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#238 - Rebecca Thorne
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Best-selling cosy fantasy author Rebecca Thorne joins us this week for a deep dive into indie publishing! We also chat about how she started out on the traditional publishing route and was later inspired to try indie where she found incredible success and has since become a hybrid author, getting the best of both worlds!
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Transcript
Introduction of Guest: Rebecca Thorne
00:00:00
Speaker
Hello and welcome back to the Right and Wrong Podcast.
00:00:06
Speaker
if yeah so some readers love that and some readers are like but i wanted more of this so it's kind of it's kind of a gamble hello and welcome back to the right and wrong podcast On today's episode, I am joined by a hybrid author of cozy fantasy, science fantasy, and contemporary fantasy, and ah writing craft book from across the pond in the US. It is Rebecca Thorne. Hello. Hello.
00:00:31
Speaker
Hello, I'm delighted to be here. This is going to be so fun. Yes, no, I'm excited to have you. Let's start, ah as I always do, with the latest publication, ah the novel Alchemy and a Cup of Tea, which is the fourth in your Tomes and Tea series, out um August 12th in the US, August 14th in the UK.
Exploring 'Tomes and Tea' Series
00:00:51
Speaker
Tell us a little bit about the series and then about this book in particular. Sure. ah So the series is a quartet. So the fourth book is the ending. And it follows a very powerful mage named Kianth and a very powerful queen's guard. um But she kind of quits her job as you know, guarding the queen because the queen sucks.
00:01:11
Speaker
And she ends up leaving to go and be with Kianth. That woman's name is Raina. So Kiantha and Raina settle down in a very icy town that is besieged by dragons. And they open up a bookshop and tea house.
00:01:23
Speaker
And it is just basically a story of how they decide to leave their lives and then how their lives keep coming back because it's not so easy to just sever all connections and run away somewhere. you know Yeah. um Alchemy in a Cup of Tea is the...
00:01:38
Speaker
Fourth book, it is the final book. It is following Kiantha and Reyna as they start to explore some magic systems within the world. I'll probably talk about this later, but the world building in book one, I didn't expect it would explode to the capacity that it has.
00:01:53
Speaker
So I didn't spend a ton of time on the world building there. So every book after that has been my attempt to try and make that fantasy world something that people can actually sink their teeth into.
00:02:04
Speaker
um which might have been good because I have heard from a lot of people that it it was a very good introduction to fantasy. So a lot of non-fantasy readers pick up this book and have no problem at all starting to read it because it's about very normal things that they can understand. And then the fantasy world building kind of eases in in books two, three, and four.
00:02:22
Speaker
So book four follows them as they're exploring some magic systems. And then we end up seeing um the town that they moved to besieged by tourists because the dragons have moved on, but their shop has become very popular and their tiny town can't support it. so Okay, great.
The Cozy Fantasy Genre
00:02:38
Speaker
Sounds cool. And that's, it's such an interesting point that this it's, I'd not, as a big fantasy reader myself, I'm always looking for ways if, if my friends come to me and say, oh, I'm thinking about reading some fantasy, watch that. I'm always looking for ways to like get people into it. And I'd not actually considered cozy fantasy before, but now that you know, you said it seems obvious.
00:02:57
Speaker
Yeah, cozy fantasy seems like a really good entry point because a lot of the plots that they have um are basically focusing on real world issues, you know, like opening up a shop, having, you know, making new friends, moving to a new town.
00:03:11
Speaker
And those are issues that you don't typically see in a lot of the more high fantasy novels. You know, they're like, oh, let's save the world. Let's stop the pestilence. Let's get a king out of control, right? Like, it just I think that cozy fantasy it lowers the stakes which and puts it on a level that most people can understand, which I think is wonderful.
00:03:29
Speaker
Yeah. It's the sort of celebration of the mundanity. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. it it It really is something kind of special. I don't think that there's been a genre like it officially. you know like Obviously they existed, but having the category in traditional publishing where booksellers are sorting books into cozy now is kind of amazing.
Cozy Fantasy's Rise in Publishing
00:03:50
Speaker
Yes. Yeah. I had Travis Baldry on a while ago. oh he's awesome. And, uh, yeah, he was saying it was like, it was, it was so strange for this kind of the genre to just kind of appear almost out of nowhere as if it had never been written before, as if it was like, didn't exist.
00:04:06
Speaker
Yeah. Right. Well, I'm like, he's, he's very humble. yeah Yes. Yeah. He's like genuinely one of the most like nicest, most humble people I think I've ever met. um And but like, for me, as someone who had been in the industry since 2014, you know, kind of poking at the edges trying to get in in it really did become this genre that Like it it opened up this world where it ah it offers a category, I guess.
00:04:33
Speaker
That's a long way to say that. But it offered a category um so that booksellers can put their books in that category and publishers can buy books in that category and authors now can say that they write in that category. Whereas before when I was writing, it was amp up the stakes, more tension, more stakes, more more heart pounding action, right? And every chapter I'd write, my agent would write me back and be like, more action, more action, more, more, and more. and And I just got
Influences and Inspirations: Tamara Pierce
00:04:57
Speaker
so fatigued. I was like, I just want to write something fun, man. Like, like my whole goal is to write like Tamara Pierce wrote, because I would read her books in a couple days, and they felt very warm and welcoming. And I felt like overall, I was safe with her, you know, and I love the series. Like I love the quartets that Tamara Pierce wrote.
00:05:16
Speaker
Okay, all right. Is that is that the inspiration as to why this is a quartet? Yes. Yeah. i ah So Tamara Pierce, I don't know if she's as big over in the – I imagine she probably is, though. She's been around forever. um So she started writing with the Alana series in the 90s, and then she came out with Dane in the early – well, I think the 90s as well. She wrote Alana, the first one, I think in the late 80s, and then wrote it into the ninety s um And then she was kind of publishing. She's still publishing, I think. she She's like older now and she puts out books all the time.
00:05:48
Speaker
um But she started with these quartets that followed different characters throughout the same world. So it was so easy. And I thought that was so brilliant, even as a kid, because I would read these books in the first quartet. you know I had to learn the world building, but it was easy because it was set in a school inside a city. you know So it was like, okay, I learned the city, I learned the school and I was good.
00:06:07
Speaker
um And then over the next you know four books, she took them out of the city and like let them explore.
Rebecca's Writing Journey
00:06:11
Speaker
And then the next quartet came and it was a whole new set of characters in a whole new area of this world. But all of our favorite characters came back over the course of that quartet.
00:06:20
Speaker
Ah, okay. So we really got to kind of remember how great they were and then be familiarized with this world. Again, for people who don't read fantasy often, that kind of thing is huge because it allows readers an easy access point, right? Like you think about fan fiction and how popular Archive of Our Own is.
00:06:38
Speaker
And I feel like that's kind of how... those books felt right like by the time you got to the third or fourth quartet you know the third quartet i guess um and then they well actually becca cooper i think i can't remember if that one it was a quartet or not but by the time you got into the her later series you knew the world you knew the area and then it was cool because then she can start playing with timelines like well this one is set before the solano series you know this one is set after but like 10 years after you know like it's just it's really cool Kind of similar to Terry Pratchett then, I guess, because that all happens in Discworld.
00:07:11
Speaker
Yeah, exactly like that. not really sure what the order is, but yeah I think there is. Yeah, i know. there's like There's like guides online about diving into those. there There's so many. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And that's cool. That's cool. And doing it as a quartet, I think it's very manageable, like you say.
00:07:26
Speaker
I'd love to talk a bit about bit more about you.
Balancing Flight Attendant Career and Writing Ambitions
00:07:29
Speaker
And I'm really interested to hear about your your journey into writing and and publishing. So if we could go sort of all the way back to the start.
00:07:37
Speaker
Oh my God. All the way back. do you Do you remember when you first decided that you wanted to be an author? Yes, I was. Oh, I wrote my first book at 11. Wow.
00:07:50
Speaker
yeah And I wrote ah seo and I wrote books all through high school. Like I didn't have money to buy gifts. So I wrote my friends books. um And then eventually I realized that I could print them out on like Lulu dot com.
00:08:01
Speaker
And I could have like a physical copy in my hand. Um, so I, I would say that my self publishing journey started when I was like 14, um, you know, I'm borrowing my parents' credit card to buy, um physical books to hand to my friends for their birthdays.
00:08:14
Speaker
Um, that's a great, but yeah, but I, uh, I didn't really look into publishing seriously until I was, um, out of college. So I knew I wanted to be a writer, but obviously, you know, I remember I told my dad that I wanted to be a writer and he looked me in the eye and said, the average timeline to get published is seven years.
00:08:31
Speaker
And this was back in 2008, 2009, you know, and probably is still true today or or longer, I guess today. um but i remember just that broke my heart because I was young and seven years felt like an eternity, right? Like I was like, Oh my God, no.
00:08:45
Speaker
Um, And I remember just being kind of devastated that he didn't you know support me in that way, I guess. like I asked to go for creative writing to my college. like i had i I got a full-ride scholarship um and I asked to go for creative writing. And my dad was like, my parents both were like, no, he'll go for something you can get a job in. So I chose criminal justice.
00:09:06
Speaker
Ask me how I'm doing with that. Yeah. It was a super interesting field. But i I mean, like the system out here in America is so broken that I was just like, I couldn't be a part of it. So right I got my degree in criminal justice. And I actually became a flight attendant because a lot of flight attendants jobs is safety and security of the passengers and crew. And I actually still do that.
00:09:25
Speaker
ah It's been 13 years. um And I've been a flight attendant for my entire adult life, which has been great because I was able to travel and see a lot of people and get a lot of ideas for stories. And I had a lot of time to write on the jump seat and in my overnights, which was actually wonderful.
Traditional Publishing Challenges
00:09:39
Speaker
I'm actually laughing now because my friends that went and got degrees in creative writing don't write anymore for fun because they write for their job and they don't want to write for fun when they're writing for their job, you know, which I thought was...
00:09:50
Speaker
I mean, like, again, like I was so devastated when I was 2008, 2009, because it felt like my parents didn't support me, but I didn't realize that they had unknowingly set me up for the best possible future for that career.
00:10:01
Speaker
And then I just had to get spiteful enough to be like, I'll show you. and then I did. That was their plan all along. you're Right. That was their plan all along. They're like, oh, no, we do. And they say that now. They're like, oh, no, we knew you. We knew you do that. i was like, well, shit, you knew.
00:10:15
Speaker
um Anyway, yeah. So we you know I became a flight attendant and I kind of looked at my life and I was like, I'm going to be doing this for the rest of my life. Because were flight attendants that it for 40 years, you know, and it's a really good job for 40 years. kidding.
00:10:26
Speaker
No complaints, but it wasn't what I wanted to do. And I was like, i'm going to be doing this for 40 years if I don't have, if I don't take the steps now to pursue publication. So in 2014, I started in earnest writing for publication. I started querying.
00:10:38
Speaker
amassed 300 rejections over three novels. um My third novel got an agent, ah one agent offer. And I took that agent and offer and I was represented by her for four more years.
00:10:49
Speaker
And every book that we had died on submission except for a middle grade book called The Secrets of Star Whales. And I put that book out with a smaller press called Jollyfish Press, and published over the pandemic in 2021.
00:11:02
Speaker
It was in bookstores, but it was in like one Barnes & Noble per state. Like it was not in any bookstore with any kind of real distribution. yeah And ah I kind of looked at my life and I was like, oh, this isn't the dream of traditional publishing that I thought I could achieve. Like I wanted my book in stores that my family could go find, you know, whenever they travel, they could go into a bookstore and my book would be there.
00:11:25
Speaker
And that was not what was happening with the smaller press. um And more frustratingly, like
Transition to Self-Publishing
00:11:31
Speaker
on day one of that book's release, my best friend went to our local bookstore, which had two copies. And my best friend bought both copies and they never restocked those copies.
00:11:40
Speaker
And I was just like, oh my God, Chrissy, why did you buy those? Yeah. But you know of course, I'm grateful for my friends. But I was just like, oh my God, like why didn't they restock? you know Of course, when I look at the sales numbers, I was able to get the rights back two years later because they were basically out of print with that book because they didn't restock it in any bookstores.
00:11:57
Speaker
And that was kind of the moment that I was like, oh, it's not about... The publisher, it's about the distribution that the publisher is offering and the way that you can get that distribution. And the publisher that I had gone with was basically equivalent to what I could do as an indie author.
00:12:12
Speaker
So when I read Legends and Lattes and I knew that he had self-published that book and then I knew that Tor had picked up that book, I had you know seven, eight years in the industry by this point. I was 15 books in and I was like, well, I can write a book really quickly and probably pretty quickly.
00:12:25
Speaker
pretty well in six weeks over the summer and i did and i documented the whole thing on tiktok and that was treason and i was able to publish that book in september one month before his big re-release with tor um yeah which i knew would bring cozy fantasy into the mainstream like people don't pay attention it was very fast yeah they've they picked up because that was like six months yeah Oh, yeah. yeah they They picked up his book in a month, which I knew was unheard of for publishing. So I was like, oh, well, if they pick that up so quickly and it had such a banger indie release where so many people heard it as indie, it's going to explode. Like 15 times the distribution is going to happen and overnight. you know And I was like, well, if I can get in there, I might be ah um you know the divergent to his Hunger Games, right? like
00:13:11
Speaker
of And that worked out really well for me. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. That's so interesting. I do often say to people like, don't write to market and stuff, but like there was, you saw an opportunity and you just went with it and it really worked out for you.
00:13:27
Speaker
Well, and I think too, like I, again, like I feel like I've already had this book in my soul. Like I was waiting to write cozy. yeah right yeah I was perfectly primed for it. It wasn't a hard thing for me to try a new genre. And my ultimate goal was to learn self-publishing process because I knew that if I could learn how to self-publish, I could potentially teach it later on. And I was obtaining my MFA at the time um because I would love to be a professor someday.
00:13:52
Speaker
So... It was one of those moments where I was like, I don't want to go in a classroom and teach this to other, you know, students unless I have done it myself. So at the very least, I'm going to learn how to self-publish a book, which is something I've never explored before because TradPub wasn't working for me at the time, you know?
00:14:08
Speaker
So i was like, well, I'm not losing anything. Like I've already tried this path. It didn't work. So let's move on to something
Negotiating Publishing Rights
00:14:13
Speaker
new. And at the very least, I'll learn how to self-publish and I'll find the indie space, you know, and the indie space is really welcoming. I mean, I ah yearn for it, you know? Like having complete control over your novels and being able to decide everything that goes into them and the timelines for them.
00:14:28
Speaker
there's There's real freedom in that. And the pay scales, I mean, they pay you so much faster. Yes. For TradPub, they got involved in 2023. Tor got involved in like early 2023. And I don't think I saw a paycheck from them.
00:14:42
Speaker
I mean, we're granted, I guess when you sign a contract, they pay you for that. But like the payments haven't gotten reliable until probably this year. just because it's hit or miss. You know, you're submitting a book and you have to wait for them to accept the manuscript and you don't know when that's going to happen.
00:14:57
Speaker
So... yeah i't I don't know what it's like in the US, but here you also, in terms of royalties and stuff, that all gets paid, i think, quarterly. Yeah. as well I think it's well, I guess I don't know what the UK I haven't received royalties from and i need to check on how close I am for them. Because the UK bought the book first, they bought the quartet first.
00:15:17
Speaker
And then I called my agent and I was like, hey, like tour was my dream publisher when I was going the traditional path. Like if I had a publisher to pick tour is the one that puts out all the books I read. So I was like, I want that publisher. um But of course, they wouldn't look my way in the 10s, right? Like I was 2012, 20 or 2014, 2015, 2016, on through 2020. It wasn't even an option for me.
00:15:41
Speaker
um So when I found out the tour UK had jumped on board, I called my agent and I was like, can we do an exclusive submission for sales in tour like in the US? s And it actually did come at a time when I had another
Literary Agents and Author Relationships
00:15:52
Speaker
offer from Barnes and Noble's press.
00:15:54
Speaker
um So they had written me an offer to get the US rights to put it in their bookstore. And I called my agent and was like, I don't want to sign with them. I want tour like US. I want tour ah everywhere. right yeah um So my agent kept a lot of the foreign rights because she's a foreign rights agent, but we sold the UK, you know, obviously to the UK and then we sold North America to the US. Right.
00:16:16
Speaker
Is that the same agent that you'd signed way back when? No, I left that agent. um I was with her for four years. And when i read Legends and Lattes, I knew that our time was done. I couldn't. I mean, like, I just and it wasn't anything like she was a good agent. You know, I just I i wanted to self publish and agents don't typically have a part in that.
00:16:35
Speaker
And she and I had hit a point after four years where I kind of started to feel like she didn't understand the direction of my writing. I feel like she was trying to push my writing into something else that she perceived as more marketable.
00:16:48
Speaker
And I felt very strongly that that was not true. So when, you know, we parted amicably, we're still friends, but it just was one of those moments where I was like, I don't really think that we can keep going. And that happens in this industry.
The Changing Querying Process
00:17:01
Speaker
You know, like a lot of people forget that agents are business partners. Yeah. Like they think that they're therapists. They think they're friends. They call their agent in tears and after a rejection and and this poor agent has to basically become their therapist. and And they think they're editors, you know, because a lot of agents have taken up the mantle of editing books. And I...
00:17:21
Speaker
vehemently disagree with a lot of that for me personally. I know there's a lot of authors that really benefit from it. But for me, I'm so independent and I like to do my own thing and I know how to edit my own books.
00:17:31
Speaker
So I like having an agent, like my new agent signed me when I got the UK offer because she was able to leverage it into a four house auction that Tor UK eventually won. So...
00:17:42
Speaker
I was able to connect with her as a foreign agent. And then I convinced her to represent me in the US because I didn't really want anybody else. I liked her personality. I feel like she's good at her job. She's been around forever. And she does foreign rights.
00:17:54
Speaker
you know So I knew she'd be focusing on the world at large, which is what I wanted an agent. So yeah, it was it's interesting because I feel like a lot of people stay with agents that are not great for them because it's hard to find another one.
00:18:05
Speaker
But yeah it's also important to remember what they're there for, which is selling your book. And if they're not able to do that, they're not helping you. so Yeah. I think agents are also reluctant to also kind of sever that tie because of, you know, yeah I guess yeah they signed you for a reason. You never know what the next thing is going to be.
00:18:23
Speaker
Right. Right. There is always that question and that's questions on the author side too. Yeah. It's interesting to watch the industry these days because I do feel like we're getting a shift with agents usefulness.
00:18:34
Speaker
Like I hesitate to say, because I know that agents have a lot of value in negotiations, in royalty collection in managing a publisher. But the querying process where authors can submit their book, you know, point blank to ah an agent and be considered for traditional publication.
00:18:51
Speaker
I think that process is starting to die. Like I think the pandemic killed it. That's interesting. Yeah, I'd not thought about it. Well, I've like i've seen umve been talking to a lot of...
Indie Publishing's Rise in Traditional Markets
00:19:03
Speaker
um For anybody listening who's unfamiliar, the querying process is basically writing a letter that tells an agent about your book.
00:19:10
Speaker
And if your agent likes the letter, they might ask for some sample pages. And if they like the sample pages, they may ask for the full manuscript, and then they may offer to represent you. um So it's kind of like the gateway into everything. And the problem is that these agents after the pandemic, there are so many people who stopped and wrote books over the pandemic because the world screeched to halt and they're like, now's the time. So they wrote their books, right?
00:19:28
Speaker
So the competition is astronomically higher these days than it was before the pandemic. And then these agents are basically in this really high turnover industry anyway, and they don't get paid until they sell a book, which can take years sometimes.
00:19:42
Speaker
So they're sitting there having to be very careful about who they choose and how they sell when these editors at these publishing houses keep changing hands, they keep ghosting these agents altogether this, that, and the other.
00:19:53
Speaker
um But then you end up with this, you know, like the agent might open up queries for, you know, 24 hours and they may get as many submissions as they can handle in a year. You know, like it's like that bad right now.
00:20:05
Speaker
um And in 2014, 2015, there was a clear path where it's like, oh yeah, six to eight week response time, sometimes up to three months if it's long. You know, like I think I had like a couple agents take six months and that was it. But now the the standard response time is like you probably get ghosted.
00:20:19
Speaker
If you get any response at all, it'll be in six months, maybe a year. um Like I was talking to some of my friends about it yesterday and they were just like, it's chaos. Like nothing makes sense. All of the advice that we were told in the tens is no longer relevant in the in like the 20s.
Cozy Fantasy as a Market Force
00:20:34
Speaker
Yeah. know So it's just curious to me to see how the industry is shifting because we are seeing more publishers picking up indie books, picking up fan fiction, right? And 10 years ago, that would have been a joke, right? you know like like Like Hugh Howey, I think, sold his self-published book and The Martian was self-published. But those were like two examples examples out of hundreds and hundreds of books.
00:20:53
Speaker
And now it's getting to be a much larger number. A lot of indie books are starting to make it through the gates now. So... Yeah, I think publishers are seeing it as a lower risk if they're, you know, if an indie book publishes and it and it does good sales. And the thing is, it doesn't even have to do like crazy sales. If it just does good sales, then they think, oh, there's a built-in audience here. We can capitalize on that and then amplify it.
00:21:16
Speaker
Right. Well, and that was always kind of the thing. like Even when I was querying in 2017, 2018, I kind of was amazed at this industry because it really is one of a kind. like Name another industry where a random person can come in off the street with a really good idea and and no sales numbers and no viability, right? like They have no...
00:21:37
Speaker
proof that this idea works. And a publisher is like, yeah, I'll pay you six figures for that. Imagine another industry where that is the case. It doesn't make sense. Yeah. it And I think that it's easy to forget because at the core of this, it's a creative industry, but it still has to make money in a capitalist world.
00:21:54
Speaker
So it's one of those things where we're starting to see now the publishers realizing that they don't need to be as – like there was this like disdain for indie books because they were considered unpolished, unfinished. They're the they're the trash that trad left behind.
00:22:07
Speaker
And now they're starting to realize that there are authors writing outside of the category that they – you know that traditional publishers recognize, right? like so for So Cozy, for example, is a great is a great example of that. Cozy Fantasy didn't exist by a publisher standard. If I tried to query a Cozy Fantasy book in 2021, I would have gotten rejections everywhere because it's too slow. It's too easygoing. There's no market for this. We don't know how to market it.
00:22:32
Speaker
And then he comes in and self-publishes And it explodes because everybody wanted something quieter after the pandemic, but Trad didn't know that that existed until he proved it. you know and And I think that we're going to see a lot more of that moving forward, which is generally wonderful because the publishers have been telling us for so long what we want to read, but they're not listening to what we actually want to read.
Indie Publishing's Influence on Market Trends
00:22:54
Speaker
Yeah, I think that's so true. And it's already happening. I've seen it a lot. I've had a lot of guests on this podcast who are, um they were were either about to publish, self-publish their novel, or they had just self-published it. Kind of like Travis. I mean, Travis almost, I'm sure he wasn't the first, but like it almost like made a blueprint for how it can happen. And I think a lot of publishers,
00:23:18
Speaker
Also, follow as well as like, you know, in your case, you you kind of looked at that and you were like, oh, that's ah that's an interesting approach. I'm going to try that. I think publishers also saw that and thought, hmm, we can pick someone up who's had a really successful self-publish and then we can just republish their novel.
00:23:34
Speaker
i think Right. Well, and then we come into the question of, you know, like I was just talking with Travis and Matt Deniman, who wrote Dungeon Crawler Carl. And I've been very lucky to meet a lot of these people in some of the conventions and conferences that I go to.
00:23:46
Speaker
But I was just talking to them and Travis was saying that he thinks it's going to end up being... like Publishing will end up being la carte where you can basically pick and choose the services you want this publisher to offer. So like if you want to sell all your rights to them, you can.
00:24:00
Speaker
But there's not a lot of incentive for an author, an indie author, who prices their ebook at $4.99 and gets 80% or 70% royalties for that ebook.
00:24:11
Speaker
There's not a lot of and you know incentive to hand that ebook to a publisher who's going to price it $19.99 $15.99. nineteen ninety nine or fifteen ninety nine And which results in much fewer sales and then offer you 25% royalties on that. So like Matt Deniman is one of the first authors that I've heard of. I think there's a couple others floating around, but he's one of the first authors that I've heard of who fought his publisher to keep his ebook rights because in his industry, most people read digital.
00:24:37
Speaker
So he was like, you can have the print rights if you want. Like they're just sitting around, they're not being used, but the ebook rights are making me staggering amounts of money. You know, And it's like, why would he why would he give that up, that control, that capability? So his e-books have, to this day, they're they're his.
00:24:53
Speaker
And they have different covers and they're published on Amazon. And if you buy it and he prices them what he wants, and the publisher got a hold of the paperback. And then he was telling me that he you know apparently they really regret that deal because his e-books are moneymakers. They're huge. Yeah.
00:25:08
Speaker
And they keep making him offers to try and buy those ebook rights, but it's just, it's not ever going to be enough for how much he makes with them. So yeah I think that that is going to be a pretty good indicator of the publishing industry moving forward. I just don't see the purpose in giving digital versions to a publisher when ah avenues like Audible and KDP exist.
Social Media as a Tool for Authors
00:25:28
Speaker
Yeah. Cause I've spoken to agents who have said that they're, they really try to fight with, for the audio rights now because audio books have gotten so big as well. Yeah. I mean, in lit RPG, I just, I like literally just discovered the genre as a thing. And again, it's one of those genres, kind of like cozy. Like when I discovered it, I was like, oh, that's what I've been wanting to write this whole time.
00:25:49
Speaker
Like there is a genre for this. I just didn't know it existed because I was so traditionally focused and they're very indie in lit RPG, but it's basically video game books, you know, and you write about like a character ending up in a video game. And I was like, I've been waiting for those books. I love those books.
00:26:03
Speaker
um And it's hard to find in traditional because before Matt Deniman published Dungeon Crawler Carl, there again wasn't a traditional path for that. And now they're starting to realize that that is a very large genre that they're not getting a piece of the market share for.
00:26:16
Speaker
But that genre has been indie for so long that the main sales are ebook. and audio. And they said something like 60% of audio of like readers in the genre are audiobook readers.
00:26:28
Speaker
And it was funny because when I went to the conference in Denver two weeks ago, one of the big things I noticed is that the audiobook narrators were like as big of celebrities as the authors like at this conference. it was like they're They're up on panels and people are shouting their name, getting their autograph, like clapping for... It was crazy. I was like, this is so cool.
00:26:46
Speaker
Because you know these people start to feel like they get to know these narrators as they're reading these you know their work. It's just, it's so interesting. So it doesn't surprise me at all that agents are trying to keep that audio right. Because that is a huge... like It's a huge set of the market share.
00:27:00
Speaker
Huge. Yeah, I think um going back to what you said about, I think, yeah, the role of agents I think might be changing or like the the query process might be, it's sort of been the only way to do it if you want to go traditionally this point. But i I had an author on recently on the podcast, Autumn Woods, and she was going to self-publish her novel. She ended up not, I think, yeah, I think she, basically her agent,
00:27:29
Speaker
who is now her agent reached out to her through TikTok, um, because she'd been promoting the upcoming release of her self-published novel. And then she signed with her and then they sold the novel. And I think that's going to become an, a more increasing way that, uh, agents and authors connect. Basically. I'm sorry. I think authors are going to have to prove themselves um like through whatever means that it's probably online. And then that's how they'll get an agent or a publisher as opposed to traditional querying.
00:27:57
Speaker
Well, and that's an interesting factor too, because that opens up a whole can of worms in
Challenges for Marginalized Authors in Publishing
00:28:03
Speaker
regard... And this industry was already not fair in regards to marginalized people, you know people of color, people with disabilities, queer people, neurodivergent people. it's It's difficult because...
00:28:16
Speaker
One of the big reasons that people went with traditional publishing is because they didn't need to promote. right like The idea was that you sign with a publisher, you give away all of your rights. right like My royalties went down as an indie author from 70% 7.5% for my paperbacks. you give away everything.
00:28:32
Speaker
yeah so like you give away everything But you get the distribution into bookstores, which is something that indie authors severely struggle with because the the only option for it is IngramSpark. And that comes with a host of problems that I could get into, but I won't.
00:28:46
Speaker
you know It's just it's a harder path. um So you get into bookstores and they promote your book. That was a really big reason why people went traditional. And now we're facing this point where Like, I wouldn't say that having a social media following is required because I know several successful authors that aren't online at all.
00:29:05
Speaker
um And I know several debut authors that are being very successful that have no platform or like a thousand followers, right? You know, like they're small and they're barely online. But like...
00:29:16
Speaker
The fact of the matter is if you want to stand out and you want to take... but like I almost hesitate to say that's the new American dream or gold rush. right like When there's a possibility in history of someone taking their the power back into their own hands and getting their ability to stand out without relying on the system that has created a path for them. right like like When you think about the gold rush, people flocked to the West Coast to try and find gold because it could better their family position.
00:29:46
Speaker
And I think that's what social media is today. Like, I think it's our modern day gold rush. I think it's the way that people can achieve that. And i and i the American dream is dead, right? Like, as an American, we we can accept that, you know, like, it's just a mess. i'm I'm actually in the process right now of applying for my Slovakian citizenship, because apparently I qualify for that citizenship by a cent. So we'll see if I'm a European Union citizen someday. That'd be cool.
00:30:06
Speaker
Okay, well, I'm not anymore, so... You're not all... Oh, yeah. Not anymore. I'm sorry. um Well, I just... I think that, you know, the American dream, the idea of it was always that you could better at your position. There's not like a caste system where you're set in stone. Social mobility. Yeah, like social mobility, right? Like you have the ability to... If you work hard, and that was the idea, right? If you work hard, you can get it. And we all know that that's dead. But that is almost to me how social media feels right now. And I think that it is a bit of a two-edged sword because...
00:30:38
Speaker
You know, or double edged sword, because the, you know, in the same way that the American dream, if you work hard, that's just not true. It all depends on who you know, and how lucky you are. And that's basically how social media works, right? like It depends on how lucky you are.
00:30:51
Speaker
It depends on the algorithm and its whims. And it depends on the kind of content you're creating consistently and whether or not that vibes with people. And you just don't know until you start making it. So sometimes this works really well for people. like I've had a really good luck with TikTok and Instagram because I am a flight attendant who is pretty social, pretty bubbly. I can get on a video. I can talk to people.
00:31:12
Speaker
And overall, I can say the thing like ah the things that I have to say are interesting to people, and I'm lucky about that. but I know a lot of authors that are very wonderful people and fabulous writers, and they just don't have that presence. you know and they And they don't know how to make that presence because then it feels authentic you know inauthentic and no one wants to watch them.
00:31:30
Speaker
So it really does. And like again, I go back to the marginalized communities. like People of color are statistically featured less online than pretty white people. you know that's just That's just the fact
Power Dynamics in Publishing
00:31:41
Speaker
of the matter. like If you're a person of color, you have a much higher barrier to entry than a white person waving around a straight book. you know Same with queer people. If you're talking about lesbians, the algorithm will suppress you compared to someone who's talking about a hetero book.
00:31:56
Speaker
So it it really just kind of depends on the type of book you're writing, the type of person you are. And that is where it genuinely is sad to me that publishers are starting to rely on this more and more because... there's, it's not a fair barrier to entry. It almost feels like modern day racism because you can't get these people who have these platforms and they can't have successful indie books if no one's being seen.
00:32:17
Speaker
You know, like it's not like, like their book is as good or better as some of the books being published. But if Amazon doesn't feature them prominently because there's a black person on the cover, you know, they're screwed and that's not their fault.
00:32:30
Speaker
It's not their book. It's just the fact of the matter, you know? So it's just, it's interesting to me to kind of watch that playing out in real time. like there The industry always had problems, but we're seeing a lot of those problems coming right back up to the forefront after we felt like we were making progress. And it's sad.
00:32:46
Speaker
Yeah, that its it's too much power in the hands of whatever um digital engineers are tweaking the algorithm. And they this is a secret algorithm that changes.
00:32:57
Speaker
It can change day to day. and so it's it is too much power, I would say, when you know the so much of the industry or like many industries nowadays. And like marketing is like, it feels like half of marketing now is just social media.
00:33:12
Speaker
It's just, yeah yeah, it's a lot. Yeah, it's it's a lot. And it does make you wonder why you would sign with a publisher except for that distribution. you know like If the publisher is still going to make you do all the marketing.
00:33:23
Speaker
And the frustrating thing is that we can break our backs marketing on social media and it will still never matter because we don't have the money that a publisher does. So if the publisher wants to move the needle, all they have to do is decide to move the needle, basically. You know, like yeah They can't decide whether a book succeeds or fails, but they can get them pretty close. You know, they can do 80% of the back work to try and position a book better. So better positions in Barnes and Noble, more in, you know, available in more bookstores, better covers, prettier, you know, pretty sprayed edges. Like there's a lot of ways a publisher can move that needle.
00:33:57
Speaker
that authors just don't have access to. So when you're signing with a traditional publisher and they're still hoping that you're going to market on their social media, it almost becomes this catch 22 where it's like, I could do this, but it's not going to help. And then you're going to point to that and say, well, her audience is disengaged.
00:34:11
Speaker
And that's frustrating to us because it's like, well, no, they're not disengaged, but like I signed with you for a reason. like I'm not indie because you told me you were going to do this XYZ thing.
00:34:22
Speaker
you know And and it's just been it's been hard to watch because I have a lot of author friends and we all have different experiences and some of us succeed and some of us fail. you know and And it really just comes down to the publisher and and how much effort they're willing to put into you.
Desert Island Books
00:34:36
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And if you can get into a book box from what I've seen recently. um Yeah. The book boxes are huge. Yeah. ah and We are at the point in the episode where we ship you off to a desert island. um And I ask you, Rebecca, if you were stranded on a desert island with nothing but a single book, which book do you hope that it would be?
00:35:01
Speaker
Okay. so So I have two answers. i have a fiction book um and that would be Harrow the Ninth because I feel like I've read it like three times and I don't quite still understand what happened in that book.
00:35:14
Speaker
um So I think that I would just reread it over and over and over to try to figure out what the hell happened in that book um yeah just because I don't know and I don't understand. Even though I want to, I don't feel like I understand. I feel like there's so much happening in that book that I'm just like, oh, man.
00:35:29
Speaker
um My actual answer would be because I don't know much about survival. um I am a... so Okay, so flight attendants are raft commanders. And that is because if the plane lands in water, we have rafts on board.
00:35:41
Speaker
And the flight attendants each take command of one of the rafts with all the passengers in it. And then the pilots take command of one of the rafts. And so we're considered, it's like an official job title that we are considered raft commanders.
00:35:52
Speaker
And they give us a special life vest that's a different color so that we can take control of these rafts and like basically keep people alive until rescue comes. And on this raft, there is a book that was written, no joke, in the nineteen fifty s And it is a very comprehensive survival guide of what to do if you're stranded on a desert island um or how to survive at sea.
00:36:11
Speaker
Right. But one of the things that they talk about is like it was written in the fifty s So it's super misogynistic um and like very like male focused. Right. So like one of the things that is literally written in this book from the 1950s that's in every raft on every U.S. airplane.
00:36:25
Speaker
um I don't know if they're on Airbus airplanes, too, but I think they are. um But it literally says like, if you're on a desert island, you know, here's how you hunt, here's how you gather, but keep the men comfortable.
00:36:38
Speaker
Like that's, that is, it literally writes the words, keep the men comfortable. We're just like, oh, good okay. You know? um So I think I'd want that book just because partly because it's very useful, but also because it makes me laugh because it's just written in a different time. um And the priorities of that book are, they should be about survival, but they're, no, keep the men comfortable. Yeah.
00:36:59
Speaker
Okay. I'd imagine it's quite a difficult book to get a handoff nowadays. Yeah. I, I've only found a couple of copies on eBay, but I have to like take a picture of it when I'm in training because they pull it out in training and they let you hold it and look at it and flip through it. Um, cause they want you to be familiar with what's in the raft, but otherwise, yeah, it's packed away in a raft on an airplane.
00:37:17
Speaker
So like most people will never have access to this book.
Airline Safety Equipment Anecdotes
00:37:20
Speaker
Um, I think there is a couple copies on eBay that people have gotten ahold of over the years, but they're, uh, It's very like, I'd have to look up the name of it and I'm not even sure if I could get ahold of the name until next year when I go back to training.
00:37:33
Speaker
Wow. How have they not updated this book in 50 years? I think it's, it's one of those things like the survival content hasn't changed. Like it's very good survival content, you know, like it takes you see how to make a raft to teach, teaches you how to make a shelter, teaches you how to identify poisonous plants. Like it's very comprehensive.
00:37:49
Speaker
yeah. But yeah, I feel like there probably just hasn't – I think everything in the airline industry, when you're recertifying things to go on an airplane, it costs so much money with our federal – like the FAA has to certify everything that's in an airplane for flight and make sure. So the process of getting that book reapproved, I think, would cost more money than it's worth based on the content of the book. The content of the book is overall good and it's just kind of a mess. Yeah. Yeah. So I think, I just, I think it comes down to money and, and whether or not there's a desire to change it.
00:38:23
Speaker
And I just don't think there is. so Yeah. I mean, it I guess it, it does enough of the job that it's supposed to do. Right. be This is too too much effort. Yeah. I get it Right. Well, i' like I mean, like for example, you know, like the thing like, you know, in Southwest airplanes, we have the heart that's mounted on the bulkhead.
00:38:40
Speaker
um And that heart is like a thousand dollars. it's a po It's a piece of plastic, but it's a thousand dollars to mount because it because it has to go through all of these certification processes. Like we have paper clips in the flight deck that are several hundred dollars because they have to go through the certification process.
00:38:57
Speaker
to get approval to be in an airplane. So everything in an airplane just costs more money because there's just this massive list of people that have to check it for safety and security and then approve it. And then they can make that.
00:39:09
Speaker
So they jack up the price on it. It's just crazy. to Just silly nonsense that doesn't make any sense. but Yeah, like the duct tape that we use on the plane is the most expensive duct tape that you'll ever find.
00:39:21
Speaker
ah better be. Yeah. You're duct taping the plane together. Yeah. My God. It's worrying to see duct tape on a plane, but yeah. Yeah. Usually it's not used for anything intense. It's just, you know, they keep a strip of it in the flight deck and we can pull it out and keep the bins tied up if we need.
00:39:37
Speaker
Okay, great. If that's, that's what it is. um Cool. um A very interesting choice and a little, ah a little and trip into the the world of um flying and planes.
00:39:48
Speaker
ah Next up, I'm going to wrap up a bit on the indie publishing side of things. had a couple more things to to chat about. ah Then ah we're going to get into some craft stuff, storytelling, the five sentence, the five sentence method, which is Rebecca's writing craft book. All that fun stuff will be available in the extended episodes at,
00:40:08
Speaker
www.patreon.com slash right and wrong i forgot what the thing was there um um like setup and functions you can write a better book because you're doing it again with intention you're not just guessing based on media you've consumed and patterns your brain may have recognized you're actually pointedly aiming for that and that is where you elevate yourself from an amateur writer to ah an experienced one Absolutely. Yes, I could not agree agree more.
00:40:34
Speaker
And an excellent point to conclude this podcast on. Thank you so much, Rebecca, for coming on and telling us all about your publishing and writing journey. It's been it's been amazing hearing about uh, all of it and giving you, giving all these great insights and things like that.
00:40:52
Speaker
Um, and we're excited for the new book, Alchemy and a Cup of Tea is out August 12th in the U S August 14th in the UK and all the usual places. Um, thank you so much. Yes. It's been such thank you so much and' so fun.
00:41:06
Speaker
Anytime I get to talk about publishing, I'm, I'm having a great time. This industry is so big and so vast and so interesting to me. Yes. And ever changing, ever changing. Um, For anyone wanting to keep up with what Rebecca is doing, you can follow her on TikTok at Rebecca.thorn, on Instagram at Rebecca Thorne Writes, or on her website, RebeccaThorne.net.
00:41:28
Speaker
To support this podcast, like, follow and subscribe. Join the Patreon for ad-free extended episodes and check out my other podcast, The Chosen Ones and Other Tropes. Thanks again, Rebecca, and thanks to everyone listening. We will catch you on the next episode.