How I got my job - Author Video Transcripts
Video 1 Transcript
I actually didn't want to be really a writer. Well past college, I graduated in history with a minor in theater and film. I was doing comedy. I really wasn't writing, but I was also having lots of babies and so that kind of interfered with like doing much of else because babies are so demanding. But I had this idea for a story and Chad was writing and I went to Chad and I just said, I had this great idea for a book, you should write it. And he said, no. And I was like, that's really rude. I really think you should write my book for me. And he wouldn't do it. And he said, if you want to tell this story, you need to tell the story. So I thought, okay, fine. I will write one book. But as you can tell, I didn't stop at one book.
Video 2 Transcript
How I got my job as an author. Well, I sent in a 50,000 word sample of my writing, which was the first half of the first book I'd ever written. Sent it in to three different publishers. After researching which publishers were the most popular in the specific subgenre that I was targeting with my books, one publisher gave me terrible terms, awful royalty percentage. Another one never even called me back. And the last one replied. They sent me back an email asking for some more details and some outlines and some spreadsheets and how I was tracking my characters and what my expectations were for the long term. And they moved it on to their acquisitions department and they liked it. It was good. And so I sat down with the president of the company. He flew me up to meet with him and they signed me a couple days later and I became a published author.
Video 3 Transcript
So I never wanted to be an author. I really thought it'd be super boring. I loved to read, but I didn't want to write. I thought writing it out would just be really hard. However, until a story came to me. After three nights, it kept me awake. I mean, just this silliness, as it was frightened popularity. And Taylor came to me and kept me awake all night long, saying, why doesn't Chloe like me? I don't get it. And I'm like, go away. I need sleep. And I realized I wasn't going to get sleep if I didn't actually just write this out. So after three nights of no sleep, I went downstairs and with my two fingers typed out the first chapter and then went to bed. The problem is I woke up the next morning and was like, what happens next? I had no idea. I thought authors knew every aspect of their story. We have no idea what happens next. And that's what compels us to continue writing is because it's just so fun to find out. And that's what I did. I just started. And before I knew it, I had in six weeks, I had my first book.
Video 4 Transcript
So the funny part is I loved writing as a kid, but I didn't think about it as I became an adult. My undergrad was political science, and then I became an elementary school teacher. I have a lot of autoimmune conditions that have led me to not be able to teach anymore. And so I had to kind of reconsider what I could do physically, but also engage myself and help other people. And so I came up with trying to teach history through literature in the classroom and for adults. So I started writing historical fictions. I initially started it for family stories for my kids. I would do family history work and realize these are such cool people. And I'd write the stories down, it came into actual novels, and that's how I got started. So I love to do historical fiction novels, especially about my family or other people I know that are not really well-known.
Video 5 Transcript
Hi everyone, this is Heather B. Moore. How I got my job as an author was writing a manuscript and submitting to publishers over and over and over, getting lots of rejections, getting turned down like crazy, and so I wrote another book, that one got rejected all over, and I wrote a third book, and that is the one that ended up getting a publishing contract. I also decided to start indie publishing in 2012, and so I started my own in print, and I started publishing on my own, so I gave myself my job.
Video 6 Transcript
So how did I get my job? Well, uh, I always loved stories, but I didn't really take seriously the idea of being an author, uh, until, um, I have a friend, his name is Brandon Mole, and, uh, he always wanted to be an author, and we did comedy together in college. We were part of a sketch comedy troupe, and, and he kind of broke through, right? He writes the Fable Havens and stuff, and, uh, now with Dragonwatch, Spirit Animals, Five Kingdoms, he's got tons of very successful series. Uh, but in those early days, it was huge for me to know somebody who did it. I thought, wow, if, if he can do it, maybe I can do it, right? Now I write a lot of books, right? Which is really fun, and get to tour sometimes with Brandon and stuff, but having someone that was an inspiration for me was a big deal, and then I, I just gave it a shot. I actually sent things into the same publisher, and took a couple tries, but eventually I got a book that went through. So best of luck, you can do this.
