Book Marketing Strategy for Authors Who Want Visibility Without Burnout

Are you tired of book marketing advice that feels like a full-time job? You’re not an influencer, so there’s no need to act like one. Today, we’re going to dive into a smarter book marketing strategy for authors to build visibility without burning out.

Because let’s be honest—when most authors hear the word “marketing,” they think of social media spirals, awkward self-promotion, and being told they need to “show up more” without anyone explaining what that actually means.

And if you’re trying to do all that while running a business, maintaining a career, or, you know, having a life… it starts to feel impossible.

So if you’ve ever thought:

• “I should be doing more… but I don’t know what more is.”
• “I’m not a marketer—I just want people to read the book.”
• “Everyone else seems to have a plan (and a team)… I’m just winging it alone.”

Take a breath. You’re not behind or doing it wrong—you’re just trying to fit yourself into the wrong marketing model.

Why Hustle Culture Is the Wrong Book Marketing Strategy for Authors

Most book marketing advice assumes you have unlimited time, content creation skills, and a desire to be online All. The. Time.

But here’s the thing: You’re not an influencer. You’re an author. And that’s a very different role. You don’t need to post daily, dance on Reels, or pour all your energy into promotion for a book that was supposed to support your business—not swallow it whole.

“Always be marketing” might work for people whose business is content. But for most authors, this concept leads to burnout, inconsistency, and a quiet, lingering shame that you’re somehow not doing enough. It just isn’t necessary, or helpful, for most authors to apply this idea.

What a Sustainable Book Marketing Strategy Actually Looks Like

Here’s what does work—especially for authors who want long-term ROI, not short-lived buzz in their book marketing strategy: You don’t need to chase trends, pump out daily content, or become a marketing guru overnight. Instead, sustainable visibility comes from smart, consistent actions that fit your strengths, serve your audience, and support your bigger goals. This approach not only saves your sanity—it actually builds momentum over time.

Consistency Over Virality

The thing that makes stories about posts going viral so fascinating is that these events are unexpected. You can try to craft strong posts and set up conditions for virality, but you can’t control it.

So don’t count on one post changing everything. Instead, embrace the idea that showing up consistently with targeted, valuable messages is what builds trust and engagement.

Aligned Audience-building

The social media landscape is always changing. Which channel is hot, which channel is new, which channel has been banned by the government–it’s a bit of a moving target, which is extra challenging when you’re trying to build a presence and long-term engagement.

But let me give you the permission you’ve been looking for: There’s no need to be everywhere. Focus on growing your visibility on channels where your readers already hang out, such as your email list, LinkedIn, podcasts, or niche communities.

And even if you do feel a need to have a presence everywhere, you still don’t need to put your best effort into every social platform available. Again, narrowing your focus to just one or two channels–after experimenting to figure out which ones yield the best results, of course–is going to conserve your energy and still connect you with the right readers.

Think of it this way: When your social approach is scattershot, the algorithms don’t favor you, and only a tiny percentage of your followers see your content. But if you focus on just a couple of platforms where you can interact more regularly, your engagement goes up, the algorithms kick in, and you reach a lot more people. The right people.

Simple Systems, Not Flashy Strategies

A basic, repeatable rhythm that fits your life beats a 30-item content calendar every time.

So many authors try to do all the things during their book launch, hoping to make the biggest splash they can. This is what I call the “spaghetti against the wall” approach to marketing–a fast track to exhaustion and resentment. Your book’s launch should be a joyful time, a celebration of the culmination of your hard work. You, and your book, deserve that.

The fundamental mistake here is assuming that more is always better, and sometimes that can be true. But if you have a limited amount of time, money, and energy–like most humans do–then more is just more, because the thinner you spread yourself, the lower the quality of your efforts. It’s actually less that is better.

Consider the author who gives it everything they’ve got for a month and then is too tired to do anything else for the rest of the year with the author who chooses a few key activities and keeps up with those over the course of a year. Can you guess who’ll see more sales and opportunities overall?

What You Can Let Go Of

This is your permission slip to stop doing what’s not working or what was never meant for you.

You don’t need:

Five social platforms
The latest “must-have” tool you saw in someone’s funnel
To measure your success against someone with a full-time team or a traditional publisher

Marketing doesn’t have to mean playing someone else’s game. The best book marketing strategy for authors is built around what you can sustain—and what matters for your book.

This is especially true if you are a business owner who’s written a book as part of a business growth plan. It’s natural to look at what the Big Five publishers or bestselling authors are doing and think you should be following their example. But this is how all these ideas about constantly marketing started in the first place! Following that model is entirely wrong for you, because it isn’t your business model.

Remember, publishers are in the business of selling books. You are in the business of selling whatever it is that you sell, be it coaching packages, services, or online courses. Your book is a tool designed to help you sell those things, not something that eclipses everything else you have to offer.

How to Build a Book Marketing Strategy That Works for You

Sustainable visibility = a few high-impact moves:

One or two aligned channels: Podcast guesting + email or LinkedIn + partnerships are popular combos among our authors. Dig into your data to figure out what’s best for you, but once you see the patterns of ROI clearly, narrow things down.
Repurposing your book into content: Use your book for posts, podcasts, minibooks, and workshops. This is one of the significant advantages to being an indie author who has full control of your content. Authors with traditional publishers are often hamstrung when it comes to repurposing content from their books because they have other stakeholders to report to, and traditional publishers are very fussy about how much content you share for free.
Treating your book as an asset: Your book can generate leads and credibility—but only if you treat it like part of your larger strategy. That means stop fixating on selling books one copy at a time and start thinking of how you can leverage it instead to attract bigger, more profitable opportunities.

These are the bones of an effective book marketing strategy for authors. It can really be that simple.

How We Help You Build a Custom Book Marketing Strategy

Here’s what I hear all the time: “I know I need to market, but I don’t know what to focus on. I don’t want to waste my time.”

Sound familiar?

That’s exactly why I built the Author Advantage Mastermind.

Filter out what doesn’t matter so you can focus on what does
Build visibility in ways that feel strategic and doable
Get expert guidance, built-in accountability, and a clear map forward to grow your business by leveraging your book

No overwhelm. No pressure to go viral. No hustle for hustle’s sake—just a practical book marketing strategy for authors that actually fits your life. I’ll help you choose the highest leverage strategy for your goals and your business, and then we’ll work together in an intimate container that meets bimonthly for six months to support you while you work toward that plan.

You Can Let Go of “Doing It All.”

You don’t need to be everywhere. You need to be effective where it counts—and that’s what sustainable book marketing is really about.

Whether you’re burned out, confused, or just tired of hearing “you need to post more,” there’s a better way to make your book work for you.

👉 Join the Mastermind waitlist to explore if it’s the right next step for you.

FAQs About Book Marketing Strategy for Authors

Q: What is a good book marketing strategy for authors?
A purpose-driven plan for building visibility and engagement that supports your book’s goals, target audience, and your lifestyle—not just sales.

Q: Can I market my book without daily social media?
Absolutely. With the right sustainable book marketing strategy for authors, you can build momentum through targeted content, guest appearances, and email—without dancing on TikTok.

Q: When should I start building a book marketing strategy?
Ideally, during the writing or revising phase. Early choices around audience, platform, and message have a huge impact on long-term success. Your focus early on should be about research, planning, and sowing seeds to bring people onto your mailing list in advance of your launch.

Q: What if I already launched and it’s not working? That’s fixable. Many authors reposition their books with new messaging, audience focus, or visibility channels—all part of a strong post-launch book marketing strategy for authors. We can help with this.

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.

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 on Book 101 Review: Publishing Books That Sell!

Ally Machate, founder and CEO of The Writer’s Ally, recently appeared on Book 101 Review, hosted by Daniel Lucas. Now in its fifth season, the podcast continues to spotlight voices in the publishing world, and Ally brought her deep industry experience to the conversation.

In this episode, Ally shares how authors can publish successful books that don’t just sit on shelves—they reach readers and grow businesses. Drawing on her decades in the field, she walks listeners through the different professional roles in the publishing process, what each contributes, and how strategic planning can turn a book into a powerful business tool.

Listeners will hear Ally explain the importance of writing with a clear message and target audience in mind, as well as how The Writer’s Ally supports authors in choosing the right publishing path and reaching the readers who need their message most.

Tune in now:

Through thoughtful appearances like this one, Ally continues to guide authors toward publishing paths that align with their goals—whether that means building visibility, authority, or business growth!

How to Best Spend Your Self-Publishing Budget for Serious Impact

It’s a common misconception that higher budgets automatically lead to better results. Having a self-publishing budget is a strong start, but there’s a difference between having money to spend and spending it wisely.

In reality, publishing can quickly become a money pit if your investments aren’t tied to a clear strategy. On the other hand, when every dollar is aligned with a purpose, your book becomes a long-term asset that supports your visibility, credibility, and business growth.

This post is designed to help you make smart, intentional decisions—so your self-publishing budget actually moves the needle, instead of draining your resources.

Prioritize Investments that Improve Book Quality

A professionally produced book stands out—and for good reason. Readers, clients, and industry partners frequently form snap decisions about your work based on its presentation.

So when it comes to allocating your self-publishing budget, start with these high-impact areas:

Editing

This is the hill I will die on: Even the world’s top-selling authors have editors who provide developmental feedback, and so should you. Not just copyediting, not just proofreading. (If you aren’t clear on the differences, check out this FAQ.)

Developmental and line editing shape the structure, clarity, and overall effectiveness of your message. Skipping these steps can result in a polished version of a weak draft—clean on the surface, but lacking depth or impact.

Many authors—especially business owners who are skilled and experienced with writing instructive content—can manage their own line editing and do a great job if they work through their drafts carefully and thoughtfully. AI tools have become a big help here. But it’s still incredibly hard to get the kind of objective distance you need to give yourself high-level developmental feedback.

Too, a professional developmental editor brings the experience of working on hundreds of books just like yours to the table. They’re experts at shaping your ideas into a transformative journey that moves your readers toward whatever next step you desire them to take. Your business bestie or beta readers cannot replicate that experience, and ChatGPT doesn’t have the knowledge or experience to help you properly at this level despite (allegedly) pirating and processing the work of millions of authors.

Design

A professionally designed cover and interior layout aren’t just nice to have; they’re essential tools for communicating credibility, genre awareness, and reader promise—often in less than a second.

That’s because readers absolutely judge books by their covers. So do podcast hosts, event organizers, and potential clients. If your cover design doesn’t signal professionalism or match genre conventions, people will assume the content inside doesn’t hold up either—even if that’s not true.

The same goes for your interior. A poorly formatted book can instantly make the reading experience feel clunky or amateurish, even if the content itself is strong. The goal isn’t flashy design. It’s clean, intentional design that makes the reader feel confident they’re in good hands.

Tools like Canva have made graphic design more accessible and inexpensive, and I recommend them for creating assets like postcards, bookmarks, business cards, and social media images. But not for cover design. When you go the DIY route, it’s easy to miss the subtle visual cues that signal quality—things like font choices, hierarchy, spacing, or even where your name appears on the cover. These small details are where credibility is built or broken—and they’re one of the smartest places to invest in your self-publishing budget.

Good design doesn’t just make your book look better. It helps your reader trust you faster—and that trust directly affects both sales and impact.

Messaging

Your title, subtitle, back cover copy, and book description aren’t just cosmetic decisions—they’re core marketing tools. Each element should be shaped by a clear understanding of your audience and positioning.

The title and subtitle set expectations. They tell readers what the book is about, who it’s for, and why it matters. When they’re vague or overloaded, people scroll past. When they’re clear and aligned with what your audience is already searching for, the book becomes an easy “yes.”

Authors often work with a book or business coach in the early stages to clarify their core message. If a developmental editor is the first professional to see your draft, they can also help refine your positioning as part of the content editing process.

This is one of the things that makes our team at TWA different. We’re thinking about your messaging starting with your free Book Strategy Call and across departments—from editing and design to marketing and launch planning—so the way your book is presented always reflects your goals and speaks clearly to your audience.

Smart messaging helps ensure your publishing budget isn’t wasted on great content hidden behind unclear positioning.

Strategy First, Tactics Second: How to Avoid Budget Traps

One of the most common traps authors fall into when they have a healthy self-publishing budget is spending heavily on isolated tactics—ads, PR, social media management—without having a bigger plan in place. These activities can be helpful, but only when they’re part of a coordinated, strategic approach.

I met Mike years ago at a live event. He’d published his business mindset book just under a year earlier, but he had fewer than a dozen Amazon reviews and hadn’t moved many copies. And yet he’d already spent more than $15,000 on print advertising alone.

For most indie authors, print media isn’t the best use of funds. Traditional publishers use it to blanket major markets with repetitive exposure. That works because they’re investing tens or hundreds of thousands across multiple platforms. But when indie authors try to mimic that approach with a limited budget, the return just isn’t there.

In Mike’s case, that $15,000 could have gone toward targeted lead generation, a strong book funnel, or podcast placements that reached the right audience. Instead, it disappeared into a campaign that didn’t support his sales—or his consulting business.

Before investing in any promotional effort, ask yourself: Is this tactic connected to a larger self-publishing budget strategy?

If the answer is no, pause and revisit your plan.

Publishing consulting, strategic launch planning, or even a structured project management approach can help you avoid these expensive missteps.

Don’t Overpay for the Wrong Publishing Support

Hybrid publishers and à la carte service providers often come with glossy branding and premium price tags. But that doesn’t guarantee value—or results.

The biggest issue isn’t price. It’s alignment. And a misaligned plan can drain your publishing budget faster than you can say “Wha…?”

When your editor, designer, and marketer are working in silos, important context gets lost. Working with a project manager will get you organized but won’t get you the insight you need to evaluate your options for best results. When a hybrid publisher presents you with an oversimplified, pre-packaged plan without understanding your goals, you end up with a book that may look fine on the surface but falls short of delivering real impact. As an indie author, you have total control, but you also have to make all the decisions, and you may not have the time or experience to make the best ones.

Strong publishing support isn’t just about execution. It’s about strategy and coordination. Almost anyone can upload a file to Amazon and call it a book. It takes a whole lot more to make sure it’s a book that gets good reviews and results.

Look for partners who understand how your book fits into your bigger picture—and who can advise you on which investments matter most at your stage.

If you’re still weighing your options, check out this post that offers a breakdown of the pros and cons of different support models.

Stretch Your Self-Publishing Budget Beyond Launch

Your book doesn’t exist in a vacuum. It should support your broader goals—whether that means growing your business, landing speaking engagements, building your brand, or all of the above.

When planning your publishing budget, consider how your book fits into your longer-term visibility and revenue strategy.

That might mean:

Creating a lead magnet and email funnel to pair with the book
Booking podcast interviews or media placements to expand your reach
Designing a follow-up offer or product that extends the reader journey

If your self-publishing budget is concentrated on launch-day visibility, you’re missing opportunities to extend the book’s value over time.

Hire a Publishing Team That Aligns with Your Goals

High-level publishing requires high-level support. You don’t need more services—you need better guidance.

A strong team doesn’t just take things off your plate. They help you clarify priorities, make smart decisions, and stay focused on your bigger objectives.

As an indie author, you are also the publisher, but your goal isn’t to micromanage every decision. The goal is to trust the people guiding the process, which includes trusting that they will get your input where it counts and help you create the book you always envisioned but didn’t know how to manifest on your own.

That’s exactly why we created our Supported Indie Publishing model. It’s built for authors who want to publish with excellence—without wasting time or money on misaligned tactics.

The right team helps you make the most of your self-publishing budget by focusing it where it counts. And when your publishing team is aligned with your goals, your book becomes more than a product. It becomes a strategic tool.

You’ve Got the Budget. Let’s Make It Count.

If you’re ready to publish and you’ve set aside the resources to do it well, you’re already ahead of the game. Now it’s about making sure those resources are used wisely.

Quality, strategy, alignment, and long-term thinking will take your self-publishing budget much further than a piecemeal or trend-chasing approach ever could.

When you spend with intention, your book becomes a true asset—one that earns credibility, creates opportunity, and keeps working for you long after launch day.

👉 Ready to work with a team that knows how to turn a self-publishing budget into real results? Let’s talk.

Or, if you’re still exploring your hiring options, check out our post, “Who Should Help You Publish Your Book?” for more guidance.

Frequently Asked Questions About Your Self-Publishing Budget

1. How much should I budget to self-publish a high-quality book?

It depends on your goals, but a strong self-publishing budget typically ranges from $10,000 to $15,000. This covers all types of editing, cover copy, design and formatting for both a print and ebook edition, and strategic publishing support. Investing more wisely—not just more money—is what truly moves the needle.

2. What should I spend the most on when self-publishing?

The biggest returns usually come from professional editing, high-quality cover design, and strategic positioning. These areas directly impact how readers perceive and engage with your book—and whether they trust you enough to buy.

3. Is it worth hiring a developmental editor or just a copyeditor?

If you’re aiming for a book that grows your business or builds authority, a developmental editor is one of the best uses of your publishing budget. They help shape your message and structure—not just polish your grammar. Remember, skipping developmental feedback can result in a polished draft that is still weak and falling short of the impact you hoped.

4. Can I save money by using free design tools like Canva for my cover?

You can—but should you? DIY design often lacks the professional cues that build trust. A great cover is a smart self-publishing investment that pays off in sales, credibility, and brand perception.

5. Is advertising a good use of my publishing budget?

Only when it’s part of a larger strategy. Spending on ads without a funnel or lead capture plan often results in a wasted budget. Prioritize tactics that support your long-term business goals.

6. What’s the biggest mistake authors make with their publishing budget?

Spending heavily on disconnected services—like PR or social media management—without a coordinated plan. Strategy should always come first.

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

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