Fourth Estate snaps up Annie Ridout's Shy

Fourth Estate has snapped up Shy: How Being Quiet can Lead to Success by Annie Ridout.

PR and publishing director Michelle Kane acquired world rights directly from the author, for publication in April 2021.

The book aims to reframe shyness as a positive trait and explore its benefits. Ridout includes contributions from successful people who explain how it has helped them achieve their goals.

The book synopsis explains: “With the help of clinical psychologists and psychotherapists, Annie interrogates what shyness really is and why some are more affected by it than others. She looks at how it can change at different times in our lives depending on our circumstances. She also explores the difference between introversion and shyness, whether shyness is genetic or learned and many other aspects of it.”

Ridout said: “This is the book I wish I’d been given as a young adult. That would tell me it’s not only okay to be shy but better than that: it has benefits. Because I’ve never heard anyone talk about shyness in a positive way. And yet all the successful (shy) people I interviewed for this book, and the psychologists and psychotherapists, all told me the same thing: shyness doesn’t have to hold you back. It’s part of your personality that you can choose to celebrate. That might just encourage you to work a bit harder and to not give up on your dreams.”