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.
Nico De Bruyn didn’t have the “right” degree.
He studied nutrition.
He wanted to work in marketing.
No one took him seriously.
So he started small.
Did marketing for a friend.
Learned obsessively.
Reached out to people daily.
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.
Payton Lynch is a Product leader at Disney, where she builds digital experiences rooted in storytelling and guest advocacy.
By day, she helps power one of the most iconic storytelling brands in the world.
By night, she became an author.
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.
Carlo Mahfouz operates at the frontier of AI and human potential.
As VP of Strategic Technology Partnerships at Laerdal Medical, he works at the intersection of:
• Advanced technology
• Healthcare transformation
• Leadership ecosystems
• Human-centered innovation
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.
Yogesh K. Soni is an AI-native product leader who has launched and scaled multiple 0→1 deep tech products across B2B and B2C markets.
Lisa M. Randolph is the creator of The Wildlife Divas — a children’s action-adventure series featuring five African American girls who use science, technology, engineering, arts, and math to save endangered species around the world.
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.
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.
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 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.
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.
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.
Debut fantasy novelist with a Stanford English background who approached publishing as a full creative ecosystem. Rather than treating the book as a one-time release, Aparna positioned The Boy with Fire as the nucleus of her identity, content, and community.
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.
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
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.
Andrew Mangan started writing his book while still in high school.
At 17.
He wasn’t majoring in neuroscience.
He wasn’t working in biotech.
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.
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.
Raven Jemison is the President of the Kansas City Current (NWSL) and the first Black president in league history.
Former Executive Vice President of the Milwaukee Bucks, she helped lead one of the most respected franchises in professional sports.
