We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Amanda Maldonado. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Amanda below.

Amanda, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Coming up with the idea is so exciting, but then comes the hard part – executing. Too often the media ignores the execution part and goes from idea to success, skipping over the nitty, gritty details of executing in the early days. We think that’s a disservice both to the entrepreneurs who built something amazing as well as the public who isn’t getting a realistic picture of what it takes to succeed. So, we’d really appreciate if you could open up about your execution story – how did you go from idea to execution?

It all started during the COVID-19 pandemic, having to be stuck at home was taking a toll on my mental health. I exhausted all the movies and TV shows I could watch. I decided to dive deep into books. While I have read books in the past they were mostly self-help and motivational books. Thriller, Fantasy, and Sci-Fi are my favorite film genres, so why not start reading books in these genres? The first book I picked up was Little Secrets by Jennifer Hillier and WOW my continued love for novels started then!

Once the world was getting back to normal, I found myself wanting to find a circle of friends I could discuss my love for reading. Which led me to start a South Florida book club. One simple social media post made the group grow into a group of 10 girls. Not only did this allow us to find joy in reading but also made more friends in the area. Most of us were new to South Florida, which made it easier to also make friends!

While sometimes “life” caught up with some of us, having to make the book club when we could, my passion grew for reading. One night, out with two girlfriends from the book club, we decided WHY not start a book club podcast! We felt we had awesome personalities and a passion for reading, so let’s grow our book club virtually.

Now, we have a podcast called Book, Please!

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I was born and raised in New York. I have moved around a few times while living in NY and always worked in hospitality while in college, which has helped shape me into a friendly, outgoing, bubbly woman today. After college, I started my career in in-house recruiting. Nine years later, I still recruit and love it! Connecting with people is something that brings utter joy into my life! After living most of my life in New York, I was ready for a change, Florida sounded like a great option at the time with my current employer having an office in Miami I could transfer to. I moved to South Florida within two months of deciding it was time for a new adventure in a new city. I came knowing I would have no one and would have to build a new sense of community from scratch, I was both excited and nervous. Here I am six years later, in a new state I call my permanent home.

Starting the South Florida book club not only gave me a new hobby but also a new sense of community.
A year later, my virtual book club podcast, not only allowed me to read awesome books I love, I also get to do it with my best friend who I met living here in Florida.

What sets us apart from other podcasts are many things! We get to engage with women of all ages and all around the world. We get to meet amazing authors, especially new and upcoming authors. Not only do we read amazing books together with our “Booklette’s” but also talk about current event topics, make it fun to tune in every Wednesday!

I want everyone to know, this is an open safe space, we take recommendations on books, we are here to help those who experience similar moves like my co-host, Elina and I. We appreciate all our Booklette’s who have been supporting us through our virtual book club podcast journey! We are excited for what’s to come!

We’d love to hear about how you met your business partner.

Surprisingly enough. my co-host Elina is from the tri-state area like myself! I was living out on Long Island, New York before moving to Florida and she was in New Jersey. We matched on BumbleBFF. Both being new to Florida and wanting to find a sense of community in Florida, we met for Brunch!
As life continued to happen, we did drift away after initially meeting.

After the pandemic, and starting my South Florida book club, she replied to my story expressing interest in joining the book club! She attended every meetup! We became very close during this time.
Which led us to want to do more, want to branch out more. We both LOVED reading, she was more of a love genre girlie while I love thrillers, it made us both step out of our usual reads and broaden our reads.

While out one night, we decided why not start a podcast, we researched to see if anyone was doing what we had planned. Half girl talk, half book talk podcast. We did not want to limit our book club to just South Florida, a virtual book club was the perfect idea!

Here we are, building a community for not only a virtual book club but also growing a virtual community!

We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?

Social media is HUGE and needed to grow any business, especially a podcast. With some growing pains and learning with time. We hired a video creator who started creating reels/shorts/TikTok videos from our episodes. This has helped with our engagements and growing our following. TikTok Live was also a great resource for us! We love engaging with new potential listeners as well as current listeners. With every business, it requires funding to grow. We look forward to continuing this!

Contact Info:

• Website: https://bookplease.podbean.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bookpleasepodcast/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/bookpleasepodcast
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/bookpleasepodcast/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@BookPleasePodcast