We build the one people quote two years later — the one that fills speaking calendars and opens doors.
Jay Schwedelson
Marketing truths, career moves, and life advice for doers.
Schwedelson built one of the largest email-marketing voices on the internet without ever sounding like one. The book had to do the same on the page—direct, funny, generous, and structured so a reader can run with it the next morning.
Out Now · 2026
Available wherever you buy books.
Most books fail not because the ideas are wrong, but because nothing happens to the reader. Every stage has to fire.
The right evidence, in the right order—enough to earn trust, paced to land each revelation.
Where conflict, character, change, and stakes turn information into something that matters.
Meaning felt. The reader locating themselves inside the story.
Feeling converted into the belief that they can act, it will work, and it will matter.
The only destination. The test of any book isn't “what did you learn?” but “what do you want to do now?”
Books are platforms, not endpoints.
The Structural Difference
Most firms operate on a generalist-plus-network model. A salesperson signs you. A project manager checks in. A contracted writer you'll never speak to drafts your book. The people you meet at the beginning are the people who write the book. We are a boutique with a handful of clients, nearly all referrals.
For 80%-complete manuscripts that aren't landing.
You don't need a full ghostwriter. You have a manuscript that's eighty percent there—drafted by you, a coauthor, or an AI that reads like one. We diagnose what's wrong (missing argument, broken character logic, no felt stakes) and rebuild what isn't earning the page.
For books with a film or series future.
Platte is a credited screenwriter on Lionsgate's The Best Christmas Pageant Ever (2024 · 92% Critics / 97% Audiences), with film representation through Plain Text Talent. Authors with a film or series future engage us at the architecture stage—so the book is built for adaptation and positioned for the right Hollywood ear.
Tools that transform organizations.
Three decades of curriculum design for FranklinCovey, VitalSmarts (Crucial Conversations), and ZengerFolkman—programs delivered to millions across six continents. When your book leads to a workshop, cohort program, assessment, or course, the architect of the book is the architect of the curriculum. No handoff.
No salesperson hand-off. No anonymous subcontractor in another time zone. Every Straw Dogs project is run end to end by the two people below.
Founder
The credited screenwriter on the 2024 Lionsgate feature The Best Christmas Pageant Ever (92% Critics, 97% Audiences), the novelist behind the Bad Unicorn trilogy at Aladdin / Simon & Schuster (250,000+ copies), and the ghostwriter for over thirty nonfiction titles for executives, founders, and category-defining experts. Before ghostwriting full-time, Platte built behavioral curriculum for FranklinCovey, VitalSmarts, and ZengerFolkman, and served as Chief Learning Officer for a B-to-B training company partnered with Tony Robbins. That instructional-design background is the engine under the architecture—he writes books that change how the reader behaves after closing the cover.
Currently authoring The Conviction Engine: Why Some Stories Change People and Most Don't and hosting the Author Unknown podcast. WGA member; B.S. in Philosophy, M.S. in English / Instructional Technology.
Senior Writer
The second pair of expert hands on every Straw Dogs project. Her work spans content development, editorial, training design, scripting, and the production work that takes a manuscript past its first printing—workshop materials, launch copy, podcast scripts, cohort curriculum. Recent and ongoing client work includes Tony Robbins and Dean Graziosi (Mastermind.com), Jason Stacy (The Pressure Code), and Luke Falk (The Mind Strength Playbook).
Trained inside the same behavioral-curriculum tradition that built the shop, with fluency in adult-learning design and a sharp editorial ear. The result is structural rigor at draft speed. B.A. in English Language and Literature, Utah State University.
92%
Critics—Lionsgate feature, 2024
The Best Christmas Pageant Ever · 97% Audiences · Top-40 box office
30
Years of curriculum design
FranklinCovey · VitalSmarts · ZengerFolkman · Chief Learning Officer for a Tony Robbins training partner
250K+
Copies sold · Simon & Schuster
The Bad Unicorn trilogy at Aladdin / Simon & Schuster. Distributed internationally.
Bestsellers.
NYT · WSJ · Amazon
Across the ghostwritten nonfiction roster—leadership, sales, marketing, behavior. Plus a #1 bestseller shipping in 2026.
Trusted.
By the elite
Practitioners and thought leaders in publishing, training, and entertainment. By referral, by recommendation, by reputation.
Award-winning.
Winner: Best Family Film
As a WGA screenwriter.
“Facts inform. Meaning transforms. The gap between the two is closeable not by talent, but by architecture.”
— Platte F. Clark
Over thirty trade nonfiction titles across leadership, sales, marketing, sports performance, behavioral change, and memoir.
FranklinCovey
Pamela Fuller · Mark Murphy · Anne Chow
Former CEO, AT&T Business · Wall Street Journal Bestseller
FranklinCovey
Todd Davis
Chief People Officer, FranklinCovey · Fifteen practices for relationships at work
FranklinCovey
Scott Jeffrey Miller
Sixty transformative insights from leading minds
FranklinCovey
Sandy Rogers · Leena Rinne · Shawn Moon
Cracking the code to customer devotion
Memoir
Diana Cannon Ragsdale
A literary family memoir
Sports · Mental Performance
Luke Falk
Former NFL Quarterback · Mental-Strength Coach
#1 Bestseller · 2026
Jay Schwedelson
Marketing truths, career moves, and life advice for doers
Forthcoming · 2026
Jason Stacy
Performance coach to Aryna Sabalenka and the WTA tour
Memoir
John Morgan
Founder, Morgan & Morgan · America's largest plaintiffs' firm
Other recent and ongoing work includes Automating Thoughtfulness (Jay O'Brien & Jeff Jackel, co-founders of Client Giant); Management Mess to Leadership Success, Marketing Mess to Brand Success, Career on Course, and Parenting Wrong Turns, Right Lessons (Scott Jeffrey Miller, FranklinCovey); Who Rocked the Boat and Change (Curtis Bateman, FranklinCovey); The Entrepreneur's Paradox (Curtis Morley); Deliver (Hill, Jones, Corbridge); The Ultimate Guide to Great Mentorship (Scott Jeffrey Miller); Hidden Value (Dr. Keith Keating); and additional 2026 titles in development.
The advice is good whether we work together or not.
Twenty questions. A written read of your authority profile—your Primary and Secondary types, and the kind of book those styles produce.
Two hours of preparatory analysis, then a one-hour live session. You leave with a defensible next move on a manuscript, book proposal, narrative, or training concept.
Book your session ↗The full Straw Dogs read on a draft manuscript. Four components:
Start a Project
A book deal, a draft, an idea on a napkin, or just the conviction that you want to write something that lasts. We'll listen, ask the questions that matter, and help you craft a message worthy of your expertise.