Author Hour

What do you do when a professor flunks you in freshman English and tells you that you can’t write? If you’re Chris Heivly, you co-found MapQuest, build startup communities around the world, and then write books anyway.

On this episode of Author Hour, Chris joins Eric Jorgenson to talk about Build the Fort, his playbook for the economic developers and community builders trying to make their cities better places for entrepreneurs.

Chris shares why all the work is in the outline, how a foreword from Brad Feld unlocked testimonials from Steve Case and Richard Florida, the early-morning writing routine that got his manuscript done in under four months, and why three years after launch the book still sells in bulk and keeps him on stages around the world.

For more information on Chris Heivly, visit https://scribemedia.com/authors/chris-heivly

For more information on Build the Fort, visit https://scribemedia.com/published-books/build-the-fort

Diagnosed with Crohn's disease at twelve and told he would be sick for life, Hadley Ott spent more than a decade on feeding tubes, steroids, and biologic drugs before quitting his doctors and medications cold turkey and healing himself through nutrition, fitness, and faith.

In this episode, Hadley joins Eric Jorgenson to talk about his book, Drug-Free Crohn's: Overcoming Big Doctors, Big Hospitals, and Big Pharma, the private promise that started it, and how a first-time author with no budget landed talks at Notre Dame and Ole Miss, about 15 podcasts, and local TV, one promotional card and cold pitch at a time.

For more information on Hadley Ott, visit https://scribemedia.com/authors/hadley-ott

For more information on Drug-Free Crohn's, visit https://scribemedia.com/published-books/drug-free-crohns

After 20 years specializing in retirement planning, Jake Falcon still could not find a single book he trusted enough to hand his clients, so he wrote his own.

In this episode of Author Hour, the founder and CEO of Falcon Wealth Advisors joins Scribe Media CEO Travis Stoliker to talk about Retiring Right: Smart Steps for Exiting Corporate America, why the book has become his new business card and website, how a prospect worth five figures a year found him through the audiobook on Spotify with zero advertising, and the podcast-to-book method that turned a self-described talker into an author. Jake also shares his definition of retirement: choosing what you do, when you do it, and with whom you do it.

For more information on Jake Falcon, visit https://scribemedia.com/authors/jake-falcon

For more information on Retiring Right: Smart Steps for Exiting Corporate America, visit https://scribemedia.com/published-books/retiring-right

After getting seriously ill in 2009, health and fitness professional Ian Hart spent years figuring out how to heal his own body naturally, and then found himself telling that story over and over to anyone who needed it. Writing a book was the way to stop repeating it.

In this episode of Author Hour, Ian joins Scribe Media CEO Travis Stoliker to talk about Healing Hacks: Bring Your Body Back to Nature, how Wim Hof came to write the foreword overnight, launching a book from the Costa Rican jungle at the start of the pandemic, why writing your first book is “the tuition to get to the next level,” and what a human story offers that AI-generated content never will.

For more information on Ian Hart, visit https://scribemedia.com/authors/ian-hart

For more information on Healing Hacks: Bring Your Body Back to Nature, visit https://scribemedia.com/published-books/healing-hacks

Brayden Sutton spent over 15 years learning the markets the hard way, with no inheritance, no formal training, and no industry connections. On this episode of Author Hour, he tells Eric Jorgenson how a mentor's suggestion to write a manual for his 18 year old grandson turned a decade-old manuscript into Money Mind: Beyond Speculation, a Canadian bestseller that has brought ultra high net worth investors into his fund, earned endorsements from billionaires, and reshaped his professional identity.

Brayden shares why he needed a coach, accountability, and a timeline to get the book done, what it means to act like a bank instead of an individual investor, and why the return on a book goes far beyond sales.

For more information on Brayden Sutton, visit https://scribemedia.com/authors/brayden-sutton

For more information on Money Mind: Beyond Speculation, visit https://scribemedia.com/published-books/money-mind

What does it look like to go from suicidal ideation to self-published author in fewer than four years?

Devin Fish, a ten-year Army veteran and former career counselor, joins Eric Jorgenson to talk about his memoir Answering the Hard Questions: I Almost Ended My Story Too Soon. Devin shares how growing up in one of the most dangerous cities in America, watching both parents battle addiction, and surviving a hospitalization for suicidal ideations in 2019 ultimately became the raw material for a book he wrote in a war zone.

He talks about finding his editor through David Goggins, how Scribe Media's chief editor pushed him to put his real story back in, and why the act of writing the book transformed him as much as any of the events in it.

For more information on Devin Fish, visit https://scribemedia.com/authors/devin-fish

For more information on Answering the Hard Questions, visit https://scribemedia.com/published-books/answering-the-hard-questions

In this episode of Author Hour, Eric Jorgenson sits down with Yarona Boster, author of Unspoken Signals, to explore what it truly means to raise a resilient child.

Yarona draws on nearly two decades of early childhood development, psychology, and coaching to make a provocative argument: a parent's real job isn't to protect their children at all costs, it's to give them the tools to thrive without them.

She shares the personal losses that shaped the book, breaks down the three core pillars every human needs to function (connection, autonomy, and competency), and explains why most of what we call communication is happening beneath the surface, in signals we're sending before we even have words for them.

She also offers candid, practical advice for aspiring authors on trusting your vision, filtering the noise of too many voices, and finding support that guides without controlling.

For more information on Yarona Boster, visit https://scribemedia.com/authors/yarona-boster

For more information on Unspoken Signals, visit https://scribemedia.com/published-books/unspoken-signals

Mario Simonyan built one of the most specialized law firms in the country, helping e-commerce brands fight off IP infringers and unauthorized sellers.

In this episode, he shares how publishing At the Corner of IP and Amazon transformed his business development strategy, replacing disposable cold outreach with something prospects actually hold on to. Mario breaks down his exact playbook: cold mail campaigns with a book inside, sales consultations where his team references specific chapters, and conference giveaways that generate warm inbound leads weeks later.

Four years and nearly 10,000 copies later, he has zero regrets and is already planning his second book with Scribe.

For more information on Mario Simonyan, visit https://scribemedia.com/authors/mario-simonyan

For more information on Mario's book, At the Corner of IP and Amazon, visit https://scribemedia.com/published-books/on-the-corner-of-ip-and-amazon

MyLinh Shattan grew up between two cultures, an Irish American father and a Vietnamese mother, both storytellers.

She went to West Point as one of the first women to graduate, then spent decades writing, teaching, and serving. When her oldest daughter decided West Point was the only place for her, MyLinh couldn't sleep. That fear became the engine for her memoir, Raising Athena, published by Scribe Media with an audiobook releasing July 7th, the 50th anniversary of women at West Point and the 250th anniversary of the United States.

In this conversation, MyLinh and Eric discuss the decade-long writing process, the workshop model that sharpened her craft, what it means to be a mother in a family where all three children serve, and why she believes the widening civil-military gap is one of America's most urgent blind spots.

To listen alongside an in depth episode summary, highlights, and full transcript, visit https://scribemedia.com/author-hour/episode/mylinh-shattan-on-how-west-point-shaped-two-generations

For more information on MyLinh Shattan, visit https://scribemedia.com/authors/mylinh-shattan

For more information on Raising Athena, visit https://scribemedia.com/published-books/raising-athena

Harris Nydick has been in financial planning since the early eighties, when he was part of one of the first financial planning training classes at a major Manhattan firm. Over the next few decades, he built a specialty in 401(k) and 403(b) plans, and after carrying a book idea in his head for 10 years, he finally sat down on weekends to write it. The result was Common Financial Sense, a plain-English guide to 401(k) investing for working people who are smart but simply don't want to think about this stuff.

On this episode, Harris talks about the unexpected ROI of his book, how he got the father of the 401(k) to write the introduction, the orange Sharpie trick that changed how he wrote, and why signing every copy has kept his books off eBay for years.

For more information on Harris Nydick, visit https://scribemedia.com/authors/harris-nydick

For more information on Common Financial Sense, visit https://scribemedia.com/published-books/common-financial-sense-simple-strategies-for-successful-401k-403b-retirement-plan-investing