Lainey Cameron on Being the Only Woman in the Corporate Boardroom

This week, I sit down with Lainey Cameron, host of The Best of Women’s Fiction podcast, a show that highlights authors that Lainey respects, as well as interviews with best-selling and women fiction authors.

Each episode, Lainey and her guests share what inspired a favourite author’s book, as well as what advice they’d give to other writers.

Lainey is also the author of the award-winning novel, The Exit Strategy, which was inspired by a decade of being the only woman in the corporate boardroom. It’s been called a “rallying call for women to believe in themselves and join together” and tells the story of a Silicon Valley investor who first meets her husband’s mistress across the negotiating table.

If someone’s a great talent but a pain in the ass to work with, that’s going to be a problem.

For her first book, Lainey hired a voiceover professional to read the audio version, and she shares here how that process works.

Far from simply reading the words on a page, the artist needs to connect with the story and characters, to ensure the author’s vision remains, even when the end result can be something very different from what the author envisaged.

On Creating a Brand Through an Experiment

Lainey originally started podcasting as a video broadcaster using Streamyard for live interviews, and then decided to take that to an audio format.

To her pleasant surprise, the audio version of the show has overtake the video version, and is really taking off, helping her to connect more authors to a wider audience.

I wish I had had that kind of advice when starting out.

As the podcast has grown, Lainey is determined to continue giving a voice to lesser-known authors, and connecting them with the talent that can help them grow their audience.

The Importance of Vetting and Quality

As Lainey’s show has grown, so has the amount of cold pitches she’s receiving to have authors as guests on her show. While this can be a good thing when it comes to episode growth, it can also impact the amount of guests she has on, due to the extra research involved.

• A limited amount of time to read the books sent to her
• Minimal pre-release information or promo sheets
• A lack of peer reviews to ensure the book and author are right for her show

Since Lainey is very conscientious when it comes to who and what she shares with her audience, this extra awareness can cause problems that weren’t there before.

The Continuing Problem with the Tech Industry

Lainey’s background is in the tech start-up world, specifically in Silicon Valley. Being the only high-flying woman executive in the room would come with its own challenges, on top of the job any executive would need to do as part of their everyday life.

It is frustrating and tiring to be the only woman in the room, and to be the only senior woman on the team.

It often lead to Lainey needing to be twice as good as the men in the same position, and understand that the microscope was on her even more because of her gender.

How She Ended Up Hunting with Stoned Tribesmen in Tanzania

As digital nomads, both Lainey and her husband have traveled to numerous parts of the world, leading to a mix of scary and funny adventures.

One that sticks in Lainey’s mind is when they were on a safari tour in Africa, and ended up going hunting with a bunch of stoned teenage tribesmen in Tanzania. Now that’s not something we can all say we’ve done!

Join us for an entertaining chat about the writing world, the ongoing toxic masculinity in the tech world, and why being a digital nomad offers incredible life lessons if you can take the opportunity to grab them.

Connect with Lainey:

• Lainey’s website
• The Best of Women’s Fiction Podcast

Contact me: [email protected]

My equipment:

• Electro-Voice RE320
• Motu M2 Audio Interface
• Denon DJ HP-1100 Over Ear Headphones
• Podcast Pro Boom Arm by Accu-Lite and O.C. White

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