Mindy: Welcome to Writer Writer Pants on Fire, where authors talk about things that never happened to people who don't exist. We also cover craft, the agent hunt, query trenches, publishing, industry, marketing and more. I'm your host, Mindy McGinnis. You can check out my books and social media at mindymcginnis dot com and make sure to visit the Writer Writer Pants on Fire blog for additional interviews, query critiques and more as well as full transcriptions of each podcast episode at WriterWriterPants on Fire.com. And don’t forget to check out the Writer, Writer, Pants on Fire Facebook page. Give me feedback, suggest topics you’d like to hear discussed, and let me know if there is someone you’d love to see as a guest.
Mindy: We are here with Beth Revis who has a rather long and really interesting career in the writing world, and I love talking to Beth. Number one, she's interesting and she's funny. But number two, she has moved across all these different arenas in publishing. And I think she just has a really interesting story and has a lot of different things that she can talk about in terms of diversifying and writing outside of that traditional publishing box. So, if you could actually just start talking a little bit about your career because your career started with this huge bang. I remember I was not published yet, I was a YA librarian, and your first book Across The Universe came out and basically everyone was losing their minds. And that was even before it was released. I remember the publishing world being like, "everyone has to read this book." And even among educators and librarians, there was this humongous buzz for your first traditionally published series. So, if you could talk a little bit about what that is like - about coming out of the gate so hard right at the beginning.
Beth: It is freaking weird, man. I very distinctly remember that my publisher, before the book came out actually - this was before the book was out. One of the members of the team in the publishing department was speaking at the SCBWI. I think it was a national conference. It was something like that. And he kept talking about how much of an overnight success this book was going to be. He talked about it as if he had plucked me from obscurity, and there was this overnight success happening. I wasn't even at the conference. My friend texted to tell me about it, and I just couldn't stop laughing because I had been writing books for 10 years. I wrote 10 books over the course of 10 years. None of them were published. It wasn't an overnight success to me. It was a decade-long success before I saw anything at all in any return on it, and actually Across The Universe was the book that I was going to give up on. It was my hail Mary, last ditch effort. I just threw everything at the wall to see what would stick, and I didn't limit myself. I didn't try to think about markets or tropes. I was just like, "I just gotta do something," and it really was my last shot. And if that one hadn't sold, I do think that I would have quit writing. But fortunately, it did and everything changed. And it really was a perspective turn around to discover that sometimes dreams actually do come true.
Mindy: Yeah, they do. But one of the things that I think is so cool... Yes, it seemed like an overnight success to everyone else. You'd been working for a decade. I remember reading, I think, the first chapter of Across The Universe. Arcs weren't really that big of a deal yet. Somehow it was out digitally, maybe through a librarian outreach thing because I was at work and my boss was like, "Have you heard of this book? Have you heard of this person? That's all anyone is talking about." And at that point in my life, I had also been doing this for a decade, and I did not have an agent. And I did not have any success in any venue whatsoever. Didn't have short stories published. Had no agent. Had just been doing this for a decade and hurting. My boss knew this and she was like, "Oh my gosh, have you heard of this person and this book. Everyone is talking about it," and I was basically like, "No. I haven't. I don't wanna hear about someone else being so freaking successful." And then she was like, "No. Mindy, I think you need to read this." And I sat down bitter and angry, and I was just like, "Oh shit, this is really good." And it was really cool because all of my bitter grapes just got over-written entirely by my enthusiasm as a reader. This person deserves all of this. This person deserves all of the laurels and all of the credit. I think that that 10 years that you put in before you got any recognition is so clear and so obvious. It wasn't a trend. It wasn't a black swan. It wasn't something that just blew up and burned for 15 minutes and died. Your actual core talent was so obvious to me as someone that was also operating in those same worlds as both a writer and a reader.
Beth: I like to think that. But, I mean, there's a lot of talent in the world, and the more I'm in this industry, the more I'm realizing how much of this is also luck. And one of the reasons why the book reached the large audience that it did was 'cause I got really lucky in terms of opening at the start of the Sci-Fi trend and being there at the right time and having the right people support me. And there was just such a huge amount of luck involved in making that book work that I don't think I fully appreciated it until I got a little older and look around at the industry. 'Cause there's a lot of talent in this world, and it doesn't always get recognized, and that's the soul-crushing part of publishing. The writing is the art, but the publishing is the business. And sometimes in the business side of it, you just gotta end up lucky.
Mindy: I agree with that completely. And when I tell other people that, people that are outside of the industry, I think it comes off as false modesty and it's like... No. I know I'm a good writer. Don't get me wrong. Yeah, I'm aware that I'm good at what I do, but I also am very highly conscious of the fact that luck is such a huge player. I think it helps keep you humble, but also you have to recognize that you're absolutely right. I, and of course you as well, have been moving through the publishing industry for a long time now, and I encounter so many people that I will read their stuff, and no one has ever heard of them. And no one is aware of them. And I'm like, "This person is amazing. This person is a better writer than I am. This person should be hitting NYT." I think of it as both, again, as a reader and a writer, where I'm like, I want everyone to read about this book. I want everyone to know this book as a reader. I'm gonna share it with everyone I can think of. And there's that joy in that but then there's also, as a writer, that little, like for me, it's kind of like a fish hook buried inside of your donut - where it's like, I'm really enjoying this donut, but this is also reminding me that it doesn't matter how good you are. That's a horrible thing to realize.
Beth: It's the kind of thing that if somebody had told me that before I was published, I would have just brushed it off and completely ignored it. And honestly, if somebody had told me that when I was in the high of my debut year, which I debuted very well in terms of publishing as a business - that was a fantastic debut - and if somebody was like, "Oh yeah, but don't forget that there's a huge amount of luck involved," I would have just been like, "Oh, ha, ha ha. I get to be here." Since then, and having experienced a lot more and seeing the way things are... Yeah, there is a huge amount of luck. I absolutely thought that, especially after having written for a decade, that once I made it, that I would never have to worry about that again. But I have had books rejected by my agent. I have had books rejected by publishers. I've had books go on submission and not sell. Whole books that didn't sell all over again, and that just threw me back to those days before I was published. And I've had books that got published that were much quieter and they didn't make a stir. And there's a lot of people who don't even know they exist. And I've had some that just came out of left field that hit the right audience at the right time.
Mindy: Absolutely. That is the experience in a nutshell. I have, I believe, 13 books out at this point. Typically, when people talk to me, there's two titles that they talk to me about. They talk to me about The Female of the Species or they talk to me about A Madness So Discreet, and that's pretty much it. And I don't mind that. I absolutely love that people, number one, are reading my books and wanna come to my signings and show up and talk to me. But the two books that people talk to me about the most came out in 2014 and 2015. You worry. You're like, "Oh man, did I peak?"
Beth: Or did book marketing peak and no book marketer knows what to do anymore?
Mindy: That's true. Everything changed, didn't it?
Beth: I think it's not that much of a coincidence that YA hit like a hey day at a certain time period, in part, because of the books that came before. We had the blockbuster hits of Hunger Games, Twilight, and Harry Potter that boosted YA in a very significant way. But book publishing never knew what to do with social media, and when they started making marketing plans based on author social media presences, that was not a wise move on book marketing. And we've never really been able to recover from that, because book marketing continuously wants to have these free spaces where they can make a book become a hit. And what we're seeing now, especially with TikTok, is that what makes a book a hit is the readers. And if we can get the books to the readers as opposed to getting the books on social media, that's the key.
Mindy: You and I have talked off mic a lot about social media - and particularly TikTok. One of the things I think is so interesting about TikTok - and I'm giving you tons of compliments, and I know you may not necessarily want them - but you do a great job of making content, of putting things out there, and being active, especially in the TikTok space. I have talked to you plenty about the fact that I have just kind of fallen off of social media. There's multiple reasons for that. Right before the pandemic, I went through a break up that was really, really bad. And I was just kind of non-functional for about three months. I wasn't interested in anything. I was having a hard time with mental health and everything. And social media was very much like "talk about how great you are, and how great your books are, and how happy you are, and how successful everything is." I can't do that. So I just stopped posting.
Beth: But there's a point where that's what has to happen, and you should never, ever, ever, ever feel guilty about that. And anyone listening, also, don't feel guilty if you're not doing social media. Starting in 2018, my husband went into heart failure and he actually ended up needing a transplant. And I remember being in the hospital and having these conversations with hospice workers, and when you get to that level that's when they don't say, "Oh yeah. We'll do the surgery, and there's risks." They're like, "Well, what about the quality of life after surgery? Maybe you don't want it." I mean, that's the kind of conversations we were having with doctors. I remember getting a text from a friend who was like, "I know you're going through a lot. Do you want me to just take over your social media for you so it doesn't die?" And I was like, I could not give less of a care about social media at that point. I just completely didn't care about it. And my friend, who was coming from a really good place, and she knew that I like social media. I enjoy playing with the algorithms. I enjoy trying to make it work, but that was a point in my life where it did not matter. It absolutely did not matter to me, and I think that the key take away from that experience and from that memory is that social media actually doesn't matter. And you can always pick it up back later, if you want to. Like, your job is a writer. Your job is not a social media influencer.
Mindy: I had the exact same experience. I walked away for about three months. I just dropped and no one noticed. Nobody noticed. My sales were not affected in any way, and I did not lose followers. People were not like, "Oh, she hasn't posted in three days. Boring. Unfollow." No. None of those things happened, and so, like you, it made me really rethink, why am I spending two hours... And I would. I would spend about two hours every morning on social media interacting and reacting to other people's posts and making my own and doing all the things you're supposed to do. And I was like, Man, I'm spending two hours a day doing this. And when I stopped cold turkey, there was no effect.
Beth: None. Yeah. Doesn't really matter. It does matter that you can reach readers in some way when you are capable of doing so. Just because you write a book doesn't mean you have to open your life to anybody. But if you wanna reach readers, like social media is a good tool for that. I look at it as a good tool for this network where you might not subscribe to my newsletter but maybe you'll see this tweet or something like that. And I do kinda look at social media as this fun little gamble game where I try to outwit the algorithm. I absolutely am not going to invest my life behind the mask of social media. That's not where my art is. My art is in my book.
Mindy: I agree. I agree completely, and my art is not in front of a camera - in front of my laptop without the camera on. See, it's funny because I said that and then I realized just at that moment that I have one knuckle halfway up my nose as I scratch my own. And I was just like, "Man, it's a damn good thing the camera isn't on." Following back up real quick on TikTok, 'cause that is the social media that everyone's talking about right now, especially in the book world. I mean, you know, I've told you multiple times. I just hate it. And I have a hard time finding any success, but also just like everything about it makes me feel slightly woozy. One of the things that I do appreciate and like about it, as you said, it really is driven by the readers more than anything. The readers are the ones that are creating the content that tends to go viral or really break somebody out. I think writers can move that needle if they're doing the work and putting themselves out there like you do. Colleen Hoover, for example.
Beth: Oh yeah.
Mindy: You know, that's all driven by readers. Those are other people using that platform to talk about what books that they love, and for me, that's organic. And if for some reason BookTok were to take off for me, there's a feeling inside of me that it's like... Maybe I'm not necessarily missing out on this because for me what seems to actually work is the readers creating the content.
Beth: Oh, absolutely. To me, social media is where I build a community, because that's where I can talk to readers. That's where I can tell them things. It's not about selling books. It's about building the community, and if some people who like being in my little circle of community, also wanna support you with books, that's awesome. Any major book sales are not going to come from me getting on Twitter and doing a little song and dance. What I do on social media is much more about just reaching out and talking and being a part of a community than like "buy my book! Buy my book!"
Ad: Create beautiful books with Vellum. Create ebooks for every platform with Vellum - Kindle, Kobo, Apple books and more. Each specialized file will guide readers to buy your next book in their store of choice. For print, choose your trim size and Vellum does the rest, giving you a professional result. Vellum 3.0 features 24 styles with 16 all new designs. Each one allows for multiple configurations, giving you a new world of options for your books. Add a rich background behind the beginning of every chapter. You can even set the mood with white text on a dark background. Vellum comes with six illustrated backgrounds ready to use in your book as well as a custom option where you provide your own. Also included in Vellum 3.0 - new options for fonts, TikTok for social media, size control for custom, ornamental breaks, and new trim sizes for your print books. Vellum: create beautiful books.
Mindy: Going back to the trajectory of your career. You had your Across The Universe trilogy come out to, as we were saying, just amazing acclaim. It did so well. And then I wanna talk about The Body Electric. It came out in 2014. At that point in the realm of publishing, the self-publishing and indie publishing world was still very much at that point, I think, considered a second rate shot. Considered something that you do if you can't get something into trad. This is where lesser than books land. So I remember when The Body Electric came out, and it was self-published. And I was just like, "Wait a minute." As someone that moves in the industry, I was like, "Beth Revis is incredibly talented and really smart and knows what she's doing, and she's a great writer. And she self-published a book." And it really was a book that made me go, "Oh, wait a minute." This is a legitimate option, number one. And number two, the quality of that book, and I don't just mean the writing - the cover, the design... I remember seeing it on the shelves at SE-YA, which is the Southeastern Young Adult Book Festival, and no part of me looked at that and thought that is a self-published book. Everything about it looked like a trad book, and I was just like, "I thought that was self-published. It can't be. It looks too professional." So if you could talk a little bit about The Body Electric, which was, I believe, your first foray outside of the trad world, and why The Body Electric and why the route you took and how you managed to make it look so professional.
Beth: Talking about timing from before... When Across The Universe came out, it was a good timing in that the market really wanted sci-fi and it really had a lot of publisher support for it, and there was a mini trend of sci-fi. This was also close to the same time. Amie Kaufman and Megan Spooner's book came out very soon after that. There was a grounding for sci-fi, but, just to tell you how quickly trends change... Three years later, by the time Shades of Earth, the last book in the trilogy, came out, my publisher was like, "Oh, by the way. Now, sci-fi is dead." Had to be news to me because I still like it. I still wanted to write it. And I actually had already written The Body Electric and I was working with my publisher. They started off as a three-book deal. There were going to be three books following The Body Electric, and it was what was happening on Earth while Amy and Elder were in space in Across The Universe. I thought it was a good pitch. It was linked to the series. I thought it was good. My publisher thought it was good when they bought it, and by the time I sold it as a pitch to here's the complete book - and by which I mean we went through line edits, developmental edits. We were at the copy editing stage when my publisher was like, "Oh, we just don't think sci-fi's gonna sell anymore." So they were still gonna honor my book deal. They wanted three books from me still. They just didn't want that book or that series.
I remember very distinctly when I got the call from my agent about it because this was also the time period where I was trying to get pregnant. And I was in the parking lot after having an acupuncture session to prep me for IVF after having realized that I was still not pregnant which, anyone who's been through that, is not a happy time period. And then my agent cause and they're like, "they want any book from you but that one." But it's done. It was done forever. I was expecting copy edits, and instead I got the book basically being canceled. The book deal wasn't canceled, which was good for my finances, but the book itself was not gonna go anywhere. And so I had here this complete book that had been professionally edited and no where to go with it. I was locked into a contract, so I couldn't sell it to another publisher until the other three books of the contract were fulfilled, but I could self-publish it. And I had already self-published the Paper Hearts books, which were writing advice. That one started off as blog posts that I turned into a book because readers kept asking me for a format that they can highlight and take notes in. And so I kind of knew the system, and I was like, "Well, I might as well try it." And you're right. There was a lot of stigma. I remember I had people flat out ask me, they're like, "You're failing now. So now you're self-publishing. Oh, so you're just washed up and you failed." Regardless, I just wanted to take a shot. I wanted to see if I could do it. And I had this book done and I loved the book. And I just wanted to see if it was possible. So I invested a lot of time and money to learn the system. I hired professionals to finish the editing process - the graphic design, the cover, everything. And I love that little book, and it did pretty well for a self-published title. And looking back now, I wish I had kept that momentum going. I wish I had continued to always self-publish on the side.
Mindy: I've talked before on the blog about the fact that I also write underneath a pen name and have self-published underneath that pen name. You mentioned the Paper Hearts series, and I said earlier I wanted to talk about how you have diversified in so many ways. And I realize that your Paper Hearts series and your writing advice books likely aren't pulling in a ton of money for you, but it is still something that you have out there that is a venue for you that you can promote to people, if you need to. You have all kinds of workbooks as well as just publishing advice there. And so just for listeners as well, the Paper Hearts books are just fantastic. And they're very, very helpful. You had said that that was something that came out of re-purposing blog posts and putting some writing advice out there. This might sound a little bit heartless, but when I'm at a conference or a signing and there's someone that's like, "Hey, can you give me some writing advice?"
Beth: Yeah.
Mindy: That's like, "Hey, can you explain the cosmos?" Just real quick here. 12 minutes while I'm in line. Whenever this happens, I just like, "Hey, I've got a blog and I got a podcast, and just go hit those up. And this is the website." When you decided to do the Paper Hearts, was it kindness of your heart? Was it now I have somewhere to direct people that want that advice? Or were you thinking, maybe I can make some money too?
Beth: Everything really. I originally started on my blog because I had the long publishing career. I was doing blogs for years before I got my book deal. I was on submission for things, but I hadn't gotten the book deal yet. As my first book came out, as I went through edits, I recorded everything on the blog, and I really wasn't going to publish it until I had people asking me for it. And then I realized, "Oh, people do want it, and that would be the kind of thing I would want." It's like a super chatty, but very realistic, factual, not holding things back and sugar coating things, way of explaining the industry and the process and the craft of writing and the process of publishing, and even marketing a little bit. The blogs are all still up there. So you're more than welcome to go through it, anybody who wants to search through the Internet. I just compiled them into one format, and what I was really focusing on at the time, as I was developing them, was this idea that was forming of how I still really wanted to teach.
I started my career as a teacher. I worked for six years as a high school English teacher. I loved the teaching process. I hated the education system, but I loved the teaching process and being in the classroom with students. We had a creative writing club. We had a literary journal. It was a wonderful time. I truly enjoy teaching, and I feel like I learn something better when I teach it. And so fortunately, at the same time that people were asking for the print book of Paper Hearts, a friend of mine, Cristin Terrill, said that she had done some workshop retreats when she lived in England, and she was in America now. And she wanted to sort of re-create that atmosphere here. And I was like, "Oh. Well, I've been sort of thinking about teaching and writing this non-fiction book and making workshops." And those two ideas all melded together. It was Paper Hearts and the Wordsmith Workshop Retreats. So we started doing the retreats. The very first retreat, we kinda did it in my backyard. We did it in Asheville, and I brought the first printed copies of Paper Hearts and gave them out to everybody who attended. That's how closely tied those two ventures were, and we just started teaching workshops. We expanded to do online things, especially during the pandemic. Giving back to the community, but also integrating everything into a workshop, educational symposium-style type thing.
Mindy: Those... Having that hook as well that you're able to teach and that writers can come to you as well as readers, it opens up venues for you in terms of teaching gigs, but also just appearances and writing workshops where you can get paid. It's another feather in your cap.
Beth: Yeah. I also I think it's kind of nice when I'm teaching a workshop to be like, "Oh, and here's this workbook and you get to write in it and keep it and everything's organized."
Mindy: So I wanna talk more about just your career in general. I wanna mention all your books because they're all so great. You went on... You wrote the Give the Dark My Love series. You wrote A World Without You. You've written many, many short stories that are in anthologies - different anthologies. You were able to do some IP work with Star Wars, which is just so awesome. But what I wanna talk about next is the Museum of Magic, which is a book that is available now, and this started as a Kindle Vella. You were an early adopter of Vella. Talk a little bit about Vella and what it is and how you utilized it as a writer.
Beth: Vella came about at the perfect time for me, because I was sort of in-between books. I was questioning what genre I wanted to focus in on. I had done the IP work. I didn't quite know where I wanted to go. And when Vella was announced, I had actually been looking at an old book of mine I had written called Blood and Feathers. It was a fantasy novel that I adored and I spent years working on and building the world and building the magic system. And it never found a publishing home. And I was thinking of self-publishing it, but really doubting whether I had the chops to dive back into self-publishing. And then Kindle Vella was announced and I thought, well, that might be a good place for this book that I already have written. But I knew I wanted to rewrite it because I'd originally intended it to be like a series. I was like, I just wanna make it a stand alone. And so as I was re-writing it chapter by chapter, I was uploading it on Kindle Vella and giving readers a chance to vote... Very much inspired by Susan Dennard and the Twitter voting poll she did for Luminaries. Which character the main character should trust and things like that. That one did okay, and I really liked that interaction. And I wanted to find a way to take that interaction to the next level. And I've still really enjoyed doing Vella, and I decided I was going to write something specifically for Vella where every single chapter would be determined by reader votes. And to kinda take it even to a more chaotic level, I was going to write every chapter as if I were in a D&D session, and I would roll dice and flip coins and do other chance-like things to determine what would happen in the chapter. And I filmed that and put it on my Patreon for my patreon readers to see how the chaos happens. Then I let them all vote on like a major decision. It's not just like, what color t-shirt should she wear? It's, should she fight this guy or hide? Should she go down this path or that path? And the story evolved so much as I was writing it. My original plan for this was just like a girl kind of questing for these items so that she could fix a broken spell, and it became like this deep dive into history and feminism and politics and fairy lore and so much more. It is just sort of spun out of control in the best possible way.
Mindy: That's wonderful. And I know that you have had continued success with Vella. We talked quite a bit about Vella, and the serial world can be very hit or miss. I think that discoverability is a problem everywhere. It's getting your book visible - your Vella visible. It's more integral to your success. When we're talking about serials, it is marketing to a different audience, because my readers that wanna read my books, my physical books and hold them, I have not had much luck getting them to jump over to serial. So what's your experience been like with that?
Beth: Yeah, it's a totally different platform. It's something, especially in Kindle Vella, it kind of requires you to read either on your computer or your laptop or your Kindle device, if you have one of those. A lot of young adult readers right now tend to really value print books. I actually don't know how well the serials would have done, if it was just one. I think that's one reason why Blood and Feathers kind of struggled to find a home because I intended it to be a stand-alone. But as I was writing Museum of Magic, the fact that I could draw it out longer, but I split it up into books. So now I have a print book version of it, which I'm hoping my print readers will enjoy, but they could dive straight into the sequel and see the sequel happening as it comes, as opposed to waiting a year for it to happen. You can see the process, and I kinda hope that this is showing some of my readers that I'm working all the time. You only get a book from me once or twice a year, but I'm working all the time. And maybe now people can see that the fruits of my labor, as opposed to intermittently through the years, is happening literally every day.
Mindy: Absolutely, and that's something that people don't necessarily realize how much of a hustle - which is really one of the main reasons I wanted to talk to you, is that hustle. You are constantly doing something. And I used to be that driven. I'm hoping to get back to it. You mentioned your Patreon, and you obviously do a lot of stuff with that and you're finding new and different ways to reach readers. The whole idea of absolute chance and flipping a coin and rolling the dice and videoing that and putting that material up for your Patreon. That is all so outside of the box of anything that I learned coming up 15 years ago, and I think it's just really wonderful that you have diversified yourself to the point where you've got a presence in all these different little avenues.
Beth: I mean, to be clear, if I were independently wealthy, you guys would never heard from me again. I mean, I love you guys, and I love writing. And writing is my art, but the hustle is really exhausting, and I am tired all the time. I'm currently chugging a green tea as I talk to you. I mean, part of this diversification absolutely comes from desperation. And I do wanna reiterate that it's not like I'm some super woman who has all the time in the world, and I'm just playing and flipping coins for fun. Part of this is from desperation. I had to find ways where I could write more books and reach more readers.
I mentioned my husband had a heart transplant, and I am still literally paying for a human heart. And they are expensive, especially when you don't get them off the black market, and it's just ridiculous. And I'm also the soul bread winner, and taking care of my son and my husband, and I did have several hard moments. I'm even gonna say it's one, it was many times, when I'm like, "Okay, can I even make this career continue to work for my family, or do I need to just literally do anything else with a salary?" And the freelance world is hard, and it is about diversification. And it's one reason why I wish I had continued self-publishing after The Body Electric. It's one reason why I'm doing all these different revenue streams. I describe it as having lots of little irons in the fire. With Across The Universe, despite the fact that I wrote it while I was teaching, I only really had two irons in that fire. I was teaching and getting my day job money. And then I was working on this one novel, and that was the only creative pursuit I had going. I cannot afford to just have one or two irons in the fire. I have to have a dozen irons in the fire and constantly be stoking the flames and trying to beat them into a livable income for my family. That also forced me to be creative in ways that I actually really have grown to love and like. With writing a serial novel, one reason why I do the coin flips and the dice rolls and things like that is because it keeps it interesting for me. I hope it's fun for the reader, but it's also very fun for me. And I don't have to carry the whole book in my head. I just have to carry some dice in my pocket and then see where the story will take me and kind of explore that. So it keeps it fresh and entertaining and something that I can do, because if I was writing just straight up three and five novels all at one time, I would get burnt out. I can think just a dice roll ahead for Museum of Magic, and that enables me to keep writing it.
Mindy: I agree so much about the hustle and how exhausting it is. People ask me all the time, "How do you do everything that you do?" And the answer is, "I don't have a choice."
Beth: Yeah, right.
Mindy: I make a living off of speaking appearances and signings and library visits, school visits. Obviously book sales come into that, but I can't control book sales. So much of what I do is me just trying to figure out something else, something else, something else. What else can I do? What is different? What is new? And you do get tired of chasing that. What is new? Because what is new may not always be successful or work. You hear so many things blossom and then die on the vine. I have been involved in projects that were the hot thing going and then six months later, by the time we had something available, it was no longer something people were interested in, and things would release and it just didn't really matter. But you never know what is gonna actually stick around for the long term or where you should invest your time, and you're literally rolling the dice and that's what we do. You were talking about... You remember when you were working and writing. I remember that as well. I was a librarian. I didn't make a lot of money because I was an aid, but I was working in a school full-time. So I had retirement. I had health insurance. Yes, it was weirdly a more restful time when I was working full-time and writing. And now I am scattered, but not in a bad way. Like you're saying, I'm diversified is the better word.
Beth: I think it's interesting that you brought up control though. Because with traditional book deals, we have control over our art, but we don't have control over whether or not it sells.
Mindy: Absolutely.
Beth: And that's the thing that can kill a freelance career. It only takes one or two books not selling for you to not have income for years. That lack of control is really the reason why I have leaned so heavily into this determined idea of always having something self-published as well as traditional published. 'Cause I make a lot more money with a traditional published book, and I know this is not true for everyone, but it's true for me - is that I make my money with traditional publishing. But if I can self-publish and get a set amount of money per month that is somewhat reliable, that is the bridge between those, and that is something that I control. I took November off for the first time in two years. I took some time off from writing all the time constantly, and I did not get any income. And I had to factor in my budget to realize that for the month of November and most of December, I was not gonna have any income. But outside of those times when I choose to take off, having some element of control of how much I'll get paid, or at least knowing something's coming, is actually a big help that traditional publishing can't give me.
Mindy: I explain to people very often that I get paid from that traditional gig, which is the main bread and butter, when you're on a book a year contract - once a year. And if you are working towards the future, if you're turning in a book on that year or if you have a contract come in, you might get paid twice a year. Then you're just... Well, gee. I hope I have enough money to make it until I get paid again. Anything that has to do with traditional life, like you were saying... You very suddenly had a health emergency. And that's something that just, quite frankly, we're fucked when something like that happens.
Beth: Oh yeah. The GoFundMe that somebody made, a friend of mine made it for me, but that's the only reason why I could continue to be a writer. It wasn't even that much comparatively, but quite frankly, the GoFundMe saved my career.
Mindy: Yeah. Yeah, and those are the kinds of things that we do have to rely on sometimes in order to keep us going. Thank God for readers and fans and supporters. Lord knows, I have been fortunate enough to not have any health emergencies in my life. But like you, I am self-employed, and I think about that all the time because I travel so much. Last fall, I was driving for three weeks. I was across the entire West doing school visits, and the whole time I was like, "Don't get in a goddamn car crash." It's like, do not crash your car because every cent that you made on this trip will go towards fixing you and more than likely, way more than that. So yeah, it's scary. You really are counting on the universe to look out for you when you choose this path.
Beth: Especially after the emergency of the health crisis, it made it fundamentally apparent that we only have an illusion of a safety net underneath us. Just like when Across The Universe came out and I thought, "Oh, I've made it. I'll never have to worry about this again. Surely, I will always be able to sell a book." Actually, that's just false, and our safety nets are made out of spider silk. And they're not gonna hold us up under necessarily big emergencies. And really the only thing we have left is our community and our art and hoping that can be enough.
Mindy: Yeah, I absolutely agree with that. Last thing, why don't you let readers know where they can find you online. I know that as we said, you've got so many different irons in the fire. So go ahead and talk about those and where people can find them and support you.
Beth: Yeah, I'm kind of everywhere. On most social media, you can easily find me by just searching my name - Beth Revis. I'm on Twitter, TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook. I have a newsletter at Substack - Beth Revis dot Substack dot com, and I send that out monthly, and that is the most reliable place to always keep up with everything I do. You can find me at Beth Revis dot com, and my Patreon is patreon dot-com slash Beth Revis. I'm obsessed with making sure that the Patreon is worthwhile. So every Sunday, I upload a new chapter of the novel. Every Tuesday, I show you how I outlined the next chapter of the novel. Every Thursday, there is a writing post which can include a 30-minute video writing or Round Table critiques or just general writing advice and... Oh, I think that might be it.
Mindy: That's incredible.
Mindy: Writer Writer Pants on Fire is produced by Mindy McGinnis. Music by Jack Korbel. Don't forget to check out the blog for additional interviews, writing advice and publication tips at Writer Writer Pants on Fire dot com. If the blog or podcast have been helpful to you or if you just enjoy listening, please consider donating. Visit Writer Writer Pants on Fire dot com and click “support the blog and podcast” in the sidebar.
