More than 50 million people now consider themselves creators, fostering a “creator economy” which is now valued at more than $100 billion. — The surge has been especially pronounced over the last year, with a growing cohort of women pursuing opportunities in the creator economy. But What are the opportunities for women? What are the challenges? Particularly as it relates to mental health.
Join us as we talk to Suanny Garcia, author of "The New Latina: 100 Millennials Shaping Our World.” and editor in chief at mitú.
About Suanny
Suanny Garcia is the author of "The New Latina: 100 Millennials Shaping Our World.” She is also the editor in chief at mitú. She was born in Cuba, and bred in Miami, where she is currently based. Suanny is known for her ability to connect with women through her writing. Her work has been featured across media platforms like Popsugar, Byrdie and Refinery29. Suanny was previously a public relations manager. She studied at Hampshire College, in Massachusetts, where she earned a Bachelor of Arts degree.
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Show references:
Gabby Berstein, Four Secrets to Writing Your Best Selling Book
Filmora, Video Editing Tool
Transcript
Erika
Tell us more about your book?
Suanny
Yeah. So by book is called the new Latina a hundred millennials shaping our world. And so what really made me decide to write it was I, oh, I was always reading books and coffee table books and featuring lots of women in creative fields or women who had, you know, entrepreneurial accomplishments.
And I said, well, I don't think there's any books. Really kind of details that there's for the, for Latinos, for our demographic. And I know that there are so many amazing, the Tina's doing so many great things. But for some reason, all I kept reading about was Latinas in history and like the same women, like just kept, I kept reading about like the same women, which is amazing because that's kind of like are what those women kind of set the groundwork for where we are now, but I wanted to highlight millennial.
I'm doing amazing things now. So that's that submission and passion behind the book. And also because when I was when I was growing up, I didn't have like these images of women. I thought that like, to be successful, you had to be a movie star singer, and I was a cat. I don't have any of those times.
So I didn't have these images. Representation is something that's really important to me. And that is, you know, that's why I created this. The w the, sort of like the, the way that I went about creating, it was, like I said, during the pandemic I, I. I was sort of looking for for avenues and, and because I didn't have any work at the time.
And so I said, okay, I've always wanted, I wanted to write a book. I didn't think it would be this soon in my life. But I said, I always wanted to write a book. Gabby Bernstein is one of my favorite authors or internet creators. And she had a chorus of digital. And her course was about how to write your first best selling book.
And I yeah, at the time I apply for this scholarship because it wasn't, it was pretty expensive and I just didn't have that money to spare. And I applied for the scholarship. I got the scholarship to take the digital course. And basically the course is like really informative. It takes you through how you should pitch to a publisher how you should find out who your target audience is for your book, how you.
Market your book. So it takes you through all of that, but the first exercise in the first module basically has you kind of visualizing yourself as this author and visualizing your book, just touching millions of people and it's a practice and visualization, which stuck it stuck to me. And you know, it just it's something that I believe in.
So it was something that was really powerful. Then a week later I met my publisher. I just met my man, my publisher out and about, and it was I was having dinner at a restaurant. We were with a big group of people. He happened to be one of those people. We got to talking about our careers. He, you know, he was telling me how he's published all these different books and and just basically about his company.
And I said, well, I have this book idea. I would like to sort of pitch it to you like informally. I would like to talk to you about it. And it helped that. That I already kind of had a connection with him that I had already talked to him about my career and my passions before I had pitched that which we can talk to, which we can talk about later.
But yeah, and then he, he said, okay, I like your idea. Send me a formal proposal. I sent him the formal proposal. He likes it. He's like, okay, let's do it. Then I started working on all the research for the book.
Erika
So tell us about the process. What was the hardest thing you had to do besides putting yourself out there?
Suanny
The hardest thing I had to do was I have patients, I would say because the process was. For me, it was so enjoyable. I enjoyed everything about it. Like I, I had women that I already knew I wanted to feature it. And then the research like researching and calling for other women and calling for more pitches from, from, you know, our, the nation, the Mike, the community Just like writing it, designing it, all of that was very enjoyable.
I wouldn't say that any of that was something that I struggled with, but just having patients I wanted the book to be created way before. I, I wanted the book to be finished before I like, I'd say like like a couple of months before I actually finished it. And then the whole, like the process takes a little bit because because it's I'm featuring a lot of different, women's a lot of different stories.