Transferable skills✨
Which skills you learn at the start of your journey eventually lead to book sales... also known as the quadratic formula of publishing.
welcome to season four 🔥
transferable skills
resources/fact check 📋
next week
1. welcome to season four🔥
And we’re back! Hello, Team Curiosity! We hope the tree pollen isn’t as punishing in your neck of the woods as it currently is in both of ours!
We are here for our fourth season, which is insane. But also meaningless! Because, while each season is 12 full length episodes, we make up their start and end dates as we go along. And we’ve had plenty of mini seasons in between.
Anyhoodle, did you know this is our 54th episode? That’s 54 Wednesdays of craft content, y’all. A few fun facts:
Our most popular episode (to no one’s surprise) remains Seven Layer Plot Dip.
Character is Story is next, but that’s probably because it’s the first episode, so many of y’all go in order.
Plotting a Novel with Truth vs Lie is third, very closely followed by our Writing Romance episode (and for those who liked that one, we have something even better dropping in a few weeks…
Maxing Out Vibes is the most popular from season two. It’s also one of our all-time favs.
And from season three, Pixar’s 22 Rules of Storytelling has already risen to the top, even though we released that one fairly recently. Even more surprising, our most recent episode, Putting Your Characters Through Hell, is already the second most popular of the season. We have been talking butter everywhere, so we’re loving this.
It’s fascinating for us to see which episodes resonate with you the most. Regardless, we feel so honored that we’ve been steadily growing since day one. Thank you for being on this journey for us, and thank you for continuing to listen/read.
Now let’s get to work!
2. Transferable Skills:
So much of what we do early in our publishing careers transforms to tools required later in our careers. We both remember feeling disheartened by all the hoops we had to jump through in order to even be considered by agents. And although people told us “that’ll come in handy later,” no one was particularly specific. And sometimes, they were downright condescending! (I’m looking at you, people who tweeted “If you think querying’s a long wait, you’re not cut out for publishing.”)
So this week, Anna puts on her teacher hat and walks us through some of the specific ways early skills become crucial later in a book’s lifespan. There’s plenty of catching up at the start of this episode, but plenty of craft nerdiness, too, so enjoy!
And here are some of the highlights…
querying
When you query, you condense a huge amount of story into a super concise, voice-y summary that sells your manuscript. It’s hard! A good query can take weeks, if not months, to perfect. What to leave in, what to take out, how to maximize your stand-out elements, all the while telling that in a coherent 150-200 word pitch. It’s a ton of work, all to get an agent and (hopefully) not have to query again, or at least for a long, long time.
But those skills come back.
A good query can become:
Submission materials
Back jacket copy of your sold novel
Marketing materials for booksellers and librarians
How you pitch new ideas to your agent
How you pitch option materials to your edit
Your book announcement pitch (concised)
one sentence pitch (log line)
We’re big fans of beginning a manuscript with a one sentence pitch. Ugh, it’s hard. Lyssa endeavors to do it but often forgets about it and pays for it later. Anna, however, keeps it front and center while she drafts.
But this isn’t simply good craft practice. A good log line could become…
your deal announcement (woot woot!)
your social media advertising
Marketing material
New York Times Bestseller list description (WOOT WOOT!)
How readers eventually recommend your book to other readers. This is the most important of all. The easier people can pitch it, the easier they can catch someone’s interest.
3. resources/fact check 📋
We mention our agents by first name often, but we rarely mention their full names. If you’re curious…
Anna is represented by Mike Whatnall of Dystel, Goderich & Bourret
Lyssa is represented by Lauren Spieller of Folio Literary.
We use Midnight With You by Clare Osongco an example here. OMG, do we love this book.
4. next week
Next week is a podcast crossover! Can you pretend you didn’t see it on Instagram and guess who our guests are?
Thanks for listening and/or reading! And if you happen to be reading this as a forwarded email from a friend, might we convince you to subscribe and let us know you’re out there? We love you!
Woo!! Team Curiosity is back!!
ahhh thank you so much for the shoutout! 🥰🥰🥰