A Late Bloomer Publishes her Debut Novel: A Guest Post by Diane Cohen Schneider
I’m on maternity leave! During this time, a few of my favorite authors offered to step up and write guest posts so that this blog would remain active while I adjust to my new role as a mother. I may also be a bit slower to respond. Thanks for understanding and for being so supportive of me, my family, and my blog. Want to donate a few dollars to keep this blog running or perhaps contribute to my diaper fund? You can do so on Venmo or Paypal.
A Late Bloomer Publishes her Debut Novel: A Guest Post by Diane Cohen Schneider
They say good things come to those who wait but sometimes you have to stop waiting and make things happen. I had the classic dream of being traditionally published that started with a martini lunch in a clubby New York City restaurant with my impossibly witty and chic agent and ended with a movie deal. But then I checked my calendar and realized I was already sixty years old and the traditional route to publishing was not happening for me. But while I was not getting any younger, I was getting smarter and I saw that the publishing business (similar to the music and film industries) was increasingly breaking away from the traditional business model and going Indie (independent) so I did too. I published my debut novel – Andrea Hoffman Goes All In - with She Writes Press -an award-winning hybrid publisher- in the same year my Medicare coverage kicked in. If I had known it would be this fun to have a book out in the world, I might have tried to do this earlier but honestly, there are many advantages to publishing when you are older.
First of all, I was more realistic about what my expectations for success were.
Publishing a book, is not - except in the rarest of cases - a path to fame and wealth. Fortunately, as a woman who had already had a career, raised three happy children, and was financially stable, I didn’t need or expect my book to be a huge hit. (Not that I would have minded it!) My expectation was that the book would be enjoyed by those people that found it, bought it and read it. And as I hoped, having a published novel opened doors for me to speak about my passion for financial literacy, connected me with many old friends, and introduced me to interesting new people. This was what my expectations were- that publishing my book would further connect me to the world that as older women, we can find ourselves increasingly removed from.
Second, where book writing might be an artistic endeavor, book selling is a business and I had years of real world experience about what works and what doesn’t in the world of sales. For example, I was barraged with offers to help me sell my book from companies I had never heard of in places I had no knowledge of. An advantage of being “more mature” is that I am no longer as naïve and gullible. Which didn’t mean that I failed to recognize all the new opportunities that the changes in the industry offered. The internet has totally transformed the way books are written, published, distributed and read. What it did mean was that I knew I’d have to learn some new skills like setting up a website, an Instagram account and courting IG book influencers, And it meant I had to be humble enough to ask for help when I needed it like with Tik Tok.
Third, reaching the age of sixty five meant that I knew more people than I did when I was younger. Remember that old shampoo ad where the model says “I told two friends about Faberge Shampoo and they told two friends and so on and so on.” Well, at this stage of my life, I have a lot more than two friends to tell about my book. I have relatives, high school friends, college friends, work friends, neighbors from several moves, not to mention the thousands of friends my kids have on their social media accounts. Compounding, a key concept in finance, works equally well in book selling. And I found that people were genuinely interested in my book and my new life as a published author. Years of buying Girl Scout cookies and donating to non-profit contribution requests, were generously reciprocated by these same folks buying my book.
Fourth, when I got to a certain age, I learned to say no. I never would have finished writing Andrea Hoffman Goes All In if I hadn’t learned to say no without justification. The demands on a woman’s time never stop. Saying, “no, I can’t help you with that” without giving an explanation that the asker could argue with was totally liberating and without giving myself that gift of prioritizing my own needs, I never would have achieved my goal.
And finally, I learned to say yes. Yes to things that were scary and out of my comfort zone. Yes to spending some of the money we had spent years saving. Even if you publish traditionally, you have to be prepared to support your book with additional expenses. This was one of the most difficult things I had to learn to do. All our lives we had watched our money grow and it was hard to realize that now was the time and this was the kind of expenditure that we had saved it for. And let’s face it, I had to say yes to the possibility that this wouldn’t go the way I hoped and that I was exposing myself to possible derision or to simply being ignored. Mostly, I said yes to supporting the people who had helped me in this journey and there were so many. Being a late bloomer who published her debut novel in her sixties taught me that the work was not about writing, publishing and selling a book, it was about growing as a person and expanding my connection to other people in this ever changing world. Publishing Andrea Hoffman Goes All In has, in the many ways that truly matter- kept me young.
A Late Bloomer Publishes her Debut Novel: A Guest Post by Diane Cohen Schneider
