The Do's and Don'ts of Self-Marketing With Kelly DeVos

  Mindy:             Today's guest is Kelly DeVos, who's work on body positivity has been featured in the New York Times as well as on Vulture, Salon, Bustle and SheKnows. Her debut novel Fat Girl On A Plane - named one of the 50 best summer readings of all time by Reader's Digest Magazine is now available from Harper Collins. Her second book, Day Zero, is coming in 2019 from InkYard Press. Kelly joined me today to talk about the sophomore experience in publishing, the importance of networking, and how not to market yourself.

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Mindy:             You've got your debut, Fat Girl On A Plane behind you. And really often whenever we're talking about anything in the arts, I hear the phrase "sophomore effort" when speaking about an artist's second work and it's usually not used in a complimentary way. So tell listeners a little bit about your publishing experience the second time around. What is different and are the pressures different?

Kelly:               Yeah, so for me anyway, the struggle of the sophomore novel was so, so real. The experience of writing my second book was so different. For Day Zero I wrote four sample chapters and a fairly detailed synopsis and the book sold based on that proposal. So it was my first experience writing and working on something that had already sold. And I found that the writing process, at least for me, was a lot more difficult in the sense that I really did not know if I was working on a good book or a readable book or a book that other people might want to read. I think when you're working on your debut, you know most people get an agent with their debut so they have that sense of validation that comes with like, okay, a gatekeeper has read this and thinks that it's good. But with Day Zero, no one had read it and I was working alone and it just felt emotionally anyway, a lot more difficult.

Mindy:             I know that when I was working on my second book, the pressures were slightly different because of the fact that it was a followup title. I was following up Not A Drop to Drink with not necessarily a sequel, but a companion book. So with you, you are changing over to something entirely different. I want to talk about that a little bit about the genre departure, but I want to ask you more about the whole concept of the "bloom is off the rose" - that debut experiences behind you. Anything that you took with you from that first experience in publishing that you were like, yes, I know to do that this time or I definitely want to make sure I try this.

Kelly:               In my writing process, early on I made basically like every mistake that you can make. So it's hard to kind of like pinpoint and say like, okay, there's the one thing that I'm, I'm not going to do because the reality of it is, I'm probably not going to do a lot of those things. I had improved my writing process. Like I had gotten a lot faster at drafting and editing and so forth in between books. Uh, so I felt like there was a lot of learning there, but I felt like what I really got out of debut experience was I had met a lot of really great writers along the way and I had people to turn to for advice, which I think was what was different from the debut experience where you're still kind of meeting people and kind of finding, you know, your crowd or like the table that you're going to sit at in the lunchroom. So I guess that that's what was different for me.

Mindy:             Yeah, the networking changes entirely and it continues to change. I can tell you two of my closest friends in the writing world are in my debut group and we actually met because we are members of the Class of 2k13 and we've just stayed in touch and we do appearances together and we get together as often as we can. We work together, we talk pretty much every day, at this point, online. It's a lovely experience. I really do feel like through this process of publication, I've definitely found my people.

Kelly:               I feel like I always sound so cheesy, but I'm like make friends, you know? I mean every time people are like, what's your advice for writers? I'm like, make friends, you know, find the people that whose work you like and tell them that you like their work and you know, network in the sense of being an engaged member of the community and you know, get out there and support other writers. Because I feel like ultimately that's what helps you so much. I mean, as you probably know, like a lot of promotional opportunities come from other writers. One of the things that writers get in terms of like going on tour, oftentimes it's like one writer advocates for another. So it really is important to make friends and meet people and find your people.

Mindy:             It's very true and it's one of those situations where networking is a business term, but it's also like fun and friendly. It ends off coming out like it's who you know, but that's not really what we're saying. Just having those connections in those terms of having friends makes a huge difference. Um, so like for example, just a couple of weeks ago, and in fact I think it was just last week, I drove to Pittsburgh and back in one day because Kit Frick was having a launch party for her newest release and she asked me to come. Then I was like, yes, I'll be there. So you know, it was like I had the opportunity to go into an area and a market that I hadn't necessarily been to before and Kit wanted to have another author there beside her in order to launch her new title. And I was like, yeah, I'll totally do that.

Mindy:             So I drove down to Pittsburgh, we did an event together, it went really well. And while I was there, the staff of the bookstore was like, Hey, we've got this event that goes on a citywide event called Bookish in the Burgh. You really should contact the organizers. We would love to have you. Came home, sent the email, the organizers like yes, if you're driving distance you're in. And I'm like, cool. Kit asked me to do this, like as a favor. I said yes. And now I've got a whole event planned for the winter that wouldn't have come about otherwise.

Kelly:               I think that the important thing is that it's like you make friends, you know? Where I always see people getting kind of derailed, they get on a blog and they get like networking advice, which is oftentimes like go in Facebook groups and post 10,000 things about your book. Go to an authors' meeting and get everyone's email address and then spam them with stuff about your book. Like that's not the same thing as making friends. You know, making friends is about human engagement. Being a member of the community, which is a lot different than just like the way that you would go into a scenario, like a sales person.

Mindy:             Some of the advice that I see sometimes about like go to an author's signing and promote your book to them and it's like, no, don't do that because it's like that's happened to me multiple times. I did at one event where I was presenting and I was actually like doing it for free in order to promote an upcoming event. I showed up and they were like maybe seven people, which is fine. I mean I'm not doing it for myself. I'm doing it to promote this larger event over the weekend and I show up and of the seven people that were there, three of them were self published authors that brought their own books to hand to me to ask me to read.

Kelly:               Oh my gosh.

Mindy:             And I was like, cool, good for you. That's awesome. Self-Publish. Get out there and make those connections. But it's like, you know, I was just handed 12 hours worth of reading material and I tell them, I'm very honest. I'm like, look, I'm not going to have time to read it. If you want to give it to me, I will take it and there is the off chance that it may catch my eye and I'll pick it up and read it. But more than likely this is going to go in the free little library in my hometown and I'm very honest about that. But I'm always like, hey, feel free to email me. I have like a Word document that's like 10 pages long with advice for aspiring writers. Email me, I will send this to you, listen to the podcast, follow the blog. Like I'm happy to help. But when you're in a situation like that, it's like there... I use the word supplicant but I don't mean it in a negative way. I just mean that it's like we're not on an even footing, you know, they're asking me for something. I don't feel like they're, they're wanting to meet me and talk to me. I feel like they want to use me to their own advantage.

Kelly:               Well first of all, like so much love for people that self-publish. Like that's a completely valid authorial choice and it's got the difficulties of you have to do your own marketing.

Mindy:             Absolutely.

Kelly:               There's so much bad advice out there for self published authors. You just know those poor people probably read some articles somewhere that was just like go to an author event and give them a copy of your book so that they can go on their channels and talk about it. And it's kind of like, I mean, I feel really bad about that whole thing because like as you know, just among your writer friends who are publishing, like if you just read every book from writer friends and tried to just keep up on that, it's almost like a full time job.

Mindy:             Yeah.

Kelly:               If you've got somebody who's coming in and they're a stranger to you, it's like, it's a pretty big commitment to say like, okay, I'm going to put somebody that I, that's I really care about as a person on hold so that I can read this thing that like you just handed to me and we don't even know each other.

Mindy:             Right. And that's the thing. I totally agree. I have absolute respect for self published authors. Um, my friends Kate and Demitria, we do indie publishing with anthologies. We put together different anthologies and we know, I mean, I know how much work it is and how hard it is to get noticed and I know what the hustle is like and how very, very small the rewards can be. Asking someone that you don't know to read your book in the hopes of them promoting it for you? It's not the best approach because I mean, like you said, I don't read all of my friends' books like good friends, very good friends. I don't have time to read all of their books. So, no, I'm not going to read a stranger's book.

Mindy: And then also just because of who I am and the way I was raised, I have total guilt about the fact that they handed me a book because I know for a fact that it costs them money to have this book printed. It probably costs them at a minimum 10 to $15 to have it printed. And it's like they're just, they're handing me something they might be able to sell and make money on and they're giving it to me for free. And then I feel awful because I'm like, dude, I, I should read this, but I'm always completely honest. I'm like, more than likely I'm not going to read this. If you want to give it to me, you can. I never refuse anyone, but I'm telling you 99% I, I'm not going to get to this.

Kelly:               That's like a marketing don't

Mindy:             Actually, I do think putting your book in a free little library, if you want to give away a book for free and just see if you can get someone to read it and like it and maybe give you a review. Free little libraries. Man, I love them. When I'm driving through a town and I see a free little library, I have boxes of my books, in my car, I will just stop and sign a book and stick it in there and you know, see what happens. You never know those little ripples can really matter. And so that's what I do when someone hands me a self published book, I put it in a free little library.

Kelly:               Yeah. But the other piece of the puzzle too is that like oftentimes if you haven't done any self publishing, you don't know a lot about it. Like I myself have never done any self publishing and so if people asked me for advice or promotional advice, I really don't know. I mean it's a totally different game in terms of what self published authors can do and you know, because they can do a lot of things that traditionally published authors can't do. Like they can do price promotions on Amazon or advertisements, like the things that we can't do because like we don't actually quote unquote own the distribution channel of our book.

Mindy:             Right.

Kelly:               A lot of times I don't know what a good thing for them to do would be. I really just don't know.

Mindy:             No, I don't either. You're right. It is a completely different animal. It's like asking a ballet dancer to show you how to do break dancing. Like it's, it's the same world where they have a body and they're using it to dance, but that's it.

Kelly:               I will say though, on the marketing don'ts, like also if you go to a conference and they give you a distribution list of everybody's email, do not subscribe those people to your email, your eblast list. I've had probably like three or four people do that to me recently and it's kind of like that is just not the way to market to somebody. I'm not even sure it's, it's a dubious legality actually. If they haven't opted into your communications.

Mindy:             That's very true. They have to actually opt in specifically to your list in order for you to add them.

Mindy:             Coming up, jumping genres, but still remaining true to your author brand.

Mindy:             So let's talk about your new book Day Zero. It is a genre departure from your debut Fat Girl on a Plane. So talk a little bit about Day Zero.

Kelly:               Yeah, so Day Zero is a young adult thriller. It's set in a near future quasi dystopia and follows a teen hacker Jinx Marshall who believes that her father is responsible for triggering a political and economic crisis. So she's pursued by this group of shadowy paramilitary types. And while she's on the run with her step siblings, she tries to learn the truth about her dad.

Mindy:             Why the name Jinx? I'm just curious.

Kelly:               My mom had a friend in high school and that was her name and so she was doing something for her high school reunion or something and she was like, and my friend Jinx will be there. I'm like, Jinx? Her name is Jinx? I'm like, I'm using that. That's going in a book. So, hi to the real Jinx. Hopefully I'll get to meet her.

Mindy:             It's so cool. So it is very much a genre departure. It's very different from your first one, which was a contemporary more about like a culture reflection than anything. So I'm really curious about the audience that you have drawn to yourself with your first book or do you have any concerns about them following over to the second since the topic is so different?

Analyzing Your Ideas Against Existing Trends: Kalyn Josephson

Inspiration is a funny thing. It can come to us like a lightning bolt, through the lyrics of a song, or in the fog of a dream. Ask any writer where their stories come from and you’ll get a myriad of answers, and in that vein I created the WHAT (What the Hell Are you Thinking?) interview. Always including in the WHAT is one random question to really dig down into the interviewees mind, and probably supply some illumination into my own as well.

Today’s guest for the WHAT is Kalyn Josephson, author of The Storm Crow, a YA Fantasy novel out with SourcebooksFire July 2019. Kalyn currently works as a Technical Writer in Silicon Valley, which leaves room for too many bad puns about technically being a writer. .

Ideas for our books can come from just about anywhere, and sometimes even we can’t pinpoint exactly how or why. Did you have a specific origin point for your book?

Yes! I’d read an article about a little girl who fed her neighborhood crows. In return, they brought her trinkets. People christened her The Crow Queen, a title that really stuck with me. It gave me the idea for a fairytale-esque story about a girl trapped in a tower (naturally) and the crows who brought her pieces of the world. I’d always loved crows, and couldn’t get the imagery from the story out of my mind. Eventually it expanded into a larger world, until The Storm Crow was born. 

Once the original concept existed, how did you build a plot around it?

The first thing I ironed out was the 8 types of crows (Shadow, Sun, Battle, Storm, Fire, Water, Wind, Earth). From there, I built a world centered on their integration in society. Then I asked: what happens if they all disappear? How does that impact the world? The people? For my MC, Anthia, it had a very personal impact, and the story follows her struggle to deal with it.

Have you ever had the plot firmly in place, only to find it changing as the story moved from your mind to paper?

Usually I’m pretty good at sticking to my outlines. But sometimes I’d reach a point and realize what I had planned won’t work. Either because it doesn’t fit the characters, or it’s not coming together on paper like it did in my head.

Do story ideas come to you often, or is fresh material hard to come by?

Story ideas pop into my head pretty frequently, and I keep a notebook of everything. Not all of them are good enough to be the kernel for a new world, and a lot of times I end up combining ideas. You always have to analyze new ideas for how similar they are to existing books and trends, but especially in the YA Fantasy market, which is heavily inundated. I’ve had to scrap a lot of ideas I loved that were too similar to existing books. 

How do you choose which story to write next if you’ve got more than one percolating?

Whichever one won’t leave me alone. I have a long drive to work, which is pretty much my only free, uninterrupted alone time. A lot of my brainstorming is done then (so much so that I bought a tape recorder that I leave running so I can dictate ideas). Often, a lot of tiny ideas will pop up, and they’ll all fit nicely into a larger WIP. When that starts happening, I know it’s a story I want to focus on.

I have 5 cats (seriously, check my Instagram feed) and I usually have at least one or two snuggling with me when I write. Do you have a writing buddy, or do you find it distracting?

5 is impressive! I have 2 little black cats I adopted, Snags and El. El is a lap kitten that keeps me company while I write; Snags only pops up on my desk around dinner time to ensure I don’t forget. 

 Snags (left) and El (right)

Writing A Novel Set In the Publishing World with Lauren Mechling

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Mindy:             Today's guest is Lauren Mechling who has written for The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Slate, The New Yorker online and Vogue where she writes a regular book column. She's worked as a crime reporter and metro columnist for the New York Sun and a features editor at The Wall Street Journal. A Graduate of Harvard College, she lives in Brooklyn with her husband and two children.

Mindy:             Lauren joined me today to talk about how her own experiences in print media helped form the world of her new novel, How Could She?

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Mindy:             Your new book is titled. How Could She? And it follows Rachel, Sunny and Geraldine. It is very much set in the media world it deals with print, it deals with the collapse in many ways of the print industry and then also the rise of podcasting. So why that world?

Lauren:            Yeah, it's about two collapsing worlds, the collapse of friendships over time and the collapse of an industry that is very dear to my heart. I've been part of, you know, initially print media for two decades. And I also was able to weave in one of my true loves and newer love, which is podcasts. I've listened to so, so, so many podcasts. And it all has sort of fit together, as I thought about it in the sense that the stories about three women, okay, they all started out in the print media world and now, you know, a decade later in their mid thirties they have succeeded to varying degrees or in one case not succeeded.

Lauren:            And podcasting is this new dark horse, or it was. And so Geraldine, the character who, you know, all the memos of how to get ahead in life passed her by. She followed her heart and it backfired on her. And she's essentially suffering PTSD at this point from a failed relationship. And she's working at a job that's so beneath her. The only opportunity she really ends up having is one that she creates herself, which is a podcast. And that ends up being the engine of her, you know, ascent and a, you know, a whole new adventure for her.

Mindy:             And one of the things that I enjoyed so much being also an author and moving in the print world myself in the world of publishing, one of the lines that I loved was when one of the characters who is writing a YA novel is talking to an editor and the editor says, "You write beautifully but so does my cat." And I loved that. It was a wonderful indication and it's so true, that just being able to write and even write very well is not enough. There are so many elements involved.

Lauren:            More and more. I mean I think at the time when I wrote that what I was thinking was there has to be a hook, there has to be a high concept there. You know, in order to write a story that has any chance in the market place, you also have to basically tell a whole other story, which is that of yourself and market yourself on, you know, in social media. So yes, being able to put a sentence together is sort of the least of it.

Mindy:             Right. Even if you can do it very well, it doesn't matter. You have to be a hustler and you have to be a mover and a shaker and you have to be able to sell yourself. And I think it's a really interesting dichotomy because a lot of creatives aren't that person. That the performative quality when you're a writer isn't necessarily always there. So do you have any, any thoughts on that?

Lauren:            I've definitely had to jump into the limelight more than I ever was. I've always felt like I've been like living in the margins even when it doesn't seem that way to other people. I always feel like a bit of an outsider and an observer and yes, now I am, um, you know, writing tons of personal essays and doing interviews about myself. It's, it's strange and I feel that the Lauren Mechling from two years ago, if she saw what was happening, she might be horrified. But it's actually fun and it's necessary. I think it's completely justifiable in a way that maybe the snobby, older version of me wouldn't have thought. I, you know, I really have a story to tell. And so I'm doing whatever I can, I'm doing it for these three women who I invented.

Mindy:             When I was first getting started, I had that, oh, you know, writer in the high castle creating their art for Art's sake. And now I'm like, what do you want me to do? Do you need my hair to be pink? I can make it pink.

Lauren:            It's also fun. I'm not an introvert and I'm not an extrovert. I'm a mix of the two. And writing is hard. I don't feel, I don't think I would be happy if I were in a castle just churning out fiction nonstop. I'm meeting, really cool people. And I also really like, you know, even talking on the phone, which I never get to do anymore. Now I get to do it. And so there's, there's a good side to it. Absolutely. I hope it'll feed me and feed me to, you know, to go back to the castle or as it were, the Brooklyn desk and you know, go back, go into retreat a little bit again.

Mindy:             No, absolutely. Because it is a solitary undertaking and you do need, you do need to refuel sometimes and other people... I'm the same way. Other people help me do that. If I was working in solitary constantly, just being an artist, I think it would stop. My work would suffer.

Lauren:            Totally. There's left, right? There's a writer, oh, Kristin Miller. I remember once, she's a young adult writer and she wants to tell me she had a theory, which is there has to be an equal amount of coming in and going out in that, you know, material comes into you and then it comes out of you as your work and it's important to her to take breaks and be in the world and then go back and have funny things to say about it.

Mindy:             Oh yes. I agree with that. I was a YA librarian for a long time, so I remember, Kristen's series.

Lauren:            Yes. Great. Kiki Strike.

Mindy:             Yes. And Kiki Strike. Yeah.

Lauren:            Yeah. She's so cool.

Mindy:             Wonderful writer. Coming up, the complexities of female friendships as a storytelling concept.

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Mindy:             So the focus of the book also, while the setting and the realm that it's operating in is very much the, the print world. Your focus is very much on female relationships and the intimacy of that, but then also the intimacy fading and there becoming this space in between and some of the assumptions that we make about people that we used to know and perhaps changed and all of the different ways and the complications of a female friendship over time. So if you want to talk about that a little bit since it's a huge focus in the book.

Lauren:            Well, when I started writing the book, I was thinking about the three women's arcs, you know, as an x-y axis of, you know, where they would start when the book starts in January, you know, New Years and then where they would find themselves the next New Years. But in turns out it's essentially not a very accurate way of thinking about the way people change or their relationships change because there's the element of time as this third dimension. And in that sense that people who are intertwined and have a relationship between the two of them, when they reach a point of, you know, everything going well and feeling close to each other and they have, you know, they know how to relate to each other and they have their rhythms. Life throws curve balls and one person will have failures and one person will have successes or you know, new people enter the picture.

Lauren:            And so friendships are, they're very, very, very vulnerable and they're all, they always have to evolve to the moment and then be ready to spin around again and take on a new configuration. And in the book, I really, I looked at these three women who had a, they sort of had a pretty good thing going when they got to know each other. I mean, it was a bit of a fraught triangle because two of the women were very suspicious of each other and not very close, but they all knew where they stood and they all had their roles and they all were for the better because of their relationships with other women. Enter a decade plus, and it's really, really, really hard to maintain the fiction that friendship, these friendships will just remain strong and unchanged and keep going because, you know, someone has a baby, someone becomes a, you know, semi-famous person. Someone has setbacks that cause her to feel, feel sad in a way that other people maybe they don't really understand or they can't truly relate to.

Mindy:             Yes, it's very true. Especially in, um, relationships where one person has a level of success that another has clearly not achieved. You can't ignore that imbalance.

Lauren:            Right. And of course there's lots to go around, but it often doesn't feel that way. It often feels as though one person's success is the reason why you're not where you want to be. Well, and I think it's hard. And the other way, if you, if you know, you do become lucky in some way, you've acknowledged that. Do you talk about it with your friend or you know, do you just keep talking about the same old thing or do you say, hey, I get it. This is weird, this thing that I want it to happen has happened.

Mindy:             It is literally only criticism I have of Big Little Lies. I don't know if you watch it, but

Lauren:            I watched the first season.

Mindy:             Okay. No one ever talks about the fact that Jane is poor. Like it just doesn't come up.

Lauren:            Oh, that's interesting.

Mindy:             Well, right. I mean they're all just so rich and so well off and they're like, Jane's our friend and it's never...

Lauren:            Right. Why can't we talk about that? But my story is set in New York City, class and wealth are huge, huge factors in who we are and how people perceive us. And we all also have these financial mysteries that we conceal from each other. You know, everyone has weird way of surviving. People you know, do things on the side or they get things slipped to them from their aunt or something and it's not, you know, people don't even talk about their salaries very often.

Mindy:             No, I remember that when I got my first book deal, my editor said, don't tell other authors what your advance was.

Lauren:            Uh Huh. Did you think she said that because she didn't want other authors to ask for the same or do you think it was that she didn't want people to be jealous of you or what?

Mindy:             I have no idea. I am not sure. And at the time I was like, oh, okay. And because I was a baby writer I was like, okay, I'll take this very seriously. But now I, I'm just... I believe in transparency and I'm just very honest about what I make and I don't feel a reason to like maintain this fiction of the mystery of income in the creative world.

Lauren:            Right? I mean, right now there's that thing going around where people are, you know, everyone was horrified when the author Taffy Akner talked about how she reached a point in magazine journalism where she was asking for $4 a word. And people were scandalized by that saying, that's so much. That's so unfair. But it's just think even that it's ridiculous and it's simplistic. And if, let's say a magazine writer is writing two 1000 word stories, like it's still not enough to live on. So we're so easily shocked and scandalized by talking money.

Mindy:             Oh, we are, that's very true. When I do, um, when I speak in front of groups and people ask, especially if I'm doing school visits, kids love to ask, how much money do you make? That's always what people want to know. And so I just started answering them. And then I tell them the number and they're just like, oh my God, and then I break it down for them. This is before taxes, this is spread out over 18 months in three payments and once you do that, they're like, oh, it's actually not that much money. I'm like, no, it's not. One of the questions I get because it's a symbol I guess for I'm very landlocked, so maybe that's why, but people will always ask me, do you have a boat? And I'm like, I have a canoe and I bought it used. That's my budget.

Lauren:            It's like in New York, a car in New York City.

Mindy:             That's exactly what it is.

Mindy:             Lastly, how podcast figure into Lauren's new novel and where to find the book and Lauren online.

Mindy:             So I want to talk about podcasting and your focus on podcasting in the book as well. Since that is how Geraldine then goes on to make a mark for herself and how you know, what led you to that? I know that you're an avid listener, so it just your own consumption. What kicked that particular plot element?

Lauren:        Sure. I mean it must've been, you know, it's, it's front and center and then in the back of my head, just the, the beauty in the world of podcasts and then as a fiction writer, you know, we, we sort of retake the ingredients that life hands us and make art out of them. And when I listen to podcasts, one of the things I do, I learn about the world and people who are being interviewed. But I also fantasize about, I don't know, just the podcasting life and who are these people who are doing the interviews and how do they get here? And usually it is people who come from more traditional of journalism backgrounds or entertainment backgrounds and then they decide that they want to do something where yeah, they can curse and things don't have to be perfectly or redone over and over.

Lauren:            It can just feel natural. And I love also the, the conversational element because we don't have conversations the way, I mean, I used to talk on the phone for hours, hours and hours a night when I was young. There's nothing that terrifies people more than the words, "are you up for a quick call?" It's like people are scared. They think that it means I've, you know, I'm going to tell them that somebody died or that I'm mad at them when in fact I just like to shoot the shit.

Lauren:            So in podcasts people get to do that and it worked in the narrative because there is like, there isn't that barrier of entry as far as I imagine to making podcasts as there is to getting a job at some international corporation that peddled news and culture stories. So Geraldine, I love her. She is lost. She is lovely. She is curious. She's smart, she's unafraid but fragile. And of course she latches onto podcasting. And in fact it turns out to be the best thing she's ever done in her life. Whereas her friends who have these more, you know, perceived as fancy, enviable situations. I mean one of them is a coveted artists, you know, tastemaker. And then the other one is a Young Adult writer and who has a part time job in a magazine, but their professional struggles are much greater.

Mindy:             Last thing, let listeners know where they can find you online and where they can find the book.

Lauren:            The book is available anywhere are sold. It's called, How could She? Has a bright orange cover with big lettering, hard to miss. And online I am at Lauren Mechling on Twitter and I spent a lot of time there and on Instagram I am at Laurenomics like economics, but Laurenomics and I am also at The Clog Life, which is a whole other story, but it's a very fun community.

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