[SPEAKER_02]: Welcome to another episode of Shooting the Shirt with Literary Agents, Carly Waters, and CC Lyra.
[SPEAKER_02]: Where we dissect publishing gossip, discuss book industry trends, and the overall state of the book business.
[SPEAKER_02]: If you'd ever wanted to grab a coffee with two literary agents, grab your mug and pull up a chair.
[SPEAKER_02]: Hi everyone.
[SPEAKER_02]: You are watching slash listening another episode of shooting the shit.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think we've come to love our title I mean, I think getting compasses what we're trying to do.
[SPEAKER_02]: We've heard so many of you guys whether it is social media or twice notes people have left me to say that they they love the show and I know CC's got a lot of messages too So thank you guys for tuning in
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, thank you.
[SPEAKER_01]: We love it.
[SPEAKER_01]: And shout out to Bianca because, well, to Bianca and Carly.
[SPEAKER_01]: Because when Carly first came up with the idea for this segment, Carly, you told us about it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Me and Bianca, over just the zoom, when you were like, yeah, you know, and the idea is to make a casual, just shoot the shit.
[SPEAKER_01]: We have to come up with the name.
[SPEAKER_01]: And Bianca was like, tell me that's going to be the name, shooting the shit.
[SPEAKER_01]: So it was so awesome.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, I had nothing to do with it, is what I'm saying, but I benefit from it.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I've come to really love this time.
[SPEAKER_02]: As I think I mentioned this, I can't remember where I share information, whether it's a social media or the show.
[SPEAKER_02]: But I think one of the things that's really helped me do is synthesize what I want to say and how I'm framing and thinking about the issues in the industry that are happening.
[SPEAKER_02]: Because one of the things I'd loved about having a blog, when I blogged four years and years and years, is like every Monday, I just would open the draft and just be like, I have to post something today.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's kind of like the show must go on, with us doing this, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: The show has to go on, so it's whatever the news is that week and it can help me kind of think about it, keep up to date on things.
[SPEAKER_02]: So it's really serving me in terms of my thoughts.
[SPEAKER_02]: I could hang out with CCM because we don't
[SPEAKER_02]: work together on the agency side anymore so we get to keep in touch with each other and yeah so one of my heartfelt pleased you guys is also to watch us on YouTube because I don't want to kind of get into the weeds too much about the behind the scenes of everything but this is supposed to be our gossipy show where we just kind of tell you what's what you know we didn't start the show to run a business over kind of creates something larger than ourselves it was really just to hang out
[SPEAKER_02]: and obviously an entertaining and form you guys as much as possible in that educational platform that we've created.
[SPEAKER_02]: But it has turned into a business.
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[SPEAKER_02]: We love the people that we get to pay to edit our show and upload our show and all of those wonderful things.
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[SPEAKER_02]: So obviously, you guys, I'm sure of her to talk about our
[SPEAKER_02]: incredible newsletter.
[SPEAKER_02]: We have over 55,000, like 5500,000 subscribers on our newsletter.
[SPEAKER_02]: We have a subset of those that are paid, not as many as the total amount, that's for sure.
[SPEAKER_01]: A depressing amount only is, you guys, only a depressing amount of you guys are paying.
[SPEAKER_01]: Very little.
[SPEAKER_01]: I just want to say that.
[SPEAKER_01]: Very little.
[SPEAKER_02]: And we love you guys.
[SPEAKER_02]: Listen, we are so glad to get to get so much great information, but if you are looking for a nominal way to support the show, there's a few ways.
[SPEAKER_02]: There is paying for the subscriber fee on sub-stack
[SPEAKER_02]: I believe CC correct me if I'm wrong.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think this is like pro-rated per where you are in the world in terms of your currency.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think it's around $8 US a month this is where we're at right now with the fee.
[SPEAKER_02]: You could also pay for the year.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's a wonderful thing you can do.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Please check your own fashion.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_01]: He bought it at the same time.
[SPEAKER_01]: Please check with your own accountant.
[SPEAKER_01]: Curly is not giving out tax advice.
[SPEAKER_02]: I see the lawyer is stepping in.
[SPEAKER_02]: I am not giving up tax advice, but when you talk to your account, you can ask for educational things that I consume within my industry, can I use this as an educational event?
[SPEAKER_02]: And I believe the answer is yes.
[SPEAKER_02]: So,
[SPEAKER_02]: Therefore, the answer is yes, but T.C.
[SPEAKER_02]: is generally yes, generally yes, generally yes, check with your professionals in your life.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And thank you to everyone who supports in every single way, whether it's paid or not, we are super mindful that not everyone can support the paid way.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Oh my gosh, obviously.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, team, I comment, but it is a depressing low number.
[SPEAKER_01]: People who pay for the newsletter, I am grateful for every single one and I understand that not everyone can.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you can, this is kind of like the whole library versus buying.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, yes, support libraries, that's so great.
[SPEAKER_01]: Check out books from the library, but if you can buy books by books,
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[SPEAKER_02]: And, you know, sharing our stuff on social media also gets the job done.
[SPEAKER_02]: So thank you.
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay, let's move on to something we want to talk about today.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I've tentatively called this episode shooting this shit about blurb culture.
[SPEAKER_02]: How to sell a book in a tough category in the Anthropics settlement.
[SPEAKER_02]: We also have some other juicy things to follow up on from last week's episode because you guys sent us some...
[SPEAKER_02]: messages that we need to go through.
[SPEAKER_02]: So that's what we're going to get into.
[SPEAKER_02]: So first thing on the list is to talk about agents offering wrap with short notice windows and all the intel that we learned in our DMs.
[SPEAKER_02]: You guys definitely had a lot to say on this topic.
[SPEAKER_02]: So if you didn't listen to last week's episode, obviously you can go back and listen or we can kind of give you the TLDR, which is there are agents out there that are offering wrap with very small windows up
[SPEAKER_02]: Whereas normally the industry standard is, you know, anywhere from kind of that like 10 to 14 day window again, depending on holidays and other things that are going on.
[SPEAKER_02]: But generally two weeks is the standard.
[SPEAKER_02]: So CCD want to run through some, and this is all going to be anonymous.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, we're not here to kind of call anybody out.
[SPEAKER_02]: But CCD want to go through some of the DMs that you got or general intel that we can kind of work back on.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I mean, I never know when the podcast is airing, just because again, we record it a different day.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I knew when this episode aired immediately because our DMs just started to go off, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: Like we just started to get messages from various different people of saying,
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, sharing these horror stories, there's one agent who offered on the phone and said that the person had to decide on the spot, so there wasn't even a 24-hour situation, and then there was names shared of agents who are giving 24-hour notices.
[SPEAKER_01]: There was a name or two that was mentioned more than once, but the thing is it's more than one agent, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: Like it's not one human out there who's doing this, not a lot.
[SPEAKER_01]: We didn't get a lot of names, but we didn't get a lot of messages mentioning the same names.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's actually really interesting because I got a message from an agent colleague, an agent who does not work at my agency, and reached out to me and said, hey, I heard that this person's doing this.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I said, oh, we already got her name.
[SPEAKER_01]: off someone else.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then this agent said, oh, that's a good news because it means it's only one.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I was like, oh, no, sorry, hunt.
[SPEAKER_01]: I didn't mean that.
[SPEAKER_01]: I meant this name has been repeated.
[SPEAKER_01]: But there were other names, too.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, I mean, I I laugh because when I'm nervous, I laugh, but like honestly, it's sad, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: Like we don't, we don't want that.
[SPEAKER_01]: I especially feel for authors who shared the anxiety they experienced.
[SPEAKER_01]: And
[SPEAKER_01]: I could see their rational brains competing with their emotional brains.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like they were saying things to me like I knew that wasn't okay, but I still felt like I had to answer within that timeframe because what if that was my only offer and I've been trying for so long.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's just so, again, so predatory and not okay.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it was, I so appreciate everyone sharing, but it was just really discouraging to see.
[SPEAKER_01]: How about you, Carly, how about how were you at DM?
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I know we shared them with each other.
[SPEAKER_01]: But,
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, yeah, we associate kind of went back and forth sharing some information.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm super conflicted, not conflicted in whether I think this is good or bad.
[SPEAKER_02]: I generally think this is.
[SPEAKER_02]: bad practice.
[SPEAKER_02]: I guess like I'm a little bit worried that this is starting to, like, catch on a little bit, you know, it's like, oh, well, this age is doing that.
[SPEAKER_02]: Is that the new industry norm or we're creating a new standard and therefore people are able to conform to this new quote unquote standard?
[SPEAKER_02]: So that's, I guess, yeah, I'm not surprised.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's more than one person.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I guess I would just be concerned that this is going to continue.
[SPEAKER_02]: And this is the thing is like, you know, I'm not here to,
[SPEAKER_02]: name and shame in terms of like telling you guys who the names are because I mean we're a podcast and we're not a best to gave journalists and that's just not what we're
[SPEAKER_02]: what we're about here, but it is a number of people who a number that work at reputable agencies.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, so I guess all we can do in this situation in this role is to kind of let you guys know that it's not industry standard.
[SPEAKER_02]: Clearly, there are people out there that are doing this.
[SPEAKER_02]: But yeah, it's general.
[SPEAKER_02]: Just pointing, I guess.
[SPEAKER_01]: For sure, for sure.
[SPEAKER_01]: And there was, ooh, how should we put this?
[SPEAKER_01]: It was one name that was very unsurprisingly to both Carly and myself.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes, yes, yes, the person who I thought was doing this was the person and so that confirmed my thought But there was lots of there was so many sense of price to me as well So yeah, anyway, so all that to say do your research do your due diligence the industry norm is that two-week window If something feels wrong, you know, obviously Listen to listen to those gut feelings and and we'll leave it at that so
[SPEAKER_02]: Other thing that we asked you guys about was to send us in stuff about blurbs and this was very interesting.
[SPEAKER_02]: I got some messages.
[SPEAKER_02]: I also put a little box and mainstream stories to kind of solicits information from you guys about what do you think about blurb culture.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I also want to talk about the culture of like pre-writing blurbs for people.
[SPEAKER_02]: CC, maybe we can start with that one.
[SPEAKER_02]: So this happens a bit more on the non-fiction side.
[SPEAKER_02]: But basically, the editorial team or the agent or whoever kind of comes up with this, basically is like, oh, here's a list of people who are really well-known or they're experts, so they're very busy, but like their contacts of yours, we could just either start off by saying,
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, are you interested in this?
[SPEAKER_02]: We can, again, you have to kind of finish the language, but, you know, here are three samples that you can tweak or, you know, provide your feedback on if you do want to blur, but you're too busy, you know, we can support you by, you know, offering these three different blur for you to select.
[SPEAKER_02]: And this happens, again, as I said, more in the nonfiction side on the fiction side, I don't think I've seen this happen on the fiction side personally, just because, especially literary authors, they care a lot about their word choice and that kind of literary sense.
[SPEAKER_02]: So if they are going to blurb something, it's usually that they want to put their own word, spin on it.
[SPEAKER_02]: But I don't see if you've heard this happening on the fiction side, because I've mostly heard this just on the nonfiction side.
[SPEAKER_01]: So 99% of the time, nonfiction, and then it's like you're saying, like pre-written blurbs, on the fiction side, I have seen a situation where we were on, it was like a rush job.
[SPEAKER_01]: There were issues with production, and so we only got to blurbs just a few moments before pub a couple months.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't remember when it was, but it was like a rush job.
[SPEAKER_01]: We sent elements that could be highlighted to the authors.
[SPEAKER_01]: It wasn't like a prewritten blur, but it was like you might want to highlight this element of the story or highlight this other thing and it makes it match and it was quite helpful.
[SPEAKER_01]: Everyone that I spoke to really liked it.
[SPEAKER_01]: But again, it was a situation where the relationships were already established.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like you don't want to create
[SPEAKER_01]: the impression that you're putting words in people's mouths, especially in for fiction, for non-fiction, people are super busy, no one has time, and they often want to support and they will read the book and they will stand by their endorsement, it's not like they're pretending, but they're like, I don't know what you want me to highlight, and they also they've been on the other side of this, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: So they know
[SPEAKER_01]: Is there something you want me to highlight because you feel it would help your publicity team more because if the same element of the Angle is highlighted by five different people who are blurbing this book.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's not helpful.
[SPEAKER_01]: You want different angles to be highlighted So I think I think that was my experience so far.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, no, that makes a lot of sense.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, it's it's so tricky.
[SPEAKER_02]: I will say, so there's kind of two different routes to the blurred process.
[SPEAKER_02]: Obviously, there is These are people that you know whether it's friends or colleagues or acquaintances or like you have a direct relationship with them.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then there's the cold, you know, let's shoot our shot alert at reaches, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: And so
[SPEAKER_02]: you kind of have to have a route for both, sometimes the agents reaching us, sometimes it's the editor reaching out is usually based on relationship with the person or the contact or who in that orbit, to somebody know, they wouldn't like send a cold outreach being like, hey, I don't know, fake blank famous author.
[SPEAKER_02]: Here's three of ours, you're giving them, I mean that just obviously that would get you nowhere.
[SPEAKER_02]: right, so I think it's all about reading the room in terms of whether it's a good practice or not, but it's anyway, something that happens.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I just want to run through some of the responses to the Instagram box that I put out on my Instagram about blurculture.
[SPEAKER_02]: So somebody had said, is it taboo to ask authors you would mire for a blur via cold calls?
[SPEAKER_02]: So actually, you know, how should I ask?
[SPEAKER_02]: So this is all done generally like in conversation with your publisher and your agent.
[SPEAKER_02]: So there is like a process where like this is the quote unquote like blurb letter that you send to them kind of, you know, talking about like what you love about their work and how it reminds you of your work or, you know, what you want to highlight about your story
[SPEAKER_02]: and a deadline essentially.
[SPEAKER_02]: And it's just a very nice, everybody knows how busy everybody is.
[SPEAKER_02]: So it's not necessarily a apologetic, but it's like, we all know we're going through this blur process together.
[SPEAKER_02]: And obviously we can talk a little bit about how everybody feels about blur culture and how things have changed.
[SPEAKER_02]: And it's a very, I don't know, kind of common thing that happens.
[SPEAKER_02]: There was a huge movement, not that long ago for certain publishers said that like they weren't going to do blurbs anymore, because blurbs are very useful and like, why are we doing this?
[SPEAKER_02]: Even in some of those cases, I've heard that they still kind of wanted the author to do the blurbs.
[SPEAKER_02]: They just didn't want the publisher to have to do the blurb.
[SPEAKER_02]: It was like taking the pressure off of the publisher to supply blurbs.
[SPEAKER_02]: So it's kind of like a PR move that blurbs as opposed to us actually not needing blurbs anymore if that makes sense.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, the thing is, people are cognizant of the fact that moving copies in this industry is really hard.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so say what you will about blurbs, whether they move copies or not, I don't think we'll ever reach a point where authors will stop trying because everyone's trying to find a way to stand out.
[SPEAKER_01]: In fact, this is something we should also talk about.
[SPEAKER_01]: Sometimes blurbs happen before the book has even sold, before we know if the book will sell.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, agents sometimes submit proposals with blurbs already prewritten on the proposal, of course.
[SPEAKER_01]: And manuscripts with blurbs, it is not super common, but it does happen because again, we are all competing.
[SPEAKER_01]: Again, so many other fish in the sea.
[SPEAKER_01]: And we're trying to find ways to make our work stand out.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, having a really big blurb is doesn't actually guarantee anything.
[SPEAKER_01]: I know of a
[SPEAKER_01]: novel who had a blurb by a really huge novelist who was hot at the time.
[SPEAKER_01]: So he wasn't my project, but I remember the the agent is my friend and it's not a category I represent.
[SPEAKER_01]: So it's YA.
[SPEAKER_01]: And the novel didn't sell despite this huge blurb and the agent was really disappointed, but not surprised.
[SPEAKER_01]: And you know, it helps.
[SPEAKER_01]: It'll get people to read your work faster, most likely.
[SPEAKER_01]: But it's not going to sell the book.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's just not how it works.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, yeah, some more feedback I got was somebody said, I hate blurbs and I think they're super outdated as an author and a reader.
[SPEAKER_02]: Somebody said fiction blurbs like a sucking up to each other, nonfiction blurbs are more of a credibility, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: So I think it's like, okay, what are we trying to do with this blur?
[SPEAKER_02]: It was, is the fiction blur just about people being like, oh, this person knows someone, so this person knows someone, so,
[SPEAKER_02]: But on nonfiction, that's actually a really good point about credibility, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: Because if you're one or read a book by a certain expert, you also want to know that they're probably also seen as an expert by other experts.
[SPEAKER_02]: So that's a really good point.
[SPEAKER_01]: It is at the end of the day, though, on economy on both sides.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like a lot of people say this, they say this to me, they say, I don't want to blur this book.
[SPEAKER_01]: Not because the book is bad.
[SPEAKER_01]: They have no time to read it.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I'm going to, because I need them to blur my book next fall when it's like, it's listening.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's an economy because I was just going to say you want to be seen as a member playing in the field of that world So it's also good for your brand sometimes right if you want to be associated with certain author certain genre because that means your name is Somebody else's book like that's why you know some authors.
[SPEAKER_02]: You'll see their names plastered I was blurs everywhere.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's like all that person blurs everything because they get to plaster their name on well for all these other books in their category Like that's also seen as a huge play
[SPEAKER_02]: Somebody that I know who is a published author said, what if I agreed or read it and don't like it?
[SPEAKER_02]: This does happen sometimes for somebody's like, you know, oh, sure like I'll see if I have time or there's always the vagnes around blurbs too because it's like, okay, how can I make sure I have an out if I want it sometimes it's going through the agent right because then the author can say, okay,
[SPEAKER_02]: maybe I'm under deadline or I do have all these XYZ other things going on.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, my copy edits are due and edit it up.
[SPEAKER_02]: So you can kind of use the agent as that screening process to kind of make sure that the agent is like,
[SPEAKER_02]: doing their due diligence and kind of tiptoeing around the language of like being polite but making sure that they're kind of respectful of everybody's time.
[SPEAKER_02]: But yeah, if you don't like something don't blur, but it's like generally my advice get your agent to get you out of that because it doesn't help at all.
[SPEAKER_02]: I heard of a story where
[SPEAKER_02]: somebody blurb something and then they actually weren't that like crazy about it and then also this author went through like cancel culture and then this person's name is on this person's book and it's like you know now you're connected to this person who didn't love that book anyway and there's you know all of that that type of stuff going down.
[SPEAKER_02]: Another note from somebody in particular this is an agent said what are our thoughts on whose job it should be the author or the publisher?
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean I think we kind of already answered that
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I think should, if the word is should, it should be the publisher, because publishers should do more, but realistically, a lot of it falls on authors, you should always talk to your agent and publisher at the same time, you should never just go out and get blurbs on your own without that conversation, but
[SPEAKER_01]: more and more things fallen authors to do it and the publisher might help agents might also help but yeah like it does depend on who has the context it's actually you know just being really transparent here it's one of the reasons why I love doing this podcast so much like because of the podcast I have expanded my network because I don't come from like I wasn't an English major I didn't work in publishing as an intern like I didn't grow up in publishing and so for me doing this podcast has allowed me to interview authors and connect with people
[SPEAKER_01]: I am now able to secure blurb from my clients that I probably wouldn't have been able to if I hadn't done you know the shit non tells you about writing.
[SPEAKER_01]: So it's there you go.
[SPEAKER_01]: It affects so many layers.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's a very, very good point.
[SPEAKER_02]: Somebody asks, are authors ever paid to do a blurb?
[SPEAKER_02]: And not a fashion yellow.
[SPEAKER_02]: There is no like transactional event.
[SPEAKER_02]: That said, we kind of describe this earlier as an economy, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: So there is this relational element between things where you do this for me, I'll do this for you.
[SPEAKER_02]: So you can see it as like a trading economy, if you want, but I've never seen money exchange.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I don't think you'll have an invoice for it, but it is, I mean, I guess it depends.
[SPEAKER_01]: Do you consider barter to be paying hand?
[SPEAKER_01]: So I've said, oh, yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: There you go.
[SPEAKER_02]: So next part, this is a, so this was probably very well known author.
[SPEAKER_02]: If I said their name, you'd be like, oh, they said, make it go away.
[SPEAKER_02]: It was drinking water.
[SPEAKER_02]: CC almost been over water there if you're not watching.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh my god, it went so embarrassing.
[SPEAKER_01]: It would have been so embarrassing.
[SPEAKER_01]: If I had to come found in CC right now, like that would have been like that would have been like that.
[SPEAKER_02]: No, so yeah, make it go away as what this author said.
[SPEAKER_02]: because it does feel like again if you're a bookie your author it's like every year it's like okay who didn't we tap on this one yeah we tap them two books ago like as a bookie your author how important is it to get a blur every time it is important because it is a new product and a new project that you need to launch so yeah for bookie your authors it can be a lot somebody said what matters more who blurbs it or what they say
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, who, because the what is always positive, no one prints a bad blurb, you know?
[SPEAKER_01]: So, so who?
[SPEAKER_01]: I suppose the only exception to this, in my opinion, is if the what is a comp.
[SPEAKER_01]: So for example, if the blurb reads, this is for fans of lessons in chemistry,
[SPEAKER_01]: In that case, the what might be more influential in persuasive than the who, because you're referencing another book.
[SPEAKER_02]: But they need to be in cultural alignment, like all of that has to be in conversation with each other.
[SPEAKER_01]: The comp and the book, yes, but the who is saying it, people will gloss over it with their eyes, I think.
[SPEAKER_02]: But that person still has to be relevant.
[SPEAKER_01]: Again relevant yes, but not huge.
[SPEAKER_01]: Do you know what I'm saying?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah, relevant like I agree.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, relevant but not huge because Usually the who matters so much more and except for this one trick.
[SPEAKER_01]: So publishers aren't allowed to say to put names of other books on the cover of their book.
[SPEAKER_01]: They're not allowed to say this is for fans of lessons in chemistry, but they are allowed to print blurbs that say that's.
[SPEAKER_01]: So if you get other people to suggest this is for fans of insert huge book here.
[SPEAKER_01]: that is actually a really smart publicity trick to get around that and to get people to because I mean everyone read that book right so they'll be like oh listen chemistry maybe I will take a look at this.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, the only other, like, the only way to best that would be for the author, Bonnie of lessons in history to then give you the work.
[SPEAKER_02]: Because then you get her name in the book and the book, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: So it's like, yeah, that's one kind of why I'm saying it's like, it's an economy.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's all in conversation with each other.
[SPEAKER_01]: You're right.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's that balance between, like, what are they saying?
[SPEAKER_02]: And how long is the blurb?
[SPEAKER_02]: And what do you do from it?
[SPEAKER_02]: And how are you using it as a marketing tool?
[SPEAKER_01]: And also, you guys, who at the end of the day wins?
[SPEAKER_01]: Because if it is Bonnie doing it, then it's Bonnie.
[SPEAKER_01]: She's saying it's for fans of her novel.
[SPEAKER_01]: She wrote it so.
[SPEAKER_02]: Exactly.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's why the who there's also a bunch of comments that was like, you know, not needed for me to read it.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's sort of things.
[SPEAKER_02]: So some people feel like, it doesn't matter to them.
[SPEAKER_02]: But it matters to booksellers, it matters to the sales staff.
[SPEAKER_02]: And even if people say it doesn't matter, you need at least one on the Amazon page, you know, like on the e-tail or the retail page.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's honestly, can I say something?
[SPEAKER_01]: There's a lot of stuff about publishing that's super unfair and exhausting entire sum to the authors.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is one of them, but of the list, it's actually quite benign.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, so you know what I'm saying.
[SPEAKER_01]: The Arabs are annoying guys, we got it, but like, just, you need them.
[SPEAKER_01]: You need them, let's learn to do it, let's get over it.
[SPEAKER_02]: There just isn't a shortcut to this type of relationship building in the type of like economic outcomes.
[SPEAKER_02]: You see, did you just fill your water?
[SPEAKER_02]: I had a stump, and then I was like, that look like your water spilling.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm on a night nothing happened here.
[SPEAKER_01]: Nothing happened here.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's all good.
[SPEAKER_01]: Do you need to stop?
[SPEAKER_01]: No, it's all, it's actually all good because I didn't actually spill it.
[SPEAKER_01]: I just almost spilled it.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I almost dropped my computer at the same time.
[SPEAKER_01]: So it's fun, guys.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's shooting the shit with Clutz C.C.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes, okay.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I was mid thought, but I think everybody gets the gist which is that
[SPEAKER_02]: No distractions will get away from, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh,
[SPEAKER_02]: moving on from this.
[SPEAKER_02]: So we wanted to talk very briefly because, you know, this is not probably the place to go on a super deep dive on this, but we didn't want to address the anthropic settlement, which is basically, you know, the AI companies versus authors, figuring out what's going to happen in terms of compensation for all of the works that were centrally fed into these machines.
[SPEAKER_02]: So you might be familiar with it.
[SPEAKER_02]: You might not what we are going to be referencing is largely from two different sources if you want to go check this out on your own.
[SPEAKER_02]: One of them is publishers, lunch, who every time there's news on this, they're publishing it in their daily newsletter.
[SPEAKER_02]: And also Jane Friedman's newsletter, is it called the bottom line now?
[SPEAKER_02]: CC's now it's called bottom line.
[SPEAKER_01]: We love the bottom line.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, so she had, we're just opening it just as we were coming online today, but the bottom line from September 10th,
[SPEAKER_02]: If you want to check that out, it has a great summary as well.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I know I've referenced her reporting on this before.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, you know, CC, do you want to give a quick overview of where we're at with this?
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, sure, like, so if you guys aren't familiar,
[SPEAKER_01]: anthropic is an AI company, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: And they were using books to feed their LLMs.
[SPEAKER_01]: There will, is it a large language model?
[SPEAKER_01]: I think that's what LLMs does for.
[SPEAKER_01]: And authors got together and said, hey, you can't do that.
[SPEAKER_01]: And essentially what has come out of this are understanding based on things we've read is that the courts have ruled that using books to train LLMs is totally valid.
[SPEAKER_01]: Under the fair use doctrine, that means that the company in Thropic in this case is taking the books and turning into something else and therefore it is fair use and that's totally fine.
[SPEAKER_01]: which is obviously not what authors want to hear.
[SPEAKER_01]: Not what I want to hear.
[SPEAKER_01]: However, a lot of these books were fed into their LLMs.
[SPEAKER_01]: A lot of these books had been pirated.
[SPEAKER_01]: They had been stolen, essentially, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: Like they were not acquired legally.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so courts have ruled that using Pirate and Books for stolen books for everyone to call it is not legal because copyright guys copyright matters so that's also unsurprising to me and yes a win but and we'll get to that at the end.
[SPEAKER_01]: Mother I think it's actually a winner not but yes it's a win that you know copyright is being upheld and so there's been a settlement and Thropic has settled the copyright infringement lawsuit to brought by this class of authors
[SPEAKER_01]: which sounds like a lot, but remember there's lots of people, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: There's lots of people who are going to get this money.
[SPEAKER_01]: And if approved by the courts, this will be split among all the rights holders.
[SPEAKER_01]: However, the settlement has not been approved by the courts yet.
[SPEAKER_01]: Last update I read had been that proposed settlement was on hold or paused or postponed or whatever the term was, but not denied.
[SPEAKER_01]: The judge had a few concerns.
[SPEAKER_01]: we're gonna wait to see what happens.
[SPEAKER_02]: Think some of the concerns we're gonna have complicated it is.
[SPEAKER_02]: And there's a lot of pushback because the judge is like, well, I need all of these names and all this information.
[SPEAKER_02]: And however, we're gonna disseminate this money to all of these authors.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then the writers side of things.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's like, okay, this is a lot of names to organize.
[SPEAKER_02]: This is very complicated.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so the judge, I believe set a date in the fall where they want all this information.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so I think what the author side is now, worried about is,
[SPEAKER_02]: What if we don't get the judge all of this stuff by this date or he's not happy with how it's organized and then all of a sudden are they not going to agree to this so there's kind of like some extra hurdles and hoops to jump through here at this point and that was kind of what I understood.
[SPEAKER_01]: We never want judges to say they're disappointed and I believe this judge did say that that was my understanding, but at the same time like.
[SPEAKER_01]: if it is because details weren't given and those details are needed to actually ensure that the remedy is going to be effective then it could be a good thing.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is just really like time for everyone listening.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's really complex.
[SPEAKER_01]: I know Andrea Bart who's you know often when people cite the case, it's Bart's the anthropic and I know we all know Andrea Bart's really well and I remember
[SPEAKER_01]: grabbing dinner with her and my client Laura Loughler in New York months ago and her telling me that she was going to California because of this case.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I just, you know, to everyone who's involved, like, thank you for your bravery.
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you for doing this.
[SPEAKER_01]: I, I think it's really important that you're fighting the good fight.
[SPEAKER_01]: And, you know, we're really thankful.
[SPEAKER_01]: I will say everyone is celebrating this so much.
[SPEAKER_01]: and I'm glad people are celebrating and I'm so happy.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think it's important to understand though that this does not mean that anyone is saying that books can't be fed into large language models.
[SPEAKER_01]: That is not what's happening.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like AI can use books, at least, you know, as and
[SPEAKER_02]: This is just giving anthropic a clean bill of health, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: They're using this to kind of like wash themselves of the situation, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: So if all of this, so they pay their 1.5 billion, they're, you know, their market valuation is huge.
[SPEAKER_02]: They're making a big deal about like this is so much money.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's actually not that much money to them.
[SPEAKER_02]: But anyway, this is not a market podcast.
[SPEAKER_02]: This is a box podcast.
[SPEAKER_02]: So right so there this is a lot of money to authors divided amongst a lot of people and then this will give anthropic a clean bill of health so that they can go on and do whatever they want.
[SPEAKER_02]: So it is like the resolution here is actually really important.
[SPEAKER_02]: So we kind of got to stick with this to the end and this is just one company.
[SPEAKER_02]: There are all these other companies who have gone through this as well.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah exactly and there's I think
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, when you're watching a show and it's like to be continued, like I just think there's going to be a lot in the to be continued.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like this is even as we were about to record this, we got an email from from Jane Friedman, like we we were both subscribers to the bottom line curly in myself and there's an update on that too.
[SPEAKER_01]: And we haven't read that yet.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I guess my point is there's just a lot happening and I am all for celebrating.
[SPEAKER_01]: Don't get me wrong.
[SPEAKER_01]: I just think we should be super clear on the fact that.
[SPEAKER_01]: AI is still going to use books.
[SPEAKER_01]: They're just going to and they're already in there.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like we can't put this back in the box that you can't go back in the bottle.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so we're not going to be doing updates every week on this because it is so ongoing.
[SPEAKER_02]: Obviously, if there's something like climate as news, we will.
[SPEAKER_02]: But we encourage everybody to look at where they're getting their knowledge from, subscribe to newsletters and pay attention to news that is
[SPEAKER_02]: is balanced and hopefully they can get all the information that they need because we are following it very closely over here as well.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: For sure.
[SPEAKER_02]: All right.
[SPEAKER_02]: So next thing on our list to talk about was kind of this like age-old question, what is selling?
[SPEAKER_02]: What is not selling?
[SPEAKER_02]: Why are things hard to sell, et cetera, et cetera?
[SPEAKER_02]: So somebody had asked me after a recent real or post that I had made about like you're talking about what is or isn't selling but like what is actually moving
[SPEAKER_02]: And I mean, I have a very simple answer to this, which is, you know, you guys can check out the bestseller list every week.
[SPEAKER_02]: If you want to be a student of this, go to the bestseller list right every week, whether it's USA today, New York Times, indie stores also have their own bestseller lists, just go see what is selling because there's no magic.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think what is selling like system behind the scenes that you mean, you might want to call that book scan, but book scan is just a reflection of what is happening on the best seller list.
[SPEAKER_02]: So just be a student of the industry.
[SPEAKER_02]: If you want to know what's selling, that's obviously the quick answer.
[SPEAKER_02]: There are lots of things that are selling like commercial fiction.
[SPEAKER_02]: Anytime there's like a lead title, my body spirit is in a self-help, authors who have their own sales, funnels on the nonfiction side to see their own successes.
[SPEAKER_02]: There's a lot that is doing really well.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I think writers just want to other than Romano to see what's working.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's like there's a lot of things that's working.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, last week we talked about how the tumulti billion dollar business there are pockets of the industry that can be successful in lots of different ways.
[SPEAKER_02]: So that's just my preamble to the next link we're going to talk about.
[SPEAKER_02]: Do you see, do you have any more thoughts before we move on to the link?
[SPEAKER_01]: Just that if you are a writer at the querying stage, what selling is super important to know, absolutely be a student.
[SPEAKER_01]: Just remember that that
[SPEAKER_01]: that is different from what selling in terms of book deals, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: By the time the book comes out, all that.
[SPEAKER_01]: So there's just a lot of moving parts.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like if you expect simple answers from publishing, you're gonna be a miserable human being.
[SPEAKER_01]: Just an answer.
[SPEAKER_02]: That is very true.
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay, this was an article I came across, which was fantastic.
[SPEAKER_02]: And this was absolutely great.
[SPEAKER_01]: So good.
[SPEAKER_01]: So good, Carly, thank you for sharing this.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is so good.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh yeah, I'm excited to talk about it.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's a really, I think I feel like we might have talked about this upstack before, but it is Alia Hannah Habib's Substack.
[SPEAKER_02]: And it is called Delivery and Acceptance.
[SPEAKER_02]: So if you want to look it up, obviously we'll link to it as well.
[SPEAKER_02]: But Delivery and Acceptance.
[SPEAKER_02]: And this is from a,
[SPEAKER_02]: nonfiction agent and agent that mostly focuses on fiction.
[SPEAKER_02]: She was a great substack.
[SPEAKER_02]: So what she called the kind of article we're talking about today is tough categories.
[SPEAKER_02]: Five top book editors are publishing memoir and essay collections.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I can't like I can't emphasize enough how everybody needs to read this in full.
[SPEAKER_02]: Whenever we're CC and I kind of talk about what we're going to talk about on the show, we have a Google doc and so I like pumped a bunch of quotes in here that I want to talk about.
[SPEAKER_02]: but I can't emphasize enough how much I think everybody should go read it.
[SPEAKER_02]: So delivering acceptance, the article is from September 3rd of this year, just last week.
[SPEAKER_02]: Tough categories, five top book editors are publishing memoir and essay collectors, because I think one of the best things about this article is how it touches on so many overarching themes of our show and what CC and I talk about.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I'm just, I'm excited to get into it.
[SPEAKER_02]: Do you want to talk about some things that stood up to you or do you want to go through some of the quotes I told you?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I think we can go through the quotes.
[SPEAKER_01]: You have some really, I added one, one, two, because I really liked it.
[SPEAKER_01]: So we can just go through the act.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think the premise, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: Like the premise is Alia got together with editor-sheet trusts and was like, let's talk.
[SPEAKER_01]: Let's talk about this.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I thought that was a really cool way to frame discussion.
[SPEAKER_02]: So we have one, two, three, four, five, five different editors all at big five publishing houses, essentially most of them, as I said, working in that kind of narrative nonfiction memoir space, but some of them do platform driven nonfiction as well.
[SPEAKER_02]: So,
[SPEAKER_02]: One of the things that I thought was great was this quote off the top from Hillary Redmond who's an editor and talking about voice because this is something everybody asks about or if it's like they get a pass, it'll be passed because they didn't connect with the voice or what does voice mean, how do you develop voice and that this was a great quote from Hillary.
[SPEAKER_02]: So she said, in yet, voice is so important.
[SPEAKER_02]: Maybe it's better to break down what we or at least I mean by voice.
[SPEAKER_02]: When I read something, really any kind of nonfiction, I come away with an indelible sense of having had a frank personal encounter with someone.
[SPEAKER_02]: And that's what I think of as voice.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's not about being showy.
[SPEAKER_02]: A writer's voice should leave a mark just like an honest conversation that's.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: I loved that, I loved that, and voices one of those things where I know it when I see it.
[SPEAKER_01]: We can reverse engineer it, a lot, there can be good definitions to it.
[SPEAKER_01]: I thought it was a really good job of explaining it, but at the same time, like, you know it when you see it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Or when you hear it, because I'm hearing it in my head when I'm reading, so yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, yeah, I loved love that.
[SPEAKER_02]: So if anybody needs, what is voice?
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, let's put it up on your coalition board and that was great.
[SPEAKER_01]: That being said, though, aside from voice.
[SPEAKER_01]: And this is a quote I loved.
[SPEAKER_01]: Voice aside and memoir, I'm either looking for a writer who has experience, something extraordinary, and your death experience, a solo hike, a long specific crest trail, a psychotic episode, being kept out of school in Idaho.
[SPEAKER_01]: and cannot only recount these experiences in vivid detail, but make them recognizable to the rest of us.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think that she touched on something that I think is so important to highlight, which is
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, something incredible probably has to have happened to you for you to be able to write a story.
[SPEAKER_01]: My incredible has made definitions.
[SPEAKER_01]: It could be quiet and credible.
[SPEAKER_01]: It could be big and credible.
[SPEAKER_01]: But just as importantly, you need to be able to tell that story.
[SPEAKER_01]: A lot of people, everyone probably has a story inside of them.
[SPEAKER_01]: Not everyone is a storyteller, though.
[SPEAKER_01]: They are different things.
[SPEAKER_01]: The fact that you have lived an interesting life, the fact that interesting things have happened to you, the fact that you have grown as a person, the fact that you have faced adversity, these are all so cool and so wonderful.
[SPEAKER_01]: But can you frame that?
[SPEAKER_01]: in a narrative, can you frame that in a tale that will keep people absolutely riveted?
[SPEAKER_01]: And yes, that includes the details, like Hillary highlighted, but it also includes an emotional investment, which I think is what she's getting at when she says and make it recognizable to the rest of us.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, I have not had the experience of Tara Westover, right, who were educated.
[SPEAKER_01]: but I did absolutely relate to her experiences in the book because the emotions were framed in a way that were so juicy and compelling and turned to the personal inter-universal.
[SPEAKER_01]: I could relate to family dynamics even though my family is completely different.
[SPEAKER_01]: I could relate to feeling confusion and anger and envy, even though, again, I have not felt those emotions about the things she has felt.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that is so powerful and so important when you're writing a story, people will often think, this cool thing happened to me.
[SPEAKER_01]: So all I have to do is sit and put words on a page, no.
[SPEAKER_01]: Those words need to be a story.
[SPEAKER_01]: And the story requires processing yourself from the outside, and that's really hard to do.
[SPEAKER_02]: I just want to pinpoint that a little bit so you said everyone has a story not everyone is a story of the trailer because the thing is every life is a story, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes, every life has these things and these events in them that make them feel larger than life sort of speak, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: But there's a difference between experiencing a life and writing a book and telling a story.
[SPEAKER_02]: And that's where I think CC and I probably both had this experience where we go to a writer's conference, and we meet all these people and everyone's like, this is my like story.
[SPEAKER_02]: This is my like, there's just coming at us.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, this is my story.
[SPEAKER_02]: And yes, your life is a story.
[SPEAKER_02]: You have had something happen to you that feels like a story that feels like a movie, that feels cinematic.
[SPEAKER_02]: And that's because it's your life and there's a difference between taking that cinematic experience and turning it into a book.
[SPEAKER_02]: And that is where kind of the experiential part turns into a writer.
[SPEAKER_02]: And that's kind of the bridge that not everybody can cross.
[SPEAKER_02]: And that's a lot of what this article is about.
[SPEAKER_02]: So the next quote was, how do editors know something is good?
[SPEAKER_02]: And this is something that CC and I have also talked about on the show.
[SPEAKER_02]: So this is a recurring theme about whether it's an editor, whether it's an agent,
[SPEAKER_02]: How do we as professionals know?
[SPEAKER_02]: And it's a very professional answer.
[SPEAKER_02]: Kate Napolitano says, this is going to sound a little wild, but the first indicator that I found something truly compelling or unique is that I feel it in my body.
[SPEAKER_02]: That sort of electric shock through the veins buzz that hits when I become captivated by reddish prose is an invaluable barometer for me.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's how I know I found something fresh, vibrant, and attention-grabbing.
[SPEAKER_02]: I completely agree.
[SPEAKER_02]: There is like a sizzling in the veins that is, that is our professional response.
[SPEAKER_02]: That is our professional brometer.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a hundred percent true.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's in the body.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's the feeling of curiosity hitting your body or being like, oh my God.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is so good.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes, so that's very, very important.
[SPEAKER_02]: Our professional, we'll call it our professional brometer, which I think is very important.
[SPEAKER_02]: CCD1 read the next one.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, so this is about getting people to buy and have more.
[SPEAKER_01]: A really funny thing that the author of this lipstick says is that she's convinced there are more people trying to write in the memoir genre than there are readers of the memoir genre.
[SPEAKER_01]: Anyway, that's not the quote, but I thought that was really funny.
[SPEAKER_01]: So this is from Maria Goldberg.
[SPEAKER_01]: We're all human beings and we all have stories to tell.
[SPEAKER_01]: whether they're tragic or inspiring or humorous, but this isn't the moth, and we publishers are not actually in the business of storytelling.
[SPEAKER_01]: We're in the business of trying to convince people they should spend 30 of their hard-earned dollars on your book, while also reordering their supply of diapers on Amazon.
[SPEAKER_01]: That was fair, and that one hit hard.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, like we are not in the business of storytelling.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like part of me wants to go, yes, we are, and yet she is right.
[SPEAKER_01]: We are, we are all in the business.
[SPEAKER_01]: of trying to get people to spend $30 or how many dollars the book will cost.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: She's right.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's the transaction, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: Like we are in the sales business.
[SPEAKER_02]: I always thought of myself as a sales person and not everybody is comfortable with thinking themselves as a sales person.
[SPEAKER_02]: But I know that I am a sales job.
[SPEAKER_02]: I know that in my blood and it is in the arts and creative industry and I'm so glad I get to work in such a creative industry.
[SPEAKER_02]: But I feel like
[SPEAKER_02]: I am definitely in a sales role.
[SPEAKER_02]: So anyway, I thought that was great.
[SPEAKER_02]: And this has come from an editor, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: So yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: you know agents can obviously are often thought of as like the business people for editors are also business people because they have to make decisions for their own list and their own editorial budget.
[SPEAKER_02]: Some of these people in this sub-stack are editorial directors and you know if they have to oversee budgets and people and things like that.
[SPEAKER_02]: So there's a lot to unpack there, right, but it's you know how can we distract people enough, entertain them enough for those $30.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, that's kind of the age old question here.
[SPEAKER_02]: Alright, the next one is another quote about why this business is tough.
[SPEAKER_02]: There are so many great nuggets in this article, guys.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, obviously, you need to go read the whole thing yourself.
[SPEAKER_02]: But, Captain Paul Tannos said, we're living in an era of constant stimulation and cultural consumption.
[SPEAKER_02]: If anything, I think that our industry as a whole is finding it increasingly challenging to captivate readers.
[SPEAKER_02]: And that's not just limited to memoir.
[SPEAKER_02]: There are real existential threats to the culture of reading to our attention spans to our emotional and physical safety.
[SPEAKER_02]: But I do think at this moment, there's legitimate desire for escapism.
[SPEAKER_02]: which is why we're seeing a profound gap in sales between fiction and non-fiction.
[SPEAKER_02]: Non-fiction and memoir, particular, may not feel like a portal into a different universe for readers, which is why I think it's critical for authors to one right with live-inness and authenticity into to think about what motivates their potential readership.
[SPEAKER_02]: Get curious about who your potential readers are.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think that she touched on something that we've talked about before, which is reading requires all of your attention span.
[SPEAKER_01]: All of your attention span, if you're sitting down and digesting a book with your eyes, you are doing nothing else at the same time.
[SPEAKER_01]: Someone's going to go, I listen to music too, you're weirdo.
[SPEAKER_01]: But seriously, most people are only doing that.
[SPEAKER_02]: And yes, the audio books, while you are driving or you're cleaning, it's like a mindless thing.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you're enjoying them with your ears, still reading, you are able to do wrote things, like do the dishes or walk or whatever, but it's still not the cognitive, like the cognitive power that we are demanding of readers, that we have always demanded of readers.
[SPEAKER_01]: And as a society, we have less of that.
[SPEAKER_01]: We have less attention.
[SPEAKER_01]: We're not as present as we once was as a species.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so it's, this is hard.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is definitely part of the challenge.
[SPEAKER_01]: I thought it was a
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I know I think it's a great quote.
[SPEAKER_02]: There's just, there's so much going on in terms of our leisure time, who has leisure, the privilege of leisure, you know, there's a lot we can unpack there.
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay, and I think we're getting, yeah, a couple of few more quotes.
[SPEAKER_02]: One of this I thought was really great.
[SPEAKER_02]: And we talked about this all the time as a theme on the show, which is like, do you write for the market?
[SPEAKER_02]: Do you not, what does it mean to write within a fandom or what happens in these fandoms like Romanticie or the specific kind of niche, not necessarily niche,
[SPEAKER_02]: rabbit holes I guess that we go down in terms of our interests.
[SPEAKER_02]: This was a quote from Maria Goldberg as well.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'd also warn against making them a stake of thinking that if you choose to write about something that's popular and existing fandom will become a built-in audience for your book and that's not true.
[SPEAKER_02]: Think about how you consume your favorite media.
[SPEAKER_02]: At this point I've seen every episode of Survivor there is.
[SPEAKER_02]: I've listened to too many podcast recap.
[SPEAKER_02]: I've watched the YouTube videos, but
[SPEAKER_02]: not once have I ever considered buying a book that's about survivor and why would I?
[SPEAKER_02]: What would I get from it if you've read an essay collection about survivor?
[SPEAKER_02]: It needs to tell me something about survivor that I don't already know and that something needs to be significant enough that I will be willing to pay for it.
[SPEAKER_02]: That to me is huge.
[SPEAKER_02]: I talked about that recently on the show of how are we going to pay for something?
[SPEAKER_02]: Where if we get so much of it for free, I mean the passing free loosely there, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: But if you get streams of it in other medium, why are we going to pay for something?
[SPEAKER_01]: So you see you go ahead.
[SPEAKER_01]: Especially when the streams and other media don't require as much cognitive power.
[SPEAKER_01]: You are paying dollars.
[SPEAKER_01]: You're paying those thirty dollars and you're required to use more of your brain.
[SPEAKER_01]: You're brain that's tired.
[SPEAKER_01]: You're brain that you know went to school all day went to work all day had to deal with chores when you got a home.
[SPEAKER_01]: We know issues with whatever's happening in your family and then you like that's hard.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like that's really hard.
[SPEAKER_01]: I people often say, oh, this this is about a really great show So everyone who watched the show will buy the book.
[SPEAKER_01]: No and you know that's not true because You don't buy those books, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: Like you know There's a whole bunch right?
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, flip it on yourself flip it on yourself Just like it on you have a hobby doesn't mean that you consume everything in that space right?
[SPEAKER_02]: You're also a discerning consumer All right, do you see what do we have next?
[SPEAKER_01]: So there's a really great answer about what platform means in non-fiction.
[SPEAKER_01]: Kate Napolitano was saying, it would be destined, Jenny was from me to say that platform doesn't matter, especially in this era where traditional media isn't necessarily breaking through the way we have in the past.
[SPEAKER_01]: We no longer live in a model culture, so I would encourage writers to think about how they can be most effective, the most effective, hype man, woman person for their work, and to then be going experts to whatever niche of readers they can cure it.
[SPEAKER_01]: She does go on to say that, look, if you're going to start a newsletter or a podcast or whatever it is, like there's no exact science, but your product needs to be discovered.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right?
[SPEAKER_01]: So how are you going to do this?
[SPEAKER_01]: How are you going to discover and build a community of people that I thought that was really interesting?
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, yeah, I thought that was great.
[SPEAKER_02]: I thought that last slide about like how will you as an author become an asset to that process of discovery?
[SPEAKER_02]: Because when we think about like who has platform and who doesn't and how big is it?
[SPEAKER_02]: It's more like how are you an asset in that process of discovery?
[SPEAKER_02]: What can you bring to the table to help facilitate that discovery ability?
[SPEAKER_02]: And I think that's that's super important.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that can be really crushing to a lot of authors.
[SPEAKER_01]: I have heard from wonderful authors.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's this one, this one author who won, man, won.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I was at a conference and he was asking me, like, is it normal for my publisher to expect me to have media connections?
[SPEAKER_01]: Is it normal for my publisher to expect me?
[SPEAKER_01]: And he was asking for things that were totally normal.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I was like, yes, all these things are normal.
[SPEAKER_01]: Your publisher will expect you to have this.
[SPEAKER_01]: So he turns to me and he says, CC, can I ask?
[SPEAKER_01]: Like his voice was so sweet, so kind.
[SPEAKER_01]: Do they do then?
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, he was like, so, I'm writing the book.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm promoting it, but like, what do they do?
[SPEAKER_01]: And again, remember, this is the, this is how to think of non-fiction.
[SPEAKER_01]: No one becomes an expert because they write a book.
[SPEAKER_01]: They write a book because they're an expert.
[SPEAKER_01]: You have to bring the audience.
[SPEAKER_01]: You have to bring the readers.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not saying the publisher won't also add to that.
[SPEAKER_01]: And they should and many quick publishers do, but you need to be to Kate's point and asset.
[SPEAKER_01]: an asset in the process of discovery.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's really great.
[SPEAKER_01]: Are we going to wrap up by saying the harshest thing you can say to any Memorist?
[SPEAKER_01]: We are.
[SPEAKER_01]: We're going to be so many today.
[SPEAKER_01]: So me.
[SPEAKER_02]: This was another great quote and Ricky is an editor that I've sold a book to and she's fantastic editor.
[SPEAKER_02]: So she says the harshest and truest thing you can say to Memorist.
[SPEAKER_02]: Ricky at Clark says,
[SPEAKER_02]: Most writers aren't creating work that's as distinctive as they think it is.
[SPEAKER_02]: Sorry, so to stand out, I don't expect the theme or subjects to be revelatory, but I do expect the writers approach to be.
[SPEAKER_02]: And that's that's it.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's, this is why this is so harsh.
[SPEAKER_01]: Every day we get queries that say, this is the memoir of my parents divorce and how it messed with me.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is the memoir of how I discovered that
[SPEAKER_01]: I had cancer and I had to battle through it.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is the memoir of, and I, again, I feel my inner child, how I did this not bike ride.
[SPEAKER_01]: And as a human, awesome, all the applause, truly all the applause, so proud of you.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's hard work.
[SPEAKER_01]: Healing from any of these things, like all the things that we get pitched all the time, it's so impressive, so cool.
[SPEAKER_01]: No one's curious about that.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's not unique.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not as distinctive.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm so sorry.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't think people can't get curious about it.
[SPEAKER_01]: People can, but you have to, again, going back to the previous quote, formatted in package it in a way that is curiosity inducing.
[SPEAKER_01]: So don't expect the line.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is a memoir about and then insert something that's super common here to stand out because it won't.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, Grinch hat.
[SPEAKER_01]: I have to get my Grinch hat.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know what, we're bringing, we're bringing the realism.
[SPEAKER_02]: There's the grand chat.
[SPEAKER_02]: There it is.
[SPEAKER_01]: I got one.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I got one.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's good.
[SPEAKER_02]: If you guys aren't watching on YouTube, it's a fuzzy bucket hat with like the grinches yellow eyes and distinctive eyebrows.
[SPEAKER_01]: It will be really useful in winter because I will be cold.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then I'll like, right now it's going to be grumpy all the time.
[SPEAKER_01]: No, no grumpy.
[SPEAKER_01]: Just, you know, I'll get to be warm.
[SPEAKER_01]: My ears will get to be warm.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, I think one of the things I'm enjoying also about doing this version of our show is that all of the themes that keep coming back through the industry, you know, through all the things we talk about through the articles through everyone's experiences, there's just all these recurring themes, but I think.
[SPEAKER_02]: One of the themes today was really just about how it's the writer that makes the book, you know, it's not the story necessarily it's the writer that makes the book and so that's why it's so so weren't Work on your craft work on your story.
[SPEAKER_02]: This is all you and again, this is all the lady that's never written a book so It's on you, it's on you, I can sell your book is on you to write it
[SPEAKER_01]: It's all on you and I hope if you're listening in your writer that this feels empowering to you.
[SPEAKER_01]: It might also feel overwhelming and scary, and that's okay too.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I hope it ultimately feels empowering because it means that you hold the power.
[SPEAKER_01]: It means that you get to work really hard, work on yourself, invest in your craft, invest in your connections, and hopefully live the dream, the dream of walking into a bookstore and seeing your book there, hopefully in the best seller table.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm hoping that.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, we're definitely hoping that for you.
[SPEAKER_02]: Thank you guys for hanging out and we'll see you next time.
[SPEAKER_00]: CC Lira is a literary agent at Wendy Sherman Associates.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you'd like to query CC, please refer to the submission guidelines at www.wshomen.com.
[SPEAKER_00]: Carly Waters is a literary agent at PS Literary Agency, but a work on this podcast is not affiliated with the agency and the views expressed by Carly on this podcast are solely that of her as a podcast co-host and do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, policies, or position of PS Literary Agency.