Sunyi: Yeah, if your connection drops or whatever, it should be fine because everything's saved locally and uploads to the cloud after, so internet generally doesn't affect connection quality and your mic is a lot better than the last two guests we had, so that's probably okay. Scott Drakeford: Yes, that is true. Anika Scott: Great! Sunyi: Hi. Welcome to the Publishing Radio Podcast. This week we have with us Anika Scott, who's the author of an international bestseller book, The German Heiress. So Anika is a bestselling novel and she writes kind of historical dramas, is that right? They look like to me and has a lot of experience and kind of a long and varied career and had the honor of debuting in COVID. If you want to tell us a bit about yourself, that would be amazing and how you came to live in Germany, among other things. Anika Scott: Yeah, hi. I have lived in Germany for about 20 years, which... tells you a little bit about how old I am, because I was a young woman who was a lot braver back then than I am now, I think. And so I had always sort of been oriented to international stuff. I had studied international politics and journalism. So I happened to meet a very nice German man. and ended up just giving it a shot. And 20 years later, I'm still here. So that's how I ended up here. And that's how my career has ended up being a little bit different than normal people's careers in publishing. Sunyi: I've been in the UK for 18 years, I think, by next week. I'm divorced though, so that didn't work out quite so well. Scott Drakeford: Ha ha Sunyi: No, it's fine, it's been good, it's been a long road. Anika Scott: so should I just say something about how I even got to my debut moment even? Sunyi: Yeah, Anika Scott: I can give you like the snapshot of that because I am a fan of the podcast. I was telling Sunyi that before I got on. So I am thrilled to be able to like, I get to tell a little bit of my story now and hopefully people will. like not be frustrated and scared of publishing because sometimes you have this amazing journey as well that you never expected. So basically I wrote my debut for like eight years or something and you know I had babies in there and you know all the stuff that you do when you're busy with little kids and writing and I ended up with an agent relatively fast and after she took on the book that was to become the German heiress, we spent about three years editing. Years. So Scott Drakeford: Hmm. Anika Scott: I thought that book was just never going to really see the light of day or at least I wasn't sure. But once it went on submission, it sold it, well it got its first offer in about 10 days. It went to auction in various countries and I ended up, I think within about two weeks, I was at the Frankfurt Book Fair meeting people and then I was in London about a week or two later meeting people. So that was this sort of whirlwind amazing thing that had been happening that I never, ever expected. And that's one of the things that I feel just, people out there with all the kind of doom and gloom in publishing have to remember that sometimes, and you never know who it's gonna be, the lightning can strike in a good way. Scott Drakeford: Can I pause there and ask a bunch of questions? Anika Scott: Sure. Ha ha ha. Scott Drakeford: Is that okay, Sunyi? Sunyi: Yeah, yeah, you're gonna ask about the Frankfurt Book Fair, aren't you? Scott Drakeford: That is one of the four things I have, yes. Scott Drakeford: first, I like to make wildly horrible guesses at where people are from based on their accent. Sunyi: Oh no. Scott Drakeford: This is gonna be really fun since you've been in Germany for 20 years. But do I detect some Great Lakes? Anika Scott: Oh my god, are you good? Anika Scott: You read my bio. Did you read my bio first? You didn't. Scott Drakeford: No, I have not read your bio. At all. Anika Scott: Wow, Sherlock Holmes, really good. Sunyi: You are a lot better at guessing American accents than European ones. Anika Scott: Yes. Scott Drakeford: Yeah. I, there's a guy that works at my local grocery store and I asked him if he was from Manchester and he's from, God, what's that port town where people have mush mouth, what? Sunyi: Liverpool. Scott Drakeford: Yes, Liverpool, that's the one. Maybe, maybe. Sunyi: Sorry, I just, I knew you were gonna say Liverpool. It's weird actually, a lot of people get them conflated, yeah. So Scott Drakeford: Well, I get at least some Liverpool accents okay, because what do they call them? Scousers, right? And yeah, they have that, I don't know what that means. I just know that they call themselves that. And they have that very distinctive, I don't even know what to call it, but yeah, anyway, very distinctive Sunyi: dialect. Scott Drakeford: accent. Yeah, yeah, palatisation, whatever it is. But yeah, this guy sounded just like he was from Manchester, but got that wrong and he didn't seem very happy. So anyway. Um, that is, that is my stupid useless question. Anika Scott: Yeah, but I have to know now, how did you know? How did, what did you hear that made you think Great Lakes? Let's dig deeper here. Sunyi: I'm sorry. Scott Drakeford: Yeah, I don't know that there's just a there's just a little different way of saying a few vowels That people from the Great Lakes area have but it's slightly different from the way Canadians speak and the way that like people from Northern Montana they have the bag and a few of the Canadian you know, tendencies, but yeah, Great Lakes. I don't know exactly what it is, but I worked with a great lady for a number of years who is from Minnesota or Michigan or somewhere like that, and she had a very strong Great Lakes accent, and there was just a hint of it in there. So shout out, Liz. Sorry for that detour. So You said you wrote your book for eight years and then edited it for three. And I feel for you because I did a lot of that with my book, my first book, right? I'm an obsessive person and had a lot of life stuff come up in there. I am curious though what that looked like for you, especially those three years editing with either your agent or your editor. Was that... Really, because life stuff got in the way or because you went through tons and tons of edits? Anika Scott: Yeah, it was a little bit of both. I think there was some maternity leave in there and various other kind of life stuff. But I also think... my agent who is in London is a really brilliant editor to begin with and so she really kind of ripped the book apart in the sense that she saw the potential that was in that raw manuscript and was willing to kind of sit down with me and go over it again and again and again. And so I didn't think that's how it was going to work because I think I got her as a or got the offer from her to represent me within about six weeks or something of sending my first query. So I mean that was really fast. And so I thought all right I'm through it's gonna work you know the book is great. And then I and she was just so great about kind of leading me to look at writing in a totally different way, in a way. I mean, she really, really did a great job with that. And so it was such a valuable and painful few years that none of the editing I've had to do since then has been that hard. So, Scott Drakeford: Oh cool. Anika Scott: and I've gotten three books published now and none of them, and nothing I did with my editors was as hard. as what I did with my agent in that first phase. Scott Drakeford: Yeah, do you want to shout out your agent? Who is she? Anika Scott: Letitia Rutherford at Watson Little in London. Like go break down her door if you've got great manuscripts, send them to her. She's absolutely brilliant. Sunyi: Sorry, I was just gonna say it's interesting to hear different agent names because we do get really locked into So I find fantasy world where it feels like I kind of know the name of every agent in our genre. And then you hear one from another genre. It's like who's that? Anika Scott: I don't know if she even takes fantasy or anything like that. I don't think she does. I was even thinking of, I had a book idea that would have gone into a kind of speculative direction a little bit. And I thought, ooh, you know, I don't even know if she would take that. So yeah. Sunyi: Often, I think sci-fi and fantasy agents tend to concentrate on just that. I think it's because most genres, well, a lot of genres are defined by their plot structure. I mean, historical is not the same. Historical is defined by obviously the time setting. But sci-fi and fantasy is defined by speculative elements, so it's so broad. You can have crime sci-fi and romance fantasy. You just end up having to be SFF focused, I think. Anika Scott: Mm-hmm. Sunyi: My agent used to take all age categories from picture book, middle grade, YA, adults, and romance and contemporary and sci-fi and fantasy and had to just narrow it down in the past few years. So, anyway, sorry that was a tangent. Scott Drakeford: No, that makes sense and I'm glad you let us through that because that's one thing that, I don't know, maybe we've hit on it on the podcast, but I think a lot of authors talk about with each other is the idea of agent fit and agents who are willing to go through an editing process or multiple editing processes with you. And some authors like that, some authors don't. But yeah, that's super interesting. So yeah, I have a couple other questions from your little intro. You said auction in multiple countries, was there anything that happened or that your agent did to make that happen other than just submitting like normal? And did you get to see and participate in much of that process that led to multiple auctions? Anika Scott: I had kind of an unusual phase there, like how my debut was bought. So I'll just take you through the steps or else you can't imagine what that was. But basically we submitted in, I think we had a... agency in New York who was pairing with my London agent so that my London agent submitted in the UK, my New York people submitted in New York, and London got back to me faster. So the preempt came from an imprint of Penguin Random House in the UK. there was a sort of pressure and whirlwind around it because it was about, I don't know if this exists exactly true, but something like a week before the Frankfurt Book Fair, this was all happening, or two weeks, or something like that, it was really, really close right before Frankfurt. So they were like, we want this book and we're gonna take it to Frankfurt if you give us world rights, right? So that. In case any of the listeners are not real familiar with rights, I can just say one thing, which is world rights is when the publisher takes the rights for its own territory, if it's United States or UK, and also the right to sell the book in translation markets around the world. Right? And so there was some back and forth between my agent and I and that publisher about whether to sell World Rides or not. We ended up taking that deal. It was quite a generous deal. And that was an exciting possibility to know that the book would be going to Frankfurt immediately. Like we knew this imprint was going to mobilize and get the book, you know, seen at Frankfurt. And so at the very same time, I was on the phone with some editors in New York, but by then, the book had sold world rights in the UK already, which meant that my publisher in the UK took over the foreign rights. That, you know, the United States became one of the foreign rights deals then. And at that same time, offers or at least auctions were coming in from countries like Italy. I think the Czech Republic also had an auction and there was another one but I can't remember what it was. And so that was happening I think partly because of the timing. You know all of this was happening right before Frankfurt and the imprint was really excited about the book so I was just lucky at that moment that there was that much interest in and and drive. And I wasn't involved in that directly, as in I didn't talk to the editors from the other countries, from the translation markets. All I had done, because I'm in Germany, right? So I took a train to Frankfurt and went down and met the rights editor basically from my new publisher along with my agent and talked to the reps for the foreign publishers. And things were just rolling and happening. I think one of the publishers, I think this was Italy, like offered at Frankfurt. They hadn't even read the book as far as I know. So, I mean, stuff like that also happened. And it just felt like this tsunami of interest that I never expected to have. Sunyi: So on that side, I mean, so a lot of Americans will... I'm going to start over. A lot of listeners are American. I know what the Frankfurt Book Fair is generally, but obviously your experience of it is more direct. If you're explaining this to readers who haven't heard of it, what is the Frankfurt Book Fair? Why does it matter on the European scene and maybe to Americans as well? And just as a kind of third wrap up question for that, have you heard the phrase a Frankfurt book? What do you think makes a Frankfurt book? Anika Scott: Yeah, well, I think like a big book was Yellowface, I think. That was like all over Frankfurt, right? Sunyi: Yeah. Anika Scott: A Frankfurt book, well, okay, Frankfurt Book Fair. Imagine some hotels and a big conference center. and the entire huge, huge halls in this conference center full of book people, because I went for a weekend as well, and so it's just... wall-to-wall books and people talking about books and making deals. There's parts for the agents. The agents wander around talking to foreign publishers about their authors. The publishers who have world rights will go around and try and get other publishers interested in translating those books. And so it is a huge thing. If your book is sort of a Frankfurt book and your publisher wants to put you at the front, they want to really focus your book there, then you might have those big, huge posters, the big, huge banners and things with your book on it. I didn't get that, but certainly, you know, that's... Let's say, or was it... I can't remember, was it the London Book Fair or the Frankfurt Book Fair where lessons in chemistry, like a kitchen, like in the book Lessons in Chemistry, at the fair. You could get photographed in this kitchen that's like what was described in the book. So, I mean, if you're a big book, a book fair, Frankfurt or London or wherever, can really amplify it. So that's why you would, if you can, you want to time it so that your book ends up being at these international fairs. Sunyi: Yeah, I'd heard that there was, well, because we've talked to Nick Binge about the hype train and generating hype and how that becomes a runaway thing with books. And there's, I think a lot of that at these big European fairs. And if you're an American author, it's where your rights will get sold. If you're a British author, it's your chance to go international. Because actually, something possibly, I don't know if Americans know that or not, but a lot of British authors don't actually make it over the Atlantic to the US. And I think a lot of Europeans don't as well. harder for us to break in on that side. So The only tale I'd heard of at the Frankfurt book fair before yours was not nearly as fun. And it was a writer acquaintance of mine who was picked up by an agent who was like, oh, this is going to be a Frankfurt book. This is going to be a Frankfurt book. It would be amazing. And they took it to Frankfurt and no one bought it. And the agent dropped him. And it was like, oh, Scott Drakeford: Oh. Anika Scott: Oh my god. Sunyi: absolute cratering. I know. Well, that happens, doesn't it? But... Yeah, so definitely Yellowface. I think that was a London Book Fair one where they're giving so much swag away for it. All the bags and posters and things. Yeah. Scott Drakeford: Yeah, I was going to ask. So I mean, I have heard of London Book Fair where there seem to be a lot of industry folks who go and they're making deals at the book fair. And it's very focused on the, I guess the behind the scenes business aspects of moving books rather than trying to sell books to consumers, although I don't know, maybe there's that aspect too. And now it sounds like Frankfurt is the kind of the EU version of that, right? Sunyi: Frankfurt's a lot bigger, yeah. Scott Drakeford: Frankfurt's bigger than London? Anika Scott: Yes. Sunyi: Much, much bigger, so much bigger. Anika Scott: Huge. Scott Drakeford: Really? That's interesting. Sunyi: Yeah, think about the difference between British fantasy con versus world con. I mean, I think that's kind of the difference between London Book Fair and Frankfurt in terms of size. Scott Drakeford: Yeah, so that's my next question. And maybe you two know, maybe you don't, but is there an American version of this and or just other versions generally of conventions or gatherings of industry big timers where they're going to make deals? Cause I can't think of any specific American version of that. Like there's. Sunyi: But you’re one territory is the thing. Scott Drakeford: Yeah. Sunyi: So the reason why there needs to be a European one is there's lots of European countries basically. Scott Drakeford: Yeah. Sunyi: And it's not just like, it's the European countries in translation and then it's things like people also buying English language rights for those countries. So, you know, there's English language versions of my books in France, but there's not like a French translation, for example, Scott Drakeford: Yeah. Sunyi: and stuff like that. So, but the U.S. is more simple. You just one territory. You just one single... Scott Drakeford: So London and Frankfurt are more focused on translation right deals and wheeling and dealing with that, not necessarily looking at wooing booksellers and things like that. Sunyi: I've been told by someone here that London Book Fair is really more about the London publishers…. because London is kind of the big English language book scene aside from New York, is more about London publishers kind of showing off to each other Anika Scott: Hahaha Sunyi: and making friends and networking. But this again, we're one territory, the UK is one territory. Anika Scott: I think that sounds really accurate because since I have an agent in London, that I'm in London more, I hear more about London than I do about New York and I feel that the difference between how... the UK works in publishing and how the United States works are very different. So in the UK, I feel it is much more personal in the sense that the relationships with people, it matters in the United States, but the US is so big. So everything or at least a lot in the UK seems to be focused on London and so it isn't surprising that something like the London Book where the publishing industry of the UK, you know, kind of gets together and that's where they, you know, take stock of things. Whereas Frankfurt, I don't know how old it is. I had actually looked this up somewhere but I think it's relatively old also as far as book fairs go but I'm actually not sure so don't quote me but it's a, it's sort of central if you think about it. You know, if you're flying in from I don't know, if you're flying in from the United States, you're flying in from China, or you're flying in from the UK, or from South Africa, or wherever, it's kind of more convenient to do that in the middle of Europe. So I think that has partly something to do with it, but also for sure, all the different countries and translation rights in Europe. and it's easier for the European publishers to get there. But when I was there, I was only there a little bit for the industry side of it, because there's always an industry side of the fair, and then there's a public side of the fair where readers can go, people who love books can go, and by then all the editors and rights people have left, though. I had actually met my rights person, my agent, at one of the kind of fancy schmancy hotels where they have cocktails and champagne because that's also part of the fair, right? Is that social aspect of it. And it was amazing. I walked in and I had to meet them at this hotel bar. And the waiter asked me who I am because you're not kind of not supposed to walk in off the street to a Frankfurt Book Fair. Scott Drakeford: ha. Anika Scott: you know, event, even if it's at a hotel. And I just had said, you know, I'm an author and I'm looking for my, you know, agent in my rights people. And they're like, oh, you're an author, you know, come with us. And suddenly, you know, you're, you're sort of an important person. It was amazing. And as we walked through, you just saw these little tables full of people with, with stacks of just stuff about books and they're talking about books passionately. It was, I think that these sorts of affairs, they're not for authors. aren't. They're there for the business people, but just even having that glimpse of the fair, it was amazing to see so many people there on the business side of it, but to see how much they loved books and how much they're just interested in talking about books, that's what we're all there for. Sunyi: Yeah, and I think it's easy to forget as well, actually, sometimes how big some of the foreign language markets can be, and that, you know, if you're able to get the foreign rights deals, that it can be lucrative for authors. I've not talked about the foreign side of my thing very much because it's not been that relevant, but I think book eaters have scarred, including the UK, about 11 translations, which is not that many compared to some people I know. Anika Scott: Oh gosh, it's more than I have. It's great. Yeah, it's great. Sunyi: But. I mean, they're mostly small, but a couple of them, like the Polish deal was bigger than my UK deal Anika Scott: Oh wow. Sunyi: in terms of just sheer like, you know, most of them are kind of on the smaller side, but they can add up so they, you know, it’s a whole side of it. Anika Scott: Yeah, I mean, I was really, really shocked at, well, one in particular. I was really shocked at how good that offer was from one of the European markets and so It was one that went to auction. So obviously auctions can inflate things a bit but You know, I had no concept like I was this was my debut and I know you've gone over this in other episodes But people will throw money at a debut Easier than they'll do it on other books down the road, right? third, fourth, fifth book. Maybe they, you know, you'll get a decent deal on those books you don't know, but on your debut you don't have any kind of track records so people will just say, all right, we think this is gonna be a thing, we're gonna give you a bunch of money. Sunyi: I've heard as well that just the physical presence of people being in Frankfurt can lead to, like, they call them the big feeding frenzies and you hear about, oh, that, that true crime book went to 11 way auction at Frankfurt. It's because someone was able to be charismatic in person to present a book in an interesting way. And then the editor just gets swept up in it and they're all excited and they're all trying to buy it. And that's the kind of thing that happens when these in-person, I guess, big book fair conferences. Anika Scott: Yeah, it’s great. And I wish authors had some kind of influence on that, but we really don't. In fact, most of the stories I've heard about authors who have tried to go to these fairs in order to either meet agents or editors, bad idea. I would suggest not doing that. I've gone down to Frankfurt to meet my agent just because she happens to be in Germany at that time. And I'll go see her, but I won't go knocking on doors at the fair. That's just not my job as an author. Sunyi: What is there like, I guess a hostile reception to that from industry folks if authors are kind of they're trying to plug themselves. Anika Scott: I don’t think it's hostile. I also think it's changing because I think the Book Fair in Frankfurt, even though I'm kind of pre-pandemic, my knowledge, because I went in 2019, but I think that they are recognizing that they could have a bit of an author presence, that they have to organize it. Sunyi: Mm. Anika Scott: What they don't like are authors who just sort of come with a manuscript under their arms and they're, you know, looking to corner you in an L. kind of situation and every time I've heard something like that I'm like no you know don't do it so Sunyi: I think the head of bookends talked one time about someone sliding a manuscript under the door of her bathroom stall. Sunyi: And actually, unless Scott's got a more specific question that I was going to take the opportunity, you know, you mentioned COVID, you had that fantastic start, the kind of the buzz and the excitement and then COVID happened in the year of your debut, I believe. Scott Drakeford: It looks like you debuted like right when the shutdowns happened, at least on the US side. Anika Scott: Yeah, both sides actually. It happened in the UK a little earlier. UK and Europe shut down slightly earlier. And it was, yeah, I cannot describe how awful that was. Yeah, I think I was set up to fly to the UK to do... publish, you know, you know, publicize. I was gonna go to conferences or whatever, you know, interviews, I was gonna be at Goldsboro and sign the books and all the stuff you're supposed to do, right? It was all set up for me. And I think it was something like a week before, you know, they just shut everything down in the UK and in Germany pretty much simultaneously. So I was... I, we had to go pick up our kids from school. Basically, that's how fast it happened. So I was in the car picking up my kids from school and driving her home, my first kid home, and my editors were calling me, my agent called me. I had to pull over to the side of the road and was just in tears because everything was. Everything was shut down. Nobody knew what was happening. That was just the UK edition, which came out a few weeks, I think, before the US did. When the US, of course, when the US book came out, I had no expectations that anything was going to happen to it because I was so devastated already because I didn't plan to fly to the United States. That was too much. I didn't have the time or the money really at that moment to fly to the States to do publicity. So I was relying on my publisher to do what was required. My book had been shipped, you know, it had been you know, so the distribution had worked but then everything shut down But it ends up that was actually good for me What happened is I mean the German heiress has sold far more books than my others have It did extremely well or has done extremely well. So The German heirs was already staying in stores when everything shut down, but it was in grocery stores. It was at Target. It was at, you know, Costco. It was at places, it was at the only stores that were still open. So you couldn't go to a bookstore, you couldn't go to an airport, but... If you are a book lover and you wanted something new to read, it just so happens that I had one of the new books sitting at your local Costco or sitting there at Target because it did get on the shelf right before the rest of the world shut down. And Scott Drakeford: Oh wow. Anika Scott: I honestly believe that's the reason why, or one of the reasons anyway, it's a good book, you know? But one of the reasons why that it did so well is because... Also, there were, it was just, it kind of got lucky in this horribly unlucky situation on the US side. In the UK, I feel like the book fell off a cliff. The UK didn't really, it couldn't pivot the same way. You know, my book was in bookstores for the most part in the UK and the bookstores were closed. So it was really a distribution issue. In the United States, my book was still available to people who just wanted to pick something up, you know, along with toilet paper or whatever. they were buying and that really, you cannot underestimate how important it is to get your book in these big boxes. Sunyi: Yeah, and I will say as well, the UK is set up a little differently, I think, from the States in that sense. We do have some bigger stores, but I remember when I was living in the States and when I occasionally go back, the big Walmarts and stuff, they are massive. Generally stores here are the equivalent to an American convenience store in size. Well, they are. Everything in the UK is just sort of a little bit smaller scale. The roads are smaller, the cars are smaller, the stores are smaller. local co-op cooperative is a store in the UK doesn't sell books you know sells newspapers if you want a book you this library there's library here but otherwise you have to go I don't know seven miles to the big Sainsbury's which might have a few Anika Scott: Yeah, I mean, it absolutely, I think that timing was a lot of... lot of the issue along with distribution because if you think about it, like if my book, I think the timing just didn't work quite in the UK, but like in Canada for instance, the book was a bestseller in Canada for about a month on the big bestseller lists up there and I have a lot of Canadian friends and they had been sending me pictures and telling me like the bookstores are closed, but I think Chapters Indigo had supported the book in a big way. would be like a display window with just my book in it. And maybe the store is closed, but my book is in the window kind of thing. And so even that was helpful during this whole time. And that is something that you just you can't predict how a book is going to do anyway. We can talk about that if you want, because that's a whole different issue. But. But it was, I think nobody expected my debut in that environment to do as well as it did because everybody was just in shock and nobody knew what was happening as we all remember. Sunyi: It's very unfortunate for your UK sales, but it is like a kind of interesting case study in what a difference it makes to have that placement and that the visibility, like the difference that visibility makes in sales, just being able to see a product. Because we were talking a bit to Cameron and Hurley last week, and she was talking about how, you know, some people still have this view, some writers still have this view of their books, like if you build it, they will come, but they don't. Anika Scott: Oh no, they don't. And I think that the... the market's really, really full. It just is, you know, and it's daunting, really, if you pay attention to whatever genre you write in, and you really pay attention over a period of time, and you see sort of the same names over and over again who do well, or do very well, you know? So you'll learn who those core people are in your genre, and then there's like a tier sort of below that of people that maybe have a best seller and maybe the next book doesn't do as well, or however that might work. And it's sort of a little more wobbly. It's not quite as stable a situation as kind of the top tier people in your genre. And so I was talking to a friend the other day about this, and we feel like even just in the short time, between 2020 and now, I've had three books come out. And I feel like the distance between the mega bestsellers or the books that do really, really well and sort of the mid-list is just this big gaping hole that's getting bigger. Sunyi: Yeah. Anika Scott: Right? And I'm not sure why it's happening, but even books that have had... I loved the episode you guys did about, what was it, the marketing threshold or some kind of threshold that a book support that they're getting from their publisher. And even books that absolutely have everything going for them don't necessarily fly right off the shelves. There's always that element of luck rolled to dice. Sunyi: Yeah, what you're saying about the tiers being so far apart, that's something I was thinking about a lot recently too, because there's kind of like... It was, I think it's my agent that was talking to some of us saying, you know, most books don't sell like 100,000 copies in a year, that there's like a very small percentage of debuts that will do that, right? So most people are kind of in the... selling 3000 to 10,000 copies of their debut in a year, and then you have the books that are kind of... above 100k and there's sort of a big gap in the middle where there's not necessarily as many it's not quite that straightforward but then you have the other tier above us know, like Richard Osmond, he's always my go-to example, because if I'm lucky, I might sell 100k copies this year for book eaters. And that guy sold 127k in his first week for his debut coming out-- Anika Scott: Oh wow yeah that’s a different planet, yeah. Sunyi: And you're just thinking about the number of books, like, and I think about 127,000, like, hands holding Richard Osmond's book. It's wild. I can't fathom that number. That many readers. Oh. Anika Scott: Yeah, sales numbers are scary because I absolutely did not know what to expect when my book debuted, right? Nobody tells you. We hope you sell this many books. Nobody said anything to me. So when my numbers started coming in... I knew they were probably pretty good because my editor was actually telling me what they were. You know like, if you don't hear anything, then they probably, you know, there's probably a softer number there and they would just rather not tell you. You know, that's my theory on that one. And it was my debut, so of course, you know, you want to know how things are going. But, you know, as... it happened, I think, if I remember right, I sold the most books in a week in my sixth week or so. So I basically had growth, yeah, kind of direct growth all the way to about week six. And I had been told that was, you know, somewhat, I mean, relatively, yeah, good. Just obviously you want to have growth, of course. But this idea that we have in our heads that your launch week is so important, you know, yeah, but it's, you know, hopefully what you want to hit is that growth if you can get it. Sunyi: Did you do a hardback and then a paperback release? Anika Scott: In the UK we did and in the US it was trade paperback release. Sunyi: Oh interesting. Sunyi: I wonder if that really helped you actually because in hardback, I mean my hardback did okay and then I wasn't really sure you know because again there's so much we don't know about our own industry I wasn't really sure how the paperback release would go for book eaters and for a combination of factors the paperback just blew the hardback out of the water, I think because that price point is a lot better for most people. Anika Scott: Yeah. Especially now. I was really surprised how much more a trade paperback costs now, because I just released a book in July, and that book is a couple dollars more than, or maybe even more so than my debut had been. And so even releasing a trade paperback, paper's expensive and the costs are being pushed forward. So I feel when you look at a hardcover, this is a huge issue because I think about this sometimes. I'm like, oh, you know, should I somehow push to have a hardcover release in the United States? And at this point I won't do it because I feel that the hardcover is so expensive, so, so expensive. And if I look at my own... buying habits because I love books, I buy lots of books. I rarely buy a hardcover. And I am a definite book person, but I will always go for a trade paperback if I'm gonna buy something. So, yeah. Scott Drakeford: it's especially a tough sell to get people to buy a hardcover at full price from a debut in a genre that is quite crowded, right? And where differentiation is quite difficult. I do wonder, and you may not have gotten this information, did your editor or anybody tell you how your book... especially your first book since there was that difference between UK and US. Did they tell you how your book was selling online versus in physical stores? Did you ever get a breakdown of that? I'm just curious whether there was a big difference there, especially because of the pandemic. Anika Scott: I don't remember if they gave me that specific breakdown, but one that really really surprised me was something like 90% of my sales were print Scott Drakeford: Oh wow. Anika Scott: during the sort of biggest growth of the book. And we were getting these numbers in and seeing the ebook numbers, because everybody thought, right? Pandemic, people are going to buy ebooks. Everybody thought that, right? But I think that the sort of screen fatigue... set in pretty fast with people and I could not believe that so many people were buying print as opposed to ebook. And historical fiction might be a little different anyway than some of the other genres that sell better on ebook anyway, but I've never had ebooks outstrip my print sales. My print sales are always stronger. Sunyi: Yeah, there's something in the UK, they have different types of buyers that publishers will talk about and I run into a little bit of friction sometimes when I talk to not all indie authors, but some indie authors who don't necessarily know that side of the industry, that basically there is a readership who only goes to bookstores and loves bookstores and browses bookstores and that's where they get their books from. And that's the readership publishers tend to target. So my, you know, I obviously I wasn't during COVID, but the majority of my sales are print sales as well. That's like, my book is just not something that seems to attract many ebook readers. Because different reader groups have different buying habits and there's different patterns and I think particularly for like historical fiction or standalone books tend to do really well as print I think and publishers find those easier to push maybe. Anika Scott: Yeah, and that's what I do. I write standalone historical fiction, which makes my life harder. Sometimes I wonder why I do that. Sunyi: E-book's more about like the tunnel of money where you hook someone in the story and then they're just paying small increments to buy the rest of the series and that's a very different style, a very different model of the industry which works really well for people who do it well and enjoy it but I can't imagine historical is very easy to do quick series of. Anika Scott: No. Scott Drakeford: I actually have a question about that and your process on historical. How much—and this may not even be super interesting to listeners because it's not industry-related necessarily—but how much goes into the historical details and keeping those straight and accurate? Do you have, like, a historian you pay to check it? Or— Does your publisher invest in anything like that or is it really just up to you to keep all the details straight? Anika Scott: Yeah, short answer is up to me. I was a journalist, an actual real journalist, and so I do research a lot. And I do it over the whole process of writing and editing the book. So I'm kind of constantly finding new sources. And if I need to adjust the story, I'll adjust it. And so I have just stacks of notebooks, printouts, binders, of course, all the stuff online and the crap I pull from JSTOR and from various places where you can get research. So Scott Drakeford: Yes. Anika Scott: I will sit and watch YouTube videos about the most obscure stuff. Scott Drakeford: Yep. Anika Scott: historical buffs who have great stuff. So I will take from wherever I can, write down to the song list on Spotify and have it be period appropriate music. I've been writing 20th century, so that's easy. But Scott Drakeford: Yeah. Anika Scott: it is up to me. I really do. I do have consultants that I do go to check various cultural things, things, language things, because I'm insane and each of my books is usually set in a different country or the main characters are from a different country and not necessarily one where I speak the language. So I may need people to look over sources for me or to check that I'm getting stuff right. Scott Drakeford: Yeah, I noticed that you had German, then Soviet, then US. So that does introduce a broad range of details. Anika Scott: Yeah, the third book is US and Sicily, which okay, is like my family, part of my family's from Sicily. So, but none of us speak Italian. So I have been in Sicily a couple of times and I've met people in my family there and all of that, but I still needed people in Italy and Sicilians to check that the language I was using and various other things was accurate. Scott Drakeford: Yeah, I'm incredibly impressed at the pace at which you've released, because one of my side projects is a historical fiction, and I swear to God I spend at least 10 hours just reading random shit. For every, probably for every 10 minutes, I'm actually writing. It is rough. Sunyi: it'll catch up, I reckon, once you build up that kind of knowledge base in your head, you eventually progress one hopes. Anika Scott: all I can recommend is, you know, from one historical author to someone who's taken on this really, really mountain of work that this is, is I think you'll know when you've hit this point where you can set the research aside and just write a story. Some people don't work like that, but I feel I do. Like I just read, read and collect stuff and maybe it'll be a few months of just being immersed in stuff and thinking up the story too, but trying to make those decisions on what story I want to tell within whatever historical stuff that I'm dealing with. And then I just clear my desk basically. And I have maybe like one little notebook, looks like this. that has sort of the bare stuff that I need to write the story and then I sit and do that. And then I go back and revision and that's where you start to say, okay, do you really need to put in all that other detail? And the answer is usually not really. Scott Drakeford: By the way, you just all, and there's the Great Lakes. All. Yeah. Yeah, that makes sense. And I mean, it depends on how closely your story adheres to a historical narrative that you can't just change. But yeah, that makes a ton of sense. And I like that method. Sunyi: I've got two kind of questions bundled together, I guess. And the first one is I was curious, I guess what happened to your career after COVID then, after that first book came out and how that may or may not have changed the direction, what other books were like, what your publishers were like. But I guess my other question is kind of a tagging on, you've written a slightly different genre and talked to authors and professionals in that genre. When you listen to the cast, I guess, Were there sort of differences or particular differences and similarities that stood out to you, you know? Or do you think it's basically similar in your genre as well, the broad strokes? Anika Scott: Um, okay. Well, I'll answer the first one first. Um. Yeah. Sunyi: Sorry for sticking them together. I can remind you what the other one is. Anika Scott: No problem. I think the UK and the US were two different things, right? The US or in North America, my debut did really, really well, in the UK less well. So for my second book, by the way, my book was orphaned in the UK, sort of in multiple ways, which in case listeners don't know what that is, your editor leaves the company. Both my editor and the publishing director had left my imprint. So basically the two people who were really behind my book were gone within a very, very short time. of my book releasing. So when it comes to picking up a second book, that makes things hard, right, especially when the book didn't do very well. We also had some discussions about rights. We didn't want to give world rights again. So I left that imprint and went to a different publisher for my second and third book. So that was in the UK. In the United States, it has been really wonderfully stable. I've had the same editor at the same imprint. And what was great about it is, of course, when you're coming off a successful debut, then they want to know what your second book is, and they want to pick it up. They had bought it at auction. My United States publisher had bought the book at auction. The second book they could just pick up as an option book. So I didn't sell a multiple book deal anywhere. I sell one book at a time. So they bought my second book after my first one came out. And and they bought my third book right before my second one came out. So basically all three of my books, or let's say my two successive books were built on the back of my debut doing well, right? And so it can. It's obviously you want your debut to do really well. Of course you do. And that would have then consequences for how you publish in future. The difference, this does segue really well into your other question, which is differences between fantasy or fantasy sci-fi and historical. And we had just talked about how it's a little harder to do like series books. They don't have these sort of historical trilogies or historical whatever in the same way have in fantasy or in sci-fi. So there can be things like that, but it just doesn't happen quite as much. It's, at least in North America, standalone historical fiction tends to be what people do. And maybe there's a sequel. If you're more in the genres like crime genre or whatever there might be a series or if you're doing a spy, a historical spy novel, there might be a series, but for the most part standalone. And so... It does make it sort of a different experience from when I've been listening on the podcast, there's been a lot of discussion about multiple book deals and like this sort of spiral that can happen if you're first. If you're first in a series doesn't do well, you know, your second or third book could spiral or not even be published and things like that. I have not heard of stuff like that happening in my genre in particular, although it probably does. So it is quite different to be selling book to book to book. I think it can be good, it can be really risky to do that. And it is extremely stressful. That's all I can say is that, you know, even when you're like, okay, I came off a book that did well, did it do well enough? Because nobody tells you what the expectations were. So I was... really nervous when my second book was submitted to my editor and she took like, I don't know, a month or something to offer on it and I was like, yay, you know, and, you know, the deal was really good, comparable to my first deal, and so I really was happy about that, but again, my third book came around, I had to offer it to her, you know, again, as an option. I didn't know what was going to happen. So every time, I think I was reading Chuck He had a book called Gentle Writing Advice. Sunyi: Yes. Anika Scott: And he said something about how you always feel like the career is about to collapse, or you always feel like you're about to fall off a cliff. And, you know, not to get too negative, but honestly, there are moments where you're not quite sure, at least I'm not quite sure. you know, where I may be going next, because I'm not sure if expectations line up everywhere. You know, what your publisher wants you to do versus how the book is performing in a certain period of time, that sort of thing. Sunyi: Yeah. And because success is so often tied to specific editors, if that specific editor is gone, it might be that person who made your book a success would have continued to make your career success is now the missing component from the rest of your career. That always scares me a bit. I do think our genre is probably heading more towards standalones at the moment. I think... Speaking of Chuck Windig, he had that article recently about standalones versus series, and that's a whole discussion that's going on in publishing, because actually publishers, I think it's not that great for them either when they release a trilogy and the first book tanks and everybody's chained to the next two. And just in general, they're more cautious. So I would not be surprised if we were contract by contract. And I do have friends where it's like they have a series, but every book in that series was a fresh contract. So it was like, you write the book, did you get sales? Okay, here's book two. Did you get sales? Okay, here's book three. Which is, you know, you're on kind of tend to hooks, whatever the phrase is. I think I'm probably in the best of all worlds for that kind of stuff, where it's a multi-book contract for stand-alone. So if my book's a fuck up, I just try again with the next one. Scott Drakeford: Hahaha Sunyi: I get three shots to not be a fuck up. and uh hope for a lightning strike and it's sort of less important like if my second book bombs or whatever but the first book did okay then i still have some leeway if that makes sense Sunyi: There's a lot less... There's less pressure that way, I think. But that to me is the real privilege of my deal, more than anything. It's not even the size of the advance, though that's linked to marketing. It's that I have space to get unlucky. Or lucky. Which not everyone is, but should have. Scott Drakeford: Yep. Yeah, I mean, I think that was super smart. I think a trilogy of stand-alones is a really smart deal to sign, especially as a debut. Depends on the money, though, right? Like, I think probably the worst deal to sign is a very small contract for a series. Oh, wow. Because then your chances of getting fucked are pretty high. Scott Drakeford: And then you have to write. two more books on not a lot of incentives. So yeah, it's interesting. Sunyi: I mean we're about to run out of time but yeah that is a thing that we've talked about among some of our friends, I think especially for our genre authors who... who are writing a book for which they know their audience is very small and getting smaller, and it just feels like you're putting in so much work for something that nobody cares about any level, whether that's the editor, the publisher, the publicity, the diminishing pool of readers. That's hard. That's hard on people. That's hard to do. Anika Scott: I think in general it really is hard and you know in the in the darkest moments and I think we all have them as authors because this is hard and we're putting out you know we're not building cars here you know we're writing books so you know when we have our kind of moments of doubt I had horrible imposter syndrome by the way when I was in London that very first time. I mean I just didn't think. all of this whirlwind was, how could that be me? And I feel like that's a very normal thing to feel, but that sort of self-doubt can raise its head at any point. I'm three books in, and I'm working on, actually, two different things now. at the same time, which may not be smart, but I am still sitting here going, I'm not sure I know how to write a book, you know? Sunyi: Oh yeah, every time I start a new book I think maybe this is the book where I forget how to write. Scott Drakeford: Ha ha ha. Sunyi: It might happen. Scott Drakeford: Hey, hey, hey. Yeah. Well, yeah, it might. Ha ha Sunyi: Thanks Scott. Scott Drakeford: ha. Ha ha ha. Hey, hey, hey. Well, you know, that's why you have friends who are here to remind you, oh, here's, you know, here's maybe something you wanna look at again. It's important. Sunyi: Yeah. Anika Scott: Yeah, but I feel you have to survive in publishing because, okay, I've had a long and checkered career that's been here for four years, right? So that's Scott Drakeford: Yeah. Anika Scott: not long. I'm still kind of a tadpole, but three books is a thing, and I'm really proud that I've been able to do that. I would like to continue to publish books. Scott Drakeford: Yeah. Anika Scott: But at the same time, I think at this point, I've realized that you can't. At least I can't focus on the publishing side and write books. I have to compartmentalize my brain. I have to write my books. And then the whole publishing thing, you know, what... you know, how much it might sell for, who you might have to, you know, what sort of businessy things are happening. I have to have that almost completely out of my head Sunyi: Yeah. Anika Scott: in order for me to write a book. And sometimes that's not easy depending on your timing. I got my third book out really fast after my second. It just happened that I had written my third book faster. And I don't want a book a year ever again, really, because that was too fast. And I sort of burned down. In fact, I had texted one of you. way back in like February or March or something. You probably don't remember this. And I had, I had, cause you had said, you know, if you have questions, you want us to ask somebody on the podcast, send us a question. And I had asked about burnout because Sunyi: Yes, I do remember. Anika Scott: I was sort of at the end, I was thinking I was in first past pages, I think for my third book and pre-publication and all the things that are happening. And I had just moved. I, you know, there was a bunch of sort of life you know, thinking about my fourth book at the very least, and I just was so tired. And, you know, so I think everybody develops what, or learns what kind of pace they can keep. And I learned about myself with the way my life is that I cannot... put out a historical novel, a good historical novel, in a year, I just can't. You know, other people can, and I am just in awe of their abilities, but I don't have the, I don't have the right brain power for that. Ha ha ha. Sunyi: I think that's very wise advice and also I think four years might be quite a long time in this industry to still be going Anika Scott: laughs Sunyi: Would you like to kind of plug yourself in books and tell people where they can find you if that's okay? Anika Scott: Yeah, my newest book is Sinners of Starlight City and that's my American and Sicilian sort of godfathery kind of book and that came out in July so you can find that hopefully. Especially at airports, everybody keeps sending me pictures of it at airports which is really cool. I love that, it’s very cool. So if you see it send me a picture. I'm on various social media. um, Anika Scott 1. I refuse to call it anything else. Um, Sunyi: I'm sorry. Anika Scott: I am on Blue Sky, uh, as I think author Anika Scott, and I'm on Instagram, AnikaWritesBooks. I have a website, Anikascott.com, and yeah, probably other places, but you can Google me. Yeah, there it is.