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Book Battles: Genres, Trends, and IP Theft
152 Plays12 days ago
Krisserin celebrates completing her manuscript while Kelton makes significant progress on her novel. They tackle the challenging questions of where your book belongs in the literary marketplace, whether to read in your genre while writing, and how to position your work among similar titles. The hosts dive into Lynne Freeman's IP theft lawsuit against bestselling author Tracey Wolff and Wolff's agent Emily Sylvan Kim of Prospect Agency, discussing its implications for writers. Plus, they debate the importance of comp titles, and answer listener questions about writing motivation and organization tools. Join them for an honest conversation about navigating the competitive world of publishing without losing your creative vision.
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Music by Golden Hour Oasis Studios
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Transcript
Introduction to Pen Pals Podcast
00:00:00
Speaker
Every morning when the alarm would go off and I'd want to snooze, I thought to myself, if I don't get my ass out of bed and work on this day from chapter, i don't know what I'm going to say to Kelton on Friday. So I think it was a combination of knowing that I wanted to face you and tell you I did what I said to that got me out of bed. But now...
00:00:23
Speaker
Now I don't know what to do next. So that's why I'm like, he did it. It feels very anticlimactic because I don't know. i don't know what I'm going to do afterwards Well, I have ideas for you. I'm Chris Erin Canary. And I'm Kelton Wright. Follow our quest to publish our first novels. From first drafts to query letters.
00:00:42
Speaker
Through inevitable rejection. And hopefully eventual success. From California Colorado, this is Pen Pals. The dog's in the room. Hold on a second. Because she's inevitably going to bark and want to leave.
00:00:54
Speaker
Luna! Here. All right, now I'm ready. Oh, yeah.
00:01:03
Speaker
Hi, Chris Aaron. Hi. Hi, Kelton. Happy Friday.
Weekly Goals and Motivation
00:01:07
Speaker
Happy Pen Pals Day. Happy Pen Pals Day. had a good week. Did you? I had a good week.
00:01:14
Speaker
and That sounds reassuring. My goals for last week were to finish editing the book and to write that letter. And I did all of those things. And I will say it's in large part because of you. um The girls are, it's spring break, which means I don't have to get up at 5 a.m. m to get them ready for school and write. So I've been getting up a little bit later.
00:01:37
Speaker
And it dawned on me this week that if I finish the book, I don't have to get up. early anymore. oh I don't have something that I'm actively working on.
00:01:49
Speaker
But every morning when the alarm would go off and I'd want to snooze, I thought to myself, if I don't get my ass out of bed and work on this day from chapter, i don't know what i'm going to say to Kelton on Friday. So I think it was a combination of knowing that I wanted to face you and tell you I did.
00:02:07
Speaker
i did what I said to that got me out of bed. But now Now I don't know what to do next. So that's why I'm like, he did it. It feels very anticlimactic because I don't know. i don't know what I'm going to do afterwards.
00:02:23
Speaker
Well, I have ideas for you. i do want to hear a little bit about writing the letter to your ideal reader. How did that feel? So I didn't, I mean, it didn't turn out the way I had envisioned it was going to turn out. and of course I just pantsed it. I didn't plan it.
00:02:40
Speaker
I sat down and I thought about so not so much a letter to the reader, but if I were to write a letter at the end of the book that people would read and to understand kind of the origin of the story and, and how I came about it, I wrote that and ended up being a letter that was a history of the women who made me So I wrote about my grandmother's Carmen and Ruth and the things that I knew about them or know about them and the things that I've heard about them.
00:03:15
Speaker
You know, my my grandmother Carmen, and I lived with her for a large part of my life. And she was that my Filipino grandmother had a huge impact on me. And um my other grandmother, Ruth, passed away when I was two.
00:03:27
Speaker
So I don't know a ton about her, but I still have the baby blanket that she made for me. It was always a symbol of love from a person that I didn't, you know, I didn't get to, to grow up with. There's a lot of family lore on both sides. And really the origin of this book was someone who is finding their way and realizing that you don't have to do it alone.
00:03:49
Speaker
You know, I think we go out to the world after we become adults and we're like, I'm not going to listen to what my parents have to say. i know better. just... Go out and you face the world and think that you're gonna figure it out all on your own But the things that you learn from your family they can be blessings and curses they can be the things that you have to fight through to figure out how to Survive and overcome but then they can also be the blessing of like they survived it, you know, even though it yeah it there was something that might have held them back or encumbered them. They also survived it. So the the solution is there alongside the the problem. So that was kind of what I wrote about. And it felt good. I found that the i got teary at the end. i like good
00:04:33
Speaker
I think you know why I assigned that.
Writing Achievements and Social Media
00:04:36
Speaker
But in case the listeners don't, it was obviously to manipulate you into writing a rough draft of a query letter for this book. I know your face. You're like, you son of a bitch.
00:04:47
Speaker
But I just think that I knew that a letter like that, your soul would pour into it. And now you just have to, it's poured into like a teacup and now you have to pour it into like a traveler's mug so it can go out into the world.
00:05:03
Speaker
But it's like that feeling. I knew that I knew a ah letter, however it came across, would evoke that. And it it's sounds amazing. It sounds like something that kind of would be cool if you included at the end of the book. Yeah, I think I think it's almost like an extended acknowledgement. It's my favorite part of a book.
00:05:20
Speaker
Yeah, I do love an acknowledgement. And I do love an acknowledgement that is more than just like, let me thank all the people who helped me publish this book that has a little bit more about the story and why it was important for the the author to write it.
00:05:32
Speaker
It feels intimate. And it's nice when you've spent so much time with a story that someone has poured blood, sweat and tears into to hear about why they wrote it. And it's almost like softer goodbye after you finish a novel and you're kind of sad that it's over, you know?
00:05:48
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. um I did not write my acknowledgements this week, but I did write 2000 words. I know. i know so Kelton posted this on social media. So if you follow her, you probably saw it, but I was cheering, actually audibly cheering for you when I saw those posts. So tell me about your writing week. You hit your goal.
00:06:10
Speaker
How did you do i hit my goal. I front loaded my client work, and which was easy to do because I have reduced client load um for the next couple of weeks. ah Hire me haha.
00:06:22
Speaker
But so I did most of what I needed to do Monday and Tuesday, which left me Wednesday and Thursday to do a bunch of writing. And because Ben and i have allocated days for who has the child when, ah that means I i so even if I don't have paid work.
00:06:38
Speaker
Wednesday and Thursday are still mine to use as I please. And so I use them both for the novel, which was really, really wonderful to have just like chunks of time to dedicate to them.
00:06:50
Speaker
i wish that meant that there was more than 2000 words, but I also got rid of another 2000 words. It's tough when you're watching your overall word count because you're like, oh, we're really going nowhere, aren't we?
00:07:05
Speaker
But there were scenes that I was like, oh, this this doesn't happen. these These characters aren't even in this book. And so they're just moved out of the manuscript section into like my kind of compost pile to reference later if I want to. But I still think it's an accomplishment in writing a novel to have the clarity to be like, oh, that's not part of it.
00:07:25
Speaker
So I added 2,000, I subtracted 2,000, but I added a good 2,000, or fun to write. ah felt like i was there. i learned a little about my main character.
00:07:38
Speaker
and I also, I made a reel on Instagram, kind of like announcing the synopsis, if you will. And it performed very poorly. I fucking hate Instagram so much, but I know that I'm like still buried under the weight of an algorithm that has me permanently shadow banned. So whatever.
00:07:57
Speaker
It felt good to just like be honest about what I was doing and like have the few people who do see what I'm up to appreciate it. Well, you know, a couple of thoughts on that. First of all, I loved the real. I saw it. i was like, fuck. Yeah.
00:08:10
Speaker
do Maybe you need to move to TikTok and figure out a way to make that platform work for you because I feel like you can dig yourself out of the hole on a new platform and your content is something that people can resonate with. So I feel like it's probably an avenue for you, you know?
00:08:28
Speaker
Yeah. I think that's actually a smart goal for me to move over to TikTok. The BookTok girlies are there. The people who like the kind of thing I'm writing are there. And that algorithm doesn't hate me yet.
Motivation and Writing Strategies
00:08:40
Speaker
Yeah. well and So the the other thing that I was going to say, because I do notice writers doing this, where they will start seeding their book and start talking about it publicly. And even when I was at AWP and interviewed some of the authors there, I interviewed one gentleman, Omari Richards, and he was saying that he would hype up his book while he was writing it and post every milestone that he had, like, I finished my first draft, I finished my second draft, because you're building an audience, and there's anticipation and all of that. And i I've never considered doing that my life.
00:09:17
Speaker
It's, for me, I'm like, I'm hiding over here. Don't look at me. Don't look at me. I'm working on something right now. I mean, it's so true of writers, you know, because I think about other media, obviously, this is exactly what they do for TV and for movies, where it's like they announce the project, they announced the cast, you know, there's like, behind the scenes shots.
00:09:40
Speaker
It's a little different because you are often following a component, whether it's a screenwriter, a producer, a director, actors and actresses, and there's elements that are already drawing you in often there's IP, but you can use the things familiar to that to promote a book too.
00:09:58
Speaker
So I've seen people do it where they're like, this is the color palette of the book. This is the playlist I'm listening to while writing the book. If you loved these books, you will love my book. So um maybe I'll take that approach because if people are already like, I want it, that's a that's a good way to to get the people who need to want it to want it.
00:10:19
Speaker
Yeah. And there are people who are doing that, that are talking about their book online and building an audience. For me, I always thought... I mean, when I think about the authors that are currently doing that, they're established authors. So they're saying like, I'm on the second draft of the second book of the series that you guys are all waiting for. People who are actually waiting for those books where I feel like for me, people who are like, who are you and why should I care?
00:10:43
Speaker
like You know, I think that it all goes back to me being just a little like shy baby about social media, but I think you would do a great job of moving your content over there and promoting it because you have a built-in audience of people who, who love your writing already because of your sub stack and I'm sure, you know, devour your book.
00:11:04
Speaker
Well, this is the new experiment for me then. Tick tock. Tick tock. Speaking of audience, we have some questions that we had meant to answer before, but I think we could take some time to do them now. The first question is from a listener called Big Block Letters, and they ask, what motivates you, especially when you are exhausted, which we both quite exhausted these days.
00:11:31
Speaker
One motivation is money, but what other inner feelings do you have to keep writing? It's um said I mean, it's just the first thing my brain said was future money.
00:11:47
Speaker
It's tough. I don't, in terms of like inner feelings to keep writing,
00:11:56
Speaker
This is a really challenging question for me. i don't know that I've ever investigated it that deeply in myself. Like writing is just what I do.
00:12:07
Speaker
but it sounds that's It's like ah even the way I'm saying that out loud sounds so stupid, but I'm not. Like if I wasn't writing, I would just boil over.
00:12:20
Speaker
Like I have to write. And sometimes that's in my journal. Shout out to my Google Docs journal, which is over 300,000 words. It takes a minute to load. But i I feel like I have to.
00:12:33
Speaker
don't know that I need motivation. Now, do I need motivation to work on the right project? Yes. That I think is trickier to come by. i How would you answer this? I feel stumped.
00:12:46
Speaker
I feel stumped. It might be because i do have to tell you and everyone listening, I did not sleep last night. Last night was DEFCON 1 in our house. It was the worst night we've had in months.
00:12:57
Speaker
So I feel terrible. Oh, no. Well, you don't look terrible, if that helps. You don't look like you do. Thank you. It's called concealer. It's a really interesting question, and it kind of threw me a little bit, too, because similar to you, I do feel like writing, I've talked about this, is integral to my mental health, and it's something that I really enjoy doing and i have fun doing.
00:13:21
Speaker
But the way that I interpreted this question is kind of the way that I have been managing my getting out of bed in the morning to actually do the work, right? So there is a moment every morning when my alarm goes off on my watch where I'm like, am I getting up or am I going back to bed?
00:13:39
Speaker
And there are moments when I am called to get out of bed and night that question is just a momentary glance. And I just get up and I do it and I'm excited because I know what I'm working on and I have a goal or I have an accountability partner that I want to share my progress with because you really, i mean, I don't want to to belabor it, but you do help me.
00:13:59
Speaker
ah get out of bed into the writing, knowing that I'm going to have to face you and tell you what I worked on. think in the past I would have said there's like an ego element to it. I used to think that when I would
Outlining and Non-Fiction Structure
00:14:09
Speaker
envision what my writing was going to do for me or could do for me, i had this idea of like seeing my name in print and it being my identity and doing all of these things. And I've completely let go of that.
00:14:21
Speaker
Not maybe not completely. Let's be honest.
00:14:26
Speaker
But I've let go of that as a motivator for me because it just seems so, i just know that it's not true. Like I know that I'm not going to like feel this feeling of everything being what I wanted it to be if I do get my book published. And even the question of whether a book that I've written will ever be published is something that I've just kind of pushed off.
00:14:47
Speaker
And I know that all the people out there who like to manifest things are probably screaming right now. like, I'm just like, if that happens, it happens. I'm not going I'm not going to like, you know, rest all my hopes and dreams on that.
00:14:59
Speaker
So... You know, i think that for me, it is just like having a goal and having something that I know i want to accomplish is really important. So whether it is the things that we talk about each week and just knowing like, yeah I want to, I want to, I want to reach that tree at the end of the lane and then I'll stop running for a while and I'll take a break. I think that that is what is motivating me right now. And it might change. i think it has changed a lot over the years.
00:15:27
Speaker
But I think that for right now is just the sense of completion of a project. I'm a i'm a big closure person as much as I can be. And so I like to get things to a place as much as I can closure because then once I'm done with and I put it on the world, there's no closure. So yeah as much as I can control it, I do. I try to.
00:15:47
Speaker
I also think if you don't have a goal, if there's not like a project you are working on then i I can't suggest morning pages enough. I'm not a religious zealot about morning pages. I'm not like that's what you should do every morning for your whole life because I find them exhausting and tedious.
00:16:07
Speaker
But it does kind of clean the pipes out and it gets me moving. So if your motivation is like you don't know what to write and like you're tired of like going to the page and not having anything, then go to the page with the intention of not having anything.
00:16:25
Speaker
I really wish I had like a spigot of inspiration the way that I envision you do. The idea of keeping a journal to me has always been, I've tried. It's so hard for me to sit down and put down my thoughts on page, like what's inside of my head in the current moment and the things that I'm, that are making me anxious or the problems that I'm turning over.
00:16:47
Speaker
They're so they're like in my head encased in concrete. It's really difficult for me just sit down and actually write down from my POV what is going on in the world or what's going on my head. So that letter that i wrote was very different than anything that I typically write. it Makes me excited to read it.
00:17:07
Speaker
o I wonder about how you do it because you do it every week. It's just like, this is incredible. I wish I had, i don't even know how to like unlock that.
00:17:19
Speaker
You should teach a class. Yeah. Yeah. i don't know how to stop it.
00:17:25
Speaker
i That's a good question, though. I mean, i' I'll be thinking about that question. So thank you for sharing that with us. And i'm I apologize and in hindsight and in advance if my lack of sleep made me wildly inarticulate about it.
Genre Exploration and Market Trends
00:17:37
Speaker
I think it was fine. I thought your answer good. Okay, the second question was a little bit more of a technical question. So and we talked about Scrivener in our Pantsers versus Outliners episode, and I discussed how I use it really to organize my writing in lieu of an outline.
00:17:55
Speaker
So Scrivener has a corkboard feature. i don't know. Are you familiar with this feature at all? Tell me more. was hoping you knew. The question was, why do you use physical post-its instead of Scrivener's corkboard feature?
00:18:11
Speaker
i mean, i can I can tell you right now why i don't use any software for the post-its. And it's because I'm trying to have a different headspace. And I can't get that different headspace online or or on a screen.
00:18:29
Speaker
It's like I need to have something I'm touching with my hands. and And maybe in terms of actually organizing the plot, it doesn't work any better. It's no different.
00:18:41
Speaker
But it it's doing something different inside my brain. Stepping away from the computer and touching things where I can't be typing and I can't be like working on it means that it's it's sitting back there. It's gestating. It's like I've opened the bottle of wine and I'm letting it breathe for a minute.
00:19:01
Speaker
We are decanting these concepts, okay? And on the board, it's I don't even know if I found it incredibly useful for moving scenes around, but it it gave me like a reality to the project that I don't feel with a screen.
00:19:18
Speaker
Yeah, I would agree with that. I, when I do try and do some planning or if I'm trying to take notes, they always have to be either on like, I get colored postcards, the three by five postcards, or I buy those really big pieces of paper that have the sticky back on them. And I will do like a story map where I'll draw something.
00:19:38
Speaker
the storylines and then have them connect and move around. And I do think that it gets your story out of your head onto paper a little bit more. You can look at it in a different way. Cause even when look at my outline on Excel and I'm moving stuff around, it doesn't really do much for me except for make me look at it in a more like quantitative way. And it's not exactly as helpful as I think planning out a story.
00:20:02
Speaker
Yeah, and maybe using a Miro board or something like that, a software similar to that is helpful to this person. You know, it's just for me that I have to have that tactile separation from the screen in order to let it bloom.
00:20:20
Speaker
Plus, I had no idea that Scrivener had a cork board. Scrivener is one of those technologies where has all of these other features that I know exist. And I've kind of poked around at them a little bit. And I'm like, I'm just going to focus on the writing that I'm doing. But I have seen that there's ways that if you look at your book in certain views, they'll have the scenes look like postcards.
00:20:39
Speaker
Yeah. And you can move them around. But I don't know. There's something about also when you're writing out, like if I'm writing out a postcard, I'll put, I'm not going to put like a, this is the description of the scene. I'm going to be like,
00:20:51
Speaker
fallout, you know, whatever it is, like big fight, you know, things like that, that are just more conceptual than, um, yeah, detail. That's a really good point there. I don't think I had a post-it with more than five words on it.
00:21:04
Speaker
And so it forces you to be concise. And in that way, you can really see the elements of your story um and how they lay out. And obviously you can convert that to technology. You can do that with technology first, but it just, it makes me feel like a writer in like 1990s rom-com by having physical papers around, you know?
00:21:28
Speaker
That question was from Sarah Lavender Smith. And she also wrote a note about how she thinks about planning. So I'll just read it very quickly. Sarah said, I'm about halfway through drafting my memoir, which is structured around a double timeline.
00:21:45
Speaker
The main timeline follows an intense week of a journey in my present life. And the second timeline flashes back to earlier scenes and stages from childhood through early marriage. I found Courtney Mom's guidance on creating a three-act storyline with a double-track timeline helpful to get started.
00:22:00
Speaker
I made a three-act rough outline on a big piece of paper with three columns, and then I blocked out the scenes in each act and color-coded them to indicate past scenes and present scenes. The story structure and scene placement has evolved lot since then, but doing this first simple outline helped me develop a macro view of the narrative arc.
00:22:18
Speaker
I wonder, are outlines more useful for nonfiction? i think they're mandatory for nonfiction. But i o
00:22:30
Speaker
I guess in a way they have to be more valuable for nonfiction because people write whole ass fiction books without them. And I'm like, what? Show me a science writer writing a nonfiction book.
00:22:45
Speaker
Without an outline. Sarah's is interesting because it's memoir. um So, you know, is that it's it is nonfiction, but does she need an outline? It's her life.
00:22:56
Speaker
The outline's baked in. That's true. It's very linear. But then she has these like layered flashbacks that it makes sense she's trying to figure out where to structure them. When she mentioned Courtney Mom's three-act storyline, double timeline structure, it made me think of the fact that there are so many books out there that help with structure.
00:23:14
Speaker
Structure is something I struggle with. And I know I sent you Lisa Kron's Wired for Story, which takes that screenwriter's view of how to hook people and and engage people while you are structuring your novel and starting with the first chapter of the first sentence and all of that. So I think that those are really great tools for people who are looking for guidance in that way.
00:23:36
Speaker
i think for me, ah when I'm starting out a project, that pantsing phase is like the joy phase for me before I have to think about any responsibility of making it make sense or have a plot in a way that makes sense. But i feel like for the people who out there who are outliners, these are great tools. So thank you again, Sarah, for writing us that note.
00:23:59
Speaker
I think Sarah's, think it's probably a really smart method because similar to me, she has written extensively about her experiences and interviewed a bunch of people and ultra running. And she has great essays all the time. And so you have so much fodder to pull from that it helps to be like, how do I apply this to a structure?
00:24:18
Speaker
I'm also a big fan of Courtney Mom. She wrote the book before and after the book deal. um And I read the before part so far. You're holding on to that after part like a dessert, you know?
00:24:30
Speaker
Yeah, I got it out from the library and I was like, once I get a book deal, I'll buy this book. I do subscribe to Courtney Mom's Substack. So I'm ah i'm a patron of her arts. Thank you to our listeners who wrote in and gave us some feedback on how they do things and your questions. We love them. Keep sending them.
00:24:47
Speaker
today however, we're talking about the competition for ideas and thinking about where your book lives on the bookshelf in the store. So I've talked about this little bit.
00:25:01
Speaker
Kelton, have you ever gone into ah Barnes and Noble and looked at where your book would be and look at all the other books that would be alongside and think about how does my book live in this universe that already exists?
00:25:14
Speaker
Chris Aaron, I think you know that I am enormously full of myself. When I walk into Barnes & Noble, I'm like, it's right there. It's the first table. Where else would it be? It's in the windows. But yeah, I have done that when I've thought about like what different genres I'm interested in and where they're sitting within the marketplace when I thought that.
00:25:33
Speaker
You know, now when you walk into a Barnes and Noble, the first tables are like high fantasy and romance. And i have at times in my life pursued both of those. And so it was easy to be like, oh I would kind of fit in here. i haven't thought about the genre of my book. And so I actually had to do a fair amount of Googling yesterday because I was like, I don't, I actually have no idea what genre my book is in. um and wow, there are a lot of genres.
00:26:02
Speaker
Mm-hmm. Holy shit. Yeah. Wait till you have to query and there's like a dropdown. Like, what's your genre? And it's like, here are all the things.
00:26:13
Speaker
It's absolutely crazy. So I sent to Chris Aaron the other day, ah a sub stack called picture novel by Karen Gillespie, where she was looking at query tracker and seeing by the numbers, what was being selected the most. And out of 150 agent offers, 55 of them were a type of romance.
00:26:38
Speaker
That's a third.
00:26:41
Speaker
Does anyone in your book have a romance? Is this what we should be doing? Every story is a love story, Kelton. Oh, God.
00:26:51
Speaker
I find that to be somewhat true. But... Women are readers and we're the people who are buying books and checking them out from the library. So i it does not surprise me. It is a highly marketable genre, whether it's romance or romanticy or y a romance or whatever it may be. When we're talking about the people who are consuming books, like these people on BookTok who are reading, like me, over 100 books a year, they're not reading and Peace and then the brothers Dostoevsky and then Anna Karenina. They're reading...
00:27:23
Speaker
ACOTAR and fourth wing and Penelope Douglas and all of those writers, you know, they're just, and I've gone through periods of that too, which is why i said, everyone has a Penelope Douglas phase, especially coming out of the pandemic.
00:27:36
Speaker
Um, I read a ton of romance because it's fun and it's easy to consume and it makes me want to like, you know, be intimate with my husband more often.
00:27:49
Speaker
I love that. i I went on a little journey this morning of just Googling what genre some of my past like most memorable reads have been just to see like where they fit in.
00:28:02
Speaker
Because when I looked at that Karen Gillespie's list and she was qualifying what everything was, it was like, I don't I genuinely don't yet know the difference between literary, upmarket, book club, contemporary.
00:28:19
Speaker
There was like another one in there that I was like, oh, I don't, what is that? Women's fiction. You know, this is like all of these things to me. I'm like, I'm a little lost in the dark, you know, but it makes sense. I am more familiar with the genres that I spend more time with. High fantasy, low fantasy, dark fantasy, ah sci-fi.
00:28:38
Speaker
horror. I think as I was looking for where my book fits into any of these, i was like, is my book American Gothic? Yeah, probably. Yeah.
00:28:49
Speaker
I say so. I know. I mean, because I remember I told you, you should read Mexican Gothic, the book by Sylvia. Yes, you did. It's like Jane Eyre meets, um, I don't know.
00:29:04
Speaker
Insert like horror novel here. It's a speculative Jade air. And so I would say that yours kind of fits that bill. Yeah. If I'm reading about American Gothic, it delves into themes of historical sins, mental illness, destiny, and the nature of evil, particularly within the context of American experiences, which makes my book sound really serious, but my book aligns perfectly with that, which I i find odd.
00:29:39
Speaker
Well, I, you know, I do feel like when we, when I think about American Gothic, I think of, we're talking about evil and the sins and the past and like how those manifest. There is a element of magic in that.
00:29:53
Speaker
Right. If you believe in that, if you believe that the land that you're on and the things that you inherit from your family, there's this like element of predestiny in them, then you are thinking that there is like some magic that exists. So I feel like it does describe your novel, but you could also throw in like a speculative American Gothic in there, you know, just to, if you wanted to.
00:30:16
Speaker
Yeah. color it little bit more. Yeah, I mean, it's like American Gothic dark fantasy and like a slice of romance. Yeah. Yeah. I love it. When you were describing American Gothic, i was like, this is c Kelton.
00:30:34
Speaker
I don't know. It sounds like I'm describing my, my sub stack in a way. I'm like, Oh man, I fit in a genre. Who knew?
00:30:45
Speaker
I wish I had a sexy genre like that. I don't even know. I just always say learning fiction for my novel, but I, I don't know. Women's fiction. Well, where does your book live on the shelf?
00:30:57
Speaker
think it would just be in the general fiction section. for your Who are your comps? Tell me about your comps. Can we not do this right now? So this is... Can we not do episode? can tell you who your... I can tell you who your comps are.
00:31:13
Speaker
I mean, so that is a great question. And when I was querying Unforgettable, which is my new adult speculative fiction novel, they ask you, so when you're querying, typically you will include...
Querying and Market Pressures
00:31:26
Speaker
in the description of your novel, other things to triangulate for the agent, what your book is about. So when I was describing that novel, I didn't use other books, but I said, it's like black mirror meets tick tock.
00:31:40
Speaker
And the example that you sent over, Kelton sent me this query tracker letter that was like rage bait. Why are you sending this to me? i'm I hate this.
00:31:51
Speaker
About this woman who got like contacted the day that she sent the query in and then got three offers of people who wanted it right away. And I was like, I hate this woman. No, I'm very happy for her. I'm just jealous.
00:32:04
Speaker
But the way that she described her book, and now people can go look it up. She used a hashtag. It's a hashtag own voices, sapphic romance, and disability representation.
00:32:18
Speaker
The vicious ballerina is in I Feed Her to the Beast, and The Beast and Me by Jameson Shea meets the haunted halls and buried secrets of It Will Only Hurt for a Moment by Delilah S. Dawson. So she used, I've never heard of those books, but I'm sure the agents who read her query had heard of them.
00:32:34
Speaker
She used those examples. Now that's in her query letter. When you're writing or filling out query tracker, there is typically not every agent has it, but a space where they will ask you, what are your comps?
00:32:44
Speaker
And I didn't know this until I took my sci-fi class at Harvard that they want comps that have been published in the last two years. yeah Yeah. Unfortunately, i did know that. Tell me that.
00:32:59
Speaker
Thanks. so tonight i you know, because ah ah it's easy for me to see what my book is like Lost Horizon meets Brigadoon. And those were both written in like the 1920s.
00:33:12
Speaker
I'm like, oh, about 100 years too late. and But I do think this is a testament to why you've got to be reading in your genre and perhaps to know the genre you're writing in so you can start reading in it. I don't know that I've ever read a book that someone would call American Gothic.
00:33:26
Speaker
I have read. So the other genres I felt aligned with were horror fiction, mystery, dark fantasy, and I have read magical realism. Absolutely. I've read a bunch of books in all of those.
00:33:41
Speaker
And so i think that I'm just missing one genre to follow up with. But it's tough because like when you, I, the books in my mind that are comps now, by the time i am querying this book will be too old.
00:33:57
Speaker
Yeah. So that was the question, right? And I want to ask you about reading in your genre separately because some people won't do it. And we can talk about that, but there is this pressure for writers to understand the marketability and the saleability of the book that they're writing and where it
Legal Risks in Publishing
00:34:18
Speaker
exists. And if an agent's going to take it, they're going to take because they think that they can sell it and make money off of it. Right.
00:34:23
Speaker
And that's not why we write. i mean, that's not why we we think about our ideas. i don't, I don't frame my stories in where it's going to sit on the shelf and how much I'm going to make out of it. Right.
00:34:35
Speaker
But the agents look at it that way. So if I'm to go out and go to Barnes and Noble and do my research and say like, wow, there's a lot of gargoyle fantasy or like romance right now, I'm going to write a gargoyle romance novel, which I've read a couple. They're fantastic. mar rock Monster.
00:34:54
Speaker
Stop. Monster romance is a great, great area of reading. I love that. that trope. But then here I'm going to like go home and sit down in front of my computer and I'm going to spend two years crafting my gargoyle romance novel. And then I'm going to send it out to agents. They're going to be like, gargoyle romance was so 2025. Like we've moved on to a statue.
00:35:18
Speaker
smut. I don't know. which I guess is the same thing, but it's like you run the risk of that, right? Of your book becoming dated from a moment in time. And I don't, I sure there's some formula out there that tells us how long a trend lives before it dies out and something new comes in. So how does a writer navigate that? My instinct is just not to pay attention at all.
00:35:44
Speaker
Cause it's so out of my control. Yeah, I think that's true. I'm thinking about it in terms of like interior design. It's like the first moment that you started seeing wavy mirrors.
00:35:57
Speaker
If you were like, i have a wavy mirror idea. It's like that then that's when to write it. But if you are now in 2025, the year of ubiquitous wavy mirrors, and you're just coming up with the idea, by the time, unless you're going to write that book in like six months, it's like, i don't know, man, wavy mirrors are, they're they're dated. They're like a thing with a timestamp. They're not a classic design trend, and they are going to stand out as a moment in time, and they're not going to be marketable.
00:36:30
Speaker
But there are things that, that are marketable forever. And so, yes, I'm sure an editor has a way of being like, oh, let's make it like a little like, like this. So it fits in the current market, but there's things that, that stand the test of time. And you know, maybe it's not gargoyles, but I think it's to your point, it's like, you kind of have to write the book you want to write.
00:36:58
Speaker
ah There are definitely people who can write to the market and like, wow, Kudos to you. That's wild, but I am not one of them.
00:37:08
Speaker
But, you know, I think that if you're writing like kind of what you feel, what you feel is often a reflection of the culture going on around you. Music is such a good example of this. Music really amplifies the cultural moment, or at least it has. I've been struggling to find music that's kept catching the cultural moment right now, but it's it It makes a ah bigger mark.
00:37:33
Speaker
But, you know, then it's like, are you going to get paid? Maybe. Maybe not. That's sort of the story of publishing, right? It's like right now, if you wanted to write about fairies and lords, if you have a bangerang idea and you can bang it out, then maybe.
00:37:54
Speaker
or You could write a book and have it not be on trend and then have someone steal it and sell it a decade later when it is on trend. Not that I know anything about this. Chris Aaron sent me a reel this morning from New York Mag, I believe, talking about a court case involving some IP. And I think that this is really interesting.
00:38:15
Speaker
Would you tell the listeners what is happening? Okay, so on the outset, I wasn't super sure what this... was about it. It sounded like every writer's worst nightmare, right?
00:38:26
Speaker
I'm always a believer in no one can write the book that you have in your spirit, but you, even if it's the same idea, like let them try. it's not first out of the gate. It's best out of the gate. That's always been my, my belief, but That changes a little bit when you've been querying an agent and working with them on your novel, and then they whole cloth steal your idea and give it to another writer and then publish that book. And it becomes a bestselling series. I'm talking about Lynn Freeman and Tracy Wolf and Tracy Wolf's agent, Emily Sullivan Kim from Prospect Agency. so
00:39:07
Speaker
I used AI to read the the court the actual lawsuit because i was like, first of all, I don't have a subscription to New York Magazine. So like, I can't read this, you know paywalled article.
00:39:19
Speaker
But I was like, let's just go to the source and get the lawsuit. And by the way, the lawyer that wrote it, she was big bad because when you read the descriptive language, that lawyer should write a book.
00:39:32
Speaker
It was really well done, like the betrayal and this, that, the other thing. I was like, go off anyway. So the key allegations, I'm just going to read them out because I did not go to law school.
00:39:44
Speaker
Freeman, who is also an attorney and a writer, claimed she entrusted entrusted her manuscript to agent Emily Sullivan Kim, who allegedly defrauded her by requesting numerous revisions and additional materials over three years, 45 plus versions of the manuscript.
00:40:01
Speaker
Freeman alleges that Kim shared these materials with her longtime client and friend, Tracy Wolf, who then used them to create the bestselling Crave series. Here are the similarities between the two novels. And this is very damning because it's like, if you're going to steal an idea, be a little bit more clever with your theft, right?
Reading and Researching Your Genre
00:40:20
Speaker
Yeah. Both feature a young adult paranormal romance set in an Alaskan high school. Both protagonists moved from San Diego after losing their family in the tragic accident. Both follow teenage girls who discover they aren't human and must navigate a supernatural world while falling for a dangerous boy.
00:40:38
Speaker
both are set against the backdrop of a supernatural war between factions. Both feature a feminist perspective with a uniquely powerful heroine destined to restore balance, which is very like, yeah why that's why aren't we all yeah seven characters names appear in both works.
00:40:56
Speaker
including unusual ones like The Blood Letter, Maurice, and I guess Colin is kind of a common name. So in response, they claim that their CEO created the basic storyline and selected Wolf for her writing voice, not based on an existing manuscript. It all sounds fucking fishy to me.
00:41:14
Speaker
I did see some of like the line items comparing. like In one book, the bad boy smells like citrus and waterfalls, and in and the other book, he smells like oranges and water.
00:41:26
Speaker
ah Okay, what is... It smells like water. What does water smell like? That boy smells wet. Smells wet. It's interesting because, as we were just talking about, like, what if you want to write about fairies?
00:41:41
Speaker
Like, everyone wants to read about royal kingdom fairies. And it's like, there's only so many high courts and magical powers that you can have before stuff starts feeling really familiar.
00:41:54
Speaker
And this case in particular, I think will be interesting to watch the outcome. i would also be deeply curious to see like how the book was written. Like I would love if the first manuscript was just run through a i and it was like lightly edit this, you know, because then we have like way bigger, way bigger problems to factor into this lawsuit in particular.
00:42:18
Speaker
that go beyond just these personal relationships. But it's, I don't know, it's tough. I thought about this a little bit when I put my synopsis on a reel.
00:42:29
Speaker
You know, it's like a really silly thought for a writer as small as I am to be like, what if someone takes it? How do i make it generic enough that no one's going to steal it And, you know, it's ah it's a really scared position to be writing from. This is obviously a a wild story. And that's why it's headline news, because this is relatively uncommon as far as I know.
00:42:54
Speaker
but it's crazy to think about. Oh, well, and talking about AI, now we have all of these authors' books who have been co-opted and put into machine learning algorithms and all of these unique voices who have spent years of their lives crafting their stories are now just like ripped away and used so that some robot can write a story. it's It just feels like, i i mean, I'm a big believer in art being able to survive period.
00:43:25
Speaker
But it is scary. And I think that you get into these murky waters when you are trying to write to market when you're like, okay, this trope is successful. Here's a, you know, I want to write a story about a fairy and a kingdom and this, that and the other. And Also, by the way, like I've read a bunch of fairy books. I read Holly Black's books, I thought were excellent. And then, you know, you, you get into a mode where you're like, finished ACOTAR. Like, I want to read other things like ACOTAR and let me find other things. And then they get, after a while, you're like, it's all kind of the same shit, you know? And so I think that that is the danger when you're trying to write to market and you're just, you're not focusing on the stories that, you know, are interesting to you that are different, that might be,
00:44:10
Speaker
not what's hot at the moment, but potentially could be what's hot next. Yeah. Maybe you're the trendsetter. Ideally you're the trendsetter, right? What a what dream. Yeah.
00:44:22
Speaker
So and we talked about reading in genre. I spoke to a writer this week and she writes young adult fantasy. And I asked, what are you reading right now? And she said, oh, I don't read in my genre while I'm writing. And I used to be that way too. And still to to some extent, they're like, I will read a book and the voice will be so strong that I will some write a little bit in it. But we mentioned this before, kind of like trying to walk a funny way and eventually you just find your gate. But I don't want to read books like my book. I want to read fantasy novels. We talked about this, reading books that would make you a better writer.
00:44:57
Speaker
But then it's also like understanding your book in the universe in which you're trying to enter and, um you know, learning from the the things that other people have done and...
00:45:10
Speaker
I just, I do wonder if we're doing, if I'm doing myself a disservice by not reading more multi-generational family drama, you know? oh I don't know. the One of the things I have been doing lately is looking for elements of my story and seeing how other authors approach them across genre.
00:45:31
Speaker
So there's there's magic in my book. And so I'm reading right now Alex Harrow's the once and future witches. And um my book is going to be nothing like that. They're very different genres. Hers is like alternate history, fantasy, witchcraft centered.
00:45:49
Speaker
And that's mine is not that. But there is like a curse witch element to my book. And so I was like, okay, I want to read about how other people are writing about witchcraft and how they're incorporating it into the stories. And like when something happens supernatural happens? How do the characters perceive it?
00:46:07
Speaker
And so I'm reading across genre to find those things. I mentioned to you that one of my characters has hallucinations. And so I'm reading a number of books that include those to see their approach, just because I think it's really interesting.
00:46:21
Speaker
i mean, I do think knowing that it sounds like my book is sort of American Gothic, that I should read a couple Only because if I get to the point, if I am so graced to get to the point where I can query this book and I am looking for comps, I want to know if I really consider my book American Gothic.
00:46:42
Speaker
Like, yeah, when I look up what it says it is online, yeah, it sounds like. Sounds aligned. But I wonder if I read one of those books, if I'd be like, mine doesn't feel like this at all. Maybe at the final reading, mine really feels like a speculative or magical realism instead. And I would lead with that.
00:47:01
Speaker
So i I think it's important to read a little bit in the genre you're going for and just make sure that you're aligned. But maybe the thing to do is to do that after you've finished your book, right? Like maybe going into Barnes & Noble after you finished your book and saying, okay, I'm going to write this query now.
00:47:21
Speaker
Let me read, like see where it would be on the shelf or where I think it would be and read some books in those genres and... And then you can say yes or no. and And figuring out, by the way, which of them are selling really well and reading those first, you know, and trying to find comps that make the book feel marketable. But then you might surprise yourself and say, like, actually, no, my book belongs in this section of the bookstore instead.
00:47:46
Speaker
That's really smart. I mean, you could even go into your local library and find a librarian and just be like, I'm looking for, you don't have to tell them you wrote a book, but you could be like, I'm looking for books that came out in the last one to two years that do these sorts of things.
00:48:00
Speaker
Could you make me a a suggestion and start from there and power read while you're taking a breather from your book, which you do need to do. Or you could ask TikTok.
00:48:12
Speaker
BookTok. Hey, BookTok girlies. I'm looking for this. And you'll get like a thousand responses and they'll all be the same. but But then that's good know. That's great. I think but that's a great question. That's good to know. right yeah Yeah. I do think I have seen a few query letters that also use movies and TV shows as comps.
Query Letter Strategies
00:48:32
Speaker
I don't know that that is a favored method right now. But I have seen people who say they got an agent doing it, which is an interesting approach.
00:48:43
Speaker
Yeah. and like like you said, using Black Mirror meets TikTok. I think that is an incredibly apt description of what your book is. Thanks. Someone come publish it. One thing that I have decided, and i know we're going to talk about querying at a later date in a different episode, but I'm going to i'm gonna try and get some...
00:49:04
Speaker
agent feedback on the query letter and get help with the query letter. There are classes on how to write a query and there are agents that you can't... Of course there are. There's one at UCLA Extension.
00:49:16
Speaker
And I think... Amazing. I saw one somewhere. Anyhow. And you can... Like at EWP, you could... you know, book time with an agent to go over your query. So there are resources out there and I just like did it on my own. I'm not doing it this next time. but i do think that having someone help you do it, it's just like, why, why do things on your own if you can have help? But I do, I wonder.
00:49:40
Speaker
you know, and maybe we can, if there's an agent listening, that'd be nice. If there's an agent listening or someone who knows an agent, or I can even, i have a ah couple of friendly agents that I can ask this question to. So maybe I will do that. And then I call a follow-up if I have the the courage to do it. um I'll ask them how they, how they consider this and like how important this is to them when they're regarding a book. And I'll get back to everybody.
00:50:02
Speaker
I love that. Well, this was a fun discussion. And I think that we both have to manifest. I feel like you and I are both like someday. so it's going to happen.
00:50:13
Speaker
It's going happen. Why else are we here?
Setting Future Goals and Celebrating Success
00:50:16
Speaker
wait Totally. And now I have a second. We should talk about goals. I have a second draft of my book and I don't I don't know what to do What are your goals this week, Kelton? I would love to hear what you're hoping for yourself.
00:50:32
Speaker
I am anticipating another relatively light load. And so it's it's more just like words, you know, like, especially now that I'm deleting stuff, and I'm looking at my overall word count and being like, oh, no, it's getting smaller.
00:50:47
Speaker
But I feel like I have momentum at the beginning of the story. Like, so far, everything I wrote this week was linear. You know, there were like a couple like flashbacks included in there just like for character fleshing out. But it's I'm moving closer and closer to where I'm going in the story, and that's fun. It's fun to see how she gets there.
00:51:06
Speaker
So I'm just going keep putting time in. I really liked front-loading all my work, and so I'm going to try and keep doing that. I have all of Saturday, tomorrow, to write the novel. Normally that's my newsletter writing day, but the newsletter just like poured out of me yesterday, so that I got that done in 45 minutes or something.
00:51:29
Speaker
So hopefully it doesn't suck. But yeah, I Saturday tomorrow is a newsletter writing day and it's going to be novel writing day instead. So it's all about numbers this week for me and I'm going to go big. We're going to go 3000 again.
00:51:42
Speaker
i think you can do it. I know you can do it. I think I can do it. I know you can do it. You keep saying that you watch your word count. Like, do you have a overall word count goal? Yeah, yeah, I do.
00:51:53
Speaker
but is Which is, not I'm not married to it. you know It's just like, it's 80,000 words because to me, like that's a it's a book. It's like a book length. And I do kind of need a ticker at the top.
00:52:08
Speaker
Because otherwise I'm like, well, I'm doing it. And it's like, no, no, no you got a lot more work to do. Like you got to keep going. I know that you and I approach motivation very differently.
00:52:19
Speaker
But i I love to see that big number at the top and and as a motivator to like keep me going. I also have the the day count going. So it's like you hit a thousand words. And I'm like, OK, cool.
00:52:32
Speaker
I did something I'm proud of today. So that's really nice. And that resets every day, but it's the big number is also something I'm watching because there it's, you know, right now, I think after all of my editing, I'm down to 17,000 words. I cut a lot and that now it feels like I'm less than a quarter of the way,
00:52:53
Speaker
but You know, at least the way is it's no longer like me cutting through branches like the way behind me right now is paved. And so I'm like, okay, good enough. I can, I can be satisfied moving forward knowing that I have cleared a path behind me.
00:53:11
Speaker
Is this the first fiction novel that you've written? Well, I've tried writing fiction novels before and they always got to about 10,000 words. So I I have moved past my original mark, but yeah, this is, this is the most promising one. So I'm gonna, I'm just gonna keep, keep going and stay hopeful. It's very hard for me to work on a project that has such a future goal.
00:53:37
Speaker
I'm used to micro goals. You know, this is hard for me. Well, I'll help you. You do every week, every week. I'm like, I got to show up for Chris. That's right.
00:53:48
Speaker
Well, you helped me too. So, ah tell me what I should do next. Give me my goal for the week. Cause I don't know what to do. i I woke up this morning and I finished editing the last chapter and I went, okay.
00:54:03
Speaker
I think you need an alpha reader. Yeah, probably. i'm mean, why not? Why not get somebody even, it could even just be your mom. to read my I have to read my mom's book first.
00:54:17
Speaker
She sent me her. Okay, fair. I've been working on my book for so long. So I need to read her book that she sent me. I think second draft is edited. Get someone you like and trust or a total fucking stranger.
00:54:30
Speaker
You know what? i Look, I know that sounds like a nightmare to you, but honestly, ah just have somebody read the book. Yeah. Maybe I should read it one more time.
00:54:44
Speaker
Just one more time. No. Why? Just have somebody read it. It's been edited twice. Have you been working on it for like a decade? No, it's been edited once. It's been edited once.
00:54:55
Speaker
Listen, it's been edited a bunch, okay? It's time to let someone sink their claws into it. I'm not saying beta readers, okay? I'm saying one alpha reader. Yeah.
00:55:06
Speaker
Mom, if you're listening, I'm sending you my book. She's definitely listening. She listens and she watches, by the way, for everyone who is listening, we put all of the episodes on YouTube. So if you want to look at us or while we're talking about this stuff, it's there. ah yeah Our videos get like one view a week and it's definitely my mother watching them. um I just love looking at your beautiful faces.
00:55:29
Speaker
I love her so much. I know. She's the best. Yeah. Have someone read it. All right. but But then what am I going to do? That gives me nothing to do. Take care of yourself.
00:55:42
Speaker
Go to the spa. Like, get a massage. Have a beach day. don't know. You accomplished something enormous.
00:55:53
Speaker
Be nice to yourself. I'm very nice to yourself. How am I the one telling you to be nice to yourself? You did something amazing. If I finished a draft of my book, you would be like,
00:56:06
Speaker
Kelton, it's time. You're taking a night at the hotel away from the baby. You're getting room service. You would tell me to treat the shit out of myself. And so that is what I think you should do.
00:56:18
Speaker
Let someone else do a little of the work right now. Do something really nice for yourself. And if you're like, hm you know, it'd be so good. Like a little bit of torture. Try writing the query letter for the book. I'm not doing that.
00:56:30
Speaker
Well, then don't ask me.
00:56:34
Speaker
Okay, well, obviously we'd love to hear from you and we'll shout you out if you ask us questions. So where can the people ask us those questions? So you can email us at officialpenpalspod at gmail.com. You can DM us at penpalspod on TikTok or Instagram.
00:56:52
Speaker
And yeah, we would love to hear from you guys. It is such a pleasure. Every time and email comes into the official Pen Pals Gmail account, and it's not some advertisement for the software that we use to edit this podcast.
00:57:08
Speaker
I get like we have a new email. Oh, it's just a... It's just Buzzsprout ad email. So please email us. Even it's just to say hi It doesn't have to be anything deep or thick, but we would love to hear from everybody. so shoot us a line. But it could be thick.
00:57:26
Speaker
Anelope Douglas is writing to us right now. Remember to tell your friends to subscribe. That is the only way the podcasts are successful is when people like them, tell other people to like them. So thank you to the people who have done that. We appreciate you.
00:57:40
Speaker
Tell your friends about the podcast and then tell them that you want them to be your accountability buddy because it really does help. It works. It works. Happy writing. Happy writing.