Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Amy Lyle. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Alright, Amy thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Let’s start with the story of your mission. What should we know?

My mission is to bring people together through humor, which I call “Connective Humor.”

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

My creative journey launched after working for a global human resources group for over a decade. It started with a screenplay I had written about a single woman working in Manhattan that falls in love with a divorced Atlanta gentleman who has four children. There were endless opportunities to clash north vs south, single vs married, moms vs stepmoms, and life with kids vs no kids. My goal was to dispel mom stereotypes with a little drama and a lot of humor, think “Desperate Housewives” meets “Sex in the City.'” It is harder than you think to sell a screenplay to Hollywood. For the past five years, I’ve experienced the joy of gaining representation, the pain of losing investors and losing representation, attracting new representation, changing the full feature film into a dramedy series, and being rejected by dozens of networks and producers, However, while I’m waiting for my big break of being on a sitcom or dramedy writing team, I have written two bestselling books, “The Book of Failures,” and “We’re All A Mess, It’s OK,” landed on a GoodReads Top 10 Best Humor list, starred in an award-winning comedy short, secured a spot on an Atlanta morning show, started my own show, “In The Burbs with Amy and Gina,” was featured in the New York Times and was a speaker for Beacon Street’s Tedx to share the big idea of “Finding the Funny in the Crummy.” What I have learned is this- you must enjoy the journey.

What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?

It’s rewarding to get feedback from people about how they had been holding on to shame and regrets for years, even decades, but when they saw that I was able to see the humor in even my most painful of moments, they realized that (with enough time) they could too. One review read, “Love your books, you make me feel that as a wife and mother I’m not alone and I suck less,” which really sums up my intentions.

I think the most touching “fan” response was from a gentleman in Boston, his wife was in a facility due to severe MS. He wrote to me, asking me when I was going to write another book because he would visit his wife and read to her and she laughed so hard while he was reading my ridiculous stories. He sent me a picture of her smiling, holding one of my books, and wearing a “We’re All A Mess, It’s OK,” sweatshirt. I printed out his email and tapped it up in my office. It reminds me of what matters, making other people feel better.

Can you share one of your favorite marketing or sales stories?

There are 33 million titles available on Amazon, it’s hard to sell books. Advertising is very expensive so utilizing social media effectively can help you launch and maintain steady book sales if you don’t bore people to death. You can’t just keep posting, “Buy my book,” it wears people out. You have to do something fun.

I saw a segment about alpacas being hired to go into hospitals and schools and I wondered how much it would cost to rent an alpaca for a few hours to be part of the cover of my second book, “We’re All A Mess, It’s OK,” I knew that having an alpaca on set would make for a fun shoot with my friends, who were also on the cover and hopefully have potential readers aks themselves, “Why is there an alpaca on the book cover?” Then, a P/R friend of mine, who founded Chatterhouse Communications, Becky Robinson. took it to the next level.

Becky asked the photographer (Andrea Ferenchik) if she could take some shots of just the alpaca, which she did. Becky sent me a mockup of the alpaca “talking” about the book, it was hilarious. We decided to hire Chris Corso, a voiceover actor, to do 30 different short talks or songs about funny moments in the book. Chris did the alpaca (who we named Santiago) in a Peruvian voice, as alpacas are indigenous to the area. The Santiago social media campaign was a hit. People looked forward to seeing what Santiago would say or sing and more importantly, they would SHARE the posts and recommend the book. It was so successful that when people would see anything with alpacas on it, from mugs to undies, they would post it and tag me (and mention the book) and people sent me everything from note pads to socks adorned with alpacas. When they saw alpacas they thought of me and the book. It was a risk, as it is expensive to rent an alpaca, and hire a voice-over professional but it paid off.

The campaign helped sell books and it opened the door to many opportunities, including magazine features, (indie) movie roles, and paid talks. Marketing a book is as challenging as writing a book.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.amylyle.me
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/amylyleauthor/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/amylyle.me/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/amy-lyle-bb8a322/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/amylyle?s=09
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBIKE0fw67thFKpvbAFV-xg/videos

Image Credits
Photography by Andrea Ferenchik