221: February 2026 Q&A

 

Welcome to our January 2026 Q&A episode! Topics discussed this month include:

 

  • tips for growing a community on social media 2:17

  • where to end book one of a series 10:23

  • determining a book's genre - romance or literary fiction 14:09

  • how many agents to query at a time 17:12

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- The last Tuesday of the month is a Q&A episode! Submit your questions for me HERE.


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February Q&A

 

Hello, welcome back to Your Big Creative Life podcast. And welcome to our February Q&A episode. If you are new to the podcast, we do a Q&A episode the last Tuesday of the month. So if you have a question that you would like me to answer on next month's podcast, you can submit it at the link in the show notes. You can ask questions about writing, editing, mindset, querying, social media, my business as an editor, personal stuff, just whatever you want to know. And I'll answer it for you next month. We have four questions, I believe. Well, we had three questions that were submitted. And then I also got, I did a ask me anything on Instagram, maybe a week ago on my Katie Wolf rights account. And I got a good question that I don't think, I don't know if we've talked about this in a while. So I wanted to just add it to the list in case anyone is going to start querying soon. It's a question about querying.

So I added that to the list to discuss as well. All right. Let me think if there's anything I need to announce. I'm recording this at the end of February. I just finished my edits to my book and sent it off to my agent, which is so exciting. We are going back and forth about one point in the novel, which I don't know if I'll have to change or not, like one tiny thing, but otherwise, like it should be go, it should be ready to go out on submission soon. I'm really excited. And I've been trying to, I have not written anything on my new book for a while just because I've been shifting. I was focused on editing and I think I'm kind of ready to get back into it. I've been writing a new thriller and I have maybe 12,000 words, not a ton on that one. But yeah, it's funny to switch between editing and writing because there's such different parts of the process for me and just working on different books is a little bit interesting as well. So Anyways, enough about that. Let's dive into our questions. Number one. Hi, Katie. I'd love some advice on social media. I have a decent amount of followers on TikTok and Instagram, but my views are really low, almost like my followers aren't seeing my content and I'm really trying to build an engaged community before publishing my debut. How can I increase views so more people are aware of my book? Thanks.

Okay, what I want to say first of all is It is normal to feel like your followers aren't seeing your content because they're most likely not. If you look at the percentages, if you look at the analytics on Instagram and TikTok of the amount of followers that are seeing your content versus compared to non-followers, it's gonna be majority non-followers. That's just how these platforms work. They shifted over from how they used to be. It used to be that when you followed someone on social media, that's who you would see on your feed. But now it's just not really that way anymore and people have to engage more in order for the algorithm to like keep your content showing up on their feeds. So even if I look at my Katie Wolf writes TikTok and Instagram, honestly, where I have the most followers, That's still the case for me. The majority of people who are watching my videos are non-followers. They're being pushed out to the FYP or people are searching things. My videos are popping up. So that's normal. I want to reassure you there. But one thing, one other like reassurance I want to give you or maybe a reframe is that I can give you a couple of tips for social media generally. I also have a couple of social media podcast episodes that we did last year, so definitely listen to those if you haven't already. One is like the content, the strategy, and then one is the mindset piece of it. Do not spend a lot of time and energy trying to figure out the algorithm and crack the code. because you will not figure it out and most likely you will make yourself miserable and just burn out. There are things you can do, of course, to increase watch time, to have better hooks, to increase the chances of your content being seen by the right people. Absolutely.

There is strategy involved. I'm not saying that. But for anyone who claims to have the algorithm figured out, you don't. And I just I just, having spent so much time myself in the past stressing about every single video and the numbers behind it, it's a recipe for just being unsatisfied and unhappy and comparing your content to other people's. And like, it's just, it's just a recipe for unhappiness when it comes to being online and social media and everything like that. So yes, I can give you some tips and I understand why you want to increase that, but just know like, analytics, you really can't get too caught up in the numbers and let it mean something about you. Because what can happen when you do that is it starts to impact your confidence. It starts to impact how you show up. Like if you show up with this air of like, well, no one's seeing this anyway, so I don't know, I'm going to like put this out there, but the algorithm hates me. I'm in 200 view jail. Why, people are gonna be able to sense that energy and it's probably, it's like a self-fulfilling prophecy then. You're almost self-sabotaging. So there's a lot of mindset that goes into this. And I understand that's not what your question was, but I just have to say that. And for anyone who's in a similar boat, I get it's frustrating to have low views, but it's just, you know, you really can't place too much importance on that. Okay, so without knowing, let me just look back at your question here. I'm really trying to build an engaged community before publishing my debut. How can I increase views so more people are aware of my book? There are, I know a ton about social media and I've even coached, like worked with clients on social media specifically, but not for books.

So I just, I don't think I'm the right person to give you advice on promoting a book other than to say what has helped me in terms of promoting my services and promoting digital products, because I have had to do that in my business, is Number one, a sense of confidence and a sense of like, people are waiting to discover your book. People are waiting to discover you. have ideal readers out there. You have ideal followers out there who are just looking for your book specifically. They're your ideal reader. And if you don't know who your ideal reader is yet, then this is an invitation to do some work and figure out the type of person who's going to be consuming your content and would want to read your book. But if you do have that nailed down, if you have that figured out, Go into content creation with this mindset of people are excited to come across your videos and to discover you. You're not bothering them. that doesn't exist on social media. I guess people can just scroll or they just won't see it in the 1st place. So like don't go into it with that mindset. But yeah, come approach it from this place of confidence and the people are just so excited to discover you and your book. In terms of views, I mean, I think this is a good opportunity for you to play around and experiment with different types of content. So if you've been creating content on TikTok and Instagram for a while and it's not working, you're not getting the views, it's feeling frustrating, Switch it up, try something different. Maybe this is an opportunity for you to do some talking videos to the camera if you have not been doing that.

Maybe to do some faceless content if you've not been doing that, to try some short reels or long reels, whatever the opposite is of what you've been doing. Just to, again, switch it up and see if you can gain traction with that. A lot of what content is, if you really are trying to increase views, followers, et cetera, is experimenting. to see what hooks work, what formats work. So just think of this as like an experimenting phase. Maybe take 30 days and really switch it up to see if there's something that you can change, because often it's just a little tweak. that you need, like maybe just changing the hook in the first couple of sentences in your video or first couple of seconds of your video or changing the text that you have on screen to call out your ideal reader. Maybe it's just a tweak there and then suddenly your videos will start to be doing better. But also in the social media strategy episode, I talked about how part of building an author brand is letting people see you. And There are accounts who can do the faceless content very well, who are pretty much anonymous. Like we don't know anything about the author, the person, we just know their work. So yeah, that can work, but I don't think that works for most people. I think the vast majority of us, we've got to actually show up because what helps people form a connection to you, what helps you build a community is letting people witness you and see you and sharing behind the scenes and sharing your process and sharing a bit about your life outside of writing. You don't have to become an influencer. You don't have to trauma dump. You don't have to share everything on the internet, but look at the balance of that. Like, are you letting people actually see you? To the extent that you're comfortable with, of course.

I think in this age of AI slop and AI social media accounts, Letting people see that you're real, that you are a person, and inviting people into a small section of your life, I think that's going to be even more important from a branding perspective. So those are just a couple of thoughts. Again, it's hard to give specific advice without really knowing your account or what types of content you've been creating. But those are just a couple of tips for you. But It might also just be time. Like you just might have to do the reps and keep going, even if it's feeling kind of discouraging. social media, it's just harder. Views, I feel like, are down across the board. It's just, in most cases, harder than it was in the past to grow, to get views, all of that. So it's, the fact that you're experiencing that, you're not alone. Okay, next question. Do you have any tips for where to end a book in a series? I'm struggling with how to wrap things up if things will continue in book two. Yes, I have a couple of tips, a couple of thoughts for you about this. Okay, one thing to remember, I actually just made a... social media post about this not too long ago, is to remember that in traditional story structure, I'm not talking about like beats, like, oh, this beat has to happen here, this, I'm talking about just like general broad overview of story structure. Usually the climax of your novel, the pinnacle, the moment that things come to a head, the big tense moment. Normally the climax happens at like 85 to 90%, maybe 95% through like the 85 to 95% mark of the novel. Those are not exact percentages. It's never a science.

This is always an art. So don't get too caught up in the exact percentages. But the point is, things don't end at the climax. And this is feedback that I give pretty pretty often, I would say, to authors, whether they are writing a standalone or a series. This is something that a lot of new authors do where they're like, we've got the climax, and then there's like one page after the climax, and then the book just ends. And we need more resolution than that. So the last, again, in that traditional story structure, the denouement, the like falling action, the resolution, all those things that sort of tie up everything else that happened before it, that's the last 5 to 10% of the book. And the reader needs that. Even if you are setting up a sequel, right? Even if you're not, you're not resolving everything, not everything gets tied up with a nice bow on the end and it's all perfectly, you know, explained and come together. Not everything needs to be resolved, but you still do need that bit of falling action and that bit of resolution to tie up most of what happens in book one in order for book one to feel like a complete novel on its own. Because if you don't have that, it's going to feel like book one is just setting up the events of book two, or it's going to feel like it just ends... dramatically with all of a sudden, like the ending will just feel super abrupt.

So you do not have to resolve everything. I'm not even going to give you a percentage because I don't think there is a percentage. It's going to vary depending on your genre, your story, et cetera. But make sure that there's enough resolution in this book so that, again, book one just feels complete on its own. And look at the percentage of, like, Mark, of where that climax occurs and then where that resolution, the falling action, all that stuff occurs. so that the reader does feel satisfied with it. Now, the other thing I'll say, I mean, this is pretty much always a suggestion, but I think especially in this case, if you're truly struggling and you want some, you're not sure how the pacing is for the ending of your novel, you're worried that it's too quick, that you're rushing through the ending, or opposite, you're like, I don't know if this is too much. Is this bogging things down? Am I explaining too much? Get an outside perspective on this. Get a beta reader, a critique partner. You can hire an editor if that's part of your process, but it's certainly not required. Just have someone else read it with a specific eye towards that ending to give you notes on how it's landing. That can be a good way to get like a reader reaction to the ending so you can see if you're setting things up for book two and creating enough curiosity so that the reader's going to want to keep reading. while also resolving enough in book one so that it feels somewhat satisfying and complete, even if it is a bit of a cliffhanger. Okay, how can I figure out if my book is literary fiction or romance? I have a love story for the main character, but not sure which it is because they end up together at the end of the book like a romance would. The easiest way to figure this out is to determine if the romance that's in your novel is the main focus of the plot. In literary fiction, generally speaking, it's going to be more character-driven. It's not as plot-driven. Think of a spectrum, right?

On one side of the spectrum, you have something that is incredibly plot-driven. There's lots of action, not necessarily meaning physical action, but just things are moving quickly. Yes, we get explorations of the characters, of course. That's always important no matter what type of book you're writing, but it's not as focused on like deep characters and all of that kind of emotional stuff. And then on the other side of the spectrum, we've got more character-focused novels, where of course there's a plot, of course there's conflict, of course there's stakes, but it might be a quieter novel. Literary fiction often is exploring like bigger issues or themes or just a slice of life kind of novel. Maybe it's a really in-depth like character exploration. So there's not always as much happening externally in the plot. Think of it as a spectrum, lots of novels fall somewhere in the middle. So that's like, yeah, I forget where I was going that, why I was going with that and why I was explaining that. But anyways, the point, the question to really ask yourself to determine if it is literary fiction or romance is, What's the central plot? What's the central idea of this novel? If the purpose of the novel is the romance, if you cannot remove the romance from the novel without the whole thing falling apart, then that's a good indication that it's a romance. Whereas if your romance is just a subplot, like your novel deals with other things, but the character has like a B storyline where there's a love interest, they have a romantic relationship, they end up together at the end of the book, they get a happily ever after, but you could technically remove it from the novel, and the novel could still function, even if it was shorter and kind of wobbly because it doesn't have that. If it could still function, if there's a plot outside of that, then that's an indication that it's probably literary fiction.

But, you know, I don't know, I can't decide if, I can't know for sure if your novel is literary fiction or just general fiction without seeing it. But I guess that's why I was explaining the spectrum of plot-driven versus character-driven. So But that's basically how to determine if it is a romance or not. It's just how central it is to the story, if it is the story or if it's just a supporting storyline. Okay, so those are the three questions that were submitted this month. And like I said, I want to add one more question because I think it's good to discuss. And I don't feel like I've really talked about this recently. So someone asked, when you were querying, how many agents do you start with? Is 10 a good number? Meaning like, is it a good idea to send it out to, send your query letter and your sample out to 10 agents to start with? Now, that's fine. That could definitely work. I, both times I've queried, have erred on the side of being a little bit more cautious and conservative. So I think I would maybe recommend 6 to 8 agents to start with. And look, before I explain this, there's no like science behind, I don't know, like I don't think starting with six agents versus 8 agents is like really that different. But why I recommend a little bit of a lower number is you just never know. You just never know if an agent that is in your first round of querying will give you a note or a suggestion on something, either your query letter, your opening pages, whatever, that's going to make you want to revise it slightly before you send it out to more agents.

And in the event that happens, It's better that only 6 to 8 agents have seen that first query letter and sample instead of more agents. Because then if six agents have, let's say you start with six and you get a note or a feedback, you know, a suggestion from someone and you're like, oh **** yeah, they're right, then you can revise the pages and send them out to those agents. Whereas if you sent 10, then you can. Again, it's not that different. Like 10, I think 10 is still a good number. But what you don't want to do is query like 50 agents at once. Because again, what if you get a note? What if you get a suggestion from someone? Then you've already like blown your shot with all those agents and sent them a query letter and a sample that needs some work still. I will say it's very unlikely that you're going to get a note or a suggestion from an agent. Like the vast, vast, vast majority of them are just going to be form rejections. And that's normal. No agent is going to take time to give you like lengthy editorial feedback. When I queried the last time a couple of years, a few years ago, I don't know. I think I maybe got two suggestions, I'm guessing here, on full requests. I don't think I got any on my query letter or sample pages. actually I shouldn't say that because I really don't remember, but I do, I do specifically remember getting some, a couple of suggestions or not even suggestions really, but just critique about like why the agent was passing once I sent them the full request. Now sometimes it's like, I just didn't connect to the story. I didn't connect to the characters, whatever.

But like sometimes it's like, oh, it's this thing. I wanted more of this. Now sometimes that could be subjective. It could be the agent just saying like, I personally would like to see this, but Yeah, you just never know. So, on the very, very, very, very, very small chance that someone will have a note for you, it's best to start small, and you can also think about it as like testing your letter and your sample. So, let's say that you... work your way through batches. You send out six or eight queries. Once you start getting rejections back, then you can start sending out more. So it's kind of like a revolving system. Every time you get a rejection, you send out another query. So just keep it moving. So you always have a number of them out at once. You can just work your way through your list of agents. But yeah, so that's like, once you get to a certain point, though, of querying, I don't know, 30, 20 agents, whatever, I guess you can decide whatever that number is for you. And you haven't, if you haven't received any requests at all after a certain number of agents, then it's a good point. That's a good point to revise your letter, your sample, something, because something's clearly not quite hitting. This is a bit of a tangent. I know the person just asked like how many to start with. I don't know why I'm going into all this. I guess I just wanted to talk about querying. But anyways, for that person, yeah, 10 is fine, but you could go a little more conservative if you want to. That's how I've approached it.

Okay, so those are all our questions for this month. Again, if you would like to submit a question for next month, you can do so at the link in the show notes. And thanks for listening. Hope this was helpful. Thank you so much for listening. For more tips, advice, and motivation, check out at Your Big Creative Life on Instagram, or you can follow me at Katie Wolf Writes on Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube. If you enjoyed this episode, the best way to show your support is to leave a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify to help other people discover the show. See you next week.

 

 

Katie Wolf