Arielle and David (00:00)
One way to go from rejection to perseverance is to learn how to become resilient from rejection. And the only way to do that is to keep being rejected. To learn. Like every time I this book that had that blew up.

It was rejected by 113. I was already a best-selling author. From the top of the food chain to like Bob’s publishing company, Bob lives in his mom’s basement. This guy wouldn’t publish my book. But every time I got rejected, I said to people, what can I do to make it better?

Janette (00:04)
Go ahead. Hi, Rachel.

Rachel (00:05)
Hey, Jeanette.

Today we met

the co-founders of The Book Doctors and their names are Arielle

Janette (00:16)
give so many great tips about how to publish a book for everyone. I mean, honestly, if you even have an inkling desire to write a book, you need to listen to this podcast and you also should get their book their book is called The Essential Guide to Getting Your Book Published. I think it is. Yes, exactly that. And it was published in 2005 and they updated it for the current

Rachel (00:26)
yeah.

Janette (00:37)
world that we’re in for publishing. And they both have a long they

experts in this field.

Rachel (00:43)
Yes,

there are published writers themselves. And also, Arielle was a literary agent for a very, very long time. So they know the ins and outs of going from pitch or idea to pitch to published. And if you need their help, well, everyone needs their help because it’s not

and they’re both

really warm and engaging and funny. they’ll handle you with care.

Janette (01:09)
Yeah, and be open minded because I think that was probably one of the biggest tips there was like, you need to work with people. So enjoy this interview.

Rachel (01:17)
Mm-hmm.

Rachel (01:18)
welcome Ariel and David thank you so much for coming on Lost in Jersey. We’re very excited to talk to you about all things books, literature, publishing, TV, seems, all that kind of stuff. So we’re excited to get going on that. But first, before we do, we always ask our guests.

How did you get to New Jersey? And are you from New Jersey? And if not, where are you from?

Arielle and David (01:42)
think you should start because you’re the native. Totally. I was born in Dover General Hospital 100 years ago. No, wait, that’s not right. I was born in Dover General Hospital. My parents are immigrants. They moved to New Jersey to explore the American dream. I was born here for the first seven years of my life. I lived in New Jersey. I honestly never thought I would come back. I lived all over America.

Janette (01:51)
Wow.

Rachel (01:53)
Yes.

Arielle and David (02:11)
then when we found out we were pregnant, well, she was more pregnant than I, I said immediately, we got to move back to the East Coast because both of her parents are here. I never had grandparents and I wanted my kid to have grandparents. we have to move back to the East Coast. And she was very happy to do that. And at the same time, we told people we’re moving back.

Janette (02:16)
you

Arielle and David (02:34)
One of her clients, who’s now our best friend basically, said, ⁓ live in a house with

two family house, the other side of the wall, these old people want to sell their house and you can get it in. It’s falling apart inside. You can get it for a song, but we’re here and moved to Montclair, New Jersey. And I’m like, my God, I’m a Jersey boy.

Janette (02:48)
That’s the deal, right? Everybody wants that deal, yeah.

Rachel (02:51)
Bye.

Arielle and David (02:57)
going back to Jersey and I’m so happy I did. I love living in the Garden State.

Janette (03:02)
it’s full circle. So and now you’ve been here. How long have you been back?

Rachel (03:02)
great.

Arielle and David (03:03)
Yes, the circle of life, yes.

For almost 18 years now. The longest place I’ve ever lived now in Montclair.

we had no idea how many amazing artists of all kinds, particularly writers, editors, you shake a tree and an editor and an artist, and a musician falls out of it in Montclair.

Janette (03:22)
Yeah, it’s

Rachel (03:25)
That’s true.

And then a new one is born every second.

Arielle and David (03:27)
Yes,

am from the city

I’m going to admit that I had Jersey bias. That’s the same that all New Yorkers have,

Janette (03:35)
Yes.

Rachel (03:36)
Yes.

Arielle and David (03:38)
And part of the reason for that is I grew up on the way upper west side at 119th Street. was such a wonderful neighborhood to grow up in. And when we came, when we decided to move back east, we did look in the city, but first of all, we couldn’t afford anything.

we came and looked at Montclair, I felt like it was so reminiscent of growing up on the Upper West Side in the seventies and eighties when I grew up and the artists, the musicians, the small shops,

Rachel (04:07)
and

Arielle and David (04:09)
that kind of community. So I now have no desire to move back to the city.

Rachel (04:11)
Yeah.

Janette (04:15)
the reason that you came on my radar is that we live in the same town and I saw that you did a is it a pitchpalooza at the library recently

and tell us a little bit about how you got into it and

you know, maybe give us some tips, give authors or people tips in this industry. But first, tell us how you got into becoming the book doctors is what I’ve seen. Whose idea was it and how did it come about?

Arielle and David (04:43)
So originally I was the writer, she was my agent. And then we got married and she fired me as a client.

Janette (04:47)
Mm-hmm.

Probably a idea.

Rachel (04:51)
Hmm. Were

you an unruly client or it’s just like maybe it shouldn’t be?

Arielle and David (04:55)
Terrible

terrible terrible so bad. I’m hopefully I’m better husband. He was an amazing client before he became my husband. Yes.

Rachel (05:04)
makes sense.

Arielle and David (05:05)
a book called The Essential Guide to Getting Your Book Published. We had to figure out a way of promoting the book. It’s nonfiction. our publisher at that time, Workman, the greatest publisher, sent us on a 25 city tour. So what are we going to do?

Janette (05:08)
Mm-hmm.

Arielle and David (05:20)
came up with an idea that came from a party where there was a bunch of drunken writers pitching her books because they found out she was an agent. I’m like, ooh, we should do an event where writers get a minute to pitch us their books. And we, the experts, would critique their pitch in a kind and gentle way to let them know how to make it better. And we’d have a winner at the end and we would turn that winner on to an agent or a publisher who was right for their work.

And the first one we ever did was at the Strand bookstore, 18 miles of books. And there was a line outside, we were very nervous. Like, is this gonna work? Pulitzer had like put out petty forers and everything. And he was all nervous, Peter Workman. There was a line outside and I’m like, that’s probably for, they’re doing a grumpy cat event or something. Like, what are you guys waiting for? We’re here to pitch our book, man. I’m like, what? It was packed

Rachel (05:55)
you

Arielle and David (06:11)
it was so fun and so amazing. And we heard incredible pitches from all kinds of people. And at that moment, I thought, this should be a TV show. And as soon as I came off the stage, someone said, dude, you should make a TV show out of this. we did, man. Wait, I’m going to stop you because you’re going too far in advance. So because they asked about the origin of the book. So that was in about 2005.

Janette (06:31)
Thanks

No, I Okay.

Arielle and David (06:38)
the meantime, I’d actually left publishing and I started a company called Little Mismatched that sold socks that don’t match.

Rachel (06:46)
I saw

that and it’s so awesome because my daughters always loved wearing mix max socks. They don’t ever wear them as a pair.

Arielle and David (06:54)
Exactly.

So I had this company and we had a lot of success we sold the company to a large private equity company which then fired me.

a one-year-old daughter at that point. So was kind of a blessing in disguise because

to be home and we got to be home together because David was working from home at that point. And we had this event that we were doing all around the Pitch-a-Paloozas. And so we said, you know what, we’re just going to start a business because so many people need help getting their books published.

We discovered there was an enormous, huge swath of the population that wanted to write books from 12 year old kids to 95 year old Navy veterans and everything in between all different kinds of people. So we set up a consulting business that helped people from idea through and past publication of how to get successfully published. And we have this book as David mentioned as well. So that was like our calling card was

We had this doorstopper of a book with all this information. And the Pitch of Paloozas became this incredible event that we did everywhere from rural Alaska, where we got a grant to go to tiny libraries, some of them in towns as small as 40 people, to major cities, to every place in between. And what we found was,

is that book publishing basically publishes people who have connections to book publishing. You gotta need somebody to get in the door. The gatekeepers don’t want people that didn’t go to, you know, that aren’t their uncle or their cousin or went to an MFA program or Harvard. We were discovering the most incredible talent. Amazing.

Janette (08:36)
Exactly.

Rachel (08:46)
Right, right.

I’m sure.

Arielle and David (08:52)
South Dakota, Wichita, Kansas, you name it. The border of Mexico and America down in the Southwest. And because these people were so talented, we were helping them to get successfully published. Some of those people have now gone on to be some of the most award-winning, best-selling authors today.

Rachel (09:01)
Bye.

incredible, that must feel so good.

Arielle and David (09:17)
best feeling. It is the best feeling. And so now to tie it back to what David was saying about people saying, oh, you got to make a television show out of this.

so people then were like, we don’t want to watch people writing. And we were like, we don’t want to people writing. we are not teaching people the craft of writing. What we do as book doctors is we are teaching people how to go from talented amateurs to successful

Janette (09:33)
Yeah.

Arielle and David (09:45)
professional authors. these principles apply to any business you want to start, anything to do, whether it’s being a plumber or being a writer or being a lawyer, you got to figure out how do I take my skills and find an audience for what my business is,

who I am and what I do successfully. How do I get clients? How do I keep clients? How do I grow a business? These principles apply to so many different fields.

Rachel (10:13)
question on that. Just the audience because, I took a writing workshop when I lived abroad for two years in Amsterdam and it was the first time I’d ever taken any sort of writing class and I loved it. But I remember there was this conversation back and forth about, do you write with an audience in mind? And then a lot of people are like, no, never do that. Never try to tailor your stuff to an audience.

And then people who would not tailor anything to anybody else being frustrated that they could never get published. What is

rule for audience awareness?

Arielle and David (10:45)
It’s

a balance that has to be struck.

thing is, that we live in a different reality than we’ve ever lived in before when it comes to artistic creation. And in publishing right now, if you wanted to get published by a publisher that you know the name of,

Penguin Random House, Simon and Schuster, et cetera. Having a great book is a very small piece of the puzzle. My terrible joke about that is the best way to get published by Mr. Harper and Mr. Collins are to walk in the room with one of the Kardashians and someone from the Lego Corporation. That’s how you get a book deal. It’s so sad to say that, but those giant publishers are looking for it because they’re all owned now by corporations. So we would love to say

Janette (11:29)
Right.

Arielle and David (11:30)
Never think about your audience. Just write whatever you want to write. And you can that. you don’t care about getting published. Or publish yourself. Yeah. you don’t. That’s a. Yes. And used to be self publishing was the redheaded stepchild of the publishing business. Not anymore. Every publisher is has somebody in their organization who scours self published authors who’ve become wildly successful.

Rachel (11:38)
Yeah. ⁓

Right, you could self-publish, right.

Janette (11:46)
Yeah. Yeah.

Rachel (11:48)
No.

Arielle and David (11:56)
That’s another way to get a good deal. that’s the key thing who have become wildly successful. the vast majority of people, not just who self-publish, who get published are not wildly successful. what we teach in workshops, the point of the Pitch-A-Palooza is really to help people understand the business side of this because

Because we want their art to thrive, they have to understand, and to your point of this class, if you don’t know who your audience is, where they are, there’s just so many barriers.

we also define success as whatever it means to you. You might just want to have a book for your grandchildren.

Janette (12:34)
So.

Rachel (12:37)
Right.

Janette (12:43)
Mm-hmm.

Arielle and David (12:43)
Pass

on. That’s a success for you. You don’t need Mr. Harper and Mr. Collins to do that. We can do that.

Rachel (12:49)
Exactly.

not needed to make your living because, they will say, guess Liz Gilbert always says, don’t depend on your art for income.

Arielle and David (12:53)
That’s what I’m saying.

Right. mean, some people, we get emails that say, I’ve just taken a second mortgage on my house. And when my comes out, I’ll be able to buy an island. We’re like, no, don’t do that. No. So many people who want to make a living as a writer. And we always say, like, I have a list of different ideas that I want to make into books. And I analyze. Like some books I say are love books. I just do them because I love to do it. And I don’t care if I sell a copy.

Rachel (13:12)
Yeah.

Janette (13:16)
Mm-hmm.

Rachel (13:28)
Yeah.

Arielle and David (13:28)
books

are books that I really think have a chance at breaking out. And weirdly, the books that are my love books are the ones that have blown up. The biggest attention I had for a book was one that was so outside of the mainstream of publishing. There was no chance that this was going to blow up. And yet it ended up on the front cover of the Sunday New York Times Book Review. So you don’t know.

Rachel (13:54)
Whoa,

You have to let it out into the world and see.

Janette (13:54)
that point about.

So I think that, yes, I agree that I think many people have different reasons why they want what they want to get from their book publishing, but I do think most everybody wants it to be read and it to be seen and for people to take notice in some way. And of course, New York Times bestseller is always the, you know, the cherry on top, right? Everybody wants that. But let’s just say you’ve written a book.

and you’re ready to start putting it out there. What are the first things that you would tell someone that they need to, mean, like there’s the title, there’s the pitch. What are the, what’s the basics?

Arielle and David (14:32)
So what’s interesting is I would start way before the person has written. when considering your idea for a book, and this is again, not if you’re just like you have something in you, you have to get it out, doesn’t matter, but you wanna try and sell a book. That the first question we ask is why are you the person to write this book?

going to take an example. Let’s say you’re a nurse and you’re writing a health book that is nonfiction based on your years in the health care industry and you have something to say based on your expertise. Okay, that’s great. That makes sense. Let’s say you’re a nurse and you’re writing a thriller

the main character is a nurse.

because you’re a nurse, you know things about the nursing industry that could make a great plot, right? that all makes sense. You’re the person to write that book. But let’s say you’re writing a health book, but you have no expertise in health whatsoever. Or I’ll say we get this all the time.

Janette (15:27)
Mm.

Rachel (15:28)
Yep.

Janette (15:38)
which I think happens

nowadays.

Arielle and David (15:39)
There’s so many people who want to write

kids books and they think that their authority is, I’m a parent and I told a story to my child that they love. That doesn’t make you a person to write a kids book. yet every day it seems like we get an email with people saying that. second question is, who is your audience?

Rachel (15:44)
Yes.

Janette (15:48)
Mm. Mm.

Arielle and David (16:01)
the time we hear queries or pitches where people say, this is like no book ever written. This is a book for everyone.

that’s the kiss of death. It is.

Janette (16:12)
Don’t say that say that this is unique or what?

Arielle and David (16:15)
If you’re saying it’s unique, you could be like, you know, my audience is the love steampunk romance, which is a very like specific thing that where there’s a very clear audience and easy to reach them because they they listen to the same channels, social media, all that kind of stuff. But you could say mine is unique because it, you know, it takes on the plot of a George Eliot novel.

Janette (16:25)
Mm-hmm.

Rachel (16:33)
Hello?

Arielle and David (16:43)
or something like, you know. So what we always say to people is we want something that’s unique and yet familiar. If it’s too unique, you’re like, what is this? I’ve never seen anything like this. I don’t even know what this is. people are going to distance themselves from that. If it’s too familiar, it’s a cliche. Yeah. So you take something that is, and the way you explain this to people, it’s like this, but it’s different.

Janette (16:51)
Okay, okay.

Mm-hmm.

Arielle and David (17:11)
like that. And we call those comp, we’re using comp titles, comparative titles.

Rachel (17:17)
I was going to ask about that because I know that in film and TV that’s a lot of times what the pitches are. It’s like Legally Blonde

Arielle and David (17:25)
one of the greatest ones in movies

Jaws in outer space. It’s the greatest pitch. That’s the movie Alien. Yeah. Right now, I’m reading the book and I’m saying it’s like catcher in the rye if Stephen King told it.

Janette (17:32)
Mm-hmm.

Rachel (17:33)
Bye.

Janette (17:41)
Mm-hmm.

Arielle and David (17:42)
Super teens represent Catcher and Rhyme, alienated sarcastic teenager at a boarding school. Stephen King, supernatural crazy things are gonna happen. Yeah. And comp titles signal where a book is gonna end up in the bookstore. And they also show your depth of knowledge of your category of book. So people say, this is Harry Potter meets the Bible. Then you’re like, you don’t know anything about your category.

Janette (17:50)
Okay, so.

Arielle and David (18:05)
But if they dial down to something very specific in the middle grade area or whatever, then we can see, okay, you read in this area, you know who your audience

Janette (18:06)
Okay.

Arielle and David (18:17)
know what the competition is for your book. It’s a shorthand of letting, you know, if you want an agent, if you want a publisher, they’re overworked. They need a way to explain it to other people.

Rachel (18:20)
Right. Right.

Janette (18:20)
Okay.

Arielle and David (18:29)
Then if those two things resonate, then they unpack it and go into the details of it.

Rachel (18:35)
So

you have to package the pitch and package your idea in a way that it makes it really simple for the publisher to understand what to do with you and what to do with it.

Arielle and David (18:46)
And when you say what to do with you, you have to understand what to do with you. Yes, you do. Because the publisher, even the biggest publishers, they really, they’re more like a printing and distribution service. And except for the biggest authors, you are not going to get a marketing and publicity plan. So really on the author’s shoulders and all of these things that we’ve talked about.

Janette (19:05)
Yeah.

Arielle and David (19:10)
the bio, the competition, the comps, the audience that turn into your publicity and marketing plan, all of those tools funnel into that. And a lot of amateur writers, talented amateurs, have this still this idea, like we get people saying all the time, once my book is out, I’d be more than willing to go on Good Morning America. available at any moment. that’s great because.

Rachel (19:34)
was worried that you might have a conflict. But I think it’s also because we’ve grown up with, or at least for me, I’ve grown up with envisioning the publishing industry a certain way due to film and television and reading The New Yorker or whatever. And then I would assume that sort of fantastical vision of, okay, well, once I land this,

Janette (19:36)
Yeah.

Arielle and David (19:47)
like

Rachel (19:57)
then I’ll get that and then it’s just, you have to follow these

it’s good that you’re breaking it down and saying, actually, no, that’s not.

Arielle and David (20:04)
we should talk about blurbs, know, the little thing on the of the jacket that’s somebody else saying you’re awesome, which as we all know is better than you saying you’re awesome because it leaves you.

Janette (20:07)
Yeah, slurbs.

Rachel (20:13)
Yes.

Arielle and David (20:14)
The greatest blurb you can have is when someone says, this is a great book. It’s like this meets that it’s on book now and somebody else said it. ⁓ and we say, get a blurb before you even go to an agent. So that’s the first thing they read at the top of the email. Someone else, a bookseller or doesn’t even matter who a doctor, whatever. you, Steve, the,

Janette (20:24)
Mm-hmm.

No, that’s such a good tip.

Rachel (20:30)
you

Arielle and David (20:37)
The Stephen King came from somebody else. An author friend that David asked to blurb his book. So there you go into the agent’s office with somebody else already saying how awesome you are.

Janette (20:50)
That is really good advice. So you have to then ship your book out to some people to give you a blurb before you even start the pursuit of a publisher.

Arielle and David (21:00)
Well, let’s

talk about building what we call a dream team. Writing’s a solitary affair most times, but we tell people, join a writer’s

Janette (21:04)
Okay.

Rachel (21:04)
Yes.

Arielle and David (21:11)
first thing I do when I go to a new city, I went to San Francisco, we moved there, I got into a writer’s group. And among the people there was this guy who was ridiculously handsome, so talented, so nice, so kind.

You’re like, if this guy gets a break, he’s going to be huge. Well, his name is Khaled Hosseini and he The Kite Runner.

I’m friends with the guy. And if you look on The Essential Guide to Getting Your Book Polished, there’s a blurb from Khaled Hosseini.

Janette (21:32)
Yeah.

Rachel (21:36)
Yes, now it’s good to know how that happened.

Janette (21:37)
I don’t know

if I saw that.

Arielle and David (21:39)
And joining a

writers group also, I think it was every Tuesday I was in this writer group, by about Sunday I’m like, oh God, have got to have something good to come in with.

Rachel (21:50)
So that does keep you accountable.

Arielle and David (21:52)
And

to that point, Haled, when David met him, was an emergency room doctor with two young children. And he would get up at four o’clock or four thirty every morning to write for an hour before he had to get the kids ready, all that kind of stuff. then do surgery for ten hours. And that’s how he was able to produce in order to have his wonderful books. So on your dream team, go join a writers group.

have somebody who’s a cheerleader, who loves what you do and knows how to articulate how awesome you are. Have a Debbie Downer who can articulate why you suck in a really concise and educated way. Have somebody who is good with graphic design so you can send stuff out that looks really cool. And I have about 10 writers that I send them my stuff and they critique it for me and I…

I read their stuff and critique it for them. It’s super important to have a lot of different people read your work before you send it out. And a lot of people think, someone’s going to steal my work. No, no one’s going to. That’s one of the biggest things that we hear is, I’m not going to share my work with anyone because

Rachel (23:05)
They’re afraid of the idea of being taken.

Arielle and David (23:07)
That to me is the single best way to never get published.

Janette (23:13)
Well, I also think that there’s also a protection, a self protection going on that they don’t want criticism. They don’t want someone to change what their vision is. And it’s just a protectionary thing too. And I think that you’re saying that that’s probably a bad thing.

Arielle and David (23:17)
Yeah.

Yeah.

So let’s speak to that for one second, because rejection and perseverance are two sides of the same coin. One way to go from rejection to perseverance is to learn how to become resilient from rejection. And the only way to do that is to keep being rejected. book that had that

up.

It was rejected by 113. I was already a best-selling author. From the top of the food chain to like Bob’s publishing company, Bob lives in his mom’s basement. This guy wouldn’t publish my book. But every time I got rejected, I said to people, what can I do to make it better? Oh, you need a better title. So I made a better title. Oh, you need some stars from this little world you’re talking about. So I got a couple of stars. by the 114th time,

Janette (24:11)
huh.

Arielle and David (24:20)
I sent it out to the right person finally. This thing was so tight because every time I got rejected, learned a little something about my book. ⁓

Janette (24:30)
Well, I have a question about that really quickly before.

So you said you send it out to 113. I think you’re exaggerating, but okay. okay, by the time you have crafted your revisions and made it all this tight, haven’t you run out of publishers? Do you go back and start sending them again to the same people and say, I’ve made some changes. Can you take a look again?

Arielle and David (24:37)
No, no, I can show you the list.

You actually

can do can but that’s highly unlikely. That’s not how I did it. I told you I would.

Janette (25:00)
So what did

you, how did you, is there 114, like that 114 clearly wasn’t the one you wanted, right? I mean, it was.

Arielle and David (25:07)
Oh, so

that was that’s part of the interesting part of the story and this goes back to all the other things that we’re talking about about audience and you know finding the right match for your book. So the best publisher for you is the publisher

Janette (25:21)
Yeah.

Arielle and David (25:25)
who specializes in your kind of book and knows where your audience is. Also, continuously, well, like whenever I would meet somebody or see an old friend, they’d go, what are you doing? Well, I’m writing a book and here’s what it’s about. I tell everybody, this isn’t a piece of advice I give to any writer. When someone asks you, what are you up to? Your answer is, I’m writing a book. And if they ask you, and only if they ask you, what is the book about? You got one minute to tell them what your book is about, because you never know.

Rachel (25:39)
Mmm.

Janette (25:46)
Mm-hmm.

Rachel (25:46)
you

Arielle and David (25:55)
You might be talking to somebody whose cousin works for HarperCollins. This happened to me on an airplane. And you don’t want to be the person who goes, what my book is about? it’s about a dog and a guy and this really cool stuff happens. And 10 minutes later, you’re like, the dog does this to the guy.

Janette (25:59)
Yeah. Yeah.

Arielle and David (26:14)
I finally

at a midnight movie in New York, I ran into an old friend. said, she said, what are you doing? thought, I’m doing this book and here’s what it is. She said, I’ve got the perfect person for you. And I’m like, awesome. And I sent it to the perfect person. Within a week, I had a book deal. Yeah.

Rachel (26:30)
my goodness.

how, as you were saying with writers, like Jeanette was saying, writers are protective and a lot of times introverted and all of this, it’s like going against their nature to be sharing everything with everybody and talking to everybody and coming up at that elevator pitch, because a lot of times they’ll feel like, well, but there’s so many details I’m leaving out.

So good that they can come to you and your book and figure out actual steps to take in order to get there because it will not come naturally. It doesn’t come naturally to me.

Janette (26:59)
Mm-hmm.

Arielle and David (27:04)
And again, this is across the board. you want to, you have a product you want to launch, you have a restaurant you want to open any of these things. most people don’t go out and get the necessary advice or training or what have you. And then their restaurant is closed in three months.

there’s no like secret sauce. And, and I really do have to say, and we talk about this all the time, 90 % of it is perseverance above everything else. And, we say there are two kinds of perseverance. There’s smart perseverance and stupid perseverance.

Rachel (27:39)
It’s really hard to know which one.

Arielle and David (27:41)
But

we’ll give you an example of stupid perseverance. We say, I’ve sent out the exact same pitch to a hundred people and no one has responded. Well, I guess I’ll send it out to a hundred more. No, no, no, no. You got to evolve it and learn how to make it better.

Rachel (27:44)
Okay.

Janette (28:00)
Mm-hmm.

Rachel (28:01)
Okay,

Janette (28:02)
so you’re the called the book doctors. people can come to you, can hire you. Is it the both of you that they hire? Do they come in? it like therapy that you sit down and you say, where are you at? I’m gonna do 10 sessions to get myself from this funk of not being able to publish. How does it work?

Arielle and David (28:19)
So

we, it’s both of us and then we also have a small team of other people and we all have specialties that we do. So depending on the type of book that it is, so David is far more fiction based than me, I’m far more non-fiction based. But for example, the two of us and our colleague Laura Shenone all do memoirs.

So, you know, so there are certain things, but depending on what the memoir is about, we would choose who is the best person. And then we also have a couple younger people on staff who do what we call beta reads, which are just like a quick read with a short letter to tell you, are you on the right track? Are there certain, and it’s much less expensive. And then we also have someone on staff who helps people find

the right publisher for them and the right agent for them. Because that kind of research can be really, really difficult. So depending on what you’ve cut, like David and I both work with people on pitches across the board.

Janette (29:16)
Yeah.

Arielle and David (29:23)
Pitches slash query letters. Some clients we have once a week, we meet. Right. And for these writers, they know they have to have something prepared. And I give them, some people need deadlines.

Rachel (29:35)
How often do people come in where they have their idea and then you actually help them shift that idea to something else?

Arielle and David (29:43)
master

of Yeah, that’s, that’s my like, that’s doing that and setting up the structure for a book. I’m the I’m the daughter of an architect. That to a literary, literary, like my favorite thing to do. And sometimes people come with books that are all over the place.

Rachel (29:56)
Good luck.

Arielle and David (30:02)
A skill that I have is to be able to see thematically how all the stories fit together and how they build climax, finish, all that kind of stuff. David has such a gift for language and the musicality of some prose and for stakes. How do you build the stakes up?

So that you can turn the page. Yeah. Well, when I first came to Ariel as a writer, I didn’t know her at all. I had written what really was an experimental novel, and I didn’t even know it because I didn’t know how to write a book. took me nine months to get her as my agent. That’s another story for another day. But finally, when we had our lunch, you know, writer

Rachel (30:29)
raise our stakes.

Arielle and David (30:52)
agent lunch and she eventually said to me, what is this? Usually first novels are about someone’s life. Did you really murder four of your stepfathers? I’m like, no, didn’t at all. No. She said, well, what is your story? And I told her my real book I wanted to write that I was too scared to write about horrible things that happened to me when I was 17 years old, like unspeakable, terrible things.

Janette (31:03)
It’s fiction!

Rachel (31:13)
Yeah.

Arielle and David (31:19)
And she’s like, David, that’s the book you have to write. And so I abandoned that other book and went about writing this memoir. And then this memoir became a national bestseller.

Rachel (31:23)
you

Janette (31:30)
became yeah and a

lot your whole life kind of

and all kinds of things.

Arielle and David (31:35)
It also helped to heal

me from these horrible, traumatic things that happened to me. was essential in my redemption, the love of a good woman and a good agent.

Janette (31:44)
You did

Rachel (31:46)
Amen. And they’re the same person. I mean, how lucky is that?

Arielle and David (31:48)
⁓ That’s

the shocking thing. ⁓

Janette (31:49)
That’s pretty

great. Well, this has been so helpful. mean, I think I can completely see why there was a line wrapped around the building and why it’s been so successful. You guys give such great tips you are the expert in this. So I can see why it’s working.

Rachel (31:55)
Like this one.

Arielle and David (31:59)
You

Janette (32:07)
that want to ⁓

Arielle and David (32:07)
I just want to say one more thing before we sign off.

Rachel (32:09)
Yeah, yeah.

Arielle and David (32:10)
That we,

15 years, I pitched this television show. 15 years.

Janette (32:16)
Yes.

Rachel (32:17)
Is this the America’s Next Great Author? Yes, I wanted to ask you about this. I’m glad you brought it up.

Janette (32:20)
Yeah.

Arielle and David (32:21)
And

finally I got Ariel on board and then we got one of her partners, Kwame Alexander, who’s an amazing, like a force of nature. Then he got on board and then once we had that team, then we built this whole giant team of amazing people and we pitched it to so many places. I can’t even tell you.

Janette (32:24)
Yeah.

Rachel (32:29)
yeah.

Janette (32:29)
Yeah.

Arielle and David (32:42)
and we finally found a streamer called canopy with a k and they have a gigantic catalog of tv and movies they are the worldwide partner to libraries

Janette (32:47)
Yeah.

Arielle and David (32:56)
streaming, television, and movies. So was a perfect fit. We’re doing a story, a show about books and they’re with libraries. And they’re such a great partner. And we signed the deal. We’re in pre-production. We’re having meetings every day. And it’s just so exciting that now the show is evolving into something else. And it’s a very similar thing. You know, we thought we wanted Hulu or Netflix or whatever. But actually, this is the…

Janette (33:03)
It’s the perfect fit.

Rachel (33:04)
Amazing.

Janette (33:10)
That’s exciting.

Arielle and David (33:24)
the streamer that’s our core audience. It’s very cool thing.

Janette (33:27)
That’s

Is it gonna be like American Idol for books or something like that?

Arielle and David (33:34)
here’s our elevator pitch it’s top chef meets Queer Eye. And the reason for that is that it falls a similar format to Top Chef, but there are no eliminations because we are trying to build community and help people grow, not.

Janette (33:52)
Mm-hmm.

Arielle and David (33:53)
not

to tell them to go home. Yeah, don’t take your knives and leave. So the whole point is for the group of people who end up in the house to support each other to get to a place where they can all help each other get. And then in the end, we will have a winner who will get a book contract and a publishing contract. So sign up for America. You can go to our website for casting calls and all of that.

Rachel (34:06)
love that.

Janette (34:17)
Okay, great.

Arielle and David (34:20)
americasnextgreatauthor.com. We’ve got a newsletter, all that kind of stuff.

Janette (34:26)
That’s the ultimate book club or group, power group to get involved in there. You have that kind of support to get your book done. That’s amazing. Well, that’s exciting.

Arielle and David (34:29)
Yes, totally.

Rachel (34:35)
It is.

so congratulations on that. That’s huge.

Janette (34:40)
So before we close out, thank you.

Arielle and David (34:40)
Thank you. This was so fun, by the way. You guys are really fun. Thank you.

Rachel (34:45)
Thank

you. This was such a great conversation.

Janette (34:48)
But we do have one last question. Our last question is, please tell us something. that you love about New Jersey.

Arielle and David (34:49)
Yeah.

Rachel (34:50)
Yeah.

Arielle and David (34:56)
Okay. So I have, I have an answer for this and then a little plug at the end. We, I grew up in New York city. Then we moved to the Bay area for seven years and we lived on a block similar to the block we live on in Montclair. And we did not know any of our neighbors, one single person in California, so radically unfriendly and unneighborly. And we moved to Montclair.

Janette (35:01)
Okay.

Rachel (35:01)
sure.

Arielle and David (35:22)
And like within the first week we had cookies, hangfights. I’m like, Ariel, why are these people bringing me potlucks? What do they want from me? And she’s like, no, they’re being friendly. They’re being neighborly. I’m like, oh my god. And I just find sometimes, you know, New Jersey New Yorkers can be a little rough or whatever. But the warm heart is there in a way that is so…

Janette (35:43)
Yeah.

Arielle and David (35:50)
David, I love the Bay Area for many things, but I would never want to live there again for that reason. So I think it’s super special. And my plug, maybe our plug, is very obvious for us, which is Wachong Books and was going to say that’s my place. You took my line. the first people that we went and introduced ourselves to when we got here, it’s the most special community hub.

We need it in the face of the Amazons of the world. Please don’t buy your books on Amazon and go to watch on booksellers. You know, she stole my entire speech that I was going to give at the end about watching them.

Janette (36:28)
Well, you

will be very glad to know that whenever we have an author on, our link on our website always links to Watch Home Bookstore.

Arielle and David (36:36)
Woohoo!

guys. I have to make one more plug. The winner from Montclair from two years ago is Mr. Gill, Dan Gill, a teacher from Glenfield who taught at Glenfield for 53 years. His book is coming out. The one that he pitched at the Pitch of Belusa. The first week in July from Little Brown for young readers.

Rachel (36:47)
Alright!

Janette (36:47)
Yeah,

I know.

Arielle and David (37:01)
It’s called No More Chairs. It’s so beautiful. It’s so explicit. Yeah, so I hope everybody will go and pre-order the book and help Dan create a bestseller out of this super important story for the moment. time where the world is filled with hate and hate. Yes,

Janette (37:05)
I’m so excited about that.

Yes, we should have him on ask him to come on the podcast.

Arielle and David (37:21)
guys are awesome. Thank you for having us.

Janette (37:22)
Thank you so much

So great to meet you both.

Rachel (37:24)
Thank

you so much for coming on. This was such a great conversation. We appreciate it.

Arielle and David (37:29)
Thank

you.

Janette (37:29)
All