Meet the Novato ‘Wonderlady’ who turns manuscripts into books — no magic required

IF RUTH SCHWARTZ GETS STUCK while midwifing a client’s manuscript on its way to becoming a book, she climbs into an alternate persona — The Wonderlady.

Before long, problem solved.

Playfully.

“But the real Wonderlady persona,” notes the smiling Novato resident, isn’t some creature with superpowers or a magic wand, it’s “the power of intention.” Her intention is to always find a solution to any publishing problem.

“If there’s something really off, I sit with it until I understand it … My overall philosophy is that everything is perfect just the way it is, but subject to … new possibilities, with the idea of making it even better.”

Her husband, Curt Kinkead, birthed the whimsical Wonderlady concept in 1992, after she’d found herself “embarrassed, frankly, to tell my parents about my not being able to pay my bills.” The next day, in the mail, she miraculously found a check from her father for the exact amount of money she was short. He, a real estate broker, had decided — apparently without knowing about her financial peril — to share a commission.

From that moment on,” she says, “Curt insisted that I had created money out of nothing, and if I could do that, I was clearly The Wonderlady. So, when ‘magical’ things happen, he says (they’re) due to The Wonderlady Effect.”

When polishing, detailing, or formatting a book that’ll be published and sell independently on Barnes & Noble, Amazon, and countless other sites, Schwartz prefers instead of magic to lean on a pair of reliable, grounded wingmen: decades-long expertise and a nose to the proverbial grindstone.

She nonetheless enjoys being mischievous. “Whenever I’ve pulled some rabbit out of a hat and clients say, ‘How did you do that?’ sometimes I tell them, sometimes I don’t.”

Working her wonders

The Wonderlady frequently smiles. In the flesh and on Zoom. Even when no one can see it. She’ll turn 81 in June. “At my age,” she says, “If it’s not fun, I don’t want to do it.”

Potential clients who check out her website are apt to soon lift her onto a book-shepherding or consulting pedestal. Susan Kirsch of Mill Valley is an example. Her new book, “Simply Go*d,” is to be the first of six. “I think Ruth is a Wonderlady,” she says, “because of her extensive knowledge of the publishing industry and because she’s a wonder for her clients. She’s a wonder for me by quickly having changed my thinking from writing one book to writing an entire series.”

All of it happens within the confines of a one-woman cottage industry with a little help from her friends, a stable of designers.

Now, because she’s so busy she’s had to turn away clients, she’s also started an advisory service, where she can “tell people how they can do things by themselves.” That, she says, will let her handle more clients simultaneously — and permanently shelve any plans to retire.

Generally, Schwartz’s clients are seniors, drawn to her because “both sides are older.” Some of her clients are “in their 90s. The youngest is in their 50s. People who are self-published are older because they have time and money.”

Word of mouth is her best sales tool. She contends that “95% are referrals or repeats, people who come back to me with multiple books.”

The Bay Area Independent Publishers Association, where she’s vice president and the person who regularly gives the most answers to questions and shares the most information during monthly Zoom meetings, is her biggest source of clients.

Peter G. Engler, who lives in Belvedere, was one of her first clients, when he was a novice author. His praise is glowing: “She was instrumental in my completing my novel, ‘The Unselling of a President,’ and we also worked together on my short-story book, my job seekers’ manual, and several table-top legacy books. She’s terrific to work with, very energetic, very knowledgeable.”

“If there’s something really off, I sit with it until I understand it … My overall philosophy is that everything is perfect just the way it is, but subject to … new possibilities, with the idea of making it even better.”
Ruth Schwartz, The Wonderlady

Much of Schwartz’s work is done via email. Because she can. And because it’s way less stressful.

Many her clients live in Marin, but she’s also finished assignments from all over the Bay Area, Chicago, Florida, Montana, and a smattering of other places.

Hungering to help others

Shepherding manuscripts is only a part of Schwartz’s busy life. Along with Kinkead, she founded Respecting Our Elders, a rescue food service she says has delivered to seniors and others of limited means “500 pounds of quality, edible food every day since the organization began in 2005, for a total of almost four million pounds.”

Hoping to spread their concept, they just finished an 82-page book that details their “different kind of model from food banks or other fresh food rescue organizations” — “The Best Solution to Hunger in America: How to Set Up and Run an All-Volunteer Community Food Rescue Organization.”

Kinkead, meanwhile, has taken about a quarter of a million people out to cruise boats to watch whales, paddled a canoe around the world, and published “Secrets and Pleasures,” which Schwartz describes as “an erotic novel with lots of sensual information to help people have better sex lives.”

Schwartz’s first job in the publishing industry was with the University of California Press, from ’68 to ’74. She later worked for Design Vectors, a graphic design and marketing firm that dealt with major corporations like Bank of America, PG&E, and Pacific Telephone. She didn’t consider becoming a book midwife until print-on-demand — through which an author can have a book published one copy at a time — came onto the scene and she thought it perfect for her as a freelancer.

Clearly, she was right. She’s absolutely loved “taking a lot of words and turning them into a finished book.” The first one she shepherded, in 2014 for Robert W. Bone, was a memoir about being canned — “Fire Bone!” Her current workload covers a wide berth: a memoir, young adult fiction, nonfiction, and spy novels.

Schwartz has enjoyed having enough clients to let her reject some potentials. “I had one who came to me with a diatribe,” she recalls. “He was so angry that it came out on every page … I told him that I just couldn’t work on his book, that this was not a good fit for me.”

Usually, however, the idea of helping authors through, and educating them about, the self-publishing process is sufficient. “It fulfills a passion for me,” she says.

Still, she wouldn’t turn down a real-life magic wand if somebody handed it to her, says the book midwife, admitting there are times “when I’ve said I wish I had one.” 

Sherwood “Woody” Weingarten, a longtime voting member of the San Francisco Bay Area Theater Critics Circle and the author of four books, can be contacted by email at voodee@sbcglobal.net or on his websites, woodyweingarten.com and vitalitypress.com.