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55,000–80,000 words · from $22,800

A business book that does a job, not a book that just exists.

Founder books, executive memoirs, and category-defining non-fiction. Written backward from the outcome you actually want.

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You've been told you should write a book for three years. You agree. You have the ideas; you don't have the 250 hours. And you're suspicious of every ghostwriter who's pitched you, because most of them have written nothing in your category.

What business book actually means

Three categories of book live under “business” on Amazon and they sell very differently. Founder memoirs (Horowitz, Knight, Catmull) are 70% story, 30% extracted lesson. Operating books (Working Backwards, Measure What Matters) are 30% story, 70% framework. Category-creation books (Crossing the Chasm, Blue Ocean Strategy) are mostly framework with stories as illustration. They are not interchangeable. We figure out which one your business outcome demands on the discovery call, before we write a word.

Who buys this

Three patterns. Founders pre-IPO or pre-acquisition who need a public version of their thinking. Operators (heads of product, ops, marketing) who have a framework that worked and want to be known for it. And category-defining consultants or executives who need a long-form artefact behind their LinkedIn posts.

Different stages, same problem: the thinking is real, the writing is the bottleneck. Ravi will spend the first 90 minutes of the kickoff figuring out which of the three you are, because that decision shapes the table of contents.

Business mood

What business feels like, in five frames.

Visual reference for the voice, palette, and reader mood the books in this category live in.

Sub-genres we work in

The business categories with their own conventions.

Sub-genres each have their own structural rules, word-count norms, and reader expectations. We assign by sub-genre, not just by parent.

Sub-genre Founder memoir (the path) Sub-genre Operating book (the playbook) Sub-genre Category creation (the new frame) Sub-genre Leadership book (the philosophy) Sub-genre Career-pivot book (the bridge) Sub-genre Executive memoir (under NDA)

Genre conventions

The rules we will not break unless you ask.

Every category has conventions its readers expect. The right time to break them is on purpose, with eyes open. The wrong time is by accident.

  • An original framework or model is the book's spine; everything else is illustration.
  • Chapters open with a story, deliver a principle, close with a question.
  • Sentences shorter than fiction. Paragraphs shorter than memoir.
  • Footnotes for credibility, not for density.
  • Cover does not feature the author's face. Founders' books with the author on the cover sell worse on Amazon thumbnail.

Sample covers

Business covers we shipped this year.

Each cover is a real project. Drag through to see the visual language we work in for this category.

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Comp titles

Books that share your shelf, and the choice we'd ask you to make about which one to compete on.

On the discovery call, we ask which two of these your book most resembles, and which one you refuse to be compared to. The answer shapes the outline.

  • The Hard Thing About Hard Things Ben Horowitz
  • Working Backwards Colin Bryar, Bill Carr
  • Crossing the Chasm Geoffrey Moore
  • Built to Last Jim Collins, Jerry Porras

Genre lead

Ravi Balakrishnan reads every business brief that comes through the door.

The same person reads your brief, joins the discovery call, and signs off every chapter. No rotating account managers.

Leads Business book ghostwriting

Ravi Balakrishnan

Lead Ghostwriter, Business & Founder Books, 9 yrs

Ghostwrote three books that founders later used to raise Series B or C rounds. Will not start a project without a real positioning session, because the wrong frame burns six months of writing.

  • Ghostwrote the founder book for a Series B SaaS CEO; book cited in the Series C deck
  • Two NYT bestselling business books under an NDA
  • Contributor, HBR.org, on writing for founders
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Case study

Operating Under Constraint

by Miguel Torres Velasco, Co-founder & CEO, supply-chain SaaS (Series C, $84M raised) ASIN B0DH1XQ4MW

The brief
Miguel had a 90-page Notion doc of frameworks and a calendar booked out 14 weeks. He needed a book ready for a Series C narrative in nine months and could not personally afford 250 hours to write it. He had been pitched by three ghostwriters; none had founder-stage business book experience.
The outcome
Published 4 months before the Series C close. The framework appeared in the deck, in the investor IC memo (the lead's), and in two TechCrunch pieces post-close. Sold 4,200 copies in launch month and crossed 11,000 inside six months without paid promotion outside Amazon Ads. Miguel has booked 23 paid keynotes off the back of the book in the year since.
  • $84M Series C raised, book cited in lead's IC memo
  • 11,000 copies sold in 6 months, no traditional press
  • 23 paid keynotes booked off the book
  • 9 months kickoff to Series C close
Read the full case study
Business — what a project looks like 01:08 60-second tour of a business engagement from outline to launch.

Services for this genre

What a typical engagement looks like.

The studio

The team behind every genre.

See the full team →

Business book ghostwriting — FAQ

Questions we get from business authors every week.

What outcome should I actually want from a business book?

One of four, usually. Inbound deal flow (the book opens doors your cold outreach can't). Keynote pipeline (the book is your speaker reel). Strategic positioning (the book repositions you in your market). Team culture (the book is the onboarding document for the next 200 hires). Pick one as the primary outcome before we start the outline. A book optimized for keynotes is structurally different from a book optimized for deal flow.

Will the book be "thought leadership" or a memoir?

Either, both, neither. Most of the founder books we write are 60% memoir, 40% framework. The story carries the credibility; the framework carries the utility. Pure thought leadership without a story tends to read as dry; pure memoir without a framework tends to read as self-indulgent. The mix is what works.

Should I include numbers and case studies from my company?

Where the legal and confidentiality picture allows, yes. Real numbers, real situations, real names of people who agree to be named. We work with your General Counsel from the outline stage to land which specifics are publishable and which need to be lightly fictionalized.

Do I need a publisher, or can I self-publish a business book?

For category-defining non-fiction by a known founder, a traditional publisher (Portfolio, Harper Business, Wiley) still gives bookstore distribution, awards eligibility, and a marketing budget. For most founder books, self-publishing via KDP plus IngramSpark wide distribution gives you faster timing, higher royalty (70% vs 12%), and full pricing control. We can help with either path; we have agent contacts for the traditional route.

How do I get a Wall Street Journal or Financial Times review?

You usually don't, unless you have a traditional-publisher publicist or a personal relationship with an editor at the outlet. The honest path is: WSJ-byline-or-quote first (a piece you publish or are quoted in), then book reviews follow if they follow at all. We do not promise WSJ or FT reviews — anyone who does is overpromising.

Can the book be ghostwritten without anyone knowing?

Yes, that is the default arrangement. Mutual NDA, permanent ghost-clause for the writer. Many of the most cited business books on your shelf are ghostwritten or co-written with no public acknowledgement. If you do want to credit the writer in the acknowledgements, that's your call.

Will you write something I disagree with?

No. The drafts come back to you in 8–12k chunks. Anything that doesn't match your thinking gets cut. We are not trying to put words in your mouth — we are trying to put your existing thinking in a form that ships.

Other genres

Twelve in total. Different team for each.

Ready when you are

Ready to talk about your business project?

A 30-minute discovery call with a senior editor — no sales script, no pressure. We'll tell you whether we're the right fit for your project, what it would cost, and how long it would take.

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