Answering Your Publishing Questions: From Query to Book Deal to Publication

Marissa and Joanne get together to answer listener-submitted questions about publishing, getting into nitty gritty details of what it’s like to be a published author. Also covered in this jam-packed episode: word count guidelines, what happens after signing with an agent, the submission process, what it’s like to break up with an agent, advances and how they’re determined and paid out, who has the control of what in publishing, marketing, building a social media presence – and is it really necessary – and so much more. Also—what it was like for Marissa and Joanne when they each got “the call”.  

Show Notes:

Marissa and Joanne’s upcoming co-written book: LET IT GLOW: https://www.marissameyer.com/let-it-glow/ 

Best Portrait felting course: https://www.daniives.com/bestportraitcourse 

Agent Jill Grinberg - Episode 91: https://www.buzzsprout.com/950767/9487840 

Agent Lucinda Halpern (author of GET SIGNED) - Episode
185: https://www.buzzsprout.com/950767/14539225 

Dedicated episode 125 about query letters and the agent
search: https://www.buzzsprout.com/950767/11225534 

Jane Friedman’s ‘Where to Start’ guide: https://janefriedman.com/start-here-how-to-get-your-book-published/ 

Word counts: https://blog.reedsy.com/how-many-words-in-a-novel/

Word Counts: Board Book up to YA:  https://www.marykole.com/how-to-write-childrens-books

To find the approximate word count of books https://www.kobo.com/

NAKED AT THE PODIUM: http://peterkahle.com/Naked-at-the-Podium.html 

The Happy Writer at Bookshop.org
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Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.

Order The Happy Writer: Get More Ideas, Write More Words, and Find More Joy from First Draft to Publication and Beyond https://bookshop.org/a/11756/9781250362377

Find out more and follow The Happy Writer on social media: https://www.marissameyer.com/podcast/

Transcript

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Marissa: Hello, hello and welcome to the happy writer. This is a podcast that aims to bring readers more books to enjoy and to help authors find more joy in their writing. I am your host, Marissa Meyer. Thank you for joining me. Just a quick reminder, if you are enjoying these conversations and feel so inclined to leave us a review or a rating on your favorite podcast app, that would be much appreciated. It does help other writers and readers find us when they are looking for new podcasts. Today we have a special episode when we polled listeners, that's you here a little while ago about what sorts of bonus episodes you would like to see. We received lots and lots of comments about publishing what happens after you get an agent and sell your book. So that's what we're going to be talking about today. And we solicited specific questions on our instagram. So we are going to be answering your questions as well as we can and hopefully pulling the veil back on some of these mysterious and confusing elements of the publishing life. Today I am joined by none other than the fabulous Joanne Levy. She is our social media manager and administrator here on the Happy writer podcast, as well as the author of many books for middle grade readers. Her newest, Bird Brain, came out a few weeks ago. She is also my upcoming co writer. We have our first co written middle grade novel, let it glow, coming out together in October. So super excited, Joanne. I'm so happy to be doing another episode with you. Welcome back.

[02:58] Joanne: Well, thank you for having me and I'm pretty excited to be here.

[03:01] Marissa: Yay. Yay. So today I'm going to skip on my what's making me happy? I want to know what's making you happy today.

[03:09] Joanne: So I'm going to say two things, if that's okay. So the first one you mentioned is my last book, Birdbrain, came out a couple weeks ago. And what's making me super happy about that is that I had a launch party and I gathered friends and family and we had cake and we talked about books, and I got to read a little. And it's been a while since I've had a launch party, so it was just so fun and filled me with joy. And is is one of the best things about being an author is having launch parties and eating cake that has a bird on it. So that was a lot of fun. And the second thing, which is less of a professional thing and more of a personal thing, is I just signed up for a new course to teach me about three or 2d felting. So as Marissa, you probably know, I do 3d felting. I do a lot of felting sculptures using a technique called needle felting, and I use these weird needles to create sculptures with wool. But I've always wanted to do 2d portraits, and I've always struggled with light and shadow and being able to see things in 2d. So this course is going to help me become a good portrait maker. Super excited about that. Yeah.

[04:28] Marissa: Do you have, like, an idea for what you want your first project to be?

[04:32] Joanne: My understanding, and I haven't started the course because I just signed up for it yesterday, is she does a lot of their pet portraits mostly.

[04:39] Marissa: Oh, yeah.

[04:41] Joanne: So they do studies of eyes and noses, so boopable noses, I think, is probably where I will start. So of course, I'm going to do my cat and my bird and my dog, but we'll see, of course, from there.

[04:57] Marissa: Yeah. Fun. Oh, I like it. All right. Are you ready to talk publishing?

[05:05] Joanne: Always ready to talk publishing.

[05:06] Marissa: This is like a favorite topic.

[05:09] Joanne: Yeah. I think authors just love talking about publishing. For good or bad.

[05:13] Marissa: For good or bad. Talking about griping, about whining about. No. You get a group of authors in a room together and it's always like, what can we complain about in the publishing world today?

[05:25] Joanne: It's a rollercoaster, that's for sure.

[05:28] Marissa: It is indeed. But I know, like, for pre published authors, it is a big confusing. What happens, what happens after your book sold? What is that actually like? What are the stages like? We got a lot of great questions, so I'm excited to kind of dig in here just to start. A lot of questions we received were not so much about publishing, but about the querying process and what to get an agent. Um, so we'll just like, really quick cliffs notes version of what happens from finishing the book to getting a book deal. Because I really want to keep focused, this episode focused on what happens when you're actually going through the publishing rigmarole. But if you have finished a book and you want to be traditionally published, the first step generally is to query literary agents. Once you have an agent who loves your work and is excited to represent you, then you sign with that agent. And then it is the agent's job to take your book and sell it to a publisher and then get you that book deal. We have had a couple of really, really great episodes in the past, all about this part of the process, agents and querying. So if you want more information on how to get an agent, we recommend checking out episode 91, in which I interviewed my agent, Jill Grinberg. More recently, we also talked to agent Lucinda Halpern in the author of get signed, and that's episode 185. And then we did a, an episode all about the query letter and the agent search way back in episode 125 as well. And we will link all of those in our show notes. So if that's what you're focusing on right now, go and check those out. And then, Joanne, you also wanted to mention this resource from Jane Friedman. Do you want to talk about that real fast? Sure.

[07:34] Joanne: Absolutely. And it is, bar none, the best resource that I have ever found in the past several years of being asked, what do I do when I want to publish my book? And so I will put that in the show notes as well. And it's also in our instagram linktree, and it's janefreedman.com. And then there's like a big, long thing. Start here to get your book published. And she goes over traditional publishing, and she also goes over self publishing. So if you're not really sure where you want to go on your publishing journey, she really outlines the two different tracks of publishing in a really great way, so it can help you make your decision of what you want out of your publishing experience. So I highly, highly recommend giving that a go.

[08:21] Marissa: Yeah. So hopefully those resources all combined will help a lot of you who are kind of early in this process and trying to figure out how, how do you get that book deal and how do you go from being aspiring to published. But now let's kind of start digging into the questions about what happens after you get the book deal. And this one, this first one I want to start with. Is it, is it a pre querying question, a publishing question. It's a little bit of both, but I don't know that we really talked about it before, so I did want to include it. We had a question about ballpark word counts, and this is something that comes up all the time, and I know there's a lot of conflicting advice and information. How long should your book be based on genre, based on what age you are writing for? Joanne, take it away.

[09:20] Joanne: So I like to say a book should be as long as it needs to be. That's number one. But within reason, and keeping in mind sort of industry guidelines in the show notes, I'll have a couple of links to actually really great breakdowns of what the average lengths should be and why. And one of the links really goes into why you absolutely do not want your book to be too long, especially for beginning writers. It's known to be sort of a rookie mistake to have a book that is way too long for the industry. And keeping in mind that publishing is a business. So if you send an editor 130,000 word ya novel as your first book, they're going to maybe freak out a little and think, a, I have to edit this thing that's huge and going to take a huge amount of time, and b, it's going to cost a lot to print it if it ends up being 130,000 words. So you never want to give somebody a reason to say no. And having a manuscript that is way outside the general specifications of what that genre should be is a pretty big red flag of them saying no. So it's always in your best interest to make sure you're sort of in those guidelines of what the book should be. So, like I said, there's pretty good charts of what the book should be according to genre.

[10:54] Marissa: Yeah. And this is a tricky one because different books do take different word counts required to tell the full story. And so I'm always torn on this question between giving really practical advice, as Joanne just did, that, yes, agents and editors, they do look at that word count, and if it is way above what the genre standard is, that is a red flag, and it can be a reason for them to say no. And you don't want to give anyone a reason to say no. On the other hand, are there occasionally debut books that come out that are, you know, 250,000 words and they go on to sell a million copies? Yeah, it does happen, but those are the exception, not the rule. So it's a tricky place to try to walk. But I do think that, especially for your first book as much as you can. Stay within those guidelines or stay close to them, try to do it. And I would also say, so I was just on a writing retreat this last weekend. It was me and four other authors. We're all working on revisions for different projects. Some of us middle grade, some of us were ya, some of us working on adult, and every single one of us had been asked to cut 20,000 words from our manuscript. Every single one. And so it's kind of just one of those things. Editors, publishers, they like books to be fast paced as much as possible, saving money on printing. Like Joanne mentioned, it's a very practical thing and not something that, as the artist in us likes to think about, but it is something that the publishers are thinking about.

[12:31] Joanne: And it's also in your best interest, too. If you're within those guidelines, it shows that you've done your homework. So if somebody comes to an editor and says, oh, I have a middle grade novel that's 100,000 words, chances are either you got it wrong or it's too long, or it should be two books. So just as a business perspective, the editor or agent might think newbie mistakes. So just make sure you know what you're doing, and if it is long, make sure there's a very good reason for it.

[13:06] Marissa: Yeah. And I feel inclined to point out that I am one of those writers that tends to have big books. It's not uncommon for Marissa Meyer to be booked to be 150,000 words, but my debut novel, Cinder, was 85,000. It is a little bit of publishers expecting you to prove yourself before. They'll give you a little bit of leeway there.

[13:27] Joanne: Yeah. And here's a hot tip. If you are wondering what your favorite books are as far as length, I found that kobo that sells ebooks actually has word count on their books. Now, I haven't looked up for every book, but I've looked up mine, and it's pretty accurate within, you know, 1000 words. So if you're curious what, what length this book is or that book is that you're using for comps when you're querying, have a look at Kobo.

[13:56] Marissa: That's a great tip. I did not know that. And I'm always wondering what length the book is. All right, so then you've written your book, you've queried agents, got an agent, loves you, wants to represent you. You now have signed with an agent. Then what? What happens? A lot of times what happens is your agent asks for revisions. It's very common. Um, they love your book. However, it's great to have someone now who is knowledgeable about the industry, knowledgeable about the market, know specifically what editors are looking for. So it's very common for them to give you notes and suggestions and you continue to do around or two or three of revisions. But then at some point the agent and you as the author feel like the book is strong and it is ready to go to publishers. At what point? What then happens? Joanne, the exciting part and scary part.

[15:00] Joanne: This is when you learn how often in an hour you can refresh your email.

[15:06] Marissa: Yeah. You thought querying agents was bad?

[15:11] Joanne: No, but to back up, I mean, a lot of times much depends on your relationship with your agent, how involved in the process you want to be as far as putting together lists of editors that your agent is going to pitch, what houses, things like that. I'm a bit of a control freak, so I like to be involved in that process. Other people may not be as knowledgeable and know, and the agent says, I'm going to make a list. And yes, I'm happy with that list. So that's part of the process as well.

[15:45] Marissa: And I would jump in there and say, if you have no idea, you don't know anything about what publishers are out there, what imprints, who is heading up, who's buying the books. That is okay. That's what your agent is there for. They have this information. It's okay if you are not like an expert on the publishing world.

[16:01] Joanne: Absolutely. I'm, you know, I'm a control freak.

[16:04] Marissa: So I need to, I never know. My agent puts, will put a list together, like way back in the day, put a list together for loneliner Chronicles. And I was like, I don't know who any of these people are, but go forth. Little book, oh, Marissa, we're so different.

[16:20] Joanne: But it works. But yeah, once the list is together, then same as what you do when you are querying agents, your agent will start querying editors. So sometimes they'll use your pitch, sometimes they'll make their own pitch and they start sending it out.

[16:39] Marissa: Yeah. And there is, there are different strategies that agents employ here, and that is something that your agent should talk to you about. For example, if there's an editor or an imprint that they think is perfect, they might give that editor an exclusive and they're just going to send it to them and hope for the best until they query more widely. Alternatively, they might say, I think this book has the potential to get into a bidding war and we're going to send it out really widely and get lots of eyes on it and hope that a lot of publishers are interested, and then it can go to auction, which is really excited when that happens, but it's really dependent on the book, on the market, on what your agent thinks is best. You, as the author, of course, get to have a say in these conversations, but that is a conversation that will happen before your agent takes it out to publishers.

[17:31] Joanne: Yeah. And that's where you rely on them and their knowledge of the industry and the knowledge of their contacts and the book and what they envision for that is how they're going to start pitching it and sending it out.

[17:44] Marissa: Yeah. Joanne, does every book that gets sent out, from an agent to editors, are they guaranteed to sell?

[17:53] Joanne: If only that was true, Marissa.

[17:57] Marissa: If only.

[17:58] Joanne: If only. I mean, it feels like a tough love moment to say that not every book does sell. It doesn't mean the book is bad. It doesn't mean the book is not well written. It can be any number of factors from the editor just bought a book like that, or the timing is wrong, or they had a bad day and didn't want to pick up your book, which seems like a really terrible reason not to pick up a book, but you just don't know. And as a writer, you may never know the reasons why your book doesn't get picked up. But chances are it's not because your book is bad or you are a bad person. If an agent took you on, they took you on for free, assuming that your book would sell. So that's one level of validation right there. Agents don't take on books out of pity or because they feel bad or for whatever reason. So I just think it's so important for people to know that books may not sell, but it's not necessarily the book.

[19:06] Marissa: Yeah, yeah. And of course, any long time listeners who have heard our interviews with guests, we always talk about that origin story, and sometimes you hear the author whose agent took it out, and then the next day they had a book deal, and sometimes their agent took it out for a year and it didn't sell, and then the next book didn't sell, and then it happens. So it is one of those things that is a little out of our control. You've written the best book you can, your agent's doing the best they can. You can't control this part of the process. So hope for the best, but also get started on the next book or the next project.

[19:46] Joanne: And I will add my own story if you want to listen to my big, long winding origin story. I can't remember which episode was mine, but fish out of water was that book. But birdbrain that came out just this. This month. I actually finished it in 2016, and it never sold.

[20:08] Marissa: I didn't know this.

[20:10] Joanne: Yep. And it sat under my bed until several years later. And so I had pitched it to my current publisher, Orca, and they turned it down and said, well, this isn't for us, but we love your voice. Will you write something else for us? And I did, and that's how I ended up with them. And it was several years later that we circled back around to birdbrain, and they took it on.

[20:32] Marissa: Oh, interesting. Yeah. You just never know.

[20:35] Joanne: You just never know. And that was a timing issue.

[20:38] Marissa: Yeah.

[20:39] Joanne: So you just don't know.

[20:41] Marissa: Yeah. All right, next question. What is it like to sign a book deal? I mean, it's the best ever.

[20:51] Joanne: Do you remember when you got the call?

[20:54] Marissa: Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. I was a freelance proofreader at the time, so I worked from home, and I got the call in early afternoon. And your agent calls and they tell you, oh, so and so wants to buy it, and they'll probably tell you what amount of advance money they're offering, but then they might send you an email with more of the particulars of the offer. But all I heard was, somebody wanted to buy the books because it was for all four books of the lunar Chronicles. And I really held it together because I had work to do. Like, I was in the middle of my work day, so I proceeded with proofreading whatever book I was proofreading at the time. And then I remember hours later, my husband coming home from work or would have been my boyfriend at the time, and he came home, and, like, the moment he walked in the door, I just, like, broke down into tears. And it's like, I can't believe I'm going to be a published author. It was. It was. It was a good moment.

[21:51] Joanne: Oh, that's awesome. Yeah, mine. Mine was a lot of fun. I was working at the bank at the time, and I was coming back to my office after a retreat out of town. And my agent at the time was emailing me saying, you need to call me. You need to call me. And it wasn't until I got back to my office and I called her. And we had been on submission with Bloomsbury for months and months, and we had done a revise and resubmit, and I had pretty much written off the book at this point. We hadn't heard from them for months. And so I called her, and she says, bloomsbury's going to take it. And do you know what I said to her, Marissa? I said, I am going to go out in the hall and poop my pants. That's exactly what I said when I got the call.

[22:34] Marissa: Kind of my final. What's he doing? I know.

[22:37] Joanne: I don't even know where that came from.

[22:39] Marissa: Listener.

[22:40] Joanne: I did not do that. It was a figure of speech. But, yeah, it was one of those moments that was so hard won. But it's the best.

[22:51] Marissa: Yeah, no, it's a great moment. It's really exciting. It is worth celebrating. I don't remember what if I did anything to celebrate? Did we go out to dinner? Probably. I don't remember what it was, but it's definitely have your thing picked out in advance. What are you going to do when the call comes? That said, I do also want to give, like, a quick. This was not one of our questions that came up. But I know for so many writers, not for everyone, but for so many, the goal is to quit the day job and become a full time writer. And I will say the advance that I was given for the lunar Chronicles was sizable enough that I was able to immediately quit my day job and become a full time writer, which, of course, is such an enormous privilege. And I feel so lucky to this day. However, I definitely jumped the gun a little bit because I saw this number and thought, cool. And, like, the very next day, I emailed all of my proofreading clients and said, I will finish up the project that I'm working on with you. But after that, I am switching into a full time writing career. And then it was, like, six months after that when I finally got the contract to sign. And then, I don't know, like, maybe another two months after that before any sort of money arrived. And there was. It was. It got really hit or miss there for a while. So don't be, like, running out and quitting your day job quite yet. Even if the advance money that you are bound to receive says to you that you can, like, take a breather, make sure you have your ducks in a row first. That's. That's my little piece of advice right there.

[24:27] Joanne: Yeah. And I think it's worth mentioning, too, sort of how those things get broken down as well. So say, just for argument's sake, say somebody says, we want to buy your book for $100,000 just for ease of math, which does not happen very often.

[24:44] Marissa: That would be a sizable advance.

[24:45] Joanne: That's a very sizable advance. That doesn't happen all that often, especially for debuts, regardless. So if you get excited, oh, I have $100,000 coming in. As Marissa says, you could be waiting months for a contract before you even get the advance, and the advance is generally not that full amount. So first you have to take off your agent's cut, which is typically 15%. So right off the top, that's gone. And then usually publishers will break down your advance into two, three, sometimes four installments. So you may get a quarter of that advance up front, and then the next one is on delivery and acceptance of the manuscript, which would be after you go through edits. And they say, okay, yes, we can take it from here. And then what would be the next one?

[25:36] Marissa: I guess publication on publication.

[25:38] Joanne: Publication, you get another chunk, and then sometimes it's a year later, or whatever it is, whatever they determine.

[25:46] Marissa: Yeah. So mine traditionally have been broken into four installments, with the fourth being on publication of the paperback edition.

[25:54] Joanne: So typically a year later, typically a year later.

[25:57] Marissa: There have been times when they decided, like, we're going to wait to publish this paper back until blah, blah, blah. It's like, why? Please, please don't do that.

[26:05] Joanne: So you figure that $100,000 example, you take 15% off the top, that's 85. And then if you're dividing that by four, over could be three years. Four years. It's not a huge giant hour at.

[26:19] Marissa: 21,000 if you're keeping up with the math. And then you throw taxes on top of that. FYI, you are now as a sole proprietor or a corporation, or however you decide to do your business and your taxes now you have to pay your own taxes, which fun.

[26:37] Joanne: Not. And then if you factor in all those years that you worked for free before you even got that book deal, I mean, it's not quite the lucrative career that most, well, many people think it is. So a lot of writers will say you don't get into it for the money, and I strongly stand behind that. I mean, if you love it, you love it no matter what you're getting paid. It's nice to get paid.

[27:01] Marissa: But I wasn't planning on going straight to the money talk, but we did get questions about money. And since we're already talking about it, this might be a good time to also kind of explain the advance against royalties scenario. Most writers probably understand that when your book sells, you get a portion of that sale, which is called royalties. That percentage can be anywhere from eight to 12%. For ebooks, it's generally higher, maybe closer to 25%. However, if you have received an advanced from the publisher. So here we are back at that $100,000 upfront payment. Quote, quote, quote, unquote, upfront. Those royalties that you start to receive when the book is on sale, your publisher will take those back until you have paid them off that original $100,000. And only once that advance is paid for will you then start to accumulate and get paid royalties. How long does it take for a book to earn out? It is all over the board. Some books never earn out. Just FYI, it's a thing. It's actually not uncommon for a book to never actually generate and receive royalties. I'm trying to think, I want to say my fastest book that ever earned out probably took. Oh, gosh, it's been a long time now since Cinder earned out, but that was maybe like two or three years, I think, for it to earn out.

[28:32] Joanne: So, yeah, my understanding, and any editors listening, feel free to contact me if I'm wrong, and we will correct the record. But my understanding is that generally, all things being equal, the advance is based on what they think or hope you will make from the book in the first year. And that's how they come to that. Unless they're in competition or they have really, really high hopes and don't want to lose out to somebody else, I think that's typically where they go to for the advance number. They do profit and loss statements, and they do a lot of math behind the scenes before they figure out what your advance is going to be.

[29:18] Marissa: Yeah. Yeah. They've got their algorithms and their expectations and their hopes and.

[29:23] Joanne: Yeah. It's generally not just numbers on a dartboard, although sometimes it feels like it.

[29:28] Marissa: It certainly does sometimes. Anything to add to the money question?

[29:35] Joanne: No, I think that kind of covers it. I know it's very mystifying how advances work, and there are some small publishers, some independent publishers that don't even do advances or they do different sort of royalty situations. So what I would say is, just beware what you're signing. If it's a smaller publishing house, make sure your agent is on top of it. If you don't have an agent, because there are some publishing houses that will take unagented submissions. Make sure you have somebody in the know look over your contract and that you're. You're getting what is owed to you as a writer.

[30:16] Marissa: Yeah. And keep records. I mean, it's kind of your agent's job to keep records and make sure, but you have to think of it as your career, and no one's going to look out for your career as much as you are. So be diligent, stay organized. It's really important.

[30:32] Joanne: Yeah. And know what your contract says. You don't want any surprises come royalty time.

[30:40] Marissa: Yeah. I will add just a quick note on sub rights, which is maybe something that a lot of aspiring authors aren't really familiar with the idea, but you generally are not just selling the right for the publisher to print books, although that is of course the main thing you're selling to them. You're also generally selling ebook rights, you're selling audiobook rights, and then there's this whole long list of other rights that you might sell to them or you might not. Things like film rights, things like graphic novel adaptations, video game rights. Can they make merchandise of this? Can they sell it in other countries? Can they translate it into other languages? And these are things that your, you and your agent will often negotiate with the publisher. What rights are we giving to them? What rights are we going to hold on to and hope like we want the film right money ourselves. We don't want the publisher to get it. So we're going to try to hold on to those rights and then try to sell them soon separately to a producer or a studio, things like that. There's a whole thing when it comes to sub rights and foreign edition rights, but in theory, your agent should be on top of this and should kind of talk you through the steps there.

[31:57] Joanne: Yeah. And never feel like you can't ask questions.

[32:00] Marissa: Yeah. Yeah, definitely. 

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Marissa: Okay, what else? So we had a few questions talking about self publishing versus traditional publishing. I will just say I have never self published. I have many friends who have self published, so I certainly have heard a lot of their stories. But I am not an expert on this. But one question that came up, is it better to self publish or go with traditional publishing? I mean, that's a big question and one that I don't think Joanne and I can answer because it's going to be so, so dependent on what your goals are for this book, what your goals are for your career. But we can maybe do a quick little pros and cons list.

[34:14] Joanne: Sure. Well, I was going to say, yeah. My answer is, it absolutely depends on what your goals are. There are pros and cons to each. I think the biggest pro to other self publishing is you have all the control. But the biggest con to self publishing is that you have all the control.

[34:30] Marissa: Yep.

[34:31] Joanne: So you're doing everything on your own, and that means you're marketing. You're finding editors to subcontract, you're finding cover designers and marketing and distribution. These things are complicated. If you're not a natural, organized person that enjoys these things, then self publishing may not be for you. And there's also the, again, your goals of, if you want to go traditionally published, if you want to see your book on award lists, if you want to see your book on shelves at Barnes and Noble, it's a much harder climb to get there if you're self published because you've taken away those. I don't know what the right word would be. The ways that your sales channels. Sales channels? Yeah, yeah.

[35:24] Marissa: Distribution channels. I mean, the publishers are set up to do these things. This is their business. So they know how to get on the awards list. They know who to contact. They know how to sell into bookstores. And honestly, a lot of bookstores simply won't take self published works because I think it's less because they don't want self published works and more that they're just already so overwhelmed with what's coming out from the publishers.

[35:51] Joanne: There's a lot of books out there. There's a lot of books, a constant churn of new books coming out. And there's only so much shelf space. And as a bookseller, you know that a book coming from a traditional publisher has been vetted and properly edited, and it looks nice you can return them. So there's that whole consignment piece as well, which is part of the distribution that I think a lot of self publishers don't really understand. So it can be hard for a small bookseller to say, sure, I'll take a chance on you. Now, there are some bookstores that will take consignment. So if you do decide to self publish and you have your own copies, you can go from one bookstore to the next and say, will you carry my copies in a consignment model? But again, it depends on your goals of what you want for your book.

[36:42] Marissa: Yeah. And I do have friends who have really great relationships with their local indie, and their local indie is happy to sell their books, happy to host them for events, but I don't know how much their books are getting into indies or bookstores like across the world or across the country. That said, I do have to point out that even being traditionally published does not guarantee that you're going to get on bookshelves. There's a lot of factors there.

[37:07] Joanne: Absolutely. Totally true. Yep.

[37:09] Marissa: Does self publishing your first book hurt your chances of getting published later on?

[37:15] Joanne: It hurts your chances of getting that book published later on, yeah.

[37:19] Marissa: But I would say not your next book or a different book. Not that I know.

[37:25] Joanne: I think each book is taken on its own, on its own merit. I mean, if you self publish, if you self publish book one of a series and then are trying to get book three or four of the series published, traditionally, that's not going to work out. Yeah. Unless. Unless you're a viral hit and you've sold, you know, thousands and thousands of copies and they come to you and I, and I hear of that happening. It does happen, but it's pretty rare. It's pretty rare. So if you have dreams of your first book being traditionally published, don't self publish it, because as soon as you put it out there, it's considered published and a lot of traditional publishers will not touch that book.

[38:09] Marissa: Yeah, yeah. But if you want to try with this book and have plans to try to traditionally publish something different in the future, I think there's nothing wrong with that.

[38:19] Joanne: I agree.

[38:20] Marissa: From querying to publishing, how many changes does a book go through? Is it mostly small tweaks or is it big global edits?

[38:31] Joanne: Yes.

[38:32] Marissa: Yes. All of the above. It really, really depends. Cinder. My first book, I had been through so many rounds of revision, worked with so many critique partners. I mean, I had edited that book to within an inch of its life and it received very few edits. I have had other books that I've done complete scrap and rewrite from the time I sent it to my editor to the time it got published and talking to other authors. It is all over the board. Sometimes a book just doesn't need that much work and just doesn't need that much editing or revising. And it gets published with fairly minor tweaks. And sometimes your agent or your editor will have big sweeping changes or requests or they have ideas for how you can make it stronger. And before you know it, it's changed a lot. It really, really depends.

[39:23] Joanne: Yeah, totally depends on the book. One thing I would caution is that still make sure it is absolutely the best book that you can make on your own. Send it out, please. Don't depend on other people to make it shine. And so stop short of working on it. Always, always want to put the best thing out there that you can.

[39:44] Marissa: Yeah. And I do wonder if this question comes from maybe a little place of fear. We also had a question about how much does a publisher control? And I know that this is a scary thing for a lot of writers. When you sell your book, there's this fear that the publisher is going to change things and that you're going to hate what they change and it's no longer going to be your book. Does that happen? I have heard horror stories, but nobody that I know personally has ever had this happen. So I almost kind of feel like these ideas that the publisher took it and then changed everybody into rabbits or whatever. Like, to me that sounds like an urban myth. I don't honestly know that that has. I don't know. I don't know. But to me, it hasn't happened to me or to people that I have worked with.

[40:31] Joanne: I think it's pretty rare. And I think the instances that I've heard of where it does happen is if you sell your book to a publisher and maybe the editor leaves and somebody new comes in and they have a different vision, or you didn't discuss the book with them and somebody else acquired it, so they have sort of a different thought of what it should be. But I think, generally speaking, in the end, it's your book and you're working together with an editor, and everybody's on the same side to make it as good as it can be. I've never really butted heads with an editor over something that we just couldn't come to terms with. And I think for me, if we didn't agree, I'd say, you know what, I want it this way. And here is why. Give a compelling reason. Because like I said, at the end of the day, you both want to make it as good as it can be. And you never want to find out that you were wrong about those edits after the book is published.

[41:32] Marissa: Yeah, yeah. But no, it is. It's a discussion. It's a discussion that you have with your editor, and you both have valid opinions and points of view. And I've never had an editor not listen. And ultimately, like, it is your name that's going to be published on that book, and you want to make sure that you're putting out a book that you are proud of and that you can stand behind. I've never received a whole lot of pushback. If there was something that I didn't want to change, especially, as you say, if you can state, here's why. Here's why I want to keep it this way. Here's why it's important.

[42:07] Joanne: It's a relationship built on trust. And just remembering that you're on the same side, I think, goes pretty far, at least for me.

[42:15] Marissa: Yeah, yeah. And a lot of times I found when reviewing, like, the editorial letter, your editor might say something, let's say I don't think this character is necessary. Can they be cut? And your gut reaction is, of course, this character can't be cut because x, y, z. Maybe you can read some subtext, go a little deeper. Maybe it's not that they want the character to be cut. Maybe it's that this subplot revolving around this character isn't coming to the surface enough. Maybe there's another workaround or something else that needs to change, not necessarily cutting the character or doing whatever the editor has suggested, but, like, dig into what is the actual issue that they're trying to resolve. And is there a different way that it can be resolved that you both are happy with?

[43:06] Joanne: Yeah. And also, too, I find for myself sometimes, you know, you get the editorial letter and it's like, oh, no.

[43:17] Marissa: No, no.

[43:18] Joanne: And that's always my first reaction, and I always get my backup. And then I say, okay, Joanne, sit with it. Sit with it for a while and really think about it. And I find inevitably, when time and distance is applied, cooler heads prevail 100%.

[43:35] Marissa: This is always my reaction as well.

[43:38] Joanne: Yeah. And one to add on to that thing about control, there is sort of a time when there is more control. And I think that comes with covers.

[43:52] Marissa: Yeah.

[43:53] Joanne: I find a lot of times authors will, I remember on one of my contracts, it said specifically that I have cover consultation.

[44:03] Marissa: Yeah. That's pretty common. Yep. Yeah.

[44:06] Joanne: It turned out that cover consultation was, here's your cover. We hope you love it. And it was sort of, you know, there was not much to do about it. So that can be nerve wracking. I find that even more nerve wracking than the editorial process because it's the face of your book and you just never know what you're going to get first. So that can be hard for a lot of writers, that leaving it up to somebody else to come up with the concept of what your book's going to look like.

[44:36] Marissa: Yeah, no, it is hard. And honestly, I know lots of writers who don't love their book covers. It is a thing, it's not terribly uncommon, which is sad because it is your book and you want to love it. And. Yeah. How much you can usually give an opinion. How much is your publisher going to listen to that opinion really strongly varies. Hopefully you have a great team. In theory. They know the market. They know what's selling. Right now, they're trying to put out a book cover that is going to grab readers attention, that is going to fit the style and the market and make bookstores excited to shelve it. And all of these things, they have a lot going on that they're trying to accomplish with your book cover. Hopefully in the end that results in a book that you like and that is going to fly off the shelves into readers hands. But the COVID is one of those things that authors generally don't have a whole ton of control over.

[45:38] Joanne: Yeah. And I do try to remind myself that they are the experts. They're the design experts. They know what my book will be sitting next to on the shelf, what my book is competing with, what grabs the eyes of my target demographic. So I try to remind myself of that. And if you do get a cover that you absolutely hate, sit with that as well and think about why you hate it. Is it because it's not to your taste or, you know, maybe it's factually wrong. There's something on it that's incorrect, and that's where an agent can be a good sounding board as well.

[46:13] Marissa: Definitely. No, that's a great point. Bring your agent into the conversation if you're not comfortable talking to your editor or if the conversation's not going well with your publisher, if there's something you feel really, really strongly about, factual inaccuracy is a big one. If there's a character not represented correctly on your cover, that's a big one. This day and age, I do think that most publishers are willing to work with an author when it comes to those things. But, yeah, get your agent involved if you need to.

[46:43] Joanne: Yeah. And choose your battles. I mean, if it's just a taste thing, then maybe it's not worth it.

[46:49] Marissa: Yeah. I did also want to point out just one more level to the conversation as far as how much control the publisher has over the work itself, the book itself. We didn't talk at all about work for hire agreements, and this is different from what we've been talking about, in which case you sell the rights to publish your book to a publisher, and they have the right to print copies of that book, but you are still technically the copyright holder. There are instances in which an author enters into a work for hire agreement. In this case, the publisher, a lot of times is the one who has provided the idea. We want a book about Batman or Star wars or a lot of these IP, which stands for. Oh, gosh, what does I peep stand for? Intellectual property. Intellectual property agreements. Although there could be other reasons for work for hire agreement as well. They hire an author, write this book for us. It's usually a flat fee. You get paid one time, and then you hand over the manuscript, and they can do whatever they want with this manuscript. They don't even have to ask your permission or ask your opinion, and then you generally are not going to receive any royalties off of that. But this is one type of publishing agreement, but probably not what most of our listeners are going for in their career.

[48:15] Joanne: Yeah, it's kind of. I've done a few of them. So it's a matter of writing. Well, you say write for hire. That's exactly what it is. You write and you get a paycheck, and then it's kind of not even yours anymore because they have the right to do whatever they want with it. So I think you need to go into those situations knowing that you're giving up control and you're just providing a service to give to either flesh out an outline that they give you, or just create something from scratch, but they have the right to do whatever they want with it, like you said.

[48:49] Marissa: Yeah. All right, what else do we have here? Let's start talking about publicity and social media and marketing. Lots of questions about that. PR training. Did you get pr training?

[49:02] Joanne: Nope.

[49:02] Marissa: Nope, me either. Is it a thing that some authors get?

[49:05] Joanne: Sure.

[49:06] Marissa: I've never heard of a publisher paying for that, although I suppose it could happen. But certainly there are authors who might choose to get their own pr training or take a class on it. I mean, if you're really concerned about having to speak in front of audiences or give presentations and you would feel more comfortable having some training. I think it couldn't hurt, but I don't know. It's not a common thing I would say.

[49:33] Joanne: No. One thing I would suggest, and I'm not sure. Last time I checked it was in print, but I'll check if it is in print. I'll put it in the show. Notes is a book called naked at the podium, and it's specifically for authors who are not natural public speakers, of which I am one. And it was great as a starting point for doing school visits and book launches and things like that. Just tips and tricks to get more comfortable in your own skin. I still use some of the tips and tricks from it. Just the other day when I was at my book launch and I was reading, and I still follow along where I'm reading with my fingers so I don't lose my spot. Little things like that are in there just to help out and make you feel more comfortable.

[50:20] Marissa: That's a great tip. Will a publisher do marketing and publicity for me, or is it totally up to the authority here? Again, it is a really, really mixed bag. There are certainly huge marketing budgets for certain books. And full disclosure, my books are often some of these books that are getting. I've had ads in Times Square, I've been submitted into different magazines. And yes, there are books that get a big marketing push and a lot of help from the publisher. And that's awesome. It is not a guarantee. A lot of times, what would you say consists of like a standard book marketing plan from the publisher? A lot of times they will have digital arcs available and they will send them to bloggers and influencers.

[51:17] Joanne: Yeah, I mean, I would consider myself the other end of the spectrum from you in that I'm with a small canadian independent publisher. So the marketing budget for my books is quite a bit smaller. They've done a couple targeted ads in canadian media. Definitely digital arcs. These days, physical arcs are not guaranteed, so you just, you don't know if and when I get arcs from my publisher, I get exactly one. So it's not like I'm distributing a bunch of paper arcs out there, but I think people are getting more used to the digital arcs and Netgalley, things like that.

[51:53] Marissa: So McMillan, just to quickly interrupt Macmillan, which I've always been published with and who is now doing our let it glow book coming out, they have stopped doing print arcs completely. It's all digital now.

[52:05] Joanne: That makes sense. I mean, they're so expensive. And if people are used to doing digital arcs now, I think COVID really sort of was the end of the nail in the coffin for, yeah. Paper arcs just because people weren't mailing out stuff and. But, yeah, my small publisher does. They'll send out the few arcs if I ask if they've printed them. They paid for the cake at my lunch party and they've done some, some design work for bookmarks, which I paid for my own bookmarks, but they helped with the design. I mean, it can't hurt to ask. That's the thing. Don't assume you're going to get everything, but it can't hurt to ask.

[52:44] Marissa: Yeah.

[52:45] Joanne: So it's. I would say marketing plans go from $0 to infinity dollars, depending on the book, the publisher, the audience.

[52:54] Marissa: Yeah. And I would say regardless of whether you're a zero dollar marketing budget or a infinity dollar, you, as the author will be expected to do a fair amount of marketing and promotion yourself. And that's presentations, that could be speaking events, that could be book visit or, sorry, school visits. And then, of course, we get into social media. And social media is huge. We'll just move on to the next question because it's based on social media. How do you do social media as an unpublished author and a published author?

[53:31] Joanne: For me, it's not much different. Well, I mean, times have changed because I've been published for many years, but I don't know that I do stuff that's much different. Maybe it's not effective. I don't know. I try not to be too super promoting constantly. I don't use Twitter anymore. I still have a profile there just as a placeholder, but I don't use it because it's a cesspool of toxicity and I don't like it. I do as much or as little as I feel comfortable doing. And that's my recommendation to other people. If it's a slog and you hate it, don't do it or find the one thing that you enjoy and do that. And if it, if your stream is constant promotion, you're not going to get followers, you're not going to get people engaged. Because if they saw your book once, that's enough. Do you know what I mean? Like, I don't think you can, you can constantly hammer people with your promoting posts. Constantly.

[54:25] Marissa: Yeah. Yeah. I think, as you were saying, to like, do what you're comfortable with. And if you can find a social media that you actually enjoy, all the better. But don't try to do it all. If you hate taking videos of yourself, don't make a YouTube page. Don't join TikTok. Like, if you love that, then, yes, do that. Where are you comfortable? Where are you going to thrive on social media? But, yeah, I mean, then try to be authentic and you have to do some promotion. Of course, once you start getting followers and readers and people want to know what book is coming out, they want to know what you have going on. They want to know if there's a sale, they want to know these things. And so that's valid information to share. But what else can you talk about your writing process? Can you talk about what's happening, what projects you're working on behind the scenes? Can you talk about your family, your vacations, your. I mean, people will, like, they want to see you as an actual person, not just a promotion machine all the time. And that can be, honestly, a really difficult balance to strike and one that I feel like I'm constantly struggling with, trying to promote and get the word out there about new things going on, but also, like, also, here's my kids, also, here's other things that I'm excited about and interested in or mentioning other books, other authors. Yeah. You just kind of have to play around and try to find the balance that works for you.

[55:51] Joanne: Yeah, it's totally a balance. I think everybody struggles with it. I don't know that anybody is an absolute natural 100% of the time.

[56:00] Marissa: Yeah.

[56:00] Joanne: But it's finding that authenticity because it shines through. If you hate what you're doing on social media, people will see that.

[56:08] Marissa: Yeah, no, definitely. And I will say, since the question did specifically ask what to do for social media when you were unpublished, in addition to after being published, and, I mean, I think it's good to get started. You know, join the platforms, lock in your username, start getting comfortable with posting regularly. How does this work? How can this fit into your lifestyle? How do you take pretty photos and put on filters and, like, just kind of figure out the platforms? But don't stress yourself out about having a platform before your book gets published. This might be different advice if you're writing nonfiction. Nonfiction weighs a lot more heavily on who you are. Are you an expert in this field? Why should people care about your book? Blah, blah, blah. With fiction, generally speaking, publishers and agents, they know you're just, you're a debut. You're just getting started. You're not going to have 100,000 followers. They know, and they don't expect that. So I think it's good to get started. But don't worry about trying to build your brand so much before the book has even gotten started.

[57:16] Joanne: Yeah, definitely. For fiction, you don't need to put all that time and effort into building a following without anything to promote yet. And I think that time and energy is better spent on a. Creating a website where people can find you and find out about your books and sort of a static place to find you. And writing the next book.

[57:38] Marissa: Yes. Always. Number one. Always focus on your craft. Focus on writing books that people want to read.

[57:45] Joanne: Yeah.

[57:46] Marissa: Yeah. Because even, I mean, as we're talking about marketing and publicity, there's a lot of things that people try, and nobody really seems to know what moves the needle when it comes to publicity and promotion, except word of mouth. And I think everyone will agree. If you get people talking about your book and recommending it to their friends and other readers, that's the goal. That's the Holy Grail. That's what publishers and writers, that's what we want, is people to talk about the book. That's what really sells. So ultimately, what can you do as the author to make that happen? It's to write a book that people want to talk about. Yeah.

[58:26] Joanne: It often feels like the spaghetti at the wall approach so much that you just don't know. Like I was saying to a bookseller the other day, that my best selling book seems to be the one that I did the least promotion for because it was mid pandemic, and I don't understand why it's selling so well. It's my summer camp book. It's not the one that won any awards. It's not the one I promoted. It's not the one that got any ads. But kids seem to like it.

[58:53] Marissa: Yeah. Yeah, right. You just don't know. And when kids like it, they tell their friends, and then those friends read it and. Yeah, no, that's. That's how you do it right there. And if there was a way to bottle that and sell it, then someone would be a billionaire.

[59:06] Joanne: Yes.

[59:06] Marissa: Okay, so this is a good question. That is not fun to think about. But it's so common. It happens so often. What happens when a relationship with an agent or an editor goes bad and you have to. Which, for starters, Joanne, have you had to switch editors or agents in your.

[59:23] Joanne: Career a few times? Yes, I have. It's never fun. It's hard, because when you sign with an agent, it's all full of hope and excitement and all good things are coming your way, and it doesn't always happen. And sometimes it's a matter of the book that you signed with them. Didn't sell, they lose the love. You go through a dry patch of not writing, for whatever reason, you find yourself sort of falling out of love with each other, and it's time to move on. And I think the one thing to remember is that it is a business relationship, and you try to make a break professionally and respectfully, and that's the best you can do. I mean, in your gut, if you know your agent is not the agent for you anymore, you know, you know you need to make a break. And, yeah, my best advice is just be very respectful. Have that conversation, even if it's a tough conversation. Maybe it's a matter of misunderstanding. Maybe you can sort of go back to square one, or maybe you can't, but you owe it to them to be respectful and not trash them anywhere or ghost them. It's a grown up relationship, and. And you need to be respectful.

[01:00:42] Marissa: Yeah, no, that's really good advice. And I have to say, it's so common in my group of writer friends. We've got a really close knit group here in the Seattle Tacoma area. And I want to say that at this point in time, I am the only one of the group that is with the same agent that I started with. I know lots of people who have been through two, three agents. It happens, and there's lots of different reasons it can happen. And ultimately, like you say, when, if it's not working, you know, like, you will, you will have that intuitive feeling, like this relationship just isn't working. I'm not getting what I need from this relationship. They're not, they no longer feel like my advocate or like they're, you know, on my side, or they're doing the best they can with me, for me in my books and my career. And you'll know, you'll. You'll have that sense in watching many friends go through this once they finally make the call and, you know, do, as you say, respectfully and kindly decide to switch and to not be with that agent anymore. It seems like it always comes with relief to know that, okay, I'm free now. I can go find someone who's going to work better for me. And that's so scary because we all know it's so stressful and so terrifying having to be back in the query trenches. But ultimately, I'm sure it will feel like the right decision.

[01:02:09] Joanne: Yeah. It's like a divorce. I mean, some divorces are amicable, some aren't so amicable.

[01:02:15] Marissa: Yeah.

[01:02:15] Joanne: But one thing that's really important to remember is that agenting is a pretty small field and they know each other. And just like any other industry, if you start badmouthing somebody, you know it's going to come back around. So, you know, be a grown up about the relationship. And sometimes parting ways with an agent is just a matter of they're no longer representing what you're writing anymore, change genres or, you know, you're at a different stage of your career and, you know, it's not always your butting heads or, you know, a negative thing.

[01:02:53] Marissa: Sometimes your agent might retire, they might switch to a different career. Like, these things happen.

[01:02:58] Joanne: It happens.

[01:02:59] Marissa: Logistically, what does this look like? How does this work? So for starters, any book that that agent has represented that is now under contract with a publisher, they are still going to be the agent for that work. So if they will receive the cut from any sales, their percentage, they'll still kind of be the go to representative for that book. If you have a really great relationship with them and you're splitting not because of anything personal, but things just aren't working or they're retiring or whatever, this is a great opportunity to talk to that agent and ask them can they recommend you to other agents that they think would be a good fit? You know, they might be able to connect you with another agent in the agency. They're going to have lots of other agent friends and contacts in the industry, so maybe they can help establish a relationship. If that's not working and you have an editor, your editor, of course, knows lots of agents. So if you have a great relationship with your editor, talk to them, say, hey, I'm looking for a new agent. This is, of course, after you've split ways with your other agent and see if there's anyone that they can refer you to. So that can kind of help give you a leg up when it comes to going back to the querying world. If those things aren't an option, then yes, you're going to be back to querying. And that just. It is what it is.

[01:04:27] Joanne: Yeah. It can be complicated, especially if you're on submission at the time and things just aren't working. And you need to have that conversation with the agent where your submissions stand. If they want to finish them out, if you're going to pull them, that can really complicate things as well. Just be mindful of all of that and what that's going to look going forward. And if you have sold a book with that agent, like Marissa says, they're the agent on record forevermore. So you do not want to burn your bridges in a burst of flames.

[01:05:01] Marissa: Yeah. Alternatively, what happens if an editor relationship goes bad? I mean, similarly, don't burn bridges. Don't start bad mouthing people. Be respectful. Be polite. Talk to the editor. See if you get your asian involved. See if you can figure out what's not working and if it can be fixed. If not, generally speaking, is it ever an option to pull your book from that editor and that imprint if it hasn't been published yet? In theory, but that would be a really big conversation to have with people before trying to do it. Um, so. So that would be a talk to your agent. Make sure you're doing what's right for you and what's right for your career and the book. More likely, that book will continue with that editor, that book will get published with that imprint, with that publisher. If you have a clause, what's called an option clause in your contract that says you must offer your next book to that editor, then that's part of your contract. You must offer that book to that editor. But my understanding is that even if they offer for it and they want it, you don't necessarily have to sell it to them. It's been a long time since I read one of these clauses. Joanne, does that match with what?

[01:06:11] Joanne: You know, I think they have first right of saying, of looking at it. I think it depends on your contract. Kind of vague language and I. Options are only really good for editors and not authors. But you know what? If it's gone south with the editor, they probably don't want to work with you again anyway. They would have that gut feeling. So I think that's probably less of a concern.

[01:06:39] Marissa: And agreed. It seems logical. Yeah.

[01:06:41] Joanne: I haven't heard a lot of those kinds of horror stories. It's more about the editor. The closer or the agents or the closer relationship. That goes a bit south than the.

[01:06:52] Marissa: Yeah, yeah. I mean, I certainly know a lot of authors. It's really common to switch publishers. It's really common that you have a book or two or three come out with one publisher, and for whatever reason the editor has left, and you don't feel a close connection, or you feel like you're not getting the marketing budget that your books deserve, or, I mean, there's a million reasons that you might feel like this is not the best place for your next book. At that point, your agent can submit it more widely again. They can take it to other editors. You're not locked in with one editor, one publisher for your entire career.

[01:07:27] Joanne: Yep, for sure.

[01:07:28] Marissa: All right, last question. As we start to wrap up our big talk on publishing, and I think we've gotten to most of our publishing related questions. I hope that if you submitted one, we've answered some of your questions and that you found it helpful. Last thing, Joanne, what do we wish we could have told ourselves before we were published?

[01:07:52] Joanne: Be patient. Be patient. I think that was my biggest thing, was being in a rush to get published. And, you know, I'm not a patient person now. I wasn't a patient person then. So it's, you know, it's hard, but I think I went through a lot of stress and anguish thinking it was never going to happen and being so quick to try and make it happen. But, yeah, just that patience thing.

[01:08:19] Marissa: Yeah, no, patience is big. I also was very impatient and gave myself a lot of anxiety over it. And in hindsight, it's like, yeah, just take your time, take your time. Write the best book, learn your craft. It will happen when it happens.

[01:08:34] Joanne: Yeah, I think writing the best book you can and having the patience to do that is probably my biggest advice for past. Joanne is just sitting down with it, really, really working hard to make it as good as I can.

[01:08:51] Marissa: Yeah. For me, I always come back to thinking about the writing journey. And of course, here we are, you know, we're doing a podcast called the Happy writer, and we always know. Yes, writing and publishing, it is a roller coaster. There are ups and downs. There are moments of stress. There are moments of burnout. There are moments of doubt and imposter syndrome and rejection, and, like, it is just a part of the writing life. And I don't think anybody gets through publishing without some of that. For me, I knew that going into publishing, I wasn't surprised by that. But there have been moments in my career when, looking back, I can recognize when I should have been focusing more on the journey and on the things that were bringing me joy and bringing me happiness. And now here I am, twelve years into my publishing career, and this is all I think about. I'm so happy to be a writer, but it really was a conscious decision that I had to make at one point. I love writing. I love doing this. I feel so lucky I get to do this as my career, and I really just want to focus on that. And that has not always been the case. So I would go back and tell Marissa to stay focused on that. Stay focused on what you love and on what you can actually control and let the rest go.

[01:10:13] Joanne: Yeah, for sure. And I have sort of a grounding thing where if I start losing the joy. And I forget why I'm doing it, why I'm really doing it. Several years ago, I was at a festival and I had a signing line, and there was actually kids in my signing line, which was amazing to me. And this girl came up to the front of my signing line and she had a picture of my book cover on her shirt. Like she had gone out and made a shirt specifically with the book cover on the front of it. And I just about burst into tears when I saw her and she was so nervous to meet me, but she has no idea how excited I was to meet her. And I'm like, can I please take a picture of your shirt? Because it's the best thing ever. And I still have that picture and it's still on my computer. And if I lose the joy, I look at that picture and think, this, this is why I'm doing this. And that keeps me very grounded.

[01:11:13] Marissa: I love that. That's a great memory. All right, Joanne, do you have anything else that you'd like to add before we wrap this up?

[01:11:19] Joanne: Not that I can think of now. I'm sure at 02:00 a.m. Tomorrow morning, I will think of wonderful things to say.

[01:11:25] Marissa: We'll do another, we'll do a follow up someday. Well, thank you, Joanne. It has been a pleasure, as always, always a pleasure. And thank you so much to everyone who submitted your questions. We definitely hope that this has been helpful and informative. One last reminder, Joanne and I do have our co written middle grade coming out this October. It is called let it glow and it is currently available for pre order. So even though that is like a long ways away, you can find the book and check it out. Next week, I will be chatting with Makia Lucier about her fantasy inspired by Pacific island mythology, dragonfruit. Dont forget to leave us a rating or review on your favorite podcast app and check out our merchandise on Etsy, Instagram and teepublic. If youre enjoying these conversations, please subscribe and follow us on Instagram. Arissa Meyer, author and happywriterpodcast until next time, stay inspired, keep writing, and whatever life throws you today, I hope that now youre feeling a little bit happier.