Forty years of lived experience.
Distilled into books that actually help.
Ghost Quantum Books publishes work drawn from a career spanning technical expert, consultant, project director, and senior executive. These are not sanitised business books written at a safe distance from reality. They are honest, direct, and built for people who need to navigate complex organisations, survive uncertain projects, and make better decisions under pressure.
FOR PROFESSIONALS NAVIGATING THE WORKPLACE
For anyone in the workforce — from early career through to seasoned professional — who wants to understand how organisations really work, manage their own experience more effectively, and quietly improve their odds of success.
Navigating the Machine
Surviving Work in a Sea of Ghosts
Workplace survival Career strategy Organisational reality
The commercial distillation of forty years of hard-won insight. Practical, direct, and written for anyone who suspects that the unwritten rules matter more than the official ones — and wants to learn them before they pay the price of not knowing.
The Insider’s Code
A Practical System to Manage Overwhelming Workloads, Set Boundaries, and Build Confidence at Work
A structured, actionable system for the overwhelmed professional. Forty years of corporate strategy distilled into a clear framework for reclaiming control — of your time, your output, and how others perceive your capability.
Workload management Boundaries Confidence
A Ghost in the Machine
The original. Unedited, deeply personal, and intentionally longer — for readers who want the full, unvarnished experiences and thoughts.
Written before Navigating the Machine, this is the source material: a candid, personal account of everything learned over a forty-year career. It reads the way real experience feels — complicated, honest, and occasionally uncomfortable. For the reader who values authenticity over accessibility.
Raw & unfiltered Career memoir Authentic voice
FOR LEADERS AND EXECUTIVES ACCOUNTBLE FOR PROJECT OVERSIGHT
Skin in the Game
A Stakeholder's Field Guide to Navigating Project Uncertainty, Retaining Reputation and Ensuring Professional Survival
Your name is on it. Your reputation is exposed. This field guide gives project stakeholders the mental models and practical tools to navigate uncertainty without becoming a casualty of someone else's optimism.
Workplace survival Career strategy Organisational reality
The Sponsor’s Playbook
A 60-Minute Guide to Smarter Oversight, Better Decisions, and Fewer Project Headaches
Sponsorship Governance Decision-making
For leaders, sponsors, and executives who are accountable for complex projects but don't always have visibility into what is truly happening — and need the tools to ask better questions, make sharper decisions, and protect their reputation when it matters most.
A compact, high-density guide for the time-poor executive who needs to discharge their sponsorship responsibilities effectively. Read it in an hour. Use it for the life of every project you oversee.
Beyond the Project Curtain (CEO/CFO Edition)
The Intelligence Brief for the C-Suite. Ten Questions to Flush Out the Fairytales and Unveil the Reality.
C-suite Project intelligence Due diligence
Written specifically for CEOs and CFOs who are told what people want them to hear. Ten forensic questions that cut through the reporting theatre and give the people at the top a reliable view of what is actually happening to their investment.
Work directly with Richard. Book a one-to-one consultation to apply these ideas to your specific situation — whether you are navigating a difficult organisation, preparing to sponsor a major project, or advising at board level.