[SPEAKER_00]: and welcome to our show.
[SPEAKER_00]: The shit no one tells you about writing.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm best selling author Bianca Marie, and I'm joined by C.C.
[SPEAKER_00]: Lira of Wendy Sherman Associates and Carly Waters of PS Literary.
[SPEAKER_01]: Hi, everybody.
[SPEAKER_01]: Welcome to another episode of Shooting The Shirt.
[SPEAKER_01]: We are so glad to have you.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think it's been like approximately six months since we've been doing this.
[SPEAKER_01]: We have not been keeping track of this, mostly because we are not very organized.
[SPEAKER_01]: So we are having a lot of fun with this, but we have a Google Doc.
[SPEAKER_01]: Let's just say, we have a Google Doc that we update, we share some notes.
[SPEAKER_01]: We know approximately what we're going to talk about.
[SPEAKER_01]: We add in some questions from you guys.
[SPEAKER_01]: We add in the sub-stacks.
[SPEAKER_01]: And yeah, that's about as organized as we are.
[SPEAKER_04]: organization that does exist is largely partly I need to give a shout out to you currently because it's I feel like no one's going to be shocked by the fact that the segment in which it's just currently in me and Bianca isn't here is the least organized segment because we don't have General Z.
[SPEAKER_04]: Exactly keeping us in line and yeah I feel like also that's that's part of the nature of the show.
[SPEAKER_04]: It's not a structure show it's a show where we shoot the shit hence hence the
[SPEAKER_01]: We've been thinking about getting some guests to join us, but again, we aren't that organized, but we were thinking about Shawn, who we mentioned, Shawn Delone, who we've read on this podcast, I think a couple times, definitely last week, at least Stein, who's another publishing expert and a great critical thinker of our business.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, you know, when we get organized, maybe we will start to have some guests, but you just get me and CC again this week.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, and we want to hear from you.
[SPEAKER_04]: We want to know.
[SPEAKER_04]: Do you guys want us to add guests to to the segment occasionally or you like no no guests for now keep the small talk just between the two of you we want your opinion.
[SPEAKER_04]: So if you're watching this on YouTube comment because we want to know and if you're listening to this and let us know in our
[SPEAKER_04]: Where should people let us know in Instagram, right?
[SPEAKER_04]: Like, yeah, whatever I was saying for this week, comment.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, exactly.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, on Instagram, as you guys know, CC and I have DMs that are open, but we get a lot of DMs, so we can't always reply to them, but we do try to look at them all, but these don't send them to the podcast, the podcast Instagram specifically, because we don't have anybody that's able to monitor those DMs specifically.
[SPEAKER_01]: So if you're gonna DM us, choose our personal accounts,
[SPEAKER_01]: And yeah, I also will say, you know, I made a story about this.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know if you've ever done this CC, but like I made a story and I deleted it.
[SPEAKER_01]: I usually don't delete stories, but I was like, what is this doing?
[SPEAKER_01]: What is this serving?
[SPEAKER_01]: So I made a story about how I just not able to respond to all the DMs that I get.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I didn't know I could delete it, I just I felt a little grumpy, the tone of it wasn't the tone that I kind of wanted to hit because I am thrilled that I get to kind of engage with such a wonderful community, but I don't think of myself as an influencer, I kind of think of myself as a thought leader and so anyway, I've kind of stumbled into this content creation as you guys know from
[SPEAKER_01]: blogging to social media, to podcasting, and I love having a literary community, but sometimes I feel like back to the corner of being a quote unquote influencer sometimes, and I'm like, I don't know, I want to reply to everybody, and I can't, and I have a day job, but you guys know which is why you follow me, because I have to do my day job, so anyway, I had a kind of a grumpy post about, I'm sorry, I can't reply to everybody's DMs, and the Adi Adi Adi Adi Adi Adi, so anyway, give us some grace, maybe I'm just being hard of myself.
[SPEAKER_01]: But wait, are people complaining that you're not responding?
[SPEAKER_01]: Are you just projecting that there?
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm projecting.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm a hundred percent projecting.
[SPEAKER_04]: You're projecting.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_04]: Nobody can play.
[SPEAKER_04]: I honestly feel like the majority of our community gets said, you know?
[SPEAKER_01]: I know.
[SPEAKER_04]: And this is always going to be like a couple of people who won't get it.
[SPEAKER_04]: But...
[SPEAKER_04]: Let's just see the exception.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, people don't know.
[SPEAKER_04]: We're busy.
[SPEAKER_04]: I think that's okay.
[SPEAKER_04]: So I would like to begin by issuing a retraction and much-needed retraction.
[SPEAKER_04]: A male couple moment.
[SPEAKER_04]: I mentioned on the pod, I believe it was last week, but I don't know.
[SPEAKER_04]: I might be getting this wrong, that the title to Laura Lefler's tell them you lied was suggested by yours truly.
[SPEAKER_04]: By myself, I have this memory.
[SPEAKER_04]: I have this memory.
[SPEAKER_04]: This is a scary part, okay?
[SPEAKER_04]: This memory exists.
[SPEAKER_04]: where I was reading Laura's manuscript, a character said the sentence, tell them you lied, I then highlighted that sentence, started a little notes on word.
[SPEAKER_04]: You know how Microsoft Award has that feature, and then I wrote, this is amazing to show you the title.
[SPEAKER_04]: Now, this memory was totally created by my brain.
[SPEAKER_04]: I remember in law school hearing about how witness testimony was the most effective way to sway a jury and that was really ironic because studies show how memory is very unreliable I also really get to psychology as you guys know so I know this also because of like just being into psychology and yet I'm still shocked that my brain did it because like obviously I'm very like
[SPEAKER_04]: I don't think very highly of my brain.
[SPEAKER_04]: And I think my brain wouldn't do that.
[SPEAKER_04]: Like, she just shows me.
[SPEAKER_04]: You know, just goes to show me.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was a liar.
[SPEAKER_01]: Your brain was a liar.
[SPEAKER_04]: And my brain, all of our brains are liars.
[SPEAKER_04]: But like, I thought my brain was not lying to myself.
[SPEAKER_04]: You know, not, not about creating memories.
[SPEAKER_04]: I knew I needed to enlighten myself in other ways.
[SPEAKER_04]: And...
[SPEAKER_04]: It that's not true that did not happen.
[SPEAKER_04]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_04]: Laura came up with the title by by doing by the exact same thing I just described, but like I I took credit for my clients work horrible horrible agent moment guys.
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm so sorry.
[SPEAKER_04]: This is like unacceptable and we can all start hotline.
[SPEAKER_04]: If I'm doing this, if I'm taking credit for other people's works, we can start a hotline.
[SPEAKER_04]: where we can all call out my egosentric brain and Yeah, and just shame me because it's really bad.
[SPEAKER_04]: I will say that because I am again so stubborn I even though I had irrefutable proof that this was done in the way that I just described what I'm doing it I had a female in which she suggested the title to me I was like wait, but why do I have this memory?
[SPEAKER_04]: So I started searching all the old files like I spent like 30 minutes doing this.
[SPEAKER_04]: It was like ridiculous because I'm like so scared like what if I'm losing my mind
[SPEAKER_04]: So then I found an old version with a different title in which I did highlight alternative titles and I said I really like this title, not so much this title, but I would love a title with you.
[SPEAKER_04]: Right, this was before she came up with the idea of tell them you like so I'm not like this is obviously not the same But I'm showing that this is scary and I don't know.
[SPEAKER_04]: I don't retraction issued.
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm very sorry So did you catch yourself or did Laura call you out?
[SPEAKER_04]: Does Laura listen to the show?
[SPEAKER_04]: Okay, so Laura listen to the show and she texted me the email to be like See she was like laughing
[SPEAKER_04]: She was like, this is hysterical, and she kept saying, like, it's because we came up with it together, because we share a brain just like the lovely things.
[SPEAKER_04]: But that is just my client being really nice.
[SPEAKER_04]: No, it was not, okay, we did not, we did not share a brain in that sense, like we share a brain.
[SPEAKER_04]: We are very cognitively connected.
[SPEAKER_04]: But
[SPEAKER_04]: Like Laura was gracious and lovely and amazing, but like no, and the weird part is I still don't believe her after saying her, her email, instead that I didn't believe her.
[SPEAKER_04]: I just thought that it happened to both of us that, you know, I was like, what's somebody comes up with the same idea the same time.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_04]: So I started searching files, but that's not true.
[SPEAKER_04]: That didn't happen.
[SPEAKER_04]: That did not happen.
[SPEAKER_04]: And yet I still have this memory, spooky, unreliable narrator, see, anyway, I'm sorry.
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm sorry, retraction issue.
[SPEAKER_04]: Lord did not ask me to issue a retraction, but I feel like I have to hand in your agent card.
[SPEAKER_01]: You don't get it in it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, I'm just kidding.
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm just going to go.
[SPEAKER_04]: Here you go.
[SPEAKER_04]: Goodbye.
[SPEAKER_01]: All right, I want to hear how, how is your work out routine going?
[SPEAKER_01]: You said you were thinking about some ideas about incorporating some fitness in and I'm going to be your accountability partner.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, look, so on YouTube, you can see what she's holding for anybody that is listening.
[SPEAKER_01]: She's holding up a 10-pound weight, which is actually a decent size weight.
[SPEAKER_01]: Good job, CC.
[SPEAKER_04]: I am, well, for the brain, it's very important to do resistance training and strength.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yes, apparently.
[SPEAKER_04]: And, you know, again, my brain needs it as we've just established.
[SPEAKER_04]: So, so I am not a class in the morning person.
[SPEAKER_04]: I had my people suggest to me classes.
[SPEAKER_04]: The most people was like, hey, you should do this class and be looking at some great suggestions.
[SPEAKER_04]: But I looked up like schedules and most of these classes begin at an ungodly hour.
[SPEAKER_04]: Right.
[SPEAKER_04]: Let's fix it in the morning.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_04]: I do not believe in being vertical at six in the morning.
[SPEAKER_04]: Let alone moving my body in
[SPEAKER_04]: tandem, like group activity, stuff, like no thank you.
[SPEAKER_04]: This is how my mornings work in winter, guys.
[SPEAKER_04]: Winter.
[SPEAKER_04]: This is very important winter.
[SPEAKER_04]: Up his so dark in the morning, I wake up and my husband ranks me coffee in bed and I have leisurely coffee in bed for good like 20 minutes.
[SPEAKER_04]: I like slow mornings.
[SPEAKER_04]: I am not interested in choreographed movements with like someone being peppy.
[SPEAKER_04]: And for me, what to do?
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm zero percent interested in that at six in the morning.
[SPEAKER_04]: So they have really terrible times for these classes, but I'm thinking of doing it on the weekends.
[SPEAKER_04]: Cause that could work.
[SPEAKER_04]: Um, and then until then, I am trying to do some at home with like weights that I bought about multiple weights.
[SPEAKER_04]: This is the heaviest one.
[SPEAKER_04]: I of course brought the heaviest one, right?
[SPEAKER_04]: But I also have like baby weights.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, different movements.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_04]: And yeah, I'm trying.
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm trying really hard.
[SPEAKER_04]: It's good job.
[SPEAKER_04]: But I must be honest, like it's not fun.
[SPEAKER_04]: You know, books are way more fun than working out.
[SPEAKER_04]: But I have to tell you this.
[SPEAKER_04]: I have to tell you this.
[SPEAKER_04]: In case no one knows, reading a book, way more fun than working out.
[SPEAKER_01]: Wait, put it.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, wait till I break it to you that you could walk on a treadmill and read it the same time.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's all possible, okay?
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, but I don't know treadmills.
[SPEAKER_04]: I can do like walking outside.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
[SPEAKER_04]: But I can't do treadmills.
[SPEAKER_04]: I've tried treadmills.
[SPEAKER_04]: They deeply annoy me.
[SPEAKER_04]: Because you're not going in one.
[SPEAKER_04]: Like, yeah, okay, frustrates.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm very, I'm a very difficult person currently in case you don't remember.
[SPEAKER_01]: Not all of them, just some.
[SPEAKER_01]: Just shout out to husband's upbringing, coffee and bed, because my husband also does this.
[SPEAKER_01]: He gets up with the kids more than half the week, and he'll get up with a very younger one, and then he'll bring me coffee and bed.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I also like to wake up a bit slower.
[SPEAKER_01]: So yes, shout out to all those lovely husbands.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I am not attending deep dive this year.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I need an update on deep dive.
[SPEAKER_01]: How is it going?
[SPEAKER_01]: Tell me everything.
[SPEAKER_01]: All you guys are posting about it.
[SPEAKER_01]: It looks so exciting.
[SPEAKER_01]: I am going to be traveling.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I'm going to be missing deep dive.
[SPEAKER_01]: So tell me what's going on.
[SPEAKER_04]: Okay, so first of all, we're going to miss you a lot.
[SPEAKER_04]: I hope your travels go really well, but I hope you also experience a tiny bit of formal because we'll miss you.
[SPEAKER_04]: I hear not going to experience film.
[SPEAKER_04]: We're going to be traveling and having a fabulous time.
[SPEAKER_04]: But we will experience missing you.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, it's going really well.
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm really excited about it.
[SPEAKER_04]: We have a repriegaming, so we begin our pregame on January 24th.
[SPEAKER_04]: which is actually my husband's birthday speaking of husbands and so we're going to have a pre-game meet up that day but then deep dive officially begins like the actual deep dive weekend is January 31st and then February 1st and we're so excited and okay so I've been having this conversation with multiple people who signed up including Bianca who's obviously hosting it with me.
[SPEAKER_04]: Who are you most excited about right like which presentation are you most excited about and this is like so hard to choose because part of me part of my brain goes Okay, I'm really excited about the one where you know like we have an acquiring editor and an agent talking about like the behind the scenes of buying a book of making a book happen like the collaboration seems so exciting
[SPEAKER_04]: And then my brain goes to weight no, but actually, you know, another acquiring editor from from eTRI is going to talk about like genre blends and how important that is.
[SPEAKER_04]: And like these days genre blends are so big.
[SPEAKER_04]: Like I'm really excited about that too.
[SPEAKER_04]: And then we have another presentation about like interpreting agents responses so that you can like make sense of them.
[SPEAKER_04]: And because I'm an agent and I give responses, I'm like, oh, I'm so curious to know, like how a lot of other, yeah, yeah.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, so and then of course we have the amazing short story one where Katrina from Sugar 23 is going to talk about like how short stories are currently being adapted in Hollywood Being sold, you know, from major deals, I'm going to film and TV and these are like unpublished short stories by unpublished writers.
[SPEAKER_04]: So like not big writers or not short stories that were in the I don't know New York, New Yorker.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, we have, you and I have talked about this on the show, right, Carly, this new update in the film.
[SPEAKER_01]: We talked a little bit when I got back from LA, so I love that you guys are doing a full session on that.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's great.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, exactly.
[SPEAKER_04]: So we talked about that and like how fun it is.
[SPEAKER_04]: It's been going on.
[SPEAKER_04]: I don't know how long it's been going off.
[SPEAKER_04]: But I'm pretty sure I first heard about it like a year ago.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_04]: This has been happening.
[SPEAKER_04]: It could be happening for a lot longer.
[SPEAKER_04]: It's just for my first part about it.
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm sure.
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm pretty sure and it's just one of those things that's like so exciting and like Katrina's going to break down stories that she sold.
[SPEAKER_04]: I've published stories and going to explain like what a story has to have on the page in order to have a chance at at, you know, at the attention.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, and the interesting thing is because I've seen some of these stories.
[SPEAKER_04]: It's a very different bar from what you need to make short story work, just in writing reading.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_04]: It's a very different bar.
[SPEAKER_04]: So they deal like breaking that down sound super fun.
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm also really excited because our deep dive delegates, so everyone who attends the deep dive will get to submit to Katrina.
[SPEAKER_04]: And what if, I mean, obviously there's no guaranteed this will happen, but like what if one of these short stories actually becomes a TV show or movie?
[SPEAKER_04]: Like isn't that the coolest thing?
[SPEAKER_04]: Like again, it's great.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, it's gonna happen, but sometimes I miss this.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is very magical, you know, it is a lot of serendipity sometimes.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I'm excited.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not sure what's the recording you are giving me a lot of phone.
[SPEAKER_04]: I don't even want to give you a phone or it's because you're not on your trip yet, so that's why I imagine.
[SPEAKER_04]: I know.
[SPEAKER_04]: But I'll take it.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's great.
[SPEAKER_01]: Awesome.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, I've been very busy.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I'm going away next week.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I have been I'm actively negotiating three deals right now.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I have like emails back going back and forth on three deals.
[SPEAKER_01]: I have two contracts I'm doing.
[SPEAKER_01]: I have three client manuscripts one proposal and just like obviously my daily emailing.
[SPEAKER_01]: So yeah, I'm a little bit busy right now, but it's all like good busy.
[SPEAKER_01]: My like calibration is always, can my inbox be under 50 by the end of the day?
[SPEAKER_01]: And a couple times this week, my inbox has been under 40, which is like really for me.
[SPEAKER_01]: So yeah, so I've been busy with that.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then
[SPEAKER_01]: My client, E.J.
[SPEAKER_01]: Dixon, is doing her one-bad mother launch in New York.
[SPEAKER_01]: So when I am back from traveling, I'm going to New York.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I hope to see as many of you kind of New Yorker, Tri-State Area folks is possible.
[SPEAKER_01]: So the event is at the Strand, the famous Strand bookstore on February 9th.
[SPEAKER_01]: It is ticketed, so you have to get a ticket.
[SPEAKER_01]: And E.J.
[SPEAKER_01]: will be in conversation with the Rebecca Tracer, who is doing the
[SPEAKER_01]: So it's going to be an awesome event.
[SPEAKER_01]: So make sure you grab a ticket for that.
[SPEAKER_01]: I will see you guys there.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm very excited.
[SPEAKER_01]: That sounds like so much fun.
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm really looking forward to that for you.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, I don't have a tally of number of things.
[SPEAKER_04]: But I've been doing a lot of calls, setting up lunches, and in person meetings for a few projects, I'd like to pitch.
[SPEAKER_04]: Pitching is always so much fun.
[SPEAKER_04]: I love pitching.
[SPEAKER_04]: Also doing one of my favorite things ever, which is working on a deal in the most.
[SPEAKER_04]: It's fun at the stage.
[SPEAKER_04]: And then doing one of my not-so-favorites,
[SPEAKER_04]: Nobody likes to wait for contracts like there's zero agent to enjoy the waiting for the contract period.
[SPEAKER_04]: I am sure Oh, I'm also reading a full manuscript and really loving it.
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm I'm at the 50% mark.
[SPEAKER_04]: I want to say Which is like a big compliment because again if you're if you get to 50% like it means that the book is so good already And it's just so fun so far so I'm really looking forward to it.
[SPEAKER_04]: I will share more about it when we record next
[SPEAKER_01]: All right, so this is something where as Canadians who are bookish people, we haven't talked about all the show yet, but we absolutely have to talk about what I made a note, which is you have to talk about.
[SPEAKER_01]: He did rivalry.
[SPEAKER_01]: The book and did a little show.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right, and so I was making these notes for CC and CC's notes that our doc was.
[SPEAKER_01]: CC did not watch it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, so I was planning on watching it yet.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, yes, so I was planning on watching it over the break, but as you guys know, I had failed me stuff going on and I was like, I don't want to catch up on that right now.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I binge watched it last week and obviously fell in love with the show as everybody has.
[SPEAKER_01]: So now I've gone back and started reading the books because normally I will definitely try to read a book before the movie or tell the show, but in this case, I watched the show.
[SPEAKER_01]: And now I'm going back to read the books, but it's been so good and so many like I don't know wonderful little like serendipitous thing So my client Harrison Brown who wrote the book let us play is actually in the in the show So Harrison is an actor who played hockey Like you know you're growing up and played in college So Harrison is actually an actor in the show So if you remember the scene where it's not very often that Ilia has a teammate in his hotel room
[SPEAKER_01]: But if you remember when Elia has a teammate in his hotel room who's sitting on the other bed and kind of talking about the game, that's my client here some brown, so okay Harrison, hopefully Harrison's in the second season as well, and check out his book that he forward with the sister, let us play.
[SPEAKER_01]: So yeah, I'm just so excited to see a client and a hit TV show, and it part of it is kind of mentioned or set in Ottawa, which is where I live.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I'm like feeling lots of national pride over if you did rivalry.
[SPEAKER_04]: Hi, I, okay, I have to watch this now.
[SPEAKER_04]: Now you're making me want to watch it.
[SPEAKER_04]: That sounds really exciting.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I'm excited about that.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, so some topics we wanted to talk about today.
[SPEAKER_01]: We've done a lot of chipped chat today.
[SPEAKER_01]: So we want to talk about things that we want to fix in the book business.
[SPEAKER_01]: That was not one of my topics for us to discuss.
[SPEAKER_01]: If season started, they could wave their magic wand.
[SPEAKER_01]: What could we actually fix in the book business?
[SPEAKER_01]: That's something I want to talk about.
[SPEAKER_01]: We're going to tell you guys what is in the sub-stack tomorrow.
[SPEAKER_01]: I want to talk about why.
[SPEAKER_04]: I don't want, can we all take a moment
[SPEAKER_04]: I haven't asked you.
[SPEAKER_01]: Of course you do.
[SPEAKER_01]: You have great props.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't have any.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't have any good props.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_01]: Another thing that's coming up is I want to talk about Matt Hague's post, Matt Hague wrote them in Night Library, along with so many other great books, had a really interesting Instagram post that I want to chat about.
[SPEAKER_01]: And we also have a question from the audience about these kind of like visual agent guides that people have been posting on social media.
[SPEAKER_01]: So we've lots of great stuff coming up.
[SPEAKER_01]: The first we're going to throw to our sponsor.
[SPEAKER_01]: All right, we are back and talking about what Carly and CC want to fix in the book business.
[SPEAKER_01]: Maybe we'll go back and forth like a tennis match.
[SPEAKER_01]: So you say one I say one vice versa.
[SPEAKER_01]: So CC, what is one thing that you wish you could fix in the book business?
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, you shared your your list ahead of time.
[SPEAKER_04]: the first one on your list, which I will not ruin, is the same on mine.
[SPEAKER_04]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_04]: And I'm only saying that to say that, I feel like that's, who doesn't, you know, everyone wants that.
[SPEAKER_04]: But whatever, I will skip that one.
[SPEAKER_04]: Something I'd really love is transparency about budgets, given to each project, specific marketing budgets.
[SPEAKER_04]: So authors don't actually know how much publishers are spending on their books in terms of promoting them and stuff, marketing-wise.
[SPEAKER_04]: And I think that transparency on that would be really helpful and would go a long way.
[SPEAKER_01]: how about you?
[SPEAKER_01]: The first thing on my list was figuring out how to pay employees and publishing houses more in agencies and all the places because this is to me the cracks of almost all of the issues everything from diversity to
[SPEAKER_01]: you know, over time, like people having to be compensated for over time for, I don't know, like just that not having a scarcity mindset about your like situation, if you're not getting, you know, paid that much in a big city.
[SPEAKER_01]: So yeah, I think just being able to pay publishing employees more is just crucial to like, I don't know, yeah, just people feeling more settled in their adulthood.
[SPEAKER_01]: So that, you know, if there's not that scarcity mindset
[SPEAKER_01]: you know, not only in people at junior levels to also senior levels, actually it's just so for work, and I don't know, again, I don't do the balance sheet publishers, so I don't know how we're going to pay everybody more.
[SPEAKER_01]: I have some ideas about how to pay everybody more.
[SPEAKER_01]: Mostly being another thing on my list, which is, so I might have to do two in our row here, which is raising the price of books.
[SPEAKER_01]: So this might be a controversial
[SPEAKER_01]: Take because you know a hardcover book can be you know thirty five forty dollars these days and I understand that I always make the case for book prices rising because
[SPEAKER_01]: They have to rise with things like inflation or just kind of entertainment budgets in general.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so if somebody is in the position where they can't afford that book, they can get up in the library.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, like there are other ways to get that book.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I'm not trying to say let's raise the prices so that everything about books is inaccessible.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's that there are still ways for everybody at every price point to get books.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I do actually think we need to raise the list price of books more and that will help.
[SPEAKER_01]: raise money so that we can pay people and publishing more.
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, CC do you want to chime in on next?
[SPEAKER_01]: I know that's on your list too.
[SPEAKER_04]: I think the heart of that is the fact that in creative industries there's a lot of exploitation.
[SPEAKER_04]: Because there's this idea that because it's so, like, it's a cool job, you know, like, it's not like, and I apologize to everyone else, everyone out there who's in a counted, but if you say you're in a counted, that is a boring job.
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm sorry, just it's like, hey, I was my former job lawyer.
[SPEAKER_04]: I remember being in parts of being like, what do you do lawyer people will be like, uh, great, okay, like moving around like, I have no question.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_04]: I have no question.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_04]: And if there were questions, they weren't questions about like, oh my god, how cool.
[SPEAKER_04]: you know, in fairness, I did a very boring kind of law, but still working in publishing is cool.
[SPEAKER_04]: Like working with books is cool.
[SPEAKER_04]: It's not as cool as glamorous as coming to you.
[SPEAKER_01]: I was going to say we think it's pretty cool.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know if it's like that capital see cool like fashion is, but it's a pretty cool culture of the arts.
[SPEAKER_04]: It's the last cool, but it's still in the arts.
[SPEAKER_04]: Do you know what I'm saying?
[SPEAKER_04]: Like it's still a profession where there's this social cashier attached to it.
[SPEAKER_04]: Fair enough.
[SPEAKER_04]: This is just how reality works.
[SPEAKER_04]: Because of that, in these industries, there's a lot of potential for exploitative work.
[SPEAKER_04]: And I do not like that.
[SPEAKER_04]: It obviously hurts everyone.
[SPEAKER_04]: And people with less power at hurts people, even more.
[SPEAKER_04]: And yeah, it's...
[SPEAKER_04]: It's just one of those things, but I will share my next one, which is something that we've shared before, oh my gosh, so long ago before shoot the shit.
[SPEAKER_04]: Back when Carly and I recorded like end of year episodes where we shared like, you know, our favorite TV shows, our favorite books, which is no taxes on books.
[SPEAKER_04]: No taxes on books.
[SPEAKER_04]: Books will no longer be taxes.
[SPEAKER_04]: This is a thing in other countries.
[SPEAKER_04]: Brazil, for example, there's no taxes on books in Brazil.
[SPEAKER_04]: If you go to a foreign country and buy 400 books, when you come in, you do not pay import tax.
[SPEAKER_04]: If when you go to a store and you buy a book, you do not pay sales tax on that.
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, it could have changed because I haven't prepared a long time, but I don't think so.
[SPEAKER_04]: And no taxes on books is actually a really great way to promote to increase sales without having to necessarily increase the price.
[SPEAKER_04]: And you can actually increase the price if that's a good solution.
[SPEAKER_04]: But then the final price won't be that different because there will be no sales tax.
[SPEAKER_04]: And it's not that I don't believe in taxation.
[SPEAKER_04]: I am very pro-taxation in many, many situations.
[SPEAKER_04]: It's just that here's the thing.
[SPEAKER_04]: Books are the last line of defense.
[SPEAKER_04]: When it comes to things, our society desperately needs.
[SPEAKER_04]: We need more empathy in the world, and we need more critical thinking in the world.
[SPEAKER_04]: Guess what accomplishes both of these things.
[SPEAKER_04]: books.
[SPEAKER_04]: Books increase empathy and books increase critical thinking.
[SPEAKER_04]: We need more books.
[SPEAKER_04]: We need more readers.
[SPEAKER_04]: So I actually think it will be really smart to not have taxation on books.
[SPEAKER_04]: And I'm in favor of that.
[SPEAKER_04]: So I know that's also a little controversial.
[SPEAKER_04]: But hey, I stand by my opinion.
[SPEAKER_04]: How about you?
[SPEAKER_04]: What's the next one?
[SPEAKER_01]: We're just according to this controversy, CC, uh, I'm going to get a sample.
[SPEAKER_01]: The prices shouldn't crease lately.
[SPEAKER_01]: We're trying to cause drop in today.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, my next one is in house fact checkers.
[SPEAKER_01]: So some of you might not realize this, but books are not.
[SPEAKER_01]: Fact checked in house by a publisher like in terms of non-fiction somebody can be writing a Factual piece of kind of reporting or science or history and the in house publisher is not required to fact check it the author of the book
[SPEAKER_01]: can do the fact checking.
[SPEAKER_01]: And they would have to hire them out of their own budget, which can be expensive.
[SPEAKER_01]: And some authors definitely do this, but some others don't.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so books, as you guys know, go out into the world with errors in them.
[SPEAKER_01]: Sometimes critical errors, and then at Therese's whole drama, this happens at least once a year with a big nonfiction book about errors in this title.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, to prevent the whole of this and just kind of increase the quality and the standard of non-fiction projects, because there's a lot of also like woo-hoo science books out there, which are like, mmm, are those, you know, I'm talking about the pseudo science books, everything should require fact-checking it, especially if it's published by the largest publishers, just for the reputation of our business for just, you know, keeping up quality standards.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, that's one for me.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, another one for me would be just higher royalties across the board with escalators and every format, you know, we've talked about escalators before it's when, you know, a royalty rate keeps going out depending on copy sold.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_04]: And that's not always something that we can get for all formats and I think it should be a thing for all formats.
[SPEAKER_04]: So it doesn't matter if it's a mass market paper back, it doesn't matter if it's a audiobook, it doesn't matter.
[SPEAKER_04]: Like higher royalties to authors because that would be really awesome.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, that's a great one.
[SPEAKER_01]: Next one on my list is publishing employees getting more on the job training and this actually does with another one of my ideas but I feel like for example things such as marketing constantly evolved and there's also a lot of publishing employees who work in certain departments and maybe they didn't go to school for that department like marketing right because a lot of people who do marketing degrees go and
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, work at corporations on the marketing side and a lot of publishing employees just come from more liberal arts backgrounds And so we're all kind of these like liberal arts people trying to do marketing and so I would love it if every so many years for example People in the marketing department had to go back to do some extra training on the latest of food algorithms and social media and just
[SPEAKER_01]: feeling like there's this ability to kind of like up-skill constantly because as I'm worrying publishing where we just assume that the younger generation is going to know more about tech and social media or marketing and we rely on those younger generations to kind of fill those gaps whereas I really wish we could up-skill mid-level like marketing employees you know just to kind of up our game because I worry that publishing as I said just relies on the younger generation doing all of the things that really we should be up-skilling mid-level
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, yeah, that would be, oh my god, so awesome.
[SPEAKER_04]: Sure, there are any publishing employees listening to this.
[SPEAKER_04]: They're like, yes, please sign me up.
[SPEAKER_04]: Something else I'd really like.
[SPEAKER_04]: Oh, I know something that really annoys me.
[SPEAKER_04]: There's always so many things that really annoy me.
[SPEAKER_04]: Okay, a publisher makes an offer, right?
[SPEAKER_04]: And let's say whatever goes to auction, you pick a winner, or like, I will accept this offer.
[SPEAKER_04]: Let's say the offer is for I'm just going to throw a random number out here.
[SPEAKER_04]: $300,000 advance, okay?
[SPEAKER_04]: That advance, as you guys know, is paid in installments, okay?
[SPEAKER_04]: That advance, as soon as the offer is accepted, should go to an escrow account where it will be earning interest for the author, okay?
[SPEAKER_04]: And while we are negotiating the contract, a process which can take several months, okay?
[SPEAKER_04]: And the author is not getting their first installment because the first installment is paid on signing of the contract.
[SPEAKER_04]: That money is earning interest for the author.
[SPEAKER_04]: That money is not sitting around with the publisher's budget, okay?
[SPEAKER_04]: Because this actually creates an incentive for publishers to drag their feet on the contract stage.
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm saying that it's happening maliciously, okay?
[SPEAKER_04]: But I am saying that if there was an escrow account situation, I'm pretty sure things would move a little faster.
[SPEAKER_04]: It's just a theory.
[SPEAKER_04]: And if anyone thinks it wouldn't, great, prove me wrong.
[SPEAKER_04]: Put it in the escrow.
[SPEAKER_04]: Let's see if it doesn't move faster.
[SPEAKER_04]: I'll be so happy to be wrong.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, that's me.
[SPEAKER_01]: I, you've mentioned that before, and I've always been like, yes, a plot of applause, I think that's such a good one.
[SPEAKER_01]: I love that idea.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, the last one that I wrote down.
[SPEAKER_01]: And obviously, we could probably talk about this for another two hours.
[SPEAKER_01]: The last word I've done was, was, and this kind of dub tales with what I was saying on my last one, which this, this one is editors getting contracts training, and really this is about the idea that everything in publishing is so like departmentally separated.
[SPEAKER_01]: And there are very few publishers where it really feels multidisciplinary, where everybody understands what everybody's job is.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I know theoretically, of course, everybody understands.
[SPEAKER_01]: For example, with editors learning more about contracts, is that when agents are trying to negotiate with them, I think it can go, I think it would be able to go smoother.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it does, I should say.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think it does go smoother with editors that understand more about contracts and understand why they're saying the way the things that they're saying, and why I'm saying the way the things that I'm saying, so that we can figure out a way to meet in the middle or if I'm asking for something they don't understand.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not like no, because they don't understand.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's that, oh, now they can figure out how to approach this with their internal system so that we can give the team what they want.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, some of it is currently always as right and always wants, but she wants so that she thinks that editors and contracts people should give her whatever she wants.
[SPEAKER_01]: But some of this is also, I feel like I come up against a lot of editors that don't have a lot of contracts training and they just don't understand why I'm asking for the things that I'm asking for or they'll say, Oh, yeah, you'll do that the contract stage and then I get to the contract stage and they're like, well, they should have an ideal point and I'm like, well,
[SPEAKER_01]: The editor, you know, kind of drop the ball on that for me.
[SPEAKER_01]: So that's when I get frustrated about editors, not knowing as much about contracts as I think that they should be.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so if there are any kind of assistant editors listening to this, like, please head over to your contracts department and try to get some extra training or just kind of suggest to the team that's something that you'd like to learn more about.
[SPEAKER_01]: Because I think you'll make you better at your job.
[SPEAKER_01]: I just truly do because agents will be able to speak a language
[SPEAKER_03]: 100% 100% I love that idea.
[SPEAKER_03]: Another thing I would love to change.
[SPEAKER_04]: Magic wand.
[SPEAKER_04]: Where's my wand?
[SPEAKER_03]: Hello wand.
[SPEAKER_04]: Is, okay, I'm just going to say this.
[SPEAKER_04]: There's this insistence that audio is included whenever you sell a book, right, especially for the major publishers.
[SPEAKER_04]: And that is nonsense.
[SPEAKER_04]: And actually the PRH trial, you know, when they tried to buy Simon and Schuster, revealed some problematic origins to this practice, problematic origins that would suggest collusion on the part of publishers, which all agents are already suspected, but it did feel validating to hear.
[SPEAKER_04]: If you look up the PRH trial and you know, just people wrote about it, it's a really interesting part of that.
[SPEAKER_04]: audio is a way for authors to make more money, right?
[SPEAKER_04]: And so I don't love the idea that publishers are necessarily going to get those rights.
[SPEAKER_04]: In some cases it might make sense, but then they have to pay more and other cases doesn't make sense.
[SPEAKER_04]: You know, there are audio publishers out there who might do a better job might be more specialized in that.
[SPEAKER_04]: And I feel like that's just something that shouldn't be seen as included.
[SPEAKER_04]: That being said, you know, Carla, because I know you went through your list.
[SPEAKER_04]: And of course, we could talk about it till tomorrow, but we will stop
[SPEAKER_04]: I feel like all the things we're saying, all of them, come down to one very specific change that we need to see, which is more publishers.
[SPEAKER_04]: If we had more major publishers, like real contenders, people have a lot of them.
[SPEAKER_04]: Exactly.
[SPEAKER_04]: Like, so many of these issues would be fixed, not all of them, but a lot of them would.
[SPEAKER_04]: Publishing is an oligopsony, which is a market with very, very, very few buyers and a lot of sellers.
[SPEAKER_04]: I don't want there to be fewer sellers because sellers are writers.
[SPEAKER_04]: So I certainly don't want to mess with that.
[SPEAKER_04]: But I would like to see more buyers.
[SPEAKER_04]: I would like publishing to not be an oligopsony, especially because saying this word is annoying.
[SPEAKER_04]: It's a difficult word to say, so it would like to stop saying it, please.
[SPEAKER_04]: And yeah, at the end of the day, all this unfairness stems from the fact that,
[SPEAKER_04]: There's a lot of people who want to break in and not a lot of people buying these projects.
[SPEAKER_04]: So it's unfair and it's annoying and I don't like it.
[SPEAKER_04]: But if we had more competition, a lot of things would naturally be fixed.
[SPEAKER_01]: Absolutely.
[SPEAKER_01]: I definitely agree with that.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's a good point to land on.
[SPEAKER_01]: Thanks for summarizing that for a CC.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now I want to tell you guys about what's going to mean your sub start tomorrow.
[SPEAKER_01]: So if you are paid subscribers, tomorrow is Tuesday.
[SPEAKER_01]: I assume that all of you listen to this on the day.
[SPEAKER_01]: It comes out which is Monday.
[SPEAKER_01]: So Tuesday it comes out and we got some great stuff for you.
[SPEAKER_01]: So we kick off with an awesome essay called How to Know where to start your story by Larissa Fam, author of Discipline, who begins by saying every piece of fighting really has two timelines.
[SPEAKER_01]: The chronology of the work as it reads from the first sentence to the last, and the chronology of the events that the text covers.
[SPEAKER_01]: Almost 100% of the time these timelines aren't the same.
[SPEAKER_01]: She goes on to ask an excellent question for me.
[SPEAKER_01]: The key question is, when do decisions begin to matter for the reader?
[SPEAKER_01]: Or another way of putting it at what point do your characters choices start to have real stakes, so that's a great piece of living board, too, 12.
[SPEAKER_03]: Really, oh my gosh, it sounds amazing and must read for sure.
[SPEAKER_04]: We also have Malcolm Camp to author of a gift before dying, dropping all the truth bombs.
[SPEAKER_04]: You guys know I love truth bombs.
[SPEAKER_04]: As he discusses the detrimental impact of social media on aspiring author's productivity.
[SPEAKER_04]: And yeah, I feel like since it's the month for turning over new leaves, you might want to seriously consider what he has to say.
[SPEAKER_04]: I know I'll be considering it because social media is just one of those things where love it and hate it at the same time, very complicated.
[SPEAKER_01]: Then we have an interesting follow-up piece from Alyssa Sheen-Mao, author of such sheltered lives, who writes a follow-up essay from Friday's edition about changing voice and changing genre.
[SPEAKER_01]: She said, when I first got the idea for my new novels, such sheltered lives, I found myself torn between two different approaches to the story.
[SPEAKER_01]: What for?
[SPEAKER_01]: adult readers won for teens.
[SPEAKER_01]: In fact, I wrote two versions.
[SPEAKER_01]: Two versions of the book's opening chapters before I made it my mind about which genre this book would be.
[SPEAKER_01]: The interesting thing wasn't how the two versions were different but have similar.
[SPEAKER_01]: To show you what she means, Alyssa gives you the two versions of the same scene from chapter three of the novel.
[SPEAKER_01]: The first chapter that's narrated by Florence, first from the finished novel in which Florence is nearly 40 years old, and then from an imagined version of the novel, which Florence is 16, and both Florence is on her way to Russia's recovery for the first time.
[SPEAKER_01]: have been sent away to rehab after a violent run in with another pop star.
[SPEAKER_01]: So if you're playing around with genre or POV, you definitely don't want to miss this one.
[SPEAKER_03]: That sounds really interesting.
[SPEAKER_03]: I cannot wait to read both versions of that.
[SPEAKER_04]: Love that.
[SPEAKER_04]: Finally, we have Rachel Sarnoff, former journalist, and two times Ted Expeaker, with a very excellent, very well-researched essay about sustainability and the big five publisher.
[SPEAKER_04]: Who does it best?
[SPEAKER_04]: This is like whole war at best, but with sustainability and publisher, so this is way more fun.
[SPEAKER_04]: So let's take a bet on which publisher will do a better job.
[SPEAKER_01]: I've actually, I've see, I've seen the essay, so I'm not going to bet, but you guys enjoy this one.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a really great piece.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, the ninth Instagram that I wanted to talk about was from Matt Heck, and his handle is M-A-T-T-Z-H-A-I-G. You probably all know him, who's incredible advocate for mental health, that's what his own mental health journeys, obviously he's an author from credible books like the Midnight Library.
[SPEAKER_01]: So the
[SPEAKER_01]: post that he posted was just it came out on Tuesday, January 13th, the kind of cover of the carousel is the side of being published.
[SPEAKER_01]: I was never warned about.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then he goes through to share on the different slides, basically.
[SPEAKER_01]: I guess that's what you call them in Instagram and the carousel.
[SPEAKER_01]: Just like really mean headlines, like one of them from the spectator, the banality of Matt Hague, something else, the Midnight Library is problematic in a
[SPEAKER_01]: post-roverses, Wade's Society, The Guardian, Matt Hague.
[SPEAKER_01]: I've never written a book that will be more spoofed or hated.
[SPEAKER_01]: Just kind of talking about the hate and just all of the kind of negativity that he got online after being like such a successful author and his work being contextualized in a way that was never meant to be read.
[SPEAKER_01]: Anyway, I just, one of the reasons I wanted to share this post was that Matt Hague is so full of, you know,
[SPEAKER_01]: that I have encountered at least.
[SPEAKER_01]: So yeah, he just kind of in his caption, he says, someone asked me why I don't write as much as I used to.
[SPEAKER_01]: Fair question.
[SPEAKER_01]: I used to write three books a year and now I write three books a decade.
[SPEAKER_01]: The answer is 2021.
[SPEAKER_01]: The midnight library should have felt great and I have guilt that I wasn't grateful for its success.
[SPEAKER_01]: The slides are the tiniest of the iceberg.
[SPEAKER_01]: There was more positive than negative, but the negative was intense and landed just when I had every dream fulfilled.
[SPEAKER_01]: Around three weeks into 2021, my publisher records that the midnight library was the best-selling novel in the world.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was within and shortly after that period, I experienced negativity to a level I'd never known.
[SPEAKER_01]: I was used to bad reviews that had thousands I often agreed.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I was less used to personal hit pieces in the media directed at me for monetizing mental health.
[SPEAKER_01]: I wasn't used to being accused of plagiarism by an unpublished writer and about 20 separate blog posts, stating a conspiracy theory that might agent Claire along with other agents, deliberately exploits women writers by setting their work.
[SPEAKER_01]: for males to steal the game so much traction there had to be investigation lawyers.
[SPEAKER_01]: I didn't realize that featuring in Meghan Markle's Vogue edition would lead to articles about me and the male and express another white ring press.
[SPEAKER_01]: I didn't realize a friend with live at the nature of that friendship and implied us on what I'd sent in solicitor messages.
[SPEAKER_01]: I didn't know that someone was accused me of hiding a secret love child of an a-lister.
[SPEAKER_01]: So anyway, it goes on and on not too much longer, but yeah, I just kind of said about how much Lane it on him, and so with that exposure and success and like just the amount of negativity and Somebody that's so vocal about mental health.
[SPEAKER_01]: I just thought that was really great post.
[SPEAKER_04]: So anyway, see you see your thoughts I mean, I'll admit I'll start by admitting a very embarrassing thought, which is I did not know about this until you shared it with me Like I obviously heard of them in nightlight right now, but I did not know that there was this
[SPEAKER_04]: You were reading from the caption and I'm like, what?
[SPEAKER_04]: People did what?
[SPEAKER_04]: The accused of what hiding a child?
[SPEAKER_04]: What?
[SPEAKER_04]: Like, I did not know about this until I read the post which you shared.
[SPEAKER_04]: I don't know what to say, other than this seems tragic and in sound terrible.
[SPEAKER_04]: And
[SPEAKER_04]: I don't know, it's our world, our world is messed up and in many ways when it comes to this stuff.
[SPEAKER_04]: It's actually something that we talk about a lot just agents amongst ourselves and with writers.
[SPEAKER_04]: This idea that once you break out, you become really big and for so many authors, that's realizing a dream.
[SPEAKER_04]: Not necessarily the fame part.
[SPEAKER_04]: I know a lot of writers who wouldn't want the fame, but they want the fame of the book.
[SPEAKER_04]: But the thing is people always want to know about the person behind the book which fair, very fair.
[SPEAKER_04]: But then it comes with so much potential for heart.
[SPEAKER_04]: I don't know.
[SPEAKER_04]: The internet has become like a massive version of like the old town square where people were suffering and it's just
[SPEAKER_04]: It's just really hard to see.
[SPEAKER_04]: I didn't know about it though like I didn't know and it's deeply embarrassing And it just shows like I'm one of those people who there's so many things that everyone knows about that I've never heard about because I'm in my little like Lala C.C.
[SPEAKER_04]: land living with my books inside my head and my stories inside my head And and just don't know about these things.
[SPEAKER_04]: So thank God for you to tell me about this
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I just thought, you know, some people wondered, again, why is this author writing more, you know, they had this up to big hit, where did they go?
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's like, there's so much pressure that comes with being a successful author.
[SPEAKER_01]: And there's a lot of pressure that they feel on their shoulders.
[SPEAKER_01]: Also, writers are really, you know, sympathetic and apathetic people, you know, feel a lot of feelings out loud.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so that intensity can hit them in a different way.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it could be really hard.
[SPEAKER_01]: So anyway, setting lots of love to Matt Hague, who I think is really talented.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I'm sure a lot of us are really bummed about that amount of negativity and how that infected his creativity Okay, so we had a question come in about Agent guides and so just so everybody can kind of get on the same page So if you guys are on social media you might have seen these It's almost like a slide deck or a canva thing where authors will do kind of like an agent guide to their book on social media
[SPEAKER_01]: Where they'll kind of pin it maybe to the top of their page or they'll use it in a pitch contest.
[SPEAKER_01]: So just so everybody is kind of visualizing what I'm talking about.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's just kind of imagine.
[SPEAKER_01]: a static image that kind of encapsures things like what the characters look like or the tropes or the vibes.
[SPEAKER_01]: You probably know what I'm talking about.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, so the question is, what are your takes on querying writers posting agent guides to their book on a social media?
[SPEAKER_01]: I heard anecdotes about this leading to agents reaching out to writers, but I also wonder if it could backfire.
[SPEAKER_01]: For example, if you've been querying for a while in an agency's hell long, your agent guide has been up on social media, could they feel less excited about a project?
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I was thinking about this question when it came in because Jane Friedman you guys all know because we talked about all the time she actually covered this in one of her newsletter posts and she asked for my opinion about this and the framing was a bit slightly different about like why people are using these pitch decks and what they're for but I just want to read you my answer that I wrote to Jane and then I will also answer the question.
[SPEAKER_01]: So my answer was, we had become a much more visual society, especially when it comes to socials, Instagram, Tech.YouTube.
[SPEAKER_01]: So when these pitch contests and pitch decks happen, it's a natural evolution of the pitching process for visual elements to come into play.
[SPEAKER_01]: It is unique that these pitch decks are being used outside of social media and pitch context within the expectations that agents will make their way to the pitch deck from traditional querying.
[SPEAKER_01]: I recently offered Reptunoth the who queried me, the other traditional method, and in their email signature had a link to a Spotify playlist and a Pinterest page.
[SPEAKER_01]: I clicked on both.
[SPEAKER_01]: I didn't listen to the playlist, but I scroll through the songs and bored and got a sense of how they imagined their story coming to life through multiple sensory experiences.
[SPEAKER_01]: In some ways, it acts as a secondary gut check to see, you know, could I work with this person and does their vision for the book aligned with mine through supplementary material?
[SPEAKER_01]: in the pandemic.
[SPEAKER_01]: I experimented with pitching editors with an audio recording of me reading my pitch aloud and recording video interviews with me and my clients that they could watch.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think we're always trying to find new ways to bring through the noise but the method of writing a really great book and pitching it well to the right people is always going to be the mainstay.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I do think it's a flash in the pan per se but I also think it's a rest stop in the evolution of how we pitch emotional reading experiences in 3D.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think this will continue but
[SPEAKER_01]: Basically does this get an agent less excited with the timestamp, and so my answer to that is, yes, I do think anything with the timestamp can potentially make something feel kind of quote, Stale.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's up to you to decide, you know, how much that matters to you, you can always like repin the post, but or delete the old post if you want to make it fresh.
[SPEAKER_01]: I do think there's like a timestamp element to it for sure, but I would probably just be reposting it or link to a Spotify or link to a Pinterest page.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like I said, it is a way to kind of communicate that visualization.
[SPEAKER_01]: So anyway, that was my long-winded answer of what I wrote for Jane Friedman.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, I think that what this question brings up is, and if something we've talked about before, are just, you know, privately asked, writers are hungry for agents, and oftentimes writers think to themselves, there has to be a better way than the whole querying via the slush.
[SPEAKER_04]: And if there is a better way let me that me explore those paths which is a totally valid thing to do and that might be I don't know pitching contests and I'd be going to a conference and trying to get you know a one on one experience not everyone can do that obviously or it might be and then Long behold we have the agent guides so obviously this depends on the agent it does work because I have seen agents sign people via these guides I'm not saying it does not work please please don't think I'm saying this to anyone listening but I will say this
[SPEAKER_04]: I feel strongly that the best way to grab an agent is to write a really, really, really amazing clay, let her have an even better pages.
[SPEAKER_04]: And it, like, reinventing the wheel, it's just one of those things.
[SPEAKER_04]: You know, like, if you think about the way other storytelling formats have evolved, like a movie, like think about how a movie,
[SPEAKER_04]: in the days of silent film, you know, like those static images and black and white with like text underneath like captions and how that evolved into like a color and then sound.
[SPEAKER_04]: And like nowadays we have these blackbuster productions with all like my point is when you that kind of story, the tools to tell the story have evolved deeply over time.
[SPEAKER_04]: The tools to tell a story in a book, I'm picking up a book here, they are the same.
[SPEAKER_04]: The tools are words.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yes, picture books are a little different,
[SPEAKER_04]: the all the books I work on.
[SPEAKER_04]: We are talking about letters, letters that make words, words that make worlds.
[SPEAKER_04]: There is no evolution in the tools.
[SPEAKER_04]: And I bring that up to say, because of this specific format, I don't think there's a lot of evolution either to the process of like pitching it.
[SPEAKER_04]: You know, it's not that you can't try new things, Carly, you tried the audio thing.
[SPEAKER_04]: That was really cool.
[SPEAKER_04]: I remember when you tried that.
[SPEAKER_04]: I remember you sharing it with me.
[SPEAKER_04]: It was awesome.
[SPEAKER_04]: I remember listening to one.
[SPEAKER_04]: It was great.
[SPEAKER_04]: You can tell that you can't do these things.
[SPEAKER_04]: But at the end of the day, the best chances of success is going to be making sure your project is so, so compelling in the format that most agents are going to look, which is reading it, not a visual pick, pitch deck.
[SPEAKER_04]: Nothing wrong with a visual pitch deck.
[SPEAKER_04]: If that's what people want to do, they should absolutely do it.
[SPEAKER_04]: But
[SPEAKER_04]: I do think that sometimes, like there's only so much attention we can pay to certain things, and I do think that sometimes the decision to do that is coming from a place of anxiety, of this querying thing isn't working, so I'm going to work on this other way to get an agent, when really the thing that a lot of writers need to be doing is improving their project and product.
[SPEAKER_04]: There's a person, apparently you know what I'm talking about, what can I name her?
[SPEAKER_04]: Who listens to the show?
[SPEAKER_04]: So person, you will see yourself identified in a second.
[SPEAKER_04]: We love her.
[SPEAKER_04]: She's a friend of the pod.
[SPEAKER_04]: She's amazing.
[SPEAKER_04]: She's so smart and talented.
[SPEAKER_04]: And she wants to pitch to us an idea of creating like Tinder for agents and authors, where essentially like it would be an app where agents would have a profile.
[SPEAKER_04]: Authors would have a profile and they could match.
[SPEAKER_04]: Kind of like you match on bumble and Tinder or whatever.
[SPEAKER_04]: But obviously like not romantic, guys.
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm not talking about romantic.
[SPEAKER_04]: And I remember telling her with all the love in the world, like all the love in the world.
[SPEAKER_04]: No agent wants this, I'll tell you why.
[SPEAKER_04]: There's a million reasons why, including the fact that they have to follow their own agency guidelines, like we have a slush file, a shared slush file.
[SPEAKER_04]: This is just going to create confusion, but that's not the main reason why we don't want that.
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm not going to match with someone over a picture or a profile or vibes about their book that they're writing.
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm going to match with someone based on the book they wrote.
[SPEAKER_04]: That's first, that happens first.
[SPEAKER_04]: That happens first, second and third, and then fourth is who you are.
[SPEAKER_04]: Who you are matters, don't get me wrong.
[SPEAKER_04]: But you first fall in love with the story.
[SPEAKER_04]: So I'll be fancy things of apps and decks and all these really cool things that, by the way, power of power to you for thinking outside the box.
[SPEAKER_04]: That will come in handy when promoting your book.
[SPEAKER_04]: They're typically not going to lend you the agent of your dreams.
[SPEAKER_04]: And I don't think this is the first that he wants to bubble.
[SPEAKER_04]: I see this to kind of like hopefully empower you because the best way to land an agent to write a fantastic query letter and fantastic first pages.
[SPEAKER_04]: Because that will make us go, yes, please, I want to see the full.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's really that simple, that's what it takes.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I totally agree.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's one last thing I actually just added this to the list of things to talk about to CC.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I'm totally springing this on it.
[SPEAKER_01]: So we like to talk about it, but no, it is.
[SPEAKER_01]: It is.
[SPEAKER_04]: It is books.
[SPEAKER_04]: It's you, it's you.
[SPEAKER_04]: Carly, guys, Carly loves stats.
[SPEAKER_04]: Stats, data, like I stuff it, I don't love it.
[SPEAKER_04]: But like, oh my god, this woman would have a love affair with stats and data.
[SPEAKER_04]: Your husband should watch out.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know what, I love that somebody else does the math on it.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't want to do the math.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't want to crunch the goppers.
[SPEAKER_01]: I like the idea of the trends.
[SPEAKER_01]: So what I'm going to tell you guys is the category performances for 2020, 25.
[SPEAKER_01]: So we've talked about general sales numbers.
[SPEAKER_01]: Throughout the weeks and throughout the months we're going to get more and more numbers from 2025 so you're going to hear me say different numbers all the time and you're like, why is currently always saying different numbers because we're just related to different things so this is the category performance is last year so adult fiction was up 1% when single percent science fiction up 22.1%
[SPEAKER_01]: Graphic novels up 9.2% romance up 3.9% which is actually like considering romance is Like it's already high.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's another 3.9% suspense and thrillers down 2.2 fantasy and then fantasy was down 8.7.
[SPEAKER_01]: So science fiction up to 22.1 fantasy down 8.7%.
[SPEAKER_04]: Wait wait wait is romanticy in fantasy or romanticy in romance?
[SPEAKER_01]: I think that is something that we don't have the answer to based on these statistics.
[SPEAKER_04]: So I was a romanticie is in fantasy then I think that it might sound if it's in fantasy, even though it's supposedly down 8.7, that it's just because it was so up before.
[SPEAKER_04]: So it's not really sad to down.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_04]: Then if it's in romance and it actually might explain why fantasy is down.
[SPEAKER_04]: Do you know what I'm saying?
[SPEAKER_04]: I think the Bicycle.
[SPEAKER_01]: To sell those sales as well.
[SPEAKER_01]: Because yeah, exactly.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like we didn't have a place, maybe put all those Bicycles.
[SPEAKER_01]: And now people are like coding it properly.
[SPEAKER_01]: Don't try to say under wrong.
[SPEAKER_01]: I do.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's a theory.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_04]: So nonfiction overall.
[SPEAKER_04]: This is very sad because both of us do nonfiction.
[SPEAKER_04]: Down by 1.5% overall.
[SPEAKER_04]: Let's read the breakdown.
[SPEAKER_04]: Self-help is up.
[SPEAKER_04]: 14.7% led by a very, very big book.
[SPEAKER_04]: Religion is up 5.4% business and economics down 3.9% biography autobiography and memoir down 7%.
[SPEAKER_04]: I wonder how much of this is actually because
[SPEAKER_04]: Did we have like a huge, huge, huge memoirs celebrity memoir in 2025?
[SPEAKER_04]: Because we had like spare the year before.
[SPEAKER_01]: No, no, this was a year of a big year.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, this was in a year of like the, the, the Obama type of memoir.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_04]: I just feel like so much of of of these, this upper down has to do with, and I do not like this about our industry, but has to do with like single titles, you know?
[SPEAKER_04]: I remember I was still in publishing school when I found out that overall sales were down, but because of Michelle Obama's becoming, because it's one title, right?
[SPEAKER_04]: And again, it's full, so that was very surprising to me at the time.
[SPEAKER_04]: Now, it's like, yeah, yeah, yeah, I read it out of this.
[SPEAKER_04]: So I wonder how much of that has to do with the celebrity member.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think that's the accurate analysis.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, it's just an interpretation, right, but like it's we'll never know for sure, but it's just a theory.
[SPEAKER_04]: And then yeah, do you want to read children's or we skip.
[SPEAKER_01]: Sure.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, we'll do some children's for you guys.
[SPEAKER_01]: I know we don't cover to town on the show.
[SPEAKER_01]: So general children's fiction up 1.6% children's nonfiction up 3.6% YA fiction down 1.8 how why a nonfiction up 3.8.
[SPEAKER_01]: So as you can see, I mean, a lot of this is, you know, less than 10% swings in either direction generally more up than down.
[SPEAKER_01]: big winners.
[SPEAKER_01]: I would say is science fiction and self help.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_04]: Oh, thank you for sharing that.
[SPEAKER_04]: I love, I love your love affair with stuff.
[SPEAKER_01]: I just feel like, as you've talked about, there's a lack of transparency in the business, so there's something about the second AC staff, so I'm like, I just want to gobble the bottle off.
[SPEAKER_01]: So thanks for hanging out with us this week.
[SPEAKER_01]: Everybody, we will let you be on your way, make sure you check out tomorrow's sub-stacks or lots of juicy stuff in there, and we'll see you again.
[SPEAKER_04]: And send me good vibes that I continue holding these things.
[SPEAKER_04]: These things are very heavy.
[SPEAKER_04]: Like I'm using those.
[SPEAKER_01]: She's holding up a weight, everybody who's listening and not watching.
[SPEAKER_01]: She's holding up her ten feet.
[SPEAKER_01]: They're a big weight.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's very big.
[SPEAKER_01]: Your legs can handle it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Do squats with those.
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm using my arms to hold this.
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm talking about my legs.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm talking about my legs.
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm talking about my legs.
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm just...
[SPEAKER_04]: I do this before.
[SPEAKER_01]: You hold your legs.
[SPEAKER_04]: I don't know why you do squats.
[SPEAKER_04]: I don't understand.
[SPEAKER_01]: With your hands, go beside your body.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, guys, I'm letting you go so you don't have to listen to this.
[SPEAKER_00]: Bye, everybody.
[SPEAKER_00]: CCLera 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.wshoman.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,
[SPEAKER_00]: and the views expressed by Kali 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.