Hi! Jess here. As an author and host of this podcast, I hear “I have a great idea for a book!” a lot, and while I believe everyone has a story to tell, I’ve only been knocked over by these book pitches twice. The first was the idea for the book Raising Empowered Athletes: A Youth Sports Parenting Guide for Raising Happy, Brave, and Resilient Kids by Kirsten Jones (pitched to me at speaking event in 2015, published in 2023) and the second was last week, in a conversation with this week’s guest, Dr. Megan.
I’m SO excited to introduce you to our new series, “From Soup to Nuts,” and its subject, Dr. Megan. She’s a therapist, speaker, and hopeful author who presented me with that aforementioned great idea for a book and a hook for a speaking career. She’s the right person to write this book, there’s a hole in the market for it, and it’s timely.
So….now what?
Over the next weeks and months, I will be mentoring Dr. Megan through her proposal, querying an agent, and planning ahead for a potential speaking career whether or not she sells the book.
This week, we talk through the preliminary process of getting to a book’s why and wherefores while crafting the introductory section of the book proposal (see resources below) and researching potential agents.
This first episode is for all subscribers, but the rest of this series will be available to supporters only. Please consider supporting the podcast so you can follow along (and learn from) Dr. Megan’s planning and writing process.
Resources we mention:
While I am not an Author Accelerator book coach, I do find Jennie Nash’s book, Blueprint for a Nonfiction Book incredibly useful and asked Dr. Megan to read it. We will be referring to it from time to time throughout this series.
Introductory section of a book proposal. Since we will be referring to the proposal for The Addiction Inoculation as a reference, I thought it would be helpful to make that available to #AmWriting Podcast listeners. Click through to Jess’ website to download.
Jess’s episode: What is a “Comp”?
Dr. Megan’s assignment: write the introductory section of her book proposal, identify and research potential agents, and compile a list of agents she would like to query.
Geeky footnote: “From soup to nuts” means “from beginning to end” and refers back to the practice of serving soup at the very beginning of a formal Western meal and nuts at the end. As a former Latin teacher, I prefer the saying “ab uvo usque ad mala” or “from the egg to the apples” in the tradition of Roman meals, but regardless, this series will cover everything from the beginning to the end of Dr. Megan’s book process.Additional links from the Pod:
Jean Hanff Korelitz, The Plot & The Sequel
Vicki Hoefle, Duct Tape Parenting
Nadine Burke Harris, The Deepest Well
Ned Johnson, The Self-Driven Child
Daniel J. Siegel, Brainstorm
Anna Lembke, Dopamine Nation
ICYMI: Sarina’s latest thriller is out in the world!
Rowan Gallagher is a devoted single mother and a talented architect with a high-profile commission restoring an historic mansion for the most powerful family in Maine. But inside, she’s a mess. She knows that stalking her ex’s avatar all over Portland on her phone isn’t the healthiest way to heal from their breakup. But she’s out of ice cream and she’s sick of romcoms.
Watching his every move is both fascinating and infuriating. He’s dining out while she’s wallowing on the couch. The last straw comes when he parks in their favorite spot on the waterfront. In a weak moment, she leashes the dog and sets off to see who else is in his car.
Instead of catching her ex in a kiss, Rowan becomes the first witness to his murder—and the primary suspect.
Digital books at: Amazon | Nook | Apple Books | Kobo | Google Play | AudiblePhysical books at: Bookshop.org | Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Indigo | More paperback links here!
New! Transcript below!
EPISODE 451 - TRANSCRIPT
KJ Dell'Antonia
Listeners who I know are also readers. Have I got a summer book for you, if you haven't yet ordered Dying to Meet You, Sarina Bowen's latest thriller with just enough romance you have to, so, let me lay this out for you. Rowan Gallagher is a devoted single mother and a talented architect with a high-profile commission restoring a historic mansion for the most powerful family in Maine, but inside, she's a mess. She knows stalking her ex's avatar all over Portland on her phone isn't the healthiest way to heal from their breakup, but she's out of ice cream and she's sick of rom coms. Watching his every move is both fascinating and infuriating. He's dining out while she's wallowing on the couch. The last straw comes when he parks in their favorite spot on the waterfront. In a weak moment, she leashes the dog and sets off to see who else is in his car. But instead of catching her ex in a kiss, Rowan becomes the first witness to his murder and the primary suspect. But Rowan isn't the only one keeping secrets as she digs for the truth. She discovers that the dead man was stalking her too, gathering intimate details about her job and her past, struggling to clear her name, Rowan finds herself spiraling into the shadowy plot that killed him. Will she be the next to die? You're going to love this. I've had a sneak preview, and I think we all know that The Five Year Lie was among the very best reads and listens of last summer, Dying to Meet You is available in every format and anywhere that you buy books and you could grab your copy, and you absolutely should right now.
Multiple Speakers:
Is it recording? Now it's recording, yay. Go ahead. This is the part where I stare blankly at the microphone. I don't remember what I'm supposed to be doing. All right, let's start over. Awkward pause. I'm going to rustle some papers. Okay, now one, two, three.
Jess Lahey
Hey, this is Jess Lahey, and this is the Hashtag AmWriting podcast. Hashtag AmWriting is the podcast about writing all the things, short things, long things, poetry, nonfiction, fiction, book proposals, queries. It's about the publishing industry. This is the podcast about getting the work done. I'm your host today, this week. My name is Jess Leahy. I am the author of The Gift of Failure, how the best parents learn to let go so their children can succeed, and The Addiction Inoculation, Raising Healthy Kids in a Culture of Dependence. I had a column at the New York Times for three years called the parent teacher conference, and I've written for The Atlantic and The Washington Post and numerous other outlets. Okay, today we are going to be talking with someone I am identifying for now as Dr. Megan. We're going to decide later on whether or not we get into her full name and all that stuff. But she is being super brave by coming on this podcast, because this podcast is going to be this episode of the podcast is going to be the first in a series. I met Dr Megan, I've been on the lookout for someone like her with a book idea like hers, with an aim towards, you know, an idea of wanting to be a speaker like her, and I just am really excited to mentor her through the process of hopefully getting an agent, hopefully getting a book deal and hopefully becoming a speaker, and we're just going to work our way through it. I also have been looking for someone like Dr. Megan, because I really wanted to pick someone for you so that we can mentor, someone who is dedicated to the process, interested in doing all the homework and is not going to, like, give up halfway through, and this is someone who's really dedicated to this series. I'm hoping you can learn as much as possible. As always, this podcast is about flattening the learning curve for other writers. So that's what Dr. Megan has offered to do with us... again, super brave, like the people who do the First Page's Booklab and submit their work. This is a really vulnerable position to be put in. And so, over the next hour, however many months this takes, we're going to be following her trajectory as an author slash speaker and see how it all goes. This first episode is going to be free for all subscribers to the Hashtag AmWriting podcast. And after that, we're going to be putting it under the umbrella of supporter podcasts. So, if you would like to follow along and learn from Megan's journey, go ahead and hit the support button and figure out a way to support the podcast, because we're you know, we're here because of you, and we're here and grateful for your support. So, with that, I'm going to introduce you to Dr. Megan, she is a therapist, she is a speaker, she is a wannabe author. She's someone who has a lot of experience in her field. She wants to write a book that is squarely in her field, related to her life, related to the life of her patients, her clients, and she is exactly the right person to write it. And it is a book that is needed right now. And so, with that, let's get started. As I promised. I have a hopeful, potential, exciting phase. new author here with me today. One of the reasons that I wanted to do this sort of it's not really book coaching, because that's not my domain. I'm not a Author Accelerator book coach. I also, but I get asked to do this a lot, and I get asked specifically about the speaking piece of it. So, I wanted to get our listeners started with how we met. I would love for you to explain how we met, and you don't have to get specific about places, but how we ended up in the same place together, because there's a reason I decided to work with you, and a reason that I thought that your potential book idea has a lot of a promise. And so anyway, could you tell our listeners how we met?
Dr. Megan
All right, this is a good question. Let's see. So, we met before you knew me. I met you via the Hashtag AmWriting podcast.
Jess Lahey
Okay.
Dr. Megan
And then when I was... I think it was just after finishing my doctorate, I found your book The Gift of Failure. So, then I met you there. But then, since I moved about almost three years ago now, and as part of my move, I thought, oh, I'm going to career shift. I've been working as a therapist for about 17 years with kids and families. And I love doing speaking, I love disseminating information. And I've been sort of marinating on this idea of a book... I don't know, probably five years and anyways, and I started emailing some people, and the majority of people actually don't answer said email. So I went to the librarian, and I was trying to get the scoop on those people at the library, and they're like, Oh yeah, yeah, Jess Lahey? She's super nice. She totally answered. Like, okay, I'm just going to cold turkey email her from the website, like she probably won't respond, but I just thought it was sort of a fate moment that you even we lived in this same small town, so it just all kind of perfectly collided.
Jess Lahey
Yeah, and I think your approach was really interesting, because you came at it from the perspective of someone who has done a lot of work to learn stuff in the first place, and you, when we got together, the book that you told me about, just hit all of the it, my alarm bells went off this, the like, oh my gosh, this needs to be a thing. And the last time this happened was when I met Kirsten Jones, who wrote Raising Empowered Athletes. So, I met her. She came to one of my book talks in California. Right after The Gift of Failure came out and she started, she met me by saying, you know, I want to write something like The Gift of Failure, but for parents of athletes, which I was like, oh my gosh, yes, you have to write that book. And when you told me about the book that you want to write, I immediately thought, this book has to happen. Now, here's the tough part. As anyone who is thinking about writing a book knows you can't just throw your idea out there, let alone the title, which you have. And the title, essentially was what sort of struck me in the first place, but we can't give away the title. We can't give away the main idea. So, listeners, I want you to think about when KJ and I originally talked about the book The Plot. There's a book by... it's a book called The Plot. And the essential idea behind this book, and there has now been a follow up called The Sequel, both of them really brilliant. The idea behind The Plot was, student comes to a teacher with a plot that is so good it can't fail. And the idea is that, like, well, it doesn't matter. No matter what I do, this is going to just be a thing and it leads to murder, but I do promise not to murder you in order to take your book idea and publish it for myself in that book, though the author correlates is her last name, manages to not talk about the plot while talking about the plot, which is the unfortunate place we're in where we have to talk about this really good idea that I think is there's a hole in the market, which we'll get to later. We're going to talk about market analysis later, it's as someone who's been in this speaking in this area and writing this area for a while, there is a place for this book, and this book really needs to happen. And I think, but what I think is fairly irrelevant here, because this has to be about what you think. I think you are the perfect person to write this book. So, with that I decided this would be a great way to teach to do, almost like a mentoring series for listeners who would really like to just not just write a book, but also build a speaking career around that book, which you very much want to do. So, we're going to do today a sort of get to know you, get to know what you've done, and why I thought you were sort of prepared to start this process. Because KJ and Sarina and Jennie were like, but is this person ready? Like, are they going to do the things? Are they ready? Is this going to be like a one off, and then she'll disappear into the night? Has she done the work? Is she prepared? So could you talk a little bit about some of the work you've done, like, you know, you talk about the fact that you have done the professional work, and that this book is going to be very much tied to your professional work, but in terms of writing, which is a very different thing, and then speaking, which is, on top of that, a very different thing, sort of why do you think that it's the right time for you to write this book?
Dr. Megan
Well, I feel like all of the pieces have sort of fallen a little bit into place lately, because I thought the right time to write this book was actually two and a half years ago.
Jess Lahey
Oh, that's always the right time with any book which is always the case. But I will tell you, from experience that I think that when you're doing the searching and when you're doing the research and when you're doing the pondering, the book happens at the right time. I happen to think that which is another way of saying you can procrastinate. But it's not that. It's, you know, it's the processing part.
Dr. Megan
Yeah, and I feel like the process keeps aligning for me with this book, because I had this idea and I thought, Oh, I'll move and here I will sit in my new home writing a book, because now I don't have a bunch of clients, and I'm not as busy once everything is perfect, once everything is right, exactly, yes. So, so it turns out that's not a thing.
Jess Lahey
Right.
Dr. Megan
And so, I was really sort of dragging my feet. And so, I, as part of my licensing requirements as a therapist, I had to take some classes. So, one of the classes I took was “Writing a book for therapist”. And so, I did that, and I thought, Oh, that's really interesting. So, then I reached out to the person who taught the class, and they said, what else do you do?
Jess Lahey
Right. Now was that a full on, full length, like...?
Dr. Megan
That class was just kind of a short, like, two hour continuing education.
Jess Lahey
But you had to do writing prompts. You had to do the work; you had to do the writing...
Dr. Megan
Yeah, I had some low... yeah, like, low level prompts, okay, just like, sort of marinate, get your idea going, kind of prompts. And so, I thought, oh, that was really helpful. It made me realize that the missing element for me as a creative is, I need structure.
Jess Lahey
Right.
Dr. Megan
And so, we, when we met, I was like, oh, homework, bring it on. Because I actually, I love homework, because I think it gives you some structure around the creativity and gets things flowing. So anyway, so I reached out, and then she said, Oh, I have this class, and it is once a week for eight weeks, and every week you turned in different things, and it sort of ranged an arc from solidifying your idea writing your introduction, but also like making a faux book cover, or making a faux blurbs, or thinking about, how do you use something like Amazon to look at what categories might your work be in which I think is a beautiful gateway over to the Blueprint Book.
Jess Lahey
Right. So, I gave you a copy of Jennie Nash's Blueprint for a Nonfiction Book. All of the books are great, but I think, and I'm, again, not a Author Accelerator book coach, but I thought it was really good starting place for the process of thinking about the like, why me? What is my book? What is my purpose? Who is my audience? You know, who's my ideal reader, all that kind of stuff. So, having looked at blueprint for a nonfiction book, what parts for you have sort of resonated either because they were overlooked in other classes or other preparation that you've done, or you think actually will hit at what you need to work on for this??
Dr. Megan
I like it because, I think it's really useful in the learning process to keep asking same questions in different ways. So, every time it kind of elicits a new response, a new thing to think about, a new way to connect it. And so, you know, I originally had this book idea, and I wrote down, I think several years ago, 10 chapters...
Jess Lahey
Right.
Dr. Megan
And then through the class, I was like, oh, wait, no, no, there's a narrative quality. It needs to be in parts.
Jess Lahey
Right.
Dr. Megan
How does the parts become within one thing? And so, but then in doing this book and looking at it, I feel like the most valuable piece was also the why. Like, why me? Like, really? Because I think to be an author feels vulnerable. To be a therapist is sort of vulnerable, but not really, because you're not, actually, you're encouraged not to share as much about yourself. And so...
Jess Lahey
Oh! That's interesting I hadn't thought that.
Dr. Megan
You know...
Jess Lahey
But that's a really important part of this process.
Dr. Megan
Yeah, and it got me really looking at and comparing, do I really love this thing? Okay, if you thought of your book with other writers in the same category as sort of a conversation, not like as competition, but as collaboration, like, where do you sit with that?
Jess Lahey
Right.
Dr. Megan
And to me, that kind of prompt is very helpful because then I, even, you know, as an artsy person, was like, Oh, how do I, like, imagine yourself, like, if you sat at your Knights of the Round Table, who are your people? Like, who would you want there? How would that go?
Jess Lahey
And that gets at when you're thinking about, obviously, we're going to have to talk about, you know, market analysis and comp titles and things like that. That also helps you realize, because you're going to have to write this section, which is like, what's out there, and why is my book going to be different or and also thinking, and I've talked about this before in other episodes, in another episode, and I'll link in the show notes to that one, not just the books that have been successful in this area, and how your book will be different from those. But also, you have to think about like, which books didn't work, and you have to explain why your book is not that.
Dr. Megan
Yes, yeah, without yeah, without being like a show and fraud, right kind of person. But also Yeah, because there's a million people that I think are super brilliant that have written parenting books, but either they sound like too therapist-y or like, are there a little, like light on the actually, how does this work kind of thing, and also accepting you can't be all things to all people.
Jess Lahey
Right, right.
Dr. Megan
So, the part about who's your audience, I thought, but, but I think the really golden nugget in that first part too, is the why, and so I even did that writing exercise, like, why this book? Why me? Why now? Kind of questioning. And I thought that was really helpful, because I wrote that more in, like a talking way, because I think some of those same things filter into an introduction for a book, but by writing it in an unpolished way, I feel like I reignited sort of the passion for the subject.
Jess Lahey
Right. Oh, that's so good.
Dr. Megan
So, I feel like it's missing...
Jess Lahey
And a lot of that's going to happen during the book proposal process as well. I mean, when you first were full disclosure, we're recording this at my house, because it's just easier to have two people in one space, and we're in my office, and I showed you all of the bookshelves that are filled with the books for the book for the book proposals that I've written and decided that I don't want to write right now, because I think that's really, really helpful. And as onerous as the book proposal process is, it's incredibly revealing. It helps you see what's working, what's not working, what you want to write, and what you don't want to write. So, I'm really excited for you to get really immersed in that process. Okay, so your why coming into this like, given that you're going to have to have a bit of an elevator pitch for people, what is your WHY for this book?
Dr. Megan
I thought about this in different ways. Okay I was a sort of neurodiverse kid—dyslexic, ADD—and therapy was super helpful to me as a child. And as a, you know, what Elaine Aron might call a highly sensitive person, I just think there's all these... I was so lucky, because I had a school for dyslexia, and I had all these opportunities in my childhood and as a therapist, I found myself working a lot with these kids that you might be like oh, ADHD learning like that's not normal but it's actually very normal. And within that there's just such a wide way people can be. And I just sometimes think as a culture a society we get so binary, and I just feel like that gets people really locked into either "oh no big deal" or "ooh super problematic thinking". And my big why is, there are easy solutions to helping understand your child. So, my really, my, why is I feel like there's, there's answers out there, and it drives me bananas, if you're like, oh, I don't know what to do, or there's just nothing. So, I feel compelled to do that.
Jess Lahey
So the nice thing about that answer is and I tend to bring... because it's my experience the so when I was thinking about The Gift of Failure, the big why was because I want kids to be able to learn to the best their ability to be engaged, to be motivated, all those sorts of things, but also that they're having conversations with their parents about what really matters to them and all that sort of stuff. So for me, there was no one writing at that intersection of parenting and education in this particular way, and because you have cred, not just as someone who grew up neurodiverse and as someone who works with neurodiverse kids, you have that sort of both sides of the table thing going on, which I think is a really, really, not just a great why, but a really great answer to why me.
Dr. Megan
Yes.
Jess Lahey
Yeah, yeah, to the why me question we're going to be talking about in future episodes, and about owning your expertise. So, I want to give you some homework.
Dr. Megan
Okay.
Jess Lahey
To think about, things and, oh, and I have a I even brought, I have a little notebook for you I get, I got you a little notebook. So, okay, so when it comes to your why, it sounds like you have a sort of a really good hold... a handle on that, but you're going to be asked definitely, during blueprint for a nonfiction book, and during our conversation to be re-articulating that lots and lots of times, people are going to be asking you about what you're working on, and that can be a really, really great opportunity. It's sort of like when, when you have to do interviews about your book, you're not going to want to go like, let's assume all of this goes well, and you're going to get to start doing interviews about your book. You need for now to be the time that you're articulating those really good answers, like, who is this book for? Why? I mean, the question I get in every interview is, give me a bit of your background and why you decided to write these books. And you want that answer to be great. You want that answer to be concise. You want that answer to not be rambling. And that's sort of your, you know, your elevator pitch sort of thing. The other thing that we talk a lot about, KJ and I, have talked about this a lot, is I like to have a stack of books that are the “voice I'm aiming for. So, I've had, there was a book called Duct Tape Parenting when I first wrote The Gift of Failure, and she just was really brave. The author of that book was, like, really not concerned with people yelling at her and saying, you're wrong, and she would just have this brave voice. And that was my brave voice book. And then I had another book that was like my owning your expert voice book, and so that they gave me a sense of on the days when I really needed them and I needed... because one of the hardest things for first time authors to do is to own their expertise. This is also something that comes up a lot in The OpEd Project, a group that I have worked with and mentored with for a while, where they help people who wouldn't normally get the chance to write op eds, to write op eds. And Katie Orenstein, the founder of that, said, a big part of that is helping you own your expertise. Like, yeah, why do I deserve to be the person talking about this? And I think, especially, as you said before a therapist and not having the opportunity to sort of talk about you, that's going to be incredibly important. So having a book for that, and sometimes we refer to them as, like our dissection books. So, here's the thing, you want, a great book that helps with the, no, I have the right to say these things, and I'm correct. And then the owning is sort of, and it could be the same thing owning your expertise book. And then you need to find a book whose format is really great for this topic. So, like, and it doesn't have to be exactly modeled. Your book doesn't have to be exactly modeled on that. But find a book that you feel like, really, if you want to integrate narrative arc, if you want to have it be straight up research, if you want this research and the narrative arc to come together, if you want to do storytelling, find the book that you think is like, yeah, this is what I'm aiming for in my book. Find one of those books, because being able to dissect how that person does that. Sarina does it sometimes, like when she switched over to thrillers from romance, she needed to be able to say, okay, well, how long are how many pages are we spending on exposition? How many pages are we spending on research? And for me, I found a couple of books that I thought just did a really good job of organizing in the way I wanted to organize it. So having a stack of those books as well is going to be really important.
Dr. Megan
To my book stack...
Jess Lahey
Okay, yeah, yeah.
Dr. Megan
In my kitchen. Okay, good, because that's...I have three kids, and by about 9:30 most people are asleep, and no one can, you know, trouble me for a glass of water, et cetera,
Jess Lahey
Right.
Dr. Megan
So, I have, like, a big stack, and that is what I think has been really interesting. When I first got here and thought, oh, I want to write, and I was just really feeling blocked and unclear. My other passion is painting. And so, I got really into painting and studying art. And how did people craft things, you know, like, studied with other artists, looked at things, and I realized in this writing process how similar it is to the painting process. And in a painting, often I'll do an under painting of a color that might be radically different from the rest of the painting, but I feel like it sets the tone. And what I felt like was really useful in working on the writing has been like, oh, permission to be creative about it and to look at other things. So, I literally very neurotic...I counted like, number of words per page, and then would like, multiply them, and then I made a list, like, in a chart, like, how many pages are each of these books in this category?
Jess Lahey
Oh my gosh.
Dr. Megan
Just to kind of get the structure in, very much a similar process in artists, where you're like, oh, how does this person use light in a painting?
Jess Lahey
Right.
Dr. Megan
And I think that's where I feel like, by putting creativity, like, using those same dynamics has been really empowering, because it's that same sort of thing for me, just finding, yeah, so the more, the more I do that, the better it becomes, because it invites a whole new structure you might not have thought of, or...
Jess Lahey
Okay, whatever. So, and we'll talk about this eventually, but at a certain point, all of the charts and the graphs and stuff are going to have to give way to this, like really big, creative and word output. So, we'll cross that bridge when we come to it. Right now, we're in the planning stage, and then the last thing I need you to think about is, and I don't think it's too early to start thinking about this, is, you know, how is this going to translate into speaking, and how we're going to do an entire podcast just on the planning? You know, obviously, you don't even have a book yet. You don't even have an agent yet, any... all of this stuff.
Dr. Megan
Yeah.
Jess Lahey
But, but... and we're going to talk about all this stuff, but in order to really be able to pitch yourself as a speaker, because I think there's even the possibility the speaker thing could happen without the book thing. It's going to happen most effectively, obviously, with the book thing. But it's since that's what you really want, we're going to start planning for that speaking career while the book is also happening. Right?
Dr. Megan
I'm in.
Jess Lahey
Okay, all right, so you've already done what I was going to give you homework about. So, I think, I think what you need to start thinking about is...I have given Megan a copy of The Addiction Inoculation book proposal, right?
Dr. Megan
Uh-huh.
Jess Lahey
Okay, so the reason it's not that I think that my book proposal is all that, but my agent...
Dr. Megan
But it is.
Jess Lahey
Laurie Abkemeier, just is amazing, and she helped shape that. So, I think it's a really good starting place. And I think the first section, the introductory section, I think would be a really great place for you to start. Unless you have anything, you think would be another great place for you to start. I want to take your input into this as well.
Dr. Megan
No, that seems good. Yeah. Because in this class I did, we had to write the intro and the first thing, but then when I read what you had, I was like, whoa, there's so much more.
Jess Lahey
Yeah.
Dr. Megan
There's so much more.
Jess Lahey
And all of the things we've talked about go into that introductory section, like, why me? Why this? Why now? And I think the why now when it comes to your plot, and I'm sorry again, listeners that we have to be a bit vague, but I think why now, with your title and your subject matter, I think it's a really great time for this book as well and it and without linking it into, you know, popular culture references and stuff like that, I think it's really important to help basically, I like to think of this section as the section that the editor, potential editor will have to go to the group at her publishing house to pitch to say, can I buy this book... and for how much... that section really is, here's why this author is the right time, why it's the right time, why this is the right author, why there's a there, this book needs to be written, what the hole is in the market. And I think that's going to be a really important part of that for you.
Dr. Megan
Yeah, and that's where it felt like, oh, now this doctoral thing that I did 10 years ago is coming into play, because they'd always be like, what are your gaps in the literature? And you have to get really granular about it. And so...
Jess Lahey
Oh, over and over again, I've been like, oh, wait, I can go back to that other thing I wrote in order to pull some of the pieces from that. So, this is very helpful. Okay, so for just the two of us, that's going to be the first thing I would love to see from you is that introductory section, sure, and then we're going... this podcast is going to be from here on out. This introductory level is going to be for everyone from here on out. This is going to be for supporters. But if you want to follow along on the journey, we're going to remain vague, like I said about the topic, simply because we don't want anyone to take it. And we are going to keep things a little bit vague on some fronts, but for the most part, we're going to get really specific, like I'm going to we're going to be talking about querying agents. We're going to be talking about the what the query format is like and finding an agent. I mean, that's the first place we have to start for you, and I have some ideas, but I'm going to give you some homework around that as well, which is, and I think you may have heard this before on our podcast, because we've talked about it, but look at the books that you really, really admire in your genre, and then look at the acknowledgement section, because people thank their agents, right? So, for example, if I am looking at a stack of books, I recommend a lot. So, for example, I really love, you know, like Nadine Burke Harris’s The Deepest Well, and Ned Johnson's The Self-Driven Child, and uh, Dan Siegel's Brainstorm, and Anna Lembke’s Dopamine Nation, those books sort of hit the tone and the topic that I would be writing about. So, who are their agents? Because those agents are clearly open to topics that are similar. Now, you don't want to go for someone who's written, who's published, or, you know, sold, the exact same thing, but you want someone who's hitting the spirit of the and is someone that is reputable and that you're also going to find by looking at who authors you respect thank in their acknowledgements. So that's a good starting place. So that's your other assignment.
Dr. Megan
Okay.
Jess Lahey
You can go to the library and do that. You can go clearly you have stacks of books at your house. You can borrow any of my books you would like. But let's start looking for potential agents to pitch this idea to, because a query is like, almost like a mini it's like a super mini version of your idea, and if they like it, they're going to ask for more. So, we need to have that more ready for when you query. Nonfiction is a little different from fiction, and for those of you have been listening for a long time, you know that if you're going to query a fiction agent, that agent is going to ask for a full manuscript, which so you better have finished it if you're going to pitch a fiction agent. It's not always the case, but mostly the case. But with nonfiction, the idea is you sell the book with a proposal. So, an agent in this arena is going to be expecting that maybe you have chapter summaries, maybe you have a sample chapter. So those are going to be our early goals for this sort of thing. But I think baseline introductory section is going to be the best place to start, and getting an idea of potential agents is the other great place to start. So how does that sound for you?
Dr. Megan
Super exciting, slightly intimidating.
Jess Lahey
Okay.
Dr. Megan
Because what if...I'm like, oh no, what if they love it, and now I've got to, like, crank out this whole book. Like, oh my gosh!
Jess Lahey
Yeah. Oh, it's scary. Like, The Gift of Failure stuff happened really fast. I got my dream agent who had been chasing, I don't know if you know this story, but I chased her for 10 years. I knew she was the right agent for me, but I kept sending her projects that weren't quite right, and The Gift of Failure happened to be right, but everything happened really fast after that. So, I've done like a crash proposal and agent acquisition, but I've also done, you know, the slower version, The Addiction Inoculation version. So, I totally get that each piece of this can be really scary, especially when it needs to happen fast and there isn't any urgency. It's not like you know, but we're also going to talk about articles that you could start writing for the media that will start being test balloons for this idea, because it helps if you have an article that does well on the topic that you're addressing.
Dr. Megan Yes, and that would be maybe a whole umbrella conversation, but, yeah, I actually was wondering about that, because...
Jess Lahey
And that could be a whole episode.
Dr. Megan
Of all these links to the amazing articles. And I'm like, oh no, you haven't done any of that, like, you know, sort of, but not really.
Jess Lahey
We'll do a whole episode on that, and especially on how to pitch those, how to think about those. And yeah, we'll be doing a whole entire episode on pitching articles that are in line with what you would like to write for next book. There are lots and lots of authors who do send up these test balloons to see what sticks. I know lots of them that do that, and there's a balance to me made between including content for the potential book and still sending up that test balloon. So, we'll talk about all of that in a separate episode, but for now, looking for potential agents writing that introductory thing, and then we're going to get together in like two weeks or so, and we'll start, and we'll start talking about actual... we'll actually do stuff.
Dr. Megan
Amazing, yes!
Jess Lahey
Because this book needs to happen, I'm really excited about it. I know you're excited about it, and I'm really just honored to be a part of helping in any way.
Dr. Megan Mutual and likewise, and this is super exciting.
Jess Lahey
And the dogs have pretty much behaved themselves today, so hopefully they'll continue to behave themselves. All right, if you want to get the rest of this series, and I think, I think I'm going to call it something like, I have an idea now what? That kind of idea, but if you want to be a part and listen to the rest of this series, you're going to have to become a supporter of the podcast. Becoming a supporter of the podcast gets you other stuff too, like First Pages, the Booklab thing that we just recorded a bunch of episodes. I don't know if you've ever listened to Booklab, but we get submissions from very brave listeners who give us their first pages, and then we talk about whether or not we turn the page, and we critique them, and it's really fun. And then you get other bonus materials as well. So, think about becoming a supporter, and I'm really excited about this new series. So, thank you for being a guinea pig, because it takes a lot of bravery to do that.
Dr. Megan
Well. Thank you. I'm super excited and nervous and excited.
Jess Lahey
All right, until next week, and this is for you specifically, keep your butt in the chair and your head in the game. The Hashtag AmWriting podcast is produced by Andrew Perella. Our intro music, aptly titled Unemployed Monday, was written and played by Max Cohen. Andrew and Max were paid for their time and their creative output, because everyone deserves to be paid for their work.
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