150+ Episodes of Publishing Advice, Now in One Book

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Beth McMullen: Hi friends, I'm Beth McMullen

lisa: And I'm Lisa Schmidt

Beth McMullen: And we're the co-hosts of Writers With Wrinkles. This is season five, episode 28, and today we have two really big things to talk about with everybody. Really big, very exciting

lisa: well, we have been talking about and hinting about this project for a long time, and we finally are ready to announce. And if you follow us on socials, you saw the cover reveal for our new book, Write, Revise, Publish: Essential Lessons from the Writers with Sprinkles podcast. Da-da-da-da.

Beth McMullen: Okay, there are t- a couple of amazing things. The first is that it took us five times to get that take right, which I, I... If we had bloopers reels, that would be a whole one of itself. Embarrassing. The second is that I'm so excited for this. I'm, like, beside myself excited for this. I freaking love this book

lisa: Yeah, it's been it's been about a year ago that we started working on these projects this [00:01:00] specifically. And we're just now finishing it up and putting a little bow on it and throwing it out to the world. And just an FYI, we had it up for an hour, and we already got our first scam email

Beth McMullen: Look at those little AIs are out there working so hard. Little AIs. Aw, it's nice to be recognized 'cause if you put it out and nobody tried to scam you, would you even really exist in today's publishing world? I don't think so. I don't think so. That is so funny, but n- also not surprising. The little AIs never sleep, and they don't eat, and they don't take breaks.

So yeah, this book-- So I think quickly just to sum up how it came to be in existence is we have had... we're gonna be wrapping up our fifth season of the show very soon. And we have talked to some of the most remarkable, [00:02:00] brilliant, thoughtful, forward-thinking people on this show, and we realized that we were sitting on a ton of really valuable information that it's hard to access it in podcast form, right?

You listen to a podcast, and this happens to me all the time, you listen to a podcast and you think, "Oh, that is a really good idea. I'd like to use that in my life, in my writing, in whatever," and then you forget because it's not-- it's hard to hold onto it, right? Because it is something that you're listening to, and you're not writing it down, and then it's gone.

And sure, you can go find the transcript later, but how many people really ever do that? Not many. So we thought we should collect all of this wisdom and put it in book form, so you can just have it, right? It can sit beside you on your desk while you're working through the process of writing, revising, and publishing

lisa: Yeah. There is a lot of good information, and it was, as we were going through this, I remember [00:03:00] just even when we were wrapping it up, we had a guest on that dropped some really good intel, and I went back and it in there. Because it just, every time you talk to somebody, you get a little nugget of information that's amazing, and it's helped me be a better writer. It's helped me learn about the industry and why things do and don't happen in the background. Not always great news, but always

Beth McMullen: Right.

lisa: Always

important 

Beth McMullen: I think that's what's different about this book from the many craft books that are out there on the market, is that we wanted to pull back the curtain a little on the publishing part of it, because so many people, they go through the hard labor of writing it, they go through the harder labor, in my humble opinion, of revising it, 'cause we all know I hate revising, and then they get to publishing, and it just feels so opaque.

You don't know what you're supposed to do, and you start from that sense of feeling like everybody knows something that you [00:04:00] don't. And we wanted, to the extent that we could, pull back the curtain a little and clear up some of that so you're at least starting from a position of feeling like you're not already behind.

And,

lisa: Yeah

Beth McMullen: it's something that I wish I had when I started out, because I just didn't ... Sometimes you don't even know what you don't know. You don't even know what questions to ask because you don't know the industry, and, we have been marinating in this industry for a long time now, that, it gives us a good perspective, our own perspective, also the perspectives of our guests that we've absorbed into this book.

And yeah, I think it ... I hope it just sits there and radiates confidence out to you while you're trying to write your novel or nonfiction or whatever it is that you're working on.

lisa: And the nice thing is it's wherever you're at in your process, whether it's just beginning or you're now, like, looking to publish or querying or whatever the case may be, there's a spot for you in that book. [00:05:00] And so we've really covered it from, that first draft to getting published. And we've talked about both traditional publishing and self-publishing.

So it- something for everyone. I wish I had something like this in the beginning. I was a hot mess, and I talk I share a lot of my missteps, and there were a few. And I look back and I just think, "Oh my God," "If

Beth McMullen: Yeah. I feel like, too, there's that, that sense of self-doubt that creeps in so often in, in writing in the entire sort of cradle to grave experience of writing to publishing, and it can be really undermining. It can really slow you down and make you tentative and make you second-guess, and all of that takes a huge amount of energy, and we just don't want you spending energy on that stuff.

Spend your energy on productive things like the actual book, and thinking through decisions, and not so much [00:06:00] thinking, "Oh, I don't know what I'm doing. I'm gonna make a misstep. I'm, blahdy blah," all those things that undermine our forward momentum. So hopefully this will help prevent some of that in people who are seasoned and also people who are just starting out, everybody.

Everybody has that feeling of, "Am I doing this right?" at one time or another

lisa: I ask that question every day

Beth McMullen: Yeah, I was just gonna say, I just asked myself that question this morning. What am I doing? Why am I here?

Another thing that I really love about the way that we organized this book is that a lot of you only know us through hearing us talk on this podcast, and I wanted our voices to come through on the page. But it's not written from my point of view or Elise's point of view.

So what we ended up doing was putting little asides in there in our actual voices so that we could [00:07:00] continue to talk to you even on the page, which I kinda think is brilliant. I don't know. I like it

lisa: No, it was fun. It was fun. I I realized that there was a theme of mine in all my asides, and it was like what a walking little nightmare of publishing missteps I am. So I hope it gives people comfort in knowing, like, all this just ridiculously bad decisions and things I did along the way. And the thing about me is I don't... I didn't know enough to know how bad I was doing at different

Beth McMullen: that's what I was saying. We don't know what we don't know, right?

lisa: know what my missteps were. Some of them were very blatant. But there was times I was like, "Yeah, this seems like the right thing to do." It wasn't.

Beth McMullen: That is what we're trying to save people from having to go through. So [00:08:00] learning from the mistakes of the people who came before you, people who have deeper experiencing in editing or agenting or whatever genre you're writing in, gathering that wisdom together and presenting it as, "Okay, keep this in mind as you go along," it hopefully will save you that time, right?

So you can, again, use that time for something better than being like, "Oh, damn, I did that thing, and I wish I hadn't done that thing, and now I need to spend additional energy undoing that thing that I shouldn't have done."

lisa: Yeah. I see so many times on publishing threads that people are at g- where I was 10 years ago. Tr- just trying to figure out, like, where am I supposed to go to find an agent? What am I supposed to do next? Y- there's no ... If you're, if you haven't been in publishing, you have no concept how anything works. And then you just stumble through it hoping that [00:09:00] you find your way. That was my approach. I just was "Oh, I'll go here and see if I can figure out part of it," like a piece here, and then I went here and figured out a piece here. And it was ... It made the process much longer for me because I just was stumbling around trying to find out what to do.

And the thing I like about this book and the way it's organized is that people don't have to wonder anymore. There, there's no questions. If you have a question, I bet we have an answer for it because we've lived it, we've walked through it. We've,

Beth McMullen: Yeah, 100%. 100%

lisa: we've interviewed dozens and dozens of people.

And that's, that all made its way into the book

Beth McMullen: We have had, as of season five, and this is a kind of an old stat now, so there's a few more. We've had something like 150 plus episodes over the lifetime of this podcast, so [00:10:00] we have talked to so many people. And everybody brings their own opinions and thoughts and methods of doing things. So you're not getting...

Y- you're getting the, that whole universe of information rather than just one perspective. All of these chapters are informed by many conversations with many people. So again, like a roadmap to keep you from getting lost on this journey, and it is a journey. We overuse that word, I feel in conversations these days, but this does feel like a journey, sometimes an epic journey.

Sometimes like Odysseus level epic journey. So hopefully this can act as your roadmap

lisa: Well, and the other thing I just thought about is how many times as a writer have you been asked "What should I do next? I'm writing a book," or I'm this or that, and you're just like, "Oh my God, now I have to figure out where to point them and what..." Like, all you have to do now is if somebody [00:11:00] asks you that question and inside you're mentally screaming just point them to this book.

Just say,

Beth McMullen: Seriously?

lisa: Here you go." I can't tell you, in the beginning days, like, when I was first starting, somebody would say, "Oh, I've got so and and I was constantly meeting people and trying to help them through the publishing pro- constantly. And then I just reached a point where I'm like, "Oh my gosh, I can't do this anymore."

And and then people would tag me on social media and say, "Ask Lisa. She's published." And I'm like, "I don't know this

Beth McMullen: It is a lot, right? Because you've got limited time to spend on all this stuff, and I feel like writers by and large want to help. They're incredibly open. They're not the kind of people who pull up the ladder once they got theirs. But it does take time, so e- especially if you feel like you're answering the same questions over and over again yeah, it's a great resource for that because it does lay out that, especially the publishing section, like what happens?

I have this manuscript. I've [00:12:00] revised it. I think it's wonderful. I know it's gonna be a bestseller. What do I do? So we really get into the nuts and bolts of that so that you have an education before you actually s- take your first step down that path

lisa: And I wanna tell everyone, please feel free to highlight and write notes in it. I know some people are like, "No," this

Beth McMullen: Oh yeah,

lisa: can do

Beth McMullen: is the book. Yeah

lisa: it, write on it

Beth McMullen: And every chapter has a... Yeah. Yes. Every chapter has a worksheet at the end that kind of helps you organize the things that were talked about so that you can use it in a practical way. I think on this show we are always after practical knowledge, things that you can put into play immediately in your professional writing life.

So we wanted to make this book work for you that way. And simple exercises, of course, not gonna be mandatory. If you hate doing worksheets, then you skip right over them, and who cares? If you [00:13:00] love doing worksheets, you can do the same one 100 times if you want. But just to help you organize in your head what the chapter means in your universe very specifically to you, rather than just general info

lisa: Yeah. Yeah. It's I'm very proud of it. And there was times when you had written something that I was like, "Yeah, I don't do that. I should probably be doing that."

Beth McMullen: Oh, for God's sakes. There's times when I've written stuff that I don't do that I'm like, "I can't believe I'm saying this. I should really do it. Why am I..." Yes, I know. It's ridiculous. And especially yeah, it, there's a lot of things in there that were nice reminders to me to do the things that I know I should do but I don't always do, and sometimes you just need to be told again

lisa: See, I have been very lucky in publishing in that I met you almost right away, and you were already a seasoned professional. And so I've had you like on

Beth McMullen: I was

lisa: since

Beth McMullen: already rotten. I'd been on the vine [00:14:00] for too long. I was rotten.

lisa: you were already seasoned and marinating.

Beth McMullen: Oof

lisa: so by the time I got to you already... I would just call you and say, "This is happening.

What do I do?" I still do it now. If something's

Beth McMullen: What she's trying to say is that I have a lot of opinions

lisa: She does have a lot of opinions. A lot. A lot.

Beth McMullen: A lot of opinions.

Not only on publishing. I am happy to offer my opinions on a whole range of subjects.

lisa: I know. There's sometimes I'm like, "Settle down." Like

Beth McMullen: Oh, yeah, no, that's never... It's like telling me to calm down. Not a good plan of attack if you want me to be quiet

lisa: No, but not every... My point is not everyone has a Beth McMullen in their corner. Do you know what I mean? I just I am lucky in that sense that you've helped me from some missteps. You know what I mean? And you've talked me out of some. So I think that it's good to have something like this, and I was thinking about that the whole time we were working on [00:15:00] this, that,

Beth McMullen: Yeah. And we do touch on how important building out your actual community is. 

lisa: Угу. 

Beth McMullen: just people that you ... knowing people virtually is wonderful. Joining virtual resources is wonderful. Interacting with people. It's also nice to have people that you can just call on the phone and talk to or even just see physically in person.

So sort of people from your neck of the woods who are writers, and there are writers everywhere. We're like, we're in all the nooks and crannies. Can't spit without hitting a writer. So it's good to have all those things that they play a really important part of the whole write, revise, publish process

lisa: They do. And so the other thing that we wanted to mention this is the first ever, we are starting a new segment, and it's called Confetti Club, and we're very excited about this. One of the things that's evolved over the last, two or three years is that we discovered our listeners really like to hear more from editors [00:16:00] and agents. They still like to hear from writers, but it's really the editors and agents that everyone... That's who everyone wants to hear from. That's who I wanna hear from. I'm asking questions when an editor is on or an agent's on that I wanna know, or that I know other people wanna know. So it's eliminated having that space for writers.

But we still wanna celebrate people's books and support our writing community, so we have started this segment called the Confetti Club, where we'll be inviting people to come on and pitch their new book. It's, there's no real questions. It's just us having an author come on and celebrate their new book and telling us about it, which I'm so excited because we just, that's been a missing component for the podcast for a while, is not having writers on as much as we used to.

Beth McMullen: Yeah, I'm excited for it too, because we have a bunch of good ones lined up already. And these will be books that either have just come out in the last couple of weeks, or are due to come out in the next couple of weeks. So they're gonna [00:17:00] be new. I love the idea of asking writers to pitch the book to a potential audience.

I love talking about books. But it's true, our feedback from all of you has been, "We want industry dirt. We want industry details. We are less interested in hearing about people's publishing journeys."

There I'm using that word again. It's overused. Don't love it. But so this will be less about the author's journey and more about the author's book. Like,

lisa: Yes

Beth McMullen: why should I read this book? What is it about? Who's in it? Whatever they can tell us. These are gonna be short segments, 20, 25 minutes at the most.

They're not gonna take regular episode slots, so you will just see them show up. So it is in addition to our regular scheduled episodes

lisa: And we've got the first three that I've lined up are all very different. One is an indie published series that I've been talking about, Going Ghost. It's a, [00:18:00] that's the cozy paranormal mysteries that I have been loving on. And so she has a new book coming out, so she's gonna be with us next week. We have Sam Sebedy, who's got a middle grade coming out. We're gonna be talking to him. And then there's another there's actually an editor of a book that's coming on that we just found that's a nonfiction book. So it's just, it's gonna be a wide range of everything, whether it's picture book or adult fiction or memoir.

If it's out within 30 days, we wanna celebrate you and we wanna have you on the show.

Beth McMullen: Yes. So this has been a 25-minute episode with huge announcements, right? Come on. We've had a lot of news. I'm exhausted.

lisa: I know it's just getting started. You need to

go, 

Beth McMullen: I know. I need to hydrate. I need to hydrate.

lisa: stuff coming.

Beth McMullen: We do, actually, there are three announcements, but one is gonna have to wait a little bit [00:19:00] longer

lisa: have one more announcement, and that will come next month. Early

Beth McMullen: And that, that one is actually the one that I'm most, I think I'm most excited for.

lisa: Oh my gosh. That

Beth McMullen: I think. I don't know

lisa: it's a whole lot of crazy is what it is. That is,

Beth McMullen: This

lisa: you guys,

Beth McMullen: when you leave, if you leave me and Lisa alone together for too long. We hatch stuff, crazy stuff

lisa: And you know what? Okay, I have to say that we've hatched a lot of stuff over the last five, six years. Some of it we've done, of them we haven't. I've been like, "Oh, I'm doing that," and then I hang up from the podcast and never think about it again. But this one I don't even, I don't even remember how it came about. But I think we just decided it in a heartbeat, like when we were having a conversation one

Beth McMullen: We're gonna talk about it, and I remember how it came about

lisa: I don't. Like,

Beth McMullen: I do. I remember.

lisa: we're doing."

Beth McMullen: I have an origin story.

lisa: Oh

Beth McMullen: love origin [00:20:00] stories. Everybody knows that. I love the first in a series, the first in a movie, first origin stories, those are my thing. So I do remember, and we are gonna get into that in that

lisa: I vaguely remember the conversation, but I think it was more about you telling me what I was gonna do. I'm like,

Beth McMullen: Wait, that's how the podcast happened.

lisa: "Why

Beth McMullen: So the, 

lisa: so familiar?" 

Beth McMullen: opening, chapter of Write, Revise, Publish is the origin story. How did we come, first of all, to do the podcast, which then of course led to this book and I want you guys to read it, but it's very funny 'cause I'm like, "Yeah, that's pretty much exactly how it went down."

I'm a bad influence.

lisa: the first one with the, the podcast involved lots of wine and me laying on the floor spouting about the publishing industry.

Beth McMullen: Yes, you were lying on the floor. We had gotten to the point where she went totally horizontal. And then I could talk her into anything.

lisa: She [00:21:00] did.

Beth McMullen: I- there's a method to my madness.

lisa: I know. So we're excited to mention or to tell everyone about the second big project that we have completed and are ready to announce, but it's just gonna have to wait a couple more weeks.

Beth McMullen: Yeah, so for now you have to make do with the book, which is top level exciting, and The Confetti Club, also top level exciting. Yeah, these are both like... I like that we're throwing positive things out into the universe

lisa: Yes. And the book will be available in e-book and paperback

Beth McMullen: Yes. Yes. So it will come available October 6th. It is up for pre-order now on Amazon, if that's your jam. We of course appreciate pre-orders. Everybody loves a pre-order. If you'd rather wait and do paper or order from your indie, no worries. We're happy to have you pick it up however you want to. And there'll be more details in the podcast notes, on our [00:22:00] socials, on...

We're everywhere. We're just gonna blanket the world with our messaging over this. So we apologize in advance. Not really.

lisa: It's been exciting. It's been a long time coming. So when, okay, just to let you know, and I don't know if you saw this yet, I when I posted the cover reveal today, and then I put it into our stories, into our Instagram stories, I added Taylor Swift music, of course, Gorgeous, which was playing. And then I put under- under the notes, I put, "It's been a long time coming." And so that's my homage to the lovely Taylor Swift, as I always find a way to work her into everything

Beth McMullen: She shows up in every episode. Okay, so I put on the Kansas City Chiefs game the other day only to see Taylor Swift, and she looked adorable.

lisa: She

Beth McMullen: That's it.

lisa: with her

Beth McMullen: I don't...

lisa: on

Beth McMullen: Oh my gosh, she looks so cute.

lisa: She always

Beth McMullen: I love her. And I was actually walking around yesterday [00:23:00] listening to a little bit of Taylor Swift, 'cause I realized I hadn't listened to her songs in a while.

So I queued some up, and then I was in a good mood. She does that

lisa: She d- her new her new song that came out with for the Toy Story movie,

Beth McMullen: Yes.

lisa: so much.

Beth McMullen: a good song. I know, I liked it too.

lisa: best, it's

Beth McMullen: I know. I know

lisa: as I was posting I'm like, "How can I work a Taylor Swift song

Beth McMullen: See? We work it in every time for Lisa. We gotta do it. It's like our prime directive.

lisa: It's so funny, we just got an email from somebody who was thanking us for the podcast, and he's an, he was a listener, and he's "I jumped in with the Taylor Swift episode." And I'm like, what a place to begin.

Beth McMullen: That gives you a generally a good idea of what it's all gonna be about. So if you're like, "Oh no, not my jam," then, you probably have made a right decision

lisa: But he's still with us, so we're

Beth McMullen: Excellent. Okay. Our next episode, [00:24:00] editor Ivan Tourgenev is talking about the explosion of graphic novels, so don't miss that one. That's our next episode next week. And remember, we iron out the wrinkles for free every week, and we'd love if you could help us to keep doing that by leaving a review on Apple Podcasts.

Takes two minutes. Leave us five stars please. We won't tell anyone how easy it was. And until next time, happy reading, writing, and listening. Bye, Lisa.

lisa: Bye Pat. Bye guys