213: December 2025 Q&A

 

Welcome to our December Q&A episode! Topics discussed this month include:

 

  • how to ensure editing clients make their payments 3:49

  • whether to mention you were represented before when querying 7:48

  • adjusting editing feedback depending on publishing path 11:05

  • if social media size matters for getting an agent/book deal 13:47

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DecembeR Q&A

 

Hi friend, welcome back to Your Big Creative Life podcast. I'm Katie Wolf. Thank you for being here. We have our December Q&A episode. I'm recording this shortly before the holidays and it's going to come out. When is this going to come out? Towards, oh, the very end of the month. So if you're listening to this, I hope you've had an amazing holiday so far. I'm going to be traveling to Minnesota. with my daughter and my husband to spend just a couple of days in Minnesota visiting my parents. It's, I don't know. I'm a little stressed about flying with a toddler. We're going to see how it goes. She's in her own seat this time. We've taken her on 2 flights so far. to go back to Minnesota. And it's been okay. It's been kind of a mixed bag, honestly. The flight there both times was pretty bad and then the flight back was fine. So I don't know. We'll see how it goes. She's in her own seat now because she's two. And there is no way we could get this girl, this like energetic two-year-old to sit on our lap for a flight, even if we tried to like lie and pass her off as under 2 so that she could do the infant in seat kind of thing and we didn't have to buy her a ticket. She would not stay still.

So I'm hoping that it'll be okay when she has her own seat and that that'll be kind of fun. I'm just planning to like do whatever's needed. You know, I'm gonna give her my phone when we're bringing an iPad like and she doesn't she doesn't watch. I don't give her my phone ever. So I'm hoping that the novelty and excitement of that will be will be fun. We also have like sticker books and a lot of fun snacks I'm planning to bring. So we'll see. The good thing about it is it's a direct flight. So we don't have to worry about about that. And it's like a little over 2 hours. It's not a ridiculously long flight, but that is long. And it's shortly after her nap time. So we'll see how that goes. I don't know. I just like flying around the holidays is always stressful. And then you add a two year old and I'm just like, but I keep reminding myself, like, this is what I tell myself for anxiety's sake. Worst case scenario, she's wild and screams and throws a tantrum. like, okay, we're going to **** *** the people around us probably. Oh, well, they'll survive. We'll survive. We can get through it. Like that's the worst case scenario is we're trapped in this like contained space for a couple of hours with her while she's in a bad mood. Okay, we'll survive, whatever. But still, you can just send good thoughts. And honestly, when this episode comes out, we'll be, we'll have returned anyways.

So it's just like preemptively thinking about all this is giving me stress. But Anyways, that's what we're doing for the holidays. It'll be interesting to be in Minnesota. There's a lot of snow in the ground right now. And it's like almost, I think it's like 65 degrees here in Charleston as I'm recording this. So it's going to be a shock to the system, but it's always that way going back. Anyways, We have just three questions this month to discuss in our Q&A podcast. Reminder that this episode, we do this every month. The last episode of the month is a Q&A podcast. And you can submit your questions at the form that's in the show notes. There's a little Google form where you can just submit a question about writing, editing, brainstorming, mindset, querying, editing business, just like anything you want to know. And I will discuss it next month on next month's podcast. So let's get into our questions for this month.

Number one, how do you make sure that clients don't ghost on payments? I'm a new editor and this is something I've put into contracts, but it's still hard to chase down payments from clients. I am actually planning a, like a behind the scenes kind of episode in January about my tips for new freelancers, for fellow editors. Just like, I don't know, some transparency behind the scenes of my editing business, because this is my full-time job. It has been for a number of years now, and I run this business by myself. I do have an amazing assistant who helps me with some marketing and content in the podcast, but otherwise it's just me. So I'm planning an episode to go more into depth. About this, and this is definitely something I'll talk about in that episode, but I can give you the short version now, which is in... In the years that I've been doing this, I think I've only had one client who's ghosted me on a payment. And it was very sneaky the way that she did it. And I won't get into that now. But yeah, I guess the best way to guarantee this is to put clients on auto pay. I use HoneyBook for my project management system, which is where HoneyBook just has, like when someone fills out the new client inquiry form on my website, it goes to my e-mail. And HoneyBook hosts that. They do all of my contracts. They handle all of the invoicing and the payments.

So I don't manually like have to go and collect payment from people. HoneyBook automates all of that, which is great. And there's a setting that you can toggle on in HoneyBook where people are put on auto pay. And they get a reminder e-mail like, hey, this payment's coming up, just so they know. But like, it's very clear that they're on auto pay. And that honestly saves like 90% of it, I think. And it also also saves the headache and the reminder and the work on my end of having to remind people and send them the link and all that stuff. It's all just automated. And even if you're not using HoneyBook, if you're using some other kind of tool, I'm sure that there's a way to automatically put people on auto pay. So this is just, this is just what I do automatically with people. And that helps. Of course, there still is a chance that, someone could like cancel their credit card and then it doesn't go through. Like there are still ways around it, of course. But I, again, in all the years I've been doing this, I think I've only had one non-payment issue. I've had some people who are late payments, but like, yeah, I think there's only been one time where someone just like straight up didn't pay and it was a whole thing.

So you want to minimize the time spent chasing down payments from clients, see if there's a setting you can do and just put it in your contract, like make sure that people are clear they're on auto pay. I would also, I don't know if you're doing this, but I would also collect some of the payment upfront. Like I require a 25% deposit at the time of signing the contract. And it's beneficial for me because it shows me that people are serious. But then it also, in a way, it helps them too, because it allows them to spread the payment out. So then at the time of editing, like let's say it's December right now, someone signs a contract and they do a 25% deposit now, we might not start editing till March or April. And so they get a 25% payment now out of the way. So then when March or April begins, they're only paying 75% of the remaining, you know, the remaining amount. whatever the final payment is. So it helps them too, like it just spreads the payment out. So, and I know that's not like guaranteeing all of your money, but having that does help. So, but I'll have more insight into how I run my business and different things like that, tips for freelancers. Hopefully the episode will be, I'm hoping the episode will be like beneficial if you're a new freelancer, but also if you're just like kind of curious, maybe, Yeah, it'll be kind of interesting to hear me talk about this. I don't know. Okay, my next question is about querying. Hi, my question is about querying. Do you recommend letting them know you were previously agented? Didn't work out? Or is that a red flag? The agent I had submitted my book unedited without my knowledge, so I split from him.

I just want to say, first of all, that's like ridiculous that your agent submitted your book without you knowing and submitted an unedited version. Like even if your agent was like, yeah, like we've signed, I've decided to I represent you. We've signed the contract. We've made it official. I'm your agent. Even if the manuscript was ready, if your agent didn't feel like there was any editing this required, I still think it's wild that they submitted it without your knowledge, like at least discussing that with you first. So I don't blame you. splitting from your agent. So I would mention this in the query letter. Yes, this is something that I had to navigate when I left my first agent a couple of years ago, several years ago, and then was querying to find my current agent that I have now. And I actually talked to an agent about this. And I was like, hey, here's my letter. Like, how do I word this? And I, because I did some research on it and there were some recommendations I found from agents. And what I did is I put in my bio section of the query letter, I was previously represented by so-and-so at so-and-so agency. We parted ways amicably, and I'm happy to discuss more about that if you'd like. That's it. one sentence, 2 sentences, that's all you have to say. And then if someone is interested in representing you and you get on the call, then y'all can discuss and you can say, yeah, like this is the deal. I was represented by this person, whatever. And when I was doing my research on it, I remember looking at an interview with two agents who were answering frequently. ask questions from people.

And this was a question that they answered. And they're like, hey, is this a red flag? Like, is this bad? Does it, is it going to make you look bad to say that you were represented by someone before, but you parted ways? And they're like, no, totally not. It's A neutral. And if anything, I think maybe slightly beneficial because the person's going to know their preferences. They're going to know how this works. So yeah, it really is not like a red flag at all. This is something that happens. It's very common to shift agents, like it's not, yeah, don't stress about this. That's all you have to say in the query letter is just like, I was previously agented by so-and-so. We parted ways amicably. Because I think that shows that there was no drama. It was very like, you know, friendly. And my agent and I, when we parted ways, like it truly was amicably. I emailed her and she was like, you know, best of luck to you. Here's all the editors that I submitted this previous book to, like, good luck. And that was it. So there was no drama. It was very matter of fact, very cut and dry. And so you can say like, and even if it, even if it was, if it was a little contentious, like that's fine. You can, I would still say parted ways amicably, just because I think it's nice to like, keep it professional, you know. So yeah, don't stress about this. It's very common. That's all you have to say. And then if the agent has questions about it, or if you want to share more about it, you can do so in the call that y'all have when you discuss working together.

So, okay, let me look at our last question. actually, what? I was going to add a fourth question here. I got this recently from a potential client. I thought this would be good to touch on here. I answered it briefly in my Instagram stories just because I wanted to share it in case people were curious about it as well. And the question from someone was like, why do you ask if, because this was a potential editing client and they were like, we were emailing back and forth about working together. And they, I asked them, well, do you know what you want to do with the book once it's done? Like, do you want to self-publish? Do you want to try to get an agent and try for querying or traditional publishing? And the person said, well, why does it matter? Does it impact how you do your editing? And the answer is yes, but also no. As an editor, when I'm looking at the first pages of someone's manuscript, I do keep in mind who is going to be reading those early pages. For example, if you are querying, you want to try to find an agent, I try to keep in mind that an agent is going to be looking at those early pages. So yes, they're looking to see if it piques their interest and they want to keep reading, but they're also looking at how polished is this? What's the pacing like? They're kind of, it's almost like they're approaching it more as a writer would and really critically as opposed to a reader who maybe is just reading it to see if they want to keep reading. You know, if you're self-publishing, the person who's going to be looking at your early pages is a potential reader or a reader who has already bought the book and started reading it and they want to see if they're, if they want to keep reading or if it's a do not finish for them.

So the person reading those early pages is slightly different. Now, In both cases, everything is still super important. Your introduction to the world, the pacing, how you introduce your main character, the dialogue, the actual writing itself, all of those things are important no matter who's going to be reading it. It's just that in the case of querying, the audience, the person is slightly different. So I like to keep that in mind when I'm reading and when I'm editing. Yeah, that's basically how I answered the question. It doesn't totally matter if you're not sure what you want to do, that's fine. But yeah, I just think it's something helpful to kind of keep in mind. And with an agent, I mean, you don't know how many pages the agent is going to read because sometimes agents will ask for the 1st 10 pages. Sometimes they will ask for the first three chapters. I don't know. So it really just, it really just depends. Okay, let me go back to my list here.

Our final question for this month. Can you talk a little bit about who is getting agents in book deals? I'm feeling discouraged because it feels like every time I open up TikTok, I see someone with 500,000 followers getting a book deal or signing with an agent. And it makes me feel like that's a requirement, even though I hear people saying it's not. Yes, I'm happy to talk about this. I've talked about this a couple of times already on the podcast, I think, or maybe even more than that, because I really am happy to just like dispel this myth. We hear about the splashy debuts. We hear about the people getting agents who have their videos went like massively viral talking about their book. And so they signed with an agent because of that, or they got a book deal because of that. And it's very easy in turn to then think that you have to have those things in order to get an agent or in order to get a book deal, but you simply don't. This is like, Yeah, agents have proven this over, agents have, I don't want to say proven this, that's not the right word, but like agents have sort of, I don't know, dispelled this myth. And really, if you look at the data, if you go on to Publishers Marketplace, which is a listing of recent book deals, not every book deal gets announced on Publishers Marketplace, but a lot of them do.

So it's great to see because it'll tell you who's the author, who is the agent that worked on the deal, what's the book's title, a bit about the book, like a one sentence pitch, and then who it sold to. And sometimes there's even information about the money. So you get to see what roughly what the deal amount was. So every single month, I mean, you can go on Publishers Marketplace and look at this. Every single month, there are authors getting book deals who do not have social media followings that are big. They might have 200 followers, family and friends, people they went to high school with on Instagram, et cetera. Like they're not, it's, it happens constantly, but we just don't hear about those things. So this is just not true that you need to have a big platform in order to get a book deal for fiction. The process does work differently for nonfiction. So that is something to be mindful of. Occasionally I get questions from people who are writing memoirs, for example, or other types of nonfiction. And in most cases, the process is different. I mean, memoir is a bit of a gray area where it's It can take on some of the qualities of a novel, but not necessarily. It's still tricky because even when you're writing memoir, you have to think about who's going to be the audience for this and why would they care about your story, which sounds terrible to say, but you know what I'm saying. Like publishers have to think about the audience for that book.

So anyways, all this to say, Just ignore the people who are screaming about how you have to have a big social media following because nine times out of 10, they're trying to sell you something or trying to like fear monger and create outrage over something that just isn't a thing. Now, I'm not gonna lie and say like, I mean, I don't know if an, I'm not an agent, obviously, but if an agent is looking at a book that they really like and an author that they're thinking about working with and they see that they do have a social media following, that's icing on the cake. right? And I assume same thing from the perspective of a book editor. But it just doesn't, like no one's getting a book deal or an agent simply because they have 5,000 followers or whatever small number. Like it's just not that meaningful. And the process just, it's not required for fiction. So I know it can be hard to hear about these like splashy sort of deals that have a lot of buzz around them. And then to then think, well, because this person has a massive following, that must mean I need to have a massive following, but it's just not, it's not true.

And it also, The other reason I want to talk about this and dispel this myth is because I don't want new authors who are thinking about querying to focus their time and energy on their social media platform. It's great to create content, and I think that an agent who is looking at signing someone is going to do their due diligence and look to see if you're on social media. it's good to show that you're posting and that how to do those things so that when, if you do get a book deal, that you're able to do some of that marketing and promotion on your own as well. But focus on the book. Like put your effort and your energy into the thing that will actually get you the agent, the thing that will actually get you the book deal, which is the book itself. And the query letter to some extent, but really it's the book because that's what gets you the agent or the book deal. Okay, so those are all the questions that we have for this month. Have a bit of a shorter episode. Oh, well, maybe not. We're at 18 minutes. Okay, I always think it's shorter. In my mind, I've been talking for like 5 minutes, but obviously that's not the case. So if you have a question that you would like to submit, you can do so at the link in the description and I'll answer it next month. And I hope you have a wonderful holidays, and I'll talk to you all soon. Thank you so much for listening.

Katie Wolf