…with Ella McLeod
Show Notes
- Life as a freelancer! Such joy!
- Transitioning to authorship
- Balancing multiple creative careers
- Audio rights in YA versus adult fiction
- Readerships and audiences in different YA categories
- The whiteness in publishing, issues of diversity and rep, with a ton of nuance and thoughtful input on Ella’s side
- USA versus UK publishing culture
- Advice for aspiring Black authors
- Ella’s question for S&S!
Links
Transcripts (by Sunyi Dean)
[00:00:01.690] – Sunyi
Hi, I’m Sunyi Dean.
[00:00:03.690] – Scott
And I’m Scott Drakeford.
[00:00:05.900] – Sunyi
And this is the publishing Rodeo podcast. In 2022, we both launched debut novels in the same genre with the same publisher in the same year. But despite having very similar starts, our books and subsequently each of our careers, went in very different directions.
[00:00:21.970] – Scott
That pattern repeats itself throughout the industry, over and over. Why do some books succeed while others seem to be dead on arrival?
[00:00:30.570] – Sunyi
In this podcast, we aim to answer those questions and many more, along with how to build and maintain an author career.
[00:00:38.490] – Scott
Everyone signing a contract deserves to know what they’re really signing up for. In an industry that loves its secrets, we’ll be sharing real details from real people. We’ll cover the gamut of life as a big five published author, from agents to publishing contracts, finances and more.
[00:00:59.970] – Sunyi
I need to start checking that people have Chrome, because you had two people in a row that didn’t have Chrome browser.
[00:01:05.400] – Ella
Anyway, yeah, my day job is podcasts, so when I saw the Riverside link, I was like, Chrome.
[00:01:13.840] – Sunyi
I was interested in that.
[00:01:15.540] – Ella
Yes.
[00:01:19.510] – Scott
I saw that on your profile. Oh, one thing. Sunny is awesome at editing, and she edits out any dumb stuff I say or anything you want to take back, et cetera. Thank you. Don’t be afraid to take advantage of that process. But, yeah, I mean, Sonya, if you’re okay with it, I want to hear about the podcasting as a day job. Now, that’s really interesting.
[00:01:41.630] – Sunyi
Do you want to tell sorry, introduce who you are and explain everything about you and yeah. The podcasting side, which we’re totally interested.
[00:01:48.600] – Scott
In for selfish podcasting books. Yeah, right. Yeah. Can you tell us how to do this?
[00:01:54.370] – Ella
You guys are doing great. You’re doing such a good job. No, you truly are. Yeah. I’m Ella McLeod. I’m the author of Rapunzella or Don’t Touch My Hair, which was my debut. I published with Scholastic in the UK. Last July. And, yeah, my day job is podcasting. I picked two really stable careers. It doesn’t require looking for work or dealing with delayed invoices or anything like that, ever. It’s really easy going and chill.
[00:02:23.310] – Scott
Very easy to monetize.
[00:02:24.890] – Ella
Yeah, 100%. Yeah. My parents love that for me. So when I went to Universe you’re going to get my life story.
[00:02:37.070] – Scott
Now I want the life story. That’s great.
[00:02:40.370] – Ella
My whole life, I’d wanted to be an actor. That was my thing. It was kind of the thing I was known for as a kid. I went to stage school on Saturdays and was in every school play and was like, that very much that child. And then I went to university. I went to Warwick, which is a university here, and I did English and theater. And my whole plan was like, when we get out into the world, I’m going to be an actor. And then I did it for, like, two years and was like, this fucking sucks. This is the worst. I found it really difficult and, I mean, clearly I’m Mercedes because then I decided to be a writer. But in that moment I was like, yeah, the rejection is really a lot right now. Casting directors are brutal, and after several auditions, and by several, I mean, like, over two years, probably about 20, which is a lot for the self esteem, but not enough to feel like you’re a working actor. It’s great. I was, like, walking into room after room seeing people that were essentially like hotter versions of myself and then being told that I was a poor typecast of the typecast that I was being typecast.
[00:03:50.370] – Ella
I was like, Maybe this isn’t for me. So I kind of had to go back to the drawing board a little bit because I’d wanted to do it since the age of like, four and was kind of like, oh, I don’t actually really know who I am. I don’t want to act. So I started looking kind of acting adjacent. And I was really into storytelling and I liked kind of politics and current affairs and interesting narratives. And so I just did freelance stuff in, like, TV production, researching political comms, just like that sort of space. And then it was like playing a game of hot and Cold. Like, what do I like about this thing? What do I hate about this thing? And I just edged closer to audio and that format of storytelling, and so that’s kind of how it happened. And then I was, like, working full time at a production company called Something Else, which has just been bought by Sony. And then I went freelance around the time I got my book deal because it was kind of funnily enough. Podcasting also isn’t well paid, as I found that I was doing a job that I loved but was quite demanding in terms of hours and then finishing work really late and then having to write a book.
[00:05:01.740] – Ella
So I was like, okay, well, maybe I’ll try freelancing and sort so that’s sort of what I’ve been doing since.
[00:05:07.650] – Sunyi
If you get anyone to pay for podcasting, I’m impressed. I mean, I think part of our issues, I think we sort of decided early on the only sponsors we were really interested in was like, Scrivener or Writer’s Tears Whiskey. And then we did absolutely nothing to approach these people and just couldn’t be bothered. So we just fork out for the cost.
[00:05:24.710] – Ella
I can help you with that if you like, because it’s quite there’s a format to getting sponsorship that when you know it is actually quite doable. So we can talk about that after if you want.
[00:05:35.980] – Sunyi
Well, we might try, I think, because we were only sort of month four or five, and I’ll sort of I don’t even know if we’ll go beyond a year, but we’ll see.
[00:05:43.230] – Ella
Okay.
[00:05:43.870] – Sunyi
And I remember when you were mentioning chasing up invoices. There was a period after uni where I did freelance editing and trying to get people to pay you is like the worst experience. So complete sympathy.
[00:05:57.020] – Ella
I’m so glad that maybe is like the first thing I want to is going to be a takeaway that I say on this is like if you are someone that is responsible for the paying of invoices, pay your freelancers. And you know what’s so annoying as well is that I know because I’ve been the person that’s had to pay invoices before and I always did it so promptly. But it’s so annoying because it’s like I know that for you it’s just like clicking a button and typing in a code and it’s just that you’ve forgotten to do it because you’re busy. But that’s my rent. That’s me getting my electric shut off. You know what I mean?
[00:06:33.390] – Scott
Corporations will delay payment on purpose until the very end of the terms. I don’t know if you have the same types of terms because delaying payment means that that cash sits in their ecosystem for longer.
[00:06:50.790] – Ella
Wow.
[00:06:54.370] – Scott
Especially in the startup world. Right. But you hear a lot of advice of like, don’t pay your bill until the very last day or don’t pay your bill, period and see who comes knocking. Yeah, I mean, it’s pretty awful.
[00:07:07.770] – Sunyi
I was just dealing with individuals. But I remember I had this one lady that because I was like editing masters and PhDs and stuff like that for foreign students. And I went through her Master with her. Like it needed so much work because we get a lot of foreign students who don’t necessarily have the English but they have like a ton of money. That sounds really bad, but it is a thing because of how the exchange the UK exports degrees.
[00:07:31.640] – Ella
It’s like really dark, right?
[00:07:33.390] – Sunyi
So they are for sale. And if you have enough money, the fact that you basically have no English literacy is not an issue after a certain point anyway. So I went through with her and she insisted on meeting in person to pay me. I was like, all right. And she showed up with her fucking husband and this guy was like, I’m not paying you that. It’s not worth it. And he gave me like half and it was like really threatening, right? And I was like, okay. And then she came back two months later and she’s like, oh, I’ve got another project. You’re going to work with me. And I thought, oh, my God. No.
[00:08:01.610] – Ella
You kidding me.
[00:08:04.410] – Sunyi
So glad to not do that anymore.
[00:08:06.130] – Ella
That’s wild.
[00:08:07.220] – Scott
Yeah. Sony. We don’t have to include this in the actual episode, but I will handle that. I do not have a problem kicking in some doors and being a jackass to get money if we need to.
[00:08:20.240] – Ella
And I’m the person that kicked and I’m now the person that will do that as well. My sister said that. My sister jokes that if I was a white woman, I’d be a Karen, but because I’m a black woman, I’m a Rhonda. And now we say whenever I’m having to have a go at someone about paying and I do it for my friends, they pass me their emails and like, Ella bring out Rhonda and Rhonda comes out in full force. Like it’s been 29 days, my terms of payment are 20 decks. I really don’t care.
[00:08:46.730] – Sunyi
No, this is the way you have to be, otherwise people just get away with stuff. Ridiculous. Anyway, sorry. Yeah. And podcasting, the wonderful stable world of the publishing.
[00:08:59.870] – Scott
One thing I am curious about, Ella, just because I don’t have an ear for accents, especially UK accents, sony can tell you that I have made some really dumb comments even just in our short tenure, however, I mean, your voice is genuinely lovely. Sony’s back there giggling.
[00:09:22.470] – Ella
Thank you so much, I appreciate that.
[00:09:25.990] – Scott
The only thing that comes to mind where people can actually get paid in our world on a regular basis seems to be narrating audiobooks. Have you thought about getting into that space?
[00:09:38.830] – Ella
I have thought about it. Look, at this point, I’ll do anything if they pay me. My aim would always be eventually to be able to narrate my own. That would be a dream for me and it’s something that me and my agent are sort of pushing for. But weirdly, the way I’m told anyway, the way that audio writes sell because I write Ya as well, that’s an important piece of context. The way that it generally works for Ya or for children’s literature is that audio rights get bought as a package, so it’s rare for a standalone to get acquired for audio rights. So my second book comes out next year and so supposedly that’s when my audio rights will be a thing and we’ll look at audiobooks.
[00:10:27.710] – Sunyi
That’s weird.
[00:10:28.510] – Scott
Yeah, that does sound OD, yeah.
[00:10:30.780] – Sunyi
So you don’t have audio until the next book comes out?
[00:10:34.000] – Ella
Supposedly, yes, this is what I have heard.
[00:10:36.440] – Scott
So is that something particular? I’m googling a few things as we speak now, please. So is that something that was sold to you as being particular to the Ya market then?
[00:10:48.740] – Ella
Yeah, I guess the Ya and children’s.
[00:10:50.600] – Sunyi
Market maybe teens don’t listen to.
[00:10:53.360] – Ella
I think that is I’ve also been told that what I’m given to understand is that if you sell an adult novel, audiobooks will either go immediately or they won’t go at all, basically. Whereas it’s a lot harder to get. Yeah, it’s a lot hard to get ya turned into audiobooks, apparently, I assume. Yeah, because teens don’t listen to audiobooks as much, obviously they’re quite costly to make and then they just don’t sell as well.
[00:11:28.170] – Scott
I could buy that, right? Maybe that’s real. I will say I’m not trying to, you know, speak ill of anyone, Scott. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I will just say, and I think I’ve mentioned some or most of this on the podcast, so it shouldn’t be new, but Tor took audio rights with my three book deal, and it was just an assumption that because they took it and we’re printing quite a few hardcovers, et cetera, that they were going to make a book or an audiobook Right. And as you said, in Adult, maybe it’s more common to happen with the first book rather than wait to see how it does and get the second book out. However, I was told that the avenues have been exhausted. And then Tor was very cool about reverting the rights, thankfully. And we got interest almost immediately when my agent went out to the companies himself, the audio companies himself. Interesting.
[00:12:32.030] – Ella
What I will say is I retain my audio rights. Like, I still have those. So my publisher didn’t buy the audio rights.
[00:12:37.660] – Scott
Okay, so have you submitted the audio rights anywhere or are you kind of holding on to it to see?
[00:12:43.140] – Ella
So the conversations that I’ve had with my agent are that yeah, they had a look, they had a chat again, apparently with Ya, it’s very difficult for it to be a thing. And the feeling is that we’ll do two at once.
[00:12:59.350] – Sunyi
Does it depend on the kind of Ya? Because I remember at York, people were discussing with me that basically you have upper Ya, which is 16 to 18, you’ve got lower, which is kind of 14 to 16. And upper Ya itself is divided into the ya that actual teens, like my partner’s youngest daughter would actually read. And then half of that ya is women my age reading it.
[00:13:19.820] – Ella
Yeah, like the smuffy Sarah J. MAS stuff. Right?
[00:13:22.340] – Sunyi
Yeah. That probably gets audiobooks.
[00:13:24.830] – Ella
It does, yeah, for sure. And I’m lower ya.
[00:13:28.370] – Sunyi
Okay, right. Like proper children.
[00:13:32.870] – Ella
No, actual the aim is that actual children kids will read it. Okay. So that’s the sort of like part of the market that I occupied. But it’s been such a weird my whole kind of way in was so OD. And I think I didn’t realize how odd it was until after the fact and then retrospectively been like, oh, yeah, that’s really weird. Particularly because before you debut, I don’t know about you guys. I mean, actually, this is also true, the fact that because my experience has been weird, but before I debuted, I didn’t know any writers. I wasn’t in any writers groups. I didn’t have any writer friends, or at least any novelist friends. So I’ve learned everything as I’ve debuted, which has been really interesting. And I think it’s been really interesting. I think I’ve got quite lucky considering how blind I went in, which is good, I would say. But it’s also been a real revelation because I’m trying to think of how to okay, I’ll start at the beginning and then you’ll see what I mean up top, like adore my agent and my editorial team. And I think I have to say that out the gate.
[00:14:54.150] – Ella
And I think that’s why I’ve been really lucky, is that my agent has my back at every turn, and that’s great. And I have a really lovely editorial team at Scholastic. Why I say it’s been weird is that in 2020 I don’t know if you guys saw the statistics went out at the beginning of 2020 that said that in children’s literature, books are eight times more likely to have an animal as a protagonist than a Black person. Did you see that study?
[00:15:19.200] – Sunyi
No.
[00:15:19.890] – Ella
Yeah. So that was a thing in 2020. So eight times more likely to have an animal as a protagonist than a black person. That’s what we were looking at at the beginning of 2020. Then the middle of 2020 happened, and George Floyd was murdered, and there was a huge BLM resurgence. And suddenly everybody from every industry ever, from advertising to MNS to publishing to film, was scrabbling to prove that they supported Black creators. And what this did, at least in my experience, was create, like, two types of interest. The interest from people where the desire to uplift Black creatives was genuine, and there was, like, a genuine reckoning with mistakes that had perhaps been made in the past. And then there was, like, the very performative allyship. And so as a Black creator creating in that time, it really felt like I was walking this tightrope of like, am I going to form relationships with people that are going to be lasting, or am I going to form relationships with people that are going to drop when this moment is over? And where I say I got lucky is that I think I did form relationships with people where the desire to support me and uplift me was genuine.
[00:16:33.230] – Ella
But I also think that that was, like, not an accident, because when I was looking at agents, I did the thing where I looked at what kinds of writers they had on their books. And my agent represents a poet called Grace Nichols, and I love Grace Nichols. She’s one of my favorite poets. And I kind of thought, well, if this is who Grace picked, then I want do you know what I mean? That was my sort of thinking. And then with my publishing house, Scholastic, obviously, they’re a mid sized publisher. They’re a publisher who have spent a lot of time in schools, which I think is hugely important as a children’s publisher. So they’re not just, like, selling to parents. They’re really in touch with the Scholastic book fair is a big thing internationally, and they really have that sort of on the ground desire to increase access to literature. And that was something that was really important to me when thinking about who I would want to be published by. Because and we’ll talk about this later, I’m sure there is a failure to reach young black kids, like, across the board in publishing.
[00:17:43.900] – Ella
There are lots of reasons for that but I do believe that Scholastica Publishing has trying to overcome that. So yeah, I started writing my book when I was at Uni. It was my dissertation and then in the pandemic, all the TV work and stuff that I was doing dried up and I got made redundant and sat at home with nothing to do and was like, oh, maybe I’ll try rewriting this thing. And I was like writing poetry and putting that on the internet and started submitting stuff to agents. And this is where I’m aware that it’s not like usual because I think I heard back from my agent in like three weeks and was signed by the end of the month. And then we worked on the book for maybe for five months and then I went on Sub and got an offer within like four weeks. And I’m aware that that’s not usual, particularly because we went on Sub with a partial and I got an offer for two books and I think that what is happening concurrently there is like good luck but also timing. There was an appetite for topical work by topical people and in 2020 I was a topical person.
[00:19:02.460] – Ella
Being black was really topical.
[00:19:05.550] – Sunyi
I was glad you wanted to talk about it, actually because I never would have asked you to speak on that. Just because I know that basically in my debut I started finding everyone wanted to talk to me about autism and nothing else. And I thought, you can fall into this trap of everyone pigeonholing you. So I thought I wouldn’t ask. But then you volunteered, and I was like that did interest me because something I was aware of in our podcast, like, when we initially started out. And it was just like, we didn’t think anyone, more than a handful of people would listen. And it was just like our friends and some random people we knew. And I was aware that our early guest list was very much I hope no one’s offended by this. A mayonnaise buffet and sorry, Scott, love that. And you know, and it that kind of reflects a lot what I see in publishing as well where it was like lots of different flavors of white guy and lots of Asian people that I know from kind of East Asian circles. And there were some black and brown authors that I talked to and they were a little wary of coming on.
[00:20:13.260] – Sunyi
I think they felt like their position was more precarious in the industry because it is. Yeah.
[00:20:18.620] – Ella
And I feel like the only reason because we had this conversation and I think the reason I feel like I can even say this is because I’ve been really supported by my agent and editors. I think if I’d had a difficult experience with my publishing house or my agent, I wouldn’t want to talk about it because I’d be like, oh, I don’t want to get screwed somehow. But what I mean to say is my experiences of how of being affected because of my race in this industry are far more systemic and in a way that makes it easier to talk about in a platform like this. Because I’m not like pointing a finger at an individual because there isn’t an individual. And that’s why it’s hard to change.
[00:21:04.230] – Sunyi
You don’t have to rock the boat.
[00:21:05.710] – Ella
I don’t have to rock the boat. But it also makes it harder to change because if I could just point at some one bad guy in a big five and go, it’s their fault that publishing remains pretty white and flawed, then that would be great, wouldn’t it? We could all go catch the bad guy and then we’d have no problems. But it’s so much more nuanced than that, and it’s so much more complicated than that, even that statistic. And then the thing that’s been really interesting as well is that since 2020 so in 2020, there was a massive uptick in particularly in children’s literature, bestsellers by black authors. I think there was something like a 17% increase. And then between 2000 and 22,021, there was a 31% decrease. Okay. Because of my mother.
[00:21:52.390] – Scott
Oh, wow.
[00:21:53.180] – Ella
Yeah. So it’s telling. It’s really telling. And I think that that’s because and this is something that I have felt like trying to think of the right way to phrase this. When you’re black, writing a story about black people with a black person on the front cover, it somehow feels niche, or like what you’re doing is niche. There’s this like it’s an issue book. Yeah, exactly like it and like, no one ever suggests that books about white men are only for white men. Books about white men are mainstream, but books about black women are for black women and our niche.
[00:22:42.050] – Sunyi
Yeah. Actually that segment to a question I was going to ask you about, which has to do with the UK US divide, but also how the marketing approaches it, because there were some certain fantasy titles which I won’t name, but which were published recently, and the US versions had black characters on the COVID Which publisher then went back and changed those covers because they believed it was kind of completely hamstringing the sales? So they had to remove because for those who don’t know, for fantasy and Sci-Fi fantasy Sci-Fi genre, we tend to have portrait kind of covers for American books. People there like to see faces or figures. The UK likes to have text or graphics, which is why it was kind of a US thing. The US cover had a black character in the front and the UK cover didn’t. And yeah, I think you mentioned that the UK and US markets were different and just what your experience of that was.
[00:23:41.940] – Ella
Yeah, I think god, okay, so this is an example for Black History Month in I’m trying to remember if it was the US one or the UK one, I think it was a US black History Month last year. This year. Yeah, in February this year, when it was the when it was Black History Month in the US. I was like, oh, it’d be really fun on TikTok to put together a list of my favorite UK ya fantasies by black authors, because, yeah, let me do that. And at the time and I did exhaustive research, there were like five, including me, and they were myself, natasha Bowen with her Skin of the Sea duology. Who else? I think I put Alexandra Shepherd’s. Oh, my Gods. Which is, like, sort of not even really fantasy, but I put it on there because there weren’t that many shannon Smarts, which is steeped in gold, femi odubas the upper world, and myself. Yeah. And it was so interesting because I did this video and I was like, oh, I really wanted a nice juicy list, but this was all I could find. And then people in the comments were like, what about this one?
[00:24:58.910] – Ella
What about this one? And I was like, They’re American. They’re American. They’re American. Yes, of course. I’ve heard of Tommy Adiyemi. She’s American. And I think that paints the picture, basically. And I think the reason for it and this is what I mean by like it isn’t like it’s one person. I think the reason for it is that for a very long time, the fantasy that has done well in the UK is based off a kind of medieval England reimagining, and it’s overwhelmingly white. It’s so overwhelmingly white that when anyone tries to change that, like with The Lord of the Rings recent series, people get very angry at the thought of a black hobbit, which is hysterical because they don’t exist. And so we have these stories that are sort of based on a medieval England, medieval Europe aesthetic with different magic systems and races and languages, but all of those races are kind of a version of white, and all of those languages are a version of a European language. And anything that approximates blackness or brownness tends to be incredibly racist and offensive and othering.
[00:26:09.190] – Sunyi
Sorry, go on.
[00:26:09.990] – Ella
No, that’s the problem. Basically.
[00:26:17.030] – Sunyi
I won’t name it, but I did go to a con here once, which I don’t know if it was just that year, but there was a single black author at the con that was in the UK. And I did attend a panel there that was on World Horror Fiction. Every panelist was Caucasian, and they were kind of aware of it and discussing it during the panel. But it was a little bit like I think someone might have dropped the ball on this horizon.
[00:26:46.770] – Ella
I think Britain as well. I mean, again, this is a wider issue, but in general, I think America has been forced to confront its history with racism in a way that Britain hasn’t, because slavery literally happened on American soil. That does something to the way that you reckon with the fallout from that time, whereas Britain has always been able to say, oh, that’s a problem over there. It’s a problem of Britain’s making, but it’s happening over there to those people. And so when black writers write fantasy and use fantasy, as they so often do, as, like, a tool of radical reimagining, I think that’s quite confronting for a lot of people. And I did a panel at Comic Con in May with Natasha Bowen, who’s wonderful, and someone asked and I was talking about using magic as a force for reimagining and how the book that I wrote is me wrestling with having an identity that only exists because of this traumatic, hideous thing that happened in human history. Because my family from Jamaica, I live in Britain, my grandparents came over on the windrush. My whole conceptualization of what it means to be black exists solely because of the transatlantic slavery.
[00:28:14.710] – Ella
It’s not like I have family in Ghana or Nigeria or any part of West Africa that I can tangibly identify with. Like, my surname is McLeod. So I was having that conversation and talking about using fantasy to work through these themes of homegoing and identity and coming of age and place, things that are explored in fantasy by most fantasy authors. And someone asked me, like, oh, but don’t you think that you should just sort of make peace with the fact that those are things that are part of who you are? And I was sort of like, see, this is the thing. You want me to make peace with it, and I can process it, but I don’t have to make peace with it. I can still be angry about it. And that’s the art that happens as a result of that. So I think that also a lot of the problem is that in Britain, there’s, like a cult of politeness where no one wants to sort of say anything that might be a bit too offensive or cause an argument, and we’re all just so like, oh, sorry. No, I didn’t mean it. No, sorry.
[00:29:20.870] – Ella
Just no, let’s talk about these things. Nothing will change otherwise.
[00:29:26.630] – Sunyi
Do you have any particular advice to kind of black authors or writers who are working their way through this industry? I guess especially in regards to marketing, promotion, interacting with industry professionals. That’s kind of a broad question and.
[00:29:42.880] – Ella
Really hard because I don’t even think I’ve figured it out yet. I don’t know. I think you have to pick the thing that you kind of the unfortunate truth. And I’m always trying to find a way of this not being the reality, and I fail at every term because I get frustrated. But unfortunately, when you’re a black writer, when you’re a writer of any kind of minority group, really, but there’s something to be said for passing. For example, if you’re gay, you maybe aren’t visibly gay, whereas if you’re black, who. You are is politicized on site. That’s what I mean. And maybe there are other identities where that isn’t necessarily automatically the case, but when you’re black, it is. And as a result of that, when you’re a black creative, you are always creative and advocate in a way, because unless you want to be the only black person in the room, which I never do, you’re always going to be called upon to sort of try and reach out a ladder to people coming behind you. And that’s fine. It’s enraging, but it’s fine. And I’m more well placed than other black people to do that.
[00:30:54.050] – Ella
My position isn’t as precarious as other black people. I have a book deal. I have a good team. I think you’ve depicted the thing you really care about for me, because I write Ya, it was about young people and reaching the attended audience of my books. So I go into a lot of schools. I’m with a publishing house who, when they were pitching to me, said that school outreach and their relationship with schools is something they really prioritize. And that was something that was really big for me, and that was a real selling point for me because I was like, yeah, excellent. You’re going to get me into the schools where they probably don’t get a lot of author visits, and I’m going to be able to actually talk to the versions of myself that I was writing to. I’m going to get to talk to the black teenage girls who have never seen a black girl on a front cover of a book and say, like, here, this is for you. Literally put it in their hands and be like, Read this. So I think you have to pick the space that you really want to occupy and then really occupy it.
[00:32:06.330] – Ella
Like, noisily, obnoxiously occupy it. And then also surround yourself with people that you really trust to have your back and to be in your corner and to yeah, that is what I would say. Really hard to do.
[00:32:22.990] – Sunyi
Either of you seen Archer, by any chance? Cartoon, you know, the episode where they the mar, what’s her name? Marjorie, whatever, is the lady that runs the spy agency, and they hire this guy that’s black and Jewish, and she’s so happy. She’s like, I tick two diversity boxes at once. I’m told by other people there is a little bit of that in publishing, the sense that and I used to joke with my friends that I would be a great author for publishing to pick up because I can tick like, three diversity boxes. If we’re just being cynical, if there’s a measure of truth to that.
[00:33:01.690] – Ella
No, there’s definitely a measure of truth to that. Of course there is. I think there’s a measure of truth to that. Again, it’s across most industries, but yeah, 100% it looks good for publishers to not just publish one type of person, one type of story. I do think that and like, I’m I’m happy, so I’m I’m I’m happy to take advantage of that altruism. Yeah, I’m sure that part of it is wanting to seem like you’re doing the right thing, but that’s the other thing as well. It’s like you have to sort of pick the publisher that you think isn’t going to screw you.
[00:33:51.290] – Sunyi
That’s a hard choice.
[00:33:52.480] – Ella
Pick the publisher isn’t going to screw you. Okay. And also with stuff like this, looking at their track record is really important. Are you the first brown face for five years? Has every author that isn’t white in this publishing house bombed? Have all of their books bombed? Because that’s the other thing as well, that I think that a lot of publishers forget. I’ve seen it with others. I’m not going to name names, not mine, but I have seen this happen where I think publishers, when you’re black, you’re told your whole life that you have to work twice as hard for half as much. Right? And I think that publishers should remember that if they’re taking on black writers, they’re going to have to work twice as hard for their authors because it’s happening top down. But there is a level to which you’re having to fight. It’s not enough just to do generic marketing or your standard sort of marketing for your black writers, because that won’t cut through. Because overwhelmingly the readership of the UK is white. And particularly like with Ya, it’s overwhelmingly white. And so if you want to convince white kids that a book with a black person is something they should read and they should care about, then you have to work twice as hard, because as it stands, the statistics would indicate that white teenagers feel they can relate more to animals, vampires, and fairies than black people.
[00:35:26.870] – Ella
That’s an uncomfortable reality.
[00:35:32.090] – Scott
Speaking of uncomfortable reality, how much of all of this are you able to be upfront about with your publisher, with your agent, et cetera? Are you having to figure out all of this yourself? Or is this something that they’ve been willing to talk to you about and say, hey, we realize there are some systemic hurdles maybe with and I just had to look it up. 87% of the population in the UK is white, which is crazy, I thought I grew up in a white place.
[00:36:07.130] – Sunyi
And most of it’s in London. The further north you go, the wider it is to the extent even me, I look fairly pale, right, comparatively as East Asian. But when I go quite far north in UK, I’m kind of like, I really don’t look like everybody else.
[00:36:26.490] – Ella
Walking into a pub in somewhere in a rural northern town and being like, everybody’s looking at me.
[00:36:35.070] – Scott
I’m sure. I’m just curious how much of this you’ve had help with, because it seems like something that would be worth everybody’s time to be upfront with and say, okay, these are the things that we can do to surpass whatever systemic or demographic or hurdles exist or have you really felt pretty alone in that effort?
[00:37:05.590] – Ella
In the very first ever meetings that we had about my book and stuff? We talked about it a lot.
[00:37:13.370] – Scott
Yeah.
[00:37:14.890] – Ella
And I think that it’s a difficult one to articulate. How upfront have we been with each other?
[00:37:20.750] – Scott
I mean, that’s that’s pretty cool that even it was addressed it was addressed.
[00:37:25.130] – Ella
Very early because I did I made a real point of saying it to first my agent and then later on to my editing team. I’m concerned that I can’t remember how I phrase it, but I was like, yeah, I’m concerned that I’m concerned that what I’m trying to do. Just thinking about if I want to say this.
[00:37:48.630] – Scott
I do that a lot.
[00:37:51.190] – Sunyi
You don’t think about it at all?
[00:37:53.750] – Scott
I think about it a little bit.
[00:37:58.250] – Ella
I think it’s an ongoing conversation. I’m not by any means saying that they’re perfect or that or that there isn’t more, like, learning to do. And I think that with my next book that comes out, which is, like, blacker and gayer than the first, I think we’re going to have to have even more conversations about what that’s going to mean. But yeah, I think, again, it’s about track record. But I think the thing that I’m just thinking, the thing that actually has been hard less with, like, my team and more just like because of the lack of black writers in this space, that’s what feels kind of lonely. Like, most of my writer friends are white and the five black writers in this space in the UK, I’m friends with three of them. And then there’s me. I only haven’t met semi, so it’s a small pool. That’s what can feel lonely sometimes. It’s like Ya and Ya fantasy is a really specific experience because Ya fans are so specific. Like, you’re dealing with teenagers who have all these big feelings about the content that they’re consuming. And so that can either be, like, really wonderful or really terrifying.
[00:39:23.350] – Ella
And you’re also dealing with adults that read Ya, who are an entirely different group and who can be very wonderful and even more terrifying at times, can feel lonely in that sense. Yeah, for sure.
[00:39:40.300] – Scott
Yeah.
[00:39:41.290] – Sunyi
I was going to ask some quick craft questions if we have time, if that’s all right, just because I was really interested in the fact that firstly, you use poetry in your debut book and also second person, which is like, my favorite point. Do you think that that’s influenced by poetry? Yeah, because a lot of poetry is in second person. And to me that’s always, like a very personal, very deep point of view.
[00:40:08.690] – Ella
Yeah.
[00:40:09.030] – Sunyi
I just wondered what there aren’t necessarily a lot of verse novels around or second person.
[00:40:12.840] – Ella
No, I know. I went really edgy with the first one. I was like, I’m going to write really edgy debut. And God bless my publishers for not being like, no one is going to read this, Ella. They were really like, yeah, you do you. But the book actually started when I wrote the dissertation. It was a 5000 word spoken word poem. That’s how it started. And that’s sort of how I got into writing in the first place. I started writing and performing spoken word when I was at Uni, when my fiance was in a spoken word poetry competition and came second. And I was like, I’m going to enter next year and I’m going to win. And I did. So it started as poetry. And it started as poetry because I wanted to kind of replicate both the sort of rhythm and cadence of a traditional fairy tale. But also I really wanted to hearken back to the oral storytelling tradition that is just like so prevalent within the Caribbean community. It just really feels like it speaks to that kind of community and that kind of passing on of tradition and history and experience.
[00:41:24.650] – Ella
And because so much of my book is set in a hair salon, which is also really central to the black female experience, oral storytelling is really important in that space as well. Particularly when you’re going in as a young black kid to get your braids done and you’re there for like 6 hours and you’re just like listening to your hairdresser tell you all these stories and you’re telling her your stories. That’s sort of where the poetry came from. And all of my hairdressers have been like Caribbean or West African and there’s such poetry to their accents and the way that they speak. So that’s sort of why I wanted that’s fine.
[00:42:02.890] – Sunyi
That’s really cool. This is probably a redundant question, but have you read any Roger Robertson Robinson? Sorry. I know everyone must mention him. He comes to Leeds a lot and does a lot of reading. That was one of the few that I used to get out to actually go and see because I think he’s.
[00:42:18.370] – Ella
Really, really good life. He’s excellent. And then the second person thing, I just love it. It’s so intimate and so personal. And I also wanted to write a story where having spent so much time reading books that centered like other perspectives and and it which is just so it’s so funny when I when people sort of imply that, like a black woman protagonist is going to be like not relatable unless you’re a black woman. And I’m like, well, I read Hamlet and Harry Potter and nobody ever was like, oh, you might not relate to this because who would say that? But I really wanted a young black girl to read my book and to read the word you and be like, that is me. Like, you’re right. That is how I feel. And also I wanted people that aren’t young black women who don’t have that experience to be just like really forced into radical empathy. Like, what would it be like to literally walk 400 pages in this person’s shoes? And I think that maybe that’s quite jarring sometimes for people, but I kind of think it’s okay to be jarred. Like, you know, not not everything is meant to be comfortable.
[00:43:31.650] – Sunyi
Yeah, absolutely. And can we get you to plug your books and tell us where to find you, if that’s all right.
[00:43:37.380] – Ella
Of course. So my debut rap on Zella, or Don’t Touch My Hair was out last year. It could be found most places that books are found. And then I have another book coming out next year.
[00:43:50.490] – Sunyi
Yeah. And if we want to listen to.
[00:43:51.880] – Ella
Your podcast as well yeah, gosh. So I host a regular podcast called Comfort Creatures on the Maximum Fun Network, and we just interview great people about their pets and it’s a joy. It’s so much fun. People are at their best when they’re talking about their pets. I think that’s really enjoyable. And then I am except Scott, he hates his dogs. Do you hate your dog?
[00:44:18.210] – Scott
I absolutely love my dogs.
[00:44:20.890] – Ella
I have to get you a podcast, Scott.
[00:44:24.130] – Scott
Anytime.
[00:44:25.020] – Ella
Yeah, people love it. People love talking. Any excuse to talk about their pets. And then I have another podcast with BBC Radio Four in the works I’m producing, and that will be out later this year. So just, like, follow me if you would like to.
[00:44:39.270] – Scott
That’s amazing.
[00:44:40.150] – Ella
Thanks.
[00:44:40.860] – Sunyi
Thank you so much. That was brilliant to talk to you.
[00:44:43.370] – Ella
Thank you so much for having me. It was such a joy to be on it. Can I ask you guys a question? Just because I feel like because me and my friends, we all listen to this podcast religiously, we have lots of conversations about it in the group chat. The group chat will pop off. I’ll be listening to publishing radio. But the thing we all wonder is, like, do you get and you can obviously edit this out if you want, but do you not get angry? WhatsApps, from your editors? All the time.
[00:45:08.610] – Sunyi
So my editor does listen on and off and she kind of told me this a day before our launch day damage episode went out and I went back and edited it three more times. I was nervous and that was a bit weird. I think if we’d known how many editors were going to listen in, which apparently is most of Tor in Orbit and Scolance and most of the UK, then we might not have done it. But, yeah, tour is not mad at me, is what I will say. Yeah, they don’t seem to mind. But I’ve not said anything that bad. Scott, you can answer or not.
[00:45:43.220] – Ella
It’s up to you.
[00:45:44.990] – Scott
Okay.
[00:45:48.350] – Ella
Yeah, I did want that.
[00:45:51.650] – Scott
This is going to be one of the rare times that SUNY yes. I will ask you to cut this. Yeah. If we have anything else we want to say, on air. Let’s say it now because I might want to cut to off, and then I’ll tell Ella the questions.
[00:46:08.860] – Ella
Was there anything else you guys wanted to do?
[00:46:11.350] – Scott
Have one more? Do you feel like and maybe this is I apologize if this is asked often or if it’s a dumb question, but I don’t have a lot of opportunities to ask this kind of stuff. Do you feel like the focus on your race and your racial history, et cetera, makes it harder for you to tell your stories as an individual? Does that make sense?
[00:46:44.080] – Ella
Yeah, that does make sense. Such a good question.
[00:46:47.000] – Scott
And maybe that’s a question that doesn’t even have an answer. Or we could no, I think it does.
[00:46:54.390] – Ella
I’m just trying to yes and no. So I remember being, like, nine years old and listening to Mallory Blackman speak. I love Mallory Blackman. I was obsessed with Mallory Blackman growing up, and she wrote, like, the north and Crosses series, and she famously submitted so many manuscripts and got rejected. And people would always kind of write back and say to her, like, do you not want to write more about being black? And so her way of responding to that was to write Knots and Crosses, which is like a racial flip story where everything happened the other way around, and the continent of Africa colonized Europe, essentially. And so I feel like I’ve tried to do that, where, yes, the assumption is always going to be that the stories that I tell will have something to do with my race and my gender and stuff like that. But my way around that is not to avoid the subject. It’s to be like, yeah, I am going to talk about this thing, but I’m going to really make you think about it in a way that you haven’t before, I guess try and find because it’s so easy when we talk about stuff like race and all these really big things to forget the individuals at the heart of those experiences.
[00:48:10.710] – Ella
And so that’s always what I’m trying to drill in on, is, like, what it means to be an individual experiencing that. Does that answer your question? Do you know what I mean? Does that make sense?
[00:48:21.960] – Scott
That is a wonderful answer, and yes, absolutely. Yeah. And, I mean, just from my perspective, obviously, you can do more than one thing at a time, right? Yeah, of course. That adds a layer of complexity for the stories you have to tell, and you have to be that much better for them to get a grot.
[00:48:42.700] – Ella
And it also helps that it’s fantasy, because it’s like, I think that’s also been a really freeing thing, is, like, I’m not necessarily specifically telling the story of, like, a black girl from South London because there are, like, witches and shit.
[00:48:55.370] – Scott
Yeah. Well, that’s wonderful. And you have my admiration.
[00:48:59.810] – Ella
Oh, thank you, Scott. Likewise. You guys are brave doing this–
[00:49:01.570] – Scott
Except for today. I’m going to make Sunyi cut before I answer!
[00:49:10.450] – Sunyi
You’ve been listening to the Publishing Radio podcast with Sony, Dean and Scott Drakeford. Tune in next time for more in depth discussion on everything publishing industry. See you later.
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