Latest / Substack Writers Salon / 28 Books Later: What Gunnar Habitz Taught Me About Publishing, Networking, and “Happy Habits”

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28 Books Later: What Gunnar Habitz Taught Me About Publishing, Networking, and “Happy Habits” · Substack Writers Salon

• 0:00
  and we are live hi everyone and welcome to another episode of
• 0:06
  the substack writers
• 0:07
  salon and i have with me today gonar habits who is known for
• 0:15
  being the busy book
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_03: builder so far he has published 28 books
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_03: He's also a strategic networker,
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_03: a course creator,
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_03: MC and a public speaker from Sydney,
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_03: Australia.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_03: All right.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_03: So, Gunnar, so good to chat with you live today.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_03: I'm excited to talk about your habits,
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_03: actually,
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_03: which is the title of your latest book,
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_03: Happy Habits.
• 0:48
  And for me,
• 0:49
  the question about habits is,
• 0:52
  how did you manage to publish so many books?
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_03: And how are these books doing?
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_03: How are these books selling?
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you, Natascha, first of all, and welcome.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_02: So great to be part of your show.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_02: I've seen some episodes beforehand,
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_02: and I also like that you gave your show the subtitle of Salon,
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_02: because that's what existed back in the days.
• 1:17
  They are literally salons where people would come together and
• 1:21
  talk about books.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_02: And if I counted them, really, it's 28, and that simply started in 1999.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_02: a while ago, my first book was about tourism.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_02: So I published about 20 tour guides.
• 1:34
  So if you remember,
• 1:35
  back in the days,
• 1:36
  you would not research too much about the internet.
• 1:39
  When you go to a trip somewhere far away or even in neighbor
• 1:43
  countries,
• 1:43
  you would buy a book.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_02: And I've actually bought and wrote some of them.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_02: And I figured out that many of them have been not good enough.
• 1:51
  Particularly when it comes to research,
• 1:53
  we go there and the restaurant doesn't exist anymore.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_02: So these type of things I've done
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  SPEAKER_02: multiple of them.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_02: But in the meantime, travel is changing.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_02: You can go to a place without buying any book.
• 2:05
  You might read stories about it on the internet beforehand,
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  but that's it.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_02: And then you come,
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_02: like myself,
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  SPEAKER_02: I went to Singapore again,
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  SPEAKER_02: haven't been there since COVID,
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  SPEAKER_02: and then in February went again without any book.
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  SPEAKER_02: It works without that.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_02: So therefore, I knew I had to shift my whole book writing thing.
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  And then I started to self-publish and to write completely
• 2:25
  different books,
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_02: including the last one,
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_02: which is called Happy Habits.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_03: So you said you went to Singapore with no books.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_03: What do you mean?
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_02: I didn't prepare anything in advance.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_02: It was a business trip.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_02: I went for the week.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_02: I knew the hotel.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_02: I thought when I'm there,
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  SPEAKER_02: I can research about which restaurant to take,
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  SPEAKER_02: for example,
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  SPEAKER_02: or what I would like to see.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_02: Because it's relevant when I'm there, not necessarily weeks in advance.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_02: It's different when you do a trip of a lifetime.
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  SPEAKER_02: You go for two,
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_02: three weeks,
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  SPEAKER_02: two months,
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  SPEAKER_02: three months,
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  SPEAKER_02: and you would really like to know to take the best out of the time.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_02: But otherwise,
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  SPEAKER_02: these days,
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  travel becomes a bit more of a commodity that the preparation
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  is not that long,
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  SPEAKER_02: and you have your information at your fingertips anyway.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_03: Ah,
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_03: so you were saying that in the past people,
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  SPEAKER_03: they used to buy travel books,
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  but now all they can do is they just go to chat GPT and ask
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  chat GPT for the
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  SPEAKER_03: itinerary or what to do and nobody needs travel books anymore.
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  SPEAKER_02: There are not that many new travel books written.
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  So the last one that I've been involved with is a book about
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  Switzerland from one
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  SPEAKER_02: of my four German publishers.
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  SPEAKER_02: 320 pages, the largest, longest stickers I've ever been involved with.
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  SPEAKER_02: Under the sub-brand of 1000 Places to See Before You Die,
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  SPEAKER_02: which was a very famous book back in 2006,
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  SPEAKER_02: I think.
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  SPEAKER_02: And the German publisher I work with,
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  they got the license for translating that original book and
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  writing books in a
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  SPEAKER_02: similar type of scheme.
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  SPEAKER_02: So they've been quite well-envolved in that one.
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  SPEAKER_02: What I liked back then in travel writing was precision on research.
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  So I wrote about seven books about Prague and Czech Republic,
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  where my wife is from.
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  SPEAKER_02: And I would research not only by the internet, but I would also walk
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  SPEAKER_02: every street in the city,
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  SPEAKER_02: every year,
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  SPEAKER_02: on every side,
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  SPEAKER_02: left and right-hand side,
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  SPEAKER_02: to ensure that between a museum I know and a hotel,
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  SPEAKER_02: which is well-known,
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  SPEAKER_02: there might be a very fancy club open that otherwise I would not find.
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  SPEAKER_02: So that was my level of research for book writing.
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  SPEAKER_03: So you published 22 travel books about different countries.
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  And then after that,
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  you switched and you focused on self-development books,
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  correct?
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  SPEAKER_03: Correct.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_02: Correct, correct.
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  SPEAKER_02: Because I simply thought,
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  SPEAKER_02: is there anything else that I know that is worth sharing with readers,
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  SPEAKER_02: which is not necessarily related with travel?
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  And the first thing that I've done was to write a fairy tale
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  before even other books.
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  SPEAKER_02: And I wanted to learn the self-publishing thing.
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  And that was maybe nearly three years ago when I decided that I
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  took that fairy
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  SPEAKER_02: tale book I wrote for my wife for Christmas in 2008,
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  SPEAKER_02: a long time ago,
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  SPEAKER_02: and finally published that.
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  The self-publishing in the early 2000s was something like it
• 5:29
  feels negatively
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  SPEAKER_02: because publishers would say,
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  SPEAKER_02: you didn't find a publisher,
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  SPEAKER_02: apparently your book is bad,
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  SPEAKER_02: therefore you have to self-publish.
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  SPEAKER_02: Gratefully, that is now switched to the opposite side.
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  SPEAKER_02: Publishers would say,
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  SPEAKER_02: ah,
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  SPEAKER_02: you already self-published,
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  SPEAKER_02: you created an audience,
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  SPEAKER_02: you have a following,
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  SPEAKER_02: therefore...
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  SPEAKER_02: we are keen to consider working with you.
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  SPEAKER_02: So it's completely shifted around that.
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  SPEAKER_02: So therefore,
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_02: in order to learn the whole self-publishing thing,
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  I took that book that already got edited in German and in
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  Swedish and also created
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_02: an English version so that I learned all the Amazon KDP,
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  SPEAKER_02: Draft2Digital,
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  SPEAKER_02: Gold,
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  SPEAKER_02: IngramSpark,
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  SPEAKER_02: and BOD in Germany as well.
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  SPEAKER_02: That was a really good experience.
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  SPEAKER_03: So what was that book, again, that taught you how to do self-publishing?
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  SPEAKER_02: It was my fairy tale.
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  SPEAKER_02: I just revamped it.
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  It now looks different,
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  more like a children's book with the nice animations inside.
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  SPEAKER_02: And that is now becoming a new series.
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  SPEAKER_02: I'm planning four of them until April.
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  SPEAKER_02: The other thing, there's 92 pages.
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  SPEAKER_02: And it will be four.
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  SPEAKER_02: The second one is now at my editor.
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  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, looking forward to that.
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  SPEAKER_03: So, okay, I want to go back and talk about your travel books.
• 6:48
  Did you have a publisher for the travel books or were they all
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  self-published?
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  SPEAKER_02: No, the travel books were all tasked by publishers when they said,
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  Because travel publishers think about Lonely Planet as maybe
• 7:02
  one of the most famous
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  SPEAKER_02: ones,
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  SPEAKER_02: or DK,
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  SPEAKER_02: or whatever they're called.
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  SPEAKER_02: They have a series.
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  And any author who writes for that series needs to comply to
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  the whole setup.
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  SPEAKER_02: They cannot change.
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  SPEAKER_02: They cannot say, I would like to have a completely different setup.
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  Because people buy this because they might have already one in
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  the series.
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  SPEAKER_02: They like it, this format.
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  SPEAKER_02: They would like to have another one.
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  So that includes the whole corporate identity and ownership and
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  copyright by the publisher.
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  SPEAKER_02: It's a piece of labor.
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  But I've done this piece of labor pretty often also in my own
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  way when I said,
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  SPEAKER_02: for example,
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  SPEAKER_02: there is a lake in between Germany,
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  SPEAKER_02: Austria,
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  SPEAKER_02: and Switzerland called Lake Konstant in English or Bodensee in German.
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  SPEAKER_02: I traveled there a lot and then told to the first publisher,
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  SPEAKER_02: that I already published maybe five,
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  SPEAKER_02: six books where I said,
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  SPEAKER_02: hey,
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  SPEAKER_02: I know that your book from that region is old.
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  SPEAKER_02: It needs to be changed and you are relaunching your series anyway.
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  SPEAKER_02: So when this book comes on the map, please let me know.
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  And I'm happy to take that over from the author who has done it
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  before and who
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  SPEAKER_02: didn't do anything on it anymore.
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  SPEAKER_02: And then I got in this, but while
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  SPEAKER_02: writing this,
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  I went then to my secondary publisher who has slightly thinner
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  books of the same
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  SPEAKER_02: areas.
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  SPEAKER_02: Not 160, but 96 pages.
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  And I said,
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  hey,
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  I'm extremely well-researched because I wrote for Polyglot.
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  SPEAKER_02: So now for you, VistaPoint, you don't have that leg in your portfolio.
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  SPEAKER_02: If you do it in the next couple of years, I can produce it easily.
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  SPEAKER_02: So then I could technically do one research and two books out of it.
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  It's a completely different way of writing compared to said
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  development because
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  SPEAKER_02: it's part of an industry.
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  So this means when a book would come out typically from the
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  beginning of European
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  SPEAKER_02: travel season,
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  SPEAKER_02: let's say March,
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  SPEAKER_02: to cater for the Easter period,
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  SPEAKER_02: this means the book needs to be finished everything by October,
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  SPEAKER_02: the year prior to this.
• 9:02
  And then after you finished the travel books,
• 9:05
  what came after the travel books?
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  SPEAKER_03: I know you have the latest one, which is Happy Habits.
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  SPEAKER_03: What came before that?
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  So what I've done,
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  I realized that I've been publishing on LinkedIn quite a lot.
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  SPEAKER_02: So today I published my weekly episode number 369.
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  SPEAKER_02: That's a bit more than seven years about the same topic.
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  SPEAKER_02: And I thought once I hit 100 episodes, that would have been in the year
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  2021,
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  I think,
• 9:31
  then I would simply compile them and create a book about
• 9:35
  LinkedIn.
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  SPEAKER_02: That was the idea.
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  But then I realized if you write for social media or you write
• 9:39
  for a book,
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  it's different.
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  SPEAKER_02: It's a different type of audience.
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  It needs to be less as current on some events that happened
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  last week,
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  but more long term.
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  SPEAKER_02: It needs to last for two, three, four years of being updated.
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  SPEAKER_02: So then I had to rework the whole thing.
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  SPEAKER_02: And it came out then in May 23.
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  SPEAKER_02: And it's a book about social selling.
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  SPEAKER_02: I call it Connect and Act.
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  SPEAKER_02: How you connect well with people and you need to do action on it.
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  SPEAKER_02: Which has all about habits inside without naming the word habits.
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  SPEAKER_02: So LinkedIn was my specialty.
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  I worked at Hootsuite back in the day,
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  which is a social media management platform.
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  SPEAKER_02: And that was, of course, the perfect connection.
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  SPEAKER_03: Okay, and you self-published that book, the LinkedIn book?
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  SPEAKER_01: Completely.
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  SPEAKER_03: So after you finished with the travel books,
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  SPEAKER_03: you completely went to self-publishing,
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  SPEAKER_03: all your books?
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  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
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  SPEAKER_03: Okay, so how did you teach yourself about self-publishing?
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  SPEAKER_03: You mentioned that you read a book or you took a course.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_03: If you can take us how you know a lot about self-publishing, is it
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_03: the more you do it, the better you get at it?
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  Or what was your process in teaching yourself,
• 10:54
  especially KDP,
• 10:55
  IngramSpark?
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_03: It's like a whole science, honestly.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_02: It truly is.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_02: And my history in self-publishing goes way back before even KDP.
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  SPEAKER_02: So in 98,
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_02: which is a pretty long time ago,
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  SPEAKER_02: before even I had my first published book at a boutique publisher,
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_02: I went to the German Book Fair in Frankfurt.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_02: And that was when
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_02: Their German very large book distributor called Libri,
• 11:21
  they created a kind of a spin-off of a print-on-demand
• 11:24
  publisher called BUD,
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  SPEAKER_02: which stands for Book on Demand,
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_02: many,
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_02: many,
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_02: many years before Amazon KDP.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_02: And they already had ways how you can create and produce books,
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  SPEAKER_02: even for free,
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  SPEAKER_02: even for just a family occasion.
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  You create 20 of them,
• 11:41
  no need to put with ISBN number and something like this.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_02: but based on producing one unit.
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  SPEAKER_02: I love that.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_02: I created some of those for my dad,
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_02: for his birthday,
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  SPEAKER_02: and for a collection of his Oprah articles that he wrote.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_02: Multiple of those, but I didn't publish them into the market, so to say.
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  SPEAKER_02: It was not possible to buy them just a bit like for fun.
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  That's how I learned the whole thing,
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  and I watched YouTube videos back in the days.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_02: I think the first one that I put out on this one must have been 2007,
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_02: so quite early days for self-publishing.
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  SPEAKER_02: Very well-knowing back then,
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_02: what I mentioned earlier,
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_02: real publishers,
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_02: where I wanted to get into,
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_02: wouldn't like it.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_02: And in 2004,
• 12:28
  I wrote a book called Hollywood in Prague about all of the nice
• 12:33
  movies that have
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_02: been directed in the Czech Republic,
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_02: which is a big industry over there.
• 12:39
  I went to publishers and they said it won't be successful
• 12:44
  because of the image rise.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_02: So you can do it by yourself,
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_02: but as soon as you publish by yourself,
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_02: don't look at our doors anymore.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_02: It was very weird timing back in the day.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_02: But I learned there to produce something,
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_02: to learn how to write the formatting inside,
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_02: that towards the spine you need to have more space and so on.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_02: So that all came with it.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_02: And then when I then decided to
• 13:09
  to go to write my LinkedIn book,
• 13:12
  then I learned more when it comes to YouTube videos.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_02: I don't think I ever bought a course about self-publishing.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_02: There was no need for that one.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_02: But I learned quite a lot about that.
• 13:24
  In university times,
• 13:25
  I've been involved with a professor who wrote 12 books.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_02: And I always said, I also would like to have one book.
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  SPEAKER_02: Now I have more than double of it.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_03: Wow.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_03: So going forward, you're only going to self-publish?
• 13:41
  You're not going to go back to traditional publishing or is the
• 13:44
  door still open?
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_02: The door is always open because there can be good reason if my particular
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_02: publishers who I know,
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_02: if they come back and say,
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_02: let's create
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_02: and bring out a new picture book about Australia.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_02: Then I'm the first author,
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_02: one of the maybe first two,
• 14:00
  three authors in their portfolio who they would ask to
• 14:03
  contribute for this one.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_02: So happy to do.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_02: It's a piece of labor where I can add what I learned.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_02: So that's always a nice thing to do.
• 14:12
  Well-knowing book in the travel industry is more about people
• 14:17
  don't buy it because
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_02: of the author,
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_02: but because of the subject.
• 14:21
  so it's a different thing i need to comply with similar in a
• 14:24
  series so that i will
• 14:26
  never close that door and um but otherwise i what i like in
• 14:30
  self-publishing you can
• 14:31
  do whatever you like to do and that is a kind of a freedom that
• 14:35
  i never thought
• 14:35
  existed and do you have editors that you work with like cover
• 14:42
  designer who's who's
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_03: your team what like uh i just want to know about the team that you have
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_02: I actually have.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_02: So when I came to Australia in the end of 2016,
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_02: I've been involved in some book projects of anthologies or chapter books.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_02: And one of these chapter book publishers from Melbourne,
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_02: a lady called Samantha Jensen,
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_02: she has a very,
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_02: very good editor called Karen Crombie.
• 15:08
  And Karen used to work in the editorial office of Buckingham
• 15:11
  Palace before she
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_02: moved to Australia.
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_02: She came from UK.
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_02: So if somebody works there,
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_02: then I would say,
• 15:19
  together with the Queen and all of these type of material that
• 15:22
  goes out of
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_02: Buckingham Palace,
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_02: they need to have a very good understanding of English.
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_02: So when I gave my book, Connect and Act, to her for her care,
• 15:32
  I've been totally surprised what came back,
• 15:34
  that she really made that happen so nicely.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_02: I really enjoyed that.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_02: Later,
• 15:39
  I compiled some of the parts of the work from two chapter books
• 15:43
  I've been in with
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_02: her that she catered.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_02: I created my own compilation book about it called League Not Managed.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_02: It's pretty small.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_02: It's five stories only.
• 15:55
  just some of shorter pieces which are not a full book and have
• 15:57
  to do with leadership.
• 15:59
  In terms of cover design,
• 16:00
  so my Connect and Act book and these look pretty similar.
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_02: I have now, I think, five or six overall in my plans that look like this.
• 16:10
  I gave a range of cover ideas of sales books to a person who I
• 16:17
  found to help me on
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_02: my fairy tales on Airtask.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_02: Airtask is a bit like Fiverr.
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_02: A lady from Argentina called Josefina Luna,
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_02: without knowing,
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_02: that was during COVID days,
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_02: without knowing that she was living in Sydney.
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_02: I didn't know that.
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_02: I never met her actually in person,
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_02: funny enough,
• 16:33
  because we had a five kilometer rule and she has been living
• 16:36
  eight kilometers away
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_02: from us.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_02: So then we decided we can meet whenever and only collaborated online.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_02: But so nicely.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_02: And then all her ideas in terms of cover design,
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_02: I simply carry on and build a series of this one.
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_03: So how are these books selling?
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_03: I want to know how these books are selling.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_02: That's a very valid question on the sales part,
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_02: and it depends on the requirements how books should actually sell.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_02: If I take Connect and Act, my LinkedIn book, which at that time,
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_02: I've been working full time.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_02: As soon as the book was ready, two weeks later, I had to lay off.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_02: Instead of going full in with having a book and a topic and a course,
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_02: I went back into job search.
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_02: I could have spent more time on selling on it.
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_02: Still,
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_02: I say that that book got me royalties in four digits,
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_02: but 30 times more consulting dollars.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_02: So to be clear, four digits start with the one.
• 17:44
  I think overall it was maybe close to $2,000 only for the
• 17:48
  Connect and X book,
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_02: but 30 times consulting dollars,
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_02: which without the book I would not be able to do.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_02: So I take the book as part of a funnel, not as the end product.
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_03: I see.
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_03: And how do you market these books?
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_03: You're a great networker.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_03: I've been following your coffee series and all of that.
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_03: But how do you market these books?
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_02: So on one side, I use LinkedIn quite a lot.
• 18:19
  And the topic that I'm writing about that's related into my
• 18:21
  Connect and Act book
• 18:22
  and later a second LinkedIn book for job seekers and a third
• 18:25
  one to come in March,
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_02: they're all related to that one.
• 18:29
  For example,
• 18:30
  the third LinkedIn book will be called LinkedIn for Startups.
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_02: I am volunteering in a startup networking group called Open Coffee.
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_02: And there I have access to hundreds of people.
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, the LinkedIn page alone has maybe 700 people.
• 18:47
  SPEAKER_02: So that's quite a bit.
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_02: So therefore, that's always a way to get people attracted to this.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_02: I work in email marketing professionally,
• 18:56
  so therefore I use email funnels as well for the book marketing
• 18:59
  site here at
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_02: ActiveCampaign.
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_02: And if I add all of this one together, it helps with the books.
• 19:06
  If I could add one day more about paid advertising for books,
• 19:10
  it could even be more.
• 19:11
  But I didn't work on Amazon ads or Facebook ads or LinkedIn ads
• 19:15
  yet for the books.
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_02: But that's what I have in the plan for 2026.
• 19:20
  And then it's not only...
• 19:21
  So for me,
• 19:22
  the whole book marketing thing is not only my own books.
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_02: But this year,
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_02: for example,
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_02: I've been involved in 12 books,
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_02: if I count that the year's not over yet.
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_02: 12 books published in this year, where two are only mine.
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_02: 10 are books from others.
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_02: So then I also help others to get their books out.
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_02: And the most personal one was a book of my mother.
• 19:43
  SPEAKER_02: We lost our dad on Parkinson's disease.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_02: So then she wrote a book in the view of the caring partner.
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_02: And I helped her making this book happen.
• 19:54
  So published on Amazon,
• 19:55
  it got the number one bestseller for this one in that category.
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_02: And very happy to see her,
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_02: particularly on the German version,
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_02: which is published on the German one,
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_02: BOD,
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_02: is actually selling better than my Connect Connect book.
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_02: That's a funny thing to her.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_02: Very happy for her.
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_02: So I've done an English version,
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_02: and then she said,
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_02: you know,
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_02: sometimes you need to write for a particular target group.
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_02: And when she turned 80,
• 20:21
  she always wanted to write a book about her childhood memories
• 20:25
  from growing up.
• 20:26
  SPEAKER_02: I said, okay, let's do it together.
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_02: So then that's this one.
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_02: And the target group is exactly 10 family members.
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_02: That's it.
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_02: And still, it's working.
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_02: I really like this.
• 20:36
  She just published her third one,
• 20:38
  which I'm now preparing in an English version.
• 20:41
  So I had some other people even books in Spanish,
• 20:44
  but I don't speak Spanish.
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_02: But if somebody wants to get the technicalities of getting into KDP,
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_02: how the whole thing works,
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_02: I'm happy to have that.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_02: But I'm not an editor, and I'm not a ghostwriter like yourself.
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_03: Interesting.
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 21:01
  So I noticed that you're very active on LinkedIn and you even
• 21:07
  have a publication on
• 21:08
  SPEAKER_03: Substack for authors who want to grow on LinkedIn.
• 21:12
  SPEAKER_03: And I'm curious because...
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_03: I don't think there are many authors on LinkedIn from what I see.
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_03: The majority are like ghost writers.
• 21:22
  But authors,
• 21:23
  I see them mostly on Instagram and Substack,
• 21:28
  but I don't see them on LinkedIn.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_03: And so I'm curious,
• 21:31
  why did you decide to create something for authors on LinkedIn
• 21:35
  and how you can send
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_03: your books on LinkedIn?
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_02: So, yes.
• 21:40
  So first of all,
• 21:43
  LinkedIn for me is my main channel because I come from the
• 21:50
  corporate world.
• 21:51
  SPEAKER_02: I've been working internationally in 29 countries.
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_02: So then for me, it was a way to connect with people.
• 21:57
  SPEAKER_02: So that's the number one place.
• 21:59
  SPEAKER_02: Number two,
• 21:59
  SPEAKER_02: I strongly believe LinkedIn is not a job search type of platform,
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_02: but for networking.
• 22:04
  And the best way to find people and tell them about what we are
• 22:07
  doing is LinkedIn
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_02: in a very professional way,
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_02: which also comes with references.
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_02: If somebody writes something on LinkedIn,
• 22:16
  It's less likely fake compared to what you can do on Facebook
• 22:19
  or on Instagram,
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_02: where you can be perceived as the big guru that people want to be,
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_02: but in reality are not.
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_02: So LinkedIn is a kind of a quality, more serious quality check.
• 22:31
  I strongly believe many authors have people on LinkedIn from
• 22:35
  their work area,
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_02: from their professional life,
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_02: and it's worth telling them what to do.
• 22:41
  SPEAKER_02: LinkedIn is not owned by the employers.
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_02: So therefore,
• 22:44
  I strongly believe LinkedIn is a good way to connect with
• 22:46
  people and tell what
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_02: they're up to.
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_02: When it comes to developing a personal brand,
• 22:51
  SPEAKER_02: which is where LinkedIn can help a lot,
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_02: it's not about we have role X at company Y,
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_02: but rather how we help someone to achieve something.
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_02: And even those which are writing a book on the site,
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_02: like in my case,
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_02: and have a professional job,
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_02: the book writing part,
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_02: the topics we cover are part of the identity,
• 23:15
  SPEAKER_02: are part of the values,
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_02: and that's worth sharing.
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_02: I strongly believe it makes sense.
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, but, okay, so I come to you.
• 23:25
  SPEAKER_03: Let's say you're giving me a free consulting session now,
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_03: live,
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_03: and I want to tell you how can I sell my books on LinkedIn,
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_03: which I know you wrote a post about.
• 23:36
  SPEAKER_03: And I think you had a live session with Fleur to talk about that.
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_03: So how shall I sell my books on LinkedIn, if you want to advise me?
• 23:47
  So it all depends on the type of target audience because you
• 23:50
  need to find the right
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_02: people who won't like to have your book that they can also find you.
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_02: So your profile needs to tell this type of story.
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_02: If I want to write fairy tales, what I do as a kind of a hobby,
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_02: I would not necessarily talk about LinkedIn about this type of topic.
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_02: It makes less sense, but my business book does.
• 24:09
  SPEAKER_02: So I need to tell the whole story.
• 24:11
  And then you need to be in those circles where the topic of
• 24:19
  your book is covered.
• 24:20
  SPEAKER_02: If I'm writing about LinkedIn and marketing,
• 24:23
  I need to be surrounded by marketers in my own network so that
• 24:27
  it makes sense.
• 24:28
  SPEAKER_02: The target group needs to fit for that one.
• 24:32
  SPEAKER_02: So if I write,
• 24:34
  SPEAKER_02: let's say,
• 24:35
  if I would work as an accountant and I write a book about
• 24:39
  funeral business because
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_02: maybe that might be the business of my parents,
• 24:44
  SPEAKER_02: then it would be a bit weird.
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_02: It's not the same type of thing.
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_02: So it should be as much aligned as it is.
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_02: In your case,
• 24:51
  SPEAKER_02: as you are an excellent ghostwriter who writes memoirs for people,
• 24:57
  SPEAKER_02: that when the user is buying the book in a bookshop,
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_02: an assumption that is by that person where it's from,
• 25:05
  SPEAKER_02: or even when it's written by whoever,
• 25:08
  then you need to be in those circles where your potential
• 25:10
  clients are hanging out.
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_02: So that's an important thing.
• 25:13
  SPEAKER_02: You write for the target audience group on LinkedIn that they attracted,
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_02: plus as a networker,
• 25:20
  you need to pay attention that you find the right level of
• 25:22
  people in the second
• 25:24
  SPEAKER_02: type of connection as well.
• 25:26
  SPEAKER_02: So
• 25:28
  SPEAKER_02: I'll give you an example.
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_02: Once I wanted to be active more, I've been a blogger for a company.
• 25:35
  SPEAKER_02: When it comes to risk management,
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_02: I worked there employed,
• 25:38
  SPEAKER_02: and I've been doing all the content marketing for that.
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_02: So then I wanted to reach out to cybersecurity consultants.
• 25:44
  Of course,
• 25:45
  the normal person would then go find people,
• 25:47
  click on connect,
• 25:48
  and that's it.
• 25:49
  But why would they accept my connection when they don't see the
• 25:53
  reason for this?
• 25:55
  SPEAKER_02: So then...
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_02: What I've done,
• 25:57
  SPEAKER_02: I took the content of them,
• 25:59
  SPEAKER_02: shared it with my network,
• 26:01
  SPEAKER_02: gave reasons why that is actually very good.
• 26:03
  So then the only thing that this cybersecurity consultant could
• 26:06
  do was to connect with me.
• 26:09
  SPEAKER_02: So instead of push,
• 26:11
  SPEAKER_02: I created a kind of a pull to the middle method,
• 26:15
  SPEAKER_02: as I call it in my 2026 book called Celebrate Your Network.
• 26:20
  SPEAKER_02: So I will talk about the whole thing.
• 26:22
  SPEAKER_02: How you can make people come to you instead of you run for them.
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_02: That will be part of that.
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_03: Do you use any tools for LinkedIn,
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_03: like Tapio or whatever those tools that people use to connect?
• 26:35
  SPEAKER_02: So I did in the past.
• 26:37
  SPEAKER_02: I used Hootsuite before I used Buffer,
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_02: but Hootsuite also,
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_02: on one side I liked it,
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_02: on the other side later I became employed.
• 26:43
  SPEAKER_02: So I've worked there for quite a while.
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_02: But they don't have a free plan, so I don't use it anymore.
• 26:49
  SPEAKER_02: I mostly at the moment use the platforms natively.
• 26:53
  SPEAKER_02: I could even...
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_02: utilize the scheduling function with a big but.
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_02: I learned one thing in university,
• 27:04
  and that is to write on the moment so that the task is ready
• 27:10
  when I need it.
• 27:11
  SPEAKER_02: I learned, for example, even in book writing.
• 27:14
  SPEAKER_02: If the book should be published at a certain day,
• 27:15
  SPEAKER_02: I figured out when do I need to start,
• 27:19
  SPEAKER_02: that it will be just finished on time,
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_02: but not too early,
• 27:22
  SPEAKER_02: because that's weird.
• 27:24
  SPEAKER_02: and without delay.
• 27:26
  SPEAKER_02: Nobody wants that.
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_02: And same thing for publishing, for posting.
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_02: If I write posts,
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_02: for example,
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_02: on Tuesday morning at 8.30 typically,
• 27:34
  SPEAKER_02: then sometimes I go there and think about at 8.15,
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_02: what was it that I wanted to post today?
• 27:40
  SPEAKER_02: That what actually happened today?
• 27:42
  SPEAKER_02: Then I thought, okay, yeah, gratitude is a good topic towards Christmas.
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, I write this.
• 27:47
  SPEAKER_02: So then I quickly created an image, which I used Canva for the
• 27:52
  SPEAKER_02: I took a photo of my wife and me during digital detox,
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_02: more of this type of relaxed time,
• 27:58
  SPEAKER_02: preparing for festive season,
• 28:00
  SPEAKER_02: added some words to it.
• 28:01
  SPEAKER_02: I wrote the post in maybe 10 minutes max, done at 30.
• 28:06
  But then I have the moment when it's out that I can also engage
• 28:10
  with people.
• 28:11
  Because the tricky thing when you use tools to schedule,
• 28:14
  it turns into set and forget.
• 28:17
  SPEAKER_02: And that makes no sense.
• 28:19
  SPEAKER_02: Post and ghost.
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_02: doesn't help with the content.
• 28:24
  SPEAKER_02: It needs to be visible when people are there.
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_02: And I learned this when I worked with Deloitte,
• 28:29
  SPEAKER_02: not at,
• 28:29
  SPEAKER_02: but with Deloitte,
• 28:31
  when one of their top risk management experts would take the
• 28:37
  time on Saturdays to
• 28:39
  research all about the boring part of risk management and then
• 28:43
  write beautiful
• 28:44
  SPEAKER_02: articles about it.
• 28:46
  SPEAKER_02: And I always said, your people are not active then, but in fact
• 28:50
  There might even be on LinkedIn or Facebook when they are
• 28:54
  queuing for the meat at the barbecue.
• 28:57
  SPEAKER_02: So they are maybe in the app, but totally out of mind for that one.
• 29:02
  SPEAKER_02: That tells me whatever you post,
• 29:03
  SPEAKER_02: you need to do it based on when the target audience will be online,
• 29:07
  SPEAKER_02: when they are there.
• 29:09
  And then you can ensure when you get first likes or comments
• 29:12
  that you counter them.
• 29:14
  SPEAKER_02: with relevant people and give further insight, that makes sense.
• 29:17
  And that's why many of the posts that I have have decent
• 29:23
  engagement when it comes
• 29:24
  SPEAKER_02: to comments and likes.
• 29:27
  SPEAKER_02: That's much more important than only impressions.
• 29:30
  So you engage with the post itself or do you engage with other
• 29:35
  posts after you post?
• 29:37
  SPEAKER_03: Because some people would say,
• 29:39
  SPEAKER_03: like,
• 29:39
  SPEAKER_03: you have to,
• 29:40
  SPEAKER_03: after you post,
• 29:41
  SPEAKER_03: go and comment on other people's posts,
• 29:43
  SPEAKER_03: and that will increase the engagement.
• 29:46
  the other order,
• 29:47
  I first start to comment on posts of relevant people for my
• 29:51
  content.
• 29:54
  SPEAKER_02: Call it the same interest type of group.
• 30:00
  SPEAKER_02: In 2026, LinkedIn goes more about interest instead of network.
• 30:05
  SPEAKER_02: So if I talk more about a certain topic,
• 30:09
  SPEAKER_02: let's say in your case,
• 30:10
  SPEAKER_02: ghostwriting,
• 30:10
  SPEAKER_02: if you would do this,
• 30:12
  It does not matter too much that your network might not be
• 30:16
  strong enough.
• 30:17
  SPEAKER_02: But as you talk about a certain interest area,
• 30:20
  SPEAKER_02: people on a similar interest area will get it,
• 30:23
  SPEAKER_02: even if they're not connected to it.
• 30:24
  SPEAKER_02: So that's a big change at LinkedIn from the past that's coming.
• 30:30
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 30:31
  SPEAKER_03: Do you belong to any groups on LinkedIn?
• 30:37
  SPEAKER_03: Or do you just post on the feed?
• 30:43
  SPEAKER_02: Ah, got it.
• 30:43
  SPEAKER_02: You mean LinkedIn groups like Facebook groups, something like this?
• 30:46
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah.
• 30:48
  LinkedIn groups,
• 30:48
  funny enough,
• 30:49
  these are the largest cemeteries in the world.
• 30:53
  SPEAKER_02: People joined when LinkedIn group came about maybe 10,
• 30:56
  SPEAKER_02: 15 years ago,
• 30:56
  SPEAKER_02: and people don't leave these groups.
• 30:59
  SPEAKER_02: They're there.
• 31:00
  SPEAKER_02: Many groups are not really active.
• 31:02
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, exactly.
• 31:04
  SPEAKER_02: There's one massive advantage of being in a group.
• 31:07
  SPEAKER_02: So, for example, I now went into two groups.
• 31:11
  on Facebook and one on LinkedIn about habits simply because of
• 31:14
  the word and my book title.
• 31:16
  And I realized when I'm in a LinkedIn group whereas other
• 31:20
  people surround where I'm
• 31:21
  SPEAKER_02: not connected with,
• 31:23
  SPEAKER_02: I can send messages to them because we're in the same group.
• 31:27
  SPEAKER_02: I don't need to connect with them.
• 31:29
  SPEAKER_02: So that's good.
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_02: It gets me a chance to talk to people without connecting beforehand.
• 31:36
  SPEAKER_02: That's something what the LinkedIn groups are doing.
• 31:38
  SPEAKER_02: I've
• 31:39
  done a bit more posting in groups in the past but I don't do
• 31:44
  anymore because the
• 31:45
  tricky thing in groups Facebook and LinkedIn many groups do not
• 31:49
  like that people
• 31:51
  post their own content which always has a kind of emotional
• 31:53
  character that often is
• 31:56
  tricky so there often are big rules don't post your own links
• 32:01
  or whatever but
• 32:02
  rather engage in proper conversation and I pay a lot of respect
• 32:06
  to group owners
• 32:09
  SPEAKER_03: So how much time do you spend on LinkedIn every day?
• 32:12
  SPEAKER_03: So it seems that you're putting a lot of time on LinkedIn every day.
• 32:16
  SPEAKER_02: 30 minutes?
• 32:19
  SPEAKER_03: 45?
• 32:19
  SPEAKER_03: 45 minutes a day, and that includes writing the post and engaging?
• 32:23
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 32:26
  SPEAKER_03: And how do you get the ideas for your posts?
• 32:31
  SPEAKER_02: On one side,
• 32:32
  SPEAKER_02: I can take,
• 32:33
  SPEAKER_02: typically early in the year,
• 32:35
  SPEAKER_02: I look into a calendar when I say,
• 32:37
  SPEAKER_02: for example,
• 32:41
  SPEAKER_02: when I worked in backup business,
• 32:43
  SPEAKER_02: 31st of March is the World Backup Day.
• 32:44
  SPEAKER_02: Then I knew certain times in the day were something very important.
• 32:50
  SPEAKER_02: Of course, we know that now it's festive season coming, whatever the
• 32:54
  SPEAKER_02: Faith, it doesn't matter, but at least business is slowing down.
• 32:57
  SPEAKER_02: You can prepare content for that one.
• 32:59
  We have in down under here in the Southern Hemisphere,
• 33:04
  the financial year ends on 30th of June.
• 33:06
  That also gives a different way of what type of content would
• 33:10
  be there by the end
• 33:11
  SPEAKER_02: of June,
• 33:11
  SPEAKER_02: for example.
• 33:12
  SPEAKER_02: So I have certain corner points there, number one.
• 33:14
  SPEAKER_02: Number two,
• 33:17
  SPEAKER_02: I have one topic I cover once per week so that I really care all about,
• 33:21
  SPEAKER_02: typically on Tuesdays,
• 33:22
  SPEAKER_02: every week.
• 33:23
  SPEAKER_02: day in, day out for 369 weeks in a row.
• 33:26
  SPEAKER_02: So I cater for that.
• 33:27
  SPEAKER_02: I meet people for networking,
• 33:29
  and images with real-life people work very well on Friday when
• 33:34
  corporate images
• 33:35
  SPEAKER_02: don't work.
• 33:36
  SPEAKER_02: So then I use that on Friday.
• 33:38
  SPEAKER_02: So therefore, my Tuesday and Fridays are given.
• 33:41
  Wednesday morning,
• 33:42
  typically the reception of LinkedIn posts is not as good,
• 33:46
  also not on Monday.
• 33:47
  SPEAKER_02: Tuesday and Thursday is better since the pandemic.
• 33:49
  SPEAKER_02: So I need to pay attention to what comes on Thursday.
• 33:53
  And recently,
• 33:53
  for example,
• 33:54
  I ran two events in Sydney and in Melbourne for marketing
• 33:58
  agencies.
• 33:59
  SPEAKER_02: And I paid attention to get a lot of coverage, a lot of footage.
• 34:04
  SPEAKER_02: Many people shared their photos from it.
• 34:06
  SPEAKER_02: So I can use the photos for certain aspects of this.
• 34:10
  SPEAKER_02: So an event gives me maybe a week full of content.
• 34:16
  Particularly about the reception of it,
• 34:18
  what people talk about,
• 34:19
  sharing this one.
• 34:22
  SPEAKER_02: introducing other people to my network, not necessarily about me.
• 34:25
  LinkedIn is not the place where we should talk only about
• 34:27
  ourselves,
• 34:28
  not at all.
• 34:31
  SPEAKER_03: So what about Substack?
• 34:33
  So I remember you and I,
• 34:35
  I think we chatted maybe last year or a couple of years ago.
• 34:38
  SPEAKER_03: And I was kind of on and off on Substack.
• 34:42
  SPEAKER_03: But then you told me like you're going to go all in.
• 34:47
  SPEAKER_03: And I got excited.
• 34:48
  SPEAKER_03: So I went all in.
• 34:49
  SPEAKER_03: So I thank you for that.
• 34:51
  SPEAKER_03: I feel like you got me into Substack.
• 34:54
  SPEAKER_03: How has your experience been with Substack?
• 34:57
  SPEAKER_02: So back in the days,
• 34:59
  SPEAKER_02: I compared Substack when I got it from Tim Denning,
• 35:02
  SPEAKER_02: one of the famous bloggers from Australia.
• 35:07
  SPEAKER_02: He was the first one to tell me I should actually get there.
• 35:11
  And later,
• 35:12
  Justin Michael,
• 35:13
  one book author I follow from the US,
• 35:15
  he became my first subscriber.
• 35:16
  SPEAKER_02: That was great even before I had content.
• 35:19
  SPEAKER_02: But I came from early days Medium,
• 35:23
  SPEAKER_02: before Medium had publications,
• 35:24
  SPEAKER_02: and I posted some articles over there.
• 35:27
  And that was a big mindset shift to think blogging is something
• 35:31
  where you write
• 35:33
  SPEAKER_02: without earning.
• 35:34
  SPEAKER_02: Because in the past,
• 35:35
  SPEAKER_02: I wrote maybe 150,
• 35:39
  SPEAKER_02: 200 articles for a newspaper,
• 35:40
  SPEAKER_02: for weekly newspapers,
• 35:41
  SPEAKER_02: really in print.
• 35:42
  SPEAKER_02: And I would be paid based on the line, whatever.
• 35:45
  SPEAKER_02: So it was a different way of writing.
• 35:48
  SPEAKER_02: Writing was part of labor, travel books and newspaper.
• 35:52
  SPEAKER_02: But here, blogging is a different thing.
• 35:53
  And then I discovered Medium and realized Medium has its pros
• 35:57
  and its cons and lost
• 35:58
  SPEAKER_02: a bit of traction.
• 36:00
  SPEAKER_02: And Subsec came to add all the other items that I liked on it,
• 36:04
  SPEAKER_02: to engage with people,
• 36:05
  SPEAKER_02: to add podcasts.
• 36:06
  SPEAKER_02: I haven't done that yet.
• 36:07
  SPEAKER_02: And I can have a publication that looks how I want it.
• 36:10
  SPEAKER_02: So that was the main thing that I wanted to do.
• 36:12
  SPEAKER_02: That gives me a different part of my personality compared to LinkedIn.
• 36:18
  SPEAKER_02: So LinkedIn,
• 36:19
  SPEAKER_02: I now really have a profile written,
• 36:21
  SPEAKER_02: everything based on marketing agency,
• 36:24
  SPEAKER_02: which is my main role to work with them.
• 36:26
  SPEAKER_02: While Subsec is all about... Actually, I have three of them.
• 36:33
  SPEAKER_02: About book creation, so I called it Busy Book Builder.
• 36:36
  SPEAKER_02: It has to do with coffee as well, because I get my ideas after coffee.
• 36:40
  SPEAKER_02: And the second one about habits,
• 36:42
  SPEAKER_02: and the third one about LinkedIn,
• 36:44
  SPEAKER_02: where I should be more active.
• 36:46
  I like the publication thing about it,
• 36:47
  that you can give an umbrella about the whole thing.
• 36:51
  SPEAKER_02: And that really excites me on Substack.
• 36:54
  SPEAKER_02: And of course, that you have Substack nodes to it as well.
• 36:57
  There's one thing which I wasn't sure if I should like it or
• 37:00
  not,
• 37:00
  but at least I do.
• 37:02
  SPEAKER_02: Substack is not open, technically speaking.
• 37:05
  SPEAKER_02: I cannot utilize a Substack API to add other tools to it.
• 37:11
  SPEAKER_02: I like this because it protects the whole thing.
• 37:15
  Otherwise,
• 37:16
  every writer would take any type of tool to let AI run the
• 37:20
  whole thing.
• 37:21
  SPEAKER_02: And then you have the same thing as on LinkedIn and Facebook,
• 37:25
  SPEAKER_02: or Instagram,
• 37:26
  SPEAKER_02: that a lot of content is written by AI,
• 37:28
  SPEAKER_02: a lot of comments are written by AI,
• 37:29
  SPEAKER_02: and I don't like that.
• 37:31
  I still perceive Substack as a place where people come to who
• 37:35
  like to read and
• 37:37
  SPEAKER_02: others like to write.
• 37:39
  SPEAKER_02: That for me is the marketplace that Substack is.
• 37:43
  So I saw something in your writing which is the difference
• 37:47
  between LinkedIn
• 37:48
  SPEAKER_03: newsletters and Substack.
• 37:51
  SPEAKER_03: So I've been actually struggling with that.
• 37:56
  SPEAKER_03: And I was like, am I doing too much?
• 37:58
  SPEAKER_03: Because I have a LinkedIn newsletter.
• 38:01
  SPEAKER_03: And now I have around 1,000 subscribers, which is surprising.
• 38:05
  SPEAKER_03: And I also have my Substack publications.
• 38:09
  SPEAKER_03: How do you think I should balance between the two?
• 38:12
  SPEAKER_03: And what's the difference?
• 38:13
  And do you think I'm duplicating the effort here by having all
• 38:18
  of these newsletters?
• 38:20
  SPEAKER_02: Good one.
• 38:21
  SPEAKER_02: If I count it,
• 38:22
  SPEAKER_02: I might have even four newsletters,
• 38:23
  SPEAKER_02: because I have one on LinkedIn as well,
• 38:27
  SPEAKER_02: which I call Learn From Books.
• 38:28
  SPEAKER_02: I saw it, yeah.
• 38:29
  SPEAKER_02: I saw it.
• 38:30
  SPEAKER_03: I think you have a lot of subscribers on your newsletter.
• 38:36
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 38:37
  SPEAKER_02: You can guess about the effort I've done to gain the subscribers.
• 38:41
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 38:42
  SPEAKER_02: It's 2,956.
• 38:42
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, zero.
• 38:43
  SPEAKER_01: Zero.
• 38:46
  SPEAKER_02: It just happened.
• 38:47
  SPEAKER_02: And how did that come to being?
• 38:48
  So a LinkedIn newsletter is just a revival of the LinkedIn
• 38:53
  long-format content that
• 38:55
  SPEAKER_02: existed already beforehand.
• 38:57
  SPEAKER_02: I created book reviews before they called it a newsletter.
• 39:00
  SPEAKER_02: But then what they added,
• 39:02
  they gave an umbrella on it that you can have it like episodes
• 39:05
  of a bigger thing
• 39:05
  SPEAKER_02: that people can subscribe to.
• 39:08
  SPEAKER_02: Some people say that LinkedIn doesn't give you the email addresses.
• 39:13
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 39:14
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 39:15
  SPEAKER_02: But this is a mindset issue.
• 39:17
  The people who say this,
• 39:18
  they believe that an email address is a holy grail.
• 39:22
  SPEAKER_02: And I fully confirm that.
• 39:26
  SPEAKER_02: Particularly working in an email company.
• 39:29
  SPEAKER_02: On the other side, for LinkedIn,
• 39:32
  An email address is nothing special because people can have
• 39:35
  more than one.
• 39:36
  SPEAKER_02: I have 33 when I talk my own test account for my own agency.
• 39:42
  SPEAKER_02: But people have one LinkedIn profile.
• 39:44
  SPEAKER_02: If someone subscribes, it's that one person who subscribes.
• 39:49
  SPEAKER_02: For the view of LinkedIn,
• 39:51
  SPEAKER_02: that is more valuable,
• 39:53
  SPEAKER_02: this connection or this person,
• 39:55
  SPEAKER_02: compared to just an email address,
• 39:58
  SPEAKER_02: which is some letters at some letters dot something.
• 40:03
  SPEAKER_02: It's a mindset shift in between.
• 40:04
  SPEAKER_02: Therefore, LinkedIn believes that's more important.
• 40:07
  SPEAKER_02: The way how I take the LinkedIn newsletters,
• 40:10
  I made a quick analysis on it a couple of months ago and
• 40:14
  realized that 40% of those
• 40:16
  SPEAKER_02: people who subscribe to my newsletter,
• 40:19
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know them.
• 40:22
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know them at all.
• 40:23
  SPEAKER_02: I only wish LinkedIn would give us tools that when I search for people,
• 40:28
  SPEAKER_02: that I can find out who are those subscribers for my newsletter,
• 40:32
  SPEAKER_02: that I can filter for those which are not my connections,
• 40:35
  SPEAKER_02: per country,
• 40:37
  SPEAKER_02: per whatever.
• 40:37
  SPEAKER_02: This filtering LinkedIn doesn't do.
• 40:40
  SPEAKER_02: And if I wanted to go through them,
• 40:44
  SPEAKER_02: 2855 all over,
• 40:45
  SPEAKER_02: it takes me ages to just figure out who they are.
• 40:49
  SPEAKER_02: On the other side, if these 2855 people
• 40:53
  SPEAKER_02: they typically have an email address and by default,
• 40:57
  they will get a notification in LinkedIn on the app and by
• 41:01
  email that a new episode
• 41:03
  SPEAKER_02: of my newsletter is ready.
• 41:04
  SPEAKER_02: So it combines email and LinkedIn.
• 41:07
  SPEAKER_02: And I can know about them,
• 41:09
  but if somebody comes with a very strange email address and
• 41:12
  subscribes to Substack,
• 41:14
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know anything about them.
• 41:16
  So LinkedIn has a point that a person is more than just an
• 41:21
  email address and you can
• 41:23
  SPEAKER_02: have good reason to reach out to them or not.
• 41:26
  And the discovery mechanism on LinkedIn newsletter is actually
• 41:29
  pretty good.
• 41:30
  SPEAKER_02: If someone would follow me without connecting,
• 41:34
  SPEAKER_02: but following me,
• 41:35
  SPEAKER_02: they are automatically invited to follow my newsletter.
• 41:42
  SPEAKER_02: Many do.
• 41:44
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm totally surprised.
• 41:46
  I strongly believe most people don't utilize the power of a
• 41:49
  LinkedIn newsletter enough
• 41:51
  SPEAKER_02: So why would I actually do this?
• 41:53
  SPEAKER_02: What type of topic?
• 41:54
  SPEAKER_02: I deliberately decided to create a newsletter about books back then.
• 42:01
  SPEAKER_02: I think even just after I published my Connect the Next book,
• 42:03
  because I realized that that's a very interesting way to
• 42:07
  connect on a deeper level
• 42:09
  SPEAKER_02: with other fellow book authors like yourself.
• 42:12
  SPEAKER_02: So that was my idea.
• 42:14
  SPEAKER_02: And I've done 40 decent reviews, including questions to the authors.
• 42:20
  That gets me a lot of content from which I can then compile
• 42:24
  some material format
• 42:25
  SPEAKER_02: that was really,
• 42:26
  SPEAKER_02: really good.
• 42:27
  And it gets me into the range of other fellow book writers
• 42:31
  without competing with them.
• 42:33
  SPEAKER_02: And there were even people who I only know from Substack or Medium,
• 42:36
  SPEAKER_02: like if I take Mehmet Yildiz from the Illumination Newsletter,
• 42:42
  SPEAKER_02: for example.
• 42:43
  SPEAKER_02: He wrote a book about email marketing.
• 42:45
  SPEAKER_02: Of course I reviewed that.
• 42:47
  SPEAKER_02: And some other people who I know here personally, some are global.
• 42:51
  SPEAKER_02: So it's a nice way to learn the newslet again.
• 42:56
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 42:57
  So do you have a funnel that takes people from LinkedIn to
• 43:01
  Substack and vice versa?
• 43:05
  SPEAKER_02: In my head, yes.
• 43:07
  SPEAKER_02: Not fully fledged.
• 43:08
  SPEAKER_02: So technically speaking,
• 43:10
  SPEAKER_02: as Substack doesn't have a full API,
• 43:12
  SPEAKER_02: I cannot get all of the tools connected with that.
• 43:15
  SPEAKER_02: I can play around it a little bit.
• 43:18
  SPEAKER_02: On my own website,
• 43:20
  SPEAKER_02: you can subscribe to my Happy Habits newsletter,
• 43:25
  SPEAKER_02: but it's not technically connected yet.
• 43:27
  SPEAKER_02: If I only get one per day, I can do it manually.
• 43:29
  SPEAKER_02: It's more than 100 a day.
• 43:31
  SPEAKER_02: I would like to automate that.
• 43:34
  How do you feel about subscribing people automatically to your
• 43:39
  Substack newsletter
• 43:40
  SPEAKER_03: who subscribe to your LinkedIn newsletter,
• 43:42
  SPEAKER_03: like doing that manually?
• 43:44
  SPEAKER_03: Do you think... I mean, they opted in to hear from you.
• 43:49
  SPEAKER_03: Do they think they care if...
• 43:52
  You send it through LinkedIn or through Substack because they
• 43:56
  said yes,
• 43:57
  right?
• 43:58
  SPEAKER_03: So how do you feel about actually going to their profile,
• 44:02
  SPEAKER_03: getting their email address and adding them to Substack?
• 44:07
  Transparency is what counts here because you can destroy more
• 44:11
  than you think in terms of trust.
• 44:15
  SPEAKER_02: Opt-in is really the key point.
• 44:17
  SPEAKER_02: If somebody's opting in into my LinkedIn newsletter, yeah, you're right.
• 44:19
  SPEAKER_02: They give the impression that they want to hear from me,
• 44:23
  but they want to hear from me for that very topic of the
• 44:27
  LinkedIn newsletter that
• 44:29
  SPEAKER_02: sits on LinkedIn.
• 44:31
  SPEAKER_02: It doesn't say...
• 44:33
  SPEAKER_02: that I can use it wherever.
• 44:35
  SPEAKER_02: So I need to be very clear on that one.
• 44:38
  SPEAKER_02: If I have on my website,
• 44:39
  SPEAKER_02: for example,
• 44:40
  SPEAKER_02: there I say,
• 44:41
  SPEAKER_02: if they subscribe to this one,
• 44:43
  SPEAKER_02: I say this part of newsletter is hosted on subset.
• 44:46
  SPEAKER_02: Easy.
• 44:47
  SPEAKER_02: Then at least they can make a deliberate decision if they want it or not.
• 44:51
  SPEAKER_02: So if we are clear, it's fine.
• 44:53
  SPEAKER_02: And if somebody then decides,
• 44:55
  SPEAKER_02: oh,
• 44:55
  SPEAKER_02: it's not for them and they unsubscribe,
• 44:58
  SPEAKER_02: then they should unsubscribe.
• 44:59
  SPEAKER_02: That's fine.
• 45:02
  SPEAKER_03: So how has your experience been so far on Substack?
• 45:05
  SPEAKER_03: Because you've been active, what, for a year now?
• 45:09
  Yeah,
• 45:09
  I started it maybe early 24,
• 45:11
  slowly,
• 45:12
  and then getting more and more on it.
• 45:15
  SPEAKER_02: I personally like it.
• 45:16
  SPEAKER_02: I met people who otherwise I would not have met.
• 45:20
  It helped me to get a network of accountability buddies,
• 45:26
  so to say,
• 45:26
  many of them.
• 45:27
  And the story of Happy Habits,
• 45:30
  the whole book wouldn't exist without Substack.
• 45:33
  SPEAKER_02: Because one day,
• 45:34
  SPEAKER_02: when I had my coffee catch-up post that I do once per month,
• 45:40
  SPEAKER_02: then I wrote about that I want to learn more about mini-books,
• 45:45
  SPEAKER_02: as J.R.
• 45:46
  SPEAKER_02: Heimbigner would do them.
• 45:48
  SPEAKER_02: Think about 60 pages book,
• 45:49
  SPEAKER_02: or even this one here could qualify for a mini-book,
• 45:52
  SPEAKER_02: which has maybe only 15,000 words,
• 45:53
  SPEAKER_02: whatever.
• 45:55
  SPEAKER_02: And then one day in April,
• 45:57
  SPEAKER_02: actually on Easter Saturday,
• 46:00
  SPEAKER_02: in the evening,
• 46:01
  SPEAKER_02: I wanted to read the book from him called Discipline.
• 46:04
  And me coming from a German-speaking background,
• 46:06
  discipline means something.
• 46:08
  SPEAKER_02: Then you would really go for that and read that.
• 46:11
  And then I realized after 20%,
• 46:15
  what he told me,
• 46:16
  that you should also write a mini-book.
• 46:19
  SPEAKER_02: I thought, yeah.
• 46:20
  SPEAKER_02: Because Connect an Act with 42,000 words took me 120 hours.
• 46:24
  SPEAKER_02: It was quite a lot.
• 46:27
  SPEAKER_02: And that includes everything about the book and the laws.
• 46:29
  SPEAKER_02: So then I thought, yes, I need to write one.
• 46:32
  SPEAKER_02: But what should I write about?
• 46:33
  SPEAKER_02: And my dream was always to write about habits.
• 46:36
  SPEAKER_02: Simply because it's also my last man.
• 46:38
  SPEAKER_02: And when I came to Australia, I realized that
• 46:41
  SPEAKER_02: I would really say it like the word happens with an S.
• 46:45
  And as I have the proof in the pudding of 369 weeks of Social
• 46:51
  Selling Monday and 40
• 46:54
  SPEAKER_02: webinars and 40 long-format book reviews and 87 coffee meetings,
• 47:02
  SPEAKER_02: so it all has a number to it.
• 47:04
  SPEAKER_02: So I can prove this consistency.
• 47:07
  SPEAKER_02: So I thought it's time to
• 47:10
  SPEAKER_02: talk about it and to create that book.
• 47:12
  SPEAKER_02: And I wanted to share building a book, writing a book in public.
• 47:16
  SPEAKER_02: So that's what I've done.
• 47:18
  SPEAKER_02: And it was the people on Subsec,
• 47:21
  SPEAKER_02: many of them,
• 47:21
  SPEAKER_02: who then encouraged me to go in this or that direction.
• 47:25
  SPEAKER_02: So this writing in public was really, really nice.
• 47:29
  SPEAKER_02: And then, for example, I came with the idea of the cover.
• 47:31
  SPEAKER_02: And then I shared, for example, how it should look like.
• 47:34
  SPEAKER_02: And based on the feedback, I could turn it then further.
• 47:37
  SPEAKER_02: Same thing what I've done with my fairy tale here,
• 47:39
  SPEAKER_02: when I had different views how that should look like.
• 47:42
  SPEAKER_02: Same thing.
• 47:43
  SPEAKER_02: I used my subsec network as a kind of… Building in public, yeah.
• 47:48
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, building in public as an audience to check what's possible.
• 47:53
  SPEAKER_02: That's what I really like on it.
• 47:55
  SPEAKER_02: without the need of having 10,000 subscribers for this one.
• 48:01
  But at the end,
• 48:01
  what counts are the individual message that you get of highly
• 48:06
  relevant people.
• 48:07
  SPEAKER_02: And therefore, I'm grateful.
• 48:08
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, I don't have maybe thousands of subscribers yet.
• 48:12
  SPEAKER_02: This is all the balancing of working full-time in a similar space.
• 48:19
  SPEAKER_02: And how much time can you dedicate into Substack?
• 48:21
  SPEAKER_02: You need to find the right balance on that one.
• 48:25
  SPEAKER_03: So what does the future hold for you?
• 48:26
  SPEAKER_03: So you still have your full-time job, right?
• 48:28
  SPEAKER_03: You still work full-time with ActiveCampaign.
• 48:32
  SPEAKER_03: And you do all of that on the side.
• 48:36
  SPEAKER_03: You write books.
• 48:37
  SPEAKER_03: I guess that's part of your happy habits is that you do all of that.
• 48:42
  SPEAKER_03: So now you're working on that fairy tale book.
• 48:46
  SPEAKER_03: What else?
• 48:47
  SPEAKER_03: What do you have in store for us in 2026?
• 48:51
  So out of my coffee series,
• 48:53
  I came on the idea of a book which I call Celebrate Your
• 48:56
  Network.
• 48:57
  SPEAKER_02: And that is not just about coffee,
• 49:00
  SPEAKER_02: but it's about what coffee meetings stand for,
• 49:03
  SPEAKER_02: to build a network,
• 49:03
  SPEAKER_02: to build connections,
• 49:05
  SPEAKER_02: to build an ecosystem of people around yourself,
• 49:08
  SPEAKER_02: like what I do at work in partnerships.
• 49:10
  So that will be a book that I want to launch on the 4th of May,
• 49:14
  which is my birthday.
• 49:15
  SPEAKER_02: Next year will be a Monday.
• 49:17
  SPEAKER_02: And I love doing book launches.
• 49:20
  SPEAKER_02: I really enjoy that.
• 49:21
  I've done one where I'm currently sitting next door on my
• 49:24
  birthday for the Connect and Act book.
• 49:26
  SPEAKER_02: It's a bit more than 50 people.
• 49:28
  SPEAKER_02: That was really awesome.
• 49:30
  And I actually got business from people who attended that and
• 49:33
  therefore got it what
• 49:36
  SPEAKER_02: I talked about.
• 49:36
  SPEAKER_02: And therefore,
• 49:37
  SPEAKER_02: for the book and the launch,
• 49:38
  SPEAKER_02: it asked me to do something so that it has something to it.
• 49:42
  SPEAKER_02: It's also maybe then 10 years being in Sydney in that birthday week.
• 49:46
  SPEAKER_02: So then there's good reasons for having that.
• 49:49
  SPEAKER_02: So that will be this book called Celebrate Your Network.
• 49:51
  SPEAKER_02: That's in May.
• 49:52
  SPEAKER_02: In March,
• 49:53
  SPEAKER_02: I want to launch LinkedIn for Startups,
• 49:55
  SPEAKER_02: which is ready for quite a while,
• 49:56
  but I need to find voices of people in the startup ecosystem
• 50:01
  who would like to
• 50:03
  SPEAKER_02: share something to it,
• 50:04
  SPEAKER_02: how they use LinkedIn.
• 50:05
  SPEAKER_02: So for me, that's important.
• 50:07
  SPEAKER_02: Not just my book, but adding the elements of others.
• 50:11
  SPEAKER_02: And a beautiful launch in the startup community that really shows that.
• 50:16
  SPEAKER_02: So that will be in
• 50:17
  in march i want to give them or maybe end of february i want to
• 50:20
  give these books a
• 50:21
  little bit breathing space in between um yeah that's that's for
• 50:26
  that some more
• 50:27
  fairy tales and when it comes to the whole topic of habit i
• 50:32
  realize that many
• 50:33
  people have interest on that one that they can improve their
• 50:36
  habits think about
• 50:39
  what happens in 16 days will be first of january so many people
• 50:45
  create new year
• 50:46
  SPEAKER_02: resolutions without
• 50:49
  fulfilling things after a week or two weeks then they're back
• 50:52
  to normal and that's
• 50:53
  not good and i can't help them so i'm now creating my coaching
• 50:57
  program habit shift
• 50:58
  coaching coming out of the book oh wow you you're busy yeah i
• 51:04
  really like that i
• 51:06
  got your book happy habits i have it on kindle and i'm excited
• 51:09
  to dig into it uh
• 51:12
  SPEAKER_03: but um
• 51:14
  I think one of the things that I learned from you personally by
• 51:18
  just talking to you
• 51:19
  SPEAKER_03: and following your work is the importance of networking.
• 51:23
  SPEAKER_03: And you're like the master of it.
• 51:26
  SPEAKER_03: And you're like a very busy man.
• 51:28
  SPEAKER_03: But I remember you reached out to me and asked for like a Zoom call.
• 51:33
  SPEAKER_03: And it's been like,
• 51:35
  SPEAKER_03: you know,
• 51:35
  SPEAKER_03: since we talked,
• 51:36
  SPEAKER_03: you know,
• 51:36
  SPEAKER_03: like we built this relationship,
• 51:38
  SPEAKER_03: you know,
• 51:38
  SPEAKER_03: we learned from each other.
• 51:39
  SPEAKER_03: And it was only like, what, a 30-minute Zoom call.
• 51:43
  And I think that kind of changed my perspective on terms of the
• 51:48
  importance of networking.
• 51:49
  SPEAKER_03: And sometimes you just don't need anything from the other person.
• 51:53
  SPEAKER_03: You know, you're just networking.
• 51:55
  SPEAKER_03: You're just having coffee.
• 51:57
  SPEAKER_03: And I think that is something unique about your work is how you...
• 52:08
  SPEAKER_03: make networking a priority.
• 52:12
  SPEAKER_03: How did the networking for you evolve through the years?
• 52:16
  SPEAKER_03: You have your coffee series where you pick certain people,
• 52:19
  SPEAKER_03: you just go out with them for coffee and then talk and write about it.
• 52:24
  SPEAKER_03: How does this work?
• 52:28
  SPEAKER_02: I started networking as a shy introvert that I've been in my young days.
• 52:33
  SPEAKER_02: I would never even talk to a stranger.
• 52:35
  um i've done that more and more when i came to australia and
• 52:38
  realized on one side i
• 52:41
  need to job i faced a layoff after 16 years and i thought it
• 52:45
  would be good to go to
• 52:46
  a different type of location but i cannot just apply for jobs i
• 52:49
  need to build a
• 52:50
  network in sales when i've been a sales manager i would hire
• 52:54
  someone who has a
• 52:55
  network to bring this and can build a network to demonstrate
• 52:58
  that because that's an
• 53:00
  SPEAKER_02: important topic if i would go to another location
• 53:03
  I would be surprised how many people I already know they're
• 53:06
  from international networking.
• 53:08
  SPEAKER_02: So that's an important thing as well.
• 53:09
  So then I came here with the open mindset of not asking them
• 53:14
  about finding work,
• 53:15
  SPEAKER_02: not even telling them,
• 53:17
  SPEAKER_02: hey,
• 53:17
  SPEAKER_02: this is how we do in Europe because why bother?
• 53:20
  SPEAKER_02: I'm now here.
• 53:21
  SPEAKER_02: It's a different type of perspective.
• 53:23
  But what I learned when I attended a networking event and
• 53:26
  talked to person A,
• 53:27
  SPEAKER_02: learn about them,
• 53:28
  SPEAKER_02: talk to person B,
• 53:30
  SPEAKER_02: I potentially realized that A should talk to B,
• 53:33
  SPEAKER_02: that I'm just the middleman in between to foster introductions.
• 53:38
  And I've done many of them to realize,
• 53:40
  ah,
• 53:41
  you need to help with this one?
• 53:42
  SPEAKER_02: I might know someone.
• 53:44
  And having a kind of a system to note this down was important
• 53:50
  so that I can later
• 53:51
  SPEAKER_02: relate to that one,
• 53:52
  SPEAKER_02: that I can figure out,
• 53:53
  SPEAKER_02: oh,
• 53:53
  SPEAKER_02: yeah,
• 53:53
  SPEAKER_02: I know someone who can help you with that.
• 53:55
  SPEAKER_02: And that doesn't need to be only located in the Sydney CBD.
• 53:58
  SPEAKER_02: It can be all over the place.
• 54:01
  SPEAKER_02: So when I went last year to the US,
• 54:03
  SPEAKER_02: to Chicago,
• 54:04
  SPEAKER_02: then I met people on the way in San Francisco only for maybe one hour,
• 54:09
  SPEAKER_02: but met the person online beforehand.
• 54:12
  SPEAKER_02: So when you have taken networking with a view of givers gain,
• 54:19
  more give than take with connecting dots together then it will
• 54:23
  surely pay off in
• 54:24
  whatever shape or form but it comes with curiosity in people
• 54:28
  and picking good
• 54:29
  people beforehand I do not want to have every week a coffee
• 54:32
  with someone who is in
• 54:34
  an industry that doesn't resonate with me or my network so it
• 54:39
  should also fit and
• 54:42
  SPEAKER_02: it's interesting to find out more about people so that's for sure
• 54:46
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah.
• 54:48
  SPEAKER_03: Well, you're a very busy man and you definitely have great habits.
• 54:53
  SPEAKER_03: And we have some people here joining us.
• 54:55
  SPEAKER_03: And just to make sure, how can they reach you on Substack, LinkedIn?
• 54:59
  SPEAKER_03: They can find your books on Amazon if you want to just,
• 55:03
  SPEAKER_03: you know,
• 55:04
  SPEAKER_03: talk a bit about how people can reach you,
• 55:07
  SPEAKER_03: your website,
• 55:08
  SPEAKER_03: all of that.
• 55:09
  SPEAKER_02: Exactly.
• 55:10
  So on Subsec,
• 55:11
  I mean,
• 55:11
  my name is Gunnar Habits.com slash at Gunnar Habits.
• 55:14
  SPEAKER_02: That's easy,
• 55:15
  SPEAKER_02: but my publication is called Busy Book Builder,
• 55:19
  SPEAKER_02: and the other one is called Happy Habits.
• 55:22
  SPEAKER_02: So there's this.
• 55:23
  SPEAKER_02: On LinkedIn, my name is only, it's only once, it's easy.
• 55:26
  SPEAKER_02: It's Gunnar Habits to find me there.
• 55:28
  SPEAKER_02: And I also have my website, gunaharbit.com.au.
• 55:31
  SPEAKER_02: So it's not too difficult to reach out.
• 55:34
  SPEAKER_02: And there's one thing that I like on Substack.
• 55:37
  So as you called,
• 55:40
  you use the word of salon in this series of your interviews.
• 55:44
  I once created that as well,
• 55:45
  I called it Substack Salon,
• 55:47
  an illusion of LinkedIn Local.
• 55:50
  SPEAKER_02: that was a worldwide phenomenon in maybe 2017,
• 55:54
  started in Australia from an Australian lady called Anna McEffy
• 55:58
  from Corsava,
• 55:59
  SPEAKER_02: which is a very small city.
• 56:01
  SPEAKER_02: She only wanted to meet people who she knows on LinkedIn in real life,
• 56:05
  SPEAKER_02: posted the hashtag,
• 56:07
  SPEAKER_02: and then some people came.
• 56:08
  SPEAKER_02: And the day before, someone in the US found it and created it over there.
• 56:11
  SPEAKER_02: And then there's more than 350 of LinkedIn locals.
• 56:14
  SPEAKER_02: I thought, we need to do more of this with subsects.
• 56:16
  SPEAKER_02: So when I went to Singapore,
• 56:18
  SPEAKER_02: For example, in February, I thought, who do I know?
• 56:21
  SPEAKER_02: Ah, yes, I know.
• 56:23
  SPEAKER_02: I got it.
• 56:23
  SPEAKER_02: So Garima, I need to talk to her.
• 56:26
  SPEAKER_02: And then I finally met my Substackers in person.
• 56:30
  SPEAKER_02: Many of them,
• 56:31
  SPEAKER_02: like Veronica Walker-Smith I met when she came to Sydney,
• 56:35
  SPEAKER_02: as an example,
• 56:36
  SPEAKER_02: who I knew from Substack.
• 56:38
  There's Sal Gallagher,
• 56:39
  who used to live in Sydney,
• 56:41
  and we went here four times.
• 56:43
  SPEAKER_02: Many others who I only know from subjects that in the meantime I met,
• 56:46
  SPEAKER_02: and that's very refreshing because subject is so global.
• 56:49
  Subject doesn't tell us on the first view where the location
• 56:53
  is,
• 56:53
  like LinkedIn says.
• 56:55
  So you need to really make an effort to find out where the
• 56:57
  people are from because
• 56:59
  SPEAKER_02: it doesn't really matter.
• 57:01
  SPEAKER_02: But then to meet subjects in real life, that's nice.
• 57:05
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah, that's nice.
• 57:07
  And I think part of the Substack Salon is creating these
• 57:11
  connections that,
• 57:13
  SPEAKER_03: you know,
• 57:14
  SPEAKER_03: and it's creating this community of Substackers that talk to each other,
• 57:19
  SPEAKER_03: learn from each other.
• 57:21
  And it's,
• 57:22
  you know,
• 57:22
  I have another podcast,
• 57:24
  but it's completely different.
• 57:25
  This one is focused on the Substack journey and the Substack
• 57:29
  writers and what they're doing.
• 57:33
  SPEAKER_03: But
• 57:33
  SPEAKER_03: Anyway, this has been really fun.
• 57:36
  SPEAKER_03: Kunal, I enjoyed learning from you.
• 57:38
  SPEAKER_03: You're the marketing expert and the LinkedIn expert.
• 57:41
  And thank you for your time and for accepting my invitation to
• 57:46
  learn from you.
• 57:48
  SPEAKER_03: And thank you for everyone who joined us.
• 57:49
  SPEAKER_03: I have Karen and my buddy and Fernie, how are you?
• 57:53
  SPEAKER_03: And yeah, I will go ahead and in a couple of days I will post this.
• 58:00
  SPEAKER_03: I will post the replay and, you know, clips and that.
• 58:04
  SPEAKER_03: And yeah, happy holidays.
• 58:06
  SPEAKER_03: Enjoy the rest of the day and I will see you on Substack.
• 58:10
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 58:11
  SPEAKER_01: Take care.
• 58:12
  SPEAKER_01: See you.
• 58:13
  SPEAKER_01: Bye-bye.