Meet a Storyteller's Society Cohort #1 Member: Anne Brooks

Learn more about the Storyteller's Society

Learn more about Anne Brooks

Get the list of 125+ Literary Agents who rep Thriller, Mystery, Suspense, and Crime Fiction

Study the Opening Paragraphs of the Top Authors Writing Thrillers Right Now

Transcript

Anne Brooks

[00:00:00]

David Gwyn: hey everyone. Welcome back to the thriller one-on-one podcast on Friday's episode, I introduced you to the thriller one-on-one storyteller society. And then yesterday we talked about some of the benefits of being in a community. But now I want you to hear from some people who've already signed up for the community. And remember, you can check out all the information about the storytellers society in the description. 

So, if anything, these members say resonates with you, be sure to hop down into the description to learn more. I'm really excited over the next few days to share some interviews with members of the community who were early members into the storyteller society.

These people signed up right away. 

And so we were able to schedule a time to chat and I had the opportunity to ask them some questions. At the time of this recording, we're more than 50% filled in the storytellers society. And that only really opened last week, which means if you're not sure whether or not you're ready to sign up, I want you to listen to what Anne has to say. 

And then if you have more questions or you want more information, you can go to the link in the description where the storyteller's society [00:01:00] information pages and there's also a link in the description where you can text me your questions. I do want to address one really quickly because it came up a few times and that is, if you want to cancel your membership, it's really easy to cancel your membership through the platform. 

And you can leave at any time. I'm not here to keep people in this community who don't want to be here. I'm building this because I really love writing and the writing community. And I think we deserve a place that's better than anything else out there. And for a lower price than you can find. And that's it. 

So if it's not working for you, no hard feelings you have to do what's right for your writing process. But after Friday, it'll be too late for you to know if this is the thing that changes the trajectory of your publishing career. After all, how much has your literary legacy worth? Okay, so our first guest is Anne Brooks with over a decade of experience and education and made a seamless transition into the publishing realm, driven by her love of writing. Along this journey, she uncovered a fervent desire to support fellow writers and realizing their aspirations. [00:02:00] Leveraging her extensive background in education years of gaining knowledge as an acquisitions agent for a publishing company and successful publication of bestselling novels. She's guided countless authors towards achieving their publishing dreams. Now talk about a resume. Imagine being in a community with an. So let's hear from her about why she joined the storytellers society.

Welcome to the thriller one on one podcast. I'm really excited to chat with you. 

Anne Brooks: I am super excited to chat with you too. Thank you for having me. 

David Gwyn: Yeah, so I want to have you on for a couple of reasons. One of which is that you joined the Storyteller Society, which is part of the Thriller 101 podcast, the community that's part of that.

And I am super excited to have you in this community. We've had the opportunity to chat a little bit before you signed up. And so I'm really excited to have you as part of the community. And I want to first just ask you what it was that made you want to join the Storyteller Society.

And what are you kind of looking forward to once you're in the community? 

Anne Brooks: So the number one thing I hear from successful authors and a lot of successful people within the [00:03:00] publishing industry is how incredibly important a writing community is for an author. And it's not something An author innately thinks about because we're very reclusive in our writing.

I, right before we hit record, I just talked about how with my last book, I wrote it in 40 days, but I draw, I mean, I'm like in a cave for 40 days. Like I just disappear and people are like, what happened to Anne? She's totally gone. But so it's so important to be able to have a community to reach out to.

Get their feedback, you know, connect with them, network. It just, it adds so much of that community to a very isolating job of writing. And the other thing I really love about it too, is. Just that this community is a very specific genre that I write in. So as I'm meeting these authors, we're all kind of in the same space.

And that makes a huge difference, too, because there are a ton of writing communities out there, but they're very [00:04:00] open to all genres. And so what I've learned In my years of publishing, nonfiction is very different than fiction. Fantasy is very different than thriller. And it's just a different type of story set.

And then also too, when you're asking like somebody in the community, Hey, do you want to read my stuff? It's like, if somebody's asking me to read. their high fantasy book, that's going to be a little hard for me because it's not really the space I enjoy so much. So it's going to take me a lot longer to read your book because even if it's a great book, it's just not what I'm interested in reading.

David Gwyn: Yeah, I think that's that's spot on. And it's honestly why I wanted to build something like this. And I know you were actually really important in helping me shape what this ended up being. And a lot of it was that conversation that we had about, just the experience level like we want we want to have people here who are in it to be serious 

Okay. Let's pause there for a second, because I want to highlight a few things that Ann is talking about. First, she highlights how important community is for writers and how successful writers have shared that community has been the thing that has [00:05:00] been so beneficial in their careers. Here's what Liz Alterman had to say about the importance of community in her writing career.

Liz Alterman: would say just maybe the value of finding a writing community that is supportive and encouraging, but also honest, like, , I wouldn't be anywhere without the valuable insight and the people who are honest. I have a dear friend and I'll joke that she's like my secret weapon, 

David Gwyn: then Anne went on to talk about networking and feedback. This is such an important, but tricky part of being a writer. Sure. You could go on Twitter, but honestly, have you been on Twitter recently? And if you ask someone for feedback, how do you know they're a serious about their writing career as you are? 

How can you trust their feedback? That's why a community like this is so valuable. Quality writers, giving quality feedback where we all learn from publishing industry experts. It's like a community platform with a genre focused, MFA all rolled into one. 

And, and for way less than an MFA will cost you . And the next part of the interview and talks about her career in [00:06:00] publishing and helping authors the book coach. So let's go back to the interview.

So I do wanna talk a little bit about the other stuff that you do.

So you're, you're book coach, editor, you have experience as an acquisitions agent for a publishing company. I mean, you have been in, in the bookish world for a while. Can you talk a little bit about just like how you navigate your work as like a book coach and an editor, and then how you, how you think about it in terms of your own writing.

Writing? 

Anne Brooks: Oh my goodness. I am a yes person, so I, I, my background is psychology and education. So I'm just naturally a very helpful person and I also having been in education for 13 years, I just love imparting knowledge onto people. It's kind of, it, when you do it for 13 years, it just becomes kind of your natural space.

And then sometimes I realize, I'm like, do you want to know this? Because I'm like, I don't mean to like, kind of educate you, but like, I like natural, like space now. Cause I've taught for so long, but so that just, [00:07:00] when I started writing. The first thing that happens when you publish a book is everybody comes out of the woodwork and wants to write a book.

I, I don't know if you experienced this, but it's like, oh, I've always wanted to write a book. Right. So people just naturally came to me and definitely when I decided to dive into the publishing world, it was just, it was a opportunity that just fell into my lab. It was a local publishing company I was researching.

Companies actually for a friend of mine who wanted to publish locally. And I found them and they said, Hey, look, we're actually hiring. Would you be interested in, in working for us? And I was like, definitely, because I was so green to the publishing world and it's so closed doored. And that's the thing about, again, a community is it allows you to peek behind that curtain a little bit, which is kind of what my podcast is all about is like peeking behind that curtain and really understanding who What the publishing world is, how to navigate it and how to be successful in it.

And so once I started working for that publishing company, I mean, it was just, it's a wealth of knowledge and again, just with my background, I, I [00:08:00] soak up knowledge like a sponge and then I just wanna like disseminate it to everyone . So yeah, that's kind of how like. author coaching took form. I just started working with a couple of different authors who wanted help writing their book and then I now transitioned with that publishing company Indigo River Publishing.

I'm doing editing on the back side for them. I no longer do, I do still Acquire authors. When I meet somebody I really love and I think that they're a fit for them, I take them to Indigo, but it's no longer my full time job to like run the department and to like, you know, acquire a certain amount of authors and all that stuff.

So, and that's which really just came because I was ready to learn something different. I was ready to kind of move my career forward and I really wanted to get deeper into editing because I'd been helping some authors with author coaching. So again, it just kind of like one thing leads to the other and it's like, Spirals and all of a sudden you're sitting here saying like, well, I do a total of like 10 to 15 different things and it sounds

Really, I, anytime somebody asks me what I do and I start listing off, I'm like, I [00:09:00] sound so disheveled and so all over the place, but I promise you. It all connects together. And so, and it's just about like meeting the author where they're at a lot when they come to me for help. Again, I'm a yes person.

So I'm like, I can help you with that. Let's go. And having come from a place where I literally Googled, how do you publish a book? And I had like, 

David Gwyn: we all have at some point, 

Anne Brooks: no support. I couldn't find anybody. I was just lost in this sea of publishing. And that I think also too is why I have such like a drive to help other people because I was you at one point totally lost and if somebody had told me all this stuff back then it would have made my life so much easier.

David Gwyn: Yeah, yeah, I feel like it's funny I look back sometimes at like some of the things that we did like, How many query letters did you send out or how many first pages that you send out that like, if you read it now, you'd be like, Oh, what was I doing? How did I do this? But it's because you didn't know you didn't know any better.

Anne Brooks: I know. I know. Oh my gosh. I look back at my earlier stuff and I'm like, wow, that's really embarrassing, 

David Gwyn: which makes me nervous. [00:10:00] Honestly, it makes me nervous now because I'm like, what am I going to be thinking about my writing right now in five years or 10 years? I'm like, Oh, am I getting embarrassed by this moment right now?

Probably. That's part of the process. That's

Anne Brooks: my, that's my problem with social media. I know how incredibly important it can be for an author, especially TikTok, which I'm not on, but I've been told every time I talk to somebody, they're like, you need to get on TikTok. Like, it's a thing. And I'm like, I don't want to, but that's the thing about social media is it really does like concretes that moment, which I think some people really enjoy.

I, on the other hand, have been terrified of that. 

David Gwyn: So you mentioned your podcast Debut Writers, which I want to talk a little bit about. So can you just give us like an overview? Like, what is it? What's it, what's its purpose? What's its goal? What does it do? 

Anne Brooks: So a lot of that came out of my co host Brie and I were both author coaches.

We both helped numerous authors. Brie also takes it a step further and she's a social media expert. And so she does that side with the authors as well. And it's [00:11:00] just, when we talk about like all the things we didn't know, but we wish we knew before we started writing, that's kind of where this podcast was formed was all the things.

Somebody should have told us and literally the first episode is like, let's be realistic. Like if somebody had told me what it would take to become a published author, I don't know if I ever would have written that first book, honestly. Oh, that's a lot of work. 

David Gwyn: You should've just gotten a part time job.

You'd be a lot richer at this point, 

Anne Brooks: right? That's the thing too. Like, I mean, Writing was always just such this wonderful creative outlet for me. And then when I decided to move into the making this, like how you want to make your hobby, your living, it, it changes. And so, and it becomes a profession and you really have to be educated in that.

And so that's what Debi Writers is. It's like from the very beginning, what do you need to know before you get started? What do you need? to know as an author at your core, who are you going to be? And a lot of this stuff Brie talks [00:12:00] about on the podcast, it all plays into how are you going to present yourself on social media?

How are you going to market your books later on? If you know this stuff before you write, it really helps kind of just with all that marketing on the back end that you're gonna have to do no matter what publisher you work with, no matter what amazing team you acquire, you will have to do. Marketing.

Unfortunately, no. Gone are the days of a reclusive writer. I wish I could just write and hand my book, my manuscript to somebody and be done. Like that would be my dream. 

David Gwyn: Right. And it just doesn't exist. It doesn't exist anymore. I hear it all the time. This was super cool. We are so lucky to have you in the Storytellers Society.

I, I can't wait to like learn from you and to, to write with you and to have you meet everybody else in the group. This is, it's going to be absolutely amazing. My last question for you is just, where can people find you? Where can people look you up? 

Anne Brooks: So I have my website, which is connected to the podcast and my author services and my book.

So it's really kind of like a catch all place [00:13:00] and it's just Anne Brooks. com and with an e 

David Gwyn: easy enough. So we'll, I'll link to that too. So if you're listening to this and you want to learn more about, and I will link to that. It's down in the description. You can check that out. So, and like I said this was this was great.

And I'm looking forward to more conversations like this in the community. So thanks again. 

Anne Brooks: Yes. Thank you.

David Gwyn: Okay, that's it. 

So if you want to be in a writing community with people like Anne, be sure to check out more information about the storyteller society. That link is in the description. And if you have questions, let me know via the link where you can text me again, that's down in the description and I hope to see you in the community . Tomorrow, we'll be back with another member of the storytellers society. 

So be sure to subscribe if you haven't already. So you don't miss that episode and I'll see you then.