Many business books, according to Dr. Connor Robertson, take two to three years to move from idea to publication, and he attributes that timeline less to the scale of the task than to a basic misunderstanding of what kind of project it actually is. Most business authors, in his framing, approach the book as a creative project, starting with a blank page and waiting for inspiration to arrive. Robertson argues it is really a knowledge-transfer project, one with a defined audience, a defined problem, and a defined set of solutions the author is already uniquely positioned to deliver. Once that distinction is clear, he believes a 90-day timeline becomes realistic.
His system begins, in weeks one and two, with architecture rather than writing. Robertson recommends building a complete table of contents before drafting a single paragraph, laying out every chapter, every sub-section, and every key point the author intends to make, entirely in outline form. This structural work, in his view, is the most important thing a business author does on the entire project, since a well-built outline converts the writing phase from generating content out of nothing into filling in a structure that already exists. He estimates that writing into a solid outline is 40 to 60 percent faster than writing without one.
Weeks three through six center on what Robertson calls the voice note method, which he presents as the fastest path to a complete first draft. Rather than typing, he recommends speaking each chapter’s core idea aloud, explaining it as though teaching it to a smart colleague unfamiliar with the subject, recording without stopping to edit. Those recordings are then transcribed, and the transcripts are fed to an AI tool such as Claude with a structured prompt asking it to convert the spoken explanation into polished prose while preserving the author’s own voice and specific examples. A drafting phase that might otherwise take three months of writing, in Robertson’s account, becomes three weeks of talking.
Weeks seven through nine turn to structural editing, which Robertson insists has to happen before any line-level polishing begins. His method is to read the entire first draft from beginning to end without editing anything, marking only where the logic breaks
down, where an argument feels thin, or where a reader is likely to lose the thread. Only after those structural issues are addressed does he recommend touching individual sentences, since fixing structure in a manuscript that has already been line-edited is, in his experience, considerably more expensive work than fixing it while the content is still rough.
Line editing, assisted by AI, occupies weeks ten and eleven. Robertson recommends using an AI tool to flag passive voice, overly long sentences, and jargon that could be simplified, while being explicit that the tool should not be allowed to rewrite the author’s voice. Used this way, as a flag-raiser for problems the author then fixes in their own words, he estimates AI assistance can cut line editing time by 40 to 60 percent without sacrificing the book’s authorial quality.
The final week is devoted to publishing and launch. Robertson notes that self-publishing through Amazon KDP takes less than 48 hours once a manuscript is formatted and a cover designed, and he recommends a soft launch to an author’s existing audience ahead of the public release, sending advance copies to clients, referral partners, and colleagues with a specific request for honest reviews in exchange for early access. Collecting that initial round of reviews before the public launch, in his framework, gives the book real sales velocity to build on once it goes fully live.
Robertson is candid that a 90-day timeline still asks a great deal of a founder who is also running a business, and he does not present it as effortless. What makes it achievable, in his account, is that almost none of the 90 days are spent staring at a blank page. The architecture phase removes the uncertainty of what to write next, the voice note method removes the friction of typing a first draft from nothing, and the AI-assisted editing stages remove much of the tedious, mechanical work that traditionally stretches a manuscript’s timeline. What remains for the author to do personally, in his framing, is the part only they can actually do: thinking clearly, speaking honestly, and making the structural judgment calls that turn a stack of expertise into a book someone else can actually use.
About The Author
Dr. Connor Robertson is an entrepreneur, author, and strategic advisor based in Pittsburgh. He is the founder of Elixir Consulting Group and host of The Prospecting Show. More about his work is available at drconnorrobertson.com.
