Under the Influence (with Jo Piazza) - How to Get Published： A Literary Agent Tells All

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00:01:58.260 Jo here and you are listening to Under the Influence. Today I am talking about a subject

00:02:10.720 that a lot of you have asked me about. We have a lot of listeners who want to write a book and

00:02:16.560 also a lot of listeners who just enjoy books and are curious about how they get made. So I've been

00:02:21.880 dying to have a guest on who could demystify the book process in a way that actually makes sense.

00:02:27.960 Because even to me, someone who lives in the muck of it, book publishing can often feel like this

00:02:34.100 secret society that it is impossible to get into, where everyone is speaking in code and no one is

00:02:39.640 going to tell you what the secret handshake is. So today I'm talking to my friend Kate McKean.

00:02:44.820 She is not just a literary agent, she is the literary agent that you want in your corner.

00:02:50.620 She is smart, funny, honest, and the kind of person who's been behind the scenes of this

00:02:55.880 business long enough to know exactly how it works, but also to know exactly how to explain it.

00:03:02.960 Her new book, Write Through It, An Insider's Guide to Publishing and the Creative Life,

00:03:07.320 is exactly what aspiring authors need. It is practical and generous, and it explains everything

00:03:14.100 from what the hell an agent actually is, to how to write a query letter to get yourself an agent,

00:03:21.260 and what you're supposed to put in that query letter, and what you shouldn't put in that query

00:03:25.460 letter. She's also really good at talking about how to survive the emotional hellscape of rejection

00:03:31.560 and imposter syndrome. This is a conversation that I often have at writing workshops and when

00:03:37.960 I teach classes on publishing, because I think it's information that should be easily accessible

00:03:42.420 and free. Also, Kate's a lot of fun, and I'm just so happy that I got to talk to her

00:03:47.280 on the publication day of her new book.

00:03:49.860 hello friend hello how you doing today i'm doing pretty great i love that for you we are talking

00:04:01.700 on your book release day i always love talking to authors on their book release days but usually

00:04:06.860 they're a little bit crazier but you this is just you've done this rodeo so many times with so many

00:04:14.280 people because you aren't aren't the average author you are a powerhouse of an agent oh well

00:04:20.720 thank you very much you could say that as many times as you'd like um yeah i've seen lots of

00:04:26.040 books come out over 20 years you have i mean you've you've birthed them you've birthed many

00:04:31.820 many a book into the world and this is a book about writing and publishing a book which is the

00:04:39.260 most meta thing in the world. And a lot of people in my audience really want to pivot into some kind

00:04:48.480 of creative career. They want to start writing. They don't understand how to start, or then if

00:04:54.240 they write something, how to get it published. Because I think it is one of the most confusing

00:04:58.740 processes of all time. I really do. Absolutely. There's not one way to do it.

00:05:03.840 So there's not one way to do it. And I was just at this writing conference in Croatia and we had a lot of first time writers who were in their agent querying process. So what I want to do today is just kind of walk people through this weird world of publishing and and how it all works and who the players are and what you should know if you if you are a person who wants to get a book out into the world.

00:05:31.540 Fantastic.

00:05:32.600 So first off, tell everyone the name of your wonderful book and where they can find it.

00:05:37.200 My book is called Write Through It, An Insider's Guide to Publishing and the Creative Life.

00:05:43.260 And it is available where all books are sold.

00:05:46.200 And it comes out from Sirene Schuster.

00:05:48.820 And I wrote it based on my work on my newsletter, which can be found at agentsandbooks.com.

00:05:57.260 So tell me, to start off, what is the biggest question you get asked?

00:06:01.820 as an agent the the question i get asked the most especially from clients is is this normal

00:06:08.440 which speaks directly to what you're talking about which is like publishing is a huge

00:06:12.740 opaque morass yeah yeah i love that that's the question you get asked the most because that is

00:06:18.380 also the question that every gynecologist gets asked the most when and we happen to have a lot

00:06:23.740 of gynecologists on this show and they're always like yeah everyone's like is this normal and

00:06:27.800 And they're like, there's a wide range of normal, which I assume is your answer to them, too.

00:06:32.680 Yeah, my answer is always like the shrug emoji guy.

00:06:35.820 Let's back up just a little bit, because what is an agent?

00:06:40.380 What does an agent actually do?

00:06:42.200 And then if you're a person who has a book or the beginnings of a book, how do you even go about getting an agent?

00:06:48.940 Yeah, an agent is, I like to say it's like an actor's agent, but for books, because everybody knows what an actor's agent does.

00:06:56.600 they go and get them gigs well a book agent helps a writer get their book published because

00:07:03.080 traditional publishers the ones that send books to bookstores um usually only will accept

00:07:09.260 submissions from agents from literary agents um so you most of the time 98 percent of the time

00:07:16.780 cannot get your book published without an agent um and so the general process is uh a person

00:07:25.180 contacts a literary agent, writes a query letter, sends it off, waits much, much longer than they

00:07:32.240 want, and hears back from the agent, whether it's a thumbs up or a thumbs down. And there are so many

00:07:38.300 ins and outs of all of those steps. But there are a couple of places to start looking for agents

00:07:45.040 that I like to give to people. One is in the back of the book, of a book you like, that your book

00:07:51.320 is similar to because they will thank their agent in the acknowledgement this is what i tell everyone

00:07:55.860 this is what i tell everyone to start i'm like what books are similar to yours if you're not

00:08:00.020 reading them you should be reading them already because that is that is step number one to writing

00:08:04.060 a book it's that you should be reading books that are similar to yours and yeah everyone unless

00:08:08.900 something has gone direly wrong and even in that case everyone thanks their agent in the

00:08:13.360 acknowledgements and even if that isn't their agent anymore it was at one point and you can

00:08:17.960 just write their name down you write it down make a big messy list and then you'll go on the internet

00:08:22.420 and and look at their website and be like oh are they still at that agency are they accepting

00:08:26.760 submissions do they still want mystery novels or whatever it is you're working on um and that's

00:08:32.200 one place to start and another place is publishersmarketplace.com which has a section called

00:08:37.800 deals and publishers marketplace is a subscription-based website but you can you can get

00:08:42.160 a one-day pass for like 10 bucks. And if you're an aspiring writer, author, I always say you

00:08:48.280 should be supporting the tools of the marketplace too. So it is a good subscription to get. It is

00:08:53.280 a good subscription to get because you're going to learn so much about the industry by immersing

00:08:58.640 yourself in this that it's actually totally worth it. I would not tell people to get something that

00:09:02.360 is not worth it, but this actually genuinely is. Absolutely. And in the deal section, agents and

00:09:08.260 editors uh write little blurbs about the books that they sell and buy and um you may have seen

00:09:14.620 them on on on social media this is blue and white kind of little screenshots and um you can look

00:09:20.440 over history like 25 years of stuff just be like well who are the agents who work in regency

00:09:26.220 romances or whatever and you can just write some of those names down on a big messy list you don't

00:09:30.660 want to go too far back because like agents change um but it's a resource resource to make a big

00:09:37.900 messy list and then when you get to researching and you see these names kind of popping up over

00:09:42.880 and over again and you have a handful um go look and see at their websites to see that they're still

00:09:49.460 in business or still accepting your genre um and then you'll craft your query letter which we could

00:09:55.680 literally talk about for three or four years straight we could talk about query letters for

00:10:00.480 three or four years now this is the part of the process that's just a little bit weird okay and

00:10:05.920 And I explain it to people all the time.

00:10:07.480 And they're like, I don't understand why it works like this.

00:10:10.040 And I say, this is just how it works.

00:10:11.840 And it hasn't changed in a really long time.

00:10:14.700 And you just, you kind of have to accept it.

00:10:17.220 So you send a query letter, which is not your manuscript, right?

00:10:22.220 It is not your actual project.

00:10:25.140 You will likely send a sample of your actual project most of the time.

00:10:29.540 Every agent has different submission guidelines.

00:10:31.980 And we do it because, honestly, we just want people to suffer.

00:10:34.740 We do it for our own personal enjoyment. No, I'm kidding. Of course not. We do it because that's the information we need to make the decision. So I say the first three chapters or a full book proposal, and it'll either be attached to the email or uploaded to something called, I use query tracker, query manager, and it tells you what to do there.

00:10:56.660 and it's because I the query letter is a cover letter like when you're sending your resume to

00:11:02.920 somebody and it's introducing me to your book and and to yourself and then I will look at the

00:11:10.180 submission and use all that together to decide if if I can sell your book now that's what I'm

00:11:16.840 deciding I'm not deciding if your book is good or bad I'm deciding if I think I can sell your book

00:11:22.460 And I may, of course, I'll need to read more if it's not the whole submission. And then I'll have a conversation with the author. But I'm not sitting here with gold stars.

00:11:32.040 Right, right, exactly. And I think that's a really interesting distinction between is something good? Is this just like the most so beautiful? And is it sellable? Because the marketplace is constantly changing, right?

00:11:45.560 Mm-hmm. Yeah. And honestly, I'm not the best agent for every book. Like, I don't read mystery novels that much, you know, and I don't read, like, if it's got an FBI agent in it, it's like, it's not necessarily my jam. So I don't traffic in those and I don't know the editors who buy them.

00:12:07.160 Right.

00:12:07.600 And I don't know the market. So you don't want me as an agent for that. Or I say, if it's on the cover of The Economist, it's like not my book. And cool. Great. There are so many other people who could do a book like that.

00:12:20.540 Totally. Well, and also so much of this business is relationship based, right? Which editors have you worked with in the past? Who do you have great relationships with? Who can you call up and say, oh, my God, I've got this book. You have to read it right now, as opposed to you going into a situation where you don't know these mystery editors or the people that like books with FBI people in them and then just trying to cold call them. That's not doing anyone any favors.

00:12:47.200 it's true and and honestly I think there is like a lot of cold calling like I'm I'm reaching out

00:12:53.360 to new editors all the time and a lot of times my first contact is like they have they're on my

00:12:58.360 radar somehow and I'll reach out and be like hey oh I have something you might like coming up let's

00:13:03.540 have a zoom or a coffee or whatever and then I can kind of suss them out if I don't have time for

00:13:08.320 that I will introduce myself by submission and I'll be like hi I saw you that I saw that you

00:13:14.080 did this i think that's fantastic here's a new book and i would love to have coffee or lunch with

00:13:19.480 you or whatever and that happens almost just as much time as it is i'm calling up a person who i

00:13:25.060 can test who i can text and say uh omg inbox now you know like this kind of shorthand you know i

00:13:33.400 have i have an editor uh who i sold two books to like two weeks ago and they are polar opposites

00:13:40.080 of books and i was pretty sure he was gonna like them and it worked out but it wasn't just because

00:13:48.940 we have a good relationship it's it's because i knew that he would like these books for some

00:13:57.480 reason so it's a little bit of both but i wouldn't go into a new genre that i have never worked in

00:14:05.380 um out of the blue right right yeah because and i don't i don't think that is necessarily

00:14:12.960 serving anyone in this case so where can people find examples of query letters are they online

00:14:19.420 because they're very specific like it's it's a it's a certain kind of writing spoiler i've never

00:14:24.260 written one so um people like when we were at our this writing conference i was not the right person

00:14:32.400 to edit these query letters because I just I don't know the format. But there are places people can

00:14:38.260 go to find them, right? Yeah, I have some on my newsletter. I have some in my book, quite a few.

00:14:44.340 I actually have the query letter that I wrote to get my agent from my books. And I break down how

00:14:50.980 I did it wrong or quote unquote wrong or what I would change about it if I did it again. And there

00:14:57.440 isn't one specific format for query letters that it's like you must check these boxes or you fail

00:15:03.900 the assignment but there's a list of of key information that you have to get across and

00:15:10.040 that's the most important thing instead of like wowing an agent with like your verbal fireworks

00:15:15.860 or you know like some people like to write their query letters in the voice of their main character

00:15:21.000 and i really suggest people do not do that because i'm not signing up your main character i'm signing

00:15:26.480 up you i want to represent you so it's it's just a kind of a weird thing that i think people do to

00:15:32.640 get attention and i really think thinking about it like a job application cover letter is the right

00:15:40.240 way to go because it remembers that there's a level of formality here you were talking to a

00:15:45.920 stranger in a professional setting you know and while you could say dear kate instead of having

00:15:51.580 to say dear ms mckean you know like i don't care it's fine um you know you don't want to do

00:15:58.600 something that you would not say to a hiring manager or a boss or something and i've had

00:16:03.500 people say the most out-of-pocket things oh my god shut up what are some out-of-pocket things 0.60

00:16:08.100 people have said to you oh there's always one that's like you're probably gonna hate this

00:16:12.400 but here it is anyway i'm like okay cool thanks for deciding for me yeah yeah no also don't set

00:16:19.660 don't set yourself up for that man because now you have the word hate in someone's head yeah 0.99

00:16:24.340 or they're just like um agents are bad and dumb and publishing is stupid and you guys wouldn't 1.00

00:16:28.780 know a good thing if it hit you on the head and blah blah blah and it's just like i get where 1.00

00:16:32.600 those feelings come because it's so hard and opaque and stupid and you know unset lot unlogical 0.98

00:16:37.960 and illogical and and all these things and like having feelings about writing is absolutely 0.98

00:16:45.160 natural and normal. But, you know, you would never in a million years say, dear hiring manager,

00:16:51.540 you're definitely not going to ever call me in for a interview. So I don't even know why I'm

00:16:57.780 bothering. You never would. You never would. No, the best advice that I've heard is similar to what

00:17:03.680 you said. This is a business document, OK? You are selling yourself, act like a respectable human

00:17:09.420 being submitting a resume because you are being considered for what I think is the most important

00:17:16.460 business relationship of your publishing journey because your agent is your advocate. They are the

00:17:22.680 person that is going to hopefully assure you through this process and then hopefully your

00:17:28.880 career. So you want to be professional. Exactly. And I know that the feelings are that like writers

00:17:35.700 want to be plucked out of obscurity for their pure talent and have to do no business work

00:17:41.120 about it you know um you know that would be wonderful that's very sweet that's very sweet

00:17:46.580 that people believe that and it is maybe nine like there's 0.01 percent of authors that can 0.98

00:17:53.040 get away with that shit it's like being um like offered a record deal because someone heard you 0.98

00:17:57.500 singing while you're walking down the street yes like being discovered as a model right cool 1.00

00:18:02.820 cool but yeah cool but not real life no and i think that people really approach publishing

00:18:10.360 i think they approach it this way because they don't know about it but they don't think of it

00:18:14.500 in the same way that we think about pop stars and tv stars and uh models and and other people in the

00:18:21.360 entertainment industry where they're like oh you know it's very normal for the story to be

00:18:27.520 this person you know lived in nashville and struggled in the bar scene for 15 years and

00:18:34.420 then they got their big break and now you know they've got their one chance at a big album and

00:18:38.940 blah blah blah and like cool it happened you know like rags to riches took 20 years blah

00:18:45.520 people don't think that that is the same thing in publishing but it's the same it's the same thing

00:18:51.340 it's the same thing yeah it's a creative thing yeah you're like not gonna write one book and

00:18:56.740 then all of a sudden be Taylor Swift it feels like that happens to some people because they

00:19:03.580 seem to come out of nowhere but you just have literally no idea how many books are in the

00:19:08.980 drawer I have so many books that I personally have written that did not sell that my agent and

00:19:13.820 I tried to sell that just didn't for so many different reasons and I can I can think of all

00:19:19.620 the reasons why and this is the one that sold right and this is the one that sold because I had

00:19:25.380 my newsletter platform behind it not because like we sold it to a buddy or like my agent pulled a

00:19:32.540 magic trick or anything it was this is an idea that people would buy in book form and those

00:19:40.280 people could be reached through my newsletter because you had a platform yeah yes yes and we're

00:19:46.000 going to get into that we're going to get into the importance of platforms how they help in selling

00:19:49.580 all of that after a very quick break

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00:20:36.640 OK, we are back.

00:20:38.800 So say you do want to represent a book and you reach out to an author and say, hey, I'd love to be your agent.

00:20:45.300 What happens next?

00:20:46.240 usually it's um the first call is like hey i would love to talk to you about your work

00:20:51.300 you know um and because i want to check the vibes and they should want to check the vibes

00:20:57.040 you know um there could be some kind of personality mismatch that would drive both of us bonkers

00:21:03.880 and that is cool and that's not to say that like i'm only looking for a cool person who is like

00:21:11.000 super nice and you know chatty and whatever on the phone like you don't have to perform but I want to

00:21:18.200 be on the same page as this author I want to say hey I think a book like yours could end up like

00:21:23.580 this that would be you know a hardcover and published by Knopf and all these things and then

00:21:29.640 if the author says to me oh no I really wanted it to be a trade paperback published by a big romance

00:21:36.860 in print and you're like oh oh cool okay we don't have the same ideas that's awesome i'm not your

00:21:45.060 agent you know um and so i want to talk to them make sure we're on the same page make sure that

00:21:51.820 i think i can give them what they want um i can you know if they come in and say okay great

00:21:57.540 listen i'm not going to take a book deal unless it's a million dollars i'm going to be like

00:22:00.760 awesome awesome cannot guarantee that for you i may not be the right person for you so

00:22:06.460 maybe these are all extreme cases, but vibe check first and foremost. And then I explain the process

00:22:12.980 of, you know, like how books are sold. Just give as much information to the author as possible

00:22:18.760 because it's not out there. And then say, hey, I would love to work with you on this. And if they

00:22:23.780 want to say yes right then and there on the phone, like, cool, that's great. I'm happy to do that.

00:22:27.700 But I also think it's OK for the author to say, amazing. Thank you. Let me get back to you. And I

00:22:34.400 will send my agency agreement so they can read it and understand it and ask questions. And if they

00:22:39.440 have other people reading their book still, other agents, then they should go and say, hey, other

00:22:45.280 agents, I have received an offer of representation. I would love to hear back from you by X date.

00:22:51.080 It's usually about two weeks is generally the time period. And so that means I wait two weeks

00:22:56.060 and i'm prepared to do that like the author deserves the right representation and of course

00:23:04.760 i'm the absolute best and of course i would tell them that totally yeah yeah exactly exactly but

00:23:09.700 no they well because like you said vibes matter right yeah like you really this is a person you're

00:23:14.280 going to be working with in a really intimate manner and you you want to make sure that you

00:23:19.080 enjoy working together and not like oh my gosh we're going to be best friends but can we make

00:23:23.600 business happen together right because a lot of people ask like oh how would i choose you know

00:23:28.120 how do you know if it's the right agent for you and i a lot of times i say is like if you were

00:23:32.380 terrified to ask this person a question they are not the right person for you and again like you

00:23:38.640 said you do not have to be best friends but they you're gonna have to talk to this person for

00:23:42.300 several years hopefully hopefully decades hopefully a lifetime yeah i mean i'm at the

00:23:48.000 point i text my agents on a pretty regular basis uh pretty much anything anything that i want to

00:23:54.780 ask them like i'm in a really comfortable place but that's not always been the case i've had

00:23:58.560 different agents right and like i want someone that i don't feel weird asking some of the really

00:24:05.520 strange questions that are going to come up throughout this journey absolutely you should

00:24:10.100 ask your agent anything they're never going to laugh at you and they're never going to be like

00:24:14.460 wow I can't believe you don't know that they're going to be like oh cool yeah let's go over that

00:24:20.280 let's figure this out let's figure this out yeah okay so cool so say they're the that an author is

00:24:26.920 like all right I choose you what is the process then to getting a book published and again I just

00:24:32.020 I love the idea of going through this step by step because I've done this in so many workshops

00:24:37.240 because it's the the whole process is so opaque and people people are people are very curious for

00:24:42.900 information about how it works. Exactly. That's why I write the book. I know. I know. Also get

00:24:47.700 the book, guys, because there's a lot of stuff in the book that we are not talking about right now.

00:24:51.060 Oh, my gosh. This is this is a taste. This is a taste of like the kind of insider knowledge

00:24:54.940 that you're going to be getting, which I think is so useful to anyone who wants to publish anything.

00:25:00.320 Exactly. It's real tip of the iceberg. And every book is so different. And this is the general

00:25:05.100 process. But your book will have will ask certain questions that other books will not. So you sign

00:25:11.020 up with an agent. You sign the paperwork. Everything's great. You, too, will decide if

00:25:15.260 there are further edits to do. If you're writing a novel, you might do editorial work with your

00:25:20.780 agent, and that will vary from agent to agent. The in-depthness of that will vary from agent to

00:25:26.300 agent and book to book. Oh, here's a great question. How perfect does your book have to

00:25:30.160 be before it goes to the agent? It has to be, I say, it has to be as perfect as you can make it

00:25:36.740 because we are all limited as writers to what we can see in our book. And I talk in the book a lot

00:25:43.120 about the difference between like your writer's intuition and then like anxiety and fear. And your

00:25:48.440 writer's intuition is the one that says like, chapter two, that's still a little slow. You know,

00:25:54.580 like, are you sure? And right, the anxiety is like, you're horrible. This sucks. You'll never 0.95

00:26:00.840 get published and so if you know that like chapter two is slow and and you've got to do something

00:26:09.140 about it do that before you send it to an agent because when the agent comes back to you and says

00:26:13.900 i love this this is great i have some notes for you and those notes are chapter two is slow

00:26:18.760 that's kind of a waste of both of your times and it won't only just be that but as a writer you

00:26:26.100 you learn to listen to that bit of intuition and you're not going to know it the first time or

00:26:30.960 every book is a little different but if you have those notes in your own head that are not you

00:26:36.740 were horrible and this is crap um then address them as best you can get other readers if you

00:26:42.680 can you don't you can hire somebody i don't think you have to what when you if you hire an outside 0.98

00:26:49.260 editor you're not hiring somebody to fix your book you're hiring somebody to teach you editorial

00:26:55.900 skills so you can do it better the next time and like if you hire somebody to quote fix your book

00:27:03.340 and then you send it to an agent that agent is going to assume that you had those editorial

00:27:07.300 skills to start with and so when your next book comes around and it's a big mess they're gonna

00:27:12.100 be like i do we and it's not like they're gonna instantly fire you but you don't have to have

00:27:20.920 this printer-ready book, but it has to be as good as you can make it. And my job as an editor with

00:27:30.220 my clients is to make it hard for the editor to say no. It is not to make it perfect, because I

00:27:35.900 cannot do that. And there is no perfect. But my job is to be like, oh, you didn't actually, you

00:27:42.060 thought that chapter two was slow, but what actually it is, is chapter one is slow. So let's

00:27:45.940 do that and that fixes chapter two and all of a sudden the editor is like in the middle of chapter

00:27:52.580 five and then they're running off to their co-workers to say read this so I can buy it

00:27:57.520 and like that's my goal right right and and like you said I think it's good to know especially

00:28:03.900 when you're doing that first kind of meeting with an agent how hands-on do you want an agent to be

00:28:08.780 some agents really do like a lot of rounds of edits with you and they do a lot of back and

00:28:14.640 forth with you. And some don't at all. Some really are completely just focused on the business

00:28:18.720 aspects of this. Yeah. And it's because they feel like they don't have those skills or they do not

00:28:24.440 want to invest their time that way. And then they just find the projects that don't need that. And

00:28:28.480 that's OK, because there are 40 bajillion projects out there. Exactly. Exactly. So, all right, let's

00:28:36.460 skip ahead just a little bit. When the book is ready, you're giving it to editors. I kind of

00:28:42.640 compare this to doing the query process all over again. I've also compared it to sorority rush

00:28:47.440 and to like med school match because then you're submitting it to a bunch of different editors

00:28:53.180 to get bought. You have your agent, but the book has not sold yet. Now you need the book to sell.

00:28:59.360 How does that process work? It is really a lot like both sorority rush and query process because

00:29:06.340 i i pick the editors according to who i know and what i know about the house and who is working

00:29:13.080 where of what day of the week because they just moved there from another publisher and who do i

00:29:18.920 know is opening a new imprint that's going to be perfect for this and just using all of my industry

00:29:23.800 knowledge that you aren't going to get on like uh in the news or in industry news and i make my list

00:29:32.480 And there are rules about who I can send to where. I can't send to two people at the same imprint. I can't send to some imprints that compete with other imprints in different parts of publishing houses. There's just a million.

00:29:44.920 And so I make my list and I write a query. I write what I would call a pitch letter. It's just a query letter. And I personalize them to the editors that I know. And they give the most pertinent information about the book, which I think is what happens in the book and who the author is.

00:30:06.600 and it'll be different for fiction and nonfiction in nonfiction the who the author is is a much

00:30:11.920 bigger part of the of the pitch and also with like this book will do a b and c um in fiction

00:30:21.120 what i'm trying to tell them is like this is what the reading experience will be this will be what

00:30:25.680 the marketing experience will be this will be like yes x meets y or it's like you know um

00:30:33.860 taylor jenkins read with zombies like whatever it is you know like yes that is some part of the

00:30:39.920 pitching but i'm spoon feeding things to the editor so that they can get interested in it

00:30:46.440 hopefully read it quickly i mean we all want things to happen fast it doesn't happen but they

00:30:50.800 put it in the queue and then get so swept away by my excellent pitch and the excellent book

00:30:57.420 that they're like, oh, slam dunk. Let's go. And I think more and more and more these days,

00:31:04.580 you have to make it really easy for an editor to say yes. And I think that has to do a lot with

00:31:10.800 platforms and marketing. And people ask me all the time, they're like, do I have to have an

00:31:16.240 Instagram following to sell a book? And I say, absolutely not. No. Will it help? Most of the

00:31:20.660 time. It really, it does. It just does because people's attention spans are so short right now

00:31:26.540 and reaching an audience is hard for everyone.

00:31:29.340 I want to hear your take on that

00:31:30.980 after we get back from our last break.

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00:32:17.340 Okay, we are back.

00:32:19.200 Talk to me about platform.

00:32:20.180 Does someone have to have 100,000 Instagram followers to sell a book these days?

00:32:24.060 It's in nonfiction?

00:32:26.020 Almost.

00:32:26.540 I mean, it's not an exact number. There isn't the threshold you have to cross. And you can sell a book if you have 20,000 followers. You could sell a book if you have sometimes 7,000 followers, whatever it is. But in nonfiction, you have to have a platform. And the reason why is because, one, it's one of the primary marketing tools for your book.

00:32:45.580 And I know that sounds kind of crappy because you're like, well, what do I have this publisher for? But there are so few media outlets covering books now. It's just like there aren't places to talk about it. And there isn't this magic pipeline to readers' eyeballs except for social media.

00:33:02.700 and it makes more sense when you think about how you personally bought the last book you bought

00:33:08.640 especially non-fiction how did you know about it where did you hear about it you probably heard it

00:33:13.780 from somebody online that you know and whether that's social or parasocial you know um and they

00:33:21.180 said hey i read this cool book it did a thing it does x y i'm really curious this person has this

00:33:27.020 credential or bonifieds or whatever it is, you should check it out. And word of mouth marketing

00:33:33.640 is the number one way people buy books. So if you are a person in a bookstore or online buying

00:33:40.360 a book and you want it about fishing, and one book you're going to pick up is by somebody you

00:33:47.760 heard of, you've heard of online, maybe you follow them, maybe you don't. And the other person is

00:33:52.240 somebody you've never heard of, and they're roughly the same book, you're going to probably

00:33:56.760 pick the one you've heard of. And as you really think about how you personally buy a book,

00:34:03.080 especially nonfiction, it's much more clear why and what kind of platform you would need to sell

00:34:09.800 that book. With fiction, it's gravy. You know, like it will always help. And I've never turned

00:34:18.200 down a novel that I loved that I thought I could sell because the author didn't have a platform

00:34:22.320 in fiction. Just because because when you buy a book, a novel, it's because somebody said, hey,

00:34:29.180 this is this amazing book about trad wives. And, you know, I cannot I could not believe what

00:34:36.880 happened. You will love it. That's what everyone's saying recently. It's so weird. It's so weird

00:34:42.640 that you picked up on that. Yeah. Yeah. There is this amazing book about trad wives out there.

00:34:46.660 and the internet just can't stop talking about it.

00:34:49.280 It's true.

00:34:50.900 I agree with you.

00:34:52.520 I will say,

00:34:54.080 I see a lot of fiction books breakthrough

00:34:57.160 that the author does not have a platform at all.

00:35:00.900 But because there are so many books out there

00:35:04.380 and it is hard to get books notice,

00:35:07.860 that when you don't have like a celebrity book club pick

00:35:10.620 or you're not really being pushed

00:35:13.160 for like one of the lead titles,

00:35:14.760 a platform freaking helps.

00:35:16.040 it does so i mean i even tell fiction authors you don't need it but it's nice it is nice and the way

00:35:23.480 you get it when you're a fiction author is to just go talk about other people's books

00:35:27.020 like just talk about books you don't have to be like here's one sentence for my novel every day

00:35:33.740 for a year you know like you don't have to talk about your book just talk talk about books in the

00:35:38.780 same neighborhood hood as your books exactly exactly well and all this goes back to something

00:35:44.140 I talked a lot about at this workshop I was just at, which is being a good citizen in the publishing

00:35:49.840 world. And that is supporting other authors. It's doing reviews for other authors. It's really just

00:35:57.460 trying to lift up everyone that is working around you because they're your colleagues. And I think

00:36:03.260 that's a really important thing. Absolutely. I interviewed Yadon Israel, who's an editor at

00:36:09.360 Simon Schuster. He's not my editor. But we were talking about platform and community. And he was

00:36:16.440 like, people think that that platform or community is transactional. And they're like, OK, well,

00:36:21.480 if I read this many books and blurb them and thought of it, then I deserve it back or whatever.

00:36:27.580 And you do get out what you put in, but you're not, you know, you're not cashing chips. You know,

00:36:34.580 you're not saying, OK, well, I'm going to go make nice at this party. I'm going to follow these

00:36:38.660 people so that when my book comes out, I can go ask them for blurbs. You're doing it because you

00:36:44.860 want to be in community with writers so that you can help them and they can help you and you can

00:36:51.520 learn from each other and support each other. And whether that means it's online or real life or

00:36:56.820 whatever, or even just liking posts, you know, or subscribing to newsletters and listening to

00:37:04.400 podcast whatever it is you are becoming part of a community that will support you not like to cash

00:37:13.120 in chips exactly exactly and you know i know the whole blurbs thing is really controversial these

00:37:19.740 days because so much of the work of getting blurbs and blurbs for for people who don't know are like

00:37:25.000 where another author says they liked your book because of x y and z and you see them on books

00:37:29.780 And they do a lot to help readers decide if this is the kind of book they'll like, but they do even more to help booksellers decide if they should buy that book, I think. But almost all of the work of getting those blurbs falls on the author and the author's agent. And it is a lot of work. I would like to not do blurbs anymore.

00:37:49.620 for the next for the next book i mean maya might kill me if i do this but i may try to attempt

00:37:55.060 to not not have to get blurbs because you feel you just feel so vulnerable and it's it's such

00:38:02.240 a hard thing to ask for yeah i got i i would say i got my own blurbs i mean i did ask the people

00:38:09.160 who blurbed my book to blurb it and i sent those emails and i thought i was comfortable with that

00:38:13.500 because it was I was the right person to ask if there had been somebody else that was like

00:38:19.040 my publisher was more connected to they would have asked my agent would have done the same

00:38:24.240 and I got two great blurbs and everybody was fine and like I didn't need to send out for 27

00:38:31.900 and I guess I mean I knew the process so I was like maybe not it was not as fraught

00:38:36.680 and I may have different opinions and my next books you know like 27 books in like you are but

00:38:43.500 it is really for booksellers and a little bit for the author's ego.

00:38:49.100 But I think after a while, you're probably done with that.

00:38:52.420 Oh, my God.

00:38:52.660 I have no ego anymore.

00:38:54.740 Like, I literally don't.

00:38:56.260 All I want to do is I just want people to read my books,

00:38:58.780 and then I want to be able to keep writing books.

00:39:01.160 Those are my only two goals.

00:39:02.520 I could care less about good reviews unless it means more people are buying the books,

00:39:07.980 and then I get to keep making books.

00:39:09.840 And I think that's kind of the best goal,

00:39:11.240 because all the other goals that you can have, which is like, I want to be a book club pick.

00:39:16.520 I want to be on a list. I want to blah, blah, blah, blah. Like you can't do that. You can't

00:39:20.120 make that happen. You physically can't do anything but write your book.

00:39:24.380 No, you really can't. I mean, I could talk about celebrity book clubs all day long. And I do think

00:39:30.360 that, you know, since they started coming up about eight years ago, they have become, you know,

00:39:36.200 a publishing house is crossing their fingers and saying if we hopefully we get it we get a book

00:39:40.900 club for for this and then you know not really knowing where to go if you don't get a book club

00:39:47.200 and the book clubs really do suck so much air out of the room for other books and i say this as a

00:39:52.660 person who was a good morning america book club pick like i saw the kind of boost that it gave

00:39:57.660 our book i saw the behind the scenes process of how we became a book club pick you know some of

00:40:03.580 this is serendipity and some of this is connections and some of it is your publisher putting it

00:40:08.160 forward but it is really nothing you can control and also they only pick certain kinds of books

00:40:14.420 so i would never be a book club pick like jenna is never gonna never never be a book club pick

00:40:21.080 and fun fact they don't like to do they don't they don't like to choose you again only like gma

00:40:29.260 I has maybe done one repeat author, but I was told that they don't do them.

00:40:33.980 And book clubs also like to feel like they discovered someone most of the time.

00:40:39.080 Most of the time.

00:40:39.380 So they're not, you're probably not going to get chosen if you've already been another book club pick.

00:40:44.140 Right.

00:40:44.900 And that feels probably fair enough.

00:40:47.320 Like, cool.

00:40:47.980 Yes.

00:40:48.560 You know, great.

00:40:49.880 But like, also, my book is never going to hit the New York Times bestseller list.

00:40:53.700 Not a chance ever.

00:40:54.740 and that isn't to say that it doesn't deserve it or isn't going to sell well or that people don't

00:41:00.300 like it or isn't popular but like the list that my book would be on because it's non-fiction

00:41:05.260 would be the how-to advice miscellaneous list which is like atomic habits and youtuber

00:41:12.960 cookbooks and i that that football book that bird represented um oh yes that book that book yeah

00:41:21.960 that some football player was reading or whatever and you're like I'm Atomic Habits has been on the

00:41:26.680 New York Times bestseller list for like 650,000 million weeks or whatever and I'm just I just

00:41:31.820 don't have a chance and that's fine like cool it's fine I don't that's not a goal that I could

00:41:39.980 logistically reach and most people don't know if that's a goal for them or not because they don't

00:41:46.580 know how publishing works and I do and that's that's why I'm okay with it but like so great

00:41:50.940 I'm going to have other goals. And my other goals are writing more books.

00:41:55.460 Writing more books, because I love writing books. I mean, this is my career. This is the career I

00:41:58.720 want to have for the rest of my life. And so my goal is to just keep writing more books and also

00:42:03.620 delighting readers. And the reason that I push the books so hard is because, honestly, word of

00:42:10.020 mouth really works. And so the more people reading it, the more books are going to go out there

00:42:14.080 and all of those things. So yeah, it's a weird world. It's still a world that I believe in and

00:42:22.020 that I love because I love books so much. But as I tell people all the time, it's also a business.

00:42:29.040 And I think thinking about it like a business is just really important and validating. I think a

00:42:34.160 lot of women are often afraid to think about it like a business. And a lot of authors are afraid 0.83

00:42:39.400 to think about it like a business and i i have let go of all of those fears exactly and it's both

00:42:46.260 a business and a job but it is a job that doesn't look like any other job because we expect like the

00:42:53.620 upward climbing the ladder you know that the the the graph always goes up and that is not how books

00:43:01.320 work like every time you write another book you aren't exactly starting from zero but you aren't

00:43:07.300 exactly starting from the exact point you were before. And so your next book isn't necessarily

00:43:13.200 going to sell for more money or more copies. And after 27 million books, you're not guaranteed

00:43:19.820 a certain, like, more money than the last time just because you got it last time.

00:43:24.620 And I don't think a lot of people realize that. And it sucks. 0.98

00:43:29.960 That does suck. But there's also so many good books. There's so many good books out there. 0.99

00:43:33.460 Well, publishing isn't a meritocracy. So lots of good books aren't going to get published every day. And it's because it's a business. It's not a meritocracy.

00:43:45.520 It's a business, not a meritocracy. I love your sub stack so much. Will you tell people where they can find it, you and your wonderful book?

00:43:53.360 Yes, my newsletter is at agentsandbooks.com. I'm Kate McKean at all the places online,

00:44:01.080 Instagram, Blue Sky, and you can find my book right through it,

00:44:05.580 An Insider's Guide to Publishing and the Creative Life, wherever books are sold.

00:44:23.360 you matched on hinge you're vibing then her energy completely changes what do you do

00:44:52.580 I'm Raven Smith and I wrote and read a real love story about this exact sitch.

00:44:57.320 Listen to the free audiobook now.

Under the Influence (with Jo Piazza) - June 10, 2025

How to Get Published： A Literary Agent Tells All

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