“There’s Nothing Like This: The Strategic Genius of Taylor Swift”

Kevin Evers explores the business strategy behind Taylor Swift’s rise to global stardom in a story-driven new book.

By Kevin Evers
c.2025, Harvard Business Review
$30, 279 pages

Dancing around, shaking your booty.

Hanging with your friends, running around the neighborhood — those are the kinds of things you liked to do when you were younger. Dreaming of adulthood, thinking about the cool car you might someday have and making big plans. You were just a kid then, but as in the new book “There’s Nothing Like This” by Keven Evers, you saw your future.

Songwriter Angelo Petraglia was in a panic.

It was 2003, he had an appointment with a new songwriter, and he didn’t quite know how to relate to. Her name had been floating around Nashville for a while — she’d gotten a decent deal with RCA Records — but Petraglia’s problem was that this girl, Taylor Swift, was 13 years old. What did he know about middle-school teenagers?

Says Evers, it didn’t take long for Swift to school her co-writers.

From the start, she “demonstrated strategic thinking.” Mature beyond her years, Swift knew where she was, where she needed to be, why, and how success would happen. Youth wasn’t a problem; she had a “cohesive vision.” She understood her audience — and she knew it.

By 2004, the music industry in Nashville was going through change. Record labels had consolidated or closed. Most of those that remained preferred signing male singers; few were interested in a teenage girl. The country music audience, it was believed, didn’t include teen girls.

Swift proved that belief wrong with a calculated risk and her faith in a new record label that hadn’t yet launched. Evers says she had “promotional instincts.” She liked marketing, understood that differentiation was important and was willing to use social media — a new thing then — to interact with fans. She was authentic and told her own story well.

Still, there were ups and downs. Swift remained laser-focused, but mistakes were made in her early years. “Celebrity is a tricky business to be in,” Evers writes, but Swift steadfastly course-corrected, banking on her fans, herself and the vision she’d always held.

Yes, indeed, “There’s Nothing Like This” is a business book whose title actually explains its subject and itself: It’s not like other business books you’ve read recently. For one thing, this one’s going to take some effort.

In a big way, this book seems more like just another discography or tale of Nashville and stardom. But look between the lines. Evers is subtle in showing how Swift’s practices fall into the realm of business. And once you spot one of two of those points, you almost can’t miss the rest. 

No, there aren’t any overt lessons, bullet points or charts here, no end-of-chapter takeaways. No final wrap-up at books’ end. Instead, you’re taught by story — and it’s a good one, superbly impressive, lively and perfectly entertaining.

Swifties, of course, will want this book, regardless of its genre. But more business-minded readers need to remember that the lessons in “There’s Nothing Like This” are embedded — and worth the search. Try this book. Don’t just “shake it off.”

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