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

Publishers often look at books as seasonal, but an author needs to look at their book as a long term investment.
What should you be thinking of a year before publishing, and how can your book help your business - even years after it was released?

I’ve invited Katie Anderson, internationally recognized leadership coach, consultant, speaker, and founder of Katie Anderson Consulting to join me. At the time of this recording, Katie was celebrating the three year anniversary of her book, Learning to Lead, Leading to Learn: Lessons from Toyota Leader Isao Yoshino on a Lifetime of Continuous Learning.

Katie’s journey into thought leadership literally took her around the world, from California to Australia and then to Japan, where she had the unique opportunity to partner with Isao Yoshino, a 40-year Toyota Motor Corporation leader. This time spent together became the fuel for her book, Learning to Lead, in which she weaves together Mr. Yoshino’s heartwarming and deeply reflective stories of personal discovery and organizational history, and offers her own unique perspective, with the intention of helping others learn to lead and lead to learn.

In the year leading up to publishing the book, Katie had a lot of big decisions to make. Katie shares how she was introduced to traditional publishers both big and small, but ultimately chose to self-publish. We learn the importance of having the goals of the publisher align with those of the author, and how an author can maintain control over the message and look of the book.

Now, three years after publishing, Katie shares the impact the book has had on her business and what she did to ensure it found its way into the right hands. She talks about sharing stories from the book and doing so from the heart, without a focus on selling units, but with a passion for the lessons that can be learned and the impact and value the book can have for others.

Three Key Takeaways:

* You need to have a full understanding of the purpose of your book.  Allow that purpose to influence the choices around publishing, look, and feel.

* There needs to be complete alignment between a publisher and author.  If you can’t find that perhaps another publishing method would better suit you.

* When self-publishing it is still important to hire professionals to do the work you are not good at.  This will ensure a polished end product.