From https://writingexcuses.com/19-08-nanowrimo-revision-with-ali-fisher-working-with-an-editor 

 

Key Points: Working with an editor or agent! First, your agent and your editor and you are all on the same team, trying to make your book a better book. What's an edit letter? There are stages of editing, starting with developmental or structural. This tends to be broad structural questions. E.g. this character arc doesn't seem to line up with the rest of the book. These are often phone conversations, not letters. Edit letters should be a compliment sandwich, starting with what is good about the book, and ending with more things that are working. When the editor asks you to do something, can you say no? Absolutely. That helps the editor or agent know what is important to you. When the editor or agent offers a suggestion, they are asking whether you can come up with a better idea. Sometimes they offer ideas that they know are not good ideas, to help you react and find a direction. Suggestions identify that there is a problem that needs to be addressed. Ask questions! Sometimes "no, this is a terrible idea" shows that you are tired, and it's time to take a break. Editors and agents are people, too. Alignment comes with asking questions.

 

[Season 19, Episode 08]

 

[Mary Robinette] This episode of Writing Excuses has been brought to you by our listeners, patrons, and friends. If you would like to learn how to support this podcast, visit www.patreon.com/writingexcuses.

 

[Season 19, Episode 08]

 

[Mary Robinette] This is Writing Excuses.

[DongWon] A mini-series on revision, with Ali Fisher. Working with an Editor.

[Mary Robinette] I'm Mary Robinette.

[DongWon] I'm DongWon.

[Ali] And I'm Ali Fisher.

 

[Mary Robinette] Now, I am very excited about this episode. Let me tell you what we are about to do. I'm about to ask DongWon and Ali all of the questions that I wish I'd been able to ask an agent and an editor before I had published a novel.

[Ali] [garbled]

[laughter]

[DongWon] We are so excited to answer these questions. I wish I could transmit from my brain all the information I know about how this process goes to every writer in the world. Because that's the whole point of this. We want them to feel comfortable coming into the process and see how it's not scary. Even though it is difficult at times, that we're all pulling for the same goal at the end of the day.

[Ali] Yeah.

[Mary Robinette] Yeah. Yes. I will say, one of the things that's straight off the bat, dear writers, that you should know is that your agent and your editor and you are all on the same team.

[Ali] Yes. It's true.

[Mary Robinette] You're all trying to make the same book a better book.

[Ali] Amen.

[DongWon] One of the reasons I wanted to have Ali on in particular is that we are working together on several projects at this point.

[Ali] Yes.

[DongWon] Having a sense of Ali's perspective, but also so that you guys can hear a little bit of the working relationship between an agent and an editor working together. I think there is this idea that is the agent versus the publishing house sometimes, and that it's the author versus everybody sometimes. The more that, I think, if we can find ways that… To be clear, that we are all trying to accomplish the same thing. That doesn't mean that conflict doesn't happen, that doesn't mean that there aren't problems. But at least we're starting from a place of understanding and conversation and alignment in what our goals are.

[Ali] Yeah. Yeah. Which doesn't mean that your agent won't advocate for you when needed and it doesn't mean that there aren't going to be conflicts of sort of ideas or like [garbled thoughts on] campaign, etc. Like, that's just smart people working together. But when it comes to the book itself and especially… I don't know, overall, I think, there's no question that success of the book is a win win win for the whole team.

 

[Mary Robinette] Yeah. Yes. So, writers, you've probably heard that at some point you're going to get something that's called an edit letter. What's an edit letter?

[Chuckles]

[Ali] Never heard of it. Sounds suspicious.

[DongWon] Sounds like to me…

[Ali] Well, DongWon, do you want to start with the types of, like letters or calls you do before I do?

[DongWon] Yes. So, I think, there are different stages of editing. Right? What we sort of think of as developmental or structural. Then, sort of like editing. What I tend to do is very much on the developmental stages. I love to be involved early in a project. Or when a submission comes to me, and it's a debut, then I'm doing a lot of structural edits working with the editor to make sure that the book is in a great place before we send it off to the publishing house. So I'm asking… I tend to be asking incredibly broad questions, like big structural questions, word count questions, of, like, can we add 20,000 words? Can we cut 30,000 words? Right? Like, that's scale of question tends to be what I'm doing. So, often times…

[Mary Robinette] Can you give some examples of what a structural question is?

[DongWon] Yeah. So, a structural question can be as much like, "Hey, I'm not sure this arc for this character is lining up with sort of the central themes of the book." Right? I'm being a little bit abstract. I'd say it more specifically of like, "This character's situation feels really disconnected with our protagonist's situation. Can we make that feel more connected, or should this be here?" Like, what are… What was your intention with writing this character into this book, and how are they tying into the rest of it? So that might be a structural question I'm asking that could affect an entire character arc, which is… A solution set could be rewriting that character's entire central conflict so that there arc ties more closely in. It could be cutting that character entirely, because we all realize that they're extraneous and were vestigial from a previous draft. Or it could be changing the central thematics of the book, because that character is actually really important and their arc is more important than the protagonist's arc, and we need to make those pull into alignment in a different way. Right? So, when I'm asking these structural questions, they are kind of that big and that broad about, like, "Hey, the pacing doesn't feel great here. The act two turn, the big reveal, isn't landing in an exciting way. This character isn't feeling like they're exciting and connected. This romance isn't working right, these 2 characters don't come together in the way that I kind of wish." So that's kind of what I'm doing at that stage. Because they're such big broad questions, and because I really do frame them as questions, not like, "Hey, do XYZ," I tend to do that is a conversation. So I'll get on the phone with the author. I know, everyone's dreaded phone call. I will have edit conversations that are 2, 3, 4 hours, sometimes. As we're really just talking through the book, like, what were you trying to do, what… How does this work? What are possible solutions? For me, those are some of the most exciting, most fun conversations I have. They're very difficult and stressful for me, and for the author, but in ways that I think are really energizing when they go well.

[Ali] Yes. So, not dis-similarly, by the time it comes to me, normally, it's in more polished condition or it is… It fits more firmly within the expectations of the types of things that the house that I work at publishes. Right? So, like, it tends to be in a state that is quite recognizable to me. Then I do a lot of the same things. I'm a different reader, different eye… A different sense of… Understanding about where the author's coming from or, probably a lot less understanding of where the authors coming from, and probably just a lot more sort of like generic reader experience. I'll ask a lot of the same questions, very high structural things. You mentioned worst-case scenario twice, and we never saw it. Which made me want to see it. So, something like that. Right? Then, all the way down to sometimes through sentence level style questions or suggestions, mostly for matching things up or, like smoothness, that kind of thing. Just, for anyone out there who's curious, I am an acquisitions editor and an editor, and not a copy editor. Bless them, because I am not nearly qualified enough to make sure a book could actually go to print. But, so a lot of the same things, a lot of the same questions. So brace yourselves, this is also a part where, I think, the agent turns into a little more handholding as someone's going back into…

[Chuckles]

[Ali] Revisions after they felt like we just finished, and then we went out and the book sold, it's so exciting. So, sometimes that happens. Similarly, I also… I love and I offer a phone call as often as I possibly can because an edit letter, even though those are really fantastic, and I've also obviously found that authors with audio processing issues or who just need the time… They just need to read it, they need to think about it, and otherwise it's just not a free flow conversation. Happy to write it down. But if we get the chance to have that conversation, you avoid sort of the asynchronous issue of my assumptions running through the entire thing, whereas there can be a quick, like, "Oh, I actually intended this," and then that changes a lot of my responses. Right? So, I guess all I'm doing is sort of pitching the concept of if you can muster the confidence or the desire to get on the phone with an agent or an editor, I do think it's a really helpful thing. If you can't, that's totally fine too. Edit letters themselves look really different, editor to editor, and, for me, book to book. Sometimes it is… I go through… I have big chunks that's like character A, character B. I'll have worldbuilding questions. Then, sometimes, they're 2 pages long, and it's like bullet points of, like, this is where I cried, this is… My one big question is this. And can you add like a whole section where she's getting from here to here? Because I was desperate to know more.

[DongWon] Yeah. Sometimes they can be really brief, like you were saying, like, one or 2 pages. I think my longest edit letter, back when I was at Orbit, I think was 25 pages.

[Ali] Whoa!

[Chuckles]

[DongWon] I think sometimes…

[Ali] Oh, my God.

[DongWon] Hey, I know people who wrote longer letters. You ask [garbled] sometime what the longest letter she wrote was…

[Ali] No.

[DongWon] So, sometimes, like having… Sometimes you just need to dig into lots of detailed things. Especially if you're going chronologically through the book, of, like, chapter 1, Chapter 2, like, breaking things down. Depending on the writer and what they need and what kind of conversation and what kind of changes you're suggesting, sometimes, a lot of details was called for. But the long edit letter, I think, is very rare, don't let that scare you. That was something that was produced in conversation with the author, I didn't just spring that on them.

[Chuckles]

 

[DongWon] But one thing that I wanted to point out about edit letters that's really important is what I think of as the compliment sandwich. Right? Where you start your letter with talking about the things that are good about the book, and hopefully you end the letter also with reminding the author, here are the things that I liked about the book, here's the things that are working. Right? I think… I see sometimes younger editors, newer editors, skip that. I think that's a huge mistake to do so. Because it's not just… We're not just like blowing smoke and we're not just complimenting you for no reason. It is… Kind of going back to what we were talking about last episode, it's showing that we are in alignment about what your intentions with the book are. If I'm telling you, here are the things that I think are working, and you read that and say, "That isn't the book I wrote. That's not what I was trying to do." Then nothing in between that compliment section matters anymore. Right? Because I don't understand what you were trying to accomplish, so all of my critiques aren't going to land now. Right? So those alignment sections are… Perhaps as important if not more important than all the critical stuff in between. It's not just to make you feel good. It is to make sure that I understand as deeply as I can what it was you were trying to accomplish, so I can help you write the book that you meant to write. To make it the best version of the thing that you want it to. So don't skim those compliments, don't cut them, don't not give them, if you're an editor yourself. I think they're really, really important and really interesting, and very fruitful conversations come out of them.

[Ali] Also, that's… I think I flagged this in our last episode, so we share credit, but it's also where I say, like, please don't cut this. Like, I love this. Like, I might be telling you to make some sweeping changes, and this could get caught up in that, and I don't want to lose it. So those are genuinely… I find those very important.

[Mary Robinette] Yeah. As a writer, I can also say, that now I recognize that those compliments are some of the most useful things, because it is telling you what I'm doing well, and, as writers, we are spectacularly bad at understanding what our strengths are, because those strengths are usually things that come easy to us, so we don't acknowledge them as being valuable. Having someone else recognize that allows us to be like, "Oh. Okay. So that's something I'm good at. I should look for more places where I can do the thing that I'm good at."

[Ali] Yeah. It… A lot of parts of the process to focus on what could be improved or, like, what opportunities are there that aren't here yet. So it's very important to focus on the things that are there and that are working and can be expanded, like you're saying.

[DongWon] Yeah. Again, flagging the things that, like, this is great. This made me cry. This made me laugh. Like, as you go through the manuscript, are just really helpful, because getting… Somebody telling you the stuff that doesn't work about your book over and over again for a long period of time can be quite demoralizing. We understand that. So I encourage any people who are trying to be editors or agents out there to really remember that. Even [garbled] just like have your little notes of like, "Yay, thumbs up," like, this part is so important just to make the whole process go more smoothly. Whenever I see an edit letter that's like too harsh and sometimes even sarcastic a little bit, it's like, "Uhh, this is not working, we can't do this. We gotta switch up how we're approaching this writer."

[Mary Robinette] Yeah. So, when we come back, I will ask my 2nd question.

[Laughter]

 

[Ali] My things of the week are 2 incredible podcasts. One is called Rude Tales of Magic, and the other is called Oh These, Those Stars of Space. Both of these podcasts just so happen to feature me regularly on almost every episode. So if you like the sound of this, what's happening now, I simply must recommend Rude Tales of Magic and Oh These, Those Stars of Space. Rude Tales of Magic is mostly fantasy. It's a collaborative live-action role-playing…

[DongWon] I believe the phrase I said earlier is that it's a collaborative improvised storyteller podcast that is…

[Ali] Yes.

[DongWon] Roughly using the rules of Dungeons & Dragons to lightly flavor the type of story that you're telling.

[Ali] Correct. Then, Oh These, Those Stars of Space is the science-fiction version of that. Also, we have so much great merch. Go to rudetalesofmagic.com/store, get a sweatshirt, and don't listen. It's entirely up to you. The sweatshirts are so soft. I'm wearing one right now. Thank you.

[DongWon] I can attest to the quality of the merch. As someone who owns some. I'm a huge fan of the podcasts myself. As you can tell, as I'm stepping all over Ali's pitch here. But, Rude Tales in particular is a really wonderful podcast if you like things like critical roll and Dimension 20, then absolutely you should check out Rude Tales. It is much more irreverent than those, but it is a group of truly hilarious comedians and I cannot recommend it highly enough.

[Ali] Yes. Thank you.

[Laughter]

 

[Mary Robinette] I… As… I'm just going to flagged here for our listeners, even editors can be really bad pitching their own stuff.

[Laughter]

[Ali] What do you mean?

[Chuckles]

[Ali] Yeah.

[DongWon] I promise we're all better at talking about other people's stuff…

[Ali] I know.

[DongWon] Then our own stuff.

[Ali] That's… Other people's stuff…

[DongWon] That's why we do what we do.

[Ali] Exactly.

 

[Mary Robinette] Anyway. All right. As we come back in, I'm going to ask another question. So, we talked about what the edit letter is. One of the things I just wanted to draw a line under is that a lot of the edit letters that I get and that you all have talked about is really about the editor asking questions rather than giving an answer to the author. It really is about the… A trust between the editor or the agent and the author. But when you're a new author, you don't necessarily know that that trust is there, and you don't know what the rules are. So they've asked you a question, they've asked if you can add more of this and more of that, can you really say no?

[Ali] [deep breath] I don't know. What do you think, DongWon?

[Chuckles]

[That's really tough]

[DongWon] No. Absolutely. Please say no. [Garbled] people say no all the time. You have to say no. It's your project, you know it better than us. Know what you… This goes back to what I was saying earlier about loving your darlings, know what you can change and what you're not willing to change. Right? Know what the things are that are untouchable to you. That's fine. We will work around that, because what we want to know is what do you care about and why have you written the book that you've written and how can we make that the best version it can be. Right? So we will constantly be poking at stuff, and you say, "No. Actually, I don't want to do that." My best case scenario is I make a suggestion of how to fix something and the author does something completely different. They do answer the question, but they just run off into the distance and come back with something wildly different. That's always more exciting than whatever stupid idea that I had.

[Chuckles]

 

[Ali] Yeah. Oh, 100%. I have a piece of text that I put at the beginning of all of the edit letters that I send to new authors that I'm working with. I really hope it gets through. This is what it says. It says, "I'm trusting you to safeguard what makes this story for you. When I offer you suggestions for changes and opportunities for deeper exploration, I'm hoping to initiate your creative process. I fully expect you to come up with better ideas than the examples and suggestions I come up with to illustrate my thinking." Because that is really how I think of it, which is, when I'm offering a suggestion, or like a directly actionable specific recommendation, I'm really saying, like, "can you think of something better, actually?"

[DongWon] I love that so much.

[Ali] This is kind of what I mean, is, really what I'm trying to say.

 

[DongWon] There's a thing that I'll do, and this sounds worse than it actually is. But there's a thing that I do sometimes where I will suggest something that I know is not a good idea because… And that the author will also recognize is not a good idea. Because then, they'll have a reaction to it. Right? When you have a reaction, now you have a direction. Right? I do this a lot with titles most clearly. I'll just start suggesting the worst titles in the world…

[Chuckles]

[DongWon] So that they'll bounce off of it, and in bouncing off of it, a direction is going to start to emerge, because, like, they keep running in this direction, like, "No, that's too comedic, it has to be more like this…" Then I'm like, "Okay. Now we have more information that we can start building around." So, the… When I make a suggestion about an edit, I mean, usually it is sincere of, like, what if we did this, what if we thought about it this way, but really what I'm looking for is a reaction to the suggestion, not an execution of the suggestion.

[Ali] Yes. 100%. Did you see Hannibal? The show?

[DongWon] Not that much of it. Only the first few episodes.

[Ali] Okay. Well, in the first season, there's an episode where Hannibal commits a murder in the style of a murderer…

[Chuckles]

[Ali] To show Will Graham, like, what it isn't. Like, what is actually special about that. I think about that all the time. How I'm committing bad murders to show…

[Chuckles]

[Ali] How their murders… This other murderer to try to figure out that's actually like this.

[DongWon] If you take nothing else away from this episode, please remember that we are the Hannibal to your Will Graham.

[Ali] Yes. That's all I'm saying.

[Mary Robinette] That's beautiful, and I'm making notes about being alone in a room with both of you.

[Chuckles]

 

[Mary Robinette] But it is… I will say that, as an author, the thing for me is, is that suggestion, for me, it identifies that there is a problem that I need to address, and the suggestion is usually wildly wrong. But the problem is usually one that's present. So, when I don't understand why a suggestion has been made, I will go back to the editor and I will ask clarifying questions.

[Ali] Beautiful.

[DongWon] Yes. I think if there's anything you truly do take a away, not joking this time, is that if you don't understand what the editor is asking you to do, or if you don't feel it's right, just ask questions. Just start a conversation.

[Ali] Yes. Please.

[DongWon] Whether it's your agent, whether it's your editor, if you feel that you cannot go to them and have a conversation about what is going well and what's not going well, then there's something that needs to be tweaked about that relationship. Because it's your book at the end of the day, and you should feel empowered to make sure that your writing the book that you want to be writing. That means asking questions, advocating for yourself, advocating for your ideas. If there is something you really care about that they're really pushing back against, then that should be at least a conversation, if not an adjustment that everyone's working around what your goal is.

[Ali] Yeah. I remind myself all the time, it's your name on the cover. Right? Nobody else that you're working with, their name's going to be on the cover. So, that's your… It is your vision, it is your job to safeguard things and to also, like, keep your ears open and be really honest with yourself if something causes friction within you. But that discomfort might settle into a realization of an opportunity. Right? So, sometimes our initial reaction can be really intense, and we thank you for your 3 day waiting period before telling us.

[Chuckles]

[DongWon] Right. That too.

[Mary Robinette] Yeah. So, I'm going to give writers a quick moment of perspective from some of my experience. And then a tool that's extremely valuable. The first is that, with my first series, I would hit things that my editor would say, and I'd be like, "No. This is very wrong, and I'm doing this for a reason, I'm going to keep it." I only did that a couple of times, but without exception… Without exception, my editor was right, there was a problem, and that is a thing that got [garbled] in reviews, that people would say… It would get brought up. So, my editor's suggestion on how to fix it was the thing that I was objecting to. I didn't recognize that at the time. But now, when I get a suggestion and I don't agree with it, I will ask for more clarification, but I will see if I can dig into it and find a way to do something that makes me happy that addresses whatever the problem is. The other piece of that is that sometimes the reason that you are having the no, this is a terrible idea, is just because you're tired. You're feeling a little bit defensive, because your baby… Someone has come in and told you that your baby is ugly. So if you hit 3 editor notes in a row that you think are stupid, walk away from the edit letter. Go take a walk. Go do something else, you're just tired and angry.

[Ali] I mean, clear your vent. Tell them how stupid we are. Get mad. Be… It's…

[Mary Robinette] Yep.

[Ali] It's totally, absolutely appropriate and shows that you give a shit about your book if you're mad at… Like, suggestions that don't feel right immediately.

[DongWon] I would encourage you to do that in private.

[Ali] In private.

[DongWon] And not on Twitter or Blue Sky.

[Mary Robinette] Yes.

[Ali] yes.

[DongWon] That is a thing that I don't recommend you do.

[Ali] Ideally in private. Rage in private. But then come back and then see what still feels bad. Or feels different.

 

[DongWon] One more thing I just want to point out that may be too obvious to bring up, but editors, agents, are people. Right? There individuals with strengths and weaknesses. Yeah, I know, we're…

[Questionable]

[DongWon] We're all just robots and… Yeah, very questionable. But have their own personality quirks, have their own modes of communication, have their own styles. Right? One thing that may be happening if you're feeling really frustrated is an editor might just have an abrasive style or a style that just doesn't vibe with you. Sometimes I will get an email from a client being like, "Hey, I got notes from this editor. Can you take a look at them and tell me what's happening here?" Sometimes the answer is, "Oh, they're missing XYZ," or sometimes I'm just like, "They just kind of talk like that, and that is rubbing you the wrong way." I've seen that both go in the too harsh and too nice directions. Right? I've seen both send up a flag for the writer. So much of this is matching personality, matching style, matching how we communicate, how we connect. Again, that alignment stuff I'm talking about, this is where it becomes really important. So, sometimes, if your editor has left or you didn't choose your editor or for whatever reason, you might be stuck with someone for a second that… And you need to find a way to work it out. But other times, it is a question of, like, make sure that you're working with someone you're excited to work with. Don't just be taking the first thing that's offered to you or the biggest number that was offered to you when you don't like the person. The connection with your team is so important to making sure that everyone is happy with the end result.

 

[Mary Robinette] So how do you get that alignment with… Between the writer and the editor on a project? Like, are there tools that are useful to make sure that everyone's actually on the same page?

[DongWon] I mean, I think it's asking questions. Right? We kind of keep coming back to the same things in certain ways, but it's that… The compliment section of the edit letter, not to sum up what's wrong, but talking about what's going right. Sometimes it's taste stuff, right, like sometimes even talking about other books, other movies, and things that you both like can be really useful, because then that gives you a shared language of, like, "Okay, we both love Hannibal. So our series [murder] like, we want it to feel more like Hannibal than we do like Scream." Right? So having that shorthand of vibes that you both are feeling can be really, really helpful to think about it.

[Ali] Yeah. Even on that… If you have that initial call with an editor who's interested in your book, you can ask mildly irrelevant questions. Obviously, nothing like to personal or inappropriate, right. Because that's probably not your business. But you can ask questions, because the more someone talks, the more they display their values and their interests and their thoughts, and, like, it's kind of just reaching out and touching someone else's mind for a little while and seeing if you like it.

[Mary Robinette] Right. Well, with that, let's segue to our homework as we try to touch the minds of our listeners.

[Ali] Yes, yes.

[Mary Robinette] Not creepy at all.

[Chuckles]

[DongWon] Not creepy at all.

[Ali] For my final style…

[DongWon] Exactly.

 

[DongWon] So, I have our homework this week. I would like you… Thinking about this alignment question, I would like you to take a work you haven't written, and come up with 3 questions you would ask the writer to help them clarify their intention in the text. Whether this is a project your beta reading for a friend, a short story, even like a movie that you've seen, take a piece, a story that you engaged with and really figure out what are the questions I would ask the creator of this to really help them understand better what it was that they were going for. Then, for bonus points, I want you to apply those questions to your own work in progress.

 

[Mary Robinette] This has been Writing Excuses. You're out of excuses. Now go edit.

 

[DongWon] Hey. Have you sold a short story or finished your first novel? Congratulations. Also, let us know. We'd love hearing from you about how you've applied the stuff we've been talking about to craft your own success stories. Use the hashtag WXsuccess on social media or drop us a line at success@writingexcuses.com.

 

 

From https://writingexcuses.com/2021/01/24/16-4-networking/

 

Key Points: Networking isn't just getting to know editors, agents, and publishers. It's also how you relate to the greater community, and how we all build that community. Volunteering lets you see how it works, and lets you shape things, too. Conferences, writing groups, anthologies. Remembering names! Don't just try to imitate other people, think about how you normally relate to people, and then expand on that. To meet an author, start with common ground, small talk, and pay attention to what is interesting about them. Don't just chase famous authors, watch for peers, too. Editors and agents? Remember, the work comes first. Be aware of the demands on their time. Pay attention to them as people. Let them pitch to you! What are they working on, what are they doing that is exciting to them? Be ready to talk business if they ask. Practice your pitch, your elevator talk. Make genuine friends, don't just follow your task lists. If you aren't comfortable, walk away.

 

[Season 16, Episode 4]

 

[Dan] This is Writing Excuses.

[Mary Robinette] Networking.

[Erin] 15 minutes long.

[Brandon] Because you're in a hurry.

[Howard] And we're part of a five person network.

[Dan] I'm Dan.

[Mary Robinette] I'm Mary Robinette.

[Erin] I'm Erin.

[Brandon] I'm Brandon.

[Howard] And I'm Howard.

 

[Dan] We are going to talk about networking today. We are delighted to have both Erin and Mary Robinette with us, instead of switching back and forth like they have been throughout this course. Networking is a really valuable part of any business, and certainly also of our business. Brandon, this was… This is your class. This was your suggestion. What do you think we need to know about networking?

[Brandon] Well, I thought I was good at this until I met Mary Robinette.

[Laughter]

[Brandon] Right? Like, for me, networking was getting to know the editors and keeping my little black book of editors and agents and publishers. Then I met Mary Robinette, who introduced me to the idea of networking with the greater community and building the community. I knew I wanted to have an episode on this in the Master Class, even though I don't consider myself an expert in this particular area.

[Mary Robinette] That's very flattering, Brandon. I think one of the…

[Brandon] Mary Robinette, you know everyone.

[Mary Robinette] Here, I'll put in a plug for being on the board of Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. But in all seriousness, volunteering is one of the best ways to network within a community. It allows you to see how things are working. But it also allows you to shape… And this is not just the random plug that it seems to be. One of the things that you will hear across organizations is that when you want to get involved with something, one of the best things you can do is to volunteer. It's because of what I just said about the… Seeing how things… How the sausage is made, but also getting to shape the sausage. This metaphor is going downhill very fast.

[Laughter]

[Dan] Delicious shaped sausage. One of the things, because we also… I mean, one of the reasons that our podcast is what it is, is because of networking. We all met each other… I've known Brandon forever, but the rest of us met each other through various professional outlets and conferences and book tours and things that we started doing together.

[Brandon] How did we meet, though, Dan? We were both volunteering.

[Dan] We were both volunteering on a science fiction magazine. That's true. It was a student run magazine, so I guess it wasn't professional, but even so, we met through the industry. Then, because this podcast became what it became, we started doing our own writing conference, the Writing Excuses Retreat, that happens every year. Erin is the person that we have asked to kind of lead that, because we met her when she was a scholarship recipient at that conference. She's incredible, and impressed our socks right off.

[Mary Robinette] I met her…

[Dan] Now she's kind of running the show for us in a lot of ways. And, to bring this back around, the most valuable thing that our students get out of the conference that we run is not us, it's the opportunity to network with each other. We have seen so many writing groups form, we've seen anthologies come together, we've seen people get married because they met on our retreat. There's a lot of really great networking opportunities at every level of this industry.

 

[Howard] The value of networking is something that we could all anecdotally establish and reestablish and reestablish. I don't think it's in question. For me, the hardest part with networking is… Was, I'm better at it now. I had a terrible problem remembering names, and I've been to three or four GenCon Indy events where I was sitting next to Tracy Hickman, so there were bazillions of people at the booth. I kept introducing myself to people who I'd met last year. I realized every time I was doing that… One, every time you do that, oh, I should already have remembered your name and I've forgotten it and I feel bad, I'm actually micro-aggressioning all over them by having dropped them into this index space in my brain that says well, clearly, you weren't worth remembering. I hated that about myself. So I started trying to find ways to make my brain work differently. The tool that I picked was back in the before times when I went to restaurants all the time, looking at my server's name tag and using their name and conversation and just teaching myself new name, new face, might never see them again, but the name is important. I got a lot better at it.

[Mary Robinette] I dealt with the same problem from a totally different way, which is that I just removed the pieces of casual small talk from my conversation that would betray whether or not I remembered someone.

[Chuckles]

[Mary Robinette] I no longer ever say, "So nice to meet you." I say, "It was good talking to you." The reason is because I, at this point, meet so many people, and have learned that my brain just… Like, I have made efforts. But I don't hold them… And I'm starting to learn that I have a little bit of face blindness. Not terrible, but enough that I will see someone that I have spent… Like, had dinner with. I met my assistant three times before I remembered her. Not as my assistant, I want to be clear.

[Chuckles]

[Mary Robinette] But… One of those included a multi-hour dinner. So… It's… I find that the way my brain works, it's so contextual that I have better success at modifying my language than at modifying my brain. Erin, what are the tricks that you use? For networking and moving around in these social spaces?

 

[Erin] Well, the first thing I'd say is that what I love about both of the examples that you all just gave is that they're all about knowing yourself. I think that one of the biggest pitfalls of networking can be the assumption that there's like a way that you have to do it. You see other people networking in a certain way and think, "Well, I need to replicate that. This person's shaking everyone's hands in the place. I'm going to do that." Instead of thinking, like, how do you relate to people normally when you're not trying to do anything, when you're not trying to get anywhere careerwise, just in your life. And then figuring out how can you slightly expand that. So, like, how can you work on that in a bigger space? So I am a slightly extroverted person, which in the writing world makes me an extremely extroverted person.

[Laughter]

[Erin] So I… And I love karaoke, so I will go to karaoke bars and talk to random people. So I know about myself that I'm okay with just going up to a stranger and making conversation and am pretty nonthreatening. So, because I'm a small person in my face somehow says I won't murder you, I'm able to go up to people and kind of just strike up conversations at a bar or at a reading, in a way that others may not be able to.

[Mary Robinette] And then later murder them.

[Erin] Mary Robinette…

[Laughter]

[Erin] Well, now it's going to be harder.

[Dan] Thriller warning.

[Laughter]

[The murder…]

[Howard] Later step in the business relationship.

[Mary Robinette] Murder them with song. Murder them with song. That's what I meant.

[Dan] I have personally been murdered by Erin's singing at least twice.

[Mary Robinette] But murdered in a good way.

[Dan] A very good way.

 

[Dan] I want to pause here for our book of the week. Mary Robinette, you have that. It is The City We Became.

[Mary Robinette] Yes, I do. Yes, I do have that book. So, The City We Became is N. K. Jemison's latest, as we record this. I went in not knowing what to expect. It is a love letter to New York and all of the boroughs. It is a coming-of-age story about a city. Also, intrigue and… Just, it's social commentary and action and magic and it's so good. Very much its own book. But it's also… One of the things that I love about it, and one of the reasons I suggested it for this, is that it is very much about building your community and found family.

[Dan] Wonderful. That is The City We Became, by N. K. Jemison.

 

[Dan] So, as we continue our discussion of networking, one thing that I know our listeners want to know is how to do it. How do they approach authors? How do they approach agents? How do they approach editors? Let's start with authors. Somebody wants to meet an author. How do they do that?

[Mary Robinette] So, one of the things that I always suggest is a lesson that I learned from my mom. Which is that when you go up to someone, her philosophy… She was an arts administrator. Her philosophy is that the other person is always more interesting than you are, and that when you begin a conversation, you shouldn't begin it with business. That you should begin it with some common ground, some small talk. Small talk exists to basically say, "Hello. I am not a threat." So, what I do when I'm approaching someone or when someone is approaching me, the thing that I try to do is find that common ground. So it's things like, "Oh, the elevators are running really slow." Or, "Man, how's the…" I will actually now, especially when we are all in Zoom land, say, "How is the weather where you are?" We have a conversation about weather. But it gives us this moment when we are people and we are not doing business. If I know anything about the author, or if I hear anything in their conversation that I am also interested in, I try to steer the conversation in that direction. Because saying the other person is more interesting than you are does not mean that you have to fawn over them. What it means is that you live in your own head. You experience it all the time. Anything that's coming from them is new and interesting. You can… Like, if I know someone has an interest in cars, I don't have an interest in cars, but we do have a 1952 MG-TD that I have a great deal of fondness for. So I steer the conversation towards classic cars. Then we have some common ground. Then, afterwards, I become the one person that they didn't talk about the publishing business with, and I stick out in their brain more.

[Dan] Brandon, what are your thoughts on this?

[Brandon] I just wanted to throw in the reminder that getting to know authors does not… The best thing that I did, early in my career, was identifying people that were writing great books who weren't published that I could make a bond with and that could be my… Ended up being, like, my friends for life in the business. I'm kind of talking about Dan. Right?

[Chuckles]

[Brandon] But people like Dan, where both of us were in the same state in our lives. But Dan was writing these really great stories, and I knew Dan was somebody I wanted to know because I thought he made my writing better. Knowing people like that in your… Like, it doesn't necessarily… Networking with other authors doesn't have to mean going and approaching famous authors. It can mean knowing people from your community so you have a group to grow with as you all kind of start to learn these things together.

[Erin] Yeah. I'd say it's important to put as much time into like networking and building community even more with your peers as your heroes. Because ultimately your peers are going to grow with you in the field, but also, because in a group, there's… You don't want to be known as the person who's like looking for, like, oh, who can I network with that's going to like move me up in the world. You want to feel like you're genuinely interested in other people. A lot of… I'll say, I didn't set out this way, but I've gotten a lot of opportunities in my own career from friends and peers who I just met because I wanted to meet them and they were interesting and I liked what I knew they had written. But then, later on, as careers start to develop, you never know when somebody might be able to, like, throw something your way that they're not able to do, for example. So I think it's really important to, like, just care about the people around you and not get too much in your head because you're in a professional writing space and forget who you are as a person, which is a cool person who, theoretically, knows how to relate to at least some other people in the world.

[Dan] Yeah. That's my kind of primary source of author networking right now is throwing people jobs. If somebody comes to me about a freelance thing, I need someone to write this RPG adventure or whatever it is, and it's not a job I can take on, I will always try to suggest three or four other people instead. So instead of just saying no, I do this, I'll say, "Please go look at these people. They do excellent work and you may not have heard of them." That has been really valuable as a way of kind of spreading that love and building relationships both with the authors I'm recommending and with the publishers that are talking to me.

 

[Dan] Now, what about with editors? This is something that is maybe a little more immediately valuable to an aspiring author. How do you build networks, how do you get to meet editors and agents? Let's throw them both in there.

[Mary Robinette] So, ultimately, I'm just going to remind people that in terms of selling a book, it still comes down to the work.

[Dan] Absolutely.

[Mary Robinette] So, what you're looking for with these conversations with agents and editors is a better understanding of the field. It's not… You're not going to make a sale because of your relationship with an agent or editor. It might help a little bit. It might cause them to do a more sympathetic read, but the work itself has to be there. But when you're talking to an agent or editor, there's something that I call the hierarchy of time, which is the idea that how many people want a piece of you affects how valuable your time is. It has nothing to do with your actual merit as a human being. It has nothing to do with any of that. It's not that some people are worth more than others. It's just… The hierarchy of time is someone who's… As Brandon was talking about earlier in a previous episode, knowing how much your time is worth. Some of that is how many people are trying to take that. So editors and agents have a lot more people wanting pieces of their time than an early career writer. So they stand higher in the hierarchy of time for that reason only. So when you are talking to them, I think it is helpful to remember that. So that when you are having a conversation, that you are contributing to their enjoyment. And I don't mean sucking up, it's just that… Because everyone is trying to get a piece of them, it is useful if you can share… You can be amusing. I don't mean like, "Hello. Here is the joke that I have prepared to tell this editor." But actually paying attention to them as a person and as a conversation.

[Brandon] One of the things that Dan and I found is that if you're doing this at a convention, which is where we normally did it, actually going to that editor's panels and going in afterward and approaching, at appropriate places like at parties or things, those editors to ask them about the panel, things that they said. That was really handy, because, number one, it gave us more information. This is what we were looking for. These are the experts in the field. Number two, it was a conversation starter about something we knew they want to talk about, and it is a way into a conversation. The other big one was always we wanted to know what books the editor was working on and why they were excited by them. Because this, number one, gives us information again about the field, but it also is something that every editor I've met wants to talk about because it's exciting for them. Because they love these books. Because they want to sell these books. You're actually letting them pitch to you in that case, which is helpful for them because maybe they'll get a sale off of it. But it's also helpful for you because you probably should go by those books to find out what the editors in the field are really excited by right now.

[Dan] Definitely.

[Erin] I think it can be very inspirational. There's nothing… I love hearing editors talk about the books that they're working on and how much they love them. At a time… If you're like in the slog of writing and it's like oh, it will never end, seeing what the part of the process that you can get to and thinking, "There's so much excitement. Editors want to be publishing great work." is a great way to, like, for me at least, give me a little boost and get me back in front of the computer or the page.

 

[Mary Robinette] One thing that I also want to say in terms of agents and editors is, while you should go in and plan to treat them like a person, and they are your peer, they're not a target… Is the thing we say on the Writing Excuses cruise all the time. At the same time, be ready to talk business if they ask. So have practiced your sales pitch, your elevator pitch. Know what you are actually writing. Do that homework so that when it comes up, you can talk about it without going, "Well. I mean. It's kind of a… Fantasy…"

[Chuckles]

[Dan] She's saying that because she's heard me pitch books before.

[Mary Robinette] I have. Hey, I'm really loving Ghost Station, by the way, which is not a fantasy.

[Dan] Thank you very much.

[Mary Robinette] Hey, look at me networking. So, that's the kind of thing that you can do, is just be prepared. What's Ghost Station about?

[Dan] Ghost Station is a Cold War spy novel about cryptographers who are on… In West Berlin about two months after the Berlin Wall was built in 1961. So, that's what it's about.

[Mary Robinette] Good job.

[Dan] Thank you.

[Howard] Ghost Station is a cold start to a good pitch that… Okay, I'm on my game.

[Dan] That was awesome.

[Mary Robinette] Thank you for demonstrating, Dan, why it's important to practice your elevator pitch so that when they ask, "So, what are you working on?" which will inevitably be a topic of conversation, that you can actually answer it smoothly.

[Dan] In my defense, if you ask me what I'm working on, I've got a much better answer. I haven't had to pitch Ghost Station to anyone in a year or more. But, yes. These are all good things to remember. Howard, you've got something? Looks like you want to say?

 

[Howard] I may be coming at this from an established position of luxury or whatever, but I find that networking as a I am networking is really arduous. I'm an introvert, I'm not an extrovert. I like having genuine friends. I find that the most… I make friends by meeting interesting people and talking to them and listening to them and I love that. I have… Lately, anyway, I have zero task lists in my brain. No must meet the following people, they must be able to do the following things. None of that is present. I just… I like having friends and being genuine and meeting people. I think it was about 15 years ago, I was at Comic Con and got to meet Steve Jackson for the first time. It actually would have been more than 15 years. 17 years ago. He was a fan of my work. Suddenly we had conversations that had nothing to do with what we were doing. Then, at one point he talked about online sales, and I realized, "You know what? I was talking to Scott McCloud the other day, who is a web cartoonist and who… Understanding comics," and I said, "Steve, Scott McCloud is the expert, and I think he's right here at this convention. Let's go find him." So I got to introduce Steve Jackson to Scott McCloud. What did I get out of that? Well, my friend Richard took a picture. It made it look like I was in the middle of a brilliant discussion between these two luminaries in their own fields. But, ultimately, what I got out of it was this is a fun conversation. Steve talked to Scott talked to Steve, and I was kind of in the middle of it. They're just… They're good people and I like them. If I ever need, really need to meet an editor, what will probably happen is I'll talk to Erin, Mary Robinette, and say, "Geez, I've got this thing, and I don't even know what to do with it. Maybe it needs an editor." One of my friends might say, "Oh. There right here at this event." And walk me over and introduced me, because we're friends. It's nothing… It's not transactional at all.

[Dan] That is…

[Mary Robinette] All of that is…

[Dan] One of the things I love about the publishing industry is that for the most part, it is a friendly industry full of people who want to help each other. Having worked with Hollywood, I could tell you how rare it is to be in a friendly industry full of people who want to help each other.

[Mary Robinette] I actually want to say that that is something that is very true of science fiction and fantasy, and some of the other genres. There are genres that that is not true. So just take that under advisement a little bit. Erin, did you want to chime in on that?

[Erin] Yes. Just one other thing to take under advisement, not to put a bad negative spin on anything, but also remember that, like, networking is great, but you are important and your own safety and comfort is important. When you get into things where there's hierarchies of time and power, sometimes people… If something is making you uncomfortable, if you don't feel good about a conversation you're having, you can walk away. It will not kill your career. It won't do anything. The most important thing is for you to be okay with what you're doing and the people that you're around.

[Dan] Yes. That's a wonderful note to end on. Thank you very much for that.

 

[Dan] Mary Robinette, you have homework for us.

[Mary Robinette] Yeah. So the homework that I have is that I want you to think of… Think of and do five things. I want you to think of five things that you can do to help someone without getting credit. It doesn't have to be completely anonymous. But I'm talking about doing things like quietly signal boosting something, a donation, fulfilling a wish, beta reading for someone. You get thanked for beta reading, but you don't get like big public credit for it. So things that you can do to help other people. Because the biggest thing with networking is the old aphorism, a rising tide raises all ships. So how can you help that tide rise?

[Dan] Fantastic. Thank you very much for that. This is Writing Excuses. You are out of excuses. Now go write.

 

 

From https://writingexcuses.com/2020/11/01/15-44-rebooting-a-career/

 

Key Points: You might be orphaned by editors. Or maybe your books stop selling, the series doesn't click? You have to stick with it, keep going. Dedication, hard work, keep pivoting. Look at your brand right now, and think about how to build on that to do the thing you want to next. Diversify! Multiple pen names, projects, brands. Your skill set can carry across a pivot or reboot. You can use short fiction to explore where your strengths are quickly. "Never let more than 40% of your income come from one place." If you quit your day job and write full time, you are a freelancer. Diversify your income stream. Plan ahead. Learn how to track where your money is coming from. 

 

[Mary Robinette] Season 15, Episode 44.

[Dan] This is Writing Excuses, Rebooting a Career.

[Dongwon] 15 minutes long.

[Mary Robinette] Because you're in a hurry.

[Howard] And we're not that smart.

[Dan] I'm Dan.

[Dongwon] I'm Dongwon.

[Mary Robinette] I'm Mary Robinette.

[Howard] I'm looking for something now.

[Dan] Awesome.

[Laughter]

 

[Dan] Well, we have got something new for you. We teased this episode all the way back in our very first episode of the year. Which, for us, we recorded 10 minutes ago, but you…

[Chuckles]

[Dan] Had to wait 11 months for it. Thank you for your patience. So, this is something, again, that came up in an audience question. I love this topic, because it has happened to me. I'm actually in the middle of it right now. I sincerely hope by the time this airs that everything's stable and wonderful. But I have been orphaned twice by editors.

[Mary Robinette] Let's define what orphaned means, in this context.

[Dan] Orphaned… Okay. In this context, what it means is the editor who acquired my book initially at a given publishing house, I am no longer with that editor. I was moved to a different one. Then that one actually left the publishing house altogether. A year later, I am currently, as of this recording, do not have an editor at that publisher. Which is sad because now the books are not being shepherded, and my own career is a little bit in flux. So this is something that I've dealt with personally, but I'm not going to answer the question, I'm going to ask the question of Dongwon. What does an author do when they've had some success, they've had some books come out, and then they either get orphaned, or their books stop selling, the new series they have come out just doesn't take off or it tanks completely? They need to change something. How do you know when you hit that point, and how do you know what changes to make? Now talk for 15 minutes.

[Dongwon] I really… I could talk for an hour here. I really love this topic, because it's a really, really important one. I think the greatest determinant in whether or not a writer is successful in their career is their ability to ride with the tough times. Right? That's sort of stick-with-it-ness, that's sort of like ability to just keep going in the face of a lot of setbacks, is the thing that I see more often than not how people get to where they want to be. Right? I've been in publishing now for 15 years, and over that time, I've seen people over and over again who I looked at them, I looked at their sales numbers, I looked at where they're at in sort of the market, and I was like, "Ah. They're such a nice person, it's too bad their career's over." Then 10 years later, they're New York Times bestsellers. Right? I can think of half a dozen people off the top of my head of been in similar situations. Right? So many people we talk about as overnight successes really spent years and years writing books until something hit it. George Martin's a famous example. But I think the guest host for this year, Victoria Schwab's another great example of somebody who was writing for a long time before she really blew up in the way she has. It takes dedication and hard work, and the ability to keep pivoting and keep working with it. It's one of my favorite things is to take a writer who is in a position where… Not necessarily a bad position, but one where you could be doing more, and help them figure out, "Okay, what's next, how do we reposition this to grow from here?" So, I think there's a lot of different strategies. I think the thing that's really important is considering what's your brand right now, and how do you build on that for the thing that you want to do next. Right? So I think Daniel Abraham is a really great example to look at. He had a series with Tor, that was The Long Price Quartet, which was an absolute brilliant fantasy series. Sales were probably not where everyone wanted them to be, because it's a very worthy series, but not necessarily like the most commercial, like, it's not a lot of like big action romps there, right? The thing about Daniel is he had multiple brands going at once. He was also writing as M. L. N. Hanover, an urban fantasy series. Then, when urban fantasy started falling off a little bit, he was looking to pivot again. So at that point, he came to me, when I was an editor at Orbit, and pitched two different projects at once. The Dragon's Path, which is an epic fantasy sort of following in the vein of what he was doing at Tor. But then he also was like, "Hey, we also have this co-written science fiction project with this guy Ty Franck." That was what is now The Expanse. Again, that was under yet another pen name. Right? So the thing that Daniel kept doing is he kept writing new things and different things. He was doing it under different names with different brands. Until one of them just really clicked in and took off. I mean, The Expanse is really one of the big successes in science fiction over the past 10 years. Has the big TV show and all these things. Again, that's somebody who didn't have the kind of commercial success and attention that I think he deserved early in his career. But, just kept going and just kept pivoting and kept trying new things until finally something really clicked in, in the way that it did, with The Expanse.

 

[Howard] In 1998, I was working in tech support at Novell. I looked at some of the things I'd been doing and realized that within the company, within the industry, my brand was talking to people about the way the software works. Kind of being an advocate for the product and being educational about it and being entertaining. I wanted a position in the company where I could keep doing that. I got one. I like the sound of my own voice, and did a lot of presentations and a lot of traveling as a result of those presentations. Until I left the company in 2004. In 2008, I started doing Writing Excuses. Writing excuses has now been running for longer than my entire career at Novell.

[Dan] Wow.

[Howard] Okay. I was just doing the math as I was looking at the spreadsheet.

[Chuckles]

[Howard] Sorry, this totally came out of left field. The idea that the career that nobody… I say nobody. I don't think many people are going to look at me and think, "Oh, yeah. That guy who was a software communications person back in the 90s and just vanished. Wow. Such a shame his software support career tanked."

[Chuckles]

[Howard] No. They're going to remember me for whatever's most recent. There was a huge pivot in there, from doing software to doing comics. But the skill set of I know how to stand up in front of people and advocate a thing and be educational about it and occasionally be funny, and leverage the comic drop of self-deprecating humor from time to time, that piece of my brand, that piece of my skill set has stayed with me and continues to serve me well. As we are having this conversation, it is September 2019. This is airing in November of 2020. Schlock Mercenary, the mega-arc, ended about five months ago, if everything went according to plan. From where I'm sitting right now, I do not know what my career reboot looks like from 2020. I'm coming up on that, and I'm terrified. But I know that the guy who is terrified is also the guy who has rebooted his career before and made good on it.

[Dongwon] There's always more opportunities, any time you find yourself in that spot.

 

[Dan] Okay. So. Our book of the week is one you've already talked about, Dongwon. This is Leviathan Wakes, the first one from The Expanse. What can you tell us about that book?

[Dongwon] Leviathan Wakes is a really wonderful space opera, that is examining, not necessarily galactic exploration, but the exploration and colonization of our own solar system. So the whole set up is, they don't have interstellar travel yet, but they can travel between the planets somewhat easily. So, the political situation is there's the Earth and then there is Mars, and they're in conflict and in tension over resources. Those resources are specifically being the asteroid belt, which is being mined by both of those great powers. Into the middle of this, a new artifact, biological weapon, has been discovered which kind of sets the whole system to the brink of war. This is a nine book series that is on the cusp of wrapping up right now. It's really, to my mind… And I am biased because I was the editor on the first couple books…

[Laughter]

[Dongwon] But, to my mind, it's really one of the most exciting, wonderful, rich character work in a space opera series that I've really ever seen. I could not love this more. The show was also great, but read the books first…

[Chuckles]

[Dongwon] Because they're even better.

[Dan] We did have Daniel and Ty on the show at some point a year or two ago. So if you want to hear them talk about it, you can find that in our archives.

[Mary Robinette] We'll include that in our liner notes.

[Dan] Yes, we totally will.

 

[Dan] Okay. So, I like what Dongwon was saying about trying new things while still staying true to what you've already been successful with. This is something that I have done. So, just very quickly, I hit the New York Times bestseller list with the Partials series, which is science fiction. Then, my next science fiction series, Mirador, really tanked. Like, I cannot overstate how little it sold.

[Mary Robinette] Which is a shame, because I love that series.

[Dan] Well, thank you. So do I. It did not click with the audience in the way everyone expected it to. It didn't click for the publisher the way we had hoped it would, to the point that they didn't even bother doing the third book in audio. I had to buy the rights back from them. So, as I set out what am I going to do next, I said, "Well, I'm going to continue with science fiction, but I'm going to twist it in a new direction." So I started doing middle grade science fiction. That's where Zero G and Dragon Planet and things like that came from. At the same time, because a far bigger success for me has been my thrillers, like I Am Not a Serial Killer, I didn't want to neglect that audience either. So I'm trying… This is a much more risky experiment. But I wrote a new… I started a new thriller career, essentially, by doing historical thrillers. That's where Ghost Station came from. So I'm trying these two different paths at the same time and just waiting to see, like you were saying, which one clicks in which one takes off. It's a lot of work, and it's a lot of faith, and you just kind of gotta hope that… And maybe neither of those does, and I'll… I don't know, come crawling to you at some point and say, "Dongwon, help me figure out what to do?"

[Mary Robinette] So, one of the things is that… I also got the whole orphaned thing, right after Ghost Talkers. When I was working on Calculating Stars, my editor left, and I got transferred to another editor, who's been wonderful, but it was… The process of learning to work with her. But the reason that we decided to switch me from doing fantasy to doing science fiction was that we looked at what I had been doing in short fiction, and I write all over the map in short fiction. My science fiction that's short fiction kind of consistently gets noticed for awards. The general thing was maybe you should be writing to your strengths, which appear to be science fiction.

[Howard] Kind of consistently, that was… Oops, two Hugos?

[Mary Robinette] I mean, yeah.

[Chuckles]

[Mary Robinette] Yeah. So, anyway…

[Chuckles]

[Dan] So, friends, we have to brag about Mary Robinette, because she's too modest to do it herself.

[Mary Robinette] I mean, I only have four Hugos. One of them I got with you guys, so it really doesn't count.

[Dan] Barely anything.

[Howard] Thanks.

[Laughter]

[Howard] That's actually the only one I've got.

[Dongwon] The one that doesn't count.

[Mary Robinette] No. I'm kidding. I am… I… Obviously kidding, or I would not…

[Dongwon] Of course.

[Mary Robinette] Have made that joke. But my point being that when people wonder when they're novelists, natural novelists, and they wonder why to do short fiction, one of the things that it does allow is a faster, easier way to see which of your stories are hitting with audience. Like, just, if you are getting more acceptances from your science fiction, that's a thing that's worth noting. So I didn't actually have to go through as many iterations as Dan did to figure out, oh, maybe I should be writing some science fiction novels. And, Calculating Stars have done significantly better than my fantasy.

[Dan] Or, phrased another way, you did do arguably more iterations than I did, but they were in short fiction, so you were able to do them more quickly and see results more easily.

[Mary Robinette] Yes. That is arguably accurate.

[Laughter]

 

[Dongwon] The thing that I just want to point out is, following again on what Dan was saying, is the key to so much of this is diversification, right? Not putting all of your eggs in one basket. Sometimes that is a genre thing, sometimes it's a category thing in terms of adult or YA, and sometimes… That's even an industry thing, like writing for games and writing for comics and writing for film and TV if you can get that work. But often times it's also just not writing for one publisher, right? Having multiple publishers in place, so if you get orphaned at one, even if that's the thing that goes very badly, which it sometimes does, you still have other things in your pocket that you can turn to and emphasize. If that's not working there. Then, sometimes it takes a couple of years to cycle out, and then you can pick up with a new contract or with a different publisher or with a different editor at that publisher. But having lots of different things moving out once is often the way to sort of stabilize your career overall.

[Howard] In 2006, at Emerald City Comic Con, Robert Khoo, K-H-O-O, talked about the business of web comics. This is the guy who went to the penny arcade guys before they were big and said, "You're leaving a whole bunch of money on the table." They said, "We don't know what money is." He said, "I tell you what. I will work for you for free on the understanding that if at the end of the year, I haven't earned for you a marketing guy's salary of $80,000 a year, which you can very comfortably pay me, then I will quit and you don't owe me anything." They were like, "This sounds too good to be true, but it's probably not a trap. So, join us." Robert Khoo totally reinvented them. Out of his work grew the penny arcade Expo, which was the thing that replaced E3 as the big consumer thing of displaying… It was huge. Robert Khoo… So I've established his bona fides. He said, "Never let more than 40% of your income come from one place."

[Mary Robinette] This is a…

[Howard] That stuck with me. I'm not very good at it yet. But we go over our books, Sandra and I go over our books every year and ask ourselves, "What is the thing that will hurt the most if we lose it? How do we build something that will cushion that, in case it goes away?"

[Mary Robinette] Yeah. That is absolutely a thing that they teach you in puppet theater, as well. I mean, just in general as a freelancer, this is a really important thing to understand. If you quit your day job and decide to be a writer full-time, you are a freelancer. Your publisher is your only client, unless you're at multiple publishing houses, unless you're doing hybrid stuff which, in this day and age, is a sensible thing. It's a good thing that you can do if you get your backlist back is bring it out yourself. So, remembering that you are a freelancer and trying to diversify. Like, I diversify my income stream also by teaching. That's one of the ways that I diversify. It doesn't have to be writing. The other thing that I kind of wanted to say about what happens when this moment… Like, I was orphaned by an editor, and that handoff was actually very, very smooth. But it was also because the previous two books had done so poorly, and not through fault of my own. I think. Obviously, other people have different opinions. But I had… The first of those last two books had been Of Noble Family, which was the last book in a five book series. We… There is a thing that happens in a series, where you have a slow decline in numbers. Then, the next book, Ghost Talkers, which is actually one of my favorite things that I've written, came out, and they sent me on tour. My first day of tour was election day of 2016. Everybody's sales tanked. Actually. But mine… Just like, there was… When I was on tour, the audiences were half the size that they normally were. Everyone looked shellshocked. It didn't matter, actually, which side of the political spectrum you were on, that period of time was really fraught. So, yes, obviously, my numbers were lower. But what that meant was, when we were doing… With my new editor, who was working with me on the two new books, when she was looking at acquiring another book after that, there was no incentive to do it until Calculating Stars and Fated Sky came out and did very well. At that point, I realized that my agent was part of my problem because my agent was not advocating for me and was not explaining… Like, the narrative of what was going on. So sometimes when you're midcareer and things are not going well, if you're starting to think, "Well, I wonder if I should go with a new agent?" The advice that I got from a very good friend who is sitting on the couch with me…

[Chuckles]

[Mary Robinette] Was that when you begin asking yourself that question, you should probably change agents.

[Dan] I had my book, Extreme Makeover, came out the same day. Mary Robinette and I did a signing together…

[Mary Robinette] Yeah.

[Dan] In Chicago. Actually, the two of us and Wes Chu. So there were three authors, and I think maybe five people there…

[Mary Robinette] Yeah.

[Dan] If you count the bookseller. I actually, like, I love Calculating Stars, but I still consider Ghost Talkers my favorite of your books. I think Extreme Makeover is the best written thing I've ever done. No one's ever heard of either of those books. Because they got completely lost. Anyway, I assume that there are a few people who are listening to this episode who are in this situation who need to reboot their career. But I… And I hope that they do. But I suspect that most of our listeners are still looking at this from the upcoming side. Right? That's why I really want to tell you what I did not know is that you need to be planning for this already. You need to have all these income streams in place before one of them fails. Which is the lesson that I have very painfully learned. And five years later have managed to build myself back up to the point where I more or less okay.

[Howard] Or back even further up from that, we've said… I quoted Robert Khoo. 40%. Don't let any more than 40% come from any one place. Do you know how to do the math to know where your money is coming from? If you don't know how to do that yet, learn to do that. Because if you can get ahead of that, for you start receiving royalties, before you start getting advances, then you are in a position to career plan and to build your bugout bag for…

[Mary Robinette] I'm going to do a plug for something called you need a budget dot com. Which, if you are like me, and not terribly good with numbers, is a very useful way as a freelancer… It's a bud… It's a financial planning kind of tracking thing. But it's very, very useful to get a handle on exactly how much you need to make, and to figure out how to have enough of a nest egg so that if you have a. Where you have to reboot, that you have some money set aside.

[Dan] Which is a great resource. Go for it.

[Dongwon] One thing I just want to point out is as were talking about 40% of your income coming from different places and all that, remember, your day job can be one of your sources of income. Right? So the people, the clients that I work with who have widely diversified careers in terms of doing adult, middle grade, and graphic novels, and tie-in work and film and TV, those generally are the full-time writers. Right? Those are the ones who are only writing as their day-to-day job. If people… If you have a day job, it's much more feasible to focus on one thing at a time and really focus on just having your one main series because you have the financial security of that day job. Which is why my general advice is hang onto that job as long as you can stand it. Or until your… The authoring that you have to do in terms of emails and touring and things like that make having it no longer feasible to do so, right? But then you need to be planning and preparing for that transition by starting that diversification work as early as you can.

[Dan] Absolutely. Now, we are out of time. Though obviously we could talk about this for a long time.

 

[Dan] But we do have some homework for you, which is coming from Mary Robinette.

[Mary Robinette] One of the things that will happen to you when this happens, or in the early part of your career, is that the imposter syndrome is going to kick up. It's like you feel… You can feel a sense of despair, you can feel like blah. So here's a weird bit of advice, which is that I want you to write a letter to a role model. This role model does not have to be a living person. Explain to them all of the things that you're afraid of, and all of the problems that you're struggling with. Then, I want you to write a letter from them back to you with the advice that you think that they might give you. The reason I'm suggesting this is that a lot of times you, in fact, know the answer to the problem. But we are often kinder to someone else then we are to ourselves. So, by putting yourself in the shoes of someone else who has been through this, I think that it might be a way for you to access the part of your brain that knows how to handle this. You do. It's just terrifying.

[Dan] Sounds awesome. So. That's been our episode. You are out of excuses. Now go write.