How Did I Get Here?

In 2017 I didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life, so I decided to ride my bike down the West Coast of the United States with a trailer and a surfboard. On my surfboard I wrote the trip’s fundamental research question, which had been probing at my brain: “Why do you exist?”

After pedaling two thousand miles, receiving hundreds of responses, capturing thousands of photos, and spending seventy-two days in the saddle, meditating on this thought—Why do I exist?—I came to a conclusion: I exist to teach. My medium? Books. Small, portable containers that preserve, announce, and transmit knowledge to readers throughout that preserve, announce, and transmit knowledge to readers throughout the world. So I . . .

Committed to the life of the book.

I researched, created, and asked questions. I met with professionals in the industry and experimented. I practiced. I wrote, designed, and published my first book—Why Do You Exist?—in September 2018. I wanted to help others tell their stories and share their teachings, so I helped a friend publish their book later that year. I loved it. So I helped helped with a second, and then charged for the third.

The more I hustled and built my business, the more authors I helped (ten in 2019). Then, in January 2020, while living in the woods without running water, I formally launched my publishing business and my nonfiction imprint: KORY KIRBY BOOKS®. In 2020 I worked with thirty authors. Things kept growing. I went from working on “all genres of books” to exclusively “nonfiction business books and memoirs.” As of January 2026, I have helped publish 113 of my authors’ books.