Nova McBee On Getting A Film Deal First & Having An Editorial Agent

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 Nova McBee author of the YA trilogy that begins with Calculated, which is pitched as Count of Monte Cristo meets Mission Impossible. Calculated is available now, Simulated is the sequel, and then there is Activated, which is the third book, which will be upcoming. So Nova has a very, very interesting story in that her publishing journey is very much backwards. So if you would like to talk a little bit about what that means. 

Nova: When I say that – my agent was like, who are you? This doesn't happen. And it's not normal. You're not normal. I mean, it's true. Everyone has a completely different path when it comes to anything really, but especially publishing. Some people can get deals within a week and others take seven years. The backwards journey is I got a film deal first, right after I got my agent. And then I got an audio book deal. And then lastly, I got a publishing deal. That is completely backwards. 

We have to talk about our journey. And I remember when I first started writing books, how hesitant I was to say, I'm a writer or I'm an author. You feel like you have to get it somewhere for that to be spoken out. It was a challenge in me and I, I needed to start speaking it out to all my friends and family that didn't know I was doing it–and even strangers–before I had my agent before I had my publishing deal. And because of that, I ended up meeting a girl who was living in China at the same time as me. And she happened to be an up and coming producer. Her father was a producer. So we got to talking about my book that I was still pitching to agents at the time.

And she's like, wow, that sounds like right up my alley. She's like, I'm actually working with these producers right now that are looking for something almost exactly like that. I would like to read it, to see if it's worth passing on to them. You know, how do you say no to that? You're like, okay. And, you don't know where it's going. I was rejected for two and a half years at this point with agents. Let's just try at this point. I gave it to her. Didn't hear back for a while. And then I got an agent and we signed. Maybe three weeks after we signed – on a different book, by the way – and then I get this call from the other two male producers in California. And they're like, this book has gone through our entire team and we need to sign you before anyone else does.

We need the rights to this. And my agent was like, who are you? And what book are they talking about? So she's like, well, I better read this book, you know, which was Calculated. And so she read it in a day and that started this very unique journey of just negotiations and learning about the industry and what that means. And then she's like, well, then we have to put down the other book and we need to focus on Calculated, getting Calculated  a publishing deal. She kind of threw it out to all of her contacts and it was taking again a long time, but she had put it out to some of her audio book contacts and the audio just responded first. And they're like, Hey, we're super interested. We really like it. We wanna sign you. That’s my backward publishing journey. I think it took almost a year.

This new imprint contacted us. They'd heard about the book and they contacted us and said, Hey, we're starting a brand new YA imprint. And we would like to have the chance to read Calculated to consider it as the lead title. And we were not sure because it was a brand new imprint, a very unique style of publisher. They're sort of a mix between independent and traditional. They do both. They're very fascinating and very innovative and very cool to work with because they are so flexible and willing to try everything. I've just had the best experience with how awesome they are, like truly team players. And so they read it, they loved it. We signed that deal. It went backwards very much. 

Mindy: So I think it's really interesting that you had this relationship that got you a film deal. It can feel like it is almost a barrier in some ways, because people are like, I don't have connections. I don't have the things that I need in order to make that happen. I understand that feeling because I had heard for so long that networking is so important. Networking in this industry is a big deal. I am a farmer's daughter from Ohio. I was not going to have contacts in publishing. And I got into the industry by cold querying, my agent picking me up and that was in 2010. And so I've just been building since then. It's been real work, but, but because of the networking that I do, like I did have an in, in the sense that I was a librarian at a public school. So I had connections in the library world that could help me then promote the book, but all of that, networking with other authors and agents and editors, knowing who you are that does take time to build.

Nova: Exactly. And one thing that I didn't mention was while I was cold querying, which is how I got my agent, I actually was accepted into PitchWars. And before Calculated, actually. Pintip Dunn  was my mentor and I didn't know anybody in publishing. I had nobody. I started out as like, you know, zero contacts, like you, in the industry. I was actually living in China at the time with zero contacts. Rachel Griffin, who's the author of The Nature of Witches, we had met on one of my visits back to Seattle. And she's a friend of mine. She was like, yeah, I'm gonna try, try this thing called Pitch Wars. And I'm like, oh, I am so not into contests. But, then I felt like I was supposed to do it. In the midst of that, there was an agent who was really interested in working with me, but I just felt like it was wrong.

And I was like, well, I'm gonna try to do Pitch Wars first. And then I got in and then the networking, like you're talking about it, sort of exploded because you meet everyone in Pitch Wars. My year was just incredible. Everybody was so encouraging. So supportive, all wanted to be friends, all wanted to boost, all wanted to read each other's work. I was like, what is this goodness? Because everyone was just pouring into each other and boosting each other. And it was like the most fruitful year ever, where I just got to meet all these people, it was just sort of placed upon me. And yet I didn't get my agent through that either. You know, my agent was cold querying. All the Pitch Wars agent requests didn't pan out. Nobody wanted Calculated,. And so I, in the midst of that, I wrote another book called The Never House. And I started querying that book and that's the book my agent read and signed me on. And she had no clue about Calculated.

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Mindy: I think it's really interesting too, that we talk about publishing and the different paths of publishing, but I also wanna point out, you did get your agent through cold querying. I know people hate it. I know people hate the process. I know that it is soul sucking. I know that it is hard, but I was querying for 10 years. You gotta get punched in the face, if you wanna be able to move forward in this business. I was rejected for 10 years. 

Nova: That is intense. Mine was two and a half. I watched people give up after like 10 rejections and I'm like, yeah, what? But what? No. And, people do give up. And, but in the midst of that, I was actually growing stronger. It sucks, like rejection does not feel good, but in the midst of that, this article popped up and it was like this actress. I don't even remember who it was, but she was like, if you can't handle rejection, you will never be able to handle success. And I was just like, dang, that's so good. Because in the midst of that, like, if you're not really sure you're supposed to be somewhere, it's so easy to get bullied back out of it. You know, you learn to stand your ground and who you are and what you want and what you think you're supposed to be doing. You know? And it just, for me, it was a good season where I was like, no, it doesn't matter what they say. I'm supposed to do this. I'm gonna write books and I'm gonna get that publishing deal. And it's gonna happen. I don't know when, but it's gonna happen. 

Mindy: You have to build that thick skin. There's no doubt about it. And one of the reasons why I was getting rejected, yes, for 10 years, I wrote four different novels. The fifth one was the one that finally got picked up. I deserved to be rejected for 10 years. I didn't want to process feedback. I didn't wanna share my work with anybody. I didn't wanna have critique partners. Like I didn't wanna do the actual work. I wanted to write a book and have everyone love it. And tell me it was a genius. That is not how this shit works. I had to basically grow the fuck up. So I deserved all the rejections I got and it did make me obviously a better writer. It pushed me out into sharing my work with other people, processing feedback, learning the industry, discovering trends, all of the different things. Yes, it did build that thick skin. 

And you will be rejected. Once you get an agent, your rejection is not over. You're gonna be rejected by publishers. And then you will be rejected by your readers. Like that's just all there is to it. I used to read my reviews. I don't anymore. I simply don't see the point. Good reviews make you rest on your laurels. Bad reviews make you feel like shit. There's nothing you can do about them. You can't respond to bad reviews. That's poor author behavior. So there's literally nothing you can do. I didn't write this book for you. 

Nova: Yeah, no, I think that's so good to talk about, actually. You had to step into like letting people see your work and getting feedback. That happened to me too. And the first time I shared my work with somebody outside of my family and they were like, yeah, I'm not really feeling it. I'm like, oh… But then, but then I'm like, well, why? And they were like, well, because of this and this, and I was like, oh yeah, I can see that. Once you receive feedback and have awesome critique partners, it's like gold. The minute I show them, they're gonna see something that I'm missing. And then I'll be able to go back and make it even better. It's such a powerful stage in the process. It is. 

Mindy: And it preps you for that larger, it may not be a rejection, but it feels like we're when you get your letter from your editor. You get an edit letter. You open it up, you read it. And it's one of two things. You either cry or you get pissed. I get pissed. Like, that's just who I am. I'll read the edit letter. And it's like, you don't understand me. You don't get what I'm trying to do. I usually don't return to it for as long as a week, sometimes two. And then you open it up and you read it again. And you're like, yeah. Okay, fine. 

Because the truth is every time I turn in a book, I know exactly what's wrong with it. When I get that feedback returned that says - Yeah, you were right. You didn't do this good. It's just like, oh yeah? You're just defensive. You know where your weaknesses are. And having them pointed out does not make you a kinder, gentler, more lovely person.

Nova: That rejection keeps coming. And, and then, you know, you'll get reviews on that same book, an author, Shannon Dittemore, we were talking right before Calculated came out. She told me the same thing. She's like, I don't read any reviews. And she's like, I just advise you not to do it. Well, that's really hard to do for the first time author. Right? I did. So of course I read my reviews. Thankfully, the ones that came in right away were good. Like really good. And I was encouraged. 

I had a really cool experience with Pitch Wars when it comes to edit letters, because Pintip Dunn, she was incredible. She marked out all the places that she loved, which I think is the best kind of critique. Here's all the places that you are so strong. And this is why I love the book. This is why I chose you as a mentee. And here's where we can make it really stronger. Calculated, has a dual timeline. And it was already pretty tight, but she pressed me in that. She's like, you can make this better. She's like, you need to pull information that I need in the present from the past and vice versa. The more you pull these two together and you stretch that information. Just those nuggets of truth that she really passed on to me, just like really built me as an author as well. 

And my agent, her name is Amy Jameson. She's absolutely incredible as well. She launched Shannon Hale's career, and Jessica Day George. And she's an editor too. So before my work goes to the publisher, she reads it for me. She doesn't give me a huge edit letter, but oh, I will have comments all the way down. She tells me, I'm your toughest critic, but I'm also your greatest supporter. She goes through the whole book with me. And I don't know if that's part of her job description, but she just believes in her clients.

Mindy: I have a very, very good relationship with my editor. For one thing we've been working together since 2015 at this point.

Nova: Is that at Harper Teen, are you with Harper?

Mindy: I’m at Katherine Tegen, which is a branch of Harper. So I'm with Ben Rosenthal and he's been with me since 2015. We've actually worked together a lot and that's kind of rare and we have a wonderful relationship. So my agent is pretty hands off in the editorial area because she knows that I have a great relationship with my editor and that he and I are gonna hash that out. And we work really well together now. I've also been with my agent for 12 years. So in the beginning she was a little more hands on, but now that I'm a little more established and I have my own relationships within the publishing industry, everyone knows that I am not going to turn in junk and that I am going to fix whatever you say needs to be fixed. Like I am going to work my ass off. People know that about me. So I already have that reputation, so she doesn't have to guide me editorially like she did in the beginning. 

Nova: That's so true. And every publishing house will be different, you know? Are all of your books with Katherine Tegen? 

Mindy: With the exception of my two fantasy novels that are with Putnam? Yes. 

Nova: That's amazing. Wow. I'm impressed. 

Mindy: I love, I love the imprint. Also of interest - I've had the same cover designer for all of my books. 

Nova: Wow. Are you kidding me? 

Mindy: No, I'm not. The ones that are with Putnam aren’t her, but yes. 

Nova: You know, just having a team that you know, and that you trust. That's so powerful as well. It's just so cool. Cause then you guys know how to work together. You know, each other's systems and you can speak freely with each other. I'm assuming. 

Mindy: Oh yeah. Very. I would like to talk about using the classics and in your particular case, the Count of Monte Cristo, as a launching point for your story. So is it a story that you've always loved? Like what led you there? 

Nova: I didn't know anything about the industry when I started Calculated. So I was living in China and then also, I've lived abroad for a long time. I've also lived in Europe, in the MiddleEast. And I actually read the count of Monte Cristo when I was living in France. It's intense. 

Mindy: I've read it.

Nova: But you're so steeped in the story that it stays with you for so long. It just like completely captivated my mind. And I went through a whole period of time when I knew I wanted to be a writer where I went through a classic period. I'm from Seattle. And there's quite a large community of people who are anti-trafficking, you know, Seattle's a hub for that. So I had come back to the states for a little trip and I had gone to this trafficking meeting and I was just sitting in my living room afterwards thinking like, what if this story happened today? Where would it be? It would have to be a super powerful country. 

And at the time I was living in China, I was like, oh, what if it happened in China? Who would be taken? Would it be a guy or a girl? I was like, oh, it'd definitely be a girl. And like, the story just started evolving in my head. What if I could do a spinoff? How would she transform into all of these identities? Cause like in the count of Monte Cristo, he has more than one identity. He's not just the count of Monte Cristo, he has multiple identities. In one morning. I had the whole story in my head, but it took two and a half, three years to write that. And it was my first novel. 

Mindy: It's pretty fascinating how you can take these disparate things in your life. Like you were saying, it was a book that you had read and then living abroad and then being involved in this, this trafficking concept and those things all coalesce. Last thing, why don't you let people know where, where they can find all of your books and where they can find you online. 

Nova: Of course you can buy them on Amazon, but they're also through any bookstore. You can order them through any bookstore online. And my local bookstores, the Edmund's Bookshop and Third Place Books, you can order them there. There's signed copies in those bookstores. I'm on Instagram and, and Facebook. You can find me there and Twitter, I pop in on sometimes, but not, not usually. And yeah, my third book comes out in April and there's exciting film news about to come in the next few weeks. So I'm looking forward to announcing all of that and hope people like my books!

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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.

Mary Kole: A Former Agent & Editor On Processing Critique

Mindy: Today’s guest is Mary Kole, a freelance editor, author and blogger whose goal is to help writers of children’s literature create compelling stories for young readers. A former California and New York literary agent for the Andrea Brown Literary Agency and Movable Type Literary, Mary has spoken at over 75 writer’s conferences and workshops across the world, has been deeply involved with organizations including the SCBWI, Writer’s Digest, and NaNoWriMo. Her blog on children’s writing and publishing, Kidlit.com, receives an average of 17,000 hits per month. It has been named one of the “101 Best Websites for Writers” by Writer’s Digest every year since its inception in 2009. Her book, Writing Irresistible Kidlit has sold 11,000 copies. Mary has also worked as a freelance writer for newspapers and magazines, including the Los Angeles Times, and was named one of 20 writers to follow on Twitter in 2017. She currently works as a freelance editor with over 500 clients per year.

Mindy: Mary joined me today to talk about making the switch from agenting to editorial work, and how a relocation spawned her editorial company.

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Mindy:             You were previously an agent in the kid's publishing sector. So what made you decide to branch out of agenting and onto different avenues?

Mary:               I would love to tell you that I had this all planned out, but it was a personal decision in that I met my husband and he wanted to move to the Midwest, which is where he's from. I was out in California, that's where I'm from, moved to New York city to agent. I had agented pretty successfully from California, Andrea Brown. Um lot of the agents there are based out on the West Coast and she's made a great go of it. So, but I wanted to be boots on the ground. I really love New York city. My stepdad is from there. I'd always been traveling there. I wanted to try living there. And I met somebody at Book Expo, romantically and decided to move out to New York. They were in New York. We decided to move in together right away because that's what New York real estate prices do for a relationship.

Mary                And they make you make dumb decisions. Of course, we had basically nothing in common except for like the high of Book Expo America. And pretty soon we broke up. So I was just hanging out in Brooklyn, I met my soon to be husband in that neighborhood. So if I had never moved to New York for one romantic relationship, I probably never would have met my husband hanging around in Brooklyn. But as soon as he and I decided that we were getting serious, we wanted to start a family, we made just a boring cost of living decision to move to Minneapolis, which is where he's from. I just didn't want to agent from, not New York city. Like I said, Andrew Brown and Co. Do really well with it, but I just didn't feel like I could represent clients as well as I could have when I was out in New York. I really grew to love it and I decided what can I take from that work? That was my favorite part, which was working one on one with, with clients on the writing craft itself. I hung out a shingle as a freelance editor and a, this'll be my, my eighth year in business editing and I'm just getting started in terms of what I do with and for writers. I think it was a great turn for me in my career.

Mindy:             So speaking of New York city and the centralized East coast feel of publishing, as you were saying, Andrea Brown, they are centered out in the West coast. But most of publishing is in fact in New York city and a lot of people don't realize that you can be an author and kind of be located anywhere. It's not a necessity for you to move to New York city. Thank goodness. Because my income certainly couldn't handle that. But to be an agent because there is so much face to face involved in what you do as an agent, working lunches, et cetera. Is that something that you can speak to just about the New York city centricity of publishing?

Mary:               Again, there are agents outside of New York. There's even an agency here in Minneapolis. I did not elect to join them because again, I think you have to know yourself. Some people do really, really well outside of New York and some publishers do really, really well outside of New York. I was an intern at Chronicle books in San Francisco, which is a beloved publisher and that plays on the same playing field as a New York publishers. It has its own kind of quirky voice out there but definitely holds its own. That being said, you're right. I, New York city is very much the epicenter for me. It was very much an issue of seeing people at social events, seeing somebody across from you on the F train, the way the Andrea Brown did their editor visits... Because I think an agent is only really as good as their contacts, right? So you have to get to know all of the editors.

Mary:               The way Andrea Brown would do it is we would take these week long trips we would just book out, Hey Harper or Tuesdays Random House Wednesdays and we would go and troop to editor after editor cubicle after cubicle and sit down with people. And I definitely got a lot out of it, but at the end of the day it really did turn into meeting after meeting of, well I'm looking for literary quality and commercial appeal. You know, because you only have 15 minutes with somebody, you're not really gonna get to know their tastes 100%. So for me, why I thrived being in New York was these kinds of chance meetings or the ability to go to a deeper lunch, which wasn't just this kind of roll call meeting style. I do think that there are some limitations to the just New York mentality of publishing being centered there. It's kind of an old school industry and I think especially on the West coast, there's a lot of progress being made toward digital content. The film industry is very LA focused on the opposite side of the spectrum. I feel like the two could be better bedfellows the East coast and West coast. Because I, I do feel like the two industries have a lot to potentially teach one another because at its heart they really are similar. We're trying to reach people and entertain people and tell stories to people.

Mindy:             I think it is interesting that the two, the two industries which share so much and including talent pools are so diametrically geographically opposed.

Mary:               They should all come to Minnesota. Come see me!

Mindy:             Well, I'm in Ohio. So maybe we could do a push for that. Like something really central.

Mary:               Ohio, they're surprisingly on East coast time. I did a lot of work with Writer's Digest based in Cincinnati. I always had to reset and remind myself that y'all are actually on East coast time.

Mindy:             We are on East coast time, but we very much think of ourselves as Midwesterners. Trust me on that. Whenever you see any kind of meme or anything about the Midwest, everyone in Ohio is nodding their head.

Mary:               I buy that. Yeah. And one of my former clients, Lindsay Ward, lives out in Cleveland. I've actually done a lot of great conferences in the Buckeye state.

Mindy:             Ohio is loaded with writers and Writers Digest, since you bring it up, is centered in Cincinnati, Ohio. It's always been interesting to me that Writer's Digest is there. It originally started, believe it or not, as a farming and writing endeavor. Their parent company is F & W Media and that was what it was. It was farmers and writers.

Mary:               That is what I found out because, so my book Writing Irresistible Kid Lit is published by Writer's Digest Books, which is of course a subsidiary of F & W media, or at least it was until everybody went bankrupt and now it's Penguin Random House. Hello, new overlords. When I first started seeing F&W on my contracts and my checks, I was like, what? What is, what does that stand for? I looked it up and bot the farmer connection that I was like, Oh, Ohio. Now I get it.

Mindy:             Farmers and writers. We're called the heart of it all. Like that's our motto. I think we should just be called farmers and writers.

Mary:               What else is there to do after a long day of farming? Write the next great American novel.

Mindy: Coming up, Mary’s book, Writing Irresistible Kid Lit, and the joy of ushering a project from inception to publication alongside an author.

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Mindy:             So you mentioned your book Writing Irresistible Kid Lit and that is a craft book that's available from Writer's Digest. So why don't you tell us a little bit about that book and why having a book specifically geared toward writing for kids is necessary if you're an author and that's your niche?

Mary:               I had this blog Kidlit.dot com and I had been blogging there since 2009 with all kinds of advice, not just craft. But publishing advice, industry advice for people who want to write and publish a kids' books, which goes from about picture book to the young adult novel. I got a lot of traction with my blog. I got a lot of exposure and a lot of people interested in it, especially when I was agenting. When you're agenting people kind of glom onto you and you know, you get a lot of action on your blog and a lot of social media followers and all of that. But I was able to parlay that into a book deal. And for me, having a book deal, a nonfiction book deal was very legitimising. It was a big priority for me. Not just for myself and sort of my brand as Mary Kole writing knowledge, teacher, guru, if you will.

Mary:               I hate that word by the way. I would never douchily self-ascribe it to myself, you know, but just to establish myself in the industry as somebody with enough to say that could go into a book. But for me it was also a really wonderful process of writing what I call just the best book report that I've ever written because I excerpted 35 novels popular at the time from the middle grade and young adult shelves to sort of make up the backbone of examples in my book. I thought it would be very useful for writers not to just hear me say something, but for me to then point it out in examples from the shelves because those are the people that are actually applying this stuff and creating great fiction. It was my deep, deep pleasure to read all of these books, select the quotes that I wanted to use, you know, organize them.

Mary:               It was like writing two different books and I would love to do it again. It's been a long time since Writing Irresistible Kid Lit came out, but I still hear that it is out there helping people and I love that. I'd probably focus on a less niche topic next. So I'm really happy that I got to speak to the children's book audience, but now I don't just work with children's books in terms of my client mix. With Mary Kole editorial, my, my editing business, I advise my clients all the time, like become the King or Queen of your niche. I would try and, where I am, blow it out a little bit wider and do something that compliments not only children's books, but also takes me out of that niche.

Mindy:             I remember very fondly your kid lit blog and site because I was querying, right when you were really kinda hitting the peak of being a children's agent that honestly everybody wanted. You were definitely the example of A listers that people were looking at and I relied upon your blog and your posts and your tweets because I was querying for roughly 10 years and it was my own fault. I wasn't doing the work. I very much wanted to be the writer that is in the ivory tower and just writes something so awesomely moving that agents are tripping over themselves to get ahold of it. I didn't want to have to do the work of writing a query letter and learning those skills because it's a different sort of writing. It is a piece of marketing. Finally, I woke up and I joined a forum that doesn't exist anymore, but at the time I joined a forum. I ended up learning so much and I fully credit it with teaching me finally how to write a query letter, but during that time period, I relied very heavily on a kid lit.com so just out of curiosity, is kidlit.com still a functioning blog then?

Mary:               Yeah, it is a very much a functioning blog. I post frequency sometimes fluctuates, but I try to post there once or twice a month. I was recently doing a workshop series, so people submitted novel openings, middle grade and young adult and I kind of deconstructed them. It's been over 10 years of kid lit and so I do have about five or 600 articles on there that are pretty evergreen. It's given me a lot of really good organic search optimization, marketing, you just can't buy that sort of thing because the blog is so old. I went through and optimized everything, so the blog is still very much serving up kind of topical articles to people. I'm going to keep it alive and kicking for as long as I can just because it sits up among many resources for writers and that's still a really big point of pride for me. I'm, I'm really happy that it can help people.

Mindy:             So you've mentioned a couple of times your editorial service, which is simply Mary Kole Editorial and obviously you have plenty of expertise after being an agent for as long as you were. But why don't you tell us a little bit then about your editorial services and what you offer and what you work on?

Mary:               Happily. So when I moved here to Minnesota, like I said, I wanted to work with writers directly in a way that wasn't dependent on me being in New York. I started Mary Kole Editorial. You can find it at MaryKole.com And that is Kole with a K. I provide services for children's writers but also people outside of the children's book space. I do a lot of business in picture books, but I also do a lot with novels and that for me is kind of the, the dream edit for me is a big juicy novel that I could really sink into. I'd done a lot with memoir, which I love because a lot of the fictional storytelling principles still apply to memoir. It's just the source material is a little bit different. I do everything from, Hey, let's get on the phone and talk about your idea and see if there's something there, to query letter edits, to what I call the submission package edit, which is very popular, which is the query letter, a synopsis and first 10 pages. Pretty much what you'd need to send to an agent or a publisher.

Mary:               I work a lot with Indie clients where I'm like the last line of defense before they upload their manuscripts onto KDP or whatever. I do really a lot of high level overviews and also really in depth sort of line editing, developmental editing where I'm commenting on the creative sides of the project, the craft, the characters, the plot, the sentence level voice, word choice and syntax stuff. So I pretty much, my menu of services is really long, but that evolved based on what I got requests for over the years and so it's not like I offer just two things. I think at first blush some people might be a little bit intimidated away by the website because there is so much there, but I've tried to organize it by category or what do you have that you're working with? Is it just an idea or is it a complete manuscript?

Mary:               So I do a ton. It's my full time job. I work 50 to 60 hours a week. I have a team of nine people now supporting me altogether. We are the Good Story Company. It's really grown. I'm, I'm my family's breadwinner. My husband was able to step back at his job. It's been an amazing, amazing business for me creatively for my family, for my team. I've developed some awesome client relationships. I have probably thousands of writers that I've worked with. I do a lot like 500, 600 projects per year. Some of those are query letters. They're not all novels or I'd never sleep, but I just get to see people progress through their writing journeys. You know, it's, if I synced up with you 10 years ago when you were still querying and now you know, seeing where you are as a multi published author, it's like, Oh, you know, like it's so fulfilling for me to kind of see people through the realization of their dream. Really. I mean at the heart of it, that's what we're really talking about here. It's the joy and the privilege of my life to, to be in that business.

Mindy:             Oh absolutely. I agree. And I can understand the feeling a little bit because I have participated in Pitch Wars as a mentor a few times and one of my mentees actually shares an editor with me and a publishing house and her book comes out March 3rd which is the same day my next book comes out. And it's just so cool that now one of my mentees is a publishing sister with me now and we have a book coming out on the same day. And so I understand that feeling of like almost like a proud parent where you're like, Oh, you did it!

Mary:               Right. Yeah. And it's just like whenever, whenever somebody is successful, you know, I, I get these wonderful emails and they're like, Oh, because of you, because of you. That's not the approach that I take at all. It's like, you know, I was there on the sidelines and yeah, I gave you some advice. The advice was easy for me to give because I have worked with thousands of writers at this point, but it's you that ran the marathon, you did the hard thing. I just gave you a couple of pointers along the way. Now if only my husband would listen to my advice that would be so great.

Mindy:             I feel the same way. I offer,I do query critiques on on my blog, which is Writer, Writer Pants on Fire that goes alongside with this podcast. And I do query critiques there every Saturday and I will have people reach out to me. You know, they'll be like, you critiqued my query six months ago, eight months ago, two years ago, and I just wanted to tell you that I signed with an agent today and thank you so much. And I feel similarly and that it's like, you know, I can give advice all day long - and I do. It's up to you whether you are going to do something with it because plenty of people, and I'm sure that you've run across this too as well from an editorial standpoint. I will give editorial advice and I get the response was like, well, I don't think that you understand what I was trying to do there. And it's like, okay. I mean if that's how you feel, but you know, you, you paid me for the advice, you got the advice. What you do with it is up to you. If you want to ignore it because you think, I don't understand what you were trying to do there, that's fine. You go for it. But it's the people that actually internalize criticism in a way that is not defensive and make changes. They're the ones that actually, as you were saying, they finish that marathon.

Mary:               I can count on one hand, probably in the last eight years, how many times I've gotten that defensive reaction and I think, I would imagine this might be the case for you too, but people tend to self select a little when they come to an editor. I've only had a couple of people that were coming for the gold star for the validation and not actually looking for critique. There were a couple people who were definitely surprised that I wasn't like, Oh my gosh, this is the most amazing thing I've ever read. You should publish it immediately. But I think for the most part, I've been very lucky in my client base that most people come to learn. We haven't always agreed on everything, and I have no ego baked into the work that I do. I don't pretend that I'm the end all and be all, and I just say, you know, if, if we disagree on this, that, or the other issue, take the wisdom, leave the rest.

Mary:               I don't expect people to agree with me 100% that being said, I've been very, very, very lucky in, in the type of people that I think are either drawn to me specifically or are drawn to my work or are drawn to hiring a freelance editor. My prices are at the top of the, the potential range for editors and that is completely intentional to be honest. I bring in a lot of people who are ready and willing to make the investment and they realize that it's going to be a process rather than the people just looking for a couple of cheap pieces of advice. Honestly, you'd be surprised when I was an agent, I would get that reaction so much more often than I do now as an editor than as an agent. I wasn't actively giving critique really. I was just giving yes and no answers.

Mary:               You know, it was very binary. A rejection didn't always land very well and I would hear about what an idiot I am and how this is the next big thing and how I've missed out. And then of course all of those emails would be going to like Mr. Brown because the person hadn't done any of their research. So they were like, they saw Andrea Brown. And that wasn't even like meant for me, but it went to my inbox. So there were definitely some dicey interactions with writers who maybe hadn't done all their homework. I could not be happier with with the relationships and the clients I have now because I really, for the most part, am working with writers who came to learn and they're serious about it.

Mindy:             You mentioned too, a good point about the editorial relationship. Even my editor will tell you, my editor is fantastic. He is Ben Rosenthal at Katherine Tegan and I love him. I think we've done, Oh boy, six or seven books together now. We've done quite a few. I really just like him so much and, and we appreciate and understand each other, but we also don't always see eye to eye. And a lot of people, and this is a question I get a lot when I'm talking to people that are not in the publishing industry and they're like, well, what are some things that like your editor has made you change that you didn't want to change? And I'm like, Oh, you're misunderstanding the editorial relationship. It's like, that's not how this works and they really want me to have this. Oh, I had this horrible editor one time story and I'm just like, no.

Mindy:             All of my editors have been fantastic and I know that there are some editors out there that are not so great. I'm aware of that, but I've had three different editors. Bottom line is it's your story. If you don't want to change this, if you think that this particular point has been hit hard enough, I'll back off. You know you're in charge here, it's your story. I want you to be happy with it. I would say very rarely if never, have I ever gotten an editorial letter that I was like, yeah, 100% everything you said is correct and I will be changing it, but once you get over that initial knee jerk reaction of, Oh, I have to do all this work. Now, most of the time, 90 to 95% of that editorial letter is right on target.

Mary:               I talk about receiving feedback a lot, not only because I give out feedback all day and I want it to be well received, but I think there are definite stages. It's like the five stages of a feedback receipt where I don't even check in with writers until like a solid week has gone by. I like send my notes. Not that my notes are devastating, but it very much is sort of a fall over, dust yourself off and then kind of figure out what you're working with sort of thing. I think there are a lot of emotions that are just inherent to the process that people who maybe haven't gotten feedback before or haven't been edited maybe won't be prepared for. But I swear to you there is at least one Mary Kole voodoo doll somewhere that a client made in the heat of the moment after they got their feedback and then they were like, Oh nevermind, Okay. I see where you know, we can find some common ground here. And then the voodoo doll kind of like goes in the drawer.

Mindy:             There absolutely are stages of reaction to your editorial letter. And this is something that I have talked with other writers about and aspiring writers is extensively because people do ask, you know, what is that like? And the answer is like, usually when you get your editorial letter, your immediate reaction is that, you know, usually yeah, you're a little bit defensive. A lot of people say that they either cry or they drink and I find that to be pretty true.

Mary:               A lot of people do both.

Mindy:             I actually have a friend that buys an edit cake, like a sheet cake, and she reads her editorial letter while eating the entire cake. And that is her, her coping mechanism. My own is that I tend to skim the editorial letter and I'm usually just fed up and disgusted by the sixth page and I'm just like, alright, I'm out. And then I come back to it like three or four days later and I'm kind of prepped for some of the things. And the immediate reaction usually is defensiveness. And the reason why it's defensive is because every single time I already know what's going to be in that editorial letter. I already know what I didn't do as well as I can. And so when I have that confirmed to me, I'm just like goddammit.

Mary:               Absolutely on everything that you're saying. And I also eat my fair share of feelings, but I do the same thing. Like I think it's universal. I do the squint read and I'm very lucky that I have people on my team who work with me on projects, not the actual editing. But I have at least one proofreader to research comp titles and proofread a manuscript before I get to it. And we often kind of, if I'm working to solve a difficult editorial problem, I can kind of bounce things off. While there are a piece of feedback that I know I'm going to give that are maybe going to land in a difficult way. Sometimes if I get an email back from a client, you can just tell their reaction from how long the email and like how many sections and subsections there are. And I'm famous for doing like the squint read. If I'm nervous about something and you just know what certain projects you are going to pitch them on, something pretty difficult either to hear or difficult to execute, you're going to make a recommendation that you worry about how it'll land. And so what I get those long emails, I just kind of like squint and then I look at how they signed off, you know? So if it's like with all due respect, you know, I'm like, Oh,

Mindy:             Oh no.

Mary:               I give it to the person that worked with me on that project to read and I'm like, give it to me straight. Does this person hate my guts? I feel like there's a lot of emotion. All parts of the process.

Mindy:             My editors, I've heard other editors say, yeah, they, they hold their breath when they send the letter. We hold our breath when we open it and I get that completely. It is a fragile working relationship. It's an interesting mix when you're in publishing or any creative endeavor, I'm sure where you're dealing with emotions as a part of your work. It's a really interesting intersection of the creative and the emotions. And at the end of the day, this is your job.

Mary:               Of course the book comes out and everybody is friends and you're like, Oh my God, I love you, love you. You know, and then there are like ten emails in your history that are like, "with all due respect." We feel emotions as creative people. We write emotions, we anticipate reader emotions. You know, if we're thinking about our readers, we try to create emotions in the reader as we tell story. It's not software development.

Mindy:             We're not talking about lines of code here where there's absolute answer. You know, it's, it's all subjective.

Mary:               That's what makes the job so interesting though. That's what I love. I mean, I, I never show up to the same day twice. I've learned so many interesting things and write about so many interesting topics and heard so many interesting voices and just connected with so many people. I absolutely love it.

Mindy:             Yeah, me too. Me too. Even though there are days when so many writers that I know, we just look at each other and are like, "this industry." And it just encompasses so much. That sentence.

Mary:               Oh it's a horrific industry. No, don't get me wrong. So Good Story Company is sort of my umbrella brand, Mary Kole Editorial. Obviously every project has me on it as the principal and that's not so good for the life. Because of the number of projects that I work on. So I have gotten a team underneath me, Good Story Company. It was kind of my brand pivot where I could still stay involved and still stay at the helm and still do cool projects and maybe set up, you know, like a podcast, which I did. Good story podcast and the Crit Collective, which is a forum. It's like online dating for writers where you can post a call out into the ether for a critique partner and see what happens. So Good Story has allowed me to take a step back and kind of activate my team a little bit more. So we're all kind of creating social media content and blogging.

Mary:               Everybody's kind of chipping in. So we have a Instagram channel and our Instagram strategy is very much posting inspirational quotes for writers. And we've had a lot of fun with that. We've got good traction, you know, it's like what, what are you going to do with an Instagram channel for a writer? Really? Like take pictures of stacks of paper and like people crying that, that's, that's a writers true Instagram when they're not trying to be fancy. So one of the quotes that went out I think a couple of weeks ago, I love - "A writer is a person for whom writing is harder than for most other people."

Mindy:             That's the truth.

Mary:               So that was Thomas Mann. "A Writer is someone for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people." Because it's like when you do this for a living, when it's your industry and it is a horrific industry with so many flaws to it. You know we were talking about kind of East coast, West coast. I think that there's a lot that the West coast does right, that the East coast could learn from, meaning entertainment and digital media, all of those kind of more more contemporary West coast arms of the same entertainment. Pre publishing and writing are definitely the old school trunk of that tree. But I do think that there's a lot that could be sort of revitalized in the industry as far as how how projects are created and marketed. Writers really take it hard and they take writing hard and they take getting edited hard and it's like, I feel like people spend so much of their time just trying to get published, trying to get agents to and trying to kind of get over the wall that nobody talks about, like what happens once you're over the wall? It's like people say about parenting new parents they, they often wonder if they've just been lied to by everybody because everybody said how wonderful parenting is. But then it's like your baby's four months old and you're covered in poop and you're like, this has been a great big lie. Like I bought into the propaganda and now look what's happening.

Mindy:             The hustle never stops. I'm more stressed now than I was when I was querying. I have so much more stress. That's simply because of the fact that once you have something, you know, when you're querying, you have nothing to lose. When you have something, then you're worried about losing it. And so it's like, yeah,

Mary:               Come join us. Join us on the other side of the wall, people!

Mindy:             I will always be thrilled to be a part of it. I love what I do. I love my job. Like you were saying, no two days are alike. I love that. And I, part of me actually loves the stress. I thrive on it. I thrive on the chaos. I'm in the right place, but it's not a happy, good time, fun carnival either.

Mary:               I mean, there's nothing else that I would rather be doing. I cannot rest. Like just ask my team. I just hit them with like three new ideas today. I can't rest. I like the stress. I, I like agitating. If I have a good idea or I see, you know, a need in the market for something that we could do. I've been working with writers for over 10 years and I know the pain points, how to make myself a presence in their lives. And that's kind of all I really want to do is I want, I want to help writers and, and figure out what we could do about this crazy industry together.

Mindy:             You've mentioned Good Story Company a couple of times it offers editorial services, critique, connections to other writers, webinars, editor training and resources. So as you said, this is kind of how you've implemented your own editorial business then and you can now delegate some of this work. So can you talk specifically about the Good Story Company and how aspiring authors can benefit from it

Mary:               With pleasure. So like I said, I built a team and the initial impetus was just to have support with the editing that I'm doing. And I will be blogging at Kid Lit working under the Mary Kole editorial umbrella until nobody wants me anymore. Literally. I love it. That's what I'm going to be doing. But in the process of building my team of nine amazing individuals, now they want to be empowered to leave their own mark. For some of them, they've been with me two years already working in an editorial capacity. And so we're not even scratching the surface of what I want Good Story Company to be. But my dream is to get new writers kind of familiar with us and what we do. And so things like the Crit Collective forum, which are free are really cool resources that I frankly that exist because I saw a problem, a lot of writers would ask me, well where do I find a critique partner?

Mary:               And I was just kind of sending them into the wilds of the internet. There are a ton of writing forums already, but I wanted a dedicated one stop place for this very specific function of trying to kind of post about yourself or look through other people's posts so that you could potentially find a critique partner. And it's been slow going, building a writing forum. But you know, it's a resource that I'm hoping to foster and I'll keep paying for the hosting and the software for as long as as long as I feel like writers need a place to find critique partners. My other ideas for Good Story would be to give sort of a platform to my current editorial assistance train up a new batch and then let Kristin, Jen and Amy, for example, do their own editing under a new editorial umbrella.

Mary:               I'm also really, really fired up about marketing this year. So there may be something, whether it's a class on marketing for writers or even a service based component to helping writers with their marketing that I want to be doing. Basically Good Story Company will evolve, but I want it to be a place where writers can get either resources or knowledge for absolutely free or that services that they can trust and really get something out of, get good value out of from people who I feel have received really wonderful training and have an inside line to the industry. That's what I'm hoping to cultivate on my team. Then giving them a way to really take leadership and own part of the business so that I can sort of step back and just lead rather than have my fingerprint on every single project. That's kind of the dream now just so I can maybe have a life. I don't know. I kind of don't want one. If I had free time and like used it to like, I don't know, like get hot stone massages. I don't know. I don't know.

Mindy:             I hear you loud and clear. I never, I don't know what to do with myself when I'm not working. I'm not going to lie to you. When I do find myself with some time, I'm often like, okay, now what?

Mary:               I don't know. I, I gotta tell you this story. So I take my laptop everywhere because when you own your own business, you're always working, especially if you have access to wifi or whatever. For me, I don't even need the internet. So there go all of my excuses. I can just, I can work on manuscripts from anywhere. And you know, writers are similar because all you need is that white, white, white, blank page. I went on vacation with my best friends and we flew in from separate cities because we live in separate cities. Unfortunately. We flew in for a weekend and she was like, no laptops. And I was like, yeah, sure. What's the worst that could happen? Basically? because of my work, I'm a freakishly fast reader. I brought with me, you know, two novels and a magazine that I bought at the airport and like halfway between Minneapolis and Vegas, which is where we were meeting, I just like ran out of material to keep me occupied and I just like remember staring out the window in this sort of like abject panic, like philosophical gap opened up like this void. And I was like, no, no. What is this? Me filling my void with work and achievement is a problem for my therapist. Not for us to solve necessarily, but I don't slow down, I don't stop. And when I ran out of reading materials somewhere over fly over country, I was like, no, no, this is, this is very uncomfortable.

Mindy:             Yes, yes. And I agree with you. I have certainly flirted with the edges of workaholic ism. It is what it is and it's like I tell people all the time because I do so much, I mean obviously I'm a writer, but I also have a podcast and the blog and I also offer editorial services and then I actually have a pen name that I read under as well. And people ask me all the time, they're like, Oh my gosh, how do you do all of this? And I'm like, well, it's at the expense of my personal relationships,

Mary:               Right? Just my self awareness, self care, personal relationship. But it's like at the end of the day, I'm not like addicted to shooting a nail gun into my hand. The workaholicsim - and every addict says this, so you have to take my justification with a grain of salt, - but I'm like, at least it's something good and productive in the world.

Mindy:             That attitude of never stopping is a helpful one for people that want to be writers because you have to be able to take rejection and not just at the querying stage. It happens consistently to you throughout your life. In publishing, you will have rejection. You just have to take them on the chin and keep going. And that attitude of, okay, Mindy, pick yourself up. Let's keep going move, move, move. Now that I am returning more positive things from that mindset than I am negative, I'm like, okay. I mean, it was good training. It was bootcamp.

Mary:               Yeah, no, I completely, I completely agree with you. And honestly, so I now I can say stuff like, well, in all my years working with writers, you know, and now, now that I'm a crusty old timer, I can tell you just watching writers fall into two main camps. They're the people who are precious about an idea or the amount of time spent on an idea or the exact execution of an idea. Those people don't tend to fare as well. They tend to break instead of bouncing when they hit an obstacle and they tend to burn out and not see the success that I think they were initially hoping to see when the industry sort of choose them up and spits them out a little bit. Not maliciously, but you gotta have a thick skin. And I think perseverance because the other half of writers that I tend to see that actually do succeed eventually.

Mary:               Maybe not how they hoped, maybe not on their ideal timeframe, but the ones who do see eventually are the ones who, whether the obstacles they go through, they figure out a way to manage their emotions. Even when they do hit those obstacles and then they persevere. I mean there's this great Instagram quote that goes around, I've seen a couple of different versions of it, but it's basically like, "Don't cling to a mistake because you spent so much time making it." Some writers they will only ever have that one idea. They will only ever have that one manuscript and instead of actually revising it or making sure the idea works, they move commas around and that unfortunately is not a sustainable way to operate in today's market. And the writers that keep going, they pick themselves up. They have more than one idea. They are more willing and open minded about trying something else or trying something new or completely ripping their manuscript apart.

Mary:               Those are the writers that end up, I think really, really triumphant on this, on this tough journey and so if there was one thing I could kind of impart on a lot of my clients who haven't made it yet, it would be to, to take the long view and maybe you do have a project right now that's not going to work out. Well, put it away. It doesn't have to be gone from your life forever. There are more ideas than just the one. That's I think what is going to build not only a better mindset but better writing habits. Things like writer's block. I don't believe in it. I refuse to participate and so many writers will let themselves be stopped. It's like you come to a scene that you just can't write today or you have no inspiration, well then leap frog over it and write the next thing. Or you're stuck on a project. Well, is there another project you could working on? And some people really don't do well leaping from stream to stream, but I think that kind of nimble approach is really a great asset for a lot of writers too, to at least try to have if they haven't already.

Mindy:             I just did a school visit yesterday and I was focusing on my book, The Female of the Species, and I was telling them in like a writer's workshop. I wrote the first draft of that in 1999 I was 19 years old. It was published in 2016. That's the kind of stuff that you just kind of have to say to yourself, okay, what I had in 1999 was terrible. It was dreck. It was awful. It was the first book I'd ever written. It was the first time I'd sat down and written a book and therefore it was horrible. I knew the idea was good. I knew I wasn't a good enough writer yet to execute it. Probably 15 years later, my editor says, Hey, what else have you got in the pipe? And I float it to him and he's like, that sounds awesome. And now it's my bestselling book. But it's like I knew I wasn't able to execute that book yet. And so I set it aside and I wrote six other books, you know what I mean.

Mary:               Yeah. Good for you. That idea when you put it in the drawer, I bet that was a really sad day. But then it came back.

Mindy:             It was hard. It was under my bed for 15 years and that was where it belonged. It wasn't ready. I wasn't ready. And instead of getting disgusted and upset,

Mary:               Maybe there were a couple of minutes when you were disgusted and upset.

Mindy:             I might've been upset once or twice. Yeah. People, when I talk to them about my particular journey and the fact that I was querying for 10 years, I just see faces fall all the time. And I'm like, guys, you have to realize at the beginning of that 10 years, I was not the writer that I am now. Even understanding the industry, and I know people don't want to do that, but if you want to succeed, you have to. You're not just a writer up in your tower. You have to actually do your work.

Mary:               You know what? I couldn't have said it better myself. One thing that I won't do for clients, and I could do this in my sleep and make so much money doing it, is I will not put together submission lists for people, for agents and publishers. I will not do it for them because people, you know, there are a lot of people who will trade money for time spent, right? They want to save time and you're like, please, I'll buy a list from you. You know everybody, you know it better than I do. And I categorically refuse to do it for people because I'm like, first of all, it's not my life that is going to be impacted by this decision. You know, I don't have as much skin in the game as you do. Second of all, I don't want to hear about it, if they get rejected and it was the list's problem, you know,? But the most important reason is because those people need to, this is such an important part of the process. The researching the agents, figuring out who's out there, figuring out what they represent, figuring out what the market is, figuring what the different agencies are and who within them might be a good fit and what those people are saying on Twitter and all of that like you could, you could get really granular. It is a lot of information, but that work is so crucial to your development as a writer and your development from somebody who wrote a manuscript to somebody who now wants to get out there in the world with their manuscript.

Mary:               It's a mindset shift. I will not do that work. It may seem like busy work. It may seem overwhelming. I will not do that work for somebody else. It is homework for the writer and the writer only and I can't even tell you how many times I've had to say no, no. I will give you these resources. I will give you my best practices and how I recommend going about it. But no, this is your quicksand that you have to go struggle in for a little while because you're going to come out a different writer and you're going to come out with skills you didn't even know you needed. There are agents out there with big personalities, I happen to love but a writer, it rubs them the wrong way. So it's like I'm not you and I have no interest in being you. Now go and do the work.

Mindy:             And that total immersion that is learning the industry and the the agencies and the agents is useful throughout the rest of your career. So if you have someone else do that for you, that'd be like being born when you were 10 years old and you didn't learn how to walk on your own.

Mary:               You know, another thing nobody talks about is sometimes the agent you find is not going to be your agent forever or sometimes the publisher, your publisher forever. So you know there's a time to focus on the craft, but there's a time to pay attention and put your ear down on the ground and hear what the market is all about too. You know, I was just having another conversation with somebody this morning about marketing and how that's such a dirty word and it's a dirty connotation and writers don't really like this mix of commerce and art because they want to be in the creative cocoon and they don't want to think about the, the commerce, the business. Your book is a product, all that stuff. At some point you've got to figure out what the market is doing. If you hope to participate in it, that's really the end all, be all for me. At some point you're going to have to figure that out, that piece and learn to be okay with that piece.

Mindy:             Last thing, why don't you tell us where listeners can find, you can find Mary Kole editorial and Good Story Company and Crit Collective and all of these things that you are a part of. Why don't you let us know where they can find you online?

Mary:               Well, I'm not going to waste their valuable time and rattle off everything. Good story Company.com is a great place to start because right on the homepage that'll say, this is who we are. You know, you can get links to Kid Lit to MaryKole.com, which is my editorial services. All sorts of other things like the podcast are listed on there. Many more things to come. I hope that you found this talk interesting. I kind of like dream crusher dot com right now. We gave a realistic portrayal of the industry rather than anything sugarcoated, but I had a great time dishing some reality with you. Thank you for having me on. 

Kelly Coon On Success After 106 Rejections

Mindy:             Today's guest is Kelly Coon, author of the YA fantasy Gravemaidens, which recounts the tale of two sisters come on a 16 year old healer's apprentice who wants to save the dying ruler of her city state, and then Nanaea, Kamani's little sister who will be buried alive as the ruler's bride if he dies. Kelly joined me today to talk about how to make a fantasy stand out in the crowded YA market by making her female main character have understated strength.

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Mindy:             Most of my listeners are aspiring writers and a lot of them are in the query trenches themselves. So why don't you talk a little bit about your process of landing an agent.

Kelly:               Okay. It was a process. Indeed. It took me a long time. I might not be the best person to go to for advice. I started writing a novel in 2005 I never sold it. I really thought I was an amazing writer. So I wrote this book it was an Odyssey retelling, YA fiction. And I queried and I was shocked - and this is back when you would send paper copies - and I was shocked when I was getting all the envelopes back and they were all rejections and I'm like, what? This is amazing. I had always been told I was an amazing writer and I was just absolutely not. So I continued along that path of absolutely not having a clue, wrote a total of three books that way, and just queried my brains out and not till I really kind of had a growth mindset and discovered that I might be a good writer but I am not a good novelist and really dove into the process of what writing a book was about and specifically writing a book for teens was about did I have any kind of progress at all.

Kelly:               I went to a conference, I pitched my book, I got some interest, they told me like your writing is great and your pitching is fantastic, but your premise is not what we're looking for. So I rewrote it, completely scrapped my idea, wrote Gravemaidens, sent it out, and then I got 11 requests for the full. I sent out 11 queries, got 11 requests for the full. I had to solidify a good premise that I knew would be marketable, lower my pride and realize that I had a lot to learn. But I had 106 rejections before that cause I kept track on a spreadsheet.

Mindy:             I did too. And so you said you wrote your first novel in 2005 and begin querying. What year was it when you landed your agent for Gravemaidens?

Kelly:               2017 in April. My agent is Kari Sutherland. She's with Bradford literary. She used to be an editor at Harper Teen. She actually was the acquiring agent for a Red Queen and Pretty Little Liars. So when she requested my full, within a couple hours after sending my query, I remember I was sitting in Whole Foods writing in their little cafe, sent my query, and then I got an email back from her requesting the full and I freaked out because the fact that she was an agent at all was blowing my mind and the fact that she wanted it was, I mean, I was speechless. So I sent it back to her and then she offered within a couple of weeks, another agent offered as well. And I went with Kari because we just really connected super well over the phone.

Mindy:             So 12 years, 2005 to 2017 and I actually love it.

Kelly:               I didn't start querying in 2005 I started writing my book in 2005. I finished it in 2007. I had a baby and was like, Holy crap, I'm not getting any younger. If I'm going to do this, I need to finish it. Having my first son kind of motivated me to just finish my novel. So I started querying in 2007 so 10 years total.

Mindy:             You started this story by saying, I'm not the best person to come to for advice, but I disagree because I myself was querying for 10 years. Listeners will know this, I've said this a million times, but I didn't land an agent for 10 years and a lot of the reasons why are so similar to yours. I really thought that I was just amazing and I really wasn't. Like when I read the manuscripts that I was querying then, they were so bad and this is not mock humility. They were awful. They're terrible like I DNF'd them. They were not readable. But you got to realize that. But, and the other thing is that's really important is that in order for you to be able to write and to query for 10 years, you have to believe that you are good or you have to believe that you will make it. Like you can't sit there knocking out stuff and being like, well this is crap. Right? You're like, you're going to stop if you believe it. So there's obviously a pride element and you need to get knocked down a few pegs. But the element of not quitting, of still believing in yourself, believing that you have the ability, but learning that you have to refine it.

Kelly:               At one point I was like, am I completely delusional? I had my undergrad in creative writing and my masters in English. People used to tell me all the time, you're a great writer. I love reading it. Write something else. You can do this, and I was like, are all those people just completely delusional? Am I one of them as well? There was a point when I really did doubt myself, like officially doubt myself. I always doubted myself a little bit and just would, but I was like, you know what? You can keep going. I'm nothing if not persistent. I'm kind of like a bulldog sometimes I don't plan very well, but I will go for it. There was one point I was sitting on the couch next to my husband and I had gotten maybe my 106th rejection probably. It really was. I think just a couple of days before Kari emailed me back telling me she wanted to chat and I was like, you know what, am I completely delusional?

Kelly:               Like have I lost touch with reality? Maybe I'm not meant for this kind of writing. Cause I was doing all sorts of other writing and was really successful doing it and I'm like maybe I'm just not a novelist. And my husband looked at me, he's like, remember that old saying, those guys who went mining for gold and they stopped just a couple of meters away from where there was this giant pile of gold? Like you're there you are in that pit. Just keep digging. His encouragement pushed me just to hold on for a little bit longer. I got the offer of representation from Kari two days later.

Mindy:             But you do have to have those people telling you that you can do it because if people are telling you you can't, that's not, that's not going to help. It's a bizarre little world and it is a small world. And the thing that you find, at least that I found was that if you're querying for that long now, I was querying multiple manuscripts over the course of the 10 years. I think I was querying like five different novels and I had gotten to the point where agents knew who I was. When I queried them they would be like, Oh, I remember you. You've queried me before. And so it's wonderful because then I've even run into them like now as a published author, I run into the agents that rejected me like three or four or five times conferences and stuff. And it's kind of cool because we actually like have a relationship to be able to continue those relationships.

Mindy:             And I always tell people, you know, if you get a rejection on a full or if you get repeated blanket rejections and you react badly, it's like agents remember that. Like they remembered my name even though I was not really interacting with them in any kind of personal way. It was just through the queries. My name was popping up in their inbox enough that they were like, I remember you. And so you know, you're just always being polite and always interacting because it is a very small world and they do talk to each other. So if you misbehave, people will know.

Mindy:             So you mentioned Gravemaidens. It is your debut novel. It is a young adult fantasy, which is a crowded market right now. And just given the dates that you gave me for when you were querying, you got picked up right when fantasy was starting to blow up. So now with it being kind of a more competitive arena, especially in the YA market, how do you find your niche for Gravemaidens as a debut in a crowded marketplace for YA fantasy?

Kelly:               There's a few factors. I think part of it is character development because good characters are always going to be in fashion and be in demand. If you can write a character that is relatable on a wide spectrum, whether you're a fantasy reader or Sci Fi or contemporary, wherever you are, if you write a character that people fall in love with personally, it doesn't matter what the genre is. I read a wide variety and honestly I connect with a character, so I tried really hard to make my characters, people that you could sit in a room with and get to know them. That's part of it. Also, I don't have a princess in a castle. I have a healer. My main character is a healer and she's, she's a Hufflepuff like a lot of fantasy MCs, especially girls are Gryffindors. They're brave or they're Slytherin, you know, they're kind of brave or cunning or they maybe don't like violence, but they are willing to use violence.

Kelly:               And my narrator is a healer in her chief goal is to keep people alive even if those people are not people that she cares about. So she's kind and compassionate and I think that's a little bit of a twist on the YA fantasy market. She's unlike a lot of other characters where she, she wants to save her sister from dying with a Lugal and if that means healing the Lugal, a man who had been notoriously terrible to her in the past, she'll do it and while she does it, she will even have compassion for him. There's a scene in the book where she's kneeling by his pallet after she's just treated him and she's confused about why he's so sick and she grabs his hands and she's kind of, uh, you know, rubbing his knuckles against her face. And really her heart goes out to this man, even though he has been just so terrible to her family, compassion still comes through. And for me, I think I hadn't read anything like that.

Mindy:             I like that. I like that a lot. For a long time, everybody was writing the strong female character when strong was taken, literally it was always about being a fighter and being a fierce woman. That really became the definition of female strength for a long time, especially in YA. And that is not of course an accurate representation of the different many facets of female strength. And I love what you're saying and I think it's a great point. I love the idea of the healing and the compassion, especially given everything that we're dealing with in the real world today. That being a strength and conveying that message.

Kelly:               Yes, absolutely. I am not as compassionate as she is honestly. Like I'm a Ravenclaw through and through for me. Sometimes I'm like, you know, get yourself up, pick yourself up, you got this, shake yourself off. A lot of times I've talked to my kids that way and I have to remind myself to be more compassionate and be more kind. So she is completely different from me. I actually don't have any idea where she came from. I've had friends who have read this and been like, wow, she is so different from you. Like how do you write in first person POV, somebody who is not like you at all.? And I'm like, you know, I have no idea. That is a mystery. I have no idea where she came from, but I admire her like I want to be like her,

Mindy:             You know, I have a theory and why you have written someone that is very different from you. Yeah, absolutely. I think as authors often we write characters who represent something we wish we could be.

Kelly:               You know what, that's probably very true. Like cause I, like I said do admire her and I think she has so many great qualities. Sometimes I'm too hard lined and she has softer edges and that's admirable and it's not often celebrated.

Mindy:             No, not at all. Which is why I think you're right that that is a good angle for your book. I am fascinated by this idea that we do this almost like almost a fantasization of an element of ourselves that we ourselves would like to see encouraged more, are giving, even giving our characters abilities we wish we had. I mean sometimes that's just a great escape for us.

Kelly:               No, she is kind of like nerd girl. So she does like learning and she gets all of those elements from me but she actually admires her sister Nanaea and how she can kind of give into moments of beauty and kind of relax and just enjoy herself. Kammani sometimes is too worried like in the middle of a party Kamanni's worried about her responsibilities and I mean she gets that from me. I really admire people who kind of can give into a moment and just throw all the responsibilities and worries aside and just give in and there are parts of me that are like that but as I've gotten more kids and gotten more responsibility a lot of times it's hard for me to let go and not be the one trying to control a situation or something. I put a little bit of that. My desire is what I would like to be more of in her sister Nanaea as well.

Mindy:             Coming up, how editing and being an ACT test prep writer helped Kelly and her fiction.

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Mindy:             So speaking of Gravemaidens, that is your first novel, but you are no stranger to publishing. You are the editor for Blue Ocean Brain. You're included in the Washington Post talent network. And have also authored two strategy guides to acing the act. So if you could talk a little bit about each of those elements that are different avenues for your work because you already alluded to the fact that you knew you were a good writer. And obviously these things that I'm mentioning are very different type of writing. So if you could talk a little bit about your writing, how your writing skills are challenged in different ways by each of these facets of your professional life.

Kelly:               Oh sure. I'm an editor as you said, and I loved that job. It has taught me so much about cleaning up my writing. I have 13 writers that write for me and every day I'm reading their work and I'm streamlining what they send me. There was a New York Times article and he talked about greening your work. In the old days they would have to physically go through an article and green it out with the green highlighter words that were unnecessary or that were filler. As an editor, I do that with my writers. As a novelist it has really helped me clean up what I'm writing. So if I have this long passage of texts, I can go through and say what are the things that will add to the atmosphere or detract from the atmosphere? Or is it a sentence I just think is beautiful? And if that's the case it probably needs to go.

Kelly:               Like if I'm firing my own work and it's taking away from the story, I should probably just cut it. My editor job really helps me kind of knowing what to keep and knowing what to get rid of. The Washington Post that is just fun. I've been published with two personal essays in the Washington Post and that was about fleeing hurricane Irma and the decision to do that. I live in Florida. It was a terrifying part of my life and I was able to write those essays and kind of talk about what it felt like to have that decision to make: stay and kind of hunker down or go. I mean that kind of really helped me hone into my emotion I think as I'm writing. And then the ACT test prep books, that was all about research. I have never researched more in my life than I did when I was writing my ACT test prep books.

Kelly:               I was a test prep author. I was a test prep specialist for about.com back when it was about.com for seven years. I got approached by the research and education company, asking me if I would like to write an ACT test prep manual for them and because I cannot say no to a challenge. I was like, sure, I'm writing about it every day. It will be easy and reader, it was not easy. It was definitely the most challenging thing I've ever done. I had to get help with math. I was like, I cannot write these questions, and I had a good friend of mine who helped me with science as well. He wrote some of them. I wrote some of them. We ended up selling this book. It was amazing, but I even, I read it now, I flip back through it from time to time and I'm like, how did I do this? I don't even know how I did it.

Mindy:             I understand that feeling. When I look back at some of my papers that I wrote in college, like the critical analysis and things like that and I'm just like, who is this girl? She was so much smarter than I am now. I'm like, who is this 20 year old? What is she talking about? Oh my God, that's hilarious.

Kelly:               It like pushes me and it reminds me that when I want to do something, when I feel like, you know, I get my notes back from my editor on the sequel or something and I'm like, wow, there is no way I can do this. I know what you're asking and I know where you want it to be, but my brain cannot do this, that I remind myself, wait a minute, you can absolutely do this. So it's helpful. It's helpful to know that it's something difficult so that you know you can do it again, like childbirth.

Mindy:             Yeah. Childbirth is a great example. Yeah, I agree completely. I'm actually sitting on an edit letter right now that I am delaying working on, even though it's for, let's see, it'll be my 10th book and I'm just like, I can't do that. You know? I'm just like, I don't know how to do that. I don't know how to edit. I don't know how to revise. This is hard. I don't know how to do this. I'm going to break it this time. I'm going to break it. Right? And you know, I know that's not true. I know that's not true, but I'll tell you something - when I have an edit letter waiting on me, my house is so goddamn clean. Last time I had an edit letter, I defrosted the deep freezer. I was like, you know what that needs to get done. That needs to get done right now. That's next level procrastination right there.

Kelly:               I tend to start organizing, I organize my kitchen and I take out all the Tupperware and put it back in because that's something I can manage. That's easy. But yeah, the edit letter is too difficult. So we avoid that. Well usually I read it and cry and then call my agent and then she calms me down because she's basically my therapist and then we talk about it and she's like, remember you can do this. And I'm like, Oh yeah, I can. I talk with my editor. I'm like, okay, okay, so this is manageable. Then I cry again. Then I edit and then it works out.

Mindy:             I drink. That's mine. Um, I get the edit letter. Yeah, I don't usually have a drink like just at home. Like socially I'll have a drink but I'm just not somebody that winds down with like a glass of wine or whatever. I'm more likely to have some tea or something. But when I get an edit letter I'm like, I'm going to, I'm going to drink. I'm just going to get to that fuzzy stage where you feel like everything's okay. And then I'll read it again when I'm in a fuzzy stage and then I'm like, all right, you know, process that. But I have a friend who actually gets an edit cake when she gets her edit letters. She doesn't read it. She goes down the street to the bakery and buys like a sheet cake and then she like eats cake while she's reading her edit letter.

Kelly:               Listen, she has something because that is a way to manage and maybe, maybe I should try that.

Mindy:             Her husband will see a cake in the fridge and he's like, Oh shit.

Kelly:               Well see my husband knows that you're at edit letter cause I'm like draped across the bed sobbing. He's like, Oh, the edits came in, didn't they?

Mindy:             That's a perfectly normal reaction. Everybody I know they, they either drink too much, eat too much, or cry too much as soon as they get their edit letter. So that's okay that that's a normal part of the process. Absolutely.

Mindy:             Lastly, marketing on your own, the constant hustle and the benefits of having a street team.

Mindy:             I asked you a little bit about how Gravemaidens is going to stand out in the market for readers in the YA fantasy genre, but I want to talk to you about marketing and how you are going about getting word out about Gravemaidens because social media is a crowded place. We're all vying for attention. We're all shouting at the same people all the time. So what are your methods here for your debut book? How are you supporting the marketing efforts of your publisher? Like what are your methods?

Kelly:               This was something that was not entirely new to me because although I don't have a major in marketing or anything like that, I do have a small business. So my husband and I with some business partners, own some condos on the Gulf of Mexico and I for a long time was the person in charge of renting them and marketing them and getting customers. That was my job. So I did know a little bit about sales plus right after college when I graduated with my creative writing degree, I went right into sales because who is going to hire someone with a creative writing degree that did not have a journalism internship? No one. So I went into that was lucrative and then I hated it. So then I went and got my degree in teaching and then I taught for a while. So I did have some experience in sales.

Kelly:               However, marketing for a book is entirely a different beast. And also I thought being a newbie kind of writer at first I thought Hey my publisher is going to handle all of this and they're going to be the ones who do it all. But that is not the case. As I learned. They do a ton and I'm super grateful for everything that Delacorte Press is doing. And I mean cause it's a lot comparatively to some, you know, other books. So what I've been doing personally to try to find my way, I did a couple of things. I joined class of 2k19 which is a marketing group. There's 20 authors that are middle grade and young adult debuts. I joined that group. We all kind of pitch in for money and then we do joint things. So like we've done joint mailers that we've sent out to 800 different librarians and bookstores.

Kelly:               Oh we do chats, we do social media pushes. We have someone in charge of conferences where we're kind of trying to book each other. So that was one kind of arm of my strategy. Another arm was I got a street team together so I could have some more people who actually have ins in this area to help support me. That has been one of the biggest joys of this entire thing is having this group of people. I have a Twitter DM chat for all of us. We get in there and just kinda chat about books. And I asked them sometimes like, Hey, can you do this? And they're like, sure. I think I have an interview coming up with almost everyone in the group. So they're posting it on their blogs. A lot of them are book bloggers or fellow authors or librarians. They're supporting me in that way.

Kelly:               My publicist emailed all of them bookmarks and they are passing them around requesting it at their libraries. So I have this team of people behind me that are extending my reach that I obviously would not have. I also did a preorder campaign myself that was mostly paid for by me. Delacorte press did the bookmarks and the book plates, but I ordered the enamel pin myself. I ordered the laptop sticker. I commissioned, um, a little mocktail card to be made and I've been mailing them all out myself. I decided to take some of the advance that I got and put it back into marketing so that I could try to get my name out there a little. And I know some people can't do that because their advance goes directly to their bills. I recognize that I am privileged in that way, able to do that, that I have another job and I have a husband who also has a good job.

Kelly:               So I'm able to do that, which, and I recognize that it's a privilege. So I'm doing that. And then I'm also trying to be as active as possible on social media and I'm reaching out to conferences, pitching myself, reaching out to bookstores, pitching myself. I set up my entire bookstore tour, myself and my publicist, she supported me in that and has helped me make connections if I didn't have them. But I was like, I'm going to go and pitch myself. Everyone's been really receptive. I have been busting my butt trying to get the word out about this.

Mindy:             Yup. And that's the way to do it. Um, I was a member of the class of 2k13. I am so glad that I made that decision because two of like my closest friends now are from the class and we worked together on multiple projects and also just everyone in that class. We actually, the YA authors anyway, that we are still publishing and we run into each other all the time. We're actually pretty close and honestly it's like bonds were forged and there are people that I talk to literally every day of my life now that I would not have as friends if I didn't do that and I'm so so happy about that. And you were also mentioning just beating the pavement and getting out there and putting yourself in front of people and talking to people and presenting yourself to people.

Mindy:             That is how you do it, especially in your local area. Putting yourself in front of librarians, booksellers, people that are organizing conferences. I'm telling you I did that and it just felt like I was waving my own flag under their noses all the time and just announcing myself and I'm not a salesperson. I have become one now I have become one. I have learned how, especially when you're doing hand selling at a table in like a festival or something like that, you absolutely have to, you've got to learn how to do that and I'm telling you all the efforts that you're putting in right now, they will pay off because I was published in 2013 so here we are six years later and I don't even advertise anymore. People just reach out because I've done enough events and I have put myself in enough places, especially the library circuit, that word of mouth, the organizers and the librarians and the event coordinators, they just email each other and booksellers, same thing.

Mindy:             They're like, Hey, we just had Mindy McGinnis. She gives a great presentation. She's reasonably priced. You should reach out to her for your planning. Like I said, I don't reach out anymore. People come to me and like this month I think I've got about 20 things booked. And that was all just invitation and maybe that's just six years of beating the circuits. It does work. Those little ripples of throwing stones out in the pond, they spread. But the other part is that I will say yes to just about everything. I really will and they recognize that. So if it's a tiny little town, which is where I'm from and they're like, we can only give you this much money. I'm like, that's fine, I'll do it.

Mindy:             I've never regretted it. I love doing it. I love putting myself in front of people. That's how it works. Like that to me is just being physically present, doing a good job when you're there. Word will spread.

Kelly:               Well good. I mean that is really actually good to hear. If there's anything I've got it's hustle. I mean I've always had that and I'm always willing to push hard and I'm not someone who kind of gets beaten down as easily. Sometimes I think like I wonder what my breaking point is? Because I haven't reached it yet, but um, I'm always willing to kind of give it a shot and see what happens. I'm grateful that it's working out for you and I'm hopeful that eventually it will work out for me as well.

Mindy:             It will, it will you reach critical mass. But I will say you talk about a breaking point. I have had in these six years I've had three events where no one showed up, like literally zero people were interested in coming to see me and that's okay.

Kelly:               I hear it's common. I've had friends who are, debuts who were, you know, New York times bestsellers who said, Hey, I did an event and literally no one came or one person showed. And for whatever reason I think maybe my years of teaching, that doesn't frighten me at all. Like not in the least. I know for some people who are more introverts, I am like your typical extrovert. But for people who are introverts, I know that might be horrifying or you know, they just have to muster up their nerve to go there and the rejection might be too much. But I've been rejected so much in my life that I'd kind of be like, ah, you know what? There's just me and you. Let's go have lunch. That doesn't terrify me. Maybe it won't, because I've never experienced that. But maybe it will be horrifying. But for me, I don't know that, I'm not afraid of that.

Mindy:             But even you were talking about debut authors who have events and nobody shows up. I had one of my zeros no-shows two weeks ago. Yeah. And that's okay. I mean it's good. It keeps you humble.

Kelly:               See, I like looking for the opportunities in failing. You know, even if it's not your failure, it's marketing failure or whatever. I like looking for that. Something that you can take away from it. And I, I teach that to my boys too. You fail a test, congratulations. Because you have the opportunity to learn from that and to grow from it. And if anything else, it gives you humility, which humility only can lead to better things. That doesn't scare me away. Not yet. Hasn't yet. Maybe one day it will.

Mindy:             If anything, the organizer, like she was so upset and she was like, I am so sorry. I am so sorry. I'm so sorry. And I was like, honey, it's okay. I was like, trust me, you are not the first person that has stood in front of me saying, I am so sorry that no one showed up. You can't control it. You can't control other people and it's hard to get people to show up, man. Especially when your target audience is teens and they don't have their own transportation. It's fine. As you said. I agree. Humility is a gift. Being humble is so important in this industry and so when zero people show up I'm like, okay, knock me down a peg. That's cool. I probably needed it, you know?

Kelly:               Exactly.

Mindy:             Last question, what are you working on right now and where can listeners find you online?

Kelly:               Since Gravemaidens, I've written three other books. People are asking me questions about Gravemaidens and I actually have to flip back through and reread it because I'm like, did that happen with all the millions of edits that we went through? I cannot remember and my goal is to reread the book before my launch event so I can actually answer questions about it. I wrote the sequel. Gravemaidens is a duology and we haven't announced the title yet, but that's coming soon. But I wrote the sequel. We're actually in line edit for the sequel right now.

Kelly:               I wrote a young adult Sci Fi that's a Scarlet letter retelling that's being considered right now by my publishing house. That's my option. So I'm fingers crossed for that one for me. And then I also wrote a contemporary, uh, I just the first draft of a contemporary with speculative elements. If I have this urge to write and if I have these ideas, I want to go for it while I've got it. Because sometimes I feel like you might have peaks and valleys and in those valleys I want to honor that. And if I'm not feeling like I have it or I don't want to, or there's something else going on where I can't, then I want to take advantage of it. When I do have the opportunities, I felt like I wanted to write these. So I did.

Mindy:             Yes, I agree with you 100% when you have inspiration, never turn your back on it. Go with it. If you feel like writing and you're on fire for an idea, write it. Write it while it's hot.

Kelly:               Exactly. Cause there've been moments where I'm staring at my page. It was really difficult for me to start the sequel to Gravemaidens. I knew what I wanted to do. It had been a long time since I was in that head space. I actually wrote my Sci Fi before I wrote the sequel. So I was in this other person's head space. So getting back into Kammani's point of view was I was like, who wrote this? Like I was looking at Gravemaidens. I'm like, is that me? Like is that my voice? Is that her voice? Because I had switched voices so completely that was tough to get into. So it took a while to start. I had trouble with that and then, but then once I got into it and stuff then I'm like, Oh there she is. It just took awhile. Kind of put her clothes back on. And then you also asked you where people can find me online. Well. My website is Kelly coon.com and then I'm on Instagram and Twitter and Facebook at Kelly Coon106.