Adriana Monique Alvarez is the CEO and Founder of AMA Publishing, where she teaches women how to start highly profitable publishing companies. She’s the author of 15 books (and counting) including How To Start A Six Figure Publishing Company: A Guide for Ambitious Female Entrepreneurs Who Are Ready to Transform a Formerly Male-Dominated Industry. If you’re an ambitious female entrepreneur who wants to write a book, this episode is definitely for you.

In this episode, Adriana tells how she grew up in a small Colorado town, hated going to school, but then grew up to travel the world as an entrepreneur. Now, she helps entrepreneurs to start their own publishing companies and she discusses the details of how that works, as well as how she helps authors make bestseller lists in the Wall Street Journal and USA Today.

Adriana's Links:

AMASpeaks.com

https://www.linkedin.com/in/adriana-monique-alvarez/

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Josh Steimle: Today my guest is Adriana Monique Alvarez. Adriana is the CEO and founder of AMA publishing, where she teaches women how to start highly profitable publishing companies. She's the author of, well, I'm not sure how many books she's the author of, I looked her up on Amazon, there’s all of these books. So we'll have to get her to give us a figure, but one of them is How To Start A Six Figure Publishing Company: A Guide for Ambitious Female Entrepreneurs Who Are Ready to Transform a Formerly Male-Dominated Industry

So if you're an ambitious female entrepreneur who wants to write a book, this episode is definitely for you. Adriana, welcome to the show!

Adriana Monique Alvarez: Thank you. It's so good to be here. 

Josh Steimle: So how many books have you written? Because I was looking at it and I was like I can't even count all these.

Adriana Monique Alvarez: Yes. So I'm at 15 and number 16 launches on December 12th.

Josh Steimle: Wow. That is great. That's a lot of experience. Now let's back up a bit. Can you tell us a bit about yourself and where you come from and how you got into the writing industry?

Adriana Monique Alvarez: Yes, so I am first and foremost, a mama and a wife. I come from the middle of nowhere, Colorado, a very small town, that's eight hours from any major city. And so, I really only wanted to do one thing growing up. I wanted to see the world and I wanted to have more of a perspective than the narrow one that I was raised in. And I fell into this industry, because my husband and I started a business 12 years ago, simply because we just could not stomach working for anyone else.

I was a volunteer in my twenties, overseas in orphanages, and coming back to the US, the American dream, I just, I wasn't trained for it. I wasn't cut out for it.

Josh Steimle: That's great. So how did you dive in then? What was your first book and what led you to say, “This is going to be the first book that I write.”

Adriana Monique Alvarez: Good question. So we had just started our business, maybe a couple of years, and we were living in San Diego, California. I was the queen of BNI and Chamber and all of that. And I was surrounded by people in navy blue pantsuits who were doing really well financially, that just really weren't enjoying life. And it was in that mix that I was inspired to write a little book called 365 Ways to Celebrate Life. And I began to document and journal all of the simple pleasures, all of the little things that actually make life worth living. And I went on to draw 365 illustrations for each of those. And that was, I think the first time I realized that I love creating, that I have something to say, I have something to express. And that was actually the first seed. It would unfold from that time that not only was I here to do that for myself, but to encourage it in others.

Josh Steimle: Oh, that's great. So when did you start helping others to write books? Was it soon after the first one or did it come later?

Adriana Monique Alvarez: No, it came later. Right after that book was launched, my husband and I left the US. We traveled together to many of the places I had went when I was single. And I would say it was probably four years later, that I was in a program, I was facilitating a mastermind and I just threw the question out: “Who here would like to begin writing?”

And so the very first thing I did is I taught women how to write for publications, how to pitch, how to get their articles and their work out there. And then I went onto announce a book that I did as a collaboration. And so I asked everyone, “If you could just contribute one, 3000 word chapter, could you get it done?” Keep it in mind, most of my clients are mothers and running a business, and many of them homeschooling and traveling full-time. And so 28 women said, “Yes,” immediately. And I knew we were onto something. 

So I really dove into this about five years ago when I started offering the little things. And then two years ago is when we officially started our own publishing house and knew that this was going to be a key component to everything we do.

Josh Steimle: That's great. So you've had experience writing books in different ways, in different formats, the 365, 1 lesson a day type of format, and then bringing in other people to help you write a book. Tell us about some of the other books that you've written. If you want to give us an overview of the rest of your writing career.

Adriana Monique Alvarez: You know, I like this bringing other people in, even the book, How to Create a Six Figure Publishing Company, I wrote some aspects of that, but then I brought in some clients, I let them share their story of how they started their publishing company, what they had to overcome, just a bit of their story. And so what I love with books is there's a million ways to do it. And so if writing a book feels intimidating, just keep in mind, there's a lot of ways that you can go about it to help break it down. In fact, this morning, I drew a little stick out of my, it's called a Spark Creativity Box, and it says, “Execute a single idea 10 different ways.” And I think that we often get stuck in thinking, “Oh, a book has to look like this…” but it can look any way you want, what works for you. That's all that matters.

Josh Steimle: So, when did you launch AMA publishing then?

Adriana Monique Alvarez: That was officially launched two years ago. 

Josh Steimle: Okay. And how many people have you worked with, is it primarily women?

Is it only women that you work with? 

Adriana Monique Alvarez: You know, it's interesting you should ask that because I just picked up a book project that's going to have 20 men. It's all men in this book. And then in the book that's coming out on Sunday, there is a male contributor and we did have male contributors in The Younger Self Letters, the USA today book that we released this summer. So it is broadening and it's fun because there's all kinds of people moving forward and saying, “Hey, I want to do this creatively.” And so that's what we’re doing. 

Josh Steimle: Got it. So how many authors have you worked with then over the past two years since you launched, roughly?

Adriana Monique Alvarez: That's a good question. I would say in addition to the books, we probably done about 200 authors and then we have helped about 50 women start their own publishing house. And so then, seeing their contributors, I would say our average client works with about a hundred authors a year. 

Josh Steimle: That's great. Now, when you say start a publishing house, that sounds really daunting. What does that look like?

Adriana Monique Alvarez: It does. It sounds like, “Oh my gosh. I'd rather not.” The thing of it is, I like to approach everything in the most simple way possible. It's like, how can we chunk this down and break it down? So the very first thing I teach my clients to do is how to find the people who really want to write a book, but who have been discouraged or intimidated by the pitching process by traditional publishing. And so I teach them, this is where you go to get your first 10 or 20 clients.

And because what I find is once cashflow is moving, then they can find, “Okay, what's my specialty?” I have some clients, they love children's books, others like memoirs, some like multi-author. So it's just about getting the ball rolling and saying, “You know what, I'm here to champion other people's stories and I can figure out the rest of it as we go.”

Josh Steimle: So still when these people that are starting publishing houses and they're bringing in other authors, they're helping these other authors through the process. Do you give them a sort of recipe or template or formula, a model to follow to do that?

Adriana Monique Alvarez: Yes. I would say it's almost like a franchise type model.

And so they have: here's a few different types of books you could produce, here's just a few different ways to approach those types of books, here's ways that you can market it, here's how you handle the Amazon aspect, here's how you can handle the marketing, here's how you build community. And so it's something that people can easily plug into. 

Many of our clients love it because either they're coming from corporate or academia. And so the idea of starting a business and having to do everything from scratch is overwhelming. And with our program, they don't have to, we have a proven method. They can plug and play. They can expand it as much as they want, but if they want to just follow the plan, they can.

Josh Steimle: Now are all of these entrepreneurs, are they starting publishing houses and publishing other people's books? Where sometimes is there a reason to start a quote unquote publishing house just for your own books?

Adriana Monique Alvarez: There has been people approach me with that, I really want to publish my own book. And then once I've done that, I might want to expand and offer this to other clients or current clients. So yeah, there are people who do it just because they want to start publishing their own books or their own journals, their own coloring books, anything like that. 

Josh Steimle: Got it. So can you tell us some of the success stories that you've seen, specific people who have gone on to make this work and work out for them?

Adriana Monique Alvarez: Yeah, there's a few that come to mind. One of them in particular, she's on my mind because she's actually getting ready to go move from Florida to I think she's moving to Vermont, and she just bought a house herself and she's a single mom, two little ones. And in one year's time, she has completely transformed her entire life. She came in with no experience, but a lot of passion. She followed the system. She plugged into the community. And now not only does she produce her own books, and she has so many clients, I think her waitlist is maybe out until April or May of next year.

But she also produces and supports a lot of the books of the other women in our community.

Josh Steimle: And the people that you're working with, do they have any certain focus? Is it fiction nonfiction? Is it a certain genre?

Adriana Monique Alvarez: Everyone's a little bit different. And some do a couple. So once they've worked with a handful of clients, they tend to realize, “Oh, you know what, this is really what I love to champion. This is what I love to work with.” And so they can pick their specialty as they go. So yeah, we have a broad spectrum in the group.

Josh Steimle: And I know for a lot of these people, it's a labor of love. They want to make a difference. They want to make an impact, but also people do need to support families and themselves.

How does this work out financially for these people? Is it lucrative?

Adriana Monique Alvarez10:36

It's very lucrative. Yes. And I think this is what most people don't realize is the amount of money that can be made in the publishing industry would blow most people's minds. Women who do this and do it well, they can make more than the doctor or attorney that's across from them at the coffee shop.

And most of them are doing it in 20 or 25 hours a week.

Josh Steimle: And so how does this work? They're bringing in authors and they're helping these authors. Obviously the author gets a cut, obviously Amazon and everybody else gets a cut, the printer gets a cut, and then they're taking a cut of this as well. Do you have a certain way that you recommend that they set this up in terms of royalties and who gets what?

Adriana Monique Alvarez: For me, I keep royalties really clean. If it's a solo author and it's their own book, they take all the royalties. If it is a multi-author book, we do not split any royalties because it becomes a legal and accounting mess for all of time, as long as this is on Amazon, we're gonna divide this up every quarter. And so what I personally do with collaboration books that I put together is we donate the proceeds of the book to a charity that we choose together. 

Josh Steimle: So with the people that you're advising who are setting up their own publishing houses, how are they dividing it up in terms of the royalties for their clients?

If somebody comes with the solo project, are they not taking a cut of those royalties? Are they just charging for the service that they help them to get the book launched? So kind of a hybrid publishing model? 

Adriana Monique Alvarez: Yes. It's a hybrid publishing model. They don't take royalties. They charge for the services that they provide.

Josh Steimle: Got it. Okay. Great. On your book journey then with your books that you're producing now, what is your focus? Who's the target audience. And who are you trying to reach? What kind of impact are you trying to make on them?

Adriana Monique Alvarez: It's so funny you asked this, I just wrote it out yesterday. So the stories I'm going to focus on and the books I produce in 2022, are people who have made big moves in the last two years. So the twenties sparked this huge catalyst for change. I'm going to be championing stories of people who quit their job, who started a business, who transitioned from in-person to online. People who pulled their kids out of school decided to homeschool, world school, unschool. People who emancipated themselves from the healthcare system, who decided to grow their own food, make their own medicine, be their own doctor. People who decided to connect more with their heart and soul versus just this is the dream, check off another list buy another thing, and hope you feel good about it. So I am championing people who've made those big moves and people who teach people how to do this. 

And this is near and dear to my heart because this is how Derek and I have done it. My husband and I, from the beginning, when we got married, we said, we're not happy with either one of us getting in a car, being in traffic, working for someone else. We have never had health insurance, we’re like every bit of medicine we take is all plant-based. And in the last year, we've moved and we started homesteading. We've started an orchard. The greenhouse is going up. Like self-sufficiency is our number one dream. So I'm going to be spotlighting people who are doing it differently, they're really blazing their own trail. And it's very counterculture. It's very not following society's rules, but it’s taking them good places.

Josh Steimle: I’ve got to ask. I don't know how you fit this all in. It sounds like you're really busy with a ton of stuff. How do you do this?

Adriana Monique Alvarez: Yeah. I have a team and I do it really smart. And this is also what I teach is like being very careful about the projects you do take and making sure that they're worth it in every which way. Because what I have to tell you is I actually take Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday off every week. So I have plenty of time to play with the kids and enjoy whatever is blooming or happening in the homestead. And so I think, especially for mothers, it's about prioritizing and it's making sure that you're charging what you need to so that you can actually enjoy your life.

Josh Steimle: That's great. You're homesteading, where are you doing this?

Adriana Monique Alvarez: So this is my grandparents' property in Colorado. I'm back to where I'm from. And my grandma recently passed away and the house was sitting here and everyone was trying to figure out what was going to happen with it. And as fate would have it, we were just like, you know what, let's do it. So I'm learning a ton. I have learned a ton in the last year.

Josh Steimle: This is great. You've said a lot of things that sparked my personal interest because my wife and I, we've homeschooled our kids. My wife is the author of two homeschooling books, and we've lived around the world. We've homeschooled our kids in Hong Kong and China and across the US, east coast, west. Now we're in Arizona. 

So a lot of this is of interest to me personally as well. And of course the book stuff is the most interesting, but the rest of it's quite interesting as well. I'm curious, do you find ways to involve your kids in what you're doing in the family business, so to speak?

Adriana Monique Alvarez: Absolutely. I have found that having an impact and leaving a legacy, it matters to me and knowing that I've made a difference. And I see this through my clients. But I have to tell you, it would all be for not if my kids did not receive something huge through all this, if this wasn't transferred to them.

And so Derek and I and everything that we do, we include them. Just as an example, about four weeks ago, we planted about 500 bulbs. We did tulips and irises and all kinds of things that are going to come up in early spring. And we gave everyone a job. So I dug the whole, Grant put the bulbs in, Sam put the dirt on top, and they were part of it.

And so when those flowers come up, they had a hand in that. They have chores every day. Their school is done really in just a few hours a day. And the rest of it is life skills. Even with our business, we tell them what we're doing, and they know that we're making books and sharing stories. At bedtime, I love hearing their stories. Tell me your favorite part of today. And it gets them into that practice of using their voice and expressing what matters to them. 

Josh Steimle: That's great. Now, were you homeschooled growing up?

Adriana Monique Alvarez: I was not. No, that was pretty frowned upon when I was growing up. Those were the weird kids. And both my parents have owned brick and mortar businesses my whole life. And so I went into public school, I hated every day of it. But I grew up just like everyone, like the average kid. The thing that I decided when I found out I was pregnant is I wanted my kids with me. I don't want somebody else having an influence over them for eight hours a day. I want them home and I want them learning what matters. And most of all, I want to have that time with them because what I've noticed, their birthdays are coming up in January, they're going to turn seven and eight and I don't even know where that went.  It's like a blink of an eye. And so I really treasure this time that I have with them, because I know it's going to be gone soon. 

Josh Steimle: Sounds like we're aligned on a lot of things. We often have spoken to our kids about public school as a punishment, “Hey, if you don't behave, we're going to send you to school.”

Adriana Monique Alvarez: Oh my Gosh. I said this exact thing yesterday, and you probably are going to hear them in the background of this episode. And so I apologize in advance, but yesterday, all that was ready to come out of my mouth was four letter words. Cause it was just like extra wrestling and all the nonsense. And when I hung up from this live interview, I said, “You do that again and you're going to public school.” 

And it was like,  “Anything but that mom, we were just going to straighten up. Oh Gosh, please don't do that.” 

Actually I have to tell you a funny story. During the summer, they got this idea from some kid at the park that they wanted to go to school. So I pulled a bunch of strings, I got them in this private school. It was like the best thing that I could find, cause there was no way I was gonna put them in public school. Like I've been through that and they went for three weeks and they get in the car one day and burst into tears and said, “Mom, we just can't do it anymore. We just don’t want to do it.”

And I said, “Oh, thank goodness, because I can't do it anymore. The idea of getting up early and breakfast, getting dressed, getting in the car, and then going to school and homework. I hated every minute of it.” 

And I was so glad that they did too, because I just couldn't take it anymore. 

Josh Steimle: Yeah, it's kind of funny,  because we grew up homeschooling two of our kids and then we adopted an older child. She's 14. She's 16 now, but she was 14 when we adopted her. She came from China and she was in a boarding school. So 24/7 schooling. And so we brought her to the US and we were letting her kind of do her own things self directed learning, homeschooling, and she was not on board with it. She's like, “I want to go to school.”

So then it turned into we can't punish her with school, then it has to be a privilege, I guess. “Okay, you can go to school, but only if you do these other things.” And it's been an interesting relationship we've had with schools and public schools.

I grew up going to public school, of course. And I didn't like it. When we looked at our kids, the same thing that you are saying, “I don't want somebody else to be influencing my kids most of their waking hours.” And also we thought, “We've only got 18 years with our kids. Like it's going to go so fast and then they'll be gone and we'll say, they were gone most of the time, if they're in school.”

And so anyway, we're off on a tangent here. But part of what also bringing this back to the topic of writing and such, I didn't learn how to write in public schools. I was taught at home. I was taught to love reading at home. I was taught to love writing at home. And then thankfully public schools did not dissuade me of my love of reading or writing, but I didn't really discover I was a writer until I was in my thirties. And I started writing for Forbes and some other publications. And I realized, I love doing this. 

And I think when you're educating your kids at home, you're doing it yourself, you have the opportunity to teach kids how to love things like writing, like reading. And I feel like in the traditional school system, so much of the time, that's forced out of you.

In fact, I heard a great quote the other day. I can't remember who said it, but it was, “Creatives are adults who survived childhood.” 

Adriana Monique Alvarez: That's the honest to God truth. And I'm so glad you said that, because when I look at my kids and I'm with them all day, they are so creative and they believe that they are creative. They believe they are good at art. They are good at writing. They are good at all of these things. And I don't want anyone to tell them otherwise. I want them to be that adult, like you said, where they are constantly creating. If you think about it, most of society is over consuming everything and it's simply because they forgot that they're absolutely incredible creators, that they have so much inside of them.

But most adults, if you ask them, “Are you creative?” 

“Oh, no, I'm not creative.”

Josh Steimle: Yeah. So how much would you say of your work helping adults to become creators, to become authors, how much of your work is really just getting them in touch with their childhood? And saying, “Forget everything that you've learned since you were a kid. And let's go back to when you were a kid and you weren't afraid to just do stuff, to throw paint on something, to write anything down, to push all the buttons on the TV remote.” 

Adriana Monique Alvarez: That is most of my work, honestly, it's a whole lot of unlearning, a whole lot of taking one voice that said one thing, one time and replacing it with: This is who you really are. Let's remember who you really are. Let's remember what you loved. Let's remember what you enjoyed before somebody criticized the heck out of it. And this is also what I tell my clients, because here's the interesting thing about starting your own publishing house at least the way I teach it, is I don't believe in saying, “Oh, you know what? I'm here to champion your story. I'm going to help you bring out the best of you.” And at the same time, they are completely suppressed themselves. 

I tell my clients, “You have to walk this out. If you actually want to make a difference and you want to attract the best clients, it's not about just do what I say. No, model it.” 

And that's what I really am here to do is say, you know what, especially the world that we're in and where we're headed, I don't care what people know. I want to know what they live, because that's their truth. And that's what we're getting back to. Like you said, returning to that place, that very childlike, innocent, creative, spacious place before anyone told us what we could or couldn't do and tapping into that and not being afraid anymore.

Josh Steimle: And it's hard sometimes because, sometimes an authority figure, a parent, a teacher, somebody, there's some seven year old somewhere saying, “I want to write a book.” And a teacher says, “Who are you to write a book or writing a book is hard.” And then it gets stuck in their head. And then they carry that with themselves for the next thirty years. “Writing a book is hard. Writing a book is hard. Who am I to write a book?” And then we have to help them go back and undo that and say, “Actually, it's not that bad. Yeah. It's hard, but you can do it.”  

Adriana Monique Alvarez: It’s true. Another one that I hear often is people at some point, they wrote something, and they shared it, and then immediately that adult said, “Well you know, writers don't make any money.” 

This is our work, is to tap back into who we really are. And to trust that, if I have this desire, then there's a reason for it. And the most heartbreaking thing is when people have that desire, they have something to say, but it's like you said, it's almost like they revert back to that seven-year-old and they're afraid of the criticism, they're afraid of the this and the that, and what somebody is going to say. 

I have spent this week supporting the contributors whose book is coming out on Sunday, because all these fears come up before a launch. I say things about launches I probably can't say on your podcast, but basically people freak out in all kinds of ways. Even when they know they were excited and ready to do it because most of us are terrified of others criticizing us, of others rejecting our story. And so yeah, there's so much growth that comes through writing. Even if somebody doesn't want to write a book, if they are willing to write something every day, express something every day, it is incredibly important and helpful as we live our lives.

Josh Steimle: Now, speaking to that thing you've said that a lot of people say, “Oh, writers don't make books or you can't make money off your books.” What are some examples you've seen where that's not true that people are making money off their books?

Adriana Monique Alvarez: I'm a great example. So most of the leads I get for people who want to start their own publishing company, I asked them, “How did you hear about me?”

“Oh, I saw your book on Amazon. I read your book.” 

When I look at the entrepreneurs that I'm with, even the group that I just told you about, the men who are going to share their story. What happens when you begin to organize your thoughts and you put your books together, as you realize you're building a community and then your community wants more of you. They're always ready for the next step. So if you're in tune with them, that might look like retreats or programs or courses or who knows what, it can be anything you want and anything that they're ready for. So what I find is that the books are a great entry point for people to learn about you.

And then when you are building an in relationship with people, the sky is the limit. There's so many different directions you can go. 

And even like my husband and I over the weekend, we're brainstorming other ideas that we're going to do with this business. We're going to create a whole series of journals and coloring books and planners. And it's like, once you begin to allow yourself to think in a new direction, it keeps opening up new doors. It keeps opening up new parts of yourself. But if we just stay in this mechanical way of living where we're too busy to have any reflection, where we don't express anything, we just do what's expected of us, then our greatest gold stays trapped.

Josh Steimle: And often it seems like we cut ourselves off too soon. I'm thinking of some of the other interviews I've done here with people who made a lot of money off their books, but it wasn't that they wrote a book in a vacuum and then put it out on Amazon KDP and then just left it. That's not what happened. 

I interviewed Dr. Paul White yesterday, who's the coauthor of The Five Languages of Appreciation in the Workplace. And he said, “If I had written that book by myself, I would have sold 3000 copies. Nobody would've heard of it. And we wouldn't be having this conversation today.” But he went out and he coauthored it with Gary Chapman, who wrote The Five Love Languages, which had already sold millions of copies. So he attached himself to somebody who was successful. And now his book has sold over half a million copies. That's creativity right there. That's looking beyond, “Hey, I’m just going to write a book and put it out there.” Maybe you can connect with somebody else.  

I think about Connor Boyack. He started a children's book series called the Tuttle Twins. And he said, “I wrote the first two books and nothing happened, but then I wrote the third one. And it started to sell. And then I did a fourth and a fifth. Now he's up into the twenties with books and he sold over 4 million books in his series.” He didn't stop at one or two books. 

And so I think of all these examples of people who are making a lot of money off their books. But they didn't just stop with, “Hey, I wrote a book and I stuck it on Amazon and then nothing happened.” Yeah, maybe you need to do a little bit more than just that.

Adriana Monique Alvarez: It's such a good point. Collaboration is a key point. I told you right before this, I was on a group call. It's a referral group that I meet with every single week. And this is a conversation we have continuously, “If you're not where you want to go, or your message is not heard by the number of people that you would like, then who can you connect with? How can we change this?” We don't just accept it. We change it. We begin to figure out how else can we approach it? 

It goes back to this, “I know there's at least 10 different ways this can be done. What am I willing to do about it?” And I agree, this is a commitment and a dedication to what's within us. It's not, “I did it, I tried it, and nobody's interested.” 

No, the real magic happens when we are willing to say, “I know who I am, and I know what I'm here to do in the world. And I'm going to keep creating, I'm going to keep contributing. I'm going to keep showing up.” That's what it’s about. 

Josh Steimle: And isn't that what being an entrepreneur is about is not accepting things as they're handed to you, but making changes, making it something different.

Going back to ripping on the public school system. This is one of the things I don't like about the system is I feel like it trains people to accept what's handed to them and not look beyond that. “Oh, I can't do anything. This is what I've been given. So I'm stuck.” It's really a victim mentality and as entrepreneurs, we can't live with that, we don't have time for that. 

Adriana Monique Alvarez: That's the truth. 

Josh Steimle: So one of the other things that you do is you help people become Wall Street Journal, USA Today Bestselling Authors. Can you tell us a little bit more about that? 

Adriana Monique Alvarez: Yeah, absolutely. So this book series is called The Younger Self Letters, and I chose this theme and each book is a variation of that. I chose it because honestly I was bored to tears hearing another entrepreneur talk about how incredible they were, what they knew, how much money they'd made. And I decided I really wanted to tap into entrepreneurs. Yes, they had all of that, but they also had this huge heart. They were willing to tell a more personal story because I find this can happen a lot in business. People are so used to having that mask on. I wanted them to take it down for a minute and let us in their heart. And so in this book series, I ask each contributor to identify an age and write the entire chapter to themselves at that age. 

Josh Steimle: And then how does that become a bestseller though? What's your formula?

What's your method? 

Adriana Monique Alvarez: I can't tell you that! That's like a godfather moment. I'd have to take you out. No, in all honesty, I think it's a multi-pronged approach, right? Obviously these are people who have lists and who have audiences. Then we have our own marketing team and we had to all put it together in this big crock pot of marketing juice.

And yeah, we get it out to a huge audience and we also market it over time. A huge launch is always fun and exciting. Hitting big lists is incredible. But we also want to keep selling the book after that. 

Josh Steimle: Now is this something you just do with these collaborative books where a lot of people are in it, or do you help solo authors to get on these lists as well?

Adriana Monique Alvarez: You know, up until this point, I've only done collaboration books. I'm always open to working with solo authors, but up until now, that's all we've done is the group books.

Josh Steimle: Got it. Well, Adriana, this has been great chatting today. For people who want to learn more about what you're doing, maybe join one of your programs. Where's the best place for them to go? 

Adriana Monique Alvarez: They can go to amaspeaks.com. And they can find out some more information and click a few things and we can make sure they're taken care of. 

Josh Steimle: Perfect. And are you always taking new people into the programs or do they just open at certain times? Or how do you do that?

Adriana Monique Alvarez: Good question. It's always open enrollment.

Josh Steimle: Okay, great. If you're a female entrepreneur out there or a male entrepreneur or anybody else who's interested in working with Adriana, go check her out. 

Thank you so much, Adriana, for being with us here today on the Published Author Podcast.

Adriana Monique Alvarez: Absolutely. Thank you so much.