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    Books Bring Clarity — Ally Machate on Spark & Ignite Your Marketing

    Ally Machate, founder and CEO of The Writer’s Ally, recently joined Beverly Cornell on Spark & Ignite Your Marketing—the podcast where real conversations meet real strategies—to discuss the strategic power of publishing. In this two-part series of episodes, Ally shares her own passion for helping authors build their businesses with meaningful books, and explains how writing the right book can enhance credibility, attract ideal clients, and reshape a brand’s visibility.

    The conversation explores the challenges many authors and entrepreneurs face, including perfectionism and imposter syndrome, and offers actionable strategies to overcome these blocks. Ally also shares how purposeful publishing can provide brand clarity, elevate offers, and give authors the confidence to hit “publish.”

    Key themes from their discussion include:

    • Writing the Right Book for Business Growth: Aligning your book topic with your expertise and platform to build authority and attract clients.
    • Overcoming Visibility Blocks and Imposter Syndrome: Mindset tools and personal stories to move past fear and perfectionism.
    • How a Book Can Reshape Your Brand and Offers: Using a book to clarify messaging, strengthen your platform, and elevate your brand.

    Beverly Cornell is the founder and fairy godmother of brand clarity at Wickedly Branded. With over 25 years of experience, she’s helped hundreds of entrepreneurs awaken their brand magic, attract the right people, and build businesses that light them up. Listen to both episodes on your preferred platform:

    Through these appearances, Ally continues to help authors and entrepreneurs publish books that deliver results—books that build visibility, authority, and genuine connection.

    Ally Machate is on a mission to help authors make great books and reach more readers. A bestselling author and expert publishing consultant, Ally has served small and “Big Five” publishers, including Simon & Schuster, where she acquired and edited books on staff. Her clients include authors with such companies as Simon & Schuster, Penguin Random House, Rodale Inc., Chronicle Books, Kaplan Publishing, Sourcebooks, and Hay House, as well as independently published bestsellers. As founder & CEO of The Writer’s Ally, Ally and her team lead serious authors to write, publish, and sell more high-quality books.

    Want a Stronger Book Launch? Fix These 5 Things

    Writing a book can be such a challenge in itself that many authors prefer to tell themselves they can “figure out the book marketing strategy stuff later.” But well before the launch—often while you’re still drafting—you must decide on some of the most crucial factors that will shape your book’s success.

    From title clarity to audience alignment, the foundation of a strong book marketing strategy starts early. And if you’ve already published and you’re not seeing the traction you hoped for? Don’t panic—there’s still a path forward. We’ll talk about that too.

    Whether you’re still writing or you’ve already released your book and are realizing things aren’t clicking, this post is here to help you avoid regret (or recover from it) by building a marketing strategy that actually supports your goals.

    Here’s what most authors don’t realize until it’s too late: writing and editing aren’t just about getting the words right. This is where the strategic bones of your book should start taking shape.

    Why “Figure It Out Later” Doesn’t Work

    We’ve worked with countless authors who poured everything into writing their book… only to realize too late that the title didn’t resonate, the reader wasn’t clearly defined, or the book’s positioning didn’t support their larger goals.

    That’s not a craft problem—it’s a book marketing strategy problem.

    When you leave audience clarity, messaging, and platform strategy for “later,” you set yourself up for extra work and lackluster results.

    5 Key Decisions to Make Early

    If you’re still in the writing/revising stage, this is the time to set yourself up for long-term success. These five decisions lay the groundwork for a book marketing strategy that actually builds momentum and doesn’t leave you straining to hear over the sound of crickets. If you want results from your book, not to mention an audience who gives great reviews, answering these questions is essential.

    1. Who is the book really for?

    Yes, your book might appeal to a wide audience. But here’s the part about marketing that’s a little counterintuitive: If you’re trying to speak to everyone, you’re connecting with no one. You simply cannot serve a broad range of readers in the same way you can go deep with a narrowly defined set of readers. That’s why successful books speak clearly to one reader first. When you know who you’re talking to—what they need, what they’re searching for, and what matters to them—it becomes much easier to write something that resonates and sells.

    Consider Amy, a career coach who wrote a book about how to be a better leader. But is it for mid-level professionals trying to demonstrate their leadership skills to advance their careers? Does she want to connect with burnt-out executives looking for reinvention through fresh tactics? Perhaps start-up founders learning how to lead their first teams? The core content about being a strong leader might shift only slightly—but the title, tone, examples, and marketing would shift dramatically based on the choice of primary audience or ideal reader. 

    She chose the first group, by the way, and we helped her reposition her book as helping middle managers both become good leaders and understand what projects to pursue for greater C-suite notice, as well as how to communicate their results as the natural consequence of their leadership. Those elements, tailored specifically to her ideal reader, helped her book stand out among a sea of leadership titles and gave her book marketing strategy the focus it needed to succeed.

    2. What outcome does the book support?

    What should your reader walk away with? What result are they hoping for? And just as important: what outcome do you want this book to deliver for you?

    Whether it’s leads, opportunities, career growth, or reader loyalty, defining this early will help shape both content and marketing.

    Judy wanted to inspire women navigating divorce. She’d had a really difficult divorce from an emotionally abusive and narcissistic man, and she wanted to share her experiences in hopes of helping women in similar situations feel less alone. She also wanted to empower those women to leave their marriages, just as she had, so she decided to write a memoir to launch a new career as a speaker in women’s wellness spaces. 

    The problem: the initial draft of the memoir focused too much on Judy’s pain and the internal landscape of her suffering, which could have forged a connection with her readers, but not so much with event hosts looking for inspirational speakers for wellness-themed events. In other words, she primarily focused on the immediate feelings and challenges of the situation instead of the solutions or recovery she experienced, which is what people seek to learn in wellness spaces. 

    But when we helped her refine her stories to produce clearer themes of resilience, trusting your intuition, setting boundaries, and healing, plus helped her come up with a reading line for the book that highlighted those themes, it placed her book more squarely in the wellness space. It showed event hosts that she had what their audiences wanted. That alignment between message and audience was what transformed Judy’s launch into a more effective book marketing strategy and a powerful tool for her speaking goals.

    3. How does your brand or business connect to the book?

    Even for memoirists or novelists, your book doesn’t exist in isolation. It’s part of your author brand, and maybe even your larger body of work or business.

    William–an engineer with a long career in the sciences–had written the first two novels in his scifi trilogy before he came to us with a draft of his third book. But, surprisingly, the third book was not the conclusion of his series. Instead, it was the start of a new trilogy set in post-Civil War Texas. William told me that he’d gotten a bit bored with the first series and needed a break, so he let his love of Westerns carry him into a new genre.

    William’s career in the sciences and his work in science fiction had a deep connection to his author brand and the audience he had built. Creatively, it makes total sense to pursue the ideas you’re most passionate about. But switching to a new trilogy in a totally new genre without finishing the first is an absolute kiss of death marketing-wise for any author who doesn’t already have a large and very, very loyal fan base.

    A percentage of his existing audience might have been interested in following him into historical Westerns, but it would likely be a small percentage. Worse, his existing audience might be upset that he decided to start something new without first giving them the satisfaction of an ending for the stories he’d already released, abandoning him long before he ever had a chance to write that trilogy wrap-up.

    If you’re writing nonfiction, this connection is even more direct—your book should support your offers, visibility, and positioning in your space. It’s one of the most overlooked parts of a successful book marketing strategy. The sooner you identify this relationship, the more seamless your strategy becomes.

    4. Where will you promote the book?

    You don’t need a massive audience to succeed, but you do need to know where your audience already spends time. Choosing the right channels early (podcasts, email, partnerships, social media, local events, etc.) means you can start growing those spaces now, instead of scrambling later.

    So, for example, imagine your target reader is most active on LinkedIn and attends niche industry conferences. Still, you’ve spent all year building up your presence on Instagram because it’s the platform you already use personally, and you like it best. What value does a popular Instagram account hold if it doesn’t reach your intended audience? That’s a mismatch you can’t correct quickly. Knowing your audience’s habits early helps you focus your visibility where it actually matters.

    This kind of clarity shapes your pre-launch book marketing strategy so you don’t waste time building the wrong audience on the wrong platform.

    5. When should you start building visibility?

    As the saying goes, the best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second-best time is today. You should start building your visibility much sooner than you probably think.

    You don’t need to post “My book is coming!” every week—in fact, please, please don’t—but you should be steadily growing your presence, building trust, and priming your future readers. And you should start doing it as early as you possibly can.

    One of my early ghostwriting clients started appearing more frequently on blogs and podcasts while we worked on his manuscript. The topic of his book was closely tied to his coaching work, so I encouraged him to pitch himself as an expert on that topic, leveraging his personal and career journeys. I also counseled him to set up a landing page for the upcoming book on his website, featuring an opt-in form, and to mention at the end of every podcast interview that he was writing a book on the topics he and the host had just discussed. Of course, he also shared the URL for his landing page, which the hosts included in their show notes.

    Without the opt-in to join his mailing list, this would not have been as effective, since no one could have yet purchased the book, and they’d certainly not have remembered it almost a year later when it was published. But because we’d mapped out a clear strategy to accomplish the immediate goal—building a list in advance of publication—my client enjoyed several benefits.

    First, by the time his book launched, he had already secured dozens of interviews and invitations to return to those shows for further discussions about the book. Second, he had a growing email list and warm leads who already saw him as a trusted voice. And finally, he had a base group of people he could solicit to join his launch team, which helped him get positive reviews up on Amazon quickly and helped him sell more copies faster.

    A slow and steady platform-building effort in the background will do more for your book marketing strategy than a last-minute flurry ever could.

    Already Published Without These in Place?

    If you’re reading this after your book is already out and your launch didn’t go the way you hoped, you’re not alone—and you’re not stuck.

    We’ve worked with numerous authors who launched their first books without a clear strategy. The good news? In most cases, you can relaunch, refresh, or reposition your book to better serve your goals without having to rewrite and republish it completely. Book repositioning is often one of the most effective post-launch book marketing strategies available—especially when your message and audience just weren’t quite aligned the first time.

    So how do you know if these key foundational steps are at the heart of your book sales problem? Well, here are four signs that point in that direction:

    • Your audience isn’t engaging or converting.
    • The book isn’t gaining traction beyond your personal network.
    • You struggle to talk about the book in a succinct, compelling way.
    • You’re feeling stuck about what to do next now that the book is out.

    This is all fixable. And often, the second wind—when your book marketing strategy finally aligns—is where the biggest results show up.

    What We’ll Be Working On in the Author Advantage Mastermind

    If your book is still in progress, tackle these questions yourself first and seek out a developmental editor, a type of book professional that can edit your draft with an eye toward these same issues and much more. Contact us today to see if this is right for you.

    If your book is already published, this is exactly the kind of work we dive into in the Author Advantage Mastermind. Inside the program, we help you:

    • Clarify your ideal audience and what your book needs to say to them
    • Refine your messaging, positioning, and platform strategy
    • Build post-launch visibility systems that keep your book working for you
    • Leverage your book into bigger results for your brand or business

    If you’re ready to stop winging it and start building a book marketing strategy that supports the book and your business goals, we’d love to support you. Your book deserves to reach its fullest potential as the most powerful tool in your business toolbox, but it can’t if it’s just sitting in your Zoom background gathering virtual dust.

    Your Next Step

    If you haven’t launched yet, this is your opportunity to build a stronger foundation by addressing these five elements in your book draft.

    If you have launched, and it didn’t land the way you hoped, you can start fresh—with the clarity and book marketing strategy you were missing the first time.

    Apply for the Author Advantage Mastermind here. Applications are taken on a year-round rolling basis.

    Frequently Asked Questions About Book Marketing Strategy

    1. When should I start building a book marketing strategy?

    The best time is while you’re still writing or editing your manuscript. Early decisions about audience, messaging, and positioning have a major impact on how effective your launch will be.

    2. Can I relaunch a book that didn’t do well at first?

    Yes! Many authors successfully reposition their book with new messaging, a refreshed description, or a different audience strategy—even without republishing.

    3. Do I need a big following to have a successful book launch?

    Not necessarily. What you need is a clear strategy that connects your message to the right audience—and channels that actually reach them.

    4. What are the biggest book marketing mistakes new authors make?

    Waiting until after the book is written to think about marketing, trying to target too broad an audience, and investing in the wrong platforms too late in the game.

    Ally Machate is on a mission to help authors make great books and reach more readers. A bestselling author and expert publishing consultant, Ally has served small and “Big Five” publishers, including Simon & Schuster, where she acquired and edited books on staff. Her clients include authors with such companies as Simon & Schuster, Penguin Random House, Rodale Inc., Chronicle Books, Kaplan Publishing, Sourcebooks, and Hay House, as well as independently published bestsellers. As founder & CEO of The Writer’s Ally, Ally and her team lead serious authors to write, publish, and sell more high-quality books.

    “How Book Editing Can Make or Break Your Success” Expert Panel with Ally Machate and Twin Flames Studios

    Watch now! This panel is available for replay on demand via The Twin Flames Studio website.

    Great books aren’t just written; they’re created! And rarely without a collaborative effort with the right editorial team. Because while the author might be at the heart of great literary works, book editors are the backbone of the publishing process. Compelling content—and publishing success—is cultivated.

    Our own Ally Machate joins a panel of industry experts for a Q&A with Twin Flames Studios to discuss how the right team of editors can make or break your book. “How Book Editing Can Make or Break Your Success” simplifies the editing process, detailing the most critical aspects of both preparing your project for editing and choosing the best editing partner for your project, as well as answering all of your questions concerning what’s different in the book editing process with the adaptation of AI and other technologies. Key themes include:

    • What professional editing includes beyond grammar, spelling, and surface-level fixes
    • How to prepare your manuscript before submission to save time, money, and frustration
    • How to choose an editor and evaluate whether they’re the right fit for your voice and goals
    • Changes in today’s editing process, including AI, tools, timelines, and expectations
    • The limits of self-editing and the hidden costs of skipping expert feedback

    Twin Flames Studios is an award-winning audiobook and podcast production company, and their monthly live panels and Q&A sessions bring together leaders, industry experts and influential voices from the community to help make your next book or project a resounding success. 

    “How Book Editing Can Make or Break Your Success” 

    Featuring:
    • Ally Machate of The Writer’s Ally
    • Felicia Lee; Founder and Storyteller in Chief at Tardigrade Media
    • And Alex Morin, the founder and Director of Creative at Working Writers Co.

    Twin Flames Studios Expert Panels – August 2025
    Originally Live on Tuesday, August 12th, 2025 at 2PM

    Ally is known for her straight-shooting advice and strategic thinking: She is a force that transforms manuscripts into books that readers will remember and respect, and she’s helped hundreds of authors successfully turn their rough drafts into acclaimed literary works. We hope that you won’t miss an opportunity to learn from Ally and her publishing industry peers—check it out here! 

    Ally Machate is on a mission to help authors make great books and reach more readers. A bestselling author and expert publishing consultant, Ally has served small and “Big Five” publishers, including Simon & Schuster, where she acquired and edited books on staff. Her clients include authors with such companies as Simon & Schuster, Penguin Random House, Rodale Inc., Chronicle Books, Kaplan Publishing, Sourcebooks, and Hay House, as well as independently published bestsellers. As founder & CEO of The Writer’s Ally, Ally and her team lead serious authors to write, publish, and sell more high-quality books.

    Build Community With Your Book with Ally Machate on The Biz Book Broadcast

    Ally joins host Liz Scully on The Biz Book Broadcast for “Build Community With Your Book,” revealing how your book can function as a rallying cry to build your community—or even a movement! 

    In the course of this conversation, Ally walks us through the main ways you can use your book: From a book funnel to grow your email list, to building a personal brand around a memoir or business book, to becoming the voice of your community by writing a manifesto-like book, or to creating a process people can follow together. 

    Your book should have impact, and Ally eagerly shares the secrets of leveraging your book in order to grow your business. This episode offers a few real-world examples of author and business success, including; Everything is Figureoutable by Marie Forleo, Rest is Resistance by Tricia Hersey, Profit First by Mike Michalowicz, and Love Warrior by Glennon Doyle.

    Ally has helped hundreds if not thousands of author-entrepreneurs and business owners to grow their businesses with The Writer’s Ally, and her guest appearance on The Biz Book Broadcast will offer a bit of insight into how publishing a book might help you reach your goals, too! 

    “Build Community With Your Book | Your Biz Needs a Book”

    The Biz Book Broadcast, created and hosted by business strategist Liz Scully

    Episode air-date: July 14th, 2025

    Listen anytime—The Biz Book Broadcast is available to stream on your favorite digital audio platform!

    • Spotify
    • Apply Podcasts
    • Audible
    • GoodPods
    • Pod.co

    Check it out! And if you’re interested in learning more or working with Mastermind coach Liz Scully, click here to visit her website and explore all that she has to offer. 

    Ally Machate is on a mission to help authors make great books and reach more readers. A bestselling author and expert publishing consultant, Ally has served small and “Big Five” publishers, including Simon & Schuster, where she acquired and edited books on staff. Her clients include authors with such companies as Simon & Schuster, Penguin Random House, Rodale Inc., Chronicle Books, Kaplan Publishing, Sourcebooks, and Hay House, as well as independently published bestsellers. As founder & CEO of The Writer’s Ally, Ally and her team lead serious authors to write, publish, and sell more high-quality books.

    Strategic Book Publishing with Ally Machate on the Unscripted SEO Podcast

    Recently, Ally joined host Daniel Hill on the Unscripted SEO Podcast to discuss strategic book publishing and we want to offer you a glimpse of their conversation before the podcast goes live: We hope you will check out the full interview, but the following transcript offers a rare preview of a creative exchange!

    Unscripted SEO Podcast Interview: Ally Machate on Strategic Book Publishing

    Host: Daniel Hill
    Guest: Ally Machate, CEO and Founder of The Writers Ally

    Introduction & Background

    Daniel Hill: Welcome to the Unscripted SEO Podcast. I’m your host, Daniel Hill. And today I’m here with Ally Machate. Ally, welcome.

    Ally Machate: Thank you so much for having me, Daniel.

    Daniel Hill: Ally, for people who might not be familiar with you, can you tell us who you are and what it is that you do?

    Ally Machate: Yeah, absolutely. I’m the CEO and founder of a company called The Writers Ally. We’re an author services company, so we’re a team of publishing professionals that help serious authors to write, publish, and sell more high-quality books.

    Ally’s Journey into Publishing

    Daniel Hill: And how did you get started in this line of work?

    Ally Machate: I have been a book nerd pretty much from birth. I’m one of those very annoying people who always knew what they wanted to do. I was making construction paper and crayon books when I was like three years old and giving them to people telling them I was a publisher. So it’s really always been in my blood.

    All through academics, you know, I did the editor of the high school paper thing and lit mags in college. I freelanced and then I was very lucky when I got out of school. I took a job at Simon & Schuster which is one of the big five publishers in New York and I had a real education there—it was a wonderful experience. I learned so much and I was there for a while. I was in New York, we went through the dot com bust, we went through nine eleven and like many industries the publishing industry saw some shrinkage and so I found myself in a place where I felt like I wasn’t able to do the kind of work I really wanted to do. I was kind of stuck in my position.

    I thought I would take a break. I finished up a master’s degree in English and creative writing. I started freelancing again and I figured I’ll go back to book publishing when things start to open up and move again. But I found that freelancing and really working directly with authors on their books was so fulfilling and so much fun—I never went back.

    How Digital Technology Has Transformed Publishing

    Daniel Hill: Wow, that is quite a story. I mean, the publishing industry, I’m sure has changed a lot. Like you pointed out, a lot of other industries have changed. How has, if you don’t mind my asking, people reading digitally, reading eBooks on iPads and so forth, as opposed to the way we all used to have to carry around paperback books or go to the library—how has the publishing industry changed from your vantage point when it comes to that?

    Ally Machate: I mean I think the evolution of technology has only made things more accessible and it’s kind of funny you know with every great technological advancement we always see that cycle of doom and gloom, right? It’s gonna kill this, it’s gonna kill that. But really books are still books—it doesn’t matter if they’re digital or if they’re audio or even if they’re video one day. Really it’s still about the content, it’s still about connecting with readers, it’s still about authors who have something to say.

    None of that’s really changed, so the technology has just made it even more accessible to more people.

    Daniel Hill: That’s a great point. I definitely have friends who would never pick up a book or sit down and read an entire book, but I have friends who blow through audiobooks so quickly because they listen to them at 1.5 or 2x while they’re doing their normal everyday tasks. And you’re right. Reading has become a lot more accessible. I mean, I think about the way when you go on vacation, you used to have to bring a stack of books because if you brought one or two and you didn’t like it, you were kind of stuck. And now I can bring 300 books on my e-reader and if I don’t like it, I just say, okay, I’ll move on to the next one. So you’re right. That actually is a great point. It really has made reading more accessible to a lot more people.

    Ally Machate: Yeah that’s a wonderful thing especially if you think about that in conjunction with how the internet has exploded. You know I came into publishing when the internet did exist but it wasn’t yet what it is today—there wasn’t social media. Print on demand and ebooks were both sort of invented during that window of my career and being able to see how narrow and really isolated information was—not just entertainment but information.

    And now with the combination of all these different formats and the internet being an easy way to reach so many people and have an audience and get in front of people without having to rely on big publishers to get you on Oprah or to get you on the radio—it’s really changed the landscape and I think opened up a lot of opportunity in a wonderful way.

    The Decline of Traditional Gatekeepers

    Daniel Hill: You’re right. That’s a great point. I do know that the New York Times bestseller list was historically how so many people found out that books existed, right? Or Oprah did a reading club or other famous people might endorse a book and what a big deal that made in terms of the book getting discovered. But now there’s BookTok, right? And you might go on there and see someone recommending a book and they say, if you liked this one, you’ll like this one. And that person might not be famous, that person might not even have a big following. But because you have similar taste in books as them, right? Now that’s eliminated the gatekeepers from that whole book situation. That really does resonate with me.

    Ally Machate: Yeah exactly and when we’re talking about building a business and publishing a book that’s related to that business it becomes even more powerful to be able to connect with readers—you don’t have to connect with millions and millions of people in the mass market the way a large publisher does. You can focus on connecting directly with the kind of people you want to attract into your business. It’s a whole different game.

    Should Every Business Owner Have a Book?

    Daniel Hill: Let’s talk more about that and let’s dig into especially business owners who may be thinking about writing a book or have put energy into it, but maybe weren’t successful. Should every business owner have a book?

    Ally Machate: So it’s a really common thing that people hear—it’s incredibly common. If you are an expert of any type probably at some point at least one person has said to you “you know what, you’re so great, you’re so smart, I love that idea, you should write a book, you should write a book about that.”

    Daniel Hill: Can I ask you, so I’ve had people say that to me and I always think, but would you read that book? Just because you tell me I might spend thousands of hours writing it and then you never read it or maybe no one reads it. So I can relate to that. Yes, please continue. Sorry for interrupting.

    Ally Machate: Yeah no absolutely it happens all the time and the truth is no, I don’t believe that everyone should have a book and for a few different reasons. So first of all, as you mentioned, just because somebody loves your idea at a cocktail party doesn’t mean that they’re gonna buy a book from you and read three hundred pages, right? It’s very different. So it’s really easy to say “you should write a book” especially when you’re not the one doing it.

    But besides that, sometimes the timing is not right. I’ve met a lot of people who are just very early in their business and they want to write a book because they think they can leverage that book to grow their business—and they can—but if it’s too early you also don’t have enough to put into a book to make it really compelling and really powerful for you. It’s kind of hard to attract clients if you don’t have any case studies, if you don’t have any client stories to share, and if you haven’t really tried and tested your ideas and your systems and your programs.

    You’re kind of just throwing out theory. It’s not the same. So the book itself is not going to be as good. So that’s one factor. And another factor is like we’re talking about with all the technology available today, there really are so many different ways to get content out there. And a book isn’t always the best tool for the job.

    Delivering Difficult News to Aspiring Authors

    Daniel Hill: Those are all great points. So if someone is thinking about writing a book, but it’s not really a fit for them, what’s the polite way that you say, hey, you need a little bit more experience or you need a few more case studies under your belt before you go farther?

    Ally Machate: I mean to be honest Daniel I’m a pretty straight shooter so I basically just say that. I just say it very nicely you know and I lay it out for them like look, this picture can look a few different ways. You can publish the book now when you don’t really have a lot to put into it—it’s going to be a thinner book, it’s going to not have as much meat to it—but you can do it. You can put your ideas into content, we can help make it sound really good and make everything logical and flow, but you’re not gonna get the results you’re really looking for. If you really want those results, I recommend this approach instead.

    And it really depends. I’ve had people change their minds because of that advice and come back you know six months, a year or more later when they are ready—when they have done some audience building, when they have run some programs and gotten some clients. But I’ve had some people who don’t care, you know, they’re just like “listen, I really just want to write this book, I’m very passionate about this idea, I want to put it out there and I’ll leverage it to the best of my ability and if it doesn’t bring me tons and tons of work that’s okay, I accept that that’s the picture.”

    You know, it’s one of the things that’s so nice about the flexibility of digital technology is there can be—I think there are some ways that are maybe wrong or not helpful—but really you can do almost anything you want to do as long as you understand what’s happening and you have your expectations in alignment with reality.

    Writing the Right Book: Strategy First

    Daniel Hill: Right. And that’s a great point. It’s certainly not going to be a bestseller if you’re just writing that book because you want to get it out. Maybe it’s on your bucket list or whatever. That’s yeah, absolutely. Let’s talk about how you should know if you’re writing the right book because I think a lot of times you or I would think about writing a book. Okay, I’ve had these experiences. They taught me this, but maybe that’s really not the right book for me to write. How do you know what is the right book?

    Ally Machate: Yeah it’s a great question. I think it really starts with thinking strategically about what you want that book to do for you in the world. It’s a really important mindset shift because a lot of people start writing a book because they just have a really great idea that they wanna share—they’re very passionately motivated about their message—or because they’re getting external pressure like those people coming and saying “where’s your book, have you written a book, you should write a book.”

    But they need to shift somewhere early in that process once they decided yes, I do want to write a book. Then it’s time to start thinking outside of yourself because ultimately, unless you’re the only one who’s gonna read the book, you have to think about the people who are gonna read and buy it, right? So you have to think, okay, well, who are these people that I’m trying to reach? What is it I want them to do? Do I want these people to hire me to speak on the stage? Do I want them to become clients? Do I want them to bring me into their companies? What is it exactly that you wanna see happen beyond the basic assumption of book sales, right?

    When you think about that you can sort of backwards engineer what the book needs to be. And I’ll give you a really common example. You can write a book that’s a really good book—you know objectively well written, interesting ideas, nice flow—that you publish and you get nothing but crickets, right? It doesn’t achieve the goal you wanted to achieve because the book maybe was something you wanted to say, something you said well, but it wasn’t really marketable or it was the wrong book.

    The wrong book is the book that is not strategically designed to actually attract the right people to achieve the specific goals you want. So one thing I see really commonly is a lot of people who have had great experience in business—happens with coaches a lot in particular—and they think their first book should be a memoir. They want to share their story and the thinking does make sense to a point, right? They think okay well people are gonna come and work with me to solve this problem. I want to share my story of how I lived through that same scenario and I solved that problem for myself so they understand where I’m coming from. Makes total sense except that the market for memoir is a completely different market than it is for business books and self help. So the people you want to attract are not memoir readers—the people you want to attract are the business book readers.

    Daniel Hill: That makes sense.

    Daniel Hill: That’s a fantastic point because I think about memoirs, I think about maybe an ex-president or a movie star who wants to tell you how they got where they are. Those are memoirs, but that’s not exactly what you’re talking about for someone who’s a coach.

    Ally Machate: Right, absolutely, and they see the success, and again, it does make logical sense, but they don’t realize that they can also share their story and their journey in the context of a prescriptive how-to, self-help, or business-type book.

    Preventing Authors from Writing the Wrong Book

    Daniel Hill: Hmm. So how do you help those people? What do you do next?

    Ally Machate: First of all I help try to convince them that they are writing the wrong book and show them what I think the right book should be and if they agree with me we help them to reconfigure and pull out what those goals are—so those same questions I mentioned earlier. Where is it you want to go with your business? Who do you want to be working with? What exactly do you want people to do after they read this book? What’s really the goal here? You know what do you really want to see happen? And then we can figure out what needs to be in the book and how to structure the book so that it really organically leads people towards taking that action.

    Daniel Hill: And then how do you prevent people from writing the wrong book? Is this the conversation or are there different things you say if they’re really determined? Like I’m really going to write this memoir.

    Ally Machate: Yeah, I mean, again, we have had some clients who—we’re always very honest. We always want to give people the best advice possible. But if they’re like, “yep, I understand all of that. This is just really what I want to do,” we’re going to help them do that. You know, we’re going to make it the best book possible. We’re going to make it as professional looking as possible. We’re going to give them their absolute best chance.

    But to get people to not write the wrong book, hopefully I get them early, which is one reason why I’m going on podcasts like this, is to try to teach people very early in the process. But the other thing that we can do is one of our most popular services is developmental editing. It’s really where the start of our work with most of our clients begins. So when people come to us with a draft and we have that first phone call, which is always with me and I talk to them about those goals, about their business, about the book.

    If I feel like there’s a disconnect and we talk through it, the developmental editor can help in most cases. Sometimes it’s so far off we can’t really take them on, but in most cases we’re able to take the draft that they have and help guide them in reshaping it to be the kind of book they actually need.

    Leveraging Authority Through Publishing

    Daniel Hill: I’d love to change gears a little bit and just sort of ask if there’s a strategy that you recommend for small business owners to kind of leverage the publishing industry. So if someone’s in commercial real estate, for instance, how can they leverage the authority that they might be able to get from writing a book, from being an author?

    Ally Machate: So one of the first things and this is why people always say well every business owner should have a book is that there is a very real authority effect. You know it’s not an accident that that word author is the root word of authority and we say things like “she wrote the book on it” right? We have these phrases in our language because they reflect a very real phenomenon which is that when somebody has created a book—of course, provided a few caveats, right? That the book looks professional, that it’s well done, you know, all of those things taken for granted. If they have a book on the subject, we perceive them to be a greater expert than someone who may not have a book.

    So really any small business owner, a realtor, almost any kind of career, if you’re writing a book on some subject that’s related to your business, you’re solving a problem for your clients, you’re helping them to think about things differently, then having a book in your arsenal can be a great tool to help you attract new clients, to spread the word, to get more people to know who you are, to boost your visibility. It also can be a real key that opens doors like getting you onto stages, getting you onto podcasts, getting you onto other types of media. People love to interview authors so it can really just be a great way to also boost your advertising.

    Daniel Hill: That all makes sense and I love those points the way you outlined that. How would you transfer industry knowledge and insights, what you’ve learned, what you’ve experienced over the years, into manuscripts, into a book? Just an example off the top of my head, Michael McDougald of Right Thing Agency, he’s been doing SEO for years. What’s the key to making practical knowledge into standout published content that people are excited to read and get hold of?

    Transforming Industry Knowledge into Books

    Ally Machate: You know SEO is a really good topic to ask this question because it’s the kind of thing that some principles I imagine remain the same over time but a lot of the tools and the tactics probably change pretty quickly as Google changes its algorithm and it changes this and that and the other thing. So this is a good question that I would ask if it were my client. My first question would be do you really want to write a book? Right? Is this—do you want to put that knowledge into that kind of container? Maybe it’s better to have it as an online course or maybe it’s better to have it in some other type of format.

    But assuming they want to write a book, I would just encourage them to be really strategic in the ways that we’ve been talking about. You know thinking about what problem are you solving for your clients? What’s bringing them to your book in the first place? What’s the thing that’s gonna make them go out looking and when they pick up your book what can you say to them that’s gonna make them feel immediately “this person gets my problem. They understand what I’m trying to do, they have the experience I’m looking for and I can trust what they’re telling me.”

    And from there you wanna start to plot out a book that’s gonna take that reader on some kind of transformative journey. Every really great nonfiction book has some kind of transformative journey whether it is a literal physical transformation like changing your diet and losing weight or something a little softer like just changing the way that you think about a certain thing—you’re changing a paradigm in somebody’s life.

    So if you think about those things and you structure the book in that way you have the reader going through that process, having that transformation, they come to the end of it and the most important thing is that you set it up so that you’ve given them real value—you help them to start to solve the problem, to understand things in a different way. But at the end you wanna make sure it’s very clear how—you know your SEO gentleman would be the next step for them. Do they call him to hire him? Do they sign up for his online class? Does he have another book that he wants them to go to next? You want the book to be designed to lead somebody in that direction.

    Daniel Hill: That’s a great answer. It could be a conference, right, where it’s more in-person training or whatever. I like that approach. And the SEO example, like you said right from the outset, I mean, it’s so true because the things that you use for SEO in 2024, 2025, are probably incredibly different from what SEO was like in 2012. And the goal is right—to get somebody from Google to your website. But now with Google having the AI answers right there on the page, it’s a completely different strategy. So to your point, by the time you wrote that book, would it even be as relevant as it was, you know, 10 years ago or whatever? So that makes sense.

    Pricing Strategy for Books and Services

    Daniel Hill: Can you talk a little bit about how you might price not only your book, but also your services in helping people to write these books? Can you talk about that a little bit from a strategy perspective?

    Ally Machate: Yeah sure so book pricing has a lot to do with just looking at the market and seeing what your competitors are doing and what people are already buying. There’s not a huge variety in book prices like a paperback pretty typically somewhere between fourteen to eighteen dollars, you know hard covers are somewhere usually between twenty two and thirty dollars, ebooks are anywhere from free and ninety nine cents which is very common in the indie space—traditional publishers usually see them more like eight ninety nine to ten ninety nine.

    So those windows are fairly well established and people expect things to fall into those windows. One thing you can do as an independent author with pricing that can be a really effective strategy is to be more flexible. So I meet a lot of clients who, of course, you publish a book, you want to sell copies, like that’s obvious. But when I tell them, “hey, you can sell more copies in the long run if you give some away for free,” it can really be counterintuitive and hard to swallow. But the truth is when you don’t already have a huge platform, if you’re not somebody who’s already really well known, giving books away free strategically—of course you’re not talking about leaving a stack at the bus stop—like actually giving them to people that you’ve chosen strategically can be a really great way to increase visibility, bring people to your book, start getting those reviews and start to build the kind of momentum that will ultimately explode into whatever results it is that you’re trying to go for.

    Daniel Hill: That’s a great answer and that totally makes sense. Giving them out, for instance, at a conference or event where potential clients of yours could be, they might get the book for free, read it, pass it on to somebody else or tell someone else about it, right? And that’s going to be a real strategic way to ensure that your book is in the hands of the right people, even though you gave it away for free, but it’s reached the core audience that you want. So that does make sense.

    Ally Machate: Yeah when it comes to pricing I think just to add on to that, a lot of people are afraid of pricing something too low and I think there’s sort of this thing in American business in particular where if something is too cheap we assume that the quality is low and so they’re afraid of having their book be priced too low. You know their impulse is almost to price it more than it should be. So two things I have to remind them: first of all like you’re not the only book out there—there are millions of other books and especially when you’re an independent author one of the struggles can be that sort of approval that a publisher’s imprint can give you, right? A reader assumes that if a big publisher has published the book, it’s going to be a certain quality. When they see an independent book they don’t have that same kind of reassurance so sometimes having your book be a little bit less expensive than the most best selling authors in your category can be a really great strategic move. As long as the book looks like it’s gonna be what the reader wants and they have the choice between you and a book that’s twice as much, that can really give you an edge.

    Daniel Hill: Right, that’s a great point. I sometimes expect that an indie book, if it’s very cheap, may not be edited as well. I may come across grammar or punctuation mistakes or run on sentences or something where I do have a bit more confidence that a book from a big publisher will not have those problems. So, although I’ve never verbalized that or thought about it before, that is inherently what I think when I see sometimes an indie book. I’m not saying that, you know, indie authors don’t use the appropriate grammar checks and so forth. I’m not implying anything, but just somehow that’s the connection that my brain makes.

    Where to Connect & Special Offer

    Daniel Hill: Ally, this has been great chatting with you. I’ve really enjoyed this conversation, but I’d love to know where can we follow your journey online and what can we look forward to you creating in the near future?

    Ally Machate: Yeah, absolutely. I’m active on LinkedIn. People are welcome to connect with me there. They can come to our website at thewritersally.com. We have a blog and a bunch of free resources that you can get if you join our mailing list. Of course, if you have a book and you’re ready to talk to somebody about what the next steps are, we’ve got a contact form. You can fill that out and get a free book strategy call with me.

    And last but not least, I’ve set up a really nice free gift for your audience at offers.thewritersally.com/unscripted. It’s a pre-recorded webinar called “Don’t Write the Wrong Book” and it sort of talks about a lot of these things that we’ve been talking about today. It’s very instructive, it’s less than 30 minutes and I hope that people will go and check it out and that it’ll be helpful.

    Daniel Hill: That’s amazing. We will link to that in the show notes so people can get there directly. Definitely check out the presentation that Ally’s put together. I am actually looking forward to looking at that myself. Ally, thank you so much for your time today.

    Ally Machate: I appreciate it, thank you so much for having me.

    Listen now!

    And for more information and access to Ally’s free webinar “Don’t Write the Wrong Book,” visit: offers.thewritersally.com/unscripted

    Ally Machate is on a mission to help authors make great books and reach more readers. A bestselling author and expert publishing consultant, Ally has served small and “Big Five” publishers, including Simon & Schuster, where she acquired and edited books on staff. Her clients include authors with such companies as Simon & Schuster, Penguin Random House, Rodale Inc., Chronicle Books, Kaplan Publishing, Sourcebooks, and Hay House, as well as independently published bestsellers. As founder & CEO of The Writer’s Ally, Ally and her team lead serious authors to write, publish, and sell more high-quality books.

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