How Salli Cohen built a Brand Book (& launched it to rave reviews)
Jessica Andersen
September 25, 2025
Salli Cohen, author of Rollercoaster: How To Be a Bloody Good Policy Officer, is making daily sales with her first Brand Book!
She navigated book coaching, editing, designing, and self-publishing... and launched her book to rave reviews.
Want to know how she built it? Watch our video interview or read the transcript below!
Jessica Andersen
Hello, everyone. I am here with Salli Cohen, one of my wonderful clients and Brand Book authors, who has spent over 25 years working across sectors and systems to make policy real and impactful. Salli holds a master of criminology and criminal justice, plus an executive master in public administration, and is an extended DISC accredited practitioner.
But beyond the titles, Salli is also a strategist, a storyteller, and a quiet force re-imagining what policy can be. She's worked with governments in Australia and internationally, aboriginal community controlled organizations, and for-purpose and private sectors—building capability, designing better services, and shifting systems from within her brand.
Her Brand Book, Rollercoaster, isn't just a policy textbook. Salli writes about how policy lives in people and change, and in the courage to do things differently. So thank you so much, Salli, my dear friend, for sitting down with me today to talk about your journey to Brand Book author.
Salli Cohen
Thank you Jessica, and it's just fun, fun doing this.
Jessica
Before we hopped on the call, we were talking policy a little bit already. I had never worked with someone in policy as a Brand Book author, and I think it just goes to show how versatile a Brand Book can be.
You don't have to be “just a service provider” or just a coach or just a content creator or just a consultant, just a CEO… Brand Books apply to everyone, right?
Salli
Absolutely.
Jessica
I'd love for you to tell us why you wanted to write a Brand Book in the first place.
Salli
Well, it kind of happened a bit by error! I had already made a heady cocktail of a decision—you know, the cocktail of excitement and trepidation—to leave government, and the stability of working in a government job. I had decided to hang up my own shingle.
And not long after, I caught up with a former colleague, and she was asking me what I was going to do next… and out tumbled the words, “I'm going to write a book!” And once those words tumble out, you can't take them back. I tried! I tried to capture them, put them back in, and she was like, “You gotta write a book.”
Well, I was slightly horrified and mortified with myself. I began working with the wonderful Kylie Zeal, who was my book coach, and then she introduced me to you. The process of understanding how to write a book—and then getting the support and the structure and the timelines from you and Kylie—made me realize I wanted to have a voice that not only identified me as a thought leader in policy, but that would help me shape my industry.
For people new to policy, my Brand Book would help shape their career, would help them understand why they are in policy. Because we have to have a purpose to be in policy, right? So many people aren't, but we have to have a purpose. And the purpose is bigger than ourselves, and that's really important. That was ultimately my drive for writing Rollercoaster, which I worked out along the way.
Jessica
Yeah, that's big. A lot of people go into writing a book because they're thinking of it as a legacy book, and it's a nice start, but I really want to open their minds to the idea that the Brand Book can actually be so much more than that. Yours is so purposeful because you are transmitting your knowledge and shaping the next generation of policymakers.
Salli
It is such a valid reason to want to write a book, and yet so many people don't let themselves even go that far in their minds. I think we have to give ourselves permission. That's one thing—to get that monkey off our shoulder saying, “No, you don't have the experience, the expertise to write a book.” Just get rid of that. Because even though writing was part of my work in government, it wasn’t all of my work. There's a myth that to be an effective policy developer, you have to be good at writing. Sure.
But when it comes to writing a book, we worry about how we are actually going to put our thoughts to paper. And that's hard. As for the legacy piece, the book is not about me; it's about the policies I've been able to influence.
Jessica
Absolutely. That's the key difference—it's not about you, it's about your reader.
Salli
Yeah, it's about driving that change. And it might only be a small step, but it’s foundational. There’s a story about building a cathedral, which obviously takes an awfully long time, and there's a stonemason working with his apprentice. His apprentice says, “All we are doing is laying the pavers that are the footpath to the cathedral. It's not even the cathedral.” And the stonemason says, “Yes, but the pavers that we are laying will take us to the cathedral.” I've completely misquoted that, but you get the gist, and I think that's what we do as Brand Book authors, especially in the beginning stages.
We do something for the next people to come along, and it's an extraordinary experience, Jessica, and so liberating and so empowering and really quite, quite personal.
Jessica
Sure. It's always going to be a personal endeavor, even though yours wasn't a memoir-driven Brand Book, so there was less personal stuff in it than some of the other books I've worked on. Yours is really focused on policy and people who are up-and-coming in that field right now. But yes, writing a book is always going to bring up a lot of stuff, and it's going to get hard.
I want to just touch on what you said a couple of minutes ago about how you voiced it out loud that you were going to write a book. Because when we say to ourselves, “I’m going to write a book,” and we keep that to ourselves, the idea feels so much safer, and yet we’re less likely to act on it.
But once we voice it and it's out there in the world, like you said, then it becomes real. And then there's this aspect of accountability that comes into play. That’s going to work in your favor because you're going to start thinking, “I told so-and-so that I was going to do this, so I better do it now!” Right?
Salli
Yeah. The cat's outta the bag!
Jessica
Exactly. So that's a perfect segue. Take us to when you first actually started to work on your book. Did you do it on your own, or did you seek help right away? Did you start with Kylie, who was your book coach? How did that play out?
Salli
After blurting out that I was going to write a book to my friend, I decided I’d better start writing, so I did. My husband actually bought me a computer for the purpose of writing the book, bless him. And I thought, “I really have to do it now!”
I was committed, so I wrote what I thought was a really powerful first chapter. Then I sent the chapter to three women whom I admire and respect enormously, and said, “I'd love to hear what you think.”
I was expecting praise… perhaps not high praise, but you know, something that would make me feel warm and fuzzy. They were gentle with me, but they were very firm. They said, “It's really unclear what you want to do. Good start, but you probably need some help,” which left me stumped, and I was a bit devastated by it.
But then I thought, okay, that's a challenge. Now I have to rise to the challenge. These three women are professionals in their own right, and I want them to read the finished the book and go, “Yes, we can use this. Yes, we can do X, Y, and Z.”
To accomplish that, my path took me to book coach Kylie Zeal. I remember my first couple of meetings with her. She had this wonderful structure and was really firm on timelines. She was constantly checking on whether I did what I said I was going to do. I needed that structure, I needed that guidance. I didn't understand how a book works.
I know a book when I love it, but there's science and there's art and there's magic behind a book that works, right? Having somebody who could in a very, very structured way get me to that point was invaluable. The book would not be what it is today without Kylie and without you. There's no way in the world.
Jessica
I would never want to reduce a book—even a Brand Book—down to a formula where you just sort of plug it in. Like you said, there is a science to it, but there's also an art and a magic. The distinction, especially for first-time Brand Book authors, is that you have to learn the ropes first. Learn the rules before you go and break them.
Sometimes you just want to take a crack at it and write the whole thing as a new author and hope that it’s going to be close to the end result. I've had so many authors come to me who did this and said, “It just needs a light edit.” But if you don't know the rules, you weren’t writing within them, and you might be disappointed in the editing stage.
What I like about what you did was that you only sent out the first chapter to those people, not the entire manuscript.
Salli
Gosh, no. And thank goodness!
Jessica
Yeah. That's just a testament to seeking support that you need from the beginning and not waiting until you finish the entire manuscript.
Salli
If I may make an analogy—I'm looking at that gorgeous scarf that you've got on—and I remember my many efforts at knitting, which just turned out to be these long, wobbly, wonky things with holes in them and drop stitches. I just got bored with it and put it away.
That's what writing a book is like. If you try to do it on your own, you need to sit down beside somebody who's a knitter, who knows how it works, who gives you the time you need to work it out. Your tension, your colors, your style, how you're going to craft it, but who helps you navigate that so that you end up with a beautiful scarf, like the one that you are wearing today.
You and Kylie allowed me to be me, but you helped me find a way to share my ideas with others so that my writing was going to have impact.
Jessica
It's about drawing the book out of you—the book that you want to write, of course, but always looking in the rearview mirror and asking, “Who's going to be reading this down the line, and how is this going to be serving them?” Because we're not just writing a book for ourselves as an ego thing, you know—it has to serve the readers.
So you worked with Kylie as your book coach. Explain a little bit about what that was like.
Salli
We would have regular meetings about every three weeks. I would submit my work a couple of days prior to my meeting with Kylie so she had the chance to read it, and then we would go through it on the call.
And Kylie has the patience of a saint. I remember one time she'd read something and she asked me a question to clarify what I’d written. And I bear the shame of this to this day, but I answered, “Yeah, Kylie, you don't understand. This is how we do it in policy,” to which Kylie very rightly responded, “But aren't you writing this book for people who don't understand?” Yeah.
Jessica
That's called “curse of knowledge.”
Salli
Yes, that brings it all flooding back! And so we worked steadily through her approach to writing a book, her structure, and her outline, and she constantly checked in. Sometimes I had to go back and rework stuff. Sometimes I would be starting the next bit. I particularly needed that structure, that accountability. It was very, very useful. Every meeting was focused, it was detailed. We did what we had to do, and then I had to get back on my bike and start at it again. It is a commitment!
It took me longer than I thought it would. But then when I think about it, I don't know really how long I thought it would be…
Jessica
I just became aware of the term “crash book” last night. Someone I follow on Substack is writing a crash book, and apparently this is a thing where people sit down and write a book in like a month or two or three, and it goes to publication that quickly. And that's because she's writing about current events in the United States, quite frankly, but it wasn't necessary for your book to have a really quick deadline. There's no right or wrong length of time to write a book. It depends more on the focus of your topic and your audience, and what they're looking for as well.
But then you wrapped up with Kylie and started working with me as your editor.
Salli
Yes, I had finished the manuscript before I started working with you on the developmental edit.
Jessica
And that was the first edit. I went through it and made my recommendations to the structure, asking, “How can we whittle this down a little bit, or maybe add more here to make it clear and organized and flowy?”
After those recommendations, there was a period of time where you had to, like you said, get back on your bike and ride that a little bit. The first edit always gives the author a bit of homework. And that's when you asked me for weekly accountability check-ins to make sure it all got done.
Salli
They were my weekly milestones. You checked in with me every Friday and made sure I was hitting them.
Jessica
Via email, so all asynchronous.
Salli
You did. And it was great. And that reminds me—if we can pause here and go back to the beginning for a sec—I had been looking for an editor to pick up where my book coach left off. Kylie recommended you, so we had a chat. I was also thinking about somebody else, a really dear friend of mine who also does this work. I gave you both a couple of chapters to have a look at. You sent me back your review with your thoughts and your advice.
And then I realized as brilliant as my girlfriend is at this work, I needed somebody who didn't know me. I also needed somebody who didn't know my area of expertise and experience. Part of that was comfort for me, but also I think it clears the deck of any concerns about maybe… doing something that's going to upset a friendship or whatever. Through this, we've created a friendship, which is beautiful and unexpected. You know, that wasn't in my mind, but it's wonderful.
And from the way that you guided me, Jessica, there was a tightness that came to my work. As you said, it was flowy—and I've had so many compliments about how well the book flows. So well done, you, well done.
Jessica
Well done, you, as well!
Salli
Sure. But you know, you picked up things I couldn't see.
Jessica
You can't see them in your own manuscript. You’re too close. I think my advantage there, plain and simple, was because I don't know about the world of policy. In that sense I would have been a target reader because I'm new to this world of policy, and I care about it, but I don't know the inner workings of it. And I'm by no means an expert.
So that perspective helped me pick at things where it's like “You're using your curse of knowledge here” and “You're writing something in ‘policyspeak’ that maybe your esteemed colleagues would understand, but that's not your target market for the book. And if I don't understand it, maybe we should make it more clear.”
Salli
And then of course we had fun with Americanisms and Australianisms. And that was just fun, like tossing the coin.
I even remember us having discussions about creating a reference list at the end of the manuscript which was a really important part of my book on policy because our work has to be evidence-informed. We talked about the best way to go about that. All of that—including creating a glossary—your knowledge on all of those things which make up a book was such a useful tool.
And I’ll tell you why. It has to do with the other feedback I'm getting from people. There was one young woman who came to the launch of my book. She just started out in policy, and she wrote to me a month later saying how this was just perfect timing. “I use your book every day!” she said.
Jessica
That's perfect. I love that because we never want it to be a book where people read it and they think, “Okay, that's nice,” and they put it on the shelf, never to pick it up again. The fact that people are going back to this and referencing it is exactly what you told me you wanted to create when we started working together on this book.
Speaking of which, let's finish up with those service providers. First, you coached with Kylie. Next, I came in for the developmental edit, and you had your time to work on that. Last, I did the copyedit and the proofread. Only then was the manuscript in its final form. Who stepped in after me?
Salli
After you, there's this whole thing called getting it formatted and laid out and put into a book and getting the thing published. Your industry is complex! There are so many layers to it, and to the novice writer, there's just so much you're not aware of. It's not just about putting pen to paper or fingers on the keyboard.
In the beginning, I went through a tussle. I'd had discussions with both you and Kylie about publishing. Early on, I'd gone to a big mainstream publisher, who was very interested in my work. I thought I wanted to go with them, but then it became clearer… the more I researched this, I found that—certainly in Australia, I dunno if it's the same elsewhere—when we go with a traditional publisher, we're expected to purchase 1000 copies of our book at a minimum. Because they're extremely risk averse, they need to cover their costs.
I live in the tropics, and the thought of a thousand copies of my book in the garage with, you know, the cover curling under the heat and the mold marching between the pages was just a bit too much. But also—buying 1000 copies is a lot of money, right? And when you're using top-notch service providers, like you and Kylie, creating a book is not a cheap exercise.
When you’re thinking about a pure dollar value, you get an absolute return on investment, but it is an investment. Adding to that 1000 copies of my own book, I just couldn't think of anything worse.
Jessica
Then the onus is on you to sell those 1000 copies.
Salli
Yeah! “Who wants to buy a book on policy?” You see the crowds running away.
So to get this published, I engaged a woman whom I saw at the Women In Publishing Summit in the States. You put me onto them.
Jessica
Yes, that’s Alexa Bigwarfe’s conference.
Salli
Yes. She’s an Australian woman, Kate Stead from Sydney. She and her husband write and publish children's books, but they also help other authors. I attended her session at the online conference, and I thought, I'm going to call on her.
Kate helped me navigate the publishing world—and it took me an awfully long time to understand it—but in the end, I decided to self-publish. She and her husband did the layout of the book. It was hilarious when she was writing to me, you know, “What size book do you want? What weight paper do you want? What font?” and I was like, “What on earth are you talking about?” Fortunately, my daughter, Alice Cohen, who's a brilliant graphic designer, did the cover art and all the internal graphics.
That in itself was an extraordinary learning curve, but then going to self-publish… you have to get the sample copies to check and to proofread. And there was something that hadn't quite worked for the print version, so it had to go back to the designer.
Meanwhile, I'd set a launch date, which was going to be either the last week of February this year, or the first week of March. And I thought, golly gosh, because it took two weeks for the post to arrive with the books I was proofreading. I knew I needed an extra couple of weeks because I needed copies for the launch! So yeah, we need people to guide us, to hold our hands, to make it possible.
I also joined the Expert Author Community, which is group based in Australia, and I found myself with a diverse group of people. Some had already written more than one book, and others were going through the process of writing. So it was really lovely finding a community of people, which is also what you build, Jessica [inside the Profitable Brand Book Program]. It provides not only a different kind support with buoyancy and hope, but also different avenues of learning.
Then I was faced with, how do I market my book? And it's not just marketing for the launch—marketing now goes for a long, long time.
Jessica
Yes. It's not like the news cycle, where you're constantly feeding a machine with new stuff. But that's what I love about Brand Books because it's one asset that represents you if you're a personal brand, or that represents your business if you're in business. You can use your Brand Book to market your offers, whether products or services, over and over.
Even if you still have to publish content—let's say for social media—it can all still be about your book, and all you have to do is pull out these little micro topics from your book and turn them into posts. So you write the master asset, which is the Brand Book, and then you just repurpose that over and over for your future marketing.
Salli
Yeah. And it's funny, you know, 'cause I hit another brick wall during marketing. I wondered, should I be pushing the book so much? There are times when you wanna just tell people once and then go away. But then you realize book marketing is a running task. It has to be constant, and it has to be constant for a long time.
Interestingly, in earlier discussions, I learned we ought to market our books for at least two to three years. We keep talking about them, we keep them front of mind, we keep pushing them out. I heard recently, though, that traditional publishers are expecting their authors to market for at least five years! So they really want that return on investment.
I was talking to a woman who wrote a book during Covid. [I guess it didn’t have the impact she was hoping for, with everything going on during those years.] She was wondering if she should publish it again. I said, “I'll pick up a book that has been written five years ago, ten years ago, twenty years ago.” It'll still capture me. It'll capture my heart, my mind, my guts, everything.
You know, it doesn't matter whether it was written yesterday or before—there's always the possibility of doing the second edition, right?
Jessica
I'm a huge, huge fan of that. Yes. Adding client case studies, adding a few bonus resources as well in the back matter, etc.
Salli
Yes. And that provides new life to your book, and you can relaunch it.
Jessica
A lot of people in my audience have digital products—courses and things like that—and you would never just launch a course once and then expect it to sell automatically without you ever having to market it again. No, you're going to do some ongoing marketing until your next live launch, when you're going to do the whole hoopla again. Yeah, it might sell a little bit in between your launches, but books are no different.
I know they are a lower ticket product. It's not like you're selling the book for hundreds of dollars. But, the Brand Book serves to sell other higher ticket products or services in your offer suite.
And I totally agree with you about books from ten, twenty years ago that can still reach you and move you. I would also like to add that if anyone is stopping themselves from writing their book “because it's already been written,” you should still write the book because people are constantly looking for a fresh perspective on the topic they've read about. For example, I really love money mindset books. I read one, I loved it, and I read another one, and I loved it. It's not because I read one that I'm never going to look for another book on money mindset. Like, I want them all.
Salli
Yeah. I remember one of the first things that both you and Kylie asked me to do was a market comparison. What other books are out there about policy? And I remember thinking at first, “Oh, this is unusual. Why am I doing this activity?” But going through and looking at the various books, you were absolutely right. There are so many books—policy books, in my case—out there.
And boy, am I glad now that people have my book.
Jessica
Yes. Because that was one way of determining the angle we went with for your book. We found that most of the books out there on policy are written like textbooks, and we wanted yours to be the opposite of that so that it would stand out and reach people in a non-academic way.
Salli
The other policy books fry your brain. I read them, and they still fry my brain. And this has been my profession for over 25 years.
If I can add to your voice for people who are wondering “How will my book be any different?” it will be because you're talking about your brand, your experience, your expertise—so, innately, it's different.
Jessica
Absolutely. It's your lived experience that counts. It's your stories that you are telling.
So now that the book launched, can you share with us some wins that you had with your Brand Book so far?
Salli
Yeah. The biggest win for me was at the book launch when the Pro Vice Chancellor of Charles Darwin University announced Rollercoaster as the mandated policy textbook—even though I don't use that word—for undergrad, postgrad, and lecturers alike, which was just extraordinary. She just about did me in before I even did my little bit of a speech. I was like, oh wow, and the room just sort of went nuts. Who’d have thought that a launch for a policy book would make people go crazy? So that was huge.
I'm now a collaborator with the Australia and New Zealand School of Government, which is a biggie, and that came from left field. It was something I'd always hoped for but didn't know would ever get through. We're in ongoing discussions about what that will look like.
Lots of opportunities, and the book is still selling! I do try to sell as much as I possibly can from my own website. You make more money selling directly to readers [using a print-on-demand service] than by putting it on a platform, even though my book is on all the platforms. They take a big cut. With bookshops, you get more exposure, so you just have to make that decision for yourself. But for me, it's just been these steady sales. It might go quiet for a week or so, and I think, oh, well, maybe that was it. And then boop, suddenly it goes up again!
I'm doing a lot of professional networking events too, talking about policy, you know, different things. Because the book is so complementary to my work, it's now part of my training courses. The book is included, and so it's really giving people a legacy piece, if we're going to use that word again. It’s so much more valuable than some handouts. They end up in the bottom drawer, or we file 'em on our computer again.
Remember, a book is something tangible, and it's printed in a way so people can scribble all over it. I want their coffee cup stains on the page. I want 'em to turn the corners, all the things that we shouldn't do to a book. I want my book to be there for them. It has to serve them, and it's doing that.
Jessica
That's wonderful. I think that's the best win of all—that the book is serving the purpose it was created for.
I'm curious: remind me what sort of calls to action we used in the book. I think we said “connect with me on LinkedIn,” but it might have changed along the way.
Salli
There was “connect with me on LinkedIn” and also by email, which does happen. I'll get an email, or something will pop up on LinkedIn. Or people will post a photo to say they've just bought the book. It's like, oh my goodness, wow.
We also put a QR code in the book. There were a couple of tables and a few checklists in the book. And recognizing that for people to photocopy those, it's a pain in the butt. It never works quite right. So there's a QR code where people can go and download those tables and checklists as PDFs.
That was really interesting because I didn't grow up with books that had a “call to action” in them. I certainly didn't grow up with books with QR codes in them! That introduced me to a whole new positioning that didn't even cross my mind. It was a real value add, Jessica.
Speaking of which, you helped me add takeaways and calls to action at the end of each chapter. I remember you really helped in shaping those, particularly with the calls to action, if there was any confusion about them or if I'd waffled on a little bit too much or had written three words. You told me, okay, so what's someone supposed to do with this? And again, people are finding those useful. They're applicable.
In fact, a senior bureaucrat who has the book—and he very generously brought more than one copy—posted that he'd taken one of the tips to read another book that I'd recommended at the end of one of the chapters in my book. And so he wrote this post saying, “After reading Salli's book, which is fantastic, she also recommended this book, which is fantastic.” So there's this really lovely evolution and continuation of surprising impacts that it has on people.
Jessica
Wonderful. Salli, I'm so happy for you and all your success, and I want to thank you for sharing that with me and my audience today. If anyone is out there who is on the fence about writing their Brand Book, I want you to get off the fence because it matters less whether or not you work with me—I just want you to get the Brand Book out there. What I wanted from this conversation, and what you did brilliantly, was showcase all the different kind of service providers that are available to you to help get your book out there.
Let us know where we can find you online if we want to connect with you.
Salli
You can find me on LinkedIn and on my website. You can order your copies of Rollercoaster from my website or just send me a message on LinkedIn and—
Jessica
And you'll pull one of the copies out of your garage and send it, right?
Salli
Ha! They're not in the garage. It's okay. So that's the other thing with self-publishing, which is really interesting for the Australian authors to know. I went with IngramSpark, who is a well-established printer and distributor for self-published authors.
However, in Australia, they still don't have the integration where somebody can order a book from my website and it'll automatically go to IngramSpark and be distributed. We don’t have that yet, but apparently it's coming. Right now, I have to take the order and put it in the system.
Jessica
Oh, it's manually done. Okay. I see.
Salli
Which is a bit of a pain in the butt, but: I get to know exactly who's ordered my book. So I can send them an email and say, “I'm so excited, you've got your copy of Rollercoaster! You've gotta let me know how you get on with it.” And you create this relationship with people. Of course, there will always be people who still buy it from the big online distributors, especially people overseas. I've had orders from the United States, from Germany, from Scotland.
But Jessica, if I can just say—which I know these won’t be the final words between you and me, because our friendship will continue, clearly—but my gratitude to you knows no bounds. You are brilliant at what you do. And having you hold my hand and guide me gave me such comfort. At times, I regretted asking you to be that accountability person, because you held me to everything!
So if I can say to your network and your audience: Jessica's absolutely right. If you've got a book, write it. If a book is whispering to you, “Write me, write me,” Just do it. And ask Jessica how she can support you, 'cause it's really worth it. It's really worth it.
Jessica
Thank you, Salli. I hope if you're listening and that speaks to you, that you will reach out to me 'cause I would love to work with you.
Thank you, Salli, for this conversation.
You can find Salli at https://www.thepolicyroom.com/. Get your copy of her Brand Book, Rollercoaster: How To Be a Bloody Good Policy Officer, at: https://www.thepolicyroom.com/rollercoaster