Amanda Filippelli is a writer, editor, and book coach, and author of Blue Rooms. An award-winning writer and publishing industry expert, Amanda has done it all from freelance to copy editing to content editing to ghostwriting and book coaching to co-founding One Idea Press. Amanda’s work has also been widely published and featured, including in Barzakh Magazine, TEDxWomenPittsburgh, ACA/PCA, Pittsburgh in the Round, and WHIRL Magazine. She was the recipient of Pittsburgh Magazine’s 40Under40 award and was the co-founder of Pittsburgh’s first premier writers’ conference, Pitch, Publish, Promote.
Amanda is also the host of Write to Heal workshops, where she helps people connect and heal through the power of storytelling. Before becoming a professional writer, Amanda worked in the mental healthcare system for ten years, teaching adolescent survivors of trauma how to take control of their narrative. Amanda continues this work through her writing, workshops, and her coaching programs.
What is your business all about?
I help creatives live up to their fullest potential. As a writer myself, I know firsthand how confusing and overwhelming writing and publishing a book can be. Even after studying at two universities, abroad, under the tutelage of esteemed authors, and working in traditional publishing, the process still seemed complicated to me! More than that, I know the true healing power there is in storytelling, so I established my business as a one-stop-shop for writers where they can find help shaping and executing their ideas under professional and caring guidance. There are a lot of scams in my industry – unqualified “editors,” DIY and vanity presses, and “coaches” without the training or experience it takes to navigate the publishing industry – so it was important to me to build a qualified network of women with different specialties who help me lead our clients through the processes of writing, revising, and embarking on the publishing path that’s right for them. Our stories are the most valuable thing we own, and the more we share them, the better our chance of building a more connected, empathetic, diverse, and creative world. There shouldn’t be any barriers to that.
How did you start your business?
I have always been a writer, but before I thought I could professionally work in the writing world, I went to school for a degree in psychology—so many people along the way had told me I needed to pick a career I could “fall back on”; that being a writer would leave me broke and disappointed (spoiler alert: they were wrong, and that kind of advice is terrible). I worked in mental healthcare for nearly a decade, and I saw firsthand just how powerful and healing storytelling was. I facilitated weekly groups with teens that taught them how to reframe, talk about, and share their own story. Before long, they were using all sorts of inventive ways to better communicate with each other and with themselves about their personal trauma.
When I first decided to quit my job and become an entrepreneur, it was because I had come up against so much bureaucracy and red tape at my job. I felt like I’d done all I could from the inside to try and better the system these kids live in, so my first business was an in-home family counseling service and mentorship program. I tried to create a business model that fully serviced at-risk youth and families in need, and that meant providing preventative treatment, aftercare services for kids transitioning out of the system, wrap-around services for overwhelmed families, home-based counseling, and community excursions, all at an affordable rate that didn’t require clients to use their insurance. The need is so great that the business scaled quickly, to the point that I became too quickly overwhelmed, and it ultimately collapsed when bigger organizations and legislators were unwilling to collaborate with me because of my nontraditional business model—the thing that served the people most was the same thing that big insurance-based companies wanted to suppress.
I went back to school to become an editor and professional writer and began the business I run now. While I know my first business helped a lot of people, I’ve been able to affect much larger and scaling change with this business by helping people tell and spread their stories. It has given me the opportunity to speak all around the country about the intersection of mental health and storytelling, about how creativity is a healing force, and it’s allowed me to prove to other struggling writers out there that you can be a full-time writer – we do exist – and that stories are what shape our entire world.
What were the top mistakes you made starting your business and what did you learn from it?
I didn’t trust myself.
I think it’s important to find examples of both businesses you admire and those you don’t, so you know exactly what type of business you want to establish, but it’s equally important to also define your point of difference. I had so many ideas in the beginning about how I wanted to run and evolve my business – big ideas that were new and weird but maybe really good – but I let other people tell me why those things wouldn’t work and how I should do things this way instead. I abandoned my intuition and let others’ opinions lead me, thinking they knew more than I did because they’d been running a business longer/had more connections/made more money/insert a million other reasons I made up here.
The truth was I knew best for me. Were there some kinks in my ideas? Sure. But they were great ideas that I revisited and implemented years later after ditching the snake oil salesmen in my life. If you’re excited about starting your own business, if you’re passionate about an idea, then it’s worth doing. Whether you succeed or fail, chasing your authenticity will only help you better refine yourself as a businessperson and what that means for you. There is no magic formula to running a successful business. Not in this booming age of entrepreneurship. There aren’t any rules about it or anyone enforcing those rules. Men with big egos, a lot of privilege, and little creativity made the “rules” you think you need to follow. Carve your own path.
I didn’t value my worth.
Every single entrepreneur I’ve ever met starts out charging way too little. It’s easy to do. You’re intimidated by selling your services or products. You want to build a reputation for yourself and your business. You want people to like you. You desperately want that golden opportunity that will launch your visibility – and hey, it just might come from a high-profile client that you gave a deal to, right? Wrong.
I’m wary now of anyone who doesn’t charge me enough. If the price seems too small, it signals that the business owner doesn’t acknowledge their worth yet, and that means they have some work to do – some inner dialogue to attend to – and I want someone to show up with their full selves, proud of what they offer. It took me many years to charge my worth. I had more experience, more insight, more industry knowledge, and more talent than most of my competitors, but I couldn’t own that. It felt taboo, like I was bragging, because I’m a woman and a creative – we’re basically bred to be self-deprecating. I had to do the work it takes to dismantle those lies and limiting thoughts and honor what I have to offer by charging competitively for my services, knowing that not every potential client is for me, but those who are will come.
So. You know that number in your head you think is the ceiling price for your services (for a million different excuses)? Tack on 25%. Right now.
I didn’t ask for help.
I have a great deal of ingenuity, and am an American woman bent on independently pulling herself up by her bootstraps – a cliché to my own detriment – but I should’ve asked for help in the beginning of my business. Every time I came up against a hurdle or found that I didn’t know something, I immediately worked to figure it out. On my own. Which took a lot of time.
Don’t know how to market yourself? Google. Read marketing books. Check.
Don’t know how to design a website? Google. Teach yourself how to code (which I stayed up for days doing, until I could only communicate through hand signals instead of words because I was so tired). Check.
What about branding? Take a course. Learn how to use design software. Do an okay job of creating branded things. Check.
I went on like this for years, and it was mostly a waste of time. Once I shed my biggest fears, created a real and comprehensive business plan, and gathered up my confidence, I reached out to several people – a marketing and PR specialist, graphic designers, teachers, a social media expert, etc. – hired several of them, and built a team of people I can rely on. Now I can execute my ideas quickly and efficiently with experts I trust to give me sage advice.
Seriously, support other small businesses and hire out.
How do you separate yourself from your competitors?
Qualified experience.
Books are my life. From writing to reading to the publishing industry, I am equally as passionate about very little else in life. Because I have such a deep and personal love for books and stories, I also have a deep respect for every person’s writing; every person’s story, so it’s important to me that I have more than love and passion – it’s important to me that I have the training, the knowledge, the insider insight, and a deep well of experience to draw from that helps me uniquely guide each of my clients.
Through maintaining a focus on mental health and marginalized voices. I don’t know how to better empower another person, especially a writer, than to first acknowledge and validate their perspective, their experience, and the thoughts and feelings behind their creative project. As a mental health counselor, as an advocate, as a complicated creative, as a person with Major Depressive Disorder, as a human being, it’s my purpose to gift my privilege forward in such a way that elevates marginalized voices. We can’t solve what we don’t acknowledge, and voices of color, of the neuro-atypical, of people with differing abilities have all been crowded out and minimized for far too long.
By providing writers with a comprehensive blueprint for their success, which means a lot more than just selling books. Book coaching is a relatively new trade, fueled by the boom of self-published authorpreneurs, so it can still be difficult to find a coach with enough qualifications to professionally guide you through the entire process – from content creation through editing and revision to design and production to publishing to marketing and entrepreneurship as an author. But we do exist! And I am in the company of some seriously incredible women in our industry who know how to teach people to become working writers because they’ve done it themselves.
What is one thing that you do daily to grow as an entrepreneur?
I check in with myself! For the first few years of my business, all I did was work. Even when I wasn’t working, when I was out with friends, when I was watching a movie, when I was cooking, when I was sleeping, I was still thinking about work. And it sucked. It didn’t help grow my business. It just gave me anxiety. I’ve learned – quite the hard way – that productivity isn’t a result of endless hours on the job, rather it’s a result of bursts of well-planned work hours. Now, I strictly stick to a specific structure. I spend time with myself at the very beginning of my day. I don’t check email. I don’t return messages. I spend time reading and journaling. I check in with myself. Then, after a few productive hours of work, I do it again mid-day. It’s so important that we take time to balance our work life with pleasure, with self-care, and with things that support our mental and physical health. Otherwise, we never bring our best selves to our clients.
What is the one thing you wish you knew before starting your business?
I wish I’d known how little making the “right” decisions mattered. I wish I hadn’t waited so long to step into my confidence and take big chances, because it has been those decisions which have brought me the bigger opportunities I always hoped for. Big things aren’t going to knock on your door – you have to chase them down, lasso them in, and take ownership of them. Many people give up after failing once or twice – the frustration and disappointment can feel like too much. I get it. But in my world, persistence is key.
What has been your most effective marketing strategy to grow your business?
Honesty. I’ve spent a lot of time trying to draw up effective marketing strategies, trying to properly brand myself, trying to create some version of myself that everyone might feel comfortable with, but that had always been a fool’s errand. I think those sorts of strategic decisions can be really important for product-based companies, but because I am working directly with clients through service-based consultations, none of that worked for me. And trying to mold myself into someone that felt right for everyone didn’t help me attract more clients – it only illuminated my insecurities. The irony in that is the things that I thought might turn off a client are precisely the things that culminate into my specific talents. For many years, I worried that I was too weird, too introverted, that people wouldn’t “get me,” that I didn’t look right for my job somehow. (What does that even mean? I know.) Truth is, my weirdness, my introversion, and everything else about me and my personality forms the matrix of my skillset. Those things are what made me the nerdy bookworm who grew up to work on books. And that’s awesome. We don’t let ourselves feel good about who we are like that enough, especially as women – especially, especially as women in business.
If you only had $1000 dollars to start a new business, knowing everything you know now, how would you spend it?
This is a tough question for me to answer because it really depends on your industry. I don’t have advice for product-based businesses because I don’t have a lot of experience in that realm, but for a service-based business, I would split that $1000 three ways:
1/3: Build your website. The most important thing you need, especially in the beginning (before you have any established marketing or word of mouth street cred), is a great website. And no, you don’t have to spend thousands on a designer. (But if you can afford to, do it. It’s worth it. I promise.) You can design a beautiful and functional website yourself through several different platforms and then upgrade to a professionally coded website later on. Will you pull some of your hair out? Probably. Will you lose a bit of sleep while you get it established? Definitely, but this is an important investment that will cost you a few hundred bucks.
1/3: Hire a consultant – a great and well-researched one who actively works in your industry. I wish I had done this. BIG TIME. Who is out there already doing what you want to be doing or even doing something similar to what you want to do? Are they killing it? Are you curious how? Reach out! Email those people and ask if you can hire them for a consultation. (Please don’t ask entrepreneurs if you can “pick their brain.” You’re unfairly asking for free labor that many will probably provide. Do it the right way and ask for a quote for a consultation. It’s good entrepreneurial karma.)
1/3: Take care of yourself. Take that money and do whatever you know you need to do to improve in an area of your self-care. I don’t mean pampering yourself with a spa day. I mean investing in a workshop, taking yoga, hiring a coach, making a doctor’s appointment, taking a weekend retreat – whatever it is you need to feel complete, centered, and confident. Because that’s the best way to approach your business. Allow yourself to satiate your needs so you can make conscientious, thoughtful, and strategic decisions for your business and for your clients.
What’s your best piece of advice for aspiring and new entrepreneurs?
Do it now. And do it with all your heart. I know that sounds corny and obvious, but it’s both the best and the simplest advice I can give – advice I wish I’d followed. If you have an idea that just never leaves you – that thing you’ll do eventually, when the time is right, one day – do it now, because spoiler alert: one day isn’t coming, the time will never be right, and eventually slowly turns into never which is a recipe for regret. And when you do it, go at it full force. Give it everything you have and love your project or business at least as much as you want other people to love it. Other people will only believe in you as much as you believe in yourself, so the best and most loving thing you can do for yourself is to believe in yourself and to show the world your talents without fear. The worst thing that can happen is you end up exactly where you are now.
What is your favorite quote?
My seventh-grade English teacher had this quote printed in giant letters on a banner across one wall of his room, and it has always stuck with me:
“I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul.”
These are the last two lines of a longer poem by William Ernest Henley called Invictus, which I find incredibly empowering and inspiring:
Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate,
I am the captain of my soul.
How can we get in touch with you?
You can find me everywhere, usually with the handle editor_amanda, but the best way to connect with me and follow my work is through my website amandafilippelli.com and by joining my newsletter.
