Yellow Kite wins millionaire entrepreneur Steven Bartlett's first book

Yellow Kite has won rights to publish the first book by Steven Bartlett, founder of the social media and marketing company Social Chain, after fighting off four other publishers in the final round of auction.

In the book, titled Happy Sexy Millionaire: Unexpected Truths about Fulfilment, Love and Success, 27-year-old entrepreneur Bartlett will "teach readers how to achieve personal success without losing sight of all the other things that make life fundamentally worthwhile".

The author built his brand from scratch at the age of 21 and it now turns over hundreds of millions of pounds each year, has listed on the Stock Exchange and has companies such as Amazon, Apple and Coca Cola on its client list. It employs over 700 people globally and generates an annual revenue of over $200m. He also has an online community of 1.5 million fans and a popular podcast ("The Diary of A CEO") that has almost one million listeners.

However, despite achieving his goal to become a "happy, sexy, millionaire" by age 25, according to Yellow Kite, he "realised that the modern world is designed to push people away from the things that will bring them the genuine fulfilment – and that this ‘connected’ society, social media and even his own mind, had been lying to him about how to live life, what to aim for and what actually mattered and crucially, the industry he had built his wealth in was a huge part of the problem".

After acquiring world rights in the book from Adrian Sington at Kruger Cowne, Lauren Whelan, editorial director said she was "extremely proud" to be publishing Bartlett's first book. "His personal, powerful analysis of modern life will challenge us to rethink all we know about happiness and what ‘fulfilment’ looks like", she said, adding, "what I’ve read so far has exceeded all expectations of what I knew would be brilliant, astute and fresh, underpinned by his mission to genuinely help readers look at the world and themselves differently".

Bartlett said: "These ideas are the product of a life of inadequacy, ambition, wild success, rejection, research and deep reflection. I’m well-aware that this book will be controversial and uncomfortable for many, but I know I can’t let that stop me. Someone or something needs to intervene, before the loneliness, meaninglessness and mental health epidemic does irreversible damage to the fabric of society and to an impressionable connected generation that are being misled by that piece of glass in the palm of their hands."