We Make Books Podcast

We Make Books is hosted by Rekka Jay and Kaelyn Considine; Rekka is a published author and Kaelyn is an editor and together they are going to take you through what goes into getting a book out of your head, on to paper, in to the hands of a publisher, and finally on to book store shelves.

We Make Books is a podcast for writers and publishers, by writers and publishers and we want to hear from our listeners! Send us your questions, comments, and concerns!

We hope you enjoy We Make Books!

Twitter: @WMBCast  |  @KindofKaelyn  |  @BittyBittyZap

Instagram: @WMBCast 

Patreon.com/WMBCast

"Submissions September" Episodes Referenced:

Week 1 (9/3/2019): Is This Ready For Other People to See?- Submitting Your Manuscript

Week 2 (9/10/2019): My Entire Novel in Three Hundred Words - The Dreaded Query Letter

Week 3 (9/17/2019): Agents of Literature, Part 1: An Interview with Literary Agent Caitlin McDonald

(9/18/2019): Agents of Literature, Part 2: Interviews with Agented Authors

(9/19/2019): Agents of Literature Part 3: Interviews with Agented Authors

Week 4 (9/24/2019): What is Going On Over There? - The Other Side of the Submissions Process

Week 5 (9/30/2019): Now I’m Even More Confused – Submissions September Q&A Episode

Episode Transcription (all errors are entirely Rekka's fault)

Rekka (00:00):Welcome back to We Make Books, a podcast about writing, publishing, and everything in between. I'm Rekka. I write science fiction and fantasy as RJ Theodore.

Kaelyn (00:09):And I'm Kaelyn. I'm the acquisitions editor for Parvus Press.

Rekka (00:12):And today we apparently just have baking on our mind.

Kaelyn (00:17):Yeah, I don't. It was. I. I'm just really surprised that you watch the Great British Baking Show. I don't know why I'm surprised by that. I shouldn't be.

Rekka (00:26):Well, it starts when we're looking for holiday content, that's feel good and we don't want to worry about like, you know, getting drawn into one of those crappy made-for-streaming movies that everyone's talking about. And it turns out to be like worse than a Lifetime romcom kind of thing. That happened a couple of times this year. So we basically have said, okay—

Kaelyn (00:49):Lookin' at you, Christmas Prince.

Rekka (00:51):We can, we can trust Great British Baking Show. And so we started with the holiday episodes and then this year we were not satiated by the holiday episodes when we ran out of them. So then we just started watching season eight and now we're working our way back.

Kaelyn (01:06):Yeah. But, um, in this episode, you know, we're just—for full disclosure, get ready for a lot of baking metaphor as being shoe-horned—

Rekka (01:14):As many as I was eager to fill in, but I was, you know, like, you know, it was trying to be refined in my application of them.

Kaelyn (01:23):Yeah. Well, so along the lines of refinement, um, you know, today we're talking about, uh, leveling up. What you can do as an author, as a writer, to help improve yourself.

Rekka (01:35):Yeah. Cause you know, you can always be making forward progress even while you're waiting for the success to come to you, you know? Cause it's not going to come *to* you, for one, and for two, there's a lot of waiting involved for going out and getting it.

Kaelyn (01:51):Yeah. So I think a lot of people, especially those who have been trying, you know, sending out a lot of queries, trying to get published for a long time, fall into the trap of passiveness. Of, you know, just waiting for something to happen rather than continuing to work and improve themselves and try to make something happen instead. Um, it is publishing is a weird, I can't even call it balance cause it's pretty lopsided of just like, you know, having to rely on other people to say yes and no to things. But that doesn't mean that you have no agency in this process. There's other things that you can be doing to try to tilt the scales towards a yes more than no.

Rekka (02:36):And even if the scales aren't tilted, you are becoming

We Make Books is hosted by Rekka Jay and Kaelyn Considine; Rekka is a published author and Kaelyn is an editor and together they are going to take you through what goes into getting a book out of your head, on to paper, in to the hands of a publisher, and finally on to book store shelves.

We Make Books is a podcast for writers and publishers, by writers and publishers and we want to hear from our listeners! Send us your questions, comments, and concerns!

We hope you enjoy We Make Books!

Twitter: @WMBCast  |  @KindofKaelyn  |  @BittyBittyZap

Instagram: @WMBCast 

Patreon.com/WMBCast

Hilary's Links:

Tales from the Trunk Podcast

Twitter @trunkcast

Twitter @hbbisenieks

Website hilarybisenieks.com

 

Transcript (All Mistakes are Fully Rekka's Fault)

Kaelyn (00:00:00):Hi, everyone. Welcome back to another episode of We Make Books, a show about writing, publishing, and everything in between. My name's Kaelyn Considine, and I am the acquisitions editor for Parvus Press.

Rekka (00:00:09):And I'm Rekka. I write science fiction and fantasy as RJ Theodore.

Kaelyn (00:00:13):This is an exciting episode. We have our second repeat guest.

Rekka (00:00:16):Yes, I am looking forward to lots of people coming back on. When we crafted this podcast together, I wasn't sure how many guests we were going to do other than people who were experts on things that we didn't really feel comfortable dispensing advice on, but we've ended up just having like really great conversations where I don't necessarily think it was because we just needed to sit back and get out of the way of somebody. But like, because it's fun to talk to more than one person. And I don't blame you for not wanting to talk to just me all the time.

Kaelyn (00:00:48):I could talk to you forever.

Rekka (00:00:51):This is true. We have done this. There's no smoked meat now. So like it doesn't feel the same.

Kaelyn (00:00:57):I know. We've definitely forgone sleep by like large quantities, because we were just like up talking.

Rekka (00:01:04):We had slumber parties in the time before this is so sad.

Kaelyn (00:01:07):I know. Yeah. And there's, there's no smoked meat. There's no slumber parties. There's no movie after movie. You don't what I just realized? We didn't actually say who our guest was.

Rekka (00:01:18):Is that important?

Rekka (00:01:19):No, I just.

Rekka (00:01:20):We're terrible hosts.

Rekka (00:01:21):We said our second repeat guests, so,

Rekka (00:01:24):Well, I mean suspense, that's another genre.

Rekka (00:01:26):Suspense. Definitely. We'll give you a hint.

Rekka (00:01:28):It's Hilary Bisenieks.

Kaelyn (00:01:30):Oh, okay. Or we could just tell you who it is.

Rekka (00:01:33):That was my hint. It's just a good hint. I'm being kind at the end of this year.

Kaelyn (00:01:36):Well, I was, so we had Hilary came back on to talk to us about trunking stories.

Rekka (00:01:41):Well we did say that we were going to have him back on as soon As possible.

Kaelyn (00:01:45):We did, yeah. This, this shouldn't. Yeah, this shouldn't be like a huge shock, but yeah, it was a, it was great to have Hilary back on. Um, uh, hopefully you listened to the episode.

Rekka (00:01:53):Hopefully you listened to Hilary's podcasts because Tales From The Trunk is just a delightful podcast. It's so much fun. It's one of those great, like "two people who clearly like each other and like having a conversation, talking to each other for a while," and it's very friendly and I love it. Um, as I've said before and will say again.

Kaelyn (00:02:10):Very relatable. So yeah. Hilary came on to talk to us about trunking stories today, being somewhat of an expert on the subject. Um, you know, it's a, it's a difficult thing to do, I think, for a lot of writers, it's definitely a milestone. It's definitely like, you know, there's an other side of it where it's like, okay, I have done this thing now. Um, and there's a lot of reasons to do it. Um, it sounds like something that you want to never do, but I think

We Make Books is hosted by Rekka Jay and Kaelyn Considine; Rekka is a published author and Kaelyn is an editor and together they are going to take you through what goes into getting a book out of your head, on to paper, in to the hands of a publisher, and finally on to book store shelves.

We Make Books is a podcast for writers and publishers, by writers and publishers and we want to hear from our listeners! Send us your questions, comments, and concerns!

We hope you enjoy We Make Books!

Twitter: @WMBCast  |  @KindofKaelyn  |  @BittyBittyZap

Instagram: @WMBCast 

Patreon.com/WMBCast

 

Transcript (All Mistakes are Fully Rekka's Fault)

 

Rekka (00:00:00):Welcome back to another episode of We Make Books, a podcast about writing, publishing, and everything in between. I'm Rekka. I write science fiction and fantasy as R J Theodore.

Kaelyn (00:00:09):And I'm Kaelyn Considine. I am the acquisitions editor for Parvus Press. And, uh, this is Anthologies, part two.

Rekka (00:00:15):Part two, because Kaelyn was like, "Hey, you left me out. I am not gonna forgive you for this. We're going to talk about this until I have gotten to say everything I want to say about it."

Kaelyn (00:00:25):I was unfairly confined somewhere and, uh, I, I missed, uh, I missed the interview last week, obviously, but, um, you know, I, I, we wanted to talk more, a little bit more about anthologies, you know, obviously, um, Rekka's interview with Julia was fantastic. A lot of great insight and information in there. Um, but that was very, you know, from the publishing side of things. So then there's the people that actually contribute to the anthologies, the writers. That's, that's a whole other kettle of fish. So we just, you know, we wanted to do another part where we talked a little bit about the other side of this.

Rekka (00:01:04):Kaelyn's interest is a kind of pre-submission I would say, right?

Kaelyn (00:01:08):Yes, definitely.

Rekka (00:01:08):Although you have worked on an anthology, so your interest has also been post submission.

Kaelyn (00:01:14):I have, uh, I have worked on an anthology. We talk a little bit about that in this episode. Um, anthology is our, you know, as the last week's episode went into great detail about very different from a novel, you know, I think we think like, Oh, whatever, it's a book. So you've got a whole bunch of authors instead of just one.

Rekka (00:01:32):A WHOLE bunch of authors.

Kaelyn (00:01:33):Yeah. A flock, if you will.

Rekka (00:01:35):A slack of authors?

Kaelyn (00:01:37):A slack of authors. Um, so you know, like, what's the difference? Why is, why is it a big deal? Anthologies are very different and they're, um, you know, even if they work out to about the same number of words and pages as a novel, I would say it's two to three times the amount of work.

Rekka (00:01:57):At least. The process of editing is basically multiplied by however many authors you have on the book, because you've got to do all the direct contact things with each of them. And even though the story may only be a few thousand words, there is an entire process that has to happen for each submission.

Kaelyn (00:02:14):Yeah.

Rekka (00:02:14):So, so that's fun. So that was Kaelyn's favorite part of working on an apology. I'm sure.

Kaelyn (00:02:20):Oh God.

Rekka (00:02:21):Doing this all simultaneously with however many authors.

Kaelyn (00:02:24):Yeah, yeah. It's um, it's, you know, it's different and there are certain things as a writer, if you're preparing or interested in submitting to an anthology that you should be aware of, um, you know, going into it. So, you know, that's what we wanted to take some time to talk about today. And, uh, that's what we did.

Rekka (00:02:41):This is the bandaid that Kaelyn is slapping over my, my poor attempt to lead the podcast without her.

Kaelyn (00:02:47):Oh no, don't be ridiculous. You did a fantastic job. Like it's to the point that I was like, I'm listening to it. I'm like, "God, I'm so mad. I mis

Back the Mermaids Monthly Kickstarter!

 

We Make Books is hosted by Rekka Jay and Kaelyn Considine; Rekka is a published author and Kaelyn is an editor and together they are going to take you through what goes into getting a book out of your head, on to paper, in to the hands of a publisher, and finally on to book store shelves.

We Make Books is a podcast for writers and publishers, by writers and publishers and we want to hear from our listeners! Send us your questions, comments, and concerns!

We hope you enjoy We Make Books!

Twitter: @WMBCast  |  @KindofKaelyn  |  @BittyBittyZap

Instagram: @WMBCast 

Patreon.com/WMBCast

 

Julia's Links:

Their Website: juliarios.com

@omgjulia

@mermaidsmonthly

Back the Mermaids Monthly Kickstarter!

 

Episode Transcript (created by Rekka, blame her for any errors)

Rekka (00:00:00):Welcome back to another episode of We Make Books, a podcast about writing, publishing, and everything in between. I'm Rekka. I write science fiction and fantasy as RJ Theodore.

Kaelyn (00:00:09):I'm Kaelyn Considine. I am the acquisitions editor for Parvus Press.

Rekka (00:00:13):And this episode is a little light on the Kaelyn this week.

Kaelyn (00:00:18):Yeah. we had this this great interview set up with Julia Rios and I missed it because I I ended up in the hospital the day before we were supposed to record the interview and that's Um interviews are a lot of fun, but unfortunately it's different than when it's just Rekka and I recording and she can say, okay, well just do this when you get home. So I I felt bad, I had to, didn't give Rekka that much notice she had to fly solo on this one.

Rekka (00:00:47):Yeah, it worked out okay. Julia is a great person. Julia Rios is a queer Latinx writer, editor, podcaster, and narrator whose fiction, non-fiction, and poetry have appeared in Latin American Literature Today, Lightspeed and Goblin Fruit, among other places. Their editing work has won multiple awards, including the Hugo award. Julia is a co-host of This Is Why We're Like This, a podcast about the movies we watch in childhood that shape our lives, for better or for worse. They're also one of several co-hosts for the Skiffy and Fanty Show, a general SF discussion podcast, and they've narrated the stories for Escape Pod, PodCastle, Pseudopod, and Cast of Wonders. And it was the editing work that had us reach out to Julia this time specifically editing anthologies, which Kaelyn brought to me as a concept for an episode. And I was like, "Hey, we can bring someone else on. Cause you said you wanted to do more interviews."

Kaelyn (00:01:38):Yeah. And we got this one lined up and then I missed it. Yeah.

Rekka (00:01:43):Well at least I had someone to talk to. It could have been a rambly, messy, nothing, if it'd just been me.

Kaelyn (00:01:50):Yeah. So anthologies are you know, something that I think a lot of writers see constantly, especially if you're active in social media, there's something that you're just constantly coming across, but they're a different kind of intimidating than a regular novel or short story submission. It's a different process. So I thought doing an episodeum it's actually gonna be two episodes now—on anthologies would be a nice topic to cover. So it was, you know, I, I wasn't on this episode, but I will say it was great that someone could come on and talk to us about this that actually has experience doing this.

Rekka (00:02:31):And then I threw Kaelyn the rough cut so she could listen while she was in the hospital to see if she wanted to have another conversation, if I covered everything or—and obviously I failed because we're going to talk about it one more time.

Kaelyn (00:02:42):Oh no, no, we're gonna, we're gonna talk about some different some different stuff. I can't, I can't let you have all of the fun with the anthropologies without me,

Rekka (00:02:50):Julia. The reason that I reached out to them this time was because, well, I've always wanted to have them on the podcast—cause

We Make Books is hosted by Rekka Jay and Kaelyn Considine; Rekka is a published author and Kaelyn is an editor and together they are going to take you through what goes into getting a book out of your head, on to paper, in to the hands of a publisher, and finally on to book store shelves.

We Make Books is a podcast for writers and publishers, by writers and publishers and we want to hear from our listeners! Send us your questions, comments, and concerns!

We hope you enjoy We Make Books!

Twitter: @WMBCast  |  @KindofKaelyn  |  @BittyBittyZap

Instagram: @WMBCast 

Patreon.com/WMBCast

 

Hilary Bisenieks and his writing:

Twitter @hbbisenieks

Website hilarybisenieks.com

Lamplight Magazine Volume 5

Skies of Wonder, Skies of Danger 

 

Mentioned in this episode:

Sarah Gailey

Mortified podcast

Rank & Vile podcast

Fran Wilde

Merc Wolfmoor

David Tennant Does a Podcast With...

 

Episode Transcript

(Our usual transcriptionist is taking a well-deserved break. Any drop in quality of today's transcript is totally our fault.)

Kaelyn (00:00):Welcome back to another episode of We Make Books, the show about writing publishing and everything in between I'm Kaelyn Considine. I'm the acquisitions editor for Parvus Press.

Rekka (00:08):And I'm Ri—(sputter) Who am I? I am Rekka. I write science fiction and fantasy as RJ Theodore.

Kaelyn (00:13):So, um, today in a, in what we kind of joked was a slight departure, but then it turned out it really isn't that much of a departure from writing and publishing, we're talking about podcasting and, uh, you know, is this something that you need to do or have, or partake in at all?

Rekka (00:29):I, I do plan to, um, you know, someday have an episode about actually, how do you do this if it's a thing you want to do? Um, because much like Kaelyn's conception of this podcast was based on someone going, what, how would you know what to do? Um, you know, that's, that's something that I—now I'm feeling like we already did this. Did we do that topic already? Or if I just planned it so thoroughly in my mind, I remember doing it.

Kaelyn (00:55):We haven't done one about podcasts.

Rekka (00:56):Okay. So I was just, yes. Okay. I've just done that thing.

Kaelyn (01:01):It's okay. I dream podcast too. And then think we did episodes about stuff,

Rekka (01:05):If only we could record those.

Kaelyn (01:07):You don't, you don't want to see those.

Rekka (01:09):So, yeah, so I thought, like, "Okay. Someday, we're going to have to do an episode on, like, I want to start a podcast. How do I do that?" But first, maybe we take you aside and we have a conversation about—

Kaelyn (01:21):Should youuuu?

Rekka (01:21):—Where do podcasts come from and is that something that you're ready for?

Kaelyn (01:26):Um, and we didn't do this alone. We had a guest this week, sorry, we buried the lede there a little bit. We're we're joined this week by Hilary Bisenieks.

Rekka (01:35):Hilary is the host of Tales from the Trunk. And, um, the podcast features monthly interviews with science fiction, fantasy and horror authors and readings from their trunked work. And I thought it would be great to have him on, to be another voice of reason in this conversation of like, "I'm a writer. There are lots of writers with podcasts. Is that a thing a writer is supposed to do? Is that a thing I need to do? I already have an idea? Is it a good idea? Should I do this? Um, I already bought a microphone. Should I do this?" You know, that's kinda how it goes.

Kaelyn (02:04):If you listen to this episode and you're still like, "Yeah, this is a good idea. This is something I want to do." Then you've made it past the first step because we do not make this sound like a pleasant process.

Rekka (02:16):We don't, do we? I mean, it is fun. We have a lot of fun. You hear stuff all the time, but it's a lot of work too. And, um, when we do that production process episode that I apparently believe I already did, um, you know, we'll get into the actual process, the time we

Hi everyone, and thank you for tuning in to another episode of the We Make Books Podcast - A podcast about writing, publishing, and everything in between!

We Make Books is hosted by Rekka Jay and Kaelyn Considine; Rekka is a published author and Kaelyn is an editor and together they are going to take you through what goes into getting a book out of your head, on to paper, in to the hands of a publisher, and finally on to book store shelves.

We Make Books is a podcast for writers and publishers, by writers and publishers and we want to hear from our listeners! Send us your questions, comments, and concerns!

We hope you enjoy We Make Books!

Twitter: @WMBCast  |  @KindofKaelyn  |  @BittyBittyZap

Instagram: @WMBCast 

Patreon.com/WMBCast

 

Episode 47: Let Us Tell You About Show Don't Tell

(Our usual transcriptionist is taking a well-deserved break. Any drop in quality of today's transcript is totally our fault.)

Rekka (00:00):Hi, everyone. Welcome back to another episode of we make books, a show about writing publishing and everything in between. I'm Kaelyn Considine. I am the acquisitions editor for Parvus Press.

Rekka (00:08):And I'm Rekka. I write science fiction and fantasy as RJ Theodore.

Rekka (00:11):And you know what you've done? You have shown us that you write science fiction and fantasy as RJ. Theodore, you have not just told us

Rekka (00:18):Although today I did just tell you.

Rekka (00:20):You did just tell me now, but I mean, the books exist. I've seen them. So you've shown us that, but you have also talked at length about different parts and aspects of how you've written these and things that have happened to you, therefore showing us that you wrote them.

Rekka (00:34):Or did I just tell you all this stuff? I don't know. What does this rule mean anyway?

Rekka (00:41):Yeah. So today we're, we're tackling another one of those,uthose weird, funny little notes that you get from,ueditors and people critiquing your work. And you'll see, "show me, don't tell me" and –

Rekka (00:52):Really frustrating because everyone says it and assumes you know what they mean, but if you haven't really processed what it means, or you haven't managed to do it and have someone say, "yes, that's what I mean by show, don't tell," like you just feel a little bit lost. You feel like maybe you are falling behind in the class kind of thing. Like why does everyone know what this means? And I still don't understand?

Rekka (01:16):It is difficult, but I think it's one of those things that once you kind of figure out, it's a lot easier to understand what the note means. What, you know, we're trying to get at here is describing something to the reader and making the sentence do a lot of– do work in more than one way is a lot more interesting to read than just a list of descriptions, actions, emotions, or feelings.

Rekka (01:41):If you at least identify when you're doing it in the revisions that's going to go a long way to improving your relationship with beta readers and editors later.

Rekka (01:51):And improving your relationship with your characters, because we're going to talk a lot about that in this episode too. So–

Rekka (01:56):All right. So let's not tell you what the episode is.

Rekka (01:59):Let's show you!

Rekka (02:00):On the other side of the music.

Kaelyn (02:17):In this case, we're here mostly just to tell people things. If we just record this while showing things to each other, it's not going to be very,

Rekka (02:25):What we're showing is our competence with writing skills and techniques

Kaelyn (02:30):Ah okay.

Rekka (02:31):And demonstrating, Ooh, maybe that's it. Okay. I solved it. Don't call it. Show don't tell because that confuses people show, call it demonstrate don't elucidate. Rolls right off the tongue.

Kaelyn (02:44):Oh goodness. That's going on a mug somewhere. So yeah, but today we're, we're talking about one of the other great notes that people frequently get back from editors and agents, which is "show me, don

Hi everyone, and thank you for tuning in to another episode of the We Make Books Podcast - A podcast about writing, publishing, and everything in between!

We Make Books is hosted by Rekka Jay and Kaelyn Considine; Rekka is a published author and Kaelyn is an editor and together they are going to take you through what goes into getting a book out of your head, on to paper, in to the hands of a publisher, and finally on to book store shelves.

We Make Books is a podcast for writers and publishers, by writers and publishers and we want to hear from our listeners! Send us your questions, comments, and concerns!

We hope you enjoy We Make Books!

Twitter: @WMBCast  |  @KindofKaelyn  |  @BittyBittyZap

Instagram: @WMBCast 

Patreon.com/WMBCast

 

Episode 46: Prologues (Advice For People Who Aren’t Famous Enough to Do Whatever They Want)

transcribed by Sara Rose (@saraeleanorrose)

 

[0:00]

R: Welcome back to another episode of We Make Books, a podcast about writing, publishing, and everything in between. I’m Rekka, I write science fiction and fantasy as RJ Theodore.

 

K: And I’m Kaelyn Considine, I’m the acquisitions editor for Parvus Press. And, um, Rekka, is this a prologue right now?

 

R: I think… it sets up the plot and probably gives away a lot of it, too. [giggles]

 

K: That’s a good point, yeah. So today we’re talking about prologues. What’s a prologue? What should it do? Do you need one?

 

R: I proposed this topic to Kaelyn because this is one of those things that I see a lot of writers asking for advice on, is like, “Is my prologue okay?” And that’s the whole question. And there’s some fundamental instinct on some people’s part to say, “No. Never do a prologue.” Where other people are like, “Prologues are great! I love a prologue.”

 

K: Yeah.

 

R: And nobody is addressing what is in the prologue, when they have these conversations broadly and speaking in generic terms. So we wanted to get a little less generic, a little more specific, a little bit—not prescriptive, but just descriptive. Here’s what a good prologue does. Compare to yours. Lay it over the top of yours like a sheet of vellum, and see if they match up!

 

K: Yeah. So, hope you enjoy and we’ll see you on the other side of the music.

 

[intro music plays]

 

R: Would you say the scroll in a Star Wars movie is a prologue?

 

K: Yeah. It’s serving prologue-like functions.

 

R: Would you say they’re good prologues?

 

K: Yes.

 

R: And then it gets you to drop right into the middle of a battle or something like that.

 

K: It’s saving you from having to—

 

R: To watch Episode I!

 

K, laughing: Yeah.

 

R: Episode I through III are the prologue for Episode IV, just so we’re clear.

 

K: Okay. Hey, everyone, so, welcome, and I guess what we were just talking about, that’s not considered a prologue, is it?

 

R: Well, you’re the editor, you tell me.

 

K: No, it wasn’t, and we’ll get into why. And if you tried to use that as a prologue, you shouldn't—

 

R: Or at least wait until you’re super famous and nobody edits you.

 

K: Exactly, yeah. This is only relevant until you’re super famous and then you can do whatever you want.

 

[both laugh]

 

R: So we’re talking about prologues today. It’s one of the topics that I see come up a lot between writers in various writing groups that I’m in, is this confusion over whether it’s okay or not to have a prologue. Because there’s some frequently given, offered, shoved advice that Prologues Are Bad, Don’t Do Prologues, but then people look to very famous, very successful books and series and see prologues. And want to know where the line is.

 

K: I think there’s this prevailing sentiment, and it’s relatively new, that you don’t need prologues. Prologues are bad. And I think this is because for a couple decades before this, we were sort of inundated with prologues. Like every book had a prologue and not every one of them, I would go so far as to say that a small percentage of them were super necessary and served the direct actual function

Hi everyone, and thank you for tuning in to another episode of the We Make Books Podcast - A podcast about writing, publishing, and everything in between!

We Make Books is hosted by Rekka Jay and Kaelyn Considine; Rekka is a published author and Kaelyn is an editor and together they are going to take you through what goes into getting a book out of your head, on to paper, in to the hands of a publisher, and finally on to book store shelves.

We Make Books is a podcast for writers and publishers, by writers and publishers and we want to hear from our listeners! Hit us up on our social media, linked below, and send us your questions, comments, concerns, and tell us your favorite novel covers!

We hope you enjoy We Make Books!

Twitter: @WMBCast  |  @KindofKaelyn  |  @BittyBittyZap

Instagram: @WMBCast 

Patreon.com/WMBCast

 

Episode 45: Formatting Cover Art for Publication

transcribed by Sara Rose (@saraeleanorrose)

 

[0:00]

R: Welcome back to another episode of We Make Books, a podcast about writing, publishing, and everything in between, and this episode definitely leans more toward the publishing end of things and cement boots and everything. Right down, drowning you in information. 

 

I’m Rekka, I write science fiction and fantasy as R.J. Theodore and Kaelyn’s making a face at me.

 

K: I’m Kaelyn and, uh… My job is to make sure that Rekka maintains her sanity a little bit while trying to explain very, very complicated things here.

 

R: I’m totally sane. The question is, am I making myself understood?

 

K: Yes, this is sort of rounding out our discussions on cover and book art. We’re getting into the technical nitty-gritty of how you now take a lovely picture, that someone has done for you, and actually get it on the cover of a book so that it looks right.

 

R: We are going into the weeds! A wild book-cover template has appeared!

 

[K laughs]

 

R: How do you make it become your friend?

 

K: So Rekka is particularly disposed to talk in great detail about this because Rekka is a designer. This is one of the things that Rekka does. Beyond just knowing how to set up and lay these things out. Rekka knows a lot about color and composition and accounting for how things look on a screen versus how they look in print, and how all of these terrifying details actually work.

 

R: There’s so much information that I wanted to communicate. I hope I do a good job. I hope it’s clear, I hope it’s not overwhelming. I feel like this is important, because there’s a lot of stuff that, just generally, people don’t understand about the process and when they have a cover illustration that they’ve commissioned, the now what? This is the episode for the, “Now what?”

 

K: I think the key takeaway from this cover art and artwork series we’ve been doing, is this is way more complicated than you ever thought it was. I’ll leave it at that. [K laughs]

 

R: Yeah, and I struggle to allow the word complicated. It’s just, it is a specialty.

 

K: Yeah.

 

R: I mean, every step of this process is a specialty. You, the author, are exercising your specialty in writing, and then an editor exercises their specialty in editing, and then a copyeditor does theirs, and then a cover artist creates a cover with their specialty, and then a designer uses their specialty to lay out the book and the cover. And these are all specialized parts of a process that, in the past, have been teams of people. In this day and age, where we expect to be able to self-publish and Do It All Ourselves has become less of a specialty-based thing and more of a I Can Do This Myself, I Am Empowered, therefore I should do this myself. Which, you know, should you? It’s… ehh. Listen to this episode, I dunno, you decide.

 

K: As we say many times here, it’s not easy and there’s a lot more that goes into this than you would think. So, Rekka, takes us through all of that. I think this is a really good resource episode. So take a listen, hope you enjoy, and we’ll see you on the other side of the mus

Hi everyone, and thank you for tuning in to another episode of the We Make Books Podcast - A podcast about writing, publishing, and everything in between!

We Make Books is hosted by Rekka Jay and Kaelyn Considine; Rekka is a published author and Kaelyn is an editor and together they are going to take you through what goes into getting a book out of your head, on to paper, in to the hands of a publisher, and finally on to book store shelves.

We Make Books is a podcast for writers and publishers, by writers and publishers and we want to hear from our listeners! Hit us up on our social media, linked below, and send us your questions, comments, concerns, and tell us your favorite novel covers!

We hope you enjoy We Make Books!

Twitter: @WMBCast  |  @KindofKaelyn  |  @BittyBittyZap

Instagram: @WMBCast 

Patreon.com/WMBCast

 

Episode 44: Theme and Character Arcs

transcribed by Sara Rose (@saraeleanorrose)

 

[0:00]

R: Welcome back to We Make Books, a podcast about publishing—and writing. And sometimes going backward and revising. Whoops. I’m Rekka, I write science fiction and fantasy as RJ Theodore.

 

K: And I’m acquisitions editor, I, Kaelyn Considine, at Parvus Press.

 

R: How dare you.

 

[Both laugh]

 

K: It’s the heat. It’s the heat and then quarantine.

 

R: The heat is definitely getting to us. We have to turn off the AC to record these, folks, so pity us.

 

K: Hi, everyone! No, today we actually have, I think, an interesting episode. We are going based off a Twitter question we got from one of our listeners, Ashley Graham, about themes and character arcs and how to manage them and make them good in your story.

 

R: And by good, we mean strong or tight or—

 

K: Pervasive, efficient—

 

R: Pervasive. [giggles]

 

K: What are some other words we use to describe them here? Lots of very positive adjectives, to be sure.

 

R: Mhm, yeah.

 

K: You want your character arcs tight and your themes pervasive.

 

R: Yup. 

K: It’s kind of what we’re left with here. Anyway, we had a lot of fun talking about this because it’s something that I really enjoy working with authors on.

 

R: Yeah, when Kaelyn gets a novel manuscripts, this is what she dives in and gets to.

 

K: It is, yeah. This is at the very developmental level and I think anybody who’s a writer that’s listening to this and has submitted and gotten rejections has probably, at some point, gotten a note to “work on their themes or character arcs.”

 

R: Mhm.

 

K: Which is just so helpful and specific.

 

R: That’s why they call them form rejections.

 

K: Yes. So, we spent a lot of time in this talking about, first of all, what are these themes and character arcs? And how do you work on them? A lot of fun examples in movies and shows and, you know, like I said this is one of my favorite things about editing, is working on these parts of the book.

 

R: See, Kaelyn thought that she could ask me to restrain her, but the fact is I also love these, so we did go on a little bit. But I think we’ve had longer episodes. We’re fine.

 

K: Definitely, yeah. We were like kids in a candy shop for this, to be sure.

 

R: That’s true.

 

K: Anyway, so take a listen. We hope this is helpful, if this is something you’ve been struggling with in your writing process, and we’ll see you on the other side of the music.

 

[intro music plays]

 

K: I don’t know what I could’ve hit. That’s upsetting. Anyway! So, if my elbow hit something is that a character arc or is that a theme?

 

R: I think that’s a theme. Or it might be a story element…

 

K: It could be a plotline. Is the elbow a character?

 

R: Is the elbow haunted?

 

K: I mean, I assume so. It’s mine, yes. Anyway, today we’re talking about—one of our listeners, Ashley Graham, sent us a question about, I don’t know. Do we wanna read the question?

 

R: I’m gonna summarize it. Basically, Ashley was working on a short fiction piece and was suggested to, by an editor, that the theme and character arc could use some clarification. So, what the heck does that m

Hi everyone, and thank you for tuning in to another episode of the We Make Books Podcast - A podcast about writing, publishing, and everything in between!

This week, we are joined by Antoine Bandele, author, publisher, and a lot-of-other-stuff-er. He's a busy guy who knew what he wanted out of the fantasy maps for his series world of Esowon, and found help on Fiverr to see it realized.

You'll want to start out, if possible, with his page of maps open in a browser: https://www.antoinebandele.com/esowon-maps

We Make Books is hosted by Rekka Jay and Kaelyn Considine; Rekka is a published author and Kaelyn is an editor and together they are going to take you through what goes into getting a book out of your head, on to paper, in to the hands of a publisher, and finally on to book store shelves.

We Make Books is a podcast for writers and publishers, by writers and publishers and we want to hear from our listeners! Hit us up on our social media, linked below, and send us your questions, comments, concerns, and tell us your favorite novel covers!

We hope you enjoy We Make Books!

Twitter: @WMBCast  |  @KindofKaelyn  |  @BittyBittyZap

Instagram: @WMBCast 

Patreon.com/WMBCast

 

Episode 43: The Maps of Esowon, Cartography with Antoine Bandele

transcribed by Sara Rose (@saraeleanorrose)

 

[0:00]

K: Hey everyone, welcome back to another episode of We Make Books, a show about writing, publishing, and everything in between. My name’s Kaelyn Considine and I am the acquisition editor for Parvus Press.

 

R: And I’m Rekka, I write science fiction and fantasy as R.J. Theodore and today we have a very, very awesome guest. This is Antoine Bandele. He happened to write a book that I happened to read recently and when Kaelyn suggested that we do a whole series on artwork, I said,” Ooh! We should talk about cartography, and I have the book and the author for this episode.”

 

K: Yeah, we said Artwork August, it became more “Artwork Series.” But cartography is a really important and, I think frequently underappreciated, certainly, part of a book. You know, as Antoine mentions in the episode, fantasy books especially, it’s almost expected that you have some kind of a map or something in there. 

 

R: It might be overlooked as far as the work that goes into it, but if it’s not there, it will not be overlooked.

 

K: Yeah.

 

R: Your fans will be talking to you about, “Excuse me?! You invented a world?!”

 

K: Visual representation of this world.

 

R: Yeah. So this was a series of maps at the beginning of the book that I read, which was By Sea and Sky, an Esowon story, and there were a series of maps at the beginning, including a diagram of one of the vessels in, as the title kind of gives it away by sea and sky, so there’s an airship and there’s a great, even just a layout of the airship. Almost plan-like, ship...plans.

 

K: A schematic.

 

R: Schematic! That works. I took interior design for a year, I don’t know what to call the drawings. Hey! Drawings! That’s what we called them.

 

K: Pictures. Pictures of boats.

 

R: Yes. So, almost like a draftperson’s drawing of an airship concept. So those are all in the beginning of the book and, when I opened them, I was just like—I don’t know if they loaded. Because you know an eBook will load to a certain page when you open it and, like, you have to go back to see the preceding pages.

 

I always go back to the cover because I always wanna see how the cover looks on an eReader because this is just a minor point of mine. And I happened to see the artwork, the cartography. Whether it was loaded after the automatic page one , or before. I was like, “Oh! These are nice! These are really nice,” because Kaelyn and I have talked about maps before for books. Colin and I have talked about maps before for books. I did my map for my books and that was a whole heck of a project and I wish I had somebody else to do the work for me because it’s not easy.

 

K: I think we think, like, “Oh, whatever. You just sit down and