Courtney Maum: Rejections & Book Deals

Note: This is a rough transcript and some errors will be present.

Alice Draper (00:01.182)
Courtney, welcome to my rejection story.

Corutney (00:04.527)
Thank you so much for having me. I’m thrilled to be here.

Alice Draper (00:08.68)
to have you here. Can you tell me your earliest memory of rejection?

Corutney (00:16.195)
in the literary sense. I like.

Alice Draper (00:18.371)
It could be personal, so earliest is probably not literary, but if it is, you’re welcome to share that.

Corutney (00:22.18)
Yeah, no, I think my earliest rejections were probably romantic, right? I mean, the first one that pops into my head is I had this massive crush on a boy named Forrest Jones, and he didn’t like me. He liked Karina. Yeah, I think that was my first…

Alice Draper (00:37.448)
Yeah.

Alice Draper (00:44.37)
I know.

Corutney (00:49.892)
rejection of the heart and then literary. I did pretty well in high school. was sort of the writer chick, know, so I didn’t get too many rejections. College, certainly. I started realizing that there were other talented writers in the world who spoke more languages than me and had read more than me. you know, yeah, so college, think the literary rejection started to hit.

Alice Draper (01:19.834)
I’m going dive into the literary rejection soon, but tell me about Forrest Jones. How old were you?

Corutney (01:26.854)
How old was I? I mean, I don’t know, 13, you know, something. Yeah, very, very tall fellow, very quiet, you know, those mysterious boys that don’t speak and that’s always like so alluring. But it turns out he really like hardly ever spoke at all. Anyway, yeah, just sort of a, I had a lot of crushes as a…

Alice Draper (01:49.521)
Okay.

Corutney (01:54.374)
early teen. I went to an all-girls school, so we didn’t get to see boys very often, which I think had the opposite effect of, you know, it was supposed to teach us like independence and self-sufficient, not really needing anything but ourselves. And of course we were all like, boys, boys, boys, you know? Kind of like if Candi’s restricted or something. So there were Fridays, sometimes the boys would walk over from the boys’ school and hang out.

Alice Draper (02:10.622)
Yeah.

Corutney (02:22.169)
Like we had vending machines, right? So the cool thing to do was to get snapples and maybe some like Cheetos or whatever. And then, you know, they’d share it with the girl that they were interested in. And we’d all, I remember like seeing my mom pull up to the traffic circle. It was always, there were these speed bumps. So it took a while for the cars to inch up to pick you up. And man, we would all pretend we didn’t see her.

parents because we wanted to keep talking to the boys and then you think, man, like I’m going to miss out on all this conversation and snacking. And there was some girls who they like trained their mothers, you know, if you see me talking to whomever, stay in the car, you know, but my mother wasn’t having that understandably. So it was a whole scene on Friday, Friday afternoons. Yeah.

Alice Draper (03:12.192)
you

Alice Draper (03:18.502)
I love that so much. I also went to an all-girls school. Okay, I’m gonna dive into a little bit of the literary rejections. You’ve written a lot of books. I think your earliest book that I could find, I’m not sure if it was Correct as Notes from Mexico. Was that your first book or is it the first one like?

Corutney (03:21.106)
you did.

Corutney (03:36.387)
Yeah, I mean, that was a chapbook. I actually self-published a book when I was in my 20s called Small Things in Big Places. Speaking of rejection, the reason I self-published that is because I had had a book deal fall apart, like for a proper, you know, traditional book deal agent. It was a novel. And I found that so heartbreaking. I was like, man, I have to see my work, like…

on someone’s night table, like I have to or I’m just gonna collapse from heartache. So yeah, I self-published a short story collection, which I’d never shopped, like I knew it wasn’t strong enough, you know? I self-published that, I don’t know, was in my, I was probably like 24, 25 years old maybe? Maybe a little older, 20, it was in my 20s. this company still exists, it’s a great company, it’s called the Troy.

book company near Albany, New York in the United States. they, you know, it’s a lovely place filled with real humans. They were so great. I got to work with, you know, like a graphic designer and a copy editor. And what I did was I made 150 copies. And then I said, you know, once they disappear, I’ll sell out or, you know, I’ll never print another copy. And because I knew this was kind of a band-aid thing that I was doing.

And yeah, I stuck to that. I don’t know, I think I have one copy left. So somewhere out there. There’s, 150 copies sold. Yeah, my awesome sales record. Yeah, and then Notes from Mexico. I had won a chapbook contest. And if you won it, they printed your, it went effectively. It’s a novella. And that was with the cupboard press out of Lincoln, Nebraska. Yeah.

Alice Draper (05:11.043)
150 copies sold.

Alice Draper (05:31.093)
Okay, amazing. So this leads into what my question is going to be, which is rejection in your early literary sense. What were some of those early rejections? And I know you just alluded that you had a book deal fall apart. So tell me about that.

Corutney (05:45.732)
Yeah. Yeah, I mean, that wasn’t so much a rejection as like a devastation. Most of my 20s, I lived in Paris, France. I studied comparative literature and French translation in college. And, you know, I went abroad to study and I ended up getting some jobs, freelance writing at magazines and whatnot, and some translation jobs. So I returned to Paris after graduation.

Alice Draper (05:53.836)
Yeah.

Corutney (06:15.938)
I had started, I was working on a novel, I didn’t, you know, unlike a lot of Americans, I didn’t follow the kind of traditional trajectory towards becoming an author. So I didn’t, did not pursue an MFA. I didn’t take writing workshops in college. Creative writing was not at all my focus. I was really into translation at the time. So when I got to France, I effectively,

I mean, I’d always sort of identified as a writer. was something I was always doing on the side and submitting things. But when I got to France, I didn’t have any writing contacts at all. I had no writing friends. I didn’t know anyone in publishing. So, you know, when I finished what looked to me and felt to me like a novel, I didn’t really know, you know, what to do. So I was just sort of cold emailing literary agents from my hotmail address.

with terrible subject lines like, the book you need now, know, Everything I counsel people not to do is based on things I did, mistakes I made, right? I made a lot of embarrassing mistakes. But I did get an agent, a legitimate respected agent, and this was a red flag, right? He was like, this book’s perfect, let’s go out on submission right away, which back then I was like,

Yes, because I’m a genius, right? So of course it’s perfect. Now I’m like, I know that that’s the kiss of death. know, if your literary agent can’t find any problems in what is not exactly a first draft, but you know, more or less, the problem is with the agent. That’s not good. You know, you need someone to help you put your best foot forward. So long story short, though, we did have an editor who was then at Doubleday who was like, I want this book.

Alice Draper (07:44.665)
Yeah.

Alice Draper (07:57.253)
Yeah.

Corutney (08:12.262)
Again, if I had had some writing friends, someone to counsel me, I would have understood that there was some funky stuff going on, but I didn’t. this editor called me all summer on my little flip phone, talking about revisions. I was working on revisions for her. We were talking by phone, by email, everything. And so I was revising the book for her. So I thought, well, I have a book deal. I understood that I had to sign something, but this was early 2000s. So it was like,

seemed normal that I would have to go into the office to sign it, right? So somewhere around September of that year, I was coming home to see my family in Connecticut. And so I was meant to go into New York and sign this contract with my agent and this editor. And I don’t know, was a couple of days before the meeting and I was in New York City. And at that time, the like hot place to go was the Apple store in Soho.

because all this Apple stuff was like fresh and new and check your email. Like that was a cool thing to do. So I checked my hotmail in public and got this email that was like, I’m mortified to be writing this and I’m so sorry, but like I’ve changed my mind and I no longer want the manuscript. It was such a strange email. And then I found out later she, she effectively quit her job the next day. I don’t know. I don’t really know what the hell was going on, but

Alice Draper (09:21.423)
you

Corutney (09:42.092)
I called my agent right away. I remember I was like trembling. I mean my whole life, like we’d, I had met my husband already at that time and we had planned to move back to the United States because I thought I was getting this big lucrative book deal and you know, we’d already like, we’d looked at apartment, you know, we had started packing our stuff back in France. I had a plan and I’d put in motion and

You know, my agent wasn’t worried at all. He said, you know, I’m not going to name this editor, but let’s call her Kate. He was like, you know, she was the second person that looked at this manuscript and she bit. So we have no problem. I’ll go back out on submission. We’ll find someone like within two weeks. It’s not a problem. And that’s not what happened. We went on three rounds. So generally a round might have seven, eight, you know, editors. So three rounds is

you know, about 20 something editors saw. And at that point, you’re a little bit like, you know, a streetwalker, right? Everyone’s seen you. Too many people have seen it because these, I mean, they’re all effectively in one building, right? Like Penguin Random House. So everyone knows, you know, if a book is going on multiple rounds and not there’s not buzz. Yeah. So he was, I’ll never forget this. was like.

Alice Draper (11:03.806)
Getting picked up, yeah.

Corutney (11:09.988)
Listen, do you have like a sexy memoir about your time in France? Because I could sell that. It’s like, what? At that point, I did not do memoir. I do now, but I certainly didn’t have a sexy memoir already. Right. So, yeah, that was I mean, I think that was the worst letdown or rejection that I have ever experienced in my life. It really was heartbreaking because, you know, I didn’t even realize how unprepared I was, now, like

in North America I’m thought of as like a publishing expert and a lot of it stems from that day in the Apple store where my heart broke. and I just was like, how did this happen? I had no idea that this could happen. You know, I was like, she called me long distance. How is this possible? And now I’m just really an advocate for myself and for as many other writers as possible to keep them.

Alice Draper (11:51.573)
Yeah.

Corutney (12:10.766)
clear-eyed, informed, and empowered through all the different milestones of publication because most people are not looking out for the author, right? They’re looking out for their bottom line, sales, marketing possibilities, whatever. I mean, a good agent will look out for their client, but you know, some people have subpar agents. Yeah, so that was my terrible Soho Apple genius bar story.

Alice Draper (12:34.347)
Yeah.

Corutney (12:40.468)
Yeah.

Alice Draper (12:40.641)
I think that rejections, like there’s different kinds of rejections that can exist on different levels. And I think the worst ones are the ones where you’ve gotten in, like you’re basically have like almost walked in through the door, like the metaphorical door and you’re in the room and about to like reach for the cake or whatever. And then it’s like, no, you can’t have it versus if it’s, you know, you send your book out on submission and the agent rejected you or the publisher rejected you. It’s getting so close. That’s so painful.

Corutney (12:55.73)
yeah.

Corutney (13:09.594)
Well, 100 % and I think that also plays out on the submission level with essays and op-eds and shorter pieces, maybe fiction, what have you, where certainly I’ve had this happen at the New York Times specifically where I’ll be working, like going back and forth with an editor about a story and then something shifts in the newspaper itself or in current events or whatever and they kill the story. You know, generally…

you’ll get a kill fee if you’ve signed a contract, but you don’t get back the time you put into writing it, interviewing, you know, I was interviewing people for this and I think the more, you know, it’s not like when I was just starting out, again, I did everything wrong. I would submit short stories to literary magazines I’d never seen, you know, never read, find out later that I was submitting effectively like.

I don’t know, realist fiction to a place that took sci-fi, you know, like I was just sloppy and lazy. But there’s such a difference between like, whatever, I just wrote this thing. It’s in the right word count. Let me fire it off to this magazine I’ve never even seen. So you’ve not put in the work, the emotional attachment and hope is not there. You know, you’re not doing things right, but it becomes very painful when you’re doing things right and

you know you’re close because you’re in conversation with an editor or the agent’s in conversation with an editor. And then for whatever reason and unfortunately there’s lots of reasons that it often does not come down to the piece itself or the writing. It could be just a word count, you an amount of real estate or whatever. That’s hard. Yes, exactly. Exactly. Yeah, usually it’s Trump murdering all of our off the book pieces. But

Alice Draper (14:56.332)
shifts in the world, like shifts in the news, like…

Corutney (15:05.636)
That’s hard and it’s becoming like, I started publishing traditionally with Penguin Random House. My first book came out in 2014. So that’s 10 years, I guess, and I have five books out in the world over 10 years. I will probably never in my lifetime have the experience I had for my first book.

because that was a different world. It’s not that far off. But in 2014, at least in America, marketing departments and the PR, publicity and events management staffs at these publishers still worked for the author. And now the author’s meant to do all the work.

But also 2014, Trump was sort of rising, but he hadn’t unleashed this absolute poison which just every day keeps people glued to the news cycle. And effectively they’re reading mostly news, know, know, book sales. I mean, I had a book come out in 2017, right after he had been elected. And…

with the publishers, a lot of us, when I say us, I mean my colleagues who had novels come out at that, or fiction come out at that time, we talked about going, I mean, was serious. These were serious conversations about maybe all getting a bus and going on like a redo tour because fiction sales at one point, I think they were down like 83 % or something. Everyone was reading non-fiction, not fiction. So, you know, that’s something else. Like I have had…

I mean, on the outset, like I’ve been lucky with my books. They’re really well received. The sales are good and so on and so forth. But every single publication coincided with pretty horrific events in the current event cycle, which brought different forms of rejection. Like whether it was with my third book, Coastalegre, which was supposed to have this fancy thing called a step back. Basically, it’s just a signal. It’s like super quality paper.

Corutney (17:25.638)
There were all these paper supply issues, so that couldn’t happen. was supposed to be in, they negotiated that it would be in all the airport bookstores, and that couldn’t happen, and on and on and on, and then, I don’t know, my memoir came out the day that they reversed Roe v. Wade, so all the press during my launch, I had some reviews canceled, because everything had to go, you know? But like,

What are you going to do when I’m a woman? Roe v. Wade matters to me. I totally get why my little memoir is going to be pushed aside. But you only get that one chance. I mean, that’s not totally true because the book has a shelf life. yes, things become more and more turbulent in the marketplace with exports, with prices, the availability or not of paper.

You just never know, you know, every Tuesday comes around in North America, we publish books on Tuesdays and every Tuesday I’m like, man, I hope we can get through this day for everyone who’s publishing without, right? Because like, what, a couple of weeks ago on a Tuesday, that was election day. And I thought, Lord, there’s people, there’s people who their book launches today and they have to go to some like sad book launch that nobody’s going to go to, sad cake.

Alice Draper (18:42.956)
you

Corutney (18:50.423)
It’s really hard. It’s really hard. You have to really, really understand that this is a very long game. You have to have the stamina of like RoboCop. You know, it’s very, very challenging.

Alice Draper (18:50.917)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Alice Draper (19:04.684)
And as you’re talking, I’m also thinking of the pandemic and how many book launches were cancelled and just generally how abysmal book sales were in 2020. But you touched on something which is the long game. And also something I was curious is like not being too attached to the way you think it’s going to pan out. So before I talk about the long game, what has your relationship been like with that? Because I can imagine a lot of writers getting really dejected that you’ve

Corutney (19:17.53)
Yeah.

Corutney (19:25.23)
Yeah.

Corutney (19:32.419)
Yeah.

Alice Draper (19:33.245)
envisioned this book coming out and this really nice paper and the launch is going to be at this place and this is how it’s all going to go and then something very different happens and it may not be what you want.

Corutney (19:37.87)
Yeah.

Corutney (19:43.43)
Yeah, I mean, there’s a couple different coping strategies for that. If it’s your debut, mean, you’re just going to be devastated. You have nothing to compare it to. It’s just going to feel awful. But as you kind of keep going and growing in the industry, what’s always helped me is to put myself in the shoes of the whole publishing team. And they’re just doing their best. And to remind myself, I’m not the only one.

for whom they couldn’t get paper for this book. This is affecting every author with a book coming out, you know, and, you know, and then I’ll try to think, what do you call it, like, not leveling up, but looking, there’s some expression where instead of bemoaning everything you’ve lost or don’t have, you try to think of the things that other people might be jealous of you for, you know, so I remember thinking like, okay, so I’m not getting the like,

step back in the beautiful paper and they’re not going to be in airport bookstores, but I got a little bit of a book tour. You know, I got a little bit in. It was canceled, but halfway through, but I got a little. Some people got nothing, you know. And then this is hard until you really start to keep going. the books, as long as your books stay in print, you can use every new book.

to bring attention back to the other books. It’s really been rewarding for me to see whether people are coming to my work via my sub stack newsletter before and after the book deal or that, which is named for a publishing guide book that I wrote, or the before and after the book deal. And they’re like, I want to see if this chick who’s giving us all this advice can write or not, right? Then they go and they…

They get a book and then if they enjoy it, you know, I get messages like, I want to become a Courtney mom completist. I want to read all your books. And I think, man, I didn’t see this coming. This is amazing. And you know, in this world, even if your book does go out of print, which is again, a kind of rejection, it doesn’t feel good, but that means you can get the rights back and take, take things into your, you know, do it yourself, take your rights back.

Alice Draper (21:55.095)
Mm.

Corutney (22:01.936)
figure out, you know, do you want to self-publish it? Do you want to try to sell it to another press? But then you can own the narrative around that book. You can own the narrative around like how we’re bringing it back to the front burner from the back burner. And you can keep all the proceeds, you know. We don’t get very much money off of our books when we’re traditionally published. We really don’t. It’s something that needs a lot of attention and needs to be reversed because it’s…

It’s like labor exploitation, in my opinion. So, you know, that there, I think we’re very lucky people like to sort of talk in a snarky manner sometimes about social media and digital media, but it gives us so many tools to help keep attention or bring attention on our backlist as authors. I think when used correctly, strategically, and you know, for good.

social media, digital media can be incredibly empowering for authors.

Alice Draper (23:06.007)
Yeah, yeah, you remind me, I had a conversation on this show with the literary agent Sarah Bullen who spoke about buying habits and that you find a good author, you will go read all the other books. So she brought the example of like the Da Vinci Code, like his earlier books were not nearly as good as the Da Vinci Code, but because Da Vinci Code did so well, like all of Dan Brown’s books have done so well because of the buying habits. Yeah.

Corutney (23:12.069)
Mm-hmm.

Corutney (23:18.317)
Yeah, I do that.

Corutney (23:27.193)
Yeah.

right and they became best sellers. Right, the rising tide lifts all the little book boats.

Alice Draper (23:35.438)
Yeah, which I guess is motivation to keep putting it out there. But yeah, on the topic of patience and playing the long game, you wrote a substack one week after you had surgery. And in the substack, were reflecting on struggling to not to take the doctor’s orders and rest for two weeks. And so you’re reflecting on kind of

Corutney (23:57.441)
Right, rest.

Alice Draper (24:02.872)
your own book and how frustrated you were that the manuscript wasn’t where you wanted it to be. And your conclusion in the sub stack was that the secret ingredient is time. And I think that trusting that process and time is the hardest thing for anyone who’s trying to create something and it doesn’t have to just be a book. It can be a podcast. It can be a business. Things take time.

Corutney (24:07.214)
Yeah.

Corutney (24:28.952)
Right? Yeah. Right. Or like even on Substack, so many people get frustrated like, I’ve heard all this stuff about Substack people getting thousands and thousands of followers and making tons of money. Why isn’t it happening for me? I only have 57 followers. You know, we just don’t live in a culture really that values slowness and time and patience and like good, careful work. And I’m always telling people because I get asked a lot like

you have a successful Substack. What are the secrets? And I’m always like, sorry, it’s hard work and time. Fine, came to Substack and yeah, I have a lot of followers, but I’ve also published five books and have been working my butt off in this industry at this point for like, I don’t know, 15, 17 years. And it just happened overnight. And I had another newsletter.

Alice Draper (25:03.746)
Yeah, if only there was like a magic pill, a funnel to enter.

Alice Draper (25:24.131)
Yeah.

Corutney (25:26.51)
before that, so I migrated from MailChimp with some followers. I mean, I don’t know anyone. It just doesn’t happen, you know, that things happen overnight. It’s a little bit like athletics, I think, in that way that nobody becomes an Olympian, you know, in a week because they had some hot take on something that happened in current events. That can happen with like influencers or something, but…

I really, even though writing is one of the least athletic endeavors, right, because you’re just so sedentary, I really do think of it in terms of elite athlete making, because that’s the same kind of stamina, you know, you have to train every day, you’re spending more money than you make until you make it big and then, you know, whatever, you have a coach, except the coach is you.

You have a, you you tear your meniscus, whatever, right? But it’s, it just takes, I don’t know, like at least seven years. It takes so long. And you could build toward that and people can feel like, my God, but you my agent or this person I met at a conference said like, I have to buy the end of the summer, have 10,000 followers on whatever platform. Like, well, why? You know, just work on.

Alice Draper (26:26.071)
Hahaha

Alice Draper (26:37.903)
Yeah, yeah.

Corutney (26:55.877)
Why don’t you put that attention into making sure your writing is really good? You know? I mean, it’s all a bit silly.

Alice Draper (27:06.896)
I worked at Hawk on Saturday night that Stephen Bartlett gave and he’s the host of Diary of a CEO, which is one of the biggest podcasts in the world and I think the biggest in Europe. And he was talking about how for his own podcast, like for the first three years, no one wants us to be a guest on the show and the downloads were flat. And I think that there’s the difference between a lot of creators who’ve kind of built that platform is that persistence and that grit to keep

Corutney (27:24.892)
Yeah.

Alice Draper (27:36.504)
going. And so my question for you is what was your relationship with patients and time, especially in the beginning when things weren’t perhaps where you wanted them to be?

Corutney (27:47.589)
Terrible, completely impatient. I mean, I’m very type A Virgo, a very Virgo Virgo. And even when I was writing my memoir, I looked back at a lot of my, I’ve kept all of my report cards from growing up. And they were all like, Courtney’s, you know, such a hard worker, yada yada. But they all said the same thing, like she rushes, she rushes. Sometimes her work is rushed. And

man, I don’t think I learned… I have patience now, you know, but it didn’t really start coming to me until, I mean, probably around this second book I had come out in 2017 was a very, very challenging time for me. My first book had done really well. And so the second book they had huge hopes for had been paid quite well, you know, it sold.

in a lot of different countries there were a film option and things like that. that book, because of the Trump election and then some other stuff that happened, like the film world brought me such waves of like let down, rejection, disappointment, heartbreak for years. Like it was supposed to be a, I’d been actively working on turning it into a film and it was like.

happening and then that whole thing fell apart during COVID and that book more than anything, I mean I don’t think I handled it super gracefully the year that stuff started happening or not happening actually the year that things started not happening for that book Touch.

Corutney (29:36.602)
I felt so enraged, I felt very helpless. it would have been one thing with the Roe v. Wade stuff that happened with my memoir. That felt different because it was affecting me as a woman and I wanted to fight against that. Whereas the Trump election and the fallout of that, just was so enraged that he, I just so filled with hatred and hate. Like I couldn’t find a bright side, you know? Whereas Roe v. Wade, it was like, okay, well, this is more important than my book, right?

So I think 2017 to probably 2019, there was a lot of being forced to hear a lot of bad news, or not delightful news, which by the time the pandemic hit, I think I’d matured a lot as a person. And I’d also, when the pandemic hit, I’d made a switch to work with independent presses instead of the big five, what we call big five.

And that helped me a lot because there’s such lower expectations. They pay you so… You don’t get a lot of money for the book advance and thus they’re not expecting you to carry the world on your shoulder and sell 30,000 copies. it was just like being… I don’t know, it was a very calming and super supportive experience like for all of my independent…

independent book publications I earned my advance before the book even published. like starting that Tuesday of launch day knowing that I was already in royalties because of pre-orders was like such an awesome place to be and then I just thought well you know what I can go wherever from here but like this is you just feel kind of ahead of everything and super grateful whereas you know with the the big fives and I hope to return to publishing with the big fives but

You know, they paid me really good money and I’m a hard worker. I want to be a team player. And so I just felt like, man, I should be earning out, you know, and I’m not looking close to earning out and they’re flying me around and putting me on book tour and I just am feeling like a failure. yeah, took me, it really helped me to publish, to take a break and publish with the Indies to realize that I can’t control, you know,

Corutney (32:04.933)
unlike Trump thinks, like I can’t control the weather, I can’t control current events, I can’t control whether paper can come in from China, you know, so I did my part, I wrote the best book I can, I’ll keep pushing it on social media, but you know, now I just feel more, much more emotionally prepared to do the best in terms of what I can control, and then, you know.

let it just, Jesus take the wheel or whatever. Let it unfold as it’s going to. you know, mean the big, the key thing that keeps a difficult situation or an underperforming book from being a true devastation, and this is tricky, is the book still has to do just well enough or you have to have cultivated a relationship that’s

good enough with your publishing team that they still want to publish you again. Things do become quite complicated and this has happened to friends of mine, mostly at the big five level. Your book underperforms to such an extent or they really feel like they missed the mark and then they don’t want to publish with you again. They effectively drop you. That has not happened to me, thankfully.

But it could. But it’s happened to a lot of friends of mine. that’s a real particular challenge. You had someone that believed in you, maybe paid you a lot of money, trotted you around on a national tour, and then they drop you for something that feels like it wasn’t your fault. Especially if you were made to feel by the publisher that it was a lead title or whatever. They don’t offer a lot of closure.

Alice Draper (33:42.54)
Yeah.

Corutney (34:02.097)
publishers when they do drop you, know, most of this will be fed to you through your agent and you know, there’s, you just have to keep going, right? And writing and if you want to stay at the big five level, it probably means that you need a new editor. It might mean that you have to publish with the indies for a little bit and then try to make a comeback or you know, whatever you want to call it. But that’s hard being dropped by publishers.

Alice Draper (34:29.722)
Yeah, you wrote a book called Before and After the Publishing the Book Deal, a writer’s guide. Yeah, before a writer’s guide, so finishing, publishing, promoting and surviving your first book. So I actually wanted to ask you, you know, if someone has that first book deal and they get a book deal, whether it’s with the big five or just any book deal, but the book doesn’t perform, how?

Corutney (34:35.673)
before and after the book deal.

Corutney (34:41.989)
Mm-hmm.

Alice Draper (34:57.217)
Yeah, like how would you recommend someone deal with this? Because I know that your writing being rejected is like the most personal kind of rejection because so much heart and soul goes into this and I imagine a lot of writers would feel very dejected after that. for, yeah, based on kind of the research you did in that book.

Corutney (35:08.186)
Yeah.

Corutney (35:15.802)
Yeah.

Corutney (35:20.743)
Yeah, well, you know, the good news is that even if the book underperforms, it’s not going to go out of print, right? They don’t stop printing it right away. That doesn’t happen usually for years and years and years. And a lot of people, they got, if they have a hardcover, then a paperback will be in their contract. Now, if they also cancel the paperback release, well, that’s, you know, an added disappointment. But in general, until that book is truly out of

print, you just have to take a positive, you know, cry bitch a little bit and then pick yourself back up and think, okay, now this is on me. It’s on me to figure out how to support this book because my publisher has moved on. That doesn’t mean they’re dropping you, but you know, basically they give two weeks to a book during publication and then they move on. have other writers they have to concentrate on. So, but that doesn’t mean that you’re…

know, quest for promotion and coverage of the book needs to stop. You don’t need a publicist to do that for you. So, you know, I would counsel people to see what different threads and themes and angles they can pull out of their book, regardless of its genre, and try to write off the book pieces around it. We’re taught by the publisher that you can only have sort of somewhat promotional pieces, you know.

right before your publication and right after, but that’s not true. published, think, God, it was in like 2022, a piece that directly tied to my 2017 book. Cause I was like, I’m not done with this. You know, the things I wrote about in that book are happening and like, credit for that. So I got an op-ed in the New York Times, which felt like a coup. And then there’s, especially if someone has a newsletter or a social media, do giveaways.

You know, there’s someone you really wanted to get the book. You wanted to get the book to someone and your publicist didn’t send it to that person. Try to get it to them yourselves. You buy up. mean, something that I always do and recommend highly is if you don’t have any author copies left, buy up a bunch of your own books. You do have to buy them, which is a bit ridiculous. But and then, you know, send them to people that you think might appreciate it. And not always not always like these big stars, right? Like

Corutney (37:41.219)
Maybe you’ve got a friend out in the Midwest or something who has a book club, like send it to them because ultimately things work by word of mouth. Pitch yourself as a moderator for authors who come by your local bookshops and your libraries and just get yourself out there as kind of a literary person. You can review other books, you can interview other people, you build up your byline by shining the light on other people.

The nice thing is if you’re a moderator at an event, they’re supposed to carry your book. It doesn’t always have to be all about you. It doesn’t have to be your book tour. It could be someone else’s book tour that you’re moderating for. And then if you don’t have a publicist at that point, you say to the bookstore owner, can you make sure there’s at least whatever, five, 10 copies of my own book? And then something else I do to this day, whether or not the book performed well or not, is I keep…

Alice Draper (38:14.247)
Yeah.

Corutney (38:36.771)
I live in a rural place so I drive everywhere and I keep copies of some of my books in my car. Because you never know, I’ve been out at dinner parties or something where I met someone who I thought either would really love the book for whatever reason or they were someone who organizes a festival. And the thing is, you’re going to wait, especially if you’re at a party where people are drinking alcohol.

Alice Draper (38:46.418)
Yeah.

Corutney (39:06.051)
If you think that person’s gonna go home and the first thing they’re gonna do is write down like your name, how much they enjoyed meeting you and then they’re gonna order your book. No, right? They’re gonna take some Advil and go to sleep. So, you know, and also having business cards made, which is such an old school thing, but it works a charm. Because if you don’t have the book on hand, what I do is I make these business cards, it’s like $25 on Vistaprint. I have the cover of whatever my latest book is.

Alice Draper (39:18.625)
Hahaha

Corutney (39:34.094)
on the front with some pull quote I’m excited about, and then on the back, you know, certainly contact information, but I’ll brand the book, you know, with some little branding line and hand those out. Cause at least then there’s the cover recognition that happens, right? Someone looks at your, they see the cover and they might sometimes they say, my gosh, I’ve seen this, I’ve seen this everywhere. Or like, I saw that in the airport. And then you’ve become some.

something more than just some person who’s trying to pitch them, you become like part of the conversation. And then, you know, they will, they will usually put it on their desk and might think of you, you know, and the next step would be to give your book. Because I’ve always thought, I mean, with the author’s discount, I don’t know, if we’re talking about hardcover, you might have to pay between like 12 and $14 or something a book. And I think that

that investment is worth it if it’s the difference between that person completely forgetting who you are and not reading your book and getting your book and starting to read it and think, my God, actually this person would be great on my podcast or column, right? Like the chances of that happening I think are worth whatever it is, 12 bucks. Yeah, I don’t know, there’s so many things like.

Alice Draper (40:49.03)
Yeah, yeah.

Alice Draper (40:55.431)
Yeah.

Corutney (40:57.38)
You know, people these days pitch a lot of sub stacks for coverage. You just, but you know, you do have to kind of, you do have to do it yourself. The publishers at this point, they’re not, publishers are not set up to help an author support their backlist. And I don’t see that changing at any point soon, unfortunately. And then, know, ask friends. Like, you don’t want to be, the thing is like,

Alice Draper (41:10.266)
Yeah, so that’s what I’m hearing is like…

Corutney (41:27.557)
You can’t be selfish about it. I have people that send me requests all the time to help them with their stuff, but they’ve never offered me help. I don’t see them offering my colleagues help. You you got to be a good person who steps in to moderate for other people. When you get someone’s arc or galley, make sure you put it on your social media that you’re not some big snob who like, it doesn’t look right with my feed. Get over yourself.

Alice Draper (41:53.254)
Yeah, yeah.

Corutney (41:54.565)
And you have to do things for other people if you’re going to ask them to do things for you, right? But if you are a good person who’s shown up for other people, then absolutely you write your closest friends like, this book or this article is not getting enough eyes. Here’s the link. Here’s a little social square. Make it easy for them to share. Don’t have them have to reinvent the wheel. Could you, you know, something? I need help.

Alice Draper (42:23.441)
Yeah, yeah.

Corutney (42:24.684)
And the beautiful thing is, and don’t be self-effacing about it. I hate when people write and whether they’re bemoaning that they have to ask for a blurb and it’s three paragraphs of, I’m so embarrassed to ask you that. Just be professional. We all know that we have to blurb. It’s the same thing. You don’t want to text your friends like, I’m so embarrassed. I’m so ashamed. have to write. Just be like, it’s a tough culture. It’s a tough market right now. I need help.

I love you guys. Can you help? Just get to the point. Don’t waste people’s time with the whole diatribe of sobs. You know what I mean? Like we all know that it’s hard out there. You don’t have to remind us.

Alice Draper (42:55.184)
Yeah.

Alice Draper (43:08.422)
Yeah, I mean, what I’m hearing is taking control of your book success and not trusting the publishers and from people I’ve spoken to on this podcast, publishers often don’t, are not going to invest tons of money and time into promoting your book unless they gave you a massive advance and they need to recuperate that huge advance. But if it was a kind of somewhat more conservative advance, you’re probably like lower in the priority list. And so stuff I’ve seen like,

A previous guest, needed to hit 10,000 in sales to get a second book deal. she, yeah, that’s what her publishers told her. So she was like 5,500 and she needed to hit 10,000. That’s what they said for her to get a book deal from them again.

Corutney (43:41.697)
interesting.

Corutney (43:52.783)
Weird, Yeah.

Alice Draper (43:53.05)
So she’s doing like a kind of relaunch and she’s doing podcasts to us and she’s doing a whole bunch of things. And to confirm your point that, you you don’t have, you can still promote your old book. I am a publicist and I book my clients who are authors on podcasts. And many of them wrote a book like three years ago and their book sales continue because they’re continually talking about their book and handing that book out and attending events as a speaker and selling the book through speaking events.

Corutney (44:02.797)
Yeah, yeah.

Corutney (44:08.709)
Right. Yeah.

Corutney (44:19.631)
Yeah.

Alice Draper (44:23.295)
So yeah, I’m here in collaboration, use social media, collaborate with other creators in a way that’s beneficial to everyone.

Corutney (44:29.709)
And keep a positive tone. know, I think keeping a positive tone and an energetic tone is so important. You know, even if like, okay, your book tour was canceled by the pandemic, there’s such a tonality or message in an Instagram post that’s like, this has been such a hard year and everything feels terrible.

and my book didn’t work because of the pandemic and like, I’m so embarrassed, but could someone buy a fricking copy of my book? Okay, that’s one tonality versus I love this book and I’m still so excited about it. And you know, I didn’t get to go on national tour, but like, I just want to find a way to communicate and find my readers. You know, can anyone help me DM me if you have ideas or know people on podcasts? Cause I just, I love this book and I have so much energy for it that I didn’t get to use, right?

That’s a much different call to action. So I think staying positive and also being professional, know, don’t like, people, these days, don’t speak very kindly about their publishers, I, you know, it is a team effort. And while, yes, it’s true that publishers and publishing, they’re asking too much of authors right now.

If you’re just sitting back and like letting things happen in kind of a passive manner, or just sitting around being upset about it, that’s a little bit on you too. You you have to, these aren’t just people out there like printing your book and sending faxes, right? They’re humans, most of them are women. They’ve got kids or pets or alien parents and like get to know your team as people.

Right? You really, I’ve certainly seen a lot of colleagues get completely burnt because every touch point they had with their publishing team was negative. It was all about, you didn’t do this and I wanted this or I don’t think you sent this arc to, and you, listen, problems arrive and you have to, they have to be dealt with. But there’s no reason in the world you can’t just send a nice email to your copy editor. Like, hey, I’m just.

Alice Draper (46:24.668)
Yeah.

Corutney (46:52.718)
I’m glad we’re doing this together. Thanks for your time. Or write your publicist and say like, hey, how are you doing? You know, what a tough time to be pitching all these books and just thinking of you. Send them like, I remember I sent my publicist like a bottle of champagne before anything had happened. And she’s like, did you think I got you something? I was like, like a big media hit. And I was like.

No, I’m just like excited to be working together. You know, I really I’ve been so, so lucky, even with my independent publishers, like they sent me on tour. I got sent on national tour with an indie publisher, which is a tremendous privilege. And I really, you know, not to flatter myself, but I really do think that a lot of that came from my desire to truly get to know these people as partners, not just for whatever book I was working on currently, but

beyond, you know, to think like, well, maybe we’ll be friends, you know, they’re not, these aren’t just transactions, right? Like the copy editor that I like to work with, I’ve referred her to other authors. Like, I just think she’s so good at her job. You know, there’s been publicists that I don’t think of their value only to me and my book. I think of them as like human beings, right?

And that might seem incredibly obvious, but it doesn’t end up feeling obvious when you’re not getting what you want. I think it’s easy to go into hissy fit mode, but hissy fit mode is only gonna make things worse. Your publisher knows when you’re out there subtweeting them. And like, they know, they know. And if you think that sending nasty…

email, passive aggressive emails about what you’re not getting is going to get you more sorely mistaken. Be nice. mean, listen, and if there’s a serious problem, you stick your agent on them. don’t you don’t need to be emailing the publishers yourself. That’s why you have an agent to have the truly difficult talks. But just like take time to be nice. Send them holiday cards. If you know someone’s birthday is coming, send them an actual card for no reason. Make sure that all your communication with them is not

Alice Draper (48:45.789)
Yeah.

Corutney (49:07.907)
just to complain or ask for something but sometimes it’s just like hey here’s a recipe I liked for potato leek soup if you’re sick I don’t you know just like be human yeah

Alice Draper (49:22.47)
Relationship building. And it’s something that I do in business and encourage people to do in business as well. Send my clients Christmas gifts and having those touch points, sending physical cards. I love sending snail mail.

Corutney (49:36.021)
Yeah, me too. I’m a big, I’m a big zetter writer and you know, you write letters to bookshops and my agent raised me really well. So I’m on my third agent now, but I’ve done all my books with her and she, you know, is a big reason why I was able to write before and after the book deal because she was very vocal about pointing out everything I was doing wrong. You know, I remember when I was sent on my first book tour.

Alice Draper (50:02.121)
Yeah.

Corutney (50:04.749)
She called me, she doesn’t do preambles, right? So she’ll just call and the minute I say hello, she just dives into it. And so I answered in my hotel room and she’s like, Courtney. I said, yes. She goes, I fully expect that you’re sending thank you notes to every bookstore you’re appearing at, right? And I was like, huh? And she’s like, the day after the event, gotta get card letters out to the bookstores and tell them thank you for.

Alice Draper (50:23.815)
You

Corutney (50:33.67)
having you and cite everyone by name. I was like, okay. So now I travel when I am on book tours of the promotion. I travel with like pre-addressed note cards, right? So I can just mail them from the hotel or whatever. I didn’t know that if she hadn’t told me. know, the publisher, I still wish publishers would hire me to adapt before and after book deal into a PDF, right?

Alice Draper (50:37.749)
my god.

Alice Draper (50:49.097)
Amazing. Yeah.

Alice Draper (50:56.926)
Yeah.

Alice Draper (51:02.709)
You

Corutney (51:03.697)
a user’s manual because you get the book deal and then you’re just told to revise but nothing else is explained to you. You don’t know how to perform. know, us writers are so used to just either getting rejected or not rejected that when we get our dream book deal we’re like, well what now? Like what am I supposed to…like I remember, I mean it so fun I interviewed…

Alice Draper (51:05.874)
Yeah, yeah.

Alice Draper (51:20.393)
Now, how do you capital make the most of it? Yeah.

Corutney (51:29.219)
hundreds and over 200 people for before and after the book deal from all walks of the literary stratosphere, not just agents and writers and publicists, but also like voiceover artists and film agents and talent agents and things like that. I remember, people told me the funniest story, authors especially about like all the mistakes they made because they didn’t know what they were doing. And one author I really admire said, well,

God, the worst thing I did was when I was sending out blurb requests, she wrote them by hand and she included friendship bracelets in her letter asking for a blurb. She sent these friendship bracelets. Now she looks back and she’s like, they must have thought I was such a stalker. Like what a weird thing to do to send someone a friendship bracelet with an author that they don’t know. you know, people had such funny stories about.

Alice Draper (52:23.019)
But I wonder if that is more effective than what they’re getting all the time, because they will remember you and you kind of stand out.

Corutney (52:29.498)
Well, a friendship bracelet’s a little like hardcore, right? Because you’re at, I mean, if you know that it’s a bit weird, you’re literally asking them to be a friend. I mean, I get sent cool, like, highlighters and like candles. I mean, I don’t think you need to send swag, but what I really value is a handwritten letter. You know, after the blurb comes in, yeah, you want to send like cookies to my house. Absolutely, I’ll accept them, but.

Alice Draper (52:47.04)
Yeah.

Alice Draper (52:50.785)
that yeah.

Corutney (52:58.341)
before is a little tough because you know that’s like you don’t do that in PR because it feels like a yeah it feels like a bribe so I’d rather I’d rather personally just get like a handwritten note because like I can’t blurb all the books I’m asked for you know and just I don’t want someone sitting out there like I sent her this really nice steak knife or whatever like she never blurred my book like okay but I didn’t ask you for the cutlery you know.

Alice Draper (53:01.659)
Mmm, it feels like bribery.

Alice Draper (53:16.704)
Yeah

Alice Draper (53:27.468)
Yeah. Before the book deal, you write about something, you actually wrote a sub-stack about something called a rejection hierarchy, which is in relation to finding an agent and you reference a kind of hierarchy of rejections. What is a rejection hierarchy?

Corutney (53:28.917)
So I don’t know.

Corutney (53:36.505)
Mm-hmm.

Corutney (53:46.223)
gosh, well I don’t have it in front of me, but it’s something I put together. Yeah, if you just Google Courtney mom, sub stack rejection hierarchy, it’ll probably come up, but it just entered everything into a pyramid to help people understand, decode, help people decode their rejections, right? Cause a lot of people don’t, they don’t, they just don’t know what the rejection means. So that hierarchy basically goes from the bottom of the,

ladder if you will, the worst kinds of rejections are being ghosted. Right? So like no response. No response at all. That’s the worst rejection. Because number one, you don’t know, there’s no way of knowing what it means. It is possible they never got your query or submission. Unlikely, but possible. They haven’t even rejected you. So are you even rejected? You so that’s the worst thing to handle on like a existential level.

And above that is the form rejection, which is just like, this doesn’t suit us. What is the language they use? Like, this wasn’t for me, but thank you. Best luck elsewhere. We’re just, getting no feedback. You can’t gauge why it didn’t land. Above that is the personalized rejection, right? Which is like gold. You’re actually really getting somewhere. People just focus on the rejection, but a personalized rejection is one of the most helpful things you can do when you’re starting out.

Alice Draper (54:56.611)
Yeah.

Corutney (55:10.831)
And it can save you from further rejection. So if someone says something like, this is just too overlong or we’ve taken too many essays on this topic or, you know, we just put out a memoir structured like this, but I really like your writing. Just anything to, you know, you’re basically blindfolded in a dark room. So anything that pushes you a little bit toward the exit.

And then above that, you you would have like the revise and resubmit request, which is, hey, this memoir, like, I don’t think the structure is working. If you could do a double timeline or make it hybrid, like I’d be willing to see it again, you know, and then, you know, there’s the request for a partial request for a full all the way up to getting an agent. And then of course you start all over again with the editor. So

Yeah, it’s just a way of helping people understand that a rejection is never just a rejection. There’s different flavors to the rejection and some rejections are actually like coded acceptances. You know, like I remember once getting a personalized rejection from the New Yorker and I was like, I was basically published in the New Yorker then because that was such a positive rejection, you know. It felt great. I was like, I guess I can include, I could include in my bio.

Alice Draper (56:19.555)
Yeah, yeah.

Corutney (56:37.293)
received a personalized rejection from the New Yorker.

Alice Draper (56:41.849)
Yeah, those personalized rejections from magazine editors are like, when I was pitching regularly, they’re just the best feeling ever. But I love this idea of a rejection hierarchy and I’ve never put it in those words, but I often talk about warm rejections and cold rejections and…

Corutney (56:46.432)
Big deal, yeah.

Corutney (56:58.137)
Yes. that’s a nice way to think of it. Yeah.

Alice Draper (56:58.795)
labeling like having a label system in the inbox where it’d be like actually just make a label for your warm rejection so that you can go and figure out how to repitch if you’re pitching like media you know if you’re pitching to write for something you can figure out how to repitch and take their fee back in and also I guess if putting an agent yeah

Corutney (57:09.433)
Exactly.

Corutney (57:13.667)
Yeah, you can color code it.

Alice Draper (57:19.075)
So I’m going to ask you two more questions if that’s okay. My second to last question is kind of off bat, I didn’t get to lot of the questions that I was going to talk to you about. I know you wrote a memoir, but something that I am curious about when it comes to rejection and creating is that I think that most successful creators, for most successful creators, rejection and success go hand in hand,

simply put means that everyone that’s faced, I think everyone on earth has faced setbacks and rejections but successful creators are the ones who have used these in a way to kind of fireproof themselves and harness their skills to that which got them where they are today and I don’t know that everyone agrees with this. I heard Trevor Noah somewhere saying that he doesn’t agree with this kind of thing that he would never wish the bad things that had happened to him have happened to him so I’m curious.

If you could go back in time and eliminate the bad things that have happened to you, whether it’s career rejections, childhood wounds, insomnia, would you?

Corutney (58:27.971)
Meh.

Corutney (58:31.526)
Yeah, mean childhood wounds, yeah. I mean I think this is very relative, Trevor Noah, black man, he has been subjugated as any person of color, right, I don’t think rejection’s the word, but to things that I can’t even imagine, know, so I can understand him responding that way. I mean, yeah, I think I’ve turned,

hardships and rejections into strengths. I’m that kind of person. But yeah, like I would love to not have insomnia. That’s something I would a hundred percent. I mean, I’m actively trying to deal with it. I have another surgery tomorrow, but yeah, my insomnia is something that no hesitation, absolutely undo that please. Cause it’s, it’s caused me a lesser quality of life than I would otherwise enjoy. But

Alice Draper (59:12.605)
Hahaha

Corutney (59:28.825)
You know, I wouldn’t, if I had to go back in time, that day in the Mac store, you know, where I checked that email from the editor who effectively was canceling what I thought was a book deal for a long time, a long time, I always, my God, I wish that hadn’t happened. But now, that was meant to happen. I wasn’t ready. I was really cocky and impatient back there. And I think I would have burned bridges.

I just wasn’t, I was too young. I didn’t have enough friends. didn’t, it would have been a very dangerous thing to go publish a book with no allies and no friends and no one to check me on things I was doing wrong. You know, I think it would have been a, maybe it would have killed my career, you know, before it even took off. Like before and after the book deal, which is, you know, probably one of my most successful titles.

is all thanks to all the rejection that I myself have experienced and then the generous people who have spoken with me experienced all the embarrassing horrific mistakes I made, the gaffes, know, without those and without other people having shared generously their same gaffes and mistakes, that book wouldn’t exist. And that book is, you know,

came out in what, 2020, I still do podcasts about it pretty much every week. My whole substack is big. It’s really like my mission, I think, is making the publishing world less opaque for people who are trying to break into it. It’s a mission that’s like very, very important to me and earned, you know? So yeah, I don’t think there’s writing stuff. mean, I…

I wouldn’t mind undoing the breakdown of the rom-com I was writing for Touch. That was very, very painful. That I would love to undo because it also was a huge financial loss for me. A company that I was making the film with right before they sent me a big payment for the script they imploded. That sucks. I would love to undo that. But yeah, other than that, nope.

Alice Draper (01:01:49.434)
Yeah.

Corutney (01:01:54.353)
I’m learning the lessons I needed to learn and I’ve become a much wiser and more patient person through these rejections for sure.

Alice Draper (01:02:04.363)
and teaching a lot of people a lot of valuable tips that so they don’t have to go through hopefully what you went through. So anyone listening, Courtney’s sub stack will be linked in the show notes and if you want to know about before and after the publishing deal.

Corutney (01:02:08.387)
Hope so. Yeah.

Alice Draper (01:02:23.203)
you the book deal. Sorry, you should check out our sub stack and the book, of course, as well. So my final question for you, Courtney, is about me. And I want to know if and I ask every guest this, I want to know if you have any advice on growing a podcast, which I know you don’t have a podcast, but you know, I think a lot of this is transferable. And I think that

Corutney (01:02:46.874)
Yeah.

Alice Draper (01:02:49.039)
building a career as a writer, building a career as a creator often applies to lot of things. So yeah, I have a very big ambition with the mission of this show and I’m curious to know if you have any tips.

Corutney (01:02:55.993)
Yeah.

Corutney (01:03:00.568)
Yeah, I mean I think having writers on who you know have social media platforms and knowing or making an agreement that they’ll share it is very helpful. Asking writers you’ve had on, do you know anyone that I should bring on? Building up those networks of recommendation is nice. And then something you can do is make up little postcards with the show and some takeaways of the people that you’ve had on and mail them out.

to different media outlets or people who have blogs or newsletters so that when it comes like end of the year time or listicle time or what have you, they’ll think of including your podcast or they’ll think, I should include this in my sub stack about my very favorite podcasts. yeah, yourself to other podcasts, all the regular things, but I think building up a network of.

other writers who are happy, happy to help you put the word out there is always great. Yeah. And business cards.

Alice Draper (01:04:05.339)
Thank you so much for coming. Business card is great and an idea that I’ve never thought of is printing out postcards and sending them out to the media. I jotted it down.

Corutney (01:04:11.928)
Yeah.

Yeah, because they do that a lot. Like around this time, they’d already start going out. But, you know, the end of the year lists are such a big deal in North America. And some publishers will send out, you know, maybe they have their four lead titles on the cover. they’re literally just it’s a postcard, always a postcard. It’s just a reminder like, hey, don’t forget us when it comes to the end of the year or, you know, people.

I mean, this can seem a little cringy, but if you are a writer and there were certain journalists who reviewed your book very well and positively, you can remind them, thank you so much for that positive review. Possibly could you remind your colleagues at whatever, The Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Time Magazine, how much your publication likes might, you know, I mean, again, it’s a little cringy, but you got to do what you got to do,

So, yeah, just reminding people who have spoken positively about your thing, whether it’s a podcast or a book, to not forget how much they liked it.

Alice Draper (01:05:25.227)
No, but it is really effective as a publicist. Like it’s really easy once to go back to people, for example, that have interviewed clients before and ask if they want to come want them back on the show or whatever, because it’s been established.

Corutney (01:05:34.5)
Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah, or like, you know my interview style. Do you know someone who might enjoy being coming on and so on and so forth and, you know, spreading the wealth. And then obviously you have to like help promote other podcasts, right? Lifting up others. Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Alice Draper (01:05:43.492)
Yeah.

Alice Draper (01:05:51.362)
Podcast swaps are a great way for anyone listening with the podcast. can pitch podcasts and ask if you can do an exchange. Courtney, thank you so much for your time. For anyone listening, I’m going to, they should go to your sub stack, but where else should they go? Should they go to your, I know you have an Instagram page. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The books are linked below. Like that’s the link.

Corutney (01:05:59.852)
My pleasure.

Corutney (01:06:07.299)
Well, you could buy my books. Right? That’s always good. Yeah. I no, I made my Instagram. I’m pretty easy to find online and I have, I have on my website, I have a bunch of online classes that I’m super proud of. They’re intense. Each one is about three hours, but they’re really great. And I have some creative crafty and by crafty, mean literal like paper glue, crafty ways of getting at.

craft and revision that I think, I hope are unique to me, but yeah, I’m easy to find. yeah, before and after the book deal, if you have any questions about publishing and existential dread around publishing, that’s the guidebook to get.

Alice Draper (01:06:52.62)
Amazing. Thank you so much for your time Courtney.

Corutney (01:06:55.447)
My pleasure, thank you for yours.

Alice Draper (01:06:58.118)
I