Hi, I'm Holly.
Your Nonfiction Book Bestie
Book + publishing coach for impact-driven business owners who want one Damn Good Book™ to bring in more clients, land more paid speaking gigs, and get their work noticed, shared, and talked about.
See How the Damn Good Book™ Program Works →You've been told you should write a book for years.
But nobody's explained how to write a business book that gets clients and speaking gigs—one that stops you from explaining yourself on every sales call and actually pays for itself. That's what I do.
I'm Holly, and I work with established women entrepreneurs who are ready to stop explaining themselves on every sales call how to write a business book that gets clients who are already sold. Through strategic book coaching that blends publishing expertise with business psychology, I guide you from messy idea to published authority—with a book that actually works for your business, not just your ego.
The Methods Behind the Magic
Most book coaches are either former authors who’ve never run a business, or business coaches who treat books like glorified lead magnets. But listen to me for 5 minutes or less, and I’ll tell you straight up: books are products AND art—people buy them like toothpaste AND like they buy a movie ticket.
That’s why I don’t help you write your book backwards. You know, dump everything you know on the page and then wonder why nobody hires you afterward.
Instead, we start with your business goals and reverse-engineer the book around that foundation. Every chapter serves your bigger picture.
Book Mapping is how we take your ideas and turn them into a book that actually works. It’s not just where the chapters go—it’s how we decide what matters, what stays out, and how to take the reader from page one to the part where they’ve already decided to work with you. This is the part where the whole shape of the book gets clear. The message sharpens. The fog lifts.
The Heroine’s Journey is how we make your book unforgettable. Most business books follow the same tired formula: here’s the problem, here’s my solution, here’s how to apply it, maybe a joke or two, definitely an “I’m just like you” rock-bottom story. It skips what actually earns trust: emotion, stakes, and understanding. This structure gives your book rhythm and weight while anchoring your ideas in genuine value. It’s how we move from ‘Ooh, she’s smart’ to ‘I need to work with her.’
Purpose Points are where the book stops feeling big and abstract—and starts feeling completely doable. They shape the core arguments, support your offer, and align every chapter with the transformation you’re creating. Each one is mapped to a deeper shift: from surface-level understanding to recognition, from curiosity to conviction, from interest to action. And I build them right into your outline, so they’re easy as a Bob Ross paint-by-number for you.
Strategy Stacks are how we make your book pay off in the ways that matter most to you. What do you want this book to do for your business? Book paid speaking gigs? Attract high-ticket clients? We define the goal path before you ever write a word. So the book isn’t just well-written—it’s working for you.
Every strategic choice we make points readers toward one thing: working with you.
Client results
What my clients are saying
“More people need to find you. Urgently.”
Your course has stopped me in my tracks and made me pause and gain clarity on what I'm up to in an amazingly helpful way. Thank you. More people need to find you. Urgently.
Heidi Marke
Anti-Overwhelm Expert
“You aren’t just a project to her.”
Holly has a way of making you feel valued, understood, heard, and important—you aren't just a project to her. She sees the creative heart that you are and is there to help you grow.
Michelle Herrle
“Including the confidence that I could really do it.”
Holly gave me all the pieces to make that possible—including the confidence that I could really do it. Whenever I was stuck on something, you always helped me untangle the knot. I always walked away with a long list of things to do, no longer stuck!
Emily Bilotti
“1000% worth it.”
[It] is 1000% worth it. Holly is awesome and her process got me unstuck and I'm 12,000 words in on week 3 of actual writing. If you want to write a book just give her your money lol.
Stacey Herndon
“Her crazy deep knowledge of planning and writing books hits the trifecta.”
I knew when I decided that it was time to start writing my book that Holly was the person to turn to. Her cheerfulness, easy vibe, and, most importantly, her crazy deep knowledge of planning and writing books hits the trifecta.
Amanda Fletcher
“The process was easy.”
I worked with Holly to publish my book to attract more speaking opportunities. The process was easy. I'd highly recommend working with Holly for your author needs.
Dr. Andy Erlich
How I Work with You
I’m direct but kind. I’ll call you on your shit, but I won’t make you feel like you’re in trouble when life happens and you need to adjust timelines. (I’m an Enneagram 4w3 with ADHD tendencies—I get it.)
I understand how different brains work. If you need structure (templates, frameworks, clear parameters), I’ve got you. If you’re a verbal processor who needs to talk things out, we can do that too. If your brain works like “spiders on acid” (actual client quote), I know how to help you organize the chaos without flattening your voice.
I’m collaborative, not dictatorial. This is your book, your expertise, your business. I bring the publishing knowledge and strategic framework. You bring the brilliance. We build it together.
And I can handle everything you don’t have time (or desire) to learn yourself. No Googling ‘what does a developmental editor even do’ at 2am. No tinkering with cover designs when you should be sleeping. You focus on your zone of genius. I handle mine.
Why I Do This Work
I didn’t always plan to be a book coach. I thought I’d be an artist—or if I was extra lucky, an architect. I grew up drawing beach house floor plans on grid paper, obsessed with watching something in my head become real on paper.
But I also grew up in a low-income family that was proud of my talent until I said I wanted to go to art school. Then it became: art is great, but you need a job that pays. So I did what I was supposed to. Got the business degree. Took the stable job. Hated every minute of it.
Meanwhile, I was secretly writing my first book—melodramatic, but a banger—and obsessively studying what made stories unforgettable. The structure. The voice. The pages that made you stay up too late.
I worked full time while putting myself through grad school for a master’s in publishing (M.S. in Print Media from RIT), which I finished in 2014. My thesis focused on what actually sells a book to a browser—how the right design, the right phrase, the right moment can change what someone thinks, wants, or decides to do.
Strategy hides inside creativity. I’ve been obsessed with that intersection ever since.
After grad school, I took over CliffsNotes. When I stepped in, the brand was barely breathing. I rebuilt it from the ground up—modernized the content, repositioned the imprint, brought the line back into print—and took it from forgotten to nearly $1M in sales in under a year.
That’s when I learned the real lesson: books succeed when there’s clear strategy behind them, not just good writing.
The more I worked behind the scenes in publishing, the more I saw how it really works—and who it’s working for. Most of publishing is built around two goals: go fast or get famous. Nobody’s optimizing for “create a book that actually helps people build their business.”
That gap is what I built my entire methodology to fix.
Because you’ve already built something real. You just need a book that actually reflects the depth of what you do—and brings in the clients who get it.
These days, I live in South Carolina with my 7-year-old daughter (funnier than 90% of men on the internet), my husband (who says he doesn’t mind when I try to hit all the same notes as Kate Bush), and about 67 tabs open in my brain at all times. I’m a Capricorn Sun/Taurus Rising/Virgo Moon—the stablest of stable earth signs—which is hilarious given that I’m also an ENTP 4w3 Manifesting Generator who gets most of my life advice from Reddit.
I navigate Hashimoto’s, PCOS, OCD (intrusive thoughts, not organizing my pantry), and what seems to be perimenopause arriving unfashionably early. I’m a melanoma survivor and it changed my life. Life’s layered. So are good books.
I’ve lived in 6 states and one federal enclave (Alabama, Georgia, New York, Maryland, California, DC, South Carolina), I’m a sucker for British TV (Would I Lie to You?, Cats Does Countdown, Taskmaster, Bake Off, Downton Abbey, Call the Midwife, Ted Lasso), and I’m a former anti-flyer who now finds a weird comfort in watching plane crash analysis videos. There’s apparently science to that.
My sister is trans. I support all human rights, peace, and letting everyone just live their own lives. It’s none of my business. Let’s write your book instead.
This is all part of what I bring to the work—realness, clarity, a little irreverence, and a deep respect for what your book can do.
Ready to write your book?
Your book could be the asset that finally gets you off the content hamster wheel and onto the stages you’ve been watching from the audience. It could pre-sell your expertise so sales calls become about fit, not education. It could open doors you can’t even see right now.
No more explaining yourself to people who end up not being the right fit anyway.
Here’s where to start:
- Take the $100K Book Strategy Quiz → Not sure where to start? Take 2 minutes to discover which book revenue pathway fits your business right now.
- Join the Book Bestie™ Hotline → Send me the book strategy questions you can’t Google, like whether a book is the best use of your next 6 months, which of the two books in your head to write first, or whether to self-publish or go traditional. You’ll get a real answer about your book and your business on Voxer within 72 business hours, and by the end, you’ll know which book to write, who it’s for, and how it can earn you clients, speaking, and authority.
- Explore the Damn Good Book™ Program → Write your book in 90 days with the 5-Star Book Map framework, 2 live group calls a month where we coach and write together, and private calls with me to catch any expensive mistakes before they happen.
If you want complete done-with-you support, Author Alchemy 1:1 Coaching & Publishing is your 10-month partnership to write and publish the book that finally gets you known—without the overwhelm of figuring out publishing, design, or what the hell comes after ‘The End.’ From your first outline to your published book, you’re fully supported. Book a consult call to see if it’s a fit.
Stay up to date on what’s working in books (& what’s not)
Before you write a single word, grab this free guide. You’ll see what’s working in nonfiction books right now (and what’s been dead for years but people still teach). Updated for 2027 because the landscape has changed—and so should your strategy.
