About

Why we built this.

A book has always been a one-way letter.

You underline a passage, write a question in the margin, and close the cover with nowhere to send it.

We built AskTheAuthor to close that loop. The book stays a book. What changes is that the author is still there when the reader has a question, in their own voice, answering from what they actually said.

The other half is the writing. Most people with a book in them never write it, and it is almost never for lack of something to say. It is the blank page. So we took the blank page out: you talk about what you know, the way you would explain it to someone across a table, and that becomes the draft you edit and approve.

Brian Will, founder

Who is building it

The team

Brian Will

Brian Will

Founder and CEO

Two-time Wall Street Journal bestselling author, three-time TEDx speaker, and the founder of ten startups with four exits. He wrote four books the hard way before building this one.

Jenn Van Houten

Jenn Van Houten

Co-Founder and COO

Jenn builds the thing between the idea and the person using it. Two decades of that, from co-founding a technology startup to running enterprise programs for Fortune 500 companies. At AskTheAuthor she owns what an author actually walks through: the hour of talking, the first chapter landing in their inbox, and the page their readers open.

Your book does not need another someday.