How Writing a Book Can Amplify Your Impact & Open Doors with Allison Trowbridge

Reading Time: 26 minutes

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Books can spark a movement, especially for nonprofit leaders. 

And while I am in the midst of writing my first book (coming out in September!), I immediately knew we had to do a podcast episode about this entire process. Allison Trowbridge is the founder and CEO of Copper Books, who are revolutionizing the hybrid publishing model while focusing on mission-driven authors. 

Get ready to be guided through the complexities of the publishing industry, from the financial risks traditional publishers take, to the entrepreneurial spirit required for successful self-publishing. 

Plus, Allison explains her pivot to hybrid publishing for balancing professional support and author control, making it ideal for niche books with meaningful audiences (I’ll reveal why I chose this path over other options).

If you’re one of the 81% of people in the world who want to write a book and share your story, this episode offers a comprehensive overview of the financial aspects, marketing strategies, and the evolving landscape of book publishing.

P.S. Don’t forget to register for my Monthly Giving Summit coming up on Sept 5-6 from 1-4 pm ET – the ONLY virtual event designed to help nonprofits build, grow, and sustain subscriptions for good. RSVP for FREE here!

P.P.S. Join me for my Book Launch Tour at Kendra Scott stores in Atlanta, GA and Sarasota, FL! 

RSVP for Atlanta on September 7th

RSVP for Sarasota on September 18th

Resources & Links

Can we meet in Nashville? The 8th annual Raise fundraising conference, hosted by OneCause, will be held at the Country Music Hall of Fame & Museum in Nashville, TN September 9-10, 2024 Use code MISSIONS200 to receive $200 off registration, Register: https://bit.ly/4bNqihi

Learn more about Copper Books on their website or on Instagram. You can also connect with Alli on LinkedIn and Instagram. DM her to learn more about their Author Camp.

Check out Squibler, a supercharged AI story writing software.

Join The Sustainers, my Slack community for nonprofit professionals growing and scaling a recurring giving program.

Want to make Missions to Movements even better? Take a screenshot of this episode and share it on Instagram. Be sure to tag @positivequation so I can connect with you.

Additional resources for sharing your story as a nonprofit leader

• Embracing the Wild Journey of Self-Publishing with Jenny Nuccio
• 7 Steps to Thought Leadership for Social Impact
• Outline Your Personal Brand Story with Tania Bhattacharyya

Transcript

Allison Trowbridge

I always say that if you want to be an author, you have to think like an entrepreneur. So a lot of aspiring authors get discouraged because they’ll come to someone in publishing or an author and say how do I publish a book? And there’s no one sentence answer and it’s just like me saying to you how do I start a nonprofit, how do I build a company? It’s like what are your goals? There’s so much in it. Do you have a year for us to work together? There’s a lot that goes into it. And that’s the same thing for a book. So the book itself is like a product. Writing the book is like doing the product development. But then, once you have the product, many authors think they’re just going to hand it to a publisher and it just goes out into the world. The reality is that you still have all the other pieces of a business.

Dana Snyder

Hello, listener, I am so excited you’re here. If you’re listening live, happy Wednesday. If it’s not Wednesday, happy whatever day it is right now. Hope you’re having a great one.

And today’s conversation I am literally so pumped about because when we are recording this, I am in the midst of writing my first book and when I connected with Allison, I immediately knew we had to do a podcast episode about this entire process, of what it is to be an author, what it means to write a book, and I have chosen Copper Books as my hybrid publishing company, which I am very excited about.

And what’s crazy is I want to share all the thoughts that went through my mind because I was considering. Is I want to share, like, all the thoughts that went through my mind because I was considering, I did all the research on full publishing, I looked at doing self-publishing and then I didn’t really know about this middle world of hybrid, and so Alison Trowbridge is the founder and CEO of Copper Books, and I think what’s amazing about Alison’s history and when I started to explain to her the concept of my book, which is going to be coming out early September, which is so exciting is that truly and I’ve noticed this in my life books can spark a movement, they can spark ideas and Allison, our guest, noticed this specifically within a cause that has touched my heart deeply as well, and that’s the anti-slavery movement. And you ended up working within the nonprofit world and as a partner at an impact investment fund. How did you start working in the nonprofit sector? And then we’ll fast forward into Copper Books.

Allison Trowbridge

I love it. I love it. Well, Dana. Thank you so much for having me on. It’s such a joy and delight to be here and this is such an intersection of my passions, because I grew up in the nonprofit and the impact world. That is my heart and where so much of my passion still lies. But now being in the business world, running a business, when I come alive the most is when I get to serve authors who are seeking to serve readers and make the world a better place and are missional in the types of books that they’re writing. So this feels just so profoundly aligned in that respect. But you’re exactly right.

So I got my start in the nonprofit world and it was actually all because of a book, which is wild to think about it now, but when I was gosh, I must have been a junior in college at Westmont in Santa Barbara. One of the former Westmont alums, who was 20 years on, had just written a book called Not For Sale about anti-trafficking and looking at what does modern day slavery look like all over the globe, and he, as part of the book launch, came to speak at Westmont. And so, literally, as you’re saying this, I’m like, oh my gosh, my entire trajectory of my career got started because of a book. So I heard him speak. It was an issue I cared deeply about and I started volunteering. Someone had made a documentary based on the book that came out around the same time and I started.

I was a communications major and so I just asked the question, how can I help, how can I serve? And started doing some marketing for what they were doing, not even knowing what the word marketing meant. And fast forward, I’m throwing events and putting all these things together. And when the founder came back to visit my school in the fall for a series of events, he said what are your plans after graduation? And I was like I have no idea. And he’s like well, why don’t you come be the first employee of this organization and what’s so cool? So the organization was called Not For Sale and the whole reason it was started was because he, as a journalist, wrote this book on slavery. He had been a professor at UCSF on business ethics and when he wrote the book, the head of the Humanity United Foundation, which was funded by Theo Mediars, founders of eBay, came to him and said we love what you’ve written, we love the way you think, we’d love to give you a grant to start a nonprofit. So with a $200,000 grant based on the book.

That’s what originally started the Not For Sale organization, which went on to give grants to all these anti-trafficking groups globally, and then we really made a huge dent around the communications marketing piece.

When I started on this issue, no one knew what modern day slavery was. I would meet US congressmen who didn’t believe me that it happened in the United States. I felt like I mean, this is 2007, 2008. And so I jumped straight into the deep end and, looking back, that entire social movement I’m sure most of you listening know what human trafficking is, know what modern day slavery is. Back then very few people did, and I watched a series of books get published during those years that quite literally laid the foundation for the anti-trafficking movement where I would watch everyone from A-list celebrities to lawmakers to soccer moms read one of a handful of books about modern day slavery, get so activated and inspired, including one of the executive producers at CNN who decided all of CNN needs to cover modern day slavery because of the books written on it. So it was upstream of this entire social movement that happened, and I was profoundly moved by the impact that a book could make on actually moving the needle on a social justice issue.

Sharing Your Story as a Nonprofit Leader: The Transformational Journey of Writing a Book

Dana Snyder

Incredible, I mean 1000%.

I heard about human trafficking through a movie just a couple of years after you’re talking about, and that started my interest in the whole nonprofit world. I decided to quit my full-time job in New York City and start my business because of a book. I read the book, I ended up meeting the author and when I was sitting listening to him talk about the book, my boss at the time was sitting next to me and I started to get so hot inside. Like I just felt, oh, something’s literally happening inside of me right now that I’ve been thinking about starting my own thing, but hearing him speak about like social impact for good, and I was just like and my boss, I think it was a couple of weeks later I was like I’m quitting.

Allison Trowbridge

Oh my gosh. Wow, what was the book that you read?

Dana Snyder

Good is the New Cool by Afdelaziz.

Allison Trowbridge

Yes, yes, you’ve mentioned that one. Okay, I’m going to have to read that one.

Dana Snyder

Yeah, it was so good. So I read the book, met him and then, long story short, ended up sending him a tweet that I was quitting my job because I read his book and starting a business. And we both moved to LA like the same week and I met up with him during another book launch and we’ve been good friends ever since. I actually just called him to ask his opinion and some thoughts about the book that I’m writing.

Allison Trowbridge

Wow, what a full circle moment. Well, and this is the thing I always say that reading a book can quite literally change your life, but also writing a book will change your life. There is no more transformational experience than taking all of your experience and ideas and distilling them down into something that you’re going to share with other people and allow them to have their own interaction, life-changing interaction with it’s almost like a mystical kind of dynamic. I just I love it so much. I love it so much.

Dana Snyder

It’s a really fun and reflective process too, I think, obviously depending upon what kind of book and genre that you’re in, which I think let’s like fast forward and listener, what I want you to capture from this conversation is that anyone can be an author. You can be an author. You have so many stories. I have a keynote about telling stories, but you have so many stories in you that are worthy to be shared and can help amplify and spread the word about the work that you’re doing. So explain first, because Copper Books didn’t start as a hybrid publishing company, can you explain what inspired you to then pivot into the publishing world and specifically start what now is Copper Books?

The Hybrid Publishing Model for Nonprofit Leaders: Overcoming Traditional Obstacles of Writing a Book

Allison Trowbridge

Yeah, so to that end, just for the listener, 81% of people want to write a book someday. So if you feel that little like nudge inside of you but very few people ever do, so I think it’s about 1% of people who want to write a book ever actually go do it.

Dana Snyder

Okay, what’s the hurdle? Is there a common like blank thing is preventing people.

Allison Trowbridge

I mean there’s so many hurdles and this is part of my passion in this space is that for decades, for actually hundreds of years, it was a very, very difficult industry to enter. It’s kind of a walled garden where it’s all managed by gatekeepers and it’s very difficult to get those gatekeepers to say yes to publishing your book and there’s only a limited number that can and do get published, in part because of the previous financial model of publishing. And so this is what I get really inspired by is shaking up the industry and shaking up the economics of it, to open the door for more people to publish their books at that professional quality and limit those barriers to entry, because the way the economic model of publishing works is that it’s very similar to how businesses get funded. So I like to say that traditional publishing is like getting a VC to back your book.

Traditional publishers out of every 10 books that they invest in, they’re expecting one to be a huge hit and pay for the losses that they’re taking on all the rest. Eight out of 10 books they lose money on, and if you think about it, it costs them about $50,000 internally to publish a standard book, not to mention marketing spend, not to mention whatever they spend on in advance, which could be anywhere from $5,000, $10,000, $25,000, all the way up into millions.

So eight out of 10 likelihood that they will lose money on that book, but they fund it off of their backlist. So that’s books that are being sold that didn’t just come out that year. So we’re talking the Bible, we’re talking iconic books that were published decades ago that fund the others. And then the other thing is that they’re really only going to invest in a book or buy a book. They’re buying the intellectual property to it if they think it can be one of those hits. So if they don’t think it can become a national bestseller, it’s not worth them taking the financial risk on it because their model doesn’t work. And so, because of that, there’s a lot of books that actually are only going to sell a couple thousand copies and should that are more niche, that have a more specific audience, that don’t need to be a huge national or international, the reaching the people they need to reach.

And so on the other end of the spectrum you have self-publishing, which has, over the last decade, has been a really exciting innovation because it’s now allowed anybody per se to publish a book. The problem there is that I always say that if you want to be an author, you have to think like an entrepreneur. So a lot of aspiring authors get discouraged because you know they’ll come to someone in publishing or an author and say how do I publish a book? And there’s no like one sentence answer and it’s just like me saying to you how do I start a nonprofit? How do I build a company? It’s like what are your goals? There’s so much in it. Do you have a year for us to work together? Like there’s a lot that goes into it. And that’s the same thing for a book.

So the book itself is like a product. Writing the book is like doing the product development. But then once you have the product, many authors think they’re just going to hand it to a publisher and it just goes out into the world. The reality is that you still have all the other pieces of a business. So the reader is your consumer. If you’re asking them to buy the book, you have to think about what problem am I solving for them? What is going to motivate them to buy? How do I market that to them? How do they find out about it? How will they come to know about it? How do I think about the publicity and the marketing and the financials and the operations and the partnerships and all of the other pieces that go around getting a product into the hands of consumers?

And the other challenge with self-publishing is that in the quote-unquote product development, in the writing of the book, the way that you get to the high quality that we expect from a traditional publisher is by getting a lot of people to touch that book. So that’s everything from editorial, which is developmental, editing, which is like the big picture of does it work? How are the ideas gelling? Is the reader going to understand it? What needs to be moved around into the copy? Editing the line, editing the proofreading, like the, getting the product perfect, the cover design, the way that it sits on the shelf. Then you get into distribution, which is a whole other aspect of it. So if you just want to self-publish and print a book, that is relatively easy. But if you want that to feel and have the reader experience be that of a traditionally published book, then you need a lot of support around it, and so that’s where I get really excited about hybrid publishing as this kind of new. Over the last five years it’s been this new kind of sub-industry of publishing that’s emerged and has been the fastest growing in the space, and that’s because it lowers the barriers to entry but still maintains a really high quality of the product. So you’re having people from traditional publishing working on the book.

The difference is that in traditional publishing, the publisher has actually bought the rights to the book. They own the intellectual property, and so, because they’ve put in all the financial risk, they’re going to keep about 80 to 85% of the upside and any advance they pay you. It’s called an advance because it’s an advance against sales, so you need to earn that out. I published my book with HarperCollins a number of years ago. It sold decently well, but I’ve never earned any money after I published it because I never earned out of the advance and I probably never will, which is very common and very standard.

And so what hybrid does is the author is taking the financial risk, meaning that they’re covering some of those upfront costs of publishing so that the publisher isn’t the one carrying the risk, but the author also gets the upside. So the publisher is acting more as a service provider to the author and it’s still difficult to get a hybrid publishing deal. There’s still a high editorial threshold because the publisher needs to see that the content can sell well and that they can, you know you wouldn’t hybrid publish a book that’s going to sell a couple hundred copies, but it creates this kind of middle way that allows for a book that doesn’t have that potential to be the huge mass market hit, but has a meaningful audience and deserves to be published. So that was a long explanation, but I get really passionate about it because I just think it’s such an exciting part of the landscape right now.

The Process of Writing Your Thought Leadership as a Nonprofit Leader

Dana Snyder

No, and thank you so much for that. I also think the hybrid was for me. Essentially, it was a good blend of the more conversations I had, the more I was like I don’t know what, I don’t know, and I know it’s always better and you can do things better. You can do things faster if you invest in people that are experts at that craft, and I could do my best at guessing how to do an ISBN and a barcode and like all, the like things that I was like, or figuring out the trim size, and I was like, what size font should this be?

Like? How many pages, Like you talked about? There’s so much that goes into a cover design. And then I’m like, oh yeah, there’s more. I look at friends with books and there’s the not just the front cover but the inside pieces and the structure.

And yeah, listen, if you were feeling as like daunted by the book process, I was too, and that’s why I was like, okay, I’m raising my hand up I am going to like ask for help because I also wanted to do it right and on the side of, I’m not writing a book to make money off the book, like that happens. Cool For me and listener for probably many of you. I see a book as an opportunity that’s going to open doors. Specifically speaking, engagements is a big part of what I love to do and a part of my business and having a book. A lot of times there are events and as a nonprofit, this can be a great way for even donations to happen for you. Oh my gosh, yes, and maybe we can talk about that.

Allison Trowbridge

Yes, I would love to talk about that, yeah.

Dana Snyder

I see it as if an organization can’t pay me, if they don’t have a speaker budget. They might have a marketing budget or they might have a budget where they can buy the books for all of the attendees and that’s a way that then I can earn an income for that event. So there’s a lot of creativity that can go into. I guess that’s at the very beginning of why this book would be beneficial. What do you see a lot of times with I mean, this kind of even happened with the genesis of you launching or being with a nonprofit. What do you see happen for executive directors or founders in either a social impact or nonprofit space when they write a book? What’s the most common?

A Published Book as a Marketing and Communication Tool for Nonprofit Leaders

Allison Trowbridge

Oh my gosh, listen, I cannot tell you. There is no greater mark of credibility than having a book.

Try handing someone your business card and then try handing someone your book. It is a way to say I have distilled my thinking on a subject matter and to really take a stand as a thought leader that other people can look to. And I almost picture the book as like a platform that you’re standing on that elevates you to speak to that subject matter. And so back in the not-for-sale days, we used that book to create the entire organization. We spoke all over the country with that book. I cannot tell you how many times I traveled around with suitcases full of books where we would speak oftentimes speak for free but then have a table in the back where we would sell books to audience members and use that as a way to fund the work that we were doing and to get in front of people, and I also can’t tell you how many people.

Yes, they hear you speak, they get excited, but to make the commitment to read a book and spend hours like delving into these ideas, once they actually read the book, they were full ambassadors of the organization, like they became fans, they became promoters. We actually, because of the book, started something that we called our state ambassador program, where we had representatives in like 35 states who would then create small groups within those states. So it’d be like not for sale Georgia, not not for sale Texas, not for sale Arizona, and then they would then gather their community around and they could become subject matter experts from having read the book and had gave them a copy of the book and said read this, I think it’ll really move you. They read it and ended up introducing us to some of the biggest names in the world, joining our board, funding us through companies that they owned. We did a huge partnership with All Saints, the clothing label, and did anti-trafficking fashion shows with them all over the world.

We were doing this in the Netherlands and London and Korea, like all over, because the owner of the private equity fund that had invested in All Saints read the book and said I need to get the entire company, like the companies in my portfolio. I need to get behind this and supporting it. So I say all that in that it’s the ultimate kind of upstream ripple effect for sharing your ideas and spreading your impact, and that could be about the actual work that you’re doing, about your actual organization. It could also be some type of thought leadership about what makes you different as a leader. How did you build your nonprofit differently? How do you think differently? How do you run it differently. It’s ways for people to get to know you so much better. One of my classics examples of book versus a movie, for instance, right and how much deeper a book can go into it is. I love and grew up reading the Harry Potter series. The first book came out when I was in fourth grade and I binged them. I’m talking about I would read 14 hours straight to finish a book in the series.

And then if you watch the movies, like they did a pretty good job, but there’s definitely more in-depth things in the books than the films and I think it’s the same thing from an organization standpoint. Great analogy, great analogy. There’s no way that a 15, 20 minute documentary or a 45 minute stage presentation is going to be able to capture a 200 page book of your story. It just can’t.

Dana Snyder

And so for those that it just gives that truth and grit and realness in stories a lot of times and this is like I’m a fangirl of so many authors because it’s like I’ve seen them, maybe. But then I’m like, oh, I’m so much, I’m fascinated, but like, how did they get there? How did that all happen on stage? And then you read the book and you’re like, oh, so I think it allows you to just get to know someone that much better.

Allison Trowbridge

It really does. And my advice to authors and if you’re listening and thinking about maybe writing a book someday, I always encourage them to really distill down into one big idea, like one big idea that the book is about. That then makes it easily transportable for one person who has the book. To promote it to somebody else to say oh Dana, you have to read Essentialism because it’s about how you actually do more with less.

Dana Snyder

Oh my gosh, how many times have we done that Right? I do it all the time. My mom showed up to my house on this trip and brought a book and she’s like you have to read this.

Allison Trowbridge

Yes, yes, and there are even books that I’ve read maybe 15% of, maybe even 5% of, but I’m like I get it and I’m so bought into the big idea and I’ll come back to it. But I’ve probably sold a dozen copies because I so believe in the big idea of what it stands for, that I’m constantly telling other people about it. And so to really think, like if I had like, a lot of people want a big platform, they want followers, they want attention, but I’m like, why? What is that big idea? What do you want to actually share with people? What is that big idea that you want to tell them and like, do the work to distill it down, because that message, if that’s then easily shareable, that’s what’s going to actually move the needle on something and impact lives, whether it’s this is what modern day slavery looks like, or this is what it looks like to build a subscription revenue program for good. Maybe you can tell us more about that. That would be a great book.

Tackling the Daunting Process of Writing a Book for Nonprofit Leaders

Dana Snyder

That sounds like a pretty good one right there. I wanna read that book. It’s actually really interesting the process, and I think what seems daunting maybe this is one of the reasons that people don’t is they can hear you need 50,000 words, 60,000 words, and you hear that and you just don’t start and what I will tell you, listener, I have been shocked at how it, just when you start and you get into the creative space and you A give yourself space to write yeah, quickly, I’ve been writing 3,500 words in a sitting, I believe it Like it just flows, and then all of a sudden you have a chapter and it’s like what happened.

Dana Snyder

Yeah, it gets way too long very quickly Blows your mind and I think that’s honestly one of the reasons I haven’t done it for so long is I was like there’s no way that seems like such a big number. But if you break it, I’m using this. Oh, let’s see if I can find it Quibbler S-Q-U-I-B-L-E-R, and I know you have some other tools that are helpful for this too.

Dana Snyder

Quibbler. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It’s literally this amazing writing software online where I can like break up my chapters and it even gives me, like I say, okay, during this seating I want to write 1500 words, and so there’s like a progress bar. At the bottom. There’s like some AI integrated into it. It just, I feel like, gives me the space where I’m like, yeah, focused.

Allison Trowbridge

Yeah, totally Well, and that’s the thing is. I think it’s what’s that old adage, how do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time? Or, as Anne Lamott says, bird by bird. It’s the idea of bird by bird, and my recommendation for someone who’s at the very beginning of this process is really figure out what your big idea is and then start with the outline of where do you want to go with it. I almost imagine the clothing hanger in the backyard that you would hang clothes on, and that’s your through line, that’s your big idea.

And then how do you create these like supporting points in each chapter? So one big idea in each chapter that supports that kind of overlying theme or that overlying message within each of those chapters, breaking it down into a couple of chunks or key examples or key stories. And then from there I call it paint by numbers, because you’ve kind of outlined everything and you know where you want to go. And then you’re not looking at a 50,000 word book, you’re looking at 10 chapters of 5,000 words each, which in each of those is an intro, a conclusion and three sections of 1,500. And then that feels like way more digestible.

Yeah, and then you kind of cross this threshold of like I can never do it, and then you cross the like halfway mark and then suddenly you’re, you overwrite the book by like 20,000 words.

About Copper Books and the World of Hybrid Publishing

Dana Snyder

So you’re like what just happened? Yeah, yeah, yeah, I start with the big idea and then can you explain to us what makes like, why you set out to create Copper Books and what makes it so different?

Allison Trowbridge

Oh my gosh, yeah. So I started this company while I was actually well. The origin was while I was in business school. So I had been working in anti-trafficking, first with Not For Sale, then later on with the Freedom Fund. I was a partner in an impact investment fund called Just Business and I did my MBA at Saeed at Oxford with the intention of staying in the nonprofit space. So Oxford actually has the best kind of social enterprise MBA out of. You know, I’m like I’m not going into traditional finance, like I actually wanted to stay in impact because of the School Center of Social Entrepreneurship.

But while I was there, I was publishing a book with HarperCollins. So my book is called 22. And it was the mentorship book I wished I had when I was graduating college. That back when I was 22, I said to a friend I need this book right now and it doesn’t exist and whatever I do career-wise, I’m committed to writing that book someday. So it was a really beautiful kind of full circle moment for me and I write a lot about my journey in anti-trafficking in that book.

But as I was going through the process of publishing it, I was kind of looking around saying why does this feel like the most difficult time in history to be an author. And every author I know is frustrated, discouraged, even the ones who get the huge publishing deals. They feel like they’re totally in the dark about the process and super overwhelmed. And there’s just I’m like this should be the greatest time in history to be an author and it feels like the most challenging and everyone feels kind of defeated. And so one of my professors at Oxford kept pulling me aside saying someone needs to transform the publishing industry. She was a really big name author and she kept going I think you should do it. And I’m like no, no, no, I’m super burnt out.

And anyway, I took a little sabbatical after graduation and taking that time to just being so burnt out, taking the time to just slow down and pause and get quiet, it was like one day a light bulb turned on of oh my gosh, I have to go build this company. And so it was a long and winding, winding journey of initially I actually I don’t know if I told you this I initially incorporated as a publishing house but hybrid publishing wasn’t a thing yet and I hadn’t quite figured out the model and so my initial kind of structure of it. I raised a little bit of money, started running with it, got some authors on deck, and then we did all the financial models and realized we couldn’t make it work. We couldn’t make the financial model work, and so this is the curse of entrepreneurship, of like I used to say, I felt like I was driving a little bus and I drove it off a cliff and then realized it needed to be an airplane and I had to build wings on it.

And so I’m like mid-flight like okay, how do I just keep —

Dana Snyder

I think we can all resonate with that.

Allison Trowbridge

Oh, my gosh. I would say too, if you’re in the nonprofit impact space, I mean you’re all entrepreneurs and to always keep going back to what problem am I solving and how am I solving it? And if it’s not working, have you really identified the problem and have you really clearly identified the solution? And so flipped the company into? How do I build a platform for these authors and help them connect with readers? Because it felt like that relationship between author and reader was what was missing. Fast forward, raised venture capital, built a tech company, hired engineers, launched an app. It’s in the app store. I encourage all of you to download it. And you know that sounds all lovely and easy. Like so much rejection, so many tears, so many sleepless nights, so much pain. Like hardest thing I’ve ever done. But have an app in the app store called Copper Books where readers can connect with authors so cool.

Authors are centered in it. So even after getting that launch, though, again coming back to have we solved the problem for who we’re trying to solve for? And I realized, in launching the app, I had always said we’re here to serve authors and how do we bring readers to authors? So let’s build some reader tools and allow readers to be on the platform. And in all of that, what we realized is that our core demographic was the aspiring author. So all of these readers who were joining, the majority of them were actually aspiring authors wanting to publish themselves.

Ding ding, ding me yeah yeah, literally, and the bigger name authors who had already made it, they’re like great, I can use this, I can use any number of other tools. And so that prompted this question of how do we really serve the aspiring author well, and what does the aspiring author need? And so from there moved into okay, how do I build an actual marketplace of services for that aspiring author, which, again to me, it’s like you have to think like an entrepreneur. And so one of the biggest needs was I want to publish. How do I actually publish my book? And so, in the fall of last year, we signed our first hybrid published author and began down that journey and, yeah, it’s been a really incredible experience. I was thinking about it yesterday in just reflecting on working with these authors and publishing their books and that relational part. I’m like I would do that all day, every day, for free, because I love it so much.

Dana Snyder

I literally feel like a midwife, like holding the author’s hand, yelling push being like you can do it, and we get a book baby on the other side. Oh my gosh. And now you guys all know why I’ve chosen Copper Books to work with Because I was like I need my midwife in this situation to help me figure this out.

Allison Trowbridge

Exactly Like. Could you give birth alone? Yes, Would it be enjoyable?

Dana Snyder

Probably not no, no, but I, I want to might be a scary experience, yeah yes, no, and it’s actually very similar.

I mean, I think we all have these moments where, like you created your business, thinking about entrepreneur and what people needed, and I create very similar. My monthly giving mastermind program builds monthly giving programs. Yeah, I feel the same way that I’ve helped, like birth like 15 of these monthly giving programs into this space and I bring together a team of experts, just like you bring together your team of experts for a book. It’s because what the problem I was trying to solve is organizations want to build monthly giving programs but they don’t have the often resources internally or it’s really difficult to go out and find and trust a website designer, a copywriter somebody with ads.

Allison Trowbridge

It’s a lot of work.

Dana Snyder

It takes a lot of time to go find those people, or if you’re hiring an agency that’s going to be really expensive and there’s monthly retainers. And so I was like, how can I create this? Solve just like you did with the mastermind. And now this is what I’m going to write about in the book is all of these amazing stories of organizations that I’ve gone through this process and those that I’ve interviewed outside of just the mastermind. But I love that Everyone. Please go download the Copper Books app. Allie, where can people reach out to you? Is LinkedIn the best place? Or Instagram?

Allison Trowbridge

Yeah, yeah, Instagram’s awesome. I’m Allie Bridge on Instagram and our company handle is Copper Books Instagram. LinkedIn is great as well, and we also, as part of being this marketplace, we also have a program called Author Camp. So if you are an aspiring author just beginning the journey and want the community and the education again, just like an entrepreneur is saying, okay, I know I need to start this company, but I have no idea where to begin, it’s a really helpful way. Whatever kind of route you decide to take traditional, self-published, hybrid it’s a really great launching off point so that you can get all of our decades of experience into kind of just a clear, concise action plan and start writing that book. Because so many people put off that dream and I just think there’s so many stories that need to be told and would deeply impact people’s lives if only the author could ignite the honestly. It’s courage so much of it is courage to just go forward and do it and put your ideas out into the world.

Dana Snyder

Thank you so much for sharing that. And again, where exactly can they find that resource?

Allison Trowbridge

Author Camp. Best place is to reach out to us through Instagram or to join our email list.

Dana Snyder

Okay, perfect, and then the email list is just going to copperbooks.com. Yes, yep, you got it Perfect. I am so excited. And I think one last tip that I wanted to share that Allison shared with me in our session when I was teetering on how do I get this process going, and you mentioned to me to just write like, put away the left brain of me that wanted to fix every grammatical error and every sentence that I was possibly writing and just let it flow and get all of it out and then come back to it like the next day, yeah, with more of like that fine tooth comb, and then let your left side take over and do some more of the fixing. But that’s where also, like the copy editing comes into play to help fix those things down the line too. And I think I had to get over in my head the perfectionist in me that everything needed to be like exactly perfect and know that that’s just not going to happen.

Allison Trowbridge

Ever, ever, ever yes.

Dana Snyder

And I also reader you, or for me at least. I want the book to sound like me. Yeah, you listen to me on this podcast If you’ve heard me speak or lead a workshop training session. I didn’t want it to come off sounding is bought online, so I really wanted to have this episode because I am loving the process and I see like the nonprofit sector, you, listener, have the most positive, impactful stories that legitimately are changing the world.

Allison Trowbridge

Yeah.

Dana Snyder

And I just think there needs to be more books on what you’re doing. And so reach out to people like Allison. Look at Copper Books. I’m happy I’m an open book. Quote. Unquote. Reach out to me about no pun intended, about my experience. I’m happy to share it with you, and I think both Allison and I want to help make this happen. So Allison thank you so much for everything that you are doing in the space.

I am so honored to work with you and again, thank you for coming on here and sharing your brilliance and experience with everyone.

Allison Trowbridge

Oh, thank you so much for having me and listener. If you, hearing this, feel just that little nudge inside of you that you can’t shake it probably means that you are. I’m sorry. You’re meant to write a book, and so I would just encourage you to listen to that and take whatever one small step. Looks like, whether that’s just committing to once a week writing your thoughts down, even starting morning pages just start moving toward the process and watch what unfolds. It’s pretty miraculous.

Dana Snyder

Beautiful. Thank you so much for being here.

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