[00:00:00] Speaker A: Welcome to Abundant Energy. I'm Todd Thomas and today we're exploring how innovation can power the AI revolution while protecting our planet. You're watching Now Media tv.
Welcome to Abundant Energy.
Today we're going to talk about a familiar entrepreneurial mistake. Creating valuable intellectual property without building a commercial system around it first.
Specifically, we're going to discuss writing a book. How a book can do far more than generate book sales when it's intentionally connected to authority positioning and built around a long term business strategy. Today my guest is Stephanie Pierucci, one of my favorite people in the world. I'm so glad you came Stephanie. Thanks for joining us.
[00:00:46] Speaker B: I'm really honored to be here. We always have great conversations on and off camera.
[00:00:52] Speaker A: Stephanie is a two time Wall Street Journal best selling writer. She is an international best selling author.
She's a publicist and marketing strategist through Pyrischi Publishing. She helps non fiction business authors navigate both the creative and commercial sides of publishing with a focus on turning books into strategic assets that can accelerate personal brands, support high ticket offers and improve business profitability.
So Stephanie, when an entrepreneur tells you I want to write a book, what is the first thing you do to determine whether they actually have considered and built a long term strategy?
[00:01:34] Speaker B: Well, the first thing I ask them to do is tear up anything they've already written until I can get my hands on it.
And that's because my process starts with the idea.
So for instance, with Starving for Innovation, which I actually have the proof copy, the very first copy ever came off the printer, which you should sign for me one day. But with Starving for Innovation, for instance, we reverse engineered where the book was going to go before we wrote the book. So, you know, you had, I think at the time, six employees that you identified who could really tell stories that you could not tell about rolling up their sleeves, putting on their boots and getting in the mud and figuring out how to solve problems. And so everybody, as you and I both know, loves woodchuck.
But what makes it particularly awesome is the stories from sort of the field, the construction sites or the frankly disaster areas where the Chucks have worked. And so before we wrote this, you know, theoretical piece that was very esoteric and philosophical, we stopped, we gathered stories, we listened to your team, we talked about your investors. We envisioned what it was like for them in their kitchens, in their living rooms, on the phone calls, in the board meetings. And we came up with an idea to tell an important story about the energy crisis.
And we incorporated it with the human story and the human urgency behind the energy crisis.
[00:03:27] Speaker A: Yeah, actually, when I was looking for a publisher, and as you know, I had a couple of previous books and I was shopping around for a new publisher and I sent it to a bunch of folks and some people answered and some people didn't, and some people were happy and were happy to print the new book.
And your response was absolutely unique.
And I know you've heard the story before, but even before I get to the story, you know, I'm going to tell, I'm going to tell another one first.
You scheduled a call. We scheduled a call. I was so intrigued by your response that we scheduled a call that. And when we jumped into the first call, it quickly became evident to me that you'd read all my previous stuff.
And I was just blown away. You were, you were quoting my previous books back to me and I was just like, oh, my God, this woman did her homework. Like, she, she's invested in this relationship and we're, when we're just starting. I, I was, I was absolutely blown away with that. So then when you said to me, your writing is dry, it's overly technical, and it's just exhausting to read, you were speaking from authority. You'd read my stuff, you knew my style.
And so then when you kind of said, look, let's take a different approach and let's, I want to interview all of the, all of the Chucks, and we're going to integrate all these stories, it absolutely broadened the focus of the book from beyond just AI and energy, really, to the story of Woodchuck and our early struggles and our successes and yeah, the stories of getting out in the mud and getting your boots dirty, but it also made it so much more personal. Right. It wasn't just a bunch of facts about energy and AI. Here's all the data.
It really personalized the story.
And so this book, it feels very personal to me. And I have to give you the credit for doing that. I mean, you really changed the book, changed the focus and really improved it. I'm super proud of this book and I can't thank you enough for your contributions and your efforts and wow, I'm thrilled.
[00:05:34] Speaker B: Well, you and I are both fiction readers as well as non fiction readers, and we've exchanged a lot of books between one another and I think something that really impacted me and every man or woman listening to this segment needs to remember something beautiful that you said. You said, I want my wife to start, start this book and I don't want her to fall asleep during the preface and I thought about what women really love to read and what really inspires them to turn the pages. Even though women are exhausted, at the end of the day, you've got five kids, even though some of them are self supporting and adults, I think maybe even all of them at this point. But they're all fairly independent.
But you're still physically not with them, but energetically you're with them. And she's answering her phone and she's thinking about everybody's needs. And so for a woman to really dive into a book at night, it's gotta touch her soul. And nothing touches the soul like the stories of other human beings. And in the case of the Chucks, someone's baby, someone's son or daughter who's building something remarkable. And for the entrepreneur, what we often forget is returning to that human story, because it wasn't just Todd, Thomas and Dre, these two brilliant technologists building a really cool drill, which is a wonderful story that you have in your book, but it was also the story of blood, sweat, tears, Excel spreadsheets, phone calls, people hanging up, swerving over to the side of the road to take a potential investor call. And we sometimes see the reels of entrepreneur success stories without seeing the dirty part of that story. And so it's really an inspiring approach for anybody who's picking up the book.
[00:07:59] Speaker A: One of the little stories that seems to really resonate with the particularly with the entrepreneur crowd is what we call the, you know, the 3:00am Solo board meeting, or you wake up in the middle of night and do cash flow in your head until morning.
So many people have commented on that particular story. It really, really resonates with young entrepreneurs.
[00:08:22] Speaker B: Yeah, I do it myself with the publishing company. Okay. I'm, you know, paying out my royalties on the 5th, and, you know, I've got these contractors to pay and these invoices are out. And I do it myself. Yeah, we all do that. I think besides the Lord's Prayer and some prayer for my family and children, that's what goes through my head every night is, where's the money coming in? How am I going to get people paid when they need to be paid?
It's funny that we all do the same thing.
[00:08:56] Speaker A: Absolutely.
One of the phrases you use is business with four corners.
And you really describe how authors make their books business with four corners. So what does that idea really mean and what must be in place for the business around the book to be structurally sound?
[00:09:15] Speaker B: That's an excellent question. I'm regularly approached by entrepreneurs who have these Ambitious ideas about a book becoming a New York Times bestseller, which often takes years because so much of a book success depends on word of mouth contagion.
And for instance, a lot of the books that you and I have shared, we didn't get ads. No one paid money for us to see that book. We share these books through word of mouth. And after you shared Incorruptible by Eric Ries, for instance, I must have shared it with 25 or 30 other people and I bet half of them purchase that book.
So when I'm talking about a book being a business with four corners, you're approaching the, you know, customer acquisition. You're, you're approaching what's the long term value of that customer. Are we driving them toward, in the case of Woodchuck, for instance, supporting and investing in the company.
Are we driving them toward a product?
Consulting is a typical offer, but I also have doctors and clinicians driving traffic toward their retail business.
So I like to look at the long term marketing relationship outside of just publishing the book. But what does this mean when it comes to, for instance, recruiting in, in a business that's growing or, or what does your book about Bipolar disorder, which is an actual case we're working on right now, what could that be for psychologists and clinicians who had that book in hand so that their clients are feeling like they're not alone.
[00:11:14] Speaker A: Fantastic.
What should an author decide before writing page one? If the real goal is authority, clients, and business growth?
[00:11:26] Speaker B: Well, first thing people need to do is they need to actually write a story. And this is what everyone misses in nonfiction. And I've been doing nonfiction business writing for the better part of 20 years. My degree was in technical writing. I traveled all over Europe doing technical writing.
So what people miss.
I like to refer people to Save the Cat Writes a novel. This is a fiction book guideline. It gives you an entire table of contents for fiction book writing. I use the same structure in my nonfiction books. First thing I would ask people to do is go back to story and structure even a nonfiction book like a fiction novel.
[00:12:17] Speaker A: Brilliant insight. Brilliant insight. I think that must be so helpful to, to the folks that you work with.
We are talking with Stephanie Pierucci from Pyrucci Publishing. We're going to take a quick break and we'll be right back. Don't go anywhere. We'll be right back. With more solutions shaping the future of energy, infrastructure and intelligent systems. Stay tuned.
And we're back. I'm Todd Thomas and this is Abundant Energy on NOW Media tv. Let's Dive deeper.
Welcome back. Our guest today is Stephanie Pierucci, the founder of Pirucci Publishing, where she works with business authors on publishing, direct response, marketing, positioning, and the commercial strategy required to turn a book into a platform for larger opportunities.
Now, the book that I just launched actually just went live October 1st, starving for innovation. It's my newest book, and this is the book that Steffi and I worked together on, and she made such a massive positive impact.
And this gorgeous website is all Stephanie's handiwork.
Really pleased with the book, really pleased with the initial results. So, Stephanie, thank you so much. So excited about how it's going and, and you shared some exciting news with me yesterday. Two additional platforms that'll be live soon. Do you want to bust that news live on tv?
[00:13:42] Speaker B: Yeah, we're working on your Ingram and your Barnes Publishing. Unfortunately, a lot of people are unaware, especially in an age of self publishing, that they're missing a lot of potential sales through particularly the Ingram platform. And Ingram will take your book and they'll put it on as many other platforms as they can. So you're looking at, you know, some of the big box stores. They'll do a paperback, hardcover, or an ebook. And then Barnes and Noble doesn't do a lot, but we have love and respect for our Nook readers. And also a lot of our ambassadors will go into their local Barnes and Noble store, request your book gets on the shelves, at least in that store. And it's always nice that we already have the listing up at barnes and noble.com so we take that extra step as a practice as opposed to just driving everybody lazily to Amazon.
[00:14:51] Speaker A: Well, I, I personally am very excited about it. My previous books have only been on Amazon, so this is exciting to me. And I've got a longtime good friend that's been at Barnes and Noble forever, and she is very excited to hear that my book will be on her platform. So. So she's. So thank you very much for that.
So this segment, we want to move beyond publishing mechanics and into monetization.
How expertise becomes a clear offer, how a book reframes trust, and how authors can connect content to higher value services without making the book feel like a sales brochure. So, Stephanie, how do you identify the natural high ticket offer that should sit behind a business book?
[00:15:38] Speaker B: You know, I have a lot of experience working as a fractional cmo. In fact, I'm currently working with a health company. I've run T companies before. I've run lots of different businesses. And, uh, in a period when I Took off publishing. It synchronously happened that I worked with an entrepreneur incubator and I helped startups launch their businesses. Um, back then people weren't wearing these silicone wedding rings, so we launched one of those businesses. But we also worked with people in finance and real estate. We worked with people in direct response marketing. So I have had the opportunity to work alongside some of the world's brightest, like Harvard educated business coaches, people who have consulted with all of the big consulting firms working on launching businesses. That's when it hit me. The light bulb was I used this book not as something that generates revenue, which I have a lot of opinions about, but as something that is part of a larger integrated marketing plan.
And so for the most part what we find is that the book is a cog in the wheel. It's only one piece of the larger engine for a business. Now this business could be, I just want to take stages and, and, and, and speak on stages and get paid to travel. I heading up to Anchorage, Alaska after speaking in Washington state. So I have authors doing speaking circuits. But for some of my authors it's an intangible profit. I work with politicians, I'm working with a senator, I've worked with several senators who are using this book as any smart politician will, to set the story straight about who they are, where they're from and what their goals are. And so there's no one size fits all to discovering that high ticket offer for the author. One of my authors right now in fact is working on a health curriculum.
It's an abstinence based health curriculum for schools, especially in communities where there's an uptick in child on child abuse. I'm not going to use any terms that could get me censored anywhere.
So she has decided as a mom whose children are also grown and out of the house to write an abstinence based health curriculum. And then we have also retained a legal firm that's putting money behind getting the word out on the need for this abstinence based curriculum in schools.
So her high ticket offer is simply getting people to support and sponsor her to as a psychologist and clinician, an authoritative science based program that the world needs with now so much child on child abuse and bullying, particularly cyberbullying.
So like I said, it's not a one size fits all thing when it comes to identifying that high ticket offer. But, but if that author never came to me and said I have these ideas, I work with adults who've been traumatized as children, a particular type of Trauma, of course, because everyone has trauma. And she said, how can I make this a legacy?
And I said, well, it just so happens that I'm on a board in my local county, in the libraries, and I'm also very active in the school boards and, and I know who needs you badly. And so it worked out really well that we kind of put together the framework, not only for her book, which gives her the authority, but now this curriculum that we're working on that's abstinence based.
[00:20:03] Speaker A: I can tell you from my personal experience, you know, as an entrepreneur and someone launching startups, when you're talking to big brands or you're talking to VCs, or, you know, particularly big VCs, you know, one of the questions they're all going to ask is, who is this guy?
Why him? Why now? And of course, everybody Googles you immediately. Everybody looks you up on LinkedIn immediately. And just like you described with the senator, using that book, an entrepreneur or someone launching a startup can use that book to position yourself as the authority and, and to really give that full long explanation of why your company and why now in a format that can allow anybody who wants to pick it up and look at it and take as much detail out of that as they want. So I honestly, I haven't gotten that question from a VC in quite some time now.
Nobody asked me that question anymore, which is great.
They do their Google, they look me up on LinkedIn and like, okay, all right, he's literally written the book on it and it's, it's a pretty powerful tool to have.
[00:21:10] Speaker B: Yeah.
I'm still surprised though, and this might come as a shock to you as well. I'm still surprised that people find having written a book as a point of authority, because on the other side of the table, I'm seeing so much AI slop and trash published. I'm going to tell you a story in 15 seconds that's a little shocking and disconcerting. I received a book a year or two ago from someone who we'll just say was in technology.
And the book was riddled with fake sources, fake news headlines, fake politicians, fake election outcomes. And this person is in the public eye.
Nine patents, I think, to his name, extremely successful, wonderful entrepreneur, and had not taken the time to make sure that his editor or ghostwriter, whoever he used, had submitted a manuscript that had been fact checked. And so for me, if I see someone has written a book, I no longer give that clout. But when you're throwing that on a pitch deck and you've got an image of your book and you can say, I had this many sales, it's on these platforms and you can illustrate that it really is a point of authority, A word worthy point of authority. Yes, it does still make a difference. I'm a little nervous that those days are closing.
[00:22:43] Speaker A: Well, that's another area. Well, I have to give you huge kudos. In my previous books, I had a reference list at the end of each book that listed out the sources that I used.
And you basically said, todd, that is not good enough. We need to take it up a notch. And so when you and your team went through and did the fact checking, well, the first thing I loved is when you checked all our facts. What you shared with me was all of those trends you pointed out in the first books, not only proven to be true, but they've accelerated. So of course I loved hearing that. But probably more importantly, you fact checked everything and gave a very precise, you know, academic, collegiate level reference for every one of those things. So anybody that wants to geek out on the data side, the reference is so clear and so specific that the, the academic world loves it.
[00:23:33] Speaker B: Yeah, and they should. I mean, we probably put, you know, 40, between 40 and 100 hours into just fact checking books these days. It used to be something that was maybe a three, four hour task for a low level, so to speak, you know, administrative person.
Now we're digging into the graphs and the charts. As you saw, we added, you know, 20 or so images to your book because we maybe even 30 images. But we are so passionate about someone picking up Starving for Innovation and seeing that you have combed the EPA website, that you've combed statistics about municipal solid waste or whatever it is. And this is not an administrative, you know, just 17 an hour task. I mean, this really is, as you said, an academic, you know, point of authority and people just aren't taking that time anymore to do it. And I'm really impressed with the sources and how they were fact checked and then double checked and then triple checked by everyone so that you're never going to have someone look at your book and say this link is broken. Where'd you get this information?
[00:24:52] Speaker A: Well, another great idea that we embrace and I love is your idea of a bonus ebook with a bunch of additional material and including all of those charts and graphs in, in a separate, easy to consume piece.
Brilliant idea. A good friend of mine teaches high school and he's going to be using the book in his high school class for his seniors in his economics class. And he's going to give them all that, that bonus book that you put together. So again, great idea. Loved it. Really, I think adds to the authority of the book and gives you just even more information to document and support all those question around AI and energy and how we address that problem.
We need to take another break but when we get back we're going to double dip on AI. We're going to go back to AI and the impact AI is having in the publishing world today and what is the right strategy around that. So we'll be right back. We'll be right back with more solutions shaping the future of energy infrastructure and intelligent systems. Stay tuned.
And we're back. I'm Todd Thomas and this is Abundant Energy on NOW Media tv. Let's dive deeper.
Welcome back. We are with Stephanie Pierucci. Stephanie brings two decades of direct response, marketing and publishing experience offering a useful lens on a market where authors now have unprecedented access to AI assisted research, writing, content production and promotion.
AI lowers the cost of producing content that makes authentic expertise, evidence, lived experience, voice and strategic positioning more important, not less.
Stephanie, as AI makes it easier to produce books and marketing content, what do you think will separate genuine authority from manufactured authority?
[00:26:47] Speaker B: I love that question. I'm going to use Starving for Innovation as an example because with your book launch we created a platform that I think will will serve you for decades. I know it will because while we can refresh a website cosmetically, what we have is something that almost no self published author on the planet except those like me with background in direct response marketing would ever conceive of having that PDF bonus with your graphs and images where people who are interested in part one of your book and some of the technical state of the union with the energy environment can go through those graphs at length and really learn something. And learn we pulled statistics to make your book as relevant as possible all the way up until I think four weeks before publishing, maybe even sooner.
So we have an absolute excellent wealth of, of resources around the book. This does include the website, but, but the website also includes previous TV and podcast interviews that you had done that I had hand selected from stuff that inspired me for, for the, for the book. You know, we have those PDF bonuses. We have all these other things attached to the book that a self published author who takes a manuscript and throws it up on Kindle Direct Publishing, which is Amazon's distribution platform, they're not taking the time to do any of that. So I think what I what's going to separate especially nonfiction book authors in the Future is taking the extra time to launch the book in a way that people can digest the information in an exceptional way, such as pulling graphs out or the work we did on sources, references, the website, et cetera. But then the author is going to have much more success with things such as a website that's generating emails and leads, because this is all stuff that they can use for decades to build up a following in an email list. And you're adding brick by brick. And I was once a company that I ran one time.
This happened twice in a span of three years.
Part of the sale of the business.
In fact, the most valuable thing that the buyer wanted in both cases was the email list.
Both cases, they didn't want all of the hours of content that we had produced with some of the rich dad, poor dad financial advisors. They didn't want the websites and all the. We had spent hundreds of thousands of dollars building all these technical integrations.
What they wanted was an email list at the time of nearly 500,000 people that we had built over many years who knew, liked, and trusted the voice that had been sending them emails. That was the most valuable thing on the table.
[00:30:15] Speaker A: That's. Yeah, that's gold. That's gold.
Now, one thing that you said to me early on in our relationship that really stuck. You said, I don't really think of myself so much as a publisher, as a book marketer.
And you said one of the most important pieces is that that preface, that upfront piece that the content.
Let me back up, I should say marketing the book starts with making the content of the book the best that it can possibly be. And a really important part of that is the preface. And I think you shared a stat with me that 90% of people that pick up a book won't get through the preface. And if they don't, they don't buy the book.
[00:30:54] Speaker B: Exactly. So in the beginning of your book, in the preface, we decided that we were going to let people know what to expect in each part of the book. And I was reading a book last night because I actually read as much for. For pleasure as for work. But I was reading a new book by Ryan Levesque, I think it's called Return to Real.
And he said, look, in the first part of this book, you're going to get this. In the second part, you're going to get this. And. And don't worry if you think this is a book about farming and regenerative agriculture. I'm tying it all into business.
Hang on tight. And so what we did with Starving for Innovation. Exact same model. I said, look, if you're not interested in the energy revolution and the energy crisis and all the statistics around renewables and natural gas and, and small micro reactors, just skip to part two and you'll get to the business stuff. And then we're going to detail how we built the company on the ground.
Then we're going to detail in part three how we built the company bigger, right? So you start with this million dollar seed and you built it into a company. Now Woodchuck serves some of the biggest companies in the world, not America.
And how in the heck did we get there in three years? And so when you hear that I'm going to detail your no prototype, no money, no bank account, no employees, a couple of guys who granted very talented and brilliant you and you and Dre going from zero to serving the biggest companies in the world in three years. It's unbelievable. Everyone wants to know how
[00:32:49] Speaker A: I love listening to you talk about the book. I love it.
Interesting. You say how much you, you still like to read for pleasure and that's true of me as well.
But the last, on the last several years I've been really into non fiction. I've been reading lots and lots of non fiction. But this year the kids are starting to ask me what I want for Christmas. This year I'm like, you know what? I want some fiction stuff. I'm like, I've been doing all this non fiction stuff and my own non fiction stuff and give me some good novels this year. I just, I want to, I want to read for fun at night this, this coming year.
You've got some great novels. I know you've given me a couple, but if you have a couple more, I'm ready for a couple more suggestions.
[00:33:32] Speaker B: Well, we talked about Theo of Golden and I know you picked that up and that was just an absolutely wonderful book. And it had a lot of the vibes without all the theological stuff that the Shack did, which was another miraculously successful self published book.
I like anything Ariel Lah with historical fiction. It has some of her books such as Frozen river have the vibe of like Outlander's Claire Frazier and that medicine woman healer type of thing.
And A Gentleman in Moscow is a great first book that you can start by that author. I'm forgetting his name just at the moment. But yeah, there's for me a strong.
I really like historical fiction. I don't like fictional books about characters in a fake world and you know, in space. I like for them to be grounded in real historical events. It seems to give me so much more passion for the characters in their lives and compassion for our ancestors and the people who got us to where we are. So I'm a big historical fiction junkie.
[00:34:54] Speaker A: I love that genre as well.
Cloud Cuckoo Land is one that I love, that I read recently. I don't know if you've read that one. Great, really interesting, pretty broad book, fun to read. And then I just finished My Friends by Fred Bachman.
Reminded me a little bit of Theo of Golden, the similar type of empathetic feel. But this one is focused more on young people and art and kind of their interaction with the world around them.
So I recommend both of those as well.
[00:35:31] Speaker B: I love that one of the slippery slopes with fiction is when the author made a bunch of money on the first or second one and then they've written seven or eight more in the series and then I don't tend to have the self control to put the series down.
So it's, it's nice when you can just get a breather. But sometimes even when I start with an author and they've written so well, I can't put down anything they've. They've written and then I'll get stuck on an author.
[00:36:03] Speaker A: Absolutely, absolutely.
I want to jump back to AI a little bit before we finish this segment. And where can AI legitimately improve an author's publishing or marketing process? And where can you overuse it to damage credibility?
[00:36:23] Speaker B: One of the best things, a long time ago now, but one of the best things, when no one knew what AI was, and this was maybe 2019, I got involved in a startup that was creating content through AI and it was a very laborious process. I mean, you entered in 45 or 50 questions, then the model understood who you are, then they created content for your Instagram, LinkedIn, etc. And then a few years later I had bots basically and they were real pieces that I had written going out on LinkedIn. Well, now everyone's doing that and it's spam.
So I was really ahead of the game on marketing with AI and now I do no marketing with AI and what I usually do and what's been most successful for me, I'll use the example of a political person that I work with. I said, you need to be on every stage in every university, particularly Christian or Catholic or conservative leaning universities, based upon his message and his work.
And so I had AI pull a list of all these colleges and then. But then none of the phone numbers and email addresses were Valid. So I still ended up hiring someone at $35 an hour to cross reference and go dig up all of the. So right now I'm a little sour on AI for marketing because it's really hard to get accurate responses. I'll tell you a secret.
The greatest LLM on the planet, the most reliable, incredible, honest, transparent, non sycophantic, which is critical. AI that I use almost on a daily basis is called Alter Systems. And I know the man who created it and it's wicked good.
So I do use Alter Dot Systems regularly to help me understand, for instance, what are the nine key molecular, you know, proteins in this supplement and then it like makes them all really easy to understand for me. Alter Systems is the only AI I even, I don't even use Grok.
[00:38:54] Speaker A: Okay, well, thanks for sharing your secret with us. Hopefully people will check that out.
We've got one more segment, so stay with us. We'll be right back.
We'll be right back. With more solutions shaping the future of energy, infrastructure and intelligent systems. Stay tuned.
And we're back. I'm Todd Thomas and this is Abundant Energy on Maominia td.
Dive deeper.
Welcome back. Our guest is Stephanie Pierucci. Stephanie helps authors connect publishing with brand development, offer creation, marketing and profitability. So the book becomes part of a durable business ecosystem rather than a one time launch event.
In this final segment, we want to connect publishing to the larger abundant energy idea of creating leverage. A book captures knowledge once, but the right ecosystem can allow that knowledge to create value repeatedly through speaking, consulting, education, media partnerships and premium offers.
So Stephanie, what does a scalable author ecosystem look like after the book is published?
[00:40:09] Speaker B: One of the biggest, one of the most successful things that anyone can do, especially if you're talking about getting books sold, is to identify, just like you'd identify an investor for your business, identify who wants a lot of your books and who's going to distribute those books. One of my authors is, he is a national security advisor. He is selling sometimes lots of 25, 50 or 100 books and people are distributing these through academic organizations, churches, political groups, etc.
The cost of acquiring one of these big ambassadors, to purchase 2550, 100 books at a time versus the cost to acquire one single reader is about the same. And so you just do the math on that. Would I rather find, let's say, great example, we have a book that's talking about addiction.
Nicotine and alcohol are one of them. Unfortunately, most rehab centers, nicotine is the only drug that they can use and they smoke like chimneys.
But we decided that with this book we're going to target rehab centers.
And when people, these rehab centers have so much turnover, 90 days is a typical stay in the rehab center. So now not only do I have someone buying 50 books at the rehab center, but I've got them buying a new stock every day, 90 days.
So I think what we're missing in terms of that author ecosystem is who's going to buy the book more than once. How do I, instead of focusing on one guy who's going to buy the book and I get $4 royalty, how am I going to find that person, such as a luxury hotel that's giving away the book as a VIP guest gift, they're gonna need 50, 100 books a week.
So I don't think people take the time to understand how am I going to secure remarkable distribution networks so that the book is running in a subscription model, not a one time offer.
[00:42:55] Speaker A: So it seems to me like there's potentially two different paths for a business book. One, kind of like we're talking about right now, where an author is using it to build an ecosystem around speaking, consulting, partnerships and really building that business with four corners and potentially a different path is more like what we're trying to do with Woodchuck and with Starving for Innovation, where we're really trying to drive investors, future clients to build authority and build credibility with, as you mentioned, you know, really big brands that might wonder, you know, why are we going to work with this little teeny startup? So we're really using the book to position us as, as an authority.
So are, am I thinking about the right way and how does the strategy marketing look different for those two paths?
[00:43:44] Speaker B: So the project managers or the, the people on construction sites aren't going to pick up your book even though they're the people who are physically sorting all of the waste on the construction site. However, what we have identified is that people who are working, high level suits and ties and high heels in the head corporate offices, worried about sustainability, looking for the little trophies in sustainability. Not only are they reading nonfiction books, but now they're implementing what Woodchuck does into a larger goal or plan or you know, into the marketing, into the pr, into. So they have the pull to say, hey, guess what, I've done my research and I found a way that we can save money, make money and satisfy all of our sustainability goals in 2027. Am I going to send Starving for Innovation to construction sites or am I going to send it with a bow on it and you know, A1 sheet marketing, you know, bullet points, not a whole pitch deck, that's insane. But just a simple one sheet. I wish I had one sitting next to me that I just did for another author.
To the head of sustainability in any construction company or any company that, that deals in your target industry in America. Absolutely. Every time 100% those people are getting the book with a bow on it.
[00:45:30] Speaker A: Absolutely, absolutely.
For an entrepreneur with deep expertise but limited time, what is the highest leverage first move they can make to turn that expertise into a book led business strategy?
[00:45:47] Speaker B: The phrase that a book is a business with four corners.
Sometimes people nod and agree, oh, book is a business with four corners. Then they don't remember what it took to build their business.
It took work.
And I would say anyone who's really looking to build that big strategy needs to allocate the resources required.
So this is either time or money.
If people are not going to, there's no one who's going to walk up to your office and say, hey, can you put me to work 20 hours a week charitably, without pay to bang on the doors of every head of sustainability in the Fortune 500. No, this is resources that someone's going to allocate either time or money.
So I think the strategy for anyone who should be writing a book, and not everyone should be writing a book. In fact, a lot of people come to me. A woman came to me, her name's Courtney. I love, love this woman and she has an incredible book idea. All these stories. She's doing this like exorcism. I don't know if I've ever told you about her.
She's actually traveling with a certain politician that I'm not allowed to name until November 4th.
And she literally provides spiritual covering for people who are being attacked spiritually with witches and warlocks, NASA projection. It's insane job.
And I said, honey, you don't need to be writing a book.
You need to distill a framework for how you protect people and build a course and make sure every spiritual church in America is distributing that course to equip their flocks. And so I said, no book, we're doing a course. And so we laid out, 50 weeks, we laid out a framework. We, you know, we're, we're cross referencing the Bible, as it were. And, and she's doing a course instead of a book. So not everyone should be writing a book. But those who do have the authority and do need to tell a story. And Woodchuck very, very desperately needed to tell the story that you told in Starving for Innovation, because it's like no story in any business I've ever heard.
They really do have a path, but they absolutely must talk to someone in marketing to understand the path. Your ghostwriter doesn't understand the marketing. I've run a lot of businesses in health, finance, whatever. I've done fractional CMO work for many years. And I'm also a writer, so I'm uniquely at that convergence of understanding business, marketing, startups, launches, as well as writing.
So don't ask your ghostwriter or your editor how to market your book.
[00:48:59] Speaker A: Stephanie, thanks so much for coming on today. I love talking with you. Every time we talk, you blow my mind with something. Every time.
So great to have you on. So, Stephanie, if people want to get in touch with you, people want to follow your work, where do they find you? How do they get in touch with you?
[00:49:14] Speaker B: Well, I'm not really on social media. Sorry to.
Sorry to disappoint anyone. I try to respond to LinkedIn messages, but really the only place
[email protected] because you can get a free ebook where I lovingly placed a lot of my expertise, a lot of the stuff we talked about today.
And you might not even need to contact me because it's a darn good ebook and it gives you a lot of framework on what decisions you need to make with publishing. But if you do go to my website and fill out a form, it's one of the only places I'll actually respond to you.
[00:49:56] Speaker A: Well, Stephanie, thank you so much, everybody. Thanks for joining and we'll see you guys again next week.
