Let me tell you something. If you had told young Carol years ago that she'd be talking about writing a book, a teacher at school would have said, "Carol, are you sure? Are you sure it wasn't somebody else?" But here we are. And I'm going to be honest with you, I used this entire episode for selfish reasons, because I want to write a book and I needed Ally Machate to tell me how.
Ally works with authors who are serious about getting results from their books. Not a vanity project. Not something to decorate your Zoom background with. A book that actually moves your business forward. And the first thing she told me kind of blew my mind: there is such a thing as a wrong book.
The Right Book vs. The Wrong Book
Here's what Ally means. Say you want to be known as the queen of podcasting. You want thought leadership, speaking gigs, credibility in that space. If you sit down and write a memoir instead of a book about podcasting strategy, you might write a perfectly good memoir. But the people who read memoirs are not the same audience as the people who read business books. So it's the wrong book for what you're trying to accomplish right now.
"What makes a book the right book versus the wrong book is really thinking beyond just the book sales. If you want to become known as a thought leader, we want to make sure you're writing a book that supports that goal."
And here's the thing that I needed to hear: you don't need a framework. You don't need to have it all figured out. Thought leadership books focus on ideas, philosophies, experience, and stories. If you have those, and guys, you do, you can write a book. Who knew?
Ally also broke down the cocktail party metaphor, and it stuck with me. When you publish a book, you're not launching it to an audience waiting with bated breath. You're walking into a cocktail party an hour late. The conversation is already happening. Other books exist. Other authors are out there. So you don't just stand in the middle of the room shouting your thing, you join the conversation and become a value add.
"You don't just walk into a cocktail party and stand in the middle of the room and just start saying whatever you want to say. People look at you like you're a weirdo. So why would you publish a book with that mentality?"
That doesn't mean your book has to say something no one's ever said before. It rarely works that way. You just need your unique perspective, your experiences, your intelligence shaping the conversation in a way that's a little different.
Start With Your Business Goal, Not Your Book Idea
This is where Ally flipped the whole thing on its head for me. I asked her, "Okay, I have an idea, what's my next step?" And she said the first step has nothing to do with the book.
First, get clear on what you want to accomplish with your business. Are you trying to get on stages? Pivot into a new niche? Get hired for corporate retreats? Then figure out who you need to reach to make that happen. And then, only then, do you think about the book.
What is the book those people need? What problem do you solve for them? What myth do you need to bust?
As she was walking through it, I was like, this is marketing. It's not about the program. It's not about the solution. It's about the people who need the solution and how you get it to them. Before you throw something out there, make sure you know what it's for.
"You're sort of backwards engineering. I want to do this with my business. I need to connect with these kinds of people. And then, what is the book that those people need?"
And for the record, 25,000 to 40,000 words for a thought leadership book. That's roughly 100 to 160 printed pages. Anything less and your book is a jellyfish with no spine. Anything over 75,000 and you're putting people off. That felt very doable to me.
Ally also made the case that books are more relevant than ever. In a world of doom-scrolling and two-second social media posts, a book is the only vehicle where someone spends six to eight hours in your brain. You cannot get that kind of intimacy from a blog post. Books are here to stay, guys. The format might change, but the idea isn't going anywhere. That kind of strategic alignment is what drives measurable results.
Quick Takeaways
- There is a right book and a wrong book. The right book aligns with your business goal and speaks to the audience you need to reach, not just the topic you feel like writing about.
- You don't need a framework to write a thought leadership book. Ideas, philosophies, experiences, and stories are enough. Prescriptive books need frameworks; thought leadership books need perspective.
- Start with your business goal, not your book idea. Figure out what you want to accomplish, who you need to reach, and then write the book those people need.
- Research your shelf neighbours. Know what conversation is already happening in your space before you join it. Be a value add, not the bull in the china shop.
- Keep it tight. 25,000-40,000 words for thought leadership. No jellyfish books with no spine, and no 1,000-page encyclopedias nobody asked for.
When I asked Ally what she's choosing today, because what you don't change, you choose, she said she's choosing visibility. Getting on podcasts. Putting herself out there. And plot twist: she's finally writing her own book. It's called The Author Advantage, a playbook for authors who already published a book but don't know what to do with it. The woman who helps everyone else write books is writing her own. I absolutely loved that.
"You're sort of backwards engineering. I want to do this with my business. I need to connect with these kinds of people. And then, what is the book that those people need?"
