Aligning the Goals of Publisher and Author | Katie Anderson | 514

And welcome, welcome, welcome. This is Peter Winick. I'm the founder and CEO at Thought Leadership Leverage, and you're joining us on the podcast, which is Leveraging Thought Leadership. Today, my guest is Katie Anderson. She's an internationally recognized leadership coach, consultant, author, and speaker. In 2013, she founded Katie Anderson Consulting. She is a California native. She's got a BA with honors from Stanford and was a Fulbright scholar in Australia. And she just recently published her latest book. So welcome aboard, Katie, which is Learning to Lead, Leading to Learn. So here we go. Cool. So why don't we start with— well, let's start with how the hell did you get here? Like, this doesn't seem like a linear path. And then we'll get to the book.

Well, it's rare it's a linear path. And actually, even though it sometimes feels like my book was just published last week, at the time of this recording was the book's 3-year anniversary. It's incredible. But no, you know, looking backwards, I see the common threads, but it wasn't linear. I came out of university at Stanford thinking I wanted to be a PhD professor doing research and spent—

Well, isn't that what everybody comes out of Stanford thinking?

Yeah, I still think they're gonna be an academic, but I was a real nerd, a real like learner at heart. And that's where I started my career. You know, I was doing research at UCSF, the University of California, San Francisco. Sure. Got my Fulbright, did all of that research, very qualitative, health policy-based, which came to really help me in writing a book later. Moved to Australia, stayed for 4 years because Australia was amazing in my late 20s, a place to be. And then came back to California, which is where I grew up, and took a role at Stanford Children's Hospital in their performance improvement department. And that was where things really pivoted for me. I got very passionate about How do we create tangible change in organizations to make things better? And at that point, for, you know, for our patients who are small children and their families.

Sure.

And then on that journey got really focused on the leadership behaviors around how do we lead change. And 10 years ago started my own consulting practice, Katie Anderson Consulting. And I really, I work with change leaders in all different industries to really create cultures of learning and continuous improvement. Around the world. And then serendipitously, which has led to my book, for my husband's job, in 2015, we moved to Tokyo, Japan. And I couldn't have been more thrilled to go to the birthplace of the Toyota Production System and Japan, which is the foundation of so much continuous improvement in kaizen. And that, through that, is where I met the subject of my book, Isao Yoshino, who's a 40-year leader. So that was sort of the long journey. And now I'm back working with organizations around the world to create transformative cultures of learning. So there you go. But the path between learning international lives and connecting with people is the thread that unites it all. Right.

And it's always interesting to see where that thread comes because it, it, in your case, took a little, literally a trip around the world and back and then some, right? So speaking of journeys, writing a book is a journey. And even though yours is celebrating, I love the idea of bookaversaries, right? Like people celebrating their, the birthday of a book or something. But Tell me a little bit about, you know, go back to maybe 6 months, a year before the book was released when you were making decisions about the how, not necessarily the content per se, but lots of decisions to make, self-publish, hybrid publish, go for the big house, whatever. What path did you go and why?

Yeah. So to even go back like 2 years before that's where like it got the idea for the book. And I just knew it was sort of like I wanted to create a book with Mr. Yoshino and share leadership lessons. And there's a whole— we can talk separately about the whole process of writing a book because that's a whole nother thing. But it was years of purposeful interviews, leveraging my experience in qualitative research, and then starting to write the book. Concurrently, I was also thinking about how do I bring the book to market and to publish it and all of that. So was working on the book, doing my consulting, and also thinking about how do I, you know, what's the right process. So where I started was probably, probably a year before the book came out, actually, because it's a long process to do the editing and getting the book to market. I talked to a lot of different authors in my space of business transformation, cultural improvement, continuous improvement, and talked to them about their experience, from folks who were, you know, had traditional publishers and, and, you know, had successfully done books that way, to others who had done a combination, others had only self-published.

And so let me, let me pause you there for a minute because I, I love that. And what I find is maybe 5% of people actually do that because being an author is typically lonely. It's a little bit introverted, but I think sometimes people don't realize, like, geez, I'm not the first one to do this, to make these decisions, to go forward, to, you know, to be overwhelmed. Why would I not talk to people that have done it before just to get that insight, good, bad, or ugly, right? And so many people don't. And it's shocking to me because I think, and you'd probably agree, that when you reach out to folks and say, hey, I'm where you were 5 years ago, whatever, would love to hear about your experience, people are so open and welcoming and willing to share.

Absolutely. And, you know, I— so yes, you leverage your network to get information. We don't want to create mistakes, and we learn from different experiences. So I'm always happy to talk to aspiring authors about my, my experience. I was really interested in coming here today to also share some of, you know, my experience and lessons learned. And everyone's situation is different, and I always go back to what's your purpose and what's your goal in writing the book, because it— that will help you it helps influence the decisions that you make about the process to get there. And, you know, I might make different choices now as a more established author versus 3, 4 years ago when I had never published a book. I, you know, published my master's thesis and— Yeah, sure. —papers, which is a totally different world. So where I came to is that what was driving me as my purpose as an author was I wanted, of course, to create impact and wanted people to read the book and get value from it. But I also wanted to contain— retain some control on how— what the process looked like. I had some vision for, you know, some of the formatting of the book, and I didn't want it to, you know, so I had some vision on that. Where it came down to also was what the process of getting a traditional publisher— once I got introduced to a few of them, it seemed like it was going to be still a multi-year process for having to— I had to write a whole pitch to them and a whole marketing proposal and I was just ready at that point. This was, we're probably at the 9-month mark to really like get going to like start. So stay there a minute.

I wanna unpack two things you said. Yeah. So one is the goals, right? So if the goals are to get the book out, to show the world that you have a perspective, to codify your ideas, et cetera, et cetera. Great. Right. Or whatever your goals are to elevate the brand, to drive net new business. There's lots of different goals. Then you have to have a timeline against those goals, right? Yeah. And then you have to have alignment. And then that timeline, I think people don't realize that if you're gonna go traditional publisher, first of all, I think you have to put it the other way. Why would they possibly choose you? Right? And I don't mean that facetiously, but what is it that they're looking for? Because if you put your goals on a piece of paper and theirs, their goals are really easy. So, you know, make more money selling the books than it costs them to produce the books. That's their goal. You know, your goals are, you know, the amount of money that you make directly from a book is almost a rounding error. Even from all the books that you've sold relative to your business, I doubt it's 10% of your revenue.

So there's a lack of alignment with the publisher. Absolutely. And so I think at this point I would have different opportunities because I've established myself as a bestselling author. I've won— my book's won multiple awards, including a very prestigious award in my space called the Shingo Publication Award. Right. Right. It's been translated into 6 languages and more coming. So I've really established myself as a sellable author.

If you're enjoying this episode of Leveraging Thought Leadership, please make sure to subscribe. If you'd like to help spread the word about our podcast, please leave a 5-star review at ratethispodcast.com/LTL and share it with your friends. We're available on Apple Podcasts and on all major listening apps, as well as at thoughtleadershipleverage.com/podcast. So when you think about the disconnect from an alignment standpoint between your goals and the, and a traditional publisher's goals and why, what they're looking for and what you're looking for, it was probably out of sequence at the time for you as a first-time author to go traditional.

Right? Absolutely. And it's, you know, they want to have a lot of information for you, from you, and like your marketing plan. And, you know, I, at this point, being a well-established author, I've demonstrated I can sell books. I've received some really special awards, including the Shingo Publication Award, and my book's been translated into multiple languages. It would be a different case of me going to a traditional publisher now. But as a first-time author, I also was like, oh, this is going to be a really laborious process to even get in the door. Now I did have some introductions to some smaller, more niche publishers in the space, and I ultimately decided— and I had some offers from them, and I ultimately decided not to go that route. Not that that was a bad route, but for me, as we say, aligned with my goals. I really wanted to retain more control over the book and go down that journey. Cool. So, you know, I just decided that what they were offering me, I would be able to create by establishing my own publishing company. Hiring the people to do the books, you know, I think self-publishing often gets a, you know, people think you're just like work, do slapping up a Word document onto—

Yeah, right, right, right. People don't realize that. Yeah. No, I, I, I think the old school self-publishing looked like, you know, the 4th grade class project or something. And today there's no excuse for anything less than, you know, perfection and, and professionalism in terms of the look and the feel and, and all that. And I think the other advantage that you sort of alluded to is time. You know, it takes time to write a book, takes time to edit a book. Those things take time, but the time to market can be accelerated when you're self-publishing and you have more control. You know, if you have a vision for layout, look, feel, cover, all these other things, you don't answer anybody.

Absolutely. And I like to say, you know, instead of saying I self-publish, like I set, I established a publishing company in the same way that I have other businesses and I hired people to do the professional jobs. To publish professional-level books. And so I just happen to be the person— you know, it's interesting, people say, oh, can we work? What do you think your publisher is going to say about that? And I'm like, well, I can introduce you to the publisher. I'm like, you know, hello, right? It actually has made things a lot easier. I'm the one who decides what to say yes to, the, you know, the international contracts. I was just talking to a large corporation who wanted, you know, some customized books to give out as gifts at an upcoming Well then, and they're like, what do you think your publisher would say about that? I'm like, well, we can— it's an easy process. Let's get this going. So exactly, a lot of benefits to that, you know, going that route, you know. But I also highly recommend to authors that you hire people who have skills in this, because the learning the process of all— you need professional editors, you need someone to navigate all of these publication platforms, because it's, it's just like you don't want to keep making the same mistakes. There's no reason for you to take— make those mistakes or to stumble through it when you can hire people to help you through that process.

Exactly. So now talk about, you know, it's been 3 years, what the book has done. And I don't necessarily care about it in terms of number of units sold, that sort of thing, but what's the before and after and the impact that it's had on the business?

Because that's really the point, right? Absolutely. So there were, you know, I think there's— there were two— a few-fold goals. Like, I genuinely felt this is a passion project of amplifying Mr. Yoshino's lessons and wisdom into the world in the same way that I had the value of being able to sit by his side for years. And then also there was, you know, of course you want, it does amplify your thought leadership. And so for, as it relates to the business and in continuing the impact though that you want for your business also requires, it's not just publishing the book, but it's continuously and relentlessly marketing and publicizing the book and getting it in the hands of people because otherwise you're not having that impact.

So stay, stay there for a second. Yeah. Because I think that's a critical piece. So when you go a traditional publisher or a hybrid publisher, publishers think in terms of publishing cycles, that's a fall release or spring release, whatever the case might be. As a business owner, you don't care when the book was published. Like you, you're spending time every day thinking about how do I get this book in front of these people that line up to the types of clients that I'd like to serve and get it in front of them because that's a great conversation starter, great way for them to get exposed to our way of thinking and what we do, right? And that doesn't, that clock doesn't run out at day 90, right? No, no.

It's a lot of work and effort in, you know, some even traditional published authors said like, honestly, your book publisher isn't doing a lot of the marketing for you. It's really a lot, it's on the author to truly take the leadership on that. And so I saw that first year and also I published in July of 2020. So, height of the pandemic lockdown. So I just went on so many podcasts and webinars and just putting things out there. It was just important. And I, like, I really believed in the message in my book. So it was like that, talking from the heart, not just trying to sell books, but really amplify the stories that I felt just so grateful to be able to put out there and continue in continuing to build on that and then building things in my business that supported because the stories in the book are not my stories, but I'm the one who shaped them and there I can help people take those stories and apply them through the consulting and coaching that I do. So I created, and this is again during the pandemic, online coaching programs for individuals, and that then morphed into doing more corporate work. And now that I'm back in person, my corporate work has expanded dramatically. And also all of my speaking engagements, which were, you know, remote for the first 18 months. And now I've been traveling around the globe. I've been to 10 countries in the last year. Wow. Speaking on multiple pages, both about the book and then the messages and the ways that I help people take those messages and like embody them. And so it's been both a combination of building my brand and visibility and work comes to me because people read the book.

Right. Right. And so, and I, and I think you move from the author role to the evangelist role, which is pretty interesting. Yes. Yeah. Interesting. So any final words you'd have for someone in a situation that you were in 4 years ago to, let's, you know, or, or words to your younger self if this was like a bad homework movie?

Yes, totally. So first, go back to purpose. What is your goal and your purpose of, of writing this book? The reason why it real, in many cases, the book really becomes your calling card and it's like said, then how does it fit with your business? And then align your publication process with those goals. Right. And get the people to help you learn the things that you need to learn and help you with the things that necessarily you don't necessarily have the expertise in so that you can have the impact that you want. Some people just wanna write a book, but if you really want impact with your book, it takes, it's a, it's a much longer journey. And just be relentless and also be passionate about your topic because you're gonna be talking about it for a long time. Yeah.

And don't get tired of it cuz the passion, you know, could wear out after you've been on the 70th podcast telling a similar story to a new population audience because every time you're doing that, it's somebody's first, right? So you have to be mindful of that. Well, this has been great. I appreciate your time, Katie. Thank you so much for coming on and sharing, sharing your journey. Appreciate it. Thanks, Peter.

And people can reach out to me, Katie Anderson, at kbjanderson.com and on LinkedIn as well. So reach out and good luck everyone on your thought leadership and publication journey.

Thank you. To learn more about Thought Leadership Leverage, please visit our website at thoughtleadershipleverage.com. To reach me directly, feel free to email me at peter@thoughtleadershipleverage.com, and please subscribe to Leveraging Thought Leadership on iTunes or your favorite podcast app to get your weekly episode automatically.