Latest / The Book Deal / The Takeover: Michelle See-Tho on winning a major literary prize, what happens behind the scenes after the win, and invaluable editing tips

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The Takeover: Michelle See-Tho on winning a major literary prize, what happens behind the scenes after the win, and invaluable editing tips · The Book Deal

• 0:09
  Natasha Rai: This is the Book Deal Podcast, monthly takeover by your host, Natasha Rai.
• 0:14
  Natasha Rai: I'll be bringing you even more debut and season authors as they talk about their path to publication.
• 0:26
  Madeleine Cleary: The Book Deal Podcast acknowledges the traditional owners of the land and waters, which it's recorded on and pays respect to their elders past, present, and emerging.
• 0:39
  Natasha Rai: Michelle See-Tho is a freelance writer and copywriter.
• 0:43
  Natasha Rai: She has had articles and stories published in Kill Your Darlings, Overland, and the Big Issue Fiction Edition.
• 0:51
  Natasha Rai: Jade and Emerald, her first novel won the 2023 Penguin Literary Prize.
• 1:01
  Natasha Rai: Hi, Michelle See-Tho, welcome to the Book Deal podcast.
• 1:05
  Michelle See-Tho: It's great to be here.
• 1:05
  Michelle See-Tho: Natasha,
• 1:07
  Natasha Rai: how are you today?
• 1:08
  Michelle See-Tho: Not too bad.
• 1:10
  Michelle See-Tho: Uh, a little cold down here in Melbourne, otherwise.
• 1:12
  Michelle See-Tho: Okay.
• 1:13
  Natasha Rai: Yeah, I bet.
• 1:14
  Natasha Rai: And just for listeners, we are recording this quite late on a Tuesday night, so thank you for making the time.
• 1:19
  Michelle See-Tho: It's not a problem at all.
• 1:20
  Michelle See-Tho: I'm really excited to be here.
• 1:22
  Natasha Rai: Excellent.
• 1:22
  Natasha Rai: So I wanted to talk to you about your novel, your debut novel, Jade and Emerald, and also the process and your publication journey.
• 1:31
  Natasha Rai: But I just wanna start by saying that I absolutely loved your novel.
• 1:35
  Natasha Rai: And I read it in a couple of days.
• 1:38
  Natasha Rai: So how do you feel about giving me your elevator pitch for Jade and Emerald?
• 1:43
  Michelle See-Tho: I would love to do that.
• 1:45
  Michelle See-Tho: So Jade and Emerald is the story of a lonely, tall year old girl who forms an unlikely friendship with a older, rich hedonistic socialite.
• 1:56
  Michelle See-Tho: Their friendship strains her relationship with her mother, which is already fraught because her mum's really strict.
• 2:02
  Michelle See-Tho: It covers themes of class and race, loneliness, and family as well, and it's set in Australia in the 1990s.
• 2:10
  Natasha Rai: Excellent.
• 2:11
  Natasha Rai: You've had a bit of practice at that.
• 2:13
  Michelle See-Tho: Yeah.
• 2:14
  Michelle See-Tho: Well, I mean, we can talk about that as well, but that was one of the requirements for the Penguin Literary prize.
• 2:19
  Natasha Rai: Ah, yes.
• 2:20
  Natasha Rai: Yeah.
• 2:20
  Natasha Rai: Yes.
• 2:21
  Natasha Rai: So this novel did win the 2023 Penguin Literary Prize.
• 2:25
  Natasha Rai: Congratulations again.
• 2:26
  Michelle See-Tho: Thank you.
• 2:27
  Michelle See-Tho: Thank you.
• 2:27
  Natasha Rai: And I do wanna come to that, but I'm actually dying to ask you some questions about the novel itself.
• 2:32
  Natasha Rai: Yes.
• 2:32
  Natasha Rai: So, if it's okay to start there.
• 2:33
  Natasha Rai: So the three characters I was really drawn into the.
• 2:37
  Natasha Rai: Two different very relationships.
• 2:39
  Natasha Rai: I was really interested in the relationship she has with her mum and then the relationship we ha she has with, did you say Gigi or Giggy?
• 2:45
  Michelle See-Tho: Gigi.
• 2:46
  Natasha Rai: Gigi.
• 2:47
  Natasha Rai: It is Gigi.
• 2:47
  Natasha Rai: Yeah.
• 2:48
  Natasha Rai: So I'm curious as to what your starting point was.
• 2:51
  Natasha Rai: How did you start this manuscript, this novel?
• 2:53
  Michelle See-Tho: I mean like I guess the idea for it kind of came to me after a long time of me trying to develop an idea for a novel.
• 3:03
  Michelle See-Tho: Like I knew that I wanted to write a novel, but I didn't really know what it was gonna be about or anything like that.
• 3:08
  Michelle See-Tho: And I was kind of playing around with a lot of different ideas and none of them grabbed me as a plot worthy of a novel length book.
• 3:16
  Natasha Rai: The ideas that you were playing with, did you have characters in mind at that time or were you mainly playing with story?
• 3:23
  Michelle See-Tho: A bit of both.
• 3:24
  Michelle See-Tho: I did notice that there were a lot of themes that kept recurring.
• 3:27
  Michelle See-Tho: So one of the big ones was loneliness.
• 3:30
  Michelle See-Tho: Another one was class.
• 3:32
  Michelle See-Tho: I often kind of had young protagonists.
• 3:34
  Michelle See-Tho: There wasn't really anything kind of concrete until in COVID and in like the lockdown in 2021.
• 3:41
  Michelle See-Tho: And I, I do specifically remember this mument where I was sort of drying my hair and I was thinking about this idea of, uh, unlikely friendship between a child and.
• 3:50
  Michelle See-Tho: An adult, it's sort of like built out from there.
• 3:54
  Natasha Rai: Mm-hmm.
• 3:55
  Natasha Rai: And so out of that, what's your process?
• 3:59
  Natasha Rai: Are you a plotter or do you like to start writing scenes?
• 4:03
  Natasha Rai: How, how does that work for you?
• 4:05
  Michelle See-Tho: Yeah, you know, it's quite interesting because with the ideas that I'd had before Jade and Emerald that weren't really going anywhere, I felt like they were a bit more pants esque and I'd sort of just like ride outta scene and then I wouldn't really know what to do with it after that.
• 4:19
  Michelle See-Tho: But with Jade and Emerald, what came to me first was that kind of friendship and then I'd sort of built the plot around that without really writing too much, if that makes sense.
• 4:30
  Michelle See-Tho: Like sort of just going like the story beats.
• 4:33
  Michelle See-Tho: And I think for whatever reason, that was really helpful in me kind of like making it into like an actual novel because I sort of knew what was gonna happen.
• 4:44
  Natasha Rai: Hmm.
• 4:45
  Natasha Rai: And without giving away any spoilers Hmm.
• 4:48
  Natasha Rai: How did you conceive of this adult person who might form a friendship with a, a child, essentially?
• 4:57
  Michelle See-Tho: Yeah.
• 4:58
  Michelle See-Tho: I think like I was just really interested in someone who was.
• 5:02
  Michelle See-Tho: Glamorous and fabulous, but also someone who was unlike anything that my protagonist had ever met before, and almost like the opposite to her mother and who's, you know, sort of her main parent figure in her life.
• 5:15
  Michelle See-Tho: I really liked, yeah, that kind of contrast between the two of them.
• 5:19
  Michelle See-Tho: And I also kind of was interested in the idea of like someone who could look after my narrator, but that wasn't apparent and that wasn't related to it.
• 5:30
  Natasha Rai: Yeah, and again, I'm, I'm choosing my words very carefully, but what I loved about it was the aspects of Lei Ling's personality that Gigi really speaks to that kind of fun childlike quality.
• 5:43
  Natasha Rai: 'cause she is very childlike in the things she loves.
• 5:47
  Natasha Rai: And she allows Lei Ling almost to be that 12-year-old because when she's with her mum.
• 5:52
  Natasha Rai: And I really got that too.
• 5:54
  Natasha Rai: Like I really understood that responsibility and the financial burdens and the stresses that she has to help her mum kind of, not bear them, but share them, I guess.
• 6:05
  Natasha Rai: And there was this beautiful escape out of that for her with this, in this friendship.
• 6:11
  Michelle See-Tho: Yeah, I, I'm really glad that that kind of comes across, was kind of one of the things I wanted, I guess like with Gigi's lifestyle, you know, her having so much money gives her the freedom to be quiet, childlike, like even as an adult, she still lives with her family, which is very common in Asian cultures as well.
• 6:28
  Michelle See-Tho: But I think it is also a little bit of a sign of like, she hasn't really matured that much.
• 6:35
  Michelle See-Tho: Her job was given to her by her father.
• 6:38
  Michelle See-Tho: She just never really have to work for anything.
• 6:40
  Michelle See-Tho: And so she is kind of able to be like quite childlike in that regard.
• 6:45
  Natasha Rai: Yeah, and I mean that, I've definitely felt that when I was reading it.
• 6:49
  Natasha Rai: So once you started writing, kind of plotting out the beats, as you say, how did her mum's character evolve for you?
• 6:56
  Michelle See-Tho: Her mother was actually kind of a contrast to Gigi in that I wanted her to have a reason to want to go with this strange adult woman.
• 7:07
  Michelle See-Tho: Yes.
• 7:07
  Michelle See-Tho: Because I think like it would be a bit unusual, I guess, for her to just run off with this woman that she doesn't know.
• 7:13
  Michelle See-Tho: So I built the mother as like a, a force that sort of pushes her away.
• 7:18
  Michelle See-Tho: She is got like this quite fraught relationship with her mother.
• 7:22
  Michelle See-Tho: Mother's really strict.
• 7:23
  Michelle See-Tho: She doesn't kind of let her do things that.
• 7:25
  Michelle See-Tho: Her friends might consider normal or peers rather.
• 7:29
  Michelle See-Tho: And so like it, that kind of acts as a reason for her to get away from.
• 7:33
  Natasha Rai: Yeah, and you know, I was really torn between feeling a lot of sympathy and empathy for both mother and daughter while also feeling like there were times where I'm like, this is.
• 7:45
  Natasha Rai: So punitive and feeling so bad for both of them.
• 7:48
  Natasha Rai: 'cause that element that you talk about, loneliness just really came through that even together.
• 7:53
  Natasha Rai: They're both just cocooned in their own loneliness.
• 7:57
  Natasha Rai: Yeah, it was so beautifully done.
• 7:59
  Michelle See-Tho: Oh, thank you.
• 8:00
  Michelle See-Tho: And yeah, it's really nice to hear that.
• 8:01
  Michelle See-Tho: It kind of comes across that way.
• 8:03
  Michelle See-Tho: 'cause I did kind of want.
• 8:04
  Michelle See-Tho: There to be that element of that and for people to also be able to empathize with the mother, like I didn't want her to be like this antagonist throughout the whole novel, even though a lot of the time she is, but there's a.
• 8:17
  Michelle See-Tho: There's a reason.
• 8:18
  Michelle See-Tho: Mm, yeah.
• 8:19
  Natasha Rai: Yeah.
• 8:20
  Natasha Rai: Which we'll not go into right now,
• 8:22
  Michelle See-Tho: I guess.
• 8:22
  Michelle See-Tho: Like, yeah, she, she's a bit more of a nuanced character than just like a outright, strict, mean person.
• 8:28
  Michelle See-Tho: Exactly.
• 8:28
  Natasha Rai: Exactly.
• 8:29
  Natasha Rai: So this was the beginning of 2021.
• 8:31
  Natasha Rai: So you, we are all just kind outta lockdowns.
• 8:33
  Natasha Rai: And you had this idea for this friendship as you said, and you're sort of plotting it rather the story beat.
• 8:39
  Natasha Rai: So how long did it take you to have a draft of some kind?
• 8:45
  Michelle See-Tho: In essence, it took about a year, but what happened was I sort of started writing it, you know, following the structure that I'd made for myself.
• 8:53
  Michelle See-Tho: And then I entered it into the Kill Your Darlings Mentors program.
• 8:57
  Natasha Rai: And so can you just, um, explain that, um, for listeners who may not know what that is.
• 9:02
  Michelle See-Tho: The Kill Your Darlings Mentors Program is a program that's run through the literary journal, Kill Your Darlings.
• 9:08
  Michelle See-Tho: Essentially it runs over six months.
• 9:10
  Michelle See-Tho: Uh, you get paired with a mentor who is a successful published author, and over the course of that time, you have a goal of.
• 9:20
  Michelle See-Tho: Producing a manuscript, you write about 10,000 words a month and then submit that to your mentor and then you meet with them and discuss it and you know, you kind of get feedback on what you've written.
• 9:31
  Natasha Rai: Yeah.
• 9:31
  Natasha Rai: Sounds great.
• 9:32
  Natasha Rai: And it's still going, right?
• 9:33
  Natasha Rai: Yeah.
• 9:35
  Natasha Rai: What did you have to submit to the program?
• 9:37
  Michelle See-Tho: You had to submit a 10 page sample as well as like a full synopsis of your novel with spoilers and everything.
• 9:44
  Michelle See-Tho: And you also had to sort of give like some information, like your name and your experience, like the type, yeah.
• 9:52
  Michelle See-Tho: Yeah.
• 9:52
  Michelle See-Tho: And you also had to nominate who of the mentors that you wanted to be paired with.
• 9:56
  Michelle See-Tho: And so I chose Melanie Chang.
• 9:58
  Natasha Rai: Okay.
• 9:59
  Natasha Rai: And so when you submit your 10 pages in your synopsis, do you have to have a full manuscript written or is that the point that over six months you do it with your mentor, like reading your, yeah.
• 10:08
  Natasha Rai: Yeah.
• 10:08
  Natasha Rai: Cool.
• 10:09
  Natasha Rai: Yeah.
• 10:09
  Natasha Rai: So the, the mentor.
• 10:10
  Natasha Rai: Yeah.
• 10:11
  Natasha Rai: Yeah.
• 10:11
  Natasha Rai: Okay.
• 10:12
  Natasha Rai: So you nominated Melanie Ching.
• 10:14
  Michelle See-Tho: Yeah, it's amazing.
• 10:15
  Michelle See-Tho: Yeah.
• 10:16
  Michelle See-Tho: Yeah.
• 10:16
  Michelle See-Tho: She is amazing and she's mentoring again, so, you know, highly recommend to nominate her for anyone who's thinking about doing the program.
• 10:23
  Michelle See-Tho: 'cause it is a really amazing experience, you know, if you've got the time and the money as well.
• 10:29
  Michelle See-Tho: 'cause it is a little bit expensive.
• 10:30
  Michelle See-Tho: It's a really great thing to do because there aren't that many programs out there for unfinished manuscripts.
• 10:37
  Michelle See-Tho: I felt like there's a lot of prizes, um, and things like that.
• 10:41
  Michelle See-Tho: For when you've finished a manuscript, but it's like getting to that point is so difficult in itself, especially when you've never done it before.
• 10:47
  Natasha Rai: Yeah, exactly.
• 10:48
  Natasha Rai: Because the program you're talking about, the KYD mentorship program and probably the Richell prize are the only two that you don't need a full manuscript.
• 10:55
  Natasha Rai: Yeah.
• 10:56
  Michelle See-Tho: Well, maybe the Wheeler Center next chapter as well.
• 10:59
  Michelle See-Tho: I'm not, oh, maybe.
• 11:00
  Michelle See-Tho: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 11:01
  Michelle See-Tho: But there's not that many.
• 11:03
  Michelle See-Tho: Yeah, it's true.
• 11:04
  Natasha Rai: So you submitted into that and then what happened next?
• 11:08
  Michelle See-Tho: Then I got accepted into the program.
• 11:10
  Michelle See-Tho: Oh, yay.
• 11:11
  Michelle See-Tho: Um, which was really exciting.
• 11:12
  Michelle See-Tho: And as well, because like I say, I had had like a few ideas and things like that.
• 11:18
  Michelle See-Tho: I submitted this one and then when I got accepted, I thought of that as being like a kind of sign, like I was like, this novel could be something
• 11:26
  Natasha Rai: for sure.
• 11:26
  Natasha Rai: When you win something like that, it just gives you such a boost, doesn't it?
• 11:29
  Michelle See-Tho: Yeah, absolutely.
• 11:30
  Michelle See-Tho: Yeah.
• 11:31
  Michelle See-Tho: I did the mentorship with Mel and like I said, it was a really great experience.
• 11:37
  Michelle See-Tho: She was.
• 11:38
  Michelle See-Tho: Really kind of caring and attentive to my work.
• 11:42
  Michelle See-Tho: And she would give feedback on sort of the high level things like the plot and characters.
• 11:47
  Michelle See-Tho: But then she'd also give feedback on like the sort of line by line, like my prose dialogue, the, the kind of more specific things that make up a, a novel.
• 11:58
  Natasha Rai: So what do you feel, looking back now, it's been, you know, three, four years, four years even.
• 12:03
  Natasha Rai: What did you gain from that in terms of lessons you've learned?
• 12:07
  Natasha Rai: Writing generally.
• 12:08
  Michelle See-Tho: One of the main things that I learned was more about kind of line edits was about similes.
• 12:15
  Michelle See-Tho: So I kind of used to just like kind of throw in a simile that I thought like sounded nice or I just thought was like a pretty visual, something like that.
• 12:24
  Michelle See-Tho: But Mel's kind of approach was to think about.
• 12:28
  Michelle See-Tho: What your similarly can say about your character.
• 12:30
  Michelle See-Tho: So Lei Ling, as an example in the novel, the first time that Lei Ling sees Gigi's Chanel bag, she says that the Chanel logo looks like an Algebra X.
• 12:41
  Michelle See-Tho: Yeah.
• 12:42
  Michelle See-Tho: And like for me, that's kind of like revealing that, you know, Lei Ling's experience is largely academic.
• 12:48
  Michelle See-Tho: You know, she spends a lot of time at school and then at Kumon.
• 12:51
  Michelle See-Tho: Exactly.
• 12:52
  Michelle See-Tho: So like the way that she sees the world is through that lens.
• 12:56
  Natasha Rai: Actually, yeah, that's true.
• 12:57
  Natasha Rai: Now that you say that, I can't remember off the top of my head, but it's actually really bringing to the front of my mind, like a lot of her observations on objects and other like, you know, even that, um, the other mean girl at school whose name has totally escaped my mind.
• 13:10
  Michelle See-Tho: Angela.
• 13:11
  Natasha Rai: Angela, that's it.
• 13:12
  Natasha Rai: Even when she notices things like her, like all the objects she can place at the similes are things from her own world.
• 13:19
  Natasha Rai: Yeah, so, sorry.
• 13:20
  Natasha Rai: That was, that was really vague.
• 13:21
  Natasha Rai: I'm sure when people read it, they'll understand what I'm talking about.
• 13:24
  Michelle See-Tho: Yeah, no, I mean,'cause even I myself, like looking back, I was, I was just then trying to think about which ones I'd use.
• 13:30
  Michelle See-Tho: But you know, or just in general, like, you know, to say something is like.
• 13:34
  Michelle See-Tho: Is pink like roses versus it's pink.
• 13:38
  Michelle See-Tho: Like flesh is like, those are quite different kind of ways of describing something.
• 13:42
  Natasha Rai: Yeah.
• 13:43
  Natasha Rai: Because even the smells, like, I think she compares the smells to like things she s smelled in her own apartment and on her mum and, and even the shampoo, sorry, I won't bo everyone like going through every single simile, but that's a really, actually, that's a really good tip.
• 13:56
  Natasha Rai: I really like that.
• 13:57
  Natasha Rai: So by the end of your mentorship, did you have a draft or a full manuscript written?
• 14:04
  Michelle See-Tho: I did.
• 14:05
  Michelle See-Tho: I wasn't that happy with it.
• 14:07
  Michelle See-Tho: Okay.
• 14:07
  Michelle See-Tho: I was kind of like, oh, you know, I'm like, I wanna spend like another like year kind of going through it.
• 14:13
  Michelle See-Tho: But Mel said, she was like, you're ready.
• 14:16
  Michelle See-Tho: Just go submit to places.
• 14:18
  Michelle See-Tho: 'cause like you never know kind of what's gonna happen.
• 14:21
  Michelle See-Tho: And she kind of felt as well like.
• 14:24
  Michelle See-Tho: I think maybe by the end of the mentorship she'd gotten to know me quite well and she was like, you can't just like tinker away at it forever.
• 14:31
  Michelle See-Tho: Which is honestly the kind of thing that I would do.
• 14:33
  Natasha Rai: And it's so easy to do.
• 14:34
  Natasha Rai: 'cause you can always find something to fix.
• 14:36
  Natasha Rai: Right?
• 14:36
  Michelle See-Tho: You absolutely can.
• 14:37
  Michelle See-Tho: Yeah.
• 14:38
  Michelle See-Tho: And she said herself that these prizes aren't looking for.
• 14:42
  Michelle See-Tho: Uh, ready to publish piece.
• 14:44
  Michelle See-Tho: They're just looking for your potential.
• 14:46
  Michelle See-Tho: And so I got to submitting, I think I submitted to like six or seven unpublished prizes.
• 14:54
  Michelle See-Tho: Mm-hmm.
• 14:54
  Michelle See-Tho: And got rejected by all of them.
• 14:56
  Michelle See-Tho: So then when I submitted to the Penguin Literary Prize, I literally thought to myself, oh, this is just another prize that's gonna reject me.
• 15:04
  Natasha Rai: Yeah.
• 15:04
  Natasha Rai: Also, just like you did for the KYD mentorships, can you just explain what the prize is and what the, what you win?
• 15:10
  Michelle See-Tho: So the Penguin literary prize is a book deal.
• 15:14
  Michelle See-Tho: You get a$20,000 advance as well as the opportunity to publish with Penguin Random House.
• 15:21
  Michelle See-Tho: And so yeah, it's everything that kind of goes along with that.
• 15:24
  Michelle See-Tho: Like yeah, the A major price.
• 15:27
  Michelle See-Tho: Yeah, yeah.
• 15:28
  Michelle See-Tho: The editing process, the publicity as well.
• 15:31
  Natasha Rai: And so under the prize, do they give you a time limit?
• 15:35
  Natasha Rai: So like when you enter it, do they, does the terms and conditions say how soon afterwards they might publish your book?
• 15:43
  Natasha Rai: Because
• 15:44
  Michelle See-Tho: I do think it depends on the book itself.
• 15:47
  Michelle See-Tho: Yeah.
• 15:48
  Michelle See-Tho: So when I won, my publisher said that she felt that it was quite close to being ready and she felt that the edits would only take a year.
• 16:00
  Michelle See-Tho: That was a shock to me because yeah, like I said, I, I was gonna say, you said you weren't happy.
• 16:04
  Michelle See-Tho: Yeah.
• 16:05
  Michelle See-Tho: And we did end up meeting that one year deadline with like, a few things changed, which, okay.
• 16:10
  Michelle See-Tho: So now, we'll later.
• 16:12
  Michelle See-Tho: Yeah.
• 16:12
  Michelle See-Tho: Yeah.
• 16:13
  Natasha Rai: So, so you submitted this in 2022, right?
• 16:16
  Natasha Rai: Because if it won the 2023
• 16:19
  Michelle See-Tho: Yes, that's right.
• 16:19
  Michelle See-Tho: Yeah, yeah,
• 16:20
  Natasha Rai: Yeah.
• 16:20
  Natasha Rai: I, and like, yeah, I know.
• 16:22
  Natasha Rai: I'm, I'm trying to work this out with you, so.
• 16:26
  Natasha Rai: Like most competitions, is it the full manuscript and a synopsis and a bio?
• 16:30
  Natasha Rai: Right?
• 16:30
  Michelle See-Tho: So it's, yeah, the full manuscript bio, like a full sort of one page synopsis and then also like a two to three sentence sort of plot description, hence the elevator pitch that I said.
• 16:41
  Michelle See-Tho: Oh yes.
• 16:42
  Michelle See-Tho: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 16:44
  Michelle See-Tho: Okay.
• 16:45
  Michelle See-Tho: So you submit and you're like, well, probably nothing will happen.
• 16:49
  Michelle See-Tho: Mm-hmm.
• 16:50
  Michelle See-Tho: And um, so.
• 16:52
  Natasha Rai: What happened?
• 16:53
  Natasha Rai: So is there a shortlist or how did some Yeah.
• 16:56
  Natasha Rai: Okay.
• 16:56
  Michelle See-Tho: Yeah, so they notified me that I was on the shortlist in March, I think, of
• 17:02
  Natasha Rai: how, how did you find out?
• 17:04
  Michelle See-Tho: Email.
• 17:05
  Michelle See-Tho: Meredith emailed all of us and, and yeah, said, uh, congratulations, you're on the short list, which was.
• 17:12
  Michelle See-Tho: So like, it, it was so wild because I guess like, you know, you get emails all the time from like Myer or like Bonds and stuff, and I'm so used to kind of being all like, like, oh yeah, that's, that's nothing.
• 17:26
  Michelle See-Tho: And, and you know, it was just like another email, but it was like, they like the, I know.
• 17:33
  Michelle See-Tho: Yeah.
• 17:34
  Natasha Rai: Do you remember how you felt when you read that, that you were made the short list?
• 17:38
  Michelle See-Tho: I mean, like, I, it was like.
• 17:40
  Michelle See-Tho: So surreal, I think.
• 17:42
  Michelle See-Tho: 'cause like I just, I just didn't expect anything at all to come out of this prize.
• 17:47
  Michelle See-Tho: And, and I do remember I was standing in my kitchen and just like, looking at my phone and I sort of like doubled over overall because I, I was so shocked.
• 17:56
  Michelle See-Tho: Yeah.
• 17:58
  Michelle See-Tho: Um, yeah.
• 17:59
  Michelle See-Tho: But a bit, I mean, obviously yeah, a great, a great feeling as well.
• 18:02
  Michelle See-Tho: Is it, it did also come with a sort of sense that I was like.
• 18:06
  Michelle See-Tho: Has there been a mistake?
• 18:08
  Natasha Rai: Oh yes.
• 18:08
  Natasha Rai: The usual imposter syndrome.
• 18:10
  Natasha Rai: Yeah.
• 18:11
  Natasha Rai: So do you remember, or do you know how many titles were shortlisted alongside you?
• 18:16
  Michelle See-Tho: Yes, there were six people and all of their novels did sound really good as well.
• 18:21
  Michelle See-Tho: Yeah, I'd be keen to know whether or not their novels kind of published or anything.
• 18:25
  Michelle See-Tho: Kinda happened with them afterwards,
• 18:27
  Natasha Rai: so.
• 18:27
  Natasha Rai: So you said that that the shortlist was March?
• 18:29
  Natasha Rai: Mm-hmm.
• 18:30
  Natasha Rai: 2023.
• 18:31
  Natasha Rai: And then how long did you have to wait for them to announce the winner?
• 18:34
  Michelle See-Tho: I think it was like two months, but I went on holiday in between like, like not intentionally to not hear about the Oh yeah.
• 18:44
  Michelle See-Tho: Winter or whatever.
• 18:44
  Michelle See-Tho: Yeah, sure.
• 18:44
  Michelle See-Tho: Yeah.
• 18:45
  Michelle See-Tho: It was like, happened to be that I already had a holiday booked and so I went away and I wasn't really thinking about it.
• 18:51
  Michelle See-Tho: And then when I came back, you know, it was like another month or so, yeah, they notified me that I had won in May, I think of 2023.
• 19:01
  Natasha Rai: And, and how, what was that notification?
• 19:03
  Michelle See-Tho: Yeah, that that was an interesting story.
• 19:05
  Michelle See-Tho: Yeah, because I'm a freelancer in advertising is my sort of day job.
• 19:10
  Michelle See-Tho: Yeah.
• 19:10
  Michelle See-Tho: And I was at an ad agency that required me to be in the office.
• 19:15
  Michelle See-Tho: I was in a meeting and I got an email from Meredith that said, Michelle, I have some news for you.
• 19:21
  Michelle See-Tho: Can you call me?
• 19:22
  Natasha Rai: Oh, oh my God.
• 19:23
  Michelle See-Tho: It was really vague,
• 19:26
  Natasha Rai: but what, what did you think?
• 19:28
  Natasha Rai: Like, what did you think it meant?
• 19:29
  Natasha Rai: Do you remember?
• 19:30
  Michelle See-Tho: I remember thinking like, I have no idea what this means.
• 19:34
  Michelle See-Tho: Like it could be anything.
• 19:36
  Michelle See-Tho: And,'cause I was in a meeting when it happened, I was like.
• 19:39
  Michelle See-Tho: Is when is this meeting gonna end?
• 19:44
  Michelle See-Tho: Sort of fidgety for like, you know, the rest of the 45 minutes or whatever.
• 19:47
  Michelle See-Tho: And so when it did end, finally I went outside and I was like standing in this alleyway and there was lots of construction around.
• 19:56
  Michelle See-Tho: And so, you know, I called her and I was like, oh God, am I gonna be able to hear this?
• 20:00
  Michelle See-Tho: I did hear it and she said, oh, you know, I wanted to tell you that you've won.
• 20:05
  Natasha Rai: Oh, what a moment.
• 20:07
  Michelle See-Tho: It was really crazy.
• 20:09
  Michelle See-Tho: Like I, yeah, I like, I get asthma and I kind of felt like I couldn't breathe for a second and I was like, it's just, I don't know what I was expecting.
• 20:21
  Michelle See-Tho: It was very like, this really could be anything.
• 20:24
  Michelle See-Tho: It could be like, oh, you know, we made a mistake.
• 20:25
  Michelle See-Tho: You're not on the short list anymore.
• 20:27
  Michelle See-Tho: Oh.
• 20:27
  Michelle See-Tho: Like all the way to like, yeah, you've won.
• 20:29
  Michelle See-Tho: And I just didn't know like.
• 20:31
  Michelle See-Tho: Yeah, what it could have been and yeah, so it was, yeah, it was really incredible.
• 20:36
  Natasha Rai: I've not done the same.
• 20:38
  Natasha Rai: I haven't won any prizes.
• 20:39
  Natasha Rai: But that idea of they've made a mistake, they're gonna take this away.
• 20:43
  Natasha Rai: Yeah, that really, that really resonates with me.
• 20:45
  Natasha Rai: I'm like, oh yeah, that's a ho, horribly familiar feeling.
• 20:48
  Natasha Rai: Yeah.
• 20:49
  Michelle See-Tho: Yeah.
• 20:50
  Michelle See-Tho: And I've learned that that's very common too.
• 20:52
  Michelle See-Tho: A lot of you work so hard on it, and then you get the rejections and you hear so many stories of rejections that you kind of think like, oh, you know, it's gonna be like.
• 21:02
  Michelle See-Tho: Years until anything happens.
• 21:05
  Michelle See-Tho: So yeah, it was, it was crazy.
• 21:08
  Natasha Rai: But did you like, I don't know, did you even work the rest of the day?
• 21:11
  Natasha Rai: How did, could you concentrate?
• 21:13
  Natasha Rai: Oh
• 21:14
  Michelle See-Tho: gosh, yeah.
• 21:14
  Michelle See-Tho: Then I had to go back in and, and yeah.
• 21:16
  Michelle See-Tho: Yeah.
• 21:16
  Michelle See-Tho: Meet a deadline and, um, so yeah, I was under embargo, so they were like, oh, you know, you can't yeah.
• 21:22
  Michelle See-Tho: Tell people like, you know, apart from your partner and your friends yeah.
• 21:26
  Michelle See-Tho: Sort of thing.
• 21:26
  Michelle See-Tho: Yeah.
• 21:26
  Michelle See-Tho: So, yeah, I just kind of had to like.
• 21:29
  Michelle See-Tho: Pretend that everything was normal and just work for the rest of the day.
• 21:33
  Michelle See-Tho: Oh God.
• 21:33
  Michelle See-Tho: Yeah, so, so what was it in the afternoon?
• 21:35
  Michelle See-Tho: Sorry, go on.
• 21:36
  Michelle See-Tho: Oh, it was in the afternoon, so it wasn't too long of a day.
• 21:44
  Emma Babbington: Hi, listeners of the Book Deal podcast.
• 21:46
  Emma Babbington: My name's Emma Babington and I'm part of the 2025 debut crew, an author of the Neighbors, which came out in July through hq, part of Harper Collins.
• 21:55
  Emma Babbington: My novel is part psychological thriller, part family mystery, and the jumping off point for writing.
• 21:59
  Emma Babbington: It was wondering just how far a person would go to protect their loved one, even if they suspected that person were caught up in something terrible.
• 22:07
  Emma Babbington: It begins with a suspicious death of a man called Dr.
• 22:10
  Emma Babbington: Richard Wellington at his local park while he's out running, and his neighbor, Liv, soon discovers her teenage daughter, Gracie, was there at the time, and quickly gets the sense that something's not quite right, and she wonders if Gracie perhaps saw something or was involved in some way.
• 22:23
  Emma Babbington: For a number of reasons.
• 22:24
  Emma Babbington: Liv decides to do all, she can't shield her daughter from the police investigation and then sets off on her own quest to find out who the murderer could be.
• 22:32
  Emma Babbington: All the while having this creeping dread that Gracie might've done the unthinkable and killed their neighbor, and there are a lot of suspects because it turns out Richard was not a good guy.
• 22:41
  Emma Babbington: The neighbors are set in the Harborside Sydney suburb at the height of a scorching summer and asks if we can ever really know or trust the people next door.
• 22:49
  Emma Babbington: There are lots of twists and turns, and while it's a murder mystery, I hope readers enjoy what is above all else, a celebration of female friendship and strength.
• 22:57
  Emma Babbington: Thanks so much to Natasha, Madeline, and Tina for letting me come and talk about the neighbors, which is available now.
• 23:07
  Natasha Rai: So what was the timing between you finding out and then the announcement?
• 23:11
  Michelle See-Tho: Yeah, it wasn't too long.
• 23:13
  Michelle See-Tho: I think it was only like two weeks or less.
• 23:15
  Natasha Rai: Okay.
• 23:16
  Natasha Rai: Oh, that's good.
• 23:16
  Natasha Rai: You don't have to hold it for too long.
• 23:17
  Michelle See-Tho: Yeah.
• 23:18
  Michelle See-Tho: Yeah.
• 23:19
  Michelle See-Tho: And in between, like I, I got to go to the Penguin office and, uh, you know, meet with some publishers and editors and the marketing team and, and, uh, and they gave me my trophy and lots of books.
• 23:31
  Natasha Rai: Oh my God.
• 23:32
  Natasha Rai: There's a trophy.
• 23:33
  Michelle See-Tho: Yeah.
• 23:34
  Michelle See-Tho: It's actually, well, well, obviously not from the podcast, but, um, oh, it's a, it's a penguin.
• 23:41
  Michelle See-Tho: Of course.
• 23:41
  Michelle See-Tho: It's, yeah.
• 23:44
  Natasha Rai: Yeah.
• 23:44
  Natasha Rai: Gosh.
• 23:45
  Natasha Rai: And, and you got free books.
• 23:46
  Natasha Rai: Did you say?
• 23:47
  Michelle See-Tho: Uh, yeah, they gave me a bunch of Penguin titles, so the previous year's winners and just like a few other ones that were sort of popular at that time.
• 23:57
  Michelle See-Tho: And it was very nice.
• 23:58
  Michelle See-Tho: It, yeah, it felt, um, very special.
• 24:01
  Natasha Rai: Yeah.
• 24:01
  Natasha Rai: I mean, it's a huge achievement.
• 24:03
  Natasha Rai: It's, you know, well done.
• 24:05
  Natasha Rai: Um, so after the announcement mm-hmm.
• 24:09
  Natasha Rai: What happens or what happened next?
• 24:12
  Michelle See-Tho: Yeah, so I think it was maybe a month later we sort of started on structural edits.
• 24:18
  Michelle See-Tho: So should I sort of explain how structural, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 24:22
  Michelle See-Tho: So I didn't know anything about the editing process, but I learned along the way that you sort of go through like structural edits, which are usually moving around like chapters and then checking things like passage of time.
• 24:38
  Natasha Rai: And can I ask you a question about that?
• 24:40
  Natasha Rai: Yeah.
• 24:40
  Natasha Rai: Had you and Meredith had a conversation before?
• 24:44
  Natasha Rai: The prize was announced at any point about what structural edits might be required if you won, or was that all done after you won it?
• 24:54
  Michelle See-Tho: So on the phone, when she told me that I'd won, we did kind of very roughly talk about a couple of little things.
• 25:00
  Michelle See-Tho: So it was things like Lei Ling's age.
• 25:03
  Michelle See-Tho: So initially when I wrote it, I wrote her as 10 years old.
• 25:07
  Michelle See-Tho: But, um, Meredith sort of said like she, you know, the way she talks and the things that she's doing sort of sound like a few years older.
• 25:13
  Michelle See-Tho: So that was kind of a big change.
• 25:15
  Michelle See-Tho: And then like, there were other questions like, oh, how, like, how talented is she at violin?
• 25:22
  Michelle See-Tho: Because I guess it wasn't clear in those earlier drafts.
• 25:25
  Michelle See-Tho: Whereas I, I hope it's a bit clearer in it's, yeah, she's not very good.
• 25:29
  Michelle See-Tho: Yes, she's not.
• 25:29
  Michelle See-Tho: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 25:32
  Michelle See-Tho: But she kind of thinks that she is.
• 25:34
  Michelle See-Tho: Yeah.
• 25:35
  Natasha Rai: I mean, it's a very, it's again, very childlike.
• 25:37
  Natasha Rai: Mm-hmm.
• 25:37
  Natasha Rai: Like that wishful thinking of, well, I am good.
• 25:40
  Natasha Rai: Yeah,
• 25:41
  Michelle See-Tho: yeah.
• 25:42
  Michelle See-Tho: Yeah.
• 25:42
  Michelle See-Tho: So those were the kind of main, and it's like structurally it's very linear, so we actually didn't really have to move too much around.
• 25:51
  Michelle See-Tho: Those were the things that she kind of told me on the phone, and then later on we kind of talked a little more detail about, yeah, yeah.
• 25:57
  Michelle See-Tho: More specific things.
• 25:59
  Natasha Rai: So you, before you started the structural story, you had to sign a contract with them?
• 26:03
  Natasha Rai: Yes, that's right.
• 26:04
  Natasha Rai: Yeah.
• 26:04
  Natasha Rai: Yeah.
• 26:05
  Natasha Rai: And did you have an agent, or did you have any support in terms of helping you, you know, not that you can't understand a contract, but just, yeah, making sure that you're signing up to things that you could deliver, et cetera.
• 26:16
  Michelle See-Tho: I did not have an agent.
• 26:18
  Michelle See-Tho: No.
• 26:19
  Natasha Rai: Cool.
• 26:19
  Natasha Rai: So you signed this contract about a month after the announcement.
• 26:22
  Natasha Rai: She gets in touch and you start doing a structural edit.
• 26:26
  Natasha Rai: Yeah.
• 26:26
  Natasha Rai: So did she send you.
• 26:28
  Natasha Rai: That first contact you had with her.
• 26:30
  Natasha Rai: I'm just getting very specific'cause um, it's just really interesting to see what happens behind the scenes.
• 26:36
  Natasha Rai: Mm-hmm.
• 26:36
  Natasha Rai: After, you know, um, a winner's announced.
• 26:39
  Natasha Rai: So did Meredith kind of say, okay, I'm gonna send you over my edits?
• 26:44
  Natasha Rai: Or was the first contact you had with her was, Hey, here are your edits and you have this much time to get them back to me.
• 26:51
  Michelle See-Tho: No, no, no.
• 26:52
  Michelle See-Tho: It was more the first one.
• 26:53
  Michelle See-Tho: Yeah.
• 26:53
  Michelle See-Tho: That she kind of like pro me a little bit in advance that, uh, this will happen and, and these are the kind of the timings.
• 26:59
  Natasha Rai: Mm-hmm.
• 27:01
  Natasha Rai: Yeah.
• 27:01
  Natasha Rai: And, and as part of the timings conversation mm-hmm.
• 27:03
  Natasha Rai: Did you find out at that point the kind of projected publication date for Jade and Emerald?
• 27:09
  Michelle See-Tho: Yeah, and like, I think because she felt that it was so, like structurally sound.
• 27:16
  Michelle See-Tho: She thought that we didn't have to go through too many rounds of edits.
• 27:19
  Michelle See-Tho: Mm.
• 27:19
  Michelle See-Tho: And she said, yeah, it will be like a little over a year.
• 27:22
  Michelle See-Tho: 'cause at that time, I think it was, yeah, it was June, yeah.
• 27:26
  Michelle See-Tho: When they announced it.
• 27:28
  Michelle See-Tho: And then the publication date was July of 2024.
• 27:32
  Natasha Rai: Oh yeah.
• 27:32
  Natasha Rai: Okay.
• 27:33
  Natasha Rai: Hmm.
• 27:34
  Natasha Rai: Okay.
• 27:34
  Natasha Rai: So do you remember how long it took to get through structural edits?
• 27:40
  Michelle See-Tho: Well, you know, I, it's funny'cause um, in preparing for this podcast, I kind of went back and sort of like traced through my emails just to get a sense of how long things took.
• 27:51
  Michelle See-Tho: So it's, it's a little fresher in my mind than it normally is.
• 27:54
  Michelle See-Tho: So, structural edits were about two months.
• 27:57
  Natasha Rai: That's really fast.
• 27:59
  Michelle See-Tho: Yeah.
• 27:59
  Michelle See-Tho: Well, I expected it to be longer, but, um, yeah, it was, um, it was just sort of one round of it.
• 28:05
  Michelle See-Tho: And most of the.
• 28:07
  Michelle See-Tho: Like I said, yeah, the edits were about like her age and then the sort of passage of time, so making sure that like, you know, I count of things like school holidays and then the season's changing so you know that, you know, it gets colder when it's winter.
• 28:21
  Michelle See-Tho: That sort of thing.
• 28:22
  Natasha Rai: Yeah.
• 28:22
  Natasha Rai: Yeah.
• 28:24
  Natasha Rai: And so once you submitted your edits mm-hmm.
• 28:27
  Natasha Rai: Was there then a bit of time when the editors went over it?
• 28:32
  Natasha Rai: Yeah.
• 28:33
  Natasha Rai: Yeah.
• 28:33
  Natasha Rai: How, what was that like?
• 28:34
  Natasha Rai: Yeah.
• 28:35
  Michelle See-Tho: Yeah.
• 28:36
  Michelle See-Tho: So I think like they did kind of like warn me that it would be sort of like the work would be with me for a while and then I'd send it back to them, and then I wouldn't hear anything for a while because they'd be kind of working on it.
• 28:48
  Michelle See-Tho: Mm-hmm.
• 28:48
  Michelle See-Tho: And then it would come back to me and that would be the sort of like essentially the, the process.
• 28:53
  Michelle See-Tho: Mm-hmm.
• 28:53
  Michelle See-Tho: Yeah.
• 28:54
  Michelle See-Tho: And so I think it was like another month or so that it was like kind of quiet and I didn't really, sorry, I'm just calculating it.
• 29:02
  Michelle See-Tho: Yeah, that's okay.
• 29:03
  Michelle See-Tho: Yeah.
• 29:03
  Michelle See-Tho: Yeah.
• 29:05
  Michelle See-Tho: Yeah, so, okay.
• 29:06
  Michelle See-Tho: So I did the two months of structural edits and then sent it back to them, and then they had it for two months before it came back to me.
• 29:14
  Michelle See-Tho: Yeah.
• 29:14
  Michelle See-Tho: Okay.
• 29:14
  Michelle See-Tho: Uh, with line edits.
• 29:16
  Michelle See-Tho: Yeah.
• 29:17
  Natasha Rai: So by October, November you were doing line edits?
• 29:19
  Michelle See-Tho: Yeah.
• 29:20
  Michelle See-Tho: Yeah.
• 29:21
  Michelle See-Tho: Okay.
• 29:21
  Michelle See-Tho: But the line edits did go on for, that was probably like the longest sort of stint of edits that I did.
• 29:27
  Michelle See-Tho: So that lasted until January.
• 29:29
  Michelle See-Tho: So what happened was, obviously we had the Christmas break then, and then I got COVID.
• 29:33
  Michelle See-Tho: Oh.
• 29:34
  Michelle See-Tho: So I kind of had to extend my deadline a little bit.
• 29:37
  Michelle See-Tho: But they had left like some leeway in their schedule.
• 29:40
  Michelle See-Tho: So ultimately the launch date didn't change.
• 29:43
  Michelle See-Tho: So that was nice.
• 29:45
  Michelle See-Tho: So line edits were very close prose reading, checking things like dialogue as well.
• 29:51
  Michelle See-Tho: And then I had the opportunity to kind of add in more lovely poetic prose pieces, which I really enjoyed.
• 29:59
  Natasha Rai: Nice.
• 29:59
  Natasha Rai: Yeah.
• 30:00
  Michelle See-Tho: And then around that time we also kind of talked about covers.
• 30:03
  Michelle See-Tho: Um, and I had like a sort of first pass of covers.
• 30:07
  Natasha Rai: So when you say first pass, how much kind of involvement or what did you.
• 30:12
  Natasha Rai: How did they do that with you?
• 30:15
  Michelle See-Tho: I'm told that a lot of authors aren't super involved in their covers, but going into it, at that time, I didn't know how little involvement there would be.
• 30:24
  Michelle See-Tho: So I kind of received a few options for covers, and if I can be honest, I, I wasn't really that happy with them, I guess, like I had just had like a thought in mind about like covers that I liked.
• 30:35
  Michelle See-Tho: I didn't necessarily feel that the ones I'd gotten were reflective of like what I wanted it to be.
• 30:42
  Michelle See-Tho: And so I feel very lucky because the, the team at Penguin really did kind of want to go back and forth with me on it.
• 30:48
  Michelle See-Tho: And so yeah, they did kind of let me have a bit of input and I could send over some references and things like that of covers that I did like and that I kind of wanted.
• 30:58
  Michelle See-Tho: Like this sort of thing.
• 31:01
  Michelle See-Tho: Yeah.
• 31:01
  Michelle See-Tho: Um, and so, and so we landed on the cover that we have, which I really love.
• 31:05
  Michelle See-Tho: Yeah.
• 31:06
  Michelle See-Tho: It's both of em.
• 31:06
  Michelle See-Tho: Um, yeah.
• 31:08
  Michelle See-Tho: Yeah.
• 31:08
  Michelle See-Tho: But, um, yeah, there was like a little bit of back and forth.
• 31:12
  Michelle See-Tho: Yeah.
• 31:13
  Natasha Rai: So at what point, so we're into 2024 now, so at what point did.
• 31:20
  Natasha Rai: You kind of get told, all right, we're done now proofread.
• 31:23
  Natasha Rai: It's about to go to print.
• 31:26
  Natasha Rai: Do you remember?
• 31:27
  Michelle See-Tho: So I think that happened around April May.
• 31:31
  Michelle See-Tho: So in between like the line edits and that, like we had a sort of first pages, which is like, they essentially like print it.
• 31:41
  Michelle See-Tho: Like, and it's kind of like in PDF form, but it looks like what it would look like in a book.
• 31:46
  Michelle See-Tho: Oh yeah.
• 31:46
  Michelle See-Tho: And so you get like another chance to kind of read it and it, and like you notice things that you don't notice when it's in a Word document.
• 31:54
  Michelle See-Tho: Things like.
• 31:55
  Michelle See-Tho: Sort of stick out to you differently when they're in that form.
• 31:58
  Michelle See-Tho: I don't know why.
• 32:00
  Natasha Rai: I think it's because they type set it, don't they?
• 32:02
  Natasha Rai: And you can see gaps and weird words and Yeah, I dunno.
• 32:05
  Natasha Rai: It just looks different somehow.
• 32:06
  Michelle See-Tho: Yeah.
• 32:07
  Michelle See-Tho: Yeah.
• 32:07
  Michelle See-Tho: Exactly.
• 32:07
  Michelle See-Tho: Yeah.
• 32:08
  Michelle See-Tho: And then they printed the arcs, advanced review copies.
• 32:12
  Michelle See-Tho: Yes.
• 32:12
  Michelle See-Tho: Yeah.
• 32:13
  Michelle See-Tho: And so got to hold.
• 32:15
  Michelle See-Tho: That was very cool.
• 32:16
  Michelle See-Tho: Although I was a bit nervous when they did that.
• 32:18
  Michelle See-Tho: 'cause I like, like I was saying before, I'm very like, you know, I probably would never have let it go.
• 32:23
  Michelle See-Tho: So when they said, oh, you know, we're printing this.
• 32:25
  Michelle See-Tho: I was like, printing, no, no, no, I'm not ready.
• 32:30
  Michelle See-Tho: And then they were like, oh, you know, it's so that you can get like the quotes on the cover.
• 32:33
  Michelle See-Tho: Oh yeah.
• 32:33
  Michelle See-Tho: The cover quotes.
• 32:34
  Michelle See-Tho: Yeah.
• 32:34
  Michelle See-Tho: Yeah.
• 32:35
  Michelle See-Tho: And then, yeah, obviously to get reviews as well.
• 32:37
  Michelle See-Tho: And so.
• 32:39
  Michelle See-Tho: Yeah, we did another round of edits and then the proofread and Yeah, and then it went to print in, yeah, April, may.
• 32:46
  Natasha Rai: Yeah.
• 32:47
  Natasha Rai: So under like the prize terms, did you know, or did they kind of explain what your commitments were around publicity or?
• 32:57
  Michelle See-Tho: Yeah, I think it was like, it said something like, oh, you know, uh, a total of two weeks of publicity, but it's not like two weeks kind of blocked out at one time.
• 33:07
  Michelle See-Tho: It's sort of like spread over, you know, a few months.
• 33:11
  Natasha Rai: And so what types of things did you do at that time when, when your book was out?
• 33:16
  Michelle See-Tho: Well, the launch is probably the most, like the sort of centerpiece Yes.
• 33:20
  Michelle See-Tho: Of it all.
• 33:21
  Michelle See-Tho: Yeah.
• 33:22
  Michelle See-Tho: And like that's an event that we held our readings in Melbourne and Melanie Chang hosted the launch.
• 33:29
  Michelle See-Tho: Beautiful.
• 33:29
  Michelle See-Tho: Yes.
• 33:30
  Michelle See-Tho: Yeah.
• 33:31
  Michelle See-Tho: And so we kind of had like a q and a and you know, I got dressed up and invited all my friends.
• 33:36
  Natasha Rai: How was that for you?
• 33:37
  Natasha Rai: Like, did you have a good time?
• 33:38
  Natasha Rai: Were you nervous?
• 33:39
  Natasha Rai: Were you excited?
• 33:41
  Natasha Rai: All of it?
• 33:42
  Michelle See-Tho: Yeah.
• 33:42
  Michelle See-Tho: Yeah.
• 33:43
  Michelle See-Tho: Um, it went by very quickly.
• 33:44
  Michelle See-Tho: Yeah.
• 33:45
  Michelle See-Tho: I was kind of nervous about it.
• 33:46
  Michelle See-Tho: 'cause as I'm sure a lot of other writers are, like, I'm an introvert and, you know, I had been sitting by myself essentially and like writing this for, you know, so long that suddenly it was in the world and I had to talk about it.
• 34:00
  Michelle See-Tho: And that felt really weird.
• 34:03
  Michelle See-Tho: Like, you know, um, kind of like having a lot of people look at me and ask questions about it Yeah.
• 34:08
  Michelle See-Tho: Is like quite different to what I'm used to.
• 34:10
  Michelle See-Tho: Um,
• 34:11
  Natasha Rai: and it's, and it's on the page, but it's no longer just a file on your laptop or
• 34:16
  Michelle See-Tho: Yeah, exactly.
• 34:17
  Michelle See-Tho: Yeah.
• 34:17
  Michelle See-Tho: Attachments on emails between you and your publisher.
• 34:20
  Michelle See-Tho: Yeah, yeah.
• 34:21
  Michelle See-Tho: Yeah.
• 34:21
  Michelle See-Tho: And it has been like, great in its own way, seeing it out in the world and like, you know, hearing people like yourself kind of, you know, read it and have such nice things to say about it.
• 34:32
  Michelle See-Tho: It's really.
• 34:33
  Michelle See-Tho: Yeah, it's really rewarding.
• 34:35
  Natasha Rai: Oh, that's really beautiful.
• 34:36
  Natasha Rai: So did they organize like a tour for you or was the launch kind of the main event and then you did things around Melbourne?
• 34:45
  Michelle See-Tho: I did a couple of different, like events and interviews and things.
• 34:49
  Michelle See-Tho: So yeah, like I said, the launch was the main one, but I did also have podcasts and radio interviews and some print as well.
• 34:56
  Michelle See-Tho: And then I went to Geelong for like a, a sort of little bookshop crawl.
• 35:02
  Michelle See-Tho: I went to a few different bookshops and like did signings and met with people and stuff.
• 35:07
  Michelle See-Tho: And then I went to Sydney and I did a few events at like libraries and bookshops there as well.
• 35:12
  Natasha Rai: And, and that was all organized by Penguin and like their publicists, right?
• 35:16
  Natasha Rai: Yeah.
• 35:17
  Natasha Rai: Yeah.
• 35:17
  Michelle See-Tho: So they were quite good at kind of reaching out to different places and organizing things.
• 35:22
  Michelle See-Tho: Pretty much everything was organized through Penguin.
• 35:23
  Natasha Rai: Yeah.
• 35:24
  Natasha Rai: And um, you know, so I don't know like, but.
• 35:27
  Natasha Rai: Penguin has the same, but you know, some prizes, the winner sometimes has to do like some media content or write something about what it means to win the prize, et cetera.
• 35:38
  Natasha Rai: Did you have any kind of obligation like that?
• 35:40
  Michelle See-Tho: No.
• 35:41
  Michelle See-Tho: Kind of huge commitment.
• 35:42
  Michelle See-Tho: I did write like a few statements for like the press release and for the website.
• 35:49
  Michelle See-Tho: And for things like when they opened the prize for the next year, talking about like how great it was to win it and like why people should enter it, that sort of thing.
• 36:01
  Natasha Rai: Yeah, for sure.
• 36:02
  Natasha Rai: For sure.
• 36:02
  Natasha Rai: Yeah.
• 36:02
  Natasha Rai: And, and in your prize deal, does Penguin have an option like to look at your next book
• 36:08
  Michelle See-Tho: or, yeah, it's first option, but it's not like, it's not like a two book deal.
• 36:13
  Michelle See-Tho: Yeah,
• 36:13
  Natasha Rai: yeah, yeah.
• 36:14
  Natasha Rai: Um, so for listeners who are not sure what that means, an option is where the publisher basically gets to see a manuscript first and can decide if they want to take it or pass, right?
• 36:26
  Michelle See-Tho: Yes.
• 36:27
  Natasha Rai: Yeah.
• 36:27
  Natasha Rai: Yeah.
• 36:28
  Natasha Rai: And so during all of that process of editing and then leading up to publication, were you working on something else?
• 36:34
  Natasha Rai: Were you kind of just focused on Jade and Emerald?
• 36:37
  Natasha Rai: What was that time like for you?
• 36:38
  Michelle See-Tho: I was pretty much just focused on Jade and Emerald, I suppose.
• 36:42
  Michelle See-Tho: Like I shouldn't be surprised, but I was surprised by how much mental energy it took.
• 36:47
  Michelle See-Tho: Like not just the edits themselves, but the publicity was really quite like mentally taxing in its own way.
• 36:54
  Michelle See-Tho: And so like I didn't really have much other space to focus on other things.
• 36:59
  Natasha Rai: Yeah, for sure.
• 37:00
  Natasha Rai: 'cause of work as well and life generally.
• 37:02
  Natasha Rai: Life, yeah.
• 37:04
  Natasha Rai: So, so what's life been like for you a year on.
• 37:07
  Natasha Rai: What's your writing practice look like?
• 37:09
  Natasha Rai: What does Yeah.
• 37:11
  Natasha Rai: Book stuff look like?
• 37:13
  Michelle See-Tho: I mean, I've kind of been more doing kind of smaller pieces, so like opinion pieces or like short stories and things like that.
• 37:21
  Michelle See-Tho: I had a piece published on, um, the Griffith Review online not too long ago.
• 37:26
  Michelle See-Tho: And I also regularly write video game reviews, so Nintendo Life.
• 37:30
  Michelle See-Tho: So that's sort of been like my writing kind of space at the mument.
• 37:34
  Michelle See-Tho: And as well, like in my kind of advertising life, I've had like a few kind of extracurricular.
• 37:39
  Michelle See-Tho: Advertising things I've been doing.
• 37:40
  Michelle See-Tho: So yeah, I haven't really kind of started on like a second book.
• 37:44
  Natasha Rai: Mm-hmm.
• 37:45
  Natasha Rai: So do you feel any pressure?
• 37:47
  Michelle See-Tho: Only kind of when I get the comparison bug, you know, like sometimes I'll look at like Instagram and see like other authors kind of putting out things and like I'm always excited to read books by authors I love.
• 38:00
  Michelle See-Tho: And so like I do feel like, oh, you know, if people really liked Jade and Emerald, like I'd really love to give them.
• 38:07
  Michelle See-Tho: Something else, you know?
• 38:09
  Michelle See-Tho: Yeah.
• 38:09
  Michelle See-Tho: Um, but at the same time it's like, like I kind of had the opportunity to spend a lot of time on it and put a lot of craft into that number.
• 38:17
  Michelle See-Tho: Like, I'd like to do that with my second as well.
• 38:19
  Michelle See-Tho: You know, you kind of don't necessarily wanna be like pumping them out
• 38:22
  Natasha Rai: for sure.
• 38:23
  Natasha Rai: Yeah.
• 38:23
  Natasha Rai: So do you feel like you have the, the right head space, right.
• 38:27
  Natasha Rai: You know, at the moment or.
• 38:29
  Natasha Rai: I don't know, inspiration to get started on something novel length or are you kind of the shorter pieces that you're doing that they're really feeding you for where you are?
• 38:37
  Michelle See-Tho: Yeah, I think I'm pretty good at the moment.
• 38:39
  Michelle See-Tho: Yeah.
• 38:40
  Michelle See-Tho: Like I, I definitely want to write a second book and like I said, I had like kind of other sort of very rough ideas, so it would be probably something that I've already thought of that I just need to work out exactly what that story is.
• 38:54
  Natasha Rai: Sure.
• 38:55
  Natasha Rai: So how would you say the prize has kind of impacted you?
• 38:58
  Michelle See-Tho: It was amazing.
• 38:59
  Michelle See-Tho: Uh, I guess like when I started writing Jade and Emerald, or even before it, like I wanted to have a novel out in the world and.
• 39:07
  Michelle See-Tho: The prize.
• 39:08
  Michelle See-Tho: Let me do that.
• 39:09
  Michelle See-Tho: So yeah, I mean, like, it was, yeah, amazing.
• 39:12
  Michelle See-Tho: And, and you know, like, because I had literally kind of gone into it thinking that I wasn't gonna get published at all.
• 39:19
  Michelle See-Tho: It was really amazing that it happened and so quickly and with, you know, such a prestigious publisher.
• 39:26
  Michelle See-Tho: Like it's still, it's still pretty like crazy that it happened even though.
• 39:30
  Michelle See-Tho: You know, I know that it happened.
• 39:31
  Michelle See-Tho: I've got like proof that happened.
• 39:33
  Michelle See-Tho: It still sort of feels a bit surreal.
• 39:35
  Natasha Rai: Yeah, yeah, I get that.
• 39:38
  Natasha Rai: So in terms of any tips or advice that you would give to emerging writers now, what would you say?
• 39:47
  Michelle See-Tho: I think never give up is a really important piece of advice.
• 39:50
  Michelle See-Tho: It's a cliche for a reason.
• 39:52
  Michelle See-Tho: I also think that it kind of works in like a few different ways.
• 39:55
  Michelle See-Tho: So obviously, you know, there's the getting published side of it as in like submit to lots of places and don't stop doing that kind of thing.
• 40:04
  Michelle See-Tho: But it's true that there are like so many avenues to publications.
• 40:08
  Michelle See-Tho: So it's like.
• 40:10
  Michelle See-Tho: You know, I don't know if like anybody could ever exhaust every single avenue that there is before they get published, but I sort of think there's like a, like a second level to it where like you never kind of give up on your writing.
• 40:23
  Michelle See-Tho: So if you like, always kind of keep trying to better yourself as a writer or like, you know, read widely.
• 40:31
  Michelle See-Tho: And like even if you're not necessarily working on like a novel like myself, like you know, if you are kind of writing other bits and pieces or even just like journal entries, like I feel like that's like still a form of like not giving up.
• 40:45
  Natasha Rai: Yeah, for sure.
• 40:46
  Natasha Rai: And you know, and just a point that you made earlier about after you finished your mentorship and felt the manuscript still wasn't ready for writers who have that same worry that.
• 40:58
  Natasha Rai: Is my manuscript ready and I know there's no easy answer'cause it really depends on the writer and the manuscript.
• 41:04
  Natasha Rai: What's your advice in terms of how someone could tackle that problem or that issue of is this actually ready to submit somewhere?
• 41:12
  Natasha Rai: Like what could they do to check it for themselves if it is or not?
• 41:17
  Michelle See-Tho: I guess if you feel that like that's something that you are proud of and that's something that you're like, you're willing to kind of like put your name to.
• 41:26
  Michelle See-Tho: And say to a publisher, you know, like, yeah, this is mine.
• 41:30
  Michelle See-Tho: Like I wrote this, and you know, and to sort of feel proud of it in that way.
• 41:36
  Michelle See-Tho: I think that's a pretty good test.
• 41:39
  Natasha Rai: That's a great test actually.
• 41:40
  Natasha Rai: Yeah.
• 41:41
  Natasha Rai: Yeah.
• 41:41
  Natasha Rai: I suppose if you're feeling self-conscious or embarrassed by it, then that could speak to that.
• 41:45
  Natasha Rai: Maybe it needs a bit more work or something like more time.
• 41:47
  Natasha Rai: Yeah.
• 41:48
  Natasha Rai: Yeah.
• 41:49
  Natasha Rai: That's a great answer.
• 41:52
  Natasha Rai: So I just wanted to say thank you so much for coming on my monthly episode and talking to me about Shannon Emerald and your prize winning experience.
• 42:02
  Natasha Rai: Congratulations once again.
• 42:03
  Natasha Rai: It's such a beautiful book and definitely well deserved winning that prize.
• 42:08
  Michelle See-Tho: Oh, thank you so much.
• 42:10
  Michelle See-Tho: Yeah.
• 42:10
  Michelle See-Tho: Yeah.
• 42:10
  Michelle See-Tho: It's been great chatting to you.
• 42:11
  Michelle See-Tho: Uh, yeah.
• 42:12
  Michelle See-Tho: Yeah.
• 42:12
  Michelle See-Tho: It's a great podcast and I think that like it's always helpful for writers to kind of hear from people who have done it because like that's how we all started out.
• 42:22
  Michelle See-Tho: Exactly.
• 42:22
  Michelle See-Tho: We've all started out submitting somewhere and then some magic happens and you're at the right place at the right time, and.
• 42:29
  Natasha Rai: Yeah, and it just goes from there.
• 42:31
  Natasha Rai: So thank you so much for sharing your experience.
• 42:34
  Michelle See-Tho: Oh, thank you for having me.
• 42:40
  Tina Strachan: Thank you for listening to the Book Deal podcast.
• 42:43
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• 42:52
  Tina Strachan: You can also find us on Instagram.