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August Books signs 'searingly funny' personal-development parody
August Books has signed How to Con Friends and Manipulate People, a "searingly funny" personal-development parody by Geraint Anderson, the author of Cityboy: Beer and Loathing in the Square Mile (John Murray).
Ause Abdelhaq, senior commissioning editor, acquired world rights from Clare Grist Taylor at The Accidental Agency. The book will be published simultaneously in the UK and North America in 2026, in hardback, audio and e-book formats.
"Featuring Anderson’s trademark blend of caustic humour and gleeful irreverence, How to Con Friends and Manipulate People is the only self-help ‘manual’ that truly reflects the spirit of our times – it’s a wickedly funny, brutally inappropriate and entirely unreliable guide to succeeding by doing absolutely everything wrong," the synopsis says.
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Anderson said: "I spent years working with pinstriped piranhas who’d sell their grandmothers for a promotion so I’m perfectly qualified to write a guide on how to get ahead unimpaired by silly things like ‘morals’ or ‘a conscience’."
Abdelhaq added: "Geraint’s one of the funniest people I’ve ever met and this is him at his absolute best – fearless, hilarious and savagely perceptive. This book feels both remarkably timely and timelessly outrageous and I can’t wait to publish it."
