How Bo Bennett uses AI to run an author services business
Bo Bennett is the Founder & CEO of Archieboy Holdings, LLC, which runs roughly 48 websites and software products, most serving authors and independent publishers. Bennett explains how AI agents support a one-person operation, how the business attracts and retains customers, and why finding clients remains harder than building the business.
AI can help a lean operation handle more work, but it does not remove the challenge of finding customers. Bennett’s experience also shows the value of repeat business and staying closely involved in the company.
What’s the short story of how your business started, and what makes it genuinely different from the other options your customers have?
I started the business in 2011 because there were a lot of authors trying to publish and very few companies helping them do it. We filled that gap. Since then, we have published more than 10,000 books and paid more than $5 million to authors.
What makes us different today is how we work. I’m the only human employee, and AI agents handle much of the routine work across our roughly 48 websites. That lets us help authors with almost every step of publishing, from editing and covers to distribution, audiobooks and marketing.
How did you win your first customers, and where does most of your new business come from today?
In the beginning, most of our customers came from Google pay-per-click ads. Today, most of our revenue comes from authors who already work with us and keep coming back. New customers find us mainly through Facebook and Instagram ads and through search engines, and a small but quickly growing number now find us by asking AI assistants such as ChatGPT.
What’s one decision that changed the direction of your business, and one mistake that taught you the most?
The decision that changed the direction of the business was to embrace AI, both to help people write their books and to run the business itself. It’s the reason one person can run what we run today.
The mistake that taught me the most came around 2015. I stepped away for a couple of years and paid someone else to run the business. I should have stuck with it. Nobody will care about your business as much as you do.
What has changed in your industry or in what your customers expect over the last couple of years, and how have you adapted?
AI is a huge change, and it touches nearly every part of publishing. Authors now use it to help write, edit, narrate and market their books. We adapted by embracing it, both in the tools we offer authors and in how we run the company.
If you were advising someone starting out in your industry today, what would you tell them to do first, and what would you tell them to ignore?
Think big, but expect marketing to be much more difficult than you imagine. Building the machinery of a business is the easy part these days. Getting clients is the hard part.
And ignore the viral videos of people claiming wild success. They are almost certainly not being honest.
Thank you to Bo Bennett and the team at Archieboy Holdings, LLC for sharing what actually worked with Leaders Perception readers.
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