“Helping Entrepreneurs Turn Book Ideas Into Best Sellers” with Alinka Rutkowska of Leaders Press

Nathan (0s):
Welcome back radio entrepreneurs, listeners, and fans. I’m producer Nathan Gobes filling in for Jeffrey Davis this morning. I’m excited to be back with you today, hosting interviews, and I’m excited to introduce our next guest Alinka Rutowska, CEO of Leaders Press. Welcome Alinka.

Alinka (19s):
Thank you so much for having me.

Nathan (21s):
Yeah. Thank you for joining. Why don’t you start by telling us a little bit about leaders, press what it is you do?

Alinka (28s):
Sure. We help entrepreneurs turn their book ideas into best sellers, and we’ve been able to help 500 entrepreneurs share their wisdom with the world. And we got 172 of those on the USA today. And once we journal best seller lists and we also distribute their books into bookstores through our distribution partnership with Simon and Schuster.

Nathan (52s):
Wow, that’s pretty exciting. I have a few questions, but I think my first question is how did you get into this? Tell us maybe a little bit about your background and what led you into this business.

Alinka (1m 4s):
Passion. I used to work in the corporate world and at a certain point, I just felt that maybe there’s more to life than selling domestic appliances, which is what I was doing. And so I managed to leave and write my first book at the same time. And the royalties from that book that was over 10 years ago, brought me more than my corporate salary. So that got me excited enough to leave the corporate world and started venturing into the publishing industry.

Nathan (1m 36s):
Very interesting. And so tell us more about maybe the types of entrepreneurs you’ve worked with or work with for leaders press. Is there any specific industry that, that you focus in or is it really any entrepreneur? Tell us about that.

Alinka (1m 54s):
Sure. It’s the successful type we like to call our clients and the two main reasons why they would want to do books is one, is in order to grow their businesses or their practices or whatever solo preneurial venture they might have. So that’s the leads generation type of book. And the second type is a legacy piece. So for example, we worked with the co-founder of DHL international who wanted to portray his story of 50 years in DHL. And he wasn’t really interested in having a lead gen piece because it’s a multi-billion dollar business. So he was good, but he wanted to show his followers and people who will outlive him what his life was about.

Nathan (2m 46s):
Hmm. Very interesting. And maybe we can talk about the, the process. I’m sure there’s entrepreneurs out there who have either started writing a book or thinking about it or, you know, are maybe even nearing completion perhaps, but at what stage do you get involved with them and what does the relationship process look like?

Alinka (3m 12s):
Sure. We like to get involved as soon as possible because that’s how we can help entrepreneurs get the best book out there. So really the first thing you should do, if you’re considering doing a book is to understand where it’s going to be on the bookshelf once it’s published. So the best exercise it can do. And we do that at our first call with our clients is go to a bookstore or go to an online bookstore and look for a bookshelf that your book should be on. So for example, if you’re doing a business book, you’re going to go to the business section and then you’re going to look at the sub categories and see whether your book fits into leadership or finance or small business or it, or a mindset and figuring out which one is yours.

Alinka (3m 58s):
Once you’ve figured out which category or which bookshelf you belong to, you want to find, find out a way that your book stands out. So it has to fit into a category, then stand out. So you need to give your readers a reason to get your book as opposed to the books of your competitors right next to yours. And that’s how you start the work on a successful book.

Nathan (4m 24s):
Hmm. Very interesting. And as far as getting things published and, you know, into printed or digital copy, how does, how does that end of the process look like?

Alinka (4m 42s):
So once we’ve got that unique selling proposition, we put together an outline based on that our plan, we interview the author and then go stride based on the transcripts of those interviews. Then we also work from manuscripts. So if there’s somebody listening to us with a manuscript, we can evaluate it and start work from that point, if the script meets our requirements. And once we have that, I take care of the whole publishing process. So the editing, the formatting, a bustling cover, and then we prefer the book for launch and the launch can be either an Amazon bestseller or it can be a USA today or wall street journal bestseller.

Alinka (5m 24s):
And we’re also able to get books into brick and mortar stores through our distribution partnership with Simon and Schuster.

Nathan (5m 31s):
That’s very exciting. And does leaders’ press provide any sort of competitive advantage or benefits that, that, you know, others don’t, you know, foreigners considering what with

Alinka (5m 46s):
Yes, well, these two mentions are the main ones. So we guarantee that you hit the USA today and the wall street journal bestseller list, which are the most prestigious list and really difficult to fit because for USA today, there are only 150 spots every week. So you have to be one of the 150 most sold books in the U S to hit that spot. And for wall street journal it’s for business books, you need to be in one of the top 10 business category. So we guarantee that we’re the only ones who were the only publisher that does that. And we’re also the only hybrid publisher that does both that and is Able to get books into brick and mortar stores. So that definitely allows us to stand out from the whole self publishing world, because we’re not a self publisher.

Alinka (6m 31s):
We call ourselves a hybrid publisher because we make the traditional distribution possible. And this is really the only place that you can get both of these things. So this is our unique selling proposition, and it’s really strong. We have authors coming back to do books with us and get on those lists with us multiple, Multiple times, because they have seen the results of that for one book in terms of what it does for their career and their business. And it’s a really great outcome for them. So that’s why there would be plans.

Nathan (7m 11s):
Great. And I know at the beginning you mentioned that you have a significant number of entrepreneurs you’ve worked with, but, and I know that you’ve also, you also have mentioned to me offline that there’s, you have some significant interest in, in reaching some hot, even higher numbers in the future. Do you want to tell us about that?

Alinka (7m 35s):
Yes. Well, we’ve helped about 500 offers so far share their wisdom with the world and we’re looking to help 10,000 by the end of the decade. So if you’re one of them or if you know anybody who wants to get a book out, then we’d love an introduction, figuring out how we can work together.

Nathan (7m 57s):
Hmm. That’s phenomenal. And I’m sure there’s many people that, that listening to the show that that may consider reaching out if they are interested in reaching out to you, whether they’re somebody who is, you know, in the process and wants to get involved with working with you, or maybe they’re even just considering, or just want to know more about leaders press, what is the best way for them to either get in touch or find out more about the company?

Alinka (8m 22s):
The best place to go to is Dieter’s press.com/discover where you’re going to find a one minute quiz that will determine which book is right for you. Whether it’s the lead generation book or the legacy piece that we talked about anywhere else, you’ll also get a free audio book of outsource your book, which describes every step of the book creation process. And you’ll be able to listen to that because your listeners and that’s all at leaders, press.com/discover.

Nathan (8m 53s):
Great. I want to thank you for joining us today. This was a really interesting look into the world of publishing and entrepreneurial publishing. And once again, thank you for joining our show.

Alinka (9m 7s):
Thank you so much for having me Nathan, so exciting.

Nathan (9m 10s):
You’re welcome. Hopefully you can join us again and report back on those phenomenal numbers you were talking about of, of entrepreneurs working with. In the meantime, though, this has been radio entrepreneurs and we’ll be back with.