Welties author’s debut novel published nationally

Douglas Kruger is one of the country’s most prolific business authors, having published 12 books focusing on leadership, wealth and philosophy.

At the beginning of this year the 41-year-old author and professional speaker surprised everyone (including himself), by releasing his 13th book in a completely different genre: fiction.

Douglas is known for bestselling entrepreneurial titles like Own Your Industry, and Is Your Thinking Keeping You Poor? His business channel on YouTube has 100 000 subscribers, and over five million views.

In a radical departure from all this, Penguin Books SA has just published his debut novel The Man Who Never Was. It’s an emotional mind-bender of a tale, which Douglas describes as “Scrooge in reverse”.

According to Douglas the story poses a unique and haunting challenge. “Throughout history, many people have laid down their lives for their children. If it truly mattered, could you make the decision never to have lived in the first place?

“Forget Marly being dead to begin with, or a visit by three ghosts,” said Douglas. “My main character dies in the first couple of chapters, then gets three opportunities to look in on the family he left behind.

“And that’s only where the strangeness begins; the heart and soul of the story is about the petitions he makes to try to change things, and where that all goes,” said Douglas.

Douglas said that Penguin Books asked him to narrate the audio version, which was then published globally on platforms like Audible.com.

When asked if the switch to fiction would be a permanent one, Douglas did not reveal much and simply said, “We’ll see”.

“I’ve completed the next two novels after this one, and I’m working on the third, I have a tentative agreement with Penguin to publish number two, but of course it only counts once the book appears in stores.”

When asked how best to support local authors, Douglas said, “Nothing helps an author quite as much as reviews on platforms like Amazon.

“They don’t even have to be glowing reviews, just honest ones. The more honest reviews an author gets, the better their book tends to do. I’m grateful for everyone who takes the time and trouble.”

The Man Who Never Was is already in South African stores while the eBook is live on Amazon.

For those who prefer to take their stories orally, Douglas has posted the first 45 minutes of the audio book on his popular YouTube channel, DouglasKrugerSpeaker.

Free sample: