Why Bestselling Author Jason June Shares Every Book Advance He's Ever Gotten

New York Times bestselling author Jason June (Out of the Blue, Jay's Gay Agenda) returns to Writers With Wrinkles for a wide-ranging conversation covering his growing acting career, the current state of the publishing industry, and his upcoming adult rom-com Santa and Krampus' Cozy Killer Christmas, out fall 2027. Jason is refreshingly candid — about book advances, about the anxiety running through publishing right now, and about finding joy in the work when the business side gets hard.

 Guest
Jason June — NYT bestselling author, actor, screenwriter, and self-described "Laura Dern stan" based in Dallas, TX. Known for YA rom-coms Out of the Blue and Jay's Gay Agenda, and publisher of The Ventorship, a newsletter on author finances and transparency.

 Highlights
•     Auditioning post-COVID: why self-tapes democratize acting, and what's lost without an in-person redirect from a casting director

•     How years of writing fiction sharpened Jason's instincts for character and story on set

•     The "greater sense of unease" in publishing right now — AI concerns, slow timelines, and authors questioning why traditional publishing can't move faster

•     Self-publishing's rising role, the discovery gap it still faces, and why hybrid careers are becoming more common

•     The Dungeon Crawler Carl story as a case study in trusting your own artistic vision

•     Why Jason publicly shares his advances and royalties through The Ventorship — and the argument that most of that "secrecy" is self-imposed

•     Publishing as a side hustle: debut culture, shrinking advances, and the myth of the "cushy" author life

•     The MER Principle (Beth's term): find the niche community obsessed with your book's specific hook, not a general audience

•     The premise behind Santa and Krampus' Cozy Killer Christmas — a "dark cozy" where Krampus only kills the people who'd otherwise doom humanity

•     Jason's advice to aspiring authors: chase the joy, and aim to be "prolific, not perfect"

 Key Takeaway
Whether you're navigating traditional publishing, weighing a hybrid career, or just trying to market your next book, the throughline is the same: get specific. Specific about your niche audience, specific about your finances, and specific about what actually brings you joy in the work.

Have a marketing tip that's worked for you? Beth and Lisa want to hear it.

•     Beth: beth@writerswithwrinkles.net

•     Lisa: lisa@writerswithwrinkles.net

•     Join The Waiting Room, our Facebook community for writers

•     Website: writerswithwrinkles.net

Transcript

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Jason June Interview

Beth McMullen: [00:00:00] Hi, friends. I'm Beth McMullen,

Lisa Schmid: And I'm Lisa Schmidt

Beth McMullen: and we're the co-hosts of Writers With Wrinkles. This is season five, episode 21, and today we're excited to welcome Jason June back to the show. Jason June is a New York Times bestselling author who you may know from his previous young adult rom-coms, Out of the Blue and Jay's Gay Agenda.

He's now venturing into adult rom-coms, the first of which is Santa and Krampus' Cozy Killer Christmas, which I have to pause right there and just say that I love that title so much. This book is coming out fall 2027. is also an actor and screenwriter, and a Laura Dern stan based in Dallas, Texas. So welcome back.

Thank you for coming.

Jason June: Thank y'all so much for having me again. I'm happy to be reunited

Lisa Schmid: Reunited. Here's my singing interlude. Ooh.

Jason June: My family was big on that. Anytime any phrase triggered a song, you just have to break into song. There's no other option

Lisa Schmid: Yeah, we're excited to have you [00:01:00] back

Beth McMullen: I tend to break into 1980s movie quotes. That's we all have our thing.

Jason June: That's--

Beth McMullen: I quote.

Jason June: It's amazing

Lisa Schmid: I've also done this thing recently and we can't figure out I'm making weird noises. I think I'm feeling so the world has crushed me, and so I just sit there and I'm like, bew." It's like, "What are you doing?" I'm like, "I don't know. I don't know what is happening to me."

Jason June: However you gotta get by, do what you gotta do

Beth McMullen: totally. Okay, this is, we're gonna make this all about me for one second because I know that you're doing auditions, you're an actor, you're out there, and I am desperate to get the inside scoop on what's that. What is that like? What happens when you walk in the room? How do you feel?

Can you just talk to us a little bit about that? Because I know I'm not the only one who's curious

Jason June: Totally. I will say, I'm not gonna give you the best answers like, Matt Damon or Idris Elba or Viola Davis who will have all these...

Beth McMullen: can because we would not know the difference.[00:02:00] 

Jason June: I don't have the A-list scoop. I'm still in the beginning stages of my acting journey. I've been taking acting classes and everything for a long long long time. But my path to actually being able to professionally act and be in SAG-AFTRA, the actors' union and all that stuff, has taken a while and I think a lot of it had to do, one, with writing where just the universe was so lovely, and this is not a complaint whatsoever, gave me a bunch of book deals like at the end of the 20-teens and early 2020s where then I just had to write and really had to focus on that.

And I was also really coming like into my own as a person, both like feeling confident in the energy I exude, in my gender androgyny and ambiguity for people. It's really hard for them to cast like a male love interest when I walk into the room and I'm like, "Hello." Like I'm not really that person.

So once I could really clarify who I am energetically and what the kind of roles I should be cast in, that's when things have been able to take [00:03:00] off a little bit more for me. And I say take off loosely, not as in I have a ton of credits because I don't, but actually getting into auditions which, to finally answer your question.

Auditions especially in the post-COVID era, I have not had an in-person audition yet. It's all been over self-tape or like through over Zoom callbacks, things like that.

Beth McMullen: that is

Jason June: So

Beth McMullen: that it never went back to the old way of... Wow, okay

Jason June: They're starting to. I'm hearing more and more people getting in-person auditions, which I would love because I'm like, I have pluses and minuses of both sides. I really want self-tape to continue to be a viable option for people because I think it democratizes the process for actors, especially when LA is such an expensive city that people can legitimately get into acting now and not live in LA and then just travel there when they're cast for something.

I think that's beautiful. But the beauty also of in-person auditions is being able to get a redirect in the room from a casting director, whereas when you're just filming your own [00:04:00] audition, you're going with what you think the role embodies, which is great, where you can show what your instincts are and how you picture the character.

But it's also really nice to be able to show that you can take a direction, and when you're self-taping, you don't really get that opportunity until you get a callback where the casting director might say, "Hey, how about you try it like this time? We love what you did, but give it this shot." And it's all been really fun.

I, so far, it's just like publishing, where you throw a lot of stuff at the wall, and the majority of the time you're getting rejections. I filmed my first movie just a couple weeks ago, which was so much fun. Got to get a supporting role in that. It could be a blink and you miss it. They could cut the scenes.

We don't know, but it was really fun.

Lisa Schmid: Oh my God.

Jason June: Yeah

Lisa Schmid: What kind of a movie was it?

Jason June: It is an indie mystery. I can't, it's, it is also like publishing where you can't exactly say a bunch of stuff about it until you really get the go ahead. But yeah

Beth McMullen: Do you think that being a writer helps you [00:05:00] understand character better? Are you able to bring any of this deep experience? You're a New York Times bestselling author. You have a lot of experience. Do you, does any of that come to bear on when you're doing the more the acting stuff?

Jason June: I think so, for sure. It really helps, I think, where you're you're just more in tune on story and story engine and how somebody would try to get a character's motivation across. And so I think I'm able to pick up on the core of a scene quicker than if I were not a writer, and that's not to say actors who aren't writers can't pick up on it at all.

But but I do think it helps me personally get there faster and allows me to find a space to play a little bit more about, like, how are other ways that I can deliver this and still get the thought across, and yeah, it's really fun. It also super helps, I do a fair amount of audiobook narration, not just for my own books, but for other writers' books, and it really helps me with that especially, where I can figure out, oh, here's what they're trying to say and here's [00:06:00] how it's meant to be conveyed and all that stuff.

It's really fun

Beth McMullen: That is so interesting. I am like I obviously follow you on Instagram and the other socials, so I just like watching the journey, and I can't wait to see you on the screen. This is so

Jason June: Thank you so much. That really means a lot. It's really fun, and it sounds so Pollyanna cheesy, but just even being able to audition for a role, to have a casting director see my reel and think, "Yeah he could be good to be seen for this part." It's a lot of, I love TV. TV is, like, where I really want to end up.

And I'll audition for a lot of one or two or three line co-star roles, and that's just so fun. It's oh my God, somebody at... Like yesterday or the, a couple days ago, I just filmed an audition for Apple TV, and I was like, "Somebody at Apple TV is watching this audition." And it just blows my freaking mind that that there's even that.

Even if I get told no the vast majority of the time, we're talking like 99.9% of the time, to know that it's being seen is cool

Beth McMullen: yeah, that's amazing. And it does actually [00:07:00] sound like the training that authors go through of that rejection cycle where most of it is a big fat no,

Jason June: Yeah.

Beth McMullen: feels like business as usual to you, where you're not traumatized by the no because you're like, "Eh, it'll happen eventually.

This is how it goes."

Jason June: Yes, totally.

Beth McMullen: Like

Jason June: I think--

Beth McMullen: training

Jason June: Yeah, absolutely. And I think there's a little-- Somehow my brain separates the two of writing and acting in terms of the joy of it all. For me with writing, I'm writing with the intention of readers reading it. I want to know that people can pick up this book and read it, whether it's at the library, whether it's digitally, however they're-- whether they're buying a hard copy, whatever it is.

With acting, the end goal, of course, is to be in movies and on TV would be fabulous. But just filming an audition, even though I know that is going nowhere publicly, to know that people are still watching it, that gives me [00:08:00] the sa- that scratches the same itch as knowing I have a book out that somebody can go and check out at the library kind of thing.

I don't know what, why that is why I'm not like, "But a ton of people aren't seeing it." I'm like, "Whatever, I'm having fun," and that is really what I want to do.

Beth McMullen: It's like you're in that honeymoon phase when you're writing your first novel and

Jason June: Yeah

Beth McMullen: through the meat grinder that is publishing yet, and you're still

Jason June: Yes

Beth McMullen: "This is so fun. love it. I da." I was on a panel not that long ago with a couple of authors, and one of the audience asked for...

Sorry, I have a dog in here. It's a very long story. I'm, I may have to get up and let him out at some point. But one of the, one of the people in the group asked about, should I rewrite this entirely? It's a verse, and I don't know if that works, but I really I like the verse and I'm enjoying it.

And everybody gave their answer and it got to me and I was like, oh hell, if you're having fun and you're feeling joy and you're like into it, don't not do that. Do that. Do whatever [00:09:00] it is that's bringing you that feeling of what you just described of I am having a really good time.

Jason June: Yes

Beth McMullen: not do that? If you ha- if you've managed to get to that point, just ride that baby, seriously.

Jason June: Exactly. I think it's really important that we keep finding the joy in the art that we're creating. And I know that, again, that sounds so Pollyanna, that sounds so hokey, but it really is true. If you can't find the joy in it, then you need to do something else.

Lisa Schmid: I could not agree more. And it, that, that brings us really nicely into our first question of the day. Do.

Beth McMullen: See? There's the sound effects

Lisa Schmid: Oh

Jason June: Beautiful. I loved it

Lisa Schmid: That it's so funny 'cause Beth and I earlier today were talking about joy. That was, like, part of our conversation. And we're working on a top secret project

Jason June: Yeah

Lisa Schmid: that w- that will...

It's, I can't tell you right now 'cause it's top secret.

But it's bringing both of us a lot of joy, and [00:10:00] one of the reasons that came about was because publishing hasn't been bringing us as much joy

lately. I think that's a diplomatic way of saying it.

Jason June: Yeah

Lisa Schmid: so what is your take on the current state of the publishing industry?

Because we see so much, on Threads, like people are really going through this just, it's... I feel like it's a bad place right now with so

many people feeling not joyful. 

Jason June: Yeah.

Lisa Schmid: do you think?

Jason June: I agree. I do feel a greater sense of unease right now in publishing as a whole. I'm feeling a greater sense of unease about publishing as a whole. Just in terms of, it seems like everybody's overworked and stressed out on the publishing side. The- they're constantly getting new things thrown at them in terms of having to worry about AI, having to worry about the legality of how to make sure the books that they acquire don't have AI in them, how to make sure [00:11:00] the books they are publishing aren't used to train AI.

I think that's a lot of the issue there. And then I think another part of the issue and this is where current writing authors come into play as well, is that we're seeing we're seeing... I don't know if sh- a shift is the right word, but we're seeing a greater role that self-publishing is playing in the success of authors.

And for authors who have traditionally been traditionally published how's that for an echo in one sentence? There is frustration at watching people be able to get books out so quickly and see success. Not frustration at the authors who are doing that, but frustration at the system of publishing, that they are not getting books out quicker, that we have books that are completed and are just sitting there in the machine waiting for their turn to get cranked out, whether that's through copy editing, through [00:12:00] edits, through line pages, whatever it is that gets super frustrating.

And I can't say that I'm speaking for every writer. I know for me that's a big case right now is there's nothing that any, like... I have a three-book romance, adult romance deal that I'm working on right now. I'm very happy with the whole team. They're, they've been lovely, but I am frustrated with how publishing itself works as an antiquated system.

It has to get faster, and if it cannot get faster, then I think it should be expected from publishing that we'll see at a minimum, a lot more hybrid authors or a lot more authors just being like, "I'm going to shirk the system altogether and just have a self-publishing career. I think we're gonna see a lot more people that...

We're over the stigma now that it used to be the bad stereotype of anybody who self-publishes just can't handle being edited. I don't think that's the case at all. I think sure, there probably are some people [00:13:00] that are just like, "I'm gonna crank something out and get it out there," and they're doing it m- more for them and whatever.

Comes from it. I think there are a lot of people that are doing it because we have zero control in this industry, and oftentimes we can feel like the least important person in the process of our book becoming traditionally published when we're the one writing it. And again, I know it's that editors and contracts teams and marketers and all those things, they're not evil.

They're not doing this because they want to they wanna hook an author then see how they can torture them along the way. They're not doing it because of that. It's because the system itself is antiquated. There's not enough people staffed. They're- We're taking too long to get things out so that any traditional published author...

Everyone says don't write to trends or whatever, but we see successes when people who are on trend are releasing a book at that moment, and that's something that self-published authors really have an advantage over traditionally published authors about. There's so many different reasons why you would pick self-published [00:14:00] over traditional published or traditional over self-published, but I think a lot of the frustration that we're seeing now in publishing as a whole is coming both from the author side and from the publishing side, where we're all wondering why this is taking so long and why we're all just...

why we have all these complaints about something we worked so hard to get into, whether that was an author or as an editor or whatever side of creating a book we decided to go into. I think a lot of us are wondering right now, really what is the source of all of our complaining? 'Cause a lot of us are complaining.

Lisa Schmid: Everyone.

Beth McMullen: Everyone's

Lisa Schmid: wish I could s- yeah, I wish I could say it's unique, but there's very few people I know that have a good publishing story to tell me, but it, and that's also natural because everyone wants to talk about their angst

Jason June: Yeah

Lisa Schmid: going on

Beth McMullen: of people who are on book two plus,

Jason June: Yeah

Beth McMullen: right? Your initial debut experience is unique because you have no idea what you [00:15:00] don't know.

Jason June: Yeah

Beth McMullen: you're just like, "Oh, this is the way it is," blah, blah, blah. "This is what I went through." And then by the time you hit two or three, you're that lucky, most people don't even get there you start to see the flaws of the system

Jason June: Yeah

Beth McMullen: slowing you down.

I feel that a lot. I feel like we're seeing so many more authors who they'll put something in the traditional pipeline, and then meanwhile they'll write three or four of their genre, whatever,

Jason June: Yep

Beth McMullen: cozy whatever, those out because that's like filling the content desire of their fans.

And these people are pros, so their stuff is good. They have a system where it gets edited well. I think what's gonna be interesting with self-publishing is discovery,

Jason June: Yes

Beth McMullen: trad publishing has this whole universe of, sales people and marketing, not that always is successful, but they do have those people who are out there hand-selling your books to Target and Costco

Jason June: Absolutely

Beth McMullen: whatnot, and doesn't have [00:16:00] that.

So it'll be interesting to see, 'cause I think you're totally right. It's just like ramping up, and the quality is pretty the same standard across the board. So

Jason June: Yeah

Beth McMullen: what is gonna be that mechanism that drives readers who maybe aren't a fan yet, but want to be or will be to those self-published books? I think about that a lot.

This is what I do with my time.

Jason June: Absolutely

Lisa Schmid: I keep talking about, there's the last two series I've read were both self-published,

I had no idea. 'Cause I just don't care. I'm not... 

Jason June: yeah

Lisa Schmid: But the first, whenever I get that first book, I'm always like, "Ooh, who's the publisher? Who's this?" Just because I'm in the industry.

Most people don't look at who the publisher is.

Jason June: Yeah

Lisa Schmid: "Holy crap, this is self-published." And it is, it's awesome. And I I've befriended the person. I've become a fan girl. I'm like the, that weird person. I'm always like, "Hey, I'm, reading your book, and da la." I tag 'em, and so it just... But it's fun. It's

fun that you're seeing this whole new level [00:17:00] of she's never, I don't know she's ever even traditionally published, and she does, she's got seven or eight books out, and I'm following her, and every time one comes out, I'm like on it. I'm buying it.

Jason June: Yes

Lisa Schmid: the thing. It's like with somebody, especially someone like you, who already has a built-in fan base, if you go self-publish, you're just, that's just gonna continue on for you, that, that kind of level of success.

Jason June: Thank you. I'm really hoping to, yeah, at least become a hybrid author. Like I say, I'm so excited for these tr- traditional, traditionally published books I've got coming out in the next couple years. But like I, I'm feeling There's so much you have to keep in mind. Like we've been talking about.

As you were saying, Beth the distribution for self-published books is just not there in the way that it is for traditional published because all these big retailers already have these established relationships with these traditional publishers and are familiar with the quality of the books they'll put out, so they're not as willing to take a chance on indie authors.

Will they occasionally? Sure, sometimes. But the likelihood [00:18:00] that they will isn't as good as if you're a traditional published author. But then you also have the case where so many of us traditionally published are not picked up by Targets and Walmarts or even Barnes & Noble. There's so many people, myself included, that have had books that were not picked up by Barnes & Noble.

And there's nothing that's guaranteed anymore. So I think for any person, it's such a personal decision about if you're going to include this or not. You've gotta determine your finances. I still think it's the case where you're most likely to make more money traditionally published with your advance than you are self-published, oftentimes because of that distribution problem.

And even though you're making 70% of a sale as royalties when you're self-published and only 10 to 15 when traditionally published, if you're still not making a ton of sales, you're gonna make less self-published, blah, blah, blah. This is all kind of-- I just want anyone listening to be like, you've gotta do the research for yourself about what would make the most sense.

For me, the thing that is really weighing me heavily to incorporate [00:19:00] self-publish in a hybrid career is I f- I cannot stand anymore the lack of control. And of course I can't con- I can't control how many readers will come to my self-published books if I ever do that in the future if they'll be a success.

That's not really what I'm talking about. I'm talking about the control over the actual production of the book itself and just getting the book out there when I know it's good to go. 'Cause we have so many-- there's so many books out there that have become huge, massive, millions of dollars' worth of success that were self-published from a person just not waiting for somebody to tell them, "Oh, this isn't-- We don't think we can sell this.

It's not right for the market," or, "Oh you're gonna have to wait two years," or, "Oh whatever." Like the whole Dungeon Crawler Carl saga, which is so amazing where Matt was just like, "It's COVID and I need to put something out. I need to help my family make money and all these things."

And so he just started making these, and they're really fun romps through a really cool world that people are just eating up. And he didn't wait for an editor to [00:20:00] say, "Oh, but what if you change X, Y, and Z?" He just went with his own artistic vision, and it's this massive success. I'm so excited for him and so happy for him.

While the likelihood that anything I create... I'm such a rambler, sorry.

Beth McMullen: No, I'm w- I'm with you. I'm with you

Jason June: The, while the likelihood it, I will never have the success like the Dungeon Crawler Carl series, what is most important to me right now is that control over getting stuff out to readers. I don't write just for fun. I write because it is fun, but also I write for readers. I feel like it's a part of my purpose for being on planet Earth is to help create escape for people from the bonkers world we live in.

The things that have brought me so much of the most joy are things that can bring me that escape, and I wanna return that favor. And so when I ju- when I know I have a book that could be published tomorrow if we had the infrastructure for it and it's just waiting to go through the machine, it makes me wanna pull out my hair, which is saying something because my hair is the source of my power.

Beth McMullen: Seriously. [00:21:00] It's I think that people are just deciding that they don't need permission

Jason June: Yeah.

Beth McMullen: from some person who you don't know, has only read a one-page query letter from you, and that's all they know about you and your work,

Jason June: Yeah

Beth McMullen: "No, not for me." I think ta- giving yourself permission to just trust your own instinct and it.

It's like you said, maybe you never come up with the massive, bazillion copy seller, but you don't know that,

Jason June: Yeah

Beth McMullen: you haven't done it, then you're definitely not gonna, have the opportunity. I think it's a brave new world, and I am super interested in all of it myself, professionally, personally, all of those things

Jason June: Chira

Lisa Schmid: the other thing is having that sense of creative control from beginning to end, and not having somebody else dipping their toe in [00:22:00] the water and telling you what to do, or making a mistake on the book and not correcting it 'cause they're like, "Oh, it's too late," da-da-da. Whatever

those situations that happen, whatever is in that book is yours to own in the

Jason June: Yeah

Lisa Schmid: that you did it creatively from start to finish, and nobody else had a say in it which I think is a very joyful process.

Jason June: Yeah

Lisa Schmid: Space where you can just do what you want and own it

Beth McMullen: Satisfying for sure. So we talked a little bit about how you see AI impacting the industry right now, and of course that's, the phrase on everybody's lips. What other changes have you seen in publishing that is making it more challenging for authors right now as opposed to when you started out?

Jason June: I think there's a lot more... There always-- the publishing tends to happen in waves, it feels or cycles, which would probably be better, where things are a worry now, then all of a sudden they're not a worry at all, and the [00:23:00] exact opposite of what people were thinking was gonna happen has happened, and everything's great and rosy, and then it goes right back around to being like, "Oh, wait, but here's the new problem," and things happen.

So right now versus when I was starting, which my first book came out in 2017, a picture book, and my young adult novel started coming out in 2021. There in that ki- in that timeframe, in the first couple years during and just after the pandemic, there wasn't a huge there wasn't this huge concern of people not reading as much as it seems like there is right now.

And a lot of that was because we were at home, and people had so much more time, and that's why we saw those sales catapult during the years of the pandemic and just after, where people were reminded, "Oh yeah, it's really fun to read." And now I think we're in a moment where people are-- who weren't natural readers beforehand are not reading anymore and aren't at home all the time scrolling through their phone finding the next BookTok trend in the way that they were before.

I still think BookTok [00:24:00] is a thing and all that, but to the numbers that we saw, it doesn't feel like it's as prevalent as it was. And so it seems like there's more of a concern in publishing, both from authors and the business side and a lot of times it even narrows down more into the age range that you're writing for, that that it's like, how are we gonna get readers interested?

How do we kind of mold the book to, to hook the reader as opposed to just continue going on the way we're doing things and hope people come to us? Which in a way, that's nice. It's nice to see that publishing is like, "We need to think about how we're going to hook readers as opposed to just doing the same thing and thinking that it's all magically gonna heal itself," 'cause it won't.

But then there's another part of me that just thinks, "This is all cyclical, and eventually readers will come back around." But I do think we, I do think there needs to be a happy medium. So what's a good example? If you're writing middle grade, there's way less people buying middle grade right now, especially a middle grade just straight up prose novel.

But it seems [00:25:00] like there's more middle grade graphic novels being purchased than before. Don't quote me on that 'cause I don't know all the specific numbers, but I'm hearing more and more. It feels like I'm seeing a greater proportion in middle grade being attributed to graphic novels versus before.

And that's amazing. I love that we're trying to get readers however we can get readers. But that's an example I'm trying to give of a shift in how can we keep this segment of publishing alive by hooking readers, meeting them where they're at, as opposed to trying to get them just to come to us.

Lisa Schmid: Yeah. It's, just talking about middle grade 'cause, that's what I write,

Jason June: Yes

Lisa Schmid: ooh, wait, hold on.

Jason June: It's gonna come back around. It will. Everything, it's gonna come back around

Lisa Schmid: hearing that. But it's interesting. Even when I'm in Barnes & Noble and I'm watching kids, like in the book section, and they're all... And I've told this story before. They're all, they all go to the graphic novels,

I remember facing mine out "Oh, look, there's some kids there.

I'm just gonna, face it out." And I watched them just glaze over and walk by mine. They, there wasn't [00:26:00] even "I'm gonna pause and look at it." They are zeroed in on graphic novels. And

Jason June: Yeah

Lisa Schmid: It's whatever can bring them in, but like a regular prose book like mine, it's not...

I have one on sub right now, and I'm just like, "Okay, RIP." It

Jason June: Yeah, it's tough.

Lisa Schmid: feel good.

Jason June: It's so tough

Beth McMullen: it was Barnes & Noble, some book, big bookstore. Yeah, seriously, it's this is where I put all the books that are banned. No the graphic

Lisa Schmid: RIP? Where all the dead books are. Look for Lisa Schmidt there

Beth McMullen: novels for kids. It's like a whole

Lisa Schmid: Yeah.

Beth McMullen: where it

Lisa Schmid: It's the thing

Beth McMullen: or a small little spot, 'cause I think that's what... it makes sense if you think about the amount of screen time that kids are spending now and how they're getting trained, their little brains are getting trained to absorb it that way, and graphic novel comes closer than 45,000 words.

Jason June: Totally. I...

Lisa Schmid: No, go ahead

Jason June: Oh, I was gonna say, I think that's a lot has a lot to do with it, is just that media today is [00:27:00] shaping the reading habits of the youngest generation of readers. And it's not anyone's... It's not the fault of the kids. It's not the fault of the writers. It's just how, it's how their brains are being trained, and we can't fault them for that, 

Lisa Schmid: yeah. I had two of my friends who had middle grades that they were talking about with their agents. One was, looking... One had gone out to different editors, and she had gotten the response that, "Your writing is too old-fashioned."

Meaning it was, old-fashioned meaning five years ago.

Do you know what I mean?

Jason June: Yeah

Lisa Schmid: then my other friend had an agent looking at hers, and she's "I love all this, but, this middle grade, this is too old-fashioned." It's, it's... That's a word,

Beth McMullen: means

Lisa Schmid: a...

Beth McMullen: many words

Lisa Schmid: Too many words. 

Jason June: It's so wild.

Lisa Schmid: what it means.

Jason June: Yeah

Lisa Schmid: like, "Oh my God, my writing is old-fashioned.

No wonder they're looking at it and 'Who's the granny writing this crap?'"

Jason June: Yeah.

Lisa Schmid: "Get us the graphic novels."

Jason June: It's so wild.

Beth McMullen: [00:28:00] really

Lisa Schmid: God.

Jason June: Ugh. 

Lisa Schmid: Okay, so I wanna switch to something positive, 'cause you have built such an amazing community with all your writers. And, I, so many times I've heard people say, "Have you, do you follow Jason June? He just puts it out there." And you have really built this community around the fact that you are so transparent and so honest about your royalties and your advances.

And what kind of conversations have you had, and what inspired you to do it? Because nobody does this. Nobody

Jason June: Yeah

Lisa Schmid: what they're making. And tell us about that. That's ... I wonder that when I get your wonderful newsletter, The Ventorship. If you haven't subscribed, please do,

Jason June: Thank you

Lisa Schmid: newsletter, because it is so good. So anyway, go on.

Jason June: I, a lot of it came from... There were two big sources about why I really wanted to start Ventorship and just be honest about finances. The first was my mom is a union leader, and the only way that you can get collective bargaining and collective [00:29:00] rights in any way is if people start sharing information.

And so it's like I've gotta get information out there. I'm luckily in a position in my life, thanks to my amazing fairy tale prince of a husband, that financially we do not depend on my book earnings whatsoever. So I knew that if for somehow I'm breaking a rule where a publisher is gonna be like, "We'll never publish his stuff again because he shares too much info with other writers," it wouldn't matter.

It wouldn't affect our life whatsoever. So that's, that was one big thing, and I think the people who are able, who don't have a financial worry like that and can help something for the greater good, it is a responsibility of yours to help something for the greater good when you can. And the second bit was I feel like a lot of the mystery around author pay is actually self-imposed by other authors.

It's, we tell ourselves that we can't say this, but most of the time, and I will say most of the time, there is nothing legally that prevents us from sharing anything publicly or with each other. There [00:30:00] occasionally could be, like, if you have an IP contract or something like that, you might have to sign something that's like you won't share any information about the process of this book whatsoever.

But then, even then, when a publisher allows for a for a deal announcement to go out, I think you would have a legal argument to say, if you're saying, if you're do- putting a Publisher's Marketplace deal announcement out there, for example, that says Jason June sold XYZ IP deal in a very nice deal or a great deal or whatever it is, there is clear monetary bounds within that about what very nice means, what nice means, what whatever word, phrase, word or phrase they use means.

And that's endorsed by the publisher to have that go out. So it's I'm just sharing information you've already put out. And literally any person on the planet Earth can get a BookScan subscription. And for authors, they allow you to do one, I think it's for 25 bucks a month or something like that, and you can look up five ISBNs, unique ISBNs a month.

They can look up the sales and [00:31:00] then just do the math for themselves. How many books have sold? How much money has Jason June earned from selling this book? And let me compare it with what the deal announcement said the range of his advance could be, and I can figure out whether he's earned out or not.

This is basically already there. And so I just was like, why are we not, why are we not sharing this? I haven't signed anything in my traditional published deals that weren't IP that told me I couldn't share this, and now I'll be sure that I never do sign anything like that. I think there's also part of the self-imposed thing is a little bit of ego from authors as well, where they might be like, "Oh I only was paid, $12,000 for this."

Sometimes I've heard "I'm getting paid $12,000, and it's for a three-book deal, and it's for novels." And I think sometimes people think that the size of their advance is equated to their actual worth as a writer, not just the monetary worth of your deal, and that's not the case. There are amazing books that weren't given an advance at all and were just done royalty share and all these things.

So I think [00:32:00] people need to not get too freaked out about that. And then on the other end of the spectrum, I think some people find it could be potentially a security issue if they got a freaking amazing deal and were like, "Oh, I got, I sold this book and I got paid half a million dollars," or whatever it is, something that they consider a vast amount of money that could either set them up for familial or friendship strife or s- or some strife with the public at large.

So I think that is part of it too. I, I don't share those concerns. I'm like, and I-- that's not at all to say that I don't think anyone should have that. If you've got that concern, you gotta do what's best and safe for you. But for me, I'm like, "Whatever, go ahead and know what it is." I think it's gonna do greater good for me to share this information than it will me not.

And right now, my v- advances are all very modest. But if they start getting way lower, if they start getting way higher, I still intend to share that information. Just a lot of the time we'll find out, we'll hear Tom Cruise got paid ten million [00:33:00] dollars to star in this film or whatever, or so and so is making two hundred and fifty thousand dollars an episode for their sitcom, whatever it is.

We share a lot of this money with acting, and we can find out, we can extrapolate a little bit with music as well based on album streams and sales, which are way smaller. But we can do the math if you dig a little bit for how much people are making in other avenues. And I just think we need to put more info out there.

For those that feel comfortable doing it that you should put that info out there because it will help all of us either get more or will just give us peace of mind. And I think either of those outcomes are really great, to know whether what I'm earning now is in line with what people are making whether it's too low, whether it's high, and I'll just, ride this wave while I can, whatever it is.

Just more info is better. I'm a very Virgo, and I'm all about the info

Beth McMullen: I think you're right, and I think there's that, you touched on it a little, that sense of em- embarrassment that [00:34:00] your appears on the surface so low

this huge effort. Writing a book is hard. So if somebody says to you, and there's this public perception of, "Oh, you're an author, that must be a nice cushy gig,"

Jason June: Yeah

Beth McMullen: is really radically not cushy for most of us.

Some, 

Jason June: yeah

Beth McMullen: 1% up there at the top do surprisingly well, but the rest of us, it's a, can be a struggle. And I think you're not... Y- you're also protecting the publisher because then they don't have to account for why they pay their, you're not employees, but you're contracted why they pay you nothing, right?

And so they get away with paying you nothing and not supporting the book and taking two and a half years to publish it, and all of these things that make them really look irresponsible. it behooves them to continue to make us feel like this isn't something for conversation.

Jason June: Totally. And, I'm really appreciating more and more authors [00:35:00] speaking up online. I'm seeing a lot of people on Threads especially talk about the payment structure, that a lot of us are paid in third or fourths, and then we've also got our agents and sometimes lawyers and things like that we're also giving commissions to.

So I think it's becoming more and more a topic of conversation. I don't know that with it becoming more and more of a topic of conversation, if we're g- seeing any gains in advances. I would argue that we're maybe seeing a l- we're seeing them lower. I know for me, my advances are getting lower. I think that's just, the nature of the beast in general right now, where

Beth McMullen: It's a debut culture.

Jason June: yeah, it's a debut culture.

It's a lot of we're gonna publish a lot, and we know that what we lose from publishing a lot will be made up for the few things that really stick and strike in the cultural zeitgeist. So you, me, you being me in this situation, unfortunately have not had anything stick and become part of the cultural zeitgeist the advances will get lower.

And I don't blame publishers for that. That is simple math. That's how it should be. Someone who is selling [00:36:00] way more or consistently selling way more should be making more on their advance than I should be. That should be rewarded in some way. But I still think sharing that information is really key so that I can show I'm just one tiny little drop in this whole bucket of author finances, but I can say, "Hey, yeah," people who are considering maybe writing full-time or considering or wanting to figure out how their finances will be affected if they start writing and if they could if they could work less in their day-to-day job or whatever.

When they can see, oh, and Jason June showed me, like, when he, when his sales weren't that great, he made lower advances. I need to keep that in mind too. I think all of this information is good for everyone's planning. Whether or not it's-- we see some industry-wide change of anything, it's good, I think, for individual authors to be able to have more data to plan their lives.

Beth McMullen: I feel like publishing, publishing, and I can't speak, I have no experience in self-publishing. That's a different animal. But I think traditional [00:37:00] publishing, for most people, it's gotta be a side hustle, right? It's

very hard to support yourself, a family, whatever it is your obligations are financially traditional publishing for the majority of people.

There are always the people outside of that who do remarkably well. I'm not talking about them. I'm talking about

Jason June: Yeah

Beth McMullen: list authors. Like it, it's a side hustle. It's a hobby.

Jason June: Yeah

Beth McMullen: That's terrible. I wish it wasn't, but that's just the way... Like you said, it's a business and that's how it's set up.

And

until that changes... so this kind of leads naturally from when we were talking about your thoughts about potentially pursuing the hybrid path, which for our listeners, that means you're trad publishing and you're self-publishing simultaneously. You're doing all the stuff, which is actually, we've seen a lot of success in that where people are, "Okay, this book is for my Simon & Schuster and these three are for me," and then you have lots of content out there for your fans so they're never waiting or forgetting about you. So light of that, thinking about just marketing [00:38:00] in general, hybrid marketing, trad marketing, what have you tried over the course of your career that you feel like works, and is there any advice you would offer to authors who are always... it is the question Lisa and I get most, asked the most, and the one that we are, struggle to answer.

What can I do in marketing that

Jason June: Yeah

Beth McMullen: It's like the m- and if you could, I guess if we knew, we would

Jason June: Yeah.

Beth McMullen: like, hanging out on the beach in Hawaii

Jason June: That's the big thing. If we knew it would just be a formula we could all do and that'd be great. No one thing works 100% of the time or the majority of the time or whatever it is I think you need to-- I think with every new book, you need to make a brand new marketing plan, 'cause what could work for one might not work for another.

And I think you really need to focus on that book's in particular strengths or niches or whatever, that you can hone in on that. Because if you just try to market to the masses and think this will be something for everybody, [00:39:00] that's not gonna work, I don't think. Of course, like if you just wanna s-- if you wanna do like your day-to-day TikTok, Instagram video, whatever your preferred social media is, and you're just like, writing today or whatever it is that you do, that, that you just want to have that persona and that regular contribution to the algorithm gods to know like you're participating in the system, go ahead and do that.

When you're trying to like pinpoint who this book is for, who you're trying to get to, really hone in on that. The w-- the only reason that Out of the Blue is a New York Times bestseller is because it was about queer merpeople, and I went out and found the queer merpeople cosplayers online and asked them to help me with my book.

And I don't just mean ask them to help me for free. Ask them what their rates were, what-- to post, to do all this, if they would read it, that kind of stuff. 'Cause I do s- firmly believe in whatever money you squirrel away for marketing, you need to pay the people you ask to help you market [00:40:00] your book.

And so I had such a niche audience that I hired like a dozen merpeople that made a post about the book, got excited about the book. It seemed like a lot of them genuinely liked it, so they even went above and beyond what we had like contractually said we would do, which was lovely that they did that.

And because of them, and because they had an audience that was specifically following them because they were a queer merperson and had all these gorgeous like mer-- posed mer shots, which are phenomenal I had the audience that this book was for right there, which was so great. So if you've got a holiday book, find those like holiday head accounts, which is my loving term for people who are obsessed with the holidays.

Find those accounts where they are talking about the holidays all the time, so your holiday book would make sense for that. You've just gotta find your individual niche audience who would be more likely to purchase the book than if it was just like a, "Oh, I'm seeing a general-- You're giving me, you're giving me the one or two sentence pitch, and it sounds [00:41:00] good and I wanna put that on my radar, but I won't necessarily buy it."

You wanna find, if there is any in like that, you wanna find the people that are like, "Ooh, I'm gonna buy this because it's about the thing I'm obsessed with." Not just, "Oh, it's my general taste. I like cozy fantasy, so here's a fun cody-- cozy fantasy post." It's like that kinda thing, if that makes sense. And it's so hard 'cause so many of our books, it's like, what is the hook?

of what I've got going on. My next book is a romance between Santa and Krampus, and I'm gonna find Krampus accounts somehow and see if we can get this going.

Beth McMullen: This is a brilliant lesson actually, because I think it, when you say it, of course you wanna find your audience. Those are

the people who are gonna buy your books. But I don't think people think about it narrowly enough,

Jason June: Yeah

Beth McMullen: And even if your book has all these different elements, pick the element that you think is going to attach itself to these niche audiences that you can reach somehow.

I think it's brilliant.

Jason June: Thank you

Beth McMullen: call it the m- the MER [00:42:00] principle because

Jason June: Yeah.

Beth McMullen: Remember the MER. is what you need to constantly be narrowing in on the people who are going to want the book because they're attached to this community

Jason June: Yes. And sometimes it's so hard. I write a lot of e- especially with my young adult rom-coms, I wrote a lot of contemporary romance, and sometimes you're like what is the thing that people are obsessed about in day-to-day life that would make them buy?" And oftentimes the answer is, I have no freaking clue, and I cannot

I, I'm just gonna have to try to get the word out there in fun little ways. I think a lot of times what can help is when you've got a contemporary especially, is to get character art done for your characters, because people love to see a quote-unquote "living representation" of the characters, a representation outside of the page, and that can get them excited.

That and illustrators and artists are so good about making something look romantic and captivating and wants, and want to draw readers in. So if there's a lot of times where you're like, "I don't know how to get people obsessed with my contemporary romance," try [00:43:00] to do that to just get people to think, "Oh, I wanna see what these characters are like on the page outside of just on this fun fun piece of art that I've seen online."

Beth McMullen: is all brilliant and I hope everybody's madly writing this down on their little notepads to, to do some research on later. Because I think, it's ... when we were talking at the beginning of this question about what's the magic thing, there is no magic thing, but here's something that really could get you, could help you make strides.

So we don't have the umbrella solution, but all these little solutions that people are doing effectively, like that turns your book into a bestseller. There is no better validation than that, right? People went and bought it. 

Jason June: Yeah

Beth McMullen: all right. That's ... I love that. I'm never gonna forget 'cause now I gave it a name, so it's gonna live in

Jason June: I love that.

Beth McMullen: forever.

Jason June: I do wanna say, like even that I could just be talking out of my ass, where it's like I've only had a bestseller, one of my books was a bestseller for one week, and that's amazing and I'm so excited about that. [00:44:00] But I have not ever been able to replicate the formula. I've tried and I just, I haven't been able to get readers hooked in that same way.

So the likelihood still is that it's not going to work in terms of getting you on a bestseller list or anything like that. But I do think, just at least my opinion is, if you can hone in as much as you can on a specific audience a... And like the nicher the better. Because they're like, "Oh yeah, this is something for me from my little niche," I think can really help

Beth McMullen: Yeah, agreed. I think you're gonna do it again with Santa and Krampus.

Lisa Schmid: my God.

Beth McMullen: I'm feeling

Jason June: Fingers crossed. That'd be so great.

Lisa Schmid: too.

Jason June: That'd be so great

Lisa Schmid: like a I love, like I love cozy mysteries and I love, I don't necessarily love Hallmark movies, but

Jason June: Yeah.

Lisa Schmid: actually see it as a Hallmark movie.

Jason June: Yes. I, and that's, I love Hallmark movies. The, my vibe is that this is d- this is a dark, cozy fantasy or a dark Hallmark movie, that kind of thing, where

Lisa Schmid: Yeah[00:45:00] 

Jason June: Santa and Krampus are killing people with Eve together.

Lisa Schmid: Oh, I didn't know

Jason June: but that's the killer part of Santa and Krampus' Cozy Killer Christmas. 

Lisa Schmid: Oh my God, they really are

Jason June: but

Lisa Schmid: people?

Beth McMullen: very dark.

Jason June: yeah

Beth McMullen: dark, so this is speaking to my soul

Jason June: So this has become like my new passion in writing is I love having things that feel like that feel like a Hallmark movie, that feel like a Lifetime movie that, that give you that, that comfort and that just oh, this is so almost like borderline cheesy and like dripping in sappiness, but it still makes me feel so good.

And I won't even say borderline. Like fully cheesy sappy. But I also want there to be a little bit of "Oh, God," where there's occasionally a murder that's described, and it's not described in a horrifying horror way. It's described in a fun, cozy way. "But yeah, that guy got his hand caught in a blender at Orange Julius.

Whoopsie daisy." Like things like that.

Beth McMullen: the element of the unexpected.

Jason June: Yeah.

Lisa Schmid: the concept of two genres crashing [00:46:00] into each other, and this reminds me, I don't know if you've been watching Widow's Bay.

Jason June: Yes. I'm like six episodes in.

Lisa Schmid: God.

Jason June: Really good

Lisa Schmid: Is it a comedy? Is it a horror? What are we watching?

Jason June: Yeah

Lisa Schmid: time I watch, I'm done, and I was like, "You gotta watch Widow's Bay."

Jason June: It's very good

Lisa Schmid: everybody is. But it's, that's kinda, it feels, it's giving me that same kind of vibe.

Jason June: I love that. That's... Thank you.

Lisa Schmid: Isn't that a good show,

Jason June: That's such a good show. It's not, my books are not quite as scary as that. It's really all just sweet, and 

Lisa Schmid: Yeah. 

Jason June: book I'm working on,

Lisa Schmid: the killing part

Jason June: Except for the killing part, and they're only killing the people... The Krampus's lore in my world is that he's got a bad rap. He never killed kids, none of that.

He only kills the people that if they are allowed to survive, will literally lead to the destruction of the human race, that all of us will go extinct. So it's that idea of you know how they'll, you always get posed that weird morbid question of "If you had to kill one person to save a million people's lives, would [00:47:00] you do it?"

It's like that kind of concept, where Krampus is just the guy that unfortunately has to kill the one person to save eight billion people's lives. And it's not it's not meant to be an a divisive book in any way where it's like, "Oh, somebody disagrees with Krampus, and I think that guy's evil, so he's gotta die."

It's "No, literally, if this guy lives, he's going to invent accidentally a disease that will kill all of us. He has to die." That kind of thing.

Lisa Schmid: God

Beth McMullen: Oh my God, I love this. I predict glory for

Lisa Schmid: I do too. This one

Jason June: Thank you

Lisa Schmid: yeah, this one, I have a feeling this one's gonna go big for you. We're

Jason June: I would love that. Thank you. Thank you so much.

Lisa Schmid: one of our faves.

Jason June: Ah

Lisa Schmid: so this is the last question, and it's pretty, pretty easy, and I'm sure you have a fabulous answer, is what's the one piece of advice you find yourself giving to aspiring authors over and over again?

Jason June: Ooh, I love that. That-- it is changing as my interactions with publishing continue and change and all that. [00:48:00] One is, like we talked about at the beginning, is you've gotta find the joy in it, and if you don't have the joy in it, if you're going f- you can, of course, want external markers. I want external markers all the time, and I am constantly jealous of people.

I think jealousy is healthy. I think it's, I think it's delusional to not acknowledge that it's there, that we're all hoping to become the next big thing, or most of us are hoping to become the next big thing. Of course, we want that. And having goals and having career goals is wonderful, and don't let anybody ever shame you away from that.

Or yeah, blah, blah, blah. But still, at the core of it, you need to be getting to your computer because you're thinking about the high it gives you and not about what other people are going to do with your book. It needs to be about how much fun you're having with it, and you need to equate it to anything else that you do for fun, whether it's you watch TV for fun, whether it's you go and play tennis for fun, whether it's you're a part of a pickleball league for fun.

You [00:49:00] need to be getting that same kind of for fun feeling with writing, and if you don't have that Baby, you gotta find something else. You gotta find something else. Or you need to taper back. You need to edit your own, whatever it is. You gotta do something to edit your relationship with writing until you find the joy with it again.

The other piece of advice that I give for people who genuinely aren't just "Oh, I have one story and I need to get this one story out," but are like, "I wanna be a writing..." Writing. "I wanna be a writer and do this for a living," you... I think you need to focus on the phrase, which I did not invent prolific not perfect.

You just need to get your stories out and done and move on to the next one. That's not to say don't give it to beta readers and get feedback, don't give it to editors and get feedback. Get that feedback still, but know when it's good enough. We'll see... There's so many books out there right now that are huge mega bestsellers that they're also getting bad Goodreads reviews, [00:50:00] or they'll get people that drag them on threads or blah, blah, blah, and they're huge successes because somebody or multiple people or whatever it is can see a part that, quote-unquote, "should have been changed."

And I do the should have been because that's so subjective, but everyone's got opinions about what you've got published. When it's good enough for you and you're not chasing anybody else's stamp of approval, move on to the next one. That is what really makes you a writer in terms of I'm doing this for the long haul, is you're not getting hung up on one, one thing and n- and unafraid to release it into the world.

Release it into the world. Stand by what you've done. There's going to be mistakes. I've got things where there's all kinds of mistakes in my books, whether it's grammatical, whether it's character errors that aren't consistent. Things get pushed through all the time, and that's even after me reading it dozens of times and multiple other people reading it multiple times.

Mistakes are still gonna get through. You gotta be able to live with it. Get going to the next one.[00:51:00] 

Beth McMullen: This is perfect. Perfect advice. I like this, I like the idea. of what you're saying is that you have control here. You have things that you can do. I totally agree with you about the joy. I was really, felt like I was trying to change my writing to meet a moment that I couldn't quite define.

Jason June: Yeah, me too

Beth McMullen: just was like, "Forget it. I'm not doing that. I'm just gonna start the way I've always done it," opened the document, out it comes. I'm not gonna plan, I'm not gonna plot, I'm just gonna be in the moment. I found after a week of this, I was thinking about it. I was thinking about the story when I wasn't doing it.

And then I was like, "Oh, God, I remember that feeling. That's a good feeling."

But I think we get so ch- turned up inside about the way we're supposed to do it as opposed to the way that feels good.

Jason June: Yeah

Beth McMullen: this is great. We have kept you a very long time, and you have auditions and novels and so many things to do. thank you so [00:52:00] much for coming back. Lisa said you're one of our favorite guests. You absolutely are. We love having you on the show. You always have amazing things to share with our guests. Thank you so much

Jason June: Thank you guys so much for having me again. I just- you're both amazing and angels of light and love, and I'm honored to be back

Beth McMullen: Thank you. And listeners, remember you can find out more about Jason June and all that he is up to by visiting our podcast notes and the blog at Writers With Wrinkles. And I'll put links to everything that we've talked about in the show, so you can just grab those right there. And we will be back next time with an Ask Beth and Lisa episode.

So if you have questions, thoughts, feelings, please send them our way. One more thing, we iron out the wrinkles for free every week, and we'd love if you can help us to keep doing that by leaving a review on Apple Podcasts. Takes about two minutes. Give us five stars, and we won't tell anybody how easy it was for you to pull that off. And until next time, happy reading, writing, and listening