Janet Farr was looking for something to do in her retirement. Combining her career as a writer with her love of education to create a guide for active seniors.
A career writer, Janet Farr wanted to continue writing after she retired. “I wanted to use my background as a writer to help people learn things,” she says. She worked for Kaiser in a couple different capacities, including technical writing.
Name of Business (which is essentially her book): Boomers on the Loose.
What she does: Boomers on the Loose is a guidebook for seniors who want to have fun locally. She self-published the book on Amazon’s Create Space and through IngramSpark, Ingram’s self-publishing.
Backstory: The idea for the book started a couple years ago. Janet researched activity guidebooks that cater to the 60+ demographic. Seeing none, she moved forward in creating the guidebook. She asked key questions: “What do people want to do?” The particular age group was an interest of hers as she is a Boomer. She was “blown away at all the things older people are doing.”
She took Jackie Peterson’s Encore Entrepreneur class few years ago. Janet praises Jackie’s organization. She also identifies with Jackie’s “passion for what you do.”
What’s working now: Janet reaches out to different places to sell her book. She’s found that financial planners buy multiple copies of her book and they in turn hand them to clients.
She also offers workshops where she can sell her book.
Take Away: “Take classes, get into associations, and do market research, and make a plan. Research on the Internet.”
Buy Janet’s book here.
Visit Boomers on the Loose Facebook Page here.