What if launching a book is actually a masterclass in product management?
In this First Cup from Product Coffee, I joined the conversation to talk about the process of bringing An Inbox Between Us to market and the unexpected lessons that came with it.
The conversation moved beyond the finished book and into the reality behind it: audience research, positioning, budget constraints, cover decisions, marketing trade-offs, launch timing, and the pressure of trying to reach the right readers without a large publishing machine behind the work.
Publishing forced me into many of the same decisions product teams face every day.
At the center of the conversation is the audience I wrote the book for: the 79% of workers who feel like “AI survivalists,” trying to stay relevant, keep their jobs, and make sense of a workplace conversation that often talks around them instead of to them.
This First Cup looks at book publishing through a product lens, but the deeper conversation is about how ideas survive contact with the market, the people they are meant to serve, and the constraints that shape what actually gets built.
I want to thank Jason Brett, Allison Herbert, and everyone who participated during the event and in our later conversations about the book.