B is for Book Coach

About B is for Book Coach

Hi, I’m Brannan (you can call me B). I help non-writers write books that change themselves, their readers, and the world. And I do it all without asking them to become anything other than the expert, thoughtful, conscious, brilliant humans they already are. bisforbookcoach.substack.com (https://bisforbookcoach.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast)

Publisher

A hub for nonfiction non-writers.

Category

arts · education

Language

en

Explicit

No

First episode

15 Oct 2024

Latest episode

5 Nov 2026

Latest episodes

81 episodes in the feed.

1. 

   5 Nov 2026

   What a 1939 Picture Book Tells Us about AI

   Welcome back to B is for Book Coach (http://bisforbookcoach.substack.com/about). Today, we’re making space for steam shovels. It’s been a while since I had to be on bedtime duty for a little one, but on Halloween, I tagged in to watch my babiest niece so my kiddos could enjoy the evening instead of watching her like they usually do. She was a little sad that all of her favorite people had left her to the just-okay-Aunt-B, but that was before I told her we could read four books at bedtime. I saw my opportunity to indoctrinate her with the good stuff (and sneak a bit of nostalgia in for myself as well), and I took it. We’re talking Eric Carle. Fairy tales. Chicka Chicka Boom Boom. And a deep cut she hadn’t seen before: Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel. - A picture book from 1939 following a man and his steam shovel named Mary Ann as they learn to adapt to a post-steam-shovel world. - The parallels to AI—new technology swooping in, the attachment to what was, the fears of being scrapped and desperation to find the right audience… - The choices we have - The possibilities "they" can't see - What we can do next Enjoying this space? Want to dig deeper? Consider booking a Next Steps Sandbox session (https://app.hellobonsai.com/s/brannan-sirratt/accelerator). I’ll meet you wherever you are now, help you name where you want to go, and put your next steps in your very own Developer Sandbox. That way, you can actually take those steps—and the next ones, and the next, until “done” finally feels real. Get full access to B is for Book Coach at bisforbookcoach.substack.com/subscribe (https://bisforbookcoach.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4)

2. 

   26 Oct 2026

   Sometimes, You Need to Pause & Process

   Welcome back to B is for Book Coach (http://bisforbookcoach.substack.com/about). I’m B, midwife of big ideas and book development partner (http://developyourbook.com) for writers and non-writers alike. And for the next few minutes, you are my author. Don’t worry. That doesn’t commit you to anything more than what you’re doing right in this moment. Because the best authors are simply people who show up as themselves, for themselves and for their readers. Today, we’re making space for developing. Enjoying this space? Want to dig deeper? Consider booking a Next Steps Sandbox session (https://app.hellobonsai.com/s/brannan-sirratt/accelerator). I’ll meet you wherever you are now, help you name where you want to go, and put your next steps in your very own Developer Sandbox. That way, you can actually take those steps—and the next ones, and the next, until “done” finally feels real. Today, I spent some time in my Developer Sandbox, working more on the underlying framework of my business and the offers I create for my people. This isn’t the first personal working session I’ve recorded, so if you want to see another video of real-time use of this development environment, just reply to let me know. I’ll send you the link. In this session, I came in feeling a bit of the Monday blues. I have had some incredible moments with the authors and business owners and professionals who have made their way to me. And I have had some really low moments where I’ve wondered if I’ll have the stamina to find the authors and business owners and professionals who still need me. I mean, when LinkedIn is tanking views and social media is not your forte and you really just want to be doing the work, it feels like every single interaction counts. That, or you’ll have to create more interactions, and that’s not at all where you want your energy to go. And by “you,” I mean “me.” I could have done a lot of things with that frustration. I could have ranted (more). I could have posted something unhinged (again). I could have fallen into an AI pit and spun up some confirmation bias to either soothe me or reinvent everything (no thanks). Instead, I opened my Developer Sandbox because I know it’s set up to facilitate real progress. I saw my options—a CRM that could help me reach out to people, a visibility database that could inspire me to create new content, positioning worksheets that could help me dig deeper… And a set of customer journey maps, built one layer of experience at a time, that could bring it all together. I didn’t really have an agenda when I opened this page. I just wanted to get more grounded in my offers. I had just wrapped up a Next Steps session (https://app.hellobonsai.com/s/brannan-sirratt/accelerator) that set two amazing authors up inside of their own Sandbox. I had so much fun and they made so much progress that I really just wanted to figure out how to help more people see themselves in that service. All while fully understanding that it’s a weird service that no one really has a frame of reference for. As soon as I opened the page, all of that internal chatter and all of the worry it came with settled down until I could get really present with the task at hand. That task? To keep refining what I’d said until all that was left was the truth. Right away, I could see the column that held my personal experience wasn’t telling the whole truth. So I started to refine it. Here is where I landed…at least for now: I spent years trying to find a home within the industry…any part of the industry, really. I could tell I was doing good things with my work and clients, and I thought the next level of growth was going to come from someone else making that growth possible. Over the years, even the worst situations taught me something. And because I thought that’s all there was—that I had no other options—I made the most of them. I worked from within other people’s systems, followed their processes, tried to fix them from the inside. And I really did learn SO much. But in a lot of those places, there was also very real harm happening. It would take a long time for me to realize that harm wasn’t necessary. Meanwhile, my unique strengths and approach kept getting reflected back to me as more effective than whatever box I was in. Still, it took me SO LONG to even name my own processes, much less stand in my own point of view. And it took even longer to use those processes and point of view for myself. I really was holding back, hoping to find the “right” way—something that would validate or amplify my work for me. But it’s impossible to amplify something that’s been withheld. So, I doubled down on the spaces I was in, trying to make my own expertise and what I knew to be effective shape those systems. I tried adding coaching and cognitive or emotional support processes to rigorous editorial spaces. I tried to bring narrative theory to outcome-focused spaces. I refused to push authors when they needed room to expand. I developed/pitched/advocated for processes that would protect the vision and mission of those organizations so that they could keep supporting their people (and therefore keep me paid). Deep down, I wanted them to thrive so that I had a place to stay “safe.” Over time, I found myself bending those systems to match what I knew was effective. Weirdly, I was bending the process while still acting as though the rules were rigid. For that to happen, at least part of me had to know that I knew what to do. Even though I was still looking for safety inside of someone else’s expertise, I was getting more comfortable with my own. I just had to grow into acknowledging it. For a long time, I wanted to stay in other systems for safety and validation. (Sometimes, I still do.) But I gradually started to find I couldn’t take jobs or promotions that didn’t allow me the agency to make decisions from that place of earned expertise. Then the systems started to push back. They didn’t want to bend or change, even if it was in service of their mission/purpose. (Probably because I was reading my own mission/purpose into theirs, and we didn’t actually hold the same values.) Either way, the “framework” of the systems wasn’t actually giving me safety. In fact, they were starting to become a threat. And that can mess with your head. Then it messed with my income. In 2023, the company that held half my income collapsed. Between my own point of view and the burnout that comes from workplace trauma, I realized I couldn’t fit into any other jobs in the industry. I had to stand on my own, inside of a business that I hadn’t really structured as a business. The feeling that I didn’t belong got loud. But so was my desire to do this work anyway. So I started to (slowly) name what “this work” even was. What parts of it mattered and why couldn’t I just give it up? If I couldn’t give it up, that had to mean I belonged…somewhere. (Right?) The last time I tried to apply to a “safe” job, it was a Penguin-Random House imprint. It was a long shot, so my first attempt was really measured and careful. Until I realized how much I would have to bend or even break in order to be the person who got that job. It wasn’t worth it. It wouldn’t let me do the work I’d fought so hard to grow into. So I found myself revising my cover letter away from kowtowing and toward the truth of what I would want out of that role. And I accidentally told on myself. I wrote this: The publishing industry is afraid of dying, but if it isn’t going to help connect authors and readers in the meaningful, creative, revolutionary ways that this era has actually made possible, then maybe it should die. Spoiler: I didn’t get the job. After the systems I was in had fallen apart and it became clear that I didn’t want to play anyone else’s games anymore, I had the choice to double down on me or quit. So I doubled down again, all while feeling truly unemployable AND out of my depth as an entrepreneur. My options were to find a way to make my own safety or drown. In trying to anchor my business, I spent years and worked with multiple coaches trying to name what “my business” actually is. What do I do and who do I serve? (With a healthy dose of, “Please for the love of everything tell me what to do and I’ll do it.”) I could see my work helping people. I wasn’t fighting other business’s systems anymore. But I was sometimes cycling back to looking for external authority. It took really careful helpers who empowered me in my expertise while standing in their own to be able to make progress. At some point in that process, while waiting at a dance event for my kid, I sat down with ChatGPT and asked “How are people using ‘Big Idea’?” It was a phrase that one of the other frameworks I was in had used to describe nonfiction. But my people were frequently questioning whether their idea was “big” enough, and I wasn’t sure if I wanted to niche to something that made brilliant people question their worth. I fell into that rabbit hole, hard. I noticed the LLM was keeping up with my thinking in a way that few other spaces had, and I knew enough about what I was researching, summarizing, combining, and creating that the speed drove me deeper into my own thinking rather than outsourcing it. Months of refinement later, the Visibility Spectrum (http://developyourbook.com/spectrum) emerged, and a year or so after that, it led to the Sandbox (http://developyourbook.com/services). The Spectrum had helped people define what done means (on their own terms instead of to external expectations), and I wanted a better way to show them their progress on the way toward “done.” So I sat down with my oldest kid. (I didn’t have the bandwidth to learn a new tech platform, but he did.) Together, we built a “portal” that could house multiple stages of the book development process. It was another rabbit hole, applying the Spectrum to the Sandbox in a way that required me to externalize all of my thinking about my work. And not just book development, but author development (on and off the page), and the development of the reader’s experience. Months after that, my good friends and colleagues came here to develop their shared business in an in-person retreat. After two weeks of providing intensive support, getting knee deep into their values and strengths and expertise and guiding them into levels of development that required care and intention every step of the way, I realized something. I wanted the same kind of help for me that I provide for my clients. So I duplicated a Sandbox and converted the thinking, questions, tools, and systems to be for a business instead of a book. Then I started answering my own questions. Using the Sandbox for my own work started to give me access to things I couldn’t have named with any other approach. It opened up possibility I hadn’t seen before. I would love to say that it made me a millionaire overnight and solved all of the world’s woes, but really this just catches us up to this moment. Where the work is still happening. The work won’t ever be done, because we’re humans on a growth spiral that doesn’t stop moving as long as we’re alive. Right now, “done” just means I’m making another upward turn on that spiral, instead of spinning out. I can make the decisions that are in front of me, using a framework that works with my brain, instead of repeatedly abandoning my own thinking for someone else’s. Who knows what that might lead to. And now, when I say that to clients, I’m speaking from a place of experience and not just observation. I know it sucks to be out of your depth. I know it’s hard to not be done yet. But I also know you have too much good in you to let it be filtered away. Hey, thanks for creating this space with me today. Whether or not you’re ready to dive into writing just yet, remember that the best authors show up fully, just as they are. That’s all it takes—and you’re already doing it. Be sure to subscribe on Substack (http://bisforbookcoach.substack.com/subscribe) or wherever you listen to podcasts to catch every coaching moment to come. And when more of your book is ready to emerge, the space we made today will be here waiting for you. And so will I (http://developyourbook.com/services). Get full access to B is for Book Coach at bisforbookcoach.substack.com/subscribe (https://bisforbookcoach.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4)

3. 

   12 Oct 2026

   Have You Defined What “Done” Means?

   When you’re working on something that matters, right? Something that you know in your gut could change the world—or at least your corner of it. Something you’re willing to put your name (and years of reputation and experience) behind and hand it to the people you know it could impact most. When you’re working on something like that—and it still isn’t done? Things can feel a little bleak out here. Because everywhere you look, there are systems and programs and thought leaders and influencers telling you to “just do the thing.” And if you could have just done it already, you would have. Maybe you’ve tried program after program, template after template, software after software, approach after approach, hoping that this next one will finally be the one that clicks it all into place. But you know too much to let something shallow stand in for something real. There’s something about this book, this business, this brand that deserves more of your thought and attention than “just get it done” allows—and probably more uninterrupted time and space than you have to give right now. And listen, I believe that you absolutely could get that thing done as soon as you have enough time and space to do it. But I also know that the weight of someday is heavy. It’s there when you can’t stop thinking about this idea. It’s there when you pull up your notes in the middle of doing something else because another thought came through. It’s there when someone else publishes their book, launches their thing, or steps into a level of growth that just reminds you of what you are still carrying. And every time you say, “When I have the bandwidth, I’ll get to this,” that thing takes up more bandwidth. The open questions are still there. The decisions you haven’t made yet are still there. The possibilities are still there. That’s why I don’t start by telling you how to get the thing done. I start by asking, “What does done even look like?” It doesn’t matter how I define done. It doesn’t matter what published looks like or what launched looks like. What matters is what you want this thing to do for you and for the people it’s meant to reach. Those are the two questions behind the Visibility Spectrum. (http://developyourbook.com/spectrum) (http://developyourbook.com/spectrum) They’re simple questions, even if they’re not always easy to answer. But when you are able to, something really important changes. Having a definition of what this thing is here to do gives you a way to make decisions in that direction. It shows you what belongs and what doesn’t belong—what needs more development and doesn’t need more development. Does this help someone else get where they want to go? Is it moving me toward the place I want to go? What can wait and what matters right now? The point of the Visibility Spectrum is to give you an axis for everything else to rotate around, no matter how quickly your life or your brain or your project or your work is moving right now. I’m not gonna tell you what this thing should be, but I will help you define what it means to get this done right—so that you’re not chasing a moving target every time you sit down to think about this project. And listen: If for any reason you can’t answer one or both of those questions just yet, that’s useful information too. It tells us where the development work actually needs to begin. Because the weight of potential is already heavy, and even more so when you’re carrying every single possibility at once. So don’t. Start with two questions. Define what done means for you and for this idea. And then we can see what actually deserves your attention next…and next…and next. So. Welcome to this space. I’m so glad you’re here. Go take the Visibility Spectrum quiz (http://developyourbook.com/spectrum), and if you need more support after that, just reach out. I’ll meet you there. Get full access to B is for Book Coach at bisforbookcoach.substack.com/subscribe (https://bisforbookcoach.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4)

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Public platform figures. Ratings count people who left a rating, not total listeners.

Apple Podcasts (US)

5.0 / 5

2 ratings

Spotify

5.0 / 5

3 ratings

Podcast Authority Score: 39 / 100

A composite of feed quality, social presence, YouTube performance and engagement. Read the methodology.

Quality

78

Social presence

0

YouTube

0

Engagement

0

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