Goodreads asked Timothy M. Houston:

Where did you get the idea for your most recent book?

Timothy M. Houston There were two main catalysts for writing No-Nonsense networking. First,
as with all of my previous books, the idea for No-Nonsense Networking came from real-life experiences that I have had over the past 20+ years as a business owner. I attend hundreds of networking events over the course of a year and find that there are people who may be great business people but their networking skills need improvement. Likewise there are many new business people who need to learn how to be a better networker because they never learned how or their companies never invested in this kind of skill development for their employees.

But there's an inherent problem when it comes to teaching these skills and that's the second catalyst/inspiration for the book.

Unfortunately, it has become commonplace for many authors of business books to put together examples and anecdotes and then try to build a “theory” around it, hoping that it works. It is also to no one’s benefit if I were to teach you some convoluted, impractical techniques and strategies, full of “corporate speak” that may look impressive as part of the thesis for an MBA degree but ultimately fails or is impractical in the real world. Likewise, there are many other books and programs that are just too complicated and take too much time to implement.

I view my role as an author to be an extension of being the reader's teacher and guide; so my job is to make things understandable and simple.

I wrote No-Nonsense Networking as a straight-to-the-point primer/reminder about the fundamentals of networking, it is a short read which is intentional and by design.

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