Part 1: Books Bring Clarity: Publishing with Strategic Purpose | Ally Machate

Welcome to Spark & Ignite Your Marketing, the podcast where real conversations meet real strategies. I'm your host, Beverly Cornell, founder and fairy godmother of brand clarity at Wickedly Branded. With over 25 years of experience, I’ve helped hundreds of entrepreneurs awaken their brand magic, attract the right people, and build businesses that light them up.

In this episode of Spark & Ignite Your Marketing, I chat with Ally Machate, a publishing strategist and founder of The Writer’s Ally. With over 25 years of experience, Ally explains how writing the right book can enhance your credibility and attract ideal clients. We discuss the power of a book, the challenges of perfectionism and imposter syndrome, and how purposeful publishing can boost visibility and confidence. This conversation goes beyond marketing; it’s about finding your voice and using that clarity to elevate your brand.

Three Key  Marketing Topics Discussed:

1. Writing the Right Book for Business Growth: Not all books are created equal. Ally explains why aligning your book topic with your platform and expertise is crucial for credibility, client attraction, and authority-building.
2. Overcoming Visibility Blocks and Imposter Syndrome: We explore the internal obstacles, like fear of judgment and perfectionism, that prevent entrepreneurs from writing and publishing. And share mindset tools and personal stories that highlight the freedom of hitting 'publish.'
3. How a Book Can Reshape Your Brand and Offers: Writing a book doesn’t just serve your audience; it brings you brand clarity. 

Follow Ally:
Ally Machate | LinkedIn
The Writer's Ally | Webinar
The Writer's Ally | Website

Transcript

Beverly: 0:09

Did you know that writing a book can increase your credibility by over 300%, but only if it's the right book? Too many entrepreneurs pour their hearts into pages that never get results, while others stay stuck in fear and perfectionism never publishing it all. But today's guest is changing all of that. I'm your host, Beverly Cornell, founder and fairy godmother of brand clarity. Here at Wickedly Branded, we have helped hundreds of entrepreneurs who are overwhelmed and overachieving consultants, creatives, and coaches awaken their brand magic and boldly bring their marketing to life so that they feel more confident and attract their absolute most favorite, and most profitable clients. And on this episode of The Spark Ignite Your Marketing podcast, we're talking to Ally Machate Publishing strategist, author services expert, and founder of the Writer's Ally Ali helps nonfiction authors write, publish and sell high quality books that fuel business growth attract ideal clients and Boost Authority. A former Simon and Schuster editor with 25 plus years of industry experience who brings clarity, honesty, and strategy to a space that often feels very overwhelming and totally opaque.Ally, welcome to the show.

Ally: 1:25

Thanks so much for having me. Beverly. A pleasure to be here.

Beverly: 1:28

25 years of experience. You were like, what, 15 when you started?

Ally: 1:31

Everybody says that I look pretty good for my age, but yeah, I can't believe it's been 25 years.

Beverly: 1:35

Yeah, I say the same thing. I say 25 years and I'm like, who is that person? So let's talk about your journey to get to be an entrepreneur. What led to starting your business and leaving that and what did those early days look like?

Ally: 1:47

Yeah, absolutely. In the very beginning I had an internship, worked for a small regional publisher, and then when I graduated I got that job at Simon and Schuster, which of course is well known for being one of the big five publishers in New York. And it was an incredible learning experience. I got to acquire several books. I got to study under some really excellent editors. But it was a really weird time in publishing. So during the period that I was there, we went through the.com bust. Then we went through 9/ 11. And like many industries in New York City, we saw a lot of shrinkage. So after that, we went through a few years of pretty serious layoffs in my department. Kept shrinking and shrinking. And for that reason and lots of other reasons, I just felt you know what, this is an interesting moment. I'm gonna take advantage of this moment right now. I am going to leave the job, I'm gonna go to school full-time and finish up a master's degree that I had been chipping away at for years. And I thought I'll freelance. I'll do some freelancing on the side, while I go to school and while I finish this stuff. And then when I'm done, I'll come back to publishing and I'll be in a different place and the industry will be in a different place and there'll be more positions and opportunity. And I had this very rosy picture and. When I left and I started freelancing, I realized how much I loved freelancing. And as much as I enjoyed being at Simon Schuster and as great as an experience, it was, there is a lot that goes into publishing a book that has nothing to do with editing the book. And when you're freelancing you can pick the parts you really wanna work on. And at that time I was freelancing as an editor. I did some book doctoring, I did some ghost writing. And just really being able to get in there with my fingers felt really good to me. And about the same time a few years later, we started to see print on demand and eBooks and self-publishing really started to become a truly viable option in a way that it never had been before. I really felt like I was in the right place at the right time because there were all these folks out there taking advantage of authors, people who had no industry experience, who didn't even really care about helping people to publish a good book. They just wanted to play off their egos and take their money and say, oh yeah, sure, we'll give you a publishing deal. Right? There are all these scammy companies and. I really saw an opportunity to do more of what I loved and really help people at the same time by giving them a resource that they could trust and know that I could share my experiences in publishing, I could share with them what made a great book. I could work with them on their book. Then fast forward a few years from there, I found myself really booked ahead pretty regularly, especially with the ghost writing projects. It didn't leave as much time for editing in between. And as I booked my projects further and further out, started to naturally lose some folks. And I thought, people wanna work with me. They're coming because they trust me. How can I really leverage that and help more people instead of just losing this business?'cause I'm too busy. And I tried a few different models, but the one I ended up on is this kind of team-based agency model. And that's what the Writer's Ally is today.

Beverly: 4:32

So when you first started the Writer's Ally, how did you develop your brand and how has it evolved over time?

Ally: 4:39

I say that my brand, especially in the beginning, was very rooted in who I am, pretty natural. I was a solopreneur shifting over to building a business. So I really tried to convey the same kind of balance that I think is true of myself, which is that I'm very serious about things that are important. I'm serious about. Getting good books into the world. I'm serious about giving good advice. I'm serious about making sure people have what they need and are taking the best route for them, whether that's with us or somebody else. But I'm also not a serious person. I'm fun and I'm silly and I joke and I swear a lot and, I do all of these things. I'm colorful. So I wanted the brand to reflect that. I wanted people to know that yes, it was serious. Yes, you're gonna get quality pro help, but also you are gonna be in a warm, encouraging, supportive environment with fun people who don't take themselves too seriously. And I think for authors, that's really important because there can be so much fear and insecurity and all kinds of emotional stuff going on when you publish a book. And you need to be with a group of people who not only can guide you professionally, but also can make you feel good about the process.

Beverly: 5:43

So I wrote a book. I wanted to write a book for a very long time, actually, I was denying my writer inside of me and what I realized is I'm a writer. I write every single day. I write for every single client. I write for my own stuff. That is my primary job. Grammarly one time it told me I wrote over a million words a week. Insane amount of writing. And AI has helped with some ideation and some other things, but an insane amount of writing and just getting thoughts on paper. And here I was blogging all the time, I was writing a lot and someone said why didn't you write a book? And I was like, oh no, that's hard. There's too much to do. I don't wanna do it. And they dared me to write it in seven days. And it was the most powerful exercise for me, particularly because I'm a recovering perfectionist and I get in my own way sometimes. Sure. My fear of will anybody like it? Does it matter? Am I contributing to noise or am I actually creating value? My fear of who am I, who cares? Like I'm just this person over here doing this work. Who cares? And I just really said, am I writing to write for everyone else? Am I writing for myself? What is the whole purpose of this? And I just said, you know what? I'm gonna get on my own way and I'm just gonna see what happens in the seven days. And I did it. I actually published it on Amazon. I got an audible reader for it, put it on Audible. And my goal was not to become the number one bestselling New York Times list writer. That was never the goal. The goal was just to write a book. talk a little bit about that. Why is it so scary? Why is it so hard? Why do we put so much fear around it? Because it was liberating to write this book, and it's not perfect. I'm doing a revised edition right now. But it was liberating, it unlocked something in me about visibility that I never, ever experienced before. So talk about that process, how you watch people do that, what that process looks like and why it's so freaking hard.

Ally: 7:27

Yeah. You just went through a pretty good list of the most common fears and the most common, not objections exactly, but things that new authors will often say that hold them back. Who cares what I have to say? Do I have anything new to add? I'm just repeating the same old nonsense. Who am I? What am I even doing? Do I even know enough? All of those questions. I think they're all really human questions. There's that thing about being promoted to incompetency, right? It's like the psychological thing where. You can do something, you can do something, you can do something. And because you're good at it, you get to a point where all of a sudden you can't do something. And ironically, that's where you stop. So you always get stuck in the place where you can't do something. And the whole way that we think about these types of things makes us so afraid of being perceived as incompetent. Imposter syndrome. I've been doing this for 30 years, but there's always someone who knows more than me. I am gonna get caught out. If I'm too visible, then they're gonna know that I'm a fraud. They're gonna know that I don't actually know what the hell I'm talking about, right? And my whole business is gonna fall apart. So I think it's something that everybody experiences. It's not just writers. It's a very human reaction. Imposter syndrome in particular is documented to be most common among women. Especially probably your listenership, right? Intelligent, educated often, higher up in a business or an entrepreneur of their own business. These are the women that most often find themselves dealing with imposter syndrome. So I think that's a really big piece of it. And if you think of it as something we all deal with every day on a very normal level, and then you bring into that picture, Hey, why don't you put all of your thoughts and ideas about something you super, super care about, put it on this page in a way that you're never gonna be able to change. Let's launch it out into the world with your name on it, right? Yeah. That's not vulnerable at all. Exactly. It's a huge exercise in vulnerability Stops a lot of people.

Beverly: 9:17

It does. And I think that's why I think it's so liberating is by doing it, that scary thing isn't scary anymore because I've already done the scary thing. Yeah. And a lot of the entrepreneurs that I work with, they're, badass women who are doing really cool things and literally changing the world. But they have, I call'em the flying monkeys of doubt and imposter syndrome and perfectionism, all things that I have literally dealt with because I always thought that my work should just speak for itself. I never thought that I should have to go out there and talk about it and be visible and be an authority and all those things. And it takes courage to show up like that and to possibly, be contrarian to maybe other thoughts and people to fight back to what you say. But I feel like if you're not getting pushback, you're probably not saying enough, like you should be saying some things like that. But yeah, it was such an exercise for me and it literally changed the course of my path and my business and everything else, and how I show up, how I have my entrepreneurial clients show up. Again, it's not gonna win any kind of prizes. I really don't even want to talk about it. But it was really done for me. And it was really done in a way that I just needed to do it. And it still opened up some opportunities for me for sure. Absolutely. That I would never have had without it. Being called an author is something very interesting. When you're talking to people or you're speaking in front of people, there is a modicum of respect that's given to you because of you've written a book, even if it was not the best book you've ever written. And what I just say to tell people that you can write a book in seven days, I think that tells people what kind of person I am. Even though it's not the best they could be, I actually have another book in the works that I think will be much better. But I learned so much from that process that I know this one's much more personal, much more vulnerable, a journey that I have taken. It's business and personal. There's so much in it that I think makes it so much more human and real versus just very practical, which the first book was just very practical. It's a process and it's beautiful and hard and frustrating and all the things that life is.

Ally: 11:18

I noticed that a lot of what you were saying had to do with the things that happened for you as the process of writing the book. So we talk a lot about, I know I talk a lot about the benefits of having a book out in the world and the ways that business owners can leverage, a nonfiction book as part of their business to unlock a lot of opportunities. But I don't think enough people talk about the value of just the act of writing the book in the first place. Everything from the emotional aspect, like you were mentioning. When you have a really huge block and you finally do that thing and the world doesn't fall apart and you don't have a line of people at your door telling you what an idiot you are,'cause that's, what you're afraid is gonna happen. Yeah. It really pushes your comfort zone in a very good way. It helps you to see and build resilience. Oh yeah. I did this really scary thing. None of the terrible, horrible things I envisioned happened. Even if a couple trolls post some bad reviews, right? That's life that happens. It's inevitable When you publish a book, somebody will hate it, but most of the time what you're afraid of doesn't actually happen. So that alone is valuable. But I've even had clients have experiences where, for example, I remember this woman who was a very popular workshop teacher. She used to travel all over the world and give these incredibly intensive relationship workshops for women. She did week long intensive, she did weekend workup workshops, and then she wrote this book and she came into the process thinking I'm gonna take my workshops and put them into a book form. And as we worked through the book together, she realized. That there were so many things that she could do in a book because the format was different and that she had different amount of time with people than she could do sitting in a room with people for a few hours a day. And she actually ended up completely changing the workshop itself, which she had been teaching for over a decade. She changed the whole thing after writing the book because the process of thinking through her ideas and her exercises in that different way, really showed her how some places she could go deeper, some places she could refresh, and she came out of it with a whole other workshop. So it's so funny, just writing the book itself does so much for you.

Beverly: 13:15

What you're saying resonates so strongly, Allie, because, I redid my entire service offerings based on the book. Once I wrote the book and got really thoughtful about what transformation we really offer here at Wickedly branded, it made me see my business up above the trees as opposed to in the woods, in a way differently. So really taking the time and being thoughtful about my own brand and my own voice and what we do and what we offer. It really was an exercise that fundamentally changed how I show up, but also how the business talks about itself. And it was very powerful from that perspective. The act of writing, was for me, far more powerful than the actual publishing. The publishing was the cherry on the top. But the act of it, and the promise I made to myself and the introspection and thoughtfulness that I spent was so powerful in a real big mindset shift, for me and the business. There are so many benefits to it, and I wanna talk about the other benefits of actually publishing. Talk a little bit of that because I'm talking a lot about mindset and confidence, but it comes to relating to this writing and being visible to the world in ways you've never been visible before. And this whole season is about confidence. So what does confidence look like to you, Ally, as a business owner? And was there ever a moment that you realized you were really showing up with it?

Ally: 14:36

That's such a good question. Confidence. I will admit, absolutely that it is maybe not a daily struggle, but a regular struggle, to remember, to be confident, to remember all the things I genuinely have to be confident about. So that goes back to, what we were saying about imposter syndrome. I suffer from that, just so many other people do. Absolutely. And, I'll put a post on social media, or I'll write a blog post for my audience. I had been very active in writing a blog in the early years of my business, and I got away from it. So since January I've been writing a new blog post every month and a bunch of emails and posts, to go along with that. And every time, Beverly, even now, right? I've been in this business 25 plus years. I get that little twinge when you push right before I send it, right before I send it. Oh, did I miss something horrible? I missed a really obvious point. And someone's gonna comment on this and they're gonna make a fool of me on LinkedIn and I'm gonna look like an idiot and people are gonna comment and tell me how dumb I am. Right? There's always that brief little moment. Of course it doesn't happen because I know what I'm talking about and I take the time to actually create good content. But, it's still something that I struggle with. For me a lot of it comes down to various tools and techniques, mindset. Mindset is like any other muscle in a way, in the body that you really have to learn to exercise it. And I worked with a mindset coach for six months, a few years ago that really helped me as well and helped me to see it as a muscle, as something that I could practice and strengthen. I have little things you can't see on my desk here, but like I've got a little desk sign. This is everything is figureoutable. Marie Forleo's, famous thing. It's right there in my face. Anytime I'm feeling like there's a problem I can't solve. I'm feeling too overwhelmed. I look at that, I remind myself, okay, right? Everything is figureoutable. I keep a little brag file. I have a file on my desktop that includes some of my most ringing endorsements and some of the kindest things that clients have said. So I can go back and say even if I get one client who's upset and they're mad about something, or maybe we made a small mistake, and I start spiraling out, I can go back to that and remind myself, look, you're not perfect. You're human. Things happen. You genuinely care. You're gonna make it right. And also look at all these people whose lives you've changed, who loved working with you, who loved meeting you, who credit you with, helping them to achieve a major dream and goal. So there's these sort of tangible ways that we can remind ourselves and your story of writing the book, I think is a major example of building confidence. I know this is something I do very deliberately. On my birthday every year I look around and I think, is there something I've been nervous about doing or that I'm scared to do that I can make myself do and push my boundaries just a little bit more so that I have that resilience and I have that confidence of being able to say, Hey, remember when you were crying terrified of that thing, and then you did that thing. I went skydiving when I turned 40. And it was the same kind of thing. I was like, I've been through a lot. I'm going through a lot. I'm terrified of doing this, but I'm gonna do it. And I was up there in that plane, Beverly, and I almost started to cry because I was like, oh no, I changed my mind. I don't wanna do this. I'm not gonna outta this plane. No. It's way too far. Take me down. I don't wanna do it. And I rolled out of that plane and I was so scared most of the way down, and then finally was able to relax and enjoy it. But anytime I get nervous, I can now think to myself, what Are you scared about?

Beverly: 19:00

I didn't jump on my airplanes. My husband does that for a living. He's an active duty soldier, I don't understand why soldiers have to jump out of perfectly good airplanes, but my husband says they're not perfectly good. But by proxy. He's enough of that fear for me. But there was one day, a few years ago when we first got married, there was a spouse day where you could go and you could like, put on the gear and you could ride in some of the different vehicles and all things. They dressed me up, they put on the gear that I would if I was a parachute. And then they told me to go up this 40 foot tower. To jump out of it and it's a free fall. It's not not like a zip line. You fall, it's like a bungee but not a bungee. But it's kinda like that catches you and then you, it takes you down. But that's what they do to teach the guys to jump out of the airplanes. I fought of a ski lift when I was 17, so you know, you realize gravity is not your friend when you fall from a ski lift down to the ground. And just thankful that it was soft powder and not hard when you landed. I have a real appreciation for heights now just because of that experience. So I get up there and I didn't think it was that tall'cause it doesn't look that tall from down below. And I got up there and I looked out the door and I was like, yeah, I'm good. And I went to walk back down the stairs and my husband said to me, you will regret not doing this. You have fire in your soul and I don't know why you're giving up on yourself. And I was like, I can do this. So I turned around, it took me a little bit, but I jumped outta the airplane and I'm so glad that I had a supportive husband who knew I'd be really frustrated with myself if I didn't do it, but that was enough for me. That was a real boundary pushing. And you're right, confidence is built. And I've even talked about this on previous episodes and maybe my listeners are even sick of me saying this, but confidence also comes from trusting yourself because you've done all the things in the past, right? I've written the book, and written the blogs. I've led a team, I've been in charge of a billion dollar budget at one point in my career. Why did I not trust myself? I guess I made mistakes, but I always figured it out. Like you always figure out the solution and you learn and you grow and you do it. And the older I get, the more I trust myself. I just simply trust that what will be and that I care. And that is half the battle. And like you said you do the best that you can do every day. And progress over perfection needs to be part of it. I use the analogy of the. Cowardly Lion. The cowardly Lion was always looking for courage, right? He was like, I need courage. But all along the journey, he was the one that was standing up for his friends, he had all these small moments of courage. And he had it inside of him the whole time. He just had to realize and be shown that, and I know most of our clients just need to be shown how magical they are and what that looks like. And that becomes so much that becomes the beacon for their confidence. And when you are fully sitting in your magic, people can tell like they know, oh, she's on fire. What is that all about? I wanna know she's got pink hair. What is that all about? All of a sudden becomes. Part of who you are, and that is life changing. So it's all these little moments leading up to the book. And then since the book, really helped me be more visible and show up differently. But I always have that moment before you publish, you're like, what am I doing? And why is this the career I chose?

Ally: 22:00

If I worked at Starbucks, nobody would have to know who I'm, I wouldn't have to tell anybody what I think about things. And as it relates to the book too, you said something earlier that reminded me. A lot of people, I think when they think of courage and confidence, it's the same thing. They think it's something they need to get. Like you just said it's not something you need to get in some sense. You almost have to pretend. It's almost like the whole act as if, because you won't have the confidence until you've done the thing. You're not going to get the confidence if you're waiting for the confidence and the courage before you do the thing. You're never gonna do the thing. You have to find a way to make yourself do the thing. Despite the fear, right? There's that great quote about bravery, right? Bravery isn't about being unafraid, it's about being afraid and having the courage to do it anyway.

Beverly: 22:43

Yes. That's exactly it. And confidence is one of the things that we really help our clients with. It's this intangible thing, but it's so powerful. It's the most powerful mindset shift you could make and it's an honor. I'm sure you've seen this when the book publishes and does well or whatever, and you see that person light up differently. Yeah. Because they've been so validated and affirmed in their courage that it changes them in such a beautiful level. And we witness that all the time, and it's such an honor to be on that journey to see that it really it makes. It's contagious.'cause it rubs off on us too, which is great. So we talk about clarity. And how clarity can help so much. And I imagine when you write a book and you have to have an outline and you have to be clear and some of your messaging and what the end goal is and how that works. How do you help your clients get clear on the purpose behind their book? I'm sure there's an evolution that happens'cause it happened with me. How does that work within the process for you?

Ally: 23:38

We've experimented with a few different things. We've done some book coaching. I do private consulting, so I do meet with authors periodically usually there's somebody who's an expert, they have a business in some area, and, they know they wanna write a book, their business is ready for a book. They know that the book is going to help them grow their business, but they have lots of ideas. They're not sure exactly where to go. Those are my favorite people to talk to because then I can get in there and I can help them understand why sometimes the thing that you feel like you most wanna write is actually not the right book for you. One of my last private book coaching clients a few years ago came to me. He was a very smart gentleman. He'd been running hedge funds for a long time, and he was a student of philosophy. He was someone who was really into philosophy and really into how humans think and how we show up in the world. And he felt that he had really drawn this connection between people being honest with themselves about themselves and people being honest with each other and how that's not happening in the financial industry. And that if people were more honest with themselves, they could be better investors. So he tried this whole emotional thing, to his world. But when he came to me, he wanted to write a book that was entirely about, I think his working title was something like, what if We just Told the Truth? He wanted to write this very philosophical book about how we are not honest with ourselves and how when we're honest with ourselves, we can accomplish more and like all of this stuff. But he had no platform in that kind of world, no connections. He wasn't really a self-help guy, he was a financial guy. So he wanted to write this book, and I believed in his message. I was completely on board. I was like, nobody's gonna buy this book. You don't have any kind of a name, you don't have any kind of credibility. You're trying to write a psychological self-help book. I said what if you write a book about investing? The way you think investing should be. And you take all of these ideas you have around mindset and thinking, and you put them into the book and you make it an investing book from this point of view that you have. And you can have a whole chapter, just talking about philosophy if you want, but they'll come to you because you have the background in investing advice. That's where your connections are. That's where your platform and your stories and all the material you have comes from that world. And he wrote that book and it was, it's called Transparent Investing. And he was so happy with it. He even told me afterwards, I'm gonna be telling this story forever of how I came to you thinking I wanted to write this, highfalutin philosophy book. And you talked me into doing it this way and I was really grumbly about it at first, but I'm so glad I let you talk me into it because this was the right book. And he was able to reach thousands of people. He was able to get on podcasts and get interviewed in newspapers and really get the book out there to people and be a category bestseller because his platform was in alignment with his message. But we still found a way for him to say what he wanted to say and it was life changing for him and for us, like you said it's such an incredible honor to be a part of that kind of journey.

Beverly: 26:30

It really is. So how do you balance the being strategic and showing up, but also protecting your energy and your values? We live in such a almost contrived world in many ways. And you need to show up and this feels a little icky to me'cause I don't feel like I really get on board with this, but I feel like society says you should conformed a certain set of ideals and I call them the should suitcase. You should do all these things, but do you also need to protect your energy and values as a human. How do you balance the strategic, intentional side and being vulnerable, yet also saving a piece of you so it's not all out there for the world to see. Like how do you do that? Hey there, you've just finished part one of the Sparking Night, your marketing episode. How are you feeling? Excited, inspired, but we're just getting started. Next Thursday we're dropping part two, and you won't wanna miss it. Be sure to subscribe to our newsletter, so you'll be the first to know when it goes live. Until then, take a breather, let those ideas simmer, and we'll see you next week.