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!
LINKS
- PeterKozodoy.com
SUBSCRIBE TO THE PUBLISHED AUTHOR PODCAST
If you enjoyed this episode, don't forget to subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, or anywhere else you listen to podcasts. You can also watch episodes of the podcast on YouTube.
And if you want to spread the word, please give us a five-star review (we read every single one!) and share this page with your friends.
We also share valuable snippets from podcast episodes on Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook.
ABOUT THE HOST
The Published Author Podcast is hosted by Josh Steimle, founder of Published Author. Josh is a book author himself and his article writing has been featured in over two dozen publications including Time, Forbes, Fortune, Mashable, and TechCrunch. He's a TEDx speaker, the founder of the global marketing agency MWI, a skater, father, and husband, and lives on a horse farm in Boston. Learn more at JoshSteimle.com.