Author and marketer Kiri Masters shares dozens of important learnings about her writing and publishing journeys in the latest episode of the Published Author Podcast.

But above all, Kiri’s message is that investing the time to produce great content is essential to cut through the crowded world of entrepreneurial books and content marketing.

In this interview with host Josh Steimle, Kiri details her self-publishing experiences with Amazon and IngramSpark, her co-authoring experience, and working with a ghostwriter. 

TOP TAKEAWAY: CONSISTENTLY GREAT CONTENT CUTS THROUGH NOISE

Kiri is author of The Amazon Expansion: Learn How To Skyrocket Your Sales, Sell Globally And Make Your Brand An International Success and Amazon For CMOs: How Brands Can Achieve Success in The New Amazon Economy, co-authored with Mark Power.

She’s also a Forbes contributor. While she acknowledges that it's helpful to have that Forbes name behind her: “The quality of your content is what really matters.

“People reach out to me, after two years of writing for Forbes, and say ‘Your articles are really thoughtful’. But it's about the content at that stage. So it's a long burn, and very rewarding when you get to a point where it's obviously paying off for you. But that's 1000s of hours of investment to get to this position.”

GROW YOUR BUSINESS, MAKE YOUR MARK

Both Kiri’s books have significantly grown her business, Bobsled Marketing, and have paid for themselves several times over by now. 

She notes that the mark of a successful book is the amount of influence it has in its niche. “What kind of cut through do you have of your tiny little corner of the internet? If you've got a pretty narrow focus like I do, (my book) seems to have achieved a decent level of cut through.”

This “cut through” is seen in the fact Kiri’s often encountering people who have either read or are reading one of books. She met a prospect in San Francisco who pulled the book from her handbag and had chapters marked up with notes. And recently Kiri spoke with a guy on her podcast who had her book on his bookshelf. 

“I've also had people send me photos of them walking around an ad agency in New York, and someone's got Amazon for CMOs on their desk,” she adds.

CO-AUTHORING AND USING A GHOSTWRITER

Kiri decided to work with a co-author on Amazon For CMOs. In part, this option appealed because co-author Mark had a much larger network at the time, and Kiri recognized that between them both they’d be able to create a great book and leverage their networks to promote it. 

They worked with ghostwriter Laura Gale on Amazon For CMOs, and the result was superb. “Working with a ghostwriter while also having a co-author really helped to smooth over any sort of differences in opinion about what the right approach was,” explains Kiri.

“If we had different ideas about a topic in the book, the ghostwriter found a really neat way to bring those together. Or even say, ‘Well, you know, Kiri thinks this and Mark thinks that, and so that works really well in that dynamic’. So, a really good ghostwriter will have a process that they use.”

Kiri shares so much more in this episode, including how she chose the title for her most recent book, book cover design, the amount of effort needed to market a book, why she chose self-publishing, and the role of writing in thought leadership.

LINKS

• Twitter

• Facebook

• Youtube

• bobsledmarketing.com/kiri-masters

• bobsledmarketing.com

• ecommercebraintrust.com

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Josh Steimle

Welcome to the Published Author Podcast where we help entrepreneurs learn how to write a book and leverage it to grow their business and make an impact. I'm your host Josh Steimle and today, our host is Kiri Masters. Kiri is the founder and CEO of Bobsled Marketing, a digital agency that helps established consumer brands grow their Amazon sales channel. Kiri writes a weekly column at Forbes about Amazon from a brand's perspective, she hosts the Ecommerce Braintrust podcast, co-hosts the Amazon for CMOs podcast, and is the author of two books, the Amazon Expansion Plan and Amazon for CMOs. Kiri, welcome to the show.

Kiri Masters

Great to be here. Thanks, Josh.

Josh Steimle

So Kiri and I have been friends for a while. But I've never really gotten your whole backstory Kiri. So tell us a little bit about where you came from how you grew up? And how old were you when you first knew that you wanted to be an entrepreneur and run a business?

Kiri Masters

Well, I'll give you the abridged version with with a couple of stories along the way. So I'm Australian, I'm back in Australia right now after living overseas for eight years in the US and in South America as well. My background was actually in banking, I went straight out of school into a retail bank in Australia and then moved over to New York to work at JPMorgan Chase. And while I was while I had my corporate job, I started a little business on the side selling craft supplies, which was really fun and just baptism of fire, understanding how selling on the internet worked. And eventually, I parlayed those skills that I had with ecommerce and Amazon in particular, to some client work. And I left my corporate job. That was in 2015. And I started a consulting company called Bobsled, which is where we help established branded manufacturers to run their Amazon channel primarily, we do a little bit of work with Walmart and Instacart, too. But um, yeah, I think you know, reflecting back on, when did I know I wanted to be an entrepreneur, it was it was certainly as a evolution over time, I was the kid in the neighborhood selling cookies door-to-door. And like recruiting my cousin's to be in little plays and performances and things like that. So I sort of had those tendencies. But my parents were in their own way, fairly entrepreneurial as well. My mom had an ongoing stint as an Avon lady and my dad had a couple of businesses. He was the local driving instructor and told all my school friends how to drive and then he also had a little business on the side, installing roof insulation, and he would subcontract to me and my brother because we were small, we could get into the, into the tight crevices. So I guess I kind of grew up around I grew up around like some side hustles that both of my parents had.

Josh Steimle

Sure. So I'm curious. In Australia, how much is Amazon a thing there? Is it as big in Australia as it is in the US? Or

Kiri Masters

It's really not. So they launched here in 2017. There was a people were really excited about it, but it didn't launch with the same features that we expect in the US, namely Prime and free delivery. Australia has a population of 25 million people across landmass, it's almost as big as the US. So the the practicalities of fulfillment are not really, you know, it's hard to to get economical here, but that they've certainly invested more in Prime over time, and people do shop there. But it's certainly not as big a thing in in Australia as it is in the US. Actually, eBay is bigger here than than Amazon is.

Josh Steimle

Interesting. So now before you wrote your two books on Amazon, you had another book out there on how to rewire old lamps, right. Tell me a bit about this one.

Kiri Masters

Oh, wow. You really dug into the archives. So that that was that that's a a remnant of my first business which started in very, you know, I said a craft supplies business is really a make your own lamp supply business. That's how I saw that's how I started out as a super specific niche that I got into and Yeah, I did. I put a book out there sort of collecting all my wisdom from from pre-wiring antique lamps. And it actually does pretty well. And there are a few revisions that I need to make. But it's still, you know, I still sell a few copies of that a month, like more than you think.

Josh Steimle

So niche. I mean, I'm guessing you don't have a lot of competition in that space?

Kiri Masters

I don't think so. Yeah.

Josh Steimle

So then what was the inspiration behind writing your two books on Amazon? And by the way, the two books on Amazon came out around the same time. So were they were you working on both of these at the same time? Or what was the story?

Kiri Masters

Yeah, so I was the first one in 2016, the second one last year in 2019. But the the first book, I went back and did a rewrite heroes two later, just because like the content is outdated so quickly, and there were some things where it was, you know, that's just not a strategy anymore, or that program doesn't exist anymore. And that's one of the challenging things about my subject area, is how quickly things change. And your content can be redundant really quickly, which can be good, because then you need to put some follow up content out there, and people are likely to read it because they need to stay up to date. But then there's a decision to make for me, which is to I go back and update that book that's been out there for a few years? Or do I just sort of brand new one? And keep going in that direction?

Josh Steimle

Gotcha. When I looked on Amazon, it showed me the rewrite date, I think, so that's why I'm seeing 2019 for both books. No, but that's, that's a good little tip for our listeners that sometimes you do want to rewrite the book, and you can rewrite it and rerelease it. And that's okay. Especially when you're dealing with technology in a company like Amazon that is changing things so frequently. This is probably something you're going to have to do again in the future, right?

Kiri Masters

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. But that's a good question. For people to think about, what what are they going to do when their contents out of date? Are you gonna address it? Are you going to move on?

Josh Steimle

Yeah, I'm working on a book on LinkedIn right now. And this is one of the problems is that I finished the book. And then I realized, well, now I got to go and update a bunch of stuff before I publish it, and then I update it. And then things change again. And I'm like, at what point do I just pull the trigger and release it even though LinkedIn keeps updating? So tell us a bit more than about the first book? Where did the idea come from? And at what point did you pull the trigger and say, I've got to do this, I've got to write a book, this is going to be important for my business.

Kiri Masters

I'm trying to go back in my time capsule, and and pull together exactly who I was, and what I was thinking way back in 2016. But I've always done a lot of content marketing for both of my businesses is what I sort of naturally was naturally drawn to. You know, what content marketing is free, right? If but doing it really well, is, is very time consuming. And most people don't have the time or inclination or talent to do it. So if you can carve out that time and dedicate yourself to writing or podcasting or YouTubing, or whatever you want to do, then you can really set yourself out in the market. And that's what I did, with both of my companies, very much more of a slow burn, you know, couldn't get an immediate ROI on those. But that's always been my philosophy. And so in 2016, that was I was just a year into business, still gaining credibility in this space. And putting a book out there just seemed like a really great business card to have, like, I've written this book, and there's this, there's a good boost of credibility that comes with that I could pass the book out at conferences and things like that. So it really was a bit of a token into my profile as a as a business person and as the leader of an of a very small (at the time) agency.

Josh Steimle

And then with that book out, then what was the motivation for the second book that you felt like I need to do something extra and something different since you already had the credibility of the first book?

Kiri Masters

Yeah, the second one. The second one was a lot more fun because I actually wrote that with a co author, another Ausie guy who runs an Amazon marketing agency, I guess, but we're technically competitors, but we ended up becoming friends. And he, the second book was much more about business. development. And my co-author Mark Power, he's like, larger-than-life-personality just knows everyone. Or if he doesn't know us, he just finds a way to get to know you. So he has this really great network. And I just thought, you know, it would be great to work on a book on a project with someone like Mark and and learn from him as much as we will learning from the people that we were interviewing. So the the approach was much with the first book, it was much more, here's what I know what we've learned as an agency about these Amazon tactics. And here's how to, you know, is it worth it to expand to Mexico, and here's the numbers around that. Whereas the second book, Amazon for CMOs, Mark, and I went out on, we interviewed a bunch of CMOS and retail executives, and we gathered some themes together. And we compiled those themes, I think there was about eight or so of those eight to 10. And that was the struck that was the foundation of the book. And a lot of our sort of like personal anecdotes and experiences were woven in there as well. So it's a very different type of book and a very different experience going through that process with someone else. And that got an een, it got a even bigger response as well, because Mark has a big profile, I have a much bigger profile now than back in 2016. So we really, were able to amplify each other's voices and audience in a way that we wouldn't have been able to achieve by ourselves.

Josh Steimle

Great. So when you were writing the first book, the lamp book, I mean, like the very, very first book, were there lessons that you learned writing that book that you then took to the second and third book? What were some of those lessons learned?

Kiri Masters

Yeah, well, the first one is, you think that you've written a book when the manuscript is done, you haven't finished with the book yet. That's like the justice of the next, the whole second phase of of launching a book, which is to market it. And that was, that was a lesson I really took away from the first book is there's the writing it and then there's the marketing it. You need to sort of prepare yourself for like, you've just run a marathon and now you need to run another marathon or, or something like that triathlons, or some kind of sport equivalent. That was a huge one, because you need to, you need to pace yourself. And those are two different skill sets and two different project plans that you need to have together. That was a big lesson I took away from the first one.

Josh Steimle

And then going from the second to the third, were there lessons learned there that from the second book that you were able to apply to the third?

Kiri Masters

Yeah, so with the with one super-practical one that comes to mind was around printing and where I got my book printed and what the actual physical copy looked like. I used Amazon's Print On Demand for the second book, the Kindle only for the first one. Kindle Plus, Amazon Print On Demand for the second. And for the third. I just saw too much variance in the quality with Amazon printing the book and I wanted a better quality paperback. So we use Ingram Spark for that printing, which was, which is better, it's still not perfect, there's still some copies where they got the printing wrong. So it really depends what kind of experience you want your readers to have, as well, my husband's a writer as well. He's got a novel coming out. And there's things about writing a novel that I just never even thought about with a nonfiction book like typesetting. And what that experience of reading dialogue is like on a page, you don't think about that with a business book. It's just kind of people scan as headlines and you know, subheadings, and things like that. With a novel. It's sort of like the interior design of the book. It's almost just as important as the front cover. So anyway, but I think thinking about what that experience needs to look like for your readers. For me, it was a lot. Yeah, there was a big difference in quality between book number two and book number three, just because of where I got it printed.

Josh Steimle

And when you say variance and quality, do you mean sometimes people would order it and it'd be a certain level of quality and then the next person would order and they'd get it get kind of a different . . .

Kiri Masters

Yeah! Like The the offset of the I'm not sure if I'm using the right terminology, but like the offset of the printing, like that'd be slightly different model, you know, the margin on the left would be slightly bigger than the margin on the right. That might have also been because of my formatting of it. But that's like the wizard that Amazon takes you through to set up the printing is is pretty limited. So.

Josh Steimle

Yeah, I mean, you would expect that every time you print it, it's a computer file, it should print out the same time every time you print it, right?

Kiri Masters

Yeah.

Josh Steimle

A little bit better experience than with Ingram Spark.

Kiri Masters

Mm hmm.

Josh Steimle

Now, did you do just soft copy with Ingram Spark? Or did you do hardcopy as well?

Kiri Masters

Um, you mean paperback or hardback?

Josh Steimle

Yeah.

Kiri Masters

Just paperback.

Josh Steimle

Okay. And did you do audio versions of your books?

Kiri Masters

I didn't. And that's one thing I would go back and change. As I guess there's nothing stopping me from going back and doing a audiobook of of Amazon for CMOs, the third book, except for the fact that would take three days to do. It's a really tedious process to go through that and, and edit it. What I've heard, is the royalties on an audio book are way better than a than a Kindle or paperback. So financially speaking could be worthwhile. But I think for me, because my topics really quite niche. And it's more of a business development exercise than a moneymaker.

Josh Steimle

Right. You're not asking to make money off the book sales themselves, right? No. So going back to your husband being a writer, as well, was there experience that he had writing novels that you were able to take into your book other than the typesetting? Were there other lessons that he was able to pass along to say, hey, when I write a fiction book, this is how I do it, maybe this helps in the nonfiction world?

Kiri Masters

It's actually the other way around. So I've published three, and he's yet to publish. He published a novella last year, so I'm the one teaching him, actually. But I'm learning from him about the, the quality of a novel needs to be a lot higher, frankly, with a business book, I think he can get forgiven for a lot of little minor issues. And the quality. But with a novel that really needs to grab someone's attention on on an off the shelf. So it's been very interesting seeing that that difference in the in those areas. Something that I'm sure we're gonna get into a little bit more is on the marketing side of things. I've tried to give, give my suggestions around what's going to work there. It's quite a different world with, you know, influencers, and who's going to put your book out and who's going to promote your book, if you're nonfiction versus fiction, that dosn't translate so well, between fiction and nonfiction. But yeah, like the printing and distribution and things like that. That all works pretty much the same.

Josh Steimle

So when your first Amazon book came out, did you have much of a marketing plan put together? What was your thinking on how you would get this out there into the right hands?

Kiri Masters

Yeah, it was. I felt like I was quite prepared at the time and then the then the countdown clock starts. And there's always more to do and more people to follow up with. But it for me, because I didn't have a huge audience at the time, I really needed to hustle with personal connections and getting just a lot of personal outreach to acquaintances and connections and asking them to buy the book and review it and really sort of guerilla marketing kind of stuff, because getting those first reviews on the book is super important. And getting the word out as well, that was around the same time that I started my podcast as well. So I started that after I launched the book, podcast. That was something I did with my most recent book was do a podcast tour. And that was hugely helpful. I'd already been hosting a podcast for two years. Of course, I promoted it there. But then I actually went, I used a PR company called interview connections, they specialize in podcast guest placement, and I used them and that just took an enormous amount of work off my shoulders that I went through with the second book to get on podcasts as a guest and they took care of dozens of hours of work there.

Josh Steimle

That's great. How many podcasts roughly were you on for the second book?

Kiri Masters

Fifteen.

Josh Steimle

And you saw results . . . .

Kiri Masters

Fifteen that they placed me on. And then I had, you know, ones that I already had a personal connection with that I secured myself.

Josh Steimle

Mm hmm. And you saw results from being on those podcasts in terms of book sales or people reaching out?

Kiri Masters

I think so. And that that's the that's the really difficult thing about podcasts is there's no great way to track that. I'm sure there's people out there that have really clever ideas of how to do this, I ran a giveaway on my podcast, where I said, If you leave a review, I'll send you a free copy of the book and things like that tried to track it somehow. But it's not, it just doesn't work. There's this, really, it's really difficult to get any kind of tracking mechanism in with podcasts. But I did anecdotally hear from people say that they'd heard me on this podcast or that one. So I believe that it works. But I'm not 100% Sure.

Josh Steimle

Yep. Yep. attribution gets tough on things like that. So as you were, so let's see, what year did you get into Forbes as a contributor?

Kiri Masters

2018

Josh Steimle

2018. So you had already published your first book, but not the second book? And you're still writing for Forbes? Is that right?

Kiri Masters

Yep.

Josh Steimle

And so having that on your platform? And then what are other things that you've been able to build up before publishing your last book? And have you seen that platform . . . Have you seen that filter through in terms of increased exposure, increased book sales?

Kiri Masters

Well, I'll say first credit where credit's due, I'm an I'm a student of yours, Josh, and it was through your course about becoming a thought leader for publications like Forbes that I actually secured that spot. And it was all about, you know, having there's there's no shortcuts I get asked about this all the time, understanding what you went through when you created that course. . . people always want a curious about how it works. But you need to work hard, basically, you need to put out a lot of content on your area of expertise, you need to have a pitch ready, so that when there is an opportunity, it's ready to go and have that pitch, pitch needs to be perfect. So anyway, that's that's my quick, quick take on on becoming a becoming a contributor, because it comes up all the time. But I couldn't with with Forbes, and any really, you know, top tier publication, they didn't like you out there promoting your stuff, directly. So I couldn't people think that you must get so many leads and such a leg up from contributing to Forbes. And actually, it's doesn't work like that at all, I've been doing it at least once a month, if not several times a month contributing a post there for the last two years. And the best leverage that I get is being able to use my the fact that I've published a post about something interesting on Forbes. And the engagement happens and the momentum happens when I'm then sharing that on LinkedIn. So it's LinkedIn, that's the sort of the linchpin in this equation, which everyone can have a LinkedIn profile and start using that. And you can be, you can be publishing posts on LinkedIn, or you can be publishing posts on medium or on your blog or whatever. And using LinkedIn to circulate that and socialize that content. in just the same way that I did it for Forbes, it's, it's helpful to have that Forbes name, but the quality of your content is what really matters. And that's, that's what people reach out to me now, after two years of doing that, to say, your articles are really thoughtful, or, you know, it's it's about the content at that stage. So it's a it's a, it's a long burn, and very rewarding when you get to a point where it's obviously paying off for you. But that's 1000s of hours of of investment to get to that position.

Josh Steimle

That's interesting your experience with Forbes. And then LinkedIn was very similar to my own. I wrote 164 articles for Forbes over a three year period. But then when I went on LinkedIn and started posting my content there, I got more engagement, more attention. And I eventually switched my focus to LinkedIn. And it was funny because I was saying the same thing that you just said, anybody can post on LinkedIn. And yet everybody wants to be on Forbes. They think that's the big time but once you have the credibility of Forbes, there's not a lot of traffic. But I mean, there is for some people, but for

Kiri Masters

It's mostly, it's mostly my own traffic that I'm sending there. Right? So yeah, you're totally right. It's not it's not a, it's not gonna go golden key to untold riches. Yeah.

Josh Steimle

So with your books, then Have there been clients that have come to your company as a direct result of the books? Can you tell us about any experiences you've had where the books have directly led to new business for you?

Kiri Masters

Yes, like it definitely has. And this is something that, again, it's hard to measure, we probably could do a neater job of tracking this in our CRM, like anytime someone mentions the book, tag it somehow. But it comes up quite a lot. And I remember I was in a, I was in San Francisco for a presentation I was doing at a business accelerator, and I met up with a prospect in San Francisco, of this company, like a cleaning products company, everyone know, and this CMO or whatever title was, at the time, she pulled out my book from her handbag, and it was like, I've got your book and I've like seal my markups in the margins. I'm so glad that you printed it so big, because like I really needed that writing room. And that was that was a really great visceral sort of experiences. Someone like had my book and had been like marking it off on the commute. So yeah, and then sometimes I'll sit I spoke with a guy a couple of weeks ago as a guest on my podcast talking about some very technical software topic. And he was like, I've got your, your book on on my bookshelf right behind me. And then I've also had people send me photos of they'll be walking around an ad agency in New York, and someone's got Amazon Expansion Plan on their desk. So it's, um, you know, it's like this tiny little corner of of retail and commerce. But I guess like within the important thing is, what kind of cut through do you have of your tiny little corner of the internet. If you've got a pretty narrow focus like I do, it seems to have achieved a decent level of cut through, even though I'd say, just a wild estimate, probably only like 2000 or 3000 people have read the book. But that's still a lot of people in my niche. So yeah, I think that that that perspective is is helpful. You don't need mom and dad reading it. You just need people who are important to your business reading it.

Josh Steimle

Right. And in your case, when you were writing the books, were you thinking, hey, if just one client reads this and signs up, it's all worth it, or to clients, or five clients or 10? Did you have any sort of number in your head of what it would mean for this to be worth the effort?

Kiri Masters

Yeah, well, the you, you can do that. You can do the math and figure out how much is it costing me to work with, we were, Mark and I worked with a ghostwriter. And we split that cost, we split most of our costs. We had a launch party in New York, and we split the cost of that. So you can figure out like, what's your average deal that you do with a client? And how many of those deals would you need to do to get back the cost of doing the book? The time that you spend on the book might be a different question, but you could that's pretty easy math to figure out. So I would, I'd say just based on the number of people that have come through the book, or whose decision has been influenced by the book, it would have paid itself off several times over.

Josh Steimle

That's great. Both books. Because I know your last book was released pretty recently. So do you feel like you've already done the return on investment on that one, too?

Kiri Masters

Yes. Yeah, I think that was that hit also at a different slightly different audience. The first one was more of a how to and the second one was more aimed at a executive audience. And that was a bit more philosophical but a bit more . . . It wasn't necessarily how to he was his the here's the questions and issues and opportunities to think about, rather than and frameworks rather than here's how this program works and how to enroll your products in this country.

Josh Steimle

So talking about your last book, because you had the most experience as an author on the last book, and you said you worked with a ghostwriter. You also had a co-author. But tell us a bit about the process of writing that how did you work through the idea the title The outline how did you develop that book? Do you have any sort of framework? Or was it more just you just made it happen? Yeah, so

Kiri Masters

it's if you work with a ghostwriter, it's still a lot of work. And I would definitely recommend working with a ghostwriter. If you, especially if you don't have a lot of experience writing a lot of content and holding yourself to deadlines.

Josh Steimle

Or even if you do, it's still helpful.

Kiri Masters

Yeah, well, yeah, exactly. Yeah, exactly. And in, in my case, working with a ghostwriter, while also having a co author really helped to smooth over, you know, any sort of differences in opinion about what the right approach was, or, you know, if we had different ideas about a topic in the book, then she found a really neat way to bring those together, or to like, even say, Well, you know, Kiri thinks this, and Mark thinks that, and so that works really well in that dynamic. So, a really a good ghostwriter will have a process that they work with you on. For me, what it looks like was to do a series of interviews, to talk about to flesh out the outline. And then for each of the chapters to flesh out one of the arguments here one of the examples that you can share, you really need to bring things to life with examples and anecdotes. So teasing those out, you know, what, what would be the opposing point of view for this? You know, they have these questions are designed to open you up on a topic and get that context out of you. So yeah, big thumbs up for working with a with a ghostwriter. If you need that kind of discipline.

Josh Steimle

Why did you decide that CMOs, were going to be the ideal audience that you would target because you call it out in the title, it's amazon for CMOs. And you could have said, Amazon for marketers, or Amazon for all sorts of other people, but you chose CMOS, and it kind of screams out of the cover, right? Because CMOis so big on the cover, which is great. If you're a CMO, you see that you're like, Okay, this book is written for me. But how did you decide on the CMOs versus all the other different people you could have targeted?

Kiri Masters

Well, it's aspirational. So most of the people reading the book are not CMOs, they're one of the CMOS, or there might be a CFO who wants to understand the world of the CMO their counterpart a little bit more. So it was the working title for a little bit. But more we got into it like this is actually really good title, like, everyone who's under a CMO wants to be the CMO, and CMOS all want to know what the other CMOS are thinking about. So it did actually end up being working quite well, because it's aspirational.

Josh Steimle

And then when it came time for a cover design, how did you work on that? Did you go hire a cover designer? Did you do it yourself?

Kiri Masters

We put a project out on 99 designs, and got a lot of a lot of ideas back and whittled it down. It was? Yeah, that's a that's a challenging, challenging part. I think something that some authors do really well is have a couple of concepts and then put it out to that audience and say, Look, I've got a couple of options I'm working with and give, give the audience a little bit of a stake in the project as well. But it's been what they can put a bit more of a stamp on it. I'm not sure if we ended up doing that or not that. Yeah, I think having a few options to choose from is is a great idea.

Josh Steimle

Mm hmm. And did you hire an editor as well to go over it?

Kiri Masters

No, that was something that our writer helped us with as well. It's still it's just something that you need to go over so many times. It's really grueling. You've read that sentence 60 times before you've got to read it again. But there's so many things that you find even even after a writer's eyse have gone through it's just it's a bit tedious, but yeah, our writer did did everything there.

Josh Steimle

Mm hmm. She did the editing.

Kiri Masters

Yeah, yeah. So I would recommend Laura Gale is her name if people have a project. She's pretty high-end, but she has a great process and I worked with her a couple of times now.

Josh Steimle

How long did writing each of your books take?

Kiri Masters

Let's see about three to four months.

Josh Steimle

Three to four months for the writing. And then from conception to the day that you had it in your hands printed and published?

Kiri Masters

Six or seven months.

Josh Steimle

And that's the joy of self-publishing, right?

Kiri Masters

The joy of self publishing and, you know, occasion this, there's less of a stigma around it now, that's for sure. Especially with nonfiction books, and especially with subjects that change so quickly, because I think I was asked like, less than I can count on one hand. But I'd reached out to people to ask if they were to see if they wanted to be in the book, I'd had like a couple of people write back and say, well, who's the publisher. And then they didn't want to be in the book, when they found out it was self published. But that's the reality. If you go through the traditional publishing route, it would be two years before the book is available to buy. And like I said, like, the content just gets stale really quickly, I want to sort of a quick start person, I want to, I have the idea, a commit to doing it, I want to just ship it, and move on to the next thing. You know, I don't want to sit around be let rereading something that I wrote two years ago, and be out there promoting something that I wrote two years ago, it just doesn't, that it would be a very difficult thing for me to do. So self publishing, for me works all the way. And frankly, I just don't, my my area of expertise is not a mass market book, a major public publisher wouldn't pick it up like they, their business model is requires them to be so mass interest, that unless the book is about leadership, or personal development or something, you know, super broad, it's very difficult for them to make the economics work. So I just I've got so many arguments for self publishing. Yeah, I'm not sure. You know, I haven't had a good argument for traditional publishing in a while.

Josh Steimle

Yeah, I mean, unless you're an outsized personality, like Richard Branson, or Hillary Clinton, self-publishing seems to be the route to go for almost everybody. Especially I mean publishers are looking for books that are going to sell 10,000 20,000 30,000 copies at a minimum. But for your business, like you said, you may have sold 3000 copies of your book. But that's way more than you need to justify the expense. But it doesn't cover the expense for a publisher, but it does for you. And so that's where self publishing is great, because it's enabled all of us to get our books out there and get the business results that we want, without having to try to convince a publisher to get on board with a scenario that really doesn't make sense for a publisher.

Kiri Masters

That's right. Yeah, what their interest is financial. And our interest is thought leadership is isn't usually not financial. Yeah. The book.

Josh Steimle

So is there a next book that you've been thinking about writing in the future? Or is this still too close to the last book where you're like, Hey, I'm just happy to have this last one done.

Kiri Masters

I think I've I've recovered, it's been a year, just, like 13 months since the last one launched. So I think I'm starting to get over my PTSD and think about the next one. It's, it's, it's really grueling. I just published a blog because we, at bobsled, we got my Amazon agency, we get inquiries from authors and publishers occasionally to say, how can you help us launch our book? Well, my book? And the answer is no, because I don't make money on books like we just talked about. And so when we can't run an A great ad campaign for a book, that's, you know, there's just no budget there. It just doesn't make any sense. But I did finally, publish a blog post about it thoroughly. People that asked me about marketing recommendations for launching a book. And it brought back all the memories of, well, what did I do and what what what tactics works. And every time you go, you go back and sort of watching my husband's progress here. And the way that the system changed, the system has changed. So you, especially if you're writing a book, even if you're writing a book a year, things change a little bit every time. But yeah, I think I'll go back for another try. within the next couple of years. Yeah.

Josh Steimle

Well, great. Thanks so much for coming on. Kiri. Is there any question that I didn't ask that you wish I would have asked or Any last words for our audience?

Oh, yeah, just to go back to the the ghostwriting thing. It's, it might seem like an easy way out or a bit of a kind of like you're cheating on the process. But there are so just so many things for you to manage on the marketing side with the manuscript itself with the content with the ideas for the content, socializing the ideas, you need to get help somewhere. And my recommendation for anyone that asks me, as appear is pick what pick where you're going to outsource, because you absolutely need to outsource somewhere. So with with my most recent book, I got help with the writing. And I got help with the podcast to her to hugely time consuming areas. And then the other thing I would say about working with a ghostwriter is it's still your you talked about this before the show. It's still your thoughts. It's still your original IP. And I read when I when I read the manuscript, I'm like, Oh, that is something that I have said like word for word, something that I said during one of the interviews with, with Laura. So absolutely is what you say and your ideas, but you just didn't type them up and figure out exactly, you know, where to put them in, in a paragraph. So, yeah, I think that there should be less. You know, judgment around that. I don't think there is a tremendous amount of judgment anyway. But yeah, figure out where you're going to outsource because you won't get the book done on the timeline that you want to without sacrificing personal relationships and things like that.

Josh Steimle

But yeah, people have this misconception that a ghostwriter comes in and just writes your book for you. But they can't, they have to pull that information from somewhere. And they do that through interviews, or emails, or all sorts of content that you've already created. But where a ghostwriter is great is that they know how to craft that into a book, they know how to organize the information. Whereas for people listening to this, who might be thinking, Oh, I want to write my first book someday. You don't have the book writing experience. You might even have writing experience, but you don't have book writing experience. And that's where a ghostwriter helps out is they know how to organize that information and present it in the right way in a book form. And that can be extremely helpful for anybody, including authors who do know how to write a book.

Kiri Masters

Yeah. 100% Yeah, I can write an article but sitting down and writing a full chapter explaining a concept. That's that's a different skill. 100%

Josh Steimle

Yeah. Well, thanks so much, Kiri, for being on with us here, especially since it's late there in Australia. And appreciate you taking your time here. Where's the best place for people to find out more about you and what you do? Yeah,

Kiri Masters

So if you look me up on LinkedIn, my name is Kiri Masters. And that's where I'm most active. You can connect with me there, especially if you mentioned the interview that I'll definitely accept your, your connection requests. And then yeah, if you're interested in the business side of things for me, the Amazon side of things that's bobsled marketing.com.

Josh Steimle

Great. We'll link to all that in the show notes. Thanks so much, Kiri, for being with us today.

Kiri Masters

Thanks, Josh. Have a good one.

Josh Steimle

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