Welcome back to Vision Pros. Today we're going
up to Maryland to talk with Allie Machete. Allie,
I'm so glad you're here on the show. Would you
please introduce yourself a little bit? Oh yeah,
well thanks so much for having me, Sue. I am
Allie Machete and I am the CEO and founder of
a team called the Writers' Ally. We are an author
services business, so we help serious authors
to write, publish and sell more high quality
books. And in particular, we have a real focus
on books that actually achieve results. We don't
really do a lot of projects where it's purely
a vanity project. We tend to work with authors
who really want to see that book, help them grow
their business, or if it's a novel or a memoir,
they're trying to grow an audience for more books.
i came to this business after a really long career
in book publishing i've been in book publishing
for about 25 years now so it is a lifelong passion
and love and it's just my pleasure to be able
to share that with people that's wonderful that
is so cool i love that um that that's that's
really really neat talk to me a little bit more
about the vision for the people that you're serving
Yeah, absolutely. You know, like I said, people
publish books for all kinds of reasons and technology
has evolved. Digital printing technology, e -book
technology, Internet marketing has really made
it accessible to almost anybody who wants to
publish a book. And so many people do go out
there with that dream or that goal of publishing
a book and they just don't have enough information.
They don't know what all the moving pieces are.
Publishing a book appears to be very simple on
the service, certainly. Anyone can take a file
and upload it to Amazon and have it available
for sale as a book within 24 hours. But that
doesn't mean it's a marketable book. That doesn't
mean it's a good book that's going to actually
get reviewed well and achieve results. So we
really try to help authors starting with the
developmental stage of their manuscripts. If
they're seeking traditional publication, we want
to help them get that book deal. We help them
with query letters and book proposals. And for
those who want to go the independent route, we
help take them all the way through to publication.
into marketing as well, really focused on what
their goals are, what their bigger picture vision
to use your word is for their book. And we want
to help them make sure that the book that they
write and publish is competitive with all the
other books out there, including traditionally
published books so that they can actually achieve
those goals and dreams. That's really such a
great distinction. I can see, you know, as a
writer myself, I know there's this amazing opportunity
that has never been there that literally anyone
can go publish a book. I love that you also mentioned
that doesn't mean it's always going to be a good
book or a marketable book and certainly not one
that actually accomplishes anything. What are
some goals that your clients typically have in
publishing a book? Well, for our novelists and
memoirists, it's usually just about reach and
readership, more so for novelists than memoirists.
There are not a lot of serial memoirists out
there. Those are more often one shot deals. But
with a novelist, they typically want to grow
an audience. They want to make sure that there's
someone interested in reading their next few
books so they can continue to write. And of course,
a nonfiction book is usually tied to business
goals. We've got clients who come in wanting
to pivot into a slightly different niche or who
want to improve their visibility. in their current
niche so that they can attract more and better
quality clients. Getting speaking engagements,
getting corporate gig workshops, getting any
kind of opportunity for your business is just
100 times easier when you have a professional
quality book. That's for sure. That's really
awesome. So you cover all the whole span, it
sounds like, from development all the way through
publishing and promotion as well, right? Yep,
that's right. That's so neat. I love that. Tell
me a little bit then about your vision for your
business. Well, I've been growing this business
for a very long time. And to some extent, I've
achieved the vision. You know, I wanted to grow
a team that had real industry knowledge and experience
that had the same passion that I have for bringing
really great books into the world. And I think
we've been doing that really successfully. We've
had hundreds of clients. And through my my teaching
and my speaking, I've reached thousands more.
But for me, I think the next step looks like
getting more opportunities to work more directly
and to share my experience and my knowledge more
directly with more people. So right now, my team
is providing a lot of the services, the editing,
the design, the publishing work. And I haven't
really worked with clients directly in a long
time. So I've been putting together details for
a new mastermind project called the Author Advantage
Mastermind. That is for authors who are writing
a book or have written a book related to their
business and really want to understand how powerful
that book can be as a tool. I want to show them
how to leverage that to achieve their goals so
it doesn't just sit in the Zoom background or
in their email signature. And that book that
was a huge investment of time and energy and
resources gets some ROI for them. And I'm writing
a book myself. It's a real shoemaker's children
situation over here. I've ghostwritten books.
I've been a part of national bestsellers. I've
been helping hundreds of authors to publish their
books. But I haven't written my own and I am
doing that now. Well, tell me more about that.
So the book is also called The Author Advantage,
and it is very much in line with the mastermind.
It is a sort of a choose your own adventure guide.
I want to help authors to really shift their
mindset and understand that the true value of
their book is not the cover price, that once
the book is published for nonfiction authors
in particular. Yes, we all want to sell books.
Yes, we want to get books out there. But the
real goal for a nonfiction author is not to sell
more books. It's to leverage that book to get
all of the opportunities that that book can bring
to them. And so I have identified nine of the
most common and effective strategies that business
owners can use to leverage their book to achieve
any number of goals. And I want to basically
create a roadmap to help them do that. Fantastic.
Can you spill the tea a little bit on one tip
that you've got for authors? Oh, Josh. Yeah,
well, just as an example, we had a client, one
of many clients, but one particularly successful
client who a few years ago had a very quiet list.
She had sort of stepped away from her business
for various personal reasons and wanted to come
back. And she had decided to start leveraging
her time and experience by creating online courses.
But she knew if she just launched the course
to it. a dead list she wasn't going to get very
far so instead she wrote a book that was very
much tied to what the course topic was ultimately
going to be and She put together she worked with
us on the book and then she put together a large
campaign using partners to help give away free
copies of the book in a way where they had to
sign up for her mailing list to get the free
copy. And she grew her list by about twelve thousand
people in a month and then was able now to have
a nice fresh list full of people who had read
her book or reading her book that she could start
to nurture and begin fresh with. And about a
year later. launched her first online course
and was hugely successful with the launch brilliant
i love the strategy that is so cool very very
cool all right and i know that you said you had
a special gift to give to our listeners Yes,
I do. So all of these things that we're talking
about, almost any author can make them happen.
But the key is to have the right book. And many
people think that means just writing a good book.
But the truth is, a good book is not enough.
Plenty of good books when they're not planned
strategically to achieve certain goals. They
come out and they're perfectly good books and
they do absolutely nothing. So I have a webinar
training called Don't Write the Wrong Book. It's
free and it's available at offers .theritersally
.com backslash visionprose. Thank you so much.
That's very kind of you. I just hope that all
you listeners, if you have any idea in your head
about writing a book, this would be a fantastic
first move. Thank you so much for joining us.
I really appreciate you being here. Thanks again
for having me. It was great. 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.