Peter Kozodoy, Honest to Greatness.
After writing his first book last year, speaker and leadership consultant Peter Kozodoy firmly believes in the power of networking to generate awareness and ramp up book sales.
Author of Honest to Greatness: How Today's Greatest Leaders Use Brutal Honesty to Achieve Massive Success, Peter tells Published Author Podcast host Josh Steimle that all of the speaking opportunities he’s received have been either through his book agent or his network.
“It's all been about: ‘Who do I know? How can I reach out and ask for help? How can I get introductions?’
“Over the course of the last four years I’ve probably talked to around 1,000 people on the phone. Just like sending my Calendly link to anybody who talked to me, just to play hopscotch . . . to get all these relationships and put them all in place and get these pick-ups.”
TOP TAKEAWAY: WRITE A BOOK TO GROW YOUR PLATFORM AND INFLUENCE
Peter began writing his book about four years ago, but not to grow his business. His goal was to develop keynote opportunities. “It's about having a platform. So people are: ‘Oh, yeah, we need someone to speak about . . . . we need an expert on, you know, honesty, right? Honesty in society, strategic honesty for results, etc’. And so I want it to be that guy.”
Peter’s strategy is working. Already, he has plenty of gigs for some great national conferences throughout 2021. “These are the things where people hear you, they develop a relationship in an hour, and then they go buy the book.”
In fact, Peter’s take on speaking is that it’s such a successful tactic for him, he’ll use it with his next book instead of PR. “Next time, what would I do differently? I would approach marketing and PR completely differently. I would do zero PR. The number one, two, and three things I would do is just go out and speak, secure speaking gigs, and I’ll probably do podcasts.”
STORYTELLING IS ESSENTIAL
Peter’s advice to entrepreneurs who are starting to write their book is that it’s essential to use storytelling in their writing, otherwise their book will be dry and dull.
“It's gotta be all about story and fun stories. Because otherwise, it's just like: ‘Hey, did you know that honesty is the best policy? I'm going to tell you why that's true’. My goodness, no!
“I’m really inspiring in others the anger that I had by telling them the stories that fired me up. And now they're fired up with me, I'm taking them on that journey,” he explains. “Don't worry about making it pretty. Don't worry about the structure. Worry about what is the story you want to tell. And within that, how do you chunk it up?”
WORKING WITH A TRADITIONAL PUBLISHER
Peter chose to work with a traditional publisher and was picked up by Benbella Books. He says the experience was exceptional and really pushed him to dig deep and produce an excellent book.
When Peter submitted his first draft to his editor, he was convinced that it was awesome. But she sent it back, asking Peter to rewrite 90 percent of the book!
“Now, seeing where the book has gotten to, through multiple rounds of editors, the agent, the publishing house owner . . . all these people lending their perspective and eyes on it, I can't put $1 amount on them. That was invaluable.
Peter freely admits that compared to self-publishing, working with a traditional publisher was much more expensive and a lot more soul-crushing. Even so, he’s glad he did it, because without enduring, he would have “essentially put out a piece of junk that I would have been convinced was great.
The book is my entire platform. If the book sucks, and misses the mark, it really reflects badly on me.”
WRITING A BOOK IS HARD WORK!
Peter cautions that writing a book oneself is incredibly hard work, and that he thinks it should be hard, otherwise as a writer you’re not going deep, getting vulnerable, or pushing yourself out of your comfort zone.
“Writing a book has been one of the most difficult challenges I've ever faced. I've built a multi million dollar company, by the way, and I've also done a triple Lutz on finger skates. So I am telling you, writing a book is really hard!”
Peter explores lots more in this episode, including how to make a pitch to a publisher, and how to bag speaking gigs. It’s an essential listen if you’re ready to write your book!
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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 Steinle. Today, our guest is Peter Kozodoy. Peter is an Inc 5000 serial entrepreneur,TEDx speaker and author of the new book Honest To Greatness: How Today's Greatest Leaders Use Brutal Honesty To Achieve Massive Success. Peter's articles on leadership and entrepreneurship have appeared in Forbes Inc, Huffpost, PR Daily and more. And I also happen to know that Peter knows a thing or two about figure skating. Peter, welcome to the show.
Peter Kozodoy
It's wonderful to be here. And that's true. That's where my origin story is on ice.
Josh Steimle
All right, well give us the origin story. You are on ice. And then what happens?
Peter Kozodoy
Yeah, the quick quick is, I'm, you know, a failed former figure skater; knew in my teens I was going to the Olympics, and also had my sights set on Harvard, neither one of those things panned out. And so I took my two big chips on my shoulder that I developed from those things and built a company in my 20s, you know, started at the bottom, like everyone else, making commercials for local car dealers, which is exactly as glamorous as it sounds, which is not at all. And eventually through many pivots and getting a lot smarter and wiser about business and leadership and success, built that company into a multimillion dollar Inc 5000 marketing agency. Offices in the US and Canada. And then I've taken that and spun out into all kinds of other stuff, keynotes, books, coaching, a tech startup, real estate, I like putting my fingers in a lot of pies. I'm like, I have entrepreneurial ADHD, which I think is a thing, but has not been named by the Psychiatric Institute, but it's coming. It is coming. I think I have that thing too. And I think that every entrepreneur that I know has that thing too. Maybe we can just put a name on it ourselves. What's stopping us? So did you always think of yourself as a writer? Or where did this idea start that hey, I could write a book. Yeah, actually, Yes, I did. I went to an amazing private school for high school outside of Boston called Milton Academy. And they had an Intensive English Program. I mean, we were writing 10 to 12 page, you know, biopsies of novels in like seventh and eighth grade, right? So that at the time, absolutely sucked. It was awful. And then by the time I got to college, I was like, wait, this is I mean, I can crank these things out. So what are we doing here? You know, so I learned that all that ass kicking early on was really, really good. Because it's shocking, Josh, how many people can't write, they can't structure a story. They can't structure sentences and paragraphs in a way that makes sense. They don't have mastery of the language. And if I could pin down one skill that has allowed me to be a successful entrepreneur, I truly believe it has been my ability to write.
Josh Steimle
I love that you're saying that, you know, I'm helping a professor at Harvard Business School right now. I didn't get in either. I got rejected as well. So I'm helping a professor though . . . in his writing, because here's this professor and he's like, I need help with a case study. And I'm like, Well, I'm not a professor. I'm not a researcher. I don't know what this case study is about, like, what do you need help with? He's like, well, you know how to write right? And I was like, Yeah, I can write stuff. He's like, great. Well, that's what I need. Because I don't know how to write and I was like, Yes, there's my in. Yeah. When did the idea for Honest To Greatness come to you? And what was the main motivation? What was the inspiration?
Peter Kozodoy
Okay, so, like all good pursuits in life, the motivation, inspiration was pure ego. I turned 30 . . . by then I had built a million dollar company and it was growing. But I was just not happy with everything I had achieved. I knew there was a lot more. I've always had, like I said, a love of writing. And I see myself as a writer, I see myself as an author right? And I do a lot of this work with entrepreneurs. Now that I coach, it's like, you got to put yourself into honest alignment with who you really are and what you really want. Otherwise, you're out of alignment, just like your car is out of alignment, and it hurts to roll down the street. And you know that that's a big message of the book. And honestly, of course, which, you know, we can get into a little later. But I realized in myself that like, here I am, I am an author to my core. Where's my book, right? There needs to be a book. So I sat down to write a book and I actually sat down to write a marketing book, because that's my background. And I was very passionate about all of the stupid mistakes that some of my clients had made businesses I had studied and made. And I was like, you know, this is ridiculous. So I sat down to write what I thought was a marketing book. Queried 400 literary agents in the business space. Most of them, of course, didn't get back I mean, many of them did get back to me and said, Peter, this is the worst email pitch I've ever seen, you're never going to be a writer, please never email me again, you will never get picked up. Three of them took a meeting, and one of them signed me. And as soon as he signed me, he was like, you know, this is, you know, this is really cool and everything. But this is not a book about marketing. It's a book about honesty. And I was like, oh, clearly, I signed the only literary agent in the world who can't read because it has nothing to do with honesty, I don't know what you're talking about. And of course, you know, he was right, and I was wrong. And as I looked at it, you know, more, my frustrations were really born out of executives and leaders in the world, putting their heads in the sand, you know, not being honest about what was going on in the world, what was going on with people around them, what was going on with themselves, their own biases, and self-limiting beliefs and, and ego. And so, as I fleshed out the book, more and more, it became a lot clearer that this was a bigger concept than just, you know, being you know, honest about you know, each other is really, what do we believe, as a society? Right? You know, where are we? Where are we trying to go? What does it mean that there's all this fake news and scandals coming out? And all these documentaries on Netflix, and where are we going? So that's sort of turned into my keynote and platform, and really the basis of, of everything I do now.
Josh Steimle
So, talk a little bit more to me about the literary agent thing, now that you are on this side of things, looking back, what would you have done differently? Pursuing a traditional deal, going after a literary agent? How would you have approached that whole process differently, knowing what you know, now?
Oh, I thought we only have 40 minutes. There's a lot but that one! What am I wish I had done differently . . . I'm very happy with my decision to go with a traditional publisher, and traditional agent, the book I submitted to my editor, and the first round of editing, I was convinced was awesome. And she convinced me that it was an absolute piece of junk. And now seeing where the book has gotten to, through multiple rounds of editors, and through multiple editors, and all that the agent, the publishing house owner, all these people lending their perspective and eyes on it, I can't put $1 amount on them. That was invaluable. It was much more expensive than self publishing, right? It was much more time consuming, it was a lot more soul crushing. And I'm so glad I did it. Because I would have put out essentially a piece of junk that I would have been convinced was great. And the book is my entire platform, Josh, right. I mean, you know this because you're in this business. If the book sucks, and misses the mark, it really reflects badly on me, right? So I didn't go into it really thinking through that. The only reason why I went traditional in the first place was I wanted a shot at a bestseller list, right? Whether that was going to be on launch, or someday, I wanted a shot at it. And unless rules have changed, you have to be with a traditional publisher to be eligible. So that was the reason why. But it ended up being a real blessing in disguise. And I will add to that this book is not to drive business for like my marketing agency, right? Or my tech company. It's really about keynotes. It's about having a platform. So people are like, Oh, yeah, we need someone to speak about . . . . we need an expert on, you know, honesty, right? honesty in society, strategic honesty for results. And so I want it to be that guy. I'm not a CPA, using it to drive revenue. And that's a piece of my marketing. Like, that's not what this is. I mean, I suppose it is a piece of my marketing, but in a very sort of personal way. Does that make sense?
Josh Steimle
Yeah, totally. So how did the literary agent help you other than helping you shape the book a bit, but they connected you with the publisher? How did that process go pitching for publishers?
Peter Kozodoy
Actually, fairly well. I had a couple different offers. So I was able to pick and choose, I actually turned down a couple of offers that were for more money from bigger publishing houses. Because here I was creating a book about strategic honesty in business. And I felt like the big publishing houses, from everything I had learned from other authors, didn't follow any of those, you know, best practices that I have, culturally, how we treat people, how we treat employees, so on and so forth. So I actually ended up going with it with a smaller publisher. And I'm glad I did, because that smaller publisher was able to flex with me, as things happen in life, right. And we've got deadlines, and we've got an entire book and interviewees and sign offs and all this stuff. And so that that is I think, you know, one of those points, Josh, it shouldn't go unsaid is that it's not like it's not just writing a book. It's all the stuff that you don't even realize goes into a book that you don't learn until after the fact. And I certainly was one of those people. It's like, you got to do all this stuff that has nothing to do with writing the book. So having a guide for that, both with my agent and my publisher, again was I think was invaluable.
Josh Steimle
Yeah, Ryan Holiday . . . And if there's anybody who could self publish and be successful at it, it's Ryan Holiday. And yet he said he still works with publishers because it helps hold him accountable. Yeah, he's he says, If I didn't have the publisher giving me a deadline and a date and giving me some money and saying, you're gonna have to give this back, if you don't get this done, he's like, just wouldn't get it done. So there's that. And then of course, there is all that support that they can provide. So now, one of the objections people have about going with traditional publishers that it takes a lot longer. People say, Oh, it's gonna take you an extra year or two to go through traditional publishers. But if you self publish, you can publish right now. What was that part of the experience like for you?
Peter Kozodoy
This book, from the time I decided, I'm an author, and I need a book, to publishing was four years. So no, it was not a fast thing.
Josh Steimle
But that wasn't all the publisher, right?
Peter Kozodoy
Of course not. It was not a publisher at all. And the counterpoint to that, Josh, is that, although that was a frustrating length of time, I changed over those four years, I changed the book, and the book changed me. And I was able to meet more people and get more stories and habits over time. I again, you know, when I look back, thank goodness, I didn't just rush through that the timing, and the types of interviews, I was able to get in people and endorsements. I mean, you know, Barbara Corcoran endorsing the book, never happens, if I hadn't taken four years, Sharon Lechter writing the foreword, who wrote Rich Dad, Poor Dad, would never have happened, if it hadn't taken all that time, and all the experiences I was able to have in that time. So I actually now you know, when people ask me like about books and putting out books, I tell them, like, think of this, like the slow food movement, you know, and and I want to reiterate this idea that you will edit the book, and the book will edit you truly, if you do this, right. It should be a . . . I believe it should be a soul searching kind of process. And in one, filled with a lot of self-discovery. And ultimately, I've had a lot of gratitude for that process.
Josh Steimle
Cool. I love that we're getting this contrary and viewpoint because a lot of people, they say it's the opposite. But everybody has a different experience. And I love that we're getting yours here. That's a little bit different. Now you got to tell us the Barbara Corcoran story, how did you get her to endorse the book?
Peter Kozodoy
I ended up . . . . one of those things I decided I didn't have was an MBA. So I went back to Columbia to get an MBA. And I was convinced that I needed it because I was probably stupid. And there was a lot I didn't know. And boy was I right. It's amazing what I learned through that experience. And one of the things I got to do is work at one of Barbara's companies, you know, meet her and that was an incredible experience. So I was able to build that connection, and then reach out and ask, she was like, Yeah, sure. Who's kind of simple when you're in people's network. So yeah.
Josh Steimle
That's great. That's awesome. So you've been promoting this a lot. Let's see, what was the release date?
Peter Kozodoy
August 11.
Josh Steimle
August 11. We're recording this December 7. So we're just talking about a few months here. And you've been really busy out promoting this during this year of COVID. So it's not like you can go around and do book signings the way that the studio in the old days. So what has been your marketing strategy? How have you been getting the word out there?
Peter Kozodoy
Well, I tried it all. And you know, you asked me like, what would I do differently? I would approach marketing and PR completely differently. I would do zero PR, I would do close to . . .
Josh Steimle
Did you just say zero PR because you tried it and it didn't work?
Peter Kozodoy
I'm a lot . . . you know, here's the thing, Josh, like, we don't want to confuse ego with results. And this is something that I've had to learn in my entrepreneurial journey and that I coach other people . . . I was just, I was just literally an hour ago a panelist because I've written for you Inc, and Forbes and that for a startup competition. And they're all so keen on getting press and I to remind them like, so some Forbes contributor writes about you, then what you think your phone's just gonna ring off the hook, because you're featured in Forbes? Doesn't exactly work that way. So, you know, I think there's a misconception that, you know, you have all this PR and then so all these people are like, Oh my gosh, that's exactly the book I need and they buy. It doesn't happen that way. It hasn't happened that way with other authors. I've talked to you or me. I had other authors say like, Peter, yeah, you do all the press you want it's not gonna really matter. And of course, me being me. I was like, Well, I'm gonna try it anyway. Right? Because I'm an entrepreneur and I have to make mistakes myself like an idiot. So you know, I got a great pickups. Right? I was. I did an eight-hour satellite radio tour. I was on news stations in California and Chicago and here in the northeast, and like, great stuff. Did it move the needle? I would say probably not at all, right? So I would not do that. Again. I would focus a lot less on any sort of like content-driven social media, that sort of stuff. Unless you're a Kardashian, people just don't care. That's what I found. And so what I would do is I would spend a lot more time developing relationships with maybe not Kim K, but some, you know, other influencers that are willing to pitch the book on my behalf. that those are the types of things that did move the needle for me. Other influencers, saying this is awesome, go buy this book. I did a ton of podcasts. How much did that move the needle? I don't know, probably not as much as I'd like to think. But This one, this one's gonna blow it. That's the . . . .right? You know, what happened when I logged into my Amazon dashboard was they were like, Who are your top people? List was empty. Josh Steinle. The only one on; it was amazing. So thank you for that! But one of the problems with books and book sales is that there's little to no visibility on tracking, right? I have no way of knowing . . . it took me months for Amazon to even tell me my ebook sales. Ebook sales, Josh, that are on Amazon's platform! It's not like they don't know this data. Right?
Josh Steimle
Right. It's crazy.
Peter Kozodoy
The visibility is really crappy. I'll tell you probably the number one, two, and three things I would do is just go out and speak, secure speaking gigs. I have a ton of I've been doing a ton in Q4 here. I have a ton of speaking gigs for some great national conferences throughout 2021. Those are things where people hear you, they develop a relationship and an hour, and then they go buy the book, right? And by the way, I'm getting paid to pitch my book. That's awesome, right? So . . . but if you were listening earlier, you would pick up like that was the whole point of the book, right? Not to build a marketing practice, but to go out speak, inspire people, consults, that sort of thing.
Josh Steimle
Yeah. So you've got these different buckets, you've got your business bucket, you've got your public speaking buckets. These are all places that you can take the attention from the book, put it into that bucket, turn it into revenue, do you have any other buckets?
Peter Kozodoy
Workshops. I do corporate workshops, like Vistage, EO, Companies.
Josh Steimle
Okay. So a lot of the people listening to this do not have experience as a paid speaker or doing these workshops. How does one get started in that? I mean, let's say that they actually write the book and they publish the book first. And then they're saying, Well, wait a second. Now, where did the speaking engagements come from? What's kind of the first step there?
Peter Kozodoy
It's such a chicken in the egg thing. You know, and this is one of those things I went through when I . . . you turn 30 and figured out and done enough in my life, I just simply sat down, asked myself like, Okay, if I'm the person that I think I am in my head, what are all the things that I have? Right? Well, someone who's an author and a speaker, someone who gets paid to do workshops and consult, they have a website, right? They've probably gotten articles picked up in Forbes and Inc, and so on and so forth. They probably have a TEDx talk, they probably have a book that you know, and so on, and so forth. And so I literally went about assembling that jigsaw puzzle, one painful step at a time. And all of the speaking opportunities I've gotten, and even the ones I'm getting now through my speaker, agent, the agent, I got too through my network, it's been, it's all been about, who do I know? How can I reach out and ask for help? How can I get introductions, I mean, over the course of the last four years . . . I'm 34 now, Josh, I've probably talked to 1000 people on the phone. Just like sending my Calendly link to anybody who talked to me to play hopscotch, to get all these relationships and put them all in place and get these pickups. And, I mean, it's a lot of work. This is a lot like writing a book has been one of the most difficult challenges I've ever faced. I've built a multi-million dollar company, by the way, and I've also done a triple-lutz on finger skates. So I am telling you, like writing a book is really hard. And you know, I think it should be hard. I think it's easy to probably not get going deep enough, getting vulnerable enough, pushing yourself outside your comfort zone enough.
Josh Steimle
We should say it's hard to write a good book.
Peter Kozodoy
I guess so, right. Any idiot can write a bad book. Yeah. Well, I hope this one's good. I don't know. I mean, I'm biased. So don't ask me.
Josh Steimle
Yeah. So take us through your process, your writing process? How did you start to outline this book, flesh out the ideas? A lot of people get hung up at that stage where they say, I've kind of got an idea for a thing. But now what do I do with it? Do I try to come up with a title? Do I do an outline? How do I come up with an outline? What was that process? like for you?
Peter Kozodoy
Yeah. Okay. So I . . . you know, for years, right? So I wrote and rewrote this book, at least four times. Chapters that I had at the end ended up being at the beginning and everything got switched around, and it was divided into parts that were the wrong parts I read divided into other parts like . . . that all to me, needed to happen in the editing process. And I feel like one mistake I probably made is I hummed and hawed too much about those structural-type things, right? I had a great editor who told me exactly how you know, a reader who's not in my own brain would like this to be structured. And it was like, Oh, yeah, that makes sense, right? So what I recommend to, you know, writers starting the journey is don't worry about any of that. Don't worry about making it pretty. Don't worry about the structure of it. Worry about what is the story you want to tell? Right? And within that, how do you chunk it up? So like you, as an essence, want to take a reader from A to Z, right? You want to take them somewhere on a journey, right? What are all the checkpoints that you need to tell them? What are all the stories you want them to know? And then just take the one you're most excited about and sit down and write it? You know, just sit down and start writing? It doesn't matter if it's crap, doesn't like, does not matter? And that's all I did. I kept picking up stories, bigger stories, and then I'd see gaps and be like, Oh, I need a story about sales, like honesty in relation to sales. Where do I get that? I'm sitting on the couch watching CBS Sunday morning and Charlotte McCourt, an 11-year-old girl scout, sells 30,000 boxes of Girl Scout cookies, using a brutally honest sales strategy. It was like oh my gosh, I like turned to my wife. I was like, that's my . . . I need that. That's my chapter. Right? So because I knew what I was looking for. Now, that raises an interest . . . that ties back to my like, let this take time. Because sometimes you don't even know what you're looking for, until you're looking for it. And then try-and I failed at this but eventually succeeded-try not to get angsty about like, oh, where am I going to find this, I need it. It's like anything else in life, really . . . law of attraction, like you just put it in your head, go about your daily business, it will come to you. And I have had a lot of like, moments where I'd be like, I have a block. I don't know what to write about. Like, I don't know how to finish this chapter. And eventually, I would just let it go and forgive myself. Like, you know, I don't have it right now. It'll come to me, right. And sure enough, five days later, I would you know, wake up at 7am be like, Oh, my God, I know exactly how to finish this. And I would sit down and do it. Because I knew if I waited till 10, it would be gone. Right? So part of what I learned and what I will do in the next book, if I'm that masochistic, is to just let the book come to me a little more, right? Try to take some of that pressure off.
Josh Steimle
Did you have one of these writing schedules where you woke up every morning and said, I'm going to write for an hour or I'm going to write two pages? It sounds like it was more like when you got the urge you did it?
Peter Kozodoy
Totally It doesn't work for me. You know, I'm gonna sit there, I'm gonna force it, then it's forced. It's like, you know, when you see a speaker, and they've memorized every word, and they're trying to like, remember, it's like, the heck is wrong with this person? Right? You sense it in the communication? So I'm a big believer in like, let the book flow through you. And people will sense that, right? They'll sense it's natural and passionate, and all those things.
Josh Steimle
Cool. So with your publisher, did your publisher connect you with an editor for the book? Did you go out and hire an editor on your own? What was the editing process like?
Peter Kozodoy
They took care of all that. They introduced me to my amazing editor, Debbie. And Debbie was very kind. I sent the first draft to her. And like I said, I was so excited. I was like, This is so awesome. I am the man, and attached to my docx. And she said, Okay, I'll be back to you in 14 days. She got back to me in 10 days. So Peter, wow, this is really good. I just need you to rewrite chapters two through 11. Well, there are only 12 chapters in the whole book, Josh. So I was like, okay, and she provided really, you know, really strong editorial guidance. And so I spent two weeks crying to myself in a corner. And then I, you know, said, Okay, well, I gotta figure this out. So I went about the process all over again, you know, with her comments in mind, which were really reader-driven. Right, it was, what's the reader? What . . . where's the again, what I said, you really where's the reader at? Where are you trying to take them? What are all the checkpoints in between? I really hadn't thought about it that way. Because why we're all in our own heads, right? It's like, I already know what I know. But I, as an author, it's my responsibility to take myself back to the time before I knew and start there.
Josh Steimle
Another thing that people who are advocates of self-publishing, say about traditional publishing is that you give up control. You don't get to choose the title or you don't like the book cover? Tough, because the publisher is going to decide what they like. How did you feel about control issues with the publisher you worked with?
Peter Kozodoy
Well, I, you know, one of the reasons why I chose an independent publisher and not a big publicly owned one is for that reason, I wanted more of a collaborative relationship. I want it to be able to push back on things, you know, Wiley doesn't care, they're gonna be like that's your title. And there is no back and forth. So, you know, that was part of my strategy of selecting the right publisher, and they were very gracious, even when my ideas were not good. They were very gentle and their reminder that they do a lot of books every year. So they probably have the, you know, the right, the right mentality, and they did.
Josh Steimle
Cool. What were some of the other benefits that you got from working with the traditional publisher? Are there any others that come to mind?
Peter Kozodoy
Clout. Yeah. clout. People who and you know, you'll have to excuse me, Josh, cuz I know you're aself-publishing proponent, but there are people I've met, especially other authors in the know who've done this not. They'll say like, oh, did you self-publish? I'm like, No, I was published by benBella. They're like, Oh, all right. Cool. It's sort of a respect thing.
Josh Steimle
You know, credibility, little more authority.
Peter Kozodoy
Yeah. It's like, oh, you're in the club. There's like a club of authors, right? Oh, you wrote a book. That's cool. And then there's like, Oh, you got you like you got an agent? You've got a publisher you? All right. Yeah, respect. So I, you know, because I have my massive ego I told you about earlier, that was important to me. And I really liked that. And I knew I wanted to do more books. And I knew I wanted to do more books. That could be a big book, they talk in the industry about a big book, a big book title, a big book look, right, like going over this cover. It was like, what two big books look like? What does start with? What do . . . you know, what a Brene Brown's books look like? You know, all these things. What do they sound like? This is something that I think perhaps only a publisher can give you that frame of mind.
Josh Steimle
Sure. So you mentioned that you might take it upon yourself to write another book someday. Do you know what the next one is going to be about?
Peter Kozodoy
It's giving me heart palpitations, but I actually do know what the next one is going to be about.
Josh Steimle
Tell us about that.
Peter Kozodoy
It's going to be about structuring your personal life, like a business does, like a business is structured. Essentially dividing your life into a sales department, a marketing department and operations department, a customer service department. And really looking at all areas of your life and optimizing them for profit, you know, and profit, could be financial, of course, but could also be time, could also be passion. And it could also be family, it could be all these other things that I think many people don't intentionally design their life to maximize. Yeah, I'm really I've been very excited about that topic for like, eight years . . .I started kind of ruminating on this, because people make decisions on emotion. People make decisions on what their mother wants, and their spouse wants and the kid wants and all these other things, and they get lost. And that makes me extremely sad. You know, and that's another thing I tell folks - it's like, what are you p****d off about? What do you want to say to the world if you can grab them by the throat? That's your book! Write about that. Because your passion will come through on that. And that's not to say, look, if you're I use the accounting example, right? If you're an accountant, and you want to use a book for credibility, and to drum up business, that is absolutely a self published route. Right? I applaud that all day long. And that doesn't mean that you just have to write a book about accounting. In fact, I would argue that the more powerful book in there is the human side of the equation, you know, how accounting can change lives, how it does change lives. How to think with a mentality that could upend, you know, everything you believe and change your life. And that is going to ultimately be a much more powerful and endearing and effective book, no matter whether you're self-published, regularly published, whatever.
Josh Steimle
So who was the audience for Honest To Greatness, the ideal audience, the ideal reader, and how does that differ with your next book?
Peter Kozodoy
Yeah. So we segmented this into entrepreneurs, frontline employees, middle managers, and executives of big companies. And in part three of the book, I spell out how do you use strategic honesty to achieve results in your life and of course, in business? And we actually have a chapter, you know, for each of those. So we went in with that approach in mind, and that made it a little easier for like, say, my podcast team to go out and find podcasts that aligned with those markets, right? So, you know, I think the lesson in there is think of . . . you had a great question, think about your target market, write for them. The next one, I want to be for everyone. You know, it's really about life design. So that was this was much more business-focused, I want the next one to be much more lifestyle.
Josh Steimle
Now people say, Oh, if you're targeting everyone, you're really targeting no one. What's your response to that?
Peter Kozodoy
I mean, it's just not . . . in books, like I said, there's a big book, right? If you look at Simon Sinek, I mean, who does he write his books for Leaders Eat Last and Start With Why, it's for everybody, right? And the interesting thing within that is publishers and agents, they have no idea what books are going to do well, not one idea. They don't know whether a book is going to take off or not take off or whether Snoop Dogg is going to pick it up and love it and share with Martha Stewart and go on TV about it. Those things are luck, right?
Josh Steimle
They're just playing a numbers game.
Peter Kozodoy
They totally are, you know, and they're going to bring on a portfolio of writers they think of a decent chance, and they're going to put their money on the roulette table, and they're going to see what happens, and hopefully one does well. This, by the way, is the same model as a venture capitalist, right? You bring on 100 companies . . . 95 are going to fail, one's going to become a billion-dollar deal. And you don't think about the ones that fail, right? So that's the mentality.
Josh Steimle
And then you only talk about The success stories and you make yourself look smart.
Peter Kozodoy
Yeah, there's that. Yeah, exactly. So, you know, I don't think it is good or bad. It's just kind of the way it is. And so you know, I think akin to that, if you're going to go get a publisher, you got to think about how do you make the case that you have a good chance of getting books sold, you know, through your social media, following through your own PR company that you own, through your, you know, blog that you have reached a million people through whatever. Those platform things are important.
Josh Steimle
Mm hmm. So how is the book done in the three months or so that it's been out?
Peter Kozodoy
I don't know. Ask me in 10 years. You know, it's sold a couple of 1000 copies. And I'm getting picked up for workshops and speaking gigs and keynotes around the country. So it's achieved its goal. Is it a New York Times bestseller? No. I know a lot of New York Times bestsellers that bought their way onto the list. I wrote a book about honesty, that wasn't really going to work too well. So I didn't do that for obvious reasons.
Josh Steimle
Yeah, that'd be great. And I know books that have sold half a million copies and never made it onto the New York Times bestseller list. So . . .
Peter Kozodoy
Exactly. So the thing is, like, what's the book gonna do for you? You know, I'm sure you talk about this to clients all the time. Like, what's the goal here? What are you doing this for? My goal? Satisfy ego, check, right? Write a book that I think could help people. Yeah, I've seen those, done that. And build a platform for myself to go speak and workshop, check. So yes, it's been a success.
Josh Steimle
All right. Now let's talk cover design, because your book is yellow. And I happen to like the color yellow.
Peter Kozodoy
Thank you.
Josh Steimle
But most of the books on my shelves back there are not yellow, why did you choose yellow?
Peter Kozodoy
It was down to yellow, bright green or bright orange. I wanted it to stand out on a shelf. And actually, there are hints of green in it. But we wanted it to be in your face. You wanted to stand out. So that rolled out white rolled out black rolled out anything that . . . . we talked about blue, you know, True Blue honesty, but there's a lot of blue books, blues used an awful lot. So, settled on yellow.
Josh Steimle
Got it. What were some of the other things that you learned about cover design working with your publisher.
Peter Kozodoy
A big title, a big book has a massive title. Like all you see here is Honest To Greatness. Other things I learned about covers? My name is the same size as Barbara Corcoran's and Sharon Lector's. Right? They are the ones who . . . when someone sees it on the shelf, they don't know who I am. They can't even pronounce my name. But they know who they are. You know, Sharon Lechter. Is that like Barbara Corcoran? Shark Tank star. Sharon Lechter. Number one New York Times bestselling author of Rich Dad Poor Dad, that helps. So you know, when it comes to the cover, think in terms of credibility. You know, everyone . . . . I'm sure you have a lot of listeners who have a big ego like I do. People don't know who you are, they don't know who I am. They don't know who anybody is. But they know who you know, some celebrities are. So work your network, try to find someone who will write a foreword for you or give yourself an endorsement that's meaningful, and put it on your cover. That's my advice.
Josh Steimle
So we've already talked about a lot of lessons learned and tips here. Are there any other big ones that you learned on this book, that . . . . things that you're saying for my second book, I'm not going to do that, and I will do XYZ?
Peter Kozodoy
I think when I do a second book, I'm just going to do a lot less, a lot less, I'll probably do podcasts. And I would direct my arrows toward speaking and workshops, and really working networks, I guess . . . . do workshops or Vistage trying to and so there are networks you can tap into that will have you come and speak to all sorts of things and you can exchange those services for books sold, you know, so I've done that a little bit, you know, hey, pay me in, in books and so they'll by 100 books or 500 books or whatever. And that's useful. But I would do a much more grassroots approach like that, and just forget all the big marketing, publicity, all that.
Josh Steimle
What about the actual writing of the book? What are some of the other lessons learned?
Um,
I think,
Peter Kozodoy
see, now I've learned so much about structure. So you know, if you're a first time author, as I said earlier, I don't recommend you even bother thinking about it, just write what you think is, you know, about the right direction, let an editor worry about that. But now, now that I've done it, and I really understand the structure, and what the editors are looking for, I'd probably spend 80% of my time nailing down the structure and then I would just fill it in quickly and easily, you know, and make that the hinge point. That's something that you know, of course, didn't even expect or think about going in. But I'd be much more concerned about that the other way around, because I know how editors think now.
Josh Steimle
There's another author, Josh Lerner, out there, he talks about creating a fat outline. He says you create your thin outline first, which is just your rough structure, and then you start filling it in with more details. And then you get to this fat outline that's like 50 pages of solid content. And by that point, then you can just fill in the blanks. It kind of sounds like what you're advocating is along those lines.
Peter Kozodoy
But you know, again, for my second book, I will absolutely do that. My first book, I would have lost a lot. I think if I had done that, you know, the free flowing, writing and telling stories actually gave me a lot of details and insights and fun that I wouldn't have done if I were so concerned about the operational protocol of the book. Do you know what I mean? You know, I think it loses a little bit of creativity, perhaps, and sort of free flowing like, what do I really mean by that and get the words from my head out? And not so concerned about you know, how it sounds I gained a lot from that.
Josh Steimle
Speaking of storytelling, this is one of the things that I push a lot with the writers that I'm working with is story, story, story. This is what gets people attention. What's your philosophy on story within a business book?
Peter Kozodoy
100%. It's gotta be all about story and fun stories. Right? You know, to talk about honesty, I take you back to ancient Egypt. And then we talk about ancient Rome. And we talk about scandals like Theranos and the fake number one restaurant on TripAdvisor called The Shed and like all these scandalous, juicy things to get people involved. Because otherwise, it's just like, Hey, did you know that honesty is the best policy? I'm going to tell you why that's true. And it's like, oh, my goodness, no, right? I don't even get to all that stuff. I’m really inspiring in others the anger that I had by telling them the stories that fired me up, right? And now they're fired up with me. I'm taking them on that journey. So yeah, it's critical.
Josh Steimle
Great. Well, once again, the book is Honest To Greatness by Peter Kozodoy. Where's the best place for people to find you, Peter?
Peter Kozodoy
Come hang out, have an honest conversation at honesttogreatness.com. That's to honest to greatness.com. There, you can take the free 21-question honesty quiz, which will tell you your honesty profile, if you're brave enough to find out. And that's a good way for you to get started in the content. And of course, pick up a copy of the book everywhere books are sold. Grab one for your colleagues at work. I do not recommend that you hand one to someone and like wink at them and like oh, you really need this one! That does not go over well. I do not recommend that.
Josh Steimle
You got you got to gift it without them knowing slip it on their desk when they're not looking.
Peter Kozodoy
Exactly. Yeah. Where did this come from? I don't know.
Josh Steimle
Yeah. Hey, real quick on that quiz. Do you look at the results of those? Do people err you ever get any submissions where you're like, wow, I gotta stay away from this person. This is a pathological liar, here?
Peter Kozodoy
They are anonymous. I don't look at them, yeah. It's just for you to get involved in how to think about you know, what does honesty mean? Do I even exemplify . . . here's what's interesting. Josh, everyone thinks they're honest, right. Everyone thinks . . . also thinks they're self aware, self awareness and honesty - those two things that everyone wants, most think they have, and few actually possess. So take a look at the quiz and ask yourself like, why did I get that score? That's interesting, and we'll see how open minded you are to understanding how honest you may or may not be.
Josh Steimle
Perfect. Thank you so much for being with us here today, Peter.
Peter Kozodoy
Yeah, thanks for being honest.
Josh Steimle
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