Breaking In: September/October 2024
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Kristin Graves
The Garlic Companion
(Cooking and Home & Garden, September, Storey Publishing)
“Recipes, crafts, preservation techniques, and simple ways to grow your own garlic!”
Writes from: Alberta, Canada
Pre-Garlic: I am a farmer with a vegetable subscription program that includes weekly newsletters and garden recipes. It has been a great way to connect with my customers, share unique ideas to utilize the ingredients given to them, and offer a glimpse at transparent farming practices. Over time, I began to write articles for magazines with a wide range of topics from growing garlic to promoting women in agriculture. When I started writing my book, I was able to look back over eight years’ worth of my own content for inspiration.
Photo Credit: Michael Piazza
Time frame: It took me 4 months to finish the first draft, it was the perfect winter project! My summers on the farm are quite busy and chaotic, but the winter season is enjoyed at a slower pace. I spent many snowstorms and cold nights cozied up with my laptop, writing to my heart’s content. I had a favourite writing playlist that I would listen to as well. The best part was that, for once, my work could travel so I could easily take it with me wherever I went. I really enjoyed the writing process!
Enter the agent: I received a message on Instagram from an acquisitions editor inquiring whether I would be interested in writing a book about garlic. It is a moment I will never forget! Writing a book has been a life-long dream of mine so I jumped at the opportunity.
Biggest surprise: I didn’t know it at the time, but there are so many things that happen behind the scenes that lead up to publication. I am so grateful for the team I get to work with at Storey who have helped guide me through the process.
What I did right: I think success is best achieved by being authentic to your true self. Whether it is in the pages of this book, or out in the garlic field, I always try to show up as a version of myself that I am proud of.
What I would have done differently: In a perfect world I would never again schedule so many photoshoots during my busiest time of year, however, the timing was so critical to be able to photograph an entire growing season. It happened exactly the way it was meant to, but the process was quite tiring.
Platform: Social media can be a very useful tool and is a great way to connect with fellow growers, and hopefully now prospective readers. I mostly use Instagram as my platform, and try to stay current with the trends to extend my reach. I work with an amazing publicist who has a great marketing plan in place for the rollout of my book.
Advice for writers: Surround yourself with people who support you and cheer you on. It’s easy to get lost in the writing or be overwhelmed by it. You’ll appreciate having them there with you and being able to celebrate your milestones together!
Next up: My dream is to host a garlic farm-to-table dinner on our farm! In terms of writing, I always have new ideas cooking—I hope someday there will be another cookbook!
Website: FifthGenGardens.ca
Andrea Jo DeWerd
What We Sacrifice for Magic
(Fantasy, September, Alcove Press)
“A coming-of-age novel following three generations of witches in Minnesota in the 1960s—featuring the complicated, imperfect women of the Watry-Ridder family, forging one’s path in life for oneself, and a sprinkling of family secrets.”
Writes from: I’m living and writing in downtown Brooklyn, N.Y., but born and raised in Minnesota.
Pre-Magic: Years ago, I started writing a very different book—about my family’s experience with the American Dream, through the lens of my grandfather, the son of a Dutch immigrant. But in the wake of the loss of my beloved Grampy, that book was too hard to write. It’s not my story, and it wasn’t ready for me to tell. In my grief, I was looking for an escape, and the book evolved into something more firmly rooted in fiction—and much more magical. While What We Sacrifice for Magic is no longer strictly based on my own family, there are echoes of my family in the Watry-Ridder family and the setting is very much influenced by my Minnesotan upbringing and places that are meaningful to me and my family.
Photo Credit: BriAnne Wills
Time frame: This book will be nearly 8 years old by the time it is published! I started writing the sketches that would become What We Sacrifice for Magic when my nephew was a baby, and he will start second grade just before my pub date. I wrote most of my first draft in the mornings before I would go into my day job, then on the marketing team at Random House. I didn’t tell anyone I was writing because I didn’t want to jinx it or put pressure on myself. But when I finished the first draft, I started telling people and took a few days off work to attend the Southampton Writers Conference. That was my coming out as a writer. (At the conference, I didn’t tell anyone that I worked in publishing. I was like a double agent!)
Enter the agent: After revising on my own for six months, I felt ready to start sending the book out to agents in February 2020. Because of my day job, I had the privilege of being a known quantity, but I didn’t know exactly how much that would help me in my querying journey. I thought at the least, people would recognize my name and open my email. When I started querying, a few agent connections were excited to read the manuscript right away, but I ultimately got back 30+ passes in the first few months.
I did a revise-and-resubmit for one agent, who was very helpful to me in the long run. We had an hour-long phone call to discuss the book and the revisions, and I spent nearly a year on the revision, amongst having COVID twice myself and changing jobs, and other life events in that year. When I finally resubmitted, her priorities had shifted. She needed to give her full attention to the other big authors on her list, who were all turning in books after the Covid lockdown. But the work I did for her ultimately got the book to a much better place.
I kept querying, sending out 5ish at a time. I figured it had to be a numbers game, and I just had to connect with the right reader who would share my vision for the story. But by summer 2021, I was bereft. I got passes back from two of the remaining top five agents on my wishlist, and I was devastated. I was ready to put the book in the proverbial drawer.
I took to Twitter spontaneously one morning to lament, posting:
I am querying lit agents with my debut novel: a multi-generational, coming-of-age story about 3 generations of witches in 1968, small-town MN. Early industry friends have called it “Practical Magic* meets Kitchens of the Great Midwest.” Msg me if you’d like to see it!
Well, that did the trick. My followers at the time were mostly other publishing industry people, including some agents, from the projects we had worked on together. I was blown away by the response that I got—20+ requests for partials or full manuscripts, including a message from Kate McKean at Morhaim Literary, who was my dream agent and had been closed to queries for most of Covid. Kate and I connected, she loved the book, and I was on her roster by September 2021.
Biggest surprise: The big thing I am constantly being reminded of as a debut author: man, you really have to set your ego aside in this process, over and over again. I felt that the first time I got notes back from beta readers, and with every pass from agents or editors. As a book marketer, I’ve told other authors for years: DO NOT READ YOUR REVIEWS. And I still accidentally saw my first 1-star Goodreads review when I was logging in to claim my Goodreads Author profile.
I get it now. A bad review can send me into a tailspin, worrying about the life of the book forever. I have had to learn that I can’t control how people will respond to the book, now that it’s out in the world. It’s out of my hands. And if I can’t remember that, I have my agent and my writing group text for support.
What I did right: While not everyone will have the publishing connections that I am so fortunate to have built-in my marketing career, I do think some of what I learned can be universally applied: don’t be afraid to brag about yourself online. If you don’t share what you’re working on, regardless of your connections, you’re missing any possible opportunity to catch the eye of someone who may help you. And by and large, the writing community online wants to lift each other up.
In revisions, I had to learn which feedback to listen to, and which to discard. Sometimes a beta reader would suggest a solution for something in the manuscript that didn’t feel right to me or felt like it was going to take the book into a different place than I intended (making it YA, making it too literary). I learned that it was enough for me to recognize that I had lost them on that page, that scene, that chapter, or that something wasn’t working there. But I didn’t have to take their suggested fix if it didn’t feel right for the book.
What I would have done differently: I have days when I wish I could’ve gotten here faster. I wish my first book was published in my 20s, so that I would have more time in my life to write more books. But I know that’s not possible, and it wasn’t possible with everything going on in my life by the time I started really writing. I was lucky to get 100 words at a time some days, but that first draft came together a few paragraphs at a time. I’ll be 36 when my first novel is published, and I’m proud now that I was able to do this while working full-time, with chronic illness, with major family events and illnesses happening at the same time.
Platform: This question is so loaded for me because I spend my day job, now at the book marketing agency I started in 2022, helping authors build their platforms and find new readers. I have a bit of a platform (a few hundred Instagram followers) built steadily through my work in publishing, and I have all the knowledge needed to grow my platform as an author, but as a small business owner with any semblance of a life, I’m struggling to find the time for my own book marketing—which is so common for so many authors! I’m at a point now where I have to take my own advice and bring on outside help to execute some of my marketing dreams. I just hired someone to help me with Reels and TikTok videos because I can have all the knowledge in the world, but it doesn’t matter if I don’t have the time to actually get it done.
Advice for writers: My writing group loves what we call a “mistress” project: another story, idea, something to work on outside of your main WIP to give yourself a break once in a while. It may feel like you are “cheating” on that novel you are supposed to be writing right now, but sometimes working on something else for a bit can open up new doors for you in your main WIP. When I was revising What We Sacrifice for Magic, I stopped to outline and write a few chapters of my next book, a contemporary Christmas rom-com, also set in Minnesota.
Next up: I’m working on something that I tentatively call Christmas Cookie Miracle. It may be too spicy for Hallmark, but it’s definitely a feel-good, smart, sassy holiday love story. Think The Holidate meets Fitness Junkie by Jo Piazza and Lucy Sykes.
Website: Andrea Jo DeWerd author site: AJDeWerd.com
Book marketing agency: TheFutureOfAgency.com
Kristin Owens
Elizabeth Sails
(Women’s Book Club Fiction, October, Rising Action Publishing Co.)
“The death of an eccentric aunt forces an anxiety-ridden ghostwriter on an unintended voyage of self-discovery.”
Writes from: Sticky Southwest Florida
Pre-Sails: At 47 years old, I started writing beer and wine articles for Colorado magazines. I got free samples and my neighbors adored me. I joined a local writing organization and met some tremendous critique partners who encouraged a sassy novel. Early on at a pitch event, a respected agent declared I had “voice,” which also boosted me onward. I should note, I was a university administrator and professor for two decades. I like schedules, order, and statistics. It turns out publishing has obsolete data points, unexpected pivots, and is as directionless as me in a kitchen.
Photo courtesy of the author
Time frame: It took six months to write and a year to edit on my own. Then the professionals arrived with something called ‘feedback.’ My agent and publisher tightened and tweaked, but always validated both me and the story. I never thought my first novel would become my debut. If someone had said, “Pumpkin, this outrageousness will take at least eight years,” I could have better managed my expectations and liquor intake (47 + 8 = 55 years old, you’re welcome).
Enter the agent: While querying, I received almost fifty full requests which was both exhilarating and disheartening because no offers came along. Then Madelyn Burt, Stonesong Literary, requested some minor changes and subsequently offered rep. I got more offers but choose Madelyn because she is very editorial and laughs in all the right places.
Biggest surprise: Write about what you love … adore … can’t live without. You’ll never be bored.
What I did right: I kept going. And bought lots of Kleenex. I believe new writers search for validation and spouses/partners can only do so much. Over the years, my mans has learned to say, “It’s the best thing you ever wrote.” I picked me a winner.
What I would have done differently: Leave the laptop at home while on vacation. Which (unfortunately?) is when I do my best writing.
Platform: I figure those who like to read books about a cruise are likely to sail themselves (hey, that PhD does come in handy!) And I’ve finagled a way of sailing more frequently—as an enrichment speaker. I entertain and educate passengers on writing, books, and wine. Yes, it’s a shamefully fun job but I can’t feel too guilty because hey, I’m working, people. It’s also a quintessential writing retreat with tea and scones daily at 3:30 pm.
Advice for writers: Surround yourself with yes people.
Next up: There are always two sides to a story. Beth’s sister, Victoria, needs her own spotlight.
Website: Kristin-Owens.com