Episode Transcript
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David Gwyn (00:00):
So Jenna, welcome
we're, we're really lucky to
(00:02):
have you here.
Jenna Satterthwaite (00:03):
Thank you
for having me.
I remember our lastconversation.
It was so fun.
And I was like, Oh, we should dothis again.
And here we are.
We're doing it.
David Gwyn (00:10):
I know it's really
exciting.
It's always fun to talk tosomeone who I've talked to
before because you get throughthat like awkwardness so much
more easily, much more quickly.
It's like
Jenna Satterthwaite (00:18):
no
awkwardness last time.
David Gwyn (00:19):
There you go.
Good
Jenna Satterthwaite (00:20):
from the
start.
David Gwyn (00:21):
Good.
So I do want to start with theagenting side just briefly,
because last time we talked.
You had, I think you said youhad like five or six deals under
wraps that you couldn't talkabout clients.
And so I'm imagining that timehas passed now and now you can
talk a little bit about it.
So can you just talk likegenerally about like what it's
been like agenting?
You're kind of in this new,you're no longer a new agent.
(00:43):
You've got people signed.
You've got people under deals.
Like, what does that feel like?
What have you got going on?
Jenna Satterthwaite (00:48):
I would say
much like the writing side,
there's kind of a mix of it's sogratifying to no longer be brand
new.
I do have eight announced dealsat this point.
There are five others that areunannounced.
I'm in the middle of an auctionright now, which is very
exciting for one of my clients.
So lots of stuff happening, butYou know, the payment structure
(01:11):
for agents, it's tough to makeit add up to like a full salary
that would support my husband,who's a stay at home dad, and my
three young children, andmyself, and get us health care,
and so forth.
So, from the start, I did mykind of mental calculus of how
much do I need to be sellingevery year to replace my day job
that I've been doing.
(01:32):
Where I currently work full timeas a global sales coordinator.
It's a lot, guys.
It's a lot.
And even though I've made, youknow, 13 deals, it's just
nowhere close.
I am just scritchle scratchingthe surface.
So I think I'm super happy withthe deal.
Like, I love my authors.
(01:52):
I don't want to take anyexcitement away from these.
Deals with the publishers, theeditors are great, the authors
are great, it's exciting.
And yet, it's what I want to do,full time, exclusively.
Well, with my authoring on theside.
And I just kind of see the longroad.
So I would say I'm in a placeright now of reckoning with that
and being like, okay.
(02:12):
Okay, what needs to happen forme to kind of level up even from
where I'm at now and make itinto that bigger league of
agents I don't think anyone goesinto agenting.
You know, just out of the goodof their heart, though, there is
that there is the love of artand the joy of working with
authors.
But at the end of the day, Ialso need to buy like snacks for
my kids because they're obsessedwith snacks.
(02:34):
You know, do my laundry andstuff.
So I think there's kind of a bigcombination of excitement and
pleasure in the work.
And Oh, a feeling ofcontentment.
I'm doing something I love forthe first time in my life.
And I'm 41 and it took me thislong to finally get into like a
career that I love and yet Iguess Just wondering like can I
(02:58):
get there?
I don't know.
That's an open question.
I don't know if I can I know Ihave the skill but there's Luck
involved and and connections atplay and things that I can't
always control So we're happyand every now and then we're
secretly like a littledespairing But then we quickly
bounce back and get it togetheragain That's my honest answer.
David Gwyn (03:19):
I love that.
I think I I've said this to alot of writers.
I really think that a writingcareer, and I imagine the
agenting career is kind of thesame thing.
It's like, it's a long processto get to one deal or, you know,
one, one, your debut.
And then it's like a race to 15novels with the hope that like,
one of them is good enough thatthen people read your backlist.
(03:40):
And then the advance gets biggeron the next one.
It is, it really feels likethat, that the publishing
industry is like that.
I imagine agenting is a lot likethat too.
It's like, yeah, I got my firstclient.
Okay.
But that doesn't necessarilymean what you think it means,
right?
Like, it's not, it's not likeall of a sudden, you know, you
get a paycheck.
It's like, now it's the nextstep and the next step and the
next step.
And you know that from thewriter's side too, it's like,
(04:00):
getting an agent is just thefirst step.
It's not the last one.
You know, and it feels like thatwhen you're on the other side of
it, but it really is just thefirst step.
Jenna Satterthwaite (04:08):
Yeah.
And something hilarious thatI've shared on my sub stack
before.
So if you read it, it might notbe new to you, but I have to
date made only 800 as an agent,eight zero zero.
And it's, I start open toqueries a year and three weeks
ago.
Yeah, that's just 800, guys.
And it's been full time hoursfor over a year at this point.
(04:28):
That's
Audio Only - All Partici (04:28):
crazy.
And I'm
Jenna Satterthwaite (04:29):
fine with
it.
I knew that going in, so thiswasn't a surprise.
I just like to laugh about itsometimes.
A bunch of contracts were justfinalized in the past, you know.
Like, 27, 26, 25 days, so thereshould be, like, actually a, the
whole, a next, the next wave ofincome headed my way in the near
future, but, I just have tolaugh, like, from the outside,
(04:52):
it looks like I did a lot, andyet, that money has still not
showed up, so, welcome topublishing.
David Gwyn (04:59):
Yeah.
And so, yeah, welcome topublishing is right, right?
That's, that's kind of how it,how it seems to go.
And, and just, just to kind ofget a sense, cause I know last
time we talked and, and forpeople who are listening, if, if
you haven't checked out the, thelast episode which I know is
really insightful, really,really interesting, I'm sure
we'll touch on some of the samestuff, but if you haven't
checked that out, definitely gocheck that out.
I'll, I'll link that in thedescription.
(05:20):
If you're listening on thepodcast.
Yeah.
And and you mentioned that youwere kind of looking for a wide
variety of, of submissions.
Is that still the case?
Have you narrowed?
Jenna Satterthwaite (05:30):
No, I am
not narrowing.
I'm so far from narrowing.
Yeah, I started with the idea ofI'll start wide.
I read widely.
I'm very omnivorous as a reader.
So we'll just see what happensand see if there's something
that ends up being my niche.
And the longer I go, the moreI'm like, no, I love the
variety.
You know, if you look at myeight an ounce sales so far in
(05:52):
publisher's Marketplace, it'sall over the place.
It's romantic, spicy, romanticmiddle grade horror.
There's like young adultdystopian, young adult romance,
like adult romance.
You know, there's, I mean, ahuge horror there.
Well, actually, all the horroris not announced yet.
Sorry.
There's a horror that's gonna beannounced.
But there's just, like, there'sno kind of consistency.
(06:13):
It's all over the place.
And that, I think, really keepsme energized and interested in
what I'm doing and reading.
I don't want to do just onething.
Some agents do.
That's great for them.
That's just not me.
I want to be switching it up.
We're doing, like, a reallycute, adorable voice.
Now we're doing a really, like,scary as hell voice.
Here's some like really gruesomebody horror and she's like maybe
(06:34):
gonna eat her lover, I don'tknow.
And oh, like here's an adorablemoment with like a ghost cat.
You know, I, I like to bouncebetween extremes.
I think it keeps me on my toesand keeps me feeling
invigorated.
David Gwyn (06:47):
Yeah.
And so we touched on this alittle bit last time we talked,
but I want to ask you again, nowthat you're even further along
and you've signed more, morewriters, you've got more books
under your belt.
So if, if genre isn't the thingthat you're focused on, what is
that?
Like, if you look at all yourclients, what is the common
thread between all of them?
Jenna Satterthwaite (07:05):
We talked
last time, I think about voice
labs in the opening pages andwanting to be surprised, looking
for something unusual.
That kind of wakes me up.
I would say that's still thecase, but the common thread is
story.
I have writers and well, I'lljust kind of say this because
(07:25):
it's the truth with a variety ofprose level skills.
I have writers who are sopolished that I have not had to
touch a thing in like line editswhere I'm just like, It's done.
Like, I just, I mean, I can tryto mess with a comma so that I
feel useful, but, why?
And then I have writers who, youknow, are still on the newer
(07:45):
side, where I'm sending a hugeedit letter of stylistic notes,
and then I'm redlining the crapout of that manuscript.
And I, I don't mean that in amean way, just, like, and I've
had that conversation with myauthors who are like, you're,
you're a newer writer, and like,here are the new writer things
that I'm seeing.
And I'm gonna help you, like,notice those, and identify the
(08:05):
patterns, and the next time youwrite a book, hopefully, like,
you know, we've leveled up alittle bit.
But prose doesn't tend to holdme back when signing someone.
I don't need the most polishedsentence of all time.
I, I want a great story.
I want a strong voice.
Because you cannot, an agentcan't go in and via, like,
(08:26):
redlining a manuscript, createvoice.
I can't make that for myauthors.
But I can fix, like, someonewho's inconsistent with verb
tenses, I can fix some past topresent tense stuff.
And fix some funky punctuation,that's easy.
But the hard part is story.
The hard part is pacing.
Does it keep me moving forward?
(08:47):
Is there a reason to keepturning pages for 300 to 400
pages?
And if you can achieve that, Idon't care if your tenses are a
little like, eh, er, eh, er,like, We can address that, and
you can learn, and we can keepgoing, but everything, the other
stuff is just so much harder tofix.
Yeah.
David Gwyn (09:06):
And it's funny.
And we're going to talk aboutthis in a second when we get to
talking about made for you.
But it's interesting to hear yousay that because I, one of the
things that came up a lot in thecommunity is like your line
level writing.
We were, we were reading your,some of your lines aloud and
talking about why they were sopowerful.
And we had a bunch of people inthe, in the community kind of
mentioned that.
And it's interesting that that'sthe thing that you feel like,
(09:26):
okay.
Like I can help somebody withthat is what it sounds like to
me.
It's like you're like, I can'thelp you with voice.
I can't necessarily help youwith pacing or, you know,
because that's that's somethingthat has to be there.
But what we can do here is isbecause that's one of your
strengths as a writer, one ofyour many strengths as a writer
that you're like, Okay, I canhelp you punch up.
a little bit at your line levelwriting.
Is that, is that kind of how youthink about it?
Jenna Satterthwaite (09:47):
I had not
thought about it that way, but
now that you're saying that,yes, I am, I wouldn't say
fastidious at a line level.
I'm not someone who agonizesover sentences, and we'll get,
we can get into this later withMade For You, but I did not try
to make beautiful writing.
My goal was to have serviceableto the point commercial prose.
And there's more to that, butthat was my intention going in
(10:10):
stylistically.
So yeah, I, I think that how doI say this?
It takes, I would say, as muchof a learning curve to get to
serviceable commercial prose asit might.
To getting to more, like, lush,more literary leaning prose.
I think they're equally valuableskills.
(10:31):
So I don't need all my writersto have my same style, but I am
good at, I think, getting those,yeah, getting those lines to be
what they need to be forwhatever style and voice the
writer's going for.
David Gwyn (10:47):
I would do want to
shift gears here and talk about
made for you and your writing.
And so this seems like a goodtime to do that.
I know, like we mentioned the,the outset here made for you.
It's been a little while sinceyou probably.
Talked about made for you andreally, really been hands on
about it.
But can you just give us like.
A quick overview of what, whatthe book is about, and then
we'll, we'll dive in a littlebit and talk about it.
Jenna Satterthwaite (11:08):
Absolutely.
Ironically, I did have to talkabout Made For You recently,
because it's coming out in theUK next month.
Oh, nice.
Yes.
And so, some of the editorsthere were like, can you write
some articles?
And I was like, whoa, oh yeah,that, okay, that book.
So, I did have a refresher,like, literally last week,
because I was putting togethersome things for that release.
But, yeah, it's a thriller,mainly.
(11:30):
I did not write a sci fi, eventhough it is being described
sometimes as sci fi.
It's a thriller with kind of asci fi speculative twist.
I wanted to write a fun mystery,fun murder mystery.
And it's about a synthetic womanwho is one of three of her kind.
She is created for a reality TVshow called The Proposal.
(11:52):
Goes on the show.
To win the heart of theBachelor, but she's competing
against human contestants whodon't actually know she's
synthetic at first.
So she kind of has that edge,but also that fear of, you know,
when are they going to find out?
Should I reveal this and at whatpoint?
Over the course of the show thisis not spoiling anything, but
(12:12):
she ends up with the Bachelor.
She wins! Yay! And they go offinto bliss, except it's not so
blissful.
They have a baby.
He disappears.
And she is accused of murderinghim so she has to go on a little
investigative adventure to clearher name and along the way deal
with lots of drama and hatersand her weird dynamics with her
(12:35):
creator.
David Gwyn (12:37):
Yeah, that's a great
that's a great summary of it.
And, yeah, we, we are thestoryteller society read it for
our book club and we reallyenjoyed it.
We had some really interestingconversations that I know
they're going to get to ask yousome questions here in a little
bit, but I, one of the thingsthat came up and one of the
things that, that I wanted totalk about and that wasn't
(12:58):
claimed by somebody else on themeeting already was, was the
structure here with the nowversus then chapters.
You see this a lot where there'smulti points of view, timeline,
things like that.
But one of the things thatstruck me a lot with yours was
how different in terms of tonethey were like the then chapter
(13:18):
her like waking up and she'swearing like a sequined dress
and she's going in a limo andlike all of these kind of like
bright shiny feel and then thethe now chapter is like her
waking up hung over insweatpants and like how
different those are and then itkind of maintains as the as the
scene as the scenes continue andI won't give anything away but
like Was that intentional?
(13:41):
Was that something that you justkind of wrote in right away?
Or is that something you had togo back and think like, do I
want to describe this in thisway?
Or hey, this is my now chapter.
I have to describe it in adifferent way.
Jenna Satterthwaite (13:52):
So I didn't
think about it.
I guess going in.
Like, ooh, I have to really tryto make these different.
They kind of just came out thatway.
Wow, that's a terrible answer.
But, let me try to elaborate andmake it more interesting
sounding.
David Gwyn (14:07):
I think it goes, I
think it goes back to, to how
you write.
I know you've mentioned thisbefore, like, you're, at least
with this, this first book,like, it kind of just came out
of you, right?
Like, you were just like, itjust, and I know you mentioned
this, in our last interview,that the way that it's published
is very similar to the way thatit, It was written originally in
a, I'm just so, I feel like,well, actually, let me, let me
ask this question.
Maybe this will answer it.
(14:27):
Like.
You, did you write it the way weread it, or did you write it,
like, all the then chapters, allthe now chapters?
Jenna Satterthwaite (14:33):
Oh my gosh,
so my plan was to do all the now
chapters, because when westarted writing it, I didn't
actually know what the murdermystery was going to be.
Literally, I was like, ooh,synthetic woman, ooh, like The
Bachelor, that sounds fun,murder.
But I literally wrote that firstscene where she wakes up without
knowing, like, who's gonna die,who did it, I don't know it just
(14:54):
felt like a compelling idea andI wanted to kind of start and
see what happened.
I did have to figure that outbefore going too far, but I
started without knowing where itwas headed.
So my plan was to discover thatthrough writing all the now
chapters in a row.
So the present timeline murdermystery.
And then I was like, once I knowwho dies and why, then I'll go
(15:18):
back and plant the right cluesand da da da da da.
But I finished that first thefirst couple chapters, she wakes
up, and then, you know.
There's the scene where shewakes up again, but in the now
timeline, hungover, hearing herbaby cry.
And then I reached the end ofthat chapter and I was like, I
don't know, let's like, do the,the limo.
(15:38):
I don't know, we'll just do thelimo.
And then literally I wrote it insequential order, even though my
plan had been the opposite.
My plan was to do the twochunks.
But it just came outsequentially, so all of the then
chapters that take place on theshow were not planned at all.
They were just kind ofspontaneous little moments.
And it all just kind
Audio Only - All Participant (15:59):
of
Jenna Satterthwaite (16:00):
worked.
I feel terrible saying thatbecause I hate it when I hear
creatives be like, Oh, like whatI just said, it just came out of
me.
Okay.
Okay, lady.
Like, that's so annoying.
But I, I do want to say, I hadbeen writing at that point for
eight and a half years.
This was like my 8th or 9thnovel.
(16:21):
None of the previous ones sold.
And I was actively reading inkind of the thriller space a
lot, which I had not beenreading in, I think I was in the
fantasy space before because Iwas writing a fantasy, an epic
fantasy, which I still hope tosell, gosh darn it.
But, you know, I would say theability to do that didn't come
out of nowhere, there was kindof a long history of thinking
(16:42):
about plot and pacing and how topiece things together that I'm
sure played into The ability tobe able to just do that, and
also, not all books are likethat.
It's also not like, oh, youbuild this ability over the
years, and then you just write abook.
Oh no, the book that I justfinished, that's gonna be the
option book for my publisher,where they'll decide if they
(17:04):
want another of my books or not.
That is a whole different story,and I won't go on too long about
it, but I wrote it, I got anidea for it like three years
ago, four years ago, from afriend.
I was so inspired that Iimmediately wrote multiple
scenes.
Then I got stuck, like, a weeklater, and then it sat for a
year.
Then, a year later, I was like,I gotta write this book! The
(17:25):
idea's there, the characters arethere.
I tried again, I got like 30,000 words in.
I got stuck.
I did not know what I was doing.
It sat for another year.
And I finished it the next year.
And
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then,
Jenna Satterthwaite (17:38):
I finished
writing it, thought it was crap,
and then it sat for anotheryear, you guys.
I'm not kidding.
So it didn't even come out ofthe hard drive until my agent
was like, What are you workingon?
Are you working on anything?
And I was like, No.
She's like, Well, don't you haveanything kicking around?
I was like, Oh, this terriblebook that I never told you about
because it sucks.
It took me three years to write.
(18:00):
So, long story short, well, orlong story long I, not all books
come out that easily, and Idon't think that being able to
write Made for You sequentially,first draft fast, that was kind
of its final form, I don'texpect that to happen
necessarily ever again,honestly.
Each book is really its ownbattle.
(18:21):
Yeah, that's my huge disclaimerwith like, this is not now my
life
David Gwyn (18:25):
Yeah, that's so
cool.
And so let's kind of transitionto that, which is what is coming
up for you next as on the writerside, on the author side.
Jenna Satterthwaite (18:34):
So many
books.
So fun.
So I have a pen name book Sothis is A Killer Getaway.
It's coming out in the UK underthe title Beach Bodies in June.
And then this is the US release,which comes out in August.
And it's a little different.
It's a thriller romance.
And it really, it delivers onboth.
It's a, it's a full romance.
(18:54):
Happy ending, and it's a fullthriller.
So yeah, that's kind of like alittle different genre stream I
have going on, and I'm hopingthere will be more fun news in
the future for that.
Can't talk about now.
And then on the, my real nameside, I have a book coming in
November in the U.
S.
and December in the U.
K., called The New Year's Party.
(19:15):
And it's a locked room murdermystery that takes place in 24
hours during a New Year's party.
And it was inspired by a realNew Year's party that my husband
and I did with friends for likea decade.
Every year we would go to thisparty, and You know, then we
started getting older, andhaving problems, and having
children.
And the party kind of fellapart.
(19:35):
But, it always stuck with meonce I started writing mysteries
and thrillers.
Like, wouldn't that be a greatSetting, kind of that concept of
friends who, you know, see eachother once a year.
Then there's a hiatus.
Come back a certain number ofyears later and it's time to
kill someone! Because we'repissed about very many secrets
and shenanigans.
(19:56):
So yeah, that's coming soon.
And that was really fun towrite.
Yeah, that's super exciting.
It's a single timeline, but lotsof POVs.
So very different from Made forYou.
David Gwyn (20:07):
Nice.
So you, you do have a lot goingon, on the writing side as well,
which is good.
You get the nice balance of thewriting and the agent thing.
That's very cool.
So Jenna, we're, we're gonna doa Q and a with the, with the
group here in a little bit, butI do want to just have you share
if people are listening and wantto get in touch with you,
definitely your sub stack too.
I know a bunch of people fromthe storyteller society, they,
when I mentioned that we weregoing to be doing this and
(20:29):
talked about your book, theywere like, Wait, I know her
because of her sub stack.
So if you want to talk a littlebit about that and tell people
where they can find you.
Jenna Satterthwaite (20:37):
Yeah, my
sub stack is my newsletter.
I publish once a week onTuesdays.
And it's about all thingsauthoring and agenting.
There's probably more aboutagenting because that is, you
know, one of my full time jobscurrently.
But yeah, there's authoringstuff too.
It's a lot of industry kind ofinsider stuff that you just
might not know, depending onwhere you're at in the
(20:58):
publishing path.
And I'm all about, like,disclosing whatever I can.
Like, my 800 story.
Like, this is how much money Imade! Let's all laugh about how
small it is.
I love, like, you know Pullingthe curtain back because it's a
very secretive industry and weall try to appear very
successful.
What does that mean?
What does that look like?
(21:19):
What's actually going on?
What are the numbers?
I, I love getting into thatstuff.
I'm also on, well, I'm still onX.
Hmm, we'll see how much longerI'm there.
But I am there! Under JennaSchmena and on Blue Sky under
Jenna Schmena.
I'm on Instagram as jenna.
sadofweight.
author.
I should have done a shortername for that, but at the time I
(21:43):
wasn't thinking.
Audio Only - All Partici (21:44):
That's
all
David Gwyn (21:44):
right.
People will find you.
Jenna Satterthwaite (21:45):
They'll
find me.
Yes.
Yeah.
So I'm kind of all over theinternet.
Nice.
Very happy to kind of engage viaall those platforms.
David Gwyn (21:54):
Yeah, so if you're
listening to this, I'll link to
some of that stuff.
Definitely the sub stack down inthe description.
And Jenna, this is, this isreally fun.
Always great a chat with you.