Mindy: Welcome to Writer Writer Pants on Fire, where authors talk about things that never happened to people who don't exist. We also cover craft, the agent hunt, query trenches, publishing, industry, marketing and more. I'm your host, Mindy McGinnis. You can check out my books and social media at mindymcginnis dot com and make sure to visit the Writer Writer Pants on Fire blog for additional interviews, query critiques and more as well as full transcriptions of each podcast episode. at WriterWriterPants on Fire.com. And don’t forget to check out the Writer, Writer, Pants on Fire Facebook page. Give me feedback, suggest topics you’d like to hear discussed, and let me know if there is someone you’d love to see a a guest.
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Mindy: We’re here with Lyn Liao Butler, author of The Tiger Mom’s Tale and the Red Thread of Fate, which will be coming out February 8th. First thing I'd really like to talk about is Your debut, The Tiger Mom’s Tale, which came out in July of 2021. And I know that it did very well. I remember seeing it many places and hearing about it repeatedly. What is that experience like as a debut author to have a fairly spectacular debut?
Lyn: I’m glad you say that because I didn't think it was that spectacular, actually. So I guess everything is subjective, just like publishing, right? I think my publicity and marketing team - I'm with Berkeley - they did an amazing job. You're right. The book was everywhere, and it still is kind of. I was just traveling and saw in airports everywhere, so they did a great job getting the book out. I don't know about sales per se, but, but I had to wait two years from the time that it was sold for it to come out because of the pandemic. So it was just anticlimactic by the time it came out. Definitely an exciting time.
Mindy: Absolutely. I don't know about sales. That's something that the average reader and the average listener may not know is that we don't always have a good handle on how well our own books are actually performing. Visibility really can feel like one of the only measurements of success in my experience. Like being inside of publishing, we talk about buzz a lot in the industry, and I can see the inside of the publishing industry. This book had really big buzz. Like I've been seeing this cover for two years. I don't know. There is some frustration there, isn't there because you don't always know how well you are are not actually doing?
Lyn: And then the different places that you can check are always different, like they're never the same numbers and then the numbers that your publisher has. So yeah, you never really know. And nobody really gives you the full answer. I guess until you get your first royalty statement or something. But that hasn't happened yet for me. So, um, it's very true.
Mindy: And when you get your royalty statement. Even then, those numbers are six months old by the time you get it.
Lyn: Right, exactly. So it's good to hear you say that there was buzz because I think they did create a lot of buzz for it, And I think one of the reasons probably is because we waited this long to get the book.
Mindy: So, of course, like you said, Covid played a role in your release and in the timing, and there was a delay for you. Covid has been hard on everyone in so many different ways. I mean, I talk about my experiences and how my life changed because of it. But in the large picture, as someone who is self employed and works from home already, I wasn't impacted greatly. But debut authors in that late 2019 / 2020 period and then in the first, like probably 6 to 7 months if not all of 2021 definitely were impacted. I remember thinking as an author that has already had, like, 10 books out when Covid hit. Thank God I'm not a debut. So can you talk a little bit about the experience of debuting during the pandemic?
Lyn: So back in December of 2019, a group of us - the 2020 debuts - met up for holiday drinks and, you know, dinner and we were all celebrating like our debuts are about to start. We're so excited. We're going to go to each other's debuts because we were all in New York City and then we went to like two. And then the pandemic hit and everything shut down. And I just felt so bad for my friends that debuted in March, April, May of 2020. Like the whole 2020 everything that they planned - in person events, everything was canceled.
And then my book got pushed back Into 2021 early 2021, and they got pushed back even more into summer. And you know, looking back, it was hard to wait that long, but at the same time, just watching the 2020's coming out and having to adjust to virtual events and just basically seeing their dreams for what they wanted on their debut day not happening. I did end up in July 2021. I was able to have an outdoor in person launch event as well as the virtual, so it was better for me. I guess. So, in a way, it kind of worked out, I think better for me. But it was a very hard time to debut, like no doubt about it. And sales kind of reflected that because a lot of the events got canceled. You weren't able to go and launch your book and market it. So it's been tough.
Mindy: Not only do you have the issue of having to cancel in person events and anything that your publisher had planned for you, but also promotions and everything that you were hoping to kind of make a wave with. As the debut author now, suddenly so many of our tools have been taken away from you. And there were tools that you hadn't really had a chance to even adjust to holding them in your hands yet. And now you don't even have them.
Lyn: Even something simple as just going to a bookstore and seeing your book like a lot of them didn't get to see it until I think 2021.
Mindy: Yeah, that's super impactful. I would imagine that if there are people who have been financially impacted and they want to buy a book they're more than likely going to rely on their old favorites and people that they know, authors that they know, rather than take a chance and buy a book by a debut author. Because again, if you're coming out, if you're debuting with a hard cover, those are going to be expensive and you don't have all of the purchasing options.
I know that you said you haven't had a royalty statement yet. I'm interested once I have all the data to see if audio books or e book sales have gone up. If people are not able to go to a bookstore anymore, if they're going to go to the E book. My sales have always been very solidly on the physical book side.
Lyn: I have no idea. You're right. Very interesting to see once you get an idea.
Mindy: Beyond publishing, talking about the writing experience and what it was like to write, you have been a professional ballet and a modern dancer. You're still a personal trainer, fitness instructor, a yoga instructor. You have a very, very active physical life. So what made you decide I think I want to try writing?
Lyn: I've always been an avid reader. We moved here to the States when I was seven from Taiwan, and one of the ways my mom helped us to read was to go to the library and get books. And from the moment I got my first book, I was hooked. So I read all the time and I still read all the time. But the best thing in my life is having a good meal while reading. Like I don't want to talk to anyone. I just want to read. And so I lived in New York City for many years, like over a decade, and, you know, I was dancing professionally, and when I moved out the city after I got married, I was only in the suburbs. But my friends in the city called the country and they wanted to know what I was doing in the country. Like I'm not in the country. I'm in the suburbs.
So I started a blog just to keep them updated on what I was doing and just, you know, like stories about my life. People just start saying, like how funny they were and what a great writer I was. I was like, I've never taken a writing course before or any writing workshop. I just decided, I woke up on one January 2015 and decided I'm going to write a book. I wrote a book. And it was a very bad book and I wrote it in six months. And then I started querying it in June 2015 without a single person having read it. And then I started googling how to, you know, find an agent. Then I realized I was doing everything wrong, so I joined critique groups and got critique partners, beta readers. I just decided one day I was going to write a book.
Mindy: I think that's awesome, because it's very similar to my own experience. I always wanted to be a writer. I knew that's what I wanted to do. But I also was very dedicated to being practical. I'm a farmer's daughter and, uh, not from a long line of writers. That's not what we do, we’re farmers. I knew that I had to have a job right? I had to have a real job. I had to be able to pay the bills, so I never took any steps like you're saying towards making that a real option. I didn't take classes. I never had any sort of writers group that I attended. I just read a lot, and I really do think that that is the key. People ask me all the time, if you could give any advice to writers, what would you give? And it's very simple. Just read.
Lyn: Exactly. I mean, that's basically how I learned how to write a book, was just reading all my favorite authors and then kind of analyzing like, Okay, how do they introduce the characters? Where is the climax? If it’s a thriller, where do they start giving hints? I basically just study my favorite books, and that's how I learned to write a book. So I don't know anything about the three act structure or Save the Cat. Like I've never read any of that basically, because I read so much and across so many genres that I kind of picked up how to write a book from them.
Mindy: Verbatim. This was my experience. So my first book came out and I had a friend I had met through writers groups that was an adult author, and she sent me a message on Facebook, she said - you could teach a seminar on three act structure. And I wrote back and I was like, That's cool. What's three act structure?
Lyn: Exactly. Somebody said that to me too. Another writer friend was telling me, Oh, you did this, and this and something, in the second act. I was like, I have no idea what you're talking about.
Mindy: I love it. I love it that it is a craft that you really can just absorb. Teach yourself. So I'm curious, since you are also a professional in a very, very different arena. How did you then come to dancing? I'm sure that it was a different route, like we're talking classes from a very young age, right?
Lyn: I was a pianist and on that route where my mom like, entered me in all these contests and I was winning them all and like, you know, I played all through college, and then one day I was auditioning for something and I froze, like in the middle of a classical piece. I can't even remember what it was, but I forgot. And I realized that when you're playing classical piano and you freeze, there's no way out of it. You can't fake your way through. You can't improvise.
And that day I decided I'm not doing this anymore. I decided I was going to focus on dance. I've always danced from a young age, but not seriously. And I decided I was gonna be a dancer because if you freeze on stage, you can just make something up. Nobody will know. My mom said, you know, typical Asian parents, they wanted me to get a real job that pays well. And my mom said, Okay, we'll give you two years after college. We'll help support you. If you don't make it as a dancer in New York City, then you have to get a real job.
I was lucky I did get cast in a bunch of shows and ballet companies and modern dance companies, and I did that. And while I was doing that, I started training people because I needed a job that paid money but was flexible, and I tried waitressing. But you know you're on your feet. You're dancing eight hours a day and then you're on your feet 6 to 7 more hours. It was just too much. And since I knew so much about the body. I got my certification. And then from there I owned a gym in the city, became a fitness instructor and then a yoga instructor. And it's a really great balance to writing I find, because I can get up, go teach a class torture people yell at them or ohm and relax them. And then I come back. My head is cleared because I've done something physical and makes it such a great balance from writing for me.
Mindy: I also played piano. we have a lot in common. I played piano from a very, very young age, and you are right, Boy, when you lose it, it's gone.
Lyn: There's no there's no coming back.
Mindy: You can't find it again. You don't know where you were and you're just sitting there staring at this machine that has 88 buttons on it, and you're just like…
Lyn: I mean, I was lucky. It was an audition and not a concert, and I think that was when I just stood up and I said to them, I’m done. And they're like, Well, you can start over if you want to start again. I was like I'm done and I walked off.
Mindy: There's nothing more intense, but as someone that did competitions and recitals and concerts, those competitions, there is nothing like it. I am from the country. Like there's nothing out here except corn and deer, and we would go to a college campus. You know, it seemed like the biggest city in the world, and you walk into a room and it's you and a panel of judges and a piano.
Lyn: Exactly. And that's it.
Mindy: And you sit down and you better get it freaking right because it's on you and only you and no one is coming to save you like there's that's it.
Lyn: And its classical. So everybody knows exactly what it's supposed to sound like. So if you make a mistake or you make something up, they know.
Mindy: No, there's no getting away from it. And in the competitions that I did, you didn't have your music and they had their music in front of them. So you better deliver. I got out of it earlier. I was in high school, I was getting older, and I wanted to be focusing more on my athleticism. When you play piano that seriously, it's like I would practice three or four hours a day, right?
Lyn: Right, Exactly.
Mindy: No more doing that. But I do think it was so fundamental to my development, even as a small child, to be like, Okay, this is on me and only me. No one is helping me, and I have to do this on my own. And it's terrifying.
Lyn: But also, I think, it made us, I think, prepared for the publishing world a little bit more than maybe other people. I also find that my dancing was because you'd go to cattle calls in your city where there's like hundreds of girls all trying out for one spot, and they just go down the line and say, No, you're too tall, You're too fat, You're too Asian. You're too, you know, white. You're too black or you're too brown. And they just like without even watching or like you can't dance, you know, you suck, and it's just such a you know, they call it a cattle call for a reason. That I think it helped me build up that thick skin for rejections. When it comes to the publishing world, you absolutely must have a thick skin.
Mindy: And you were already operating inside of the entertainment industry where it will kill you if you don't.
Lyn: And same with publishing. I know I talked to A lot of new authors who are like I have to show my work to someone? I don't want to show them. I'm like, Well, that's the whole point of writing a book is that readers are going to review them and most of the time, everybody gets ripped apart in some way. No matter how good your book is, somebody is going to hate it. And if you're not ready to show it to the world and maybe you're not ready for the publishing world.
Mindy: Absolutely. And that's something that I tell people all of the time is that the rejection never stops. You may be accepted by an agent and then a publisher, and then you get published. And now you have however, many people there are in the world possibilities of rejection. So many things, I think, tie into the ability to put yourself on the line. You know, we might be behind the laptop. But those those darts still hurt.
Lyn: People say, Don't read your reviews. I did read them up until I guess, like right after publishing, because then there's just too many, like I didn't want to keep up with it anymore. I actually started doing something on my Instagram. I got the idea from - I don't know if you heard or Sally Hepworth. She's like a domestic thriller. I found her because I saw her video on Instagram where she does these things called One Star Fridays. Well, she'll read them out. She's completely respects whoever rates it. She's just saying This is what they say, kind of relive it, share it with the audience and then it's out. It's out there. So I started doing them, and it's actually very freeing because, you know, you get comments like - this is the worst book I have ever read, and then it just kind of makes you laugh like Oh my God, somebody thinks my book is the worst book that they’ve ever read. Not making fun of the reviewer. I completely respect them for their opinion. Just the fact that they can even write that, um and then I just share it and, you know, people are trying to defend me. I'm like, No, it's okay. I'm okay. It's really fine.
Mindy: I really like that. I think that's really cool. I read my reviews when I was first published. Where I land on reviews is that, you know, good reviews just kind of make you pat yourself on the back and not necessarily continue to push or grow forward as a writer. And bad reviews just make you feel shitty.
Lyn: Unless you can laugh at them, then it's, you know, then it's okay. I'm reading these reviews and they're like, It's completely unbelievable! And then I’m like, Well, yeah, it's a novel!
Mindy: I have had the experience of - and I talked about this with another guest that I had on recently - is that there are some things that, perhaps may be unbelievable, but they're in service of the plot. So, for example, I read a thriller that was set at a school very recently, and it was this very well reviewed book and everyone loved it and thought it was great. It wasn’t YA. It was about the adult staff and I was reading it and getting irritated because I worked in a school for 14 years and so many things about how a school functions and interactions between staff and students are managed and even interactions between staff and staff. No, like no, no, that would never happen. No, that is wrong, you know, and like getting vaguely upset about it and then having to go - It doesn't matter, because No one wants to read a book about the daily operation of a school. It is boring.
Lyn: Yes. But at the same time, I do as a writer try to get like, if I'm writing about school, I'll try to get those details, you know, as correct as possible. I just set a book in Kauai and we went - This is the best thing we ever did in the pandemic. We went to Kaui and lived there for two months earlier this year because we knew we were going to be in lockdown again in New York, and I was like, If you want to be locked down. We might as well just do it in Hawaii. So, you know, we went there and I did research. So I do try to get the details of certain things Like I needed a rescue mission, you know, somebody falls into a river. I realized I got the details of that completely wrong. So if I had published it that way, if somebody read it that knows about Hawaii. They're going to be like, That's not right.
Mindy: I mean, I totally agree. I do the best that I absolutely can to make sure that it is as accurate as it can be, but at the same time. So, for example, you're talking about a rescue mission where someone is falling into the water. You don't have to convince A search and rescue operation person that you know what you're talking about because let's just take a stab. Let’s say that people that work in search and rescue for their professional living, Let's just pretend that's .05% of the population. How many of those .05 are even readers? And then how many of that percentage is actually going to pick up your book? You're not writing it for the professionals to read it and go Damn, she got that right. Like you're writing for the average reader to believe that you know what you're talking about, right?
Lyn: Exactly.
Mindy: But at the same time, you do everything you can to make sure it's right, because, I mean, just for me, it comes down to not being lazy. There will be scenes in a book where a body has been found. The coroner doesn't show up first and take the body. Like no one has showed up and taken pictures. You need to try a little harder.As someone that is not in that profession, I’m looking at it going. I am like 99% sure that's not right.
Lyn: Exactly. You want to get at least the basics right? So that average people read it. They aren't going to be like - that's not right. But I love researching for books, and I always tell people like I try to set books where I want to go. To travel to. And then I'll set up there and then go and do research, and now it becomes a business trip.
Mindy: That’s very smart. I'm actually going to Hawaii next week. Friends from college, a couple of us got divorced right around the same time and we planned a trip to get our funk out. And it got canceled because of Covid. So we ended up being able to put it back together. And next week I’m going to Hawaii.
Lyn: I actually just got back from Hawaii. Last week. I was going to the Kauai writers conference, and then the minute I booked everything, it got canceled. But then my agent sold the book that I set in Hawaii. So I just just decided to go and, you know, just hang out and get the culture and everything again. So it was great. You're gonna have a great time.
Mindy: That's wonderful. I'm excited about it. It's amazing to me how things have opened up for us as authors. You have the ability to go and do this research that adds, like a whole layer - like don't get me wrong. Everything about it is going to be more visceral because you have been there and you know, but um I remember when I was writing my second book, which takes place across like, this apocalyptic version of most of the United States. At some point, they end up in Nebraska, and I'm like, Okay, what the hell does Nebraska look like? They're going to be in Nebraska for, like, one chapter. So am I going to fly to Nebraska? Probably not. I have Google Maps, and I can take my little person and drop them down for the 360 view and look around and be like, this is what Nebraska looks like. Okay, I got it.
Lyn: That's a great thing about the Internet. Now you can google anything. But, you know, my book is actually completely set there, and the stuff that happens, it happens at a specific location during a certain kind of thunderstorm and stuff so that it was great to be there. But I have a book that I'm working on, that's part of is set in Oklahoma, and I'm like, Yeah, I probably won't fly to Oklahoma. I'll do research on it and, you know, ask people who have lived there because it's not a big part of it. But if it was, I probably would if it got sold. I love to travel.
Mindy: I do, too, And it's been hard to not be able to do that lately. So, um and I will say, Actually, it is interesting the things that you pick up on when you are in a space physically like you're there. When I was in Oklahoma, you know, something that I probably never would have seen in pictures or had someone talk about but what my takeaway of it was, and I didn't even consider this - they grow a lot of cotton in Oklahoma, and I didn't know that. And when they harvest it and there's wind, there's literally just cotton everywhere and it's blowing around and there's little like spider webs of cotton sticking in all of the trees. And it's like accumulating in the ditches. And it's just nothing I have ever seen before in my life. It's like a weird little environmental miracle to me, and they're just like, Oh, yeah, I mean, it's just cotton to them.
Lyn: That’s really funny.
Mindy: They think nothing of it.
Lyn: I'm gonna have to file that away for, you know, for future reference.
Mindy: Like I said, I worked in the school, and whenever we have an international student that has never seen snow before and it starts snowing, class just stops and everybody gets to go outside so that this individual gets to experience snow. That's what the Cotton was like for me.
Lyn: Every different area has their own little thing that’s very interesting. And that's also why I love to read books because getting transported to these places and like you might not ever go to. So now I learned something about Oklahoma that's going to stick with me.
Mindy: So let's talk really quick about the book that you have coming out in February. Red Thread of Fate, which has a gorgeous cover. I just discovered it, and it's pretty amazing.
Lyn: It's actually about a kind of family that is not through blood. So a woman named Tam and her husband are about to adopt a little boy from an orphanage in China, and then the husband and his estranged cousin are killed in a freak accident, and she’s suddenly left the guardian of the cousins. A five year old daughter as well as trying to decide if she's going to complete the adoption. And it kind of delves into the adoption process from China and the special bond that the caretakers, the nannies that work in the orphanages have with the children. It's inspired by my husband and my journey, when we adopted our little boy. It's not our story. It's completely different. But the journey itself was inspired by what we went through, and it's just my way of just kind of showing how like families can, you know you're tied together by this red thread. It could be by blood. It could be through adoption or whether it's through a love interest or mother daughter, son, how people are just tied together. I'm very excited about this book.
Mindy: People use the phrase like found family. I feel like it can go.. I'm going to use the phrase deeper than that. But also even a wider net, like I know as someone that grew up in a really small area, very, very tiny community and then worked in the school that I attended as a student. I would have students that were, you know, the Children of my classmates. And even if they were classmates that I had not seen in 15, 20 years, I would look at that student and number one - I immediately know it's their child. But I also have, like this affinity for that person simply because I had a relationship with her parent.
Lyn: Exactly. And that was the point of this book that you know, you have these threads or things that connect you to other people. And a lot of times, you know, it's maybe not family, but you're just drawn to someone for some reason and how you're all just connected by fate somehow. I love this book because I just feel like it gets deeper into a subject that a lot of people don't talk about. And there's also, you know, family secrets. And I think my editor was the one that said it was surprisingly thrilling, and one of the early reviews I got was like, Yeah, there's like elements of suspense and thriller in there and I didn't realize I did that, so it's kind of interesting how people perceived it.
Mindy: It's nice when you achieve something you didn't mean to, right?
Lyn: Yeah. So it was very funny that more than one person said that. And I remember when I was querying this book one of the agents said to me, You wrote a really fast paced thriller and I'm going, What are you talking about? I didn't write a thriller. I was like, It's more women's fiction. And now that my editors said that I’m like, Oh, I guess there are elements of thriller-ish in there.
Mindy: It's really funny because I've had the experience of having my books read by college classes and I'll go in and I'll speak to them and occasionally someone will be like, I loved how you used the elements of the Furies in this and you wove in all of this Greek mythology and I'm like, I really, really didn’t mean to. I would love to just nod sagely and be like, Yes, I'm glad you picked up on that, and I'm just like I meant to do that. I'm really honest. I'm just like it is really cool that you think I'm that smart.
Lyn: Like they say, once you write, the book it’s out there. It becomes the reader's book and how they want to interpret it.
Mindy: Totally, totally agreed. Last thing, why don't you let listeners know where they can find you online and where they can buy your books?
Lyn: I made it easy. You can just find me anywhere at Lynn Liao Butler, just all three names together on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook. It's all the same. My website is LynnLiaoButlerdotcom. So I just made it easy for everybody. And my books are basically sold anywhere. You can buy books online and book stores there in a lot of airports right now. So, like I said from Hawaii I laid over in LAX and I found my book in five different kiosks at the airport, and I was just literally running through the airport taking pictures of myself in the book. They must have been like, What is this woman doing?? It's really exciting.
Mindy: I read a story one time about Neil Gaiman moving through an airport. I don't remember where he was, but he stopped and there was, I think it was his Norse Mythology book and he just like a stealth signed the copies. And then he He was like sitting at his gate and he tweeted, You know, Hey, I signed all the copies at this location, this wing of the airport and, like, people started running.
Lyn: Yeah, I'm not at that level yet.
Mindy: No, me neither. But he was just like he was like, Oh God, like, is there some sort of like red alert terror alarm? It's like No, it was your tweet.
Lyn: That’s hysterical.
Mindy: Writer Writer Pants on Fire is produced by Mindy McGinnis. Music by Jack Korbel. Don't forget to check out the blog for additional interviews, writing advice and publication tips at Writer Writer Pants on Fire dot com. If the blog or podcast have been helpful to you or if you just enjoy listening, please consider donating. Visit Writer Writer Pants on Fire dot com and click “support the blog and podcast” in the sidebar.
