Susan Friedmann [00:00:00]:
Welcome to Book Marketing Mentors, the weekly podcast where you learn proven strategies, tools, ideas, and tips from the masters. Every week, I introduce you to a marketing master who will share their expertise to help you market and sell more books. Today, we have two special guests, Tina Dietz and Michelle Fishering.Â
Tina is an award winning speaker, audiobook publisher, podcast producer, and vocal leadership expert featured on ABC, NBC, CBS, The Wall Street Journal, inc dot com, and Forbes. As the founder of Twin Flames Studios, she reimagines thought leadership through audiobooks for experts, executives, and founders. Her podcast, Drink from the Well, engages over 300,000 listeners with her entertaining leadership elixir on today's top workplace challenges.Â
And Michelle is an authorship consultant, strategist, book architect, and publisher. After fifteen years in the luxury wine industry, she turned her passion for books into a mission, helping big thinkers transform their ideas into compelling nonfiction.
With a blend of structure and intuition, she crafts books that challenge perspectives, spark conversation, and build lasting legacies.Â
Wow. This is a real honor to welcome Tina back to the show and Michelle for the first time to welcome you to the show. And really appreciate you being today's guest experts and mentors. Oh, thank you.
Tina Dietz [00:01:50]:
And this is wonderful. Hey, Michelle. We sound great.
Michelle Fishering [00:01:53]:
I know. I love listening to that. I was like, oh, neat. I know. I like this.
Susan Friedmann [00:01:57]:
Hey. We gotta start off the right way. So a couple of things, listeners. Number one, if I sound a little off today, I apologize because I think I'm coming down with some sort of cold, flu, something. I'm not sure. But I didn't want to not do this interview today. We're doing our best, or I'm doing my best because I know my guests will do their very best to bring some wonderful information to you. The other intro too is to let you know why we're doing this.
Susan Friedmann [00:02:34]:
Because several months ago, Tina and Michelle talked to me about a new project that they're working on, and that is turning podcasts into books. And I was intrigued. I thought this was a novel idea, and I thought, hey, this is something for our listeners. So you're in for a treat, listeners. This is going to be a super conversation with Michelle and Tina. Let's get started. And have you introduced this idea of turning a podcast into a book that sounds like something novel? Tell us more about it.
Tina Dietz [00:03:20]:
It's quite interesting. We tend to get one of two reactions from folks. One is that, oh my goodness. That sounds like a great idea. Tell me more. And the other is, oh, well, you're just kinda slapping the transcripts together onto the pages, which is definitely not what we're doing. But Michelle and I, met about almost a year ago now, and I stopped her on LinkedIn because of a post she wrote that was so compelling about the publishing industry and the struggles and the trials and tribulations of trying to develop authentic content that I literally reached out to four or five of my mutual colleagues and said, do you actually know Michelle? Can you introduce me to her? And we ended up scheduling, you know, twenty minute get to know you conversation. And three hours later, we realized it was dark outside.
Tina Dietz [00:04:11]:
And so that was the beginning of this friendship that evolved into kind of a mutual determination society where we were kind of commiserating on the different challenges that authors have around creating books, the mistakes that we see authors making. So in my one company, we each own other companies. And in her company with working with authors, developing their books, and ghostwriting, and publishing consulting, and all of the work that Michelle has done for years with authors, and my work with audiobooks, and having developed and published more than 500 audiobooks, we came down to a situation where we were like, you know, we could make this process so much easier, so much faster, so much less expensive, so much less burnout for authors who are developing these books to build their platforms. Why don't we give it a try? That's where the notion of taking podcast content and turning it into published books was born, which has now turned into a new company called Alembic Press. Michelle, what did I miss?
Michelle Fishering [00:05:16]:
Maybe that we still can't get on a call that lasts less than three hours. Yeah.
Tina Dietz [00:05:20]:
I mean, that's definitely true. That is very true. That
Michelle Fishering [00:05:24]:
So nothing has faded there. I guess the only other piece that I'll tack on there is the process itself. So Alembic Press is the name of the company in the publishing house. And Alembic being the vessel that's used in alchemy that you put the raw materials in and distill into that final essence, that gold. It's really what we see that we're doing with a podcast. We're taking the raw material of sometimes hundreds of conversations and distilling it and curating it into this final essence, into this refined version that is this book that gets to exist in its a more lasting format, etcetera, etcetera. So we can talk more about all of those pieces, but that's our process is called podcast alchemy for that reason. I love that.
Susan Friedmann [00:06:16]:
It's a sort of like there's some magic involved here, and I know there's lots of magic involved in that whole process. You know, there are people who have written books, our listeners. Some of them have written books, some of them haven't. Why would they want to do this? Is it easier to have a book in this format versus sitting down and writing their own book? Talk to us more about that.
Tina Dietz [00:06:44]:
Oh, hell yes. 100%. It's easier because I think most podcasters don’t even realize that they’ve already created one or more books out of their podcast content.
And this goes back to some of the problems we were looking to solve. We see authors come through the writing process feeling burnt out—having spent anywhere from six months to, on the long side, three to five years developing a book that was meant to be their manifesto, their framework, their gift to the world.
After spending so much time—and quite honestly, so much money—on the book, Susan, you know as a marketing expert, when they finally get to the launch, the work has only just begun. So many authors are exhausted, with no more time, no more money, and no more energy left to do the marketing required to make their book a success. They’ve poured everything into writing and left it all on the stage.
We started asking: How can we help people—especially those who don’t have the time or aren’t natural writers? I’m a good writer, but I don’t enjoy writing that much. Some people love sitting down to write, and that’s great. But many of us would rather podcast, speak, or do anything other than stare at a blank page.
This process, as Michelle was saying, distills all the gold already in the podcast into a book. And the beauty of it is that there are so many different ways to shape that book based on their goals.
It saves time. It saves money. And most importantly, it preserves the author’s energy so they can actually go out and talk about their book, market it, and have a great experience building their audience and platform—without burning themselves out in the process.
Michelle Fishering [00:08:44]:
And, Tina, I'm gonna add something to what you just said. That's something more ephemeral that I think what came up for me, we have a a client we're writing a book for now who's written several other books. She seems to enjoy the process of writing. She's quite a good writer. But she's at a point in her business where she's sort of shifting her own perception of herself and her work. She's at that inflection point. And the work that she's done in the past is, you know, on one side, and she's moving herself into a new version of the work that she's doing. She's reimagining how her work exists in the world and the impact that it has.
Michelle Fishering [00:09:22]:
One of the things that we are able to gift her is seeing her work in a new light. And so we can see her existing body of work that exists on the podcast. The conversations that she's having have been leading to this place where she is now over the last year and a half or more. We're able to see that because we're not so close to it, and we're able to pull those pieces out and show her her own brilliance, show her what it is that she's been actually she has been talking about these things for a while now versus her having to go through I mean, the whole process of writing requires so much, like, mining of the soul and of your ideas and really working with them and sculpting them and shaping them.
Susan Friedmann [00:10:08]:
But the
Michelle Fishering [00:10:09]:
point is is that you've already done a lot of that on a podcast. We're able to kinda be this outside influence that is the outside looking in, and we can see so many things that you don't see about what's already there. It's not even necessarily someone who doesn't enjoy the process of writing, but just someone who understands that their ideas are expressed in a different way on a podcast, in a conversation, whether that be a solo podcast where they're just having a conversation with the listener or a guest podcast where they're interviewing and having a conversation with a guest. There's lots of different ways that can look. But what comes out of that, there's something very intimate and vulnerable and unique and real and raw that doesn't really happen when you're sitting down to write a book because you've already massaged it all by that point.
Susan Friedmann [00:10:59]:
Oh, I love that approach because you're right. I know that I certainly don't necessarily write the way I come over on the podcast. And over the years now, you know, I'm in my eighth year of doing the podcast, and I've seen the progression of allowing myself to be much freer with the conversation and allowing it to be much more organic than being too structured. It's a whole different conversation. Now as you're talking, both of you, I'm thinking, is this for podcasters or is it for podcast guests or is it for both?
Tina Dietz [00:11:36]:
Well, we could take it in a couple of different directions. Primarily, we're working with podcast hosts who are looking at, well, how can I expand my platform? How can I expand my audience? How can I diversify my income streams? How can I gain more authority in my own leadership, thought leadership, by prominence in my industry? Those are most of what we're talking about. However, if it is a guest based podcast like this one, an interview based podcast, The host has a number of different options, and Michelle can probably run down, like, 18 different ways to use this content as the book strategist she is. But in broad strokes, you can pull out some of the stories of the guests, the quotes of the guests, the wisdom of the guests, and incorporate them into the book overall. And then the host is kind of like it's their book. They're the only author on the book. Or if there wants to be a more of a collaborative effort, these books can be done as an anthology style book, which I know that you've produced in the past, Susan, as well. And the brilliance of doing that is that we already have the content for the chapters from the guests.
Tina Dietz [00:12:47]:
If anybody has ever been a part of an anthology book or God Love You has created one, it's a lot of herding cats of all of the people who are writing individual chapters around a specific topic for a book. So you have to wait for that person to write the chapter. You have to have somebody edit those chapters. You have to have the consistency in the voice. It's very hard to do when you've got twenty, thirty, 40 people writing different pieces of a book. Our process allows a podcast host to take all the content that they've already had, reach out to their audience and say, hey, you are a fantastic guest on my podcast. Now I'm creating a book out of my podcast. I'd like for you to contribute.
Tina Dietz [00:13:30]:
We're gonna do this collectively, pool our resources together. But guess what? You're just gonna need to kind of approve your chapter because you've already written it by being a guest on my show. And so we're shortening the process. There's not nearly as much editing required. We can normalize the voice of the book while keeping the individual people's tones and flavors alive inside of it. And overall, it makes it more accessible for the guests to participate, and it makes it easier for the host to produce it overall. And you can put more of your efforts into the marketing of that book together rather than having an enormous budget needed on the production side.
Susan Friedmann [00:14:13]:
Yeah. I was smiling and laughing when you talked about the work that's involved. I produced six anthologies
Tina Dietz [00:14:20]:
Oh, wow.
Susan Friedmann [00:14:21]:
And talk about herding cats. I mean, it's unbelievable to the point where the last one I did, I was like, I don't think I want to do this again.
Michelle Fishering [00:14:34]:
I have also God bless
Susan Friedmann [00:14:35]:
you that you want to do one.
Michelle Fishering [00:14:37]:
I have also produced a couple, Susan, and I learned very quickly that I don't want to do one. Yeah. It's very, very difficult.
Susan Friedmann [00:14:46]:
It's wonderful once the end result, and I know the authors who were involved in the books love it at the end when they got the book, and their picture's on the book, and they've got their chapter, and some of them have launched a career out of being in an anthology we compiled. I love that. I think you answered the question, but I might dig a little deeper. Let's take this show, for instance. As you know, this episode is going to be, like, 470 something, I think. And how do I pick the best out of all of those?
Michelle Fishering [00:15:25]:
That's the benefit. If we're doing it, you're not picking that. You're not having to pick them. We're picking them. Some of it can be based on popular episodes. Right? That can be one way of getting into it. So what are the most resonant episodes? Otherwise, typically, we're looking at the more recent episodes because thinking changes so much. So whether it's your thinking as the host or just what you were talking about in book marketing.
Michelle Fishering [00:15:50]:
Yeah. Like, three years ago is maybe some of it is pertinent, maybe some of it's timeless, but maybe some of it was really big three years ago and is maybe not still really pertinent today. Some of how we curate that is, you know, obviously, podcast dependent. But we're looking for what are the cohesive themes, what are the first of all, the deep dive strategy of, like, what book are we creating, How does this support and fit into your overall ecosystem and to the rest of your body of work? If you have existing books that you've already written, how will this book be different but complementary? There's a lot of things we have to look at before we can decide what podcast episodes, what conversations need to be pulled out and fit into that vision. You know, then there's a process of, okay, so now we kinda know what we're creating. Now, let's look at the pool of what we have and let's start pulling out themes. Let's start pulling out key pieces of the conversation. So there's just a lot of different ways that that can look and a lot of different ways that we would have to it's so personal.
Michelle Fishering [00:16:53]:
Every single podcast, every single podcast host is gonna be different. I know that's, like, not the best it's not the best response, but it really is, if this were something you were gonna try to do on your own, you've gotta start with that foundation of, like, what book are you building, and then you're looking at which episodes fit that. How do I curate this? Which is often also why it's very difficult to do on your own because you're so close to the work. You can't see what we can see.
Susan Friedmann [00:17:19]:
Exactly. As you're talking, I'm, like, going through my mind. It's like, which ones were the best ones? And for the first time this year, I actually did the best of 2024. I featured a couple of episodes that had the best response from listenership. And so we put them out again, and they also did really well second time around. There's something in that.
Michelle Fishering [00:17:46]:
Yeah. Absolutely. But also if you were to think about, let's say I know Tina has been on speaking about audiobooks in the past. So let's say the theme that we focused on was something about, like, the add ons that you can do after you've written your book in terms of from a marketing perspective. Like, what other things are important? So then it's maybe, like, the speaking courier, the audiobook version. We would curate those episodes based on the themes that are important for the conversation that that book is contributing to. It's less dependent on necessarily what are the popular episodes, although that can be a place to start, and more dependent on what book are we creating and what's the overarching vision and the connecting thread. And then we're pulling the episodes that connect to that thread and complete that picture.
Susan Friedmann [00:18:33]:
And from a host perspective, what else do you need from a host other than obviously access to the episodes?
Tina Dietz [00:18:44]:
Oh, we need their vision, and we need their goals about what they want to be doing because there are so many different books that can be written out of the same pile of content.
We're working with a show right now that is near and dear to my heart. My first career was as a therapist, and I have a dear framing colleague who has a brilliant podcast called Responder Resilience. He’s a former firehouse captain, and his two cohosts are mental health specialists who work with first responders.
The whole show is designed to showcase first responders, create community among different types of first responders, and normalize the difficulties and challenges they go through—whether they overcome them, struggle with them, or experience a mix of both.
We could have written a number of different books out of that show—stories of inspiration, career techniques, or a guide on how to advance as a first responder. But the book we are writing with them is going to be the first-ever clinical guide for mental health practitioners who work with first responders, helping them be more effective in their work.
Nobody has created this book before, and now these two mental health professionals are going to have a bigger platform as they go out into the world and do more speaking. They have a plan to create continuing education programs. They’ve already founded a nonprofit to gather funds and offer scholarships to mental health professionals so that we can better serve this vital, amazing group of professionals who are out there saving lives every day.
I get very passionate about this. That’s the kind of thing we get to create with our authors and podcast hosts—people who are deeply committed to serving their audiences.
That book could have gone in any number of directions, but part of the process is digging into the vision, goals, and purpose that align with the overall platform each host is looking to build.
Michelle Fishering [00:20:53]:
Sometimes they don't have a specific vision for the book. They don't really know. They come in and they're like, well, we heard about that you're doing this thing. They have a vision for their podcast, but they don't often see how that can translate to a book, which is what our work really is, is helping them see what's possible. And often that looks like, Tina and I do not suffer from a vision issue. Yeah. All the big vision that Yeah. It's really our job in the beginning to help them expand their vision of what's possible, given the work that they've already done.
Michelle Fishering [00:21:26]:
And then we're both strategists by nature. We've both done strategy of all different minds in all different worlds for years. We probably have a lot more years worth of strategy experience than I would like to admit or either of us might like to admit together. But the point is that it's our job to hear what they're not saying, to hear what's behind the mission behind the existing work. We just had a conversation yesterday with someone who's trying to he has this big mission and a big vision, but he thinks that the book can only look one way. That's how a book is supposed to be done. It has to look this way. It has to do this thing.
Michelle Fishering [00:22:05]:
When, in reality, what would actually be a better service to not only the ecosystem he's creating, but also the people he's trying to serve is actually what he's already doing on the podcast and would be able to just this expansive vision. So often, it's our job to hear what they're saying, to hear what's behind or underneath, and help them pull that out and really clarify the vision, hone the vision, and then help them understand how we can get there.
Susan Friedmann [00:22:32]:
What's coming to mind as you're talking through all of this is that many of our listeners are not necessarily podcast hosts. As a podcast guest, which is something, you know, I've talked a lot about, I've had wonderful interviews with people who promote podcast guesting, and it's the number one strategy for authors to go out there and be a guest on shows. How many shows would they need to have, let's say, been on in order to even consider this as a project for themselves?
Tina Dietz [00:23:06]:
Well, that's a bit of a different strategy. Mhmm.
So because most of the time, a podcast guest is speaking on one of only several topics and tends to repeat a lot of the same things over and over and over again on different shows.
I believe that in my own experience, and this is something that I've done, having been a guest on probably more than 70 or 80 shows and launched dozens of shows over time, is that you always want to go back to the content that you have created. Not just repurpose it by either reblogging it or turning it into social media content, but creating those transcripts and going back and mining your own content for gold.
And this is where some technology tools can come into play because that natural voice transcript that you have of your own voice is fantastic for training AI tools. It helps you to speak with your own voice and pull information from your content that, to Michelle's point earlier, you're probably too close to see yourself.
Something I love to do is to take my own transcripts and then utilize the AI tools that I've already trained in my own voice to pull out quotes, salient points, and define major themes of what I'm talking about. It can even propose new talks I could create out of some of these ideas. What articles could I create out of them? What other speaking topics could I develop?
It helps with the creative iteration process to keep anything that we're speaking about on different shows fresh. It helps us pitch other shows better, and it helps us deeply repurpose our content in really meaningful ways.
Because I'm all for fun social media posts, but we also need more in-depth articles. There's a real hunger for that, as evidenced by the popularity of places like Substack, Medium, and Quora, as well as newsletters. Even feeding our own audience, who are hungry for content on our newsletter lists, is an important way to maximize our message.
Tina Dietz [00:25:19]:
So it helps us to keep things fresh and to continue to fall in love with our own work when it starts to feel stale.
Susan Friedmann [00:25:26]:
Yes. And that's easy to do is you're talking about one
Michelle Fishering [00:25:30]:
topic and maybe you're not realizing how many different angles you
Susan Friedmann [00:25:30]:
can take that topic in. That you've sparked curiosity. And whether they're a podcast host or whether they're a podcast guest, what's the next step for them? Tina, Michelle?
Michelle Fishering [00:25:57]:
I'll let Tina go ahead on that one.
Tina Dietz [00:25:59]:
Well, probably the easiest thing to do is to go to alembicpress.com, a l e m b I c press Com. I love saying that for some reason. It makes me feel like I'm on Sesame Street. Go to alembicpress.com. Take a look at what's there. We've kept it really simple and tight so you can understand. But you can submit your show, and we'll evaluate it. We'll actually say, is this a good fit for this type of process? Not all shows are.
Tina Dietz [00:26:24]:
There are criteria that we are looking for. So we'll do a bit of an analysis on that and then we'll reach out to you, and then we can always have a conversation about it with some visioning and book ideas that we have for you. You know, we would certainly want to hear what your goals are for your platform and your vision, and certainly if you've written other books as well. So it's a very, very collaborative process. And if this appeals to you and you have a show that's been around for at least a year, we got to have, you know, enough episodes to work with, then reach out and tell us more about your show and let's see what's possible to co create.
Susan Friedmann [00:26:59]:
That's fantastic. Yes. And I'll put that in the show notes so people can get that because it's not necessarily a word that everybody uses on a regular basis. True. Yes. I will definitely put that in the show notes. And as you know, we always like to leave our listeners with a golden nugget. So again, who's on first?
Michelle Fishering [00:27:26]:
I'm gonna let Tina share some brilliance. I'm not feeling particularly golden brilliance.
Tina Dietz [00:27:30]:
I will tap into your gorgeous multilayered brain, Michelle, because there's so many it's so much gold in there. I would say that when you are feeling like you are on a hamster wheel, as so many of us do, particularly in unprecedented times, then it's time to get a different perspective, whether it's working with somebody like us, whether it's training an AI tool to be able to reflect back to your own brilliance, or it's reaching out to trusted friends and colleagues and saying, I feel like I'm stuck in a wheel. Tell me more about who I am in the world and what I can be creative about. It's those connections that we reach out to that help make life more interesting, that help us stay engaged and help us see beyond the daily fears that tend to creep in and stop us from having the size of vision, the brilliance, and the energy that we know that we can generate to uplift our communities and make the world a better place.
Susan Friedmann [00:28:31]:
And I know through the work that we've done together and many of my authors have worked with you with their audiobooks, and this is just an addition to that brilliance. And I love what you've both shared. And thank you so much. Again listeners, this is an episode you're gonna need to listen to over again because it's a new idea. And anything that's new, it's an education process. So go back and listen to this brilliance. And if this is something of interest, then I highly recommend that you reach out to Tina and Michelle. Wonderful people, I love working with them.
Susan Friedmann [00:29:15]:
So thank you. And by the way, if your book isn't selling the way you wanted or expected to, let's you and I jump on a quick call together to brainstorm ways to ramp up those sales because you've invested a whole lot of time, money, and energy, and it's time you got the return you were hoping for. So go to Book Marketing Mentors to schedule your free call. And in the meantime, I hope this powerful interview sparks some ideas you can use to sell more books. Until next week, here's wishing you much book and author marketing success.
