Chapter 6: Publishing as Authority Building
The Manuscript That Sat in My Google Drive for a Decade
I started writing a book in 2014.
It was called Tech-Forward Nonprofit, and the idea was straightforward: I was a techy nonprofit executive building ecommerce systems, implementing CRMs, and modernizing operations at Stupid Cancer. Nobody in the nonprofit world was talking about this stuff the way I thought it needed to be talked about. So I'd write the book.
I got about six thousand words in. Enough for an introduction and a couple of chapters. Enough to feel like I'd started something real.
Then the platforms changed.
The ecommerce platform we were using got acquired. The CRM we'd just implemented released a major update that changed half the workflows I'd documented. The social media landscape shifted. The tools I was writing about in January were obsolete by June.
So I'd stop. Wait for things to settle. Start again. Write another thousand words. Watch the landscape shift again. Stop again.
This cycle repeated for nearly a decade.
The manuscript sat in my Google Drive, six thousand words of increasingly outdated tactical advice about platforms that no longer existed in the form I'd described them. Every time I opened the document, I'd read through what I had, realize half of it needed to be rewritten, and close the file.
Here's what I didn't understand at the time: the platforms were changing, but the approaches and methodologies weren't. The principles of building ecommerce for a nonprofit, of implementing systems thinking in a mission-driven organization, of using technology to multiply impact rather than just automate tasks --- those hadn't changed at all.
I was stuck because I was writing about tools. I should have been writing about thinking.
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The Book That Was Hiding in Plain Sight
While Tech-Forward Nonprofit was collecting dust, I was accidentally writing another book in public.
Between 2013 and 2016, I published dozens of articles. A regular column on Practical Ecommerce called "Selling for a Cause." Blog posts on BigCommerce about ecommerce strategy for nonprofits. Pieces on Medium about nonprofit technology. Articles on Forbes through the Business Council.
Each one was a standalone piece. A lesson learned. A system implemented. A mistake made and corrected.
I didn't think of them as chapters. But that's exactly what they were.
Years later, when I finally sat down to write Mission-Driven Ecommerce, I realized the book was already written. It was scattered across five platforms and four years of publishing, but the content was there. The experiences. The frameworks. The honest assessments of what worked and what didn't.
All it needed was a through line. A narrative that connected the individual pieces into something coherent. And some fresh perspective --- the benefit of looking back on those experiences with years of distance and seeing patterns I couldn't see when I was in the middle of them.
Two books. Two completely different problems. One had been stuck for a decade because I was chasing specifics. The other had been hiding in years of published work, waiting to be assembled.
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How AI Became My Writing Partner
I need to be honest about something: I didn't finish either book alone.
I finished them working with Claude.
But not in the way most people assume when they hear "I used AI to write a book." Claude didn't write my books. It didn't generate content about experiences it never had or expertise it doesn't possess.
What Claude did was ask me questions.
The process looked almost exactly like what's happening with this book right now. I'd share what I had --- the old manuscript, the scattered articles, the stories in my head that I'd never written down --- and Claude would ask me to go deeper. "What happened after that?" "Why did that matter?" "What would you tell someone who's facing that same problem today?"
It was like having a writing partner who never got tired of asking the next question. Each answer led to more questions. Each question pulled out something I knew but hadn't articulated.
For The Accidental Nonprofiteer (the book that Tech-Forward Nonprofit eventually became), Claude helped me find the through line I'd been missing for ten years. The book wasn't about the tools. It was about stumbling into nonprofit leadership without a playbook and figuring it out as you go. The title says it all --- I was an accidental nonprofiteer. Once I stopped trying to write a technology manual and started writing about the experience of learning to lead, the book came together in weeks instead of years.
For Mission-Driven Ecommerce, Claude helped me take four years of published columns and blog posts and find the narrative that connected them. Not just a compilation. A coherent story about building ecommerce systems in service of a mission, told by someone who'd done it in the trenches and could now look back with perspective.
I don't feel like Claude wrote my books. I feel like it brought out the best in me through a series of questions that led to more questions. The knowledge was always mine. The experiences were always mine. The voice is mine. AI just helped me organize what I already knew into something other people could use.
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The Business Card That Opens Doors
When both books were published, someone asked me why I priced them so low.
The Accidental Nonprofiteer was $4.99. Mission-Driven Ecommerce was $2.99. At one point I dropped them both to $0.99 during a promotion.
"Why don't you charge more?" they asked. "You could get $14.99 or $19.99 for these."
My answer was simple: the books aren't the product. They're the business card.
If someone reads The Accidental Nonprofiteer and wants to hire me to consult on their nonprofit's operations, that conversation is worth infinitely more than the $15 I might have charged for the book. If someone reads Mission-Driven Ecommerce and invites me to speak at their conference, that opportunity didn't come from the royalty --- it came from the credibility.
I'm not trying to get rich off books I've written about my own experiences. I'm trying to make those experiences accessible to the next version of me --- the person who's running a nonprofit and feels overwhelmed by technology, or building an ecommerce operation for a cause they believe in, or trying to figure out how to lead an organization they stumbled into.
Educating the next me. That's the point.
The price needs to be low enough that there's no barrier. A college student running a campus nonprofit can afford $2.99. A first-time executive director can justify $4.99. The book reaches the people who need it most, and the ones who want to go deeper know how to find me.
• • •
What Publishing Actually Built
Here's what I didn't fully appreciate until after the books were out: publishing doesn't just create content. It creates infrastructure.
The moment I published through Amazon KDP, a cascade of things happened that I hadn't planned for:
Amazon Author Page
Amazon created an author profile for me. A page with my photo, my bio, my books, and a URL that anyone could visit. This page carries Amazon's domain authority --- one of the highest in the world.
Goodreads Profile
My books appeared on Goodreads, which created another author profile on another high-authority platform. Another place where "Kenny Kane" was associated with "author" and "CEO" rather than "comedian" or "rapper."
BookBub Listing
I created a BookBub author profile, adding another authoritative platform to the list of places that confirmed my identity and my work.
Google Play and Apple Books
I syndicated from Amazon to Google Play Books and Apple Books. Each platform created its own listing, its own author page, its own set of metadata about who I am and what I've written.
Website Landing Pages
I built dedicated landing pages on kenny-kane.com for each book, using AI to help design them. Professional layouts with book covers, descriptions, purchase links, and reviews. These pages became some of the most polished content on my site.
Each of these platforms is a signal. Each one tells search engines and AI systems: "Kenny Kane is an author. He's published these books. He's verified on Amazon, Goodreads, BookBub, Google Play, and Apple Books."
When I later built my Wikidata entry and needed authoritative citations for the "author of" property, I had half a dozen platforms to cite. The books created the verification infrastructure that the Knowledge Panel required.
I didn't plan that. I didn't publish the books thinking, "These will help me get a Knowledge Panel someday." I published them because I had something to say and I wanted to say it.
But the infrastructure benefits were enormous. And they compounded over time.
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The Knowledge Panel Connection
Here's the timeline worth knowing:
I published both books. Then I syndicated them across platforms. Then I built landing pages. Then, when I created my Wikidata entry, I was able to cite:
Amazon author page (authoritative source)
Goodreads author profile (authoritative source)
BookBub listing (authoritative source)
My own website's book pages (with proper schema markup)
The "author" occupation on my Wikidata entry wasn't just a claim. It was verifiable across multiple independent platforms.
And here's the thing: the comedian Kenny Kane hasn't published any books. The rapper hasn't either. When Google is trying to disambiguate between us, the fact that I have a verified author presence across multiple platforms is a significant differentiator.
Publishing gave me something no amount of blogging or social media could: a category of identity that none of the other Kenny Kanes occupy.
That's not why I wrote the books. But it's why publishing matters for disambiguation.
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Why Books Change Everything
Let me be direct about what publishing does for your professional identity:
Books create permanent authority signals.
A blog post can be deleted. A social media profile can be deactivated. A LinkedIn recommendation can disappear.
But a book on Amazon is permanent. It has an ISBN. It exists in library databases. It gets indexed across dozens of platforms. It creates a trail of metadata that persists regardless of what you do with your website or social media.
Books force you to organize your thinking.
Writing The Accidental Nonprofiteer forced me to articulate what I'd learned in six and a half years of nonprofit leadership. Things I knew intuitively but had never structured. Principles I followed but had never named.
The process of writing the book made me a better leader. Not because the book taught me anything new, but because the act of writing forced me to understand what I already knew.
Books create networking currency.
When I meet someone at a conference and they ask what I do, I can say, "I'm the CEO of Firmspace and the Testicular Cancer Foundation." That's impressive enough.
But when I can add, "I've also written a couple of books --- one about nonprofit leadership and one about mission-driven ecommerce," something shifts. People lean in. They ask questions. They want to know more.
A book signals that you've done the work of organizing your expertise and making it available to others. That you're not just doing the job --- you're thinking about it deeply enough to teach it.
Books make you citable.
In an AI-first world, being citable is currency. When someone asks ChatGPT or Claude about nonprofit ecommerce, my books are potential sources. Not because they're bestsellers, but because they exist as structured, verified content on authoritative platforms.
Every blog post, every article, every social media update is ephemeral content that might get indexed and might not. A book is permanent content on platforms that AI systems already trust.
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The Self-Publishing Decision
I chose Amazon KDP for both books. No agent. No publisher. No six-month submission process.
Here's why:
Speed matters more than prestige.
A traditional publisher might have given my books more distribution. But the submission process takes months. The editing process takes months. The publication timeline takes months to years. And at the end of it, I'd have a book with someone else's name on the spine as publisher, on someone else's timeline, with someone else's priorities.
KDP let me go from finished manuscript to published book in days.
Control matters.
I set the price. I update the content. I control the description, the categories, the keywords. If I want to drop the price to $0.99 for a promotion, I do it. If I want to update a chapter because something changed, I can.
The infrastructure benefits are the same.
Whether you publish with Penguin Random House or Amazon KDP, you still get an Amazon author page, a Goodreads listing, an ISBN, and metadata across dozens of platforms. The verification signals are identical.
The prestige of a traditional publisher is real. But for the purpose of building digital authority and disambiguation infrastructure, self-publishing gets you 90% of the benefit in 10% of the time.
• • •
What You Don't Need
You don't need to write a masterpiece.
You don't need a literary agent or a six-figure book deal.
You don't need to quit your job and spend a year in a cabin writing.
You need to have something worth saying --- which, if you've been working in your field for any meaningful amount of time, you do. You need to organize that knowledge into something other people can learn from. And you need to publish it on platforms that create the verification infrastructure your digital identity needs.
My books aren't perfect. They're not literary achievements. They're practical guides written by someone who did the work and wanted to help the next person do it better.
That's enough.
In fact, that's exactly what readers are looking for. Not polished prose from an ivory tower. Honest, practical advice from someone who's been in the trenches.
• • •
The Compounding Effect
Here's what happens after you publish:
Month one, you have a book on Amazon and a few congratulatory messages from friends.
Month three, the book starts showing up in search results. Your Amazon author page is indexed. Your Goodreads profile appears when people Google your name.
Month six, someone mentions your book in a conversation. Someone else finds it while researching your industry. A podcast host invites you on because they saw you'd written about their topic.
Year one, the book has become part of your digital identity. When people Google you, it's there. When AI systems describe you, "author" is part of your profile. When you meet someone new, you're not just a CEO --- you're a CEO who's written books.
Year two and beyond, the book is working for you in ways you can't even track. Someone reads it and recommends you for a speaking engagement. Someone cites it in their own work. Someone finds you through it and becomes a client, a collaborator, or a friend.
This is what I mean by compounding. The book doesn't just sit on Amazon collecting dust. It works. Quietly, consistently, permanently. Every day it exists, it's creating signals, generating metadata, building authority, and making you more discoverable.
And unlike a blog post that gets buried in your archive or a social media post that disappears in 24 hours, a book persists. It has weight. It has permanence. It has an ISBN that will exist in databases for decades.
• • •
Your Turn
If you've been thinking about writing a book, stop thinking and start writing.
Here's what the process actually looks like:
Step 1: Find your through line.
What do you know that other people need to learn? What experience have you had that the next version of you would benefit from? That's your book.
Step 2: Start with what you have.
Look at your blog posts, articles, presentations, and notes. You probably have more raw material than you think. My second book was hiding in four years of published columns.
Step 3: Use AI as a writing partner, not a ghostwriter.
Work with Claude or another AI tool to organize your thinking. Let it ask you questions. Answer honestly. The book will emerge from what you already know.
Step 4: Publish through KDP.
It's free. It's fast. It creates all the infrastructure you need. Don't wait for permission from a traditional publisher.
Step 5: Syndicate everywhere.
Once you're on Amazon, get on Google Play, Apple Books, Goodreads, and BookBub. Each platform is another verification signal.
Step 6: Build landing pages.
Create dedicated pages on your website for each book. Use proper schema markup. Link to all purchase platforms. Make the books part of your digital ecosystem.
Step 7: Price for access, not revenue.
Unless you're writing for a living, price your books low enough that anyone can afford them. The real value isn't in royalties. It's in the doors the book opens.
• • •
The Lesson I Wish I'd Learned Sooner
I wasted a decade trying to write the perfect technology manual. A book that would be comprehensive, current, and authoritative.
That book never got finished because the landscape kept changing.
The books I actually published were different. They were honest. They were personal. They were about principles and experiences rather than platforms and tools. And they got finished because I stopped chasing perfection and started chasing usefulness.
If I'd published Tech-Forward Nonprofit in 2015, even in its imperfect state, I would have had ten years of compounding authority signals. Ten years of Amazon metadata. Ten years of being "Kenny Kane, author" instead of just "Kenny Kane, that nonprofit guy."
Instead, I waited. And the only thing waiting got me was a decade-old manuscript gathering dust in Google Drive.
Don't make my mistake.
You have something worth saying. Say it. Publish it. Let it start working for you.
The next version of you is out there, trying to figure out the same things you've already figured out. Write the book that would have helped you when you were starting.
That's not vanity. That's generosity. And it happens to be excellent strategy.
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