[SPEAKER_01]: Welcome to another episode of Shooting the Shit with Literary Agents, Carly Waters, and CC Lyra.
[SPEAKER_01]: Where we dissect publishing gossip, discuss book industry trends, and the overall state of the book business.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you'd ever wanted to grab a coffee with two literary agents, grab your mug, and pull up a chair.
[SPEAKER_01]: Hi, everybody.
[SPEAKER_01]: You have both CC and Carly today.
[SPEAKER_01]: We were completely just like ships crossing.
[SPEAKER_01]: What's the same ships passing in the wind?
[SPEAKER_01]: We were ships passing in the wind.
[SPEAKER_02]: in the night, I think.
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, right.
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, ship's passing tonight.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know.
[SPEAKER_01]: We're ships.
[SPEAKER_01]: We're ships doing something.
[SPEAKER_01]: Shit ships.
[SPEAKER_01]: We are finally back in our port.
[SPEAKER_01]: We're back in our port, back at home.
[SPEAKER_01]: And we are, you know, not in hotel rooms.
[SPEAKER_01]: We're just shooting the shit at home.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm happy to see you, CC.
[SPEAKER_01]: We had some gossipy stuff before recording that we had to go through, which, you know, lots of stuff we'll be able to talk about.
[SPEAKER_01]: But yeah, we're back to shoot some shit.
[SPEAKER_01]: So one thing I wanted to let you guys know So if you're listening to this on the day it comes out, which is Monday on Wednesday We're gonna do another one of our sub-stack lives for the podcast paid subscribers.
[SPEAKER_01]: So if you are a paid podcast sub-stack subscriber on Wednesday at noon Wednesday July 22nd at noon, we're gonna do one of our live events and we have so much fun doing it last time that I have
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm very excited that we get to do this again.
[SPEAKER_01]: So please come join us.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'll set a reminder on Substack.
[SPEAKER_01]: So you guys who are already registered, you're able to see that email come through.
[SPEAKER_01]: But yeah, we'll see you next week, live.
[SPEAKER_02]: It'll be so much fun and remember what happens in the Substack Lab.
[SPEAKER_02]: Stay's in the Substack Lab.
[SPEAKER_02]: So if you are joining us, you must keep all things confidential.
[SPEAKER_02]: Cause it's a little bit of a more fun episode, I will say.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, we talk about books.
[SPEAKER_01]: We don't finish.
[SPEAKER_01]: We talk about books.
[SPEAKER_01]: We didn't like.
[SPEAKER_01]: So like, you know, you're getting us, let's say, on filter.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, honest.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, obviously, professional.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm edited.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm edited.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm edited because we're live.
[SPEAKER_01]: But we have a lot of fun and we had such a great turnout and you guys had great questions because in the live we can see you guys commenting literally like when we're saying things which so that reflects the direction of the conversation which is awesome.
[SPEAKER_01]: So yeah so Wednesday the 22nd at noon if you're not a paid subscriber to the podcast now it's the time obviously we're gonna make sure we're doing these quarterly because we enjoyed them so much.
[SPEAKER_01]: And yeah you actually can go back and watch them but CC doesn't like it when I say that because it is but off the cuff.
[SPEAKER_02]: Stop telling people that.
[SPEAKER_02]: Every time I'm like, you don't have to tell people that can go back and watch, oh god, they're gonna do that.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, I know, I don't know.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, okay, we're not gonna recount all of our travels because we do that all the time, but I'm back from vacation.
[SPEAKER_01]: CC's back from a conference, but the thing that everybody was talking about when I got back was this Atlantic article.
[SPEAKER_01]: and CC, I know read it right before we recorded.
[SPEAKER_01]: The title of the article, you know, not the most uplifting title.
[SPEAKER_01]: You guys have seen this one going around.
[SPEAKER_01]: As for one, it's called the end of reading is here by Rose Horowitz.
[SPEAKER_01]: And yeah, as I said, not the most uplifting, and now I saw going around on threads, we pulled some different kind of quotes to talk about.
[SPEAKER_01]: CC, do you want to talk about what your initial thoughts on this article?
[SPEAKER_02]: The last rose who depressed me this much was the rose from the Titanic movie when she dropped the necklace into the ocean.
[SPEAKER_02]: This was a wonderfully written article.
[SPEAKER_02]: Very important.
[SPEAKER_02]: Please, Rose, if you were listening, I'm not trying to disparage your article, but depressing, which I'm pretty sure you understand why.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I think that this isn't really an article about the death of reading.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's an article about the death of thinking because it makes the case and every reader knows this, every writer knows this, that reading is thinking because you're consuming writing and writing is the ultimate form of thinking.
[SPEAKER_02]: And it was, yeah, it's a challenge.
[SPEAKER_02]: Challenge 3.
[SPEAKER_02]: There's so many things that we could highlight.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I kind of started at the top.
[SPEAKER_01]: I pulled a few different things.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's true to me.
[SPEAKER_01]: What I've done was, and I've rented it about this before.
[SPEAKER_01]: But gambling has become a more common leisure activity than reading a book.
[SPEAKER_01]: Last year, 57% of Americans placed a bet where only 38% read a novel or short story.
[SPEAKER_01]: That is, yeah, that's kind of tragic.
[SPEAKER_01]: Maybe somebody needs to set a book in a casino or in Vegas.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_01]: And merge these two worlds together.
[SPEAKER_02]: and send it to Carly and me because we both want this, you know, you'll win, whoever you go with, you'll win.
[SPEAKER_02]: This wasn't surprising to me though, like it was not definitely depressing, but not surprising at all, just given how, you know, the increase of gambling and the dopamine hit that your brain gets when you gamble and all that, but yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: One of the other things that stood out to me was as a parent, as quote, there's a study of over 200,000 American adults, only 2% read to a child on any given day.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm like, oh, that one stabbed me, right in the heart.
[SPEAKER_02]: That one, that one's so hard.
[SPEAKER_02]: That one's definitely really hard.
[SPEAKER_02]: What I found interesting was knowing that
[SPEAKER_02]: So the study apparently looked at 236,000 responses, the proportion of Americans who read for pleasure on any given day fell from 28% in 2004.
[SPEAKER_02]: So 2004 was a long time ago at this point, to 16% in 2023.
[SPEAKER_02]: I actually
[SPEAKER_02]: had thought, oh, that's actually not as bad as I might have imagined, then I read the sentence, that clarified that the study was looking at people who read notches books, but a magazine or a newspaper, and they were including in reading of books as they should, audio books, and e-books.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so then I was, you know, at first I was like, oh, not as bad as I had expected and then I'm like, oh, yeah, pretty bad.
[SPEAKER_02]: Because a magazine, come on, people, magazines are so great.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I know, and I think I mean, a lot of the article just leads to this idea where, you know, we are basically losing our higher order abilities of comprehension, which, like, as a whole is pretty depressing.
[SPEAKER_01]: One of the things I would say, you know, if we want to maybe target some of the weaknesses of the article, I felt like it was really talking down YA romance of women's fiction.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a tale of all this time, basically that we're kind of talking down things that women are more interested in, but, you know,
[SPEAKER_01]: that was, you know, I think a weaker spot in the article.
[SPEAKER_01]: It also kind of suggested that reading was like a blip in human history.
[SPEAKER_01]: But the article argued like as a society we were illiterate until the 1400s.
[SPEAKER_01]: Basically that we might be again in the future that like the literate era will be a brief interlude between the oral and the digital ages.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think to be, do we really think that like,
[SPEAKER_01]: are literacy levels are going to slide that much.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, obviously, we don't have a crystal ball, but that's a tough pill to swallow.
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't think it will.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think that when it comes to reading the reason why it's such a special activity comes down to the fact that
[SPEAKER_02]: It allows your imagination to be both entertained and enlightened.
[SPEAKER_02]: And for me, that is a primal human instinct.
[SPEAKER_02]: Our imagination, our inventiveness, our complexity.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, that is all very human.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so I think books might adapt.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I don't know how, because that I definitely cannot predict.
[SPEAKER_02]: But I just don't think that will stop consuming them.
[SPEAKER_02]: But the consumption might look a little bit different.
[SPEAKER_02]: But yeah, I just don't believe that.
[SPEAKER_02]: I just don't believe that at all.
[SPEAKER_01]: And the article also was talking about the concept of writing, right, because we don't have books without writing.
[SPEAKER_01]: One of the quotes was writing as hard, or we'll like an experience to a long note of some painful illness.
[SPEAKER_01]: AI promises a simple remedy.
[SPEAKER_01]: The trouble is that writing is not merely the act of transcribing fully form thoughts, if it were, wouldn't be hard.
[SPEAKER_01]: Writing is the way people figure out.
[SPEAKER_01]: what they think, and how to convey those thoughts to someone who doesn't already share them, and if we're losing the cognitive ability to want to write and want to read, then we're going to kind of lose all that interconnected tissue, which again, another depressing thought.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, yeah, I think it was what part of the article that really gave me pause was talking about writing with AI, and then it said that the product of AI is often better than what someone could compose on their own, and I'm like, no.
[SPEAKER_02]: No, I talk about it.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's like only it.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, only if you, if you, maybe if, maybe your word vomit, sure, maybe AI is at a point where it's better than someone's word vomit, but to the article's earlier point, the reason why we're writing as hard is because you test out,
[SPEAKER_02]: argument and then you realize it's not holding up on paper.
[SPEAKER_02]: So you write it again and again and again rethinking it and revisiting it in your mind.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so yes, maybe AI is at the point where it's better than word vomit, but it's definitely not better than someone's intentional, mindful, and intelligent
[SPEAKER_02]: in point distinction.
[SPEAKER_01]: I feel like that line was a misstep too because obviously people that read the Atlantic are a certain type of person.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm sure we can all assume the type of person who you know educated, subscribe to the if they subscribe to the magazine because it was behind a paywall that you're a certain the socioeconomic background and also all of you guys listening to this you know you're not the ones also who's writing could be approved by AI because you're writing is better than that.
[SPEAKER_01]: So
[SPEAKER_01]: We're not looking for mediocrity here.
[SPEAKER_01]: You guys, we know our listeners.
[SPEAKER_01]: We know how smart you are, and we know you guys are super talented.
[SPEAKER_01]: There was one thing that was trying to be helpful in the article, which is, they're quote by some measures at least books continue to thrive.
[SPEAKER_01]: Last year, print books sales were higher than they were a decade ago.
[SPEAKER_01]: Barnes and Noble opened 16 new stores, almost 400 independent books stores, bring up in 2025.
[SPEAKER_01]: sub-staccacy and explosion of subscriptions for long-form writing, celebrities such as Julie Ben Reese with a spune of history of fame and influence to launch wildly successful book clubs, audiobooks have become a billion dollar industry.
[SPEAKER_01]: So that is, I think, what we're going to try and try and focus on here.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, nothing that you haven't heard on this show before, but let's focus on the positive, I guess.
[SPEAKER_02]: Absolutely.
[SPEAKER_02]: Let's focus on the positive.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_01]: All right, and now we're going to hear from our sponsors.
[SPEAKER_01]: Welcome back everybody!
[SPEAKER_01]: We are going to talk about an Instagram post that came up on our feed that was very interesting.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean nothing that CC and I don't know but something that we thought that you guys might be curious about.
[SPEAKER_01]: The Instagram account is DiasporaCo, the IASP ORACO and they are doing a cookbook and so if you guys don't know
[SPEAKER_01]: cookbooks are very expensive to produce and so this lovely author quite went through like her advance what she spent on everything you know how much they paid the age and obviously you guys know all of this you know it's broken up into four parts and one of the things that again you guys might not know is that the author depends on the publisher
[SPEAKER_01]: But oftentimes, the author is the one that has to kind of up front all of the costs for the recipe creation.
[SPEAKER_01]: So they're going to the grocery store, doing all of that.
[SPEAKER_01]: They have to pay for a recipe tester.
[SPEAKER_01]: They have to pay for the photographer and the food stylist.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so, you know, you might see some of these like larger cookbook deals.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so this author says we got 250k, which sounds like a lot of money, but then you divide that into four parts.
[SPEAKER_01]: You pay the agent and then think about everything that has to be front-loaded in terms of cost.
[SPEAKER_01]: This person was out of pocket very early on in the process, so it's a really great video.
[SPEAKER_01]: I encourage you guys to watch it.
[SPEAKER_01]: I believe it came out on July 14th, so you met to scroll back through her feed, but she was a wonderful feed, so give her a follow, diaspora co, and learn a little bit about the economics of cookbook publishing because it might surprise you.
[SPEAKER_02]: It surprises so many authors.
[SPEAKER_02]: I actually remember one of the first writers I ever spoke to when I became an agent, you know, she was telling me about, she was like, oh, I got the steel, but it was quite low and she mentioned the advance and I told her like, listen, the thing about advance is, is they can be anything from zero to millions of dollars.
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, saying that it's low or high, I mean definitely compared to what you want, but
[SPEAKER_02]: She was asking me, is this lower-high, and I can't tell you that.
[SPEAKER_02]: I haven't read your book, you know?
[SPEAKER_02]: And she was like, yeah, but I have this friend who made, and then she mentioned this like high number.
[SPEAKER_02]: And in the middle of conversation, I figured out that her friend was writing a cookbook, and I was like, well, no, because your friend is going to pay for it, ton of production costs, the pictures, the, you know?
[SPEAKER_02]: And she's like, oh, no, I'm sure the publisher is going to pick that tab, and I'm like, no, not how it works.
[SPEAKER_02]: I wish it were.
[SPEAKER_02]: I understand people thinking that the publisher would pay for that.
[SPEAKER_02]: by default, I mean, and it once about a time they did.
[SPEAKER_01]: But but also a lot of times these days, like it also affects control, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: So if the publisher is going to pay for it, then they are going to want to have control over everything to do with visuals.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you the author do the hiring, there's a lot of like consultation and approvals and all very specific language in the contract about
[SPEAKER_01]: Again, consultation and approval over all of the visuals, but you have control over who you hire.
[SPEAKER_01]: It has to be approved by the publisher.
[SPEAKER_01]: But there's a lot more control, which I think, you know, especially if you work at such a digital space, a lot of these are digital creators who are coming up with these cookbook ideas.
[SPEAKER_01]: I can see how even though you have to fret those costs in the grand scheme of things, because a lot of these people,
[SPEAKER_01]: This is their business.
[SPEAKER_01]: So they are treating a like a business.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is just an extension of their brand.
[SPEAKER_02]: They're investing in that.
[SPEAKER_01]: So their business can make sense.
[SPEAKER_01]: We never know what books have any copies of we're going to sell on which is always the big question mark when you're front loading a lot of costs.
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, I'll be honest and say it still doesn't make sense to me, just because of the royalty rate.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, if they made the majority of the royalty sure, it still doesn't.
[SPEAKER_02]: I still find it wildly unfair, but I understand the advantages of control for sure, because you know, you want it to look a certain way.
[SPEAKER_02]: Visuals are so important in a cookbook.
[SPEAKER_02]: Do you use cookbooks at all?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes and no, since I've ever since I've had my second kid, I do next to none of the cooking.
[SPEAKER_01]: My husband has taken over all of the cooking.
[SPEAKER_01]: Gotcha, gotcha.
[SPEAKER_01]: What gotcha?
[SPEAKER_01]: The very small sliver.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, I do.
[SPEAKER_02]: Gotcha.
[SPEAKER_01]: I love cookbooks.
[SPEAKER_01]: I have a few recipes I go to online, but I work on cookbooks.
[SPEAKER_01]: I sell cookbooks.
[SPEAKER_01]: I love the idea of them and so I, in the limited amount of cooking I do these days, yes I do.
[SPEAKER_01]: How about you?
[SPEAKER_02]: They're also the best gift.
[SPEAKER_02]: right because there's such a great gift.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's such such a wonderful thing.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I too quite recently don't do most of the cooking at my home.
[SPEAKER_02]: I used to for so many years because I'm so controlling and I love cooking but one day my husband was like I'm going to learn and I'm going to do it your way.
[SPEAKER_02]: I promise I'll do it exactly as you want me to do it okay and I'm like no you're you're not going like it's going to get it's just not going to work and he was like trust me with
[SPEAKER_02]: So he took over and now he does the cooking so I mean I stopped but but I love I have so many cookbooks love love love love cookbooks there they're great and like I said they're also like my go-to gift like it's the best
[SPEAKER_01]: They are, I mean, we're going on a huge cookbook tangent here, but they are also one of the Books that are going up in price quite a bit.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know if anybody has seen a cookbook like if you're gonna play pay full retail price For a physical cookbook these days they can be $40.45 dollars.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, they are definitely good gift.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's a good right like a good host is gift.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah Yeah, they're expensive to produce you know with all the full color.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, anyway
[SPEAKER_01]: They are beautiful and expensive, but that's why you're also seeing more cookbooks done in like French flaps and paperbacks because a hardcover cooked with these days is a very expensive, but beautiful gift.
[SPEAKER_01]: So if you're gonna learn anything from this episode today, please buy more gifts for friends, buy more, book gifts for yourselves.
[SPEAKER_01]: How many books can you buy in a year challenge?
[SPEAKER_01]: By Carly and Cassie.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_01]: You should put the mind your list.
[SPEAKER_01]: We got it, we got to increase the literacy rate
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, yeah, to tie it to the first article we talked about, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, it's, it's a defiant stance at this point.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, yes, please, everyone do that.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, another, you know, semi-viral article that I saw going around was on Substack.
[SPEAKER_01]: Substack is renewed with Amy Chan.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was written on July 11th if you want to go back and grab it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Title, I spent $44,000 launching my book.
[SPEAKER_01]: Three of those dollars worked and subhead what actually sells books in
[SPEAKER_01]: I learn so you don't have to.
[SPEAKER_01]: So she kind of runs through really like spells in all of it.
[SPEAKER_01]: I spend $10,000 on a TikTok influencer campaign.
[SPEAKER_01]: $10,000 on a consultations speaking gig agency, 24k on a PR retainer, PR packages.
[SPEAKER_01]: Anyway, so she goes through frozen cons, what she actually thinks moved the needle.
[SPEAKER_01]: A lot of people think events, you know, for somebody in that space is probably the thing that moved the needle the most for her.
[SPEAKER_01]: So anyway, lots of jammed.
[SPEAKER_02]: Something I really liked about this is that she highlights how podcasts work really well and worked really well for her, and yay, yay for podcasts, so that was fun.
[SPEAKER_02]: I really enjoyed it.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's a really good article.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, now it's a it's a great one to dive into.
[SPEAKER_01]: So go check it out renew with AB Chan.
[SPEAKER_01]: I spent 44K launching my book.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_01]: The other article I saw going around is from June.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I don't know why it kind of came up on my feet a little bit later.
[SPEAKER_01]: Devon Halliday Karen Galipsy said, why publishers prefer debut novels and what debut authors can do to ensure a book too.
[SPEAKER_01]: C.C.
[SPEAKER_01]: what we're going to turn this one.
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_02]: So.
[SPEAKER_02]: the article is really well written and I really enjoyed it.
[SPEAKER_02]: I want to process my notes with that.
[SPEAKER_02]: There are a couple things that I read that just knowing our listeners, they have so many listeners who read so closely and then they'll DM me to be like, hey, I notice that this article had this one line that said X.
[SPEAKER_02]: But you guys have said, why, how do you reconcile that?
[SPEAKER_02]: And so I'll just, I guess I'll address that.
[SPEAKER_02]: The article says that a debut is the first novel that an author writes, and it's not.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's the first novel that an author sells.
[SPEAKER_02]: So many authors have written novels that never got picked up and you know, before they found their agent.
[SPEAKER_02]: And the people are writing the article, now this, it's not like they're proposing something different.
[SPEAKER_02]: I just, I wanna flag that just, there's no misunderstanding.
[SPEAKER_02]: And the other thing too is that there's a part in the article where it reads, there are plenty of reasons for a second or third
[SPEAKER_02]: Maybe one of the reasons that they're going over is maybe this new book is under option.
[SPEAKER_02]: And actually most contracts have option clauses and that's no guarantee and certainly not a reason for another novel to get picked up.
[SPEAKER_02]: The option just means that the publisher is going to look at it before anyone else does and they may offer or they may not.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think what they meant to say is that one of the possibilities is that it's a part of a two or multi-book deal.
[SPEAKER_02]: make a difference sometimes for our closed readers who have lots of critical thinking and work so thankful for them.
[SPEAKER_02]: But overall, I really enjoyed it.
[SPEAKER_02]: I liked a lot of things about it.
[SPEAKER_02]: What were your thoughts?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, some things started to me, so there was a question that the sub-stacker posed to who they were interviewing, which was something that were sort of published in a market place, who they catalog all the deals, and the question was, how much of the fiction marketplace is driven by debuts.
[SPEAKER_01]: In the person said, there's an average of 35 debuts sold monthly.
[SPEAKER_01]: They usually account for a third or more of all fiction deals.
[SPEAKER_01]: Overwhelmingly, debuts deals go to young females under 40, basically the book-talk audience.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's not my quote, that's theirs.
[SPEAKER_01]: non-white authors are also not well-represented.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then they go on to ask, why are publishers so eager to acquire debuts?
[SPEAKER_01]: And then they kind of talk about, there's the thrill of discovery.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is Western culture, loves the idea of talents for getting to the world's least formed.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a fairytale more than a reality, most accomplished debut novels of several unpublished trunk novels.
[SPEAKER_01]: But the notion of a preternatually gifted novelist is romantic.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I don't know what's, yeah, anyway.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's one of those things where,
[SPEAKER_01]: We know, we talked about this on the show so many times, but the concept of track and the good things about track, the bad things about track, but there's not really any getting around it, it's still the reality of our business.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's just the model.
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't like that it's the model.
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't actually think that it's the best model for the medium.
[SPEAKER_02]: I just don't and I don't just mean it from like a fairness perspective.
[SPEAKER_02]: I, it's a fair, but I'm putting that aside.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm saying,
[SPEAKER_02]: I think it would be so much smarter if publishers did it in a different way, but I don't get to decide that.
[SPEAKER_02]: It is absolutely the model.
[SPEAKER_02]: You are worth more as a debut.
[SPEAKER_02]: I will never forget one of our deep dives.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think it was the first deep dive, actually.
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't, at this point, I don't remember, but it was either the first or the second.
[SPEAKER_02]: So the author who wrote the Marsh King's daughter, Karen Dion, did a wonderful presentation.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like gave a wonderful presentation.
[SPEAKER_02]: And she talked about the fact that she was a mid-list author, and then she wrote the Marsh King's daughter.
[SPEAKER_02]: that book blew up.
[SPEAKER_02]: She made a joke about how her agent had believed that she wrote it because it was different from everything else she wrote and anyway she said this one thing that I know made a really big impression which was the only thing that could have made the experience even better was if it had been my debut because there is something special about debut and you like that and again we don't like the model.
[SPEAKER_02]: but it is the model.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I think it's important to know is important to know how the industry that you want to break into operates so that you can have realistic expectations and so you can know how to navigate it.
[SPEAKER_02]: There's a line in the article and really people have been saying this a lot in line too, but the line says publishers usually blame lack of sales on the author even though that's not particularly fair.
[SPEAKER_02]: People say this a lot.
[SPEAKER_02]: I've seen multiple threads by authors saying, my first book didn't sell, or the publisher's blaming me, and what they mean is the publisher isn't investing in my second book.
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't actually think they're blaming you.
[SPEAKER_02]: The concept of blame is quite personal, and I understand why people use that language because writing is so personal, and so when someone says no to a second book, it feels like someone is blaming you.
[SPEAKER_02]: But I know for a fact, the editors aren't blaming you.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, because the editors are people who believe in stories, and the authors have pointed it out.
[SPEAKER_01]: They're disappointed in the sales track, too.
[SPEAKER_01]: They wish it so much more.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, too.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes, and they don't think it's your fault.
[SPEAKER_02]: But it does mean that because of the model, they won't keep investing.
[SPEAKER_02]: So it's not a binary situation where it's, I will invest in you if I don't blame you.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, that's just not how the mentality works.
[SPEAKER_02]: But people internalize the word blame, and they repeat it.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I actually think that's a disservice to your entrepreneurial brain because if you think that you're being blamed, you take it way too personally and then you can't like bounce back and strategize as a business person, which is what every writer needs to be.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, everybody thinks it really personally.
[SPEAKER_01]: There was a paragraph kind of coming back to the idea of like how you how to continue your career.
[SPEAKER_01]: It said, the higher your advance, the closer an eye, you'll need to keep on the quote tied and quote of optimism at your publishing house.
[SPEAKER_01]: Many decisions in the publishing industry are rooted in emotion rather than in financial calculation.
[SPEAKER_01]: A publisher that was excited to spend six fingers on you can turn embarrass and resentful if they begin to suspect that they made a huge mistake.
[SPEAKER_01]: This goes against what you just said.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like do you think that's true?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, and no?
[SPEAKER_01]: That decisions are based in emotion.
[SPEAKER_01]: That a publisher that was excited to spend six figures on you can turn embarrassed and resentful if they begin to suspect that they made a huge mistake.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think they can feel embarrassed and resentful in their choice, but still not believe the author.
[SPEAKER_02]: Do you know what I'm saying?
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, they might go, oh, I made a wrong calculation when I thought this book was worth X, but I still don't think it's about blaming the author.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I'm not saying there are not any situations where the author's blame.
[SPEAKER_02]: I just don't think that's the default.
[SPEAKER_02]: People use it as a default.
[SPEAKER_02]: I also think that part of the issue with this is, I don't have that quote in front of me, but it's something about people look at emotions and not financial data.
[SPEAKER_02]: Emotions are the data like how much a novel is worth how much fiction is worth he is based on emotion how a book made me feel
[SPEAKER_02]: is in, sorry, I'll say that again, is essential.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's qualitative and it's essential.
[SPEAKER_02]: It is the hard data that will make me want to buy it.
[SPEAKER_02]: And there is no other hard data that we look at when we buy a house.
[SPEAKER_02]: There is an emotional piece to it.
[SPEAKER_02]: I walked into a house and I'm like, I have to own this house.
[SPEAKER_02]: that's the emotional piece, but there's the hard dad, the number of bedrooms, when the recent renovation happened, all these things.
[SPEAKER_02]: But in books, it's all the emotions, all the emotion and how you felt, nobody's counting the number of verbs going.
[SPEAKER_02]: There are 18 air you died verbs.
[SPEAKER_02]: Therefore, this book is worth more than just not how it works.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, it's an inescapable part of our industry that we,
[SPEAKER_02]: we trade in taste and emotions are the data that tickle our taste buds.
[SPEAKER_02]: And like it or not, publishing is institutionalized gambling.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm sorry to share that, but it is.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think publishing is really good at leaning into the emotions when it's convenient and then leaning into the financial calculations when it's convenient because it's not usually the other way around because when things are doing really well, the publisher should be like, hey, I can't wait to give this author the next big advance and then you'll still have to fight toothed now with them about the big advance, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: Do you know what I'm trying to say?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, absolutely.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's always, it's always going to be when it's going to be used to the publisher.
[SPEAKER_02]: Absolutely.
[SPEAKER_02]: And, you know, when a book doesn't do as well as a publisher
[SPEAKER_02]: They can point to the numbers, because then they do have actual hard data for that author.
[SPEAKER_02]: But before someone debuts, there's no hard data to look at.
[SPEAKER_02]: So it's just an inescapable part of the debuting.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, there's lots of great stuff with that article.
[SPEAKER_01]: So make sure you guys check it out.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's Devon Halliday, DEV-O-N-H-A-L-L-I-D-A-Y.
[SPEAKER_01]: Check out that sub-stack and enjoy.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's all the material we have for today.
[SPEAKER_01]: So thanks for hanging out with us.
[SPEAKER_01]: We'll try to be more uplifting next week, but we can make no promises.
[SPEAKER_01]: We expect you, though, to be at our Sunstack Live.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you are a paid Substack subscriber to the podcast account, please come hang out with us on Wednesday.
[SPEAKER_01]: We're gonna have lots of fun and yeah, bring any of your kind of more complicated thoughts because we have some time space to get into them over there.
[SPEAKER_02]: And bring your snacks.
[SPEAKER_02]: I always want to know what people are snacking on because I'm always thinking about food.
[SPEAKER_02]: So bring your snacks, bring your questions, bring your tea.
[SPEAKER_02]: We're gonna have a lot of fun together.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, we'll see you next week.
[SPEAKER_00]: Bye.
[SPEAKER_00]: CC Lera 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.