SPEAKER_00 0:03

Hello, I'm Jamie Lee. I'm an executive coach for smart women who don't like office politics. And I help them get promoted and better paid without throwing anyone under the bus. How? By blending proven communication strategies with brain-shifting neuroscience techniques. In this podcast, we explore the stories and strategies of gutsy women who've braved speaking up and navigated their careers forward. We're here to de-risk the conversations that feel the most daunting, advocating for yourself and your growth. Let's dive in. Welcome to Risky Conversations. And why? Because everything that's worthwhile is on the other side of a risky conversation. And I'm so pleased to have my dear friend, Kat Kerr, on Risky Conversations. And quick intro for me, I'm Jamie Lee. I'm an executive coach for smart women who don't like office politics. And I work with a lot of women of color, women who are Asian American, just like me and Kat. We just happen to be both Korean American, which is one of the reasons why we bonded so quickly and easily. But I work with a lot of women of color who are wanting to grow their careers, grow their impacts, grow their income without throwing anyone under the bus, without playing political games and risky conversations. Again, I know I said it, but it's because everything worthwhile is on the other side of a risky conversation. And lo and behold, it's 2026. And sticking up and and and taking a stand for diversity for marginalized communities is a risky conversation. So I'm really glad to have Kat. Kat uh is a literary agent. I had never met a literary agent until I met you, Kat. And Kat joined Donald Mass Literary Agency in 2019. She graduated from Florida State University with a bachelor's in English, and she's drawn to literary and commercial voices within the adult and young adult markets, as well as adult nonfiction. And Kat feels strongly about supporting programs like We Need Diverse Books. And she is passionate about creating space in this industry for those from historically marginalized communities. Welcome to the podcast, Kat. Thank you. Thank you for having me and for inviting me here today. Yeah. So tell us maybe you can take us on a brief journey to uh how you went from graduating from Florida State University to becoming a literary agent. And how does one become a literary agent? Because I know so many people want to write books and get published, but you're the only and first literary agent that I've met in person. So tell us how does one become one?

SPEAKER_01 3:17

Well, it's interesting because I went to school for writing. I knew from the ripe old age of six that I wanted to be a writer when in like first grade they had us write little short stories in crayon. And I was just like, oh, I really like this. And I had kind of hatered my academic career towards writing and English literature reading and kind of ignored everything else because I was like, I'm gonna be a writer and I don't need to, I don't need to do anything. I had a very focused path, I think is the best way to say it. And so when I got to college and I was taking writing, you know, I was on my track for creative writing, I had just assumed I would graduate and I would become the next great American author while working a day job, which I think is what most people assume will happen. And as I was working on my first novel, I realized I had no idea how it would even be published. Like, does it just, you know, I sit here and be like, hey, come and get it? And someone offers me a publishing deal. So when I started researching what the publishing process looks like, I started to learn about literary agents and why authors need one. And it kind of opened my eyes a little bit because when you're going through school at a university, they don't tell you as a creative writing major that there are other things you can do with a creative writing degree or with an English degree at all. They kind of make you wait to go through an MFA program to tell you about publishing and like here's how to write a novel, and let me introduce you to industry professionals that you can network with. They kind of, you know, they reserve that for the MFA students. They want you to go through the MFA program to get that information. So for the first time in my life, I was learning what a literary agent is and that they are your representation to go out to the larger publishing houses because those editors will no longer take manuscript submissions directly from an author anymore. You have to have representations just due to the saturation of the industry. And I realize that literary being a literary agent is advocacy work. You are advocating for books to be seen and to be made and to be published, and you're helping add to those shelves of what's available to read. And I remember being young, an avid reader, reading thick, thick books, classics from a very young age. My dad had introduced me to reading. And, you know, if I wanted to see Asian American representation in a book, I had to read well beyond my maturity level in order to see that. So I was reading Amy Tan, like 12 years old. And for anyone who is an avid Amy Tan reader or a fan like I am, you will know that those are very much adult books talking about adult situations. Probably not the most age-appropriate thing for a 12-year-old to read, but she is what I had, you know, early 90s to read and look up to. And then unless you're talking about, you know, Claudia Kishi from the Babysitters Club, if you ever read those series, that was kind of the representation that I had. So when I realized that I could be an advocate and to really kind of help more diverse books with diverse representations get made, it just became a career swing. And so I had my day job at the time, and I just decided I was going to fall straight in and find a way to become a literary agent, despite the fact at this point I was 10 years out of school, and so most internships were not remote back then. You had to move to New York. I was married and had a family, so I couldn't move. And I wasn't a recent college graduate. But I was going to make a way and I joined Twitter because everybody in the industry was on Twitter at the time. And I just started making connections online. I started offering to do beta reading services, which is just I'm here as a reader to give you feedback on your work for authors, just to kind of get used to giving feedback and knowing what to look for. And then someone saw my profile, luckily enough, a small boutique agency, and they offered me an internship, a remote internship. It was unpaid, but it allowed me to get my foot in the door. And from there, I just kind of built up until I landed at Donald Moss. Wow.

SPEAKER_00 8:09

I have to ask, who was the first, aside from Amy Tan, who was the first Asian American writer that you read when you were young that like left a big impression on you, aside from Amy Tan?

SPEAKER_01 8:26

It was Amy Tan. That was what I had in the very tiny rural Florida town that I had. It was very white dominated. The libraries and the school libraries were very white-dominated books. And so, you know, it was it was Amy Tan. It's what I had, and I think that's why she has such a very soft place in my heart. I still read her books, I still reference her books. They just once I got the Joy Luck Club, I went back and started reading everything and everything she had put out since then.

SPEAKER_00 8:59

So wow. For me, it was Chang Ray Li.

SPEAKER_01 9:04

Oh, really?

SPEAKER_00 9:05

Yeah. For me, I mean, I I used to read, I have a very similar trajectory, the one that you just shared, but mine was kind of inverted because I immigrated from Korea. And so Korean was my first language. And I remember being like nine or 10 and reading all these adult Korean books that my dad had rented from the Queen's Public Library, because you know that was my dominant language back then. It's not really anymore. My dominant language is English, but I remember reading all these Korean books that were, I'm like, yeah, this isn't for me, but I was still reading them. And then right before, right around the time I was in college, I remember reading Chiang Rai Li. I think the book is called Native Speaker, and it was like about the Korean American experience, uh, the second generation Korean American experience. And it was written in such a way I was like, I was astounded that someone had captured this experience that I thought was just like just me and a handful of people in New Jersey, you know. Like I'm like, oh, there are more people who, you know, are children of immigrants who, you know, experience what it's like when their adult parents don't speak English and and you're eating all these Korean food at home. Like, wow. I remember just being astounded. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:26

I want to say that once I got into like high school years, it wasn't it was nonfiction, but like S. I Hayakawa, he wrote a book all about semantics called The Language of Thought and Action. And that's actually still a book that I rely on heavily today, to when I'm like for critical literary analysis and like writing technique. But it's very interesting because where I lived in in Florida, what they considered diverse books was only was like LGBTQ literature, which is fantastic, and black American literature as well. So I have like a lot of Black American authors that I really love, but Asian authors and Asian American literature was just so very little touched on, at least where I was located. I think now it's definitely branched out, but like early millennia going to college, it was still something to grow into.

SPEAKER_00 11:25

Yeah, yeah. So I I love how you pivoted your career intentionally, 10 years out of college, and you you you took a risk, right? Coming to New York City, being a married person, you know, like new career, not paid, but you took a risk and you made it work. What what was your day job back then?

SPEAKER_01 11:48

I worked, well, I was still living in Tallahassee. I found a remote internship that was offered so that I could stay in Florida. I only moved up to New York three years ago, but I was working for state government. I I was a medical malpractice investigator for the state of Florida.

SPEAKER_00 12:07

Wow. Wow. So you have to be like really thorough and methodical in your reading of details. And I'd imagine that's a skill you transferred over.

SPEAKER_01 12:17

I think that it's very important that when you're reading a complaint from Florida constituent about medical care they received, it's really important because these letters can be like 10, 15 pages long when people are upset, they write a lot to find the meat of the complaint and say, is this something that has relevance within Florida statute? So that is kind of where my literary analysis was came in very handy. It was very much a transferable skill in that I could read a 15-page complaint and be like, this is what it boils down to, here are the violations present. So wow.

SPEAKER_00 12:55

Wow. So let's talk about we need diverse books. What is the program? We need diverse books.

SPEAKER_01 13:13

When I had joined the industry, like 2000, I think it came about in 2011, maybe 2016 is when I joined the industry as an intern. Um, but it's just a program that was started by oh, I don't want to get names wrong here. I believe Danielle Clayton, who is a YA author, and she and and some other authors and some other players in the industry as well. And it is all about just a program that promotes literature, any kind of literature, fiction, nonfiction, that are written by authors from historically marginalized communities. So to give a platform to things that are historically deplatformed and are not given as much visibility. It also has expanded as a program where they have grants and they will issue like writing money awards for people who are of historically marginalized backgrounds, that they are able to sit and work on a manuscript. Because just having access to industry knowledge is also a privilege. Conferences cost money. Knowing where to find things when you don't have a writing community behind you when you're first starting out is a privilege. So, like it's trying to create accessibility that is not just limited to the New York area.

SPEAKER_00 14:39

Why do we need diverse books?

SPEAKER_01 14:42

It's really important. I think literature and book reading really shapes the human experience in ways that no other media form does. Because when, especially when you're reading a fiction book, it's easy to say that I'm doing this for entertainment, I'm doing this to just read a good story. But what you really are, it's a lesson in empathy because you have to occupy the mind space of the character that you're reading about. And so you start to understand their internal in their internalization, how they reason to themselves, how their perspective is. And that kind of really shares the human experience. You can say on a human level, I can relate to this character because, but while also acknowledging that you may have blind spots that you never realized were there because you've never had to walk in this person's shoes before. And so I think that having representation is important for people who are unaware to broaden their own perspectives. It's also important for the little child cat who desperately wanted to see herself reflected, who constantly had to meet the white experience, right? She had to meet that journey and no one was ever meeting her back. And so it's just kind of nice to be able to read about yourself and see yourself in the same way that other, you know, kids got to see themselves represented. They got to have the full spectrum of psychology and experiences, all put on film and TV and books. And where did I get to fit in in that? I had Margaret Cho, an all-American girl on TV. My mom did not approve of her comedy routine and me watching her comedy routines. But I mean, you kind of just find solidarity where you can and where you try to build a sense of community where you can, especially when you are living in a non-urbanized area, and community is hard to come by.

SPEAKER_00 16:47

I love that you describe your work as advocacy because I often talk about self-advocacy. What do we need to learn? What are the skills? What are the mindsets to be able to advocate for ourselves when we are marginalized in the workplace? And what you do is in your workplace, you advocate for those marginalized voices to be printed, to be read, so that it can better inform the psyche, the worldview of other marginalized people, but not just marginalized people, the world, right? The the world at large, everyone. Because when we can have empathy for each other, it's not just about people who are immigrants and of color or Asian or black, it's or LGBTQ. It's like all of us we get to connect with each other more deeply, more more meaningfully, I think.

SPEAKER_01 17:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 17:44

Self-advocacy is a huge part of, I think, in any in any industry, right? Yeah. I think it's also the hardest thing to do, especially if you are non-white, non-male, or cishet, or any, if you fall into any of the spectrum categories, that kind of removes you from privilege. I think it's kind of been built into my personality, though. I remember being 14 years old, going into ninth grade and hearing a story from my sister about this geography teacher in high school who would teach world geography to the kids by teaching like really racist ideas and stereotypes from all these countries around the world. And I remember he like my sister would come home and she's like, I got so mad because the teacher told basically that Koreans eat dogs. And he just said it to the whole class. And I'm like, Did you say anything? She goes, No. And I carried that around for four years. And I said, if he tries to pull that in four more years when I go to the school, I'm gonna say something. And sure enough, I get to ninth grade, I get the same teacher, and he tries to do the same thing. And I am a little bit of well, I'm a little bit of both my parents, and neither of them have ever been very quiet about when they feel passionate about something. So I literally stood up and I yelled at him and called him out for being a racist in front of everybody, and then I said, Your information is incorrect. And he tried to argue with me that he had been to the Seoul Olympics. I said, I don't care what you did or where you went or what you ate, you're treating it like it's a household meat product and it's not. And he finally backed down. And then I excused myself and went to the dean's office and reported him. And I just was not, there was just something in me that said, I am never, ever, ever going to allow my own representation to be portrayed poorly publicly. I'm not gonna let somebody say that in front of me to a classroom of my peers when I'm like the only Asian girl in the entire classroom. I'm like, I'm not gonna let that fly. There's no way I deserve better than that. And so I think that as far as risky conversations go and self-advocacy, it's very much being the voice in the room that is okay with making other people uncomfortable.

SPEAKER_00 20:28

I mean, because yeah, you are one of the nicest, most generous, most giving people I know. You know, there's like a Buddha statue on your on your show, right? And yet when it comes to like taking a stand for people who are disadvantaged, like you're like a bulldog. I think about I think about your trajectory too, about how you you know pivoted 10 years out of college. That took a lot of willpower for you to be like, I'm gonna do this remote internship from Tallahassee, you know, representing diverse authors. Um, I mean, eventually representing diverse authors, right? Um, I am in awe. I am like awe of your ninth grade self, you know. That's yes, I've also been the only Asian, the only Korean girl. And and it was it was mostly the schoolyard bullies, it was mostly like other boys in the class who were telling me to go back to China. And I remember I think it was in the fourth grade, I I was uh a yellow belt in Taekwondo, and I challenged one of the boys who were telling me to go back to China. I'm not from China, I'm from South Korea. I'm like, okay, you keep saying this, you know, BS. I'm gonna challenge you to a duel and I want you to show up to the schoolyard on Saturday at 2 p.m. I'm gonna fight you with a stick because I've taken Taekwondo classes. And he never showed up. So I won the I won the fight by uh by uh forfeit. Yeah. And that you just reminded me of that. It was like, yeah, we we had to learn how to stand up for ourselves. And and you know, you could you could say, oh, that was kind of a pity. Like we had to grow up so fast, we had to be adults in these really difficult, you know, untenable situations, but it also like it taught us the value, it taught us the value of advocating for what we really believe in for ourselves, right? And the people that we are. Yeah, yeah. So what happened? What happened after you went to the dean's office? I I'm really curious how the rest of the year went with this teacher.

SPEAKER_01 22:44

The dean totally was sympathetic. I think he just absolutely agreed with me 100% and was trying to like calm me down because I think in his brain he was going lawsuit, lawsuit, lawsuit. Nothing happened to the teacher except it was very clear he got a talking to because the rest of that school year he did not make eye contact with me. And then it was very interesting because other kids would start to speak up if he did something that misrepresented culture. Not all of it was accurate. Some people were speaking up for cultures that weren't theirs. But I realized that just even seeing other people stand up for their cultures. I think there was another, she was of some sort of Central American background, and I don't even remember the country that he was talking about, but she actually liked she did it a little bit more nicely, I want to say, instead of standing up and yelling at him, but she corrected him. And I think that's the power. Like sometimes, yes, there's something a huge risk that you have to take, and that's something you have to evaluate for yourself. But me taking that risk and putting myself out there also empowered other people to take risks and speak up for themselves. And so for me, I didn't care how awkward it got with that teacher. I didn't care that he wasn't looking at me. I said I did something good and I'm not sorry about it. So let it be.

SPEAKER_00 24:23

So I'm really impressed by the fifth grade version of you too. The version who first heard the story about this teacher and decided then and there for four years she was planning. She's like, I'm gonna, I'm not gonna let this happen to you. I'm gonna, I'm gonna stand up. I'm gonna say something. Where else does that that version of you where else does she show up now in your career?

SPEAKER_01 24:49

It really comes up a lot with working almost exclusively with marginalized authors from different marginalized backgrounds. Not all of them wish to state where they're from, but I primarily work with marginalized authors. I think that especially in these political times where book bannings are happening across red states nationwide, where critical race theory is under attack all the time, because there is a switch and weaponization of progressive terms, where now we're saying this is you know in inverted racism, this is inverted bigotry. And I think that right now, just in general, saying that you are pro-diverse books and that you still wish to give a platform to marginalized authors, it be always becomes goes back to the argument of like, oh, well, that I shouldn't be excluded from your list or from consideration just because you know I'm I'm white and I don't have a marginalized identity. I always say back to that, it's kind of like saying, you know, you've only had one color of MMs in a pot, and now you're adding different colors of MMs to to the same pot, and you're getting upset that there's still not like there are still yellow MMs there and red MMs and green MMs. Like it's just if there's just more of an abundance. And I feel like that's such a crazy argument every time I hear it. Like, oh, well, now it's hard because everybody wants to support, you know, diverse authors and diversity. And so what am I gonna do? You are still being represented because this is the way the system works. Just adding to the pot doesn't lessen you, it doesn't lessen your visibility.

SPEAKER_00 26:49

So who who, by the way, who are some authors of you know, of marginalized identities who are authors that you either you represent that or that you love that we really ought to know and read more of? Like, what are some of these authors that you are like, yes, we need to hear this voice more? Or we you know gosh, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 27:12

I feel like it's hard not it's it's hard to name them without going into the big one. Like Angie Thomas made a big impression on me when I first started in the industry because I remember when I saw The Hate You Give get the deal announcement. Like I remember when that deal announcement went out.

SPEAKER_00 27:29

When it became a movie, a deal movie deal.

SPEAKER_01 27:31

No, deal announcement for when the book got picked up when she was just starting out. So, and then it was kind of crazy to watch that and then the book come out. Like that was my first taste of the industry where I got to see book deals just being announced and then following them until they they came out and were published, and then the movie deal, and then I was just like, you know, what an amazing, you know, turn. And then, you know, we've I love I love RF Quang books. Um, I have Yellow Face back here, but also it started with the Poppy Wars for me with her, which is historical fantasy fiction. I also she's so brilliant, like yeah, very smart, you know. Yes. I Minjin Lee, the pachinko uh pachinko was also a big thing for me. I think, especially like as a kid and listening to my mom talk about what happened with Japanese war crimes and me trying to tell all my friends at school and them being like you're anti-Japanese, and I'm like, no, you just don't understand oppression and how it works. And just like being like, This is things that really actually happened. And then we have finally a book that try that follows the the course of you know generational trauma that arose with that, and so I was just like, it's it's kind of feeling vindicated when you see these books come out, and you're like, you've been talking about this for years, and finally else is talking about it too.

SPEAKER_00 29:11

Yeah, and now it's an Apple TV series, and you can watch it and it's really beautifully made.

SPEAKER_01 29:16

Yes, yes. So I want to say that, oh gosh, off the top of my head, I'm always terrible at it like on the spot thinking. I have so many, so many books though, as well as I'm just really glad for some others. Yeah, I'm sorry, I cut you off, but I'm really glad you mentioned some books I did read. Yes, yes. Well, I think they're so prolific, they became you know bestsellers for a reason. I'm trying to think of the smaller ones that I want to put on people's radar, but it's hard to think on the spot.

SPEAKER_00 29:47

Yeah, I mean, Pachinko, I it was just so sad, but beautifully written and and like it it traces the arc of people who I mean it's it's a historical fiction, like their lives could have been, you know, our great aunts, it could have been some of our relatives, and it just really hit home, yeah. And our Kwang, I mean, the imagination is just astounding, like how far she can take this fantasy world, yeah. And I'm looking at my own bookshelf, and I have to be totally honest, I I don't read a lot of fiction, I read mostly nonfiction, and I've I also have to admit, I read mostly self-help books, hence the reason I've become a coach. But uh whenever I read, when I I come across Asian American, Korean American, Japanese American, and and read their books at the Strand bookstore in New York City, and whenever I just like you know, coincidentally run into them, it's like so much joy. I'm like, yay!

SPEAKER_01 30:56

I I just I I remember all the books that I left behind in Florida because obviously New York being a smaller space, and I'm just like I I remember having missing all my floor to floor to ceiling bookshelf that was just filled with books. And I was I I'd miss them. Like I I I try to keep my space small here, and then I have a few more outside of my living room, but I I just find books by authors that I'm just like sometimes it's not even about having any marginalized identity, it's just being present on this in on the page. Mike Chen is a science fiction fantasy writer, and I loved his very first book that came out here and now and then. And it was about time traveling police officer trying to trying to like save his daughter, and the writing was so well done, and at the time it was like you know, very speculative, science fiction leaning, literary at the same time in writing, and then I just kind of followed his career and I love all of his books too, just because of how he writes and how he kind of really touches on the human experience.

SPEAKER_00 32:05

So nice. Have you been to you and me bookstore in the lower east side of Manhattan?

SPEAKER_01 32:12

I have been to almost no bookstores in in in New York City because I never have time. I would love to go. Maybe you and I should go together.

SPEAKER_00 32:22

I think you and I should make a date to go to UN Me Bookstore. It's this gem of a bookstore, and they exclusively focus on Asian American writers. Oh wow. And every week they have live events, they have you know book signings. And I I once went to a poetry workshop with another friend of mine, which was a lot of fun, and they recently rebuilt the entire store after a freak fire burned down the entire place. And through crowdfunding, they you know they raised the fund and they're they're literally rebuilt by the community. So if every week I see their posts on Instagram, and and a lot of the authors that we've talked about, I I bet they've been there, you know, they've been to the space, and it's it's just a little gem, you know, it's like this tiny little bookstore, and the energy is just so vibrant and precious. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 33:23

I would love to go. I really have it's been a bucket list thing is for me to find independent bookstores here in the city and to actually go visit them because as I said in Florida, we didn't really have a lot of indie bookstores. It was Barnes and Noble or Books a Million. And I think one independent bookstore called Midtown Reader that we were able to go to. But here I know that in New York City, indie bookstores are like supreme here. There's so many of them, and they specialize. I think one is called the Ripped Bodice for romance readers, and I was like, I gotta go there too. So there's a lot of places that I want to go to.

SPEAKER_00 34:04

Yeah, so we'll definitely make that a thing to happen, you and me. And the bookstore is spelled why you and me bookstore and me. Yeah, I love that. And what's coming up for me is uh, you know, uh standing up for marginalized voices. I mean, for you and me, once again, the theme here, it's it's it's about like taking a stand for ourselves, yeah, right? Because we are different from the dominant culture. We uh we know what that experience is like very intimately, going to school in America and and working in America and existing in America, but what am I trying to say? It's like it's it's not just for us, just like in the story that you shared from your ninth grade, when we take a stand, like other people notice that and they and they can feel like, oh, I have permission to take a stand for me and for my culture and for other people too. So it's it's almost like when you stand up and be brave, it creates a ripple effect for other people. Yeah. So how can authors? And I know you in particular you work with uh young adult as well as adult nonfiction, but your focus is young adult. So what if somebody listening to this podcast or watching the podcast they're like, oh, I want a literary agent? How do I how do I get in touch with Kat? How do I how do I talk to her and convince her to become my agent? How does that work?

SPEAKER_01 35:47

Right now I am not open to queries, which means I have to request the material specifically, which I do through conferences or the occasional like meet up if I ever teach a class here in New York and you want to come out to it. That's kind of where I get my queries because right when I moved here and my work schedule increased to live in New York, I had to close down my query box. And at that time, I'm going to give you the number that I had from unsolicited queries, meaning people emailing me, cold emailing me, looking for an agent, and that was 4,000. So just to kind of keep a manageable workload, I only accept queries by request for from conferences, like a pitch session from a conference or an event that I do. Otherwise, a lot of you can find literary agents fairly easily. We're mostly online. Twitter was the easiest way before the implosion of Twitter and it became X. But a lot of us are on Blue Sky, a lot of us are on Instagram. You can, and oftentimes, if you go to Instagram, if you follow one literary agency and a couple of literary agents, it will start giving you suggestions on more people to follow. And if you go to those agency websites, you can look at the bios of the agents and like find out if they're open to queries, what their guidelines are for querying them, and just follow the guidelines and and and send them a cold query. That's the easiest way to find an agent. Otherwise, you can always go to a conference if you have the time and money to do that, or if there's like a speaking event or a class around if you're in the New York City area that you want to go to, yeah, that would that would be how you would do it. It's fairly, fairly, you know, systematic.

SPEAKER_00 37:50

So what are these conferences? What are some examples?

SPEAKER_01 37:54

I go I do a lot of virtual and as well as in in-person conferences. Like I I do a lot with writing day workshops, which is put on by Chuck Sambuccino. He's a great event organizer, and I've worked with him since almost since pretty much since I became an agent. And I I love doing his conferences. They're regional conferences, so virtual ones, anybody can sign up to be there, or in-person ones for those in the air. Like I did two, one in Portland and one in Seattle back in May. And I flew out for those and I taught a couple classes and I took some pitches. The virtual conferences, same thing, it's just all online. Sometimes I get invited to do uh speaking events through uh universities with MFA students. Some people just have pitch events and they invite me to them or to give a talk or an interview, and I'm more than happy. And that's how some people find me there too. So amazing. And what kind of classes do you teach? I think the most requested one is talking about voice and how to identify your writing voice for fiction writing, like creating character as well as like writing technique. So that tends to be the number one requested. I also do classes or workshops on how to query an agent, how to write a pitch letter, things like that.

SPEAKER_00 39:19

So fascinating. Okay, really, really cool. What are your thoughts about people self-publishing on Kindle, Amazon, and elsewhere? What are your thoughts about that?

SPEAKER_01 39:32

Against it. I think traditional publishing has its perks, but it's all down to what you want as an author and what you have available to you as resources as an author. I think the perk of traditional publishing is that the publisher is the financial investor in the book. They will pay for the editors, they will pay for the graphic designer to do your book cover, as well as design your internal layout, because the internal layout of a book is just as important, how it looks, like the text and the style and things like that. They also pay for marketing and distribution. They have the connections to get you into things like Barnes and Noble and bookstores. So that's that's the benefit of having a publisher. They will pay all of those costs up front. They will also pay you in advance that has to be earned out through royalty earnings, and then you make royalties off that. And their percentage versus your percentage is a little bit more in their favor because they are acting as the financial backing to your book. I think that if you choose being a self-published author, there's a lot more freedom. One, you make 100% profit on the book that you produce. You don't have to worry about market trends and who's buying what. If you want to write a certain style of book, you don't have to worry about whether it's like fitting into kid lit standards or adult standards or genre standards. You can make it whatever you want and you have complete creative control. However, to also make it a quality work and to also make sure that it's like able to compete out there on the market and get that visibility, you do have to end up being your own financial investor. I would recommend hiring an independent editor that will help be the second set of eyes for your book. I would recommend hiring a graphic designer to professionally create a book cover for you. You would then need to find a place that does either print on demand or something, or a printer to help print the books and the if you want physical copies. And then it would be up to you to really do grassroots and legwork to call up indie bookstores to get them to see if they will take your books and like buy books from you to keep in stores. So I think that that's just the difference. You have one person who's going with a financial investor versus somebody who's being their own investor. Got it. So you're not against it.

SPEAKER_00 42:06

It's just you get to decide what kind of uh situation, financial situation works best for you. And I've also heard that there is a hybrid publishing now, which is sort of like straddles the uh the two ends, but ultimately with hybrid, you also you you the author have to put in the the expense, the investment to get it uh edited, designed, published.

SPEAKER_01 42:34

I worry about uh I think with hybrid publishing, it's a little bit uh difficult for me to say because there is such a danger of what we call vanity presses, where there's really kind of no there's no kind of screening for what kind of book. They're just you're paying to be published, essentially. And that's why they call them vanity presses. It's really for the authors who are not interested in actually sharing their book, they just kind of want the vanity of saying they're a published author. And in those cases, they don't even make financial sense to me because what you were doing is that you were paying somebody and then splitting the profits with somebody to produce your book, but you were already the financial investor, they didn't financially invest, but they're still going to get a percentage of profits for what? Because they paid you paid to produce the book. So that's kind of where I want to say just be careful with anybody calling themselves hybrid publishing, that they're not actually a vanity press, and that you're paying to publish your book lock stock and barrel, and then still splitting your profits with them, because that that does not make sense. I would always heavily vet any hybrid publisher to make sure they are offering you. Something that you would not be able to have otherwise. And that can either be distribution partners that they work with to get your book in bookstores, editors that they work with, a reputable source, and that whatever they're asking you to pay, if there's a small investment that they require from you, it's a reasonable amount. It's not you paying for everything.

SPEAKER_00 44:21

So it's a good tip. Thank you. Thank you for sharing that. And on a final note, I mean you did something that many people dream about, but don't actually do, like completely turning their career around so that they fulfill a lifelong dream of theirs and moving themselves to a completely new city, right? I mean, you're still a working mother and you did that. So, you know, if someone here is listening and they're also sitting with this dream, maybe, maybe literary agent, maybe something completely different, but they're thinking, oh, but I can't do that because it's too risky for me to, you know, do an unpaid internship or or you know, uproot myself to a completely new city. Like if someone was listening and they were sort of like hesitating on taking action on their dream, what might you say to that person?

SPEAKER_01 45:20

Oh goodness, that's such a good question because I don't I feel like a lot of the times when I pull the trigger, so to speak, on these risky moves, it's for a reason. Like I moved to New York City on my own because I needed to get my son out of Florida and he's transgender. And Florida was no longer a safe place for transgender kids, especially with transgender kids with supportive family members because of the laws that were getting passed. And I was like, I can't let him stay here. I have to do something to get him out. Like the importance to me was making sure my kid was safe. It was not an easy decision, but it was just one of those things that I felt like I had to do. And with my career, it was the same thing. I had been working in state government at that time for eight years, maybe nine years. And I was just getting to that point, I have a degree. Why am I not using it? I just kept talking to myself, like, I went to school and I was so passionate. Like, who from the age of six decides what they're going to do? And then does all these steps to do it, and then I'm not doing it now. And so when I really kind of learned about being an agent and I took those steps to do it, I knew it was going to be hard. I knew that it was going to be sacrifice first. And so it was very much a thing of like, I have to keep my day job while I'm doing this internship. And I'm just going to have to figure out a way to balance my life in the meantime. And it, I just kind of signed up for the fact like, I really want this. I want to do this. I have to be realistic about how it's going to look. But if I want this, I actually have to do this and I have to stop saying I'm going to do it. And so that was when I did it.

unknown 47:25

Got it.

SPEAKER_01 47:25

So it was kind of the same thing with my moving to New York in advocacy for my kid. I was like, I have to do this. I feel it. I have to do this. I can either sit here and keep making plans or I can just find a way to do it. And then I found a way to do it.

SPEAKER_00 47:42

So stop making plans and just do the thing that you know you'll have to do because it matters for the life, for the for the well-being of people you love and for the well-being of your own self and your dream.

SPEAKER_01 47:57

Yes. And it's an amazing amount of trust in yourself to say, I'm gonna do it. To say, even if it goes wrong. Yeah. I think the biggest thing is I kept telling myself, well, what if you fail? What if you're tired? What if you do this thing and it doesn't work out? It was almost very much like the Buddhist thing, well, then it doesn't work out. And I at least can say I went for it. So love it.

SPEAKER_00 48:24

Okay, from like a Zen point of view, it's like, okay, if it doesn't work out, it doesn't work out, but I would have done it.

SPEAKER_01 48:31

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 48:32

Thank you so much for your time. Where can people go to learn more about uh the work you do? Should they go to the Donald Mass Literary Agency website?

SPEAKER_01 48:42

Or you can go to yes, mossagency.com, M-A-A-S-Sagency.com. Or I would say you can also hit up Instagram. I'm not very socially active, but like if you really want to get part of the industry, you can just start getting on social media and following people. Yeah and we have a wealth of information out there.

SPEAKER_00 49:05

So I'll include that in the show notes. I'll also include the link to UN Me Books. Shout out to UN Me Books. They're also on Instagram. Yeah. Awesome. Thank you so much for your time. I'll talk to you soon.

SPEAKER_01 49:17

Bye.

SPEAKER_00 49:18

Thank you for joining me today on Risky Conversations. Remember, everything worthwhile is on the other side of a risky conversation. And when done well, your self-advocacy becomes an act of service. If you're ready to de-risk your own career evolution, I invite you to book a free hour-long consultation at jamelecoach.com slash apply. J A-M-I-E-L-E-E-C-O-A-C-H dot com slash apply. We'll map out your custom blueprint to confidence and get you on the path to being better paid on your own terms. Let's make your next conversation the one that changes everything. Talksin's