[00:00:00] Speaker A: Welcome to the Unscripted SEO podcast. I'm your host, Daniel Hill, and today I'm here with Ali Machate. Ali, welcome. [00:00:06] Speaker B: Thank you so much for having me. Daniel. [00:00:08] Speaker A: Ali, for people who might not be familiar with you, can you tell us who you are and what it is that you do? [00:00:12] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. I'm the CEO and founder of a company called the Writer's 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. [00:00:25] Speaker A: And how did you get started in this line of work? [00:00:27] Speaker B: 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 3 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 to get a job at Simon and 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 had been there for a while. Um, I was in New York. We went through the dot com bust, we went through 9, 11. 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. Um, I thought I would take a break. I finished up a master's in English and creative writing. I started freelancing again and I figured, oh, I'll go back, you know, 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. [00:01:38] Speaker A: 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 comes to that? [00:02:01] Speaker B: 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? Oh, it's. 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, you know, 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. [00:02:32] Speaker A: 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 of, you know, 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. [00:03:06] Speaker B: Yeah, that's a wonderful thing, especially if you think about that in conjunction with the way the Internet has exploded. You know, I came into publishing when the Internet did exist, but it wasn't yet, you know, what it is today, or 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 knowledge was. And 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 to, you know, 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. [00:03:52] Speaker A: 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 book talk, right? And you might go on there and see someone recommending a book, and they say, oh, if you liked this one, you'll like this one. And that person might not be famous, that my 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. So that. That really does resonate with me. [00:04:27] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, exactly. And when you'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. 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. [00:04:46] Speaker A: Let's talk more about that, and let's dig into especially business owners who maybe thinking about writing a book or have put energy into it, but maybe we're not successful. Should every business owner have a book? [00:04:59] Speaker B: 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. [00:05:12] Speaker A: 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. I can relate to that. Yes. Please continue. Sorry for interrupting. [00:05:24] Speaker B: 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 300 pages. Right. It's very different. So it's really easy to say, oh, you should write a book, especially when you're not the one doing it. Um, but, you know, besides that, sometimes the timing's 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. [00:06:29] Speaker A: 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? [00:06:43] Speaker B: I mean, to be honest, Danielle, 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 at 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 a content. We can help them make it sound really good and make everything logical and flow. But you're not going to 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 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, you know, I'll leverage it to the best of my ability. And if it doesn't, you know, 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 about 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. [00:07:59] Speaker A: 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 what? 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? [00:08:26] Speaker B: 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. And it's a really important mindset shift. Because a lot of people start writing a book either because they just have a really great idea that they want to 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've 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 going to read the book, you have to think about the people who are going to read and buy it. Right? So. 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? You know, what is it exactly that you want to see happen beyond the basic assumption of book sales? Right. Once 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 it to achieve because the book maybe was something you wanted to say and 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 going to 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. [00:10:25] Speaker A: That makes sense. [00:10:26] Speaker B: 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. [00:10:38] Speaker A: That's, that's a fantastic point because I think about memoirs, I think about maybe an ex president or, you know, 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, right? [00:10:50] Speaker B: Absolutely. And they see the success and again, like it does make logical sense, but they don't realize that they can also, also share their story and their journey in the context of a prescriptive how to or self help or business type of book. [00:11:03] Speaker A: So how do you help those people? What do you do next? [00:11:06] Speaker B: Well, 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. [00:11:39] Speaker A: And then how do you prevent people from writing the wrong book? Do they. Is this the conversation or. There are different things. You say if they're really determined, like, I'm really going to write this memoir. [00:11:48] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, again, like, I. We have had some clients who, you know, 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. 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. [00:12:50] Speaker A: Hmm. 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? [00:13:09] Speaker B: 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 things like, oh, she wrote the book on it, right? [00:13:25] Speaker A: Like that before. Yeah, yeah. [00:13:28] Speaker B: 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 sm, small business owner, a realtor, almost any kind of career, if 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 to 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. [00:14:27] Speaker A: 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? Like I 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? [00:14:54] Speaker B: 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, you know, 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. So this is, you know, do you want to put that knowledge into that kind of static 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 going to make them go out looking? And when they pick up your book, what can you say to them that's going to 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 want to start to plot out a book that's going to 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, you know, 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 know, changing a paradigm in somebody's life, changing. 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've set it up so that you've given them real value. You've helped them to start to solve the problem, to understand things in a different way. But at the end, you want to 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. [00:16:50] Speaker A: 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, 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. That makes sense. 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? [00:17:35] Speaker B: 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, you know, a paperback is pretty typically somewhere between 14 to 18. You know, hardcovers are somewhere usually between 22 and $30. Ebooks are anywhere from free and 99 cents, which is very common in the indie space. Traditional publishers, you usually see them more like 8.99 to 10.99. 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 know, 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 and giving books away free, strategically, of course, you're right. And I'm talking about leaving a stack at the bus Stop. But 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. [00:18:56] Speaker A: 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 gonna 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. [00:19:19] Speaker B: 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 their book be priced too low. You know, their impulse is almost to be more than it should be. So two things that I have to remind them is 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 if a big publisher has published the book, it's going to be of a certain quality. When they see an independent book, they don't have that same kind of reassurance. So sometimes having your books 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 going to 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. [00:20:18] Speaker A: 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 a grammar or punctuation mistake or run on sentence 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. Ali, 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? [00:21:00] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. I'm active on LinkedIn. People are welcome to connect with me there. They can come to our website atthewriters ally.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. Sorry, it's 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. [00:21:41] Speaker A: That's amazing. We will link to that in the show notes so people can get there directly. Definitely check out the presentation that Ali's put together. I am actually looking forward to looking at that myself. Ali, thank you so much for your time today. [00:21:54] Speaker B: I appreciate it. Thank you so much for having me.