Adriana Monique Alvarez is the CEO and Founder of AMA Publishing, where she teaches women how to start highly profitable publishing companies. She’s an international bestselling author and is the author of HOW TO START A SIX FIGURE PUBLISHING COMPANY. She is a USA Today bestselling author and her most recent book, THE YOUNGER SELF LETTERS debuted #1 on bestseller lists internationally.
Adriana mentors high level coaches, consultants, and service providers on how to start their own high-earning, global-impact publishing houses.
Listen to this informative Publish. Promote. Profit. episode with Adriana Alvarez about helping women start profitable publishing companies.
Here are some of the beneficial topics covered on this week’s show:
- Why people should view their competition as collaborators and work on their own niche.
- How running a business is a calling and people need to make each second count.
- How a multi-author book generates additional marketing from the contributors.
- Why being an entrepreneur gives people more control over their destiny.
- Why reviews are important and how to get your readers to review your book.
Connect with Adriana:
Links Mentioned:
AMAspeaks.com
Guest Contact Info:
Facebook
facebook.com/AdrianaMoniqueAlvarez
LinkedIn
linkedin.com/in/adriana-monique-alvarez
Rob Kosberg:
Welcome, everybody. It’s Rob here again with another episode of our Publish, Promote, Profit podcast. Super excited to bring a very interesting guest, at least interesting insofar as what she does, and I’m sure interesting in so many other ways. Adriana Monique Alvarez is the CEO and founder of AMA Publishing. She teaches female entrepreneurs how to start a highly profitable publishing company. She herself is an international best-selling author, USA today bestseller of the book, How to Start a Six-figure Publishing Company, which we’re going to dive into and talk about. Adriana has been on Forbes, Huffington Post, Fox, ABC, NBC, and now finally, the Publish, Promote, Profit podcast. Adriana, nice to have you here with us for our podcast today. Thanks for being on.
Adriana Alvarez:
Thank you for having me, Rob. I love that we get to talk today.
Rob Kosberg:
We get to talk publishing, something that I obviously have a passion for, something that you obviously have a passion for. It’s just very interesting. I’ll say on this podcast, I like for things to flow, and I have questions and have looked at your site and all your stuff, but I also am just kind of natural in that I say whatever I’m thinking. The first thing that I think when I see that is, it seems to me that you’re creating your own competition when you’re helping other people start a six-figure publishing company. Now, I could be wrong because maybe your primary business is that coaching and teaching, but talk me through what you do, who you help, and how that’s even a thing.
Adriana Alvarez:
Well, I love that you bring this up because I wrote about this in another person’s book about collaboration. I talked about, “Why on earth would I create competitors?” Is that really what’s going on here? One of the things that I’ve discovered is, is that I can have a publishing company and I can have my own areas of expertise and have a lot of clients that I, number one, can’t take on, or number two, I’m not the best with. For example, some of my clients, they’re really great with children’s books. I’m not so much, not my thing. Others are good with fiction. What I’ve decided is to realize that I’m not the only one. We need more than me. We need more than what I can handle and who I can work with. I really wanted to show women how they could create this kind of business and figure out who their favorite type of client is. What types of books do they want to help bring into the world and stay in that specialty? A lot of my clients, they send each other a lot of business because they tend to find a specialty and stay there.
Rob Kosberg:
Full disclosure, I’ve thought about this myself simply because in the 10 years that I’ve had bestseller publishing, I have created my competition. I can’t tell you how many books I’ve published for people, and then they went and became publishing companies and “experts.” It’s a little annoying because I’m like, “Dude, I did all that for you and now you’re going to pretend that you know how to do it?” This is just a very honest talk. So, there’s been part of me like, “Maybe I should just actually charge for that and give people the opportunity to do it.” Tell me from your standpoint, how did it actually start and begin? Where was it? You are a publisher. You’re working in your niche, and then somewhere along the line you thought, your goal is to create 10,000 female publishers over the next few years. That’s a substantial goal, and a lot of books, and wonderful. Where did it come from? What was the first thought that you had like, “This could really be something.”
Adriana Alvarez:
Well, it started with one of my clients. She contributed in a couple of books that I produced, and I actually went to Australia to meet some of my clients. I got to meet her, got to have a meal together, and she just kept asking me questions, “How does this work,” and, “This is so fascinating.” Then, I was sitting here in Colorado in my grandmother’s chair one afternoon, not thinking about business, not really trying, and it just was like, “Why don’t you certify the authors and contributors that are around you that have an interest in this, and just throw it out there.” So, immediately, I grabbed my phone, I had a Facebook group with all of my authors that I had published for and I just said, “Who would be interested in starting their own publishing house? You want to learn the model?” Eight women immediately said yes within 24 hours, and that was the first group I taught.
Rob Kosberg:
How Cool. Yeah. That’s what we teach our authors. Go to your audience, ask your audience what they want, see if they’re interested. If they are, go ahead and create it. It sounds like you did that exact thing. I do think that there’s a lot of opportunity out there in the world. Obviously, with Amazon and the tools that we have access to, why not help people facilitate as many opportunities for people to be successful with their books as possible? I love what you’re doing. I think it’s great. Let’s dive into your book for just a second, How to Start a Six-Figure Publishing Company. Everybody has their five steps to success, right? Talk me through what yours are, when you teach someone, “These are the steps to creating your own six-figure publishing company.” What does that look like?
Adriana Alvarez:
Well, the first thing that I encourage my students to do is to get very clear that this feels like a calling. This is a mission, this isn’t a side gig. This isn’t what I do in my spare time, or when it’s convenient. This is part of why I’m here. So, it’s about stepping fully into that CEO position and making sure that there’s enough focus and energy that can go toward it. The very first thing that I tell them is we want to do this profitably because, to be honest, I see so many women, especially mothers, they sort of dilly-dally, kind of tiptoe around things in their business. What I realized one day is, if I’m going to take any time away from my children to run a business, I want to make it count. I don’t want to make a few bucks here and there. So, I teach them, “Let’s just market to those who are already at six figures, who know a book can be a great part of their marketing plan and create books for those people.” In fact, just last night, I did a training on how you serve and accommodate the group that I see as the most underserved market, which is those who make 250,000 to 1 million, online. No one seems to want to market to them or work with them. Based on that starting point, let’s create books. Start with multi-author books, and then allow that relationship and trust to parlay into solo books, and then maybe partnerships. Maybe there’s someone who has a great audience and could announce a multi-author book and fill it right away, but they don’t want to start their own publishing company. They don’t want to get involved necessarily. So just looking at the different streams of income, looking at what the upsells are and looking at simple ways, organic ways of marketing that through social media and for some of them, if they’re involved in their local community and networking events and they can do that, as well.
Rob Kosberg:
I love that. I think one thing that every author notices is that as soon as they start talking to others about their book, others start talking to them about, “Hey, I’ve always wanted to write a book, or I’ve been told I should write a book.” It seems to me that, at least this is something we’ve seen with all of our clients over the years, that there’s probably a very natural element where if people are marketing their books, they’re going to inevitably have other people that come to them not just because they’re interested in the topic of the book, but they’re actually interested in writing their own book. Is there an element of that within your marketing? There’s got to be a system here for marketing for this. Talk me through how you help these fledgling publishers to market their publishing company.
Adriana Alvarez:
Well, you’ve nailed it already. So if I have a multi-author book and I put 20 to 30 contributors in that, and then I ask them to go on social media to email their list, to go live and talk about why they said yes to this particular project, what story they’re going to share and why, then I have a whole group of people marketing for me and getting the word out. The other interesting thing that happens is, is there’s so much excitement around book launches. It’s not the sort of thing where people keep their mouth shut and, “Oh, this is a secret.” People get very loud and proud around a launch, which is really ideal for every publishing house because people, like you said, they’ll go, “Oh, you know what? I want to write something. Who did you write with? Can you connect me to the publisher?” So, that’s what I found with the first multi-author book I produced. The second one field immediately, as soon as I announced it. So, that makes it a lot easier.
Rob Kosberg:
You’ve mentioned multi-author books a number of times. Talk me through the model of that because the way you’ve just described it, it sounds like that ends up being almost a lead magnet. You’re building a relationship, maybe selling individual books down the road. Also, that becomes your marketing tool around the book launch itself. Is that something that you’re doing or that you’re teaching your publishers to do for free, very, very low cost? What does that model look like a little bit?
Adriana Alvarez:
Good question. So, just for the sake of round numbers, I like to say every book needs about 20 authors. Don’t charge less than around $1,000 for a 3,000 word chapter. Obviously, these are entrepreneurs that can see that bigger vision like you just talked about. It’s the visibility. It’s the authority, the credibility. This isn’t really about book sales. This is saying, “I’m going to write my chapter in this book, and I know I have services or products that I can market on the back end of it.” Taking people through that process, and then for example, I often teach my clients, have a VIP option, give them something a little special. You want to put their name on the cover. We want to give them a bonus training, invite them into a cocktail networking party. There’s ways to create a couple of price points. At the end of the day, our goal is to profit 50,000 per multi-author book.
Rob Kosberg:
That’s great. So 1,000 is low then for 20 authors. There’s a lot of ways to take that thousand and make it two or 3,000 or so. Any particular marketing plan around finding those 20 authors for it? Is it a primarily a word of mouth thing, group, social media, et cetera?
Adriana Alvarez:
It’s a combination. I find that having a really clear title and subtitle is the best first step. When it’s too broad, people can’t really see themselves in it and they don’t get excited about it. I had a client, one of the first ladies I taught how to do this, she told me, “I’ve always wanted to create a book around birth stories, and a particular type of birth woman who had a cesarean, and then they had a regular birth.” So, she wanted to do a VBAC book, and it was so specific and so niche, and I knew that women who had had that experience, they were super outspoken about it. I said, “That’s a winner right there.” The second she announced it, I mean, this thing just filled up, and these women were passionate. In fact, most of them referred her two, four, 10 clients for her next book. A good title and subtitle can carry you a long way because people go, “Oh, that’s me. Oh, I have something to say about that.” If you can take that title, subtitle, and then pair it with a great cover and share it on social media, you become a magnet. People move toward you and they just say, “I’ve got to learn more. This is for me.”
Rob Kosberg:
I love that. We talk and preach endlessly about the importance of a great title that attracts your ideal client and a great cover that stops them in their tracks, but I haven’t thought about it from the standpoint of a multi-author book before, the importance of that just as a marketing tool. Your ideal client for the publisher is 20 authors. Great, great tip there. So, How to Start a Six-figure Publishing Company, we get it. I mean, they do two books, and they’re at six figures is kind of the idea. What is the next phase of that for people? You mentioned something about upsells and individual books and that sort of thing. Talk me through what that looks like.
Adriana Alvarez:
Well, what I found is when you say, “Congratulations, you’re now an international best-selling author,” people are pretty excited. They’re in love with you. What I teach my clients is, that’s a great time to say, “Are you ready to write your own book? Is this chapter really just a starting point to show you how much more you have inside of you?” I have clients that they offer solo books in a traditional form, how we would think, and then they also have group programs for people who want to write their own book, but maybe with the support of a community. Obviously, these are two different price points. They can accommodate two different types of audiences, two different types of budgets. Then, in addition to that, most of my publishers, they come with experience, they come with something else in their pocket. I teach them, based on that experience in the areas that you have mastery in, create an upsell that you could offer to all of your contributors. That might look like business consulting, that might be really tapping into your soul’s purpose. I mean, it could be a wide spectrum, but I help them and basically keep reminding them that they have more to offer than just the book.
Rob Kosberg:
These two things become feeders for each other. I did four books for a coach in the real estate space, very big coach, does over a million bucks a month, seven figures a month, in her business. She was like, “Rob, I’m going to start doing books for my clients.” She says, “Love you. I love what you’ve done. They don’t need the heavy-duty stuff that you do.” In essence, she did a licensing type deal where all these people were being coached by her. She’s like, “Well, you can take the next level up, which will also get you a book and get you this, this, this,” and of course it became a fantastic upsell. For those that come in just for the book, they eventually find their way to her coaching as well. These two things completely feed off each other, and it’s amazing to see what my client has done because, of course, she was already doing big, big numbers, but now she’s up over a million bucks a month watching these things kind of feed each other, which is really cool. You’re doing some good stuff. Congratulations. You told me about one of your success stories with the compilation book, the anthology book. Give me one great publisher success story that started and kind of grew from there. I’d love to hear some of their cool successes.
Adriana Alvarez:
One of my clients, she had been in corporate and when the world shifted, she really realized that she didn’t want to do that anymore. She wasn’t in love with the work. She was tired of the office politics. Then when everything rocked, she realized, “This might be my opportunity to try something new, to take a chance on myself.” We had been in similar circles online. We had a lot of mutual friends. When I put the call out, she said yes. She had never made a dollar as an entrepreneur. In fact, she was really pretty stuck in that nine to five mode, which actually is not nine to five anymore. It’s more like nine to nine. I remember I gave her one action step so that she could go get her first handful of contributors. She kind of looked at me like, “Is it this simple? Can I do this?” I really take people out of this traditional learn, learn, learn, learn, learn maybe one day do it. I teach you one thing, go do it. I remember getting a message through social media from her. She said, “Oh my gosh, my first payment notification just came in and then they just kept rolling in.” She sold the book out, I want to say, in three weeks, and it completely changed her life. Now I’ve lost track of how many books she’s done; I think four or five in the last year. I recently got to spend a week with her in Sedona. She said, “I didn’t know how to make that leap from corporate to entrepreneurship.” This allowed her to do it gracefully because it’s something people already want. They want to tell their story. They want someone to champion them and tell them it’s good enough. Let’s tell it. I love making business as simple as possible. For those who don’t have a background in it, it can be intimidating. I love seeing women be able to thrive in it.
Rob Kosberg:
That’s a cool story for a number of reasons, not the least of which is you have somebody that was taken out of the nine to nine, the grind that she didn’t want to be in, and now controls her schedule. Entrepreneurship is not easy, but neither is working nine to five or six or seven. Pick your poison I guess, but I would always rather be in more control of my own destiny than less control of my destiny. So that’s very cool. Love to hear that. Maybe we could switch gears for a minute. Part of what we do on Publish, Promote, Profit is we want to know how you’re using your own books. It sounds like some of the things that you’ve taught, which is really cool, will work for people whether they have their own book or not. I think the story that you just told me, she didn’t even have her own book. She hadn’t done any of that yet and became a successful publisher and a facilitator of books. You of course have a great book. You’re a USA Today bestselling author yourself. How have you used your books to attract new clients? Do you have an ongoing system to do that? Maybe tell me a cool story or two on how your book has gotten you exactly what you’re looking for.
Adriana Alvarez:
The first thing is, is that it’s so easy to look at the book launch as the end of the road. “I wrote the book.” It’s out in the world. Ah,” and then start looking around for the next project. What I realized is, that’s the beginning. That’s really the starting point. I like to have a 12-month plan at the very least. The first plan is for 30 days after that book comes out; I’m promoting a particular program. So, for mine, it was easy to promote my certification program because it aligns perfectly with the book. The other thing that I did during that promotion, so I’m drawing in new people, I went to the students that I’ve already worked with or who have already graduated with me. I ask them to give me a five-star review on Amazon so I could start to collect the reviews, and then I could start to put those out to my email list, put those on social media and get that third-party validation. I’m not just saying, “It’s a good idea, this is here.” The other thing that I like to do is look at what kind of trainings I can do on a regular basis. Once a month, I do a two-hour intensive. It’s a bonus for my students. They get another training, and I’ve played with free or low ticket on the colder audience. What it allows people to do is, to take the book and let’s go a step further. If we spent two hours together and we took one chapter, one sliver of this, and we did a deep dive, how would this support you? I just did one last night. The feedback is incredible. It allows people to warm up because I know how it is. If you meet someone brand new online, or you read their book and you’re excited, but you also are a little afraid, “Can I trust them? Is this the real deal?” So those trainings allow people to come a little closer. Another thing that I do in the next wave of reviews is, I tell people, “If you leave me a review, I will give you a 21-day sales activator training in exchange.” For 21 days, we’re hanging out together on Voxer, and I’m showing them how this works. How do you receive money in your own publishing company and get this off the ground? What ends up happening is, of course, they want to work with me. Of course they want to say yes. Usually they get a few contributors in that time. So, they feel confident in making that investment. I like to think of creative ways to bring people in closer and allow them to benefit from the knowledge and the information, the relationship before they cross the line. I had a lady, she bought the book, and next thing I know, I never had a sales call with her, never had any sort of connection, interaction, and all I received was a message saying, “Hey, I signed up for your certification. I can’t wait to get started.” That’s the beauty.
Rob Kosberg:
Your book did all the work.
Adriana Alvarez:
It did all the work for me, and I love that.
Rob Kosberg:
One of the things I really like that you said is, it sounds like, of course, the book is the beginning. It’s not the end. We try to help people without all the time, but you’re also taking parts of the book on a regular basis and then doing these two hour classes monthly. Is this something that you’re attracting people to via social media, email lists, that kind of thing and charging everybody a low-ticket amount?
Adriana Alvarez:
I do a lot of testing and experimenting, but I think I’ve landed on the best for me anyway. What I’m doing is, I’m putting out to my email list, putting it out to social media, but what I’ve decided to do is bring in two of my next level students. I have a 1.0 program and the 2.0. I’m going to bring in two students from the 2.0 program. They get to teach for 20 minutes in that two hours. They’re promoting it heavily to their audiences, to their authors, to their contributors. It’s a little bit broader reach, and it gives them the ability to start teaching on that level and to be seen in a new light. We did it for $99 last night, and it was so much fun. It allows also those who attend to get to hear from three different people, slightly different angle on the same subject.
Rob Kosberg:
Very awesome social proof because these are people that have gone through your course that have been taught by you that are now successful and in turn teaching. You don’t have to say anything. The fact that that’s who they are gives all the proof necessary. If you do something like that on a regular basis, is there some type of an affiliate situation worked out with them?
Adriana Alvarez:
Absolutely. I love having an affiliate program. So, for example, for the women who come in and train with me, they get a 50/50 split on whatever tickets they sell. Same thing with my students. I have found that if they tell their contributors, “Hey, if you feel like you want to take this to the next level and start your own publishing company,” I pay them a 25% commission on new students who come into the certification. I really believe in this exchange and making sure that it feels good for everyone involved, that they’re getting compensated and rewarded for sharing the word about what I’m doing.
Rob Kosberg:
I love what you’re doing. I think it’s very, very cool. I think it’s innovative, which you have to be innovative these days. It sounds like you’re really doing some cool things. Congratulations on that. Any questions maybe I didn’t ask or anything that I’m missing in the process?
Adriana Alvarez:
No. I think that, based on your own experience, you know what matters, and really at the end of the day, getting more stories out there and taking people from, “It’s on my desktop,” or, “It’s in my heart,” to, “It’s out in the world,” that’s what we’re about.
Rob Kosberg:
Let’s give some links where listeners can get some more information and learn more about how to start a six-figure publishing company and wherever you want to direct them.
Adriana Alvarez:
Absolutely. My book is available on Amazon, and if they go to AMASpeaks.com, so that’s A-M-A-S-P-E-A-K-S.com, I would love for them to mention that they heard this on your show and just let me know if I can send them a copy of my book, if they want to hear more about a publishing house, or if they have a book that they want to talk about, how can we move forward on it. I would love for them to fill out that form.
Rob Kosberg:
Fantastic. Hey, thanks so much for being on today. Great job with everything and really, really enjoyed having a conversation with you.
Adriana Alvarez:
Thank you. It’s my pleasure. Thanks for having me.
