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This week Kelly and JJ are back from a two-week hiatus, yay! Also they begin a new series, where they take a fictional property and examine it from a storytelling perspective: character, plot, pacing, structure. This week they will tackling one of the most famous: Star Wars.
Subscribe to us on iTunes, Stitcher, Soundcloud, or use this feed to subscribe through your podcast service of choice! If you like us, please, please, please leave a rating or review, as it helps other listeners find the podcast. We cherish each and every one of you who have taken the time to leave us feedback; you’re the stars in our sky!
Show Notes
Kelly watching the movies for the first time at #padawankelly
Star Wars is a very typical Chosen One story, with very familiar tropes. What makes this property work is the strength of the characterization and dialogue.
There’s not much actually original about Star Wars, but it resonates with us on a visceral level. It’s archetypal enough to be familiar to us, and both specific and vague enough for us to fill in the edges. For example, the Force is something that connects all life forms together, but is essentially magic. The worldbuilding works because it’s simple.
Having different characters contrast and play off of each other makes them more interesting, e.g. Han’s cynicism contrasted against Luke’s idealism. Leia is somewhat in the middle, more of a pragmatist.
We’re shown a lot of things about these characters. Han shooting first, Leia coming up with escape plans, Luke’s desire to leave Tattooine in that scene when he’s watching the twin suns of the planet set.
The dialogue also illuminates a lot of about characterization. “I’m Luke Skywalker and I’m here to rescue you!” tells us that Luke is earnest and sincere, “Get in the chute, fly boy!” tells us that Leia suffers no nonsense, and “Hokey religions and ancient weapons are no match for a good blaster at your side, kid” underscores Han’s innate cynicism.
In terms of plot, pacing, and structure, Star Wars has clear goals in each act. Act I: Find Obi-Wan Kenobi and get information to Princess Leia. Act II: Rescue Princess Leia. Act III: Destroy the Death Star. Also any time our intrepid trio has a success, then a wrench is thrown into it: they get to Princess Leia, but they’re caught in a firefight, etc. Tension is maintained because stakes are clear: if they don’t destroy the Death Star in time, then the Death Star will destroy them.
Star Wars’s mythic quality works because of the simplicity of the narrative. Simple is not simplistic; Star Wars might be straightforward and uncomplicated, but that works in its favor.
A clear, direct plot and compelling characters make this movie a winner. The story doesn’t feel dated, despite the special effects of the period, because it is timeless.
What We’re Reading/Books Discussed
The Star WarsLegends books (formerly the Extended Universe, now no longer canon)
This week JJ and Kelly conclude their series on genres in publishing with ROMANCES. Also, we reveal the depth of our Harry Potter nerdery and our deep fandom past. TRIGGER WARNING: We discuss rape and consent in Old School romances.
Subscribe to us on iTunes, Stitcher, Soundcloud, or use this feed to subscribe through your podcast service of choice! If you like us, please, please, please leave a rating or review, as it helps other listeners find the podcast. We cherish each and every one of you who have taken the time to leave us feedback; you’re the stars in our sky!
Romance is the largest market of publishing in terms of sheer number of books being published, units being sold, as well as cash flow.
We discussed the hallmarks of other genres, but romance really only has the one: your main couple must end up in a relationship by the end of the book (the so-called HEA, or Happily Ever After, or the HFN, or Happily For Now).
Romance is a staple of publishing, and is a large part of what we now consider the literary “canon” but the modern romance novel as we knew it first came into existence in the 1970s. According to the Smart Bitches, the “first” modern romance novel is The Flame and the Flower by Kathleen E. Woodiwiss.
Romance novels are divided into Old School and New School romance: Old School are the books published pre-1990s.
Old School romances may be partially responsible for the “trashy” reputation around romance novels because there were forceful, rapist male romantic leads, but for other reasons, not the least because the stories were centered around female leads and female pleasure.
Old School romances were also about awakening the female lead, sexually, emotionally, etc. so some hangups about “virginity” (actual or metaphorical) linger.
Romance publishing is divided into two segments: category and single-title.
Category romances are specific lines from a publisher focusing on specific tropes and storylines. As a romance writer, it may be easier to break into publishing by starting to write for categories.
Single-title romances are focused more on the author’s name than the tropes, e.g. Nora Roberts. The stories and tropes are created wholesale by the author and is more similar to other trade publishing genres.
In terms of content, romances can literally contain anything. Anything! That’s the greatest thing about romance; it’s like Mad Libs: put in what you want and you’ll pretty much guaranteed to find a romance novel that fits that criteria. Romances span every genre: mystery, thriller, science-fiction, fantasy, contemporary, et al. What constitutes a ROMANCE as opposed to another genre is the centrality of the love story.
Romances can have series, either where friends or different family members get their own romances in separate books, or else it’s one central couple throughout multiple books.
That’s all for this week! We will be on hiatus for the next two weeks as both JJ and Kelly will be on vacation (not together, alas!). When we return, we will be starting a new series, wherein we break down stories to see what makes them successful or not. As always, sound off in the comments if you have any questions and we’ll see you in two weeks!
This week Kelly and JJ continue with their characterization series with VILLAINS. Apologies for the audio quality this week, folks; this topic is apparently cursed as Kelly and JJ tried to record it TWICE and FAILED. Also, spoilers ahoy for Star Wars, Harry Potter, LOST, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Battlestar Galactica, et al.
Subscribe to us on iTunes, Stitcher, Soundcloud, or use this feed to subscribe through your podcast service of choice! If you like us, please, please, please leave a rating or review, as it helps other listeners find the podcast. We cherish each and every one of you who have taken the time to leave us feedback; you’re the stars in our sky!
Show Notes
The difference between a protagonist and a villain is standing on opposite sides of a moral divide.
There are two types of villains: the idealogical villain (e.g. Sauron, Voldemort, Evil) and the personal villain (characters with a personal motive that sets them against the protagonist).
Villains often lack empathy, in that they often don’t have empathy for others, don’t care about collateral damage, etc.
Antagonists differ from villains in that they are not necessarily on the opposite side of the moral divide, but are in opposition to the protagonist nonetheless. Antagonists are in opposition to the protagonist, but are not necessarily Evil themselves.
Stories do not necessarily need villains. Obstacles can be in the form of societal conduct, circumstance, or some external conflict that has nothing to do with a singular villain, or even villains.
JJ finished what she hopes are the last round of additional edits/copyedits of Wintersong.
Kelly is working on ALL THE PODCASTS! In addition to an Avatar: The Last Airbender podcast (with JJ and another friend), she has a parenting podcast called World’s Okayest Moms. Follow them on Twitter!
We have revitalized our Instagram and Facebook accounts! Check them out and follow us!
That’s all for this week! Hopefully next week we’ll have better audio quality and come back with another series on characterization with LOVE INTERESTS AND ANCILLARY CHARACTERS.
This week JJ and Kelly talk about the characterization of protagonists, how to get a vivid, realistic character, and whether or not “unlikeable” means “unsympathetic.”
Subscribe to us on iTunes, Stitcher, Soundcloud, or use this feed to subscribe through your podcast service of choice! If you like us, please, please, please leave a rating or review, as it helps other listeners find the podcast. We cherish each and every one of you who have taken the time to leave us feedback; you’re the stars in our sky!
Show Notes/Further Reading
Characters need a balance of flaws and strengths.
Universal appeal is not possible—it generally means the character becomes incredibly bland.
Specificity breeds intimacy, and specific action shows more than telling details.
There is a difference between an “unlikeable” and an “unsympathetic” protagonist. An unlikeable protagonist can still be sympathetic, but an unsympathetic character just makes us not care.
JJ is working on Wintersong copyedits and she has a cover! The cover will be revealed on Monday, April 11, but those who are subscribed to JJ’s newsletter will get to see it first!
That’s all for this week! Next week we will be continuing our characterization series with an episode about VILLAINS. As always, if you have any questions, sound off in the comments!
This week Kelly and JJ live-critique five queries submitted for review. Thank you to everyone who sent us their queries! We would love nothing more than to be able to provide personalized critique to each and every one of you, but unfortunately we don’t have all the time in the world.
Subscribe to us on iTunes, Stitcher, Soundcloud, or use this feed to subscribe through your podcast service of choice! If you like us, please, please, please leave a rating or review, as it helps other listeners find the podcast. We cherish each and every one of you who have taken the time to leave us feedback; you’re the stars in our sky!
Show Notes
We had more than five queries submitted to us, and unfortunately we were unable to get to them all. However, if you guys find this sort of thing helpful, we are thinking of keeping this query critique thing going and maybe doing a critique podcast every quarter or so. Let us know your thoughts!
We received about 15 queries, so we picked five that we thought demonstrated a breadth of concerns.
Across the board, we saw a lot of telling, not showing.
We also saw queries that told us “My book is about [insert theme here].” That’s all fine, but it’s necessary in a query, and it’s wasting space. The story is more important than what the book is about.
Specifics always make us care more. Don’t be afraid to give us specific details. Vagueness is confusing, not enticing.
Query #1
According to your profile you are actively seeking children’s books that feature “adorakble” protagonists, and I think my story picturebook, TITLE, fits the kind of text you hope to market. My intent for the book is to broaden children’s exposure to music and encourage mixing different styles, while developing a sense of empathy. Each book in the TITLE series would include a brief history of the instruments featured alongside a bar of simple music that could be played with a recorder. The nonfiction and interactive elements would especially appeal to gifted elementary readers. What happens when you’re the Captain of the Watch’s son returning home from a summer at Hero Camp, but you never mastered Highly Stylized Defenestration? Billy McDougal knows he doesn’t have what it takes to follow in the footsteps of his father and brothers, who are already considered heroes in the community. All of this changes when he finds an old bugle in the attic. His best friend, Claire Annette, encourages him to harness its power to help protect the town of Crescendo from a series of attacks by wild beasts who are in thrall to a mysterious figure with an enchanted Theremin. TITLE stories are set to feature a cast of multicultural characters who each represent different genres of music, from strings and percussion to beatboxing, and use their talents to protect their hometown from a mysterious and vengeful villain. One of my overarching themes is that “villains” are typically only lashing out after having been hurt themselves. The antagonist of the series, Leo, believes himself to be a hero avenging his sister, a musical prodigy who was left deaf after an accident. She is unaware of Leo’s actions and the climax of the series involves her mediating an alliance between her brother and the band. I have a BA in creative writing from SCHOOL and have been teaching Language Arts for nearly a decade. During the summer I am an instructor at NAME OF CENTER where I work with gifted fourth and fifth graders in the Writing Workshop: Modern Fantasy course. I have seen firsthand how kids can channel their energy into creative outlets, and the results are amazing. I think Billy’s story can inspire the next generation and inform them of music’s historical relevance with hands-on application.
Thank you very much for your time and I hope you enjoy my submission!
Talking about your book doesn’t tell us what the story is. There’s a lot here we like, but we can’t really figure out what’s happening: we get a lot about what the book is trying to do, but the query doesn’t prove any of it. Similarly, is this a picture book? Nonfiction? A novel? Without a clear idea of what this book is, an agent will not know how or where to sell it.
Query #2
When Nora’s research leads her to a secret world of time travel, she becomes a marked woman and experiences a love that could change the past and destroy the present. Her story is TITLE, a 76,000-word contemporary fantasy.
When Nora travels to France to dig deeper into her late mother’s time travel theories, she meets Henri, a man who claims to be a twelfth-century prince and the man she knows will one day become King Henry II of England.
Henri’s struggle for the throne brings him to the twenty-first century to find a relic from a 900-year-old shipwreck, recently recovered from the bottom of the English Channel. Nora joins his quest, thrilled to find living proof of time travel and eager to uncover more details about her mother’s research. But in her growing attraction to the prince, Nora ignores important signs that Henri is not being completely honest with her.
Helping Henri sets Nora firmly in the crosshairs of a dangerous group, the Guardians, who will stop at nothing to prevent time travel. Nora and Henri race across France to find the relic that will secure Henri’s kingdom before the Guardians silence them forever. When the Guardians finally abduct her and expose Henri’s lies, a shattered Nora realizes that her decision to trust him and ultimately love him could change the past and the present.
TITLE combines historical intrigue in the spirit of Anne Forstier’s The Lost Sisterhood with the lighthearted romantic feel of Lauren Willig’s Pink Carnation series. This novel, along with most of my writing, is inspired by the piles of research I did for my Master of Arts in History. My short stories have been finalists for the Thomas Wolfe Fiction Prize and the Writer’s Workshop Fiction Contest and have been published in online literary magazines and several small press anthologies, including Copperfield Review. I live in Charlotte, NC, where I’m plotting more adventures for Nora and spinning non-magical historical tales.
The first [insert number] of pages are pasted below, and the complete manuscript is available upon request. Thank you so much for reading, and I hope to hear from you soon.
This query has a lot of potential, but it is unfortunately a bit too vague. Lots of exciting things are happening—time travel, historical figures, romance, intrigue—but we have no specifics. Without specifics, we don’t have stakes. What exactly is the relic that will help cement Henri’s claim to the throne? Why are the Guardians trying to prevent time travel? What is Henri’s secret? Also, protip: We would pick Susanna Kearsley as your comp.
Query #3
Dear [Agent],
Yesterday, Jordan’s biggest fear was being outed as genderqueer. Today, he’s trying to stop the world’s largest video game company from becoming the next Big Brother before they kill him and his friends.
Jordan and his two gaming partners just won tickets for Cruise Con, a convention-at-sea hosted by the company that produces their favorite MMORPG. All they have to do is beta test a new game world with the other contest winners. But after the trial, an anonymous gamer tells them they missed something, and threatens their families if they don’t find it. Jordan wants to go to the police, but cops won’t reach the ship in time, and the security officers on board may not be trustworthy.
Then another curious gamer is killed, and Jordan and his friends get caught in a race to expose a lethal technology hidden in the game’s code before the tech is used against them.
TITLE is a 62,000-word young adult thriller with LGBTQ characters that will appeal to fans of Ernest Cline and Cory Doctorow’s Little Brother.
I have a B.A. in Classics from SCHOOL and an M.S. in library and information sciences from the OTHER SCHOOL. When not writing, I work as a public librarian, connecting readers with books they will love.
Thank you for your time and consideration.
We love this! We just want more! Where we need a little bit of expansion is “But after the trial, an anonymous gamer tells them they missed something, and threatens their families if they don’t find it.” There is a lot in that one sentence that we need clarification on: what did they miss? Is it lethal? (As we find out in a later paragraph.) What are the consequences? How does it kill people? How does the anonymous gamer threaten their families? Who is the villain of this story?
Query #4
Dear __________,
Eleven-year-old twins Seamus and Grady lead a life most boys can only dream of. They have rich, doting parents who never scold them, chuckle when they play hooky from school and give them whatever they want. They accidentally find out why. Turns out, they’re not Americans – heck, they’re not even human. They are twenty-first century, ex-pat leprechauns soon to possess awesome powers … if they can acquire a pot of gold each.
Unfortunately, pots of gold don’t come easy in their hometown of Boston, so they have to look elsewhere. The twins end up in Africa with an ancient map and a plan to find the lost treasure of Prester John, a mighty king who stashed his loot somewhere in Ethiopia. No quest comes without peril and standing in their way is the undead spirit of a giant African chief who guards the hoard and believes that by sacrificing the boys, he can return to the world of the living … and rule it. Can the twins outsmart a wily specter plus a few other sundry obstacles, acquire their pot of gold and live to ride the rainbow back home?
TITLE is my debut novel. It is a 45,000-word fun adventure aimed at children aged 9-12. It will appeal to readers who enjoy imaginative and fast-paced action books. With a hefty dollop of magic, of course.
I have a BA in Journalism SCHOOL in Montreal and work as a freelance writer to support my creative writing addiction. As per your submission guidelines, I am attaching a synopsis of my story and my manuscript.
Thank you for your time and consideration and I look forward to hearing from you soon.
This is clever and cute, and as a middle grade story, it’s right in the sweet spot of adventure and whimsy. However, we do want to caution you about the potential for appropriation in a story where two white boys go on an adventure in a monolithic “Africa”.
Query #5
The Crummett siblings have each adapted their lives to fit within the oppressive boundaries of their parents’ expectations. Whether it’s for money, approval, respect, or love, all the children have manipulated their lives conform to the family standards. But when Olive, the youngest and most beloved sister, ends up pregnant outside of wedlock and dares to be happy about it everything changes. Seeing Olive boldly step outside the shadow of their parents ridged expectations forces each of the siblings to question the fundamental motivations on which they have built their lives. This new perspective sends them each on their own unique journey.
Olive’s closest sister, Sam, goes through a heartrending non-surgical abortion the day before she finds out about Olive’s pregnancy and now has to negotiate an emotional landscape scattered with the question “what if.” The oldest brother, William, a gay man whose parents refer to his long-time partner as his “black friend,” realizes that the only thing holding him back from fully engaging in life is fear of his parents’ disapproval. The oldest “perfect daughter,” Vivian, reignites a relationship she’d sabotaged with too much drinking and unexamined anger over events from her past. And the youngest sibling, twenty-one-year-old Mark, responds in typical fashion by pretending not to give a shit while actually feeling even more disgruntled with and disconnected from his siblings than before.
During this tumultuous time, a new family dynamic begins to take shape: bonds are formed between once distant siblings, close relationships are put to the test, and Mark’s bitter resentment towards his siblings turns dangerous. When the siblings find themselves face to face for the first time since Olive’s announcement tensions run high, and a final act of selfish rage sets off a series of events which end in a tragedy that threatens to destroy them all.
The Crummett siblings live up and down the West Coast in Portland, San Francisco, and Los Angeles, but their lives are intimately woven together as the point of view shifts from one sibling to the next after each phone call or in-person interaction between siblings. This flow of perspective creates the experience of a natural sibling dynamic while also giving readers the opportunity to learn about each character through their own thoughts as well as the observations and judgments of their siblings.
TITLE is upmarket women’s fiction and is complete at 100,300 words.
This is pretty much ready to go. It’s a little wordy; we would cut the last sentence of the first paragraph and excise the last paragraph entirely, but otherwise, this is gold. Query away, and good luck!
This week JJ and Kelly discuss Voice in another installment of their Writing Mechanics series. Voice: What is it? How can you develop it? How many times can they say “voice” in a single episode?
This week JJ and Kelly talk subrights, or the pocket change of the publishing world! Also, our call for query submissions to be critiqued on our future query critique podcast is still open, so please send them in! Plus, more horror podcast recommendations.
Subscribe to us on iTunes, Stitcher, Soundcloud, or use this feed to subscribe through your podcast service of choice! If you like us, please, please, please leave a rating or review, as it helps other listeners find the podcast. We cherish each and every one of you who have taken the time to leave us feedback; you’re the stars in our sky!
IF THE PODCAST IS NOT UPDATING FOR YOU ON ITUNES: Unsubscribe from us and then delete the show from your podcast app. Then search for “Pub(lishing) Crawl” in the Podcast store. Download the most recent episode, and then re-subscribe. This should refresh the feed, and you should be getting episodes as they update going forward!
Show Notes
A subsidiary right is the right to produce or publish a product in different formats based on the original material.
Primary subrights include:
First and second serial
Translation
Audio
Film/TV
Dramatic
Merchandising/Commercial
Graphic Novels
Secondary subrights include:
Library binding
Large print
Book club
Anthologies
Reach for the sky rights!
Theme park
Video games
Granting vs. retaining subrights
Retaining subrights:
If you retain a subright, you (or your agent) are responsible for the sale/licensing (“exploiting”) of the subright
The advantage is that you would receive money from the sale/licensing directly (minus your agent and co-agent’s commission).
Granting subrights:
If you grant a subright to the publisher, the publisher is responsible for exploiting those rights.
You and the publisher will split the proceeds from the sale/licensing (generally 50/50, but these splits can be negotiated)
The advantage of granting subrights is that money from the sale/licensing go against your advance, so you would earn out your advance faster and receive royalties on your book sooner
Real Life Example of Retaining Subrights
During the process of negotiation, your agent sells North American rights only for an advance of $10,000.
You make a foreign sale to a German publisher for $10,000.
The foreign co-agent takes 10%, your agent takes 10%, leaving you with $8000 to paid to you directly.
Advantage: You get $18,000 in hand.
Real Life Example of Granting Subrights
Let’s say during the process of negotiation, you granted more subrights to the publisher for more advance money, so you sold World rights for an advance of $15,000.
The publisher makes a foreign sale to a German publisher for $10,000.
Because the split is 50/50, your publisher makes $5000, and you make $5000. The publisher applies this money against your advance, so now you need to sell $10,000 worth of royalties in order to start seeing royalty checks.
Advantage: You get $15,000 in hand, but will earn out faster.
PRO TIP: If you do grant subrights to the publisher, make sure there is language in your contract to ensure that these rights would revert back to you within a certain timeframe, should they go unexploited.
PRO TIP: Make sure you also have language that only grants explicitly listed rights to the publisher, e.g. “Any right not explicitly granted herein is retained by the author.” Also, make sure you excise “whether now known or hereafter devised”.
Kelly is still working on her YA, and is also co-writing a MG with her friend.
JJ has seen cover concepts for Wintersong and is excited to share them with you in the future! She is still working on mental health, and is working on her Beauty and the Beast retelling VERY SLOWLY. She is also trying to write short fiction, to put more writing tools in her arsenal.
This week Kelly and JJ go into a little more detail about how to write a query: what works, what doesn’t work, the who, the what, the where, and the whys. Also, have a query you want to have critiqued? Email us!
Unfortunately, it appears as though our iTunes link is broken due to us moving the podcast to Soundcloud to deal with server issues. We are looking to see if we can’t maintain the feed at its current place, but we may need to delete the podcast and y’all who listen through iTunes to resubscribe. Our apologies in advance!
Emotional distance from your work is best (we know this is hard!)
Don’t go too broad; the more specific the better
You don’t need to include absolutely everything about your book in your query—just enough to entice the agent into wanting more
The shorter, the better: sweet spot is 250 to 400 words
Let your story speak for itself; don’t talk about your book (show, don’t tell!)
Try to limit the number of characters you’re naming in your query (they generally say no more than 3): the protagonist, the antagonist, major ancillary character
Also, you may write a flawless query, but the agent may still pass because it’s simply not their taste
The “Formula”
SETUP: A brief “laying of the scene”: setting, premise, etc. The “status quo”, as it were. INCITING INCIDENT: A disruption of the status quo (e.g. a stranger comes to town) CONSEQUENCES OF INCITING INCIDENT: How the world has changed after the Inciting Incident THE MOMENT THE PROTAGONIST BECOMES PERSONALLY INVOLVED: What it says on the tin
The SETUPbut whenINCITING INCIDENT happens CONSEQUENCES OF INCITING INCIDENT occur,so thenTHE PROTAGONIST BECOMES PERSONALLY INVOLVED.
All of this together gets across what the stakes are, and that’s what generates tension and interest in a story.
ALSO: If you need troubleshooting with your query, Kelly and JJ will be doing QUERY CRITIQUES in a future podcast. If you have a query you would like us to critique, email us at [email protected] with the subject line PUBCRAWL PODCAST QUERY CRITIQUE. We will we critiquing 5 queries with all identifying information removed. All genres and categories welcome! We will leave the query critique submission open for 4 weeks, so polish up and send it in!
This week JJ and Kelly are back to their regular format and discuss X Meets Y, or The High Concept Pitch: what it is, what it entails, and whether or not you need it. Also, the difference between “commercial” and “literary” (if any), and as always, what we’re reading and enjoying this week!
Subscribe to us on iTunes, or use this feed to subscribe through your podcast service of choice! If you like us, please, please, please leave a rating or review, as it helps other listeners find the podcast. We know you’re listening! You tell us you do! So why not do us a favor and let other people know? Thanks in advance!
Show Notes
“High concept” is really just the ability to distill your premise down to one or two sentences. It can encompass the “X meets Y” pitch, but a high concept pitch is really the kernel of a story—the handle, as JJ’s old boss used to say—you can pick up and hand to someone else (i.e. sell).
“Commercial” vs. “literary” is a false dichotomy; they are writing styles, not concepts. You can have the exact same idea and write it in a commercial way, or write it in a more literary manner.
Arkham Horror (not Arkham Asylum as JJ mentions, although she has played that too)
That’s all for this week! Next week we’ll talk about CRITIQUE GROUPS! If you have any questions you would like us to answer, send us an ask or leave a comment!
This week JJ talks with New York Times bestselling author Beth Revis about her publishing journey, revision, how she learned to revise and critique, and what she’s reading and enjoying!
Subscribe to us on iTunes, or use this feed to subscribe through your podcast service of choice! If you like us, please leave a rating or review, as it helps other listeners find the podcast. Thanks in advance!
BETH REVIS is the New York Times bestselling author of the Across the Universe trilogy, as well as The Body Electric, Paper Hearts, and the forthcoming A World Without You. She lives in the Appalachian mountains with her boys: one husband, one son, and two very large dogs. You can find out more on Facebook, Twitter, or online. If you never want to miss a thing and also get exclusive insider opportunities, sign up for her newsletter here.
The podcast episode where we discuss the vagaries of The New York Times bestselling lists
Learn to revise by editing! Beth learned to revise by practice, and by critique other people’s work. JJ learned to revise by editing other people’s manuscripts.
JJ is working on her middle grade and waiting on cover concepts for Wintersong
Just to let you guys know, both JJ and Kelly will be doing an AMA at the /r/YAwriters subreddit on MONDAY, JANUARY 25TH. Come and ask us questions about publishing, revision, and whatever else might cross your mind!
Your enemy is the blank page. When it comes to writing, there’s no wrong way to get words on paper. But it’s not always easy to make the ink flow. Paper Hearts: Some Writing Advice won’t make writing any simpler, but it may help spark your imagination and get your hands back on the keyboard.
Practical Advice Meets Real Experience
With information that takes you from common mistakes in grammar to detailed charts on story structure, Paper Hearts describes:
How to Develop Character, Plot, and World
What Common Advice You Should Ignore
What Advice Actually Helps
How to Develop a Novel
The Basics of Grammar, Style, and Tone
Four Practical Methods of Charting Story Structure
How to Get Critiques and Revise Your Novel
How to Deal with Failure
And much more!
Enter for a giveaway of PAPER HEARTS: Some Writing Advice! Beth has generously donated a signed copy!
Happy new year! This week JJ and Kelly are back after a holiday hiatus, traveling through time with an episode recorded in 2015 about REVISION! Once again, apologies for the mouth-breathing: winter is a rough time for JJ’s sinuses.
Subscribe to us on iTunes, or use this feed to subscribe through your podcast service of choice! If you like us, please leave a rating or review, as it helps other listeners find the podcast. Thanks in advance!
Show Notes
You can browse all our Revisions posts at PubCrawl via the tag! (Check out our Resources page too.)
Hilariously, we mentioned wanting Serial to come back, and then the day after we recorded, Sarah Koenig dropped the next season like she was the Beyoncé of the podcast world
That’s all for this week! Next week we got back to our Publishing 101 series, this time with a more advanced course. Publishing 201, if you will. We’ll be covering MONEY: advances, royalties, etc.
This week, Kelly and JJ recommend ALL THE BOOKS. This is our year-end reading round-up, so be prepared for A LOT OF BOOKS to be thrown your way. (Also Hamilton. Again.)
Subscribe to us on iTunes, or use this feed to subscribe through your podcast service of choice! If you like us, please leave a rating or review, as it helps other listeners find the podcast. Thanks in advance!
In what makes her third musical recommendation since she started the podcast, JJ recommends Deaf West’s production/Broadway revival of Spring Awakening. The cast performed “Touch Me” on Late Night with Seth Meyers, so please watch and tell me this isn’t the most amazing thing you’ve ever seen.
Those of you who can make it, PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE GO. PLEASE GO AND LET ME LIVE VICARIOUSLY THROUGH YOU.
That’s all for this year! In 2016, we will return with a podcast about REVISIONS to help those of you who have won NaNoWriMo (congrats!). We also have more Publishing 101 episodes, as well as some other topics we hope you guys will find useful. As always, if you have a question, feel free to ask us!
This is apparently the Korean drama recommendation episode! This week JJ and Kelly tackle the end of NaNoWriMo. Sort of. We hope. Oh, and Happy Thanksgiving! We will be on hiatus next week, but will pick up again in December! Gobble, gobble.
Subscribe to us on iTunes, or use this feed to subscribe through your podcast service of choice! If you like us, please leave a rating or review, as it helps other listeners find the podcast. Thanks in advance!
Show Notes
Have some tropes!
Bicker Bicker, Kiss Kiss (What TVTropes calls Slap-Slap-Kiss)
Remember, whether or not you “win” NaNoWriMo this year, be proud of everything you have accomplished! Success isn’t defined solely by word count, and hopefully you’ve taken away some tools and lessons from the experience.
That’s all for this week! We are returning to our old format, wherein we discuss a publishing topic in depth. Leave your suggestions in the comments or email us or ask us on Tumblr! The next episode will be a year end round-up, but 2016 (Already????) is a blank slate, y’all!
This drama is directed by Yoon Sok Ho, who is my mother’s favorite director because he doesn’t resort to Kong-ji, Pat-ji storylines. ↩
This week Kelly and JJ discuss digging deep and finding the will to continue with NaNoWriMo. Also, real talk: we talk about bipolar disorder and depression, and the difference between I Don’t Want To and I Can’t.
Subscribe to us on iTunes, or use this feed to subscribe through your podcast service of choice! If you like us, please leave a rating or review, as it helps other listeners find the podcast. Thanks in advance!
Show Notes
Here’s the thing, y’all: NaNoWriMo is great for getting words on the page, but also remember to be kind to yourself.
That’s all for this week! Next week we’ll have another pep talk for you, plus answering your questions! Comment with any questions you have for us about writing, drafting, motivation, etc. or send us as ask through Tumblr.
This week, JJ and Kelly talk to Mallory Hayes, a book publicist! She answers a few questions about publicity and gives some advice. Also, once again, EVERYTHING IS STILL HAMILTON. Stay tuned to the end for bloopers where Mallory and JJ attempt—very poorly—to rap.
Subscribe to us on iTunes, or use this feed to subscribe through your podcast service of choice!
Show Notes (TL;DL)
The difference between marketing and publicity is that marketing is coverage you pay for whereas publicity is coverage you don’t pay for (e.g. ads fall under marketing, pitching for reviews in publication is publicity)
Publicists have media contacts that an author may or may not have, and can leverage their contacts to get their authors more or better exposure.
When in doubt, ASK! Publicity can differ from imprint to imprint, house to house, publisher to publisher. You never know until you ask.
Promotion/publicity generally starts about 6 months before publication with ARCs or galleys going out, ramping up as you get closer and closer to publication. Don’t start too soon, or else people will forget.
The number one thing you should not do: respond to reviews. Just…don’t do it.
This week, Kelly and JJ explain what happens after you get published, including print formats, the life cycle of a book, and publicity and promotion. Plus, a NaNoWriMo pep talk!
Subscribe to us on iTunes, or use this feed to subscribe through your podcast service of choice!
We’ve written quite a few posts on the topics of promotion, self-promotion, and social media here at PubCrawl, so browse at your convenience!
TL;DL Version
There are different print formats: hardcover, trade paperback, and mass market.
Books can get remaindered, which means that the publisher is selling off the remaining stock of a title at a loss to make room at their warehouses for new titles. This does not necessarily mean your book is going out of print.
The best way to promote books is to make personal connections, i.e. DON’T (solely) BE A SHILL FOR YOUR OWN WORK.
The New York Times bestseller list is…complicated.
Creative Endeavors
Both Kelly and JJ are doing NaNoWriMo this year! Add us as writing buddies and keep us accountable! We are bookishchick and sjaejones, respectively.
Some NaNoWriMo tips
JJ won NaNoWriMo 13, and then went on to sell that novel, so she feels she’s got a leg to stand on. Some tips and links:
What should you write about? Anything you want, but if you’re stuck for plot, retelling something can help!
Pick a story with a small element of “wish fulfillment”. No judgement! Writing from a place of subconscious desire really helps you with word count.
This week Kelly and JJ talk about CONTRACTS. Yes, contracts. No, it’s not boring, we promise. Also, how Ernest Hemingway can help you write middle grade and how everything is still Hamilton. EVERYTHING WILL ALWAYS BE HAMILTON.
Subscribe to us on iTunes, or use this feed to subscribe through your podcast service of choice!
Show Notes
We haven’t written a ton on the subject of contracts here at PubCrawl, but here is a post by alumni Joanna Volpe and Jordan Hamessley-London:
TL;DR (or TL;DL for Too Long, Didn’t Listen), the three most important clauses to which you should pay attention in your contract are:
Rights of Termination
Delivery
Option/Non-Compete
Creative Endeavors
JJ is still working on her middle grade novel and is reading Ernest Hemingway for research. Not because her middle grade is about bullfighting and notions of masculinity, but because from a craft perspective, no one does spare yet emotionally resonant better than Hemingway.
That’s it for this week! Next week, we will be talking about how to take a story FROM BRAIN TO BOOK: A Look Into the Behind-the-Scenes Publishing Process. As always, if you have any questions or comments, sound off in the comments, or ask us on Tumblr!
This week JJ and Kelly discuss submission and acquisition, and give a little insight into the reasons behind why an editor might reject a manuscript. Also, Hamilton. We’ll explain that later.
This week both Kelly and JJ have the same recommendation: HAMILTON.
For those who aren’t plugged into musical theatre buzz, Hamilton is a hip-hop musical about Founding Father Alexander Hamilton.
Wait, what?
YES. The score, lyrics, and book are by Lin-Manuel Miranda, the Tony Award-winning composer of In the Heights, based on a biography of Alexander Hamilton written by Ron Chernow. The story goes that when Miranda was on vacation from In the Heights, he picked up Chernow’s book at the airport and was so inspired by the life of Hamilton as “the ultimate hip-hop/immigrant story”,1 he started writing the musical.
In 2009, he performed the opening number (then a workshopped piece of poetry/rap/spoken word) at the White House for President Obama:
Words can’t describe how transformative and (not to be punny) revolutionary this musical is. The majority of the cast is made up of people of color, and in fact, all the principal characters are not white (except, appropriately, King George III). Miranda has said it’s the story of America, and it looks like America now.
The album is available for digital download (and is currently streaming on Spotify), but if you’d like the physical album with booklet, it will be available on October 16. Rumor has it that it will also be released on vinyl, and JJ may need to buy herself a record player now.
We’re not shills for the musical, we promise. But if the creators see our enthusiasm and want to fund our respective trips back to NYC as well as tickets, we would certainly not turn that down.
That’s it for this week! Next week, we’ll be discussing CONTRACTS. As always, if you have any questions or comments, sound off in the comments, or ask us on Tumblr!
Hamilton was an orphaned, illegitimate child born in the Caribbean who immigrated to New York City and worked his way up from poverty by working his butt off. He had fiery, tempestuous personality, and his cutting words were the death of him, much like Tupac Shakur. ↩
This week JJ and Kelly discuss submission and acquisition, and give a little insight into the reasons behind why an editor might reject a manuscript. Also, Hamilton. We’ll explain that later.
This week both Kelly and JJ have the same recommendation: HAMILTON.
For those who aren’t plugged into musical theatre buzz, Hamilton is a hip-hop musical about Founding Father Alexander Hamilton.
Wait, what?
YES. The score, lyrics, and book are by Lin-Manuel Miranda, the Tony Award-winning composer of In the Heights, based on a biography of Alexander Hamilton written by Ron Chernow. The story goes that when Miranda was on vacation from In the Heights, he picked up Chernow’s book at the airport and was so inspired by the life of Hamilton as “the ultimate hip-hop/immigrant story”,1 he started writing the musical.
In 2009, he performed the opening number (then a workshopped piece of poetry/rap/spoken word) at the White House for President Obama:
Words can’t describe how transformative and (not to be punny) revolutionary this musical is. The majority of the cast is made up of people of color, and in fact, all the principal characters are not white (except, appropriately, King George III). Miranda has said it’s the story of America, and it looks like America now.
The album is available for digital download (and is currently streaming on Spotify), but if you’d like the physical album with booklet, it will be available on October 16. Rumor has it that it will also be released on vinyl, and JJ may need to buy herself a record player now.
We’re not shills for the musical, we promise. But if the creators see our enthusiasm and want to fund our respective trips back to NYC as well as tickets, we would certainly not turn that down.
That’s it for this week! Next week, we’ll be discussing CONTRACTS. As always, if you have any questions or comments, sound off in the comments, or ask us on Tumblr!
Hamilton was an orphaned, illegitimate child born in the Caribbean who immigrated to New York City and worked his way up from poverty by working his butt off. He had fiery, tempestuous personality, and his cutting words were the death of him, much like Tupac Shakur. ↩
Hey all! JJ here. Here at PubCrawl we’re super excited to introduce some new and awesome developments that have been brewing for a while, the chiefest of which is a PODCAST. That’s right, we are getting to the podcasting game, mostly because Kelly and I are podcast junkies with Lots of Opinions. Anyway, enjoy our inaugural episode and please don’t judge too harshly!
Apologies for some audio issues. Apparently JJ needs to wear tight-fitting clothes so the sound of cloth rubbing against the desk doesn’t get picked up by her fancy-schmancy mic. This is a work in progress.
It’s TOTAL ECLIPSE OF THE HEART sung by Vicomte de Chagny and an ingenue named Sarah as a VAMPIRE LOVE DUET. I mean, c’mon.
It’s All Coming Back to Me Now (as performed by Jeremy Jordan)
That’s it for this week! Next week, we’ll be discussing SUBMISSIONS AND ACQUISITIONS. As always, if you have any questions or comments, sound off in the comments, or ask us on Tumblr!
We are working on getting a feed up to iTunes, so bear with us! We promise we’re on it; it’s just that the technical aspects of all this is somewhat new to us. :)
DO NOT LOOK UP THE BROADWAY VERSION. Despite having Michael Crawford and Rene Auberjonois, it was…terrible. ↩
BETH REVIS is the New York Times bestselling author of the Across the Universe trilogy, as well as The Body Electric, Paper Hearts, and the forthcoming A World Without You. She lives in the Appalachian mountains with her boys: one husband, one son, and two very large dogs. You can find out more on 
Your enemy is the blank page. When it comes to writing, there’s no wrong way to get words on paper. But it’s not always easy to make the ink flow. Paper Hearts: Some Writing Advice won’t make writing any simpler, but it may help spark your imagination and get your hands back on the keyboard.
