Why Middle Grade Books Got Too Long For Kids To Read

Vicky Weber Interview

 [00:00:00] Hi, friends. I'm Beth McMullen, co-host of Writers With Wrinkles. We had a new guest lined up for you this week, but he had a family emergency come up, so we're sending him our best and instead revisiting one of our favorite conversations, our chat with literary agent, best-selling children's book author, and founder of At Home Author, Vickie Weber.

This is the episode that had us dissecting Vickie's viral Substack post on the state of publishing, her Harry Potter theory for why middle grade books got so long they became unreadable for kids, and her no-nonsense advice for querying authors. 

If you're navigating submission right now or just need a marketing pep talk from someone who's been on both sides of the query trenches, this one is for you

so sit back and enjoy this encore with Vickie Weber 

Beth McMullen: Hi, friends. I'm Beth McMullen. 

Lisa Schmid: And I'm Lisa Schmid. 

Beth McMullen: And we're the co-hosts of Writers With Wrinkles. This is season five, episode 10, and today we're excited to welcome [00:01:00] Vickie Weber to the show. Vickie is a literary agent, best-selling children's book author, and founder of At Home Author. With years of experience in both traditional and self-publishing, she helps writers craft, publish, and market successful books, turning creative dreams into reality.

So welcome, Vickie. We are very excited to get you on the show. We've been trying for a while, and now we've succeeded, so we're all like, this is a big moment for us. 

Vicki Weber: Thank you for having me. We level up. I know I'm hard to pin down sometimes. My calendar's nuts. 

Beth McMullen: That is okay. We enjoy the chase, and now we've got you.

So we have been obsessing over your Substack over the last however long. For anybody who's listening who is not subscribed, please go and do that right away. I will put the link in the podcast notes so you can easily do it. But Lisa and I literally got on the phone the other day to talk about your, it was a post about middle grade.

Had some, references to lengths of books and how Harry [00:02:00] Potter went from being first book 75,000 words, last book 250,000 words or something, and the idea of authors being uneditable at a certain fame level. So c- tell us how this post came to be, but tell us a little bit about how you even came to write that.

Vicki Weber: I wrote a post that was about the state of publishing, because we had just gotten the news that Roaring Brook had shut down, and several weeks ago we learned that Dial Books for Young Readers was closed, and a few weeks before that Simon and Schuster had let a bunch of editors go, at least one on every single imprint team, if not more.

And so I was in this moment where the conversations I was having with my colleagues and with other authors, I was just like a little bit defeated, but when life hands me lemons, I'm like, "Watch me, I will make this lemonade." And [00:03:00] I am just, I've always been a firm believer in there's a simple way to explain something, and knowledge is power, and you can do such great things if you just know and understand what's going on.

And so I wrote this post saying what's happening in the industry and what I think this means, and it opened up so many great conversations that I wanted to dig deeper because people were asking me questions about how did the kid lit market even get to this place in the first place? How did we get to this point where there's so much reorganization and places are closing?"

And so everything I shared in that middle grade post is all stuff I had been sharing in person, 'cause I do a lot of conferences. I've been talking about it for at least a year. But I didn't wanna put it online because I was trying to figure out a way to not panic everybody. And one of the things I said at the start of the post was, "Everybody's already panicked, so here we go."[00:04:00] 

But I really think that's what it boils down to is I feel like if you can understand what's happening, you can start to identify what's working in my manuscript, or what opportunities can I take advantage of, or how can I pivot, how can I learn, what can I do differently? So I just really wanted to contribute to some of those conversations because what I didn't wanna see out of all of this news is writers just stop writing because they decide, decided this isn't gonna work, this isn't gonna sell.

Lisa Schmid: Can you, in a nutshell, give us the Harry Potter theory as to why we got to this point? Because that's something I found really interesting, and I felt like it nailed, I- it nailed it 

Vicki Weber: Well, so I will say that it wasn't my theory. I did explain it online, but gotta give credit where credit is due.

It was an editor at a Big Five imprint, and it was on a meeting where we were asking questions about middle grade, and the state of middle grade, and what are you acquiring. [00:05:00] And she said that Harry Potter was a big contributor to the downfall of middle grade. And she explained pretty much what I did in the article.

It's just that Harry Potter came out, and it was a little on the long side for middle grade at the time. But it was a fantasy, and it was so successful that other publishers tried replicating that success. The problem is that each book got longer and longer, and the characters got older.

So what started as middle grade ended up at YA, and yeah, it was over 250 words, or 250,000 words long by that last book. And that's an actual term in the industry when an author becomes uneditable. It just means that they start ignoring their editors because they can afford to. They're bringing in the big bucks and can kinda do what they want.

And so that's one big reason why when an author tries to comp a big name book or a big name [00:06:00] author or something like that, immediately an agent's like, "Okay, but they can do whatever they want. But they can make up the rules. I can't replicate that." Or if it's a one-hit wonder book no one knows why that book popped off, so how am I going to get this one to pop off?

So there's lots of that goes into play, but it really just comes down to time passing and publishers trying to replicate that success. Middle grade kept progressively getting longer and more mature, and eventually we hit a point where kids couldn't read them. Because paired with declining literacy scores and reading ability, we just had a bunch of books that kids could not read.

So I'm only speaking to the publishing side of the issue. There's so many other factors at play. But it's just something that's been compounding for years and years, and so we're starting to now see the effect of that and the impact of all of it. 

Beth McMullen: We had a guest on a couple weeks ago, Amie [00:07:00] Trueblood, who works in a children's library in a school, and she was echoing what you were saying about the books that the kids can't read, and they open it up, and they look at page one, and there's words there they don't understand, and they quietly close the cover and put it back on the shelf.

But she was also pairing that with the explosion of graphic novels, which you also reference in your article, and how that is really meeting these kids where they are. If you look at the declining literacy, the books that are just too big and complicated and above their reading level, it's ... Yeah, it's fa- I- y- you wish that the, the publishers would go and hang out in the children's section of the library once in a while.

Vicki Weber: I think the hard thing, too, is a lot of the people calling the shots at a publishing house are not always people with experience on the publishing side. The CEOs and things like that are carving out budgets and things like that are not always, the, the people who have [00:08:00] been there in the trenches.

Editors really try their best to push books through and do everything that they can, but even they have limitations on what they can acquire, how they can acquire it. I just had an editor the other day say that she loves and wants more, like, picture book eco fiction. Picture book, picture books about sustainability and stuff like that, but she said, "I'll tell you right now, they're so hard to get past acquisitions, and here's why."

And we dug into all of that. So just because an editor wants something doesn't always mean that it makes it to that next step. I think that's probably the worst part about us gatekeepers, because as an agent, I can only provide the opportunity. I can't make a publisher buy. I can't make an editor want something.

My goal is to try. I'm gonna try real hard. But if I could just ma- wave the magic wand and make it happen, [00:09:00] my life would be a lot easier. 

Beth McMullen: I feel like that's a frequent misconception among brand new authors, too. They think that if- ... the editor loves the book, it's a done deal. They don't realize all of the acquisition steps that are happening in the background.

It's usually a big shock to find out that your editor, your potential editor loving this book is just the beginning of the process. 

Vicki Weber: Yeah. A lot of authors don't realize how when you're on submission, it's pretty similar to querying, too. The responses that you're getting and the, "Oh, it's not for us," or, "I love this, but it's a pass," and it's like, "But why?"

It's just in the pressure cooker. That's the 

Lisa Schmid: perfect description of acquisitions. And then everybody who goes to acquisitions feels like they're in a pressure cooker. That just intense feeling you wake up every morning just wondering, what's gonna happen. But this is a good segue into why you are in the hot seat [00:10:00] today at Writers With Wrinkles.

Dun dun dun. What is happening in publishing right now? 

Vicki Weber: What isn't happening in publishing? Oh my 

Lisa Schmid: God, it's too much, Vicky. It's too much. 

Vicki Weber: Yeah, yeah, what isn't happening? I ... okay, so if I were to sum it up, I would say that what's happening in publishing is everybody's making educated guesses.

Everybody's throwing spaghetti at the wall. That's pretty much it in a nutshell. We have all of the big business owners the, the people that are the top of the top, who are only looking at things on paper, and so they're making decisions that will improve the financial viability of the publishing house, and it doesn't maybe matter to them as much or it does, but not enough, what that means for the workload for an editor, an acquiring editor, or things of that nature.

The domino effect is very rarely a factor for some of the things at the top. All of the [00:11:00] acquiring editors and their teams are trying to figure out, "Okay how do we find the stuff that's the least risky so that our jobs are secure? And how do we ..." There are just so many angles to consider with a book, and I think that's why right now we're seeing a big push for commercial fiction.

So literary fiction is the stuff that has a lot more artistry to it, tends to be more character-driven, more quiet, tends to be award winners. Commercial fiction is for mass appeal, and it's for the joy of reading and the fun of reading. And so commercial fiction tends to sell at a much, much higher rate on the reader side, on the consumer side, compared to literary fiction.

So that's why we're seeing such a huge push for commercial fiction across genres, is because they want the sales that come with it. And so they're trying to figure out, "Okay what hasn't been done before? What can we ... how do we figure out [00:12:00] what blend will work, what people want, but then also how do we get it past all of the red tape?"

Beth McMullen: It feels like shifting sand, right? And I think for the new authors who are just starting to query and go on submission, what does all of this mean to them? 

Vicki Weber: I actually just before we jumped on here published another Substack article. And I highly recommend that you dive into that, because my number one tip for authors who are querying agents is to write another book.

Write another book. Because too often I see authors assume that the process is write a book, query agents, get an agent, go on submission, sell the book, write another book. The process is much more of a squiggle, but every manuscript that you [00:13:00] write, you'll not only get better, you'll learn more about, what type of author career you wanna have, your craft will be better, you'll get faster, you'll get better at taking and leaving feedback, and giving feedback but you'll also open a door with more agents.

And so a lot of authors think if this isn't the book that gets me an agent, it's never gonna see the light of day." That's not true. There's lots of ways that books sell to publishers that are not just that nice, neat, straight line I mentioned. And so it's not a bad thing to have multiple books in your portfolio.

In fact, when ... I, so I've been in the query trenches twice as a writer. I parted ways with my first agent, not this past March, but the one before, so just over a year ago, and when I did, I pulled out my whole portfolio, everything that I write. And the first thing I did is I [00:14:00] panicked because I was like, "I'm trash.

Why did she rep me? This all is terrible. What am I doing?" So fun facts, it is not just you. We all do it to ourselves. The next thing I did after the panicking and the rewriting was done, was I prepped query packages for every single manuscript that I had that I felt was submission ready. There were some things that I'm like, "I see the potential here, but you, sir, are under-baked."

So anything that I felt was, "This is my best. This is ... an agent will hopefully like this," that's what I pulled out and that's what I prepped a query package for. And then I built my list of agents that I wanted to submit to, and I tried to read between the lines. So I wasn't just "Oh, they accept picture books.

Here is a picture book. Oh, they accept horror. Here is a ... " I tried to look at, okay but what, what type? What stands out to them beyond the genre? What are they drawn to? And sometimes how I figured that out [00:15:00] was what did they say they want the next of? If they say, "I want the next Isaac Kissin' the Corners," Isaac Kissin' the Corners is a very literary Picture book, character-driven.

There's little plot, but it has an emotional story arc. It's rooted in culture and self-esteem, and you can see the emotional transformation of that main character. It uses lyricism, metaphor, alliteration. So what do I have that's as close to that as possible? Without obviously no copying. Don't copy people.

What do I have that's the most close to that in essence, or would give that same feeling? That's what I sent that agent. I was really looking at, how do I pique their interest? How do I get them to sit up straighter in their chair? How do I stand out from the thousands of other submissions? And I really think most authors can do that by, [00:16:00] A, having really good quality, but B, reading between the lines.

So that's what I did. I had my first offer of representation within 24 hours of querying the second time around, which was the complete opposite of querying the first time around. It took years the first time around. And by the end of that week, I had three offers of representation, and all three offers were on different manuscripts 

Beth McMullen: That's like a home run 

Vicki Weber: And so I was, very much in a fortunate position.

I was able to have those conversations and pick who was best for me. But I really think that some of that comes down to I see a lot of query letters, and so I'm like, how do I make mine feel like me? How do I make mine not get lost in the shuffle? How do I pick a manuscript that this agent will be excited about?

And so it's not always about quantity. Really, it's about quality, 'cause there's-- the volume is insane on the agent [00:17:00] side right now. I would not say that, for the most part, the quality has gone up, just the volume. I like that idea of paying attention to what is not obviously stated, where you're looking for that little kernel that's gonna somehow give you a justification for querying that particular agent, that intangible almost, that does require more legwork on the part of the querying author.

Beth McMullen: But wow, what a bonus if you can make that connection. Because like you said, the volume's insane, so you're- you've gotta find a way to kinda elevate yourself. 

Vicki Weber: And even if-- okay, so I'm gonna use a bad example, but one thing people know about me is that I have a degree in music education. Big music person.

So I do get a lot of music-based manuscripts for that exact reason. And so I can't [00:18:00] take them all on, unfortunately. However, if it connected with me really if I liked that writer, I wanna see more of your work. I wanna see what else you can do. And so you can't self-reject. You can't be like, "Oh they just sold something like this, so maybe they wouldn't be interested in mine."

You gotta go with your gut, and you have to put yourself out there. And if it's a no from that agent, think of it as A not now or a not me. And neither of those is a never or a, a no for everybody. 

Lisa Schmid: One of the things, and I've mentioned this before, is I see people, and I, w- I wanna see your take on this and some good advice for authors that are out there querying, is I see writers so often say, "My dream agent passed on me.

My dream agent." And it's just ... I just want to say stop saying your dream agent. Your dream agent is the agent who signs you, and I feel like it [00:19:00] narrows people's vision of what they're looking for from an agent, or what their expectations are, or whatever the case may be. It always, it troubles me when people say my dream agent because then they get so knocked down, and they just lose focus, or they're too

They've got the blinders on. 

Vicki Weber: I think it's a little bit like having a crush.

Okay. Truthfully, maybe this is another post in the making or something, but querying and going on submission is way too much like dating. It is way too much like dating, right down to the rejection, "It's not me, it's y- ... or it's not you, it's me." My gosh, I'm saying it the wrong way around. I'm gonna crush some dreams over here.

But I think that's what it comes down to, is just because, you like the idea of somebody, you've got your little professional crush on them, does that necessarily mean that they will be the best agent for you or the best fit for your project? [00:20:00] Maybe, but also maybe not. Yeah.

And so you really wanna focus on, "Who's the best fit for my goals? Who do I feel like will have my back and advocate for me?" And, an agent is a fiduciary. Who are you going to trust with your intellectual property? 'Cause that's what you're doing. So yeah, a- at the beginning it can be easy to f- be like sending to everybody, and everybody and anybody.

You wanna give that opportunity because you might not know some of these agents very well until you get the opportunity to talk to them. You might be pleasantly surprised, or you might learn, oh, this person I thought was a dream agent actually isn't. Oh, actually just yesterday, somebody said, "I would love to query you, but, I wish you repped thrillers."

I rep thrillers. It says it all over the internet. Who is saying I don't rep thrillers? And I need to have a conversation with them. So sometimes what [00:21:00] you see online or what in passing things change, things shift. And so don't put all your eggs in one basket, and don't self-reject. Keep an open mind, and just keep doing the best you can with the cards you're dealt.

Lisa Schmid: So moving on, speaking of shifting, what do you think self-publishing is doing in the current state of traditional publishing? Because it is all changing, and it is changing fast. And just, I can ... You're ... May ... I wish s- listeners could see your face right now. 

Vicki Weber: I don't. 

Lisa Schmid: This is the benefit. For our listeners, she just made a grumpy face.

Vicki Weber: Okay. First of all, I will say that I have a lot of hybrid authors, and I have some self-published authors who've done very well on the traditional side. I have some authors that write in multiple genres. I have some that write in one genre. I've got a pretty healthy mix across the board. And I've been self-published [00:22:00] myself, and I've had self-published titles picked up on trad.

The issue is that by the time readers see trends of any kind- We're two to three years past that on the agent side. So all the time I'll have people say, "Oh, the only thing selling right now is romantasy." Maybe on the reader side, but those books were bought two years ago, if not longer, right? So it's the same thing with self-publishing.

It had a really big boom where traditional publishers were picking things up left and right, and they are still. That we're not done with that, but it's getting tougher and tougher. The sales figures need to be much higher than they were even a year ago. I don't think anybody should go into self-publishing with the assumption or hope that they will get picked up by a traditional publisher.

It's a lot of work, and [00:23:00] both routes have pros and cons, and we don't know how the industry is going to transform over the years. So if you're going to choose to self-publish, do it because you wanna do it. Do it because it feels right and because it's a fit for that book or for your career long-term.

Don't do it because you think you should. Don't do it because somebody else said that you should, or because you think it'll be the ultimate end goal to trad, because what if it's not? Are you gonna be happy with it if it's not? Books are kinda like babies. You can't put 'em back once they're there. You've birthed them into the world, and here they are.

They don't go back. 

Beth McMullen: That is actually a really good way of thinking about it. There are a lot of similarities between books and children. Oh my goodness. Mating and childbirth. Yes. We're just co- covering all the life steps here- ... in the life cycle of the book. We hear a lot on this [00:24:00] show about ... we have a lot of authors who have some experience in traditional publishing.

So say they've published one or two books. Some of them, of course, become massive bestsellers and they're off to, happy land. Most people end up with some sort of, of sales track albatross hanging around their neck, and we've heard people who live in a fantasy world who are saying no, sales don't matter.

It doesn't matter if my book failed. I'm fine." And then we have people who are like, "I'm never publishing again because I had a bad sales track." Is there anything realistically that an author can do about bad tracks? 

Vicki Weber: Yes and no. I think first of all, I think it depends on how bad, because there's always factors outside of our control.

Some authors who don't have success in one area will just switch to a pen name, and they'll try out a different [00:25:00] genre or a different spin, and that doesn't always have to be because of a bad sales record. I have one author, Victoria Hawthorne, who mostly wrote historical suspense, and before horror was trending the way it is now, that's where she wanted to pivot, was into psychological horror.

And so that ended up being a pen name situation. So you can pivot in that way. You can also look at, okay how can I improve the sales that I have? But it takes a lot of consistency to get those book sales. It ... Building a little community, and there's lots of things that you can do with that.

One of my favorite ways, and anybody can do this, is write a short story or a novella, something short, and give it away for free to build your email list. You get this free story for joining my email list. You can use something like StoryOrigin or BookFunnel or [00:26:00] other platforms like that to then do newsletter swaps.

You can run very cheap Facebook ads to a free book. I did that for 30 days, a dollar a day, so I spent $30, and I think I got 500 email subscribers out of that. That gave me a base to then do newsletter swaps with other authors who work in my genre. I can grow them, and they can grow me, and if you do that consistently over time, things will grow.

So I think it just comes down to what are your goals? Do you wanna stay in this writing space? Maybe yes, maybe no. And how much work are you willing to put in? Because if you're not willing to put in the work, do you have the budget to have somebody else come in and help you? And not everybody is cut out to be, like, dancing on TikTok, and that is A-okay.

So you're much better off finding marketing strategies that you enjoy, like maybe writing a Substack or doing a [00:27:00] podcast or something, than trying to force a puzzle piece to fit that just won't fit. You're just gonna exhaust yourself, and it's not going ... it's not gonna go anywhere, and you're not gonna enjoy doing it.

So find what you like, and, be really intentional with showing up in whatever that space is. 

Lisa Schmid: Have you had any of your authors ever get a pass because of their sales track or picked up- 

Vicki Weber: Anybody passed over because of their sales track, at least not- Not where the editor said that to me unless it was sub rights So something like, an audiobook.

If I was pitching audio rights, they might say, "Oh, the print sales aren't high enough for us to make an offer on audio." That I have happen all the time. But I don't think I've had anybody not explicitly at least offer on a book because of a poor sales track record. [00:28:00] I also think that the right agent and the right author, when you're pitching yourself, always find a way to spin things to the positive, right?

Because if you come in and say I only have 5,000 sales." No, you have 5,000 sales. Say, "I got 5,000 sales in this amount of time," or, "I've got 5,000 sales and this is just the beginning." I- if the number is smaller, either leave it out or pivot to something else that's exciting about what you've done or what you hope to do.

Half the time I sit down with a writer and I ask, "What cool things have you done?" And they can't tell me. Then I ask a bunch of questions and they're like, "Oh, yeah, I have done this insanely impressive thing. Oh, I do have a degree in something," or, "I've done presentations," or, "I know this random famous person," or...

It's always the most random stuff. But nobody knows that unless you talk about it. So find a way to [00:29:00] be positive. Don't self-reject. I'm gonna say that 100 times on this. 

Beth McMullen: I like the idea that you can, it, some of it's within your control, right? Because I think you feel, if you have gone through this and the sales have not reached expectations, and suddenly you're like, "But I didn't, it wasn't my fault.

It was, like, some extenuating circumstance, or the marketing budget or whatever." It does feel empowering to, to take back some of the responsibility for those things. There are things that you can do yourself as the individual author to impact potentially not this book, but your future, which I think is actually a really good way of pivoting your point of view on it so that it feels more like something you can influence.

Vicki Weber: Yeah, and j- just because you don't have something now doesn't mean you won't. So with my agent, she reps me for picture books and adult fiction, and the adult fiction I write is, horror and psychological [00:30:00] thriller and stuff. So those audiences do not align in any way, shape, or form. So I have to write my adult fiction under a pen name, which means I'm building that audience from scratch.

I can't tap into my existing audience at all without making people mad or very concerned. Traumatized. So I need to be looking at, "Okay what did I do to build my past audience? And now how do I tweak it-" to speak to this different group of people that want X, Y, Z? How do I find the right people?

Because if you feel like a used car salesman, you're not marketing right. It's icky, it doesn't feel good, and it doesn't work. If instead you think about who is the person that will love this so much that It won't just be that one touch point. They will buy it as a gift for their friends, or they will leave a [00:31:00] review, or they will talk about it online, or, they'll submit it for opportunities, or they'll email me back saying what a difference it made, or whatever it is, right?

You wanna get in front of the people that create a domino effect. And the only way you're gonna do that is if it's the right person, not just anyone. If I hand one of my books to the first person that walks by my house, they're ... Most of them would be like, "This is cool. Thanks," and that's where the conversation ends, and that doesn't get you any momentum.

So it's qua- it's quality over quantity. Don't throw money at the problem. Really focus on who are my people, where do they spend time, how do I find them, and then what marketing strategies, feel right to me to reach them consistently? What am I comfortable sharing? What am I comfortable talking about?

And just really build that up, which takes time. 

Lisa Schmid: This has shifted from a what is happening [00:32:00] in the publishing world to a full-on master class in marketing. 

Vicki Weber: You know what, though? Like- Which 

Lisa Schmid: is amazing ... 

Vicki Weber: marketing is becoming more important than ever before- Yeah ... in getting a publication deal. And so with my adult fiction that'll be going on submission with my agent soon, one of the things we talked about is I don't have anything published under that pen name yet, so I'm building my email list.

And so one of the things in my query letter is my email subscribers are at X amount and growing, and here are some of the things I'm doing to grow it. You do not have to have a published book to grow an audience. You don't. You just need people to talk to. 

Lisa Schmid: No, you're amazing. I- 

Vicki Weber: Already 

Lisa Schmid: I'm talking 

Vicki Weber: too much.

Lisa Schmid: I'm so glad we chased you down because this is some of the best information that we're hearing today, and I'm ... I hope everyone's listening. Now, I can't ... I think when I saw your website, you do marketing, right? This is part of the services [00:33:00] you offer. Is that correct? Or am I like- 

Vicki Weber: I, At Home Author is a coaching and consulting company.

Lisa Schmid: Okay. 

Vicki Weber: So I teach people. You can take the teacher out of the classroom, but you can't take the teacher out of me. 

Lisa Schmid: You're a good teacher. Both Beth and I were, like, leaning forward, 

Vicki Weber: and we were silently communicating to each other, and it was ... Like, I could already hear the questions we were gonna be asking each other as soon as we got off air.

See, that's always my hope, though, is my hope is that- When you're engaging with, my articles or threads or whatever with me online, I want people to feel inspired and encouraged. I want to get the creative gears turning because there is more than one path to success. And anything worth doing is worth doing well.

But, there's so many right answers out there, and so you do have to be true to who you are and what's exciting to you. And a lot of that comes down to what do you know? What [00:34:00] conversations are you having? What new thing can you learn today? I'm constantly learning. I'm constantly trying new things.

I literally just messaged an agent the other day and said, "Okay, I'm about to do something crazy," and she's "When are you not doing something crazy?" And I'm like, "Fair, but I think it's a good idea because X, Y, Z." Go with your gut. You never know until you try. As long as you are, professional, kind yourself, and as self-aware as humanly possible, you just gotta keep trying stuff, 

Lisa Schmid: I love the concept of kind of laying the groundwork before you're even published, before you even have an agent, is setting yourself up for success. For me, setting myself up for success all the years ago when I first started was having a website. I was like ... Okay, and l- just for the record, it was a really bad website.

We don't wanna go there 'cause it was very ... I've just recently- It's orbited heaven ... 

Vicki Weber: updated it. 

Lisa Schmid: I thought, "Okay, [00:35:00] I need a website." But now it's like there's so many other avenues that people can do. Just listening to you, my head was, like, exploding. I'm like, we could do this, we could do that. There's a bunch of different ways you can set yourself up for success, not just in the marketing aspect, but when you're going out and looking for your agent, is digging deeper and finding those people that are going to be your dream agent ahead of time instead of just throwing everything out to the wind, both in marketing and querying 'cause that's

That was my strategy. So- That's most people's strategy. Yeah. That was me. As I was listening to you, I was like, God, she's really got it going on. 

Vicki Weber: Okay. But it was my strategy the first time around. I was just sending out stuff. God. And that's why when I pulled it all out again, I was like, what did I do?

I actually sent this to people? Like, how did they not ... I don't know. Like, 

Lisa Schmid: how do they not 

Vicki Weber: think lesser of me? They don't, of course, anxiety loves to- [00:36:00] I know, ... loves to get blood in the ear ... 

Lisa Schmid: just for the record, I had a rejection in 10 minutes. 

Vicki Weber: I've done those too, although usually it's for ... one time I got a manuscript that was three million words long.

That one was a pretty fast rejection. Wait, how did, how does that even, how does ... I don't even know 3 million words. How does that even happen? 

And that was before AI too I'm pretty certain that person just used talk-to-text and just said a bunch of stuff 

Beth McMullen: or something. Wow. I 

Vicki Weber: don't know.

Beth McMullen: That's really bold to send that to somebody. Yeah. I'm actually impressed, and not in a good way. That's terrifying. Wow. 

Vicki Weber: Yeah. Or if there's something extremely creepy or weird or insulting. I've gotten query letters that are a single sentence long that say, "Just read the F-bomb manuscript."

Not doing it. Nope. That's an auto re- auto reject. Or once I got a query 100% in French, and I don't speak French. What? I've never spoken French. Oh, dear. The manuscript was in French, [00:37:00] and so I passed. It was just like, "I don't know what this says. I'm so sorry." 

Beth McMullen: Oh, boy. That's a little bit terrifying. Oh, my gosh.

Vicki Weber: So I don't know. I like to share that just in the sense of you're probably not the worst query out there. Yeah, seriously, words to live by. That's a really, that's a pretty high bar. Don't meet that bar. 

Yeah, don't send stuff in French when people don't speak French. 

Beth McMullen: So the last thing we wanna ask you as the, wearing your agent hat, is what's on the top of your manuscript wish list?

What are you looking for? 

Vicki Weber: I am really dying to find some adult psychological horror or something horror tinged that's commercial. Like a horror tinged suspense or a horror tinged thriller. Something like spooky, eerie, creepy that has some social [00:38:00] commentary. Ooh. 

Beth McMullen: Like- Lisa's giving me the bug eyes 'cause I literally just wrote one of these-

and I'm actually revising. So if again, if audience, you could see Lisa's face, she's like sending me, she's sending me lasers. 'Cause I'm like, I'm killing myself over this one. I've written a lot of books, and I swear to God, every single time you're like, "My confidence is shot. I don't know. I don't like this.

Wah." Anyway, that's fun. You just invite me 

Vicki Weber: back and then... No, I'm 

Beth McMullen: kidding. Seriously. 

Vicki Weber: Yeah, I have run into the fortunate issue that I had a lot of it on my list, and then I sold it all. And so now all my contacts are like, "What you got, Vicky?" And my authors are like, "I'm writing as fast as I can." So I'm really eager to find some more in that space.

I wouldn't even say that it's contained to oh, it has to be a horror, it has to be a thriller. It could be a horror romance, or it could be like a horror tinged speculative fantasy or [00:39:00] something. Just something in that eerie, creepy, spooky place that's really psychological and has something to say about, feminism or feminine rage, the patriarchy 

Beth McMullen: Seriously.

Now you're just describing this book. It's crazy. 

Vicki Weber: Do you wanna take a moment and pitch? 

Lisa Schmid: No, I 

Beth McMullen: don't. No, I'm kidding. It's not ready. 

Lisa Schmid: It's 

Beth McMullen: not ready. 

Lisa Schmid: Oh my God, 

Beth McMullen: so funny. Oh my gosh. This is good, 'cause as a reader, I love that stuff. That's where my, I go to for reading. 'Cause at this point in our universe, I am seeking escapism.

I wanna be out of reality because I don't like this timeline. I want a different ... So I'm, like, really the ... And I love all these mashups because it just takes stuff in kind of a fresh direction, which for reading just makes me happy. 

Vicki Weber: I love Darcy Coates, but one of my favorite writers for perspective shifts is Jenny Blackhurst.

She does a lot of "Oh my goodness I thought I knew what was [00:40:00] happening." So she does a really good job of you think you know what's happening, and then we perspective shift, and we go, "Oh, no, this is what's going on all along." And then she perspective switches back, and you're like, "Everything I know is a lie."

And then she keeps doing it to you over and over again, and you don't really know what's what until the end. So she's one I just really love for the, like, mind-bendiness. I love how John Marrs blends genres a lot. Yeah I think there's so ... Oh, Riley Sager is another one that does a really good job of that.

And Alison Saft I think does some really beautiful romantic fantasy with undertones. Kate Alice Marshall does a lot in both YA and adult that's really kinda in that space. And so I think there's a lot more unexplored areas in those spaces. 

Beth McMullen: Yeah, it's fun. I'm like, it's what keeps me reading.[00:41:00] 

Anyway, we could keep you here all day. Honestly, we really could, but we do have to let you get back to your life and all your agenting and writing and all of the many things that you do. So thank you so much for giving us this hour. This has been really fun. Such a good conversation, so thank you for joining us.

Vicki Weber: Thank you for having me. 

Beth McMullen: And listeners, remember you can find out more about Vicky and that amazing Substack that we keep referencing by visiting our podcast notes and the blog at writerswithwrinkles.net. And Lisa and I will be back next time with an Ask Beth and Lisa episode, so if you have questions, thoughts, feelings, prayers, whatever, please send them our way, and we will talk about them on the next show.

And until then, happy reading, writing, and listening.