Author Hour

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.

Author Hour is a arts podcast hosted by Eric Jorgenson, with 329 episodes on record and a Required Pod Score of 80. PitchCentric scores this show on Booking Probability, Listen Score, and live audience signals refreshed every 24 hours.

Eric Jorgenson hosts Author Hour, a arts show with 329 episodes published.

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  Author Hour

  Sex, Drugs, and Soul: Kristin Birdwell on Writing Through Fear and What a Memoir Sets in Motion

  Aug 31, 202629 min

  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 writing-coach-and-accountability decision in 2019, to the emotional work of putting grief, abuse, and self-discovery on the page. She's candid about the fear: how she kept going by believing "all things work out for good," by holding onto "the impact that it could potentially have on others," and by being gentle with herself — "gave myself space, ate a lot of dark chocolate." She explains why she chose Scribe over querying agents ("I want this thing... out yesterday") and over DIY uploads she could always spot, and why owning her creative rights mattered with a TV show already in her sights. Then she walks through the unexpected second life of the book: an Amazon bestseller launch, a podcast that grew from "an exercise to use my voice" into 120 episodes, a storytelling-mentor role at South by Southwest, a TV pilot now getting industry advisement, and the messages that mean the most — readers who write to say "I feel like you wrote this for me and my journey with grief." Her advice to anyone sitting where she sat in 2019: "if you have that inkling or desire, it's kind of like our future self whispering to us in the present moment," and "who are you to not share your gifts or story in the world?" For more information on Kristin Birdwell, visit https://scribemedia.com/authors/kristin-birdwell For more information on Sex, Drugs, and Soul , visit https://scribemedia.com/published-books/sex-drugs-soul

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  Author Hour

  Brand Currency: Steve Susi on Taste, Time, and Why a Human Should Write the Book

  Aug 20, 202621 min

  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 realized "there's something universal here... What matters most to all people? Money, information, loyalty, and time," and thought, "So let me write a book." He talks about the book's unexpected second life: it launched just before COVID, "actually sold pretty well," drew fan mail he never anticipated, and got picked up for Korean translation — proof that "we're not so different around the world." Then the conversation turns to the question every author is now asking. Steve uses AI every day as a thought partner, but is adamant it "is simply not going to write my book," because "without... enterprise-level instruction, it does not come with encoded discernment, judgment, or taste." He explains why "Taste is the New Oil," how AI "didn't add a fifth currency — it just compressed the original four into a moment," and why, even in a world of instant answers, "you're going to see flesh tone and fingerprints on things more than you ever have." He closes on why the physical book endures: when someone "sees a bookcase full of books, it says, I've invested in this piece of physical matter because it really matters... it's going to be hard to kill. We love touching things." For more information on Steve Susi, visit https://scribemedia.com/authors/steve-susi For more information on Brand Currency: A Former Amazon Exec on Money, Information, Loyalty, and Time , visit https://scribemedia.com/published-books/brand-currency

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  Author Hour

  Invest Like the Best: Chris Belchamber on The Low-Risk Road to High Returns

  Aug 19, 202643 min

  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, tells the story of turning down a seat at Long-Term Capital Management in the 1990s, and lays out why he believes gold, not passive equity indexing, has quietly outperformed the S&P 500 since 2000. He also gets candid about Bitcoin, the state of the fiat currency system, and why he believes the average investor is dramatically underserved by the financial industry. Along the way, Chris reflects on what writing Invest Like the Best gave him that he didn't expect: a "lighthouse" that draws in exactly the right clients, and a level of clarity about his own thinking that's only grown more valuable with time. For more information on Chris Belchamber, visit https://scribemedia.com/authors/chris-belchamber For more information on Invest Like the Best: The Low-Risk Road to High Returns , visit https://scribemedia.com/published-books/invest-like-the-best

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  Author Hour

  Best Team Ever: David Burkus on Turning a Book Into a Speaking Business

  Aug 13, 202635 min

  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, and if the traditional offer comes in between $75,000 and $100,000, take the money — but if it’s “20, 25 grand,” that’s not enough to deal with the hassles of signing away your IP. He explains why a traditional proposal is written “for an audience of one,” how his publisher’s push to make his networking book a career book earned him exactly two speaking gigs in the book’s entire history, and why the timeline sealed it: guided author in June 2022, on Amazon everywhere by May 2023. Then he opens up the speaking machine itself — lanes and problems, the caveman test that named Best Team Ever , micro videos that get found, the bureau secret of bringing agents in on deals you already have — and the production system behind five books: six months of research in piles on the floor, 500 to 750 words a day, and “when you write nonfiction, there’s no such thing as writer’s block. There’s just you haven’t researched it enough.” Plus the LinkedIn message from a Lithuanian event planner that turned a book into a homecoming. For more information on David Burkus, visit https://scribemedia.com/authors/david-burkus For more information on Best Team Ever: The Surprising Science of High-Performing Teams , visit https://scribemedia.com/published-books/best-team-ever

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  Author Hour

  The Venture Capital Alternative: How Matt Moyers Is Fighting for America's Inventors

  Aug 12, 202637 min

  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 — including the Nortel bankruptcy, where a patent portfolio first bid in the hundreds of millions sold for $4.5 billion — showed him the same story on repeat: an inventor commercializes an idea, big tech enters with a competing product built on that invention, and the inventor gets crushed. He walks through the Sonos case, why the IP system in America is "a mess," and his blueprint for IP debt and IP equity as an alternative to venture capital. Then the conversation turns to craft: the Instagram course that got his first draft done in 60 days, the 18 months of editing that followed, the Kaizen 30-minute writing sessions, a dog that got "walked like crazy," and why he shopped a finished draft to publishers everywhere before deciding Scribe's hybrid model — and Scribe's editor — were what he wanted. He's already realized he has three or four more books inside of him. For more information on Matt Moyers, visit https://scribemedia.com/authors/matt-moyers For more information on The Venture Capital Alternative: A Blueprint for a Better Patent System , visit https://scribemedia.com/published-books/the-venture-capital-alternative

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