Christine Louise Hohlbaum: SAHM and So Much More

What's your line? Tell us about your business or business pursuits.

I am a writer, author of several books, instructor and motivational speaker.

How long have you been in your profession, or in your current business?

About two years.

What prompted you to start your own business?

I wanted to stay home with my kids and raise them myself. I had NO idea how hard it would be to be a mother. To find a sense of creative balance, I started writing as an outlet. From there, I learned to market my books and started offering a marketing class for book authors. Networking is as natural to me as breathing. Growing up, my mom had her own real estate business. I learned a lot about customer service by observing her in action.

How did you decide what business to pursue?

It was an organic process really. Someone asked me to put an online class together to help authors, since I seemed to know a bit about book promotion. The next thing I knew I had created a new identity as a PR Diva Queen. I have a product coming out which includes a hands-on workbook and audio series for authors to jumpstart their book marketing campaign, no matter where they are in the process.

Describe how your prior experiences influenced or helped you.

It was a lot of trial and error. Every day offers a new learning experience. I hope to keep learning about what works and what doesn’t to fine tune the craft of writing and marketing.

What help did you receive in order to set up your business?

Other than a few friends’ moral support, I was on my own to figure out the publishing world. It has been a wild ride thus far!

Are there resources or networking you find beneficial in your current business?

Ryze.com was a super resource in the early days of my marketing efforts. Networking offline has been very useful as it helps establish your credibility as a speaker, etc. People buy books from people so that is a positive.

Did your present business require a financial investment to get started?

I’ve had a pay-as-you-go mentality, although as you become more well-known there are considerations as to whether to outsource some of your PR efforts. If you have a few thousand dollars to help market your book, you can do a lot.

What major roadblocks have you experienced? Explain how you dealt with them.

Living abroad while selling to the U.S. market has been tricky. Thanks to the Internet, I have “met” a lot of influential people who have been incredibly helpful. One day I interviewed an international best-selling author for a magazine article, connected a US-based TV producer with the president of a national association for her documentary with PBS, and played soccer with my son. My life is extremely diverse, and in reality, I appreciate the distance I have. It is easier to “tune out” if I want to.

Have you made mistakes you would like to share with other women entrepreneurs?

NEVER send an attachment or spam magazine editors and the like. In the beginning, I would send my press release in attachment form. A bit naïve!!

How many hours a day does your business require of you?

If you count the parallel childcare, I’d say 15 hours a day.

How do you feel your income from your business compares to the income you would receive if you were in the traditional business sector, or workforce? Are you meeting your financial expectations or needs?

Not yet, but writing, publishing and marketing require a “pyramid” structure. You build one brick on top of the other. One dayI envision an empire of creativity and nice cash flow to boot!

How do you rate your job frustration over the past week?

Pretty low

month?

moderate

Year?

moderate

How do you rate your job satisfaction over the past week?

Very high – I have had quite a few nice “wins” this week.

Month?

Great! I recently went to New York and met a few editors. The writing field is a slow-paced one. Lots of hurry up and wait!

Year?

Having published two books in three months has consumed a great deal of my creative energy, but it feeds me more than drains me. I enjoy creating laser-like messages about my writing, so marketing is great fun for me.


Remember that old advertisement, if you had a beauty secret, would you share? If you had a business secret, would you share? If you would share, what is your business secret?

My method is simple: be a part of the solution. If an editor needs a story, write it. If a producer needs an interview subject, provide it. If you can’t be the one to do the actual story or interview, help the editor or producer get the source she needs. Filling people’s needs is one sure-fire way that they’ll remember you. It is about connecting people with people and reminding them of their own vision.

In short, be memorable!

What advice would you give women who would like to become self-employed?

Give yourself three years before you expect to be profitable. Look into the Small Business Administration for loans, if you require one. Have courage to follow your dream. If you do, you are guaranteed to lead a soul-drive existence.

While you are juggling your business, home, and relationships, do you feel sometimes one part of your life is overemphasized, while another part might be neglected? If so, how do you reclaim a good balance?

The other day I noticed my husband needed some attention. So instead of pounding on the keyboard for the three hours my kids are in school, I went to lunch with him. There is always one area that is slightly neglected. It is a part of leading a fulfilling, full life. Nonetheless, I try not to sacrifice my personal time too much because I will be no good to anyone if I do that. Balance requires us to say “no” to good things, too. That is a hard lesson to learn, but one well worth it if you do!

What’s the hardest part of interweaving the different parts of your life?

The hardest part is keeping all 17 balls in the air. Some days I get weak in the knees and giggle myself silly. Being ambitious can be very tiring!

Does your present employment reflect your childhood interests or dreams?

Yes! I discovered the joy of writing at age 11. As a child actor (okay, just community theater,but it informed who I am today!), I have always loved speaking in front of people, especially when I have something to say. It brings me great joy to help others succeed.

How are you preparing your children to be ready to reach for their own dreams?

In fact, I am thinking of organizing an art exhibition for my daughter who loves to paint and draw. She is six and resides in an incredibly creative space within herself. I really want to nurture that.

Any idea what you would be doing now if you weren't doing this?
I had always thought I'd be an international peacemaker. I suppose raising two kids, who fight a lot, in Germany is as close as I'll get! Seriously, I am living so many of my dreams that I am extremely happy with my life!

If you could do anything, what would it be?

I envision doing an international speaking circuit at some point.

Where do you see yourself and your business 5 years from now? 10 years?

In five years, I will have published two novels. In ten, I will have my own business consulting firm with an emphasis on negotiation and communication.

Is there any one thing you can point to that was absolutely critical to your success?

Perseverance, believing I can do anything, and not being intimidated easily.

If you could go back in time to change anything, what would you do differently?

I wish I had known more about book promotion before publishing my first book,
Diary of a Mother: Parenting Stories and Other Stuff. But the reality is I learned the best by making a lot of mistakes. Mistakes are not bad. They help propel us to "yes" in our lives.

Parenting humorist Christine Louise Hohlbaum, author of the world-renowned books
Diary of a Mother: Parenting Stories and Other Stuff and SAHM I Am:
Tales of a Stay-at-Home Mom in Europe, inspires mothers everywhere through her
powerful stories. As a mother of two living near Munich, Germany, Christine publishes
an entertaining ezine based upon real-life experiences. Visit http://www.diaryofamother.com
She also applies her strong marketing background to assist authors in their book promotion strategies. http://PRDiva.bravehost.com

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Carolyn Howard-Johnson and Beating Time at Its Own Game

Life Begins at 60:
A Story About One Woman's Fight
Against Our Culture's Prejudices
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"Much of what I wrote about is my own story. If my novel were a tapestry, the warp would be real but the woof would be the stuff of imagination—real fiction."
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Sometimes the big barriers in life aren’t abject poverty, dreaded disease or death. Sometimes it’s the subtle ones set upon us by time, place and culture. The ones that can’t be seen and can’t be acknowledged because we don’t know they are there. They creep up silently on padded feet and, if we sense them at all, we choose not to turn and face them.

The decade of the 50s was a time when these kinds of barriers faced those with dark skin, those who lived in closed religious communities, and those who were female.

When I applied for a job as a writer at Hearst Corporation in New York in 1961 I was required to take a typing test. I was piqued because I wasn’t applying for the typing pool; I was applying for a post as an editorial assistant.

I was told, “No typing test, no interview.” I took the test and was offered a job in the ranks of those who could do 70 in a minute. I had to insist upon the interview I had been promised. I was only twenty and had no real skills in assertiveness. Today I am amazed I had the wherewithal to do that.

The essentials of this anecdote lie in the fact that I was upset for the wrong reasons. My irritation was a reflection of hubris. However, that pride was probably what goaded me into speaking up; pride is not always a bad thing to have.

It never occurred to me that this requirement was one that applied only to women much less that I should be angry for the sake of my entire gender. Prejudice is sometimes like traveling on well-worn treads; you have no idea you’re in danger. It also feeds on the ignorance of its victims. They benignly accept their lot because they know no better.

Something similar was at work when I married and had children. I happily took a new direction to accommodate my husband’s career and the life the winds of the times presented to me. I left my writing with hardly a backward look. Back then, in the days before women had been made aware, the possibilities were not an open book to be denied or accepted. I just did what was expected by the entire culture.

Things are so much better now; I don’t think women younger than their mid-fifties have any idea or how ignorant most women were to their own possibilities. That there was a time when women in America and the world didn’t know we had choices is not fiction. Most women were full time mothers and often didn’t drive or have their own transportation.

I had always wanted to sit in a forest or an office or a newsroom with a pencil in my hand. I dreamed writing, lived writing and loved writing. I wanted to write the next “Gone With The Wind” only about Utah instead of about the South. I had a plan that was, itself, gone with the wind.

It was the 1950s and women in that time, and especially in that place, had no notion of who they should be, could be. It was difficult to think independently; most everyone around them had difficulty seeing the difference between society’s expectations and their own.

“You can’t be a nurse,” my mother said. “Your ankles aren’t sturdy enough.” I also was told I couldn’t be a doctor because that wasn’t a woman’s vocation.

“Be a teacher because you can be home the same hours as your children, but learn to type because every woman should be able to make a living somehow if their husband dies.”

Writing was not a consideration. It didn’t fit any of the requirements. So when I gave it up, it didn’t feel like I was giving up much.

When I began to put myself through college I took the sound advice and studied education so I’d have a profession. I made 75 cents an hour (this was, after all, the 50s!) working as a staff writer at the Salt Lake Tribune. That I was making a living writing didn’t occur to me. I met a handsome young man and we were married. His career took precedence; that was simply how it was done. Then there were two children, carefully planned, also because that was how it should be done. By the 70s we both yearned for a career with autonomy, one where we could spend time with our children and be in command of our own lives.

My dream was a victim of the status quo. It never occurred to me to strike out in my own direction when my husband and children needed me. The pain was there. I just didn’t recognize it so I could hardly address it and fix it.

My husband and I built a business. We raised a lawyer and a mathematician, grew in joy with a grandson, lived through floods and moves, enjoyed travel. For forty years I didn’t write and, during that time, there were changes. Women had more choices but more than that they had become more aware. The equipment--the gears and pulleys-- were in place for a different view on life. In midlife I became aware that there was an empty hole where my children had been but also that the hole was more vast than the space vacated by them. I knew I not only would be able to write, I would need to write.

Then I read that, if those who live until they are fifty in these times may very likely see their hundredth year. That meant that I might have another entire lifetime before me--plenty of time to do whatever I wanted. In fact, it’s my belief that women in their 50s might have more time for their second life than they did for the “first” because they won’t have to spend the first twenty years preparing for adulthood.

One day I sat down and began to write the “Great Utah Novel.” I thought it would be a lot easier than it was. I had majored in English Literature. Writing a novel should be pretty much second nature.

It wasn’t long before I realized that it wasn’t as easy as writing the news stories I had written as a young woman. There were certain skills I didn’t have. It was a discouraging time. I might not have to learn speech and motor skills and the ABCs but there sure was a lot I didn’t know about writing.

Somewhere after writing about 400 pages (easily a year’s work), I knew something major was wrong.

I took classes at UCLA in writing. I attended writers’ conferences. I read up on marketing. I updated computer skills that had been honed in the days of the Apple II. And all the while I wrote and revised and listened and revised again. This Is The Place finally emerged.

It is about a young woman, Skylar Eccles, who is a half-breed. In Utah where she was born and raised, that meant that she was one-half Mormon and one-half any other religion. Skylar considers marrying a Mormon man in spite of her own internal longing for a career. By confronting her own history--several generations of women who entered into mixed marriages--and by experiencing a series of devastating events, she comes to see she must make her own way in the world, follow her own true north.

Much of what I wrote about is my own story. If my novel were a tapestry, the warp would be real but the woof would be the stuff of imagination—real fiction. Even The Frugal Book Promoter is based on my experiences--all the hard knocks required to re-learn publicity from the angle of book promotion rather than from the professions (retailing and fashion). in which I had polished that craft

I think I bring a unique vision to my work. Utah has a beauty and wonder of its own. The Mormons are a mystery to many. I tell a story about Utah in the 50s that could only be told by someone who lived in that time and place and who was a part of the two cultures—the Mormon and the Nonmormon—that make it a whole.
I am proud that I did it. I’m glad that I waited until I was sixty. Forty years brought insight to the story in terms of the obstacles that women faced in those days.
I also like being proof that a new life can start late—or that it is never too late to revive a dream.
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Carolyn Howard-Johnson’s first novel, This is the Place, has won eight awards. Her second book, Harkening: A Collection of Stories Remembered, creative nonfiction, won three. Her fiction, nonfiction and poems have appeared in national magazines, anthologies and review journals. She speaks on Utah’s culture, tolerance and other subjects and has appeared on TV and hundreds of radio stations nationwide. She is an instructor for UCLA Extension’s world-renown Writers’ Program and her new book The Frugal Book Promoter: How to Do What Your Publisher Won’t was named USA Book News’ “Best Professional Book 2004," and her new chapbook of poetry, Tracings, will be released fall of 2005. She is the recipient of the California Legislature’s Woman of the Year in Arts and Entertainment Award. She loves to travel and has studied at Cambridge University in the United Kingdom; Herzen University in St. Petersburg, Russia; and Charles University, Prague. She admits to carrying a pen and journal with her wherever she goes. Her website is: http://carolynhowardjohnson.com/.

Carolyn Howard-Johnson, Author THE FRUGAL BOOK PROMOTER: HOW TO DO WHAT YOUR PUBLISHER WON'T,Winner USA Book News' "Best Professional Book 2004"#1 Bestselling E-book at: http://starpublish.com/starbooks.htm. Purchase the paperback at http://www.amazon.com/. Learn more at: http://carolynhowardjohnson.com/ . "This book might be nicknamed The Frugal Promo Bible."David Herrle, Editor, SubtleTea.com


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