MINI-SERIES: CAREER CATALYST - Behind the Scenes of Writing and Publishing ‘Career Catalyst’

After all, all art is experience.

Hello, welcome, and prepare yourself for a real treat of an episode of The Company Doctor, brought to you live from Gary's kitchen and featuring not one, but two very special guests. Today we're launching the Career Catalyst miniseries in celebration of the release of the new book from The Company Doctor, and for this first episode, we're going behind the scenes of the making of the book. Examining the challenges and rewards of self-publishing, and offering some terrific advice for anyone looking to do the same. This is part 1 of our Career Catalyst miniseries. And here we are for a very special episode of The Company Doctor podcast.

I'm joined by a very special group of people who have been responsible for creating a fantastic new book, The Career Catalyst: 10 Secret Job Skills They Don't Teach You in School. It's a huge achievement. It's a very— it's a family affair. I'll let everyone introduce themselves. I'm George, as you know, I'm the co-host of The Company Doctor.

I'm joined by Ollie Gamp, the ghostwriter of the new book Career Catalyst. Very excited to be here.

And of course, Gary Gamp, the company doctor.

Hi.

And Lauren Gamp.

Hey. Whose role we will sort of dig into as the episode goes on. So it's a book, you know, it's from the mind of the company doctor, it's from the pen of the company doctor's son., and with an amazing cover from the InDesign file of the company Doctor's Daughter. So it's a brilliant product. It's an excellent book. We're going to find out the reason we're here. Correct me if I'm wrong, is to sort of get a behind-the-scenes look at how this book came about, you know, why it's important and what goes into the sort of the process of bringing one of these books out and, you know, the success that it's enjoyed so far. It's called Career Catalyst. And I thought that maybe we could kick off with a question for you, Gary, about maybe summing up what exactly it means to be a catalyst.

Oh, nice one. Are we going to kind of do the dirty and tell people the truth in the background?

Is that okay? Yeah, this is a no-holds-barred.

Look out, people. We're going to tell you the truth. No holds barred. Yeah. The reason it's called Career Catalyst is that it's focused on people early in their careers, and we want to help people because they don't really get advice, particularly from their careers advisor. Yeah. And it's called Career Catalyst because we want to act as a catalyst to get them from school to uni to work. And that's really our goal. And then if you're at work already, to accelerate you through your careers with the greatest of ease.

Yeah.

So a catalyst is someone who sort of isn't just sort of resting on their laurels. It's somebody who takes—

Here's an example of a catalyst. Have you ever put a mento into a Coca-Cola bottle and see what happens? That's a catalyst right there.

Right. Okay. So you want to be the human embodiment of a mento being fired to the— Right. Okay. Got you. And I think another sort of a good starting point now that we've established that is Ollie, who's had such an instrumental part in the creation of this book. How did the idea come about for this book?

I want to come out with, like, inspiring story, but it really wasn't. I was just listening to the podcast one day. It was actually the pay rise episode. I loved it. I thought it was one of the— Yeah, I thought it was one of the strongest episodes. I was listening to the passage about Natalie. She was using— you were using Natalie as an example of commercial value. Yeah. And I just imagined the words on a page and I I was like, this is really good. Like, the stories are great. The way that Dad tells stories is great, and he's always got these funny analogies. And I just, I was just, you know, visualizing the words on the book, and I was like, this is great, we should do a book. And it was initially pitched to Dad as the Company Doctor book, and he said, no, let's call it Career Catalyst. He had a whole thing in mind. But at first, I think you were quite skeptical, as you would be pitching such a big idea. And it kind of just, we just got away from there. It's been 2 years of a journey. We're finally here and it's quite surreal to see it now in physical form as you can see it.

I'll tell you what was going through my head. This is behind the scenes, right? So Ollie comes to me, there's a text somewhere that he's put together, a WhatsApp message. And when he sent it to me, I know that he was keen to make some money, which is obviously great. I'm very keen for my kids to make money. And I thought, I said to him, look, it's a fantastic idea because you never beat down your kids, right? But we're not J.K. Rowling. And I was just trying to set his expectations. It's a great idea, but we might not make money. Yeah. So I kind of unintentionally pushed it away a little bit because I wanted to set expectations that, uh-huh, he wasn't going to do this, kind of make as many as quickly as a year.

It was actually not about the money. It was just about growing your profile because you're big in the business world. Very, very big in the business world. I wanted to give you a big presence in the media publishing world. So that's what it was aimed at. Um, so I basically wrote one chapter.

Yeah.

Um, which was the first episode you guys did, the networking chapter. I transcribed it, give it a little rejig. I keep saying it. I keep saying it. Yeah. Gave it a little rejig, kind of made it look more booky. Mm-hmm. Um, everything was in there for the episode. A few more extras added in. I interviewed him separately for every chapter, but I just gave him one chapter and gave it to him and he liked it. And I said, should I do another one? And he said, yeah, sure. Um, so I did. I think we put together 3 chapters. Yeah. And then he really started to come on board to the idea and we kind of went from there.

Yeah.

Yeah.

When I, when I got the first chapter, I thought, oh wow, this is quite good. And so I said to Ollie, can you do another chapter? So it wasn't a fluke. And he wrote another chapter, which was outstanding. So I thought, I think we might be onto something. Yeah. Yeah.

Well, you've got the receipts as well, haven't you? Because you've got that initial message that you said to Gary being like, what do you think? You know, I've had this idea about maybe putting it, change a bit.

He made that sound like, let's talk later. Yeah.

I took it on the weekend.

I put it on Instagram and I said how it started, how it's going. Yeah. A classic viral thing. And one was the screenshot of the message and then one was the actual book being made. As you can see, if you're watching on the video, It's done.

And so can you just— I guess it's a difficult one to sum up, but talk us through the process of actually writing it, because it's, it's quite a difficult one to do because it's, it's Gary's— it's the company doctor's thoughts on the page, sort of almost translated by you. How did that, how did that come about?

Um, so you start with a transcription. So I wrote down everything from the episode, just from his— sorry, not your voice, only Dan's.

Sorry about that.

No, don't worry. Yeah, my voice is away.

I'm happy with that. You know, that's cool.

Everyone else's as your incredible questions, and then his voice, his words.

My incredible voice.

I wrote it all down, and then whatever needed rejigging got rejigged. Yeah. And bits that didn't quite work were kind of, you know, reshuffled. And then if there was anything left that didn't quite make sense, or there was something that needed adding, I would go to Dan, interview him separately, and say, oh, what about this? Could you expand on that? So like, for interviewing, I said, you know, can you give me some examples of some really bad interviews you've had, or some really good interviews? So we kind of just I just naturally found a way to do it and to keep his voice. Like, a few chapters I've had to write a few extra bits, but I know him so well, so I always— your whole life, I've met him quite a few years, so I know how he talks. So I always wrote in, even if it wasn't him. There's very few bits where it's not him, but if I have to write where it's not him, it sounds just like—

it's quite funny actually, because tone of voice is really important for me. If everyone knows who I am, then I'm quite direct and, yeah, certain way of speaking. But Ollie's managed to capture my tone of voice to the point where someone asked him some advice the other day. He gave him advice. He said, I told them this. Is that right? I went, yeah, Gary 2.0, go ahead, knock yourself out.

And Lauren, at what point did you get involved in this whole entrepreneurial drive?

Somewhere along the way, I believe I was asked. I was commissioned.

You were commissioned?

I was commissioned professionally to design Yeah, that's what professionals get paid for their work. Yeah, um, sorry, I was asked to design a cover, and I— do you want to know my sort of my design process?

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Yeah, just, just quickly, this is all about this— I mean, I think we're getting under the skin of the self-publishing process, and it's something which I think is very mystical to a lot of people, and it's like, you know, a lot of people might want to get involved in it, they don't know how it how to begin. So I think if we can give a bit of advice, you know, the best thing from this is to demystify the self-publication process. And great, I think a big part of that is the, the COVID design. Don't dodge a big bite of its cover. Everyone does, but do. Awesome. Do.

It's pretty—

in this case, do.

Definitely do.

How did it go down?

Well, actually, a question. So did you need— you guys, did you need the COVID to— in order to pitch it, or did you just feel like that would be better.

The COVID was a big part of the pitch because I think we have to kind of go back. There's a big thing where we were trying to get a publisher, a big publisher. Yeah, we were working with a literary agent and they loved the COVID so they were really impressed by the COVID and they said, whoever designed this is very talented. Well, yes, and they loved it.

So it was— hold the thought, hold the thought, because we, we should get Lauren's thoughts from there. So yes, it was important. Yeah, it was different.

From then.

Yes, but we, we provided a package to the literary agent which was a couple of all these chapters plus this amazing cover, and that got us to the next stage and a sort of outline.

Yeah, so at that point I kind of started with the title because we had the title at that point, and I, I zoned in on the catalyst. And so I went sciency a little bit, and I color-wise went for something— we'd had some advice that, uh, the coral, a coral color was quite eye-catching and did quite well with books across Amazon and things like that. So I started with that. I think everyone in this room has a Monzo card. We're allowed to— other banks are available. Um, other publishers are available. And so we start— I started with trying to find out what the, um, the color codes for that color was without, you know, being sued. Um, so we got it as close to Monzo Coral as possible. Yeah. And yeah, it was a really eye-catching cover and felt quite modern. But then we, we got some secondary advice that maybe it wasn't quite something that fit in with the, the more corporate world, the business world.

Do you sense the designer wasn't completely happy with this?

I do sense that, I do. But I think also, I mean, I think your first foray into this, I suppose you want to be— you want to play it safe.

I didn't. You didn't want to?

No. But I think the, the advisors want to play it safe. The powers that be, yes, might want to play it safe. So that for the next one, and we'll get on to whatever the next one may be, um, a bit later. At that point you can start—

the second in the series will be choral.

It's an interesting point, right? Because it is, it's a conundrum because we've not done this before. So it's like Lauren's original design was eye-catching and amazing. Yeah, but we were trying to, uh, you know, attach to a market, so we need to connect to a market. And whether we're right or not, I don't know.

I think, um, the only time will tell, but, uh, her design was great.

But I think the fact that we can adapt is also important because we— the big decision, the title is a big decision.

Everything came up with that.

Uh, it might be me, but part of it is to check on Amazon what people are looking for. Yeah, as a hook. So that was all part of it as well.

I think you came up with the Catalyst pile. I came up with the subheading. Which is 10 Secret Job Skills in a Teaching School.

Yeah, that was—

you actually came up with the secret part, but that was a— it was a brainstorm.

Yeah, it's teamwork. So, sorry, did you finish, Lauren?

Yes. The important thing is the customer is always right, and the customer was these guys.

Right.

So I think what you ended up with was a very professional looking book. I think, you know, our first book, it's why it's, you know, eye-catching yet still quite, you know, minimalist and a bit of a nod to the company doctor.

So I think it kind of ticks all the boxes. I've had really good response, by the way, from that. They didn't see the York Earl Pink.

Both designs are great.

Bloody awesome. Would have loved to have done, like, an A/B test, but that's just not possible in the publishing world.

I'm sure I now understand what an A/B test is, but yeah, good.

Well, we'll find out when we do the next installment of whatever the next book is.

We can A/B test it. We've got the name of it, actually.

Yeah. Well, let's not reveal that right now. It sounds like there was a lot of conversation, a lot of back and forth. Design, titles. This whole process doesn't happen without hurdles on the way. What sort of hurdles did you face and how did you overcome them? Right.

Well, yeah, it is a very difficult process end to end because there's so many bumps in the road. And first of all, it's amazing to do a family project. So I'm delighted, honored, and privileged, whatever the right words are. We had such a fantastic opportunity to work with a family and still be talking at the end of it. Um, but the, the hurdles were, in order to, you know, we were focused on getting into bookshops. Um, I don't know why, but we were. And so in order to get to a publisher, you need to have an agent.

Yeah.

And so our first hurdle was to get an agent. And, and then through a lot of hard work and contacts, we managed to get ourselves, land ourselves with a, a very established agent. Yeah. And then when you get an agent, you've got to sign a contract with the intellectual property and all the stuff that goes with that. We had to set up a company in order to have that intellectual property. So it's quite a cumbersome thing. And then the other thing is the actual book needs to be good. Yeah. Especially with the audience we're going to. So a lot of work of research and making sure everything was— each chapter was amazing. So it's quite a lot of work too. I won't reveal everything, but the main hurdle is just the size of the task and having time to do it. And finding an agent that can find a publisher is pretty tough.

Yeah. And from your perspective, you know, obviously a lot of that work was on your shoulders.

Yeah, a lot back. It was a lot of back and forth. Yeah. At first we kind of didn't quite know what we wanted the book to be. We wanted it to be a summary of all the best Complete Doctor episodes. Yeah. So we had a lot in there, a lot, a range of topics, and I think we realized that we— it wasn't focused enough. So we eventually ended up at a careers guide for young people in their early careers, whereas before it was, there was a lot of stuff for advanced levels, but we kind of toned it down and found our niche, which was the young, young early careers people.

And is that who it's for? Because one of my questions is going to be, who is, you know, for people listening, who is the book for? Is it for people who are starting out on the sort of the first sort of steps on the path to career, or is there stuff in there which is also relevant for people who are mid-career?

It's a good question. I've had lots of feedback already from people that have read it. It's designed intentionally, as Ollie said, because of your advice, to do it in stages. It's designed for early careers, and early careers means, yes, it's your first career, or it's your second, third job. So it's early on in your career.

Yeah.

And we'll talk about what we're going to do next after that. But I've had some people read it that are very experienced, and they said, you know what, there's some amazing stuff in there for now.

Yeah, for anyone.

But it is designed for people getting a leg up.

Yeah.

If not just the first job, if I had an elevator pitch, yeah, it would be early careers.

Right.

Thank you for keeping me on track.

Hi, George here. Bear with me while I excitedly share the news that the company doctor Gary Gamp has just released a book available for purchase on Amazon. Career Catalyst is a compendium of insightful advice from the mind of the company doctor, designed to supercharge your journey on the path to career success. And it's out now on Kindle for just £6.99 and paperback for £10.99. Do yourself a favor, pick up a copy today, follow the 10 secrets steps that Gary outlines within, and soon you'll be navigating the world of work with the carefree heroism of Sir Ernest Shackleton.

It sort of says 10 secret job skills that they don't teach you in school. But why do you reckon that they aren't— those— these skills aren't being taught in school?

I've got to tell you a story. I don't know if this is going to be rude. I don't mean to offend anyone who's a careers advisor, but I had a careers advisor and I thought, what does he know as a careers advisor? And he told me I should be a florist, which is lovely. Nothing wrong with being a florist. But unfortunately, when you're at school, and this isn't all schools, but there's a situation where people over time get detached from what's happening because things are happening so fast. And the reason it's called The Ten Secrets, because if I went back to school now, knowing what I know now, it would be better for me. Yeah. So the whole premise of the book is to treat the book like I'm going back to my beginning with the experience I've had, the knocks, the good things, the bad things, and being able to pass that on.

Right. Just my perspective from coming out of uni fairly recently. There was never really anyone who said, right, this is what you got to do when you leave uni. I remember having one module in my journalism degree where somebody did a mock interview with me, and that was the only thing that I remember having real experience with where at all was actually readying me for the world, right? So normally you would leave uni and it's like, right, crack on then, you know, job hunting, interviews. Luckily I had the company doctor by my side to my advantage, and I managed to get a very good job at a big newspaper. But not everybody has the company doctor, and they do now. That is, they do now. And that's what this book is. We feel that there's lots of career books out there. You know, you can get a book on interviews, you can get a book on networking, but you can't get a book that takes you on the journey. So you've got job hunting— what do I do? How do I know what I want to do? What do I do when I get to the interview? And then when I get into the company, how do I navigate my way through that? This literally takes you step by step through your career. And there isn't really many books like that.

Well, that's great. Because I was going to say, what do you think makes this book stand out?

But that's it.

That's it. So it's the end-to-end journey. Yeah.

It's not just— It's unique. And it's literally giving you pretty much every possible scenario you could go through in your career. You know, you've got a difficult relationship with your boss. This is going to help you tackle that. And it's all coming from real-life experience from this guy who's pretty much worked every sector in the business world.

It's going back to your original question before and trying to thread the two together. Part of the hurdle for us was we had ourselves an agent. Yeah. And this particular agent went to the top publishers, so they, they sent the, the pitch, if you like, to these top publishers. And pretty much all the responses were amazing. They were like, this is the best thing I've ever seen, I've never seen anything quite like this, the same reason Ollie explained. And then when it got to the end of the letter, it said, but we're not taking it forward. And mainly because I'm an unknown, which is fine.

I understand that.

You know, they've got to sell books, right? But the principle is, I think we've got something and it's a good product and it's been verified by people that are, you know, that they do this for a living. They just didn't love me.

Yeah. Well, you know what we were talking about?

Oh, that's sweet.

We were talking about this yesterday and we are going to be doing an episode, or it may already be out by the time you listen to this, about growth mindset. And I think At that point, you could have given up and you both could have given up on this and sort of said, okay, well, you know, we're an unknown and this isn't going to work, or we'll self-publish. And you self-published and it's, you know, it's gone gangbusters.

Yeah, I mean, what we did is we came home, we did suck our thumb for a day or something, but then we thought, you know what, we've got a good product here. They verified as a good product. And we're fortunate enough to know someone who's one of the top Amazon publishers. And so we got together with him and worked closely with him, and that's helped us get to market and just done it a different way. And the truth is that, you know, for people that are thinking about publishing, you pay a lot more commission if you publish directly than if you self-publish. So potentially, yeah, we could make more money doing that way.

Yeah. Just dipping into some of the content within the book itself. Oli, you've obviously established yourself in a media career. You know, over the past however many years, um, you've worked at various different publications. Have you got any sort of real-world examples of how knowing some of these skills— because, you know, choosing what these skills were must be quite a tricky process— have you got any examples of how some of these skills that helped you?

Oh yeah, massively. Yeah. Um, so I, I used to work for the Daily Mail, which is obviously one of the top publications in the world, and, you know, getting there is no easy picnic, you have to go through a very extensive interview process. There was a boardroom. It was like I was on The Apprentice. There was like 3 guys to my left, 3 guys to my right. They were quizzing me. Someone was recording the interview. It was very intense. It was designed to be that way.

Bit like this.

Do you have to snap anybody?

Yeah.

And then the second one, while I got through that, was a group interview with loads of people behind me and next to me. And it was very competitive. But I felt confident going into that because of all the tips you learn in this book. Dad has told me throughout my life what to do, and I just felt ready for it. Um, and one of the things that we talk about in the interview chapter is preparation, and I knew every single question they were going to throw at me, everything I was going to say. I knew exactly my attitude, my approach, what to wear, what to do, what not to do. Yeah, so that is one of the main examples. Uh, I mean, not everything. I mean, you know, journalism is, is different. I mean, There's things like, you know, getting a pay rise. You know, I struggled with that one, but, you know, every company is different. I think journalism is very different. But so, like, I've got— I think I'd like to think that I've got quite far in my career. Yeah, I'm at the top level. You know, I've been, I've been lucky enough to go to a Premier League game and done live football reporting on that. So all of that, you know, relationship building, networking, you know, talking to people, getting people on your side at work. Yeah, it's all in this book, and it's all helped me, so it can help you too.

If you get the book, you're speaking the language. Yeah, I love it. And Gary, you know, obviously you don't want to choose a favorite child. Sorry, no, I love them all. I meant skill.

Oh, okay, fine.

It's the same.

They're my children.

Is there one sort of skill in here which you think is, you know, a really overlooked or underrated skill when it comes along?

I know what you're going to say. So Ollie knows what I'm going to say. He's become me now. Yeah.

And it's slightly worrying.

The number one chapter for me, which is the foundation for everything else, is networking. Yes, it's networking, because it's a skill no one teaches you. And, you know, if you listen to Nick Walker on our podcast recently, and he was trying to help young people as well, he said, yeah, that's the thing that people miss. And even if you're shy or an introvert, you need to do it anyway, because if you don't, you're missing out. Yeah. So every single chapter is threaded by networking.

Yeah. And this book was crafted by networking, because it was how we met our literary agent, it was how we met somebody to help us put it on Amazon and go through that process with us. It was how I recently got some publicity for it the other day. So everything that he's done in his career, everything that we've made this, how we've made this book happen is networking at its core.

It's also how we've managed to get some really excellent guests on this podcast. So yes, I totally agree with that. We did a brilliant live show at the Academy of Excellence in Stratford. And I wondered, Gary, if you had any thoughts on how the modern education system could evolve slightly to include more practical skills rather than— yes, they could put the careers catalyst on the syllabus. That would be great. But are there things that they should be doing in schools to directly influence young people and help them more directly?

Yeah, you know what's a really good question? And if you take the London Academy, they're a very progressive school. I mean, basically, they get some amazing results. And Alex Grossman, the headmaster, is incredible. He's been on the podcast. And I, and I, I ran a class, uh, and we, we did a live podcast with the whole year of 200 kids, and they were amazing. They were, yeah. And they get very good intake in Oxford and Cambridge, and they get on very well. So not dissing anything, is amazing stuff they do. But I just think generally in schools, they need to get back to what some people call soft skills, what I call hard skills, because they're building relationships and teaching people to strive a bit and to use their connections to leverage themselves, whereas everything's very academic, which is important. Yeah. If you can link together the soft skills with the academia, that gives people a better chance.

Yeah.

And that's kind of what the book is. So everything from getting a pay rise to getting through the interview is about building relationships and using connect— warm connections from other people to leverage to give yourself a step up. And I think if they could see James' school, that would just be incredible.

Yeah, yeah, agreed. And actually, Lauren was on the panel.

Well, he did a bloody good on the panel as well.

And, you know, I do think, you know, it sounds trite to say, but design is such a huge part of sort of book publication.

Have you got any advice?

You know, there were, I'm sure within the audience of that show that we did, there were budding designers, illustrators, you know, you know, there are people who are looking to get into all sorts of things. But if there were any budding designers out there, especially when it comes to book design or self-publishing or whatever, have you got any advice for people sort of design-wise? Are there any things that you would like to do on future books, for example? Like, how do you approach the design process, and what do you think sort of stands out most when it comes to book design?

I mean, I really like a colorful cover.

No way.

Tell us what you really think. No, I just think number one with design is that you always have to be alert and prepare to be inspired by everything you see. It's not just other designs, it's everything. You know, you could, you could be out and about and you see a color combination that you like, or you're in a restaurant and you see a font that you like. You're literally taking inspiration all the time. Design is really just I had a lecturer once tell me that good design is just sort of clever— I don't want to say plagiarism, but along the lines of you're just taking things and sort of regurgitating them. Not ripping them off, but just creating something new, evolving from everything you've seen. Because you can't create something out of nothing, even if you think you have. You've got it from somewhere at some point. And all of these things are going into your brain and your eyes all of the time. And then it sort of spits out a new design. And so with this, I did— well, with the original cover, I started with the word catalyst. And so I said, what does catalyst make me think of? Science and a beaker and, you know, an actual catalyst, a scientific catalyst. Not the Mentos, but maybe book too. We could do Mentos. We could do Mentos. Um, and that's where I kind of started with it. And then I wanted to— you also, when you're working with a brand or for a client, you have to think about their branding identity.

Yeah.

So I wanted to incorporate some of that teal, which was the company Dr. Color.

Yeah.

As well as the coral. So we had a little bit injection of the teal and Yeah, hopefully you turn out something that feels like the brand, which was kind of modern and cool and something you don't necessarily expect. I think something that is always said about Gary's advice is that it's not just what you see on Google, it's, it's saying advice in a different way. It's something you haven't heard before and something that makes you go, huh. That's interesting. Yeah. And so I wanted the COVID to reflect that sort of brand identity.

And you did.

Well, we love it. Yeah, smashed it out. So, you know, we've talked about the sort of, you know, I know that we're sort of, we're going to be wrapping up soon, but the, the self-publishing process, is it one that you would recommend?

Well, well, I think you've got to be motivated to do anything, right? Yeah. This is a big task. Yeah. We shouldn't underestimate it. The work that Ollie's done is incredible., and then as you— and I'll let Ollie explain the process, but as you're getting closer to it, the amount of detail you have to get into, because you don't want to publish a book that's not good and it's got mistakes in it.

Yeah.

And there's a copyright issue, so you have to check everything. And we had multiple people checking, and my 95-year-old dad, he checked it after everyone else and he found things that no one else had found.

Yeah.

So, you know, it's incredible amount of detail you have to get into.

Yeah.

As you're going through the process, but Ollie's more accustomed to the detail.

No, but sorry, just before you say that, I mean, it really is, it really was a proper family affair, wasn't it? Because you had Jane, your wife, she sub-edited it.

She's brilliant.

And then you had the dad play for it as well. So everyone's had— it's everyone's fault. Yeah, if you spot any mistakes, is that— yeah, it's their fault.

We have actually got one. We spelled Fraser's name wrong.

Sorry Fraser.

Sorry Fraser, if you're listening. We didn't mean it.

We tried. But yeah, Oli, maybe you can elaborate.

What do you want me to elaborate on?

I'm not about phrasing.

Well, just whether you sort of recommend the process and how you found it, whether you do it again.

Well, you know what? It was very rewarding. I think we wanted to go down the traditional publishing route mainly to get it in the bookshops. And then we realized when that wasn't going to happen, maybe it could play in our favor. Maybe we could take control of the narrative, if you want. And, you know, there was no deadlines, there was no pressure. We just got it out when we want to. There was no one telling us what we should do. There was no creative confusion or anything. We just did what we wanted to do. We played by our own rules and we just got the book out when it was ready, really. And yeah, there was lots to learn. We had to go on Amazon and figure out all the process with that. We had to do lots with formatting, which is a very difficult process, you know, because you'll send them your work and they send it back. It's not quite right. You've got to send it back to them. It's all back and forth. But no, I would definitely recommend it. The only problem is you have to do your own marketing. So that's a whole struggle that we are now about to embark on. Yeah. Whereas if you do it with a publisher, they do it all for you and they do everything for you.

Yeah.

You just have to send them the work. So, but it's been quite rewarding.

And have you learned a lot? Oh, yeah. You just become an expert.

Oh, yeah. I think we've learned so much. Yeah. And there's things we probably would do differently if we did it again. Maybe not. But yeah, it's been really cool. And you know, we're in control of everything now. We can see all the numbers, like how many books we're selling on Kindle. And there's been a whole process with the Kindle, very different to the paperback and stuff. Yeah, we had to choose, you know, even things like, do we want the front cover to be matte or glossy? I don't even know what that means. We didn't even know what that means.

Apparently matte's cool. You're a matte.

I love matte. As a designer, matte is cool.

Not the person.

Little things. We never even considered these things, and we're suddenly having to be like, oh, what kind of, you know, font type do we want? Yeah, what's it called? Font face, was it called?

Font?

Font. Just font.

Typeface. Typeface.

Typeface. All sorts of things. We had to decide, difficult decisions. We had these amazing graphics courtesy of Pat, what was it called? Pat Harbord. And we had to go black and white because it costs a lot of money to go colors, things like that. But it's been a really fun journey. It's been, there's been times of frustration where we like, things were taking a long time, but it's been really cool. I definitely recommend it to anyone.

And where do you want to see it? Like what was the, you know, obviously it's an amazing achievement to have got a book out. Level to say that you guys are published authors. What is the sort of the apex dream? You know, where do you want to see it?

Like a person, you, you follow?

Yeah, yeah.

I mean, the goal at the beginning is always to help young people get started. Yeah, help people early in their careers. So our goal is if— so maybe we can get into schools or unis and give people a bit of a leg up and sort of complement what they're learning at school. Maybe we can be that missing bit. So my goal would be the young people are using this as their Bible to get started in their careers. That, yeah.

Yeah, um, for me at the beginning, in the sort of materialistic, like, not quite good mentality— but not money— I always wanted to see someone reading it on a train. For me, that— oh, okay, we've made it if we see someone reading on a train, or you're at an airport, someone's got it on the plane. Yeah, but for me now, I think I agree with Dad. I want to see it in university libraries, school libraries. I want it to be everywhere for young people, accessible to them.

Yeah.

I think, you know, we're not very likely to see it, someone reading it on a train because it's aimed at young people and it should be in the schools and in the universities.

So that'd be really good. Yeah, no, it's great. I think that brings this episode almost to a close unless there are other things.

There's one thing I want to say. Yeah. Is we, we've got a series.

Yes. Well, yes. What's next?

What's next? Exactly. So because we decided to focus this on early careers, we have, we have two other books in the making. The next one is called Career Crisis. So for people in their mid-careers. Not that you have a crisis, but you might be. And then the third one is called Career Genius for the super advanced people. Yeah. So, but all these things are relevant to everyone, but we are really focused on early careers right here. That's brilliant.

So you're doing a trilogy.

We're really on it.

We're really doing it.

We've got all the material, every episode you hear from the podcast, that is going to be repackaged into some sort of genre, whether it's, you know, you've got early careers and you've got mid-careers where you Things like out of work, what next, where you've been fired or let go. And then really senior stuff like presentations, boardroom stuff. So there's so much to work with.

So within the episodes, the archive of the Company Doctor podcast lives the material.

Absolutely.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's fantastic. And even I didn't know that. So what great news for me. Listen, thank you so much, everybody. It's been really excellent hearing about the making of it. I have a copy myself, which I think Gary has signed. It's your turn this evening to sign. Yeah, I'll sign a copy.

I'll sign it for you.

Very excited.

You're a big part of our book because most of the stuff has come from our kind of combination of work between you.

You are.

I am mentioned.

You are the career captain.

The silent captain.

And also, the topics only come from your personal requests.

Yeah, exactly. So, yeah, if I didn't want you to know this information.

If it wasn't for you, we wouldn't have any of this, George.

Absolutely.

Well, thank you. It's all about you, George. Thank you, me.

Everyone loves George anyway, so this is amazing.

Thank you all for listening and joining us. But get yourself a copy of The Career Catalyst. It's currently available on Kindle for 99 pence. Wow. Depending on what time you're listening to this, and it's on paperback for £10.99. Thank you for joining us.

And thank you for listening, everyone.

See you next time.

Thanks, guys. Bye.

Thanks for listening, and we hope that you enjoyed this eye-opening first installment of The Career Catalyst miniseries. If you did, the great news is that parts 2 and 3 are out now and feature some cracking advice around key skills that will continue to pave your way to becoming a career catalyst. Thanks again, and we'll see you next time.