About Branding by Books

I’m from the Bay Area, California, where I live with my wife Grace and daughter, Lilly. But Branding by Books didn’t start as a business idea — it started as resistance.

For over a decade, people told me I should write a book. And for over a decade, I found reasons not to. I told myself I wasn’t ready yet. That I needed to hit a certain milestone. Finish a project. Become a better writer. Figure things out first.

What I didn’t realize at the time was that none of that was the real reason.

I was afraid of visibility.
Afraid of judgment.
Afraid of the unknown.
Afraid of failure.

In 2018, I finally decided to sit down and write anyway — not because the timing was perfect, but because I told myself that if it helped even one person, it would be worth it.

I had no roadmap. I opened blank documents and started writing. I learned the hard way about editing, covers, formatting, and the emotional weight of trying to ship something meaningful. My wife and I were on vacation trying to finalize edits when things fell apart with an editor. It was stressful, imperfect, and far from glamorous.

But when the book arrived, it felt like Christmas morning. Not because it was perfect — but because it was done.

Then reality hit.

Writing a book is not Field of Dreams. Just because you publish it doesn’t mean readers show up. Amazon doesn’t reward intention. Even people I thanked in the acknowledgments didn’t read it.

At the time, my wife and I were teachers in the Bay Area. We self-funded what we thought was a “book funnel” — ads, offers, email sequences, courses — and burned through money we didn’t really have. I remember getting an email from a woman who said the book sounded great, but she didn’t have $7 to buy it.

I was frustrated — not with her, but with the system. My wife said something simple that changed everything:
“At least she wants to read it. Just give it to her.”

So I did.

Weeks later, when I sat down to rewrite the book out of sheer frustration, there was an email waiting for me from that same woman. She told me she read the book — not because of me, but because she was still here. She had been preparing to take her own life.

I didn’t rewrite the book that day.

I sat there in tears, realizing something I hadn’t understood before: books don’t just inform. They connect. They give people language when they don’t have it themselves. And if a book helps one person, it matters.

From there, we went all in. Coaching. Courses. Marketing. We drained retirements. We spent hundreds of thousands of dollars learning what actually works — and what doesn’t — when it comes to books, visibility, and trust.

Eventually, we stopped treating books like a back-end product and started treating them like what they really are: a front-end brand asset.

Everything changed when we worked with our first true client — Ace, a respiratory therapist who treated the first community-spread COVID-19 patient in the United States. His experience pushed him into a dark place. His transformation gave him a story and a methodology worth sharing.

Before his book was even released, he was being invited onto podcasts, radio shows, and speaking engagements. People were asking for his back-end offer — before it existed.

That’s when it clicked.

Books aren’t about royalties or bestseller lists. They’re about trust. Positioning. Human connection. And leverage.

What started as a coaching idea quickly evolved into something else entirely. People didn’t want another course — they wanted help doing it right. They wanted authenticity without burnout. Visibility without becoming someone they weren’t.

Today, Branding by Books works with authors all over the world — doctors, lawyers, consultants, investors, founders, and operators across industries from medical technology to AI, from memoir to methodology.

At any given time, we may be working on 90+ books.

We’ve built a full-time team of writers, editors, designers, formatters, launch coordinators, and brand builders — not marketers — all aligned around one idea:

A book should work for you.

Our mission is simple: help people share their story, become visible with integrity, build trust at scale, and create impact that extends far beyond the page.