https://youtu.be/GltLs_tkjQ8
Alinka Rutkowska is the CEO of Leaders Press, a USA Today and Wall Street Journal best-selling press. We talk about how writers can turn their books into bestsellers, the benefits of using books to grow your business and the differences between self-publishing and traditional publishing.
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Automate Your Bestseller with Alinka Rutkowska
Our guest is Alinka Rutkowska, the CEO of Leaders Press, a publishing company that helps nonfiction authors achieve USA Today and the Wall Street Journal bestselling status. She's also the author herself of several bestselling books, including Write and Grow Rich. And her books in combination have sold over 80,000 copies. So, welcome to the show, Alinka.
Thank you so much for having me here, Steve.
I'm excited to have you. And it's in the morning here in Virginia, but you're in Italy, right? So, it's in the afternoon for you.
That's right.
Just after lunch. So, hopefully that's not going to slow us down. So, I'd like to start our conversation as always about your entrepreneurial journey. So how does one become the CEO of a publishing company that helps entrepreneurs publish best-selling books? How does that even happen?
Well, for me, it all started with passion. I used to work in multinational corporations. And at a certain point, I just felt like there was a ceiling that I sort of couldn't push through. And it wasn't definitely, you know, the top of the company was middle management. And I was being pushed into roles that I didn't want to do. I wanted to do something that they didn't want me to, to do. And so, the best way out was actually leaving. And so, as I was considering that move, I wrote a book and self-published it at the time that was over a decade ago. And the royalties from that book basically exceeded my corporate salary.
So, when that happened, I thought, hey guys, I don't really need you anymore. I'm leaving. They even paid me to leave. So, I had those funds, funds from the royalties, and that allowed me to comfortably explore what I really was meant to do here in this world. And so, it started with writing more books, with marketing those books, with helping others do the same, and steadily it grew into Leaders Press, where we now help entrepreneurs turn their book ideas into bestsellers, including the big list and distribute through Simon & Schuster, which is traditional publishing. And we're now a 30 people business. So, this all happened step by step, starting with passion and the desire to do what excites me.
Wow, that's almost unbelievable because I hear so few people who actually hit the jackpot with their first book. It's very rare, isn't it?
It is very rare. And it's also quite naive to think that you could, you know, live off of the royalties of your one book for the rest of your life. I was very lucky when I did that. I had some marketing background. I asked a lot of questions. I looked for the answers. I tested things and I had that early success which got me super excited. Then, you know, that might have been a one-off for that one book, but eventually I created a system that is working now every time. We do a book. So, you know, sometimes it's the early lucky when that gets you excited and gets you in business.
Well, definitely you need some luck, but I don't buy it that it was just luck. It must have been more than that. So which one was the first book that and why do you feel, why do you think it became so successful? How did that, you know, hit a chord with the readers?
Well, it was a self-help book that I don't really even advertise anymore. It was called Read Me, I Am Magical. Why was it successful at the time? I think the market was not very saturated. It was just the beginning of the self-help book excitement and self-published books were just hitting the market in a massive way. But still, it was 10 years ago, so it was much easier to succeed and get noticed. So partly it was finding a niche that appreciated the book,