PODCAST · arts
Author Hour
by Eric Jorgenson
Do you wish you could quickly get the best ideas from new books? That's what Author Hour is all about. Each week, we give you the best ideas and stories from a new book, through an in-depth conversation with the author. We cover all types of non-fiction: business, fitness, investing, self-help, and more. Listeners will get an entertaining and useful summary of each book, in a fraction of the time. A must listen for avid readers and aspiring authors.
Episodes
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Paul Zak on the Neuroscience of Immersion and Why Every Good Book Is a Sitcom
What makes an experience extraordinary? Paul Zak has spent more than a decade answering that question in his lab, measuring what he calls the brain's "give a damn" signal and building a company, Immersion, that movie studios, theaters, educators, and brands now use on six continents. In…
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Dr. Monifa McKnight on Leading, Surviving, and Thriving as a Black Woman in Education
Getting a Black woman into the leadership seat is a milestone. Keeping her there, supported and thriving, is the real work. Dr. Monifa McKnight spent more than two decades rising from the classroom to the superintendent's office, and along the way she ran into challenges no preparation program…
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Richard Shaull on the Third Option for Business Owners: Exit Without Selling
Every day, roughly 10,000 baby boomer business owners hit retirement age, and most of them have no exit plan. The conventional wisdom says they have two choices: sell or shut it down. Richard Shaull, founder of Exit Without Selling, says there's a third. In Exit Without Selling: Build a Dream…
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Trust Is Your Currency: Physician Brand Rx with Matthew Ray Scott
On this episode of Author Hour, Matthew Ray Scott joins us to talk about Physician Brand Rx, the book he co-wrote with orthopedic surgeon Dr. Scott Sigman. Drawing on his background as an Army psychological warfare officer, Matthew explains how patients make decisions under duress, why trust is a...
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Small Changes, Big Transformation: The Self-Care Dare with Carrie Cox
On this episode of Author Hour, gym owner and former schoolteacher Carrie Cox joins us to talk about her new book, The Self-Care Dare: 25 Habits for Lasting Wellness. What started as daily text messages to members of her Crew Fitness challenge grew into emails, blog posts, and finally a book…
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Ron Thurston on Turning Two Books Into a Paid Speaking Business
After more than 30 years leading stores for some of America's biggest brands, Ron Thurston realized no one had ever written a book for the 55 million people who work in retail. So he wrote one. Retail Pride: The Guide to Celebrating Your Accidental Career came out in 2020 and still sells around…
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21 Authors, One Book: How Autobahn Built Rock Your Business With Brandon Pipkin
Rock Your Business: Navigating the Road from $50 Million to $500 Million and Beyond is the offensive follow-up to Rock the Recession, the 2019 book Autobahn Consultants founder Jonathan Slane co-wrote just months before the 2020 shutdown. Where the first book was about protecting a business in a...
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How to Market Without Marketing: Scott A. Martin's Groundswell Playbook
What if you could market without marketing? After more than 30 years in marketing, advertising, and strategy, Scott A. Martin set out to solve that "unsolvable problem," and the answer became his book, Groundswell. Built around his formula of build, give, grow, transform, the book now sits at the...
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Better Than an MBA: How Julie Newman's Book Became Her Strongest Career Lever
Julie Newman wrote Pull Don't Push to fix a message she had watched go wrong at more than 50 Girls in STEM events: well-meaning speakers telling girls they don't belong in STEM, then asking them to join anyway. Her book, written for the educators and outreach coordinators who shape kids' choices,...
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Chase the Light: Becoming Unbreakable After a Head-On Collision with Cesar Perez
In 2018, Cesar Perez was on the rise. He had acted opposite Daniel Radcliffe in Beast of Burden, filmed with Clint Eastwood, and landed an audition for Venom. He never made it to that audition. On the drive to Savannah, a drunk driver hit him head-on, followed by a semi truck. What came next was...
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Books to the Big Screen: Alec Roth on Adapting an Author’s Story Into Film
Alec Roth grew up in Hollywood — the son of screenwriter Eric Roth, watching his father adapt books into films from a home office — and he’s now doing the same thing from his own side of the table. In this Author Hour conversation with Lex Statzer, Alec talks about what it actually takes to turn…
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How a Book Took Cameron Herold's Speaking Fee From $3K to $40K
Cameron Herold never wanted to be an author. As he tells Travis Stoliker, his wife signed him up for a three-book package with Scribe as a birthday present — "You're doing three books with them over the next five years" — because she'd noticed that his first book was landing bigger speaking…
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Creative Cash: Gino Barbaro on Turning One Book Into a Seven-Figure Real Estate Empire
Gino Barbaro joins Travis Stoliker to trace the full arc of a single book — from getting an idea "out of your head and down on paper" to building a seven-figure business on top of it. Once "the pizza guy," Gino and his partner Jake Stenziano left the restaurant and pharmaceutical worlds for...
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Lies, Damn Lies, and Marketing: Atul Minocha on Fake ROI & the Book That Paid for Itself in 6 Months
Atul Minocha joins Travis Stoliker to talk about Lies, Damn Lies, and Marketing — the book an engineer wrote to fix marketing's trust problem. Atul explains the idea that became the seed of the whole project: "Fake ROI," the chapter (number 14) that argues that demanding an ironclad return on…
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The Black Sheep Advantage: Dr. Thom LeBeau on Writing the Book You've Put Off for 20 Years
Dr. Thom LeBeau joins Eric Jorgenson to talk about The Black Sheep Advantage — a book he'd been "talking about for 20 years" before he finally sat down to write it. A practicing physician seeing 250 patients a week, Thom describes the very ordinary reason the book kept not happening ("I would…
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Must: Dr. Stephen Rue on Turning Your Pain Into Purpose
Dr. Stephen Rue joins Travis Stoliker to talk about Must: Becoming the Person You're Meant to Be — a personal-development book born from profound loss and built around a single idea: that each of us has a "must," a non-negotiable purpose, and that most people stay stuck simply because they don't...
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The Brooklyn Paramount Theatre: Michael Hittman on the Shrine Everyone Walked Past
Dr. Michael Hittman joins Eric Jorgenson to tell the story behind The Brooklyn Paramount Theatre: An Intimate Portrait — and it is unlike most Author Hour conversations. Michael is an anthropologist who spent 46 years teaching at Long Island University, played pickup basketball for half a century...
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Sex, Drugs, and Soul: Kristin Birdwell on Writing Through Fear and What a Memoir Sets in Motion
Kristin Birdwell joins Travis Stoliker to talk about Sex, Drugs, and Soul — the memoir she wrote through COVID and published in 2022 — and everything it has set in motion since. Kristin traces the book from its first spark ("I always knew I was going to write a book"), through the...
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Brand Currency: Steve Susi on Taste, Time, and Why a Human Should Write the Book
Steve Susi joins Travis Stoliker to talk about Brand Currency — the 2019 book that grew out of his years as an executive creative director at Amazon — and where its four currencies stand now that AI has rewritten the rules. Steve traces the thesis back to a standing ovation in Tokyo, where he...
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Invest Like the Best: Chris Belchamber on The Low-Risk Road to High Returns
Five years after his first Author Hour appearance, Chris Belchamber returns to talk with Travis Stoliker about what has and hasn't changed since he wrote Invest Like the Best — and what he's learned watching the market since. Chris walks through the case for compounding over chasing returns…
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Best Team Ever: David Burkus on Turning a Book Into a Speaking Business
David Burkus joins Eric Jorgenson to talk about Best Team Ever: The Surprising Science of High-Performing Teams — his fifth book, and the first he published professionally after four traditional deals. David lays out the math he gives every author weighing the two paths: still write the proposal,...
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The Venture Capital Alternative: How Matt Moyers Is Fighting for America's Inventors
Matt Moyers joins Eric Jorgenson to talk about The Venture Capital Alternative: A Blueprint for a Better Patent System — a book idea he sat on for the better part of a decade before deciding, in 2023, that "now is the time." Matt explains how a career spent valuing intellectual property —…
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The Passionate Workforce: Nicholas Capman on How Your Employees Really Feel
Nick Capman joins Eric Jorgenson to talk about The Passionate Workforce: How to Create and Maintain Maximum Employee Engagement, the book he wrote from a four-page Word doc called "book notes" that he'd been keeping in Calibri 11. Nick explains the theory behind the book: we all sit on a spectrum...
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Positive Politics: Neil Thanedar on Building a Y Combinator for Politics
Neil Thanedar joins Eric Jorgenson to talk about Positive Politics: A Proven Playbook to Get into Politics, Change Your Life, and Change the World—the book he decided to write in late 2024 and published in 2025, on a thousand words a week. Neil explains why “books are a way to own an idea,” how…
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Why Is a Verb: Stephen Butler on Turning Purpose into Productivity in the Age of AI
Stephen Butler joins Travis Stoliker to talk about Why Is a Verb: How Well-Managed Teams Turn Purpose into Productivity—the book he wrote with coauthor Karissa Price after recognizing what McKinsey calls the purpose gap: 85% of senior leaders say they’re living their purpose at work, versus 15%…
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Glorious Tension: Why Paul Hobby Offered His Radically Moderate Book to a Divided World
Paul Hobby joins Eric Jorgenson to talk about Glorious Tension: Rediscovering Our Sacred Middle Ground in an Age of Extremism — a book that began as "cathartic COVID era scribblings" and grew into what Eric calls an act of public service. Paul tells the story of finding his grandmother's 1938...
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The Adventure Advantage: Mike Boydell on Threshold Moments and Writing Through Change
Mike Boydell built a global consulting practice helping leaders and teams navigate change. Then the pandemic grounded him, and an op-ed picked up by a national newspaper sparked The Adventure Advantage, a book about moving through life with a posture of adventure. In this episode, Mike joins…
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Solved in Seven Minutes: How Jim Sholler's Book Saved a Life and Un-Retired the Fixer
Jim Sholler returns to Author Hour to talk with Eric Jorgenson about life four years after publishing Solved in 7: The Power of Disciplined Problem-Solving. Jim tells the story behind the title: after 13 years of failed diagnoses by two of the best hematologists in the world, his problem-solving...
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Building the Fort with Chris Heivly
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...
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Drug-Free Crohn's: Hadley Ott on Taking Agency Over Your Health
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…
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Retiring Right: Smart Steps for Exiting Corporate America with Jake Falcon
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…
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Healing Hacks: Bringing Your Body Back to Nature with Ian Hart
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...
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Money Mind: Beyond Speculation with Brayden Sutton
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…
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From Hopeless to Purpose: Army Veteran Devin Fish on Answering the Hard Questions
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...
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Teaching Kids to Live Without You: Yarona Boster on Unspoken Signals
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…
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Mario Simonyan: How He Never Ran a Book Ad and Still Distributed 10,000 Copies
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...
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MyLinh Shattan on How West Point Shaped Two Generations
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…
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Harris Nydick on How Writing a 401(k) Book Became His Firm's Best Business Card
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...
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S. Gale Bleth: How a Retired Crime Prevention Officer Made Decades of Safety Expertise a Bestseller
S. Gale Bleth spent decades teaching personal safety to students, employees, and community members—but it wasn't until her nieces started leaving for college that she finally wrote the book she'd been putting off for years. In this episode, Gale shares how she turned a 12-hour self-defense course...
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Rachel A. Williamson on Turning 30 Years of Store Operations Experience into a Bestselling Book
Rachel Williamson spent 30 years leading retail operations at some of the biggest brands in the industry — from Bath & Body Works to Ann Taylor — before launching her consulting firm and writing Running Great Stores, a 30-day implementation guide for store managers and district managers. In this...
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From Walk-On to the Big Screen: How Candler Cook's Book Changed His Career and Started a Movie
What happens when a book you wrote to inspire strangers ends up transforming your own life? In this episode, Eric sits down with Candler Cook, author of From Underdog to Bulldog, to talk about the unexpected and remarkable doors his book has opened since he published it seven years ago. Candler...
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Gui Costin: Two Books, Two Dakotaisms, and the Greatest Authentic Hack of All Time
Gui Costin, founder and CEO of Dakota, joins Eric Jorgenson to talk about writing two books with Scribe—The Dakota Way and Be Kind—and why he now calls authoring “the single best thing I’ve ever done for the business and for people.” Gui walks through the procrastination and self-doubt that…
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Deneen Allen: How a Reluctant Author Turned 25 Years of Tourism Expertise Into a Book
On this episode of Author Hour, Eric Jorgenson sits down with Deneen Allen, founder of FireCircle and creator of the 5x5 Method, to talk about her new book The FireCircle 5x5 Method. Deneen spent 25 years building tourism and hospitality businesses across Canada before distilling that expertise...
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It Really Is All About Relationships: Eddy Arriola
On this episode of Author Hour, host Eric Jorgenson sits down with entrepreneur, banker, and first-time author Eddy Arriola to talk about his new book, It's All About Relationships. Eddy shares the story of his sold-out launch event at Books and Books, the Miami independent bookstore he has loved...
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There'll Never Be a Right Time: Dr. Richard Harris on White Coat, Heavy Soul
Dr. Richard Harris joins Eric Jorgenson roughly six weeks after the release of White Coat, Heavy Soul, and three weeks after the audiobook went live, to walk through how the book got written, why he left the traditional hospital system for direct primary care, and the unexpected goodness already...
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75 Books a Month: How Michael Erath Built a Three-Book Author Ecosystem at Next Level Growth
Michael Erath joins Eric Jorgenson to walk through eight years and three Scribe-published books as the centerpiece of a 9-person coaching firm. Michael's first book, Rise, was a personal memoir about a business partner who embezzled half a million dollars and the marriage strain that followed;...
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Soul Satisfaction: Dr. Laura Brown Turned a Book on Gut Health Into a Five-Year Compounding Asset
Dr. Laura M. Brown, ND joins Eric Jorgenson to talk about Beyond Digestion: How GUT Health Connects to Your Mind, Body, and Soul, her book on the science and stories of gut health. Five years after publishing through Scribe, Dr. Brown breaks down the long-term ROI of authorship for a service...
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Doctor Incorporated: Tod Stillson on the Book That Catalyzed a 6,000-Member Community
In this episode of Author Hour, Eric Jorgenson sits down with Dr. Tod Stillson, MD, a family physician in rural America and the author of Doctor Incorporated. Tod shares how a single book about transitioning from employed physician to independent contractor became a catalyst for the Physician...
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Why Every Campaign Needs a Book: Jon Henderson on Running for Governor of California
Independent California gubernatorial candidate Jon Henderson joins Eric Jorgenson to talk about how a financial planner who'd never been on social media ended up writing California 2.0, a 22-chapter plan for "the politically homeless," and why the book, not a campaign speech, is the only thing he...
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Matt Shoup: How One Book Unlocked Five-Figure Speaking Gigs
Matt Shoup got fired from a corporate banking job, knocked on doors painting houses, and accidentally became a speaker and author. In this episode, he breaks down how publishing Painted Baby with Scribe unlocked his first five-figure speaking gig... and then another, and then another. He shares…
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ABOUT THIS SHOW
Do you wish you could quickly get the best ideas from new books? That's what Author Hour is all about. Each week, we give you the best ideas and stories from a new book, through an in-depth conversation with the author. We cover all types of non-fiction: business, fitness, investing, self-help, and more. Listeners will get an entertaining and useful summary of each book, in a fraction of the time. A must listen for avid readers and aspiring authors.
HOSTED BY
Eric Jorgenson
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Frequently Asked Questions
How many episodes does Author Hour have?
Author Hour currently has 297 episodes available on PodParley. New episodes are automatically indexed when they're published to the podcast feed.
What is Author Hour about?
Do you wish you could quickly get the best ideas from new books? That's what Author Hour is all about. Each week, we give you the best ideas and stories from a new book, through an in-depth conversation with the author. We cover all types of non-fiction: business, fitness, investing, self-help, and...
How often does Author Hour release new episodes?
Author Hour publishes regularly with 297 episodes available. Check the episode list for the typical release schedule.
Where can I listen to Author Hour?
You can listen to Author Hour on PodParley by clicking any episode. We provide an embedded audio player for direct listening, and you can also subscribe via your preferred podcast app using the RSS feed.
Who hosts Author Hour?
Author Hour is created and hosted by Eric Jorgenson.
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