#amwriting With Jess & Kj

It’s the topic every author seems to love to hate: self-promotion. Sharing our work on social media, pitching ourselves to podcasts and reaching out to friends and colleagues to ask them to boost us up in various ways can feel hard—but it shouldn’t. It’s part of the deal—and the people around you don’t mind. In fact, they want to know when you have a new book or article out, especially if you’re a regular and generous supporter of the good work the people around you are doing as well. We talk about getting past the emotional hurdle here, and then we talk about the how best to get the job done—best practices for self-promotion and a lovely list of “Glamour Don’ts” for those who are worried about getting it wrong.  Links from the Podcast sharelinkgenerator #AmReading Sarina: What Happens Next by Colleen Clayton KJ: A Star is Bored by Byron Lane Jess: The Overstory by Richard Powers Have you checked out Author Accelerator’s Book Coach training at bookcoaches.com/amwriting? Seriously

Lauren Ho is the author of the debut novel Last Tang Standing, which is getting HUGE buzz. It’s been called Bridget Jones meets Crazy Rich Asians, and it does deliver on that promise. Lauren is our very first guest to join us from Singapore, and it’s very late at night there but she managed to hold her own. We talk lawyers-turned-writers, selling a book from outside the US and UK, Goodreads reviews and the challenges and advantages of writing characters (not necessarily POV characters, but still voices that have a place in your story) from perspectives that aren’t your own.  #AmReading Lauren:  Sex and Vanity by Kevin Kwan A Good Family by A.H. Kim The White Coat Diaries by Madi Sinha KJ:  Rodham by Curtis Sittenfeld Jess: Becoming Duchess Goldblatt (Anonymous) Boyfriend Material by Alexis Hall Find Lauren at: Her Website: www.hellolaurenho.com On Twitter: www.twitter.com/hellolaurenho On Facebook: www.facebook.com/hellolaurenho Via Instagram: www.instagr

Our guest this week is children’s fiction and YA author Julie Berry, and here’s why: she gave a talk at a conference about visualizing and imagery that Sarina has “been thinking about for 7 years.” That should tell you how much gold there is in this episode—all kinds of useful stuff about how we use images and senses to spark our own creativity and build a connection with our readers in every genre. We think you’ll love it.  #AmReading Julie: The Witch of Blackbird Pond by Elizabeth George Speare Beauty by Robin McKinley The Blue Sword by Robin McKinley The Hero and the Crown by Robin McKinley The Perilous Gard by Elizabeth Marie Pope The Secret Life of Trees by Robin Blackwell Black and British by David Olusoga Staying Power by Peter Fryer Sarina: Love Lettering by Kate Clayborn KJ: Tiny Imperfections by Alli Frank & Asha Youmans Find Julie at:  Her Website: www.julieberrybooks.com On Twitter: www.twitter.com/julieberrybooks On Facebook: www.facebook

We’ve got a great interview for you today with a freelance journalist who does a different kind of work than any of us ever have—out in the field reporting on his favorite subject: reality adventure TV on trips rife with travel and danger and expense reports. I think you’ll love it.  We talk about finding your topic and making that topic, well, topical by looking for what’s happening within the world you’re covering that reflects what’s happening outside of it. We also discuss MFAs (he’s a fan), email (not so much) and how to keep from “opening your email and letting somebody else dictate what you do with your time.” Links from the Podcast fresh.ink Longform on Twitter #AmReading Andy: Fates and Furies by Lauren Groff The Secret History by Donna Tartt Jess: The Summer of ‘69 by Elin Hilderbrand The Book of Eels by Patrik Svensson KJ: The Guest List Lucy Foley #TBR: The Mountains Wild by Sarah Stewart Taylor Find out more about our guest: AndyDehnart.com Reality

Write every day. Don’t read fiction while you’re writing fiction. My way or the highway. In a burst of frustration, we’re reminding ourselves—and you—that there’s no one way to get this job done, and if your way is counter to what some of the greats might tell you (we’re looking at you, Stephen King, even though we love you), that doesn’t mean it won’t work. A few links from the episode: Minisode: #AmQuerying: How to write a fiction query letter that makes an agent ask for more Becca Syme: https://betterfasteracademy.com/beccasyme/ Rachel Hawkins/Erin Sterling @LadyHawkins Me, Writing Books: MAN, I hope this is not stupid!! Me, READING books/watching TV/consuming basically any media: THIS IS SO STUPID I LOVE IT SO MUCH ONLY HAVE ROOM IN MY HEART FOR THE STUPIDEST OF THINGS, THANK YOOOUUU!!!!! July 17th 202023 Retweets355 Likes #AmReading Sarina: Notes of Silencing by Lacy Crawford Jess: Unacceptable by Melissa Korn & Jennifer Levitz Unspeakable Acts by Sarah Weinman KJ: Big Summe

Hey campers—I hate reading you all a canned intro to our authors every time, so I’m winging it with our guest, Sonali Dev. I’m a fan of hers, so I feel like I know all the things. She’s the author of four straight-up romances, but her last-book-but one is the start of a series written in homage to Jane Austen, as is her latest, both set among the members of a politically ambitious Indian family in California. Why Jane Austen? Because, as Sonali says, “those were the first books I read about women wanting things and getting them. Instead of ending up crazy or dead.” We talk the pros and cons of writing from such revered material, whether readers are “looking for Lydia,” the need to make your heroine “likeable” (pro tip: the female Darcy is hard sledding) and supplying recipes for hungry readers.  Links from the pod:  Sonali Dev on IG Newsletter with a recipe booklet, recommendations, and a really bad joke. #AmReading Sonali: Boyfriend Material by Alexis Hall The Kingmaker by Kennedy

This week, Jess got a message from some family members who’d read the draft of her forthcoming book, The Addiction Innoculation. They had … thoughts.  Those thoughts turned out to be nothing drastic—but the emotional roller coaster Jess rode while waiting to hear more was a doozy, and got us all thinking about how much of ourselves is exposed when we write non-fiction with a memoir element, how real memoirists do it, and how often readers—especially those closest to you—read our fiction looking for hidden truths. It’s a fun conversation that also covers pool floats, parents, dream offices we probably wouldn’t use and more.  Links from the Podcast Yard Pods Don’t Kill the Birthday Girl by Sandra Beasley Mrs. Everything by Jen Weiner KJ and Sarina’s Pool Floats #AmReading KJ: Rodham by Curtis Sittenfeld I'm Still Here: Black Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness by Austin Channing Brown Jess: Notes on a Silencing by Lacy Crawford Sarina: Don’t You Forget About Me b

Kari Lizer is best known for her work in television, as writer and co-executive producer of Will & Grace and the creator of The New Adventures of Old Christine. When her essays about parenting took the shape of a book, she found that her real life provided more than enough material for a comedic memoir. Aren’t You Forgetting Someone? has it all - chickens, Kate Middleton’s bangs, psychics, and the promise of happy endings. #AmReading Jess: Beach Read by Emily Henry Sarina: The Worst Best Man by Mia Sosa Kari: Olive, Again by Elizabeth Strout Subscription links and a transcript follow—but first, a preview of the #MinisodeMonday that will be dropping into #AmWriting supporter inboxes on Monday, July 20th: How an Editor Considers an Essay. Not joined that club yet? You’ll want to get on that. Support the podcast you love AND get weekly #BonusContent with actionable advice you can use for just $7 a month. Upgrade to Supporter As always, this episode (and every episode) will appear

We have trouble believing you haven’t already heard of our guest this week, Susan Wiggs, but just in case—she’s the author of many many novels, a multiple #1 New York Times bestseller and an overall amazing storyteller. Her current novel, The Lost and Found Bookshop, is on sale now and her most recent bestseller, The Oysterville Sewing Circle, is just out in paperback. We talk crafting a story, starting from the emotional journey versus the physical plot, building a character, choosing a setting and our collective addiction to writing books, and Susan reveals that she does indeed read fiction while she’s writing fiction—and it’s a good thing, too, because her reading list is long indeed.  Links from the Pod Writing the Blockbuster Novel by Albert Zuckerman This American Life, Promised Land (the “I Wish” song episode) #AmReading (all Susan, and you’ll see why) Aging in Place by Aaron D Murphy Being Mortal by Atul Gawande On Ocean Boulevard by Mary Alice Monroe House Lessons by

This episode springs from a question asked in the #AmWriting Facebook group (if you’re not in it, you should be): Sarina has talked about her decision to be independently published, but we’ve never heard from Jess and KJ about why they go the traditional route. We discuss the three things you should think about when making the Indie/Traditional call, why you need to think hard about airport bookstores and finding the print ratio—and the good and bad reasons for making this choice. #AmReading  Sarina: Boyfriend Material by Alexis Hall KJ: The Exit Strategy by Lainey Cameron Jess: The Mountains Wild by Sarah Stewart Taylor (listen to the #AmWriting episode with Sarah here) As we say every week—we’re so proud to be sponsored by Author Accelerator and Dabble. If you’re wondering—why Dabble and not Scrivener? For us, it’s that plotting tool and the intuitive way it works, but others have weighed in—check that out here with a little Dabble v. Scrivener scoop. And if listening to all of

You listen to podcasts. You love podcasts. (Perhaps we’re assuming here, but after all, we ARE a podcast.) And you’re a writer, with books or articles or ideas or other projects you want to get out into the world. Which just might mean you’ve imagined yourself as a guest on a podcast, sharing your work. (It’s the writer version of the sportscaster doing an imaginary play-by-play while a kid shoots hoops—we imagine ourselves being interviewed by our favorite podcasters.) This week’s guest, Lauren Passell, can help with that. She loves podcasts (she even created a weekly email that’s essentially a love letter to the big, the small, the great and the weird in the podcast world: Podcast, the Newsletter). And she loves writers. And she loves connecting writers with podcasts, so much so that she’s turned it into her business: TINK Media, a PR company specializing in podcasts. We talk about creating a podcast-worthy story, finding the right podcasts to pitch, perfecting those pitches and making your voice a part

This week we talk to Maria Konnikova about her new book, The Biggest Bluff: How I Learned to Pay Attention, Master Myself, and Win. After a series of devastating health and financial setbacks, Konnikova, a former New Yorker staffer whose other books include Mastermind: How to Think Like Sherlock and The Confidence Game: Why We Fall for It…Every Timeset out to understand how luck, skill and human behavior contribute to the trajectory of our lives. Though she’d never played a hand of poker in her life, she convinced Poker Hall of Fame inductee Erik Seidel to become her coach. Konnikova quit her job at the New Yorker and set aside a year to learn poker as a way to master her luck and her life. One career in professional poker and more than $300,000 later, Konnikova found at least some of the answers she sought. Links from the Podcast: Long Form Storytelling, The Grift Podcast Slate daily podcast, The Gist #AmReading Maria: Weird by Olga Khazan KJ: The Authenticity Project by Claire Po

This week, the How to Launch a Book series continues with everyone’s favorite: book launching on social media.  Twitter. Instagram. Canva. PicMonkey. Crello. Pinterest. Linked In. Head blowing up yet? We talk about planning your launch social media, how to use social media and image-creating apps to share and promote and why you shouldn’t feel one bit like you’re talking about your book too much when you’re launching it into the world. We also fall apart a bit, here and there, because these are falling apart times, and we feel it. #AmReading KJ: Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens Jess: The Secret History by Donna Tartt How to Be an AntiRacist by Ibram X Kendi Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides Sarina: Pale Rider Laura Spinney Don’t forget to check in with our sponsor, Author Accelerator. They’ve got a special book coaching class happening in June on coaching historical fiction, which I would love to be a fly on the wall for—as well as introductory and master classes on book coa

Why stick to any one genre? Our guest this week is Catherine Newman: memoirist, middle grade novelist, etiquette columnist and now the author of How to Be a Person: 65 Highly Useful, Super-Important Things to Learn Before You’re Grown-Up. While she’s at it, she writes a cooking blog, co-authored a book on crafts for kids and edits ChopChop, a kids cooking magazine. And she pens frequent funny essays for everything from O to the New York Times to the Cup of Jo website. In other words, she’s putting a pastiche of writing together and making it work with an insouciant disregard for any and all advice about self-branding or owning an niche or sticking to one topic or identity. In fact, I’d argue that “insouciant disregard” might just BE her brand.  This episode also includes the immortal words “I’ve never had to kill anything during the podcast before,” uttered by Jess—so that’s a reason to listen right there. But there are plenty of others—this is a real nitty gritty episode on building a career and gettin

When your book launches, you want to meet your readers where they are: anywhere people are talking about—or better yet, buying—books. Of course we want to support our local Indies (that’s why the links here are all to Bookshop.org)—but if there are readers on Amazon, we’re going to be there too. This week, we’re talking about how to get yourself set up on Amazon, Goodreads and Bookbub—and why you absolutely should. For more info, check out our past Writer Top Fives on setting up your Amazon, Goodreads and Bookbub pages. Usually, Top Fives and Minisodes go out to our supporters, but we’ve made these three available to everyone—because the info in them is so great, and maybe a little because this way, you can see what you’re missing. If now’s your time to sign up to support the podcast, click the button. Upgrade to Supporter

She might just have the perfect job. This week, Jess and I interview Abbe Wright, Senior Editor at ReadItForward.com and co-host of The Adaptables, a podcast that hashes over every detail of the movies and shows that are adapted from the books we love.  Links from the pod: I wanted to break up. Then he got a tattoo of my name. Read It Forward Podcast The Adaptables The Longform Podcast Bookbento (Read It Forward’s Instagram) Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng Normal People by Sally Rooney #AmReading Abbe: All Adults Here by Emma Straub Jess: Why Fish Don’t Exist by Lulu Miller Nerve by Eva Holland Why We Swim by Bonnie Tsui KJ: The Address Book by Deirdre Mask Thanks to everyone who supports the podcast financially. To join that team, click the button below: Upgrade to Supporter But it’s all good. The pod is free as it always has and always will be. This shownotes email is free, too, so please—forward it to a friend, and if you haven’t a

Back in December 2019, we set #WriterGoals for 2020. We had no idea. This week, we go back in and revisit—which goals still stand? Which do we have to let go, and which just don’t feel right any more? Was there any point in setting these goals in the first place? In the end, we decide (not very cheerfully, it has to be admitted) that while our goals are necessarily changing, they’re always worth setting and revisiting. We’ll all be settling down to think differently about what we hope for in what’s left of 2020.  Are you revising your 2020 goals, or sticking to plan A? Head over to the #AmWriting Facebook group and tell us about it. #AmReading KJ: Undercover Bromance by Lyssa Kay Adams The Body in the Garden by Katharine Schellman Sarina: The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires by Grady Hendrix Jess: Audible Original: David Sedaris, Themes and Variations Rat by Stephen King (found in the If It Bleeds novella collection) Hey—now is a great time to check out our

Our guest today is Anne Bogel, most recently the author of Don’t Overthink It, which came out on March 3, 2020. Followers of this podcast who’ve taken my advice may have checked out her podcast, What Should I Read Next, where she talks books, reading and recommendations with guests—because I’m a huge fan. Anne is also the author of I’d Rather Be Reading and Reading People: How Seeing the World Through the Lens of Personality Changes Everything, the host of a second podcast, One Great Book and the blogger behind the Modern Mrs. Darcy.com. We talk about genres, owning your expertise, finding your voice and launching a book in a global pandemic. Some favorite advice goes straight to the title of Anne’s latest book: don’t overthink it. Sometimes, the right idea for a book is the one that’s always with you, that you’re interested in, that feels easy and obvious to you because it is—but isn’t such a cakewalk for everyone else. #AmReading Anne: Musical Chairs by Amy Poeppel (available July 21st, 2020)

This week, it’s Jess and I (KJ) talking to Olivia and Meghan from the Marginally podcast, which we love for its frank conversations about challenges and setbacks and day jobs and the struggle to keep your butt in the chair (sound familiar?). We talked about finding your writing people, the joys of keeping that day job, and the things that grow from grabbing a friend and starting the thing you wish someone else would start.  #AmWriting Meghan: Followers by Megan Angelo The Glass Hotel by Emily St John Mandel Olivia: Emma by Jane Austen (and all the movies) Independence Square by A.D. Miller  Jess: Wow, No Thank you by Samantha Irby KJ: Love Lettering by Kate Clayborn

Do mystery and thriller writers ever “pants” their stories? What’s it like to give a dark protagonist some elements of your own history? How much fun is it to fill a book with references to all of your favorite books ever?  We cover those things and more with author Peter Swanson, whose new book, Eight Perfect Murders, is a hybrid of psychological thriller and who-dunnit that all three of us loved. Also on the docket: we name our top three most terrifying children’s picture books.  FIND OUT MORE ABOUT OUR GUEST: https://www.peter-swanson.com #AmReading KJ: Bringing Down the Duke by Evie Dunmore Storyworthy, Matthew Dicks Peter: My Dark Vanessa by Kate Elizabeth Russell Whether you consider yourself a plotter or a pantser, we know you consider yourself a writer. You write. Enough said. If you’ve plotted or pantsed your way all the way through any narrative, you know what a tough job that is—and you might be able to help somebody else do it, too. In addition to matching writers with