Sue Winlaw

BAM Press
Toronto, Ontario

At what point in you career did you make the decision to become self-employed?

Self-employment came after I took an early retirement. My husband and I now operate a book-publishing firm.  We’re just about to release our 4^th book, the 3^rd in our movie review series – Movies About Women (volume 1). We’ll be publishing a second book in our safety series later this year – following our first book Car Advice For Women (and Smart Men), and we have over 20 books planned in the movie review series – each one by a specific movie theme.

What was the driving force behind that decision?

I was able to assist my husband, Alex, in his career of freelance automobile journalism by participating in many of the new car launches and car shows around the world.  He noticed over the years that the whole auto industry, including the media, did not serve women well, and it was easy to confirm his belief.  So we spent two years researching specific safety issues related to women and cars. We produced our first book about it in late 2008 (Car Advice for Women). As the recession took over the world and specifically the automotive industry, we looked around for a second interest area where we could produce books, and BAM (Books About Movies) Press came to life. We’ve always enjoyed movies and come at it with two completely different perspectives. Our aim is to present concise movie reviews for the regular movie watcher and assemble them into books covering a single theme or subject. There are many review books out there, but none cover movies about specific topics. Our first few books concentrate on movies that deal with women’s interest areas because these films get less budget and less distribution and disappear much faster than the big block buster movies geared to teen and early adult males. We want to bring focus to the fantastic movies that exist so women don’t have to settle for entertainment that does not suit our sensibilities.

Describe the greatest challenges you faced when making the transition.

Working alone and working full time with my spouse was totally different from working in the corporate world.  In the corporate world you have people around you every second of the day and your day is often planned out for you.  It took a long time and it is a constant challenge to be the decision maker and creator of my day. When the urgencies are pushed at you in a corporate setting, you have little choice but to deal with them as required. Now, deciding on the urgencies and trying not to waste time on unimportant (but much more fun) activities must be worked out mostly by myself each day.

Focus, focus, focus is a mantra I try out every morning and some days it works well and others……….

Which skills did you need to develop in order to become effective in your role as an entrepreneur?

There were most certainly some technical skills I had to develop as the whole desktop publishing and web creation industries were new to me and learning InDesign has been a huge challenge. Now that I know how to tackle it, I no longer find it threatening.

I found networking a natural but being able to continue the follow up and write books at the same time is an ongoing challenge.

With our first book of Car Advice, I took to the road to do lectures about car safety for women and found with my public speaking as a teen and then my Toastmasters experience, it helped me hone my talents. And I really enjoy talking with groups of women and helping them be a bit more at ease with some aspects of driving safety and various elements of their cars.

I’m still working on the blogging aspect to build that part of the on-line presence, but I am working well with the other social media areas of Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter. I’ve built a sizable list of connections on-line in a variety of communities and find they are very much like the physical networking groups that I attend. The added benefit to the on-line component is that I am able to talk to some of the people at 2 AM where we’d never have met before. These systems are all very time consuming in the beginning until you have a rhythm going, then it is less than 30 minutes a day to maintain your presence.

Focus and Drive are absolutely necessary for anyone wanting to be an entrepreneur. I cannot always manage the former but working every day on a goal you believe in with a positive attitude keeps the persistence threshold high.

Which networking groups do you belong to?

WEN (Writers and Editors Network), POWE (Power of Women Exchange), WINGS (Women in Netweaving Growing Strong), Positive Fabulous Women and there are many other meetups groups that I belong to where there is some common interest – i.e. several movie lovers groups and several women working at home groups. Then there are the on-line networking groups where I participate in forums and discussions.

What is the best business book you have ever read?

I’ve chosen 3 that have helped me in different aspects of the business.

1001 Ways to Market Your Books by John Kremer is just barely cracked open as we’ve been heads down working on the deadline for the latest book, but every page I’ve read has provided another way to get to the eventual success we are seeking.

Big Things Happen When You Do The Little Things Right is more of a philosophy of life than a business book, but the themes apply totally to the business environment – at least building the kind of business I want to be in.

Step Into The Spotlight! ‘Cause All Business Is Show Business! By Tsufit is excellent and is only one of her creations. I first met Tsufit at a networking group in Markham and have followed her ever since. If you plan on doing any public speaking or interact with the media, I urge you to check her out. And – she’s Canadian.

What does the future hold for your industry?

The publishing and book selling industry is changing at a staggering rate. The current process survives, but variations on the theme come along all the time.  The digital world of books has emerged in the past few years and is moving so fast it is hard to glimpse where it is going. There will most likely always be room for the hard copy book, but the balance of sales seems to be leaning to the soft copy with the latest generation of readers. The upside of all this,  is that it makes it easier to reach people with special interests and offer them products that improve their experience.

We’ve chosen to start our own publishing company to produce our books and we have a vision of producing books using other writers. This may be a year or two into the future, but we’re working on the model for it now with our current books.

How do you feel about the current status of women in the workforce in Canada?

As with any time of recession, the challenge for women is to retain their status in the corporate world.  But the doors are wide open for a woman who is entrepreneurial in her thinking provided she is well backed or can operate on a shoe string. There is still a big stigma being a woman in the financial world but there are a few women coming to our aid.  All in all, the status of women in the workforce is miles ahead of where it was in my early career and that was miles ahead of where it was for my mother. It can only get better as we drive business forward by making our own choices in our shopping and purchasing decisions to support companies who support women in business.

When you are featured on the cover of Time magazine, what will be the headline?

Best resource to find great films about women’s issues and interests.