Books I'd Like To See Written

TL;DR. We're looking for people who want to write books that can shape narratives and help establish their authors as thought leaders. A list of  10 book ideas follows, mostly around meta-EA and farmed animal causes. If you have an idea for a book that might fit the pattern (also in other topics), or you think someone should publish a book about their ideas, read more and maybe get in touch.

Hi EA Forum,

I’m the founder of Worldshapers. We’re a relatively new nonprofit aiming to build cultural capital and discussion around ideas that make the world better. We help people write and publish books and promote authors and their ideas to ensure they reach the audiences they are targeting. Our theory of change isn’t that books will change the world,  but that our shared narratives will. Publishing a book is one great way of getting a person’s name out there: a book is a marketable event, and that marketing can be more targeted than the actual readership will be.

We’ve recently published three books with our own imprint, Books of Change, and some of our other participants have either signed a publishing deal or a literary agent to represent them, or are being agented by us. 

What follows is a list of ideas for book projects I’d love for us to work on (inspired by @Joey🔸's list from last year). Where they’re overly specific is intended to stimulate the imagination — this is certainly not an exhaustive list, and not even representative of all our interests. We’re open to different theories of change, but they usually focus on the ability to target a specific, influential audience. The titles are very much placeholders! And not all of these are necessarily good ideas. The list may also be repetitive of other ideas already out there or in the works; that's fine. Ideas need multiple champions.

If you can think of someone (could be you!) who could write a book like this, or perhaps one of these books, please get in touch or submit an expression of interest on the Worldshapers website. Please ask questions in the comments. 

How To Care: Make Progress Toward a Better World Without Being Overwhelmed

• A self-help style guide to choosing where to focus when there are too many urgent problems: how to set priorities, make sensible tradeoffs, and avoid burnout.
• Target audience: General public with EA-adjacent tendencies; concerned citizens; people who want to do good
• Author wishlist: Writer who can bridge behavior change and practical prioritization: e.g., a behavioral scientist/psychologist or coach

Trust and Evidence: Trust-Based Philanthropy That Creates Lasting Change

• A viewpoint that reconciles Trust-Based Philanthropy (multi-year unrestricted funding, streamlined reporting, power-sharing, relationship-based diligence) with effectiveness / EA principles. (Inspired by @Kyle Smith's notes about TBP.)
• Target audience: Philanthropists, foundation staff, donor advisors
• Author wishlist: Someone from the target audience

The Portfolio Philanthropist: Funding Under Uncertainty

• How to build a grantmaking portfolio when outcomes are hard to measure: calibrating bets, testing theories of change, and updating when reality disagrees.
• Target audience: Philanthropists, foundation staff, donor advisors, and people running internal giving programs
• Author wishlist: Grantmaker or evaluator who has run real allocation decisions and can speak about tradeoffs, incentives, and failure modes

The Fieldbuilder’s Handbook: How to Create Momentum for Neglected Problems

• A manual for building a changemaking field from scratch: building alliances, creating on-ramps, supporting generalists into specialists, improving funding capacity, and measuring impact.
• Target audience: Nonprofit founders, movement/field builders, funders, and leaders of professional networks
• Author wishlist: Fieldbuilding practitioner with a track record

Better Decisions, Faster: Methods for Making Fewer Mistakes at Scale

• An EA-informed toolkit for improving decision quality in companies and institutions. A bit like “The Scout Mindset” for organizations and people who manage them.
• Target audience: CEOs & people with those aspirations, government agencies, corporate strategy teams, policy shops, and large nonprofits
• Author wishlist: Decision science practitioner/writer with business credentials

The Protein Policy Playbook: A Governor’s Guide to The Future of Food

• As-practical-as-possible guide to the specific policies that can accelerate PB/alternative proteins, create jobs, and reduce agricultural/food system risk.
• Target audience: US state-level policymakers and senior staff (governors’ offices, agriculture and economic development agencies).
• Author wishlist: For example, former state agriculture secretary or senior policy advisor with bipartisan credibility and real experience drafting and passing bills

Food Security Is National Security: Feeding People Through Shocks, Disruptions, and Scarcity

• Protein transition as a resilience strategy: animal ag is resource-intensive and fragile under energy, water, fertilizer, disease, and logistics shocks, while diversified plant-forward and alternative protein supply chains can reduce systemic vulnerability.
• Target audience: National security and resilience audiences from policymakers to pundits (NSC/DHS-adjacent staff, FEMA/state emergency management, defense logistics planners, critical infrastructure interests, policy think tanks)
• Author wishlist: National security / critical infrastructure / supply-chain resilience expert (ideally with DoD, DHS/FEMA, or state emergency management experience) who can translate complex risks into concrete preparedness and procurement actions

Nugget: The History and Future of America’s Favorite Food

• A modern account of broiler genetics, integrators, contract farming, welfare, antibiotics, labor, and how chicken became the default meat; and how that breaded crust could just as well contain some other protein source.
• Target audience: General readers; journalists; policy and business audiences
• Author wishlist: Business journalist with rural reporting experience

Wild Ambition: The Growing Movement Behind Wild Animal Welfare

• A general-interest book about the ideas and practice of wild animal welfare, with the goal of introducing the concept to a broader audience and helping build the field.
• Target audience: Conservation field, general public, science readers, nature & animal interest
• Author wishlist: WAW thought leader, perhaps with credentials with a core target audience

Success on Aisle Six: How to Build a Grocery Retail Food Brand From Idea to National Distribution

• A practical how-to for entrepreneurs building packaged foods for grocery and ecommerce: product development, co-manufacturing, packaging and labeling, food safety, pricing and margins... Should be valuable to anyone in the business, but with a strong plant-based/plant-forward aspect to it.
• Target audience: Entrepreneurs building CPG food products for grocery retail (and direct-to-consumer)
• Author wishlist: Founder who has scaled a packaged food brand into grocery (or an ex-buyer/category manager turned founder)

Thanks for scrolling this far. I also want to hear ideas on approaches to AI, AI-powered social change, global resilience, and CGR topics. And more animal protection and EA topics, too! This is my first post: feel free to point out what to do better.