Where can people find your books?

You can visit my website and purchase them at amazon.com. I’ve also made them available in every public library in the state of Minnesota. I’m hoping to get it into other states too.

How did you go from being a financial professional to then becoming an author? What really got you into that position to be publishing a book?

In the beginning of my career I was actually a commercial artist. Commercial art led to writing and my realizing it was my true calling. I wound up fascinated with writing and it just pulled me. That led to being a reporter. I got into investigative reporting and covered local, state, and federal government. As a reporter you can get in places no one else can, ask questions, and really learn. It was very exciting. Then, I did public relations work and eventually technical writing for an agricultural firm.

So, all of those things helped me write. I always wanted to write a novel. I had a brief moment when my kids were all grown and gone that I thought “Oh maybe I could quit work and do this.” So, I tried writing a novel and in six months I went crazy because I just still needed to work then. I went back to work and decided I’d hold off on the novel until I retire.

It had been my plan all along. Part of that was the financial planning of making sure that I was in a spot in which I could write that novel someday. We now live in a turn-of-the-century home in southern Minnesota, which we bought specifically after we retired as a place in which I would be inspired to write and run a writers group. That was part of our financial plan.

What is the process of getting published?

I’ve always described an author as somebody who cannot not write. If you just have to put things down, you got ideas in your head, you have to get them out.

The first thing is to know what you’re aiming for and get your head around what that genre is about. Also, think about how your story might compare to books in the same genre. With that, there are rules of genre. You’ll want to know what those rules are before you start writing so you know what’s expected of you. The reason there are rules is that there are already developed readers out there. There are readers who want to read just romance or just thrillers or just suspense and so if your story fits into one of those things, understanding the genre rules and what your readers are going to expect will help you create that story in a way that will resonate with those readers. That makes it much more salable and much more successful for you.

Next, create a manuscript. Don’t curb any creative juices that you have. Just write. Don’t worry about if it’s right or wrong or whatever. Just flop it out in that first draft. Then, step away for a month or two. Come back at it with a fresh mind and read through it. That’s when you’ll see holes or things that need to be filled in or something that needs to be pumped up. Then, rewrite and revise.

When you feel that story is everything you want it to be, send your manuscript to beta readers. A beta reader is somebody that will read your manuscript and tell you if they like it or didn’t like it, and why or why not. They note where you put them to sleep, where they just lost interest, where there were holes, and those sorts of things. Beta readers can be people you know or people that just volunteer to do that. This step can be very important in that process because they catch some of the big mistakes and plot arc issues. Then you take it back and revise again. There’s a lot of revision in writing!

Next, you give it to an editor, whom you’ll have to pay. If you’re looking at novel writing, you’ll have to hire an editor in order to submit it to any publishing company. It’ll cost anywhere from maybe $1,000-$2,000 to get your manuscript edited well. You can find good editors by asking other published authors. They’ve had to do that so they’ve got experience with some different editors and can give you some references.

Once it’s edited you decide how you’re going to publish it. There are two ways to go: Traditional publishing and self-publishing.

Traditional publishing

There are some intermediate and small independent presses. Or there’s the big five: Simon & Schuster, Penguin Random House, HarperCollins, Hachette Book Group, and Macmillan.

If you decide to go traditional publishing, that’s going to require writing query letters and finding yourself an agent. No big publisher will even consider you without an agent. You can’t just go hire one, but I wish we could. To get a literary agent, you have to submit part of your manuscript along with a query letter stating who you are, how marketable you would be, and how willing you would be to revise things. Literary agents are going to be looking for a good manuscript that they can pedal to a publisher.

You never have to pay a publisher or a literary agent upfront. If you do, they’re not reputable or legitimate. They’ll make their money when you make your royalties. They’ll take a portion of your royalties and so will the publisher. So, it shouldn’t cost you anything. After that, an agent will walk you through everything else. They’ll have their own revision editors, proofreaders, cover designs, and title.  The publisher will even likely even determine your manuscript title, not you.

There are ups and downs to traditional publishing. I mean, you sign the rights of your manuscript away. They now own it. Usually, it’s in the contract that you have to do the revisions that they want. If they say, “I want you to change the name of your character. I want you to change this plot element.” You must write it and do it the way they want because it’s their book now.

Some of the smaller presses don’t make you revise so heavily or don’t have that big of clout.

But these too will sometimes buy your manuscript and require certain things and then keep the bulk of the royalty. They’ll pay you, but after they get paid.  So, there are some big downsides to going with traditional publishers.

There are more promotional opportunities because traditional publishers obviously can promote your book a whole lot more. Typically, the “Big Five” will sink about $150,000 into a debut author just to get them positioned for the public and to get enough advertising out there. It funds author events, book signings, appearances, interviews, and whatever. They usually have about a two-week window. If your book doesn’t hit the best-seller list in those two weeks, they’ll drop selling your book and you don’t get your manuscript back.

Self-Publishing

It took me 11 years to get “Rooked” published. From getting it written, then rewriting, and finally publishing. But in that length of time, self-publishing has opened up tremendously and it has taken a new position of respect in the book world. Before it was like “well they were pretty shabby because no real editing was done.” Now, you hire your own editors and cover designers.

When you self-publish you have to format everything electronically, including the cover and spine, so there’s a lot to know. But if I can do it, anybody can. Let’s put it that way. You can also hire people that will format it for you and get it downloaded into a print-on-demand. You’ll also have to find a print-on-demand service. A print-on-demand service is a service that will print one book at a time for a very reasonable cost. This allows you to set a sale price where you can make a profit without having to invest thousands of dollars in a large run just to reduce the cost per book. I self-published and they’re just as good a quality as anything else. The type, the borders, the print, the jackets, everything.

Initially, I thought I would go with a traditional publisher for “Rooked” so I could get that book out to more people. “Rooked” really has a message that is so universal across the nation for people to know what was going on Wall Street at the time the global financial collapse was rearing up. But then when I got to the editor part, my editor said the 180,000-word manuscript had to be whittled down to 70,000 because the debut author should be within 50-70,000 words. No publishers, especially the big ones, are going to take a chance on a manuscript as big as the one I had with a debut author. I have no track record. Every page costs money to print and to ship to bookstores and whatnot. So, in order for me to be considered by a traditional publisher, I had to scale it down.

I spent three or four years rewriting that whole book into two different points of view. When I got it done I thought, it’s no longer the story that I wanted to tell. Really, I needed more words. I reconsidered my options and by that time self-publishing had become a viable option and so I chose to go that route and self-publish.

I’m more willing to cut down other books and make them more suitable to the publishing industry, but with “Rooked” I wasn’t. I was on the deck of that ship when it went down and I had so much to tell and so much to let people see, that I just I couldn’t tell it in any less words.

One thing about self-publishing is you get to keep the royalties. You don’t have to share with anybody. So, it’s a little easier to earn that money back too. You don’t make enough to quit the day job, though. Wait until you make it big time before you quit the day job.

So if you go with a big publisher, you can lose your creative freedom?

Some. I mean if you’re John Grisham or Stephen King, your agent and publisher will let you do what you want to do. An author I know said his publisher wants him to continue using the same characters in certain books and that he can’t veer off from them, though he really would like to. There are some restrictions once you develop certain characters, a setting, and have a following. It stands to reason why your publisher would want you to repeat that over and over again. It’s a sure sell. So yeah, self-publishing you have a lot more freedom. You have total freedom over everything you do and that was important to me.

Can you think of a time you were discouraged and how you overcame it?

I self-published and debuted “Rooked” in March of 2020. It was such a disappointment. First, I spent 11 years writing my novel and getting it into book form. Second, I debuted in the very month that we go into a global pandemic and a shutdown for the next year. That wiped out all my author events that I had set up and all the promotion things that I was hoping to do. I couldn’t do it and so I kind of missed that window of opportunity. But I did not give up; I kept going.

I kept writing my books. I’m working on the other two novels that are going to be part of the Wall Street Series. I just I got the book out there. I did whatever I could and just kept plowing through. It’s two years afterwards and I am totally in the black with sales of “Rooked.”

How do you lead change in your community and support women?

Anything that helps empower women has always been what I’ve strived for. It is that’s my passion. I mean I can just go on about this.

Years ago, I was a mover and a shaker. I was involved with a lot of organizations and things like Rotary, Zonta International, The National Association of Female Executives, and Business and Professional Women. Rotary worked to Stamp Out Polio and various things around the world. Zonta International was very focused on violence against women and girls. Business and Professional Women and the National Association of Female Executives are very strong voices for working women. There’s the membership obligation of just being a member and putting your money into an organization that promotes your ideologies. Donations and supporting other people that are doing things in those organizations is one way anybody can do something to create positive change.

I did two terms as a local president of Business and Professional Women and then I was legislative chair for eight years. I also worked on the state level with event planning and speech writing. They were the voice of working women for things like pay equity, fairness in the workplace, and sexual harassment. We work very hard through BPW to get things put into law and we lobbied legislation.

Even though there’s been laws on the books for years that have protected women whatever, the #metoo movement shows us how good that’s been going! In the 60s there were sexual harassment laws and it’s still prevalent. So, we have a long way to go and even with wage imparities we’re still only at I think like 83 cents on the dollar to a man’s dollar. All while doing the same job, same educational requirements and stuff.

I still taught Sunday school and was a woman’s activist on a lot of issues. But now as I’m retired, I work a little bit more personally; more one-on-one. I mentored single moms for a period of four years. I’ve written seminars. I wrote the books. I’ve got the books in all the libraries in the state of Minnesota so that they’re accessible to women. That’s probably the biggest lasting contribution I’m giving is my books. They’ll last forever.

What I would encourage all of women to do is pick your passions and then find things that support it. An organization can do so much more than what one person can do individually.

Is that why you became involved with this organization?

I think it’s why I’ve always been drawn to empowering women. From arguing with friends over the kitchen table to getting out there with signs to lobbying to get legislation done to equal the playing field for women. It’s not because I’m against men or I’m mad that they’ve got more rights. I have two sons and I don’t want anything taken away from them. No. Not at all. I just want more fair rights for women.

I look at the protests in Iran over head scarves and we can think “Wow, that would never happen here.” but it did! and in my lifetime! I was born in the 40s. From the 1940s all the way into the 1960s, three states had banned women from wearing shorts. New York even slapped on a $25 fine and 25 days in jail if they caught a woman wearing shorts in public…and these were Bermuda shorts!

It wasn’t that long ago because I’m here and this happened in my lifetime. Since the beginning of this country in 1776, for 200 years women could not own property without a male cosigner. It was 1973 before a woman could even open a checking account, savings account, or a credit card in her name without a male cosigner. I was the mother of three children in 1973. My youngest was a year old before I could even go out and open a credit card without my husband’s signature. Before that I had to get my father’s signature or my grandfather’s signature to buy a car.

If you could give a piece of advice to your former self what would it be and why?

Pay attention to politics! It took me a while, but politics and political policies put before Congress is integral to your financial well-being. As much so as religion is to your moral compass. As a financial advisor, I realize the disparities of how public policy/how political policy really affects certain asset classes differently. And from my observation, the average person doesn’t even recognize this. So, pay attention to what’s happening.