0:30

Hi everyone , welcome to Writers with Wrinkles

0:33

, the podcast where we go deep

0:35

into writing and the publishing industry

0:37

to make your life easier . I'm Beth McMillan

0:39

. Today we're excited to offer

0:41

an encore of one of our favorite episodes

0:44

with literary agent and author Eric

0:46

Smith . During our conversation

0:48

, eric talked about why horror is

0:50

having a moment , what is selling in

0:52

young adult right now and how to get noticed

0:55

in a crowded field . We found

0:57

it incredibly enlightening and we hope

0:59

you do too . Happy New Year , friends

1:01

and listeners . And now on to the

1:03

episode . Hi

1:11

, friends , today we are thrilled to welcome

1:13

Eric Smith to the podcast . Eric

1:16

is a literary agent and young adult author

1:18

from Elizabeth , new Jersey . As

1:20

an agent with PS Literary , he

1:22

works on New York Times bestselling

1:24

and award-winning books . His recent

1:26

novels include the Yalsa Best Books

1:28

for Young Readers selection . Don't read the

1:30

comments from Inkyard Press 2020

1:33

. You can go your own way also

1:35

an Inkyard Press book from 21 and

1:38

the anthologies Battle of the Bands and

1:40

First Year Orientation , both co-edited

1:43

with award-winning author Lauren

1:45

Gabaldi . Last year , abrams

1:47

published his book Jagged Little Pill , the novel

1:50

, which was written in collaboration with Alanis

1:52

Morissette , academy Award winner Diablo

1:55

Cody and Glenn Ballard , and

1:57

is an adaption of the Grammy and Tony award-winning

1:59

musical . He lives in Philadelphia with

2:02

his wife and son and enjoys video games

2:04

, pop , punk and crying over every

2:06

movie . So thank you for joining

2:08

us , eric . We are so happy to have you here .

2:11

No , thank you for having me . This is great .

2:13

So what jumps out at me in your

2:16

fabulous bio is that you cry at

2:18

all the movies . You should know , I too

2:20

am a crier . I cry at everything . I cry at reels

2:23

, I cry at commercials , I cry at movies the

2:25

first note in a musical . When I'm there

2:27

, I start crying . I

2:30

don't know what it is . Why

2:32

are you such a crier ? I have a theory why I am

2:34

a crier . Why are you a crier ?

2:35

Oh , I don't know , I just get very emotionally

2:38

invested right away

2:40

. I think it's because I'm a Scorpio . That

2:42

is the way of our people . But

2:45

yeah , I'm the same way with musicals . I

2:47

remember seeing Dear Evan Hansen

2:49

for the first time , and when she launches

2:51

into does anybody have a map ? Just

2:54

right away , tears , I'm like why am I crying ? I

2:56

don't even know what the song is yet . What is happening

2:58

to me . So yeah , no

3:00

, I got it .

3:02

I actually cried at the recent

3:04

Indiana Jones movie , but that

3:06

was because it was terrible and I was sad

3:09

. That was different kind of crying

3:11

, but you know , just had to throw that out there

3:13

. I was looking at your website and

3:15

I saw you have a book coming in

3:17

November of 2023 , a

3:20

YA romcom about

3:22

a family food truck rivalry called with

3:24

or without you . Can you give us just

3:26

a little bit on that before we

3:28

jump into questions ?

3:30

Yeah , absolutely so . It's set in South

3:32

Philadelphia and involves two

3:34

rival families who have cheese steak trucks on opposite

3:37

corners of a fictional roundabout

3:40

in South Philly . But

3:43

the catch is that the rivalry isn't real

3:45

. It's been engineered by the

3:47

families to drive up business and bring

3:49

attention to them . And

3:51

the two teenagers who are caught up in the middle

3:53

of the fake rivalry have very real feelings

3:56

for each other that they have to hide

3:58

from the world . And then they have to

4:00

hide them even more because a

4:02

reality show decides to make a show about

4:05

the two food trucks . So

4:07

it is a book about fake hating instead

4:10

of fake dating . And what does that do

4:12

to a relationship when you have to pretend like you hate

4:14

each other all the time when really you're

4:17

madly in love ?

4:18

Oh , my God , I love that so much . So

4:20

what ? How did this idea with

4:22

the food trucks come up ? Because that's brilliant

4:24

.

4:25

Yeah , so I like trying to find

4:27

the drama in everything

4:30

.

4:30

So there's a Dollar Tree and a Dollar .

4:31

General , right next to each other , not

4:33

too far away from my house , and I think

4:35

about it all the time , like , oh , I bet they fight all the time

4:38

, I bet there's some , they go on paintball trips

4:40

or something , and of course that doesn't happen

4:42

. But like what if it does ? You

4:45

know what if ? And the cheesesteak

4:47

rivalry's in Philly are very real , right

4:49

? So , like I would always look at

4:51

those trucks and I'd always wonder what those battles

4:53

were and what was going on inside

4:56

. And then my wife is

4:58

wildly into reality television

5:00

. She watches a ton of reality TV and

5:02

over the course of like this pandemic

5:05

where we've been stuck inside , and you know

5:07

, 2020 , 2021 , I was just , I

5:09

was watching a ton of it with her . I was watching

5:11

98 Fiance and then married

5:13

at Versailles and all these shows , and

5:16

I don't know , I was like , you know , maybe

5:18

I need to write a YA novel about reality

5:20

television because this is what

5:22

I'm currently absorbing

5:25

the most of and

5:27

it just came about . You know , I feel like

5:29

all my books touch on something I'm

5:32

very passionate about or I'm consuming

5:34

a lot of , and

5:36

that was the kind of result , you know , my

5:38

love of drama and Philadelphia , mixed

5:41

with my wife's love of reality TV

5:43

. There we go .

5:45

That's like the perfect combination . My

5:47

husband and I we own a brewery here

5:50

in Folsom in California , where

5:52

I live , and I'm always dealing with food trucks

5:54

, and so I was like oh

5:56

, what is this ? Maybe this

5:58

will explain why they don't show up . So

6:04

they must be drama going on behind the scenes

6:06

that I'm not aware of . Well

6:09

, that sounds like a fabulous book , and when exactly

6:11

does that come out ?

6:12

Comes out November 7th .

6:14

Okay , and that's available for preorder now . Oh

6:17

yeah , good .

6:18

You can preorder that . So let's jump

6:21

into our questions

6:23

. We're just talking about your YA

6:25

romcom . This is kind of related to that . So

6:28

we have been hearing in all

6:30

the press and the news that the

6:32

YA market is a

6:34

pretty tough sell these days . So

6:37

what changes do you see happening in

6:39

the market and what

6:41

genre within YA

6:44

is positioned to

6:46

be breaking out or to kind

6:48

of be the star performer ? Is it

6:50

romcom , is it more fantasy ? What

6:53

are you seeing happening ?

6:54

That's a great question . I

6:57

guess my first entry point into that question is

6:59

that I don't know if I agree with some

7:01

of my colleagues saying that YA is

7:03

a hard sell these days . Like

7:06

if you subscribe to Publishers Marketplace , if

7:08

you're on the Publishers Weekly Children's

7:11

Bookshelf , you're seeing book deals happening

7:13

every single week . There

7:15

are tons of YA books still selling

7:17

pretty regularly . I think the trick

7:20

there , and that what maybe makes people

7:22

think it's a little bit harder , is that

7:24

it is something of an oversaturated market . There

7:26

are a ton of YA

7:28

novels coming out all the time . The

7:31

trick is making sure your stands out

7:33

amongst all of them . It's doing

7:35

something wildly different

7:37

while exploring the same tropes that

7:39

teenagers absolutely

7:42

adore , and that can be hard . That

7:44

can be hard to try to flip a trope on its head or

7:46

dig into something completely different

7:48

, and no matter how much you read

7:51

as a writer you can't

7:53

read everything , it's hard

7:55

to know whether or not you're doing something that's

7:57

similar to something that sold

7:59

that you haven't heard of yet . So

8:02

it's not hard , you just need to find a way to stick

8:04

out and have that . I guess there's a little

8:06

element of luck to it where

8:08

you write that thing that

8:10

no one has bought yet , that someone is desperately

8:12

looking for at the right time . There's this

8:15

publishing alchemy that happens , that you can't really

8:17

explain , but it's

8:20

there and it's real . In

8:22

terms of the stuff that I see breaking out

8:24

a little bit more , I

8:27

think the answer is horror in a really big

8:29

way . My filly accent is going

8:31

to be horror in a really big way

8:33

, because every editor

8:35

I know is looking for it , both in the adults , the

8:38

YA , the middle grade space readers

8:41

are really hungry for it . They're hungry for sort

8:43

of accessible horror novels

8:45

that aren't gigantic

8:47

tomes , that are a little bit shorter , that

8:49

aren't all gore and jump

8:52

scares but are a little more . I

8:55

like to think that the best kind of horror novels

8:57

do this thing , where they make

8:59

you think about the answers

9:01

to questions you don't want to ask in

9:03

the first place and then like

9:06

, oh , would I make it in that ? Probably not

9:08

, and that's what makes them so scary . Editors

9:10

are looking for more of that and I can say

9:12

right now , like in my agent life , I've sold

9:15

two horror novels recently and

9:17

then in the romcom space , which I still think

9:19

is a sort of a burgeoning market

9:21

in the YA space I've sold five

9:23

in the past couple of months . So people

9:26

are still looking for it . You have to stand out in

9:28

a big way if it's that contemporary stuff and

9:31

if you're writing horror , try to be accessible

9:33

and try not to be gory . Try

9:36

to make readers ask those questions . Make

9:38

them good and uncomfortable .

9:41

It's interesting that you have romcom

9:43

and horror happening at the same time

9:45

, because they're just really on such opposite

9:48

ends of the continuum of

9:50

the types of stories that are being

9:52

told . It's almost like , ok , I'm going to read a

9:54

horror and then that was a lot . Now I'm going

9:57

to go to the romcom so that I can take a deep breath and then

9:59

I'll go back . It's just funny that those two are kind

10:01

of rising at the same time

10:03

.

10:03

Yeah , yeah , and it's

10:05

also the result of me and my agent life I

10:08

represent a little bit of everything . I read a

10:11

little bit of everything . I'm looking at my bookshelf

10:13

and the stuff I have coming out in the next couple of

10:15

months and one book is a sober

10:18

dating book . It's nonfiction . It's

10:20

called Dry Humping . It's the best title .

10:23

I saw that on your site . Oh

10:26

, my goodness , I love that title . I

10:28

wonder if the author thought of the title

10:30

first and then was like now I got to figure

10:32

out a story , Maybe .

10:34

Maybe , but the author has

10:37

a podcast all about sober dating . It's

10:39

a big part of her life . I wouldn't be surprised

10:41

if she had that title kicking around for a while .

10:43

And who's the author on that one ?

10:45

Oh , her name's Tawny Lara . So yeah , I work on

10:47

nonfiction books like that , I work on memoir

10:49

and then at the same time I'm working on quirky

10:52

romcoms and uncomfortable horror

10:54

novels . That's the fun thing about

10:56

being an agent you can fiddle around in all your interests

10:58

.

10:58

Were you an agent or an author

11:01

first ?

11:03

Definitely author first . So my first book came out

11:05

in 2013

11:09

. Oh my God , it's 10 years old

11:11

this year . Oh Jesus

11:13

, ah , ah . And

11:15

then I became an agent in 2015

11:17

. But I've been working for publishing for

11:20

six years . Before I

11:22

became an agent , I worked at a publishing house .

11:24

Who'd you work for ?

11:25

I worked at .

11:25

Quirk , oh , okay , yeah

11:27

, so it's a published book and now you're old , so you have books

11:29

with them as well , right ?

11:30

Yeah , yeah . So my first book came out with them . It

11:32

was called the Geeks Guy , good Dating . And

11:35

then in my agent life I have a whole bundle of

11:37

books with them a couple of middle grade nonfiction

11:39

books that that dry humping book I brought up is with

11:41

them , and an unannounced book

11:43

I will get to talk about in a couple of weeks

11:46

.

11:46

Oh fine , very cool . Well , so let's

11:48

kind of switch gears to the agent aspect , because

11:51

this is something and you see people posting

11:53

on Twitter , especially after they've

11:56

maybe been had

11:58

their book requested because it matched

12:00

a Twitter pitch or something . Oh no , so

12:02

a lot of times , authors have the experience of being

12:05

told and agent love their

12:07

story , their writing is fabulous

12:09

and yet they're still turned down , which

12:11

is just devastating to us

12:13

poor writers . What's the decision making

12:15

process for you when you're thinking

12:18

and considering taking on a new

12:20

client and you've received their work

12:22

and maybe you're like oh my god , I love this , but

12:25

for whatever reason , you're like mm , I'm

12:27

going to have to pass .

12:29

Yeah , I mean that one specific bit where

12:31

it's like something you really love

12:33

, but you know you won't be able to sell

12:35

it that's happened a couple of times and

12:38

I've actually ended up signing those authors for later

12:40

projects , because when an agent tells

12:42

you or an editor tells you , like , send me

12:44

the next thing , I love your writing .

12:46

They're not lying .

12:47

That's true , we do want to see your next

12:49

thing , and then I've gone on to sign those people

12:51

. But the thing that makes me end

12:54

up passing on something that I really like

12:56

, usually it comes down to

12:58

me not knowing how to sell it . Maybe

13:02

it's doing something very

13:04

different with the genre and I'm not sure who

13:06

the editor might be for it . Maybe

13:08

there's something structurally wrong with it that

13:10

I know it is the writer's vision

13:13

to do this unique and clever

13:15

thing , but I wouldn't know how to sell

13:17

it . Based on how it's been put together

13:19

, it's usually more about me than

13:21

it is about the writing project . It's like

13:23

I don't know who the editor is that would buy it

13:25

. I don't know who . I don't know how to

13:27

change something without compromising

13:30

that writer's vision for the project

13:32

. Or had

13:34

this happen where it's something that

13:36

I really like and I finally set down

13:38

to read it ? And then I hop on Publisher's

13:40

Marketplace and I see someone has bought that exact

13:42

thing , like maybe it's a cocktail

13:45

book or something in nonfiction that

13:47

I know someone's not going to buy another one ? That

13:50

usually tends to be what it is .

13:52

So it's a you , not me thing yeah

13:55

.

13:55

Yeah , I would say so .

13:57

That's a YA novel in itself , right

13:59

there . Yeah , it's

14:02

hard , but I think that's

14:04

a good answer because I think a lot of times

14:07

when writers see that

14:09

, it's disappointing , but

14:12

knowing that when you say some of

14:14

your next thing and you mean it and

14:16

I can imagine , like you said , you've signed other

14:18

people have you ever passed on something

14:20

that you've seen gone on and done really

14:23

well with somebody else ?

14:24

Yes , I will never name them due to embarrassment

14:27

, but when my

14:29

wife and I go in like a Barnes Noble , she basically

14:31

has to watch me go like just like grown

14:33

to myself and I like walk by and be

14:35

like , oh , there's that book

14:37

that I said no to , that maybe

14:40

could have been off our mortgage . You know , like that's

14:42

the stuff that yeah , oh boy

14:44

. It always hurts a little bit . But also sometimes

14:47

when I see that , I'm reminded

14:49

of that weird publishing alchemy that takes

14:51

place , where , like I see

14:54

the editor that bought that book or see the publishing

14:56

house that took on that book and I'm like , oh , I

14:58

would have never sent it to that place

15:00

, like I don't know if I would have done

15:02

that . Or I look at the edits that are inside

15:04

, I'm like oh this isn't what I would have done here , so

15:07

maybe that book never would have been published . You know , that's

15:09

very , very visible .

15:11

Yeah , that's an interesting point

15:13

of view . I also feel

15:15

like it's good to remind

15:17

authors that if

15:19

your end goal is to publish

15:22

your book with a traditional

15:24

publishing house , you do have to keep in

15:26

mind the marketability

15:28

and where it goes on the shelf . Because

15:30

I get that you might want to do

15:32

something really outside the

15:35

lines , but then you

15:37

have to really have some driving

15:40

strategy behind getting

15:42

it published , Because publishing

15:45

really does want to put you in a box and that's

15:47

how they work . You know you need to fit in this space

15:49

on the shelf , Otherwise we don't know how to sell you

15:51

. So it's a good reminder

15:53

Because I know sometimes when you're writing you're just

15:55

feeling like this is my passion and this is my emotion

15:58

and this is everything . I'm jumping into this

16:00

manuscript . But if you really do want to sell it

16:02

at the end of the day you have to keep that in the back of

16:04

your head , which is not always that

16:06

fun , but there is reality

16:08

.

16:09

And also just knowing the rules helps you

16:11

break them later . Right Like there are

16:13

certain books that break the

16:15

rules of the different categories that

16:17

they're in . But if you're writing

16:19

it in a way that makes you fit , then

16:22

there's a place for it .

16:23

Good to keep in mind . So when

16:25

you are and I am sure you

16:27

get inundated with submissions

16:30

because we hear that from agents all the time

16:32

that they are just their inboxes

16:34

are overflowing . So when you're combing

16:36

through all of this stuff , what

16:38

? Even a recent example of something

16:40

that made you go oh , this is

16:43

brilliant , I love this . Your eyes

16:45

light up , your heart sings . This is why I'm in

16:47

the business . Can you recount

16:50

for us a moment like that recently , where

16:52

you felt that like spark for

16:54

something , and does it happen often

16:56

?

16:56

Trying to look at some book examples that might help .

17:00

Again , the beautiful bookshelves that nobody

17:02

can see .

17:04

I mean , it does happen often right . And

17:06

it's this hard to explain

17:08

thing where , like if it's the query letter that

17:10

grabs me and I feel like I need to read

17:12

it , it's because it does some very specific things

17:14

very well , like it . It lets me know what the stakes

17:17

are . It lets me know who the character is . It

17:19

lets me know why I should care about what's going

17:21

on with the character . And it hits all the

17:23

right sort of industry notes where it's like , oh , the

17:25

word counts good , all the comp titles are good

17:27

. Like it sounds like a story I want

17:29

to read and something that I could

17:31

see a home for . And when it comes to the

17:34

actual pages and like I dive in and

17:36

it's the first I'm reading , like the first

17:38

, like three chapters , usually I'm looking for

17:40

voice , right , that sort of undefinable

17:42

thing that you develop as a result

17:44

of all the reading and writing you've been doing your whole

17:46

life . It's that thing that no one can

17:48

really teach you . You know , sort of sort of in

17:50

that space there I look for . You

17:52

know I do look for pace and

17:55

I look for , I look for character . I

17:57

want to make sure I care about the character and I get a

17:59

sense of what the stakes are early

18:01

on Like those things will grab me right away

18:03

. But I guess the thing that makes me get wide

18:05

eyed and say like I need to have it is just like if

18:08

I end up reading the book like a reader

18:10

and I just sit there and I'm like , oh my

18:12

God , this is good and I put it on . I put it on my very

18:14

tiny Kindle that makes my hands look enormous

18:17

, and I sit down and I

18:19

read the whole thing in like one

18:21

go . That that's it . That's the

18:23

kind of book I want to work on . I

18:25

think there are two really fun

18:27

examples I can bring up . I

18:30

work with this one writer , allison Stein , and

18:33

I don't resign to her at this point , but

18:35

we were kicking around ideas for her second

18:37

book . I'll never get the opening

18:39

chapter she sent me because the opening

18:42

pages of this book had

18:44

this woman walking into

18:46

the mouth of a dead whale on the beach

18:48

to collect the plastic out of

18:50

its stomach , because in this

18:52

world plastic is currency for people

18:55

and she knows she can use it to

18:57

trade in her town . And

18:59

that's how . That's the first 10 pages that this woman

19:01

walking into the whale . And that book got

19:03

nominated for lots of awards . It's called Trashlands

19:05

. I love that book , I'm very proud of it . And then there's

19:07

a . There's a writer named Neeta Tyndall , and

19:10

when they sent me their first book , who

19:13

I Was With Her , the opening chapter

19:15

. It said something about

19:17

the main character and how they can't

19:19

stop running . And it was just this very evocative

19:22

opening page about

19:24

this , this girl who can't stop running

19:26

, and she's running track . You find out

19:28

at the stories going on . But over

19:31

the course of the first chapter you realize that she's running

19:33

from a lot of things . She's running from , like , her complicated

19:35

family . She's like running from herself

19:37

because she's wrestling with her sexuality

19:40

, is not to talk about it with people . She

19:42

has a secret girlfriend that she doesn't know how to talk to

19:44

but can't tell anyone about . So

19:46

she's , she's running from a lot of things and

19:48

it introduces this really beautiful

19:51

image and see how it plays throughout

19:53

the entire chapter and by the end of the chapter

19:55

, you , you know what the book is about . You

19:57

know , and I just , I remember gasping reading that

19:59

chapter . So good , yeah , no , those are some . Those are some

20:01

good examples , like just grabbing me right out

20:03

of the gate . But , like I know , I

20:06

know there's a lot of advice out there floating on the

20:08

Internet about how your opening

20:10

10 pages or your opening chapter has

20:12

to hit you with the stakes and the action and

20:14

the inciting incident right away . All

20:17

that stuff I just talked about no

20:19

stakes , no inciting incidents , no

20:21

action right away . It's all character

20:23

stuff . So so please remember , like

20:25

whoever that was on tiktok

20:27

that told you like Action

20:29

needs to happen right away in your book , it

20:32

doesn't just read any book in

20:34

the history of ever , that is . That is

20:36

not .

20:38

That is a really good reminder about

20:40

how important character is , because

20:42

, oh yeah , it makes you vested . If

20:44

you don't care about the character , you're never gonna care

20:46

what happens to them . And exactly

20:49

that little , that spark , that that

20:51

alchemy that you talked about , feels so

20:54

much like the character , the voice , the

20:56

, you know , the thing that you should be

20:58

working on harder than anything else

21:00

. I have a friend who I've been , you

21:02

know , helping him . He's a very well-known screenwriter

21:05

. He wanted to write a novel and so I've been kind

21:07

of just helping him do that and

21:09

I said you know , you're gonna finish

21:12

the novel , you're gonna come back to

21:14

the beginning and then you're gonna have to rewrite

21:16

the beginning because you figure out the voice . He

21:18

figured out the voice about halfway through the book

21:20

. Then he had the voice and I said

21:22

now you got to go back to the beginning , rewrite

21:25

it , because you've got your arms around the voice and

21:27

it needs to show up in the beginning . But

21:29

it's such an interesting , it's just fascinating

21:32

. So that's really good , I think , for people to hear and

21:34

to keep in their head as they're working More

21:37

character , less like worrying about

21:39

the inciting incident and all these other things

21:41

you listen to listen .

21:43

That advice makes me so angry because , like

21:45

you read , you read any book , like

21:47

some book . Sure , they have the inciting incident in the

21:49

beginning , that's fine . But like If

21:52

, if your book opens up with two characters

21:54

and like a sword fight or something , I don't care . Like

21:57

I don't know this person like why do I care if they

21:59

lose this sword fight ? You know like I need to know why

22:01

it's , why I should care , why it's

22:03

important .

22:04

I've done reading for some literary

22:06

words in the past that I am not allowed

22:08

to name , but I get 150

22:11

books and I read the first 15

22:14

pages and if I can't tell you who

22:17

the character is and why I should care , I'm

22:19

done . It's just . I mean , it's

22:21

the same thing . It's just , you have this brief

22:23

moment to capture the attention of your

22:25

reader and if you don't do it , you're

22:28

finished .

22:29

It's a good springboard to move on to

22:31

the final question , which always , of course

22:33

, leads to more questions . So , taking

22:37

into consideration everything we've just talked about

22:39

An aspiring author like

22:41

who is writing from the heart They've got

22:43

this . You know , everyone said this is my

22:45

heart story , this is my . You know

22:47

, this is what made me want to be a writer . And

22:50

then balancing that with writing for market

22:52

, how do you , how would you

22:54

tell aspiring writers to approach

22:56

that ? Because it's like conundrum for them , because they

22:58

want to Write the story , because it's something that's

23:00

so meaningful to them , but

23:03

, on the other hand , it might not be something

23:06

that can be Sold , as

23:08

you've mentioned earlier , like any

23:11

advice for new writers .

23:13

So I'm a big proponent of the write the

23:15

book of your heart sort of thing . Everyone

23:18

should do it . That's what you should be writing the book

23:20

that you care about , not writing

23:23

the book that you think is gonna sell , and then

23:25

and all of that , like it's , we all

23:27

want to sell a book , we all want to be published , but , like

23:29

I feel like sometimes you can tell when

23:31

it's like a book someone's writing just to

23:33

like get that deal Right , right

23:35

, the book that you care about , the book that you're passionate about , and when

23:38

it comes to the market , pay attention

23:41

to it and don't pay attention to it at the same

23:43

time . It's sort of the advice I like to give

23:45

there pay attention to it in terms of , like , what

23:47

you see on the bookshelves , right , like , oh , like word

23:50

counts for this category that I'm writing and tend to

23:52

be about this long , oh , people are writing a lot

23:54

about X and Y , like see

23:56

what voice is like in that specific category

23:58

that you're writing . If you suddenly see Something

24:01

is trending right now and it's in the bookstores everywhere

24:04

, like there are piles of mermaid

24:06

books out or something right , like that probably

24:08

means the trend is is maybe waning

24:11

out and maybe a little bit over , but

24:13

that doesn't mean they're not gonna want more of them

24:15

eventually . Right , so still write that book

24:17

, still write that mermaid book , because

24:19

it trends always come back around , like right now

24:21

we're having this , this big like

24:24

sort of vampire Reemergence

24:26

in literature . And she

24:28

said that to somebody you know four years

24:31

ago and seven , five years ago They'd be like , oh , vampires

24:33

are dead , no one wants vampires . You

24:35

have to ignore that kind of stuff . Right , the book you care about

24:38

, you know the book . I think like the first

24:40

book that I wrote that was like in my

24:42

author life , that was like very book

24:44

of my heart , was this book called the girl on the

24:46

Grove that came out with flux , who's

24:48

like a small sort of sort of indie

24:51

YA pressed , and

24:53

I've done a couple of books with them in my agent life since

24:55

then but no

24:57

one wanted that book . Like nobody

24:59

wanted this book . It was like a YA contemporary

25:01

that abruptly shifted

25:03

into a fantasy novel Like halfway

25:06

through the novel about this , like adopted girl

25:08

who discovers her birth mother is a dry-ed

25:11

tree spirit in this park that's about

25:13

to be ripped down . I Sort of called

25:15

it like inner city Fern Gully was was the pitch

25:17

for it , which was probably a bad pitch because

25:19

, like , kids don't know what Fern Gully is right now . But

25:21

no one really wanted that book and I had

25:24

to wait till someone took a chance on it and

25:26

all the edits that I got back from editors and all the

25:28

messages I got were like Take

25:30

the magic out , don't do this , don't do that , don't do this . But

25:33

this was how I wanted it to play

25:35

out , so I just I have to be patient and

25:37

find the right person . So , yeah

25:39

, don't give up on the book of your heart , so someone will want it

25:41

.

25:41

It's so funny because I am with Jolly

25:43

fish for my middle grade my

25:46

first one and so it's . They

25:48

are that kind of small indie press that

25:50

they do take chances .

25:52

They will take the weird stuff you know . In

25:54

my agent life I worked on this book called surrender

25:56

your sons by Adam sass , and

25:59

Flux put that one out . It won

26:01

tons of awards . It did super

26:03

well . No one wanted it when we pitched it

26:05

to publishers and then Adam's

26:08

Follow-up book sold

26:10

in like a six-figure book deal Somewhere

26:13

else you know , and he's having this amazing career

26:15

now . They really helped help

26:17

take him off , so I'm always gonna be great .

26:19

So what is on the top of your

26:21

and wish list right now ? Is there anything

26:24

, excuse me , that you're looking for , that

26:26

you're kind of putting out into the

26:28

world and to the universe that you would like to

26:30

see in your inbox ?

26:32

You have some very specific requests

26:34

, like I really want more Memoir

26:37

and nonfiction and and

26:39

fiction about the adoptee

26:42

experience from adopted people . There

26:44

are plenty of books out there about adopted kids by

26:46

folks who aren't adopted and they're fine , but a lot

26:48

of them get stuff wrong and I I'd like to

26:50

See some better representation

26:52

in that space . And Then

26:54

I want more high concept rom-coms

26:56

, which is something you're probably hearing agents

26:59

and editors say a lot of the adult

27:01

and why a rom-com market is there . There's

27:03

a lot of them . So now the trick is figure

27:05

out how to stand out . You know , I think

27:07

a perfect example of that are

27:09

writers like Ashley Poston

27:12

and Lana Harper , who

27:14

are doing like stuff with magic and time

27:16

travel and things like that . Give me

27:18

stuff like that . And yeah , definitely

27:20

more kid lit nonfiction . I love middle

27:22

grade nonfiction . I love . Why a nonfiction ? There's

27:25

a lot of stuff out there that's not being taught in schools

27:27

and should be , so it's fun to

27:29

find that stuff .

27:31

That's a great list . I encourage

27:33

people to go and take a look at your website

27:35

because it you have a lot of

27:37

really good information , and I

27:39

love that you have examples

27:42

of query letters

27:44

. When you're first starting to

27:46

query . That is the big mystery

27:48

for so many writers that just to

27:50

have no idea how to write that letter

27:52

, how to format it . And I remember when

27:54

I was starting to query I would always go out and

27:57

look you know sample query letters and try to

27:59

figure out what was the magic and

28:01

seeing ones that have been successful , that

28:03

obviously grabbed your attention . I think it's a

28:05

wonderful resource and you just you have

28:07

so much really good content

28:09

on there for writers to go

28:12

check out and also get a list of all your

28:14

books .

28:15

Yes , and there's . There's also for my nonfiction

28:17

friends . You might be listening . There's a nonfiction

28:20

book proposals on there that you can download

28:22

and you yourself .

28:24

Yeah , that's great , good , good . Everybody

28:26

. Go and look at the website . We'll put

28:28

the link in the podcast notes so

28:30

you can easily find it . So

28:33

, eric , thank you so much for being here

28:35

. This has been super informative

28:37

. I know our listeners really , really love

28:40

hearing from agents and the fact that you're

28:42

also an author . You bring Kind

28:44

of that little extra bit of knowledge that I think

28:46

is really helpful for aspiring

28:48

writers , writers that are in the trenches Querying

28:50

all of those things . So thank you so much

28:52

for sharing your time with us . We really appreciate

28:55

it . My pleasure anytime . And

28:57

thank you , listeners , for tuning in . Please

28:59

follow and review our podcast and recommend

29:01

it to a friend , and we will see you again next

29:03

week , july 31st , with the new books

29:05

on Botox episodes . So be sure to join

29:08

us for that , and until then , happy

29:10

reading , writing and listening

29:12

.