Amy Sudo, tell me about your vision. So my vision is for a future where everyone
finds a way to tell their story in the form of a book, a newsletter, and any other form that feels
right for them to tell their story. And I love being the vehicle of either helping people tell
their stories as well as telling my own stories and inspiring other people in different ways to
shape the story that they're meant to tell and while also living a life that is worthy of those
stories. Interesting. Oh, that's a lot of good stuff to unpack. So let's, there's so many angles
I want to go down with this. So you talk, you have intentional nuances in what you said that would be
easy to overlook. You talked about people telling the story they want to tell, right? You talked about
living worthy, you know, of the story that they have. Which direction should we go down?
Yeah, I think that when it comes to trying to understand what is the story that somebody's
trying to tell, because I think that we've all had really incredible experiences in our lives,
but I think the framing of it is really fascinating. And as a memoir ghostwriter, for my career,
I've spent a lot of time digging in with people to understand you've gone through these experiences
and you live through these highs and lows of your life. How do we frame these? And how do we share
the lessons that you've learned with other people so that the story that you've lived can also be a
story that inspires others and that you're not shying away from the dark parts of your life or
the parts that really kept you down, but you're also trying to understand how do we take those
parts and make them part of the narrative to inspire others as well as close a chapter for yourself.
And as we talk about that, I'd love to know, again, what does this, what does it mean to be worthy?
I know of your story to you. Yeah, I think everyone's worthy of their story. I think it's
something that it's permission that you have to give to yourself. And I think that more so what
I'm seeing is that in order to live a life that is worth writing about is something that you do for
yourself. It means that you say yes to the trip, you say yes to an adventure, you say yes to doing
the hard thing that will expand your work, your personal life. And I think that saying yes allows
us to really kind of expand into a bigger and greater version of ourselves. Absolutely. Now,
you're calling in from Portugal today. And you were just in Peru for a while. How many countries
have you been to? And if you don't mind me asking, how old are you? Because you seem very young for
being already getting the wanderlust and being able to travel the world. Yeah, so I just turned
30 this year in actually Cappadocia. My first cup of coffee was I had it on this rooftop overlooking
all of the hot air balloons that were rising as the sun was rising in Cappadocia, which was really
magical. And I've been to more countries than I can count at the moment. I don't really keep track
of countries. I have a travel blog where I write all about my experiences, but I have been a full
time traveler for the last four years. And so I've been part of that digital nomad community of
people who work with their laptops and work remotely and write about that experience. And I
often travel to see my clients, which is kind of what started this. I kept traveling to my ghost
marinating clients were often flying me out to interview their families, to attend family
reunions, to see where they grew up. And I just really enjoy that really hands on approach to my
work as a nomad ghost writer. And that kind of helped me go out into the world more. And when I
really enjoyed this ability to work and travel, I decided that I want it to be my whole life because
prior to this, I was a TV writer in Hollywood and I felt very trapped in LA. You can just feel so
trapped where it takes 30 minutes to go like a mile in traffic in LA. And so I really wanted to
kind of escape that bubble of working in Hollywood, of living in LA. And so when I had the opportunity
to start traveling for my work as a freelance nomad ghost writer, I decided to take it and start
to travel the world. Wow. That's amazing. So the travels had an intense amount of purpose
connected into this passion, which is really cool. I mean, I'm not here to like validate anybody's
vision and say one's authentic or one's not, but like that's some authenticity,
you know, and balance that is incredible. Do you mind if I ask, has your vision,
your lifestyle been 100% self-funded? Do you have rich parents? Do you have people who've helped
along the way? And I ask this because, you know, other visionaries want to follow everybody else.
And if Bill Gates started a company tomorrow and he's like, oh, this is the secret to starting a
company. It's like you're Bill Gates and you have billions of dollars in backing, you know,
for everybody else to think, well, I'm going to have the same type of fortune he does. So you
mind tell me a little bit about your background and how you got to where you did this? Yeah,
definitely. Yeah. My parents are not Bill Gates. So I learned how to basically fund my lifestyle
through freelance writing. And that was actually the subject of my first book that I wrote,
Six Figure Freelance Writer, a Listed Guide on Fighting Freedom and Freelancing. And I
wrote a book called Six Figure Freelancing where I basically kind of documented being like a poor
Hollywood assistant, what it meant to try to figure out how to work in that industry, but ended up
shifting gears and becoming a freelance memoir ghostwriter because that's where my skills were
being valued the most. And then from there, expanding the work that I was doing and becoming
a content creator and becoming a travel blogger and kind of adding all of these different streams
of income to allow me to travel the world and have that be baked into a part of my work. And I think
travel and full time travel, the money seems to be really high, it must be so expensive.
But in reality, every year at the end of the year when I crunch the numbers, I'm like, this is cheaper
than an apartment in any major city in the US. And I think that that's something that people don't
recognize when you become a minimalist and you give up all your things and you sell your car and
you're not having to pay for utilities and car insurance and the car and all of that. And suddenly
traveling the world and living in walkable cities, which is very key, is a lot more affordable,
especially as Americans traveling. And it's just kind of like a different world and different
things open up and, you know, place in Europe can be very cheap sometimes, like to get from one
country to another can be like $100. And so I think that that there's a lot of opportunity for
travelers for people who want to build their own businesses, their own careers, to be able to do
this. And it's something that I am very passionate about. And I have a ton of free learning materials
about how to do this on my blog and on my newsletter and in the first book that I wrote about
becoming a freelance writer. Yeah, absolutely. What was the name of that book again? Yeah, it's called
Six Figure Freelance Writer, a list of guides to finding freedom in freelancing. And it's on my
website, amysuto.com, along with a ton of other free resources. So Six Figure Freelancer, and
to turn it you weren't making six figures at the time, or you were making six figures already. I
misunderstood that because I heard you say that you weren't making a lot of money as the writer
in Hollywood. But did you did you hit that six figures before you wrote the book or after?
After or before I wrote the book, so basically, I've been freelancing for the last eight years,
almost nine. And so I started off freelancing when I was working in Hollywood. So when I was,
you know, working my way up the ladder, you become like an assistant, and then eventually finally get
a shot at being a TV writer and writing your own episodes of TV. But while I was climbing that
ladder, I was like my shows that I was on, like always had the bad luck of getting canceled, like
it was just such a struggle to like kind of get to a place where Hollywood was a career that made
sense for me in terms of the way that I like to work in terms of the things that I was looking
for. And while I was in Hollywood, I was moonlighting as a freelancer. And then that income
just started to grow year by year by year. And so I hit my first six figure year, and I was just
like, everything changed as a freelance writer. And so I wrote the book after that document,
the journey that I went on, starting from scratch, where I was making minimum wages and assistant in
Hollywood, and then what it took to kind of build up my freelancing career and then transition into
a full time freelancer, which I didn't do overnight, it happened over the course of eight years.
And it took time to kind of get to the point where I finally was able to be a full time freelance
writer and not have to juggle multiple jobs. I like taught yoga in Los Angeles for a while. So
it's like I had kind of like different things that I was doing before I was able to finally
crack the code on freelance and use that income to be able to travel the world.
That's amazing. Once again, just the balance. There's people who write books where they
interview billionaires, right about the mindsets and stuff. And I love those types of books because
they're extracting from the billionaires. And then there's people who write the books like what you
wrote. And they're like trying to manifest something in the future that's not actually
a thing yet. Right. And then they're preaching at people about something they haven't lived,
but you've lived this. And that's something that brings again, a different level of power that
I think all visionaries want to understand because it helps them see the full extent of the recipe.
And what helps drive these types of opportunities forward. So the families out there listening to
this, I think some people are like, oh my gosh, I have a family. How could I do this? And I will
say on the family side, I got to live a little bit of the nomad style. And it is a lot scarier
and a lot more, there's a lot more hurdles and variables when you have children with you on that
experience than most of the family nomads want to admit. But one of the great resources in that
space that I'd love to connect you to at some point, Amy, is Ashley de Mocteteo, who literally
wrote the book on world schooling. And the place that she traveled, they also had family in Mexico.
So there's certain hubs, there's certain realities, there are certain things to consider. But
if you are single, you don't have kids that will benefit from an established community, then what
an awesome way to explore and understand the world and expand perspectives and see different
things from different angles. I think so many of us choose not to do that because it's outside of
our comfort zone. So did you plan on going to all these different countries from day one or did it
start with like, well, I kind of want to visit one country and we'll see from there? Yeah, it actually
started in the pandemic when everybody, my writers room that I was in in Hollywood went virtual.
No traveling, you feel like I'm going. Yeah, yeah, well, because I was trapped in LA with all my
friends who we were all working remotely for the first time in our entire careers. All of us were
just like, like screens only for work. And so we were like, let's go quarantine in different
places around the US because all the Airbnb is are so cheap. And we all want to get out of the
city where everyone is like sanitizing their Amazon packages with Lysol. We're like, let's get
out of this madness and go to Colorado to the woods and just kind of be there for a month and
get away from the bad vibes that are going on in the city. And so we basically spent me and my
friends, my partner, Kyle spent basically like, they spent seven months just driving around the US
staying in beautiful Airbnb that were so discounted. It was crazy with our friends. And
we stayed on the river in Kashaftan where we did whitewater river rafting right behind our house and
really beautiful places. And so we love that so much that when that came to an end and Europe
opened up again, we're just like, let's go to Europe. And so we just kind of kept continuing
that journey. And then from there, we started to meet other digital nomads and kind of built that
community because people who are adrift and traveling are much more primed to kind of like
want to make that community a priority. And it was really interesting to kind of like start to
enter these different spaces with these different nomad groups and get to know the other people who
are traveling and get to know the people who are running to something and also the people who are
running away from something because your problems are always on the last flight behind you.
Yeah, that's interesting. Oh, man. Okay, I got one more question for you.
Where are you going with your vision from here? I mean, you got the whole world ahead of you.
Yeah, I've really been enjoying diving in into the memoir ghostwriting space even deeper than
I've been doing for the past eight years. I've written books for Olympians and NBA players. I've
written a lot of family stories. And I've been really loving this idea of basically kind of
continuing to not only help people with the memoir book ghostwriting process, but also the book
marketing, book publishing and book design. And so I work with a few different amazing collaborators
in the design space and the marketing space. And we've been helping entrepreneurs from start to
finish, not only ideate their book, but get it out there through self publishing, which I think is
the future of publishing and where it's going to because these days beautifully published self
published books look indistinguishable from conservative or traditionally published books.
And so as somebody who is a lover of the book publishing process and books themselves,
I grew up working in my family's bookstore, then this has been something that I've been very
passionate about. And it's been really neat to not only help people with the memoir ghostwriting
part, which is the part that I am taking the most point on, but also helping people publish
their books as well. That's awesome. So that's a phenomenal vision. I would say,
too, you said that self publishing is the future. I'd say it's the present too.
You know, it's, you know, thanks to self publishing.com for instance, like Chandler
Bolt's been been leading that for a while. And, and there's so many people who have gone in that.
Plus you can you can publish your own book these days. One of the things that, you know, I'd love
to see more self publishing and traditional. Traditionals don't do this very well either.
Traditionals kind of leave you in the dark sometimes to market your own book if they don't
know or feel that you're going to just crush it. But is the reviews process, you know, it's like
making sure that the review that the book actually gains traction in the market. That what's being
done, you know, to help authors get established to the degree where, you know, they're, they're
making it towards that Wall Street Journalist or best, you know, New York Times. And I know a lot
of authors say, well, I don't, I don't want to go. I'm not publishing so I can get to that.
That's just their negative spouse speaking. That's just their friend or family saying,
oh, you know, you're never going to make anything with that. Nobody makes my driving books. And so
we tend to then sabotage the goals and visions we have and settle for less than what we really want.
Hoping that maybe we'll get the lottery and maybe we'll make it happen. So what's tangible,
tangibly being done and the books public publishing space to drive the marketing of the
book forward so that they make the income they want on it and so that they also get the public
credibility that they're looking for. Yeah, no, that's a great question. And I think that
a lot of people don't realize is that there are so many people, so many authors that you've never
heard of whose book sales are have bought them a house. And the reason why that is because there's
so much opportunity in the self publishing space, then those authors often do not land on the
bestseller list. They are not on the USA Today's bestseller list. They're not on the New York Times
bestseller list, which recently was just outed as the New York Times bestseller list wasn't even
taking sale into consideration for some of the books that were on there, which is insane. And so
I think that some people, I know authors who coveted those lists. And I think that it's natural
to want status, it's natural to want attention. But in reality, it's about finding where are your
readers hanging out and how do you market directly to them. And so that's why every book is completely
different. Every book is going to have a different place that your audience is hanging out. And I
think that that is kind of the art that comes into the marketing side of things is understanding
what reviewers do readers in your books space, you know, trust, what email list should you get into,
what type of ads should you run. And that's something that I've been working on with a lot
of the collaborators that I have in my book marketing team is understanding like what do
you need for launch on Amazon, what keywords, what does your preorder like window look like
before your launch. And there's so many kind of nicks, like nooks and crannies of things that
you can do in terms of optimizing your Amazon, like SEO and your keyword description and things
that we that that are like so key to this process that I've been really digging into this year with
the clients that I've been working with beyond just the draft and also in the book marketing side,
because if you don't have a good draft, you're never going to sell your book. But if you have
an amazing book, but nobody reads it, then there's no point you have to spend equal amounts of time on
the writing process, whether that's either right working with a great editor or working with a
ghostwriter. And then you also need to spend an equal amount of time and effort on the book
marketing process. And whether that is working with, you know, a marketing team or really learning
the process by yourself, if you want to become a repeat author. And there's so many different ways
to do that. I love your confidence and I love the realities that you're willing to talk about.
Right. This self-assuredness you have is phenomenal. I'm a self-assured individual as well.
So some people think, well, that's argumentative. No, it's not. It's discovery. Right. It's
curiosity and exploration on behalf of our audience, most of which have that desire to eventually write
a book or they've written a book that flopped majorly. And so I know my audience would love
to have a list of non-bestselling authors that have purchased houses with those finances. Now,
we also would struggle to prove whether that's true or not. Right. Whether the spouse bought the
house or whether they received an inheritance for that, because this is private sector information.
But the more details we can get surrounding that, the more we can inspire people to take that leap
of faith the right way. And the bestseller list too. I'd love to, I'll do my own research on it
as well, try to find it. But knowing, well, how do they vet the New York Times bestselling list?
Right. It's like when you discover that the Inc 500 is merely an application process
and all of the best companies that don't bother to submit their information don't get counted
into that list. And so that doesn't mean that they're not valuable companies, but it changes
the perspective from which how we look at success itself. This time of year last year, I fired a
client. The client was heralded by Kajabi as one of the best course creators. They live a lifestyle
that is made through expos and conferences where they literally take pictures to showcase what
their lifestyle looks like for a year. And they have a ton of debt. Their best year is $60,000
in the year. And they've got 580 something thousand followers on Instagram who eat up every word that
a person says is real and when it's all a facade. And so we, knowing these details, diving into them,
gaining access to leaders like yourself who have access to that type of information is critical
for people to gain success and then to be able to say, okay guys, Amy's got the answers for these
things. So thank you for sharing the realities of what can't, like you talked about the diversification
of certain publishing strategies that I've talked to a publisher here and there about it or author
here or there about it, but not pulling it together the way that you just did. So I'd love to have you
back. And I'd love to have you on these subjects because there's just, there's too many pretenders
out there that are misguiding visionaries on what they might be able to do and leaving half the recipe
out or half the truth out. And the more likely we are to bring a leader on who's doing things the
right way, the more likely that we can drive people towards the success you're looking for.
So if you'd come back, I'd love to have you back. Yeah, I'd be happy to. And I think that there's
kind of a revolution happening right now of people cutting out the middlemen. So people cutting out
the traditional publishers and the agents and then also people cutting out the kind of like the
magazine editors and staff in terms of like the way that authors are also using Substack to market
their books and using platforms like Substack and Beehive to run paid newsletters. And there's so
many different ways in which that I've just been so excited to see how different leaders,
entrepreneurs are using these platforms to not only share their message but also to monetize
directly with the people who want to support them. And I think that this model is not only
more efficient in so many different ways, but it's also exciting to see the fact that anybody can
step into these models and if their message and their story is good enough, then it changes
everything. Absolutely. And you have more control of the process, which is not a matter of being a
control freak as much as being a wise steward. So you guys heard it from Amy. Feel free to reach out
with any questions about publishing any woes that you've had with your publishing process as well.
And consider the value too of relaunching your books. That's something we didn't talk about today.
Maybe we'll talk about on the next. There are so many opportunities with this. And the book,
the neat thing about publishing books versus these videos that I do on YouTube,
the book has a longer shelf life. No pun intended. We'll see you on the next episode of Vision Pros
Live. Thank you for being here today. I'm really happy that you tuned in to Vision Pros Live.
I'm looking forward to seeing your reactions as these episodes continue to move forward.
This is going to get more and more fun. We'll have more and more engagement as well. We'll invite
people to participate in the show. And thank you for giving us your time and attention.
Have an excellent time building out your vision and becoming a Vision Pro yourself.