Welcome to the Virtual Antics Podcast, where we help entrepreneurs streamline their business to six figures and beyond. These short, sweet and info-packed episodes will inspire, educate and leave you feeling motivated to take one more step forward in your business. So put down your never-ending to-do list, because in this podcast, we are interviewing the best of the best in the entrepreneurial world as they spill their secrets to success. This podcast is sponsored by Nadora, the all-in-one software for entrepreneurs to grow their business, with unlimited landing pages, automations, emails and text campaigns, and so much more. I'm your host, natalie Guzman. Now let's get into it. Hey me, how you doing today. I'm doing great. Thanks so much for having me on the show, natalie. Yeah, I'm so excited you're here and I'm really interested to hear your story and how you got into what you do. So tell us. What is it exactly that you do.
Speaker 2Yeah, so I've been a freelance memoir ghostwriter for the past eight years, and so I basically travel the world and write people's stories, and so I think that this has kind of been such an interesting perspective.
Speaker 2I'm actually in Madeira, portugal, this week, and then I'm headed to Austria next week to interview a client for their book, and I feel like that there's something really special in terms of what it takes to think about your life story and understand what are the things that you want to share with people and how to help them. And I work with a lot of entrepreneurs who have not only lived really extraordinary lives but also have a lot of business lessons to tell, and instead of writing a business book that's pretty dry, being like you should do this, you should do this. Really encasing those business lessons in somebody's life story really adds kind of another layer to the business advice itself. I think that some of the best business books are also kind of like narrative nonfiction books, and I bring that kind of like storytelling background from my time as I would be a TV writer in Hollywood, and that's kind of where I cut my storytelling, and so that is the experience I bring into my more ghostwriting.
Speaker 1Oh I love that and that's such like an important thing. That you're doing is like story, and so how'd you get into ghostwriting? I know you just said that you used to do it for movies, correct?
Speaker 2Yeah, so I was a TV writer in Hollywood, so I used to write for TV shows and then, while I was coming up as an assistant, eventually got to do TV writing. I was basically moonlighting as a memoir ghostwriter. I was working for Olympians and NBA players and like a lot of really inspiring people with with cool stories to tell. And then, as I was kind of starting to be flown out by my clients and really enjoying that process, I was like I think this is what I'm meant to do not necessarily the TV writing and so I left Hollywood and then, when 2020 hit and the whole world kind of changed, I became a full-time digital nomad and I started traveling full-time and I just really love this kind of lifestyle of being able to travel and be able to go and tell people stories.
Speaker 2And I think that, like I particularly love the work that I do with entrepreneurs, because a lot of people don't realize that your book is something that is evergreen and it's something that, if you write it well enough, it lives on people's shelves forever and it will constantly do a lot of heavy lifting for you, whether it is kind of showcasing services that you sell or, you know, giving you authority in a certain area or kind of like, just kind of creating a mystique around you that when you publish a book it just changes your life and it's just. It's been. It's been really exciting to see that process.
Speaker 1Oh, that's amazing. So tell me a little bit about the process. So like, how does, how does he even get started?
Speaker 2Yeah, so I love to kind of like start the process and really kind of under who this person is that I'm creating this book for, and so I usually start with either in person interviews or interviews over zoom, where I just get to know them, get to know their story and really understand who they want their story to be heard by, because there's a difference between just writing a book and writing a book to be read and thinking about your audience and the reader. Experience is something that I learned in Hollywood. I learned coming up as a writer of like really trying to write with the audience mind, which means writing so that like you're crafting stories and character arcs around, like lessons and making it a page turner. And I think that the best nonfiction books feel like they have those elements of fiction and story structure and all of those kind of like classic pieces that keep people kind of turning those pages, while still imparting the important lessons that you have to share from like your work and your life and your business.
Speaker 2And so we kind of go through this like two-week interview process where I basically kind of like get them to share with me old emails, journal entries, I interview them, sometimes I interview their family and their friends, and then from there I take that into first two-step outline process and then, as we're working through the outline together, then that kind of creates the foundation for the draft and then after that we move into. I send them chapters every week and then from there we bring in beta readers and get feedback, and so there's kind of like a whole scientific method to the process of writing the book. But it all comes back to like these pillars of what are you trying to share, what's your message, and then what is the way that we can structure your story in a way that will change your readers lives and then, in exchange, also your life.
Speaker 1That is so cool. So you really have to kind of like step in their shoes and kind of like, really like almost do you ever like pretend like you're them when you're hearing these is, and you're like because I know like ghostwriter you're writing their stories feel like you step into their shoes a bit.
Speaker 2Yeah, definitely, and I think that's kind of what separates like a good ghostwriter from just any other good writer is that as a ghostwriter, I have to be a chameleon and step into their shoes. And that's very similar to the work that I used to do as a TV writer, where I'm writing fictional characters and writing in their voice. And I think that's why the jump felt very natural to me, because I love already kind of writing into a character's voice and understanding the motivation somebody has and how they speak and like what they sound like on the page and so bringing that to memoir ghostwriting was a jump because you know I'd already been written and all of written writing and all these other characters. And so stepping into somebody that I know, I'm getting to know really well and I'm understanding who they want to speak to and how they want to come across, while also really trying to maintain their unique way of speaking. And I do that through a lot of different exercises, starting from like the first outline, like first, like trying to write in their voice so that they can give me notes, and then also having voice memos and recording or Zoom calls I can listen back and really get into the cadence of their voice and the rhythm that they speak, but adapting that to the page so that once again readers can really feel like it's propulsive and something that is moving forward but it still feels uniquely them.
Speaker 2How long does the whole process take? Yeah, so it kind of depends. Some projects are a little bit longer because they require more research. I've worked on some kind of true crime memoirs where I had to go like interview a bunch of lawyers and things like that, and that can take a little bit longer.
Speaker 2But for some of the more standard books it can take anywhere from like four to seven months Usually, with average being around six months. But it depends on, like, the client's availability and kind of how we're doing the process. But usually with any project like this you want to kind of compress it, because if you spend too much time writing it then you can lose the thread. Or if you start and stop, like it isn't as effective as really sitting down in a moment in your life when you're ready to tell that story and ready to kind of like go through that journey and start to finish. So then you let it kind of move on too long, like any writer can tell you, if you stop a project midway, you become a different person by the time you return to it and then you just lose the thread and it's a lot harder to get back in oh, 100%.
Speaker 1I even feel like that when I record sometimes and I have like interruptions and I'm like I was, we were at such a good spot. Where do I go from here? And it's like you know, really like immersing yourself, and you know it's. I think that's one thing a lot of entrepreneurs that we struggle with is that we don't actually like stay in the moment and like be present 100%, because we're always jumping to the next thing. And that's really interesting because for what you do, you really have to stay in the moment and because you have to follow your train of thought.
Speaker 1And so I've always been like I've always admired writers, because there's like so many different aspects you guys do and you have to like I am avid reader. If you look at my Amazon Kindle right now, I've been reading every week for like seven straight. Amazing, yeah, I love reading. I love it, and that's why I was so excited to have you on the show, because what you do is so it is an art, like you said earlier, and there's like so many and think about person there's so many different events like I can name top five events that changed my life. Um, and sometimes a lot of people have a lot more, especially if they're older than me, and so you have to kind of have to like pick, and you pick and choose what moments to reflect, or does your client a little?
Speaker 2bit of both. Some people come to me. They're like this is the moment, everything changed. And some people come to me and they're like this is my whole life, like how do you think we should tell it? And that's kind of also like the the difference between memoir and autobiography, whereas like autobiography is kind of more of like a I was born, this happened, this happened, this happened, and here we are today, whereas like a memoir is a little bit more kind of like artistic, where we're telling stories, maybe out of order or kind of like pulling different things at different times and kind of adding a little bit more kind of creative storytelling flair to it. And I've done a few autobiographies as well. But I think that memoir is such a great format because it allows you to really take the reader on for your life and then to arrange it in a way that has the most meaning, and I think that that's really cool, that's amazing how you say, like not everyone's journey in the process, right, so you have to like really tailor it to your client.
Speaker 1That's something you can really only do with, it's not? I always talk about, like SOPs, your standard operating procedure. This is how you do your business For you. It'd be really hard to do that Because every single time is different. Is that correct?
Yeah, and I think that that's why, exactly what you're saying earlier, there's kind of like a difference between, like, the business side and then the art side, and the art and commerce is always a little bit in conflict.
Speaker 2But I also think that that's why I've been so lucky to work with such amazing clients is because they see that I come at it both from the artistic side, as somebody who I'm an author myself.
Speaker 2I have my own creative career, I come from the storytelling world, but I also kind of I have a background also a little bit of marketing and a little bit of like the commerce side of things, and I also work with the book marketing to help launch some of these books, and so I understand, like what is the reader needing to, and so it's like trying to bridge this gap the artistic side of the process, where I'm tailoring it to the client the client has a vision for it but also trying to figure out what is going to make this a successful book that will change this client's life in terms of, you know, using this book as a launching point for a course or coaching or, you know, as a TED talk, and so I think that it's also trying to kind of figure out, like what is the 360 degrees of how art and commerce ties into this thing. So we're making art, but it's art that also has a purpose and can help change yeah.
Speaker 1I worked for a company this was one of my first jobs as a virtual assistant and they had a book they used as a lead mag and it was basically like a fiction story but that surrounded their morals, their goals, like everything that they wanted for as a mastermind group, and so it was basically showing like this character that recently lost her dad and how their group that surrounded them this is Tribe of Millionaires if anyone wants to read it but how the people that are surrounding him are the ones that lifted him through that process and it was such a good and I was like in love with it. So I love that you kind of go through this storytelling instead of like this is how you do this and this is how you do that and this is like cause that's so tedious to read. But when you have a story that flows and like, as a reader, you can immerse yourselves in that person is just so special.
Speaker 2Yeah, and I think that books like Rich Dad, poor Dad really capture that where it starts with that parable that feels like almost like mystical in a way, where but it really kind of like gets you in this perspective of seeing money and business differently. And I think that that the reason why that book which was self published, by the way, so it wasn't even supported by a major publisher and I think that the strength of that book lies in that. That blend of like narrative and like kind of almost like a fictional feel to it, but then with like hard advice, and so I think that that blend works so well for business books, entrepreneurship books, and striking that balance changed completely the trajectory of your career and how your business operates, because people's brains just operate different when they're reading a story and I know that you know this is a reader that we just kind of get into this flow state when story just grips us and it just hits different. It's different than you know. If you put out 100 Instagram posts, those Instagram posts will be old after certain. Even blog content isn't super evergreen because Google still wants you to feed the machines.
Speaker 2You have to constantly put out new stuff, and so the nice thing about a book is like it becomes evergreen. It becomes something that can only grow and compound and become passive income as well as a legacy you can leave behind and part of the estate that your kids, if you'd like to. And I think that that's kind of like the unique thing about a book. It's like it's not just something that is like like like you post it and then you forget it and then nothing else happens with it. It can kind of grow over time and there's a lot of books, like you know, rich Dad, poor Dad, that like had that cult following, that like after, after it published, it kind of like really took off. And same thing with like 48 Loss of Power. These were sleeper hits, that nobody really loved it when it first came out, but then it really grew in prominence and staples and really created those ripple effects.
Speaker 1Another book that's along that same genre and popularity is was it Think, grow Rich? I think it is so that's so hard for me to read. I'm reading it right now for the second time and it's so hard for me to because it's not. It has some stories, but they're they're so many stories. So like in the very beginning they're like this helped this person, this help. They're switching so much, it's so hard for me to read but there's so much value.
Speaker 1So what I actually did was I went to chat G and I asked her to give me a snippet of like what's their like key strategies and give me like takeaways and key points, which was a lot easier to read for me, but I was missing the emotional connection. So I was like I can have ChatGPT, give me all the secrets right here that were listed in the book, but I'm not going to feel, through the stories, I'm missing so much by kind of like doing that cheat way. I felt like I was cheating I've never done that with a book and I was like I'm going to cheat just for a second because it's so hard for me to read. I even tried listening to it and I couldn't get into it. It was just so hard. But that's why I think what you do is so important because that story, it gives you the emotional connection and it makes it easier to connect, which is such an important part of writing and reading a book.
Speaker 2Yeah, definitely, and I think that a lot of people also don't realize that the book process is such a sport.
Speaker 2Even if you are writing the book yourself, you still need an editor, you still need help with publishing, even if you're going the self-publishing route or the traditional publishing route.
Speaker 2No author does it alone.
Speaker 2Clients like have heard horror stories of their friends who tried to like write and publish their own book and not they don't have a lot of experience and then they just like end up getting distracted and losing focus on their business and like there's there's been some like devastating stories, and so I think that just like any big project like writing a book requires a lot of that kind of like investment and planning and trying to find experts to help you, because you wouldn't just go and like learn how to build a house and build your own house If you were also trying to run a business.
Speaker 2Like you wouldn't split your focus like that. If you could have hire somebody to help you build a house that you would live in and your family would live in. And so I think that like that is also something I see as like a common mistake that entrepreneurs make is like trying to DIY too much of their book when they aren't trained writers or they don't know how to, kind of like, put their story in perspective, and then that often sets them back and keeps them from reaping all the benefits 100.
Speaker 1And you know, I always say, like I started my business the same time I became a mom and I always say, like you know, they say it takes a tribe to raise your kids, right, well, it takes a tribe to grow a business, to write a book, anything that you want to be extremely successful. You can't do it alone. Like even say that you want to be extremely successful. You can't do it alone. Like even say that you built your business all by yourself, never hired anyone. Well, you probably read books. You probably won. Those are people that you kind of collected to your tribe and you learned from. So it's always bigger than you and that's why I think the best things are they're always bigger than the one person.
I love that and I think that that's like the whole idea of like standing on the shoulders of giants. It's like we all had to read these business books to get to that next step and it's like, and I also think that I think that's also why I think that book writing is so generous, because you learned from books and it's like, and then by leaving your experience for somebody else and being like here, like avoid these pitfalls, you're doing something so generous to help that person. And and that's something that I did when I published my first book, six Figure Freelance Writer, where I basically wanted to lay out why people like the things people should avoid when it comes to the pitfalls of becoming a freelance writer. And that book has changed a lot of my trajectory because people saw that and were just kind of really blown away by the pitfalls that they hadn't seen and felt like it really helped them leapfrog.
Speaker 1I apologize, I lost count. Oh good, no worries, all right. So it's so funny because we were just talking about this, like when you're interrupted and you lose it.
Speaker 2It's a struggle, it's difficult.
Speaker 1Yeah, okay, so pineapple, pineapple. I do that so I know where to edit. Sorry, okay, so we left. Where did we left off?
Speaker 2Yeah, so I was talking a little bit about kind of like the impact that having have on business and I think that when you're an entrepreneur, you're trying to think about like, like you know, why should you hire an entire team of people to help you, you know, write a book? Like why not put that money into TikTok or ads or all of these other things? And I think that like that's kind of like the tricky decision that a lot of entrepreneurs have to make for themselves, because you have to kind of understand the risk that publishing a book is and also understand the two different paths. I think that a lot of people who see traditional publishing I think these days it's less applicable for entrepreneurs and I think that that's mostly because if you buy a book on Amazon, it could be self published, it could be traditionally published, you have no idea and you can get print books in the mail that are printed beautifully, that look fantastic, that you would have no idea are self-published. And that has been really recent in the last few years because of Amazon KDP, which has a print on demand service, and so you don't have to buy warehouses full of your books published, which is different and something that has been kind of more in the last like 10 years, and so I think that entrepreneurs, when they look at traditional publishing, at first it's like, oh, I could get an advance and a fancy book deal.
Speaker 2But then you have to realize you have to wait for your book come to shelves, and sometimes your book doesn't make it through the publishing process. Sometimes it dies, and then sometimes you might publish one book, want to write a second, and then the publisher is like no, I don't think so, and they own the rights to your first book and so sometimes they can block you depending on your deal with them, and so there's a whole bunch of process with that. That is like I see. When I tell that to entrepreneurs, they immediately like, oh, I don't want to do that, because when you're able to launch your own book which traditional publishers will still expect you to do your own marketing but if you self-publish, you keep more of the royalty.
Speaker 2You get to build your book funnel pages, your landing pages, to not only sell the book but also to sell other offers coaching or getting people on your email list, and there's so many other ways that you customize your launch.
Speaker 2You can actually pick what your book cover is and if you do traditional publishing you can't pick your book cover, which I think that that's kind of like a new era that's being ushered in is a lot of entrepreneurs kind of using their book launch as an excuse to go on podcast tours as a way to build press and awareness around their services and their businesses no-transcript. And I feel like when you start hearing readers read your book for the first time and leaving reviews, emailing you and being like your book changed my life, then like that feels like completely next level. That is something that a YouTube video or TikTok videos as helpful as those are in certain contexts, they can't give you that sort of satisfaction in a way that when your reader readers like read about your life story, your accomplishments and what you've learned and they get value from that, like that's that's an unmistakable feeling.
Speaker 1Oh 100% and you know, kind of like what you're saying. So we have a lot of clients that are self-published authors and we have done like they've created multiple courses that surround the topic of their book and so they keep having new launches, even though they published a book like 10 years ago. But you know, you're able to take that information and almost have like a brand new launch like anytime you want, you know, and so like we've created courses for them and websites and landing pages and automations and so many different like workshops, and they're just so much fun and they have so much success. And it's because they're creating this by doing courses, they're creating a community of readers and they're able to interact with the authors, which I think is a lot different than what it used to be, cause I feel like it was always like you would have the book but you wouldn't have the author, and now you kind of get the have both, which is really cool.
Speaker 2Yeah, I think that's really cool about what you do and like that kind of like two part like approach of like you have a really beautifully written book and then you use it to like permeate every part of it.
Speaker 2I think it's like such a great part of like a funnel is to like have a book as like a point of entry for somebody to really gain their trust before they purchase something. That is like a bit higher ticket and I think that that is like such an important piece and even if, like the book is like fairly inexpensive, it offers, like somebody, a step into really your world and your offerings and it feels a lot more permanent because I feel like I remember the authors of books that I've read way more than I remember somebody giving business advice on TikTok. And I think that permanence is really really important because we're all fighting for space in the attention economy and I think that even though writing a book and publishing a book and all of the investment that goes into that is pretty huge, I think that the payoff is really huge as well.
Speaker 1Well, you've given us so much insight and I really appreciate you coming on the show. Can you tell us where we can find more about you and your services?
Speaker 2Yeah, so everyone can go to my website, amysutocom. My last name is spelled S-U-T-O, and you can also go to my social media, which I have everywhere at Suto Science. So my last name, suto Science.
Speaker 1Awesome. I'll make sure I put that in the show notes as well. But thank you so much, amy, for coming on the show. I've had a blast. Yeah, thanks so much for having me, natalie. Anytime, we'll talk to you guys next time on the Virtual Index Podcast.