99. How to Find What's Meaningful in Your Novel (and Pitch It Like a Pro) with Karin Gillespie

What if the secret to writing a compelling novel—and querying it successfully—starts with understanding what's deeply meaningful to you? In this episode, I sit down with author Karin Gillespie to explore how to identify the personal connection in your writing and translate it into a pitch that agents and editors can't ignore.

Karin, author of nine novels and creator of the popular Substack "Pitch Your Novel," shares her 20+ year publishing journey—from traditional publishing with the Big Five to indie publishing and back again. She's seen the industry from every angle, and she's here to help you navigate today's competitive landscape with wisdom, warmth, and practical guidance.

In this episode, we discuss:

• Why your personal connection to your story matters more than you think
• How to write a novel with a clear desire line that drives your narrative forward
• The essential elements every query letter needs (including the one-sentence pitch most writers forget)
• How to identify and pitch your book's genre in today's market
• What "comps" are and why they're crucial to your query success
• The reality of submission in 2025—and why it's so different from even five years ago
• How to create your pitch before you write your novel (and why this can save you heartbreak)
• Finding joy in the writing process, even when the business side feels overwhelming

Whether you're drafting your first manuscript or querying your fifth novel, this conversation offers both tactical advice on how to query a literary agent and gentle encouragement to stay connected to what makes your writing meaningful.

Connect with Karin Gillespie: Substack: Pitch Your Novel

Mentioned Resources:

• Publisher's Marketplace
• Query Tracker
• Amazon for comp research

If you're ready to learn how to write a novel that matters to you and stands out in the marketplace, this episode is your roadmap.

The Whole Writer is a podcast for fiction writers who want to nurture both their craft and their creative well-being. Hosted by Nicole Meier, multi-published author and book coach.

Want more support on your writing journey? Visit nicolemeier.com to explore coaching programs for fiction writers.

If this episode resonated with you, please leave a rating and review—it helps other writers discover the show!

🎙️Find Karin Gillespie here.

🎙️Find Nicole Meier here.

Transcript

TWW EP 99 - The Whole Writer with Karin Gillespie

[00:00:00] Karin Gillespie: When you sit at that computer and you start that magical process and you realize that, wow, all of this stuff is coming to me, all these answers, I never worry about what's gonna come next because I know that somehow I'll get the idea and it will go on. And to me, there is nothing more satisfying than the actual writing and coming up with this story that is meaningful to me.

[00:00:24] Karin Gillespie: And I think that is probably the most important thing that I could say to writers. What is your personal connection to this story? This story should be something that is deeply meaningful to you.

[00:00:45] Nicole Meier: Welcome to the whole writer. A place where we talk about what it means to show up as someone who's grounded in their voice, in their community, and in their creative path. Even when the world tells them to hustle, compare, or conform. I'm Nicole Meier, a multi published author and book coach who believes that nurturing the person behind the page is just as important as refining the words on it.

[00:01:11] Nicole Meier: In each episode, we'll explore the terrain of writing life with honesty, warmth, and practical wisdom, creating space for you to write from a place of wholeness rather than depletion. Whether you're drafting your first manuscript or publishing your fifth book, you'll find conversation and companionship for the journey here.

[00:01:32] Nicole Meier: So settle in, bring your questions and your curiosity, and let's discover together what it means to write and live with authenticity and purpose.

[00:01:45] Nicole Meier: Welcome listeners. I'm so happy that you're joining me here on the whole writer because today I have a special guest and that's Karin Gillispie. I have been following Karin because of her wonderful books. I've been reading her novels, but also I am newly introduced to her because she has an amazing Substack community.

[00:02:04] Nicole Meier: If anyone is not a part of Substack, I really encourage you to go over there and check it out, and we'll talk all about that. But first, before I jump into all things writing and publishing with Karin, especially pitching, I want to read her very quick bio. So Karin Gillespie is the author of nine novels.

[00:02:21] Nicole Meier: With Simon and Schuster, Henry Press, and also self-published, she has an MFA in creative writing from Converse College, and she has an incredible substack called Pitch Your Novel. Welcome Karin. Hi Nicole. I'm so glad to be here. I'm so happy you're here too. And remind us where you're calling in from Savannah, Georgia.

[00:02:43] Nicole Meier: Beautiful Savannah, Georgia, 

[00:02:46] Karin Gillespie: and it's gorgeous today. I mean, 80 degrees. Oh honey. Lovely, 

[00:02:51] Nicole Meier: and we're recording this in November, so that sounds Yes. Special. I, I've got on ums flip flops right now, so, oh, I just love it. Well, I wanna talk to you all about what you offer to writers, and that's what drew me to you, honestly, Karin, I mean, I actually adored your novel.

[00:03:09] Nicole Meier: Call the Pitch Queen. Oh, thank you. It was so much fun. I really loved it. But I also am, like I said in the intro, so drawn to you because you are offering. A window or maybe a big door. Remember, you're swinging the door open for writers into the world of publishing, especially into pitching their novels.

[00:03:28] Nicole Meier: And that's what drew me to you, is that you are really extending a hand to others who are just coming into this world and helping them figure it out. And we're gonna get into all of that today, but I thought we would ease into it. Mm-hmm. And first talk about if you could share a little bit about your journey as an author.

[00:03:45] Nicole Meier: What led you to focus on helping writers navigate the publishing world? 

[00:03:50] Karin Gillespie: Great. Well, my journey informed what, how the Substack came about. So I started out with the Big five and I did five books with them and I was actually able to support myself as a writer for a number of years, and it was pretty peachy and I thought it would go on and on like that, but then my editor got fired.

[00:04:14] Karin Gillespie: And my option was not renewed, and so it was time for plan B, so I went and got an MFA, and after I was done with that MFA and creative writing, once I was done with that, I pitched my thesis book to a agent and they took it out on sub and it did not sell. Okay. So I went with a smaller publisher and I found myself so happy with that publisher because.

[00:04:46] Karin Gillespie: They were so transparent and I could pick up the phone at any time and call them, and the royalties were higher. It was a great experience, and I did two books with them and they took my whole back list as well. Oh, they took 

[00:05:01] Nicole Meier: back list. 

[00:05:02] Karin Gillespie: Yes. Yeah, so I was happy there, but unfortunately the problem with smaller publishers is sometimes they go out of business, and that was the case with this one.

[00:05:12] Karin Gillespie: So that wasn't happy, but I got all of my back lists and I decided to put it up myself to Indie publish, and I, I was so shoddy about the whole thing. I made my own covers. I was just didn't, I mean, I did not do it in a professional way at all, and I didn't expect much, but I was wrong. All of a sudden. I was making as much as I had traditionally published, which just blew me away.

[00:05:42] Karin Gillespie: So I did that for a few years and when you indie publish, you have to sort of feed the machine. And when I had written another novel, I said, well, you know, I wanna go back to trad because it's a lot of work. It is a 

[00:05:55] Nicole Meier: lot of work. It's a full-time job, is what I tell people. 

[00:05:57] Karin Gillespie: Yes, it is. It is. And by the way, you know, I'd had all these Amazon reviews and blurbs and things with the previously published books, so.

[00:06:06] Karin Gillespie: I didn't have to worry about that, but with a new book, I would have to get blurbs and all of that kind of stuff. So I was on sub for a year and we heard back from two editors during that time and I said, this is crazy. And that's when I started investigating publishing. I was in all these subgroups and my story was not singular.

[00:06:32] Karin Gillespie: The submission groups these days are going, oh my gosh, you know, we're being ghosted by editors. We're not hearing back, you know, it's been six months. Agents are now saying, I'm not gonna nudge until six months. It's completely different sub experience than when I first started out as a novelist. And so I wanted to investigate why that was happening, and I realized that this.

[00:07:00] Karin Gillespie: Climate is so much more competitive than it used to be. That's what I found with my investigation. I mean, writers go in blindly. They're never gonna make it. They really have to be pros with this, and that's why I wanted to do picture novel. I said, you know, they don't know. They don't have a clue. Now there's some very savvy, savvy writers, but most people, I mean, I also evaluate query letters.

[00:07:26] Karin Gillespie: I don't do it now, but I used to. You read most of them and you go, oh my gosh, they don't have a clue. This is not going to pass mustard. So I wanted to teach. I wanted to teach this new climate and how competitive I want it to be, as realistic with writers as I could be. It's kind of grim sometimes, but I think information is power.

[00:07:46] Nicole Meier: Well, I love that and will get into all of the things that you. Are sharing because you are kind of a truth teller in terms of you wanna help people, but you wanna tell 'em the truth. But let's go back for any listener who is unfamiliar with the path of getting a literary agent, and then what happens when the agent goes on submission, takes your work on submission to acquisition editors.

[00:08:07] Nicole Meier: There's some people listening who aren't familiar. So can you kind of walk us through that process? 

[00:08:12] Karin Gillespie: Right. So an agent will prepare a list of editors that they usually have a relationship with, and they all do it a little bit different, but they're gonna have a pitch letter. Very often they use elements from your query and they send it out and say to the editor, you know, I have this project and are you interested?

[00:08:34] Karin Gillespie: And editors for the most part will usually say, yeah, sure. Send it to me. Or sometimes an agent will send the FO and just say, here it is if you want it. And then you kind of wait to see if anybody is interested and typically, okay. When I first went on sub, I heard back from every editor in two weeks. Oh, that's so, and then I was on sub another time.

[00:08:56] Karin Gillespie: Yeah, I, that's so fast. Then I was sub for that thesis novel and again, we heard back. To not hear back for a year is incredible. Yeah. I mean, to only hear a few responses. So that's kind of what's going on these days. And then if the agent doesn't hear from the editor, they nudge 'em. And sometimes the editor won't ever get back.

[00:09:23] Karin Gillespie: And that's what we call ghosting. You know, you just won't ever hear from that editor at all. And. I think after the pandemic, 20% of editorial staff was lost and they didn't really replace those people. So they are just so overworked. And so I think that's a lot of the problem. It's a completely different atmosphere than what I was on sub, and 

[00:09:47] Nicole Meier: yeah, I, and that's unfortunate, and I can attest that's true.

[00:09:51] Nicole Meier: I think it was during the pandemic that my agent took out a different manuscript for me. I had one editor that expressed so much interest in the partial and me, and they just took nine months, and so I just waited and waited and waited, and at the end of the nine months they had to pass because there was no longer a market for that certain book.

[00:10:14] Nicole Meier: But I can attest that that's true for sure. Oh, I am 

[00:10:19] Karin Gillespie: so sorry. That's great. So you, you know how that feels. Yes. Yes. And the panic on these submission boards I'm talking about, like at Facebook, there's private submission boards or there's some discords where people talk amongst themselves and these people are just besides themselves because they thought.

[00:10:36] Karin Gillespie: Oh, I've got an agent. Now of course I'm going to get a an editor and it really isn't happening the way we'd like. And of course there are exceptions. There are times when you have like a really hot genre. 

[00:10:49] Nicole Meier: Yes. And 

[00:10:50] Karin Gillespie: all kinds of editors will be scrambling for that project, but that is definitely the exception to the rule these days.

[00:10:56] Nicole Meier: Yeah, and I would agree, and I would say to the listener who's just learning about all this is, some agents, good agents will keep you informed of, you know, here's my pitch list, here's who I'm going out to on submission, here's how the feedback's coming in. But I have worked with some writers who say their agents never tell them who they're going out to when they're going on submission, and they just.

[00:11:17] Nicole Meier: Wait and wait and wait, and then they'll hear like sort of a group response. So it depends on the agent. I think the better agents are more transparent. But yeah, there's a big variety of how you get the news as well. 

[00:11:29] Karin Gillespie: Oh yeah. Yeah. A lot of writers can be afraid of their agent. Yeah. To ask for that kind of information.

[00:11:36] Karin Gillespie: But yeah, if you're a good agent, you're very transparent about the process, why wouldn't you be? And yeah, of course a lot of agents will say, Hey, do you wanna hear about the passes? Right. Or do you wanna not? Or do you only want good news? Right. And all of that. And so, yeah, a lot of it depends on the agent and are they good at nudging and that kind of stuff too.

[00:12:00] Nicole Meier: Right. Okay. Well let's stay on that thread, even though I have a million other questions for you. 

[00:12:05] Karin Gillespie: I love that thread. 

[00:12:07] Nicole Meier: So we're talking about this, we're kind of backtracking and talking to people who maybe aren't as familiar, but you're talking about why it, the landscape has changed so much and it's so competitive.

[00:12:17] Karin Gillespie: Mm-hmm. 

[00:12:18] Nicole Meier: And you often describe publishing as a culture with its own language. Yes. So I want to hear from you what you think are some of the biggest misconceptions writers have. What are the misunderstandings they have when they first try and break in? Well, 

[00:12:33] Karin Gillespie: I'm gonna start with the query, okay. Because that document is so important, and most writers really do not have a clue about how they're supposed to approach that.

[00:12:45] Karin Gillespie: So you have to know about comps, which are comparable titles to your book, and they have to be appropriate comps, like most people will say, Hey. It has to be within five years. It has to be titles that have sold decent, but not too much. They can't be outliers. It's like a Goldilocks situation. Yeah. To find these books and you really have to do a a lot of research.

[00:13:11] Karin Gillespie: If you're pitching particular genres to an agent, you have to know the tropes of that genre, particularly in romance. Romance is being pitched in completely different way than it used to be. Like for instance, if you're writing Dark Romance, you have to know about shadow daddies or touch her and I'll kill you.

[00:13:32] Karin Gillespie: All of these tropes that you might not be aware of. To show that you read like crazy in that genre. Yeah. And that, you know, the 

[00:13:43] Nicole Meier: tropes that readers expect. I'm so happy you brought up Dark Romance because for the listeners that is selling like hot cakes right now It is. It's the darker the better. Yeah.

[00:13:53] Nicole Meier: Yeah. 

[00:13:54] Karin Gillespie: Oh, sub genres. You don't just pitch horror these days, which is also another very hot genre. Yeah. You have to say, well, it's on haunted house Horror story, or know those specific sub genres, women's fiction. Nobody pitches it as women's fiction anymore because that's sort of out, so you talk about it as upmarket instead of women's fiction.

[00:14:19] Karin Gillespie: So all of these little distinctions that. Writers probably do not know at all. It's very difficult to come out sounding savvy because you're just not involved in that culture and know all the tricks and so on. Appropriate word counts, of course, for genres would be something else. Oh, and then you have to write Know how to write a one sentence pitch.

[00:14:45] Karin Gillespie: And I can't tell you how many query letters I read that don't include that, right? That is gonna put you at a big disadvantage. 

[00:14:52] Nicole Meier: Would you recommend that one sentence pitch or hook, go right at the top or somewhere towards the body of the query letter? I like it right 

[00:15:00] Karin Gillespie: at the top. I do too. So one place you can get a good idea of how Pitches read is Publisher's Marketplace.

[00:15:09] Karin Gillespie: There is a subscription fee. It does cost $30, but you can turn it off at any time. And this will help you speak the language of publishing because you can see how books are pitched. So what I would do is basically the title, the genre, and then going into the one sentence pitch that says, follows the journey of so and so who does so and such.

[00:15:34] Karin Gillespie: And then you go into the larger description. Because we have to understand how agents read query letters. They skim them. And if they have to figure out what your one sentence pitch is from your three paragraphs of description, you're slowing them down, why make that work for them? And maybe they are in a bad mood that day and they'll say, you know, I don't, I don't.

[00:16:00] Karin Gillespie: I need a one sentence pitch and query. Tracker often asks for that. It'll say, what is your one sentence pitch? So that is very important. 

[00:16:10] Nicole Meier: It is so important. I think one of the, sometimes illuminating, maybe even heartbreaking things when writers learn about the query letter and the process of trying to get an agent, and also when you're on submission, getting a publisher, is they're reading this information differently than how you wrote it.

[00:16:25] Nicole Meier: You wrote it to tell what your story's about, they're reading to see if it's marketable. They're reading to see did these comps sell? Are they relevant to today's market? They're reading it to see are there any stakes? Is this something that will grab a reader? And can I pitch this to a certain publisher who's been asking for this kind of book?

[00:16:43] Nicole Meier: So I hate to, you know, burst people's bubble, but this really is a business. And yes, we wanna know what your story's about, but you're making a business pitch at the end of the day. 

[00:16:54] Karin Gillespie: Yes, you are. And your one sentence pitch is like the DNA of your story. Right? Love that. Yeah. And most agents will look at it to see if all of the story elements are there.

[00:17:07] Karin Gillespie: And one of the problems, of course, is with one sentence pitches is authors very often lead with generalities or themes, and that is a problem that won't work as your pitch. 

[00:17:22] Nicole Meier: Well, that's really helpful. I bet you people are taking notes right now. This is a great segue for me to talk about your substack because you have dedicated your time and energy and your wisdom to helping people learn how to pitch their novel, and that is why your Substack publication is called Pitch Your Novel.

[00:17:39] Nicole Meier: Right? So can you talk a little bit about that? I just love the summary for that too, if you want me to read it. Yeah, sure. Sure. So for Pitch Your novel, you say publishing is a culture and if you don't speak the language, you'll fumble around and you say, consider me your Sherpa, which I just love that I've been involved in publishing for over 20 years as an author, but every week I research the most UpToDate information to help you succeed.

[00:18:04] Nicole Meier: I mean, Karin, that's what we all need. Well, and you do, 

[00:18:09] Karin Gillespie: because if you get query advice, say from someone that's been a published author for 10 years. It's a completely different process than it used to be, like comps. I never, I had no idea what comps were when I first started querying, but some agents actually say that's the most important part of the query letter.

[00:18:29] Karin Gillespie: And it takes research to find those comps. And you usually have to qualify them in some way. Like you'll say, oh, it's got the pathos of wedding people, but with the humor of lessons in chemistry, something like that. To make your idea as clear as possible and to explain where your book will fit, you know what genre it is, and absolutely know how to sell it.

[00:18:54] Nicole Meier: Speaking of genre, do you see a lot of writers pick the wrong genre for their book? 

[00:19:00] Karin Gillespie: Yes, I do. A lot of writers will say they're literary writers, which that is. A completely different culture. If you say you're a literary writer, you better have the credentials to back it up. You can't call yourself a literary writer without an MFA or prize winning or something pretty prestigious that way.

[00:19:23] Karin Gillespie: That's how you are a literary novel, you know? Publications and things like glimmer train or other journals and stuff, that is a whole different ball of wax than it really is. Yeah, yeah. Right. Yeah. So yeah. Don't call yourself a literary agent probably unless you have a PhD. I mean a literary, I'm sorry.

[00:19:44] Karin Gillespie: Don't a literary writer unless you have a lot of credentials. Yeah. To back 

[00:19:48] Nicole Meier: it up. Yeah, I agree. I see people making mistakes and that's okay. You know, we all have to look. Yeah. Oh sure it is. It's fine. You see a lot of people and it's nuanced, right? So some people will say, I have a thriller. And I'll say, well that's, it's not a thriller, it's domestic fiction.

[00:20:02] Nicole Meier: 'cause you don't have a crime in here. Oh yeah, they're, they're, it's so nuanced. So I would say exactly what you said, study people have to learn. What are the books that it could be comparables? How are they marketing themselves and what genres are they falling under? You know, online you can do a lot of this research, which saves people a lot of heartache when they realize that they're pitching the wrong agent who doesn't even take that type of genre.

[00:20:25] Nicole Meier: Exactly. 

[00:20:26] Karin Gillespie: Amazon has so much information. You can look at how the book is described. You can look at. What the also bots are, so you can see where it sort of fits in the publishing world. It's just so much information out there. But you do have to do the research and yes, that thriller that makes a lot of sense.

[00:20:48] Karin Gillespie: Or people pitching romances without a happy ending, that would right, have to be a love story, 

[00:20:55] Nicole Meier: right. Well, speaking of research and good information, you come out every week on your substack and you really do the work for us. You are a resource, just like I say, Jane Friedman is a resource for publishing. I feel like you're a good resource for pitching.

[00:21:09] Nicole Meier: Right. So can you talk about what people can expect or find from you when they do follow your Substack? 

[00:21:15] Karin Gillespie: Well, once a month I look at what was sold, and so I'll tell you what genres are hot and what aren't, and. I look at each week pitches and I evaluate them, the good and the bad, and try to show you some of the mistakes that a lot of people make.

[00:21:34] Karin Gillespie: So I always do that. I look at how books that are published are pitched, and I comment on that. So it's all about basically presenting yourself in the best way, is what I'm thinking. How can I sell my book? To publishers or to agents and anything. So I'll talk about titles for instance, or taglines. You know how to write that description.

[00:21:58] Karin Gillespie: I have a lot of archives that explain all of those things that you need to look at when you're trying to sell your book, 

[00:22:06] Nicole Meier: which is so helpful. And I love how many real life examples you give. Where do you get the example query letters, example pitches from publishers, marketplace and so forth? Yes, I do get 

[00:22:17] Karin Gillespie: some of them and then I have readers where they'll submit their pitches.

[00:22:21] Karin Gillespie: I have a thing called Ask the Pitch Doctor, and I can't tell you how much people need work on that. They really do. You know, a pitch needs to tell a story. It really does, and most people are just fumble around with that. So at some point we can talk about what those elements are and all that you need to have in the pitch if you want, but 

[00:22:42] Nicole Meier: go down short list for us.

[00:22:44] Nicole Meier: What? Let's do a quick, short list of what elements you recommend in a good pitch. You need, first of all, a 

[00:22:49] Karin Gillespie: character that wants something, a desire line, and you need an inciting incident that kind of kicks off the story like the tornado in Wizard of Oz. And then you need obstacles. Okay. You have a character with a desire, and then you have obstacles to that desire.

[00:23:11] Karin Gillespie: And what happens if the character doesn't get that desire? That's the stakes. So you want some kind of stakes, and you can hint at character arc as well, but you don't wanna give away the ending. Correct. Yeah. And you don't have to give away the ending. Yeah. Right. No, no, no. It's kind of ambiguous. Yeah. It should read like a story with all of those elements.

[00:23:34] Karin Gillespie: And agents are looking for that. They're like, well, what happens if she doesn't get her desire? It doesn't sound like there's any stakes there. Or I see situations instead of stories like a policeman falls in love with a lottery winner and that's it. You know? I mean, what are the things that keep them apart and what happens if they don't get together and, and that sort of thing.

[00:24:00] Nicole Meier: That's very helpful, and I know that there are people listening saying, okay, I'm writing all this down. I'm making sure that my query letter or my pitch includes these things. But they're probably also saying, well, how do I make sure that I learn everything that I need to know? And my answer would be to follow your substack, but I'm not sure if you have a different answer, any other resources.

[00:24:22] Karin Gillespie: Oh well yours, your podcast is very valuable and it takes practice. It is hard. It is very hard to distill a novel into all of these elements. And the sad thing is, the reason it can be hard is because maybe some of those elements are missing from the novel. So what I recommend for writers is. Make sure you have a pitch before you even write the novel.

[00:24:53] Karin Gillespie: So it can be like a mission statement for your novel. And so you can be looking, is her desire, is it in almost every part of the novel, because that's what the desire is, the spine of the novel. It gives a novel narrative drive, like this is a old example, but Scarlet O'Hara. In. Um, gone With the Wind. With the Wind, sorry to go all the way back, but you know, all this stuff is happening to her.

[00:25:22] Karin Gillespie: There's a civil war, all this stuff. But she has one desire. One desire. Ashley. Ashley. Ashley. Yeah. Sign of it. And you see it almost in every scene. Everything that she does is to get that desire. 

[00:25:36] Nicole Meier: Great 

[00:25:37] Karin Gillespie: example to her detriment, right? Yeah. And then the arc has to do with. Scarlet might not get what she wants, but she will get maybe what she needs.

[00:25:46] Karin Gillespie: Yeah. What she really needed was re he was a better match for her. So a well written pitch, a well structured pitch can really help guide that novel and make sure you don't get off track, which if you're anything like me, yeah, you can go off on tape and lose 

[00:26:00] Nicole Meier: us mine. So absolutely. I, no, I think that that's such great advice.

[00:26:06] Nicole Meier: I know that a lot of other authors do that too. I'm thinking of my friend Camille Pagan. She also recommends coming up with your query or your log line first, and so I think that it's a great container. But would you say people are allowed to evolve that container or change? You know, let's say they start writing the book and they're making discoveries, is it okay to go back and join stat?

[00:26:28] Nicole Meier: Yes, of course. 

[00:26:30] Karin Gillespie: Self-publishing was very helpful to me because. I realized I really had to think about how to sell a book. I had to think like a publisher and I had to create my own Facebook ads and all that. And some of my books weren't easy to do that with. So when you think these things through, you look at your book, like it is something that you have to sell.

[00:26:55] Karin Gillespie: What's the hook? How can I get people interested in this? How can I give them context so they know, Hey, this book is for me. If a book is too confusing, people just pass it by. They don't know what they're getting. So it's been great for me. Before I write novels, I write a pitch. I write the query letter. I even do pitch decks, like visual pictures with Canva.

[00:27:24] Karin Gillespie: To make Facebook ads just because why would I wanna create a novel that I can't figure out how I can communicate it to readers? So I do all those things and sure, I switch things all of the time as I go, but it keeps me focused. I can look at that query letter and go, okay, this doesn't work anymore.

[00:27:45] Karin Gillespie: What's really heartbreaking is to write a novel and have to write the query and have to write the pitch. You're just twisting yourself into nuts because maybe that novel doesn't have the elements that it needs to have. I totally 

[00:28:00] Nicole Meier: agree with that and I love, I'm a visual learner, so I love that you said you even create pitch decks.

[00:28:05] Nicole Meier: I mean, that sounds like great creative inspiration. I think if you get writer's block, that's a great thing to go to as well. 

[00:28:13] Karin Gillespie: Yeah. Yeah. Switches to a different kind of design brain or whatever, and I get ideas when I do that. You know how I wanna convey it. Yeah. But no, the process, I'm the kind of person that loves discovering as I go along with writing, but now that I know so much about what publishers buy.

[00:28:33] Karin Gillespie: I don't wanna write something that they aren't going to buy or there's no chance. None of us do. Yeah. 

[00:28:42] Nicole Meier: Okay. So let's give the listeners something really hopeful, and I think that would come in the form of some nice advice from you. So, if someone is starting their debut novel and they're thinking about what do they need to know before they start this publishing journey, what would you like to share with them?

[00:28:59] Karin Gillespie: Understand that it is a journey, but it's gonna be fun. After having written novels for 20 years, what I have discovered is that the actual writing of the novel and then the incubation period where you get up from your desk and all of this sudden inspiration comes, that is just an amazing process. To me, it's like magic, and so that's what I write for every.

[00:29:28] Karin Gillespie: Novelist does this for a long time, is going to write things that won't sell. There's going to be things that don't work. Your heart is going to be broken. But when you sit at that computer and you start that magical process and you realize that, wow, all of this stuff is coming to me, all these answers, I never worry about what's gonna come next because I know that somehow I'll get the idea and will go on.

[00:29:57] Karin Gillespie: To me, there is nothing more satisfying than the actual writing and coming up with this story that is meaningful to me, and I think that is probably the most important thing that I could say to writers. What is your personal connection to this story? This story should be something that is deeply meaningful to you.

[00:30:18] Karin Gillespie: You read my novel, the Pitch Queen. Yes. I wanted to see the other side of publishing. In a gentler way, I wanted to put my head in a literary agent's head and have her see what I think. Is wrong with publishing. Yeah. And found her realize that that was very meaningful to me to figure that out. Thematic things really matter to me.

[00:30:43] Karin Gillespie: So 

[00:30:44] Nicole Meier: yeah. I love that. And just as a reader, as a side note, I did love seeing through the lens of a literary agent, and that was your protagonist in the book, which was Right. So much fun and so satisfying. Right. But I thank you for ending this on just that lovely, hopeful note of. Yes, it's a business. Yes, it's hard.

[00:31:02] Nicole Meier: Yes, you do need to get certain formulas correct in order to have a chance, but at the end of the day, it's about the joy. It's about writing something that actually is very meaningful to the writer and it's about being fulfilled. So that's very helpful and lovely. 

[00:31:18] Karin Gillespie: Yeah, I would do it if I never got published again, and that doesn't always happen at the beginning of the journey, but if you keep at it.

[00:31:25] Karin Gillespie: I mean, I can't tell you anything more satisfying than what I do Every day. I wake up and I, I'm 

[00:31:32] Nicole Meier: so lucky, so lucky to do this. Oh my gosh, that's so great. Okay. I bet you people are dying to follow you on Substack. Can you tell listeners where they can find you? 

[00:31:43] Karin Gillespie: Okay. It's called Pitch Your Novel. That should be easy to find.

[00:31:47] Karin Gillespie: It's the only one with that name. Yeah. Great. So pitch your novel, substep. 

[00:31:52] Nicole Meier: Thank you so much, Corin. This was so much fun to talk about and we can't wait to fall along and see what can come up here. Oh, thank you so much. I really enjoyed our talk. Yes. Okay, listeners, thanks for joining us and I'll see you next time on the whole writer.

[00:32:11] Nicole Meier: If you want to check out my coaching programs for fiction writers. Visit Nicolemeier.com. That's M-E-I-E-R. And if you like this episode, I'd love you to take a minute to leave a rating and review for this podcast. This will help more writers like you to discover the show and to get going on their writing journey.

[00:32:32] Nicole Meier: Thanks so much for listening. Until next time, happy riding everyone.