How to Love Writing What You Can Sell: Episode 308 with Seressia Glass

Urban fantasy. Paranormal romance. Historicals. Plus the occasional billionaire, and now a rom-com, complete with a cute graphic cover that tells you exactly who you’ll be rooting for and what to expect. What do all of these things have in common, besides being written by todays’ guest, Seressia Glass?Two things. First, they’re all—as she says on her website— tales of overcoming the odds to achieve love and acceptance–universal desires for everyone no matter who or what they are.Second? They’re all books readers want. Books, in other words, that will sell.I heard Seressia say briefly on another podcast that she and her agent had strategized about exactly that. On the pod, we dive more deeply into the balance between writing what you love, and writing what people will read. We also talk about super-agent Jenny Bent (travel back in time to listen to her on Episode 24 of the pod), Marlon James, the brilliance of Seressia’s pinned tweet and more.Links from the Pod: 7 Figure FictionThe “butter” episode with Theodora Taylor#AmReadingSeressia: Island Queen, Vanessa RileyThe Dating Playbook, Farrah RochonKJ: The Sweetest Remedy, Jane Igharo (also mentioned Sankofa by Chibundu Onuzo)Jess: The Almost Legendary Morris Sisters, Julie Klam(also mentioned The Stars in Her Eyes)IG: @seressiaglasshttps://seressiaglass.comI just finished Author Accelerator’s book coaching course and submitted my materials—and let me tell you, I learned a ton. If you’ve been listening for a while, you know I spent five years as an editor with The New York Times—but I still had a lot to learn about helping writers through the process of taking a book from idea to manuscript, and I loved learning it with the Author Accelerator team. What they taught me has changed my approach to editing completely. I didn’t just learn how to help a writer move from one stage of the process to the next—I learned how to help them appreciate how far they’ve come and feel excited about what’s coming next, see their strengths and how they can build on them and trust me to guide them into the hard work that lies ahead. If you’d like to learn more about coaching fiction or non-fiction, you need to visit bookcoaches.com to learn more. This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit amwriting.substack.com/subscribe