RDJ

Overview

WARNING: there may be some offensive spoken words in this episode

Jennifer had problems with a solo play and had it censored. This also affected her book and she changed the name. We discuss this situation and why she decided to handle it the way she did.

YouTube

https://youtu.be/xciXh3sFspU

Transcript

We're back, boom, part two, the B episode for authors delving into that.

Jennifer, is this your first book, the year of the, what is that your first book?

[00:35:38] Jennifer: It's my first novel. It is not my first book. So my first book was published in 2014 and it was a collection of poetry. And it was published as like an offshoot of trying to get your, of the slut published which is now year of the what?

Because. It was based on my one woman show where I basically chose five poems, five racy poems that I had written, and I created a story arc around these five poems. There is some poetry in year of the, what, there are a few of the poems in the book, but when I was trying to pitch that to some different publishers, one gentlemen that I came across, I just, I wanted to have a backup because I always knew that I wanted to have a collection of my poetry published as well.

And this is like coming on. Like the height of 50 shades of gray being the biggest book in the world. So it's erotic poetry and the book is called oral sex oral with an a, because I think I'm clever and probably is meant to be listened to and write a loud. So it's called oral sex, naughty notes for levers.

So that was my first book. And it's not available anymore. I got a little disheartened through the process, so it was available on Amazon for a couple of years. And then I took it down and decided to go forward with a year of the slut, full force on my own without partnering with anybody.

[00:37:17] Stephen: You said you're working on a SQL. So what are some things through this process that you have learned that you're doing different now than you did when you started,

[00:37:26] Jennifer: I'm utilizing more help? Yes. So the first time around, I guess I was a little cocky because the play had done well and I had won an award for it.

So when I wrote my first draft of the book. Oh. And also because an agent had said, oh, write that book and I'll wreck you. So I took things for granted in the sense that like I sent the manuscript to him without sending it to a proofreader or an editor first, because I was like he said he was going to wrap it.

I'll just send it to him when it's done. I'm like, no, honey no. That's not how it works, but you don't know what you don't know. I was so green and I was so naive about the literary world. Like why did I know? I didn't need an editor for my play. That's what my director was for to tell me what worked and what didn't and what jokes were funny and which ones were terrible.

Yeah over the course of all the rejections, so I first started, I just sent it to five girlfriends, five of my squad who were avid readers and who had an interest in books. One was a journalist, one was a teacher, one was a English professor. One was my sister-in-law one was my best friend.

And I just sent it to that group and took for granted that they all thought it was great and their excitement, and didn't seek professional help, which I should have. So yeah, so this time around definitely like working with a writing coach to help me with story structure...