← The Shit No One Tells You About Writing
The Shit No One Tells You About Writing
Shooting The Shit About Our Publishing Pet Peeves and What To Do When Your One “Yes” Is A “No”
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- [00:00]
Cece Lira
What's up, everyone? This is Cece. Do you know something I'm always looking for when I review the slush pile? Strong interiority. Well written interiority shows what your protagonist is thinking about in a way that is realistic and interesting. It propels the story forward instead of holding it back. But it doesn't stop there. A strong writer will leverage interiority into a superpower, into something I call psychological acuity. Think about it this way. Plot is what happens. Interiority is how your protagonist processes what happens. And psychological acuity is why it matters. It gives a book depth and meaning and staying power. All breakout books have psychological acuity. You have been asking me to teach a course about psychological acuity for years.
- [00:48]
Cece
Years.
- [00:49]
Cece Lira
Well, it's finally here. Why did it take me so long? Because my courses take years to build. They're dense, they're thorough, and they're filled with examples and specific techniques. So this five day course begins on March 2nd. We'll have an optional interactive component. Students are invited to submit excerpts from their work for a chance to have them critiqued live during a class. If you're ready to take your writing to the next level, join me for writing interiority and psychological Acuity. Don't worry if you can't attend live. The sessions will be recorded. And for more information, check out my bio on Instagram or the podcast website. I'm looking forward to seeing you there.
- [01:30]
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.
- [01:55]
Cece
Welcome, everyone, to another episode of Shooting the Shit. We're really excited to have you here. And to kick us off, I have a question to ask of Carly that she has no idea I'm asking. Carly, I want you to guess. This is going to be fun. Guessing games are always fun. How many copies? According to Bookscan Dear Debbie by Freda McFadden sold on its first week out.
- [02:17]
Carly Waters
Guess. Just guess. What time of year was it? This?
- [02:20]
Cece
It just came up last week. Like this week?
- [02:24]
Carly Waters
One week? What format?
- [02:27]
Cece
Okay. No, no follow up questions. It came up on January 27th. It is a Freedom McFadden book. Just guess a number.
- [02:34]
Carly Waters
Okay. First week on sale. Freedom of fad and month of January. I'm going to say. I'm gonna say 150.
- [02:48]
Cece
Oh, okay. I asked Bianca the same question. Unfortunately, this part was not recorded and Bianca guessed 100. So, as always, this is a. This is a theme amongst the three of us. Carly is way more ambitious. No. So it was 101,000. According to BookScan. According to BookScan, it was 101,155. Now, of course, Bookscan does not capture all sales, but isn't it cool? I just watched the Housemaid. I hadn't watched it in the movies, so I just watched it. And then Freedom McFadden has been on my mind.
- [03:19]
Cece Lira
Six figures.
- [03:20]
Carly Waters
That's a good guessing game. We should keep that up for future intros. That kept me on my toes there, because I'm always the one that doesn't. You do it.
- [03:26]
Cece
Yeah. You do it with me next week, and I won't look at the list or whatever. Like, you can be a surprise.
- [03:32]
Narrator/Announcer
Yeah.
- [03:32]
Carly Waters
Okay. I'll start to noodle on that. Good guessing game. I love that. And just a reminder to everybody that Bookscan usually only captures, on average, anywhere from 50 to 80% of the market, depending on format, depending on category. So just a good reminder to everybody. But that was a fun game. I liked that. So we weren't able to do our pet peeves last week. We really, truly ran out of time. I had an author call that obviously needed to be done, and so we left you guys hanging with our publishing pet peeves. So maybe we'll do our back and forth, our tennis volley back and forth, cc, where you do what I do one, so on and so forth with our pet peeves. So, Cece, do you have a publishing pet peeve? It could be, you know, certain categories of topics or just across the board.
- [04:16]
Cece
I mean, I have so many. I feel like I am, like, the queen of pet peeves in all categories in life. But one thing that always gets me annoyed, I think that's what pet peeves are about, right? Like, creating annoyance is when people hit reply instead of reply all. Especially if we're talking about, like, a publisher situation where, you know, it's about my client and I'm cc'd. And as the agent, it's so helpful to be cc'd. And then they reply, but they don't reply all. And all of a sudden, I'm not on the thread. And then I'm following up, being like, hey, has anyone seen this? And it's like, oh, actually, we replied. And I'm like, breathe in, breathe out, breathe in, breathe out.
- [04:53]
Carly Waters
I don't want to read too much into it. It could just be a case of people hitting the wrong button. But come on, it's like CCing me.
- [04:59]
Cece
Is my love language. It's in my name to. Well, I think it was Charisse who said this at my agency, we were recording an episode with everyone from my agency and like, I was like, cc is my love language. And someone said, it's in the name, in your name. And I'm like, it is. I just, I need to know what's going on so I can help. And oftentimes I don't know what's going on because I'm not cc'd. And then something happens and I would have prevented it. Like, I would have prevented that thing from happening if I had been cc'd.
- [05:25]
Carly Waters
Yes.
- [05:26]
Cece
And it's more work to fix it later.
- [05:27]
Carly Waters
I know, but that's the thing. Like agents, we get so many emails, right? And so we're always like, you know, we're always drowning in emails. But there's a reason we get so many emails. There's a reason we want to know what's going on. And I always tell my clients, I'm not going to reply to every chain all the time. Like I'm. You're not going to see me, you know, need to put input on everything, but I do need to know what's going on. So then.
- [05:47]
Cece
And you are reading it.
- [05:48]
Carly Waters
Yes.
- [05:48]
Cece
I'm not replying. And we're not acknowledging everything because again, we're just EC'd. It's not towards directing to us, but we are reading and it matters.
- [05:58]
Carly Waters
Yeah.
- [05:59]
Cece
Okay, you do one now.
- [06:00]
Carly Waters
Okay. This one drives me insane. And this is a very post pandemic or just, you know, pandemic issue. And I know why it happens, but I still haven't forgiven it, which is people in publishing who don't put their phone numbers and their email signatures. So I can't call you. It drives me. Absolutely. Because there are certain instances where you're like, I just need to connect with, you know, and so many people. Again, we get so many emails. So email can't be the only way that I can get in touch with you. I have to be able to call you. And I know why this happened is that in the pandemic, everybody starts working from home. A lot of people don't have phones paid through by work. So often they're using their cell phones or there's like an Internet phone line that's used through work. The voicemails to their office don't connect to their self. I know there's like a million technical reasons why this is the case, but if any publishing professionals are listening to Me please go put your phone number in your email signature. We need to be able to talk to each other. Or if somebody says, yeah, give me a call and they don't put their phone number in it, then I have to email you again to be like, what is your number? As opposed to just scanning to the bottom of the freaking email signature to know how to reach you. So that is what drives me crazy, is no way to contact you other than email. Everybody should have multiple ways to contact anybody. Especially in this day and age when we get too many emails. So. Okay. That's why it's easy.
- [07:25]
Cece
It's such a Carly one. That's such a Carly one. I've heard you rant about this one so many times. Okay, so building off that, I'm going to share one that also drives me nuts. If I'm emailing someone and they have an OOO on meaning an out of office, which love that. Like boundaries. Absolutely. But then there's no email or number in case of an emergency. And I do want to stress I am referring to emergencies. Like if it's not an emergency, I'm just going to wait till you're back 100%. But especially depending on the person I'm talking about. Like for example, if I'm emailing a contracts person or a public, it could be a serious matter that is time sensitive. So I do need an email.
- [08:02]
Carly Waters
Yes.
- [08:03]
Cece
Of someone else in your team that I can reach. And if for some reason I don't have that email, I'm not gonna, it's not gonna stop me. I'm gonna go around digging for someone else. I'm gonna go to your boss, I'm gonna go to your co worker. I'm. And that's just like extra work for me. Plus it's not a good look, I think.
- [08:19]
Cece Lira
Right.
- [08:19]
Cece
Because it. I don't know. To me it seems disorganized. So that drives me crazy. I like an O O with like a very clear in case of emergency, please contact xyz.
- [08:29]
Carly Waters
Yeah. My next one is a very small, just annoying thing that happened to me the other day, which is there's some people in certain departments that get pulled into a lot of different meetings. And so sometimes they obviously have meetings on the book, but they're pulled into different meetings throughout the day and I'm not going to get into which department it is because that doesn't matter. But somebody said they were going to call me from a certain department and they weren't able to because they get pulled into a meeting and then they're calling me later. And then what I do, I'm just sitting around waiting for a call. And I know there's certain types of people where if somebody says they're going to call you, like, I can't get into a project, I can't do a deep dive, I can't know, I can't work on a proposal. I can't get my head into a pitch letter. There's just some things that require full attention. So if we're expecting a phone call, you're kind of sitting around waiting for the phone call. So people who say they're gonna call and then don't call at the time that they were gonna call. And in this day and age, happens less and less, obviously because of all of the Google alerts that everybody gets and Calendar invites. But that was another phone related one that annoys me.
- [09:29]
Cece
Yes, Lots of phone ones. ET Phone home is now Carly Phone home. Okay. I have one that everyone does. Like, everyone does this. And it annoys me every time. I'm probably the only human who cares about this. Okay, when we're saying a time zone, like for example, Eastern, right? Like I'm gonna call you at 10am and then they write EST when we're not on standard time, we're on daylight savings time. So it's edt. Or if you don't want to worry about whether it's D or S, you can just write ET right back to et, Phone home. Cute. But then I'm always. And I actually remember this one thread where I was talking to this editor and I was like, may I please call you at. And I said something like 10am EDT, because we were in daily savings and the editor, I think, thought I was an idiot or something because she was like, yes, I can call you at 10am EST. Oh, actually she was like, oh, it can't be 10am EST, but could it be 11am EST? And then we just kept going back and forth with me saying D and.
- [10:25]
Carly Waters
Her saying S. Yeah, yeah.
- [10:27]
Cece
And I'm 100% sure that she was thinking, oh, no, this poor person doesn't know that it's EST and not ed. Finally, I had to say something. I had to be like, just so you know, I am using D intentionally because of daylight savings time. And after that, so we had a good laugh about it. It was actually quite fun. But after I just stopped using the S or the D and I just write ET or MT or whatever time zone I'm using I for, I stopped because I don't want People to think I'm being dumb.
- [10:48]
Carly Waters
Yeah.
- [10:49]
Cece
And I'm using D and not S.
- [10:50]
Carly Waters
I used to do what you did. I used to specify and now I don't. I just do ET P T. Yeah, yeah.
- [10:56]
Cece
Because it's like, I don't want to be specifying. And. And also if I call you at 10:00am EST, that is not 10:00am in the 10:00am that we are. If we're in daylight savings time as we currently are, that is not the same time. Like 10am EST and 10am ADT are different times.
- [11:11]
Carly Waters
And if you have a client in the UK where they're doing their daily savings at a different time than us, it totally matters. But I'm with you. I'm with you on this. I've just shortened it to ET D. Oh, that was a good little rant. I liked that.
- [11:24]
Cece Lira
Yes.
- [11:25]
Carly Waters
So we had a lot of, like, technical ones today. I have another very technical one, which is when people keep starting new email chains, when we already have an existing email chain going. And it's very like, you know, pros and cons. I understand why people do it, but if we're talking about the same thing, it needs to be on the same chain because we need this, like, chain of reference to go back to or to search it. And if we're always doing different email threads for different things, then it's. It's very chaotic. And I currently have one email thread that has a ton of attachments and it's honestly, like, way too long at this point, so we will have to start a new one. But the fact that you're on the same topic of conversation for so long, whether it is, you know, let's just run through an example of, say it's me pitching an editor a book, right? So it's like the attachment is in there, we're going back and forth about it. Then they want to make an offer, so they're like setting up a call with us and da, da, da, da, da, da. Then they make the offer, there's another attachment. And then it's like, okay, we now we need to counter on the offer. Or then there's a deal memo. We counter on. Like, there can be a lot of files and these can be really long threads. So sometimes it's best for the editors to then start a. Instead of continuing on that thread, the pitch thread, start a offer thread. And then we can divide up the number of emails. But that's a very specific technical example.
- [12:40]
Cece
Yeah, no, but I, I totally get it. And yes, of course, there might Be situation where a new thread is needed, but sometimes it's really not. Like, oftentimes it's really not. And then I'm just like, trying to find the different threads and it's. It's so confusing. Especially if you're using, like a mail app that groups messages together. Anyway, it. It drives me crazy, too. I'm with you on that one. Yeah, I have one. God, I'm so. I'm such an annoying person. You're sending someone. Okay, let's just. I'm gonna use an example. But I don't just mean. In the case of this example, you're sending an editor a proposal or a manuscript, Right. And you've talked about this project with them, you've gone out to lunch, built a buzz, done the thing. They, they want this book, they're expecting this book, they're excited to get this book. You send it. And they don't confirm receipts, receipt. And then I'm having to be like, hi, just checking that you actually got this because. Because I have had a situation where it got caught in spam filters. Yeah, it's not because I'm being annoying. It's because I have had a situation where, because of the attachment, it got stuck on a spam filter. The editor never got it. When the project went to auction, the editor was like, he ce, you pitched this to me, but you didn't send me the final. Like, what are you talking about? There's an email on X day where I sent you the file. You never responded to that email or any of my subsequent emails. Yeah, I thought you were ghosting me. And she's like, no, I never got it. And we found out that it had got stuck in her spam filter because of the. A lot of publishers have really strict spam filters and sometimes words that are perfectly reasonable in fiction.
- [14:08]
Carly Waters
Yeah.
- [14:09]
Cece
Get caught up in spam filters. Like, anyway, point is, you have to confirm receipts. And I try to do it too. And I'm sure I've been guilty of not doing it, but I always try that. My clients send me a manuscript that I know I'm going to get, that I know they've told me about. I try to be like, confirming receipt, even if it's two words, even if I'm not able to write anything else, I'm like, confirming receipt because. Or else people are like, well, again, this, this. Did this end up in a black hole? And in situations where you have an existing relationship and in situations where the person is. Does know that it's coming and they're excited. I think it's bad form to not confirm. Receding.
- [14:42]
Carly Waters
Yeah. That's why I follow the strategy. We talked about this before. But that's why I follow the strategy of send the pitch email, make sure the editor knows they have to ask for the manuscript so that they reply back saying, yes, I'd like to see it. So then I send it. And some of them.
- [14:57]
Cece
But they might still. But they might still. That might still get caught up in the spam filter.
- [15:01]
Carly Waters
Yeah, yeah. It was that situation. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, once you're on a thread, it's less likely to end up in spam because.
- [15:08]
Cece
But with me, it was. It was a spam. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm telling you. And. And then I followed up with, like, this happened recently again, where I didn't get a confirm, so I sent a fresh email with, I don't want to be a pain, but did you get my. She was like, no. And I am getting your emails, but I didn't get the one with the attachment. So even if you do that.
- [15:26]
Carly Waters
Filters. Yeah, yeah. They're aggressive. Yeah. And yeah. Anyway, we can go on and on about this. Okay, I'm going to stop because that's enough of my pet peeves. Do you need to end on one last one?
- [15:38]
Cece
I have so many. You know what, we'll just do part two of this.
- [15:40]
Carly Waters
Okay. All right. That was just like. That was just my technology email.
- [15:44]
Cece
That was my last one, so I don't want to do two in a row. Yeah.
- [15:48]
Carly Waters
Okay, Sounds good. Okay, so now we have a bunch of dms to run through. We can do that. We also have some good news articles we want to feature. We also have the new Fabio is Claude New York Times article that a lot of you sent us that we have to talk about. So we have. We have a bunch of stuff. And I also want to tease some new things that we have coming down the pipeline for shooting the shit. So, cece, where do you want to start with our next bucket of content?
- [16:15]
Cece
Let's talk about. Let's do the dm, the DM about promoting. Promoting. Saving money to promote or not promote. Do you want to read that for us?
- [16:23]
Carly Waters
Yes. All right, so the person asked a quick question based on shooting the shit from maybe a month ago. The one where you were breaking down advances for possible discussion. You mentioned authors putting some amount of their advance towards promoting the book. I hadn't heard of this. Can you say more? Like, are authors out there buying their own ads or is it more investing in travel to do events? Or question mark. Just curious. Great question. We did kind of breeze by that really quickly and that's totally fair and valid. So it really depends on the author's goals, how much money they're setting aside, so on and so forth. And it also depends on where we are in the life cycle of the algorithm and all of these other things. Because I've had authors do their, like, run their own Goodreads ads and you know, different online ads. So I've had clients who are like, I understand that world. I actually am going to run ads that is very unlikely. That is a very small subset of client who will ever do that. And also, as I said, things change. Oftentimes, yes, it will be touring. Some publishers will play a certain portion of things. Some publishers will only pay if it's set up through them in terms of travel and accommodations. So that's something that you have to kind of pre negotiate and, or have your agent discuss based on your contractual guidelines about what the publisher's actually going to pay for in regards to travel. So it can really be a lot of things. It could be setting aside money for hiring somebody to do your social media content. Maybe you're like, I know I got to do social media content, but I don't have that ability. Some people might hire a personal assistant or some sort of social media assistant to help them for a certain amount of time block out some content for them. You can really be creative. You can hire a publicist, you could hire somebody to help with marketing. It really just depends on what those goals are. And that's why it's hard to give one answer. Cece, what do you think?
- [18:05]
Cece
Yeah, I think, you know, to give a little bit of context for our listeners, I remember about a year into agenting, I heard from someone I respect very much, an agent with a lot of experience, possibly one of the smartest humans I've ever met, just casually mentioned, oh yeah. And then, you know, this author set aside some money for the, for the publicity portion of her book from the advance. And I remember being like, wait, what? Because I had never heard of it. It was not something that was taught to me explicitly, at least not that I remember. And, and I will. I always try to remember my knee jerk reactions to things because that, that is so informed by our unconscious and by our biases. And I'm not saying they're right or wrong necessarily, but I think it's really interesting to compare knee jerk reactions to like thought out reactions. And my knee jerk reaction was, are you kidding me? You are Telling me that in this ridiculous industry where the author does all the work, it keeps a tiny fraction of the royalties is often treated in a way that, let's just say, is challenging. They also have to take the advance money and spend in publicity. What are these people doing then? Like, and I remember that reaction, and I have a lot of compassion for past CC for having that reaction, because emotionally it makes sense. But actually a big learning curve that I went through and that I've seen many other agents and authors go through is, yes, that is actually a quite reasonable expectation. Now, we're not saying, no one's saying that you have to spend any of the advanced money on absolutely anything because people don't get to tell you what to do with your money. It is your money. We don't know your financial situation, we don't know what you're up against. Like, we just don't have that information. And we have so much compassion, for sure. At the same time, when the goal is ambition, when the goal is winning, it's important to know what the, what the rules of the game you're playing are.
- [19:49]
Cece Lira
Right?
- [19:49]
Cece
And the rules of the game of publishing oftentimes requires authors to invest a lot. We talked about investing in our last, in our last shooting this shit. And I always say, if possible, again, I don't know your situation, but if possible, think of the money you're getting as seed money for your business and not as a paycheck. If you go into the shark tank and you pitch the sharks, you're not expecting the money the sharks are going to give you to be money that you're going to go out and pay your bills or I don't mean your company's bills, I mean your personal bills or go shopping or anything like that. Like that is money that you're going to invest into the business. And to a degree, I think that it's helpful when people are able to think of an advance like that. Now, that is a huge privilege. I need to acknowledge that not everyone has that privilege. And it is yet, yet again one more reminder of how in publishing, when you have a financially stable situation, that is a privilege that gives you a leg up, or could give you a leg up 100%. The world is not fair capitalism. It's still something that I see a lot of authors doing. And I think the most common way to invest is to hire a PR firm. And that's really tricky because you never know if the book did well or didn't do well because of them. There are no guarantees they are very expensive. Expensive. Very, very, very expensive. So I think that, you know, something that I love seeing in a client, and the most intelligent way to approach it, in my opinion, is, hey, have a conversation. I'm not saying fully expect to do X, Y, or Z. I'm not saying go into it with a number that you have to spend or with a plan. Have a conversation with your agent when the time is there, when your book is selling, when you know that you're going to get a deal. Have a conversation with your agent about what have you seen your clients do in the past? What has worked, what hasn't worked, what thoughts should we be sharing right now so that the author can make an informed decision? It is an author's decision and not an agent's decision. But I do think that having that conversation is really awesome. Whenever possible.
- [21:33]
Carly Waters
Awesome. Thank you for that question. And we're always happy to clarify things. We know we talk fast, and it's a lot of jargon, so never hesitate to kind of ping us because we can go on many rants, as you guys know. Very, very happy to go on rants. All right, so the next one we had was, okay, I'm gonna read the DM to you guys. What is your take on when an agent thinks a client's new novel is very well written, but after several back, and forth, still has reservations about the story for whatever reason? What should happen here? Should the agent still take that novel on submission, hoping editors might feel differently, or that the writer should explore his or her options? Do agents have to be 100% in love with the novel to go out and enthusiastically try to sell it, or does that really matter? Have you or cece ever been there? What happened? Thank you. I love this juicy question. I don't think we've ever addressed that really head on. Obviously, we're not going to maybe speak to any particular examples, but we could talk about different strategies and philosophies that we have. I really like this one, so I will start. Maybe I'm an outlier here, but I do believe that an agent should be completely enthusiastic about a project when they take it out on submission just because it's an existing client or somebody that we've worked with maybe for many years. It doesn't help not to be honest with the client about the project. And so I have had instances where I have had a client for numerous years. You know, we're working on a manuscript, going back and forth, and I tell them I don't think we're getting there. With this book. And I put in the legwork, right? I put in three, four rounds of edits. And I will tell them, I don't think that we're getting there with this book. Here's why. Sometimes, then we will have a conversation about if you feel really strongly that this book has to make it out into the world. I do actually encourage you to go out and seek a new agent, potentially, because, you know, I don't want to be the thing that gets in the way of you pursuing this project. That's not what I. That's not what I want. But I don't think I can sell this book in its current state. You know, here's why did it. Let's work on a new project together and then go forth from there. And so that is something that I've done. And I've had clients where teachers, they do actually want to go out and pursue the project in another sense and try and find a new agent, and that's perfectly fine. I've also had clients where they think, you're totally right, this is not working. It doesn't matter how much we force it, it's not happening. Let's put it in the drawer. Let's come back to it later. So I've had both sides of that equation, but I do firmly believe that in order to be honest and do my best job, I do actually have to be absolutely passionate about it. Cece, what do you think?
- [24:06]
Cece
I'm with you in the sense that.
- [24:08]
Cece Lira
If I don't love it, I can't.
- [24:10]
Cece
Be the agent for it.
- [24:11]
Cece Lira
I can't submit it.
- [24:13]
Cece
The reason being, I can imagine people going, like, well, but why? You know, if it's well written, this was specified, I think. I think it's a few things. One, there's the selfish reason, and two, there's the not selfless, but, you know, the communal reason, the selfish reason is every time I send something out to editors, I am saying, this is great. This is something that I stand behind. This is my taste, and I'm signaling something. And there, you know, editors. I've spoken to enough editors to know that, like, they, and rightfully so, create certain expectations depending on which agent is sending what. You know, I have heard editors say more than once, like, oh, my God, it's that agent who sends me something. Like, it's basically a couple things a week. Usually it's kind of sloppy, and I, you know, I'm kind of expecting not to love it. And there's the flip side of that, which is, oh, my gosh this agent, they have really great taste. And in the past, I've gotten close on. On. On projects of theirs, or I've bid on projects of them theirs, and I've lost or I've, you know, just generally admired. Like, I think there's a big difference between an editor saying, this is not for me and this is really, really good. And thank you for sending it to me. And I'm glad I considered it. And it's not for me because the same thing happens on the agent level. Like, I sometimes get submissions where I'm like, no, no. And then I get submissions where it's not for me, but good job. Like, good job. Thank you for querying me. This is strong, you know, and. And it does feel different. And I. So if I'm attaching my name, I'm attaching my reputation, and I'm attaching my taste, and I'm signaling something to people. And so that's. It's really important for me to be able to stand behind something. And then the other reason is I genuinely do believe that you need an agent who's actually obsessed with your project. Like, I think there's a reason why we often say agents are your first fan, your first real fan, you know, because, like, your family member, your child, your spouse, your mom, they're not really your first fan because they love you. You know, like, they're biased as agents. I don't know you. I fall in love with your work first. And then I might fall in love with you too, as a person, but first I fall in love with your story. And so I think that that sort of. I think a client deserves that. And I think that that in the grand scheme of things, that really matters when it comes to building a strong relationship. And it. Of those variables, one of those intangibles, one of those. I can't put it on a balance sheet when I'm analyzing the pros and cons of something, but I can feel it. And it's real. You know, that's what it is. And so I think that's a really great question. I loved it. Thank you for asking. When it's happened to me and it has happened to me, I. I'm always so honest with my clients, and I'm always like, look, this. This is why this isn't working for me. I think because it's also hard to reverse engineer why you don't like something, right? But to the best of my ability, I do it. And I agree with Carly. We also put in the legwork. It's not like I read it and I immediately go, no. You know, but at the same time, I think that sometimes it makes more sense to focus on something new rather than trying to make something that's not working work. And that's also a tricky thing. So. Yeah, it's a really good question.
- [27:07]
Carly Waters
Yeah, it was a good question. I really enjoyed that. All right, Cece, what's our next question?
- [27:13]
Cece
We received a question via DM which we thought was really interesting. And this is what's at the heart of the question. What happens when you send out queries? Let's say you send out 10, 15 queries, right? And you hear back from one of these agents, and it's an offer of representation. And so after doing that, after getting that offer, you research that agent a little bit and you find out that their reputation has some red flags. What do you do when that one yes. That you got isn't sitting well in your heart? Do you go out and tell the other agents about that one? Yes. Do you mention the agent's name? Do you not mention it at all? What do you do when you want to say no to your one? Yes. Because of reputation issues. And I thought that was a really thoughtful question.
- [27:56]
Carly Waters
It was a good question. Thank you, CeCe, for summarizing that. Yeah, so I totally. I totally feel for this person because they're like, I did the thing that I was supposed to do. I went out, I got the offer. Here's what I think you should do. I do think that you should go back to everybody else, do the whole, like, I got an offer of representation. You know, give them the two weeks to consider the project for a few reasons. Number one, there is a reason where you got an offer of rep. And even if it isn't from the person that you thought that maybe you would like it from, you did get an offer of rep. I think what you're wondering is, what if I put this two week timeline on it and maybe I don't get another offer and then I've, like, closed off my two weeks, presuming that you still have another kind of round of agents to go to. At least you've heard back from those agents and you are honoring that offer of rep. Like you're following all the steps that you're. That you're meant to follow. So I think you're doing your due diligence in that capacity. Cece, what do you think?
- [28:50]
Cece
I think it's a situation that's really tricky, and I empathize with people who are on it. Let's be honest. Ideally, you research the agent before querying them so that you know, you wouldn't want to.
- [28:59]
Cece Lira
Yes. From them anyway.
- [29:00]
Cece
But also, let's be. Let's also be honest, there's already a ton of work that goes into researching queries and agents. And so I understand, like, I think it's actually quite reasonable and plausible that you would only find out about that reputational issue afterwards. Yeah, totally fair. I will say this. First, do a lot of research. Don't believe a random one thing on a Reddit thread. Right. Like, do a lot of research.
- [29:21]
Cece Lira
And if it truly is a red.
- [29:22]
Cece
Flag, and it sounds like it is, then I think that you can go back to people and you can give them, you know, two weeks or however long you're going to give them. I think you need to be prepared, though, for this is setting a closing and this is closing doors. And I would personally think that that is a smart strategy. I would not mention the agent's name when you mention who the offer is from. I just wouldn't.
- [29:44]
Carly Waters
But also, don't be evasive if somebody asks. If somebody asks you to tell the truth. Yeah.
- [29:50]
Cece
No, no. If someone asks, tell them.
- [29:52]
Carly Waters
Yeah.
- [29:53]
Cece
Because. Or else we'll think it's a lie.
- [29:55]
Carly Waters
Correct.
- [29:55]
Cece
We'll think it's. It's people saying that you got an offer, but I wouldn't put it in an email. Like, I just, you know, you can be like, very happy to discuss on a call or whatever. So. Yeah, I empathize. I do. And I honestly applaud people who say no to the one yes when the one yes is not a fit, because.
- [30:11]
Carly Waters
Totally agree.
- [30:13]
Cece
No agent is better than a bad agent.
- [30:15]
Carly Waters
Totally agree. Yeah, I know you're in a bit of a pickle, but it could be a good pickle. It could be a delicious pickle. You could be finding the one, the one at the end that actually is a really good fit. So trust the process. This system is tried and true for a reason. It is not perfect by any means, but it is the system that works as best as it possibly can. So trust the system. Best of luck. And yeah, we're totally rooting for you. And now a word from our sponsors. I'm going to read us the next question. So I got a kind of frantic DM this morning from somebody at like 9 in the morning on the dot, who is very excited because they said I just had an agent schedule the call. I'm so excited. I also had another agent request the full a couple of days ago. She seemed really excited about the project. Actually have three more fulls out with agents. Should I let them know I have a call scheduled with an agent or wait until there's an offer of rep? Also, if more than one want me, how do I decide? What should I be looking for? I've been so focused on getting to this point, I haven't thought about what I do when it came. I've heard you guys talk about beauty contests multiple times. What actually goes into that? Does the rate of commission change for agent? Or how do writers typically decide between agents if there are multiple offers? It is the thing where it's like, oh, I actually manifested the thing that I wanted to manifest.
- [31:30]
Cece
Yeah.
- [31:30]
Carly Waters
And now. Yeah, now what?
- [31:34]
Cece
I am first, congratulations. Remember this moment. Write a letter to yourself. Write a letter being like, hey, it happened. It's really cool. I want you to celebrate. I want you to celebrate. It's very important to celebrate. Don't be like me. I'm someone who I need to be reminded to celebrate things because I just get so caught up in dealing with the logistics of it. Okay, I think I want to address the objective question first. To the best of my knowledge, reputable agents do not offer lower commission and there is no discussion on the commission rate. I actually know of an agent who I, dear God, would not want anyone to query, ever, who does do this. Like, if he is in a situation where there's a beauty contest, he says, I'll knock off a couple percentage points off your commission. Like, I think that's icky. I think that's shooting oneself in the foot. I don't know anyone reputable who does that. Yes, certain types of commission vary, like for foreign rights and things like that. Some agencies have as a standard commission for all clients, different rates. There is that to consider. But like all agents I know charge 15% for the lead deals you also don't want. So, for example, imagine your agent is walking into a meeting to talk about three or four books they have coming out. Do you want your book to be the book that they're going to make less money off because of the commission? Like, do you want that? You don't want that? That doesn't seem smart. I wouldn't want that. So, yeah, definitely do not. That's not something I think you should be focusing on because I don't know any good agent who does that. But when it comes to, like, beauty contest things, there's so many things. So first, ask all the questions you want to ask all the smart questions. We've already covered on the show, you know, what questions to ask. I would trust your gut a lot. I would also think about something like, do I want to. Do I want to talk to this person all the time? Like, do I want to get bad news from this person? Do I want to get good news from this person? Do they seem patient? Do they seem soft skills matter so much and, like, what are the things you're looking for in an agent in terms of soft skills? And you kind of have to, like, feel for that. There's no way to know. There's no way to know for sure who is patient, who was kind, who is whatever soft skill. But you can try to feel and kind of suss it out. I do want to say a final thing, which is this. I've heard from plenty of writers. Not about me, by the way. This is not beauty contest that I was involved in, okay? Where they were like, I had X number of authors and there were two, sometimes even three, where it was pretty much like, I'd be thrilled with all of them. And you kind of just have to pick one, you know, and you make a decision. And whatever the variable is, that's the variable you go with. And it doesn't mean that the other people aren't great. It's not usually a situation where it's like, oh, my God, hard. No, for this person. Hard. Yes for this person. Because that would make it too easy. It really is just about, you know, making a choice. And you might be in the same situation with editors. Hopefully you'll have a big auction and you'll have all these things to consider. And of course, with editors, there's numbers involved, too, but sometimes the numbers are quite similar. And so it does come down to other things.
- [34:23]
Carly Waters
All very good points, and I'm sure everybody knows this, but there's a lot of, like, blog posts out there about, like, what to ask on the the call. So a really good one is from the Bookends literary blog, the literary agency. They have a list of really great questions. Definitely go check them out. I'm just trying to think of some other advice to give you. Some of the things that I think about are you're going to do the call questions, and then you're going to think, what do I do with these answers? And a lot of people aren't writing down answers. What they're doing is they're thinking about how it made them feel. They're thinking about how that agent made them feel when they asked those questions. That's actually what you're clocking more Than you're kind of clocking the answers. And some people will write things down. But I find that authors are so, like, overwhelmed and in the moment and it's. I don't know, it's just a very emotional time for them. So think about how it made you feel other than nervous. Did it made you feel excited? Did you feel intimidated? Like, there's a lot of feelings that various agents can give you. So you really need to think about that. You need to think about a future working with this person. Would you be excited to hear from them again next or again, are you kind of intimidated? You're like, well, I don't. I don't know. Maybe I didn't know actually how they thought about that my book. Or maybe they offered me rep, but they actually didn't gush about it. So I'm actually not very sure how much they liked it. Really. Just think about obviously the answers themselves. Please do take notes so that you know what you are agreeing to think about. The edits that they offered you. Do you agree with them? Do you not agree with them? Talk to existing clients. Of course. That's always a great way to kind of just get to know how they work behind the scenes. Obviously you've done your research about them, so that's super important. But yeah, so, you know, take your time to make your decision. Follow up with all the other agents. Make sure you do take all the calls offered to you. Because you could also maybe feel like, I got the one call and then I got the agent, so then I'm good. But sometimes you don't know. And this is a whole other conversation is like, what order an agent wants to be in the order list of the calls. Because sometimes you learn something in the call. The first, the call that you can then bring to the second, the call to think, oh, now I know better questions to ask agents. And it's all just an experience game. Right. So totally do your best. Trust your instincts. Really listen to how everything makes you feel. Because it is a professional working relationship. You are doing the hiring of the agent. So, yeah, just kind of like honor all those feelings and it's going to be great.
- [36:36]
Cece
Yeah, it's going to be awesome. And congratulations. Like, this is so cool. I love that for you.
- [36:41]
Carly Waters
All right, so let's flip over to some good news. We wanted to make sure we highlighted some good news on the show. So an article came out we're up to, really. Press release. Release. Let's not call it an article. It's a press release about Spotify bragging about something that they are working on. So Spotify is partnering with bookshop.org and if you don't know, bookshop.org supports independent bookstores through, you know, all of the e commerce abilities that some small indies obviously can't do on their own. So Spotify is partnering with bookshop.org meaning all the indies, and debuts a page match feature to bridge the physical ebook and audio formats. So really what they're trying to do here is combat the kind of Amazon OD runnable Kindle universe. And I just. That's great news. So I'm sure a lot of you obviously already shop@bookshop.org, the podcast supports bookshop.org not sponsored, but we just link to it on our page when we're promoting books. So, yeah, just some. Some good, happy news. So thank you to Spotify for providing some competition. We love that.
- [37:42]
Cece
And what I think is really cool is that they're letting you move between physical books or ebooks and their audiobooks counterparts. And I do that. Like it's something I started doing not that long ago where I'm like, reading a book and then I'm like, really, really want to keep on reading this book, but I also have to go for a walk. So I will then start listening from the chapter where I last stopped. And I do that. And I move from audio to ebook all the time. Not with every book I read, but with many books. And I adore doing that. So it's actually really, really cool. I actually love the Spotify model of. Of having audiobook hours. It allows me to start an audiobook and if I don't love it, I can stop and then move to another audiobook without having spent a whole credit. So that's really cool too. I like that.
- [38:30]
Carly Waters
We love it. Okay, now it's time to tackle the article of the week. Let's just call it the New York Times article. The new Fabio is Claude. So I'm sure most of you guys have read this.
- [38:41]
Cece
You if.
- [38:41]
Carly Waters
If you haven't read it. I'm not sure if it's behind the paywall or not because I pay for the subscription. You probably have seen other takes on threads or Instagram. I know there's a lot of authors having some hot takes on there, but, cece, do you want to summarize it for us first maybe, and then we can kind of get into it if people haven't encountered it yet.
- [38:56]
Cece
It's a trash article, and I don't mean the person who wrote it. Okay. I Mean the person it's about. It's a trash article about this loser, this complete loser who uses AI to write her books. But because she knows readers will have a problem with that, she lies about it and doesn't say she uses AI and is convinced that pretty soon no one's going to care. So pretty soon she'll be able to tell the truth and be honest. And she also teaches courses on how to use AI to write her books. And because she writes romance, it's all quite focused on, hence the title. Right? Like, the new Fabio is Claude, on the fact that you know how to. How to prompt AI to write, like, sex scenes, spicy scenes, romance. You know, the ways AI isn't great at it and how you can get AI to get great at it. And yeah, it is the worst. Like, I read a lot of things that make my blood boil. This might be a top three. First of all, if you don't like.
- [39:54]
Cece Lira
Writing, what are you doing?
- [39:56]
Carly Waters
Actually?
- [39:56]
Cece
Like, legitimate. Legitimate question. If I could get this person in a room, I would try to not yell at them, and I would be like, why. Why be a. Why be an author? Like, if you don't like the writing process, if you want AI to write for you, how. Like, why are you doing this, lady? Like, actually, why are you doing this? Like, what? Isn't the point that you enjoy the writing process? And I know that not everyone enjoys every single day of writing, but come on. Furthermore, the fact that you're lying, the fact that you're saying, oh, I'm not going to disclose the fact that I used AI to write this because I know people will care.
- [40:27]
Carly Waters
You're.
- [40:28]
Cece
You're being dishonest in the worst possible way. Like, ew, ew. Icky, icky. And you know what? I bet your books suck. I bet your books are terrible. I bet the stories are stilted and boring and not sexy at all. Because there's no way you're a smart person if you're doing this.
- [40:45]
Carly Waters
And.
- [40:45]
Cece
Yeah, and I. No, not impressed. I didn't summarize it. I'm sorry.
- [40:50]
Carly Waters
I'm very bad at summarizing than I thought. You're just a little unhinged today. It's a. It's very. I don't know, It's. It's creating a lot of obviously emotions in people. There was a few things that stood out to me that I wanted to talk about. One of the quotes was, and obviously, you know, CC has kind of gotten to this, but there's a quote from the author of these books. That says, if I can generate a book in a day, and you need six months to write a book, who's gonna win the race? Who?
- [41:16]
Cece
The person who writes the better book, idiot.
- [41:18]
Carly Waters
That's the one that boiled my blood. Because the idea that it's a race to be won and you know, I will always use a sports analogy if I can use a sports analogy. This is not an example of a sports analogy that we need to be using. So, yeah, there is no winning the race. And also, like, what is the purpose of art, right? Like, this is a question as old as time. There's another quote in the article from someone that says, romance is about human connection, and there's nothing more human than being vulnerable and falling in love. And this was Zoe Maller who was interviewed in the article. And I totally agree. Like, what is the point of art? What is the point of writing? Like cece said, if you don't love it, what is the point? Unless we're being humans while doing this very human thing. A lot of you guys who follow me on social media know that I posted my AI keynote that I gave at in Dallas and I posted to my social media. So you can see, you know, you've probably already seen a lot of my thoughts on AI and writing, but, like, I just don't understand this, like, race to be one business. Another thing we, the CC also touched on, which I want to touch on, was we need to talk about, like, the falsehoods of it all, the secrecy and the lack of trust that this causes. I do feel like the writing world reacted very strongly to this article, but actually it's one of those things where we might be in our own bubble about this. There could be readers out there that don't care, you know, as much as we do. So I, I, I worry about the trust issues. Those are some things that I think about and it just seems so circular. I don't know. It's like, who's plagiarizing who at this point? If we're just like, pumping these in AI, using AI to write things. All of these AI platforms are scraping all these data sources that were built on stolen books. I don't know. It's just very icky. All of it's icky.
- [42:57]
Cece
There's a lot of discussion around AI.
- [43:00]
Cece Lira
In the creative arts field, and I get it.
- [43:03]
Cece
And I know that a lot of it is really complex and I have a lot of strong feelings as people.
- [43:08]
Cece Lira
Just heard me go on a bit of a rant.
- [43:10]
Cece
At the end of the day, the reason why I'm convinced that AI is not going to generate good stories. Speaking about this article, but also speaking more broadly, is because AI can't feel. I get it. AI can think. I get it. AI is intelligent, fine, but it can't feel. AI has no childhood trauma. AI has no foundational wound. It doesn't understand messy relationships. And if it does understand, it understands it intellectually but not emotionally. It does not feel. That is what makes a story special. Especially in book format where you have to take 26 squiggly symbols and create a whole world out of it. You don't have soundtracks or lighting or actors or makeup or special effects. All you get are those little letters that form words that then become worlds. Like, it's not going to be good quality. I'm just not convinced it is. People try to tell me all the time, oh, but it's getting better.
- [44:04]
Carly Waters
Sure.
- [44:05]
Cece
It's still not going to be good enough for me. It never will be. That's just a hill I'm going to die on, I guess.
- [44:12]
Carly Waters
I know. Yeah, no, it's. It was very polarizing, as it should have been. I feel like it was a bit of a flame throwing type of article. I think that everybody kind of knew what was going to be the response here. But I do wonder about readers. You know, they're just, they're. They potentially don't care as much as we do, but maybe I'm not giving them enough time.
- [44:28]
Cece
I don't, I don't think a reader cares about. I mean, I think it depends on the reader, but I don't think readers care about the morality or the ethics of it. Because if readers cared, then we wouldn't have Amazon. And I don't just mean readers. Like everyone shops at Amazon and everyone claims to be moral, right? Like when something is practical, when something is, is. Is convenient. Human beings are selfish. And so, you know, to use that analogy, I'm not saying that readers are going around saying, I care. I am saying that, A, if you use AI you better disclose it. And if you don't disclose it because you think people will care, then that is super dishonest. I'm also saying, B, readers care about quality, and I am not convinced the quality will be there. And again, it's possible I'm wrong. It's possible that I will be proven wrong and that I'll eat my words and I'll go, look, this brilliant story I just read that shook me to my core and, you know, made me feel amazing. This story was written by AI I Don't think it will. I am very skeptical. But, hey, it's possible that I'm wrong.
- [45:23]
Carly Waters
Yeah, lots to think about. That was a very, as I said, I don't know, inflaming article. I don't have another word to describe it. It's just like, inflammatory. It was. It was all. All of the thing. Okay. One thing I wanted to say was, and I've kind of just been teasing this along every. Every week per se, but we do want to have guests on Shooting the Shit. And I was really thinking about how we bring people on because it's not going to be an interview style. Right. Because we have our interview show, which is our Thursday show. Shooting the Shit is going to be industry professionals and people who are kind of adjacent to the topics that we are speaking about might be journalists, might be researchers who talk about publishing. We're still kind of working on that guest list, but one of the things that I wanted to do was. So if anybody listens to the Lost Culturistas podcast, which is Bowen Yang's podcast, which was great, they do this thing called I Don't Think so, Honey. And the guest gets to go on this, like, 60 second rant about a topic of their choice. So I want to do a publishing version of that. When we have our shooting the guests on so that they will choose a topic and go on their rant, I think it'll be really fun and a conversation starter. So just all this to say we are working on our guest list. We will be having some guests, and we're excited about the future of our Monday episode. So thanks for hanging out with us, guys.
- [46:40]
Cece
I love that idea. I'm going to listen to it because I don't know the format, but I don't know if you can tell based on your general interactions with me. But I love ranting.
- [46:50]
Carly Waters
Well, you got to leave some time for our guests to rant, but maybe we can do the first two versions.
- [46:55]
Cece
You're correct. I should have said I love ranting and I appreciate listening to a good rant.
- [47:01]
Carly Waters
Yes, yes. Great. Well, cece still hasn't listened to Los Culturistas, so we'll get her samples of what I'm talking about. If you guys don't know what I'm talking about. It's a great podcast and you've probably already heard of it, but they have a segment called I Don't Think so Honey. You can also look them up on YouTube to watch their little clips. But I am going to work on incorporating a version of that into our podcast, but obviously giving free full credit to the lost culturistas producers and hosts because they are the ones that invented it. All right, well you have had a long enough rant sesh from us today, so we will let you guys go and we will see you again next week.
- [47:35]
Narrator/Announcer
Cece Lira is a literary agent at Wendy Sherman Associates. If you'd like to query CC, please refer to the submission guidelines@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 this 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.
- [48:11]
Cece Lira
What's up everyone? This is Cece. Do you know something I'm always looking for when I review the Slush file? Strong interiority. Well written interiority shows what your protagonist is thinking about in a way that is realistic and interesting. It propels the story forward instead of holding it back. But it doesn't stop there. A strong writer will leverage interiority into a superpower, into something I call psychological acuity. Think about it this way. Plot is what happens. Interiority is how your protagonist processes what happens. And psychological acuity is why it matters. It gives a book depth and meaning and staying power. All breakout books have psychological acuity. You have been asking me to teach a course about psychological acuity for years.
- [48:59]
Cece
Years.
- [49:00]
Cece Lira
Well, it's finally here. Why did it take me so long? Because my courses take years to build. They're dense, they're thorough, and they're filled with examples and specific techniques. So this five day course begins on March 2nd. We'll have an optional interactive component. Students are invited to submit excerpts from their work for a chance to have them critiqued live during a class. If you're ready to take your writing to the next level, join me for Writing Interiority and Psychological Acuity. Don't worry if you can't attend live. The sessions will be recorded and for more information, check out my bio on Instagram or the podcast website. I'm looking forward to seeing you there.