What happens when you land in author jail? Season 3 Finale: Ask Beth & Lisa

In this engaging season finale, Beth and Lisa address common writing and publishing challenges, offering practical advice for aspiring authors. From navigating illustration decisions to overcoming the hurdles of low book sales, they provide actionable insights with humor and honesty.

Key Discussion Points

1. Illustration Questions for Authors:

• Clarified that non-illustrator authors do not need to provide illustrations for their books; publishers manage that process.
• Shared insights into the collaboration between authors and illustrators, including how unexpected details can enhance a book.

1. Author Jail and Sales Pressure:

• Discussed the harsh realities of publishing, including the industry’s focus on first-month sales and its impact on future opportunities.
• Explained strategies for recovering from disappointing sales, such as using pseudonyms, switching genres, or trying self-publishing.
• Encouraged writers to stay resilient and explore new opportunities despite setbacks.

1. Upcoming Initiatives:

• Announced a new recurring event: Ask Beth and Lisa Live on Facebook, launching December 10th.
• Teased exciting content for Season 4, including interviews with agents and editors, set to begin January 6th.

Conclusion

Beth and Lisa wrapped up Season 3 with gratitude and excitement for the future, emphasizing their commitment to providing valuable content for writers. They encouraged listeners to join their Facebook group and submit questions for upcoming episodes.

Mentioned Links

• Ask Beth and Lisa Live Event (Dec 10): Join the private Facebook group.
• Podcast Website: writerswithwrinkles.net.

Note: Don’t miss the Season 4 premiere on January 6th, featuring an exclusive agent interview!

Transcript

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Lisa Schmid: Listening to tortured poets.

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Lisa Schmid: Yeah, well, they should be. If they're not, they should be.

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Beth McMullen: Because it feels like

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Beth McMullen: so a couple of things that I've jotted down that you can do to kind of

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Beth McMullen: try to regain your sanity after you. You bomb. Your debut is trying a pseudonym, switching genres

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Beth McMullen: trying to trying your hand at like book talk. Think about self publishing hybrid publishing couple of things that we can just throw out there as things that you could do to mitigate the damage.

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Lisa Schmid: Yeah.

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Beth McMullen: Okay?

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Beth McMullen: Where's my script? Are you ready?

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Lisa Schmid: Ready!

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Beth McMullen: Oh, and I have in here. We're gonna talk a little bit about how we're so stunned that we're actually moving on to season 4.

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Lisa Schmid: Is crazy.

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Beth McMullen: It is crazy. Right? Okay.

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Beth McMullen: Oh, let me get my microphone in front. Oh, God.

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Lisa Schmid: Reason, for.

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Beth McMullen: Hold on. I just lost my zoom entirely. Okay, there we go.

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Lisa Schmid: I'm excited about our writing retreat.

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Beth McMullen: Me, too. We're gonna have to pick.

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Lisa Schmid: 2 dates.

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Beth McMullen: We're gonna have to hatch some new plans and add new stuff.

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Beth McMullen: Okay?

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

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Lisa Schmid: But I'm Lisa Schmidt.

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Beth McMullen: And we're the co-hosts of writers with wrinkles. This is the very last episode of season. 3. If you can believe that, I can't believe it. I thought we'd be doa after like 2 episodes.

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Lisa Schmid: I did, too.

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Lisa Schmid: I can't believe we're still here.

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Lisa Schmid: I mean, I'm glad we're still here.

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Beth McMullen: Me, too. It's because we have a lot to talk about. Publishing never runs out of things that make you feel like, okay, I just have to talk about this. You know it constantly serves up these little nuggets of gold that we can discuss.

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Lisa Schmid: Old tarnish, gold, maybe.

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Beth McMullen: Full.

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Lisa Schmid: Time turns your skin green.

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Beth McMullen: Right. Remember those rings from like when we were teenagers, and your skin would be completely green afterwards. We were probably poisoning ourselves, and we didn't even know it.

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Lisa Schmid: Remember the mood rings if I.

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Beth McMullen: Yes.

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Lisa Schmid: Bring on. It would always be angry right now.

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Lisa Schmid: It would be black, really black.

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Beth McMullen: Oh, my God, I got! I can't remember who gave this to me. But it it's

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Beth McMullen: it's a it's the idea of a mood ring, but it's actually like a chapstick, and it's supposed to turn color based on. I think it's probably affected by how warm you are, but I'm afraid to use it. For just that reason. I'm going to be walking around with like black Chapstick.

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Lisa Schmid: Want you to get it so I can see what happens.

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Beth McMullen: Oh, my God! It would be very funny and totally embarrassing. But okay for podcasts, because nobody could see my lips right.

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Beth McMullen: Okay, we had a brief interruption. There, you guys, because my phone exploded with an earthquake alert because that sometimes happens here in California. I didn't feel anything. So we're just gonna proceed. Maybe it was us.

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Beth McMullen: We created some sort of I don't know disruption in the space time continuum, and caused a an earthquake

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Beth McMullen: anywhere.

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Lisa Schmid: Speaking of space-time continuum.

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Lisa Schmid: Can I say that I finished my time? Travel book, and let the listeners know that I am no longer lying to Beth

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Lisa Schmid: and.

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Beth McMullen: Guys, this is cause for celebrate. That's what the earthquake was.

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Beth McMullen: The earthquake was that the universe recognized that Lisa finished her book and exploded, wow!

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Lisa Schmid: Well.

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Beth McMullen: Alright. So how do you feel? How do you feel?

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Lisa Schmid: Oh, good! I'm actually doing one, my critique partner. Catherine went through it, and she just gave me her final notes, and then I made those little changes, and then, right now I'm just doing one final run through, and then it's going off to Leslie. But I will say the reason why I finished this is because I gave myself a deadline.

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Lisa Schmid: and I was like I am, and I promised it to Leslie like if I hadn't promised it to Leslie, and just been like some arbitrary whatever. But I was like. I will have this manuscript to you by December 10, th

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Lisa Schmid: and so I'm now going through the final little run through, and I'm shooting it over today.

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Lisa Schmid: So it's getting there early. But if you.

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Beth McMullen: That's good.

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Lisa Schmid: If you're procrastinating out there, give yourself a deadline

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Lisa Schmid: and make it have meaning to it. You know whatever that meaning is. That will kick you in the butt, because I would have still been dragging along like. You know I'll finish this when I finish it.

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Beth McMullen: Yeah, that's really true. We talk about that a lot, right that you have to have some accountability or you're never gonna show up and do the work, even if you really want to.

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Beth McMullen: and that deadline will definitely motivate you to get to the end. And then you can be celebrating and causing earthquakes like Lisa.

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Lisa Schmid: That's right. That's what I do. I rock.

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Beth McMullen: What do we have for questions? This is a question. And ask Beth and Lisa episode, and I know we have at least one question burning question out there.

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Beth McMullen: what is it?

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Lisa Schmid: We actually have 2? So.

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Beth McMullen: This boy. You guys, this is an exciting day.

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Lisa Schmid: On fire.

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Lisa Schmid: 1st question came through our page and the gentleman was asking if he had to provide illustrations.

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Lisa Schmid: When he queried his book, because he thought, you know, it's unless you're an author illustrator, you know. That's great. Submit your illustrations with your book, but he is a writer, and was thinking that maybe he had to go out and find the illustrator. And I think this is this may seem just, really basic. But the answer is, no, you do not provide your own illustrations. The the publisher will do that for you.

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Beth McMullen: And this is for a picture book, right?

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Lisa Schmid: No, his. Actually it was like a

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Lisa Schmid: It was a horror novel, you know. It was. It was a horror novel, and he was really interested in knowing. You know, he just thought, you know, I think my story will be better with illustrations. And wanting to know if that's something that he should be providing, and the answer is, no.

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Beth McMullen: Yeah, publishers have their own state. Yeah, unless you're an artist, and that's part of your package. But publishers definitely have their own stable of illustrators that they will use, I think.

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Beth McMullen: for graphic novels, too.

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Beth McMullen: You're right there. There is the author writing the the story, and the the illustrator doing the the panels. So

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Beth McMullen: you don't have to stress yourself out about that unless you have. Yeah, unless you have

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Beth McMullen: a talent for it. And that's something you do, in which case

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Beth McMullen: I think it would be fine to submit something with the idea. But it's not necessarily going to be used

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Beth McMullen: or it's definitely not required.

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Lisa Schmid: Yeah. And that's a really interesting, you know. That's a common question like with people. Ask me, like, you know, did you draw your cover. Did you illustrate your cover? And I'm just looking at thinking no like.

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Beth McMullen: It's like.

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Lisa Schmid: If you're not, if you're new to the industry, or if you're not in the industry a lot of times, people don't know where this magical cover comes from so.

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Beth McMullen: Yeah, that's.

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Lisa Schmid: Question.

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Beth McMullen: And there are some sometimes when I mean I feel like publishers, some of them at least, that

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Beth McMullen: I've known about prefer that you are not the artist that you are just writing a story, and they do not really allow you much interaction with the artist.

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Beth McMullen: So the artist is really presented with your story, and then they are able to produce their own vision for it.

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Beth McMullen: I know that in picture books at least, you can put in the occasional illustration note. But they're not really.

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Beth McMullen: You don't want to do too many, and they're not. They're not required. And they're not really even that desirable. So.

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Lisa Schmid: Yeah, there's this is a funny story.

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Lisa Schmid: in regards to illustration. So heart and souls has. There's illustrations throughout the book, you know a lot of times. The artists will, you know, come up with things that you don't see, or you know, that you would imagine, or they just find little bits and pieces to make really the book kind of come to life in a really fun way. And there's 1 scene in the book

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Lisa Schmid: but so I should give a little backstory. So the main character sticksheart is a drummer, and in the in the story he idolizes the Foo fighters as the band that you know he likes to listen to. And da. Da. So

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Lisa Schmid: in one of the pictures one of the illustrations, it's of him, you know, playing the drums and on the back there's like a poster. And I thought it said 7, 7,

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Lisa Schmid: and my illustrator was from Argentina, and I was like, Oh, maybe it's like an Argentina thing, and I was like Googling, and I couldn't figure it out. And I'm like, I don't know what this is, and I'm like, whatever you know. Let her, you know I'm not going to say anything, because it just, you know, just kind of like went over my head and then at my launch. Our friend Jenny came in with her husband, and he had a foo fighters t-shirt on, and it was 2 Fs. And I looked at it, and I'm like, Oh, my God!

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Beth McMullen: You were a little late to the party on that one.

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Lisa Schmid: It's in my book. And so we actually took a picture of him with my book open to that illustration, with a poster in it, but I had no idea. And that's just another example of how illustrators like pull something a detail from the book that's really fun and

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Lisa Schmid: and add, it really adds to the story.

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Beth McMullen: Yeah. And sometimes it's a detail that in your mind it was kind of a throwaway, you know, it wasn't something that was really critical to the plot or the character or whatever. And then it it just resonates with, whoever's doing the artwork.

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Beth McMullen: Yeah, yeah, it's definitely fun. That's cool. I remember that picture. I don't think I got it either.

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Lisa Schmid: I didn't I?

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Lisa Schmid: It's just like Oh, my God!

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Lisa Schmid: That's what.

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Beth McMullen: That's probably just us. That's an Us problem. Right?

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Lisa Schmid: Certainly I didn't research it enough.

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Beth McMullen: Alright, so hopefully we helped our our listener feel like he has some resolution to his illustration question.

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Lisa Schmid: Yes.

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Beth McMullen: What was the second question

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Lisa Schmid: so recently. And I've heard this several. This happens all the time, and just in the last week, not week, probably last 2 weeks. I know 3 authors that were their options on their second book were rejected

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Lisa Schmid: because the book

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Lisa Schmid: that they, you know, that they just released. It didn't sell enough copies in the 1st 2 months.

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Lisa Schmid: like the 1st 2 months, the publisher said. Your sales were not good enough, so we're not picking up your second book.

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Lisa Schmid: And so and that's 2 months like anything. And the thing about that is like anything that happens in that 1st 2 months. Honestly, that's on the publisher. It has nothing to do with the story. How good your story is. It, that is solely on the publisher that you know. What did they do to market it? Because there's books that

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Lisa Schmid: are in that same season that get released, that they put all their marketing dollars to, and those go on to do very well. But for whatever reason, like your book, didn't garner that same attention as far as marketing.

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Lisa Schmid: So I just had somebody email me and say, Well.

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Lisa Schmid: my book was just re. My option was just rejected. Because I my sales were not good enough.

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Lisa Schmid: In for the 1st 2 months my 2 month sales, and he's a debut, and he said, So am I, host.

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Lisa Schmid: That's a valid question.

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Beth McMullen: That is a totally valid question, and it's the kind of thing that I feel like people in publishing don't want to talk about. They don't want to talk about the collateral damage that happens. So I've been working on this substack post about this very topic about what happens when you land in author jail.

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Beth McMullen: and I found a couple of interesting statistics that have. Really, you know, they're they're kind of eye opening when you put them together. The 1st one is

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Beth McMullen: 70% of publisher sales come from backlist.

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Beth McMullen: and that means books that are already published and doing well. So it's a known quantity. They know those books are going to sell. They put some muscle behind them to keep them selling at a high rate. That is 70%.

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Beth McMullen: That is a huge, a huge percentage of total sales.

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Beth McMullen: The other thing to think about alongside the 70% thing is that

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Beth McMullen: less than 25% of

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Beth McMullen: debut books earn out their advance.

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Beth McMullen: So what that means is that the publishing house pays you some amount of money

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Beth McMullen: to have the right to publish your book.

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Beth McMullen: They publish the book, your sales that your royalties that you earn go toward that

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Beth McMullen: advance until you've paid it off.

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Beth McMullen: and then you start earning royalties for yourself.

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Beth McMullen: Most books don't ever earn out the advance, which means they're not selling. So

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Beth McMullen: those 2 things put together, you can say without feeling like it's too off base, that most books that are published

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Beth McMullen: failed.

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Beth McMullen: and my feeling is that. And I felt this since day one when I stepped into this industry. Is that

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Beth McMullen: way. Too many books are published, and the reason they do that is, they take

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Beth McMullen: a huge number of titles.

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Beth McMullen: and they throw them all at the wall, and they hope like hell that one sticks and that one that sticks

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Beth McMullen: carries everybody else along.

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Beth McMullen: But because and you've heard publishing executives say this, they don't understand what makes a book take off or sell. There's no, there's no magic formula that they can repeat, repeat, repeat.

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Beth McMullen: so that's how they do it. They take a ton of books, and they throw them all at the wall, and whatever sticks is what they lean their their marketing muscle into the problem with that is that. Think about all the books that fall off the wall that don't stick. They have authors behind them, and the author is now stuck carrying that baggage with them into their writing. Life doesn't go away, hangs around your neck like an albatross.

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Beth McMullen: So those are my feelings off the top off the top of my head. I'm waiting for you to go. Tell us how you really feel.

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Lisa Schmid: We have. We have this conversation all the time, because it is. I feel like I have this new analogy for this, this.

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Lisa Schmid: this whole thing that happens in the publishing world, where, if your book doesn't perform well enough within the 2 months, you're gone, like they're just like washing their hands of you, and and they're moving on to the next person, and I feel very much like you as authors. We get love bombed by

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Lisa Schmid: publisher, and they love us, and they love us. And then your 2 month sales come out and they're like, Oh, it's too hard. This relationship's too hard. We're gonna go love bomb somebody new. It's like we are the Taylor Swift's

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Lisa Schmid: of the world, and we're, you know, the publishers are Matt Healy, and they're just love bombing us.

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Lisa Schmid: And then I just want to say, just like, be a Travis Kelsey. Publishers like Stick with a relationship like keep working on it and help that, you know. Work on the next book with them like rise together like you can do this. But instead, it's just like, you know, cut and dry. Let's just go. Let's just go. Let's move on to the next shiny thing where you have. You know these books like this one, this one author that I was talking about

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Lisa Schmid: that said, You know, am I host? His book is literally one of my favorite books of the year. It is so good, like so good, so funny. It made me cry. It made me laugh. I felt all the feels.

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Lisa Schmid: and I'm just like, Why is this not like, why is this not up here? And then another book I read. That's getting all the awards and getting all the sales. I read it, and it was a flat line for me. You know what I mean. I didn't feel anything.

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Lisa Schmid: and so not not saying that, you know. For me personally it didn't do anything.

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Lisa Schmid: but it's like, why, the difference, like, you know, this person got this, and this person whose book I absolutely adore.

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Lisa Schmid: you know, didn't have the sales, and it's just publishing is a weird thing.

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Beth McMullen: It's difficult, though, because while the publisher moves on

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Beth McMullen: to the next relationship, the author is stuck in author jail.

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Beth McMullen: which is what you're in, I mean, and you have to figure out a way to dig yourself out. And you know there's there's a stigma attached with with poor sales that sticks to you. It's part of your record. It's going to make editors hesitant to take a chance on you.

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Beth McMullen: retail, you know. Maybe you do get somebody to buy your next book. The retail establishments might remember that 1st failure and not be interested in carrying your stuff. I mean, there's a lot of downsides. And it's

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Beth McMullen: it all becomes the author's problem. It's no longer the publishing problem because they have moved on and, like you said, 2 months is a very short period of time to make or break my very 1st book. When I 1st published.

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Beth McMullen: which was, I think, 2011, or something. They told me 6 weeks.

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Beth McMullen: If you don't break out in 6 weeks. You are doa.

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Lisa Schmid: Oh!

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Beth McMullen: And you know, I mean that I think for for new writers especially, they don't understand what that is like, and how incredibly difficult it is to move the needle as one individual. I mean, there are things that you can do, but it's very difficult to reach. You know, sales, figures of 40 or 50,000 units sold by yourself.

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Lisa Schmid: Yeah.

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Beth McMullen: A very hard, and there are absolutely some people who do it brilliantly. And you see some, I think, in genres like romance and fantasy. You see a lot of the self-published people pulling this off. That's very genre specific, and they are brilliant at what they do. But that's not what everybody's trying to do, and that's not every kind of book that's published. So what works for romance and self-publishing may not work for.

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Beth McMullen: you know, literary fiction. And you know, so it's it's apples to oranges. But it is a I mean what I say. Are you to the question. Are you hosed?

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Beth McMullen: Yes, and no like you now have this kind of black mark against you that you need to work out from under. But you can

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Beth McMullen: work out from under it potentially.

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Lisa Schmid: Yeah.

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Lisa Schmid: well, and it's 1 of those things, no matter how. And I'm always, if anybody follows me on social media, I mean you. You've probably seen me do everything I can to market my book.

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Lisa Schmid: I'm always trying to come up with clever things and funny ways and book giveaways and you know, doing online school visits like whatever I can do. But as much as I do

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Lisa Schmid: it will only

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Lisa Schmid: move the needle so much, and it's just it you you can spin your wheels, and I guess my advice is, don't get too caught up in that panicking feeling of like, Oh, my God, I gotta go out and like, try to, you know, do all these things to market this book because it's only gonna work so much. And so. And it's gonna take away from your time and energy on your next project. And so I get it like, we've all been through that moment where we're like, okay. Now, what do I do?

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Lisa Schmid: I've been rejected, and it doesn't feel good when you do panic.

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Lisa Schmid: But you just have to find a way to work through it, and you know what you can do it with a broken heart.

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Beth McMullen: Just listen to.

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Lisa Schmid: Taylor.

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Beth McMullen: Oh, my gosh! We are all tailored up today here on writers with wrinkles.

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Beth McMullen: There are a couple of things that you can try use a pseudonym.

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Beth McMullen: and they'll be presented as again a debut which is crazy because you're not. You're still you. But now you're a debut 2.0

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Beth McMullen: genre hopping switch genres. Say you were writing literary fiction. Try crime, try mystery, try cozy mystery. Something like that. That's a good way to get a fresh set of eyes on your stuff, and your baggage won't be held against you so much. If you're now in a in a different

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Beth McMullen: silo.

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Beth McMullen: you gotta try to build your own audience. I mean, we've talked about that. It's not gonna have a huge impact, but it does help, and it can grow exponentially over the years.

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Beth McMullen: yeah. Lastly, I think you can also give a go to hybrid publishing or self publishing, depending on your genre, because for some genres. It works really well. So say you wrote a contemporary romance, and it bombed.

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Beth McMullen: You could, you know, through a traditional publishing channel, you could turn to self publishing and have a massively successful career. So.

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Lisa Schmid: Yeah, and I have friends. I actually have one friend that

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Lisa Schmid: had her debut. It was a Ya. Several years ago, and she got a new agent, and I don't know that her debut how well it did. So they she went under a different name on her second sub.

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Lisa Schmid: and she debuted under a whole new name again.

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Lisa Schmid: So it's like.

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Beth McMullen: I did. I did that too. I had 2 books under one name that were mystery. And then I wrote this kind of dark kind of snarky romance, and

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Beth McMullen: it went to a different publisher, and that publisher didn't want to publish under my name because I had used my name to write these spy thrillers.

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Beth McMullen: and they thought it was going to be confusing. I gotta tell you pseudonyms are in a whole different complication that we can talk about some other time. But I think in this situation, where, if you feel like you have

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Beth McMullen: negative sales that are kind of, you know, following you around a pseudonym can help you get out of that, you know. Get out! Get away from them at least somewhat.

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Lisa Schmid: Yeah. And the other thing, I just, I know a lot of people are switching genres right now that you know one of the people that I was talking to, who got kicked to the curb again after a couple months. Sales he

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Lisa Schmid: He went ahead and just switched to adult fiction. He was in middle grade. And he's like, I'm just. I'm going on to adult fiction.

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Lisa Schmid: And you know, with that you get a whole playing different playing field.

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Lisa Schmid: And so he that was, you know. It's a wise switch up for him.

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Beth McMullen: And you're gonna get different eyes on your material. The people who are editing middle grade are not the same ones who are editing adult thrillers.

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Beth McMullen: Your sales. Reputation will follow you, but it's less important if you are actually producing a product that is not in any way the same as the product that failed. So

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Beth McMullen: I think that's actually, if if that's something that appeals to you as a author, it's a great thing to do, and it can also be really fun

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Beth McMullen: to do. I think that it can be kind of refreshing to switch genres because you have a little bit more of a challenge. You have to think about it a little bit more. You're crafting something different. I find that pretty fun. I I unfortunately switch genres too much

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Beth McMullen: because I get bored, and then I want to do something else. But it is a good way to kind of refresh your whole author. Life.

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Lisa Schmid: Yeah. And then I also just had a friend. That self published a book

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Lisa Schmid: and hers, he she already had a debut out, so she already had kind of a fan base out there.

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Lisa Schmid: So her book's doing really. Well, you know, it's an awesome book.

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Lisa Schmid: and she's ranked better than me right now on Amazon.

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Beth McMullen: I think that's also a good one, like, if you feel like you have the chops for self publishing.

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Beth McMullen: give it a try. I mean.

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Beth McMullen: The the thing is that once you've gotten kicked to the curb once you've gotten kind of, you know.

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Beth McMullen: kicked in the head by the publishing industry.

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Beth McMullen: you don't really have anything to lose by giving giving these other things a shot and seeing what happens.

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Lisa Schmid: Right.

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Beth McMullen: Kind of the world's your oyster at that point. Right? So why not try? Because one of them, one of those things self publishing a pseudonym, whatever might actually change the entire game for you. You don't know until you try, and I think that's the

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Beth McMullen: last thing to say about it is that if you quit you're never getting out of author jail, you will be in there forever. You gotta keep trying, and then you might in your next time out, or your time after that you might get freed from the author jail, which is

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Beth McMullen: what you're trying to do.

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Lisa Schmid: Wonder how long you're in author jail for.

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Beth McMullen: I think it depends on your next step. I think you can come out of it really quickly if you do. Some sort of exciting pivot.

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Beth McMullen: I think if you, if you keep trying to do the same thing that failed.

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Beth McMullen: you're never coming out of it.

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Beth McMullen: Do you just give.

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Lisa Schmid: Bread and water.

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Beth McMullen: Yeah, yeah, you get bread and water and poorly edited books.

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Lisa Schmid: Chunk of cheese.

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Beth McMullen: That.

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Beth McMullen: Oh, their jail right there! No cheese, just bread and water, so eat it sparingly.

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Lisa Schmid: Oh, my! Gosh!

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Beth McMullen: Anyway. Okay, 

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Beth McMullen: So we are introducing this new Facebook, live

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Beth McMullen: ongoing, recurring event called, Ask Beth and Lisa live where we're just gonna hang out on Facebook live in our private group.

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Beth McMullen: we will put a link to that private group in the podcast notes. So you can find us, you have to request to join, but we are happy to have all our author friends come and hang out with us.

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Beth McMullen: and this will be at 6 Pm.

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Beth McMullen: Pacific time. So 9 o'clock Eastern Standard on December 10.th That will be our 1st one, and we'll put all this in our social, so you will be reminded of it. Probably 150 times between now and then. And we're just hanging out chatting. It'll be like this, it'll be like, you're in the podcast with us, but we won't record it so you could say whatever you want and not have to be, you know, embarrassed by it later.

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Beth McMullen: So we want you to join us for that. It's going to be fun. Bring any questions, everything, anything. Don't ask me what to buy for that person in your life who has everything, and you don't know what gift, because I'm really bad at that. But we can talk about books and publishing.

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Beth McMullen: and you know the writing life.

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Beth McMullen: So please try to join us for that. I think it will be fun. This is kind of this is kind of a trial run. We're we're kind of hatching this for 2025. So it's we're just. We're rolling it out a little early to see what happens.

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Lisa Schmid: Be fun!

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Beth McMullen: I like.

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Lisa Schmid: I just you know what I I hope it's not one of those scenarios where nobody comes on, and we're just staring like Hello.

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Beth McMullen: Well, if it's just you and me, we'll just talk like we always do it, doesn't it doesn't matter. I mean, we are the party. So you know.

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Beth McMullen: anyway, I think oh, one other thing, a little preview for 2025. We are lining up

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Beth McMullen: agents. We're lining up editors to be on Season 4. We have a lot of really good programming coming for you. So we're excited about that.

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Beth McMullen: Are you excited about that? I can tell you're excited about that.

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Lisa Schmid: Well, I am. I'm always excited to talk to agents and editors to get their take on the world in in publishing, because you're always learning something new that you didn't know. Sometimes there's like information that I know. I've heard that before, but a lot of times there's always somebody that will drop a new nugget

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Lisa Schmid: that I'm just like. I did not know that.

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Beth McMullen: And that's real gold, not tarnished gold.

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Lisa Schmid: Yeah, totally totally right.

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Lisa Schmid: And there's there's been some things, some some little bits of information that I you know editors have dropped about what goes on behind the scenes that made my jaw drop, and

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Lisa Schmid: those were fun.

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Beth McMullen: I know what episodes you're thinking about.

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Beth McMullen: I love. I actually love those episodes, too, for the same reason. I always learn something. There's always something that I just had never thought about or I didn't know, or just wasn't on my radar. So I I love our our guest interviews. They're always

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Beth McMullen: really informative. So we have a bunch of those coming for you in 2025. We'll have more of. Ask Beth and Lisa.

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Beth McMullen: Remember the link to asking a question is also in the notes. I will put it back in again, and I'll make it big and bold, so you can click on it and send us your burning questions.

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Beth McMullen: So that is it for today's episode, and that is it for season 3.

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Lisa Schmid: Oh, my! Gosh!

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Beth McMullen: I was doing a dramatic pause there. So everybody.

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Beth McMullen: so everybody can just understand the magnitude of having.

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Lisa Schmid: Okay, do it again.

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Beth McMullen: So that is it for today's episode.

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Beth McMullen: and that is it for season. 3 crazy listeners.

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Beth McMullen: Thank you for sticking with us for 3 seasons. So far we are excited to go to bigger and bolder places with season 4. Please remember to visit writerswithrinkles.net to find out how to support the show by subscribing, following, and recommended. We are back with Episode one of Season 4 on January 6.th

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Beth McMullen: That will be an agent interview. We are just shuffling some guests at the moment, so I can't say exactly who it's going to be. But as always, we try to bring you amazing content. So you can just count on that.

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Beth McMullen: So until then our lovely listeners, happy holidays! Happy New Year, but also happy reading, writing, and listening.

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Beth McMullen: See you in 2025 bye, Lisa.

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Lisa Schmid: Good Beth. Bye, guys.