Hello! I'm John David Mann.

Before we go any further, here are a few things you should know about me. 

I’ve written and published over 40 books with every major publisher, including fiction and nonfiction, thrillers and parables, memoirs and how-tos, books on leadership, personal growth, writing, and politics … and, yes, even one on cooking. 

My books have sold over 3 million copies in 38 languages and won a stack of awards, including some for “Best Book of the Year” (Publishers Weekly), “Most Motivational Book Ever Written” (Inc.), and “Most Highly Rated Sales Book of All Time” (HubSpot), plus two Axiom awards, a Nautilus, a Living Now Evergreen Medal for “positive global impact,” and a Barry nomination for “best first novel.” Four of my titles have been New York Times bestsellers, and five others have hit such national bestseller lists as USA Today, Wall Street Journal, BusinessWeek, LA Times, Publishers Weekly, and the American Booksellers Association.

But here’s the thing: I never went to college. I have no degrees. (In fact, my high school diploma is from a school I started myself.) As a writer, I’m mostly self-taught. I’ve learned how the book business works from the trenches, through trial and error.

Twenty years ago a friend asked me to write a book with him — and the secret I stumbled on in the course of writing and publishing it changed my career and my life forever. That book, The Go-Giver, sold over 1 million copies. And the secret I discovered was … you guessed it: the magic of an irresistibly riveting core concept.

And here’s something else I learned: of those 4 million new titles published every year, only a tiny fraction will ever have any real impact. 

Those few, the ones people actually read and tell their friends about, those are the books that make a difference.