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Behind the Scenes—How a Cozy Mystery Series is Built to Last · Reality Writes

0:05
SPEAKER_02: Hello, hello, hello, and welcome to another episode of Reality Rights.
0:09
SPEAKER_02: I am author Ellie Alexander.
0:11
SPEAKER_02: This is the podcast where we talk about everything writer-ish, bookish, and just life-ish.
0:16
SPEAKER_02: And I'm here with a tech guy.
0:18
SPEAKER_01: Hello, hello.
0:19
SPEAKER_01: How's it going today?
0:22
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
0:23
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
0:23
SPEAKER_01: It's going.
0:24
SPEAKER_00: It's going.
0:26
SPEAKER_02: The world is dark right now, but we're going to try to focus on some lighter stuff today.
0:31
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
0:32
SPEAKER_01: Gotta do that every once in a while.
0:33
SPEAKER_01: Um but yeah.
0:36
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
0:36
SPEAKER_01: So what are we talking about today?
0:39
SPEAKER_01: We're talking about cozy mystery series and uh yeah.
0:44
SPEAKER_02: We're gonna go deep into like how you build a lasting series, series writing in general, and just sort of what it's like to write a long-running series versus a shorter series, develop a series.
0:58
SPEAKER_02: That's a lot of times of saying series, but today's gonna be focused on series writing.
1:04
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, uh behind the scenes, right?
1:07
SPEAKER_02: Behind the scenes.
1:07
SPEAKER_01: All the all the tips, tricks, the dirty dark secrets.
1:11
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
1:11
SPEAKER_02: Dirty dark secrets to building murder.
1:15
SPEAKER_01: Uh, but before we get started, uh I wanted to do a quick shout out for the your latest book just released last week.
1:23
SPEAKER_01: Um a very novel murder, book one in the what is the name of that series?
1:32
SPEAKER_01: I'm sorry, I've lost I've totally you have a lot of series.
1:37
SPEAKER_02: I do.
1:38
SPEAKER_02: This is the novel detective.
1:39
SPEAKER_01: The novel detectives, that's right.
1:41
SPEAKER_01: That's right.
1:41
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
1:42
SPEAKER_01: Okay, so book one in the novel detectives, a very novel murder, uh released on Tuesday.
1:48
SPEAKER_01: And uh it's got some great reviews.
1:51
SPEAKER_01: I was I've been impressed.
1:53
SPEAKER_01: Uh being the marketing guy, I pull from that content a lot, and um people seem to be loving it.
2:00
SPEAKER_01: So that's gonna feel nice.
2:02
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I always appreciate it when readers take the time to share a review too, because it really does help.
2:07
SPEAKER_02: Um, and those reviews are for other readers.
2:09
SPEAKER_02: That's what might help a reader discover the series or realize that there is a spin-off.
2:14
SPEAKER_02: So thank you, uh, darlings, who have taken the time to do that.
2:18
SPEAKER_01: Right.
2:18
SPEAKER_01: And yeah, it's just real quick that is the case, right?
2:22
SPEAKER_01: That this is a spin-off from the Secret Bookcase Mysteries, which was a series that had the same characters, but things have changed, things have progressed, and this is a new series.
2:33
SPEAKER_01: So look look for a very novel murderer anywhere you buy books, support your local bookstore.
2:41
SPEAKER_02: Yes, please.
2:42
SPEAKER_02: Oh my gosh.
2:43
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
2:44
SPEAKER_01: In the library, in your library.
2:46
SPEAKER_01: That's right.
2:46
SPEAKER_01: Um, and hey, for those darlings out there who happen to be patrons over on Ellie's Patreon, um, be sure to head there after you finish listening to this episode to catch the after party where good things happen.
3:01
SPEAKER_01: No, wait, are we gonna get sued for saying that?
3:03
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, survivor fans out there will uh yeah, yeah.
3:07
SPEAKER_01: Jeff Probes is I I can feel it.
3:09
SPEAKER_01: He's texting me right now.
3:11
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
3:11
SPEAKER_01: Uh no, but the after party, um, we have a lot of fun with that for uh the patrons over there.
3:17
SPEAKER_01: So head on over.
3:18
SPEAKER_01: So let's get into it.
3:20
SPEAKER_01: Uh behind the scenes, how a cozy series is built to last, and all of that.
3:26
SPEAKER_02: All of that.
3:27
SPEAKER_02: Um, I think, you know, I think we should start from the writing perspective.
3:31
SPEAKER_02: And um, I'd love to chat first about Bake Shop because the Bake Shop mysteries are going into the um 22nd book be out next month.
3:42
SPEAKER_02: I know.
3:43
SPEAKER_02: Wilds.
3:44
SPEAKER_02: Um and what it's like in terms of writing a series that's going that long.
3:50
SPEAKER_02: I'm actually two books ahead.
3:51
SPEAKER_02: I'm already working on book 24 because of the publishing schedule for that one.
3:55
SPEAKER_02: Um, but when I'm reading a series like this, I see these as the ultimate comfort rates.
4:03
SPEAKER_02: They're a book that I just slip back into with ease as a reader.
4:08
SPEAKER_02: Not my bake shop per se, because I don't know, people might read my own work.
4:12
SPEAKER_02: But um series series that I have loved.
4:16
SPEAKER_02: And um, I think what one thing that's really interesting is if I reflect back to my very early reading and even when my mom was first reading to me, it was almost all series throughout childhood.
4:27
SPEAKER_02: You know, it'd be like the Little House on the Prairie series, Betsy Tassie Tibb, the Hardy Boys, ah, the Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew, um then obviously going into like Agatha and Sherlock, and um I loved Sweet Valley High when like I was in high school.
4:46
SPEAKER_02: So there is something so bingeable and familiar about slipping back into a world that you're already comfortable with.
4:54
SPEAKER_02: And what's interesting is the same is true for me when I'm writing the bake shop mysteries.
5:01
SPEAKER_02: So it doesn't take the same amount of effort, time, thought, development to start a new bake shop mystery.
5:11
SPEAKER_02: That's not to say that it's ever easy because you still have to have the plot and a murder and suspects and all of those sort of things.
5:17
SPEAKER_02: But I know when I start, you know, immediately to be in Jules' world when we're setting up that first chapter, I know that she's gonna be, you know, feeling very um lovely and warm about whatever she's gonna be baking.
5:30
SPEAKER_02: And she's maybe gonna be taking a walk through downtown Ashland and we're gonna be seeing all our favorite spots.
5:36
SPEAKER_02: And then she'll be in the bake shop and Andy will come in for our coffee.
5:39
SPEAKER_02: Like, I just am in that world immediately.
5:41
SPEAKER_02: So it's an escape for me as a writer, too, which I hope then, darlings, when you're picking up a series that you're really familiar with, you're like, oh, good, okay, I'm back in this world again.
5:51
SPEAKER_02: Like I don't want to say the stakes are low, but the stakes are kind of low on that front because you're these characters hopefully feel like old friends or family to you.
6:02
SPEAKER_02: Um, and so there's a real difference then with starting a new series because there's so much more that goes into initially building out that world and figuring out who these characters are.
6:14
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, totally.
6:15
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
6:16
SPEAKER_01: Um, well, the other thing a series has that uh standalones don't uh really is like subplots, right?
6:23
SPEAKER_01: That that basically tie books within the series together.
6:29
SPEAKER_02: Exactly.
6:30
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and not every series has a subplot, of course, but a lot of mine have.
6:35
SPEAKER_02: And sometimes it will be the subplot that dictates how long a series might run.
6:40
SPEAKER_02: So if we go back to my um OG mysteries, the Meg Reed series, I knew that the subplot with what happened to Pops, her father, was gonna wrap by book like five or six.
6:52
SPEAKER_02: So I was writing to that point.
6:54
SPEAKER_02: The same is true with the secret bookcase mysteries, because we know right out of the gate that Annie's best friend Scarlett has been murdered and it's an unsolved case 10 years later.
7:04
SPEAKER_02: And Annie's solving current day mysteries, but she's also hyper focused on trying to figure out what happened to Scarlett.
7:11
SPEAKER_02: So when that ended at book six, then there was this real opportunity.
7:15
SPEAKER_02: And some of this, you know, is a conversation with publishing houses on the like business side of things to be like, okay, hey, that was really clean.
7:23
SPEAKER_02: That series is nice at six books, but we don't want this world to end.
7:27
SPEAKER_02: We want to see more of Annie and Fletcher and Hal and all of these characters and Redwood Grove.
7:33
SPEAKER_02: So what if we now take them and place them into a new series?
7:37
SPEAKER_02: But really, it's all it's all the same characters, it's the same place.
7:41
SPEAKER_02: It's just that now they've opened a detective agency within the bookstore and they're gonna get to take on kind of slightly different cases than maybe they would when she was just sort of this amateur sleuth.
7:51
SPEAKER_02: So um, yeah, I I personally am always drawn to a subplot, any sort of secondary arc.
7:58
SPEAKER_02: I think you are as well.
7:59
SPEAKER_02: I mean, we'll definitely learn like our viewing.
8:01
SPEAKER_02: I get almost more wrapped up in that.
8:04
SPEAKER_02: Um, but there is also an art with how how much you pepper in how long you drag something like that out.
8:11
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that that's that's really interesting because subplots um as a reader, my speaking for myself, um, I like them.
8:20
SPEAKER_01: But I I get I and this is me, um, I get nervous when I know that the subplot is getting to the point where it's gonna wrap up because I'm worried that the series is gonna end because the subplot is ending.
8:34
SPEAKER_01: And that that worries what for a series that I love, that that worries me.
8:38
SPEAKER_01: Um so it's always like it's kind of bittersweet.
8:41
SPEAKER_01: Like I I I want it to stretch out, but then at the same time, like you said, as an author, I imagine you have to kind of know when to kind of wrap it up because you don't want a subplot that goes like 15 books, right?
8:55
SPEAKER_01: I mean, that might be a bit much.
8:58
SPEAKER_02: No, and I can think of one particular um cozy that I read long before I was writing cozy's, where's there's um there's a subplot of like who the main character, the sleuth, is going to choose for her love interest.
9:10
SPEAKER_02: And it it has gone on for like, I don't even know, 20 plus books now.
9:14
SPEAKER_02: And at that point, then I'm not invested anymore.
9:17
SPEAKER_02: Like, come on in the real world, like make a decision.
9:20
SPEAKER_02: Um, which I understand from a writing perspective that once you kind of get into that pattern um or maybe the formula of that, it's it's easy to slip back into too.
9:30
SPEAKER_02: But um, yeah, I'm always very cognizant of trying to think through what it's like on the opposite end, even if I'm very much immersed in the idea of a subflot, I have to be kind to you, darlings, and not a poo want to murder me.
9:45
SPEAKER_01: Well, and I I guess that's where um being a prolific reader helps be a prolific writer, right?
9:55
SPEAKER_01: Because because time passes differently in the fictional world, right?
10:01
SPEAKER_01: I mean, it it does.
10:02
SPEAKER_01: So if you stretch a subplot out over six or seven books, say, to you as the writer, as the author, you might think, oh, well, you know, it's only been like a year and a half, two years within the span of those six books.
10:16
SPEAKER_01: So this is not that long for the this is realistic for this thing to play out.
10:20
SPEAKER_01: But from a reader's perspective, that's potentially 1800 plus pages, you know, where they're like, just wrap it up, make it make a decision, like make a choice, right?
10:32
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
10:33
SPEAKER_01: So you it like I I like does does that ever cross your mind, like time in in terms of how that affects subplots?
10:42
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you know, I don't think it did initially early on in my career, especially like if we go back and use the Meg example, because I knew what was going to actually that's not true.
10:51
SPEAKER_02: I had two ideas of what was gonna happen with the Pop's backstory.
10:54
SPEAKER_02: And for any darlings who are not familiar with that series, that's I'm not giving away any spoilers in this episode, but um, we know early on that Meg's dad um is involved in a deadly bike accident in book one.
11:07
SPEAKER_02: And so she's trying to figure out what happened to him.
11:10
SPEAKER_02: Was it an accident, etc.?
11:12
SPEAKER_02: So I had two potential paths for where that was gonna go.
11:15
SPEAKER_02: Um, and that that series took, you know, I think, I think books came out every 12 to 18 months with that one initially.
11:24
SPEAKER_02: So more than five years.
11:26
SPEAKER_02: So readers are also waiting.
11:28
SPEAKER_02: There's this time issue physically, then too, not just how many words, right?
11:33
SPEAKER_02: But how far apart are the books spaced?
11:35
SPEAKER_02: Whereas with the secret bookcase mysteries, the way those happen is they come out every two to three months because I'm writing them ahead of time and then they're kind of batch for a better word, like they're published in a in a quicker succession.
11:49
SPEAKER_02: Um, but the other thing I don't think I realized early on was then they I would get to this point where there are enough book books out there where let's say all of the megs are already there.
11:59
SPEAKER_02: Well, a reader might read those in like a month then, because they've all been published.
12:04
SPEAKER_02: So, like, boom, time is not passing so quickly for them.
12:08
SPEAKER_02: So it's it's this really strange like balance of trying to make sure you're staying true to the world and the characters.
12:16
SPEAKER_02: You are making it viable that, like, okay, yes, solving this mystery is gonna take months and it's not gonna happen over a period of a few days.
12:25
SPEAKER_02: But then also wanting to satisfy darling so you're not ready to just pull your hair out or rip the book into shreds at the end.
12:33
SPEAKER_01: Right.
12:34
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, totally.
12:35
SPEAKER_01: I I I hadn't considered release schedule, but that but you're so right because um, I mean, you know me, I'm a big fan of Martha Wells' Murderbot Diaries, uh, that series.
12:47
SPEAKER_01: And there are several really key subplots to that that whole series, but we get one book a year, about once a year.
12:55
SPEAKER_01: And that that's like it's hard.
12:57
SPEAKER_01: Like I have a hard time, like a lot happens in a year in your life, right?
13:03
SPEAKER_01: So I have a hard time picking up the new book and immediately going, Wait, what what is happening in that particular subplot?
13:11
SPEAKER_01: So I I can see where like a quicker release schedule would make that more palatable to readers and and just easier to track and follow.
13:21
SPEAKER_02: Well, and then that's a good point too, because then from the writing perspective, and this is great for any darlings out there who are maybe, you know, at the start of writing a series, uh, you really have to be very conscientious of how many um catch-ups you're doing, you know, because if eaters are coming in, right, and they haven't they haven't seen the book or you know, they've read like 25 other books in between when book three and book four left off, you really have to do like a catch-up, but then you don't want to bore the reader who is just binging it because all you know three books were out for them already.
13:58
SPEAKER_02: So yeah, it's always it's a it's that's tricky.
14:01
SPEAKER_01: Totally.
14:02
SPEAKER_01: There's no um skip recap button like there is on streaming services, right?
14:08
SPEAKER_01: Previously on the diplomat.
14:10
SPEAKER_01: Nope, skip.
14:10
SPEAKER_01: I just watched that.
14:11
SPEAKER_01: Like I don't need that.
14:12
SPEAKER_02: Oh, that's nice.
14:13
SPEAKER_02: We don't bought it.
14:14
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
14:15
SPEAKER_02: So um my rule is always to try to make it as natural in, you know, maybe the POV of the main character.
14:24
SPEAKER_02: So maybe in an opening chapter for Annie, let's say she's going through the secret bookcase, she has her coffee and she's getting the store set up for the and she's kind of reflecting a little bit on, you know, where she's at with Scarlet.
14:37
SPEAKER_02: Like she's thinking about Scarlet because maybe she sees a book that reminds her of her.
14:42
SPEAKER_02: Um, and so then we're having kind of this natural recamp recap because one thing that I find really frustrating from a reading perspective is just this info dump where it's like, okay, you know, like you're saying, that works for a television show, but it doesn't work for fiction because we're in a character's head or we're in that space.
14:59
SPEAKER_02: So you have to really weave that in naturally and then not spend pages and pages on it.
15:05
SPEAKER_02: My my rule is usually like I'm gonna, I'm gonna have like six to eight paragraphs.
15:10
SPEAKER_02: Um, and that's not all gonna be at once either.
15:13
SPEAKER_02: Maybe it's gonna be two or three paragraphs, and then a few chapters later, when there's a natural place to bring it up, I'm gonna pepper in a few more, and that's gonna be hopefully just enough to catch you up to speed.
15:24
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that makes sense.
15:25
SPEAKER_01: Um, and I but I imagine that is challenging as a writer to find that balance.
15:31
SPEAKER_01: So you're probably gonna err on including too much, I would think, at first, right?
15:37
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
15:38
SPEAKER_02: I think so too.
15:39
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
15:39
SPEAKER_02: It's hard to resist that info dump of like, and then, and then da-da-da-da-da.
15:43
SPEAKER_02: And then the other um interesting thing about series writing in general is that um actually for me, this has been true every single time.
15:52
SPEAKER_02: All of my editors really don't want to talk about the fact that any of these sleuths have ever seen a dead body before.
16:00
SPEAKER_02: Um so in each book, not that's not true for the subplot, right?
16:04
SPEAKER_02: So the subplot is fine.
16:05
SPEAKER_02: We can be thinking about Scarlet, Meg can be thinking about her dad.
16:09
SPEAKER_02: In the Sloane Krause series, Sloan's trying to find answers about her past.
16:13
SPEAKER_02: In the Bake Shop series, Jules initially is trying to decide what's gonna happen with her love life.
16:18
SPEAKER_02: I don't have that stretch, 23 books, don't worry.
16:22
SPEAKER_02: Um, but as far as the current murder in that book, that's as if, woo, we have never seen a body in Ashland before.
16:30
SPEAKER_02: This is brand new to Jules.
16:32
SPEAKER_02: She's gonna react that way.
16:33
SPEAKER_02: We're gonna gloss over the fact that there has already been a high body count.
16:37
SPEAKER_01: She's already solved 21 murders, so no one needs to know.
16:41
SPEAKER_00: No, we're just 10 with that.
16:43
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
16:44
SPEAKER_01: Uh, you quick aside, you broke your cardinal rule and mentioned the Sloan Krause series.
16:49
SPEAKER_01: So now you're prepare to get bombarded by darlings out there who are like, is that series continuing?
16:54
SPEAKER_02: Like, no, I know, darlings.
16:56
SPEAKER_02: I love Sloan too.
16:57
SPEAKER_02: I will say, I say this every time.
16:58
SPEAKER_02: I always respond to emails.
17:00
SPEAKER_02: Um, thank you for loving Sloan as much as I love Sloan.
17:03
SPEAKER_02: I have for a while now had a sketch of what I want to have happen for the next full-length book.
17:08
SPEAKER_02: I just don't have time right now in my current writing schedule.
17:12
SPEAKER_02: Um, and because I'm writing for multiple publishing houses, like those deadlines kind of come first.
17:17
SPEAKER_02: Um, so I do have an idea for Sloan, but I don't know when that will show back up in the world.
17:22
SPEAKER_01: Okay, so new Sloan Krause within the next few months.
17:25
SPEAKER_01: That's what you're saying.
17:26
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, tomorrow.
17:26
SPEAKER_02: It's coming tomorrow.
17:28
SPEAKER_01: No, that's exciting.
17:30
SPEAKER_01: That's hey, that's uh breaking news.
17:32
SPEAKER_01: You heard it here first.
17:33
SPEAKER_01: Um heard it here first.
17:34
SPEAKER_01: Ellie has an idea for the next that would be book seven, right?
17:39
SPEAKER_01: Book seven.
17:40
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
17:40
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and we did um, I did those free shorts, which you upped with in terms of publishing them, um, because I took over um independently publishing that series after it got canceled.
17:51
SPEAKER_02: And we can talk about that too, like why a series gets canceled.
17:54
SPEAKER_02: It got canceled at book five, and that was so crummy because I hadn't finished that arc for her.
18:00
SPEAKER_02: So then it was like, oh my gosh.
18:01
SPEAKER_02: She's like, How much do I wrap up?
18:03
SPEAKER_02: Do I have to wrap it all up?
18:05
SPEAKER_02: Um, and so then um I did a full-length book to try to wrap up more of that.
18:10
SPEAKER_02: And then um I did a collection of shorts.
18:13
SPEAKER_02: And so my idea is where the shorts have left off is where I would want to pick back up with another full-length book.
18:20
SPEAKER_00: Eventually, you are teasing like, oh wow.
18:24
SPEAKER_01: Okay, well, we're gonna we're gonna get to the the business side of things in a second because I do want to talk about the um the role publishers play in this.
18:32
SPEAKER_01: But you you brought up an interesting point because I wanted to talk about characters, and obviously through now 22 books um in the Bake Job series, but any series really, you start out with your core characters and then new characters get added as as time goes on.
18:47
SPEAKER_01: But one one of the things that we were talking about uh made me think, um, how like once you've introduced a new character, like how many times do you have to reintroduce them?
18:59
SPEAKER_01: Because this goes back to the whole like recap thing, right?
19:02
SPEAKER_01: Like, okay, the you know, uh tort gets a new baker, and if somebody picks the series up in book like nine, they'll be like, who's this guy?
19:11
SPEAKER_01: You know, and so how do you how do you do that with with recurring versus new characters and and their introductions and reintroductions?
19:21
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, this always feels a little bit like a magic trick to me as well, because the answer is every single time you have to introduce the entire cast, not just new characters who may have joined the bake shop, let's say, but the entire cast of characters needs to be reintroduced at some level in every single book in the series.
19:41
SPEAKER_02: So this goes back to the same thing of like how much of the backstory are you peppering in?
19:46
SPEAKER_02: Because you have to anticipate that a reader might pick up book nine and they've never read anything in the backlist before that, or they might join at book 21 and they need to be caught up on at least like high-level details, right?
20:03
SPEAKER_02: Um, and so for me, this is something when I'm doing my initial sketch.
20:08
SPEAKER_02: So let's say like I'm working on book 25 of the bake shop, and I'm going through and I'm thinking about like, okay, where's the body?
20:16
SPEAKER_02: What's what's happening?
20:17
SPEAKER_02: Like, is there a wedding?
20:19
SPEAKER_02: Is it winter?
20:20
SPEAKER_02: What's the time of year?
20:21
SPEAKER_02: What's my line item for where each of the long-running characters are at?
20:27
SPEAKER_02: Um, you know, so like two or three things that have just happened in their life, new people who've come in.
20:33
SPEAKER_02: And so then for the you really only have the first chapter or two, again, to try to weave that in in a very natural, non-info-dumping way.
20:44
SPEAKER_02: So that everybody's up to speed, because then we have to get to the body and the murder, and you're also then including a whole list of suspects and a victim and a killer that are all not going to return.
20:57
SPEAKER_02: So it's a lot of characters to weave into the first three or four chapters of a long-running series.
21:03
SPEAKER_01: Um that is, I mean, I've been around this the whole time since you've been writing, and still every time I hear this, it just boggles my mind about how much actually goes into writing a book and how, like, for granted, I think many, not all, but many readers just take that.
21:21
SPEAKER_01: But I do have a question for the darlings out there who are listening and watching.
21:24
SPEAKER_01: Like, uh, you know, raise your hand um uh if you roll your eyes whenever an author is reintroducing a character that you obviously know because you've read the series from the beginning and you're like, I know who Andy is.
21:39
SPEAKER_01: Oh my god.
21:40
SPEAKER_01: You know, like uh I I can see that um uh because I've done that.
21:45
SPEAKER_01: Uh and I know I the funny thing is, like, I feel like I'm an insider.
21:49
SPEAKER_01: Like I I I know why it's happening, but I've still like, oh yeah.
21:55
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
21:55
SPEAKER_01: I mean, if everybody would just read a series the correct way and start from the beginning.
22:01
SPEAKER_02: You're up for blood today.
22:03
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
22:05
SPEAKER_01: That would save authors and readers so much time, right?
22:09
SPEAKER_01: Am I right?
22:10
SPEAKER_01: I'm not wrong.
22:11
SPEAKER_01: That is like uh prove me wrong.
22:13
SPEAKER_02: I know you're not wrong, but I am always floored by how many readers will be like, wow, I discovered bake shop at book 10 or book 17, and then I'm reading them all now or whatever.
22:24
SPEAKER_02: So you I you do really have to be thoughtful about that.
22:27
SPEAKER_02: But I hope that if I've done my job well, that it feels seamless.
22:32
SPEAKER_02: So to use the bake shop again, like if the almost always in the bake shop.
22:38
SPEAKER_02: So this is like you're really getting to see how the sausage is made in this one.
22:43
SPEAKER_02: Um almost always, if you go back, the opening chapter or so is all is Jules baking, doing something like we are in her head in the moment.
22:53
SPEAKER_02: Um, most of the time she's at tort.
22:55
SPEAKER_02: Um, if she's off somewhere else, actually, she almost always starts at tort, even if she's going to, let's say, like Costa Rica for a coffee trip.
23:02
SPEAKER_02: They're starting at tort and they're ending at tort um to bookend it, but also because I know I've got to make sure the entire cast is gonna show up.
23:12
SPEAKER_02: So Andy, the lead barista, is gonna come in, like I talked about, and there are gonna be like maybe two sentences where I'm like, oh, and Andy, my um, you know, I wouldn't say lead barista every time too.
23:24
SPEAKER_02: You have to think of clever new ways to introduce a character that gives a new reader enough information, but doesn't drive a longtime reader crazy.
23:33
SPEAKER_01: Right.
23:33
SPEAKER_01: But like that, that's challenging.
23:35
SPEAKER_01: So I guess that's something that's that's something good for readers and prospective writers out there to to understand.
23:42
SPEAKER_01: Because, you know, 22 books in, how do you introduce Andy like 21 different times, right?
23:48
SPEAKER_01: Or different ways.
23:49
SPEAKER_01: That's just that that's wild.
23:52
SPEAKER_02: Like and then maybe, like you said, there's new staff because in real life, you know, if the bake shop's been running for yeah, it's expanded, right?
24:00
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's expanding.
24:01
SPEAKER_02: So then it's like, okay, how much attention am I giving those characters?
24:05
SPEAKER_02: Because maybe right now they're really gonna just be peripheral characters space, but they've got names, they've got little mini personalities.
24:14
SPEAKER_02: So as you're introducing somebody new like that, you kind of have to pepper in these little tidbits and then you start expanding them.
24:21
SPEAKER_02: Because initially, if we're talking about Steph or Sterling or any of the secondary characters in the bake shop, they didn't have major roles.
24:30
SPEAKER_02: It's only over time that we've gotten to know them more too.
24:33
SPEAKER_02: So um, that's the delicate balancing act, too.
24:36
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, totally.
24:38
SPEAKER_01: All right, let's go back to publishers, because you brought that up a little bit.
24:43
SPEAKER_01: Um, because I know that, and well, I'm gonna use Sloan here as an example since you brought that up too.
24:48
SPEAKER_01: Um one of your favorite comments to get from readers, uh, questions, I should say, is why did you stop writing Sloan?
24:58
SPEAKER_02: Right.
24:59
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
25:00
SPEAKER_01: So what role like uh do publishers play in a long-running series?
25:06
SPEAKER_01: Like, yeah.
25:08
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I mean, um, a lot.
25:10
SPEAKER_02: If you if you're traditionally published, this is one of the um, I would say, advantages to going indie that you're gonna have more control.
25:18
SPEAKER_02: Like you can end that series when you want to end it.
25:20
SPEAKER_02: It's really like a sales and a numbers.
25:22
SPEAKER_02: And um, a lot of times, like I have a I have a ton of writer friends who have launched great series and they only go two or three books because they just haven't had time to find a readership, too.
25:33
SPEAKER_02: It takes a while for readers to find a book.
25:36
SPEAKER_02: There are so many amazing reads out on the shelves, right?
25:39
SPEAKER_02: And so um maybe a reader picks up book one and two, and then they're reading three or four other things, and then they come back to the next one only to learn, oh, it's canceled, like it's not going on after this.
25:52
SPEAKER_02: Um, for Sloan, it was initially in hardcover, which is also just it's a really hard sell because it's expensive.
25:59
SPEAKER_02: Um, hardcovers are great because libraries buy more of them because they physically hold up.
26:04
SPEAKER_02: Um, but it's a big ask for a reader to buy a hardcover book.
26:08
SPEAKER_02: And the difference with hardcover is the publishing um calendar is a lot slower.
26:14
SPEAKER_02: So hardcovers usually come out at least a year apart in a series, sometimes more like 18 months, sometimes two years apart.
26:22
SPEAKER_02: So it's harder to find a readership early on when you're building a series like that.
26:28
SPEAKER_02: So ironically, it's really only been, you know, post-Sloan being canceled that I feel like Sloan really found her peel, and there's this whole incredible group of darlings out there that love her, you know.
26:40
SPEAKER_02: So that's that's a bummer.
26:41
SPEAKER_02: Um, and like I said earlier, if you have a plan as an author of where something's going, I was blindsided.
26:48
SPEAKER_02: I had no idea that it was going to be canceled at um at the end of book five.
26:52
SPEAKER_02: I thought we would at least get one more book to wrap it up.
26:55
SPEAKER_02: Um, and sometimes like that you might have an editor who's cheering hard for you internally, but the sales just aren't mapping.
27:02
SPEAKER_02: So yeah.
27:03
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
27:04
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
27:04
SPEAKER_01: I mean, I think that's the thing that darlings need to understand.
27:07
SPEAKER_01: And working in the business that I work in, um, that is always the case, right?
27:12
SPEAKER_01: Is that the the internal champion of a project isn't necessarily the end-all be all decision maker.
27:18
SPEAKER_01: I mean, almost never.
27:20
SPEAKER_01: And so no matter how hard your agent is, your agent, your editor is fighting for you and your agent, um at the end of the day, it's whatever that financial forecast says, uh, that that the VP of whatever is is looking at at the publisher.
27:37
SPEAKER_01: Um that's interesting though, that uh, you know, the the other thing was um was that you know the format, the that the publisher choosing the format actually affects um the longevity of the series.
27:53
SPEAKER_01: Um hardcovers cost more.
27:55
SPEAKER_01: I mean, I think one thing that uh readers maybe underestimate is the the the primary cost increase in the hardcover format is shipping.
28:07
SPEAKER_01: It just costs so much more to ship books from the printer to the warehouse, to the bookstores, to the libraries, et cetera, et cetera, because they're heavy.
28:16
SPEAKER_01: They're heavy books.
28:17
SPEAKER_01: And that just and and it um you can't pack as many in in boxes and and all of the things just increase the cost so it just becomes prohibitive for people, and that's too bad.
28:30
SPEAKER_01: Um uh it it just I don't know.
28:34
SPEAKER_01: Those that that hardcover should be reserved for certain types of books, I think.
28:38
SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
28:39
SPEAKER_01: I know there are a lot of people that love them, um, and that's great, but um they they are just expensive.
28:44
SPEAKER_01: Um uh but I think um you you talked about uh um Sloane picking up like a super fanatical uh you know uh fan group after it got canceled.
29:00
SPEAKER_01: And that's really interesting.
29:02
SPEAKER_01: Uh I hadn't really thought about that before, but that is so true of so many things.
29:07
SPEAKER_01: Like we we we get these things that we love and we kind of take for granted that they're gonna be around forever, and then just suddenly they're not.
29:14
SPEAKER_01: And you're like, wait, how can this be how could they possibly stop making this one thing that I loved because I loved it, right?
29:22
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's just yeah, it's just so you know, and my editor for that series loved it too.
29:28
SPEAKER_02: Like we both just like cried when so it wasn't about like not going to bat for the series or yeah, I know.
29:37
SPEAKER_02: The beautiful thing now with indie publishing though is being able, so you know, that's something for um because I've I've coached a lot of writers who, you know, have maybe had some initial success.
29:47
SPEAKER_02: They've gotten, you know, a couple books published traditionally, and then same thing.
29:52
SPEAKER_02: It maybe it's format that it's in.
29:54
SPEAKER_02: There, there are a thousand reasons, right?
29:56
SPEAKER_02: Um, but the gift is if you still have stories to tell, like you can take that on, um, which is really fun to do.
30:03
SPEAKER_02: That's what I did with Meg too, when I got the rights back to that.
30:06
SPEAKER_02: Then I was able to write a couple new holiday rom-coms in a totally different world, kind of.
30:12
SPEAKER_02: So there's flexibility these days that there didn't used to be.
30:17
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, for sure.
30:19
SPEAKER_01: But all that to say, like, um, so you I I think we learned a lot in this episode.
30:25
SPEAKER_01: Uh, we learned that Bake Shop is going at least 25 books, but probably more.
30:31
SPEAKER_01: Um and Sloan is coming back.
30:34
SPEAKER_01: And I mean, everybody's gonna hold you to that now.
30:42
SPEAKER_01: So I mean, it's just it's so great.
30:44
SPEAKER_01: I love it.
30:45
SPEAKER_01: Um, but no, that uh that so a couple big announcements in this episode.
30:50
SPEAKER_01: It was uh it was it was very key.
30:52
SPEAKER_01: I I love it.
30:54
SPEAKER_01: Um all right.
30:56
SPEAKER_01: Well, uh so I think we're gonna wrap it up for for this week, but um I'd be really curious to hear from the darlings out there, like, you know, uh what are your favorite series and do you read them the right way?
31:10
SPEAKER_01: Do you read them in order?
31:12
SPEAKER_01: Let us know in the comments.
31:14
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
31:15
SPEAKER_01: Um you'll you'll hear them.
31:19
SPEAKER_01: I hope so.
31:20
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
31:22
SPEAKER_01: Um, but be sure to tune in uh after you've liked and shared this episode.
31:28
SPEAKER_01: Be sure to tune in next week because we're gonna be talking about reader feedback and what that means to an author and what it doesn't mean to an author.
31:38
SPEAKER_01: It's gonna be juicy.
31:40
SPEAKER_01: There's gonna be some great examples.
31:41
SPEAKER_01: Uh, totally anonymous, of course, because you know everybody's entitled to their opinion.
31:46
SPEAKER_01: We don't call anybody out here, but uh, we will share some fun comments.
31:50
SPEAKER_02: I do have a folder that I just save for episodes like this where if I get an email, I'm like, oop, that one goes right there.
31:57
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
31:59
SPEAKER_02: Well, we'll have some fun opening my email box anonymously, of course.
32:04
SPEAKER_01: Sweet.
32:05
SPEAKER_01: All right.
32:05
SPEAKER_01: Well, that is all for this week.
32:08
SPEAKER_01: So uh again, patrons, head on over to Patreon for the after party.
32:12
SPEAKER_01: And until next time.
32:14
SPEAKER_02: Until next time.