Today we’d like to introduce you to Adrienne Alitowski.
Hi Adrienne, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
My background includes performing on Broadway and touring with the National Theatre of the Deaf. I created, produced, and performed in the celebrity benefit, Glen Mary Glen Rose: Women Do Men, in Los Angeles, which raised funds for breast cancer research and awareness around the lack of diverse roles for women. I was working as an actress and appearing on hit TV shows such as Will & Grace, Just Shoot Me!, Everybody Loves Raymond, and Beverly Hills, 90210 before becoming a mother.
Once I had a baby to push around the streets so he would nap, it became harder to continue my life as an actress and I decided to invent a baby product. I invented, patented and manufactured the product called blankyclip, a safe and baby-friendly clip that held a blanket on a stroller. I sold blankyclips nationally in Buy Buy Baby and many boutiques across the U.S. and around the world. My product was recognized as a Top Pick in publications such as Fit Pregnancy and LA Parent Magazine.
Then the Great Recession hit! So I pivoted and wrote a book about my experience.
Clipped journeys through my experiences and highlights the trials and tribulations of financial hardships I faced during the Great Recession while launching a product from concept to completion and simultaneously adapting to becoming a new mother. The memoir hit bestseller status across several lists within 24 hours of being on the market.
Clipped has a broad audience base and serves as a gratifying story of how one woman overcame all challenges and fought for a product she believed in, which betters the life of new parents. It takes a positive, humorous approach to the hardships of a painful economic period, establishing the book as a light read and informative memoir.
From loans to product manufacturing, I taught myself how to be successful in launching blankyclip. This then led to writing my memoir, Clipped: A mom invents a way to hold her life together just as the world falls apart, which documents my journey with balancing motherhood, financial management, and entrepreneurship.
Clipped serves as a form of documentation of an economic period that will forever hold its place in American history. It is an insider story on just how many challenges people endured during that period.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
Ha! The journey I write about in Clipped is all about the struggles and how I overcame them, one by one.
I struggled with infertility and am very grateful that at 37 and 40 I was able to have two kids.
My husband was laid off during the Great Recession, as I was building my business. It was a very trying time!
While building my business, I struggled to raise investment, which lead me to then secure a bank loan. I struggled to find a company to license my idea, so I then decided to manufacture it myself. This is how I found myself in a factory, on a dirt road in Shenzhen, China, overseeing production of my invention. And of course, I struggled to sell my product in a landscape where boutiques and baby stores were closing every day. It was only because I would not give up that I did end up selling in stores around the country and in various parts of the world. But the Great Recession was a force I could not, in the end, beat. When Bank of America called in my line of credit, I no longer could keep growing my business.
So I pivoted once again and turned to writing my memoir!
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
I am very proud of my memoir, Clipped: A mom invents a way to hold her life together just as the world falls apart.
I have just released the audiobook for Clipped, which I narrated. When I worked as an actress I used to record books for Scholastic, Inc, so it was a wonderful return to that world as I recorded my very own book!
Clipped hit Bestseller status on Amazon right away. I am now looking to set it up with a production company that can bring the story to the screen as an episodic series. The book is timely as we are once again in a trying time economically. We’ve not seen the story of a new mom navigating her small business during the greatest economic disaster of our time.
Alright, so to wrap up, is there anything else you’d like to share with us?
In 100 years, we’ll all be dead. This mantra has always helped me make that difficult call or talk to the buyer of a store I might feel afraid to approach. It’s about being afraid and acting anyway. Not listening to the voices that tell us we should stop. I hope my book is inspirational and a way for readers to feel that they can follow their dreams too.
Pricing:
- Paperback $14.99
- Hardcover $24.99
- Audiobook $19.99
Contact Info:
- Website: www.adriennealitowski.com
- Instagram: @adriennealitowski
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/adrienne.alitowski
- Twitter: @aalitowski
