Make Sure You Don't Write the Wrong Book to Grow Your Business

Are you a coach or consultant who knows you should write a book, but you're not sure where to start, or whether your book idea will actually help grow your business?

In this episode, I sit down with publishing strategist Ally Machate to discuss why most business books fail before they're ever written, and how to make sure you write the right book that builds authority, attracts clients, and supports your long-term business goals.

You'll discover:
 
01:23 - How a book can become the foundation of your marketing strategy
02:52 - Using your book as a lead generator and trust-building tool
04:07   - Why authors are automatically perceived as authorities
05:48 - The costly mistake that causes many business books to fail
07:03 - A real-world example of writing the wrong book
11:00 - The five-step process for choosing the right book concept
12:00 - Starting with the end goal before writing a single chapter
13:00 - How to identify the audience your book actually needs to reach
14:25 - Finding the sweet spot between your expertise and your readers' needs
16:00  - Ally's positioning and publishing plan process
18:32 - Where to access Ally's free webinar, Don't Write the Wrong Book

Key Insights:

– A book is far more than a marketing asset. It can become the central source of content for your social media, videos, webinars, courses, and lead generation efforts

– Readers spend hours with your ideas when they read your book, making it one of the most effective ways to build trust before someone becomes a client

– Simply publishing a good book is not enough. The book must align with the specific business outcomes you want to create

– Many coaches and consultants write books that showcase stories or experiences but fail to demonstrate their expertise, methodology, or client results

– Before deciding what to write, get clear on what you want the book to do for your business: attract clients, generate speaking opportunities, establish authority, or support a new business direction

– The right audience for your book may not always be your ideal client. In some cases, it may be conference organizers, corporate decision-makers, or referral partners

– The strongest book ideas emerge where your expertise, your audience's needs, and your business goals intersect

– Publishing decisions such as format, pricing, and distribution should be driven by the strategic purpose of the book, not personal preference

🎁 Free Resource Mentioned:

👉 Don't Write the Wrong Book Webinar:
https://thewritersally.com/

Thanks for listening to the Seven-Figure Life-Fulfillment podcast.

🎁 Claim Ken's free gift — Find out how ready your business is for another $20K revenue per month. Take the Revenue Growth Readiness Scorecard.
👉🏻 https://scorecard.kensteven.com/ken-ldxawjii

Transcript

Ken Steven 0:00

If you're a coach or consultant, and you've been thinking about writing a book to showcase your expertise, but you haven't figured out yet how to get started, you're gonna love my special guest today. We're gonna talk about how to avoid writing the wrong book and start writing the right one. Hello and welcome to the Seven Figured Life Fulfillment Podcast, where we share strategies to help coaches and consultants grow their revenue while working fewer hours and build the life they actually enjoy. I'm your host, Ken Stephen, and my guest today is Allie Mashotti. Allie knows a thing or two about writing books. She's been in the publishing industry since 1999. That's a long time. And she started as an acquiring editor at Simon and Schuster, where she learned firsthand why most books fail before they're ever written. And today she runs the Writers Alley, a boutique publishing consultancy that helps coaches, consultants, and entrepreneurs write the right book and use it as a long-term business asset. Allie, welcome to the show.

SPEAKER_00 0:58

Thank you so much for having me, Ken. I'm happy to be here.

Ken Steven 1:01

Well, I'm here to dive into our conversation today because, you know, this whole idea of writing a book addresses two of my five revenue growth drivers. The first is marketing and visibility, and the second is authority and reach. So let's start with marketing and visibility. How can writing a book help coaches and consultants with their marketing and visibility?

SPEAKER_00 1:23

So a book can be really, really powerful when it comes to marketing a business. And the first way I think is one of the most overlooked ways, which is that the book itself can serve as a kind of touch point or the heartbeat, if you will, of your marketing efforts. When you really put in the time and energy to think about what your book is going to be, how your book is going to represent you and your signature systems or processes, your key philosophies, the things that make you as a coach or a consultant uniquely you. The book puts those things out into the world with a lot of great content, right? Everybody's book is a little different. Maybe it's, you know, 200 pages, maybe it's 300 pages, whatever. But you've already done the hard work of thinking through the same kinds of things that you need to think through about your business. Who is your ideal client? What is your unique promise, right? How do you position yourself? Where do you fit, you know, in the general category of what it is that you do? So now you have this book, you have this artifact full of content and ideas that you can now use to anchor any number of marketing uh strategies. So anything from taking pieces out of the book to create social posts, to create videos, to create webinars, online courses, you know, almost any kind of content that you need in your business can be pulled directly from your book. Also, the book itself serves as an incredibly powerful lead generator and lead magnet. So if you have some kind of funnel set up, you know, maybe that leads to an online course or to a group coaching program or one-on-one, whatever it is, having that book out there as a way for people to, in a very low commitment way, get to know you and who you are and you know your personality and you know the flavor of what it might be like to work with you can be really, really helpful, especially in this economy, right? We've gotten into this place where people need a lot more to trust somebody before they move forward with working with them. So they can spend six, eight, ten hours almost inside your head by reading your book. And that can be a really, really warm way to bring somebody into your ecosystem and your funnel for everything else you have to offer.

Ken Steven 3:42

Yeah. So those six to ten hours, they're thinking about you, right? And they're and they're starting to, they're starting to see that you can help them with their problem, right? So you the book is actually at that point pre-selling your services and your ability to help them, right?

SPEAKER_00 3:57

That's right. Yeah. And we talk a lot about, you know, I'm sure your listeners have heard the whole no like trust thing. Nothing does that better than a book.

Ken Steven 4:06

Absolutely. Absolutely. So we we've now covered why marketing and visibility is enhanced with a book. Okay. How about authority and reach?

SPEAKER_00 4:15

Well, I like to start that part by simply pointing out something I think a lot of people don't notice, which is that author is the root word of authority. Right.

Ken Steven 4:24

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_00 4:25

We talk about getting authority, we and we say things like, oh, she wrote the book on the subject, right? It is there is very few, there are very few things uh in Western culture anyway, that convey a sort a sense of authority and expertise better than a book. And in a lot of ways, I don't want to say what's in the book doesn't matter, because of course it does. But simply by having written a book that at least, you know, looks professional, does have to meet a few criteria. They're not going to just look and see, like, oh, you wrote a collection of jokes. Like, what does that have to do with your business, right? It's got to be, again, the right book. But provided that it is, if you are considering working with two different coaches and one of those coaches has a book, just knowing that right off the bat gives you a psychological advantage. You are immediately perceived as more of an authority than the person without a book. And this is the reason why, you know, any given conference that you've been to, your keynote speaker was probably somebody with a book. When you watch interviews uh on the news, right, in different things are happening in the media. When they go to an expert uh to get some analysis of what's happening in the news, it's almost always somebody with a book. And that's why we just have this um innate thing built into our culture that someone who writes a book is more of an authority.

Ken Steven 5:48

Okay, so now that we know why it makes sense for coaches and consultants to be writing a book, let's make sure they write the right one. So I was intrigued by something I saw on your website. You say that most authors don't fail because they can't write, they fail because they start with the wrong book idea for the goals they want to achieve. Help us understand what you mean by that.

SPEAKER_00 6:13

Yeah. Um, so it's a very normal thing that when somebody decides to start writing a book, they are first and foremost concerned with whether or not the book is good. And usually by that, they're talking about some level of interesting ideas, but mostly they're talking about the writing. Is it well written? Is it constructed well? Is this something that somebody would want to read? Am I going to be embarrassed by putting this out into the world? Um, and all of those things are important. Absolutely, whatever you write does need to be something that somebody would objectively consider to be a good book. But the reality is that you can publish an objectively good book, something well written, something nice to read, something with a professional cover on it. And that book still might not move the dial in your business. And I can tell you a couple of stories that I think really illustrate this point very well. So many, many years ago, a woman contacted me for help with book marketing. She was about to launch her book and her business. She was a coach and she specialized in working with women who had low self-esteem as a result of having been abused. Different kinds of abuse, any kind of abuse, but particularly women who were suffering with low self-esteem because they had been abused. Now, this is a really great, clear target audience, right? She knew exactly who she wanted to work with. And she had been through this kind of scenario with uh her ex-husband herself. So it was also coming from a really personal place. And as she was getting ready to launch this business, everybody started telling her she needed to write a book. That if she was going to launch this business, she needed a book, the book would bring her clients, the book would help her to grow the business. So she had written this book and she brought it to me now to help her market it to grow the business. But here was the problem since she had not had a business yet, none of the stories in the book were her clients. She didn't have any client stories to share. So what she did was she went to her personal network and collected a bunch of stories from women who had dealt with low self-esteem. Very few of the women in the book had dealt with low self-esteem specifically as a result of abuse. None of the women in the book were her clients, and none of the women in the book had worked with a coach to overcome it. So what she ultimately had was a really lovely book. The stories were inspiring, it was legitimately well written. It was a nice book, but it didn't represent the people in it didn't represent the kind of clients she wanted to work with. It didn't showcase her expertise, her systems, or her philosophies. And it didn't even present coaching as a solution in general. So what she ultimately had was a really good book that was the wrong book for her business. It was not going to bring her clients. It was not going to bring her opportunities. And really, really heartbreakingly, it the whole thing had kind of been a wasted exercise. She had really wasted her time and money putting this book together because it wasn't going to do what she needed it to do. Right. And another story, sort of a little bit different, to speak to something we were talking about a little off-camera, which is that sometimes you want to write a book and it might not be the right timing. So I had another client who was a woman with um really great expertise in the corporate world. She'd been an executive, she'd been worked with a lot of big companies, and she had a ton of experience. Now she was retiring from that work and she wanted to do executive coaching. And again, somebody told her she should write a book. So she started thinking about writing a book. But what she originally started writing was a memoir. And while the book was interesting, again, it wasn't the kind of book that she was going to be able to launch a business around. Because it was basically just lots of interesting stories from the span of her career. Again, well written, professionally done. You know, it could have been professionally done. She hadn't published it yet. Um, but you know, it I could have seen it being a really nice book, but it wasn't the kind of book, again, that was going to bring her clients. It didn't really showcase what she was going to do for them. And it's really uh it's really a the um manifestation of this, you know, sort of marketing truism that, you know, I'm sure you've heard before and your listeners have heard before, which is what's in it for me, right? People don't buy books because you have an interesting story to share.

Ken Steven 10:34

Right.

SPEAKER_00 10:35

They buy the book because they want something and you either fulfill that need or that want or you don't. They're looking for a solution, they're looking for an idea, they're looking to change their mind about something or learn more about something. That's the most important thing to get right.

Ken Steven 10:51

Okay, so you've just given us two really good examples of writing the wrong book. Okay. What is what's the process you would take people through to make sure they write the right book?

SPEAKER_00 11:07

Um, so it's funny you mentioned that because that is the free gift that I have brought to offer to your audience. I have a webinar. Um, it's called Don't Write the Wrong Book. And one of the things it does is it walks people through a really simple five-step process that I can kind of outline a little bit. And then if you want to learn more, you can go to the webinar itself. And basically the idea is you need to start from the end. So a lot of people start writing from the beginning. What's the idea? What do I want to say? What's the book about? At some point in your process, whether it's before you start writing or in the process of writing, you need to take a pause and shift from what you want to say, what you want to write about, to what you think your target audience wants to hear from you. So the first question is, what do you want this book to do for you out in the world? And the obvious answer that most people jump to is, well, I want to sell books, right? I want people to read the book. Um, and yes, of course, everyone wants people to buy and read their book. But what about beyond that, right? What is the thing you actually want the book to do for you? Is it something that you hope will get you onto stages for speaking gates? Is it something that you plan to send to corporations to get you uh invited to lead corporate retreats? Is it something you want to leverage to get new clients? Are you using it to position yourself as an authority or a thought leader in a particular space or even to help you pivot into a new space, perhaps? And there are lots of different goals that people might have around what they want the book to do for them. And some of those goals will overlap, but what people, most people don't realize that there are some subtle and sometimes dramatic differences in how a book would be constructed and written based on the goals that they want to choose. So it's really important to know what you actually want the book to do for you beyond simply selling copies so that you can work backwards from that. So figure out what you want the book to do for you. Then you want to think about who are the people you need to reach in order for that thing to happen, right? Who is the book actually for? You're you want to attract new leads, the people you need to attract are your ideal clients, right? Your target audience, your avatars. If you want to get on stages, the people that who need to read the book are actually the people who run the events, the conference organizers. A quick example about that. Another client came to me with a really good workbook. He'd been teaching uh these workshops for weekends, weekend workshops for years, and they were really popular. And now he wanted to take the book and he wanted to be more of a keynote speaker. He kind of wanted to level up and he'd been sending the book around, he wasn't getting any traction. And so again, he came to me for bookmarking and I said, Well, look, you've written a workbook. This is tactical, this is hands-on. Now you're trying to get people to see you as a keynote speaker, right? That's not a workshop, that's a one-hour, 30-minute inspirational talk. So you're sending this book to people and they probably think it's a good book, but they're confused because they can't see the leap between this very intensive hands-on workbook material and what your keynote talk is going to be like, right? So by not thinking about who the end user was, the conference organizer, he didn't have the book that was going to be right for those people for that purpose. So what do you want the book to do? Who are the people you need to reach to make that happen? And then working backwards from that, once you've identified those people, what exactly is that thing that they need, right? What's their pain point? What are they struggling with? What is it that they're looking to learn more about or to change or to fix, right? What is it that sends them to Amazon to start typing in keywords to find a book in the first place? When you figure that out and you find the sweet spot, which is kind of like a Venn diagram between what you want to say and what you know is important for those people to hear, and marry that with what they need, what they're struggling with, with what they're looking for. That sweet spot is gonna tell you exactly what the right book for you is. That's the book that's gonna be the most marketable, that's the book that's gonna help you have the most impact, that's the one that's gonna move the needle.

Ken Steven 15:21

Wow. When people are working with you, do you help them figure out what the right concept would be for them based on their audience, the kinds of things you just explained?

SPEAKER_00 15:32

Yeah, so the writer's ally um is nearly full service. There are a few places where we prefer to work with partners, but the idea is that we really like to meet authors where they are in the journey. So some of our clients come to us with a book already finished and need help with marketing. Some people have worked with a coach or an editor and need help with publishing and marketing. And then some people do come to us very early in the process where they don't even have a draft or a finished draft yet. Sometimes all they have is an idea. So we have something to offer for everybody, depending, no matter where they come in to us on the process. Um, but wherever they come from and however we work together, the most important thing, the place that we start these days is something that I've been doing informally for years and I finally codified it. So since January, what we've been doing is starting all of our clients with something we call the positioning and publishing plan consult. And that's an opportunity for me to both gather information about their goals, their vision for the book, their goals for their business, learning more about their platform, learning more about the other books that inspired them that they liked, all of this kind of stuff, not just to gather information, but also it's designed to lead the author through asking themselves some questions that they may not have even known to ask. So we get all this information together, we get the author thinking about things in what we consider to be the right way, the productive way. We take that all together, we do a live Zoom consult, a 90-minute consult, and then I synthesize all of that information into the deliverable, which is the positioning and publishing plan. And what that really does is I think it underscores for most authors how many of your downstream decisions, even the things that seem mechanical, like your pricing or what formats you decide to publish in, are really informed by those key initial foundational questions around what the book is, what you want it to do, who the book is for. You know, again, consider the speaker. Um, if you're going and speaking and you're only publishing your book as an e-book, it's going to be really challenging. Now, there are ways to deal with that. People hold up QR codes and they send give out postcards and stuff. But one of the best ways to sell books at a live event is to have books, right? To have a table with a bunch of paperbacks. Um, you know, so if you know you want to use this book to get speaking opportunities and you think you only want to do an e-book or an audio book, I'm gonna talk you into doing a print book as well. So it's really important to have those conversations early, and um, that is how we've now built our process around. So really wherever you are, we can support you.

Ken Steven 18:14

Allie, I was saying before we came on the call today, I I wish I'd met you like 10 years ago before I wrote my book because I needed help with all of those things. And they're not and I didn't really know who to talk to. So everybody listening today, if you are thinking about writing a book, I mean, obviously Allie does know about books. And uh so Allie, if if anyone is thinking about working with you, how can how can they reach out to you?

SPEAKER_00 18:38

Well, I hope you'll check out that webinar. Don't write the wrong book. It's about 25 minutes, and I think it'll give you a really great way to analyze whatever ideas you currently have, even if you're currently drafting. But besides that, just check out our site, therritersally.com. We have a library full of free resources, videos, uh, downloadables. Our blog is full of really rich articles. And of course, once you get onto our list, uh you'll be invited for other opportunities. There's a contact form. If you're ready to reach out and actually have a talk, I do a free 15-minute fit call. So you can go ahead and fill out that form to get started or join the list, check out some of our free stuff and hang out for a while.

Ken Steven 19:16

Sounds good. I'm gonna put the I'm gonna put that link to your website in the show notes below. I I really think this is uh this is a no-brainer, folks. If you're thinking about writing a book, I think you should contact Allie and and just at least get some insights on where you might want to start. Ellie, thanks so much for being such a great guest on the show today. Really appreciate you coming and sharing your insights.

SPEAKER_00 19:39

Thank you so much for having me. This is great.

Ken Steven 19:41

All right. My friend, everyone. We'll see you on the next episode of the Seven Figure Life Fulfillment Podcast.