Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
#163 - Melissa Welliver
392 Plays1 year ago
Speculative and dystopian romance author Melissa Welliver is back on the podcast to chat about her latest novel, Soulmates and Other Ways to Die. We also cover writing processes, book deals and publishing trends.
💖 Join the Patreon 🙏
Support the show and get access to the extended cuts early and ad-free!
📚 The Chosen Ones and Other Tropes 🥳
Jamie, Melissa and Noami talk about all things writing, tropes and publishing!
✍️ WriteMentor 🧑🏫
Get a whole month with WriteMentor's Hub for free using the coupon code 'Write&Wrong'.
🎙️ Zencastr 🎬
Click on this referral link to get 30% off your first three months with Zencastr.
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction and Guest Welcome
00:00:00
Speaker
To listen without ads, head over to patreon.com slash rightandwrong.
00:00:04
Speaker
Ooh, a spicy question.
00:00:07
Speaker
I love it.
00:00:07
Speaker
Because the writing is sort of everything, right?
00:00:09
Speaker
You can fix plot holes, but if the writer... So some readers love that and some readers are like, but I wanted more of this.
00:00:15
Speaker
So it's kind of a gamble.
00:00:18
Speaker
Hello and welcome back to the Right
Melissa's Latest Novel: 'Soulmates and Other Ways to Die'
00:00:20
Speaker
and Wrong podcast.
00:00:21
Speaker
If you are a longtime fan of the show or you've checked out the other podcasts, Chosen Ones and Other Tropes, you'll know this week's guest well.
00:00:29
Speaker
She's an author of dystopian fiction with a side of romance and a bit of comedy sprinkled on top.
00:00:35
Speaker
She's also a part of the amazing team over at Right Mentor.
00:00:38
Speaker
Very happy to welcome back my good friend, Melissa Wellova.
00:00:41
Speaker
What's up?
00:00:43
Speaker
Hello, to die.
00:00:45
Speaker
She's back.
00:00:46
Speaker
Woo, I'm back.
00:00:47
Speaker
And your latest novel, your second novel with Chicken House, Soulmates and Other Ways to Die, is coming out March 14th.
00:00:56
Speaker
Tell us, I already know about it, but for everyone listening, what's it about?
00:01:01
Speaker
Yeah.
00:01:02
Speaker
So this is usually the worst question, but this one's actually quite easy for me to sum up.
00:01:06
Speaker
Maybe I'm learning.
00:01:07
Speaker
Maybe I'm growing.
00:01:08
Speaker
She's getting there.
00:01:09
Speaker
I know, I'm getting there.
00:01:11
Speaker
So it's about people who live in a world where everyone has a soulmate and it's predetermined who your soulmate is.
00:01:17
Speaker
But if they die, you die and vice versa.
00:01:21
Speaker
And you also feel their pain and they feel your pain.
00:01:23
Speaker
So if you break your leg, they feel pain in their leg.
00:01:25
Speaker
For instance, if they fall unconscious, you fall unconscious.
00:01:30
Speaker
So it's exploring a world where the dangers of that are magnified.
00:01:35
Speaker
So for instance, there are instances where somebody falls asleep at the wheel and causes a huge pile up because their partner maybe was unconscious at home.
00:01:43
Speaker
Or if they don't even know who their person is, then that person fell unconscious.
00:01:46
Speaker
They don't even know who that person is.
00:01:48
Speaker
They wouldn't know that they were unconscious.
00:01:50
Speaker
It causes quite a lot of chaos.
00:01:52
Speaker
It was really fun to write.
00:01:53
Speaker
And it's about the main characters, Milo and Zoe.
00:01:55
Speaker
I've got a dual perspective going on again.
00:01:58
Speaker
And of course, they are completely polar opposites and hate each other.
00:02:02
Speaker
So maybe they actually love each other.
00:02:04
Speaker
Maybe they're soulmates.
00:02:05
Speaker
Buy the book and find out who knows.
00:02:09
Speaker
So yes, following
The Power of High Concept Pitches
00:02:10
Speaker
these two teenagers as I'm trying to work out whether it's best to choose who you love or whether it's best to be told who to love.
00:02:17
Speaker
So there's a lot of themes about.
00:02:18
Speaker
love and the right kinds of love and all love is good.
00:02:21
Speaker
Love wins.
00:02:22
Speaker
It was really fun.
00:02:24
Speaker
Love conquers all.
00:02:25
Speaker
Yeah.
00:02:26
Speaker
You know what's cool?
00:02:27
Speaker
What I just realised by you saying, oh, this is usually the worst bit.
00:02:30
Speaker
Because I understand authors love to talk about everyone's books other than their own.
00:02:35
Speaker
Yeah.
00:02:36
Speaker
When you have a high concept thing like this, it makes it so easy.
00:02:42
Speaker
When someone's like, what's the book about?
00:02:42
Speaker
And you're like, oh, it's set in a world where soulmates are a thing.
00:02:46
Speaker
And if one of them dies, the other one dies.
00:02:48
Speaker
And it's just a cool concept to set up.
00:02:51
Speaker
And then that trickles down to stuff like this, agents and editors love.
00:02:56
Speaker
Because for the same reason that you can very easily and simply say, I'm really excited about the story, I wrote the story because this is the cool thing that I, the cool concept I came up with.
00:03:04
Speaker
They can also say that to the rest of the team.
00:03:07
Speaker
They'd be like, oh, this is the really cool concept.
00:03:08
Speaker
Then they can, you know, sales and marketing can be like, oh, this is how we market the book.
00:03:13
Speaker
It's a really cool concept that people can very quickly understand.
00:03:16
Speaker
Yeah,
Standing Out in the Manuscript Pool
00:03:17
Speaker
I think saleability with the pitch, a lot of people don't realize.
00:03:20
Speaker
So I saw a thing of Kezia Lupo, who's been on the pod and stuff.
00:03:24
Speaker
She's an agent now in the US and she was talking about, she did like a thread a few weeks ago.
00:03:29
Speaker
She does loads of really good threads.
00:03:30
Speaker
If you guys don't follow her, that are all about the industry.
00:03:33
Speaker
And one of them was people worrying, when is my book ready to go on submission if I'm with an agent or when is it ready to go out to agents?
00:03:39
Speaker
And she was saying, of course, it shouldn't be messy, but concept is king.
00:03:43
Speaker
And I think you think that that's only the end product, say, when maybe a publisher is pitching to you, the reader, in like, say, a Facebook ad.
00:03:51
Speaker
So it's like 50 words and they've got to pitch you the book, but actually starts all the way at the beginning when you're pitching to an agent who has 350 manuscripts across their desk every single week.
00:04:00
Speaker
And they sign seven people a year and they have to try and organize all of those manuscripts.
00:04:05
Speaker
And some of them, they just will not have time to put in the full effort to read the full.
00:04:10
Speaker
It's great if you have a really good pitch at the top where they're like, Oh, I understand what that's going to be about.
00:04:13
Speaker
That sounds
World-Building in Melissa's Novels
00:04:14
Speaker
intriguing.
00:04:14
Speaker
I'm going to dive straight in.
00:04:15
Speaker
Then they can sell it to the editor.
00:04:17
Speaker
Then the editor can sell it to you, the reader.
00:04:19
Speaker
It's the same thing for the editor, right?
00:04:21
Speaker
Because the editors are swamped with submissions from agents.
00:04:24
Speaker
Yeah.
00:04:24
Speaker
And for them to be like, okay, that's an interesting concept.
00:04:27
Speaker
Let's put that on the to read later pile or whatever.
00:04:29
Speaker
Exactly.
00:04:30
Speaker
Yeah.
00:04:31
Speaker
Yeah, it's cool.
00:04:31
Speaker
Anyway, it's a cool concept.
00:04:34
Speaker
And I've not encountered that as like an interesting way of doing the kind of soulmates predetermined thing before.
00:04:42
Speaker
The way that you've set it all up, there's a lot of consequences for various things.
00:04:48
Speaker
It's kind of one of those worlds or like ideas that you tell someone a sort of like, what if, and then you can kind of
00:04:54
Speaker
go down so many rabbit holes with it, you can be like, oh, but if this, then that, and then these people with this, and then someone will probably take advantage of this and do that.
00:05:02
Speaker
There's sort of an infinite number of situations and dynamics that you can explore.
00:05:06
Speaker
Were there some cool kind of interactions that you had to sort of, just for like time and space, had to leave out of the book?
00:05:15
Speaker
Oh, that's a really good question because this, I had to cut this down a little bit.
00:05:19
Speaker
So this book is, if you guys are intimidated by the
Melissa's Writing Process and Strategies
00:05:23
Speaker
chonky length of My Love Life and the Apocalypse, because I think it's like 85,000 words or 380 pages, something like that.
00:05:29
Speaker
This one is slightly shorter.
00:05:31
Speaker
I think just the pacing and the action scenes, it needed to be pushed on a little bit.
00:05:36
Speaker
Yeah.
00:05:38
Speaker
But I can't think of anything, actually.
00:05:39
Speaker
I had to cut in terms of the interactions.
00:05:44
Speaker
There was something I added earlier.
00:05:46
Speaker
I added, which I didn't think of, actually, all credit to Shala Valapur, who is my editor for this book.
00:05:54
Speaker
So we were quite late through edits and just thinking about, is there anything else we want to add before getting to line edits?
00:05:59
Speaker
So if people don't know, you do developmental edits, which are like big overarching things.
00:06:02
Speaker
And then once you're pretty happy with the text, you do line edits where you're sort of going line by line and you really shouldn't be adding or subtracting a lot at that point.
00:06:10
Speaker
And something she thought of that I hadn't thought of at all was if girls have period pains, do boys have period pains?
00:06:17
Speaker
Because if one feels pain, the other feels pain.
00:06:19
Speaker
I was like, I hadn't thought about that.
00:06:21
Speaker
And I've got a gay female-female couple that's quite prominent side characters in the book.
00:06:28
Speaker
So they have a conversation with Zoe, the female main character, one of the point of views about this.
00:06:34
Speaker
And they have a whole conversation about, oh yeah, you know, and then our period sank up, but then that was worse because it was even more painful because we were
00:06:42
Speaker
and it was just such a fun conversation to write and then of course I've got Milo there who's feeling a little bit sheepish but is of course a lovely golden retriever character so he does join in the feminist conversation about periods and does mention that he does indeed feel sometimes feel some stomach pain once a month and did not occur to him that it could be period pain so
Balancing Pressure and Creative Freedom
00:07:01
Speaker
that was actually really fun to put in and that was Shallow's idea
00:07:04
Speaker
That's a, yeah, that's a great little, a great little detail to throw in there.
00:07:09
Speaker
It's details like that, where it's, will have almost no bearing on the overall story or anything like that, but it like makes the world feel more real.
00:07:18
Speaker
Cause you're like, oh yeah, that is a thing that would happen.
00:07:21
Speaker
Oh gosh, yeah.
00:07:22
Speaker
It's so true, isn't it?
00:07:23
Speaker
Like when you're writing, I think there's a lot of stuff where, especially female readers, if they're reading dystopian or post-apocalyptic stuff and you do start to think, why aren't their armpits hairy?
00:07:32
Speaker
They haven't been shaving their armpits in this apocalypse.
00:07:34
Speaker
Or why have none of them had a period?
00:07:36
Speaker
It's been three months.
00:07:38
Speaker
So it is something that sometimes is nice to at least touch upon and be like, yeah, don't worry, these are normal people.
00:07:44
Speaker
Yeah.
00:07:46
Speaker
If you can do it without it being just like a kind of filler thing, because it's like you don't want to be reading necessarily like your kind of epic adventure, hero's journey thing.
00:07:57
Speaker
And then it's the same thing as like you watch movies and stuff and no one ever like goes to the loo, right?
00:08:03
Speaker
Because it's not, unless it's done for a gag or a laugh or like specifically there's a reason for
00:08:09
Speaker
to move to like remove someone from the situation.
00:08:12
Speaker
It doesn't happen because it's like, I don't, we don't really want to watch that.
00:08:15
Speaker
You know what I mean?
00:08:16
Speaker
We want, we're here for the, for the adventure.
00:08:18
Speaker
Yeah.
00:08:18
Speaker
Yeah.
00:08:19
Speaker
Yeah.
00:08:19
Speaker
It's funny.
00:08:19
Speaker
Not the toilet adventure.
00:08:21
Speaker
Yeah, exactly.
00:08:22
Speaker
That's, that's middle grade.
00:08:24
Speaker
So we'll leave that in the age group.
00:08:28
Speaker
And I know kind of a bit about how you, how you approach your ideas and writing and stuff like that.
00:08:33
Speaker
Am I right in thinking you like to sit on an idea for like a few months before you commit to writing it?
00:08:40
Speaker
Yeah.
00:08:40
Speaker
So, yeah, essentially, when I am plotting something, I sometimes say it's taken me several months and people think that's me like sat at the document typing stuff out for several months.
00:08:53
Speaker
That's not true at all.
00:08:54
Speaker
I am quite lazy when it comes to bum and seat at computer desk, typey typey.
00:08:59
Speaker
And I shouldn't be, but I am.
00:09:01
Speaker
I do a lot of thinking before putting it down on paper.
00:09:05
Speaker
Lots of notes in my phone as well.
00:09:07
Speaker
So yeah, this was something I sat on for a few months.
00:09:09
Speaker
This was actually, I now seem to do this thing.
00:09:12
Speaker
I don't know where it's come from really, where I write a book every January.
00:09:18
Speaker
This seems to be a thing now.
00:09:19
Speaker
It's done it three Januaries in a row.
00:09:21
Speaker
So this was January, 2023's book.
00:09:24
Speaker
So I wrote it in 30 days in January, but it was only, I think about 65, maybe 70,000 words of first draft.
00:09:28
Speaker
Okay.
00:09:31
Speaker
So I plotted out all the chapters and I did have to do that because it's a very short timeframe.
00:09:37
Speaker
And I think I ended up, because I did about 24 chapters, 12 for each character, I think I ended up doing about 24 days of actual writing.
00:09:43
Speaker
So I did have some gaps in between where I wasn't writing every single day.
00:09:46
Speaker
Whereas this past January, January, 2024, I did write every single day and that was part of the challenge.
00:09:53
Speaker
Whereas this wasn't
00:09:54
Speaker
necessarily as much um but yeah I pitched it to my publisher in November and then spent NaNoWriMo plotting it and then sat on it for a month in December okay so you you I forgot whether it was a one or two
The 'Undying Tower' Series Revival
00:10:09
Speaker
book contract so it was a one book contract with Chicken House that was My Love Life in the Apocalypse that's right then you pitched did they did they sign a a deal off the pitch and then you wrote it
00:10:20
Speaker
Um, no.
00:10:21
Speaker
So I pitched it and they said they wanted to see more.
00:10:24
Speaker
And to be fair, they were saying like maybe looking at a sample or something like that.
00:10:28
Speaker
But I knew once it started, I could probably just get at least a full draft ish out.
00:10:33
Speaker
I also had already had the idea for the story.
00:10:35
Speaker
And sometimes it can be so easy to think, oh, I can only write something if it's contracted.
00:10:40
Speaker
Whereas I wanted to write this anyway.
00:10:42
Speaker
So I thought I'll set myself the January challenge.
00:10:44
Speaker
I'll get it written anyway.
00:10:46
Speaker
And then if Chicken House decided it wasn't the correct fit for their list,
00:10:49
Speaker
I could take it somewhere else if needed.
00:10:53
Speaker
So I decided to write it out anyway.
00:10:55
Speaker
And that time I worked quite well.
00:10:56
Speaker
And there just happened to be a slot 11 months after the last book had come out.
00:10:59
Speaker
So they picked it up February, March last year.
00:11:03
Speaker
And obviously it's coming out in March this year.
00:11:06
Speaker
So it was quite quick, quite quick turnaround.
00:11:09
Speaker
Yeah.
00:11:10
Speaker
It's interesting that you said there's a kind of, once you've been published, there's kind of a feeling
Challenges of Self-Publishing and New Publisher Decision
00:11:16
Speaker
that
00:11:16
Speaker
you couldn't write something if you weren't under contract.
00:11:20
Speaker
But it's funny when I talk to a lot of authors and they talk about the, it's often the second book.
00:11:25
Speaker
Because obviously with a first book, a lot of the time you've spent, you know, maybe years either writing that or kind of building up to it by writing other things and then writing that.
00:11:34
Speaker
And that book has had like all of the space and freedom of not being on any kind of schedule or anything like that.
00:11:42
Speaker
And then when people come to their second book and they're kind of, you know, you have to work off kind of a pitch with the publisher if you're under contract or whatever.
00:11:50
Speaker
And you have to kind of stick to that.
00:11:51
Speaker
And you also have deadlines, you have a timeline, you're working with an editor the whole way through and things like that.
00:11:57
Speaker
People often struggle to adjust to that different thing.
00:12:00
Speaker
Did you find kind of when you thought to yourself, okay, I'm just going to write this even though I'm not under contract.
00:12:06
Speaker
Was there something a bit freeing about that or did it make you nervous?
00:12:11
Speaker
So there was part, because they'd already approved the pitch and also because I was on a one book contract, I did really want to make sure that I got another book contract.
00:12:21
Speaker
I did feel a little bit of pressure and I did feel in some ways like it was on a contract, even though technically it wasn't because I don't know if people know, but like the timeline between getting a book signed and like it coming out, I was worried I wouldn't be able to get into the 2024 schedule because it was already, you know, end of 2022, you know,
00:12:40
Speaker
Wait, yes, the beginning of 2023.
00:12:42
Speaker
So I was already worried.
00:12:43
Speaker
Oh God, yeah, my brain.
00:12:47
Speaker
So I was already worried that I wouldn't be able to get into the schedule in time.
00:12:53
Speaker
So that was throwing me because I had a book coming out in 2023.
00:12:55
Speaker
I wanted a book to come out in 2024, but I was only really thinking about it end of 2022.
00:13:01
Speaker
And it seems silly because I still had six months at that point when I was thinking about it, sort of September 22 until Love Life came out.
00:13:07
Speaker
But I was already thinking, oh gosh, there isn't actually...
00:13:10
Speaker
a penciled in schedule at all for me to have a second book because it's not a two book contract.
00:13:14
Speaker
Whereas obviously often when you have a two book contract, they will at least try and schedule you in as long as you can meet those deadlines consecutively for the next year.
00:13:21
Speaker
So it did feel a little bit like that.
00:13:24
Speaker
But also what was quite nice.
00:13:25
Speaker
So that kind of
00:13:25
Speaker
put the pressure on to do this little January challenge, but also it was a little bit freeing that I knew I could have a bit more fun with it.
00:13:32
Speaker
Like this is quite a fun book.
00:13:33
Speaker
It's quite a daft book.
00:13:35
Speaker
It does have some, like I said, some serious themes.
00:13:37
Speaker
I do talk a lot about different types of love and control versus choice.
00:13:41
Speaker
And those are the big themes of the book, but there were lots and lots of just fun moments where I could just, you know, do some fun action scenes.
00:13:47
Speaker
That's what I like to do.
00:13:48
Speaker
So yeah, I think I had like a nice balance of both because it technically wasn't under contract.
00:13:53
Speaker
Yeah.
00:13:54
Speaker
Okay.
00:13:55
Speaker
Interesting.
00:13:56
Speaker
Yeah.
00:13:57
Speaker
It's like I had, you had a good balance, but also like a part of you thought it was like, felt like it was kind of a contract.
00:14:02
Speaker
Okay.
00:14:02
Speaker
So it was a bit different.
00:14:04
Speaker
Um, getting onto your, getting back into your kind of writing, you, you touched on it a bit earlier with kind of gestating an idea for months and you're not necessarily
Future Plans for the 'Undying Tower' Trilogy
00:14:12
Speaker
plotting at that point, but, um,
00:14:14
Speaker
You've been on the podcast several times before and famously or infamously, depending on how you look at it, you are very much a planner.
00:14:24
Speaker
And you talked in depth about that on a previous episode in the specifics of your planning.
00:14:28
Speaker
Has that process changed at all for you or is that still the system you're sticking to?
00:14:33
Speaker
It's still pretty much the system I stick to.
00:14:35
Speaker
This one, I mean, obviously within that system, there probably is a scale of how plotted things are.
00:14:43
Speaker
This one was slightly less plotted.
00:14:46
Speaker
I had each chapter and one sentence for each chapter.
00:14:49
Speaker
And I had a lot of it in my head, I think because I've done this so many times now.
00:14:51
Speaker
And this is like, I don't know, whatever number book I've written.
00:14:53
Speaker
There's loads of books I've written that will never see the light of day.
00:14:56
Speaker
But
00:14:57
Speaker
A lot of it stays in my head.
00:14:58
Speaker
And because I use Save the Cat and I write commercial fiction, and so it follows like a particular hero's journey, I don't necessarily need to write down absolutely everything because I know what's going to happen because I know roughly the order.
00:15:10
Speaker
I did still do my calculator, maths.
00:15:12
Speaker
I worked out how long I wanted the end bit to be.
00:15:14
Speaker
I worked out how many chapters I had.
00:15:15
Speaker
I worked out which beats had to be hit within each chapter.
00:15:18
Speaker
But some of the action scenes I wasn't as strict on this time because I wanted it to be fun because it wasn't under contract.
00:15:25
Speaker
So technically speaking, if I didn't get it finished by the end of my January challenge, it was only challenging myself.
00:15:31
Speaker
I wasn't technically letting anyone down or missing any deadlines or anything like that.
00:15:34
Speaker
So I knew I could have a little bit more leeway to sort of have fun with the action scenes in particular.
00:15:40
Speaker
So it wasn't as plotted as usual, not as much as say Love Life was.
00:15:45
Speaker
Or I did one, I did another January challenge this year and wrote sort of a completely uncontracted crossover book, as they're called a crossover, whatever that is at the minute, sort of new adult, I guess, in American terms, whatever.
00:15:59
Speaker
And that was really heavily plotted because it was 90,000 words in 30 days.
00:16:04
Speaker
So I had to be really, really strict with myself.
00:16:07
Speaker
But this one wasn't as much, no.
00:16:09
Speaker
Oh, okay.
00:16:10
Speaker
Yeah.
00:16:10
Speaker
But it sounds like the system was very much similar.
00:16:12
Speaker
It's just that, I guess, like you say, you've done this so many times.
00:16:15
Speaker
It's almost like second nature.
00:16:16
Speaker
You don't need to write everything down because it's just ingrained in your head.
00:16:21
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
00:16:22
Speaker
Like I'm sure if you or Naomi looked, you'd be like, this is so plotted.
00:16:26
Speaker
What are you talking about?
00:16:27
Speaker
But to me, I was like, there's so much freedom.
00:16:29
Speaker
Yeah.
00:16:32
Speaker
you're like wow it's so loose i know who's loose you good i'm just i'm just so naturally free uh the thing i'm working on right now would would upset you to look at because i've like loosely plotted it and my i think my idea of loose plotting to you is like no you haven't plotted anything but i had it started off with like loose plot of like 15 chapters and then i know that i'm gonna go all over the place with that so uh
00:16:58
Speaker
when I kind of like, I'm like, okay, I didn't do the thing that I originally thought I was going to do in that chapter and I need to do a different thing here.
00:17:03
Speaker
So I have like chapter five, chapter 5.5, chapter 5.7, chapter six.
00:17:07
Speaker
That's actually making me stress just that.
00:17:10
Speaker
Yeah.
00:17:13
Speaker
I knew it would stress you out.
00:17:14
Speaker
It makes me smile every time I look at it.
00:17:16
Speaker
Let's get back on to you.
00:17:20
Speaker
First time you were on the podcast, first time we met many years ago now, was when The Undying Tower
Sequel Writing vs. Original Works
00:17:28
Speaker
came out.
00:17:28
Speaker
Yeah, that fella.
00:17:30
Speaker
which you claimed was a trilogy at the time.
00:17:34
Speaker
What?
00:17:35
Speaker
You have since written, well, two books since basically, My Love Life in the Apocalypse and now the new one, Soulmates and Other Ways to Die, March 14th.
00:17:45
Speaker
But we have news for Undying Tower fans.
00:17:49
Speaker
What's going on there?
00:17:51
Speaker
Well, it's actually going to be a trilogy.
00:17:54
Speaker
Yay!
00:17:56
Speaker
So, yeah, to recap previously on Melissa Welliver's episodes of the podcast.
00:18:03
Speaker
So, yeah, I came on, talked about The Undying Tower, and we were doing lots of press and promo for that.
00:18:07
Speaker
So that came out in 2021, near the end of 2021.
00:18:11
Speaker
in autumn.
00:18:12
Speaker
And so we were, you know, pushing quite hard and stuff.
00:18:14
Speaker
And I probably was on the podcast probably sometime in 2021, I would then assume.
00:18:20
Speaker
Then we got into 2022 and I was writing book two because we were going to do a book a year because it was a three book contract.
00:18:26
Speaker
And yeah, I got a phone call from my publisher and they just said, listen, we're actually folding, essentially folding.
00:18:33
Speaker
They were still doing some of their backlist, which was some classic stuff that they had on their backlist.
00:18:38
Speaker
But they were essentially dissolving all the new books.
00:18:40
Speaker
And so therefore, they couldn't finish the trilogy, which was so sad.
00:18:45
Speaker
And at the time, I just got really grumpy and basically just stopped, I think, mid-sentence writing book two because I was so grumpy about it.
00:18:53
Speaker
Which, by the way, I say grumpy.
00:18:54
Speaker
The actual publishers, and especially my editors...
Desert Island Scenario: Argos Catalog
00:18:57
Speaker
Peyton Stableford and Sam Brace were amazing and very supportive.
00:19:01
Speaker
And in fact, when I stopped being grumpy, a couple of weeks later, they sent me all of the files so that I could self-publish that book.
00:19:08
Speaker
And the hope was to self-publish it so that I could maybe finish the trilogy.
00:19:11
Speaker
And then I found out self-publishing is really, really hard.
00:19:14
Speaker
It's the hardest job you will ever do.
00:19:16
Speaker
I'm amazing people who make money from it.
00:19:19
Speaker
I would some weeks make 10 pounds and some weeks owe money because of the cost of paper going up.
00:19:23
Speaker
And I hadn't checked my minutely checked all of my sales figures.
00:19:27
Speaker
I'm quite a control enthusiast person.
00:19:30
Speaker
I thought I would enjoy being in control of every element.
00:19:33
Speaker
I actually did not.
00:19:34
Speaker
I found it really during the creative process and yeah, was not my favorite.
00:19:39
Speaker
So in late 2022, I did an event with UCLan Publishing.
00:19:45
Speaker
It was with my friends, Amy McCaw and Cynthia Murphy and UCLan were running the event and they needed somebody to chair.
00:19:50
Speaker
So I said I would chair.
00:19:51
Speaker
And they said, you can sell copies of your book there.
00:19:53
Speaker
And of course, it was very difficult for Waterstone to get hold of copies.
00:19:56
Speaker
So I took my own copies and I sold my own copies.
00:19:59
Speaker
And they just asked me, you know, so why is it you've brought your own copies?
00:20:02
Speaker
And we just got into a conversation about the book and Hazel Holmes, who's the head over there, seemed like really keen.
00:20:08
Speaker
So I spoke to my agent and said, can we send it over to Hazel and just see what she says?
00:20:12
Speaker
And yeah, she loved it.
00:20:14
Speaker
Yay.
00:20:15
Speaker
I hope so.
00:20:15
Speaker
Anyway, my God, I'm saying she loved it.
00:20:16
Speaker
Like, yeah, she did.
00:20:19
Speaker
She bought it, which is exciting.
00:20:21
Speaker
And yeah, we're going to finish out the trilogy.
00:20:22
Speaker
And it's finally been announced because I've been sitting on that since last March.
00:20:26
Speaker
I think it was announced a few weeks ago.
00:20:28
Speaker
So yes, long story short, it is coming back out.
00:20:31
Speaker
You may see it with a different purple shiny cover.
00:20:35
Speaker
But it's still thematically similar, the cover.
00:20:38
Speaker
Yes, it is very dramatic.
00:20:40
Speaker
We went through a few covers.
00:20:41
Speaker
It was an interesting process because UCLan's very hands-on and they give you a lot of input.
00:20:46
Speaker
So I actually saw lots of early versions of the cover.
00:20:49
Speaker
I don't know if that's the same for everyone or whether that's because I was technically self-publishing it.
00:20:52
Speaker
Maybe they were asking me, but you'd have to ask with the UCLan authors.
00:20:57
Speaker
But yeah, they were very, very much got me involved with the cover, which was really fun because I was fairly involved, to be fair, the first time around as well with Agora Books, they were called, the original publisher.
00:21:07
Speaker
um but not to the extent i don't think that uclan have got me involved so we're really happy with the cover yeah
00:21:13
Speaker
Okay, that's cool.
00:21:14
Speaker
And it's awesome that it's getting a re-release.
00:21:16
Speaker
Is it going to be exactly the same or is there like a small round of edits or anything happening to it?
00:21:21
Speaker
Yeah, so we did do, we still have to do a proof edit.
00:21:24
Speaker
I've got lots of time, it's not out till August the 1st this year.
00:21:27
Speaker
So we still have to do a little round of proof edits, which is the very last thing you do if people don't know.
00:21:34
Speaker
But apart from that, I did have obviously the choice and the chance, even before selling it to Hazel, I could have edited, changed it.
00:21:41
Speaker
I decided not to.
00:21:42
Speaker
It was interesting.
00:21:42
Speaker
This was around the time.
00:21:43
Speaker
I was thinking about this because it was around the time that Samantha Shannon announced that she was rewriting The Bone season and re-releasing.
00:21:50
Speaker
And I was thinking, oh, I suppose I have an opportunity to do that because, you know, myself and Samantha Shannon have a similar legion of fans.
00:21:57
Speaker
Yeah.
00:21:58
Speaker
I was expecting maybe something different.
00:22:01
Speaker
And I thought I'd probably have a chance to do that because I have a very lovely fan base, actually, I'm joking, with The Undying Tower, but it is certainly not as large as Samantha Shannon's fan base.
00:22:10
Speaker
And I just thought to myself, actually, this is the book I wrote when I wrote it.
00:22:14
Speaker
This is how I was.
00:22:14
Speaker
And I'm going to be writing the other two books now with everything I know and all the information I know.
00:22:19
Speaker
I would actually rather it was the same content in that particular scenario.
00:22:23
Speaker
Yeah.
00:22:23
Speaker
And then it sort of picks up because, especially because the main character as well, she's sort of a bit like young, silly author Melissa.
00:22:30
Speaker
She's very naive, the main character, and she sort of learns about the world through stuff that she's experiencing in the book, Sadie.
00:22:37
Speaker
And I just thought, yeah, that works actually for book two and book three, that she would have a different perspective on things.
00:22:42
Speaker
And therefore it will be fresher when I'm coming to it from that perspective.
00:22:45
Speaker
So I didn't actually change much.
00:22:47
Speaker
We did like a light line edit.
00:22:48
Speaker
Yeah.
Post-Book Deal Steps for Authors
00:22:49
Speaker
just for anything that wasn't caught first time around because it was edited very well by Agora.
00:22:52
Speaker
But no, the content's pretty much the same, actually.
00:22:55
Speaker
So yeah, if you've already read it, just don't bother buying another copy.
00:22:58
Speaker
Don't say that.
00:22:59
Speaker
It's got a nice cover.
00:23:00
Speaker
It does.
00:23:01
Speaker
That's true.
00:23:01
Speaker
And let's be honest, we don't read books.
00:23:03
Speaker
We put them on our TBR.
00:23:04
Speaker
So actually, yeah, buy another one.
00:23:05
Speaker
Yeah, yeah.
00:23:07
Speaker
Just to go on the shelf.
00:23:08
Speaker
Yeah.
00:23:09
Speaker
And then if someone asks, you can be like, oh, well, this is actually the first one.
00:23:12
Speaker
You can't buy it anymore.
00:23:12
Speaker
It's limited edition.
00:23:13
Speaker
Yeah, limited edition worth loads of money because it's so rare.
00:23:21
Speaker
So that deal was presumably Lucy, your agent negotiated it, but was actually, it was kind of through you and you kind of prompted Lucy to send that.
00:23:31
Speaker
Yeah, so I asked Lucy to send it officially because I don't think they're open to unsolicited submissions.
00:23:39
Speaker
I could be wrong.
00:23:40
Speaker
You'd have to check their website.
00:23:41
Speaker
But I think it's at least mostly through agents.
00:23:46
Speaker
Although I do know a couple of people actually there who don't necessarily have an agent.
00:23:49
Speaker
So perhaps they are sometimes open.
00:23:50
Speaker
But I just decided I wanted to go through like a quote unquote
00:23:55
Speaker
proper submission processing is I do have an agent and I was also thinking along the lines of if I just started something and then I got carried away and I thought it'd best be to get my agent in on the ground floor and make sure that she knows what I'm doing.
00:24:08
Speaker
Yeah.
00:24:09
Speaker
So I sort of sat to that, you know, that event was in September.
00:24:12
Speaker
And I think we sent it off in sort of December to read over the Christmas break because I took a little bit of time to think about it.
00:24:18
Speaker
Because obviously, you know, you are letting go of stuff when you are self-publishing as much as like, you know, I was being really grumpy about it earlier.
00:24:23
Speaker
There are some amazing things about self-publishing.
00:24:25
Speaker
You learn a lot about how books work.
00:24:27
Speaker
And, you know, I could see if I posted something on social media or changed my, you know, to lower my price of my book or something for a few days and would announce it.
00:24:36
Speaker
I could see in real time the change that that made to the sales of the book because when you're self-publish, you can just log in and have a look at everything.
00:24:43
Speaker
I did it through KDP and IngramSpark, which is like a longer story, but basically Amazon and then like a distributor that could distribute it into bookshops.
00:24:51
Speaker
Bookshops don't necessarily tend to buy Amazon printed books for a variety of reasons.
00:24:57
Speaker
I'm sure a lot of people can guess.
00:24:59
Speaker
So it is useful to have a distributor as well.
00:25:01
Speaker
Um, so yeah, I, I was sort of giving up a little bit.
00:25:04
Speaker
Um, and also I felt a bit disappointed that I couldn't get maybe the sales I needed to produce the next book and get good cover and good editors.
00:25:12
Speaker
And, you know, even my old editors, bless them, they did actually offer if I got that far that they would give, you know, me a little bit of editing help, um, without having to pay anything, which was crazy.
00:25:22
Speaker
But I'm glad in the end that I went with you, Clam.
00:25:24
Speaker
First of all, because they've been brilliant.
00:25:26
Speaker
They're amazing.
00:25:26
Speaker
And some of the books they produce are incredible.
00:25:28
Speaker
And I kept seeing them in bookshops and it felt like a sign.
00:25:31
Speaker
And I was like, we should send this off.
00:25:32
Speaker
And then, you know, if they say no, they say no.
00:25:34
Speaker
And I carry on down the same path.
00:25:36
Speaker
So I'm glad I took the opportunity.
00:25:37
Speaker
But yeah, it did take me a little while to decide to take the plunge.
00:25:41
Speaker
Hmm.
00:25:42
Speaker
That's cool.
00:25:42
Speaker
And that's great.
00:25:43
Speaker
And it's cool that those are getting it like a second chance.
00:25:47
Speaker
Yeah.
00:25:48
Speaker
Literally undying.
00:25:49
Speaker
Well, that's poor horse.
00:25:51
Speaker
I keep flogging.
00:25:54
Speaker
And for anyone who wanted to hear more about Lucy Irvine, who's Melissa's agent and how they ended up meeting and signing and how that relationship works.
00:26:03
Speaker
They were both on the podcast a while back.
00:26:05
Speaker
I think it's episode 55.
00:26:07
Speaker
If you want to hear what that dynamic is like,
00:26:10
Speaker
Um, have you written the, have you written the sequels then you said you'd, you'd half written
Closing and Social Media Info
00:26:15
Speaker
the second one.
00:26:16
Speaker
Yeah, so I'm hoping to finish the second one this year.
00:26:18
Speaker
They're all completely plotted, obviously.
00:26:20
Speaker
Obviously it's me.
00:26:22
Speaker
So they're all completely plotted.
00:26:23
Speaker
And again, it is an opportunity, to be fair, to have a look and see if I still want that arc to happen.
00:26:30
Speaker
But I don't think I would deviate too strongly from it.
00:26:32
Speaker
I do love this series and I sort of want to serve that fan base that got on board initially and I knew exactly what the trajectory of the series was going to be when I wrote that first book.
00:26:42
Speaker
So I don't think I want to change anything too drastically, but I am...
00:26:45
Speaker
Yeah, I was about halfway through book two drafting when the cutoff happened.
00:26:50
Speaker
The interesting thing about writing a sequel, because I've never done it before until then, is, gosh, it is faster and easier.
00:26:56
Speaker
You don't have to introduce completely new characters that, I mean, my God, my characters in this one I just wrote in January, on the same page, they switch from like blue eyes to brown eyes.
00:27:06
Speaker
I think at one point somebody like just changes gender for one sentence, then switches back again.
00:27:10
Speaker
Like it's terrible.
00:27:11
Speaker
Yeah.
00:27:11
Speaker
So, um, it can be really difficult sometimes to keep a lot of threads in your head.
00:27:15
Speaker
But what's the really nice thing about SQL is a lot of the threads are really solidified because it's already been through one whole book.
00:27:21
Speaker
Um, so I do hope it'll be quite quick to write up the rest of it, especially because I've already got half.
00:27:28
Speaker
So yes.
00:27:28
Speaker
And hopefully the stuff I wrote a couple of years ago is usable.
00:27:31
Speaker
Well, I'm sure you'll catch it in the draft.
00:27:35
Speaker
I'm sure you'll tweak a lot of it in the draft.
00:27:37
Speaker
Yeah.
00:27:38
Speaker
Yeah, I'm sure it'll be fine.
00:27:39
Speaker
It'll be absolutely fine.
00:27:42
Speaker
Okay.
00:27:43
Speaker
It's time for what we normally do at the end of Every Said, which is the Desert Island question.
00:27:47
Speaker
But Melissa's been on many times and she's stuck with her original choice, which is the Argos catalogue.
00:27:54
Speaker
Yeah.
00:27:55
Speaker
Argos went under whilst we were talking about that.
00:27:58
Speaker
That's how long I've been doing this podcast.
00:28:01
Speaker
The catalogue went under, not Argos itself, obviously.
00:28:03
Speaker
The catalogue did go under.
00:28:04
Speaker
Yeah, it's all digital now, right?
00:28:06
Speaker
I know.
00:28:08
Speaker
But imagine it did exist.
00:28:09
Speaker
I had a fun variant on the Desert Island thing here.
00:28:12
Speaker
Since I was fairly confident that you were going to stick with the Argos catalogue, if you had to pick a single section of the Argos catalogue...
00:28:22
Speaker
which section would it be?
00:28:23
Speaker
And don't worry, I've got a list here.
00:28:24
Speaker
So it is multiple choice.
00:28:25
Speaker
Are you ready to hear what the section?
00:28:26
Speaker
Yeah, go on.
00:28:27
Speaker
Okay.
00:28:27
Speaker
So technology, home and furniture, garden and DIY, toys, baby and nursery, sports and leisure, appliance, health and beauty, clothing, jewelry and watches, gifts,
00:28:43
Speaker
There are so many sections.
00:28:45
Speaker
You know, I'm going to stick with technology because I do love my tech.
00:28:49
Speaker
Like I have a lot of tech stuff.
00:28:51
Speaker
Like I've got a big rig.
00:28:52
Speaker
You wouldn't be able to order it.
00:28:54
Speaker
You're on an island.
00:28:55
Speaker
No, but I like to look at it, Jamie.
00:28:56
Speaker
Like that's part of the fun.
00:28:57
Speaker
It's like I go on Rightmove and look at mansions.
00:28:59
Speaker
I can't afford any of them.
00:29:01
Speaker
Just looking, just window shopping.
00:29:03
Speaker
However, I would choose the toy bit because as soon as you said which section popped into my head immediately was the Barbie section.
00:29:11
Speaker
Like all of that bit with like the Barbie dream house and the Barbie camper van and like all that stuff that I wanted when I was younger.
00:29:16
Speaker
So I think I would actually take the toy section.
00:29:19
Speaker
Yeah.
00:29:19
Speaker
They probably got all the new Barbie stuff now as well.
00:29:21
Speaker
Like Ken's Mojo Dojo Casa House.
00:29:23
Speaker
Oh my gosh.
00:29:24
Speaker
Yes.
00:29:25
Speaker
All the Ken stuff.
00:29:25
Speaker
There would just be a Knuff part of the Casa.
00:29:27
Speaker
Yeah.
00:29:27
Speaker
The toy bit. 100%.
00:29:29
Speaker
Oh, the knuff part.
00:29:30
Speaker
There you go.
00:29:31
Speaker
We've narrowed it down.
00:29:32
Speaker
Argos catalog, the toy section.
00:29:36
Speaker
Amazing.
00:29:37
Speaker
I've got some questions about more businessy things, like what happens after the book deal, once the books are out and the deal is finished and the next steps for an author.
00:29:46
Speaker
But we are at the end of the regular episode and into the extended cut exclusive to Patreon subscribers.
00:29:52
Speaker
So anyone listening who hasn't yet joined the Patreon, please do think about it.
00:29:55
Speaker
It goes a long way towards covering the costs of running this podcast.
00:29:58
Speaker
Yeah.
00:30:00
Speaker
Well, thank you so much, Melissa.
00:30:02
Speaker
That's, that's everything.
00:30:03
Speaker
That's all we've got time for today.
00:30:04
Speaker
It's been awesome chatting with you.
00:30:05
Speaker
Yeah, it's been so fun.
00:30:06
Speaker
Oh no.
00:30:07
Speaker
It's been so fun.
00:30:09
Speaker
It's been great.
00:30:10
Speaker
Excited for the new book to come out.
00:30:13
Speaker
Soulmates and Other Ways to Die.
00:30:15
Speaker
Yeah, same.
00:30:15
Speaker
March 14th.
00:30:17
Speaker
Bright yellow color, color, cover.
00:30:19
Speaker
Yeah.
00:30:19
Speaker
You can't miss it.
00:30:20
Speaker
But purple's fine, guys, if you're looking on a shelf, just to warn you.
00:30:24
Speaker
Yeah.
00:30:26
Speaker
It's all about the two-tone.
00:30:27
Speaker
It's the same as my love of another way to do it.
00:30:29
Speaker
It's true.
00:30:30
Speaker
Awesome.
00:30:31
Speaker
Well, anyone listening, if you are hoping to keep up with what Melissa is doing, you can follow her on Twitter and Instagram at Melva.
00:30:38
Speaker
You can follow her on TikTok at Melissa Welliver.
00:30:42
Speaker
And to make sure you don't miss an episode of this podcast, follow along on all socials and you can get the episodes a week early and ad-free on Patreon.
00:30:49
Speaker
And of course, like I just mentioned, for more Bookish Chat, check out
00:30:52
Speaker
our other podcast, The Chosen Ones and Other Tropes.
00:30:54
Speaker
Thanks again, Melissa, and thanks to everyone listening.
00:30:56
Speaker
We'll catch you on the next episode.