Episode 15: Life After Retirement as a Self-Published Novelist with Marc Sheinbaum
Join your host Betsy Bush as she speaks with Marc Sheinbaum, the author of Memories Live Here, a near-future psychological thriller about three estranged brothers whose paths collide when they discover their late mother’s diaries. Betsy and Marc discuss his path back to writing after spending over 35 years in business and his experience with self-publishing his first novel!
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Transcript:
Betsy Bush (00:50):
What does retirement look like to you? Long days on the golf course, late morning coffee on the deck. My asked mark Scheinbaum took a different route. One that led to writing his first novel and getting into the weeds of publishing and marketing it. He has some great advice to share about his journey, to becoming a writer. Marc, welcome to the latest version. It's great to have you with us.
Marc Sheinbaum (01:19):
Thank you, Betsy. Thanks for having me. Thanks for that very kind introduction
Betsy Bush (01:22):
After a long career in financial services, you retired maybe a little early than most people think, of at 58. And I'm wondering when we talked about your plans for retirement, it was clear that you had the plan for how you would spend your time. Clearly not someone who was just going to sit back and relax too much.
Marc Sheinbaum (01:49):
Well, that's very true. I mean, I knew, you know, retirement was probably the word I didn't use and actually didn't even use it around my house too much because my wife kept saying you're too young to retire. And I wasn't really sure what was going to be the direction. I did know that I wanted writing to be part of that. So, although I got involved with several boards of directors on both on the not-for-profit side and the for-profit side and did some volunteer work, did some consulting work advisory work. I-- One of the very first things I did was was sign up for a writer's workshop. And I don't, didn't start out with the intention of I'm doing this because I want to write a book. I just knew I wanted to write again, it was something that was, you know, inside of me as a very young age. I mean, I wanted to, I thought I was gonna be a writer when I was in high school. I loved writing. I loved creative writing. I love storytelling. I was a big daydreamer even in school. So it was always, it was always kind of stories in my head. I thought maybe I'd be a journalist when I came out of college or came out of high school, I guess. And, and you know, I guess probably honestly I didn't have the courage back then to pursue that as a career. I tell people this story all the time, how I wrote a letter to a journalist when I was 16 years old. And I said, Hey, I'm thinking about being a journalist and writing. And you know, what would you suggest in terms of colleges? What should I major in? What should I be looking for? And he said, well, hard work and little reward is what you want to align them, you know, writing careers for you. And, you know, I, I was a kid from Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn, and didn't have a lot growing up. And I knew one thing I wanted to do was to, you know, to have some financial success. So that w that letter didn't really appeal to me. And I said, this guy is trying to tell me something. And so when I had that time, I enrolled in this workshop and, and it was very beginning level that the place had in Westport, a writer's workshop. They had many options from beginner to advanced. I started at the very beginning with these writing prompts you know, finish this sentence, take the next 20 minutes, finish the sentence, write something, and then we'll share it with the class. And I remember, I remember being just completely, you know, freaked out is the wrong term, but like share with the class. I mean, it was like, I felt so exposed that I was going to be judged by, you know, my, my writing or the idea, but I will tell you that that can be energy. I felt, I still remember that first writing prompt and that those writing classes just sitting there and creating something in 20 minutes, you know, just concentrating it was just, it was, so it was just an amazing feeling and it was unbelievable that I was able, I was able to kind of conjure it back up from 40 years. Had it been since I've done anything like it. So, so I really loved it. And, and, you know, the novel just evolved from those early prompts. I, I, it wasn't like, I, I thought, well, I'll just keep doing this prompt things and I'll learn from this. And next thing I know I went to the more advanced classes and started stretching out these prompts into storylines. And I remember, you know, one of the proctors said, oh, well, this is going to, as you're working on a novel here. And I said, well, oh yeah, I'm working on, I mean, I wasn't like consciously working on novel, but I was, yeah, I guess I'm working on a novel. And, and, but it wasn't. So I had maybe 50 to a hundred pages that I said, I really see, I had a vision of the arc of where the story was going to go and how I wanted it to, and, and I also, in my mind, how to kind of a theme of what I was trying to get to, which was this theme of forgiveness, which was kind of important to me and, and getting there. So I had no idea how, you know, how I was gonna get characters and point a to point B to point C, but I knew where ultimately I was trying to get to. So I have along with an answer for your question, but it was a lot about what the journey looked like.
Betsy Bush (05:44):
Well, you know, those writing workshops are such a great entry point for people who want to explore this idea of writing. There are several in Westchester, there's the Sarah Lawrence has a renown writing program. And there's one at Hudson valley writer's center in Scarborough, New York, up the, up the river. And sure, a lot of colleges, community colleges have these sorts of things. So people who are interested in kind of exploring that, what was it like having an I'm assuming this is what yours was like, where you do two pages and you read it and then you get responses, right. Do people give you your feedback? What was that like?
Marc Sheinbaum (06:27):
Yeah. It was a it's again, is you feel very exposed in those situations. And typically it was, you know, you'd work on, you know, in the initial prop when you're doing it in class, but then when you move on to the advanced classes, you're, you're writing it, you know, at home during your time. And then you, you bring in four or five, six pages that you read. And this typically the workshop has, you know, five or six people who are each doing that. And we're each critiquing it, as I said, it takes a while to get from where you feel -- competence is the wrong term, -- you never feel really confident, but you, you are certainly sitting there very,uyou know,uexposed to what people's thoughts are. And, but people are very generous. I mean, you know, nobody's ripping you apart. It's a very safe place. These workshops,ueverybody's in the same boat right there. We're all trying to, to work on the, on the craft. And, you know, I will tell you that to your point, you don't necessarily have to be sitting at setting out to write a novel, to go into it and get a lot out of a writing workshop. Some people working on, you know, there are memoir workshops. People just want to put their story down. There were poetry workshops or screenwriting workshops, and now there are some novel ones. And I think,uand even in some of the ones I've been at, the people have been really terrific writers, but also nobody's really sitting there with five books to their name. I can think of maybe two other people that have come to the, to the conclude, to the final point where they've actually published full length novels, short stories have been published magazine. So to me, like, as I said, the satisfaction and the excitement and the feeling I got out of just writing was worth the price of admission. It's something I really enjoy doing. And I'm already halfway through trying to write the next novel. And as you said in your intro, you become obsessive with trying to learn that the business side of it, which is not a lot of fun. I'm not much of a write my next book. Right. Then figuring out how to market and get it out there. But, you know, once you write something and you start getting some decent response to it, you feel like, you know, okay, well, I want to do everything I can to get it out there so people can enjoy it
Betsy Bush (08:46):
When you're writing a book at, you know, at the age that you're at, which is, you know, the age I'm at. I think, You know, there's, there's always this Feeling of what is the goal is the goal to write a million copy bestseller that's out there, papering the world, or is it just to have your voice heard and to see if you can do it, is, is the writing of the book, the goal in itself, or is there something more to it?
Marc Sheinbaum (09:15):
Yeah, it's a great question. As I said, the goals shift around initially the goal as I described was just starting to write again. And then the goal was to actually, you know, learn and, and get my my work together so that it actually, you know, was, was quality, a quality piece, both in terms of the writing and the production. And you know, now the goal for that book is to, you know, I don't wanna say generate sales, but the generate readers, because I am trying to, again, to me, you know, I mean anybody that goes through this process, I can get something published. You know, you always start with friends and family, and that's very gratifying and people doing very kind and, and, but then, you know, what's really cool is when people that don't know you at all start reading it and saying, and giving you positive feedback, that that's, that's pretty cool. You know, I mean, I think my friends and family might be a little hesitant to, you know, give me some tough feedback, but you know, the, the, the great unwashed of the readership out there, the one point he punches. So I know getting it out to them has been, has been great and, and summit stage network, you know, I, haven't not really asking any more friends and family. I am out there with, you know, promotion sites and, and trying to find readers and generate, generate a readership for my work. And, and I think I might've mentioned, you know, that, you know, getting, getting reviews and people I don't know is, is, is much more satisfying than getting reviews and people, I do know. And then, you know, recently I got a review from somebody whose headline said, "only one book?" I mean, he was like, please, can you please buy another one that I can't wait to hear more? Wow. That was pretty cool. That's very energizing. That's very motivating.
Betsy Bush (11:02):
Your experience is not that different from someone who has started a podcast. And of course your, your friends and family are going to love it. But to find that the listener who doesn't know you, but who is really tuned to what it, what your, what your podcast is about, you know, supportive and wants to hear more, that there's nothing more gratifying than that.
Marc Sheinbaum (11:24):
I think it's a very similar piece. Exactly. I think you're trying to generate an audience and you can't be sensitive about, it's not, it's not for everybody. Right. And there is a lot to having a target audience knowing who you're going after and, and how do you attract them. So I do think, yeah, I think, I think the podcast world and the self publishing book world are very similar in that there's a lot of people out there trying to, you know, to learn how to generate an audience and, and put a product out that is going to be high quality to that audience.
Betsy Bush (11:56):
Yes. Marc, you know, we haven't mentioned, I'm embarrassed to say this. We haven't mentioned the title of your book, which is Memories Live Here. Right. And can you give us a very brief synopsis of what it is? I've been about 60 pages in and it's, is it science fiction? Is it a thriller? Is it a speculative fiction? How would you describe it?
Marc Sheinbaum (12:20):
That's great. You know, it's funny. I think it's, I've used all each of those terms at different stages as I described the book and it is, I would not say it's science-fiction and, and, you know, again, I've learned a lot of this. I didn't start with a genre instead of writing a genre, this genre, I started with an idea and I wrote it. And then as I started, you know, exposing people to it, I, I get different reactions to it, but I think it is most closely a thriller mystery, thriller in some say suspense, but, and the reason it's all over the place in that genre is it is, it does kind of have a lot of different elements to it. So it is, I, it is, I'm very comfortable saying it's cross genre, but anyways, so the, the story is about three brothers, adult brothers. One is a artificial intelligence engineer, and he's working out in Silicon valley to on this top secret project in a, in a Google like country company to use a Stargell novels and literature and biographies to bring back the greatest leaders in history, in order to work with today's leaders, to be able to talk, you know, advise them, talk sense into them. So that aspect is where people's, I get feeling it's a little science fiction, but I think your term speculative fiction is it's closer to, because similar to Michael Crichton, which is probably the one author people have said, it says that that kind of feel to is you're taking some part of science or, or technology today, and kind of stretching a little bit and saying, what if, right, so nobody artificial intelligence doesn't have these kinds of capabilities, but what if you could do something like this? Anyway So the, the aspect that, but the, the, the heart of the story is about that main character. And then there's two brothers. One is a investment banker who is kind of down to his last nickel. He's, he's got a gambling addiction and he has, he hasn't signed the deal in years. And he lives well beyond his means in New York and central park west with an apartment he can't afford. He's about to sign a deal to kind of put them over the top. Uand then there's a third brother,uwho has been more of a down your luck guy, his whole life. The story then takes off when there's a cyber attack,uwhich is very timely, right against, against the AI project and against the investment bankers project at the same time. And all evidence seems to point to the third brother as being the perpetrator of it. So, you know, so now you have all this, this whole family dynamic of why were these two brothers even suspect that a third brother would do this to them. And, and then the last piece I'll tell, tell your listeners is,uone, the brothers discover their dead mother's diaries. Then the whole story kind of takes off into this realm where the, at least them to an encounter with,uwith the mother's diaries, through artificial intelligence to discover,ua lot of family secrets that they thought were buried with their mother. So, oh, wow. That's, that's kind of the gist of this family mystery. There's there is, I'd say more speculative fiction and science fiction, and then there's this,uthis thriller aspect to it. So that's why when you asked that question, it's kind of hard to put it, to nail it down.
Betsy Bush (15:42):
Well, it's what I've been reading so far, it's a real page Turner and it's, and it's a lot of fun. So that's Memories Live Here by Marc Scheinbaum just so my listener can look that up on Amazon and you can get a Kindle version for, so that's something to look at. The self-publishing part is a very interesting aspect of your journey, not only as a writer, but someone who has to now kind of take on the marketing and promotion aspects. Why did you go the self-publishing route? Did you try the more traditional route with established publishers and things like that?
Marc Sheinbaum (16:23):
I did not for a long period of time, you know, I learned enough about the traditional publishing world to say, you know, that was going to be a longer haul than I wanted to go through. You know, again, it's probably the inpatient business guy that came out on that one, but when I finished the book and I knew I had a good product, then you, you know, you're starting this query process the way you do in the traditional publishing with others, you find an agent and then the agent has to go find a publisher, and then it goes on from there. And so finding an agent, you know, could take two weeks, or it could take two years. And then I heard many stories of agents. You get an agent and agents can take anywhere from two weeks to two years to find a publisher. And then the publisher could take another year, a year and a half to get the workout. So that's going on while in this parallel universe is this whole world of self-publishing, which I was reading about, which was, was much more widely accepted today than maybe, you know, 10 years ago, widely used and very, with a lot of tools for, to do a very professional job. And so I started by, I spent maybe six months querying the agent world and, you know, the infamous slush pile, which I think you would have talked about. And, you know, you find out that there's some junior agent, you know, that just came out of school, that's doing the first screen. It kind of reminds me of, you know, the college application process all over again. Right. So, you know, being an impatient person and, and also liking to roll up my sleeves and learn, and also just talking to a lot of people in the business, I decided, look, let's at least for this first one, let's, let's learn what is going on behind the scenes. And, and I was always, again, very focused on, I was not going to just slop something together. You know, I was going to, I was going to do it. I was going to make it a professional book and format it then, you know, so I had all the, you know, I had editors, I had development editors and copy editors. And so they very engaged who then helped me get the product in good shape. And then I, I used a lot, a lot of people, I, by the way, the author community is a very generous community. So you can get lots of thoughts and advice and recommendations from people out there. It doesn't, it's not hard to get answers, even from some of your favorite authors. You know, there's, everybody has a website, everybody has a website and there's always a contact me here. And, you know, I've had some nice conversations with some very successful authors and they're very generous with their thoughts and advice and, and reference references. So I found some great tools. And so I spent probably about six to eight months just doing all the production work, you know, learn how important a cover is because that's now a book, you know, cover a book is critically important to track the absolutely right. People blurbs, all that stuff, getting reviews. So, you know, it was a lot of work, but I learned a lot about it. And by the way, even if what I also learned was which finally put me over the hump of saying, let's do it, let's go this route is even if you get a professional, a,uyou know, Random House publisher, you still are expected to do a lot of this marketing and distribution on your own. I mean, they obviously get more support if you're John Grisham with the full page ads and most others are not getting that. So you really do have to roll up the sleeves at that part. And many of the publishers and agents, it's one of the questions that we're asking you is, you know, what kind of marketing to do? What's your social media presence, right?
Betsy Bush (20:06):
How many followers do you have already? Who else is who, who are you bringing along with your product to us, as opposed to, we're going to help you do all of this from zero ground zero.
Marc Sheinbaum (20:20):
So look, I think the next book, I maybe will be a little more patient now that I've got the first book out there to explore. And there's this, there's this other world now called hybrid publishers where you kind of work in a hybrid fashion. It seems to be somewhat attractive to me. It would be nice to have a partner in doing this next time, but, you know, but we'll see, we'll see. Well, I know there'll be a next time.
Betsy Bush (20:41):
We've touched on a lot of the through lines that I've had in this podcast, you know, from the, and the first is going back to youthful passions, you know, whether it's art or music or writing, but also coming out of, you know, whatever tunnel we were in, in our working lives and realizing how much things have changed since we, before we went into the tunnel, like the, the gatekeepers, the media gatekeepers that used to be there, aren't there anymore. Like self-publishing a book as opposed to being at the mercy of, you know, some editor somewhere who says yay or nay. Right. You know, you've talked a lot about it, a lot about this so far, but it's also needing to get up to speed on social media and how nimble are we on Instagram and YouTube and all these different things? Any thoughts about that?
Marc Sheinbaum (21:35):
I mean, I will readily admit that I've been slow on the uptake on the social media and that's to my detriment, right? I mean, I think, you know, my advice to be anybody that wants to get in this space, podcasting, the same thing, anything you're trying find the market, if you don't figure it out, the social media angle in today's day and world today's day and age, you're not going to get much traction. So I've relied on LinkedIn, more
Betsy Bush (22:02):
Sure. I found LinkedIn to be very helpful.
Marc Sheinbaum (22:07):
Yeah, you know, Facebook obviously is important and, you know, I've learned a lot about Facebook ads and Amazon ads, you know, there's, there's a lot to learn. There, there are a lot of tools are a lot of, you know, helpful websites and stuff to do that. But it is those though, I will say those are more pick and shovel. You know, you have to trial and error. You know, they, they, the social media is, is critical. And, and I've, you know, I mean, I have a Facebook page. I have a business Facebook page for the book I'm Instagram. I've just kind of played with on, I've been told that's more important, started to gather a email list which can in book publishing. They say it as the number one thing you can do is get a email marketing list for your next book. I mean, it's really the interesting thing about the marketing and publishing world is the number of the, the best advice I've gotten. And they will tell you the most important piece of advice I've gotten even beyond social media for marketing and promoting yourself as an author is if you want to do the one thing that's most important after you've published, your first book is write your second book and your third book, because as, as just Betsy, like with you, you've got, you know, your podcast, you don't just have one episode, you have multiple episodes. So if you're generating a audience for that, you know, they might maybe if I'm, if I'm so lucky now tune in, cause they wanted that kind of got me, but then they, now they discovered you and they go look at your other podcasts in the series and then become, you know, become a fan and listener of other things you're doing.
Betsy Bush (23:42):
And I'm for sure binge-worthy
Marc Sheinbaum (23:48):
Yeah that’s the same is with books. And most of the authors will tell you, you know, you really can't get the leverage and scale to invest your time. And, and, and to make your time and money pay back with just one book. You, you need to get that that's that leverage. So if they come in to look at memories, live here and they like it, they're gonna now go read my second and third book or vice versa if they, you know, that one review or I said, who said only one book. I mean, now he's encouraging me, but clearly he was, he would, he would have bought the second book right. Clearly. And so the point is you're investing time and money and, and promoting yourself it's better to have multiple products. So, so, you know, that's, everybody has told me. And by the way, they'll also tell you that's really important for your own mental wellbeing because publication and marketing can be very, it can be difficult time consuming, not very gratifying. Payback is not always looking. Terrific. So remember what you remember while you're doing this, you're doing this because you want to write. So get back in the seat and write and everything else will come, we'll come with it. So I think that's, you know, there's not a, not an author out there I've spoken to who won't tell you, get your butt back in the seat and write the next book.
Betsy Bush (25:08):
How long did it take you to really write the book? Because now you're talking about time spent putting the finished the finishing touches on the product after it was written. So I'm curious to know what your time-frame was when you look back at it. Yeah. When did you really get serious and start writing it?
Marc Sheinbaum (25:27):
That's a great question. So, I honestly say it was two years to come up with a, a viable first draft. Again,. I remember I was just, you know, learning the craft going from right from prompt things to really getting serious with it. And then after those two years, I spent, you know, probably another, I'd say seven, seven to nine months just completely diving in to the book from the beginning to the end. Editing is, is, is probably the wrong term. But I guess you'd say it is editing because it literally was the rewrites, the, the connecting the dots making sure there was consistency of the voice of each of the characters. I actually had a redraw, one of the three brothers completely because I couldn't get his motivation down in my head. So I had to go back to the beginning and make literally when you it's it's, it was, I really described as a large jigsaw puzzle. Right. And that's kind of how all the pieces need to fit together. And so, you know, the writing the first two years I'd say was a lot of on and off of those seven months, I literally lived inside the story. I mean, I completely inside the book. I think I might've mentioned it was like being in the matrix like a movie. You know, I, I was in there completely immersed in each of the three characters. And I even, you know, took the book apart and reordered it product together again. And it was, it was, was like, it was like a puzzle. So, so, and the end, I'd say three years and you know, my goal is, and, but that was, again, a lot of stuff, a lot of beginning and a lot of start and stop. And not really, I mean, I was learning things like point of view.
Marc Sheinbaum (27:15):
I was learning things like voice, you know, those were just part of the craft. I was learning while I was doing this. So hopefully the next time through, you know, my goal is to have a good first draft and little more than a year. And then, you know, so cut some time off. And, but, but again, you know, I, I have to keep, even as I say, I have to keep reminding myself, it's not a race to the finish line. It's, you know, enjoy the process and enjoy it, enjoy the journey, enjoy the product of what I'm doing, enjoy the writing feel good about it. And then, you know, when I'm getting close, then I can kind of do that immersive thing and, and bring it to bring it to the finish line. But but I, you know, I really feel like I have, you know, several more novels in me, so that's that's good. I don't, it's one of the nice things about, you know, that, that we're retirement, you know, there's no, nobody's, nobody's gonna force me to retire from this and it's, and it allows me to kind of redefine the next, as I said, the next stage of my of my, of my life. Not that I don't enjoy the golf and the late, late afternoon coffees and stuff, but it's, you know, it's it is still, it's still good to have purpose in what you're trying to do when you wake up in the morning. And, and as I said, it's, it, it could be a portfolio of things. And that's, for me, that's kinda how I feel about it with, with a lot of core foundation around the writing process for me,
Betsy Bush (28:37):
Is, are you staying in the same genre for your second book or is it something very different?
Marc Sheinbaum (28:44):
Is the same genre visits, a bit of a continuation of the storyline up on the first dog, but I do have aspirations to play around. You know, I thought it's funny as, as some people define that as speculative fiction and techno thriller, I did read a lot of Michael Crichton over the years and read a lot of Dean Koonz and things like that. And but you know, I enjoy a lot of different kinds of authors. So I will, I would not say that I want to stick with the genre, but I, I will say that for me, the, the writing I enjoy the most are about people, about relationships, tension, and, you know, I love, I love dialogue. I love putting myself in the shoes of characters and, and having it out, you know, with each other, because it's a lot of fun putting yourself into one character. And what were they saying and brings up in the other character, what would they say? And that's part of what I was getting at before when I said, you know, the, of getting into a character's voice, you know, I was part of the editing he had, you have to do is to make sure that this character wouldn't say that in this situation, you'd say something different. Yeah. So, so I really do like that conflict kind of writing. And so that to me is more the core as opposed to, you know, I'm not, you know, I'm not going to, you're not going to pick up my books and say, I'm going to do a great, this, you're not going to fail, decorate description on the flowers, on the lawn and the, the eaves and the house. I mean, I, you know, I've, as you you've read 60 read part of the book that CCC, I kind of get right to the jugular and go write the story, right?
Betsy Bush (30:19):
Yes. It's very action oriented, I would say. Yes. Right. So Marc, this has been a great conversation. Do you have three pieces of advice that you share with my listener who is maybe contemplating a time when they would have time to write a book?
Marc Sheinbaum (30:38):
My advice, and I, I always, probably more than willing to tell people where they should be thinking about when it comes to the, the R word, the retirement word, you know, it's, you do have to kind of find what's important to you. Right? You can look that up, but the things that could write a book and the pop people can write a book. It's not, you know, it's a matter of sitting down and doing it, but, you know, as you, as you go to this next stage I do think, you know, we've all earned this opportunity. Don't put pressure on yourself that you have to figure it out on day one, you know, allow yourself if you are retiring. You know, my biggest goal of the day I retired was I said, I want to get bored. You know, just allow yourself the luxury of just getting bored for a few weeks, few months, whatever, until you kind of pop your head up and say, okay, I'm ready to try some things. And I've triaged a lot of things that I started getting involved in at the beginning that I said, just didn't do it for me.
Betsy Bush (31:35):
Mark. Scheinbaum, this has been really, really fun talking to you. Mark is the author of memories live here, look for it Amazon. And I think we're all looking forward to your next book.
Marc Sheinbaum (31:48):
Thank you very much, Betsy. I appreciate the great conversation. I really try the topic and good luck to you. And thanks for your support.
Betsy Bush (31:59):
Thanks for listening!