Why Your Perfect Manuscript Isn't Enough And What to Do About It with Author Tamara Miller

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Tamara Miller's debut thriller INTO THE FALL has launched her career with a two-book publishing contract. 

But her path from government policy analyst to published author wasn't built on talent alone. 

It was strategic business thinking that made the difference. 

In this episode, Tamara Miller reveals the approach that got her agent's immediate attention and explains why treating your query like a business proposal changes everything. 

She also shares some immersive writing techniques that keep readers turning pages. 

Whether you're struggling with submissions or wondering how to make your manuscript stand out, this episode’s practical insights will shift how you think about the publishing game.

What You'll Learn:

• Why query letters must be business proposals first, pitches second
• The "equation" for writing immersive scenes that hook agents instantly
• How to research and position your book for commercial success

Click here to learn more about Tamara Miller

Guest Bio: Born in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Tamara L. Miller earned her PhD in Canadian history before embarking on a career working for the federal government. Miller began as a doe-eyed policy analyst and eventually moved into an executive role with the Government of Canada. She later left public service, older and perhaps a little wiser, to become a writer. Tamara is past president of Ottawa Independent Writers and has written several articles published online by the likes of CBC and Ottawa Life Magazine. Into the Fall is her first novel.

Over the years, the author has called many Canadian cities home but now lives in Ottawa with her family and two long-suffering cats. She’s always been fascinated by the raw beauty of the wilder places in the world and escapes to them whenever possible.

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Episode Transcript

David Gwyn (00:00):
So congrats on into the fall.

(00:02):
Can you tell us what thisstory's about?

Tamara Miller (00:05):
Sure.
At its heart, it's, it's thestory of a marriage that meets
the wilderness.
I would say.
Sarah Anderson is camping withher family.
And they take this trip at aperiod in their marriage where
they're looking for something tohelp save the marriage.
But as you all know, thewilderness contest everything.

(00:25):
And it does so in this casebecause when she wakes up, her
husband Matthew has disappearedand left her with two kids
stranded in the Canadianwilderness with no way out.
And so the rest of the novel isan unfolding of her search for
Matthew.
And as she digs deeper into hispast and where he may have

(00:47):
disappeared, she learned secretsabout not only his past, but as
well secrets come to light abouther own slightly tortured soul,
I guess you could say.

David Gwyn (01:03):
Yeah, that's a good, that's a good summary.
I, I like that.
And so talk a little bit aboutwhere this story came from, how
you got the idea of the story.
Are you, are you a a Canadianwilderness person?

Tamara Miller (01:12):
I am,

David Gwyn (01:13):
yeah.

Tamara Miller (01:14):
I am.
So yeah.
I've adored the outdoors eversince you know, most of my adult
life I've spent time camping,canoeing, hiking.
In the wilderness.
And I am from Canada.
I live in Canada.
So I've explored various facetsof, of this country.
But the idea for this book cameabout, oh, long before the idea
of actually writing a novel evercame to light.

(01:35):
I was literally in a verysimilar situation, not that my
husband disappeared, he's okay.
It's all fine.
But I woke up early one morning.
We were on a canoe camping trip,and my kids were little around
the same ages as the kids in,into the fall.
And I, it was quiet morning,calm lake.
Beautiful.
And I don't know if you've everbeen up up here on the Canadian

(01:55):
Shield, but there's granite.
Cliffs that kind of gently gointo the water.
There's loons calling.
It's, you know it looks like agroup of seven painting again,
Canadian reference.
But it's pretty beautiful.
It's pretty calming.
But this thought popped into myhead that what if.
My husband wasn't here.
What if suddenly I, you know, Iwoke up and he wasn't here to

(02:17):
help.
Because you think of all the,there's a lot of rigmarole that
goes into camping andparticularly canoeing, and it's
hard to do with two peopleespecially when you have kids.
That basically brought me intothe first scene of, into the
fall.
That opening chapter was almostwritten at least in my head,
sitting on that rock.
And then it just built fromthere.
But I will say it took me yearsto get there.

(02:40):
But that was sort of the, the,the kickoff for this.

David Gwyn (02:44):
Yeah, that, that's very cool.
And, and can you talk through alittle bit of that kind of
circuitous process?
Going from that idea, standingon, on the beach, looking at the
water all the way to now you'rein publication mode.
How did you go from idea tofirst draft, let's say?

Tamara Miller (03:02):
Well, I'd always written some of it, like my
background is in history.
I'd written history.
I worked for governments workingas a, as a policy analyst for
years.
And then when I left government,I retired from governments.
And I'm gonna say I retiredearly.
The gray hair may fool you, butI did retire early.
And I knew I knew how to write.

(03:23):
History, and I knew how to writea mean briefing note, but
fiction was something very, verydifferent.
And of course, like mostwriters, I'd been a lifelong
reader.
And so my first step was reallyto start learning how to write
fiction.
I, and that comes in a varietyof ways.
I took workshops, I tookclasses, I I practice, practice,

(03:44):
practice.
You know, you write.
I found writing groups.
I found writing peers.
I joined and eventually becamethe president of Ottawa
Independent Writers.
And, you know, I attendedworkshops.
I really worked on developing mycraft because as much as I loved
fiction and as much as parts ofit are an art, there's also a

(04:06):
learning curve.
There's also a fundamentalstructure.
There's a lot to learn when itcomes to writing fiction.
And then when I felt that I hadthe building blocks I needed,
that's when I started working onon a novel.
And through that process, I alsolearned that I am a very bad
short story writer.
So it had to be a novel or itwasn't gonna be anything.

(04:28):
And quite frankly, when I, whenI started, I just told myself,
you know, my goal is to writesomething that I think is worth
reading.
And then as often happens inlife, okay, you've achieved that
goal.
Now what's the next one I wannatry working towards.

David Gwyn (04:41):
Yeah.

Tamara Miller (04:41):
And then I eventually found my way to Lori.

David Gwyn (04:44):
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's really cool.
And, and we were, we weretalking before we were recording
here, I, I had the opportunityto talk to, to Lori as well
who's your, who's your literaryagent.
And she had a ton of reallylike.
Glowing things to say about,about you and your writing and,
and the work that, that you did.
And I, I think one of the thingsthat came up in that
conversation, which, which Ithink is really interesting, is

(05:04):
how much she.
Really felt immersed by youropening pages and just kind of
immediately were you, she wasbrought into the world that you
were creating.
Is that something that you findthat you just naturally are able
to do or is that something thattook a lot of refinement over
over the course of a few drafts?

Tamara Miller (05:24):
I definitely had to learn how to, to write that
way.
I, I think I've always beendrawn to fiction that that is
that way.
I think when people have saidthat, it's, it is very
immersive, it's verydescriptive.
There's a bit of a, a, for lackof a better term, an equation
because you want it to bedescriptive, but not so
descriptive that people start toget bored.
You wanna pick out those littledetails that someone is, you

(05:47):
know, they're sitting in theirliving room or they're, you
know, sitting at their kitchentable and there's this little
detail that allows them to dropinto the scene and, and sit.
Beside your characters.
And sometimes it can besomething as simple as a blue
balloon or something verysimple, but very present and
very relatable.
And so I think that's what Ispend a lot of time doing when

(06:08):
I'm writing.
You know, you'll start with thedescription and the whole adage
that less is more.
I really spend a lot of timesort of working on what are
those details that really matterthat will really, really connect
with a reader and bring theminto the story.
Make them feel present, but notbore them.
You, you don't like, as much aswe all sing the accolades of, of

(06:31):
Charles Dickens, that kind ofwriting can go on for a long
time.
And I never want my readers tofeel like they gotta skip a few
pages because it's just gettingtoo much.

David Gwyn (06:43):
Yeah.

Tamara Miller (06:44):
So it's about that.
Plus, I mean, I was writingabout a part of the world that I
actually.
Really adore, and so it's a biteasier to sort of slip into to
that admiration in the tone ofthe writing as well.

David Gwyn (06:56):
Yeah, no, that, that makes a lot of sense.
And, and it's, it's funny asyou're just talking about your
process, I feel like I noticedthat without noticing it, and
now I'm like, thinking back to,to the work that you did.
I'm like, oh wait.
Yeah, you did use that kind ofstyle of.
Really, really tight.
Kind of like if you're thinkingabout it like a camera, like
tight camera lens on like a fewsmall, little important details

(07:19):
that then when you zoom out, Ithink you're right.
It has that effect of making mefeel like I'm there because I'm
not just picturing on a macrolevel the scene, you know, hotel
room.
Lake, whatever it is.
Like it's a, there's these likevery, very small pinprick focus
in a lot of ways on what, onwhat's happening in the scene.
And I think it does, I thinkthat is I like the word you used

(07:41):
equation for, for how to pullsomething like that off.
If, if only it was a mathequation, So I'm curious, kind
of shift gears a little bit andtalk about the businessy side of
writing as, as a debut authorwho's had a ton of success, I
mean.
I think like 22,000 reviews onAmazon.
I mean, that's phenomenal.
Can you talk about what was yourprocess?

(08:01):
'Cause obviously, you know,writing is a, is a creative art
and then you've gotta think alsoof the business side of it.
Did you think about them inseparate, like how, what was
your process like, thinkingabout not just your writing
life, but also your, your kindof career as a published author?

Tamara Miller (08:18):
Well, yeah, that's a good question.
When I was writing, I wasn'treally thinking about the
business end yet because, youknow, you're told repeatedly as
a writer, the idea of ofpublishing is, is like it's
competitive and it's hard and,you know, you gotta be in for
the long haul.
And, and so you kind of stealyourself for the fact that, you
know, this might not happen.
I'm, I'm gonna try because it'ssomething I wanna do.

(08:40):
It's a dream.
I'm gonna push towards it, but.
Maybe I'm too much of apragmatist, but it may never
happen.
And, and I need to accept that.
And so I really didn't startthinking about the business side
of things until I had themanuscript and then it was,
okay.
The next step in all this ispitching and sort of going

(09:00):
through how do I wanna get itout into the world?
Do I wanna self-publish?
Do I wanna go through an agent?
Do I wanna go directly to thepublishing houses?
So I had to do a little bit ofthinking about who I am as a
person and what I'm capable ofand what I'm prepared to do for
this.
And I came very quickly to agentbecause I did not know the
business.

(09:21):
I did not have the wherewithalor, or quite frankly, the tools
to learn enough about thebusiness to, to really push this
forward.
I had no connections.
So I quickly went to the agentroute and then, you know, you
kind of do your research, you doyour research in terms of your
agent, but also in terms of whatis it you're getting your
yourself into and, and, youknow, you refer to it as

(09:42):
business and, and it very muchis a business relationship.
And that's the important thing,like even the query letter has
to be a business letter aboveall else.
Yes, you have to have a goodpitch.
Yes, you have to have goodtaglines.
Yes, you have to have goodcomps, but.
You're really trying to convincesomeone to go into business with
you.
And so you, I kind of approachthat the, the query process in

(10:07):
that way, but I'm still learningabout the business of
publishing.
It's a bit of a black box.
You have to kind of be acceptedin before that they'll open a
lit little bit.
And it's interesting becauseI've recently, through, through
a writer's organization here.
I recently did a, a, a littleseminar on how to query and how

(10:29):
to get your manuscript ready forquerying.
Mm-hmm.
Because so many writers thinkthat, oh, I just have to have a
really good book.
But you could have the mostphenomenal book in the world if
you don't approach it with thatbusiness lens when you put it
out there.
It's not gonna go where youprobably want it to go.

David Gwyn (10:45):
Yeah.
Yeah.
And I think, I think it's, it'sinteresting too because when
when I talked to Lori your agentearlier, one of the things that
she talked about was not justyour manuscript, but also your
query letter and how your queryletter for her ticked off all
the boxes of the things that shewas looking for.
And I think that goes kind of toyour point where that's the
query letters, the business sideand the right, the manuscript is

(11:07):
the writing side.
And like they blur certainly.
The, the lines between thoseare, are blurred, but I think
you're a testament to somebodywho did the work to ensure that
you're putting your best footforward.
And not just in your writing,but also to show that you are,
you know knowledgeable about theindustry and about the agent
that you're pitching.
Which, which is reallyimportant.

(11:27):
What's, what's been kind of the,maybe the most surprising part
of being a debut author?

Tamara Miller (11:32):
Well, I've been really lucky in that my
publisher is Thomas and Mercer,and they are a full, like,
they're a publishing house justlike the Big Five, but they're
owned by Amazon.
And so what that has meant forme is that as a debut author, I
kind of have them might ofAmazon marketing behind me.

(11:52):
And so it also helped that I wasselected for Amazon First Reads
in January.
So it just sort of took off fromthere.
So that has been really shockingas a debut.
I keep, I keep joking a littlebit.
Like when I first started thisventure, I thought that I might
get picked up by a littleCanadian press and maybe I'd

(12:13):
sell a couple hundred copies.
So what has been achieved so farwith this debut is like, so
beyond what I had allowed myselfto hope for.
That I, I joke that it's, it'skind of all gravy in many ways,
but the problem is, is once youget there, then you kind of
wanna continue.
You wanna be able to keepdelivering.

(12:37):
Yeah.
You want to keep the the bookgoing.
And, and I have been lucky thatI've met with some production
companies that are interested inoptioning.
Wow.
So that will hopefully provide alittle bit more a little bit
more attention to the book.
We'll see what happens in thelong run.

David Gwyn (12:51):
Yeah, no, I love that mindset.
I think that mindset's reallyimportant where you wrote this,
especially the first draft, atleast you wrote it for yourself.
I think that's important, youknow, to write something that
you feel really drawn to and youwould like to read and then and
then kind of have, the beliefthat I just want this to be
something that some people aregonna like.

(13:13):
I think sometimes it becomes.
A lot of writers like, I, youknow, I want it to be this and
this, this, and like, that's toobig.
That's like exhausting to thinkabout and I think you're trying
to plea, you know, if you'retrying to please too many
people, that can be, I imagine,very paralyzing.
And I think for you kind ofgoing through those stages of,
I'm just gonna write this forme, and they're like, okay, I
enjoy this.
Like it's good enough thatmaybe, you know, I can write it

(13:33):
for somebody else.
Like let me put in a few thingshere and there to meet genre
expectations or that something,make it a little more
commercial.
For some people it might belike.
Cutting some words or addingsome words, right?
Like that's, you know, to meetthe word count requirements.
But doing that and, and thengetting into a position where
you know, you can have the typeof success you had is, is I
think really a testament to thatkind of step-by-step mindset

(13:56):
that you had which I think isreally, really important.
And so kind of to go right offof that, which is what are you
working on now?
What's next for you?

Tamara Miller (14:04):
Well, I was really lucky that the contract I
have was a two book contract.
I will tell you, there'sapparently, which nobody told me
before I started this, butapparently it's very common for
the second book to be tougherthan the first, because with the
first book, you have all thetime in the world and no
expectations, and you can, youknow, sort of do what you want.

(14:25):
But the second book, you have adeadline..
And you have expectations tomeet.
So I am pleased to say that Idelivered my manuscript to my
editor a couple weeks ago.

David Gwyn (14:35):
Congrats.

Tamara Miller (14:36):
So, and she likes it, which is even better., So,
yeah.
So I'll be heading intorevisions for my second book.
It is completely different fromthe first one, different
characters still domesticthriller genre, But it's
different, different characters,different part of the world,
although still Canada, because.
I dunno.
Write what you know.
Right.

(14:56):
Plus I think there's always afascination with the Canadian
wilderness.
Lots of people share it.
And, and so some of my writingis driven by the fact.
Years ago I I was in theCanadian Rockies and I overheard
someone on the phone who anAmerican, talking to someone
back home presumably saying thatlike just.
Talking about the accolades andhow beautiful it was and, and
how wild it was.

(15:17):
And they said, you know, it's,it's even more wild than our
Rockies.
And I kept thinking it's thesame chain of mountains, but
there is a fascination with theCanadian wilderness that seems
to do well in markets outside ofCanada So the second book is
definitely setting Canada andand it's similar.
I'll give you a little insidepeek that someone goes missing.

(15:40):
And and it still happens withina family and the trauma that the
family goes through

David Gwyn (15:47):
Yeah.
Very cool.
Well, this has been so much fun.
I, I really appreciate youtaking the time to chat.
My last question for you is justwhere can people find you?
Where can people look you up?

Tamara Miller (15:56):
Well, you can check on my website.
It's by tomorrow, miller.com.
So pretty simple.
And I'm also on Instagram andand Facebook.
So Instagram is at TL Miller2018.

David Gwyn (16:09):
and I'll link to some of that stuff below to
quick access.
If, if you're listening, checkthat out.
Cool.
So thanks again for taking thetime to chat.

Tamara Miller (16:16):
Thanks so much.