Latest / WriterCon / Understanding Modern Publishing with Amy Brewer
Transcript
- 0:00This week on the Writer KHN podcast. It would be to do this because
- 0:05you have a passion for us, because you can't possibly imagine your wife being
- 0:10anything else. This has to be driving you to get these words out before
- 0:16you have to feed your soul. Welcome to Writer Khan, a gathering place
- 0:21for writers to share their knowledge about writing and the writing world. Your hosts
- 0:25are William Bernhardt, best selling novelist and author of the Red Sneaker books on
- 0:29writing, and Renee Gutteridge, best selling author of over thirty novels and screenplays.
- 0:36Hey they're writers. Well we're all back home again. The cruise is
- 0:41over, but the retreat will be happening in a couple of months actually,
- 0:46and of course the big conference Writer Khan will come after that on Labor Day
- 0:50weekend. It is also graduation season. I'll be attending three ceremonies this year,
- 0:56including one for my son Ralph, who of course is, among other
- 1:00things, the official Writer Con photographer, and one for my wife, who
- 1:03co hosted last week. Well now she's got a master's degree in addition to
- 1:08seven published books. We're a a You've got a graduate in the family,
- 1:11too, don't you. I sure do very excited. My first born graduated
- 1:18and we're a thrilled for him. And uh, yeah, it's a it's
- 1:22a good feeling, isn't it. Yeah, exactly, it really is.
- 1:26And speaking of special events, Jesse, I think I read that you and
- 1:30Michelle just celebrated an anniversary. Am I right? That is correct? Um,
- 1:34we had our but we we timed it so our sort of dating anniversary
- 1:38and our wedding anniversary are pretty much the same day. They're tendually one day
- 1:41apart, which is a confusion to everyone in our family. But yes,
- 1:46so Michelle and I have technically been together for twenty three years married smokes.
- 1:51Wow, yeah, wow. Yeah. We met at the tail end of
- 1:55high school. It's very sweet. Wait, you know, if it's your
- 1:57but it's your eleventh anniversary, it's for twelve years. Yes, well,
- 2:04because we started daying at the end of high school and then dated through college
- 2:07and it seemed weird to get married during college. Um, and then she
- 2:12spent two years in France. I've waited a year, then went to grad
- 2:16school in Boston, and then living in Boston was will finally commenced us to
- 2:21try living together, and then from that point a couple of years later we
- 2:23got married. Okay, yeah, it was sounding like you got worse commitment
- 2:30issues than most of my characters, but yeah, I mean, honestly,
- 2:36it was just it was Michelle's desire by whether she wanted to be the center
- 2:40of attention for a day or not, which is really the hold off.
- 2:43And I was like, whenever you're ready, so and uh, that's cool.
- 2:47Yeah, all right. Our interview today is with Amy Brewer, who
- 2:52is a senior literary literary agent at the Metamorphosis Literary Agent, which is a
- 2:58premier outfit currently seeking well crafted fiction and nonfiction. She's also the co author
- 3:05of a book, Texting Prince Charming, and she's a social media manager and
- 3:10a yoga instructor. I mean, she does it all. She'll be at
- 3:15Wryter Con this year and she joined us on the writer Con cruise where she
- 3:19spent and I'm not exaggerating hours, she spoke to every single member of our
- 3:23groups. So put that into perspective, just to toot the writer Con horn
- 3:30a little bit. At most conferences, your pitch sessions are one maybe two
- 3:34minutes if you're lucky. At Wryter Con they're ten minutes unless you do pitch
- 3:38fest, in which there's more of it. On the cruise, she spoke
- 3:42to people for hours, not just taking pitches but giving insightful career advice and
- 3:49guidance. Anyway, while we were on the cruise, she was also kind
- 3:53enough to sit for an interview, and we're going to share that with you
- 3:55now, So be prepared for the change in hosts and locations. And I'm
- 4:00sure it'll sound differently because when we were on the cruise, we're all crowded
- 4:03in a very small library. But Jesse made it work, right, I
- 4:08did. All right, we'll talk to Amy after the news segment, and
- 4:12a brief word from our friends at draft to Digital. Hi, this is
- 4:29Kevin Thumbinson with Draft to Digital. E books are amazing, but there's just
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- 4:51Find out more at draft to digital dot com. All right, our first
- 5:01news story, we should probably just start a continuing segment. We call the
- 5:05Patterson Report because this is the third consecutive time he's featured in the news segment
- 5:13two episodes again. Ago he was upset because his Maximum Ride series was banned
- 5:18by a Florida school district. Last time, he was upset because his most
- 5:23recent book didn't hit the best seller list, even though the raw sales data
- 5:27indicated that it actually sold better than most of the books that were on the
- 5:30list. And now he's here because he has achieved an unprecedented milestone. He
- 5:39is now officially the first author to sell more than a hundred million copies in
- 5:45print formats. According to Circona Book Scan, His nearest competitor, with a
- 5:51puny eighty three million copies in print is who wants to guess? Renee?
- 5:58What do you think we'll do? Final Jeopardy? Oh gosh, I mean,
- 6:01I don't think it's Stephen King. It is not he's That would have
- 6:06been my guest too. He's not even in the top seven. I don't
- 6:10know why, but he's not Jesse. What do you think I was gonna
- 6:13say, the Bible? Well, but we're talking authors here, and the
- 6:16Bible has yes, let's see m Honestly, Yeah, who uh, I
- 6:26have know what is I don't know the answer is Doctor Seuss has the puny
- 6:33eighty three million copies. Since you ask, I thought you would say JK.
- 6:39Rolling, who is in fact number three. Yeah, but then I
- 6:44thought I thought volume of books. Yeah, you know that, I mean
- 6:48James Patterson. He has well, that's a good point hundreds probably in Rolling
- 6:55has essentially seven, although I know she's done some other small books. Jeff
- 7:00Kinney. You know, Wimpy Kid is number four, Nora Roberts five,
- 7:03Mary Pope Osborne The Magic Tree Houses six, and John Grisham comes in at
- 7:10seven with forty two million books, which you know I'd probably be happy with,
- 7:15but compared to one hundred million, it starts to sound like, you
- 7:18know, he's an underachiever. I remember last time you mentioned Jesse that you
- 7:27did not feel sympathy for James Patterson. What about now, now that he
- 7:30is apparently the best selling author ever. Now I feel even less sympathy,
- 7:35Like, just stop complaining, like you sold the most books ever, what
- 7:39else do you want? You don't even have to write your books. You
- 7:42have your team of ghostwriters to write them for you, Like you don't have
- 7:45to do anything just like swimming your money and be happy like Uncle Scrooge.
- 7:51Yeah, I will give him credit for you know, I think he loves
- 7:56stories and he's very good at think I'm a series he's run. He started
- 8:01about Alex Cross, then the Women's Murder Club. Michael Bennett, we talked
- 8:05about Maxim Ride Zoo, which was some kind of television series. I mean,
- 8:11even if he's not writing every word himself, he seems to be a
- 8:13font of story ideas. All right, news story number two. This has
- 8:18to do with Barnes and Noble. This is where I have to eat crow,
- 8:22because I know five four more years ago, I was predicting Barnes and
- 8:28Noble would not be around much longer. But it is, and according to
- 8:35their CEO, they've made great strides in terms of returns. Just in case
- 8:39somebody doesn't know, let me briefly explain that in the book world, when
- 8:43we talk about returns, we're talking about a bookstore's ability to return to send
- 8:48back books they don't sell and get credit for it. Although in some cases
- 8:54for a while they just had to rip off the covers of paperbacks and send
- 8:58back the cover. Now in some cases they don't even have to do that,
- 9:01they can just destroy the book and tell the distributor they didn't sell it
- 9:07anyway. The point of this is that the current CEO, James dont has
- 9:11revealed that the chain now has returns down to seven percent from a previous thirty
- 9:18percent when he took over. I mean, that's a huge difference, and
- 9:24he's clearly hoping hoping to drop it even further. He said he'd like to
- 9:30get it down to three percent. Renee, You've been in this business a
- 9:33long time. Do you think three percent returns is even possible? I mean
- 9:39I don't. We'll say yes because we're cheering this on. They're gonna be
- 9:43positive. Can I ask a question, though I might or have forgotten we
- 9:50talked about this, what does he do? What's the secret sauce here that
- 9:54he claims? Well? One thing that he did mention in the interview was
- 9:58that once upon a time, time, Burns and Noble did a lot of
- 10:01pay for play placements. You know, the publisher would give them typically ten
- 10:07or fifteen thousand dollars and then you'd get shelved on an end cap or at
- 10:11the front where it said best sellers, which had nothing to do with sales.
- 10:16It just had to do with being a butt spot. But of course
- 10:20the fact that your publisher paid for a spot does not necessarily mean the book's
- 10:24going to sell. And I think that was a reason a lot we're getting
- 10:28returned. But Daunt has apparently eliminated that and allowed local stories to be more
- 10:37in control of what books they show. They can feature local authors if they
- 10:41want to, or curate the collection based upon what's selling in their town.
- 10:45And oh, that fascinating concept, isn't it. Yeah, imagine that even
- 10:48in a chain store. But you raised the issue of cheering Jesse, what
- 10:52do you think should we be sharing for this huge chain? Am I the
- 11:00only one who remembers the movie You've Got Mail? I remember? Like Barnes
- 11:03Noble, Noble used to be the enemy, right, But here's the thing.
- 11:05The enemy of my enemy is my friend. Situation here, right,
- 11:09we want Barnes and Noble to succeed so that bookstores, real bookstores can succeed
- 11:15against Amazon, you know, the evil empire for I mean, I don't
- 11:18see them becoming Barnes and Noble anytime soon. So yeah, I'm happy for
- 11:22Barnes and Noble. Here's the thing, Like Barnes and Nobles are nice.
- 11:26Uh you know, I'm yes, tell Us at least has multiple, um
- 11:31you know, independent nonprofit bookstores that I normally do and Magic City Fulton Street,
- 11:37Witty Books, Whitty I was there last week. Yep, those are
- 11:41they're They're all great, but sometimes like those stores are a lot smaller and
- 11:45only have a certain selection of books, and so Barnes and Noble is handy.
- 11:48Also Barnes and Noble really I feel like leaned into like nerd stuff.
- 11:52There's the whole corner at least in our store here of just like board games
- 11:56and Funko pops and um cool figurines. And I'm like, all right,
- 12:01I'll go to look at those things. So good job. I want to
- 12:05add into this. I think if we're like, if we could reverse this
- 12:07direction, right like I went up an Amazon. Now it's coming back and
- 12:11people are seeing the value of Barnes and Noble. I think one thing that
- 12:13small bookstores can tap into, which we have heard in the news consistently for
- 12:20months now, is that our world is lonely, right, Like they're talking
- 12:24about loneliness as the new epidemic. A local bookstore, if we can get
- 12:30these up and running can create community in a way that Barnes and Noble won't
- 12:35ever really be able to do. It's too big. So we'll be cheering
- 12:39these smaller stores on the see if they can create that, because that was
- 12:43what was so fun about those small Mama Pop bookstores is you you knew the
- 12:48people in the community. So hopefully that will work. Yeah, I hope
- 12:52so. Okay, final news story, speaking of geek stuff. Oh,
- 12:56I shouldn't have said that, but too late. J Warner Brothers has announced
- 13:03that the Harry Potter series of books, which of course they have rights to
- 13:09because they did the movie series, it's not going to be adapted into a
- 13:13decade long television series. So the idea is that each season will be based
- 13:18on one of the seven Harry Potter books, and it will stream on what
- 13:24I think is currently called HBO Max, but it's about to become Max.
- 13:28Jk Rowling and her agent are both going to be executive producers, and she
- 13:33issued a press release in which she said, quote Max's commitment to preserving the
- 13:39integrity of the books is important to me, and I'm looking forward to being
- 13:43part of this new adaptation which will allow for a degree of depth and detail
- 13:48only afforded by a long form television series. Okay, Jesse, you're our
- 13:54residents science fiction and fantasy expert. Do you think this is going to be
- 14:00a success. M Do I think it's gonna be a success. Probably.
- 14:05Is it a good idea? Yes, it always should have been a like
- 14:09Prestige TV show. Almost all book adaptations should be, because making ninety minute
- 14:16to two hour movie off a book is always going to leave out important character
- 14:22details. But is it too soon? I mean it seems like just yesterday
- 14:26I was met. Of course, I was marathoning those movies with Ralph when
- 14:33he was a single digit a's age, And as I just mentioned, he's
- 14:35about to graduate from college. So maybe it's not as reasoned as I think.
- 14:41Well, yeah, I'm trying. I feel like the first Harry Potter
- 14:43movie came out the same year Fellowship of the Ring Dance, like two thousand
- 14:46and one, and then they finished up in the early twenty tens. I
- 14:50mean, yeah, it's a little early for it, honestly. I mean,
- 14:52like the original actors are still like mostly alive. Oh cameos, there
- 14:58should be some great cameos, hopefully, can Daniel Radcliffe play Harry's dad this
- 15:05time around. That would be a yeah, I'm I'm I'm interested in that.
- 15:09I'm also I feel like maybe they have the data on this. If
- 15:13there's been like a whole generation of people continuously reading the books, there will
- 15:16be a new generation of people who will view the TV show as their thing
- 15:22versus the movies. I mean, I'm I'm interested to see what this is
- 15:28like. Considering the issues jk Rowling has had with her own fan base over
- 15:33the last couple of years, and how actors in this ship, actress who
- 15:37are signed onto the show respond to that, and again, how much control
- 15:41she has over because, as we've learned with her the most recent Harry Potter
- 15:46related movies, she's a great book writer, she's not necessarily a great scriptwriter.
- 15:50So hopefully they, once the strike is over, get some good writers
- 15:54for the show. Well. The other question, of course, is the
- 15:58controversy that has arisen in the past year or so regarding jk Rowling and her
- 16:03statements about trans individuals and whatnot. Is I can see that, you know,
- 16:11Max is treading softly around this issue, but these are still adaptations of
- 16:18her work. Is that going to be a problem for this series. I
- 16:19think it's to be a problem for some people for sure, because considering how
- 16:22they announced her involvement in it, like you know, the battle Harry Potter
- 16:27fans who have problems with JK. Rowling's views on trans issues is like they
- 16:33don't want to give her any more money than she already has and watching the
- 16:37show, Like that video game that came out a couple months ago, people
- 16:42were debating whether they should play it, And with this show, like she's
- 16:48directly involved with it. So it's gonna be There's definitely as people who are
- 16:51not going to watch it, and it depends on how loud they are and
- 16:55they'll definitely listen. Even within my own friend group, there is a break
- 16:57between like whether they can like whether they're their support of trans people and their
- 17:04their love of Harry Potter, like where the line where they draw a said
- 17:07line, And so it's gonna be interesting. I mean, I would love
- 17:11for it to be good. Well I watch it. I'm not sure where
- 17:15an a you were being suspiciously quiet? Was Harry Potter a big hit at
- 17:19your house? It was? It was, um, we loved it and
- 17:26uh I remember loving it. I think even more than my kids and I
- 17:34yeah, we loved it. It was it was great. And just watch
- 17:38the news series. I was gonna say, just a reminder, like people
- 17:41tried to cancel her books, the Harry Potter books when they first came out,
- 17:44too so because there was sorcery and yeah, yeah, yeah it was.
- 17:48It was a devil's work. So all right, that's enough news.
- 17:53Jesse, que up the music. Let's talk to Amy Brewer. Amy,
- 17:59thanks for being on the podcast. Thank you for having me. This is
- 18:02wonderful, all right. Traditional first question, if you could give writers one
- 18:07piece of advice, what would it be. It would be to do this
- 18:12because you have a passion for it, because you can't possibly imagine your life
- 18:18being anything else. This has to be driving you to get these words out.
- 18:25These stories have to feed your soul. That is my best advice.
- 18:30Right for that, right for the passion, for love for the words.
- 18:34Don't write for the money, because finish the sentence, because the money is
- 18:42not always going to be there. You know, throughout history, the money
- 18:48hasn't been there for the greatest writers ever. They weren't as glamorous as we
- 18:52seem to think that they were so, but they loved words. Melodious beauty
- 19:00for glorious words, and if you've produced a book that you're proud of,
- 19:03this an accomplish exactly right. How did you get started working as a literary
- 19:08agent on myself? I'm a published co author, and I found as the
- 19:15co author, I was doing the editing, and I was doing the sort
- 19:18of the research, and I was doing all of the business side. And
- 19:22I kind of realized as we got deeper into the process and got our own
- 19:26agent, I was thinking, oh, I'm kind of doing the agency stuff.
- 19:30That was where my strength was with, you know, talking to people,
- 19:34going up and shaking hands and making connections. And my co author,
- 19:40Patty Cruthers, was the phenomenal set at home and get those words out kind
- 19:45of thing. And I could come back in and say, oh, this
- 19:47needs more inkst in this scene, or these characters don't need to connect us
- 19:51right yet. And with that I became an intern with a literary agency and
- 19:57now I have been at it for I'm in my sixth year, Sound Fantastic
- 20:03and selling a lot of books for a lot of clients. Yes, a
- 20:06lot of books for a lot of clients. So it sounds like it kind
- 20:10of drew you in. It sounds like your skill set was very well matched
- 20:15to this. So what do you like most about being an agent? So
- 20:18I've always considered myself a bridge, connecting one thing to another, whether it
- 20:25is it was in yoga, it was a mental health. It's connecting people
- 20:29to kind of what they want, what they need, what they lost.
- 20:32And so for me it was that that being the bridge and connecting two people
- 20:37and then connecting them to their publishing dreams. So my favorite, my absolute
- 20:41favorite bit is when any of my authors, even if it's their seventh book,
- 20:47and they get their box of books in and they open it and they're
- 20:49crying because they've wanted this for solem or they wrote maybe something else for a
- 20:56while, but now this is some fresh idea and they weren't sure and they
- 20:59doubt it and have that in front of them and they're crying, and I'm
- 21:03crying, and that's just that's that's my favorite bit because that is always a
- 21:07wonderful moment. That's very first time you get to see your bulk. Now,
- 21:11now the other side of the coin. What do you least like about
- 21:15being an agent? What is it that's not as great? I hate having
- 21:18to tell people know, Yeah, it is really hard for me, and
- 21:23I have a tendency to sort of go to the improv route except opposite and
- 21:29yes, and I go no, but yeah, no for me. But
- 21:34there are a whole bunch of publishing options, There are a whole bunch of
- 21:38other agents out there. Just because it's not right for me doesn't mean it's
- 21:41not right for someone else. So that's always the hardest bit is having to
- 21:45say now, I think a lot of writers are sort of mystified by this
- 21:51whole literary agent process, and how do you get one and what is it
- 21:55take? Can you talk a little bit about the selection process, about choosing
- 22:00the writers you're going to represent. So connecting with an agent is about connecting.
- 22:07Yes, you want to find an agent that represents your genre. You
- 22:11want to find an agent that you know, I was going has traditional success
- 22:15in selling what you ride. That's very important. But for me, I
- 22:19almost look like it at it like a marriage. So I ask people,
- 22:23I'm like, do I'm a very hypercommunicative I have a tendency to respond quickly
- 22:29to emails, and I'm a bit of a cheerleader. So I'm like,
- 22:33Okay, if you're having a bad day, reach out to me and I'll
- 22:36be Usually i'll say just text me and I'll I'll hype you up, onto
- 22:40your hype man, because it's my job to be as passionate about you and
- 22:44your work as an author. But some authors really find that uncomfortable and they
- 22:48aren't looking for that. They want somebody who's a little bit more sort of
- 22:52standoffish, or they some of them money have even said, well, it's
- 22:56not very professional because I text with my authors or I give them some access
- 23:03that other agents don't, and that's okay. I just want to like,
- 23:07it's about connecting. So make sure they're the right fit for your genre,
- 23:11the right fit for you, and honestly the person that you need in your
- 23:15life, because they've got to be out there, you know, screaming at
- 23:18New York. This book is awesome, you know, And if they can't
- 23:26do that for you, then they're probably not the right agent. Whiz.
- 23:29I've had a lot of agents, but I'm not sure I've ever had anybody
- 23:33i'd call a Cheerleader's important to be super supportive and generous with time and information
- 23:41because it's so hard being an author and feeling like you're so isolated and alone,
- 23:47except for environments like writer Cohn or the writer con Cruise where you feel
- 23:52like you have not just a group but like a family that we can all
- 23:56like rely on now. And so much of the time it doesn't feel that
- 24:02way, and it's like I don't know, I don't know, I don't
- 24:03know. So for my authors, I want to be there too. If
- 24:07they don't know, they can ask me. And if I can't help them,
- 24:10I'll try and share them, share with them someone who can, or
- 24:14like say, go to writer con. I like that advice. That's good,
- 24:18that's excellent avice. No, that's all terrific. Do you have like
- 24:21a favorite agent success story? Um, a favorite agent successful story? I
- 24:29don't, or two if that makes it easier, because I'll be honest,
- 24:33some of my best financial successes of an agent the author has walked away from
- 24:40the publishing process feeling sad or disheartened because they didn't achieve whatever they had thought
- 24:47or idealized or whatever. So for a success it is it is mostly I
- 24:55think I'll go with one of my authors, Mark Kelly, and he is
- 24:59a LGB to Q author and when he was a teenager he could not find
- 25:03an LGBTQ superhero, and he was varying to sci fi, varying too.
- 25:11All he goes to cons and dress and he just felt again very alone and
- 25:15isolated, and that representation wasn't there for him. So he spent his twenties,
- 25:22not all of his twenties. He'll get mad, coup him out for
- 25:26being overjoyed, but he spent that time really buckling down and learning to write
- 25:30and rewrite, and rewrite and rewrite. And I said last year his work
- 25:37Geist was published, which is the origin story from one of the first case
- 25:41superheroes. Oh, so that's that's what I'm here for. That's what I'm
- 25:45here to do. So kind of building on that, because you said some
- 25:48people have walked away a little disappointed, what advice would you give to authors
- 25:56who were looking for their agent right now? Manage your expectations. Writing is
- 26:03not like you see on television. A lot of folks in twenty twenty who
- 26:11were at home, we're kind of like, I'll just write a book and
- 26:17it would be easy, and it's not. It's really hard. And the
- 26:23expectation is you get this. I some authors will say, well, I
- 26:29need to hit the New York Times bestseller to be a success, and if
- 26:32I'm not that, then I'm a failure instead of oh, I have to
- 26:37work really hard for like thirty years to get to the New York Times bestseller
- 26:42lists. And yes, there are outliers that make it like that. But
- 26:48if you really want to succeed in this industry, you have to have this
- 26:52stamina and the dumption to just keep on going book after book after book,
- 26:56doing all of the marketing, all of the everything, because a lot of
- 27:00times people will come to me and say, oh, I wrote this book,
- 27:03but I don't really want to market it, so can you do something
- 27:04with it? And I'm always like no, I'm sorry, that's not how
- 27:10this works. So yeah, well, okay, let's get down to the
- 27:14nitty gritty. What are some of the things you see or have seen authors
- 27:19doing that really hinder them rather than help them find an agent? Um overcomping
- 27:29themselves. That is, it's um saying this is going to come just coming
- 27:34right at first line, this book is going to be bigger than the Bible,
- 27:37or this book is going to be bigger than Harry Potter, or um
- 27:42just coming in with ego first and um, and that's not really how the
- 27:48industry works after a while, you can earn an ego, but it takes
- 27:53it should takes a while, So that's that's a big one. Um.
- 27:59Not knowing your genre is a big reason that an agent wouldn't take you on.
- 28:06As I mentioned in class a few days ago, I was given a
- 28:10seven hundred thousand word erotica and that genre is usually in the thirty thousand word
- 28:15RD of erotica. That's like a lifetime the right and not having read a
- 28:26word. There's nothing an Asian can do with that situation. So you need
- 28:30to know your word count, you need to know your genre, you need
- 28:33to know the formula for it, all of the things before you are ready
- 28:37for an agent. So let's let's build on that. So you go to
- 28:42you go to conferences, I would think fairly often. Yes, yeah,
- 28:47and that's probably where you're going to have most of your connections made. People
- 28:51are coming to you and they're pitching to you. What do you look for
- 28:56in a pitch, like? What what's going to work? What isn't?
- 28:59Honestly, it's going to be very similar. I'm looking for people that I
- 29:02feel are motivated, people that really care about what they're talking about. Let's
- 29:07expend on that a little bit. I think you go to conferences pretty regularly,
- 29:11yes, and that's a great place for authors to connect with you.
- 29:17And they're going to do that through a pitch. And so what is it
- 29:19that you're looking for when someone comes to you to pitch? What helps them?
- 29:23What doesn't The most helpful thing in a pitch is that they know what
- 29:29I'm looking for and that they are pitching sort of again in the genre that
- 29:33I represent most or something they said, Oh, I saw this interview and
- 29:37you said that you like this. I have something that is, you know,
- 29:41similar to that, something close. What's difficult is when someone again like
- 29:47the like I had just said about the erotica, when someone's like, oh,
- 29:49I've written a really dark horror and you've never really sold that, but
- 29:55can you be my agent? And I'm like, I don't know the right
- 29:57editors in that genre. I can't. I'm not the right person to connect
- 30:02you with that. So that's that's one of the big things. And I'm
- 30:06not really worried, Like folks are always very nervous, and I've even held
- 30:11hands and like breathed with our authors because they were so scared to spit out
- 30:15the premise of their book. But it's okay, um, take your time,
- 30:21breathe. And that doesn't apply to all pitch sessions because some are very
- 30:25short. Not a writer, Not a writer, I say. And also
- 30:30I'm very expensive at some conferences. And it's okay to ask questions of the
- 30:36agent. Um, that's always fine. I always ask the author after they've
- 30:41told me about their book. If I'm interested, I've asked for the full
- 30:45I'll say, what else do you write? What else have you done?
- 30:48What communities are you in? So be prepared to answer some of those questions
- 30:52about yourself and about your you know, your writer history. Um. And
- 30:56I think that is really the what I'm looking for, because I'm not looking
- 31:02for sort of a person who's wrote. I've written one book and that's all
- 31:06I care about, and I'm not going to write anymore. I can't really
- 31:08help a person with that I'm looking for. And most agents are looking for
- 31:14folks who are going to build a lifetime of works and they'll continue to build
- 31:19those relationships with editors and publishers as dank grow. And so those are the
- 31:25things to be to know. Amy. One last question, can you talk
- 31:30or tell our readers a little bit about what you or maybe other agents are
- 31:34looking for right now. I don't mean people or pitches, but what kinds
- 31:38of books? What kinds of books? What's difficult is every agent is difference,
- 31:45right. It should have if you look them up on the agency website,
- 31:49it should have their little list of what they're interested in and have represented
- 31:55best. Almost always it's there. Same with manuscript wish list. Most all
- 32:02of us have got some sort of information on manuscript wish list. I will
- 32:07warn you that manuscript wish List, the actual website, not the one on
- 32:12Twitter. The actual website can be a little bit outdated because I haven't updated
- 32:15mine in like four years. Probably should do that. I'm specifically looking for
- 32:23m LGBTQ forward works um um by uh you know any authors from the community.
- 32:31I am looking for cozy mysteries. I am trying to kind of expand
- 32:37and broaden and um you know in areas that I am familiar with a little
- 32:42bit. Like I said, getting into cozy mysteries, um And I think
- 32:45that's probably most what I'm looking for. Always romance, always spicy. I
- 32:52am open to any spice level. Thankst is my favorite emotion. Yeah.
- 32:58So if it is rooting romance story at angst cells So, if it's angst
- 33:06all the way up to the end, I'm fine with that. If it's
- 33:07like you know, sweet call Marky and romance, I've sold a ton of
- 33:09those. Or if it is you know right up you're hot, steamy,
- 33:16sexy with a line, I'm loving that too. So Amy, you're just
- 33:21a font of information. Thank you so much for being on this cruise and
- 33:25on this spot. We've got the writer Cons Small group retreat coming up in
- 33:35July, and if you're interested in a small group setting where you can have
- 33:39direct one on one feedback and mentoring and meet other people who are having the
- 33:46same aspirations that you are, it's a great experience. Visit the website to
- 33:52learn more about it. And of course, come Labor Day weekend September one
- 33:57through fourth, that's the big conference writer Con. We've got more than sixty
- 34:01presenters lined up. And I mentioned earlier in this podcast pitch Fest, which
- 34:07is something new we're adding this year to give people an opportunity to not only
- 34:13pitch, but pitch more effectively and pitch everyone there at once, more than
- 34:17twenty people, more all the agents editors, publishers, which you know,
- 34:22in a way makes more sense than doing it one at a time, although
- 34:27you can do that too if you want. Every year we have connected writers
- 34:30and agents, and I think we're gonna do an even better job this year,
- 34:37in addition to all the teaching and other opportunities. And if you register
- 34:40now you can take advantage of the early bird prices, so please visit our
- 34:45websitewritercon dot com and Renee. I think you submitted a script to Screencraft recently,
- 34:52didn't you? What happened there? I did? I placed in the
- 34:57quarterfinals so CLOCK could graduate Latians. I mean I knew, but still thanks
- 35:04for thanking that. Though I just wanted you to talk. I can get
- 35:09that is a hard thing to accomplish, So way to go. Thanks all
- 35:15right, everybody, until next time, keep writing and remember you cannot fail
- 35:21if you're refused. To see you next time.