About Martin Sneider:
MARTIN SNEIDER has been a leader in the shoe and clothing industries for more than five decades. Since 1992, he has served as an award-winning adjunct professor at Washington University’s Olin School of Business, where he created and taught a course devoted to luxury goods merchandising and marketing that included trips with students to Milan, Paris, and London to visit the showrooms of Armani, Gucci, Louis Vuitton, Chanel, Burberry, and Cartier. A fourth-generation retailer, Sneider started as a shoe salesman and rose to president, chief merchant, and co-CEO of one of the nation’s largest fashion and shoe apparel specialty chains. He served on the Alumni Board of Directors of Harvard Business School, was chairman of St. Louis Children’s Hospital, and received the Distinguished Alumni Award from Washington University. In addition to his acclaimed debut novel, Shelf Life, and it sequel, Amy Unbound, he is the author of a nonfiction book on the shoe industry. He has two children and four granddaughters and lives in St. Louis, Missouri, and New York City.
What inspires you to write?
I first wrote a non-fiction autobiography entitled Toast: From Toast of the Town to Just Plain Toast shortly after retiring as CEO of a major retailer. My motivation stemmed from a desire to share my experiences, successes and failures with the public. It was a cathartic experience. The joy I derived from writing the book and its positive reception by readers encouraged me to begin writing the five-book saga of the Feldman Family, beginning with Shelf Life and followed by Amy Unbound.
What authors do you read when you aren’t writing?
Ann Patchett, Elizabeth Strout, Richard Ford, John Updike and Edith Wharton
Tell us about your writing process.
I start each novel with an outline which identifies story line, plot, and characters. (I confess that the final version of the book bears little resemblance to the original outline as the writing process stimulates new ideas and characters and story lines.) The emerging novel becomes a force which stimulates my imagination and challenges me to create fresh story lines, tensions and drama and an exciting and satisfying conclusion.
For Fiction Writers: Do you listen (or talk to) to your characters?
My characters come to life for me. I often go to sleep thinking of them and trying to imagine what actions and thoughts they will experience. I use the note pad on my night table to scribble nocturnal thoughts. I discard some and use some. But while writing one of the novels, I find myself projecting myself into the characters. What would Josh do? Amy think? Allie contrive? I constantly scribble notes on dog-eared legal pads.
What advice would you give other writers?
START WRITING and see where it takes you. As noted earlier, you will often find that the budding novel becomes a force which drives your imagination and takes you down paths you never imagined. One mechanical tip. NEVER finish a writing session at the end of a chapter. Facing a blank page the next morning is daunting, but leaving a chapter or dialogue almost finished, gives you a head start the next morning.
How did you decide how to publish your books?
Even though getting an establishment publishing house to publish the first novel by an unknown author was a long shot, I first went down that path to no avail. I looked into self-publishing, but I lacked the expertise to intelligently sub-contract critical elements of the publishing process. Fortunately, I was introduced to a writing professional who could guide me through the process.
What do you think about the future of book publishing?
Traditional book publishing had been turned upside down since the creation of Amazon and Barnes&Noble.com which has produced super successful authors (see Google). I would imagine that the proportion of books that are self-published far outweighs the proportion that are produced by the establishment publishers. That is encouraging to a new author, but presents its own daunting challenges such as I faced.
What genres do you write?: Fiction
What formats are your books in?: Both eBook and Print
Website(s)
Martin Sneider Home Page Link
Link To Martin Sneider Page On Amazon
All information in this post is presented “as is” supplied by the author. We don’t edit to allow you the reader to hear the author in their own voice.
