Podcasts about parvus

Harry wants you to know, none of this is personal.This week on Action Surge, Harry starts things off by expressing how deeply grateful he is that we filmed Episode 29 on a Sunday, not a Saturday. Apparently, he wasn't prepared for... well, any of it. Which means, clearly, we're winning D&D. That's how you win, right? Just completely ignore whatever your DM had planned. And sorry again to Mark at Crafted Campaigns.We unpack our rather bold approach to this episode. Stealth hasn't exactly been our strong suit lately, so this time we took the front door. Literally. And Dolly? Dolly was the ticket in.Harry talks about the challenge of running two groups simultaneously in the same location, on the same timeline, acting separately, and what happens when they maybe start to overlap. He might have been stressed, but we've got to say, it didn't show.Hollie and Doug share what it's like being up and down from the table throughout the episode, and how that affects focus and energy. Also, for the first time in a very long time, we didn't have music in the room. Why? Because the recording PC exploded right before filming. Literally. No music, just chaos (and a slight electric shock for our Producer, Tom). We also take a moment to celebrate Alex's spotlight and how Harry fully embraced the chance to get inside his head, purely to mess with him of course. Reliable Talent absolutely came in clutch, and we're all looking forward to seeing where I leads us.And yes, Parvus gets a little love too. We really don't mean to forget him.Sorry, Parvus. We love you. Honestly. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We begin, once more, inside Raidion…This week, we're deep in it. Blighted, bruised, and still somehow standing. We kick things off with yet another reminder that balancing fights for this party is…a challenge to say the least (Sorry, Harry). When your main damage dealer misses every hit and the enemy still drops? That's tricky, to say the least.Ben unpacks Raidion's fearlessness, his willingness to throw himself in the line of fire (blight and all), and how that ties into deeper themes of mortality and purpose. Meanwhile, Aoife dives into Dolly's mindset, and why going after Kelnys wasn't just emotional, it was necessary. But with doubts creeping in, is she starting to unravel?We also dig into the strange, symbiotic relationship between Parvus and Themself. Is Parvus the anti-Antiqua? We talk divine fallout, cosmic expectations, and the tension brewing between him and the rest of the old gods' chosen.And what's the deal with those underground groves? Flowers. Trees. Lush green life where there shouldn't be any. Was Themself behind it? Who designed these caves, and why?Harry gives us a peek behind the curtain into his vision for the various Kobold tribes and how he and Alex imagined the architecture of I's tunnels. We also explore what it means to run Parvus as a DMPC, and how that character balances between being part of the story and shaping it from within.Let's just say the caves aren't the only things layered. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The atmosphere this week? Thiccc. Yes, with three C's! Tensions are high as we break down the heavy conversation between Dolly and Raidion, and the impact it had on the entire party. Some moments leave a mark, but this one really lingered.We also dive into the importance of laying ground rules between players, especially when characters come in hot. Navigating those intense moments isn't always easy, but building trust at the table makes all the difference. The best moments? They come from knowing we've got each other's backs, as players and as friends.Of course, we can't forget those sending stones. A blessing and a curse, those tricky little things have a way of stirring the pot, and this week was no exception.Harry also opens up about a mistake he made this episode (yes, even he makes them too!). Meanwhile, Doug reflects on the chaotic joy of battling the purple worm, though perhaps less joyfully on the whole being digested part. Harry also shares the challenge of balancing combat for a party like ours and how the BBC Breakfast Show (yes, really) ended up being an unexpected training ground.We also discuss the fracture between Themself and Parvus, and what their reunion could mean, not just for them, but for I as well. Alex, of course, is playing his cards close to his chest.Join us as we unpack all of this and more, and don't worry, we'd still love you even if you were a worm! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Heute vor 100 Jahren starb Alexander Parvus – Revolutionär, Großunternehmer, Kosmopolit, Sozialdemokrat und Financier der russischen Revolution.

This is a departure from Neoborn Caveman's usual satirical takes on the world - a more somber, serious exploration into one of history's darkest chapters. In this hard-hitting special episode, NC doesn't hold back as he exposes the chilling "Parvus Plan" - a devious scheme during World War I that dramatically altered the course of the 20th century.He tells the less known story of Alexander Parvus, the shadowy revolutionary who masterfully engineered the facilitation of the Bolshevik Revolution by secretly funneling German cash to Lenin and his comrades. From the clandestine "sealed train" that smuggled Lenin into Russia to the ruthless establishment of the brutal Gulag system, NC lays out the far-reaching repercussions of Parvus's twisted ambitions.But perhaps most chilling is Neoborn's exploration of how this authoritarian ideology seems to be rearing its head again today through forces suppressing dissent, eroding national sovereignty, and centralizing control. NC issues a stark warning - we must stay vigilant against the specter of totalitarianism creeping into modern society, whether through enforced ideological conformity, censorship of free speech, or the gradual erosion of individual liberty.With his signature blend of historical insights and current events analysis, NC reminds us that the struggle for freedom is eternal. The Neoborn Caveman Show - igniting curiosity, safeguarding freedom................... Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Heute haben wir eine der spannendsten Biografien des 20. Jahrhunderts: Alexander Parvus war ein russischer Revolutionär und Verfechter des deutschen Imperialismus, ein marxistischer Wissenschaftler und Großunternehmer, ein Kosmopolit und deutscher Patriot, ein hinter den Kulissen wirkender Politiker und internationaler Financier, ein sozialdemokratischer Publizist und politischer Abenteurer. Ihr Interesse an ihm ist verständlich: Ohne Parvus, ebenso wie ohne das deutsche Geld, hätte es die bolschewistische Revolution in der Form, in der sie 1917 in Russland stattfand, wahrscheinlich nicht gegeben.#parvus #alexanderparvus #russischerevolution #russland #deutschland #revolution #lenin #trotzki---Dir gefällt der Podcast? Dann kannst du uns gerne auf Patreon unterstützen: https://www.patreon.com/allezeitderweltWir würden uns ebenfalls riesig darüber freuen, wenn du uns eine Bewertung hinterlässt und uns auf YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/@allezeitderwelt) folgst! Danke für deine Unterstützung!---Quellen & Literatur:Boris Chavkin: Alexander Parvus. Financier der Weltrevolution. In: Forum für osteuropäische Ideen- und Zeitgeschichte. 11/2, 2007, S. 31–58, https://www1.ku.de/ZIMOS/forum/docs/Parvus.html Heinz Schurer: Alexander Helphand-Parvus--Russian Revolutionary and German Patriot. In: Russian Review. Vol. 18, No. 4, Oktober 1959, S. 313–331.Blerina Kelmendi, Aleksandr Parvus – Mann der Ersten Stunde https://www.osmikon.de/themendossiers/muenchen-und-die-russische-revolution/biografien/aleksandr-parvus/

Radio Vaticana con Voi! Ogni mattina, dopo il gr delle 8, due ore di diretta con i vostri messaggi di testo e vocali da inviare al numero 335.1243722! Ospiti, rassegna stampa, musica e molto altro ancora per iniziare insieme la giornata! Conduce Andrea De Angelis. Oggi con noi: monsignor Dario Edoardo Viganò, vicecancelliere della Pontificia Accademia delle Scienze e della Pontificia Accademia delle Scienze sociali, conduttore del nuovo percorso della trasmissione Rai "Le ragioni della speranza", che, da sabato 21 ottobre, ogni settimana racconta come gli artisti nei secoli hanno rappresentato la fede, avendo come riferimento alcune importanti città italiane che custodiscono grandi tesori dell'arte; Valerio Palombaro, collega de L'Osservatore Romano, che presenta l'inserto quotidiano del giornale della Santa Sede; Marie Josè Muando Buabualo, collega della redazione in lingua francese di Radio Vaticana - Vatican News; dottor Massimo Ralli, direttore dell'ambulatorio “Madre di Misericordia” che si trova sotto il Colonnato di San Pietro, alla vigilia della Giornata Mondiale dei Poveri, Ezio Aceti, psicologo, fondatore dell'associazione Parvus che si occupa di terapie infantili e supporto alla genitorialità, per parlare dei bambini e la guerra; Pierluigi Morelli, collega della redazione Musicali di Radio Vaticana - Vatican News.

In this episode of Careers Unwrapped, host Mark Fawcett is joined by Rahul Moodgal, Director and Partner at Parvus Asset Management, to discuss his diverse career journey, from academia to finance, and his experience in taking the path less trodden. They delve into the importance of communication skills and relationship building; the value of being knowledge-hungry, adaptable, and taking pride in your work; and the significance of experiencing tough times and making mistakes across your career journey.

This week on Meat and Three, we're breaking out our magnifying glass to explore the smallest corners of the food world. We start with the microbial and scale our way up from there, but only by a bit. From the tiniest of farmers to deceptive industrial practices, we set out to prove that the most interesting of stories can come in the smallest packages. If you're fascinated by the prospect of cultivating microbes at home, we have just the event for you. On Wednesday, March 8th, Harry and HRN will be hosting “Fermentation Never Sleeps” at Farm to People in Bushwick, Brooklyn. It's a panel discussion and tasting, and it's all about inviting microbes into your personal culinary canon by approaching fermentation in a way that works for you. Click here to learn more and reserve your tickets. Further Reading:Subscribe to Fields now to be the first to know when they launch their new season this Spring. (Apple Podcasts | Stitcher | Spotify | RSS). Marti Buckley is a writer based in San Sebastián, Spain. Marti writes extensively about Basque cuisine and culture.  Check out her book on Basque cuisine, La Cocina Vasca here. You can learn more about her upcoming projects here.  Ted Schultz is an entomologist at the Smithsonian Musuem of Natural History. Here you can learn more about his research on fungus farming ants. You can visit Edgar Dworsky's website here.Keep Meat and Three on the air: become an HRN Member today! Go to heritageradionetwork.org/donate. Meat and Three is powered by Simplecast

The Patrons of Marxism Translated are joined by Lars T Lih and other guests to discuss the significance of Clara Zetkin's obituary of the 'Merchant of Revolution', Alexander Parvus.

We Make Books is hosted by Rekka Jay and Kaelyn Considine; Rekka is a published author and Kaelyn is an editor and together they are going to take you through what goes into getting a book out of your head, on to paper, in to the hands of a publisher, and finally on to book store shelves. We Make Books is a podcast for writers and publishers, by writers and publishers and we want to hear from our listeners! Send us your questions, comments, and concerns! We hope you enjoy We Make Books! Twitter: @WMBCast  |  @KindofKaelyn  |  @BittyBittyZap Instagram: @WMBCast  Patreon.com/WMBCast   Transcript (All Mistakes are Fully Rekka's Fault)   Rekka (00:00:00):Welcome back to another episode of We Make Books, a podcast about writing, publishing, and everything in between. I'm Rekka. I write science fiction and fantasy as R J Theodore. Kaelyn (00:00:09):And I'm Kaelyn Considine. I am the acquisitions editor for Parvus Press. And, uh, this is Anthologies, part two. Rekka (00:00:15):Part two, because Kaelyn was like, "Hey, you left me out. I am not gonna forgive you for this. We're going to talk about this until I have gotten to say everything I want to say about it." Kaelyn (00:00:25):I was unfairly confined somewhere and, uh, I, I missed, uh, I missed the interview last week, obviously, but, um, you know, I, I, we wanted to talk more, a little bit more about anthologies, you know, obviously, um, Rekka's interview with Julia was fantastic. A lot of great insight and information in there. Um, but that was very, you know, from the publishing side of things. So then there's the people that actually contribute to the anthologies, the writers. That's, that's a whole other kettle of fish. So we just, you know, we wanted to do another part where we talked a little bit about the other side of this. Rekka (00:01:04):Kaelyn's interest is a kind of pre-submission I would say, right? Kaelyn (00:01:08):Yes, definitely. Rekka (00:01:08):Although you have worked on an anthology, so your interest has also been post submission. Kaelyn (00:01:14):I have, uh, I have worked on an anthology. We talk a little bit about that in this episode. Um, anthology is our, you know, as the last week's episode went into great detail about very different from a novel, you know, I think we think like, Oh, whatever, it's a book. So you've got a whole bunch of authors instead of just one. Rekka (00:01:32):A WHOLE bunch of authors. Kaelyn (00:01:33):Yeah. A flock, if you will. Rekka (00:01:35):A slack of authors? Kaelyn (00:01:37):A slack of authors. Um, so you know, like, what's the difference? Why is, why is it a big deal? Anthologies are very different and they're, um, you know, even if they work out to about the same number of words and pages as a novel, I would say it's two to three times the amount of work. Rekka (00:01:57):At least. The process of editing is basically multiplied by however many authors you have on the book, because you've got to do all the direct contact things with each of them. And even though the story may only be a few thousand words, there is an entire process that has to happen for each submission. Kaelyn (00:02:14):Yeah. Rekka (00:02:14):So, so that's fun. So that was Kaelyn's favorite part of working on an apology. I'm sure. Kaelyn (00:02:20):Oh God. Rekka (00:02:21):Doing this all simultaneously with however many authors. Kaelyn (00:02:24):Yeah, yeah. It's um, it's, you know, it's different and there are certain things as a writer, if you're preparing or interested in submitting to an anthology that you should be aware of, um, you know, going into it. So, you know, that's what we wanted to take some time to talk about today. And, uh, that's what we did. Rekka (00:02:41):This is the bandaid that Kaelyn is slapping over my, my poor attempt to lead the podcast without her. Kaelyn (00:02:47):Oh no, don't be ridiculous. You did a fantastic job. Like it's to the point that I was like, I'm listening to it. I'm like, "God, I'm so mad. I missed this conversation. They had so much fun. It was awesome." So, um, but you know, we'll, we'll do something again sometime, maybe with Julia. Rekka (00:03:03):We can always talk to them about the experience of putting out 12 issues of a single themed anthology. Because Kickstarter funded the hell out of itself and it's happening. I knew it, I knew it was going to happen and I'm happy to say it did. So, um, look forward to mermaids all 2021. Kaelyn (00:03:20):Yeah. And maybe, you know, in a few months we'll check in with whatever is left of Julia and see how they're doing. Rekka (00:03:28):Yes, exactly. All right. So, um, after the music comes our conversation. Um, Kaelyn's getting the last word in on anthologies. Kaelyn (00:03:50):You know what I just realized Rekka, have we mentioned your new puppy on the podcast yet? Rekka (00:03:54):No, we have not. Because we skipped, uh, we skipped an episode and before that, like she was so new that she couldn't be out here while I was recording. Not that she's out here now, but she probably could be out here. She would just be bouncing a ball in the background. And you'd hear her nails skittering on the floor. Kaelyn (00:04:10):Aww. Yeah, Rekka I got a new puppy. Her name's Evie and she's freaking adorable. Yeah. Speaker 3 (00:04:15):She's so good. She's really smart. It's like, she's gonna probably get us in trouble someday. Kaelyn (00:04:21):Aw, well, anyway, she's adorable. And although she is uh slightly bitey, but you know. Speaker 3 (00:04:27):Little nippy. She's got these, um, her baby canine is still like stuck in there and the adult canine is coming in around it. And I can't imagine how, how much that bothers her right now, you know? Kaelyn (00:04:43):Aww, poor thing. Rekka (00:04:43):So I have sympathy for her and I look forward to the day that it's done. I keep checking her mouth every morning, going, you still have that tooth. Damn it, you still have that tooth! Kaelyn (00:04:51):Now, if it falls out, does the tooth fairy come to Evie? Rekka (00:04:54):Uh, so far, no, we've we found like four or five of the teeth. And, um, we have not given her anything special except you know, like some congratulations. Kaelyn (00:05:05):Some belly rubs. Rekka (00:05:06):Oh yeah. She gets those. She gets those for no reason. She, um, she's not like food motivated. I'm sure she could be. But when we got her, she had no expectation of treats or anything like that. So we were like, All right, cool, we're not encouraging that then. Kaelyn (00:05:19):Okay. Um, I'm very treat incentive-based as well. Rekka (00:05:24):Treat incentivized? Kaelyn (00:05:25):Yeah. Yeah. Rekka (00:05:26):I'm coffee motivated. Kaelyn (00:05:28):Um, I get myself through my day by saying, "okay, if you do all of these things, then you remember that cookie, you were saving? You can go have that cookie." Rekka (00:05:37):Oh, well that presupposes you save the cookie. Kaelyn (00:05:42):I am good at that. Rekka (00:05:43):I am not good at that. So that is why I am not treat motivated because there are none. I already ate them. Kaelyn (00:05:50):I, um, I am one of those people that like, will, you know, somebody will get me like a nice box of chocolates or something. And like, I won't open them forever. I'll like save them and save them. And then it's kind of like, "okay, I need to eat these now because they're getting to the point that I'm going to need to eat them or get rid of them." Um, but you know, I, I'm very, I'm very treat motivated. Um, anyway, so Rekka I'm back this week. Rekka (00:06:18):Yeah. Where the heck were you? You just abandoned me. Kaelyn (00:06:22):I was in the hospital. It was not fun. It was, um, it was a weird experience, which I don't need to tell you about. Um, but yeah, I, I missed the conversation about anthologies last week, which you know, I was very disappointed. I was looking forward to it. So I told Rekka, well, we're going to ha I get to have an anthology conversation too. So I'm going to, we're going to do the whole thing all over again. Speaker 3 (00:06:45):We're just going to pretend that Julia's answers are, you know, falling in and we're just going to record it so that Katelyn feels included. Right? I mean, that's, that's basically, cause I nailed it, right. Like as the standalone, like left in charge of the house. Okay. Kaelyn (00:07:00):No, you absolutely nailed it, but that doesn't matter because this is all about me. No. Um, we, uh— Rekka (00:07:06):No, but what it is all about though, is that Mermaids Monthly funded. So. Kaelyn (00:07:10):Mermaids Monthly did fund! Rekka (00:07:10):As we record it just funded overnight and we are incredibly happy to see that. So I'm looking forward to that. And I think it's telling that I had a sudden idea for a story to submit to it last night as I was getting ready for bed, that must've been the moment it funded. Cause I was just like, it just came to me. Kaelyn (00:07:27):The universe, just snapped it into your head and was like, "Rekka, write this..." Rekka (00:07:31):It was, it was waiting in its little seafoam bubble for me. And, um, the bubble popped as soon as the Kickstarter made it. Kaelyn (00:07:38):I really am disappointed. I wasn't able to make the, the interview episode. Um, it's fantastic if you haven't listened to it, absolutely go back and, uh, and listen to it. But yes, mermaids monthly has, has funded in that time. So any of our listeners that contributed thank you or we're happy that that got funded. It sounds really cool. Um, but you know, we, when we kind of talked about anthologies, I had like two areas that we wanted to cover. One was, you know, what Rekka and Julia were talking about last week, you know, the production side of an anthology, the editing, the story selection, et cetera. But you know, this is a podcast, not just about that side of things, but about the writing side of things. Rekka (00:08:19):And sometimes we do things out of order. Kaelyn (00:08:20):Sometimes we do things out of order. Frequently do things out of order. Rekka (00:08:24):That's just so you don't build up any expectations that we have to live up to. Kaelyn (00:08:28):We don't want anyone getting too comfortable here. But yeah, we wanted to just do, you know, a little bit on, uh, writing for an anthology, submitting, what to expect, you know, from the writer side of things. Julie of course had a ton of insight and information and knowledge last week about what's going on behind the scenes there. Um, but actually then, you know, figuring out like, "Hey, these anthology things sound great. Where do I get started?" Along those lines. You know, we kind of wanted to walk a few things on anthologies here from the writer side, what they are, why you should do them, and what to expect. So, um, as always, I like to start with definitions and a little bit of background. So, you know, well, I'm sure most people listening know what an anthology is. An anthology is a collection of work by different authors, writers, or contributors. Kaelyn (00:09:18):Um, anthologies actually date back quite a bit. Um, and they're primary... They were primarily poetry focused. Um, the first anthologies that we kind of accept that existed were in, uh, Japan and they were collections of poetries in like the 13th and 12th century, um, you know, printing and publishing was not really the thing that it is, but you had all of these people writing poetry and wanted to get it into one place. So that's what they did. Um, you know, in modern era, anthologies definitely were very poetry heavy, but then in the, you know— E,specially I will credit science fiction with this, um, short story, science fiction became very popular in the first half of the 1900s. And that was where we saw a lot of anthologies take off with these collections of short stories at that point. And, um, in some cases they were single author, so it wasn't really an anthology so much as a collection of short stories, but then this became more and more commonplace. Um, in some cases the anthologies were highlighted collections from magazines or periodicals where, you know, they took the best of the year or the award winners and put them together in a, in a anthology that was published. And a lot of, uh, magazines and publications still do those today. Rekka (00:10:38):Yep. I think those are some of the most commonly understood examples of anthologies is that you'll get, you know, the 2020 "best of science fiction and fantasy." Kaelyn (00:10:48):But there's more than one way to do an anthology. You know, there's um, what Julia was talking about last week, where it's a project where you're actively gathering contributors and going through a submissions process and putting something together that is specifically for an anthology, and then there's also, you know, "the best of the best for the decade" or, you know, "our top five most read stories" or something like that. Rekka (00:11:09):And we should say just real quick as an aside, those Best Ofs are according to whoever put that anthology together. They're generally the stories that were most well-read and most, uh, discussed. Kaelyn (00:11:22):Yeah. And something that you see now more and more, especially in this time of, um, you know, online publications and periodicals is, and it follows the collection of, you know, whoever is editing or curating this, maybe it was, you know, the stories that got the most views or the most talked about or whatever, and then they'll select those and publish them because, hey, people still like actual physical books. Rekka (00:11:46):We sure do. Kaelyn (00:11:47):Yep. So, but you know, it could be any, it could be an ereader version as well. You know, just going into this with the understanding of there's, there's multiple ways that anthologies appear and that content is collected for them. Um, we are primarily going to be talking about anthologies that you are specifically submitting for where there's a call for an anthology rather than "I'm gathering these things that were already published and publishing them in an anthology." Rekka (00:12:19):Hey, Parvus has done one of these. Kaelyn (00:12:20):We have, um, it was, uh, I can tell you it was an experience. So trust me, we will be, uh, I will be referencing through the, through the course of this, but, um, so, you know, let's get started with like, why are anthologies good? Why is this something that you should, you know, take the time and effort? Because let's be clear, this is a short story. And it may even be shorter than your average short story submission, but sometimes that makes it more work. Rekka (00:12:49):So you mean in terms of, um, why write for an anthology? Kaelyn (00:12:53):Yeah. Why is this something that the either average or aspiring author should be interested in participating in? Rekka (00:13:01):Um, well, why you would want to have a short story published is maybe different from why you would pick an anthology to write for exactly. Um, why you want to publish a short story is honestly, to get more of your brain juice out there. Like, you know, have more for readers, um, take a break from, you know, maybe your ultra serious Epic fantasy novel and write a really wacky little short story kind of thing. Um, I've heard recently an episode of Writing Excuses where they also said that, um, I think it was Mary Robinette Kowal who said that she discovered that she liked writing science fiction because she just sort of accidentally wrote a couple science fiction short stories, and thought that she was, you know, a fantasy and historical fantasy writer. And then somebody told her like, "you know you're good at science fiction, right? You should write more of this." Turns out that was a good choice. Kaelyn (00:14:08):Yes. Yeah. She, uh, she's won approximately all of the awards, various things since then. Rekka (00:14:16):Um, the, the idea being that you can experiment more without committing to a hundred thousand words of a novel. And when you write more and you, and you complete stories— like it's not just all the words you write that make you a better writer. It's also the story arcs that you complete the character development that you work through, the editing processes that you learn your tricks for. And this sort of lets you do that on a micro scale so that you can, you know, work those muscles with smaller reps, as opposed to, you know, having to do 20 Epic Novels before you feel like you've finally figured out your process. Kaelyn (00:15:00):Yeah. Also within that, it's giving you the ability to hone your craft. Um, what is particularly nice about an anthology and I'm gonna, I'm going to use this word. I know this is a cliched word, but I swear to God, this has layers. What is, you're getting out of an anthology from several different levels is exposure. I know. I know. Rekka (00:15:24):Oh, you said the word. Oh, I have to mute myself so I can just gag for a little bit. Kaelyn (00:15:32):So, but I'm going to use the word "exposure" in several different contexts here. Rekka (00:15:36):You better explain this. Kaelyn (00:15:37):One of the most important forms of exposure you are getting is to other writers and editors. You are getting exposure to a process of how this works on a smaller scale that is not just a novel. Um, when writing for an anthology, assuming you've been accepted, they don't just take your story and that's it. You're going to work with an editor. Um, you know, the degree and extent to which you are going to work with an editor, probably, you know, your mileage may vary, but you're absolutely going to. You're not doing this in a bubble. You're going to be interacting with other authors. You're going to have to talk with various types of editors. You know, all of the various editors we've talked about through the process here, the, you know, your, um, regular, you know, developmental and story editor, you're going to have to do line edits. Kaelyn (00:16:25):You're going to have to work with copy edits. Um, you are, depending on, you know, the involvement here and stuff you may have to review layouts. Um, especially if, you know, you've got some type of graphical intricacies going on there. Um, so this is exposing you to the publishing process on, I don't want to call it a micro scale, but in a more manageable, not as overwhelming way as it would be if maybe you were just writing to it for a novel for the first time. What is also really great about this is you are one part of a larger project. So there's a whole team of people that you're working with here that are all doing the same thing. Um, you know, it's not— You have a group of people on the publishing side that are not responsible just to you. They're responsible to everyone that is working on this. Kaelyn (00:17:18):So that means that you're probably going to be exposed to multiple people in each of those roles. And this is great because the other kind of exposure that's great here is networking exposure. You're going to meet so many people in just the course of having to do this. Um, like I said, editors, other authors, people who do, you know, probably marketing and, um, you know, publishing rights and that kind of stuff for, for this anthology. Um, it's a really great experience to—and a really great way to frankly—meet a lot of people quickly that are all interested in, in doing the same things you are. Rekka (00:18:02):That's assuming that you're not working with an anthology call that's a one-person shop. Kaelyn (00:18:08):Yes, yes. That is, that is true. We're, we're assuming a something more like even a Mermaid's Monthly where, you know, there's, there's multiple people involved in this. Um, the last layer of exposure that I'm going to expound upon here is the dirty one is the, "you're doing this for the exposure." Hopefully you're—. Rekka (00:18:27):No you're not. Get paid. Kaelyn (00:18:28):Yeah, get paid. And we're going to talk about that later. Um, but that said, the exposure is very good for this kind of thing. Um, a lot of anthologies have like cornerstone or like anchor authors and contributors that tend to be big names. If you're not a big name, having some of your work published in the same book that theirs is, that's certainly not a bad thing. Yeah. Rekka (00:18:50):Uh, there was an anthology call that, um, I wrote a story for, I already had the idea for the story. It was definitely shoehorned into their call. Um, Kaylin, you've read this one. And, uh, Kaelyn (00:19:05):Oh that one. Yes. I have read that one. Rekka (00:19:05):And so it was shoehorned into their call. So I was not surprised that it didn't make it in, but, uh, someone who's in my writing group that did make it in found out that his story was directly before a Turtledove story. So he was absolutely thrilled. So that's, you know, that's an exposure that you can't complain about. But also, he got paid, not pro rates, but he still got paid and the rights weren't, I assume over-reaching that's again, more we're going to get into. Kaelyn (00:19:36):Yeah. So when I say, you know, you're doing this for exposure, there's exposure to all different things, but let's, I know it's cliched. I know it's not a thing we like to say, but anthologies are a great way to get extra eyes on your work. Especially if they come attached to other things that maybe, you know, it's like a more well-known or prolific author at that point, there is absolutely nothing wrong with wanting to do whatever you can to boost your visibility and getting into an anthology, especially if it's an author that you like and admire, and you want— I mean, how great does that feel to have your work showcased alongside somebody that you enjoy? Rekka (00:20:14):Or somebody that everyone knows their name or somebody that is going to sell the books because their name's on the cover. Kaelyn (00:20:19):Exactly. Yeah. Um, so then, you know, you're building up your writing, quote-unquote, resume. Your bibliography, but it is also, you know, there's a little bit of legitimacy that goes along with it because you went through an anthology process and it is not an easy thing to do. Um, the submissions alone can be very jarring, but, you know, then for all of the reasons I talked about with like the exposure to the different groups and because this is a large group, it can be a lot to manage. So, um... So it's, you know, getting published successfully in anthology is definitely a nice little thing to be able to tack on to, uh, your About Me section. Rekka (00:21:04):And check off on your writing career bingo card and that kind of thing. Um, and one other point is that, you know, while you're between novels or your novels are going through their, um, editing process, development process, if you are taking the time to bump stories out there into the world, and you know, there's only so much control you have over whether they're accepted because competition is fierce for these. But if you get in the habit of getting stories published, it's something that you can keep your pulse apparent to the outside world while you're working on bigger projects of your own. Kaelyn (00:21:43):Yep. All right. So all of this sounds great. You're really geared up there. "I want to, I want to go write something and get it published in an anthology." So where the heck do you find these things to submit to? Rekka (00:21:56):Um, One of the things to just do is befriend and network with a lot of other writers on Twitter. Cause a lot of anthology calls make the rounds on Twitter and you'll see them eventually. Um, and frequently if they're being funded through Kickstarter, you'll see them before the window is open so that you're not really scrambling. Yeah. Kaelyn (00:22:20):And that's, it's funny because I that's exactly what I was going to say is Google is your friend here. And so is Kickstarter. Now the thing you have to be careful about with Kickstarter is a lot of times these anthologies are either partially or completely filled out by that point. Rekka (00:22:35):Sometimes yeah. I mean, so when you are browsing Kickstarter for anthology projects, um, hopefully in the project description or in the updates, you will find the information of, um, whether that anthology is going to be opening for submissions. Sometimes they open for submissions if they reach a certain funding goal, which may not be a hundred percent, but it might be the point at which they say, "okay, now we know that we're going to move ahead enough that we're going to put out a call for people to consider submitting." Or "our stretch goal, you know, of an extra $2,000 is going to let us buy extra words and therefore extra stories." Kaelyn (00:23:15):Yeah. So, um, social media, huge. Kickstarter's definitely a good place to, you know, just look around, get some ideas. Rekka (00:23:27):Yeah Kickstarter is big about promoting anthology stories now. So it's a good place to browse and find some, and, you know, back some. If you're going to submit, I really recommend you back the, the anthology, it's not about payments. "It's going to come out of my payment or whatever." It's like, you're not even sure that you're going to be accepted, but you know, back a project you'd be excited enough about to appear in. That's just good business, that's networking positively. Kaelyn (00:23:52):So that's definitely networking as well. Along those lines, Rekka, you know, as you said, a project, you'd be excited to be in. Um, here's, here's the thing with a lot of anthologies is especially the ones where, you know, there's an open submissions process and they're gathering contributors a lot of times they're themed. Rekka (00:24:12):Right? And sometimes the theme is very specific, like "mermaids," other times the theme is more like "hope" or a certain demographic of people. Kaelyn (00:24:21):Yes. That's a good transition into, "okay, what do I submit to this? Should I take something that I already wrote that I really liked and try to fit it into this? Or do I, do I need to write something new for this?" My inclination is always try to write something new. Rekka (00:24:39):It's a good exercise at the very least. Kaelyn (00:24:41):If you just so happen upon an anthology, looking for contributors that you already have the perfect story written for. Well, then you were just very lucky and please, by all means, you know, submit your little heart out. Rekka (00:24:54):You might get some excitement about a theme topic that results in more anthologies being made on that topic. Something that, you know, people were begging for for years, and then somebody finally makes it, and then it's extremely successful, then someone else is going to be eyeballing that same theme going, "I know there are more stories here. If I give it some breathing room, you know, I could do this anthology too or very similar one." And then if you were in the pile of near misses from the first time, then, um, you know, you might find a new place for that story, but generally you've also grown maybe by a year or so. You might want to write a new one anyway. Kaelyn (00:25:36):Yeah. And so, I mean, this is good practice for short stories in general, but, you know, especially for anthologies is write to what they are asking for. Pay attention to the submissions. You know, Julia talked about this a lot in last week—or two weeks ago's episode, um, you know, and in their case, it's mermaids. If their story does not have, or is not about mermaids, then this was not going to be something that they were interested in. Um, anthologies, you know, as they are getting more and more, you know, we, we see a lot of, especially Kickstarter-funded, uh, anthologies that are very specific. And that's great because you get a whole collection of stories about one thing that everyone loves. Um, but trying to shoe horn pieces in it, especially if it's some, you know, a larger short story, slightly longer one, it's not, you know, it's not going to go well, and it's going to annoy people handling the submissions. Um, just blatantly—you know, same practice with, you know, submitting short stories to magazines and various other publications—just blatantly sending, you know, the same thing out to everybody with a little explanation that changes slightly, depending on the publication of what they're looking for, of why this is good for it is not going to, to help you here. Kaelyn (00:27:02):If you are serious about trying to get your work in an anthology, identify the anthology that you want to submit to, and then write a piece specifically for that. Rekka (00:27:13):While, at the same time, you know, Julia's advice to write a piece that's unique to you and tells your very specific angle on things. Not write exactly the correct trope filled thing that will, that someone could look at and go, "there is no way you could reject this story. It hits every button." No they could still reject it. It might be boring as heck. Kaelyn (00:27:37):Yeah. Don't, you know, don't write to requirements, but also, you know, be aware of what those requirements are and find the story, maybe the mermaid story that lives in your heart and put it on paper and send it out into the world to get published. Um, it's, it's a f— it's a weird, fine line to walk, but it is important to write well and passionately about something. If you're writing stories for anthology consideration, and you just don't really care about it, that's probably not an anthology you should be submitting to. Rekka (00:28:11):I would say that, like the story that we mentioned earlier that you've read: that was not the right story for that anthology. And I kind of knew it, but. Kaelyn (00:28:18):It was a good story though. Rekka (00:28:19):It was also like a lot of fun to write and I was backing that anthology. So I was kinda like, "yeah, I'll just toss it in there." And I don't regret it. Kaelyn (00:28:30):Nope. But you know, along those lines, um, be aware, you know, if— Julia talked a lot about this, so I won't go through too much of what a slush pile is and how this works for anthologies, but— be aware that this is a thing that is happening. If somebody opens your story and is just like "this isn't even close to what I'm looking for." If they make it past the first page, I'd be shocked. Rekka (00:28:55):Well, yeah, it's hard to say. Kaelyn (00:28:57):Yeah, it depends on how long it takes them to realize that you did not read the instructions Rekka (00:29:02):Or that you chose to disregard them. Exactly. Yeah. The guidelines are very important. They're there for a reason. And if you don't have a story that fits them and you don't want to write one, then move on to another anthology and see if you got something better for that. Kaelyn (00:29:15):And look, it's not, every anthology is going to, you know, be for you. Maybe you don't particularly like mermaids, you know, then maybe don't like write for a mermaid based anthology? You know, these anthologies get so many submissions and a good portion of them are going to be people that are just throwing mud at various walls to see what sticks, what they can get through. So some care and attention, and some indication that you are very interested in this and that you wrote something, or you had something that you think is specific and very special for this, will go a long way. Rekka (00:29:52):But yeah, I mean, in terms of writing for an anthology, the thing that I feel like people need to keep in mind is that these anthology calls never pop up when you have a spare minute. Oh no, of course. So you're going to see an anthology call and go, "I was going to revise my novel that month. And now, now we don't have, like, I can't, I must, I want to write for this." So like when an anthology call pops up and you cannot resist stealing time away from a project you were already like really committed to, that might be the anthology call that is right for you. Kaelyn (00:30:26):There is no time of year that is the anthology heavy time of year. There isn't a publishing cycle necessarily for, um, anthologies that are specifically looking for contributors. There is a time of year that anthologies will come out, but they are, you know, those Best Of kind of anthologies. Rekka (00:30:45):Right, and those are reprints. So it's not like that's work for the person who's appearing in them anyway, it's it's proofing, but that's about it. It's already been printed once, the editing's been done. They're not going to change the words if they're proving that it's a Best Of. Kaelyn (00:30:57):Yeah. I would love to tell you, like, "yes, be prepared because April may every year, this is when you start seeing all the calls for anthology contribution." That's not a thing. Rekka (00:31:06):Nope. It's when the anthology editors get all their thoughts together on paper and they come up with that budget plan Julia was talking about, and then they figure out their timing, they plan out their Kickstarter campaign, and who's going to do what and, and get their timeline in order. Then they might announce it. And then, then you hopefully have a little bit of warning, but probably not much, Kaelyn (00:31:29):Probably not too much. Rekka (00:31:30):Probably by the time you've heard of it. You're a few days into that Kickstarter campaign. Kaelyn (00:31:34):If it's something you're interested in, I'm sorry to tell you this. There is no good way to do this, except to do everything that you possibly can to stay on top of this. Rekka (00:31:42):Again, if the anthology called moves you to write something, chances are, you're not going to be able to resist anyway, I would say that's the right anthology call for you. Kaelyn (00:31:52):Rekka, as someone who's had experience doing both of these anthology and magazine and publication submissions, I imagine if you're sitting at home listening to this, it may sound like a lot of the same. Like it might sound like there's overlap here of, well, "what's the difference between submitting to an anthology versus submitting to a magazine that has a, has a call out.?" Rekka (00:32:15):I mean, there's a little bit of overlap in that you have to, you know, have a well-polished story. You have to self-edit, you know, a couple of rounds. You want to really hone that thing as much as you have time to do. Um, if you have a piece that you're just going to shop around to magazines, you have a little bit more time to do that. Um, as we mentioned, the anthology calls, uh, the windows can be a little small, so that's a little bit more pressure to get it through the editing process. Um, but as you know, Julia and I discussed last week, the editors kind of know that too. So you might get a little bit more slack for grammatical issues or, um, a bit of prose that goes awry or something that you would from a magazine. Kaelyn (00:33:01):"Prose that goes awry." Rekka (00:33:01):I think that should be the subtitle of this, uh, this, uh, entire podcast maybe, or my, or just my writing career. Rekka (00:33:09):Um, but, uh, yeah. So when you are submitting to one or the other, the first most important step is to find the guidelines and absolutely adhere to anything that is not being left up to your choice. Because there's a reason for that. And that reason is to minimize the work that's going to be done on the other end. Um, sometimes it's house style things where you see a magazine will tell you, like "we want American English spellings of everything." You know, the guidelines will have some hard specificity to them. In terms of what the story will be. The guidelines for a magazine are probably going to just maybe, um, [coughs and it sounds remarkably like "Clarkesworld'] going to tell you what not to send them. These become pet peeves of the editor, uh, that they pass down to the first readers. So that those become the first readers' pet peeves. Um, and there are certain things that are just not going to make it through. And they'll tell you that. Um, many anthologies will be less specific because of the theme. Like they already told you what the theme is and they want to see what you'll do with it, but they might tell you, for example, we will not accept any stories that, um, you know, highlight violence or, you know, racism or bigotry, things like that. Kaelyn (00:34:40):So. Well, I would say that one of the big differences to understand here is a magazine is an ongoing thing. So be it a, you know, a magazine, a periodical publication of some kind, is ongoing. So, an anthology, conversely, either you're in it, or you're not. Um, a magazine on the other hand, you know, maybe your story wasn't exactly what they were looking for right at that moment, but maybe they'll keep it in their back pocket. Maybe it's, you know, I, I think, and Rekka correct me if I'm wrong, that you have a little bit more flexibility with a magazine to use creative license in there in that maybe this isn't exactly what we need right now, but a few issues from now, this might fit very nicely with a themed issue that we're doing. Versus— Rekka (00:35:30):I think it's very rare that a magazine is going to hold your story for a future thing that they might do. Um, very frequently you are in a submissions period window. You know, the magazine will open for a certain amount of time, every certain timeframe. So for example—you have the entire gamut—uh, Clarkesworld is open all the time. You'll probably get that rejection by the end of the week, Strange Horizons is open for 24 hours once a week, except for certain, like, two weeks a year. Um, other magazines are open for like a quarter and then they close and then they open for another quarter or, you know, a month, every other month, something like that. So if you are interested in submitting for magazines, you really have to be on top of their schedules to know, if there's a magazine you want a piece to go to, when they're going to be open. Rekka (00:36:30):Because the other thing to be tricky about is not to have sent it off to a magazine that has really slow response time that makes you miss that window. Um, so magazines submissions are kind of like a balancing act. You, you want a playbook that you figure out like what your, what your process is for a story. It's very rare that I hear even for, um, a magazine that has themed quarters, for example, like Fireside will do a quarterly, uh, themes. I'm trying to think of another one I know that, I've just seen one recently where they're, um, Zombies Need Brains has a, um, a couple of, uh, when they do their Kickstarter, they announce like four themes. And so if you're submitting, you're not necessarily submitting for the next one that comes out, you're submitting based on the theme that your story is written to. But they might all be reviewed together. And then you don't find out until the beginning of that calendar year, which ones, you know, re going to be accepted. So it's, it's weird. It's tricky. Um— Kaelyn (00:37:38):That should be the tagline for this podcast. Rekka (00:37:41):I guess before we get too much further, I should talk about the Submissions Grinder? Submissions Grinder is a web app that's hosted by Diabolical Plots and, um, they themselves are a magazine. And, um, I believe they're opening soon if they haven't already. Um, but they basically have this tool online that lets everyone aggregate their, uh, submissions information for both anthologies and magazines and even some non-fiction markets. You can run a search for open markets based on your story's criteria. So for example, a 4,100 word, uh, science fiction story, and you can put that you want, you know, pay rate of 6 cents or more per word, and then it'll return all the open markets that meet those qual— You know, that a fiction story of 4,100 words might potentially be published in. And, um, and at the pay rates that you request and you can even sort by pay rate, or you can sort by rejection time, you know, response time, I should say, but let's be real. Rekka (00:38:49):So then you can, you know, log your submissions and Submissions Grinder will kind of keep people apprised of how that magazine is responding to things, the age of, um, stories that are responded to and, provided that everybody submits like keeps up to date on their, um, data entry, then you get some of that rejectomancy juice flowing because people can watch and see, you know, like, "Oh, look, the submissions that were sent in on August 12th are starting to get their responses this week," you know? Um, and so you sort of know of like, "Ooh, I didn't get the response, but everybody else did. Did I make it to another round? You know, like have I, have I made it to the next challenge? You know, the next level of slush." So yeah, that's Submissions Grinder, and it's a great tool. I definitely recommend you keep a backup of your own submissions history, just in case anything ever happened to their server. Kaelyn (00:39:46):With an anthology, you know, where there's a call for contributors, it's very possible. They may even say, "we'll let everyone know by this day." Pretty much. Or, you know, "the first round of rejections is going out this day after that." And by the way, it's very common in this process that an editor is going to want to talk to you beforehand. Um, in very rarely do, unless, you know, you were approached beforehand specifically and asked to write or contribute something to this. Um, very rarely are they just going to send you an email and be like, "Hey, we picked this. Isn't that great." Um, there's always a little bit of a vetting process that goes into this. Rekka (00:40:28):Um, It's a very brief vetting process though, as compared to like having discussions with agents and publishers, uh, it's generally, you know, you get a response that says, "we are interested in purchasing this story," you know, and then you do a little dance and you answer whatever questions they have. It's not, um, it's not hard to find out about a person online these days. So if they're vetting you for your reputation, you've probably laid it all out on Twitter for them already. Um, if they're vetting you for your experience, you know, that might be on your website. Hopefully you have a website, please have a website. Kaelyn (00:41:08):They could be vetting you to see if they're going to be good working with you because that's another thing to note here is, I had mentioned, don't expect that they're not going to want any work on your piece. Because this is an anthology and it's a shorter piece, generally speaking, they're going to be pretty happy with it, but they may want you to do some work. There may be some, I won't say significant, but there could be some sizable edits involved in this. And that's where I'm saying, you know, they're probably going to talk to you, especially if they're like, listen, we really like this story. We need you to tweak it a little bit cause, okay, maybe they want it to fit in better with the theme of the anthology. Maybe there's, you know, something in there that they're like "this just isn't going to sit well with the re with the theme for the, um, you know, the book we're putting out" so they could want to talk to you just to make sure everyone's on the same page and you're not going to stomp your feet and pout and say, "I'm not changing a single word of this." Rekka (00:42:11):Well, you have some editors who will only pick stories that don't need a lot of work because they don't have the time to deal with that. Like I said, you might have a very small team or even a team of one person, and they're not going to pick stories that they're going to have to spend intensive time working on you with. If you were submitting to a magazine and there was something they weren't happy with, chances are, unless it's very minor, you're not going to get an acceptance or even an invitation to discuss possible changes. What's more likely to happen is they'll say "revise this with this feedback and you can resubmit someday and we'd look at it again" because, um, what we haven't really touched on is that if this is one and done, generally, if your story gets rejected, you don't get to send that story back again. Kaelyn (00:42:58):Yes. That's very important to know with anthologies. Rekka (00:43:01):Anthologies and magazines magazines. Don't, you know, they may not have a long memory, but it's very possible. They also do. So you don't know, um, you don't want to take your story that was rejected and just, you know, change the characters' names and flip it back and send it again, you know, in less than six months. It's very likely they'll remember it. Um, and it's very likely it won't get any further than it did the first time, uh, you know, much less. It'll have a much shorter life span if the person who saw it, you know, already knew it was rejected right off the bat. So, um, but with an anthology call, if they do like it, you probably won't get a revise and resubmit, um, suggestion because of the timeframe you're working in. You might get an editor who really likes the story, but wants to know, would you be comfortable making these changes? Rekka (00:43:51):And if so, then they're interested in buying it. Um, and that's going to again, be a quick process. And probably as I said, not a very laborious one. I doubt they're going to want to change the theme of your story. Um, it's going to be more like, um, "this comes off as problematic," or "this is really similar to another story that I'm definitely accepting. Um, if we can tweak this detail out, it may not even be critical to the story then," you know, something like that. But it's, I really don't think you're going to get very deep changes on a call because the competition is so fierce. Now, if you somehow ended up an anthology that nobody heard about and they're grasping for, you know, to fill the word count that they wanted, then that might be a totally different process because they are, you know, a little bit more willing to work with you because they just want to put together a good anthology and they didn't get the raw meat they needed to make a proper meatloaf. Kaelyn (00:44:50):Along those lines Rekka. Uh, you know, we've talked a lot here about anthologies. They're great. They're a lot of fun. They're good for that dreaded word "exposure" and they're good for your career. And they're a good experience that said not all anthologies are created equal. Rekka (00:45:06):Explain, please. Kaelyn (00:45:07):Some are created to screw people over. Rekka (00:45:10):Same with magazines though. Kaelyn (00:45:11):Same with magazines, yes. Rekka (00:45:12):Same with publishers. Kaelyn (00:45:15):Same with publishers. Rekka (00:45:15):There who are ready to screw you over at every, every step of the way. And it really does come down to, um, being savvy, uh, knowing what your value is and, um, standing up for yourself and watching for these red flags. Kaelyn (00:45:30):That said, anthologies are something that I think specifically is very easy to get sucked into and taken advantage of. Um, for all of the reasons that we mentioned before, you know, the, you know, adding this to your, uh, your bibliography, your writing resume, um, you know, the apparent legitimacy that this affords you. A lot of people see this as an easy-in. I want to be clear, first of all, even, you know, any anthology like, especially the legitimate ones, this is not easy. There are, you know, predatory, people and publications out there that know that writers are desperate to just try to get something published and will do things to try to, well, take advantage of them there. So in terms of red flags with anthologies, this one right off the bat should be very obvious if you've ever listened to this podcast: do not pay to be in an anthology. Rekka (00:46:30):Not only that, but do you not pay to have your submission reviewed. Kaelyn (00:46:33):Across the board, do not pay to have your submission reviewed. If you really want somebody to look at your stuff that badly, take that money and go hire an editor. Never pay to have your work featured in an anthology. And this is where that exposure word comes in, where, you know, the people are going, Oh, no, but "you're paying us. But think of all this exposure you're gonna get." Rekka (00:46:50):Remember, they have no content if they don't have writers. So you should be paying them in exposure. Kaelyn (00:46:56):Yes. Um, but along those lines and tied to this, also, is be careful of your rights. Um, a legitimate anthology will have—and by the way, magazine submission, same thing—very clearly upfront, what rights the publisher is maintaining here. Now frequently, this will be something like, um, you know, publishing and electronic rights in US English or Global English or something along those lines. Um, what that means is that if you know, John Favreau picked us up and said, "Hey, this would make a great movie." That means he's still got to get the rights from you, for that movie. Speaker 3 (00:47:37):Right. Anything that's, that's not signed over to the publisher in the contract—and when I say "signed over," um, I'm hoping that you're getting paid and therefore you're selling these to the publisher. You can even request the line that say, "all other rights, not mentioned are, you know, retained by the author." That's never a bad thing to ask for. So whatever is in there is in there and that's the contract and you signed it. And that's why we call them contracts. Kaelyn (00:48:03):There are, there are theologies that are literally just a bright scraps. They are going to get as many short stories as they can publish all of them, maintain the rights, and then if you think there aren't people who work for four or with this group that will just go shop those short stories to anyone. I mean, primarily Hollywood. Rekka (00:48:24):They like short stories. Keep in mind that most of the Stephen King movies, you know, and love were probably short stories at one point. Kaelyn (00:48:31):Yeah. Rekka (00:48:32):So, um, it's, it's a very tidy way for a, for a studio to get a fully realized story that doesn't need a whole lot of editing down. Because that's the thing about short stories, they don't have all those extra moving pieces that Hollywood usually has to strip out when they convert a novel to a screenplay. So when you are selling to an anthology, especially short stories, especially when you are getting pennies per word, you want to make sure that you protect whatever value that the story can be for you otherwise. And, uh, whether that's resell value, which means that, you know, you can sell it as a reprint story and you'll get less, but magazines will buy stories that have already been published, as a reprint. And then, you know, you can just do that as many times, as long as you don't accidentally give up all your rights to that story. And, you know, without an end date, it's usually going to be sometimes it's six months. I mean, it depends how quickly the magazine tends to get its issues out. Sometimes it's six months. I've heard some of them try to go for two years, which is really on the long end of things. Generally, again, they're looking at this in terms of calendar years. So when they put your story out, that issue is quote-unquote, you know, stale in a year. So they're not going to try and hang onto those rights, other than maybe if they do a Best Of, and then it's probably even in there that they'll renegotiate at that point. Kaelyn (00:50:06):Along those lines, you know, of, um, you know, pennies per word, be aware of the comp structure. Good legitimate anthologies will be very upfront about how this works. Typically, very typical of anthologies is you were paid a certain amount upfront based on the number of words. There's a, you know, there's different rates. Um, you know, maybe hopefully you can find one that does the, uh, you know, the SFWA level pro rate. Um, but be very clear about it. Anthologies, typically do not continue to pay you based on the number of copies sold. Rekka (00:50:44):Right? There are no royalties. You're selling flat. Kaelyn (00:50:47):It's too much work for, you know, for these to handle. You are selling a flat rate, they retain certain rights to your story. You maintain the rest of them. Rekka (00:50:57):And again, anthologies make a bit of a splash when they come out, but they're not something like a novel that hits a bestseller list and then, you know, has a long tailwind. Kaelyn (00:51:09):Yeah. And if you're thinking here, "well, that doesn't sound fair. So that means like this anthology is going to make a big splash. And then, you know, the publisher is just going to keep making money, hand over fist, with it forever." Anthologies are so much more expensive than a regular novel. Um, you know, Julia talked about, you know, the, some of the budgetary concerns and everything that goes into this. Anthologies are so expensive. Um, if a publisher, especially a smaller publisher, recovers their cost on it, that is—and that's, by the way, why so many of these are done through Kickstarter because the money upfront required to get an anthology off the ground is staggering. Rekka (00:51:51):And it's probably more than that anthology will ever make just by releasing it in a quiet, traditional manner. Like Kickstarter really helps to get eyes on it. And then it helps to get people to commit to it ahead of time so that it can be funded before it even comes out. And then that might be the end of it. You know, it comes out, people already backed it. So they get their copies, and maybe there's a trickle of sales, but it's not, it's not going to really be something that is making money long-term. So don't resent the publisher for not paying you your royalties each quarter, which would end up being like 0.1 cent. Kaelyn (00:52:30):You're going to make more money off of this, selling it flat than you would in a royalty structure. If somebody is offering you a royalty structure, I would actually go so far as to say, be very dubious of that. Rekka (00:52:41):And worry about them as a human, the amount of energy that they're going to spend on this. Kaelyn (00:52:45):Yeah. Yeah. So, um, one last weird red flag, which I didn't really realize how much of a thing it was until I was doing research on this and actually came across a number of these: do not submit to anthologies that are offering prizes instead of money. Um, I was— Rekka (00:53:06):Hey, well, what if I need a blender? Kaelyn (00:53:09):Get the money from the anthology and go buy the blender. Rekka (00:53:13):And then you get to choose your blender. Kaelyn (00:53:14):Then you get to pick the blender. Um, no, I, I was, I was very surprised by how many anthologies and stories about this I came across where they're like "the prize for getting accepted by this is, you know, a thing like a physical thing, like an iPad, but like an old one that we used to be my daughter's and it's got some crayon on it and we're going to mail it to you." Um, no, but like, there's, there's this weird thing out there, and I'm not sure how much of it is genre versus, you know, other forms of anthologies and non-fiction. Um, but there's this weird thing out there where there are prizes offered instead of like monetary compensation. Um, look if you really want the crayon iPad than sure, go for it, but also avoid those. It's just, um, that's, I can't even call it an anthology. It's more of like a writing contest at that point. And I'm not sure what the prize is other than a weird iPad. Rekka (00:54:14):Yeah. That, that is more of like a County Fair level, you know, competition. Um, you're going to be up against like, if you're in genre, you might be up against memoir, you know, who knows? Kaelyn (00:54:24):Yeah. The one, um, the one other last thing I will say here, I talked kind of at the beginning of this episode about poetry and how that was really sort of the advent of anthologies. If, you know, obviously we talk about fiction. We specifically talk about genre fiction a lot on here. Um, if you are submitting poetry to an anthology—which by the way is very common and I believe like one of the more pervasive forms of anthology out there, um, is poetry—be especially careful with that with rights and everything because, um, I don't think many rights for poetry gets sold to Hollywood, but, um, poetry tends to form in collections, which is, you know, where anthology sort of sprung out from. So, um, if you are submitting poetry through an anthology, just be especially careful about that. Rights seem to be a big issue there. Because, you know, typically when you're submitting a poem, we're not talking about something that's a 20,000 word short story, we're talking about something that's maybe a few hundred words and you get paid differently and structured and everything there. So— Rekka (00:55:34):Yeah, I mean, if you ever wanted to release your own poetry books someday, you just got to make sure that you've got all your rights and if you ever released a themed poetry book, then maybe it does become a movie or a music album. I mean, you just get—make sure that in a year or so after the anthology comes out, you own that story again. Kaelyn (00:55:51):Yeah, exactly. Because poetry is, is weird with this where poetry is very short typically. And, um, it's not the same as, you know, you can just go publish a short story and put it on Amazon. It's very difficult to get people to pay for individual poems on Amazon. So, uh, anthologies are one of the main outlets there. And again, rights are always important. Kaelyn (00:56:16):Um, the last thing just to wrap up here, um, my cautionary stuff is I will—and this is something I actually have experienced in myself—is to be clear about academic versus, um, fiction and nonfiction anthologies. Because anybody who, you know, has come from academia, I'm sure you've had to do writing and research and like it's, you know, a publish-or-perish situation. Um, I've had a couple of things that I submitted to different periodicals and magazines published. Um, in those cases, the power dynamic is a little different here. Kaelyn (00:56:57):Um, you still should not be paying to have things published. That's a big no-no in academia as well, but for different reasons. Um, but the power dynamic is a little different because you are essentially trying to win a contest. You are trying to get your paper to be the most interesting, the most groundbreaking, the most, whatever to get it published. Um, so if you're thinking through this and going, "Oh, hang on a second. I submitted this stuff to this, uh, academic journal and they put me through this ringer," that is very different. That is career oriented. That is a step that depending on, you know, what your field is, you must take at certain points. I mean, if I had stayed an historian, all I'd be doing is trying to publish research papers and, uh, get books written—different kinds of books, obviously. Um, so don't, don't conflate the two it's, um, it's, it's a very different from, from fiction and nonfiction, creative writing versus academic writing. In those sometimes they do give you a prize and that's a big deal. Those are, those are the scenarios in which it's like, "Hey, and the winners getting a $50,000 grant," and then there are grad students killing each other over it. So. Rekka (00:58:12):Don't be those people though. Kaelyn (00:58:14):Yeah. Don't. We don't need any more dead grad students. Rekka (00:58:18):I mean go win the grants, but don't kill anyone to get there. Don't climb over a pile of dead bodies to get your grant. Kaelyn (00:58:24):It's the only way to get grants, Rekka. Rekka (00:58:28):Just picturing like that scene from Terminator. Kaelyn (00:58:30):Yeah. Um, that's what it felt like a lot actually. Um, it was, uh, I, I will tell you, I can't remember if I ever told this story on this, but, um, I had submitted to, um, a publication and the first thing I had to do was get... Like my university was allowed to submit a certain number of papers. So the first thing I had to do was get by like my professor's like review board and it was all supposed to be anonymous. So like I had to print this out, put it in an envelope with like a number on it. And then I was going to get, you know, notes and stuff back from them. I opened one of the envelopes and my 30 pages were in it. They had been torn to confetti. Rekka (00:59:15):Well that's something. Kaelyn (00:59:18):Um, what's really funny is that made it very obvious which professor had done that. But yes, needless to say he did not like it, but it was one of two things that I actually got published. Rekka (00:59:34):Okay, so that's a good point, to bring this back to our topic, is that what one editor hates and despises and shreds to confetti—thankfully we send digital files now and we can still send those to other editors who might also love them. Because let's be clear if you get something published in an magazine or an anthology, the editor loved it. Because the competition is so fierce, it's not just good enough. You didn't slip through the cracks and, you know, sneak by them and get in, you know, without being caught. You were chosen. Your story was chosen and it beat fierce competition to get there. So, um, don't, I, it's hard not to just remember the, the editor who tears it to confetti when you think of that story, but— Kaelyn (01:00:23):Oh, I remember, I remember that professor, he did not like me. Rekka (01:00:27):Well, but who cares? Because it was published and you didn't need him. And that's, that's how you can, you know, think about the editors that don't choose your stories. Once you, once you get to that point where your stories are getting chosen. And, you know, I've heard people call it a numbers game. I've heard people call it like, uh, you know, figuring out where your puzzle piece fits across, you know, a table of 60 or 70 puzzles. Um, but it's, it's a slog and you really, really have to give yourself credit for the successes. Because they don't come as frequently as we might like. Kaelyn (01:01:02):And that said, you know, to kind of wrap us up here, anthologies are great. And there are a lot of fun. And they're a great way to challenge yourself to maybe step out of your writing comfort zone a little bit. Especially if it's something you can get excited about. So... Rekka (01:01:18):Yeah. I, I mean, as a, as a purchaser of anthologies, I love knowing that, like, this is the theme of the whole thing. If I'm into that, this entire book should be pretty much up my alley. Or, you know, sometimes the anthologies are about a movement, and I want to support that movement and I can support that and support individual—like a whole team of individual people while supporting that. Um, and sometimes it's just like, "Oh, that's bizarre. I just want to hear 50 different ways that people will tell that story." So anthologies are super cool for readers, and you get short stories that you can put down and pick it up and leave it, you know, for a couple of months and then come back to it and your bookmark's in there, and you just read the next one. Or you jump around. I mean. Kaelyn (01:02:02):You've got options. Rekka (01:02:02):You've got options. Kaelyn (01:02:03):That's what we're getting at here. More than anything else, you've got options. Rekka (01:02:07):And as a writer who gets placed in an anthology, you get that chance to be discovered by somebody who hadn't heard of you before and picked you up because they like this theme. So another quick point then is if it, if it's a time crunch and if you're not really sure what to write and the, the anthology doesn't even work in your established genre, consider maybe not, you know, spending, putting your time into that. It might not be an investment that ends up being worth it, unless you want to try it. You know, like we said, earlier. Experiment. Yes. But, um, don't try to use anthologies as a gateway for readers to come into your existing library of work if the anthology story is great to end up nothing like the rest of your work. Kaelyn (01:02:55):Is so outside of what you typically write, yeah. Rekka (01:02:57):And again, if you're willing, if you're willing to pivot and make a change of this piece, turns into something big, totally different story. but be aware of that as you pick your anthologies that you want to participate in. And then run a search on, um, the Submissions Grinder, put your ear to the ground on Twitter and, you know, do a browse on Kickstarter and find something, and then try it. And, you know, maybe it takes 20 before you get placed in one, or maybe it's, you know, your first started or second or third one, Kaelyn (01:03:25):If it's something you're on the fence about definitely give it a shot. If nothing else, just see if, you know, just see— Someone's giving you a writing prompt, take that and run with it, see what you can do with it. If you're really like, still not sure. You know, what a great thing to do is pick up an anthology. Rekka (01:03:40):Yes. Definitely read some anthologies before you start submitting to anthologies. Same with magazines. Kaelyn (01:03:45):Use that to sort of figure out the type of anthology and genre that you would like to write to. Kaelyn (01:03:50):Bu

Hi everyone, and thank you for tuning in to another episode of the We Make Books Podcast - A podcast about writing, publishing, and everything in between! We Make Books is hosted by Rekka Jay and Kaelyn Considine; Rekka is a published author and Kaelyn is an editor and together they are going to take you through what goes into getting a book out of your head, on to paper, in to the hands of a publisher, and finally on to book store shelves. We Make Books is a podcast for writers and publishers, by writers and publishers and we want to hear from our listeners! Send us your questions, comments, and concerns! We hope you enjoy We Make Books! Twitter: @WMBCast  |  @KindofKaelyn  |  @BittyBittyZap Instagram: @WMBCast  Patreon.com/WMBCast   Episode 47: Let Us Tell You About Show Don't Tell (Our usual transcriptionist is taking a well-deserved break. Any drop in quality of today's transcript is totally our fault.) Rekka (00:00):Hi, everyone. Welcome back to another episode of we make books, a show about writing publishing and everything in between. I'm Kaelyn Considine. I am the acquisitions editor for Parvus Press. Rekka (00:08):And I'm Rekka. I write science fiction and fantasy as RJ Theodore. Rekka (00:11):And you know what you've done? You have shown us that you write science fiction and fantasy as RJ. Theodore, you have not just told us Rekka (00:18):Although today I did just tell you. Rekka (00:20):You did just tell me now, but I mean, the books exist. I've seen them. So you've shown us that, but you have also talked at length about different parts and aspects of how you've written these and things that have happened to you, therefore showing us that you wrote them. Rekka (00:34):Or did I just tell you all this stuff? I don't know. What does this rule mean anyway? Rekka (00:41):Yeah. So today we're, we're tackling another one of those,uthose weird, funny little notes that you get from,ueditors and people critiquing your work. And you'll see, "show me, don't tell me" and – Rekka (00:52):Really frustrating because everyone says it and assumes you know what they mean, but if you haven't really processed what it means, or you haven't managed to do it and have someone say, "yes, that's what I mean by show, don't tell," like you just feel a little bit lost. You feel like maybe you are falling behind in the class kind of thing. Like why does everyone know what this means? And I still don't understand? Rekka (01:16):It is difficult, but I think it's one of those things that once you kind of figure out, it's a lot easier to understand what the note means. What, you know, we're trying to get at here is describing something to the reader and making the sentence do a lot of– do work in more than one way is a lot more interesting to read than just a list of descriptions, actions, emotions, or feelings. Rekka (01:41):If you at least identify when you're doing it in the revisions that's going to go a long way to improving your relationship with beta readers and editors later. Rekka (01:51):And improving your relationship with your characters, because we're going to talk a lot about that in this episode too. So– Rekka (01:56):All right. So let's not tell you what the episode is. Rekka (01:59):Let's show you! Rekka (02:00):On the other side of the music. Kaelyn (02:17):In this case, we're here mostly just to tell people things. If we just record this while showing things to each other, it's not going to be very, Rekka (02:25):What we're showing is our competence with writing skills and techniques Kaelyn (02:30):Ah okay. Rekka (02:31):And demonstrating, Ooh, maybe that's it. Okay. I solved it. Don't call it. Show don't tell because that confuses people show, call it demonstrate don't elucidate. Rolls right off the tongue. Kaelyn (02:44):Oh goodness. That's going on a mug somewhere. So yeah, but today we're, we're talking about one of the other great notes that people frequently get back from editors and agents, which is "show me, don't tell me I, I will, I think this is not as quote-unquote unhelpful as, you know, "tighten your storylines, work on your character arcs," that kind of thing. Um. Rekka (03:12):But it's one of the ones that people get early on in their writing because it's supposed to be so helpful, but if you haven't come across it and you don't know how to identify why it's being pointed out in your work, like what the heck does it mean? Kaelyn (03:30):Yeah. So there's, you know, before we, before we get started in too deep into this, let's kind of define some of the areas that we're talking about here. And it's funny because Rekka and I were talking about doing this episode and we both came to this with kind of different approaches to the show. Don't tell me like, things that were important to Ned,uwhile doing some research, I kind of discovered that what Rekka and I both think is important. Most of the literary world doesn't think is as important. Rekka (03:57):Well, we are genre-focused. Kaelyn (04:00):Yeah. Exactly. Rekka (04:00):That just supports that. Kaelyn (04:02):Yeah. So I came into this with like one of my big pet show me, don't tell me a pet peeves is characters. Urecords is world-building and,I– Rekka (04:13):It's not even that it was that you said characters first. So I said, Oh, okay. But also "world building." It wasn't like, I was like, "No, world building first!" This wasn't like a showdown. Kaelyn (04:22):It's always a showdown. Rekka (04:22):It was a telldown. I'll show myself out. Kaelyn (04:28):All right. That's the podcast, everyone. We're done. Rekka (04:30):Like forever. She can't take it anymore. Kaelyn (04:34):Oh God. Okay. but it's funny because then when I was doing research on this and most of these "show me, don't tell me examples. And what everybody's talking about is more of writing and prose and style. So the point of all of it is nobody wants to be bombarded with facts and told "this is the way things are in this book" without actually experiencing it while reading it. One it's bad storytelling and two it's disorienting, Rekka (05:04):But if they're reading it, aren't they experiencing it? Kaelyn (05:07):Well, no, they're not because that's not experiencing it, that's just being read a list of facts and statements. Rekka (05:14):I know I'm playing devil's advocate in case you didn't tell. Kaelyn (05:18):I know. Um so why is this a problem? Rekka (05:23):Because you bore your reader, you don't engage them. You don't pull them through the book. Kaelyn (05:27):Yeah. This is one of those things that, and we rarely, you know, kind of come down to this it's bad writing. It's like, I mean, really, you know, we don't, we don't talk too much about like, you know, universally accepted things that are considered bad writing, but this is one of them because as Rekka said, it's boring, it is not engaging. It's not pulling the reader into the book. Anyone can sit here and rattle off a list of, you know, facts about like the, you know, the kitchen table that had sitting at right now, it was brown and round. Light brown with wood patterns on it. It was made of wood. And that's not really interesting. It distracts from the story. It doesn't paint a scene. It doesn't give you any indication of how the character is feeling or interacting, or considering how to act based on their surroundings or their thoughts. It's bad writing. And it's well, not always lazy, but oftentimes lazy. Rekka (06:30):But it's also not serving a purpose other than to describe the table. And if the table itself doesn't have anything to do with the tension you're trying to build in a scene or inform you what this character might be like, because you know, you're discussing the furnishings of their house, which describes the character. Maybe more than just saying the character can afford lots of nice furniture. You know. Kaelyn (06:58):The, every everything, well, the vast majority of what you write in your book should be serving two purposes. If a monster erupts out of the ground to try to eat our heroes and you have to stop the action and the story to describe the monster, that's serving two purposes. One, you want to describe the monster. You want to know what the heroes are about to fight against, but two, you want them to know how scary this monster is. So the words you use, you don't just say, "it looked like a centipede. It was purple. It had a lot of legs and weird green eyes with lots of facets on them. Venom was dripping off its fangs." Actually "venom was dripping off its fangs" is a good example of what, how to describe it. But instead of stating facts about it, what you should be doing instead is, you know, "the creature erupted out of the ground, spraying rock and sand everywhere. Once they cleared the dust from their eyes, they beheld the monster before them. It was a towering behemoth of," you know, and go on like that, because what you're doing is you're showing that the readers are, or excuse me, that the heroes are freed here. And then you also don't have to tell us that they're afraid. Rekka (08:09):I was just going to say well can't you sum it up and say the monster burst forth from the ground and scared the heroes? Kaelyn (08:14):Absolutely. If you don't want anyone to know what the monster looks like. Yeah. Rekka (08:19):Yeah. So you would use this to do both things, show that the person is scared and the reaction without having to say this is their reaction and do the thing that you'd really like to do, which is, I assume if you're creating a monster as you want to get into what the monster looks like and the creature design. Kaelyn (08:35):Yeah. So in this case you know, what we're kind of talking about here is the last thing I brought up, which is sort of like the style and prose and writing technique of, you know, making your sentences do extra work for you. You're describing the monster and then you're also establishing that it is threatening and our heroes are afraid of it to, you know, circle back to some of the other ones that Rekka and I came up with here. You know, well Rekka you know, had specifically said world-building. Rekka (09:05):Yeah, well, mostly because when you have a genre book, you've got some sort of aspect of the world that you've invented from whole cloth. And of course, you're very proud of that. And of course you want to talk about it. And this isn't to say, like, there's the whole iceberg theory thing, and I'm not going to go into that. That's not what I mean by this. But the idea that you want to keep the book interesting, which means you need to keep the motivation of the reader of wanting to find out what happens next. If you're just describing a setting in your world. Well, it doesn't matter what happens next. That setting is probably unaffected by the plot and the story. And the time you take away from keeping that reader in the story is detrimental to their, you know, their draw into the whole world. Rekka (10:01):So even though you think like, "Oh, my world is so cool. I have to get all this in here." Your reader cares less and less about the world when you keep interrupting the story to tell them about it. So just like Katelyn was saying, do two things with your sentences, you know, throw a little bit of your world building into an action. That's happening in the story. You know, passing the,uneon ice cream shop where all the ice cream was neon of course is what I mean. Not that it's painted neon. That's ridiculous. You know, so like build your world building in the same way that you're going to build your emotional reactions to things in and your physical descriptions of things. So in the sense, your first example kind of was world building. Ubut it was also emotional. And so your sentences need to do at least two things. So they can be emotion and world building or action and world building, or action and emotion, or character and world like, you know, mixing match. Don't just have nouns and verbs in the right order. Kaelyn (11:03):Yeah. So, and then my, my particular pet peeve with the show me don't tell me is is character related. I hate reading books, I hate getting submissions, where all I'm reading about is how a character is. So this and guys, this character, they are just, so This Thing, this, that they're, so This, that it's practically coming out of their ears. Everyone knows that they're, they're, This they're just the most This that there is. And then you see nothing in their actions, thoughts, or speech that would indicate that aside from the author and then usually other characters around them telling you this. Rekka (11:42):Reinforcing it in a very direct and obvious way. Kaelyn (11:45):Yeah. So it's that's, that's one of that is my big show me don't tell me pet peeve is,uif you know, you've got a guy who's supposed to be like the most brilliant, I don't know codebreaker in the entire world, but we don't actually see him break any codes and that's not part of the plot, why is that, you know, why do you need me to tell to know this? Why is that important here? And,uubut you know, there's, there's things that I think you get a little more and you see this a lot in,uyoung adult and teen novels where,uyou know, you want the cool kid, the shy kid, the goth kid, the, you know, where we get these sort of like emotional angles and none of them are actually then displayed in the writing of the character. Uso why... You know, apart from why is this important? Why, why is it bad writing? Rekka (12:45):Good writing is something that someone can enjoy. So if they're not enjoying it– you know, like, okay, across the board, not everyone is going to enjoy every story, but there are things you can do to increase your chances that someone's going to enjoy the story. And one of those things is to control, for example, the pacing and the immersion of the reader in the world. And when you tell someone something, rather than show it to them, you're kind of saying, "No, no, no, no, just trust me on this," without providing the proof. Exactly. And so it's hard for a person to sink into that world and enjoy it if they're constantly thinking, "Well, okay, you say that, but where I, like, what does that mean to this character? Or what does that, how is that going to impact the story or anything like that?" Kaelyn (13:36):Yeah. And I think that where this comes from a lot is this, especially, you know, in genre fiction, like, you know, Rebecca and I work in is "I've come up with this really cool thing, and I need everybody to know all about it. I need them to know about how awesome this world is or how scary this monster is or how cool and bad-ass my main character is." Rekka (14:00):Well we do want to know these things. Kaelyn (14:02):Yes, absolutely. But "if I tell them over and over again, they'll get it," and that is not how you get a reader to internalize things, readers, internalize things by the actions of the characters or the interaction with the world around them. Rekka (14:18):Do you think this is kind of, and I hate this phrase, is this just like a "rookie mistake" where they know they need to convince somebody of this, or they know they need to include this. They just don't know how to go about doing it properly? Kaelyn (14:30):Yeah. And I think it is. I think it's something that you see a lot with new and emerging writers, where you've just got all of these amazing ideas coming out of your ears and you've just, you know, gotta gather them all up and get them on a page. And so what it turns into is just, you know, a list of reasons why this thing is how you say it is rather than seeing people you know, either display those characteristics or seeing the world, or even just the way that you're writing. So a lot of times, you know, as we said, when you, you're going to get into, if you Google, you know, "show me, don't tell me" it's going to be pages and pages of you know, examples and literature and all of these famous quotes and stuff about it. But it goes beyond just style and the ability and the way that you write. Within the story itself, you can't, you know, make a character a certain way by having everyone else around them insist they are that way, but them showing no signs of that whatsoever. Rekka (15:41):So I'm going to give an example with Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol, because when you think about Scrooge, you tend to think like, "Oh, well he's a cheapskate." I mean, the name is synonymous with cheapskate. This is a thing Dickens did. He made stuff pretty clear just by the way he named people. His story is about his character arc. You think about it, and you're like, "yeah, no, people are pretty clear that Ebenezer's really awful." And you can say "Ebenezer's is really awful," if you were writing the story or you can describe him as "the cold within him froze his old features, nipped his pointed nose, shriveled, his cheek, stiffened, his gait made his eyes red, his thin lips blue and spoke out shrewdly in his grading voice." Like– Kaelyn (16:27):Yeah, that's good writing that. Rekka (16:29):Yeah. And I'm not a huge Dickens fan. He got paid by the word. And so he did go on, but like he was described, he described Scrooge as "a squeezing wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching covetous, old sinner." Like these are descriptive things but they're adding so much. Right? And then not only that, but the character behaves in such a manner. You're not just told this, but he says, you know, when people come to him and this is what you're saying about like the character supporting like, "Oh, just saying, Oh, you're an old miser, Scrooge," no people come to him looking for charitable handouts for the holidays. As, you know, as being established as, as good and wholesome and Scrooge says, "are there no prisons? Are there no workhouses?" Like, he has an argument with people that shows how you might expect a person to behave and how this person is behaving in contradiction to that. And so it's just like a really, Kaelyn (17:34):No, that's. Rekka (17:34):It's rich. Like the way that, you know, this is, this is seven layers of Scrooge-ness that you get out of these, these, these words that are chosen. And so like in some ways it's good that he was paid by the word. Kaelyn (17:46):Most people in the English speaking world, even if they haven't read a Christmas Carol or seen one of the movies, which by the way, the Muppet version of it is, is the best one. Michael Kane, as Scrooge, there should be no other Scrooges ever. Rekka (18:01):Certainly not Jim Carey. Kaelyn (18:03):Most people know when somebody says like, Oh God, he's a Scrooge. Or, you know, like call you Scrooge. They, Rekka (18:11):It's an idiom now. Kaelyn (18:11):Yes, exactly. Because this was so effective in the writing. So that's a really, really good example of why this is important. Going back to, you know, like new writers and just wanting to get this stuff out there. I just think that information dumps, this insisting upon– the characters that insist upon themselves, is really distracting from the story. Rekka (18:37):Because you can feel it's the writer doing the insisting. Kaelyn (18:40):Yes. It makes you not like the characters. And I'm not saying every character in your book needs to be loved and cheered for, but you usually need at least one to love and cheer for or everyone's going to have a really hard time getting through the book. Rekka (18:53):Yeah. And I'm dealing with that in some of the TV shows I'm watching right now. There are so many important characters, but you at least understand their motivations, even if you don't like them or want to spend any time in their presence. Kaelyn (19:06):Did you just finished The Boys, Rekka? Rekka (19:08):I might have, yes. There's no one left to root for almost. But the, the idea of you insisting, "Mary Sue–" Kaelyn (19:20):Yeah, let's lean in here. Rekka (19:20):"Was So beautiful. Everyone loved her and she looked great in everything she wore." That's, that's great, but I'm not getting anything out of that. Kaelyn (19:32):Well, also, do you see what just happened there? You're not developing a character. You're giving me a list of qualities and traits about them. Rekka (19:41):This is like a job application. Kaelyn (19:43):Yeah, exactly. Let's use Bella from the Twilight series. Rekka (19:49):I think she's a prime example of this. Kaelyn (19:51):Yes. So you know, for those of you who have not read this or have not seen the movies and I, dear God, Kirsten Stewart Um so one of the really common critiques of the Twilight books apart from, you know, like apart from the "dear God, why?" Was, you know, on, a literary level that Bella is an empty vessel and there's debate as to whether or not this was the intention of the author, you know, that she'd just come off as like a very plain uninteresting character with very little personality to speak of, so that young girls reading this could, you know, easily put themselves into, you know, relate to her and say, "I am just like Bella." But what is really infuriating about this character and full disclosure—I have read all of these books. I haven't read the most recent one because why would I, at this point Um one of the things that, you know, a lot of people pointed out about this that is a legitimate critique of Twilight apart from the fact that these are vampires that don't catch fire the sun, but that's fine. It's, it's fine. We don't actually see Bella do too much that would establish her personality. If you took out the fact that this is written from her perspective. And even despite the fact that it's written from her perspective, there isn't a whole lot going on with this girl. She doesn't have a whole ton of defining characteristics other than the fact that she's in love with a vampire. That is her entire personality. We're told things like she's very smart, she's very accident prone. She's very you know, she's a hard worker. Kaelyn (21:38):She's really loyal. The loyalty one, maybe we see a little bit, but I'm not sure if it's loyalty or obsession. One of the running jokes through the whole book is how accident prone she is. I, I could not come up with anything other than sometimes she bumps into people in the hallway there, so this is a good example of, you know, show me, don't tell me where and granted, here's the thing: this may have been deliberate on the part of the author, even though I said, I haven't read the newest one. So,ushe re-wrote the first book from the perspective of the shiny vampire boyfriend. Okay. Uso you're getting everything from his angle and you know what, for the sake of this podcast now, I think I'm going to have to go read this book because it would be very interesting to see Bella from outside Bella, and whether or not she seems to have a personality. And I think that's exactly what this book is. So now.. Dammit, Now I've gotta go read this book. Rekka (22:41):Well you don't HAVE to. Kaelyn (22:43):No. I have to, for the sake of science. Bella, I think is a good example of in terms of characters, "show me, don't tell me" because we just keep hearing all this stuff about her without ever actually seeing her be anything except pretty much completely passive aside from acting dramatically and irrationally when it comes to Shiny Vampire Boyfriend. Rekka (23:05):And you say, this is an effective tool to rope in a certain kind of reader. But it seems to me that if you write a compelling character, you're going to rope in a reader of any type. Kaelyn (23:18):I would hope so because here's the thing, there were, she was surrounded by compelling characters, everything around her was far more interesting than she was. Rekka (23:26):And it was just rubbing off on her, was that the idea? Kaelyn (23:29):I GUESS. You know, like I didn't, I remember talking about this with someone and they were like, "I don't understand why, you know, girls, like all of these young girls love this book so much. Like, I mean the main character is like so boring." And I said, "they're not reading it for her, the reading it for the love triangle, the reading it for Hot Werewolf Guy and Shiny Vampire Boy." Rekka (23:49):Yeah. Kaelyn (23:49):Um Bella's just a vessel to carry that story along in all of this. Rekka (23:56):It just seems like it could also be done effectively with someone who is not an empty vessel. Kaelyn (24:00):Absolutely. And that's the better story. Rekka (24:04):Okay. So getting back to the "show, don't tell," don't don't take too much to heart from the gobs and gobs of money that the Twilight series has made. Please. We would hate for you to go down that dark and disturbing path. Kaelyn (24:16):–To Make a lot of money off– Rekka (24:19):Look, if, if that's what you enjoy reading and that's how you liked your characters... I guess? Kaelyn (24:23):Hey, you know what, look, everybody like knocked Twilight for a lot of stuff. If that's just something you enjoy sitting down and reading and kind of, you know, mindlessly, or in a very engaged way, going through. Awesome. That's great. But Bella is a good example of characters that we were told about rather than shown. Rekka (24:42):Okay. So getting back to the, the origins of this, when it's handed out as advice and who's handing it out as advice and where does it come from? Where's it supposed to take you and how do you want a new writer to interpret the phrase? Kaelyn (25:02):So if I tell somebody, I never just put, you know, highlight something and say, "show don't tell me," I always put a note next to there saying like, "Hey instead of you telling me about how, you know, sharp, this sword is, have the character pick it up and slice something in half." That's way more interesting than, you know, just staring at this sword and describing it in great detail. Rekka (25:27):Although a little irresponsible. Kaelyn (25:28):Well, it depends what you're slicing in half. You know, if there was a watermelon that you were about to eat anyway, then sure. You know, Rekka (25:34):Yeah but the sword doesn't deserve to be used as cutlery! Kaelyn (25:38):Depends on the sword. Rekka (25:39):Okay. So two characters arguing over whether or not they can use the sword to cut the watermelon. "I'm Not saying it won't cut the watermelon. I'm saying that's not an appropriate use of our family's sacred sword." Rekka (25:49):"And I'm saying that we all want the watermelon. I see nothing else around except the family sacred sword. Don't you think your family would want us to have the watermelon?" Rekka (25:56):"And we'll wash it right away. We'll hang it back on the wall over the hearth. Everyone will just think we polished it. It'll look better. Everyone will be happy." Kaelyn (26:03):And then we get watermelon. Rekka (26:04):And then later, monsters attack and the edge of the sword is dull because you cut the watermelon with it and everybody dies, the end. Kaelyn (26:10):Oh. Very good Rekka. Very good. Yeah. So when I highlight these things, what I'm trying to communicate to the reader really at the core of it is either one, you were slowing down the story or two, you're missing an opportunity to contribute something to the story. Be it, you know, establishing of piece of information we didn't know before, giving the characters a chance to kind of show their feelings or their emotions a little bit you know, having an action rather than a description. The author who wrote Fight Club– Rekka (26:47):Palahniuk. Kaelyn (26:48):There you go. Chuck Palahniuk. I remember reading something that he wrote and I actually, I did go and look it up before this, and he, to remember doing exactly he said. But he doesn't like what he calls Thought Verbs thinks knows, understands, wants desires. What he's saying instead is make sure you have an Action Word in there. Kaelyn (27:14):And by that, like, instead of saying like, you know, "understands," describe what they're understanding. They smelled something and it triggered a memory and they remembered this. They, you know, reach their hand out in the dark and touch something and realized it was the centipede monster from earlier in the story. It ate both of those heroes and unow it's hiding in the dark. Rekka (27:38):He's back. Kaelyn (27:39):Yeah. He's back, the centipede monster's here forever. So, sensory and action details are a good way to avoid telling people about it because what you're doing then is you're making the character experience something and you're making them relate things to you and have to describe it. You can't just say "Rekka smelled something," you need to say, "Rekka smelled something foul. It made her nervous. It reeked of death." Because now what you're doing is you're describing what Rekka smelled. You're giving us a sense of her emotional state. And you're implying that there is probably a dead body somewhere. Rekka (28:14):Right. Kaelyn (28:15):So you're setting up the scene. Rekka (28:17):And I did find the Lit Reactor article that you're talking about with Chuck Palahniuk's words. And so "instead of characters knowing anything, present details that allow the reader to know those things" is kind of how he phrases it. So instead of a character wanting something, you have to describe the thing so that the reader wants it. In the sense of Twilight, you're putting the character in that main character's shoes, except you're not doing it by making those shoes empty for the reader to step into. You're actually tying them onto the reader's feet yourself. Kaelyn (28:50):Okay. That's– There you go. Yeah. And that's exactly what it is, is it's immersive. Every story is told from something's perspective, be it, you know, a super advanced alien life form or a somehow borderline sentient rock. They're both still experiencing things. Now they're experiencing them very differently, but that's your job to communicate in the book, and just telling us what they're experiencing is not immersing the reader. If you're a rock on Mars, just sitting there going "wow, I'm just this rock of Mars. It's really red and dusty here." Rekka (29:23):See, I thought you were going for Sylvester and the Magic Pebble when you talked about being a rock. Kaelyn (29:27):Oh, that's a good book. Rekka (29:28):That's an excellent book. Kaelyn (29:30):Scared me when I was a kid. Rekka (29:31):Scared you, really? Kaelyn (29:32):I don't know. It's just like, so for those of you who haven't read Sylvester and the Magic Pebble, first of all, go, go read that. But it's a story of a donkey who finds a magic pebble. Rekka (29:43):I think his parents give it to him. Don't they? Kaelyn (29:45):I thought he found it in a Creek and if he holds it and he realizes he can make a wish and the wish will come true. And he's being attacked by a lion at one point, and I'm not sure geographically where takes place. Rekka (30:00):It was Oatsdale, of course. Kaelyn (30:01):He's being attacked by a lion and wishes that he were a rock because the lion won't attack a rock. Except then he realizes he's dropped the pebble and he's not holding it anymore and he can't wish himself to be back from being a rock. Yeah. And he stays a rock for a really long time. Rekka (30:17):Well, that's what I'm saying, this is the point of view of a rock. Kaelyn (30:20):Yeah. But no, it's actually really sad because his parents think like he's dead and like go, you know, search for him forever. And like, they keep like standing on top of him to like search for him and sitting on him and crying about him. And it's, it's a really weird children's book. You know, so if you're, you know, as I said, the rock on Mars and you know, it's still dull, dull, boring life. And then all of a sudden robot shows up your prose and your sensory words and your, you know, way that you're experiencing, and the things that you're seeing obviously have to change in order to communicate the excitement of the rock, because "Hey, robot!" Rekka (30:58):Which you can't call to or wave to, or walk over to, or offer ice cream to. Kaelyn (31:03):Maybe it's going to pick you up to study you. Rekka (31:07):If you're lucky. Kaelyn (31:07):Yeah. And then what if, you know, you start to fall in love with the robot, but it turns out that it's not actually the robot because it's a bunch of people in NASA controlling the robot, but you don't know that. Rekka (31:16):I don't know, the robot's got algorithms. Kaelyn (31:19):Yeah. That's true. How do you fix this? How do you avoid falling into this trap? Rekka, have you ever had to kind of reconcile with this? Rekka (31:29):I was just thinking like, I wish I'd grabbed the notes, but Ryan Kelley, my editor at Parvus, when we were working on Salvage, one of the things he did was point out a few areas,uwith the one character Emeranth where some opportunities were there that I had missed to make her as clever and as caring and as smart as she could have been. And so his suggestion was something along the lines of like, "this is a great opportunity to show her doing the governing that she's forced into" and that sort of thing. Kaelyn (32:00):Yeah. That is something that I frequently make notes of is it's not even, you know, with the writers at this point that I'm getting bored, it's that you're missing an opportunity to have this person do something and, you know, be the bad-ass that you're saying they are. Be the clever person that you're saying they are, the great leader, the great fighter, the coward, you know, any, any number of these things Rekka (32:23):He said when he was pointing out a spot that needed showing, not telling he wasn't saying "show don't tell" waggling a finger and then moving on like, "Oh, my job is done. What a good editor I am." He was saying, "I would suggest that you use this to build this character into the character you say they are." And now Emeranth's scenes make me get all, like we be in shivery on the regular. So... Kaelyn (32:49):"Show don't tell" helps develop, you know, whether it be like your world building, your character, or just even your writing technique, it's going to give you a more rich style. You know, like at the most basic level you don't say you know, "Stephanie was a selfish immature entitled girl." You write a scene where Stephanie's throwing a fit because everybody forgot to throw a surprise party for her dog's half birthday. Rekka (33:20):So we talk about this broadly, we've talked about children's books, we've talked about movies, we've talked about YA books and all kinds of stuff, but are there genres in which this applies less or more like, are there expectations of like, "yeah, no, I actually just want you to get out of my way with this character and let me use them as an avatar for myself in this story." Kaelyn (33:46):I don't know if there are, genres where it's acceptable. I'll be honest with you. This is something that I think is pretty universally frowned on. This is one of the few sort of constants. You know, that said, anytime you're writing something, there's going to be instances where you have no choice but to do a little bit of quote-unquote telling you know, be it because maybe it's a really fast-paced scene and you want to keep the reader engaged and you want to keep the action going. So it's, "he parried left. She swiped, right. He ducked, she dodged they've rolled on the ground," you know, like you're. Rekka (34:20):But that's action. Kaelyn (34:21):Exactly. Yeah. Rekka (34:22):It's engaging. And if we're using Chuck Palahniuk's example, like that's exactly where you want to be, is more in the physical. So if you are telling and, but it's action beats, would you say that's better than telling in thought beats? Kaelyn (34:38):Absolutely. Yeah. Rekka (34:39):Okay. So then my question is, what role in this conversation specifically, would you say adverbs play? Kaelyn (34:49):Ooh. Rekka (34:49):I feel like there's some bleed in, you know, between the two. Kaelyn (34:52):I think adverbs are, like any other thing in life, good in moderation. You know, there's again, and this is another thing that there's a lot of people with very strong opinions about there, about– Rekka (35:05):Never ever ever use adverbs. Kaelyn (35:07):Yeah. That's impossible. Rekka (35:09):Right. Kaelyn (35:09):It's simply, it's simply, it's like not ending your sentences with a preposition, it's like just not the way the English language works. So what Rekka's referring to here is, you know, some editors and, you know, people who get all stuffed up about this stuff. Will say, I don't want to see you write "'Oh, you'll see,' Rekka said slyly.'" I want to hear "Rekka closed the laptop and turned to me with a sly smile on her face and a glint in her eye. 'Oh, You'll see,' she said." Notice how I made it not an adverb. Rekka (35:44):Yeah. By not connecting it to the say. Kaelyn (35:46):Exactly. Yes. And yeah, there is this little kind of weird nebulous area there where like, you're like, "well, I'm describing what she's doing. It's, it's kind of an action." But at the same time, you're telling me what she's doing, rather than showing me with a sly smile on her face. Rekka (36:05):That's I would point out that in the, the example, your quote-unquote correction, we also have things that ground us in the space. And so one, a person who might feel the need to tell you what everyone is thinking might also feel the need to show all the actions in the right order, what hand they're using. Like "she used her left hand to close the door while she scratched her nose with her right, with the fingertips of her right hand," you know, like being very specific about everything. Kaelyn (36:36):Yeah. That's interesting that you bring this up because what you're doing now is you're crossing into a different literary problem. We are past the "show, don't tell" and we are into the "excessively detailed for absolutely no reason." Rekka (36:47):And we will maybe talk about that in another episode. Kaelyn (36:49):Yes. But that is, that is a good point. Is that there is a certain, you know– we get past a certain telling like capacity and into the you're now describing the placement of every single thing in the room for no reason. Rekka (37:05):This is a game of twister. Kaelyn (37:05):Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Rekka (37:07):But what you did was you combined the two things to say, like, we've moved ahead with the story because the laptop has been closed or maybe "Rekka closed the laptop and grabbed her jacket. 'You'll See.'" That implies movement. Kaelyn (37:21):Yes. But you're leaving is she being threatening? Rekka (37:25):I wasn't going so much for the sly as talking about like trying to get more action in, in that sense. Kaelyn (37:29):Yeah, exactly. Rekka (37:30):In the case of being sly, then you might say "Rekka closed the laptop, grabbed her jacket and narrowed her eyes as she shut the lights off. 'You'll See.'" Or whatever. Kaelyn (37:39):Yeah. So yeah. Are there times where you have to, you will have to tell rather than show? Absolutely. Are adverbs a never use them? No, I mean, you will, at some point have to use an adverb, but they are a slippery slope to telling, not showing, even though they sound like you're doing a good job of describing something, they're really telling rather than describing, Rekka (38:00):They are skipping the cues that we want in the story and they are jumping right to the judgment. So what you're doing is you're telling the reader how to feel rather than making them feel that. But one thing you did mention earlier, real quick, that I just wanted to get back to before we wrap this up, is the idea of a fast paced scene where there's a lot of action and maybe you've just, you know, watched a Jason Statham movie and you feel like you need to really show all that action and show and describe the, say, like train– underground train tunnel they're in while they're running around chasing each other. But if stopping to describe the space they're in means that you lose that momentum, then it may still be in the physical, but it could also be more telling than we need. You know, "I nearly slipped on a loose piece of old soggy newspaper" or something like that. That's still– Kaelyn (39:02):Gross. Rekka (39:02):That brings you back into the action, increases the threat because you could fall down now, versus like "the train station had been abandoned since 1970, despite many attempts by the local politicians to renovate and drum up support for a Renaissance of the train museum, which was founded by so-and-so." Kaelyn (39:24):Yeah, Exactly. Rekka (39:26):That's world building! Kaelyn (39:27):We don't need to know all of that. Rekka (39:29):That doesn't serve your action scene with Jason Statham, who's got to get in that train car and then take off his sweater and use it to defeat his enemies. Kaelyn (39:36):Yeah. Because unless the enemy he's defeating is the corrupt politician that was siphoning money out of the budget to restore the train station. All we need to know is that has been abandoned for about 50 years. Rekka (39:46):Yeah. And some gross newspaper will communicate that better than a history lesson. Kaelyn (39:51):Just to round this out. You know, somebody comes back to you and is like, Hey, show me, don't tell me you're kind of going, "Oh, well, what the heck do I do with this?" Take a look at the sentence or the paragraph in particular that they're calling attention to and try– read it out loud, try to figure out if it sounds like the paragraph or the sentence is doing double work to you. Is it conveying more than simple statements of fact or very straightforward descriptions of what people are doing or how they appear or a feeling? Rekka (40:24):Is it a list of judgements of a thing versus list of evidence to support that judgment? Kaelyn (40:30):Yeah. I would say that, listen, this isn't, you know, we're being kind of catty about this in terms of, you know, like this is one of those universally considered bad things, but this is also very hard. This is one of the reasons why it's difficult to be a good writer. Because we, as humans are used to, when you describe something, you know, like, "Oh, I went on a date with this guy. Oh, cool. Let's say like, well he's tall and he has Brown hair and blue eyes and he's got a scar on his eyebrow. And,uhe, you know, plays the saxophone and he works as a barista." Like you're telling me, like, you're just listing this stuff about a guy who is a real living, breathing person, but that's a totally acceptable thing that we do all the time. Uyou know, a friend of mine is like, "Oh, let me tell you about my new boyfriend. I don't need poetic soliloquy about, you know, his feelings on the bass versus the alto saxophones,uand why he prefers one and the childhood trauma surrounding that. Umou know, I just like to know that he plays the saxophone. So that's a normal thing for us with how we talk and how we describe things to people in everyday life. However, when you're doing that, you're looking at your friend as they're doing that and you're and you know, says like, "'Oh, he, you know, plays the saxophone and he's a barista.' Rekka rolled her eyes. This was Kaelyn's fourth barista of the year. Second one that played the saxophone. Where was she finding these men?" But Rekka knows that that's going on in her head. Rekka (42:01):Right. But you put that in the story and suddenly there's context again. Kaelyn (42:05):Exactly. But for regular conversation, you don't need context. And hopefully if that's what Rekka's actually thinking, she's not going to start narrating her internal thoughts to me, because then I'm going to– Rekka (42:15):Oh! That's a great idea. I'm going to start doing that now. Kaelyn (42:20):Um so it's a hard thing to do just because of the way we're used to conducting ourselves in our daily life. We don't need to, you know, I don't need to describe to Rekka the fact that I'm sitting in my kitchen right now and I'm wearing a sweater because it's finally getting a little bit chilly here, but I still have some of the windows cracked open... Because one, Rekka doesn't need to know that two, she can see me in the sweater and probably see the window behind me. In stories you don't have that. So you need to make your sentences do as much work as they can, otherwise you are just describing lists of actions, emotions, and feelings. Rekka (42:57):And this might be a great opportunity to take the book that made you feel the most feelings, and give it a skim and see how their prose sounds compared to yours in areas where you're being told this needs some showing versus telling. I mean, the best thing to do is to pay more attention to people who are making you feel the way you want your reader to feel when they read your book. Rekka (43:19):"What Can I do to become a better writer? How should I get started writing?" And my first answer is always you need to read a lot. Rekka (43:25):Always. Never stop reading. Kaelyn (43:27):Really. Never stop reading, because having all of these things in the back of your head, you know, it's not stealing. Think of it as a research. How did this author, that I really liked this book, how did they handle this problem? How did they make sure, how did they grab me by, you know, the heart and really squeeze it for this one scene? Kaelyn (43:45):Like, what did they do that left me in tears here? What did they do that made me stand up and cheer? Why did I stay awake until three in the morning? Because of something I read? You know, so don't think of that as copying. It's not that I think of it as research. Rekka (44:00):Right. Cause you're not going to take their words and use them in your book. You're going to figure out what they did and find how that parallels what you're trying to do. And that's a good thing, you know? Chances are, they did that too. Kaelyn (44:15):Yeah, exactly. So anyway, I'm not sure how much advice that was on Show Don't Tell, but at least hopefully that was some information about why it is important and what people are trying to say when they point it out to you. Yeah. And if this is something you struggle with, don't feel down about that. It's hard. We don't think about practicing writing, but like you really do have to practice writing. Now granted, practicing is doing revisions, but you know, I think we think like you practice piano and then, you know, you don't really have anything to show for it at the end, but practicing can still, you know, it's the same way as like, you know, practicing cake decorating. Maybe it's not great, but you still have a decorated cake at the end of it. Rekka (44:56):Yeah. Rekka (44:57):Yeah. And you can use that to look back and say how much you've improved because your next cake has way more skill applied to it because you've learned Kaelyn (45:05):Plus cake! And even if it doesn't look pretty, maybe it tastes really good. Rekka (45:09):Exactly. You know, when you keep writing, that's how you keep improving. You're not going to sit down and plunk out one amazing novel and never write again. And it will need revision and whatever you write is going to need a second draft or is going to need at least another pass. There's little you can do to avoid that. The more that you write, the less often that you will fall upon some of these like quote-unquote rookie mistakes, you'll make all new mistakes of more advanced variety, but you will get better. And reading more, writing more, and you know, getting other people's opinions will help. There are critique groups out there on the internet, you know, that you can join and you'll get feedback of varying harshness and helpfulness, but like, it will help you. When you critique other people's work, it will help you critique your own work. Because if you can sit back and read it like you were reading someone else's work, how am I going to help this person understand what I'm trying to say I think it needs? Because sometimes you need to rubber ducky your own thoughts a little bit. Kaelyn (46:18):You know, at the end of the day, you hope that you get to a point where somebody puts a note in there of show, don't tell and you go, Oh, of course, right. You don't just sit down and be awesome at writing. That's not how this works. As I said, hopefully that at least kind of clear some of the mystery around the "show, don't tell me." Rekka (46:38):Hopefully clear some of the frustrations so that, you know, when you see those words, if they aren't paired with concrete advice, then you can back up and take a look from, you know, a little bit further away from where it is in your mind and say, "okay, what, what do I think I'm communicating that I'm not communicating?" Kaelyn (46:58):Exactly. Rekka (46:58):Because that's what it comes down to a lot of the times, it's like, okay, you say this person's great. Or you say this monster is scary, but – Kaelyn (47:04):You know that in your head for these reasons and you're not showing it to me, the reader. Rekka (47:09):Yep. Kaelyn (47:09):Well, I think that's, that's pretty much it. I guess that's what we got there. Rekka (47:12):We did manage to go on at length, despite me thinking it was going to be pretty straightforward. I got a whole bunch of these really straightforward quickie episodes planned that are going to be at least the normal length, if not longer. So if you're looking forward to those, make sure that you are subscribed to the podcast. If you have questions about any other kinds of editing tips that you've received in your manuscripts that you were like, "what, what?" Kaelyn (47:35):What is this note? Rekka (47:36):"Kaelyn, Explain this to me, please. Tell me I don't have to do whatever this is saying. "I Think did it say rewrite? Is it saying revise? No, I don't want to just tell me it's perfect." if you have any questions for us about these random topics that editors mark up in your manuscripts, and you're not really sure what they mean, or you want to know how to avoid them in the future, or advice you see that you still don't quite understand, just let, let us know, for sure, @WMBcast on Instagram or Twitter. Kaelyn (48:09):We like, we like these episodes. These are fun. Rekka (48:10):And we love to answer questions and we love to help people. So let us help you. And hopefully we have helped you. And if you feel that we have, you could really help us out by sharing these episodes with a friend who might be interestedUm do make sure that you're subscribed and not just clicking the link that we post on social media because having more subscribers helps other subscribers potentially find us. And also um, really helpful in getting subscribers to find us is to leave a rating and review on Apple podcasts or, you know, generally any review is helpful anywhere, but the Apple podcasts really seems to still have the corner on the market for that. Kaelyn (48:46):That's very true. Rekka (48:46):And, and if you are super, super appreciative and want to show that with currency, in gratitude or in an expression of the editor's fees we've saved you, you can go to patreon.com/WMBcast. We are not trying to steal the work from the professionals. We love all editors, present company included. Kaelyn (49:07):Thank you. Rekka (49:08):We will talk to you in two weeks. Kaelyn (49:10):Thanks for listening, everyone. Rekka (49:11):Thanks everyone.

Hi everyone, and thank you for tuning in to another episode of the We Make Books Podcast - A podcast about writing, publishing, and everything in between! We Make Books is hosted by Rekka Jay and Kaelyn Considine; Rekka is a published author and Kaelyn is an editor and together they are going to take you through what goes into getting a book out of your head, on to paper, in to the hands of a publisher, and finally on to book store shelves. We Make Books is a podcast for writers and publishers, by writers and publishers and we want to hear from our listeners! Hit us up on our social media, linked below, and send us your questions, comments, concerns, and tell us your favorite novel covers! We hope you enjoy We Make Books! Twitter: @WMBCast  |  @KindofKaelyn  |  @BittyBittyZap Instagram: @WMBCast  Patreon.com/WMBCast   Episode 45: Formatting Cover Art for Publication transcribed by Sara Rose (@saraeleanorrose)   [0:00] R: Welcome back to another episode of We Make Books, a podcast about writing, publishing, and everything in between, and this episode definitely leans more toward the publishing end of things and cement boots and everything. Right down, drowning you in information.    I’m Rekka, I write science fiction and fantasy as R.J. Theodore and Kaelyn’s making a face at me.   K: I’m Kaelyn and, uh… My job is to make sure that Rekka maintains her sanity a little bit while trying to explain very, very complicated things here.   R: I’m totally sane. The question is, am I making myself understood?   K: Yes, this is sort of rounding out our discussions on cover and book art. We’re getting into the technical nitty-gritty of how you now take a lovely picture, that someone has done for you, and actually get it on the cover of a book so that it looks right.   R: We are going into the weeds! A wild book-cover template has appeared!   [K laughs]   R: How do you make it become your friend?   K: So Rekka is particularly disposed to talk in great detail about this because Rekka is a designer. This is one of the things that Rekka does. Beyond just knowing how to set up and lay these things out. Rekka knows a lot about color and composition and accounting for how things look on a screen versus how they look in print, and how all of these terrifying details actually work.   R: There’s so much information that I wanted to communicate. I hope I do a good job. I hope it’s clear, I hope it’s not overwhelming. I feel like this is important, because there’s a lot of stuff that, just generally, people don’t understand about the process and when they have a cover illustration that they’ve commissioned, the now what? This is the episode for the, “Now what?”   K: I think the key takeaway from this cover art and artwork series we’ve been doing, is this is way more complicated than you ever thought it was. I’ll leave it at that. [K laughs]   R: Yeah, and I struggle to allow the word complicated. It’s just, it is a specialty.   K: Yeah.   R: I mean, every step of this process is a specialty. You, the author, are exercising your specialty in writing, and then an editor exercises their specialty in editing, and then a copyeditor does theirs, and then a cover artist creates a cover with their specialty, and then a designer uses their specialty to lay out the book and the cover. And these are all specialized parts of a process that, in the past, have been teams of people. In this day and age, where we expect to be able to self-publish and Do It All Ourselves has become less of a specialty-based thing and more of a I Can Do This Myself, I Am Empowered, therefore I should do this myself. Which, you know, should you? It’s… ehh. Listen to this episode, I dunno, you decide.   K: As we say many times here, it’s not easy and there’s a lot more that goes into this than you would think. So, Rekka, takes us through all of that. I think this is a really good resource episode. So take a listen, hope you enjoy, and we’ll see you on the other side of the music.   [into music plays]   K: Speaking of looking at things—   [R and K burst into laughter]   R: That’s tenuous at best.   K: Not all of my transitions are good ones, Rekka.   R: Maybe the worst ones are the prize ones, though.   K: Hey, look, radar displays images in certain ways, we’re talking about displaying images in certain ways today. No… alright.   R: It’s so weak. It’s so weak.   K: Come back to me.   R: No, don’t. Can we just move on?   [K laughs]   R: So we spent September talking to you—well, August and September, a little bit, with one small deviation, talking to you about cover art. So one thing that I’m always good for is a long, droning episode about how you would formal something. So we thought about, maybe, for people who have received cover art that they’ve commissioned, how do you now turn that into a file that you can upload and provide to a printer, to create a book cover?   K: This is kinda the last step, if you will. You’ve got this file and you’re ready to have a book printed. Now, there’s a few things here.   R: The first point is, you’re not ready to have a book printed. Not yet.   K: All of the real fun, especially difficult technical stuff, really comes from, then, trying to figure out how to get this on a cover where it’s not accidentally zoomed in on a square of a hundred pixels and all you can see is the corner of one of the letters from the title.   R: This is why we don’t let Kaelyn format the covers.   K: Look, stuff happens sometimes, Rekka. [Both laugh] So, Rekka, as we’ve—hopefully, if you listen to this show regularly, you know by now Rekka is a designer by trade… is it by trade?   R: I am technically a designer by trade. Yeah. I chose this on purpose.   K: And knows how to do all of this stuff. And you will notice that I said Rekka is a designer. Rekka has a degree in this. I am saying this because this is not easy to do.   R: At the very least, it is easy to mess up.   K: Yes! Yes. So, Rekka, I am a cover artist. I have sent you files. Probably multiple files, actually.    R: Um, well, that depends on our contract.   K: Yup.   R: You’re going to get a file, either with or without your cover lettering already in place. As we’ve talked about in past episodes, in the past few weeks, the cover artist may also do text treatment for you, or you may need to find a designer to do that for you.    The file format that you receive is going to be dependent on what was agreed upon, and part of why I started with whether or not it has text in it is because if you need to manipulate that text in the future, you really hope that you have a layered file from your cover artist. And by layered file, I’m talking, probably, about a .psd file or a .tiff with layers. More likely, you’ll get a .psd. I think, unfortunately, Adobe’s got the stranglehold on the market and their filetype with layers, by default, is .psd.    If you’ve got a .tiff I would find a way to open it and check really, really soon because you do wanna make sure that that text treatment is on its own layer. Because every time I’ve received a file from a cover artist with text in it, it’s not in a good position for the final layout file.   K: And just to be clear, and part of the reason I was asking this is, if you’re planning to do stuff to this and mess around with this, and you don’t have Adobe, and it’s a .psd, you’re not really gonna be able to do a whole lot with this.   R: Right, you’re still gonna need to be able to open the file and that means Adobe. And if you only open Adobe files when you’re preparing your cover for the final, live version that’s going to go on the cover, you can subscribe to Adobe and get Creative Cloud for a month and then cancel after you’ve gotten what you needed to and then come back the next time you have a cover.   K: Mhm.   R: If you are an author who’s releasing ten books a year because you self-publish, you probably are going to need to have a running subscription with Adobe. I would definitely suggest that you, well, okay, so here’s the thing. If you know that you don’t know what you’re doing with this, pass it on to a graphic designer.   K: Yeah, so let’s be clear right from the start here. This is coming from me, who, I have very limited experience and ability, with Photoshop, with .psd files. Dealing with this, even just sometimes I had opened files for books just because I needed to check something, and I have never been more afraid to click on things before in my life.    R: You should be afraid. Definitely be afraid. If you don’t know what clicking on something will do, be afraid.    K: I just wanna emphasize, you know, for Rekka, she looks at this and she knows everything that she’s looking at. The widgets, the buttons, the gloopity-globs, and what they do. I look at this and just see lines on top of lines on top of objects, that if I move something now and the entire thing is ruined.   This is not easy. I think we think like, “Oh, it’s Photoshop, whatever. I do that and make memes all the time.” This is not the same thing.    R: Um. Depends on how lovely your memes are. I mean, if you really get complicated you might be already half-way to doing your own title treatment.   So when you get a file from an artist, anybody else who’s created it, they’re probably going to have done so in their own mannerisms. The way you would create a .psd file is not necessarily the way someone else will create a .psd file. So you have to take a minute to acclimate yourself to their thought process. So you have to find where they hide the layers that have text on them. You have to hope that they labeled layers with filters so that you understand what that filter was trying to do for the image itself.   K: And, by the way, if you’re going, “What the heck are layers?” Do not try to do this by yourself.   R, giggling: Yeah.   So you’re probably not going to get a lot of layers, like all of the artist’s layers, because again, they might be illustrating digitally and so they do a little bit of touch-up on one layer and when they got what they wanted and it looks the way they wanted it to, then they flatten it to the layer below so it’s not just like a tiny little glob of whatever color they were working in that could accidentally be removed from the other thing if you start moving elements around.   [10:00] R, continuing: So, the file you receive from your artist is likely going to be a flat illustration, unless you arranged otherwise, like I said in the episode with… Colin, I think. When I commissioned Julie Dillon to do the Flotsam cover, I did specifically ask for certain things to be on their own layers so that I could use them as elements in a video and move them around a little bit, just for some subtle motion.K: I’ll jump in here with the non-designer take on this. For those of you listening at home, and you know I joked earlier if you’re going, “What the heck are layers?” If you are wondering what this is, in an Adobe Photoshop file, certain—whether they be colors, images, objects, text they’re on what’s called layers. And they’re literally images or, well images primarily, stacked on top of each other. And—    R: Think of them like transparency sheets. So if there are colored pixels on that transparency sheet, that layer, then you will see something, and if there are no colored pixels on that layer you won’t see anything, unless it is the background, in which case it is the background color that’s set for that document.   K: Yeah, so each of these—so these layers, when they get stacked on top of each other and, as Rekka said, when they’re flattened, what that means is you’ve taken all the layers and pressed them down into one new layer altogether, at that point. Now those objects are bonded together for the rest of their lives.   R: For life, yeah.   K: And there’s no separating them.   R: So the artist probably has a version of that file with layers, and what they sent you was flattened because you asked for an illustration, you didn’t ask for the entire process. It’s not show-your-work, it’s please-provide-me-with-an-illustration. So if you did get lettering on it, if you’ve got your title treatment from the artist, it’s probably on its own layer, one hopes, and you hope because the artist isn’t working with your cover template and they don’t know your final spine width and they don’t know all the text that you might need to put on there.   So, hopefully, they’ve put it on a layer so you can move it around a little bit after the fact. Because, like I’ve said, I have gotten many covers from clients where the text was already in place and it was too close to the edge when I sized things up for the final print version. Because you need some space to be able to trim off the edge. Because if you don’t have image past the edge of the paper, then you get a white like around the edge rather than a nice, crisp end that comes in the middle of the image. So you want your trim to be smaller than your image size, and you also have margins around the outside and you want the title, usually, to be centered on the front cover. But if it’s too close to the outside margins, then the only thing you have left to do is make sure that you have enough resolution that you can enlarge it so it centers, but then it might be too big—   [K laughs]   R: So if you’re stuck with an image where the lettering is on the same layer as your illustration, you’re probably going to run into trouble. So, when you open up your file that you get from your artist, that’s one of the things to check. Make sure that the titling can be edited separately from that background illustration. And, if it can’t, write them back real quick. Hopefully it was in your contract. I bought a fifty-dollar premade cover, just as a placeholder for something, that I wanted to deal with later. And the text was provided and it was eBook shaped only. It was vertical, it wasn’t a full wrap-around cover. And the text was not editable in my file and I was like, “Oh. Now I know why it was so cheap,” because I wasn’t getting a file I could really work with.   Colin also mentioned, in that episode, make sure you are allowed to edit that file as you need to.   K: That’s exactly what I was gonna say is, Rekka, some people are probably wondering, “Okay, well, why wouldn’t they just send me the layers and, if I know how to do this, let me flatten everything myself?” And you know, the thing is, as we talked about in the real cover art episode, this is this artist’s work. They don’t want to give you something that you’re going to mess around with to the point that they’re not okay with their name being on it anymore.   R: Right, right. You know, if you have an illustration that’s on one layer and then you’re just messing around with the text that you probably—   K: Wrote anyway.   R: Yeah, well you were slightly involved in picking the font or whatever. Then, chances are they’re going to give you that title treatment, at least. Now the text might not be editable, so you might not be able to say, “Whoops, I gave you a typo and now it needs to get fixed.” You might have to go back to them for that, and then pay them more because that’s your fault.   So, you hope that you get to at least move the text around so that you can make small adjustments later. The next thing that I would check is your print size versus your resolution because it is possible to get a 300 dpi image, 300 is standard printing high resolution, but it’s also possible for that image to only be four inches across, which is smaller than you need for your wrap-around cover.   It’s still 300 dpi, so if you only specify 300 dpi, who knows what you’re getting? You need it to have a certain print size. So it’s probably going to be 8 ½ - 9 inches, 10 inches, depending on your cover size. If you have a 6x9 cover, you need to make room for the spine, you need to make room for the back cover, you need to make room for the trim size and the bleed. So your 6x9 cover is probably going to be something more like 13 ½ x 9 ¼ overall.   K: Rekka… you just threw out a lot of terms there. All of which—   R: Nah, it’s fine. Everyone understands what I mean.   K: No, well, all of which seemed to relate to the anatomy of a book!   R: Yeah.   K: So, backtracking to that, this is something—you’re not getting an image that then you just slap on into a template and then it prints the book. As, Rekka said, there’s the back cover, the spine, the front cover, there’s bleed. I’ll let Rekka talk more about what bleed is. But then, you have to think about, you have to line up everything that—Okay, I want this on the front cover, I want this on the spine, I want this on the back cover. Then, of course, there’s also: Is this a paperback or hardback book? And then that starts to get tricky. R: Hopefully, you’ve made all of these decisions before you hired your artist so that you could give them this information.   K: Yes, yes.   R: Because, as we’ve mentioned in the past, if you have a dust jacket with a wraparound inside flap on both ends, now suddenly you need an extra six inches on your landscape image that your artist is giving you. And that’s a much bigger image and they might charge you extra for it, and that would totally be reasonable because you’re asking them to create more. And it’s almost another back cover, so it’s like a wraparound around.   K: But there was another word, Rekka, that we talked about—one of my favorites—the bleed. What’s that?   R: Um. Sadly it’s not about blood...letting.   K: Yeah, sort of disappointing—I mean, it is actually, in an abstract way, kind of some blood-letting.   R: Well, there are blades involved. Basically, you don’t want your image to only be exactly the size of the cover, you want the cover image to extend past the area you’re actually going to use, and then they trim off the extra. And what they trim off is considered the bleed, and that’s usually a standard amount of extra image that they require and, typically, it’s about an eighth of an inch all the way around.   K: So let’s say this is a paperback book—   R: Mhm.   K: —and they’re getting, they’re printing whatever is sent to them.   R: Yeah.   K: This is, assuming that a human looks at this before somebody takes it out of a box to read it—    R: And these days, with POD, there’s probably not a human looking at it.   K: Yeah, exactly. Printing presses, yes, they’ve changed a lot, but really they haven’t changed all that much because it’s stacking up pieces of paper, putting them in this cover. The edges are not going to be uniform on a lot of these. They’re gonna be close, but maybe not exact, so you’ve got this giant cutting device coming down and slicing the edges off.   R: Three edges, not all four.        K: It’s gonna be like, “Listen, I know you wanted a book, but here’s a pile of loose paper that’s kind of in the same order, I guess?” Pick up a paperback, or even really a hardback book, if you look you’ll see marks on the side of it where you can tell where the paper was cut.   But what this bleed is providing, extra background essentially. Nothing that is central focus to the cover, be they pictures, people, or words, should be in the bleed area.   R: There’s a safety area away from the edge where things are going to get trimmed off because there is no guarantee that the trim is going to be perfect every time, so you want to make sure that if it wiggles, and I think they allow for, like… they promise you a hundredth of an inch but it’s really more like a tenth of an inch and the wiggle is different every time.   K: Yes.   R: Especially for POD. You want to make sure that your text is well-enough away, not just so that it doesn’t get trimmed off, but that it still looks like it's in the position you wanted it in when the whole book is assembled and trimmed and standing free.    K: And this is exactly why I’m terrified of this. There have been times that I’ve had to order short runs of advance copies of books and I’m messaging Rekka like, “Is this right??? Is this right??? It doesn’t look right!! Why is there so much black around the side??” “No, that’s supposed to be there, Kaelyn.” “Are you sure????”   [R laughs]   It was very stressful.    R: Yeah, if you saw the flat file for an ARC copy where we have the ribbon across the top in a special color to make it stand out as an ARC and it has the date and everything like that. When you’re looking at the flat file, it looks like that text is not centered because of the bleed above it and around the edges.   K: Yeah, it’s very disorienting and I was a little worked up. So, Rekka, let’s say you either know how to do this, you’ve done it yourself, or you’ve hired a designer to do it for you. You’re gonna send these files to a printer. Let’s say you’re gonna do print-on-demand. What are some things you need to know about the files? Before you’re sending them and then when you’re getting something back?   R: Right, so if you’ve already checked that you can move your stuff around and maybe you’ve already positioned it so you can, I definitely recommend, if you know how you’re doing your print-on-demand, that you use that same service to get a proof print right away.   K: Mhm. Yeah.    R: And it’s trickier with Amazon because I don’t think you can do it until you submit your final files because they don’t want to spend a whole bunch of time correcting things in the printing process for you. So if you’re sending through KDP, before you publish your book, it’s covered with Do Not Sell or Print-Proof or Author Copy Only, or some kind of text. And it’s very sad looking. It’s hard to get excited about looking at your print proofs from Amazon.    You can go through IngramSpark—   K: Or Lulu.    R: You can go through Lulu. So IngramSpark is actually a book distributor, so if you go through IngramSpark, you can get those books into Barnes and Noble, libraries, whoever orders it from a catalog, they’ll go through the Lightning Source catalog and they will get the IngramSpark version of your book. If you upload to Amazon, nobody else is gonna buy that book because they know Amazon’s profiting from it.   K: Yep.   R: What I do, is I distribute for Amazon through KDP and I distribute everywhere else through IngramSpark. So, if you go through IngramSpark, you know that’s how it’s going to get printed when it goes out to other bookstores. If you go through Lulu, unless you decide that you’re gonna set up a Lulu storefront and actually sell your books through Lulu, you are getting an idea of how it’s going to look. But Lulu’s printers are not Lightning Source’s printers are not KDP’s printers.    So the colors might not be exact. So if you have a really exacting eye for color, you’re gonna want to get as close to the final printer as you can. And that’s what it is. But there is something that you do want to be looking for, and this is why I suggest you send it off, even if you send it off to Lulu at first, and that’s how the colors are going to shift from what you see on your screen to what comes out on paper, because your screen is backlit. So all the colors on your screen are built using red, green, and blue (RGB) light.    K: Yes, and this is exactly what I was going to say, is Rekka, why is it so important to see what this looks like once it’s actually printed?   R: Because everything you’ve seen on your screen, on your devices, everything backlit is subtractive light and everything you see on paper is additive light. So paper is made with cyan, magenta, yellow, and black ink (CMYK). Sometimes you have two different shades of yellow and two different shades of magenta, to get extra rich depth of color. It depends on your printer. When you look at light coming out of your screen, the light is the image coming into your eye.   K: Yes.   R: When you look at paper, the image is the light reflecting off that paper into your eye. And they are not perceived the same way.   K: Think about if you have a smart TV or even a digital picture frame and you put, you know, pictures up there. You’ll notice that they look different than if you printed them.   R: Mhm.   K: Let’s say, not even just you got the pictures printed at CVS.   R: But even a print from a photo shop is going to look different than the version you see on your screen. The colors. The darker colors might be more dark, but the neon colors might not be as neon. So it’s not like colors get more by being printed. Some colors look better as backlit and other colors look better as printed.    K: In my experience with this, what I found is that if you want colors to be very vibrant printed, you need to over-vibratize them before they go to print.   R: So certain colors just will not print in a four-color process. So when you get your file and if you’ve either hired a designer who has Photoshop, or you have Photoshop, you want to take this file that they sent you and look for the gamut warning. And the gamut warning will emphasize the image areas where the colors are out of gamut. And what this means is like, “ink ain’t gonna do that. Now, a gamut’s not gonna tell you how they’re gonna shift. It’s just gonna tell you which colors just aren’t gonna happen.   K: There’s a reason that we have so many animated movies that are meant to look like traditional, flat animation but are actually done by computers. Because you can get a richer color and texture in there. You can emphasize—you can brighten and emphasize certain things, as opposed to, there is a certain limit to what you can do with a piece of paper and a paintbrush. Or a printer, in this case.    R: You think about Batman: The Animated Series. The reason that that animated series looks so different from so many of the cartoons that were happening at the same time, is because that was done on black paper—  K: Yes.   R: —versus everyone else who started on white paper. So these are just things to know that, you know, understand how light and color and reflections versus projections, and all this kind of stuff, how they work. It doesn’t really help you if you have a color out of gamut, though.    K: Yeah.   [25:53]  R: The only thing you can do is take that back to the artist and say, “This color. I love what you did,” make sure you’re complimentary, “I love what you did, but this color isn’t going to work. How do we push this so that we get the same effect without changing the color entirely?” I mean, sometimes the only thing to do is change the color, but sometimes you can shift things.    So if it’s supposed to be a neon green, but you’re not gonna get that neon green out of a print press, what you can do is darken the areas around it and try to make it look more neon than it actually is by contrast. This is stuff the artist is gonna know. You don’t have to tell them the solution. Just say, “Hey, this area’s out of gamut, if I print this, it’s not going to look as good as you made this look on screen.”   Because chances are, if you get a file from your artist, they were working in RGB because you want them to work in RGB. Even though this print book will be printed in CMYK, the colors on screen for CMYK mode are not accurate, so when you work on screen, adjusting colors, you adjust them in RGB.   So this artist probably sent you an RGB file. So you can go back to them and say, “I need this to work in print, please.”   K: A good cover artist will know what this is and what they need to account for, when creating this stuff—   R: Or an experienced cover artist, you know? Someone might be an amazing illustrator but not really understand how a printing press works, if they haven’t worked with printing things themselves. Now, if they’ve ever worked printing posters of their work, they’ve probably run into this before. It’s incredibly frustrating. But it can be adjusted.    So you work with them and, frankly, you get your final cover art and sometimes it’s the first time you’ve seen these colors in this image. So it’s not out of the question to come back and say, “These colors are a problem because, as we’ve described in the contract, this is for print as well as eBook. I need this to look good in print,” and they’re not gonna want it to look crappy in print, either.   K: Yeah, of course not. Their name is on it.   R: Yeah, they might have asked you for a copy, you know? And they want to put it on their shelf and they wanna be proud of it. But one thing you can do, to improve the way color looks, is choose the finish on your paper when you are setting up your cover. That’s something that you can sort of do to brighten colors or adjust colors based on an effect that you want. I think you’ll see spot lamination sometimes on offset printing presses and such because it can do this and it looks really nice.   So we’ve looked at resolution and print size, and we’ve checked for gamut warnings. Hopefully now your image is all set, you know it’s the right size. It’s going to print out without pixelating and it’s going to print out without color-shifting too much. And now you want to actually set it up for layout because during this process you’ve also been working on the book.   You’ve probably gotten your copy edits back. You’ve been making adjustments. You had to add a chapter. You realized your glossary wasn’t in the file. You’re finally getting to the point where you’re like, “Alright, this thing’s ready to go.”   K: Ha. I am… coming close to being maybe done with this.   R: I sure hope.   [K laughs]   R: So you have your final page count and now you can get your final spine width. And once you have your final spine width, then you can really make this cover done. Because up until the point where you know your final spine width, everything is just guessing or adjustments or whatever. You might have sent it off to print through Lulu and you had a slightly less done version of the manuscript that you wanted to see in print, and sort of see what this might look like, even if it wasn’t the final. Now you have the final manuscript and you know this is gonna be 495 pages.   K: Yep.   R: This is what it’s going to be, because I am so done with this.    And now you go to your printer and you say—   K: “Hello, here is this thing that I am sick of looking at. Can you give it physical form so I can look at it all the time?”   R: Well, yes, but you do need to know that spine width. So the way that you calculate spine width is by taking the pages per inch of the paper stock that you’ve selected. Now, this is… I’m starting with the nitty gritty and I’m starting with the off-set printing method where you actually have a relationship with the printer and you have chosen a paper stock.   K: Yes.   R: And they tell you it is this many pages per inch. You take your total page count and you divide it by your pages per inch.   K, exhausted: Rekka, you didn’t tell me there was gonna be math involved in this.   R, sympathetic: I know, I know. I was a graphic designer. I wasn’t supposed to have to do math. But I have to do math with alarming frequency. I’m gonna pull up some actual specs. How’s that sound?   K: Uh, while Rekka’s looking up some… some specs here. So when we went to the Nebulas last year, we wanted to get some advance copies of Salvage to hand out there, except that the printer that we normally go through was not going to be able to have them finished and shipped directly to the hotel in time. So instead, what we did was we found a local printer in Los Angeles, had them print it and then they actually just delivered it right to the hotel. They didn’t even need to ship it. Except that they used a really, really nice paper.   R: It was so nice.   K: Beautiful. It was gorgeous. The book ended up about an inch thicker than the actual finished book because the thickness of the paper was so much bigger.   R: I’m pretty sure we have photos of this on Instagram somewhere already.   K: Probably. We have joked about this a lot, yeah.   R: So, a sixty-pound paper, and I’m not even gonna go into how they determine what’s a pound of paper, that is listed on these specs, is 435 pages per inch. So your 495 page book is divided by 435 fo the pages per inch, and the resulting spine width—I go for the thousandth—so 1.137 and that will give you your spine width. So in the center of your page layout is your 1.137 inch-wide rectangle which represents your spine. (This is in your template.) And to either side of that, you’re going to add the width of your total trim size.    So my books are 5 ½ inches by 8 ½ inches, so the width is 5 ½ and you add that to that number twice, and now you have your total width of your cover, if it were flat and had no pages inside it.   K: So what you’re getting, then, is if I pulled the cover off a book—   R: Don’t you dare.   K: I would never. But if I did. If I was a soulless monster and I did that and I laid it out flat, that is the total measurements of what this is.   R: From right to left.   K: Okay.   R: Okay. So that is the spine width, plus the cover of the trim size. In your image itself, or your layout file, you’re going to have to crop out parts of the image that don’t fit because most artists don’t give you exactly the right size. Because you don’t know your spine width. They’re just going to give you a roughly book-shaped thing from their experience. I’ve gotten final cover art from people, as I said, from clients, and they give me the final cover art from the artist, and they give you too much space. And you want too much space, but you are going to have to decide where that space is coming off from in your final layout.   So what I use is a program called InDesign, and I set my InDesign layout to the trim size, 11.758 and I’m just giving you these hard numbers—if you’re trying to follow along and you actually try to create the file, you’ll see what I mean. So that’s the width, and the height is the height of the book trim size, for my books like I said. They’re 5 ½ wide by 8 ½ tall, trimmed. So my trim size is 8 ½ tall.   K: It’s funny because we’re throwing out all these measurements and there are people probably sitting at home going, “Oh, okay, so that’s a book size.” If you own a lot of books, like I do, I want you to go to your bookshelf and try to figure out how many of those books are exactly the same size.   R: Right.   K: There really isn’t a standard size for books. And some of them—I’ve seen books that, sometimes the book is a little taller than what I would normally expect of a book and I imagine that’s because it was a really big book and they wanted to maybe have to minimize some of the pages because those start to get expensive to print after a while.   R: I mean, that’s where the 6x9 trade paperback size came from, is an attempt to reduce the paper needed to fill a book.   K: Mhm.   R: If you have large print books, you’re going to find that they’re generally also larger-sized because that reduces the need for paper once you increase the font size and it takes more pages to tell the story.   [35:06]    K: That said, though, that’s the reason why they’re more expensive.   R: Yeah, and you don’t want it to feel cramped just because you got a larger font size. So, yeah, you pick your book size by going through your bookshelves and finding a book that feels like you want your book to feel. In your hand, what size, and all that kind of stuff.   I picked 5 ½ by 8 ½ and the process that I’ve described is how a layout for that size book, with this thickness of paper that we’re discussing, is how that would work. And it’s going to be different the more of these elements that you change and go with, you know, different options.   Just to finish setting up this file, the trim size is the size of the file layout. I also specify in my file set-up that I want an eighth of an inch, .125, bleed all around the edge.   K: Mhm.   R: Then, when you output the file, you can specify that you want to include the bleed and add crop marks and all the things that the printer needs. And that will be in their specifications, so you want to pay attention to the specifications for the printer you are using because they’re all different.    Some are very similar, but they’re also all different.   K: They’re not all—it’s snowflakes.    R: Yeah. So if you’re using a printer and you know who they are, I would definitely suggest you just go and see if they have a template. If you’re using an off-set printer, then that printer will help you set up a file. If you are going with IngramSpark or KDP or Lulu, they will all provide you with a cover template. There’s usually a form and you put in what paper you choose, what binding size you’re going with, and how many pages you have and they’ll give you a file that you can use to set this up.   K: Yeah, they’ll do the calculations for you, essentially.   R: Yeah, and they you can take that and you can either use those calculations in a custom file that you set up, or give it to your designer and they will either use that or set up their own file the way they like it set up.   Now you have this layout and, let me tell you, the spine should be centered in it. If your spine is slightly off-center, then your spine is going to be slightly off-center, and I don’t mean the part of the book that folds, I mean where your title in the spine shows up will be off-center. So, the easiest thing to do is just start from the spine and work your way out.   K: Books and people, we want the spines to be nice and centered.   R: And then, again, go to your books on your shelf and take a ruler and measure how far things are from the edge of the book. How far they are from the edge of the folds. How wide the title is across. How far away the byline is. Stuff like that. Use that to guide you if this is your first time doing it—but if it’s your first time doing it—   K: If all of this sounds really complicated to you, it is. And maybe consider paying someone to do it for you. R: There is nothing wrong with recognizing that the amount of time it would take to learn to do something properly is worth a certain amount of money to you.   K: Absolutely.   R: It’s absolutely true.   K: And by the way, if you decide, “Hey, you know what? I’m gonna do this a lot, I really just wanna learn this,” there’s online classes. There’s ways, there’s tutorials, there’s resources out there to do this. That said, you can watch all of the tutorials and YouTube videos you want, if you can’t draw a straight line using a ruler, maybe this isn’t the right thing for you to be doing.   R: I’ve always said that somebody shouldn’t make the first website they build a website for a client. And I don’t think you should make the first cover you print, the launch of your debut novel. You know?   K: Yeah, well. R: There are other things to consider for your cover, such as—we’ve already mentioned what if it’s a hardcover with a jacket?   K: Mhm.   R: Then there’s something to consider, which is the stamped cloth underneath that jacket. What is that going to look like? Are you going to go for foil printing? Are you going to go for UV printing? Are you going to go for embossing? What other treatments are going to happen to your cover? And then you need to pick a printer who’s capable of doing them. And you’re also going to need to be able to provide them with any of those stamps they need, you need to give them a guide of what that’s going to look like.   Now, if they are a very full-service, off-set, traditional art house printer, they may include all of these kinds of decisions and such in their pricing of their package to you. But you need to know what’s on you to come up with and what’s on them, if it’s print-on-demand, they expect you to provide everything.   K: Yeah, and just to be clear, when Rekka’s talking about an off-set printer, this is somebody who you’re going to, in theory, do a run of books with. You’re not doing one here, you’re doing like five hundred.   R: At least.   K: At least. Minimum. Yeah. And in that case, you’re gonna have somebody at the printer who gets these files and looks at them and checks and goes, “What about this? What about this?”   You’re gonna have sort of a consultant there, if you will.   R: Yeah, they’re gonna give you paper samples and you’re gonna feel them and you’re gonna go, “Oh my gosh! That paper manages to feel like leather, how did you do that?” Those aren’t options you’re going to get from even IngramSpark who will do a hardcover with a jacket wrap for you, print-on-demand, but print-on-demand is not going to give you these bespoke, very luxurious options that you can get from an off-set printer. Like, Saga Press has some amazing covers and they also do amazing things with the print treatment of them.   So if any of the books on your shelf are Saga Press, just go hold them, you know?   K: Yeah, just to be clear. I apologize, I think we didn’t quite define this at the start of this episode. If you’re unaware, POD is print-on-demand, it is the most expensive way to generate a book because what’s happening is someone is going online and saying, “I want to buy this book. I want it in paperback.” And if it’s set up for print-on-demand, it’s just going into a computer, essentially, where it’s saying, “Yes, one of Book ABC,” printing it, going into a box, and being mailed to someone.    It is very possible the first person to physically handle that book will be the person that bought it.   R: Right.   K: There’s no quality check there, there’s no control, there’s no consultation with a printer.   R: I mean, there’s supposed to be, but let’s be real.   K: There’s not. So, just be aware. Look, print-on-demand is a fantastic thing that’s really made it great for a lot of self-published and small prints.   R: Indie, yeah.   K: Indie. To get paperback, and even hardcover in some instances, books out into the hands of their readers. But it is not the same as going for making a large print run where you actually sit down and talk with someone and design this and figure out what the book is gonna look like.   R: You could always take this to an off-set printer. A printer in your area will happily print your book project for you, and any time in the future, past, present. But POD meant you could list it on Amazon and not have to pay upfront for warehousing and printing for this book. Because if you keep the book at a distributor, you’ve gotta pay that distributor to hold onto your book because that’s precious space they could be filling with New York Times Bestsellers, you know?   Print-on-demand meant you didn’t need to pay for warehousing for copies that may or may not ever sell. And you’ve heard the stories of people who had their own books printed and then they sat in the garage for years until they’d discovered they’d gone moldy and they threw ‘em all out, or they just moved and threw ‘em all out because they weren’t selling.   There was a time when printing your own book meant you were hand-selling out of the back of your car, or taking them to events and trying to sell as many copies as you could, just to get rid of them basically, to get your life back, get your house back kinda thing. So POD has made all of that a luxury. People who can afford it might still do that, but you don’t have to anymore.   So, yes. A copy of your book might suddenly jump from $1.36 to print, to more like $5.46 to print and that all comes out of your cut, but it still gives you a share of the profit, as opposed to, “Well, my garage still has 736 more copies. I haven’t profited on this book yet.” You know?   K: Yeah.   R: Obviously, there’s a lot more to this than I’ve described. I apologize, it’s hard for me to describe it because I do a lot of it automatically these days. And a lot of it also depends on the book itself. So the page count, the trim size, the treatments you’ve decided on and how late in the game you’re doing all of this.   K: Yeah.   R: But what I do recommend is that at any point that you are stopping and waiting for the next stage, as I said, it might only cost you six bucks to print the thing, send off for another proof if you’ve changed anything. Don’t be surprised. Because you don’t wanna find out when you order your first ten author copies that your title is off-center. Because you forgot about trim size and safety zones and all that kinda stuff.   I definitely recommend, as many times as you make what you think are the final change, that you send off for a print proof. And then track the changes because you’re probably gonna keep fiddling with the thing. Track the changes you make so that when that print proof arrives, you know what you might have already changed, so that you’re not adjusting your more recent file based on what you see on that cover, forgetting that you already fixed that your title was off-center or whatever.   K: So, you know, this is another theme of this show. Read the contract. Track your changes.   R: And get proofs often.   K: Yeah. But there’s one thing we didn’t really talk about that is still relevant to formatting and displaying covers, which is what if you are just doing this digital only or what if you need digital images?   R: So, the eBook cover is essentially a crop of your print book on the front side of it. But there are things to consider beyond just, “Okay, I cut off the spine and the back cover.” You also want to make sure that it’s legible.   K: Yeah.   R: So, in this digital age there are a lot of different thumbnail sizes that are out there and you can look up the various—You can basically just go by Amazon because they have like five different thumbnail sizes, depending on where it’s going to appear.   K: Exactly, just scroll through. There’s a big difference, now. We’ve just spent all of this time about, talking about making your print book look beautiful and everything so somebody will see it in a store and pick it up and go, “My goodness. I find myself attracted to this book. I think I am interested in it.” Now it’s one of however many thumbnails are splashed across a computer screen.   R: Yep.   K: You’re trying to make the cover look appealing in a different way now.   R: Not only appealing, but legible.   K: Yes. Legible is important, yes.   R: The smaller you go, the more of your tiny details are handed over to pixels to try to render them. And if you’ve ever seen pixel art, you know how roughly things get translated as you shrink down in size. You want to, potentially, come up with a slightly different version for your digital product than you might even include in your eBook itself.   And I’ll use the anecdote from Parvus is that Annihilation Aria, which came out from Parvus this summer, has a different print cover than it has for its digital product image in the online stores.   K: Speaking of neon and trying to make sure it shows through well.   R: Speaking of gamut warnings.   K: Yeah.   R: We had to deal with that. But also the cover for the print book, the text is outlined.   K: It’s meant to look like neon sign, yeah.   R: But on the thumbnail size, it almost completely vanished.   K: It was very difficult when we were putting covers up for advanced purchases. It was funny because I knew what it said and was supposed to look like, and your eyes start playing tricks on you because you’re seeing exactly what you expect to see. But then—yeah.   R: And that’s a lesson for you, as the person who’s been staring at this for a really long time, is: show it to someone else. Chances are you already know what you think you want it to look like, and you might not notice the things that are either mistakes or not translating to that size as well as you want them to. So you can get a list of the different sizes that Amazon will reduce your image to and that’s all from the product image, which is the eBook cover you upload to KDP, for example.   K: Okay.   R: Or to Draft to Digital, or if you directly to Barnes and Nobles, to their publishing service for eBooks. But it’s not the cover that’s going to be in your eBook when somebody loads it up on their eReader. So you can set the eBook cover to look as close to the print cover as you want, and keep that in your eBook file, associated with that package of files that you’ve created for your eBook. We have a whole episode about that, go check that out.   But your product image that you upload separately is going to be the one that gets reduced to those thumbnail sizes. So you can control how that image displays. Now, granted, when somebody goes to your product page and they’re now looking at the big version of your image, yeah, now you’re getting an image that might not look like the version that’s on your print cover or inside your eBook, but it’s worth it if it brings people to the page because they are attracted to that thumbnail size in their search results.   K: Just go on Amazon and look through, go on the top bestsellers and just scroll through. And I want you to think about how many of those, even though those ones are probably a decent size, you’re having to stop and squint at.   R: Right. So in the case of Annihilation Aria, what we did was we filled in the outlines with the color and we just made it a solid block neon text.   K: Much easier to read.   R: It worked out much, much better. It looks great as a thumbnail, it still is beautiful on the print cover, when you’re holding it you’re like, “That’s a nice cover!” But the thumbnail is doing its job and the cover is doing its job and you don’t wanna confuse or conflate what those jobs are.   K: Yeah. It’s, um… tricky is a word for it. No, it’s, what I was saying is I was looking at this, “I don’t know what you’re talking about, this looks fine.” I knew what this cover was supposed to look like, my brain was filling in the gaps. So, as Rekka said, get somebody else to look at this and make sure that these are things that, to somebody who doesn’t know what they’re looking at, are legible, are getting across the message or the image that you want it to.   R: Right. Exactly. Also, there’s the audiobook version. And your titling from your artist being on a separate layer is definitely going to come in handy now because the audiobook preview, as set up by the tradition of printing these on CDs, not even the cassettes.    K: Yeah.   [50:33]   R: I mean, you could go back to cassettes, but it was the CD that sort of set the standard.   K: And they were square.   R: And they were square.   K: I remember that audiobooks sometimes had different covers, if you will, than the actual book itself. If you went to the library, I remember it was like the paper cases with all the CDs in it?   R: Mhm.   K: So then they’d just take that image, that was set up for the CD case, and put that as the thumbnail online.   R: A lot of the time, our first audiobooks that we played digitally, were getting played in an .mp3 player or in iTunes. So they were already set up for square images. Because, again, CD covers.   K: Yes.   R: So, part of the reason that a lot of audiobooks have different cover artwork, just completely different, is because of rights management. So, if a different company made the audiobook than printed the book, they might not be very friendly and share the rights to the cover art, as Parvus did.   Dreamscape is the audiobook publisher for Annihilation Aria and Parvus was happy to share the artwork because it looks more professional if everybody’s using the same artwork.   K: But that’s not always the case. Or, sometimes, maybe the publishing house says, “Well, we’ll license this to you, but it’s gonna be a ridiculous amount of money.”   R: Right.   K: And then, you know, the audiobook production side of things go, “Oh, well. That’s cool. We don’t feel like paying that.”   R: “We’ll make something that’s kind of similar,” you know, and then they go off and they do it themselves. To better or worse effect.   K: Yep.   R: And other times you’ll see an audiobook where, clearly, they didn’t have a wrap-around cover art or they didn’t have the layers, so you get this weird blurry effect to either side. Or I know The Aeronaut’s Windless, if you look really closely at that audiobook cover, somebody went in with the Photoshop stamp tool and made the cover art as square as they could. It survives a brief glance, but it’s not ideal.   So, if you have your cover and the spine copy isn’t already in the way, or whatever, you can just move the text to somewhere a little more central. SOmetimes the central figure on your cover, if you want it to be in there, now has to be off to the side, a little bit, of your title. Or some things gotta move and that’s fine. You can do that, make those adjustments, do a hundred iterations until you find what works, but only if you have layers and your text treatment isn’t flat on your background illustration.   K: Yeah. So, well… I can’t say that’s everything, because that is not everything. That is not even close.   R: It’s really not. I mean, we didn’t even get into back-cover copy placement and all this other stuff, but…   K: Yeah, but, this is sort of to give you an idea of how this happens. Print books don’t just magically manifest after you finish writing it. There are a lot of people that go into putting together a book and making sure that it looks good after it’s done.   R: I mean, there’s sometimes a very small, very hard-working tiny team of people. It’s not always a ton of people and, if you’re a self-publisher, don’t think that you can’t do this by yourself—   K: Yeah, absolutely.   R: —but you do want to get some experience before you commit to saying that you are good at this and you should continue to do it.    K: “I am making a good decision.”   [Both laugh]   R: Yes.   K: But, no, and it’s true and the thing is that someone like Rekka can do all of this, you know, on her own. But, again, Rekka went to school for this. This is something that took her years of time, experience, and learning to master.   R: I mean, and I didn’t go to school for book cover production—   K: Well, no, but yeah.   R: I mean, I made book covers as part of my college education, but it was more about understanding what makes things legible and what makes thing attractive to the eye. What makes a person’s eye move across the page the way you control. And all those things are now instinctive and go into what I do when I set up these files, which is why I can’t even describe, sometimes, what my process is. Which is kind of like, you know, you walk up to an artist and you say, “How do you draw like that?” Well, they can’t answer that question.   K: Yeah, yeah.   R: So there’s a lot that goes into it and, yes, if you are willing to put the time in to learn, you can do this. Just like I could have illustrated my own book cover, but I knew the time that it would take me to develop a style that I wanted for my book cover, was not worth taking that time away from my writing.    K: Mhm.   R: This has always disappointed my mother, that I didn’t draw my own book cover illustration.   K: Eh, there’s still time.   R: And—But! The point was, the style I wanted was not my inherent style.    K: Mhm.   R: And so I would have to spend months and years developing the style that I did want, or I can make an investment to have a professional whose style already was what I wanted do the cover for me and allow me to go back and do what I was good at. It’s okay to not be amazing at everything.   K: Who said that?   R: I dunno, I just did.   [Both laugh]   K: So that’s kind of rounding out book cover production. If you take away anything, I hope it is that this is not the easy part of this.   R, laughing: No.   K: I think everybody goes, “I’m just gonna have the cover and it’s gonna be so awesome and it’s gonna be on the book.” … Yes. But there’s a lot of steps to get to the part where it’s on the book and you can actually hold it in your hand.   R: And there’s a lot of steps to get to the part where it’s awesome.   K: And that, yes.   R: Yeah.   K: Well, I think that’s our episode.   R: I think it’s gotta be our episode, because we’re now running a little bit long. So, yeah! There’s a lot here and if you were trying to take notes, I apologize. But I wanted to get in this habit of, every now and then, let’s just get real technical about this.   K: I think we think about a lot of making books in very non-quantitative terms. Where we’re like, “Yeah, and then you have to figure this out and you’ve gotta decide about this character and this plot point,” and there are some parts that are technical about this. Where it’s like, “Listen, you have to do this,” and this is how you measure it.   R: You know, unfortunately, some things just, if you want the book to not look like a pile of messy paper glued into a vaguely book-shaped thing, then you want to follow this process because that’s the way that it’s all set up. That’s how you get that result. There aren’t too many ways to be extra creative about this aspect of things.   K: Yes. You know, this was more of a technical episode, but hopefully it was, as always, educational and informative. And entertaining.   R: And slightly overwhelming.   K: And overwhelming, yes.   R: It’s important that I sound like what I do could only be done by me. I mean, that’s how I keep food on the table.   K: And hopefully this hasn’t scared you off from trying to do this.   R: I mean, play around with it! Like I said, Lulu’s there, you can order one book at a time. See what happens.   K: And if you do, let us know how it goes.   R: Yes! Show us your books, if you’re a publisher. What covers have you put together and formatted and, you know, sent to fulfillment yourself? We’d love to see them!   K: Yep, and you can find us…   R: Oh, you can! Can’t you? We are @WMBcast on Twitter and Instagram, and you can find us at wmbcast.com for all our old episodes, and you can also find us and support us at Patreon.com/wmbcast, where you can thank us for all our technical, helpful, overwhelming knowledge.   K, laughs: Or you can just scream at us.   R: Yes. And you can share these episodes or any episode that you think would help a friend out and leave a rating and review, please, on Apple Podcasts, because that is just how this apple pie is made.   K: Feeeeed the algorithm.   R: Yep. Absolutely. Oh, speaking of which, we are now on Amazon podcasts.   K: Oh.   R: Did you even know that was a thing?   K: I didn’t, no.   R: Well, we are there. We got listed.   K: Okay!   R: So wherever you go for your podcasts, please feel free to listen there. But, when you leave ratings and review, at least for now, Apple podcasts is still where we want them. Once Amazon gets in the game, you know how it goes, but…   K: I’m looking forward to an Apple-Amazon Deathmatch.   R: It’ll be like the Fast Food Wars only it’s just like the Algorithm Wars.   K: Yeah, I think that is where we’re going. Yeah… Well, everyone, thanks very much for listening and we’ll see you in a couple weeks.   R: Take care, everyone.   [outro music plays]

Episode 30. How Small and Childlike are We Supposed to Be? -- August 24, 2020. Intro: Welcome to the podcast Coronavirus Crisis: Carpe Diem!, where you and I rise up and embrace the possibilities and opportunities for spiritual and psychological growth in this time of crisis, all grounded in a Catholic worldview.   We are going beyond mere resilience, to rising up to the challenges of this pandemic and becoming even healthier in the natural and the spiritual realms than we were before.  I'm clinical psychologist Peter Malinoski your host and guide, with Souls and Hearts at soulsandhearts.com.  Thank you for being here with me.  Let's jump right in with this critical, central question.  Why is it that we have such a hard time trusting God?  Why is it that our confidence in God is so inconsistent, why is it that we are so fickle?  Why is it so hard for us to have the absolute confidence in God that He merits, that he deserves from us?  That's what we will be addressing in episode 30 of Coronavirus Crisis: Carpe Diem!, released on August 24, 2020 from the Souls and Hearts studio in Indianapolis.  The title for today's episode is How Small and Childlike are we Supposed to Be?  We're going to get into the psychological side of this question of childlike trust in particular.  There are other sides to the question – the spiritual side, the moral side – we'll address those sides in passing.  But what is so often neglected, so often denied, so often ignored, and thus so unknown and unavailable to so many Catholics – what we really need so badly -- is a realistic, accurate understanding of the psychological factors, the factors in the natural realm that get in the way of us trusting our God and our Lady.  We've certainly touched on some of these factors before, so let's review for a moment, let's go back to take a look at what we've developed in previous episodes.  So here is the causal chain as we've described it so far:We have distorted God images in our bones, we have distorted God images in the emotional, intuitive parts of us.  The trouble happens when we give in to those God images, we let them dominate us, we let them take over, we default to them, and we act in accord with those false God images.   Then, our self-image deteriorates.  Meanwhile, we drift away from God or even flee from him.  All the while, we are losing our peace, joy, well-being.  When that gets bad enough, we become symptomatic – anxious, depressed, apathetic, hopeless, panicky, obsessive, whatever our symptoms are.  So let's back up one more link in the causal chain and ask the question:  What's the main psychological reason we don't resist our problematic God images?  I'm again talking psychological reasons here, not just spiritual reasons like having a particular vice.  Psychologically, we lose track of who God really is.  We don't God clearly in those moments, and we waver, we are tempted to doubt, we are inclined to fall again into our destructive patterns, whatever those are for us.  We are lured by our false God images into ways of thinking, feeling, desiring and acting that are harmful to us and to others.    Why Do We Mistrust God and Mary So Much ?  I'll give you the answer.  It's because we are too grown up.  We are trying to be way too big.  Actively mistrusting – fearing.  Or just not considering God at all.  That what we are like when we act big.We know this.  We know the Bible verses.  We've heard them.  But do we really get what they are saying?     Matthew 18 1. At that time the disciples came to Jesus, saying, “Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?” 2 And calling to him a child (RSV, NAB), “little child” (DR) (ESV)he put him in the midst of them, 3 and said, “Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. 4 Whoever humbles himself like this child, he is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.  5 “Whoever receives one such child in my name receives me; 6 but whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin,[a] it would be better for him to have a great millstone fastened round his neck and to be drowned in the depth of the sea. 1 In illa hora accesserunt discipuli ad Iesum dicentes: “ Quis putas maior est in regno caelorum? ”.  2 Et advocans parvulum, statuit eum in medio eorum  3 et dixit: “ Amen dico vobis: Nisi conversi fueritis et efiiciamini sicut parvuli, non intrabitis in regnum caelorum.  4 Quicumque ergo humiliaverit se sicut parvulus iste, hic est maior in regno caelorum.  5 Et, qui susceperit unum parvulum talem in nomine meo, me suscipit. 6 Qui autem scandalizaverit unum de pusillis istis, qui in me credunt, expedit ei, ut suspendatur mola asinaria in collo eius et demergatur in profundum maris.very little, very small, tiny. petty, insignificant, Tiny.  Like babies.  Like sheep in their understanding.  When we approach God:  like that.  When sent out as sheep among wolves Matthew 10:16 Wise (Shrewd) as serpents, simple as doves.  Harmless, plain, sincere, without guile.  Without me you can do nothing.  19 Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of his own accord, but only what he sees the Father doing; for whatever he does, that the Son does likewise. (John 5:19) 30 “I can do nothing on my own authority; as I hear, I judge; and my judgment is just, because I seek not my own will but the will of him who sent me.  (John 5:30) Matthew 1913 Then children were brought to him that he might lay his hands on them and pray. The disciples rebuked the people; 14 but Jesus said, “Let the children come to me, and do not hinder them; for to such belongs the kingdom of heaven.” 15 And he laid his hands on them and went away.13 Tunc oblati sunt ei parvuli, ut manus eis imponeret et oraret; discipuli autem increpabant eis.  14 Iesus vero ait: “ Sinite parvulos et nolite eos prohibere ad me venire; talium est enim regnum caelorum ”.  15 Et cum imposuisset eis manus, abiit inde.Parvulus:  Childhood.  But emphasis on infancy.  Little, slight, unimportant, very young, insufficient, indiscreet, not able to understand.   Diminutive of Parvus  -- small, little, ignorable, unimportant.    A story of cousin Ryan.  3 or 4 years old. Dapper seersucker suit and matching cap.  Christmas morning – big deal on Mom's side of the family.  I was young teenager.  Wanting to be a big man.  Ryan was playing.   For St. Therese of Lisieux, everything is based on and flows from spiritual childhood asserts Fr. François Jamart in The Complete Spiritual Doctrine of St. Therese of Lisieux.  A mindset, a heartset, a bodyset, a soulset that is all about being little, abandoning oneself to God as a little child in all things.  It is confidence and nothing but confidence that must lead us to love  Letter 197 to Sister Marie of the Sacred Heart.  But that is much easier said than done.  There are parts of us that think we are going to be annihilated if we are small, if we are vulnerable again.   On my terms, on my conditions, within my vision, within my understanding.  We're going to meet as equals.  We are going to be partners, like equally or almost equally yoked.  God is my co-pilot bumper sticker.   15 “I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser. 2 Every branch of mine that bears no fruit, he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit. 3 You are already made clean by the word which I have spoken to you. 4 Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. 5 I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in me, and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing. 6 If a man does not abide in me, he is cast forth as a branch and withers; and the branches are gathered, thrown into the fire and burned. 7 If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you will, and it shall be done for you. 8 By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit, and so prove to be my disciples. 9 As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you; abide in my love. 10 If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father's commandments and abide in his love. 11 These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full.12 “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. 13 Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. 14 You are my friends if you do what I command you. 15 No longer do I call you servants,[a] for the servant[b] does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you. 16 You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide; so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you. 17 This I command you, to love one another.Eric Erickson, psychoanalyst – psychosocial development rather than psychosexual development.  Personality developed in a series of stages – looked a the entire lifespan of individuals.  Developmental Tasks that need to be resolved.  Birth to 18 month the main conflict and developmental task is trust vs. mistrust.  This is the most important phase of life.  Shapes our view of the world, in addition to our personality.  Can I trust those who care for me, those who are near me?Task is Hope – if this phase is adequately resolved, the result, Erickson said, is a sense of hope and confidence that relationships are beneficial, they are good.  A sense of personal competence.   Hungry, thirsty, cold, sick, tired, in need of a diaper change – in need of reassurance, whatever the issue is.  Crying is important, it's a means of communication.  Care from parents is critical.  – do my needs get met? Parallel in attachment theory – John Bowlby.·  Safe haven: Returning to the attachment figure for comfort and safety in the face of a fear or threat.·  Secure base: The attachment figure acts as a base of security from which the child can explore the surrounding environment.Evolutionary emphasis We can trust other people, sometimes, but it's harder with God.  We can't see Him in the same way.    Action item:  Going back to 0-24 months.  Family Stories, older siblings, parents.   What was it like for you.    Father – Vietnam.   Break PointAction item  Being Littlecrisis@soulsandhearts.com 317.567.9594 or if you are in the Resilient Catholics Carpe Diem community, the RCCD community, you can private message me or you can include your responses, your reactions on our discussion of this podcast episode The RCCD community brings together people like you, people that are really interested in growing more and more resilient, both in the natural realm and in the psychological realm, and who are seizing this day, this moment as an opportunity for great spiritual and psychological growth.  We are adding features to the RCCD community.  Today we are launching our first polls to be able to connect better with our RCCD members.  Membership in the RCCD community is free for the first 30 days, $25 per month after that, and there is a whole host of resources available to you there, including the God Image Questionnaire, which you can take to help you sort out which of the 14 God images we have just reviewed in the last five episodes are most relevant to you.  The God image questionnaire is up there.  Go to soulsandhearts.com, click on the tab that says all courses and shows and register for the Resilient Catholics Carpe Diem Community.  Upcoming Zoom meeting  Saturday, August 29 from 4:00 PM to 5:15 PM Eastern time.    Patroness and Patron 

Hi everyone, and thank you for tuning in to another episode of We Make Books - A podcast about writing, publishing, and everything in between!   This week, Kaelyn gets Rekka to go on (at length) about the process of laying out a book for print and digital, once a manuscript has reached its ultimate form.   We Make Books is hosted by Rekka Jay and Kaelyn Considine; Rekka is a published author and Kaelyn is an editor. Together they are going to take you through what goes into getting a book out of your head, on to paper, in to the hands of a publisher, and finally on to book store shelves. We Make Books is a podcast for writers and publishers, by writers and publishers and we want to hear from our listeners! Hit us up on our social media, linked below, and send us your questions, comments, and concerns!   Twitter: @WMBCast  |  @KindofKaelyn  |  @bittybittyzap Instagram: @WMBCast  Patreon.com/WMBCast   Episode 40: For That You Get the Print, the Digital, the Whole Damn Thing transcribed by Sara Rose (@saraeleanorrose)    [0:00] R: Welcome back to another episode of We Make Books, a podcast about writing, publishing, and everything in between. And I am Rekka, I write science fiction and fantasy as R.J. Theodore. K: And I’m Kaelyn Considine, I am the acquisitions editor for Parvus Press. And today we’ve got an interesting episode. Full disclosure: we debated whether or not we should do this one. We were a little worried that the subject material might be too dry— R: Yeah. K: But, that said, it’s, I think, an interesting part of publishing that’s frequently overlooked and that is actually assembling a book. And we don’t mean finish writing it, we mean, at some point, you’ve gotta put a book together. R: Right, and we don’t also mean physically gluing it to the binder, which is also fun. I’ve done that, too, but this is more the magical process that happens when you finish your copy edits final pass and the publisher says, “Okay, we’ll get you page proofs in a little while!” and what happens there. What’s going on in that moment, or those long moments if you’re just waiting. K: Yeah, if you wanna talk about one of the unsung heroes of the publishing world, it is certainly the designers who actually have to go through and make it so nobody realizes that they did any work on this. You don’t pick up a book and think about, “Hey, look at the nice order that the dedication and the table of contents and the acknowledgements and everything is in! Look at all the great work that was done with the typeface and setting and how all of this is really easy to read and I don’t even have to think about it.” And that’s the whole point. R: Yep. Really, the only part of the book you want to notice is the cover. The design of the interior, you definitely want to be perfect but completely unnoticeable. In a sense. K: Absolutely. R: It’s not disheartening for the designer to hear that. It’s literally the goal of the designer is to make the book an easy reading experience. And so if their work goes unnoticed and they get paid, so be it. K: Yeah, so it’s, like we said, we were worried that this might be a little dry. But as we got into it, we realized it’s really not. Actually, there’s a lot of really interesting steps that go into this and things that the average reader or potential author doesn’t know or think about. Anyway, as always, take a listen. We hope you enjoy and we’ll see you on the other side of the music. [intro music plays] K: Terrible. R: Yeah, I’ve been trying not to walk outside too often, lately. Which, you know, with nowhere to go, that works out really well. Except that my office is outside… but then I lost all my files so I didn’t even wanna go face my computer. So, again, stayed inside. K, sighing: It broke my heart. R: No, it broke mine, too. K: Are we recording already? R: Yeah, of course. K: Yeah, of course we are. Okay. [cheerfully] Hey, everyone! [R and K giggle] R: So I’m hoping that this conversation will be useful to more than just two groups of people. But the two groups of people that I think are going to perk up the most about this episode are the people who want to self-publish but have been wondering how to get their final document into book form, and then the people who already self-publish or are involved in the process and then want to know how other people are doing it, to see if they’re missing anything. Because when you do things by yourself, you tend to worry. K: Yeah, and so as we mentioned in the intro, today we’re talking about actually putting a book together. It’s—I think it seems like when you’ve written everything and you have it edited, proofread, copy-edited then you’re like, “Well, I’m basically done,” and there’s actually a lot more that you still have left to do. R: There’s a lot more after that. K: Rekka has, especially, been up to her elbows in this recently, doing some work with Annihilation Aria, released a week ago, at this point? R: Yeah, a week ago. K: Yeah, so it’s out now. You can go pick up a copy, it’s by Mike Underwood, it’s a fantastic book. But Rekka started doing some work for Parvus, stepped in and was doing the layout for this. And I was working very closely with her on it and that’s the first time I was ever directly exposed to how this works. [laughs] I was, maybe not horrified, but certainly a little frightened by the process. It is a lot of words, as it turns out. And characters— R: Turns out, over 100,000 words! In a novel! Who’da thunk? K: Yeah, books have words in them! So many words… So yeah! You’ve got a final version of it. Now you actually gotta make it a book. And there are ways that you can do this fairly easily, and ways that will take a lot more time. And obviously, the ones that take a lot more time, you’re coming out with a higher quality product, I guess, if you want to put it that way. So anyway, we just thought that this would be kind of an interesting thing to talk through of what happens when you’ve got a finalized manuscript. How you make that a book now. R: So, I will just clarify that I began working on Annihilation Aria, there was already a layout from Catspaw DTP and that’s who Parvus uses for most of their layouts and because I have some expertise in design, it is my day-time career path, I was able to handle any changes that needed to happen after the fact.  Normally, if someone does an interior layout, they might be using InDesign and then if you need changes, and you don’t have InDesign, you go back to them with all your changes and incur more costs! But I was able to handle the changes as we went through the manuscript, and that’s very fortunate. Not normal, I would say, for somebody who comes in to help with promotion, to also be working on layout.    K: Rekka is a master of many skills. R: You know, I used to be jealous of the people that say, like, “Oh yeah, growing up I always took everything apart to see how it worked and then put it back together,” and it worked better or whatever, and I was like, “I wish I could say that about myself!” And then I just realized, talking to you, I did that. I just always did it with files and processes. K: Yep! Hey, it counts. And we’re very grateful that you did. So, maybe first let’s talk about the elements of a book. Of what you need besides just a finalized manuscript. R: Well, you need to save that manuscript that has gone through all the tracked changes and stuff, you need to save a fresh copy and you need to make sure there are no comments or track changes active or anything like that in there. Because let me tell you, somehow that’ll end up in your layout and it’ll mess something up. It’s not supposed to, from both Microsoft Word and Adobe InDesign, it’s not supposed to, but it does. Somehow it just does things. So, to Kaelyn’s point,  you don’t just need your final document, you need a final, cleaned-up document, a separate one. K: A final, clean document. All notes, comments, changes, edits, everything removed. You save that in no less than 10 different locations. R, laughing: Pretty much! Having just gone through a little bit of data loss myself. No, you save that everywhere you can. And to the cloud. K: You put it on flash drives and mail them to different people so, you know, in case somebody comes into your house to steal copies of it or your dog eats it or something, you—no less than ten locations. Okay, so. R: Easily. K: You’ve got that. You are one hundred percent sure you have removed everything from the manuscript that is not supposed to be there. R: Mhm. K: Well, now what? Hopefully, you’ve registered the book and gotten yourself an ISBN because that is an important step one right there. R: The ISBN, actually, as long as the book isn’t due, like tomorrow, to the printer, the ISBN can kind of happen at any point. You can leave a placeholder for it. You just need to remember if you’ve left a placeholder for it, so you can go back and fix it before you send in the finals. So your back cover usually has the barcode, a UPC that ties into the ISBN, and usually the ISBN is also printed somewhere in the book, very often the copyright page. K: Yeah, so, you’ll notice if you pick up a book, or even just read a digital one, you’re gonna see pretty much the same things over and over again in the same order. We’re always going to start with the title page: such and such by such and such, that is frequently followed by a Copyrights page. This is the one with all of the good information about the author, who published the book, it will have the ISBN on there, it’ll have some threatening information about copyrights and reproduction and selling. If it’s Parvus, we always try to put a little joke on that page just to lighten the mood a bit.  From there, then, there’s usually a dedication. Most authors like to throw a dedication in there. And then, typically, you go into a Table of Contents or a Chapter List, depending on what you’re writing. R: For digital. K, confused: What do you mean? R: You don’t tend to see the Table of Contents in a print book, unless it’s non-fiction. K: Oh, okay. Yeah. The other thing, then, that you might find in some books is some information about what you’re about to read. Some books put a Glossary of Terms at the beginning rather than at the end, sometimes you might get sort of mini character introductions, or there might be a map. There might be some information about the world that this is set in. R: That you need going into it, though. K: Yeah, that they want you to have going into it. And, once you get through all of that, then you actually get into the fun part, the meat of the story, and typically, by the time you get to the end, then you’re gonna have an Acknowledgements section from the author. Then, before or after, there’s also usually an About the Author section. That tends to be the last thing in the book. And just, you know, we’re talking like a picture and one-page bio about the interesting stuff, how awesome the person who wrote the book is. R: And by one-page bio, we tend to mean half a page because usually the heading takes up a large margin at the top, and then that photo will be either above or inset into the text, so you end up with—Don’t worry, authors, you don’t have to write a full-page bio for yourself. It’s really more like 2-3 paragraphs, and shorter is just fine. [11:49] K: Yeah, and the only other thing that you might find at the very end of that book that is maybe a preview chapter for either the next book in that series or another book by that publisher that they think readers of this book might enjoy. Not always, but if it’s in there, that is usually the dead-last thing in there. R: Or if the glossary that we mentioned being at the beginning is a little bit extensive, that might go in the back. Especially if it contains spoilers. K: Exactly, yes. And so that is kind of most of what you’re gonna find in there. And, again, we’re talking fiction. Depending on what it is that you’re reading, there could be endnotes in there, there could be chapter notes, there could be additional information at the end as well. But that’s kind of a general sense of what you need to include in there. R: And, for the most part, that’s the order that they appear in. I have definitely seen variations on that. And I don’t know if in those cases it was given over to the author preference, or if it was just a house style that, say, the acknowledgements came first.  K: Exactly, yeah.So, how do you get all of this stuff? R: Hopefully! Hopefully it’s been getting gathered all along, but… K: And, like the book, you’ve gotta be the one to write most of it. Your bio, authors should always have a few different versions of their bio. You know, the 2-3 sentence one, the two paragraph, and the full-length bio. Just, those are important things to have for press-related things. Also, you write your own acknowledgements, you write your own dedication, you’re writing all of your own supplemental material. So, I don’t know if I’d call it the bad news, but the gist here is, yeah, you’ve finished this book. You still got a little bit more writing that you have to do here. R: And that’s something that I, as an author, tend to work on while my book is in the editor’s hands. I want to keep touching this book and working on it, but I’m not allowed to touch the manuscript anymore because I’ve handed it off to somebody. So I will do things like try to work on the acknowledgements, try to work on the glossary, which is a mistake. Both of those things would go a lot smoother if I would keep notes throughout the entire process. Like, “Hey! This person helped me out with this concept, I can thank them in the acknowledgements. I’ll add that now even though I don’t have to write the acknowledgements for four months.”  Same thing with the glossary. It’s a pain in the neck to go back through the text and try to find all the things—basically, everything that your spellchecker wants you to fix, that probably belongs in the glossary. And so that’s a pain in the neck to go through it manually, start to finish, on, you know, in the case of Salvage, on a 470 page book. It’d be a lot easier if I just went and added things to it as I added characters and topics and subjects and that sort of thing to the story and then I can just go in at the end and clean it up.  Like, “Oh, I changed this character’s name,” or “Oh, this didn’t end up in this book after all,” and stuff like that. It’d be a heck of a lot easier than writing it from scratch, from memory, or, like I said, with the pages open in front of me. K: Yeah, but what’s the fun without the challenge, right? R: Yeah. Yeah, no and like I said, if you’ve been working on it while the book was in revisions, then it’s not quite such a rush. When you’ve been working on it because you need to give the files over to the publisher in five days and you just remembered you didn’t do any of that, then it’s awful. K: So, let’s talk about those files. Because we mentioned at the top of the episode, you have a finalized manuscript. It is saved in no less than ten places, but you can’t—that Word document is not a book. That’s a manuscript, but it’s not a completed book at that point. You need to get a layout together, and this is kind of what we started talking about when we were figuring out this episode is, all of the stuff that goes into a layout, and doing a layout, that you don’t really think about. So we did kind of want to talk about the other elements of the book, but the thing that’s gonna be most time consuming here is the layout. R: Unless you go through a service that makes it not time-consuming. K: Yeah. So we’re gonna talk about a couple different ways you can do this. I’ll start with the first one, which is the way I do things when I have to come up with a layout real quick, be it for an advanced copy or a chapter book or something, Draft 2 Digital has a really great service where you can upload a Word document, your manuscript, and they will spit out a pretty decently impressive looking layout. R: Yeah. K: And they’ve got a few different formats and styles. They’ll even let you do some chapter—not chapter art, but flourishes and some little drop caps in the start of the chapters. And it looks great. They have a really cool program that will do this for you. And I’ve absolutely used it for manuscripts that we just needed together for a quick press run or an advanced copy or something. It’s completely free, it’s a really, really great tool. That said, it is not the same as having a professional layout done by someone who knows how to do these things. Back when books were printed with an actual press, it was a typographer’s job to sit there and actually put all of the individual little letters and spacing in there, and they had to do this backwards and upside down, pretty much.  That is, I think, and Rekka would you agree? Maybe one of the only trades from publishing that is sort of carried over? I mean, I would go so far as to call it a trade. It’s still a really specialized thing that you need somebody who knows how to do. I think I would say that might be the one of the only holdovers from the days of actual printing press runs. R: Well, you still have somebody operating a printing press. And that is definitely a trade still. Even though we’ve got digital presses and everything is print-on-demand and it feels like a human never touches it, that’s not necessarily true. It’s just that it doesn’t take as many people to make as many books as we do anymore. So, I don’t want to disparage the people who are maintaining these machines that we rely on for everything that we do. K: We appreciate and love those people and want them to continue doing their very important work. R: Absolutely. There are people on a line making paper for us. There are people—then there are people laying out the book and making sure the letters are in the right place and all that kind of stuff. The author has, hopefully, made sure that the letters are in the right order. It’s just our job that they look right and read well. One of the things that, you know, it’s not a shame, but the better that a layout person does their job, the less you notice that they were there at all. K: Exactly. R: Reading through a book and not noticing how the letters are spaced or anything like that, and getting to the end of that book and thinking about the story that you read. That means that a layout person did their job really, really well. So, in the Draft 2 Digitals and that sort of those things, those are not touched by a human being. They’re fed into a service and that service is very well designed to make some important choices for you. Like, you don’t have full-range of options in Draft 2 Digital’s layout utility that you do in InDesign, because a lot of choices are, to a designer, obviously not correct to make. But might not be obvious to someone going in and laying out their first book. Like we do not use comic sans for body copy—  K: Yeah, to be— [20:07] R: —you know? But if you give somebody the option to do that, invariably somebody will.  K: To be clear, the thing you’re getting if you use Draft 2 Digital’s service, that’s it. What they give you, it’s a PDF or— R: An ebook. K: —an ebook file, you’re going for here and then that’s it. R: Yeah, you can’t make any adjustments. I don’t know if that’s a hundred percent true. You might be able to go in and fiddle just a little bit with the settings to see if something improves something else— K: Yeah, you can fiddle with the settings, but you can’t go in and change certain areas where you’re like, “Oh, I don’t like the way this looks.” The only way, then, that you could do that is if you drop it into InDesign and then you’re just kind of starting the process again. R: Yeah, you’d be starting from scratch at that point because the files that Draft 2 Digital give you are not going to be editable in any way that’s going to be useful to a designer. You know, you couldn’t just take that as your first draft and hand it over to the designer like, “Here, I got you started. Now will you clean it up?” Like, there’s no way. You can’t do Step 1: Draft 2 Digital, Step 2: InDesign. You might as well start in InDesign. I will also mention that Smashwords also does the same service as Draft 2 Digital and I believe Reedsy, last I checked, they did not have the print up and running but I imagine if Draft 2 Digital figured it out then Reedsy did, too. K: So let’s talk about InDesign. Rekka, there’s probably some people listening to this that have no idea what InDesign is or why it’s such a scary program. R: It’s not scary, it’s just— K: It’s scary. And I’m scared.  R:  It’s just overwhelming if you don’t know what you’re doing, all the options are too many options.  K: It’s terrifying. R: Well, so… InDesign is a multi-page layout program that is published by Adobe, who makes Photoshop and PremierePro. A lot of very, you know, trade… standard for both film and music and photography and design. K: Yeah. Everything that you might publish. Adobe has bought pretty much every software company that ever touched on any part of my design career. I don’t think they ever bought Quark, but they certainly replaced it. At least in my portfolio. So InDesign the program is multi-page layout, which means that if you need a brochure, if you need a book, if you need a pamphlet—you know, you can even do stationery— K: Oh! Wanted Posters! R, amused: Or wanted posters, yes. You can also do single-page layouts. The multi option is a choice. So a lot of PDFs out there in the world began their life as an InDesign file. The more complex and polished the design, chances are the more likely it started as a multi-page layout in InDesign or, like I said, Quark.  I don’t know how best to explain what you’re looking at in InDesign. You’re seeing pages, but you’re seeing them with those invisible margins drawn in. You’re seeing boxes around the text that contain it. K: I’ll describe it, as somebody who does not have a design background. R: Yes, because I shared my screen with Kaelyn once making some integral corrections— K, outraged: Multiple! Multiple times! Multiple times. R, laughing: And Kaelyn did not like the experience. K: It is—and I will say this again, as somebody who does not have a design background—it is overwhelming to look at. R: It’s a little bit like a NASA control room, but for pages. K: The way I can best describe it is: if you’ve ever seen an architectural drawing of a building. You can look at it and see that, “Ah, yes! This is what the house is going to look like,” except it’s covered in other lines and notes and arrows and all of these things that don’t mean anything to you, but you can tell they mean something to the architect. This is kind of like an architectural drawing page of this book. This is what—all of the invisible stuff that you don’t see in the final page, is visible on these pages. You’re gonna see all the margins, all the markers. You’ll see the pilcrows. You, depending on what you want to make visible, you can actually see dots or some sort of indicator in there that’s showing you the spacing between words and characters. You’re seeing all of the stuff that the computer knows to acknowledge how this is supposed to look. And it’s a lot. To pair with tomorrow's episode of We Make Books, here's a look at a page layout in InDesign. @kindofKaelyn gets @bittybittyzap to dig in (like a tick) and expound on the designer's process when it comes to turning a Word doc into a multipage layout. pic.twitter.com/He2bsh5bM2 — We Make Books podcast (@wmbcast) July 27, 2020  R: Just shy of the zeroes and ones, yeah. K: There is. There’s a lot that the computer is doing to get the page to look the way that you’re saying it should look. So that, as a non-designer, that is the best way I can describe what you’d be looking at there. And we can, we can post some screenshots maybe of what these pages look like. Just so, you know, if you’ve never seen one you can kind of get an idea of what you’re looking at there. Okay! So, Rekka, here is a finalized manuscript. R: Yeah. [pause] K: Please make it a— R: Would you like me to make it a book for you, Kaelyn? K: I would like you to make it a book. R: So, as I said, this is a multi-page layout. If you open any book on your shelf and you look at a couple of different pages throughout, like the start of a chapter or the meat of a chapter, the front matter or back matter, you’re going to notice that some things change and some things stay the same across multiple pages. K: Yeah, and— R: So, for each one of those, you need a page template.  K: Yes, and before you’ve really dived in, hopefully you’ve had a conversation with the author or the editor and made some decisions about some things. R: Right, so you need the trim size. Like, the most critical thing is how big is this book going to be when you measure the outside of it with a ruler?  K: Yep. Let’s start there. How big is the book? The first most important thing you gotta figure out. R: Yeah. Yeah. Because that’s gonna tell you, by percentages, how big the margins should be. The inner margin that goes into the fold is going to be bigger than the outer margin. The top and bottom margins have to account for the running header and the page numbers, and where do you want those? Does the publisher have a house style where everything tends to be in the same place for that publisher? Does the publisher have a selection of fonts that they prefer to use, and they might have a selection of fonts for sci-fi versus fantasy. K: And that’s exactly what I was gonna say. So, other things that I’m sure you’d wanna know: what is the format of the beginning of each chapter supposed to look like? Is it just a chapter number, does it have a name? Does that get a different font than the rest of the text? How are the chapters or pages laid out? Does the text start half-way down or do we stick everything as close to the top as possible? Is there chapter art for each chapter? What about drop caps? What about fonts? So there’s a lot of things that the designer needs to know up front, before diving into all of this stuff. R: Yeah, and those decisions can get set up, to a degree, before the manuscript is even done. So you can bring a designer in and, if you’ve worked with them before, then you can say, “We’ll be using this house style, similar to this title that we did, but maybe this font is the title font, as opposed to the one that you used for that book.” K: Yeah.  R: So, for example, Parvus’s series, The Union Earth Privateers, there’s three books in that series now and they all use the same, or similar font, and that’s consistent within that series. Whereas, Flotsam and Salvage, as part of the Peridot Shift trilogy, are still technically sci-fi but use a very different font, different fonts inside, shaded a little bit more like a fantasy book, in terms of some of the details because it’s a genre-crossing story. K: And I think that’s something very overlooked, frequently. A lot of decision actually goes into picking the font because the font is kind of, it’s one of those tricky things that us publishers do. The font is reinforcing to you what kind of a story you’re reading. R: Yeah. K: Without you even noticing it. If you’re reading a high epic fantasy, you’re not going to be reading a font that looks like it’s been generated by a computer and you’re reading it off a screen. There’s gonna be something in there that’s a little twist, a little element of the fantastic so that maybe it looks a little bit more like something you’d read on a scroll. R: Yeah, yeah. K: And these are the decisions that are being made behind the scenes to help you really get engaged and involved in the book. And we do this without you even noticing, most of the time. R: So sometimes you can just pick up the font from the titling. You know, if you have the font that was used in the title layout on the front cover, which sometimes is done by the illustrator, sometimes it’s done separately from the illustrator as, you know, a titling designer. If you have that font, then you can pick that up or, some variation from that font family, without all the fancy styling on the cover, and just use that to keep reinforcing the style throughout. It’s not ironic at all that the font that we used for Flotsam and Salvage and then is used for the chapter headings on the inside is called Charcuterie. I mean, it’s just appropriate and it also looks kind of, you know, that pirate fantasy kind of look. It’s heavily modified for the front cover, but on the inside it’s used as it came out of the package, as you would. K: Yup.   [30:43] (from this point on, the transcript is by Rekka. Don't blame Sara for my mistakes!)   Rekka (00:30:43):So, um, yeah, absolutely. What you said. It's like the font choices, um, constantly remind the reader as they go through the book, what they're doing. Body copy—and when I say body copy, I'm talking about the running text—typically is going to follow some basic, uh, legibility rules. And so that font is less likely to change for the publisher than, um, than the other fonts that are more, uh, you know, highlights, uh, throughout the book or used for emphasis. The body text itself needs to be legible. It needs to be clear. It needs to, you know, adhere to standards. So that one is far less likely to change. Just like you wouldn't print black text on a dark purple paper. You know, we, we have cream color paper as a standard. We have certain fonts that work more as a standard, um, things like Garamond things like Georgia, you know, um, these are texts that you will see, you know, you can pretty much learn to identify them.   Rekka (00:31:48):So when you are creating a layout in InDesign, you are picking fonts because those fonts are selected and permanent. When it's printed on paper, that font doesn't change sizes. That font can't be enlarged. It can't be, you know, reduced somebody can't increase the spacing. So you've really got to come up to like the best universally legible version you can. For that reason, a lot of people, you know, like my parents who are in their seventies, they are reading on their, their e-readers, Kindles in their case because they can change the font size. Because they could even pick a different font if they wanted, um, from the ebook file. And so when you are creating your layout, pretty much the font you choose in InDesign, if you're the one choosing it, um, assume that going forward. Cause I'd have to keep saying it at the end of every statement.   Rekka (00:32:46):Um, those fonts are not necessarily the ones that are going to end up in the e-reader because the readers have their own preloaded set of fonts. And if you don't use one, they will pick what they judge to be the next closest font for you. So if you pick a serif font, but you use, you know, Garamond, but Garamond is a licensed, you know, proprietary font under the font foundry that created it and they own the rights to it. And if you don't purchase the rights to distribute it, you cannot package it in with your file. So you're going to end up with something that's a serif font that is similar. Um, if you go into your settings on an e-reader, you can see the fonts that are prepackaged in there. Cause you get to choose which one you want to use. And it's like maybe 15 at the most. So the fonts that you choose in your layout will go into the book, but unless you choose to, um, license your font so that you can distribute it, which is a whole other price point, um, you're not going to be controlling the fonts to that level in the ebook file that will get generated at the end here.   Kaelyn (00:33:57):Gotcha. So, okay. Rekka, we've picked the font. We've come up with all of the, um, you know, how the beginning of the chapters are going to look, we've decided on how to handle drop cap. Uh, what are, what are you going to do now? What's the first thing you start digging into when you run through this.   Rekka (00:34:15):Well, I'm going to block out the pages that I know we're going to need. So all the things we listed, um, and we, we forgot to mention like a praise page. So if there are industry blurbs, you know, that might be page one in this document. And um, if we know we've got a lot of them, it might be page two to maybe page three. You know, like if you're, you know, Gideon the Ninth got a lot of industry blurbs, for example.   Kaelyn (00:34:41):Hey that's great. If you've got it, flaunt it.   Rekka (00:34:42):Exactly. Um, so the idea of that is if someone picks us up in a bookstore, they are still deciding whether or not they want to buy it. You're hoping that, you know, you got him past the cover, you got him past the book description on the back, they've opened it and now you see like," Oh, well, you know, Terry Brooks loved this, so, okay, I'm going to read this or I'll at least keep paging it. And maybe I'll read the chapter in the bookstore." You have, you know, the title page, you might have another one we didn't mention was also-buys, uh, lists for the author or even sometimes the publisher I have seen, um, put those in a book, um, copyright, all that stuff. Those are all going to come to the designer as a separate word document. So you're going to start making space for it.   Rekka (00:35:25):If the publisher has already provided some of it, then you lay it in. If you know it's coming, then you leave a spot for it. Because as you do things, um, you want to make sure that you are accounting for, what's going to start on like the right side of a page. What can go on the left side. On the right usually is where the titles fall. The dedication, the first chapter will start on the right. Um, the left side, you know, things like the copyright can live there, things that flow over from the page before, like those long praise lists we were talking about, or even long also-by-authors. Although at that point you probably want to pare it down to the most relevant. Um, so what's gonna fall on the right or left side of the page. You create a text box for that.   Rekka (00:36:09):And, um, then you might need to insert a blank page and then start another text box for another right page. And then, um, if you set up your file properly, things will flow. And um, so if you bring in something that's, overlong, it will automatically add pages for you to make room for that, so none of it's hidden, but, um, as we'll get into later, that's one of the pitfalls that you have to deal with as well.   Kaelyn (00:36:34):So, so one of the, so pretty much what you're doing right off the bat is you're blocking out, apart from the manuscript, the additional things that we talked about at the beginning of episode that are going to have to go into this book and you're literally laying it out, you're trying to go like, okay, there's going to be this. And that's going to take up two pages. Then I'm going to need four pages for this, then a page for that. And you're creating this file with then all of these, can I call them checkpoints? Does that make sense?   Rekka (00:37:05):It's a little bit, it's maybe just like a, to do list or, you know, it's a table of contents. It's the living table of contents, but without the table, it is the contents. Um, like I said, they're each going to be coming in as a separate word file and you'll be treating them as separate, uh, story blocks in InDesign so that, um, when one ends, it gets to a stop and then you have another one that begins on the next page as a separate story. So that, like I said, if something runs over, it pushes everything, but it doesn't flow into the next text block with like, you know, your dedication will accidentally end up on the same page as chapter one.   Kaelyn (00:37:43):Gotcha. Okay. That makes sense.   Rekka (00:37:45):There, I think there are ways to style like your chapter headings so that they appear correctly. So like if I took, if you gave me one solid word document and inside, it said chapter one, that, um, the, you know, as a chapter one and then the text and there's a chapter two that I could import that. And then if those chapters are marked as headings, you know, separate from the body text that they would be spaced properly with the text around them. And what this does is in the reflowable, it guarantees that like accidentally you won't lose the last paragraph of a chapter. If something you do with a spacing ends up pushing it.   Kaelyn (00:38:27):Right. Okay.   Rekka (00:38:27):But what it ends up being a mess in terms of, um, dealing with where the chapters headings are and whether they're space properly and all that kind of stuff. So what CatsPaw does, and what I've started to do is create a separate story for each chapter, which does mean there's a little bit more handling when it comes in from the word document. I can't just throw the word document in there and have it go "zzzzhzhhhhzhzhzhzh" all the way down and look perfect.   Kaelyn (00:38:54):That's the noise it makes.   Rekka (00:38:55):That is not the noise it makes, uh, that is the sound of disappointment when it doesn't work as intended, hopefully the styles are set up in a way that makes sense. So what you do is you go in and you delete the word styles, and then it says, Hey, uh, the, you know, the styles in use, do you want to replace the instances of that style with another style? And then you can apply your own style without having to go in and look for every chapter one chapter two, chapter three, you know, that kind of thing.   Kaelyn (00:39:22):Yeah. So Rekka, without getting too technical with all of this...   Rekka (00:39:29):Folks, that's her way of saying "you have four pages of notes and they frighten me."   Kaelyn (00:39:32):She does have a lot of notes for this one. Um, but without getting too technical about this, you've done the initial import, you know, you've corrected the, you know, real quick things you've, you know, checked the headings, made the stories for the chapters. And, uh, this is absolutely a leading question because I got to experience some of this firsthand recently, your next step, you're going to go through the manuscript and start looking for things that, for lack of a better term, look a weird.   Rekka (00:40:05):Yeah. So once everything's laid in, then hopefully the styles that you set up for paragraphs and such are, um, pretty low maintenance in that you've already decided how many words per paragraph are allowed to be hyphenated.   Kaelyn (00:40:23):And real quick, just to be clear what you mean by that. If a word is too long and is hanging off the end of the line, you can allow the text to hyphenate, put a hyphen there and then continue to word on the next line.   Rekka (00:40:35):Right. Like I said before, what you want the reader to do is not notice that they're reading. And so part of that job falls to the author to make the story engaging the other part, falls to the layout person. And typographer to make sure that there's nothing getting in the way of an easy reading experience. Sometimes that word "frustrating" would make that line either super compressed, if it fit all the words on that line, or super spaced out, if it decided to move it down. So by allowing hyphenation in your settings, you tell the computer, sometimes it's going to be necessary, please do this, but you can also tell it "if the word is capitalized. You know, if the first letter of that word is capitalized, do not hyphenate," because sometimes as a proper name and in fantasy and science fiction, you really don't want those words to get any more confusing than you've already made them you creative, creative, wonderful people. So, um, you maybe don't want to hyphenate those words at all. Uh, you can also say "don't hyphenate in the first line or don't hyphenate to the last line." There's little settings like this, and then there's sliders to say "more hyphenation for better spacing" or "I'd rather sacrifice some of the spacing for less hyphens." Cause it can be really silly to look at a paragraph and the first four lines end with a hyphen because you're using sciency words and they're really long.   Kaelyn (00:41:54):Yeah. And so then, uh, one of the other things that you're gonna look for is weird spacing. Um, as you mentioned, text here is typically justified. Um, this is why sometimes you'll see in books that there's not uniform spacing between words and what's happening there is the computer is making adjustments so that everything is kind of a box, just like these neat lines down the side.   Rekka (00:42:18):It will go for the spaces between words first, before adjusting the tracking between the letters themselves.   Kaelyn (00:42:25):So yeah, there's two ways to mess up the spacing here. You can mess with the spacing — You're wondering why I said this was so incredibly overwhelming, and this is why you can mess with the spacing in the words. So you could also mess with the spacing in between the letters.   Rekka (00:42:41):You know, if you were doing a poster, you would be really, really fine tuning every letter on there when you're doing a full book layout, um, unless this is a book about idealism, you know, or this is going to be a coffee table book, generally, you're not getting too close into the kerning, except in cases where like say you have a drop cap at the beginning of a chapter where the first letter is like three lines high. And that first letter is an "A," so you have this letter that leans away from the text at the top, but is running into the text on that third line that it's, that it's inset to. And so you might want to adjust how those letters fit together. That's where the reader is going to go. "Woah, that looks weird," as opposed to they're already sucked into the narrative and you know, they might completely overlook it.   Kaelyn (00:43:32):And I can actually give an example that a wreck and I came up against that was really strange when we were working on Aria. Um, because it's a space opera. We had some names that started with a Q, but were not followed by a U, which is obviously very unusual in English, but not in this galaxy. And the Q that was built into the font was this large ornate sort of letter, capital letter ,with this flowing line. And we were looking at this going, well, why is it doing this? And we realized that there was a different setting built into the font for if you were doing Qu versus just a single capital Q.   New Speaker (00:44:11):Right. And that's called a ligature, which is a standard, um, aesthetic manipulation of the way letters fit together so that they are more attractive, and, and this is like, you know, typographers will really have fun with these. So in the case of the character's name, it was "Qe" and there was no ligature for that. But for the word "Queen," you have the stroke coming out of the Q and it extended, I think, past the u, um, it was very, very, pretty. It was very Royal.   Kaelyn (00:44:46):It was really, it was gorgeous. It was almost the length of the word.   Rekka (00:44:50):But we were looking at it and going, why, why is this? And then finally we figured it out. Um, I think you leave it because you're like, well, it's a queen. Yeah. She can have the long stroke.   Kaelyn (00:45:00):We found a way to sort of minimize it because the way they had it in there, it was very distracting in the text.   Rekka (00:45:06):They call them alternatives. So when you highlight a letter in InDesign, you get an option to switch that letter form to one of his alternatives, but yeah. Um, ligatures, are generally something you want, um, because of the way like F will go into L or F will go into I, um, you know, they're very, very common. Um, and you probably don't even realize you're looking at them. Uh, if you see two letters that basically connect somehow or, um, the letter forms overlap into the horizontal space of each other, it's probably a ligature and they're, they're good. They're a good thing. But in some cases you may want to manually override them.   Kaelyn (00:45:45):All of this is to say that then this becomes a really time consuming process of just needing to read through the manuscript and to make sure that it looks okay. We're not fussing with words at this point, we're fussing with layout and with presentation.   Rekka (00:46:00):So I would argue that you're not necessarily reading through the manuscript. Um, but you are scanning, you know, across every page to, to catch these kinds of things.   Kaelyn (00:46:11):And someone like Rekka, whose eye is trained to look for this stuff. Um, you know, there are like someone like me, there's stuff that I caught on there that I went, "ah, this is weird." Or like I would find, um, there's a thing that can happen called a river where the spacing in between letters, stacks up line on top of line. And it looks like a river, essentially.   New Speaker (00:46:33):You could trace a line, you know, with a pen through multiple lines in a paragraph. And that's, you know, there's rivers, uh, and the fully justified text kind of creates quite a few of them too, unfortunately. Um, but again, you can kind of control that by setting up your styles really well. Um, the Draft 2 Digital's, as well as InDesign's, um, algorithm that lays out the text for you tries to control that, like it knows to try and avoid it. Can't avoid it everywhere. Cause again, especially with science fiction books, sometimes the words are just really long and you're kind of stuck with them, but you also, you know, you're going to look out for widows, which are single words at the end of a paragraph. In something as long as a, as a novel, they're going to be some of them, you just can't avoid it.   Kaelyn (00:47:18):It's just, it's going happen. Yeah, there's no way around that.   Rekka (00:47:19):But you can try to minimize them. Um, other things that just, you know, again, the hyphenation, you're just, some normal words become less normal when they're split across two lines. You know, your brain is going to try and guess what the rest of the word is as you're reading. And so you don't want anything that your brain would go immediately to something else.   Kaelyn (00:47:39):Uh, one of the other things, um, if there's a scene break, you're signified us by a break in the text. If that break comes at the end of a page and then starts at the other, it's not going to be clear to the reader that there's supposed to be a break in there.   Rekka (00:47:52):Yeah. So generally you want some kind of ornament um in there for that break. Um, I actually was reading on a Kindle last night and twice in a row inside the same chapter, I did not realize I was supposed to be dealing with a scene break because it came at the end of the way my Kindle had flipped the pages. So I was like, "wow, I sure would've put an ornament in here. Uh, just to signify that the scene breaks." You know, sometimes it's three asterisks. Sometimes it's a line. Sometimes it's a little illustration. The scene breaks, again, are communicating something to the reader. So if it's not being communicated, it needs to be adjusted. Um, and then you've also got, uh, orphans which are single lines at the end, or start a page. You, you kind of want to keep your paragraphs together., Again in a 400 page novel, you're not going to be able to control every single one of them, but you do what you can. And sometimes you end up doing what you can by going back three paragraphs to find a really long, chunky paragraph that could probably, uh, you know, be adjusted to either push or pull that, um, that line upward or back so that you can control that.   Kaelyn (00:49:00):So, yeah, Rekka... Someone like Rekka is, you know, scanning these, looking through everything and knows exactly what to be looking for. Um, it's a very time consuming manual process, but if, again, you're a designer like Rekka, this is just, you know, you've got like a third eye that is just going, "yes, no, no, no, no, no, yes, yes, yes, widow, orphan, other upsetting family status."   Rekka (00:49:27):Exactly. Exactly.   Kaelyn (00:49:29):So that is kind of, I would say is that is that sort of, once you go through and finalize that, is there anything else assuming there are no changes being made, is that sort of the end of your involvement at that point?   Rekka (00:49:46):So that is for the print book. Now for the ebook, there are a couple of different ways to do it again, drafted digital we'll happily take your word file and make an ebook from it. Um, as will SmashWords, as will Reedsy. Um, there's a program called Vellum. Yep. And that is Mac only, unfortunately I a hundred percent think is a worthwhile, uh, program to have, because the option that remains from that is, uh, to take your, either your word document or your InDesign document and export it to an epub. And then what you need to do is manually edit that epub to make sure that it's clean, because sometimes styles come in from other programs that are, uh, bloated for what you want an ebook to be. You want to keep the size down. You want to not confuse the e-reader with too many, you know, instructions for how to handle a paragraph, et cetera. So, um, InDesign lets you, uh, create rules for your various styles in how it exports them to epub, which is a good thing. Um, however, I have found that the epub that's, uh, exported still requires an awful lot of work. So if your Word document is kept up to date with the same changes that go into the layout after the page proofs are made, I definitely recommend taking that Word document and feeding it through, uh, either Vellum. I know um, Draft 2 Digital has been working on their epub, you know, converter so that, um, it's probably getting closer and closer to perfect. Um, but right now my experiences with Vellum and it's just night and day between having to edit an epub because InDesign still, you know, separated out your files weird or whatever, um, to just loading it into vellum and having it recognize this, you know, the scene breaks and the chapter breaks and all this kinds of stuff. And again, Draft 2 Digital, Reedsy, Smashwords, Vellum: they're, um, ebook creation tools, know what fonts are available in e-readers and know how those styles will be rendered. So when you pick a style in any one of those, you can be fairly certain that it's going to look the same across multiple e-readers, which with InDesign, you kind of have to manage on your own. And that's not a lot of fun. And by the time you're done with this layout, you kind of want to be able to like, just output that ebook and just go.   Rekka (00:52:09):Um, I definitely recommend if you can do the ebook last, because every time you create a new format of this book, now you've got to keep all the changes straight between every different format or you have to re-output the ebook again from your final_final_final_dot [[grumpy noises]] final, you know.indd file. So, um, that would be my recommendation. Uh, yeah, the, the process of maintaining multiple files across different versions and stuff like that is, it's not great.   Rekka (00:52:43):You want to minimize it so that you can have all the files open on your computer, on your, you know, if you're like me, you have two monitors and you can have them side by side and make every change, uh, one at a time, side by side so that, you know, it's done. So from there you have, you know, you just have your final checks and, and once you have all the pages laid out in InDesign, you'd have a final page count, which means that you can finally go get the template for your cover. Because you can't make your cover final until you know the spine width, which you don't know until you have your page count. So all these things kind of like wait until the end, so you're, while you're laying things out, if you don't have all those pages on the inside that we talked about in the front and end matter, you're bugging the publisher for those. "Uh, can I get that? Can I get that?" If you have a direct access to the author, you might be reaching out to them, you know, "just to confirm, I want to make sure I have everything." Because, um, that page count means that you can finish your cover. And then, um, you output that according to the, you know, guidelines of whoever will be doing the printing, whether it's, you know, uh, press printing or a POD digital, you match their specifications and you upload the file, you preview everything a hundred times. You know, you'll proof it one more time from the, um, they'll output a PDF and send it to you. And you just make sure that, you know, no pages are missing or whatever that you know could go wrong. That it's not a truncated file. Like you uploaded it and it didn't only partially upload or, or whatever. Cause most of the system is pretty automated. You don't have people who—you cannot trust, let's say, that there's someone on the printer team who is going to be going over your page with as much care as you would. So always take that care to go over everything. Just like I, you know, went through the entire layout to make sure the words were falling on the right place. You want to make sure that you go through the entire proofing process with that same eye. If you've ever seen the movie Elf there's, um, there's a scene where the president of the company marches him with a briefcase and he pulls out a page proof. You don't get page proofs like that anymore, but you do get PDFs. And it sh... And he points at the bottom of this blank page to where the publisher had signed off on a page that did not output. And so kids who read this book, didn't get the ending of the book, right?   Kaelyn (00:55:01):No one knows what happened to the puppy and the pigeon.   Rekka (00:55:04):So the printer will make you sign, you know, essentially digitally sign this proof to say, "I approve of this, go ahead with printing." So if something happens that was shown in the proof and you didn't flag it and fix it or flag it and have them fix it, it's on you. So there's no, there's no amount of hurry that is worth having to swallow the cost or swallow the embarrassment when your readers get, you know, books with mistakes in them. So I mean, through the entire process, as laborious as it sounds, and as much as it sounds like you might want to get through it and be done with it, like, the care you put into it makes a better product.   Kaelyn (00:55:45):Agreed. So, um, on that note, uh, the big takeaway here is attention to detail is always important, but never so much.   Rekka (00:55:55):And pay someone else to do it if you can.   Kaelyn (00:55:56):But never so much as when you're doing your layout. You know, as I said, this was just meant to sort of be a little bit of a kind of walkthrough of what happens to get a book taken from a manuscript to actually be formatted as a book. As, as you can see, it's, it's a process and there are different levels of how much detail and attention you can pay to it. And there- one is not necessarily better or right or wrong. Sometimes it's a matter of money and cost. Sometimes it's a matter of time. It's- at the end of the day. You just want to make sure that you've written a good book that can be easily read. And when I say easily read, I mean, as Rekka has said multiple times through this, people reading, it should not be conscious of the fact that they're reading. They should not have to make an effort to read the book.   Rekka (00:56:50):They shouldn't have to concentrate just to see the page, you know, or to get through the page. And to your point about, you know, sometimes budget is a concern. I mean, obviously Draft 2 Digital's is free. Um, when you upload the files, I don't even think you have to publish or distribute to them. You can just download the file that it generates. Um, because they know that people will see the value in their service and come back and maybe eventually will distribute through them because every time you hit their page, they're showing you like, you can get this into libraries, you can get this into, you know, various distribution channels that you might not be able to get into on your own. So, you know, that's why their stuff is free. It's not free, cause it's not valuable. They work very hard on it. And it shows.   Rekka (00:57:29):If you want a little bit more hands on than that, but you can't afford the page by page line, by line tracking. You know, there are designers who will probably be agreeable to do slightly less of the, you know, nitty gritty work, get it laid out for you. And do you know what they know works well, which is, you know, setting up those styles so that there's a minimal amount of, you know, all the things that we've warned against. And so you might be able to get somebody who, you know, will charge you less because they'll do less of the process, but a little bit more than you might get from one of the free things. And, you know, that's just something to experiment with and see how it works out and know that, you know, like if you say, "Oh, no, I really want to, um, you know, fiddle with this more," that, um, you need to probably get them to agree, to give you the InDesign file and then maybe, maybe you start paying for Adobe Creative Cloud and get a copy of InDesign yourself and you learn how to fiddle with these things. But it's, it's not all or nothing. It's not hours and hours and hours of paid labor at, you know, a designer's rate necessarily, but you do get what you pay for. Yeah. So yeah, there are multiple options on more of a sliding scale than, you know, just "free" or "all of the money."   Kaelyn (00:58:49):That's, that's our episode about books and layouts and putting them together and everything. Um, you know, I know it was, there was a little technical in some areas.   Rekka (00:58:58):I could go on for a few more hours.   Kaelyn (00:59:00):Yes, yes. Um, you know, hopefully that was informative, kind of gave you a little bit of an idea of what's going on in the background here. And, um, you know, as always, if you have any questions or, you know, anything that you were looking for more information on or wondering about, uh, please feel free to contact us. We like when people ask us questions and contact us.   Rekka (00:59:22):Yep. You can reach us on Instagram and Twitter @WMBcast. You can find us at WMBcast.com for all our old episodes. And if you find our information valuable enough to assign a dollar number to a, you can find us at patreon.com/wmbcast, and we'd super appreciate your support. But of course we know that's not always possible. So the another way to support us, uh, free of cost to you is to recommend our podcast to a friend who might be interested in some of the discussions you've heard. You can tell them to subscribe if you think everything's great, or if there's something specific, you can just send them a specific episode. Um, and of course the pinnacle of free support for this podcast will be to go leave a rating and review at Apple podcasts, even though we are available on all the podcast apps, that is the place where the reviews really seem to do the most to boost our visibility. So you can do that and help other people find us.   Kaelyn (01:00:20):Yeah. That's certainly the algorithm that we need to feed the most of all of them. Well, thanks again, everyone for listening and we'll see you in two weeks.   Rekka (01:00:28):Take care, everyone.  

Hi everyone, and thank you for tuning in to another episode of the We Make Books Podcast - A podcast about writing, publishing, and everything in between!   This week we were lucky enough to sit down with Michael R. Underwood, author the upcoming novel "Annihilation Aria" from Parvus Press.  Full disclosure: Kaelyn was Mike's editor on the book and so we got have an extra in-depth and behind the scenes discussion about the craft of writing and how characters, plots, and worlds can change and adapt as the story is written.  Mike was a fountain of information and knowledge and we both left the conversation with some amazing insight into the process behind creating a book with such rich world building and dynamic characters.  We had a great time talking with Mike and hope that you enjoy the conversation as much as we did.   We Make Books is hosted by Rekka Jay and Kaelyn Considine; Rekka is a published author and Kaelyn is an editor and together they are going to take you through what goes into getting a book out of your head, on to paper, in to the hands of a publisher, and finally on to book store shelves. We Make Books is a podcast for writers and publishers, by writers and publishers and we want to hear from our listeners! Hit us up on our social media, linked below, and send us your questions, comments, concerns, and if you've read Annihilation Aria, let us know what you think!   You can (and should) check out Mike on social media at:   Twitter: @MikeRUnderwood Website: www.michaelrunderwood.com   Annhiliation Aria is available everywhere awesome books are sold on July 21, 2020!   www.books2read.com/annihilation-aria   We hope you enjoy We Make Books!   Twitter: @WMBCast  |  @KindofKaelyn  |  @BittyBittyZap Instagram: @WMBCast  Patreon.com/WMBCast   Episode 39: Annihilation Aria with Michael R. Underwood transcribed by Sara Rose (@saraeleanorrose)   [0:00]   R: Welcome back to We Make Books, a podcast about writing, publishing, and everything in between! I’m Rekka, I write science fiction and fantasy as R.J. Theodore.   K: And I’m Kaelyn Considine, I’m the acquisitions editor for Parvus Press.    R: And today, we have to make another full disclosure-confession. We have another Parvus author on today. You recently heard us talk to Scott Warren of the Union Earth Privateers book—book series, I should say. And today we have another author of another amazing Parvus book, Michael R. Underwood of Annihilation Aria fame, or about to be fame. I hope it’s fame because this book deserves it.   K: Yeah, Annihilation Aria’s coming out a week from when this will be released, so this is July 14th, coming out July 21st. It’s a fantastic book, space opera. When I first got the manuscript and was kind of giving a it a rundown to my publisher and the other people on my team, I described it as the gender-swapped Mummy in space.   R: Yeah. With magic. Well, I guess The Mummy does have magic, too.   K: Yeah, yeah but with giant space turtles, and therefore better.   R: Yeah, yes.   K: So Mike was kind enough to take the time and sit and talk with us about the evolution of story writing and character development. This book had been something that he was working on for years. It, well, the core parts of it didn’t change too much. The book certainly underwent a lot of evolution over the years. And MIke is so smart, so talented, has a lot of really great insight and advice to offer when it comes to, you know, being about to take a look back at your own work and figuring out how it needs to change in order to serve the story. So, we had a great time talking with Mike. Hopefully you have a great time listening to him, and you should, you still have time right now to pre-order Annihilation Aria, book one of The Space Operas. Absolutely check it out. Not only because I’m the one that edited it, but because it is an excellent book.   R: I totally agree. I got the chance to read it when I was recovering in the hospital and it was a delight. It was absolutely everything that Kaelyn and Mike promised it would be.    K: So, anyway, take a listen and we hope you enjoy!   [intro music plays]    R: Of course we just used up all our small talk, we don’t recall any of it. So, I guess we’re gonna have to go straight into it.   K: Dive right into talking to Mike Underwood today!   M: Hi! I’m sorry! This is the thing about being on a podcast that I’ve listened to. I have to actively keep my brain dial on the Talk to These People mode, instead of the Listen to These People mode.   R: I mean we can just talk about you, but it seems a little rude considering you’re in the recording with us.   K: Especially because none of us are in the same space right now. Usually Rekka and I are at least sitting across from each other.   R: I have the blanket that Kaelyn usually has today.   K: Ahh, my blanket! I miss that blanket. It sheds all over me, but it’s worth it.   R: Yeah, well, stuff has to shed in my shed…   K, disappointed: Oh, Rekka.   R, unashamed: It works with the name, but it’s also because it makes me feel less lonely for my pets that are in the house because we don’t want them shedding in the shed.    K: Alright, I’m derailing this conversation now. This just goes down a road of puns that there’s no recovery from, and then we have to start over again and it’s just… it’s gonna be a thing. So, Mike, do you wanna save us here and introduce yourself?   [K and R laugh]   M: Sure. I’m Mike Underwood, I write as Michael R. Underwood. I mostly do action adventure meta-genre kinds of stuff. I like found families, I like trope-twisting, and my next book is Annihilation Aria which is coming out with Parvus Press, so I’ve had the fortune of getting to work with both of you in a professional capacity and I’m very excited to talk about the book with your audience.   K: We’re really excited to have you on here, because this book has a long and storied history. This was not a, simply, Wrote Something, Submitted It, Got It Accepted and Published. There was, even before it came to Parvus, before I started working on it, you were, what? three-ish years into this book at that point?   M: Yeah, so. This book basically starts in the movie theater as I’m watching Guardians of the Galaxy.   K: Okay.   M: And like really enjoying a lot of what it did with tone and, kind of, bold visual style with all of the high technicolor space opera bits, plus some retro nostalgia aspects. And so that informed a conversation I had with an editor, who I shall let remain nameless, that I was talking with at a world fantasy convention. In that conversation, I mentioned that I really would love to write something that would make people feel the same type of joy and smile-so-much-your-cheeks-hurt kind of vibe, that I got while watching so much of Guardians of the Galaxy. And it’s not a perfect film because there are very few perfect films, but I loved that mode of space opera that it had. Where it’s a bit more irreverent, it still has some of the found family vibes that you see in something like Firefly or Killyjoys. But it’s on the more adventure-y, epicfantasy but-make-it-space and pewpew versus space opera that’s a lot more, that leans more towards hard science like something like The Expanse. I’ve always been more of a Dune- and Star Wars-end of space opera kid versus that kind of overlap between space opera and military SF or the [radio voice] This Is What Thing Will Be Like Seven Hundred Years In the Future When We Have An Alcubierre Drive or whatever. That’s not my thing.   [K and R laugh]   M: And so what I brought to it was, you know, a lifetime of loving Star Wars, but also various roleplaying games and wanting to find in a project, a place to say what I was interested in and investigate the things I loved about space opera. So I took a play from Annie Balay, who has talked about making up a wishlist of tropes that she loves about urban fantasy, and she put those into a series. So I just kind of sketched out fun, weird things. Like, “What if giant spaceturtles?” and space magic bullshit and—   R: Perfect.   M: And finding a way to just kitchen sink a novel, in terms of things that I liked. And it kind of started to build up momentum there. But because I wrote it as a back-burner project over years and years and years, where it started and what it has become now, there’s a big gap there and there’s a lot to unpack from what the characters were really about to how the world feels to, then, into the editorial process with Kaelyn kind of repeatedly inviting me to unpack things or slow down and give a deeper view into characters.   K: It’s very generous of you to use the word “invited you to”.   R: Yeah, I was gonna say. I know Kaelyn, that’s a very interesting verb choice.   K, laughing: “Mike, I’d like to hear more about this.” “Oh, okay, here’s a sentence.” “No, Mike, I know where you live, Mike!”   That was something that I, just for clarification I’m the editor of Parvus that worked with Mike on this in case that hasn’t become apparent. One of the things that really drew me to this book and that I was wanting Mike to slow down and unpack was the characters. For all the setting and the fantastical elements of this, the characters are such a huge driving force, I think, for the story. I would absolutely read anything that is just set in this universe. As long as the characters are as engaging, compelling, and fun as the ones that you’re written in Annihilation Aria. But you had kind of  a few things that you wanted to accomplish with the characters, as well.    M: Yeah, so. I’ve been in the same relationship since 2010, I’m happily married. My wife and I get along very well, and in science fiction, fantasy, adventure fiction especially there’s just not a lot of instances of happily committed couples. Let alone happily committed married couples. And I think there’s a lot of cultural reasons that go into this, that are probably several podcasts-worth of their own and would be best had in conversation with capital R, Romance writers.    But the short version was that I wanted to write the kind of story that really argues that Happily Ever After can also be really exciting. So that was one of the nexuses around which the story was built. Like, okay, well what if I do this but I have a couple that’s already together and happy at the beginning of the book. And not that they don’t face challenges and one at the start of their relationship was: these people who both have a quest that they’re trying to fulfill, if either of them gets what they want, theoretically the couple breaks up.   R: Yeah.   M: But that, when they meet, they’re like, “Oh, you can help me with my thing and I’ll help you with your thing,” except that along the way they fell in love. They’re still on this trajectory that theoretically means—that could mean the dissolution of the relationship, but they don’t really have anything else as a way of being in the world, because they can’t just be together and be happy. They have their own drives and they exist in a pretty oppressive system that requires that they have a lot of money because they both have exterior debts and things like that. The same kind of Firefly vibe.    So that tension between their attraction to each other and their individual quests that might pull them apart was one of the big engines that made the story move. So that when they run into this ancient kingdom, techno, biotech tomb that they run into early in the story, that gets a McGuffin in their hands that then becomes a big deal. And they’re each engaging with it and the things around them because they have these, sometimes competing, usually overlapping, drives that are motivating them.    And that, almost like a perpetual motion machine of character interaction, was really fascinating and I wanted to keep on working with, while trying to balance, respecting the fiction. There really is this chance that things could fall apart for them, while knowing that I wanted them to not break-up because that was part of the whole thing.   R: One thing that was notable for me, as I was reading the book, was that at no point do they not want the other one to succeed. They are so supportive of each other that even though it means that it would break them up, they exist on different planes. Yes, this fact is over here that if I got what I wanted, I would be across the galaxy from this other person.    But at the same time, same plane, they also really want the other person to be happy and to succeed at their personal character arc quest and it’s really, like you said, it builds tension but it’s just really nice to see people who support each other and, even though there’s this big divide between what’s best for their relationship versus what’s best for the individual.   K: Yeah, and along those lines—and this maybe might be a transition into talking about some of the more mechanical aspects of writing this—is that these two characters are Max and Lahra and they are two of the main POV characters, but when you started writing this, they were the only POV characters, correct? [12:46]    M: I think there were a very small number of POV chapters for Wheel, who is the pilot of the two main characters, and then Arek, who is kind of their primary antagonist. So he’s an agent of this galactic empire that controls the space that they live in. I had a little bit from each of them as counterpoint or context, but it was still very much Max and Lahra’s story and the other ones were just there to give a little bit of context and color.    And only over years of doing other projects and writing and growing as a creator, did I make the moves to promote Wheel and Arek as POV characters and to treat them with more depth and groundedness, as I engaged with them. Especially into the revision process, I saw and was convinced that there was more for the novel to do and it could be richer for digging more into the emotional lives of all four of those POV characters.   R: And you really did. Especially with Arek. He’s not the prototypical space-fiction villain. He’s got a lot of complexity to him. He is still definitely a villain, but he’s the least worst villain personality? And they’re definitely—again, you’ve given each character a drive and something that they’re aiming for which might be at odds with what the organizations that they work with are aiming for.  So, how did you make those decisions, as you’re developing? Especially a villain character, but also Wheel.    It’s really interesting that Wheel might have had a very tiny part just in the sense that Wheel is the owner of the ship that everyone lives on, I assume, and maybe Wheel has to help rescue at some point. Or Wheel has to support with something Wheel can witness that the other characters can’t, or something like that. I mean, I have obviously done the same thing with POVs where somebody was there because it was convenient to have another POV and then that person had to become a fully-rounded character of their own. But when you built Arek, you didn’t have to go that far. You still could have sold this book without going as far with Arek as you did. But, so why—how did you start to see Arek and how much sympathy do you, personally, have for him?    K: Well, and I’ll jump into just to add that you gave all of these characters a life outside of this story. Every single person, if they were not taking part in this story happening to them, would be doing something else. And we, the reader, are in a position where  we can kind of see or imagine what they’re doing because even though you don’t have to spend a lot of time on it, but it gives us a very good sense of them.    M: Yeah, I think a lot of how I approach characterization and writing is probably informed by growing up playing table-top roleplaying games. So, table-top roleplaying was one of the main ways that I learned to tell stories and to think about what I wanted from stories. Alongside reading and watching TV and movies and reading comics and things like that. So in a lot of roleplaying, you have the characters as they are and then you’re engaging with a game master who says, “Here’s a plot!” and then you engage with the plot. And that’s one style of game mastering, and more recent roleplaying games, a lot of them are more player-driven in terms of character agenda and shared narrative authority and things like that. And the Apocalypse World tradition from that game by Vincent and Meguey Baker and all the games that come from it.   So I brought kind of one version of acting experience to writing. In terms of: okay, here’s a character and they are my character and I wanna be able to inhabit them at least a little bit to get a sense of who they are, so that when I, then, also as the writer, can throw things at them. I’m able to jump between those registers in terms of inhabiting a character and kind of providing the antagonism or the context and/or all the other stuff that goes around a character. I think it was because I was familiar with that style—so much of what my writing comes out of is that if I’m gonna be in the POV of a character, it’s hard to not spend some time with them and to linger with them and to think about their agency and their—what they want from the world.    And as much as I grew up loving Star Wars and Darth Vader, and Darth Vader is a great antagonist but he’s not a great character in a rounded fashion because he’s so much of a cypher. He is the iron fist that punches at the protagonists. You get into the prequels and you see some of the backstory and—but that’s not what I grew up with. I was sixteen or so when Episode I came out and we really start to get that backstory for him. I think I moved toward this point where, at least some of the time, I want villains or, at least the personification of villainy or the person that the team is engaging with, to feel enough like a person that they are not just a moustache-twirling for. Because I’ve written more straight-up moustache-twirling villains in other books. Like in Shield and Crocus, which is very superhero-y, the villains kind of run the gamut. Some of them are just like, “I Am Really Terrible! HAHA! Oppression!”   [K laughs quietly]   M: In Arek, I think he started out as more of Lieutenant Bad Guy and he probably grew that roundedness when I thought about like, “Why is he the one who’s out here in the Boondocks?”   R: Mhm.   K: Yeah.   M: Who is the person within this species-supremacist empire that ends up on this bad duty? And, okay, I know that, from what I know about militaries and governments, okay you get a crap duty because you piss somebody off or because you’re out of favor. Well what is it like to be out of favor in this species of supersoldier, galactic tyrants? Why would that be a thing? So I started thinking a little bit about class and caste within a species. Or is it that he has some relationship to the dominant ideology of the species? So he ended up as being more humane than most of the members of his civilization.    Because of that, he was marginalized within this very domineering, fascist civilization. It’s a little bit of getting to talk about the way that oppressive civilizations oppress even the people that have power or that not everybody is equal, even within an oligarchy. Because the lines of oppression and pressures are not all along one axis. Everything is very multiaxial in terms of where people occupy more privileged or less privileged positions or are taking actions that put them more or less in line with a dominant paradigm.   Thinking about worldbuilding in that fashion is also really important to me. So when I take a character and put them through that bouncy castle of all these different things of worldbuilding, they tend to accrete a bit more personhood.   K: So, piggybacking off of that, and we kind of touched on this a little bit before, was that you wrote this over a lengthy period of time and there were characters that evolved, obviously, and became more prominent points for, well, viewpoints in the story. How much of that, do you think, was really getting comfortable with and learning about this world you were creating and wanting to build upon, and how much was that, we’re all adults here but, three years, you grow and change and you look back at things that you did before that and go, “Oh, well I don’t like that anymore.” How much of it was organic story-building and evolution and how much of it was going back and evaluating what you’d already written?   [21:35]   M: I think it was definitely both, and in a really integrated circuit kind of way. That life experience and working as a writer were very intertwined. I would fold life experiences into writing or I would develop my understanding of storytelling in a more nuanced fashion because I had time. And because I had time, I could let things remain and mull and simmer over time. Well, what if not just this layer of how Lahra’s civilization operates, but what if there’s this other thing that builds on what’s already there. There’s a multi-caste system and you’ve got the nobility atop and you’ve got soldiers and the soldiers serve the nobility and, well, in a civilization you can’t just have soldiers and nobility. You’re gonna have farmers, you’re gonna have technicians, you’re gonna have all these things.   Okay, so there’s these other parts of society and I had the title Annihilation Aria way before the Genae had music magic.    K: Mhm.   M: Because the title, Annihilation Aria, was like, “Oh, that’s cool because space opera,” and I’m riffing on that, but it’s its own thing. And, you know, world killers are a big thing in space opera. How can I take these things and make them my own? And then I realized, looking back, as I was picking away at the project over years, that I’d already set a foundation upon which I could build something that would give Lahra’s civilization and, therefore her backstory, more meat to it. As I was writing parts of the story where the Genae really matter, I was able to layer on these extra things.    Having more time to layer texture and history onto the story was really valuable and because a lot of the other ways that I’ve written—I wrote my debut and I got an offer to sell it very early in the revision process because of wacky circumstances for which I’m very fortunate. From there, I had several years of, “Okay, cool. So you have a contract, write a book. Turn it in. Production. Publication.” And so I wrote books that were much more condensed in their timeline. So it’s write a book over nine months, revise it over six months, it comes out, or sometimes a little bit more. Sometimes even a little bit less.    With this one, because I didn’t sell it on spec, and I was going in a different direction, it had this opportunity to accrete depth and texture over time. But I don’t want to have a writing career where it takes five years to do every book.   R: I was just about to say, is that something you recommend?    K: Real quick, Mike, if you wouldn’t mind backtracking to kind of go on a little side tangent here. You said “write a book on spec.” For our listeners that maybe do not have as much experience in the professional writing world as you do, what are you saying here? What is writing a book on spec versus what you did with Aria?   M: Sure. So, I sold my debut having written the whole book. And then: cool, we wanna publish this and a sequel. Great. So I did that and then I went back to the same editor and I said, “I wanna write something else from these Ree Reyes books. And so I created pitches and I sold them. I sold those books without having written the whole book, which is one version of—   K: You’re selling based on the pitch that you’re giving.   M: Yeah, and that’s one degree of selling on spec. There are people who say, “Cool! I wanna write a book!” and the publisher’s like, “We love you! Please sell us this book!” That is really selling a book on spec, you know. And that’ll show up in Publisher’s Weekly or Locus as: Famous Author’s Next Book to Editor at Publisher. And it can be very vague. It takes a while for most authors to get to the point where they can just say, “I wanna write a book for you!” and the publisher says, “Yes! Here’s some money.”   K: Most authors will not get to a point where that happens in their career. And there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. It’s just that, typically—and correct me if I’m wrong—these are going to be household names either within the general populous or within genres.   M: Yeah.   K: You will know the people that are able to sell books on spec.   M: Yeah, or it’s like—I have friends who sell a book that’s already written, but it’s a standalone so they get a two book deal and the second book is: it’ll be a book.   K: Yes! Yeah.   M: That’s probably more common than, “Here’s a one book deal. I don’t know what the book is yet, but I have the track record that you just wanna buy it.” So I had tried to sell a couple of books on partials because I said, “Well, okay, I have this track record and I have this background in the professional side of publishing.” But those didn’t happen. So I just went back to writing new novels and trying to sell things and, at this point, I’d been wanting to do enough different things with my writing where it’s like, “Cool.I’ve got these adventure books and I wanna write some other stuff that’s a bit more sociological or political and try to balance all these things that I wanna do as a creator.”    But I don’t wanna spend five years for each book because, economically, it’s just not viable to be able to support the costs of a writing career in terms of conventions and things like that off of one book every five years unless I’m getting just a lot more money. And very few people get so much money from science fiction, fantasy that they can spend five years on a book. So Aria is this weird book that may be pretty singular in my career, in terms of how long it has taken to become the thing that will be published in, as of this recording, in a couple of months.    So I try to revel in that distinctiveness because it will probably be pretty singular and hope to apply the lessons that I’ve learned while writing it much more efficiently moving forward. To think about things with texture and depth from an earlier part, an earlier stage of the process and then to embrace the opportunity to make a book more rich and texture in the revision process. To try to do several years’ worth of work in maybe a year, year and a half, in strong collaboration with an agent or an editor or something like that.     R: So you’ve spent the last, you know, hand-crafting the tools themselves that you now can put in your toolbox and reach for, hopefully, and use them without having to remake them every time, going forward?   M: I sure hope so.   R: Well that would be a very efficient use of your time, I think.   M: Yeah. I just finished the rough draft for a new novel that is very different from Aria, but I think it would have been very hard for me to write it, if I had not already been through that process of pulling this book together over the course of several years while working on other things as my main deal.Like, developing and doing all the work for Born to the Blade and self-publishing stuff from Genrenauts and things like that. So I’m hoping that the messiness I can clean up a bit while still being able to reapply those tools, as you say.   K: Now, Mike, when you went back from this and I just know from our conversations and working together that, at various points, you spent a lot of time working on this. You picked it up, you put it down again. You came back and forth to it. Were there any points, when you were going through and revising this, that you knew there were changes you had to make that you weren’t happy about making? That you were reluctant to really do anything with?   R: Tell us how Kaelyn hurt you.   M: Um…   K, laughing: No, no we’re talking pre-editor.   R: Oh, okay. If you say so.   K: Well, what I’m trying to get at here is, and Rekka and I back in May, we will have released an episode about making hard decisions about your manuscript and changing things on recommendation, but then also doing it yourself and having that awareness of, “Hey, maybe this isn’t as strong as I want it to be,” or “Maybe this no longer serves this story.” And the reason I’m asking is because you did write this over such a long period of time, it gives you the time and perspective to go back and consider these things.   M: Yeah, so probably the biggest, hardest change was—In the first draft, the novel opens much later in the story compared to the novel as published. And, at that point, I was going for a kind of Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark-style opening because that’s another touchstone for this work, as well as something like the 1999 Brendan Fraser-Rachel Weisz The Mummy movies.   [31:09]   K: It’s funny because I remember when I got this manuscript and I was talking to our publisher, Colin, he said, “What do you think?” I said, “It’s The Mummy set in space with elements of Guardians of the Galaxy,” but mostly I said it’s The Mummy in space. If that doesn’t sell a book, I don’t know what will.   M: Yeah, and that Rick and Evy relationship, especially in the second Mummy movie was another big touchstone in terms of, like, they have their own things, they are committed to each other, they’re on adventures—   R: But they have their own styles. Yeah.   M: Yeah, but I have this opening for the book. And one, the first draft came out pretty short because often will draft short and a book will grow in revision because my earlier drafts tend to be a lot more, “Okay, cool. Action, action. World, World. Action, action, action.” And then I go back and unpack things. And, moving forward, I’m hoping that my first drafts will have a little bit more character and breadth and space in them and that in revision I’ll just build on that, as opposed to having to do quite so much work to unpack it.   So there’s—In several different cultures across the world, there’s a mythology that the Universe started as two lovers embraced and that that’s the whole of physical space and that then something or some people push them apart to create the gap between the Earth and the sky. And so I’m trying to make it so that my novels are not that process so much, and that they start out with a bit more room to breathe, so that both the characters can breathe and that the reader can have the space to feel all those emotions as powerfully because they’ve taken the time to ruminate on them, versus just, “Here’s a flashy scene! And here’s some people! And they have distinctive characteristics and now they’re gonna be action figures through a space!”   I want to do more and dwell more with those characters. And part of that’s inspired by reading a lot more romance novels. Where, in romance, the best writers will do a great job of unpacking emotional reactions. So, I have this one start of the novel and I knew that I needed to set things up better, and I wanted a kind of broader story, so that involved moving the clock back within this timeline which also then gave me the opportunity to ground the characters more in their home away from home, in this colony ship that turned city in space called The Wreck. So what if you took a colony ship with a dozen species and they all loaded up this big ship and they had all of their hopes and dreams and they set off and then something goes really wrong and it crashes into some asteroid somewhere. And they absolutely cannot get going again.    I really liked that setting, I just kind of played through it in the original draft. So, in the revision, I was able to say, “Okay, here are the things I like about this, and now I wanna do more with them.” And that was also when I was able to kind of graduate Wheel into more of an equal POV character, in the way that she is tied to this place. And that they, the three of them, Max, Lahra, and Wheel are caught up in this net of relationships and factions. So it was a lot of forcing myself to kind of put my money where my mouth was about: here are things I like in writing, here are things I like in storytelling. I’m gonna push myself to dig deeper, to put the world on display more, to put my characters under pressure along several different axes that then makes it more realistic within the narrative. That they make the choices that they’re making as the story unfolds, so that at any given moment, they’re stuck between some bad options and they try to make the best opportunity for themselves.   Whereas, previously, the reason why they went and did the things that they did, in the earlier drafts, were a little bit more because it’s what I wanted from them, and less because it was the only thing that made sense for who they were as characters and what their relationships were at the time. So it was a lot of raising the stakes, but not in a grimdark fashion. Stakes and the degree to which the characters were enmeshed in the world and were both affected by it and agents effecting it.    R: I want to call attention to what you said, though, about as you expand your draft, you are not adding density to all the spots that you’re expanding, just for the sake of making it longer. But that you actually are going to this with such intent that you are actually creating space, not creating more. You didn’t double the action and then double the tension. You created a space that gave all the characters more room to become alive. So I just thought I’d draw attention to that because so often we talk about, “Oh, yes, in revision my book doubles in length,” but we don’t often say what that content is.   K: Well you can double in length and more than double in substance.    R: Oh yeah, yeah.   K: I think that’s a trap a lot of writers fall into where: I just need to add and add and add, and then at some point someone is gonna tell me, “Yes, you have enough here.” And it’s less about it being enough and more about it being efficient and effective.    M: Right, yeah, because there’s nothing about Storytelling that says, “Ah, sorry, this is only 70,000 words, it’s not a story yet.”   K: Yeah, and if somebody’s telling you that, don’t listen to that person. That’s not—   M: Yeah, and it’s—We’re in a position now, in the industry, where you can publish shorter work and there’s still a chance to find an audience. And any given publisher has their own model that they’re operating within. If you’re selling paper books, there’s kind of a minimum word count that will give you a spine that you can put text on. Those physical realities inform book publishing to a certain degree, but I was already playing within the novel space that was like, “Oh, well if I do more and I’m thoughtful—” It’s not that the book is 30 percent better because it’s 30 percent longer, that’s not the equation that we’re talking about.    There is more space for the character relationships, for those relationships to inform the action, for there to be an arc of how these people relate to each other and the ways that they are or are not invested in different things. So that, then, when I’m doing the big space opera finale, the reader feels like they’ve gone through the flow and the rise and fall of these characters, that the decisions they make there are both believable and kind of a natural catharsis for what the characters have gone through before. So that you get the reader, like, punch-the-fist-in-the-air experience when the character does the big thing.   R: So it’s not just about getting to 100,000 words and stopping.   M: Yeah.   R: Yeah.   K: I will say that, at Parvus, we have, for submissions, a 60,000 word minimum, but that’s because we publish novels and, sure, you can make an argument for some novels that are a little bit below there, but, as Mike said, there’s a certain point where you say, “I need this many words in order for this to be a book that I can have a spine and put the title on.” That said, there’s no reason to restrict yourself to a word count. If you have a great story and it’s 40,000 words, there are places that are looking for great stories that are 40,000 words.   R: Yeah. The only question is what category of the awards do you have your dreams set on, you know? But yeah, tell the story at the length that the story wants to be told. And if you want to explore more ideas, then the story gets a little longer. So, Mike, while you were expanding the story, how much of the relationship between Max and Lahra changed? I mean, you already said that you wanted them to have an established, committed relationship, but how fraught with tension did you want that to be? Like you said one of your inspirations was Guardians of the Galaxy, but Max is as far from Peter Quill as you can get, so what’s—how did that develop?   M: Yeah, I think Max as a character much more emerged from—the idea that I had was, what if you had the couple from The Mummy but you flipped the genders?   R: Mhm.   K: Yup.   M: So you have the fighty, square-jawed character is the wife and the, kind of, not-so-useful in a fight, academic who’s not as used to jumping around in the world, is the husband. And that’s really where it starts because they diverge pretty far from just those two because I wanted to figure out how to have the fish-out-of-water character work. Like, Max is from Earth and this is Very Far from Earth.    [K laughs] And drawing on that tradition of John Carter or of Farscape. There was a lot. It’s portal fantasy, but science fiction. Ultimately.   R: Yeah.   [41:05]   M: And how much it is portal fantasy can depend on how much being from Earth matters. The amount that being from Earth mattered, for Max, kind of increased over time, especially as I was really doubling-down on who Max was. Because Max is a Black guy from Baltimore so he grew up in a specific economic and political and cultural context, but then he’s the one who gets flung into a distant galaxy. Whereas racism doesn’t work the same way there and that’s not the main thing because that’s not my story to tell, as a white writer, but I was committed to respecting who Max is, as a person, and so I was able to build some things around him.    So what that became is that Max was already used to code switching between different cultural registers, and then here we have this multicultural civilization that is multicultural and multispecies and that, as an archaeologist and linguist, that was his superpower is being able to pick up language and study and understand culture. So, already, he’s really far from Peter Quill, who’s much more like a John Carter type of character, who is almost more in the Western tradition.   R: He just shoulders his way through every situation.   K: I was gonna say like a bull in a china shop. Just, you know, dropped in and is going to behave and do the same thing no matter where they are and who’s around them.   R: Yeah, definitely no code switching from Peter Quill.    M: Yeah, and then in thinking about who each Max and Lahra were, I had to be smarter and more thorough about who the other were because I needed to have a sense of how they interacted with each other. Like, what does Lahra do when Max is at his workstation for hours and hours and hours poring through manuscripts and trying to translate things? Like, does she just leave him to do his own thing? Does she hang out with him? What would make sense? Because she’s a bodyguard, she grew up in this cultural paradigm from her mother that was very much about a dyadic relationship, but between charge and guardian. Well, how does that inform who she is as a partner in a relationship? She’s more likely to be the kind of partner who would hang out with you while you’re doing your thing to make it clear to you that she’s supporting what you’re doing, but she’s not like—   R: Invading it.   M: She’s not invading it, she’s not making it a thing that has to be about both of them. Okay, well, then how does Max react when Lahra is really upset about something? He’s more likely to be the person who wants to talk it out, but they’ve been together for long enough that he realizes that some of the things that he wants to do are not actually what Lahra needs, as a person. Because I’m writing this relationship between people who are adults and they’ve lived enough life and they’ve spent enough time with each other that they’ve come to understand one another’s rhythms. Writing that part of the relationship was really rewarding because I got to show the way that I can write in Max’s POV and characterize Lahra, while characterizing Max. Because then I can write in Lahra’s POV about Max, through her own POV and the places where how they see each other don’t exactly line up.    Then tell the reader that these are both unreliable narratives because this is tight third person, which has enough overlap with first person that you’re gonna get some of that unreliability. And you understand more of what that relationship needs by getting both of the two, each of their buy-in. In terms of where they see themselves, where they see their partner, where they have doubts and fears, and how that manifests in the way that they act and how it does and doesn’t manifest in how the other person sees them.   Because I don’t write the same scene from both POVs, but I do frequently write the sequel to a scene in the other partner’s POV. So that they’re reacting to the same stuff.   K: But, beyond even just Max and Lahra, then, we have Wheel. Who is, I won’t call her a third-party observer because that’s not the case, but is an outside perspective on a relationship and, inm any cases, the only outside perspective on a relationship.   M: Yeah, and she doesn’t have access to their interiority. Every relationship is different on the inside, even if you’re living with somebody else. You know, because maybe you overhear conversations, but you’re not having that same emotional experience. And so that was a little bit more of a place where I got to comment on the relationship from the outside, but also think about times where I have been the third wheel friend to a couple when they’re going through something. And Wheel is also very fun to write because she has a firmly developed self-image that is, to a certain degree, a protection against the way that things are. So she’s more of the curmudgeon character who makes a show of keeping people at arm’s length, but she could have kicked them out of the ship years ago and be doing something else. But she didn’t. Why is that? And she’s tied into other factions in the story and that tie also came later, because Wheel started out as more just, like, the Driver will get you from A to B.   Then it’s like, how does this technology work? Well, we’ve got these cyborgs and if they used to be an empire, why aren’t they in charge? Well, how are they still around? If you get overthrown, the people who overthrow you are going to try to keep you out of power as much as possible.   K, punny: Annihilate you, if you will.   [R giggles]   M: Yeah, so all of those worldbuilding questions, then, informed who the Atlan, Wheel’s people, who those people were. The cybernetics gives them the ability to engage with the warp drives, which is a little bit like how the Spice works in Dune, it’s a little bit like this, it’s a little bit like that. And that every time I went back into Wheel to either talk about how she’s seeing something else, or her position in this setting, engaging with factions on the Wreck or her own history as an even older, mature adult who’s been places and had relationships, every time I tried to fold in or think about some other topic, she grew more rounded as a person. That gave her even more different ways of engaging with Max and Lahra as characters.   K: Was there any evolution to Max and Lahra’s relationship? Did anything change as the story grew? Or did you always see them as two characters who love each other and are very happily married, but also have separate lives and separate goals that they’re working towards, and they’re going to help each other do this no matter what, but the more they help each other, the more they’re driving themselves apart?   M: I think the only time when I really had doubts about Max and Lahra was while I was writing the first draft because I had this premise and, following the fiction, I wanted to honor it enough to let there be the opportunity for maybe things to go bad for them. I, as a creator, had a specific type of outcome that I was shooting for, but I didn’t want to put my thumb on the scale so hard that I’m like, “Oh well! It doesn’t matter that these things happened, actually it’s gonna be Happily Ever After no matter what. Haha, I win.” Because that wouldn’t be, it wouldn’t be as strong of a work. It would feel like there was a cop-out.    So, because I had an outcome in mind, it was more about what in the world has to be different from where things were, maybe, at the middle of my first draft so that it made sense. That the choices that they made led them to where they were at the end of the book. Probably the biggest changes there happened when the group goes to someplace that’s really important to Lahra and her heritage. I’ll stay vague for readers so that they go and buy the book and read it! Because it’s great!   K: It’s a fantastic book. Everyone should go buy it and read it.   M: And then, basically, since I believe very firmly that people are informed by their circumstances, but not always 100 percent limited by them—there’s places where agency is limited in society and so on—   K: Mhm, yep.   M: But that, because people are informed by their circumstances, if I want a different character output, I can change the circumstances to put different pressures on them and to give them different experiences that let them reflect differently on what they feel about things. So it was kind of a feedback loop between who these characters are as I’m expressing it in the writing, trying to respect who they are as people, as I understand them, and then also applying different pressures and adjusting the pressures on them so that the story stays within the trajectory that I’m thinking. Because probably the first core of the story was them and their relationship, and other things kind of grew around that. And then the thematics emerged from how they, as characters, reacted with one another and then, looking backward, how all those things operate. So that any thematic clarity that a reader gets from Aria is not something that was on page one of my notes.   [51:07]    M: It’s because the process of creating it as the book people will read was development rehearsal practice, re-rehearsal, changing the arrangement, practicing again, changing the blocking. I’m using music metaphors here because I’ve done music and theater. Not only is the story entertaining, but it’s also, as much as possible, saying the things that I would like to say, or inviting the reader to reflect on the same themes and ideas that were what I was hoping for them to do. Because, and this is something I’ve talked about with Kaelyn pretty early on in the process was, this could have been several different books.   K: It’s, and it’s something—I always joke that when I’m reading through books I can tell what sections of it were written at the same time. Authors, you guys aren’t always as slick as you think you are. You leave fingerprints on a lot of things. That was something coming into this, that I could tell what chunks of this book had kind of been written at the start, what parts had been revised very heavily, but we spent a lot of time in the beginning talking about the thematic elements of this. But also, as you said, this book could have gone a lot of different directions. I think it went, I will go so far as to say, the correct direction. The, one of the best possible directions it could have gone.    But I can see that in reading this, especially reading some of the earlier drafts that I got. There were a lot of different things that could have happened in this story and happened to these characters. I think that speaks very highly of your worldbuilding and your ability to create and develop believable characters, is that I can see them dropped into different scenarios and just acting on their own accord. They’re an object in motion at that point, rather than something that you’re directing to do certain things. And that’s amazing. That’s a fantastic thing to be able to do as a writer.    M: Yeah, another way of thinking about it—and this is definitely informed by a video I was watching recently, a conversation between a couple of game designers—is that some of it is just down to tone.   K: Yes.   M: Two musicians can take the same song and go—one musician says, “Okay, cool, I’m going for the same tone but I’m gonna move the key.” Just moving the key actually changes more than you expect. It’s the moody, emo down-tempo version of a pop song?   R: Yup.   K: I was just gonna say, actually, I just discovered a cover of “Smells Like Teen Spirit” by Tori Amos which is—actually I discovered it because it was on one of Rekka’s playlists that she sent me and it’s fantastic. But it completely changes what you would maybe think the underlying context of the song would be. So yeah, I think, as I said when we started all of this, I would read anything that you set in this world. Especially if the characters are as engaging and compelling and dynamic as the ones that you’ve created for Aria because I see them as their own people rather than chess pieces being moved around on a board. They’re there to carry out actions that it doesn’t always feel like you, the author, are dictating to them. They’ve taken on a will of their own at this point.    M: And that is for the best because if they’re—on a list of writing traps that I know I can fall into, having something that feels a little bit more like action figures and choreography is definitely on that list. And so I have to respect the characters and go back and make sure that all of the circumstances and the worldbuilding acoustics, maybe?—to extend the music metaphor—that those line up so that things end up the way that I would like them to be.   K: So, along those lines, and we’re getting to the end here to start wrapping up, we like to ask our guests for advice or introspective or something you wish you could go back and tell Mike five years ago, when he was starting this whole process.        M: I’ve been working as a writer, now, long enough that 5 years ago is not the start of my career. Because it used to be, people would ask me, “What would you tell a younger self?” and it used to be about revision and what I learned about revision from the late, great Graham Joyce and Clarion West. But that was a lesson I learned 13 years ago now. So I think the lesson for 5 years ago Mike would be: start reading romance, you’re gonna really like it and it’s gonna teach you a lot about character relationships and getting drama and emotional investment for the reader out of just the very core relationships between people.    In a romance, people are also emergent from their circumstances and there’s lots of things you can do there, but that emotional action flywheel of Person A does a thing, you’re in Person B’s POV, so Person B first has a visceral, embodied reaction to what, to the emotionally-charged thing that was said, and then we’re in their perspective and their mind is racing and reflecting on something and, maybe, they’re going through an emotional journey about what’s going on. Maybe it makes them think about something, but not so long that you can’t then go back into scene and write about what they’re doing in reaction so that you’re able to kind of create this cycle of action and reaction, where it’s not just talking heads but we’re also getting all of this beat-by-beat dramatization of the emotional arc, the emotional rollercoaster of your POV character along the way.   And that approach was a lot of what I had to bring to Aria in successive drafts, especially as Kaelyn kept on poking me and saying like, “No! Unpack this more! Slow down!” Either to give the emotional rollercoaster or to paint with a finer brush the world around the characters. And that that process and that urging to slow down and unpack has been really great, it’s been fun to do. So it’s not like I’m being told I have to eat my vegetables, it’s—give yourself the situation and the platform on which you can then do these things that you really like doing, and you’re gonna be happier with the results.   K: I think, in my experience dealing with authors, there’s what I’ll call an overcorrection that writers tend to incorporate into their work, which is: I don’t wanna be the long-winded person here. I don’t wanna be the one that spends a paragraph describing the exact emotion that this character is feeling for 150 words. And there is certainly something to be said for being aware of that, but at the same time, I conversely always point out: you know how they’re feeling, you know what they’re thinking. You need to make sure that’s coming across to the reader. The reader doesn’t get access to your brain for this, they get access to the pieces of it that you’re putting in this book.   So, yeah. And part of it was very selfish. Part of this was: Well, hang on, I wanna know what’s going on here! Mike! Tell me! So it’s a—I really liked learning more about these characters as the book developed and I think you did an outstanding job.   M: That’s a very kind sentiment and I’m very grateful that you had that experience. Because that makes me feel very good as a writer.   R: What I also love about it is that you have put in all this work for character-building and worldbuilding, but the book reads as fast as any omnomnommable sci-fi book out there. It does not get burdened with—as much work as you put into it, it doesn’t show. You have seamless story going on. Even though Kaelyn can tell which spots you rewrote, no one who picks up this book—   K: I’ll never tell!   R: That’s Kaelyn’s superpower, that’s not indicative of what you’re going to feel as you read it. But it’s very fast-paced and, as you said, you worked very hard on the tension and it shows. It pulls the reader straight from the beginning to the end and it definitely leaves you wanting more, so I hope that the space opera series is going to continue for quite some time because whether it’s Max and Lahra and Wheel or, you know, Kruji getting their own book. I’d read them all.   K: Kruji absolutely needs their own book. The entire story of Annihilation Aria from the perspective of Kruji.   M: Well, I’ll write some books. And then twelve years after the series ends, I’ll come back and do the Kruji book. Because I’ve started a number of different series and the heartbreaking thing about publishing is it’s—   K, laughing: There’s only one!   M: It’s hard to justify writing something when I don’t see a market for it.   K: Yeah.   M: And so there are things that I would love to go back to, but right now the economic reality says, “Why would you do that? That’s a terrible idea!” So what I’m hoping for, with any given new series, is I hope that this finds enough of an audience that there is the demand to create the economic circumstances that will let me pursue that interest more. Because only now in the novel I just wrote, have I written something that I think actually could stay a stand alone. Everything else, I’m writing a world that I think I could do a lot more things in. I could do more things in this just finished novel’s world, but I want that novel to be able to stand on its own.   For the space operas, I would love to write more, and I will write more if the circumstances permit.   K: Yeah, it’s a very difficult thing for, not just writers but creators in general, to say: I am making this and it is a finite project that is done now.    R: Well you spend all that time living in that world!   K: Exactly, yeah.   R: And so you see all the corners where you’re like, “Oh! There’s someone down there. I gotta go follow that after I’m done with this.”   M: Yeah.   K: For instance, Kruji, who I feel like has a lot of very important stories to tell. Some perspectives and insights to offer the reader that is really going to enrich the story of the Kettle. So, uh, that’s—   M: Smart readers will be able to pick up some of the places where that could go in some chunks of the novel. And if you figure it out, email me on my website.   K: So, yes! Speaking of, Annihilation Aria is out a week from today! You still have time to pre-order the book and the audiobook, as well, is available for purchase. Mike, where can people find you online?   M: Sure, so my website is michaelrunderwood.com, that has kind of basic updates. I have a Patreon that you can find at Patreon.com/michaelrunderwood—    K: And it comes with a lot of pictures of a cute dog. Very cute dog. Highly recommend.   M: My dog, Oreo, is really the star of my Patreon and that’s fine. I know how the internet works.   [K laughs]   R, laughing: Yeah. Give the people what they want.   M: And if you’re listening to this, you like podcasts so I am an occasional guest-co-host on the Skiffy and Fanty show which is a general fannish podcast about books and movies and TV and so on. And I am a co-host on Speculate which is an actual play podcast starring science fiction-fantasy professionals. As of this recording, we’ve started a Blades in the Dark miniseries, I’m gonna start a Star Wars miniseries using the Scum and Villainy system and, sometime in the future, there may be some roleplaying in a world that listeners of this episode will now be familiar with. But more will come on that later on.   R: Hm.   K: That’s a nice teaser there. Okay. Well, Mike, thanks so much for talking to us. This was great! I mean, for as much as I’ve already gotten to hear about this, I never get tired of talking about this book and the characters and the process to get it to where it was.   M: Yeah, thank you very much. Because it’s written over such a long time, I am still processing all of the lessons and things. Like, “Oh! That really did take this thing!” or “This is where that actually comes from!” So that process, just by itself, is really rewarding for me and it’s fun to get to—to participate in this show that I have enjoyed as a listener.   R: Well thank you for that.   K: Thank you! Alright, well thanks again, Mike, and everyone for listening. We’ll talk to you in two weeks!   [outro music plays]   R: Thanks everyone for joining us for another episode of We Make Books. If you have any questions that you want answered in future episodes, or just have questions in general, remember you can find us on Twitter @wmbcast, same for Instagram. Or wmbcast.com!   If you find value in the content that we provide, we would really appreciate your support at Patreon.com/wmbcast. If you can’t provide financial support, we totally understand. And what you could really do to help us is spread the word about this podcast. You can do that by sharing a particular episode with a friend who can find it useful or if you leave a rating and review at iTunes, it will feed that algorithm and help other people find out podcast, too. Of course, you can always retweet our episodes on Twitter.   Thank you so much for listening and we will talk to you soon!      

Hi everyone, and thank you for tuning in to another episode of the We Make Books Podcast - A podcast about writing, publishing, and everything in between! This week we are talking pen names!  What is a pen name and why would you want to use one?  We know what you're thinking, practically every episode we've mentioned your website, your social media, your brand - wouldn't a pen name just make it harder to for people to find you and check out your work?  The truth is there are lots perfectly good reasons to want to use a pen name instead of your own and in this episode we get into those reason plus some of the fact and fiction of pen names (there is some really weird misinformation out there about what a pen name can do for a writer).   We Make Books is hosted by Rekka Jay and Kaelyn Considine; Rekka is a published author and Kaelyn is an editor and together they are going to take you through what goes into getting a book out of your head, on to paper, in to the hands of a publisher, and finally on to book store shelves. We Make Books is a podcast for writers and publishers, by writers and publishers and we want to hear from our listeners! Hit us up on our social media, linked below, and send us your questions, comments, concerns, and the best pen name you've ever come up with! We hope you enjoy We Make Books! Twitter: @WMBCast  |  @KindofKaelyn  |  @BittyBittyZap Instagram: @WMBCast  Patreon.com/WMBCast   Episode 38: An Author Called By Any Other Name Will Still Write Amazing Things transcribed by Sara Rose (@saraeleanorrose)   [0:00]   R: Welcome back to We Make Books, a podcast about writing, publishing, and everything in between. I’m Rekka, I write science fiction and fantasy as R.J. Theodore.   K: And I’m Kaelyn Considine, I am the acquisitions editor for Parvus Press and—   R: But is that your real name?   K, sighing: Well, um. The acquisitions editor for Parvus Press is a suffix that I use to—   R< laughing: I was gonna say, don’t you get tired of saying the whole thing every time?   K: It is a bit of a mouthful. Sometimes I do just introduce myself as Kaelyn. So, yeah, we’re talking about pen names today in this episode. What are they? Why do people use them? Why are they beneficial? How do you pick one? All of these important aspects.   R: And what not to expect from your pen name.   K: Yeah, things that a pen name will not do for you. There’s some frightening stuff on the internet.   R: There’s some bad advice out there, did you know that?   K: Yeah, who woulda thought? Just because it’s on the internet, doesn’t mean it’s always true.   R: Yeah. Yeah, imagine that.   K: Pen names can be an important and valuable tool, so that’s what we spend some time talking about in this episode. You know, if you’re going to use one, getting the most bang for your buck, so to speak.   R: If you’re early enough in your career that you might wanna choose a pen name, I hope this is something that gives you stuff to think about. If you’re mid-career, you know, you might still decide that you’re gonna launch a new career in a different genre or something. But it’s also, you know, maybe it’ll help reinforce the decision you did make. So take a listen and enjoy!   K: Enjoy, everyone!   [intro music plays]   K: My bluejay nemesis.   R: Is back?   K: Well, here’s the thing, it turns out it was never gone! Because I found out that bluejays are actually excellent mimics, so—   R:Ohhh, yeah.   K: I saw it and it was like… it was very jarring because it was not making the normal bluejay noise. And I was like, “Oh my god!” And it… it can imitate other birds. I hate this thing so much! It’s… it’s terrible. I mean, thankfully it’s not sitting outside my window every morning screaming and waking me up like it has been in previous years. But I feel like it is tormenting me now. It is absolutely, now, pretending to be other birds.   R: Maybe that’s a courtesy to you. Like, it knows that you don’t like the jay. So you might better enjoy a chickadee.   K: Okay. I live in New York City. There’s no chickadees here.    R: Which is why I could never live in New York City. Chickadees are my favorite birds.   K: No, but apparently it can imitate hawks?   R: Hm.   K: So it’s been doing that, a little bit. And then, now I’m like thinking, “There have been other weird bird noises I’ve been hearing. Is that also this damn bluejay?”   R: Probably.   K: Oh, god I hate this thing.   R: It’s putting on a performance for you! It’s dedicated its life’s work to this portfolio of bird calls and it knows that you, alone, in the world can appreciate them.   K: I would just appreciate it if it went away.   R: Well, yes. You, alone, would also appreciate that.   K: But hey! Speaking of pretending to be other things!   [R and K laugh]   K: You see what I did there?   R: I see what you did there.   K: Today we’re talking about pen names.   R: Nom de plume!   K: And pen names are not necessarily pretending to be another person all the time. There’s a lot of reasons you could have a pen name.   R: Yeah. It’s funny because the first thing I ever remember about encountering the concept of pen names was when I learned that Charles de Lint wrote horror under another name. And I thought that was the most bizarre thing in the universe, that someone would change their name and hide their books from their fans!   Because to me, I liked Charles de Lint so much as a teenager, I read everything I could get my hands on and then I was out of books—Well, I say I was out of books, the other books I couldn’t find were out of print. And so to find out that there were more books I could have been reading! I was very upset, even though I wasn’t a horror reader. I would have gotten into reading horror because this author that I liked so much wrote it. And that was my first encounter with the concept of an author name.    K: I think we all have that jarring moment, somewhere in late elementary school when we were told that Mark Twain was not Mark Twain’s actual name.   R: Oh! Yeah, okay. So, yeah, I did know that but for some reason that didn’t count. Maybe because he was a historical figure.   K: Yeah, and also because I think we only knew him as Mark Twain. When you find out that his real name was Samuel Langhorne Clemens, you’re kinda like: “Oh, you know what I see why he went with Mark Twain.”   R: See, I always thought, because I knew Mark Twain and the name is so familiar, Samuel Clemens sounded like the more intriguing name, when I heard that. But the—Yeah, I guess Mark Twain wasn’t something that I read a lot of. And it wasn’t like Samuel Clemens had another collection of books that I could’ve been reading.   K: Exactly, that’s the thing is that he only wrote under Mark Twain, I think even with his newspaper writings.    R: Mhm.   K: I’m pretty sure he only wrote as Mark Twain, as well.   R: That sounds right, yeah.   K: I don’t think he ever really published much under Samuel L. Clemens. But there’s a long history of people using pen names. There’s a lot of pen names out there that people do not realize were pen names. For instance, George Orwell is a pen name. His actual name: Eric Arthur Blair. It’s not even close!   R: No, not even. And how do you come up with Orwell?   K: I… there’s a lot of things I wonder how that man came up with.   R: That—Fair enough. Okay, we’ll give you that one.   K: Jack Kirby, a famous early comic book writer and artist: Jacob Kurtzberg   R: Okay, so—but that’s gonna bring us into the whys of some of these, right? Because when he was working, there was a certain amount of prejudice against someone whose name would have been Kurtzberg.   K: Yeah. Yeah that—   R: Professionally, he would have had an easier time being Kirby.   K: Yes, definitely.   R: And that’s a shame. And that’s, unfortunately, still going on with pen names. I mean, we’ll get into some of that. But that is definitely still rampant is that there are preconceived notions of who belongs in what genre and who is worthy of respect. And people might choose a name that corresponds with people’s expectations of Greatness or Classics or anything like that. I mean, I will say I write under a pen name. You all know that.    K: We say at the top of every episode!   R: At the top of every episode, yeah! And I chose my pen name as an homage to someone who encouraged me a lot, but I also picked it, wrote it out and said, “Aww yeah that sounds like a author name!” And what does it sound like? It sounds masculine. It sounds like a white man’s name! And I’m half of that, but it was not really my intention to broadcast a masculine name that might fit better next to other masculine names on the shelf that get all the attention and draw. But to me, socially conditioned by the other names on the bookshelves in the store, I said, “Yeah! R.J. Theodore! That sounds like a real author’s name!   [K laughs]   R: I mean, honestly, if I could go back I’d pick something else. But I’m committed at this point. So.   K: So why do some people choose to write under pen names? Well, there’s a lot of reasons, obviously. Rekka just enumerated one for us. Would you call it branding, what you did?   R: Oh, definitely! Definitely. I mean, if you start a company, you name your company. And when you become a writer, if you intend to make a living at it, or at least make a career—whether or not the money is the point. But if you wanna do this for the long haul, you’re thinking about your presentation. Not just of your books and your stories, but yourself. So it is not unreasonable to sit down and come up with an author name and then because we DO NOT USE our legal signatures. Please, people. We practice the autograph of that author name and maybe even do that as part of feeling out whether you like the name and wanna stick with it. You know?   K: Branding is certainly a consideration when figuring out if you’re gonna use a pen name. Let’s be clear, right at the top, if your name is John Smith and you just feel like that’s your name and that’s what you want to write under, there’s absolutely no problem with that. You do not need to use a pen name. You do, however, need to be really good at marketing and maintaining your website and your internet presence, so that people can find you easily. Search engine optimization is going to be a key component to being successful here.   R: For John Smith, you are going to have to compete with police records, white pages, direct relistings—   K: Pocahontas.   R: That, too. You know, Florida Man. Everything is going to be a competition for you. So, you know, the elements of my pen name are not particularly unique but when you string them together and search for that, then that narrows down the field quite a lot.    K: Now, conversely, my name is very unique. I, as best I can tell, am one of the only two Kaelyn Considines in the world that spell their name this way. The other one is very clearly not me, if you punch it into Google. I will say that I have done different things, out in the world, under pen names. I am not going to say what they are or what that pen name is, explicitly because of privacy reasons.   R: Yes.   [10:50]   K: Because I have a professional life in publishing and a professional life outside of publishing. And, believe it or not, there are some things that I just don’t want intermingled all together with that. For the record, I am not doing anything nefarious or illegal. It’s just a matter of—   R: For the record, wink wink. If anyone asks...   K, laughing: Wanting to maintain some separation with different projects in my life.   R: Right. It’s privacy, but it’s specifically because you have aspects of your life that don’t need to mix. It’s not because you are trying to hide from anybody in a—it wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world if somebody found out the other name. But it would be annoying.   K: Well, I’ll be honest with you. When I started getting into publishing and when I came on at Parvus, I had a very frank conversation with Colin, who’s the publisher at Parvus Press, that I may need to do all of this under a fake name. Because my job at the time—I didn’t want it coming out that I was also running a side business, for a lot of reasons. And then, eventually, I decided, “Ugh, this isn’t worth it. I don’t have the energy to maintain this alternate presence!”    But the uniqueness of my name makes it so that, if you punch “Kaelyn publishing” into Google. I come up. I am the first result. If you punch “Considine” and anything vaguely associated with my name into Google, you will also find me very easily. When I started my previous job, when I was 26 and just out of grad school, years ago, I—the people that I worked with very quickly were able to punch me into Google and find all of these academic papers that I had published. That’s not a big deal, but they definitely had a lot of comments about how nerdy I was, as a result.   R: See, in the circles I run, that would be incredibly cool. So, don’t worry about it.   K: Oh, yeah, no it was kind of cool. But it was like, “Wow, you really are a huge history nerd, huh?” I’m like, “Yeah, I am. It’s you know.”   R: Mhm.   K: So, uniqueness or non-uniqueness are two factors here. In some cases, maybe your name is John Smith and you want to have something more akin to Kaelyn Considine where it’s easier to find you. Or, if you’re a Kaelyn Considine, maybe you—   R: Need a little more John Smith in your life.   K: Yeah, maybe you don’t always want to be found that easily. As we say on this show a lot, I am a pretty private person. I’m not super into social media, I don’t like to put a lot of myself out there. So I don’t like the idea of people being able to find me really easily.   R: But we should mention that just writing under a different name is not going to be enough to protect you from someone who wants to dig and find out who you are and how to find you.    K: Oh, yeah, no. It’s uh…   R: This is a very light coat of disguise. This is covering the Volkswagen bug that you’re racing with a grey cloth to make it look like a boulder. It only works because it’s a very low-fi film.   [14:21] K, laughing: Yeah, exactly. I will say—So another reason you might wanna use a pen name is maybe what you’re writing, you don’t necessarily want everyone to know that you’re writing it.   R: Right, that is definitely a possibility. Or, you know, maybe you have a family that you’re separated from and you don’t want them to know that you are writing at all.   K: Well, I will use an example from my real life. We have family friends that I grew up with and they have a daughter who’s a little older than me. Her mom started noticing that her and her husband seem to have some extra money. Not like a ton, not like a life-changing amount. They weren’t buying lamborghinis and moving into mansions, but they were—   R: Not stressing over small purchases.    K: Yeah, they put a lot of money into upgrading the house and took a really nice vacation. And her mom finally asked her, “Hey, did one of you get a raise or something?” and she said,” Oh, well you know how I wrote this book?” and she was like, “Oh! Did it start selling really well?” She’s like, “Well, no. But I kind of transitioned into writing some other things…”   Anyway, after some back-and-forth it came out that this person became one of the top ten selling erotica novelists in England for a long time. And she was doing this under a pen name. I think she kind of really nudged her way in right when Kindle unlimited was really taking off with this.   R: That’s the time, there you go.   K: Yeah. And she will not tell—we still have no idea—   R: What the pen name is.   K: Who she is, or what the pen name is! But she made a pretty decent amount of money off of it. Which, you know, good for her. But maybe you’re writing erotica and you don’t want everyone to know that you’re writing erotica.   R: Yeah, or just anything that you think you’d professionally or socially be shunned for, but it brings you joy. You know, just change the name and write under that. Again, if someone suspected it was you, it would probably be easy for them to figure out that it was. But if they’re looking for your name, this other name should not come up. As long as you’re just slightly careful about things.    K: That’s a good point, too, is when you’re deciding if you’re gonna use a pen name, one of the things you have to decide is how open you’re gonna be about this. Rekka is, for instance, very open about it.   R: Yep.   K: “I write science fiction and fantasy as R.J. Theodore.” Some people don’t ever really want you to see the person behind the pen name. Now, in the age of the internet this is very difficult to do.   R: Mhm.   K: There have been very famous writers that went their entire lives under a pen name that nobody ever—Like, Anne Rice’s name is not Anne Rice.   R: Right.   K: Her first name’s actually Howard.   R: Which is interesting. That’s a whole other conversation.   K, laughing: That’s a whole other conversation.   R: I mean, you know, again. Uniqueness. But also expectation of your genre. If Howard was a name that she chose to write with, why wouldn’t she use it? It’s because it doesn’t sound like a female-presenting name that is going to write bodice-clutching, tense semi-romantic vampire stories. There’s an expectation from readers that, you know, vampire authors are going to be female. There’s an expectation of readers that thriller authors—or at least the “good” ones—are going to be men. And then that ignores the non-binary spectrum entirely and then, what are the expectations there?   There are very cool names out there for some non-binary authors and I just think, “Wow! If I could go back and understand that gender was a spectrum not a binary, I might’ve picked a very different pen name.”     [18:43]    K: Yeah, and so that’s actually a good point. So you’re getting ready, you decided you’re gonna use a pen name. You’re getting ready to choose one. We talked a little bit before about branding and it is something to consider. Look, if you’re gonna be writing hard military science fiction, Florence Lilac deForest is probably not the best name to start writing that under. Now—   R: Although it would stand out in the field of military sci-fi, but…   K: That will certainly stand out, but emulating that is marketing at that point. Working on a pen name that you think is going to appeal to your readership. There’s nothing wrong with that.   R: If you think about it like the packaging on a box, you know, if you’re going to buy a microwave, you expect the microwave brand name is going to be of a certain ilk. You expect that the—just like there are cover expectations in genre—you expect that there’s gonna be  a photo of a microwave on the box. There are expectations and those expectations are because human brains are designed to put things into categories very quickly. So you wanna help other brains put you into the correct category. And that’s why you choose a name that matches a category, rather than going with it and hoping for the best.   K: Yeah, exactly. It’s unfortunate, but as Rekka mentioned there are some inherent biases in our brains and, you know, one of the most famous ones, J.K. Rowling. She does not actually have a middle name. Her name is Joanne Rowling and they told her, “Listen, we don’t want people to know you’re a woman.” And she said, “Okay, I can’t just be J. Rowling,” so she took K for Katherine, from her mom’s name and made it J.K. Rowling as, you know, things like George R.R. Martin. And J.R.R. Tolkein. And I think that’s a holdover from how letters in authorship used to be addressed. Used to cite off your first initial and your last name. Like, “Your Obedient Servant ___”.   So, is that a shitty, unfortunate thing about society? Yes. Absolutely. But would J.K. Rowling have been as successful as she ended up being if everyone knew she was a woman from the offset? Who knows! You know, Harry Potter came out before the advent of the internet. That said, there’s a giant fricken About the Author in the back, so.   R: Yeah, yeah. I mean, the story—I know when Oprah picked it up for the book club, the story of J.K. Rowling writing these things on deli napkins and reading it to her kids every night because they wanted a story, and then turning it into a book eventually, became part of the romance of why people flocked to J.K. Rowling as a personality and not just to the books. That’s part of the brand, though, is this rags-to-riches story.   K: That said, there are also cases of famous authors writing under pen names because they maybe want to try something new. So, like, J.K. Rowling—   R: Hey! Yeah, I was gonna say a J.K. Rowling story again.   K: J.K. Rowling published under Robert Galbraith, was the author name they used for the murder mystery novel she put out. Stephen King has written under a couple pen names. One of the more famous ones is Richard Bachman.   R: Mhm.   K: I do not know what the significance of that name is. Isaac Asimov wrote under Paul French. These were—I don’t wanna call them side projects, but they were different from things that they were known for writing, and wanted them to stand on their own merit.   R: Right. Michael Crichton also had a couple of pseudonyms.    K: Yes, yep. What does that mean, in terms of legality with an author? Now, again, in the age of the internet this is a little different because if you start digging around, looking for Richard Bachman, and this book. Through the availability of information, you’re probably gonna be able to figure out that it’s Stephen King.   R: But you have to be interested in Richard Bachman enough in the first place.    K: Yes! Yeah.   R: It’s not like you’re gonna search for Richard Bachman and the first site that pops up is gonna be Stephen King’s. I mean, that was the whole point was to not show up as Stephen King. So Stephen King’s not gonna make it easy for you to figure it out, unless he decides to debut. Like, “Oh, by the way, pulling back the curtain, that was me.”   K: Yeah, you’d really have to dig in with that. So, Rekka, how about copywriting pen names?   R: Well, so. You can’t—there’s a whole bunch of issues over trademarking names, anyway, but J.K. Rowling is bound to have that name trademarked. If not by her, then by her publisher.    K: Well also because it’s a fake name that is not her real name.   R: Right, so there may be a J.K. Rowling out there, though. That doesn’t automatically mean that person is going to be sued for signing their bank checks.   K: Or if they write, writing under that name.   R: Right, you cannot stop them from using their legal name. But—   K: Now, if your name is John Smith and you decide you’re gonna start publishing books under J.K. Rowling, you’re gonna have an issue.   R: Now you’ve got a problem.   K: Yeah. Because what you’re doing there is using a trademark to attempt to deceive people into thinking that this was written by J.K. Rowling.   R: That is something that J.K. Rowling and her lawyers are going to have to come after you for. And when I  say ‘going to have to’ what I mean is, if you register a trademark you have to defend it in order to maintain it. We’ve talked about this before. So, she’s going to have to come after you and find out, is that really your name? And if it is, how much money do I have to pay you to write under a different name, please?   K: By the way, it probably won’t even be J.K. Rowling that comes after you—   R: Oh, yeah, it’ll be lawyers.   K: Her publisher’s gonna get to you before she personally—   R: They’re gonna find you first, yeah.   K: —gets involved in this because it’s branding. That name is a commodity at this point.   R: Yes. That name has value to it that is separate, sort of, from the IP that she has created.   K: Now, that said, let’s go back to our other example, Stephen King. Stephen King is a much more common name. I know a Stephen King! I know Stephen Kings, a father and son, who are Stephen King!   So if they decided: hey I’m gonna write a book and publish it. There really isn’t anything that actual author Stephen King can do about it because you can’t stop someone from using your name. Now, as Rekka said, maybe you’re offered some incentive to publish under a pen name.   R: In which case, hey, not a bad deal! Maybe consider it.   K: Now, here’s the thing. I imagine Stephen King does not care that much. Stephen King’s publishers are going to care a lot.   R: Right, right.   K: So, now… how about just some other random person’s name. Let’s say I wanted to start publishing books under Rekka Jay.   R: I mean, I—Well, I can’t say I don’t publish books under Rekka Jay. There is one book out there with my name on the cover, of Rekka Jay. So I might ask you to not. But I don’t think I have a strong enough case to stop you.   K: Yeah, so there’s some weird legal issues that come into play here. So let’s say I wanted to start writing books and I’m gonna publish them under… I don’t know, Colin’s fair game. Let’s say I’m write books under Colin Coyle. Colin would have real, legal reason and recourse to stop me from doing that. He would have an interest in saying, “Kaelyn, we own a business together. We work together. We publish books together. I don’t want people thinking that this is me writing these books.”   That’s where all of this gets a little gray. But, as a general rule, using the names of people that you actually know is probably something to avoid.   R: I mean, the same can be said for using them for character names in your books. You just don’t wanna! This is just muddy water that you are gonna find yourself lost in.   K: Right, hold on, I gotta email an author real quick because I told him to change the names of two of his characters to Rekka. Both of them.   R, laughing: Both of them in the same book? Are they love interests, I hope?   K, laughing: Both of them are—Well, they are now.   R: But, yeah. You don’t wanna—just don’t mess with people you know. Because we don’t know how relationships are going to evolve over the years. This might be something—even if the person doesn’t care, you may just end up regretting someday. This person may end up making you grind your teeth in annoyance—   K: Now, forever.   R: —and then you’ve gotta go back to your books and those characters are named for this person, or you’ve used that pen name for your professional work. And you’re like, “Now I’m reminded of this person that I no longer want anything to do with.” To that point, some people choose pen names if they are married, just in case the marriage ever doesn’t end well. Or there’s another reason to change the legal name. If you separate your pen name from your legal name, you can detach yourself from some of these relationship issues.   K: Now, that said, here’s another really good reason to not use a pen name. If you are writing negative things about people.   R: Oh, yeah.   K: Here’s the thing, a pen name does not protect you from defaming someone.   R: No, there’s no legal protection from any laws that you break.   K: So, if you’re going, “Well, I’m gonna write a bunch of nasty things about this person, so I’m gonna write it under a fake name.”  First of all, you suck.    [R laughs]   Look, if you don’t have the guts to say negative things in public under your own name, then you probably have no business saying them. Whistleblowers are obviously a different story, but we’re not talking about that here. We’re talking about published stories.    R: We’re talking about trolls.   K: Well, we’re talking about reasons you’d wanna use it professionally for—   R: Well, okay, but to be mean to other people is not a professional reason.   K: Yes, exactly. Writing under a pen name will not protect you from defamation and slander charges. Slander is very hard to prove in the U.S., in the U.K. it’s not as hard, for instance. And there have been some pretty famous cases of internationals being taken to court in the U.K. for slander and defamation charges. A pen name does not protect you from that.   A pen name, and I can’t believe I have to say this, but this is something that I kept coming across when doing some research for this. A pen name does not protect you from having to pay taxes!   R: Oh, yes, please don’t think that there’s any reason to not behave like a normal citizen, when you have a pen name.   K: There is, in some corners of the internet—and I did find this mostly in bizarre, fringe-libertarian groups, that would come into discussions and say this—some people, for some reason, think that if you write under a pen name that means that, that person does not legally exist and therefore cannot be taxed.    R, exasperate: That’s… a theory.   K: Yeah, so this is wrong for a few reasons. One of which is, when you write a book under a pen name, you still have to sign a contract when you get it published. And you have to sign your legal name to that contract.   R: And if you’re self-publishing, the same is true for when you register the copyright.   K: Exactly, yeah.   R: And also for setting up your payment account through the various distributors, et cetera. People are gonna know your real name, so as soon as you have to write that out, it has to match your bank account. Like, have a care that this is gonna come back to you.   K: Yeah, so there’s no such thing as a pen name that just exists in a vacuum where there is no possible way to trace this back to you. The only circumstances under which I can imagine that happening are if you create a manuscript, mail it to a publisher, or I don’t know, an article getting published in a newspaper, and want nothing back in return for it. You want no money, you want no attention—   R: Or if you write the thing, sign a different name, bury it in a time capsule, and never admit. And then in 500 years someone finds it, thinks you’re genius, but doesn’t know who you were. But that’s not the kind of career most of us are aiming for.   K: Yeah, if you wanna get paid for your work, you’re going to have to associate—   R: Admit who you are so they can pay you.    K, laughing: That’s exactly… that’s my life. Just having to admit to people who I am.   R: Kaelyn it’s time to admit who you are.   K: I’m gonna have to figure that out and then I’ll get back to you. So, one last thing and, again, I can’t believe I need to say this, but apparently I do. Writing under a pen name also does not help you avoid breach of contract.   R: Noo.   K: This one’s a little less… less.. Maybe there’s a little bit—   R: It depends on how the contract’s written!   K: ...Yes. Then the taxes one. You have to pay taxes no matter what, okay? There’s no escaping taxes. But writing under a pen name does not absolve you of contractual obligations to other books. Now, there can be things written into your contract that say, “You will provide to us three science fiction books.” And let’s say you suddenly really wanna write a nonfiction military history of the Civil War.   R: You can write that!   K: You can write that.   R: The publisher doesn’t want it! They put it in their contract, they want the science fiction books.   K: Yeah, and all contracts are structured differently. Maybe you have a time frame, maybe it’s, “We get to publish the next three books of whatever you generate.”  So, you know, if you switch from military sci-fi to Civil War military history, it doesn’t matter if you’re writing that under a pen name now. They still get that.   R: Yeah.   [33:56] K: So this isn’t, again, you’re not creating a new person here. There is not now—   R: This is not your Get out of Jail Free Card to change your name.    K: Yeah, there is not now a legal entity that exists under this separate name that you created for yourself. There is no person there. It’s just another version of you.   R, laughing: Just like there’s not, not a person, there’s also not a person. Just to be clear.   K: It’s all very existential. There’s a lot of layers here.   R: So, I mean, don’t try to get out of trouble or get out of a contract you don’t like, or anything like that by changing your pen name. That’s not going to work. There are better reasons to have a pen name or not. And some people might start writing under their real name, or might start writing under a pen name and then switch to their real name. There’s also the possibility that later in life you change your mind and then all your books, again this is like Michael Crichton, get rereleased under the more popular name, either posthumously or not, because there’s a better chance that they’ll reach the audience that you’d like. I mean, he wrote in college under a pen name because he didn’t want his professors to think he had too much free time and give him more work.   K: Yeah.   R: Later in life, they changed, they re-released those books under his Michael Crichton name and that was so that people who had already read Jurassic Park and Congo and Andromeda Strain would be like, “Oh my gosh! I thought I’d never get another story from Michael Crichton, but even though he’s dead, there are ten more books I’ve never read of his!” Turns out, you can’t really go back. They were his first books and they read like them. They were not great. But, boy was I excited to think that there were more of them.   So, there’s no final answer in your writing career. You can change it at any time. And some people do choose to rebrand if the, you know, first trilogy they released just kinda didn’t make the splash that they hoped it did. Then, maybe, their publisher drops them. They get picked up by a new publisher. That new publisher may be like, “Hey! Would you consider a new pen name so we can launch you as a debut?” Because there’s a certain amount of excitement, especially in YA, the debut break-through novel is a big deal and that’s what everybody wants, is to discover the next new voice. That next new voice may have already been writing for ten or twenty years. I mean, they keep saying every overnight success is an author who’s been working at this for at least ten years.    K: Yeah. Again, just remember when you’re doing this. You’re not creating a new person. So, yes, you may be creating a new debut author personality. But this is not one of your characters, this is still you, the writer, the person.   R: Oh right, yes. So don’t cosplay as your writer.   K: Yeah, and—   R: Okay, I should actually retract that because Gail Carriger kind of does cosplay as her author self. Which is just to say that she has a visual brand, and when she goes out to conventions she’s going to dress the way that you would expect to see her at conventions. That’s different from writing a backstory for your pen name and then play-acting and half of these things are actually lies about you. If you try to convince someone—    K: Yeah, and—   R: The idea being that you want to be authentic so your readers can connect with you.   K: Do not create a character for yourself to make yourself seem more legitimate. If you’re writing a book in which the main character is a doctor and there’s a lot of medical science and medical science fiction things in there, do not pretend you’re a doctor so that people look and go, “Oh! This person came from a place of real experience!” You’re not creating, again, you’re not creating a fictitious person here.   R: Right. And don’t use it to misrepresent any part of yourself, except for your name.   K: Yeah, exactly. And, look, names are powerful things. There’s a lot of cultures around the world and through history where you maybe didn’t tell people your real name all the time because then they could use it against you.   R: Right. A name has power.   K: Yeah, a name does have power.    R: And for that reason, you may want to change the name that you were born with—not for escaping magical curses and stuff, but you may just—   K: Maybe escaping your family.   R: Yeah. But you may also just not really be totally in love with your name. And so that is a perfectly legitimate reason to just pick a different name. It might be unique, it might be all the things you want. It might be easy to remember, easy to spell, unique enough to come up in search results the way you want. It might even match your genre. But maybe you just don’t like the name. You could change it.    K: Well, I mean, I’ll use me as an example again. In publishing, I think Kaelyn’s a great first name to have. It works. In my professional life, sometimes, it feels a little immature.    R: Right.   K: I wouldn’t change it, it’s my name. I do like my first name.   R: It hasn’t held you back. Or do you feel like it might have?   K: Well, sometimes—and that’s the thing, sometimes I wonder. Now, one of the things I will say about my name is people look at it and frequently read ‘Katelyn’.    R: Right.   K: Very quickly. I—We always had a joke at my job when we’d go out, if we were going out to pick up lunch and you’d tell the people your name, I’d always give them my middle name which is Elizabeth. Because if I gave them Kaelyn, there was no way they were gonna write it down correctly—   R: Or say it correctly in that context, yeah.     K: And then whoever was reading it later was gonna then further butcher whatever they wrote down. So I’d be standing there and the guy would be standing with my sandwich going, “Uh, Carol? Kaylete? Colin?”   R: A-ha! So you are Colin, after all.   K: Oh, what was more of a “KA-lyn.”   R: Oh, okay.   K: So, I do wonder sometimes if that, it does—Now, as I’m solidly in my mid-thirties, I do wonder if it sounds like a younger person’s name. Because I do know some other Kaelyns, they’re all a lot younger than me.    R: Okay. Well there is the generational thing, where every generation has its popular name. I feel like when I was growing up, everyone was named Melissa or Amanda. And so, two years later, if you had that name it was a ‘mature’ name because that was the previous ones. But a couple years past that and it’s like a weird, old, funky name. And then it comes around again.   But, you know, these things—especially when you’re choosing a name, because you get to choose one. All of a sudden you go down rabbit holes of things to think about, all this kind of stuff.   K: Oh, god yeah. You could.   R: You can just close your eyes and be like, “What sounds good? What are letters I like? How do I string them together? Who cares if it’s actually a name?” Although, if you do make up a word, make sure you Google it to make sure it doesn’t mean something awful or sacred to a culture somewhere that you didn’t even consider.   K: So, I will say pen names I’ve made up. I have gone on Wikipedia or This Day in History and found famous people that were born or died or did something significant on my birthday.    R: Okay. Or you can pick the first day of your endeavor or something, the day you finished your draft. Stuff like that.   K: Yeah, and come up with some names that way. I’ve also taken my name and what it translates to in Gaelic, in Irish, and then picked other names—   R: With the same meaning.   K: —from other, yeah, other languages with the same meaning. That were kind of… you know what’s funny is they all kind of sound similar to Kaelyn!   R: I was gonna say. You could also do the Tom Riddle thing and just go for an anagram.   K: I have one of those. It was not easy to come up with.   R: Yeah, it depends on the selection of letters you start with.   K: Yeah, yeah. So, look, there’s lots of different ways to pick one, especially if you want it to be significant or meaningful to you. But if you’re doing it, as we said at the beginning of the episode, from an author perspective, keep in mind that you are going to be using this to sell your book.   R: Right.   [42:25]   K: And it may not be what you want to hear, but branding and planning accordingly is only going to help you sell the book.   R: Yep, yep. Meeting reader expectations. I gotta say. If you’re gonna write sci-fi, you don’t want a name that sounds like you’re a romance author.    K: Yeah. So maybe you loved your grandmother to death and she was just this beautiful, wonderful woman who encouraged you and helped you to get your start writing and so you want to honor her and make your pen name [in a v. French accent] Eleanor de Fleur.   R: Mhm.   K: That’s probably not the best name to write science fiction under.   R: Right, right. You don’t want anything that sounds too cursive. Like, it needs to be written in some sort of cursive calligraphy. Just think of the fonts faces and think of how cool the name will look written in those font faces, as opposed to what the name’s screaming out for.   K: If you’re mentally pronouncing anything with a French accent like I just did, that’s maybe not the direction—   R: Hey! There are decent French science fiction authors out there.   K: Oh, absolutely! But, you know—   R: But they all use pen names!   K, laughing: That’s because French is a very confusing language. You get words with like ten letters in them and you only pronounce four.   R: Yeah. And speaking of confusing, there’s also the pen name for joint-author endeavours.    K: Oh, yeah! That’s another good reason to use a pen name is collaboration.   R: Yeah, so maybe you don’t want both names on the cover. You’d rather just silo it and write, especially if you plan to continue this together, write with one new pen name that you pick together.   K: Yeah.   R: Then, be prepared if you are entering into a contract with a traditional publisher, that they might actually push back on your pen name. For the reasons that we’ve talked about, they may say, “This doesn’t really fit the genre. Can we fiddle with it?” or “Hey, let’s just use your real name.” I have a friend who had a pen name and when she got picked up, the publisher was just like, “Nah, we just wanna use your real name, it’s way more unique.” So…   K: And they might push back for the opposite of the reason I stated earlier. Maybe you’re writing military science fiction and you were a pilot in the Air Force for a long time. They’re gonna say, “No, we want people to look this up and see that you’re writing about stuff you know.” Like, your credentials lend themselves to your success at that point.   R: Mhm.   K: So, yeah, I mean publishers always have an opinion about everything. So, don’t think your name was gonna be—they even will have an opinion about your name.   R: They absolutely will. Although, you may be able to make a case for it. Colin did ask, like, “Are you sure you don’t wanna write as Rekka Jay?” I was like, “Well, no? I have a pen name, thank you.” I had a reason. And, you know, he was fine with it. It wasn’t like it doesn’t sound like a science fiction author’s name. But he was like, “Rekka Jay’s a cool name, so…”   K: Rekka Jay is a cool name. That’s the thing.   R: But it was a matter of, like, I would rather keep it separate from when people are searching, that they’re gonna find something other than the Rekka Jay. That was my decision, but obviously I’m not using it to hide. It is literally SEO purposes. It’s like key words. I’m choosing the keywords that people are going to find me for.    K: Yup. Yeah, so, that’s pen names. If you’re gonna use one, make sure you use one that’s gonna be to your advantage.   R: Yup.   K: Whatever reason you have for using it, there’s no reason it can’t work for you.   R: And take the time and play around with a couple different ones. This is something that you’re going to have to live with for a while. It’s not choosing a box of cereal, it’s choosing the paint for your den wall. You know? So you want to really be okay with it, before you move ahead and commit to it.   K: Yep. Hey, if you, uh—Everyone Tweet at us what your favorite, weird pen name is that you’ve come across. Or the thing that you were most surprised by, to learn was not somebody’s actual name. I think mine was Anne Rice, mostly because then I found out her first name is actually Howard.    R: Yeah, that one’s just got, like. That’s gotta be a two-parter, as opposed to just, “Oh, that’s not your name? Oh, that’s a shame.”   K: Yeah. Or you can be like Ben Franklin and all you did was write to newspapers and pamphlets and stuff under different names. Let’s see, he had Richard Saunders for a certain personality. There was Constance Dogood, yeah, clearly fake names but the point was that he was writing to newspapers exalting revolutionary American ideas, and writing trying to appeal to a certain group of people.    R: Right. Saying the things that would make that group agree with him and to sway their opinion.   K: He was saying things that he wanted everyone to hear, but knew that they would hear it better, if you will, coming from Constance Dogood versus Benjamin Franklin.   R: Right.   K: Which was very smart and insightful, especially for the time. Although that was fairly commonplace back then, to uh…   R: Which is so bizarre to me because we think of our common news production situation as being less honest these days. But you go back and like, everybody’s always been writing in under fake names and all this kind of stuff. So I say it was a matter of ego, but it was more like, “You must listen to me! And I will make you listen to me by faking who I’m speaking as!”   K: Well, it’s the same way. He’s trying to appeal to a certain group of readership.   R: Yep. So, that’s what we’re telling you. Go out and make people listen to you by appealing to a certain group of readers that can connect with the name.    And, you know, it is ultimately up to you. There are pros and cons to both. Eventually, you know, your contracts might get more intricate and having a pen name might make them slightly more difficult, but you’re probably not writing them, so that probably isn’t going to, at least, create more work for you. Just, you know, you’ll have to be more careful about reading them. But I hope you’re careful about reading your contracts anyway!   K: Yes! READ YOUR CONTRACT. I’m going to make a mug.   R, laughing: How did we come back around to that?   K: We always come back around to it, because given the option I will always state: Read Your Contract.   R: Yeah. And so, yeah, thing to remember is that just writing under a pen name is not going to hide you from the world. It’s not going to protect you from legal issues. And it’s not going to make you impossible to find, it’s just a thing that you do. It puts up  a certain measure of distance from your legal name and day-to-day personality. But it doesn’t… I mean, eventually you probably are at least going to hint that it’s not your real name. It doesn’t mean that you, say, I’m coming out as my real name. It just means, you know, eventually it’s going to get awkward to keep pretending that that’s your real name.   But if you have the right person, or the wrong person, decide that they’re gonna come after you, it’s probably not going to be enough. Because they’re gonna know where to look.   K: Yeah, look, in this day and age of the internet, there’s—Unfortunately, there’s no hiding forever. If somebody wants to find you badly enough, they’re going to. But it’s okay! Because, as Rekka said, the point of your pen name should not be to hide. If it is, maybe consider publishing.   R: Yeah, becoming a public figure. Yeah, it’s sad to say that you just can’t be an anonymous writer and collect your writing check because in this day and age, people feel like they’re paying for access to you as well.   K: Yeah, yeah. You are your writing. You are your brand. It’s, you know, go back and listen to our social media episode. We talk quite a lot about that. But pen names, they’re fun. Grab one, if you feel like it.   R: Yeah! And you don’t have to commit to it. You can still play around with just coming up with names. You might find one and be like, “I’m gonna save that. I’m gonna use that someday.” But you can relaunch your career at any point with a pen name, so if you’re happy or you’ve already started writing under one name, you don’t have to switch it if you come up with another good one. I mean, it can just be a character name. So, it’s up to you. If you come up with too many good names, maybe just use your real name and leave the good name creations to the characters in your books.   But if you find one of these reasons we’ve mentioned resonates with you, then that might be a good reason to try it. And if you aren’t published yet, it’s pretty simple to change your name at this point.   K: Yep.   R: Just change the name that you put on the byline in your next submission and you’re on your way.   K: Yup. Yeah, so, that’s pen names.   R: That’s, I think, everything we have to say about them.    K: So, um, as always. Thank you for listening. We hope, I guess, by the time this comes out… I don’t know, maybe quarantining, social distancing may start being lifted?   R: As we record this, more Starbucks stores have opened.   K: Okay.   R: I’m not sure that’s wise, but that’s what’s happening.   K: Well, we’ll go by the Starbucks metric, certainly.   R: I did hear that Disney Springs will start, I think, opening some stores. So Disney’s coming back. That’s a very telling metric.   K: Well, yeah. But the parks are not gonna open till next year, I understand.   R: So that’s… that they are even thinking about opening Disney Springs which can also be as crowded as a park sometimes. That’s pretty telling.   K: Well, we’ll go by the Starbucks metric. Society is measured based on what Starbucks is doing.   R, skeptical: Yeah… I don’t know how I feel about that.   K, laughing: Look, there’s a sad and uncomfortable truth in life that we need to face, Rekka, and that is that many people are entirely dependent on coffee in order to function as human beings.    R: I know you’re aiming that at me, but I’ll have you know that with my radiation treatment, I haven’t really been wanting coffee lately. So, uh, I don’t even know who I am anymore.   K: Oh, I can see. You’ve got a tea bag in that mug. Wow. Welcome to—   R: It’s also a throat coat because I’m gonna start having a sore throat with the radiation as well. There’s my little update, so if you were wondering how the cancer treatment’s going. I’m in good spirits, but I am ready to be done with radiation and on the other side of it and back to drinking coffee, hopefully. Although I don’t know if I will ever taste it the same again, based on the nerves they’re killing.   K: I have a feeling you and coffee will find your way back to each other.   R: One hopes. Actually, you know, if I had to choose between tasting coffee and tasting rib-eye, I think I would probably go for the rib-eye.   K: Well I knew that, yeah. I mean, yeah.   R: There’s more nutrition in rib-eye than coffee. And, you know, coffee only gets you so far. [long pause] I can’t believe I just said that. Who am I?    K, laughing: Well, you’re R.J. Theodore.   R: Oh, right! That person can drink tea and not eat steak every night and be perfectly happy.   K: Yeah, yeah. That’s what’s going on there. So, thanks everyone for listening! As always, you can find us on the socials.   R: That’s @wmbcast on Twitter and Instagram, and we are also at Patreon.com/wmbcast, where we would absolutely love your support if you’re able to. If you aren’t able to, what really helps us is to share our episodes with a friend who might find the content interesting, or just leave us a rating and review on Apple podcasts. That would be super helpful.   K, robotic: Feed the algorithm, people!   R: That is the one that really, really warms our dark hearts on a cold night. So, if you could do that, we’d really appreciate it. And we will talk to you on social, or we will talk to you in two weeks!   K: Stay safe, everyone!   [outro music plays]

Hi everyone, and thank you for tuning in to another episode of the We Make Books Podcast - A podcast about writing, publishing, and everything in between! This week we have a very special guest!  We were lucky enough to be able to sit down with author Scott Warren.  Scott is the author of the Union Earth Privateer series and the third and final book of the trilogy is being released the same day as this episode!  Full disclosure: Scott was the first author ever signed by Parvus Press and so it was extra awesome to be able to talk to him ahead of the release of the last book in his trilogy.  Scott is an all-around amazing and fascinating guy, so we were thrilled to be able to get his perspective and thoughts on developing a story past your original plan, writing from your own experience, and wrapping up a trilogy.  We had a great time talking with him and hope you enjoy listening! We Make Books is hosted by Rekka Jay and Kaelyn Considine; Rekka is a published author and Kaelyn is an editor and together they are going to take you through what goes into getting a book out of your head, on to paper, in to the hands of a publisher, and finally on to book store shelves. We Make Books is a podcast for writers and publishers, by writers and publishers and we want to hear from our listeners! Hit us up on our social media, linked below, and send us your questions, comments, concerns, and the best bit alien weaponry you've imagined, or maybe actually invented.  You can trust us!  This a secure line and we pinky-promise that the Roswell guys will never know! We hope you enjoy We Make Books! Twitter: @WMBCast  |  @KindofKaelyn  |  @BittyBittyZap Instagram: @WMBCast  Patreon.com/WMBCast   Episode 36: Every Rivet in the Alien Railgun - Military Science Fiction with Scott Warren transcribed by Sara Rose (@saraeleanorrose)   [0:00]   K: Hi everyone! Welcome back to another episode of We Make Books, a show about writing, publishing, and everything in between. I’m Kaelyn Considine, I’m the acquisitions editor for Parvus Press.   R: And I’m Rekka, I write science fiction and fantasy as R.J. Theodore.   K: And today’s a big day for Parvus.   R: Yes! We, full disclosure, we are being very self-serving today and loving every minute of it! And hopefully you’ll love it, too.   K: Today is the launch of Where Vultures Dare the third and final book in the Union Earth Privateers series and thus the first completed trilogy published by Parvus Press! Oh, also, Scott Warren had something to do with this, I guess.   R: I, well, he can talk later. It’s just us now. We can—   K: It’s just us now. So today we had Scott Warren, author of the Union Earth Privateers series sit down with us to talk about—I mean, we talked about everything in this interview!   R: Yeah.   K: We had a great time talking to Scott, covered a range of topics from writing techniques to crafting action scenes to where he came up with the idea for the UEP series. It’s a fantastic interview, Scott is always a delight to talk to.   R: Yeah, and as a reader I really enjoyed Vick’s Vultures and To Fall Among Vultures and I’m just about to dig in because, of course, I have the inside scoop. I got an advance copy of Where Vultures Dare. I, of course, picked it up because I was interested in a small press, to see what they were all about, and I really enjoyed the first book and the second one went a direction I did not see coming, so it’s really great that Parvus was there to allow Scott to take it in a direction that military sci-fi might have said, “Um, actually, if you’re gonna follow the conventions, maybe don’t do this thing?” And I’m really excited to see where book three is gonna go.   K: Scott was the first author ever signed by Parvus Press, so we are very excited about the success and progress of all of our authors, but this is our first completed trilogy and this is Scott’s first completed trilogy, as an author as well. So big day all around!   Anyway, we had a great time talking to Scott and hopefully you have a great time listening to us talk to him.   R: Yep and because it’s June 2nd when we release this, that means book three is out on shelves. So you can go check out Where Vultures Dare and, if you haven’t already read Vick’s Vultures and To Fall Among Vultures, they are quick reads! They read very fast, in addition to not being big, door stopping tomes. So you could pick up all three and check them out in, probably, a span of a few days. Just tear through ‘em.   K: You won’t be able to put them down. Anyway, take a listen and enjoy, we’ll see you on the other side of the music.   [intro music plays]   K: Alright, well, I’m sure that’s all classified so we won’t ask you too much about that!   R: Which is to say that Kaelyn really wants to ask you about it.   S: You can ask me. I’d answer what I can.    K: I have a master’s degree in American military history, so I am—   S: Oh, you probably know more about my activities than I do.   K: Well, my focus was Vietnam, so.   R: Possibly not.   K: Wellllll, there’s debate over how much submarine activity there was during the Vietnam War. There’s some official numbers and then there’s some… speculative numbers.   S: Oh, I don’t actually have any information on that, unfortunately.   R: That’s the official line anyway.   K: That is exactly what he is supposed to say.   S: Yeah.   R: So we are talking today to Scott Warren, author of military science fiction series the Union Earth Privateers, and we are very excited to have him and we are celebrating with him because today his third book in the trilogy has just released. That is Where Vultures Dare. So, welcome Scott, and would you mind introducing yourself for our audience?   S: Thanks for having me, guys! I am Scott Warren, as you said I’m an author, I write both science fiction and fantasy. My sci-fi series is Union Earth Privateers, published under Parvus Press. Humans have just broken into the intergalactic scene and they’ve found it packed to the rafters. They’re kind of hopelessly outgunned. All of these alien races, every single one, is far more advanced than they are. So they developed a small, elite corps called the Union Earth Privateers, whose single directive is: go out and secure advanced technology through any means necessary.    Vick’s Vultures and its sequels follows one such privateer ship, captained by Victoria Marin, and they go around and they engage with aliens. They help them, they fight them, or they pick their bones in order to bring home technology.    R: So you don’t have history, personally, with spaceflight or salvaging alien technology, but you came to the Union Earth Privateers trilogy with a certain background that, I assume, did help you?   S: So the experience that feeds into Vick’s Vultures is kind of two-fold. The first is the submarine experience in the military. I spent about three and a half years in the military, and then after that I transitioned into civilian aviation. So the way that the space combat is written is kind of a blend of the two. It features a lot of the submarine warfare aspects of stealth and sensor readings, as well as the three-dimensional movement. And, as far as aviation goes, that’s where a lot of the nomenclature and the procedural stuff comes from. So when you see Victoria Marin engaging with other cultures, other militaries, most of the jargon and the lingo they use actually comes from the aviation world, not the military world.   R: And I think one of my favorite things from the first book was humans had this Boogeyman aspect to them because they used that submariner stealth and the other aliens had never seen their faces, they just knew that, if humans came, they were gonna come in through your portholes and take everything. That was a really neat aspect of it.   K: Military sci-fi, that’s a popular genre, to say the least, certainly amongst its fans. I would say it’s one of the most vivaciously consumed of a lot of science fiction and fantasy genres. What, particularly, drew you to writing that because it is a very competitive field to get into, and it’s very hard to write well. It’s interesting that you went from being a submariner to a civilian pilot. I don’t think you can have two more different trajectories there. But I think that, also, as you said, gave you a really interesting perspective to write about here. These stealth operations that the humans in the book are conducting versus being able to incorporate your knowledge of aviation.   S: Well, like you said, the military science fiction genre is huge and has very voracious readers, of which I am one. That was the biggest reason for wanting to write The Union Earth Privateers, is I’ve been reading military science fiction for a long time. I’m, specifically, a big fan of John Scalzi, I like H. Paul Honsigner and his Man of War series, which is also a submarines-in-space style book. But the competitiveness and the market and, really, whether or not I would be able to sell Vick’s Vultures at all didn’t weigh into the equation really at all. I was writing because I wanted a creative outlet. I was coming off of the Sorcerous Crimes Division, so I had just self-published my first fantasy novel and I decided, “Hey, I think I’ll take a try at sci-fi!”    R: And you’re a reader of both, though, right?   S: Yes, absolutely.   K: So, in Vick’s Vultures, and the setting of Union Earth Privateers, humanity’s not in great shape, as you said, at the beginning of this. We are a very small fish in what we are learning is an increasingly big pond, full of very carnivorous other fish. And there’s, instead of this humans going into space and learning and exploring, you have a very—I don’t wanna say more of a dark take on it, but it’s certainly not a very optimistic one. [laughs] Is that—where was that coming from in your writing? Is this what you envision if, you know, we do eventually encounter alien life, is this what you think we’re gonna find?   S: It’s not so much what I think we’re going to find, it’s that I’m a really big fan of the crowded galaxy philosophy, in terms of fiction. But most of the science fiction that I read, humans are usually on force parity with most of the aliens that they encounter, or it’s just hoo-rah, humans are the best forever and ever. I kind of wanted to explore that transitory period where humans get out and it’s not, “Oh, these guys have a similar level of weapons and technology.”    These guys are better than us in every way, so the only way we can survive is if they do not know we’re there. That sort of disparity in force has been explored quite a bit, but usually it’s in terms of aliens invading Earth, aliens invading human space. So the first contact is made by the aliens, and then it becomes a war for survival. I wanted this to kind of be exploring the, “Well how do we prevent a war for survival from happening?”   R: Right, so in your stories the aliens don’t even really know where Earth is or where the humans come from.   S: Mhm. You touched on the humans being kind of the Boogeymen and that was one of my guiding philosophies of that. I wanted humans to be these things that were only scary in the dark.   [10:05]   R: Right, and that was their technique for making sure that nobody messed with them because what else were they going to do? They couldn’t defend themselves against the bigger—the Big Three, as you call them in the books.   S: Right. When I designed most of the alien species in Vick’s Vultures, the kind of philosophy behind it was, well, most of these alien species have long-since settled their differences before they got into space, so they didn’t have the same infighting that humans did, that caused them to be militaristic throughout their existence. And that they’d also been in space for so long that they pretty much had lost their ability to go outside their ships and feel safe outside their ships. So humans were still the only ones using spacesuits and spacewalking. So it’s kind of an age of sail allegory where a surprising amount of sailors didn’t actually know how to swim—   R: Right.   K, laughing: Yeah, right? Yes.   S: —so they feared things in the water. The third aspect of the aliens is that their minds were so much more advanced that they just didn’t need to develop computer technology, so when humans come around with their little, dumb, smoothbrains they’ve been developing computer technology to do their thinking for them, to the point where it’s so advanced that it does things the aliens can’t really wrap their minds around.    K: One of the things that I, personally, really enjoyed about the series with the juxtaposition between the humans and the aliens, is that the humans—like, I get a little annoyed with a lot of science fiction where it is frequently, the aliens come to us first and then the scrappy humans have to come back and fight their way through and unify and, you know, we figure out water is their kryptonite or what have you.    But, what I did like about this was these things is, where we usually have this approach of like, “Oh, you humans, with this, this, and this.” It’s such a foreign concept to these aliens that we’re surprised that they are surprised by this, a little bit.This idea of: they don’t go out into space, they don’t use space suits. As you said, the sailors that can’t swim. So that was something that I really liked about how you differentiated humans versus the aliens in this. That they really have these fundamental differences in how they approach life and space, if you will.   R: But speaking of life in space, you have a lot of action scenes in Vick’s Vultures. That was something that we specifically wanted to talk about in this interview because action scenes are notoriously difficult to write. I don’t care if it’s a giant, massive space battle or if it’s a sword fight between two people in a desert. They’re very hard to write, and you do an incredible job of it while navigating a lot of elements and, as you had mentioned, kind of in the way that a submarine has more than forward and backward and up and down to move, there’s literally infinite directions when coordinating a space battle that objects can move in. Thereby making it even more complicated to keep track of things.   S: Mhm.   R: So how on Earth do you keep track of all these things?   S: Well, the first guiding light is obviously the Rule of Cool. I ignore all the potential things that would just end the scene in one line, so that I can write out an action scene. But when it comes to writing realistic space battles, it doesn’t really happen in science fiction. So, once you have that figured out, you’re kind of free to flub whatever you want.   K: Now, when you say—   S: This is gonna sound like I’m kind of a scam artist peddling snake oil, but really that’s all it is is writing action scenes in space, so far as ship to ship combat, is essentially selling your reader a pipedream.   K: Now when you say—because when you say writing realistic battles, there’s the how you really turn in space, kind of, component to this, and I apologize, I don’t know—I imagine submarines are somewhat of the same where you have to use pressure to force directional changes. In space, in order for, for instance, the space shuttle to turn, it has to release air to force it to do so at a 90 degree angle. Obviously, that’s not how these ships fight each other in space. So, physics is not a consideration for you, at all, when writing these?   S: Somewhat, it is, but very loosely. I mean, when it comes down to it, the best tactic is always gonna be the The Last Jedi, hit a ship with another ship at lightspeed tactic. Why would you never not-use that? Unfortunately, it’s kind of boring to read. So, mostly, I ignore the mechanics of how the ships move like they do. I’m more focused on the story of how some force is going to tackle some other force, based on the disparity in strength. So I’m a little bit closer to a Star Wars kind of ships fighting between each other.   K: So one of the things that I encounter a lot, as an editor, when dealing with any sort of action or combat scene is mapping and tracking all of the components of it. I can’t tell you how many times I get a draft from a writer and we go through this whole thing and I’m like, “Hang on a second, where’s this person? What were they doing the whole time?” and it’s very hard to block that, if you will. And I understand that that’s a phrase for the video component of this, but you kind of have to take it into consideration when writing, too. Where is everyone and how are they interacting? Action scenes are very difficult to write because of that. Because if there’s a fight going on, you can’t have one person that’s just standing there waiting for it to be over because you don’t know what to do with them.   S: Funny story about that, actually, and I’ll answer your question in a second. In the first draft of Where Vultures Dare, the squad that goes down onto the planet, and I’m gonna try and avoid spoilers too much, the small squad initially had another member, a new character that I had made, and by the time they got to that first action scene, I had completely forgotten that, that character even existed and he never shows up in the draft again.   [K laughs]   S: It is difficult to plot out the initial blocking of that action scene. Now, when you use that term, blocking, you say it’s a visual-focused term, and it is, and I also come from a visual art background as well. I still occasionally do illustration on the side, that was originally one of the things I wanted to be, before I joined the military. So when I do this writing, I actually take a very visual approach in two ways. Like you said, I block out all the big pieces first. I make sure the reader’s aware of them. And then I do what’s called working from big to small. So, when you’re painting or illustrating, you start with the biggest brush possible and work your way down. You don’t use a detailing brush until you absolutely need it. And I kind of take the same approach to writing action.    So the first thing I do is I work big to small, I make sure the audience is reading the broad strokes. Because our brains do a handy little thing where they’ll fill in the detail where there isn’t anything present. And the other aspect of writing action scenes is, when I’m writing one, I try and make sure that reading the scene takes exactly as long to read as it would to happen, if you were watching it in a movie.   K: That is such an important thing, I think, to me when writing and plotting action scenes. Authors tend to, and I completely understand why, get bogged down in description and not realize that the time that you’re taking to read this, this guy’s been stabbed to death six times already now.    S: Mhm.   K: In all the time that he’s sitting there describing the sword in the other person’s hand and the stance that he has and the dust clinging to his boots, he’s been dead for about ten minutes. I alway use, and Rekka’s gonna shoot me because I’ve been referencing a lot of Harry Potter things recently, but I always use the reference when, in the end of Goblet of Fire, when Harry gets sucked through the portkey and ends up—and Cedric dies, and there’s this whole long scene—   R,  ironically: Spoilers for Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire—   [K and R laugh]   K: It’s your own fault if you haven’t read it at this point. Cedric dies, everyone! There’s this whole long, drawn out scene that I think, in the book, is about two and a half chapters from start to finish, with this whole process. And then I remember when I saw the movie and how quickly that happened!   S: It’s just a snap of the fingers and he’s gone and I loved that aspect of the movie.   K: I loved how fast that happened, that the whole point was that this was incredibly disorienting because this whole encounter, this death, this terrible realization, this shocking revelation of Voldemort is back, all happens in five minutes. And that’s why nobody realized Harry was even gone back at Hogwarts. So, I completely understand why you need to explain and flush these things out, it’s an entirely new setting that you have to describe. You have to establish the characters, you have to establish where they are and what they’re doing, but having that visual component to it eliminates all of the need for exposition there.    So, it’s a really hard thing to do in writing, taking these scenes where you have to set the scene, and still trying to get it to a reasonable amount of time that these actions could be transpiring over.   S: Mhm.   [20 :31]   R: One thing I always like to remind people is that you are a writer, you have control over everything that’s going on, that wouldn’t happen in real life. So you don’t have to describe a scene, you can start your action scene in a place that’s already been described in a quieter, more peaceful moment. Or you can keep in mind what Kaelyn’s saying and describe what the person needs to know in the moment of the action, which is: there’s a door over there and the floor is slippery. You don’t need a whole lot more than that. Or, it’s dark or whatever. That doesn’t take paragraphs, whereas if you feel like you need to get tactile with it and describe the stones’ texture, then that’s probably not something that a person’s going to realize until after the fact. They’re just trying to survive the moment. So big to small is good like that and it’s kind of the same thing that you’re saying. Get the big details and then you’ve placed the scene and you can get the smaller details as they become necessary, as the character is able to even recognize them. I mean—   S: Absolutely.   R: —it’s reasonable to assume that somebody looking at a sword is going to see SWORD, if the sword is drawn. As opposed to looking at the pommel and everything if the sword is sheathed and safe.   K: I always have a line I use that’s been dropped into many a manuscript that I’ve edited: human evolution was designed rather to react than to analyze. We don’t necessarily care what’s chasing us, we just know it’s getting closer and it has teeth. So, along those lines, how do you—you are in a genre where the fans of this really like and appreciate a lot of detail about the spaceship that’s attacking them. They want to hear all of the guns, all of the turrets, all of the engines and components to this. How do you avoid falling down that trap into—because I imagine from your side, and you write in a lot of detail and are clearly knowledgeable about this—how do you avoid falling into that trap?   S: The biggest thing for me is that the focus on combat, most of the combat in Vick’s Vultures is based around the same thing that submarine warfare is based around: a lack of full information. You’re working with very limited details on whatever enemy you’re fighting. So they might know that there’s something out there, but they can’t see what it is. And if they can’t see it, well then there’s no point in me describing it to the audience. Because at the end of the day, I’m writing in third person limited. The narration only knows what the characters know.   R: That is a good point, though, because we are so used to the Star Trek viewscreen and looking at the other ship and knowing as soon as it drops out of warp that it’s a Romulan ship versus a Klingon ship versus, you know, there’s something out there, we don’t know what it is. Okay, well it’s Romulan because they have the technology. But your characters are, sort of, in a submarine in terms of what they know about what’s going on around them and they need some kind of signal from the ship to recognize it, or to be sitting on the outside of the ship in one of their suits. But even then, there’s the realism of how far away is it? How much can you actually see if you’re looking directly at it. So, yeah, that’s a good point and that aids you in the genre, I think, because that adds to that realism that the readers expect.   S: Mhm. Kaelyn you mentioned that readers are very voracious for those details.   K: Yes, yes.   S: But I think a lot of them are also voracious for that level of grittiness and realism, and sometimes you can’t have one along with the other. And, in this case, I think they settle for the realism rather than the exploring every nut and rivet on an alien railgun.   K: I completely agree. I think there is—I don’t want to call it a trade-off, but there is this notion of—well, I’ll call it a trade-off!—trading one for the other. There’s a degree of suspense that you can entrench yourself in and use that as your high, if you will, in reading all of this versus getting to kind of sit and revel in the description of, as you said, every rivet in the alien railgun. Which is now going to be the name of another book that I want somebody to write. [laughs]   R: Well, you know what it’s gonna be, it’s gonna be all exposition, if you want that book.   K: Nah, it’s gonna be… we’re gonna make the, you know, one of those—remember Star Wars during the, when they put the prequels out they made those books that was like the pictorial guide to Star Wars? Well, we’ll do that for Vick’s Vultures. It’s gonna be a lot of black pages with vague shapes in the back of them.   S: And half the text blacked out and redacted.    K: Yes, exactly! Perfect. But, actually, speaking of blacked out text and redacted, this is not a series that is simply, hit-and-run stealth missions. There’s some political components, there’s some scheming, there’s other parts of this beyond just humans going into outer space and trying to further humans’ ability to exist in space. Vick and her team get into some nonsense.   S: As a rule, I tend to try and avoid political themes and huge political arcs in my books, simply because I don’t like reading them. But you can’t really have an interplanetary, sometimes diplomatic, directive or organization without touching on the politics. And so they not only get pulled by the human politics, but they get pulled by the alien politics as well. One of the things I always try and have in Vick’s Vultures, on multiple levels, is a trichotomy. So it’s not just good versus evil, it’s three opposing organizations that are each trying to further their own goals, usually at the expense of another. Sometimes those goals are political, sometimes they’re military, sometimes they’re survival.   K: And sometimes they’re a combination of all of them.   S: Mhm, absolutely.   K: They frequently overlap and motivate different components of what they’re trying to accomplish. So, I have to ask something because—and this is a little bit of, you know, how the sausage is made here—by the time I came on to Parvus Press, Vick’s Vultures had been out for, I guess, about a year at that point and Colin had sent me a copy when I was kind of auditioning, if you will, to be an editor. And I was shocked to realize that Vick was short for Victoria.    S: Mhm.   K: And that this was a woman. I have to, of course, ask—I mean, I love Vick as a character, I love all of the intricacies and nuance to her personality that you write in, but—women are not allowed on submarines.   S: They didn’t used to be. They are now.   K: Oh, they are now! Okay. Why, I have to ask, what made you write Vick as a woman?   S: So there’s three main reasons that I did that. The first one is this notion that male readers won’t read female main characters, so I kinda wanted to do a bait-and-switch like, “Oh, it’s called Vick’s Vultures, so obviously the main character is a guy named Vick!” And then if they don’t read too much into it, it’s like, “Ha! Gotcha!” You’re actually reading about a female character.    The second was I kind of wanted her to be the inverse of, you know, the classic male Han Solo? Where these male captains have, they do all these things that no reasonable, realistic person would do and then get rewarded for them. I kind of wanted to make Vick do those things and then everyone kind of call her out on it, her self-destructive tendencies getting her into trouble more than they get her out of it.    And then the third was that I wasn’t sure whether or not I could write a female character well, but coming off of Devil Bone, which is the first Sorcerous Crimes Division book, a couple fans pointed out to me how well the few female characters had been written. Specifically, there’s two main characters, not main characters, but side characters in Sorcerous Crimes Division that were female raiders. So they would go in with the raiding parties. One was a more leader archetypal mother-hen type and the other was basically a psychopath.    [R laughs]   S: But they were on the same side and people thought they were pretty realistic. So I thought maybe I’ll tackle writing a female main character for the next book. I enjoyed doing that so much that I ended up making one of the female characters also a POV character in the second Sorcerous Crimes Division book, as well. And she ended up being pretty much the fan favorite.   R: I mean—   K: That’s great.   R: Women kinda rock, don’t they?   K: I agree.   [30:16]   S, warily: Let me make sure my wife is not…   R: Wait, before you disagree with me, you mean? No.   K: I was gonna say, maybe this is what she should be hearing!   S: No, I just don’t want it to go to her head.   R: Ah, got it.   K: Ah, alright, fair enough. That’s fair.   S: Also, fun fact: she just finished reading Harry Potter for the first time this week. So—   K: What’d she think?    S: —she narrowly avoided the Goblet of Fire spoiler.   [R and K laugh]   K: See, there would have actually been someone out there who was—   R: I told you! I had to warn you about the spoilers, yeah.   K: I have very little sympathy, apologies to Scott’s wife, for people who are upset by fifteen-year-old spoilers at this point. But what did she think of the books? Just out of curiosity.   S: Uh, she liked them but she’s also very able to pick up on the things that are acceptable in Young Adult writing that maybe don’t so much fly for adults.   K: Well that’s a whole other conversation—   R, laughing: Yeah, I feel like our Patreon deserves Kaelyn’s Rant on Harry Potter and Kaelyn’s Rant on a couple other movies and book series.   K: I’ve got a few of them. It’s a—do not get me started on Game of Thrones. The last season of that. Poor Rekka, poor Rekka had me—   R: I saw it in real-time. I saw it happening. Kaelyn’s devolution into—   K: —madness!   R: Not even madness, just you… couldn’t even speak sometimes—    S: Right.     K: I…        R: —because you were so upset about the decisions made.    K: Rekka had the misfortune of being with me to watch the Battle of Winterfell and then also—   S, laughing: You mean listen to the Battle of Winterfell, right?   R: Yup.   K: Okay, well, here’s the thing: Rekka and her husband Matt should have a service where they go to people’s houses and fix their TVs for them because we could see everything perfectly watching that. So I don’t know what you guys did to your TV, I don’t know what setting you have it on, but we could see everything and then all of my friends are texting going, “Well I think they won. I don’t know, I can’t see anything!” and I was like, “Oh, really?” and I went back and watched it at home and I was like, “Oh, yeah, this is just a black screen with some shapes moving around in it. Oh, there’s fire. Okay, I see fire.”    And then Rekka, also, was sitting next to me when we watched the series finale at the Nebulas out in Los Angeles last year. Parvus and, mostly Colin, finagled a viewing—   R: Viewing party.   K: A viewing party. It was a lot of fun, but oh my goodness. That’s a—   S, a hero bringing it back on topic: Yeah, going into the launch of UEP #3, at least secure in the knowledge that hey! at least it won’t be the last Game of Thrones season. You know, the bar has been somewhat lowered.   K: So, speaking of that—   R: This does close off your trilogy, yeah.   K: Yeah! The trilogy’s wrapping up. How are ya feelin’?   S: I feel pretty good. You know, I’d actually set this book aside for I while. I wrote and published an entirely separate book in the time that this one was—I’d kind of gone through pretty much writing and editing on The Dragon’s Banker while Vick’s Vultures #3 was going through the editing and publishing process. And I don’t know how it is for other authors, but I actually tend to retain very little of a book that I’ve written once I move on to the next book. I forget character names, I forget plot points. All of that just gets flushed. Part of me thinks that’s a result from the studying tactics in the military and aviation where you cram and cram and cram and then knowledge dump immediately after the test.   But I can actually, I’m doing my final review of Vick’s #3 now and a lot of it going to be going through and almost looking at it with fresh eyes, as if it’s something that someone else wrote.    K: Well, we were gonna ask you some questions about resolving plot points, you know without spoiling anything, and completing this three-story arc but do you remember any of it? [bursts out laughing]   R: All right, so feel free, if you need to say “I don’t know that one” we’ll just cut the question like we never even asked.   S: Okay.   R: So you have three books out now that complete a trilogy. Did you see it as a three-book trilogy to start with? Did you have an arc in mind?   S: No, actually. When it started out Vick’s Vultures was not meant to be part of a trilogy, per se. I was thinking of it as more of a serialized thing where each book would be its—   R: Open-ended?   S: Mhm. It's its own separate, self-contained story. Neither one would really feed into the others. Once I had the first book out, I wanted it to be something that could absolutely stand on its own. You could read Vick’s Vultures as just Vick’s Vultures and then ignore the rest of the books and be perfectly happy and get a one hundred percent complete story. Because I didn’t know if there would be sequels, at that point. I was still a very new writer. I wasn’t super confident. I thought this is a good book, but I don’t know how many good books I have in me. What if I run out of ideas half-way through the next one? Six books later, that’s not a huge issue apparently.   K: I was gonna say, what is it with you authors and doubting your abilities to generate stories? That’s all you do!   R: Have you read the Goodreads reviews, Kaelyn? You know, if you’ve ever spent any time looking at other people’s reviews of books you think, “Wow! I could mess up in so many ways I didn’t even consider when I started writing!”   S: Mhmm.   K: Yeah, but those people don’t know what they’re talking about.   S: It helps that I’d committed pretty much every sin that I’ve railed against in Devil Bone, when I wrote my first book. So I was like, “Man, all these mistakes that I see other writers writing! I’m gonna avoid all of those!” And then I did ‘em anyway and I was like, “Oh, it’s because that’s the only way I know how to do it.” That’s what’s familiar.   K: Do you have more stories set in the UEP universe? Do you have other things you’d like to write here? You know, as you said, you saw this as kind of a serialized, ongoing collection of stories. Is that something down the road that you think you’d revisit at some point? And I’m not just asking this as your publisher!   [K and R laugh]   S: I would like to revisit it at some point. I didn’t leave open ends so much in Vick’s Vultures #3—    K: No, that’s kind of why I was asking. Yeah.   S: —but I did seed things that could be explored further, and there’s always other ships in the Union Earth Privateers. I purposefully made this big terrain, this big stretch of stars, the Orion’s Spur, which gets name-dropped constantly in the series. One to say, hey this is the humans’ limit. This is how far we can go because there’s basically a brick wall at each end of the Spur. And the other being like, hey! This is a big playground. You can go anywhere in this and we’ve only touched on a small fraction of it. And, essentially, the number of locations and the number of stories that can be told in that universe isn’t limited by what’s already been written because it’s not going off—this is kinda pulling back the veil a little bit—it’s not going off of real stars, it’s not really going off real systems. Everything’s being made up to serve the narrative. Everything is kind of what it needs to be to tell a good story.   So would I like to go back to it? Absolutely. Right now I’m on a little bit of a fantasy kick. Coming out of Dragon’s Banker I tried to start up a sci-fi novel, wasn’t really happy with it. I restarted it a couple times before saying, “I’m gonna put this back on the shelf for a little bit,” and kind of explore more the things that I explored in Dragon’s Banker with the slice-of-life fantasy, and then go back to maybe doing sci-fi after that, with maybe something either in the Vick’s universe or more esoteric. Kinda closer to something like grimdark 41st millennium, without name-dropping and having DCMA requests called on your podcast.   K: Now, it is interesting because I’ve obviously read UEP series and I did read Dragon’s Banker as well. These are very, very different books. Not only in terms of genre but in terms of, really, your writing style. Do you find it difficult to oscillate back and forth between sci-fi Scott Warren and fantasy Scott Warren?   S: That’s kind of a tricky question, but I like it. One thing to keep in mind is that between Union Earth Privateers and the Sorcerous Crimes Division is that the subject matter for the books, despite being fantasy and sci-fi, ultimately was very, very similar. They were both about elite, professional teams working together in an action-oriented environment. But one dealt with magic, the other dealt with aliens. But when you dig really deep into them, they have more similarities than they have differences.    When it went to Dragon’s Banker, it was a challenge to myself. I’d been writing very violent, very action-oriented books and I wanted to challenge myself to write a book with a true pacifist. Where the main character would not and could not resolve any of his conflicts through violence. I wanted to explore that theme, and I  wanted to explore a novel where lateral thinking was the key to completing all of his objectives. And that, really, he was completing a lot of his objectives just through struggling through his own personal problems and not even realizing that he was contributing, behind the scenes, to all of these conflicts he wasn’t really even aware that he was involved in. Which was a tricky plate to balance.   [40:48]    S: But you mentioned the style of the narration and the dialogue and everything being very different in Dragon’s Banker, and the fact is, writing Dragon’s Banker, my wife read that and once she finished, she put down the book and she looked and me and said, “You are Sailor Kelstern!” And I tried to argue and she said, “Don’t lie! I know you.”   [K and R laugh]   S: So, reading Dragon’s Banker is the closest you’ll get to an unfiltered view of my internal narration for my own life and my own thoughts. And the truth is, in real life I am not a violent or aggressive person at all. I’m the mastermind, I’m the plotter, the planner, and the schemer.   K: Yeah, because I remember reading Dragon’s Banker and I’m going, “Is this really Scott?” [laughs]   S: I mean, that did cause a little bit of friction, I know, in the publishing house because I think Colin was a little hesitant. Like, “Ooh, we have this military sci-fi writer who’s also trying to have us publish this,” and I ended up self-publishing Dragon’s Banker. Ultimately, I decided that was probably the right path for it to go.   K: Because you have—all of the science fiction books you’ve published have been with Parvus Press, but your fantasy books have been self-published. Do you find there’s a cross-over with your fans, that they follow you between these genres? Or do they tend to segregate based on what they like to read?   S: Honestly, I couldn’t say just because I don’t really have a large level of fan interaction.   K: Okay.   S: I’m not like a lot of authors who make a fan page or interface with their communities. I’m honestly not even really aware if I have a community or reader reviews.   K: I can tell you that Union Earth Privateers definitely has a community.   S: Mkay, so the closest I come is to looking at some of the reader reviews on Amazon and Goodreads. What I notice is usually, if the reviews namedrop another book that I’ve written, it is a namedrop of a book in the same genre. So if I had to hedge a guess, I would say that there is not that much genre crossover between my readers. And that might be, in part, because they are segregated in terms of Parvus taking one half of my library and self-publishing doing the other half of my library. Or it might be because there’s just a readership difference in sci-fi fans and fantasy fans. I honestly couldn’t say.   K: So, along those lines, you’ve kind of got a foot in two different worlds here, if you will. Where do you wanna focus next? Do you have a plan for what you’d like to do, if you wanna lean more into the fantasy side or the sci-fi side? Are you just gonna see what comes and what you feel like writing?   S: So, right now I am doing what I feel like writing. I am doing another slice-of-life fantasy that takes place in the same world as Dragon’s Banker and the Sorcerous Crimes Division, it’s more action-focused slice-of-life. I really wanted to get very out there with this one. I don’t have a title for it yet, but I will say that it has an undead protagonist—   K: Excellent.   S: —who is a traveling monster hunter for hire along the west coast of the continent that all these books take place in. And he has an apprentice who is a living human child, between the ages of eleven and fifteen. The main character literally does not know how old he is, and doesn’t care to. But the book kind of explores their traveling and their relationship and their role in the world. One of the biggest complaints with Dragon’s Banker was that the worldbuilding was a little weak, so I wanted to take this book and really delve in and say, “Hey! They’re travelling here, this is what it looks like, here’s the kind of creatures that live here and the people that live here.”   In the future, yes, I definitely want to return to sci-fi. With the fantasy side, I will probably maintain the self-publishing just because I enjoy that aspect of it. With the sci-fi, I had talked to Colin, he wanted a new military sci-fi and that was actually the working title of the book: New Military Sci-fi.   R: Hits the keywords!   K: Of course it was!   S: I wasn’t ready at the time. I had just come off writing back-to-back military sci-fi books and I was honestly a little burnt out at that point, I think, with writing Dragon’s Banker and the untitled monster slayer book. I’ll have created enough space to confidently return to military sci-fi for the purpose of writing military sci-fi. That was one of the big problems with it, is that when I was writing the book, I wasn’t writing it for myself, I was writing it for someone else. With art, as with writing that’s kind of when I start to encounter the mental blocks is when I stop writing for myself and start writing, well, I should write this because an audience will wanna read this. Or I should write this because a publisher will be interested in publishing this. And what I really need to do, and what really contributed to the charm and uniqueness of both Vick’s Vultures and the Sorcerous Crimes Division was I’m writing this because it’s something Scott Warren would write. Because it’s something that Scott Warren would want to read and because it’s something that doesn’t exist currently. It’s a new take on something.    So when I start trying to write to an audience or to a publisher, my whole process kinda breaks down and stalls. Once I get this fantasy flush through my system, I think I’ll be ready to return to military sci-fi and come up with something a little more unique. And I have two different manuscripts for military sci-fi that I was writing during this period of roadblocks that reached about 20,000 words and they had some really fun and interesting ideas4, some of which ended up being in these others books, but some of which really need to be, I think, explored and will be very fun to explore.    Unfortunately, one of the biggest ones, Martha Wells kind of beat me to the punch with a very recalcitrant AI character!   [R laughs]   And as much as I love Murderbot, I hate that it exists because it was very similar to a character that I was actively working on when All Systems Red came out.    R: Well, you know, there’s always something to be said for having a very successful copy book, too, so. You know, feed the people who want more of the recalcitrant AIs. I think that’s fair to say. But that’s good that you can recognize what it is about your writing process that works for you and notice when it starts to break down and see what the symptoms point to. I think writing for yourself is always the best advice for anyone who’s trying to be creative. It’s interesting that you’re big into self-publishing and not so big into write-to-market. I think that’s healthy.   K: Yeah.   S: Mhm. And hopefully that’s not too much nails on a chalkboard on the publishing side of the house!   K: No, no.   S: Because I also do love being a Parvus author.    K: Well we certainly love having you and Vick’s Vultures was the first book that Parvus ever put out and I know Colin is certainly not shy about saying it was a significant cornerstone—the keystone, if you will—to our early success in the publishing world.    We’ve covered a lot of topics, a whole range of things, is there anything that you could go back and tell yourself when you started all of this, or is there any just general advice you have for either people who are self-publishing or somebody who is trying really hard to work around a particularly tricky action scene, or anything that you wish you had known or could offer as advice to those listening?    S: Hm. So there are a couple pieces of advice that I would give to budding self-published authors. So, one thing that Parvus provided was an editor, which I think is crucial and it takes a lot off the pressure off me. When I initially got into self-publishing, the idea was that, “Well I’m gonna be a do-it-yourself guy on my first book and I wanna experience the whole process. The writing, the editing, the marketing, the publishing, and, most importantly, coming from an illustrative background, was the cover art. My fantasy titles actually get a lot of comments on the cover art because my illustration style is so unique and I tend to illustrate the tone of the book, rather than the content.    But the biggest thing when I went into self-publishing—and I will without reservation tell every self-publishing author who’s thinking of their own editing—go ahead and slap yourself in the face right now and get a freelance editor lined up to edit your book.   [R laughs]     S: There’s a reason that editors are so in-demand, so highly sought after and so highly regarded in the publishing industry, and it’s because published authors would not exist without them.   K: I swear I did not pay him to say this! I promise.   [S laughs]   R: I mean, she’s writing a check right now, but that wasn’t arranged beforehand.   K: But that is something that we talk about a lot, is that there’s a reason—even if it’s not just an editor—get other people to read your book and give you feedback on it. Preferably people that maybe have some experience and at least some involvement in this process, but.   [51:21]     S: Mhm. So this advice comes from as much of an art background as it does writing. But you need to be able to have a thick skin, as an author, and be able accept critique without taking it as a personal attack. In both art and writing, the people that succeed are the ones that can take feedback and improve their writing based on it. No one is above critique and when someone comes to you and tells you something doesn’t look right, or something reads wrong, you cannot tell them, “No, you’re seeing it wrong.” 99% of the time, when someone gives you a critique that something is wrong, that critique is accurate.   R: Or at the very least, it draws attention to something you need to look at again. That person may not have nailed the solution or given you the exact issue, but they’re pointing to something that’s not feeling right for them.   S: Right. So when I was working with Arley on the Union Earth Privateers #3, there were a couple times—my favorite quote from an editor that I’ve ever gotten. He left me a comment, after I’d made a change, where he said, “I love that I can spend ten minutes marking out a paragraph and telling you why something doesn’t work, and writing out two paragraphs worth of comments on it, and you can go back two pages earlier, change one line of dialogue and it fixes every problem.”     K, laughing: He was—Arley and I had a lot of conversations about, obviously, how things were progressing on your side and he was very impressed with your ability to, instead of having to tear something down and rebuild it, fix it and move forward. But it’s hard to get work back that you've put so much time, effort, blood, sweat and tears into and have somebody say, “Not this, not this, change this, do this.”   S: It is hard.   K: As an editor, I can tell you it’s coming from a place of love. The opposite of love is not hate, it’s apathy.    S: Right.   K: If we didn’t love what you were doing, we wouldn’t care. We wouldn’t tell you how to improve it.   S: I won’t lie or sugarcoat it, it does kinda sting a little bit.   K: It stings, I’m sure!   S: When you get a manuscript back and you see 1200 revisions or, I think the first Vick’s Vultures book when I first saw it had a couple thousand revisions and I was like, “Ohh! I wrote a terrible book!” But the biggest guiding light for working with an editor that I have to keep in mind, and I would encourage other authors to keep in mind, is that an editor’s job is to make your book the best possible version that it can be.    K, delighted: Oh my god, that’s exactly what I say all the time!   [S and K laugh]   K: I want this book to be the best possible version of itself!   S: Mhm. And you won’t always agree with an editor 100% but you have to keep in mind that that’s where they’re coming from. And sometimes you don’t want to turn a phrase or something that isn’t 100% grammatically correct, but invokes the tone or the narration that you want. You have to recognize that, hey, you can push back sometimes against an editor, but for the most part they are trying to improve your book and you are not looking at it from an unbiased perspective.   K: Well I always remind authors that I work with, or even just people who ask me about this, this is a conversation. I’m not standing on high handing down edicts that you must apply to something that is ultimately your work. This is—if there’s something that you’re really hung up on, I’m gonna ask you, “Why is this a big deal? What am I  missing here? Am I not understanding something? Is there a part of this that is just going over my head?” Because that’s happened before! This is a secret. Editors are not perfect. [laughs] And now I have to go because the secret cabal of editor-ninjas are going to come kill me for saying that into a microphone.   R: Well, lucky for you, we are just about out of time. So, I know we could go on trading war stories about either our off-planet missions or editing, but thank you Scott for joining us today. So everyone listening, definitely go check out Union Earth Privateers. If you haven’t already read books one and two, you could catch up on all of them in one weekend, I bet. Because once you get into one, you’re gonna really just read straight through them.   K: Yeah, no. You’re gonna sit down and blow through that.   R: Yeah! So that’s Vick’s Vultures, To Fall Among Vultures, and Where Vultures Dare and those are all from our favorite little press, Parvus Press! You can get them all today.   K: And Scott, where can people find you online? I know you don’t really have a fan page, but if somebody wanted to send you a note and say how much they love the books.   S: So I am abysmal at social media. I’m a very reclusive author and, actually, kind of a funny story if we have time.   K: Sure.   S: I actually came across a post in the wild, on Reddit, referencing Vick’s Vultures, saying that the person had tried to contact me and had been unable because I hadn’t made a Twitter post in months and I hadn’t made a Facebook post in something like half a year, on my author page. And I responded to their Reddit post saying, “Oh, hey, this is me!” So, honestly, the best place to get in contact with me would probably—   K: Is Reddit!   S: Yeah, because I honestly don’t really check my author e-mail? But I am very active on Reddit in the fantasy community and the sci-fi communities and a few other communities. So my username is /u/scodo, so fairly simple. And you can message me on there and probably get more immediate feedback than if you tried my Facebook or my poorly neglected blog or my Twitter account.   R: So if you are a reader who has read both Scott’s fantasy and science fiction, make sure you tell him that you crossed over genres to follow him. Because he doesn’t know that you’re out there.   K: Tell us, too! Because we’d love to hear that as well.   R: Thank you everyone for joining us, thank you Scott for joining us! And good luck with the book launch.   K: Yeah, congratulations!   S: Thank you and thank you guys for having me.   [outro music plays]   R: Thanks, everyone, for joining us for another episode of We Make Books. If you have any questions that you want answered in future episodes or just have questions in general, remember you can find us on Twitter @wmbcast, same for Instagram, or wmbcast.com.    If you find value in the content that we provide, we would really appreciate your support at Patreon.com/wmbcast. If you can’t provide financial support, we totally understand and what you could really do to help us is spread the word about this podcast. You can do that by sharing a particular episode with a friend who can find it useful, or if you leave a rating and review at iTunes, it will feed that algorithm and help other people find our podcast, too. Of course, you can always retweet our episodes on Twitter.   Thank you so much for listening and we will talk to you soon!  

Hi everyone, and thank you for tuning in to another episode of the We Make Books Podcast - A podcast about writing, publishing, and everything in between! Can you believe that it’s already been a year since we dropped our first episode, because we sure can’t!  A whole trip around the Sun and what a long, strange trip it’s been.  There’s nothing quite like an anniversary to make you look back on what you’ve done and think about what you maybe could have done differently so in this episode, we decided to talk about retrospection and reevaluation.  Taking a step back to reassess your work is a really, really hard thing to do.  It requires you to put aside strong feelings and possibly favoritism that you might not realize you have toward parts of your writing.  But here’s the thing: sometimes those parts are important to you, aren’t important to the story and maybe even aren’t good for it.  It’s not always fun, and it’s certainly not easy, but reevaluating what you’ve written is a crucial part of the process and the best way to stomp out those pesky Giant Mechanical Spiders (listen to the episode and we promise that will make sense). We Make Books is hosted by Rekka Jay and Kaelyn Considine; Rekka is a published author and Kaelyn is an editor and together they are going to take you through what goes into getting a book out of your head, on to paper, in to the hands of a publisher, and finally on to book store shelves. We Make Books is a podcast for writers and publishers, by writers and publishers and we want to hear from our listeners! Hit us up on our social media, linked below, and send us your questions, comments, concerns, and a comprehensive description the largest mechanical spider you encountered and a detailed description of how you vanquished it. We hope you enjoy We Make Books! Twitter: @WMBCast  |  @KindofKaelyn  |  @BittyBittyZap Instagram: @WMBCast  Patreon.com/WMBCast   Episode 35: Reevaluation Anniversary Episode transcribed by Sara Rose (@saraeleanorrose)   [0:00]   R: Welcome back to another episode of the We Make Books a podcast about writing, publishing, and everything in between. I’m Rekka. I write science fiction and fantasy as R.J. Theodore.   K: And I’m Kaelyn Considine, I am the acquisitions editor for Parvus Press!   R: And—   K: This is a big deal! This episode.   R: Kaelyn, it’s our anniversary!   K: What did you get me?   R: Beer. You’re drinking it.   K: Yeah, no that’s—Great. Yes, I am drinking a beer. Um, technically it’s the paper episode—technically it’s the paper anniversary.   R: So the label on your beer.   K: Oh, okay. That works. I was—   R: Which, actually, I did not buy you. I lied. I’m sorry. I bought you the socks you’re wearing, though.   K: That’s a good point, yeah.   R: On our anniversary episode we are wearing matching socks!   K: Yes! I was gonna get you a book for the anniversary.   R, touched: Were you really?   K: Paper anniversary. You know, that sounds like a good one. There may or may not be something in the mail for you. Right now.   R: Which book?   K: I can’t tell you, it’d ruin the surprise and surprise is, of course, that keeps our relationship alive.   [both laugh]   R: I thought it was the mechanical spiders that kept our relationship alive.   K: Okay, first of all! You know how I feel about the mechanical spiders!   R: And everyone else is about to.    K: And everyone else is about to, so I apologize in advance. Yeah, so it’s been a year! That’s crazy.   R: Um. I like it.   K: I like it, too! Just think about a year ago, I came up to visit you for the first time. I met your various animals, there were other animals—   R: —and family members, yep.   K: Family members! There were other animals out in the pond.   R: Did we barbecue the very first time? I feel like maybe not the first time.   K: We didn’t go to barbecue, but we cooked out the first time.   R: Oh, okay.   K: Yeah. We—So, yeah, it’s been a year!   R: Yeah. And we’re still here—   K: Still here! It was your birthday party.   R: Yeah. It’s been a year despite the Submission September. We survived and we are still here.   K: Nothing can kill us after that.   R: No, we are very strong.   K: So, a quick look back. Let’s see, first we had three episodes in three days come out. Then we went to the Nebulas, we recorded from there. We came home, both very sick—   R: Mmmmhm.   K: —with throat ailments. Had to edit the episode, some of which we could barely hear what was being said.   R: Oh my gosh there were so many good interviews. There were people we really wish that their interviews had come out better, but there was just nothing but background noise. It was so sad.   K: Yeah. But we had a great time. And then we were steadily churning out episodes. We survived Submission September and now—   R: Which was all Kaelyn’s fault.   K: I—yes, I one hundred percent accept responsibility for that. And now we are battling a plague upon us that is not—   R: Wait, I have been informed by my editing friend that this is not a plague.   K: Yes, okay, fine. It might be by the time this episode comes out.   R: Yeah, if it’s still going by the time this episode airs.   K: Then, yes, this is a plague. So, yeah, it’s been a year. It’s awesome. Thank you so much everyone who’s stuck with us this whole time, who’s been listening—   R: —or to the newcomers.   K: And to the newcomers! Yeah, thank you for, you know, anyone who’s found us and has been—   R: Thanks, especially, for everyone who shares our episodes when they come out and for the people who have left us eight wonderful ratings and several wonderful reviews. And thanks, of course, to our patrons on Patreon. We have two new patrons to happily announce and thank on air today—two difficult names, though. Luckily!  I know Kaelyn’s got one down, but I will take the first one—M. Bunea is a new patron on Patreon, so thank you, M.   K: And we also have Ritesh Shah, Ritesh, thank you, Ritesh for supporting us on Patreon.   R: So, thank you! And if you want to support us on Patreon, you can go over to Patreon.com/wmbcast and we hope all of these supporters we have are there because they find what we say and do very, very useful and helpful and inspiring and realistic and also helpful.   K: So, on that note, today we’re gonna talk about rejection.   [both laugh]   R: Turning this right back around!   K: No, actually, I’m joking, but we are—   R: You’re joking, but we are talking about rejection.   K: We are kinda talk about rejection, but we’re not talking about rejection in the traditional “coping with rejection,” we’re talking about what you can do about rejection. This notion of reevaluating or, one of my favorite terms in the tech and start-up world is pivoting.   R: Ah, yes!   K: Yes, the pivot.   R: Be nimble and pivot.   K: Yes. Something that starts out as one thing, doesn’t quite work, maybe isn’t as well-received as you’d like it to be, so you keep the core idea but you pivot another direction and try to make it something that more people can consume or is more appealing to a wider audience. This is really an episode which, you know, kind of works out with our hundredth episode. Oh my god—   R: You did again.   K: Why do I keep saying that?   R: So what they have in the tech sphere is what we need, which is focus groups. Is what you’re saying.   K: Yes. But it kinda fits with our one year episode of, you know, it’s never a bad idea to take a step back, reevaluate, and make sure everything’s still working the way you want it to.   R: Exactly.   K: I mean, we’re good, I think. Right?   R: I was gonna say, are you implying that we need to change?   K: Never. Never change.   R: I think everyone can agree they just heard you say that you would love me more if I changed.   K: Rekka, it is not possible for me to love you more. So you can do whatever you want to yourself—   R, pleased: I’m just gonna bask in the glow of that for a minute.   K, laughing: Do whatever you want to yourself and it is not possible for this to continue to level up here. We have hit—   R: Okay. We’ve peaked. Our friendship has peaked!   K: There is nothing you can do to make me love you less, let’s put it that way.   R: Gotchu. Okay, I’m golden. If only the agents would say that to me in response to my queries.   K: I keep offering to write you a letter of recommendation and you keep telling me you don’t wanna scare people.   [both laugh]   R: She’s gonna reveal things that I’m not ready for them to know yet. That’s just how it is. I need to creep some of these tricks in.   K: Well, no, the recommendation is just a crayon drawing of you surrounded by all of the things that I think are awesome about you. And I don’t know why you—   R: I want this drawing. I mean, I might not send it to agents, but I want this—   K: I don’t know why you think they wouldn’t want to see that.   R: It’s just gonna be on my website. It’s gonna be the front page of my website.   K: Yes, excellent.   R: Okay, cool. Hopefully, by now, that’s already up and everyone can go and look at that at rjtheodore.com.   K, laughing: So, okay! Before we continue down the silly road—   R: I guess we should have an episode.   K: We should probably have an episode. So, yeah, take a listen. Hopefully you enjoy this episode, as you have the previous year’s worth, and, if you don’t, maybe let us know what we should reevaluate.   R: Or just reevaluate and listen to something else!   K: Either of those.   R: All right, either way, here comes the music!   [intro music plays]   K: Okay, ready for the countdown whenever you are.   R: One, two, three, four, five—   K: Four, five, clap!   R: Click.   [both laugh]   R: And of course I say click!   K: Yes, I was, yeah. It’s fine. See, this is what I mean when I’m saying we might have to reevaluate this.   R: Uggh. I don’t like it!   K: No, never. There is nothing to reevaluate. You and I will just continue going at a perpetual speed barreling forward into an unknown future with reckless abandon.   R: They tried to separate us, we’re still podcasting.   K: Not even the greatest pandemic in modern history can separate us!   R: It’s true. It is apparently true.   K: So, along those lines. We reject this notion that we will be kept apart and we will reevaluate all of our situations in order to make sure we stay together.   R: Yep. Forever.   K: So, yeah. That’s what we’re talking about today. We’re talking about, primarily, reevaluation. Having to take a step back from your work and make decisions about why this maybe is not getting published—or rejected, if you will.   R: Well, it is getting rejected.   K: Yes! Yes it is.   R: Why it’s not getting published because it is being rejected.   K: Assuming—we’re assuming that you’re submitting this and it’s not being published, not because you’re not trying to get it published. We’re assuming you’re being rejected.   R: Right. That’s another possibility. Why isn’t my book being published? I dunno, have you written it yet? Have you tried unplugging it and plugging it back in?   K: No one has come knocking on my door asking if I have a book to be published. It’s very weird.   R: I don’t understand!   K: This isn’t an episode, so much, about dealing with rejection on a personal level, this is about dealing with rejection on a professional level. At a professional level, you’re going to get to a point where you have to kind of look at what you’re doing and try to figure out where the problem is coming from. We want to start off with a qualifier here.   [10:08]   R: Right. So when you are sending your work out. Basically, if you’re sending it out, you’ve written a query letter. From the moment you’ve begun writing your query letter, begun planning to write your query letter, you are working around a product. So, at this point, I need you to separate your emotions and your self-worth as a writer from this product.   K: And that’s a hard thing to do. And I’m sure there—   R: It’s not easy.   K: —there are people screaming at home, “This is my life! This is my work! This is me!” It’s not. Your value as a person, as a human being, is not intrinsically tied to this book.   R: And if this is the first book that you are trying to get published, this is hopefully one of many, many, many. So it feels, right now, like this is my entire catalog. This is me!   K: Like my soul has come out of my body and is now in digital form in these words that I have put into a certain order and I want people to read.   R: Right. But this is just the beginning of your career. You will write so many other books and you will look back and go, “Wow. I sure was cute back then,” you know?   K, laughing: Remember when I panicked for a month and a half about—   R: I mean, the panic never goes away, let’s be real, but this particular book, you’re gonna look back—   K: Well it evolves, you know, you’ll be panicking about new things now. Like, the other things you used to panic about will seem silly in comparison.   R: But someday you’re gonna look back and not think this book was The Book. That’s just how it is.   K: Hey, and you know what? Hopefully it won’t be.   R: Right.   K: Hopefully there’ll be multiple of them.   R: There’ll be so many books, you’ll be like, “Oh! Does that? I thought someone else wrote that one!”   K: Yup.   R: I remember reading that once.   K: Yeah, so just to qualify. Rejection is hard to deal with. I know, this—don’t take it personally. I know that’s a really easy thing for me to sit here and say. It’s not an easy thing—   R: Yeah, you acquiring editor, you.   K, laughing: It’s not an easy thing to convince yourself of. You know, one of my favorite movie lines that I use all the time, “It’s not personal, it’s just business.”   R: Mhm. Which, of course, was not spoken by the hero of the movie.   K: That’s not the point.   R: Yeah.   K: That depends who you think the hero is here, Rekka.   R: Okay, I guess fair.   [both laugh]   K: Yeah, so, it’s a hard thing to get your head around, especially if you’re down, if you’re depressed about it. Be kind to yourself. I mean, that’s the running theme of this show. Read your contract and be kind to yourself.   R: I’ll tell you what, in terms of rejections, I’m very glad that I started writing short fiction before I started querying agents.   K: That is an excellent, excellent point.   R: And I didn’t do it on purpose, but short fiction—you get so many rejections as you send these through the magazines and it is really a matter of persistence and patience and just trying again. And so it’s very... callous-building.   K: Yes.   R: It’s, yeah. You will build a shell and you will get tougher and I think that therein lies the value of short fiction. Maybe.   K: I will quote one of the songs that I can’t get out of my head, recently, which is twenty one pilots’ “The Hype” one of the lines from that is: “You don’t get thick skin without getting burnt.”   R: Right, and so a quick path to getting burnt is the short fiction magazine market. Use the website Submission Grinder because that will help you find the markets that will send you your rejections the fastest. So you don’t end up waiting for three years on your first rejection because you send it to a magazine that never replies.   K: You’re inoculating yourself there.   R: Yes, so that is what it is. That really taught me to just kind of be like, “All right! There’s the rejection, I can send it somewhere else now,” you know? You feel like you’re moving down a to-do list more than you are piling your hopes and dreams into someone else’s calloused hands. You build your own calloused hands and you climb the mountain.   K: Oh, believe me, as the person sending the rejections, my hands are pretty damn calloused.   R: Right. And your heart, too, of course.   K, insulted: Well, Rekka, I don’t have a heart.   R: Uh-huh, that’s true, Editor. I keep forgetting. I keep forgetting.   [K laughs]   K: So, let’s talk about some different kinds of rejections. I’m gonna lump this into two categories here, and these are very broad categories. We’re not gonna talk about the first one so much because that’s not what this episode is about.   The first kind of rejection is, like, a victim of circumstance-type rejection. It’s a casualty of not being in the right hands at the right time. This is a very common kind of rejection. You may have written a great book and just can’t get it to the right person to read it and publish it and take a chance on it. This, I think, is—And, Rekka, I’m sure can absolutely speak to this—this is incredibly frustrating.   R: Yeah. And there’s nothing you can do about it.    K: There’s nothing you can do about it and it’s—   R: There’s nothing you can do about it!   K: Yeah, and for those at home going, “Well if you wrote a good enough book, somebody should just want it no matter what”: That’s not how it works. If you’ve written a fantastic epic fantasy, but this publishing house just bought three other epic fantasies, they might say, “We can’t do another one of these right now.”   R: Right. And they may not even read it, you know? It’s not like they’re rejecting it because it’s too close to one of their epic fantasies. They may go, “Nope, our wheelhouse is full of, our stable is full of—”   K: “We don’t—we’re not taking epic fantasies.”   R: Yeah. We’re not taking epic fantasies right now. They just saw, in your title, that it was an epic fantasy, or your query letter, and they just moved on.   K: Exactly. So, we’re not really talking about that kind of rejection, other than to say: I’m really sorry and I hope somebody buys your book eventually.   R: Yeah, I mean. The good news about that rejection is it’s not based on quality.   K: Yes. So let’s talk about rejections based on quality, though, because that is kind of what this episode is dovetailing into. When you’re getting to a point where you’re just getting rejection after rejection, maybe you’re getting some notes back in some cases, you have to start thinking about why this is constantly getting rejected. I will lay out some hard truths here: maybe your writing is not that good.   R: That is a possibility.   K: Maybe there’s a lot of grammatical problems. Maybe you have some style issues. Taking a step beyond that, let’s say people have read it and said, “No, your writing’s fine, that’s not a problem,” maybe there’s some story problems. Maybe there’s issues with overly complicated plots and characters.   R: Or just pacing.   K: Pacing! There could be some story mechanic issues in there. Maybe it’s not… a really interesting story. Maybe it is something that is very interesting to you and you really love all the minutiae and the details, and somebody reading this is going, “I can’t get through this! I can’t get excited or interested in this!”   R: The good news about that is that it doesn't mean your story isn’t as good as you think it is. It may just be that you are sending it to people who are not your audience, in terms of either the publisher or agent.   K: So, but then, let’s talk about that because—you just hit the nail on the head, Rekka—your audience.   R: Yup.   K: This is where the theme of this episode comes in. This idea to take a step back and reevaluate. This is, actually, one hundredth—or…   R, with much snark: One hundredth?! Wow!   K:This is actually, you know, as we mentioned in the intro, this is our one year episode. If you go back and listen to our first couple episodes—now, granted, they were chaos!   R: Hey, come on.   K: Well, I mean, we recorded a bunch really quickly because we wanted to be able to have it set up in time for the Nebulas.   R: Mhm.   K: And then we went to the Nebulas and recorded some episodes there and oh boy was there background noise. [laughs] But we had a great time and it was a lot of fun. But even, you know, Rekka and I, who are good friends—we talk to each other pretty much every day, we’re probably overly involved in each others’ lives—   R: I know a whole lot about Kaelyn, let me just say!   K: And, you know, it’s funny because I always say, “Oh, I’m such a private person,” and she’s like, “Yeah, you say that and you’re really not.” And I’m like, “No, that’s just you! No one else knows all this stuff about me!” My mother is gonna start calling you and asking you questions about what’s going on in my life!   R: Oh god! [laughs] I’m an interrogator and you don’t even realize the skill involved here.   K: Yeah, no. Trust me, I have, every now and then, suspected that you may be an agent of my family. But if you go back and listen to even just our first couple episodes—I would go so far as to say the first couple months of them, it’s a little different. We’ve definitely said, “Okay, let’s try to do more of this, less of this. Let’s try to go off on fewer tangents! Let’s make a concerted effort to, you know, do these things.”   Some of that was, maybe not feedback, just things people mentioned to us—   R: It was more that we were running out of time in the recordings, ‘cause we’d go on and on and on.   K: Yeah. A lot of it is self-evaluation, too. So, all of this is to say there is nothing wrong with taking a step back and saying, “What I’m doing is not working, I need to reassess, reevaluate, and recommit myself to what I’m trying to accomplish here.”   R: If my epic fantasy novel is sixteen hundred pages, maybe I need to dial it back.   K: Because if what you’re getting is, “Hey, this story’s pretty good. I can’t read this, it’s too long.” Then that’s something you have to consider.   Now let’s talk about different kinds of feedback you could be getting. Before you send this to anyone in the publishing profession that you are going to try to convince they should buy or publish, hopefully you’ve let some other people see it. Hopefully you didn’t just crank this out and send it off to people who do this professionally.   [20:28]   K: Be they friends, family, maybe like a writing community you belong to, or maybe even a professional editor that you hired to take a pass at it.   R: Yo.   K: Yup. Now, obviously, there’s different—this is going to come off sounding mean and I don’t mean it be that way—Some people’s opinions here carry more weight than others.   R: Right.   K: If, for those of you playing along at home—The professional editor that you hired, that’s probably the person whose opinion you should be giving more credence to.   R: Versus your mom.   K: Versus your mom! Yeah. [laughs]   R: As the professional editor I hired once told me, everyone will have an opinion. Not everyone’s opinion is worth listening to.   K: Some opinions are more opinion than others.   R: Mhm.   K: I always hearken back to Animal Farm: “All animals are created equal, but some animals are more equal than others.”   R: Right.   K: All people’s opinions are opinions, but some people’s opinions are more important than others. Now, hopefully, if you’re paying someone to look at this, they’re going to be giving you some feedback. If the feedback is, you know, concise, easy to cut, clip, modify areas like, “Hey, you know, this whole conversation kind of throws the story off and nothing really comes from it, you probably don’t even need it,” you know, or—   R: Yeah, it’s slowing things down or, “They return to this place four times, and then they go do something and then they come back, and then they go do something and then they come back and it’s starting to feel like a yo-yo.”   K: That’s not what we’re talking about because that’s an easy fix. We’re talking about situations in which you’ve got to really rethink what you’ve put in this book and how you’re presenting it. And that is very hard to do. That’s a hard thing, one, to accept that you need to do. It’s a hard point to get to, to say like, “All right. I have to take a step back from this and really look at the story I’m trying to tell, and why this story is not coming across the way I want it to.”   R: Mhm.   K: Or maybe it is coming across the way you want it to and people are not enjoying it.   R: Right.   K: So, in our previous episode, we talked a lot about the line you have to draw for yourself—and I’ll hearken back to that—you gotta decide: is it really important for you to get this story published exactly how it is or are you willing to make changes in order to get the story published? Now, in this scenario, I’m imagining that there are some problems that you need to address. It’s not a matter of simple artistic integrity. This is that there are some issues in this story that you need to work on.   R: And we’re talking about, now you’ve gotten feedback from agents and possibly editors who are acquiring editors.   K: Yes. Or even professional editors. You know, I’ve talked to professional editors who—the fun position they’re in is if someone hires them, they’ve gotta read it no matter how god-awful it is, and try to give constructive feedback. I have personally looked at—met people at various events and talked to them and then taken a look at their work and, kinda, squared my shoulders back and gone, “Okay! Let’s do this!” Because some books are tear-downs. Some are: there is a general story and plot that is good or that you can work with, here, but you’ve gotta do a whole bunch of work on this.   R: I mean, Flotsam is a case in point.   K: There you go.   R: I threw the whole man out, you know? I took the draft that I had, which was revision 11 or 12, I put it aside, and I started over.   K: Yeah, and that’s a really hard thing to do.   R: There are three paragraphs that carried over from the original.   K: Well, and you can get stuck in this idea of a sunk cost fallacy, where i have put so much work into this, I can’t start over again.   R: Right.   K: But, I want you to think about—have you actually been putting so much work into it or have you been spending hours and hours tinkering with something that already exists?   R: Right. And that was mine. I kept rewriting it, adding new ideas, but I wasn’t fundamentally changing the story except that I just was engorging it.   K: Yeah. Think of this as, like, you’ve got a house with a lot of plumbing and you’re spending all of this time running around, plugging up these little holes, when what you actually should be trying to figure out is, “What the heck is going on with the water pressure that is damaging all the pipes?”   R: Mhm.   K: So, it is a very hard thing to say, “I really need to sit down and figure out what is wrong with my story.” And then you could get feedback that comes back and says, “You need to get rid of this entire thing. It’s not working. It’s distracting. It’s offensive. It has nothing to do with the story.” Whatever the problem is, there, that’s a really hard thing to get your mind around.   My personal experience is, whenever I work with a writer—whether it professionally or just kinda on-the-side conversations I have with them about their books—I always ask, “What’s your favorite part of this story?” And I am always shocked by the answer. Always.   R: It’s never something that stands out to the reader.   K: Well, it’s never something that stands out to me. Because I, of course, especially books that I work on at Parvus, I always have my favorite part of the story—Apologies, guys, there’s some noise in the background, as you said, we’re recording remote so I am, unfortunately, well not unfortunately, I am dead smack in the middle of my neighborhood in Queens, and weirdly there’s a lot of people here.   R, laughing: It’s like nobody’s got anywhere to go or somethin’.   K: Yeah, so, apologies for the noise in the background. But, to get back to the point is that: I am consistently shocked by what the author says is their favorite part. And this is, I don’t know what this is, I don’t know what the causality and correlation here is, but constantly, it’s parts that—it’s not that I would have suggested getting rid of them, but it’s things that I don’t think are necessarily integral to the story.   R: Of course. It’s the little moments where somebody had an epiphany while they were writing, but they’ve attached themselves emotionally to it.   K: It’s funny you say that, because that’s exactly what it is. It, a lot of times, seems to depend on what was going on in the writer’s life when they were doing this, and then they just have this fond memory of—   R: Writing that scene or whatever.   K: —writing that scene and, yeah. But! What also happens, a lot of times, when you’re trying to deal with this is—I finally get to talk about one of my favorite things that I come up against with this. I call these the Giant Mechanical Spiders.   R: Kaelyn loves this one.   K: I love this one because there’s a great story behind why I call it this. So I’ve said Giant Mechanical Spider, raise your hand if you immediately flashed to the movie Wild, Wild West.   R: I mean, I’m pretty sure that’s all the hands.   K: Yes, so, there is a producer for movies named John Peters. Interesting background about John Peters, he produces all of these blockbuster movies and he got his start as Barbara Streisand’s hairdresser.   R: Hey, he’s got style I guess.   K: Yeah, everyone starts somewhere, right? So John Peters was very fixated on writing a movie that had a giant mechanical spider in it. And this was probably in the mid- to late-nineties when CGI was becoming a thing. You know, Jurassic Park was a smashing success. We were really, rapidly advancing what we could do.   R: He saw his opportunity.   K: So, Kevin Smith was hired to write a treatment of the fifth Superman movie that obviously never happened and, you know, he gave an interview and he was talking about how one of the—the slow downs here, if you will, was he met with John Peters, who was the producer of the movie, and he gave him three things that—keep in mind, this script did not exist.   R: Right.   [29:13]   K: Kevin Smith was there to write a treatment of this, to try to come up with what this story was gonna be. John Peters gives him three requirements. I don’t know what the other two were, but at one point, Superman had to fight a giant mechanical spider. This script did not exist. But this producer already knew—   R: The scene had to happen.   K: —Superman had to fight a giant mechanical spider. The movie, obviously, never got made. I’m gonna entirely blame the giant mechanical spiders, but—   R: Eh, it’s possible.   K: It’s possible. Then, John Peters is attached to a project that is trying to make Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman which, you know, anybody who’s familiar with that knows it’s been a notoriously difficult project that’s been in development hell for a long time. Looks like it’s finally happening!   R: Yeah.   K: This was something that already existed. John Peters comes in and talks to the writers who are doing the first pass and immediately starts trying to interject a giant mechanical spider into this. Into Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman!! I don’t know where—   R: Yeah, I don’t think he read The Sandman before…   K: He didn’t! He didn’t! He just—What he was doing was fixating on movies that were gonna have big budgets—   R: To fit his spider, yeah.    K: —that were big enough to get this in. So, then we come to Wild, Wild West.   R: And here’s his moment to shine!   K: Here’s his moment because Wild Wild West is a lot of things. It’s whatever, it’s a fun movie.   R: Mhm. A summer popcorn flick.   K: But it’s a western, buddy cop movie, essentially.   R: Steampunk movie. Yeah.   K: Yeah! But! It is only steampunk because of the giant mechanical spiders! So I call the Giant Mechanical Spiders in writing—or GMSes, if you will; beware the GMSes—ideas that authors cannot let go of. They are just, whether they be a thing that happens, a particular scene, a conversation, a plotline, things that you just cannot get rid of. Even though they’re not working and they have no business being there. You think they’re really cool, and you need to get it in there.   R: Because very rarely is there a producer over your shoulder, telling you you need them. As a writer.   K: Yeah, but there will be an editor coming in saying, “Here’s a can of Raid, get rid of that Spider.”   R: But it’s my darling, I don’t want to kill it!   K: Yeah, well, I don’t care if you’ve named the Spiders.   R: Yes. Save it for something else.   K: That can be a major hang-up in your books, and that can be something that’s really hard to reevaluate and get rid of. This thing that you’ve fixated on, that you love, that you think is just so cool, is perfect, it’s amazing, this is everything we need for this book and getting rid of it is gonna ruin it. It’s probably not.   R: It’s probably not, at all.   K: So being able to take a step back and say, “Why isn’t this working?” Now, where do you get this feedback from? Well, as we’ve mentioned, maybe you’re lucky and you get some feedback from an editor or an agent. Maybe you’ve hired an editor to give you some feedback. That’s gonna be pretty valuable feedback. But you’re not gonna be able to constantly get that.   So this is where writing communities are really helpful and important. There’s a lot of people out there. Go listen to our first episode with Miri Baker about writing communities and why they’re great for this kind of thing. I won’t call it workshopping because that’s not quite it. But trying to figure out the strengths and weaknesses of your story and work on them. Writing communities are a really great place to do that.   R: And you also make connections where you might be able to just brainstorm with somebody who’s become your friend, and then it’s not that you’re just walking up to strangers and demanding this emotional and intellectual labor of them.   K: Yep. Yeah. And the most important thing there, though, is to be able to accept criticism and to not take it personally.   R: Right. If you’re at the point where you can’t take criticism, it might not be the point where you are ready to start querying your book.   K: Yeah. That’s a very, very good point. Beyond taking the criticism, being able to act on it. It’s one thing to say, “Hey, you know, this Giant Mechanical Spider is really distracting. It comes out of nowhere. I don’t know why it’s in this book,” but then to just go, “I really like it, I don’t know, I just think it’s cool! I’m gonna figure out a way to make it work.”   You’re creating more work for yourself and you’re actually working backwards, at that point.   R: You are bending in contortions just to fit this in. Save it. It’s gotta home somewhere, maybe someday.   K: Yeah, like maybe you’ll make a movie about Owen WIlson and Will Smith out in the west—   R: Maybe. You never know.   K: —and wild things happen to them. Take consistent criticism very seriously. If more than one person is telling you the same thing, unprompted, it’s probably worth thinking about and paying attention to.   R: Mhm, yeah. One person, if you really feel like they’re wrong and they just misunderstood the story, you can potentially backburner that information and move on to the next query letter, next agent you wanna query, but if you keep getting it over and over again, you’re gonna have to start thinking about—maybe you’re in the wrong genre! Maybe this is an expectation of the genre you want, but you’re querying agents who don’t serve that genre. I mean, probably not though. I mean because if they’re gonna give you that kind of feedback, they’re also gonna mention: Hey, this isn’t really my wheelhouse.   K: Yeah.   R: So, that’s, you know. If you think thirty agents are wrong, it’s probably you.   K: Here’s the thing: thirty agents are not wrong.   R: Thirty agents are not wrong about the same thing. So, but, what do you do if it’s because your writing’s not great?   K: Well, if the feedback you’re getting is, “Hey, the writing here is just really lacking,” this is a hard one. I’m gonna say this and it is not meant to be discouraging in any way. I am never going to be a great tennis player. I’m just not. I have accepted this. I have moved on with my life. I can take all the lessons in the world and, you know what, I can get maybe competent, but I’m never gonna be great.   Some people are never going to be great writers. For whatever reason. I think we do a disservice to a lot of people when we think: well, it’s just classes. It’s just this. You can just learn how to write. You can. You absolutely can improve and get better. You can’t say, “If I do A, B, C, and D, I will be a great writer.”   R: Right, there’s no formula for suddenly improving your craft by six hundred percent.   K: Now, this is not to say that you can’t improve. You absolutely can. Take some writing classes if this is really that important to you.   R, loudly: Read More. In your genre.   K: And read more. I think the best way to become a good writer is to read a lot.   R: Until you internalize the sentence structures and the tropes and the pacing of a plot and the way characters develop in a story. You can get a lot of that by just consuming gobs and gobs of books. You will start to just notice and become attuned to the rhythms of a story.   K: And, by the way, this goes both ways. myself, as an editor, I can spend as much time as I want listening to and reading about and taking classes on story structure and theory and all of these things, but if I haven’t actually really read anything, then how am I gonna apply that, you know? You don’t learn how to drive a car by reading about how to drive a car.   R: That’s another good point. Even if you are becoming a writer, not an editor, find a critique group online where there’s a whole bank of stories waiting for someone to critique them and go through and start critiquing. Because when you are able to constructively critique other people’s work, you are able to internalize that on your own stories as you read through it.   K: And constructively is the important word there.   R: Yeah, I did use that word with capital letters.   K: That was, I’m sure, a hundred percent intentional. Constructively is the important word there.   R: Yep.   K: Critiquing for the sake of critiquing is counter-productive and also a shitty thing to do.   R: Yeah, the word critical has kind of two meanings. Critical commentary, you know—movie critics can like movies. But for some reason critical people in critique groups never like anything, except their own work.   K: Yeah.   R: And if you’re not using this as an opportunity to find other work you like or to point out the positive things—what’s also working, in addition to areas that might need help—then you are not really fulfilling the entire function.   K: Yeah. So there are certainly ways to improve your writing and, the thing is though, this takes time. This is not gonna happen over night. Rekka, would you say what—assuming a pretty consistent amount of practice and reading and exercises—what, no less than a year, probably, before you can—   R: Oh, yeah, I mean, if you’ve already written one thing and you can take the critiques that you’ve gotten, either from beta readers or editors or agents who’ve gotten back to you and given you direct feedback on it, if you can examine that objectively and come back to it and then put it aside and start fresh? I guarantee you that next thing is going to be better. Already.   K: Yeah!   R: It’s going to be better incrementally. I can’t guarantee you that in 11 months, 5 days you will have written something that is 600 percent better than the last thing. But every time you write something, you get better.   K: Absolutely. Now, that said, if you feel like you’re spinning your wheels, don’t keep wasting your time. Put the time into getting better at your craft, rather than going back and trying to fix what you are not yet equipped to fix.   [40:12]   R: Right, notice I said put the story aside. Yeah. It may not be worth it. If you are getting critiques that this story is not well-written, but you love this story, do this story the honor of writing it when you’re a better writer.   K: Take the time. Don’t—Doctors do not perform heart surgery the first day they get out of medical school. Because yeah, they know where everything is and they’ve probably seen a few and maybe even done some small parts themselves, but that doesn’t mean they’re ready for that kind of thing.   R: Right. So you can take this story—and you’re not putting it away forever—but someday you will write a fresh draft of it that incorporates everything you love, and combines it with the talent that you are going to develop. The skill that you are going to develop.   K: Yeah, and by the way, sometimes it’s a really good thing to step away from a project for a long time and try not to think about it and then come back to it.   R: I mean, think about when you play videogames and you’re so sick of one boss, you know? It’s time to put the thing away.   K: Yeah, exactly. So think about this as a videogame boss. You gotta go somewhere else and level up a little bit first.   R: Or you need to go get a blue key card. It could be anything that’s stopping you from moving forward, but you might wanna just step away and not give up, but do something else. Play a different videogame? Start a different story. Or just read for a while. Like, and then evaluate. How much do I love writing? It’s a hard thing that I’m suggesting, but, is this something that gives me enough joy to warrant the effort that it takes?   K: And how much do I love writing this particular story? Am I willing to put in the time, effort, and focus that it would take to make significant changes? Am I willing to make significant changes?   Because that is a major hurdle that a lot of people have to get over first.   R: Yep. A hundred percent.   K: So don’t be afraid to reevaluate your work. Don’t be afraid to reevaluate what you want, professionally, out of this. It’s a scary thing to do, but it’s important.   R: And here’s the thing—-that it occurs to me we haven’t mentioned—sometimes you get critique from people and you feel like they are trying to change your book.   K: They might be.   R: Well, yes, they are trying to get you to change your book, though. That’s what I’m saying. Whatever you do, unless you are taking text that someone else has provided you and copy-pasting it into your document, this is still your story. If they’re identifying areas that aren’t working, you can change them and it will still be your work.   So, the whole kill your darlings thing is about being willing to take something you thought was really clever or you were particularly proud of, or just fond of—like Kaelyn was saying, those moments where she’s like, “Really? That was your favorite part?”—and strip them out of the story for the good of the story. The whole idea is everyone involved, ostensibly, is trying to help you make this the best story it can be.   K: Round up the Giant Mechanical Spiders, take them behind a chemical shed, and shoot them.   R: OR save them for the Giant Mechanical Spider book. Just saying.   K: Fine. Save them for the Giant Mechanical Spider book.   R: Just saying, this producer probably could have found somebody to write a movie that was about his spiders. [laughs] Instead of trying to insert the spiders in every movie that he produced.   K: Yeah.   R: So, save—   K: Beware of the Giant Mechanical Spiders. They are venomous.   R: And probably are not improving your story quite as well as you think they are.   K: Yeah, because they’re poisoning it because they’re venomous because they’re Spiders. And I love spiders, but not the giant, mechanical ones.   [long pause]   K, defensively: Spiders are awesome, Rekka.   R, laughing: I’m just… where are you going with this?   K: I just! Spiders are awesome!   R: Spiders are awesome, I have no problem with spiders.   K: They’re—they’re super useful animals, they’re—   R: I’m just trying to stop you from killing the mechanical ones.   K: The mechanical ones are different from the other ones. Mechanical Spiders, I mean, no one asked for them.   R: Look, I have a fond place in my heart for ridiculous story elements, and I think there’s probably a story in which those Mechanical Spiders belong and I think someone who writes a story with Mechanical Spiders and is rejected because of the Mechanical Spiders does not have to kill the Mechanical Spiders, they just have to remove them from this story.   K: Okay, we’re gonna take the Mechanical Spiders—   R: Like, when I find a spider in the bathroom and I carry it outside because it doesn’t belong in the bathroom, but I don’t want it dead.   K: Okay, so, take your Mechanical Spiders and free them into the world or send them to a farm upstate—   R: And if it was meant to be, they’ll come back to you. [laughs]   K: There you go. And if you go outside and the Mechanical Spiders are still, you know, roaming your front lawn, looking sad, then you know you have to create an environment in which they can thrive.   R: All right. So! If you have a Mechanical Spider that you would like to tell us about—   K: Actually—   R: —or if you just want to tell us to lay off the mechanical spiders—   K: Actually, that’s a good—if you can think of one, Tweet us something that you suspect in like a movie or a book, was a Giant Mechanical Spider. Something that—   R: Kaelyn needs more points of comparison.   K: Something that should not have been there and wasn’t really doing anything, wasn’t helping, but was kinda cool to look at or read.   R: Okay, so that’s your assignment. We are @wmbcast on Instagram and Twitter. You can find us at wmbcast.com with all our back-episodes. We are @wmbcast on Patreon, where you can support us and thank us for this spider-based advice—   K, ominously: Beware the Giant Mechanical Spiders!   R: —and if can’t afford to support us on Patreon, we totally understand, but we would really appreciate if you could take the time to leave a review and rating on Apple’s podcasts or, if your computer’s a little older, Apple iTunes, because that really helps feed the algorithm—not the Spiders—and helps people find us and subscribe. And if you haven’t subscribed, please subscribe!   K: Don’t feed the Spiders.   R: All right! We’ll be back in two weeks, there may or may not be Spiders. Thank you, everyone.   K: There’s always Spiders! You are always near Spiders!   R: Apparently.   K: Thanks everyone, we’ll see you in two weeks.   [outro music plays]                                        

Hi everyone, and thank you for tuning in to another episode of the We Make Books Podcast - A podcast about writing, publishing, and everything in between! This week we’re talking about pirates and sadly, not those of the Caribbean variety.  The internet is littered with websites that sell (or claim to give away) pirated copies of books and addressing this situation can be a long and daunting process.  In this episode we talk about what kind of websites your book could end up on, what it is that the people that run them are after, and how to get your book taken down should pirates get ahold of it … this unfortunately involved a lot less of the ‘bribe them with rum’ tactic that we had hoped. We Make Books is hosted by Rekka Jay and Kaelyn Considine; Rekka is a published author and Kaelyn is an editor and together they are going to take you through what goes into getting a book out of your head, on to paper, in to the hands of a publisher, and finally on to book store shelves. We Make Books is a podcast for writer and publishers, by writers and publishers and we want to hear from our listeners! Hit us up on our social media, linked below, and send us your questions, comments, concerns, and if you’ve been spending your days in quarantine baking, tell us what you’ve made and stay safe everyone! We hope you enjoy We Make Books! Twitter: @WMBCast  |  @KindofKaelyn  |  @BittyBittyZap Instagram: @WMBCast  Patreon.com/WMBCast     Rekka (00:00): Welcome back to another episode of we make books a show about writing, publishing and everything in between. I'm Rekka, I write science fiction and fantasy as RJ Theodore. New Speaker (00:10): And I'm Kaelyn. I am the acquisitions editor for Parvus Press. New Speaker (00:13): So I know I've made a big Kaelyn. Kaelyn (00:17): Yeah, I mean I've done that for awhile, but, uh, is there any specific reason - Rekka (00:21): The day that I got the Google search term alert that my book had shown up on a pirate site, that's how I knew I'd made it. Kaelyn (00:28): It is a, it is a little bit of a marker in your career, isn't it? Rekka (00:32): Bingo square. I mean, like, it's not like I'm not gonna do anything about it, but, uh, you know, before I turn around and forward that email to my publisher and say, Hey, just so you know, please go take care of this. Um, I did bask in the having arrived-ness of that moment. Kaelyn (00:48): Yeah. It's, um, it's, you know, what did they say? SNL, Sesame street. Those are the big markers in your career. Rekka (00:54): I haven't made that one yet. I haven't done any of those pirated website, so I'm not, today we're talking about pirates, but not the awesome kind, not the kind in my books, the kind to take my books. Kaelyn (01:08): The kinds who take books and um, you know, put them on the website for all to, to read without paying for them, which as I think we've, you know, if you've listened to any of our previous episodes, we obviously come down very strongly against. Rekka (01:21): We don't like it . Kaelyn (01:29): Yeah. Kind of against that for various reasons. This was, a listener sent us this question, you know, asking about, um, pirates pirate websites, what you can do to prevent that from happening and what to do if it does happen. So, um, no, I think that's a pretty, there's a as much of a comprehensive walkthrough Rekka (01:38): Yeah. I mean, yeah, the problem itself is pretty simple. It's the solution that's kind of a bear. Yeah, exactly. Kaelyn (01:50): So anyway, uh, take a listen and um, as always, we hope you enjoy it Speaker 3 (02:08): [inaudible] Kaelyn (02:11): Well, I think we're getting this remote recoder thing, kind of uh, we're doing okay, right? Rekka (02:14): Hey, we're not coughing and we have no difficulty breathing, so it's a good song. We're a step ahead of a lot of other people at this point. Kaelyn (02:24): So, Hey everyone, uh, welcome back. We are, um, again recording remotely. Rekka (02:32): We are trying to uh, batch up some episodes. It's not that hopefully in the future you will say it, but the play gold meet lasted two weeks. Kaelyn (02:41): First of all, if it's a plague, it doesn't last two weeks. New Speaker (02:44): No, no, no. I'm sure it's fine. I'm in two weeks from now, we'll all be laughing about this. New Speaker (02:49): Um, by definition I think plagues must last longer than to be - New Speaker (02:54): Fine. You know, it never argue with an editor. They've got receipts in and the sources and stuff. Kaelyn (03:01): Well also when I was in grad school, I was a TA for a professor who specialized in history of medicine. So I had to TA a class, God, I think like three or four times. That was the history of plague and epidemic, Rekka (03:16): fFine, whatever. Or you're a semi expert on the subject. Kaelyn (03:19): Oh God, no, not at all. Rekka (03:21): We'll get out there and heal some people. If you're so smart. Kaelyn (03:22): We'll do. Okay. Rekka (03:26): Um, but anyway, yes. So we were, this is another one from the batch that we recorded, um, before my second surgery. So hopefully the world is a much better place as you're listening to this. Kaelyn (03:36): Well, the other side of this now. Yeah, but you know what doesn't make the world a good place? Rekka (03:42): Piracy. Kaelyn (03:43): Pirates. Rekka (03:44): See, I really subscribed to the romantic notion of pirates. I really want them to be good hearted people at their core that just work on the outside of regulation and law yet see that occasionally have like really exciting chase scenes with the law enforcement, but everyone ends up okay, Kaelyn (04:07): Well here's the thing about pirates Rekka and they're not really great people. Now don't get me wrong, in the early days of piracy, there was a lot to respected, possibly even admire. There was a, they were one of the first groups to have socialized medicine. Rekka (04:22): Right. Who were bringing it all the way back around. Kaelyn (04:27): And the concept of, um, worker's comp. If you were, uh, injured aboard a pirate ship and let's say you lost a hand, you were afforded a higher percentage of recovered booty. Rekka (04:38): Booty. Kaelyn (04:41): Now, that said pirates. Definitely were very into the pillaging, raping and maiming and above all stealing. Rekka (04:49): Yeah. Kaelyn (04:50): And in our modern day, that is what pirates continue to do now. So why are we talking about pirates? Well, this one actually comes from a listener who, uh, sent us a message and asked if we had any tips or tricks to dealing with people stealing your book. Pirates, putting it online without paying for it. Rekka (05:12): So obviously we're specifically talking about eBooks. Kaelyn (05:15): We are specifically talking about eBooks. If it would be really weird if they went out and bought physical copies of your book and then sold them online at that point, that just makes them a bookstore. Rekka (05:24): Right? So that makes them what a second hand bookstore. But no, you're right. So it's hard. The reason that, um, ebook piracy is so much stronger than print book piracy is because yes, those print books are, um, individual items that can only be resold or given away once. Um, yes, if they buy your book and then give it away physically, they are a library. If they buy your book and sell it, they are a bookstore and we like those people. We like both of those categories - Kaelyn (05:53): Those are great people. Rekka (05:54): Yes. But yeah, it's um, ebook, they get one file and they can give it away an unlimited number of times and that's a problem. Kaelyn, why is it a problem? Kaelyn (06:05): It's a problem because then you're not making money off the book. Now I'm going to head on - Rekka (06:09): Who's not making money off the book? Kaelyn (06:10): Everyone who was involved in the book that should be getting money from it is now not making money off the book. Right. Um, I'm going to head off this discussion right here by saying that there are a lot of people who will say that people who are going to go online and find pirated book versions of your book would not have bought it in the first place. Rekka (06:29): And this isn't actually 100% true. Kaelyn (06:32): It's not completely wrong. But yes, there is definitely a certain crowd of people that scour these websites, which by the way, we will not be naming any of them in this episode. The scour these websites, and that is how they consume books. They only get pirated copies online. And in those cases, yes, those people probably would not have bought the book no matter what. Um, that said there is a large segment as well that could go by the book and just wants to get it online for whatever reason. Rekka (07:04): Or just let, let me see if it's free first and then I'll buy it. Yeah, I'm using it as part of their budgeting system for their entertainment. Um, there is an anecdote, I don't recall who it was, but someone, an author, I think self-published uploaded their own book to a pirate site and inside it had the first two or three chapters and then at the end and explanation of why pirating costs that author their livelihood and a link to their website to go buy the book. Yeah. And apparently the response on the pirate site was, wow, that sucks. This book is really good. Now I have to go buy it and finish it. And a lot of them did. But chances are you aren't controlling this situation and someone else has uploaded a listing that matches your book's title and your author name. Kaelyn (07:58): So let's, as Rekka is kind of pointing to, let's talk about how and why your book may end up online. How's pretty easy? Somebody gets a hold of the digital file, assuming that they are able to get a hold of the digital file, puts it online for people to download. Who are these people and why are they doing this? Well, the answer is a pirates people who are trying to make money off of, um, giving your book away. Now, I'm saying giving your book away. But a lot of times that is not actually what's happening. And that is for one of two reasons. If you find that your book is showing up on a pirate website, there's a very good chance they don't actually have your book. New Speaker (08:39): Right. They are, they pulled some information off Amazon. Maybe they got a couple of the preview chapters off of there. They dump it in. And what they're actually trying to do is drive traffic to their website. Um, it could be primarily ad based, you know, some create websites that are just trying to get people to go there so that they can charge for ads. Right. Um, sometimes what they're trying to do is get you to sign up for a subscription for these supposedly free pirated books. Um, some of these are paid subscriptions. In some cases they just want your email address and information because that's also a very valuable market. Rekka (09:15): Yeah. They can sell that and they're not selling it to people who, um, who are going to do responsible things with that information. Kaelyn (09:22): Yeah. Conversely, if we go to even the further nefarious side of this, uh, they could say, okay, great, you signed up for free, here's the file, download it and that is a virus. Rekka (09:34): Yup. Kaelyn (09:35): Um, or that is some kind of, uh, key tracker or encryption breaker that is now going to take all of the information that it could possibly get from you. Rekka (09:45): I mean, I think it's a pretty reasonable piece of advice that if you're going to a website that is doing things that are unlawful, maybe don't trust downloads from that website. I mean, that's just me. Yeah. Kaelyn (09:57): That, um, that seems pretty sensible. Look at it this way. There is nobody out there who is going, you know what I really want to do? I want to give books away for free. I'm going to set up a website that is totally legit, completely above board where I'm going to steal people's books and put them on here so other people can read them. So the first that I'm going to set up a legit, totally above board website that steals books. Rekka (10:14): First of all, those two things don't happen in the same vacuum. Kaelyn (10:23): Yes, yes. And also some of you are going, wait a second, this sounds familiar. Yes, you're correct. That is called a library. Rekka (10:32): Yes. If you cannot afford to buy the book, go to the library instead. Here's a really, really, really, really cool fact. Libraries pay for the books that they buy. Yes, they do not return books, which is excellent for the author and the publisher also. Um, they have them in digital print and audio have available. So you can get the book in whatever format you want for free and you are actually supporting the author. Like if you, if you say, look, I really love this author. I read everything by them. I, you know, I hope they do well. I just can't afford books. Library. Please go to the library. Authors love it when they find out their books are in libraries and the library, if a book is popular, we'll buy multiple copies. Yup. It's amazing. It's almost like this is the way it was designed to work. Almost like the, I suppose the idea the whole time. Yeah. Oh yeah. So that is, that is the a hundred percent best alternative. If you meet a free book, absolutely. We support that. Go get it from the library please. Kaelyn (11:32): Yes. So all of them, uh, you know, just common sense. Should it imply here that any thing you're going to, to get something illegal could have some sketchy elements to it. And don't get me wrong, this is illegal. You are not, this is not something, you know, we're don't talking about books here that, um, you know, are part of the, uh, the common domain at this point. Rekka (11:54): But Kaelyn, information wants to be free. Kaelyn (11:58): This isn't information. Rekka (11:59): Right. This is IP. This is someone's property. Kaelyn (12:02): Yes. This is intellectual property. And you could say, I mean, now granted, you know, we both work in genre fiction. I'm talking, you know, we're not just talking about novels and uh, and fiction books. Um, you could say, well, somebody wrote this great book about how to, you know, build your own computer and I want to do that. Well, here's the thing. Somebody wrote that book and they did it for a reason. They put a lot of time and effort into it and the, there's no, you're not entitled to that person's knowledge and ability. Rekka (12:33): I mean, folks already complained that, you know, ebook prices cost so much and print book prices costs so much, but the fact is that it's still lower than the rate that they would give that book away if it was only being given away once. Like if an author wants to make a livable wage, they need all of the sales of the book at that price because the author doesn't even get a, you know, chunk of that. They get a sliver. Kaelyn (13:00): Well, and I'll take that a step further if you want to. You know, if you think the cost of a how-to book is too high, go take a class, see how much that costs. Hire somebody to come do it for you and see how much that costs. Rekka (13:13): Or buy a pre-made. Kaelyn (13:15): Yeah. These are people's skills and knowledge and intellect and time and time. They've worked hard to build and cultivate these things. This is a product the same way a farmer selling apples is selling a product, right? Um, so a lot of those lines up there is a very good chance that if you ever publish something, it is going to end up on a pirated website. And we at Parvus, I've had this happen a couple of times. The first time it happened we were almost a little happy. We were like, wow, we've made it on the map. Somebody actually stolen one of our books. Um, and then we were like, Oh crap, we better deal with that. So your book has shown up on a part at website. What do you do now? I am going to qualify this entire spiel of what is to come here. By saying that depending on aware the website is hosted in the world, I mean not just like, you know, what shady part of the internet. Rekka (14:14): Okay. Kaelyn (14:15): There may be very little you can do. Rekka (14:19): Right. Um, however, we are fortunate that a lot of, uh, cloud based servers and such are, are being used for hosting now and many of these are owned by corporations that will honor a take down request. Kaelyn (14:32): Yes. Now I'm going to use China as an example here because, uh, I then a cursory examination of this will show you that a lot of this comes up in China because, um, trade agreements and IP agreements and there's a lot of problems with China in general. Um, uh, reproducing. Yes. Things, let's call it that. Rekka (14:56): And I've run into this in the manufacturing world too. Kaelyn (14:58): Yes. Well that's what I was saying. Even in the manufacturing world, there is a lot of problems with dealing with things being stolen and remade in China and having no course to address this because China is not party to a lot of the international agreements that would give you recourse to address this. Rekka (15:19): Yup. Kaelyn (15:20): Um, okay, so that said, you find, you know, your book has shown up on an elicit website. The first thing that you can do is contact the website directly and just tell them, Hey, you've got this thing on here, this is mine. You've stolen it. Um, you know, if you're through a publisher, the publisher, you know, we've had to do this at our best, um, and demand, do they take it down? Okay. So then you're wrong. Well, how on earth do I, how do I do that? If a, you know, a lot of these, these kinds of websites aren't going to have the click here to contact us. Kaelyn (15:58): But, uh, so there's a great website out there called whois.com. Um, and what this is what this website is. It is just information about websites online and you can put in a website address and it's going to give you all of the information that it can about this particular website. Uh, the hosted platform, the domain, the registrar, everything. So the first thing you can do is go in and find the email address associated with the master account for the website and email them directly. Now who is, does do a thing where you can pay them to have that information, uh, privately blocked. And the reason for this is, you know, let's say like you've got a website and you don't want people to just be able to go find your email address in plastered everywhere. So it's gonna say something like privacy@gmail.com or privacy with some numbers at gmail.com. You can still email that what the address and it just redirects to the actual email address. The idea is just that you can't see it, Rekka (17:06): Right. So if you were trying to, um, you know, as an individual mask, as much of your private information as you can, when you register your domain name, it's cheaper to pay for a domain name privacy than it is to like register a PO box and have an address that isn't your home address and you know, that sort of thing. So yeah, this is a totally legit use of, um, privacy Kaelyn (17:31): I'd go so far as to recommend it setting up a, um, you know, an author website or something. It's probably not a bad thing to have. Um, okay. So, you know, people are probably at home scoffing going like, yeah, like they're gonna listen to that. Um, here's the thing. If what you're doing at that point is you're not really threatening them with legal action or you're not threatening them with the fact that they're giving away your book, you're threatening them with their website, you're threatening a business, a line of income at that point. Um, because, and the success rates here, you know, of course vary wildly, but one of the things you're doing is threatening their line of business. And how much of a response are you going to get for this? No way to know it. And again, a big part of this could depend on where this person is physically located in the world. Rekka (18:30): Yup. And if they're smart enough to make sure their host is also physically located there, um, you know, sometimes you're going to find these eBooks on legitimate bookstores. Like, um, people have found that their Kindle unlimited books show up in Apple books because someone has copied it and listed it for sale because they know that being a Kindle unlimited book, that authors not watching that book on Apple and then usually they find out because Kindle unlimited got mad at them and Amazon sent them a nasty note about it. So, um, when it's a legitimate ebook store, you're going to have a much easier time. But, but it's the pirating sites we're concerned about. Kaelyn (19:08): Yeah. Most of these are not legitimate sites. Um, so, all right, let's say you have not gotten a response back. You've threatened, you know, like whatever you need to throw in an order, you feel to get their attention. If they don't respond, the next step up now is to contact their hosting service. Now, as record said, a lot of places are cloud based. Now there's a lot of people who use hosting through Amazon or Google or any number of hosting platforms. Um, getting in touch with the hosting platform is going to have varying degrees of success. Um, part of it is that if they are using one of the larger hosting services, it's gonna probably take a while for someone to get around to looking at this. Um, conversely, if they have their own hosting set up, if this is a server that they've got set up, you know, in the back room at their house, and this is a 100% real thing that can happen. I mean, this is not hard to do at all. It's not expensive to go online, buy the necessary equipment and get it set up. It does not require a lot of overhead. It does not require a ton of power and you can keep a lot on those servers, especially when you're doing some, when you're talking about something like books, which are primarily text-based files. Rekka (20:29): Yep. A couple of megabytes each at the most Kaelyn (20:30): Maybe, if that. Rekka (20:31): Yeah. With pictures. Kaelyn (20:33): Yeah. With some pictures assuming that they have pictures because some of these, you know, Rekka (20:37): They'd probably strip a mountain, just deposit the text. Kaelyn (20:39): Yeah. This is where, you know, something else you would notice on a pirate sites is a lot of this is just a dump of plain, barely formatted into a document for you to download. Rekka (20:50): Yup. Kaelyn (20:51): Um, so if they are hosted through a major service or a cloud based service, you have some chance of getting some attention and some action there. Um, again, it could take a while and even then, depending on what it is, the hosted service may be somewhat limited in what it can do. So if that fails, the next question is, okay, what can I do after that? This is when you go to the registrar and you, um, Oh, registrar is a service that allows you to officially register your domain name. And these are, these services are actually regulated. Um, they're regulated by the internet corporation have assigned names and numbers and that is a long fancy way of saying that these are the people that give out IP addresses. Kaelyn (21:47): Um, these are the ones that when you know, for instance, when we went to get our website set up for, uh, this podcast, uh, WB cast.com we went through GoDaddy. GoDaddy is the registrar here. Um, they are regulated by an overseen by ICANN. This uh, internet corporation have assigned names and numbers, um, who oversees a lot of different registrars and make sure that they're keeping things above board and collecting all the right paperwork from the people who register and all that stuff and collecting the taxes. Exactly. The taxes and the fees are the real law. That's the good part there. Uh, now like you probably have heard about like, Oh, a is this domain name taken? You know how much you pay for these? The registrars are the ones that, um, like in the case of GoDaddy, they're notorious for buying, uh, domains and it's sitting on them and reselling them and uh, you know, that that's a legitimate thing you can do. Rekka (22:50): That's their business model. Yep. Kaelyn (22:52): Yeah. The next step up is to contact this registrar, um, and complained to them directly. In some cases you can call them and say, Hey, look at, you know, this, and if you're wondering again, how do I get this information and the hosted information for that matter, again, on who's who is.com, we'll have all of this in that search result. What you'd need to do at this point is to threaten or to actually file what's called a D M C a request the digital millennium copyright act. And what this is supposed to be doing is exactly what it sounds like. Something is violating my copyright of my book. This at this point is supposed to be a last resort and you need to that in any correspondence or conversations with the registrar at this point that you have tried everything else and you've exhausted all of your options. Kaelyn (23:56): You're now to the point that you have to go to the registrar to complain about this. Um, if you're to the point where you have to do this, you can find templates online suggesting you know, how to format this, what information to give them. And um, you know, how to direct this and who to direct it to. Um, Scribd has a good template for this. So there is one final, last step. It's not the same as actually getting this stuff scrubbed, but that has to go directly to the search engines to go to Google and to get them to do list. The search results. Do you list the search results? It's not making it. So the book is taken down, but it is making it so it is either harder or impossible to find. Right? So those are the stepwise parts here. Um, Rekka (24:51): And we'll link in the show notes. There's a really good article on the digital reader that covers a lot of this. And so we'll put those links in the show notes. We got a bunch of links for this episode. I'm just talking about the effect of piracy, the costs of piracy, that sort of thing. And um, and the, these are step-by-step you can follow along, um, in the digital reader's article, which is, which is really good. So, um, you know, you don't have to keep rewinding and writing down what she said, but, um, we always have transcripts too, but um, yeah, so it's, it's long, it's involved, but um, is it worth your time? Kaelyn (25:29): Well, you decide. Um, again, I will, I really want to emphasize that this is not an easy process. Even if the person is, let's say you're in America and this, uh, website is also hosted in America. It's still not an easy process to deal with all of this. Rekka (25:48): You got a D cross all your T's and dot all your I's to even get your email acknowledged. Kaelyn (25:53): Yeah. Now there, there used to be a service called Blasty. Do you remember Blasty, Rekka? Rekka (25:59): I've never heard of it. Kaelyn (26:00): Blasty was, um, it was, uh, I guess technically like a software bundle that you'd pay for and you'd put all the relevant information in and then it would basically do all of those steps for you. Rekka (26:13): Mmmhmm. Kaelyn (26:14): Uh, blasty does not exist anymore, unfortunately. Uh, they in last year had some very strange stuff happen with them. I still don't entirely understand. There was all of a sudden accusations of corruption and, uh, illicit payments being made and various things and then they just kind of disappeared. Their website is even gone. Um, which is a shame because it was kind of a good way to handle this if you were willing to pay for the service. Um - Rekka (26:41): Well there are services that will still handle sending your DMC notices. Kaelyn (26:46): Yes. Rekka (26:46): Um, they're going to be expensive, but it's because it's so tedious and because you have to stay on top of these things to make sure it actually gets handled. So, you know, if you're getting to the point where you really feel that the book sales that the piracy is costing, you are worth paying for a service to handle this. Um, which is not going to be until people know who you are to be looking for you anyway. Because what happens is these pirate sites, they pirate your books because they know that people are searching for your name and your title. Kaelyn (27:16): Yes. But in some cases, um, it's a, it's a volume game with them. Uh, they're gonna throw as many books as they can get their hands on onto one of these sites. Um, the, again, just if you're ever considering looking at or going to one of these websites, first of all, don't, but second, think about the people sitting on the other side of this. They are not doing this out of the goodness of their heart. Yes. Um, Rekka (27:47): they're not doing it because due to unforeseen circumstances, they could not complete their library degree. Kaelyn (27:52): Yeah. They're actually, what did that be? Something. Rekka (27:57): These are all rogue library scientists that just couldn't finish. And - Kaelyn (28:01): I was unfairly kicked out of life, my librarian program for giving away too many books. Rekka (28:07): I gave away too many books if they didn't like it. Kaelyn (28:09): So now I'm on the other side of the law. I will never stop, be stopped from giving away books. Um, there was a story. Um, but the people who are doing this are not doing it because they are rogue librarians out there giving away books and stories and information because they love to, they have ulterior and often to furious motives at best. They either want you to want to get your email and information or they want you to click on pages so they can make money from the website. That is the best case scenario Rekka (28:47): Yeah, that that's the least harmful case. Yes, it gets worse from there. Kaelyn (28:51): It gets worse. And I mean, viruses, identity theft, they are absolutely selling your information. Don't delude yourself into thinking they're not. So stay away from these websites for a lot of reasons. One - Rekka (29:07): Because you're a good person and you want to support authors and publishers Kaelyn (29:11): Yeah, because they suck and the people that run them suck. And you should not be stealing people's work and putting it out there for the world without them being properly compensated for it. If you want books and you cannot afford them request them from your library also, there's this great thing you can do with a Kindle and eBooks. You can share them. Rekka (29:31): Yup. Some of them to front some of them. Kaelyn (29:33): Yes. But like sometimes you can, you can loan them to friends. Um, there are other ways of getting these that are not jeopardizing not only the writer's livelihood, but also their ability to produce and create in the future. Rekka (29:50): Yep. And I will say for, you know, there are areas where it might be like distant from a good library or something. All you need is a membership to a library. And usually the only thing you need for membership to library is to be a resident of the same state. So if you can sign up for a library in your state, even if you can't walk in because it's not that close, once you have that membership, you can take it to I think, Libby or overdrive. And um, that's how you get the eBooks. And I mean, your library might have their own service, but basically it's usually Libby or Overdrive and then you can search under, you know, quote unquote under your library for the books you want. But it's coming from a large pool of books that are out there. And sometimes they're all checked out because that's how libraries work. But you can just get in line for that book and you can read it and when it comes available. Yep. Kaelyn (30:39): So that's, uh, that's kind of the, the story with pirates. Um, unfortunately they are not all ambling around doing bad Keith Richards impressions wearing a lot of very heavy eyeliner. I hey, don't get me wrong. I enjoy it. I enjoy it. Rekka (30:59): Um, yeah, I prefer the black sails. Uh, pirates these days, even though pirates of the Caribbean did inspire my novel trilogy. I will say that, uh, the black sails series, if you haven't watched that, go watch that. If you want, if you want to get involved with pirates, go watch that. Um, leave the pirate sites alone. Um, yeah, I will say, you know, you have some hope if you find your book on a legitimate site or a site with a legitimate host. Um, there has been some advice in the, and Kaelyn, you know, alluded to this at the very beginning of the episode, um, in the self publishing community that says, um, Hey, these were never your, uh, your readers anyway. Don't worry about it. Just be happy that your book is out there getting exposure. Um, I disagree with that. Um, I think self publishing authors are probably going to start disagreeing with that too now that it's getting more competitive and um, it's not quite the, you know, boom days that it used to be. So, um, I think it's worth your time to try and get them removed. Um, it's also legally a good thing to be doing to defend your copyrights. Yeah. Because if you don't defend your copyrights, then you know, the law sees, starts to see things differently than you might imagine they would. Kaelyn (32:19): There is, um, you know, the, and this is very subjective what I'm about to say. Uh, there is the case to be made that let's say down the line, you do actually end up in court over something, be it related to this or not. And the question comes up, well, you saw that people were this stuff before, didn't you? Well, why, why is it bothering you now? Why didn't it bother you then? Right now that said, this is a very time consuming and often mentally draining process. Um, so the, it is completely understandable to throw your hands up in the air and say, I just don't want to deal with this right now. Rekka (33:01): So you might be wondering, Oh my God, is my book already out on pirate sites and Oh my God, do I have to spend every morning crawling pirate sites in order to see if my book has popped up? Because what will happen is if you have a like peer-to-peer piracy site, they might take it down one day and then five minutes later or the next day or a week later, it's back up. So how do you know, um, some of them are behind a paywall, like we mentioned some of these pirate sites or subscriptions. So the only way to know what's in their data bank is unless they make the DataBank public, but you can't download unless you logged in. Um, the only way to know it would be to pay and it's, you're not going to do that. You don't want to support that. Um, but what I do, and I know Parvus does for their authors is set up a Google search term alert. So just put your author name in and your titles of your books and then you get an email. Kaelyn (33:51): We keep the Google search term alerts for numerous reasons. Basically, you know, we - Rekka (33:56): And sometimes that's how you find up the find out that a review is posted. You know, Kaelyn (34:01): you know, if Rekka's name suddenly starts popping up in conjunction with, um, you know, things like police arrested, Rekka (34:08): Hey, now she's not a lot of faith in me. I just learned this is a, um, this is a moment, hang on, I gotta I gotta recover from this. Kaelyn (34:19): It's okay. They have a Google news alert set up for me too. I'm really the one that they're waiting for - Rekka (34:22): Yeah, you're the one that's going to get in trouble first. Kaelyn (34:25): It's associated with a terms like "bizarre incident" and "neighbors say" Rekka (34:30): And explicable. Kaelyn (34:33): Yeah, no, of all of the people associated with Parvus, I am far and away the one most likely to end up on the news. Rekka (34:39): Yeah. Kaelyn (34:43): The New York post. Rekka (34:45): But anyway, yeah, but so what I'm saying is, is set a Google search similar and forget it, you know, move on. And what's going to happen is you are going to get notifications of things like reviews and it's just as a quick aside, if it's a negative review, that doesn't mean you have to respond to it just because it came to your inbox through a Google search alert. You're just going to leave that - Kaelyn (35:06): Go back and listen to the reviews episode. Rekka (35:08): Don't do it. Just don't do that. But yeah, so that's a possibility with um, with those search term alerts. But they are good for helping you learn when someone has listed your book. Um, because pretty much that's the only way I learned since I'm not going to be found on a pirate site, even though I love pirates, but just not that kind. You were on a pirate site, huh? Thought some was on a pirate site. Yeah. Yeah. But I found out through the Google search term cause I wasn't good. No, I meant I personally, my personal habit not to spend any time downloading from pirate sites. Yes. Kaelyn (35:41): I was going to say flotsam was absolutely on a pirate site. That was one of our first real, uh, I was the one. You were the first one we found and then we found Vick's and, we, and we were like, I wonder what else is on here? Oh shit. Everything. And that's, you know, that's the thing is that so many books end up on these things. There are people whose jobs are only two. They just, this is their lives. They just scour websites, scrape the internet, try to come up with this stuff. I've put it on a website Rekka (36:14): Do you think when they were young and someone asks them what they want to be when they grow up, they thought I'm going to be part of the book protectorate. Kaelyn (36:21): Pirate. Rekka (36:23): Pirate? Kaelyn (36:23): No. What? They said - Rekka (36:25): They probably said pirate and now instead that they're they're calling and defense. No, I'm saying the person whose job it is, this is their career. Their paid position is to go in and send, take down notices. Kaelyn (36:37): I like, I like that. I always should get them a badge. Official book protector. Rekka (36:42): Yes. Member of the protector. It, yes. I like it. Yes. Um, okay. So uh, I think that Rekka (36:50): Hopefully that answers the question. I mean what do you do to prevent it? You don't, yeah, there's really nothing you can do because the Stephen King books are there. Like you can't be big enough to be too big for this. You can't be small enough to be too small for this. Kaelyn (37:04): No such thing as the size of an audience or the size of a publisher that is going to prevent this from happening. Right. So, um, uh, I think we mentioned it earlier, uh, Jason Kimball had, uh, sent us that question, so, you know, thanks Jason. We always like questions and answering them on this show. Um, if you have any questions that you'd like to send us, Rekka (37:27): You can send them to us @WMBcast on Twitter or Instagram through the DMS there. You can send a emailed questions to info@wmbcast and you can find us also on patreon.com/wmbcast and all of our back episodes are at wmbcast.com and we'd love to hear from you, even if you don't have a specific question or you just want to react to the episode or start up a chat with us, you can do that on Twitter. Probably is the best bot. And, um, if you do not want to engage with us, but you want to shout about us to the world, you can always share our, um, our episodes with a friend who might find them useful. And you could especially please leave a review or rating, especially a review on Apple podcasts. We love reviews, so that would be super helpful and help other people find us and love our show as much as you do. So thanks again for listening and we really appreciate you and we hope your books never show up on pirate sites.  

Hi everyone, and thank you for tuning in to another episode of the We Make Books Podcast - A podcast about writing, publishing, and everything in between! This week is the story of an apocalypse, the end of a world, specifically the one you created.  We’re talking about finishing your series and some of the things that can happen along with way.  What is a “good” ending?  How significant can outside influences be?  What can you do to minimize them?  Do you “owe” something to your readers?  We discuss all that, talk about some of the emotions and feelings you may come up against, and make entirely too many Star Wars comparisons. We Make Books is hosted by Rekka Jay and Kaelyn Considine; Rekka is a published author and Kaelyn is an editor and together they are going to take you through what goes into getting a book out of your head, on to paper, in to the hands of a publisher, and finally on to book store shelves. We Make Books is a podcast for writers and publishers, by writers and publishers and we want to hear from our listeners! Hit us up on our social media, linked below, and send us your questions, comments, concerns, and we’re genuinely curious, who saw The Rise of Skywalker and what did you think of it? We hope you enjoy We Make Books! Twitter: @WMBCast  |  @KindofKaelyn  |  @BittyBittyZap Instagram: @WMBCast  Patreon.com/WMBCast     Kaelyn:00:00   Hey everyone, welcome back to another episode of the, we make books podcast to show about writing, publishing and everything in between. I'm Kaelyn Considine and I am the acquisitions editor for Parvus Press. Rekka:00:09   And I'm Rekka, I write science fiction and fantasy as RJ Theodore. Kaelyn:00:13   So, um, today we're talking about kind of an inevitable conclusion, which is - Rekka:00:17   Yeah, Kaelyn keeps trying to make this about me, but I keep deflecting it back to Star Wars so I can blame someone else for the perhaps missteps that happen and creating a series from start to finish. Kaelyn:00:29   We're talking about finishing your series. Um, you know, we'll just flat out, we both just watched The Rise of Skywalker we were talking about it. Rekka:00:36   Otherwise we definitely would've been talking about game of Thrones in this [inaudible]. Kaelyn:00:41   Yeah, definitely. Yeah. Actually - Rekka:00:43   That's very true. Kaelyn:00:46   Don't get me started on that anyway. But yeah, we're talking about, you know, we did another book about, or we. Rekka:00:53   I did another book. Kaelyn:00:54   She did another book. We did a previous episode about, um, your second book in your series. And it, it's so weird because it never occurred to us to do something about finishing your series until we - Rekka:01:07   Well, we were talking about having an editor on your side and that episode. Kaelyn:01:11   Yes, that's true. Rekka:01:12   And so it was a little different and quite focused on the content of the series itself this time, without naming too many specifics, we do get into the talk about your series as a satisfying arc for, and we focus a lot on whether it's a satisfying arc for your reader, but I think we, we bring it back to the key points at the end. So definitely listen all the way through. Um, it doesn't have nearly as much star was ranting as I expected it to. Kaelyn:01:37   No we really - Rekka:01:38   There's a lot ofexasperated noises, but we to be expected, very afraid that we were going to go off on some tangent. We're going to have to trim like 35 minutes out for Patreon and luckily we're both a little tired. Kaelyn:01:48   So, um, anyway, yeah, just, you know, kind of talking about, uh, things you might encounter outside influences, um, interacting with fans and how they can influence things and what you were obligated to do in this process. Rekka:02:02   Yeah. Um, so anyway, uh, take a listen as always, we hope that you enjoy. Kaelyn:02:06   Here it comes. Speaker 2:       02:12   [inaudible] Kaelyn:02:19   So a chunch of salt tells you what to do? Rekka:02:21   Better than an astrologer. Kaelyn:02:23   Fair. Very true. We're going to start it now. Rekka:02:28   We're just going to start it whenever you want, or we can just stare at each other and think about how nice it is to be friends. Kaelyn:02:32   Yeah, that's true. That's very true. It's um, it's weird because it's clearly night in here and I'm not used to, I don't think I've ever been in here in clearly night. Rekka:02:41   There are a lot of firsts going on right now. This is the first time you've ever recorded a podcast in a scarf. Kaelyn:02:47   Is it? Rekka:02:47   Yeah. Kaelyn:02:48   Okay. Well it's like 10 degrees outside, if that, um, Rekka - Rekka:02:54   You called it refreshing. Kaelyn:02:55   It is refreshing, but you know, that's why - Rekka:02:58   Until it seeps into your bones. Kaelyn:02:58   That's why I have scarf. That's how it stays refreshing and warm enough that, you know, it's, it's uh, you can stand out there, look at the stars. It's, it's very, it's very pleasant. Um, you know, for small increments of time. Um, yeah. Rekka:03:11   Speaking of the opposite of small increments of time. Kaelyn:03:14   Yeah. Um, so we're actually talking about the end of time, a time. Rekka:03:20   I mean, even your apocalyptic scenarios, but that's not what the episodes actually about. Kaelyn:03:24   I mean, really, is this not an apocalyptic scenario? Rekka:03:26   Bats and pigs, I know. Kaelyn:03:28   Watch out for them! Rekka:03:31   Um, yeah. The scenario that brings about our topic today feels very apocalyptic. Kaelyn:03:37   It is to a lot of - Rekka:03:38   I need something plush to hug. Kaelyn:03:39   I mean, in some ways it is actually an apocalypse. It's the end of a world. Oh goodness. Okay. Rekka:03:47   I'm all right. Yeah, I know. Kaelyn:03:50   So it's never ending story where it's just nothing. Rekka:03:53   So what we're talking about today is ending a series, and this is hitting, you guys can't see Rekka's face right now, but like she's, she's having trouble with this because this is hitting particularly close to home for her because Rekka is actually in the process right now of, uh, of ending her series. Kaelyn:04:11   Um, so in a way - Rekka:04:13   I'm ending a trilogy unless sales can pick up and you might want five more. Kaelyn:04:18   In a way it is an apocalypse. Um, I think by definition I'm going to have to, I'm going to have to check that. Um, you know, we're talking about ending a series today and um, we've talked, you know, we did an episode a few weeks ago about your second book in a series, which um, this is different though because things - Rekka:04:41   The second book in a series, you can keep going up your roller coaster incline. Kaelyn:04:44   Yup. Rekka:04:44   The, the end of the series you have to pull some absurd number of loops before you can bring it home and also keep up the pacing of the first portion of the story and also make sure that everybody's a little like question marks have been turned into periods and all this stuff. Like there's a lot going on. Kaelyn:05:07   It's true. So I mean it's not, what we're going to talk about today is kind of, um, you know, this is going to be half and half. This is going to be a little bit informational and motivational. And then this is going to be a little bit emotional because Rekka has got some feelings about it. Rekka:05:19   I refuse to feel anything. Kaelyn:05:21   Okay, fine. No feelings. Um, so hypothetically, if Rekka had feelings about this. Rekka:05:28   They would be big feelings. Kaelyn:05:29   They'd be big feelings and they would probably, all of them be laced with small degrees of unadulterated panic. Rekka:05:36   Well, now that was true before. It's true now. Kaelyn:05:41   No, and I think it's completely normal to when you're getting to the end of something that you have spent, you know, regardless of the span of time over which this was published to the years leading up to it need to be counted for something that has been such a significant part of your life for so long, there's going to be a feeling of loss. And it sounds dramatic to say that, but that's exactly what it is. This thing that was a very significant living part of your life is gone now. Rekka:06:08   And there was some brief discussion when we talked about like, now you're a published author. What does that feel like? Um, this almost, and I don't use this term lightly postpartum of publishing a book. Um, definitely yeah, there is depression, there is sense of confusion of loss and you know, aimlessness and especially because as you're publishing a book, there's the part where you're drafting and then many, many months later there's the part where it comes out. And in between there, your partially moving on from the book, but you're also partially looking ahead and you're also anticipating the release and you're also anticipating, you know, the various scenarios in which you could interact with readers or readers could interact with your book during this time. And then, you know, then it's publishing day and it very rarely goes in any sort of Hollywood style fashion. Um, the best you can hope for apparently is just, you know, someone who's worked with you on the book acknowledges you with a cake, with the cover of your book printed on it in digital ink. Kaelyn:07:20   You know, I gotta I gotta make a quick note over here. Rekka:07:22   Yeah, write that down, cause I have two books out now and I have not gotten a cake. No. But the, um, the feeling is going to be multiplied by the fact that now, boom, this is, you are done with this series. This world is not somewhere you have to revisit ever again. You may, cause people do. Kaelyn:07:44   Yeah, definitely. But um, this might be the end. Rekka:07:49   Yeah. Kaelyn:07:49   So, you know, , like I said, we kind of want to touch on the, you know, the emotional from the author side of things. It is completely normal to feel a sense of loss there. I think. Um, or you know, maybe you're just ready to be done and you're excited about it. Um, I'm sure it runs the spectrum of emotion. Rekka:08:08   There's love and fatigue involved in making a book. Kaelyn:08:12   Yeah. But there's a lot of stress that comes along with finishing a series besides all of the issues of this is over now. I can't believe it there, there -- Rekka:08:25   How did it end? Kaelyn:08:26   There is a lot of stress leading up to it. Now, again, we always use examples of trilogies, but this is true of any - Rekka:08:34   Quadrilogies. Kaelyn:08:34   Any series really. Um, there's pressure to finish it, quote unquote, right. And I think right can be skewed because to me finishing it right means a satisfying ending that covers all of the, that need to be covered. Rekka:08:56   Right. There's no one correct answer. There's no set of words that is the one you must match in order to proceed to the next level. Kaelyn:09:04   Yeah, and the way we kind of started talking about this and decided to come down to this topic was the satisfying ending verse the quote unquote right ending and quickly, you know, qualifying that the right ending is one that the fans want. Now - Rekka:09:21   And they're the ones who are judging whether or not it's right. Kaelyn:09:23   Yes. Now can those two things line up? Absolutely, they can. Rekka:09:27   However, do you want them to, like if we're talking about fan theories of how the series should end, do you not want to surprise them a little bit? Like, dude, don't you like see that as like, all right, well that those are the, the ones I should avoid because they're obvious. Kaelyn:09:40   Well, and this is, this is a big problem with the advent of the internet that a lot of authors have know. George RR Martin has famously had problems with this that now granted if he wrote a little faster, maybe this wouldn't be such a thing, but we'll get into that as well. But fan theories and even fan fiction have actually caused authors a lot of grief and strife with how they're finishing their series because, well, for two reasons. One is that the potential for influence there, the other is that maybe somebody got it right and now there's something out there on the internet for all the world to see that you cannot convince everyone completely that you got it first. Rekka:10:23   Right. So here's some advice that's not on the topic and it's going to come up again later. We're going to do a social media episode, but do not read your fanfiction and try as best you can to avoid your fan theories. It seems like it'd be fun. It seems like you want to support the people who are really into your story, but you actually have some legal issues. Kaelyn:10:48   There was actually, um, a case, and I apologize, we, we paused recording so I can try to look forward and I can't find it. If I find it, I'll link it in the show notes of an author who did go and read some of the fanfiction came up with one that really liked the ending and contacted the person that wrote it to see about co-opting what they had written and kind of like partnering on it. Like, I can't remember, he was kind of at an impasse of how to, how to finish it or what have you. And there was a lawsuit about this so we could do an entire episode on issues with fanfiction and stuff. Rekka:11:25   Best practice is don't engage with fanfiction of your work. Kaelyn:11:28   Yeah. Because I'm, all of these things are influencing you and from the editorial side, the best ending to your story is the way you intended to end your story. What if you didn't know? And look, here's the thing. That's very possible, but that's, you know, that's, that's - Rekka:11:48   As an example, you know, since we're using me as an example of this hypothetical situation in which I have feels about, um, when I wrote flotsam and plan to self-publish as we've covered before in this show, I did not plan on this being a trilogy. I was going to write these characters for as long as I had readers who were interested in reading about them or until I lost interest. And so when I signed with Parvus, they did not want to buy an indefinite number of books in a series that may or may not ever get finished for some reason. Um, so what they bought was a trilogy. And that means that whether or not Parvus wants to buy more books in this world, there has to be a satisfying conclusion at the end of three books. Kaelyn:12:35   So getting to that, you know, some people know exactly how their book's going to end. Some people have to figure it out along the way, but these external influences can get very dangerous very quickly because I can - Rekka:12:50   And you are like, let's be clear, you are constantly being influenced externally. Kaelyn:12:54   Absolutely. Rekka:12:55   However, most of those influences are not specific to your characters and your plots. You might read, read a book, watch a movie, and whether consciously or subconsciously figure out how you're going to solve your plot because these ideas melded in and you know, percolated inside your head. But you hopefully are not taking direct items from a thing and saying, I am applying these, you know, the sequence of events to my story. You are being influenced in a subconscious way, but I don't think it's possible but possible to be influenced in a subconscious way when the thing influencing you is a parody, a homage - Kaelyn:13:38   You don't exist, you don't exist in a vacuum. Now, I mean hopeful, you know, I really hope everyone listening to this who's interested in writing a book, it becomes successful enough that one day they have to worry about fan theories and speculation and that kind of stuff. Um, and it's very easy in the age of the internet where there is such a thing as instantaneous feedback to start taking that into consideration when you shouldn't. You are not writing - let me qualify. All, I'm going to qualify what I'm about to say. You are not writing a book specifically to please your fans. Now it should appeal to them. And we've talked about this. You know, with your second book. Rekka:14:24   Yeah. Your existing fans are the perfect market to sell your third book to. Kaelyn:14:27   If in the trilogy we talked about this in a, in the second book episode, if all of a sudden your book flies off the rails and goes a completely different direction in their dinosaur is where there were no dinosaurs previously, nor indication that there ever could be they then that's an issue. Rekka:14:44   Yeah. I mean, you are upsetting your fans for good reason. Kaelyn:14:46   For good reason - Rekka:14:48   But your fans being upset because you didn't do the thing that they imagined doing - Kaelyn:14:51   Yes. Rekka:14:51   Is not a reason to worry about whether they're upset. Kaelyn:14:54   You are not obligated to finish the book the way you think your fans want it finished. It's, even though it's not their satisfying ending, it's a satisfying end ending. Or it can be or can be. It hopefully is. Um, so what does that look like? Well, it looks like resolving the questions, the actions, addressing the big themes and the goals of the characters. It looks like having some form of a resolution to what you started out to try to do now that may have one that may have changed along the way, but presumably everything has kind of grown out of the place that it started. Um, hopefully characters have developed and grown and changed and maybe the things that they do in the last book they would not have done in the first one. It's called character development. And it's fantastic. Rekka:15:47   It is fantastic though it is not 100% necessary. Kaelyn:15:51   Yeah. Rekka:15:51   According to some genre. It doesn't, it doesn't need to be. Kaelyn:15:54   Um, but there's also like, I'm just gonna, I'm gonna throw it out there. The shipping community, they are like there. Um, don't get me wrong. There are a lot of fun. There's some truly great stuff on Twitter that I can oh Zutara, but that's, you know, that's a big, that's a big thing that also comes up a lot is not even just how the story ends, but who ends up together because we have to constantly be fixated on romantic relationships. Rekka:16:24   You don't have to actually, as it turns out - Kaelyn:16:26   As it turns out we don't. But we are. Rekka:16:27   Yeah. Um, well I think what happens is people find the tension between two characters who have chemistry and for them who prefer to ship. That becomes a fun thing to imagine, you know, and to be fair to the people out there who enjoy a good ship, they don't all expect that the ship is going to be honored. Kaelyn:16:52   Yes. Rekka:16:53   There are some times where it really, no, that's really that, that subtext is there. Kaelyn:16:59   If you publish a book, at some point you are going to see somebody online talking about it, whether it be a review or what have you. Um, if you have a big enough fan base that is really into this, especially if you've written something with a lot of mystery and ambiguity that leaves room for speculation, you're going to see people discussing it. It is unproductive to pretend that that won't get in your head a little bit. Rekka:17:28   Yeah. And it's unfortunately unrealistic to think that readers won't tag you into it. Kaelyn:17:35   Yes. Rekka:17:35   Because they will, unfortunately - Kaelyn:17:36   And they're, they're doing you a favor. Rekka:17:38   You know, they're like trying to engage with you. They're trying to express that this is a thing that has piqued their curiosity and they am and they are very interested in the results at the end. Your story road, however - Kaelyn:17:51   So that said, how obligated are writers to their fans? This is a whole debate about are writers even obligated to finish now controversially I'd say yeah, kind of. Rekka:18:07   I mean contractually - Kaelyn:18:08   Contractually is one thing. Rekka:18:09   Yes. Um, if you know, if Parvus had bought two books with a potential for a third and I didn't want to write the third, what would happen there? Kaelyn:18:25   If you didn't want to - Rekka:18:26   If you contracted for two books - Kaelyn:18:27   And you didn't want to write the third? But Parvus wanted a third? Rekka:18:30   And Parvus wanted the third. Kaelyn:18:32   Then it's to the negotiation table. And the thing is that unfortunately you're not obligated to write that. Third, we can do everything we can to get you to try to. Rekka:18:40   Entice. Kaelyn:18:41   Yes. But - Rekka:18:42   That advance just keeps growing. Kaelyn:18:45   But you don't have to. Rekka:18:46   Yeah, I don't have to. If I say no, I feel satisfied with this ending and if I open up another can of worms, then I'm not going to be, and my heart isn't going to be in it. My opinion of - Kaelyn:18:56   In this scenario is the story finished? Rekka:18:58   Well that's the question. Kaelyn:18:59   Yeah. Rekka:18:59   So Parvus is saying no or Parvus is saying, we think that you can take this little story, you know, I'm, I'm putting words in your mouth. Obviously we think you can take this little back story storyline and turn it into a thing that creates a three store. And maybe this is a problem with some other commercial properties going on right now. But, um, - Kaelyn:19:17   No, no one in particular. Rekka:19:18   Certainly no nothing. So, um, Parvus wants a third book because they think they can bank on it. Um, I feel like books one and two are a pair and they were, you know, a set and that was all that needs to happen. And so to me, I have done what I can to finish it up. Kaelyn:19:39   Yes. But I will counter this by saying that in your scenario, two books have finished a story. Rekka:19:45   Right, that's what I'm saying. So saying, yeah, and I'm saying saying we want to craft the center of trilogy. Kaelyn:19:50   Yeah, but I'm saying is there an obligation to finish an unfinished story as opposed to adding more to a finished story? Rekka:19:58   Okay. So let's say in your scenario is a moral obligation as - Kaelyn:20:03   Well that's a good question. So what are you obligated to your fans? No, I'm not talking. I wasn't even going intending to go in the direction of are you obligated to finish? Because look, here's the thing, at the end of the day, you're not obligated to anything. Your craft is your craft. It's your art. You choose to put it out into the world for people to consume. Rekka:20:24   That said, I think certain actions will put you in breach of contract. Kaelyn:20:29   Certain actions will put you in a breach of contract. And then there's also, I think a sense of duty in there somewhere that you know, people have invested their time and energy into something in this, by the way, then is also where you get the people that say who add fuel to the, I don't buy books until the series is finished fire. I can't tell you how many people I've spoken to that are casual to avid readers that say, yeah, like the trilogy, you know, they never finished it and I'm just burned. And like I hate when that happens because and, I sympathize with that because as Rekka knows I'm a story consumer, I need to know how this ends. I need to know what happens. Um, it will keep me up at night. Rekka:21:10   Absolutely. I have, there's a story and I'm trying to remember the name of the author. I know the book is literally somewhere here behind me, but since I don't remember the name of the author and I alphabetized by author on my, on my shelves recently, I don't even know where it is cause I moved it. Um, but I read this book when I was 14 and I loaned it to a friend and then the second one came out shortly thereafter or we found it because we, you know, it was new on the shelf for the second book and we were 100% into this book. It was Epic fantasy. There were so many characters. Everything was nuanced. Everyone's backstory was in there. Everyone had scars and wounds. That was like just hitting all our little preteen buttons and third book still still listed as forthcoming to this day. But I don't think it's going to happen. And unfortunately it was due to sales. From what I understand, it was not that the author didn't get around to writing it. It was that the publisher decided not to continue with the trilogy. Kaelyn:22:16   Yeah. And you know, unfortunately that can happen. But um, you know, in those cases there's reversion of rights typically. Rekka:22:22   Yes. So the author I think has the option to write it, but it's like, well, if the publisher didn't want to publish it, why should I write it? I still look for this book every now and then. Like when I come across it in my collection, which I can't do right now apparently. Um, I go and I see if anything's been said about it and I just generally find wikis about how people share, wish that book would come out well. So that's an obligation in a sense, you know, like are you obligated to finish? And that's a, that's a whole other discussion. I mean, the answer sometimes it's a sad shame that you are not given the opportunity. Kaelyn:22:55   Yeah. So the obligation is hopefully you have the will and the ability to finish the book. Beyond that, what are your obligations to your audience, to your fans, to my end and Rekka, you know, stop me if you disagree with me. The your obligations are to write a satisfying, cohesive ending. Satisfying does not mean happy. Rekka:23:21   Right. Absolutely not. Kaelyn:23:22   Satisfying to me means that the book ended in a way where you feel the story has been completed. If it's supposed to be completed, if there's more coming, there should still be some form of con, a conclusion. Rekka:23:38   Right. So sort of continuing what we were saying about are you obligated to finish the story? I would have worn anyone who's, you know, is this part of your potential future in your publishing career? If you get a two book contract, make sure there's something satisfying at the end of book two if even if you think that there should be a book three, Kaelyn:24:00   This is why so many, and we've talked about this, so many trilogies, book one is a soft ending. It is. There is sort of like, I want to call it a satisfying conclusion, but there is a conclusion there. Rekka:24:11   Yeah, I'd like to think flotsam has one. I've been accused of not having one, but I think, I think it's interpreted. Kaelyn:24:17   I thought so,yeah. Rekka:24:18   I think so. Kaelyn:24:19   Um, I will use, again, I apologize that we just keep sticking with trilogies, but I think a lot of the trouble people have with crafting the satisfying ending is if you look at trilogies, the second installment is a lot of times the favorite because how they, how they run typically is the first one's the soft ending soft conclusion. Things have kind of been wrapped up. And if that's the end of the story, then so be it. But there's clearly more to build off of there when you're then committed to a trilogy. By the end of the second book, everything is on fire. Rekka:24:55   It has to be. Kaelyn:24:56   It has to be. Yeah. You know, it's, it's a mess. Okay. Hans frozen in Carbonite, Rekka:25:03   Gandalf is dead. Kaelyn:25:06   No, he's not. Rekka:25:08   Is he? I can't Remember, I can't sit through those movies. Kaelyn:25:13   Um, the, you know, at the end of the second - Rekka:25:16   Everyone's given up hope. The worst thing that could happen seems to have happened even though it's not really the worst that's going to happen. You know, you are left feeling like, Oh my God, you can't stop there. Kaelyn:25:27   And this is also because this is when we see the characters at their lowest. Rekka:25:32   Right. Kaelyn:25:32   We see them in absolute desperation. And then when you're writing the final thing, you've got to dig them out of it now. The characters are incredibly compelling when faced with adversity and having to just keep surviving when they have to start problem solving and working their way out of it. That can be where it gets really tricky to keep the characters the same and compelling at the same time. Rekka:25:57   Right. And also, um, it occurs to me that we are, since we're using trilogies as our, our, um, example throughout the episode, a trilogy is three acts very frequently in Western storytelling. Our stories are in four acts. Kaelyn:26:16   Yes. Rekka:26:17   Which can make figuring out where you're going to stop book two and start book three in a trilogy. Very difficult and a little fiddly. Kaelyn:26:27   Well, if you're Rekka you go with a zombie apocalypse. Rekka:26:29   Look, not everybody's read salvage yet, thank you. Kaelyn:26:34   Figuring out you're right. Figuring out where, okay. I have gotten them through the point now where they need to regroup and come back and that's going to happen in book three. Rekka:26:44   But they also, the pressure is usually on that they don't have the time to step back and regroup. Yes. They have to lick their wounds while they're running into the battlefield. Kaelyn:26:54   Yeah. So this is why this can be so stressful because you've got all of this stuff typically leading into the conclusion of your story, be it a trilogy or otherwise. You have to now go back through and look at all of this stuff and decide, okay, here are the things that I absolutely must answer and this is where I will start saying your obligations come in. Rekka:27:17   Yeah. If you ask the major question, you better give it a proportionately sized answer. Kaelyn:27:24   This is Chekhov's whatever you want, if there was something in there that you dangled in front of readers, you're going to piss off readers if you'd just forget about it. Rekka:27:33   And here's where listening to fans gets a little tricky. Kaelyn:27:38   It gets dicey definitely. Rekka:27:39   Because what if that wasn't supposed to be a big deal, but the fans just latched onto it for no reason and then that's just how it is. Kaelyn:27:47   That's how the story went. But themes and questions and big lingering issues that need to be dealt with, leaving things on answered because you don't know how to deal with them. Rekka:28:01   Like never seeing Han again after he's frozen in Carbonite. Kaelyn:28:05   You know, that's kind of what Harrison Ford wanted - Rekka:28:09   Right, but they would have done something to set him back Kaelyn:28:10   They would something exactly. Rekka:28:13   Um, but if Han gets carted away in that Carbonite after he and Leah semi confessed their love to each other, that would not have been a satisfying conclusion. If we never saw Han. Kaelyn:28:25   If you never see Han again - Rekka:28:26   Either dead or aliveou need to answer something about, that situatio, it was not a conclusion in of itself. Kaelyn:28:36   This is where - Rekka:28:37   Tying up those loose ends and - Kaelyn:28:38   This is where problems, like usually I have so many examples of these off the top of my head. Rekka:28:44   This is where the dissatisfaction comes from is something that if you have made whether intentionally or not feel significant and you treat it at in the end. Like if it wasn't significant. Yeah. Kaelyn:28:55   And if it wasn't significant, that's one thing. But having like a character that you know goes off to find the MacGuffin and then we never hear from them again. Rekka:29:06   Right. Kaelyn:29:07   That's a problem. Rekka:29:08   Yeah. Like having a prophesied one come in and sent off on a quest and then that's the last we see of them. I know we keep talking about star Wars and bringing this in there and there's reasons for this and it's both because we both have watched. Kaelyn:29:20   I wasn't even thinking about Star Wars. Rekka:29:21   We both just went, well, I'm going to bring it up again because we were talking, we both just watched the rise of Skywalker and we were talking about this last night and we're fortunate enough that this episode is going to come out after the embargo on spoilers so we can get into it a little bit. We're not going to spoil it for some people. Kaelyn:29:36   I'm not even, I wasn't even gonna talk about that. I'm talking about, we were talking about the a prequel trilogy and my question was always with Anikin, okay, there's this whole prophecy of he's going to bring balance to the force. Rekka:29:47   How was that done? Kaelyn:29:48   What does that look like? What is a - Rekka:29:50   Apparently it looks like two people kissing and then reviving each other until they get bored and one decides that, you know what I'm done. Kaelyn:30:00   You know what? I'm good. Yeah, no, but like, and that was something that really bothered me about that prequel trilogy and even as Anikin and you know, the third a prequel is on fire and Obi wan standing over him. You were supposed to bring, you were supposed to balance the Force, not destroy it. Rekka:30:16   You are the chosen one. Kaelyn:30:17   You were, you know. Rekka:30:18   Yeah. Kaelyn:30:19   What does that look like? You never have explained what was supposed to happen here that didn't. Rekka:30:25   This is a can of worms because it's a prequel trilogy to which the original trilogy is now the second act. Kaelyn:30:37   It's a, yeah. Rekka:30:38   And now you need another trilogy to be the third part of the tree. What is going on? Kaelyn:30:45   There's a lot here. Rekka:30:48   I believe in my heart of hearts that fans would have just been excited to go back to the world where there are Jedi and Sith and you could just set it a few years ahead of that story and never even touched Anikin. Never touch the Skywalker saga. And it would have been a heck of a lot more satisfying than trying to Checkov rifles that came later. Kaelyn:31:09   Yeah. Rekka:31:09   But the rifles that came later were already satisfyingly concluded. So now you're creating new open endings and saying, Oh, you thought this, but here's a new question about that. Maybe what you knew was wrong. So maybe we'll answer that. Eventually accepted. It'll be a different set of directors and storytellers and a different company that owns the IP. And maybe you - Kaelyn:31:32   Look, this is a mess. Rekka:31:33   I'm just going to stop there. Do you know where this is going? Kaelyn:31:35   It's a mess. So now all of that said - Rekka:31:39   And that's a lot. Kaelyn:31:39   Yeah. I'm going to flip to the other side of, you know, like if we want to get a little good place on this, what do we owe each other? What do writers owe their fans? Rekka:31:48   Which is, okay, I have trouble with the phrase, owe, the verb to owe implies that the contract is between the author and the reader. Kaelyn:32:00   Okay. So - Rekka:32:01   By telling a story, you are in effect in this scenario proffering a contract to the reader and by continuing to read your story, your reader is accepting the contract. But if that is true, two parties signing a contract have read extensively the terms of the contract and they're both on the same - Kaelyn:32:23   Everyone read your contracts. Rekka:32:27   Or just read my books. Kaelyn:32:28   You never look, I am never going to pass up an opportunity to stress read your contracts. Rekka:32:33   Yes. So is there a contract between a reader and an author? No, because there is no legal document that says satisfy me or, and also what is the orals and the reader is not satisfied by the story and does not want to read that author again. Fine. That's how liking and not liking stories. Kaelyn:32:55   I was looking at. Oh, more in what are we, what are we obligated to each other for? What is the universe implying in terms of ethics and morality that we are required to give to each other who participate in each of our lives. So - Rekka:33:13   This hurts. This is physically painting me. Kaelyn:33:16   Um, but the direction I was going with is that - Rekka:33:19   Why don't you answer your own question because I don't know where you were going with that. Kaelyn:33:22   Is don't go out of your way to screw over your readership. Rekka:33:26   I will know that they're okay. So it's not an Oh, but it's a like have some respect for the people who have been along this ride with. Kaelyn:33:32   I will use is there's a very famous example of JK Rowling who, yeah, I know. Um, but I'll use this example because it is a good one for this scenario that where she became overwhelmed by fan response and you know, either remember the first three Harry Potter books were kind of already out before people started really taking - Rekka:33:54   Before Oprah noticed. Kaelyn:33:55   Yeah. Before there was like the excessive fan attention that it eventually got. But she, I think it was between the fourth and fifth book, took a very long time to write them because of this sudden overwhelming. Rekka:34:12   And it was between the fourth and fifth book that they suddenly started to get very, very long, very long. Kaelyn:34:17   And she has said in interviews that she was so overwhelmed, so annoyed, so by everyone with their theories and their fanfiction and all of this stuff that she was going to kill Ron out of sheer spite. Because she was - Rekka:34:30   That's not what you owe your reader. Kaelyn:34:31   Exactly. And this is, that's - Rekka:34:33   And if you can't handle it, you need to figure out how to stay away from these theories. Kaelyn:34:36   And here's the thing, she didn't eventually, because she took a step back and realize this is, you know, this is not - Rekka:34:41   As clearly we know at this point that she did not kill Ron. Kaelyn:34:43   Yes. Rekka:34:43   Spoilers, everyone, spoilers everyone. He does not die during the wizards chess life-size game at the end of the first book. Kaelyn:34:51   Um, but that's what that drove her to. And she, she says, I was in a very dark place. I was very frustrated. I was having a really hard time with this and I was going to kill Ron out of spite almost to show them, don't mess with me. Rekka:35:07   And this was before Twitter, really. Kaelyn:35:10   Yeah. Could you imagine? Rekka:35:11   Can you imagine reaching J K Rowling levels of attention on your currently in progress project. Kaelyn:35:24   In the MySpace era. Rekka:35:26   Okay, well I'm saying in the Twitter era, like can you imagine that? Kaelyn:35:29   Oh yeah, no, but I'm saying the MySpace era, um, think of getting to that point when Twitter didn't exist. That's so you can understand the stress. And everything that she must have been under in that case. And I can understand this need to latch out, lash out. Um, but that, that's just an example is writing things just to piss people off is not a good way to respect your readers. Rekka:35:56   And also writing to try and like, and this is again goes back to the don't read the stuff to try and evade the fan theories will make your story poorer because you were considering the wrong things when you're making your decisions. When I'll use myself as an example, I don't know if I'm going to do a good job, it's not done yet. But in planning out Castoff, third book in my Peridot shift trilogy, I went and I took the outlines of the two books that already existed and I went through them and I said, what, what have you, what have I opened that hasn't been resolved yet? And not only that, but in what order did I open these things? What is the first question that readers get you didn't know and what questions follow those two sort of, you know, in, in terms of like coding. Um, Mary Robinette Kowal talks about this all the time, close your tags in the order that you open them. Um, so inside to outside, you know, if you, if you freeze Han and Carbonite at the end of the second movie, the end of the third movie should not be getting Han out of the Carbonite because that is the wrong, that is the wrong culmination of your storytelling. Kaelyn:37:13   Well, and there's also levels of immediacy. So if it had been random rebel soldier frozen in carbonate, okay, maybe at the end of the movie you go get him. Yeah. Um, Han gets frozen in Carbonite for Luke and Leia, their number one priority here is going to be, we got to get Han back. Um, now is that fair to the random rebel soldier? No, but maybe he's got friends that will go rescue him instead. Rekka:37:42   So, um, soldier, you know, I assume he's a leftenant, a Rondo that he gets frozen in Carbonite and the conclusion of the trilogy is they undo the Empire's grip on everybody else. Then getting him out of the Carbonite is undoing that grip. So like that's part of that. That conclusion, but when you make it a main character, it goes deeper than that. So like what you're saying is the level of involvement that the audience has in that character. Kaelyn:38:10   Yeah. Now there is, there is something kind of glaring that we're overlooking here, which is sad endings to things and - Rekka what are you? Just get ready for castoff everyone. Rekka:38:29   I'm not saying it because of that. Um, I'm, I'm taking a deep inhale because like it makes me want to blurt out my favorite phrase when it comes to picking your endings, which is surprising yet inevitable. Kaelyn:38:43   Yes, you should inevitably be surprised. Rekka:38:47   But in other words, and this, and this encapsulates everything that I was starting to say, is that when you, when I looked in and I found the things that were open-ended and big enough to address, I needed to make sure that however I resolved those individual items or bigger things that resolve multiple items, you know, you think about them in terms of like the size of your storage containers. Like if you can take a big storage container that resolves three smaller storage containers that resolves all three of those. Don't do three oversized containers for two, three small containers. That's confusing, but you know what I'm saying? Like make the conclusion match what it's resolving. Kaelyn:39:30   I will use the phrase that, I don't remember who said this to me, but like I'm going to get it tattooed on me at some point is that the universe will always be a varying ratio of shocking and inevitable. There's surprise and an it should be surprising and inevitable and people should be able to go back and see how you got there. Rekka:39:54   Exactly. That's what I was starting to say is that the inevitable part is you set this up as far back as it needs to be to be believable. Kaelyn:40:04   Yes. Rekka:40:04   So this is why we talk about putting Checkov's rifle on the mantle and stay in act one. You don't put it on the mantle five minutes before you use it in the end of act three. Kaelyn:40:17   Yup. Rekka:40:18   Because that is not satisfying because it is not inevitable. If that rifle solves all the problems that you spent two books setting up your third book is not going to feel satisfying because you know, this is what they call a day of Deus Machina which is machine of God, meaning something, o outlandishly out of the, you know, gets dropped in from the top of the stage. This is going back to the place where - Kaelyn:40:44   Greek plays, they used to be resolved by a God showed up. Rekka:40:47   A God showed up and settled all the disputes for everybody because the only he had the power to do and the God and the machine was when records said dropped in. Kaelyn:40:54   That's exactly because it was a machine that lowered the actor playing the God onto the stage on a rope and a harness. So it wasn't, machines may be a stretch there, but like it was literally a God showed up, altered reality. Rekka:41:08   There were probably pullies, it's a simplified machine. Kaelyn:41:09   Yeah. So the um, the idea being, if that doesn't sound like a satisfying conclusion to your book, be careful about not doing that. Rekka:41:17   And the inevitable part is when you look back after you, after you have been surprised by this ending, you look back and realize, no, that makes sense. Kaelyn:41:27   That's the way it should've gone. Rekka:41:29   But you want it not to be the ending they see coming as best possible. Kaelyn:41:34   Yeah. Um, Rekka:41:35   I mean, you know that the light side is going to prevail against the dark side because that is does, that's the story. Kaelyn:41:43   That's the story. Rekka:41:44   If it wasn't set up that way, if the story was a philosophical will, the light side and the which will win, then you find out and maybe it's the dark side and that could still be the inevitable ending if you set it up that way. But that was not the way the story was set up. This story was set up of watch this kid learn, he's got this power and go defeat the dark side. Kaelyn:42:07   Yes. Rekka:42:09   Sometimes in the star Wars trilogies, that's the, that's the plot. Kaelyn:42:13   Yes. Um, who are a little fixated on star Wars still. Rekka:42:18   But we said we were going to mention it but um, it's, it's why this question is on our minds because - Kaelyn:42:28   It's hard to write a satisfying ending to such a grand thing. And grand is really the only word I can come up with to describe something that is so ingrained in our society. Rekka:42:41   I mean it's beyond just like a phenomenon. It is a culture. So we had, so a lot of people have emotional ties to it that are beyond what come from the emotional story getting. Kaelyn:42:52   So finishing it, anyway. Finishing your trilogy is, it's a hard thing to do and some people will already know how it ends and hopefully if that's the case, your any changes you make are going to be coming from you rather than what you're reading. Rekka:43:07   But also there is the possibility that when you started this you saw it going a different way and then as you worked with the publisher there were changes made that opened opportunity to end it in different ways. So it's okay if you don't lock down your ending at the, you know, before your publisher has sent you revision notes. I mean like we're not saying that, but we're saying is that there is a direct yet perhaps, um, a femoral line that leads from the first page of the first book to the last page of the last book. Kaelyn:43:47   Yeah. It feels like it's one story. You should at the end, your reader should feel like they have read a complete story and I would say that's what you're obligated to write. So that didn't notice, we didn't tell you how to do it. We didn't tell you how to do it. But that is, that is kind of what you owe to your books. Rekka:44:13   Yeah. And I like it phrased that way better because you know, for some people they are just trying to write the story and their concern is not publishing it ever. There might be beautifully written, beautifully conceived and structured trilogies or Quadrilologies out there that will never see printing because it was just for the writer to get the story out. And that is honestly a great mindset to approach your story from do right by the story first. And the readers who are not trying to take, and I'm hesitant to use this phrase, take ownership of the story and the characters, um, they should be satisfied if the story is served then. So as your reader. Kaelyn:45:05   Yeah, I completely agree. I think that that's, you know, that's kind of what you should be shooting for in the end there. And it does not have to be a happy ending. Rekka:45:15   Nope. Kaelyn:45:15   It has to be satisfying yet it has to answer questions satisfying and surprising. Exactly. So, um, which by the way, I think Rise of Skywalker, Rekka:45:28   I did have it, Kaelyn:45:28   I don't know how surprising it was. Um, I kind of knew where we were going to end up. I didn't know how we were going to get there. Rekka:45:36   And maybe that's the surprise. Kaelyn:45:38   Yeah. New Speaker:  45:38   The point is the journey I guess. I guess. So on that, on that rotation olds trait sayings. Yes. On that note. Um, so, you know, I guess you can let us know what you thought about star Wars, but you probably already have told the world on Twitter if you're, if you're likely to voice it. New Speaker:  45:55   So, but you know what, we, I would be interested to hear, were you satisfied with the ending and to further that question, part B is, were you satisfied with it as a whole of the nine movie Epic versus the more recent three movie trilogy? You know, taking the neutral G as the third in the star Wars guy. Speaker 1:       46:19   I curse the Skywalker saga. Yeah, it's, it's a, it's a mess. No one's happy about it. All right, so let's, let's go inside. Okay. And, um, forget everything we just talked about for a little while so that I can sleep tonight. Well, so thanks everyone for listening. I'm, you know, hopefully this was interesting. At least I am dead serious by the way. I really would be very curious, ping us and tell us re satisfied with that ending because that's kind of what spawned this episode was definitely was talking about that. All right, so that's that WMB cast on Twitter or Instagram. You can find the back episodes of the podcast@wmbcastdotcomandwewouldloveifyoucanaffordtosupportusatpatrion.com forward slash WMB cast and we will talk to you in two weeks. See, in two weeks, everyone.  

Ezio Aceti, Parvus ; Fernando Muraca, scrittore e autore ; Veronica Faccio, studentessa e scrittrice ; Giovanni Boccia Artieri, sociologo .

Hi everyone, and thank you for tuning in to another episode of the We Make Books Podcast - A podcast about writing, publishing, and everything in between! This week we’re going to other side of book distribution and that is taking a closer look at traditional book distributors.  Who are these people and what sorcery do they perform to teleport your book into the hands of readers everywhere?  Well, right off the bat, they are working their magic: It’s just distributors, there are also printers, and whole sellers, and warehouses.  We’re going to go through all the people involved in traditional print distribution and what part they have in getting your book out into the world. We Make Books is hosted by Rekka Jay and Kaelyn Considine; Rekka is a published author and Kaelyn is an editor and together they are going to take you through what goes into getting a book out of your head, on to paper, in to the hands of a publisher, and finally on to book store shelves. We Make Books is a podcast for writers and publishers, by writers and publishers and we want to hear from our listeners! Hit us up on our social media, linked below, and send us your questions, comments, concerns, and seriously people, who saw Cats?  Come on, tell us, which part horrified you the most? We hope you enjoy We Make Books! Twitter: @WMBCast  |  @KindofKaelyn  |  @BittyBittyZap Instagram: @WMBCast  Patreon.com/WMBCast       Rekka:00:00   Welcome back to, we make books, a podcast about writing, publishing and everything in between and sometimes a little bit after. And this is our final episode of 2019. Kaelyn:00:10   Oh my God, it is. I didn't even know - Rekka:00:12   Our innagural year is to come to a close. We managed to get in 25 episodes. Kaelyn:00:16   I was going to say, because 26 would have been if we were doing every week and we started in may. Rekka:00:21   Every other week. But yeah, we started in may, but what we had were batches. Kaelyn had a September idea, so if you haven't, if you're just joining us now for the first time, we have lots of episodes including an entire month from September of weekly episodes and then some Submissions September. Kaelyn:00:40   God, we ended up with like nine episodes in September I think. Rekka:00:44   I think it wasn't nine, but it was a lot. Kaelyn:00:49   Maybe it was seven. I don't see, this is the thing, I've blocked it from my memory. I don't even remember now. Rekka:00:53   Yeah. Um, so this, this episode we're doing the beyond the publishing. Kaelyn:00:59   The, yeah, the beyond the publishing. Rekka:01:00   Well it's still part of the publishing or the publishing process. But as far as the publisher themselves, yes, they lose a little bit of control right here. Kaelyn:01:09   Yeah. And this is, this is also, you know, when we were talking about the other side of distribution today we're talking about getting your book out into the world, using a distributor. And you know, we're going to talk about some terms and some differences in various groups of people that you've encountered along the way. Um, I will say upfront, this was a difficult episode for me to do and this is one where I'm doing a lot of the talking. Rekka:01:33   This is my fault because the last episode, episode 24 was the self-publisher or indie, very small, um, operations side of this where it was almost all digital pod meaning print on demand, which is basically digital until they turn around and shoot out a copy to the reader. So, um, and very specific and very specific and step-by-step. And there were some, you know, concrete things we could tell you. And so I then after or before we recorded that, I turned to Kaelyn and said, and you can go next time and her eyes. Kaelyn:02:04   Oh God. Because here's the thing I I deal with are with Parvus Press' distributor, Baker and Taylor publishing services. It's not fun for me though. Not, not because of the people. The people are great. Just - Rekka:02:19   Especially the authors. Kaelyn:02:20   Yeah. Just managing this kind of stuff is very confusing. And this is like you and to talk about, you know, the behind the curtain stuff. I think a lot of people out there have no idea what's going on in the background here because sometimes I feel like I barely have an idea of what's going on in the background here. Um, so, you know, I tried to keep it very broad because as specific as last week is, this is one that is just all over the place. There can be any number of combinations of people and practices. Yeah. If you say something specific, it's going to be wrong in, in enough circumstances that it's not percentage that it's, yeah. Rekka:02:54   It's bad info. Kaelyn:02:55   So, yeah. Um, you know, I, I hope everything didn't come out as confusing as I feel like it sounded it did. Yeah. So it's a little bit of a shorter episode, but it's just because it's so broad. Rekka:03:09   But we just want you to get back to your new year holiday and that was the last day of the year. Kaelyn:03:13   Why are you listening to us go, you know, do something - Rekka:03:15   Well, no, listen to us. And go do something. Kaelyn:03:17   Listen, listen to us while you're doing something you have to do before the year ends, right? Rekka:03:21   Yeah. So, so, um, on that note, uh, thanks again for tuning in and enjoy the episode and we'll talk to you next year. Kaelyn:03:27   Next year. Rekka:03:41   You weren't working in a, um, a, mine while you were in Montreal? Kaelyn:03:45   No, a corporate mine does, does that count? Rekka:03:49   Can you get black lung from corporate mind? Kaelyn:03:51   No. You get black heart from corporate minds. Rekka:03:53   Your heart shrank three sizes. Kaelyn:03:55   Yes. Yes. It's, it's microscopic at this point. It's very difficult to find even with the best of telescopes. Rekka:04:03   Or microscopes. Kaelyn:04:04   Or microscopes. What I was going more with like the black dwarf star. No, but you're right. Microscope was more appropriate than we like looking into space biology versus astronomy. So, um, so, Hey everyone, uh, this is, um, today we're talking about the second part of distribution. And by that we mean, um, using actual distributors for your books. Rekka:04:27   Not the self publishing print on demand, do it yourself bootstrapped version. Kaelyn:04:33   Yes. Um, so you know, Rekka got to say all of, uh, go through all her stuff last week and this week it's my turn. This is, it's going to be a little bit of a shorter episode because it's not going to be as technical. Rekka:04:49   There won't be instructions cause someone else will do this for you with any luck. Kaelyn:04:53   Exactly. Yeah. So when you think to yourself, Hey, what's the advantage of going with a distributor? All of that stuff we talked about two weeks ago, you don't have to do that yourself. Um, which was a lot. That was, that was our longest single topic episode. Rekka:05:10   Yeah. Kaelyn:05:10   Um, we've had some that were a little longer, but they were interviews and compilation question episodes. Yeah. So, um, but it was good. It was very informative. Rekka:05:21   Yeah. I was really happy with how it came out. I think, like I said in that episode, it was the only time that, to my knowledge that the okay, start here and then do this and then do this sort of thing was covered in one place. Um, obviously we didn't get into all the other self publishing, you know, favorite topics like Amazon ads or anything like that. I don't know if we will ever cover those on our own. I think we need to bring in somebody else and here's the problem. It'll change. Kaelyn:05:50   Yes. Rekka:05:50   In a couple months. Kaelyn:05:51   It's, you know, you brought up a very good point in that episode, which was as soon as someone has a class on and puts that information out there, it's basically useless. Rekka:06:00   Yeah. The time it takes to publish that information is the time it takes for those, you know, various channels to change the way that things work at all. Exactly. Um, but as you pointed out before we started recording, what you're about to talk about hasn't changed very much at all in a long, long time. Kaelyn:06:20   Yeah. It was funny. You know, like those, those thoughts you have when you're falling asleep. I had just finished editing the, uh, previous episode. Rekka:06:29   Episode 24. Kaelyn:06:30   Yeah. And I was like, I don't want to say in a snit, but like I was feeling very like, this is ridiculous how, you know, authors and publishers are treated with, you know, this kind of stuff. And like, I hope this helped. And then I was thinking to myself like, you know, there's a reason that we can kind of talk about all of this in, I know it was a long episode, but it was a relevantively short span of time. And that's because this hasn't changed much. Um, yes, there's, you know, the digital components and there's computers and, um, I was talking to Rekka about this before we started recording that. Anything that you really needed to be like a skilled expert in. And by that I mean like it was almost like a trade, is kind of gone. Um, you know, there's graphic designers who have of course taken up that mantle, which, you know, that's, that's kind of almost the only remnant left of physical book production. Rekka:07:29   Physical letter setting - Kaelyn:07:31   A physical, like graphic designers have taken so many aspects of that on in there. Rekka:07:37   There, there are definitely things that I do on the daily as a graphic designer in inside and outside publishing. That was never covered even 11 or 12 years ago when I was graduating as a graphic designer from an art school. This stuff was never anywhere in the curriculum. Kaelyn:07:56   Yeah. So, um, I don't know. It's just, it's interesting. You know how this has been - Rekka:08:00   And a little frustrating. Kaelyn:08:01   Yeah. So, um, but along those lines we're talking about the other side of getting your books printed and out into the world, which is distribution. Um, so real quick some definitions and terminology here because I want to establish something. When we think of a distributor, we think of an entire process. That's actually two parts. We think. We think distributor, we think, you know, you give this book to this person and they go through the whole process of uh, printing it, warehousing it, marketing it, getting it to resellers, third party resellers, which are like Barnes and noble and bookstores. There's actually two different groups, I will call them in there. There's a whole sellers and there's distributors. Basically the major differences, wholesalers, process orders and ship books. Distributors are marketing books. They're talking them up, they're doing research and focus groups and trying to figure out where this book fits in and who's the best people to get it in front of. Rekka:09:07   They're out meeting librarians at trade. Kaelyn:09:09   Exactly. Rekka:09:09   Yes. So you'll notice I left something out there, which is the printing, the production of the book. Um, that can vary wildly. Um, and it really depends how you want to do it. And we'll get into that a little bit. So you're an author, you've signed with a publishing house that is distributed. Um, there are dozens of distributors in the country. Um, Oh, and just to qualify, I'm talking about primarily U S practices here. Um, internationally I think you'll find in Western and English speaking countries. It's kind of the same with, you know, some nuances. But we are, we are talking again as per usual, primarily U S because international, you know, that can vary a lot and really muddy the waters. So we're, we're going to stick with U S um, so you've written a book, you've signed with a publishing house that is distributed. Um, so you're probably wondering like, okay, I finished the book, I sent it to them. They said, cool, that's done everything sent off. So what's happening to it now? Kaelyn:10:12   And let's just say that is exactly how it goes. Rekka:10:14   Yeah. Kaelyn:10:14   I sent it to them. They said, cool. It's done. Rekka:10:17   Yeah, I know. Well, obviously, Kaelyn:10:19   We covered this process in other - Kaelyn:10:19   You know, you go back and listen to every other episode leading up to the, it's cool, it's done part of this. Rekka:10:27   So where's my book? Why can't I hold it yet? Kaelyn:10:31   Well, your books sitting in a digital file somewhere at a, uh, at a print shop and when I say a print shop that makes it sound much more adorable and um, homespun than it actually is. This is sitting in a giant manufacturing and production environment and giant bespoke. Yes. So we're actually going to start with the printers because obviously before anyone can do their jobs here, they need to have the book, right? Rekka:10:58   And we're talking about not your word document, we're talking about the layout files and - Kaelyn:11:02   We're talking about the entire completed file that can be put into a computer and then printed to make a book. So a distributor gets your book, what are they gonna do with it now? Well, the first thing is they've got to get it printed. And these next steps get a little complicated and wonky because all of this is depending on internal setup. Um, I'm going to use, so Ingram and Baker and Taylor publishing services are the two kind of big guys here. Now there's does, like I said, there's dozens and dozens of other distributors. Um, there's actually a whole Wikipedia article on us book distributors, which I mean they have, they have everything on it. Everything. Um, the distributor needs to get the book printed. Now I'm not going to go too much into the means by which this happens because some places have them in house that you can use their print services and maybe they'll give you a discount on them. Um, you can, if you want, get your books printed in China and then sent to whoever needs to have them in order to get them distributed. Kaelyn:12:18   Uh, it all depends on contracts and you know, everything's, everything's negotiable as they say. Um, but the whole point is that the distributor needs to get the books. The whole seller is going to warehouse the books. So now what's happening is you've got 5,000 copies of your books sitting in a warehouse somewhere. The whole seller has a list of all of those. And this is not some pretty magazine with lots of, you know, pictures of the covers and it's a spreadsheet with ISBNs. Um, it's, it's a spreadsheet with numbers, titles, relevant pricing information, maybe some information about genre. That's it. And third party sellers, the bookstores are just looking down this list. And it's, I mean, it's an order form. You can go online and find pictures of these there. Um, any mean these are like, I can't even call them ... catalogs almost doesn't seem right because catalog implies - Rekka:13:22   It's a product list. Kaelyn:13:23   Yeah. A catalog implies some organization and ease to navigate. It's a product list is exactly what it is. So third party sellers go through this and they just say, I want this many of this, this many of this. The order goes to the whole seller. They go to the warehouse, they load up that number of books, and then those get shipped out to the wholesaler. So then how does the bookseller know what they want? That's where the distributor comes in. The distributor has a marketing team whose job is to sell books to, you know, whatever their specialty is, be it, you know, uh, third party sellers like bookstores or to libraries, to schools. Um, any, anyone that's interested in buying books. Um, by the way, for anyone who says libraries are dying, libraries are still one of the single biggest purchasers of books. And they're great because they don't return books. Rekka:14:22   Right. Kaelyn:14:24   Um, and we'll get into returns later. Rekka:14:26   And how that, how, just to clarify, you said anybody who wants to buy books, we're still talking business to business level. Kaelyn:14:31   Yes. We're still talking business to business level. Um, you can't go to Baker and Taylor publishing services and say, I would like one Salvage please. They're going to go, cool. You should go online and get that. Please buy it from us, but do it online. You're never going, you know, you as an individual consumer of books are never going to get one of these massive product lists of books, you know, check a box, send it back to them and have a book show up. Rekka:14:59   This is, you know, this is business to business. Kaelyn:15:02   Right. Um, so the distributors have a whole team of people and like we're saying before recording, I always felt like distributor was a little bit of a misleading name because it makes it sound like they're the ones handing out the books. What they're actually doing is trying to get other people to buy the books of the wholeseller can hand them out. Rekka:15:23   Right. Kaelyn:15:24   Um, they have sales reps who are specialized and focused in particular areas. They go to book fairs to market meetings, they go to, you know, sales conferences and they have the book out there and they go, yeah, this is a really great book. It's going to be, you know, hot on the market. Uh, it's this genre it's really going to appeal to this demographic. This author has, you know, a really great track record with this kind of group of people. You should buy a thousand of them cause they're trying to get the stores to buy the book to keep it in stock. Rekka:16:05   So the question that comes to my mind at this point is if a distributor has accounts with multiple publishers and those publishers themselves are deciding which of their books they want to push, more or less. Yeah. How does, how does the distributor like, where's the, the um, you know, like the one that's actually in their hand that they're handing out at these things versus the 25 in their catalog? Just random numbers. But - Kaelyn:16:34   Distributors are just handed things by publishers. Rekka:16:39   When a publisher signs with a distributor, it's all the publisher's books. Kaelyn:16:41   They don't have as acquisitions and new releases come up, they distributors don't have the option to go, Hmm, yeah. You know what, we're not too sure about this one. They're not involved in the process. That's the publishers. So, you know, I don't know how awkward a situation that ever. Um, I'm sure I'm sure things like that have happened. So anyway, they will have people who just specialize in, I mean really like granular specific kinds of books and they go to all these conferences and um, you know, there's, these are seasonal. There's, you know, of course the spring versus the fall catalogs. Um, there's all of this stuff they know about timing things with how they hit the market. Um, like for instance, I was talking to, so a part of his press is distributed through Baker and Taylor publishing services. And I was talking to someone there and I was kind of trying to figure out a release date and she was telling me like, well, don't do it, don't do December. Kaelyn:17:40   And I said, why not? She said, well, because everything then is focused on Christmas and it's not a bad thing necessarily to have your distributed in December with a Christmas focus. But we at Parvus we're independent. Maybe we're not big enough to really make sure we're not drown out by everyone else. You will notice there are a lot of book releases in December and they try to capitalize on this. And then January and February is just dealing with all of the leftovers. And I don't mean leftover releases, I mean the returns, the, you know, what have you, after the December releases, I don't mean, you know, we're just dealing with whatever comes next. Um, it's also started in the new year. So there is like their strategy and some of these things apply more to certain genres than others. You know, they know like what kind of books are really going to do well for summer reading. So they'll say, Hey, this would be a good thing to release in may and June because it's going to be everyone's beach book for the year. Rekka:18:44   Most people have heard a little bit in one way or another about how Hollywood just decides what time of year they're going to release their movies. Kaelyn:18:51   This is pretty similar. Yeah, and to be clear, the distributor does not get to decide these things, but they can advise. They're certainly very helpful to talk with. So you know, the distributor, like for all of this work that the marketing team with the distributors are doing and like I, I shouldn't even call it a marketing team because really they're, they're in sales. That's, you know, that's their job. Um, they have a marketing team, they have research that they work with, but distributors themselves are not really going to be doing a super lot to market this book. Rekka:19:28   So just to touch on real quick, you know, as you're going, so like, okay, so great. So what's the publisher doing and all of this? Kaelyn:19:34   They are also marketing the book. They're the ones when you see like ads for books. Like I live in New York and like, believe it or not, I do see ads on the subway sometimes for books or on taxi. I've even seen him on taxis and buses. I was really surprised. But you know what I've seen recently and um, I'm sorry, but we need to take a minute and talk about this. Some incredibly disturbing Lifesize 3d ads on the size of buses and taxis for the movie Cats. Rekka:20:01   No, we're not going to talk about that. No, I'm sorry. No - Kaelyn:20:04   I'll put a picture up of the bus, you needs to know. Rekka:20:09   No, don't, don't expose her. Kaelyn:20:11   No. You need to see what they did to one of those double Decker tourist buses. I'm going to put a picture of it on the Instagram. Like I, I'm sorry everyone, but like this is, this is happening. So, um, I just, I'm sorry, but like I saw that on, I needed to get, I was actually sitting in a Barnes and noble when I saw it. Rekka:20:29   Just to bring it back around. Kaelyn:20:32   Just to bring it back around. Rekka:20:32   So [laughs] So for a person who walks into Barnes and noble, dropping that topic, like a hot potato. Kaelyn:20:39   Rekka's really having trouble with this everyone. You should see her face. Rekka:20:43   So you're in Barnes and noble - Kaelyn:20:46   They edited out all of the bulges and boobs. Rekka:20:49   So - Kaelyn:20:52   I don't know. I haven't seen the movie. I saw the play once when I was a kid and I was even very confused by - Rekka:20:57   It's a musical. Kaelyn:20:58   Sorry, yes the musical. Rekka:21:00   I've seen it several times. There's a thing called the dance belt. You don't have to edit out anything, hopefully. Um, so - Kaelyn:21:08   They edited out everything. Rekka:21:11   I know it's terrifying. This is why I want to move on and I feel like it's just nothing what I ever wanted to see again. Kaelyn:21:22   I feel like, you know, it's our responsibility to acknowledge that something like this happened and check and make sure everyone's okay. Rekka:21:28   Okay. So all right. @WMB cast on Twitter did you see it. Kaelyn:21:34   Did you see cats? Rekka:21:35   Did you want to, were you taken against your will? Are you okay? Do you need a hug? Kaelyn:21:40   How are you feeling? Just in general? Does life still have meaning to you? Rekka:21:43   Alright. So publisher's going to market directly to the consumer of the books - Kaelyn:21:47   So yeah the publisher, the publisher is the one responsible for the real marketing, the direct marketing campaign. Um, now this is, it's all kind of cyclical because the publisher is trying to get people excited about the book to get the bookstore excited about to get the bookstores excited about the book so that the distributors can go sell these to the bookstore because the distributors are trying to get the bookstores excited about the book. Rekka:22:12   Right. And so neither happens without the other part. Kaelyn:22:15   Exactly. Yeah. It's all like, I hate to say this, but like it's all hype. That's the biggest strategy in book marketing right now is getting people excited about books, which we are, we love books. We're always excited about them. Rekka:22:32   But the word hype is very scary for an author who's feeling like the brain weasels about how like they're an imposter and they're going to be found out as soon as all these orders come through and people read the book, you know, it turns out it wasn't worth all that hype, but you can't sell it without the hype. So we do the hype. Kaelyn:22:48   Yep. It's, um, it's such a finicky industry and is the next logical step here is then, okay, so what's happening with all the books sitting in the warehouse? How does the distributor come into this? The answer to that is that could be multiple different things. Um, because again, all of this depends how your distributor works. Now if for instance, it's Baker and Taylor publishing services, they've got their own warehouse and their own wholesaler. That's a subsidiary of them. And just as a quick aside, some of you might be going, Baker and Taylor did and I hear that they closed their wholesaling. Rekka:23:28   Yeah there was a poorly handled press release. Kaelyn:23:31   Yeah. So you'll hear me every time we say this, Baker and Taylor publishing services, which is different than Baker and Taylor. So Baker and Taylor in may of 2019, I believe the press release was actually May 1st, 2019 put out what was not a great press with, um, because I got several panicked text going, Oh my God, is Baker and Taylor shutting down? You guys just signed with them. Yeah. Baker and Taylor stepped away from the wholesale book business to focus on libraries and education reselling. Baker and Taylor publishing services still exists and is still a wholesale seller of books. Um, so if you're, for some reason ever bringing that up, you have to make that distinction because I get in trouble sometimes - Rekka:24:30   And I've had bookstore owners argue with me. Yeah. Then they say no, Baker and Taylor is gone. Yeah, Taylor is gone from your catalog. But there is this other company. Kaelyn:24:43   Well Rebecca and I were talking about this at the time that like this was, it was not a good press release because they did not make it clear that there was still that Baker and Taylor publishing services still existed and was still doing this because, and we can get into a whole thing about the name publishing services, but even, you know, making that sound even worse. Kaelyn:25:03   But anyway, so Baker Taylor publishing services has their own warehouse in stock of these books that they want, you know that they're going to have in one place and people are going to buy and they're going to send out to them. Um, I'm using Baker and Taylor publishing services as an example, but um, you know, this can vary wildly. So Barnes and noble comes to them and says, I want a thousand of this book. It sounds awesome. I think it's really going to sell a lot. The warehouse is the one that's going to process the order and get that to Barnes and noble. Now in this case, all of the sale related things are going through Baker and Taylor publishing services because they've just got everything together. So that's kind of the rundown of what the distributor is doing and how this is getting in front of you. Now the next question is how does anyone get paid on this kind of thing? Rekka:26:03   Sounds expensive. Kaelyn:26:04   Yeah, now, we've talked a little bit about this in the money episode of you know, how all of this trickles down. But how is the other side making money on this? And again, I'm going to speak in very broad terms because there are so many components and moving pieces to this. There's a lot, like everything is different here. So the Publisher's got to get the books printed. Rekka:26:30   So you need to start with a product and the product has a parts and labor cost. Kaelyn:26:35   Yes. So in this case that is printing and producing the book, because what's going to happen, the distributor is going to say, we have orders for this many already and we think that it's going to be this many more. The, we're going to speak here in round hypothetical magic numbers because this is not actually how much this costs. Um, so let's say this is a publisher that uses an overseas press. You know, they, they get the books printed themselves and then get them warehoused. They've got the, they bought the books for three bucks a book and let's say they have a thousand of them. So, so it's $3,000 depending on what's going on here. The wholesaler is going to buy the books from the publisher. Wholesalers themselves are very passive entities in all of this. Their only job is to get the order, send out the order. They don't care about the marketing, they don't care about, you know, how much this is selling. They've just got a giant building full of pallets of books. So they're going to buy now at this point we're talking cover prices. So they're going to buy this at a pretty steep discount off the cover price. Rekka:27:59   Which the publisher has determined based on knowing that there will be all these discounts coming. Kaelyn:28:03   Yes, yes. So then when the reseller, the bookstores buy the book, they're also getting a discount off the cover price. So what's happening here is everything is a little bit of a step up. So let's say the books for $3 each, the warehouse, the whole seller is buying them for $5 each, and maybe Barnes and noble is buying them for $7 each and they're going to sell them for $15.99. Rekka:28:31   Right. Kaelyn:28:32   And they're keeping whatever they sell from that book. Rekka:28:34   Nothing - the bookstore does not pay any money except for their initial order. Kaelyn:28:40   But then they're going to have something else factored in, which is the ability to return the books. There are, there's a lot of math that goes into this and I hate it. It's complicated and ambiguous sometimes, which is not two words you usually hear together. Um, Barnes and noble for instance, can say, look, this book was not selling well. I still have 500 of them. They're taking up room on my shelves. I don't want them. Here you go. And wholesalers and distributors are kind of at the mercy of this because really at the end of the day here, you want to talk about the power structure. You want to talk about, you know, in the publishing world, it's not the agents, it's not the publishers, it's not the acquisitions editors. It's not even the distributors, the real people with the power to do whatever the hell they want. Here are the bookstores. And I don't think we think that because we think like, Oh, bookstores. Yeah. But they're the ones at the end of the day who are the cutthroat that can say, I don't want this anymore. Take it back. Rekka:29:47   And they can do this at any point. Kaelyn:29:49   Yes. Rekka:29:49   If they forget to unpack the books and they realize, shit, I've had this sitting back here the whole time. These were new releases two months ago, but they're not new releases now. Or they were two - they were new releases two weeks ago, but there's something bigger that's taken off. I'm just going to, I didn't even open this box. I'm just going to ship it back. Kaelyn:30:05   Yeah. Um, now if you know you had a book that like they had a few stray copies bought here and there like maybe, you know, one book sitting on the shelf isn't as big a deal to them. It could sit there for a very long time if they just decided like, yeah, we're just going to leave that there, it's fine. Rekka:30:24   So, or if they happen to notice the sequel's coming out soon. Kaelyn:30:27   Yeah. Yeah. So the returns, they just get to say, here, take this back. So what does that do to your money? Well, that I won't say you give it back. A lot of times it's more, it's a deduction against future earnings. Um, which you know, like this is, this is any, anything that you're producing a product for, you're going to run into this. Rekka:30:51   So the publishers account with the distributor, just based on what you said to clarify is almost like a, a line of credit, but not like a credit card. Like if you have $20,000 limit on your credit card, they're not gonna eventually pay the $20,000. But you know, yeah. Kaelyn:31:08   So like, well actually that's, that's a good way in to say, how does the publisher get money from all of this? Because the publisher is getting the money a percent. The distributor is taking off a percentage based on what went out to the retailers. They're selling the books for the publisher. And by selling the books for the publisher, I mean, they're the ones trying to get people to buy these books. So, you know, in theory what should be happening is every month, every quarter, however this goes, you just have, you know, your accounting statements going through saying like, Hey, you did a $5,000 in new sales, there was, you had $1,000 in returns, so this month you're getting four grand. So returns can be a scary thing. Rekka:31:54   Um, with, uh, wholesale books and this is why a print runs for, you know, a new release are going to vary based on the estimates you were mentioning earlier where they, they already have this many orders. They're going to print this many because it looks promising. Kaelyn:32:09   Exactly. Yeah. That's how many they think they'll sell because everybody wants to avoid the returns at some point. Rekka:32:14   Yeah. Kaelyn:32:16   Sh, kind of round out the conversation with this, with that this was more definitional and process in this episode. All of these components that we talked about here, the printing, the whole sale, the distribution, they're all interchangeable. They can all be coming from different sources thinking and look, and this is the case a lot of the time that if you're going to go through Baker and Taylor publishing services, then you go through Baker and Taylor publishing services and you don't really think about too much of it. It just kind of is handled. That's not always the case. And frequently it's not. Um, so this was just kind of more meant to be informational. Um, you know, not, not the process because there is no standard process with this. There is the print to wholesaler to distributor to bookstores to into the hands of readers. If that's, that's the best flow I can give you. How far you have to go in between those points is varies wildly. Rekka:33:25   Yeah. Kaelyn:33:26   Um, so that was the distribution - Rekka:33:30   Right. As much as we can really cover in one episode. It's funny, we had to trim out so many side conversations because we knew that that side conversation is going to take us in a direction that's gonna make this a four hour episode. Kaelyn:33:42   Yeah. And here's the thing. If all of this sounds complicated, I'll just, I'll say it, we, there are big chunks of this we're taking out where I had to stop and go, I have to restart that whole thing all over because I'm going off in a direction that's confusing. Rekka:33:56   This is, it is a confusing process and this is, I think one of those, you know when we talk about like the thick curtain that publishers and process hide behind, I think this is one of the stranger aspects of it and sometimes that that curtain is not so much there because they're trying to hide it from you. But because it's something like this where you can't just easily explain it. Kaelyn:34:17   And honestly, if - Rekka:34:18   Maybe a publisher is trying to protect their author from worrying about stuff like don't worry, like I don't, I, this is not, I'm happy to be on this phone call with you, my lovely author. However we could talk about something that's actually going to like, you know - Kaelyn:34:29   Yeah for authors, this is not your job to worry about this is this is the publisher. And then even with the distributor, they're taking things away from the publisher and telling them, don't worry about that. We've got that. Rekka:34:39   Yeah. So they're out of it's job security. Kaelyn:34:42   Yeah there is some degree of specialization here where it's like, look, this is our thing to worry about. You worry about that other thing. Rekka:34:49   Right. And that's a good thing because you want that somebody is not going to try and micromanage the parts that they aren't professional about. Kaelyn:34:59   Yeah. So, um, like I said, this is now one thing - Rekka:35:07   Not that they're not professional. I just mean it's not there. It's not their job. Kaelyn:35:11   It's not their job. It's not their specialty. Rekka:35:13   Um, if they get involved is going to make it worse. Not better. Yeah. Kaelyn:35:16   This by the way, I'm going to end on this note is one area that if you are very interested in learning more about this, this is something you can go online and actually find out a lot of information on because this is one of those areas with sort of definitive, uh - Rekka:35:31   The steps and processes and the only thing you're missing is the, the part with the contract where all the prices are agreed. Kaelyn:35:37   Yeah. And also like this is, this is something that is, is delineated. The wholesaler does this, the distributor does this, the publisher does this, this isn't one of those. Well and then sometimes, and you know, not always, and I know I just got finished saying like sometimes and not always. Rekka:35:58   Yeah. Kaelyn:35:59   I know I just got finished saying that like the process is not, but the linear way in which this happens, publisher to printer printed a wholesaler, wholesaler, distributor, distributor to bookstore, bookstore to reader, that doesn't change. Um, if you're interested in finding out more between the difference between distributors and wholesalers, you absolutely, this is something you can go online and find information about. I warn you, it's a rabbit hole because what you're then going to find is all of the weird, interesting, different ways that distributors and wholesalers are connected and how they're all under our umbrella parent companies and the incestuousness of the publishing industry and - Rekka:36:42   Lannisters of publishing, um, - Kaelyn:36:44   Baker and Taylor publishing services is owned by Follete. So, you know, it all comes full circle somehow. So anyway, um, that's, you know, that's where we're going to leave you here. Um, I hope that wasn't too confusing - Rekka:37:00   And if you do have specific questions or if some of that was too broad, yes. We can try to, to answer them in like a, a listener questions episode. Yeah. But we're like, well, Kaelyn said she had to stop and start because there were so many details that could have really made this a lengthy episode beyond what would be reasonable. So trying not to, trying to get specific on this kind of stuff will make you too specific that it's not helpful. New Speaker:  37:26   Yeah. And no longer applies in a way that's going - New Speaker:  37:28   I mean like she could say this is what Parvus does and that's not going to be what Tor does. New Speaker:  37:34   Exactly. So that's, yeah, it's not a direction we really want to take the conversation. Speaker 1:       37:40   But if you do have specific questions like I don't understand X about the whole sale, then we'll try and answer that for you. New Speaker:  37:49   It's funny because this episode, a strong departure from last weeks that was very specific, this then this, then this. But if you're doing a print on demand and a, you know, digital self publishing and things is there are steps and like there are the, you have to do at least these things to make your book functional. Right. Um, if you wanted to get into warehousing and distributing as a self publisher, a lot of that's how it started. You warehouse in your garage and you distributed by hand out of the trunk of your car. Yup. You know, more power to you if you were good at it. Uh, I, I, I can't even imagine that Amanda's is a magical thing. I mean that's pretty much why self publishing has taken off the way it has. Totally. But for Speaker 2:       38:36   traditional publishing, there's a reason that some authors is a very good reason why some authors just choose not to be involved in that side of any of the process. And I can certainly understand why because as you heard in this episode, it's, it's not shrouded in mystery, but it's fine grain nitty gritty stuff. Yeah. So anyway, um, so we're going to stop before we try and explain it one more time. Why we didn't tell you everything there is, this is like my head hurts after trying to do, and it's not quite like trying to talk to a quantum physicist and get an easy answer, but it's a little bit like trying to talk to the quantum physicist. So, um, anyway, so on that note, uh, thanks for sticking bearing with me through this one because, um, I realized that was a little disjointed. I'll try to, Oh, send us your questions if you have any and we can try and repair the damage done. Speaker 2:       39:30   But hopefully I don't think, I think that was good. I think, you know, we're, we're talking about it before it's been trimmed. That's true. And once it's trimmed, I know you, it's going to be nice and clean and straight forward. So, um, so, you know, but if you have questions you can find us online. Ask the WMB cast on Twitter and Instagram. You can find us@wmbcast.com and you can subscribe to us through most of the podcast aggregators. I'm trying to find a few more of them to get us out there even wider. And um, you know, if you want to leave us a rating or a video, we would love it either Apple podcasts or Apple iTunes. Um, they are the same bank of reviews. So you can go in there and just, just gush a little. We wouldn't mind. Yeah, no, not at all. Um, I read your review in a future episode. Speaker 2:       40:10   Yeah. And Hey, you know, if there's something you want to hear about and you put it in a review, you've called us out, we have to answer it. Um, and then if you are finding this information super helpful and you have some spare change to throw our way, we do have a Patrion, um, page@patrion.com forward slash WMB cast. We have some patrons now and it's fantastic and we love it. And, uh, we really appreciate your support. So thank you for listening and thank you for your support. And we will talk to you in the next episode.  

Hi everyone, and thank you for tuning in to another episode of the We Make Books Podcast - A podcast about writing, publishing, and everything in between! In this episode we are talking about a book we hope everyone writes one day: Your second book, the one you are going to work on under contract and with an editor. Writing while working with an editor is very different from when you were off on your own, they have things like opinions and deadlines and they’re going to want to hear what your plans are.  But fear not, this isn’t scary, it’s awesome!  And we’re going to talk about all the reasons it’s great to have someone to work with as well as what to expect from the process. We Make Books is hosted by Rekka Jay and Kaelyn Considine; Rekka is a published author and Kaelyn is an editor and together they are going to take you through what goes into getting a book out of your head, on to paper, in to the hands of a publisher, and finally on to book store shelves. We Make Books is a podcast for writer and publishers, by writers and publishers and we want to hear from our listeners! Hit us up on our social media, linked below, and send us your questions, comments, concerns, and let us know if you took part in NaNoWriMo and how it went! We hope you enjoy We Make Books! Twitter: @WMBCast  |  @KindofKaelyn  |  @BittyBittyZap Instagram: @WMBCast  Patreon.com/WMBCast     Rekka: 00:00   Welcome back to another episode of We Make Books, a podcast about writing, publishing and everything in between. I'm Rekka, I write science fiction and fantasy as RJ Theodore. Kaelyn:           00:09   And I'm Kaelyn. I'm the acquisitions editor for Parvus Press. Rekka: 00:12   This one is a Kaelyn episode mostly because Kaelyn is getting very excited about some work that she's going to be doing with her authors very soon. Kaelyn:           00:22   Yeah. Rekka: 00:22   And she's smiling so big right now because she's just just tickled and loves her author so much. Kaelyn:           00:28   I do love my authors. They're all wonderful people. Um, but we're talking today about your second book and we don't mean your second standalone book. We mean what's coming in your series. Um, it's a very different process and a circumstance to write your second book under the direction of someone than it is your first one by yourself. And, um, I think this goes for both debut authors and people who are then just selling a new trilogy that have just been working something. Um, we keep um, you know, we mentioned at the end of the episode, uh, we'll qualify it here. We say trilogy a lot in this. Really it's any kind of a series. Rekka: 01:13   Right, right. And when we say under the direction of someone else, you've obviously already revised something under the direction of one or two other people. But we're talking about ground up. You know there is, you are starting from scratch. You are starting from the blank page. Kaelyn:           01:27   And there is somebody whose opinion now you have to take into account. Rekka: 01:31   See you keep saying, I hope it didn't sound too scary. That's why it sounds so scary. Kaelyn:           01:36   Because it's an intimidating thing, but we get into all that in this episode. Rekka: 01:40   Um, yeah. So when she says your contract contractually obligated to take their opinion into account, she's like, yes, that's true. Kaelyn:           01:49   Hey, I'm here for the truth. I'm telling it how it is. Rekka: 01:52   But that's kind of why you got into publishing your book with a traditional publisher. You wanted a team behind your book. And so this is, this episode is all about writing your book after you've already sold, possibly published the first book in a series of indetermined length and doing it with a team of enthusiastic book people behind you. Kaelyn:           02:17   Which is fun and exciting. But definitely very different from the first time you did this. New Speaker: 02:21   So we'll get into that in this episode. So take a listen and here it comes. Speaker 2:       02:40   [inaudible]. Rekka: 02:41   You notice I bought two of them. Kaelyn:           02:43   Oh yeah. I thought this was the same one that was inside. Rekka: 02:45   Yeah. Kaelyn:           02:46   It's um, very uh, warm and soft. Rekka: 02:50   And soft. Kaelyn:           02:51   So soft and fuzzy. Rekka: 02:52   Yes. Kaelyn:           02:53   Cause you won't let me have one of the cats in here to keep me company. Rekka: 02:56   I mean the blanket sheds less than the cats do. Kaelyn:           02:59   Fair. So anyway, we're talking today about books and stuff about books, same as always. But, uh, actually we're talking about a specific book at this point. Rekka: 03:10   Oh. Kaelyn:           03:11   Not a specific book as in a specific title, but it is a specific book that hopefully you're going to write one day, Rekka: 03:20   Hey, you know, maybe you might write a book someday and then maybe somebody wants to buy it and then they're like, Hey, is it a trilogy? And you go, of course it's a trilogy. Kaelyn:           03:26   Of course. Rekka: 03:27   Totally. It's totally, totally, totally a trilogy. Kaelyn:           03:30   And uh, so then you have to write the second book Rekka: 03:33   Now, okay. But backup, cause we actually already discussed outside of the recording that sometimes you've already got the second book written. Kaelyn:           03:41   Sometimes you've already got the second book written. So we should back up to once upon a time a little bit here. Once upon a time there was an author who loved an idea so much that they wanted to keep writing about it. So they wrote a book and they sold that book. And then the person they sold the book to said you got any more of these? And they said, sure, do let me just figure out what's going to happen. Rekka: 04:07   And um, in our, in our conversation, we did say that a lot of times by the time the first book has sold, if it's really intended to be a trilogy or more, the, the author has probably begun work in some form or another on the second book. Kaelyn:           04:23   Yeah. So, um, you know, as we mentioned in the intro today, we're talking about writing your second book and we, this is different from our, what's coming next - Rekka: 04:33   Right, cause what's coming next is the, that episode was about like, you being surprised by the question of what, what happens in a book that's not related to your trilogy. This is going back to the trilogy. Kaelyn:           04:46   This is, there's a difference between what are you working on next and what's coming next. So we already did what are you working on next? But this is about, um, the difference between writing the first book of your trilogy and writing the second. Rekka: 04:58   Yeah. Kaelyn:           05:00   So now as Rekka said, um, there's a chance you may have already written it, you may not have, you may have a rough draft, you may have a pretty detailed outline there, any infinite number of versions that this book could exist in. Um, for our purposes here, we're starting by assuming that you sold a trilogy or maybe you even sold the first book and it's a potential trilogy contingent on sales and sales are good. So now they want the other two books. Rekka: 05:29   Um, actually just to clarify that, if they're going to want the next book, they may have decided this before the book comes out and it's actually enthusiasm or excitement is high when they decide that they want the second book. So you may not actually have anyone who's gotten real eyes on the book other than some, um, advanced review copies. Yeah. Kaelyn:           05:47   Um, and we're also assuming that when you sold the first book, it was already written, um, you gotta you gotta be at a special place in your career - Rekka: 05:57   To sell a book on an outline - Kaelyn:           05:58   To sell the first, Rekka: 05:59   ... for your debut. Kaelyn:           06:00   Yeah, yeah, exactly. So that's kind of our baseline where you're starting from and writing the second book is going to be very different than writing the first book because the first book you were functionally kind of doing on, on your own. Um, now of course you're probably involved in some writing groups. You had some beta readers, you had, people you talked to about this. Maybe you even had an editor you hired to, uh, to take a look at it. The thing is that when you're doing the second one, now you have a second party who is contractually obligated to be very interested in reading your book. Rekka: 06:34   Yes. Not just whether it's good or not, but where the entire plot is going. Kaelyn:           06:40   Yes. And you're not going to have an editor that doesn't care about the book period, but now you've got an editor that is very, very interested in this because you've got a story to tell that is not yet written. Rekka: 06:57   And to be fair, if you've been picked up for a partially written trilogy, chances are you've already talked to your editor. Kaelyn:           07:05   There is a very, there is a very good chance. And again, debut authors are not generally at a point in their career where publishing houses and editors are willing to just let them go. Yeah, sure. Let's see how it goes. So they're probably gonna want to talk to you beforehand, find out, um, you know, so I love these characters. I love the setting. I love when this story is going, what's going to happen? Rekka: 07:24   Yeah. Kaelyn:           07:25   Um, with the understanding that that could change as you work through things. Rekka: 07:30   Absolutely. Kaelyn:           07:31   Um, but you will probably have had that conversation. So how is this time going to be different? Rekka: 07:39   One, you're on a deadline. Kaelyn:           07:41   And that's a new and exciting thing and we talked about that in what you're working on next. Rekka: 07:46   What are you working on next. But um, this one is a deadline in your contract, um, specifically. Kaelyn:           07:52   Yeah, this one's like a deadline deadline. Rekka: 07:54   You probably know when you sign your contract, when you need to have this one handed in by. Kaelyn:           07:59   Yeah. Um, so you're going to be working on deadline and you're going to be working with someone who is giving you professional feedback. And I will just say this, that you're required to work with. Um, I don't mean like at most authors I know love their editors and look forward to working with them, but this is somebody that like, you can't just leave an opinion out in the writing group. You have to listen to this person's opinion and they're going to have opinions. Rekka: 08:28   You might be able to debate them a little bit. Kaelyn:           08:30   Definitely debate them. When I say listen to, I mean you have to take it into consideration. You may be able to debate them, you can discuss things, you can come to an understanding. Rekka: 08:37   You can figure out like, okay, I was going this way and you want me to go way over here. What else can we do that we'll both like. Kaelyn:           08:43   You can't ignore this person. Rekka: 08:45   Yeah. Kaelyn:           08:46   Um, and again, I can't really think of any authors off the top of my head who don't like wha - Rekka: 08:55   I'm making faces at her. I do. I do know, because professionally speaking you are, you are on team editor so you probably not going to hear as many stories about authors who don't like their editors. Kaelyn:           09:08   First of all, I'm on Team Author. That's my job as an editor, but - Rekka: 09:12   Well played. No, but you know what I'm saying? Like socially, within the industry, you talk to other editors a lot. Kaelyn:           09:22   That's true. The other thing is that, um, authors, I think because they know I'm an editor, are reticent to say anything about our breed in general/ Rekka: 09:27   Or because you aren't a close friend, they're not going to spill their emotional baggage on you about how their editor's running them through a pepper grinder on this, you know, their second book. Kaelyn:           09:39   It's only because we want to enhance the flavor. Rekka: 09:43   So fun fact pepper makes everything taste good because it opens up your pores and your taste more of it. Anyway, back to what we were saying. Um, your editor wants to open up people's tongues, uh, pores. Uh, yeah. Okay. No, but what I am trying to say is that I do personally know authors who are having a grueling time working on their second book with the editor of their publishing house. Kaelyn:           10:06   Out of curiosity, is it a grueling time because it's a lot, or is it because they don't like their editor? Rekka: 10:12   It's a grueling time because the editor keeps checking their outlines back at them and saying, no, not that do something else. Kaelyn:           10:18   So here you go. Somebody who's going to have opinions. Now, it's interesting what you said outline. Every editor works differently, but a lot of times when you're working on subsequent books in, uh, the tr, you know, a trilogy or a series, what have you, you're going to start with an outline, agree on that and how detailed it is will depend on the editor of the book, the, you know, how intricate the things are that you need to pay attention to. Um, and then you're just going to kind of be sent along on your way, you know. Okay, go write that. Um, you know, like we said at Parvus, I'm a little more involved in the actual day to day writing portions of this, but the whole point is you're going to have to take someone else's opinion into account before you sit down to write what it is you're going to be writing. Rekka: 11:11   I think that is a lot more enticing for many authors than you might imagine. Kaelyn:           11:17   Well, it sounds nice until you're actually doing it. Rekka: 11:20   I'll let this one slide, we'll bring it back later. Kaelyn:           11:24   Okay, look your editor is your partner in this. They're going to want to help you make this the best book it can possibly be. So every relationship, every dynamic is different. But um, you know, maybe you're excited about having another opinion to bounce things off of. I do know some people that just want to be left alone to write their book as they want to write it. And it's a little bit of a rude awakening going like, no, here's this person that you have to talk to about all of this now. Rekka: 11:56   So I break the mold in this sense because I had an entire first draft of my second book before I signed with um, Parvus on book one because as we've covered before, I plan to self publish this. And so what I was planning to do was write all three before I even released the first one so that I could release them close together, get some, you know, dopamine rush from Amazon's algorithm playing into all that. So I, I had gotten a lot further in this then I think is being proposed here as the typical experience. Kaelyn:           12:28   Yeah, and it's interesting because at Parvus we have a few standalone books, some that are turning into trilogies and then some things that we bought at trilogies. So uh Scott Warren's the Union Earth Privateers trilogy, which was the first book we ever got, Vick's Vultures, fantastic book. Definitely check it out. And then he was signed up for trilogy. Now I will say that I did not, I have not really done any work on Scott's books. Um, but he had a plan of where this was going. That was discussed when we said, okay, trilogy. But that was really the only one that we kind of worked on where the author didn't really have much on paper beforehand. Rekka as you just said, uh, you know, had a draft of her second book and knew where the third book was going. Um, you know, things have changed roughly. Rekka: 13:25   Very roughly. Kaelyn:           13:35   But you did know some people like I, I am surprised sometimes when I talk to people and they're like, I don't know, I'll figure it out. And we were joking about this before we started recording because I'm such a planner and a plotter. So like the idea of not knowing how your story ends is like has me like clutching my pearls and gasping and um, but then Christopher Ruz, who's uh Century of Sand Rrilogy, the first book, The Ragged Blade also did an episode and interview episode on this go back. That was episode six, I believe. Um, let me go back and check it out. Really cool about traditionally publishing something that was previously self-published. So that meant that he had books one and two completed already and three like a pretty finished draft. Ruz now in a position, and you were as well, I'm sure where the trickle down changes from the stuff in the first book now have to be addressed in the second book if it's written. Rekka: 14:24   You're referring to the editorial changes that came back from the publisher. Kaelyn:           14:27   Exactly. Rekka: 14:27   Yeah. So I had the advantage of, uh, Colin Coyle kind of gave me some feedback. Uh, Parvus's publisher, uh, kind of gave me some feedback at the beginning of the process that wasn't officially from my editor, but it was something that he brought in and, and those were actually the biggest changes of the, of the process. And, um, he said something that made me realize that he'd misread a scene like the way I intended. It was not the way I came across, which is a good bit of feedback to have. And so by going into fix what he saw, I fixed it for one. Yay. Um, but also I gave myself a little bit of something that has come in extremely, extremely plot devices for the following books and I don't know what book to would have looked like if I hadn't put that in there just to fix a scene so that it was read correctly and now all of a sudden it became a major element. And so that was beneficial to me because it actually tightened things up for me going forward. On the other hand - Kaelyn:           15:39   Yeah, we've been slowly unraveling, um, everything that, uh, that he's been doing. Um, again, I, this is, you know, Episode Six is about traditionally publishing a previously self published book, but there is a lot of talk in it about the changes that we made him go in there and make. And that was just the first book. Um, so the ripple effect out through the second and third is massive. I shouldn't say ripple. We're dealing with small tsunami type things at this point. And he's, don't get me wrong, he's handling it like a champ. But like, it's not that the changes are bad or even difficult, it's that it's a lot to go back and make sure you catch everything. Rekka: 16:26   In the continuity of something that you already know Kaelyn:           16:29   And account for everything. And this is why, um, going into our next point here, I very much like when I'm starting with an author to know where the book is going. You know, I had said like, I am, I am a plotter, I am a planner. Um, I have a rule with the authors I work with. You have to tell me how it ends. Rekka: 16:50   Wheras just for contrast. Um, Ryan Kelly is my editor at Parvus at the moment. And, uh, I asked him if he wanted to see the outline for book three because we had not talked about where it was going. And he's like, yeah, you could send it over. Where's Caitlin would have been like, what? It exists. Why don't I have it? Kaelyn:           17:02   Why don't I have this right now? No, I mean, you wouldn't even send me an outline. I'd be on the phone with you going like, okay, but just tell me what happens. Part of that is because, you know, we buy stories that we love and I am very impatient. Um, I really always just need to know how something ends. Um, so part of it is just a personal, like, I need to know what happens here! Rekka: 17:25   Kaelyn loves spoilers. Kaelyn:           17:26   I don't actually stay far away from spoilers. Rekka: 17:29   Well, as you've said, you didn't want to know how my trilogy ends because you want to experience it as the reader. Kaelyn:           17:35   Exactly. Um, but as an editor, as an editor, I know certain books are going to need things seeded in the beginning of it. So I kind of want to know how everything's going to make sure that it fly off the rails at the end or we're dropping in something that came out of nowhere that readers are going to go, well hang on a second. Rekka: 17:56   So you bring up a really good point because these are the kinds of things that your editor can point out, um, about structure, about. Like you need to Chekov this rifle. You know, like you need to make sure that people feel satisfied by this even if they weren't expecting it, that it's grounded in the reality of your world building or your plot or whatever, or things you've introduced,. Kaelyn:           18:29   A, a twist ending or a big reveal as only as good as you've set it up to be. Rekka: 18:29   Right. Kaelyn:           18:29   Like it needs to feel surprising, yet inevitable readers should be able to go back - Rekka: 18:36   And see all the clues, Kaelyn:           18:37   And find points where they're like, Oh, okay, I got it. Rekka: 18:40   So like for example, the movie Memento. Kaelyn:           18:42   Yes. Rekka: 18:43   That is one where you watch it the second time you're like, damn, this was all in here. Kaelyn:           18:48   If you want to take it even further Fight Club that is, you know, the weirdness of that movie aside despite the groups that have co-opted it's uh =. Rekka: 18:57   Okay. So yeah. Kaelyn:           18:59   It's still a great movie. Um, but the book even too, and you know, obviously they had to do things very different in the book in the movie, but you go back and watch that and you're like, yeah, no, okay, I see it now. Um, so depending on the nature of your book and depending on where it's going, that's something your editor is going to be very interested in. Rekka: 19:18   But not only that, but as I was starting to say, as an author, you really should want someone who's, who's got that second pair of, you know, critical eyes, um, figureative eyes to put it on your story and say like, Oh, that's what you're doing with this. Well here's what I suggest before we put out book too. Cause like book one's already, you know, pretty much signed, sealed and delivered to this man. If you haven't got it seeded book two before it gets published while you're in revisions for that is a great place to seed those elements that are going to make it more satisfying when you bring it in for the landing on number three. So your editor's going to say, Oh, that's where you're going. Well what if we do this? You don't want someone who isn't paying attention to where the story's going because they might guide you into a corner that you can't get to that ending anymore. Kaelyn:           20:05   Yeah, and this is one of those, uh, you know, writers I think a lot of times fall into the problem, which is a totally understandable problem of can't see the forest through the trees. Having an outside perspective where sometimes editors are picking out parts of the book that are more important than the writer realizes they are. Um, you know, I always say like your favorite part of the book might not be the best part of the book. Rekka: 20:35   Your favorite part of the book is probably a turn of phrase or a certain scene and emotional feelings. Kaelyn:           20:40   I am, I thought, I always ask authors, especially like, you know, when they're, the books published or something or you know, okay, we've got the final draft, you're done. What's your favorite part of the book? Every single time I've been surprised. Rekka: 20:53   Really. Kaelyn:           20:53   Um, just because it's a personal thing and there maybe, you know, it might even have something to do with what was going on with you when you were writing it, but the whole point is that you're, you know, a detailed outline that you're providing to an editor is going to allow them to look at this with a bigger perspective of what is happening in this, what is happening in the characters, what the growing themes in the book are and where the setting and the plot is headed. And that is something that a lot of times now trilogies are being bought in such a way that the first book is sold and then the second and third, not always, but you know, they may buy all three at once or they could say second and thirds contingent upon, you know, what's going on with the first. So listeners, I'm sure you'll notice that with a lot of trilogies, and by the way, YA especially does this a lot. The first book kind of wraps up to a point. There are definitely lingering things. There's plots to build off of stories, problems to resolve, but the first book kind of wraps up and then two and three seems to completely take on a new life of its own. Um, again, very, very common in YA. Rekka: 22:11   And that's because you don't know if that's going to be it. Kaelyn:           22:14   Yeah, exactly. Um, so getting an outline with this stuff, um, things could change very much after, after book one, but the outline and the perspective that it's going to give the editor is really important to help the writer get through this process and get to the, I don't want to say satisfying because that implies a happy ending. Rekka: 22:38   There's a difference between like, inevitable conclusion, you know, like not feeling like you spent all your credit in the first book. Kaelyn:           22:49   Exactly. Yeah. Um, one of the examples I always give with this is, um, Cassandra Claire, do you know who she is? Rekka: 22:59   The Mortal Instruments? Kaelyn:           23:00   Yeah. Um, which that must of, that first book must have been published coming up on 20 years ago, which is so strange to think it's that old it is. But she was kind of one of the pioneers of what we now call urban fantasy. Um, like I remember being a teenager and picking up that book as someone gave it to me and was like, you have to read this. And I actually remember looking at this going, this is set in a city that's boring. That's not how this kind of stuff should go. And so anyway, you know, this was saying this to qualify that like this was kind of a new thing they were trying to figure out. But, um, then reading an interview with her that she did, um, explaining that she had to give them an incredibly detailed outline of where all of these books were going. And this is, you know, I don't know if anyone listening has read these, but the last book is full of twists, turns, reveals, shocking identities, you know, and so they wanted to see, okay, where's the groundwork that you're laying for this to get to this ending? Rekka: 24:13   And especially for the publisher, if this book is supposed to put that genre on the map, they need to make sure that this is the standard that people are going to hold it. Kaelyn:           24:21   Yeah, there were, if I'd be very interested to see if anyone kind of like has ever sat down and figured this out. I'm sure someone has. But there were a bunch of urban fantasy things that all came out around that same time. And I would argue that of that initial like group of releases, hers was far too, she's still writing these, um, they just keep giving her contracts to write trilogies in, in this world. And like now she is to the point where she can just go, I don't know, I guess one about this character? Excellent here, have some money. Rekka: 24:52   Um, life goals. Kaelyn:           24:54   Yeah. Yeah. But um, well, I mean she had like a movie, a television series, you know, they were not great. Rekka: 25:02   Well, I have often said that my dream film result for anything I write would be that the film is optioned, the option is renewed and renewed and renewed. It never happened and it's tied up in options and I keep getting paid for it and nobody ever touches it and makes people mad about it. Kaelyn:           25:23   I always joke that like, you know, if I ever wrote a book or like even if they were like going to, you know, some part of this book got a option for a movie and they'd be like, we want to do this. My answer would be cool. Uh, I'm going to go to film school, I'll come back, I'll come back to you in three or four years because I'm in charge of this. I don't trust you. Rekka: 25:45   I've had conversations with Kaelyn, um, outside of recording these podcasts and this is so 100% true. Kaelyn:           25:53   I don't trust you to do this the right way. Rekka: 25:56   And look, the thing is you're not wrong. Kaelyn:           25:58   That's the thing. Rekka: 25:59   Track record is more 90% likely that this series is not going to be handled carefully or correct. Kaelyn:           26:05   Well, I will say, and just a funny little side story, um, Necropolis PD, I gave my cousins and my aunt copies of this book and they were like, I could see this as, you know, this movie. And they're already casting it and listening to them cast it is infuriating me because they're casting all of these young, very handsome, you know, debonair men for the character of Jacob Green. And if you don't know what I'm talking about, go read Necropolis PD it's a fantastic book. Rekka: 26:34   Do go read it. Kaelyn:           26:35   Um, and I'm already fighting with them going, no, it's not. No, that's not what he's supposed to look like. That's not, he's supposed to act. So yes. Um, no one touches these books except us. Anyway, so your editor is going to be far more involved in the structure of the book then they were the first time around when you were working on this by yourself. Rekka: 27:03   Because I promise you this is a very good thing. Kaelyn:           27:03   Yeah, Rekka: 27:07   I really think it is. I mean like yes, you're going to have your outlying cases where like this is not the, the system that works best for you. But I think many authors I can speak for are always wondering if they're doing the right thing for their series. Are they taking it in the right direction? And this is a checks and balance. Kaelyn:           27:24   This person is legally obligated to talk to you about this. Rekka: 27:27   And it matters to me so much that my trilogy stick the landing. Kaelyn:           27:33   Yeah. Rekka: 27:33   Cause I mean my experience with so many books series is, well one you of course have the ones that get canceled before they're finished, which is horrible. Um, but two you have the ones that it feels like the author just kind of ran out of ideas or didn't have a clear plan and they kept setting up fantastic, wonderful world-building and situations and politics but didn't know how to resolve the situation. Kaelyn:           27:55   *cough* Game of Thrones. Rekka: 27:58   Yeah, sorry. Something in our throats. But it matters to me so much and I want somebody else's opinion on this. Kaelyn:           28:08   Yeah and I mean this is generally, you know, we've talked before about like working with an editor. You can go back and listen to our episode Will My Editor Tells Me It's Shit? And um. Rekka: 28:18   You guys love your books and you just want to talk to people about them, but you also want to be sure that you're handling them well. Kaelyn:           28:24   Am I doing it right? Rekka: 28:25   Am I doing this right? Kaelyn:           28:27   Here's the thing. Rekka: 28:28   Yeah. I mean, go ahead. Kaelyn:           28:30   There's no right. Rekka: 28:31   Yup. Kaelyn:           28:31   Because you've got to be the one to decide what's right for your book. Rekka: 28:34   Okay. So this is not me saying, dear editor, how do I finish this? Kaelyn:           28:39   Yes. Rekka: 28:39   This is like, okay, here's what I'm seeing. Kaelyn:           28:41   Yep. Rekka: 28:42   Does this satisfy the arc that's been set up across the series so far? Kaelyn:           28:46   Do you feel like as a reader of this rather than a creator of it, that you think this came to a good, satisfying, logical ending and they're going to point to spots and say, well this feels like it might be a little thin here or this feels like a jump or this doesn't seem in keeping with the character, that's what they're supposed to do. Rekka: 29:05   And you get those things before this. And this is the point of this whole episode. You get these things before you've invested two years in polishing a manuscript. Kaelyn:           29:13   From, you know, the editor side of things. Um, I try to be sensitive and aware of the fact that this person who was working on this before had pretty free reign to do what they wanted with it. Now granted, I probably did take it and make them - Rekka: 29:31   Right. And that's. Kaelyn:           29:31   And make them do some stuff and that's the baby step into, into the end of the pool. Um, but I personally, and I think most editors will do this, you know, is the, the check in, how are you doing? How are you feeling about this? Anything bothering you? Is there parts that you want us to work on or pay attention to more? Are there any parts that you don't feel great? Are there parts that you really feel great about? And then those are the ones I make them go change. Rekka: 29:59   Yeah. Well, and that's the thing. It's like every conversation when you get revisions back from your editor, you're like, yeah, I knew that part wasn't quite right. Kaelyn:           30:09   Very rarely do I get, um, you know, Rekka: 30:11   Shock and surprise. Kaelyn:           30:14   Of like no, that was perfect. Rekka: 30:14   That's exactly how I pictured it. Kaelyn:           30:16   Yeah. Um, very rarely. Um, writers I think don't give themselves enough credit a lot of times for how aware of the strengths and weaknesses of their own books they are. Rekka: 30:26   Well, so often I go to my editor because I've gotten to the point where I know something's funky about it, but I don't know where the smell is coming from. Kaelyn:           30:34   Every time I get a draft back from Ruz, the note in the draft is something like that. Just take it. Rekka: 30:39   I never want to look at this again. Kaelyn:           30:42   Um, yeah, exactly. Rekka: 30:44   Sorry. I thought it was talking about myself. Um, Kaelyn:           30:47   Oh, so that's not just him. That's all of you. Rekka: 30:49   All of us. Well that's what I'm saying. You know, like, yes, we, we know something is wrong, but the, when the relief we feel when the editor pinpoints, the thing that we couldn't see is amazing. The editor's job is to wipe the petroleum off the lens so you can see in sharper detail like where the work needs to happen. Kaelyn:           31:11   Yeah. And bringing it back around is that okay when you're doing a second, third X number book, especially within the same, um, you know, at the same trilogy or just in the set, in the same world with maybe the same characters. Um, the editor is going to be involved a lot more from the beginning. Now, you know, as Rekka says a lot of times that's exciting and that's a good thing to have. Um, but I would like to point out that this is somebody now who, I was joking before, you're legally obligated to take their opinions into account, but you're legally obligated to take their opinions into account. Because here's the thing, if I guarantee you in your contract, there is a clause that says we're not publishing this if we're not happy with it. Rekka: 31:58   Right. I mean, okay - Kaelyn:           31:59   Acceptance of the manuscript is, is a big, it's a short clause that it's got big implications. Rekka: 32:09   Yeah. Kaelyn:           32:09   And you know, I'm not trying to say this to scare anyone, like, well, if I don't do exactly what they say, they're going to cancel my contract. It's not that. And if you're working with somebody who would do that, you probably don't want to be publishing with them, but you have to take into account that yes, your editor is your editor and they're on the creative side rather than the business side of this. But at the end of the day, there's probably a sales and marketing team behind them that is saying, look, for the sake of argument, let's pretend that you know, the book has already come out your first book. And they're saying it's sold to really well in this demographic. Um, the feedback we're getting, people really like this part. Rekka: 32:55   All of our five stars come from this genre reader. Kaelyn:           32:58   Exactly. They're not going to make you rewrite everything based upon that. But that is absolutely something that will be taken into account. So if they're saying, look your books - Rekka: 33:10   If you lean away from that group of readers. Kaelyn:           33:13   Maybe your book was borderline YA and the YA community just pounced all over it and this became, you know, a runaway success within that group. But then book two is taking a really hard left. Rekka: 33:27   Or it takes place 20 years later and they're no longer any youths to be. Kaelyn:           33:32   Yeah, actually that's interesting. You'd probably get around that. Say this is the thing, if you pose these things to me, I'm going to try and come up with solutions for them. Um, but it's taking a really hard left into something that is not going to appeal At all to the large readership of the first book. That's going to be a conversation. Rekka: 33:48   Right. I mean, so I always read that clause more as you phone in the manuscript. We are not going to print it, which is - Kaelyn:           33:59   Yes, that's an obvious implication. But there is that second layer of - Rekka: 34:02   Where you saw this going is not where - Kaelyn:           34:04   We're not sure we can get anyone to read this. Um, you know, if you are writing a book about, this is the thing, anything I say here, I'm going to put ideas in Rekka's head. Rekka: 34:17   Either that or you're looking around to my studio and you're going to get ideas and you're just going to end up describing one of my stories that I've already written. Kaelyn:           34:26   There's a lot of figurines around here I can. So if we, you know, if you're writing a book about like super powered, uh, teenagers, you know, trying living in their secret hideaway and trying to find out, you know, trying to gain contact with the aliens who made them this way or what have you. And uh, you know, we end on a, we've made contact with them. Let's see what happens. And then in the second book it turns out it's not aliens, it's Godzilla, but like actually Godzilla and like no aliens and it's, your editor is going to look at that and go, this is not what your first story was about and this is a trilogy. Rekka: 35:08   And this is not what your first story was setting up because each story is like, you know, your first sentence or into your first paragraph, your first book is going to earn you the readers for the second book. In fact, those are going to be, you know, the readers who care the most about what happens in book two because they've already read book one. Kaelyn:           35:24   And I think we kind of, you know, we want to give writer,s creators for that matter as much autonomy to, create the way that they see things going. Um, you know, you'll see on Twitter all the time like, and it's correct that authors are not obligated to readers. They are not there to write what you want them to write. Rekka: 35:53   It's not fan service. Kaelyn:           35:54   Exactly. I agree with all of that. But I will say that people who have invested time, money and emotional mental energy in your book deserve to not then be kicked in the ass. Rekka: 36:11   So like if you're having an idea that's so far off the board from what you set up in your first book, just save that for the next series, you know? Kaelyn:           36:20   Or you know, I'm going to talk to you, your editor about it. I guess if there's like, if it's, if you planned that all along and you've, you know - Rekka: 36:25   And this is another thing, it's like if you know where that was going, if you planned it all along, make sure they know that before book one revisions are done because maybe they can help you set that up so it won't surprise and ass kick anybody. Kaelyn:           36:37   But again, you've probably already talked to your editor about this. And so again, this is where the accepted manuscript clause comes into play. Depending on how detailed you got and depending on you know, what their plan was for you and your book and your marketing and stuff. There may actually be specific things written into the contract about the book, which I know sounds like such a crazy micromanaging type thing to do Rekka: 37:02   But it's, it shows the more detail that you know about the series when you're signing the contract, the more detail will appear in the contract. You know, like if you don't know what, if you don't know that it's going to be a trilogy for sure, but they want your second book, they're going to say in an unnamed science fiction novel of no less than a hundred thousand words or whatever. But if they know that it's going to be the sequel, then it's a sequel set in the same world. Kaelyn:           37:28   Or yeah, they will put in their set in the same, you know, whatever legal words they're going to use. But world of the first book of this with the same characters with the same, you know, basically what they're doing is they're telling you we want more of this, Rekka: 37:41   We want more of exactly this. Um, don't pull a fast one on us. Kaelyn:           37:46   So if you come back with something that is completely not that they will, they're probably won't accept the manuscript. Rekka: 37:52   Well, they can just point to the contract and look, look, that's not what we bought. Kaelyn:           37:56   Yeah. It's not meant to be scary. I'm not trying to like freak anyone out by, uh, by saying this, you know, it's just something to keep in mind. Rekka: 38:01   And in fact, she really doesn't mean for this to be scary because the whole point of this episode is, Hey, you get to work with a buddy, you have a safety system. Kaelyn:           38:10   Exactly. Rekka: 38:10   And this, and somebody that you can just go, okay, I wrote this chapter. I can't tell if I'm hitting it, you know, and just like you can get a response back within a reasonable timeframe and it says, yeah, no, this is great. Keep going. And like who gives a thumbs up every now and then, like on demand is really awesome. Kaelyn:           38:28   Good job. Rekka: 38:29   And also correction, you know, like path correction. If you aren't really, you know, if if feel weak about it, is it nerves or is it really bad and your editor can tell you. Kaelyn:           38:40   Yup. So, um, Rekka: 38:42   Okay, but that okay, but here's the one thing that's weird about this whole process. Your editor before has seen you at your best. You're polishing the script now. Now you are, you are going to show them the piles of dirty laundry on the floor of your bedroom. Kaelyn:           38:55   No, no one is surprised by the curtain being pulled back. Rekka: 38:59   But it's different. Kaelyn:           38:59   It's different. Yes. Um, Rekka: 39:01   I definitely know that. I don't make my sentences, you know, they're not the final sentences in the first draft. Kaelyn:           39:08   Yeah. Um, no one is surprised by the current being pulled back here. That's not, you know, anything that is going to shock and horrify your editors. Anytime you get a draft back, there's going to be an understanding of how rough it is. You know, like if it's like, look, there are sentence fragments in here. There are parts where I trailed off and started drawing in pictures of the pizza I was going to eat after this. Rekka: 39:29   There's pizza inside. Kaelyn:           39:31   So there's expectations there. There's realistically adjusted perceptions Rekka: 39:37   But it is weird too, to feel like you were on your best behavior and now suddenly like this is, this is you with it all hanging out. And not only that, but like you're coming to them with a little bit of like, Oh, I don't know, like I need help with this. Like not only like did you pretend to have it all together and know where the series was going when you sign the contract. Um, now like they're seeing it at its scrappiest and, and you are asking for like, what should I do next with this? Kaelyn:           40:05   Yeah, yeah. Rekka: 40:06   But conversations you have are going to be so exciting and ideas thrown back and forth and all that kind of like, they want this to be the best. Kaelyn:           40:14   I mean, my favorite part of editing books is, is the plot. Um, you know, Rekka: 40:19   So that's good for people who need help with the plot. Kaelyn:           40:22   Yeah. Yeah. That's, um, my absolute favorite thing is I'll ask Ruz if maybe it's okay if I put a picture online of like one of the things that I sent him, but um, it's like I love just getting a piece of paper sitting down, writing out this happens, this happens drawing arrows and circles and dots and you know, paragraph on the back of each one explaining what each one was to be used as evidence in court against us. But I love doing that and I end up with some truly bonkers looking pieces of paper but it's, it's so much fun. Rekka is far more organized. She has post-its and, Rekka: 40:57   Thumbtacks and index cards. Kaelyn:           40:57   Spreadsheets, and color-coded index cards. Rekka: 41:02   So this does make me feel like we should add the caveat of you are working directly with a lot of unagented authors. Kaelyn:           41:13   Yes, yes we are. Parvus has a lot of unagented authors. If you have an agent, however you're going to be working with them a lot. Rekka: 41:22   Yeah. This, this might be a process while you are on submission with the first book, which again, same, same issue where the editor at the publisher may cause some the catastrophic ripples. But you can still work with a buddy and you might even get the buddy system in a little bit earlier in the process. Kaelyn:           41:42   Yeah, agents over the last few years, I would say probably, especially within the last decade, but before that as well have really taken on much more of an editorial role. Rekka: 41:53   And not all of them still not like there are plenty that are pretty hands off once you've sold the property. Kaelyn:           41:58   But um, you know, it's very normal before, you know, when an agent takes you on as a client and you decide what they're going to try and sell for you, it's very normal for them to give editorial suggestions and direction. Rekka: 42:11   When we talk to Caitlin McDonald, she said that she will probably go over a story at least twice. Kaelyn:           42:16   Yeah, exactly. And um, you know, depending on the agent, how polished it's going to be when, you know, they try to sell. It probably depends partially on who they're trying to sell it to and um, what editors, they know, how they work and what they're going to be looking for. But for your other books, again, it depends, varies agent to agent. Rekka: 42:36   I know authors whose agents will definitely be editorial for the book that goes on submission. But after that they don't want to steer the, uh, the author and the incorrect direction when the editor might come back and, and - Kaelyn:           42:49   Yeah, they'll kind of go, well that's you and your editor. That's, you know, what your - Rekka: 42:52   You can copy me on big conversations. Kaelyn:           42:54   Exactly. Yeah. You know, again, it depends so much of this, this industry is so subjective depending on how the person works. Rekka: 43:00   Because there's every person in the mix as a different ingredients and you don't come up with the same, I mean, no book is, you know, direct copy of another. Kaelyn:           43:09   From my perspective, every author is different. Rekka: 43:12   Right. Well that's what I'm trying to say is that each author, each editor, each agent are different personalities with different preferences. And by combining those things, you get a chemical reaction that results in a different kind of book than it would with different ingredients and different people. Kaelyn:           43:26   Yeah. No, and I've mentioned this in previous episodes where we've talked about editorial kind of stuff. And I will say, as I said before, this is me, I can be pretty flexible with how I work. So I try to work with how things work best for the author. If they want to talk to me a lot about this kind of stuff, I am thrilled and over the moon to talk to them. If they really just kind of want to go off into their corner, work on it and come back to me when they have something, that's fine too. Um, you know, I will, they do have to tell me how it is. Rekka: 43:59   Well, yeah. So suppose you, Before they start writing this draft, they've probably already talked to you about the outline. Kaelyn:           44:04   Well that what I mena, and even with the outline, if they want to go into the, you know, go off into their corner, figure out how they do and then come back to me with it. Um, or if they want to talk once every couple of weeks or you know, text me about, that's fine too. I as the editor try to be a little more flexible. I know not everyone does that. I think they try to, if they can, they'll make any reasonable accommodations. Um, Rekka: 44:28   Reasonable accommodations. Like we said, this is, you know, professional situations, still would, it shouldn't devolve into unprofessional like demands on the either side. Kaelyn:           44:32   Oh yeah, yeah, exactly. Um, but anyway, the whole point is that, you know, everyone works differently. If I can help accommodate someone to, so that I can get the best possible book out of them. Of course I'm going to do that. Rekka: 44:53   Yeah. New Speaker: 44:54   On that note, uh, one of the things a good editor knows how to do is cut things off when they're taking too long. So, uh, we've been talking for a bit and I think we've said, I think we covered everything we need to. Rekka: 45:04   A couple of chapters that are coming out. Kaelyn:           45:05   Yeah. Yeah. We'll, we'll do some editing of our own. Rekka: 45:08   We'll blend that, that information into the rest of it. Kaelyn:           45:11   Yeah. So, um, you know, that was a kind of just talking about the difference between writing your second book in a trilogy first your first and we just, we keep saying trilogy just because - Rekka: 45:20   So what we're really referring to is writing a book under the direct supervision of the editor rather than writing a book you hope an editor will buy. Kaelyn:           45:29   Um, we just keep saying trilogy because it's so industry standard at this point. Rekka: 45:33   It is pretty typical. Although, you know, like not always, a lot of really successful stuff become long running series. Kaelyn:           45:39   Yeah and um, I don't know if you've noticed this, but um, again, especially in YA, I'm noticing it's quadrilogies, now we've moved away where, we're upping the stakes here. Rekka: 45:50   Well, I think you see this a lot in um, you know, film and TV also if something's working, give us more of it to sell it to the crowd that already loves it because they're going to show up for it. And it's like, it's very business, salesy minded, but like, hey. Kaelyn:           46:08   Don't you want to sell books? Rekka: 46:09   I mean, think of the, it's not new. Think of the Foreigner Series by CJ Cherry, you know, like this long running series. Nobody says no to them if they're selling, right? So if you've got a built in audience, then you could probably talk your publisher and do a few more series Kaelyn:           46:25   There are series that will go until the author decides time to stop. Rekka: 46:29   Or they die. Kaelyn:           46:30   Or they die. Rekka: 46:30   Then they bring in a second author to work on that series and keep working on it until they say stop. New Speaker: 46:36   es. So, um, anyway, so that was, you know, about working with an editor verse working on your own. Um, hopefully that didn't completely, hopefully that came off not scary. Rekka: 46:50   See, like I said, I see a lot of hope in and um, this is a collaboration now. Kaelyn:           46:56   Yeah, definitely. Rekka: 46:57   You know, so I see a lot of hope in that. It's a very lonely thing to write a book. It's a very lonely thing to write a book. You don't know if anyone will like. So when you can have someone saying, you know, this is working, this is working or you know what, it would be working if we did address this and your editor is not going to write the book for you. So it's not taking away your autonomy. Is it not taking away your creative control, it's just going to steer you towards success both story-wise and hopefully like, you know, sales wise because again, you're both in this because you hope the book will sell in a way that has a return Kaelyn:           47:30   Yeah, exactly. So, um, thank you so much everyone for listening. Um, as always, you can find us online. Rekka: 47:38   Yup. We are @WMBcast on Twitter and Instagram. Send us your questions there. You can post them straight onto our wall if you are happy to have those questions, you know, identified under your name. If you are asking a question anonymously, you can DMS on Twitter. They are wide open. So uh, come on in and ask us your publishing, writing and everything in between questions and we'll address them in future episodes. We'll either, if they're a big topic, we can, um, you know, pick those out and do entire episodes or we can - Kaelyn:           48:09   We are open to suggestions. Rekka: 48:10   Yeah. And we, yeah, definitely. But we can also do like a listener questions episode again. We've done one of those after Submissions September. Kaelyn:           48:16   Maybe we'll wrap up the year with that. Rekka: 48:18   Yeah. Maybe a 2019 listener questions a year end review kind of thing. Yes. Um, yeah. So send us your questions. We need them now that we've announced that player in that and you can find us at patreon.com/WMBcast and your support would be greatly appreciated to help us run this podcast and the quality to which you have become accustomed. We appreciate you listening and we especially appreciate folks who leave reviews on Apple podcasts and they've finally decided it's called Apple podcasts. Kaelyn:           48:48   That was, that took a while to. Rekka: 48:50   That did take a while, well they waited for the Apple like, um, event in September and we were waiting to find out what that was going to be. So thank you again for listening and we will talk to you again in two weeks.    

Hi everyone, and thank you for tuning in to another episode of the We Make Books Podcast - A podcast about writing, publishing, and everything in between! November is (somehow) just around the corner and for a lot of people in the writing community it’s that magical time of year: NaNoWriMo!  In this episode, we talk about all aspects of this highly anticipated month.  What is NaNoWriMo?  How and when did it start?  What do you have to do to participate and what should you have when you are finished?  Rekka and Kaelyn take a deep dive into what to expect during NaNoWriMo, plus offer some important Thanksgiving-while-writing tips. We Make Books is hosted by Rekka Jay and Kaelyn Considine; Rekka is a published author and Kaelyn is an editor and together they are going to take you through what goes into getting a book out of your head, on to paper, in to the hands of a publisher, and finally on to book store shelves. We Make Books is a podcast for writer and publishers, by writers and publishers and we want to hear from our listeners! Hit us up on our social media, linked below, and send us your questions, comments, concerns, and tell us if you are planning to participate in NaNoWriMo so we can cheer you on! We hope you enjoy We Make Books! Twitter: @WMBCast  |  @KindofKaelyn  |  @BittyBittyZap Instagram: @WMBCast  Patreon.com/WMBCast       Kaelyn: 00:03   Hey everyone, welcome back. Another episode of the, we make books podcast to show about writing, publishing and everything in between. I'm Kaelyn Considine and I am the Acquisitions Editor for Parvus Press. Rekka: 00:12   And I'm Rekka. I write science fiction and fantasy as RJ Theodore. Kaelyn: 00:21   And today is a learning episode for me. We're talking about NaNoWriMo today or national novel writing month. And this is a little embarrassing for me to admit, but I did not actually know a whole lot about this. I knew it was a thing that happened. I knew it was a massive community event. There's, you know, November my Twitter feed is just covered in hashtag NaNoWriMo and I knew what the, the goal was. I know what was kind of going on here, but outside of that, I really did not know too much about the ins and outs. So, um, Rekka has some expertise in this - Rekka: 00:51   I am a municipal liaison for my NaNoWriMo region, um, which if you don't even know what that means, we'll go into a little bit in episode. And, uh, so yeah, I, I, you know, I pitched to Kaelyn like, Hey, last episode of October, people are going to be looking forward to NaNoWriMo, but there are also people who have no idea what it is and they're seeing everyone in a flurry talking about it right now. Kaelyn: 01:17   And then I raised my hand and said, yes, I'm one of those people. Rekka: 01:19   Yes, exactly. So yeah, we, um, we decided, we covered this, uh, this will be like an evergreen episode unless something major changes with the NaNoWriMo program. But, um, yeah, it happened. Kaelyn: 01:31   You never know. Rekka: 01:31   It could happen. So this will probably be our one NaNoWriMo episode, um, unless we decide to come back in maybe in, uh, December of another year and saying, okay, now what do you do with your NaNoWriMo project? We'll talk about that more in this episode, but yeah, this is a definition, uh, pros and cons. Uh, then what do you do kind of conversation. And, um, hopefully if you are excited about NaNoWriMo, you will just enjoy hearing somebody else talking about it. And if you don't even know what NaNoWriMo is, then I'm, hopefully you'll learn. And maybe, you know, by planning your own project. Kaelyn: 02:06   So by the end of the episode, you'll know, so, um, everyone take a listen, uh, hope you as always, hopefully educational and informative. Rekka: 02:12   Don't tell them it's educational, thy'll stop listening. Kaelyn: 02:17   That's a good point. Yeah. No, no, nothing, nothing of value in terms of - Rekka: 02:21   Fun and games, frivolity and skullduggery throughout the entire episode. Kaelyn: 02:26   Exactly. So I'm take a listen. We, uh, hope you enjoy Speaker 3:       02:39   [inaudible] Kaelyn: 02:50   NaNoWriMo, NaNoWriMo. [inaudible] so we're talking about, yeah. Rekka: 02:55   Do you want to start? Yeah, give us the whole background. Kaelyn: 03:00   Oh, I no, because I'm, I, uh, don't know too much about this. I know kind of the, the basics of it. I know what the goal is. I know, you know, it's a big sort of writing community event. Um, but even just from some of the things you've been telling me now, I had no idea it was so extensively organized. Rekka: 03:19   It's a whole thing. Kaelyn: 03:19   Um, there's this whole underground going on and - Rekka: 03:23   It's not that underground. Kaelyn: 03:24   No, it's not. It's not. And it's funny because you know, obviously like this time of year, Twitter blows up with all of this stuff and like I, you know, very aware that it's happening. I've just never really looked into it that much. I just know that I get the product of it typically. Rekka: 03:42   Okay, well we'll get to that. So NaNoWriMo is short for National Novel Writing Month and unlike national talk like a pirate day, this is not just like, Oh ha ha how cute for a lot of people this is like their big holiday season. Kaelyn: 03:57   Yeah. This is, I didn't like, again, I knew this was a very serious thing that people took very seriously. I did not realize the organization and planning that goes into this. Rekka: 04:08   Right. So to give it a little bit of background, it was begun by a few friends who lived in California and they decided that they would, um, just try writing a novel in a month. That was kind of the, the concept that kicked it all off. And so it started with 21 people in San Francisco Bay area in 1999. And then, um, Kaelyn: 04:37   Oh, so this is the 20th anniversary of this. Rekka: 04:40   Oh yeah, it is, isn't it? Kaelyn: 04:41   How appropriate that this is Episode 20. Rekka: 04:44   Oh. Kaelyn: 04:44   We did that on purpose. Absolutely. Rekka: 04:46   Okay. Did you feel that? I think I just felt like the universe tear a little. Um, so yeah. Yeah, I guess it's, it's the 20th anniversary of the very start of it. Um, it didn't go national until the following year when they put up a website for it. So in 2000 they um, they not only put up a website, but they moved it to November. So the first year was a July. Kaelyn: 05:12   Okay. Rekka: 05:13   So, um, they were in California. They don't even notice the difference between July and November. Kaelyn: 05:17   Well, certainly not in, in San Francisco. Rekka: 05:19   San Francisco. Yeah. So I'm a nice balmy, probably 72 degrees throughout the year and um, they didn't even notice, but they moved it to November because they figured for most people who are, at least in the Northern hemisphere, they will be looking for a way to avoid like gloomy, rainy, shorter days and stuff like that. Kaelyn: 05:41   November's a brutal month, November and February. Rekka: 05:42   The funny thing is they, they chose it on a month where typically people have at least a week of travel or holiday planning to deal with. Kaelyn: 05:54   Yeah, I was wondering about that actually. Rekka: 05:58   So I find that, well, one my family doesn't travel for Thanksgiving. Um, so I find that it's not really an interruption for me. If anything, there's usually a couple extra days off work during that week. And so I can take advantage of that. Um, people who have family come into town probably have a harder time of it because their life is disrupted, but for whatever reason, they felt that November the month of gloom amd Turkey would be Turkey for those of us who celebrate Thanksgiving in the U S they've felt it would be the, uh, the proper month to choose. So the second year they had 140 participants. Kaelyn: 06:41   Okay. Rekka: 06:42   So not bad growth from 21. Kaelyn: 06:44   No it's pretty good. Rekka: 06:45   But, um, yeah, by a few years ago they had about half a million people. So it's been growing. And then of course by word of mouth, as everyone gets excited and talks about it, they um, they draw more people in. I think it's probably the best organic marketing campaign that anyone could have. Um, ironically it's a 5013- C nonprofit organization, but they do help, um, kids in schools get interested in writing through their young writers program. Kaelyn: 07:18   Yeah. Rekka: 07:18   The NaNoWriMo itself is free to participate in, they collect donations, so if you donate to them through their website, your avatar on that site has a halo slung over one corner. So in theory, anyone with internet access can participate in the community. I've heard of plenty of people who do NaNoWriMo without ever logging onto the website as well. Kaelyn: 07:41   Yeah. Because it's not, well, and we'll get into this a little bit, but it's something that can just be done entirely independently. You just declare, I am doing NaNoWriMo and then you do NaNoWriMo. Rekka: 07:53   And then you sit down and you figure out how you're going to do it. You figure out how you're going to do your word count. I mean, I know people who handwrite in a notebook, their 50,000 words for NaNoWriMo, which makes my wrist scream in agony at the thought. But for some people still have limber carpal tunnel ligaments then. Kaelyn: 08:09   Well, yeah, because they're writing everything. They're not typing. Yeah. We haven't destroyed all of their - Rekka: 08:16   Well, yeah. And mousing. You can participate through the website, you can choose not to. Um, but one of the advantages that I love about NaNoWriMo and why I think it's so successful is that, you know, so many people online who are participating. So people who are good friends of yours in person may show up and write with you in person at write-ins, uh, at libraries, cafes, you know, wherever people take over to sit and write for a while. And then, um, you know, you might have friends that you've never met but are also participating in NaNoWriMo online that you can, uh, do community challenges through the NaNoWriMo or through Twitter or Facebook, Slack groups, discord, you know, whatever. And then, um, you have people that you meet by doing NaNoWriMo. So it's community reinforcing, but also community building. And I think that's the power of NaNoWriMo is one, just the general excitement that you are not alone in attempting this feat. Rekka: 09:20   And the support I think is probably incredibly important. The other half is that it's community building as well. So you meet people who have similar passions to you. You know, writing, you meet other people who write in your genre. You might even meet people who beta read your novel for you when, when your draft is done and help you refine it and move it toward completion. So it's a great resource to motivate yourself, but it also can be a great resource for finishing your manuscript once your draft is done. So NaNoWriMo started, as I said, with one month that moved to November. And then what about the rest of the year? Or for people in other hemispheres who, um, you know, their dreary month is, you know, July or April, you know, so there is also camp NaNoWriMo, which of course belies the fact that it's four people in another year by making it sound like a summer event. Rekka: 10:18   But, um, essentially, you know, this is a very, um, Northern hemisphere Western hemisphere centric event and it probably always will be. Um, it's been better about recognizing that people are all over the world. They've got regions all over the world, but it's, it's definitely still got a us centric mindset. And um, so in April when you used to have script frenzy, you know, have the first Camp NaNoWriMo, so this is 30 days, um, in which you set your own goal. It's, it's a much more casual NaNoWriMo project. In theory, in November you were writing at least 50,000 words, but for camp NaNoWriMo, you can go as low as 10,000. Kaelyn: 11:00   Okay. Rekka: 11:00   So if you just wanted to write some poetry or short stories and you wanted to do it at a slower pace, you could say, I'm going to write a, you know, a 3,500 word short story every week for April. Kaelyn: 11:15   That's still a pretty steep undertaking. Rekka: 11:16   That's still a pretty decent undertaking, um, and that would land you with something. I'm doing the math in my head poorly, like 17,000 words or something like that. At the end of the month. Kaelyn: 11:26   14. Rekka: 11:26   Yeah. See I told you before that I went to art school and I'm a writer so that I can avoid these number things. Kaelyn: 11:32   Yeah. Yeah. Rekka: 11:33   Um, so you a can set your own goal. You go to the website, it's definitely not as active, like there's little cute stuff on the website throughout the month, but it's, the community is a lot quieter on social media where you might have experienced tons of sprints on Twitter and a word Wars, whatever you'd like to call them. Um, and then you know, your friends on Facebook are talking about how they're doing their, um, talking in your discord, chat room server, whatever the term is about the progress they're doing and you're all rooting for each other. Rekka: 12:12   Camp NaNoWriMo in April for 30 days and in July for 31 days is a lot more low key. So you pretty much on your own, I've found you might have a friend or two that are doing it. And I've seen a lot of people release themselves from the deadline pretty early in the month. Kaelyn: 12:30   It's not as organized and community driven from what I've seen as NaNoWriMo. Rekka: 12:37   Yeah. I mean all the functions are there on the website so that you can track it. But, um, I'm very curious to see how this goes because their new website that they just rolled out allows you to track projects throughout the year so you can go in and set a goal. And they started to do this on the last version after, I think last year. But you can start tracking goals throughout the year and you can set them, you can add your word counts to them, you can set deadlines and it will show you, you know, how you're progressing towards your deadline throughout the calendar year. Rekka: 13:09   So I wonder if camp NaNoWriMo is actually going to fade as a result of that or maybe be combined into one other, I mean, this is me just speculating. Kaelyn: 13:17   Yeah. Rekka: 13:18   I mean by keeping, you know, keep your eyes peeled because I think there will probably be some changes to the, the events throughout the year. But as of this moment, you have three NaNoWriMo events, two camps and one big national. You know, um, everyone has a project that they've been keeping in their back pocket for this. Some people start to plan and outline ahead of it so that they're ready to go. People are telling their friends and family, they do not exist in November, um, that they will, uh, you know, come downstairs for the Turkey dinner at 2:00 PM on, on Thanksgiving day and then they will go back to upstairs to the room. Kaelyn: 13:55   I retreat to my cave or my attic. Rekka: 13:57   And so, um, so yeah, so November really if you want to participate and feel the full blast of the furnace, that is the NaNoWriMo experience. Um, I definitely recommend participating in November and find a local writing group because, uh, showing up in person really does make a difference for your productivity. I used to not go to the events because like I said, I'd have to drive an hour or more to get to the event. The event was two or three hours, I think it was two. And then, um, I would drive an hour or more to get home and I was like, well, in those six hours I could be writing more words, except I wouldn't because life would get in the way. So, um, so it really does help to just go and it's also, there is nothing that compares with the feeling of writing in a room where everyone is writing and, um, there's just like this buzz of everybody focused on the same task, that really is incredible. Rekka: 14:47   Um, I'm sure it's the, the theory behind the open working space, a bullpen environment. Kaelyn: 14:55   Oh not that. Rekka: 14:55   But let's, let's not, don't get me wrong, I'm not encouraging that. But um, if everyone is silently writing, then yes, maybe that works. Um, one thing I will mention is that for people who have to write in nontraditional ways for health reasons or, or other productivity reasons, um, it's not going to be a friendly environment. If you are a dictation writer, you know, and it's not going to be a friendly environment. Um, if you need, you know, audio output from your computer as you work, um, or you know, that sort of thing. Um, hopefully all your writings, I know I always try to make them as accessible as possible. Um, I've stopped going to cafes where you had to go up a little staircase to a really cute little loft because it means that people who have, you know, um, crutches or wheelchairs can't attend and stuff. So, um, hopefully all the municipal liaisons around your area take the same efforts to make sure that everyone can come. Kaelyn: 15:51   What typically is the goal at the end of NaNoWriMo when you have done all of this, what quote unquote should you walk away with? Rekka: 16:00   Uh, so the thought is that you can write a book in a month. I mean, a novel in a month. That's national novel writing, not national, write a bunch month. It's national novel writing month. So the goal is to complete a novel in a month, start to finish. In theory, you would not have a draft that you've already begun. Um, and in theory you would write the end on November 30th. Kaelyn: 16:27   Okay. Rekka: 16:28   The metric they use is word count. So the goal of the month to quote unquote, when NaNoWriMo, um, you would have 50,000 words at the end of the month, the goal of 50,000 words is attainable, if you write 1,667 words per day. Kaelyn: 16:50   Okay. Rekka: 16:50   So that will get you to 50,000 in 30 days. So there is a pace that's set by that and there are bar charts and um, estimators that will tell you like at this pace you'll finish on kind of thing. Kaelyn: 17:08   Yeah. Rekka: 17:09   You can sort of see how you're doing, see if you're falling behind, all that kind of stuff. And the number that they came up with is based on literary, uh, great American literary novels, Grapes of Wrath, and Of Mice and Men, so on and so forth. Um, so if you've ever been handed one of those books in a classroom or picked it up in the library and read it for summer reading, because that's typically where all these novels exist in your life, is in some sort of educational format. Um, you know that these are not the same size as the trade paperbacks you pick up at the store. Kaelyn: 17:44   Yes. Rekka: 17:45   And I think that's an important thing to note is that if you follow the letter of the, you know, goal for NaNoWriMo, you are probably not going to end up with what most people would consider a full size book. Kaelyn: 17:59   You are going to end up 10,000 words short of what my publishing company accepts for novels. Rekka: 18:06   For genre fiction. Kaelyn: 18:08   Yes. So yeah, so 50,000 words is 10,000 words shy of the 60,000 minimum. That a lot, not just Parvus of us but a lot of publishing - Rekka: 18:16   That's pretty standard. Rekka: 18:17   Um, yeah, it's about 200 pages provided that the story is done. When you have your 50,000 words, you are going to have to trunk it or expand it if you want to submit it. Kaelyn: 18:31   With something like NaNoWriMo, um, one of the things I would imagine can be very stressful for people participating in it is, is a lot of pressure and it's, some people don't write well under a deadline, right? Rekka: 18:47   Some people Excel at it. And I think those are the people who tend to love NaNoWriMo and love what it can do for their productivity. Kaelyn: 18:54   Some people, I would imagine this would be an incredibly stressful. Rekka: 18:58   Oh yeah. Kaelyn: 18:58   Thing for them that is not necessarily going to produce the best possible version of what they want to write. Rekka: 19:05   1,667 words a day takes discipline, but it also takes rearranging your schedule. Kaelyn: 19:12   Yes. Rekka: 19:12   For some people, um, it's not just, Oh, I will sit down and write those words with this copious amount of free time I have. Kaelyn: 19:19   There's unseen hours that go into this, of thinking about what you're going to write. A lot of people don't just sit down and magically have these words pour out of them. Rekka: 19:28   So if you don't have the time in your life to think about what you're going to write in your next writing session, chances are part of your writing session is going to be given over to switching from your, like Bruce Wayne mode into your Batman mode. Kaelyn: 19:40   Mmmhmm. Rekka: 19:41   And so that's not necessarily going to be something that you can maintain after November. So that's another criticism I've heard is like, people wear themselves out to get these 50,000 words and then that's it. And they write once a year for 30 days in extreme dash and then they don't write for the rest of the year, which is not a fantastic way to strengthen your skills as a writer. Like writing every day is not something that everyone can do 100%. It's exhausting and just like working out the rest of the process. Kaelyn: 20:21   Your time, your schedule. Rekka: 20:21   You need to take a break so you can come back fresh and um, and write, well if you write every day, every day, every day, and that's all your spare time, then you become a husk of human being in a way. And you know, you're writing probably suffers because you don't have any inspiration in your life. You just have output and you need time for input as well. Kaelyn: 20:41   Right. Rekka: 20:43   So writing under extreme deadline means that you don't have time to take that rest between, um, you know, writing sessions if you need to. Uh, it does mean that you have an expectation of finishing something and maybe that kind of drains the joy out of just being present in the moment of the words you're writing. Now, if you are focused on your word count and say you start off great, like day one, day two, maybe you hit your quotas, no problem. Maybe you're ahead of them. And then day three, you know, you have dinner with family so you're not even home when you would normally be writing. And then day four you're like, okay, well I've just got to make up double quota and I, it wasn't so bad this first two days, so I'll just make up. Rekka: 21:28   And then day four, something else happens. And then day five, maybe it's a Monday and you're back at work and you were hoping that you might, might be able to hit your regular quota only now you've got like a couple of days on top of that so you can start to really pile up and add to the anxiety of things. Honestly, the best time I ever had writing for NaNoWriMo was, um, when I was 100% ahead of my quota every day. And it's just not a situation that happens for 100% of the people and there's no way to control it, really. The reason that I was ahead, that particular NaNoWriMo was because I was the, became that year the municipal liaison for my NaNoWriMo region because now that it's so big, they break it up into regions and then they have local people who lead in person write-ins wrangle the people in that area, encourage them, send out messages to them to, you know, inspire them, remind them of events and all this. Rekka: 22:27   So when I was municipal liaison for the first year, it was also the first year that I attended every single writing and I was encouraging people online and I really thought that your was going to actually make it harder for me to hit my goals because I thought that I'm writing the newsletters to the people and I'm driving to the write ins was going to take away from the time I would otherwise be writing. But instead what it did was like, give me a motivated, like, like super powered focus. And so when I got there, I was leading writing sprints, which are timed sessions, kind of like Pomodoro method except you know, it can be a little bit of friendly competition. You just write, you know, fingers ablaze or whatever keyboard, whatever your method of writing is. Um, you just do that for whatever the time are set for you. Rekka: 23:24   Usually 20 to 30 minutes seems to be pretty comfortable for people. And then like, you know, when you get to the end of your right and sometimes you have like spare change minutes, so you'd do like five minutes or 15 minutes or whatever you can fit in. And then at the end everybody calls out, you know, how many words they wrote. And um, you know, that Pomodoro technique for some people works really, really well. And then you also get built in breaks to like stretch your fingers, get up as opposed to staring at the keyboard and saying, I'm writing for three hours, which is a lot. Kaelyn: 23:55   It is, well doing anything for three hours, is uh. Rekka: 23:58   Yeah, it's tough. I mean there's a reason that, you know, school classes in high school were like, what, 40 minutes for a class because that was about all you, the teacher was going to get out of you before you needed to get up and walk around to your next class, go to lockers. Kaelyn: 24:11   Actually in high school we had block scheduling. So our classes were an hour and 40 minutes each and it was brutal. So yeah, I mean even doing something for like two hours nonstop without a break that can, that's very mentally fatiguing. Rekka: 24:27   Yes, yes. So that's the, the idea is that the um, you know, the write-ins give you not just the community but also like some structure and it really worked for me and I live in a very strange, narrow is North, South, you know, column of a region where it's, you can't just drive directly across one corner to the other because of Connecticut roads. You know, you have to take a highway in the wrong direction for a while and, and make the next one and, and, and make a 90 degree turn. And I really thought that all this commuting was going to cut into my writing time. But what I found was that having set scheduled writing time was really, really helpful and kept me motivated. And then when I did have 10 or 20 minutes throughout the rest of the day, even if I wasn't at a write in, I was already in the mode of writing for this because I was thinking about it daily as opposed to just on the weekends. Rekka: 25:20   So that's another warning is don't save all your quota and just do it on the weekends because that's a lot of words to make up for. That's a lot of pressure and it's a lot of pressure. And then if your weekend goes a little bit awry, like mine always do, you know- Kaelyn: 25:31   The candle thing goes wonky, that'll do ya. Rekka: 25:33   You end up out running errands for three hours in the middle of the day when you were supposed to be writing. So, um, that's tough. But for some people it's um, also tough to just get that time away from their family. Kaelyn: 25:47   How polished is what you're writing during this going to be, because my, I'm kind of looking at this thinking like, alright, you've written 50,000 words. These are probably not the best 50,000 words you're ever going to write. They're going to probably need some revisions, some work, some addition. Rekka: 26:05   That's kind of where I think a lot of folks split on their opinion of NaNoWriMo. Some folks love NaNoWriMo because it helps them get the words on the page. Some folks hate, loath, detestsNaNoWriMo because of the words that end up on the page and the quality thereof. Kaelyn: 26:30   Well, yeah, and that probably has a lot to do with just how you work. Is it a matter of, it doesn't have to be pretty, I just need to get it done Rekka: 26:38   Right. Kaelyn: 26:38   Because this is how I'm going to make myself get it done. New Speaker:  26:41   Yes. So when NaNoWriMo on the word count, because the idea is to prove to you that you can write that many words if you sit down everyday and do it, um, or if you budget out how you're going to do it through the month. Um, if you hit 1,667 words per day and you get to the 50,000, at the end of the month, the quality is entirely dependent on you. It's probably safe to say that the average NaNoWriMo 50,000 word draft is uh, one probably not done. You know, that person probably didn't get to the end of the story. Um, some of this is pacing yourself in terms of like how much to write proceed and how much to write per chapter. A lot of people do a discovery writing, so they just kind of sit down and they might have a character in mind or general plot arc, but they don't have a, a, an outline or a writing plan. Kaelyn: 27:42   So in this case then what their goal is is I have a character, I have an idea of a story. Let me see where this goes. I'm going to sit down and write about 1700 words a day and see how this. Rekka: 27:56   See how this ends up, right. Maybe freewriting is a, is a good term. I mean, most creative drafting is probably free writing once you get into it. It's just a matter of like, do you have a goal in mind to like, am I writing a scene where the character has to get to the bus stop? Because if they don't make this bus, they're not going to see their mother before she passes. Sorry everyone, that was pretty downer, but you know those kinds of tense moments or is this like my character works at a coffee shop and so I'm going to describe her day and you know, and all of those things are valid for your first draft. I suspect that the reason that those people who do not care for NaNoWriMo, I don't even know what to suspect. I can confirm that the reason that people don't like NaNoWriMo when they feel that way and when they feel strongly about it is because in December there are half a million people who have some form of a first draft of something that they now want to share. Kaelyn: 29:02   Yep. Rekka: 29:03   Some of these people choose to go ahead and self publish it right there. Okay, I do not recommend this. Kaelyn: 29:09   No. I would say go back and listen to all of our submissions, September episodes where we talk about is this ready to show to other people? Rekka: 29:18   Not only do people sometimes self-publish these books Kaelyn: 29:22   So wait, real quick, people actually sit down, write the 50,000 words through this, then take that in its exact form. Rekka: 29:31   Yup. Kaelyn: 29:32   And self-publish it. Rekka: 29:35   Yup. I think people are starting to get a little bit better about that now. Um, but it was definitely, and a NaNoWriMo has some sponsors and some of them are the companies through which you can self publish. I think create space before Amazon eight create space. Um, used to have a link on the winner's page, like com upload your draft, which is fine if you want to see it and hold it and read it and go over it again. But please don't list it for sale at this point. Kaelyn: 30:03   Well, who, um who is participating in NaNoWriMo? Because I kind of always understood it to be people very active in writing communities and um, I would think people who are very active in writing communities would know that this first thing that you've done is not ready to be seen by anyone. Rekka: 30:26   Right. So that is part of it. Um, yeah, we have, we have writers who are writers the rest of the year who participate in NaNoWriMo just because they know all their friends are working on it and you hear a lot, even through the rest of the year, like, Oh, I'm saving that for November, you know, like that's a, that's a novel I want to start in November, so I want to finish this other stuff first. Kaelyn: 30:49   Yeah. Rekka: 30:50   So that definitely is true. There are definitely people who are professionally or amateur and I don't mean amateur in the sense of not very good, but I mean amateur in the sense of does it for the love of it. Kaelyn: 31:01   Yeah. The actual literal definition of amateur. Rekka: 31:05   There are people who know what it is to write a book and they know what a book looks like when it's ready to be seen by other people. And they know about the process of editing and revising. There are also people who hear about NaNoWriMo on Facebook or whatever and they think, Oh, that's cute. I've always wanted to write a book. And it's, I think, and I do not mean to disparage any group of people, Kaelyn: 31:28   No, of course not. Rekka: 31:28   But I think it's that group of the, I've always wanted to write a book, people, um - Kaelyn: 31:34   Who are kind of coming into this without exposure to, well, pretty much anything that this podcast is about. The writing and publishing. Yeah. Rekka: 31:42   Right. So they may be enthusiastic readers, um, of any genre. Um, people participate in NaNoWriMo for any genre as well. Um, some people write poetry, some people write blog posts for their website and just use the word count, you know, to measure how they're doing. Um, if you wanna call that a work of, you know, collected articles, you can, you know, NaNoWriMo has gotten a little bit fuzzy. And I don't mean this in a negative way, but they have, they really started originally where you're writing a novel and it's fiction and it may or may not have, You know, speculative elements or fantasy, but generally it is a plot that you come up with, with characters that you come up with. Now there are people who write biographies and, and whatever. And the, the genres that you could choose from the dropdown menu on their website when you're setting up your project to track, um, has gotten a lot longer than it needs to be. Rekka: 32:47   It used to be like five or six things. Um, now, you know, screenplay is one of them where, you know, that's a very different kind of writing experience from writing a novel. And also it used to be separated out into its own event called script frenzy, which they no longer have. They've just absorbed scripts and other comic books and, and that sort of thing into their main events. Um, and they hold three a year. Kaelyn: 33:12   Okay. Rekka: 33:13   Um, so not only are there people who are self publishing these books, um, just releasing them into the wild and sticking - Kaelyn: 33:21   Go books! Be free! Rekka: 33:23   But no, not free. People are charging for their NaNoWriMo draft one. So I think that contributes to the very negative opinions some people have of the um, the community event because they see a plethora of unedited, unrevised unproofed un-beta, you know, Kaelyn: 33:46   Checked, anything. Rekka: 33:46   Um, just, it doesn't necessarily even have a illustration on the cover. It might just have the title, the title. Um, if you've ever seen like the, um, covers where there's like a couple of blocks of, of colors and then the, uh, um, the, the title across it in times new Roman or whatever. Um, so there are, there are usually a flood of those and people who work very hard to try and lift the, the, uh, reputation of self-publishing by putting in the effort are often very frustrated by this wave public - Kaelyn: 34:26   Well that's understandable, you know you never want to see, you know especially something that's a community that's trying to establish and build its reputation more. And then you get this, a flurry of people coming in and going, See I did the same thing you did and you're going, no, you didn't. Rekka: 34:39   Yeah. And I think maybe that's one of the criticisms or the lead, the root of the criticism is somebody who participates in NaNoWriMo throws mud against a wall in terms of the words that they put on the page. They hit the quota and then they say, I've written a book too. Kaelyn: 34:57   Yeah. Rekka: 34:57   When you know that's the tip of the iceberg. That's the, that's the outside impression of what it takes to write a book. It's the revisions and the editing and you know, going through the process of producing the book that is the unseen 90% of the iceberg. And you know - Kaelyn: 35:18   You know, because it's, you know, and as you said, not to disparage anyone in what they're doing, but someone who does NaNoWriMo writes the 50,000 words and says, okay, I'm done, is not doing the same thing as someone who says, okay, I've done NaNoWriMo. I've written a 50,000 words. I'm just getting started. Rekka: 35:34   Yeah. And so check that off. That's step one. Kaelyn: 35:38   Yeah. Rekka: 35:39   I've got almost a full manuscript that I will then reread on my own, try to improve as best I can, involve some beta readers at the very least a really clean it up and maybe query to an agent, start the, the entire process that is years in the making, not 30 days. So, um, you know, to that point, I think NaNoWriMo caught on a national novel writing month. The organization caught on that this was a negative aspect in a lot of people's minds about the event. So almost immediately after you finished NaNoWriMo, you are invited to participate in what they call the Now What Months. Kaelyn: 36:24   Great. Rekka: 36:24   And no, but it's a good thing. Kaelyn: 36:26   It's a very good thing. Rekka: 36:27   And there are plenty of editors and writers out there who have courses and guides for editing what you've written in your NaNoWriMo month and they're out there. They're free on people's blogs. Some people have, um, paid content and webinars and all this kind of stuff. Like people realize that there's a need for, for guidance of a new writer and what to do with these words that they've written. How to know if they're good, how to know if they can be salvaged or if they need to be tossed and just, you know, considered acute experiment or something like that. Um, so the now what months are they begin advertising them in December, but they don't really kick off until the new year, which is a good thing because it gives people to take the space to rest from the, um, madcap dash that they just participated in. Kaelyn: 37:20   Well and also, December in a chaotic month for a lot of people, for a lot of reasons. Rekka: 37:24   And your family is already mad at you for skipping out on Thanksgiving. Kaelyn: 37:26   You already went and sat and wrote in the middle of Thanksgiving. Rekka: 37:29   So, or you know, ignored your, your aunt and uncle who you only see this time of year to write this thing. So December, December is your month off, which is a good thing, I think in the process of writing a book. It's good to step away from it after you've finished the draft so you can come back to it with fresh eyes and then begin the process of editing and revising it. But that's not NaNoWriMo itself. It's just what you should do with your book when you're done with NaNoWriMo, whether you realize it or not. So if you create this drivel of a draft and it's 50,000 words that you should probably set on fire, why, why do people do NaNoWriMo is the question that usually comes up next like, okay, so you don't want to publish what you did. Why do it? Kaelyn: 38:15   Well, I mean I would just, you know, from my having never participated in this side of things, think of that it is getting you to sit down and just do the thing. Rekka: 38:28   And I think that's the intent is just to prove to people that you can write a thing. Kaelyn: 38:32   It's to prove to yourself even. Rekka: 38:33   Yes. I'm sorry. Like for people use to prove to themselves that they can write a thing. Kaelyn: 38:38   Um, there is, you know, we, we talked about earlier, there is this mentality of like if everyone is doing it, it's a motivating factor. It helps you kind of stay on track, stay involved, feel like you're not drifting alone out there doing this. And it's um, it's a big community building event as well. Rekka: 39:04   Yeah. As we listed like you can meet people, you can hang out with people you don't normally get to see, at least not this much and you can um, just participate in this. Um, you know that same thing I was talking about earlier with everyone focusing in one room, everyone focusing on the internet is also pretty thrilling. Kaelyn: 39:22   But you even, I think you kind of hit the nail on the head earlier. You called it like if this is like a holiday, people plan for this, they say like, I have a project that I'm saving for November and I think having a specific time where I'm going to do this at this time, one gives you a deadline to prepare for. Rekka: 39:42   Right. Kaelyn: 39:42   And I don't mean the deadline at the end of the month, I mean the deadline or the beginning of the month where it's like, okay, I kind of need to have this stuff figured out before I dive into this. I need to have plans setups so that I can dive into this. I need to have a schedule in place. And I think even just having that motivating factor is very important for getting started. Rekka: 40:06   You know, I talk about being a municipal liason on and having write-ins throughout the month, but we start earlier than that. Um, we have a, it, it hasn't even happened yet. So, um, you know, if you're listening to this on the 22nd, you're going, Oh, I've never heard of this, or I have heard of this, but I've never dared to enter. But I think this year's, I really wish I could, but it's October 22nd. It's too late. I've got to wait until next year. Kaelyn: 40:28   It's not too late. Rekka: 40:29   It's absolutely not too late. Um, if you don't mind a bit of discovery writing in your drafting process, you can just start on November 1st with, uh, you know, what if question and let everything unfold from there. Um, if you like an outline, it's still not too late as long as you can set aside like a day or two and maybe not even consecutively. Um, that's just my recommendation to write an outline, a quick outline. It doesn't have to be a fully fledged, you know, Rekka-style outline, which is what 500 words. Kaelyn: 41:05   Those are notorious. Rekka: 41:06   Um, so the, um, you know, you, if you can set aside a day to come up with your story plot and then set aside a day, a few days later to revisit it and see how it sounds, if you have any more ideas cause you've been thinking about it for a couple of days. So, um, what we do in my writing, uh, community, my local writing community is, uh, this one hour plot workshop and we're holding it on the 27th. So, you know, the 22nd is not too late to start this. Kaelyn: 41:35   No, definitely not. Rekka: 41:38   Yeah. There's, there's really no time that it's too late to start writing. Even if you come in halfway through a NaNoWriMo event, um, you may not hit the word count without, you know, breaking your brain over it. But, um, you know, creating this habit or participating is never a bad idea. No. But yeah, so we create this, um, or we have this one hour, a plot workshop, which is actually like two or three hours for the setup and chatting about it and answering questions and doing things, following, you know, a person who's leading you through this. But it is based on a book called The Busy Writer's one hour plot that's by Marge McAllister, which is an ebook that you can still find on Amazon. Um, and you know, you just go through and you, you start with the character, you start with one or however many you have and it just basically asks you like, okay, what do they want, what are their obstacles? Rekka: 42:31   Um, and what are three obstacles that they have to go through throughout the plot, you know, assuming a four X structure. And, um, and then at the end of going through that little plot program, you've got a loose, but you've structured, yeah, you've got a structure of a story that you can start writing. So, you know, at 25,000 words through your 50,000, you should be at that second obstacle. You know, things that you can sort of use to pace yourself at the very least and discovery, right, all the rest. Um, they welcome plot plotters as well as pantsers NaNoWriMo. Um, and there's even a book by, um, one of the founders of national novel writing month called no plot, no problem. So you can, you can definitely get started with just the barest idea of the story and um, and succeed from there. And you know, assuming that success is a 50,000 word draft and again, that you will take and develop further. Kaelyn: 43:30   So on my end, um, Parvus typically opens for submissions in the beginning of the year and - Rekka: 43:39   Which may be a mistake. Kaelyn: 43:41   Well, you know, the thing is that we, we usually open for submissions twice a year and we always get a lot more in the beginning of the year because everyone has just finished NaNoWriMo and not every one takes off December. Some people go straight into revising and editing. Rekka: 43:59   Um, and we love those people who revise and edit rather than just wait until January to dump it on your doors. Kaelyn: 44:03   Yes, yes. But, so we talked about this. Now what, here's the thing, your 50,000 word, NaNoWriMo writing project, that's not a book that's not ready to get submitted or sent in as we talked about, you know, that's 10,000 words shy of what a lot of places want for a minimum. Rekka: 44:25   A minimum, yeah. Kaelyn: 44:26   Right off the bat. So is this ready to show to anyone? Here's the thing, probably not. Um - Rekka: 44:33   Be very proud of it. Kaelyn: 44:34   Yeah! Rekka: 44:34   Like, don't, don't think that you should be ashamed of what you've just accomplished and - Kaelyn: 44:38   You absolutely should be proud of it. This is a, this is a feat. You have accomplished a feat. Rekka: 44:44   And you've proven to yourself that you can do this. Hopefully you haven't overtaxed yourself to the point where you feel like you need to collapse until next November to write again. Um, because you know, and that's just one of the criticisms that you get and they get some pretty nasty heated conversations about how if you only write once a year, you're not a writer. Um, those are judgments that we're not passing here, but we do suggest that your writing, um, skill will improve if you do it throughout the year as opposed to waiting once per year. So be proud that you have started. Kaelyn: 45:17   Absolutely be proud of what you've done. Rekka: 45:17   If this is your first, you've done projects, you have started, you know, hopefully you love it, hopefully you discovered your passion. If not, that's also an important thing to learn. If you found who are writing a draft kind of sucks. And I don't like doing this and like, you know what, and just you can just keep being a reader and feel no shame about it. You've discovered something about yourself and your, you know, where it's worth investing your time. So, um, you know, that's also a good thing. You can learn a lot about yourself in NaNoWriMo. You can also create a draft that maybe has a spark of something that you feel could develop into a full manuscript that you can send out on query or submission, but you don't do it right away. So, uh, yeah, 50,000 words too short to submit, at least to genre fiction. Kaelyn: 46:03   Most places aren't even - Rekka: 46:04   And almost definitely a need of some revising and attention. So, you know, you probably needed 1,667 words one day. And so you wrote about some coffee shop scene that doesn't even develop character. Kaelyn: 46:17   Rekka, do you need coffee? Rekka: 46:19   I always need coffee. Kaelyn: 46:20   It's a lot of, there's a lot of coffee shops, scenes here. I feel like you're trying to tell me something. It's fine. Rekka: 46:27   I'm trying to tell you that I always need coffee. Kaelyn: 46:29   It's fine. We'll get you coffee. Rekka: 46:30   For the record, I always want more coffee. Kaelyn: 46:33   So, um, well on that note, maybe we should go get you some more coffee. Rekka: 46:38   Okay, fair. But yeah, just to wrap it up, you know, like what is national novel writing month. It is a fully worthwhile community event that takes place online and in local writing groups. And there's probably a, you know, a region near you that you can, you know, go lump yourself onto and participate this year if you haven't before. If you don't have a region near you, you are absolutely invited to my region as like an expat or something or something like that. Kaelyn: 47:05   [laughs] An expat? Rekka: 47:05   Um, you can come find the region, you know, USA, Connecticut, Fairfield County. Okay. And you are totally welcome to come join and right remotely in my, you know, NaNoWriMo. Kaelyn: 47:17   I mean Rekka is doing it this year. Rekka: 47:19   So you know, if you're like, if you're unsure anm hey if it's your first time and you're inspired by this episode, let us know. We'd, we'd love to hear that. Kaelyn: 47:26   Especially if you end up joining a Rekka's writing community. Rekka: 47:29   Yeah. If I have an influx of people, yeah I will, that would love to know which ones are people who came in from the, from the podcast. You can tweet at us too, all through November. Let us know how you're doing if you were listening to this and inspired this. Kaelyn: 47:43   I think uh, Rekka will certainly be tweeting about this and how she's she's doing. Rekka: 47:47   Oh, so I should just touch on this real quick. Um, there is a category of NaNoWriMo participant called the nano rebel. Kaelyn: 47:52   Oh boy. Rekka: 47:53   And that's kind of what I technically am because this year I am trying to work on a manuscript that I already started earlier this year. Kaelyn: 48:02   [gasps] Rekka: 48:03   So I have 30,000 words of a novel, but I am going to write 50,000 more okay. Through the month. Um, heck if I can finish my draft in the month. So here's, here's my, my personal experience that month that I told you that was my first as a municipal liaison and I had no trouble staying ahead of my quota. And I, I didn't even say this, but I finished early. I finished six days early with 85,000 words of a. Kaelyn: 48:32   For those of you listening who haven't figured this out already Rekka's, not a person in the strictest sense of the word. We're pretty sure - Rekka: 48:42   I might just be a floating ball of plasma. Kaelyn: 48:45   We're pretty sure she's not carbon based. Rekka: 48:47   So, um, yeah, so I finished that draft 25 days, you know, 85,000 words, Chi-ching, aren't I awesome. I also rewrote that entire thing like four times and that became Salvage. Kaelyn: 48:59   Yup. Rekka: 48:59   So, um, so your over achievement in NaNoWriMo does not instantly, you know, spell success for your story. You, you, even if you are a writer all year round, and if even if you're a writer all year round, you probably will end up revising this thing a heck of a lot before you want to show it to anybody. So, yes, um Salvage was my 2016 NaNoWriMo project. It was 85,000 words after 25 days. And then it was revised several whopping times that probably took years off my life and came in at 163,000 words when it was done. So neither of those were 50,000 and a as complete stories. And I'd started with outlines and I, um, you know, saved this project for that month kind of thing. Great. Well I think that's really fantastic thing to do. So it's all about the community. Honestly. That's my exact part of NaNoWriMo and my use of it has changed since 2016 I write year round now trying to create new drafts of things. Rekka: 50:10   And very frequently I find that my scheduling just doesn't let me set aside like one specific month as determined by other people. Um, but I'm still the municipal liaison. I still love it. I still love going and working on whatever I'm working on with people doing, you know, 12 write-ins a month instead of the usual two that my, my community does. So it's so much fun. If you don't hinge your future writing career success upon your ability to write a Submittable draft in one month, then it's just hanging out with a bunch of people who love writing just as much as you do. And I definitely recommend it. Yeah. So, um, you know, I, I've learned a lot this episode. Um, hopefully you did too. And if you're, you know, if you're going to take part of, let us know, we'd be very interested to uh, to follow and cheer you on. Kaelyn: 50:57   Yeah. Cheer you on and see what, see what you come up with. Rekka: 51:00   And fold you into my community. Kaelyn: 51:02   Yes. Rekka: 51:02   Yeah. So this has been another episode of We Make Books, a show about writing, publishing and everything in between. You can find us on Twitter at WMB cast. We are also on Instagram at WMB cast. You can find our old episodes@wmbcast.com and if you have a buck or two to chip in to help us manage this podcast and uh thank us for our time. If you, especially if you find this, uh, as a very valuable resource, please come to patreon.com/WMB cast. And if you do not have financial support that you can grant us, you can still help us out a lot by sharing episodes that you enjoy with a friend who would also enjoy them. And, um, the easiest thing is just retweet our episodes when you see them pop up on Twitter. Kaelyn: 51:46   And, uh, also leave us a rating and review. Rekka: 51:48   Oh yes, yes. Probably the most important part. Kaelyn: 51:51   That's the most important. Rekka: 51:52   Which it always feels like the biggest ask of people. Like, could you please go say a nice thing. Kaelyn: 51:57   It doesn't have to be long. Rekka: 51:58   Just say what you like, you know, say like Kaelyn's voice. Kaelyn: 52:02   God, I hate my voice. Rekka: 52:03   Say you also like coffee. Say you're going to join a NaNoWriMo with us this year. So yeah. Um, ratings and reviews on iTunes. Help Apple. Find other listeners for our podcast, which is what we want. We want to talk to everybody. Kaelyn: 52:14   Everyone. Rekka: 52:15   Because we're extroverts somehow. Kaelyn: 52:17   Eh. Rekka: 52:18   All right, everybody, we'll talk to you in two weeks.    0

Hi everyone, and thank you for tuning in to another episode of the We Make Books Podcast - A podcast about writing, publishing, and everything in between! We’ve recovered from Submissions September and we’re back to our regular schedule this week!  And after going through the whole process of preparing and submitting your novel, we thought what better to talk about than what comes next?  Writing, editing, and publishing after your debut book is different in every way - the writing, editing, and even just coming up with the ideas are all changed this time around.  This week we talk about what it’s like on the other side of debut and what happens when you get the question “What are you working on next?” We Make Books is hosted by Rekka Jay and Kaelyn Considine; Rekka is a published author and Kaelyn is an editor and together they are going to take you through what goes into getting a book out of your head, on to paper, in to the hands of a publisher, and finally on to book store shelves. We Make Books is a podcast for writer and publishers, by writers and publishers and we want to hear from our listeners! Hit us up on our social media, linked below, and send us your questions, comments, concerns, and maybe a cute picture of your pet? We hope you enjoy We Make Books! Twitter: @WMBCast  |  @KindofKaelyn  |  @BittyBittyZap Instagram: @WMBCast  Patreon.com/WMBCast Rekka: 00:01   Welcome back to another episode of We Make Books, a podcast about writing, publishing and everything in between. I am Rekka, I write science fiction and fantasy as RJ Theodore. New Speaker:  00:10   And I'm Kaelyn. I am the acquisitions editor for Parvus Press. Rekka: 00:13   And today we are finally done with Submissions September. New Speaker:  00:18   We survived. Rekka: 00:19   We survived. Kaelyn: 00:19   It was touch and go there for awhile. Rekka: 00:21   Which you know. Okay. So this is funny timing on these episodes. We talk all about submissions in theory. By the end of submission September you've got a book deal. New Speaker:  00:29   Yes. Rekka: 00:30   So immediately what do you start working on? New Speaker:  00:33   Your next book. Rekka: 00:34   Something else, right. So this is what this episode pretty much boils down to is, Hey, um, whenever you have a break in the production of the book that is coming out next, make sure you're thinking about the book after that and we'll get into why and we'll get into how a little bit. Um, it's going to be personal, like whatever works best for you. But really, um, the advice in this episode is, um, is pretty sound. I think you've got to - New Speaker:  00:59   Yeah, it's um, it's a daunting prospect I think sometimes. Rekka: 01:04   Like, what do you mean I have to do that again? Yeah. Well the good news is at least submission. September will go differently the second time when you're selling it to a book or you're selling it to a publisher who already wants it. New Speaker:  01:13   Exactly. Yeah. Rekka: 01:14   That cuts out a lot of the anxiety and that sort of thing. Um, and you're moving into a like, yeah, I've done this, I know how this works kind of thing. And so you have a lot of insight. Um, you're a veteran now. You're, you're, you're wizened and sure enough the submission was seasoned and, and ready to hit the next one. In theory, you want to make a career of this. So a, that's what this episode gets into is what's next. You sold your book, um, submission, September ended in triumph and now, um, and now we look ahead to the next project. You stay creative, stay writing, stay drafting. New Speaker:  01:48   So, um, yeah, it's a little more of a, you know, I won't say emotional, but you know. Rekka: 01:53   I think it was pretty dry. I mean, this is just like, Hey, this is the, the truth of it. New Speaker:  01:57   Yeah. Rekka: 01:58   Thinking about it. This is the hard facts people. New Speaker:  02:00   Yup. Rekka: 02:00   So enjoy the episode. Here it comes. Speaker 2:       02:13   Music Rekka: 02:17   Now I've turned off the phone. New Speaker:  02:18   So the volume is up, the fan is off. I have tea, we're ready to go now. Rekka: 02:27   And were wearing sunglasses. New Speaker:  02:30   Is that a Men In Black reference? Rekka: 02:32   Blues Brothers. New Speaker:  02:33   Oh geez. I'm embarrassed. Rekka: 02:35   That you should be. New Speaker:  02:36   That was sad for me. Rekka: 02:37   Like I feel like you should represent Chicago even though you're mostly in New York. New Speaker:  02:41   I'm all New York. I've been - Rekka: 02:43   No your, your a little bit Philadelphia. New Speaker:  02:45   Oh yeah, yeah, absolutely. Well more of that. Like I've been to Chicago once and it was to go meet the Baker and Taylor people. Um, I flew there, sat in the United lounge with Colin and worked on stuff for five hours, got in an uber, went to the Baker and Taylor people, got an Uber, came back, had dinner, got on a plane. Rekka: 03:05   So you got there early and you just sat in the airport for five hours or was it? New Speaker:  03:08   Yeah the way the flights work you kind of, and it was also one of those like I'm just going to get up at four in the morning, get on literally the first flight out of LaGuardia because I do not want to risk that there is a problem and I get there late. Rekka: 03:20   Fair enough. New Speaker:  03:20   So yeah, we sat in the United lounge, got a lot done. It was super productive. Um, so that is all I've ever seen of Chicago. Rekka: 03:28   The United lounge, that's about it. I don't think there's really much more to it than that. New Speaker:  03:31   They had an excellent tea bar in there because, um, well I don't drink coffee. So usually like you go to those places, it's like, Oh, here's some hot water and a tea bag, I guess. Rekka: 03:40   Yeah. New Speaker:  03:41   They had honey and different kinds of sugar and mint and lemon and orange slices. Rekka: 03:46   Okay. I'm impressed when you get to mint, everything else. I was like, well that's just Panera. New Speaker:  03:50   They had fresh mint and it was um, do two different kinds of honey. I was very impressed. I was like, Oh, actual sugar cubes. Rekka: 03:59   Hmm. New Speaker:  03:59   Yeah. I don't know why I'm so excited about that. But it was, it was fun. Rekka: 04:02   You do drink tea. New Speaker:  04:03   Yeah. But I don't put sugar in it. Rekka: 04:05   But it's nice to know that someone's considered your tea drinking. Kaelyn: 04:09   Absolutely, yes. Rekka: 04:10   It's nice to be appreciated. New Speaker:  04:12   Because you coffee drinkers, you guys get all the - Rekka: 04:15   Oh no worries. Um, ever been at a gas station? New Speaker:  04:18   You guys get all of the like fancy stuff and like it's nice to see someone go, tea can also be fancy or - Rekka: 04:23   Are you just sad that there's no pumpkin spice now? New Speaker:  04:26   You know what? I'm not a big fan of that. Rekka: 04:30   Are you a tastes like soap person? New Speaker:  04:31   No, but I will say pumpkin bread. That's my jam. Rekka: 04:36   Well that's very different from a pumpkin spice tea. New Speaker:  04:38   I know. And I'm saying like it's - Rekka: 04:39   Not a coffee is not. New Speaker:  04:40   Yeah, I'm not into all that like pumpkin spice, whatever. It smells good. Rekka: 04:46   You know what? This is really topical for the first episode of October. I feel like we nailed it. We totally didn't even mean to do that. New Speaker:  04:52   It was 100% intentional. Rekka: 04:53   Okay. Yeah. So this is the first episode of October. New Speaker:  04:56   Yup. Rekka: 04:57   This one's mine. New Speaker:  04:58   This one's yours. Rekka: 04:59   Kaelyn got to pick the last full topical episode topic. Then she looked at me when we were trying to decide the next one blank from eyes to soul going, I have no more ideas. New Speaker:  05:13   We um, yeah, we mentally did some things to ourselves with Submissions September. We're kind of like, is that it? Are we done now? Rekka: 05:22   Like did we nail it? Is the podcast over? New Speaker:  05:24   I think it's over. Rekka: 05:25   Okay. Let's go play mini golf with me. Kaelyn: 05:27   Yeah, exactly. And then we came to our senses and we were like, no, there's probably still a lot going on here. Rekka: 05:32   Writers still write, editors still edit, acquirers still acquire. Kaelyn: 05:37   We and we always will that's what we do. We gather. Rekka: 05:42   You accumulate like so much catamary. Kaelyn: 05:46   So today where I'm kind of kicking it back over to a more author centric sort of thing. Rekka: 05:53   Yeah. So when we were trying to come up with topics, I mean like I'm blank except for what's on my mind pertaining to my own writing. So, um, at this point, you know, there are things that come up, like you've been writing a series and suddenly like the end of the series is in sight. And the question is, Kaelyn: 06:14   This is in no way relevant to anything that's happening to Rekka right now. Rekka: 06:17   No, no. Well that's what I said. You know, it's, it's on my mind because it's on my mind. And so when you can see the end of this uh series in sight, or if your book was a standalone, someone, probably an agent or a publisher, your editor, someone is going to say, so what do you got next? Because chances are in your contract, there's a, there's a funny little clause in there that they get to see your next thing, um, before you send it to anyone else. Kaelyn: 06:42   That's true. Rekka: 06:43   So, um, when they start looking for that thing because they're planning their calendars out maybe two or three years in advance. Kaelyn: 06:51   Yeah. Actually. And you know what, that's a good thing to kind of stop and take note of is that we do plan these things out quite a bit in advance. We've talked before about, you know, understand how long it's gonna take to get your book published. Rekka: 07:05   Yeah. Kaelyn: 07:06   So then on top of that from the publisher side, they've got a factor in how long it's going to take you to write something then go through this whole probably 18, minimum 18 month - Rekka: 07:17   Usually. Kaelyn: 07:17   - process. Rekka: 07:18   Sometimes more depending on that publishers slate. Kaelyn: 07:21   So yeah. Rekka: 07:23   Yes. I have heard from um from friends, I will not name publishers, but they're, you know, there are some publishers that are already looking at 2023. Kaelyn: 07:31   Yeah. Rekka: 07:31   Which is, which is a lot to think about as a writer. Like wow, that seems really far away if you are submitting to them. But if they're turning around and saying, Hey, what you got for us next? And you're like, I don't know, you had any, I gotta write something, have me, you kind of wrapped up in those revisions or something, you know, then it's, then it seems really close. Kaelyn: 07:50   Yeah. Rekka: 07:51   Or at least the fact that they want to buy something for that year now seems like, Whoa, okay, hold up there. I gotta breathe for a minute. You know? Um, so yeah, that's one of the things that you know, to think about as you're working. Say you're, this is your first contract, um, your first sale of a, of a book or a series. You go from writing in your own time, determining how fast you're going to finish it, um, what you want to work on. Everything's kind of in that creation mode. Then once your book enters a publisher's calendar, now you have revisions line at it, copy edits, then there's promotion. And chances are, as an author, you're going to have to write either some interview questions or some guest posts for other people's blogs. Um, there might be some articles for your own website. The publisher may want you to put, you know, put an article somewhere. There's always something to do to work on this book, like right up and sometimes even after it's released. So, um, that can take up a lot of time. And if you are already balancing uh, something else in your life, like a full time job, maybe you're a caretaker for somebody, maybe you just have gobs of doctor's appointments to go to and um, every spare minute is kind of predetermined. Then all that writing time that you used to find for yourself and you probably had to wrestle for that too, is now like your revision time or your reviewing your copy at its time or you're proofing your layout's time and then the book goes out and you have not really been potentially writing as much. Kaelyn: 09:34   Well, because I think you, think about like, Oh my writing time, but then what it becomes is really it becomes your book time. Rekka: 09:39   Right. Kaelyn: 09:40   Don't think about it as - Rekka: 09:41   That was my writing time. Kaelyn: 09:42   That was your writing time. That was you're working on your book time. Be that, you know, writing it, revising it, prepping for release. Rekka: 09:52   It's all working on your book. Kaelyn: 09:53   It's all working on your book. Rekka: 09:54   Those are just the phases of the process that you aren't maybe drafting creatively anymore. I mean sometimes revisions, there's significant chunks that are basically starting over from scratch kind of thing for certain scenes or even sections. But um, yeah, it starts to feel like that time belongs to someone else where it used to belong to you because these are things that publishers asking you to do. Kaelyn: 10:18   You're going, well, so then what's going to happen is you're going to get some of it back. Rekka: 10:22   Yeah. Kaelyn: 10:22   Because you're done. And now it's, now what? Rekka: 10:28   Well, that's tricky for me is because when I'm working on things that are like, I want to say like logic brained. A revision is solving problems. A proofing pass is thinking analytically about things. I'm writing a blog essay that's nonfiction about your writing is very different from just writing creatively. It's a totally different mindset. You're, you're forming these things more like an essay with, uh, you know, opening in a conclusion and all these things. And when you go to sit down to write again, it's, it feels like you're using muscles that have atrophied while you've been doing these other things. Kaelyn: 11:11   Yeah. I think, um, I think one of the hard things to really do is to mentally shift back to the, I don't want to say creative side, but I will say creating, Rekka: 11:21   Well it's almost like when you write a draft, you kind of fall into a flow state when things are going really well, you are in a flow state and that is not your, your logical processors are not engaged for that. You are just, you know, letting this inspiration flow and it sounds muse-y and um, poetic or whatever. But you get to a point where things are just kind of happening in, you're more like a stenographer for your story than you are actively engaged in making decisions about your story. Kaelyn: 11:53   Well, and the other of this is also that going back to mentally shifting and changing, you know, changing gears here, there's a very good chance that you're going to be starting on your next project long before your book comes out. Either it'd be a standalone or the last in a series. And to be clear, that is what we're talking about. We're not talking about wrapping up a series. We're talking about an entirely new thing happening now, Rekka: 12:20   Right. We're talking about what's the next idea that you've got to sell. Kaelyn: 12:25   Yeah. And you're probably, if you want to maintain a schedule where you are, you know, than putting out another book as if you know, you were in the same, uh, production schedule is before you're going to be working on that long before your book, your final book comes out. Rekka: 12:44   Right. Kaelyn: 12:45   Um, so mentally kind of getting yourself over to, okay, now I've got to come up with something else. Rekka: 12:54   Well, some people may be lucky enough that they have these copious ideas and they just have to write them down and then when it's time to pick something else, they just go to their bucket and they say, what looks good today? And that's fantastic. If you have that. Um, it's still tricky because you've got to fit in working on this, around these other things. Like your revisions come back or your copy of it comes back. So you may think like, Oh, it's July, I'm going to start drafting that book and maybe I'll get to like 20,000 words or something. And then your revisions come back halfway through the month and while they need to get back to them. So you stop everything you're doing and you work on your revisions during that time that you would normally schedule for writing this new project. Kaelyn: 13:35   Yeah, and something that I even struggle with just as an editor is, is getting in the zone. Rekka: 13:42   Yeah, oh bouncing between, um, different worlds basically. Kaelyn: 13:46   Different, this sounds silly, different writing styles, but mentally kind of, you know, it's one thing like, okay, I have last book in this series. I've done the developmental edits, I've done the revisions, but then getting it back and having to work on the line edits if you're then drafting something new at this point, that's, it's a huge mental shift. I have all these tricks that I use for like when I've got to jump between books. I have um every book I work on gets a playlist. Um, at one point I had different teas that I would drink when I was working on different books, just to kind of trick myself into like, ah, yes, I remember what I felt like when doing this. Rekka: 14:26   Yeah, I did that with incense before my throat to bother me. Um, I would come out here and whatever project I was working on would have its own scent of incense and then I've developed my throat problems. So incense was irritating it and I haven't been able to use that one. But yeah, music definitely I switch music. Um, background sounds bef- between different projects. Kaelyn: 14:49   Yeah, it's, I think people underestimate how difficult that is to kind of get back into the mental state you're in when working on one thing. Rekka: 14:52   Plus for me, you know, if I have like two hours in the morning before I go to work, I know I'm not going to finish that. Next thing I want to do so I know it's going to take me multiple days to work on. So if I expect that I'm going to have to break and do something else in two days, then I have a really hard time allowing myself to shift modes. Like I will lose two days worth of work because I know in two days I'm going to be working on something else again. And it just kind of ends up being wasted procrastination time because I know that there's something looming and it prevents me from feeling like I can really get back into the one thing that I was going to try and do before that came back and I am a hybrid publisher, which means I am traditionally published through Parvus but I also work on my own stories and release them in my own ways. I've got um, Patreon content that I then um, edit and release as final versions, which I just recently did and I have novellas in the same world that Parvus is publishing longer novels in and um, check your contracts kids, this may not be permissible by yours, but I was pretty careful to get that written in. Kaelyn: 16:12   Rekka is allowed to do that. Rekka: 16:13   Yeah. This is in my contract. I'm allowed to publish and non-novel length stories in the same world. Kaelyn: 16:20   Again, everyone read your contracts. Rekka: 16:22   Don't - and make sure your publisher, even if it's in your contract, make sure your publisher is aware of what you're planning because they might have like either a suggestion about what might work better or in terms of how to like release things. Um, or like, Hey, we're concerned that that's going to cannibalize your sales or something like that. Kaelyn: 16:43   That should be our next thing that we print or make just stickers that say, read your contract. Rekka: 16:49   We, uh, yeah. So, um, so yes, by my contract I'm allowed to do these things, but it means that I'm producing a lot of stuff all at once and various stages. And, um, so switching back and forth between those things, it helps me to um, go in and say like, okay, this week I'm working on revisions for all things because when I finish one and go into the next, it doesn't feel like that, like uphill slog to change tracks, but doing all these things and then having day job on top of it means that it's really hard to sort of find the open space that I can start to create new ideas and stories in. And so that's sort of one of the things I wanted to talk about today was not just like find time for it and figure out how to switch back and forth. But like we said at the beginning, be aware that your publisher's going to be thinking further out then your next release with them and they're going to come back and say, do you have for us? Kaelyn: 17:50   Freaks me out how far in advance I have to think about things. I recently had to go into my calendar and put something on there for the middle of 2021. And I'm like, Oh my God, that, that doesn't even sound like a real date to me. And that's what they hear. But then I'm like, Oh God, that's, that's less than two years away. Rekka: 18:06   So when you put something on your calendar for 2021, it was just over a full year away. But it's. Kaelyn: 18:20   Two, almost two. Rekka: 18:22   No, it's October. Kaelyn. Kaelyn: 18:24   Middle of 2021 is almost two years away. Rekka: 18:27   Nah, not, not when you start rushing toward it. So you have to subtract back, you know, say you're on an 18 month publication schedule, you have to subtract back from that. And that's like the latest that you need to be sort of getting a new draft of something, honestly, unless you've got a real plan and a real solid. Kaelyn: 18:46   It is. Even though it's funny because it's something that I know these things like I do every time. So, you know, we acquire a book, we get the contract signed, we, you know, ritually, uh, do what we need to, to the author. Don't worry about that people. It's nothing. There's, there's certainly no sacrifices involved. Rekka: 19:05   Just bottles of alcohol. Kaelyn: 19:08   Um, and then you sit down and you go, okay, the release dates going to be this and you start working backwards in the calendar and yeah, it never ceases to freak me out. Rekka: 19:16   Yeah. Even though it seems like it's really far away until you back all the way up to like okay first draft needs to be turned in on Oh shit. Tomorrow Kaelyn: 19:24   and but you know what, that's the thing is when you, I think we think about the ultimate goal of publication and it's so far away and then when you see all of the things that you actually are going to have to do leading up to that and some of them are next week. Rekka: 19:37   Yeah, some of them are. Yeah. Like make announcements to things or update the website to add your author and like watch out for this exciting new project that's coming your way. We'll announce it soon. You know, newsletters should be going out pretty regularly and so an author is going to release new newsletters too. That's one more thing on your plate. That's nonfiction, non-creative, non flow state kind of projects. So be aware that your publisher is already thinking that far ahead. And we mentioned recently that when a publisher picks up an author's book, they're also expecting that that author is going to be part of the publishing company's brand. Kaelyn: 20:18   Yeah. Rekka: 20:18   So they're looking to continue to expose you to their audience. Kaelyn: 20:22   Yes. Rekka: 20:23   And so that means no, you don't really want to wait three years from what you're one stand alone to the next or from the end of your series to the next project. Kaelyn: 20:31   And that, I mean that is a definitely a thing we consider is that like, you know in Rekka's case, you wrote what we, we don't even know what to call it. So many fricking genres here. Rekka: 20:43   Hey, what can I say? I'm a collector. Kaelyn: 20:46   Salvage is, is out now. So I can, can I, can I say - Rekka: 20:50   There's dinosaurs and zombies, people. There's an a bank heist. Kaelyn: 20:52   It's freakin zombies at the end of this one, okay? So, um, but Rekka as a brand where like, well Rekka writes, great things in space. So we have a little legion of readers that enjoy Rekka's writing about things in space. So obviously the next thing we're going to want out of her is not the same but it's something that will also appeal to - Rekka: 21:16   Right. You don't want me to turn around and write like an urban fantasy noir. Kaelyn: 21:21   Exactly. Rekka: 21:22   That's just going to confuse the readers. So when you are thinking about your future projects that you know your publisher's going to want because you've read your contract and you know that they have a, you know, next book kinda um, section in there, you know that they're going to want you to write something similar. Now if you know that they're having trouble positioning your book because you've written in 12 genres per chapter, then you might want to do them a solid and pick like one pretty solid, pretty marketable thing. But that's only if it inspires you. Kaelyn: 21:54   I mean, growing, you know, in Rekka talks a lot about this and I think it's an important thing, is that you, the author are a brand growing. Your brand is actually growing your audience. And no matter what your publisher does, no matter what the marketing is, a lot of your audience is going to follow you from book to book because they like you, you like your writing. Think about how many books you pick up that your dislike. Oh, I read something else by this person. I really liked it and just grab it. I do that constantly. I have so many authors that I follow because I just like the way they write, how they tell a story. Rekka: 22:35   Yeah. Kaelyn: 22:35   It can be a deciding factor for me. Rekka: 22:38   Yeah. So some of your readers are going to pick up your book no matter what you write, but your publisher is going to be aware that if you write something completely like turned around from the last thing that you might also have some readers who leave bad reviews because it's just not what they expected. And so that's a whole other thing. But you know like that is part of the mental calculation that's going on. It may not be the whole thing, but um, it's definitely something to consider. And maybe you as an author are writing tangentially to a position that the publisher wants to fill. They may have a conversation with you like, Hey, we'd like you to sort of write something like this. Do you have anything like that? And then so you know what they want. Hopefully you've got a couple ideas in your pocket that you can say, Oh well I have this one project that I, you know, it's backburnered at the moment, but this is what it is. Rekka: 23:31   And right here you're doing an elevator pitch now with someone who already knows and trusts you. Yeah. So that's, that's helpful. But you can still suddenly feel super on the spot and go, uh, well, um, so, uh, I guess, I mean like, give me a minute, you know? But yeah, when you have these ideas, you've also got the experience now of having a book published. You've seen what your query ended up looking like. You've seen what your back cover copy looked like. So you sort of have a rough idea of how to pitch things. You've gone through the process of trying to find comp titles. So when you are presenting these ideas that haven't even been outlined yet, maybe. Yup. Um, those tools will help you say like, you know, like you might even pull the comp titles out of your head. Like what if it's, uh, you know, dances with wolves but on a planet far away and with blue people. Kaelyn: 24:31   I mean, isn't that Avatar? Rekka: 24:32   Yeah. Nobody wants that. But you know, I'm just trying to, I was trying to create one that was was a story already. Um, so it's completely conceptual at that point. You've got an eye, a hint of a plot because you've mentioned one movie and you haven't said like, Oh, it's the um, you know, friendly animals have dances with wolves. You know, you've said like, well, so how do you come up with these things? You need to create room in your life to come up with new ideas because when you are churning out work, that's actually not a great way to generate new ideas unless you're procrastinating. And then in which case you go, Oh, this project would be really cool. I wish it was working on that and not this like that's, that's fine, but get, get to work on the thing you need to be working on. Rekka: 25:21   Like stop procrastinating, you'll be happy you did. Um, but so in those moments of procrastination, you are, you are going off and kind of refilling your well in a little bit of way, but like in a weird way that also generates resentment. But um, but yeah, you gotta refill your well, you've got to take breaks. You've got to create space in your life to observe and not be producing so that your brain can relax. This is why we get all our good ideas in the shower. Kaelyn: 25:51   That's, it's 100%. No, I mean this was like a scientific thing is that your, your brain is constantly, there's a thousand little processes running in the background that we don't know or see about and look, some people can sit down and go, all right, I've just got to come up with something and come up with something. Rekka: 26:09   And this is, I'm always reminds me, I think it was Family Guy where um, an editor is talking to Stephen King in his office and he says, so what have you got for his next? And Stephen King is just kinda like, you can see them eyeballing the room to sleep were says it's about a lamp. That family that gets attacked by a lamp monster. Kaelyn: 26:30   Yeah. Rekka: 26:30   Cause he looks at the lamp on the guy's desk and the editor's like fine, I'll buy it. Give me a draft. Kaelyn: 26:35   Just get me a draft in a couple months. Rekka: 26:37   Yeah. So I'm obviously mangling the quote cause I haven't seen this in years, but I always think of that scene when it's like someone like, what's your next story? I'm like, Oh shit. I don't know. Speaking from personal experience, I got a call from Colin of Parvus Press one day and he's like, Hey, so what are you working on next? I'm like, the third book you get out of here, please go away. But then, I mean, as Kaelyn said, your brain is always processing. So over the next week or so, maybe even a couple of weeks I had this input, you know, like this query that had been entered into my brain, what are you gonna work on next that isn't in the world of Peridot? Rekka: 27:14   And um, so like eventually my brain sort of engaged on something and I came up with a thing and I email or I think I texted him, I texted him the, the comp titles basically. Kaelyn: 27:24   You do text a lot. Rekka: 27:25   Yeah, I like to text, sorry. It's quick, it's easy, it's bite size. You can just ask one question and if the person on the other end feels so inclined, they can answer it. And um, so then he's like, cool, sounds good. I'm interested. And I'm like, all right, cool. So I think I might've sent him two or three and I kinda had an idea of when he was interested in and then the conversation came up again a little bit later like so, um, you know, you thinking about writing something else for as soon. Yeah, I guess so. Kaelyn: 27:59   Yes, so and by the way, I'm going to jump in here real quick on the publisher side of things, I especially, you know, my authors that I like, which like I don't have any authors I don't like. Rekka: 28:11   RIght. As part of your, your submission September process, you make sure that you will like the authors you're going to be dealing with. Kaelyn: 28:18   But I want to help them publish more things because I, we obviously like their writing and we like the readership that comes along with it. So I mean if you want to put it in strictly capitalists terms, it's good for business, but it's good for everyone. Rekka: 28:33   Yeah. Kaelyn: 28:33   Because I like working with this person. I know that they've got a certain built in readership that's going to follow them. Also, I want to help them be successful. That's like, that's one of the things that I take very seriously is that I want to help you, the writer be successful. Rekka: 28:48   Yeah. And part of that is generating content for your readers to glob onto and love forever. Kaelyn: 28:53   Exactly. Rekka: 28:53   Yeah. And so I just described this process of coming up with an idea, and I will be honest, it was not hours and hours of work. It was just having the awareness that I needed to be thinking about this. So those moments in the shower, watching TV, you know, looking out the window, going out in a drive there, - Kaelyn: 29:14   And you gather, it's like stray little thoughts, what about this? What about this? And then you kind of get them all into a bigger idea that will eventually unfold into a story. Rekka: 29:25   Yeah. And so the nice thing about this process, like I said, I didn't put a whole lot of effort into or like, okay, I won't say I didn't, it wasn't effort, but you know, it wasn't a lot of my production time. The other things that I had to be working on, it wasn't coming from that. It was those moments that I was already quiet and just knowing to keep it, like keep a eye open for incoming ideas. And then because I already had a relationship with this publisher, um, you know, this might be your agent, this might be your editor who's asking you for these, um, ideas. You can throw them out there before there is something that you've put two years of drafting into. Kaelyn: 30:07   Yep. Rekka: 30:08   You know, when you query a story for the first time or you put it out on submission to a publisher, this is something that you've worked on for years and it's pretty much as done as it can be without more help. Kaelyn: 30:17   Yes. Rekka: 30:17   And that is a huge investment of time to get your foot in the door to even be noticed by somebody else. Now you've got their attention so you can have a thing. Like I was just thinking about like what if bubble guns were like, you know, lethal acidic and there's a secret agency and they go into space with the bubble guns to do something. I don't know. You know? Kaelyn: 30:43   Well, and it's interesting what you're hitting on is you're not doing this by yourself this time. Rekka: 30:48   Right. Kaelyn: 30:49   This is probably, and you know, depending on the state your series was in when you came, if like some people have a lot of it written already, some people are writing it as they go. Um, you did not have your series completed. Rekka: 31:01   It was not completed, but the first two books were drafted. Kaelyn: 31:07   Yes. But working on drafting while you have an editor is very different than working on your own. Rekka: 31:12   Which is funny because you now have this person that you can reach out to and share this stuff with and then you start to, you know, like when you're writing it on your own, you're just, I've got to finish this, I want to finish it. Now you have somebody that you can throw the first few chapters at, but then you really have to be conscious about continuing to work on it while you wait for feedback because that feedback may not come back like that afternoon at 4:00 PM before you even have a chance to sit down and write again. So, um, yeah, I don't want to chase that idea too far because that's not really the point of this episode, but it's, you know, when you're tossing out ideas for future stories to somebody who's already interested in your future stories, um, you can toss them out in, in sizes that you will get pretty quick feedback on and you'll be able to gauge the enthusiasm before you even really invest in writing an outline or anything like that. So if they trust you to write a story, they may be like, well, I don't really see where you're going with that, but it's, I mean, an outline. Good. Kaelyn: 32:16   Okay, let's see where the, what happens. Rekka: 32:17   But like you're a cool author, we like you, we really like how you tell stories. So whatever you do, it's going to be interesting. Kaelyn: 32:24   Yeah. And you've also, you've heard some friends, some creds as it is, you know, you've got some, some style. Rekka: 32:31   Yeah. Kaelyn: 32:32   Yeah. You've got some money to play with. I guess when I say money, I mean like, Rekka: 32:37   Yeah. Kaelyn: 32:37   You've got some chips to play. Yeah. Rekka: 32:40   So they're going to give you a little bit of room for doubt. But also, you know, as we already said, they're looking out on their calendar. So you start to tell them about this one story and they're like, yeah, that's not really what we're looking like. We've already got something like that. Can you, maybe we'll angle it more toward this. Yes. Kaelyn: 32:57   Which then there's another thing about when they're looking at your calendar, you are writing a brand new story on a deadline now. Rekka: 33:03   Yep. So whatever they decide they want, they're going to give you a date that they need the draft by because now they're going to put you in their calendar and yeah, they may write it in pencil at this point, but they are going to mostly commit to it. Kaelyn: 33:24   I mean pencil within a couple months. Either way. Yeah. You know, either direction and it's, it sounds very far away and then it's like, I need to write 120,000 words in four months. Rekka: 33:32   Right. Basically, because when they put it out on the calendar, they're going to know and you're going to know and you're probably still working on finishing up other books. Kaelyn: 33:44   And the other thing to keep in mind here, like when we put something on a calendar, we let people know it's on the calendar, right? Because we put it in the trade publication, we put it in catalogs, and as soon as that contract signed, they're going to be announcing it. And here's the other thing, on our end ,Amazon punishes you if you miss the date. Rekka: 34:02   Yeah. So if they put out a preorder date, yeah. You better stick to that. So, and of course you want as long a preorder period as possible because you don't really want to start talking about the book before. It's available to order. So when they want to start talking about the book, they want to preorder up and which, and that means a whole lot of faith that they're going to hit that publication date. Yup. So everybody needs to be working to make sure that's happening, including you, the writer. So you may need to be drafting that while you're still, you know, working on your copy of it. Kaelyn: 34:38   So, a new and scary thing for a lot of people after they published their first book or their first series because I have never met an author that published, that had a series and had no idea where it was going. Like, you know, there are definitely the George RR Martin or the world that are kind of just like making it up as they go. But the thing is, he knows how game of Thrones ends. He just isn't sure how he's getting there. Rekka: 35:03   Right. Kaelyn: 35:03   Um, or how much of a rush he's in to do. So, you know, I used to be terrified that he was going to die before he finished the series. Now I'm just kind of like, you know what? Okay, cool. Like if he goes, then we get a ghost writer and maybe they'll just do it. Yeah. Rekka: 35:16   Yeah. A Brandon Sanderson takes over his series. Kaelyn: 35:20   One can only hope. I'm kidding. Um, a lot of authors, you know, they at least know where their series is going. This whole coming up with a new idea on a deadline is a very scary thing. Rekka: 35:34   Okay. To be fair, you don't have the deadline until you have a contract. Kaelyn: 35:43   Agreed. Rekka: 35:43   So don't get in - Kaelyn: 35:44   But you know what, that's not always true because, and the thing is, I don't think this is going to be happening to people who just released a standalone or a duology or a trilogy, but there are definitely authors that sign agreement saying, I'm going to give you this many books over this number of years. Rekka: 35:59   Yeah. I do know somebody who has a contract for a book and an unnamed book, you know, so that means that unnamed book has a deadline. Kaelyn: 36:10   Yeah, I mean we have put contracts together like that. Rekka: 36:13   Yeah. Kaelyn: 36:13   Where it's an unnamed. Rekka: 36:15   It's true. Standalone science fiction novel of at least a hundred thousand words or something. Kaelyn: 36:20   Exactly. Rekka: 36:20   So, yeah, so you have a guideline and if you could sign a contract like that, um, while they're reviewing your draft for your, your revisions, it's time to start thinking about that next book. Um, and that can be tough because sometimes you really just need to decompress after the stress of going through submissions and everything like that. And other times you need to um, take care of other things that got put aside while you were finishing up your draft for submissions. So it can be tough, but the earlier you start thinking about it, like it is really the point of this episode. The earlier you start thinking about it and the more aware you are that you need to have that, that processing running momentum is important in this. And you know, that's true. You said capitalism before momentum for Amazon will help your book sell. Kaelyn: 37:09   Momentum in general does. And I think a lot of, I think we like to think like, Oh well if they write my, like my book, they're going to, you know, wait for however long for it. Rekka: 37:20   This day and age, nobody even remembers you two years later. Kaelyn: 37:25   It's not that so much as like, I mean there are authors that, you know, I really liked their stuff and then they dropped off the planet for three or four years and then it's not that I'm not interested in reading them anymore, it's just that there are other things. Rekka: 37:39   Yeah, your, your attention is grabbed by something else. So people will come back if you can keep grabbing their attention with your own name but they will go find something else they like if you don't have anything for them. Kaelyn: 37:50   Yeah. Rekka: 37:50   And the process, you know, as we've already mentioned, 21, 18 months, something like that. Like the process is slow enough that that's always going to be happening to a certain degree anyway. So don't encourage it to happen by not thinking about your next book until after the release and the recovery from your final book in whatever contract you've got. Kaelyn: 38:08   Yeah. And you know, we talk a lot about this, like we like to think that, you know, this is art, this is not, you know, don't force it, don't force it. But like if this is something you're serious about and this is, you know what you want a big part of your life to be, then you know you've got, it's the same thing of it like as a, you know, a professional athlete. Like if you're a baseball player, Rekka: 38:32   You finish one season, you don't stop, don't stop. Kaelyn: 38:36   Yeah, you stay in shape, you train, you keep going because the other seasons coming up, you also don't go like, you know what? I think I'm going to stop playing baseball for like two years, not really do anything. I'm going to go sailing and then show up and make the all-star team, right? Rekka: 38:51   Yeah. It's, these are muscles that you have to work consistently to perform consistently, so you want to be doing the creative work throughout as much as you can. Even if like one thing that I would advise is when you aren't working on revisions, when you aren't working on reviewing your copy edits in your proofs, when you have that time in the morning to be in your author mind space, if you don't have anything pressing, write something creative. Even if it's not going anywhere. Kaelyn: 39:20   Yeah. Rekka: 39:21   Just be in the habit of using that time creatively so that at least that's not an obstacle when it is time to sit down and drop the next thing in grade. So, but yeah, that, I mean the, the moral of this episode is to - Kaelyn: 39:33   We don't have morals. Rekka: 39:35   Like, Whoa, Whoa, Whoa, Whoa. Okay. That's another discussion. Uh, morality aside. Um, the point I wanted to make with this episode was that provided that you want to continue your author career in the same direction that you started at once you sign that first contract, um, be looking for your next idea because someone's gonna ask you when you're not ready. And so having a few things, at least you know that you can go grab and say, Oh, you know what? I do have, um, a whole bucket of ideas. Let me go in and see what, what's tingling now and then I'll get back to you in a couple hours or something like that. And hopefully you've got a word document or a notepad document or something on your phone. There's just a list of random process. I mean at this point they're prompts cause you wrote them down and like made total sense to you when you wrote it down. Rekka: 40:23   But now you're like, I don't even know what I was doing with that, but I have an idea or that sounds interesting. I'll have to think about what I meant by that. But you know, so you can come back to the person who was asking what your next idea was and have a maybe, you know, if you've got three things to throw at them, that's fantastic. But um, you know, just have something in mind because you can't write in one book forever. You can't write in one series for, I mean, some people would make a career out of a series, but you, you are at some point going to have to present either the next part of the series for a new contract or a new standalone or a new series or something like that. So just be aware that when you start publishing, like you, you get a publisher, um, to buy your book or you start self-publishing that now you are a business and every business needs to release a product every calendar year, basically. Kaelyn: 41:17   This is don't be caught off guard by this kind of thing. And I don't, I don't think there's many writers out there that are genuinely shocked when someone asks them what's next. Rekka: 41:25   Just might be a little unprepared. And that's what I'm just trying to like help people avoid that because it's a very awkward conversation. Go. I don't really have anything else on my mind. You've been working me too hard. Like that's, that's not how that conversation should go. Kaelyn: 41:39   You know what I have on my mind? Rekka: 41:42   Oh, all of the things I'm going to do when I'm done with this, I was going to sleep. Can I write a book about sleeping? Kaelyn: 41:50   Sleeping, yes. Rekka: 41:51   Can I write a book while I'm sleeping? Kaelyn: 41:52   It's going to be what happens when I put my face on the keyboard. Rekka: 41:55   Yeah. The cat will, will provide the first draft. Kaelyn: 41:58   Yes. Yeah. So, okay, well I think that's, that's a good stopping point. You know, just, um, take good care of yourselves, everyone. Rekka: 42:06   That's taking care of yourselves and look for places to be creative when everything is bogged down in productivity cause they're two different, you know, gears in your brain and um, don't let one get rusty. Kaelyn: 42:18   But it really, it's true. So, um, you know, stay active, stay mentally fit. Yes. Rekka: 42:24   Take care of yourself, rest, recharge. Um, do things that make you feel creative or inquisitive and that will help you, um, find your next idea and uh, then you can work on figuring out what, how to pitch that to your agent or publisher. Kaelyn: 42:39   Yup. Yup. So, well thanks everyone for listening. That was a little more, it was funny cause when we were talking about this we were like, well we just did a whole month of really information heavy stuff. Maybe we'll do something a little more abstract, not as tangible, sorry, as other ones. Rekka: 42:56   Not tangible. Kaelyn: 42:56   No, it was great. Yeah, but like it's, you know, it's good to get the feelings out there. Rekka: 43:00   Sometimes it's just one basic thing. Okay. Be ready to write your next thing. Kaelyn: 43:05   Yup. So I'm well thanks everyone so much for listening and uh, we'll be back in two weeks. We're back to our regular schedule now. We gotta we gotta rest and recharge and come up with more ideas for episodes. Rekka: 43:14   Yeah. So look for us online. If you have questions you can ping them to us @WMBcast on Twitter or on Instagram. We post a little fun, um, photos to go with each episode cause we get together and get goofy between recordings we do. And um, you can also find us at Patreon, uh, patreon.com/WMBcast. And if you enjoy this episode, if you found it useful, if you said, Oh crap, I should probably get on that. Um, leave us a rating or review please, please. It looks like we're still collecting those through iTunes as far as I can tell. I don't know what happened with that whole separating them out thing. Rekka: 43:53   Um, maybe by this time that this airs we will have an answer but have for now it looks like ratings still go to iTunes. So if you could leave a rating, we have some ratings, fantastic ratings, but reviews themselves, we could use a little more info help. Kaelyn: 44:07   Very helpful just with the algorithms and things. Rekka: 44:09   Yeah. So if you could leave us a just a couple like 30 seconds to just write down what you like about the show. It doesn't have to be super informative. It's just feeding the algorithm and that would be super helpful. And we will talk to you in a couple of weeks. So. Kaelyn: 44:20   Wait, wait, wait. Guys Rekka's book's out also. So - Rekka: 44:24   Yeah, we did the, the um, party for that last, I'm gonna, you know, I'm going to mention it again here because it's been a month now. Kaelyn: 44:31   Yes. So Salvage is out RJ Theodore, the second book in the Peridot Shift Series. It is fantastic. You should all, if you, uh - Rekka: 44:39   If you like zombies dinosaurs, so, or some bank heists if you want to see how that fits together. Kaelyn: 44:46   Yeah. If you're really curious what the, you did, what now? Find out what the publisher said. Yeah. So absolutely go check out Rekka's book. You know, it's - Rekka: 44:54   Later this month. As I mentioned, I have a novella in the Peridot World, ah, read, Salvage first cause this comes after that and it's definitely got spoilers. Kaelyn: 45:02   Yes. I, I got to hear a little rundown of, uh, what's going on here - Rekka: 45:06   A non pitch. Kaelyn: 45:07   No, it was, it was great. I enjoyed it. Um, I'm excited for it. Rekka: 45:10   So, so, all right, well thank you so much everyone and we'll see you in two weeks.  

Hi everyone, and thank you for tuning in to another episode of the We Make Books Podcast - A podcast about writing, publishing, and everything in between! This is the final week of Submissions September, for real this time!  We’re rounding out the month with a short episode of questions, concerns, and follow ups.  We got a few inquires and responses over the course of the month and thought it would be a good idea to wrap up with an episode where we answer them.  Thank you so much to everyone that got in touch and we hope that this month-long walk through of the submissions process was helpful.  If there is anything you’d like to hear about that we didn’t cover, let us know!  We’re always looking for topics for future episodes! In case you’re just joining us, this month is Submissions September on the We Make Books Podcast, we’re doing seven (7!) episodes this month all about the process of submitting your novel.  We have a lot of awesome discussions lined up and even some special guests.  Here’s what will be coming your way for the month: Week 1 (9/3/2019): Is This Ready For Other People to See?- Submitting Your Manuscript Week 2 (9/10/2019): My Entire Novel in Three Hundred Words - The Dreaded Query Letter Week 3 (9/17/2019): Agents of Literature, Part 1: An Interview with Literary Agent Caitlin McDonald               (9/18/2019): Agents of Literature, Part 2: Interviews with Agented Authors               (9/19/2019): Agents of Literature Part 3: Interviews with Agented Authors Week 4 (9/24/2019): What is Going On Over There? - The Other Side of the Submissions Process Week 5 (9/30/2019): Now I’m Even More Confused – Submissions September Q&A Episode We Make Books is hosted by Rekka Jay and Kaelyn Considine; Rekka is a published author and Kaelyn is an editor and together they are going to take you through what goes into getting a book out of your head, on to paper, in to the hands of a publisher, and finally on to book store shelves. We Make Books is a podcast for writer and publishers, by writers and publishers and we want to hear from our listeners! Hit us up on our social media, linked below, and send us your questions, comments, concerns, and here’s the thing, Kaelyn’s a long-suffering New York Giants fan and she’s been doing this funny-football-comments-in-the-show-notes bit for the entire month and is curious if anyone has read her weekly rants.  So, the first three people to DM her the score of Sunday’s game (9/29/2019) against Washington get a free Parvus ebook of their choice.  We hope you enjoy We Make Books! Twitter: @WMBCast  |  @KindofKaelyn  |  @BittyBittyZap Instagram: @WMBCast  Patreon.com/WMBCast 00:00 Kaelyn Considine (KC): Hey everyone, welcome to another episode of the We Make Books podcast, a show about writing, editing, and everything in between. I'm Kaelyn Considine and I am the Acquisitions Editor for Parvus Press. 00:11 Rekka / R J Theodore (RJT): And I'm Rekka, I write Science Fiction and Fantasy as R J Theodore. 00:13 KC: And uh, this isn't really an episode episode. 00:18 RJ: It's a minisode. 00:20  KC: Yeah. It's the questions wrap-up. We did get some questions for Submissions September that we wanted to try to provide answers for. 00:27  RJT: Yep, these came in through Twitter and email and conversations we had in person with people so, it is a great little set of specific questions and we ran through them in, not necessarily the order they came in, but the order they would apply to the process. 00:44 KC: Yeah. 00:44 RJT: So it worked out really nicely as a little set of like quick summary... I mean, you obviously won't get everything you would get by listening to the other six episodes of the month but you know it's a good overview and maybe I dunno like a little refresher before the pop quiz next week. 01:02 KC: Absolutely. And no, it seemed like a good way to kind of round out the month. We kept it short, like we intended to. 01:08 RJT: Yeah, so this one, our "short" episode is the length we always think the episodes are going to be. 01:13 KC: But, well, we had a lot of fun doing Submissions September. We won't be doing anything similar to this any time soon. 01:21 RJT: This was a big, big project. 01:22 KC: This was a lot. 01:22 RJT: I think this encompassed three different recording visits. 01:27 KC: I think so. 01:27 RJT: You know, Kaelyn comes in to visit for the weekend and this weekend, in order to finish them all, she had to stay an extra night, and we are done now. 01:33 KC: It's okay cause I got brunch and mini golf out of it. 01:35 RJT: Okay, yes. So we aren't all work, no play. 01:39 KC: So it all worked out in the end and you know, your cats like me now so that's very exciting to me. 01:45 RJT: Yes. 01:45 KC: Anyway, so thank you so much for joining us for this whole month and we hope you enjoy this last episode of just the rounding out of Submissions September. 02:01 MUSIC 02:14 RJT: Well it's been a month, everybody. 02:17 KC: It has been a month. 02:17 RJT: We said this was gonna be a bi-weekly podcast. 02:24 KC: And then we said we were gonna take a month where we do an episode an every week, so it was gonna be four. 02:31 RJT: Yup, and then we said, "hey look we have a lot of interviews, this is too many for one episode."  02:36 KC: And then we had some questions. 02:39 RJT: So we're back with one bonus, final, "hey while it's still September"  02:43 KC: Yeah. 02:43 RJT: Hol' Up A Minute. 02:45 KC: Yeah, welcome. It's Monday, you have to listen to us. Yeah, we ended up with seven episodes. 02:49 RJT: Yeah, let's not do that again. 02:49 KC: No, G-d no. Please. 02:49 RJT: Cause, at this point of time when we are speaking to you in this recording studio, we haven't edited them yet. So we're not even done.  03:04 KC: Very true, but we did have some questions come up over the course of this. If there are things you're still wondering, things we didn't talk about, you know you can still send us questions, maybe we'll do something else like this. 03:16 RJT: These were all sent to us Direct Message and folks didn't say whether they wanted their names used so we're just going to err on the side of privacy. 03:21 KC: Yeah, just you know. Um, if you do wnat us to say it was your name then 03:26 RJT: Let us know. 03:26 KC: Tweet at us. 03:30 RJT: We'll assign credit where credit was due. And some of these were from a couple different directions. 03:32 KC: Yeah, so. Um, so first question: How perfect does my manuscript have to be before I submit it? 03:38 RJT: Yeah. I mean, ostensibly the agent, if you work with an agent, is probably going to do a couple passes with you. We spoke to Caitlin McDonald a couple weeks ago and she said she's gonna do two passes and that sounds pretty common. 03:55 KC: Yeah, that sounds pretty standard. 03:55 RJT: And then they're going to sub it and send to a publisher and the publisher is definitely not going to leave it alone either. So, knowing your manuscript is going to change, how perfect does it have to be? 04:05 KC: As perfect as you can get it. 04:08 RJT: I mean, should I be worried about copyedits or should I just try to catch what I can on my own? 04:13 KC: I know, from my perspective as the acquisitions editor: I do not expect a copyedited document. That said, I do expect a final document. I do expect you've put time and effort into this. 04:25 RJT: So it looks like the final that you would send to a copyeditor and it's just that you might have an opinion on stuff you think could be better. 04:35 KC: And I think it is a little frustrating, some people think like, "Well why do I need bother with that much of if because they're just going to change everything anyway?" And the answer is: You're trying to make a good impression. Also, it's showing me your work ethic. It's showing me the attention to detail and time you put into things and that this is important to you. It is funny because I get manuscripts submitted to us sometimes that I'm like, "I really feel like this is just a working draft, still, somehow." And that's not good, don't do that. 05:10 RJT: And what about manuscripts you get where like the first fifty pages are super tight, super clean, they've clearly been workshopped a couple times but it doesn't carry through the entire thing? 05:20 KC: I appreciate, to an extent, that they knew that I really need to nail the first fifty pages. And the other thing is I don't expect this to be copyedited. Copyeditors are expensive. I don't expect you to do that especially since we're gonna go in and do work on it anyway so we're just gonna get another copyeditor to work on it. 05:40 RJT: So the plot should hold up but you don't have to get all your commas in the right place or a typo or a repeated word. 05:46 KC: Avoid typos, that's.. 05:50 RJT: But I mean, those happen. 05:51 KC: Yeah. I mean, you know, as we always say: Your first couple pages especially, pay very close attention to those. 05:56 RJT: Right, but I'm talking about a three hundred page novel. 05:59 KC: Yeah, if there's A typo in it, it's not the end of the world. There are published novels with typos in them. Not that that's good but it does happen. 06:04 RJT: Right, that's what I'm saying. One person looking at this over and over again is not going to catch everything. 06:11 KC: Exactly. So next question we kinda got, feeding into that... 06:14 RJT: This is sorta into a query letter here. 06:16 KC: Yeah, we're moving into query letter section. What if I don't have any previous publishing credits? Is that a big deal? I mean, no. 06:24 RJT: Every author was a first time author once. 06:24 KC: Yeah. most people don't. A lot of the times when you're querying agents and submitting to open calls of course you don't have any publishing credits. If you did, you'd... I mean, people do leave their agents. 06:40 RJT: Or transition from one to another. 06:40 KC: Or transition and get new ones but I mean, a lot of times you don't have publishing credits, that's why you're looking for an agent. 06:46 RJT: Right, right. And so just to keep in mind you can introduce yourself without you know, puffing this up This isn't like a fake resume or anything like that. If you have an interest or skill related to your manuscript you can mention that but, for the most part, you don't... they don't expect you to say the most impressive thing about yourself. This isn't that party where you have to be that guy. You can just say, like, you know, if there's a gardening aspect in your space opera, just say like, "And I like to garden on the weekends." And you know that's cute. But if the gardening doesn't tie into your manuscript it's not necessary. You can just say..  This would be..you know like, "I am an unpublished author—" 07:35 KC: "I would like to become a published one." 07:37 RJT: Yeah. You're overthinking it, even at this point. Just say, you know, "This is me." 07:42 KC: Yeah, and don't be ashamed of that by any stretch of the imagination. I think there's this intimidation factor where people who are especially trying to submit novels for publication hear about like, people say, "I had this short story published and I had this and this." There are plenty of people who come straight out of the gate to a novel. 08:01 RJT: Right. I did. I'm working stories through submissions process nw, but I had a novel first. 08:11 KC: There's no set linear way to do this. It's. you know, you come into where you come into. There's... it's not... you're not ticking off boxes and then you get to query an agent or submit a manuscript. 08:24 RJT: And I didn't have anything that I could speak to. I was a graphic designer which is cool but it's not pertinent. So I really had very little to say about myself in my query letter, which I read to you during the query week anyway.  08:36 KC: Yes. 08:41 RJT: So go back and listen to it if you're worried about it. But I don't have an MFA and an MFA is not a prerequisite to getting a novel purchased. 08:46 KC: No, G-d no. 08:46 RJT: I don't... I didn't major in English. I took one essay writing class at art school.  KC: Okay, then. RJT: It was pretty much just to spare the art history teachers a couple of classes of having to go over this every semester. Yeah. Don't stress it. You wrote a book, you know, so be proud of that and you know, like I said, you don't have to inflate it. You don't have to be extra humble. Just, you know, write your query letter. 09:18 So, you've sent in this query, however it needed to be written, and you have checked the publisher's submissions guidelines and you know that thay're gong to tell you to expect a response after such and such number of days they might even invite you to reach out and check on it if it's been this long. Or you see on Twitter, "hey we've gone through our entire submissions pile so you should have heard from us." 09:44 KC: "Thanks for submitting." 09:44 RJT: So, what do you do if you have't heard back at that point, in either case? 09:52 KC: Well I mean, if they say you know... like at Parvus we say ninety days for you know follow up the query with us. Here's the thing, if you haven't heard back from me in 90 days there's a good chance I just haven't gotten through the pile yet. It's funny, we say 90 days because that's just a good amount of time but like we get hundreds and hundreds of these when we open for submissions so depending on what's going I may not start reading them immediately. As they're coming in. I try to stay on top of it but that's just not always possible. 10:28 RJT: I know I've heard that some agents for example, will read the query letters and then divert some of those to like hey check this out soon. So they go through the query letters and get through the rejections just based on the query and then they'll go through like the next round of consideration is to open the document and check it out but that may not happen as fast as they read the letter. 10:53 KC: Yeah, I mean, sometimes I can get through these pretty quickly. Sometimes I can't. If you haven't heard back and they say, "feel free to reach out to us," feel free to reach out to them. The response you're probably going to get back is "Yeah I'm still working through everything." 11:06 RJT: Yeah. 11:08 KC: Don't be rude. Don't... 11:12 RJT: Cause you are still technically submitting. This is still part of your interview. 11:16 KC: Well, Don't be demanding, I guess. 11:19 RJT: That's what I mean, like, be decent, be polite, be professional. 11:19 KC: Be just like, "They I'm just following up." 11:22 RJT: This is an extension of the first submission you sent. It's an extension of the impression you're making upon them. So acting as though you're tapping your foot and crossing your arms and raising one eyebrow? Is not gonna d you any favors in terms of how your query is going to be judged. Because frankly we're all human and you can't separate that from the experience of reading. 11:43 KC: No, And you know, I understand there is a little bit of a power dynamic here that maybe isn't necessarily fair but at the end of the day you are... you're applying to something. You are asking someone to give you their time and consideration and, I don't wanna say they don't owe it to you because it's not that. If you submit  12:04 RJT: If they invited you to submit, especially. 12:06 KC: They do owe you that but it's not... you don't get to demand that they pay attention to you right that second. And along those lines, if you get a rejection back don't write back and ask for notes cause that's another demanding of someone's time. 12:26 RJT: And thats a level. There are times you might get notes and that generally is pretty promising. It means you might have needed less work that other people in the pile. 12:37 KC: It also means that maybe you were under, you were considered. It was you know "we're happy you sent this to us. It had some things that we thought needed attention." 12:49 RJT: And this is one of those cases where it's an investment of your time as a publisher to finish this book and if this book needs more work than you budgeted for... 12:55 KC: Than you're willing to put into it.  12:57 RJT: Yeah, so. so you send back notes and that person is, at least got that feedback for the net time they submitted this manuscript They can consider it. Now, if you give them notes, and I know this is probably case-by-case, what about Revise & Re-query or Revise & Resubmit. 13:20 KC: Generally I will say like listen, you know, here's some notes. I always... I don't...  I always feel a little uncomfortable sending notes because it's like, especially if they're unsolicited but generally I think they're appreciated. But I usually send a note that's like, you know, "we really liked this. There are these problems. If you wanna take the suggestion or maybe if you want to work with another editor, please feel free to resubmit with us in the future." And a lot of the times, I'll even say, "Please feel free to resubmit, you can send it right.. directly back to me." 13:55 RJT: Rather than needing to go through the digital system. 13:56 KC: Yeah, the usual process. Because sometimes I'm just like, "Yeah, I'm curious to see what they do with this." And I like it flagged that it's like.. cause, again, I get hundreds of these. And even though a lot of times it is something I'll remember, especially if it's something I sent notes back. You know, you never know. If it gets.. 14:18 RJT: If it's three years later or whatever. 14:18 KC: Yeah, if it goes through the regular submissions manager it can absolutely get lost in the shuffle. So yeah I would say just do not be demanding and do not be impatient and you know if you get invited to revise and resubmit absolutely do that.  14:35 RJT: If you get notes back, though, and no invitation to resubmit? 14:36 KC: Do it anyway. I mean. There are some manuscripts that we've had open calls for and every time I get the same manuscript back. 14:45 RJT: Okay.  14:44 KC: That's not necessarily a good thing but you know there's no ... I don't think I've ever read submissions guidelines that are like, "(If you already submitted to us once don't ever do it again."  15:01 RJT: Okay. 15:01 KC: Have you? 15:01 RJT: Well I know magazine you know like they are pretty strict. It's pretty much expected, I don't even know that they come right out and say it, but some of them do, is like, "you have one shot with this story unless we invite you to resubmit." 15:15 KC: Yeah, okay. That's... novels are maybe a little.. 15:20 RJT: Maybe a little different. So I can understand when someone's getting hundreds and hundreds of submissions that you don't want to open it up and go, "Oh, this one again?" 15:25 KC: Yeah you don't want the same thing over and over. Um, I mean, that said, I'm sure people do it. Just do it is creating the work of having to reject it. There isn't really a way to blacklist people from an open submission. Um, if you get invited to resubmit you absolutely should resubmit because that means they probably 15:47 RJT: Were very interested. 15:47 KC: Were very interested just did not have, for whatever reason, could not take it. 15:52 RJT: It needs more work on your side, basically, before a publisher's gonna take it on and do the work on their side.  15:57 KC: Yeah. 15:57 RJT: Okay, so what if you do get accepted in an open submissions? You've got an offer from a publisher. Can you take that offer and find an agent with it? 16:08 KC: A lot of publishing houses are going to want you to do that. 16:11 RJT: Okay. 16:14 KC: So if you go back and listen to the second episode of Week Three which was the first of the author interview episodes. 16:18 RJT: That's Episode 15. 16:18 KC: Episode 15. Tyler Hayes is in it and he talks about how he actually got accepted, his manuscript got accepted, and then he had to go find an agent. If you go listen to our Nebulas interview, we talked to Mark Tompkins who is the author of Last Days of Magic and he talks about the same thing that he got a manuscript accepted and they were like, "Okay cool well where's your agent?" and he's like, "I don't have one." They were like, "Here, call this person. Tell them you need an agent." So a lot of publishing houses want you to have an agent. The answer is they don't always want to deal with authors direct one-on-one. Because when you have an agent you have someone that... 17:01 RJT: Knows how this works.   17:03 KC: Yeah, and they know the contracts and they know.. They're also... agents are also very useful for their connections and what they're gonna help with. So yeah, absolutely if you have an offer and you can find an agent that you can talk to quickly about that might be willing to take you on that's absolutely something good to do.  17:27 RJT: Do you need to have a contract? Or is a phone call where they're saying, "Okay, we're gonna send you a contract in a few days" enough? 17:34 KC: I think it really depends. You have to feel that out. You know if the publisher has said "yes we want to move forward with thus." 17:44 RJT: Okay. 17:45 KC: If you already have a contract definitely.. 17:46 RJT: Get on that. 17:46 KC: Get on it. If they're sending you a contract, same thing, just query 17:54 RJT: And when you query the agent make sure you say, "This has a pending contract." 17:56 KC: Yeah this.. 17:56 RJT: This is easy money for you. 17:58 KC: Yeah. "I have a pending offer." And you know, the agent is going to come in and will, of course want to look at the contract. If you've already signed the contract, that's a whole other... 18:06 RJT: Yeah, the agent's not going to be able to do anything for you and they're not going to be interested because there's nothing for them to do 18:11 KC: Yeah, they can't really... 18:11 RJT: That's... Their portion of income is dependent on what they can do for you in your contract. So if you already signed the contract, they would not be representing you for that book and then therefor this would be okay, the promise of another book? Do you have that book ready? Like what...? 18:31 KC: Yeah the contract... 18:31 RJT: Don't sign the contract first. 18:31 KC: The contract is gonna say in it where to send payment and if it's an agent, what it'll say is, "Rekka Jay, care of" and the agent and the agency. So you know, if you go back and listen to our Money episode [Episode 9] we talk about how if you have an agent, you're not getting a check from the publisher. Your agent is getting the check from the publisher and then the agent is writing you a check. 18:56 RJT: Unless you managed to work out a very special exclusion to that. 18:58 KC: Yeah. So that's not uncommon, that kind of stuff does happen. Like I Said, a lot of publishing houses would rather deal with an agent cause... 19:12 RJT: They're professionals. 19:12 KC: Exactly. 19:11 RJT: And you don't know what the author doesn't know but you have a pretty good idea of what the agent does know. 19:21 KC: Exactly. So yeah, don't be afraid to do that. 19:22 RJT: So if you get a publisher that would retract the offer because you went out to try and protect yourself by getting representation... 19:29 KC: Yeah you probably didn't want to work with that person to begin with. 19:31 RJT: ...You're better off. And I have heard of publishers doing that. Retracting offers based on that. 19:37 KC: Yeah I mean the one scenario in which I would say, "Okay I understand where they're coming from" maybe is if you get, I don't want to say the wrong agent, but an agent who's gonna come in, tear up the tentative deal that you had already, and start asking and demanding a lot more stuff. And then the publisher's gonna go, "This is not worth it for us." 19:59 RJT: Right. 19:59 KC: You know maybe it's a smaller publishing house like Parvus and you've worked out an advance that both sides are comfortable with, you worked out royalty rates, and then the author said, "You know I signed with an agent, I want them to look at it," and they come in and then go, "No, no, no, no, no! You deserve..!" And on the publisher's side we're going, "Look. You know, we're not Random House. We're not Penguin." And maybe your book would not be getting picked up by Random House or Penguin. So we're working on the same level here. So yes there might be some areas where a publishing house retracts an offer but  20:40 RJT: Not usually based on the fact that you went to find an agent in the first place. This is going to be your agent is trying to bowl them over.  20:47 KC: Yeah it might be that or it's because you went and got an agent and then the agent's asking questions like, "hey what about this contract," and they're like, "Nope. Forget it." Then you probably didn't want to work with that publishing house. 20:57 RJT: Yeah. yeah. Because that's why you want an agent is to help you with these legal documents and they know what's reasonable for you to ask for, and a shady publishing house may be hoping that, by going straight to the author, they can grab more rights or something than they would have been able to. 21:15 KC: Exactly.  21:18 RJT: Or write in some nasty clauses about your future works. 21:18 KC: Exactly. So I think that's all of our questions. 21:24 RJT: Yeah, that was it! It was hopefully a nice reprieve at the end of the month. 21:28 KC: It was actually short this time. We always say we're going to keep it short and then we never do. 21:31 RJT: Yeah this one actually did. But I think those questions were pretty straight forward but they were good questions. 21:35 KC: Yeah, good questions.  21:35 RJT: And I know that at least we didn't cover them directly throughout the rest of the month. So, if you have more questions like this please send them on over. You can find us @wmbcast on twitter and instagram. You can find us at Patreon.com/wmbcast and like we said, if you want credit for your questions, say so, because if you sent it to us directly, privately, and not just tweeting at us. 22:01 KC: We assume anonymity. 22:04 RJT: And you know, when you're talking about querying, you feel a little shy about it and like you might get it wrong so you don't wanna leave your name out there for someone to say, "Ha, they didn't know." But no most people don't know when they're getting started so these are good questions. 22:15 KC: So that's officially the end of Submissions September. 22:19 RJT: For real this time. 22:19 KC: Yeah, thanks for sticking with us, everyone. This was fun. I mean.. 22:24 RJT Let us know what you got out of it. Let us know what surprises you heard this month. And hopefully this has you excited for this step of the process if you haven't made it there yet. 22:33 KC: We won't be doing seven episodes in a month again any time soon. 22:37 RJT: Ever. Like, ever. I will walk out of this shed. 22:37 KC: So hope you enjoyed this while it lasted. 22:44 RJT: Yeah we're a little tired but I think it was worth it. This was something that, from the very conception of this podcast, Kaelyn was excited to do, so hopefully Kaelyn is satisfied with our... 22:58 KC: I am.  22:59 RJT: Good. 23:00 KC: Are you? 23:00 RJT: I'm satisfied. 23:00 KC: Alright well thanks everyone so much for listening. We're back to our regular schedule after this. There will be an October 8th episode, and then it's back to every two weeks. 23:13 RJT: Yep. 23:15 KC: So thanks again for listening. 23:15 RJT: We'll talk to you then!

Hi everyone, and thank you for tuning in to another episode of the We Make Books Podcast - A podcast about writing, publishing, and everything in between! Week Four and the final official episode of Submissions September!  We will be back next Monday for one more episode to answer some questions we received.  But for today’s episode, we’re talking about the other side of the submissions process.  Who is reading these manuscripts?  Do they have a process?  What are they looking for?  Rekka and Kaelyn discuss what is happening on the publisher’s side of this and Kaelyn goes on a few minor tirades. In case you’re just joining us, this month is Submissions September on the We Make Books Podcast, we’re doing seven (7!) episodes this month all about the process of submitting your novel.  We have a lot of awesome discussions lined up and even some special guests.  Here’s what will be coming your way for the month: Week 1 (9/3/2019): Is This Ready For Other People to See?- Submitting Your Manuscript Week 2 (9/10/2019): My Entire Novel in Three Hundred Words - The Dreaded Query Letter Week 3 (9/17/2019): Agents of Literature, Part 1: An Interview with Literary Agent Caitlin McDonald               (9/18/2019): Agents of Literature, Part 2: Interviews with Agented Authors               (9/19/2019): Agents of Literature Part 3: Interviews with Agented Authors Week 4 (9/24/2019): What is Going On Over There? - The Other Side of the Submissions Process Week 5 (9/30/2019): Now I’m Even More Confused – Submissions September Q&A Episode We Make Books is hosted by Rekka Jay and Kaelyn Considine; Rekka is a published author and Kaelyn is an editor and together they are going to take you through what goes into getting a book out of your head, on to paper, in to the hands of a publisher, and finally on to book store shelves. We Make Books is a podcast for writer and publishers, by writers and publishers and we want to hear from our listeners! Hit us up on our social media, linked below, and send us your questions, comments, concerns, and your thoughts on Eli Manning as a future Hall of Famer.  It’s a minimum of six years off, but apparently the entirety of anyone associated with the NFL needs to have this discussion right now. We hope you enjoy We Make Books! Twitter: @WMBCast  |  @KindofKaelyn  |  @BittyBittyZap Instagram: @WMBCast  Patreon.com/WMBCast       Rekka:00:00   Welcome back to, we make books, a podcast about writing, publishing and everything in between. I'm Rekka, I write science fiction and fantasy as RJ Theodore. Kaelyn:00:07   And I'm Kaelyn. I am the acquisitions editor for Parvus Press. And this is my episode. Rekka:00:12   It's all yours. I'll interrupt a couple of times, but you throw things at me right back down. Kaelyn:00:17   This is my wheelhouse. This is my end of things which we are talking about. Okay. We did all this submission stuff. I've sent my manuscript, what's happening to it? Is it being well taken care of? Is someone feeding it, taking it for walks? Rekka:00:28   No, it's all trampled through the mud. Kaelyn:00:31   No, we're very nice to manuscripts and submissions. We take excellent care of them. Rekka:00:35   Also they're digital. Kaelyn:00:35   Yeah, we have a little, it's a, it's like a playpen submissions portal. They all go there and play together it's adorable. You should see it. Yes. Anyway, so yeah, we kinda, that's what we talk about. This episode is what's happening on the other end. Um, and what I'm looking for, what I'm looking at, what I'm doing and when I say, I mean general acquisitions process kind of stuff. Um, we do, you know, we do kind of mention obviously everything and everyone is different, but there are some broad strokes that are pretty universal. Rekka:01:06   Yeah. Kaelyn:01:06   So, um, you know, this is, this is sort of the end of Submissions September. Um, we've mentioned in the episode we are going to do a questions, follow up episode. Rekka:01:17   Yeah, we've been collecting questions and so we'll take the ones that we have so far, um, time being what it is. There might be more that follow up later, but these are the ones that we've collected in time to record for this month. Kaelyn:01:28   God, that whole linear time. Rekka:01:30   Time can be wobbly. New Speaker:  01:31   Yes. Um, so yeah. Anyway, hope you enjoy this episode. We hope you enjoyed submissions September. Rekka:01:37   Yes. Kaelyn:01:37   It was fun. We enjoyed doing this. Um, I enjoyed doing it. Rekka:01:41   It was awful because a lot of work. Kaelyn:01:43   Yeah. It really was. Rekka:01:45   Between scheduling all the interviews you've heard and uh, and then editing them in different weird ways depending on how we recorded them. Yeah. So, um, yeah, it's, it's been a lot of production on our part. Kaelyn:01:56   I learned a lot about audio files. Like more than - Rekka:02:00   More than you ever wanted. Kaelyn:02:01   It's more than I ever thought would be necessary for me to, so we've all grown here. Yeah. Rekka:02:06   So after this we're taking off and we're going to go mini golfing and we're going to enjoy ourselves more. We have to edit all the episodes you're going to be hearing. Kaelyn:02:14   So, um, you know, thanks for sticking with us and uh, we hope you enjoyed the episode. Rekka:02:19   Thanks everyone. Speaker 4:       02:28   [music] Kaelyn:02:37   So, last episode Submission September. Rekka:02:41   It has been a long and winding month. Kaelyn:02:43   I have not come out of this in one piece. I'm falling apart. Rekka:02:46   Yes. And that's not because of submissions. Well, actually we don't know. Kaelyn:02:49   You don't know that. Rekka:02:50   We have no proof. Kaelyn:02:53   Okay. Um, yeah. I, when I was on vacation, I broke my toe and as a result of walking funny on it, I have now messed up my lower back. I'm currently sitting propped up with a lot of pillows behind me and trying not to move too much. Um, it's not the most comfortable I've ever been in my life. Rekka:03:11   And later we're going hiking. Kaelyn:03:13   We're going to play mini golf. Rekka:03:14   That's worse because you gotta bend over. Kaelyn:03:17   Yeah, I can walk,walking's well actually that's not true. I can't really walk with - Rekka:03:22   You can do a, an imitation of a walk. Kaelyn:03:24   Yes. It's fine. Rekka is just going to carry me on her back. Rekka:03:28   Yeah. Kaelyn:03:28   Yoda-style. Rekka:03:29   Because my back's in great shape too. Kaelyn:03:31   Exactly. Rekka:03:32   So there you go. Kaelyn:03:33   Perfect. Rekka:03:33   We've got to plan. Kaelyn:03:34   Our voices are still working. That's all that matters. Rekka:03:36   Hey, you know. Kaelyn:03:37   Actually for you that's touch and go. Rekka:03:38   Yeah, that's not necessarily true, I need water. Kaelyn:03:42   Um, so yeah, we're talking today about, um, you know, we spent all of September going over everything, leading up to turning your submission into someone. So here's what's happening on the other side. Now somebody gets those submissions and reads them and has emotional reactions at Parvus that someone is me. Rekka:04:03   Yes. Kaelyn:04:04   So, you know, as I said in the beginning of every episode, I'm, I'm the acquisitions editor for Parvus Press. So, uh, you're not sending your work into a black hole. You're sending it to me. Um, and I'm going to look at it and say, sure, let's move forward with this. Or thank you, but we can't accept this right now. Um, so before we really get into this, there was one thing I wanted to clarify and that was that I was surprised when I started getting into this that I'm actually a little bit of a rare breed. There are not a lot of strictly acquisitions editors, any- Rekka:04:43   Yeah. Kaelyn:04:44   Anymore. Yeah. Um, a lot of places now, especially especially in our genre and Scifi and fantasy, um, I'd imagine across most places, um, editors kind of are doing their own acquisition process. They're kind of picking what they want to work on. Um, larger publishing houses will absolutely have more of a system in place just because they have to. Um, but a lot of times editors, um, especially when dealing with agents will kind of pick and choose their own stuff. Now they still typically have to take it to a publisher, to a senior editor, and it still has to go before the committee, so to speak. Rekka:05:23   Right. Kaelyn:05:24   They don't get to just say, Yup, this one I'm taking this. Um, they still have to get it, I don't want to say approved - Rekka:05:30   But kind of, I mean, like it's a group decision, um, because it's for the entire company, you know, the, the book and its sales will benefit the company and it's a production costs will come from the company's coffers. So it's not just an editor can decide on their own in most cases. Now maybe there are editors who just get a budget and they're like, here's your budget, turn it into something for the company. Kaelyn:05:54   Those editors have have multiple awards. Rekka:05:56   Yes, exactly. Kaelyn:05:57   And the sales and marketing team's also gonna have like something to say about it. Rekka:06:01   Right. Kaelyn:06:01   But the whole point here is that, um, while there are definitely the acquisitions editors, acquiring editors, whatever you want to call them, absolutely still do exist. Um, especially if you're have having an open submissions period because someone's gotta be in charge of, it's me at Parvus. Rekka:06:20   Um, so in a way, would you say that an acquisitions editor is more like a project manager these days? Kaelyn:06:27   Um, I'm not sure project manager is the exact correct analogy, but yes, and similar. Rekka:06:35   I don't think so, but yeah. Kaelyn:06:36   Yeah. It's, well, because I really more of a filter. I'm the first one you have to get past, right? Rekka:06:45   When you delegate from there and you, you make decisions, having seen the broad landscape as a whole. Kaelyn:06:51   Yeah, it's definitely that. Yeah. And an acquisitions editor will also work very closely with a sales and marketing team to kind of determine like, Rekka:06:58   Is there a vision? Kaelyn:06:59   Here's what I think we can do with this book and here's the plan I have for it and here's who we can sell it to, et cetera. How to position it. Rekka:07:07   Yeah, exactly. Kaelyn:07:08   So on my end, I'm taking all of that into consideration when I'm looking at these things. So, you know, you submit online, I've got a submissions manager, I've got a portal that I log into and I see everyone's query letters and their submissions and um, and I just dive in and this is very typical. You're going to get into the submissions manager. They're going to give you, um, you know, the steps of how to do all of this. If you go to Parvus's website, we have a video up of, you know, here's how you walk through your submissions process. Um, usually it generates like a number, an ID of some kind, just so you know, you can reference that. Rekka:07:51   Yeah. I like an order number. Kaelyn:07:53   Yeah, exactly. I referenced them a lot because I have a notebook that I keep track of all of this stuff in and um, the, this is going to come as a galloping shock to everyone I'm sure, but a lot of the same words get used in titles and stuff. And so I sometimes actually just remember things by their number because you get so many of the same words popping up in titles. I don't want to confuse anything. Rekka:08:20   In the noun of Noun or something. Kaelyn:08:22   Yes, exactly The This of The Thing. Yes. Um, so we've talked a lot in previous episodes for submission, September about a lot of do's and don'ts and we'll get to some more of that at the end. But - Rekka:08:39   But this one isn't so much about what you would be doin, the writer as what Kaelyn is experiencing on the back end in terms of what she receives, what her process is, her thoughts and like the decisions she's making and how she comes to them.   Kaelyn:08:55   And of course I speak for all acquisitions editors. Rekka:08:58   Absolutely, 100%. Everything you hear is uh, like Ironbound. Kaelyn:09:03   We are a collective hive mind. I'm communicating with them right now mentally. Rekka:09:07   That is not true. This is the opposite, uh Kaelyn is an individual and works for one company and other companies may do things differently and contain other individuals who are not part of a hive mind, whatever, Kaelyn would like you to believe about her supernatural abilities. Kaelyn:09:22   Um, it's true. I'm only part of the only part of the Parvus Hive Mind. Rekka:09:27   Yeah. So, um, of course what we're saying is that your results may vary with another publisher. Um, that publisher will have their own practices and their own, you know, way of going about this. So, um, this is just to give you some insight, but it is not the end all be all encyclopedia entry on how this do. Kaelyn:09:47   Now, that said, I will say that some of the things I'm about to say right now, they're pretty universal across the board. One of the things is if I open your submission and you have not followed the submission guidelines, that's probably gotten tossed right away. Um, it's, yeah, we've talked about this a little bit, but it's one of those things that I have hundreds of these. Rekka:10:08   And you're not going to pick the person that's clearly not going to follow instructions even from the get go when they are supposed to be making their best impression. And can't even follow the instructions you have given and laid out for them. Kaelyn:10:23   It's harsh to say, but I don't have time for that. I don't mean that to be callous. I don't mean it to be rude. It's a business decision. Rekka:10:28   It's your first business decision of the query. Kaelyn:10:30   It's a business decision. But it's also, I mean, I literally don't have the time for this. Um, so if you have done something that, you know, you haven't followed the submissions guidelines, there is a very, very, very good chance, not just me, most anyone interested in acquiring books are just going to go in the garbage. Um, so that's sad. You know, let's say they've got your submission lined up and correct and everything. Um, this is something maybe everyone doesn't want to hear, but I probably have a list of things that I'm interested in. Rekka:11:05   Right. Kaelyn:11:06   It's not carved in stone. It's definitely not, you know, like pleasant surprises. Absolutely. I love pleasant surprises. Um, but every time we have an open submissions period, uh, we do put, you know, like Kaelyn is interested in this, Colin is interested in this and we do kind of say like, Hey, you know, these are what we're especially excited to look for. Pleasant surprises absolutely happen. Um, but I am kind of on the lookout for certain things and I, we'll come out and admit this, that there are certain things that I'm kind of like, I can't do anymore of this, or we just don't have a space for urban fantasy right now. Rekka:11:49   And some of this is going to be your bias, just to be clear, like you're human and if you are sick of certain kind of story, there's probably a good chance that it's not something that the team as a whole is really open to. Kaelyn:11:55   Yeah. And also it might be, well we just acquired two urban fantasies. I can't do another one right now. We have to change it up, be a little, you know, more diverse in our selections. Um, so that said, you know, I'm going through everything. Um, the Colin method is being applied here. Rekka:12:24   Before we get to that, can I ask? Kaelyn:12:26   Sure. Rekka:12:26   Cause I don't know the answer to this yet. Um, so say you put out a call for military science fiction. Kaelyn:12:31   Yes. Rekka:12:32   Is there anything in your system that indicates that that's in a query so you could like sort filter for the military science fiction? So when you log into our submissions manager and um, I would imagine a lot of places do this. Kaelyn:12:49   You can select which genre you're writing in. Rekka:12:52   Even down to the sub genre? Kaelyn:12:53   Oh yeah, well, I mean, we have, you know, for us, we have a lot of different sub genres you can pick from because you know, we only do, well, that's why I said even because it seems like there's a new one every day, so - Rekka:13:04   I didn't know if it was just, if you've got the basic, um, you know, book code, library codes, you've got custom ones in there. Kaelyn:13:12   Oh, we've got, yeah, we've got some interesting ones. I sometimes I want to go in there and just add things as a joke to see if anything, anyone picks up on it. Yeah. Um, so we, um, you know, I'm, I'm using the Colin Method, which for those of you who. Rekka:13:27   Passed that episode. Kaelyn:13:37   Missed that episode, I know we've run, your first sentence is buying me your first paragraph, your first paragraph's by me, your first page, your first page is buying me your first chapter. Every little bit I read that I like, I'm gonna keep going farther. Rekka:13:41   And back to the start of that, your query buys, the first sentence buys opening the document. Kaelyn:13:45   Yes. Rekka:13:46   And so you do read the queries before you? Kaelyn:13:48   Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. Um, and the reason for that is I need to know what I'm getting into when I'm opening the manuscripts to set up an expectation. Rekka:14:02   But also to like an energy sort of allotment. New Speaker:  15:09   I am not just purchasing your book. I am purchasing you as a person and a concept and a brand that sounds illegal. I am purchasing your personality. Rekka:15:21   You are investing in the author. Let's, let's choose some. Kaelyn:15:26   Okay. Rekka:15:27   2019. Kaelyn:15:28   All right. Rekka:15:29   Terminology. Kaelyn:15:29   Well I mean we are buying your book but we're buying into you. Rekka:15:32   Yeah. Kaelyn:15:34   And that you as an author are important as the brand. But also I need to make sure that you're not posting awful things, awful things. I need to like, you know, I think we will get to this more when I get to that, but that part of this, but I need to know about you. There's no such thing as writing a book in a vacuum. Rekka:15:59   Right. So let me ask, so you said that sometimes there are slush readers and sometimes it's just you. So if a slush reader turns away a book, do you ever go, oh wait, I want to look at that before we actually turn it away? Kaelyn:16:23   A lot of times with slush readers, okay. There, the parameters of, you know, them are completely, are different all over the place. Um, I tell them if this seems even a little interesting. Rekka:16:31   Okay. Yup, Yup. Kaelyn:16:32   Yeah. Kick it up. Um, a lot of times for slush readers, like the one we most used them for was when we did our anthology because short stories are easier to do and that was very important for anonymous submissions. One of the other reasons for that is I might send it to someone else. Um, I might send it to editors within our company. Um, we have freelance editors that work with us. Sometimes I might send it to them. So that's why I want to make sure there's no information on there because I just want them to get a manuscript that's come from me that I already said this is cool. Rekka:17:25   Yeah. Kaelyn:17:27   And circulate it to the other. So that's kind of the next step. If you're, if this is something that I'm very interested in, what I'll do is I'll say like, oh, okay, uh, Ryan Kelley, he likes this kind of stuff. I'm going to send this over to him and see if that's something he would be interested in working on. Rekka:17:45   Right. Kaelyn:17:45   Because as the acquisitions editor, I don't get to just you, you're doing this now. Um, editor isn't, you know, Rekka, I'm sure you can attest to this because you've worked with a couple of different editors just at Parvus now they've got to be passionate about the stuff they're working on. Rekka:18:02   Absolutely. Yeah. I would not want an editor who is only mildly interested in my story or not at all. Kaelyn:18:10   Yeah. If you're getting assigned things that's well like, okay for copy, edit the final copy, edit fine, get as many eyes on it as possible and someone can just go through and make sure the commas are in the correct place. Rekka:18:23   But yeah, if I'm working on someone with a developmental edit. Kaelyn:18:27   Yeah, no, they, they need to be passionate and excited about this. So this is where when I said earlier how editors kind of pick what they want to work on, this is where that comes in. So like, you know, let's say for the sake of round numbers, I started out with a hundred submissions. Maybe 10 of them were interesting enough. We're going to take three books. I will send the ones that I think would work best to the editor, I think would work best with them. Rekka:18:56   Right. Kaelyn:18:57   And they'll take a look and decide, okay, well I have room on my calendar for one more book. I want it to be this one. So that sounds like it's the end of the story. But here's the thing, it's not always, and I'm going to stop here because I want to backtrack a bit and say this is assuming an open submissions call and you don't have an agent. Rekka:19:20   Right. That's important to know. Kaelyn:19:22   Yes. We should've said that earlier. Yes. So if you have an agent, what's happening is instead of just going through this open submissions call, your agent is typically directly in touch with either like me and acquisitions editor or editors specifically that they work with and know, and this is when I said that, you know, editors a lot of times pick their own things frequently. it's through relationships with agents that they have or things that people send them directly to them. Rekka:19:50   Yeah. This is why you don't see a lot of open submissions calls at a lot of publishers because the editors have already developed relationships with agents and they're, they're getting their slate filled before they could even consider having an open submissions call. Kaelyn:20:06   Yeah. And a lot of them, a lot of editors will not take unsolicited manuscripts because they just, they'll be inundated. Rekka:20:13   Right. It's a lot of work to go through all these. Kaelyn:20:15   Yeah. So you have an agent that you've worked with before, you trust their, their taste, their um, screening process. Rekka:20:23   You know, you work well together. You know, that if they have an author in their stable, that chances are it's someone you could work with because you know that that author would have to work with this agent. So it's almost like a, it's an endorsement. Yes. It's a patronage, an endorsement sort of thing that, that they can trust you because they know your agent. Kaelyn:20:46   So, that's, you know, that's where a lot of editors are frequently getting it. And that's part of the reason, you know, we talked last week was all about agents and stuff and these mythical creatures, Unicorns, why they're so important. And you know, it's, it's hard to say because we do open submission calls a lot and I like that we do them, but having a literary agent is very good. Yeah. And it's, uh, if nothing else, it's a foot in the door. It's like a little badge you get. I've got a literary agent. Rekka:21:23   Yeah. It's a little more fast track to the front of the line. Yeah. It's, um, it's guaranteeing that there's somebody who's gonna speak for your book, um, more than just your query letter. Kaelyn:21:34   Right. Um, and I mean with Parvus, we've had every book that is released as of when this is coming out. Rekka:21:42   Right. You got to be specific. Kaelyn:21:43   We've gotten through our open submissions call, um, that will change soon. But every single one of our books that we've put out already have come through our open submission call. Rekka:21:54   And that was pretty intentional on Parvus's part. Kaelyn:21:56   Yeah. Um, it, I mean, I like it. I like that we do that. Um, I like that we can find books from people that just wanted to write a good book and submitted it. And we were like, yep, we'll publish that. Rekka:22:09   Which was kind of, I mean, having talked to Colin before in other interviews, that was sort of his entire concept. Kaelyn:22:14   Yeah. Rekka:22:14   For wanting to open a publishing house. Kaelyn:22:16   Exactly. Rekka:22:17   To find the books that are out there that he knew was out there that are great and written by passionate people who love writing. Kaelyn:22:23   Yeah, exactly. So, um, so we found a book by a passionate person who loves writing and - Rekka:22:30   Who is adorable. Kaelyn:22:31   And is adorable. And they found, we have an editor who's really interested in it. So what happens next? Rekka:22:39   You tear that book to shreds. We start over. Kaelyn:22:41   No. Well before that you're probably gonna get a phone call. Rekka:22:44   Oh yeah. Okay. Sorry. I just remember the painful part. Phone call with lots of fun. Kaelyn:22:49   Um, you're probably going to get a phone call from me, but then I need to know about you. I need to make sure that if I go to your Twitter feed, it is not full of horrible misogynistic jokes and pictures. I need to make sure that you're not writing about your favorite ways to torture animals. And yeah, I know we like to think that we write books in a vacuum. We don't, I don't care if you've written the greatest thing in the history of literature. If you're a shitty person, we can't publish that and we're not going to and we don't want to. And maybe some you listening are going, well, shouldn't the book just stand on its own merit? It doesn't. Rekka:23:48   It can't. Kaelyn:23:49   It can't these days. It can't because it's not, we're not simply purchasing your book. We are investing in you as a person, as a brand, as an author. Rekka:23:59   And when they invest in an author, that author's name becomes attached to the company. Kaelyn:24:07   Exactly. And we're small, but even the bigger places, we, no one wants to affiliate themselves with crappy people. Rekka:24:15   And you see this happening a lot, um, problematic or otherwise in social media where somebody spouts off and suddenly they've lost their contract. Kaelyn:24:25   Yeah. Rekka:24:26   And you know, better or worse. I mean, we're not going to comment on different - Kaelyn:24:28   Yeah. That's uh - Rekka:24:29   situations. Some go, some go sideways real fast, you know. Kaelyn:24:33   And that's, that's a whole other thing. But the other part of this is that besides just making sure that, you know, you don't have a secret life, um, you know, with the KKK, I also want to talk to you and get a feel for what I think working with you will be like. Rekka:24:48   Right. Kaelyn:24:49   Because if I get on a phone call with you and oh, it's about time you guys called. I was wondering when I was going to hear from you this, this a 90 day turnaround. I mean, I should have been right at the top of your list. I just called - Rekka:25:07   You just found yourself at the bottom. Kaelyn:25:11   I just called to say, we hope you're having a good day. Bye. Um, you know, I want to kind of get an idea also for what you'd be willing to do with the book because as Rekka said, tear the book to shreds that they've already got ideas. The thing is, before I call you, I've already talked to your editor, who I've already said, hey, so what do you think you're going to want to work with on this? What do you, you know, what's the scale of the changes and revisions you're going to want them to make? Um, so you're probably wondering, why doesn't the editor call me? They might, it depends. It's just, you know, I'm the acquisitions editor. I'm the one who kind of - Rekka:25:48   Spearheads this operation. Kaelyn:25:49   Yeah. And it's just a little more of a streamlined process where, you know, you're going to talk to me first. It's just, just how it goes. Your editor might be on the call with me. Very possible. Um, so once you get past that, then it's, you know, into contract negotiations and I won't go too much into that right now because we're kind of, that's moving out of the submission phase of things. But then that's, I mean that's the end of the story then. Rekka:26:14   Yeah. Kaelyn:26:17   Is the contract. Rekka:26:18   Then you, from the contract. Once that's all complete, it's get to work, you know, you get your revision notes from your editor and you move into the production and then you're done. This is this whole, uh, Submission September thing is behind you. At least for this book. Kaelyn:26:32   Yeah. So, um, that's, that's kind of like, I mean, it's weird to feel like we've come to a hard stop, but like that - Rekka:26:40   That's what happens. It goes off your plate at that point, unless you decide to be the editor yourself. Kaelyn:26:44   You know, it's the submissions process I think in general is, you know, well, how, how do you go through it? Slowly at first and then suddenly all at once. Rekka:26:54   Right? Kaelyn:26:55   It's, it's a lot of hurry up and wait. Rekka:26:57   And then, and then it's everything. Kaelyn:27:02   Things can progress very quickly.Um, so that's kind of where you end up. Uh, we did, you know, I wrote down some things just to, you know, sort of run through some do's and don'ts about this kind of stuff. Rekka:27:12   A couple of questions that, you know, pop up in my mind as I'm listening to you talk. Kaelyn:27:16   Yeah. Um, you know, again, please read the submissions guidelines. I know we talked about this already, but just the fastest way to get your book taken out of consideration is to not do what they ask you to do. Rekka:27:30   Is to display that you think you are above that process or that you don't know how to read. Kaelyn:27:37   And it is so easy to just do this. This is not, this isn't a monumental insurmountable task and no one is going to put submissions guidelines up there that are like now once you have killed to the owl, you must address the letter to us in its blood. Yeah. Rekka:27:55   Although that is a nice additional filter you could use. Kaelyn:27:58   I mean, um, I don't want people killing owls though. Rekka:28:01   I was just going to say as to figure out who is willing to kill an owl and you don't want those authors, but that's sort of backwards. Kaelyn:28:06   Um, I like owls. Rekka:28:07   Yeah. So like I know having gone through the process of submitting things before that it is nerve wracking to think like, am I doing this right? Are they gonna like me? Do I come off as - Kaelyn:28:22   Please like me. Rekka:28:22   Um, do I come off as someone who's, you know, professional, et Cetera. The most professional thing you can do is follow the set of instructions they give you and it makes it a heck of a lot easier to click send on something when you know, like, okay, I have done steps one through five out of five and now I can send to this because I've given them exactly what they asked for. There's nothing left for me to provide here. Kaelyn:28:47   You actually even then touched on something that I think also is overlooked frequently, which is professionalism. So in my company we publish science fiction and fantasy and there's certainly like a tone and attitude a, it's fun that comes along with it. Absolutely feel free, especially in email correspondence to joke around with me because you will frequently get email responses from me that contain ridiculous things. But part of that is I'll cop to it here and now part of that is a ploy on my end that I'm trying to put the person at ease. Like it's cool, like don't. Um, but that said, and when I was on a Rekka's, um - Rekka:29:31   Podcast. Kaelyn:29:31   Previous podcast, Hybrid, Author um, one of the things I pointed out that a lot of people don't think about is your email address. If you have an email address that you've had since like college and what do we call it? SnotMonster27, you know, whatever. Unless your book is about 27 snot monsters, maybe try to come up with one that's like just your name somehow. Um, you know, if you have like some kind of, I won't say ridiculous, but maybe like silly things that are like hold over from your early Reddit days that you know, you still use, it's not a bad idea when you're getting ready to go through this process, one, to have a separate email account to manage all of these things. Rekka:30:14   Right. Kaelyn:30:15   But two, also something just a little more. Rekka:30:18   Grounded? Neutral? Kaelyn:30:19   Yeah. Neutral's good. Just like maybe just your name or maybe you know, RekkaWritesBooks@gmail. Like, you know that you can still be fun with it and you know, but just something to kind of be aware of is, you know, like I got, I get some things some times and people have stuff in their signature that they don't realize is like things you should well, things you should maybe change before you send this to someone you're hoping to work with professionally. Rekka:30:47   Gotcha. Kaelyn:30:48   Um, so just kind of be aware of that and um, all kind of transition this into the next thing, which I think you were touching on, which is emailing and asking questions. Rekka:31:02   Yeah. Kaelyn:31:04   Absolutely do it. If you are unsure of something, I get - Rekka:31:08   I have not seen a submissions page, like the guidelines that don't include an email address for you to ask questions before you submit incorrectly. Kaelyn:31:15   Exactly. And um, I will say sometimes I do get questions where I'm like, did you read the submissions guidelines? But, um, we had a problem with our submissions portal this time, just something clicked off and wasn't supposed to. And I got a whole bunch of emails and we were like, oh shoot, that's a problem. And we fixed it. And I get right back to those people and say, thank you, we fixed it. Rekka:31:39   Yeah, go ahead. Kaelyn:31:40   Now, um, if you have a question about like, you know, listen, I'm not sure this is what you're looking for. I mean, my answer to that is always, I'm not either, send it over. Let's see. You know, I'm never gonna - Rekka:31:51   It is open submissions. Kaelyn:31:52   Yeah. So, yeah. Um, but along those lines and going back to the professionalism, don't start your emails off with Yo. Um, I'm - Rekka:32:04   Kaelyn is from New York. She gets that enough. Kaelyn:32:05   I am frequently taken aback by the crassness of some of the emails that I get that - take the time and write, you know, dear whoever. And you know, like at Parvus you can just write "Dear Hive Mind," and I mean, yeah, you can still be cute about it, but like light about it. This is to whom it may concern or, you know, I, I even get the ones that are like, "Hi, I'm not sure who I'm supposed to be addressing this to", but you know, just - Rekka:32:41   You've tried. Kaelyn:32:42   Yes. Um, Rekka:32:44   Don't lean far into like, I don't even care who this is addressing. Yo. Kaelyn:32:47   Um, I get emails that are just like the, hey, what do I do about this? Like take a minute and say hi, I'm so and so. I'm submitting to your open call. I'm having a problem with this. Be Professional, be considerate, be courteous, be polite. Rekka:33:06   Yeah. Kaelyn:33:07   Because right off that if you don't think I am mentally, I am not mentally making a note of this person and when I get to their submission, because what did I say before when I talked to you, I want an idea of what it's going to be like to work with you. Rekka:33:21   Right. So you've already provided your first clue. Kaelyn:33:25   Everything, every interaction you have with anyone in any professional setting really. But especially if it's something like this, you're, this is all information we're putting away about working with you. Rekka:33:38   This is like showing up to the job interview and you're ripped up sweat pants that you've been wearing for four days. Kaelyn:33:43   Yes. Yeah. So just, you know, be cognizant of that kind of stuff that yes, we're a fun organization. We're cool people we like interacting with and this isn't just Parvus, this is most places. Okay. We don't know you. Rekka:34:01   Yeah. Kaelyn:34:02   Yet. Not yet. So just be aware of that. And first impression first. Rekka:34:08   Yeah. There's a reason your mom and your grandma havetalked about that. Kaelyn:34:11   Yeah. And I know it sounds silly. It's really not. First impressions are very important. Um, so that's, you know, it's kind of the do's and don'ts a little bit, um, with, you know, other stray submissions related things. Rekka:34:27   Right. Kaelyn:34:28   Um, one thing and actually Rekka should be the one to talk about. This is uh organizing who you're submitting to and tracking that is very important, Rekka:34:41   Right. So they're um, depending on how you query, um, well, okay, so acquiring agents, there's a whole system for that. Kaelyn:34:49   Yes. Rekka:34:49   And much like the submissions grinder for short fiction submissions, it will kind of keep track of stuff for you. But this is the day and age where you never know what's going to strike on the Internet. You want to have a local copy that's tracing all this stuff. So I recommend if you can download, um, your submissions history, uh, in some way to like a excel file spreadsheet. Do that. But at the very least maintain your own spreadsheet and say, you know who, what story and if you have a tendency to keep working on stories after you submit them, like what revision, um, then what, you know the date, the publisher and if you like, you can copy paste your query letter into that, the next cell and in excel in the spreadsheet. And then you know what you've said to them last time. So the next time you submit you don't send them the exact same words again. And also, um, you know the, the salutation at the beginning, the little opening warmup, text. Kaelyn:35:55   Make sure you change that for - Rekka:35:56   Make sure that that is not identical with just the names, you've done, you know, find and replace for each, um, each place you submit it to. And then when they acknowledge it, what, um, what follow up conversations you have and the dates and stuff like that, just keep track of it. Because this is stuff you're going to want to refer back to at some point. And if you, um, you know, if you have questions for them, you can write those questions down and the answers and you can just all keep it in one basic like real simple spreadsheet dashboard where you have everything and you can do tabs at the bottom. So each piece, you know, each manuscript you work on has a different tab and, or each publisher has a different tab. Kaelyn:36:39   I think we're gonna have Rekka do some kind of like a youtube instructional video on the best way to do, Rekka:36:46   I don't know if I'm the best one because I don't really have a system I, I queried to Parvus and uh, it was accepted. Kaelyn:36:52   We're going to have you develop a system and um, and along those lines, one thing that I should've brought up earlier, one of the good things to keep track of is if they say expect a response within this time, if not, feel free to follow up.   Rekka:37:07   Yeah. So we've covered that in the previous one. You can even like add a formula to your spreadsheet that calculates the day for you. Like this day, you know from Column D add 90 days and column E displays the day that you sh- you can follow up if you haven't heard. Here's the thing, cause we can't do math in our heads, apparently not. Kaelyn:37:27   If you submit January sixth - 15th and they say 90 days, 90 days is not March 15th I know in that's three months in the calendar in your mind, but 90 days is April 15th ish, whatever it is. The way the, actually that is because of February. So - Rekka:37:45   February makes up for the third one. Kaelyn:37:47   So get out, like if you don't want to do in the spreadsheet, get out a calendar and count out 90 days because 90 days is not three months. Rekka:37:59   Yeah. Kaelyn:38:00   90 days is 90 days. Rekka:38:02   Right. And you can, if you find counting to 90 difficult because of distractions or whatever, or nerves, just Google. What's the date? 90 days from today, Kaelyn:38:15   Because there is, I don't know if this is just a pet peeve of mine, but when I get ones that are like, hi, I submitted 90 days ago and I go and look and I go, no you didn't. You submitted 60 days ago, but thanks. And the ones that I, it's amazing. It's always the people that submitted like the first week and it's like you could not have submitted 90 days ago. We were not open for submissions 90 days ago. And then it puts me in the position of I don't want to write the back and make them feel silly. Like I want like I don't want to have to go 'Actually you submitted 60 days. Like I'll talk to you in a month.'. Rekka:38:48   Yeah. Kaelyn:38:49   Um, so yeah, that's um, that's kind of the, the end of the submissions process is the contract then. So that's also the end of Submissions September. Rekka:39:02   Almost. Kaelyn:39:02   Almost. Cause we have one last uh, one last treat here. Rekka:39:06   Probably be a quick episode I think. Kaelyn:39:07   Very quick. We're actually going to try and keep it at, we keep, we always say we're going to and then we never, yeah. Rekka:39:13   Yeah. Kaelyn:39:13   We've got, we're gonna do one last episode. We are going to really try to keep it short. It's just we did, we got a few questions and we want to kind of round out Submissions September. Rekka:39:25   Yes. And thank you to everyone who did send the questions. If you feel like we skipped over your question, we promise you we didn't. Um, but we can cover it in another episode. Kaelyn:39:34   Yeah. Well, and I mean, who knows, maybe that could turn into an episode. Rekka:39:38   Yeah. I might end up being an entire episode on So-and-so. I'm, we hear you if you sent them. Thank you. And uh, we will get to your questions. Either you'll hear it in the next episode or we will, uh, talk about it in the future. Kaelyn:39:51   Yep. So, um, that's the end of the official episodes of Submissions September we will be back, uh, and I guess we're going to do less than a week because we're gonna yeah, we're going to put that up the last day of September. Rekka:40:04   Just to stick the whole - Kaelyn:40:05   Just to round it out. Yeah, exactly. Rekka:40:08   And then we will have- Kaelyn:40:09   We'll be back to our regular schedule. Rekka:40:12   Yes. Kaelyn:40:12   Of every other week. Rekka:40:13   Yeah. New Speaker:  40:14   So thank you for sticking with us all September. We know this was a lot of listening to us talk Rekka:40:19   Hopefully. It was exciting for you because these are the things that people are always wondering but not necessarily finding answers to. Kaelyn:40:25   Yes. So, um, you know, as always, if you have questions that, you know, after listening to this, you know, send them to us, we'll, we'll still talk about this stuff. It's not like we're never going to talk about submissions ever again. Rekka:40:38   This is it. Kaelyn:40:38   This is exactly everything. Rekka:40:42   Um, so you can find us @WMBcast on Twitter, Instagram, and on Patreon Kaelyn:40:47   And um, thank you. Yeah. Thank you. So we'll, we'll be back in six days now? Rekka:40:52   Yes. Kaelyn:40:52   This time with uh, with questions. So thanks everyone and we'll see you in six days. Speaker 5:       40:58   Thanks.  

Hi everyone, and thank you for tuning in to another episode of the We Make Books Podcast - A podcast about writing, publishing, and everything in between! Week Three of Submissions September and we’re on part two of Agents Week!  For this episode we got to talk to three agented authors to hear about their journey and experience in signing with their literary agent.  Tyler Hayes, Sam Hawke, and Caitlin Starling were all kind enough to tell us their stories, share their experiences, and even offer some insight and wisdom.  You can (and should!) check them all out on Twitter, Instagram, and their website, all of which are linked below! In case you’re just joining us, this month is Submissions September on the We Make Books Podcast!  We’re doing seven (7!) episodes this month all about the process of submitting your novel.  We have a lot of awesome discussions lined up and even some special guests.  Here’s what will be coming your way for the month: Week 1 (9/3/2019): Is This Ready For Other People to See?- Submitting Your Manuscript Week 2 (9/10/2019): My Entire Novel in Three Hundred Words - The Dreaded Query Letter Week 3 (9/17/2019): Agents of Literature, Part 1: An Interview with Literary Agent Caitlin McDonald               (9/18/2019): Agents of Literature, Part 2: Interviews with Agented Authors               (9/19/2019): Agents of Literature Part 3: Interviews with Agented Authors Week 4 (9/24/2019):What is Going On Over There? - The Other Side of the Submissions Process Week 5 (9/30/2019): Now I’m Even More Confused – Submissions September Q&A Episode We Make Books is hosted by Rekka Jay and Kaelyn Considine; Rekka is a published author and Kaelyn is an editor and together they are going to take you through what goes into getting a book out of your head, on to paper, in to the hands of a publisher, and finally on to book store shelves. We Make Books is a podcast for writer and publishers, by writers and publishers and we want to hear from our listeners! Hit us up on our social media, linked below, and send us your questions, comments, concerns, and well, never mind about the football-related stress relief suggestions, Daniel Jones it is. We hope you enjoy We Make Books!   Twitter: @WMBCast  |  @KindofKaelyn  |  @BittyBittyZap Instagram: @WMBCast  Patreon.com/WMBCast And check out this episode’s interviewees! Tyler Hayes- 00:01:28 - 00:15:34   Represented by Lisa Abellera of Kimberley Cameron & Associates http://www.kimberleycameron.com/lisa-abellera.php   https://tyler-hayes.com/ https://twitter.com/the_real_tyler   The Imaginary Corpse https://www.angryrobotbooks.com/shop/fantasy/the-imaginary-corpse/     ====   Sam Hawke- 00:15:35 - 00:25:42   Represented by Julie Crisp of Julie Crisp Literary Agency http://www.juliecrisp.co.uk/   https://samhawkewrites.com/ https://twitter.com/samhawkewrites   City of Lies: https://samhawkewrites.com/books/buy-sams-books/   ===     Caitlin Starling- 00:25:43 - 00:40:36   Represented by Caitlin McDonald https://literallycait.tumblr.com/ of DMLA http://maassagency.com/   https://www.caitlinstarling.com/ https://twitter.com/see_starling   The Luminous Dead https://www.harpercollins.com/9780062846907/the-luminous-dead/   Rekka:00:01   Welcome back to, we make books, a podcast about writing, publishing and everything in between. I am Rekka and I write science fiction and fantasy as RJ Theodore. Kaelyn:00:10   And I'm Kaelyn. I am the acquisitions editor for Parvus Press. Rekka:00:14   So today is the first of our two episodes where we talk to authors about their experience with their agents, getting their agent and working with them. Kaelyn:00:23   Yeah. And our previous episode we talked to Caitlin McDonald who is an agent, but we wanted to talk to some authors that have agents because hearing an agent is one thing. Hearing an author who has done this is another. Rekka:00:37   So we got a bunch of them. Kaelyn:00:39   Yeah. And um, you're, you'll hear in this, uh, this episode, these three authors all kind of have different paths to this. There really isn't like the standard story of how you got there. Um, we talked to Sam Hawk, Tyler Hayes and Caitlin Starling. Rekka:00:54   Cause they're individual interviews, this episode goes a tiny bit long. Kaelyn:00:57   A bit long. Rekka:00:57   So we'll, we'll make room for the other episodes you've gotta listen to this week and we hope that this week on agents is serving you well and getting you excited. Kaelyn:01:07   So thanks everyone. Enjoy the episode. Speaker 2:       01:13   [music] Tyler:   01:28   My name is Tyler Hayes. Uh, I've been, I've been writing for about 25 years and writing for money for 16 of that. Um, and my, my debut novel, the Imaginary Corpse is coming out from Angry Robot on September 10th. So I'm repped by Lisa Avalara at Kimberly Cameron and Associates. They're up here in northern California near me. So my story is a little bit backwards from typical, um, in that I actually had the offer on the book before I had an agent. Um, I had been following the kind of normal path of query, partial request, full request, reject, reject, reject, reject. Um, so I was piling up rejections, uh, on this book and they were all those like, you're almost there. Types of rejections. Like it was a lot of, I loved this, but I don't know where I'd put it. And so I don't want to offer to represent it when I'm not confident to where I'd place it. Kaelyn:02:27   Okay. As far as rejections go better than others. Tyler:   02:32   Yes, indeed. And I got of course a few, I formed out a few places, but the, the ones that were personalized, we're all like, God, I wish I knew where to put this, but I'm sorry. Kaelyn:02:42   Yeah. Tyler:   02:43   Um, so midway through that, uh, I got the notice for through my writing community, um, that Angry Robot books was doing their open door period, which they do once a year. Um, and I thought, well, worst case I'll be exactly where I am now if they say no, so I'll go ahead and send it and then I'll keep doing what I'm doing. And I just sent it and like made a note, you know, that it had happened and kind of set the, the drop dead date on it just so I knew when to not bother talking to them if something happened. And uh, just kept going and uh, I kept piling up the rejections. I got more and more discouraged. I had a real heart to heart with some of my critique partners and we actually agreed we were going to temporarily trunk the Imaginary Corpse. Um, not because it was bad, but because we're like, probably the problem. Kaelyn:03:33   Wait, Tyler, trunk? You missed a perfectly good myster pun there. Bury! Come on. Tyler:   03:41   Right. You know, we'll see. This is why I take multiple drafts. Um, so, um, so we're talking about, I'm talking about, uh, just burying this thing out in the desert and pulling it out later, basically saying it's good, but probably this will be a better second or third book. This will be an easier book to sell when you have a name to market it on. And um, and I said, you know, I think you've got a point. As much as I love this book, it's probably time to say goodbye. I'll let this set of queries kind of peter out and if none of them end in an offer, uh, I'll say goodbye and we'll move onto the next thing. And literally I made that decision and then came into my office job the next morning and I had an email waiting for me from Angry Robot books saying, we love this and we want to publish it next year. Uh, this was in summer 2018 after I finished biting down on my hand, so I didn't scream in the middle of my office. I, uh, you know, I finished screaming internally, told all the people who you typically tell, oh my God, I've got an offer. And they were, who reminded me do not pass go, get an agent. So I followed up with via three agents at the time, had my query and had not said anything. Tyler:   04:53   Um, oh, that's not true. One hit it asked for a partial. Okay. Um, so I emailed those three, uh, and also one who also told me like, she took like a full request to decide I can't sell this. So I emailed her too, cause why not? And basically I got to, I've got two people who said, no. Uh, I still don't think, I don't feel strongly enough about the project to feel good taking you on. Um, and then I got to, who actually did the infamous agent call? Uh, one of them was Lisa. Um, and, uh, after a, some thought, you know, I did the normal thing. I took the calls, told them both give me a few days. Um, and I went with Lisa basically because of her enthusiasm, um, was a lot of it. Uh, I got on the phone with her and she was enthusiastic. Tyler:   05:39   She was warm and she was kind, and she also took very seriously that I wanted to be a full time writer. Um, and she, and, but she also made sure I knew what kind of work goes into that. She was not like, Oh yeah, we can absolutely get you there. She said, well, okay, we can try, but here's the path that you are going on at that point. Here's when I think it makes sense for you to tell your day job: See Ya. Um, and so that also really won me over. I was like, oh good. She takes me seriously. But she's not, uh, you know, she's not trying to sugar coat it either. She's just saying like, we'll, we'll work to that, but we will work to get there. So, um, so yeah, so that's, that's my story. She gave me an offer, I accepted the offer and we wound up negotiating with angry robot. And here we are. Kaelyn:06:29   That's, I mean, that's fantastic. That, you know, could not have gone more smoothly aside from, you know, all of the other rejections previous to that. Tyler:   06:36   Yeah, absolutely. There, there were a few crying jags, but you know, that's, that's the business. Kaelyn:06:41   It's a rite of passage, you know, if - Tyler:   06:42   Right. Kaelyn:06:43   Um, so because you had that really interesting, you know, sort of path to this, I think people listening to this might hear that and say, why do I then need to, I want to in who I'm going to have to give another percentage of my money to? So obviously you're very excited to have your agent and happy with them. So why were they worth it? That seems like a no brainer. Tyler:   07:07   Okay. So they were worth it because I was not confident in my own negotiation power. Um, I knew that I was not coming from a place of strength in negotiating with a publisher. Um, and I knew I wasn't coming from a place of experience. Um, whereas Lisa, uh, when she spoke to me was immediately like, you know, she, uh, she immediately went, ah, you know, I know what, uh, probably the boiler plate contract looks like, and I know that I can get you something a little bit better in negotiations. I mean, Kaelyn:07:38   Which you'd like to hear. Tyler:   07:40   Yeah, absolutely. Um, and she was not um, just to be clear, I can say of my publisher here that she was not critical Angry Robot. She was just like, I know that this is an opening offer and I can, you know, if I can get you a little bit more in a negotiation, um, and just the relief of no, somebody who knows what they're doing with the business side, we'll be going to bat for that for my rights, for my advance rather than me with my, you know, I know a little something about something, but I'm not an a, I'm not a professional negotiator, you know, rather than me just going, well, I'd like a little bit more please. Kaelyn:08:19   Yeah. Maybe extra money? Yeah, no, it's okay. You know what? I don't need the money. You guys should have it. Yeah. I think that's a good point that you brought up though that um, there's a lot of people don't consider with the agent and everything they're thinking is, you know, advanced royalties, money. There's a lot of other stuff that goes into these, like rights is a huge part of it. What are the agents know these things that, like you said, shoot, I know the boiler plate here. I know what they're going to send you already because I'm sure she's dealt with them. Tyler:   08:47   Yeah. That was the other thing was that I found really helpful was that she was able to also, uh, reassure me about, she was able to explain my contract to me in language that I understood because of course it's written in legal-ese, which exists for a reason, but is hard for a lay person to interpret. And she was able to get on the phone with me and say, so this clause means this, that clause means that. Kaelyn:09:10   Yup. Tyler:   09:10   I understand the wording here is alarming. But actually what they're saying is, um, and, and she was also able to tell me what wasn't, wasn't unusual, you know, she was able to say like, so this clause here, literally every publisher will put this clause in the contract. This clause here is news to me, but possibly it's because they're British, not American. Let me look into that. Kaelyn:09:35   Yeah. Tyler:   09:35   And that was the other thing is she was like, I'll, I'll check with the other people I know who've worked with Angry Robot or other British publishers, make sure that I'm not raising an eyebrow at something that just has to do with UK copyright law, et Cetera. Kaelyn:09:47   Yeah. I, I, well see, it's funny because I'm very involved with the contracts at Parvus. Tyler:   09:51   Right. Kaelyn:09:52   And I'm even sometimes having to go like, wait a second. Okay. Right. Yes. That thing, I remember that now. So yeah, having someone who can walk in and that is so tremendously helpful and important so that you know what you're signing. Tyler:   10:04   Yes. Kaelyn:10:05   So you signed the agreement and then, you know, what came next? Tyler:   10:10   Of course we had the negotiation until we signed. Uh, and then it's been follow up on the negotiation. Um, you know, checking in about stuff like publicity, um, you know, like making sure that I'm aware of what expected next steps are, which Angry Robot, of course, it also has a publicity manager. A shout out to Jenna who is amazing. Um, but, uh, you know, but both of them, both her and Lisa are working with me to say, okay, these are the things we're going to expect you to do. This is the sort of stuff we recommend in Lisa states, ss going: So my authors at a similar level to you, I've had a lot of success doing this and that, so let's try to make sure that's on the schedule. Um, and then kind of the other stuff has been follow up, uh, getting ready for the next project and kind of making sure we're both on the same page about what we're doing next and where we want to go up is of course the answer. Kaelyn:11:03   Yeah. What we're kind of finishing with everyone it advice that you have or something that surprised you about this process. Tyler:   11:11   As far as what surprised me, I think I was, this is going to sound cynical at first, so give me a minute to explain it. I was surprised by how little really matters in a query packet, by which I mean, you know, I, I've mentored several people I've worked with folks. I'm kind of coming up behind me trying to get their debut together and I thought the same things they did. I thought I should in my bio list, everything that was even vaguely tangentially related to writing. Um, I that I should, you know, mention any scholarship I got that might apply to creative writing that I should talk about how much people loved my short stories in high school, that sort of thing. Um, when really what they want in a query is they want a query letter that pops in whatever way they want you to follow their darn directions and they want to see a good book. Kaelyn:12:08   And if you've got something else that's great, but it's gravy. As, as for advice, I guess my biggest advice would be for finding an agent. Um, do your research. Like really look for someone who seems like a good fit. Who, uh, I can, I can highly recommend Query Tracker. I highly recommend manuscriptwishlist.com. Tyler:   12:28   That's a great website. Kaelyn:12:30   Yes. I, uh, I also recommend looking at, uh, like writers conferences and pitch parties and stuff that are happening to find out who's going, not necessarily to go yourself though if you, if that's your bag, fantastic. But I'm not really into the like speed pitching type thing. Um, but that was actually how I found Lisa was I found out she was doing a writer's conference in near me and I went, oh, she's out there. She's actively growing her client list. You know, she is seeking out new people to represent. Tyler:   13:00   This is the type of agent I want to talk to as opposed to just cold emailing agents and going, I think you're looking for someone new. You're not listed as closed. So, um, but also, uh, my biggest thing once you're talking to them, but once you are actually corresponding with agents, whether it's the legendary agent call or just emails, um, look for someone who is a good fit, who feels right to you. And I know that sounds very vague and kind of crystal vibration-y, um, but seriously, look for someone who you talk to and you feel this is a good fit. This is a personality fit because they are your business partner. When it comes down to it. Kaelyn:13:41   You said something very telling when you were talking about why you decided to go with Lisa was that she was excited and enthusiastic. Tyler:   13:49   Yes. Kaelyn:13:50   Working ... do this is, this is a business partner. This is someone that is going to help you be the most successful that you possibly can. And if they're not excited, that's not gonna, probably not going to work out great in the long run. Tyler:   14:05   Yeah, I I knew so related story, I don't mean to toot my own horn, but down the road from the book was at the book was, was finally edited. It was going to proofs. I didn't, they have to touch it anymore. And so Lisa and I had to call about, okay, what's next? And I told her my idea for my next book that I was in the process of writing at the time. And she actually gaspedout loud on the phone. She was like, oh, that sounds amazing. And I was like, see, now I know for sure. I've done the right thing. Kaelyn:14:34   What a gratifying feeling that must have been. Tyler:   14:34   That's what you want. You want that agent - Exactly right. I was like, oh my gosh, you know. Oh good. I really did pick the right person. Like I hadn't, no doubt, but it was that beautiful reaction of like no, good! This, this is a partnership where I know she wants to sell this work because she wants to read it. So the Imaginary Corpse is a weird fantasy about a plush dinosaur and ex-imaginary friend investigating the first serial killer of the imagination. Uh, it is out from Angry Robot books. Uh, you can pick it up from your friendly local bookstore or directly from Angry Robot's website or from the usual online book vendors. Kaelyn:15:07   Okay. Awesome. So yeah, check that out. How can people find you online? Tyler:   15:10   The easiest places to find me are Twitter at, @the_real_Tyler,underscores, between the words. So the underscore real underscore Tyler. Um, or an Instagram @TylerHayesbooks. All one word also on my website, Tyler-Hayes.com. Kaelyn:15:25   Congratulations on the book, I know we're recording in the future, so I will wish you good luck with the book launch and uh, so that sounds fantastic. Tyler:   15:32   Thank you. Rekka:15:34   [sound effect] Sam:    15:35   I'm Sam Book. I'm going to scifi and fantasy writer. My first book City of Lies, came out last year in July and I'm currently working on the sequel. Rekka:15:43   The City of Lies, which I happened to have read is a, uh, an award winning book. I notice you're, you're a little too humble to say, so I'll say it for you. Quadrupl now? Was it four awards now for that one? Sam:    15:56   It has won a few. Yeah. Rekka:15:58   Fantastic. Well, congratulations. So could you tell us who your agent is and how you chose them? Sam:    16:05   Oh, well my agent is Julie Crisp, in London. Um, applied to a whole bunch of agents when I was query and um, ended up having conversations with um, a few different agents in the UK and in the US um, all of whom were really lovely. And, um, all of whom were enthusiastic about my work and um, I got along really well with all of them on the call. I think ultimately I chose Julie, uh, because of her editing background, uh, in particular because I was a very isolated writer. And I really didn't, um, we hadn't really worked with anyone who'd ever edited me before. I've, well I can probably use it. Um, so Julie was the, um, acquisitions editor at UK Tor before she switched to agenting. So she has a really strong editing background. Um, and she has some really strong ideas for changes to the book. Um, so ultimately that was, that was probably the key. Rekka:16:58   Okay, cool. So you, you kind of knew what you wanted out of an agent in addition to your representation and someone who would submit to publishers that might be out of reach. Otherwise, you also like had a strong sense that you needed somebody who was going to be involved in the editorial process with you before that even happened. Sam:    17:17   Yeah, I think that's, that's right. Because as I said, I really hadn't worked that much on my writing with anybody. I'd been very solitary. Rekka:17:25   What was the experience, I assume you, um, made a revision or two on City of Lies before it went out to some. Sam:    17:33   Yeah, so we actually did some pretty enormous revisions on it um, in that time. So we probably took out from when I signed to when we actually went out on sub, it was probably eight or nine months. Rekka:17:45   Okay. New Speaker:  17:45   Cause I do kind of a massive structural change in the where Julie had suggested that I balance the, the two point of view characters differently. So I essentially had to kind of pull the book completely apart, work out what scenes needed to be in what perspective and kind of rebalance, rebalance it and put it all back together again. Which um, is a very, um, look, it was a difficult - Rekka:18:13   Yes. New Speaker:  18:13   process, bit totally worth it in the end. It definitely made it a better book. Rekka:18:17   Um, POV shifts and like tiny adjustments to POVs can make such a rippling effect on a revision pass. New Speaker:  18:25   Oh my God, so much you think it wouldn't be that hard to switch from one to the other, you know singles? It was, it was so hard and so different because the two characters, even though they're quite similar in terms of, um, they'll rise in the same way and they have a kind of similar perspective, um, they still, they still react to situations differently and they differently notice things, different things about a scenario. So, um, changing from one to the other, even it's just not defined. Rekka:18:51   It was not a find and replace of the name. Yeah, New Speaker:  18:52   Not the same thing. Yeah. Rekka:18:54   Yeah. Awesome. Well, okay, so what other kinds of interactions do you have with Julie? Um, in terms of, um, like copy editing or line editing, um, and then the submissions process and, um, what, what do you rely on her for in your author career? New Speaker:  19:14   Well, she kind of, um, pulls me back from the edge when I'm being in giant baby. Rekka:19:19   So emotional support. New Speaker:  19:21   Emotional support, you know that, um, there's a Gif of a little boy holding onto a rope and wailing and crying in what looks like fast running water. And then his guardian comes over and standing up and he's actually sort of standing at thigh high water and it's not dangerous at all. Rekka:19:38   Right. New Speaker:  19:39   That's how I feel about me, me, me sort of panicky about things and her talking me down. Um, yeah. So no, I use it very much. It's, I'm a person who's kind of always my advocate and on my team and helping me, um, get through this sometimes quite challenging business so that in addition to the support she gives me in terms of editing and she still works really, she worked really extensively on the book. Even after we'd signed with a publisher and know a lot of agents would kind of step back at the point of which they've sold the book and say, you know, that's the publisher's job now. I've kind of done my part and Julie very much doesn't do that. Rekka:20:15   And she was involved all the way through the copy editing stage and, and um, basically just anything that I need, she always makes herself available. Um, which has just been really, really invaluable to me. New Speaker:  20:29   Yeah. To know that there's always somebody who's got your back and will reinforce your decisions and stuff like that. Rekka:20:35   Exactly. New Speaker:  20:36   Awesome. Um, so how often do you check in with her? Is this like a weekly or a biweekly or monthly? Rekka:20:45   Uh, it, it depends what's going on. So when there's a lot of stuff going on, we could talk every couple of days when it's just sort of like right now where I'm just drafting a new material. They may, it might be less frequent, but yeah, if you've, when you're on submission, I was checking in quite regularly and when there's a lot of things happening anywhere around the kind of releases, the first book last year was a very busy time and I was harassing her constantly. She's very good about it. Rekka:21:13   And when you were putting the book out in submission, had you worked on the pitches for the publishers together or did you, uh, you know, throw up your hands after you queried agents and say, okay, no, you can do it please. Sam:    21:27   She handled that, that um but entirely. Um, I mean, I think to some extent she used some material that I developed in terms of pitching agents. Um, she, she kind of used some of that in her pitches to publishes, I think. But one of the good things about having an agent, um, is they're kind of preexisting relationships with, with people in the industry and they know what particular editors are looking for and they're kind of in a much better place than I am to know what we'll work on a particular person. So I left that entirely in her. Rekka:22:00   Yeah, I can, I can understand, um, being relieved that you don't have to be part of that process. Um, I'm a micromanager, so I don't know, Sam:    22:10   I'm bad at talking about, about, about what my book is about. Yeah. Rekka:22:12   Yeah. I think every author is guilty of that for sure. So if you were talking to a new author or an unrepresented author who was looking for an agent, what tips would you give them about, um, seeking someone to represent them? Sam:    22:27   I will, I would say there's so much information available now about how to do a good job of pitching and approaching agents, um, that there's really, as long as you're well prepared, there's really no excuse for making dumb mistakes that are gonna get you eliminated before you even get a chance. So take your time and do your research, um, approach the, the, the query letter or whatever you're using to, to approach the person as a business proposal. So you're looking to, to strike up a business relationship with somebody. So you want to sound like a person that they want to do business with. So, you know, don't be a dick. Rekka:23:04   Fair enough. I mean, there it is. Okay. Awesome. So, no, I think that's a great tip. It's like there is, like you said, so much guidance out there, there are tons of blog posts about how to write a query letter. There are, uh, editors and agents who post query letters they've received, you know, that have been scrubbed for identity, but they kind of pick them apart and say like, here's why this isn't working or here's why this is a good example. And then there are plenty of people, um, you know, within anyone's, uh, general, uh, community that could offer advice or can even, you know, um, send people in the direction of a, of an agent that they might be interested in. Yeah. Sam:    23:45   Yeah, I think that's right. The information is there. Um, so don't, you know, don't rush it. But on the other hand you can also over research forever. I probably [laughs] I'm an over preparer. Rekka:23:56   Oh yeah. Sam:    23:56   You don't need like the 11 spreadsheets in one. All the colors probably. Rekka:23:59   Oh, come on. New Speaker:  24:00   I had that. Unless you really love spreadsheets like I do that. Sam:    24:04   Yeah. New Speaker:  24:04   In which case it's a delight. Rekka:24:06   Well, it, they can be calming, right? Like they can be reassuring. Like, look, I have facts. There are cells. Um, why don't you, uh, plug City of Lies again, the award winning City of Lies. Um, so our, our listeners know, um, like basically give us your elevator pitch. Sam:    24:21   Uh, City of Lies is uh basically a closed room murder mystery set, you know, a besieged city. So it's about a couple of siblings whose family are poisoned tasters for their, the ruling family of the city. Um, there at the beginning of the book, their uncle, uh, the current poison taster and the chancellor of the city are both killed by an unknown poison. And then the city falls under the sage, seemingly from its own people and our main characters, the brother and sister have to try to figure out who, who killed their uncle and the chancellor, um, prevent that person from doing the same to the new chancellor and figure out what's happening with the rebellion, um, before that whole city falls, I guess. Rekka:25:05   Yeah. You know, it's funny you say it's a closed roommurder mystery and you're totally right. Even though it's like in an open world city. Um, they are definitely, um, for most of the book confined to a small area and also by their, um, like their class standing. They're expected to stay in certain places. So that's a really interesting way of putting that. New Speaker:  25:22   Yeah, I picked fantasy it's my, my jam, but my other great love is closed door mystery. So this is like my collage to the, the two genres that I love the best. Rekka:25:34   I really appreciate your time and um, thank you so much for coming on and I know everyone's going to go check out that book because they should. Sam:    25:40   No worries. Thanks for having me. Speaker 6:       25:42   [sound effect] Caitlin:25:44   My name is Caitlin Starling. I'm the author of the Luminous Dead, which came out, um, this past April from Harper Voyager. And I also worked as the narrative designer on this strange little show in New York last fall called A Human. Kaelyn:25:57   Interesting. I didn't know that actually. That's very cool. Caitlin:26:00   Yeah, I got to design body parts for money. It was very exciting. Kaelyn:26:03   That is very cool. Caitlin:26:05   So I am repped by Caitlin McDonald, who is over at the Donald Maass Literary Agency. Kaelyn:26:10   Caitlin McDonald is the agent that we interviewed for the previous, uh, yes, the first episode that came out this week. Caitlin:26:16   I may have thrown her. I may have thrown for your way. There's a bunch of Kaitlin's in my emails at all times. It gets very exciting on calls. We actually have to refer to each other as Agent Caitlin and Author Caitlin. So before anything happens, everyone else knows which one that's talking in, which one is referring. Kaelyn:26:31   So, um, that's been really fun. But, um, so I signed with her back in April of 2017 and I had been querying at that point for a little bit over a year and Caitlin McDonald was actually the first agent I ever queried. Um, but it took awhile to get to a full request and then also for her to get to the manuscript after that. So she also ended up being the first one to offer even though I in the meantime queried about 40 other agents. Um, which of course kicked off the following up with everybody else. I ended up getting one other offer, um, and a couple of their near, near misses, but it was between two agents and Caitlin Macdonald was newer and um, had fewer sales under her belt, but we clicked more on several levels, including for me what's really important is, um, being extremely detail oriented and comfortable talking about logistics and practicalities like contracts. Caitlin:27:31   Um, Caitlin McDonald, I'm sure she told you, uh, used to work in contracts. Kaelyn:27:36   Yes. Caitlin:27:37   Pretty much exclusively for a while. So, and I used to work for a lawyer, so it was really nice to basically say, what's your termination clause like? And for her to just send over the boilerplate agency agreement. And we were able to just talk about contracts. Now, I know that's not for everybody because a lot of people see contracts and start screaming internally. Um, but for me, that was a really big determining factor of why I felt so comfortable with going forward. Kaelyn:28:00   Well, and that's actually very interesting to hear because I'm, one of the questions we got or things people ask is, do I just take the first offer that I get? And I've heard other people say, well, you might only get one offer. You had two and you actually had to make a choice. Caitlin:28:15   I did. Yes. Kaelyn:28:15   So that's very interesting to hear - Caitlin:28:17   Which is very difficult. Kaelyn:28:18   Yeah. Um, it's a, it's a big deal in, it's a commitment. It's a potentially very long relationship. So - Caitlin:28:25   Yeah, it was, it was a really hard decision. Um, the other agent who offered, like I alluded to, you had a lot, a lot more years behind her and a lot more sales behind her. Um, and in some ways I clicked with her personally right off the bat faster than I did with Caitlin McDonald. But after talking, having several conversations with both and, um, in particular, Caitlin McDonald's boss, Donna Moss actually was willing to talk to me about what sort of support she had behind her as a new agent. Um, because it's really important for new agents to have, you know, you'd be able to use the connections that their agency has to be able to go to other agents to say, okay, have you ever been in this situation? What did you do? Um, and that made me confident that even though she was newer at the time, that she had the clout behind her to basically put her on an even footing with the other agent and then I could focus on other details. Caitlin:29:15   Um, and then also, I mean, what, I didn't really think about it at the time, but what does become really clear to me that I'm really, um, was really a good move on my part: Caitlin McDonald is queer. I'm queer, I write queer fiction. It's really nice having her in my corner and fully understanding where I'm coming from as opposed to, um, you know, being supportive but not having that same lived experience when I like want to self edit or pull back or go, oh no, is is the reason why we got a rejection because it's too gay. She'll be like, I will, I will fight for you. I will fight anybody who says it's, and it's just really nice to have that. Um, you know, and I hadn't really anticipated needing that, but it's become one of the most, you know, not one of the most, because obviously like business negotiation things are kind of really important because at least I'm getting paid, but it's really important. It's really important on an emotional and a creative level to know that I have that support.   Kaelyn:30:11   You know, I think we like to go like, oh well the personal stuff really shouldn't matter. But like it does sometimes and if it's just like, you know, one more thing that makes you more comfortable working with someone that's really important. Caitlin:30:24   Yeah. Especially if you write fiction that is very emotionally based. Kaelyn:30:28   Yes. Caitlin:30:29   Your personal life is gonna be very important to your art. So then you need someone who also understands your personal life so they can see what you're trying to do with your art. Kaelyn:30:36   Yeah. It sounds like you guys have like a fantastic relationship. So what are your, what are your interactions like what do you, how often do you talk and how often do you get in touch for like, I have this problem or I'm worried about this because a lot of authors and agency, agents, excuse me, have different styles of communication. So do you find you're more comfortable being in constant touch or do you just go by what works best for both of you? Caitlin:31:04   I probably bother her more than I technically need to. We actually, we have, um, the way we have the arrangement we've come to is that if I'm asking a question that is substantial that we may need to be able to find the answer to later, it goes by email because email is searchable and sortable. But we also text and that's usually for really quick questions. Um, or just touching basis friends or, you know, we're, I, I wouldn't say that we're friend, friend friends, but we are friendly enough that we check in on each other about personal stuff as well as business stuff. Um, and we try and keep the two streams separate. Um, and like on Instagram, I don't ask her business questions. I just get very excited about the cool pictures that she posts. And so we try and keep some, some pretty formal divisions. Caitlin:31:54   Like I don't want to be, um, impinging on her very scarce personal time if I don't have to. Um, but I also am a bit of an anxious person and so sometimes I will spiral out. I'll need to be like, can you please talk me off the ledge? Because I'm clearly having a problem and I know that it's stupid, but I can't get out of it on my own. And she is very good about stepping in and being like, it's fine and this is why it's fine and it's going to be OK. Um, and, and, and so there's parts where even over two years in, we're still learning. I'm definitely still learning about what is good to bring to her versus what I should probably take care of on my own. And there's times where it goes the other way where I decided that, oh, this is something that I shouldn't bother her with. And it turns out that it's something that she really would have liked to know about two or three weeks ago by the time she ends up finding out. Kaelyn:32:48   Um, I always wonder with agents, and you know, I, I edit books for Parvus as well and um, a lot of our authors don't have agents, so I'm kind of like their point person on a lot of things and it's like there should be a manual that's like, okay, besides all of this, there's gonna be a lot of emotional support involved and - Caitlin:33:06   Yeah. Kaelyn:33:07   How you feel about people texting you, having panic attacks over things that are not a big deal. Can you manage that? Caitlin:33:15   Yeah. Yeah. And it's, and I've, I've apologized to her on many occasions and usually what she does, what she tells me is basically this is part of the job. Like this is a thing that happens. It's a very, it's a very stressful business and there's a lot that's out of your direct control and a lot of it's outside of what you can even see going on at any given time. And so it's really easy to tell yourself stories that are completely wrong and not realize that they're wrong because you can't fact check them. Kaelyn:33:43   Well, I always tell, you know, if I have authors or someone getting in touch with me and they're worried about something and they go, oh, sorry, this is so silly. It's like, no, if you're worked up about it and you're concerned, it's not silly. So we'll figure it out. Caitlin:33:56   I mean, best case scenario is there is a simple answer and you're like, oh, and now it's resolved and now you don't feel that way anymore. Kaelyn:34:02   I feel better Caitlin:34:02   Right. And you feel silly at that point. But also at the same time, look, it was an easy problem to resolve and it's not actually something you need to continue being afraid of. So that's great. Yeah. Kaelyn:34:10   So, um, we're asking everyone, what tips do you have or suggestions or misconceptions about looking for an agent in getting an agent? What do you wish people knew? Caitlin:34:19   This is, it's a big question. Um, but a couple of things that come to mind. The first is to be really thoughtful about who you're querying about if you'd actually want to work with them. Um, and it's because it obviously you feel when you're querying and it's a very real feeling that you are putting everything on the line. And if this doesn't work out, you're setback another year or another two years, whatever else. So it's very scary and it's very like there's, there's a scarcity of options. So you want to maximize the potential for someone saying yes, but at the same time, you really do want someone who wants to represent your work in the way you want it to be represented. Um, and so for instance, when I was querying the Luminous Dead, uh, I had actually reworked it at one point in its revisions as YA because a very good friend of mine said that the themes are there. Caitlin:35:15   Even though I wrote it, I had written it as an adult novel originally and it ended up being published as an adult novel. There was a period where she was like, you know, the themes are there, you could make it, YA has more opportunities for sales, there are more editors and there's more money involved. So consider it. And as a friend who, who writes both YA and adult, so I worked, reworked it as YA and I was querying it as YA, but I didn't really want it to be YA. I just thought I should do that as a business move. And it turns out I got a lot of rejections and probably because I was casting it as YA, because I think that comes through the, you know, if you're, if you're trying to sell a book as something that it's not or that you don't want it to be, you're going to run into some problems. Caitlin:35:55   Um, I was very lucky that when Caitlin and I were originally talking, I said, so how would you feel if we made it an adult and terrified that she would say no because she had, she had taken me on as a YA author and she was like, Oh yeah, it could work either way. What do you want to do here? Or here are the actual considerations on both ends. But in the end it's what you want the piece to be, which was great. Um, but I think I wasted a lot of time and energy querying YA agents who pr- who are fantastic agents, but who would have ever been a good fit for my work in the end. And then I got rejections that were upsetting that I didn't need to get. So definitely like really cultivating that list, even though it makes it feel like you're, you're giving up options and chances is a really great place, is a really good skill to learn? Caitlin:36:43   And it won't be easy and it will be comfortable, but it's, it's worth it. And the other thing that comes to mind is actually more about the query letter itself and a lot of people treat it as just a hurdle that you have to do in order to get past this phase. Kaelyn:36:56   We talk about the same thing where it's like everyone thinks about it as, oh, I just have to, it's just something I've got to do. Caitlin:37:04   It's busy work. It's like it's like a homework assignment, but it turns out you're going to use it, that skill a lot. Kaelyn:37:09   Yes. Caitlin:37:09   That skill set is going to be very important for writing your base pitches. I have found that actually if I write a fake query letter at about the halfway point of a first draft, I can usually find the problems in the first draft by trying to articulate it as a query letter. So I use it as a diagnostic tool almost - Kaelyn:37:24   And that's fantastic. Caitlin:37:25   - and it's a really tricky skill to learn. It's, it will not come naturally, especially if you're writing the query letter after you've done like five rounds of revisions and you know your book forwards and back because you're gonna want to show all the work that you did. But if you can learn how to distill it down like that, it ends up becoming a skill. Like writing a good query letter isn't just to get an agent's attention so they'll read the full. That is part of what it does, but it also teaches them that you can do some of the preliminary work for pitching the book to editors, which makes their lives a little bit easier. And it also proves to you, I'll come with me with a good pitch. Yes, it proves that you know how at least a little bit of how to market your own work, which is always great because you're going to be in situations where you're talking to people you know, maybe face to face where your agent is not there. Caitlin:38:10   For the record, Luminous Dead, so the back cover copy is not my query that got my agent, but it is the query that I wrote for funsies. After we'd done some major revisions and I went, Huh, I wonder if I could write a better query letter now I wrote it, we got the back cover copy from the editor, which was based off of my original query letter, which then became part of my agent's pitch, which became part of the back cover copy. And I went, you know, we can do better. Hey I have this thing right here for you. And now the back cover copy, it's not 100% that obviously because I am not a marketing person and there are certain things that I missed or that I put in the didn't matter. But it is substantially influenced by that. So you know, if you've ever read this, and I'm sure there are lots of publishers who really don't care what the author wants to put on the back cover, but if you've ever like read a back cover copy and gone, hmm, that's not how I would've written it. Guess what? You can learn that skill. Caitlin:39:01   And it will help you in getting an agent in fixing your own work at times and in working with your editor. Kaelyn:39:08   Well thanks so much for talking to us. Tell people where they can find you. Caitlin:39:12   Yeah, so um, I am mainly on Twitter @see_starling. It's a pun, it's a very silly pun. And um, my website is CaitlinStarling.com that has filings that has a couple of sneak peeks of things that I am working on that I will hopefully one day find a home for. It also has those pictures from the body parts design project over in New York. Kaelyn:39:34   Yeah, that's very cool. All right, well thanks so much for taking the time to talk to us. Caitlin:39:39   Absolutely. Rekka:39:40   Thanks everyone for joining us for another episode of we make books. If you have any questions that you want answered in future episodes or just have questions in general, remember you can find us on Twitter @wmbcast, same for Instagram or WMB cast.com if you find value in the content that we provide, we would really appreciate your support@patreon.com/WMBcast. If you can't provide financial support, we totally understand and what you could really do to help us is spread the word about this podcast. You can do that by sharing a particular episode with a friend who can find it useful. Or if you leave a rating and review at iTunes, it will feed that algorithm and help other people find our podcast too. Of course, you can always retweet our episodes on Twitter. Thank you so much for listening and we will talk to you soon.  

Hi everyone, and thank you for tuning in to another episode of the We Make Books Podcast - A podcast about writing, publishing, and everything in between! It’s Week Two of Submissions September and we are talking about query letters!  What are they? What purpose do they serve?  Why are they so freaking hard to write??  Your query letter is an incredibly important part of your submission and Rekka and Kaelyn take a dive into what makes a good QL, so dos and don’ts, and some insight into Rekka’s work on her own query letter. If you missed last week’s episode, this month Submissions September on the We Make Books Podcast!  We’re up to seven (7!) episodes this month all about the process of submitting your novel.  We have a lot of awesome discussions lined up and even some special guests.  Here’s what will be coming your way for the  month: Week 1 (9/3/2019): Is This Ready For Other People to See?- Submitting Your Manuscript Week 2 (9/10/2019): My Entire Novel in Three Hundred Words - The Dreaded Query Letter Week 3 (9/17/2019): Agents of Literature, Part 1: An Interview with Literary Agent Caitlin McDonald               (9/18/2019): Agents of Literature, Part 2: Interviews with Agented Authors               (9/19/2019): Agents of Literature Part 3: Interviews with Agented Authors Week 4 (9/24/2019):What is Going On Over There? - The Other Side of the Submissions Process Week 5 (9/30/2019): Now I’m Even More Confused – Submissions September Q&A Episode We Make Books is hosted by Rekka Jay and Kaelyn Considine; Rekka is a published author and Kaelyn is an editor and together they are going to take you through what goes into getting a book out of your head, on to paper, in to the hands of a publisher, and finally on to book store shelves. We Make Books is a podcast for writer and publishers, by writers and publishers and we want to hear from our listeners! Hit us up on our social media, linked below, and send us your questions, comments, concerns, and has anyone else watched “Carnival Row” yet? Because we have some Thoughts and need someone to talk to about them. We hope you enjoy We Make Books!   Twitter: @WMBCast  |  @KindofKaelyn  |  @BittyBittyZap Instagram: @WMBCast  Patreon.com/WMBCast       Kaelyn:00:00   Hey everyone, welcome back to another episode of the, We Make Books Podcast, a show about writing, publishing and everything in between. Rekka:00:06   I'm Rekka, I write science fiction and fantasy as RJ Theodore. Kaelyn:00:09   And I'm Kaelyn. I am the acquisitions editor for purpose press. And this is week two of Submissions September. Rekka:00:15   It's a big month for us. Kaelyn:00:17   It's a busy month for us. Rekka:00:18   Well it was busy month was last month when you were editing all these episodes together. Kaelyn:00:21   Yeah, yeah, that's true. We're going to have a break then. But uh, yeah. So this week we're talking about query letters. Um, what are they, what are their purpose? Rekka:00:31   Why are they so scary? Kaelyn:00:32   Why are they so hard to write? Rekka:00:35   Um, and there's a little bonus in there. Kaelyn:00:37   Oh yes. And ah, we get to hear uh, we get to hear something special from Rekka with her own experience with this. So, you know, make sure you get all the way to the end of the episode for that. Um, this was, you know, when we were kind of sitting down mapping out, okay, um, what we're gonna do for this. Um, I very adamantly wanted to do an episode that was just about query letters because I think they're a frequently, I won't say overlooked but under emphasized tool. Rekka:01:05   Until it's too late. Kaelyn:01:06   Exactly. Rekka:01:07   So suddenly you're panicking about your query letter because you have to include one and what goes in it and how good does it have to be. And, um, you, should I write it from the first person perspective of my main character or short - Kaelyn:01:22   Wait, wait, spoiler alert. Don't do that. Rekka:01:24   Or should I write it in pig Latin or should I, you know, write it backward? Like should I write it as a poem so that it stands out in the inbox? Kaelyn:01:35   I got one of those. Rekka:01:36   I believe you. Yeah. Okay. Kaelyn:01:38   Um, so yeah, we go over, you know, some of the, like the origin story, if you will, of these, the purpose of them and um, what, what yours should have and what you should be planning for and what to do with it. So, um, I think it's a very important thing to take, the appropriate amount of time to work on. So we definitely, you know, we wanted to talk about that and um, oh boy did we [laughs] so, um, that's the episode. Uh, again, you know we're, this is episode two of it's looking to be five and for Submissions September, we're rolling right through them. Rekka:02:13   Yup. Kaelyn:02:14   So we'll be back next week. Rekka:02:16   You're getting one a week through September and then we're going to back off again. Kaelyn:02:19   Then we're going to take a nap for a while. Rekka:02:22   Easily, easily a month. Kaelyn:02:23   And um, you know, maybe around December we'll, we'll poke our heads up out of the sand again. Um, so anyway, uh, enjoy the episode everyone and we'll catch you next week Rekka:02:31   Yeah, enjoy the episode Speaker 2:       02:35   [music] Speaker 3:       02:40   [music] Rekka:02:49   Are you going to be able to have a full conversation? Are you going to just sort of slip into a nap? Kaelyn:02:54   Yeah, no, it's a barbecue coma, specifically mac and cheese coma. That was, you know - Rekka:03:00   Free Mac and cheese coma. Kaelyn:03:01   That's fine. I really want to go look at the order ticket and see like what was on their first verse they actually gave us because I'm convinced we walked away with at least part of someone else's meal. Rekka:03:13   I mean, part of the meal we ordered that they canceled that, then we - Kaelyn:03:16   Yeah, no, I mean they definitely handed it, handed us all of it. It's not like we picked up someone else's stuff and walked away with it. Rekka:03:23   No. And I think the way the bags were spread out, some, like some of all of our order wasn't across two different bags. Kaelyn:03:30   Who knows. Yeah, we're recording already? Rekka:03:33   Yeah, of course. Kaelyn:03:33   Yeah, of course we are. Hey everyone episode or, it's sorry, Submissions September week two. Rekka:03:41   Is it? Kaelyn:03:41   Yeah. Rekka:03:42   So Gosh, time is funny that way. Kaelyn:03:45   Yeah. No, week two. Rekka:03:46   The problem is I was focused on the fact that this was episode 13. So to me, yeah. Kaelyn:03:52   No, those numbers, they're tricky. Rekka:03:53   13 doesn't match because week two is the 10th. I'm like, this doesn't make any sense. Kaelyn:03:58   And you know, episode two, but week thirteen, you know, it's, it's tricky. Uh, so - Rekka:04:05   Week two, episode 13, you just said it backwards. Now I am confused. Kaelyn:04:09   See I was, I was seeing if you'd catch that there. That was good. Good. Looking at Rekka. Rekka:04:14   I pay attention. Kaelyn:04:16   Uh, so what are we talking about today? Rekka:04:18   Query letters. Kaelyn:04:21   Query letters, these - Rekka:04:22   Do it! Kaelyn:04:22   The dreaded query letter. Rekka:04:24   I don't know why they're so dreaded. Kaelyn:04:25   They're hard. Rekka:04:26   But they're the last thing you have to do before you can send it to somebody. Kaelyn:04:29   But they're the last thing you have to do before you can send it to somebody. Rekka:04:32   And if you get it wrong, they'll laugh at you. Kaelyn:04:35   It's, query letters are hard. Um, it's, you're summarizing your entire book plus a little bit about yourself in about 400 words. That's hard. Rekka:04:49   Four hundred sounds a little long. Kaelyn:04:50   Yeah. Probably 300, one page, you know, whatever you can get on that and maybe use a really small font. So, yeah, today we're talking about query letters, which is the next vital component of getting your submission ready. Rekka:05:05   By the way, don't use a really small font. Kaelyn:05:07   Don't use a really small font. Rekka:05:08   That was not good advice because - Kaelyn:05:09   That was not an endorsement to that. Um, yeah. So we're talking about query letters today and what they are, what they're used for, why you need one. Yeah. Um, so Rekka I mean, you've, you've written them. Rekka:05:24   I have um mostly, I have written, uh, one that was submitted, which became Flotsam. Kaelyn:05:31   Yes. Rekka:05:32   And there were nine different versions of the Flotsam query letter of which I chose one. Kaelyn:05:36   And you don't understand why this is so scary to people? Rekka:05:40   What do you mean? You think I wrote nine cause I was nervous? Kaelyn:05:43   No, but because it's hard because you wrote nine different. Rekka:05:46   Yeah, no, no. I approached them in different ways. Like this one was character forward. This one was fine and that's great. Yeah. It was just like when I wrote them, I was not planning to submit. We've talked the past about how Flotsam was supposed to be self published. So at this point I was doing this for the practice of writing a query letter so that someday I would be able to write good marketing copy. Kaelyn:06:08   Okay. Rekka:06:08   And if you think about it in that terms, that's kind of what it is. Well, it's like you're marketing it to a very specific audience. Kaelyn:06:14   I always joke that like the turnabout here is for the editors when they have to do cover copies. Rekka:06:19   Yes. And that's where we get in our revenge. Kaelyn:06:22   Yeah. That's, that's the revenge Rekka:06:24   Karma. All right. You sell it, you're so good at this. Kaelyn:06:27   Fine. You think, can you do it? Um, yeah. So query letters, uh, let's talk about why you need one and what they're used for. Rekka:06:36   You need one because they're telling you to, but like more specifically, you need to stand out in inbox. Kaelyn:06:45   So even going back a step farther than that, um, the purpose of a query letter as the name implies is you're asking a question. That question is, I either have written or I am planning to write this thing. Are you interested in it? It's a little misleading because what it's actually saying is here is why you should be interested in this. You are selling yourself and your book there. Um, originally, and I can't remember we talked about on this or on hybrid author, um, but when originally part of the purpose of query letters was you'd send them to agents in publishing houses because you couldn't send a whole manuscript. Rekka:07:28   Right. Kaelyn:07:29   Because you used to have to physically mail these things. Rekka:07:31   Yes. Kaelyn:07:32   Way Back in the dark ages. Rekka:07:33   Chonky books. Kaelyn:07:34   Yes. And, um, even more than that, you know, like if you've ever seen like typewritten pages, you don't get as many of them on there as you do using a word processor right today. So, um, that you used to send these letters saying like, Hey, I wrote this book, are you interested in it? And you'd start a correspondence based on that if you got a reply back, yes, I'm interested. Then you sent the manuscript along, um, in this day and age where digital files are uploaded really fast, really fast, and they're small little things that you can keep a whole database on and peruse at your leisure. Um, now they're kind of introductory and I don't want to say sales pitchy, but they are, Rekka:08:18   They kind of, yeah. And, and what I was saying about like trying to stand out from the inbox kind of is what it is because these days, frequently someone opens a window for querying and income the flood. And so you get hundreds of letters from authors and if it was just a, an author's name in the from field subject line query and then a file attachment, it would get pretty like I would, I mean I would personally probably quit if I didn't even have that sort of like light touch before I had to get into the manuscript. Kaelyn:08:58   Yeah. And actually that's a, that's a good point is that you query agents still. That's still the verb. Even though um really, you're, you are submitting a manuscript as well, but it's still called querying an agent. Rekka:09:09   And this is one of those things like hang up the phone. So nobody's phone hangs on the wall and so charming holdover and we aren't getting acquainted, Kaelyn:09:16   Aren't we adorable? Rekka:09:17   Yes. Kaelyn:09:17   Um, so yeah, that's, you know, that's why you write a query letter. Now it's, we're going to get into what should be in it, but it is sort of your sales pitch for your book. It is not, don't think of it as are you interested in it? Think of it as here's why you should be interested in this. Rekka:09:36   Right. Kaelyn:09:37   So why are these so freaking hard to write? Rekka:09:39   Because imposter syndrome, because nerves, because you're writing to someone you don't know well and you are putting this thing that you've put so much blood, sweat and effort into and you have one shot because you can't query the same manuscript twice. Kaelyn:09:57   It's very hard because you're trying to do two things at once. One is some tell, I won't say summarize because you should not be summarizing your book in this. Rekka:10:06   Right. Kaelyn:10:07   But you should be talking about your story. Rekka:10:09   Yeah. Kaelyn:10:10   Then you should also be talking about what the great selling points of this story are and that especially is very hard to do. Rekka:10:18   For most authors that's not anything that they've given a lot of consideration to. They've just been working on their story and doing the work, doing the work, writing it, revising it, writing it, revising it, and then when it comes time to actually tell people about it, you're unprepared completely. Even though you wrote the thing maybe more than once. Kaelyn:10:36   Yeah. And actually, in the previous episodes, we had talked a lot about your elevator pitch and uh, refining it and perfecting it in the debut authors episode. And this kind of goes along with it. Um, now obviously this will be taking place before you, you work on your elevator pitch for the book. Um, but you have to kind of quickly and effectively tell the reader about your book in a way that is going to intrigue them. And that is very hard to do. Um, you can go online and there are some really good resources and articles and ideas for how to do this in your query letters. Some major do's and don'ts. Um, we'll get into some of those once we break down. But, um, this is one instance where I'm like, hey, go online and read about things because even there are some great articles out there that will just kind of give you definitions and structure and some etiquette and what it should and should not say. Rekka:11:35   Etiquette is very helpful because it gives you the framework around, like it takes away the like, okay, so do I come off like this or should I be saying their first name? Or should I, you know, like, how do I even start this? Because this isn't like necessarily relationship where you will ever call them, you know, Mr their last name or - Kaelyn:11:59   You know, I get responses with that sometimes. It always makes me a little like, oh, I didn't know my mom was reading these [laughs]. Rekka:12:06   And it, and it is, but it's a strange, like it's a formal thing. Like you can't be too polite. Some people might say. Kaelyn:12:13   Well, and I will say one in doubt, default to maybe not overly polite, but definitely professional. Rekka:12:17   Right. And maybe there are some authors that don't even know what the difference between polite and professional is. Kaelyn:12:24   Yeah. And, you know, worst case scenario, you're overly polite and that's not gonna, that's not gonna make anyone think badly of you. Rekka:12:32   Just might chuckle a little. Kaelyn:12:34   Yes. But they're, they're certainly not going to have a bad impression of you if nothing else there is that. Um, so yeah, this is th it's not an easy thing. And like you think, I think a lot of people think like, well I'm just going to sit down and bang one of these out. Rekka:12:48   Yeah. Kaelyn:12:49   Don't do that. If you're, if you've written it in less than an hour, it's probably not something you want to send around unless you're just really, really good at these. Which if this is one of the first times you're doing it, you're probably still working some of them or at least you don't know if you're very good at them yet. Um, I mean cause I can tell you like when I write cover copy, which is kind of doing the same, same idea at least, um, I write it multiple times, walk away from it and look at it again later. Rekka:13:20   Right. Kaelyn:13:20   Cause it's a lot of ideas that you're trying to get down at once. Rekka:13:27   Yeah. You're trying to encapsulate an entire book, not just the plot. Obviously we touched on, you don't, it's not about the plot necessarily, but you're trying to encapsulate both the opening question, the hook of your book and sort of the tone of the entire thing all at once. Kaelyn:13:46   And now here's the other thing, we had talked in the last episode about preparing your submission. Oh No, wait, I'm sorry. Okay. We had talked about in the, uh, the debut author episode about how your favorite thing about the book may not be the most important thing about the book. Rekka:14:02   And that's really key to understand because the thing that you love about this book might be Hogwarts castle. You know, the selling point is the evil wizard war. Kaelyn:14:15   Um, so, you know, obviously having someone else take a look at it, especially someone that's read the book is super helpful because they can tell you if it's like, um, I mean, I liked your book and I feel like you're not saying the things that are gonna make other people want to read it. Rekka:14:33   Right. Kaelyn:14:33   So, so that said, what should be in this? Rekka:14:37   So like without getting too, too over-simplified one way to approach this might be like thinking about the over the voiceover and a movie trailer. Kaelyn:14:48   Oh yeah. Movie trailer voiceover is always a good, 'in a world - Rekka:14:52   Yeah, don't do that. Kaelyn:14:53   No, do it if that's what helps it gets you out of here, like - Rekka:14:56   Okay, for practice, play around with that. But um, don't put that in your query letter. Your final query letter should not start with "in a world where [laughs]' - Kaelyn:15:07   In a world where werewolves have gone into space and returning people they encounter into werewolves and turning aliens into werewolves and now those alien werewolves have come home. Rekka:15:19   So, um- Kaelyn:15:21   Actually can you write that? Rekka:15:22   Yeah, I'll write it. If you give me cover your cover art. Um, so I will, apparently really, really will write that . Kaelyn:15:31   [laughs] Rekka:15:34   So the trailer had 45 seconds to two minutes to completely hook you and apparently did a good job because you saw the movies. So, um, think about it in that terms. Like it might help to watch a couple trailers and not necessarily for how much they represented the movie correctly, but the kind of content that they're, they're showing you and keep in mind of course that they also can have dialogue clips and explosions where you don't necessarily get that, but you'll see sort of what I mean as far as like them actually representing the movie. Kaelyn:16:06   Yeah. So I'll just bullet point kind of four things that your query letters should do. One is introduce yourself briefly very briefly. That should just be I'm such and such. I do this and I'm really interested in this thing that I wrote. Um, I get query letters frequently that the bulk of it is someone's life story or an essay about why they wrote this. And I finished it and I'm like, oh, okay, that was great, but what am I about to read? So if you get through an entire query letter and you haven't really talked about what you're submitting - Rekka:16:45   Keep in mind if you are, if you are submitting to a publisher, this is for one book, this is not for you, the person they are, they are not going to invest in your career and necessarily like they may hope to be a big part of it, but this is not about you walking in and earning the corner office. This is about you have a title, it is a product and you want them to champion it. Kaelyn:17:11   Yeah. And so the other thing is that, you know, like obviously your publisher is at some point going to want to know about you. If they're interested in your book, they will get in touch with you and find out about you. Rekka:17:22   Chances are you've got a bit of a, an Internet trail anyway. They can find out a little bit about it., just scrape the surface. Kaelyn:17:27   If someone is potentially interested in your book, they will call you and find out about you. For now, your main thing is to get them interested in your story. Rekka:17:36   Right. Kaelyn:17:36   Um, don't, introduce yourself. It's, it's always good just to have a little bit of context, but do it very briefly. And there's not really much of a need to include a lot of personal information., Rekka:17:49   No, no. And only the pertinent stuff. Kaelyn:17:51   Yeah. Uh, so second is, um, book stats. Kinda tell us about your story. Tell us how long it is. Tell us. Uh, it's genre and, um, that's, you know, the, just, just the stats. Yeah. If you click on it, what they come up with in terms of charisma and um, defence hit points, you know, that sort of thing. The important stuff, you know. Rekka:18:14   Let the acquiring editor know whether they want to reroll exactly. Kaelyn:18:17   Um, just very, you know, I'm, I wrote, my book is called, uh, The Containment Unit. It's about 120,000 words long, and it's a science fiction novel. Rekka:18:29   Hmm. I'm interested in that. Kaelyn:18:32   That's this podcast. Rekka:18:32   Yes, I know. Kaelyn:18:37   It's, you know, and that can be one sentence that's easy. There's, you know, there's ways to finesse the sentence a little bit. It doesn't just have to be a blatant statement of that. Um, so next is tell us about your story. Depending on what your story is, there's going to be certain parts that you want to emphasize more, but you're basically going for setting main character or characters, you know, if it's a group, kind of introduce a group. If it's main character, just that, and then their problem. So you're setting this stuff up and then you're telling them, but wait, then this happened. Rekka:19:12   Yep. Kaelyn:19:13   Either they start with a problem or it gets worse or they don't have a problem and then they have one. Rekka:19:18   Right. Kaelyn:19:18   You have to explain a little bit of where the plot is going. Um, I get frustrated reading query letters where it's paragraphs about the character and it's kind of like, so what happens to them? Rekka:19:35   Yeah. Cause that's when the stories really starts to get interesting or that's when it hooks people is when that character runs up against something else. Kaelyn:19:43   Exactly. So you're kind of and, this is where I went back to, do not summarize it. You're not telling me the, you're not giving me a synopsis or a summary here. You're giving me the, there was, you know, there is an alien who's stranded alone on earth but has made a decent life for themselves and is happy here. But then all of a sudden his buddies come to get him and they realize they can conquer this planet easily. Can he save earth from his friends? Rekka:20:13   Yeah. His own people. Yeah. Yeah. So one thing you mentioned, um, was the Colin Coyle method where like the first sentence buys you the first paragraph. So your query letter buys the very. Kaelyn:20:25   First sentence? Rekka:20:26   But like the very committal act of opening that documents, you know, like that's, that's a whole extra thing. They know that, you know, as an acquiring editor, they know that when they open that document they will be faced with a wall of text. Kaelyn:20:41   While, so Rekka just brought up point number four, which is hook me. Rekka:20:45   Yeah. Kaelyn:20:45   You want to get me at the end to go, I need to know if the alien can save earth from his friends. So you want to make me open the query, the, excuse me, you want to make me open the manuscript based on the query letter. Rekka:21:01   Right. Kaelyn:21:01   The last thing is you're trying to convince me to read your manuscript. Here is why you should be interested in this. So giving away the whole thing right off the bat is, you know, it's gonna and especially if this is maybe a little bit of a harsh reality, but maybe if you're not writing the synopsis well and then you give me the whole thing and I'm going, well that doesn't sound great. Rekka:21:29   It's like maybe you wrote an amazing twist, but you just laid it all out for me so it doesn't feel that twisty. Kaelyn:21:34   Yeah. And maybe I'm not getting the correct emphasis on the plot and the high points of the. Rekka:21:40   Yeah. And, and that when you write, uh, some, uh, when you write a synopsis, all that tension, all that momentum doesn't necessarily exist the way it does in your story. So all you want to do is give them the trailer that makes them bite and say, buying the movie ticket is opening that word doc. Kaelyn:21:59   Yeah. So the other thing along the hook me line that you should be doing is, okay, you've written a great query letter. I am really, really like, I want to know does the little green alien managed to help save earth from all of his drunk friends? You know, and I opened your manuscript and let's say there's just something in the writing's good, but for instance, it's really slow, like the first few chapters, just, there's not much happening here. But from your query letter, I know what's coming. Rekka:22:31   Right. You know the 25% mark hook. Kaelyn:22:35   Yes. Basically, I know what this is building to. So instead, and this is a good example of why you need one. Because I, we do get a lot of manuscripts that just don't have query letters, which is not great because then if I'm reading, you know, like the first few chapters of your book and I'm like, there's nothing happening here and I have no context for what is going to happen later, that's gonna make me go, well this is, this is too slow. I can't do this. So that's just another argument as to why it's excellent idea to try to hook the reader into it. Um, so now you're probably going, OK, well like, so how do I do this? Rekka:23:13   Yeah. Kaelyn:23:15   There are websites and there are articles that will say like, this is the format you should have. Um, I think they're okay to use as guidelines - Rekka:23:23   If you really don't know where to start. Kaelyn:23:25   The other really good thing to keep in mind is that not every format is going to work for the best way to pitch your book. So if your, um, if yours works better with, you know, getting right into the, here's the stuff about my story and then introducing yourself at the end, do that. If you feel like it's an easier transition to say, hello, Parvus Press, my name is blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and then go into your story. Um, do that. It's, I won't say there is a definitive correct way to write a query letter because it's the way that you can best present your work. Rekka:23:59   Right. And so while I, you know, maybe you don't have to write nine, but play around with different formats and see which feels natural. Kaelyn:24:06   Absolutely. Actually, you just brought up a very good point of different versions because in the prepping your submissions, uh episode we had done before this, we talked about caveats. If you have a thing that it's like, listen, I know that you said you don't want Werewolf stories, but mine's about werewolves but they're in space and you said you're interested in SciFi, this is a good spot to put that in the query letter. Like I did read your submissions guidelines. Rekka:24:38   It's not that I'm completely defying them, but here's why I'm defying them. Kaelyn:24:43   Yes.And it's um, you know, it gives you a little bit of a chance to explain. Now this is not the space to write a 20 page enpassioned argument. Rekka:24:50   No, but this gives you the intro that you can begin to let her with and actually kind of like kicks open the door just a tiny bit because you're going to be more uncomfortable because you have something to approach them with. Like you already know what they're looking for or more specifically in this case, what they're not. So you are responding to them on a personal level that shows several things. One that you, you know, like you have an interesting twist on something that maybe felt a little tropey to them. Two, that you did read the submission guidelines, which is always a good look. Kaelyn:25:20   I love when people read submissions guidelines. Rekka:25:21   Three, it's like your explanation of like, but wait, hear me out. This is your personality. Kaelyn:25:26   Yeah. Rekka:25:27   So you're, you actually are packing a lot of data for this publisher into this opening volley that you are going to start with. Kaelyn:25:35   Yeah. And you actually kind of then touched on another good point with your query letter and format. The tone of your query letters should kind of match the tone of your book. If you're writing a really dark, you know, fantasy kind of upsetting setting where nothing ever good happens and you start out, this is a journey of friendship and hope, then - Rekka:25:59   There are puppies! Kaelyn:26:00   And it's the tone of your query letter, especially the part where you're pitching your story should match what is going on with the book. Rekka:26:10   Yeah. Kaelyn:26:10   Um, you know, not, it doesn't, not, not, I'm not talking about in prose and style. Rekka:26:15   Yeah, and don't write it from the first person of the main character and - Kaelyn:26:20   Point number two: Now is not the time to be cute. Yeah. Um, I understand that, you know, a lot of writers struggle to do something unique to make themselves stand out. Rekka:26:31   I think there was some bad advice floating around that you should like make your query letter differ from everybody else's query letter. But like it's not going to be, there are so many query letters that it's going to be a lot like someone else's. And if it's a lot like someone else's and it's like wincingly campy, unless your book is campy on purpose, like maybe don't. Kaelyn:26:51   A lot of them, um, a lot of them are the same but good query letters, like, you know, it's not that the query letter stood out necessarily, it's that - Rekka:27:00   It didn't get in its own way. Kaelyn:27:02   It didn't get it sewed away and that it did a good job. Rekka:27:05   Mmmhmm. I like to compare, I mean it's not quite perfect, but I like to compare it to a gallery. You go to a gallery and the walls are painted white and the walls are painted white so that the paintings and the artwork and the sculptures, et Cetera can stand out. And that's what you focus on. So if you get clever or cheeky with your language, if you decide you're going to write it in pig Latin because you think that they'll notice you like that's an extreme case. Please don't do that unless your book is about pig Latin. Um, and even then save it for like one paragraph or a p s or something. But anyway, so like just keep your language simple. The tone can match, but don't get overly emphatic with anything. Don't, don't show desperatation. I don't know what you want to call it, but like be let your language in your corner. Let itbe the gallery wall and let your ideas stand out. Not the way you phrase it. Kaelyn:28:03   Your language should be showcasing your idea. That's, that's it. You should not be having to do, you know, anything too overly clever or crazy to get an acquisition editor or an agent's attention. Rekka:28:19   Right. They'd been reading through a lot of these. If yours is simple and clean and clear and concise, that's gonna stand out on its own. Kaelyn:28:25   Yeah. It's, you know, and there's nothing wrong with writing in a very confident way. There's nothing wrong with, um, I, you know, I get, um, I get some humor novels sometimes that, um, you know, especially like fantasy kind of things. And the query letters are kind of written frequently in the same tone as the book and sometimes it works really well and sometimes it's what I would call overly sarcastic. Rekka:28:57   Ooh, okay. Kaelyn:28:58   And you'd be sup- that's something that was a weird one that I keep that pops up every now and then. I get these very like, sarcastic, almost nihilistic. Rekka:29:06   Mmmm. Kaelyn:29:06   Um, kind of tones in the query letter. Rekka:29:09   And this is coming from someone who claims to be an nihiliist. Kaelyn:29:11   I'm pretty nihilistic. Rekka:29:13   Yeah. Kaelyn:29:14   That's okay. I'm happy about it. Rekka:29:15   Yeah. So be optimistically nihilistic in your query letters. If you're going to go that way. But like, you have one chance to leave a taste in the, in the reader's mouth about what you are promising them and if it comes off as in like this entire thing is going to be like Dwight from the office. I mean Dwight needs a full cast to stand down. Yeah. So your query letters should not just be Dwight. Kaelyn:29:41   Yes, that's very true. One of the things we're going to do before we wrap up here is Rekka has very selflessly and generously agreed to read her query letter that got her signed at Parvus actually for Flotsam. Um, so if you read Flotsom, you, which you should go read Flotsam and Aalvage is now officially out for a week as of this episode launch. Um, so we want to read it because it's interesting to hear it and then you know, if you've read Flotsam compare it to what the book is. I think your query letter was a pretty accurate engaging representation, but it, but then things changed. Rekka:30:21   Right. So, so it was a good representation. Things changed later in the revision process once I was with Parvus, but I had to choose what to focus on for my query letter. So if you've read Flotsam well maybe I'll read the query letter first. So, um, good afternoon. So there's, there's a personal note at the beginning because I thought I knew who it was going to. Ironically that is not who read it. So I'm always, you know, there is a chance that you might address it to the editor and find out that was not actually the person who read it. Obviously we're not just talking about the slush pile, but someone else at Parvus higher up picked it up. Kaelyn:31:03   Yup. So not me. Rekka:31:04   I'll start with good afternoon. And then there was the personal note, um, in which case I'd like to present my first novel Flotsam for purposes consideration Talis, tries to do right by the small crew of her airship wind saver. It's not easy when your work isn't legal. You take the contracts, you can get. Her ledgers drip with expenses that she has no idea how to cover, not with the work they've been getting lately. When an anonymous client offers a small fortune to make a salvage run for some old ring. Talis accepts the contract. No questions asked. Hankirk's skills are wasted. His forefather led a revolt against the domineering gods of Peridot, but the Order of Kindness Rising who carry on that legacy only want Hankirk to symbolize their legitimacy. To prove he is more than a figurehead, he needs an ancient ring that was almost lost a time. When the Kindness council rejects his proposal, Hankirk turns elsewhere to get the ring and who better than his old girlfriend turned criminal Talis to snatch it up for him. Talis puts what little cash she has left into the salvage operation in banks on the big payday, which works until the anonymous client turns out to be Hankirk, her instincts tell her to keep the ring as far away from him as possible. The smart thing to do would be to drop the ring overboard again, but she still needs to get paid. Written under the pen name. RJ. Theodore, Flotsam is an action packed ensambal space pop opera of 104,658 words containing creaking, airships, deadly magic and powerful aliens. There is far more room for additional adventures set in these unique world. Thank you for your consideration. Kaelyn:32:34   Okay, so right off the bat, 104,000 words. Rekka:32:39   Yeah. Kaelyn:32:39   That, how many did this book end up being? Rekka:32:41   118,000. Kaelyn:32:42   Okay. Not as much as I thought you added. Rekka:32:47   Inflation came with Salvage. Kaelyn:32:49   Right. Yes. Yeah. Rekka:32:50   No. That's where the inflation rates really skyrocketed. Kaelyn:32:52   Not as, not as much as I thought you added, but definitely not nothing. Rekka:32:56   Right. So - Kaelyn:32:56   For those who have a read Flotsam, you'll know that that's not an incorrect representation of the book, but - Rekka:33:06   Some names changed. Kaelyn:33:06   Some names changed. Rekka:33:08   The length changed. Kaelyn:33:09   The length changed and some of the focus of what you'd maybe emphasize if you were resubmitting this now would have changed. Rekka:33:19   Well see, hat's the thing is there are very small details and things that came out of like planning the sequel and the, and the third book in the trilogy, um, that, I might want to foreshadow a little bit in this, but this was pretty close to the version that was done. We just expanded certain ideas and there were certain things that I was asked to like, can you go back through and seed some of this or this scene doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Maybe we can cut it and I go, oh no, there's like something really key happening there. Let me work on that scene. And then that scene got a little longer and stuff like that. But the, um, the things that were emphasized in this, you might not emphasize if you were thinking back on the book, like there's almost no mention of the crew. Kaelyn:34:05   Well actually, so that's what I was about to ask you. So if he were querying Flotsam as it ended up being published, what changes would you make to this query letter? Rekka:34:15   But that's what I was trying to say is that this was one of nine and there was a version or two that included stuff about the crew. There was a stuff that included, um, mention of the character Maron who comes in late in the first book. You know, there's, um, more mention of the aliens. You know, there, there were different versions and this one was the most character focused and had the most punch to it. So it was not so much that I needed to when I was writing this broadcast specific details and make the perfect encapsulation of what to expect in this book. It was make this book sound appealing and relatable and get somebody to open this. Kaelyn:34:58   Yes. And I think that query letter did an excellent job of that. Rekka:35:02   Thank you. So yeah, it doesn't - Kaelyn:35:04   Because I mean back cover copy. Rekka:35:06   Yeah. Yes. Um, I'm talking to the easy crowd, but so the back cover copy of the book ended up being far more focused on the overwhelming odds against this crew than it did on Hankirk versus Talis. Kaelyn:35:21   Now something else that's interesting, yhat is not in that query letter at all is Peridot. Rekka:35:28   Right. Kaelyn:35:29   And the setting. Rekka:35:30   So that is, and this goes back to what we were saying, like the thing that like wows you the most about your own story may not be right for the query letter. Kaelyn:35:39   Because one of the things that I love most about Flotsam is the setting of it. Rekka:35:44   I love building it . Kaelyn:35:45   Yeah and Peridot and this idea of these, the cataclysm that broke apart the planet and it's now the chunks are being held together and there's just garbage everywhere. Rekka:35:56   Everywhere underneath. Kaelyn:35:56   Everywhere underneath. Rekka:35:57   And you don't get that from the query letter. But that's hard to explain and still have room to get into characters and plot. Kaelyn:36:06   And this where we're getting to with why these are so hard to write because you may have to sacrifice important elements for more important elements. Rekka:36:14   Or for more relatable elements. I guess like something in order to draw someone in you have to make them care. And in order to make them care, you have to make it understandable what's going on. So for me to say that 75 generations ago, the planet's gods like broke the whole planet in a quest for extra power is neat. But now I've just wasted half of my query letter and I haven't even gotten to what happens in the book. Kaelyn:36:38   And that's the thing with um, a query letters is real estate. Rekka:36:43   Yeah. Kaelyn:36:43   You have to think of it as, I only have so much space. What can I fit in here elegantly? It's anattrition factor. You have to like, you know, I know whenever I cover copy and um, I think a good method for doing query letters, even things like when I do a right announcements, I bullet point, I get a sheet of paper and I actually sit there and write this out in a bullet point. Things that they want the reader to know. And then I go through and I put them in the order of what I think is most important and that's kind of going to give you, you know, and then you'll figure out how to tie them together. Okay. I can move this up. If I bring it to here and get instead of three sentences, I can do that in two and I know it sounds so stupid and so like, Oh, you're just fiddling with sentences. You're going to have to do that. If you think that you're not going to be going, okay, wait, if I change these five words, I can use three instead. Yeah, it's the minuteness. Rekka:37:43   So obviously that's just one example of a query letter and your query letter, it might not sound anything like that. You might lead with your name because you don't have the personal note to put at the top of the letter. You might have more to say about one character and not so many secondary characters to introduce in the query letter and don't. When I say more to say about one character, I don't mean go on at length. I just mean, you know. Instead of me going character one, one paragraph character to a second paragraph, boom, here's how they fell together. It might be, here's what character one wants, here's what character one is against in the world. And the boom is how does that character going to, how do they plan? Because you don't want to give away how they succeed or fail, but you do want to say like, okay, here's what they're after and here's what's going to happen. Here's their big plan. Kaelyn:38:31   Yeah. You gotta you definitely have to figure out like that balance in there. But um actually Rekka again brought up another point. Rekka:38:38   I'm so good at this. Kaelyn:38:39   No, you do because it just, it makes me think of and remember things. Um, you know, the personal note in the beginning - Rekka:38:45   Is optional. Kaelyn:38:47   Well, if you're submitting to someone, like let's say, you know, you ran into me at the nebulas and I gave you my card and said, yeah, you know, you should, you know, I'd love to read that. Putting a little note in the beginning, like reminding me like, Hey, Kaelyn, I'm so, and so we met at the Nebulas, you know, my book is this. That's a, this is a good spot to do that. Rekka:39:04   Yeah. Kaelyn:39:04   Um, you know, if it's an agent that also, you know, invited you to query with them directly. Rekka:39:09   But if no one did, don't put it in. Kaelyn:39:11   Don't put that in. Rekka:39:12   Obviously start this relationship off very professionally with honesty. Kaelyn:39:17   And so I'm going to end this with, with one thing me and Rekka and I were talking about when we were getting barbecue today, um, that I was kind of thinking like, uh, this might've been a good thing to put in the prepping your submissions thing. But I'll start out with the query letters because it's kinda, I don't want to see your fan art of this. Um, I don't, this should be just your query letter in your manuscript. Rekka:39:44   No supplemental materials. Kaelyn:39:46   If you drew some things for it, if you did some, you know, maybe a map, but that should be included with your manuscript, if it's relevant. Rekka:39:57   Not necessarily like here's, here's how I'd suggest handling this. By now I hope you have an author website. So if you have an area that's got your artwork and you have an area that has a map and you say like, this is from my upcoming project, which I have currently titled Blah, it's on submission or it's, I'm querying it right now. Um, and so hopefully, you know, like you don't, you don't want to give away the manuscript on your website, but you can put the artwork because it's probably not going to be the final artwork. Kaelyn:40:28   Yeah. Um, as a good rule of thumb and not including art work, um, you know, especially cover art because we've talked about this a little bit before and we will do a whole episode on this in the future. You don't really get any say in your cover art. So if you're sending me anything, it's just kind of like you, when you talk about like impressions, that's not a good place to start. Rekka:40:50   Yeah. If you're not a professional professional cover artist or illustrator, there's a very good chance that you're actually going to sour the impression of your manuscript with your - and okay. I'm using the word amateur, but I mean it in its literal sense which is - Kaelyn:41:06   You're not professional. Rekka:41:08   You're, people, amateur comes from doing it for the love of it. Kaelyn:41:11   Yeah. Rekka:41:11   That's where the word comes from. That's what I mean. But if this is not something you are trained to do, this is not something you do professionally where the illustrations you create end up on book covers. There's probably a nuance to book covers that you are missing so it does not necessarily help you. I might even hurt you to include materials for a published book that you are not asked for in the submissions guidelines. So submissions guidelines is probably going to ask you for your mind manuscript and it's probably going to ask you for a query letter and it's probably not going to say, and any artwork you've drawn from your story. Kaelyn:41:47   And look ,it's great that like you're very excited and invested in it. Rekka:41:50   Like I said, put it on your website. Kaelyn:41:51   You can put it on your website - Rekka:41:53   The publisher, if they're interested, they'll check out your website. Kaelyn:41:55   Yes. Oh definitely. That's one of the first things. Rekka:41:57   Yeah, Kaelyn:41:58   I always do, but like it's, I'm not saying this to be harsh or to dampen the excitement that you have for your book in your characters. It's just one of those things where like we don't need this and this isn't, this isn't a value add yet and this isn't, this isn't the time to put this in there. I would go so far as to say it's not appropriate to put it in there because that's not what we're asking for. I don't your your ability to draw or depict your characters or the world is not going to have any bearing on the decision I make about your book. That's not making me go, oh, this is better because of this. Rekka:42:39   However, it might make Kaelyn say, oh, they're going to want to use their artwork in the book. Kaelyn:42:45   Well it's gonna make me wonder if this is going to be a fight. Rekka:42:47   Yeah. Right. And that goes back to the whole like how easy is it going to be to work with you that we were talking about in the submissions episode. Kaelyn:42:54   Every little thing you do or don't do in this process is an indicator of what it will be like to work with you. So, Rekka:43:04   Be cool. Kaelyn:43:05   Yeah. Rekka:43:05   Just send in the manuscript, send in a nice query. Kaelyn:43:07   Be cool and follow directions. That's, I mean that's the best advice I can give you if you are concerned or if you're unsure about something default to professional. Rekka:43:17   Right. Always. Kaelyn:43:19   And you know, so that's, that's the guidelines that I have for query letters. I know I'm making it sound scary. I won't say it's not hard, but it's not scary. Rekka:43:31   Right. Kaelyn:43:32   Um, it is difficult. So don't go into it thinking that it's going to be easy, Rekka:43:37   Right. But look at it as a challenge because this is a skill you were going to develop as a result of doing this. So just like, you know, learning how to write better, how to self edit, you know, for an easy pass. There's lots of tips on that online. There are lots of tips on how to write query letters online and you can go and see some examples, see some definite what not to do is out there. And it's a skill that it behooves you, even if for some reason you only have to write one query letter in your life, it's a good thing to practice. Kaelyn:44:11   Oh definitely. Rekka:44:11   So see it as a challenge. You know, like, you know, use me as an example. I wrote nine and I got to pick my favorite one. It's way different than trying to want wrtie one perfect one. Kaelyn:44:22   Yes. Rekka:44:22   And so just like, you know, in your practice overshoot so that then you can like back down and take a look and like this, okay, this is, this one's working and I can tell this one's working versus this one because of this. And then you might end up writing a 10th one. That's the one you actually use. But you, you're building a skillset. Kaelyn:44:41   Yup. So, um, that's the query letters episode. See that wasn't so bad. We got through it. Rekka:44:45   We got through it. You can get through it. Kaelyn:44:46   You can get through it. Um, so next week there's going to be our two parter. Rekka:44:51   Right. Kaelyn:44:52   We're doing a Tuesday and Wednesday release and it's all about agents. Um, we're going to talk to you some authors, about - Rekka:45:00   Who have agents. Kaelyn:45:00   Who have agents, and then we're going to talk to an actual agent, real life, who breathing agents, who has some authors. Rekka:45:07   As it turns out. Kaelyn:45:08   As it turns out. And um, you know, ask them some questions on both ends, about, you know, how you got to your agent or agents, how you pick your authors. Uh, so I'm excited for that one because I think that's, that's a thing a lot, that's a big question a lot of people have, Rekka:45:25   Right, well, it's like who's on the other end of this query letter. Kaelyn:45:28   Who is this mythical creature, this literary agent? Rekka:45:31   Right. And literary agent that sounds very like diplomatic and like maybe. Kaelyn:45:36   They are diplomatic - Rekka:45:38   And they are an ambassador. So, but, um, yeah, so we're going to get a little taste of actual, you know, just like we shared my query letter, we're going to share some personal stories about, you know, not too personal, but like, you know, individual stories of successful agent landings. Y. Kaelyn:45:54   eah. So, um, we're still open to and willing to be taking any additional questions of, for things that were not covered in this, you know, if we, like we said, if we get enough, we'll do a, a, a sixth episode this month. Rekka:46:06   It might be October 1st. Kaelyn:46:09   Yeah. You know, with just things that we talked about that anyone listening might want to hear more about. So you know, as, as usual, if you have questions, you have comments, hit us up on the a, the socials. Rekka:46:20   Socials, @WMBcast almost everywhere where we exist, patreon.com/WMBcast. If you are finding a lot of value in these episodes and especially the submission September, we'd love your support and we can't wait to share some bonus content with you over there. But yes, find us on Twitter and Instagram at WMB cast and you can send us a direct message on Twitter if you have questions that you want to be anonymous. If you don't need an animosity no, that's not the right word. Kaelyn:46:48   Anonymity. Rekka:46:52   Anonymiminy? Kaelyn:46:52   Annonnumititity Rekka:46:52   If you don't care if people read your questions, Kaelyn:46:54   That one! [laughs] Rekka:46:54   You can directly reply to the tweet about the, the episode in question. So come find us and come chat. Kaelyn:47:02   Yeah, if you message us in, you want to be anonymous, just, you know, drop a say like, Hey, I just want to be anonymous. Rekka:47:07   I'm blushing as I ask, but yeah, that's fine. We can honor that. Kaelyn:47:10   No, I mean, we'd like, there's no like wrong questions here. There's nothing that you can send us that we're going to go, they don't even know that. Rekka:47:18   Right. So, um, yeah, we'd love to hear from everyone and we hope you're enjoying this. Kaelyn:47:23   Definitely. Rekka:47:24   So let us know if you're finding a good value in these. And if you are, we'd always appreciate a rating and review on your podcast app. Kaelyn:47:32   Yes. So, uh, we'll be back next week with more, with the agents. Rekka:47:36   See you then guys.  

Hi everyone, and thank you for tuning in to another episode of the We Make Books Podcast - A podcast about writing, publishing, and everything in between! This is a big day, not only is it the first week of Submissions September, but we have something much more important happening: Today is the release of next novel, Rekka’s Peridot Shift Trilogy, ‘SALVAGE’! It’s an amazing book and we’d love for you to check it out. On the WMB side of things, this is the first week of Submissions September!  Rekka and Kaelyn are bringing you six, (6!) episodes this month all about the process of submitting your novel.  We have a lot of awesome episodes lined up and even some special guests.  Here’s what will be coming your way for the  month: Week 1 (9/3/2019): Is This Ready For Other People to See?- Submitting Your Manuscript Week 2 (9/10/2019): My Entire Novel in Three Hundred Words - The Dreaded Query Letter Week 3 (9/17/2019): Agents of Literature, Part 1: An Interview with Literary Agent Caitlin McDonald               (9/18/2019): Agents of Literature, Part 2: Interviews with Agented Authors               (9/19/2019): Agents of Literature Part 3: Interviews with Agented Authors Week 4 (9/24/2019):What is Going On Over There? - The Other Side of the Submissions Process We Make Books is hosted by Rekka Jay and Kaelyn Considine; Rekka is a published author and Kaelyn is an editor and together they are going to take you through what goes into getting a book out of your head, on to paper, in to the hands of a publisher, and finally on to book store shelves. We Make Books is a podcast for writer and publishers, by writers and publishers and we want to hear from our listeners! Hit us up on our social media, linked below, and send us your questions, comments, concerns, and any words of encouragement or congratulations you want to send Rekka’s way. We hope you enjoy We Make Books!   Twitter: @WMBCast  |  @KindofKaelyn  |  @BittyBittyZap Instagram: @WMBCast  Patreon.com/WMBCast     Kaelyn:00:00   Hey everyone, welcome back to another episode of the, We Make Books Podcast a show about writing, publishing, and everything in between, and also the first week of Submissions September. Rekka:00:09   Yes, yes, and also. Kaelyn:00:11   But wait, there's more, there's more. It is also Book Day for Rekka Jay! Rekka:00:17   Well, RJ, Theodore, Kaelyn:00:19   RJ Theodore. Rekka:00:19   Wherever she is. Kaelyn:00:20   Wherever she is. RJ Theodore, author of Salvage the second book of the Peridot Trilogy from Parvus Press, released today. Um, so yeah, big day for Rekka. Very exciting. How you feeling? Rekka:00:31   I'm feeling oddly calm about, Kaelyn:00:33   Well, that's because we're recording this before it's actually happening. Rekka:00:36   Yeah. That's the truth. Kaelyn:00:37   It's still, it's still, it's still happening. Rekka:00:40   It's still coming up. Yeah. Gosh, yeah. Now, now you're getting me nervous. Kaelyn:00:44   And so, uh, yeah. So today, today's records book day, very exciting. Rekka:00:47   So if you are listening to this live or otherwise, you can go find yourself a copy of Salvage, um, and if you don't have the money to buy a book, you can request it from your local library, which also would be very - Kaelyn:01:00   That would be fantastic. Um, also today, you know, maybe you could show Rekka a little love, tweet her some, uh, some congratulations, some support. Um, you know, if you listened to the previous episode as, you heard that uh book launch days are stressful. Rekka:01:16   Stressful, a little weird. Kaelyn:01:17   Anticlimactic, yeah. Rekka:01:19   A little quiet, I work from home, so it's just like me alone in my office and nobody's blowing birthday noisemakers or anything. Kaelyn:01:27   Well, now, guess what we're going to do. So, yeah. Anyway, we're, we're really excited for Rekka's book launch and um, we're also super excited for Submissions September. I'm real, I'm giddy excited about this. Rekka:01:41   Kaelyn may be slightly more excited than I am. Kaelyn:01:43   Um, yes. So, you know, we've been a teasing slash threatening this for awhile. Um, so we're doing four episodes and actually it's going to be five episodes, it looks like. Yeah. Rekka:01:54   At least. Kaelyn:01:54   In September. Um, so this is our schedule this week, um, you can see from the title of the episode, we're talking about preparing your submission. Um, we're gonna talk a little bit about getting your submission ready and then actually submitting, which is a lot of me ranting. Rekka:02:10   There is a launch sequence. Please adhere to it for everyone's safety. Kaelyn:02:13   Yeah, which is a lot of me ranting about submissions, guidelines. So, you know, just a, just a warning, get ready for that. Um, next week, September 10th, we're going to be talking about query letters, uh, their function, how important they are, how to some tips for writing them and what they should be doing. Rekka:02:31   Yep. And also, you know, we, we talk about getting your stuff ready for submission in this episode. It doesn't mean yeet it. Kaelyn:02:40   Yeah, sure. Rekka:02:40   After this episode, keep listening. Kaelyn:02:42   Keep listening. Rekka:02:42   We've got more good stuff for you, the rest of the month. Kaelyn:02:44   September 17th is agent's week. We're going to be doing two episodes of. Rekka:02:50   Right. And that's, that's the one that's like, oh, okay. So one a week, but also a fifth one. So we've got a lot of great people who volunteered to come on and give us some of their personal experiences, including an agent. Um, maybe, you know, like if we have more than one at that, after we've recorded this, then we'll include more than one. But, um, so we're going to split that up into an episode up from the agent side. And one from the author side. Kaelyn:03:15   Yes. So, um, I know that's something we're, we're really excited for that because that's something that a lot of people, um, are in the dark about. Rekka:03:22   Yeah. And it's the big scary part because that's like quote gatekeeping. Kaelyn:03:26   Yes. Rekka:03:27   So this is the part where people start to get very nervous. This is the judgment before people even read your book thing. Kaelyn:03:33   Yes. So then finally, September 24th, we're going to be doing an episode about what's going on on the other side of things where me, for instance, an acquisitions editor. What I'm doing when I'm getting submissions, what I'm considering, how I'm reading things, how I'm responding to them, et cetera. Um, so we still have some time for if you have a few questions for now. Rekka:03:58   Like if you're listening now we can probably get your question in at the end of the month. Kaelyn:04:02   Yes. So we were talking about, you know, potential six episode of if we have a bunch of questions doing an doing kind of a wrap up episode, um, you know, if there's any topics that people were particularly interested in or things they wanted to engage in more, um, you know - Rekka:04:18   Or if we have, we muddied the waters for some reason. Kaelyn:04:21   Yeah. Or if you're very confused. And, um, so, uh, you know, if we have enough we'll probably maybe do something with that. Rekka:04:30   Yeah. Kaelyn:04:30   In the end of the month. So we're really excited for this. I um- Rekka:04:36   She smiling's it's just like teeth all over the place here. Kaelyn:04:39   Yeah. We were talking about, you know, um, but we do organize shows ahead of time and you know, plan out what we're going to say. And we were kind of mapping out for the next couple of months, um, what we're going to talk about. And there were a lot of topics related to submissions and the more we looked at it, we were like, maybe we should break these instead of breaking these up. We should put them all together. And then it's like, okay, well we've got about three or four episodes of material here, but then doing them every other week is kind of - Rekka:05:10   It's like months and months of just one topic. Kaelyn:05:12   Yeah. And it's also sort of disrupting the flow. So we thought that this would be good, you know, for four topics, four weeks submission, September. And I'm that way it's kinda taking you through a process and hitting different points of things that are going to happen. So, um, we're really excited to do this. We hope it's going to be entertaining and informative as always. And Yeah. Rekka:05:37   And so here we go. Kaelyn:05:38   Uh, hope you enjoy the episode, everyone and, and the rest of Submissions September and we'll see you next week. Rekka:05:45   Yes. Kaelyn:05:57   [inaudible] Kaelyn:05:58   Rekka first episode, Submissions September. Rekka:06:00   Yes. Kaelyn:06:01   This is very exciting. Rekka:06:02   It's, I'm a little distracted again today though. Kaelyn:06:04   Is something happening? Rekka:06:08   She forgot me. Kaelyn:06:09   I never forget you! Guys Rekka's book comes out today. Rekka:06:12   Yes. Kaelyn:06:13   Book Two of the Peridot Shift trilogy. Salvage. Rekka:06:17   Salvage came out today and so it's my book birthday. It's a big day. It's also the first day of Submissions September. Kaelyn:06:24   Yeah. But real quick, let's go back to you. So if you're listening to this tweet Rekka some, uh, some love and encouragement @bittybittyzap. Yeah, she would very much appreciate that. Rekka:06:34   I would not be, um, against the idea of getting some, some call outs on Twitter and stuff like that. Positive call outs. Um, because book days book birthdays are lonely for some reason. Kaelyn:06:47   No, it's not. You're here with me. I. Rekka:06:48   am here. Kaelyn:06:49   Yeah. Um, cause we're recording this exactly on September 3rd. Rekka:06:54   Totally. Kaelyn:06:55   Yeah. Yeah. Um, but it is also, this is the first episode of submission September, which we're, so I'm, I'm really excited to do this and it's because I get to yell about a lot of stuff. Rekka:07:06   Kaelyn's been like building up and building up and building up things to say about this for awhile. Kaelyn:07:11   Oh, the thing is I tricked Rekka into this and because before she, she agreed and then before she knew it, she was like, oh, this is a manifesto as told through five podcast episodes. Yeah. Oh that's right, everyone. Rekka:07:24   Potentially six. Kaelyn:07:25   Potentially six. There's- Rekka:07:26   She's already threatened there might be six. Kaelyn:07:27   There's already, possibly six. There's definitely five. Rekka:07:30   Why not 20? Kaelyn:07:31   We've got, we have some really good stuff coming down the pipeline. Um, um, so yeah, today we're talking about preparing your submission, um, and getting it out into the world and seeing if anyone wants it. Now, um, I'm going to qualify real quick here that I am treating this the same as if you're preparing to submit or query to an agent or if you are submitting directly to a publishing house because these rules apply to both situations. Rekka:07:57   Right. Kaelyn:07:58   And there are rules. Rekka:07:59   So you know how you try to go out to high school wearing your really cool new like accessory or whatever and you try to get out of the house before mom sees you and then like you hear her call you back from the other end of the, she's like in the kitchen and you just like, can I make it in the door? Like, just won't open. This is like Kaelyn is calling you back from submitting whatever you were going to submit. She just wants to check just your ready. Kaelyn:08:24   Look - Rekka:08:26   It's out of love. Kaelyn:08:27   There's a lot of moving pieces here. Um, so we're going to kind of break this down into two parts. One is preparing your submission, which is how do I know this is ready to be put in front of people. And the second is going to be submissions guidelines. And I apologize in advance for how excited I am to talk about submissions, guidelines. Rekka:08:48   Near and dear to Kaelyn's heart. Kaelyn:08:49   Yes. Um, so the first, the big question, how do I know this is ready? How do I know time to send this out to people? Rekka:08:56   As a writer, I've been working on my story forever. I've been revising it a lot. I don't know if it's good enough. I mean that's why I'm sending it out cause I'm asking, please tell me, but this is good enough and you know, at what point do I stop fiddling with it and start finalizing it and send it out. Kaelyn:09:17   So I kind of always think of this as, you know, they say like if you make a journey by halves, half of the distance at a time, you'll never actually get there. It's kind of the same thing. You're down to a millimeter. And if you keep dividing it, you're just, you never going to get there to a certain point, you do take a step back and say, okay, this is done. So when do you submit it? The answer that I know everyone's going to love is when it is the best possible version it can be. Rekka:09:48   Another way I've heard this phrased is that when you can invest more time in it and the return on that investment of time is not significant. Like if you could make another revision pass, but if you were just like - Kaelyn:10:04   If it's not going to help, that's when you know the half journey. You're not, you're not getting any farther at this point. Rekka:10:10   Yeah. Kaelyn:10:11   Um, so we have talked about, you know, this, uh, episode two we talked a lot about, you know, pre-acceptance of your work and, um, then also working with an editor. Um, so hopefully we won't go too much into that. Again, probably people have already read it. If you're working with a freelance editor, if you've gotten notes, if you've had some Beta readers, um, you - Rekka:10:34   Hopefully, it's not just you at this point. Y. Kaelyn:10:36   eah. Yeah, I mean, you know - Rekka:10:38   It might be, but like, you know, if you haven't found anyone who's interested in it, it might be that you need to work on your pitch and maybe you're telling them too much before they open it up. But, um, you can hire people to read it if you are really not sure. Kaelyn:10:53   Yeah. Rekka:10:53   But chances are you're pretty confident in this thing. You're proud of it. You, you want to send it out. Kaelyn:10:57   I hope so. Rekka:10:58   Yeah, you should be. Kaelyn:10:59   So that's the story state of things. When you're ready, when it is the best possible version it can be and you can't do much more to it right now. The other side of things from besides story is mechanics and style and grammar. When is that ready? Now I will say acquisitions editor. I do not expect to get submissions that are perfectly copy edited. There's a reason we have copy editors. It's because those that's hard to do. Rekka:11:30   Yeah. Kaelyn:11:31   So that said, please use periods please capitalize. Please have a basic understanding of how commas work. Rekka:11:44   Um, if you run this through like grammar check in word or you get Grammarly and you run through and you disagree with every suggestion, every suggestion, you probably need to reconsider your stylistic choices. Kaelyn:11:59   Yes, definitely. So with knowing when your submission is ready in that regard, do basic writing checks, make sure that your grammar, punctuation, spelling is correct to the extent that you can get it. Like I said, no one is expecting a professional copy edit here, but watch for egregious errors. And I'm going to say something a little, I won't say controversial, the beginning of this is the most important part. If you can't, if you don't have time to comb through every single page of your manuscript, please for the love of God, at least do the first 20%. Um, because me the acquisitions editor, that's what I'm going to read first. And insider secret, I know people are doing that and I appreciate that. Now that said, if I get through your first 20% of your book and it devolves into, you know, misspelled words and abstract punctuation and you know, some really interesting uses of commas, I'm, that's gonna be a major red flag for me. So, but please pay extra special attention to the beginning of your book. Please, please proofread and closely check the first page of your book. Rekka:13:22   And I'll say it again. If you haven't read your entire book out loud yet, do that. Like, that's, Kaelyn:13:26   Yeah. Rekka:13:26   That's a good step to um, to making it more legible and definitely catching things that you haven't seen because you've looked at it too much. I think it's always important at least once in your books, you know, existence, um, to read it aloud. And if major changes happen, then it's always good to read new sections. Kaelyn:13:45   Absolutely. Rekka:13:45   So here's a really good place where you're going to catch stuff where you went, oh, I didn't even realize I did that. And it'll make your editor a little less mad at you. Kaelyn:13:52   Yeah. Um, one of the, you know, I think I've mentioned this on, on this podcast before, but I use what I call the Colin Coyle method. Colin's, the publisher at Parvus Press. And he always says, your first sentence is buying me your first paragraph, first paragraphs, buying me your first page. First page is buying me your first 10, first 10 buying me your first chapter. You are trying to get me to keep reading. Now part of that is story which, you know, I, I can't help you or offer advice on that in this context, but I can tell you that your grammar, punctuation and spelling is something that I'm going to be paying close attention to there. So - Rekka:14:31   Yeah. Kaelyn:14:32   Just please make sure, check the beginning of your book. That's very important. It's important throughout, but especially the beginning because that's the first impression you're making on me. Um, that's, you know, and you're going, well why is that such a big deal if you're going to get a copy editor? Because a couple things. One, it's setting the tone of your book. And I don't mean that in terms of story or style. I mean that in terms of what kind of a writer are you? Um, it's showing me that you're paying attention, that there's attention to detail and that's giving me a sense of what it's going to be like to work with you. Because if I'm getting a book through submissions and it's a mess in the first chapter, I'm going, well, this person doesn't care that much. I have other people here who put a lot of time and effort into getting this to a point that they want me to read it and this person just slapped some stuff together and sent it to me. That's, and it's wasting my time to now. So that's just gonna start off with leaving a bad taste in my mouth. Rekka:15:37   Right. But then plus every strange choice or, um, you know, uncaught mistake is a potential like tripping point where an editor might get, it, might be enjoying the story, but then they get popped out because like the sentence doesn't actually finish and, you know, go straight to the next paragraph, um, without, you know, the second half of the last sentence or something like that where you go, oh wait, and then you're out of the book, you're back in your room and you're wondering if you want to keep going. Kaelyn:16:06   I've had submissions where, um, I've had repeated paragraphs one right after on the first page, first page, repeated paragraphs. I've gotten ones that have really bad spelling errors in the first sentence. And it's not like they fat fingered a keyboard here, you know, like I've seen that and it's kinda like, alright, they were obviously just, you know, doing one last check through, accidentally leaned on the x. You know, it's, that's, that's fine. Um, but like first sentence spelling error is not, you know, that's not, it's not a good look for you to start with. Um, so please, you know, check, spend some time and do this. I know it can be boring. I know it can be a lot and I know it can be mind numbing, Rekka:16:54   But if you don't want a publishing deal bad enough to put this effort into exactly. Because you're going to be doing this a lot. Like there are more edit versions to come. Kaelyn:17:05   And that's what I mean when I say this is showing me what you're going to be like to look at. Because if I'm your editor and most any editor, I would hope you're not getting away with anything. Rekka:17:16   Right. Kaelyn:17:17   Um, if I put a note in your manuscript and you ignore it, that's going to be a problem. So it is a, it is a first impression. Your first page is trying to hook the, the editor, but it's also making a first impression. Um, so please pay attention to these things. Um, again, especially the beginning of the book, especially your first sentence. Um, because it does, you know, it's not like, oh well, whatever. It's just one little thing. No, it is showing so much about and what you would be like to work with. Rekka:17:51   Right. Kaelyn:17:52   It's very important please, I get hundreds of submissions every time we open for submission. So if it's a matter of the first person who couldn't be bothered to spellcheck their document Rekka:18:05   And spellcheck is on by default in most cases, if it's giving you a red squiggly line, consider you spelled it wrong. Kaelyn:18:11   Yes. Well assuming you know it's actually a word and not something - Rekka:18:15   Right, yeah, I know we're talking genre fiction. So you know, the spelling of your characters name may always get a red squiggle, but that doesn't mean like turn off your perception of red squiggles. Like scan the documents, see what else is, you know, coming up as an error. Kaelyn:18:29   Yeah. So if it's a choice between someone who couldn't be bothered to spell check the document and someone who clearly put a lot of time, work and effort into being careful about this, guess who I'm going to be more interested in working with? Rekka:18:39   Right. Kaelyn:18:39   Um, I will say, you know, and a big thing at Parvus is we're very into getting good stories. But if it's a good story from someone, that's going to be a nightmare, we don't want. Rekka:18:51   Right. Kaelyn:18:51   Um, a big part of this is figuring out can we work with this author? Do we want to work with this author because this is my time and my hours out of my life. So I'm not going to put that into something with someone that I don't want to work with. Rekka:19:08   And there is a certain percentage of your decision that's going on, gut feeling. And so these kinds of obvious disregard for your time, Kaelyn:19:17   Oh yeah, they're massive red flags. Rekka:19:18   Massive red flags, and they're going to send your gut feeling. Kaelyn:19:23   Exactly. Um, so your book is in the best possible state it can be You've spelled checked it, other people have read it, you're ready to go. So we're going to do more on a querying and how you find these places. Um, but, and again, for the purposes of this, we're lumping publishing houses and agents together. Rekka:19:46   Right. Kaelyn:19:47   Um, you query an agent, you submit to a publishing house, but it's tantamount to the same thing. Rekka:19:53   Right. Kaelyn:19:54   So what you're going to do is look for people that are open for considerations. For agents they'll say, I'm open for queries for publishing houses, they'll say, we're open for submissions. The first thing you want to do is do some research on this house or person. Rekka:20:09   Right. Kaelyn:20:10   Look at what they're interested in and where you will find this right off the bat is in their submissions guidelines, Rekka:20:19   Right. Yes. Most of the time they will tell you exactly what they are not looking for and if it's in that list it means they are sick to death of it. And you are no exception to that rule. Kaelyn:20:28   Yeah. Your book is probably not so special and interesting and unique that it's going to change their mind. Rekka:20:34   Right. So if they say no zombies and no werewolves, no, vampire romances is just - Kaelyn:20:39   Just don't. Rekka:20:40   - don't, and you've written that, don't, don't go for that. Kaelyn:20:43   Um, the other thing you should be doing though is looking at either, you know, other authors that the agent represents and the kind of stuff they write or in the case of the publishing house, the other things they've published. And just kind of see like where you would fit into this. Rekka:20:58   Yeah. Kaelyn:20:58   Do your research on these things. It's really important. Especially I would say, especially with publishing houses, you know, check them out, make sure that you know, this isn't some kind of predatory vanity press. Um, and with agents, um, good agents by the way, if you know they're interested in working with you, if you ask them, you know, can I talk to some of your other clients? They'll have no problem with that whatsoever. Rekka:21:22   Because they don't want you to talk to other clients, you probably don't want that agent. Kaelyn:21:26   That's a big red flag right there. Um, so, but submissions guidelines, what this is going to be is kind of two parts. One is what I'm looking for and what I'm not looking for, like the kinds of things that we're publishing. And then the other is, here's how I want you to get your submission together in order to present it to me. Rekka:21:45   Yep. Kaelyn:21:46   I think people do not take these seriously enough. Rekka:21:52   Or it looks like a big overwhelming bit of text. So they just do the best they can. And they have a manuscript that they um, they have made sure is in a standard manuscript format and they just throw it on over. Kaelyn:22:04   And why do they like what's so special about them? Why do they want it in this format? Because they're the one who's doing this and they get to say so, right? Rekka:22:10   They get to say so and they probably have a good reason. Like this is worked out for them in the past. It makes their job a little bit easier and makes them less cranky when they approach the submissions, which is exactly what you want. Kaelyn:22:21   But I will say their reasons for it are none of your business. If that's how they want this, then - Rekka:22:26   It's not up for debate. Kaelyn:22:27   It's not up for debate. And if you want to submit to them, that's how they do it. Um, I have had people write to me and say, well, I really don't want to do this because, and my answer is I don't care. Rekka:22:40   Yeah. Kaelyn:22:40   You know, like I write them back and go, well listen, you can submit however you want, but if you don't follow this submissions guidelines, there's a very good chance that this isn't getting looked at. Rekka:22:48   Right. Kaelyn:22:48   Um, so the other part of the submission guidelines are going to be do this, do this, don't do this. I want it in this format. Um, for publishing houses, I know for us we ask for a query letter and then your entire manuscript. Rekka:23:05   Which is not 100% of the time common. Kaelyn:23:09   Um, it depends. Yeah. You know, some, uh, I know a lot of agents now are that used to be a thing. Agents wanted your first a few chapters and a lot of them now are saying, I want your entire manuscript. Um, and this is kind of going into how it's easier to transfer digital files. Before agents didn't want your entire manuscript. They didn't want a hundred pages. They wanted the first few chapters. Rekka:23:31   Right, because these were arriving in a mail room. Kaelyn:23:32   Exactly. Now it's, you know, there's um, you know, you have like a submissions manager and it's really easy to go into. Um, we ask for, you know, your entire manuscript. I think a lot of publishing houses that do open submissions, we'll ask for your entire manuscript. A lot of agents are asking for entire manuscripts now, so if somebody asks for your entire manuscript, send the entire manuscript. One of the reasons that we do this is I want to know is this done? Rekka:23:57   Yeah and does it end okay? Kaelyn:24:01   Yeah, that's another - Rekka:24:01   I mean, you may not make it that far. Kaelyn:24:03   But well, if it's something I'm strongly considering, then I - Rekka:24:06   You jumped to the end. Kaelyn:24:08   I want to read it and you know, at least get an idea of where it's going, make sure it doesn't completely go off the rails. Um, but that's a question. You know, like when I, every time we open for submissions, I get at least a dozen or so that are like, here are the first five chapters of my book. And it's like, well, yup, out the door. But also the big thing is I'm wondering is, is this finished? Is this all you've written of the book? I'm not going to wait a year for you to finish writing this. Um, there will. So that's one thing, you know, they're gonna say, I want to these things, I want to query letter, I want the entire manuscript, I want a little bit of a bio from you. Maybe you know, that kind of stuff. Then there will be other guidelines with say a word count. Um, Parvus we have a 60,000 minimum for novels. Rekka:24:59   Yup. Kaelyn:24:59   And again, I constantly get emails going, mine's at 45. Is that okay? No, it's not. Rekka:25:06   It's not 60. Kaelyn:25:07   And is that less than 60? Rekka:25:10   There's your answer then. Kaelyn:25:10   No, it's not. Okay. Please don't go into this thinking I'm special. Rekka:25:19   Truly, I am the exception to this unnecessary rule. Kaelyn:25:23   Yeah. Mine's 45,000 words, but it's a really solid book and I think you guys should definitely take a look at that. And what that's saying to me is I do not want to take a look at this and I don't really want to work with this person. Yeah. Um, pay attention to the submissions guidelines. If they say they want anonymous submissions, make sure you have that. Rekka:25:45   Yeah. Kaelyn:25:46   You should have a version of your manuscript with all of your personal information scrubbed from it. Well how do they know how to get in touch with me then? Rekka:25:54   Their system is set up. Kaelyn:25:55   Don't worry about that. That's when you, you know, for us, for instance, our submissions manager, you have to register your new username. It's um, so we'll find all your information in there if we need to. We'll go look it up by manuscript ID and be like, okay, this is how I get in touch with this person. Don't worry, they'll figure out how to get in touch with you. They've done this before. Um, read the submissions guidelines, follow them. This is the easiest, silly thing you can do to immediately get yourself knocked out of consideration is not following the submissions guidelines. Why is that, Rekka? Rekka:26:33   Because if you want to have a professional relationship with a publisher, you need to show them that you are professional. And the easiest way to do that right from the start is to follow the submissions guidelines and give them exactly what they're looking for and nothing they aren't. And also, you know, just not proving that you're going to be difficult at every stage of the process. Kaelyn:26:57   Exactly. It's. Rekka:26:58   Speaking of being difficult. Hey, as a publisher, will you sign an NDA before I send you my, my manuscript? Kaelyn:27:06   Oh God. Yeah. Um, here's this is, I am not sure, [laughs] Rekka's watching me like make like very exasperated facial expressions and like - Rekka:27:18   I can't see past your hands what youre expression. Kaelyn:27:20   Like that are just like covering my face. Like, I don't know where this paranoia comes from. And in some cases that's the only way I can. Rekka:27:33   Somewhere there's an urban myth or it's probably happened. But somebody sent a manuscript off to somebody, they said, no thank you. And then a book came out that was awfully similar. So that author of course assumes that it was stolen and maybe, you know, like I said, there's probably cases where it did happen that way, but an NDA isn't going to stop the publishing house from doing that anyway. This is why you research a publishing house before you submit. Kaelyn:27:54   Yeah. I mean if, if that happens to you, then you've got amazing legal recourse because in this day and age, everything is digitally tracked. Rekka:28:03   So that it's not like you're sending off sheets of paper, they just tear your name off the top. Kaelyn:28:10   Um, don't make ridiculous, outlandish requests. If anyone emails me and says, can you sign this NDA? I'm not even going to respond to them. Rekka:28:20   Right. Kaelyn:28:20   That's like, and that's telling you how difficult they're going to be right off the bat. And plus that aparent level of paranoia is going to pervade through the entire process. Rekka:28:28   But also it's showing me I don't trust you. Kaelyn:28:30   Yeah. Rekka:28:31   Why? Like hold on, why do you want to work with me? Kaelyn:28:33   Right. Um, and there's a lot of trust that goes into what's gonna come next. Yes. And it's setting, well, I can't say it's setting a bad tone for a relationship because there isn't going to be your relationship at that point, but you really need to reevaluate what you're doing., if you think that everyone you need to send your book to your manuscript to, it needs to sign an NDA. Rekka:29:02   A publisher sees so many books and if they have an open call for submission, they're looking to buy books. So if you have a great book, they're going to buy it from you. They're not going to steal it from you. Kaelyn:29:13   Yeah. Because I mean alternatively we're just going to publish it as from this publisher? Who's going to be the author. So do I take it and do I take it and give it to another author? What would be the point of that? It's so don't, don't be obnoxious. I like, that's the only way I can come up with to describe that is that's borderline obnoxious. I'm sending these sort of things, making demands of the publisher and look, the power dynamic here is definitely a little weird. And if you're a writer, not great because the truth is you don't have much if you're doing an open submissions call. So don't send NDAs to people. Um, but yeah, and back to Rekka's point. This is showing me what it's going to be like to work with you. If you can't follow a set of directions that doesn't bode well for the time, money and investment we're going to put into you. For agentss it's the same thing. They're going to spend a lot of time trying to shop you around, talk you up, get you the best deal possible. And if you're going to make their lives miserable, you're maybe not someone when they want to be having as a client either. So the submission guidelines are there to make my life easier, but they're also there to show me a little about you and show me how you function. Show me if you can follow directions. Rekka:30:35   And one thing I, I feel I need to say is like we make it sound like, you know, don't be difficult, don't whatever. It doesn't mean you're going to set up an expectation that this publisher can walk all over you. What you're showing them is your competence. So if you are competent enough to follow submissions guidelines in the first place and you're competent enough to write a good story that they want to buy, they will also expect that you are competent enough to stand up for your rights when it comes to negotiating contracts, et Cetera, et cetera. So don't feel that by not asserting yourself with, you know, various, um, you know, like standing your ground sort of mentalities at the beginning of this that you are going to end up like being the doormat for this publisher. That is not, that is not what we're trying to set up here. We're trying to set up a great working relationship Kaelyn:31:22   And I will take this a step further and say, I'm not saying don't be afraid to ask questions if you have a question, um, you know, email them and just say, Hey, I'm, you know, what's best for me to do with this sort of thing. Um, now that said, before you do this, you should try to figure out if your answers in the submissions guidelines. Rekka:31:43   Cause it's probably in the submissions guidelines. Kaelyn:31:46   Um, one thing that I'm a little bit of a gray area about is like, well I read in your submissions guidelines that you're not taking things with werewolves in them, but my werewolves are in space and it's Scifi. Rekka:32:00   Right. Kaelyn:32:02   So, Rekka:32:02   So if you don't understand that, they're like talking specifically say about urban paranormal romance and it's not that clear but like, you know, clarify. But. Kaelyn:32:14   And I would also say, you know, if you want to email them, that's fine. Um, and to be honest with you, there's a good chance, you're not going to get a reply back. Um, but you can also put that in your query letter. Rekka:32:25   Right. Kaelyn:32:25   And you know, Rekka:32:26   Just in a query letter - Kaelyn:32:27   Yeah. We're going to talk about query letters next week and that's a good place to kind of make any sort of conditional kind of stuff that you want everyone aware of. Like, I know this title werewolves in it, but it's werewolves on Mars. That actually might make me go. Huh. All right. I'll take a look at that. Rekka:32:46   Right. So, yeah, maybe not asking the question about like your specific story, but the questions about the submissions guidelines themselves. Kaelyn:32:54   Absolutely. Rekka:32:55   Send an email and say like, um, I'm looking at this email and I think there might be a typo in your like email address or something like that because it doesn't match the domain name, like, yeah, you can write an email about that. Kaelyn:33:08   Just to clarify or you know, just to make sure like this is, um, I'm going to go on a little short tirade here right now, I apologize. When asking questions like this again, keep in mind how many emails and how much stuff is going on. Please take the time to actually compose an email. Um, I don't know if everyone, I think most people probably feel the same way with this with me, and I don't know if this is me being overly fussy, but I hate when I get emails that are just, hey, so like what about this thing? And that's it. Rekka:33:45   Yeah. Like keep in mind that no, this is not your official submission. This is probably talking to somebody who might review your submission as a professional corresponds. Kaelyn:33:53   This is not, you're not sending me a text or a DM. This is, hi Kaelyn. You know, I'm so and so. I'm, I'm interested in submitting to you. I just had this one question because I'm getting ready to submit and I don't want to get disqualified for something silly, Rekka:34:10   Right. I, Kaelyn:34:13   I don't know if it's just a pet peeve of mine if it's just, you know, something that really sets my hackles up is when I get emails that - Rekka:34:23   It's like one line and it's right to the question and it just comes off as rude and demanding. Kaelyn:34:28   Demanding is exactly that, right? Like, hey, tell me about this. Like, no, first of all go read the submissions guidelines second, like take some time and compose an email for me. You know, I'm not saying this has to be, you know, the equivalent of the Queen's invitation. Rekka:34:43   I mean, this isn't a query letter itself. You don't have to worry too much about it, but just be nice, you know, like - Kaelyn:34:48   Like you would any other professional setting, Rekka:34:50   To Whom It May Concern if you don't know who you're writing to, exactly. And say I'm reviewing - like, here's what I'm doing, here's my question. I appreciate your time and answering it. Kaelyn:34:59   Yeah. Rekka:34:59   And sign off professionally. Kaelyn:35:01   It doesn't need to be paragraphs. Please don't make a paragraphs. Um, but think about, you know, if you were interviewing or applying for a job, same thing. This is a professional setting. Rekka:35:09   Let me tell you people still, you know, I've interviewed people and I have still got emails like that. Kaelyn:35:13   No. And I mean, I'm sure you know, there's, it's, it's systemic of, you know, the online, it's symptoms of the culture, unfortunately. Um, but that is, that's another thing that is gonna make me go like, oh my God, this person, why do, why would you send this to me? Um, so just be conscious, be aware of this as a professional interaction. Rekka:35:38   Yeah. Kaelyn:35:38   So that's getting your submission ready. Um, do your research, do your spell checks. Um, talk to people that you know, can maybe point you in the right direction and follow the submissions guidelines. It is the smallest thing you can do to get yourself removed from consideration unnecessarily. Rekka:36:03   It's really surprising what a fight people will put up when it's not that much effort. Kaelyn:36:08   Yeah. And one thing I will say also is, um, when I say research, especially publishing houses agents as well and especially publishing houses is check for context. Yes, maybe what you're writing falls within the submissions guidelines, but make sure it is actually something that you think they'd be interested in publishing. Um, can I tell a story that's slightly inappropriate? Rekka:36:35   I mean we can cut it later or if I, if I go, you know, I don't like this story. Kaelyn:36:39   I got a submission once that was an epic, you know, high epic fantasy and it was, you know, very sword and shield like, um, I have no, I don't remember anything about what it was about because all I remember is within the first two pages I got lengthy graphic description of three different men's penises. Rekka:37:04   Hmm. Kaelyn:37:07   Extolling the virtues of each of them. And, and I'm reading this going, this person is not a bad writer. And this sounded like this was maybe an interesting story. I, but no. Rekka:37:20   However I'm done. Kaelyn:37:21   I'm burning this, I'm going to print it out just so I can burn it. Um, so that's just another thing. Rekka:37:28   So know your audience. Kaelyn:37:29   No, that's exactly. Yeah. Know your audience. And that's a good thing to keep in mind while researching publishing houses, if they don't seem like they're interested in having stories with graphic descriptions of male genitalia crammed into the first 300 words the book, Rekka:37:48   I mean maybe pick up one of their other books and see if that's in there. Kaelyn:37:52   Yeah, yeah. I mean, if you're gonna, if you're going to go for something then like that, I mean one may be don't, but two, you know, make sure - Rekka:37:59   There's an audience for it somewhere, you've just got to look a little harder. Kaelyn:38:01   Exactly. And you know, so be, be aware of that kind of thing. So, um, you know, that's, I think that's a good. Rekka:38:08   We can end on the penises. Kaelyn:38:09   On the penis story. Cause I don't know where else to go from there. Rekka:38:14   There's no where to go from there. Kaelyn:38:15   No where to go from that. Rekka:38:17   Mic dropped, podcast is over. Kaelyn:38:19   We're done. Good luck everyone. Uh, no. So that's um, you know, that's prepping your submissions on next week. We're doing query letters. Rekka:38:26   Yup. Kaelyn:38:27   Um, I'm excited for that one too. Rekka:38:28   Yes. Query letters is a more artistic expression of following the submissions guidelines because - Kaelyn:38:33   Well for you, for me it's, you know, okay, I've got an agenda. Rekka:38:36   Okay, fair. Alright. So up next week there's a tease. Kaelyn:38:42   Next week Kaelynand Rekka duke it out over query letters. Rekka:38:45   And again it is next week because for submission September we are doing weekly episodes, maybe even more depending on how things go. So, um, yeah, look forward to that and let us know if you have any funny penis submission story is or otherwise. Kaelyn:39:00   Yeah. Like, you know, um, so we're recording a lot of these in advance, but you know, we did talk about, we'd mentioned in the previous episode, we did talk about, you know, we got some questions and stuff. We'd be very happy to do a wrap up episode. Yeah. And kind of maybe if there's a few topics, pick those and kind of talk about, flush them out a little more. Rekka:39:18   Yeah. Kaelyn:39:18   Um, yeah, we're, I'm having such a great time with this [laughs] Rekka's giving me a look right now because I must have like Harley Quinn like giant crazy eyes right now. Um, cause I am just giddy over getting to, uh, getting to talk about this stuff. So, um, anyway, uh, thank you you for listening. We'll see you next week. In the meantime, you can hit us up on the socials as usual, Rekka:39:42   Twitter at @WMBcast, patreon.com/WMBcast, Instagram @WMBcast. And of course you can find wmbcast.com and listen to all the old episodes or if you are new, you can go back and find some of your new favorite episodes. Kaelyn:40:02   Thank you everyone for listening. We'll see you next week, which that's exciting to say. Rekka:40:06   Oh my gosh. Like don't get used to this. Kaelyn:40:08   No. Rekka:40:08   I don't think we can sustain this pace, especially with the cost of the train fare over here. So thanks everyone for listening in and next week: Query letters, Kaelyn:40:17   Query letters. We'll see you there. Bye.  

Hi everyone, and thank you for tuning in to another episode of the We Make Books Podcast - A podcast about writing, publishing, and everything in between! This week, we’re talking about a special state of being: The Debut Author. Who are these mysterious creatures, caught between a new chapter of their lives and the rest of their careers? What do the fates and their futures have in store for them?  And how the heck do you kill all of this time waiting for your book to be released??  Being a debut author is uncharted waters for most, how exactly do you navigate this? We talk about all of these things, yell about cookies, and Kaelyn nearly dies of shock after Rekka makes a sports analogy mid-episode. We Make Books is hosted by Rekka Jay and Kaelyn Considine; Rekka is a published author and Kaelyn is an editor and together they are going to take you through what goes into getting a book out of your head, on to paper, in to the hands of a publisher, and finally on to book store shelves. We Make Books is a podcast for writer and publishers, by writers and publishers and we want to hear from our listeners! Hit us up on our social media, linked below, and send us your questions, comments, concerns, and your thoughts on Amazon’s upcoming Lord of the Rings Series. We hope you enjoy We Make Books!   Twitter: @WMBCast  |  @KindofKaelyn  |  @BittyBittyZap Instagram: @WMBCast  Patreon.com/WMBCast Rekka:00:00   Welcome back to, we make books, a podcast about writing, publishing and everything in between. I'm Rekka Jay. I write science fiction and fantasy as RJ Theodore. Kaelyn:00:08   And I'm Kaelyn Considine. I am the acquisitions editor for Parvus Press. And today we're talking about debut authors, uh, which Rekka still is one. Rekka:00:19   Technically. Kaelyn:00:20   As of when this is being released. But yeah, not for much longer now for much longer than two weeks. Kaelyn:00:26   I will no longer be a debut author and we'll have to hang up that hat. So this episode was inspired. Well, we already had the idea to do an episode on being a debut author because I've seen it come up a lot and since we agreed that we would do that, it came up a few more times. Um, @ka_doore - K.A. Door, who is the author of the Perfect Assassin, did a tweet thread about the handbook that needs to be written for debut authors. Kaelyn:00:54   Someone should handle that. Kaelyn:00:55   Yes. And um, Kai did offer that. If anyone would like to pay her to take two weeks off of work, she would happily write that handbook. And so some of our topic points were taken right out of that. And then Melissa Caru, author of The Tethered Mage @MelissaCaru also sort of talked about what an odd sensation it is to be a debut author. So those were two that I wanted to just shout out and thank for, um, you know, just kind of guiding our conversation a little bit. And also, you know, like say, hey, we see you. You know, cause as you'll hear in this episode, sometimes you're just like, what am I doing? Who, who am I now that I have a book deal and, and what am I getting into. Kaelyn:01:40   It's both an identity and existential crisis. Rekka:01:43   And it's a big to do list as well. So, um, we talk about the tasks that you need to accomplish, the things your publisher will be doing. How would it talk to your publisher and your agent during this time when you feel like maybe they're just busy and they don't have time for you because they're supposed to be doing something and you shouldn't be bothering them. Stuff like that. And then also like how to feel and how not to feel and how to distract yourself from your feelings. Kaelyn:02:04   Yeah. So, um, we hope you enjoyed the episode and by the way, stick around through the end of it because we have some news announcement type thing and then also we have a giveaway the end of the episode. Um, so, uh, stick around. Take a listen there and um, we hope that you enjoy Episode 11: Debut Authors Kaelyn:02:32   We don't have the material to make cookies. Rekka:02:32   We're going to grab stuff out of the kitchen. Kaelyn:02:46   Rekka, how long have you known me now? YOu can't be like, oh, cookies and then not have cookies for me. Rekka:02:51   We'll make cookies when we're done. Kaelyn:02:53   God dammit, now I want a cookie. Rekka:02:56   Let's get through these episodes and earn our cookies. Kaelyn:02:58   Fine. Rekka:02:59   Okay. Kaelyn:02:59   But only because I like you. Rekka:03:01   My idea for today was to talk about what life is either going to be like if you are a, uh, a newly signed author or what life is like if you are on your way to your first release stage or what life was like if you are listening and, and feeling these feels in retrospect. Kaelyn:03:25   There's a lot of feelings going around here. Rekka:03:27   I'm trying not to make this one like a tear jerker or my own sob story, but there is the potential for some feelings and having to talk about them. Kaelyn:03:38   Hey, look feelings, feelings are okay, feelingare things. Rekka:03:42   Are they though? Kaelyn:03:44   I mean I don't have them personally, but I'm told that - Rekka:03:48   I just feel like life would be easier without them. Kaelyn:03:51   It is, it definitely is. Rekka:03:54   Um, I tried to put my feelings in books and not contain them in my human self. Kaelyn:04:00   Well that's great because then we keep getting books out of you. So as long as- Rekka:04:04   It does work - Kaelyn:04:05   As long as you keep uh, on that track, I'm happy. Um, so yeah, we're talking about, you know, what happens over the course of getting signed your pre-release and then your book coming out and what your, your life changes if you will or lack thereof. In some cases. Rekka:04:22   Things are going to change except they also kind of aren't. Kaelyn:04:25   Yes. Rekka:04:26   Um, so when you have signed your book deal, unless you are an outlier, you don't get to quit your day job. Kaelyn:04:35   I mean that would have to be one hell of an advance. Rekka:04:37   It would. And considering you probably only get a portion of it when you first signed the contract, it would really have to be a hell of an advance because now whatever that is, if you were to quit your day job would have to last you probably like 18 months. Kaelyn:04:50   Well, here's, here's, I'll take it a step farther. If you have an advance that would allow you to quit your day job, you're probably not a debut author. Rekka:05:00   Right. Or, or somehow you got a really good agent - Kaelyn:05:04   Or you're Robert Mueller. Rekka:05:05   Is that his debut? Kaelyn:05:08   Well No, I mean like, you know, if he gets a book deal he's going to get - Rekka:05:13   Yeah. Kaelyn:05:13   I'm sure he'll be getting a multimillion dollar advance. Rekka:05:16   Anyway, the um the advance you get is not going to allow you in 999 cases out of a thousand is not going to allow you to quit your day job. So your day to day life doesn't change except now you are a signed author and you have signed author responsibilities. You thought your manuscipt was done. Let me tell you, your manuscript's not done yet. Kaelyn:05:42   Also, if you thought your manuscript was done, please go back and listen to the previous 10 episodes of this. Rekka:05:47   Right. So there's more work to do on your manuscript. You will be, um, meeting and starting to work with your editor at your publisher. And um, you'll probably start to talk to different people at the publisher who are going to help with the launch. Uh, as you get closer to that. And so we just want to kinda list and you know, topic by topic, go over what kind of things you need to be expecting. Kaelyn:06:16   Yeah. So we won't spend too much time on like the meeting with your editor kind of thing because I'm, we did a lot of that in episode three for the um, you know, sort of walking you through the process, but you'll meet your, you know, meet your editor officially if you haven't already. Chances are, you've probably talked to someone before this, um, sit down and get a timeline out, get a, you know, we expected this by this date, which again will probably be in your contract, read your contract. Um, what the main thing that you're going to kind of have to pay attention to before that leading up to this is marketing and promotion and your publisher should be handling a lot of that. Have a plan. Again, this is probably hopefully something you talked about before you sign with them. It might even be things in your contract. Rekka:06:59   Which would be good because then you have it to reference and everyone has signed the agreement that these are the dates and the, and the things that are going to happen and the expectations for the marketing. Kaelyn:07:13   Yeah. So leading up to your book release. Um, so you might be going, okay, well that's what like my publisher's doing, like, but I'm not, you know, I'm not buying ads and doing, uh, you know, marketing stuff. But you might be recruited to appear at different events or readings. Um, you might be asked to do like some promotional stuff, you know, interviews or things of that nature. Rekka:07:39   Mmmhmm, so the other thing that you can be doing, you know, like up to this point, when you were a drafting author and you were writing your first book and you were on submission, if you had any presence on social media at all, it was probably related to like, oh, this is so hard. Or you know, commiserating with other writers and that sort of thing. And now you are an author with a publishing contract and you need to start thinking about how to get future readers onto your social media. So that's something you can sort of be doing is, um, looking at ways that you can build your platform for readers as well as, you know, your fellow writers or just your friends or the companies that you followed or whatever was your Twitter before. If you haven't started to cultivate it toward your writing presence, then you might want to start to like reconfigure how you talk on social media, not as in like become someone fake, start to talk about different things. Um, start to, you know, the process of launch and - Kaelyn:08:47   Keep everyone up to date with you know, what's going on with you. Um, one thing is it's, it's just nice to see, I really enjoy seeing people that I know or work with, you know, saying like, oh, it's this many weeks or I just got this back and it's, it's nice. It's a way of, you know, kind of, because this is a community of people you probably got a lot of support from over the years. They should want to cheer you on. Rekka:09:13   Right. Kaelyn:09:13   Um, but also it's just kind of one of those, and you know, it depends on how big of a following you have, obviously, but just keeping the reminders going that like, I have this book coming out. Rekka:09:27   Right, because eventually you can do a cover reveal. You can, you know, tweet that and then pin it to the top of your feed. And now when someone goes to your Twitter profile, you've got your preorder link at the top. Um, now in your bio you can say the release dates and, um, you know, if you've got a short link, you can put that there. Your banner can now have your cover art on it. You know, now you see, you start to like turn this into sort of a funnel for somebody who appears at your profile for the first time. They know exactly how to find your book because you've made it easy for them. Part of your half of the marketing is just keeping up your presence and making it easy for people who find you to also find your books. Um, this does not mean that three times a day you need to tweet pre-order my book, preorder my book, pre-order my book. You're - Kaelyn:10:20   Oh please, don't do that. Rekka:10:21   You're going to chase people away with that. Kaelyn:10:22   You are. Yeah. It's, um, you know, when something comes up or you know, something changes or you have news, it's always a nice little time to be like, Hey, I've got this book coming out also. Rekka:10:32   So you have this publishing deal and you're talking about it on Twitter. Um, you know, you're not revealing anything that's, you know, secret to your contract or anything like that, but you are talking about the process and you're sharing it with people. And those people may be writers. Those people might be future readers. Um, they might be friends, but in the rest of your life, since you didn't get to quit your day job, um, you might be tempted to tell your coworkers about your new book or, uh, people at the grocery store, et Cetera. Kaelyn:11:01   Random people in passing. Rekka:11:05   Random people. That impulse may fade rather quickly. When you get to the same question from every single one of them thing, which was how much money did you make or when's the movie come out? Which is a great way of saying, I don't plan to read your book. I just want to know when you're famous. I just want to be able to say I knew you. Um, yeah, those, those are the types of questions you're going to get from people who don't really know how to engage. My, uh, my coworkers. Um, the one who was most excited for me basically said, so you don't need this place at all anymore and well, not quite. Kaelyn:11:39   They don't know how things work. Rekka:11:41   And I believe there is a perception because I left that job. I believe there's a perception that people thought I left it to go become a full time writer. And while that would be absolutely wonderful, that is not reality that I ever expect to come true of being able to support myself fully on my writing without pulling some serious hustle and probably working harder than I do now to market the self published books. Kaelyn:12:06   Give us all of the words Rekka. Rekka:12:08   Yes, and Parvus will be clamoring and say, no, you can't self publish that. We want that. So, um, so that is, that's like a weird realm that you're going to exist in. You want to effusively bubble over with this news and it's not going to be taken exactly how you mean it from a lot of people. Like, um, just to warn you, there are people who are going to think you're bragging. There's that, going back to that perception that you can now quit your day job and all this kind of stuff. People might think you're bragging because they don't understand what really hasn't changed all that much. Your book is going to come out, but, um, it doesn't mean that you're going to start driving a Tesla. I mean like those big advances, that's what people see because those are the ones that make the news. Kaelyn:12:51   Yeah. Rekka:12:51   So that's what people might perceive that you are um, expressing when really, you know, like part of it is your excitement. Part of it is your relief because you know, you worked really hard and yes this is a good book and yes someone does want to publish it. Kaelyn:13:07   You know, at the end of the day this is, this is hard to say. Your coworkers, if they're good people will say, that's great, congratulations. When does it come out? Oh, I'd love to preorder a copy as far as they're concerned, that's all they need to- Rekka:13:16   Right. That conversation was a moment in time for them where it was like this is your new brain space where all you can think about is wanting to talk about this book all the time. Kaelyn:13:27   So just, you know, be aware that like, yes, this is life changing for you. For other people it's something that they're aware of and they're happy for you about, but it doesn't really mean that much to them. Rekka:13:38   And to that point, even within like the social media circles where you do have a lot more support, like you'll announce your book cover reveal and you'll get maybe a little bustle of attention that day, but it's going to fade similarly because not everyone has room on their plate to obsess over your book the way you do. Kaelyn:13:57   Exactly. Rekka:13:57   And most people don't even want to. And most people are doing their own thing and have their own obsessions. And so that can lead to almost like a dysphoria about the process. It feels very strange because yes, it's happening, but there's nothing to tell people today that isn't the same thing you told them yesterday and it can feel, it can actually start to feel a little bit extra lonely, um, because you feel like everything should be great, but you're slightly disappointed because you can't talk about it. It's actually easier to talk about how you are still searching for an agent or a publisher than it is to say, I am still working on my copy editor. Kaelyn:14:36   Well, there's more people to commiserate that the pool every time. This is the thing is every time you hit a success - Rekka:14:43   Like a career point - Kaelyn:14:44   You're taking another step up the pyramid, if you want to think of it that way. And there's coming - Rekka:14:49   You were a small fish in a big, in a smaller pond, Kaelyn:14:52   There's fewer and fewer people every step up. So, you know, when everyone's at the, you know, in the pond together going, I'm just trying to get my, well, let's say that's the ocean. Rekka:15:04   [laughs] Yeah. Kaelyn:15:05   I'm just trying to finish my book. Then you go to the, I finished my book. I'm just trying to get an agent. Then you get the agent, then you're just trying to get a publisher to pick it up. Then you get it published. Then every success narrows the field of people that you're in the same boat at. Rekka:15:21   That's right. It's like a funnel. Kaelyn:15:23   Yeah, exactly. Rekka:15:24   And there's a lot of filters and the folks who were with you in the ocean aren't necessarily going to follow you into your little Koi pond if you wanna, you know, talk about like making it all the way to the end of it. Kaelyn:15:37   Oh, it's definitely a Koi pond. Rekka:15:39   Um, goldfish bowl? Kaelyn:15:41   I like the Koi pond. Rekka:15:42   Yeah. Kaelyn:15:42   Some flowers in there, a little water for landscaping, some pretty fish, nice plants. Rekka:15:48   Um, so and too that, um, you know, along with that comes the imposter syndrome. And the funny thing is, and I've heard this mentioned many times, is that the imposter syndrome hits harder the more success you find. Kaelyn:16:05   I was going to say actually this is part one of the impostor syndrome. Rekka:16:08   Well, yeah. Kaelyn:16:09   Before you're published. Rekka:16:10   Yeah. Um, it's part of a whole process of, I think part of it is I feel like I should have eyes on me, but things haven't really changed all that much. Therefore I must be bad. That's kind of what posture and you know, like there's that game, um, where you like do the fortune cookie thing and you end every fortune cookie with in bed. Kaelyn:16:31   Yes. Rekka:16:32   Imposter Syndrome is that, but it ends every thought you have with therefore, I am a bad person and a bad writer and my books are bad and no one likes me. It's a very long version of the - Kaelyn:16:43   That, that's a big one - Rekka:16:45   But it's kind of what it's like. Um, things that are normal, things that everyone is experiencing end with this thought of, therefore I am bad and I should feel bad. Kaelyn:16:56   Um, something about writers, and I'm going to say this and I don't mean it in the like re- bad reality star type way. Writers need attention. And while I know that sounds like a petulant child, I don't mean it in that way. I mean that this is such a vulnerable thing to do. So when I say need attention, I mean, need encouragement - Rekka:17:26   We need a cheer squad. Kaelyn:17:26   and attention and people going, you're doing the right thing because for a debut author, you don't know if you're doing the right thing. This has never happened before. So it's nerve wracking because it's, you're like, yes, you're out of the ocean, but now you're in like Lake Michigan and at least you knew what was going on in the ocean. So being you feel adrift a little bit. So getting attention, when I say that means encouragement, discussions, talks and plans about things. Just attention on you and your book because it makes writers think like, okay, yeah, I got this. We're good here. Rekka:18:03   Yeah. And his frequent check-ins as you can get from your publisher, like encourage them to do that because it does, it just makes them, you know, cause it can get really quiet. Kaelyn:18:11   I - Rekka:18:12   They're part of the job. Kaelyn:18:12   I mean, I will say my authors, you know, depending on their personality, some of them are happy just being off in little author world forever. And um, you know, only talking when we need to, but like a bunch of them, like I, I email them every other week, every week or so, and just be like, hey, how's everything going? Need anything, you know, how's the next book coming? Um, one because I like all of my authors and I like to hear from them, um, too. But I think authors have a thing a lot of times that they don't want to bother their editor too much. And like that's nonsense. You should absolutely, every time there's a problem, be talking to your editor. But, so I always try to do that just to open the door for like I'm having this problem! Rekka:18:55   And if you have an agent, um, that you have another layer of like somebody that can be part of your process or, or help reassure you in these like scary, quiet moments and things like that. And so, um, the bigger the team of people that you work directly with on your books, I think the better you'll feel because you know, if, if you can set up a rapport with your agent or your editor or something like that where you are in touch pretty frequently. And also on that note, like know what you want out of the relationship from the start and - Kaelyn:19:26   I was just going to say that before you, you know, really get into this, um, a good conversation to have with your agent and with your editor, especially your editor because you know, your agent, that's a different relationship. They work for you. They, um, your editor technically also works for you, but it's a different, it's a different relationship with them. Rekka:19:46   There's a power balance there. Kaelyn:19:47   So having a quick conversation of like, you know, check-ins, how much communication, um, you know, I always tell my authors, like, if you need something, email me just, or you can send me a text, you can DM me on Twitter, whatever is easiest for you. Um, just, you know, I'm fine with you being in constant communication. It doesn't have to be relegated to our scheduled calls. Um, some editors, you know, understandably don't, you know, want that, they'll have more boundary set. Um, I on the other hand, have no boundaries. So, um, yeah, so that's, I mean, that's most of the pre-stuff. Rekka:20:26   Yeah. Um, and just further on that note, like don't pretend to be a super altogether, not at all anxious author, and then suddenly 10 months into the process or, or don't just suddenly have a breakdown on them. Like, be okay with like talking to them whenever you want to - Kaelyn:20:46   Accept that this is going to be a stressful process and is going to put you in a very vulnerable position. Because if you try to keep up a brave face the entire time, you're going to lose your mind. Rekka:20:57   You have allies in this now, that's what comes with the publishing contract. So, um, don't be afraid to reach out to them, if you have questions. Kaelyn:21:05   It's a skill to acquire as well. But you know, eventually your book is going to come out. So then that's going to come with a whole other separate set of anxieties. Rekka:21:15   You will have been getting busy as your book is approaching. And um, what I wanted to also point out is that like in these long stretches of silence, you can be finding your community also by going to conferences. And we've talked about this a little bit, I think in episode, uh, the first two episodes we talked about, things you can be doing while you wait. Kaelyn:21:40   Oh yeah. Episode three after publication. We did a lot of, um, stuff about things that, you know, if you want, if you're interested, we talk a lot about that, but we, you know, we'll discuss it here, again, maybe go into a little more detail. Rekka:21:51   Yeah, it's just, you know, there are other writers who are at these stages. They're at every stage of the process and these are the people that are going to understand what you're going through the most. So, um, you know, find them at the conferences, friend them on Twitter and then it won't be quite as lonely through this whole process. Kaelyn:22:10   But also at these conferences and conventions that is a chance to promote yourself and your book. Rekka:22:15   Yes. Kaelyn:22:15   Going to these and signing up, you know, sign up for a panel or depending if they do that, do a reading. Um, first of all, they're a lot of fun and it's a really good experience to have. But I think, um, it, it gives you an idea of how hard it is to get up and talk about these things and you know, crowds and stagefright aside, this is something Rekka and I keep discovering when we're working on this, it's hard to organize your thoughts on this topic. Um, I always think that giving presentations about things or discussing them is a great way to sort of force yourself to sit down and confront realities. Rekka:22:55   And one of the things you're going to be doing at this point when you're waiting for your book to come out is preparing these sort of like nonfiction autobiographical sort of stories. Kaelyn:23:05   Oh yeah. Rekka:23:05   And doing presentations at conferences is a great way to get in the mindset of nonfiction because it is a huge shift. I had a really hard time when I was writing the essays for Flotsam is released all the blog appearances and that sort of thing. I had a huge mind block of being able to go from nonfiction to fiction. It's a, it's a skill to develop and it's not the same as writing fiction. Kaelyn:23:33   No, and I mean I will say as someone who, uh, prepares information like that for our releases writing, it sounds like it should be such an easy thing. I just need write my biography and tell a couple, you know, things about myself. Well, here's one thing maybe a lot of people don't consider. You really need about five versions of your, about me. Rekka:23:56   Yes. Kaelyn:23:56   One that is literally two sentences, like the kind that can just be stuck in the end of a magazine thing. One that's maybe a paragraph one that's two paragraphs, one that is considerably longer and more detailed and that's for if somebody really needs a lot of information about you, where you the author or the focus of everything. And then one that is kind of like a press release and that's the one that, it's funny cause I said press release, but it's actually what you're going to say out loud to people real quick about yourself. Think of it as if you're in an interview and like, so introduce yourself, introduce herself. I'm, you know, in my case it's, I'm Kaelyn Considine, I'm the Acquisitions Editor for Parvus Press and I also head up our editorial group and then you have to, the end of it should factor into what about you is relevant to the conversation, to the conversation that's taking place. Rekka:24:52   And it should sound natural. Kaelyn:24:53   Yes. Rekka:24:54   Because, um, when you say these out loud, it's very different from writing for them and let them - Kaelyn:24:58   Practice them. I mean you heard I just did mine right there and I have that memorized at this point. It's, it comes, it's, it's like a reflex now. Rekka:25:08   Yeah. And that's important because you know, you get frazzled, you might, um, you know, sit down and they've got the mic running already, you, but you realize like you just sat down on the end of your sweatshirt or something like that and you've got to readjust and they're already asking you to introduce yourself. So like these things that are practiced ahead of time, and I don't mean to make it sound like you're regurgitating it by rote, but you want to be comfortable so that, um, you know, the simplest things aren't difficult in that moment because, you know, you'll need to focus on the interview questions, you'll need to focus on, you know, whatever the topic is. So, um - Kaelyn:25:46   Get into this mindset where you are an author and you need to be able to communicate that quickly, effectively. And as a reflex, it will take a while to get used to that. Um, when I first started with Parvus, I did actually, this is, this is a good example. Um, I was just very, I won't say shy, but like people would, you know, I'd introduce myself and say on the Acquisitions Editor for Parvus Press, oh, that's so cool. I'm like, yeah, you know, it's not a big deal. The thing is it is a big deal and I should not have said that. But you want to, I don't want to say come off as humble, but like I personally get uncomfortable when people are like impressed with me and I think that's - Rekka:26:33   A great way to deflect that without actually deflecting it is to say, yeah, I'm super excited about it. So it's like you are appreciative and grateful for what you have, but also like acknowledge that it's an awesome thing. Yeah. So that's something to like maybe, you know, put in your pocket for getting compliments is don't deflect compliments. Like if you were a football player and someone passed you the ball, you would not deflect it and what you want in - Kaelyn:26:58   Rekka, was that a sports analogy?? Rekka:26:59   I, I, I've watched like a bunch of football in the past or - Kaelyn:27:05   Oh my what? Oh, oh boy! Rekka:27:07   Don't ask me to make a baseball analogy. I'm falling asleep because it's gone on too long. Kaelyn:27:12   I'm sorry. We need to stop for a second listeners because I am, I'm so happy right now. Rekka:27:20   Who says I'm going to watch football this fall? Kaelyn:27:22   No, we're going to watch football now. Rekka:27:25   Sorry, this is the end of the episodes. We're going to take a break. What is it? August through February and then we'll be back in March. Kaelyn:27:31   My world has been rocked, you know, in the best of ways. Anyway - Rekka:27:34   Don't deflect compliments because that is what you want and if you keep deflecting them, people will stop giving them to you. Kaelyn:27:40   But I mean in my case I like, you know, and it was a mind shift. It was the, you know, I have to get myself into the like, Oh Haha. It's no big deal. Get away from that. And like now people were like, oh wow, that's really cool. Do you like it? I love it. It's a lot of work, but I really enjoy it. You know, don't you know, you can, there are ways to roll into it to say thank you. I'm really excited. Thank you. It's a lot of work. But I love doing it, you know - Rekka:28:04   So, so, but like here's the thought. That person is excited about what you just told them. This is a great time to pitch a book at the same time. So by deflecting it, you end the conversation. This is like Improv. Yes and, not no. Kaelyn:28:21   [laughs] Rekka:28:21   You know, so that's not sports ball referencing but I've never done it. Kaelyn:28:27   I still, I don't know what I've said for the last, I'm going to have to go back and listen to this and find out what I actually said because I'm still in a daze from - Rekka:28:34   No, you're good. You're good. Um, yeah. So you want to keep the conversation moving, especially if this person is now interested and enthusiastic because as an author you have a chance to tell them about your story. As an editor, you have a chance to tell them about your, you know, your upcoming calendar. These are not people that you want to say. Yeah. It was great talking to you by like, you know, when you're, when you aren't prepared to have these conversations ahead of time, that's what happens. You kind of like end up closed up because you realize, oh I should be saying- Kaelyn:29:08   Words! Rekka:29:08   Sure, nevermind they left you know, so we're good with words but I'm talking out loud is a switch. A nonfiction is a switch and honestly now you need to be moving into marketing mode. You're pitching yourself, you're pitching your book, you're putting on the personality of the author you want to become. Kaelyn:29:28   So Rekka, real quick, you went to Reader Con recently. Rekka:29:31   I did. Kaelyn:29:32   And if you don't mind talking about it. Rekka:29:34   Yes. What did, what did we do leading up to Reader Con and this is to imagine that like Kaelyn would call me up because I had a three hour drive to Reader Con and I had expressed to her a couple of days before that it was a little nervous. I realized I was going to be on a podcast and um, so I knew I was going to be interviewed. I knew I was going to meet new people and that someone was going to turn to me and say, tell me about your book. And I have been so busy with lots of editing and lots of other things. And my, and the tricky part about having a second book coming out is that you kind of also have to pitch the first book because it's - Kaelyn:30:12   You've got work that in a little bit. Rekka:30:12   I suddenly said to Kaelyn, um, a few days before Reader Con kind of like, oh, I should be thinking about my pitch. And Kaelyn said, this sounds like an opportunity for me to dig in my dress up box and put on mustaches and hats and pretend to be someone else. Kaelyn:30:28   One of them was a tutu. Rekka:30:30   I like to imagine that you did dress up for each of these voices that you assumed. She called me while I was on the road to Reader Con it'a a three and a half hour, a little bit less. I think it was a three hour drive and she called me up with a different accent every time pretending in character to be somebody who was calling me for an interview or a newspaper clip - Kaelyn:30:53   Or somebody at the convention, you know - Rekka:30:55   BUt it was funny because you, you were so in character and I'm like, who is this person that just calls me up out of the blue and asks me to tell them. Kaelyn:31:02   Why are you laughing at me? Rekka:31:04   People don't - Kaelyn:31:04   You don't laugh at people that want you talk to you. Rekka:31:07   So I would be giggling awkwardly and Kaelyn would be like, I don't understand what's going on. Kaelyn:31:12   Is there something funny happening. Is this a humorous book? Rekka:31:15   So Kaelyn's Scottish accent, Russian accent. And what was the last one? Kaelyn:31:22   Did I do? Rekka:31:22   Transylvanian or something? Kaelyn:31:24   I thought I did my Bronx accent. Rekka:31:26   I don't think you did in New York. Kaelyn:31:27   North Jersey? Rekka:31:28   No. No. Kaelyn:31:29   Okay. I don't remember. Rekka:31:31   I, I would have given you like credit for authenticity based on your location. We had a few different accents going on. Some, some were more distracting than others. And - Kaelyn:31:44   But see that's a test because things will be distracting us. Rekka:31:47   The, yes, exactly. So she made me not memorize but sort of outline my - Kaelyn:31:54   Bullet points. Rekka:31:55   My book's marketing in my head so that when she asked me about it each time I told her it was different. Kaelyn:32:00   And it was natural. It wasn't, uh. Rekka:32:03   You want it conversational because otherwise it sounds like it wasn't a script that you had memorized otherwise it's a book report or something. Kaelyn:32:09   Exactly, yeah. It's um, it's your back copy. So, um, you know, but the whole point of that is like, it sounds silly but you need to practice because you're not gonna realize how hard it is. I think everyone thinks like, oh well, whatever. I just have this book. It's like, uh, you know, I mean, okay, cool. Tell me about it. You have 30 seconds. Rekka:32:29   And in fact that's a good point because many authors when they tell you about their book, and hopefully they've learned this by the time they've queried an agent and submitted it to a publisher, but many of them will just start telling you the plot from point a to point z. Kaelyn:32:46   And you don't want to do that. Rekka:32:47   That is not a book pitch. Kaelyn:32:48   No. Rekka:32:48   That is, that is going to make people eyes glaze over and they are going to walk away going, what the heck was that? Even if your book is amazing. Kaelyn:32:56   Yeah. A book pitch is plot, character, setting are the three. If you have 30 seconds, that's kind of what you need and you're thinking of this going like, okay, so I need a sentence for each of those. No, they should all work together and maybe you will need, yeah, maybe you only need a couple of words just for the setting. It's set on a distant planet. It's in a hidden fairy forest. It's, don't, I'm gonna say this, don't overcomplicate it. Rekka:33:24   Right. The things you think are important to your book and really fascinating probably don't matter so much in the pitch. Kaelyn:33:31   That is, that's actually a very good point because this is something I come up with with authors a lot. Your favorite part of the book does not mean that that's the important part of the book. Rekka:33:41   Or it's not the part that's going to sell it. Kaelyn:33:42   Exactly. Rekka:33:43   So be careful about like how much you try to jam into your pitch. Just make it about the fascinating things. And some people hate comps, some people love comps, but try to have some comps on hand. And by comps we mean you know like titles that you can compare your book to that are going to express what a person might be able to expect when they open it up. Kaelyn:34:06   So one last point and then I promise we'll stop talking about this because like we have planned to talk about pitches, but like this is really, you know, it is important - Rekka:34:16   And this is a good moment. This is like you've got some downtime. This is really ideal time to be fixing. Kaelyn:34:22   I know that this is not something everyone does wakes up and knows how to do, but learn how to read a situations and be self-aware. Um, if you're at a convention and there's a bunch of people all just hanging out talking, you know, you might go, go around and introduce yourself or you might say, yeah, since I've got this book coming out and like, oh, what's it about? Give your pitch and then stop. Rekka:34:48   Yeah. Kaelyn:34:48   Because chances are no one else really, I mean, unless people are asking you questions about it, the thing is that if they really want to know, they're going to go buy the book and read it, but just be self aware, don't corner people and make them listen to you. Don't, um, you know, people that are clearly just not interested or being polite because here's the thing, you don't want to be the person that got the reputation for, oh my God, they would not stop talking. Rekka:35:15   Oh, here they come. Kaelyn:35:15   And I was like, um, it's, and it's a hard thing to do sometimes. Just, you know, reading people, engaging what they're, you know, thinking and feeling about what's happening. But, um, it's important because you don't want that reputation of like, oh my God, they just would not shut up, crap. They're coming. We gotta, we gotta get outta here. So just be self aware. Um, Rekka:35:39   If someone introduces you at bar con to an agent and you need an agent, then absolutely have your pitch like fluid and ready to go. And that's a good point. At Bar con, you might have some alcohol in you. So you also want to practice your pitches when you might be stumbling over your tongue a little. Kaelyn:35:55   Yeah and also you want to practice your self-restraint when you have some alcohol in you. Rekka:36:00   And cut your alcohol with some club soda or maybe don't drink alcohol if it's not good for you, Kaelyn:36:07   Just be self aware, just you know, know what, know what you're going to be like. Rekka:36:12   Yeah. Kaelyn:36:13   In sobriety and otherwise. Rekka:36:15   Yeah. So be realistic. And if it's going to impact your career negatively, then skip it. Kaelyn:36:19   Yep. Rekka:36:19   You can still hang out at Bar Con and sip a cranberry juice. So um so conferences, that's where we were getting at was are great way to um, hone this skill, your sales, but also build your community of support. So now your book is here. Your blog posts are out. They give you, like when those blog posts get launched at the, um, the sites that are hosting them, that's a great opportunity to retweet and share it and pitch your book again to people on Twitter, um, in a natural way because you have new content to deliver them. Um, you know, leading up to launch, you can post about how excited you are because genuine enthusiasm is going to be welcomed versus you know, just book pitch, book pitch, book pitch, book pitch. And so your book is out and what does that Book Launch Day like? Kaelyn:37:13   Pretty much like any other day, any other Tuesday except you feel like something should be happening. Rekka:37:20   So you might be tempted to reload your browser, you know, to see like are people talking about me? Check your phone a lot, you're checking your email a lot, looking on Amazon, watching the ranks, like try to have something else to do that day. Maybe if you can make plans to go to an aquarium or you know, like if you want to take the day off, you can, if, if going to work will keep you busy and distracted and won't give you opportunities to access like that might be the best place you can be. It's tough. Kaelyn:37:50   Yeah. I think, um, it's, it's funny because I'm never quite sure what authors think is going to happen that day, but here's the, like, you're not going to have like a bunch of reviews flood in on your first day. You're not going to have like immediate sales numbers. You're not, there's really not a lot that can happen now in the coming weeks. And I would say even for the first week, there really isn't a lot that's going to be, it's going to be happening, Rekka:38:16   Right. Except you do want to see that you are present. Yes. Like you know that the marketing has continued that um, you're talking about it on social media. Like you, hopefully you have the same sort of activity from your publisher. Um, any PR is going out. If there are articles about the release, you know, depending on how big it is, then you know, these are opportunities to share and keep that momentum going. And if you have some friends with their own audiences who have read the book, you can ask them to also, you know, help you out and tweet about how much they loved it, if they had a chance to read it. Kaelyn:38:52   Exactly. So, um, yeah, so that's, I mean, that's debut day and there really is not much to it unfortunately. Rekka:39:00   And the best thing you could do is work on book two. Kaelyn:39:02   Yeah. Rekka:39:02   And you know, try to avoid good reads, try to um, you know, stay away from the reviews because they're not for you. Take care of yourself, be nice to yourself and don't hinge like your entire experience of being an author on what happens on that day. Kaelyn:39:20   Yeah. So after release - Rekka:39:22   So following your book launch, you will probably have some appearances to make at either libraries or bookstores. Um, indie bookstores. This is a great way to get them on board with your book, by having your events at their location because, um, they're going to expect that you're going to draw some audience. It's stuff that they can entice their, uh, customers to the store with. But, um, so that bookstore is happy with you. You've brought local people. Um, on that note, if you are trying to plan as many things as possible, you don't want to cannibalize the book sales by going to two places that are really close together. They're not going to appreciate it and you know, going to have a weird awkward quiet visit with one or both of those. So, um, try to drum up as many, you know, people that you can bring along, they'll try to drum up their customers to come along, things like that. Um, you have to expect that one or more of these might be a bit of a dud. You know, if you are just trying to find any place that you can get into. Kaelyn:40:26   Keep your expectations, realistic too. Rekka:40:28   Yeah. Because you don't know what the audience for your genre is going to be like at any of these locations. So it might be crickets at some of them and that's okay. You know, eventually someone always tends to wander in and - Kaelyn:40:40   And just be like, hey, so what's your deal? Rekka:40:43   Well, sometimes they know and other times they're there because you're an author that succeeded and they are somebody who wants to write a book. So that happens too. But, um, yeah, so you've got maybe some podcasts appearances is that are, uh, broadcasting as, or after your book comes out, you want to keep sharing those, some interviews, um, on blogs or you know, if you're lucky radio or something like that, get in touch with your local papers. Maybe they can announce your book launch. Um, so you have, um, one book out, chances are you've got another one in your contract or an option. And if you're a writer, you know, chances are you like doing that. So once the dust settles, and honestly, if you can make a habit of doing it in the midst of chaos, that's even better. But keep working on your writing. Kaelyn:41:29   Well, I'm going to qualify this by saying that you're probably working on your next book before the first one's out. Rekka:41:34   Yes, definitely. Kaelyn:41:35   Um, so if nothing else, if you're overwhelmed and you're worried, keep working on your craft, keep like working on the thing that made you an offer. Rekka:41:46   Now you will see other authors on Twitter and around talking about how awful the second book is. And so since that's such a topic, I think we can save that for another discussion. Kaelyn:41:57   Oh, definitely. Yeah. Rekka:41:58   There's a lot that goes into focusing on writing a book when one is coming out. Um, as we mentioned, all the distractions of copy edits coming in and stuff like that. So I think we could talk about that for another half an hour or - Kaelyn:42:08   No, that'll be, that's another episode. No problem. Rekka:42:11   Not making this one run on any longer than it already has. But yeah, I mean, you're not alone in this, and there are lots of other authors who have already gone through this. There are authors who are going through it at the exact same stage that you are right now, and there are authors who are looking forward to going through this, figure out the best way for you to cope with the strange silences and the process. Kaelyn:42:29   Have a list of things that you can be working on, things that like your blog posts pit, practicing your pitch, and when you're feeling lost, confused and directionless, pull out that list and go, all right, I'm going to spend some time on this thing. Rekka:42:44   Right. Kaelyn:42:45   Um, and just in life, I find that generally helps. Rekka:42:49   But, um, knowing what the next thing that you need to do is sometimes a really clarifying thing that can just break the mood that you start to fall into the malaise of like, oh, am I good enough? Like you're, whether or not you're good enough and someone bought your book, so you are please, you are good enough, like repeat it into the mirror to yourself, but um, you know, break through that by just getting some work done. Kaelyn:43:12   Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So, um, I mean I think that's the episode. Rekka:43:16   That was more than the episode. Kaelyn:43:19   Yeah. Rekka:43:19   Sorry, folks. Kaelyn:43:20   Um, so, you know, hoped that was informative or maybe a little, a reassuring hopefully. But, um, you know, it's good. It's good stuff to hear. Rekka:43:29   And if this has, um, brought up more questions or anything like that, please reach out to us on Twitter, ask us some, you know, refining the questions and we can reapproach this topic with more specific things in mind in the future. Kaelyn:43:42   Exactly. Yeah. So, um, thank you everyone for listening and, uh, where can they find us on the socials? Rekka:43:46   They can find us @wmbcast on twitter and instagram and also at patreon.comWMBcast. And if you could leave a rating or review and the apple podcast app, we'd really appreciate that and we'll read those in a future episode and we will. Kaelyn:44:03   Cool Rekka:44:03   Alright. Thanks everyone. We will talk to you in two weeks. Kaelyn:44:07   Two weeks. Uh, wait. Well what's happening? Rekka:44:11   Hold up a minute. Kaelyn:44:11   So, um, in two weeks, our next episode is starting Submissions September, we're doing one episode a week for September, so you're getting four instead of just two like, you know - Rekka:44:22   Potentially five. Kaelyn:44:23   Potentially five. Yes, we have to- Rekka:44:25   Possibly you are going to get five episodes. Kaelyn:44:27   So we're covering pretty much all of this steps leading up to submitting your work and then also the process of doing that. So, um, we, when we were organizing, and I know it doesn't sound like it, but we do organize and you know, try to plan and think about things. Rekka:44:46   How dare you? Kaelyn:44:46   Um, but when we were kind of putting our thoughts together on submissions related topics, we were like, you know what, I feel like it's doing a disservice not to do all of these at once. And then we're like, well that would take two months. So that's a long time to go through all of these. So we decided we're going to do Submissions September, like I said, four episodes, one every Tuesday, possibly five episodes depending on, on how this some things a workout and we're just going to cover the topics related to that. And um, so we're excited to do it and I think it's, I think it's a good idea. Tell us it's a good idea. Rekka:45:24   Well, yes. And at this point we are about to start recording it long before you're going to hear those episodes. So if you've asked us questions about submissions already, thank you so much. We had definitely taken those into consideration. But um, if you are listening to this episode at the end of August, then, um, all these episodes are already recorded. So if you have extra questions, go ahead and, and start shouting them at us. But if we don't answer them during September, no, it's just because of the timeline being what it is. And we'll get to them in another episode. Kaelyn:45:56   If we get enough questions, we can do another episode, that's just a wrap up. Rekka:46:01   Yeah, absolutely. Six episodes in one month. Why not? Kaelyn:46:04   Hey, you know, we have nothing but time, right? Rekka:46:08   Yeah. Time is great. Kaelyn:46:09   So, um - Rekka:46:10   Speaking of those book launches though, in the, in our next episode - Kaelyn:46:14   Oh yes, yes. Rekka:46:16   I would like to entice you all. Kaelyn:46:18   So the first episode of submission, September is coming out on September 3rd, which also happens to be the book launch of "Salvage". Rekka's Second Book Day. Very excited. Rekka:46:29   Or this awesome person, RJ Theodore. Kaelyn:46:33   Yeah, I've heard her like, she's fine. Rekka:46:36   Sheis exciting and she is magnificent and she is - Kaelyn:46:39   The embodiment of all things right and good to in the world. Yes. Um, no Rekka's second novel in the Peridot Shift Trilogy, "Salvage" is being released that day. So, um, to celebrate that, uh, we're going to give away three copies of "Salvage" to, uh, I don't know. What do you want to make the stakes here? Rekka:46:58   So the first three people to share this episode to their friends on Twitter and use the Hashtag #sporkpunkwieldersunite can choose from an ebook or a printed copy depending on how you prefer to read, because we definitely want you to read the book and, um, let us know if you've read "Flotsam" too, because if you haven't, there's, there's some spoilers in "Salvage" for "Flotsam", it's a one arc. Kaelyn:47:23   Right. And print copy, you know, Rekka, will sign it, obviously. Rekka:47:26   Obviously. Kaelyn:47:26   Yeah. So, um, so yeah. Okay. That's our episode. Uh, so September, Submission, September, get ready for that. We're excited. Uh, release of "Salvage". There's a lot of S-s coming up here. Rekka:47:36   It's a very alliterative uh, sesserrating civil, months. Kaelyn:47:41   So, yeah. Well, thank you everyone again, so much for listening and we'll see you in September. We're going to be a, we're going to be pretty tired. Rekka:47:48   Yeah. If we, we, you know, the episodes will go live. We may not be alive. Kaelyn:47:53   Yeah. So just remember us fondly. All right, thanks everyone. Rekka:47:56   Take care.  

Hi everyone, and thank you for tuning in to another episode of the We Make Books Podcast - A podcast about writing, publishing, and everything in between! This week, we’re talking about those wonderful, terrible things called reviews! Our last episode was pretty facts and numbers driven so this week, we wanted to talk about something a little more personal: Reading what people think of your book.  Reviews are so much harder to deal with than we think they will be and in this episode we talk about everything from who will be reviewing your book to coping with a less than favorable review. We Make Books is hosted by Rekka Jay and Kaelyn Considine; Rekka is a published author and Kaelyn is an editor and together they are going to take you through what goes into getting a book out of your head, on to paper, in to the hands of a publisher, and finally on to book store shelves. We Make Books is a podcast for writer and publishers, by writers and publishers and we want to hear from our listeners! Hit us up on our social media, linked below, and send us your questions, comments, concerns, and your predictions for how long the Mets will manage to stay above .500 (Kaelyn’s got her money on less than 24 hours). We hope you enjoy We Make Books!   Twitter: @WMBCast  |  @KindofKaelyn  |  @BittyBittyZap Instagram: @WMBCast  Patreon.com/WMBCast       Rekka:00:00   Welcome back to another episode of the We Make Books Podcast. This is all about writing, all about publishing all your questions, all your wonderments, all the just the good fields and also some bad ones, unfortunately today. Kaelyn:00:14   That's true. We're talking about feelings a lot today. Rekka:00:16   We talk a lot about feelings. Kaelyn:00:18   Yeah so, uh, today we didn't introduce ourselves. Rekka:00:22   Who are we anyway? Kaelyn:00:23   [laughs] Rekka:00:23   After the, after recording that episode, I don't even know anymore. I'm Rekka. I write science fiction and fantasy as R.J. Theodore. Kaelyn:00:30   And I'm Kaelyn and I am the acquisitions editor for Parvus Press. Rekka:00:34   And we talk about books - Kaelyn:00:35   A lot. Rekka:00:36   And sometimes we talk about other aspects of books, like the things that other people say about books. Kaelyn:00:42   So today we're talking about reviews and um, Rekka:00:43   Mmm, I don't want to talk about reviews anymore. Kaelyn:00:47   Well, it's a little bit of an emotional roller coaster. Rekka:00:50   Yeah. Kaelyn:00:50   Reviews in general are because um good reviews - Rekka:00:54   Are amazing. Kaelyn:00:54   Amazing. Rekka:00:55   And they lift you up. Kaelyn:00:56   Bad reviews, not so much. Rekka:00:58   Yes. They smash your head against the concrete repeatedly. Kaelyn:01:01   Yeah. So, um, today, you know, we were talking about things we were going to discuss and um, this was something that, it was funny because it started out a little nebulous and then we realized we actually had a lot of structured information to talk Rekka:01:14   Yeah, we really did. Kaelyn:01:14   Um, so we kind of go, we take you through, uh, the process of how books get reviews, um, different kinds of reviews, what they mean, how they can influence you and finally move into the how to deal with reviews, which is, um, you know, a little bit more of a personal side to it. Rekka:01:31   Yeah. Yeah. I got a little personal yeah. Kaelyn:01:33   Which, um, you know, but I think that's great. Rekka:01:35   Yes. Kaelyn:01:35   It's, um, it's, it's an overlooked aspect of this that is very important to authors both in terms of selling their book but also emotionally and, um, kind of goes into that taking care of yourself through this process because it's stressful and it's horrible. Rekka:01:53   It is stressful, and this episode assumes that you are like me incapable of just not looking at the reviews at all. Yeah. That advice, I don't know who it's meant for. It is not meant for me cause I can't, I can't abide that advice no matter what I tried. Kaelyn:02:08   I have not met a single author that doesn't read their own reviews. Rekka:02:11   Tell you what, sometimes if I'm in a bad mood, I go and read my reviews. So what does that tell you about me? Kaelyn:02:17   Ummm ... Rekka:02:17   It's not a good thing? Kaelyn:02:18   Well, Rekka:02:19   I mean my reviews are all right, but I always zero right in on the ones that like where the frustrating, like where did, what book were they reading? Kaelyn:02:27   I have a feeling a therapist could have a field day with that. So we're going to, we're going to go find one while you guys listen to this episode and figure out what is going on with Rekka. Rekka:02:38   Okay, first of all, how dare you. Kaelyn:02:38   So everyone, uh, enjoy the episode please and um. Rekka:02:41   Listen through to the end cause we tease a, a series of episodes that's coming up in September and we want your input on those and we're going to need it soon because we record ahead of time. So please listen all the way through the end. Even if listening to conversation about book reviews is as painful for you as it was for me endure. Kaelyn:02:59   Enjoy the episode everybody. Rekka:03:02   No. [inaudible] Kaelyn:03:15   The soundtrack is amazing. Rekka:03:17   And this isn't the one that's, you said, it's a record store. So it's what, it's the one with the radio station UHF or something like that? Kaelyn:03:26   That might be right. No, this is- Rekka:03:29   This is different. Kaelyn:03:29   The name of the record store is Empire Records. Rekka:03:31   Okay. Gotcha. Kaelyn:03:34   Yeah. Um, there the birds outside or did, do these ever pick up the birds outside? Rekka:03:41   I haven't heard the birds in the, Kaelyn:03:42   I haven't either, which is amazing because when I woke up this morning I was just like, oh right there birds outside and oh, do they have a lot to say. Rekka:03:50   Yeah. Um, if we have picked up dogs. Kaelyn:03:55   Oh yeah. Rekka:03:56   Yeah. But I've never, I've never heard anything other than dogs and the lawnmower. Kaelyn:04:00   Well maybe soon we'll get some frog friends. All the face hungers. We'll do an episode at about like just standing out by the pond there. Rekka:04:09   No, we won't even have to. We can just open the windows. And if we record a dusk, it will be just a cacophony. Kaelyn:04:15   Well, we can do an episode that we record down by there where I'm just observing and remarking on all of the wildlife I see. Because every, it's - Rekka:04:22   Telling the dragon flies to share their rocks. Kaelyn:04:24   I'm a, I'm like a child. I'm like, I could, Rekka, there's like, there's like a fish. Yeah, Kaelyn. I know. But like, do you see it? It's a fish. Like, yes, there's, there's a few of them. Watch out for the snakes and just - Rekka:04:35   Have some, mint. Kaelyn:04:36   Have some mint. So anyway, hey, everyone. Rekka:04:40   Hey everyone, there's our Patreon content. Kaelyn:04:41   Yeah. Welcome to another episode. We are, um, well last week we did, we did a very factual episode two weeks ago. Excuse me. Rekka:04:50   I was going to say, are we doing a weekly podcast now? I'd love to have you visit more often. Kaelyn:04:53   Yeah. No. So we did, we did a very factual episode two weeks ago, so we decided to do something a little more, um - Rekka:04:59   Instead of telling you to put on your hat and mustache, we're going to give you some tissues. Kaelyn:05:05   Look the, the negotiating hat and mustache is a thing, okay? It's, Rekka:05:10   You could say - Kaelyn:05:11   Heals, skirt, jacket, full face of makeup, hat, and mustache. Rekka:05:15   I really want to see you with the mustache now. Kaelyn:05:17   It's weird. Rekka:05:18   I think you could pull it off. Kaelyn:05:20   Um, so yeah, we decided this week we're gonna kind of talk about something that's a little bit more on the emotional side of things. Rekka:05:26   Right. So we've got the publisher here who wants to, you know, talk about all this hidden knowledge and stuff. And then you've got the writer here who is like just concerned with other people like her and her books. Kaelyn:05:38   I have feelings. Rekka:05:41   I have needs and my needs are to be loved. Kaelyn:05:45   I don't have feelings anymore. Rekka:05:48   Um, but that's Wall street's fault. Kaelyn:05:49   Well, no, no. Well debatable, was one the causality of the other? Did I get into publishing and finance because I don't have feelings or do I not have feelings anymore because of that? Um, yeah, so we're talking about reviews and what people think of your book. Rekka:06:08   So if you don't have a book out in the world, you might be excited for the day that you get your first review. But the very minute that you have a book that's out there that someone could read, all of a sudden the other possibility occurs to you that what if they don't like it? Kaelyn:06:27   What if they don't like my baby? Rekka:06:30   And then they tell everyone that it was terrible and nobody reads it because one person didn't like it. Kaelyn:06:37   That's, that's the other side. Rekka:06:41   That's the nightmare, Kaelyn:06:41   That will keep you up at night. Rekka:06:43   So I'm sorry about that. Uh, no. We want to talk about reviews from a, like all holistic standpoint. We want to talk about reviews from a holistic standpoint of, you know, Kaelyn:06:57   So what are reviews? What do they tell us? Rekka:07:01   Views are opinions. They are. Let's just be clear. Kaelyn:07:04   That is, that is actually, that is a very, very good point to establish right off the bat here. Rekka:07:09   Reviews are opinions that for some reason have big britches and think they're pretty great. Kaelyn:07:17   And some opinions are more opinions than others. Rekka:07:19   And some opinions are so much more opinions than others. And this is the age of the Internet. I think everybody knows what an opinion feels like. Kaelyn:07:28   Yeah. Um, and everyone has a platform to go express them. Um, so we're going to kind of - Kaelyn:07:37   Let's start with that. Let's start with the platforms. Rekka:07:39   What are the different forms that a review might take? Kaelyn:07:45   So we were talking about this before we started the episode. I know it doesn't always sound like it, but we do plan things. Rekka:07:50   How dare you? Don't tell them that you're going to ruin my reputation. My brand is my babble. Kaelyn:07:59   Um, so we kind of tried to break this down into types of reviews. So right off the bat we said there's reviews from literary people and then there's reviews from readers. Rekka:08:11   Right. There are people who review professionally. Kaelyn:08:14   Professionally, yes. Rekka:08:15   And then there are those who might pretend to review professionally. Kaelyn:08:21   There are people that go on Amazon and goodreads. There's readers, there's people who are reviewing a book because they read it and had feelings about it rather than someone who's paying them. Rekka:08:30   Right. Kaelyn:08:31   To review books. Rekka:08:32   Yes. So let's be clear, a lot of literary reviews are paid reviews. There are an investment in the chance that their book will get a good review and therefore somebody puts money on the table and someone picks that money up and says, yes, thank you, I will read your book - just you wait. Kaelyn:08:50   Yeah, but I mean also this could be someone who's just an editor at a magazine and this is what they did. Rekka:08:54   Right. Kaelyn:08:55   Um, so, but within the literary, uh, reviews, uh, the professional reviewers, we've got also two types within there. Rekka:09:03   Right? There's the paywall kind of review and the public media review. So when I say paywall, I'm talking about like trade publications. You need a subscription to read it on their website or to receive the print copies for those who still do that. Rekka:09:18   Yeah. And just to be clear, the reason for this is they're doing two different things. Um, trade publications like Publishers Weekly, Kirkland, they are the ones that you need a subscription for. And the people that are going to subscribe to those are book buyers, libraries, bookstores, uh, you know, any sort of mass marketing. And a distribution site because they want to see what's good coming out that I should get a lot of. So the trade publications are, you know, the, if you want to call it industry side of things, the literary side of things, the media ones are like the New York Times Book Review. These are editors that work for some form of media that, you know, they just get a salary and they review these things and then write about them. So they're appealing more to readers. The people who are going to pick books up from that or the ones that are like - Rekka:10:12   They're buying one copy. Kaelyn:10:13   Yeah. And they want to know, ah, I, this sounds interesting. I'll read this one. Rekka:10:19   Or I only read New York Times reviewed books. Kaelyn:10:21   [sigh] Rekka:10:21   Because that means they're the ones that count. Kaelyn:10:25   Yeah. That's a, that's a whole other, Rekka:10:27   That's a mood. Kaelyn:10:30   That's a thing. Um, so then the other side of it is of course the, the readers and these are the people that just, maybe they got the book off of, you know, a media machine that told them about it. Um, and they go online and write a review, say what they thought of the book. Um, you know, who else it might appeal to and any kind or not so kind things they have to say about it. Rekka:10:55   So this can be book bloggers, book Youtubers. Kaelyn:10:59   This could just be someone that bought the book on Amazon and then was like, I loved this and I want everyone to know how much I loved it or I hated this and I don't want anyone else to buy this book. Rekka:11:09   Right. Um, so I would give it zero stars if I could. Kaelyn:11:13   God, thank God that's not a thing, cause could you imagine? Um, so those are the main kind of two groups that we have here. So readers and industry individually. Yeah. So one of the, you know, one of the things you probably, I, I wondered this like when I was a kid, before I got into publication, I'd go buy a book and there was already a review on the cover and I was like, this came out two days ago. Rekka:11:42   Time travel, Kaelyn. Time travel. They have figured it out. Publishing is keeping it to itself. Kaelyn:11:46   I very clearly remember, I don't, I think I was like 14 I don't remember what book it was, but I went to Barnes and noble to buy it and it was a hardback book and I picked it up and there was a review on it. I was like, ho-how? Rekka:12:00   My assumption as a child, because I had the same thought, was that it must be a second printing. Kaelyn:12:05   Okay, see yours was more logical than mine. Mine - Rekka:12:08   It was time problem. Kaelyn:12:08   Mine was time travel. So books go out early to publish- to people in the industry. This could be authors that can give it a blurb. This could be places like Publishers Weekly that is going to write up a review for it. And we talked about a- ARCs quite a couple episodes ago. Rekka:12:30   Yep. Kaelyn:12:30   And these are the ARCs. This is what they're doing. This is why they're sent out into the wild. Rekka:12:34   Going out to be seen with enough time because of course books take longer to consume than a movie or television episode. So the ARCs have gone out, people have had time to pour over them and hopefully fall in love. And maybe even start talking about them, share a photo of them. We talked to one of our other authors, Christopher Ruz recently. Um, and when I say our authors, I mean our, our little part of his family. Um, but Christopher Ruz had just literally before we got on the call, seen his book in the stack of books that John Scalzi, that's a, we're talking about the influencer that's like, Kaelyn:13:13   Oh God, we have literary influencers. Rekka:13:15   We have literary influencers, we do. So, um, yeah, so that's the thing too. So sometimes just having your book appear in a stack, it's a great, helpful, yeah. Kaelyn:13:25   It's a great thing. It's just, you know, and it's fun. So, um, typically like ARCs might go out with blurbs from authors. You know, you circulate this to a few people, a bloggers, authors, people that will, you know, say like, Oh yeah, I read this and I loved it. And you put that on there. Rekka:13:43   Hopefully it's phrased slightly better than that. Kaelyn:13:46   That's what I always say. So, and then the ARCs that go or the publications that go out are gonna have the things from the reviews. And that's you know, five stars from - Rekka:14:00   Yeah. So and so just in terms of a movie like the movie trailer that right the week before exactly has the five star and so and so says it's the must see hit of the summer kind of thing. And we're talking about those sorts of blurbs that can be used, um, to what is the, the term social, the reason you want reviews is it's like social proof. Kaelyn:14:25   Oh, okay. Rekka:14:26   So the reviews that you get from peers and other authors, um, will maybe convince the publications to pick it up and look at it. And then the publication reviews and blurbs on the covers will maybe convince the readers to pick it up and look at it because um, that's like the social proof that, um, that you require. And it's also partially why you want more reviews on your book page, product page on Amazon. Because again, it's social proof. It's flypaper if don't see reviews on a book, they assume no one has read it, which is a terrible thing to assume, but it's, it's flypaper. It's people go where there are more reviews. And the nice thing about having a ton of reviews is they tend to cancel out the ones that are not in the storyline in terms of, yeah, negative outliers. Like they do tend to be overwhelmed by true organic reviews as opposed to people with a, a vendetta against the book because of emotional trauma. They suffered from something else in their lives. Kaelyn:15:40   So that's kind of the rundown of how the reviews are going. Um, you know, the advanced ones are going to be from advanced copies either for ARCs that were sent out or Netgalley. So then they start coming in. Rekka:15:53   Right. And so they can help a book succeed. Kaelyn:15:56   Oh, absolutely, they're crucial. Rekka:15:58   Again, like we said, the social proof, they can influence the sales in the case of someone who is directly linking to the book and the book sells as a result of it appearing wherever it appeared. So that can be to both readers and booksellers, um, that is a direct sale influence. Um, it can also just help build your name recognition if someone is just hearing your name over and over and over again, they're going to forget that the first time they heard the name they decided not to make the purchase. You know, that they just keep hearing that um, you know, trail of lightning by Rebecca Roanhorse, is just incredible and they just keep hearing that trail of lightning by Rebecca around horses is just incredible. Kaelyn:16:39   And you know what? Rekka:16:39   Trail of Lightening. by Rebecca Roanhorse is incredible. Kaelyn:16:42   And you know what, that's how I heard about it. Rekka:16:44   Yup. Kaelyn:16:45   I just kept hearing the title of Rekka:16:48   Over and over again - Kaelyn:16:49   Being mentioned and kept popping up in things and people were writing reviews and posting them to stuff and full confession: I still have just not had time to read it. Rekka:16:58   I have read it. It is very good. Kaelyn:17:00   But I have the copy of it and it's on my list. I just have not gotten to it yet. Rekka:17:05   Well, I mean that is the life that is. Kaelyn:17:07   Yeah. That's the thing about like you think like, oh, I love books. I'm going to do this. Oh, now I can't read anything that I want to read them. Yeah. Um, so yeah, reviews are very egr- , reviews can make or break a book and we don't like to think that's the case, but it is. Rekka:17:24   So you have name recognition so that it will eventually influence somebody who might be open to that book in the first place to pick it up. And maybe it's not that they need to hear it 11 times before they buy it. That's not a conscious choice. But by seeing it over and over again, one of those times it's going to just hit the person on the right day in the right mood or it's going to be described differently in a new way that's going to make that person go, oh, that's what that is. Actually. I really want to read that. Um - Kaelyn:17:53   I will, by the way, give you an example of that. I did not read the hunger games for a very long time until after it came out. Now, part of it was the cover copy. It just was not like, it just did not appeal to me, but it kept popping up, kept popping up and like your opinions about the hunger games aside, you know, it was fine, whatever. Rekka:18:13   Successful. Kaelyn:18:14   But that's the thing is that it was very successful and part of it was the reviews that I finally went and looked at them and I was like, everyone loves this book. Now, I kind of knew like, you know, this wasn't going to change my life, but like it was fine. It was good. Rekka:18:30   Yeah. Kaelyn:18:30   You know. Um, so that's, you know, that's a good example of like this thing that I just kept, not only not buying, but actively avoiding. Rekka:18:40   Resisting. Kaelyn:18:41   Yeah. Listen, Rekka:18:42   And I've done that with, you know, Empire Records of the movie, you know, Kaelyn:18:45   I'm going to make you watch it. Rekka:18:46   Yes. I know. Um, so the name recognition, eventually you wear a person down and that's, uh, that is a marketing thing that people say it takes x number of con- points of contact before a person remembers you and it takes x number before they make the decision to purchase. Kaelyn:19:03   I still probably would not have read that book if I hadn't checked out the reviews and saw that everyone was raving about. Rekka:19:09   And something drew you to the page to go look at the reviews. Kaelyn:19:13   Yeah. Because it kept coming up and I was like, alright, I gotta go see what's going on. Rekka:19:17   Yeah. What am I missing? Um, so it will, and that's sort of the next point. It will help a reader make a decision. Is this for me? That is, that is another question that many readers who manage to control their TBR piles, they ask like, is this one that I'm actually going to enjoy or is this, you know, some readers need to know that when they sit down with a book, it's going to hit the marks of things that they enjoy in a book. And so reviews, um, without spoiling can still, we'll just kind of like hint at like, oh, it's got romance, it's got adventure, it's got kickass feminine lead characters. It's got magic. It's got baby dragons. Like governments being overthrown. Kaelyn:20:03   I have a question. Rekka:20:04   Can I have a baby dragon? Kaelyn:20:05   Is this a book that exists? Rekka:20:06   Probably. Kaelyn:20:07   Okay. Rekka:20:08   I wasn't naming one in particular. Kaelyn:20:09   No, I'm just saying like, I mean I'm just saying there's -. Rekka:20:12   You asked me what I was going to write next. There you go, I'll write that for you. Kaelyn:20:14   Thank you. Rekka:20:15   And then remind me what I said. I'll have to listen to that. Kaelyn:20:17   We'll go back to the recording. Just going to give you a list of like Rekka for your next book. What about my editor? He's not important, for your next book. Rekka:20:27   So, so we did say that a review can draw other media attention. So like you might end up getting on a couple of book lists from other people because they saw a review that made them pick it up. Kaelyn:20:39   Yeah and by the way, just a quick aside, I think this is a common misunderstanding that all of this, you know, stuff needs to be beforehand, right. Rekka:20:48   A lot of stuff with books comes after as follows. Kaelyn:20:51   Yeah. Where the it picks up and then suddenly you're on book lists and people like, we think that reviews from major outlets only come beforehand. That's not true at all. Lot of them come after. Rekka:21:01   And it's frustrating when, um, you know, from a little weak author's perspective when you hear that like a publisher will stop paying attention to your book after a certain amount of time. Kaelyn:21:13   Definitely not. Yeah. Rekka:21:14   No, we don't want that because it's possible. Kaelyn:21:16   No. And it's, um, you know, sometimes it's simply a matter of you can only make the book available to so many people before it's released. Some people just have to wait until it comes out. Rekka:21:27   Yeah. Kaelyn:21:28   It's not fair. And I should get every book I want right now. Yes. Um, but I'm told I have to wait sometimes. Rekka:21:35   So, um, when people start reviewing on product pages after a book has been released, you know, or as soon as Amazon will allow you to leave the reviews or good reads will let you leave them early. Amazon, you need to at least have the ebook. Kaelyn:21:53   Amazon's weird. Rekka:21:53   They're changing the rules. I mean, I'd rather have a four star review that says, I can't wait to read it than a three star review that said, Oh my God, I love this. I can't wait to read the next one. Kaelyn:22:03   We will get to that. Rekka:22:04   We'll get to that. So, um, all of these data points that people are leaving on the Internet because that's frankly the world we exist in. Now. These data points feed the algorithms additional data to drive the search - Kaelyn:22:18   Ah the delicious data slurry that feeds the algorithms. Rekka:22:20   Yes, you'll lose your boots trying to walk through it, but you know, it is sticky, gooey goodness that will drive people to your books who are in theory a good match. And the reason that these algorithms are designed to find you good matches is because Amazon and the others want a reputation for their recommendations to be valuable. Kaelyn:22:42   Yes. Rekka:22:43   So they want their search results to make people happy, which means they want to deliver people to products that will make them happy. Your book is a product, I'm sorry to tell you that again and again and again, but it's true. And Amazon wants to find people who want to buy your book because then they will pay Amazon for your book and then Amazon will get more money because that's what they need desperately. They are starving. Kaelyn:23:03   It's really sad. And I think we should moment of silence for Amazon. Rekka:23:06   Maybe just start a Go Fund Me cause we got to get on with the episode. Kaelyn:23:09   It's true. Rekka:23:09   All right. So, um, so those algorithms will find good readers. So you want people to leave accurate reviews for how they feel about it because then Amazon will match their purchase history and other books they have enjoyed and find other people similar to them. This is kind of like building your audience with Facebook pixels. Um, and then by finding those people, Amazon will serve your booked to people who are better suited to read it and then leave you more positive reviews. So it's a good thing. Kaelyn:23:40   It's a great thing. Rekka:23:40   It's just that it can be frustrating because as we've mentioned earlier in the episode, the Internet is full of opinions. Kaelyn:23:46   Yes. So - Rekka:23:48   And some people choose to bless you with their opinion whether you want it or not. Okay. So the other side of that was that there are pitfalls to reviews and we've touched on them. We have hinted at them. We have ironically sarcastically said things so far in the episode to give you the impression that sometimes the reviews will not be positive. Kaelyn:24:06   Yeah. And let's just get it right out of the way. Right off the gate. Bad reviews are hard to deal with and process and this is coming from, you know the - Rekka. You guys can't see Rekka making a sad face right now. Rekka:24:20   I never make a happy face. Kaelyn:24:22   I as a publisher also obviously hate bad reviews and nothing is more infuriating than seeing one where somebody is upset about something that they shouldn't have been. Rekka:24:35   Or has nothing to do with the book. Kaelyn:24:36   Or has nothing to do with the book or will halfway admit through the review: I only read the first three chapters. Rekka:24:43   One star. The book came damaged. Kaelyn:24:45   Yeah. Oh that's a good one yeah. Rekka:24:48   That's one of the best. Kaelyn:24:49   So you know, the thing about these sites is everyone gets to put their opinion on there and it's good because for the most part it's helpful for books. Rekka:25:00   Yeah. Kaelyn:25:01   But especially if your book is, you know, just recently launched and your reviews are slowly trickling in and you get like a one one star and that knocked some your - Rekka:25:09   Just suddenly your average that goes from like 4.7 to like 2.3 and I know that's not how math works. But yes. Kaelyn:25:18   And that's incredibly frustrating and it can take an emotional toll. It can, I, I understand that. Like, you know, this can, that can ruin your day. That can ruin your week. Rekka:25:30   Yup. Um, don't read reviews before bed. Let me just put that right down to that. So one of the pitfalls of bad reviews and negative reviews is hurt feelings and they are probably going to be on the part of the people who can't really do anything about it, the publisher and the author. Because as we'll get to later, you're not going to respond to individuals don't like that, but they will also potentially, if it's an influencer who chooses to take particular exception to you and they don't just leave a review in the comments that like falls into the sea of other reviews, but they choose to actually take to their platform to denounce your book. That can influence sales of their followers and some influencers do have a large, they carry avidly attentive crowd of followers who will do what this influencer says. Rekka:26:23   We were, another thing we were talking about before we got started here was you've got to have a little bit of a thick skin going into this and you can't. I know it's so much easier said than done and this is coming from two people who have to deal with this stuff. You can't take it personally. Rekka:26:43   You have to figure out how you're going to use this information. Kaelyn:26:45   Yeah, I understand that this is the most personal thing in the world. This is your book. This is years of your life, hours and hours that you will never get back. Rekka:26:55   And potentially income if the review costs you money. Kaelyn:26:57   Potentially income, it's not personal. I hope it's not, anyway, some - Rekka:27:04   Eh, yeah, that's, that's part of it, you know? Kaelyn:27:07   But, but if you get a bad review and it's a genuinely just, I did not enjoy this book, look at it as this person just didn't enjoy this book. Look at all of these other people that did like,. Rekka:27:19   Just to quickly sum that up, there are only two real problems with bad reviews. One, you're not going to feel good about them. And two, they might negatively impact your sales. Chances are they're just going to eventually drown in the sea of other reviews or be forgotten. So how do you react to bad reviews? Kaelyn:27:36   Don't. That's just don't. Rekka:27:40   But you have feelings. I'm saying like, okay, you're, you're mistaking that for responding. Kaelyn:27:46   Yes, Rekka:27:46   I'm not, I'm not saying respond. Kaelyn:27:47   Yes. Rekka:27:48   Okay. So now that you have bad reviews or good reviews there, they're both emotional. Kaelyn:27:57   Oh, absolutely. Rekka:27:57   Highs and lows, highs and lows and that sort of thing. So how do you react? One is - Kaelyn:28:03   Let's go with good reviews first. Rekka:28:05   Sure. Kaelyn:28:05   That's the easier one to - Rekka:28:06   One is you can use those reviews if they're fantastic. Kaelyn:28:09   Absolutely. Rekka:28:10   Those are yours. Now retweet them if they're posted publicly. Yeah, you just cite the source of the review and if it's like some weird username on Amazon, you can just say Amazon reviewer or something or um, retweet them if you found them on Twitter. Um, if you have a product page for your book on your website, you can just start listing your favorite good reviews there. And it's not a bad practice to save your good reviews cause Amazon might randomly take them down one day, which is obnoxious and frustrating. Kaelyn:28:37   Well and this is horrible, that something can happen to Amazon and then everything's gone. Rekka:28:41   Everything that Amazon owns is gone. If they suddenly decide that they make spaceships now instead of sell everything in the universe. Kaelyn:28:49   I mean spaceships are probably only a matter of time. Rekka:28:51   Yes. But that will be this separate section of Amazon so they can shut down the books department. Um, yeah. So if something were to happen to Amazon, somebody finally takes enough of an issue that they hack Amazon or whatever and wipe their databases and all their backups there go your reviews. So it's always good to save the reviews you want to be able to access again later. So put them on your book page. Just keep a file in, you know, private, you don't even have to share it and post it anywhere, but just keep a file of all of the good reviews you've gotten and their sources so that you can use them someday if you need to have like if you want to add praise for something that you can credit them properly cause yes those are your reviews. They were posted publicly. You can use them in your marketing, but you also want to credit the person who gave them to you. Definitely because it's not social proof. If you just to have good things to say about your own book. So you can use them in cover blurbs. If they're well written, obviously cover blurb has to be a little bit shorter than the average review. So somebody writes it in a pithy manner and there's like a great sentence that you can highlight and pull out. You can put that on a cover blurb or on a, um, you know, industry praise page inside your book, stuff like that. Um, use it on the book description of your product pages. Amazon and other book sites have a field in the product listing specifically for reviews that are um, you know, separate on the page. They don't want them like bogging down to book description, but they have a spot you can put them. So absolutely put them there. If you have a great review blurb from somebody that you know, their name is worth something, um, which sounds really transactional, but like at that point, that person has given you that review for that purpose. Kaelyn:30:33   And you know what that's it. It sounds transactional. It is, but it's important. Rekka:30:38   And it's mutual. Kaelyn:30:39   You know, it's how it's how things go. And it is just, um, a series of people helping the ones, the next ones get a leg up. Rekka:30:47   Yes, absolutely. So, um, those are the good reviews. Kaelyn:30:50   Those are the good reviews. Rekka:30:51   Now I will give the next piece of advice, but it also applies to good reviews or don't have it. Don't respond to that review in a comment thread on the reviews page of Amazon. Yes, you are not partaking in a message board about your books on Amazon. You are not the target audience for those reviews. Yes, you would probably not able to help yourself from reading them, but they are not for you. They are for future potential readers of your book. Kaelyn:31:22   Yes. Rekka:31:22   Do not engage. Do not make the reviewers feel like you are breathing down their necks and about to, you know, come at them if they don't leave a review that's worthy of your, you know, affection or whatever. Even good reviews. If you start commenting on all of them, you can start to make readers feel pretty uncomfortable. Kaelyn:31:42   A lot of people who write reviews, especially on Amazon and goodreads, maybe, you know, that's a little more community driven thing, I think. Amazon, they're reviewing a product and as far as they know, they're doing it in a void. They're not there to interact with people. They're there to leave their thoughts. And a lot of reviewers I think don't really think about how, especially for the first month or so, the author is compulsively checking this, looking for reviews. Rekka:32:14   YEs Kaelyn:32:14   I think if they, they're just going, oh cool, I'm going to, I liked this book. I'm going to tell people about how I liked this book. So when they find that the author is reading these and then as interacting with them, I think that kind of mentally pulls them out of Rekka:32:33   It also may prevent them from reviewing everyone else's things in the future because they might feel that this is a thing that happens. So they can't leave an honest review and then they may just feel nervous about it and stop reviewing and that is not what anyone wants. Kaelyn:32:47   Yeah. So, um, let's get into what happens when you get a bad review. Rekka:32:52   And so again, don't engage that review is still not for you, even if they are not seeming to take something personal from that. Yeah. If they are personally saying, you know, such and such authors should never have gotten a publishing deal. Kaelyn:33:12   That is still just their opinion by the way, that person's just a jerk. Rekka:33:17   Right, but there are reviews like that. Exactly. You might want to engage, you might want to send your friends or fans to engage. Kaelyn:33:25   Don't do it. Rekka:33:26   Don't, don't even, because again, the idea with all of those is that reviewers are supposed to be reviewing books in a vacuum, yet they're not supposed to be a influenced by anything or be afraid of anything. If they wanted to have a conversation with you about your books, you probably have a contact form on your website or they can find you on Twitter or on Facebook or Instagram. They will come find you, if they want to engage with you, the fact - Kaelyn:33:53   Which even then probably still don't engage. Rekka:33:55   There's another, yeah, there's another little bit about that on Twitter. There you will frequently see keeps coming up. Don't add an author if you're leaving a negative review on Twitter, like there's just don't. So that may still happen and that may, I would just say when it comes to negative reviews, just you have to be able to dust off your shoulder and walk away without engaging, it is so difficult not to react emotionally to this. Kaelyn:34:22   Well, can I ask you, how did you feel when you got your first negative review? Rekka:34:26   Oh, I've never gotten negative review. No. Um, um, I was crushed. I was absolutely crushed and I was shaking. Um, and it was devastating for me for the rest of the day. I couldn't focus and I couldn't. Um, I couldn't think of anything else. Kaelyn:34:50   And I will say conversely, when books that I've worked on and especially, you know, early reviews and stuff and they get less than stellar reviews, um, I get very upset, um. Rekka:35:03   Hot under the collar about it for the rest of the day at least. Kaelyn:35:06   And I think we as people have this like, I need to set this person straight. Rekka:35:11   Yeah. Kaelyn:35:11   You can't, don't do that. Rekka:35:12   Like the person says one thing that makes you realize that they didn't quite understand what you were going to need to describe it to them. Kaelyn:35:19   That's what I was edging towards and we can lead into now is there's probably two major kinds of bad reviews. One is, I didn't like this, either, you know, it wasn't for me. I didn't like the story. I didn't like the writing. I didn't connect with it, the characters. Rekka:35:35   And that's just, that's just a review and that's just what it is. Kaelyn:35:38   However the other - Rekka:35:39   No, no, no. I've got more to say about that one. If that person is helpful, yeah, they might say, I picked up this book thinking it was going to be just like Stephen King's dark towers and your book has nothing like Stephen King's dark towers. That's a fantastic review for you to have because one person has stopped other dark towers fans for purchasing your book and leaving the same review. So we covered that a little bit before, but I'm just saying like that review where it's like, I was expecting this but I got this. It's honest. It's not necessarily wrong unless they are wrong and it's not whatever they say. Kaelyn:36:12   And it's not personal. Rekka:36:13   It's not personal, it's just like, well, I really thought I was getting something else. Kaelyn:36:16   So that's, that's one kind of bad review and we can, we can argue which one is harder to deal with. But the other is, and this is from my end, this is the frustrating one. The people who just either clearly didn't read it past a few chapters or are being obtuse about it. Rekka:36:36   Yeah. Rekka:36:37   Um, I won't say didn't understand it because I hate that, you know, I don't like the well, you just didn't get it because my answer to that is always, well that's a problem then. Rekka:36:46   Yeah. Kaelyn:36:47   Um, but the flip side of that is people who don't get it because the did not read it well or they didn't put the effort into it and you're absolutely going to get some of those because people, some people write very long reviews and they'll be like, and this thing was never addressed. And it's like, no, no, we did address that. We did answer that question. This is something that's talked about in the book and it's incredibly frustrating because now you've got this glaring ugly review sitting there. Rekka:37:14   That makes it look as though you have not answered it. And the only way that you can prove that you did is if someone picks it up anyway and you feel like this review is going to prevent that from happening. Kaelyn:37:23   Exactly. That is an incredibly, and I think that those are the kind that really drive people over the edge. The ones that are just like, I didn't like it. That's sad and upsetting in its own right. Yeah, because you know that's something that you can't do anything about. The ones where it's like this person gave me a horrible review on a book that they clearly did not pay attention. Rekka:37:45   Attention to. Yeah. And these this day and age, frankly people are on their phones all the time. I've seen people reading and then pick up their phone and then go back to reading and it's like how, how much attention are you paying to either of those things? Like can you've really focused the way people used to focus on books when there wasn't a constant input device. Kaelyn:38:04   So don't get me wrong, I fast read some books, but if I don't feel like I want, like if I'm kind of not feeling great about them when I finish them, I'm kind of like, I probably missed something. Rekka:38:14   Yeah. Kaelyn:38:14   Um, and this is, this is a personality default thing. I think there's two ways people can go. There's the me where it's like, I must have missed something here. And then there's the, well, they just didn't do it. Rekka:38:24   I'm the right one. I am correct all the time. Forever. I've never been wrong. Um, so, so I would like to say that there are also, there are two other kinds of reviews. Kaelyn:38:33   Oh, okay. Rekka:38:33   We're going further with, we're going for, I can drill this down as an author. I feel targeted by more, more than just the two typefaces - Kaelyn:38:39   Do they fit into these two categories? Rekka:38:40   I tried. And I really tried. They there, they might be cousins. Um, one is the person who says, I didn't finish it. I didn't, I couldn't read past chapter one. Here's my review of the entire book. Kaelyn:38:56   Well, I would put that in the people that didn't pay attention to it category. Rekka:39:01   I feel like that's more of a conscious decision not to read the book and still give an opinion as opposed to the people who think they read the book versus the people who know that they shut the cover before they got to the end. Kaelyn:39:12   All right, so that's one. Rekka:39:13   And then the, well that's number three and number four is the, I really enjoyed this book. I am looking forward to the next one. Three stars. She's laughing because she's early because she knew what Kaelyn:39:29   I - this is. These reviews as - Rekka:39:32   This is well written - Kaelyn:39:33   These ones. Rekka:39:34   I really enjoyed this. I could see it as a movie. Three stars. Kaelyn:39:37   These reviews as a publisher are the bane of my existence. Rekka:39:43   Yup. Kaelyn:39:45   I, you know, if you go look up Parvus books, you can definitely, you know, find a few of these. It takes every ounce of restraint I have in me not to write back to this person. I loved this book. It hooked me at the first chapter, kept me engaged to the end. There were a few couple little things that I didn't like. This character that I didn't understand but oh boy, I hope this author's got another book coming out in this same world. I can't wait to read it. Three out of five stars, three out of five stars is not a, I can't wait to read the next book, review and Rekka and I are climbing up on a soapbox right now because we're taking this a little out of the, you know the etiquette realm of things and taking it more into the, Rekka:40:34   Because my reaction to that is motherfucker, what? Kaelyn:40:39   Reviews are as we've just spent the last half hour or so talking about, very important. Rekka:40:44   And they are well defined by the platforms on which you leave them. Kaelyn:40:48   Yes. Rekka:40:48   Which is also part of the problem because sometimes the platforms on which you leave them if you leave them on multiples, the three star review that Goodreads tells you is a positive review on Amazon is considered pure critical. Kaelyn:41:01   Yes. Which is weird because Amazon owns Goodreads, so they should probably sync those two things up. Rekka:41:06   Amazon since they bought Goodreads has Not turned good reads into an Amazon thing, which is they've just held onto it. But the reviews is something they really should bring into alignment because there are people who believe, I mean, there are people on Goodreads whose profiles say you have to earn my five star review. And it's like, why are you coming off like that? Kaelyn:41:25   Well, and that's another thing is that I think I can go Rekka:41:28   You need friends that you can go just let loose on and you know that they're not going to go into the comments either they're all just gonna sit around and go, oh man, Gosh, some people. So you need someone that you can trust. Like I know I can send Kaelyn a text with a screenshot and just go look at this one. Look at this. Just peach and precious, precious reviewer. I'm really reigning in my language here. Um, you know, thanks for that. Thanks. You're so helpful. Kaelyn:41:56   I will not bring in my language and I will write back that fucking yeah of God. No, I get it. Just, just ignore them. Rekka you're, you're too good for them. Rekka:42:07   Yeah. So it's um, you need a circle of friends where your frustration over the review is not going to leave the circle salt, the edges of the circle. Keep your view on the, your opinions about the review on the inside and keep the reviews on the outside. I mean, there was a reason that the advice is frequently repeated to not read the reviews. I think everybody knows nobody's following that. Kaelyn:42:30   No one's going to not do that. Rekka:42:31   That - how curious, how can you just like let a book out into the world and not wonder how it's doing? Kaelyn:42:37   Go! Be free! Rekka:42:37   Yeah, no, we like, you know, nature scientists tag their, their studies specimen, you have reviews and we're always checking back in and we want to know that the book is loved as much as we love it. Kaelyn:42:50   Yeah. So it's hard. It's not fun. You can't engage, you can't do anything. You are going to come off as the bonkers one in that situation. Rekka:43:02   Every time. And what you need to do is train yourself to have your reaction privately to like walk away from a computer. So there's no chance of sending out a signal into the world about your reaction to it. Kaelyn:43:14   If you want to walk away, go stand in your backyard and scream. Rekka:43:18   Yes. Kaelyn:43:19   That's fine because there is no situation in which you - Rekka:43:24   Can improve that review. Kaelyn:43:26   I won't say go after someone, but interact with them after a bad review that makes you look good at the end of - Rekka:43:34   Or makes them want to change the review for the better. Kaelyn:43:36   Well that too. That's another, yeah, that's certainly not going to help. There is no circumstances under which you leave this better. The only other thing is that maybe this person also doesn't look as good now, but that even then is not going to help you because you're not there to go online and bully people. Your job as an author is not to use your platform to go online and bully people who don't like your writing. Rekka:44:00   Right. Kaelyn:44:01   So it's hard. Deep breaths, tea, coffee, vodka. Rekka:44:07   Share it with people. Kaelyn:44:08   Whatever your, put the vodka in the tea. Yes, whatever you need to, but try. Your first one is going to be the, that's like someone hitting you in the chest with a sledgehammer. Rekka:44:23   Or an axe. Kaelyn:44:24   An axe whichever. I mean, you're going to get the wind knocked at you. You're going to feel horrible. It's not fun. And then you will look back and go, remember that time I got that first bad review and how I cried for three days. Oh my God. Now I'm just like, ha, bring it. Rekka:44:39   Um, when does that happen? Can I have some of that? Kaelyn:44:42   You've got a bit to go. Rekka:44:42   Yeah, the badies still hurt. They don't get the, it never feels good to have someone go online and drag you. Kaelyn:44:49   Yeah, of course not. Rekka:44:50   And they might not even think they're dragging you Kaelyn:44:53   No. Rekka:44:53   They see a three-star review as positive. Kaelyn:44:56   But that's the thing. They're not going online to drag you. You're going online to review your book. Now we should say, there are some jerks in the world. Rekka:45:05   Right. There are people who use, as Kaelyn said before, the ability to criticize others as a way to make themselves feel like more valuable people. Kaelyn:45:15   Exactly. And, and those, there's nothing you can do about those people. And to be honest with you, the best thing to do with those people is just say, I don't want to know or be around this person anyway. They're clearly a jerk. Rekka:45:28   But you're not saying it to them. You're saying it to yourself because you are never ever going to speak to. Kaelyn:45:31   Never going to say it to them. Yes and pick your head up, read the good reviews, print, print them out and leave them next to your computer for it if something happens and remind yourself that you know that you made a good book because you worked with a good group of people, you put the time and effort in and other people are buying it and telling you how much they like it. And I understand that is a hard thing to mentally get over. But to do this you have to have thick skin a little bit because anytime you are putting something out in the world, you were making it available for other people to criticize. Rekka:46:04   All of them. You cannot control who gets to read your book. Kaelyn:46:08   Yes, but on a happy note, a lot of people are going to read it. They're going to like it and they're going to tell you how much they like it. So stick with that. Rekka:46:16   Stick with that and do it yourself. Kaelyn:46:18   Yeah. Rekka:46:18   If there's a book you love an author, you love all their stuff. Go start some bank up, some good book review Karma. Kaelyn:46:26   Yup. Rekka:46:26   And go leave positive reviews. And of course, as we said, remember three star review is considered critical. Kaelyn:46:31   And just remember you're probably gonna make someone's day. Rekka:46:34   You make someone's Day with a four or five star review that just pick your favorite moments without spoilers and just gush for a little bit. It doesn't hurt anybody and it feels really good. Kaelyn:46:43   Yup. And you're going to make someone's day, Two people because they're editor's going to go [squealing] Rekka:46:47   Yeah. And the people, they share it with Kaelyn:46:51   Yes exactly Rekka:46:52   - next to them in the living room that they read it aloud. Kaelyn:46:54   Your editor gets just as worked up and excited about these things as you do. So, Rekka:46:59   Yes. Kaelyn:46:59   So anyway, um, that's a happy note to end on, right. Rekka:47:03   Hey, speaking of reviews, Kaelyn:47:04   Oh. Rekka:47:05   If our listeners could leave us a rating, or a reveiw - Kaelyn:47:08   Yes, speaking of reviews. Rekka:47:10   That would be so amazing. Go Find Apple's podcast platform and leave a - Kaelyn:47:14   Whatever form it exists in this future. Rekka:47:18   Yeah, we still don't know. Maybe you do. Maybe, maybe we still don't. Maybe - Kaelyn:47:22   You can comment and let us know. Rekka:47:23   Yes. And so leave a star rating on Apple's iTunes, whatever it is, podcast platform. And if you have a little bit of time to say why you love the podcast, the reviews really help boost that algorithm even more. We like to feed the algorithm. Kaelyn:47:41   Rekka, look at you with your segways today. I'm so impressed. Rekka:47:43   I got this going on. I got you. Um, yes. So all, all power to the Algorithm and um, let's please, if you could leave a rating review, you can also send us your publishing and writing questions at @WMBcast on Twitter. Our DMs are always open. If you're a little shy and uh, at @WNBcast on Instagram, it's a little harder to collect questions there, but you can find some cute photos of our mascot, chunky boy on Instagram. Kaelyn:48:13   And also some pictures of uh, guess what we're going to do later today? Rekka:48:17   We are going axe throwing. Kaelyn:48:18   Rekka's taking me to throw axes. Rekka:48:19   Speaking of bad reviews and figuring out healthy ways to get around them. Kaelyn:48:24   I'm so excited. I've never done this before. And um, we're gonna see how many fingers I have left when, uh, Rekka:48:30   if you're holding the ax correctly, the fingers should not be in any danger whatsoever. Well you say that you did mention you're putting tea in your vodka later, so yeah. Kaelyn:48:40   Yeah. Rekka:48:40   So, um, so come engage with us on Twitter, Instagram. You can also find us and support us if you're able on patreon.com/WMBcast.com And that will help us pay for a transcription and, um, audio production so that we have more time to come up with great answers for your publishing and writing questions. Kaelyn:49:03   Yep. So, uh, thanks everyone so much for listening. Uh, this was fun episode. Rekka:49:08   Yeah, we got. Kaelyn:49:10   We got on the soapbox a little bit at the end there. Rekka:49:12   But I think every author is on that soapbox with us. It's like dancing on the head of a pin. Kaelyn:49:15   Fair, um fair. Rekka:49:16   We have a special month of topics coming up, so we'd love to collect questions Kaelyn:49:23   Yes we do, we mentioned this in a previous episode that we were thinking of doing it. We're definitely going to do it. Oh, we're going to do submissions September. Rekka:49:30   Yeah. Kaelyn:49:31   Which is, we're gonna do four episodes that month, so weekly. Rekka:49:35   Weekly episodes. Rekka:49:37   And we are going to talk about submissions. Um, we're kind of putting together what our topics are going to be, what we're going to cover every week. But if we get any particular feedback about things, people would like to hear about anything they have questions about, uh, we can definitely factor that in. Um, so yeah, four episodes in September and we're going to be talking about submissions because I think that is, Rekka:50:02   That's a big one. Rekka:50:02   That's a big one for a lot of people. Rekka:50:04   That's the gatekeeper. Rekka:50:04   Yeah, exactly. So, um, you know, when we were planning out episodes, we, we had some topics we wanted to talk about and then we decided maybe we should just group all of this together. And then two weeks between them seemed like too much. So we're gonna - Rekka:50:19   And only two episodes on the subject and said no, there's, no way Rekka:50:22   Yeah and we were writing down what we want to talk about and there were, there was a lot. So, um, yeah. Anyway, uh, send us, send us questions about that or even, you know, we'd love to hear like your own experiences with things and um, what you wish you knew, what, what no one told you, what you were afraid of and it didn't turn out that way at all or what you didn't even know to be afraid of honestly. Rekka:50:43   So, you know, give us the whole, the whole experience is the way you understood it. And um, we'll, you know, maybe one of our, um, neat things can be to like read people's experiences if they're willing to share them. Kaelyn:50:56   Definitely. Rekka:50:56   Mark, if you give us your story, definitely mark whether or not you want us to share it. Um, so yeah, that's something that's coming up. So if you hear this now, we are probably already planning to record, so do send us your questions quickly. I know that September seems like it's really far away, but you know how this works, the year evaporates. Rekka:51:13   Yeah I can't believe. Rekka:51:15   Anyway, so that's coming up. So look forward to that and we will talk to you in two more weeks and, um, we will be picking a question from the audience, kind of, um, picking a topic that seems to be coming up a lot, so, so, Yep. Rekka:51:30   All right. Well, thanks everyone so much for listening and, uh, we'll see you in two weeks. Rekka:51:33   Yeah. Leave that rating and review and really appreciate it. Huh?  

Hi everyone, and thank you for tuning in to another episode of the We Make Books Podcast - A podcast about writing, publishing, and everything in between! This week, it’s the Dreaded Money Episode! That’s right, we’re talking about advances, royalties, and how you get your money. This seems to be a bit of a taboo topic for a lot of writers, but it shouldn’t be! You wrote something and you should get paid for it! Rekka and Kaelyn go through all that, talk about some personal experience, and spend way too much time listening to Kaelyn obsess about a pond and debate the merits of pajamas as every day wear.   We Make Books is hosted by Rekka Jay and Kaelyn Considine; Rekka is a published author and Kaelyn is an editor and together they are going to take you through what goes into getting a book out of your head, on to paper, in to the hands of a publisher, and finally on to book store shelves. We Make Books is a podcast for writer and publishers, by writers and publishers and we want to hear from our listeners! Hit us up on our social media, linked below, and send us your questions, comments, concerns, and descriptions of any recurring bad dreams you’ve had since watching that trailer for the “Cats” movie. We hope you enjoy We Make Books!   Twitter: @WMBCast  |  @KindofKaelyn  |  @BittyBittyZap Instagram: @WMBCast  Patreon.com/WMBCast       Kaelyn:00:00   Hello everyone. Welcome to another episode of the, We Make Books podcast, a podcast about writing, publishing and everything in between. Rekka:00:06   I'm Rekka, I write science fiction and fantasy as RJ Theodore. Rekka:00:10   Um, I'm Kaelyn. I'm the acquisitions editor for Parvus Press. Rekka:00:14   So acquisitions, editing, writing, like we're all in this to make that cheddar, right? Kaelyn:00:22   We're talking about money today, people, this is, this is that episode. Uh, we are talking about money. Rekka:00:29   Yes. So we mentioned it in the episode. It's a bit of a thing, like it feels like it's taboo. It feels like, how dare you presume to even approach me with these questions? It feels like it's - Kaelyn:00:43   It's scary Rekka:00:43   I'm creative. How am I supposed to talk about money? Because if I'm talking about money and thinking about money, then I've sold out like, so we want to just, we get into that and this episode is full of as much information as we could broadly discuss. We, um, are not lawyers. We are not financial advisors. Both:   01:02   [laughs] Rekka:01:02   We do not want you to follow every word and, um, have a bad experience. But we did want to just approach all these subjects that most people feel that they can't talk about or that, um, it's, it's above them. It's not their business or anything like that. It is your business because you're a writer. Kaelyn:01:24   It's absolutely your business. Rekka:01:24   When you sign a contract, that contract is to sell the rights to print your book. So if you are selling the rights, then there should be an exchange of currency as part of that sale. And so where is it? Who determines it? Where does it come from? When do you get it? We're going to go into all of that in this episode and it's chock full of information. And again, we apologize when the episodes run a little long, but I think this is one that maybe everybody needs to hear. Kaelyn:01:46   Yeah, this was, um, we tried to cover as much as we could, um, in the time that we had, um, like Rekkaa said, this is not something you should be embarrassed about talking about. You're at the end of the day you're, you made a thing, you should get paid for the thing Rekka:02:03   And information is empowering. So take a listen. Kaelyn:02:06   Take a listen. Rekka:02:07   Empower yourself and then go out there and yes - Kaelyn:02:10   And sell that book, dammit. Rekka:02:12   All right. Kaelyn:02:12   All right. Enjoy the episode, everyone. Thanks Music:02:14   [Intro music] Rekka:02:28   So that was shocking to me Kaelyn:02:28   Do you not walk around in your pajamas? Rekka:02:31   Only to the bathroom to change. Kaelyn:02:33   Really? Rekka:02:33   Yeah. Like because of the cat hair cause I don't want to getting into the bed. Kaelyn:02:37   Oh, okay. I know I, I spend most of my time in my pajamas. Rekka:02:40   I would if I had no pets. Kaelyn:02:42   Fair. Are we recording? Rekka:02:44   Oh absolutely. Kaelyn:02:44   Of course we're recording. Yeah, we're recording already. [laughs] But, I mean, but like this place is so freaking picture-esq. You can't not hang out in your pajamas a little bit. Rekka:02:54   [laughs] Kaelyn:02:54   And like take it all in. Rekka:02:57   I have started setting aside couch clothes, so like lounge wear for the couch, but it's not my pajamas so that I'm not tracking cat hair into the bedroom. But I keep forgetting to change into them when I get comfortable. Kaelyn:03:11   Okay. Rekka:03:11   We're working on it. Kaelyn:03:11   'Cause, I mean this place is just - Rekka:03:12   Plus they're flannel pants and it's June now I need a new pair of pants for lounging. Kaelyn:03:20   This place is just, it's so picturesque. It's disgusting. Rekka:03:21   And by this place, of course, we are talking about the utility closet at Parvus Press. Rekka:03:25   Yeah, no, we're recording from the, uh, the containment unit records writing shed in her backyard, which backs up to a beautiful pond with trees and turtles and - Rekka:03:38   Tadpoles. Kaelyn:03:38   We saw some tadpoles. I was advised there could be snakes and disappointed that I didn't find one. Rekka:03:42   But you did find mint. Kaelyn:03:43   I did find mint. Yeah. So just, I'll put a picture of it up. It's so disgustingly serene. Um, but yeah. Anyways, so, uh, welcome to another episode, everyone. Rekka:03:53   Speaking of serenity. Kaelyn:03:54   Yeah. Serenity. This is not a serene one . Rekka:03:56   This is our capitalist episode. Kaelyn:03:58   This is a stressful episode for a lot of people. We're talking today about money. Rekka:04:03   Like specifically, can I have some? Kaelyn:04:04   And how you get it? Rekka:04:06   Can I please Kaelyn can have some. Kaelyn:04:08   Sure. Of course. Rekka:04:10   Kaelyn just handed me a quarter, everybody. Kaelyn:04:11   [laughs] Um, yeah. Today we're talking about money and um, how you get it and how much you're entitled to and um, what you should be getting. Rekka:04:23   And when you get it. Kaelyn:04:24   When you get it. Exactly. Yeah. Um, so we wanted to do this episode because this is a bit of a dirty subject type thing. Rekka:04:34   Taboo Kaelyn:04:35   Taboo is probably a better word. Yeah. Um, and I think it's something a lot of people are nervous about that they don't want to ask about. They don't want to discuss. Rekka:04:43   Like we put out the call for questions. Kaelyn:04:45   Yeah. Rekka:04:46   And crickets. And I think everyone is afraid to be the person that asks that question. Kaelyn:04:50   Exactly. Yeah. Rekka:04:51   Or they think we aren't going to really get into the details on those. Kaelyn:04:56   It's - Rekka:04:56   Unfortunately, some of them we can't because it's going to depend a lot on your contract. Kaelyn:05:04   Yes. And we will flag those areas certainly. But, um, I think also there's the taboo around it because a lot of people have this mentality of I'm writing because I want to create, I'm writing because of this. That's awesome. But also you get paid for this and you should be aware of what you're getting paid for and be knowledgeable about it because this is important. You put a lot of work into something, you should make money off of it, you know? So anyway, we decided we wanted to, uh, to talk about that and hopefully provide some guidance with, um, you know, how things like advances and royalties work - Rekka:05:37   Or at least make it a little less scary. Kaelyn:05:38   A little less scary. Yeah. That should, that's a theme for this whole podcast: making writing less, a little less scary. Um, so we're going to start off with, you know, just some as we usually do with these kinds of things, some definitions. What, uh, what different things are, uh, kind of take you through what you can expect in terms of advances, royalties, how these things work. Um, we won't get too much into that because that's more of a contract specific thing. Rekka:06:08   But there are some things that people just - Kaelyn:06:11   There's some broad, yeah. Rekka:06:12   Don't have a general understanding of even. Kaelyn:06:15   Exactly. Yeah. Because it's a very intimidating process and going, going online and reading things about it is not always Rekka:06:23   helpful. And the articles are old or the people who are willing to put articles online about it are vanity presses who shouldn't be giving you advice anyway. Kaelyn:06:32   And you know what actually I did just because I wanted to see what was online before we did this episode. I spent some time on Google and it's something interesting I found is that not even the good articles, the ones that have good information in there helpful, none of them talk about ebooks. Rekka:06:45   Mmm, yeah Kaelyn:06:47   It's all print. Rekka:06:48   Yeah. And as two very different things. Kaelyn:06:51   Yeah. And you know what's interesting is the articles were like recent enough that like they should have like as doing ebooks should have been a thing. Um, because that's very confusing. Anyway, uh, we're gonna walk through, you know, what you can expect in terms of how the royalties work. Uh, we're going to talk about how money actually trickles down to the authors and then talk about, you know, what payments look like and what forms they're going to come in and where they'll be coming from. So, um, dive in. Rekka:07:22   Yeah, let's just start. Kaelyn:07:23   All right. So, uh, advances. Rekka:07:26   Yes, please. Kaelyn:07:26   Yes, Rekka? Rekka:07:28   Can I have one? [laughter] Yeah. So an advance is the word. Um, used in the definition, it is an advanced payment that you get on the assumption that you would eventually earn this through the royalty agreement that you settled on in your contract. So this is a payday loan without the interest rate. Kaelyn:07:55   Well ... Rekka:07:55   Yes. that sounds awful. But like you know what I'm trying to say, you are getting money now that you will have to earn later. Kaelyn:08:02   Yes. It's, it is an advance of money that you are going to earn. Rekka:08:06   Right. Okay. I said have to earn, we'll get into actually that too I think. Kaelyn:08:11   Think of it as here's a check for money you are going to make in the future and that um, the publisher will typically give you that right when you sign. Um, usually what happens is an advance might be broken up into two or more pieces, two standard, you know, usually half when you sign half when you finish the manuscript, I'm very rarely are they going to give you the whole thing at once. It's usually half now, half when you're finished, there might be, you know, there could be other weird little things in there about how they're broken up, but every, you know, one of the running themes for this episode is going to be, it's depends on your contract. Rekka:08:47   Yes. Kaelyn:08:48   Typical though half now half when you finish. An advance is different from royalties obviously. Rekka:08:55   In a way. Kaelyn:08:57   Yes. Rekka:08:57   It's the more, like royalties are based on actual sales numbers. The advance is royalties that are based on expectations and prophecy. Kaelyn:09:10   Yes. Um, typically what publishers do when we're trying to decide what an advance is going to be is we go into the secret room, consult the blind mages, provide the necessary sacrifice, they gaze into their crystal ball and come up with a number for us. Rekka:09:28   Mmmhmm. Kaelyn:09:28   You of course have to take into account whether or not you're doing this on a full moon because that can make the numbers a bit squiffy. Um, no and we'll uh, we'll talk about um, numbers and percentages later in the episode. We kind of just want to get through royalties and advances and what they are at this point. Rekka:09:47   So, so it isn't the full phrase is advance on royalties. Kaelyn:09:51   Yes Rekka:09:51   So it is technically royalties, but it's not in the sense that you'll get royalties later. Will you? We'll be able to see this is a royalty for the sales of books. Kaelyn:10:00   This is a uh royalty for sales that you are going to make in the future. Rekka:10:06   Right. Kaelyn:10:07   Um, if you want to, I work in finance. If you want to put it in those terms, it's a futures commodity. Rekka:10:12   Fair enough. Yeah. It's, well, it's, it's almost a good faith payment from the publisher. Kaelyn:10:17   Absolutely. That's what it is. Yeah. And it's also, it is a, hey look, you did all of this work and you still probably have about a year and a half minimum to go until you start making money on this. So here's money up front for the work that you already did. Rekka:10:33   Yeah. Kaelyn:10:34   And, um, we can, you know, we won't get too much into like what advances should be used for because really that's, that's - Rekka:10:43   Your business. Kaelyn:10:43   It's your business. And it depends on what, you know, what you need to use it for. But, um, you know, it's a payment for, you've already done a lot of work. Have some money. Rekka:10:54   Yeah. Um, if I were to offer advice on spending the advance, I would say treat it as a payment toward your author business and use it as you would as the owner of that author business. Kaelyn:11:07   Yeah. Rekka:11:07   But not everyone has the luxury to separate that from their, their household family. Kaelyn:11:12   There's absolutely nothing wrong with however you want to spend your advance, assuming you're not blowing it on like jetpack futures. Rekka:11:20   Yeah. Well, that's fun. Kaelyn:11:23   Yeah. Rekka:11:24   If you're, if you're a gambler, risk taker maybe you don't need the money and you're insulted by the commoditization of your novel and you're like, you know what? I'm going to spend this on something that will never ever pay out. Kaelyn:11:35   That's fair. Rekka:11:36   Really? Rekka:11:37   Yeah. 100% your prerogative, however - Kaelyn:11:40   Short of setting it on fire, just, you know. Um, so royalties like Rekka was saying are, that's what you're actually, when you're getting paid on your book, when the book has sold and you get money from the book being sold. Royalties are tricky and I think they're scary. Rekka:12:00   Mm. It's, it's spreadsheets is its - Kaelyn:12:04   It's numbers. Rekka:12:04   Math and it's a whole lot of different numbers and calculations based on at least five different moving targets at all times. Kaelyn:12:14   Yeah. So when we talk about royalties, I'm going to break this down into two different groups, which is print books and ebooks because royalties for each of those work differently. Rekka:12:24   And we should say that we're talking North American US. Kaelyn:12:26   Yes. Rekka:12:27   In terms because things may be different when to you cross out of international boundaries Kaelyn:12:32   Yes. So for print books it's going to be exclusively, you know, things that are sold in the US where, I'm not saying it's different everywhere. I'm just saying I can't guarantee that it's not. Rekka:12:46   Mmmhmm. Kaelyn:12:47   Print books. Typically authors are going to get paid on what's called the list price. And that is if you flip the book over in the back, it should have a price on it. Rekka:12:56   Yeah. It'll be associated in the ISBN code. It'll be probably printed beside it or inside the cover. Or if it's a hard cover with a slip case, there's a dollar sign there. There's usually a decimal point. Kaelyn:13:08   Exactly. Rekka:13:09   And that is your list price. Kaelyn:13:13   So when you get a royalty for that book, let's say the book sells for $10 just for the sake of round numbers and your royalty rate is 10% you're getting a dollar when that book sells. Print books, it should always be the list price that's still standard for print books. Um, royalty rates for print books may be a little lower, but they are more expensive than ebooks. Rekka:13:44   So when you say they're lower, you're saying they're lower than the royalty rate you're going to get for ebooks because ebooks don't require things like printing costs - Kaelyn:13:53   The overhead on ebooks is very minimal - Rekka:13:55   - and there's no warehousing them, there's very little chance of returns that do happen. Kaelyn:14:01   Rarely ebooks, ebooks get returned. Rekka:14:03   But I'm, the book seller is not going to buy a large number of ebooks and then potentially return half of them. Kaelyn:14:10   Yeah. So that's the most straight forward explanation. With print books, it's your royalty percentage off the list price. Ebooks, however, are a whole nother monster. I'm going to use Amazon as sort of the base example here, but most of the other ones kind of work the same way. Um, you know, everyone's a little bit different but, Rekka:14:35   But Amazon's kind of set the rules and everyone else is - Kaelyn:14:38   Yeah. And most of us get our books through Amazon now. Rekka:14:43   Mmmhmm. Kaelyn:14:43   Um, like by a lot. Rekka:14:44   Yeah. Kaelyn:14:45   So what's happening with ebooks is there's no print book, obviously. So overhead is nothing compared to print books. Rekka:14:55   It's server space. Kaelyn:14:56   They're sending you a file. Rekka:14:57   Yeah. Kaelyn:14:58   Essentially. So Amazon is taking their cut right off the top because when you're selling print books, the bookstore is buying the book and keeping the profits from the sale of the book. Amazon is getting their cut after the book sells. So your royalty rate on an ebook on Amazon is probably going to be either 70% or 35, depending on if it meets the criteria for Amazon to put it at 70. And here's the thing, most books do. Um, it's, it has to do with pricing length. Um, you know, those kinds of things. Rekka:15:37   You're deliverable file size. Kaelyn:15:39   Exactly. Rekka:15:39   Even if you have a lot of illustrations or photographs in your ebook, you're going to have less money coming in because Amazon's going to charge you for the space because their distribution to kindles is free for the user, the reader. Kaelyn:15:53   Yup. Rekka:15:53   So they're going to charge you if you use a larger than standard amount of data to send to that. Kaelyn:16:01   Yeah, so Amazon is taking their cut right off the top of the sale. So again, let's say your book is selling for $10 on Amazon and you're getting a 70% royalty. Well in this case your publisher is getting a 70% royalty on that. Rekka:16:17   So we'll use the word publisher when we are talking about royalties coming directly from an Amazon sale. If you're an Indie, like your self published, you are the publisher. So we're talking about you directly. If you are an author signed with a traditional publisher or a small press then they are the publisher. And when we say 70% royalty, we're talking about what is coming back from Amazon. It's very unlikely that 70% is the royalty in your contract. Kaelyn:16:46   No, it's not. Both:   16:49   [laughter] Rekka:16:49   Hey, look, we can't speak for everyone, but we're going to assume that yours is - Kaelyn:16:53   It's not - Rekka:16:54   Significantly lower than that. So, um, so yeah, a book sells on Amazon for $10 and a 70% royalty goes to the publisher is getting $7 and Amazon has taken their $3 in, they're happy and then then Kaelyn:17:06   And then the publisher is paying you based on your royalty rate off that $7. So it's an extra step. Um, although technically if you look at the bookstore, it's really not. It's actually a little more straight forward. Rekka:17:20   Yeah. Kaelyn:17:21   Um, so that's how you're getting your royalty rate from ebooks. And that is the easiest way I can sum it up. There are a lot of factors in how Amazon prices and sells books. They have all of these algorithms, which this is something a lot of people don't know. Amazon can change how much your book is being sold for. If they think that there's someone that like maybe they've clicked on it like three times in the past two days and they haven't bought it, Amazon's algorithm will knock it down, say a dollar. Rekka:17:51   Right. Kaelyn:17:51   And see if they can get you to pick it up and then guess what your book sold for nine bucks instead of 10. So Amazon, Amazon can take your book and reprice it for the - Rekka:18:03   Read that fine print when you sign up for KDP. Kaelyn:18:06   Yeah. So that is just kind of the definitions and the examples of advances and royalties. Um, so you're probably wondering now, well, how do I get these numbers? How do I know all of this stuff? As always, it's in your contract. Please read your contracts. I know they're long. I know they have absurd words in them. I know they're boring. Rekka:18:31   Go through them. Get a highlighter and highlight the numbers you're going to want to come back to reference. Kaelyn:18:36   Yes, yes. Rekka:18:36   Print out those pages. If your contract is digital and you know, pin them somewhere where you can get to them, where you can see like, this is my payments, this is my, um, royalty for this, this, these are the, uh rights I retained. These are the timelines at which my contract might revert back to me under certain conditions. So those are the kinds of things you want to at least be aware of those things. And you know, you don't have to memorize them but know where to find them. Kaelyn:19:06   Yeah, your contract will in all likelihood have a schedule in it that explains how your royalties work. Um, it's going to give you different amounts for ebooks and print, uh, maybe audio books. Um, if that's something that your publisher is doing, if you're getting an audio book. Um, one of the things that might have on there is a graduated royalty schedule. What this means is you're going to get different royalty rates based on the number of books you sell. And typically what will happen is the more books you sell, the higher your royalty rate gets. Now you're probably going, well, why don't they just give me the high one right off the bat. The publisher is trying to recoup the money they spent on the book. Rekka:19:53   Right. Kaelyn:19:54   So they're saying that if we get to, for instance, you know, 50,000 books, we've recouped everything that we spent. We want to pay you more now right on this. Rekka:20:06   Right. Kaelyn:20:06   So you might see like 10 - you know, books, one to 10,000 are at royalty rate X books, 10,001 to 25,000 are at royalty rate X plus one. Rekka:20:20   Right. Kaelyn:20:21   And they'll keep increasing. So what that means is the more books you sell, the higher your royalty rate is going to be. Not everyone does this. Rekka:20:29   Right. Kaelyn:20:30   But here's the thing with royalties and advances and contracts: everything's negotiable. Rekka:20:34   Yep. Kaelyn:20:35   So if you have an agent, there'll be the one handling that for you and they'll be trying to get you the best deal possible. Um, if you're doing it on your own, these are good things to know about cause it is a little scary and people don't like talking about money. Rekka:20:50   Right. And I can imagine that a lot of authors are afraid that if they try to negotiate on their contract that the offer will evaporate because they've been selfish. Or presumptive. Kaelyn:21:01   No. And you know, don't, don't think that, you know, if, especially if you feel like you're not getting the best deal, pushback. Don't, you know, if you get a good offer right off the bat and you're happy with it, there's nothing wrong with that. Take it and be happy with it. But if you feel like you're not getting quite what you wanted, have realistic expectations but also ask questions. Rekka:21:24   Right. Kaelyn:21:24   No one's going to be like, sorry you asked too many questions out the door. Um, you know, we talked about this before, if you have someone that can look at a contract for you, it's always a good thing to do that, especially when it comes to the money sections. Rekka:21:40   Yup. Kaelyn:21:40   Just make sure everything that you think you understand is what this actually says. Rekka:21:45   There are, um, author organizations out there that you can join and for the, um, the dues that you pay to those organizations, there might be some sort of access to a contracts lawyer as built in. So, you know, keep in mind that not all organizations are, you know, on are equivalent are, um, on the same level. But that is an option. Something you can look for that might cost you much less than a lawyer. Kaelyn:22:12   Yeah. Those are just good resources in general. Rekka:22:14   Plus any lawyers that they have are likely to be like contract, like publishing. Kaelyn:22:19   Yes. They'll know what they're looking at. Yeah. If nothing else in the contract, pay attention to the money part. There is nothing wrong with wanting to make sure that you're getting paid fairly and adequately. Rekka:22:32   But there's also know what your reasoning for going to a publisher is, and there may be things that you are far more like interested in tham negotiating the absolute best dollar amount. You may be the type to settle for a lower royalty but retain more of your rights for example. , Kaelyn:22:49   Yeah exactly. So every everything's a give and take with us and you know at some point we'll do another episode about contracts and rights and things, but for now we're - Rekka:22:58   But all of these, Kaelyn:22:59   They're all factors Rekka:23:00   decisions that you make in your, in your contract negotiation are going to affect your royalties and your advance going forward. Kaelyn:23:07   Exactly, yeah. So the next question you're probably wondering is, okay, so how, how and when do I get money? Rekka:23:16   [laughs] Right? Kaelyn:23:18   This is great. I've signed this contract, I've got, you know, a royalty schedule that I'm happy with. How and when am I going to get paid? So like we said right off the bat with your advance, you're probably gonna get half when you signed half when the book's done. So that's the advance. For the royalties you may not see a royalty check for a while. Rekka:23:39   Because you have to earn out that advance for the royalties start paying towards you. Kaelyn:23:43   Exactly. Rekka:23:43   So you may get royalty statements. You, you may not actually get legal tender until, well, you will not get legal tender until you earn out the royalty. It's a matter of what your royalty was versus how your book is selling versus um, you know, if you have multiple books and therefore like a joint accounting for example, between those books on your advance. So it's going to be a while, but it's not, it doesn't have to be years, but it may also be never. Lets you know, just to put it out there.   Kaelyn:24:18   Yeah. So what - Okay, let's say that your advance again for the sake of round numbers was $10,000. You need to earn $10,000 in royalties - Rekka:24:29   Those are those small percentages of the purchase prices Kaelyn:24:33   before you get a royalty check. Rekka:24:36   Right. Kaelyn:24:36   So as soon as you hit $10,000 in 1 cent, then you start getting paid on your royalties. Because remember what we said, the advance is payment on money you are going to make in the future. So now they're repaying the money that they already paid you to themselves. Rekka:24:55   It's a zero interest semi loan that's immediately forgiven from the publisher. Okay, here's the question that I can imagine to a lot of minds. If I don't earn back my advance, do I have to pay the difference back to the publisher? Kaelyn:25:11   No, you don't. And again, contracts, you know, check contracts, Rekka:25:14   Check your contract. Kaelyn:25:16   But - Rekka:25:16   there's probably something in there where if you don't give them the book you promised them you have to pay back the advance. Kaelyn:25:21   Yes. Rekka:25:21   That's in there. But you are receiving an advance on projected sales and it's the publisher's job to give you an advance that they believe that the y can support with book sales. Kaelyn:25:32   Yes. So if you don't earn out your advance, you will not have to pay back the advance. Let me go further and saying that if you sign a contract that says you have to pay back your advance, don't sign that. Rekka:25:48   Yeah. Don't, don't sign it in the first place. Yeah. If you receive a contract, if you see a contract, if you smell a contract run, that says - Kaelyn:25:57   You have to pay back your advance. And so no, you don't have to give back your advance. But let's, okay, so you have a $10,000 advance. Your book has now earned $10,000 in one cent. You're going to be getting a check for 1 cent. Rekka:26:11   It, depending on your contract, your, your publisher may have a minimum threshold - Kaelyn:26:15   Okay, yes - Rekka:26:15   - which you want to watch for too. Because if that minimum threshold is very high, you still won't see a check for awhile. Kaelyn:26:20   For a while. Yeah. Rekka:26:22   Um, you have a $10,000 advance at $10,000, 1 cent, you now are owed royalties by your publisher. Kaelyn:26:30   You are owed roylaties. Exactly. And if your book just keeps earning and earning past that, you will keep getting royalty checks. There isn't a cap on this. As long as your book is making money, you will keep getting royalty statements and checks. Rekka:26:43   Right. Kaelyn:26:44   Um, here's the thing though, you have to keep in mind how long it takes to get a book published. So even once you've signed the contract, it's probably going to be a year and a half before that book goes to press. Rekka:26:58   Right. Kaelyn:26:58   And then depending on the size of your royalty and depending on how quickly it sells, it could be a while before you start getting a check. Royalty checks. Um, depending on how long it takes to earn out your advance. The reason I'm saying this is don't bank on having money immediately from the book. Rekka:27:16   And since you can't predict the sales of your book, don't bank on it at all. Kaelyn:27:20   Yeah, that's, that's a good point. Rekka:27:21   You know, don't, don't plan on, I will have x amount in the next royalty check. There is no way to control that. There is no way to insure it yet. Kaelyn:27:30   So now Rekka brought up something interesting earlier that she just kind of threw out as an example but is a good quick note to talk about which is joint accounting for royalties. So let's go back and do that real quick. Rekka:27:42   So joint accounting is when you have a multi book contract with a publisher and it can be a duology, a trilogy, whatever, whatever number of books has been agreed upon and is covered by that single contract. Kaelyn:27:58   In the single contract. Rekka:27:59   It's not with options for the rest of the trilogy. It's this is for three books. Yes, for an example of a trilogy and then you have a total advance that they are going to break up per book and whatever that advanced payment schedule is. And in joint accounting you do not earn royalties until you have earned the entire advance out - Kaelyn:28:27   For the entire series Rekka:28:27   The entire series. Kaelyn:28:29   So it all depends on how the contract is written and laid out. Again, please read the contract. Rekka:28:37   Right. So your first book may sell to the point where you've earned out, as Kaelyn was saying, earned out the advance that you receive for that book. But depending on how your contract's written, you may be receiving those royalties against the total advance of whatever number of books is covered under that contract. So if your total advance for three books say is $30,000, if your contract is written as such, you won't get royalties even though the second book isn't out yet until you earn back the advance for all three books, all $30,000. And that's again, it's the language in your contract. That's why you want to have help looking at your contracts. Kaelyn:29:17   Yeah. So the base question, you know, when do I get a check or royalties check? Typically twice a year is pretty common. Um, you know, there's a, I, I do this, I actually deal with the calculating all the royalties, it is not easy, it is it's a process. So, uh, it is kind of easier to get a bunch of months all together and do them all at once. Rekka:29:39   Why don't you break down all the different moving pieces? Kaelyn:29:42   Oh God. Okay. Well, um, one of the things, so right off the bat, what you're going to have to do is gather all of the information from the different places that have sold your book. If you are a traditional publisher with a distributor, this is an insane process. It's, it is gathering a lot of information and it's just so many spreadsheets. And so you have to get all the information together and figure out how much did the book sell for what did we actually get paid on it. And then you got to check and make sure that's correct because I know this is shocking, Amazon occasionally makes mistakes. Rekka:30:20   No. Kaelyn:30:20   I know. Um, the print books are even trickier with that because you have to, you're looking at books that were purchased by a bookstore that may still be sitting in the bookstore and haven't been sold yet. Rekka:30:32   Yeah. Kaelyn:30:32   But for my purposes, that doesn't matter as long as the bookstore has it. That's what I'm most concerned about. Um, the next thing you have to do is go through and normalize everything. And with Amazon, they will sell your ebooks internationally and then it just all gets funneled through the one Amazon account. Um, like I said, I'm not going to get into the international stuff too much because, uh, with print books especially, it's very different. Amazon people can buy the book internationally, no problem. So, um, you have to go in and do all the currency conversions and normalize everything. Then you gotta take all this giant list of everything you've sold and break it out by author. Rekka:31:14   Right. Kaelyn:31:14   So now at Parvus we have, um, you know, authors with multiple books. So that - Rekka:31:20   Which might mean multiple contracts. Kaelyn:31:20   It might mean multiple contracts and multiple advances. So then you have to go and take that and figure out like, okay, Author X had, and you know a Y advance, they've earned Z, Both:   31:35   [laughs] Kaelyn:31:35   So on Rekka:31:38   Or just eat some alphabet soup Kaelyn:31:40   [laughs] So on this book, so I have to apply that amount to this book. But wait, then they sold this many of book Q and they earned that on it. And you get all of this information together, figure out how much money you owe to who, and then put together a royalty statement. Um, one of the things I'm going to, I'm going to stop here and I'm gonna toot Parvus's horn a little bit. We're very transparent. Um, we send detailed lists of sales. I don't think any one of our authors actually look at them. Rekka:32:14   That is not true. Kaelyn:32:15   Okay Rekka looks at them, which isn't surprising. Um, but like, you know, it's hundreds of lines on a spreadsheet and it's, we're, we're very upfront about this stuff. We want you to see here is the book that you sold on Amazon. Here's the rate Amazon game, and here's what your royalty percentages and it was in US dollars. And so it comes out to this amount. Um, but we know that everyone's not going to look at that. And if they do, it's not going to mean too much to them. So the other thing I put together is a royalty statement, which is you sold this many of this book this month, this many of this one. You earned this amount on each of them. Here's how many you've sold all time, and here's how many you have, how much money you've earned all time, and here's how much you've earned this quarter. We do ours quarterly. Um, and then we send the payment based on, you know, what they're owed for that month. Um, if you're still earning out your royalty, there'll be another little section from me down at the bottom that says, hey, here's what your royalty was. Here's how much you earned towards it this quarter. Here's how much you have left to go. So it's, it's summarized, you know, it's just a little thing. You should be getting those. Rekka:33:23   Yeah. Kaelyn:33:23   And I am shocked the number of authors I talked to that have never seen one, never seen one, and don't ask for one. Rekka:33:30   Yeah. Kaelyn:33:31   I can't believe sometimes the authors I talked to that don't know if they ever earned out their advance. You have to pay attention to this stuff and advocate for yourself. Because I'm not saying that publishing houses are trying to steal from you. It's that if you don't ask for it, they might not provide it because maybe they're like, oh, that's one less thing I have to do. Rekka:33:58   Mmmhmm. Kaelyn:33:58   But here's the thing, people make mistakes sometimes too. I mean, when you're dealing with this much information, you could, you know, a decimal point gets moved one direction to the other and it throws everything off. So pay attention to this stuff, ask for it, never feel embarrassed for asking for it. And if anyone tries to make you feel embarrassed for asking for it, push back on them. Rekka:34:18   Right. Don't and make sure if you want that it's in your contract that you can see the accounting. Kaelyn:34:24   Yes. Rekka:34:25   Again, the contract is a lovely piece of paper that - Kaelyn:34:28   Everything is negotiable. Rekka:34:29   Yeah. Kaelyn:34:30   Um, so that's, that's kind of what is going on in the other side. So dovetailing onto that, how does, how has this happen? How does the money get down to the author? Rekka:34:43   Um, they leave some quarters under your pillow. Kaelyn:34:46   No, at night we fly in and, you know, just deposit it, teeth are not - it's fine. We don't need the teeth anymore. Rekka:34:52   Um, you've already had your teeth knocked out. Kaelyn:34:56   The, the rundown is basically this, we start with the reader at the bookstore. Amazon. Rekka:35:01   An individual person makes a decision to purchase a book. Kaelyn:35:04   They picked it up or they looked at it online. They said, you know what, this sounds like something I want to read. I will give someone money for this. Rekka:35:10   Yes. Kaelyn:35:11   So - Rekka:35:11   And thank you for that. Kaelyn:35:14   [laughs] Um, it's a little different with bookstores and ebooks. So if they do it in a bookstore, they go, they pay the bookstore. Now the bookstore, if you are distributed, if you're through a traditional publisher that's distributed, the bookstore has already paid the distributor for the books. Rekka:35:32   Right. Kaelyn:35:33   So the publisher is getting their money from the distributer, the publisher then in turn calculates the royalties and the payments that have to go out. If you have a literary agent, your check is going to your agent first. Rekka:35:47   Right. Kaelyn:35:48   They're going to cash it, take their, you know, how, whatever their percentage is, their 15, and then the literary agent is going to write you a check for the remainder of it. Rekka:35:57   Right. Kaelyn:35:58   If you don't have a literary agent, the publisher should be sending the money right to you. Rekka:36:01   Yes. Kaelyn:36:02   For ebooks, same thing, you know, you're looking at the book, I like this, buy it on Amazon. Amazon is going to pay the publisher. Now you can have distributors through ebooks. Um not, you know, not uncommon, actually, fairly common. And again, so if that's the case, the Amazon is going to pay the distributor and then the distributor is going to give it back to the publisher. Rekka:36:31   And it still in that case, based on each individual sale, not like the bookstore situation where they're bought ahead of time. Kaelyn:36:39   It's not a list price, yeah. Um, so then it's the same thing. The publisher is going to calculate the royalties. If you have an agent, it goes to them first. If you don't, it goes to directly to the author. Um, what you're noticing along the way here is everyone is taking a little piece off of this. So you're starting with a pile and then everyone's taking a little bit of it and you, the author are the last person to get the pile. Rekka:37:02   However the pile comes to you. Kaelyn:37:06   Yes. Rekka:37:06   At no point, do you write anyone else a check. Kaelyn:37:08   Yes. The pile should, even if it's a smaller pile than when it started, the pile should be coming to you. Do not give anyone money. Just don't. Rekka:37:19   Yep. It's, it's not how this works. Yeah. Kaelyn:37:22   If you're self publishing, fine, then you have to pay for things. Rekka:37:25   Right. But again, that's you're not paying for, it's tricky to say what, what the difference is in terms of what you pay for as a self publisher, you will be paying contracted people to edit your work. You'll be paying contract and people to do your covers. Those are investments. Those do not come out of your royalties. So when it comes to the process of like, how do I make someone buy my book, there are things that you'll be paying for once the book is in bookstores that hopefully will result in a sale. But this is not like, hey, the distributor got returns and now you owe them $20. Kaelyn:38:11   Yeah, yeah, exactly. So that is, you know, how do I get paid? Way in the future and not as much as you think. Both:   38:22   [laughter] Kaelyn:38:22   Um, it's, it is a trickle down process. So if your book sells well eventually the money will be coming in. But again, even if it doesn't, no one should be you for your advance back. Rekka:38:36   Right. And I just want to emphasize, you know, everyone in this digital age where you can just upload a file to Amazon and get the biggest amount of royalty for the ebook sale as possible. People want to know why the publisher is taking such a big cut, et cetera. The people who take cuts are the people who are putting themselves at risk for the sale of your book. You have put yourself at risk if you're a self published author completely. It's all your risk. Kaelyn:39:05   Yeah, it's all you. Rekka:39:06   If you are going through a publisher, they have given you money in the form of the advance. They have paid for a distributor to print and warehouse books - W Kaelyn:39:15   hich by the way is not cheap. Rekka:39:19   Noooo. Um, it's not as expensive as it used to be for the printing, but the, I mean they kind of even it out and make up for the difference in probably the warehousing costs these days. Kaelyn:39:28   The margins on print books are not great. Rekka:39:31   Yeah. Kaelyn:39:32   Um, it is, it is not as expensive to print a book, especially a large group, batch of them as it used to be. It's still not cheap. Rekka:39:42   Right. So when you, and I'll go back to self publishing as the comparison for like the most you could expect to get for something. Um a self published author will be usually going through a print on demand service, which means that book is being printed one at a time, which means that book is as expensive to produce as possible. That book is, it's getting printed on a one off run. If you've ever taken something to um, you know, staples to have it printed and you notice that the price to have one copy is 10 cents, but by the time you're printing 500 pages, you're paying more like 6 cents a page. That's because the, the labor involved in printing one is higher than the Labor involved in printing a large quantity of the same thing. So when you are paying a distributor to print your book, you are saving money per book, but you are investing in advance to have them all printed at once. And that's why print on demand sort of like made self publishing blow up in a new level even that ebooks hadn't is that now you can just print what sells, which is great, but you are making less per Kaelyn:41:02   Yeah, you're not, I mean you are not making much on print, on demand box. Rekka:41:05   And even when you get the, the distributors, um, bulk price on printing, if you were to say pay out of pocket to fill your garage with hard copies of your book, you are still not making a large margin on those books. It's nothing compared to the margin you make on ebooks and digital. Kaelyn:41:26   Yeah. So um back to what Rekka was saying. You know, why is there so much constantly coming off of this? Everyone has expenses. Books are not cheap to make. Um, you know, I think we think like, oh well it's fine. It's a book. So like what's the big deal? You have to print it. Well, no, you have to pay the various editors - Rekka:41:50   There is a layout person and there's a copy editor. Kaelyn:41:53   Illustrator. There's the cover art. The marketing. Marketing is very expensive - Rekka:41:58   That it never goes away. Kaelyn:41:59   It never goes away, exactly. And which by the way, that's where a lot, that's a lot of the money that goes into this. Um, it is expensive to make a book. It's a lot of people involved and it's a far more complicated process than I think a lot of people realize. Rekka:42:17   Right. Kaelyn:42:27   So it's a whole other debate, you know, whether or not the publishers take too much off the top, but there is a reason for it because a lot of books don't always even recover their entire cost. The publishing companies are paying you, even when you know you've earned out your advance, that's money they already gave you. So then on top of that, you may earn about out your advance. The publisher may not recover everything they spent on the book. Rekka:42:50   RIght. Kaelyn:42:50   Everything is so subjective. You really, it just depends. Um, so I think that's, that's most of the, the technical side of things. Uh, one, one question we did kind of come across was, so if I'm, if I've got multiple offer offers, if I'm lucky enough to have multiple offers, do I just take the one that's offering me more money? Rekka:43:12   Which might be your inclination. Kaelyn:43:13   Yes. And my answer to that is maybe. Um, let's look at the contract, look at the contract and look at what you're getting out of it and look what you like before you even receive. Rekka:43:25   Like I would say it's maybe too late for some of our listeners now, sorry about that. I should have shown up before, but like before you start querying your book, have a goal in mind. Like what is your picture of success? Kaelyn:43:41   Yeah. Rekka:43:41   And your contract may not need to have as many zeros as possible for you to feel like you have successfully published a book. Kaelyn:43:51   Yeah. And think about when you're looking at the contract, what are they giving you in there? Like, okay, maybe they're not giving you as much of an advance as you were hoping, but do they have a lot, a good marketing plan? Do they have like a lot of time and money that they're going to dump into making sure people read your book because then that's gonna make you money. Rekka:44:14   Right. Kaelyn:44:14   Eventually. Um, if you're looking at this and going, you know, I just kind of want to get as much out of this as I can and get the book out there, then maybe you're more interested in a bigger advance. Um, it isn't, the point I'm at is a slight cautionary tale is don't immediately jump at the biggest dollar sign if you have multiple offers. Because some of it is also going to be like, okay, awesome. How much effort are they going to put into making sure this book continues to sell? Because in the longterm, that could be where you make your money. Rekka:44:53   Right. You could actually make more in your royalties after the advance than you make on the advance. One hopes that that's what's going to happen and you need a publisher who's interested in selling your book for the long run versus a publisher who's going to give it three weeks of attention after the release date and then move on. Kaelyn:45:09   Yeah. Rekka:45:10   If you have a publisher who is, you know, far more interested in, um, you know, using their back catalog for most of their income, then that's going to be a longer term game and you can - Kaelyn:45:26   And they'll want to market your book and make sure people still buy it. Yeah. Um, so, you know, just it's another, read the contract, be aware, but you know, decide what's important to you. There's no right or wrong answer there. It's just a matter of, like Rekka said, decide what your goal is, like what you want for this book. And don't be afraid to talk about money. Rekka:45:47   Right. Kaelyn:45:48   It's, you know, we set in the beginning of the episode, it's taboo. It's, you know, I think almost perceived as rude Rekka:45:56   Or if I care about money than am I really a creative person? Kaelyn:46:01   Yes Rekka:46:01   And well, I don't care if you feel like a creative person while you're negotiating a contract. Frankly - Kaelyn:46:08   You should be the embodiment of Rockefeller at that. Rekka:46:12   Yeah. Kaelyn:46:12   Go in there and be horrible. Rekka:46:13   And because your publisher may love books, but they're running a business. The bookstores love books, but they're running a business. The distributors love books, but they're running a business. You write books, but you're running a business.   Kaelyn:46:25   You as the author, you are your business, you are your own brand and advertising. You come along with this book. So don't be afraid to ask about these things. It's not insulting you're not - to be honest with you, on my end, when people ask me about it, I get relieved because now granted I work in finance, I work in business. So like we're very used to, you know, money talk. And it is funny because I go into like contract negotiations with clients, like it's talked about - Rekka:46:59   Nobody's afraid. Kaelyn:46:59   It's talked about like it's nothing. And it's like, look, I'm not saying, you know, you have to go in there with like the negotiator hat and mustache on, but - Rekka:47:07   Is there a negotiator hat and a mustache? Kaelyn:47:09   Oh yeah. I wear them to every meeting I go to. Rekka:47:12   We'll post a photo of that on Instagram. Kaelyn:47:17   But don't be afraid to talk about it and ask questions because also I know on my end that a lot of people that I'm working with, this might be the first time that they're kind of addressing this sort thing. And there's nothing wrong with not knowing. Your publisher is your partner. They're not there to take advantage of you. They're not going to lie. Rekka:47:36   They shouldn't, you know. Kaelyn:47:37   But they won't lie to you and give you bad information about these things. Don't be afraid to ask questions and don't be afraid to say, listen, I don't understand this. I don't want there to be a problem down the line and don't be afraid to talk about money. You are your product. You should get paid for what you've created. Rekka:47:57   Yep. Kaelyn:47:58   So, um, on that note, I think that's a good, good last. Rekka:48:02   Sure. Kaelyn:48:03   Sentiment to leave on. Rekka:48:04   And there's a lot of stuff. There's a lot of contract topics that we didn't get too far into because we do want to have at least one future episode on contracts. Kaelyn:48:12   Yeah, just contracts. Rekka:48:14   And so that will be where we'll do a deeper dive into where maybe you can look for opportunities to ensure that you're going to get as much as possible. But that's a whole other. Kaelyn:48:26   That's a whole other episode. So anyway, so how are we doing on time? Rekka:48:31   We're, we're way over. Kaelyn:48:33   Um, so anyway, that's the money up at the dreaded money episode everyone got through. We're all still alive. Rekka:48:38   We all love getting paid. So I don't know why we have to say that. It's all dreaded. It's - Kaelyn:48:43   But it is. I mean, it's, you know, but you beloved listener, um, I hope you're so alive and listening and if you're not, I hope you have as queued up on autoplay [laughs]. Rekka:48:54   Um, so hopefully before you passed away, he left this rating and review. Kaelyn:48:59   Yeah. So anyway, thanks for listening again. Uh, you know, you can find us on the socials as usual. Rekka:49:05   Yep. Yeah, we are @WMBcast on Twitter and Instagram. We are at WMBcast.com or WeMakeBookspodcasts.com, and uh, whatever survives Apple's transfer away from iTunes. Please leave us a rating. Kaelyn:49:22   Yeah, this is going to be scary. Rekka:49:23   I don't really know. Kaelyn:49:24   I know. We don't know what's happening. Rekka:49:25   Is the algorithm going to change? Kaelyn:49:27   They've been very, they've not been putting information about what's going to happen. Rekka:49:31   Yeah so maybe by the time this episode airs that will all have settled and you will know exactly where to go and leave us a star rating and review so that other people can find us. Assuming that the algorithm works the same way. Kaelyn:49:43   Sure it will. And as always, you know, please reach out to us. You know, like maybe you had another question about money that uh, we didn't get to your episode. Rekka:49:50   There's definitely more to talk about. Kaelyn:49:52   We can, uh, do some questions. You know, one off questions in the future and you can email us or DM us. Rekka:49:58   Yeah, the dms are always open. They're wide open to the, you can ask us questions that you're embarrassed that you don't know and that's fine. That's great stuff. We want to hear those questions. There is no topic that's too small. There's no, you know, quote unquote stupid questions. You know, just send us your questions so we can help you understand what the whole thing with publishing is, because it is a whole thing. Kaelyn:50:22   We want to make this less scary. Yeah. Alright. Well, again, thanks everyone for listening and we'll two catch you in two weeks. Rekka:50:29   Yeah, two weeks.  

Hi everyone, and thank you for tuning in to another episode of the We Make Books Podcast - A podcast about writing, publishing, and everything in between! This week we’re talking about ARCs or Advance Review Copies! What are they?  Why do we print them?  Who gets them?  Why do they smell better than your average book??  Rekka and Kaelyn discuss all of those things, tell a few funny stories, and spend more than a little time getting side tracked talking about ARCs they’ve received.  We Make Books is hosted by Rekka Jay and Kaelyn Considine; Rekka is a published author and Kaelyn is an editor and together they are going to take you through what goes into getting a book out of your head, on to paper, in to the hands of a publisher, and finally on to book store shelves. We Make Books is a podcast for writer and publishers, by writers and publishers and we want to hear from our listeners! Hit us up on our social media, linked below, and send us your questions, comments, concerns, and any particularly good pie recipes you may have – apple is especially appreciated! We hope you enjoy We Make Books!   Twitter: @WMBCast  |  @KindofKaelyn  |  @BittyBittyZap Instagram: @WMBCast  Patreon.com/WMBCast   Rekka:00:00   Welcome back to another episode of the we make books podcast. I'm record Jay and I write science fiction and fantasy as RJ Theodore Kaelyn:           00:07   And I'm Kaelyn Considine and I am the acquisition editor for Parvus Press. This is one of my favorite things that happened in the process of publishing a book. And we are of course talking about advanced review copies or ARCs. Rekka:00:19   Because you get to see it and it's a thing and it's real and they haven't been lying to you this whole time and they're really going to publish it. Kaelyn:           00:24   I don't know what it is. I love getting the ARCs it's - Rekka:00:27   Do they smell different? Kaelyn:           00:28   They yes, they smell, this is a trade secret: they smell different than a regular book. Rekka:00:33   They do smell different, Kaelyn:           00:34   Yeah. Rekka:00:35   I'm going to dive in here. Kaelyn:           00:36   No Rekka's right in to the spine. Rekka:00:39   [laughter] Kaelyn:           00:39   Um, so yeah, we're just talking today a little bit about what ARCs are - Rekka:00:43   What it is because as you even mentioned, and I think one of our very intro episodes - Kaelyn:           00:46   It was the intro episode Rekka:00:48   You didn't even know what ARC meant so - Kaelyn:           00:49   That was the example I gave about don't be afraid to ask stupid questions because I knew what an advanced review copy was and I had just never heard it abbreviated to ARC and then I was like, oh, it's that thing I love. Rekka:01:00   Yeah. It's my favorite thing. I know what it is, I just didn't know you called it that. Kaelyn:           01:03   Yeah. You know, we talked a little bit today about what an ARC is, what its function is - Rekka:01:06   Who gets them. Kaelyn:           01:07   Who gets them. Rekka:01:08   And where they go. Kaelyn:           01:09   Where they go. Rekka:01:09   And what their purposes. Kaelyn:           01:11   Exactly. Yeah. So, um, you know, a little interesting bit about the history of them, sort of where they come from and why they are what they are. Rekka:01:20   Mmmhmm. Kaelyn:           01:20   Um, so I think it was a great episode. Rekka:01:22   Yeah Kaelyn:           01:22   I enjoyed doing it. Rekka:01:23   Yes. Well, I always like paying attention to ARCs and, and we get to squeal a little bit about ARCs that are out there in the world. Right this moment as we recorded. Kaelyn:           01:30   Yeah we definitely devolved into - Rekka:01:33   A little bit of squealing. Kaelyn:           01:33   A little bit of squealing. So apologies for that. Rekka:01:36   No apologies. Kaelyn:           01:37   Okay. Nevermind. We're not sorry. Rekka:01:38   Love us as we are - Kaelyn:           01:40   Or not at all. Thanks everyone for listening again and uh, we hope you enjoy the episode. Rekka:01:47   Yeah. Music:02:02   [inaudible] Kaelyn:           02:03   So today what we're talking about our advanced reader copies or ARCs Rekka:02:09   Or advanced review copies, what is the proper nomenclature? Kaelyn:           02:12   Well, that depends who you're sending it to. Okay. Um, I always call them advanced reader copies because that means readers and reviewers. Rekka:02:19   Okay. Kaelyn:           02:19   So, um, but yes, we're talking about advanced copies of your book, which are copies that your publisher will send out to people going like, Hey, we have this book coming out and it's awesome. You should read it. Give us a review or a blurb. And they're awesome. They're, actually ARC's a lot of times are collectors items. Rekka:02:38   Oh dear. Kaelyn:           02:38   Did you know that? Rekka:02:40   I don't want to see them on Ebay though. Kaelyn:           02:42   Not well, I mean, but that's actually, that's a thing. There are a lot of people that collect um, ARCs and uh, because frequently they're uh, you know, labeled as, you know, uncorrected advanced proof. Rekka:02:53   Advanced, mmmhmm. Kaelyn:           02:54   Um, Rekka:02:54   Not for resale. Kaelyn:           02:56   Not for resale. That does not always stop them from popping up. Rekka:02:59   Right. Kaelyn:           02:59   But like, you know, especially if the book really takes off and you have one of the early copies of it, that's a pretty cool thing to have, I think. Rekka:03:07   Yeah. Kaelyn:           03:07   I want to kind of go through some definitions real quick. Mostly between a galley and an ARC. I think galley has really fallen out of use as of late, but you might still hear people throw this term around. Rekka:03:21   Actually I heard it at the Nebulas quite a lot of different contexts. Kaelyn:           03:25   Yes and that was also a group of writing professionals and people who have been doing this for a while and I'm not going like, oh, they're old. Rekka:03:32   [laughs] Eh. Kaelyn:           03:32   But like people that are from, we're writing in an time that galleys were definitely still a thing so. A Galley actually comes from, uh, the middle well, the renaissance era when, uh, typesetting became a thing and you had to put all of the - Rekka:03:50   Letters, Kaelyn:           03:51   Everything in there, print it, and then the pages went into a galley, which was the metal tray that all they all got stacked up in before being bound. Rekka:04:00   Yes. Kaelyn:           04:00   So a galley for a long time was actually just the printed manuscript for corrections. So then you had an uncorrected proof that's, you know, when someone goes through and marks everything up and when oh, my God, we used to have to do this by hand, everyone. Rekka:04:17   Yes. Kaelyn:           04:17   Um, then you have a final proof, which is okay, we're good. The book is in the shape, it's in the, uh, grammar and the punctuation is, uh, mostly correct and in our day and age now that becomes an advanced reader copy. And the main difference between a galleon advanced reader copy now is a galley, is basically a bound manuscript. Um, it probably does not have cover art. It's probably just in a book with big letters on it saying what it is and who it was by. An ARC. On the other hand is going to have cover art. Um, it's going to have cover copy on it. It will say uncorrected advanced proof. Um, or some version of that. It's probably, it might just have a big red band across the top. It might have like a big sticker in the middle of it, Rekka:05:06   Mmmhmm. Kaelyn:           05:06   But it is going to be very clear that this is an ARC. This is not the actual book. Rekka:05:11   Right. Kaelyn:           05:11   So - Rekka:05:12   What is the reason that you would send out a thing that is not the actual book? Kaelyn:           05:16   [lauhgs] That is an excellent question, Rekka. This is actually gets to the heart of a bigger thing, which is why does it take so long to publish a book? Rekka:05:25   What the hell anyway? Kaelyn:           05:26   Well, because your ARCs are going out about six months before the book is released because what your publisher is going to be trying to do is get buzz around it. Get people to say like, Oh yeah, I'll write a review on it. Get a blurb that they can stick on the back cover for when the final release is well released. Rekka:05:43   Mmmhmm. Kaelyn:           05:43   Um, you want people to read this book and the people reading it know, this isn't the final. Rekka:05:50   Okay. Kaelyn:           05:50   They're not getting this and going, oh my God, this ugh - didn't put the commas in the right place. Rekka:05:55   Commas aren't voice. What the hell? Kaelyn:           05:57   Yeah, no, that should be taken care of by the. [laughs] The publishers are sending it to them in hopes of them getting it and going, wow, this is really great, I'm going to write a review on it. There is this book and it's awesome and I loved it and here's all the great stuff I loved about it and you should go buy it. Rekka:06:12   Mmmhmm. Kaelyn:           06:12   We're all trying to generate sales here. We're all trying to make money. Rekka:06:16   So this is a marketing tool, you would say? Kaelyn:           06:18   Yes, I would definitely call it a marketing tool. It is to generate interest in the book. Your ARC is a very precious, very special thing that I think a lot of people underestimate the importance of, you know, we came back from the Nebulas a bit ago and Rekka actually got the unique chance to hand out some of her own ARCs. Rekka:06:40   Yes. And so I got very nervous because, um, Kaelyn said to me as she opened the box, don't just give these to anybody. Kaelyn:           06:51   Yes. Rekka:06:52   So apparently there's an audience for ARC that is more worthy than another. Kaelyn:           06:57   It's not that there is an audience that is more worthy. It's that there is an audience that is going to do more for you and - Rekka:07:05   Right. Kaelyn:           07:05   I know, you know, I'm going to come in and be the coldhearted publisher here, but, and something I keep saying, at the end of the day, we're all here to sell the book. So if you, you know, in this case only have a limited number of these that were shipped to the conference. Rekka:07:19   Right. Kaelyn:           07:21   You have shipped - Rekka:07:22   Hand delivered. Kaelyn:           07:22   Hand delivered, hand delivered to the conference. You have to, you can't just hand them out to your friends at that point. Your ARCs are to get people to pay attention to your book. So you want to get them into the hands of people that are going to take the time, spend the time with these, and hopefully say something nice about them. They're going to put some thought into it. They're not just going to, you know, put it in a pile and go like, oh, I guess I'll read that eventually. Rekka:07:48   Right. And let's just be straightforward. This is a short run of your book. So they are also expensive. Kaelyn:           07:53   They are expensive. Yeah. They're, this is not, you know, obviously if you're at one of the bigger publishing houses, this is, you know, whatever, you just make however many, how many will be printed, depends on the book. I don't have an answer to that. It can be a hundred to 500. It could be, you know, any number of them. But also ARCs are sent out digitally now - Rekka:08:14   Yes. Kaelyn:           08:14   -as well. Rekka:08:15   Some people prefer them digitally Kaelyn:           08:16   Some people prefer them digitally. Rekka:08:17   Which is a shame because if they have the final cover art on them, that sort of loses a little bit of the glamour. Kaelyn:           08:23   Yeah. Rekka:08:23   Because there are people who take a photo of the books that arrive in the mail that day. Kaelyn:           08:28   I always get so excited whenever I see one of our books and like someone's stack and I'm like, Rekka:08:32   It's always a stack. So make sure your spine is pretty too. Kaelyn:           08:34   Yeah. Um, and that's actually the thing. People get a lot of these. Rekka:08:38   Yeah. Kaelyn:           08:38   Yeah and it's a lot of work to read and review those kinds of things. So like most people especially, you know, if you're just like, you have a blog that gets attention or you just, you know, run a website where you do this kind of stuff, sending someone an ARC is not a guarantee that they're going to review it. Rekka:08:52   Right. Kaelyn:           08:52   There's actually a very good chance that they won't - Rekka:08:54   Just because of the quantity of ARCs they receive. Kaelyn:           08:57   I mean, you do it anyway because it's an industry norm. Like, I mean, I think they're fun. I really like them. One of my favorite things is sending out all the Parvus Arcs. I love um, you know, like you get the giant box of them and like it's really cool because I'm usually the first person to see the physical copy of this book. Rekka:09:14   Yeah, mmmhmm. Kaelyn:           09:14   And it's like, it's so pretty, it's everything I imagined it would be. Um, so that's, that's a treat with me because at Parvus, I'm the one who send out the ARCs just cause I like doing it. Rekka:09:28   Yup, yup. and you have a big table that you have access to. Kaelyn:           09:30   I have a big table that I spread out on and you know, put everything in. And um, one of the things I do, because this is the thing is everyone gets bombarded with these is I always try to do something a little special to the books. I tried to wrap them in a way that's thematic to the book. So, um, cause I really, I don't know what it is. I don't know why I just really like dealing with and sending out the ARCs cause they're special. Rekka:09:54   Yeah. They're like, these are the, the new baby announcements. These are the - Kaelyn:           09:59   Yeah it is, it is just the new little baby that has come into the, come into the world. It's like, wow, this really exists now. Rekka:10:05   It's really happening. Kaelyn:           10:06   Yeah. Rekka:10:07   Yeah. So that's as an as an author. Kaelyn:           10:09   Yeah. Rekka:10:10   That's the exciting part for me. It's like, oh my gosh, look, it really exists. As you're really going through with this, like, yeah, we're doing this, we're doing this. And my Gosh, oh my gosh, oh my gosh, and here's my cover and here's what it looks like printed. And there's just something so lovely about seeing the cover, not as a .jpeg. Kaelyn:           10:26   And holding it, and just being like, oh my God, like it's a book Rekka:10:29   It's a real thing. Kaelyn:           10:30   Like for real now, Rekka:10:31   Like I said, all the words in order and everything - Kaelyn:           10:32   And I wrote those words! Rekka:10:34   Yes and oh my gosh, now I have to decide who gets to read those words and oh my gosh, who's was just going to help me because I'm scared. Kaelyn:           10:41   So you know what actually we brought up a good thing is that, did you notice who gets the ARCs here? Rekka:10:47   Sure. Kaelyn:           10:47   It's not sure the author, right? It's the publisher. Rekka:10:50   I happened to be in the building where they arrived. Kaelyn:           10:53   Rekka just happened to be there because we were at this conference. Rekka:10:55   Mmmhmm. Kaelyn:           10:57   Um, but we get the ARCs. Rekka:11:00   Right. Kaelyn:           11:00   Not the author because we're the ones who decide who they go to. Rekka:11:06   Yeah. Kaelyn:           11:07   Now, I mean authors definitely, you know, like if you have someone that's like, Hey, talk to this person, and they said they'd be happy to send a review, absolutely we're going to send them a - Rekka:11:14   Right. Kaelyn:           11:15   - a copy of that. Um, but authors, you guys don't get to decide who the ARCs get sent to because the publishers are the ones with the relationships - Rekka:11:25   The familiarity with the process. Kaelyn:           11:26   Exactly. Yeah. And also, you know, the like I sent handwritten notes with a lot of our ARCs where it's like, hey, you know, you really liked this other thing we sent to you. Maybe you've enjoyed this. Rekka:11:36   Right. Kaelyn:           11:38   Again, authors, you guys don't have as much control over this process as you think you do. Rekka:11:43   Okay, but now having said that, what if somebody is self publishing and decides they want to send physical or even digital arts, how would they decide who should receive them? Kaelyn:           11:53   Well, there's a few ways to do that. And um, it is one of those kind of like trade things of how I get my list of physical addresses to Rekka:12:02   Right. Kaelyn:           12:02   send this to. And that is one of the biggest parts of this, you know, but there are people that do review blogs and different stuff that will just say like, Hey, if you want to send me a review copy, this is where you send it to. Rekka:12:14   Yup. Kaelyn:           12:14   Um, so finding that on your own is just a matter of digging. There's really no good way to do it. I'm sure there's like websites and resources and stuff, but you know, take everything with a grain of salt, Rekka:12:25   Right. Be careful about submitting your advanced copy to a site that you're not that familiar with as a self publisher. You might find yourself on a pirated site as a result of going through these. Instafreebie was a thing for a while that people were using for advanced review copies. And I think that backfired. It might've even, I think they've changed the way instareview works these days. Kaelyn:           12:47   I think so. I will say Netgalley is an excellent resource. Rekka:12:51   Netgalley is pricey, but it's supposedly going to get you the higher quality reviews that you're going to be hoping for. Um, Reedsy now has a book discovery, um, process for the same sort of thing, but you only get one review through that. Um, but it's supposedly a higher quality review and if it's a good review then they feature it. So in theory you're getting exposed to more. Um, but you know, look at the audiences of the people that you're sending it to. Look at the, the quality of their reviews, look at the types of things they tend to say. If you are looking to collect, um, quotes that you can put on your cover, you need them not to be reviews that don't get around to the point until the end of the paragraph and don't really put it in a short pithy phrase that you can lift. Kaelyn:           13:36   Yeah. Anything you pull for like a blurb is going to be a sentence. Rekka:13:40   A tweet length. Kaelyn:           13:41   Yeah, a tweet like as a good is a good marker for them. Aside from sending out the actual physical books. Um, we use Netgalley and a couple other sites. Um, and what that allows us to do is give access to the book to people that maybe aren't on our list - Rekka:13:57   But they're seeking. Kaelyn:           13:57   But they're seeking. Rekka:13:59   Yeah. Kaelyn:           14:00   And they're interested in reading this kind of stuff. So that's, that's a great tool too. But we do still send out the physical books. It's just something that's never going to go away. So that's, you know, that's who is getting, get the ARCs now. What are they going to do with them? Well, there's a very good chance they're going to sit in a stack of books that they will get to eventually. Rekka:14:18   Eventually. Maybe after release date. Kaelyn:           14:20   People that are doing these get, I mean dozens every month and even if you did nothing else but sit there and read them, I don't think you'd finish - Rekka:14:30   Right. Kaelyn:           14:31   - all of these. A lot of times having a personal relationship will help with that. Um, you know, publishers will kind of, you know, talk to someone beforehand or maybe someone through the author that they know to say like, oh, hey, would you be willing to, to give this a read and give us a review? We'd like to use you for a blurb. So I don't want to paint the picture of spamming people - Rekka:14:52   Right. Kaelyn:           14:52   With this in the hopes that one of them pick it up. But you do do some of that because you know, sometimes a book just catches someone's eye, but review copies are also sent up digitally and that one definitely can be more of a like, hey, everyone read this. Rekka:15:06   Yeah. Kaelyn:           15:06   So what are they going to do with that? Let's say they picked it up, they're going to read it. And depending on if they, you know, had talked to the publisher beforehand about like, Hey, would you do this, you know, this specific kind of review or you know, interview about it. Some people will just pick it up and write a review on it and say like, you know, I really liked this. This part was lacking. Those are going to be the honest reviews you get. Rekka:15:30   Yeah. Kaelyn:           15:30   And those are the ones that are a little scary. Rekka:15:31   Yes. Kaelyn:           15:32   Usually if it's going through the publisher and the person will have already kind of had an understanding of what the book is going to be and agree to do it so that they don't have to then be put in the awkward position of writing. I wasn't super into this. Rekka:15:45   Yeah. Sometimes you're going to get people that you don't have that specific agreement with ahead of time that you know, find it through Netgalley and they might - Kaelyn:           15:55   And that's a risk. Rekka:15:56   And that's a risk. Um, Netgalley does allow you to require to approve requests for the ARCs and you could take a look at their profile and say like, you only read erotica. I do not want you to read my space opera. Kaelyn:           16:08   Yeah. Rekka:16:08   You know, um, cause that's a risk that happened to me once with, um, a site that I was using to host my ebooks. I did not realize had added the ebooks to a public list and somebody who was very much into Christian books and Erotica. Kaelyn:           16:24   Oh, interesting. Rekka:16:25   Read the book and left me a review on Amazon that said, it's slow to start, but it gets there and I'm like, it doesn't get where you thought it was going, but all right. Kaelyn:           16:35   [laughs] Rekka:16:35   And it was a three star review and then I'm stuck with it. You know, that's just a funny anecdote aside, but it is, um, if you can, you know, vet the, the service that you're using to gather advanced reviewers, um, and then have one specifically that either makes you or your listing private so that you have, you are sending out the link and that's the only way to get it. Or you send it to specific email addresses and it has to be tied to those email addresses or um, something like Netgalley where you at least have to take a look at the person's profile and say, yeah, I don't really, you have no history of actually publishing reviews once you've read it, so I'm not interested in you. Kaelyn:           17:11   There are ways to control this and um, you know, there's ways you can make it so that people aren't just going to read a free book and there's was around it. And um, you know, there's, you have some degree of control over this. Um, now also though, exercising that degree of control can reduce the amount of reviews and exposure your book gets. Rekka:17:53   So it's a trade off. Kaelyn:           17:54   Yeah. Um, so that's kind of what's going to happen when the ARCs go out into the world. Rekka:18:03   So when you are collecting blurbs from industry professionals or industry readers or you are collecting reviews from other ARC readers, what's the goal? Like when you, when you launched the book, what are you hoping to have? Kaelyn:           18:17   By the end of it, what I'm hoping to have is a solid set of reviews, a solid set of blurbs. And people saying they liked the book. Rekka:18:26   Okay. Kaelyn:           18:26   There isn't a, you must have this many. It depends on the scale of the launch, you know, if it's like, you know, Chuck Wendigs "Wanderers" is coming out soon and like that's already got - Rekka:18:40   There's stuff everywhere for that. Kaelyn:           18:41   There's stuff everywhere for it, it's got dozens of reviews. And if you're working with like a more independent publisher like Parvus yes, we will absolutely target certain things and we will still come in good and strong, but it's not going to be, you know, the scale and scope that something from like Simon and Schuster - Rekka:18:57   Right. Kaelyn:           18:58   Is going to generate. Um, but even, you know, certain things from it depends on how much money they want to put into the marketing. Rekka:19:05   Right. Kaelyn:           19:05   And that's an uncomfortable thing to hear. And ARCs are part of the marketing, but they're not the whole of the market. Rekka:19:11   Right. Kaelyn:           19:12   They're actually a small fraction of it, in terms of marketing. Rekka:19:16   They're a level of social proof that, you know, this isn't an untested book. Someone has read it, enjoyed it. Don't be afraid to check it out. Kaelyn:           19:25   Yeah. So now you might be wondering, well, what's in my ARC? When do I know this book is quote unquote ready for ARCs? A lot of this has to do with publishing calendars. One working on a book takes a while. So right off the bat, that's probably bare minimum six to nine months, probably longer than that, depending on the editor's calendar. So then when the book's done, there's a lot of stuff to do with it afterwards. And all of that considered you need at least six months, maybe even eight or nine to start putting the book out there to generate interest in buzz and send out advanced copies. Right. Six months I think is pretty standard. So that's half a year right there. Right. And then you're figuring out everything in the lead up to that. So if you're going, well, if it's six months beforehand, what happens in those six months after. You finish the book? Rekka:20:24   Right [laughs] Kaelyn:           20:25   Yeah. Um, and I shouldn't say finish it as in finishing writing it, but this is when it's maybe some touches, some line that it's definitely copy, you know, a real true copy edit. You may get feedback from your reviewers that are like this thing, heres not working. Rekka:20:45   Yeah. I would blurb this except for this major thing. Kaelyn:           20:50   And then, hey, guess what? Rekka:20:52   You're going to take that thing out. Kaelyn:           20:53   You're going to go back and work on the book a little more. Rekka:20:54   Yeah. Kaelyn:           20:55   Um, because we're in a digital age, it's so much easier to fix these things and send them out again. You know? So like if a publisher is feeling a little iffy on a book, maybe they'll send it out a little earlier, get some early feedback. Rekka has firsthand experience in a pretty, not significant, but not small changes that were made after ARCs went out Rekka:21:18   They were not line edits, they, they were, uh, we got feedback on the ARCs which, um, caused us to go in and correct a couple of small points that were overcorrections based on earlier feedback. Kaelyn:           21:33   By the way, they were great, you know, great corrections. Your book absolutely is, well, I mean, it was already amazing, but Rekka:21:39   It's improved for having made these corrections - Kaelyn:           21:40   And getting that back is not, uh, this sucks. And sometimes it's like, hey, look, we got this feedback. Rekka:21:46   Yeah. And this feedback is something we want to act on because of the source of the feedback or the nature of the feedback or you know, this was not something we'd thought carefully about at the time when we were, you know, doing structural edits. But now that it's, you know, got a spotlight on it, we're realizing, yeah, taken, taken as it is in this moment. We don't want to publish it this way. Kaelyn:           22:09   Yeah, you know, I think a lot of people listening to this might think, Oh God, like so they can just go back and make me change all of these things after the book is done. Let me be very clear about something that is not a decision any publisher would make lightly. Rekka:22:20   No. Kaelyn:           22:21   Um, Rekka:22:21   But if in that moment you already know that that book should have been put out differently, you still have a chance to change it and in two years you're going to wish that you changed this. Kaelyn:           22:34   And don't think of it as a frustration. Think of it as an opportunity to get a little bit of a do over a little bit of you get to time travel a bit here. You get to go back and fix something. Rekka:22:46   Now, if that feedback came in on a review site, that review may be there forever. But um, that's, you know, eventually it will get buried more or something, you know. But um, it's, it's not like you can pretend it never happened, but it is a chance to show that like, yeah, I'm going to take that feedback and I'm going to do what I can to correct it versus, uh, nope, it's good, it's good, it's fine, you're wrong. And you know, shouting down the reviewer. Kaelyn:           23:16   You know, the other thing here is don't, don't think that your publisher is taking every review and going, oh my God, this thing they didn't like, we need to fix it. Rekka:23:25   I have, I have gone to Colin again, you know, this is my, I have a personal relationship with, with Parvus Press. I've gone to Colin and said, I saw that review that just posted. He's like, don't worry about it. Kaelyn:           23:34   Yeah. Rekka:23:34   That's wrong. Don't worry about it. It's an off the mark. Kaelyn:           23:36   It is and, I will say it can be very frustrating, especially like you know, especially for the writer but like as the editor and I know what people at home were probably screaming into their listening devices at this point is well Kaelyn. You always say if a lot of people are saying it, then it's something you need to take into account. Rekka:23:52   Mmmhmm. Kaelyn:           23:54   Here's the thing you need to understand about reviewers. I won't say they have an agenda because they don't, a lot of times they just enjoy doing these things, but there are definitely people that something maybe they wouldn't read review this book except something bothered them about it so they need to go online and set it right. Rekka:24:12   I mean this is the age of the Internet where we go online to complain about things. Kaelyn:           24:16   We also go online to galvanize things. Rekka:24:18   Yeah. Kaelyn:           24:18   We would go online to, you know like, and I really wish we'd have more of that in the world. Talk about things you love. Rekka:24:24   Oh my gosh right now that what you will hear people screaming about, it's still won't be out when we air this episode is Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir and Kaelyn is making a face because Kaelyn has not gotten to read this yet Kaelyn:           24:37   I have not gotten an advanced copy of that and I'm not happy. Rekka:24:40   As soon as mine comes back, I will, I will loan it to you. Um, you will have to let Ryan read it over your shoulder because I've also promised it to him. This book is amazing and it's just a - Kaelyn:           24:50   Ryan Kelley, by the way, is Rekka's editor- Rekka:24:53   I suppose we should introduce him. Kaelyn:           24:55   And she's not sure who you're more tied to here. Rekka:24:58   Well I see you more often. Kaelyn:           25:00   That's true. Rekka:25:00   I haven't met Ryan in person yet and Ryan and I talk when I've done something wrong. Um, Kaelyn:           25:07   [laughter] Rekka:25:07   But um, yeah, so like that's what I mean. Like the gal - , you will go on Twitter - Kaelyn:           25:11   Yes. Rekka:25:11   and you will just see people are screaming their heads off in love with this book for good reason. Kaelyn:           25:16   And I am, I love seeing that kind of stuff. I love when to use the example of Gidion the Ninth and generating buzz. For instance, the way I first heard about this book was our Rekka:25:27   Mutual friend. Kaelyn:           25:28   Mutual friend Alexandra Rowland. Rekka:25:29   Alex was showing our other mutual friend - Kaelyn:           25:33   Yes. Yes, that was it. Rekka:25:33   Jennifer Mace, Macy at the table. I already had read mine or it was halfway through mine or something at that point. And um, I was able to pick it up, show it to Kaelyn and say, you need to read this book at some point, open it up to a random page and find an amazing like line that was just like evidence of why this book was great. And the buzz at that table, there were four people sitting at that table at that point - Kaelyn:           25:58   All talking about this. Rekka:26:00   All talking about this one book two people who haven't read it yet, who now had to read it. And that's the power of, that's the magic review copy Kaelyn:           26:08   That's the magic of ARCs. You know, I don't think anyone actually does this. I'd be curious if people really go through and look for the differences. If you got the ARC and then you get the final copy, I'm sure for certain books that are super fans that will do that Rekka:26:22   Well, for Salvage, they're are going to be some obvious differences. Kaelyn:           26:25   Yes. Rekka:26:28   Um, Salvage - Kaelyn:           26:28   Let's talk about that. What the difference between, you know, how different can you expect an ARC to be from your final copy? Rekka:26:36   We mentioned earlier that an ARC may not be produced in the same print run style that the final would be, which might make it more expensive, but we'll also create differences in the paper and the, the trim and things like that. Kaelyn:           26:52   We'll put a picture of this up on Twitter and Instagram. But, um, we, we were going out to the Nebulas and we were like, you know what, we've got to get Salvage out because Rekka:27:02   I'll be there. Kaelyn:           27:04   Rekka, will be there. But also we're really excited about this and we're like, it would be a wasted opportunity to not just have a bag with, you know, a few of these that we can hand out. Right. Rekka:27:12   And when I say that I'll be there. I didn't mean because they need to give me an ARC to make me feel happy and pretty. Kaelyn:           27:18   No, it's - Rekka:27:18   It's because I will be there making personal connections with people and here's a great chance to hand them the ARC. Kaelyn:           27:25   Yeah. Rekka:27:26   If immediately following or whatever. Kaelyn:           27:28   Yeah. Rekka:27:28   That conversation. Kaelyn:           27:29   Yeah. And if the ARCs handed to you by the author, it's, and it's an extra little special, you know, so we were like, okay, we're going to do this. And we used a different printer than we normally do just because of where we could fit into the printer's schedule. But we did use a local printer so that they were just right there and they use very, very nice paper. Rekka:27:49   It's very nice. Kaelyn:           27:49   It's really nice paper. It made the book about half an inch thicker. Rekka:27:55   Over 576 pages as it turns out, 0.0006 inches of difference in paper thickness adds up to .4 inches. Kaelyn:           28:05   Yeah. Rekka:28:05   In spine width, so we'll put a picture up of the, the Nebula version of the ARCs next to Flotsam and next to the final version of the ARCs that were printed later. Kaelyn:           28:15   Yeah. So, and that is something you also see with ARCs is a lot of times the book looks at, the only way I can describe it is as awkward [laughter] and just you pick it up and you're kind of like, I know this isn't quite right. Yeah. Um, but yeah, this, this was - Rekka:28:32   There's some growing pains and - Kaelyn:           28:33   Yeah this is, uh quite a quite a size. So it's, um, it's cool to have hold to have those. Rekka:28:37   It's a massive chunky book. Kaelyn:           28:40   Yeah. So, but anyway, um, there's going to be differences in Salvage from what the ARC is to a final print run. Rekka:28:51   And some of that is just going to be simple, like the cover is going to look slightly different because the ARC binding has - Kaelyn:           28:59   Was so thick. Rekka:29:00   Well pull that. Well, yeah. Okay. So the spine is going to be very different. Therefore the weight of the book is going to be different. But also there's a red band across the outside of the cover that says on it, um, uncorrected advanced review, um, and the dates that it will be published there. Um, therefore all the, the titling stuff has moved down and adjusted. Um, the back cover copy is not the final back cover copy. This is more like, you know, why you should open this ARC versus the ARC that came the same day to your PO Box. Um, and the artwork on the inside I have supplied because I draw the chapter art for my own books. Um, this is not expected of all authors by the way. Kaelyn:           29:40   That's not even usually tolerated and everything. Rekka:29:43   Right. So I, I do have a professional background in design. Kaelyn:           29:46   So anyway .... Rekka:29:48   So anyway, so Salvage, uh, currently the ARCs have the same chapter art from Flotsam because the chapters themselves have different POV characters. And just on the timeline, I don't think there was a chance to really sit down with the, um, with the layout person who was not me in this case and say like, okay, it's chapters one, seven, 11, 12 and 13. This art, this art, this art. Kaelyn:           30:14   Yeah. Rekka:30:14   So that was just a layer of complexity that wasn't going to happen on the timeline that we had. Um, so there will be different artwork on the inside. I didn't look whether Colin did his typical copyright page malarkey. Kaelyn:           30:30   Do you want to go grab the book and find out? Rekka:30:32   Yeah, I'll find out. Kaelyn:           30:33   I'll tell the story, our publisher, Colin Coyle, who I promise we will have on the show at some point, um, has a fun little thing he likes to do that there is an Easter egg in every Parvus book. Um, they're not always on the, uh, Rekka:30:49   I've seen this in something else. So this is not uh specific to Salvage. He must've lifted it from something else. Kaelyn:           30:54   Oh okay, yeah. Um, we have a little running joke at Parvus that there's an Easter egg in every book. Rekka:31:01   On the copyright page. Kaelyn:           31:02   Not always on the copyright page. Rekka:31:04   Oh dear. Kaelyn:           31:05   A lot of times, not always, Rekka:31:07   Alright, alright. Kaelyn:           31:07   But usually you can find at least one on the copyright page. So, you know, the whole point is that at the end when the final version of Salvage comes out, it's going to be different. It's not going to be majorly different. Rekka:31:19   But if you were selling this on Ebay, please don't, um, you would be able to point to like, yes, this is the version you're looking for because, um, evidenced by these various differences. Kaelyn:           31:31   Yup. So, um, that's, you know, how do you know when your book's ready for an ARC? We were kind of talking about this a little bit with the calendar. Really it kind of falls into your book is scheduled to be released this date. That means we have to start sending out ARCs by this time. Rekka:31:48   And there are also, um, publications that you might send it to in the hopes of like a starred review. Kaelyn:           31:53   Yeah. Rekka:31:53   And they have a very, they're very tight grace period of when they need to receive it by. So I say very long grace period. That's the opposite of what I mean, they have a very short window of opportunity. If you don't have it in by this date, it's not going to even be looked at. Kaelyn:           32:10   They're not going to look at it. So, um, when is your ARC done? Hopefully at least six months beforehand. Even if it's not done. But that's the thing. Your ARC is not your finished book. Rekka:32:22   Right. Kaelyn:           32:22   So when is your book done? That's completely separate issue from when your ARCs are ready to go out. Rekka:32:27   That can be 6:00 PM on the day that it needs to be uploaded to Amazon. Kaelyn:           32:30   If you're self publishing. Rekka:32:31   Self publishing, yeah. Kaelyn:           32:33   But if you're, you know, being, if you're going through a traditional publishing house and if you're distributed they don't need as much run time. Rekka:32:39   But like - Kaelyn:           32:40   They need some cause they have to order a print the books. Rekka:32:42   Yes. Kaelyn:           32:43   Um, and you know, we are living in a day and age where that happens much faster now. Rekka:32:48   But it still physically takes time. Like there's, there's a certain amount of time that it takes for the ink to dry on the page before they can bind it. There's a certain amount of time that it takes for the trimmer to cut through the, the massive, you know, oversized book and cut it down to its final trim size. Like these things just, you know - Kaelyn:           33:06   They just take time. Rekka:33:07   It takes Kaelyn a certain number of seconds to open an email and that limits how many submissions she can go through it. Kaelyn:           33:14   I can go through, yup. Rekka:33:14   Like it is just a physical limitation of the, you know, construct of time. Kaelyn:           33:20   Yup. The construct of time. It is a construct. Rekka:33:23   It's totally a construct because where does it go? Kaelyn:           33:25   Erm, eh yes. Rekka:33:27   So speaking of where does time go? We are out of time for this episode, but I - Kaelyn:           33:31   Already? Rekka:33:32   Yeah. Kaelyn:           33:32   I even got to get back to my roots and give a little history lesson in the beginning. Rekka:33:35   Yeah. Are you happy? Do you feel fulfilled? Kaelyn:           33:37   Um, I don't have any undergraduates, uh, looking at me, very bored. So - Rekka:33:42   So you feel like you did it wrong? Both:   33:45   [laughter] Kaelyn:           33:45   I feel a little better than I normally did. As always. I hope this was, uh, entertaining and educational. Rekka:33:52   Yeah. And if you have any questions that we didn't answer about ARCs, uh, you can shoot us a question at WMBcast on Instagram or Twitter. You can follow us and, or support us at patreon.com/wmbcast or email us at feedback@wmbcast.com. But, um, yeah, so ARCs are extremely cool. I hope everyone gets to look at an ARC someday - Kaelyn:           34:13   Yeah, and check out Netgalley. It's free to sign up for and you get to read and find a lot of really cool stuff on there. Rekka:34:18   Yes. Kaelyn:           34:19   Um, so you know, if you're looking, if you're interested in being involved in that kind of thing, Netgalley is a great place to start. And then you know, you can go on Goodreads, you can go on Amazon and say like, I got an advanced copy of this - Rekka:34:30   And maybe in a future episode we'll talk about like how to structure a review that is going to be useful for a lot. Kaelyn:           34:36   I've got thoughts. Rekka:34:37   Yeah, we've got thoughts I've got, there are definitely thoughts. So maybe that's a future episode or we're thrown on Patrion or something like that if it doesn't end up a full length episode. But I feel like we could rant about that 45 minutes. Kaelyn:           34:46   I'm not sure anyone's going to want to listen to it. Rekka:34:48   Yeah, you know, you know, emoting and commiseration are things that - Kaelyn:           34:52   We'll do a dial in, call us and tell us your, you know, so, um, yes. Rekka:34:57   So the other thing is if you are self publishing and you don't know how you're going to get an ARCs, you can get ARCs through kindle direct publishing. You can also upload your file to lulu.com or other, um, small - Kaelyn:           35:10   Print on demand. Rekka:35:11   Print on demand services and you can see it in person first. And honestly, I really feel like you should before you release it into the world because there's things that you just might not consider when you've only looked at it in a digital space. So that's another good reason to look at an ARC even though that's not really the traditional function of them. They're not the proofs, um, the cover proofs or anything like that. We're talking about, um, use in promoting your book, but order one before you order 20 is all I'm saying, if you haven't seen it in print before. Kaelyn:           35:40   Yeah. So, you know, thanks so much for listening. Everyone and - Rekka:35:42   Send us your questions. If you could rate and review us on iTunes, that would be great. And if you have a friend who is interested in writing or publishing, send them this episode, share it. You can help guide the conversation and sort of be part of it. So, uh, we'll look forward to hearing your comments and your ratings and reviews, and we'll start reading reviews in a future episode. We do have a couple, we just haven't fit that into the episode yet. Kaelyn:           36:03   Yes. Alright. Thanks so much for listening everyone, and we'll see you next time. Rekka:36:07   Take care everyone.  

Hi everyone, and thank you for tuning in to another episode of the We Make Books Podcast - A podcast about writing, publishing, and everything in between! We Make Books is hosted by Rekka Jay and Kaelyn Considine; Rekka is a published author and Kaelyn is an editor and together they are going to take you through what goes into getting a book out of your head, on to paper, in to the hands of a publisher, and finally on to book store shelves. We’re back to our usual format this week and we’re talking about that question that’s lurked in the back of every writer’s mind: Is this thing I’ve written any good? Rekka and Kaelyn spend this episode discussing the various things that can derail your book, who will tell you about it, and what to do next. We Make Books is a podcast for writer and publishers, by writers and publishers and we want to hear from our listeners! Hit us up on our social media, linked below, and send us your questions, comments, concerns, and any lingering thoughts or feelings about Endgame that you just can’t get out of your head. We hope you enjoy We Make Books!   === Transcript ===       Kaelyn: (00:00) Welcome back to another episode of the we make books podcast. I'm Kaelyn Considine   Rekka: (00:04) And I'm Rekka Jay   Kaelyn: (00:05) And we have um, I think a really good episode.   Rekka: (00:08) It's a little telling about the, the fragile mental state of an author   Kaelyn: (00:12) Yeah   Rekka: (00:12) Because this one comes to us from a listener. The question was posed as "Will my editor tell me my book is shit"? Which you laugh. But I mean   Kaelyn: (00:21) [laughter] I laughed a lot when I saw that.   Rekka: (00:21) But it is the question, isn't it?   Kaelyn: (00:26) Yes, it is.   Rekka: (00:26) Like everyone wants to know is someone going to tell me or are they just going to let me put this out in the world as is? But the other half of this, the implied half of this question I think is, is my book shit?   Kaelyn: (00:35) We talk about both of those. Um, we do talk a lot about, you know, getting feedback from your editors, but we also do delve into like the hey, maybe don't with this book.   Rekka: (00:46) Yeah, maybe you could just not.   Kaelyn: (00:48) Yeah. So it is an uncomfortable conversation that I think a lot of people are curious about because writers I know from much experience in this area have this question constantly, I won't even say lurking in the back of their mind   Rekka: (01:01) It is forefront. It is,   Kaelyn: (01:02) It is just the playing on loop.   Rekka: (01:05) Yeah. Nevermind rose colored lenses. These, this is, you know, the metaphorical lens by which we, we look at other work that we don't see the process to get it to publication.   Kaelyn: (01:16) Yup.   Rekka: (01:16) And then we look at our work and you know, what's the phrase that you're comparing your rehearsal to other people's performance   Kaelyn: (01:22) Perfomanaces?   Rekka: (01:22) Performances.   Kaelyn: (01:23) And I'm going to qualify here real quick. This is not, we're not talking about imposter syndrome.   Rekka: (01:27) Right.   Kaelyn: (01:28) This is not, I wrote something really good and I think it's bad. This is books that genuinely have problems.   Rekka: (01:34) Right. So, um, but a lot of authors do go into the process of putting it towards publication, not knowing whether their book has problems   Kaelyn: (01:43) Yes.   Rekka: (01:43) Or how they would know. So involving an editor in some way in your book publishing process is going to help you sort of filter out those questions. But then there's the question of are they just going to take my money or are they gonna, are they gonna give me the honest feedback that it's shit. So we get into that at all these different stages in all these different types of editors. Um, who is going to tell you it should and when.   Kaelyn: (02:14) Okay, this one comes from a listener and, uh, the submitted question was, didn't say you wanted it anonymous, but just because of the reason -   Rekka: (02:33) Kind of the nature of the question.   Kaelyn: (02:34) Yeah.   Rekka: (02:34) We're going to, we're going to leave the question as anonymous. Will my editor tell me my novel is shit?   Kaelyn: (02:40) Um, maybe,   Rekka: (02:43) So we have to sort of frame this a little   Kaelyn: (02:45) Yeah, let's give a little context here   Rekka: (02:47) Because, um, I happened to know that this author who is posing this question is self published.   Kaelyn: (02:53) Okay.   Rekka: (02:54) So to me that means the question of who is the editor is potentially a freelance editor.   Kaelyn: (03:02) Yes.   Rekka: (03:04) Um, there's also of course we're going to get into, um, the other relationships with editors. You might have as in um, an editor that your publisher has assigned to you or assigned you to. It depends how I'm feeling that day. Whether you feel assigned or gifted.   Kaelyn: (03:20) [laughter] Gifted, always gifted,   Rekka: (03:22) Always gifted.   Kaelyn: (03:23) Your editor is always a gift, Rekka.   Rekka: (03:25) Editors, a precious, precious gift.   Kaelyn: (03:26) Precious gift. Um, that cause an existential crisis   Rekka: (03:30) [laughter] All good editors should.   Kaelyn: (03:30) All good gifts should.   Rekka: (03:35) So, um, so those are, you know, two different tracks by which you might find yourself with an editor. And then there are different levels of editing. And so we're going to try and get through all the different ways that we could see this question being interpreted.   Kaelyn: (03:51) Where, uh, the different points you may hit someone telling you, hey, so here's the thing.   Rekka: (03:56) So I read your book   Kaelyn: (03:57) And um,   Rekka: (03:59) It's shit. [laughter]   Kaelyn: (04:01) No one should ever say, let's, let's get that out of the way, right here. If someone is telling you, especially someone in any sort of a professional capacity, I read this in its shit. Maybe don't talk to that person about your book anymore.   Rekka: (04:15) Maybe.   Kaelyn: (04:16) Maybe.   Rekka: (04:16) Unless you ask them.   Kaelyn: (04:18) Well yes.   Rekka: (04:20) They might repeat the phrasing back to you, if that's the phrasing you used.   Kaelyn: (04:23) Yes. yes.   Rekka: (04:24) Hopefully they're just don't have a flat out. Yeah, no, it's shit. Please stop writing.   Kaelyn: (04:29) Yes.   Rekka: (04:30) I'm going to take your pens away now. And I think that's partially what we're afraid of. If it reaches publication and people don't like it.   Kaelyn: (04:36) [laughter] Give me your pens, that's it. You're done.   Rekka: (04:37) Turn in your keyboard.   Kaelyn: (04:37) Turn in your keyboard and then they break it over your knee in front of you.   Rekka: (04:41) That's an expensive keyboard.   Kaelyn: (04:43) I only had to do that once, but my knee was bruised for a week afterwards.   Rekka: (04:47) Um, you know, they don't look like they're going to be that resilient, but the keyboards are tough.   Kaelyn: (04:51) Yeah, I guess the author like cried and stuff a lot too. But I was mostly just worried about my knee.   Rekka: (04:54) Yeah.   Kaelyn: (04:55) Bruises.   Rekka: (04:55) Yeah. Um, so regarding a freelance editor.   Kaelyn: (05:00) Yes.   Rekka: (05:01) If you have hired that freelance editor as a developmental editor, then it is under that expectation, which of course you should always clarify in your, in your starting conversations -   Kaelyn: (05:14) Yes   Rekka: (05:14) - in the contract that you definitely signed with them. When you get started.   Kaelyn: (05:18) You have always signed a contract. You have always talked about expectations   Rekka: (05:23) Yup   Kaelyn: (05:23) It's going to be a running theme every time you hear us talking about anything.   Rekka: (05:25) Yes. But let's, let's just say it's assumed, um, that you want that editor to give you feedback about the structure, about how well the, the novel or we're assuming you're going with a fiction novel. Um, how well it's working overall and you know, if it's, well, how would you Kaelyn as a, as somebody who reads manuscripts and works with authors to analyze them ...   Kaelyn: (05:56) In this alternate universe where I'm serving as a freelance editor and someone's hired me.   Rekka: (06:01) Well I mean, it's freelance or whatever, you know, you're giving honest feedback about a manuscript and what are the qualifications, what are the criteria by which you would say like, this is really not working. Like what are some of the pitfalls that stopped the novel?   Kaelyn: (06:16) Yeah, that's a good thing to, to get out of the way. Uh, right off the bat. Um, right off the bat, things that would make me say this is just not going to work immediately is if the writing's bad.   Rekka: (06:31) Okay.   Kaelyn: (06:31) If your, if your writing is bad, that you can't fix that in post so to speak.   Rekka: (06:39) Right.   Kaelyn: (06:39) Um, I   Rekka: (06:40) And my writiing is bad, you're referring to like the style of the prose, the voice.   Kaelyn: (06:45) Yes. If, if the writing is just not good, that's not, I won't even say that's not an easy fix. That's a hard fix. That is, you know, you've got to take some time and -   Rekka: (06:56) Find a coach or something.   Kaelyn: (06:57) Take some classes and hey look, you know, I think there's some shame in that and there shouldn't be because no one is born a good writer and there's nothing wrong with, you know, even just, you know, going online and reading some articles, watch some youtube videos, you know, there's people out there that'll, you know, broadly help you give you ideas to improve your writing. But you know, taking writing classes is not a bad idea. But the thing is that if I get a book and the story is outstanding, but the writing's bad, I don't, I can't teach you to write better. I can't teach you how to construct a sentence and you know what punctuation is used for and how grammar works. Um, that's not, that's not my job and I don't have time for it to be frank.   Rekka: (07:40) How bad does punctuation have to be before you send the person   Kaelyn: (07:44) I'm joking about the punctuation, um -   Rekka: (07:47) Just to be clear comments are voice   Kaelyn: (07:49) Commas, [laughter] I'm getting you a mug.   Rekka: (07:53) [laughter]   Kaelyn: (07:53) All of all of you authors, all the, all the Parvus authors are getting a mug that says "Commas are not voice". Some of you are getting mugs that say dashes are not commas.   Rekka: (08:04) [laughter]   Kaelyn: (08:08) But, um, when I say the, the punctuation, I mean like the punctuations gotta be agregious as in like periods and things being used incorrectly. Um, so, but if the writing's bad, that is a major red flag to me because I can't fix that. Um -   Rekka: (08:27) Or you could potentially hand walk somebody through it. But if they're at the point where they don't even understand that it's not good.   Kaelyn: (08:34) I'm not going to, because I, this sounds harsh. I don't have time.   Rekka: (08:41) Right.   Kaelyn: (08:41) And also sounds harsh. It's not my job. That's, um, that's something you should already have a firm grasp on by the time you get to me and a developmental freelance editor is probably going to tell you the same thing because -   Rekka: (08:54) They're going to start to walk through that manuscript and they're just going to say, I have to make notes 10, 20 times per sentence. This is not -   Kaelyn: (09:00) They're um, you know, unless they just go back to you and say, hey look, here's my notes on the story. Also, you need to work on writing.   Rekka: (09:09) Also, you're going to have to pay me more to keep working on this.   Kaelyn: (09:12) Yeah   Rekka: (09:12) Like if you are signing a contract with them, they probably see a sample of your writing so that they can build it properly.   Kaelyn: (09:18) Oh. I would hope so. Yeah.   Rekka: (09:19) So, um, you know, note to editors out there, if you're getting into freelance editing, make sure you see a sample before you give them a quote -   Kaelyn: (09:25) Before you sign up for something, because -   Rekka: (09:25) Because you don't know what you were getting into if you haven't seen it yet.   Kaelyn: (09:29) Yeah. So that's, that's the first major thing is how the, how good is the writing? Um, other things that are going to kind of flag me if you will, are um, well things in there that are offensive just right off the bat. If there's stuff in there that is like offensive, I'm going to go like, okay, well can't fix this.   Rekka: (09:53) Yup.   Kaelyn: (09:53) That's not something I want to get myself involved in. Um, and I think, you know, people listening to this are going to go, oh, well I don't like, you know, what could, you know what could be offensive? You'd be amazed,   Rekka: (10:07) [laughter]   Kaelyn: (10:07) Like you laugh, but like I get some stuff that it's just like, what, what? Um, and again, if you're a freelance editor, get a sample because you don't, you don't know what's coming your way and you don't know who you're dealing with.   Rekka: (10:21) Mmm hmm.   Kaelyn: (10:21) And um, you know, awful people also have computers and word processors -   Rekka: (10:26) And ideas.   Kaelyn: (10:26) And ideas. Yes. Um, those I think are probably right off the bat. the two main things, and I'm approaching this also kind of as an acquisitions editor.   Rekka: (10:39) Mmm hmm.   Kaelyn: (10:39) Um, when you start to get the next layer down is I call it like the Silly Test. Is this a little silly?   Rekka: (10:52) Mmm hmm.   Kaelyn: (10:52) Is there kind of like stuff going on here that is confusing and I'm having trouble following. And the premise of this is just not engaging or compelling. It's just a little bit silly. Um -   Rekka: (11:06) Tthat one is sort of, I feel like is a little bit -   Kaelyn: (11:08) It's subjective.   Rekka: (11:09) It's very subjective. And it also might have a lot to do with the style in which it's written.   Kaelyn: (11:13) Yes, definitely in the intended audience   Rekka: (11:15) Yeah.   Kaelyn: (11:15) Is another is another big facet of that. Um, but does this, uh, can it follow the story? Is is another next level like, you know, once I finished the first chapter, do I have kind of an idea of what's going on or am I supposed to have an idea what's going on -   Rekka: (11:34) Right.   Kaelyn: (11:34) - and I don't. Um, and that that kind of carries over more into the, you know, what we're going to get into with, um, feedback.   Rekka: (11:43) Mmm hmm.   Kaelyn: (11:45) So I would say those three things, two things right off the bat writing, is it offensive or upsetting in some capacity? And then one layer below that is, is this making sense off the bat?   Rekka: (11:58) That's as an acquiring editor, um, and potentially, you know, you're trying to think in the capacity of like someone has brought this to me and I agreed to help them with it. Um, so when you have this general idea of whether it's working or not, how do you bring that feedback back to the author?   Kaelyn: (12:19) Well, the feedback you're going to get from acquiring editor of is I give this book is not right for us. I don't like this book is a rejection letter and that there's a very good chance that'll be your only interaction there. Um, and you know, you can go back to listen to our previous episodes and all. I always throw this quick qualification in - a rejection letter does not mean your book was bad,   Rekka: (12:41) Right?   Kaelyn: (12:42) Sometimes it just means it didn't work.   Rekka: (12:45) Or you sent it to the wrong publisher.   Kaelyn: (12:46) You sent it to the wrong publisher or it just was not right for that publisher at that time. I've definitely sent letters out that, you know, we're like, hey, this is not a bad book. It's just know what we need.   Rekka: (12:55) Right. Sometimes you do send a rejection because the book needs more work than -   Kaelyn: (12:59) Well ...   Rekka: (12:59) - or that person's writing practice itself needs more work.   Kaelyn: (13:04) Yeah, exactly. And I would say right off the bat about from, from the acquisition side, a little less than half of the rejection letters I send out right off the bat are writing related -   Rekka: (13:18) Mmm hmm.   Kaelyn: (13:18) - they're, stylistic there. Nope. Can't work with this. Um, so that's a good good, you know, little note is work on your writing.   Rekka: (13:28) You know, there's always ways to be improving when.   Kaelyn: (13:30) Just keep writing.   Rekka: (13:30) Keep writing. Keep reading.   Kaelyn: (13:33) That is the best way I think to get better at writing is to read a lot.   Rekka: (13:39) Mmm hmm.   Kaelyn: (13:39) If you're wondering, you know, an acquisitions editor is probably not going to send you a lot of notes if it's just like a standard rejection -   Rekka: (13:47) Right.   Kaelyn: (13:47) Because we get hundreds of them. And again, it's, you know, I'm sorry to say we don't have time.   Rekka: (13:53) Right.   Kaelyn: (13:53) Um, I don't have time to send out three, 400 personalized emails with lots of notes and suggestions. Um, I won't say I wish I did -   Rekka: (14:02) [laughter]   Kaelyn: (14:04) - because I just, you know, it's not not what I do, but, um, sometimes you will get, you know, like specific notes back from acquiring editors.   Rekka: (14:15) Um, how do you, when you do send specific notes back, how do you handle the, the topic of, of not breaking their hearts.   Kaelyn: (14:26) Okay.   Rekka: (14:26) Too hard.   Kaelyn: (14:28) So me personally, a lot of times if you're getting notes back from me, and I think this goes for a lot of, a lot of people, you know, both acquiring editors and otherwise and it's like, listen, this book isn't right for us right now. Here's the thing, I liked it -   Rekka: (14:43) Mmm hmm.   Kaelyn: (14:43) - but here are the reasons that this wasn't going to work for us. Um, I'll be blunt. They can be hard to - I'm sure as the author it can be hard to read because there might be things in there that we're saying, look, this, this part right here, this is not good. Um, and that might be something that's near and dear to your heart. That may be one of your darlings.   Rekka: (15:08) Um, are you saying like the book has no theme and the author goes, but I worked so yeah, hard on my themes.   Kaelyn: (15:12) Yeah. Sometimes it is miscommunication in and it is miscommunication in the author's part where they think they are really getting something across and it's just not coming through. And that by the way is where maybe a freelance developmental editor can be very helpful.   Rekka: (15:31) Yeah.   Kaelyn: (15:32) Um, but when I try, when I write these, I'm not, you know, no one is going to send you an email that's like, and this part sucked. What were you thinking? And this is shit, this is horrible. Like, you know, it', it's going to be very clinical. I try to keep it professional, straightforward. Right. And one of the things is that, you know, I try to bring up the parts that I did really like because it's like, hey, you know, maybe you can use that to strengthen this part. If someone is sending you things that are angry sounding or unprofessional, that person is not professional. Um especially if they're working at a publishing house, they should not like, so if you get something back like that, you didn't want to talk to that person anyway.   Rekka: (16:15) Right.   Kaelyn: (16:16) Um, that's -   Rekka: (16:18) Of course. What do you do if you are at a publishing house and that is your assigned editor?   Kaelyn: (16:22) Well we can, we can get to that.   Rekka: (16:25) We do.   Kaelyn: (16:25) You know, we can get to that later. Um, yeah,   Rekka: (16:29) That's, yeah, so but let's assume that um, you know, I think we've covered in a sense how how you can expect to get a response from a freelance editor in, in the sense that they're going to come back and they're going to, if this was part of their job, like if you hired a freelance editor for story structure, they're going to come back and tell you where things are working, where they aren't working, what it might need to get pulled through.   Kaelyn: (16:57) Unless -   Rekka: (16:58) Overall it's just really like, it's only 5% of the way.   Kaelyn: (17:02) At what point do we hit critical mass -   Rekka: (17:03) Right   Kaelyn: (17:03) - and say this is not workable.   Rekka: (17:05) That's going to be, I think subjective on the part of the editor of -   Kaelyn: (17:09) Yeah.   Rekka: (17:10) - based on what effort they've promised you based on their, um, schedule based on your contract and based on the conversations you've had, these are all going to be things where the editor is going to have to make a judgment call of like, look, I, I this, I'm going to return your deposit or whatever. This is just not going to happen.   Kaelyn: (17:31) Yeah. I won't speak for freelance editors and how they operate because with that sort of thing, because everyone's a little different. And I mean they did, you know, they did do work. They did provide your notes and feedback. So, you know, it's, that's just -   Rekka: (17:43) In theory the deposit is nonrefundable and they've put time into it to even to get to this point. Um, they may feel better giving you a refund depending on how quickly they, what the deposit was and also how quickly they determined that they could not work with you. If you've hired an editor freelance to help you with coaching or story development, chances are they're going to be prepared to bring you feedback that tells you what's working and what's not. And they're not going to say it's shit, but they are going to emphasize that you really need to work on say your writing style or your ability to put words together into a sentence.   Kaelyn: (18:19) So here's, here's what I would suggest, and this was another thing we were talking about a little earlier is at what point do you get Beta readers involved in this? And I would say that if you're looking to hire someone and pay them to do this, being involved in a writing community and getting people to read at least some of this beforehand before you do this -   Rekka: (18:42) Could probably save you a lot of money.   Kaelyn: (18:43) Save you a lot of money, time and heartache because especially people you know that you're friendly with and you know, of course they'll have their own biases because they know you and they're friendly with you, but -   Rekka: (18:53) Right.   Kaelyn: (18:53) Hopefully, you know, I think, I mean I'm not involved in any but my interactions from writting communities, I think you guys are all pretty straight forward with each other.   Rekka: (19:02) I mean it depends. I think on the, like you said, the relationships that you have with the people, if they feel that you are committed to the work, they're going to give you better feedback than if you know, you seem like you're more casual and not really ever going to do anything with it.   Kaelyn: (19:22) Yeah, that's true.   Rekka: (19:23) Um, because if you are, if you are new to writing but you were very enthusiastic, then hopefully you will write so much that you will eventually improve and, and they don't really need to give you the feedback of like, you got to keep working. If they're talking about submitting this for, you know, representation or to a publisher during, uh, you know, open submission or something, then you might need to take them aside and say, Hey, look, you know, I, it's not that you can't submit these things, but I think you're going to find difficulty getting tractions and you need -   Kaelyn: (19:56) It's rough. We need a little more, a little more work on this.   Rekka: (19:59) So the question with, um, Beta readers is how much effort should you expect from your friends for free? I mean, you know, like obviously you can take your Beta readers out to dinner and it's not a direct transaction, but, um, if you are tasking them with reading your 700,000 word, super epic,   Kaelyn: (20:18) Don't write it, don't talk about it. You know what, I'm just going to stop you right there. Don't write that. Just don't.   Rekka: (20:23) But 700,000 words is an accomplishment.   Kaelyn: (20:25) I've gotten one of those -   Rekka: (20:27) And you read the whole thing.   Kaelyn: (20:29) I got a 700 and something word manuscript once through submissions, the file was so big, I thought it was a pdf. It was a word document. Um, and it was book one.   Rekka: (20:46) Well the good nesw is by this person writing this much, they are going to improve by book three.   Kaelyn: (20:51) Here's the thing, they weren't a bad writer.   Rekka: (20:52) Okay, that's good.   Kaelyn: (20:54) That's 700,000 words is not going to get them ... [laughter]   Rekka: (20:57) The enthusiasm, um, that gets you through 700,000 words is going to improve your writing over time. Um, but it may not get you a book deal very quickly. Um, you are, you have some things to learn about expectations and how much paper costs such -   Kaelyn: (21:12) [laughter]   Rekka: (21:12) and such things   Kaelyn: (21:12) I can't even, I can't even imagine.   Rekka: (21:14) So, um, so your Beta readers will hopefully be able to give you feedback and hopefully they won't, um, they won't feel that they need to read the whole book if they can identify these problems right away. But you can also say if you're worried about, you know, if you don't even know whether your book's any good, tell your beta readers -   Kaelyn: (21:35) By the way, the fact that you can take a step back and go is this good, is a level of self awareness that it takes people a long time to actualize.   Rekka: (21:45) Cause there are some people who have no idea that there's any chance that book might not be any good at and these people might need a reality check.   Kaelyn: (21:51) Yeah. There's, I mean this is, this is a thing that happens to writers a lot, which is completely understandable is you guys live in your head with your characters in your book, and your world, and your story for so long that everything makes perfect sense to you. Getting it onto the page and uh conveying it cleanly to other people maybe.   Rekka: (22:10) Might be a skill to work on.   Kaelyn: (22:12) That might be something that -   Rekka: (22:14) So your Beta readers have given you feedback and you feel like you are ready to take it to your freelance editor. Your freelance editor has given you some feedback. But I wanted to move on to just mention, um, that if you hired a freelance editor for line edits or copy edits -   Kaelyn: (22:32) Mmm hmm   Rekka: (22:32) - it's, you should not expect necessarily that they are going to tell you that the book's no good -   Kaelyn: (22:38) Yeah   Rekka: (22:38) - cause that's not what you've hired them for at this point by saying I want line edits are saying I want copy edits, you are saying this book is, is on the way out to production.   Kaelyn: (22:47) It's done. Yeah.   Rekka: (22:47) So their job is not necessarily that they may have an opinion on whether they think it's good but they may not feel that it's what you've hired them to provide to you. So make it clear that like at any point, if, and again this is subjective, so they may not feel like you may have hired a freelance editor who normally reads romance, but their quality is, is fine for, you know, line edits or copy edits on any type of book.   Kaelyn: (23:12) Yeah.   Rekka: (23:12) So they may not even like your genre. So, um, at this point, again, you may want to be thinking in terms of if you haven't run it past anyone who has the opportunity to tell you, yes, this book is working or not. Um, maybe back away from hiring a copy editor or a line editor, proofreader, because it's, it's still, um, potentially something that needs more work than you've given it so far.   Kaelyn: (23:40) Yes. I this, and this goes back to, you know, expectations up front, be very clear. You know, if you're hiring someone for a copy or line edit, that's what they're gonna do. Um, you know, depending on the person, depending on how much they liked or maybe disliked your book, maybe they'll give you a couple of like, oh, Hey, I noticed this little thing. But, um, we're kind of dancing around the how, how do I know if this is good or not and who's going to tell me?   Rekka: (24:10) Right.   Kaelyn: (24:10) How do, and the part that we're kind of dancing around is the, you should not try to publish this story. Now I think there's two ways to break this up. One is the story and one is the way you're telling the stories. But I'll start with the story first because that's the easier one. So this is subjective obviously, um, people like all different kinds of things. Um, some people will love a book, other people will hate it. If somebody goes back to you and says, I hated this book. I hated this story. Don't immediately just say, okay, well they're the end all be all on this.   Rekka: (24:53) I will start over.   Kaelyn: (24:54) I will start over. Um, if multiple people are coming back to you, especially people that read and like the same kind of things that you do or the same thing that you're writing, then it's time to start thinking about that. Now I'm going to also qualify this, that if that's coming back from your developmental editor, that carries more weight than if it's coming back from your friends.   Rekka: (25:14) Right.   Kaelyn: (25:15) Because your developmental editor, to be blunt, they just know more about this stuff and they should be better at being objective and impartial -   Rekka: (25:24) And providing feedback   Kaelyn: (25:25) - and providing feedback about this. Um, you know, I definitely have gotten books where it's like, hey, this isn't for me, but I can see this is a good story. Um, so being able to separate yourself from that is something you're going to get more from your developmental freelance editor, um, if you so choose to hire one. Um, so if they come back to you and go, listen, this story is just not good, then you have to transition to the conversation about, so what do I do?   Rekka: (25:57) [laughter] Right.   Kaelyn: (25:58) And we'll come back to that because then the other side of this is you're not telling the story well   Rekka: (26:05) Mmm hmm.   Kaelyn: (26:05) And that could just be writing. Um, and you know, we talked about, we talked about that earlier or it could be the way your book is structured, it could be stylistic, it could be, you know, like you're not creating an intensity. You're, the story is flat. This, the characters are not engaging the, there's any number of things that could just say like, look, I'm not sure I'd go forward with this if I were you. So then you know, again, you're, if you're hiring someone to take a look at it, their opinion on this carries more weight than your friends. They're going to have an eye for this thing and they are also going to have the impartiality that you need here because you do need that. So then all right, your developmental editor is, like, listen, this just isn't working. Maybe you know, they're like, there's a lot to fix here and to be blunt, I'm not the person to help you do it.   Rekka: (26:59) Mmm hmm.   Kaelyn: (26:59) Then you have to decide what you're going to do after that. Um, and that's the scary question. Do I scrap this?   Rekka: (27:05) Right. How much passion do you feel for this? This is something like where you said, I just want to write a book someday and people like to talk about dogs. I'm going to write a book about dogs cause people like dogs and therefore people will like my book. Like if, if that's the mentality you have going into your writing, you probably are okay. Maybe saying like, yeah, I probably don't actually want to try this anymore or something.   Kaelyn: (27:23) You know, what if this is resonating with you, go back and listen to our previous episode with Chris Ruz because he went through a lot of this kind of stuff. So um not to the point of anyone telling him this is bad, scrap it, but like having to majorly overhaul.   Rekka: (27:38) And it's something that I did as well with Flotsam when I brought it to a developmental editor, well writing coach really, I had packed in so much writing and as you mentioned before, was my world building clear? It really wasn't. Um, there was a lot of pacing issues. Like the writing coach told me that it took til the end of chapter 21 before he cared about the story. I had tried to deliver the backstory and uh, introductions for each character like in sequence and it was just -   Kaelyn: (28:12) Yeah, and these are, let's see like this is the thing is that these are all good examples of things that are fixable. When we get to this just is not going to work, there's no clear answer for that and a lot of it is going to be how much time are you willing to put into doing this? Now again, I will say there are certain things that will make me say this book is just not going to work. Um, one thing is again, if it's offensive.   Rekka: (28:36) Right. If the premise itself and its core -   Kaelyn: (28:39) If the concept of the book is offensive, it's not going to work. One of the other ones, and I'm actually surprised we got this far into the podcast without me ever bringing this up before, is if I feel like I'm reading a book in which it is a nominal retelling of your life in which you are -   Rekka: (28:58) A hero.   Kaelyn: (28:58) The hero, best main character. No one is ever going to really want to read that. Um, I'm actually, I am surprised we got this far into the podcast because that is one of my big, my big things. Yeah, no, there's definitely like, I mean, you would be amazed how many books I get that it's like I'm going to go back and look at this person's query letter. Yeah. This, this is about them.   Rekka: (29:20) Yeah.   Kaelyn: (29:20) Yeah. [laughter] No, because unless you've had a really, and hey, look, some people have really interesting lives. That's great. Here's the thing, write a biography.   Rekka: (29:30) A memoir.   Kaelyn: (29:31) Yeah. Write an autobiography, not a fictional recounting of what you wanted your life to be.   Rekka: (29:37) Right.   Kaelyn: (29:38) Those are, those are two big things that may just make your book to the point that it's like, this isn't publishable. No one's gonna want to read that. I mean, maybe it's self publishable.   Rekka: (29:48) Yep. I mean you can just click a button.   Kaelyn: (29:50) You can click a button that you may have some -   Rekka: (29:52) Any book itself publishable.   Kaelyn: (29:53) Yeah.   Rekka: (29:53) That's, that's the point. So you um, you have this feedback and you have to decide do I care about writing enough to keep trying is kind of the core question is is this something that I feel enough passion with that I can take this as a challenge to improve myself versus this is so hard. No one appreciates the work I put into this so far. Cause let me tell you, your work is as a writer, if you get into this, you are always going to be putting that much work into it forever.   Kaelyn: (30:23) And I mean this is something we, you know, we keep saying in this thing is you have to decide how important this is to you. There's no such thing as turns in this business, right? There isn't: I did all of this work. I am owed this now. There isn't, I have been doing this for 20 years. It's my turn to get a book published. There's no such thing as that. You are not owed anything -   Rekka: (30:47) Right   Kaelyn: (30:47) - in this.   Rekka: (30:48) Be a writer because you love to write   Kaelyn: (30:50) Exactly   Rekka: (30:50) to because that's the only part you can guarantee   Kaelyn: (30:51) Yes, exactly   Rekka: (30:51) that you will continue to write.   Kaelyn: (30:53) I would caution against going into any of this saying if I put enough time and work into this, I will get this published. Now you obviously have to tell yourself that, but it's not true because you are not owed anything.   Rekka: (31:10) Right.   Kaelyn: (31:10) It is not, if I do all of these things, it will be my turn now There's no turm, we don't have a giant whiteboard with, you know, people going like, okay, well I mean Rekka's been on there for awhile. I guess we'll move her up to the top now. That's not how this works.   Rekka: (31:24) And you're not earning badges and eventually all the badges can be traded to the mission dealer for a contract.   Kaelyn: (31:27) Yup, you don't trade them in. That's not how this works. So you have to decide do you want to keep putting the time and effort into a story that is clearly just not working and you know, maybe you've gotten feedback from friends, from an editor, maybe you've gotten a lot of rejection letters is the form of feedback that you've gotten. So you have to decide how much of your self you want to keep putting into this because Rekka can tell you, it's draining.   Rekka: (31:55) Right.   Kaelyn: (31:56) And if you're writing because you just really like to write and it's like, Eh, whatever. I'll just keep submitting these. If it gets published, great. If not, you know, I just really enjoy the process. That's awesome. Keep doing that.   Rekka: (32:04) That's a very healthy way to do this.   Kaelyn: (32:05) That's like, that's amazing.   Rekka: (32:08) Yes.   Kaelyn: (32:08) But don't think that eventually this is going to pay off if you just keep grinding away. I mean I hope it will.   Rekka: (32:17) Right.   Kaelyn: (32:18) But -   Rekka: (32:18) And self publishing is an option   Kaelyn: (32:21) Self publishing is an option.   Rekka: (32:21) And if your end goal is I want to have books on shelves. Well self publishing is not going to get them on physical shelves very easily.   Kaelyn: (32:31) Digital ones.   Rekka: (32:31) But you can get on Amazon, you can do, you know, you can put a link on Facebook to your book and your friends and family can buy it.   Kaelyn: (32:38) Yeah. So you have to decide how badly do you want to keep doing this and that's the other thing is then, then maybe it's time to take a step back, take some right in classes, hire a writing coach, join a writing group. There's lots of things you can do to improve your writing, but as for your actual story that you're just so hell bent on, you want this to be the story, you got to decide.   Rekka: (32:58) Right.   Kaelyn: (32:59) Are you going to keep working on it and get better   Rekka: (33:01) And maybe put it in a drawer for a while and come back to it when you've written some other things and just played with maybe backing off and telling a story from the ground up again, because it might be that you put too much time into this and you've got a bit of a mess.   Kaelyn: (33:15) Yeah. And the other, the other thing here I think is that we fall because self publishing is such an accessible option, now don't fall into this, 'Well they just don't understand. They don't like it. I'm just going to self publish it and then I'll show the world'.   Rekka: (33:30) Right. I mean it's possible that that is the case possible.   Kaelyn: (33:33) It is possible.   Rekka: (33:33) I mean, anything's possible.   Kaelyn: (33:34) It's not the majority of the cases.   Rekka: (33:37) Um, we are running short on time for this one. So I just wanted to bring up the other little bit that we haven't really addressed is say your book has been picked up for publication and you're working with the editor at your publisher.   Kaelyn: (33:50) Oh yes, okay.   Rekka: (33:50) Are they going to tell you your book is shit.   Kaelyn: (33:52) Okay. This is, you know, one of the things I always say, they would not have bought your book if they didn't like it,   Rekka: (33:58) But say you rewrote the first 40% of your book.   Kaelyn: (33:59) After they bought it?   Rekka: (34:01) After they bought it, they said, hey, we want to change this. The way that the intro is building -   Kaelyn: (34:06) Oh, okay.   Rekka: (34:06) - and we want to incorporate some more POVs and um, changed the stakes a little bit.   Kaelyn: (34:12) That's not them telling you your book is shit. That's them telling you your book is Great. We're going to make it awesome.   Rekka: (34:17) Yeah.   Kaelyn: (34:18) Um, that's, and I know saying rewrite the first 40% doesn't sound like fine tuning, but functionally it kind of is. Sometimes it's not.   Rekka: (34:26) It's more of a rippling 40% than it is   Kaelyn: (34:28) Yeah.   Rekka: (34:28) like a straight trash it and rewrite it.   Kaelyn: (34:31) Because also, here's the thing, if they hated the first 40% of your book, they would not have bought.   Rekka: (34:35) They would not cause -   Kaelyn: (34:35) You don't read the first 40% to get to the other 60% of it.   Rekka: (34:40) But so say you make a change and they feel that it made it worse. They're going to tell you.   Kaelyn: (34:44) They're going, they're absolutely going to tell you. Um, but here's the thing. They're not just going to tell you it's bad.   Rekka: (34:48) Right.   Kaelyn: (34:48) You're going to go like, okay, so listen, I know I said do this. It's not quite working. Let's sit down and you know, figure out why this isn't working and talk about this.   Rekka: (34:57) Yes. Because if you've made it to the point where you have a publisher who has assigned you an editor or you have been assigned to an editor, they like your book enough to put the work into it. And   Kaelyn: (35:05) Exactly.   Rekka: (35:06) the structural basic things that we mentioned, like writing style and um, world building and the story itself, these things have already kind of got their stamp of approval and now it's just a matter of tightening it up and moving it along. And so at this point it's very unlikely that your book is shit even though in your heart as a delicate author, you may feel that no one's talked to you about your book for 10 days. Your book must be shit.   Kaelyn: (35:31) It's because they're ceremonially and burning it.   Rekka: (35:33) Yes. There is a pyre.   Kaelyn: (35:34) Yeah.   Rekka: (35:35) In the, in the lobby of your publisher. And if you go on Tuesdays books, we'll just be on fire.   Kaelyn: (35:40) Well, we have to, we have to cleanse.   Rekka: (35:42) Well, it's a sacrifice to the book that is being released that Tuesday.   Kaelyn: (35:45) Yeah. No. Also the lesser books are taken to strengthen -   Rekka: (35:49) Right.   Kaelyn: (35:49) - that the one true book and bright -   Rekka: (35:51) Wave the smoke over the new release to to gain its power.   Kaelyn: (35:54) Or send the ashes to the author so that they may ingest them and become powerful.   Rekka: (35:58) So now you know what's really happening in publishing.   Kaelyn: (36:02) None of that's true. So now how many people are like I knew it!   Rekka: (36:08) Revealing the conspiracy. this is how the cabal comes after Kaelyn.   Kaelyn: (36:11) Yeah, no, I mean one day I'm just gonna I know I'm going to have a black hood put over my head and thrown into a van. I'll just be walking down the street. Um, no. So like your again, they would not have bought it if they didn't like it. Now that's not to say that it might have problems.   Rekka: (36:29) Right, but they were problems that they see as   Kaelyn: (36:33) Not insurmountable. Yes. And an acquisitions editor goes to the editorial board, they go to the sales team and they say, I like this book. I think we can sell it. Here's why. So someone is already going in and making the case for your book.   Rekka: (36:47) And don't you wish you could just get a recording of that writers? I know like Kaelyn's like, no, you can't hear the conversation, but it would be so nice to hear that conversation.   Kaelyn: (36:54) Where we have these conversations recorders don't work. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, and so he would not have thought it if they didn't like it -   Rekka: (37:04) And didn't have a plan for it.   Kaelyn: (37:05) They didn't have a plan. And you know, if you listened to episodes two and three   Rekka: (37:10) Yes   Kaelyn: (37:10) - uh specifically, I think we talked a lot about this in   Rekka: (37:13) Three   Kaelyn: (37:13) Yeah, in three. Um, you should have, you all had conversations with them before. That's nothing should come as a galloping shock here. And again, but if you're getting abuse from anyone involved in this process, you shouldn't want to work with them. Now Rekka you had said, what if it is your assigned editor?   Rekka: (37:32) Right, you don't meet them until after the contract is signed. Now you owe a manuscript and this editor's tearing it to shreds.   Kaelyn: (37:38) I'm going to say this. That is not the answer anyone's going to want to hear. It depends. Um, you know, I think we all like to think we exist in this world where everyone's nice and kind to each other all the time. I work in finance, so I know that's not true.   Rekka: (37:53) And sometimes people have bad days and they don't communicate their thoughts well.   Kaelyn: (37:57) Yeah. I mean hopefully no one's yelling at you. Um, I would say if they are, try to deal with it person to person, write them back and just kind of go like, hey, so let me try -   Rekka: (38:10) And stay professional yourself rather than devolving into that into the combativeness.   Kaelyn: (38:14) And I know that's hard if you're the writer and the person on the other end is, is one who is in the more obligated position to be professional.   Rekka: (38:22) Right.   Kaelyn: (38:23) Not saying that that's ca rte blanche free because it's not. And um, you know, as the author, you don't want to be the unstable one -   Rekka: (38:31) Yes.   Kaelyn: (38:32) - in the relationship. Um, but you know, you try to, try to stay professional, try to take it with a grain of salt. Um, I have this thing I do whenever I get like something, you know from someone that's like, why, you know, what's the matter with you? Why did you do this? Is I've got to take a breath and then I'll either, if I can, I'll go talk to them in person or call them and just go like, so what's going on here?   Rekka: (38:59) Yeah.   Kaelyn: (38:59) That was kind of mean, you know, that wasn't really what I was expecting from you. And I find a lot of times, that I I can sense that you're upset. So.   Rekka: (39:11) Yeah.   Kaelyn: (39:11) I find that a lot of times just having a conversation about that will kind of help. And I think talking to the actual person is a good step. We have this sort of like email armor where we can say and get away with -   Rekka: (39:27) But we also forget that tone does not come across well in text.   Kaelyn: (39:30) Tone does not come across well in email and text. Exactly. Um, so you know, if, do you know how many emails I get back from people going like, oh, that's not like from authors. That's not what I meant. Whoa, Whoa, whoa. That's not what I meant. It's like, no, no, it's, it's uh, something you get very good at -   Rekka: (39:48) Yeah.   Kaelyn: (39:48) - being an editor is speaking author. That's not going to upset them. [laughter]   Rekka: (39:52) Yes.   Kaelyn: (39:55) Um, so yeah, just, you know, if you get something back that's like foaming at the mouth, you know, raving anger or -   Rekka: (40:02) There's probably something else going on.   Kaelyn: (40:03) There's probably something else going on and my maybe close the laptop for the day, go do something else and then come back to it later,   Rekka: (40:13) See if you can reread something else into it and if not have a conversation.   Kaelyn: (40:16) Then have a conversation.   Rekka: (40:17) Yeah.   Kaelyn: (40:17) Um, so, but that, that doesn't necessarily have anything to do with your manuscript. That's, that seems like a personal relation issue.   Rekka: (40:23) That's more of a personal - So it, so the short answer is yes, a good editor is going to tell you when your, when your manuscript has problems and depending on where you are in the stage, your relationship with that editor, you may get more or less help.     Kaelyn: (40:41) Yes.   Rekka: (40:41) And then you might hope for, but also the earlier in the path to publication that you can catch problems the better. And that will also help your prospects with, you know, submitting and querying it and, or getting good feedback once it's released. And if you have Beta readers, you know, maybe hit up just one of them just, you know, real quick with the sample chapter before you really get into the structural editing and say like, where, where is this now? And have a list of questions that you can ask them that's going to be better than just like, yeah, I liked it or I didn't really eh, meh. Um, you know, if you have a list of questions that can, that can help you and include the question like, is does the, you know, do the ideas come across well or um, are the sentences well written and compelling, you know, something like that.   Kaelyn: (41:27) Yeah, just broad feedback is a good place to start.   Rekka: (41:31) Yeah. And then, you know, the more specific it gets, the more money you're going to spend with the freelance editors. And if you've already gotten this past a publisher like it, okay. It's impossible for you to take this advice as a writer. I know this, but if you have a publishing contract, your story is not shit.   Kaelyn: (41:50) Say with us everyone, they would not have bought it if they didn't like it.   Rekka: (41:56) All right, we're just going to hand out mugs with that on it. Yeah.   Kaelyn: (42:00) That can be, that can be our next, uh, mug,our next one.   Rekka: (42:04) All right. So I mean we can go on about this for a long, long time   Kaelyn: (42:08) We go on about most things for a long time. Rekka and I have had very in depth conversations about, um,   Rekka: (42:15) Everything.   Kaelyn: (42:15) Commas. And how they're not going to   Rekka: (42:17) Okay, we're not going to talk about commas - goodbye everyone thanks for listening!   Kaelyn: (42:19) [laughter] But um, thank you so much for listening. Um, you know, we're really enjoying doing this.   Rekka: (42:25) Yes. Yeah, 100%. And of course if you have any questions, shitty questions, submit them to us @WMBcast on Instagram and Twitter. You can follow along or support us @patriondot.com/wmbcast and you can submit questions that way or you can send questions to feedback@wmbcast.com and if you are enjoying this series and uh, want to share it with a friend, that would really help us expand our audience   Kaelyn: (42:51) Spread the word.   Rekka: (42:51) and get this advice to as many writers as we can help as possible. And you know, publishers who need to understand the fragile minds of the writers, you could leave a rating and review on Itunes, that will also help other people find us and we would really appreciate that. If you have questions about a submissions, we are going to have a submission September, so we will be gathering all your questions.   Kaelyn: (43:11) Okay, I was gonna I was gonna save that.   Rekka: (43:12) I know.   Kaelyn: (43:12) All right. Well, yeah, so September we're going to be, that's going to be a four episode month and every week we're going to talk about a different part of the submissions process and hopefully we've got some stuff lined up.   Rekka: (43:24) We have some stuff but if you have questions, send them to us and we will use them on the show. If, uh, if they fit into the conversation and, uh, otherwise we'll see you on Twitter and we'll talk to you next time.   Kaelyn: (43:35) Thanks everyone. Bye.   Rekka: (43:37) Yeah.      

Hi everyone, and thank you for tuning in to another episode of the We Make Books Podcast - A podcast about writing, publishing, and everything in between! We Make Books is hosted by Rekka Jay and Kaelyn Considine; Rekka is a published author and Kaelyn is an editor and together they are going to take you through what goes into getting a book out of your head, on to paper, in to the hands of a publisher, and finally on to book store shelves. Like last week, this week we are doing something a little different.  First and most exciting, we have our first guest!  Christopher Ruz, author of The Ragged Blade joins Rekka this week to talk about his book’s long road to publication.  Second, that’s right, it’s just Rekka on this episode.  As Kaelyn will explain in the intro, she’s Ruz’s editor at Parvus Press and wanted to give he and Rekka the opportunity and space to talk about what it’s like working on your own verse with an editor.  They had a great conversation and we think you’ll really enjoy it. The Ragged Blade is currently in stores and online and you can (and should) find Christopher Ruz online @ruzkin on Twitter and www.ruzkin.com.  Check him out and tell him that Rekka and Kaelyn sent you. We Make Books is a podcast for writer and publishers, by writers and publishers and we want to hear from our listeners! Hit us up on our social media, linked below, and send us your questions, comments, concerns, and any lingering thoughts or feelings about Endgame that you just can’t get out of your head. A transcription of this episode can be found below. We hope you enjoy We Make Books! Twitter: @WMBCast  |  @KindofKaelyn  |  @BittyBittyZap Instagram: @WMBCast  Patreon.com/WMBCast === Transcript ===     Kaelyn:00:00 Hello everyone and welcome to another episode of the We Make Books Podcast, a show about writing, publishing, and everything in between.  I’m Kaelyn Considine and I am the ‘editor half of the podcast and this week we decided that we’re going to do something a little bit different.  Uh, the first part is that we have oh first ever guest, author Christopher Ruz, whose book ‘The Ragged Blade’ was released a week ago today, which would make that June 4th for those who might be listening at another time.  Um, the second thing is that I’m not on this episode, and the reason for that is that I’m Ruz’s editor at Parvus Press and we wanted to have Ruz on because he had a really interesting journey of getting his book published.   Um, you’ll hear all about it in this episode but it went from a short story, to a self-published novel, to a traditionally published novel,  by my publishing company, Parvus Press.  And we wanted to hear all about everything that led up to getting this published, and uh especially working by yourself to self-publish verse working with an editor.  So, in the interest of podcasting journalistic integrity, I recused myself from the episode so that Ruz and Rekka could have a conversion on the real ups and downs of traditional verse self-publishing and working on things on your own verse working with a professional editor.  Um, it’s a really interesting conversation, they both have some very interesting stories about how they got to where they ended up in their publishing careers.  So it’s a really great episode, it sounds like Rekka and Ruz had a lot of fun recording it, um, I gave them carte Blanche to uh, talk about anything they wanted, including me, and uh, they did not hold back.  And u, as always, we’d love to and want to hear back from our listeners.  Any questions or feedback, or just general feelings you have about what you’re listening to – you can find us on Twitter @wmbcast and on our website, ‘wemakebookspodcast.com’ and you can email us there if you want it send us a question or a comment and we’re always happy to happy, if you’d like to have them remain anonymous.  So, I think that’s everything, and we hope that you enjoy this episode with author Christopher Ruz. 02:02[Intro music] Rekka:02:17   All right. So today I have snuck out of Kaelyn's supervision and I have uh, gone behind her back to speak to one of the authors at Parvus that Kaelyn edits for. I am speaking today to Christopher Ruz who is the author of the ragged blade, which as we are releasing this episode on June 11th, is now a week old. And so we're going to be talking from the other side of the release date. So um, Ruz has zero insight as to what it is like to have had the book out for a week. So we won't get into that unless you want to design your own fantasy week. Like, oh, it's amazing. 1 million copies sold in the first day. This is just astounding and I'm so touched. Rekka:03:01   Well look, Ruz:     03:02   Say it into being Chris. Ruz:     03:04   We've all got our fingers crossed for that. That um, we'll just, I'm just going to wait and see right now, Rekka:03:10   RIght. Ruz:     03:10   Right now, a week before it launches, we're recording this. I'm in this weird sort of nether world where I don't know whether to be excited or scared and I'm just waiting for the publishing train to run over me and see what comes out of here. Rekka:03:22   Sorry. The correct answer is why not both? Ruz:     03:25   Yeah, probably yes. Rekka:03:26   Um, frightened. Terrified. Uh, elated. Excited. Why aren't more people paying attention to me? Because don't they know I have a book coming out. And how is everybody just going to the grocery store and walking their dog? Like normal? Ruz:     03:43   Yeah, I've gone through that a couple times. Yeah, just counting down the days. Um, so here in Australia, I think the book comes out on my Thursday and the US's Wednesday, so that's also really frustrating that I can't actually celebrate simultaneously with the rest of the world. But is what it is. Rekka:03:58   Well, I mean you could, you just have to forego sleep. Ruz:     04:01   I just have to, but I like sleep. Rekka:04:03   Yeah. Sleep is wonderful. Ruz:     04:03   I really like, I really like my sleep. Rekka:04:06   That's, that's good. That's healthy. All right. So you might survive if you do uh practice. Good sleep efforts to, uh, to write the entire series as opposed to, you know, petering out because you've gone without sleep for the last two years. Rekka:04:22   [laughter] Rekka:04:22   I mean, I know Kaelyn can be awful, but um, I'm hoping, you know, she lets you sleep occasionally. Ruz:     04:28   She's been pretty good with that so far actually Kaelyn's been very relaxed on deadlines. I don't know how she is for her other authors, but to me she seems to give me a little bit more slack so I'm maybe I'm special. Or maybe, Rekka:04:40   I have the benefit of not being one of her authors, so I just assume the worst of her Ruz:     04:48   [laughter]and you assume right. Rekka:04:50   Exactly. So I'm sorry Kaelyn, who is going to edit this episode and for, so our audience knows if she left that in, it's because she is the worst and she's proud of it. Ruz:     04:59   [laughs] Rekka:04:59   Um, so your story, I mean like we're not just having you on because we have easy access to you as a Parvus author. And we could always just say like, hey, we're not going to put your book out unless you come on and talk to Rekka on We Make Nooks, but, um, we really want talk to you. And by we, I mean the royal we obviously, um, about the path that this novel has taken because it is not a typical story of uh novel publishing. And, um, I think it's, it's one that's really interesting. It's going to give some people some hope, I think. But it's also like, um, it's just a really interesting story that the path that this novel has taken. So I'm gonna let you introduce it. Um, why don't you give us your latest, um, elevator pitch because I love it. Ruz:     05:49   [laughter] Rekka:05:49   And, um, then also like tell us the background, the, and I'll just interrupt as I do to ask questions. Ruz:     05:58   Yeah, no problem. So the pitch that we've worked out, which only came to us in the past week is essentially, um, it's an epic fantasy novel where a Bi guy and his young daughter are running away from extremely clingy ex boyfriend, who also happens to be a magician and the dictatorial ruler of his small kingdom. And so father and daughter are running away across this huge, wild, untamed desert, full of magic and demons and monsters. While his magician boyfriend is in hot pursuit along with his Zombie tracking dog. Rekka:06:36   I mean, that's like every Tuesday. But you met us to tell it in a way that's new. No. Ruz:     06:42   [laughter] Rekka:06:42   Um, I am, about 11 chapters in 12 chapters in, as it turns out. Um, and I have really been enjoying the, like I feel the sand, you know, I can feel the sand in the narration and the, um, exposition and this experience of the main character, Richard, who is escaping somebody that is so clearly, he's not just a magician. He is pretty much the magician. Right. Ruz:     07:13   Yeah. Rekka:07:13   And that's an ominous threat that's in every scene. So every time he like stops to pick a rock out of a shoe, you're just like, no, keep going. Keep going. Ruz:     07:25   [laughter] Yeah. That, um, that sort of atmosphere of constant dread and um, and that very, very tense pursuit to something that I tried to keep up through the whole novel. Uh, it's, it's very mad Maxy in a way, even though, um, even though fury road came out well, well into the, the writing of this book, I think it actually has that same sort of feeling of never being more than, you know, a couple of steps ahead of this incredible force that's pursuing you. Um, and it was really cool that you, you mentioned that you really feel what it's like to be in the desert because I tried to channel a lot of my own experiences into those scenes. So, Rekka:08:05   And that's just between your house in the mailbox. Ruz:     08:08   Little bits. So I grew up obviously in Australia, um, but my parents house backed onto this massive wild nature reserve, which is just kilometers and kilometers of completely untouched Bush land. And I just got there and get lost for hours, deliberately get lost and then wander in circles in the heat and the scrub and try and find my way back home. And so I'd actually developed a system of creating landmarks and attaching stories to little landmarks that I found along the way and essentially built up my own little fantasy map in my head that would let me navigate, you know, from my parents' house, six kilometers west into the bush and then back again. And so that's the sort of feeling that I was always trying to channel is that, um, the potential in the landscape and the danger that's always looking around every corner and just try to pick your way from one landmark to the next in order to stay alive. Except in my case, the threat was if I wasn't backed by a six o'clock, my parents would, you know [laughter] it wouldn't be good Rekka:09:14   It wasn't a zombie canine chasing you. Ruz:     09:18   No, but it felt like it. Rekka:09:19   Something a little bit worse. Ruz:     09:20   When you're seven years old. Yeah. Your parents Rekka:09:23   Getting sent to your room. Ruz:     09:25   Yeah. That's a scary prospect. So hmm. Rekka:09:28   So this is, this book is coming out through Parvus press, but it is something that you have previously self-published. So that's like, that's the really interesting part. I mean, obviously the book is interesting. As I said, I'm, I'm a third of the way through it. And obviously, I'm like, okay, shut up Ruz. I need to go finish this now. But, um, the, the story of how you self publish this and then ended up, uh, well not re-, but like submitting it to Parvus and then going through Parvus to turn it into something entirely new, almost with just like, well, I'll let you tell it as I said, but, um, that's the story I really want to draw out of you today because I think it's interesting. And I, as I said before the call, we have clearance from Kaelyn to talk about every aspect of this. I have had authors on before whose work was published after it was self-published, but they have been told like, you do not speak of this. So I think it's just really interesting to get this side of the story from somebody who has permission to talk about it openly and freely. And you know, like there may be as much like black sharpie over this episode as you can imagine in a Mueller report. But let the, while you and I are talking Ruz:     10:41   Right, keeping it topical Yup. Um, yeah, yeah. Let's go into it. Um, so if you go way, way, way back, um, this whole trilogy started as a short story. Um, so one of my first successful short stories, I think I've been writing for quite a while, but this is the first one that I actually felt like, you know, when you finish your first thing and you look at it and you're like, Hey, this isn't actually terrible. Rekka:11:07   Yes. Ruz:     11:07   And you have that moment where you're like, oh, I've graduated from awful writer to semi awful. Rekka:11:14   I'm cogent. Ruz:     11:16   Yeah. So I had that moment. And, um, I love the short story, which is just - this story forms, which is the, basically the backstory of the Ragged Blade. So if you're reading the ragged blade, you'll find that the present narrative jumps back into the past at various points where we're falling two stories simultaneously. And the short story was what is now the backstory. And I loved it. And um, sent around it didn't get published, but it picked up a Writers of the Future, um, award, which I was pretty stoked about. And so I thought, all right, how can I expand this? Spent a lot of time expanding it into not just one novel but three. So I, I already had this large plans sort of mapped out. So I smashed that out, um, over a period of a couple of years. And this is going all the way back to like 2007, 2008. So this has all been a long time in the cooking and I tried to sell the books everywhere. I think I queried everybody on um, agent query ran through the whole list, of publishes and nobody was biting. And looking back on it, it's pretty obvious why it wasn't that great of a book at the time. So I think it was about 2010 I gave it one more editing pass and self published. And so that was the start of my big self publishing career. Um, I say big self publishing career, it hasn't been Rekka:12:35   But you do have many titles like, you know, compared to what a traditional, um, well this let's say this is your first traditionally published novel. Ruz:     12:45   Yeah. Rekka:12:45   You quote unquote debut as a traditionally published author, but you already have a whole stable of stories that you've written and released and gotten reviews on and it's, it's not like you've just been, um, quietly publishing into the void this whole time. Ruz:     13:02   Yeah. Yeah. I do have, um, a bit of stock there. Yeah. It since I first published the ragged blade on back then it was called century of sand. Yeah. I've put out, um, and other I think four horror novels. Um, 10 or so spy novellas like I kept stacking up, but honestly my heart was always in Century of Sand I really wanted it to go somewhere and um, and people were enjoying it as I self published it, but there was still something missing. I think I still needed some professional eyes on it. And so it had been self published for five or six years when Parvus put up their first uh, roll call on Reddit that we're looking for people with a novel to pitch. And so I spoke to Colin there and I showed him century of sand and he said this isn't bad but it's self published. Um, we're not super interested in that at the moment and honestly Rekka:13:55   Which is the response that is going to be typical for most authors. You've already self published something that a publisher is going to say, yeah, we want it to be the first ones to release your book, not the second ones. Ruz:     14:05   Yeah. And I think that's perfectly fair. It was, it was a fair response. Also, we had chat about the amount of work that we need to go into it and he said, okay, if we were to take this on, we're going to have to break it into tiny parts and rebuild it from scratch. And I, maybe this is, this is arrogance, but I was really hoping he'd just say this novel is Great. We love it. We are going to buy it. We're going to do a spell check and send a straight out there and it's going to be beautiful. It turns out that was not the case. Rekka:14:31   No, Ruz:     14:32   It was, it was nowhere near that state. So yeah, me and Parvus we parted ways very amicably. And um, I kept in touch with Colin and we talked about different writing advice and publishing advice. So I think about two years after that, just every couple months we'd say hi and um, I didn't know Kaelyn at the time, but to any listeners, I can really recommend that if you are pitching you should pitch to Parvus and Colin because Colin is just lovely. Rekka:15:01   Um, as compared to Kaelyn. Ruz:     15:03   Kaelyn is, Kaelyn is terrible, terrible and terrifying, but Colin balances around a little bit. So, um, so yeah, I kept writing and started pitching another novel. I'm a Scifi story called God Factory and Colin had to read through that at some point and he came back to me and said, hey, I think your writing is actually improved quite a bit in between writing Century of Sand and writing God factory. If you could go back to century of sand and revise it to the same standard as God factory, we might take another look at it. And at that point I'd, I think I'd woken up at to the actual realities of publishing what goes into it and what goes into the editing process. So I was much more open to the idea of just trashing century sad down into its component pieces and building it up again. So it was with that promise and also the fact that I had the other two manuscripts for this entire trilogy ready to go. You know, me and Colin were able to shake hands and, and make the deal. And then we started the process of editing and Oh my God, it was even worse than I thought Rekka:16:15   [laughs] You thought you were just going to take it down to paragraph level - Ruz:     16:17   Just a nightmare. Rekka:16:17   and put it back together. Ruz:     16:19   Yeah, I thought, you know, oh well we'll check out some dialogue, visit some themes. Cut out some bad scenes. Holy Crap. Rekka:16:28   [laughs evilly] Yeah. um Parvus may be kind of, you know, quote unquote new in town, but they, they really will like put a book through its paces in order to get it to the point where they feel like, yeah, no, we want to put her name on this. So even when they say like, yeah, we want to buy your book, they're like, yeah, just you wait. Ruz:     16:47   Yeah. It made me realize that even after I think seven or eight rewrites for me to get it to the point where I was happy to sell, publish it, it was really still just a larval stage. There was so much in it that I hadn't seen. Um, there's so much that you can't see when you just head down in your own book for years. Rekka:17:07   Yeah. We absolutely way too close to it. Ruz:     17:10   Yeah. Um, and the changes that they recommended, it thought I, at first I thought that they were insane. Rekka:17:18   [laughs] Rekka:17:18   I'll say the first time I got into a Skype call with all the, um, the team at Parvus and they recommended some of the most sweeping changes. Um, I guess the books already out, so I can probably discuss some Rekka:17:28   Mm hmm Ruz:     17:28   Umm, minor spoilers. Um, for example, the first change they wanted was that I take two major characters and combine them into one, which is not impossible usually, but these two characters don't even run in the same timelines. Rekka:17:42   Right. Ruz:     17:43   So in the original book, there was a mentor character essentially like you call them an Obi-Won - Rekka:17:48   Right Ruz:     17:49   Style character who goes on an adventure with the magician over this long period. And then eventually meets another young soldier called Richard who he trains up. And um, Richard eventually takes on his mentors mantle. And this is two overlapping storylines of about, each one's about a 30 year storyline and they only meet for about five years in the middle. Rekka:18:16   Mmm hmm. Ruz:     18:16   And so the first piece of advice I got was we need to merge them into a single character, in a single storyline. And like that's not a couple paragraphs here and there. That's just, Rekka:18:27   Yeah, that's like the entire frankensteining essentially of two halves of a story. Ruz:     18:34   Yeah. Um, so yeah, a 60 year story got squeezed down to about 20 or 30 years. Two major characters who only ever intersected for few years suddenly became one. Motivation's got tangled, storylines all got tossed around and I hated it at first. I thought it was insane and it was not going to work and we're just going to tear the heart out of my book. And by the time I was done with that first editing pass, I thought their geniuses, Rekka:19:03   [laughter] Ruz:     19:03   This is so good now. It was in every respect. Rekka:19:07   Mmm hmm, so it became a much tighter story as a result and, and you had to figure out motivations as you said. But I assume that means like everything became a lot more clear as to um, what you know was driving the story. Ruz:     19:23   Yeah, everything was clarified because basically as I was speaking to the editing team, they'll pointing out that one character, the, that Obi-Wan style mentor character he had a stronger emotional bond or emotional tie with the primary villain. Then my new character Richard. And if I transpose the two characters and actually imported motivations from one end to the other, suddenly we have this incredibly, um, uh, it would be become a story driven by relationships as opposed to plot circumstance. Rekka:19:50   Mmm hmm. Ruz:     19:50   And as soon as I started making those changes, it actually, it was like a flower sort of unfolding. I saw all these potentials in, in these previous scenes and the way they'd spiral out across the whole book and then across the whole trilogy. And yeah, I loved every change I made after that. Rekka:20:05   Now .... Ruz:     20:05   I didn't like that I had to write the changes Rekka:20:08   Yeah, exactly. Ruz:     20:08   But I liked what happened after I'd made the changes. Rekka:20:11   [laughter] So as you said, you've already had written books two and three of this trilogy now and, and this little change, um, or not so little, but you know, like this one change rippled out. And so, um, I know from watching you and Kaelyn interact on, on Twitter that you've been working probably just as hard on books two and three as you did on book one to get everything back into line. How is the, um, continuity, like are you having a lot of trouble getting to a point in going, oh God damn it. No, I changed that too. Ruz:     20:45   Um, it's actually been okay. Rekka:20:47   Okay. Ruz:     20:47   I was really surprised that there was even more editing work to be done in book two. Rekka:20:51   Mmm hmm. Ruz:     20:51   Um, but because we finished book one before we even opened up the manuscript for book two, um, little actually flowed reasonably smoothly. I had a nice roadmap to work from. Rekka:21:04   Mmm hmm. Ruz:     21:04   Yeah. Book two was a mess as a result of these major changes because, um, as you notice in book one, we've got these dual storylines running and that continues through books, books two and three. It's the same structure for all of them. It's um, it's a present day adventure with storytelling, which takes us back to the past. And that's this running theme and the storytelling part in book two is massive. It's probably a third of the book as opposed to a couple isolated flashbacks and I just have to trash the whole thing. Rekka:21:33   [laughs] Ruz:     21:33   I was like 40, 50,000 words straight in the, in the bin. Rekka:21:37   As a result of losing Obi-Wab? Ruz:     21:40   Yeah. Rekka:21:40   Yeah. Okay. Ruz:     21:41   Cause yeah, he wasn't there anymore. Rekka:21:43   Yeah. Ruz:     21:44   Obi-Wan didn't exist. His mentorship and training didn't exist. Um, my new character, Richard suddenly had all these existing motivations and fears and doubts. So yeah, we started pretty much from scratch and so Kaelyn is holding onto a manuscript of a revised manuscript of book two at the moment and there's almost nothing left from the original Rekka:22:07   Of the original. I've done that. Ruz:     22:08   A couple of cool a couple cool fight scenes. Rekka:22:10   Yeah, Ruz:     22:11   That's about it. I think we retained like maybe 20,000 words out of 140, so it was just a butchery. Rekka:22:20   That's a - that's a nice bite that you got to keep. Ruz:     22:21   Yeah Rekka:22:21   When I rewrote Flotsam, I think I kept all of three paragraphs Ruz:     22:26   Oh wow. Rekka:22:26   Of the entire original manuscript and, and you know, I think some character name stayed the same, but um, yeah, I mean mine's a whole long backstory of its own. I worked with the editor that I was eventually at Parvus when I, um, before he was at Parvus and I had hired him to help me work on it on its own. And, um, any we did, we like took the entire massive thing that I've been working on for like 10 years and just said, okay, we're just gonna put that over here. It's safe, it's fine, Ruz:     22:55   [laughter] Rekka:22:55   You know, but, um, you know, how about, how about we do a new first chapter and go from there. And so I did, I did the same thing. I ended up rewriting the whole thing just about from, and then, um, this was before I submitted it to Parvus and then I wrote book two again, still before I submitted it to Parvus, submitted it to Parvus, they had some more changes, which were small, subtle scenes that affected a whole heck of a lot. Ruz:     23:21   [laughter] Rekka:23:21   And then, um, and then now I'm like basically every written book two again. So yeah, a whole lot of empathy for you there. And that's anyone working with Kaelyn. I can't even imagine. What Kaelyn would do to me. I'm sorry Kaelyn. She- she assigned to the task of torturing you. But instead we're just like talking about her. [laughter] Ruz:     23:40   I think it wouldn't make me so angry if they weren't always right. Rekka:23:43   Yeah. That's the worst part. Ruz:     23:45   But they are always right. Rekka:23:45   They're just terrible people. Just like knowing stuff. And having good advice and seeing it from a distance and also, you know, from a marketability, it's, it's always good to have somebody who's got like a little bit of that, um, market in mind. You don't want to necessarily let that dictate everything, but it definitely, like when they're reading a book, they're thinking, is the audience gonna make it through the scene or do we need to tighten this up? And that makes very frustratingly effective, you know, method for like going over it and editing again. So we hate them, but we love them, but we hate them. Ruz:     24:23   Yeah. At the same time, all the time. Rekka:24:25   Yeah. So, um, how long, like is this whole process you said like 2007 ish. You were releasing it for the first time, sorry. Ruz:     24:34   No, no, 2007. I started writing. Rekka:24:36   Started it. Okay. Ruz:     24:38   Yup. Um, can't remember the exact date, but I know it was in 2007 or very early 2008. Um, wrote it over about a year, revised it and then started submitting. Rekka:24:53   Shopping it, yeah. Ruz:     24:54   Yeah. Maybe around end of 2009 and kept it up all through 2009, 2010 until I decided to self pub. And that was right at the beginning of that early kindle revolution. Rekka:25:06   Boom, yeah. Ruz:     25:07   Yeah. Unfortunately I didn't quite get to ride the kindle. Boom. It turns out it turns out that even during a boom, it's a very selective boom. Rekka:25:14   Yes Ruz:     25:14   So, um, but I had a lot of fun self pubing and I learned so much through the process. So no regrets there. And then Rekka:25:24   Yeah you had covers you had layouts. Um, now you are also a graphic artist. Ruz:     25:31   I am a pretty average graphic artists. Yeah, I know some Photoshop. Um, I'm an art teacher from my nine to five, so that helps a little bit. So I understand composition and color theory and everything, but the, the real nitty gritty I'm not an expert on. And so for those covers, I hired an artist off deviant art to do, he did all three covers at the same time. Um, to the best that my, my budget could Rekka:25:57   Right. Ruz:     25:57   stretch at that time. And um, I, I love those covers still. They're pretty rough. Rekka:26:04   Yes Ruz:     26:04   But they're still pretty cool. Rekka:26:04   You had three covers that you, um, commissioned on your own. And did you, um, did you hire layout artist? I mean, how much of the production process did you get to learn as a result of doing this that then sort of helped you, uh, understand where like Colin was coming from, when, when he'd later say like, oh we have to do this, this and this. Ruz:     26:25   Okay, so for the self pub process, um, as said, I paid an artist to the covers but I do the topography and myself. Um, and I also put turn those covers into full paperback wraparound covers. So I only commissioned a standard ebook cover size, so I had to adapt those. And then, um, my wife does web design and she was the one who realized that kindle documents are just web documents. Yeah. So she converted my book into a Nice html and then everything else was me. So compiling, publishing, promoting, um, I just figured that out as I went along and it was awful. Rekka:27:09   [laughter] Ruz:     27:09   It's just a horrible process and I'm so glad that it's somebody else's problem now. Rekka:27:14   So that's an interesting point. Like you have books that are self published and it looks like you probably can plan to continue self publishing at some level. Um, cause you have series that are, are self published, um, that you did not enjoy the process and it's not something where you're thinking to yourself, oh, you know, it's nice that Parvus wants this, but like I hate waiting on them to do a thing or I like I would have done that differently. Is Not something that's entering your mind at this point. You're just really glad to have a team. Ruz:     27:48   Yeah, I love having a team and there are definitely parts of the self pub process that I love. So the immediacy of it. Um, being able to just smashing book together and run through it myself and then throw it out into the void is brilliant and obviously no waiting. Rekka:28:04   Yeah, Ruz:     28:04   Is brilliant because it's been a two year process from the time when I signed the contract with Parvus to The Ragged Blade actually coming out. Um, but at the same time working with the team there and actually having professional editors has done so much for the quality of the book, like a Ragged Blade would not have been a good book without their help. Um, and I love, I love what it's become as a result and I really wonder what would happen if I had that same professional input and uh extra sets of eyes on my self published work because for me the only thing that matters is telling the best story that I can. Rekka:28:40   Right. Yup. I feel you there. That was definitely a thought when I, um, was trying to decide what to do because, you know, I was also thinking, oh, I'll just self publish this. I don't want anyone else's, you know, um, decisions or like neglect affecting this book's ability to be out in the world. Because I knew long it took to get a book published through traditional publishing and I said this, you know, I'm not going to wait that long and they're going to want change stuff. Stuff like, you know, those usual thoughts that I think lead to self publishing a lot. It wasn't even so much the like, oh, it's, it's terrifying and painful to put myself in front of other people and like hope that, you know, I get approval from somebody. Ruz:     29:18   [laughter] Yeah, yeah ... Rekka:29:18   It was just more like, I don't want anyone else's opinions in the way, but let me tell you, other people's opinions are fantastic. Sometimes it's really nice to have other people's opinions and also, you know, like the resources where, um, it's a lot of work to commission a cover artists and, um, do the art direction, do the layout. So I think it's interesting. Um, I think it's interesting that like you and I, well we ended up in the same place. We even sort of took the same steps, but at the same time, like for totally different reasons where I was just like, I don't, I don't want anyone else's approval. I just want to do this. And, and you would have been very happy with someone else's approval, but you also got tired of waiting around for it. Ruz:     29:58   Yeah, pretty much. Rekka:29:59   So just to recap the timeline, um, because we did start to trace it in detail. So in, um, 2010, you said you self-published and then Ruz:     30:09   2010 or 2011, I believe. Rekka:30:10   Somewhere around there, right around that time, which is funny. That's the same time that I decided that I was going to self publish this in 2016 is when Parvus opened. So their first call was when you, um, submitted to them and then it was 2017 when you had the relationship with them where you had sort of stayed in touch and they were keeping an eye on what you were doing. Like some weird creepy uncle and told you . Ruz:     30:40   Yeah. That's about it, yeah. I think it was mid 2017 and it happened because I got back in touch with Colin. I just finished, I just finished polishing and polishing, polishing, um, the final book in this Century of Sand Trilogy. And I was looking at how will I was doing on Amazon with my self pub and it wasn't going so great. And meanwhile, Coin and Parvus had just released, um, I think at that time they'd put out Vick's Vultures, maybe one and two. Rekka:31:06   Okay. Ruz:     31:07   And Rekka:31:08   Court of Twilight then. Ruz:     31:10   Yeah, I think this was pre flotsam. Rekka:31:13   Yep. Ruz:     31:14   And they were doing really well. And so I messaged Colin and I actually got in touch by saying, okay, my books aren't going so great, but I've got the third book ready. So the trilogy is wrapped up. So it's a whole sort of trilogy product now. Um, what would you recommend for me really getting this off the ground? You know, should I commission new cover artists? Um, should I start a marketing program? How much should I invest in these various areas? And that was the trigger where he said, Oh, you finished the book book three now and I've seen your recent writing. That's not too bad. Let's have a chat. And so yeah, that was mid 2017 and then it was the third quarter of 2017 when the contract came through and I printed it off on my school printer and, and snuck away to my cubicle to sign it and scan it before anybody caught me misusing school property. Rekka:32:01   So yeah. So it's interesting and that's actually advice that Colin has always given is don't be afraid to ask questions of other people in the industry because everyone in the industry wants to help and they're interested in, you never know what could happen as a result of like asking, you know, starting up a conversation and you didn't go in with it like, Hey, you rejected me once, but now I've got three of these. So you know, like it's going to be three times as good or, or whatever. Ruz:     32:27   [laughter] Rekka:32:27   Someone might've said, um, it was, hey, you know, you've been really helpful over these past couple of years. Would you mind giving me some more advice? Basically, you know, I appreciate your time, etc. I'm sure you were very polite, but, um, and, and that turned into an unexpected conversation with Colin of, Hey, I've been thinking about that book in the last year and a half or so. Ruz:     32:50   Yeah. Like keeping in contact with people in, in the industry, in all respects is essential. And I have never once encountered anybody in the industry from authors up to publishers and promoters who doesn't want everybody to succeed. There is, there's no competition here. I mean you might see competition between big publishers vying for top spots on New York Times bestsellers list Rekka:33:14   Of course, yeah. Ruz:     33:14   But when you get down to down to the human level, everybody here wants everybody else to win. And there is nothing lost by just making as many friends, like genuine friends as you can and keeping in touch and lifting other people up because it leads to unexpected things for you and also for them. So yeah, really glad I didn't lose Colin's email. Really glad that I just chatted with him like a friend. I didn't expect any publishing deal to come out of it. I just wanted a friend's advice on how to proceed and he was lovely and he gave it. And I've gotten that same feedback and help from everybody who I've ever talked to in the industry. Rekka:33:51   That's awesome. And we just recently had our episode of interviews from the Nebulas where, um, we talked to over 20 people. Not all of them had sound quality that made it into the episode, but we talked to over 20 people and from um, you know, the new authors who were coming there to meet their agent for the first time or, and hadn't sold their book yet to authors who had been around the block a few hundred times. You know, John Scalzi you know, like everyone there was just everyone here's friendly, don't worry about it, you know, talk to people on a like relate on a personal level and you are going to find so many people that can help you or just like be friends and be a friendly face. So, um, yeah, I definitely, I would echo what you're saying. And speaking of John Scalzi since we just, um, got off Twitter before we got on this call. Ruz:     34:48   Yeah, yeah. Rekka:34:48   You had the, the fun experience. This is one of the, like the nice things about being traditionally published, I have to say is going Twitter and seeing a stack of books that has arrived at John Scalzi's house and he takes the photo and he throws it up on Twitter and there's your spine. And how's that feel? Ruz:     35:08   That was just really weird because I've been following Scalzi for years. Again, really lovely guy. I met him for like five minutes back at Worldcon 2010 and he at that point, he was, he's just blowing up everywhere. Rekka:35:25   Yeah. Ruz:     35:25   Old Man's war. And I think the second Ghost Brigades was out and he was the name everybody knew and he was just such a chill guy. Rekka:35:32   Yeah. Ruz:     35:33   As everybody is. And so I've been following him for years and watching this, his ARC piles turn up on Twitter. I'm thinking one day maybe, Rekka:35:41   Maybe. Rekka:35:41   One day, Nah, Nah, impossible. Ridiculous. And then I wake up this morning and people are re tweeting Scalzi's book pile and there's The Ragged Blade. And I actually got this sort of full body, weird contraction, like the whole universe is just pressing in, just going it's appening. So I freaked out a little bit and then I sat down and had a cup of tea and tried to calm down prior to this interview. So yeah, that was cool. And um, and it obviously it does happen. Don't let go of your little, your dreams to turn up in other people's ARC piles cause it happens. Rekka:36:19   Yeah. There's something like, I love that. Um, I love that everyone is so like environmentally conscious now that they're like, oh, you know, maybe ARCs are sort of not the thing that we should be just mailing out unsolicited things like that. But so it's so nice to see a book just randomly appear in a pile of, you know, books that maybe it's, it's not even so much like that person's influence on social media, but just someone you respect and someone that um, does something like that, so nice for the community. Like, um, loves to get excited about new releases for other authors. And that's something I don't really think you get on the self publishing side is, is that sort of like, um, like community shiver of an, of an ARC pile, you know? Ruz:     37:09   Yeah. I think if we go entirely e ARCs from, from here on the, it's going to be a massive loss. Rekka:37:18   It's so sad. Ruz:     37:18   There is something very communal about sharing those books around and being able to pass books physically from one hand to the next and, and let this, you know, people's stories escape into the wild like that. I am an environmentalist but I'm never going to give up my paper Rekka:37:36   Right, I know Ruz:     37:36   book until I die. Sorry guys. Rekka:37:37   Yes. There are industries out there doing much worse for the forest than, than our little books. I have to say that. Ruz:     37:42   Yeah. Yeah. Sorry everybody. But I love my books. Rekka:37:45   I do like that my um, Star Trek level data pad can hold like all these books and that's very handy. But yeah, it's, it's just there's the cover art and an ebook and an ereader. It's just not the same. And the spine. Ruz:     38:02   It will never measure up. Yeah. We have, in this house we have two kindles and my wife and I both have, you know, reading apps on our phones and we still spend like 10 times more on paper books than we do on ebooks. So Rekka:38:16   Yeah, Ruz:     38:17   I'm sorry. It's an addiction. It's never going to stop. Rekka:38:19   Yeah. And that's not one that I think anyone should ever give up. That would be terrible for us. Ruz:     38:23   Yep. Rekka:38:24   Alright. So you have, um, okay. You have traveled to the future where your book is already out. Ruz:     38:31   Yup. Rekka:38:31   Now is the time to ask your future self and maybe like you'll hear the echo in a few days and be able to answer yourself. Um, what questions do you have for yourself that you would ask June 11th, Ruz? Ruz:     38:47   What I want to know from June 11th Ruz besides the obvious, you know, did it sell well? Is the sort of, Rekka:38:54   We're just assuming a million copies on the first day. Ruz:     38:59   Um, I'd like to know how to ignore what's happening with the current release and keep my head down on editing the second book. Rekka:39:08   Yeah. Ruz:     39:08   Because I think it's going to be really easy to just get carried away with obsessively checking reviews and sales numbers and lose myself in that instead of, Rekka:39:17   Absolutely. Ruz:     39:17   Yeah. Instead of focusing on the actual important tasks of just telling the next story. So, Rekka:39:22   Well I will, if you need me to. Ruz:     39:24   Future Ruz, get to work. Rekka:39:24   I will be sending you direct messages on Twitter because I saw your little, um hint at what your next story was and I absolutely want to read that. So I will be bothering you on June 4th to say, hey, how's that story going? What's your word count? Ruz:     39:37   Uh, that one. I don't know if I'm going to start that one until Century of Sand three is most of the way done right now. I'm just in the researching stage. I know, I'm sorry. Rekka:39:49   That's the worst thing about knowing writers is hearing what their project is and knowing you're not going to read it for like three or four years Ruz:     39:55   Minimum. Rekka:39:55   Just for the record. Now you're the worst. Ruz:     40:00   I knew that already though. I've been the worsr for a while. Rekka:40:04   So do you have, um, I, I didn't ask Kaelyn already. Do you have release dates that you know, ballpark release years, for books two and three then? Ruz:     40:13   Um, hopefully very ballpark. We're looking at book to coming out at the same time next year, so May to June and book three the year after that. Rekka:40:21   Okay. Ruz:     40:22   So we'll keep you on a pretty tight schedule. Rekka:40:23   Yeah, yeah. Perfect. Ruz:     40:25   Having having the manuscripts already ready in a embryonic form helps a lot and also having a rough plan for editing helps a lot. Rekka:40:33   Okay. Have we not covered that this isn't even an embryo. This is a string of DNA. Ruz:     40:38   Okay. So with the second book I've already, I've already run through the second book. Okay. It has been polished to the new Parvus plan and so now it fits all the timeline changes that we made to the first. Um, it's still pretty rough like it is, it is a mess, but at least it sits in the same timeline and continuity. And so Parvus has that now hopefully they're going to get that back to me within a couple of weeks to a month and then they want that one wrapped up hopefully by the end of this year. So then we'll have a six month lead time for printing promos, line edits and everything. Fingers crossed. So yeah, hopefully one a year, which is a really scary schedule. Rekka:41:21   Scary for the self publisher or scary for like, oh my God, I put 18 months into the ragged blade. How am I going to do the rest of this in eight months? Ruz:     41:30   Oh, if I wasn't working, if I was, if I was a happy little fulltime writer. Rekka:41:36   Yep. Ruz:     41:36   Then this would be no issue because there was a time when um, when I was self publishing and I was having some success, I quit work and for a year and a half I just wrote and I was putting out three full length novels a year, really happily plus short stories and promos and novellas and that was no issue. But now I, I'm doing a grownup job, Rekka:41:58   Not just the grownup job. This is not a nine to five. You are teaching students and so you've got lesson plans like you, this is not a job you get to leave at work. Ruz:     42:07   Yeah. So I am horribly, for anybody listening, I'm a part time teacher so I'm only actually in school and being paid four days a week and I think I clocked a minimum 70 to 75 hours a week every week Rekka:42:23   Pay teachers more, everyone who can hear me. Ruz:     42:26   Yeah, so, so you can do the math on that as to how much time I spend working out of school and then try to figure out where I fit writing in between. But looks, if Stephen King's can pull off being a high school teacher and raising three kids in a caravan, then I should really not complain. Rekka:42:45   Yes. But eventually you will aspire to become Stephen King and then you can quit the teaching job and become a full time writer and go up to a cabin in the, in the snowy hills and finish your book. Ruz:     42:56   Oh, that's what we're all aiming for. I suppose. You know, everyone wants to hit that point, but I guess the reality for pretty much every author is that there's always going to be the, the nine to five in the background. Rekka:43:08   Okay. So you bring up a good point. Um, you used to write, um, significantly more output in a year and I saw you had some really great advice in a blog post on your site about how you reapproached after you became a teacher because as you said, it's very difficult to find those times where you can dedicate to your own work. So what was the advice for one, you know, run through the advice that you had and, and you know, it's, it's been awhile since you wrote that blog posts. Like how is it going? Cause there's always updates and life always changes, behaviors are easy to settle into. Ruz:     43:46   Yeah. So I think the advice I gave was mostly um, cutting out distractions, really compartmentalizing your time, um, finding really small achievable goals and just repeating them over and over. I'm setting time constraints. So what this all means is that sit down in front of your computer, disconnect the Internet, set yourself a a hundred word goal, right? Just 100 words within two minutes or three minutes or whatever time you want to use. Like I usually aim for 500 words and half an hour. That's my approximate thing. And keep an eye on the clock. So if you get distracted, you can, you've always got somebody looming over your shoulder, you know, the time is looking over your shoulder. Um, and there were, I can't remember all the tips off the top of my head, but they really just Rekka:44:38   One was a dedicated writing space and you know, be aware of where you write best. Ruz:     44:41   Yep. Yeah, that was something that I found, um, I really lost track of as I became a teacher was it, I'd come home from work and I'd sit in the living room doing marking until like eight or nine o'clock and then I'd open up my laptop and try and sit there still in the living room writing on the couch and it was terrible. I just couldn't get anything done because it just didn't feel like a professional writing space. So you have to find the space that actually feels like the professional space with that's your shed out the back or study or, um, I, I found that I write really well on trains because I can't get internet. Rekka:45:15   Yes. Ruz:     45:15   So yeah, find the space, cut out all distractions and such and then instead approached in tiny little bite size pieces of achievement. And that worked really, really well for me for awhile. Um, so in my school holidays I was, I put out, I did an entire rewrite of Century of Sand 2 and wrote a fresh novella in the space of a couple of weeks using that method, which was amazing for me. And then I got back to school and I got given unexpectedly a whole bunch of new classes to teach. Um, and they've just eaten my life since then. So that method has its gotten fractured a little bit. Yeah. Rekka:45:55   It's often that the methods wrong though, I think. Um, it's just something you have to rededicate yourself to because as you said, like you had this moment where like not only were you returning from a holiday but you are returning to like a entire structural shift in your schedule. So rather than say like, okay, I need to like I have this chance to, to set my schedule going forward. That includes this time you just sort of went, Whoa, what is happening? And then like you let the schedule get away with taking over is what it sounds. Ruz:     46:32   Yeah. Rekka:46:32   I didn't mean to couch you just now, but I'm just like, I just didn't want you to disparage your own advice because I think it's your advice is even more important now. It's just a matter like we have to be constantly self evaluating and be mindful of like what we're allowing ourselves to get away with. Because as I said, writers do tend to be a little bit distractible. And if you could sit on the couch for 45 minutes and think that you're still going to get your writing done, you absolutely will. Right? Ruz:     46:57   Yeah. Yeah, no look, you're right. The method is fine. It's me that is not living up to my expectations. Rekka:47:04   I didn't mean to really go there. But you know, Ruz:     47:06   No, no, you did. Rekka:47:08   I was told to torture you. Ruz:     47:09   Yeah. Yeah. Rekka:47:11   I have now achieved that. I feel good. Ruz:     47:14   If I ever get a chance to sit down and reapply the method that works great. So, um, like right now I've, I've got an amazing six day weekend, which is ridiculous concept. So I'm going to, I'm going to sit down and block out distractions and try and smash it out, some edits on a novela project and see if I can get myself back into the headspace. So fingers crossed that I still have that particular magic. Rekka:47:39   Now, not to mention... Ruz:     47:40   And you yelling at me on Twitter will probably help, Rekka:47:43   I will yell at you on Twitter. But of course like at the end of the six day weekend is also your book launch. Ruz:     47:48   Yeah. [laughs] Rekka:47:50   So this is the perfect time to take my advice and not let like major shifts like get you off course when you finally, you're setting yourself up. So Ruz:     48:01   Yeah. Rekka:48:01   Cause I have to, I have to leave with some advice here. So Ruz:     48:05   Yeah. Um, Rekka:48:07   Of course I don't have a book coming out on Tuesday, Ruz:     48:10   [laughs] Yeah, but you've been through this, you know, you've been through this yourself now more than once. So yeah, breaking down big goals into nice, manageable smaller goals doesn't just make them more achievable. It, um, I think it actually removes a lot of the weight ] Rekka:48:23   Yeah ... Ruz:     48:23   That sort of psychological weight attached to them. So it makes you feel like you don't have to be perfect with each one. You just have to get each tiny step out of the way and it Rekka:48:34   Right and the first draft doesn't need to be edited, you know, like Ruz:     48:37   Yeah. Rekka:48:37   That's just not the order of the things happen ever. Like it never works that way. Ruz:     48:41   Just has to exist Rekka:48:43   Yeah. Ruz:     48:43   And it exists one paragraph at a time and that paragraph doesn't have to be perfect. You just have to put it down. So yeah, that's if, of all my advice, that'll be the most important part is just keep nibbling away at it steadily and don't worry about quality, just get it done. Rekka:49:02   Perfect. That's true. And now you can go follow it Ruz:     49:06   Yeah ... Rekka:49:06   While you're trying to keep that Internet unplugged next week, which is going to be torture for you. Ruz:     49:13   Yeah, I'm not looking forward to that, but it has to be done. Rekka:49:16   Yeah Ruz:     49:16   Um, and if you really want, since you're so psyched about it, I will write a tiny little intro teaser to this new project that you really want to see. Rekka:49:25   Yes. Ruz:     49:25   So at least then I'll have, I'll have something concrete and I can start adding to it instead of just being a nebulous concept. Rekka:49:32   Exactly! Awesome. See, I'm so helpful. I love being helpful and also I get stuff. So awesome. I'm looking forward - Ruz:     49:41   It's also blackmail. Rekka:49:43   Well no, it's coercion at the worst. Ruz:     49:45   Yeah. Rekka:49:45   Um, so I am looking forward between now and your launch day to read the other 60% of the book. Uh, the Ragged Blade, which again launches in the US on June 4th. And um, and I'm looking forward to writing a review to add to the pile of reviews that you can watch, uh, go up on launch day when you are totally not plugged into the internet at all. And um, everyone else can go check it out. It's um, at uh, ruzkin.com Ruz:     50:15   Yup, R - U - Z Rekka:50:15   is the website which would be newly launched, you say? Ruz:     50:18   Yeah, R-U-Z-K-I-Ncom. And we're hopefully going to have a new version of that up in the coming days before the launch because my current website is a tragic mess, but you'll never see that mysterious listeners. Rekka:50:33   You'll have the new one ready. Ruz:     50:33   Yeah. Rekka:50:34   So that will, that's good. That'll keep you busy between now and then. Just remember tiny steps Ruz:     50:39   Yup. Rekka:50:39   And, and so a good luck on the launch and of course, uh, from the future. It was wonderful and we're also impressed and everyone loves it. And um, obviously we can't ask Kaelyn if she has any other questions or comments because she was not allowed in this interview. She had to recuse herself as your editor from trying to lead the witness and in all those terms. Um, so yeah, good luck and congratulations Ruz:     51:05   Thank you so much. Rekka:51:05   and thank you so much for your time and I hope that you are able to enact your, uh writing plans so that we can see all the other stuff that you're going to bring into the world. Ruz:     51:18   Appreciate it. Wish me luck and um, you have an awesome week as well, hope you enjoy the rest of the book. Rekka:51:23   I will let you know if I don't. Ruz:     51:25   Yep, I trust you. Be Honest. Rekka:51:28   Exactly. Thank you so much Ruz for your time and um, I yeah, it's Saturday morning there, so enjoy the rest of your day Ruz:     51:36   Yup, will do. Rekka:51:36   And your holiday. Ruz:     51:39   Thank you. Thank you. Rekka:51:40   We will let people know how that launch is going to, I'm sure. Ruz:     51:44   Fantastic. Rekka:51:45   Thanks, Ruz. Bye.    

Hi everyone, and thank you for listening to the launch episodes of the We Make Books Podcast - A podcast about writing, publishing, and everything in between! We Make Books is hosted by Rekka Jay and Kaelyn Considine; Rekka is a published author and Kaelyn is an editor and together they are going to take you through what goes into getting a book out of your head, on to paper, in to the hands of a publisher, and finally on to book store shelves. We kick off the podcast series with a discussion of the lifecycle of a book. We're going to cover straight up to the book's release over this episode and the next, and today we talk all the way up to the happy-scary moment when your book is picked up by a publisher. We Make Books is a podcast for writer and publishers, by writers and publishers and we want to hear from our listeners! Hit us up on our social media, linked below, and send us your questions, comments, and concerns, and any theories you may have about "Spider-Man: Far From Home." Thank you for taking the time to listen to this introduction, the first batch of new episodes drops on May 14th, so be sure to subscribe so you don’t miss it. A transcription of this episode can be found below. We hope you enjoy We Make Books! Twitter: @WMBCast  |  @KindofKaelyn  |  @BittyBittyZap Instagram: @WMBCast  Patreon.com/WMBCast === Transcript === Kaelyn: 00:00 Hi everyone. Welcome to another episode of the we make books podcast, a podcast about writing, publishing and everything in between. I'm Kaelyn Considine and I am an editor and acquisitions editor at Parvus press. Rekka: 00:12 And I'm Rekka Jay. I write science fiction as RJ Theodore and one of my books has published through Parvus Press Kaelyn: 00:18 And we love it. It's such a great book. Should I'll go get it. Um, so this is the second half of our two introductory episodes. Um, we are kind of doing a rough, uh, walk through. Rekka: 00:30 I think it's more of a tear through Kaelyn: 00:32 A tear through yeah. Tear through of, um, the publishing process. Same qualifiers. Last time we know this is not a perfect in depth every single part of the process. Rekka: 00:42 The part you care about. Yeah. We didn't talk about it enough but we will someday. Kaelyn: 00:45 No, I mean we were like that one. We're leaving that out. But, uh, this is, you know, so the first episode, which hopefully you just finished listening to, we covered, um, from having a finished manuscript up to submissions and broaching into the process of acquisitions here, we're gonna start with acquisitions and walk you all the way up to what happens to get the book on the shelf. If you didn't listen to the first episode I recommend go do that. If you didn't listen to our introductory episode, I also recommend you go do that. Um, just to get an idea of us, what this podcast is about and what we're planning to do here. Rekka: 01:17 Yeah. Before we're 10 episodes in and you have a lot more to catch up on. Kaelyn: 01:20 Yeah. And, uh, you know, we're releasing these all back to back. So, you know, this is a, Rekka: 01:25 This is our launch day, funny we should mention that we get to that. Kaelyn: 01:29 Yes, yes. So we talk a lot about launch days, um, so you know, just some information, some. Um, and to also give you an idea of topics that we were going to be discussing more in depth with dedicated episodes as we go down the line. Uh, so this is the second half of the two parter. Let's just get to it. Rekka: 01:46 Yeah. Kaelyn: 01:46 Hope you enjoy. Kaelyn: 01:47 [Music] Kaelyn: 01:54 Okay. Kaelyn: 02:05 It is kind of what we do. Rekka: 02:07 So, um, we spent an episode talking about sort of more the writers realm of responsibility. Kaelyn: 02:14 Yes. Real quick. Welcome back everyone. Rekka: 02:17 No, no, no, no, no, no, no. They're fine. They've been here. Whatever we said high already, they're binging. Kaelyn: 02:22 I don't know, you know, it's nice to like, Rekka: 02:24 Be polite? Kaelyn: 02:25 I know everyone's going to be just listening, you know. Hopefully everyone's just going to be listening to these two, this batch after the other. But you know, it's nice to say hello again in case they had to walk away from that. But so where last we left you, it was a cliffhanger. Kaelyn: 02:39 It was a cliffhanger. You just got accepted. Then what happens? Kaelyn: 02:42 Then what happens? Rekka: 02:43 Is this a soap opera or is this real life? Kaelyn: 02:46 Really quick? Tight pan on the face. Giant eyes. [gasp] Rekka: 02:53 Cut to commercial. Kaelyn: 02:53 Cut to commercial. Um, no. So where are we last left you, we were ah, you know, so you've gotten a call from an acquisitions editor. Rekka: 02:59 Yes. In theory, all your hard work has paid off. Kaelyn: 03:03 That's, hey, look. Rekka: 03:04 And all your hard work is just beginning. Kaelyn: 03:06 Yeah. Yeah. I think there's this thing that everyone thinks some about my book. I'm good. Rekka: 03:12 I'm done. Oh God, that's so wrong. Kaelyn: 03:14 So wrong. Rekka: 03:15 Sweet summer child. You are so wrong. Kaelyn: 03:19 That's good. I'm trying to think of things that could not be farther from the truth. Rekka: 03:24 Yeah, there's nothing. Kaelyn: 03:25 Um, so we're going to walk you through what happens after that now. But in order to get to that, we got to talk about acquisitions process a little bit. Rekka: 03:35 Yeah. Kaelyn: 03:36 So you Rekka, are someone that has been through it. I myself, uh, in case you have not listened to our intro episode, which go listen to it. Rekka: 03:43 Yeah. Yeah. Kaelyn: 03:44 Um, I am an acquisitions editor for Parvus Press, so I, this is– Rekka: 03:49 This is what you do. Kaelyn: 03:49 This is what I do among other things, but this is, this is the bread and butter of my, a lot of my job. Um, so again, we're not going to get into too much crazy detail here. Um, this is stuff we're absolutely going to talk about more down the line. Um, but we want to give you sort of a brief run through. So very quickly glossing over all of the, you know, what makes me interested in books because there is no good answer to that. Rekka: 04:21 Yeah, and it's not a universal. Kaelyn: 04:22 No, not by any stretch of the imagination. But let's say you've submitted your manuscript script. I've enjoyed it and next thing that's going to happen is you're going to get a call from me or if you've gone through an agent, I'll probably go through your agent and then set up a call with you. Kaelyn: 04:40 So what's going to happen here is I'm trying to get a good sense of you. I want to see what you envision for the book, what you're like to work with as a writer and how working relationship will be going, but also set your expectations for what we want and what we'd be asking you to do to your book because, and this is a running theme you're going to see through this: there's no such thing as a book that gets accepted and immediately published. It doesn't happen. Rekka: 05:15 Or should not happen. Kaelyn: 05:16 Should not happen. If it does happen, don't publish with that publisher. Rekka: 05:22 That's not your publisher. Kaelyn: 05:23 That's not someone you should be working with. Um, so we're going to have a couple of conversations. Uh, if there's an, if there's an agent involved, there'll be involved in the conversations. Um, most places, and again, another qualifier everywhere is a little different. Um, but you should be talking to people before you even start talking about a contract. So once everyone's kind of gotten to a place that we've, we've had, you know, had some conversations back and forth, Rekka, what is the one thing you need to stop and do? As excited as you are and as ready to sign the contract as you are? What should you do agent or not? Rekka: 06:09 Research, this publisher. Research this publisher until you know what the mineral makeup of the ground they're building is built on this, right? Kaelyn: 06:18 I mean, it's true because a few reasons. One, you know, presumably for working with an agent, they are, they're going to take care of you and look out for you. So you shouldn't be, you know, there's that. But even still, you should still be doing your own research if you not make sure that you're, you know, at minimum ending up in a place that is going to work well for and with you at worst, make sure you're not getting stuck with some kind of predatory publisher that's going to lock up your rights for years. Rekka: 06:48 Right Kaelyn: 06:49 So I know it's exciting, it's really exciting. Rekka: 06:52 It's very exciting. This is exactly what you've been working towards. You know, as far as you're concerned, this is your end goal. I mean, it's probably not your end end goal, but this is a moment that feels like everything hinges on you getting that contract and advance as fast as possible. Kaelyn: 07:10 Yes Rekka: 07:10 And that may, you know, it may not be the right publisher. Kaelyn: 07:13 Don't let it cloud your judgment, you know, for all of the time, all of the time we spent talking in a previous episode about how much blood, sweat and tears went into this, keep in mind how much of your blood, sweat and tears went into this. Don't throw it away. Rekka: 07:27 Right. Kaelyn: 07:27 I can't imagine having to make the decision to walk away from something like that. But think how miserable you will be if you don't. Rekka: 07:33 Right. This is a decision that seems like there's a lot of pressure pushing you in one direction and that saying no to a publisher and walking away, it may be your only chance and you will regret it forever and you will never get your book published if you don't go through them. And they may even say that and you definitely don't want those people. Kaelyn: 07:52 Yeah. Rekka: 07:52 Um, but look at the catalog of books that have been put out by this publisher. Those are the lists of names of people that you could potentially reach out to and just say, hey, I have been offered, you know, a purchase of my book by this publisher and I see that you worked with them, could you tell me, Kaelyn: 08:13 How was the process? Rekka: 08:14 You know, without divulging the, you know, the, Kaelyn: 08:17 Were you happy with them is a very easy to answer a question without asking for too much specifics, just yes or no? Rekka: 08:26 Yup. Kaelyn: 08:26 Just yes, I'm very happy with them. I have a great relationship or eh, it could have been better. Rekka: 08:30 And the reason you go to the catalog is because these are the books that the publishers still retains rights to, but they may not be authors that are actively with that publisher. So you may find some more honest answers than others. Kaelyn: 08:42 Yeah yeah, so, okay. Let's say you've done all your research. This is great. This is the publishing houses of your dreams. You are so excited! Now it's time for the contract. Rekka: 08:51 Yes. Kaelyn: 08:51 And ... Rekka: 08:52 You like legalese? I hope you like legalese. Kaelyn: 08:55 I really hope you like trying to understand minute details of things that are hopefully never going to apply to you. Rekka: 09:01 But I have a question. Kaelyn. Kaelyn: 09:04 Huh? Rekka: 09:04 I have a question. Kaelyn: 09:05 Sure. Rekka: 09:06 Does anyone talk like the language in a contract? Kaelyn: 09:11 Yes, but only if we're talking about a contract. Rekka: 09:13 Yeah. What is that? What is the deal with that? Kaelyn: 09:17 It's you know, it's cover your ass language is really what it is. Rekka: 09:21 But obfuscated information is not covering your ass if Kaelyn: 09:25 Well, actually it's ... Rekka: 09:25 it's well for debating what that even means. Kaelyn: 09:28 This is actually a good point to bring up is the reason that these very specific and very complicated words and phrases are used is because there have been court cases over the meaning of specific words. So you have to use specific words because they need us Rekka: 09:45 Because they have court precedents. Kaelyn: 09:46 Yes. And they translate to a consequence essentially. So yeah, as you're reading through this going like, oh my God, what? And I realize this must be extra torture for writers. Rekka: 09:57 Yeah. Kaelyn: 09:58 I just, I have a couple of comments Rekka: 10:00 I have some feedback. If you're open to it. Kaelyn: 10:03 The plot of this clause is just all over the place. Rekka: 10:07 I really don't like how it ends. Kaelyn: 10:07 I don't know who this subsequent is, but they keep, they keep popping up and then nothing happens. Rekka: 10:16 So, um, yeah, no, it's, it's, they can be daunting but... Kaelyn: 10:22 And if you don't understand what they mean, do not sign them. We're going to, we're going to get to that. So if you have an agent, your agent is going to handle a lot of the contract negotiations. They will, I mean, they should be, you know, keeping you involved, talking to you about, well, are you willing to take this? And this or they'll advise you, cause you know, your agents a professional, they know how to navigate this. Rekka: 10:46 And they're also familiar with these terms and these ... Kaelyn: 10:47 Yeah. Subsequents. Yes, exactly. Yeah. So if you're doing this on your own, look, I'm not going to say, you know, you must go get a lawyer because it's expensive. Rekka: 11:01 However, Kaelyn: 11:02 However, Rekka: 11:03 So is signing away your rights without understanding what you're signing away. Kaelyn: 11:06 Yes, exactly. um, if you don't understand what you're reading, if you have questions about it, again, this is your blood, sweat and tears. Rekka: 11:16 And if this is your first book, it means even more than like your third book or your fourth book. Kaelyn: 11:20 Exactly, yeah. So think about how much time and effort you put into this and think about if it's the ri - worth the risk of signing a bad contract. Rekka: 11:32 Mmhmm. Kaelyn: 11:33 Most places, I won't say they're not out. I will say they're not out to screw you. Rekka: 11:39 However, Kaelyn: 11:40 I will go so far as to say they're not trying to take advantage of you, but like every contract, each side is trying to get as much out of the other as they can. Now, I will say like, and I'm not just saying this because it's Parvus, I will say and Rekka, you can attest to this, we write very fair contracts and I think there is definitely an effort on the part of a lot of, especially independent publishers to do that. But it doesn't matter if somebody, if an offer sent it back to me and I said, you read it over, you have any questions? And they said, ah, whatever. I just signed it. I'd just be like, oh boy. Rekka: 12:14 Actually so funny story. Kaelyn: 12:18 Um, just read it. If you have any questions, you know, find someone or Google it, look it up. You know, there is, we will, we will do an episode about this. Talk about, you know, things that should be red flags and contracts, but the biggest things that are going to be the most interest to you covered or your advance, your royalties, your rights, uh, deadlines. That's a big one because Rekka: 12:43 Kind of a big one Kaelyn: 12:44 Lot's of them will ... Rekka: 12:44 They're in there in black ink. Kaelyn: 12:46 Yeah, a lot of times they get written into the contract and you know, you can, you're, you can lose your advance if you don't meet the deadline. And then there's going to be a lot of things like, you know, um, termination, um, you know, sales quotas like different things for longer down the road. And you know, those were the ones that you might gloss over, but you shouldn't. Umm, also in there is going to be any stipulations about what the publisher versus you were going to be doing for marketing. Um, things about your audio books, Rekka: 13:17 Your author copies. Kaelyn: 13:18 You're author copies. All different kinds of little things that you should be aware of. Like I said, we're going to do, we're definitely going to do one where we get a little more in depth with this because it's very important. And on, I think the post acquisition side, it's the most intimidating part of the process. Like the, I have no idea how any of this works. Rekka: 13:41 And what does this word mean? What does it mean if I sign this the way it's written and am I allowed to ask for changes or are they going to withdraw their offer? Kaelyn: 13:49 Exactly. And you know, honestly they shouldn't. Rekka: 13:52 Right. Kaelyn: 13:52 Um, you go back and say, Hey, I'm concerned about this, Rekka: 13:56 The phrase contract negotiation is a thing. Kaelyn: 13:58 Yes, yes. And um, yeah. I'm not going to say some people will say never accept the first contract given to you. If that's a good contract and you're happy with it. Rekka: 14:08 Yeah, if the things that you were most concerned with are addressed to your liking in the contract and you know what everything means and you're, and it's not just because I think I know what everything means, but you actually understand and you've had conversations about what everything means. Then if you like the contract, if the things that mattered to you are, are, set to your satisfaction, there isn't anything that like you would, you would want to clarify or or modify. You can sign that contract. Kaelyn: 14:39 Yup. There's nothing, you know? Yeah. Just be smart about it is the thing. At the end of the day, the last thing you want is to walk away with a contract that you're unhappy about. Rekka: 14:50 Right. Kaelyn: 14:51 So you've got a great contract. You're all excited, you've dug in, you've had conversations with the acquisitions editor or the publisher. Hopefully you've had a conversation with, if not your editor, somebody who is on that team or associated affiliated with them. At least you've talked about what the plans are for the book. They've talked about what your intentions for the book are, how you see the future of the, if it's a series, how you see it going. Rekka: 15:14 Mmhmm. Kaelyn: 15:15 So now, Rekka: 15:17 And some of the changes that they want might have been in your contract, so you may have already had this conversation. Kaelyn: 15:22 Yes. That's a good point. Yes. There they may say the publication of this book is contingent upon you doing A, B, and C. We'll talk a little bit more about that in the next section about working with your editor, but part of the reason for that is to make it clear what the expectations are with this, because ... Rekka: 15:45 And that's a good thing. Kaelyn: 15:46 No, it is. Rekka: 15:46 And it sounds so firm and so stern, but it really is the more clear that anyone can be the better off for everyone involved because you know what you're getting into. Kaelyn: 15:55 And I think this is where people, writers start to get nervous about publishers that, and this is a good transition into working with your editor because I think they get nervous about what they're going to make me change everything. Here's the thing. We would not have bought your book if we didn't like it the way it is. You wrote a good book. We would not have bought it if you didn't. We're going to take it and make it a great book together. This is a team process. This isn't, you know, some random person descending from on high with a red pen, marking it up and tossing it back to you. This is, you know, this is a conversation. This is a process, Rekka: 16:37 And you're still going to be doing the work of the edits. This is still going to be your book at the end of it. Take every challenge as a way to go, okay, how do I make the strong stronger? What do I want to do here? They're going to offer you probably some kind of suggestion, Kaelyn: 16:50 Oh, you'll have conversations. Rekka: 16:50 But it's not a fully formed suggestion. It's going to be more of a challenge. Kaelyn: 16:54 Yeah, you'll have conversations. Yeah. I mean I, one of my favorite things that I get to do and you know, um, apart from acquiring books, they edit our books too. I love getting on the phone with my authors and talking through and having things explained and having a problem and going like, okay, how do we work? Rekka: 17:11 Um, I planned a bank heist with my editor Kaelyn: 17:14 And that's honestly, that's my favorite part of this is the first part, the developmental edits. So developmental edits are, you're working on the story, it's the structure, themes, cohesiveness, character arcs, making sure everything makes sense, lines up is a nice neat package at the end of the day or if it's supposed to be a mess at the end, it's an appropriate mess at the end. Um, Kaelyn: 17:40 So this is where you're going to be having a lot of conversations with your editor and every editor works differently. Um, I know the way I deal with my authors is different from the way Rekka's editor, deals with her and we work at the same company. Rekka: 17:54 Yes. Kaelyn: 17:55 And I think part of that also is, you know, making sure the editor fits well with the author. Everyone works differently. Rekka: 18:01 We knew that Kaelyn would never be able to tolerate spending any amount of time with me, Kaelyn: 18:05 No, no ... Rekka: 18:05 So Kaelyn did not become my editor. Kaelyn: 18:07 Yeah, so we just decided to do this podcast together. [laughter] That seemed like a much better, Kaelyn: 18:14 So we just, we don't even just email each other back and forth. We're in the same room together, Rekka: 18:18 Yes. Kaelyn: 18:18 For long periods of time. Kaelyn: 18:19 So probably a good idea now not to ever work on a book together, just in case. Oh God, could you imagine? I can't decide if that would be like, Rekka: 18:27 The best or the worst. Yeah, Kaelyn: 18:28 Awesome. Or if we'd just be like handing back like a 700 page tome of like, so here's the thing, if you read this, when you get to the end, the book becomes a singularity, [laughter] so make sure you're away from everything when you get to that. Yeah, no, we could, we could possibly do some damage there, Rekka: 18:52 Or at least, and the podcasts early, [laughter] one or the other. Kaelyn: 18:58 Either we take over the world or we killing each other. It's going to be okay. So that's, you know, that's going to be what your developmental editor is doing. How many passes, there's no answer to that, Rekka: 19:07 As many as many as it takes. Kaelyn: 19:09 As many as it takes. Rekka: 19:09 Hopefully, like, you know, everyone is cooperating well so that somebody isn't resisting a change in writing around the change. Kaelyn: 19:16 And that's a great part of the ... Rekka: 19:20 Admission? Kaelyn: 19:20 Yeah, well no, that's a great spot to talk about. You know, having conflict with your editor and what we were talking about before about the sphere of like they're going to come in and change everything. Our book, my book, everyone's book. Okay. Having, you know, your editor might come in and tell you that your favorite part of the book isn't working and that's difficult to hear. Rekka: 19:44 Because it's precious Kaelyn: 19:45 It's precious. And I will say someone who's had that conversation, it's difficult to say because I personally can tell the parts of the book that they really like. Rekka: 19:57 Enjoyed and are proud of ... Kaelyn: 19:57 Yeah, exactly. Um, try not to fight with your editor. It's just, and conversely, your editors should not be picking fights with you, but it's not going to help anyone and it's going to strain the relationship. It's, you know, everyone, every relationship with editors is different. If you disagree on something, try not to look at it as a conflict. Try to look at it as how are we going to sort this out and how can we get to a mutually beneficial conclusion both for us and the sake of the story. Nobody wants to write a book under a black cloud. Rekka: 20:39 Right. Kaelyn: 20:39 It's not .... Rekka: 20:40 Cause you're gonna remember that black cloud, when you look at that book on the shelf later. Kaelyn: 20:44 And this is, you know, like again as, as an editor, I never want an author to walk away from a section unhappy. Like I've had so many times where I've had to tell writers, yeah, put it down, walk away from it. Because if you write it right, like the way you are right now, and you know this isn't necessarily because we're in disagreement over some things might have just been frustration or writer's block or Rekka: 21:07 Society or, Kaelyn: 21:08 Yeah, it's the same thing with having a disagreement over it. You're not going to be happy with the book and you're going to regret that. And part of my job as your editor is to get the book to a place for it is an excellent book and you're both happy with it. So at the end of your developmental edits, everything that we've talked about, your story, your character arcs, the structure, the plot lines, everything should be where you want it to be. Both parties would be happy with it. They're going to say functionally the story's done. Rekka: 21:36 Yeah. Kaelyn: 21:36 Yeah. Then comes line edits. Rekka: 21:38 Okay. Kaelyn: 21:41 Line edits ... Rekka: 21:42 Speaking of functionally. functionally this isn't English Kaelyn: 21:46 Yes, line edits are the part where you start to question your ability to write. Line edits are your editor, and again everywhere is different. It could be your editor that does this, you know, if it's a larger publishing house, maybe the hand off to someone more junior to uh, to take a look at. Rekka: 22:05 But it's not a bad thing if it goes to somebody else because now you get another Kaelyn: 22:10 Oh yeah, Rekka: 22:10 New perspective on this book who's going to catch stuff because they haven't been part of the process so far. Kaelyn: 22:15 Rekka actually just brought up a kind of potentially key component here that we didn't really bullet point, but it's good to talk about is: Beta readers. Rekka: 22:25 Mmmhmmm. Kaelyn: 22:25 Now the use of these. Rekka: 22:27 They are precious and they're wonderful. Kaelyn: 22:28 They're precious, they're wonderful. Buy them cookies, give them hugs. Rekka: 22:31 Build an army. Kaelyn: 22:31 Build an army that's full of cookies and lots of hugs. Depending on your publishing house or who's publishing you, they may or may not use them. But for the sake of, you know, this here, and by the way, if you're self publishing, Beta readers, Rekka: 22:48 Are so key, Kaelyn: 22:49 So key and crucial. Um, but Beta readers are going to do basically what Rekka just said. They're going to look at the book, they're going to, you know, say like, I liked it. I didn't like it. I was confused at this part. Um, this character's storyline doesn't make sense to me. You're going to get large scale feedback from, macro feedback from them, if you will. And that's, you know, depending on how things work, that might be after most of the developmental edits or that might be kind of during, Rekka: 23:18 Yeah, it's, it's kind of up to you as the author if you were in, you know, working with your own army. Kaelyn: 23:23 Yeah. The editor will, you know, um, I know a part of this, we have a Beta reader program, Rekka: 23:30 But if you know, you have heavy lifting to do on your book, you don't want to bring, Kaelyn: 23:32 No, that's not ... Rekka: 23:33 In the Beta readers because that, that's wasting their time. Kaelyn: 23:36 They are for fine tuning. Rekka: 23:36 They will be reacting to this as a reader would. And that's really a valuable thing. Kaelyn: 23:41 That is, yeah, it's so important because it's just a great perspective to have. It's an indicator. It's, you know, we've dropped something in this solution. Let's see what color it turns to tell us what it is. Rekka: 23:55 And if you have more people, it goes from an n equals two to like an n equals 10 maybe. And that's just like, it really, it really multiplies how many reinforcing opinions you get on, like whether it works. Yeah. Kaelyn: 24:08 So that could be happening either during the process of developmental edits or right after, but then afterwards you going in the line edits, line edits, it's like we were talking about are sentence structure. Um, ma- watching and catching for like repeated words. Rekka: 24:27 And believe me. You've got repeated words. Kaelyn: 24:29 Trust me, you have repeated words. I understand they're only so many ways to say the word desk, but, Rekka: 24:36 But you can write around it. Kaelyn: 24:37 Yes. So you know line edits, I mean, your editor is going to go in there and they're going to just make the changes and they should track everything and it's not, you must do this a lot of times. Like when I do it, it's like, look, if I'm adding ha- half of the sentence or I'm moving something, this is a suggestion and I'm giving you an idea of how to make this work better. Rekka: 24:59 Yeah. Kaelyn: 24:59 Um, you know, some editors are kind of like, nope, you're doing it this way. This is so again, everyone's a little different. It is not a reflection of your command of the English language. It is a reflection of the fact that writing somewhere between 70 and 150,000 words causes fatigue. Rekka: 25:18 Yes. Kaelyn: 25:19 And there are only so many ways you can say something differently. Um, so this is the clarity portion of things. This is the making sure that when the reader reads this, they understand what they're reading. Rekka: 25:32 And a lot of that is making it succinct. Kaelyn: 25:34 And if I wrote that sentence down, I would make them change it. Rekka: 25:37 Yeah. [laugter] Yes. Spoken sentences are the worst. Kaelyn: 25:41 But I mean Rekka, you do you do a read aloud, right? Rekka: 25:44 I absolutely do a read aloud. I'm still suffering recovery from my, my last real aloud, which ended, um, almost two weeks ago now. Kaelyn: 25:51 Yeah. Which is, I mean, you know, for, if you're unsure of what it is, it's you get your manuscript, you go through it and yeah, Rekka's pointing at, I'm not joking. It's a two inch binder. Rekka: 26:03 I'm sorry. That's a three inch binder. Kaelyn: 26:05 Three inch binder. I was wrong. That was a three inch binder of her printed manuscript and there's all sorts of flags and posted sticking out of it. We'll put a picture of it on the Instagram so you can say can get a look out of it in its full glory. Rekka: 26:17 Yes. Kaelyn: 26:18 And you go through and read this out loud because reading it out loud is the way the reader, like you don't understand that because you've written this, you are so familiar with it. You're skipping and skimming and there's stuff in there that you missing. Rekka: 26:33 Your brain is telling you, it says what you think it says. Kaelyn: 26:35 Exactly. Yeah. You normalize it in your mind. So then you're gonna get line edits I mean that is a lot of, that's tracked changes that's accept,reject, acccept, reject. Okay, wait yeah, I see this is wrong. alright, she told me to put this in here and change it, you know, so I'm not going to lie. It's a process. It's not, it's not super fun, but it's just, Rekka: 26:54 Get your favorite beverage. Kaelyn: 26:56 Get your favorite beverage. Rekka: 26:57 Wear your favorite pants. Kaelyn: 26:58 Your favorite, your favorite non alcoholic beverage. Rekka: 27:01 Yeah. Kaelyn: 27:01 Because doing this drunk is a bad idea, not going to come out great. Rekka: 27:05 Yeah. There will be tears or um, yeah, I don't even know. Kaelyn: 27:09 This is the, this is, I mean this is the, uh, can't even do English good part of the process because then come the copy edits. This is an entirely different person than your editor, generally. The copy editor is the definitive, they are the ones that say no, this is where the comment actually goes. Authors present, company included, have a tendancy Rekka: 27:37 No, you shush! Commas are a spice. Kaelyn: 27:42 Commas, commas are not voice. Rekka: 27:48 [laughter] Kaelyn: 27:48 They are ... Rekka: 27:48 I'm sure I spit water for my nose, but I'm, Kaelyn: 27:52 I swear to God, I'm going to make mugs that every Parvus author, all new authors we sign gets, that says: "Commas are not voice". I understand. It's hard. It's like, no, I want them to see that this is the end of the thought and Rekka: 28:06 Okay, William Shatner, um, Kaelyn: 28:11 [laugher] But your copy editor is the one who's going to go through, they're going to, you know, check your grammar, your punctuation. They are also the one who is going to deal with your style guide. So they're going to say, okay, if it's a dash, it's space dash space or there's no space or there's just a space before and they're going to go through and uniformly format all of that stuff. At some point we will absolutely have a copy editor on the show because they're. Rekka: 28:42 They're special people. Kaelyn: 28:43 They are, no, I mean they are like, it's, I can't do it. Like I won't even try. I mean there are some times, but like I will copy edit, do a rough copy edit of something real quick, that's like a sample chapter because we just got to get it out the door and it's not ... Rekka: 29:01 If you look at a final copy edit, Kaelyn: 29:03 Yeah, and then I'm like, Oh God, I'm stupid. Wow. [laughter] Rekka: 29:07 I don't know how to comma either. Kaelyn: 29:10 Um, so you know, that's that. A good copy editor by the way will also go through and, you know, maybe say like, 'Hey, this sentence was a little confusing to me or maybe separate this into two paragraphs. Um, copy editors are special people who deserve all of the hugs and cookies in the world. Rekka: 29:28 Wait, what happens to the hugs and cookies that were from my Beta readers? Kaelyn: 29:31 They, they hang out with the copy editors. Rekka: 29:33 It's like they just picked the crumbs off the floor. Kaelyn: 29:37 Okay, fine. The Beta readers get, Rekka: 29:39 Copy editors get bacon. Kaelyn: 29:41 There we go. Rekka: 29:41 There we go. Kaelyn: 29:41 I mean everyone knows copy editors love Bacon. So then after that, Rekka: 29:47 Can I just, can I just make a comment? Kaelyn: 29:49 Of course. Rekka: 29:49 If your book reaches copy editing, Yay. Kaelyn: 29:52 Yay! Rekka: 29:53 Cause you're done with the line edits, you're done with the revisions. Because what I was going to say is you're done. Kaelyn: 30:01 Um, copyedit is like that's, I won't say it's carved in stone. Rekka: 30:07 But that book is on its way out the door. Kaelyn: 30:08 But it's heavily etched into clay. If you need to, you can go back and fix something, but we really don't want to do that. Rekka: 30:18 Yeah, minimal touching after. Kaelyn: 30:21 Yeah, exactly. You know there's definitely like there've been times when we've, you know, had to do that and then it's um. For those of you listening at home Rekka is vehemently trying to avoid eye contact with me. Rekka: 30:34 There might have been some last minute issues. Kaelyn: 30:36 And look, it happens and you know, but like copy editing, you are functionally done the book at that point. In the meantime cause you're probably going, okay well I've got all this stuff going on. What's this publisher doing that's supposed to be so great and special? Rekka? Rekka: 30:55 What is the publisher doing Kaelyn? Kaelyn: 30:59 You looked like, you looked like you had a thought. Rekka: 30:59 I was going to say that between getting these revisions back, you've got stretches of time where you're sitting and you probably pacing if you're not sitting. Kaelyn: 31:14 Um, Rekka is about to go into a whole thing. Rekka: 31:16 Yes in the meantime. Kaelyn: 31:18 So we're going to do, Rekka: 31:19 Meanwhile, Kaelyn: 31:21 What the authors in the meantime should be, and then we're going to jump back to what publisher is doing. Because you're right, there are long stretches of time where you're just sitting there waiting to get things back. Rekka: 31:32 Yes. Kaelyn: 31:32 So what are you doing in the meantime? Rekka: 31:34 Well, aside from stressing that things are not actually being looked at. Kaelyn: 31:39 You're sitting there going, oh my God, they hate it. They're, they're figuring out how to cancel my agreement right now. Rekka: 31:43 Yes. Kaelyn: 31:44 This is. Rekka: 31:45 Yeah, there's that. Or there's like, do they, are they working on me? Are they working on the book that comes out next week? Kaelyn: 31:52 Um, if we're still working on the book that comes out next weel ... Rekka: 31:55 Yeah, I know. I know. I know, but you know what I'm saying? I'm like, I know that your calendar has more than my book. Is my book on the front of the table or is someone else's book on the front of the table? And I, if I ask am I going to find out, no, they haven't looked at it and I don't want to know that. So I'm not asking, so I'm just over here panicking. So while you're panicking, uh, try to distract yourself by handling the things that you can take care of at this point. Kaelyn: 32:20 Yeah, because there's a lot you could be doing to help yourself and help you career and your book. Rekka: 32:24 When your book launches, you don't want that to be the first day you go, Huh. So should I do like a website or something? [laughter] Kaelyn: 32:31 So, like people are asking me like, how did I get in touch with me? I guess they should have Twitter. Rekka: 32:36 Yeah. Maybe a twitter or I don't know. Um, what are readers even? You know, like be on, be public. Kaelyn: 32:46 I mean, what is a book? Rekka: 32:49 Well that's, that's another episode, that's a five episode series on what is a book. Kaelyn: 32:55 The metaphysical. But there will be alcohol involved. There will be crying. Rekka: 32:59 I'm looking forward to that one. But so, so there are things, you know, your social media platform, you don't have to do every social media venue out there, but pick the ones that you feel comfortable expressing yourself as your, your public persona. If you are using a pen name to hide your identity, now's a good time to start dusting the tracks and making sure that you've sealed those, those ridges tight and everything like that. Kaelyn: 33:25 Yeah, by the way, now's a good time to start establishing your pen name. Rekka: 33:28 Right. So you don't want on your book launch day for someone to come looking for you on Twitter and see that you have exactly one tweet, which is please buy my book. Kaelyn: 33:38 I mean, that's a good tweet. Rekka: 33:39 It's a good tweet. Kaelyn: 33:40 It could be multiple of that. Rekka: 33:40 The publisher likes that can be your pinned tweet, but by then, you know, you can start talking about how excited you are. Um, if your cover reveal has just gone out from your publisher, do not, do not preempt the cover reveal that your publisher has scheduled to do, not do that. Kaelyn: 33:58 They're going to be nice and show it to you beforehand. But you know, that's, that's under the hat. Rekka: 34:02 Um find other authors in your genre, um, the, the people who wrote the books, which are your books, comps you, you know, like follow them. Um, don't go like stalking their followers and, and, and attacking people in saying like, please come follow me, you, or anything like, you know, don't be, don't make it weird. Kaelyn: 34:20 Don't have to be weird about it. Rekka: 34:21 But, you know, start to build a following, start to follow other people, start to interact with conversations that are not personal conversations and start to tweet about your book, about the process, about your emotions as an author because you want to be a real person when someone comes looking at your Twitter profiles. Kaelyn: 34:40 So, um, but also there's other people that you may meet in your life. Rekka: 34:45 Yeah. So I was getting to that, but okay. So I was using Twitter for example. But you don't have to use Twitter. If you are more comfortable on Facebook for some unknown reason, my opinion slightly interjected there or, Kaelyn: 34:57 No, I mean great because then all your data's going to be given out to a lot of people. So it's actually really good publicity. Rekka: 35:04 Is that what that is? Didn't feel like really great publicity. Kaelyn: 35:07 That's not how that works? Rekka: 35:08 There's Instagram, there is tumbler, there is um, it depends on what your, where your audiences and if you read in the genre that you write in, you probably already know where that audience is. Kaelyn: 35:18 Yeah, of course. Rekka: 35:18 You might already be there. So pick your um, your social media profiles and I think it's a good idea, before, I know Kaelyn was trying to lead the witness, but um, before you start attending industry events, if you already have a Twitter handle, you are going to meet people and you are going to become mutuals at these events, if you, if you hit it off, so have a profile that doesn't make you look like a ghost. This is a good thing. So, so get this kind of stuff. Have your website, your website doesn't have to be perfect. It doesn't have to be just a word press website Kaelyn: 35:52 I mean, you can, Rekka: 35:52 With a little bit of information about you. Kaelyn: 35:55 Square Space. Rekka: 35:55 Yeah, there's a lot of stuff I need to say it, Kaelyn: 35:58 But create like a very basic, you know, here's a little about me. Here's my book. Here's some links to where you can buy it. Rekka: 36:03 Yup. Just a clean layout, mobile friendly. And because someone looks you up while you're there, standing in front of you or standing in line to talk to you some like a panel or something. So, but making it, give yourself the online presence that you want while you have control over it. Kaelyn: 36:17 Yes Rekka: 36:17 And then, um, and that's a good project to keep you occupied while your publisher is doing whatever the next step is before they need your input again. And then do look around for industry events. Um, ones that have more reader attendance are going to be the ones that you want to focus on more when you already have a book. Kaelyn: 36:37 Yeah. Rekka: 36:38 Because a reader can't do anything with your, with the knowledge that we have a contract, Kaelyn: 36:42 With who you are. Rekka: 36:42 You know, so, um, go make friends with other writers. And this is so precious to have other writer friends because one of these people understand what you're going through every step of the way they have been there. Kaelyn: 36:51 It's a support group. Rekka: 36:52 It's a hive mind and it's also like a herd immunity sort of situation. Kaelyn: 36:57 Oh my God, I love that. Yeah. Rekka: 36:58 Yes, that's exactly, that's exactly what it is. And it's a group of people who know what you're going through and sometimes they can pull you aside when you were having a breakdown and they pet you gently, Kaelyn: 37:07 Deep breaths, deep breaths. Rekka: 37:07 And they serve you, your, your bacon and your cookies and your hugs and Kaelyn: 37:10 Tea, tea is important. Rekka: 37:12 Okay, fine. Some people drink coffee, Kaelyn Kaelyn: 37:17 Coffee, whatever, whatever hot beverage distilled from plant life ... Rekka: 37:18 Your cozy beverage of choice. Yes. Hey, sometimes it's beef broth, sometimes beef broth, this is what I need. Kaelyn: 37:26 It's distilled from a living thing. Cozy beverage of choice Rekka: 37:28 Cozy beverage of choice, that's the term. So we, um, you know, we as authors, write in this desolate loneliness, like even if you're surrounded by other people, if you're getting the work done, chances are you're silent and you're staring at a screen and you are insular inside your mind. So that's really ... Kaelyn: 37:45 It's very isolating. Rekka: 37:47 It's really refreshing to go somewhere where you see that other people are doing this too, that you are not alone in feeling this way. And when you walk into that room and you go, oh my God, I don't belong here, every single person in that room is feeling the same way. Kaelyn: 38:02 But further, you're wrong. Rekka: 38:04 Also, everyone in that room is wrong and they will tell each other that, authors who are friends with other authors are like the most beautiful people. Kaelyn: 38:12 No, it's great. Rekka: 38:13 And yeah, so, so go make some friends at conferences. Um, it's a whole other thing that we're not going to dive into on this, like how to network at conferences. Kaelyn: 38:23 We're going to talk about it at some point. Rekka: 38:24 And we will talk about that. Um, you're not there to sell your book. You've already sold your book. You're not there to, um, to chase agents into bathrooms. Kaelyn: 38:36 Don't do that, ever. Rekka: 38:37 So please don't, um, or anyone don't chase anyone into a bathroom. Kaelyn: 38:42 That's actually, that's a good point. Rekka: 38:42 Unless they say, please follow me into this bathroom, I need your help with my t shirt tag or something. Anyway. Um, yes, you're going there to be a real genuine, um, trustworthy person. So that's how you behave when you were there. And then we'll go into that in another episode, about Kaelyn: 38:58 Maybe when we're at the Nebulas? That would be a great, live from the Nebulas. Rekka: 39:01 And I do have an article on SFWA blog about it. I believe it is called 'A Quantum Residents at the Nebulas'. Kaelyn: 39:11 That's fantastic. Yeah. So go check that out. Rekka: 39:13 So I'll link to that in the show notes, but it is, it gives you an idea of what it's like to be among other people who are more creative in a similar way as you. Kaelyn: 39:21 Yeah. Again, yeah, I think that's a great idea. We'll do that at the, Nebulas so another episode to look forward to. Rekka: 39:26 Yes. Kaelyn: 39:29 Umm, maybe we'll grab a few people and to have a conversation that'll, that'll be fun. So that's what you as an author can be doing. In the meantime, what your publisher is doing is all sorts of background stuff that you will, you get checkins and updates about. But really what they're going to be most concerned about is you writing and finishing the book. So, but in what's going on in the background is your publisher is dealing with marketing, they're figuring out, um, you know, how to market this book, who to market it to what the key demographics are. Um, and then a bunch of things are going to come from that. A big one is cover art. You know, that is, that is a huge important thing. I have sad news for all of you authors who just were sketching, you know, your dreams of what the book's going to look like. You don't get a say really. Um, you know, of course you'll get a look at it. You'll get, you know, some progress and updates. But at the end of the day, your publisher is the one that does your cover art. Because for a lot of reasons, but one of the big ones is they know what they're doing. Rekka: 40:39 Right. And it's a piece of marketing. It's not just the duvé on your bed. Kaelyn: 40:43 Yeah. And I'd say like, actually that was something that even me, it took a little while for me to get over where like I'm seeing cover art from books I've worked on and I'm like, well that's not quite right. And I'm going, I'm getting Kaelyn, that's not the important part. The important part is this looks awesome and you want to pick it up. Rekka: 41:01 Um, that's a really tough hurdle to get yourself over mentally. Kaelyn: 41:05 Oh, it's very, that is, you know what I have to say that is one of the things I found that authors really have the most trouble with because again, it goes back to the personal, this is very personal. And also I think, cause I know I do it when I'm reading submissions and when I'm getting excited about something, I'm picturing what the cover is going to look like in my head. Rekka: 41:23 Yeah. So you know, the author's doing that. Kaelyn: 41:25 The author's absolutely doing it and um, Rekka: 41:27 And they've been working on it longer. So they, they've been dedicating their hearts to some vision that is not coming to happen. Kaelyn: 41:35 Now, I mean, I will say, you know, we, when we do these, most of the times the response I get back is, oh my God, that's gorgeous. I never would have even conceived of that stuff. You know, trust me, the publisher is not going to screw you over on cover art because they want it to also be gorgeous and represent the book. Rekka: 41:52 But more importantly, they want it to sell the book. Kaelyn: 41:54 Yes, so this is big part of the marketing. Um, but in the meantime, they're also, you know, reaching out to industry contacts and their contacts, blogs, uh, publication magazines. Anybody who has a lot of attention that does reviews, they're going to be getting ARCs, advanced reader copies out to everyone, you know, to take a look at and hopefully getting, generating some buzz, getting some good feedback. You know, there's all kinds of social media now that's just based around reading and what you reading and everything. So you know, they're going to be putting these things out on to anyone who review books and like, you know, getting blurbs for the book. Um, in the meantime they're also writing back copy. Writing back copy is really hard. Rekka: 42:39 It's a whole other thing. As much as you dread writing your query letter. Kaelyn: 42:43 Oh God, yeah, that's the editors version of the query letter is like writing, so I do understand your pain a little bit because I have to do back copy for the books I work on a lot. Rekka: 42:51 And, and you print how many copies of that book? Kaelyn: 42:56 More people are going to see my back copy then your your letter. So yeah. And then they're doing publicity. They're getting everything psyched up for the, for the prelaunch. And really the biggest thing is trying to generate buzz and trying to get preorders because that is what is going to help make your book successful. So that's what's going on in the meantime. So after copy edits, everything's done, it goes to layout. Layout is going to do what layout does. They're going to get the book already formatted to publish. They're going to add any art or um, it's a big letters at the Rekka: 43:31 Drop caps, Kaelyn: 43:31 Drop caps. Those, I should know that, um, you know, they're going to take care of all of that to get the lay out going and then you're book's pretty much ready to go. There are a bunch of other steps that lead up to the release of the book that also have to do with marketing. You know, they might ask you to, uh, write a blog post for this website. You did that right? Rekka: 43:55 I wrote quite a lot of them. Kaelyn: 43:56 Yeah. Rekka: 43:57 And let me tell you, just like switching your mindset from writing a book to a query letter, writing a nonfiction blog posts like a worst, I, it feels like writing an essay for a teacher all over again. Kaelyn: 44:07 So wait, I don't put aliens in this one? Rekka: 44:10 Well, I mean, I did. Kaelyn: 44:11 Okay. Rekka: 44:12 So, but I mean, so a lot of these are nonfiction articles about like your writing process or anything you discovered about yourself or are relating the aliens to some tidbit about your process or something like that. Kaelyn: 44:29 This is, this is where we're trying to humanize the authors. And I don't need that in the like make them seem like people Rekka: 44:37 We're totally normal, who said we aren't? Kaelyn: 44:39 But make it so, people like to connect on that level and see the process. And it's great because it gives you a little insight into how everyone's working and what they're doing. Rekka: 44:51 And when the author can like express that they are passionate about their book, Kaelyn: 44:54 Exactly. Rekka: 44:54 Then other people are interested in that and being and reading it and also being passionate about the same book. Kaelyn: 45:00 Um, you know, there may be, depending on the scale and the release of the book, maybe you'd be asked to do interviews beforehand, uh they might, you know, then there's a whole bunch of other stuff that happened after release. But your publisher is in the meantime just getting everything ready. They're dealing with preorders. If your book is being released to be sold in bookstores, through a distributor, they are dealing with that. That is, that is a whole long process. Um, they're, uh, getting everything set up for ebooks and ebook preorders and just getting everything ready so that when it's launch day, it's ready to go. Social media posts, reviews and magazines and other publications. Rekka: 45:45 And timing them to like keep the traffic coming for a few days. Kaelyn: 45:49 They're definitely thinking, what's the best way we can get the most attention on this book for the longest amount of time. And again, if you have an agent, there'll be involved in helping with that as well. Um, so then it's your book, Birthday. Your Book Day. Rekka: 46:05 Yes. And that was a weird day. Kaelyn: 46:09 Yeah. Rekka: 46:09 Because there's not actually a lot going on. Kaelyn: 46:12 Yeah, you kind of, wa- wake up and feel like the world should be a little different. Rekka: 46:16 This is, I call it the, um, the birthday Princess Syndrome. Kaelyn: 46:20 Yeah. Rekka: 46:20 Like I always, I always looked at movies and TV shows and saw that like on somebody's birthday, they were center of attention and they wore fabulous clothing. And on my book birthday, I got up and I went to work. Kaelyn: 46:36 Yup. Rekka: 46:36 And I sat there and I reloaded and social media all day. It was incredibly, it was like the least focused day I'd experienced in months. It was kind of horrible. Kaelyn: 46:47 Books are released on Tuesdays, Rekka: 46:51 Yeah. Kaelyn: 46:51 And so for most people it's Rekka: 46:53 It's your day job. Kaelyn: 46:54 A regular Tuesday Rekka: 46:55 And you somehow try to make it through your regular Tuesday. But all you can think about is your book is out and you're waiting for someone to text you like Amazon rankings or or something. You're waiting for someone to tag you on Twitter or Instagram and not happening. And it's already 7:00 AM. How come nobody is celebrating? Kaelyn: 47:14 Why has no one been waiting outside Barnes and noble to buy this? Rekka: 47:17 Why didn't someone bring me flowers at the office? And that's sort of the thing is like every birthday that I had, this expectation that I would be the center of attention, I would end up in tears. And it's very easy to have that same expectation and results on the day that your book comes out. Like you're a published author and the worst thing is going to work. And having some, the coworker say, Oh, I guess you're quitting your day job now. It's like, well thanks. Kaelyn: 47:41 I am not. Rekka: 47:42 Um, so you're angry with me for writing a book. You have a complete misconception of how this goes and you're probably not even gonna read the thing, [laughter]. Kaelyn: 47:52 So, that is kind of, you know, that's where we are, it ends with you being the most happy you've ever been, but also really sad. Rekka: 47:59 Also welcome to publishing. Kaelyn: 48:02 This is publishing. Rekka: 48:02 And they will, and you will be asked so many times that day. How do you feel? So you might want to write that blog post ahead of time too because they don't want to know the truth. Kaelyn: 48:12 Um, so that's kind of a, you know, that's the rough process. Um, like we said, glossed over, you know, a lot of stuff. Just really quickly hitting it because we're going to talk about all of this in more detail down the line. This was sort of a long introductory into this is what this podcast is. I mean, we're not going to do in an order. Rekka: 48:33 No. Kaelyn: 48:34 We're going to jump around a little bit. Rekka: 48:35 Because we're going to miss something and then if we do it in order, then we can't go back. So it's just going to be filling in. Kaelyn: 48:39 Also it's more fun to kind of, you know, Rekka: 48:41 Like what are we really talking about? Kaelyn: 48:43 Yeah like, I've got something to say about this. Rekka: 48:45 Big mood. Kaelyn: 48:46 Yes, yes, exactly. Um, so that's, that's kind of where we're going to leave you for this episode. Um, you know, we hope this was at least maybe a little informative. Rekka: 48:57 And once again, like if you heard a step in this process where you're like, I didn't know about that. Kaelyn: 49:01 Or I'd like to hear more about that. Rekka: 49:03 Definitely that. Or, um, if you are feeling more confident as a result because you didn't know all this stuff, like, you know, good for you. But I mean, like we want to hear from you what's useful, what's informative, what's startling and a little bit terrifying. At WMB cast on Twitter or Instagram feedback at Wmbcast.com definitely reach out. And of course, if you're a patron on patrion.com forward slash WMB cast, you can interact with us there and we'll probably take questions for future episodes. Kaelyn: 49:33 Oh definitely, yeah. Rekka: 49:33 You have some level patrons later on, um, once we start building up a community there, obviously today's day one. So, yeah, or we don't have great expectations for today cause you know, we try to be realistic about our launch days but um. Kaelyn: 49:47 No, it's, I mean we, you know, we keep saying this but we really just want to hammer it home, so much of where this came from was wanting to be a resource and build a community that's active and that we can engage wit. Rekka: 50:01 And have these conversations. Kaelyn: 50:03 Exactly how these conversations about what don't you know, what scares you, what you know, what is holding you back from trying to do this? What part are you stuck on? Rekka: 50:13 What have you heard conflicting information on? Kaelyn: 50:16 Yeah. And look, here's the thing, you're not going to insult either of us with any questions, you know, Rekka's a writer I work in publishing. I know that, I - I've made peace with that a lot of people that are going to listen to this are going to be on the writing side of things. And you know what, that's great. That's what I'm hoping for. So, you know, I'm not going to be insulted by anything that you know, comes our way. Don't be rude, obviously. Rekka: 50:40 But let's be decent. Kaelyn: 50:41 Yeah. But, um, yeah, you know, if you're like, if you have a question like, well how come I need a publisher for this? I love it to answer that. Rekka: 50:51 Right. Kaelyn: 50:51 And, another a qualification. You know, if you're interested in self publishing, this still also could be helpful for you. Rekka: 50:56 And I have a self published title, I have future plans for self published titles. Kaelyn: 51:00 Yes. Rekka: 51:00 This is like this is a safe space for every path through the book creation process. Kaelyn: 51:06 Yeah. That's why it's called We Make Books because we all make books in different ways, different capacities and at different points in the process. But everyone is involved making books. So we really want to hear from everyone is, is what we're getting at here. Rekka: 51:23 Please reach out to us. Kaelyn: 51:24 Yeah. Um, uh, Rekka and my Twitter's are both linked in the uh, Rekka: 51:30 On the front page of Patreon, it's on the bio of both Instagram and Twitter. So you can find us. Kaelyn: 51:35 Yeah, and you know, you can and you know, go through the podcast thing, but you know, you can also reach out to us directly, Rekka: 51:40 If you have comments specifically or a question specifically for one of us. Kaelyn: 51:44 We're out there. Rekka: 51:45 Yes, Kaelyn: 51:46 And we can't wait to hear from you. Rekka: 51:47 And so we will talk to you again in the next episode and that will be, if you are listening to this on launch day coming up very, very shortly, Kaelyn: 51:54 Yeah, like queued up, hopefully next. Rekka: 51:57 Immediately next. Kaelyn: 51:57 So stop, listening to this and go enjoy the next one. Rekka: 52:00 Skip ahead. Kaelyn: 52:01 Thanks everyone.  

Hi everyone, and thank you for listening to the launch episodes of the We Make Books Podcast - A podcast about writing, publishing, and everything in between! We Make Books is hosted by Rekka Jay and Kaelyn Considine; Rekka is a published author and Kaelyn is an editor and together they are going to take you through what goes into getting a book out of your head, on to paper, in to the hands of a publisher, and finally on to book store shelves. In this episode, Rekka and Kaelyn continue their discussion on the production process of a book, picking up from when your book gets picked up by a publisher! We Make Books is a podcast for writer and publishers, by writers and publishers, and we want to hear from our listeners! Hit us up on our social media, linked below, and send us your questions, comments, concerns, and any theories you may have about how much Godzilla a Godzilla Would Godzilla if a Godzilla Could Godzilla Ghidorah! Thank you for taking the time to listen to this introduction, the first batch of new episodes drops on May 14th, so be sure to subscribe so you don’t miss it. A transcription of this episode can be found below. We hope you enjoy We Make Books! Twitter: @WMBCast  |  @KindofKaelyn  |  @BittyBittyZap Instagram: @WMBCast  Patreon.com/WMBCast === Transcript === Rekka: 00:00 Welcome to the We Make Books podcast. I'm Rekka Jay Kaelyn: 00:03 I'm Kaelyn Considine Kaelyn: 00:04 and I am a science fiction author Kaelyn: 00:06 and I am a science fiction and fantasy publisher and editor. This is the first official episode of our podcast. We previously recorded an introductory episode, which if you haven't listened to already, we highly recommend you go back and listen to, Rekka: 00:20 that's like our mission statement and what we hope to achieve with this podcast and the format that it's going to take. So, um, since we're still early on and it's not too much to go back and binge everything since this is episode one, um, we invite you to go back and just and listen to that episode and that will really tell you what we are getting into. But of course by listening to this episode, you also get a taste for that. But this one's not quite going to be our normal format. Kaelyn: 00:42 No, this is going, we're a little bit of a departure from what will be our normal format. Uh, we'll tell you a little bit more about it, the start of the show. Um, this intro is a little longer because we just, you know, have a couple of things we want to say, but in this episode we're going to be taking you through some broad steps of the publishing process and we just wanted to start this with the disclaimer that we know these are broad steps. We know we're oversimplifying, glossing over things, not giving every single detail. And that's the point because we just want to give you an idea of here's all the things that are happening and these things are what we're going to be talking about more specifically as the podcast continues on. Rekka: 01:19 Right. Kaelyn was inspired to the idea for this podcast by somebody saying, "I don't even know what I would do with my finished draft." So this is going to be a very, uh, it's like a two-part mini series that we're starting off the whole podcast with of like, here are all the steps that are coming your way and we hope that you're going to say, oh, I didn't know about that. Kaelyn: 01:41 Yes Rekka: 01:41 Or like, okay, okay, okay, this is, this is good. I'm feeling good about this. You know, like, and then Kaelyn: 01:46 Bam. Rekka: 01:47 Bam. Kaelyn: 01:47 I've never heard that word before. What is that? Kaelyn: 01:49 Yeah, what is that, so definitely if you are confused by anything, make a note of it and tweet us @wmbcast on twitter or email feedback@wmbcast.com and let us know that like that is something that you have never heard before or something that you've always been confused about and we can definitely add that to our slate of things that we're going to take a deeper dive into, which will be the normal format. But here we are just kind of getting your feet wet, kind of giving you a taste for everything that's on its way for your story and for your process ahead of you. So, um, again, this is a longer intro than usual, but we wanted to, we wanted to preface that this isn't going to be the speed at which we normally cover the entire process Kaelyn: 02:31 and by the way, for a really long introduction, go back and listen to the, again, go back and listen to the introductory episode because we talk a lot more about what we're hoping to accomplish here, what, how we want this podcast to be a resource and helpful to people in the writing and publishing industry. It's also pretty funny. We tell some interesting stories about how Rekka: 02:52 we've got anecdotes and anecdotes. Kaelyn: 02:54 We got stories about how we got here. They involve alcohol, drunk lists, and a lot of texting. [laughter] So, you know, go take a listen. Um, you know, get to know us a little bit. We're, we're really hoping to get to know a bunch of you as we continue on with this. So, um, without further ado, let's get into the episode. Piano: 03:20 [Music] Kaelyn: 03:20 Microphones are, you know, like, they only work if you talk into them. Rekka: 03:22 What! Kaelyn: 03:23 I know. It's fine. Eventually we'll all have chips in our head that take care of that for us. Rekka: 03:29 Yeah. It was just like, okay, "Life: Rewind back the last 25 minutes and publish that as my podcast." Kaelyn: 03:34 Oh, goodness. All right. Anyway. Hello everyone. Kaelyn: 03:37 We do publish science fiction, right? Kaelyn: 03:38 We do. Hello everyone, and welcome to The We Make Books podcast. I am one of your hosts, Kaelyn Considine Rekka: 03:44 and I'm Rekka and I'm wondering why Kaelyn is doing the intro intro instead of just the episode intro. Kaelyn: 03:49 Oh, I don't know. Rekka: 03:50 [laughter] Just professional all the way down. Kaelyn: 03:54 I just want to, you know, in case they forgot in the last 20 seconds or we went on a long tangent– Rekka: 03:58 that music was really good. And they're just like bopping along, and like, wait, where am I? Kaelyn: 04:03 So this is the, you know, as we said in the intro, the first official episode of the podcast, and hopefully you listened to our introductory episode. If you didn't, I would recommend going back and listening to that just to kind of get a feel for what you're about to commit your time to. Rekka: 04:17 Also, we really like the sound of our voices, so we'd like you to have as much of it as possible. Kaelyn: 04:21 I do not like the sound of my voice. Kaelyn: 04:24 [laughter] Rekka: 04:24 [laughter] Kaelyn: 04:24 We talked about this in the intro episode actually. So this is, this is a big give for me. Um, so we thought, you know, we're, we're releasing a few episodes all at once for when we get started here. So we thought what we'd do for the first two episodes, we're going to cover a very rough, very light go-through of the process of taking your book from mostly completed book through the submissions, through the editing, to the published and sitting on a shelf somewhere for people to buy Rekka: 04:55 Over two episodes, though. Kaelyn: 04:56 Over two episodes. Yes. We're going to do very high level, the first episode which you're listening to now, we're calling Draft to Acquisition. Then we're going to go Acquisition to Bookshelf. So for our purposes going forward here we are assuming that you are either done or approaching done. This book will be completed at some point. Eventually we're excited to talk about, you know, getting to the finished point Rekka: 05:24 Yeah getting from the middle point or the beginning point or that moment when you start to say, wait, what am I even doing? And that's a mindset thing. We not talking about mindset today. Kaelyn: 05:31 Yeah. Rekka: 05:32 We'll touch on like attitude later, but we're not talking about mindset. Kaelyn: 05:35 Yeah. That's for another discussion. And you're going to hear us say that a lot. Rekka: 05:39 Yeah. Um, but today we're trying to run down the first stage, which is a finished draft to acquisition. Kaelyn: 05:47 Yes. Rekka: 05:47 Um, which is sort of funny because the first thing we're going to tell you to do is put your book down and walk away from it. Kaelyn: 05:55 [laughter] Yeah .... Rekka: 05:55 That's the hardest stage. Kaelyn: 05:55 It's, yeah. You've just spent so much time and energy and effort and life force. Rekka: 06:02 That is true. Kaelyn: 06:04 On creating this thing. So here's the deal. Don't look at it for a while. Do something you know. And I'm not saying like completely erase it from your memory. Rekka: 06:13 Don't, don't not tell people that you finished it. Like go out, have dinner, celebrate it. Kaelyn: 06:18 Go see a movie Rekka: 06:20 consume another book. Like you've probably not had much time for reading lately because you've been working so hard in yours. go read something, Kaelyn: 06:27 play a video game, shift your mental focus off of the book. Rekka: 06:30 Get to the point where you forget exactly what order everything happens in. Kaelyn: 06:34 Yes, yes, definitely. Because, and here's why we're saying to do that: because you have probably spent so much time on this, it is so in your head, you're sleeping and breathing this, you are possibly missing things and putting it down and walking away from it for a bit is a good way to then come back with a semi fresh set of eyes. It's your book. You're never going to come back to it with a complete set of fresh eyes. Rekka: 06:59 Right. Kaelyn: 07:00 But putting it down, not thinking about it as much and then coming back and doing another path is so helpful and it's such an underrated piece of advice. Rekka: 07:09 I really pound that drum, so I don't know if... Kaelyn: 07:12 I do too. And that's the thing. Rekka: 07:14 I don't know if it's an underrated piece of advice because, let me tell you, it's the first thing I tell people. Kaelyn: 07:17 I mean even with like authors that you know, like I'm working with at Parvus, like if they're stuck on something and they're like, I don't know what to do. And I literally tell them, I want you to go do something else for a week and not think about this. Rekka: 07:28 Take a draft vacation. Kaelyn: 07:29 Yeah. So, so anyway, that's, that's the person, my art, both of our recommended first step Rekka: 07:36 and then you come back like a week or two later, um, longer if you, if you're not in a rush Kaelyn: 07:41 If you have the time, you know, depending on deadlines Rekka: 07:43 this in something that you're doing for a deadline, you, you have some time, maybe come back after a month and just load it onto your kindle so that it's not something you can easily edit, and read it as a reader would consume it. So that means you don't like how that sentence is written? Too bad. Keep going. Yeah. Like you're not making an editing pass. You are experiencing your book as best you can as a new reader. Kaelyn: 08:06 And do I like my own book? And you know, that's, it's very important to do Rekka: 08:11 and make notice of spots where you're getting a little bored. Like maybe it's hard to press through a chapter and you just keep like wandering away cause your reader will too. Kaelyn: 08:19 If you're getting bored, someone that's reading it, there's a very good chance they're also, Rekka: 08:23 Yeah, cause you're slightly more invested in this than other people. Kaelyn: 08:26 Yeah. So once you've done that next recommended step, get someone else to read your book now. I say anyone, but really it should be, it should be someone that this is a book they'd be interested in because if it's like pulling teeth, they're just going to be like, I don't know. I guess I liked the talking space aliens. Rekka: 08:42 It's like, well that was really interesting. That's maybe not helpful feedback. Kaelyn: 08:46 That's not helpful feedback but getting some feedback and like this is sort of the pre acquisition Beta read or a stage where you want people to go, you know what? I was confused about this one thing or I wasn't sure what was happening here. Rekka: 09:01 It didn't feel like this question that was raised early on got paid off. Kaelyn: 09:04 I don't understand this character or why there– and somebody that is interested in this is the one who's going to give you the best feedback there. Now, maybe you don't know anyone and there's all sorts of communities of people that, Rekka: 09:16 Yeah, I mean online you can, you can connect with people if you do it in a natural way, like don't show up and drop your manuscript on the desk and be like read it, Kaelyn: 09:23 Read it! Rekka: 09:24 Read it, everybody. Try to build up a community of online friends or real life friends or book club friends Kaelyn: 09:29 There are so many writing groups out there. Rekka: 09:31 I mean, Kaelyn: 09:31 And they're great Rekka: 09:32 If you need Beta readers, sometimes the best Beta readers are genre readers and they're not necessarily writers themselves, but they know what it feels like to read the right book in that genre because you know, you'll hear from many sources and probably us like in two seconds that every genre has its own set of expectations Kaelyn: 09:50 Yes. Rekka: 09:50 And promises that you're making the reader. And if you don't hit the beats that someone who picks up a space opera, for example, is expecting to read, they're going to feel like something's missing even if they can't put their finger on it. And at this stage, you know, you just finished it. If you can get an early reader to say like I just feel like something was missing at the end. You at least know that, okay, you're writing space opera, go study a space opera, go read another space opera. See what what identifying marks are happening throughout the story in general, broad terms, not like, you know, this character X goes and does this thing and says this to somebody. That's not the stuff that is going to feel like it's missing, but the, the hero at the mercy of the villain kind of moments. Kaelyn: 10:32 The broad strokes. Yeah, it's, it's sort of intuitive, which is not always helpful in terms of identifying Rekka: 10:37 and that's why sometimes your, uh, your readers can't tell you what they didn't like. They just knew that something was off. And it's frustrating. Kaelyn: 10:43 I can't give you a definition, but I know it when I see it. Rekka: 10:45 Yeah. Oh yeah. I know that phrase. Kaelyn: 10:47 So the next step after this, and I'm going to kind of give my little thing and then we're going to kick it over to Rekka because she's actually got a lot of experience with this. Once your book, you've gotten some feedback, you've made some changes, you're happy with it, Rekka: 11:02 and you have the kind of feedback that tells you how off the mark you are. Kaelyn: 11:05 Yes, you've made some changes, you're happy with it. The next thing that you've got to think about, and I'm not, I cannot overstate this, it's a big decision to say, do I need to get a professional editor to work on this? Do I need to pay someone to come in and take a pass at this book? Now, I think a lot of people are hesitant to do that for a number of reasons, but one of the biggest ones is, "well, I think it's good. Is someone else going to come in and tell me to change everything?" The answer to that is a good editor should not do that. Rekka: 11:41 Well. Kaelyn: 11:41 Okay. Yeah. Let's backtrack here. Rekka: 11:44 So you are really proud of every of every grain of sand that is in this story. Kaelyn: 11:48 Yes. Every – Rekka: 11:49 An editor's going to give you suggestions and some of the suggestions are going to be to change things. Kaelyn: 11:56 Yes. So you went through this process. Rekka: 11:58 I did. Kaelyn: 11:59 When you, you know, you've gotten this book to a point where you're like, I am really happy with this story. Why do I need it? Someone else to look at it. Rekka: 12:06 Well, because Kaelyn: 12:07 Not you-you, you, the hypothetical writer Rekka: 12:09 I, the hypothetical writer might consider an editor because one, there are a lot of writers out there right now. Kaelyn: 12:20 Yes, yes, there are. Rekka: 12:21 And if you are going to sell this book, whether to an agent or to a publisher or directly to the reader, you need to make this a very polished product as polished as you can on your own. Kaelyn: 12:35 Rekka and I were actually talking about this before we started recording, even just 20 years ago, having a personal computer at home was not necessarily a standard, especially even 25 years ago. And the fact that we're so easily able to just open a word processor and write. It's great. Rekka: 12:53 And we output the documents in the same format as the professionals, you know? Kaelyn: 12:57 Yeah, exactly. But I mean, however, you know, let's take it back to 30, 35 years ago. Most people, if they had anything, it was a typewriter Rekka: 13:06 and typewriter's were expensive Kaelyn: 13:07 and typewriters were expensive, and typewriters were a pain in the ass. Rekka: 13:10 Yeah. Kaelyn: 13:11 Like so the fact that everyone can very easily sit down and write now means that there's a lot more writers out there and that's great. But it also means that you've got to really distinguish yourself. So back to why do I need an editor? Because they're going to give you an unbiased outside, fresh eye. Now unbiased is, this person has no skin in this game. Obviously they want you to succeed. If they don't want you to succeed, you should not be working with that person. But that's as far as their bias goes because they are there to help you get your book into the best shape it can possibly be in. Rekka: 13:48 Right. And presumably they're editors because they enjoy this. Kaelyn: 13:52 Yes. So Rekka, you had spent some time with a developmental editor. Rekka: 13:56 I contracted an editing story coach. That was really the relationship. Um, so yeah, I had coaching, um, Skype sessions with an editor and he read my manuscript on first pass and then we had a conversation after he'd read it. But before we really like formed this longer term relationship because it did go on for a bit and we had a conversation and the first thing was not like here's what's wrong with your book or like, here's what I think you should change. It was what do you want to do now? Kaelyn: 14:30 This is again, this is something we'll go into depth more later about you know, the relationship and how finding the right person to work with. But we are going to just do a few quick cautions here. If you're going to hire an editor, a coach to help you with this, have a very frank conversation upfront about what your expectations are, what you're looking for. Rekka: 14:51 And that editor may or may not agree to read your manuscript before this. Kaelyn: 14:54 Yes, some will offer a consultation periods for, you know, an hour of let's talk about this. Rekka: 15:01 They might read your first 30 pages and then have a conversation because they're going to know a lot from there. Just like somebody who's reviewing submissions, would also. Kaelyn: 15:07 Yes. Exactly and make sure that you guys are both in agreement about what you'll be getting back from that because the last thing you want to do is go through this whole process and then end up with something that's not useful. Rekka: 15:18 Right. Like if you expect that you're not only going to get like some suggestions to improve the story but you're also going to get a copy edit pass. You should both have said to each other, "So this includes a copy edit pass. Yes. Okay, good." Kaelyn: 15:31 Yeah. By the way, if you're getting a copy edit pass from this person, this is going to be a very longterm relationship. Rekka: 15:36 Yes. Cause you are not ready for a copy edit yet. Kaelyn: 15:38 Yeah. So you've done your work with your editor, You have the manuscript is in a place that you're happy with and now it's time. You're going to start submitting your manuscript and the first thing you need is a query letter. Rekka: 15:54 And this is a whole other thing that you have to write now. Kaelyn: 15:58 And this is another thing we are absolutely going to go into much greater detail about because Rekka: 16:04 it's a totally different mindset writing this thing than it was to write your story Kaelyn: 16:07 and this one page is so important. Rekka: 16:09 It really is. It's your foot in the door or it's a door in your nose. Kaelyn: 16:15 [laughter] Yes, exactly. Right now we're about to split into two different things that can happen. Ways to submit your either can submit to an open call that a publisher or publishing house is having, which means that anyone can submit, uh, you don't need representation to do that. The other end of it is querying an agent to get your manuscript published. There are a lot of similarities between these two processes, but functionally they're very different. Rekka: 16:45 Well, functionally for the book, the book is going to go through certain steps. Kaelyn: 16:49 Yes. Rekka: 16:50 Um, from this point on whether you are accepted by the agent or whether you're accepted by the publisher, your book's probably going to go through another revision pass at least once. Kaelyn: 16:59 Oh, definitely. Rekka: 16:59 Um, but what you're doing now is you're aiming for publication, but if you go through the agent and you get an agent, you are no longer responsible for attempting to submit the book to the publisher. You are not guaranteed at this point, when you get an agent, that it will find a publisher, Kaelyn: 17:18 Yes. We're going to, we're going to start with the open submission call because that one is a little more straightforward. There's fewer moving parts. Rekka: 17:24 I actually want a backup just to touch. Kaelyn: 17:26 Oh sure. Rekka: 17:27 Because you have a story and your story probably follows some sort of conventions within a certain genre. Um, it probably has a certain style. It might be intended for a certain age group or audience and other, some other sense. This is a great set of metrics by which you can try and find an agent or a publisher who is a good fit for your story. Kaelyn: 17:52 Yeah, that's a really good point. Rekka: 17:53 Don't go barking up the wrong tree because you are just desperate to get it published. Kaelyn: 17:57 Yeah, definitely. And that's one of the things we're going to talk about with both of these is please pay attention to the submissions guidelines. Rekka: 18:03 It's not just the submissions guidelines, but it's their history and what they publish or who they represent. Kaelyn: 18:07 Yes. If you have a publishing house they have an open call, please go read the submission guides. Rekka: 18:13 I betcha there's a link on the submissions. Kaelyn: 18:15 You know what? There probably is. [laughter] Rekka: 18:17 Just go straight from the top right to the bottom and make sure you've done all the pieces that they're asking you to do when you send in the submission. Kaelyn: 18:24 I bet there is even an email address at the end that you can contact if you have any questions. Rekka: 18:29 I betcha there is. Kaelyn: 18:31 So anyway, do all of that. Rekka: 18:33 Yes. I'm assuming you want this book to get published. This is one of the simplest things that you can do to just get start you off on the right foot. If you don't do it is the simplest thing to get you booted right back out the door and you've lost your chance with this publisher, at least for the time being until they forget your name and they're not going to, by the way, Kaelyn: 18:54 um...! Rekka: 18:55 well they might forget your name, but like they might have a checklist and they show that this person was booted specifically on the fact that they did not follow this admissions guidelines. Kaelyn: 19:03 Hey look, every, you know they, there is, there is forgiveness of course for authors, Rekka: 19:07 there is a chance to learn again, but like if you make a habit of just sending the same style of submission to everyone, you are probably going to miss important things that are not so important to you, obviously, but are important to whoever you're submitting to. Kaelyn: 19:23 But for each thing that you're submitting, be it to an agent or open call, you are preparing a submission. You're not blanketing the same thing everywhere, you know and saying carpet bombing every outlet with it. Rekka: 19:34 Yup. You don't write your letter once and send it to everybody. Kaelyn: 19:38 Yes. It's, I'm not saying you're rewriting the letter each time, but you need to make sure that what you're sending is appropriate and will catch the attention of who you're sending it to. So for an open call, maybe they just want a query letter and the first five chapters, maybe they want a query letter and the whole manuscript. Please have a query letter. They'll probably, you know, typically there should be some sort of a submissions portal for you to go to, to take care of this. And then, you know, you'll get a confirmation: We've received your manuscript, you will hear from us within x number of days. And if you do not, please feel free to follow up. And you can't see, but Rekka is smiling at me because this is something I talk about a lot. It's– Rekka: 20:22 Yes, it's uh, it's near and dear to Kaelyn's heart: math. Kaelyn: 20:26 Get a calendar out and count off 90 days because if you submit January 15th, 90 days is not March 15th, 90 days is April 15th. January, February, March. Yes, it's three months, but it's not 90 days. So, um, and that's one of those things that it's like just , guys pay attention, come on Rekka: 20:50 And be concerned enough with not wasting anybody's time that you would actually take a moment to go, okay, has it actually been 90 days? It is so easy to search Google and say like "what is 90 days from January 15th" and Google will spit out an answer or a website that will spit out an answer. And it is– you don't even have to do the math yourself. The world has made it so easy to never math again. Kaelyn: 21:14 Just, you know, just be aware of these things because I know they sound trivial, but you have to understand that especially when a publishing house has an open call Rekka: 21:23 How many submissions do you suppose they get? Kaelyn: 21:27 Hundreds. Rekka: 21:28 These are all the people who've been afraid to query for an agent. Kaelyn: 21:31 Yes. Or just have not been successful in doing so. So being as conscientious and Rekka: 21:40 considerate. Kaelyn: 21:41 Considerate as possible is extra points. Rekka: 21:45 Yeah. Kaelyn: 21:46 So then we have querying to agents. Rekka: 21:49 Well, I mean this goes for both. You don't pay. Kaelyn: 21:54 If anyone is asking you for money, do not submit to them. Rekka: 21:57 Do not pay a reading fee. Do not pay submissions fee. Do you not pay like an award submission fee. You know. Kaelyn: 22:04 You should never have money coming out of your pocket just to be submitting or considered. Rekka: 22:10 Yes. Kaelyn: 22:11 So if you're finding a place that's like well our submission fee is $50 because we need that to cover the, the time and cost of you know, someone looking at this, close the window, walk away, find a better, better place. So yes. Thank you. That's, you're right. That's important. Rekka: 22:29 I didn't want that one to get overlooked by anyone who is going to skip ahead past the agent's part, cause they don't care about agents. Yeah. So, Kaelyn: 22:36 but some people care about agents. A lot of people, care about agents. Rekka: 22:39 There's a good reason to care about agents, and I say this as someone who does not have any kind of agent. Agents are like a big brother or sister or other person that they know how the industry works. They also work closely with auothers and they know how you feel at almost any given moment in the process. And we know there are feelings. Kaelyn: 23:00 [laughing] They understand you. Rekka: 23:00 And so you have somebody who is sympathetic to you, who has a network within the industry and who has relationships with publishers and maybe has lunch with an editor that like has told them Kaelyn: 23:14 I have lunch with agents a lot. Rekka: 23:15 Yeah, I, "I had lunch with this editor and they're looking for a book that is exactly like that. And then you just told me about like, can you polish that up and send it to me?" And so that's something you don't know unless you've had lunch with that person who just mentioned it in passing. Kaelyn: 23:30 Yeah. And so that's uh, that's part of definitely part of the appeal of an agent, it's a major part of the appeal of an agent. But to get an agent you have to query them. I'm going to just say real quick here, I always think the query is a little bit of a misleading title because in theory what it's asking either of a publishing house or an agent is, are you interested in this? Rekka: 23:55 Right. That's the query. The question is, are you interested in this? Kaelyn: 23:58 What it should actually be saying, however is here's why you should be interested in this. And again, we're going to do probably more than one episode about submissions and query letters in the future. Rekka: 24:10 Easily more than one. Kaelyn: 24:11 Yes. [Laughter] Um, but when you're querying an agent, you're basically saying, I've written this book or here's a proposal for a book I'm going to write and trust me, if you're a first time author, you're not getting that. That's for established New York Times best sellers. Um, and you know, agents, we'll also have, uh, submissions, guidelines, query guidelines. You know, what they want from you, the format they wanted in Rekka: 24:36 whether they want a synopsis with the email or whether it's the synopsis is the first step of interest or whether the, you know, they want the first chapter or whether they want to three chapters. I mean, every agent has a method that they have determined because agents are pretty independent people with regard, like they may even be with an agency, but they all kind of have the freedom to come up with their own process. Kaelyn: 25:00 Yes. Kaelyn: 25:02 So work with them on it. Kaelyn: 25:03 Yeah. And this is again another thing we will be talking about at greater length in the future. Um, but yeah, work within the guidelines of what they set up because again, they are bombarded, you know when agents open for queries, they're like, Rekka: 25:20 there are people waiting at the door. Kaelyn: 25:21 Yeah, they're inundated. So just that as you know, again, same as with the open call, right off the bat, don't make more work for anyone. And this is why when I say you're preparing each submission individually, you are because everyone's going to ask you for something a little bit different and yes, it's annoying. But you know what, that's just how it is. Rekka: 25:43 Since we're talking about multiple submissions. I just want to take a moment to suggest that you get a spreadsheet of some sort Kaelyn: 25:49 Yeah Rekka: 25:49 and you want to track who you've submitted to, uh, have a column for whether they require exclusive look or whether you can submit to others at the same time. Have a column for each of the stages of the, um, or each of the formats of things that you might send them. Like a query letter, a synopsis, a first chapter, a full manuscript, and just put a little x in the box for whichever ones you sent them so far and then put the date that you queried them. Rekka: 26:22 And if they list their response time, put that in and you can do the math or, or Kaelyn: 26:28 Or Excel will do it for you. Rekka: 26:29 If you know excel spreadsheet formulas, you can make it, figure out the dates that it's fair to follow up. And we're saying follow up politely. Yes. And then other bits of information, like just any, you know, any, Kaelyn: 26:44 anything that's relevant that's going to help you keep track of what stage your book is or your manuscript is in. Rekka: 26:49 And I would keep a copy of the letter that you sent them Kaelyn: 26:52 Yes definitely. Rekka: 26:53 So that you can reference it and say, you know, like, um, I've sent this to so and so and um, you know that way like if you are sending these out in many, many directions at once, you can keep track because you may not remember which agent. Like if you get an email back saying, please send me the first chapter. Rekka: 27:11 You may not remember why you picked that agent. If you don't know their name already, Kaelyn: 27:15 You have to do a lot of the work on your own here. So keeping track of that kind of stuff is very important. So, but let's say you do get picked up by an agent Rekka: 27:24 Or they at least reply and they request a full. Kaelyn: 27:26 They, you know, there's going to be steps there. And again, this says something else we will discuss at greater length in the future. Um, but so an agent has signed you Rekka: 27:36 And now they're going to take over the submission inquiry process for you. Kaelyn: 27:40 But first they're probably going to ask you for some changes in your manuscript Rekka: 27:45 Rights Kaelyn: 27:46 Agents in recent years have become more and more involved in the first pass in the editing process. Very few agents are now just going to take your manuscript and say, yes, this is good. Rekka: 27:59 Right. They're not a post office. Kaelyn: 28:02 They're going to ask, you know, they're gonna read it. They're going to ask you for some changes. Some of it might be, um, you know, based on trends they know about. Some of it might be, I have you in mind for this kind of a thing. So I want it just tweaked a little bit just so it catches their interest. Yeah. Agents might ask you for edits before they sign you. You can decide whether that's, you know, good or bad. Rekka: 28:25 You want to follow your gut on that one based on the language in the request. Kaelyn: 28:29 Yes, literary agents are hard to get and they're very busy and you know it, you have to decide if you want to put that extra work in for the promise of maybe you know, getting signed but possibly not Rekka: 28:40 Yeah, because it may not be enough. Kaelyn: 28:42 But at the same time it's feedback from a professional in the industry. So you know, always, you know. Rekka: 28:47 Give that the, the weight that it's due. Kaelyn: 28:49 Yeah, exactly. So after you know, you guys have had the discussion and you get the manuscript to where you, both of you are happy with it. The agent now takes over the querying and submissions process. And so this is where things kind of especially diverged from just the open call to querying through an agent. Rekka: 29:10 So if the agent is handling the querying and um, submissions for you for the process of getting it picked up by a publisher, you now have a partner that is joining you in the submissions. But this isn't guaranteeing you that your book is going to be picked up. It is a vote of confidence from a publishing professional. Kaelyn: 29:33 It's a big vote. It's a vote that carries the weight of more than one single vote. Rekka: 29:37 Yes. And it's, it's a huge confidence booster. Um, or you should take it as one that somebody believes in your book as much as you do because you may not have that up until this point. Kaelyn: 29:49 Yeah. Rekka: 29:50 But there is still the chance that you know, this, this book is going to take a lot longer to still be picked up by a publisher and it may still find a home or you may decide that you need to revisit a few things based on feedback that they receive from the publishers. Um, but so there's still a chance for rejection at this point. Just Kaelyn: 30:06 There absolutely still is a chance for rejection at this point and we're going to be after this, kind of moving more into the actual acquisition's process. So let's talk about the last thing that can happen before acquisitions. Rekka: 30:17 And that's unfortunately is the, no thank you. This isn't right for us or phrase differently. Kaelyn: 30:23 And here's the thing. Most people, that's what you're going to hear a lot. Rekka: 30:27 And remember how we said when you're done with the draft, like maybe step away. Here's a moment. This is also ideal for stepping away. Kaelyn: 30:34 Yes, right off the bat, most books that get rejected or rejected because they need more work. Um, it could be stylistic, it could be story, it could be any number of things in between those two. It's discouraging. Of course it is. But you have to understand that there are so many of these books that this is why we say you need to distinguish herself. Sometimes your book, however it may be great, it just might not be right for that publisher or for that agent. Maybe they just publish something very similar. Rekka: 31:09 Yeah. Or they're working on something very similar at that moment and they can't even tell you that Kaelyn: 31:12 Yeah, they're working on something very similar. Um, you know, maybe it's just something that they feel like they are not equipped to sell the right way. And I mean, I know we definitely have walked away from books because we're like, look, we don't want to tie up your rights because we don't think we can do what needs to be done with this book. Rekka: 31:30 And this goes back a little bit to making sure that you know exactly who you're querying so you don't come back with complete mismatch because that's going to guarantee, guarantee a rejection much. Kaelyn: 31:40 Exactly. Rekka: 31:40 So like save yourself the heartache and make sure that you are finding people who sell books that are good cops for yours. Kaelyn: 31:48 The biggest piece of advice I can give is do not take this personally. I understand that saying that from coming from someone on the publishing end, from the person who sends the rejection letters is like, well, of course you can say that. Rekka: 32:03 Well, here, let me say it. I'm an author. I write these things. Um, you wrote a book that is the story of your heart. You love it Kaelyn: 32:14 It's deeply personal. Rekka: 32:15 You put hours of emotion and energy into this. That does not mean that it is not a product. You have developed a product that needs to be marketed and packaged and sold. And if you can't, if that's not something that you will ever be able to handle, write the stories and then put them in drawers. That's okay. Kaelyn: 32:39 Give them to your friends, Rekka: 32:40 You need to be able to detach yourself from your story enough to know that there are things that are going to improve it, that you might not have chosen. If you could write anything. Kaelyn: 32:52 Don't take it personally. It's not personal. I understand that this is the most personal thing you've probably ever submitted and doing so puts you in a vulnerable position. It's hard to get rejected with that. It's not personal like, you know, it's not personal. It's just business. Kaelyn: 33:11 And it sounds so awful. Kaelyn: 33:13 It sounds cold. Rekka: 33:15 But that's what it is. I mean publishers are trying to stay profitable so that they can continue to make books that they love. I mean essentially that was why people get into this in the beginning, at least in the beginning. And you hope that they maintain that passion. Kaelyn: 33:31 It's hard. And so we'll, you know, we're kind of, we're both kind of getting into the emotions of it right now. Rekka: 33:37 And we did say we weren't doing an emotional episode like, so we did get to rejections and there's no way to, you were saying detach yourself from it. It's not personal. And here we are getting very worked up about it. Kaelyn: 33:46 Getting very personal about this. Rekka: 33:46 So that's fair. Kaelyn: 33:48 But along those lines with the personal, I mean it's fine if you want to get angry. Rekka: 33:53 You don't, not to reply. Kaelyn: 33:56 Keep it to yourself. Kaelyn: 33:57 Yeah. If you need to vent, do not do it on Twitter. Kaelyn: 34:00 Do not do it on Twitter. Rekka: 34:01 I don't care if the person you submitted it to subtweets you on Twitter or you think they've subbed tweeted you on Twitter, you are not going to participate in that. Kaelyn: 34:09 Here's the thing, people in the publishing industry, we talked to each other. So if you get a rejection letter from me or an email rather, you know, thank you so much for submitting us for, sorry this book is not right for us at this time and I get a reply from you that is anything beyond thank you for your time and consideration or you know, asking for notes from something which we'll get to that later. But that is, I'm going to remember, you know, and this is not a situation where you, it's time for you to start an argument with me. Rekka: 34:48 Right. Your decision's already made Kaelyn: 34:49 My decisions made Kaelyn: 34:50 And you are just reinforce it if Kaelyn: 34:53 Here's the thing, my decision's final. Um, and that's just how it is. It's, you know, it's our company and we get to decide these things. Yeah. If you're going to, you know, if you're going to get angry, go Rekka: 35:05 Scream into a pillow, Kaelyn: 35:06 Call a friend please , Rekka: 35:09 Talk to a therapist. Kaelyn: 35:09 It's okay to feel those things just, you know, do not put them out into the world. So dealing with rejection is difficult, but it's something, you know, as Rekka said, it's something you're going to have to get used to. Rekka: 35:19 Yeah. Kaelyn: 35:20 Because this is more often than not, you're going to be rejected. Don't think of it as a failure. It's not necessarily a failure. It's room for improvement. Rekka: 35:32 Right, and if anything rise to the challenge and say, well, okay, not necessarily right off the bat because again, if this was not a good fit for whoever you queried, then someone else may see what you see in this book and pick it up. Rekka: 35:48 And it's when you start to get rejection after rejection from, from publishers you think were really perfect matches their publishing books by people you read that like inspired you or some story or all these other reasons and they're just telling you it's, not a good fit for them. Kaelyn: 36:03 That's, that's heartbreaking. Rekka: 36:05 It's heartbreaking, but it's, it's an indication that you really should be paying attention to what you're submitting and what form it's in. Maybe at what level of editing you've, you've sent it in. Kaelyn: 36:14 And maybe this is a good time if you didn't do it before to consider getting an editor. Rekka: 36:19 Right. Kaelyn: 36:20 So that's rejections. You know, it's an inevitable part of this process. So we wanted to take a minute to talk about it, reassure you that feelings about this are normal and it's okay to have them. Rekka: 36:30 And your first rejection is not a total rejection of your entire writing career. Kaelyn: 36:33 Exactly. Yeah. Rekka: 36:35 So that's the rejections. Kaelyn: 36:36 Yeah, that's the rejections. I mean they're, it's hard, but you know, Kaelyn: 36:39 It is part of the process Kaelyn: 36:40 It is part of the process and uh, I'm going to say you got to get good at it. And I know that sounds like a weird thing to say, but, but you have to, Rekka: 36:47 You can work out these muscles of like how to properly deal with the rejection and how you use that information to inform your next query or your next provision. Kaelyn: 36:56 Exactly. Rekka: 36:57 So on the flip side, eventually, hopefully you do not get rejected. Kaelyn: 37:02 And you get that magical call or email from an acquisitions editor that says, dear, so and so, I'm interested in your book and I would like to have a phone call with you. Rekka: 37:13 So the next step is that, um, you're going to form a relationship with this Pub - Well, you don't even have to like, here's, here's your power now the publishers interested in you. So we're going to talk in our next episode about the process of going through and um, and Kaelyn who has the inside scoop from the side of a publisher and tell us what the thought process is on that side and maybe why they made a decision to acquire something. And then we can talk about the relationship that you build and the proper steps to go along with that. Some, some words of warning. And Kaelyn: 37:47 We're going to take you through the process of what happens when someone is interested in your book. Go through what is going to happen, getting up to the contract being signed. And that's the, that's the big moment. But then that's, it's not over after that. Rekka: 38:02 So not over [laughter] Kaelyn: 38:03 So much more after that. And we're going to just talk again, same format, same thing, quick overview. We know that we are skipping and glossing over a bunch of really complex things Rekka: 38:14 And we promise if you highlight the ones that you're like, Whoa, whoa, Whoa, Whoa, wait, back up. Can you go into that, like tweet us, WMBcast, and tell us like that moment that you're like, that's the thing I don't know about and I need to hear more about and then, and we can dive deep into that in another We Kaelyn: 38:28 We'll mark it for a future episode. Rekka: 38:29 Absolutely. Kaelyn: 38:30 Yes. Uh, so we're at the acquisitions point right now and our next episode we're going to cover what happens after, during and after that. Rekka: 38:38 Right up to the point where a reader can pick up your book off the shelf. Kaelyn: 38:41 So thank you so much for listening to this episode. And the next one is, uh, probably all queued up already Rekka: 38:48 Probably Kaelyn: 38:48 Because these are all coming out at once. Rekka: 38:50 We launched with a few episodes for you, so you don't even have to wait. All right. So, um, if you could leave a comment or a rating on iTunes, both would be even better. Kaelyn: 38:59 That would be wonderful. Rekka: 38:59 And that will help other people find this. If you want to follow us on Twitter or Instagram, we are at w-m-b-c-a-s-t, w-m-b-cast. You can find us at WMBcast.com or WeMakeBooksPodcast.com and of course we are also on patreon.com/WMBcast. And we are asking that anyone who finds this super valuable and can contribute to, to the cause to help us keep the lights on and keep the production running and maybe improve, Kaelyn: 39:28 Keep the shed warm Rekka: 39:29 Yes, keep the shed warm and maybe improve, um, our production quality in the future and add more content that we can provide to people. And we really hope that this is helpful and we want to help as many people as possible. So if you could help spread the word, and if you know somebody who needs this information, you know, send them a link, Kaelyn: 39:45 Yeah, send them a link, we'd love it. Rekka: 39:45 That would be so helpful. We absolutely love it. So thank you. And we will talk to you again soon. Thanks everyone. Piano: [Music outtro]

Hi everyone, and thank you for listening to the launch episodes of the We Make Books Podcast - A podcast about writing, publishing, and everything in between! We Make Books is hosted by Rekka Jay and Kaelyn Considine; Rekka is a published author and Kaelyn is an editor and together they are going to take you through what goes into getting a book out of your head, on to paper, in to the hands of a publisher, and finally on to book store shelves. In this final episode of the launch, Rekka and Kaelyn switch tracks and get real about how an author might worry what a publisher will do to their book after they get the rights. We Make Books is a podcast for writer and publishers, by writers and publishers and we want to hear from our listeners! Hit us up on our social media, linked below, and send us your questions, comments, concerns, and any theories you may have about the new Continental streaming series, based on John Wick. Thank you for taking the time to listen to this introduction, the first batch of new episodes drops on May 14th, so be sure to subscribe so you don’t miss it. A transcription of this episode can be found below. We hope you enjoy We Make Books! Twitter: @WMBCast  |  @KindofKaelyn  |  @BittyBittyZap Instagram: @WMBCast  Patreon.com/WMBCast === Transcript === Rekka: 00:01 [laughing] Hey everyone, welcome back to We Make Books–Kaelyn: 00:04 [laughter]Rekka: 00:04 –a podcast about writing and publishing and everything in between. I'm Rekka, I write science fiction as RJ Theodore.Kaelyn: 00:12 And I'm Kaelyn, I publish science fiction and fantasy at Parvus press.Rekka: 00:17 And in today's episode, we are taking a different tone from the last two episodes of this launch.Kaelyn: 00:24 We get heavy here, guys. This one's, you know–Rekka: 00:26 I was couched, I was, I was definitely like, you know, "tell me about how you feel about your publisher."Kaelyn: 00:33 She's having some flashbacks, you know, and there wasRekka: 00:35 A bit of shaking.Kaelyn: 00:36 And how did that make you feel?Rekka: 00:38 There was a little bit of that.Kaelyn: 00:40 Yeah. But you know, so after the first couple of episodes where we really just kind of threw a lot at you with "this, then this, then this" kind of format, um, we wanted to take a step back and do something that was going to be a little more in line with what we're going to be doing down the line. So we were talking, we were trying to come up with what we thought would be a good third episode of this batch for the initial launch and uh Rekka, you know, said, "Well publishers can be scary."Rekka: 01:12 Well, and, that was kind of the whole concept of the podcast. So I was like, all right, so how do we talk about this? Like what do we want to ask the publishers?Kaelyn: 01:23 And at the same time from the publishers, what do we want to know about the writers and what they're thinking about this? So we kind of came to this agreement of let's talk about relationships between publishers, editors, writers, and what's scary, what each side wishes the other one knew about them or–Rekka: 01:41 like how did you approach the relationship? What was your expectation?Kaelyn: 01:44 Yeah, the things that when, especially writers, because they're new at this, whereas editors have done this multiple times previously, going into it going, "What do I do now?" And you know, that is the theme for this podcast, but we thought this would be kind of a good, good jumping off point for the rest of it. So, I mean we're going to have lots of different episodes about different topics coming down the line, which we're really excited about. Um, you know, we'll plug it in at the end of the episode, but you know, please do feel free to interact with us. You are encouraged to do so.Rekka: 02:12 Yeah. And I think this one will let you know that there's really not anything we aren't willing to tackle.Kaelyn: 02:18 Yes, we are... I mean, there is like, I joke in the episode, there is the publishing guild's cabal is probably sending an assassin after me as we speak.Rekka: 02:29 Yeah. Yeah. And if we don't have them, you know, sending an Uber out with their assassin every episode that we record, then we're not doing it right.Kaelyn: 02:38 We're not doing a good job. Yeah. Spilling all the deep dark secrets.Rekka: 02:41 The deepest and darkest.Kaelyn: 02:42 You know, so, um, anyway, so that's, you know, the episode, like I said, it's a little, you know, there's a little more emotion driven and uh, some of the other ones and what we're going to be doing in the future.Rekka: 02:52 But do me a favor and try not to analyze me.Kaelyn: 02:56 [laughter] Yeah, Rekka really laid at all, laid it all out there.Rekka: 02:58 I mean, these are all things I've about before, but not in this context and not so directly related to like this relationship.Kaelyn: 03:07 Yeah. So anyway, I think it's great. I think it'll, uh, kind of, I think a lot of it will resonate, a lot of people will identify with this. So, uhRekka: 03:15 Here it comes.Kaelyn: 03:15 Yeah. Here it comes. Hope you enjoy.Piano: 03:17 [music]Maybe ghosts?: 03:38 [muffled speech and laughter]Kaelyn: 03:38 The one in control of the button.Rekka: 03:39 I do like control, speaking of which–Kaelyn: 03:45 We're recording now aren't we?Rekka: 03:45 We are recording, and speaking of control that is an excellent segue.Kaelyn: 03:46 It is an excellent segue. Yeah. That wasn't even intentional.Rekka: 03:49 Mm-hmm. Good job.Kaelyn: 03:50 So, uh, you know, as we said in the introduction, what we're talking about here today, it's a little bit of a hard left from the previous two.Rekka: 03:57 Yeah. The previous two were sort of like the top down view. It was safe. It was, um, a little dr– I don't wanna say dry, but you know, it was–Kaelyn: 04:06 I think we're entertaining enough.Rekka: 04:07 more on the functional side,Kaelyn: 04:11 Yeah. But today we're talking about relationships with editors and taking care of your book; entrusting your book.Rekka: 04:20 Who's going to take care of your book. If not you?Kaelyn: 04:24 This is, you know, big hangup that a lot of authors have. And it's scary and it's–Rekka: 04:29 Even authors I think, who have dreams of getting a publishing deal.Kaelyn: 04:34 Yeah. And then it's in front of you and it's like, "Oh my God, wait–"Rekka: 04:37 "Is this the right choice?"Kaelyn: 04:38 "This person I just met has so many opinions!"Rekka: 04:41 And it's a partnership. It's, um, it's a marriage of the efforts of the author and this team and there's– [thoughtful exhalation] I don't know if it's media representation showing that they are at odds or if it's just the loud experiences of people who've had less than stellar, you know, interactions.Kaelyn: 05:05 I'd imagine it's some combination of the two. You know, it's, I think, you know, saying like this depiction of being at odds with your editor is like very detrimental.Rekka: 05:16 Yes.Kaelyn: 05:17 You should not be at odds with your editor. But it is, regardless, you could be thrilled to death and it is scary because you don't, you've spent so much time on this, this is your blood, sweat and tears and now someone else is going to come in and you are contractually mandated to pay attention to and take their opinions about your work. And that's terrifying. Yeah.Rekka: 05:44 And, and there's more to it than– I mean, we're talking partially about editing, but we're also just talking about the publisher. Yeah. As an entity that is now going to gather your book under their wing and you have to be okay with that.Kaelyn: 06:00 Yeah, no, that's–Rekka: 06:01 You really have to be okay with that. And if you aren't okay with that, when you're facing down the contract, maybe consider – What did we say was going to be repeating theme? Take a step back, and now, audience, take a shot.Kaelyn: 06:20 [laughing] That should be in the name of this podcast. "Take a step back."Rekka: 06:24 Nope. I already have the domain name. Um, the um, the feelings that you have are valid.Kaelyn: 06:34 Yes.Rekka: 06:34 Emotions are always valid.Kaelyn: 06:35 Yes.Rekka: 06:35 We're not saying you, your fear is wrong, but it might be founded in an absence of understanding of what's going to happen, which is again, the entire point of this podcast as a whole is to make that absence of knowledge.Kaelyn: 06:53 Yeah.Rekka: 06:54 The pool a little bit shallower.Kaelyn: 06:56 Pull the veil back. Make this a little less scary.Rekka: 06:58 Yeah.Kaelyn: 06:59 So I'm obviously coming from the publishing side. Rekka is coming from the writing side. So we have, you know, different perspectives on this. Um, one of the things we were talking about before we got started here is: does anyone care about your book as much as you do?Rekka: 07:18 No.Kaelyn: 07:19 The answer is no.Rekka: 07:20 No, no one does, no one ever could.Kaelyn: 07:24 It's not possible. But your editor is probably a close second.Rekka: 07:28 And we brought up the discussion like, maybe a parent?Kaelyn: 07:32 A spouse?Rekka: 07:33 The argument would be, yeah, they care about you as a person, and they care about your experience.Kaelyn: 07:40 Your success.Rekka: 07:41 And your success, and that you're happy.Kaelyn: 07:43 Yes. But your book as a product,Rekka: 07:47 Yeah, and what it's about and the world building that went into it and whether people like your character as much as you do like tha– that's probably not forefront of their mind.Kaelyn: 07:59 No, it's, I mean, as we said, you know, in our previous two episodes, this is a deeply personal thing.Rekka: 08:06 And aside from the readers and fans that you will hopefully eventually get to meet and get to see them express their experience with your book, there isn't going to be that sort of passionate caring about your book on this end of the process, except with a publisher who's monetarily, emotionally and you know.Kaelyn: 08:35 Spiritually. [laughter]Rekka: 08:39 Spiritually invested, by the powers invested in...Kaelyn: 08:42 Well I mean your pu-, your publisher – really it's your, it's your editor. Your publisher is the one responsible for getting the book out the door and making sure everyone makes money off of it. Um, know obviously they've got an interest in, you know, making sure it's successful, not just for monetary reasons but because publishers want books to be successful, because they want to publish successful books. Um, like at Parvus for instance, we've been really working hard to cultivate and maintain a good reputation because we genuinely care about our books and our authors and that's so important to us. And that's not just us. That's a lot of publishing houses that you want to put a great book out there and you want to hear people talking about it and you want everyone to be excited about it. So, everyone involved in the process wants, [laughter] they want what's best for the book. [laughter] We only want what's best for the book. You? Eh. The book, however.Rekka: 09:50 Well, and there is a line drawn.Kaelyn: 09:53 There is, but um, you know, so I'm on, I'm on the publishing end of things, but Rekka you're on the writing end of things. So you actually have some unique perspective and experience in how you came to a traditional publishing situation.Rekka: 10:08 Yeah, especially the traditional part of that, um. I think it's, it's not going to be secret for long if it's still a secret, but my plan was to self publish Flotsam–Kaelyn: 10:18 I just assumed everyone knew that at this point.Rekka: 10:22 I think anyone who knows anything about me, has listened to my other podcasts, or followed me for any amount of time, probably understands that I–and here's going back to the segue that led into the episode–I like to have control of everything. And for me, um, the best way to have control over the content of my book, the presentation of my book, the marketing of my book, the longterm success of my book... was going to be, if I was in complete control of my book. I wanted to accept the responsibility for every step of the process so that I could be proud of it.Kaelyn: 11:04 Of course, yeah.Rekka: 11:04 And that it would be the vision that I have from the get go.Kaelyn: 11:07 And I think that's important is authors really wanting to hold onto their vision. Because I'm uh, you know, we actually discussed this very briefly in the previous episode of like, cover art and that is the true embodiment of an author's vision for the book.Rekka: 11:21 And funny you should mention that because–you and your segues today! We need a gong.Kaelyn: 11:27 I've really, I'm nailing it.Rekka: 11:28 Um, I brought–I mean we're skipping ahead to the part where I decided to go ahead and submit this, but I commissioned...Kaelyn: 11:36 Well no, because this is, this is one of the hangups that you had.Rekka: 11:39 Um, I commissioned a cover artist, um, and I didn't just go to, I mean like I don't want to disparage anyone on Fiverr. I'm sure there are very talented people on Fiverr, but I went, um, to the person whose vision matched what I felt the inside of my book–Kaelyn: 11:56 And you did research.Rekka: 11:57 and I did a lot of research and I thought I wanted a different artist.Kaelyn: 12:01 Yeah. So going back to, you know, some of the hang ups you had, some of the worries, one of them was that you already commissioned this beautiful piece of art from Julie Dillon for your cover.Rekka: 12:11 Yes. So obviously this wasn't a hangup that prevented me from submitting to Parvus. This was a hang up, like once I had submitted, I was like, "[nervous inhale] they're not gonna want to use this. Like I just spent all this money, invested it, in a gorgeous piece of artwork, but I'm not going to be allowed to use this."Kaelyn: 12:27 So now it's like, that's another thing. Is this worth it?Rekka: 12:30 Is it like, yeah, like this cover is perfect for my book. Luckily Parvus agreed. But that was–Kaelyn: 12:36 Well, I mean, have you seen it? What do you think someone's going to be like, "No, that's no good."Rekka: 12:42 "That's no good at all." Um, uh, I actually have gotten a comment from, from somebody who was like, "I didn't really get it at first, but then I read it and I'm like, Oh yeah, no, that's totally perfect." And anyone who had read any draft of Flotsam, when they saw the cover art was like, "Oh, that is so good."Kaelyn: 12:59 It's perfect. Really. It really is.Rekka: 13:01 It captures it, all the, the strangeness of it, the the, the whimsy of it too, and all that. All right, so [laughter]. I'm trying to stay on track here.Kaelyn: 13:09 No it's just like, because it's so, it's so beautiful and eye-catching that like you just want rant about it for a while.Rekka: 13:15 I just wanna talk about it forever. Yeah. I haven't gotten to talk about it like it's a new cover in a long time.Kaelyn: 13:18 It's true. Yeah.Rekka: 13:20 So I, um, I had other hang-ups about going with a traditional publisher and a lot of them came out of this track that I was on to,Both: 13:29 To self publish.Rekka: 13:30 Because, once I decided that, I had podcasts that I could listen to about self publishing, and there was definitely a bias of um, you know, "a traditional publisher does not care about your book as much as you do," which as we started off the episode like, is not quite fair on anyone's part to say.Kaelyn: 13:51 No, it's, I mean I would, you know, granted–Rekka: 13:54 The interest is different.Kaelyn: 13:55 –yeah. Granted I'm coming from the other side of things here, but, um, there I, I lose sleep over books. So, um, to say no one cares about it is, I mean, to me false.Rekka: 14:09 Right.Kaelyn: 14:09 Um, but I think there is this fear – and it's an understandable fear – that, "Okay, my dreams have come true. My book has gotten accepted for publication. Oh God, they're going to make me change all of it."Rekka: 14:25 And not only that, but, "I am a single, small author with no experience. And here comes a team of people who know what they're doing and they have the authority–"Kaelyn: 14:35 Oh it's so intimidating. Yeah.Rekka: 14:35 There's, there's definite position of authority that can be abused, if it were desired to be abused.Kaelyn: 14:42 It's very intimidating. And you know, again, this is part of the reason we want to do this is maybe, you know, you find yourself in this position when you go in with a little bit of knowledge and you know, a little bit goes a long way.Rekka: 14:51 And just knowing what's coming up and not feeling like, "Well, how do I know that what they're telling me is the process is supposed to be the process?"Kaelyn: 15:04 Well because Kaelyn and Rekka said so.Rekka: 15:04 And what we say goes! (Speaking of position from authority).Kaelyn: 15:10 Yeah. So there's definitely like a fear over the creative side of what's gonna happen. And it's understandable. It's scary. Um. Something that you have spent so much time on and now this person, who you have maybe had a couple conversations about, who you probably never met in person is going to go, "and this and this and change this and move this here." Now, hopefully you never actually have a conversation like that, cause that's awful.Rekka: 15:36 That was detached and cold and not like–if someone's going to request that you change something in your manuscript, you want some like, explanation of how it's going to improve it.Kaelyn: 15:49 Well, so... And again, the qualifier: everyone works differently. Every editor's process is a little different. But so I'm going to take it kind of over to my side of things now. I very much believe in a collaborative process in writing. Um. I think most editors and publishers do, because if everyone's miserable then you're not going to make a good book. Um. If there, I am very, you know, have open conversations, talk about your concerns. I'll talk about mine. Let's come to an understanding. Um. There's a, there's a movie, Once Upon a Time in Mexico. [chuckle] Have you seen that?Rekka: 16:32 YesKaelyn: 16:32 Okay. You remember Johnny Depp's character's like the CIA agent everywhere he goes, he likes, he sits down and orders the same thing.Rekka: 16:38 Yeah.Kaelyn: 16:39 In the beginning, he's meeting the informant and he gives him the information and asks him, "Uh, you know, you only asked for $10,000. You knew we would pay a lot more for it." And the guy's like "Yeah, I'm not a greedy man. $10,000 is reasonable. It's a civilized number. It's a number we can both live with. You're not going to kill me over $10,000." And I always kind of look at this as we need to get to a civilized number. [laughter] Um, that's what I always, sometimes I say number, but like "we need to get to a civilized answer here."Rekka: 17:13 Somewhere in the middle.Kaelyn: 17:13 "Where we can both walk away feeling good about this." But that's the thing you, your editor is not your opposition. Your editor is your partner in this process. They are the ones who, they are going to spend so much time on your book, thinking about it, mulling it over, isolating areas that could use some work, maybe punch them up a little bit, tighten it. I personally, my favorite part of this whole process is getting on the phone with my authors and talking about their book and talking about the world it's set in. And like, I always ask, are there any parts that you think are, weak? You know, I like to know what their, their mentality going into it is. Um, but that part is so much fun. And for my end, if there's a part of a book or a manuscript that I'm like, "Look, this is not working," and the author is really resisting and it's very important to them, my next question is, "Okay, why is this part's so important?" And it's fascinating because a lot of the times there's a reason and it's like, "Well why didn't you tell me that?" You know, like, "Oh this is important for a later book, or this is setting something up down the line, or there's this character arc that you know," and it's like, "Okay, well, tell me that because then we can work on that. We can flesh these things out." Being up front with your editor is really important, I think.Rekka: 18:39 Mmm-hmm, and not shutting down emotionally or verbally.Kaelyn: 18:42 Yeah. Like, I mean, don't take criticism badly. Cause here's the thing: they would not have bought your book if it was a bad book.Rekka: 18:50 Right.Kaelyn: 18:50 People don't buy bad books, they buy good books, great, books turn them into awesome books. And I mean, so you have, you know, you went through quite a process with Flotsam, a little back and forth with, you know, to self publish or traditional publish. So what was it like when you were working with an editor then?Rekka: 19:09 Well, as I said, I hired a contracted editor, um, before I made any sort of such decision. I mean the book wasn't ready yet. I knew it wasn't ready. I did not know why. So most of the heavy lifting with my editor – who turned out to be my editor at Parvus once I signed, [laughter] that's a long, convoluted story. So let's just pretend that I was working on the book with him the entire time in, in the capacity that was the Parvus Press capacity cause it, it blended, really see, you know, like I didn't have to be introduced to my Parvus editor before he worked for Parvus.Kaelyn: 19:46 Yeah, you were in a little bit of a different spot there.Rekka: 19:48 I'm like, I am an outlier as far as this goes. Um, so I knew the book wasn't great – or I'm like, I knew the book was great. I knew the concept was great. I knew there was something there that I had to get out in the world. And working on the drafts over four years, I just kept shoving in stuff to fill what I felt was missing.Kaelyn: 20:13 Okay.Rekka: 20:14 And I would add stuff and never take anything else out. I would change stuff but make it, I would shoe horn it in around the other things that were already there.Kaelyn: 20:24 Ah! Classic author move. [laughter]Rekka: 20:26 And so what my editor said after we met for the first time, um, through Skype, I said, "Well, I've been working on this for 12 years." And he said, "I know, it's all in here. I can tell." And so like that freed me up to realize like, okay, every word was still precious to me.Kaelyn: 20:44 Of course.Rekka: 20:44 But that started to help me see that like, every draft was not supposed to be an additive process. [laughter] Sometimes removing stuff is important.Kaelyn: 20:57 Yeah... yeah... Culling is important.Rekka: 20:59 So, um, so working with an editor, one, like sort of helped me let go of all these years of work that I'd been putting into this story because I realized, "Oh, so what you're saying is it doesn't all fit in one book." [laughter]Kaelyn: 21:18 Yeah. And you actually bring up a very good point here, which is, um, I think one of the hardest things for authors to hear right off the bat, when they start working with an editor, is the editor unsheathing the metaphorical machete. Where it's like, "okay, we're going to take care of all of this extraneous stuff." And, "No, no, it's not extraneous, it's important!" And understanding that here's the thing, it's not, and it doesn't mean you're a bad writer.Rekka: 21:47 It just doesn't belong in the draft, because it is important. It's important pre-work, but not all of that belongs in the final story.Kaelyn: 21:55 I should say it's not important to the final story. The work you did is important. But that's the big difference is, I'm interested in the work you did to this point in just terms of your process. But for the final product of the book, it doesn't–Rekka: 22:12 it doesn't mean the book better. The book is not richer because you have layers and layers and layers.Kaelyn: 22:18 Yeah. So, and I think that's a hard thing for especially first time authors working with an editor to, to in.Rekka: 22:24 And prior to that I'd been working completely alone on it. You know, I had people who'd read it, some friends who, bless their souls, read it three or four times and various versions. And then I got to the point where I was like, "Everyone I know who's willing to read this has already read it and they know all the other versions and I need fresh perspective on this." And then I had this epiphany, you know, event where I realized like, "I need to move forward on this. And I've been putting a lot of my time into this because I have time for free. Time doesn't cost me any money to invest in the story and rewrite it and rewrite it and rewrite it. I need to stop treating this like I will eventually get there if I just work harder.Kaelyn: 23:12 Yeah. And you know, we're getting, we're getting very heavy with this conversation. It's, you know, it because, but it does deserve some, um, some gravitas becauseRekka: 23:22 It's a big decision.Kaelyn: 23:23 It's a big decision. Um, I know from, you know, when I meet an, introduced myself to a new author and I'm in a little bit of a unique position because I'm also the acquisitions editor. So chances are even, you know, you've probably already had a conversation with me probably more than one. Um, and I know how nerve wracking it is. And part of my job, what I see my job as an editor is, I need to put you at ease and reassure you so that you can write the best possible version of the book I can get out of you. And trust me, I will get it out of you. You're going to hate me by the end, but I will get it out of you. [laughter]Rekka: 24:05 But it's, it's the effort that you're going to draw out of the author.Kaelyn: 24:10 Yes.Rekka: 24:10 It's not going to be hated because you're going to change all the fundamental things that make this book the author's own book.Kaelyn: 24:16 Yeah. When I say, you're going to hate me by the end of it. I mean, because I know what you're capable of. And –Rekka: 24:23 You're not going to settle for anything less.Kaelyn: 24:24 – I am not going to let you get away with anything. So, and I mean it's, you should want an editor that does that.Rekka: 24:32 You should want an editor that is compelled to draw every last drop–Kaelyn: 24:37 –But here's the thing, I'm doing it because I care about your book a lot. So do I care about as much as you? I can't imagine I do because no one else cares about it as much as you, but I care about it a lot. Um, so you know, having an open and frank relationship with your editor is important. And this was one of the things we were kind of batting around when we were trying to do, figure out what to do with this episode and that was relationships with your editor. Um, it's tricky.Rekka: 25:10 Yeah.Kaelyn: 25:11 Because it is a professional relationship, right? But at the same time, it's–Rekka: 25:18 Fraught with emotion!Kaelyn: 25:20 –and it's a very vulnerable relationship. Um, I always say, you know, like if you wake up at 1:30 in the morning and you're like, "Oh my God, this idea!" Text me, email me, I want to hear about it. Um, but you know, maybe don't call me. That's, we're not, we're not quite there yet. Um, but it's, it's a tricky relationship to navigate because this is a person that – I won't say they're in a position of authority over you because that's not the case at all. But they are in a position –Rekka: 25:53 They're serving two parties here.Kaelyn: 25:55 –Yeah, there's you, and then there's also their publishing house. So it is, it is a difficult relationship to navigate, but at the same time, then, you're going to have absurd conversations with this person. [laughter] And here's the thing, I love them, but like, I definitely get some people that are like, I'm like, "Okay, well this part's not really clear. Can you explain what's going on?" It's like, "Oh, well this person's from here so they can do water magic." "Okay, great. Um, what about this guy?" "Oh, he's from here. So that's that tree magic." It's like, guys, you don't sound stupid to me. And I know that like everyone else that you talk to about this–Rekka: 26:33 This is the concept we're selling!Kaelyn: 26:35 Yes! It's like, "I want to hear about this stuff. Tell me about, you know, your armored rabbits charging into battle! Like, I want to know about this." No matter. I mean, did you ever feel like, you know, like, "Oh well, and then–"Rekka: 26:51 I am always an outlier. I have never felt apologetic for – Like, I wrote Flotsam. [laughter] Like have you read Flotsam?Kaelyn: 26:58 A couple of times. Yeah. [laughter]Rekka: 26:59 Yeah. How am I supposed to feel bashful about that book?Kaelyn: 27:04 It's true. It's definitely true.Rekka: 27:06 Um, there's not a lot in there I can even pretend is normal.Kaelyn: 27:10 Especially if you're shy. You're not shy.Rekka: 27:14 I have been shy in my life. I think I'm done.Kaelyn: 27:16 I don't believe that for a second but let's keep going. You know, and that part can be intimidating and there's a lot of little things that you know, factor into your relationship. Um. But I think it's good and important to have at least a friendly relationship with your editor.Rekka: 27:35 Mm-hmm.Kaelyn: 27:36 Because it's different from– I mean, I think you'd agree it's different from a lot of other regular jobs. Oh yeah. Like making a widget. This isn't going into the office and you know, going, "Steve, you were supposed to get me this by tomorrow. Why isn't it done?" Like it's, you know, it's like, "Okay, so you're stuck on this thing. Let me help you with it."Rekka: 27:59 Mm-hmm.Kaelyn: 27:59 And that's great. That's my favorite part. Yeah. So, yeah. Um. It is a little hard, you know, balancing the personal professional.Rekka: 28:07 Mm-hmm. and you'd have to sort of decide where you're going to put your boundaries before you run into them or over them or through them.Kaelyn: 28:13 But with social media now it's so much, you know...Rekka: 28:16 Boundaries fall away all the time.Kaelyn: 28:18 Yeah, pretty quickly and like, you know, interacting with the people in your writing community, and by extension, your publisher is great. You know, it's, it's a lot of fun and it's a good way to kind of like, you know, have a funny exchange that builds some awareness.Rekka: 28:32 Yeah. But in in the same sense of like opening boundaries, like if there's a boundary that someone sets, you just respect it. Absolutely. And um, yeah, like my current editor at Parvus doesn't want text messages. Okay. Like that's not going to help him work better on my book, you know?Kaelyn: 28:50 [laughter]Rekka: 28:50 So while Kailyn may accept text messages from authors in her stableKaelyn: 28:56 Kaelyn encourages text messages. I, I'm fine with all forms of communication, just, you know, communicate with me.Rekka: 29:01 Yeah. I always prefer to have it in writing. So like if someone calls me up and has the conversation and I have no written record of it, 20 minutes later I'm like, "Oh, what did we say we were going to do? I have no record of it."Kaelyn: 29:15 I just blacked out for that entire thing. Did I just agree to do a podcast?!Rekka: 29:17 How does that happen?Kaelyn: 29:19 Yeah. So boundaries and communication standards are important to establish.Rekka: 29:23 And working together in the way that works best for everybody.Kaelyn: 29:25 Yes. And again, this is, you know, the every editor works different. Um. I, I like to get a sense of how an author works well because if I'm doing something and it's just completely going over their head, that's not helping anyone.Rekka: 29:42 Right.Kaelyn: 29:42 And I, I can be more flexible. I'm pretty good about that kind of stuff. So like, yeah, you can tell me "Here's how I work best and it's reasonable." No problem.Rekka: 29:53 Right.Kaelyn: 29:55 So. Um. Editors are not that scary. I'm not supposed to say that. I'm sure you know the secret cabal of publishing is sending an assassin for me as we speak, so it was nice doing these episodes for everyone, but I think we think that, well, writers kind of have this impression that editors are going to go, "No, nope. Cross this out. Get rid of this. What the heck is this?" If your book needed that much work–Rekka: 30:28 Or that much vehemence.Kaelyn: 30:31 Vehemence, yeah. No, they wouldn't have bought it. They buy books, we buy books because we're interested in them and we liked them. And even if it's a little rough, we can sand it down and polish it and make it like amazing.Rekka: 30:45 Mm-hmm.Kaelyn: 30:45 You know, we take it to that, like, I am going to get the best book possible out of you because I know you're capable of doing it. That is the core of this. We would not buy a book that we thought like, "Eh, I dunno. I guess it's, it's fine."Rekka: 30:59 Yeah.Kaelyn: 31:01 You know, going back to look again why we started this podcast, I really, it's, it's a little bit interesting for me when I go to conventions because you know, a lot of times I'm there by myself mostly, or with a very small party like, you know, I know people, I have friends there and stuff, but like I introduced myself and "Oh, are you a writer?" "Oh No. I work in publishing, I'm an acquisitions editor." And it is like amazing. Like people sit up a little bitRekka: 31:26 It's like a wall or something that comes up.Kaelyn: 31:28 No, it's just kind of like, "Oh!" And I understand, you know, it's like you're not.Rekka: 31:35 You're a cryptid, you're a mythological figure.Kaelyn: 31:37 Yeah. It's like "A wild acquisitions editor has appeared!"Rekka: 31:40 What did I say in the last five minutes that they might've overheard?Kaelyn: 31:44 Did I summon them? How did they appear here? But it is very funny where I will like, you know, it'd be talking to a group of people and introduce myself and then there is a massive shift in the conversation. Like I can just sense it where it's like, "Oh, we're not surrounded entirely by our own kind." But that's what I kind of want to dispel a little bit. We are also lovers of stories and the craft of writing and spend a lot of time thinking about and working on creative processes and um, you know, addressing the best ways to write and tell stories because we love stories,' were just on the other end of the stories.Rekka: 32:30 But you are a big part of making them happen.Kaelyn: 32:33 We Make Books.Rekka: 32:33 Yes. We Make Books.Kaelyn: 32:36 We all make books.Rekka: 32:37 Yes. Together.Kaelyn: 32:38 Together as team. But, it's true. And that's part of the reason we really wanted to do this.Rekka: 32:46 And something else that you bring to it. And I mean, I know this, this episode is primarily focused on relationships, uh, with the publisher and the author. But there is the benefit, and a reason that you might choose to seek a publisher for your book, is that they have relationships with lots of people.Kaelyn: 33:03 We do.Rekka: 33:03 And those people are probably not accessible to you on your own without a lot of just elbow-rubbing at conventions and stuff. Like eventually you might meet all those people on your own, but the, the publisher has this, um, it's not an army because they, they're mutuals and their peers and stuff, but like they have, they have a reach that you don't necessarily have and they want to leverage that to help you.Kaelyn: 33:31 We have people that we work with outside of what you would normally encounter because that's just our day-to-day. Like, I mean, do you know a guy who does lay out?Rekka: 33:44 [indistinguishable noise]Kaelyn: 33:44 Well, I mean, well you [laughter] You the hypothetical author that I'm running into.Rekka: 33:49 Oh sorry, yes, not Rekka. The other one.Kaelyn: 33:49 I mean, do you know a guy who does layout? Do you know? I mean, you can go online and find a copy editor, but I know one that does a good job and that we trust.Rekka: 34:01 And if I, if I want to put a cover on a space opera and then a cover on a steampunk book and then a cover on a high fantasy book, like do I have a Rolodex with names and numbers of people who do different genre books particularly well? Or–Kaelyn: 34:16 I mean, part of it, it is, you know, the resources and the information that we collected as sort of like an archive.Rekka: 34:22 Everything you learn can be use for the next author.Kaelyn: 34:24 Oh yeah, no, trust me, it's, it's definitely a compounding knowledge situation. Um. So that's, you know, that's another thing that's important in the relationship is what you're getting out of the publisher and you're getting our experience, our resources, our knowledge, our creative teams, and people that we can introduce you to and help you, have them help you with things. And that is really the core of not just your editor but with your publisher. They are there to help you. Their job is to help you get a book published. When I say that, I don't mean like, "oh, maybe" like, no, they're going to publish your book. When I say help you, I mean get you to that step.Rekka: 35:05 Yes. And they're not reluctantly sharing all this.Kaelyn: 35:09 No. We're excited about it. You know, like, oh, okay, well you need...Rekka: 35:12 You get the contract and you're like, "Yes! We can. We're going to do this. This is going to be amazing!"Kaelyn: 35:16 Yeah. And we're already planning and you know, thinking about what we're going to do for you and you know, we try to keep authors in the loop about these things. It's important that you know what's going on with your book and your work and everything. So it's, it is a relationship. It's a symbiotic relationship and it's important to have a good one. You should have more than one point of contact beyond your editor probably, but that is going to be your primary point of contact. Um, and you know, your author should be – "your author," *my* author, *your editor* is hopefully someone that you have a good working relationship and a good rapport with, and they understand what you're trying to do because that's how you're going to get a good book.Rekka: 36:00 And you're comfortable enough to ask the clarifying questions. If you're not sure what's going on and you don't just nod and say, "Uh huh, uh huh."Kaelyn: 36:06 Yeah, and I mean, you know, and this is a touchy subject, I really shouldn't be bringing this up, but I'm going to. If you're having problems with your relationship with your editor – and I am going to qualify all of this by saying, be VERY careful about what you consider to be "insurmountable problems" because "they don't like this scene" is not one.Rekka: 36:34 Right.Kaelyn: 36:35 I'm talking about real problems, like you're not getting responses back from them. Like there's a deadline approaching and you haven't heard anything. You can't get in touch with them. Be very careful about what you consider to be irreconcilable differences.Rekka: 36:54 We're talking like publishing war crimes.Kaelyn: 36:56 Yeah, pretty much. We're talking about like anything that is potentially a violation of the contract is kind of the thing. But if that happens, you do need to consider, "okay, what do I do here?" And if you have an agent, the first thing you do is go to your agent. If you don't have an agent, then you got to take steps beyond that. You're not. If you just end up in a bad relationship with your publisher – or your editor, excuse me – you're not in a completely helpless position, but again, this is like we're talking again like use, "does this viol– potentially violate the contract" or "is this putting me in a position where I'm going to end up violating the contract?" That should be like –Rekka: 37:41 The number one concern because that's the piece of paper you signed.Kaelyn: 37:44 Because if you go to the publisher and you're like, "Well they're making the change this sentence, and I like that sentence the way it is." That's not a good thing to do.Rekka: 37:56 "Are we seriously having this conversation?"Kaelyn: 37:58 Yeah, and this is like I said, this is not, you know, it was a little hesitant to bring this up because I don't want to put ideas in anyone's head about this, but I do want to put out there that, you know, like you could be in a position where that happens.Rekka: 38:12 Yeah.Kaelyn: 38:12 I'm not saying that never happens because of course it does.Rekka: 38:15 But it's not the default.Kaelyn: 38:18 No, no. I don't think it is. Do you? I mean...Rekka: 38:21 Nothing I've seen. Everyone I know loves their editor.Kaelyn: 38:27 Good. We're very lovable. As I say, like a robot: "We are very lovable creatures."Rekka: 38:34 "Be Convinced." [laughter]Kaelyn: 38:36 Um, yeah, so I won't say there's never a situation in which you are going to have a major problem with an editor. They, they happen, they are rare, few, and far between because people that don't care about these books...Rekka: 38:51 Don't last long.Kaelyn: 38:52 Don't – stop working on them, because I mean, can you imagine if you didn't like this?Rekka: 38:59 it's a lot of work for something you don't like.Kaelyn: 39:01 Yeah. It would be torture. [laughter] So it's just something you know to keep in mind that the person you're working with. We wouldn't be doing this if they did an enjoy it.Rekka: 39:13 and chances are the suggestion, even if you don't agree with a proposed solution, the suggestion is valid and the problem area they're identifying is, is something that you need to take another look at anyway.Kaelyn: 39:27 Yeah. I mean, I always use an example of, um, there was a book, there was a manuscript I was reading and I read it and I came back with a note that I was like, look, this is a huge problem. Um, it was a sensitivity issue and it was like, this is like, "You gotta fix this." And I got back from the author, "Well that's not what is happening in that scene." And my response to that was, "Okay, good. Second, I read it and I didn't know that."Rekka: 39:56 Yeah. So we need to address what you're communicating in that scene.Kaelyn: 40:00 "First. Great. I'm really glad to hear that."Rekka: 40:04 "You cannot understand how relieved I am."Kaelyn: 40:06 Yes. "Second, let's make sure that no one else ever possibly thinks that because I read it a few times and I'm going, uhhhhhhh," so yeah. Um, yeah, as we said like, if an editor comes back to you with something, even if it's not, um, you know exactly what you're thinking needs to be changed, but they're bringing it up, is valid.Rekka: 40:31 But I can't tell you how many times I get comments from an editor and I go, "THAT's what was wrong with it! Oh my god! That is what I needed, someone to tell me."Kaelyn: 40:45 It's an outside fresh set of eyes.Rekka: 40:47 But it's, it, and trained eyes.Kaelyn: 40:49 Yes.Rekka: 40:49 And that is so key and so important and it's not just a trumped up proofreader, you know? And it's not just somebody who's pushing whatever the trends are on the market that the publishers trying to follow.Kaelyn: 41:04 They don't have an agenda.Rekka: 41:05 Their agenda is to make your book as good as possible.Kaelyn: 41:09 Sometimes there's a thing you just can't quite put your finger on, you're like –Rekka: 41:13 ALL the time there's a thing you can't just put your finger on.Kaelyn: 41:15 – I know there's something here and –Rekka: 41:16 It's like, "I love this scene but I know I'm doing it wrong or I know it could be stronger." Or like, "I just read through my book and like there's this part that's like, all these things are important but it's not coming together." And your editor sees that. And probably without even knowing that it's torturing you, can say like, "Hey, just so I know, I noticed in this scene like [plot] and like what if you bring that thing that happens later and you combine those scenes," and then all of a sudden the book is more clear, it's more succinct, things are connecting and like, you know, rockets are going off and lightning is striking.Kaelyn: 41:54 Yeah. It's a nice feeling when it's nice feeling.Rekka: 41:57 [whispers] so nice!Kaelyn: 41:57 It's a nice feeling on the editor side when things come together and like you get a draft back and you're like, "Yes! Nailed it! Kick ass author, this book's gonna rock!Rekka: 42:06 Play The A-Team theme right here.Kaelyn: 42:08 Get up, do a little dance. And I'm like, this is the thing that I get just as excited about this when I get a draft back and I'm like, okay, I want to see what they did this thing. And I'm just like [whispers] "Nailed it! Awesome!" [laughter]Rekka: 42:18 I have comments in my, um, and one of my recent drafts, as all caps. "YESSS!!!!!!!!!" With multiple Ss and many many exclamations points.Kaelyn: 42:29 [laughter] I have sent stuff back to authors that was like, "You kicked this punk ass paragraph's ass back to–" just incoherent.Rekka: 42:38 So happy.Kaelyn: 42:39 "Nailed this! Totally nailed it. Go get a beer, do celebration dance! You earned it!"Rekka: 42:45 So don't ever let anyone tell you that the publisher's editor does not care about your book.Kaelyn: 42:49 Oh God, I get, I get so worked up about this stuff. I think I scare people sometimes. [laughter]Rekka: 42:54 Trust me, you cannot yell loud enough for your author.Kaelyn: 42:58 [laughter] "You kicked this paragraph's ass showed it who's boss. It's over there in the corner crying about how good it is right now."Rekka: 43:05 "It just can't take how awesome it is."Kaelyn: 43:07 Yeah.Rekka: 43:07 All right, well, we are about out of time...Kaelyn: 43:08 We are?Rekka: 43:12 I think we like... Like, we covered a lot. And I looked at the time and I was surprised to see that we were already at the target length and we were going for, I was thinking like, "oh, what else are we going to talk about?" I'm like, no, but I think that is.Kaelyn: 43:22 Yeah, I mean, so this was a little bit, we wanted to do a little bit more of a free form...Rekka: 43:28 Touchy feely.Kaelyn: 43:29 We still love everyone even though we just kind of like did a litany of...Rekka: 43:34 Well yeah. And, and so this is a pacing issue. [laughter]Kaelyn: 43:40 The whole point is, at the end of this, both parties –Rekka: 43:44 –want a book they'll love–Kaelyn: 43:44 –love this book and are excited about it and would not be working on it if they weren't. So trust your editors, writers, and editors, trust your writers.Rekka: 43:55 Yes.Kaelyn: 43:56 And love each other and you know, write good books together.Rekka: 44:00 And set healthy boundaries.Kaelyn: 44:01 And set healthy boundaries. Um, so yeah, that's a, that's the episode. Um, This is the end of our, you know, initial batch of rel–Rekka: 44:10 Launch.Kaelyn: 44:10 Yeah, Launch, that's the word, right?Rekka: 44:11 Yeah you'd think the editor would know the term "launch."Kaelyn: 44:14 Okay, I–you get. You get one of those every episode.Rekka: 44:17 [cackles] I enjoyed that one.Kaelyn: 44:17 You get to throw– you get to throw "God, you're an editor" once. I will give you one an episode. Um, so yeah, this is the end of our launch episodes. Um, we hope you enjoyed them. We really enjoyed doing them. Um, but there's going to be more like this to come. This one was like a said a little more free form then we're going to be doing. But we both were kind of like, "oh that was, that was a lot of listing things."Rekka: 44:44 We put a lot into planning these out so that we could make sure that we addressed everything. And obviously those first two episodes about, um, before acquisition and after acquisition, there was a lot that we wanted to make sure that we covered and didn't forget anything. So we had to really plan those episodes out before we got started.Kaelyn: 45:02 So there will be, you know, coming somewhere a little more balanced between those. This one was a little, like, "What's a good way to round this out? Okay. Let's talk about writers and editors and publishers."Rekka: 45:15 Well, it was more of a like, "Okay," you said to me, "Rekka, what did you want to ask?"Kaelyn: 45:24 [laughter]Rekka: 45:24 And my question was, "What are your intentions toward my book?"Kaelyn: 45:28 [laughter]Rekka: 45:29 But with all the gravitas and um, and like threat and–Kaelyn: 45:33 Of a father with a shotgun in Oklahoma.Rekka: 45:33 – Ominous portent. So we wanted to make sure that like, yeah, we are going to address the things that you're asking about. We're going to address the things that you're worried about, that you're unsure about. So this is the, this episode represents the promise that we intend to fulfill. That you're going to find out these things that you don't feel like you can ask.Kaelyn: 46:00 Yeah. And you know, no question is off limits.Rekka: 46:04 Yeah. Um, we might, we might be tip-toeing around the way we answer it because you know, we are trying to maintain a level of professionality and we know that maybe you want us to go on a screaming, cursing rant about something.Kaelyn: 46:16 I mean I will occasionally if it's a –Rekka: 46:17 We are capable of it.Kaelyn: 46:18 Really good paragraph.Rekka: 46:21 Yes. Thank you. And um, but like, do ask us, don't be afraid to ask us. Like we said, you can direct message WMBcast on Twitter if you want to be anonymous. Like we are happy to, to hold your anonymity and um, you know, there's Patreon, you can ask there if you just want it slightly more private, on a comment.Kaelyn: 46:44 You can email us.Rekka: 46:44 Or you can email us feedback@wmbcast.com and that's the most super anonymous way to get in touch with us and a long form question, if you're really not even sure how you want to phrase it.Kaelyn: 46:59 So we really want to hear from everyone.Rekka: 47:01 We absolutely welcome your questions, your comments, your anecdotes.Kaelyn: 47:05 Concerns.Rekka: 47:05 Um, and if you could, if you're just reacting on like a thank you so much level, we would love a review and a rating on iTunes.Kaelyn: 47:13 Go do it on iTunesRekka: 47:14 Please make sure you're subscribed so that you get our future episodes and um, follow us on Twitter. You can find WMBcast on Twitter and Instagram. You can find our individual profiles and you can just interact with us. Let us know what, what nerves we're hitting here and um, what else is on your mind.Kaelyn: 47:34 Yeah, I know we keep saying this, but we really envision this as: we want to be, want to have any engaging conversation with the people that listen to this.Rekka: 47:42 Absolutely.Kaelyn: 47:44 You know, so hopefully, we're gonna have some listeners who want to know some things and want to interact with us.Rekka: 47:49 And in the future, if you leave a rating or review or a question, we will probably read it out loud on the air.Kaelyn: 47:54 Yeah, we'll shout it out on here.Rekka: 47:56 Obviously this is launch day, so we don't have any of those yet, but we will get to a point where we do.Kaelyn: 48:00 No, but you know, I mean hit us on the socials and the keep in touch. We really, really want to hear from you.Rekka: 48:05 And we hope that you know, this is a super valuable resource that you come back to again and again.Kaelyn: 48:11 Yeah, and I promise after this we'll stop ram– every episode we're going to cut down the rambling at the end a little bit.Rekka: 48:17 Maybe a touch.Kaelyn: 48:18 Maybe a touch, eventually.Rekka: 48:21 Someday.Kaelyn: 48:21 Yeah. It's a wave beating against a rock.Rekka: 48:24 Wear us down.Kaelyn: 48:24 Yes.Rekka: 48:25 Eventually we will run right up against the start of the game of Thrones episode that we're recording up until. Then, it would just be like, okay, we're done. Put down some questions.Kaelyn: 48:32 Okay. All right. Thanks everyone so much for listening andRekka: 48:37 we'll talk to you in two weeks.Kaelyn: 48:38 Yeah. Two weeks.Piano: 48:39 [music]  

Hi everyone, and thank you for listening to Introductory Episode of the We Make Books Podcast - A podcast about writing, publishing, and everything in between! We Make Books is hosted by Rekka Jay and Kaelyn Considine; Rekka is a published author and Kaelyn is an editor and together they are going to take you through what goes into getting a book out of your head, on to paper, in to the hands of a publisher, and finally on to book store shelves. In this kick off episode, Rekka and Kaelyn take a few minutes to introduce themselves, talk about their vision for the podcast, and tell the story of how each of them ended up here. We Make Books is a podcast for writer and publishers, by writers and publishers and we want to hear from our listeners! Hit us up on our social media, linked below, and send us your questions, comments, concerns, and any theories you may have about “The Rise of Skywalker”. Thank you for taking the time to listen to this introduction, the first batch of new episodes drops on May 14th, so be sure to subscribe so you don’t miss it. A transcription of this episode can be found below. We hope you enjoy We Make Books! Twitter: @WMBCast  |  @KindofKaelyn  |  @BittyBittyZap Instagram: @WMBCast  Patreon.com/WMBCast === Transcript === Music: 00:07 [Music] Rekka: 00:07 Yeah I'm ready are you ready? Kaelyn: 00:07 No, but let's do it anyway. Rekka: 00:07 Fist bump, we can do anything. Rekka: 00:16 All right. Inauguraguh-gull [stumbles and laughs] Kaelyn: 00:23 God, we publish books. [laughter] Rekka: 00:25 We don't read them out loud though, that's not our job. Kaelyn: 00:27 That's a good point. Yeah. Inaugural episode. Rekka: 00:31 I'm gonna leave that to you to say. Kaelyn: 00:32 Okay. It's not actually the inaugural though. Rekka: 00:37 Mine doesn't count. I was alone. Kaelyn: 00:39 No but I mean it's the intro. Rekka: 00:41 Oh, fair. Kaelyn: 00:41 So, all right, let's just get started and we'll, we'll see how Rekka: 00:46 We'll see how it goes and whether this ends up the episode nobody ever hears. Kaelyn: 00:51 The black file, we're going to have to start one of those. Rekka: 00:54 Exactly. That's what Patreon's for. Kaelyn: 00:55 Yeah. Yeah. Are you already recording this? Rekka: 00:59 Mm-hmm. Kaelyn: 00:59 Okay. Rekka: 00:59 I have been. Of course I have, this was, this was the deal. [laughter] Kaelyn: 01:02 [laughter] Okay. So, hello everyone listening and welcome to the introductory episode of the We Make Books podcast. My name's Kaelyn Considine-- Rekka: 01:15 And I'm Rekka Jay. Kaelyn: 01:16 --and we both make books. Um, I work for Parvus Press, which is an independent publishing company, as their acquisitions editor and also editor of various books that we publish and... Rekka: 01:31 ...and Rekka Jay writes science fiction as R. J. Theodore and I happen to also be published through Parvus Press. A little bit of nepotism here. That's fine. Kaelyn: 01:42 No, it's just, we're just lucky that we got to publish some of your amazing books. One out, another two coming. Rekka: 01:48 Yes that's true. Kaelyn: 01:48 We know it. We definitely know how lucky we are. Um, so Rekka, why don't you go ahead and get us started with what we're doing here? Rekka: 02:00 Well, I mean we, are we starting into the backstory? Is this the origin story of We Make Books? Kaelyn: 02:05 No, we'll save that for once we've got them hooked, I think. Rekka: 02:08 Okay. Kaelyn: 02:09 Yeah. Rekka: 02:09 We want them to already think they found something of value. Kaelyn: 02:11 Yeah, no, we're gonna--we're gonna save that for after we [laughter] Rekka: 02:16 So, We Make Books as a concept is something that, I mean really, it should already exist. Kaelyn: 02:24 It should. I was, we were actually both very surprised that it didn't Rekka: 02:29 and we were looking, we didn't we weren't taking this lightly Kaelyn: 02:32 --we looked, yeah, we--we spent quite an amount of time looking Rekka: 02:34 We were looking for a reason to say, oh never mind, someone's already got it covered, we don't need to do this. Kaelyn: 02:38 So what we wanted to do here is I work on the publishing side. Rekka works on the writing side of making books, but both of us are crucial and essential to the process of making a book. Um, however, there is not much out there that discusses not just the writing process but also what goes into actually creating and publishing books. So as you said, we really looked, we found a couple of things that weren't quite ... Rekka: 03:08 Tried to approach it Kaelyn: 03:09 yeah, and weren't quite what we thought we wanted to do. So our goal here is we want to talk about the writing, publishing process from both sides of it. Um... Rekka: 03:25 as a creative, I am someone who comes up with a story and I'm so involved in the story that when I come up for air, I finished my draft, I could be completely lost then. I have this, I have this chunk of paper that I printed at staples. Like what do I do with it? Kaelyn: 03:42 And I on the other hand, am the one that gets the chunk of paper that has been printed at Staples, although, okay. I mean– Rekka: 03:47 yeah, we're dating ourselves. There's no paper involved at all. Kaelyn: 03:50 Well, I'm still shocked that you actually print these things out. Rekka: 03:54 That's another episode. Kaelyn: 03:55 Yeah, that's another episode. But um, no, I get electronic submissions, thank God, because I couldn't even imagine. Um, what we're looking to do here is to kind of walk people through that. And our mission statement, if you will, with this was we want to be accessible. We want to not be, you know, kind of ratchet down the intimidation factor that goes into this. And we want this to be fun and we want it to be engaging and interactive and we want to hear from the people listening to it. Because as we were talking about this podcast and what it was going to be about, we realized, you know, both of us from when we started doing this, like you're hearing words you never heard before or like words used in completely not the context that you're used to hearing them. And it's like, what is that? And in some cases you're like embarrassed to ask– Rekka: 04:41 right, cause you think you're the only one in the room who doesn't know. Kaelyn: 04:43 Like, "Oh my God, I don't know what that is." Um, when the first time I kept hearing the word 'ARC,' I was like, well, what, what is an ARC? And like I already knew what advanced reader copy was. I just had never heard it abbreviated to the word Rekka: 04:55 And then spoken out loud. Kaelyn: 04:56 Yeah. To the word ARC. So, um, yeah. And then you're like, you're afraid to ask because you're like, "Oh God, should I already know this? Like everyone's gonna think I'm an idiot." Rekka: 05:04 Right. Kaelyn: 05:04 Um, so two facets. One of course, you know, kind of pull back the curtain a little bit, see what's going on, but then also open everything up to 'here's what is happening, here's how a book gets made. And here are the people that are involved in making it.' Um, you know, we're going to go through the whole process, not linearly. We're going to jump around a bit. Rekka: 05:28 Right. Kaelyn: 05:29 we'll have some guests on where appropriate. Um, and we're really looking forward to interacting and engaging with everyone Rekka: 05:35 Yeah. Yeah. And that's part of this, like we want to talk to each other. We also want to talk to the people who are listening and who have questions because unfortunately there's no way to rewind and remember what I didn't know at the time. So there's– Kaelyn: 05:51 I've got a list actually. [laughter] Rekka: 05:54 You've got a list of what I didn't know at the time? [laughter] Kaelyn: 05:56 No! Well you you too. But now I've got a list of like, every now and then I'll hear a word and it's like I'll have a flashback to like the panic attack I had when I was like, Oh God, what's that? Rekka: 06:03 Sure. There's, there's some things that we very vividly remember not knowing– Kaelyn: 06:07 [laughter] Yes. Rekka: 06:07 –And being worried about, but you know, sometimes it's like you learn these things as you go and you learn them in an organic sense. There's not a book that's going to teach you. Kaelyn: 06:17 Well, there isn't a resource. Rekka: 06:19 Right. Kaelyn: 06:19 And that was even something that I was looking up online and I think in, I mean, you can speak more to this than I can, but like how did you figure, you know, Rekka: 06:28 Did I figure it out? Kaelyn: 06:30 Going online and digging around different websites that say things is not necessarily the most cohesive or really in some cases helpful way. Rekka: 06:41 I mean, the, the advice is not to diagnose yourself using Web MD. And I mean, that applies to everything. It's just a little bit more critical when it comes to whether or not you have cancer. [Laughter] But, um, by the way, when MD says you do Kaelyn: 06:53 You always have cancer. Rekka: 06:55 It's always cancer. Um, so when people go to the Internet to find information, sometimes they stop with the first source. Sometimes they stop when they find the source that tells them what they wanted to hear. Other times they never find the answer and they give up and go home frustrated. And some of it's just like, there's a term for that and you don't know it yet. That's okay. We're happy to explain it to you. It's not a forbidden knowledge, but it's like you have to know the right search term. Kaelyn: 07:23 Yeah. Um, so you know, when we kind of sat down and wrote out, you know what we're going to go over in this introductory episode is what this podcast is, which I think we just kind of talked about a little bit. You know, this is conversations between both quote-unquote sides of the publishing world, which I'm going to try not to make it sound like it's sides because I really, something I really want to emphasize here is everyone's a team. They're just doing different things. Um– Rekka: 07:50 It really is a symbiosis. Kaelyn: 07:51 It is. It is. And we're gonna talk a lot about that. Um, because I think that is one of the major misconceptions a lot of people coming into this have, is the sort of like, and you know, I'm coming from the publishing side, so I will say there is this, like "it's me and the publishers." Rekka: 08:09 It's, you know, "me, the writer and how do I protect my book against what the publisher's going to try to do to it by default." Kaelyn: 08:15 Yes. Yeah. And I'd really like to kind of work a little towards dispelling that because that's, that should not be what's, what's happening here. But at the same time, we also want to kind of quickly say what this is not going to be. Rekka: 08:28 It's not all the answers. Kaelyn: 08:29 It's not all the answers. Rekka: 08:32 We don't have them. Kaelyn: 08:33 We have some, some answers, but it's also, it's not a roadmap. This is not, "do all of these things in your book will get published" because as we're going to talk about, there's so many factors that go into whether or not a book gets picked up by someone and that's a later episode, believe me, we will have a lot to say about that. But ... Rekka: 08:53 I mean we are coming at this from two individual human consciousnesses, in two individual bodies and so we can't say this is what a publisher at XYZ Publishing House is going to agree with, but there's an insight that we can give you from having been through it and knowing what has worked or not worked from the process. And then of course, as we said, we'll bring in guests if we don't know the answer to a question that has come up on our outline for our topics or um, you know, listener questions, which we hope you'll engage with us– Kaelyn: 09:34 We're really, we're really counting on that. And we're very much looking forward to that. We really want to hear about people who are either dipping their toe in the water or people who are well into it and you know, please feel free to send us anything or even a like, "I wish I had known." Rekka: 09:49 Yes. Kaelyn: 09:49 Um, those are, those are great. So anyway, that's, um, that's what this is. That's, that's where this is going and we're really excited to do this. Again, we were shocked– Rekka: 10:01 Yeah. Kaelyn: 10:01 Shocked that that didn't already exist Rekka: 10:03 And the closest things that came to it sort of existed for like 10 or 15 episodes and then went away or were college projects and stuff. Kaelyn: 10:12 Or it was a very specific thing that it was doing. And it wasn't like a broad appeal to a lot of a lot of people. Rekka: 10:20 And again, we're genre fiction. Kaelyn: 10:22 Yes. Rekka: 10:22 One of the ones we found was all very nonfiction focused. Kaelyn: 10:25 Yeah. So that's another qualifier. This is most, this is genre. This is fiction. It's, um, but you know, some of this advice, no matter what is going to apply across the board. Rekka: 10:36 Mm-hmm Kaelyn: 10:36 But that's, you know, that's where we're coming from. But I think it'll be entertaining and educational regardless. Rekka: 10:43 Yes. Kaelyn: 10:43 Even if it's just one of those, "Oh I always wanted to write a book." Rekka: 10:47 Or if you're at the other end of this and you're going, you know, just commiserating like, "oh yeah, I remember when I learned that one." Kaelyn: 10:53 I mean, yeah. So, so that's, that's what we're aiming to do here. Um, I mean how, how are we on time right now? Do we want to hear the story? Rekka: 11:01 I mean we might as well tell the story. Kaelyn: 11:03 We'll tell the story. Okay, cause this is, this is the story of how all of this started. Um, I was out one night with some friends and one of them brought a new boyfriend around and um, you know, he was, he was good. He was trying to talk to everyone and trying to be friendly and we were just talking and you know, of course, as soon as I tell people, "oh yeah, I work in publishing and I publish books, I'm an editor" without fail, the first thing I always get is "I've always wanted to write a book." Rekka: 11:31 You kind of say what you are and then you go to your happy place for a moment. Kaelyn: 11:34 No, you know, it's fine, you know what, honestly, because whenever people always say, 'Oh, I've always wanted to write a book', my response is, 'So do it'. Rekka: 11:40 Yup. Kaelyn: 11:40 Give it a shot. Maybe don't, you don't have to finish. Just, you know, see how it goes. Um, but he didn't say that. He said, "you know, I always think if I wrote a book, I wouldn't even know where to start with it." Rekka: 11:53 Mmm Kaelyn: 11:53 And I said, "writing the book?" And he said, "no, like, assume I wrote it. I don't know what to do then." And he asked, "so what do I do?" And I was like, "well, there's this," there's, you know, and I'm bullet pointing all of these steps. And then I'm going back and going, like, I will qualify, we were at a bar and I'd had a couple of beers at this point and I'm– and he was like, "wow, that's, how do you like figure this out?" And I'm like, "you know, I don't know." Rekka: 12:17 [laughter] Kaelyn: 12:17 Um, you know, so we were just kind of sitting at the bar and like I just had my phone out, I punched, you know, 'book publishing steps' or something into Google and um, there was nothing. And he was like, well, "how'd you figure all this out?" I was like, "I learned along the way, that's how you do this." So I went home that night and I had this like reeling through my head and I sat down and I got a piece of paper out and I, I won't say drunkenly but– Rekka: 12:47 It was legible. I saw the papers. Kaelyn: 12:48 It was legible. Yeah, slightly intoxicated-ly wrote down all of this stuff of just like, okay, so there's the submissions process and then a bunch of steps about that. Then there's acquisitions, a bunch of stuff about that. Talking about things like royalties, what are they and how do they work, you know, rights, like things like that. And then the next morning I woke up and I was like, you know, this is actually kind of useful. Like this isn't like my usual woke up in the morning and find something that I did. [laughter] "What if birds had balloons attached to them so they don't get tired?" Rekka: 13:22 Aw, see you're helpful. Kaelyn: 13:23 Yeah. Rekka: 13:24 You just really want to help everybody. Kaelyn: 13:25 Yeah. But then I was thinking like the balloons pop, it's going to choke the bird Rekka: 13:29 And the sea turtles. Kaelyn: 13:31 And the sea turtles. Rekka: 13:31 The turtles are going to start choking on balloons. Kaelyn: 13:33 Yeah. Rekka: 13:34 And birds. We don't like this future. Kaelyn: 13:35 So I was like, well this one's actually kind of useful. So I went to some of my colleagues at my publishing company and I talked about, you know, what if we did like a limited series podcast about this? And for a lot of reasons, mostly having to do with time, this just wasn't going to work. But then I was talking to Rekka about it. Rekka: 13:51 Well you put the bug in the ear of someone at your publishing house. Kaelyn: 13:54 Yes. Rekka: 13:55 Who knew that I had recently found myself without a cohost. Kaelyn: 14:01 Well wait, maybe, maybe you should backtrack and explain a little of like your history with podcasting and where you're coming from. Rekka: 14:07 Um, well I got into, I was working on a book and I knew that I am an impatient person. Kaelyn: 14:17 No, see "impatient" has negative connotations. Rekka: 14:19 But, these are negative connotations that I'm speaking of. Kaelyn: 14:23 No, you're like, enthusiastic, excited, and you get shit done. Rekka: 14:26 Fair. I accept. Thank you. Kaelyn: 14:29 [Laughter] Rekka: 14:29 So for those reasons, those very wonderful reasons, um, I knew that I was not interested in entering whatever my draft became into the grinder of 10 years of submitting it to agents and 10 more years of submitting it to publishers because you know, there, there was this impression of how you get a book published is by basically waiting and crying a lot. And that's something we're going to talk about. Kaelyn: 14:57 We are, yeah. That's going to be the title of the episode, "waiting and crying." Rekka: 15:03 [Laughter] And so I um, and now it's not going to be because you declared it. Kaelyn: 15:07 No, no, no. I know or will we throw them for a loop and it is? Always play with their minds. Rekka: 15:15 The thing is, the listener already knows, but we don't know, cause the listener's from the future-- Kaelyn: 15:20 That's a good point. Rekka: 15:21 --where we've already titled and released the episode [sings: "A paradox, a paradox..."] Okay. So I started listening to self publishing podcasts because I said, "Okay, well I'm just going to self publish this." When I started writing my story, self publishing wasn't even a thing. Vanity press was barely a thing. Kaelyn: 15:36 Okay. Rekka: 15:36 There was no kindle. Kaelyn: 15:38 Yeah. Rekka: 15:39 That, that makes a big difference. Kaelyn: 15:40 Yeah, 10 years ago. Yeah, that's... Rekka: 15:44 Um, well, HA! I appreciate that. Thanks. 14 years ago. Kaelyn: 15:48 Okay. [Laughter] Rekka: 15:48 Uh, actually, um, the original incarnation of my book, um, was begun in 2003. It was a graphic novel. Kaelyn: 15:58 For those who are listening right now, Rekka has taken a book off the shelf and is showing it to me, it is some impressive artwork. Rekka: 16:05 And it's a lot. And I got 90 pages into it before I nearly destroyed my wrist. So, um, so at one point I said, "I need to take a break". And then at that point I, I, I knew it needed structural changes and then I was like, "Well, what else can I do to it?" And so, um, apparently the answer to that was eventually write it as a novel instead of drawing it because writing doesn't hurt so bad. So, um– Kaelyn: 16:27 Little did you know! Rekka: 16:28 Little did I—well, no, it hurts in new ways, but my wrist is fine. And, um, so I started listening to self publishing podcasts to learn how you go about doing that thing when the draft is done. Because like we said, you figure it out. And I knew that I would have to figure it out and I knew that if I started collecting knowledge in the moments, you know, while I was driving and I couldn't be writing that I was, you know, getting ahead a little bit. So that was sort of my introduction into publishing. And um, there's a, I don't know if you're aware of this: self publishing folk have a bit of a bias against publishers. Kaelyn: 17:03 Yes, I know that. Um. [Laughter] Rekka: 17:04 Okay. So when I, when I finally decided that I was going to submit this, it felt like a morality choice Kaelyn: 17:14 [Laughter] God. Rekka: 17:14 You know, we talked about we don't want to talk about sides. It felt like I was saying a line like, Kaelyn: 17:19 Do I go over to the dark side? Rekka: 17:22 You know, do I want to be the scab that goes and takes all the knowledge that she learned about self publishing and takes it to the traditional like, skeleton-basically-gasping-for-breath-side because of the impression I had. Um, and around the same time I was listening to podcasts and interviews and I had a friend who was also into writing though, not at a pace that matched mine, but we were having a conversation and we listened to the same podcasts. So while we were listening to one podcast about how podcasting might help with grow your audience as a writer, I got a text and it said, "so when are you going to start a podcast?" And I said, "I don't know, when do you want to do it?" Kaelyn: 18:04 [Laughter] Rekka: 18:04 So that's how I got into my first podcast and hybrid author podcast. And I started with a cohost and we recorded for a year and change before that, uh, cohost started a new job and lost all the free time that he had. So then I was on my own, Kaelyn: 18:20 [Sympathetic noise] Lost to the, to the waste of productivity. Rekka: 18:23 Yes. And so there I was by myself and I was not really sure how to continue the podcast. And Colin from Parvus, the publisher at Parvus, uh, called me up and said, "You know, this is the same thing you're doing on Youtube." And I'm like, "Yeah, it is." He's like, "You need a cohost." And I was like, "Yeah, I know." He's like, "So what you do is–" and I'm like, "Thanks, Colin. Thank you for the unsolicited advice, you are a dear person. Kaelyn: 18:47 I was gonna say did he call you up just to tell you this? Or I'm assuming there was another purpose to the conversation. Rekka: 18:51 I think did some kind of title layout. Um, there's always a pretense for the phone call and then we get into something, Kaelyn: 18:57 Well, you know. Rekka: 18:59 So, uh, he mentioned offhand that the editor at Parvus that I knew from, um, a couple of author conferences and other events– Kaelyn: 19:10 Various things. Rekka: 19:11 –we'd interacted on a light level, you know, um, that you wanted to start a podcast. Kaelyn: 19:16 Let me rephrase that. I kept threatening that our publishing company should do a podcast. Here's the thing, I didn't necessarily want to be on it that much. Um, Rekka: 19:27 [Cackle] You do know when you share the idea, you own the idea. Unless it's a really good idea, then it's someone else's idea. Kaelyn: 19:32 Yeah, yeah. Then it's someone else's idea. Rekka: 19:33 So knowing this was a bad idea, they said, "All right, Kaelyn, go for it." Kaelyn: 19:36 Yeah, no, I mean we're pretty good at Parvus that it's like, "all right, you know, are you, are you interested in that? You want to, you want to tackle that? Go for it. We'll give you whatever help and support, you know, from your fellow Parvus people as, uh, as–" Rekka: 19:48 They'll come on and appears guests and such. Kaelyn: 19:51 Um, yeah, so I didn't really necessarily want to do the podcast. I just thought it was a good idea. Rekka: 19:57 You wanted to produce or write or suggest. Kaelyn: 20:01 Yeah. Do something. Rekka: 20:02 You just wanted to see this baby birthed into the world? Kaelyn: 20:04 I'd be like the quiet, you know, like I'd sit in the corner and doing, you know, the whatever needs to be done over there and occasionally jump in. Rekka: 20:11 Well, too bad, you're sucked in now. So eventually I said, "Okay, so Kaelyn, uh, Colin tells me you want to start a podcast." And um, I think a week later we, we pretty much confirmed that we were going to do this. Kaelyn: 20:22 Well, we were texting because you were coming into the city the next day. So we were meeting up and then you were like, Rekka: 20:27 We were like, "We should have a conversation." Kaelyn: 20:28 Yeah. So let's, let's, let's talk about it. And um... Rekka: 20:32 We didn't really, it was a very nice social visit, but we didn't really get too much. Kaelyn: 20:36 Yeah. Most of our work was via texts of like "and this" "and this" and "also this other thing." Rekka: 20:42 Yes. We have lots of ideas. Kaelyn: 20:45 Yeah, and so, you know, I'm, I'm a little like more cautious with things. I would go so far as to call it nervous. So I'm like, "Okay, well maybe, and okay, well let's come up with a plan. And Rekka's like, "No, I already got the website, got the pointer things set up, we're doing this." And I was like, "Okay, I guess we're doing this." Rekka: 21:03 Yep. Kaelyn: 21:03 So here we are now. Rekka: 21:04 Yeah. Kaelyn: 21:04 And we're really excited to do this. Um, we're really hoping that it's going to be exciting for people to listen to and engage with. Rekka: 21:12 Mm-hmm. And give you hope. Kaelyn: 21:12 And give you hope. And we're really also hoping that this can become a resource for people that are interested in getting into this. Or maybe you're already in it and you're feeling a little lost or maybe you've done it and you just want to relive it. Rekka: 21:26 We already had someone pointed out to us that there's not a lot of advice even after you've already been in the publishing industry for a while as either side. Like what do you do when you are an author with a series to write? Or um, or you end up leaving your relationship with a publisher or an agent and then you need to seek a new relationship. Like how do you, how do you do that now that you have credits to your name and what changes and stuff like that. So, um, I think there are plenty more topics than we even have planned. Kaelyn: 22:01 We've got quite a bit planned already. Rekka: 22:02 And if listeners chime in then we'll have even more. So, um, do follow us on Twitter @WMBcast and you can direct message us they are if you have questions that you want to be anonymous or feel free to shout out loud on the internets and tell us what you'd like to hear us talk about or like, you know, what resonates with you as we're speaking. Kaelyn: 22:20 Yeah, definitely. If anything is kind of like, "oh, I'd love to hear more about that." Let us know. We're really hoping for feedback. Rekka: 22:28 Yeah. We want to know that this is helping. We want to know how it could help more and uh, we want to know what your experiences are and if you create a, sort of like that, that echo back then other people will see that they are not alone in needing this information. And when we realize we're not alone in this whole process gets a lot easier. Kaelyn: 22:48 Yeah. It's, I mean, once you just have even like the first friend and that you can kind of use as a sounding board or talk to about this stuff, it's such a weight off your shoulders. Rekka: 22:58 It changes the feeling of the entire process. It really does. Kaelyn: 23:01 Yeah, it's really a significant step in the process. So, um, I guess, I think we're gonna wrap up there. Rekka: 23:08 Yeah, we should probably just plug the Patreon. Kaelyn: 23:11 Plug the Patreon. Rekka: 23:11 Uh, so we have a Patreon account—of course we do cause we're a podcast— Kaelyn: 23:16 [Laughter] Rekka: 23:16 But we would appreciate your support if you find this valuable. If this is something that shows promise to you or that you are already like, "Yes, absolutely. 100%. I need this; or I know someone who needs this," please head over to patreon.com/wmbcast (that's w-m-b-c-a-s-t). And if you support the podcast, you will have access to some bonus episodes when we–were not going to talk so much about like secret publishing stuff. Cause this is all about not having secret publishing. Kaelyn: 23:43 Shhh! Rekka: 23:43 We'll just talk about like stories, probably a movies and, and uh, the kinds of media that it's easier for everyone to be consuming so everyone's on the same page with us. But um, we'll have episodes like that. We might have other content for the most part with, oh, we're just asking you to chip in and help us pay for the hosting. And, um, the audio production, we'd like to bring in a professional producer, uh, transcripts, which are so important for accessibility and also so that other people can find us when they're searching for the kind of terms that come up in our conversations. So please, if you love what we are promising or, um, if you're listening and you've already heard a few episodes cause you're coming in a little bit later, patreon.com/wmbcast to support the podcast and we really appreciate it if you could. And if you could leave a rating and review at iTunes, that will also help other people find us. Kaelyn: 24:30 That's always, uh, that's always fantastic. And you can find us on Twitter. Rekka: 24:34 Absolutely. Kaelyn: 24:34 As well. I'm @KindOfKaelyn. That's my name is k-a-e-l-y-n. Rekka: 24:39 And I'm @BittyBittyZap. And if you go to @WMBcast on Twitter, our profiles are linked in the bio for that. (Cause I know that Kaelyn has made everything complicated by spelling her name that way.) Kaelyn: 24:49 I, yeah, I did this purpose. [laughter] This was my decision. Um, so I think that's, that's what we've got for now. Rekka: 24:58 Yep. So we are launching the podcast because this is our preview episode. Kaelyn: 25:01 Actually, yeah. We do have one more thing. Rekka: 25:01 We should mention that. Kaelyn: 25:02 Yes. Rekka: 25:03 So we are launching the podcast on May 14th. So that's coming up soon and we will have a few episodes loaded in. Kaelyn: 25:09 Yeah. So for instance, if you're heading to the Nebulas– Rekka: 25:13 mm-hmm! Kaelyn: 25:13 –and you want something to listen to on the way there, you can listen to us talk. Rekka: 25:19 Yep, as you fly in–we will have those episodes up Tuesday of that same week–so you can listen on the plane, you can listen in the car, you can listen in a boat if you somehow manage to take a boat to LA. Kaelyn: 25:28 I wonder if Mareth's taking a boat to LA? Rekka: 25:30 Mareth may take a boat to LA. Kaelyn: 25:30 Mareth might take a boat to LA. Rekka: 25:30 So Mareth, if you're listening– Kaelyn: 25:35 and you're taking a boat, let us send us a picture. Rekka: 25:37 Oh yes, absolutely. Mareth's photos are always amazing. So, um, so there will be episodes at, uh, available the week of the Nebulas. And if you were at the Nebulas, come find us. Kaelyn: 25:48 Yeah. Rekka: 25:49 Maybe we have a conversation because we are bringing our microphones. Kaelyn: 25:51 We are bringing everything. Rekka: 25:52 So, uh, we want to have a couple people to pull aside and, um, get some of these opinions that people need or experiences to share. Kaelyn: 25:59 Yep. Rekka: 26:00 So that is something else to look forward to. And, uh, once our podcast launches, we will begin airing new episodes every two weeks. Kaelyn: 26:08 Every two weeks. Kaelyn and Rekka coming through your headphones or stereo or– Rekka: 26:12 Whether you like it or not. Kaelyn: 26:13 Yep, we're there. Rekka: 26:14 All right, folks, we'll talk to you next time. Have a great– Kaelyn: 26:17 Thank you so much for listening. Rekka: 26:18 –Experience in writing. Kaelyn: 26:19 Thank you. Bye. Music: 26:19 [Music]

Quid est Tūsculum? Tūsculum est oppidum Rōmānum. Estne magnum oppidum? Tūsculum nōn magnum, sed parvum oppidum est. Ubi est Tūsculum? Tūsculum est in Italiā.Quis est Iūlius? Iūlius est vir Rōmānus. Cuius vir est? Vir Aemiliae est. Ubi est Iūlius? Est in oppidō Tūsculō. Estne Aemilia in oppidō? Nōn est.Cornēlius: “Ubi est vir tuus, Aemilia?”Aemilia: “Iūlius, vir meus, in oppidō Tūsculō est. Sed ecce Mārcus, fīlius meus, et Dēlia.” Cornēlius: “Quae est Dēlia?”Aemilia: “Dēlia ancilla mea est.”Cornēlius: “Estne Syra quoque ancilla tua?”Aemilia: “Dēlia et Syra et cēterae multae sunt ancillae meae. In familiā meā sunt multae ancillae multīque servī − et paucī līberī.”Cornēlius: “Quot līberī in familiā tuā sunt?”Aemilia: “Trēs.”Cornēlius: “Quot fīliī et quot fīliae?”Aemilia: “Duo fīliī et ūna fīlia. Fīliī meī sunt Mārcus et Quīntus, fīlia mea est Iūlia. In familiā meā sunt centum servī et trēs līberī.”Cornēlius: “Centum est magnus numerus! In meā familiā parvus numerus servōrum est. Neque magnus est numerus līberōrum meōrum.”Aemilia: “Quot sunt līberī tuī?”Cornēlius: “Duo: ūnus fīlius, Sextus, et ūna fīlia, Cornēlia. Parvus est numerus līberōrum − sed numerus librōrum meōrum nōn parvus est! Librī meī sunt magnī et parvī, antīquī novīque: centum librī Latīnī et Graecī.”Aemilia: “Centum librī! Magnus est numerus librōrum tuōrum!”Cornēlius: “Ecce liber meus novus; titulus librī est grammatica latina.”Līberī et liber duo vocābula masculīna sunt. Līberī est plūrālis, liber singulāris − plūrālis: librī.

Commentary by Dr. Valentin Fuster

Parvus pärast 1905 aasta sündmusi

Parvus pärast 1905 aasta sündmusi

Parvus pärast 1905 aasta sündmusi

Parvus pärast 1905 aasta sündmusi

A. Parvus kui 1905 aasta revolutsiooni mootor.

A. Parvus kui 1905 aasta revolutsiooni mootor.

A. Parvus kui 1905 aasta revolutsiooni mootor.

A. Parvus kui 1905 aasta revolutsiooni mootor.

Šmidt ja Parvus

Šmidt ja Parvus

Šmidt ja Parvus

Šmidt ja Parvus