David Achata is a passionate leadership and team development coach, author, and speaker. Using his 20+ years of experience in both the corporate realm and in ministry, he facilitates team building opportunities through workshops and retreats, for small and large businesses. David’s primary goal is to create space for leaders to find better vision and to avoid burnout.
We had the unique opportunity to work with David on not just one manuscript, but two different books, over the last year. Also somewhat unique, the scope of work for both books included all areas of service MRM offers and involved nearly all of our team members and a couple of our associates as well. What better way to serve a team builder than with a team; right?
About This Recent Project
Marketing Audit, Platform Strategy, & SEO
Through our initial audit and evaluation of David’s website and online platform, we identified several areas we felt could be improved before marketing his upcoming releases. Because both books will serve as partner resources for the services David provides, it was necessary to maximize the marketability of Achata Coaching, David as an author, and the books as a whole. Pivoting from our usual marketing strategy and content creation prior to final edits and design of Embrace What You Don’t Know: A Stupid Guide to Smart Business Leadership, Ariel, Sara, and Francie worked together to optimize the copy and SEO for David’s website and to create an overall roadmap for his brand. This roadmap was used to guide the our approach to both book launches, as well as our ongoing social media support, engagement, and influencer outreach.
Book Edits, Cover Design, Formatting, & Typesetting
David and Ariel worked together for extended developmental edits for both Embrace What You Don’t Know and Executive Retreats for Busy Business Leaders: How to Achieve More by Working Less. Ariel did a fantastic job of prompting David to clarify his message and add more of his own personal success stories to both manuscripts, and the end products are so much better for it. Randi and Danielle performed the copy and line edits and final proofread for both books, ensuring the documents were at their best before passing them on to the designer.
Keeping in mind the brand-building goals from our initial strategy, we felt strongly that both book covers should reflect elements of the Achata Coaching brand and that both designs should feel cohesive. David shared what he envisioned for the illustrations for each book’s theme, and Nelly successfully married his brand and his vision to create two fitting designs for these business books.
Both Embrace What You Don’t Know and Executive Retreats for Busy Business Leaders have simple and crisp interior designs, formatted well for the business and training genre. Each interior includes workspace for response and application of the principles taught, along with highlighted inspirational quotes and key takeaways, carrying the cover design throughout the interior pages.
Publishing & Optimization
We formatted the books for both IngramSpark and Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing, in print and eBook, to maximize opportunities for distribution. We planned for and also implemented a pre-order timeframe for Executive Retreats at most major retailers, which allowed David to offer incentives to early buyers in an effort to also grow his email list.
Sara provided the back cover copy and product description, optimized David’s Author Central profile, and performed metadata keyword and category research to ensure we maximized the reach on Amazon. As part of the detailed marketing and launch strategy, Sara also created marketing copy for the sales page, email campaigns, publicity outreach, and social media prompts that were repurposed throughout all marketing efforts.
Marketing & Publicity
As part of our marketing support for these book releases, Amy, Jenn, and Debi created multiple digital assets packages for David. The packages included social media graphics, platform cover images, pull quotes or “sticky statements”, recommended hashtags, and suggested prompts – used to inform the content calendars our team used in social media support and also to supply David with a variety of resources he can use in his own marketing efforts.
In addition to these assets, we provided David with a list of recommended influencers and lookalike audiences to pair with our detailed Instagram and LinkedIn strategy to aid in his outreach to podcasts and similar business leaders. Sara also provided recommended pitches and social media outreach message templates to make this outreach as simple and doable as possible.
Our associate Karen is the designer behind the Achata Coaching website, so we partnered with her to create the sales page for David’s books. Karen did a beautiful job implementing Sara’s copy and guidelines and maintaining the existing branding for the site. She also worked with Sara and Francie to update other areas of the website throughout the entire campaign.
Though Embrace What You Don’t Know and Executive Retreats for Busy Business Leaders might not be our typical genre or type of book to publish here at Market Refined Publishing, we thoroughly enjoyed this process with David over the past year. Undoubtedly, our team learned as much from him and his books as he learned from us. Grab your copies of these new releases and explore all that Achata Coaching has to offer here!
What David had to say…
“Thank you so much for all of your work. In this busy season for me, I am grateful for the support. I am really proud of how these books turned out.”
Services Included in this Project
- Platform audit and brand strategy and roadmap
- Developmental, copy, line, and proofread manuscript edits
- Book cover and interior design, formatting, and typesetting for IngramSpark and Kindle Direct Publishing (Print and eBook)
- Metadata, category, and keyword research for IngramSpark and Kindle Direct Publishing
- Marketing copy for the product listing and author bio
- Product(s) and author profile setup and optimization for Amazon Author Central
- Use of Market Refined Publishing imprint
- Sales page design and development
- SEO Boost and website optimization
- Marketing and launch strategy and implementation
- Digit assets packages
- Ongoing social media support and influencer outreach
Team Members Involved
Amy Boehnert
Ariel Curry
Francie Hinrichsen
Karen Lewis
Randi Miller
Nelly Murariu
Danielle Raymond
Mandy Roberson
Debi Stangeland
Sara Ward
Find out more about these ladies and the rest of the team here at MRM: Meet the Team
