For Partners · A Working Note
Packaging scales. Distribution scales. Productization scales. Publicity scales. The load-bearing IP underneath all of it usually doesn't. That's the layer Straw Dogs lives in.
Skip to engagement models ↓The Position
Straw Dogs ghostwrites and architects nonfiction books for executives, founders, and category-defining experts. The firm partners with the businesses that surround those authors: hybrid publishers who need a writing engine they can stand behind, thought-leadership consultancies who need an embedded specialist for the book and the curriculum that grows out of it, agents whose authors arrive at the proposal stage with the wrong load-bearing argument, branding firms whose clients have a book that has to land before the platform can be built on top of it.
We don't do PR. We don't do platform. We don't do speaker booking, brand identity, or revenue acceleration. Those are the lanes our partners run. Our lane is the manuscript and the IP it generates—the framework, the chapter map, the workshop the chapter map turns into, the assessment the framework turns into, the course the workshop turns into, the screen treatment the framework can support.
One source. One architect. No translation loss between formats.
The Combination
Nearly thirty trade nonfiction titles for executives, founders, and category-defining experts. Multiple FranklinCovey co-authorships. Representation by Grey + Miller.
Thirty years building programs for FranklinCovey, VitalSmarts (Crucial Conversations), ZengerFolkman, and a Tony Robbins B-to-B partner. Programs delivered to millions of learners across six continents.
WGA member. Credited screenwriter on Lionsgate's The Best Christmas Pageant Ever (2024 · 92% Critics · 97% Audiences). Active representation with Plain Text Talent.
Most ghostwriting firms can offer one of these. A few can offer two. The work this firm does sits at the intersection of all three—which is the work the IP of a serious thought leader actually requires.
The Lanes
Your imprint. Our hands. The author's book.
We function as your in-house ghostwriting capability under your imprint. The author engages with us; the credit, the relationship, and the manuscript belong to your house. Most useful for hybrid publishers who need senior-level editorial and architectural depth without the overhead of a senior in-house writer roster—and who want a writing partner whose work can stand behind the imprint's reputation, not undermine it.
For eighty-percent manuscripts that aren't landing.
You don't need a full ghostwriter. The author has a manuscript that's eighty percent there—drafted by them, by a coauthor, or by an AI that produced something that reads exactly like AI. We diagnose what's wrong (missing argument, broken character logic, no felt stakes, structural collapse in the middle act) and rebuild what isn't earning the page. Structural repair. Voice reconstruction. Story insertion. The fastest path back to a manuscript a publisher, an agent, or an enterprise buyer will say yes to.
Specialist over network. Thought partner over vendor.
Most firms that serve thought leaders rely on a network-pull model: when a client needs a book, the firm subcontracts to a ghostwriter somewhere in their bench, often one the client never meets. The quality risk is structural—and the IP risk is worse, because the manuscript ends up disconnected from the curriculum, the keynote, the assessment, and everything else the client's business actually runs on. We engage as an embedded specialist instead. The same hands that architect the book are the hands the firm can hand the workshop, the cohort program, the assessment, and the course to. The author's IP stays coherent across formats because the same architect builds them all.
30 years · 6 continents · millions of learners
The lane that exists because Platte built behavior-change programs before he wrote books.
This is the lane most ghostwriting firms cannot run, and the one most thought-leadership partners do not have in-house. The principal's career before full-time book work was curriculum design at FranklinCovey, VitalSmarts (the firm behind Crucial Conversations), ZengerFolkman, and a Tony Robbins B-to-B training partner—where he served as Chief Learning Officer. The programs built across those engagements have been delivered to millions of learners across six continents.
That training is the engine under the architecture. A book written by a curriculum designer is built differently from a book written by a journalist or a memoirist. It is built to change behavior—which means it is built to become things other than a book.
When a partner's author needs:
The author's IP becomes a productized stack instead of a single deliverable. The partner doesn't have to assemble four specialists. The architect of the book is the architect of everything the book becomes.
For books with a film or series future.
The principal is a WGA member and the credited screenwriter on Lionsgate's The Best Christmas Pageant Ever (2024 · 92% Critics · 97% Audiences), with active Hollywood representation through Plain Text Talent. Partners whose authors have books with film or series potential engage at the architecture stage so the manuscript is built with adaptation in mind—and the work can be shopped through the right Hollywood ear when it's ready.
Selected Work
A partial shelf—and the structural argument for this page. The same architect ships the manuscript and the curriculum it grows into, which is why the two lists belong side by side.
Books—Developmental Editing & Ghostwriting
Curriculum & course design
Plus additional titles, certifications, and enterprise programs across three decades—delivered to millions of learners on six continents.
Engagement
We refer authors who need your packaging, your distribution, your productization engine, or your platform expertise. You refer authors who arrive needing a writer or a manuscript rescued. Standard industry referral terms in both directions.
We function as your imprint's or your firm's in-house writing and curriculum capability. The author's relationship belongs to your house. The work carries your mark, not ours.
Direct, scoped, by deliverable. Architecture only. Manuscript repair. Full ghostwrite. Curriculum buildout from an existing book. Priced by the hours the work actually demands.
The Team—Partnering with Maison Vero on a New Release
Contact
A book you're stuck on. A client who needs a writer or a curriculum architect. A title with a film future. A working relationship worth opening. We'll listen.