Jun 7, 2026 · 44 min · 12 segments
**Season 4, episode 9 is here!** Karen Salmansohn has sold two million books, been blessed by Madonna, and built a career entirely on the principle of doing something a little extra every single…
David McIlroyHost
Um, can you tell me about yourself? So listeners will probably have come across you before on Substack, but just in case they haven't, um, tell us about yourself, tell us about your background.
I guess the simplest way to sum me up is I am a best-selling author with two million books sold.
Um, and I'm also a designer, and a lot of my books are very design-y, and I've, I started off in advertising.
... that I guess helped me in many ways to become best-selling, 'cause I use some of my advertising, marketing stuff.
But when I was in advertising, I was, um, a copywriter and a creative director, and I've always loved both words and visuals.
And, um, and I won Clio's my first year in the business, rose up quickly, and then I wasn't really happy with advertising.
I wanted to use my creative skills, uh, not to make people choose a toothpaste, but to help people to think in new ways.
So I quit my job in advertising and started to write books, and then I used my advertising skills to promote my books, and that's sort of the long and short of it.
Um, can you tell me about yourself? So listeners will probably have come across you before on Substack, but just in case they haven't, um, tell us about yourself, tell us about your background.
I guess the simplest way to sum me up is I am a best-selling author with two million books sold.
Um, and I'm also a designer, and a lot of my books are very design-y, and I've, I started off in advertising.
... that I guess helped me in many ways to become best-selling, 'cause I use some of my advertising, marketing stuff.
But when I was in advertising, I was, um, a copywriter and a creative director, and I've always loved both words and visuals.
And, um, and I won Clio's my first year in the business, rose up quickly, and then I wasn't really happy with advertising.
I wanted to use my creative skills, uh, not to make people choose a toothpaste, but to help people to think in new ways.
So I quit my job in advertising and started to write books, and then I used my advertising skills to promote my books, and that's sort of the long and short of it.
The rest of this transcript — segmented and speaker-labeled, so you land on the exact moment something was said
Search every transcript — by keyword, by phrase, or by meaning, across every show Radar indexes
Trends — what is surging across podcasts, measured against its own baseline
Alerts — when a name you follow appears in a newly indexed episode
No account is needed to search Radar.