Latest / WriterCon / LIVE from the WriterCon Cruise with Sands, Johnson & Smith!

Transcript

LIVE from the WriterCon Cruise with Sands, Johnson & Smith! · WriterCon

0:01
Welcome to writer KHN, a gathering place for writers to share their knowledge about
0:05
writing and the writing world. Your hosts are William Bernhardt, best selling novelist
0:10
and author of the Red Sneaker books on writing, and Laura Bernhardt, award
0:14
winning author of the want lnd Files book series. Thank you Jesse Ulrich and
0:20
hello writers. We are coming to today live from the Harmony of the Seas
0:27
for the Writer Con Cruise, and we have some fabulous cruisers. As you
0:36
can tell, we got a boatload of wonderful writers, some of them.
0:42
We'll talk about the cruise later on the podcast, but for now, Laura
0:45
my first mate, how's the cruise been for you this year? Honestly best
0:52
ever? They just get better and better. We have a big group of
0:56
wonderful writers with us, and this has really been an adonish in the deep
1:06
set of sessions. I think we've really gotten into a lot of good work.
1:08
Plus, I figured out how room service works, so I had breakfast
1:11
in bed. Oh yeah, having coffee brought to your room every morning.
1:18
I'm do you think we could get one of the kids to do that for
1:22
us, or maybe we could train bustafir Ah the cat. Yes, absolutely
1:26
sure. Jesse, thank you again for making this live broadcast possible. I
1:33
know it's a short to bring all this equipment on the ship. Plus you've
1:36
been teaching about podcasts and audio books and other topics. So other than the
1:42
hot tub and the crown and anchor bathrobe that you get, what's your favorite
1:47
part of the cruise? You pretty much covered my favorite parts of the cruise.
1:51
It was the hot tub and the bathroom. No. I you know,
1:53
in comparison last year, this is a much larger group, and in
1:57
some ways I was worried about that, but in actually like it made for
2:00
more sort of diverse conversations and interesting topics that were brought up, and so
2:06
I think it's been great. I would wholeheartedly agree. So here's the next
2:15
special aspect of this podcast. Whereas we normally have a single guest, when
2:21
you got so many talented people on board, it seems silly to restrict the
2:24
panel to one person. So instead we've got a cornucopia of writing world riches.
2:30
We've got Catherine San's fabulous literary agent from the Sarah Jane Freeman Agency,
2:40
and we've got R. J. Johnson, author of ten different books,
2:46
including the science fiction, fantasy novel Dreamslinger. I've found and Laurence Smith,
2:57
the USA today best selling author of more than eighty books of available and not
3:04
only here in the United States, but many countries all around the world.
3:14
So let's plunge right into it. But before we get to the news Jesse,
3:20
let's hear some testimonials from the participants on the writer Con Cruise. Hi.
3:24
I am Kim Bricksy, and this is my second time on the writer
3:29
Con Cruise, and it is fantastic. It's a great time to have all
3:35
these experts trapped on the boat with us, and we just have experts in
3:42
We have a publisher on board, we have a best selling author on board,
3:46
USA best selling author, we have a a audio book editor, all
3:54
these and Bill and Laura of course, and we just have get to pick
3:59
their brain. So it's been fantastic. I've learned a lot and I can't
4:03
wait to get home and implement everything. Hi. I'm Julian Spencer. I'm
4:08
here on the last night of the Writer Kng Cruise twenty twenty four and this
4:13
experience has been wonderful. We've attended classes every day and I've learned something new
4:18
every day. Different things about technique, marketing, publishing, getting an agent,
4:27
just a plethora of information. I've learned more in this week than I
4:30
learned during two years of fiction classes at college. Hi. I'm Luke Town
4:36
and I'm here to kind of give a testimonial about my experience here on the
4:42
Writer con Cruise, and I have to say that this is my first one
4:46
I've ever attended, and it was absolutely amazing. I come into the cruise
4:50
not really knowing what to expect, and the amount of information that was going
4:54
to be provided Bill, Laura and the whole crew here was just amazing and
4:59
there was very helpful, and I had some time to sit down and talk
5:02
to him about my direction and how to improve my writing, and I received
5:08
the wealth and knowledge. I would absolutely recommend this, this uh, this
5:12
event, this cruise to anybody who's aspiring to be a writer, or if
5:16
you're a seasoned writer and wanting to get more input to become a better writer.
5:20
I can't say enough good things about it. I am Harry Botwright raret
5:27
I talking about what I have gotten out of the cruise. It's been really
5:31
just a lot of I'm super reluctant to come on the cruise because I'm so
5:36
far out of my comfort zone here and I feel like a wee babe of
5:40
a writer, and I don't belong amongst all of these other you know,
5:44
published, amazing writers. But what I've gotten is so much warmth and so
5:49
much acceptance, and it's been really it's been a really great experience and has
5:56
made me feel like I belong in this community. So anybody who's thinking about
6:00
coming should absolutely do it. News story number one, here's the headline.
6:20
Amazon is spying on its rivals. Let's are you shocked? Let me tell
6:27
you what's going on. The Wall Street Journal actually broke this story of alleged
6:32
espionage, which goes back to twenty fifteen, when Amazon allegedly created a secret
6:39
operation called Project Curiosity. Sounds kind of ominous already, doesn't it. Then
6:46
they rechanged it to the much more boring Small Business Insights yawn. But the
6:51
whole point of it was to gather intelligence on its rivals in the online retail
6:59
industries. Amazon is denying claims that it was spying, but saying instead it
7:04
was just conducting old fashioned competitor research. Right. What they did was create
7:11
a shell company called Big River Services get it Amazon Big River no connection at
7:18
all there to sell products on rival market places in the United States and a
7:24
broad places like Overstock and Etsy and ali Baba and eBay and even Walmart.
7:30
According to The Wall Street Journal, It also also used rival fulfillment and logistics
7:36
and shipping companies. Their employees were instructed not to tell the outside companies that
7:43
they worked for Amazon, not to use their Amazon email addresses. Employees even
7:47
attended an exclusive sellers conference hosted by eBay as representatives of Big River. So,
7:57
Lara, what do you think. Does this sound like corporate spying to
8:00
you? It does, just because they were being so underhanded and secretive about
8:05
it. I'm a little dubious anytime someone is behaving in a way that they're
8:11
trying to keep secret, I think it sounds a little sketch and well,
8:16
particularly when it's like the clear leader in the online bookselling business. I mean,
8:22
goodness, Amazon, if you're listening, I really love you. However,
8:28
I don't see why this was necessary, Jesse, you think Amazon was
8:33
engaging in underhanded practices, and most importantly, was James Patterson involved? You
8:41
know it shady when you have to come up with a fake company name to
8:43
do your shady business. So like Iff, you're coming up with fake business
8:48
names, you're doing something shady, or you think you're doing something shady,
8:50
then you have to hide it. Yes, so as James Parrison involved,
8:54
probably James coming for you news story number two. Publishers have filed a brief
9:03
opposing the Internet Archive case, which is now being appealed. If you've been
9:11
listening to the podcast for a while, you'll listen, you'll remember. Back
9:13
in June of twenty twenty, several of the large Big five publishing houses sued
9:20
this outfit called Internet Archive because they were digitizing, meaning turning into ebooks millions
9:28
of print books and distributing them as basically bootleg ebooks for free on the Internet
9:35
Archive website without the consent of the publishers or the authors, much less paying
9:39
than anything. So they lost on summary judgment, which lawyers in the audience
9:46
knows the judge basically said, we don't even need a trial. This is
9:52
so obvious, you know you lose and settled and decided in favor of the
9:58
publisher, finding Internet Archive liable for copyright infringement. Well, now Ia has
10:05
appealed. The publishers have filed a brief opposing this appeal, and let me
10:13
give you a brief shot of what IA is trying to do. They're trying
10:18
to justify, and this is a quote from the opposing brief, mass scale
10:22
infringement through a wholly manufactured theory it calls controlled digital lending or CDL. What
10:31
they're arguing is that this is, basically, and now I'm quoting from IA's
10:35
brief, a modern, more efficient version of lending that is used by libraries
10:41
across the country. But maybe not. Here are the two excerpts from the
10:48
brief that I thought were the most interesting. One. CDL is controlled digital
10:52
lending is a frontal assault. The publishers are saying on the foundational copyright principle
11:00
that rights holders exclusively control the terms of sale for every different format of their
11:07
work, and that has been the foundational principle of publishing and books since way
11:13
back when. Second quote. The authorized library ebookmark market is thriving right now
11:20
at this point in time, readers have never had more access through libraries,
11:28
real libraries to free licensed ebooks. But those libraries are of course paying a
11:33
licensing fee to get access to them. Just to give you some statistics,
11:39
the number of ebooks and audiobooks checked out via Overdrive, which I think is
11:45
the primary distributor of ebooks two libraries. In twenty twenty it was four hundred
11:52
and thirty million e books, more than a five hundred percent increase from about
11:58
eight years before. So RJ. Yeah, you're on top of everything.
12:03
So I'm going to turn to you. Oh boy. One argument that IA
12:07
has used this is just barring books, like what a library does. Are
12:11
you buying that? Well, no, of course not, especially since they're
12:16
not paying any kind of royalties to those authors or publishers. If they had,
12:20
if there was some kind of licensing program in place for them and they
12:22
weren't just scraping and taking their books and putting them on their own system,
12:28
I mean that's one thing. Yeah, but this is different. Catherine.
12:33
You're, as a literary agent in the business of protecting your authors. You
12:37
have to deal with the digital copying and copyright all the time in your work.
12:41
Does this seem like, you know, the legal jargon they toss out,
12:46
this is fair use or this is transformative work because we're turning it into
12:50
something else altogether, you're buying any of this? No, it's definitely not
12:56
fair use, you know. And another case to take a look at is
13:01
the spotify why the author's guilt is all over that looking for transparency. But
13:07
this is not fair use. This is obviously infringement. Yeah, I think
13:11
you're right, Laura, what do you think? I am so fired up
13:15
about this. It makes me so angry that they're trying to liken this to
13:20
the library model. Let's be clear, libraries distribute books after they have acquired
13:26
them through the right channels. They are a wonderful wealth of support and information
13:33
and resources. We have a daughter who works at a library. We have
13:37
a library and with us on our cruise and we actually I had a discussion
13:41
with her about this. As a child, the library was my oasis.
13:48
We didn't have a lot, but when I walked in there, I could
13:50
get anything with my library card. And it just infuriates me that they are
13:54
trying to compare themselves to this wonderful resource that we have and they're just stealing
14:01
from us. They're just stealing from authors and not compensating them in any way.
14:05
Well, it sounds like we're in agreement on this one. I'm the
14:09
standard for the Internet archive here because yeah, because when they started this process,
14:15
and still to this day libraries can only buy like one or two copies
14:18
of an ebook, meaning there are people waiting constantly to check out an ebook.
14:24
And also when they started this, these were books that were not still
14:28
in print. So if for the nerds out there, they're in archives.
14:33
Actually one of the best places on the Internet is an open source, non
14:37
regulated, non walled way of getting information and access to old music, old
14:43
games, old things that are no longer available by the people who owned the
14:46
rights to them. And so I do think in this case and archives,
14:52
heart is in the right place. There's just no right way to expound upon
14:56
the weird way that ebooks are allowed to be lended, because libraries don't just
15:01
buy one copy of e book. The license at the buy costs thousands of
15:05
dollars. It's not just buying an ebook for the price we pay for it.
15:09
It's a ridiculous system where the mind doesn't actually go to the authors,
15:13
it goes to the publishers. So I am pro and an archive patik.
15:18
You know, if you don't mind, I'd like to say too, that
15:20
is large. Yeah, good, Well, I agree with you to a
15:24
point, especially about orphan works stuff that's just kind of disappeared and people that
15:28
don't have access to anymore. I remember Project Ginsburg a while back with Google
15:31
that was scanning all the classics and everything like that, and there's definitely room
15:37
for works that like academic papers, you know, random periodicals from the fifties
15:43
or something like that that I think does belong on the Internet Archive like that.
15:46
And I don't think it's so serious that we're not charging a fee for
15:50
that kind of stuff, because then that knowledge, that information is still out
15:52
there and available. So I agree with you to a point on that as
15:56
well. I don't want them stealing I don't know books. Yeah, I
16:00
don't want them stealing bills books right, yes, spill who pays me?
16:03
I do not want them to speeling. Oh listen, I don't want them
16:06
stealing bills books. But I do think that there is an avenue for a
16:11
different sort of connection between the readers of ebooks and how they can check those
16:17
out from a library. So, because what the Internet Archive is is trying
16:22
to be the Internet's library, and while I'd love libraries and support them,
16:26
they are forced into a system where I have to wait six weeks for an
16:27
ebook for no reason only because that ebook costs them thousands of dollars to buy
16:33
more than one copy of and they're only allowed to have I believe, two
16:36
copies of an ebook, and that's it. That's a ridiculous system. So
16:41
that's all I'll take. My books do not cost thousands of dollars for libraries,
16:48
I can tell you that. So I think there's a wide variety in
16:52
there. I think that may have been true one time, and that's what
16:53
Overdrive is done. They've made it much more fordable. Usually a library,
16:59
it's pay a little bit more than individuals would to get access to the book,
17:04
but then they can distribute it. They're still lend it right however many
17:10
times they want, depending on what they've paid. An Overdrive is obviously what
17:15
four hundred and thirty million it said. They're obviously distributing a lot of books
17:18
to people. But you know, I'm always going to come down on the
17:22
side of the author because that's what I care about. But what he brought
17:26
to the discussion, and I applaud you for sharing your hot take too,
17:30
and I appreciate the pieces that you brought to it. All right, Jesse,
17:36
enough with the news, cue up the music. Let's talk to Catherine
17:40
Sans, R J. Johnson, and Laurence Smith. All Right, Katherine,
17:51
RJ, Lauren, thanks for being You're all friends of the podcast.
17:55
You've been here before. Lauren was one of the first guests we ever had
17:59
on this but it's great to have you back again. Thanks for being on
18:03
the podcast. So, you know what our traditional first question is if you
18:10
could offer writers one piece of advice, and I know most of you could
18:14
offer a million, probably, but if you had to narrow it down to
18:18
one, what would it be? Lauren? You want to start find out
18:22
what you're passionate about writing, but when you do write it right to market.
18:26
I think the biggest mistake that I see is people get really excited about
18:30
an idea and they say, I'm going to write about vampires and space,
18:33
but they don't take into account that there are two types of audiences that are
18:36
going to be dealing with, the vampire fans and the space fans, And
18:38
if you are really careful, you need to make sure you either really heavily
18:42
court the space fans or heavily court the vampire. Trying to blend too distinctly
18:47
different world doesn't always work. Sometimes you get lucky. But my advice is
18:51
to lean heavily into one or the other with elements of the secondary thing that
18:53
you're interested in. So, if you have a really unique idea, really
18:57
study the market. And I'm not saying copy everybody that's out there, but
19:00
you do need to know what sells and why it sells and try to make
19:04
your work figure out what makes it self within those understanding those parameters. Yeah,
19:10
great advice, RJ. How about you. Yeah, I've said this
19:12
a couple of times, I think during the cruise, but it's something that
19:15
I'm very, I strongly believe in. When you're writing, you've got to
19:22
do two things. Just start and make it consistent. It's very much like
19:26
going to the gym. You get yourself into a routine, you get stronger
19:30
as you do it every day, and then the days that you miss it,
19:33
well you actually kind of feel like there's something missing. Yeah, very
19:37
true, Catherine. How about you? What I did is so many people
19:42
only think in terms of the big book, and that's not the way to
19:47
think. If you're starting out anywhere, you get published, anywhere your voice
19:52
can be heard. Even if you find a nonfiction topic that you write about
19:56
that somehow pertains back to your fiction. If you have no idea who's going
20:03
to see your work, it's always a message in a bottle, and agents
20:07
and editors do call people up on the strength of any number of things.
20:10
So don't only think books, think where can my writing be seen? More?
20:15
Great advice? All right, Catherine, let's start with an easy one.
20:19
Describe the future of publishing in detail. What do you think, Well,
20:27
that's what I had for you is go look at the bionic bartenders and
20:32
see because that is going to be in charge very soon. Just to explain,
20:38
this is a real thing on this ship. Wrong. Right now,
20:41
upstairs there are two like robotic arms shaken up Martini's and serving drinks. Right
20:48
that is where AI will bring us. It's all going to be the terminator.
20:52
We're all going to be in rubble fighting like Mad Max and on that
20:56
happy note, that's what I predicted. Maybe not obviously we are seeing healthy
21:07
book sells. There are always going to be books. You know, there's
21:11
been a lot of weeza all gonna die out there. Certainly we all thought
21:15
Ceedie Rahm was going to replace books and hypertext was going to come in,
21:18
and the future will probably be very techy, which our Jay knows more about
21:23
than I do. But we're certainly going to see books written by artificial intelligence.
21:30
But we still need writers, We need hearts and minds. I don't
21:34
predict that we'll ever run out of those. I agree, Lauren. You
21:41
know, romance has always been popular, but we are seeing it grow and
21:48
grow. Recently it proves to be one of the most popular, and we're
21:52
seeing things like romanticy, where we're seeing romance being fully blended with some other
21:57
genres, the sugarcane that's out there. Why do you think that is?
22:03
Why do you think romance not only stays strong but continues to grow and expand.
22:07
Well, it's always been the biggest selling If anybody isn't aware, it's
22:11
a two point eight billion dollar industry and growing. Romance readers tend to read
22:15
five to six books a week on average, and a lot of times they
22:19
are willing to pay for those books. They are not just going to libraries,
22:23
they're going anywhere. I mean, audiobook sales experienced a huge growth in
22:27
the last couple of years due to the romance crowd. But I think at
22:30
the end of the day, we're seeing more movies we're seeing more TV that
22:34
is really highlighting love stories, and love stories have always been a prime motivating
22:38
factor. If you think about TV shows like Cheers, we're always rooting for
22:42
that couple in Cheers, right. I mean, the idea is that romance
22:45
is one of the strongest emotions on our planet that motivates us beyond greed and
22:51
power and some of the other negative emotions. And I think we're startledly starting
22:55
to finally realize that there should not be a stigma attached to the idea of
22:59
love story. I often when I encounter people that smily kind of joke that
23:03
I write, you know, smud or mom porn or something like that,
23:06
to which I reply, so you watch a show on HBO that has gratuitous
23:11
sex and violence of which there's no emotional payoff and no positive experiences for the
23:15
woman in that show in that role. I said, what are you actually
23:18
supporting? And I challenged them on it, because romance novels are about acceptance
23:22
of other people's flaws. They're about growing as a character, They're about overcoming
23:25
obstacles. You know, it's not just men with perfect apps, although we
23:29
do like men with perfect apps. So I think it's really important to establish
23:33
that romance speaks to all of us. And if you're not moved by romance,
23:38
and I'm not saying that everybody has to go out and read romance,
23:41
but you've probably loved somebody at some point in your life and that was probably
23:45
a momentous experience, whether you were sixteen or eighty five. I mean,
23:48
the point is is that love matters on all levels, and it doesn't have
23:52
to be necessarily romantic love. There's a lot of beautiful stories I've read that
23:56
are not considered romance, that have stories of parent and child love or best
24:00
friend love, where you know, love is not defined necessarily just by romance
24:04
and sex. And so I think it's incredibly moving to see so many book
24:10
sales with you know, books like Fourth Wing and fifty Shades of Grade.
24:12
They're getting out there in the broader spectrum of people. And I can't tell
24:17
you in the last how many years I've seen people say, well, I
24:18
never started reading romance until I read X title, and then they realize that
24:22
the rest of the romance novels that have been existing for the last thirty to
24:26
forty years in the marketplace have had exactly what they've always been looking for my
24:30
stories. I always tell people they're a wild adventure that happens to have sex
24:34
in it, and so, which is how real life is. Real life
24:37
is should be a grand adventure of wonderful things happening, and exciting things and
24:41
sad things with sex in it. And so I think that's the thing,
24:45
is that there's this broader appeal that people are starting to realize that romance novels
24:48
are really fun. R Ju and I have a long history with conferences and
24:55
retreats. I think we met for the first time in Hawaii, or kind
24:57
to think of it, for the first time a retreat too, And Laura,
25:03
I think I met you maybe for the second time at a retreat.
25:06
So clearly retreats are the place to be. But my question is, we
25:12
saw science fiction also grow and horror in particularly exploded last year, right,
25:18
why do you think that is? I think it's just another trend in the
25:26
industry. I think people, you know, there are always stories will kind
25:30
of like what am I trying to say, continue like go through like cycles.
25:34
So back in the day, westerns were the big thing in the eighties,
25:40
the buddy Cop movie and the aughts vampire movies MCU in the in the
25:47
teens. I think like things like this are very cyclical. Uh, And
25:52
we're just seeing another another like generation pick up horror book and say, oh,
25:56
this is kind of fun. I want to read more stuff like this.
26:00
And then there's just that feedback loop. They enjoy this horror book,
26:03
they want to try the next one. Very nice. Catherine, Can you
26:08
tell us how the role of an agent has changed in recent years? And
26:15
since we love for you to predict the future, can you get your crystal
26:18
ball out again and tell us what changes you see coming in the future.
26:23
Well, what's definitely happening is I shared the big news has been that the
26:30
AALA has loosened its vice like grip on agents performing other roles. In addition
26:37
to the traditional role of representing a project to a publishing house, we're seeing
26:44
agents get much more into brand strategy, content strategy, publishing strategy. And
26:49
you'll see these listenings on LinkedIn. And this is also bringing about different fee
26:55
structures, different compensation packages. Still somewhat controversial because we're coming off thirty years
27:00
of the one guy who held all the cards in the industry because when he
27:07
ruled the AAR. Everything was deemed unethical everything, and I mean everything.
27:15
And if you see old communications from the former organization called the AR, they
27:22
were against retreats like this. They saw this as exploited it, I mean,
27:27
according to their languaging. But again this went back to the profit motive
27:32
of the one guy, and when he was drummed out by the new leadership,
27:37
some of us rejoiced, but I digres. So we're seeing an evolution
27:44
of the role, and you're going to see literary services offered by agencies which
27:48
are actually in place, you know, in the best possible way to offer
27:52
them developmental work, much more work with hybrid and independent publishing houses, which
27:59
is also so very different because the traditional fee structure of the percentage of the
28:03
advance against royalties is simply not applicable with hybrid publishing, where it might be
28:08
an author publishing house partnership. So we're seeing an evolution of the role that
28:15
way. Wow, that's really excellent information. Thank you for that, Lauren.
28:22
You are not just a brilliant writer. I am so impressed with your
28:26
business savvy. You are a remarkable businesswoman too. You've kind of been at
28:30
the forefront really of authors taking control and taking charge of their own careers.
28:37
Even wrote an article for US for our writer con magazine focused on foreign rights.
28:44
How did you get into that? How did you start getting your books
28:49
out there in other languages? So I always watch what authors that are bigger
28:55
than me do because I'm trying to always see where that next thing that I
28:59
need to be leading my career toward. And one of the things that I
29:02
noticed was foreign rights were really starting to grow. And I began, you
29:07
know, asking my agency, who has a Most agencies will have a sub
29:10
rights agent, or they have an agent that works directly in house that focuses
29:14
on subrights, so we're talking audio, film, foreign and things like that,
29:18
and I started asking them, hey, do you think you could shop
29:21
to all my rights? And I'm a midlister. That means that I'm not
29:25
a New York Times bestseller that's gone massively global, but I'm also not a
29:30
total new bee starting out, and so the response for midlisting can be kind
29:33
of varied. Some agents are very in love with supporting their people. Some
29:37
agents are like, well, I got other things going on, we'll check
29:40
into it, we'll get back to you. And I kind of always got
29:41
the we'll check into it, get back to you response, or the gently
29:45
implied well you're not a really big name, so no one, no foreign
29:49
publisher is going to come and buy your rights. So I thought, well,
29:52
what's the first step. Maybe I can go to a foreign publisher who's
29:55
to stop me. What's the worst that going to happen. They're going to
29:56
say, no, Noah is not going to hurt me. The word no
30:00
does not scare me anymore. And that's I think a really really important thing
30:03
is you have to learn to let know stop scaring you. And so I
30:07
decided to reach out to those foreign publishers. They came back and they went,
30:11
who are you, random author, We've never heard of you, No
30:15
thanks, or they just totally ignored my emails and contact form submissions and all
30:19
of that. So then I started looking to what some of the other independent
30:22
authors were doing that weren't publishing with houses, and I realized they were self
30:26
publishing their translations. So I started researching how to translate my own works.
30:30
And so I'm not sitting there with the French Dictionary translating work for work.
30:34
I think a lot of people actually really do think that I do that,
30:37
and I mean no, no, I actually have vetted translators. I have
30:41
services that I can recommend where you can go out and find your own translators
30:45
hire them. They usually charge per words, so if your book is one
30:48
hundred thousand words, they'll charge a certain scent amount or euro amount based on
30:52
your word count of your book, and it can be fairly expensive. So
30:56
the one thing for me was that I had to start saving up money,
30:59
start doing a few ad a time. I had to strategically pick what books
31:02
I thought could earn the money back faster. But I hired a translator,
31:06
did it myself, put the book up the way I would a normal indie
31:10
book, and then things started to skyrocket, and I had a very nice
31:12
six figure year last year, right before AI flooded the market with AI translations,
31:18
which I won't talk about because it feels a little doomsday, but it
31:22
was really amazing to be in charge of my own catalog and so I have
31:26
all the ability to put them in any format I want, print, ebook,
31:30
I can even find translators, which I have not done yet to do
31:34
narrating audio books yet for those translated works, but that will be my next
31:37
step at some point. But I'm working right now and getting everything available in
31:41
ebook and print, which for eighty five books in English. That's I so
31:45
far have about three hundred and sixty total titles on my Amazon dashboard, which
31:49
is a lot of time management. So know that if you're going that route
31:53
and you're managing your own foreign rights and producing your own titles, there's a
31:57
bit of legwork, So get organized, get a spreadsheet, and do all
32:01
those kind of things. But it's totally feasible that you can do all of
32:05
this yourself if you find resistance among the people that represent you. Now.
32:09
I have friends that have amazing agents who have sold their rights to foreign publishers
32:14
and it has worked out fantastically. So if you are having success, that's
32:17
probably the easiest way to go, and I would recommend that first. But
32:22
if you're not having luck, you can do it yourself, and there's a
32:24
lot of money in that. I should say there's a lot of money going
32:28
traditional or Indie. Either way, Foreign translations are very lucrative. Great r
32:35
Jay, Yeah, ask Catherine about the rood ahead for literary agents. What
32:39
do you see as the future or the road ahead for authors, whether they're
32:45
traditionally published or Indie or otherwise. You know, that's a tough one too,
32:52
because, like you said, you're looking to a crystal ball. I
32:54
don't think anybody would have predicted the absolute explosion of kindle ebooks at the time.
33:00
I certainly didn't. You know, I would have had way different clauses
33:04
in my country, I mean exactly. And so I think I think these
33:07
types of things as they come, you just have to be very adaptable and
33:12
very ready for whatever is coming next. I think for writers and authors in
33:17
the future, you'll see a lot more worry about the rise of AI or
33:22
large language models, as I want to make sure everybody knows. And also
33:28
the fact that like you just have to be ready, you have to.
33:32
You have to forgive me, I didn't kept my coffee this morning. I
33:37
can't function without the coffee. But no, really, I do believe that
33:43
it has never been a better time to be a writer. I agree,
33:45
and I think the ability to like Lauren was saying, like, get your
33:50
stuff out there into multiple countries. That's a huge resource that nobody would have
33:54
imagined they would have even five years ago. Right, Okay, just for
34:02
our illustrious panel, in general, we have many aspiring writers in our audience,
34:08
not just here, but out in cyberspace listening and or watching. Many
34:15
of them have written very marketable work, excellent good marketable work, but maybe
34:20
don't know how to break into the business. What would you recommend? This
34:27
is a toss up question. Anybody can jump in and go. Everybody,
34:30
all of you have I don't want to monopolize, but I just because I
34:35
just answered, but I do believe that you just have to put it out
34:37
there. And that's that was a strategy that I did. I sent out
34:42
a couple hundred query letters, never heard back from anybody, whether that was
34:45
because my query letter was terrible or the agents my stuff wasn't right for those
34:49
agents that I was sending it to. I and eventually just went ahead and
34:52
self published, and that started me on the journey that has me now talking
34:58
to you all here. So I think that that is probably the strongest thing
35:01
you can do. Let's just do it. On the other end of the
35:06
spectrum, I would say that you want to know that there are things you
35:09
need in your toolbox. One of them is a query letter. And even
35:14
though you do hear the story that sometimes things are somehow overlooked in the querying
35:19
process. It's still considered the way to get your work reviewed by an agency.
35:25
So you want to have a query letter that's beautifully honed. It represents
35:30
the best of the best of the best of you. And at the same
35:32
time, you want to have maybe twenty five word version because you're going to
35:37
use these again and again. You're always going to be asked what is your
35:39
book about, So you want to make certain that you have that organized in
35:45
such a way that it does draw on all the reasons people would respond to
35:51
your work. Lauren, I'm going to go ahead and bring this up just
35:53
because you and I had a nice conversation about switching gears, and so I
36:00
think we have to be adaptable. You and I kind of commiserated on having
36:05
some not great experiences with certain imprints. I was very fortunate that my agent
36:12
had mine back and was happy to kind of guide me through those not great
36:16
experiences. But I think it's okay for us to try one route. And
36:23
you've had excellent success by striking out on your own. So for anyone that
36:30
didn't know, I was traditionally published for several years and I had ten books
36:34
with three different publishers. Two of them were the big five in New York.
36:38
And the main thing that I've realized is that no matter what, you
36:43
need to understand what the paths are, whether you're going to really go the
36:45
traditional route, whether you're really going to go the indie route. But regardless,
36:50
Catherine is right, you really have to understand what your product is because
36:52
even if you planned to self publish, you need to be able to summarize
36:55
your book very briefly. You need to have a summary of what it's about,
37:00
you know, like what a backcover book description or a back cover blurb
37:02
prepared. You need to have what I call like she's talked about your toolkit.
37:06
You need to really have a marketing toolkit. And that applies for indie
37:08
or traditional. You need that for both. But I think the biggest thing
37:12
that I see is that a lot of people get deeply disappointed when New York
37:15
doesn't work out or publishing house doesn't work out. Statistically, it is hard
37:19
to get into a publishing house. It doesn't mean your book isn't good though,
37:22
It just means that maybe statistically you didn't find the right agent or you
37:25
didn't find the right houses to query. It's just sometimes it's a literal numbers
37:30
game. And so if that's the case and you're kind of running out of
37:32
steam, it's okay to transition. I think indie or self publishing used to
37:37
be such a dirty word back then, and I think still there is still
37:39
a stigma about whether books are good quality because there, frankly are a lot
37:45
of bad indie books out there now. The funny thing is is I'm also
37:47
starting to see a lot of bad trad books. And the biggest reason is,
37:51
and it's such a simple reason, is editing. And I found this
37:54
my own experience. When I left my traditional publishing house, I had transitioned
37:59
editors. They brought in a very young editor. She could, you know,
38:02
clean up a sentence, but she didn't know what was missing, she
38:06
didn't know what should be there. She was wanting to take out things that
38:09
I, after forty books in my career, knew worked. I knew it
38:12
worked with my audience, I knew it worked with my genre. And I
38:15
was proven right later on when that book that I edited, My Way,
38:17
won an award. And I think the big thing is is editing. So
38:21
no matter what you're going to do, your book has to be in perfect
38:23
condition, especially even before you submit. Because when I was in one of
38:27
my final contracts with Saint Martin's McMillan, we were finding out that editors were
38:31
saying, it's got to be perfect before it even hits our inbox. And
38:35
they were telling agents that they were like, this thing needs to be immaculate
38:38
and basically ready to publish. So you really need to have that mindset of
38:43
my book's got to be perfect no matter what I'm going to do. And
38:45
I think a lot of people that self published they say I want to save
38:49
money, I don't want to hire an editor, or you know, they
38:52
want to go trad and they think, I still don't need an editor,
38:53
I'll get assigned an editor. Well, there's so much you learn when working
38:57
with a good editor. There are a lot of bad at it out there,
39:00
so please do your due diligence, get referrals, ask for a sample
39:05
first ten pages or five pages edit where you can see how they edit,
39:08
because you don't want to work with someone that's going to destroy your self esteem
39:12
because they're an overly critical editor. Truly good editors can inspire you to make
39:16
your book better. They will not tear it down and destroy your self esteem.
39:21
It's one thing if they're suggesting something different and you have to kind of
39:23
take a few days to take that thought in. But if they're really nurturing
39:28
but not saying, oh, your book is perfect, but they're saying,
39:30
I love this concept. What if we did this to make it better?
39:32
And I think that's the biggest mistake I see is that when people are first
39:36
getting into this, no matter what path they take, they don't use the
39:39
appropriate tools. They think editing comes last in this process. It does not.
39:44
You need to be thinking about it the second you finish your rough draft,
39:46
start looking for an editor, no matter what you do, and get
39:50
on that. Boy, that is so right. I remember when I got
39:53
my first edited manuscript back from my editor at Valentine. You know, I
40:00
took it out and it's just bleeding with read ink and I'm like, don't
40:06
they understand how brilliant I am? But after I actually sat down and started
40:10
going through a page by page, it was probably the most educational week of
40:15
my life as a writer. Okay, one last question for all of you,
40:21
and this time I want you guys to talk about yourselves. What are
40:24
your goals for the days or perhaps even years ahead? RJ. How about
40:30
you? So this is a very small, silly goal. I mean,
40:35
everybody, you know you want your books to be everywhere a New York Times
40:37
bestselling list? Do you want to see them in turn into movies and TV
40:40
shows and everything like that. But honestly, I think my biggest goal is
40:45
just seeing my book for sale at an airport kiyok. Legitimately, I feel
40:51
like once you show up in that like sort of location, that because the
40:55
shelf space there is so limited, that's when you know you've made it.
41:00
And so that, honestly, that would be That is my tiny, little
41:02
silly goal for my writing career. That's silly. You got to know your
41:07
goals. That's great, absolutely, Lauren, how about you? I would
41:10
say, if you want your book in an airport, go and sneakily put
41:14
it in there. You know what, That's fair. I am not kidding.
41:17
I do this with libraries because it's hard in my hometown to get libraries
41:21
to take my books. So I purposely sneak in with my own copies and
41:24
I don't they're not tagged. I don't care if someone steals them. I'm
41:27
like, hey, let's just make something happen. Have somebody talk about my
41:30
book, because I don't know how many times you hear the producer is like,
41:32
well, I was trapped in the Chicago airport and this lady handed me
41:36
you're a book next to me and I thought, that's great. Oh it's
41:37
my next best movie. And you're like, well, how is that going
41:40
to happen? Put your book in the library, put your book in the
41:44
airport, put it anywhere you want. I literally had a joke about my
41:46
brother that lives in las and I might have you drive to every studio and
41:50
leave my book in the lobby. Because one of my goals is to have
41:52
a movie made. I have to say it's fun things. It's not really
41:57
bragging, but it's fun things. One of my goals was to have someone
42:00
their character child after my character. I've had that happen. Yeah, he's
42:04
seven now and I'm Auntie Lauren, which is kind of amazing because he lives
42:07
in New Zealand and I've never met him, but I get his Christmas card
42:10
every year in his school pictures in the mail and it's very fun. And
42:13
I've had someone do a tattoo on their body from something from one of my
42:15
books, which she read my book while her father was dying, and it
42:20
really made an impression on her and got her through a hard time. And
42:22
she was in Brazil and this was a Portuguese translated book, So again you're
42:27
making connections. So but my career goal probably next would be movies, so
42:30
we're working on that right now. Catherine, how about you. I was
42:35
just thinking, I'm in two books. When is a corpse? That's what
42:40
happens when you're date writers. And I'm also a murderous I haven't read that
42:47
one yet. But my goals certainly to add more cruising to my life.
42:57
I go home to an overflowing in of people I've neglected, and I hope
43:02
to find wonderful homes for all of them. This has been a terrific chat.
43:07
Thank you all so much for being a part of this podcast and this
43:13
cruise. Thank you Jesse Dewey. Sometimes he makes us fake smile titty till
43:28
he makes the cut. You know, are we good for parting words?
43:32
It's going to be short, it's done, go forward to just a few
43:39
parting words. As you've heard, we're having a blast on the writer con
43:43
cruise and we will definitely do this again next year. But the next event
43:47
on our calendar is of course, the writer Con Retreat, which is going
43:52
to be very different this year. We're moving to a new and fabulous location
43:58
and get this, the price is going up, is going down. We're
44:01
moving to the Cane Break luxury resort not far from Tulsa, and it's got
44:07
pools and hot tubs and a spa and yoga, hiking trails, a golf
44:13
training things. It's an e ticket experience and on top of all that,
44:19
there's also going to be talk about writing and instruction and feedback. That's what
44:24
characterizes the retreat is that we get much more in depth with your manuscript and
44:30
you'll get feedback from many people, which, as I think you heard in
44:35
this interview, can be invaluable. So please visit the website and check it
44:39
out. That's writercon dot com. And of course the big event, writer
44:44
CON's annual conference, will be Labor Day weekend in Oklahoma City, so mark
44:49
that on your calendars as well. All right, okay, writers, until
44:53
next time, keep writing and remember you cannot fail for your fuse to quit.
45:01
All right, See you next time.