The Joy of Discovery

Join the disruption discussion as we welcome two self-employed publishing colleagues to the show, agent Tom Dean, and ghostwriter/editor Andy Rogers. 

Some highlights of our conversation about why we love what we do: 

• The "platform paradox" - authors with great books choosing to opt out of traditional publishing
• The joy of hand-selling and direct reader connection
• Industry insights about corporate publishing culture
• Practical advice for authors navigating today's landscape
• The human stories that make these industry shifts meaningful

The opportunities for authors have never been broader--or more confusing. But as our guests helped to prove, if you're an author hoping to gain experience and know-how about the industry today, hearing from multiple independent experts adds some insight and clarity that could very well prove essential. Come along!

Tom Dean is at www.ADropofInk.pub

Andy Rogers is at andyrogersbooks.com

Publishing Disrupted is at PublishingDisrupted.substack.com

Mick Silva is at MickSilvaEditing.substack.com

David Morris is at dvdmorris.substack.com, LakeDriveBooks.com, and Hyponymous.com.

Transcript

Mick 0:01

Hey everybody, this is Publishing Disrupted, and we have some guests here with us today. My name is Mick Silva, I'm an editor, and we have also... David Morris, a literary agent and publisher. Yeah, and we basically are trying to explore the ways in which book publishing is changing, and how writers can best meet that challenge. Welcome, and I want to also welcome our guests here today. We have literary agent Tom Dean... Hello, hello. And we also have editor and ghostwriter Andy Rogers. Hello. So you guys, we used to all work together at Zondervan. And this was a lot of fun just to kind of get him in and ask him some questions today. So that's what we plan to do.

David 0:52

And we're in person. We're live. We're live, right? We have four mics in this awesome podcast room at our local library. If we haven't told you that, dear listener. Four mics. Yeah.

Mick 1:01

Yeah. We've had four mics the whole time, but we've been like, you know, just two of us.

David 1:05

We're getting our money's worth out of our taxpayer dollars. Yeah, that's right. Sorry, I interrupt.

Mick 1:11

Well, we were at, David and I, we were at Wild Goose recently, festival, which has music and art and all kinds of talks and fun things like that. But we were talking about like our takeaways from that. And I mean, I'm still kind of processing it. It was busy and hot. I got sunburned and it's out in this field in North Carolina and you know it's just it's it's very I don't know I don't know if hippies the right word but it feels very like earthy earthy or granola and crunchy.

David 1:47

Yeah yeah it definitely was that. Mm-hmm yeah, but you were you were a real trooper staffing the lake drive books we had a lake drive table books with our books on display table thank you and I got to get out a little bit more but we were just at the booth a lot which was really awesome for me the big takeaway was just in this world of like digital marketplace where you're in publishing especially you're talking about you know social media following and email list and other things regarding platform like speaking professional network or what have you but to just be at a table and to watch people walk by and discover some of our books some of the ones that are maybe a little older too there's not as much activity going on and oh they just picked it up I posted about it on Instagram saying it was the joy of watching the joy of people discovering books and wanting to discover books that just felt so good and now I'm like alright where's all the book fairs within like a two hour drive and where can I set up more tables and you know it was the sales were nice to have but it was just more watching that going on and having conversations with people which is what you were really good at.

Mick 3:01

That was fun. I was there while you were doing some sessions, and people would just come by, pick up a book, and start reading it. And it was fun because I'm, of course, taking the time to read a book as well. I think, was it Spearing's books coming up? Kathryn Spearing's, A Thousand Tiny Paper Cuts coming out. I'm looking forward to that one. So you had like one copy there that I was just sort of commandeering the entire time. Yeah. And then I'd be reading, and they were reading, and they were like, oh, I see a theme with these books, you know? I was trying to remember your brand which is, grow...

David 3:36

Heal. Grow. And discover. Yeah thank you. We had bookmarks

Mick 3:43

yeah we did we had bookmarks and I'm like take a bookmark, and people di d and then they write their name down or maybe their email. T hat was just fun, the -hand selling kind of thing. I'm not a sales guy so I never really had done that but yeah yeah it was good I'll keep thinking about it yeah what my actual takeaways are but

Meet lit agent Tom Dean!

Mick 4:00

anyway we need to get to like some intros, like some actual background and stuff. So Tom, Tom Dean, Mr. Literary Agent, tell me just like a nutshell of your background and what you do.

Tom 4:13

Publishing has been my career. I tell people all the time I have ink in my blood. At least I feel like it. I grew up, you know, reading, just reading, reading, reading, like fell in love with reading as a child. And I think that's a big part of what drew me to publishing but sales product development and marketing kind of like the three areas that I've been in most of my career my biggest stint was almost 20 years at Zondervan

Mick 4:47

wow great

Tom 4:50

And then I launched out five years ago launched a drop of ink

Mick 4:55

yes yeah literary agency correct and yeah very cool

David 5:00

and you worked on some best-selling titles.

Tom 5:14

I did. And worked with a ton of authors. Yep. And I learned from you the phrase that marketing is all the gory, not the glory. Yeah, yes. I told my team all the time, editors get the glory, marketing gets the gory. Because it's true. I mean, think about it. That's true. I mean, an editor took a manuscript from an author their good bad or otherwise and made it much better and so they were just I mean glorified like an editor in an author's eyes does the magic rightly so

David 5:42

they did the acquisition too

Tom 5:43

right right but if something went wrong didn't matter if it was sales, distribution, it was marketing's fault always. Oh you were on point for dealing with it. Quite often, yes, getting the earful from you know the agent or the author yeah.

Mick 5:59

Yeah, man. And you don't have to deal with that anymore. I mean, well, you probably still do.

Tom 6:04

I mean, what's interesting is, you know, you learn about how you want to... I certainly picked up which agents I really loved working with, and those that were maybe a little more challenging. And I try to model how I act as an agent after those that I really enjoyed working with. I think that's important.

Mick 6:29

Yeah.

David 6:30

That makes sense. Yeah, that's what-- I do that too. It's like what kind of agent did I like, and what do I want to be? Just take all the best because we saw the agents. Andy you did too. Mick you did too. We saw we saw what worked, what we liked about about agenting, and maybe didn't like. Not to pick on any one person. It was just more of a composite of what we're hoping for to do in these days what are you up to these-- what's something recent for you, Tom?

Tom 6:56

I took a three week sabbatical in July that was recent there you go yeah so there you go off the grid no I wasn't completely off the grid but no meetings and did some travel with my wife and grandkids so that was fun that's kind of like summer recently family stuff the fall is busy I've got 10 projects for my authors releasing so a lot of last minute PR and marketing calls making sure that you know all the boxes are checked as far as how we're allowing a book so I do I think that's how I set myself apart as an agent is my marketing background and I bring that knowledge to the process with my authors and I think for the most part they really appreciate that it's very valuable that's great

Mick 7:49

that's good.

Meet ghostwriter/editor Andy Rogers!

Mick 7:51

Andy what what what brings you to book publishing.

Andy 7:56

What brings me to book publishing. Loving to read. So I started in retail and then moved to a publisher.

David 8:05

I thought you were a drummer first.

Andy 8:07

I was. We could do a whole other podcast on how I wanted to be a rock star and that didn't work out.

David 8:14

That was your undergraduate degree.

Andy 8:17

Yeah, that was. And I actually went and got a post. It wasn't a graduate degree. It was like it was like a an unaccredited training program for studio musicians.

David 8:30

Wow.

Andy 8:31

So I got my undergrad degree. Then I went to L.A. and went to this one year program that's now accredited. It's now an undergrad degree. But I went through this one year program to like fast track your way into the studio. Yeah, it was really interesting.

David 8:43

Wow. That's not-- It's not a lot different than being a editor, a ghostwriter. Like working in a sort of a process, a studio, a system.

Andy 8:55

It gave me a background on the entertainment industry, or at least a facet of it, the way music is made, that doesn't have direct connections to my work, but does have connections. Because I've worked with famous people, or I've been in situations where there's famous people in the room, or big money.

Mick 9:14

And you're creative. There's, there's a product at the end of that. So cool.

Andy 9:19

Yeah. But I went from retail to a publisher, excuse me. And so I had that experience, hand-selling books that you were talking about at the beginning and I loved it for 15 months. I worked at one of the largest independent Christian bookstores in the country, if not the largest. And our joke at that time was always that people would come in and go, my pastor talked about this great book on Sundays. It's got this blue cover. It's about God. So we were always looking for a blue book about God. But I really enjoyed, I truly enjoyed what you were talking about, that joy of discovery. And I enjoyed being in that setting because I have a high radar, I feel anyway, of what annoys me in a retail store. So I never wanted to annoy another person. So they'd come in and I'd say like, hey, what can I help you find? Are you looking for something? And based on however they spoke to me, I would keep talking to them or I back off but I really enjoyed that like trying to help them find a book right especially if all they had to go on was a blue book about God like there are thousands of those in here

Mick 10:26

you create a blue book section you could just

Andy 10:28

send them over to

David 10:30

yeah what about a black book about God?

Andy 10:35

I don't know yeah but I went from there into publishing I was in marketing first and then I moved to editorial so I heard the same thing that you talked about with your team but not as eloquently. I didn't hear the glory and gory part. I just heard, if the book is good, then it was beautifully written. And if the book sells, it was beautifully written. If the book doesn't sell, well, the marketing sucks. That was how I heard it. Pretty much. That's the same thing. There was never an author who ever said, I wrote a bad book. Or an editor who said, I acquired a real lemon. It was always the marketing.

Mick 11:13

It was kind of a stinker for from the start, to be honest. No one says that. No.

Andy 11:18

But yeah, so I worked in marketing five years and then I worked for a global ministry that publishing is its primary way of doing ministry. And then I went back to major publisher as an acquiring editor. And I was acquiring editor at the ministry. So I've had this experience of being both in editorial and marketing and both for a family-run ministry and a large corporate... you know, typical publisher, one of the big five. So I feel like I've been blessed, I guess, in that way because I've had these different experiences. And now I'm freelance. I've been doing it almost three years. And I'm primarily a ghostwriter. But I do a lot of developmental editing, too. So it's probably 60-40 or 75-25 leaning toward writing.

Mick 12:08

Well, and I think that's interesting, too, because, I mean, you do some editing or at least constructive work, right, development?

Tom 12:15

For sure. Well, yes. And, and again, like I tell my authors all the time, like I do not have a, an English degree or an advanced, you know, literature degree, but I do understand what good content is. And I can read a sample chapter and tell you, Hey, this has promise or you need a lot of work. Um, I don't know where we're going with this, but just that we all, yeah, yeah. We all tend to have that, editorial skills.

David 12:46

Yeah we have a balance of skill sets.

Tom 12:47

Right, definitely. But speaking of skill sets what I loved about working with Andy at Zondervan with you know me on the marketing side Andy on the editorial side is he brought that because of his marketing background he had kind of like marketing you know sure creative right brain that he would bring to the process of the of the editorial acquiring but then also bringing the book to market. And so I oftentimes championed that with, you know, with the author, with the agent, like, look, look what you're getting in Andy. Like he's got, you know, marketing skills and also editorial, really good editorial skills. That's great. Yeah. Well, you can continue that now as he's a freelancer. Right. Yeah. Tom and I have worked together a few times. We've collabed on some projects, which has been great.

David 13:38

Yeah. And what's going on with you right now, Andy?

Andy 13:40

So I'm always in many at the same time. So I just signed up to write a biochemist book. We are at the very beginning stages, like what's the outline going to be? What's the hook? You know, why is this book going to matter? We're asking all those core questions. Um, so that's, I've got a stack of science books now next to my bed that I'm looking at. They're all tomes, you know, that's fun looking at thinking, how, how do I make science accessible and interesting? I'm also at the finishing, finishing stages. I'm gonna write the last chapter this week. for a Christian counselor. And I should say the biochemist is an atheist. And my faith came up during our interview process, which I thought, oh, here goes. They're going to pick somebody else. But they evidently liked my answers. So I'm writing for a Christian counselor right at the end of this project. It's a very heavy project. It's about sexual abuse of children. So it's been a very heavy book, but a very important book. And then I'm kind of in the middle of a book with an ultra marathon runner who's been signed by Simon and Schuster. It was a big deal. Very excited about that.

David 14:53

I think Tom had something to do with that, right?

Tom 14:53

No.

Andy 14:56

We had some early... Tom introduced me to this client. For sure. So that's like, we've got to turn a chapter in a month for the acquiring editor. So that's writing fast. The running marathon metaphor is always in my head because I've been working with this author for two years. It's been great, but writing with him is also like a sprint like we gotta do it now, you know so--

David 15:25

You actually you actually went running with this author.

Andy 15:29

Oh yeah.

David 15:30

And you you joined him on an endurance event yes and just to kind of get to know his experience.

Andy 15:40

Well that was him. He wanted me there. He has-- he'd all these ultra marathon events that require crew so people that support the runner during these like 100 mile 200 mile events they give them food and electrolytes and bandage their wounds you know so 200 miles yeah and these are volunteer things these are not like jobs yeah these are friends that they pull in I'm feeling it in my body like the hurt because I run a little bit but like 200 it's insane it's amazing wow but he he likes to bring in friends of his that have never been to an endurance event so they can experience it. And since I'm working with him, it was all the more like, I want you to see my world. Okay. So he brought me out there. Wow. And it was, yeah, it was amazing.

David 16:24

So instead of like a publishing junket with catered food and everything, it was, it was power bars and water bottles .

Mick 16:31

And lots of Gatorade. Yes. Different kind of pain, I guess. Well, good for you. That's, that's amazing. I typically work on multiple at a time. I mean, I, I know you do, Tom, as well, and David, of course, as publisher. And we wear different hats. Maybe we're different forward-facing, I mean, in terms of the clients we work with and what we offer them. But I like the fact

Why David loves working on books

Mick 16:56

that we all have a similar skill set, and we love books. I kind of adore authors. I had to be very careful when I first started out as an editor because I would just sort of put them on a pedestal. And I had to kind of break that down and go, okay, what we're going to be talking about— here it can be very humbling right for everyone involved because we're trying to take something apart put it back together and it's often you know a difficult sort of journey I mean taking things apart is never fun but then helping someone along the way you get to know them really well and so you can break down a lot of the barriers and David and I as PKs really dislike the pretense of things that happens it feels as though a lot of times the glad handing you know where you go to conferences and you feel like you have to be on a representative of a house, that can be kind of off-putting in the job. But then you get into the actual nuts and bolts of a project with someone, and it totally breaks that down. It feels like it's almost this inviting way behind the curtain with that author. And I hope that that translates often to the reader, that that's something we can then capture on the page. So that's just something that I think I've connected with all of you individually about and i was excited to kind of come and discuss, like why we do what we do like like what what's the excitement for you i mean that's that's a glimpse into the excitement for me but like i don't know let's just go around the room like david i know a bit about like what excites you about the process because we've been talking about that on this podcast in terms of the disruption and stuff right we we yeah we get a thrill from that as much as it's frustrating uh but like share a little bit about what you enjoy

David 18:41

yeah i mean i i absolutely enjoy doing different things um from a publishing point of view because publishing is a business that is has been around a long time it's super mature it's not really growing if you look at the the big five and the amount of revenue they're doing it's it it's they're not netting more they're netting less when you count inflation and there's more consolidation going on that's how they're making money these days and they yeah they have books that sell really well sometimes um but then there's like very few middle level publishers and there's a lot of us grassroots publishers. It's a time of big change in publishing. And so I'm excited about doing things in an innovative way. You know, even this morning I was listening to a podcast about Independent Book Publishers Association podcast on how to set up a hybrid publisher, which is technically what I do. But I call it like traditional publishing with an untraditional financial model. But I'm also toughening up my language saying, no, I'm a trade publisher with a hybrid financial model. And I actually think that more publishers should be considering that, even those who have paid advances in the past. Pay very little advance or no advance, but up that author royalty and really partner with the author in making sure sales last on a backlist basis. That's great. Over time. So there's little things like that, and I could say more, like helping authors with author platforms, being more involved in that as a publisher. And I could say more about that, too. But I think the biggest why for me I have an academic background. I didn't go into drumming. I was more about psychology. You wanted to, though, didn't you? Psychology and religion. Yeah, yeah. I haven't had a guitar since I was about the same age. I don't play as good a guitar or drums as you do, Andy. But yeah, so I've always, as a preacher's kid, grew up evangelical, I've always been fascinated with how people struggle with faith in this really vast world. religious landscape that's America. And there's so many ways to talk about being religious or Christian. There's just so much change going on, so many people going across a different continuum. And I wrote my dissertation on what happens when people lose their faith that they grew up with and where they go from there. And I think with Lake Drive Books, because I'm not stuck to a denominational structure or a large profit-driven company that's trying to connect with the vast market of religious mindsets in the United States, I can do things that feel more like a sense of change, coupled with a business model that makes it feel like more sense of change. So I'm really motivated to do what I'm doing. It's just there's a lot of potential for exhaustion. It's very difficult. There's a lot of hats you're

Mick 21:35

wearing. I think you wear the most hats, and now podcast host as well, which I sort of wrangled you into. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But yeah, it's been a fun time to kind of explore that with you. And like, I'm excited about having you guys here too, just to hear more. Cause I mean, it's probably selfish too. I'm a bit of a vampire in this way. I love to just feed off of people's energy for books. Right. It's just, it's something I love to do. And then when we hear from, from people who've either been guests or like listen to the podcast, it's always that it's the excitement of books, you know, and that that's still possible in our like multimedia age where it's like people don't read and you you know, we did a whole episode on do men read, you know? I love that. Yes. It's like, yes,

David 22:17

of course. Tom does. That's fine. I never heard you say it that way before. What's that? I never heard

Why Tom loves helping authors

David 22:23

you say it that way before that you've been a big reader since you were a kid.

Tom 22:27

Yeah. Ink in your blood. Yeah. Ink is in my blood. Um, a project that I'm working on right now, or actually it's a proposal that I have in front of a number of publishers is read your color by, uh, Steven J. Reese, who has, has developed this quiz that you take and it helps you determine what kind of a reader you are. There's six different colors.

Andy 22:52

Interesting.

Tom 22:53

And his overall kind of like theme of the book is people give up on reading because they're reading the wrong books. I mean, there is a challenge in the book too, though, to expand outside of your general interest, but he I mean he developed this quiz that over two million people have taken and he you know it's a really kind of art and science it's a really fascinating project so I'm excited to see what kind of like I've already had broad market interest so that's great yeah it'll be fun to see people start

Mick 23:33

saying what their color is rather

Tom 23:35

that's just it Enneagram type maybe yep yeah it is exactly that's really go check it out like he's got a huge following he's developed this massive of email list that he's you know his sub stack is just blown up which like talk about platform like yes all day long give me an author with an email list over social media platform all day long right

David 23:56

so are all god books blue

Tom 23:58

blue readers yeah right I'll just tell you I'm a yellow reader so which means what which means I love books that are I do read a lot of memoirs and bios and I love just learning about things and people and time and space and history. Recent reads were hanged by the story of Mary Surratt, who was the co-conspirator in the John Wilkes Booth, who assassinated Lincoln. She ran the boarding house. Fascinating, well-researched. The first American female to be hanged for a crime in America. Yeah, kind of a, I mean, it's a dark story. I mean, it's a true story. It's a dark story. That's just one example of a yellow reader. That's

Andy 24:54

a byline nobody wants.

Tom 24:55

First person to be hanged for. Right, right. Exactly.

David 25:00

Doesn't do much for your platform. No, right. Ooh, that was bad. Different

Speaker 00 25:05

kind

Tom 25:06

of platform. We didn't get to your why

David 25:08

exactly. You are a reader,

Tom 25:09

but what would be? Yeah, I mean, you know, Somebody early in my career shared the phrase that ultimately became the name of my company. They shared with me the phrase, a drop of ink may make a million think. That was kind of a mark. She was a publicist. I was a junior advertising, just getting started in my career. You think about that phrase. Lord Byron was an English poet in the 1800s who wrote that. It was it works across a number of, you know, it works for a number of reasons. It certainly works in marketing, but it for sure works, I mean, for readers, right? A drop of ink. Let me make my own thing. And so that's, you know, a drop of ink was available. .pub was available. My daughter was like, Dad, pub for publishing. I'm like, yeah, pub for like have a beer. So, you know, so I just, I love the, I love the impact a book or drops of ink can make for myself as a reader, but also for people that are reading the projects that my authors are writing. Yeah. It's

David 26:29

a great feeling to be able to be an agent in making that happen, have agency in making it happen. Yes.

Tom 26:36

Right. Yep. And being able to, you know, one of the things we talked about, like in this book, chapter of life, pun intended, is being able to say yes to projects that excite me and say no to those that like, you know, you've got a good idea, but I don't think I'm the right partner for, you know, the right agent for you to have that freedom and flexibility. Wow. Yeah.

Mick 27:03

Yeah. After 20 years of being in marketing and just whatever comes down

Tom 27:08

the pike. Yep. Right. I mean, having some say and, you know, who wants to work on this or assigning things and then taking you know things I was a working VP so I would take on projects myself but you're right like you know ultimately somebody's got to deal with this author or this agent or this book you know so and the guy in charge

Mick 27:28

step in yeah that's great that's great I mean that takes you right to the heart

Why Andy loves collaborating

Mick 27:33

level why we do what we do yeah that's really good Andy how about you you brought notes I'm

Andy 27:40

a little intimidated well I didn't bring notes about the why, but I can't answer that question. I think the why for me is the creative work and just the love for good writing. So when I talk to people about what I do or how I got into ghostwriting, I'll try to explain how a book is made, how it goes from concept to on their shelf. Because if you don't work in publishing, I've found most people have no idea how books come about, which is fine. But where I see my editorial work and my ghostwriting overlapping and why it was easy for me to go from one to the other is they're both at the very beginning of the creative process. They're in the concept phase. They're in the book proposal phase. It's just the editor is taking the writer's ideas and honing it and making it sharp or making it fit the house style or whatever, whereas the writer is taking the author's ideas, the ghost writer is taking the author's ideas and getting them down on the page. But they're both early in the process. So that creative aspect of it has always been a motivator for me. That's the fun part. And even when I was an acquisitions editor, part of my job was acquiring the books, as you all know, bringing it to the pub board and making an argument for it and finding saleable books that would bring a profit and all that. But the part about my job that I really enjoyed actually happened after that. A pitch was done and the book was contracted, and that was the creative work with the author, doing the developmental edit of the book or you know helping them sometimes authors didn't even have the manuscript written or many times and they were still asking questions like what how should I end my book you know kind of getting to enter that like part of the creative work that was the part of being an AE that I really enjoyed acquiring editor yeah acquiring editor was actually after the hunt was done and I didn't really know that until I was already an AE so it was natural for me once I started working with ghostwriters as an AE it was natural for me to think this is the next job because I remember David hired me and I you know was having a great time but I was I'm always thinking like what's what's my job going to be in five years what's going to be in ten years I just think that way and there was another editor on the team who had a storied career veteran you know and I just couldn't see myself going in that direction I couldn't see myself after I'd been there about a year or two years, I thought, I don't know if I can do this for 20 or 30 years. She loved it. And I didn't the same way. So I started right away thinking like, what am I going to do next? And by then I had already been a writer maybe for 10 years or more, but I wasn't getting paid for it yet. Not a lot. I was writing little articles here and there. I might get 50 bucks or something, but most of my writing was just creative writing. Anyway, I started working with ghostwriters and I saw the over And I realized like, Oh, that's, that's fun. That's more fun than no offense to agents, but then wooing an agent, which sometimes if there isn't a relationship, it can just feel like you're just wooing a stranger based on talking points, you know? Right. Right. Um, that's not true when you really know somebody like I've worked with Tom several times. I know how he cares for his authors. You know, I know the amount of work he puts into, I know his heart, like it's a joy to work with an agent like that. But as an acquisitions editor, sometimes you're working with people you barely met or never met.

Mick 31:16

Right. And that's hard. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That was one of the, the stressors of the job for sure. It's honorable. And it often felt as though you're sort of at the luck of the draw, right. With the type of agent you're getting, or even authors. I mean, to some degree, because the content or the platform sort of dictated, and now you have to figure out how do I work with this? And often it turns into how do I manage this without it going off the rails right now in, in, in sort of the way Tom was describing. And then we have before, like you get to work with the people you choose. And to some degree you can see a little bit more upfront who it is you're working with and then, you know, make more executive decisions. Right. Yes.

Andy 31:57

That is, you've put your finger on, I think the joy and one of the hardest parts about being a freelancer. And that is what you just described. You get to work with who you want to work with and you can say no to who you want to say no to. And you don't have to build consensus with anyone. Like, I've described being an AE as consensus building.

David 32:15

Yeah. And that was all of our job. Yeah. Yeah. We all had to work with everybody on board. Right. Right. There was consensus, but also sometimes working with pro on projects you didn't necessarily want. Absolutely.

Why we all love being independent

David 32:25

To touch as much. Yes.

Andy 32:27

But, but they, the, the flip side of that coin, I guess, like now I have the freedom to say no, but it's also on me and my unpaid time to figure out, do I want to work with this person? So it's like, how many hours am I going to put into? Right. figuring out if I want to do this before I even sign on. And when you're a freelancer building your business.

David 32:48

A lot of nodding heads going on. Yeah. These independent employed people here. You can put hours and hours into things and never get paid for

Andy 32:55

it. So that to me is a real tension.

Tom 32:58

That hours and hours, you cannot, I'll have authors often, we'll get so far down the road in a conversation and then they'll ask, well, how do you get paid? like well I don't get paid as an agent until I land a book deal so that's why I'm I mean not to be crass but like is this a commercially viable idea I mean I that is top of mind right and so you know I have some accountability to my wife because she would like to buy groceries this week right so right I cannot spend hours and hours of my time unpaid by you you know or seeing that this project's not going to go anywhere. Right. Yeah. Yeah. That

Mick 33:45

does put kind of a damper on things pretty quickly. Well, and that's why in service to agents and publishers, I think editors and even ghostwriters can, can help to sort of vet some of these projects. And that is one thing I've, I've offered as a service. I don't know if you read proposals, Andy, for people. Not as a service.

Andy 34:04

I

Mick 34:04

usually write them,

Andy 34:05

you know, or I'll edit them, but I haven't, I haven't created a service where I just read and review them.

Mick 34:11

Yeah. I, So it's something I've done just sort of ad hoc, I guess, for other agents when they ask. Because an author needs that kind of help, but for an agent to do that, it's kind of a commitment, and they're not necessarily ready. They don't necessarily see right up front what is the saleable idea, what is this marketable, commercial, as you say, concept here. And how do we bring that front and center? And so, yeah, that tends to be something that I, I mean, it's still speculative. It's still a talk with someone at a conference, asking them what that is and they don't know necessarily what what's the hook and how to describe that so yeah getting to that more quickly is something i i sort of offer as part of my service you're trying to do that too david in terms of like identifying that quickly right and the quicker the better i mean for all of us obviously but like we should probably do an episode on what's the hook yeah you know like how do you describe that or how what's your decision making

David 35:08

process uh-huh yeah yeah and i think there's a there's sort of a social contract that you submit a proposal to a publishing professional they're going to read it they're going to digest it sometimes we even get submitted whole manuscripts and with somewhat of an expectation that you're going to read this you're going to want to read this when we're already reading a lot of other things for the everyday the business we've already signed or agreed to work on so that I think that's interesting I think this has come up a little bit here is just how do we make decisions especially now that we're on our own about projects that come our way because it's not easy to really, I mean, sometimes I'll get distracted and just want to read something I really like and then maybe get involved, but then I'll look at some other aspects of it and I'm like, oh, I shouldn't have spent that much time digging into that one. They don't have any platform at all. Perhaps, yeah. So I think for me, it used to always be like as a publisher, I would be the one to kind of look at the bigger issue with the business side of it. So I would look straight at the platform aspects of a proposal. Whereas now, on my own now, it's more like, well, let me get to see the writing. And even just after a paragraph or two, sometimes you can just tell this person's putting sentences and paragraphs together well. And maybe you've looked at the structure of the book and more than that. But if the writing itself isn't great, you're going to notice that almost right away. And that means even if you like the concept, even if the platform's great, you're going to be spending a lot of time or someone's gonna be spending a lot of time and money on getting the writing into shape. So that's a big concern, especially for me as a small operator now. To hire a freelancer to edit a manuscript, the longer a manuscript is, the more costly it is. The more work it requires, the more costly it is. So those are some, one sort of litmus test. But anyway, enough about me.

Mick 37:08

No, I think this is

Who deserves to be published?

Mick 37:10

why we're here. Because we want to know how it works. And to help authors just to kind of get the lay of the land and understand some of the tensions, right? We're all comfortable with holding these things in tension. Obviously, we want to sell books at the end of the day, but we want them to be good books, and we want the authors to deserve to be a big-time author. Sometimes I've platformed authors, and I've warned them even ahead of time, if you turn into a jerk through this process, I'm going to feel really, really bad. You mean that happens? Right? I'm going to feel complicit. it like I platformed you you know or at least help you mean if they get famous and aided and abetted yeah and I've seen it happen to even after that conversation and it's really frustrating and so it's one of those things that I kind of carry with me you don't know necessarily who's going to turn out to be you know like yeah bright and shiny lights like they just they they like the attention and I think a lot of times an author is ultimately kind of an insecure sort of person I think just like personality wise it tends to attract people who are a little bit insecure when it comes to like standing on their own two feet or like speaking their things out clearly it's like you go to writing because you either can't do that in person and this is getting a little bit like meta but like you can't speak very well like I think that I just hear that a lot from writers oh I'm not a speaker like well you're gonna have to be at some point and then they become speaker and then they're like proud of themselves and it's like they become this almost ego machine like like oh I can do this oh I'm getting a lot of praise

David 38:43

it's like a it's like an opposite reaction which is very psychological yeah now that they're famous it's like well now I can just

Mick 38:52

because it feels good after having been kind of insecure for a while and now you you get attention for this thing and you're like wow maybe I am special and

David 38:59

I think an author's immaturity as they as they get into this publishing process and they get more successful you see that on the business side of things you do more yeah they might be really like well loved as a like a pastor of a church, for example, and then you see how they handle things when it comes down to contracts and financial terms and marketing and even editing, you know, how they handle that stuff, what's their professionalism level like. You see some differences. Yeah. These are the things we can't tell while we were in a big publishing house. Right, yeah. You almost want to ask them

Mick 39:37

up front, like, are you humble? Do you understand?

Tom 39:39

I mean, yeah. There was a test you could, yeah. Take this humility test before I even have an initial conversation with you.

David 39:48

Forget the Myers-Briggs. You need a humility test.

Mick 39:52

Can you be taught? Are you someone who will take advice? It's that kind of thing. And being able to ask that up front, I know I'm putting people on the spot, but I don't want to work with someone if they're going to turn out to be no fun.

Andy 40:06

This is all true for most authors, but this conversation has made me think of the few times, I know this happened to all of us, where our house acquired somebody who was already a bestseller and they came with a reputation. Or even if they were a mid-list author, they came with a reputation. So maybe that's something for the listeners is just whatever your experience is at your first publishing house, however you treat those people, if you try to go and get published in the same marketplace by a different publisher, it's very likely that that team is going to know your reputation. Because we all know people at different publishing houses. Every now and then, I think we did, or at least I did, work with people that I thought, I know this guy's got a bad reputation. I've heard about this one. He'll be easy with the editorial, but he'll be killer on the marketing team. That was true a lot. He'll be very hard to please with the cover. His team has to do the cover. Don't even bother. I remember some authors

Mick 41:09

that way. I remember that too. They They kind of come with those expectations. It's like the green room stories that you hear. Completely. Yeah, it's like, oh, we're going to need to have these things so they feel comfortable, and they're going to need the limo. I mean, that was even happening at the early stage for me as an editor. People with the expectations showing up because they're big names. And some of that is earned. I mean, quite clearly, I feel like there is a division here. It's not like all the people who have the limos and all the accolades are bad people. I'm in no way saying that. I think what's the difficulty there is that largely it can get to people's heads. And be careful is the warning I hear you saying, Andy. Be careful as an author to treat people the way you want to be treated from the very beginning. And then you won't have this problem. I know that's difficult. It's easier said than done.

David 42:03

I do remember one author in particular, I won't name her name, but she was the opposite of all that. She was... someone who came in and I remember on the marketing side she was asking questions like what do I do next I did that okay you you told me to do this I did that now what do I do even as publisher I could kind of see that conversation going on and that whole demeanor about her and and she she was a person of color and relatively new to publishing did have a name that in her family that helped out but oh my gosh she surprised everybody in terms of the sales on her first book. You might even be a guest, Tom. I know exactly what you're talking about. Yeah, and I always was, I was super impressed by that individual just because of her professionalism, her business-like manner, and how she approached her

Tom 42:57

content. And she had a good team around her as well, which, I mean, a lot of authors in their debut stages may be solo, but, you know, so that means there's more that they're trying to play they're trying to keep spinning but when you can have a team even if it's just one additional person right that's always I mean I see that's always a win I

The importance of getting help

Tom 43:21

want to finish that statement I see that with my own authors who have teams where they can focus on the important things like keep up with your sub stack you know be consistent I don't care if it's once a month once a week whatever just be consistent you know so that author's doing that they're focused on you know the media interviews only the things that they can do but those ancillary things that other people on your team could do like yeah let them do it

Mick 43:49

yeah and that would be sort of an assistant with the social media and maybe

Tom 43:53

social media scheduling PR just being responsive like goodness sakes that's a non-negotiable I mean I think a

Mick 44:00

lot of authors just like breathed a sigh of relief to hear that because as soon as you can afford to hire someone like that now you don't have to do a lot right that's sort of like wrangling of these types of interviews on podcasts and all this stuff you have to do once your book comes out, that's going to be heavy. Yep. That's great.

David 44:18

Well, we're actually running, um, out of time here, but yeah, and we're supposed to go get lunch where we're really going to talk about that. Yeah. Then we can name names, but, but, um, our, our podcast called is called publishing disrupted. Yeah. And we've Mick and I have certainly talked about how we, what the disruption we've seen, we've kind of come into that topic now and then. Um, and just a lot of it is, you know, we're at where we found ourselves on the outside of big corporate life, which wasn't necessarily our choice. That's how it works for a lot of people. There's a lot of, I mean, the publishing industry in terms of number of employees has, has not grown. I think maybe it has gone down. I think there was a recent publishers weekly article about it. And now you might say, well, that's, that's this or that's that. But I mean, all of publishing probably has less and fewer employees than Microsoft, you know? Um, and, So it's definitely a business that's not the same, and we're all outside it now of corporate publishing, trying to interpret that. Maybe start, Andy, with you. How do you see what you're doing as responding? What disruption and change have you seen, and how do you see yourself responding to it in your role now?

Andy 45:31

Oh, yeah. So I think the disruption I've seen, I've heard you all talk about on the podcast before, and that's just the rise of quality independent publishing, or how Yeah. It's easier now for people to publish really high quality books than it was 20 years ago or 10 years ago. Sure. And you know, you can even get an audio book, you can get an ebook. You can, if you have the means, you can produce as high quality book as any traditional publisher. And I think where I've seen the disruption is if the author knows that they need good editorial work and they're, they end up talking with me because a lot of authors will skip that. Unfortunately. That's where they'll save their money. I've worked with several authors that I've thought, you could traditionally publish this book. The hook is that good. You really do have something unique to say. And

Authors are opting out of platform-building

Andy 46:24

what they've said to me is they've been like, yeah, but then I'd have to create a platform. And I just don't want to. And I've heard that from multiple people.

David 46:32

Interesting.

Andy 46:33

Now, these are people that have enough money to do a book. So they're not fresh out of college with no money or something. So they have a career. They've built up at least a modicum of savings to put towards this passion project. So I have to think about who I'm talking with. But they are opting out of the whole platform thing. They've read about it. They don't need me to explain it. They know what it is. And they just don't care. They don't want to do it. But they still want their book. And they still maybe have a network or a business that they can promote the book through or even to email list.

Mick 47:12

OK.

Andy 47:12

Yeah. But they're they're just choosing to kind of say, no, I'm going to have my own publishing experience and it's not going to include platform building. And I've just thought a little bit like, well, will that mean that all traditional publishers only publish people like it as it's already gone? But will they continue to only publish people with platforms that are willing to put the work in and build it up and do all that? And then you have really good independent books with great hooks that could have been traditionally published could have been new york times bestsellers but they're not because of a platform and i just i feel like that's a disruption like yeah we're gonna find more and more really good books out there yeah i'm working with a guy right now through reedzy as a freelancer and he

David 48:02

was reedzy is a is a

Andy 48:04

service for um for anyone in publishing any number of different roles in publishing where you can go and and as an independent author, you know, you can scroll through people based on filter searches. I want a children's book editor who's has X amount of years of experience and, you know, and then pick people. So I'm on there as an editor. No, I'm on there as a ghostwriter. He wanted me to go straight his book. But when he realized what the expense was, he decided to finish the manuscript himself and has asked me to edit it. But it's still too easy. So anyway, he's one that he's got the career if he chose to build a platform he's got something really unique to say and an amazing career in his field he's got a great book a great hook could go for it and he's just he's just opting out yeah like I don't want that don't need it

Mick 48:56

I mean in a way it's like good for him you know

Andy 48:58

yeah it's really interesting because the the big houses that I think oh they would publish this book if you had a platform they're they're not even gonna get to look at it right

David 49:09

right and he's content then to market the book to his already built-in network? I mean, he probably does have some platform if you were to really look at everything there.

Andy 49:19

He doesn't have the social media front-facing. He's not known among

David 49:27

the average person. He's not worrying about mass sales, mass market sales. He's more local, more connected. I think there's something even kind of spiritual about that in a way, even though they're that may not be but

Speaker 00 49:42

yeah

Andy 49:42

well then he he's still continuing to work in his industry in a consulting um right uh role now and so part of this is he's just going to be promoting his like this is his core message this is his life message yeah yeah and he'd rather just do that um but like i said it's not it's not a rehashed idea this felt very fresh to me like

Mick 50:05

so i mean in a way that that might bring you a platform just for being such an anomaly for being and so anti-platform. Now I'm interested. Well, I want to publish this guy. I feel that. I don't know if you do, David, but that feels so authentic and humble in kind of the things that we're talking about here.

Andy 50:24

But as an acquisitions editor, former acquisitions editor for a publisher who would have published this book had it come across their desk, I was thinking, I would have never even seen this.

Mick 50:34

Right. Yeah. Right. You know? Yeah. No, that is a disruption. I think there are more people like that out there yeah how about you Tom

Tom 50:44

I mean I'm just going to build on that like I have it's weekly that I have conversations with authors who are like looking at which path should or could I take traditional versus assisted self-publishing or hybrid and you know often times they are saying yeah I've got the resources and I don't want to mess with the marketing and I have my own built in audience and I like the getting it to market quicker which you do right you know outside of traditional publishing and i like owning my own content frankly like i'm not signing over you know i don't need them i don't need the money quote you know quote unquote um and so it's those are and i agree like there are times where i'm like this i think a traditional publisher would actually right take a serious look at this idea because you are an expert you're credentialed in this topic and this you know kind of, it may be niche, but it could be a broad niche. So that is totally, you're absolutely right. That is a disruption.

Andy 51:49

Yeah. And some, some projects aren't that way. Some that have come across our desks are the hooks are, you know, run of the mill, like wisdom for my grandkids or something. They're not bad, but they're not fresh. Right. Right. But, but then there are the fresh ones. Yeah. Like I was saying, and you know, I don't know, 20 years ago, maybe every major publisher would have seen that book. And now there is another viable option for this person that doesn't even include the major publishers.

Mick 52:17

Yeah. Yeah, that definitely speaks to some of the disruption that's going on. I think that's a really good point to end on because if you're an author who's trying to figure this out, which way do I go? You got to be kind of aware of some of these machinations of the industry that are happening. And I think you're absolutely right, Andy. We've talked about this too. I've noticed A lot of what's happening in the, in the industry, the larger industry is the business is getting bigger and bigger, but the people themselves are saying, I want to opt out and I want to stay local. I want to, you know, just publish a book for my friends. I'm not in this for the money. Um, so I, I do think that's who listens to this podcast. I mean, if you're into disruption, join it. Yep. That's great. Yeah.

David 53:02

Where

Tom 53:03

can, uh, where can folks find you, Tom? Yeah, probably Instagram. A drop of ink is the best place. my website is a drop of ink dot pub but that's really kind of a that needs to be overhauled frankly so don't they all yeah right yes I mean it is primarily a sales you know website and I don't need sales I just yep so but you could go see more about me on the website or on my Instagram awesome great

Andy 53:33

yeah for me it's andyrogersbooks.com okay and my website needs an overhaul

Tom 53:38

too but we're also busy doing the workout of the work.

Andy 53:42

But Facebook actually is where I've been putting more of my time lately than Instagram. I don't know why it's just sort of evolved that way, but facebook.com slash Andy Rogers books. So

Mick 53:53

same as the URL. Sounds good. Hey, thank you guys for being here. This was fun. Yeah. Thank you. I'm hungry. So we got to go to lunch.

David 54:01

Really good. You're welcome. That was a great conversation. Yeah.

Mick 54:05

Yeah. Thanks again. And we'll catch you all next time.