Study Hall Subscriber Book Club: Chaya Milchtein On Her New Guide Book To Owning A Car

Courtesy of McKenna Patterson Photography

Chaya Milchtein, a Milwaukee-based automotive educator and journalist, makes car knowledge more accessible to a broader audience. With her online classes, blogs, and social media content, she breaks down what it takes to buy, sell, insure, and fix a car. In her new book, Mechanic Shop Femme’s Guide To Car Ownership: Uncomplicating Cars For All of Us, she delves into topics like the importance of keeping your owner’s manual (still looking for mine!), how to check your tire pressure, and car maintenance myths (turns out that during the winter months, you shouldn’t pour boiling water on your windshield to get rid of ice). The guidebook is aimed at groups who have historically faced barriers from learning about car maintenance and ownership, and for her book tour, she’s visiting mechanic shops owned by BIPOC, queer people, and women. 

Milchtein started her online car maintenance and ownership class via Facebook Live and primarily advertised for it on Facebook Groups. Her first class was called “How The Heck Do I Buy A Used Car.” She has since taught workshops at Vanderbilt University and America’s Car Museum, and amassed a large social media following. In 2020, Milchtein and her wife’s Zoom wedding was profiled for the queer publication GO Magazine.

On the day that I spoke to Milchtein, she had just recently received copies of her book, an experience she described as “surreal.” 

“To have it here and have the support of a traditional publisher and just the community that’s rallied around me and my work is incredible,” she says.

Milchtein chatted with us about how she started her media career, what she learned from writing a book, and the advice she has for freelancers looking to buy a car.

She is currently open to interviews regarding her new book. If interested, please contact her at [email protected]. 

How did you get into journalism? 

One of the people I acknowledged in my book is Katie Morris, who was the editor of Rewire [a now defunct Twin Cities PBS publication]. I was getting my blog going and starting [to teach] my classes and I responded to a HARO (Help A Reporter Out) [she wrote a call for sources] for LGBT young people. I was trying to get my website linked and I was trying to get my voice out there as an expert. She quoted me in the story and I asked her to change my title to automotive educator and she responded back and asked if I had any room for writing. I had no idea what I was doing and was like “Sure, what do you want me to write about.”

What was your process for writing this book like?

I have been living and breathing cars since I was 18, so a lot of it was just working to put my thoughts and insights and experience and all the things that I’ve taught for so many years into one concise, easy read. The process of writing the book proposal was actually the most complicated part for me, rather than the process of writing the book.

[When writing the book] instead of writing from start to finish, if I got stuck somewhere, I would just write a different section or a different chapter. If I get stuck, or I’m having a hard time putting my thoughts into words, then I’ll jump to something that’s a little bit easier and take a little bit of a break, and then go back.

I’m not a professional writer. That’s a funny way to say it. But I don’t have an education in writing. I don’t have any degrees around writing. I have always considered myself a pretty bad writer for most of my life. I have a lot of problems with spelling. I don’t understand tenses at all. I’m missing a lot of the general education that most people take for granted. But that’s fine, because I didn’t need that part. 

You have a very strong online brand. Do you have any tips for journalists who want to translate an online following to a book proposal? Can you speak to the dynamic of online followings and getting a book published?

Having a social media presence is not the only way to get a book deal. And in fact, sometimes it’s a hindrance and not beneficial. Social media doesn’t directly translate to sales of your book. Yes, I think an audience is beneficial and leveraging that in your book proposal is really important. Establishing a brand and who you are, how you write, keeping your voice strong across platforms, no matter what kind of writing you’re doing, will ultimately all help with landing a book deal. I’m not the best person to ask about landing a book deal because I have a very different experience than most people [as an educator]. I’m also writing about a subject that’s pretty obscure in the minds of the people that I’m trying to reach. Like, most people don’t go out there looking for a book about cars, I have to tell people that they need this book and show them why they need it and educate them on all the things that I could teach them in order to sell this book. 

In the book, you mention that as a queer person in the automotive industry, you’ve faced difficulties. Who are some people or organizations creating space for queer people and women in the automotive industry and automotive journalism?

I had an interview for MOTOR Magazine yesterday and she [the journalist] asked me what advice I would give to women entering the automotive industry. I was like, “You’re gonna cry a lot. It’s gonna suck. People are going to disrespect you and demean you. Even when you’re at the very top of your career, when you are the best you’re going to get, it’s not going to stop.”  

You have to decide if your goal is going to be worth it for you. I promise you, I’m sitting here with 790,000 followers, a traditionally published book, a book tour that’s [visiting] sixteen different women/queer/POC-owned repair shops, and I still face ignorance and trolling every single day. So you have to decide if it’s worth it for you. 

I went to a Women In Auto Care Conference a couple weeks ago. They put on a conference every year that brings together women and queer folks from all over the country from all levels of the aftermarket [automotive industry focused on after-sale parts]. [I also love] JT Mobile Detailing,a mobile detailer who teaches people about [the craft]. RepairPal is an organization that’s working on consumers having a better experience on the aftermarket. They are one of the sponsors of my book tour. WOCAN is the Women of Color Automotive Network, and they’re doing incredible work. Stepanie Drifts is a badass drifter.

Generally, I tend to feel pretty siloed. There’s not a lot of other women or queer folks in the space, [or spaces] that are catering to us.

Do you have advice for freelancers who want to buy a car?

It’s not impossible to buy a car when you’re a freelancer. But it does take some coordinated effort to make sure that you have all your paperwork and you can prove what your income is, because banks don’t look at self- employed income in the same way that they look at regular income. If you have a great credit score, that certainly helps. If you don’t have a great credit score, that makes the process a lot more complicated, but using your taxes instead of receipts from your invoices will help with that process. 

If you have a consistent track record of having self-employed income [and you can show that with your tax returns], that makes a big difference. The second thing that would make a big difference is getting a loan from a credit union or the bank that you do business with on a regular basis, because they can see what money is going in and out of your account every single month. There are also options like getting an older or used car for a small amount of money, while you build your freelance business. Sometimes freelancers don’t think about the implications of tax write-offs when they start freelancing. They write off as much as they possibly can, which is a way to avoid paying taxes. But it can make your income look so small that it could be detrimental [when you want to]  buy a new car or buy a new house.