← The Shit No One Tells You About Writing
The Shit No One Tells You About Writing
Shooting the Shit About External Publicity, Publishing in the age of Kickstarter, and the alleged gambling problem
00:46:05
Shooting The Shit
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- [00:01]
Cece Lira
What's up everyone? This is Cece.
- [00:03]
If you're a writer, then chances are you've wondered if your story is good enough. Maybe you're wondering that right now. I get it. Here's what I can tell you. As long as your story is making the reader curious, you're good. Now, I'm not saying you won't have to make edits when working with an agent or publisher, edits are part of the game. But I am saying that you will get ahead in your career if you know how to make the reader curious. The best way to do that? Infuse your story with plenty of tension, conflict and stakes. Which is why I'm so excited to invite you to join my four day course, Writing Tension Creating Tension, Conflict and Stakes in youn Story. It starts on October 13th. My favorite part about this class is that there are formulas. Yes, formulas for tension, for conflict, for stakes, and for the first time ever, we're having two optional interactive components including a query letter, studio and live critiques of select first pages. I'm super excited about this new format because I've seen it yield results in writers works and it works for writers of any genre as long as you're serious about improving your work.
- [01:14]
So if you're ready to take your.
- [01:16]
Writing to the next level, join me for this four day course. Don't worry if you can't attend live, the sessions will be recorded. For more information, check out my bio on Instagram or the podcast's website. I'm looking forward to seeing you there.
- [01:33]
Bianca Marae
Have you been sitting on the fence about signing up for the Beta Reader matchup? Or have you signed up before but haven't as yet found your writing Soulmates the next matchup is the last one of the year, so don't snooze on it. Get matched up with those writing in a similar genre and or time zone so they can critique your work as you critique theirs. Your manuscript doesn't have to be complete to sign up for this 3,000 word evaluation. This particular matchup will be open to registrations from now until the 2nd of November, with the matchup emails going out on the 3rd of November. For more information and to register, go to Biancamarae.com and look for the Beta Reader Matchup tab. Please spread the word even if you aren't signing up this time. The more writers we have registered, the better the matches will be, which means you'll be paying it forward to your fellow authors.
- [02:28]
Carly Waters
Welcome to another episode of Shooting the Shit with literary agents Carly Waters and CeCe Lira, where we dissect publishing gossip, discuss book industry trends, and the overall state of the book business. If you've ever wanted to grab a coffee with two literary agents, grab your mug and pull up a chair. Hello, everybody. Welcome back. Another episode just with Carly and CeCe of shooting the Shit. We have a lot of fun stuff to talk about. I will say people have been sending us a lot of articles lately, and a lot of them were the same few articles. So we might talk about some of those today. So if you're looking to see whether we're including your article, stay tuned to the end, because we have lots of great links to chat about, we have lots of juicy stuff. But let's start with our weekend. Cece, how was your weekend?
- [03:18]
Cece Lira
Ooh. So I. I'm trying to think of what I did. I went shopping, which was fun, and I worked on my upcoming class. I am teaching a class in. In October on Writing Tension. So I was reviewing materials for the class and that was fun, too. How about you? What'd you do?
- [03:36]
Carly Waters
My parents were here this weekend, so that was nice. I spent a lot of time at the hockey rink. My kids are in the process of what they call sort outs. At their age, they don't call them tryouts. They call them of sort sort outs so they can sort them onto what team they're going to be on. So we worked on that. They got their team assignments yesterday, so we're ready for the next eight months of being in the rink. And I posted this in my Instagram stories and actually on my Instagram grid, which is I started all fours. Randa July's novel, I'm still not Done. And so many of you DM'd me and were like, what did you think about it? Or like, loved it, hated it, didn't finish it. Can't wait to get your thoughts. So, yeah, I'm still not done, but we can talk about that. And then this coming weekend, which by the time this airs, I will have already done this, but I am going to the DFW Dallas Fort Worth Writers Conference. So I've been working on my keynote. I'm holding it up here in the front of the camera for people that can't see. I'm finishing it up. This is my ASMR of, like, paper. Yeah, so I was working on my keynote, my lunch keynote. That'll have happened on Saturday if you guys are listening to this. And yeah, that's kind of it. Just the normal kind of parenting. Parenting stuff over here. So Cece did You read All Fours?
- [04:50]
Cece Lira
I have not read All Fours. I started reading it, didn't get into it, but not because it wasn't good, but because it wasn't something that was fitting my mood at the time.
- [04:57]
Carly Waters
Okay.
- [04:57]
Cece Lira
When it comes to reading for fun, it has to fit my mood. I am doing a lot of dense reading and I mean dense in the best way possible for work. And so I'm not gravitating towards dense stories right now, but I've heard wonderful things. Did you like it? Are you liking it because you're still reading it?
- [05:13]
Carly Waters
Yeah, it's interesting. And again, I've had a number of DM conversations with different people. So one of my friends and kind of industry colleagues, publicist Crystal Patriarch, said it's a mushroom trip of a novel. And I'm like, yeah, it is a mushroom trip of a novel. So I'm in the third section. I don't know how many sections there's are, you know, in terms of like part one, two, three, I liked part one a lot. Part two, I was like, okay, I don't know where this is going. And now I'm into part three. So we'll, we'll see what my final analysis is. But one thing I've noticed, and it could just be the books that I've gravitated towards this year and I was dming with somebody about this, a published author, I won't. Won't tell you who because she was a do not finisher of this one. I was saying about how the, apparently the literary novels that I've been reading this year have been incredibly sexy, sex oriented, sex positive novels.
- [05:56]
Cece Lira
Interesting.
- [05:57]
Carly Waters
And they're of the literary novel. So I've read Sky Daddy and All Fours, I would say are the more literary novels that I've read. And it's really interesting because of obviously the rise in romance novels. And so it's very like on the page, open door sex stuff across the board in the romance category and the literary category, I would say in terms of books that people are talking about, at least in my circle. So I don't know if that says something about the books that are being marketed to me, what I'm choosing to pick up, or the industry at large in terms of, you know, this movement towards again these more open door scenes. It's been a trip and I'm looking forward to finishing.
- [06:34]
Cece Lira
Sounds interesting. And I look forward to picking it up again. I just finished Spectacular Things, which was wonderful. Like, so the narrative style reminded me of lessons in chemistry because there's a Lot of head hopping. We go into other characters, heads within the same chapter. And the author does it with such a confidence and with such precise, assured writing. It's beautiful. It's ultimately the story of two sisters. There's a lot about the mother as well, like the mother's relationship with each of them. It's a family of women. I love stories about that. And there's a lot of soccer stuff because the mother gave up a career. I mean, she got pregnant when she was a teenager and she was, you know, destined to the Olympics and gave up that career because she, she became pregnant. And she raises her daughters to live the dream that she never could. And one of them, the youngest one, is spectacular. Like, they're both really good, but the youngest one is spectacular. But there's. There's sacrifice, there's questions of parentification in children. It's just absolutely beautiful. And, you know, although people know this, I am not interested in watching sports. The whole sports as a background for novels is excellent because there's so many juicy elements that come with it. You know, the competition, the pushing yourself, the politics. Yeah. The systemic issues. Like there's so much. And so it's a wonderful thing for a novel. So yay for sports and novels.
- [08:01]
Carly Waters
You're gonna get pitched some sports romances now. Look out.
- [08:04]
Cece Lira
Hey, if they're good, great.
- [08:08]
Carly Waters
She will have a lot of questions about equipment and how it works, but she, she likes the world. I love that. And any nonfiction that you're reading right now.
- [08:17]
Cece Lira
Yeah. So I'm interested. Looking forward to reading Morgan Housel's new book. I think it's called the Art of Spending Money. I don't know. He wrote the Psychology of Money. He wrote Same as ever. Psychology of Money is one of my all time favorites. Loved same as ever as well. I just love anything psychology. You guys know this about me. And money is one of those things that. Because for so long people were like, we do not talk about money in polite soc. There's a lot to unpack when it comes to dynamics around money. How people spend, how people save, how people buy, how people make their money and so on and so forth. And it's just. Yeah, I'm really looking forward to diving in. But again, there's so much like client reading to do that there's only so many books you can read in your own time. I don't even think they're for fun. They are for fun, but they're also work. Right. Like when we read a book that we are not associated with. I'm sure you agree. We're doing market research. We are, you know, might be inadvertently or not searching for comps for our own titles. There's still work that goes into it, but it is, I guess, less active because I'm also not reading every sentence and worrying about like, is this the right verb? Or anything like that.
- [09:18]
Carly Waters
Yeah, yeah. And that's when books turn, turn into a do not finish for me. Because if I feel like I'm doing work reading, if I'm like, oh, I would have done this differently or made a different choice, then it's usually do not finish for me. Books that I finish are like the highest endorsement because I don't finish a lot of books just because, again, we have so much client reading to do, so many other things going on. So, yeah, it's very interesting to be able to put that hat on and read for fun. Which, again, if you work in the industry, the ability to read for fun comes and goes, let's just say.
- [09:47]
Cece Lira
For sure. For sure. Absolutely.
- [09:50]
Carly Waters
Alrighty, so where should we start today? As I said, we have lots of really good little tidbits and articles that were dropped to us DMs. How do we feel about starting with publicity? Because somebody sent you a DM about this.
- [10:05]
Cece Lira
Yeah, so I got a DM that essentially said I'm not going to read the whole thing. But like, I'm wondering if you all might consider clarifying the whole hiring a publicist thing. Is publicity something that would be addressed in an initial contract? Is this for folks who think their publisher isn't doing enough so they hire someone to give it an extra push? Is it becoming an expectation? And there are also lots of nice things in that message too. But, you know, just for the purposes of time, I won't read everything. But again, I. I actually joined Eric Smith's Discord yesterday evening at 8pm he has a Discord channel with authors and he invited me for an ask me anything session. And the first question or one of the first questions was also about publicity. It was. You know, I am hearing that a lot of people are hiring their own publicists. Like, why do they do this if they have publicists that work for the book inside the publisher? Right. So it's a really good question and there's a lot to cover. I know we both have very strong feelings about publicity, but what would you say is like the biggest misconception, do you think?
- [11:05]
Carly Waters
I mean, we could dedicate a whole episode to this topic? Yeah, I mean, all of it is. It's so hard because Especially for. So we got to talk about like the debut author experience. We got to talk about a mid list author experience. We got to talk about, you know, maybe somebody that gets a higher advanced experience because they're all so incredibly different. I think one of the hardest things about debut authors is you only debut once. So there's a lot of pressure on this. So a lot of times authors do hire for their debut because they're like, I mean, I might be reinvesting most of my advance, if not all of my advance into this, but you only debut once. But it's like they also don't know what they don't know and they don't know what questions to ask. They don't know maybe what their skills are in terms of what they can bring to the table to be a good partner in creating this publicity. Because a lot of times writers will say I want publicity for this book. And it's like, okay, in what capacity? What are your goals? What are you looking for? Because when we think publicity, a lot of times we'll think like, is it magazine coverage? Is it morning show coverage? Is it just you want more influencers to be holding up your book? What is the actual goal? Because the goal essentially should be a couple things. Brand building and sales, right? Those are the two things we're looking for with publicity. And so with the brand building piece, sometimes it's that it's not always that the coverage is actually going to contribute to more sales happening for that book. It's establishing you as an author in that category, creating brand awareness so that maybe again with your next two, three, four books, somebody like, oh yeah, I read about so and so in this magazine and, and therefore I'm going to pick it up next time. So it's not always about like the conversion of that sale. It's about building the brand recognition and brand awareness within the industry at large, the next piece of sales, right? A lot of times when we say I want more publicity, what we're really saying, and I say we as like a general industry, is that we're looking for the conversion of eyeballs to sales. That's a really hard thing to quantify, to manage expectations around. And that's why this whole loosey goosey should I hire? What's the right price point? Who's actually going to move the needle on my book? Like that's why everybody's always floundering with this question, because there's no magic answer. And so a lot of it is about the partnership of the author and the Publicist, are the goals aligned? What is the author going to bring to the table in terms of writing essays or how much they want to get out there, or is it a podcast tour? And how can we kind of divorce the amount of money that we're spending on publicity, you know, as an author or at, you know, in publishing at large, from the eventual outcome? And so we don't always need an external publicist to achieve all these things. But it feels like if I can do something, then I can contribute to this eventual outcome. And again, the goal being conversion. What do you think, Cece?
- [13:43]
Cece Lira
Yeah, I mean, I think that when it comes to hiring an independent publicist versus relying on the publicist that you are assigned to, the best thing to do is to first not think of it as a versus, you know, that's how people think of it. They think of it as one versus the other. Because like this person asked the question, is it because the in house publicists aren't doing a good enough job? And I don't think that that's the point. Right. I think that it comes down to you just adding more troops to your army. That's, that's what it is. And it's really important to remember that there are professions and services that carry an obligation of result, meaning they guarantee results. And there are professions and services that carry an obligation of means. And publicity is very much the latter. It's an obligation of means, meaning they will endeavor their best efforts, they'll put in a whole bunch of effort and pitch your book. But at every stage in the publishing process, there are more people pitching than there are people buying. And so a publicist is going to pitch your book to various media outlets, you know, to. You're going to reach out to influencers, they're going to do a whole bunch of things. But remember that there isn't a spot for everyone who's being pitched. So it's, it's always a situation where the numbers get harder and harder. And I say this not to discourage people, but to adjust their expectations. Something that I think. And you touched on this, Carly. But before you even wonder, you know, why do people hire a publicist? I would do research on publicity. What is publicity? How's it different from marketing? Who has used a publicist before? Who in your network is an author who has hired a publicist? What was their experience? Talk to them, research various publicity firms, take a look at what they do, what they don't do, take a look at their niches, take a look at their expertise. And I Think that doing that big, big research, which will take hours, if not days, is important so that you're not going into it with, like, very broad questions. Because this is true for everything, really, when it comes to life, not just publishing, but if you do your own research before asking an expert a question, will ask better questions and you'll get better results. So, I mean, I definitely think that it depends on each person's financial situation as well. Like, publicity is expensive, and again, there's no guarantee of any results. I know authors who have hired publicists, and they're like, that money was wasted. That's how they feel. And I know authors who have hired publicists, and they really loved it. It just depends on each situation. The number one thing, though, like, the most important takeaway that I really, really wish every author out there understood is you are not hiring someone to do the work for you. You're not. You are hiring someone to do the work with you. So you will still have to do a lot of the work. I want you to be able to answer questions like, what op EDS could you write? What articles could you pitch to magazine? What magazines publish these articles, these articles that you want to have published? What other books are out there and what strategies did they adopt? And if you think that it's your job as the client to sit back while people feed you this information, will people say, oh, here are the op EDS you could write? That's not how it works. You are very much expected, whether you hire an independent publicist or not, to do a lot of this mental work and to come up with all these great ideas. Or else your publicity efforts are going to be like cut and paste. Right? They're going to be like what we would do for a book of this type. Which is fine, but I don't think that's a smart way to go about it. I think it's really important to sit down, put on your PR hat, and really think about this as a business. In creative work, a lot of people think that the labor comes when the work is being created, meaning when the words are being written. And then once that part's over, the work is kind of taken over by other people, your team. That's why you go with traditional publishing, right? Wrong. You're actually still expected to be doing all the work. You're actually not all the work. That's not true. But you're actually still expected to be doing a lot of the work, most of the work, because it is your book. There's one name on the COVID So I think that's, that's something to keep in mind. I don't think people do it because the in house publicists are doing a bad job at all. I think people do it because they want a larger army.
- [17:52]
Carly Waters
Yeah, yeah, no, I think that makes sense. There's tons of things that we can pull out in terms of those threads. As I said, I've given hour long talks on this. We could talk about this topic for an hour. But if there is anything that you want us to go a bit deeper in that conversation, send us a DM and we'll try to build on that conversation as we, as we move through the many weeks to come of shooting the shit. The next thing I wanted to ask you about because I think about this all the time is so I've been doing this a certain number of years now and I'm starting to get to the point in this mid career phase where I'm finding it really hard to give advice to newer agents, to give advice to younger agents. And I was talking about this with an, with an editor.
- [18:27]
Cece Lira
Wait, how come?
- [18:28]
Carly Waters
Well, this is it.
- [18:29]
Cece Lira
How come it's harder.
- [18:30]
Carly Waters
I was talking about this with an editor in the context of like her trying to give advice to younger editors as well. And I was like, I'm actually finding it really hard because I think the landscape has changed a lot in terms of agents starting out is what I'm trying to focus on. So if I was to say like when I, if I go back to the beginning of when I started, the advice that I might give is very different because like, does it actually relate now? Is it actually harder to be an agent now? And so I don't know. You're kind of newer into the agent world than I am. Like, I don't know. Do you feel this at all? Are you starting to feel this way? Because I felt as soon as I hit like year 10, it became so hard for me to start to remove the knowledge that I have now and kind of, because I love teaching.
- [19:10]
Cece Lira
This is nonsense. No, this is nonsense. You're wrong.
- [19:12]
Carly Waters
This is true.
- [19:13]
Cece Lira
Okay, no, no, because you are, because you gave me advice and you gave me great advice. Okay, So I know you were good at giving advice at year 10. Like, no, this is nonsense. No, I'm, you know, like, we're not going to edit this out because it's actually really funny. But no, you're great at giving advice. You give wonderful advice. You're always asking people to name their goals. You make it personal to each person that you're Talking to. No. It might be hard. I believe you. But you still give really good advice. Yes.
- [19:38]
Carly Waters
Okay. Yeah, I think it's harder now. I guess it's just hard for me to feel like I can relate to that, like, angst energy that people feel early on in their career about making their way as an agent. Because I guess this comes back to the theme that I keep coming back to. Maybe it's part of that, like, hustle culture mindset thing where I'm like, is there a way to. For me to give advice independent of that other than just, like, work seven days a week, it's fine. And all your dreams are true because they're not healthy.
- [20:05]
Cece Lira
Yeah. There's no way to give advice about being an agent and not talk about hustle. Like, you just can't be independent from hustle culture. I feel very strongly about this not honest advice anyway.
- [20:16]
Carly Waters
And, yeah.
- [20:16]
Cece Lira
Yeah, the reason why your advice is good advice is because it's honest. But no, I think, you know, when. When people. People ask. People ask you all the time. They ask me all the time, too. You know, like, there are a few things. I think, one, I try to always say the biggest truth of all, which is it is the best job in the world. It is such a wonderful job. It is amazing. However amazing you're picturing it is, it's actually better. I have a good imagination. It's even better than I thought it would be. It's great. The second thing I say, because my goal is always to inspire and depress, is we have to have a frank conversation about money. How long it takes to make money. Yes. Once you start making money, it's great. Like, it's so great, you know, especially because, again, a book can be adapted into many things, and that part's awesome. But it's really important to have a frank conversation about money. The third thing I talk about are the soft skills. There's a lot of soft skills that are needed to become an agent. People tend to focus on the hard skills. Do I need an English degree? Do I need to have gone to publishing school? The soft skills matter more than anything else. I think that's true in many professions, especially ours. You were the one who taught me this, actually. The importance of having a memorable personality. I had never thought about that. But you once said to me, we're talking about a different person. You were like, this person isn't memorable. So I think they might struggle. And I remember thinking, oh, my God, it's so true. You have to be memorable. Because if you're not memorable. So much of it is the relationship, right? There's so many agents you're just going to blur into the background and that's hard to know about oneself. But you know, self awareness, I guess, important. The other thing too is you cannot have a passive personality. I have often asked myself this question. If you're a passive person, do you know you're a passive person? One of my best friends in life, childhood best friend, is a deeply, deeply passive person. She's a lovely human. Lovely human. She's a very passive person. She waits for things to happen. This does not bother her at all. She leads a wonderfully happy life. She's surrounded by people who are not passive at all. It works for her. People are always describing her as easygoing and, you know, easy to be around because she is, she's a very easygoing person. If you want to be an agent, you cannot be a passive person. You need to make things happen. You can't wait for the thing to happen. You need to find a way to make it happen. There are people who have this drive, this force inside of them where when they're faced with obstacles, it's hard. And I'm not saying they don't struggle, but like you're just going to find a way to do it. You know, you might pivot, you might find your destination might change a little. Not the ultimate one, but like the way you do it. It's important to have the mental flexibility. But that soft skill is really, really important. And then the fourth thing I'll say is this. I always know if someone is cut out to be an agent or not, in part based on how prepared they come to the informational interviews. Like if I'm having to explain things like advances are paid out in thirds or fourth. If I'm having to explain really basic things in an informational interview, it tells me you have not done research and that suggests that you might be a passive person. You are going into an informational interview with really open ended broad questions and expecting someone to tell you how things work. There's a lot of information out there, a lot of really reputable sources. It is your job to go to research, to really put in the time and effort because that's just going to be the tip of the iceberg, right? And then when you go into the informational interview, you'll be prepared with really good questions. Questions where you've already like thought about things and digested them and then you have more specific questions. I guess I think that's really important. Too. I, I just think that it's, it's something that if you're meant to do it, if you're built for it, it's perfect. Like, it's perfect. It's going to make you the happiest person ever. You'll never want to stop. But there's an allure to being an agent where people think, oh, you have power. You know, there's this perception that we have all this power and you get to read all day. Doesn't that sound like a great job?
- [24:21]
Carly Waters
How much of a job?
- [24:22]
Cece Lira
But if you don't know how to.
- [24:23]
Carly Waters
Spend doing all of those things, you're right.
- [24:25]
Cece Lira
But like, if you, if you, if you don't know the mechanics of the job, because when we do. I'm sure you've heard this because I remember you did this incubator thing many years ago, remember, with people who wanted to be agents. And I remember at the end there were people who were like, I don't want to do this. And you were like, good. Not good as in that's what you wanted. What you wanted was for them to know whether they wanted it or not. And they realized they didn't. And that's okay too.
- [24:48]
Carly Waters
Yeah. There's just a lot of people that don't actually understand what this job is. And because there's, you know, a certain level of secrecy around it because of client confidentiality often is most of the reason people just don't actually understand what we do on a day to day basis. And I agree, the, the better prepared you are with better questions, the more interested I am in helping you because you come with better questions. And it's more intellectually stimulating to me to go deep on some of these things that I, you know, grapple with and deal with on a daily basis. So. Absolutely. And I also feel like you can't actually want to do this job until you get a glimpse into what this job is. And so that's why I love doing that kind of mentorship incubator session which I had. I was a 10 week program and I had different agents kind of coming in in different weeks, doing panels and talking about what it was to these mentees. And it was, it was great.
- [25:35]
Cece Lira
It was awesome.
- [25:35]
Carly Waters
Tons of them were like, I do not want to do this at all. And it's a very hard job with a lot of hard skills and a lot of soft skills that often don't align in a lot of people in the same way. Because you need that one thing, you know, one word. You didn't Use. You obviously kind of got to this point, but you didn't use the word entrepreneurial. And it's incredibly entrepreneurial. Like, are you willing to risk it all for this job? And some people are just not built to risk it all, whereas some of us decided that they were going to risk it all, and we're lucky enough to have it paid off in all of the best ways.
- [26:07]
Cece Lira
Yeah, and sometimes it doesn't. You know, we have colleagues who started out with us, and we started out on different moments who stopped and, you know, you'd have to talk to them to know whether it was worth it or not. But it's a risky job. It's a job with a lot of risk. A lot of risk. A lot of rewards, too. The rewards are awesome. I will say that.
- [26:27]
Carly Waters
All right, well, we'll put a pin in that conversation for now. But again, another one we could go on and on about. If anybody has specific questions. Good questions. Good. Interesting questions about our day, let us know. Okay. The next thing was something we got sent a ton of. So, CeCe, do you want to summarize this for us? There was a very prominent Kickstarter that happened recently. Do you want to give us the rundown?
- [26:47]
Cece Lira
Sure. So Ali Hazelwood and Adriana Herrera, they started a Kickstarter for a new collection of theirs, and it was wildly successful. I am looking at the numbers here, because I pulled them. You funded in under four minutes and had almost 700,000 in the first 24 hours. I think their goal was, like, I don't know, 10,000? What was their goal?
- [27:14]
Carly Waters
Yeah, it was way lower.
- [27:15]
Cece Lira
Surpass their goal? Yeah, surpass their goal of 10,000 to go comfortably over 1 million. But, like, it's not just that they went over 1 million. They got 700,000 in the first 24 hours. Like, essentially, these are authors who went directly to their creators and said, hey, do you guys want to fund this, this thing we're doing? And I think it's amazing that we live in a world where that's possible. It's one of the many wonderful things about technology. I also think it's so interesting because of what it says to me. It says that people are really hungry to use the power of their dollars and to put that towards people. I see a parallel with Taylor Swift. Right. Like, the reason why she's such a powerhouse has to do with the fact that her fans love her. You know, they see her as emancipated from a system, and when they're purchasing tickets to her concerts, they're Investing in her, in the person, not in the broken, potentially predatory system. And I think that's really cool. Like, I think it's fascinating. It's a venture powered by readers. Isn't that amazing?
- [28:16]
Carly Waters
No, I think, I think it's great. I think one of the things that was really interesting to me and really solidified something for me was the kind of campaign that they went on. So it's not just like, hey, out of nowhere, they just kind of post this. Kickstarter. There was years obviously of nurturing their newsletter list, nurturing their social media audience, so that they again felt like they got to this point where they could again have this bond in this community that's obviously super important. And then they kind of created a campaign around it. So. And we'll post a link to this article. But Kickstarter did like an update blog post essentially and asked them about it. And then Ali says a huge part of it was the social media newsletter work done in the months before. Months, plural. Everyone in the anthology made sure that the readership was aware that the project would happen. So everybody in the anthology was then communicating this to all of their fans. And in turn those readerships helped us spread the word. Adriana said, we were very intentional about how we rolled out the project. We made sure we had branding that was distinct and recognizable. We planned content months ahead of time. We made sure to include our contributing authors and all the key decisions without requiring them too heavy lifting and getting the word out about the project. We also made sure to provide them with assets and resources for them to share with their readers and on their own platforms. So to me, this again speaks to also the author as the driving creative force of all of this. Because a lot of times there can be this like, victim mentality of publishing, of like, I'm just an author within this system, but the author as the talent, the author as the content creator, as the visionary, as the one who's driving this is. And I can imagine a lot of people in publishing could potentially be unsettled by this because then it's. It begs the question, what is the role of the publisher? If the powerhouse author can then again build this relationship directly with their audience, create this incredible campaign built on the back of obviously their relationships, what they've learned through the book publishing process and pre order campaigns that they probably utilize for their books. And really it's just digital sales techniques, right? And email sales funnels and things like that. So it's nothing necessarily like, but the way that they employ it in a way that is so revolutionary is because it then creates them as the businesswomen, as the CEOs of this new venture, that they get to then determine where the dollars go in terms of the breakdown. And again, like you said, the fans feel like they are directly invested in this now. And I can. Yeah, I can. I can see this doing really well, continuing to get more publicity. Again, like, not only did this create publicity within the Kickstarter universe, it created publicity within the publishing universe. And there's just so many things that are going to kind of spin off from this and hopefully inspire lots of other authors, too, to really think about other ways to kind of monetize the relationship with our audience, not just for the sake of monetizing it, but to know that there potentially are other ways when you feel like maybe you got to a roadblock, because it doesn't say whether they tried to sell this to a publisher, but, you know, potentially whether they got a roadblock somewhere. I'm not saying they did or didn't. Right. It's like, oh, now here's another avenue where Kickstarter can support, support and provide themselves as a platform for us to reach our readers and build this kind of financial system. So, anyway, I could go on and on. I think it's very interesting.
- [31:19]
Cece Lira
It is. And I love that it happened to romance authors. There's so much judgment and shade that is thrown in the direction of romance authors. Oh, romance. It's not a serious genre. First of all, go eat a cookie and go read a romance novel. But it just, I don't know, I thought it was really cool, really cool to see this happening. It, it. It lights me up.
- [31:39]
Carly Waters
Awesome. Awesome. Okay, next article. So I saw this on first. I saw this on Instagram and I shared it in my stories and tons of you commented on it. And you guys might remember it was a reel from Lauren Martin. She does the Words of Women Instagram handle. And it was this reel about kind of the relationship that she felt between power and money and publishing and her goals and, like, her cravings of what she wanted in terms of how success looked to her. Anyway, I was blown away by this reel. It was about the Porsche. If you guys remember this, it was about her wanting a Porsche. I posted this reel, and then it was actually a longer kind of newsletter, blog post. So I sent that over to Cece for her to read as well. And I have so many favorite quotes from it. But yeah, tons of, tons of my followers saw me post about this because I was really taken by it. And it really punched me in the gut. What do you think, Cece?
- [32:29]
Cece Lira
I want to know if you want a Porsche.
- [32:32]
Carly Waters
Yes, I do. Yeah. Yeah, I do. It's. See, and it's something about. There's something about it. I don't know what it is. Maybe I'm just, like, the target audience for this, but it does. It is the confluence of, like, power and what women are supposed to want and creativity and obviously the design. Anyway, we could go on and on. Okay. But I'm gonna. I'm gonna backtrack just so everybody can find this article if they want to find it. So Lauren Martin is the author. She's the author of Book of Moods, and she has a new memoir coming out. If you want to find the blog post, it's wordsofwomen.com delusions of grandeur. So I want to make sure we give people a shout out so they know where to find it. But, yeah, I could. I could go on and on. I was totally taken with this. And one of the things I really liked was. And she mentioned this in the Instagram reel. And I'll just kind of quote it from the blog post, but she says I had to do something while I waited for the publishers to decide my fate. Yet the more I researched, the clearer my fears and my husband's word became. Because she. She was told that, you know, Porsches aren't for women, essentially, and goals and striving and these. These symbols of power aren't for women. And she says because of the price, owning a Porsche meant you were in the 1%, because 1% of people own a Porsche. And the statistical chances of an author getting a book deal with the top five publisher is also approximately 1 to 2%. She said, maybe I'd never be rich enough for a Porsche, but I had been in the 1%, I. E. Being published by a Big Five publisher, and I had written my way there. And in the post, she kind of, you know, conflates these two things together in a way that I think is really powerful, which is getting published. You are in the 1 to 2% of people that actually get a big five book deal. Isn't that incredible? And yet, as a woman still wanting, quote, unquote, more or a symbol to represent what that more means, I just. I absolutely loved it.
- [34:16]
Cece Lira
Yeah. Yeah. She didn't just. She. I mean, I guess she didn't just dream. She dared. Right? And that's really cool. And I love that. I mean, as someone who has zero interest in any car, like, any car. I think cars are so boring. Like, so boring. I still got it, though. Like, it still spoke to me because it's about not being sensible. It's about not wanting the things that are sensible or practical or, like, assigned, you know, like, what are you supposed to do with your advance? Well, you're supposed to, like, what are you supposed to do with money? Right. It comes back to the psychology of money, I guess. And I love that. I love that she was, like, sensible. No, she has children. Like, a two seater Porsche is not sensible. That's. That's great. But it comes back to the idea.
- [34:58]
Carly Waters
Of like, like, women aren't quote, unquote, allowed to be nonsensical. If we have children, we have children, we have jobs, we have responsibilities. We should save. It would be so silly to do this.
- [35:08]
Cece Lira
Yeah.
- [35:08]
Carly Waters
And spend your money on xyz. And yet she still chose to do. And whether it's, you know, the vacation or, I don't know, the house reno or a shopping spree or the port, like, whatever. The thing is, I just love whatever your Porsche is.
- [35:22]
Cece Lira
Whatever your Porsche is.
- [35:24]
Carly Waters
Yes, exactly. It's like there's a thing and there's a symbol that is so nonsensical. And I feel like, especially as more women approach their power and approach being wealthier, you know, in terms of more women becoming more wealthy as time goes on and all of the, all of that wonderful stuff that that brings. The idea that women are allowed to be nonsensical with their money is not only is it crazy that we talk about money more than ever, women talking about money more than ever, but also that, yeah, they can dream something silly with their money. Like, to me, that is just the epitome of feminism and money and power. Like, being able to be silly with your money. Right?
- [35:58]
Cece Lira
Yeah, yeah. Silly for you, not silly for your children or for your puppy or for your. Whatever.
- [36:03]
Carly Waters
Yeah, yeah.
- [36:04]
Cece Lira
But, but, but also it can be silly and you can reclaim that. You know, of course there's depth in the silliness, but it can also just be fun, you know, that's kind of awesome.
- [36:13]
Carly Waters
That's revolutionary. That's so uncomfortable for people.
- [36:16]
Cece Lira
It is. It's defiant.
- [36:18]
Carly Waters
Absolutely. So anyway, I loved it. And so if you guys saw the reel, I hope you did also check out the longer kind of newsletter blog post that it was inspired by. And I want to check out her new memoir. I haven't read either of her books, but she has a new memoir coming out, which, yeah, I'm also really excited to check out.
- [36:32]
Cece Lira
Well, this conversation's super fun. But we have to take a break now for a word from our sponsors.
- [36:39]
Carly Waters
Welcome back. Hey everybody, Guess who's back from France. I was thinking of you guys listening to me talk about getting ready for the trip and practicing my French while I was doing my best order at the cafes. It went well. I was a bit nervous, but when we were in the countryside and I could take my time thinking about what I wanted to say, I was able to say it. Being a bilingual family is high on my list of things that are super important to me as a parent and a mom. If we're going to show them the world, we also need to appreciate and respect the language and culture by learning it. Imagine how much richer your travel experience could be if you could speak the local languages. When you travel with Rosetta Stone, you'll gain the confidence to have real conversations and create deeper connections wherever you go. Rosetta Stone is the trusted leader in language learning for over 30 years. 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The timelessness of them makes them so functional. If you want to be effortlessly chic and warm, I recommend these two picks. Find your fall staples at Quinte. Go to Quince.com TeessNatya for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. Now available in Canada too, that is Quince.com TeessNotYaw to get free shipping and 365 day returns. Quince.com TSNaya Everybody we have a few things I want to highlight coming up in our next newsletter. The podcast newsletter so we have a great character inspiration worksheet put together by James Goodhand, author of Reports of his death have been greatly exaggerated. Following on from his awesome insights in Friday's edition about how writing while working full time is actually a good thing, James provides fun exercises to help assemble a fascinating cast by harvesting elements of those unique people around us. We also have an awesome video by Sean Dietrich, author of Over Yonder, where he gives invaluable advice on navigating that much dreaded C word critique and how to embrace self doubt as part of your journey. If you've been struggling with whether or not to let go of a book that keeps getting rejected, you don't want to miss out on a brilliant essay from Jennifer Fawcett Author of Keep this for Me, who campaigns to not give up on your passion project. And last week was Books with Hooks. So you're going to get the written critique. So all of this is in the Tuesday newsletter edition to become a paid subscrib. It's just $8 a month and you can get access to these excellent resources. So make sure you go to substack.com heshitaboutwriting and subscribe.
- [41:12]
Cece Lira
And thank you for subscribing. Thank you to everyone who subscribes. We are so thankful and we love you.
- [41:18]
Carly Waters
We do love you all. All right, let's move on to our next article. Cece, which one are we going to focus on?
- [41:24]
Cece Lira
This was the one that was most shared, at least in my opinion. Like, I got so many dams about this one. And like I did. I am going to be brutally honest here because I have thoughts not just on the articles, but on the DMs I got. So this is a piece from the Walrus. If anyone is not familiar with the Walrus, it is a wonderful magazine. I read it for fun. It's beautiful. Great writing. It's awesome. And the piece is called the Publishing industry has a gambling problem. Companies keep betting on the next bestseller. Literature is poorer for it. We will link to it. It was published fairly recently. A couple days ago. A few days ago, September 26th. I don't know how your DMs like what people said to you, but to me there were two buckets. It was people who were saying, hey, Cece, this article shares everything you guys always talk about. Just like, yeah, this is like a summary of everything you guys always talk about. And then there were people who were like, oh my God, Cece, I read this article and I'm shocked. Can you talk about it on Shoot the Shit? And to the people in the second bucket? I want to ask you, where have you been? Do you not listen to our show? You don't, right? Just. Just admit it. You don't listen to our show.
- [42:34]
Carly Waters
I've admitted that. You fast forward through half of our episodes every time.
- [42:39]
Cece Lira
Seriously, because there's nothing surprising about this article. It is very well written. I disagree with a lot of things it says. I agree with a whole bunch of things. It's great as it should be. When I read an article, not supposed to agree with everything, but it is not surprising. Publishing is institutionalized gambling. That is what publishing is. When you sell a book, right, you are selling something that made you feel a certain way and that your gut tells you could reach readers that's the data that goes into choosing comps, which is what goes into P. L's for debuts anyway. And sure, if you already have a book, there's a track record, et cetera, et cetera. When you sell a house, do you know what you use for comps? Other houses in the neighborhood. Hard data. Number of bedrooms, number of bathrooms. Whenever the renovation happened. That is not how a book works. A book is totally based on taste, subjectivity and emotion. We talk about this every week. Why are you surprised? With love. Asking with love. Why is anyone surprised? Publishing doesn't have a gambling problem. It is gambling. Maybe that's a problem, but it is gambling. That is what this industry is. Get over it. Get over it, get comfortable with it, accept it and move on. Because I. I am not saying we shouldn't talk about the gambling aspects of publishing. I'm saying no one's allowed to be surprised and say they listen to the show. You can't do both.
- [44:02]
Carly Waters
I agree. I do think that this is nothing revolutionary. I appreciate everybody sending us the DMs because of course we want to cover top topical things on the shows. And if you're kind of author group chats are going off about this, that is something that I want to know about. I agree. I guess I'm surprised at how many people are surprised or they just love when publishing industry is being reflected in mainstream media. And I got a publication such as the Walrus, you know, who writes about publishing from time to time and they do great work. And so I love that we are going down these paths. But I mean, and maybe I was attempting to try to learn something new, but I didn't learn anything new. Doesn't mean that there's anything wrong with this article because I'm clearly not the target audience for this article at all. Because I am one of the institutionalized gamblers who works in this business who has gambled my entire career again, as we started off this program, talking about I gambled my entire career.
- [44:54]
Cece Lira
Gambled and won. Gambled and won. Carly gambled and won.
- [44:57]
Carly Waters
I know I get to be, you know, the 1% of agents. Right? Which is, which is awesome. And so I'm so grateful for this system. It is. Of course it is. Right. We're taking chances on things again. Doesn't mean that there's not kind of like heart and emotionality to it. But it is a business.
- [45:14]
Cece Lira
There absolutely is. There is heart. But gambling has nothing like gambling. Doesn't mean there can't be heart and emotionality and mission and Passion like these things are not mutually exclusive. So the article covers the pressure to succeed from the beginning, obsession with finding an expost seller, the track record being like credit. It covers the fact that most books are losses for publishers, that the advance is not seen as a rate but rather as funding. It covers the consequences of corporate consolidation of rapidly slimming media and other factors that contribute to publishers taking fewer risks and expecting things to either break out and they'll continue investing in it or they just stop investing in authors. And that's a shame. Now of course It's a shame. 100% a shame. And I agree with you, we are not the target audience for this at all. If someone doesn't know about publishing, I think it's a really interesting article but for everyone who's our listener, you guys should know about publishing because we talk about it all the time. And so I just, again, it is a really awesome article if you haven't read it. But I actually think this is a test. A test to see how knowledgeable you are of the publishing industry. If you read it and you go, yep, not surprised, really glad this is being written about, but not surprised. You're knowledgeable and if you're reading, you're going what? Oh my God, publishers, they don't invest in book two. If book one doesn't break out, what then? You haven't been listening to us. You've been fast forwarding, you've been fast forwarding and you've just been caught.
- [46:42]
Carly Waters
Yeah, no, I, yeah, I have so much appreciation for this article because I do think it will again spur on lots of conversation about so many things. Right. Like what does it mean to be kind of mid career and in the mid list and, and you know, what would it take to kind of overcome. And there's, there's a lot I think that people can learn. I am not the target audience for it, but creating products under capitalism, especially in late stage capitalism, we, we just can't pretend that these things don't exist or exist within a vacuum because they exist within the larger structures of the market, our multi billion dollar market. Like I always like to say, right? So there's, I think there's always a certain amount of like hope and optimism in publishing that because we are such a legacy media industry that we have stood the test of time. You know, we've made it through every form of the industrial age and technology and you know, e commerce, ebooks, AI Like I think we are the type of industry that is going to make it and sustain itself and how we evolve through these times of turbulence are opportunities for reflection. But it doesn't mean that it's going to change the fact that we are selling products under capitalism and we all exist within this system.
- [47:58]
Cece Lira
And it doesn't mean we're endorsing it either. Like, I. I will tell you, if I could change a whole bunch of things about publishing, I would. I don't endorse a lot of it, most of it probably, but it's still reality. And it's really important to live within reality. Because if you want to make it in this industry, and I know people listening to us, if you're a writer anyway, you do, then yeah, yeah. Embrace the fact that it's gambling. Embrace the fact that it's gambling because there's. There's no way. There's no way over it. That's true.
- [48:29]
Carly Waters
I think that a lot of authors also just can't make sense of publishing. Right. Because they're like, well, why does this author get this much money and this author gets this much money when there's gambling? Writing a novel. Yes. These people are both writing a novel about xyz. They're both at whatever stage in their career. Why are these P L's different? Right. Like, how do we get to the end number? So there's that element of like, how we come up with these P and L. Not we as the publishers come up with the PNLs, we push back on these P and LS and always say there's room to improve here. But then we get to the point of like, the book comes out in the world and then the readers get to decide also, like, there are just so many levels of this, of where things could kind of like explain, accelerate and decelerate for authors, various careers at any given time. And so much of it is out of their control. And I think we're always trying to like, put this kind of control system over top of publishing and try to like remote control it to be like, if it just did this and then I could predict what was going to happen. We can't predict what's going to happen. We can never predict what's going to happen. That's what keeps this job in industry really exciting and fun. Because we don't know what the next thing is going to be. Nimble. Obviously we have trained our brains to work within this system to learn more about it and try to come up with, you know, with these ideas with our authors and sell them to publishers. But we cannot control this industry no matter how much we try that's the thing that I find most frustrating. As somebody that, you know, engineers book deals or auctions, and the way that we want to put so much control on the system that we can never control. We're always, in some ways, moving by the seat of our pants. Because every book is different, every author is different, every scenario is different, every moment in time. Exactly.
- [50:08]
Cece Lira
Yeah.
- [50:10]
Carly Waters
We cannot control this industry.
- [50:12]
Cece Lira
It's magic and madness. It's both. And you can opt out if you don't want to. Please don't, because we need writers. But again, you can, or you can embrace it. And frankly, surrender. Publishing requires surrender. Surrendering of this. This urge to control, which I empathize with. I love control, but, you know, gotta surrender. It is what it is.
- [50:34]
Carly Waters
Alrighty. Well, I agree. Everybody should go check out that article. We will link to all of these articles in our show notes. You guys have access to them. The last thing I just wanted to draw attention to. I'll also link this in the show notes was Penguin Random House has an author newsletter. I'm pretty sure this is just a blog on their website, but they have an article all about what happens with the in house publicity team on any given day. It goes through like a day in their life and has a little Q and A with some in house publicists, which, based on today's conversation, could be interesting to everybody. So make sure you check that out as well.
- [51:07]
Cece Lira
Yes. I thought it was really cool. Thank you for sharing that.
- [51:10]
Carly Waters
Yeah. All right, well, that's it from us today. Cece, I hope you have a great week at work and we will recap next week.
- [51:18]
Cece Lira
Okay.
- [51:20]
Bianca Marae
Cece Lira is a literary agent at Wendy Sherman Associates. If you'd like to query CeCe, please refer to the submission guidelines at www.wsherman.com. carly Waters is a literary agent at P.S. literary Agency, but her work on this podcast is not affiliated with the agency. And the views expressed by Carly on the podcast are solely that of her as a podcast co host and do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, policies, or position of PS Literary Agency.
- [51:56]
Cece Lira
What's up, everyone? This is Cece.
- [51:58]
If you're a writer, then chances are you've wondered if your story is good enough. Maybe you're wondering that right now. I get it. Here's what I can tell you. As long as your story is making the reader curious, you're good. Now, I'm not saying you won't have to make edits. When working with an agent or publisher, edits are part of the game. But I am saying that you will get ahead in your career if you know how to make the reader curious. The best way to do that Infuse your story with plenty of tension, conflict and stakes. Which is why I'm so excited to invite you to join my four day course, Writing Tension Creating Tension, Conflict and Stakes in your story. It starts on October 13th. My favorite part about this class is that there are formulas. Yes, formulas for tension, for conflict, for stakes, and for the first time ever, we're having two optional interactive components including a query letter studio and live critiques of select first pages. I'm super excited about this new format because I've seen it yield results in writers works and it works for writers of any genre as long as you're serious about improving your work.
- [53:10]
So if you're ready to take your.
- [53:11]
Writing to the next level, join me for this four day course. Don't worry if you can't attend live, the sessions will be recorded. For more information, check out my bio on Instagram or the podcast's website. I'm looking forward to seeing you there.
- [53:28]
Bianca Marae
Have you been sitting on the fence about signing up for the Beta Reader matchup? Or have you signed up before but haven't as yet found your writing soulmates? The next matchup is the last one of the year, so don't snooze on it. Get matched up with those writing in a similar genre and or time zone so they can critique your work as you critique theirs. Your manuscript doesn't have to be complete to sign up for the 3,000 word evaluation. This particular matchup will be open to registrations from now until the 2nd of November, with the matchup emails going out on the 3rd of November. For more information and to register, go to Biancamarae.com and look for the Beta Reader Matchup tab. Please spread the word even if you aren't signing up this time. The more writers we have registered, the better the matches will be, which means you'll be paying it forward to your fellow authors.