep experience scaling companies and supporting early-stage startups, including multiple unicorns. His career spans leadership, innovation, and capital allocation in high-stakes environments where execution matters.

Dr. Naeema Olatunji

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.

Hilary DeCesare

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.