[00:00:00] Speaker A: Hi and welcome to A Time to Thrill. It's me, your host, Amy Austin. This month I am delighted to speak with Grace Winter.
As you know, I was one of the recipients of the Mystery writers of America 2025 Barbara nearly scholarship. The Barbara Nearly Scholarship honors a black crime fiction writer, one for an already published, which is me, and one for an author just getting started in publishing, which is Grace Winter.
That is their description. Getting started in publishing.
Well, we'll talk about it during the episode, but she's very active in the writing and publishing community, just not as a published writer of crime fiction.
So the.
Okay, we talk about this during the episode, but I don't spend my time applying to awards and things. Although I did enter both the Golden Heart from RWA. I think the first time I entered was 2006 or 7. I remember because I was photocopying the entries at work, which is they were paper back then.
And additionally I did enter probably one of the readers, I think for a novel with strong romantic elements, maybe in 2018, 14 or 15. That's about right.
Other than those two, I generally don't enter writing contests. I have found in my experience, both in context, that my writing can be polarizing. So if, okay, the way these contests used to be judged was that you had to appeal to 3, 5, 7, 10, I don't know, a broad range of people. And I did not write and still do not write books that appeal to a broad range.
People either love me, people do love me, or they are not a fan. And I don't seem to have a lot of middle of the road readers.
So that is what it is. I can't change that. Or maybe I could change it, but I'm not aiming or trying to.
So one day, actually there's a whole, not a whole story behind it. I will keep it brief.
I have a friend who is a writer and we published around the same time. Our first published like traditionally published books.
This is in romance for like maybe let's say 2012 or 2013. I'd have to really think about that a little bit more.
But I remember, okay, this okay, our first books were with large publisher, but at the time they had started an imprint which was ebooks only. It was the thing to do at the moment because they could publish a lot of authors cheaply, even cheaper than pulp back in the day. And if they sold well, yay. If they didn't, it didn't matter because they spent very little on editing, very little on covers and marketing. I don't know If I was aware of all of this at the time. So what I'm telling you is, like, information I have, like, 10, 15 years later.
But what was attractive back then was that they were e first, when most traditional publishers were still flogging paperback and hardcovers. And. And the readers, especially those in romance, erotica, anything that was even, like, a little bit outside of the mainstream, were flocking to ebooks because they could get what they want and could read them fairly anonymously.
The other thing that was attractive is that they offered royalties that were far greater than paper royalties.
So back in the day, a lot of publishers paid 6%, which means the publisher kept 94% of the royalties, and you have to sell a lot of books to recoup that.
And.
But there were fewer books, and some books got more marketing back then than now.
But I think the. I want to say the royalties for E First back then were maybe like 30%, 40%. I'd have to think about it or look at those contracts. And so that was an order of magnitude, obviously a greater percentage that was flowing to the author.
Okay, so for some publishers, this worked out. Actually, for publishers that were primarily selling ebooks, I think those situations worked out better for many authors. In my case, it was a publisher who was primarily in print. And this was just a little thing they were trying.
And for me, it didn't yield a lot of sales.
All that said, oh, my God. See, this is a long backstory. I should probably cut this. But all that said that one of the things that we could not do as e first authors, even though we were traditionally published by a large publisher, was that we could not enter into contests. So things like, well, whether it was RWA or Mystery Writers of America or it doesn't matter, all these organizations at the time, they did not accept eFirst. Even though we did have paperbacks that came subsequently, they did not accept those for contest entries.
So things like the best first book, which is kind of a big deal, whether it's like the Edgar's or the Rita's or any of that, we could not enter those contests. And for many years, we were barred from many traditional publishing accolades. I mean, even back then, like getting on the New York Times bestseller list with ebook was a whole thing before they started taking that into an account.
So while we were published, I think many of us, or I'll speak for myself, felt marginalized.
So all of those traditional publishing contests, awards, I never thought much about them because they were generally not available to me.
What I think that's changed. Not. Not as much as you would think. It has changed to some small degree. But if you look at the winners of these kinds of contests, they are still majority traditional authors. I just looked at, like, the lookbook for some of the major awards this year, and some new ones are coming up.
And a lot of them, you have to be submitted by a publisher, and the publisher has to be on an approved list.
I think that. Well, I'm not gonna guess on the Hugos. I don't know if that's true for them as well.
But what that means is I don't think about these much.
So one day I was on the Mystery Writers of America site because I'm thinking of pivoting from legal thrillers to psychological crime fiction. Or I've made the pivot maybe with his last mistress, and I think I'm gonna further pivot going forward.
That said, I was on the website looking at. I don't know what.
Look, this is all procrastination from writing a book.
And I noticed that they had the Barbara Neely scholarship. And at the time, or from time to time, I think of, like, spending a lot of money on, like, a really great editor who will somehow take my books to the next level.
This is maybe not a realistic thing, but from time to time, it passes through my head. It's sort of like from time to time, people think about winning the lottery. There are a lot of things that pass through your head that are completely not realistic.
And I looked at the contest and I was like, I can do this because the writing. Well, since I was already published, I could submit writing that already existed. I didn't have to write anything new.
So I entered in October of 2024. Honestly didn't think about it again until I got an email that was like, you won the scholarship? And I, like, I'm gonna be honest. I literally, like, paused thought, this is not spam, but let me go see. And I have a folder where I have, like, random contest entries.
I'm very organized. So over time. And I clicked on it, indeed, I had entered. So it was a surprise and an honor because it's the first time I think any group of people have agreed on my writing being good.
So, I mean, other than readers. But they, as a group, are not, like, deciding except individually, one by one with their pocketbooks.
So it was interesting. And going forward, maybe I will do more of that.
All that said, I really wanted to talk to the other person who won.
And so I reached out and Grace said yes.
So on this episode for June 2024, I will be just talking to Grace Winter about reading, writing, entering contests and what it's like to be a black woman authority the world today. So without further ado, the other 2025 mystery writers of America, Barbara Newly scholarship recipient, Grace Winter.
Hi, this is Amy Austin, and welcome to A Time to Thrill. This month I have the delight of speaking with Grace. Grace Winter. Hi.
[00:10:54] Speaker B: Hello, Amy.
[00:10:56] Speaker A: How are you?
[00:10:57] Speaker B: I'm great, thank you.
[00:10:59] Speaker A: So for the listeners, I let me do an introduction. So Grace Winter, I contacted out of the blue because I'm that person.
So the, the two of us are the 2025 Barbara Neely Scholarship winners from the Mystery Writers of America.
And I think at some point you must have gotten a joint email because I don't think I stalked you like that.
[00:11:22] Speaker B: Yeah, they email both of us on the same chain.
[00:11:26] Speaker A: Okay. And so then I was like, I wonder. I know who I am, but I wonder what it's like, who the other person is.
So I thought I would bring her to you. So. Hi, how are you? So I have, like about a thousand questions, but I guess the first one is, what made you enter?
What made you apply for the scholarship? Because I'm going to tell you, it was just a whim. One day for me, I was surfing the web and I was like, let me do this.
Never did it before, may never do it again.
So what possessed you to do it?
[00:12:00] Speaker B: So I don't enter a lot of contests.
[00:12:02] Speaker A: Neither do I. I literally enter zero.
[00:12:04] Speaker B: I've entered a few, though, and usually disclaimer, I don't win.
But last year, 2024, I was a runner up for the Sisters in Crime Beverly Neely Award.
And so I was like, ah, okay. So I think I've, I don't know how to put this. Sort of figure it out.
You know what they're looking for in those and you know, those starting pages.
[00:12:37] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:12:38] Speaker B: So I got an email, too. I don't know how I got it or. And I was thinking about it, and then a friend, an author friend, forwarded the email to sit to me and say, you should, you should apply for this. And that's what sort of like, I've been planning on doing it. But then when she sent the reminder email, I was like, yeah, I did say I was going to do that. And so I applied.
[00:13:00] Speaker A: Okay. I have only a thousand questions. Okay. Because I don't know if I'd ever look. I. So I sit at home and write all day. But writing all day involves, like 45 minutes of writing and eight hours of procrastination.
So I, I believe I was surfing. I, I, okay, so I'm from, I started as a romance writer and so every so often I surf the web for now that I write crime, the other thing. So I think one day I was like, let me look at sisters in crime and let me look at like mystery writers and see what's going on. That literally is what I was thinking. Like, let me just like see what's going on. And I saw the scholarship, I'm sure it was probably due the next day and I thought, oh, I'll just do that with no thought. Like no thoughts. Like no thought behind it. You sound like you're a little more thoughtful. So what, okay.
In terms of doing contests because I've done maybe four in my life and I've won well, zero or this one. What it is.
Are you looking for like writing validation or greater. I guess I'm not, I'm not going to guess. What are you looking for?
[00:14:06] Speaker B: Well, to, to be two things. One, it looks really good on your writing resume to, to even final in some of the more well known contests.
But like you, like I think I can count the number of contests of writing contests I've entered in my writing career on one hand. So it's not like it's something that I do a lot, you know.
[00:14:32] Speaker A: No, there are people I know who do it all the time. That's like their whole thing.
[00:14:35] Speaker B: And I think that's a valid way if you get, you know, sometimes you get feedback a lot. Most times you don't. Right. But sometimes it's the idea of sort of winning that motivates you to write a piece or to work on a piece. So I get that.
But I'm a full time freelance editor who rarely has the time to.
[00:14:58] Speaker A: Right, okay.
[00:15:00] Speaker B: And so I was, look, I'm looking for like scholarship and financial assistance so that I can one, maybe attend some workshops or you know, conferences and two, maybe not take on as much of an editing load one month or you know, a couple weeks. Yeah, I can focus on writing. So if there's a scholarship that one it's is well known, the organization is well known, there's no fee to enter and it can help me financially like take a week off and work. Then I'm like, okay, it's worth a shot. And then my friend who suggested it, she's a member of Mystery Writers. I have other writer friends who are members of Mystery Writers. So I know it's a really well established, well known organization so, yeah, those. All those things all work together and like, okay, just do it.
[00:16:01] Speaker A: Okay. So I have questions because when I got the email, I had to go look in my folder to see what I had said and said because, you know, I wrote. I mean, who knows? Life. Life.
What? Okay, is your primary genre, I guess crime or.
I think. I think it was crime fiction. Mysteries, crime, that kind of thing?
[00:16:24] Speaker B: That's a good question. So I've written one romance fiction that I self published like six years ago now. I was supposed to be a series, but, you know, life gets in the way and I had to work and.
But I read widely and for the past few years I've been laser focused on, like, mystery and thrillers. And so my work in progress, I'm actually on submission.
That book is action thriller, mystery sort of thing. So I've been like, in that genre a lot, reading and writing and experimenting. And so for this one, I just had an idea of something I'd written before and I wanted to tweak it. And so that's how I ended up, like, finding something to submit to this one.
[00:17:14] Speaker A: So is the work that you submitted? I believe.
I believe I know what I submitted, but it's a first chapter of a book, so I didn't have to write anything. But was it five pages or was it a certain number of words?
[00:17:27] Speaker B: I want to say it was five pages.
[00:17:28] Speaker A: Yeah, that's what I would say too.
[00:17:29] Speaker B: If I remember correctly. Yeah.
[00:17:31] Speaker A: Okay. So how did you decide what to submit?
[00:17:36] Speaker B: I'm sorry. I'm sorry if there's some background noise. My window's open. But.
Well, it was something I had been working on and I really liked the protagonist. I thought it right in the middle of the action and showed who she was as a character. And so I tweaked it a little bit for mystery writers. I made it more present day. I changed the stakes a little bit, changed what she was doing. And when I finished it, I was like, oh, I really like this. I'm gonna do something with this five pages.
Once this is done, whether, you know, whether I was awarded the scholarship or not, I was like, oh, this is something I really want to do something with. So, yeah, so that's how I ended up choosing that topic. I think in the past, I realized something in the past when I'd submitted to con competitions, I wasn't very, I think, deliberate in what I chose to submit. I just thought, well, the writing is good, you know, I know it's good because I. I have critique partners and I've you know, I've worked really hard on craft, but I don't think I was not. Everything that starts a novel well starts a competition well, because you only have five pages to work, you know.
Yeah. So I think that's what I learned between getting the runner up in the Beverly Neely and then, you know, winning alongside you in this latest one is that what you submit to a competition is different from what you submit to, like from what the real story is or the start of a full length novel is. Not that they can't be the same, but I think with my writing, I tend to spend a little bit longer building into the action and momentum.
And I think for competition, they've got five pages, they're reading probably hundreds of entries, maybe dozens of entries. You know, I don't, you know, I don't know how many people submitted, but I feel like you got to catch them quickly. You've got to add some personality in there. You have to, for me, also add a little bit of humor, a little dark humor, because that's how I roll.
And so I think I made, I made sure, I tried to make sure in these first five pages that this, that all of that came through. And I think that's different from when, you know, prior to 2024, when I. The few contests I've entered, I just was like, this is a really good story and they'll see that within the first five pages when that's not really always the case or often the case.
[00:20:25] Speaker A: Okay, that's really interesting because.
Okay, I feel bad because I didn't put this much thought into it.
Well, no, I mean, it's literally, it's.
I've written a lot of books and I, like.
My friend would kill me for saying this. I like some of them more than others.
And I just submitted the best first chapter I think I've ever written.
[00:20:47] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:20:47] Speaker A: And it happened to be that number of pages.
And that's it.
[00:20:51] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:20:51] Speaker A: And it's not. I don't even know, like now it doesn't even sound like it. I mean, the chapter and I feel like I should have a trigger warning. It's basically a girl telling her mother that she was sexually abused by her stepfather.
And that's it. Like, that's all that happens.
[00:21:08] Speaker B: That's still like compelling and dramatic and, you know, it's still, to me, potent. You know, it still sounds really, just your description of it sounds really strong. So I think that's strong enough. And then also, you know, I'm. I'm not as experienced writer as you are. Like, as far as what I've published and what I've been able to publish. And so the best thing you've ever written is probably better than the best thing I've written to date, as far as.
[00:21:42] Speaker A: Who knows? I wouldn't say all that.
[00:21:43] Speaker B: Well, you know, it's subjective, but you know what I mean. Right. You've worked on this for a long time and you're good at it, obviously, if you've made it this far with that many books. And so I just had to get to the point where that happened. And also, it also could be, you know, the ones before just weren't as strong. It might not have been a pacing thing or whatever. Maybe it just wasn't as interesting, you know.
So these are just. You know, it's my. This is my theory. Because it worked this time for me.
[00:22:14] Speaker A: I'm like, right. No, it's interesting because the only other concept I think I can enter, I think I can think of. And this is a different whole kettle of fish, is the Golden Heart or the Rita for rwa. Yeah. But back when they were called that and back before the RWA's implosion, which is, you know, whole different era and those. Oh, there's a lot of politics around those entries, But I hadn't thought. I never. The things you're saying, I actually never thought about because I was only.
I was entering on a whim, like, if I could win this, then I could sell this. Or if I can win this, then I can have X. Yeah. And so I would. Generally, I. I know one book I submitted for the Golden Heart, which, if I looked at today, you know, not that great of a book, but the RITA one, I couldn't. I don't remember. Oh, I do remember, but I. For reasons I don't think it would have gone over well. Yeah. With that. With the judges. But I didn't.
I think what you're saying resonates so much because in my head, I'm like, well, but if the whole story is good, then you'll figure that out from the beginning. But I know commercially that is not true. Like, commercially, you have to start in a place that's compelling enough for the reader to get past the sample or whatever, page one, however they choose the book, or the first five audio minutes or whatever it is.
So I know that now, but I didn't. What you're saying about contests, maybe that's also true for contests, that the thought never occurred to me. I'm gonna be honest. Like, that thought never Crossed my mind.
So that's interesting. I know people who entered a lot of contests. It's just a question of. I always wondered this, and I wonder today, what do people get out of the wind? Because there used to be for the rwa, they call you called the Curse of the Golden Heart, where a lot of people did not get contracts despite winning or being nominated for that.
And I know a lot of them, Yeah, I mean, ultimately they were successful, but that book itself did not, like, propel them to wherever stardom.
[00:24:15] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:24:17] Speaker A: So I. I started to feel that people who were doing contests, judging, were not. Were looking for something different than either readers or editors.
[00:24:27] Speaker B: Yeah. I mean, I also think that's. That's true. I do think that's true too. And I think especially, you know, there's a lot, historically with RWA and probably won't go into in this podcast. Like, I know I've submitted things. I submitted one thing that. With one group of.
With one group of judges, I found out afterwards that I. They thought my submission was the best, and there's no way it was like a pre. Thing, you know, and then they send it to the final judges. And then when it got to the final judges and this was a RWA thing too, it like got a low. Like, one of them gave me such a low score and I was like, wait a minute, how do I go from A plus to C minus? Like, you know, that kind of. Yeah, and so. Yeah, so absolutely. There's some judging stuff going on there too. And there's no.
[00:25:31] Speaker A: I have ex. I think we all not. We all. A lot of people I know have had that similar experience.
[00:25:36] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:25:37] Speaker A: So you're like, you're running strong, especially because they used to give the scores back and it's like so like nine out of ten give you like a nine or a ten and then. Or I think it was six, I don't remember the highest number. And then the one person who's like zero and you're like, okay. Exactly. Okay. Yeah.
And. And those issues came out, which is probably why it imploded.
[00:25:56] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:25:57] Speaker A: So that's its own issue.
So what. Okay, so what do you want to write and publish? Are you. Is your goal. And I'm asking from the future, is your goal to just be in crime or mysteries or cozies or thrillers or whatever? Action thrillers, as you were saying, going forward?
[00:26:20] Speaker B: No, no, I am.
My goal is just. Is to tell stories. And right now I'm in like my action thriller and mystery thriller mode. And as long as that's the mode I'm in. I'm gonna, you know, like, you see something, you're like, oh, you like? Because I consume a lot of streaming TV and I watch those stories as a viewer, but also as a storyteller. Right. And so I character might do something on TV and I'm like, oh, you know, and I could have her do blah, blah, blah when I'm thinking about one of my stories. But then I'm also working on a magical realism story and I'm also working on like book two for my romance thing. So I'm. I don't wanna. I know that they tell us we, you know, of course, for financial reasons. Right. For sellability, you sort of have to pick a lane.
I view my writing career, I think differently than a lot of maybe authors and writers do.
Maybe not a lot, but like I. Because I see it as so, for example, you're talking about motivation for entering the contest and what this win means.
I see all of this as part of the marketing we do for ourselves as storytellers. Right. And so.
[00:27:47] Speaker A: Right.
[00:27:49] Speaker B: This is something, you know, I can add to my resume. It's on my website, and then maybe it will get me into doors with people I wouldn't have been in the room with before, you know, and so.
[00:28:03] Speaker A: Okay, right.
[00:28:04] Speaker B: I see it as like, I see the business side of it. Like, I see myself as a brand in a way.
And so like, and I'm about to say this, and I don't even, I don't know all Coca Cola's brands, but like there's Coke, right? The company. Coca Cola, the company. And they've got Coke and they've got Diet Coke and then they've got whatever their orange drink is and whatever their ginger ale drink is.
[00:28:31] Speaker A: Right, I know. Actually don't know.
[00:28:32] Speaker B: Right. But they're all under the Coca Cola umbrella. So that's how I view my writing. You know, there's Grace Winter, and then I'll do mystery and thriller and I'll do romance and I'll do magical realism and I'll do whatever else comes to me. And I'm not you self published. So you, you know this. I'm. I'm not the type of writer who thinks tradition getting traditionally published validates a writer or makes them quote, a real writer. Like, I, I'm a hybrid. I want to be a hybrid author.
And so I just, I don't think I want to limit myself by one genre or you know, by saying, well, it's traditional publishing or nothing else or. Yeah, So I write whatever I feel like writing. Unfortunately, I have an agent who's very open to that. She's like, sure, let me see. Let's see what we can do with this. So she's very open to that.
[00:29:40] Speaker A: Okay, so. Well, okay, so let's go back. What.
Okay. When you were younger, what did you read?
[00:29:49] Speaker B: Everything but what I remember because I. I have a really bad.
I have a bad memory, believe it or not, as an editor and a writer, but a lot of Judy Blume, a lot of Jane Austen.
I grew up in a school district in New Jersey which was predominantly white. So my library reflected that. Right. And so those were the books I had access to. So that's. That's what I read.
And then it wasn't until around college that I started reading, you know, like Toni Morrison and Jamaica Kincaid and like, you know, black women authors and.
[00:30:30] Speaker A: Yeah, I haven't thought about Jamaica Kincaid in years.
[00:30:32] Speaker B: Sorry.
Yeah. And even like Eric, I just consumed everything. It was when, like, I think it was Borders Books, Barnes and Nobles, and you could. I was living in Jersey and going to New York all the time back then. And you just go into a bookstore, find a comfortable chair, chair all day, they wouldn't kick you out or anything. And so that's what I would do. So I consumed everything.
I don't remember a lot of what, but I also read a lot of like Dean Coons and Stephen King. Now I can't even.
My nerves. I can't do that anymore. I can't read those kind of books anymore.
[00:31:14] Speaker A: I don't have the stomach. I didn't have the stomach.
[00:31:16] Speaker B: I read.
[00:31:17] Speaker A: I read the Shining and I think that's it.
[00:31:20] Speaker B: I quit back then. These days I can't. I'm too.
I don't know, too much work. I'm too world wary now to read that kind of thing. But I consumed everything. Everything. Yeah.
[00:31:32] Speaker A: Is there anything that stuck out to you? Because. So similarly, I read everything, but between the ages of. I'm trying to think I remember where it was maybe like, I don't know, 12 to like, well, maybe 20. It was predominantly romance. So it would be. Well, I would go to the library. So it would be like. I would go through other phases. So it'd be like romance and then the other phase was historical fiction. I went through like a World War II phase, God save us all.
Or it would be romance and thrillers or romance and women's fiction set in New York where everybody died of cancer in the end. That was the 80s. You know what I Mean, so. I mean, so. But there were. There were phases, but romance for maybe a decade predominated and I don't know. Well, there was probably a couple reasons. A, because access was easy and they were cheap. So if you went to garage sales, tag sales, we call them up there, you could, you know, buy them by the bag.
And I had, well, a lot of time and a voracious appetite. And me and the library were often on the outs because I had too many books and too many fines.
So always. I mean, I changed library cards. I had a whole scam running for that.
But. Well, I was just kidding. I lost my library card and I.
[00:32:57] Speaker B: Was just getting new ones.
[00:32:59] Speaker A: I did. I was a library scam artist.
It's not my best, but I was like, how do I get the books?
So I don't think. I don't know if you could do that now, but probably still could. So. And maybe they knew and honestly just were like, oh, girl, here you go.
But.
So there was. There was a thread that was. That predominated over time. Did you have that? Or was it. Or. Or did you go through phases? Like, I mean, there's phases. Well, my Stephen King face was one book. And I was like, I read Shining and then people like, you want to read Carrie? And I started that and I was like, I don't think, I don't think. I don't think horror is for me because I like to sleep at night.
And I never got into fantasy. It was just too much. Like, I don't. I wasn't interested in a whole other world.
So.
But did you ever have, like, things that like, really compelled you for like, periods of time?
[00:33:55] Speaker B: Yeah, so I went through the Dean Koons phase. And of course Dean Koons had.
Has, I don't know, dozens of books. I don't know how many, because it's been a while since I've been through phase. But I think what happens with me is like, if I read something and I love it or I'm just get lost in the world, I start looking for more like that. Right. So that's what happened with my Dean Koons. And then.
But like you, romance was always. Because I always was like reading two or three books at a time. So I always had like sidelines. And I think that was because, like, especially in my 20s, I was looking for that in the real world. Right. And so.
[00:34:36] Speaker A: Right.
[00:34:36] Speaker B: I just. Every book I could find with it, especially when the protagonist was a black woman, I was like, I'm in. And so they were always there, always by my side. And then I think with the magical realism, this is.
We're talking more recent now. In the last few years, I read my. A friend recommended the Invisible Life of Addie Larue, and that's magical realism.
And I read that and I was like, what this is? And actually, some people would say it's not magical realism, it's more fabulism. And there's a long explanation about the difference, but I was like, this is what this is. So I started reading more books like that, and that inspired me to write well, to begin working on my own magical realism story. And then now, you know, the latest phase is my thriller phase and my mystery phase. And I read a lot of Karen Slaughter, but then Yasmin Angle, she's a friend. I. She's got three books out. I've read her books.
Then, of course, Beverly Neely. And then, you know, so I've read. I'm in this mystery thing now. And I keep finding authors that I enjoy, especially black women authors. And I'm like, this whole world exists that didn't. When I was, you know, growing up in New Jersey and didn't have access to.
[00:36:03] Speaker A: That is so true.
[00:36:04] Speaker B: And so I'm. Yeah, even Walter Mosley, like, I didn't have access or didn't. I shouldn't say I did. I'm sure that his books were available, but I wasn't around people who read him or like, hey, if you like. And of course, when I was that age, I probably shouldn't have been reading anyway, a lot of that older that I was like, hey. And so I started reading everything, all of it.
[00:36:33] Speaker A: Okay, can I ask you about Karen Slaughter? So I went through a Karen Slaughter phase. Maybe. Oh, my God, if my son's 15, maybe like 20 years ago.
And I think, okay, I'm going to say this as a person who has written about sex trafficking of children more than once.
I. I don't know, I think I read three or four books back to back that involved children, like, bad things happening. And I was like, I think I can't do this right now. Like, it felt. And I do this with many authors. Like, I need to take a break in between because it's kind of intense. Or like, I would listen to audiobooks in the car and I have to, like, turn it down because I'm like, I'm not. I'm like, I can't do this right now. Like, not today.
Do you. Okay. Do you find.
Do you find it intense?
[00:37:20] Speaker B: Exactly what you're talking about. And I have to do her stuff in stages. So, like, I.
[00:37:27] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:37:28] Speaker B: Now, I think part of the reason I'm so drawn to her books is I do a lot of my reading via audiobook.
And the woman who. I can't remember her name right now, who does her Will Trent series is awesome. She's. You forget it's a woman. You forget. You know, she does every character so well, and you just get lost. And so it's. For me, it's almost like watching a movie or a series without the having to, like, experience the horribleness of it. But, yeah, it is dark, right? Very dark. She deals a lot with how women and children are abused in society.
[00:38:13] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:38:13] Speaker B: And so it's very heavy. And you can't. It's not like I, you know, went through her whole catalog in one sitting. I. I'd, like, listen to a couple or two or three and then take a break for a few months and then come back to it. And then, you know, when she has a new one released, I would listen to it.
And I usually can't do violent, bloody, like, horrific. She goes into detail about these things.
[00:38:41] Speaker A: Yeah, that was the hard part for.
[00:38:43] Speaker B: Me, and I usually can't do it. So I don't know if that's a testament to the audiobook narrator. I wish I could remember her name, but she's amazing.
I don't know if that's a testament to her or is it just.
I like the way she builds her characters, and I'm so attached to her characters. I need to know what happens next between Will and Sarah. Like, I want to know if they make it as a couple. I want to know, you know, what barriers come up in their relationship. So I think that might be it, too. Like, I'm.
The stories are hard, but, like, I'm committed to seeing the characters through, and that's what keeps me coming back. But, yeah, that's a great point. Like, I've done that with television shows. I. I was. I used to watch Criminal Minds years ago, and one episode was just so dark. I thought, well, that's it for Criminal Minds.
I haven't watched that in years and years and years because it's too dark a show for me. So I think we all sort of have our limit. You know, we hit that wall, and you're like, okay, I have no doubt. I'm not. I can't do this anymore.
[00:39:51] Speaker A: Yeah, I don't. I.
Yeah, I.
It's a struggle. It's a struggle. And I love crime, but to.
I think I love the implication of crime. Actually, I. Now that I think about it, I think I like the justice part more than the crime part. Like, I. You can have the crime. Like, we understand crimes happen, but I want to know what happens. I want to know the aftermath or what came before the middle part. You can, like, because I do.
[00:40:15] Speaker B: I tend to skip through. Like, even when I'm watching stuff, if there's, like, a fight scene, I'm like, okay, skip, skip, skip. I know their fight. I just want to know who won the fight. Like a physical fight. Like, I don't want to see the blows and the blood.
I just want to know who won and what happens in the next scene. So I get it.
[00:40:34] Speaker A: Actually, now you're thinking, now that you say this, then I think I know what it is I like about Law and Order. Because the crime is right at the beginning, and then the. The other part of it is all just either the investigation or the trial, but not the crime itself.
And that's the part I would rather not know. But actually, when I. When I was a criminal defense attorney, I was never there for the crime, Right? So you know what I mean? Like, I was never there. People only came to me after the. After the fact.
So, okay, in terms of. Right, okay, let me go back. How did you end up editing? Because, look, I'm gonna be honest as a writer, it's not my strong suit.
I. I just looked at some book. I have a book club today, and I. Look, I was looking at the first chapter, and I was like, o I, I. I should have done something different with the word oak tag in terms of, like, the folders. And I was like, oh, well, I was like, did an editor not think about the oak tag? And I was like, okay. Then I, like, had to walk away. But what.
How do you do it? Like, I just. It's not.
Most writers I know struggle with editing.
[00:41:40] Speaker B: Well, first of all, you know, just because I've been reading so long and, you know, I'm, you know, and, like, voraciously reading since I was a kid, there are certain things you learn, and we know this as readers, whether you know, you know it or not, just about rhythm and cadence, and even if you don't know the technical terms for it. Right. You know, why, you know, this is what a sentence is supposed to be structured like. Right. So that's the first thing I was good at, that. And then when I started, when I put my first. Put my foot into the fiction writing waters, I started a little meetup group. We're gonna write romance and, like, Only one person came, one of my friends, she's now a good friend.
And but then it grew. So like five or six of us and I, we, you know, you critique pages and give feedback and then we had a guy come to the group and, and people would say, oh, you give really good critique. You give really good feedback. And then I was at a job, but I didn't like it, didn't like me. And they were coming toward layoffs. And my background is marketing and so marketing is the first to go when people are, companies are laying off.
[00:42:59] Speaker A: That's true.
[00:42:59] Speaker B: And so when that writing was on the wall, I went, I enrolled in the University of Chicago's editing certificate program and did the coursework. And so like I finished that program like maybe in March and then in May or June I was laid off.
And I said, you know what? This is the last time somebody's gonna lay me off.
So a couple of my writing friends had been hiring me to edit work for them. And I'm like, well, I'm gonna just take the plunge. I've always wanted to be self employed. And so I did that. And so it's been a, it was a struggle for the first three years. I mean, I'm seven years in and it's still not easy. Freelancing is never easy, but to me it's been worth it. And I've been able to grow my career through like working with organizations like Atlanta Writers Club. And I used to work, do something with Tessera, organization called Tessera.
And so it's built my client base and now I work with like Trad 5 people. So I really like, I remember being a kid and realizing that people like read books for a living. And I was like, how, like how.
[00:44:28] Speaker A: Do you get that job?
[00:44:29] Speaker B: I didn't know the name for the job again, you know, I wasn't in a universe where the people around me, this is, you know, these my people are like bread and butter people. We get up, we go to work. It's tangible work. It's not like reading for a living, you know, so.
[00:44:47] Speaker A: Right.
[00:44:48] Speaker B: So yeah, that all sort of came together and as you said, you know, you, you said something at the beginning, beginning of the conversation or you mentioned something about sticking with stuff, right? Even when people fall away, you stick with it. And it worked. There were many times when I was like, should I just go try to get another job or whatever. But then, you know, I was like, I get up every morning, I'm like, I read books for a living. Like 8 year old me did not ever think that's a world that I could live in, I could occupy. So even though it's a struggle still and it can be difficult, I still like this. That eight year old girl, she's very happy. So that's how I ended up doing it.
[00:45:32] Speaker A: Yeah, no, what you said, it really resonates because sometimes people ask me about writing and I go, my 10 year old self is thrilled. Like if you told my 10 year old self that I wrote books, I would, I think I would just have passed out.
It have been like what happened? You know, like how did that, how did that happen? Then they would tell me my age and then I would have double passed out. So.
Yeah, but it's, it's, that's true. I, as a kid I, I thought about that actually. Like, I thought about like what about like reading for a living, but I didn't think. And I know when I was in college there were a number of people. I went to a women's college. So a lot of people went to New York. Well, they did two things. Either went into finance or they went into editing. And this is at the days before ebooks and all that. So a lot of people went to work for traditional editors or agents or that sort of milieu. You bounce back and forth because they wanted to read books for a living. I don't actually know anybody who still has those jobs, but who started from that era.
But a lot of people did have that. I did not have the guts to do it back then and I don't know, in a different world, I don't know. But I didn't have the guts to do it because it seemed I knew about those jobs because I mean, I was from New York City, so there's a lot of editors sort of people out there. But I didn't think it was for me, I think, I think to be honest, or it was going to be stable enough because a lot of people, and this is before all the purchases and layoffs and consolidation. But even then it seemed a little tenuous to be sitting in an office with a lot of dusty papers hoping that you found the thing or that you had the famous client or famous author.
But so what when you went into freelance setting, what was your. Did you have a specific goal? Because I know, I obviously I know a lot of freelance editors and I actually know authors who edit. I just actually never talked to them about editing. But did you think like I want to edit, I want these kinds of clients or I want to work for this kind of publisher, I Want to freelance for this kind of thing. Because I know people who do that. Like they're like, I'm going to only freelance for Amazon Publishing, which you know, didn't exist before but obviously exists now. Or people who, who were big five editors who did get laid off, who now freelance. I just was talking to somebody about one of those.
So there's a whole different, like different groups of people who sort of plug into different things or I'm only going to, oh, I met one of these. I only edit indie romance. Okay. You know what I mean? Like there are people who are very specific. Did you have like those kinds of specific goals in mind when you started?
[00:48:17] Speaker B: My goal was to make a, to living.
[00:48:21] Speaker A: Right, okay.
[00:48:22] Speaker B: To make a living and. Cause though I started as a self published author, like you know, I wanted that also to be my first, my, the bulk of my clientele because I wanted, you know, we can get editing done just as well as anybody else. So like my self published clients now they can tell people, oh, my editor works for big five publishers. Amazon is one of my clients.
And so I wanted to give indie authors that because I am that myself. But you also, you also, to me, this is my opinion, you do need traditional publishing clients and small house clients because that one just broadens your catalog, right. Of books you've worked on and authors you've worked with. But also a lot of self published authors want to see that you have trad pub editing experience. It legitimizes you, you know. And so yeah, it's interesting like if you can. And not that people who edit for trad publishing just don't make mistakes but like if you're, if you're hired by traditional publishers, then chances are you, you know, enough that you can edit my book. Which is, you know, this is what the authors are saying. Which is as important to me as any trad book is to traditionally acquired author. And so like it just helps diversify your client. I see my editing the same way as I see my writing.
Not gonna, you know, getting laid off taught me this.
My income is never going to come from one source ever again.
So yeah, it's gonna be a mix of traditionally published authors, self published authors and traditional publishers. As far as the editing, you know, and the writing, it's going to be different genres. It might be small indie houses, it might be trad pub, you know, whenever I get picked up. So I'm always looking to mix things up and to make sure that I'm able to make a living by myself.
[00:50:43] Speaker A: Okay, so can I ask, well, I'm going to preface this years ago and now I'm going to look it up because it's like, I can. It's vague.
Some years ago, there was an article. I'm trying to think where it was, where they interviewed traditional people who were employed by traditional publishers and asking them how many books they edited a year. And I want to say it was like five or ten in a whole year. And we were like, what?
And because most editors we know were editing, I don't know, maybe a book a week or like every two weeks or something like that.
And it was interesting because we had so many questions as to why, what that workload was about, what they were doing. I need to find that article.
[00:51:32] Speaker B: These were these editors at publishing houses because so much of their job, though, is not just the actual editing.
[00:51:42] Speaker A: Yeah, right. I mean, the marketing and all of that. But they were. But the way they were selling themselves to writers. This must have been at a conference. Is that, you know, I've seen it all and, like, you know, I can. I have that eye to make your book the best it is. Because that's always the sell for authors.
Like, and look, this is still to this day, like, one of these things I really want. So I will say this. When I apply for the scholarship, they asked what you wanted the money for. And at the time. And this comes and goes. It's a feeling that comes and goes. Is that what I'm looking for? Is that, like, perfect editor who gets me and therefore can make my book the best it is because that has not been.
I'm like 29 books in. That has not been my experience even, like, acquiring even my traditionally acquired book. You know what I mean? Like, the first editor of the first book acquired it and presumably liked it. Then she rolled out the door 15 seconds later. And then the second book was read by an editor who had not acquired it and wasn't thrilled. And that's fine. Like, I get it now, but.
And then the third book, the editor thought. I thought she liked it and then she wanted to change everything.
And I'm not saying that's bad or good. Like, I. In retrospect, actually, I don't think the changes were beneficial, but.
And I still. Okay, we're not getting my feelings about those, because I. I just. All the feelings just came right on back.
But that said, I think, okay, many of the authors I know because we're older have this sort of fantasy from, like, that whole, like. And this may not even have ever existed, but there's a couple of sort famous legendary like New York editors who worked with authors. And these are all men, the editors and the authors.
Over time and that relationship became such that the books that came out later, you know, the first book is not necessarily the best one ever, became so much better because they had that feedback and that growth, but nobody. Well, I know one author and you know, who has that, you know, and they go skiing together or whatever. But other than her there, most people I know have had in this is like the year we came up in like the, you know, the early 2000s have had that turnover effect where like one person acquires you, then the next person edits and the next person edits and you don't get either people who love your book or people who are committed to your growth.
And that has been.
That's hard. I mean that's hard. Even, even as an indie, I've not had that. I'm always looking, I'm always out looking for somebody who loves the books and people like, so I have editors and it's fine, but there's never anybody and never, I've never had that feedback where I love this. Let's make this the best thing ever.
So I did put in the scholarship. I wanted that. And to be honest, at the time I found an editor and she hated it. She hated my last book. She was like, yeah, I don't think, I don't, I don't understand what you're doing here. And I thought, okay, I guess not you not gonna spend my eighteen hundred dollars on you.
And I guess it was great. I mean I did the sample edit. I didn't used to do that always, but now I know she doesn't like me either.
So do you think that you can have that experience or are you. Well, you, I guess you would know. Have you had that experience where you and a writer, I don't want to say, grow together. I don't make it sound like, you know, you're like, you know, but have had the experience where you can see their growth and the feedback like moves forward to make them a better writer in the book.
[00:55:26] Speaker B: Favorite part about working with self published authors and indie authors because even when, with, when you work. Because I've worked on multiple books with traditionally published authors that come to me through their developmental editors, even some that have come through their agents and we talk on the phone and you know, help shape the story. But the develop the acquisitions editor and the author are really the ones who have the vision for the story. Right. And what they will do is share that vision with me and then I will help if it's a developmental edit, bring them closer to that.
Right. And then on the line edit round. It's the making sure that the cadence and the rhythm fit the author's voice. So that's a different thing but.
[00:56:17] Speaker A: Right.
[00:56:18] Speaker B: With my indie clients, I have a, I had a indie author, Alice Alessandra. I try to say it like that because she's Italian.
She, she found me on the Internet of all and I did a sample edit from her. She, for her. She lives in Italy.
You wouldn't know. English wasn't her first language, but that's how good she. She was.
And we ended up working. We did our first book as a, you know, test.
We ended up working on six books together over three years. I think it's all together. It was three years. She wrote fantasy and so each book was 110, 120,000 words. And I saw her. Yeah, I'm very, I. One of the things I do is I do like I group services together. So especially if it's a first time author, I'll do an assessment in the first round and then we figure out what the second round of editing should be. So I'm very. In my first round letter, we talk, I talk about voice and what their goals are and what they want people to see in the characters. And then we have zoom sessions and, and really try to get to know the author and the characters.
And then so from her doing that first book, taking the feedback and then when she sent me the draft of the second book too, I was just like, oh my gosh. She listened. Like she under.
She understood. I mean a lot of. Not that most people don't listen, but like she really like understood and tweaked things and you could tell like and each book just got better and better and better. And so that's my favorite thing. And I have a younger author I'm working with now who's going to be querying soon and have done. We've worked on two books together and she just, she gets it. Like she, we.
She's one of the ones who she, she, she writes a lot. She's wordy, she writes romantic wording. And I'm like, honey, you, you got it. We gotta cut 20,000 words. And she's like, oh my gosh. But she'll do it. Like the baby really does work on it because she, she believes me and trusts me. And this is where I was talking about when you have traditional publishing experience.
And I say, look I know this is what acquisitions editors are looking for or I know they're going to say your debut.
There's no way we're going to bring on a romance at 120,000 words. Right? Like when I say things like that, people tend to listen because I've got the traditional publishing experience and so.
And she's a great writer. Like one of the other things that I've found because I work on so much, do so much traditional work now is a lot of self published, a lot of querying writers can really write like their writing is as good and sometimes better than some of the already acquired work I work on.
But this business is so much about discoverability and timing and what people are looking for. And then the, you know, the air quotes, can't relate thing that a lot of us get sometimes.
And it's like what like. And so it's also, you know, the editing has also put me in a good position as a writer to accept rejection and to understand and embrace rejection. As a matter of fact, in fact, I'm writing about it for my newsletter tomorrow about how I view rejection. So much diff. More diff. So differently now than I did when I first started writing. You know, and you know, that first romance writing group when people would come back with feedback, my first instinct was to be like, you just don't see the vision. You just don't get it. Like I don't understand. And that's. I see feedback very different than now. But I also see clearly that making it as a, in publishing, I'm talking about the traditional side now is not about the quality of somebody's writing. It's not about the story.
It's about timing. Sometimes it's about luck, sometimes it's about connections. And I mean when I say it's not about the quality of story, of course you've got to have a good story, right?
But they will work. If they like your premise and they can see themselves in your story, publishers will work with you to get that story to the place they want it to be.
And so it just, I see, I just see rejection a lot different. Like I take it it's par for the course now. And I don't see it as a rejection of me or my writing. I just see it as, okay, this is not a fit for them. This, they can't see my vision. And so it wouldn't have been, it wouldn't work there anyway. It wouldn't have been.
This is not my home. This is not where I should be. I should Move right. You know, to the next one. And so, yeah, it's all. They all feed from one another. And it's interesting. I'm the type of person, which is probably why I write so slowly, why I do so many things so slowly. Like, I gotta. I like knowing how the sausage is made. Like, I like to know what goes behind things. So even when I started writing and my friend suggested, oh, you should edit for a living. And one of them was like, you should probably. I mean, it's not cheap, but you should get this editing certificate so you really know the technical stuff. And I'm like, you're right. I do understand. Want to understand how this works.
And then when I met my agent, which is a long story, how we actually met, and I wanted to sort of intern for her, but we call it an old turn ship.
Okay. Because I want to learn how this works. I want to learn how this process works. And so working with her has helped me see how that part of it works. And then working with the. The acquisitions editor, editors have helped me see how that part of the equation works. And so I like, you know, I like knowing what's going on behind the scenes with stuff, how the sausage is made. And I think that's helping me sort of set myself up for when the doors do open, because I have to believe they will one day that I'm prepared for it, you know?
[01:03:13] Speaker A: Okay, but I have two questions, because A, how are you not cynical? Because this is. I've. I've had this conversation. I mean, I mean, you know, writers in a room, we've had this conversation.
And especially when some books become popular and you read it, you go, oh, my God.
Okay, so how do you not become cynical? Because then. And this ties into my second question, because then it's fundamentally a product. It's like. Actually, I was listening to a podcast yesterday. They were talking about Tiger King, which I know was popular on Netflix during the pandemic. I did not see it.
I don't. I struggle with anything that may lean toward animal abuse. And I just couldn't open my doors to any potential of that.
So. But they. Okay, so that became popular. And a lot of people suggest that because everybody was home and everybody watched the thing, and it remains one of the top Netflix. Like you. Okay, the problem with streaming is that people see it all at different times. And when I was growing up, you know, you could watch like the Cosby show or Love Boat or whatever all the same time.
And. But it was one of the few times where, like, they were saying 30 million people all watched it within a week. And I thought, wow, okay, that's, you know, abc. Wish they had those numbers now.
But I don't know. And I didn't see Tiger King, so I actually don't know. But the way people talk about it is that if it had come out in March and we had not had a pandemic, it may not have been the thing people were watching.
And that is also true with books like if.
And it's so either.
And it's like lightning. Sometimes you don't know why or why it struck. And then of course, there's always the rush to copy it, which is a different thing. It's like it's all going to be dystopian. It's all going to be vampires, or it's all going to be whatever.
So given that, you know that, how do you keep that, like, cynicism at bay? Because what you're talking about, you are talking about how the sausage is made. And we all pretend in. In maybe in the US Generally, like, there's a veneer of it's a meritocracy. And if you're just good enough, then one day you will get your gold.
And. And. But that's not. I mean, I live Illinois. I know a lot of TV people. That ain't true.
[01:05:28] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:05:29] Speaker A: So it's not true. Okay, so that's. But people trying to create art and would like to sell it. So that's one. But on the other hand, I will say this. Most of the indie authors I know, actually, this just happened with an author. I didn't know her background, and now I know why she's successful. Most of the authors I know who are very successful were people who left marketing beforehand.
Yeah. So given those two things, do you not think, okay, a, how do you continue to write when you know that it's not quality? First? It could be like. It's like. I call it Zeitgeist first. It, you know, it's anything other. It can be anything other than that.
[01:06:09] Speaker B: It's not that.
[01:06:09] Speaker A: That doesn't come into play, but it could be anything other than that first.
And how do you put yourself in.
In.
I don't say competition, but, like, how are you submitting when you know that it may. You're submitting based on your writing, but it may not be based on your writing.
[01:06:28] Speaker B: So the first answer is, who says I'm not cynical? Like, no, I think so. I mean, so that's, I don't know, like, the textbook definition of cynical. Right. So maybe I'm not quite cynical. Maybe I, I call it more like I'm more of a realist, okay? And so, so that says to me, this is, this is the game we're all playing, right? This is the hand I've been dealt.
And I got to figure out how to succeed to this in this game, knowing what my other, the other players, what hands that they've been dealt. Because that's the thing about now that I know, I know what hand they've been dealt, right? So that to me, I see that as an advantage. I'm, I'm not going in there. And you have that advantage too because you've been in this game long enough. Like we're not going in there. Like the new authors who see something and think, oh, I'm gonna write this great book and I'm gonna get an agent and I'm gonna get the six figure deal. And like we know that's not how this business works. So I think that's a right, you know, it's a cliche that knowledge is power, but I do think that's powerful. Knowing what you're up against. And if you know what you're up against and you're still committed to, if you know what you're up against and you're still willing to do it, then I guess that's where that cuts my cynicism, right? Because I know all of this, but I still want to tell stories.
And, and the thing about is the reason I want to tell stories is because just like you and I both talked about what I said when I was 8 years old in Jersey and I couldn't find books about me on the shelf. I could, I didn't. There were no books by the authors that I know had written them. Now that I, you know, as, as an adult, I knew they'd written them, but nobody put them on the shelf.
So I'm writing for that girl, right? And who still exists, right? Who still. They still live in places where they don't have access to books and there's no, nothing is reflected that looks like them, right? And so, so that I think that keeps my cynicism at bay, but maybe it doesn't. And maybe I use a sinner cynicism as fuel, right? Because my philosophy is, well, if they're not going to give me, sorry to use this cliche, give me a seat at the table. How can I build my own table? Like, I'm going to try to figure out how I'm gonna get in there like, and reshape the way things are done. And so yeah, I'm. We're on sub and I've gotten some rejections and people are looking. But there's two things. I'm con. Like a couple things. I'm confident in one. I know it's a good book. I know the writing is good. I got, I got a rejection the other day where she said, what is it the acquisitions editor say? She said my writing was phenomenal.
[01:09:26] Speaker A: But.
Okay, I love that.
[01:09:29] Speaker B: Right?
[01:09:29] Speaker A: But.
[01:09:30] Speaker B: So there's a.
[01:09:30] Speaker A: There's the but.
[01:09:31] Speaker B: And I. What I took from that was like, okay, so my writing is. So I've been, you know, another person co signed that the writing is good. Right.
And so that's all I need. Because even though this industry is about marketing and connections and what a handful of gatekeepers say they want and don't want, when it gets into the reader's hand, it's about the story, right?
So once we know we have that right. Like once we know we can tell that story, then all the other stuff, it's just people in my way.
Right? It's people in my way preventing me from getting to the reader. So part of my like whole philosophy is, yeah, I'm, I'm, you know, we talked, I talked about having multiple. I don't think I use the language multiple streams. But like part of my philosophy is then, okay, so I'm gonna, I'm gonna try this route. Like, so we're still on sub. And then my agent has.
Is connected in with some Hollywood stuff. So she's doing some things on in and that angle too. But then I'm also have a network of authors that I know that are smart, that have marketing savvy, that we're talking and figuring out how we can do things a certain way. And if that doesn't work, I'm still working on D and E F. Like I'm. So I guess part of the thing that keeps the cynicism at bay is that I've never put all my books in their basket. Like I've never. I almost don't expect them to do the right thing. I'm just doing it. Let me just give them a sh.
[01:11:12] Speaker A: Shot.
[01:11:13] Speaker B: Let me just see, you know, right. If they can grasp this vision.
But then half of, you know, probably the majority of me don't. Doesn't think they will, you know, especially my book. The book I have on submission right now is sort of anti oligarch, anti wealthy, revolutionary non fiction ya.
It was dystopian when I started writing it. But it's reality. It's more like reality now. And so like, you know, we've had these conversations and I'm like, right, nobody's gonna pick this up right now. It's just too. It looks like I wrote it in response to what's happening. I started writing it seven years ago, right. So.
But she's like, nope, you worked hard. We deserve this. I'm gonna get somebody to do this. I'm like, okay, well you keep, you keep working that route and I'm going to work all my other angles. Because the key is discovery. We just have to find a way to get the readers to discover us.
And I feel like I'm one of these. I am a realist, sometimes cynical, but I guess there's a part of me that's also very.
I wouldn't say optimist.
Like, yeah, there's a part of me that feels like if you're given a vision, it's not for nothing. Like there must be a way to get it to come through, come true.
So I feel like I'm gonna figure out this discovery thing with or without publishing, with or without Hollywood. Like I'm gonna find a way to crack this discovery thing and build my own table and bring my people with me. And you know, because there's a, Every industry has like their upheaval time, right? There's.
And we're seeing a lot of that now with AI doing a lot of stuff. People are losing jobs and it's.
I know a lot of self published authors are actually using AI to write. Like there's a bunch of stuff going on that we. That's probably a whole different podcast you want to do. But like, so still stuff is about to. There's upheaval going on and if we just can figure out how to work around that and again, get the blockage blocks out of the way so we can go straight to our reader, then I think we'll have it figure out. So I don't know if I answered your question, but.
[01:13:48] Speaker A: Yeah, well, no. So the second question was about marketing. So there's an author who is. I'm not going to get in. I, she. This is public and I don't want to get into this conversation about the specific person, but she wrote a book, let's say six years ago. I mean, I don't know when she wrote it. I know it was published. And her goal, she was in marketing and she knew that if she could just find a publisher, she could market it herself. So she did find a very small publisher and she marketed herself and she's doing extremely well and just had a new book come out and the publisher said she's the only breakout person but she's doing it herself. And she knew or had that faith about herself from the beginning. And a lot of the early indie authors I know had a similar. They left
[email protected] or whatever and they knew that they could pull the levers sufficiently to do that if they had the right platform, whether that's indie, whether the shroud, whatever that platform is.
Do you have that faith in yourself? Because I never did marketing and to my ever probably regret, I remember people, when I started school, marketing was not a thing. It was sort of nascent in terms of like schools teaching it. And I remember I went to school that did not have it but because I went to a very traditional school. But there were people who, you know, I have friends who are in college, you know, obviously at other schools and they were like, I'm doing marketing and business. And I was like, I don't even understand what you're doing. Like I'm over here, I'm going to do some English and Latin and classics and that I understand and you do you.
But at the end of the day, and I remember like a seventh grade teacher saying to me, you have to sell yourself. And I was like, that's not the world I live in.
Okay. So many things I regret being very stubborn about.
And it's only come to understand this now, especially meeting writers who were marketers previously, they have that ability if the platform is right, to push that book to a level where people who don't have that background can. Do you have that sort of faith in yourself since you understand.
I understand like zero about marketing no matter how many books I read. Do you feel that you have that lever to pull should you get the right platform?
[01:16:13] Speaker B: I know I have the skills and the knowledge to put stuff together that looks great. So for example, I, I did a trailer to send out with my manuscript on submission, like a two minute book trailer.
And it went over really well like people. So I, I know I can create the stuff that gets people interested. What I don't know these days, because so much of this requires social media is I don't know if I can get the audience like I can't, I don't know if I, I, I don't know if I build it, they will come. Like I haven't figured out that, that part yet. Getting them to come. Like I know how to build it, but I, I Don't know if I believe if you build it, they will come. Because so much about it is still also luck. It's about what platforms you're on. I'm not on Tick Tock. I'm no longer on Instagram or Twitter. Like, so it's just me and Blue Sky.
And so, yeah, so I, I don't know. But what I try to do is do the work and not worry about, like, the outcome, not worry about the things I can't control until I absolutely have to. So, like, I'm building the platforms, I'm making the connections, I'm teaching people and talking to people. And everybody I know knows I'm a writer and I talk about my writing process and talk about my books and what I'm working on and people are interested. And I've launched my newsletter. Like, I'm doing the things that I know I need to with the hope and hopefully not false expectation that one day it's going to come together and my platform will meet the audience and things will do what they're supposed to do.
But yeah, okay, marketing absolutely is a piece that every author should at least understand the basics of. And you know, I didn't. I have an MBA in marketing.
And for years, even when I was working in marketing and business, I was like, well, shoot, that degree is not helping me do anything. They train you when you're on the job, you have to learn things that I just didn't see how it was helping me work. And it wasn't till after, till I started writing still. I started doing a lot of the editing stuff and I've taken over a consortium of editors that, that I used to be a co managing editor of. And it's now that I'm doing this work that I realize, oh, so I did learn a lot in school and I am applying it like, okay, this is what this looks like when you apply it to your own business and your own. So I do like record just like I took the ed. I'm not saying everybody should take two years of editing courses or business courses, but I do think learning the fundamentals of marketing is something every author, every writer should do.
So that even if you choose not to do certain things, like, I'm not getting on TikTok, I'm not going back on Twitter, but at least you understand what the benefits would be of doing these kind of things, why social media is important.
And again, it's again about, you know, back to the same analogy about their things blocking you from getting to your reader before Twitter before social media, people were still reaching their readers. Like right. People, people are still doing it now. I was, I'm in Atlanta, I was driving down one of the highways and I saw a billboard of a author who writes urban fiction and never heard of her.
That's not a genre I read a lot. But still she had a billboard up with a teaser about her book coming out.
Right.
I remember that. You know, like I took a picture so I could go look her up when I, when I got back home. So people are, remember people who used to sell purses out of their trunks. Like yeah, there are ways like yes, we're all on social media now and I don't think you can have a career without at least having some sort of platform online.
But that's not the only way to do it. And long before social media marketers, non fiction, non fiction writers are great people to learn this kind of stuff from because they built their platforms like nobody else. But it's, it's the same logic.
[01:21:02] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:21:02] Speaker B: Like non fiction people are telling stories too, right. They, they out. This is what I say about marketing and when it comes to authors, marketing is the story you tell about your story.
Right. And so that's what draws. When I was about to, you know, when I started working on my self published book, I was on Facebook at the time and I would post about it like once a week, couple times a week. Oh, this was a rough week with the writing and, or this is why I wrote about my protagonist and this is what she has in common with me. And those posts always got the most attention and likes because people want to hear about the story behind the story. And so when I launched, you know, I had a, you know, a few reviews the first day. I had a bunch of purchases the first day because people wanted to support me. Some of them might not have ever even read it. Right. But they, they wanted to support my story. And so I think that's what we need to reframe a little bit with the marketing. Yes. It didn't involves all these different pieces, but it's bottom line, it is the story you tell about your story.
[01:22:12] Speaker A: Okay, that's interesting. I'm going to, I'm honestly going to think about it. I'm going to, I'm going to think about it because it's just, it is the one thing, at least for me that most indie authors I know struggle with the most. And look, traditional authors I know also struggle with it because they may sell more initially. Well, there's orders. I mean the book consignment thing, we're not going to get into that problem.
But even, and this has actually been the biggest disappointment of traditional authors I know in the last 10 years is that they can't rely on a publisher unless you're one of four people. And it's fine to do that marketing for you. And I think that has been the greatest disappointment of a lot of authors I know.
So they either do the marketing and then they don't get the percentage or then they go indie and do the marketing. So they can get the percentage but then can't have necessarily, necessarily the widest reach depending.
I mean there's, there's exceptions for all of these things, but that has been. It's the, it's the one thing that we talk about the most. It's interesting when people ask me, non writers ask me, they're like, what do you talk about when you're at writing conferences? Like, do you talk about writing? And I was like, God, we never talk about writing. We talk, we talk. I mean like that's a, that's a personal thing and like that's a sort of a personal conversation.
But marketing, that's the thing we talk about the most. That's the thing we talk about the most.
And the level.
[01:23:39] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:23:40] Speaker A: And the leverage.
[01:23:41] Speaker B: People are very good at marketing, self publishing people who are really good at marketing, who've got their newsletter, got their websites, tons of reviews, and they're still not able to make a living.
[01:23:57] Speaker A: Because I think, and this is the part that I don't like, but I think that even in indie publishing, similar to traditional, I think there's that certain zeitgeist, there has to be the certain luck, time in place and whatever the lightning is, I think you can manufacture to some degree, but it's not a guarantee. So even the book I'm talking about where she was like, if I get a publisher, then I can sell it. Her book came out during the pandemic.
So if her book had come out in 2019 or 2021, would it have been the same? Because everybody's at home all day. And the answer is who knows? Who knows?
But it's the those that luck and timing are this not the same, but it's sort of a similar thing no matter how you release your book. And it's sort of the hardest thing to hear.
[01:24:47] Speaker B: It's true.
[01:24:50] Speaker A: Because it's like a rejection of a whole different kind.
[01:24:53] Speaker B: It's tough.
It is a tough, tough business no matter what route you take.
[01:24:58] Speaker A: So with that, I want to congratulate you on your win. I hope that it yields whatever you want from it.
[01:25:09] Speaker B: And thank you so much for reaching out to me, for inviting me on the podcast. I've had a blast. I could have talked to you for another hour.
[01:25:17] Speaker A: I really know. I really appreciate it because your insight. I don't know, it's just I say this like after some many interviews, not all, but sometimes. It's just so fascinating because what, Okay, I talk to writers all day every day, but we're not all the same. And it's amazing to get different perspectives from different people. And especially you because you're at a different phase of your career. I do talk to a lot of people who like they're like 50 books in college. Very cynical.
But we're still here and we still love it.
But I really appreciate you taking the time and I can't wait to share this with my listeners. So thank you.
This has been a time to thrill with me, your host, Amy Austin. If you enjoyed today's episode, I hope you'll share rate and leave a five star review on Spotify, Apple Podcast podcasts or wherever you listen. It will help others find and enjoy my conversations with brilliant women creators. Also, please hit the subscribe button on your podcast app. In addition to hosting this podcast, I'm an author. My latest book, His Last Mistress is out now. Check out the five star reviews and get your copy before someone else spoils the twist.
I'm also the author of the Nicole Long series of legal thrillers. The first four books books in the series are now live. You can download Outcry, Witness, Major Crimes Without Consent and the Murders Began to your e reader right now. I'm also the author of the Casey Court series of legal thrillers. These titles are available wherever books are sold, your local library, and also an audiobook. You can follow me on Substack, Instagram, Blue sky, and even Facebook Eagle Thriller Author or on TikTok SocialThrillerAuthor.
Thanks for listening and I'll be back with you soon with more great conversations.
