Bonus! How and Why I Published Wiley Book “Your AI Roadmap"

Told she had a 1% chance of publishing this book.... but she did!

In this bonus episode, Dr. Joan Palmiter Bajorek discusses publishing her upcoming book "Your AI Roadmap: Actions to Expand Your Career, Money, and Joy," detailing her journey of writing, the challenges of the publishing process, and the importance of inclusivity throughout her work.

💖 Ready to buy the book? Order here: YourAIRoadmap.com/Buy
Only $35 USD, Drops Jan 9, 2025

Support small bookstores! Bookshop.org link to the book

This is the answer to questions in her DMs from people around the world!

Highlights:
📘 The book 'Your AI Roadmap' is a companion to the podcast, with more career and financial real-talk
📈 Joan experienced significant growth on social media 160% YoY in 2023, leading to the book's concept.
🌍 Inclusivity is a core theme in the book, addressing systemic oppression.
📑 The proposal process for publishing is rigorous and competitive.
💡 Joan emphasizes the importance of financial literacy in career resilience.
🛠️ The book includes actionable worksheets and frameworks for readers.
📖 Personal experiences and research inform the content of the book.
🤝 Networking and personal branding are crucial for career advancement.
📢 Joan encourages aspiring authors to keep going.
🚀 The book aims to provide practical advice for navigating modern careers.

She shares insights on how to navigate the complexities of book writing, the significance of financial literacy, and the actionable advice included in her book.

Gender imbalances in book publications and who gets reviewed

Joan emphasizes the need for practical resources for readers, especially in the context of career development and personal finance, while also providing guidance for aspiring authors.

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction to 'Your AI Roadmap'
• 2:53 The Journey of Writing a Book
• 6:10 Navigating the Publishing Process
• 9:04 The Importance of Inclusivity in AI, Career, and Finances
• 11:53 Crafting a Compelling Proposal
• 14:48 The Structure of the Book
• 18:11 Personal Finance and Career Resilience
• 21:07 Actionable Insights and Worksheets
• 24:01 The Role of Personal Experience
• 26:55 Advice for Aspiring Authors
• 30:03 Final Thoughts and Call to Action

Transcript

0:00

Hey folks, this is a bonus episode about the Your AI Roadmap book with Wiley that is dropping January 9th, 2025. Pre -orders are out right now, but I'm guessing I still have to convince you to buy the book. So this bonus episode is about my experience writing the book, my why, and kind of the process behind it for those of you who haven't written a book or wanna hear about a different example. So Your AI Roadmap, Actions to Expand Your Career, Money and Joy is a non -fiction book that I wrote, published by Wiley. And the inspiration for the book is actually a little bit funny, or you're gonna hear more about my, how I think about the world. So this book is a companion book to this podcast. And so the way I even got to this podcast, so last year my team and I were reviewing my socials, especially on LinkedIn. And we had 160 % growth in a year. And what content was most consumed, most engaged with, was practical, actionable, data-driven content about AI, but not like fluffy ideas or go check this out. It was really actionable. It was really practical. And we realized that even though my audience is a lot of software people, a lot of founders and investors, there's also a lot of people considering pivoting or in their field upscaling in AI. As we thought about the flywheel for customers and how they can literally hear my voice, a podcast was a really great format, we thought, to engage people, to bring in my friends and people in my network to talk about their work. And as you might be listening to, people were really jazzed about this content and it's been doing great and an awesome flywheel. So we're really glad about that. As we were researching how to launch a podcast well, because this is the first I've been in the... I have helped podcasts launch at different companies or in different ways. I've been on many, many podcasts. But actually starting one from zero to 10 to how many episodes we are at right now, that's a different process. Thinking about how we want to craft it, what's the goal, how do we speak to the audience, how do we deploy it on different platforms and so forth is a process. And when I was in, I believe a webinar or a recording or something about like how to... launch a podcast while they said the phrase, when you launch your companion book, not if, but when for best practices and my jaw dropped and I almost like, I think I left the webinar or something, was like, whoa, whoa, okay, because a book takes at least a year, 12 months, kind of like a wedding thing, right? You plan it out and you come back and you may do all the progress to get there. So a book is something that I've thought about doing in the past, having done a PhD, having done a master's, I write. Like, I've written a lot. I've published publications and so forth. So the writing part not being necessarily scary, but what does publishing look like? Right? This is a foreign world to me that I've not done before. But I had previously, roughly four years ago, met someone in the publishing world who is one of these book shop around connector people, if you've ever met one of those people. He and I connected on LinkedIn and he said, if you ever want to write a book, let's connect. And at the time I was running Women in Voice and scaling that nonprofit. And I pitched him, I was like, I want to write a book about voice technology and conversational AI and inclusive technology and so forth. And there were so many books about that topic at the time that I pitched him, as well as the, You're Not Famous Enough. reality of kind of the publishing world and having a big enough audience. although at the time he's like, you can try to move forward, but it doesn't seem like the right timing, et cetera. And so I put that on the back burner or something like, okay, but this time I reached out to him and I said, hey, we're still connected. I see that you're still doing this book publishing connector thing. Can we talk? I'd like to do a book on AI. I've got this podcast called Your AI Roadmap. And he was like, let's jump on a call. We got on a call. He was like, yes, yes, yes, this sounds interesting, but heads up, the probability of you publishing this book is roughly 1%. He said people he's worked with who have amazing social media, super great reach, big topics, for whatever reason, publishers, publishing houses are not interested. And so I talked to my team and we said, maybe we'll self publish or how do we get this content out there? You can go down many publishing lists from some of the most prestigious in the world to less prestigious or more academic or MBA type company adventures. But I wrote up the proposal, worked really hard. there was a, this person gave me a template of what was expected about who are you? What's your biography? How big are your socials? What are your goals? Why now? Kind of timeliness, the outline of the book in chapters, citations you might use, marketing opportunities you have, et cetera, speaking gigs in person. This huge proposal proposing this book. And actually the first, so I sent it to him, he green lit it, he gave it a thumbs up. I could have polished that for several more months, but did not. I think I worked on that over a weekend. I was so excited. And then he sent it off to Wiley, specifically my main editor. I have like seven editors these days. And for the editor to look over, and this guy sent it over to another editor, woman who was engaged. it ticked the boxes of what she was looking for. And so they said, okay, we're interested. This is, you know, we're interested in learning more. Here's the marketing proposal version. And I worked on this marketing proposal. Basically they're like, you will be doing the marketing for the book. Wiley has a lot of projects going on. Ultimately, this work lands on your plate. What will you be doing for the next two to five years to promote the book? Okay, two to five years. So I wrote this marketing plan about the speaking opportunities I do, the podcast, other podcasts I'm on, other ways to feature the book, and really the commitment to go domestically, internationally promoting this book. And I sent that in, confident and as ambitious as I could, and my aunt looked it over, who just happens to be in the publishing world, which I had honestly forgotten, but she has like 20 books out, I think, at this point. And I said, hey, would you look this over? And she was like, you just need to be as confident as possible. Pitch, pitch, pitch yourself and this book and who it serves and who wants to buy it. So sent that marketing proposal in and within the next few weeks, got back emails of this is what we want, ask some follow -up questions. And eventually the proposal started going into different meetings. And if you've ever had a proposal for something you care about, maybe it's a pitch at work. or maybe some academic thing, but you don't actually get to be in the room to defend or speak to your work. You just like hand over a report and there it goes. And that's how this was. So my champion's name is Danielle and she told me about different rooms she was in where like I'd get to the next round. She's like, your proposal ticks the boxes, woohoo. But then it got into a room and I wasn't in the room. So I got this paragraph and response from Danielle. And she said all around the room, proposals were getting no's. People were pitching like, I'm the champion of this project. This could be a really cool book. And it was a no, no, no, no, all around the room. And there were a lot of women in tech books. There were a lot of AI career books. But mine was quote unquote, refreshing. I really like this adjective because I hope that that's an adjective that describes me sometimes. But one of the things that I talked about in my proposal was that I really wanted an undercurrent of being inclusive. That in this day and age, in 2024, the idea of just writing a book about AI or careers or how to improve our lives is not sufficient if we don't address systemic oppression. So I wrote really clearly about white supremacy, about bias, about privilege. And I wrote that I really, you know, lot of my work at Women in Voice and otherwise has been directed at women and BIPOC folks and that that was gonna be a core piece of this book. And I was like, this might be too radical. Like, will Wiley publish something that uses the phrase like patriarchy, like white supremacy type language? I really thought it was gonna be too radical, a book in that respect that they would not be interested. But I was like, if I die and I write, I kind of. plain book, a boring book, a book that I don't believe in. You notice the difference between someone who's passionate and someone who's like, just riding along, just trying to make it work. So I had real passion and fire in my belly about that. And apparently that really came across, quote, charisma was used as well in the proposal and it got green lit. And I was shocked to find that I even got an advance. It was a tiny bit of money, but there was any money. I was told like good luck on that part. I was given a proposal. Maybe I'm going too much into detail, but somebody's gonna appreciate this I hope. Worked on the actual nuts and bolts of a 13 page. This is what publishing contracts look like. Royalties across the years, expectations. You cannot use AI. to write your book for you for Wiley amongst other things and Help my aunt was so kind to help me read it find any red flags etc Negotiate different points. I believe if anyone knows me well, I'm pretty direct and I'm a pretty shrewd negotiator these days I found like 10 to 15 things that I wanted to negotiate and I got almost all of them folks So being like, here's how this would help you, here's how this could help me promote the book, you know, I want more books up front to be sent to me so I can use them in different ways. How they were gonna feature my name, for example, they wanted to cut it down. I use all three of my names professionally. So things like that that were really, important to me and where to draw the line of what's important. After it was negotiated, it was sent over to me by the lawyers to sign, blah, blah. but also there's a huge amount of customer work. So writing a book takes a lot of work, but also, you know, you may have a job, you may be doing other stuff. And so I like paused on customer work for a little bit to like actually write the book. Okay, so, but the contract got signed. That's like from ideation and that spark of a moment for the podcast where I was like, my gosh, to launch a podcast well, they want you to have a companion book. That's a smart thing to do and it takes 12 months. and I'm just in the phase of starting up the podcast. There's no better time than now, make it happen. And my team was like, wow, all of this, all of this? And I was like, I wanna try. So that was a lot of the movement to write the book. Writing the book is, you you sit down and you write it out. I don't know what to say about that. I wrote the chapters. I will unabashedly tell you I'm pretty fast author, writer. I wrote it in a... in span of I think three or four months, and it's about 200, 250, 300 pages roughly. And my PhD was I think 271 pages. And that took across three years for my PhD after my masters. And I wanted to finish it even faster. I was like, whatever it takes. Like when you say jump, I'll say how high. So in this version of the world, I have editors, but... Overall, my PhD was so much harder, like 15 times as hard. To get all these people to approve it, I had to hand do 40 pages of stats multiple times to fix any clerical things. They came back with red digital ink from one of my committee members. I didn't even know if I was gonna finish because she was so hardcore, this committee member, on my PhD. So compared to that and dredging through that four years, not choking in the slightest. This process was we believe in you we greenlight this proposal write it They did end up chopping a piece of it, which really hurt my heart I was like, wow, but there's a reality of how the sausage gets made. So I wrote it and handed it in by the deadline They were shocked. I handed it in by the deadline. I hit deadlines. I don't know how to tell you about that Yeah, so what what was on that proposal that I sent to them. So this podcast specifically, Your AI Roadmap, has a lot of guests on it who are building. They talk about their project work, right? They talk about some technical material, how this fits in their part of the field, whether it's edge technology, cybersecurity, we just had guests on in healthcare, so forth. So it's got that technical acumen. Then I asked guests about their careers. How did they get? here? How did they get their foot in the door? What do they love about their profession? What advice might they give to other people? And so this kind of technical career was really important, but also the third part of the book that I pitched was about entrepreneurship. It was about, it is about money. It's about, my cousin and I were joking that one of the alternate titles for this book could be Things Dudes Tell Each Other on Golf Courses. because a lot of mentors in my life had told me the secret sauce of contract negotiations, of how to get more money, of signing bonuses, equity vesting, like all these kind of hidden things that weren't taught to me at least, and how much money this can be. as you rise in your career, the implications of being able to negotiate those contracts well and how to take care of your financial house being crucial to your success. in a world where layoffs happen literally every day. So my concept for the book was AI in plain language, just spell it out, give some fundamentals for anyone to be able to read. A career section that answers stuff in my DMs, Joan, how do I get a job in AI? Joan, I need to network or like, what do I do? Or like, how do I craft my LinkedIn profile type questions. And then the last one being some things that my friends and I have talked about behind the scenes around... How much money do you make? Did that company treat you well that you have investing equity going on? Do you have money to spend? Do you rent? Do you own a house? Do you have side income? Do you have a side hustle that brings in a lot of money? How you scaled that? As an entrepreneur myself, as an investor myself, thinking about my financial portfolio in really broad ways. And across the last few years, I've built a substantial number of revenue streams. It's actually 22. I listed out in the book and I was like, I think I have a few, wow. Okay, I have a lot more than I thought. In different respects, some of them are huge, some of them are far smaller, but this AI career money was the book that I had pitched to Wiley that they greenlit. But then as I was writing it and things changed along the way, they decided to chop the AI in plain language. And one of the reasons they decided to chop that was a lot of other books are covering this, or it's not as novel, not novel, but like it's not as new. A lot of people are writing AI books right now. How is this differentiated? And the differentiation piece is talking really in modern ways about you could lay it off. How can you future -proof your career? How can you future -proof your finances? How can we speak to the anxiety that's going on right now? According to the research I found from Harvard Business Review, 50 % of Americans are thinking about layoff anxiety. Experience the anxiety of layoffs. I've been in not one, but two AI layoffs. Woohoo, so much fun. So I have direct experience to what this feels like, how to build resilience, how to future -proof your career in ways where you can post and have different opportunities come up. The coolest opportunities of my life sometimes are in my DMs or like, let's get coffee. this type of thing that how do you build your career, your networking, your personal brand, how do you have that, I call it people first networking. And the second part being that financial journey, personal finance in plain language, sharing my revenue streams, sharing my net worth, talking about entrepreneurship, how do you scale a business, what are some obvious pitfalls, what are things I learned from mentors and things along the way, tons of books I have on my bookshelves. as you might be able to see behind me on YouTube, all that stuff that I've learned across the few years that you don't have to have a nine to five and there so many options. And I strongly recommend multiple revenue streams. You could lose your job in a day. And so really thinking about that. it speaks to a lot of anxiety and I'll say it was really hard when they cut the technical section, that first part of the book because. I so often am asked, like, you really have a PhD? Like, you're so young, you're woman, like, do really know your stuff? And so to constantly being, to proving myself that I have done this work, that I have worked at enterprise companies, startups, agencies, worked on governmental projects, that I have this wealth of practice and case studies to speak to that and still not always taken seriously. To have that be cut was a huge ego blow. But when I thought about the impact of this book and that people from all around the world are asking me and my DMs about careers, that at events people are constantly asking for mentorship that I can't do. It just does, I don't scale. My time doesn't scale like that. And then I feel really called to speak more to finances and how everyone sustains their home and their financial picture. You can't have... the life you want, the freedom you want, the future -proofed world and home you want without your finances being all right. I share a story in the book, lot of pseudonyms in the book of someone called Sharon, I call her, who makes $1 .3 million a year, but spends it, does not have the savings to retire, even though she's in a corporate job, I mean, lots, a lot of money. And just thinking of... Even if you make a lot of money, even make a little amount of money, how you save, pay off debt, invest is crucial to the elderly version of yourself or the version down the road. And there's things even two years ago I didn't know. So you may not have expected me to talk about money. You know, like I'm not a financial influencer, but I've learned a lot from other people along the way. And I feel like... talking about modern careers and just leaving you in the lurch and be like, hope you get the good job, woohoo, good luck, and like waving you away. If you want to read a very inclusive, modern, open -hearted, sharing so much about my financial picture, what yours could look like, data -driven recommendations, that's what the second part of the book is all about. ta -da, surprise. It's also really actionable, as you may have heard. the book is entitled, Your AI Roadmap, Actions to Expand Your Career, Money, and Joy. And this actions to expand is crucial because the book has literally worksheets. It has frameworks that you can fill in your own, like here is my budget, here are my goals, here is my career stuff, here is, here are, you know, think here's my net worth, how to calculate that. here are milestones of dollar signs and what goals that matches up for me. Whether I want to save up for a fabulously large wedding, whether I want to save up to buy a dog and have the finances to help with veterinary bills, like different ways to, as you know if you've heard this podcast, data, data, data, be very data -driven in your life. Think concretely about what financial security means to you. I provide tons of resources of which software and companies I'd recommend. They're on yourairoadmap .com slash money tools. You can go out and check those out there. They'll be changing as those tool recommendations change. But I want it to be actionable. This is not a passive book. At the end of almost every chapter, there are reflections, questions of how did you feel reading that? Have you heard about these modern networking techniques? Do you think about your personal brand and how you show up online as a component of your career and how you? continue your career along the way to different job opportunities. So that's a lot. But it's like, on some of the hardest days of writing this book and this process, I kept in my heart thinking about my ideal reader. And my ideal reader might be a little lost, might be questioned a lot of things, might have just been in a layoff or worried about a layoff in the future and thinking about. job insecurity and might not have people in their corner talking real talk about careers, talking real talk about money and how to stabilize yourself and take care of yourself and build stability, wealth, happiness, freedom in these categories. So I was like, for my reader, if this can affect them in a positive way, this will be worth it because despite the tiny little advance that I got, the amount of work and time I put into this versus how much money statistically I might get out, just the ROI doesn't match up. I believe I make roughly $3 for every book sold. So, you know, I bill different companies at a few hundred dollars an hour doing consulting work for different things. So that time just, anyway, you don't, most people except the Renee Browns of the world. don't make money on books. And so I had to have that beating heart of the impact that I believe this book could have in your life. I'm not joking. Okay, let's see. What other questions do we have here? How much of this book was influenced by your personal experiences? Yeah, so this book, think, has, it's non -fiction. It's got a lot of my story. I tell different parts of my career and kind of how I navigated through those things. It also has practical, actionable advice, my recommendations. I don't use the word should, because I don't know your life, and I think the word, you know, don't should on me and I won't should on you is a phrase my aunt uses. It has advice that I'd recommend. I've got some hot takes in there of like spicy recommendations I might have. It's also got a huge amount of research in doing research about careers. in doing research about how people land jobs, how we think about how much time recruiters spend on our profiles. I look at research on the stock market and thinking about timing the market versus time in the market, financial portfolio construction. I'm not an expert on all these topics, but I can certainly do the research to find you the resources that are modern, that are actionable, that match up with other pieces of the puzzle. So data, research. stories and connecting it through a through line of really actionable things for you is exactly what this book is about. It's also very actionable. Do you hear all this material? It's a dense book, but hopefully my cousin I interviewed for this podcast and she says it's actually fun. I was like, really? Okay, fun. I think that inclusive, playful tone that hopefully you've heard me use on this podcast that's authentic to me is also in this book. In addition to the data and research and stories, at the end of almost every chapter, there are reflection questions. I think I mentioned that already. Excuse me for repeating. But asking you, like, have you thought about money in, you know, inequitable ways? know, did you find out one of your coworkers was paid more than you or less than you? How do you experience that? How do you think about your finances? Is it taboo to talk about with your friends, family, and community? Certainly was for me. In my family, you make money and you don't talk about it. End of story. So there is a lot of me in this book that I don't think I was expecting, but when I crafted how people would start each chapter, I really wanted an illustrative story to help shape that chapter. Challenges in writing, finding time and head space. Like my best work in writing comes between 7 a and 11 a and so getting quiet and solace to just write is hard. The writing process, just like my PhD, wrote out the topic, wrote out the why and the now, flushed out an outline from there, different topics. mean, is not, it's funny, as I learn more technical things in my work, frequently the technical stuff is not the hard stuff. It's the human stuff of the negotiating and how the sausage gets made and how you're gonna promote the book. like those big discussions have been the hardest part of this book, hands down, no question. How did you find a publisher and decide or decide to self publish? Okay. No joke, the book shopper round person, 1 % is what he said of the chances of this book getting published. I don't have the stats, and maybe I'll, need to get those for you. How many female authors there are? How many female authors are writing about AI, how AI is shaping society? How many people get a yes from the first publisher they pitch? I am so honored and honestly surprised because I don't play on those stats. Like if you're told there's a 99 % chance of you being turned down, I'm like, okay, well, chances are I'll be turned down, but at least I'll try. know, at least I'll pitch them. At least I'll go a little revolutionary and put some stuff that's really keen to my heart and aligns with my values. So I've heard of a lot of people being turned down and I honestly think there may have been a quota of more female authors. Regardless of that, I am so freaking grateful. So that's real. Timelines. As I mentioned, a lot of this happened within a few weeks to months. I circled back. I really wanted to write it within six to eight months because that's how I roll. And I'm like, what takes so long? I really can't tell me more. And they're like, a year, good luck. And they did not think I was gonna hit my deadline. I'll tell you that. And I did with weeks to spare. Because I, yeah. I'm fast sometimes. Advice for aspiring authors. So from what I understand, so these proposals are not always exactly how it goes. You really, it's a people -based business. You have to know somebody in this world. Aspiring authors, keep pitching. having an outline, so I had a topic, I had an outline, I had a proposal, I really, could clearly see the book in my mind of what it was gonna be. I thought we'd workshop it and maybe, know, constructive feedback is so helpful. But especially for nonfiction, I've heard for fiction, like having the full manuscript basically done to be read is an expectation. For nonfiction books, I don't know that that's exactly the same. They look for more at your credibility. Do you have the... credentials to write this book because it's usually in a domain, right? Nonfiction. So that may or may not be as important. Looking back, what was one of the most important factors in being published? To be very honest with you, the amount of followers. I believe that being more famous was a key factor to getting this published, having a PhD helped this get published and how it's gonna get into the hands of readers. I will be promoting it. probably as mentioned in the proposal for the next two to five years and I'm recording this for you in September 2024, which means I'm promoting it even before it comes out January 9th, 2025. So this was a little, a lot, probably more than you wanted background about the book process, realities of it all. And Wiley is a big, big publisher. It's one of the top six in the world. I have learned so much about this process in very old school kind of way and what publishing actually looks like behind the scenes. I'm really, really excited for this book to come out. I am so passionate. I wish I'd had this book. I wish I'd had this book. If I had this book at 18 to do real, to really, real talk with me about careers, to talk openly and inclusively about money in a way that did not happen for me. still don't always happen for me with friends and family. It's a taboo topic, especially for women to want money, to build wealth, to talk about what financial freedom means for us, to have our name on our own bank accounts. That was as recently as the 70s, 1970s, right? So we really have to think about this in context that, yeah, it's a pretty revolutionary moment. And I'm just so delighted to have practical. actionable AI and society content. And this podcast will continue to also be about technical work, about really cool projects, about careers, about resilience. I'd love it to continue to talk more about money and things, but also making sure my guests are really well supported and if they feel comfortable talking about that. I hope you enjoy these bonus episodes about the book and kind of explaining facets of how it came to be. But I hope you do see in a lot of ways how this book really speaks to and is woven well into the podcast content. Are they identical? No, but they really, your ability to hear insights from guests around the world and also see some really modern career advice and how those do and don't. match and then also really think about your financial house and how much money these people may may not be making and how you want to think about your career and your life. Whoa I may have shocked you. I hope you're doing okay. no but seriously if you enjoyed this if you think you might be interested the book today costs $35 USD and you can find it on Amazon already today for pre -sales. If you would buy it, I would be so honored because pre -sales matter so much for getting potentially on best sellers list, different awards and so forth. Big goals I have of where it might be published. So you can find the book at yourairroadmap .com slash buy. We also have a link to the bookshop .org, more indie bookstores. You can find those links at yourairroadmap .com and there's like a bookshop .org. like logo and you can click on that and that'll send you over to them. I'm gonna stop there. If you have further questions about the book writing process overall, if you're thinking about writing a book, definitely think about flushing out a proposal, getting feedback, connecting with people in the publishing world. That is what I recommend. And please buy the book. Okay, cool. I hope you have a wonderful rest of your day and buy the book. And no, but really I am so honored that this and this podcast are making its way to you. And I'm so proud and grateful for this whole process and this pieces of my career, my legacy and what gifts, what resources I want to provide to you and the world the way I think it can be. Okay, signing off. Have a good rest of day. Bye.