Retired WHNT TV boss now focuses on promoting book
Shannon Belew: Today’s Home Office

Ever consider following the American dream? Which one you ask? The one in which you retire from a successful career, go home and set up a little office, pen the next great American novel, and sit back and enjoy life.

If the idea has crossed your mind (maybe as you sat daydreaming at your desk), there are a few points I would like to share.

First, a home office is the ideal location for such an endeavor. On the other hand, constructing a book of critical acclaim may not be the simple, fluid process you imagine regardless of how primo your office set-up. These points I offer from personal experience.

Next point. Should you manage to write any type of manuscript, publishing and marketing said book is sure to be a full-time business, effectively catapulting you out of retirement. I share this information based on conversations with a recently published author who is experiencing this reality for the first time.

“Unless you are Colin Powell or John Grisham, the marketing and distribution is basically up to the author. If you are small potatoes like me, you have to make your own way,” said Linda Spalla.

In Huntsville, she may be best known as one of the first female television station managers in the South. She spent nearly a decade as president and chief executive officer of the local CBS affiliate, WHNT TV Channel 19.

If all goes well, Spalla may soon be recognized around the country as a best-selling author and a sought-after motivational speaker.

Having just published the book, “Leading Ladies: 30 Tips for Dynamic Female Leaders” (Over the Transom Publishing Co., $15.95), Spalla is familiar with making her own way. Not afraid of hard work, her previous career was built by climbing the professional ladder one rung at a time. She considers the journey to the top to be a privilege, and much less of what others might consider a fight. Building leadership skills from this vantage point is the basis of her book.

“It’s a fragile nuance which my book strives to verbalize without apology,” she said.

In fact, the 30 leadership tips in the book are entirely derived from her experience as a female executive working in a man’s world of television. It’s rooted in the philosophy women need help shaping leadership styles but in a way more natural for their gender.

“In every area but the business world, we heartily flaunt the differences between men and women. It’s what makes the world go round,” she said. “But in business, we’ve been taught that those differences don’t matter. They absolutely do.”

This is not a book to buy and let sit on a shelf collecting dust. Even the author actively uses her own written words to stay on track with her new career, a career-building effort she equates to starting a business from scratch. The fundamentals of starting her own business are not far from the ones used in her last job.

“The differences are really not that glaring,” she said. “Anything one does successfully requires a great deal of hard work, preparation and commitment.”

Each day, she follows this mantra of dedication, determined to make a go of it. So, with the “easy part” of writing the book behind her, the newly minted author spends every day building her business in hopes of building her book sales.

What’s a typical day like?

“My day is spent designing Web sites, preparing press kits and book review lists for mailing; designing invoices and receipts; figuring out business processes to track book sales and business expenses; contacting the bookstores; many trips to the post office; negotiating with Amazon.com and pulling every string in my repertoire of contacts for marketing opportunities,” she said.

As any home-based business owner knows (and will be quick to share with others), the above to-do list falls on a single person. There is no administrative assistant, marketing department, or sales associate to absorb any portion of the workload. Spalla said this has taken getting used to and is sometimes down right frightening.

“The biggest lesson I've learned is that the publishing business isn’t glamorous, just a lot of hard work,” she said. “No one is standing behind me but me and that’s just scary, no matter how you cut it.”

Even so, Spalla is committed to her post-retirement career as an author. Not because of the glamour of being published, or the riches lavished upon her.

Her latest journey is deeply rooted in her past one. It encompasses her sincere desire to continue to help lead other women to success.

“I had a wonderful career’s worth of experience to share. I started at the bottom, worked very hard, paid many dues and rose steadily in a man’s world. I did it without much help or mentoring form other women,” she said. “I believe it’s time for that void to change.”

Spalla will sign books at Shaver’s Bookstore on Saturday from 2 to 4 p.m. Copies of “Leading Ladies” are also available for purchase at her Web site www.lindaspalla.com or at www. amazon.com.

Shannon Belew is a Huntsville-based home business owner. She can be reached via e-mail.
Published by the Huntsville Times; 4/10/03