Design Matters: The Art of Book Creation

Welcome to Media Minds with your host David Wolf.

He's the author of two books, strategist to hundreds of authors. Cory Kirby possesses a keen eye for book design and a deep understanding of the publishing industry, bringing a strategic approach to every project he tackles. Joining us from somewhere between the mountain and the sea in Port Angeles, Washington, is Corey Kirby. Corey, welcome to the program.

David, thanks so much for having me. Honored to be here.

Absolutely. And you know, we've spent some time offline talking about your interesting approach to how you do the business of helping authors get their books out to market. But how did you actually get into this, the publishing world? How did that start? What's the story around that? Oof.

I graduated and I didn't know what I wanted to really do with my life. And so I thought it'd be a good idea to ride my bike down the West Coast of the US with a trailer and a surfboard. And on my surfboard, I Sharpied the words, "Why do you exist?" Because I wanted some thought-provoking existential question to ask the universe with what to do with my life as my 22-year-old self. You know, I was like, "Why do I exist?" Like, dealing with all that. And I spent 3 months just on the bike working my way south, and I was meeting all these wondrous people. They were like the, The billboard behind my pedal bike, the Why Do You Exist, was just this invitation to start talking to people. And I love meeting people, I love talking to people, and I was kind of casually interviewing them about what their purpose is. Like, I'm here to teach, I'm here to heal, I'm here for my daughters, all these different types of answers. And I was shooting photos of them and I got done and I was like, this is a book. I reached out to publishers, got rejected, and I was like, okay, screw y'all, I'm gonna teach myself how to do it. So I taught myself how to publish a book and I kind of took a like mixed media format approach and published my book, uh, Why Do You Exist? And inside here it just has portraits of people I met along with their stories and some journal entries to, uh, to do that. And I, I always kind of just wanted to like do it my way, so to say. And so I didn't put the book on Amazon. I sold directly to my audience on Instagram, so I had a higher markup and I could have the DMs myself. I could control that, my audience. I could get access to their email list, you know, their email address to build my email list. And I launched the book and by my metrics of success, it was phenomenal. But the big thing that I didn't really see coming was people then started asking me like, hey man, could you help me publish a book? And so I just started, yeah, I did photo books, I did poetry, I did children's books, I did like wedding books. I just did everything. And over the past, you know, I would say 5 years, I've really focused in on doing prescriptive business nonfiction, working with business owners, people whose knowledge is foundational to what they do and they want to share their story, share their knowledge and help, you know, move the needle and help people kind of, you know, share their message and do what they want to do. So that's how I got into it. That's my backstory.

Yeah, need is the mother of invention, and it was like an existential sort of origin, and then it moved from there very naturally and organically. Uh, Corey, um, that book you held up, it's, um, it's decidedly graphic in nature. And what I mean by graphic is it's a graphic, like tabletop, beautifully designed. Design is important to you, but it sounds like you've moved away from that a little bit Talk to us a little bit about how important design was and is to you in the current work you're doing.

Yeah, I just, I started out as a book designer. That was like my core service I offered was I was laying out books, I was designing covers, I was typesetting books. And I think like this concept of book design in particular is one of the more misunderstood and often forgotten about aspects of the broader publishing process. And it's really just like user experience. It's, it's UI design. Exactly. Uh, and I think that, that good type, good design can either communicate a message or can like get in the way of a message. And so many books nowadays, with over a million books published a year, are just kind of through the standard basic format, print on demand, KDP. And that really misses the mark on really communicating your message, communicating your authority, communicating your expertise, and having the book represent the quality of the work that a lot of my clients want to show. And so it really is about the whole package. It's like, if you're going to invest as much time as you did to write and sort of design the concepts, don't you want to like bring the words to life and make them pop and just have it be easy to read and have it have something that when they touch it, they're just like, ooh. And so I do try to bring that kind of that same like, ooh, feel into the books that I do today. And with everything being so digital, there's just this, this like X variable that I can't quite quantify that when someone gets something that's beautifully designed, that it just like, it's this art and it just hits home and then it, it, it, people remember it better and they want to come back. And so that's kind of why I think design's important.

You know, the interior design is one thing, Cory, but the, The COVID design is— it's been said that that's the hook, right? That's the thing that brings them in to open and discover what's inside. How do you approach the task of COVID design for each of the authors you work with? How do you— what's your entry point for that?

Gosh, I think hands down designing the COVID is one of the most important decisions when it comes down to a book. And it's kind of like this chicken and egg concept I've been thinking a lot about. Out where it's like, did the— the one— back up here a little bit. Supposedly 70% of books are bought at a thumbnail size online nowadays. And so it's like, did the covers that do best actually come out of the thumbnail design, or did people just kind of start like, um, copying everyone because they were seeing books that were like winning in that way? And so I think like when I look at a lot of the books, it's like there's super large type and because you can see it at a thumbnail size and then the title is so important in prescriptive nonfiction, you know, it's just like there's the iconic ones like The 4-Hour Workweek. It's just like, boom, like it like kind of like hits you there. But I just, I just got this— pull this out here. This book is called The Four Conversations by Blair Enns.

Oh, wow.

And I think it is a beautifully designed book, but it's beautifully articulated. It's beautifully written. Everything about this is good. And it's sort of like the antithesis of, I would say, a modern kind of design. Like you can barely read the title.

Right. It's architectural and the title's understated. It has a, that hence the modern, you know, it looks like something from the '50s.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I think that there's no rules, but to get back to your question in terms of like how I approach it is coming up with the concept is by far the most difficult. And I've had covers take me 5 minutes. I've had covers take me like 5 weeks to like hours. And it's so funny how it comes to you. So the general approach is large type, simple backdrop, and an illustration. That is like the general formula, but I just showed a cover that sort of broke that. So it's just fun to think about different ways to approach it.

Right, so the contents of the books and the author, when you work with authors, do they come to you in different stages of development in terms of the concept for the book? Sometimes they have a manuscript that they deem as complete and then you dive in and, well, this isn't— it needs more work. Or talk to us about the sort of spectrum of challenges you discover as you move into a project with an author about the content itself, the writing?

Yeah, I think, I think the, the number one problem that I see is simply just carving out the, at first, unpaid hours to write the book. Like, that is the number one problem because you're, you know, you work in the expert industry. You, you have a never-ending to-do list. You have family, you have kids, you have that laundry hamper, you got your dishes to do. It's like everyone, everyone goes blah, blah, blah, blah down there. They got the same story, the tooth filling's out, they need to go to the dentist. It's never ending. And so carving out that deep focused time is the number one challenge. And so I intercept people at any point in the publishing process, but my favorite is when I get them right at the start. And when it's at the start, I'm able to really help with the flow. And I just think about it through like these fundamental questions that we've all been taught is who the book is, who, who is the book for? What is the book that they want? Why do they care about it? And why are you doing it?

Yeah.

How are you gonna approach the writing process? And then when are you gonna work on it? And that how I think is really fascinating because I've, I've had people. I'll give you a couple examples. Someone's got a 30-minute commute every day. We mic them up and they just talked. They sent me all the transcriptions. I packaged it up, got them a solid draft. Wow. We've outlined a book, we put it into a presentation. This, this individual went, delivered the presentation live at a conference, sent me the transcription. I unpacked it, got them a solid draft into a book. I've had people who are active newsletters. We take their newsletter series, package it up, Give them a book that solves their problem of, hey, I'm so fricking busy. When am I going to do it? And this magical moment happens when you can kind of package their, their knowledge, their expertise into a solid draft. Then they see it and all these lightbulb moments go off and then they're just like, then they all of a sudden make the time and they start writing. But it's like, it's like you get them there. That's the hard part is like getting them there. All of a sudden they see 30,000 words and they're like, oh, oh, oh, wow.

They just, they just start ripping. It's like you give them a kickstart that they— and now, oh, okay, I'm inspired by my own whatever it is Corey just extracted from me. I'm going to leverage and lean into that thing. That's cool. That's a cool process. And I like this whole, like, again, the word spectrum comes to mind, different ways to get there. It's not always about just sitting and typing. It can be dictating. It could be a pod— we've talked about doing podcasts to book projects where, you know, we were in the podcast production business, among other things. And that's something we've thought about. Easy stuff to do these days with AI and the assist of AI. Of those tools to transcribe and then on from there. Oh, and there's a pivot I just threw out in front of us. What is your sense about AI? Does it fold into anything you're doing with the work you do on any level, whether it's the graphic part or the content?

Yeah, I got, let's see, I got 3 points we're gonna hit here. I think, let's see, AI agents, we'll do design, and then we'll do like authorship. All right, so first, AI agents. I, I, so I love this concept of creating the cornerstone IP. So someone has a, a bunch of intellectual property. The first task is you gotta capture it all. And I think about this like an ecosystem of like riverways. It's like if you look at all of this, you have all these waterways that flow down in like a reservoir. That's like, that's like your emails, that's your, your, your call recordings. You have, might have talks, presentations. It's your digital footprint. Let's take all your digital footprint. We're going to put it into a core, like a core place. Then we're going to take human beings here. We're still at the human level and you have to package and organize all that up into an organized cornerstone IP. I think a book is the best way to do this. Then once you have that book, that, that distilled codified form of your expertise, that's 40,000 to 50,000 words. You then can train a custom GPT. You can then make like a custom Claude. You can create these AI agents that are, are know your exact language, your tone of voice. And then that's where the magic happens with AI, in my opinion, is then I can query and I can say, hey, write me 10 LinkedIn posts based off chapter 3, but use my exact words. And then they use the exact words.

Yeah, there's the prompt.

There's so And then there's so many ways to slice and dice it. And so at this current moment in time, for me, it's easier for me to help someone write a book myself than it is to just pull from the internet to use AI. It's, it's, it's shit. Uh, but when you train someone on their material and then you extract that, but you still need to have that human touch into there. And this is totally opening up the doors for people who are busy is you get your cornerstone IP. Then you unpack that into LinkedIn posts, newsletters, hooks, taglines. It's just infinite from that point. And then you have another book and then you train it on it again. And so this, this AI agent is just such— it's, it's, it's a lot.

So you, you are involved with the so-called training of a Claude or a custom AI, as you call it. That's something you've done a few times and you know how that works. Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And like, it's not a world I've been around. Yeah.

And the prompting and, you know, yeah, you are Corey Kirby's personal ghostwriter. Use Corey's exact words and phrases and write me X amount. And so like that, and like, I can't beat it enough, that prompt, exact words. It's like, because it's crazy.

And then like, because that's the color of their, their voice. Yeah. Coming in.

Yeah, then I'm reading this stuff and I'm like, oh my God, this is the exact paragraph I helped them write. It's really them. Yeah, it's really them.

So you're training it with other things they've done to create that cornerstone. I think that's what you called it. And then from there you can train the LLM to do that and then prompt that LLM. And then I love this iterative thing. Every time you do another book, it's like, yeah, used the book I just wrote or the combination of books I've— all the work I've done, including the books I've written, to train for the next one. That is so interesting.

It is a physical printed piece that hits your sensations. And as we move into such this digital era, digital products are so profound that it's almost like when you go back and you have something that's like this, that's confrontational as a physical printed piece that you can hold and flip through, and that is like visually stimulating this stuff. It just, it just wins and it helps communicate your message so much more. And so even though you have an AI agent that helps you create your cornerstone IP and you're publishing out books, still have that human touch to hit all those senses. Um, these are the books that I see get the best results for my clients there. So you, so you always have to have that human touch to filter it through. Okay. And then that brings me into the final point, which is authorship. I just pre-ordered a book from an author that I love that's releasing in, in April. And I think that just simply put, that's the thing that AI will never be able to replicate, is, is I don't, I don't want an AI book from this person. I want, I want them. And, and so that's what's exciting about publishing to me and why I'm not that, like, not terrified about it, is just like Humans want to buy from humans that establish authorship brands, and they just want to know what they think, what they feel, what they're going through. And so really building your personal brand, really building your platform, connecting with readers, that's still very, very much powerful. And so it's kind of how I think about the through line of where we're heading.

All right, perfect. You set up my next question was really about the go-to-market part of how you think about what an author should do. What are some of the missteps many of them take when they're getting the book out? Now it's written, the product's in hand. Now what? Over to you.

Yeah, so author after author have said to me, I just want to find someone to market my book. But the truth is, is that you have to market your book. No one's going to sell it but you. Even if you get a traditional publisher, no matter what happens, is it— you still have to do the work yourself. And I think that this could simply be the, the high-level strategy is you, you, you make content in a niche. You remind people that you published a book on that same content, and then you make more content in, in a niche, and you do that over and over and over and over again, and you'll move books. Uh, it's, it's hard to do though in, in this space, but that's, that's how I think about it from someone who really wants to, let's just say, um, move books. But then there's another approach, which I think they're kind of separate strategies. Is you, um, publish books, sell books, or you publish books, sell services. Under the publish books, sell services approach is you really have to have like a clear customer journey. Is where do you want them to go? Uh, once they engage with you, once they engage with the book, how do they, how do they travel then into your ecosystem and then into your, into your offer offers?

Yeah.

Under this approach, the main, the main thing is just give your book out for free. To as many people as you possibly can, but the right people. And so what I say is, is turn your digital footprint into a conversation-starting book. And the right experts who hear that conversation starting, they get it. That is, the book is the thing to open up the door to get them more conversations. The more conversations you have, the more people you can help, the more people you can serve. And so I don't know anything better than getting conversations and building trust than a book. And so when you go through your network, and you publish the book and you send your book out for free, when you message people one at a time, hey, you text them, you call them, you email them. No blasting, no like curated perfect newsletter send. This is one-off. Hey Kim, how is Jane doing? I hope you guys are good. Like, I'm thinking back to this time we shared together. I just published my book. It'd mean the world to me if you went and left a review, if you checked it out. Purchased a copy for a friend. I'd love to send it to you. Like any form of this. I listened to this, um, podcast recently of this guy who did this. He sent 5,000+ text messages on the time when his book launched one at a time. And so give your book out for free, send people one message at a time, uh, post valuable content. Those are like some of the 3 just easiest, most approachable things that anyone can do that moves the needle. To help them get conversations and sell books.

Brilliant stuff, Corey. I'm so glad we got to do this because you do have a very unique and interesting way to think about the entire process, the creation of the book and how you go to market. This idea about narrow and deep and one at a time is pretty interesting in a world where there's a lot of tools that we know where you can scale yourself. And it's very— what's the word?

Seductive.

Yeah.

Because it takes time to do this, but there's no easy way. That's sort of what I'm extrapolating. It's, it's, it's got to, you got to make that, that choice to do it one, one at a time. And in this instance, great stuff. CoryKirby.com, Cory with a K, K-O-R-Y Kirby, K-I-R-B-Y.com, CoryKirby.com. Or you can find him on LinkedIn as well. Corey, so glad we did this. We'll do it again sometime. All the best and, uh, thanks for being with us.

Thanks, David.

Beautiful. You've been listening to Media Minds with your host David Wolf. Media Minds is produced by Audivita Studios, a premier production company producing audiobooks and podcasts for clients Worldwide. Be sure to subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. To learn more about the team at Autovida Studios, visit autovida.com.