Discovering the perfect book by local authors is a great way to dive into reading and expand our knowledge on topics that inspire us. I recently had the pleasure of interviewing several Central Coast authors about their latest projects. Their books provide valuable insights, from mastering business branding to exploring the fascinating world of the wine industry.
Brandy: 101 Sips of Wisdom for Attaining a Successful Brand
Reilly Newman, the founder and brand strategist, and Scott Saunders, the designer of Motif Brands, put their years working together and wrote ‘Brandy: 101 Sips of Wisdom for Attaining a Successful Brand.’ The book has been taking the business community by storm and even won 2024 Goody Business Book Award for Marketing and Branding. The co-authors have been busy promoting Motif Brands, their Brandy podcast, and their book.
What was the idea behind writing “Brandy: 101 Sips of Wisdom for Attaining a Successful Brand?
Reilly: Brandy is the culmination of three years of writing to educate business owners and marketers about the power of proper branding. We wanted to articulate these big ideas of brand strategy, design, and marketing in an approachable yet insightful way that brings value to our readers. Brandy shares our decades of experiences and our philosophy of brand building in short “sips” that can be easily read over a morning coffee or an evening nightcap. Although it covers complex topics that make a real business impact, Brandy was designed to make it easy to “sip on” and enjoy so the reader can apply what they learn.
What was it like to find out that your book had landed the 2024 Goody Business Book Award for Marketing and Branding?
Reilly: We were ecstatic to learn that ‘Brandy’ had won the 2024 Goody Business Book Award. Since the launch of ‘Brandy,’ we have received incredible feedback from readers all around the world, including famous CEOs of global brands and award-winning authors. So we knew that ‘Brandy’ hit a need in the market, but receiving the award confirmed our belief and is proof of the real-world impact Brandy is making for businesses. We are honored by the award and the opportunity to further assist businesses in their growth and success, which compelled us to launch a weekly ad-free podcast as a companion to the book. The ‘Brandy’ podcast has a global listenership and is available on all podcast platforms.
When reading your book what would you like your readers to come away with?
Scott: We intentionally wrote and constructed Brandy to be 101 short, distilled chapters (most are only 2-3 pages each) that do not need to be read in any specific order so that it can be easy to read and put down, with each chapter being thought-provoking enough to give the reader time to let things sink in. The principles and concepts of successful branding can’t be treated like a secret recipe. Rather, they are ethereal principles that are all applied in different ways and differently for each brand. So keeping it short and sweet, simple to understand, and giving the reader some takeaway they can hopefully apply gives us the ability to educate and assist a greater audience than simply those that we decide to take on as clients.
What was it like to take your business Motif Brands and transform what you’ve learned into book form?
Reilly: Building a business is a massive undertaking and journey; writing a book is just as challenging, but in a more acute way. Brandy was painstakingly written because we wanted each word to be deliberate and clearly communicate our insights to bring the most value to our readers. When building a business, you gain a wide array of experience, but refining these insights into well-articulated thoughts and words is an entirely different experience. It was a fantastic challenge that made us express the branding philosophy we’ve applied to many businesses over the years. This articulation brought more depth to our strategic principles and even more clarity to our thinking and unique branding approach, which we will continue to apply to the brands we work with. It has been a rewarding process that we look forward to repeating with future titles.
Book available on Amazon
The Mad Crush
After almost ten years, author Sean Weir has re-released his novel about the Saucelito Canyon wine industry; ‘The Mad Crush: An Obscure California Vineyard and the Quest to Make One Great Wine.’ The book dives into the process of making wine from ground to glass and also shares stories from Sean’s perspective as well as giving us an approachable history lesson of the region and the people he met working there.
The Mad Crush originally came out in 2015. What made you want to rerelease it almost a decade later?
The first edition of The Mad Crush was very well received, and it developed a bit of a cult following. Yet, in the push to publish it back in 2015, I sacrificed some extra material that I later realized would make for an even richer reading experience. I also thought that it
was a story that a new generation of readers might enjoy discovering. So, I decided to produce an expanded second edition by weaving that extra material back into the main story. I also added an afterword that provides some fresh perspective and context, as well as a section of mini-chapters at the back called ‘Prunings.’ This is where I stuck some oddball extras, things like meeting Eddie Van Halen while working at the Chamisal Vineyard tasting room and Avila Beach getting torn up after an oil leak.
What landed you at the vineyard, and how and when did you meet Bill Greenough?
I grew up in Sonoma and went to high school in Napa, so I was always surrounded by wine. I worked in restaurants in Napa Valley, where I got an early education in wine appreciation. My fascination took off from there. I came down to Cal Poly San Luis Obispo for college and started working in local tasting rooms and cellars. After leaving school early to work the 1991 crush at Kenwood Vineyards in Sonoma Valley, I returned to Cal Poly the following fall to finish my degree. I was looking for work and saw a job posting for a cellar rat at Saucelito Canyon. I called, Bill answered, and off I went to work the 1992 harvest. Three years later, Bill asked me to return and work the 1995 harvest. My experience during that harvest ultimately inspired me to write The Mad Crush.
What was the process of writing the original book like, and what was it like to revisit and add to it all these years later?
When I wrote the first edition, I was a very busy husband, father to a young boy, and a business owner with my wife. Much of my day job involves writing. So finding the time and mind space to write for “fun” wasn’t easy, and I had to push it into the margins of my life—a weekend morning here, a trip to the café there, and an occasional overnight retreat on the coast. I wanted the storytelling to be punchy, lean, and entertaining. Nothing extraneous or boring. Every word had to count, or it got pruned. Once I found that writing groove, things really took off. Even though The Mad Crush is technically a memoir, it tells a larger story dating back to the late 19th century, much of which I never personally experienced.
In that sense, it became a work of narrative nonfiction, and I had to conduct research and interviews to make sure the facts were straight. The book touches on history, ecology, and other topics that I needed to get right. The second edition came much easier than the first, but it still didn’t come fast. The hardest part was figuring out where to weave in the extra material without disturbing the original story that people seemed to love. I had to work it in there seamlessly while smoothing out some transitions so that it all flowed together, which took some time. There was also additional extra material that I loved, but that just didn’t fit—so I tacked it on as a separate section of mini-chapters at the end. I also wrestled with the afterword. I didn’t want it to feel rote or predictable. It had to say something on its own.
TheMadCrush.com
Book can be found on Amazon and Saucelito Canyon tasting room in SLO
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