How I Got A Book Deal & Landed In Hundreds Of Bookstores

My name is Alyssa Couture, I am a fashion author and fashion entrepreneur. I specialize in fashion for the mind, body, and spirit. I teach, educate and consult on fashion as an alternative health treatment. I run a fashion campaign named Healthy Fashion. I wrote a book in conjunction with my business. My book Healthy Fashion: The Deeper Truths is all about fashion for the mind, body, and spirit.

My products include my book and my digital printables. My services include consultation, public speaking, and freelance writing. My products and services are for fashion professionals, fashion students, fashion enthusiasts, and fashion consumers. They are for people who are interested in fashion, and they live a healthy, holistic lifestyle.

My main focus is my book. I have worked with a publishing company based in the UK: John Hunt Publishing. Currently, the book is being pre-sold worldwide in hundreds of online book retailers, and bookstores. Some of the bookstores that are selling Healthy Fashion: The Deeper Truths include Barnes & Noble, Indie Bound, Amazon, Walmart, Waterstones, and Powell’s.

I started out with a passion for fashion at a young age. I was 16 years old at the time when I started to experiment with fashion. I would draw fashion illustrations in several notebooks and also save them in binders. I also loved to make fashion collages with fashion magazine clippings. I would buy poster boards and hang the fashion collages up in my room. As an artist, I also loved to write poems and short stories. I was a professional fine art illustrator when I was in my early to late 20s.

So, after high school, I went to school at the Academy of Art University, majoring in fashion design. Throughout my teens and 20s, I would work in fashion retail. I have worked in multiple fashion retail positions, from fashion retail management, styling, to visual merchandising.

I loved working in retail, and I was able to understand and learn more about fashion products and what types of fashion people want. In my late 20s to early 30s, I continued to work in the fashion industry, and I worked on multiple different fashion projects. I had started a fashion/media company and an eco-fashion blog.

I had also launched a handmade eco-fashion brand named Alternative Fashion. My brand was entered in 8 different fashion shows and I was entered in the Saks 5th Avenue Talent Search Competition. I am also a fashion event producer. In 2014 I had created and produced a fashion show event with vendors, speakers, and designers showcasing their collections. It was a great show.

In addition to fashion, throughout my life, I have always been interested in metaphysical and spiritual subjects. So, I worked and lived in multiple ashrams and monasteries. This made me want to create new perspectives for fashion-- and make fashion more spiritual. It helped me want to write about and educate people about the apparel as a healing modality, similar to the way meditation, mantras, and yoga practice are healing modalities.

Take us through your entrepreneurial journey. How did you go from day 1 to today?

I started my second entrepreneurial journey in 2018, by writing my fashion book Healthy Fashion: The Deeper Truths. It took a while to write because there was a lot of research involved. Additionally, a lot of my life experiences were helping me to include my own thoughts, ideas, and concepts in the book, so that took time too. So, once I wrote the book, I contacted several publishers. I received multiple contracts, and I accepted a contract with a great publishing company called John Hunt Publishing.

As I was continuing to finish and edit the book, I built my own website on Wix. They have a great website-building platform. This website took a while to build, but it looks professional. I was able to create a website with my own style. I wanted to make it look fun, cute, and stylish. As I was building my site, I began writing lots of articles for media/news blogs and magazines. I was interviewed on several podcasts and radio shows. Currently, I have been interviewed over 25 times since last spring on various podcast and radio shows.

A few more things that I have done that are included on my website: I have launched two fashion digital printables, a monthly blog, and a free resources page. I have created an email marketing campaign and a social media campaign. I have social media posts that post daily. I have also worked on multiple projects that have helped me become organized and market my work.

My social media campaign includes Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, and Youtube. I have several V-logs that I have published, and it is a way for my clients and followers to get to know me.

There are several business documents that I have created to make my business go easier. Some of the documents include:

• Media Kit

• Q+A about Alyssa and her new book

• Pitch Letters

• Blurbs page about Healthy Fashion

• A list of important links that I refer to

• Bio page (micro, mini, and macro bios)

• A things-to-do document

• A marketing launch document

Through starting the business, have you learned anything particularly helpful or advantageous?

I do believe you have to keep going even when things are bringing you down. I had a group of people tell me all kinds of negative things that would attempt to break my spirit and not allow me to continue working as an entrepreneur. This was/is a major challenge still today. I have learned to just keep working, and keep making things happen.

I do believe you have to keep going even when things are bringing you down.

I do believe that it is all about timing. For example, I have tried my best to work on projects that never officially launched. I really wanted to find an investor when I was working on my handmade fashion brand. I did not give enough time and energy to find an investor, so it just didn’t happen. I also was led on at one point, when a family member’s friend had a retail property that he was trying to rent. These people told me I could launch a shop there.

Well, it just was not possible, even when I attempted to make it happen. I had even found many of the retail fixtures for the store, and started to store them at the property, really believing I was going to open a fashion retail store there. This was not just me being naive, I feel it was a setup, a setup to make me fail, and to break my spirit because I knew in my heart it wasn’t going to happen, but I kept being given the idea that it could happen. I spent a few months believing it would happen and I tried to make things happen but there was a lot of humiliation involved, because I truly wasn’t ready, and I really needed more business support and help, but I didn’t have any at the time.

What platform/tools do you use for your business?

I use a lot of social media and productivity tools. A few that I use:

Background remover

Blog title analyzer

Grammar editors to edit blog posts:

Scribens

Grammar Checker

Writer - Grammar checker

Grammarly

Free photos:

Pexels

Unsplash

Free music:

Pixabay (techno) Music

Apps:

I love the Read Later App. It is a chrome extension and saves all the links that you want to read in the future.

What have been the most influential books, podcasts, or other resources?

I love Smart Bug Media. They are a marketing agency. Their blog is really interesting with so many helpful articles. Anyone that wants marketing help, or inspiration in general, should check out Smart Bug. Their website design and font size on their website make it much easier to read, and their look is stylish and aesthetically pleasing.

Another very inspiring site is Neil Patel’s site. He has thousands of blogs and videos, and they are not just talking about SEO only, but he does have a great SEO platform called Uber Suggest. Neil Patel is a famous entrepreneur, analytics expert, and investor. He is really down to Earth, and he is really honest and real about things. For example, he tells people the reason his blog became popular. It was from the number of blogs he has written. He said that he wrote literally thousands of articles for his blog in order for it to become popular.

Advice for other entrepreneurs who want to get started or are just starting out?

A few of these quotes are from articles I have read:

1. “What people think of me is none of my business.” -unknown
2. “There are 7 billion people in the world, and I get my own share of people interested in my work.” -unknown
3. “It’s not just a matter of motivation, it’s a matter of patience.” - unknown
4. ”Notice the program of anxiety that happens when you attempt to fulfill your service to the world. Notice these are black magic spells that will eventually dissolve if you keep repetitively noticing them and fill your body with white light.” - unknown
5. “Sour grapes will sour your reputation, but being a good sport demonstrates the professionalism you want to be perceived.” - unknown

Where can we go to learn more?

• Website

Social: - Instagram - Facebook - Pinterest - Youtube