Special Guest: Tom Colgan, Berkley Publishing

In this episode of 'Write Out Loud,' hosts engage in a lively conversation with Tom Colgan, Editorial Director at Berkeley Publishing and Penguin Random House. The discussion covers Tom's role in the company, his experiences working with famous authors like Tom Clancy and Janet Evanovich, and Berkeley's open submissions initiative aimed at promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion. 

Tom also shares valuable advice for aspiring writers, emphasizes the importance of passion in writing, and highlights some upcoming books he's excited about. Listeners also get a behind-the-scenes look at the challenges and rewards of the publishing industry.

00:45  Welcome and Introductions

01:29  Tom Colgan Introduction

05:03  The most interesting celebrity author stories

06:45  What makes a successful author?

08:26  The Berkley Publishing Open Submission Program

23:12  What surprised you about the submissions?

30:04  What advice does Tom have for writers?

37:23  Exciting Upcoming Releases

41:28  Final Thoughts and Farewell

 Hey, thanks so much for listening to the podcast. We really hope that you're enjoying every bit of it, but we would love to hear your feedback.  Drop us an email either to Matt@writeoutloudpod.com or christina@bookmatchmaker.com. We would love to hear your thoughts. What's working, what's not working. And what do you want to hear more of? Thanks so much. We really appreciate it.

Transcript

Special Guest: Tom Colgan

Matt: Welcome everybody to Write Out Loud, the podcast about storytelling, authorship, writing, and all of those types of arts. The things that we hold near and dear to our hearts, at least. I am here, of course, with the lovely, amazing God,

Christina: You're running out of adjectives! You're running out of adjectives! I knew there would come a point.

Matt: There's always got to be a blooper reel, right? Welcome everybody to write out loud. The podcast about storytelling, writing, authorship, and the arts that we hold dear to our hearts. I am here joined by, of course, the magical, mystical, wonderful, amazing, and ever effervescent.

Tom Colgan: All right.

Christina: Hello!

Matt: Hello. And we are joined by a very, very special guest. We are joined by Tom Colgan with Berkeley Publishing and Penguin Random House. Tom, hello. Absolutely.

Tom Colgan: for having me.

Matt: Thanks for joining us. We're very excited to have you here. Now, if you're wondering. Who is Tom Colgan? What does he do?

We've already said he works for, Berkeley and for Penguin Random House, right? But tell us a little bit about yourself and sort of the role that you. You play at. and at Penguin Random House.

Tom Colgan: So, Berkeley is an imprint of Penguin Random House. We are a commercial fiction part of the company. I am an editorial director, which means that I supervise a group of editors. We have three editorial directors. We each handled different aspects of the list. I handled science fiction, fantasy and mystery and thrillers.

Cindy Huang does romance, which is a huge part of the list. So, I mean, like, it sounds like I'm doing a little more than she, but it's not at all, a much smaller part. Cindy does romance. And Amanda Bergeron does like, book club fiction and just general fiction, which is also another huge part of the, I clearly have the smallest part of the list, but and then we all three of us report to our wonderful , boss Claire Zion who's the editor in chief.

And I have been there. I start with just background very quick. I started there at a school in 1985. When I got out of school, I started working at Berkeley and I worked there for five years. Then I went to Yvonne for six years and I've been back since 96. And January, if you can do the math, even though we're in publishing, we can do enough math to know that starting work in January 85 means that this coming January of 2025 will be my 40th year of my 40th anniversary in publishing.

I would

Christina: That's incredible. Congratulations.

Matt: And, we were talking a little bit before we kick things off that, you've worked with some very large names in the industry. We're talking Tom Clancy. We're talking Lee child. We're talking Janet Ivanovich. While we're name dropping any other names you want to throw on that pile?

Tom Colgan: love to drop a million names Mark Graney, Don Bentley Laura Childs, who does the Taoiseach Mysteries And I'm sure I could think of a million other people. Ed McBean at one point way in the distant past he was a great guy. Salvatore Lombino was his real name. He said and very interesting because he's, so he wrote under Ed McBean.

His legal name was Evan Hunter, so people called him Evan, but he had been born with the name Salvatore Lombino, and he changed it to, when he started writing, he changed it to Evan Hunter, and

Christina: Wow.

Tom Colgan: told me, I remember being at I think it was an ABA not ABA yeah, it was an ABA at the time, but remember, BEA was ABA.

Back in the day and he said do you know what my real name is? And I was like Evan Hunter. And he goes, no, it's Salvatore Lampino. I was like, really? He's like, yeah. So, anyway, I told you that I go off on these crazy tangents that have nothing to do with anything.

Christina: okay. That's,

Matt: that's

Christina: that's a very interesting tangent. I mean, I have a million questions like, why did he change his name? What, what motivated him? And, and I think I actually I've read some Ed McBain from back in my bookseller days. There was another bookseller there that just loved his stuff. So, yeah, that's a familiar name. Great.

Matt: Yeah. No, that's awesome. That's a really good story. I love, I love hearing, kind of those. So, what would you say has probably been the most memorable, interaction or the most memorable kind of, work that you've done with any one of those authors?

Tom Colgan: Oh, wow. Well, I'm very proud of the fact that I did two books with Janet. She's lovely. And she, and I got one joke in each book. And I was like, I'm done here. I was like, if you can get, if you can get Janet Ivanovich to like a joke of yours enough to put it in her book, like, what more could you ask for?

So

Matt: yes.

Tom Colgan: I don't even remember what the second one was, but one was somebody was going to the mall. They were going to go mall walking or something. And I said, wouldn't it be funnier if they were going to Cinnabon? And she said, yes, that would be funnier. And I was like, wow, that's my big moment.

Christina: this is so interesting too. Yeah. Know, it makes you wonder like, everyday occurrences for writers tend to make it into the stories. So I bet you, you see a lot of products that you can see little bits of, Not just your jokes, but other interactions that you may have had, or maybe interactions,

Tom Colgan: Oh,

Christina: know, that you've had with other people, too.

Tom Colgan: you mean me direct, like interactions that the author had with me directly?

Christina: yeah, either you directly, I mean, it's, it's, it's just fascinating that, they can take from everyday life, like, she

Tom Colgan: Oh, yeah. Yeah. A

Christina: know, like, oh yeah, that's, the Cinnabon, that's, that's, that's better, that's great.

Tom Colgan: successful author is a sponge. I mean, this is what, they're, when they're out in public, they're absorbing how this person talks and they're listening to what, is happening over here and they're absorbing all this stuff and I've never. Ever had an author who wasn't, you know, saying, saying to me, either sending me or saying to me like, Hey, did you see this really interesting article and whatever about, this thing, or, I mean, they're always taking this stuff in because that's what, then they twist it around, tie it up and put it back out again.

And that's the, that's the brilliant.

Christina: yeah.

Matt: I can think of it too, as a situation where maybe you're out, maybe at a meeting for coffee or something like that. And something happens in the cafe that they, You know that both of you find kind of interesting or just like, Oh, wow, that was weird. Right. And then that somehow ends up in a, in a story or

Tom Colgan: Well, I think

Matt: of that event.

Right.

Tom Colgan: they're interested in how things work, I think like, and I, I mean, honestly, I mean, this for any author, I mean, you might not ever think like, I'm going to write a book set in a Starbucks, but you know, you go into Starbucks and you're thinking like, Okay, so this is interesting. This person takes the order and then they like enter it here and it goes there and and they're just sort of cataloging like how this stuff and it may never make its way into print, but it's just interesting.

So they're always looking to see how things work in other. Industries. And I mean, I, that's what I love about them. The thing I love about authors is their, is their inquisitiveness, 

Christina: Yeah. Their curiosity.

Tom Colgan: yep. Yep.

Matt: Yeah. Yeah.

Christina: Amazing.

Matt: I love that. And we had really brought you in as well to talk a little bit about something special that, Berkeley is doing, Tina, why don't you kick us off down this path?

Christina: I actually heard through the grapevine, it's not something I had kept up with personally, but when someone told me about it, I passed it on to my clients. And in fact one of my clients Actually prepared to actually submit and didn't meet the deadline, but, she's, she's ready for the next one if there is one, but please talk a little bit about what you guys are calling open submissions. It was something you initially did. I think you said December of 23 and then you did it again in May.

Tom Colgan: This year.

Christina: tell us a little bit about that.

Tom Colgan: So, back in the day. So when I started in the business there was always something called the slush pile, right? And it was something the, with, I think the adjective dreaded was always attached to it, to be honest with you. Because It was stuff that came in neither of you were as old as I am.

So, but maybe you'll at least know the phrase over the transom. I think some of my younger colleagues would say like, what in God's name is a transom, but you know, the stuff would come over the transom. And it was physical because everything, all our submissions were physical and they would go into it.

Usually most places had a room or a closet or something where they kept them. And then there were various ways of doing it, in, at Avon, the, month and go through them and see if there's anything there. Other places Berkeley, when I first started, there was a an editor that they paid to come in at nights.

She came in at night and read the the slush submissions. And then times changed and everything became electronic and all our submissions are electronic now. I mean, if you I don't want to be mean, but like, if you tried to send a, like a paper submission now, I think we, I don't know what we'd do, we'd freak out.

Like, what do we do with this thing?

Christina: Yeah. Yeah.

Tom Colgan: so, We didn't get as many. I mean, you would think you would get a lot, but, we don't, no one's really excited about opening up an email from someone they don't know. So, it's sort of petered out. But then tragically came the murder of George Floyd.

And, everyone was sort of thinking, well, what can we do to before then Penguin Random House had been very committed to DEI initiatives, and they were asking each imprint, or not just each imprint, but each department, like, what are you going to do as a DEI initiative, 

Christina: Why don't you explain what is just in case there are people out there that aren't familiar with that acronym.

Tom Colgan: It's a diversity, equity, and inclusion. And it's a way that we looked at ourselves and said, we are not as open as we think we are. And we spent a lot of time talking about that and it was a really, I think it's the best thing that happened to publish in the last 10 years. To be honest with you, I really do.

Cause it really changed the way we looked at things. Really changed the ways we looked at ourselves. I think everybody felt before then. If you had spoken to me, everyone would have been like, I'm open. I'll read anything. I'll, someone sends me something I'll read. I'm not, I don't even know, the color scheme when they send it to me.

Of course you don't. But the question was, well, are you just sitting there waiting for it? Are you looking for it? And we weren't really looking for it. We're just sitting there waiting for it. And this is one of the issues that came up. When we started looking into what we as Berkeley editors could do in terms of DEI and one of the things authors of color would say is we don't have the entree.

That other people do like, and I'll be, here's a perfect example. I'm in this job because I worked with, I went to college with somebody who had a job at Berkeley. And when I graduated in 19, again, January 85. Save up if you want to send me a 40th anniversary present in a couple months. When when I graduated from school, my friend Joanne said, Hey, there's this position for an assistant open.

Do you want to apply? And I applied and here I am. But a lot of those people would say, well, I didn't have that friend who could make that connection for me. And the same thing when it came to writers, They didn't have that friend who was published who could introduce them to their agent, or they didn't know anybody, a published author who could, introduce them to their publisher.

So it was getting over that first hurdle was keeping a lot of people from connecting. Publishers. So we thought the best way to eliminate that hurdle was to open up to direct submissions. So basically I don't want to say slush because that, that has a negative connotation, but direct. Submission. So we did it and we did it in December of 21.

And what we committed to was that every editor, that every one of these submissions was going to be read by a Berkeley editor. We weren't going to bring in, we weren't cheating, bring in that person who came in at night and looked at them, we were all going to look at them and we were feeling pretty good about it.

And then we got 5, 293. And we,

Christina: Whoa.

Wow.

Tom Colgan: that, 

Matt: Hmm.

Tom Colgan: so, yeah, so the best laid plans. But so it took us a while and understandably, I think a lot of the people that submitted, we're kind of feeling like, Hey, I haven't heard anything, but we're like, hang in there. We're getting to you.

And we did. And.

Christina: Yeah.

Tom Colgan: Most importantly, we ended up buying four books out of that list.

Christina: Wow.

Tom Colgan: we have four new authors, all, all debut authors. And when we in each case we said to them, okay, we want to buy your book, but before we buy your book, do you want to go out and get an agent? You don't have to do it. We're not telling you to do it.

We're not telling you not to do it, but do you want to get an agent? And all four of them went out and got agents which is easier to do, obviously, when you have a deal in hand, 

Matt: Yeah. Wow. Wow.

Tom Colgan: so, and we are, um, just about to publish the first one in October. And then we have some, when's the next one?

Oh, we have one in October, one in November. One in January and one not till the end of next year. But we're very proud of them. We're very excited to have these new authors on our list. And we got through all 5, 293 of them. And then we had a second round, which started, as you said, in May of this year.

And we got 3, 100, we, we had decided. We'd left it open too long the first time around. That's why we ended up with 5, 200 this time around. We cut it down to just two days. Maybe it was three days, but whatever. And we got 3000, which is still a lot,

Christina: Yeah. That's yeah.

Tom Colgan: but we learned our lesson. And we're going at it methodically.

And we're, we're, I'm happy to say we're 25 percent of the way through them. And we're going to get through every one and get back to the people. And hopefully we have yet to buy one from this list, but it's only been since May. So we're hopeful that we'll get at least four out of this too.

Matt: So is that when you said you were looking to get back to all of them? Like I, initially I was like, Oh, I don't know if I want to ask this because with that many submissions, especially in the first batch, right? Like I was like, there's no way they're going to get back to every single one. But I mean, are you, you're giving feedback directly to every single submission?

Tom Colgan: Well, we're using query. Do you know query manager? So query manager, it's

Matt: don't,

Tom Colgan: a tool that's used by

Matt: probably does.

Tom Colgan: agents. It's really great. And it's really kind of automated. So if you say no, it just sends out like a little like you don't have to write a whole thing to the people. You just say like, no, we don't want this.

And, it sends a little thing back to them saying like, thanks a lot. But, this isn't right for a list. Actually, I don't really know the exact wording, but it's something like that. And then, but if you want it, you what we do is then you, in that instance, it'll send an email back to the person that you can.

Well, you can edit and say, Hey, it's me and I've done this already this year. Hey, it's me. I'm here. I'd love to read it. Here's my direct work email. Send it to me. And then after that, we just consider it a submission. So it's out of the, so we've answered one way or the other. Either we've answered.

It comes out of the group. So either it comes out because I'm now dealing with it as a submission or it comes out because we've rejected it. So, and then also, I mean, honestly, people will write to us and say, Hey, while you were considering this, I got an offer from this other publisher. I got an offer from, A lot of people will say they get agents.

They'll say like, Hey I've gotten offer of representation from an agent and in that case, we almost always say like, well, then go get the agent and just come back to us. Cause you really don't, we, we don't really, we really want people to be agented. It really is their interest.

Our interest for them. So we don't want to try to like snake them by saying like, well, quick, we'll, we'll make you an offer before you can like sign with that agent. Nobody wants that. That in the long run, that just leaves a bad taste in everybody's mouth. So,

Christina: Yeah. Are, are there any submissions that you didn't accept that maybe you're still kind of like, man, that story is still sticking with me or, maybe even thinking, gosh, I hope they, they fix some stuff and, and send it back in, or. You

Tom Colgan: well,

Christina: like

Tom Colgan: yes, some people, and in fact well, a lot of people do get back to people and say sort of that middle grant. You're right. I'm glad you brought that up. Say that middle ground though, the right back and say I really liked your submission, but I really think, I don't know, it's set in World War II, it should be set in World War I, or it should be whatever, you think, how do you feel about that?

And in some cases, I know people have had phone calls with authors and sort of thrashed out with them, like, here's what I was thinking, what do you think about that? And, I mean, to be honest with you, these, most of these are debut authors. So they're pretty amenable. But you know, it's, it's worked out.

I think some of the ones that we bought had some, well, I mean, everything has changed and everything has editing,

Christina: yeah.

Tom Colgan: but I think at least one of them had some like major change where originally they contacted the author and said, Hey, we think you should do this. Neil said, that's a really interesting idea.

I'll try it. And then we bought the revised version.

Christina: Wow. That's, that's just this this program to me I mean, I've been in this industry in one way or another since I was in my early twenties, so we're working on. 30 years here. And the way that you guys are working, this is just, I mean, it's incredible.

It's incredible. I mean, it's such an opportunity because as you said, not a lot of people have easy access. the New York publishers. And, even prior to, eBooks and self publishing, it was a, it was a difficult landscape. But this is just such an easy way for people, to submit and stuff.

So I I'm just, I'm blown away by the program and that's one of the reasons why I wanted to have you on.

Tom Colgan: I mean, one of the things we kind of, we try to remind ourselves of all the time, I think this happens in any business is that it becomes just part of you. You understand it so well that you think like, well, what's the big mystery. And yet whenever I talk to, to, to writers groups, that's like one of the first things they'll say to me is like, I, like, it's just all a mystery.

It's all like, I, How does any of this stuff happen? And, how do I, what's the secret? And I would say, well, there's no secret, but like, I guess that kind of is a secret because you have to know how to get that thing on my desk in the first place. And that's why when we looked at this, we thought like this is the way to do it.

Matt: That's awesome. So I know you had talked about, like, this really was born out of DEI right? And in all of the submissions, let's say, even the first round with 5200 and some submissions what was the breakdown? Was there a way that you guys were maybe looking at the tracking that type of demographic information for that or anything? And that in that area.

Tom Colgan: No I, there's really no way to do that. No, I think we have a way to do that or no way that would work. Moral or ethical either. I mean, we just said like, Hey, we, we, we did advertise, we tried to advertise not advertise, but like, inform BIPOC writers groups, this is going to happen.

But we told other groups, I mean, we didn't exclude. Non BIPOC groups, but we, like, specifically went out and told them this was going to happen. But, once the manuscripts came in, we had no idea, what the background of the, I mean, they did, they had to put a little bio in there, but, that's up to them what they want to include and what they don't want to include.

So we would just, and I think the essence of, I mean, I might be saying this wrong. I might get in trouble. I think it seems to me that the essence of DEI is to be open to new things, but always keep your standards up. So you were never, we were, we were open to the best books that we feel like these are the four best books in that group.

And they're great.

Christina: yeah,

Matt: awesome.

Christina: yeah, it's, it's more about giving opportunities where there aren't for them to step up, but they still have to step up and, produce that work, which, there are plenty of people out there that, that are That can, like you said, you had 5, 200 submissions. So, and, and people have to be very, very courageous to actually submit. I think that's something too, that, our listeners are probably like, Oh man, would I even have. The guts to submit. I mean, like I said, I'm thinking of my own clients that I did have one and I didn't, I didn't think she was going to be ready because I've been working with her. We're on book number four or five and she absolutely wanted to pitch New York.

So that's what we've been focused on, but she was not ready. She was too scared. She's, Like when I talked to her about, Hey, is it to start looking for agents? She kind of steps back and I was like, I don't know if I'm ready. I actually passed her the information for the May open submission thinking that this would kind of maybe get her interested if perhaps there was another one, later on. Cause as you said, it was only open for a couple of days. But man. She went for it.

Tom Colgan: Oh, good.

Christina: went for it now again. She didn't make the submission because I think she wasn't, quite ready. And we were working together on, what she was going to, send to you guys.

And I think ultimately she said, you know what, I'd like a little more time to, to work on this stuff. And, but, but it's amazing to me. That you guys give this opportunity. Is there anything about the program or the submissions that surprised you?

Tom Colgan: Well, what, I mean, what clearly surprised us was the enthusiasm. I mean, we did not

Matt: sure.

Tom Colgan: expect, 

Christina: numbers. Yeah.

Tom Colgan: Yeah, we didn't expect 50, was it 5250, 300 practically the first time around. We just was, were blown away by that. And, we got I mean honestly, we, to be perfectly honest, the second time around was kind of a we, we tried to it didn't go that smoothly 'cause we tried to say like, Hey, we'll only take a thousand, but that exploded.

Query manager the first day, people within the first hour. We, it had crashed query manager. So we had to like work out something else where we only open for a couple of days. And the other thing, the query manager, the guy who runs query manager had a very smart idea. He said, don't tell people, okay, next Tuesday it opens at eight o'clock because at eight o'clock on Tuesday, no matter what you do, you're going to get a gazillion submissions.

He said, wait till Tuesday at 10 o'clock and say. Okay. Query manager is now open. It'll be open for like, 24 hours or two days. So that'll where it'll get out, but you won't get that huge rush all at once. And that really made a big difference. But yeah, that was what really surprised us was the huge response we got and I do, and on behalf of my fellow editors, I know they feel this way too.

We do apologize to the people, certainly in the first group, we did not think it would take that long to get back to them. And the other thing, honestly all right, this is gloves off, The other thing was the quality. Like, I was looking at this like slush. And one of the things, when you go back to slush was it was brutally, some of it was terrible, so you really went into this thinking like, Oh, I could do five in an hour because, three of them will be awful. And I'll just read. Five lines and reject. And that really was not the case. So, that's good and bad. I mean, it's great that there's so many good writers working out there and that they're sending it does, but also slows you down because you just can't get rid of like something, that you expected was going to be really terrible.

So, so that, so those are the two things that surprised us for quality and the number of submissions we got.

Matt: Yeah, I can absolutely see that. And I think you think about all of the, the people that, put their hat in the ring and, and Tina, you talked about even like your client wanted to, but it wasn't quite there. And just the amount of courage it takes to do that, to submit. Right. I mean, I have friends who will procrastinate their way out of submitting to a contest because. They're just like, too, too afraid of it. Like they're afraid of the rejection, right? But

Christina: Yeah.

Matt: themselves out of hand anyway, because they don't, they didn't submit it. But anyway, so just, it's interesting. It's very courageous to see that, that many people stepped up and said, like, here's my work and judge it.

Right? Like you're handing it to somebody to say, please

Tom Colgan: Well,

Christina: exactly.

Matt: Yes.

Tom Colgan: and I sent it in and I was rejected, all I, all I would see would be the rejection, but you know, we're not judging it. What we're saying is this is something that would work for our list. There are many, many things.

That I really like to read that just are not like the sort of thing we would do. So, and we don't get into that in the region. We just say thanks for writing this, this isn't right for our list, but you know, most of the time we do mean that like not this is bad or the dialogue, stinky or, whatever.

You just mean this is not something that, we feel like we could publish successfully. It's just not, or jam. So, so I just want to say that we're not judging. Now, again, if I were a writer and I was at home and I got a reject, I would feel judged without a doubt.

Christina: Yeah, but something that I tell writers groups all the time that a rejection from a traditionally published editor or even just an editor that's a freelance that says this isn't for me, what they're really saying isn't that you're terrible and you won't work somewhere else. It's just. We're not a good fit. They're actually telling you that, they're not going to be able to get behind the work, I know. I have a little bit more insight into traditional publishing just because of, my previous jobs that. You guys need to be excited about taking somebody on because you're in those marketing meetings, you're in the, all different sorts of meetings fighting for space at a bookstore, fighting for, marketing dollars, doing all those things.

So you really want somebody is going to be a champion of your work and all a rejectionist saying is, I don't think I can be your champion. There might be one out there for him. But, it's not a good fit for me. So I, I see it a little bit differently because I know what you guys do in the background.

So, yeah.

Matt: You kind of have to look at it like I think dating in a way, right? Like you get,

Christina: Yes.

Matt: rejected and listen, you could be the most luscious peach there is. And somebody isn't going to like peaches. That's okay.

Christina: Yep.

Matt: okay. Right? Like it's a better fit for somebody else.

Christina: Yep. But there is somebody out

Matt: hurt

Christina: that,

Matt: heart.

Christina: yeah, there is somebody out there that loves peaches.

Tom Colgan: Yeah.

Christina: you just have to find the right one.

Matt: you'll find them. It'll be fine. Don't you worry.

Christina: So Tom, so with the success of these last two open submissions, what are your, your plans for possible another one?

Tom Colgan: So right now as I said, we're 25 percent of the way through the 3000 we have now. And our commitment is to. Give back to all of those people. So we're not even going to think about doing another one until we've, handled all these submissions. Cause it wouldn't be fair to the people that we're dealing with now.

If we started to talk about like, doing it, it would, just wouldn't feel right because,

Christina: Yeah.

Tom Colgan: if you're sitting at home and you sent this to us in May already, it's been, I mean, I said 25%, but it's been to do with my fingers, June, July, August, it's. What a professional I am.

Christina: Oh no. I, I, I tell people all the time I work in words, not numbers. I work in words, not numbers.

Tom Colgan: So, you're already thinking like, Oh, does this mean they hate me? Does this mean that, whatever. And and then if I were to say to you, like, Hey folks, don't worry, in a couple of months, we're going to be, how would you feel? Like I'm already talking to new people.

I should, finish up with you before I start, talking about new groups. So anyway, long story short, we need to finish these 3000 submissions, which we're going to do as expeditiously as possible before we start talking about doing more

Matt: No, that's awesome. That's really awesome. So as we start to kind of bring things to a close, Tom, I've got one kind of question for you. 

Tom Colgan: Shoot.

Matt: dear listener here might be thinking about submitting a book or submitting a manuscript, right? And is, and is maybe even in just embarking on the writing journey. In your experience, what is, what is a probably the most solid piece of wisdom that you would give them?

Tom Colgan: Oh, can I give them many pieces of wisdom? So

Matt: Go for it.

Tom Colgan: my first piece of wisdom is Recognize that you're writing because you have a story that you have to tell. So, it's your story. And I don't mean a memoir. I'm just saying the story you want to tell and you should tell that story. You should not the when I go to a writer's conference I always say to people in a very polite way, you can ask me any question, except.

Because that is the absolute 100 percent wrong question. And I'll tell you why, because you're going to come to me and say, What's selling? And I'm going to say, Romantici is hot as blazes! And you're going to say, I don't want to think about Romantici, but alright, I'll go home, read some Romanticis, write them up, I'll meet you here next year, and you come back with your Romantici, and I say to you, Oh, we killed that golden goose.

We beat it to death

Christina: Yes.

Tom Colgan: ago. And we're onto something else now that is a terrible mistake. You really should not write to the market. You should write because you have to write, you have to tell your story. So tell your story. And write it the best way you can. And the other piece of advice is that the, the one rule of, of, of writing is that good writing beats everything.

Like the only rule of writing is good writing beats everything. You could write a book with no, if you're a good enough writer, you can write a book with zero dialogue. And people would be compelled by it. You can write a book that was all dialogue and people would be compelled with it. You could write a book.

What's that book that guy wrote with it had no E's in it. I've never read it, but it wasn't.

Matt: yes.

Tom Colgan: Yeah. The, the letter E did not appear in it. I mean, I don't know about that book. Maybe it was terrible. Maybe it was great. I don't know. But I'm just saying that you can do anything if you're a good enough writer.

That doesn't mean. That the average person is a good enough writer. I couldn't do that,

Christina: Yeah. Yeah.

Tom Colgan: good writing trumps everything. And then from a practical point of view well the other thing, let me just go back to the other thing was I was saying to you guys earlier before we started recording this is the best time of all to be an author.

Because you can be published by a big five publisher. You can be published by a small publisher. You can be self published. You can be published by Kindle unlimited. You can be published, any one of these other platforms. You can, do it yourself. You can do part of it yourself and do part of it with somebody else.

And, we were talking about the, I was fascinated by the guy you had on who was writing in somebody else's universe. I thought that was amazing. I mean, 40 years ago when I started, you can do any of those things. Things you were published by a publisher, period. End of story. Maybe you could print the book yourself and sell it outta the trunk of your car, or, or, but you know, I mean, that was almost impossible.

I mean, you could, but it was, so you just have so many options today. If you do wanna be published by a big five publisher or even a small publisher I think you really need to get an agent. I would get, as I said, 40 years in the business. If I wrote a book tomorrow, which will not happen I would get an agent.

Because an agent really will explain the lay of the land to you. We'll know where to send it. We'll know what to do with it. I think you really need to get an agent. And then just good luck and just write what you want to write. And in the end of the day, if all else fails, you'll have a book that you're proud of and your grandkids can read it and my, when my father, my father in law died we found out that he had been taking a creative writing course, which we didn't know.

And we found this it wasn't a novel, it was a story that he had written about an adventure he had had where he was sailing in the boat. We were like, Oh my gosh, we didn't know this. It was amazing. It was well written. It was really interesting, so, I mean. The last, so that leads to the last piece of advice.

Don't do this for the money because

Christina: Yeah.

Tom Colgan: think like this is a path to fame and fortune. You are making a sad, sad mistake, my friend, that, that, that's the one thing that I would absolutely say,

Christina: Yeah. I,

Matt: percent of authors end up being that fame and fortune. Like, yeah,

Christina: yeah. And, and the thing is it's interesting that you say that because when I first started my book matchmaker business being an an author a coach, an author coach, an editor of the things I really wanted to do was dive into where they needed the help the most. And so I did all these free 30 minute, jam sessions where, I would give them advice and, consulting and stuff. And there was a theme that theme was I'm not selling. And once we got into why they weren't selling, single one written some genre that they did not like.

Tom Colgan: really,

Christina: Yes.

Tom Colgan: really

Christina: it shocked me. It shocked me because everyone was, as you said, chasing the market. But two things were happening. Number one, I think they were too late on whatever it was. The other thing was, if you don't have a love of what you're doing and what you're writing, I do think that comes out in your work.

Tom Colgan: a hundred percent.

Christina: And I think And I think you struggle. I think you your heart's just not in it. So I think your advice of love what you're writing, love what you do, happy. Because that was the other thing that I recognized in all of those, those people, none of them were happy. Not one were happy

Tom Colgan: That's,

Christina: and it didn't matter how much they were making. They, they could have been making a million dollars and they were still weren't, they weren't going to be happy,

Tom Colgan: I mean,

Christina: because they weren't.

Tom Colgan: what's crazy is people think this is an easy way to make a living, and it's a terribly, terribly, terribly hard way

Christina: yeah,

Tom Colgan: a living, 

Christina: yeah,

Tom Colgan: doing this,

Christina: yeah, yeah,

Tom Colgan: I mean, at least you get money, you'll be unhappy doing that, but at least it'll be worth it. Definitive results and you'll get money, work just as hard doing this and you'll get, you could get nothing out of it.

If you're, as you said, chasing the market. So dig a ditch or something. Also, when you're to somebody listening, I said like, when you're a ditch digger, at least to somebody next to you who you can complain to, and like, Oh man, it's hot out here. This ditch stinks. I hate this job. And he's saying the same thing.

When you're an author, you have all those feelings, but you're just at home by yourself. So it's terrible. Oh my gosh, what a bleak picture we're painting.

Christina: yeah, no, no, no. It's all the emphasize that you really need to love the genre that you're going to write, the story that you're going to write, as you said, write something you love.

Tom Colgan: Yes.

Christina: think that is just, on point advice. I don't think we'd ever find any better advice than that.

Matt: Agreed.

Christina: So, I do have one additional question before we close out.

Cause I know every editor wants to talk about a couple of authors or a couple of books that you're really excited about that are coming out maybe this fall or winter.

Tom Colgan: Okay. I'm always excited about my authors. Mark Greaney has a new gray man book coming out called Midnight Black in

Matt: Yes.

Tom Colgan: I love, Mark is my one of my best friends and just a great author. Always excited to be working with him. I continue to do the Clancy books. The Clancy series.

And this year, for the first time ever, I've had to, so there's two series. There's the Jack Ryan Jr. series and the Jack Ryan Sr. series. And this year we had to replace both sets of authors, which we never had to do before at the same time. And I'm really Pleased with the results because Andrews and Wilson, Brian Andrews and Jeff Wilson, who go by Andrews and Wilson took over the Jack Senior series and they did a book called Act of Desperation, which we just published a couple of Act of Defiance.

I always call it the Act of Desperation. Act of Defiance, which we just published a couple of months ago. Hugely successful. People love it. And tomorrow Tom Clancy secrets, not secret state, what's it called? Well, there's another one coming tomorrow from MP Woodward, Mike Woodward.

That's the Jack Ryan jr. Series. And I'm super excited about that. If I could remember the title, I'd be even more excited. I have what do I have coming in the fall? Next year, I have a book that I'm really excited about because it's a new kind of mystery for me. It's not a cozy exactly it's sort of, and it's not dark.

It's like we call the sort of a found family. It's about well, it's called the world's greatest detective and her just okay assistant. And I give my, I, I tell you, we agonized over this tile for the longest time, and I said, and my, my assistant is brilliant. And I said how about the world's greatest detective in her assistant?

And she said, how about the world's greatest detective in her just okay assistant? And I was like, that is a hundred times better.

Christina: Yes.

Matt: That is fantastic.

Tom Colgan: So

Matt: Oh my God.

Tom Colgan: have that coming in the in the winter. I was super excited about that. And and I just signed a guy named Ryan Pote, who's a brand new thriller author. He wrote a book called Blood and Treasure, which we are publishing in the spring of next year.

And I'm really excited to introduce him to the world. And Today Oh, I shouldn't say this. I shouldn't say this 

so, sadly I was publishing Ted Bell and sadly Ted Bell passed away. And Ryan stack who's a great author and a great guy has taken over the series and is doing the first of the new Alex Hawke book's called Monarch, and it's coming in March of next year, and this, today, today I'm sitting in my office, and my phone rings, and it says James Patterson, and I was like, could it be a different James Patterson?

So I pick up the phone and this very nice man says Hey, is this Tom? And I go, yeah. And he goes, this is James Patterson. How are you? And I said, well, I'm fine. And he said, now I knew he was looking at the book. I mean, it wasn't like totally out of the blue. I mean, we had sent them the book for a quote, so, I mean, it wasn't like just out of the blue, James Patterson called me, but I mean, James Patterson's never called me before. So he goes Hey, I read the book this weekend. It was great. I'm super excited about it. I'd love to give you a quote, but my assistant's on vacation. And could I just dictate it to you?

And I was like okay. My steno is not really up to speed. So you might have to go a little slow, I mean, I couldn't say no, but on the other hand, I was like, how am I going to write fast enough? You don't want to say it, it's past him. Whoa, whoa, slow down.

Christina: Yeah. Yeah.

Matt: Right.

Tom Colgan: He gave me

Matt: Oh, that's too

Tom Colgan: a stellar quote, wrote it all down and then chatted with him for a little while.

He was super, super, super nice guy. And we have, I have some authors that I know that work with him and we talked about that. He, he really, I couldn't tell you. How nice a guy he was. But meanwhile, I'm thinking how am I, I couldn't even read my handwriting. I'm like, I've got to get on a typewriter and start typing this up before I forget what he said.

So I typed it all up and the joke's going to be that, the magic editors. are always like, okay, where'd this quote come from? Can you like show me the magazine it came from? Or can you show me like the email you got with this thing? And now I'm gonna have to be like, well, James Patterson called me up and I wrote it down.

I

Christina: Oh my gosh. That's just,

Tom Colgan: mean, look at this face with this Poonam lie? Of course, I'm telling the truth.

Christina: that's just,

Matt: though.

Christina: that's going to be like a little bit of an out of body experience of like, I have James Patterson on the phone and he's giving me a quote for this other I'm really excited about and oh my gosh, now I got to make sure I get every word down. Oh, wow.

Tom Colgan: Yeah, no.

Christina: What a day.

Tom Colgan: So, yep. There's always, there's always something happening every day. Something new happens. So so much for having me. No, just

Matt: Tom, thank you very,

Christina: Yes. Thank you.

Matt: the generosity you've shared with your time and. I just really, we very much appreciate it. We've enjoyed having you on and I don't know if there's any kind of final thought you want to throw out there before we just say good night.

Tom Colgan: thank you for having me. This is a great podcast. I'm going to go back and listen to some more of them. Listening in the car and learning a lot about the part of publishing that I don't know. I know the big, I know the big five part of publishing, but as I said, we keep talking about this other part that I really don't know.

I mean, I know people do it, but I don't know. All that much about it. So I'm finding it really fascinating to hear about it through you guys.

Christina: Oh, what a compliment. Thank you.

Matt: huge. Well, thank you very much. And thank you as always for listening. We very much appreciate your time and generosity with your time as well. So with that, we will bid you adieu. So good night and thank you. Bye.