Agent of Record with Peter Steinberg

I describe being an agent as one third therapist, one third lawyer, one third editor. And that's what it feels like. The therapy I do with my writers can't be underestimated. What's good? I'm Nikisha Elise Williams and this is Black and Published on the Bahaqani Books Podcast Network. Bringing you the journeys of writers, poets, playwrights, and storytellers of all kinds. We are still in the seven daughters of Dupree takeover. That's my forthcoming novel, which is available for pre-order everywhere you get your books and will be published January 27th, 2026. And so today's guest is my literary agent Peter Steinberg. Peter has been an agent since 1996, just before email was invoked. But as the publishing industry has shifted with the advent of the internet, Peter says, one thing remains the same. If you're a fiction writer listening to this, I wouldn't worry so much about your social media. You worry about writing a great book because that sort of like supersedes everything else. Writing a great book takes time. But publishing is all about taking advantage of an opportunity with maybe more than just a little bit of luck. In an industry, built on rejection. Basically publishing is a chain of passes, like the boss passes on the editor, the editor passes on me, I pass on the writer. But then you have success within that. In our conversation, Peter explains how he accidentally fell into his adult career after moonlighting as a screenwriter. Plus, what he believes is the death of good fiction. And, why the time of year sometimes does really matter when you go on submission. That and more is next when Black and Published continues. So Peter, like, what made you want to go into being a literary agent? I was a huge reader of my whole life. I was a shy kid. My sister describes our childhood as my door closed. So like, I was just in my room reading. Love reading, it was my everything. I just went from one book to another. I also loved movies. So every movie I could, I decided to go to film school in NYU. And there, love making movies, graduated from there. Didn't know a soul in the movie business. Didn't know how to get into the business. I decided to work a temp job and write screenplays. So I was basically like barely doing any work for the temp jobs and writing my screenplays at the office. And I thought it was a genius, like I'm being paid to write screenplays. Always the hustle. Yeah, always the hustle. But I didn't know what to do with the screenplays when I would finish them. I didn't know anyone. I couldn't really break in. There was a few people I knew and they gave me advice to revise the screenplays into things I didn't even want to do. So I was just feeling a bit lost. I also didn't love writing screenplays. The form is kind of boring. It's sort of like you want a house, but you just have the blueprint for a house. So then what happened was I got married. And I was still tempting. And I was like, this is depressing. I can't be a married temp. So I have to grow up, get a real job, blah, blah, blah. And I never thought I could work in an office. I just wasn't an office person. I pictured myself on sets and things like that. But at that time, it happened to be tempting at Harper Collins. And then, you know, and I was really intrigued because writers would call on the phone. You get to talk to famous writers. And it was something I hadn't really thought about before because I love books, but I thought what's the big deal? Like, so I want to write some, they figure out the cover and then they ship them to the bookstores. Little did I know there's so much behind it, like any business. What do you look at? This was 1996. Okay. So I decided, I'm like, okay, I'm going to be an assistant editor, publishing house. There weren't any openings, but there was an opening at a literary agency. And I barely even knew what that was. But like I went for the interview. It was like old school, cats in the office, managed to go to the pile everywhere. People smoking on the phone, like, window shut, you know, like really smokey office. Okay. New York in the 90s. Okay. I got it. Yeah. Yeah. You know, it was a tiny bit pre-emailer. Like email was there, but no one's really using it yet. And the phone's reading off the hook. So like, I got the job. So I started working this literary agency. So I had a real job. I stopped tempting. I was still sort of writing screenplays, but not really. And then, you know, little did I know, it was this famous agency called Denadione Ashworth. Candidate Denadione was the it agent of like the 70s and 80s. She was still alive. She was retired, but I used to talk to her on the phone a lot when I have questions to ask her and stuff. But she found Cash 22 on a slush pile. She represented Mario Puzzo, who was the godfather of Peter Mathis and Robert Stone, Kathleen Shahn, Gravity's Rainbow. She won the National Book Award with Thomas Pension. He was like a who's who a famous writer of that time studs turquoise. She represented. I used to talk to him on the phone. It was a glory, the famous illustrator. So like, it was really cool to like catch some of those people that ended their lives. Many of them passed away while I was working there because it was sort of that generation. But I started like understanding what a literary agency was and what they did. And it was very intriguing to me. They participated in doing film rights for the book. So I still felt like I had a toe in the movie business, which I loved. And then about three years in, I noticed this was other assistant agencies about three years in. It sort of clicks. You're like, oh, I get this. I understand what being an agent is. I know how to sell books. And then I sold my first book in the 1999. So you stumbled into being a literary agent like by accident? Yeah. Most agents do because most people don't go to college going like I'm going to be a literary agent. You know, they either go for English or, you know, like, or they want to be a writer themselves and sort of like fall into it just to make money. And so you say it, and about the three year mark, it clicks about what it is that an agent does. And you sold your first book in 1999. What exactly does an agent do and what is a literary agency? Wow. Okay. A literary agent is a advocate for the writer. They take the writer side and all things. I do a ton of that kind of stuff. But I'm the writer's advocate. I'm on the writer side. The publisher wants to do the book, but they want to pay as little as possible because it's a business and they want to make money. So it's my job to get as much money for the author, be their advocate a lot of times. It's their first rodeo. It's the first time they're doing this. And I've done many books so I know exactly what to expect. From the publisher side, they like having agents because a lot of them are newbies and they don't understand how the business works. So I'm sort of there guiding the way. So there's a shorthand like in any business and editors appreciate that I'm sort of helping the writers sort of understand how this all works. And a literary agency is a place where agents work. I work at agency right now called United Talent Agency or UTA. It's a big entertainment agency. So there's like, I think there's like 2500 employees or so. I'm in the New York office. There's about like 350 agents in your office. And then we have a book division within that. So there's like, I think there's like 18 agents or so in the book division. That UTA and we all work on book things. We help with the movie rights, but our job is primarily getting material in, making it as good as it can be once we decide to work with the author and then submitting it to editors that we know that we have relationships with that we've worked on over the years. And the job is to get the editor excited about the material. So you've been a literary agent going on 30 years. And you being at UTA is a recent development that coincides with how we got together to work together. What can you say before we get into that specific story? What can you say about what is the difference between a talent agency such as UTA, which is one of like the big three among CAA and William Morris. WME, you know, the big one. William Morris endeavor. And just being at a literary agency like where you first started off in the 90s. By its very nature, UTA is a little more corporate. It's run like a bigger company. But I think essentially it's the same thing in a lot of ways because as you know, like it's about the relationship between the agent and the writer and that sort of never changes no matter where you are. And that it's about like the material and what you work on. So I try to focus in on that. The entertainment agency part is sort of like the bells and whistles, the gravy, the extra stuff that you know can come in handy. Like for example, you have a book, a novel and you think it could be a movie. We have a division at UTA called media rights where they do book to film stuff. So like that's a bell whistle. I can get the book to some famous people who know, so if you'll actually read it, but we can at least get it in their hands, you know, and have it sitting on their table and maybe they'll pick it up when they're bored. All right. So let's get to our connection. Do you remember our first interaction? I thought it was over Twitter, but you reminded me that an agent introduced us before that, right? So that agent would be Jesserreco. She never introduced us. She passed me your name. But so our very first interaction was over Twitter. And okay, that's what it was. Yeah, I remember being on Twitter pre-Elon, talking about getting ready to query. And you respond and said, Hey, I would love to see it. And I didn't like, what was your algorithm doing at that time? Because we weren't following. I think I think it was through Jen Baker. Cause like I followed her and I believe she retweeted it. I think I'm not 100% sure, but I think that's what happened. But we have a mutual friend in Jen Baker. And she retweeted you. I just happened to be on my phone on Twitter at that very moment. And I always say like send it to me because you never know. Like, you know, 999 out of a thousand times mature won't be what I would work on. Okay. So, but I always do it because like there's a very small chance that the material will be good. So I saw you tweet that. And I also, it's really important to me that like people have access to publishing. Like it's one of the most important things. We're not in some ivory tower. We're not in some like hordened off place where you can't get access because like it doesn't happen that often. But I have found some of the best work just, you know, completely cold. And I also want to think that you can get in if you're talented. So like, for example, like we have something called unsolicited pile, which it just means that people that don't know me at all. It's not a friend of a friend. It's not a referral. They're just coming to me cold. And I look at that almost every day. I look at it closely. I don't have an assistant look at it, you know, because it's like super important to me that that anyone can sort of get in. So I didn't know that Jen had retweeted it. Shout out to Jen Baker. She was on the podcast for her book, forgive me not a couple of years ago. And then we worked together. But I think this also goes to your credit because before you ever responded, send it to me, your name had been passed to me twice. And so your reputation has preceded you. And so when I saw you respond, I DM June, I was like, Hey, I already had your name. You were already on the list. This email I got you were like, no, send it to this address. And that was only, it was only like a few months after I started at UTA, I think. No, it was before it was when you were still with Fletcher and company. That's right. Which was the blue T agency, I guess? Yeah, basically what happened was I was working in an agency called Fletcher and Company. And then UTA bought the whole agency. And that was beginning of 2023. Yeah, because I queried around November of 22. And then I don't know if you remember this because I saw you online again in January of 23. And you can talk about, Oh, I love my job. And I was like, I hope you love my book as much as you love. And I was like, I'm they are either like really pissed him off or. That was I laughed. Because I think I put at the bottom runs out of Twitter with like the running emojis so that you would kind of get that I was joking, but like not really. And I told you I moved agencies, right? Yeah. Okay. And so that you deem me, I was like, Hey, I still have it. I'm going to read it. We just went through a merger and you sent me the link to the New York Times article about UTA by. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I was trying to impress you. Yeah. And I was like, Okay, thank you. And I was like, okay, I didn't just like ruin my chances here. So this is something I've never asked when you read seven daughters, you responded to me cold. I was coming to you kind of unsolicited. What was your impression of what did you think going in when you sit down to read a manuscript from someone that you don't know? How do you approach that? I just tried to approach it very, very simply and open mindedly. Like, you know, when you're in a book store and you like open a book and start reading it, I try to think of in a very binary way, like, either I like it or I don't, I try not to put all the stuff I know about publishing on top of it. I try not to bring my baggage to it. I just try to really, I mean, it's hard sometimes, but to clear your mind and just start reading. And either you like it or you don't like it. And that's sort of like what I tell people starting and publishing is sort of like put all of your sort of things aside that you bring to the work and just sort of like just like any book like do you like it or you don't? It almost seems like it's a decision not made by you. You know, it's almost like eating food and you're like, you like the food or you don't like the food. You know, it's not like something you can control really. I mean, I'm sure you taste change over time, but in that moment, you know, it's either you like it or you don't. And I started reading your book and I just fell into it, you know, and I was very impressed. The thing I remember most of all is that your book covers, you know, it's called Seven Dollars of Dupree and it's it covers seven generations. So that kind of book is very hard to do well because sometimes when you write about a large chunk of time, things can be written in summary. You know, just to get it all in there, writers sometimes summarize and summary is like the death of good fiction. It's all about specifics. They're like, not only did you do a big chunk of time well, it like blew me away. And I started thinking about, you know, I think when you start thinking about your own personal life, the novel has you because I start thinking about my generations and what time does. And if you're dealing with seven generations, the last generation doesn't remember the first, but elements of it still pass down. And I think novels are the best form to do that kind of theme well because you can see like a huge swath of time that you can't see in real life. And it can be very powerful. And it was sort of like maybe the best book I've read that that did that, you know, and that's why I was so excited about it. Thank you. I did not pay him to say that. So then you talk about, you know, reading a book and putting all of your baggage or everything that you know about the industry aside, when you read a book that you like, do you, after you read it, do you then take into consideration whether or not you think you can sell it? Yes, that sort of comes in after I start thinking about like, how can I angle this? How can I pitch it? How can I sell it? Also, what material needs work? If I'm reading something and I know exactly what to suggest to the author for their rewrite, I think I'm the agent for it. You know, like if I can just, I can see it, I can see what needs work and I can work with the author. It's my job to pitch it. I'm always spinning things. I guess another way to describe being a literary agent is the way in which I convey information. Conveying information is extraordinarily important when I convey it to editors. Like the way I say things to them and after I finish a book, I start thinking about all those things. But I think the most important thing in publishing is passion and a love for the material. So that supersedes everything else and editors are very intuitive and good at seeing that agents. You can't really fake it. Like either you're into it or you're not and if you're very excited about a piece of fiction, editors can tell and that is the greatest spin of them all. Like your excitement for the material because people publishing or jaded their cynical, it's a big slog and there's so much to read. So when you get very excited about something, editors get excited in turn. You know, and I think my personality works well with being an agent because I'm sort of very hyperbolic. I like really love things and I want to tell the world and I mean it in the moment. Like if I eat a cheeseburger, I'm like, this is the best cheeseburger I've ever had. You have to have it. And I do let the books too. And I think editors sort of respond to that. But before you get to the editor, you first have to convince the author or set up the author call. How do you go about that? And then like, what is the feeling when you're setting that up? It's sometimes fraught. The hard thing is I don't know the person. It's sort of a cold call. But I think one thing I've learned over the years is you sort of get to know the person through their material. So I think by reading your book, I sort of knew you a little bit. So I like to use the things that I learned about the person on the call. I'm very complimentary on the call because I wouldn't be doing the call otherwise. I'm sure that helps. I also like to talk about it, give my editorial feedback on that call too because the more I do this, the more I realize that writing is rewriting. And I want to make sure that the writer is open to rewrites. I think that if I do a call on the writer said, no, my way or the highway, I probably won't want to work with that author because it's indicative that the relationship might not go well because there has to be a flexibility there. There has to be a back and forth. You know, writers don't write books in the vacuum. And it's, you know, I describe the author agent relationship as friend to Jason. We're not friends, but it's very close to being friends. And you working on books takes years. You can't fake it. You have to feel like you can work with that person for years. And I think that initial call with the author is me sussing that out if it's someone I can work with for a long time. I remember on our call. And I've told you this before and I've said it to the audience in the last episode that, you know, the day that we we had our call was a day that my divorce was finalized. So my mind was like, yeah, yeah, yeah, I have this call. And I remember you being very complimentary of the book, but I still didn't know what was happening. (laughs) Like you were having trouble taking it in. - Honestly, I remember I picked up my kids from school and I think my son was doing his homework and I may have given my daughter my iPad so that she would like be quiet for a bit and I closed my door. And so I'm sitting in my room on my bed, we're on the phone and I'm listening and you're telling me, like you were gushing about the book and I felt really good, but I didn't know what was happening. And so I think we got like 45 minutes into the conversation and then you were like, yeah, so I'd like to offer you representation and I was floored. I don't know if you, what since did you get from that call? 'Cause I was out of it. - I wasn't sure if you were gonna pick me. Like I wasn't, you know, if you felt a little bit like you were weighing your decision carefully, which I respected, but it made me a little bit nervous that you wouldn't go with me and I like felt like I had to work with you, you know? I like felt very strongly about it and I think if you decided not to go with me, I would have been a little bit devastated. I would have gotten over it like you do, but you know, it would have hurt. 'Cause I remember in waiting to hear back from you and I am not a patient person at all. So like in the midst of like all of this waiting, I had seen the AWP writer to agent program. And so I had submitted for it. And I think maybe a few days before we had our call, I got an email saying that agent from that program was interested in the books. I was like, oh my God, he's offering me representation. That's so amazing, but I've always heard you don't take the first offer that you get. So I put you off for like two weeks. - Yeah, it's like it's like buying a house. Like you're not gonna buy the first house that you see. That would be irresponsible. - Yeah. And so then when I finally said let's work together, it was March 15th or something like that. I was at South by Southwest for a job thing in a hotel and then we got on the phone and we started going through your editorial feedback and what you thought needed to happen in order to like get the book to editors and how quickly in the timeline, what is your process, I guess, for getting authors ready to go on submission? 'Cause I felt like we went really quickly. - Yeah, I mean, usually it's like three rounds and it usually takes like two months or something like that. I can't remember how long it took for us, but like usually I give my big notes first and then the author spends some time rewriting it. Then I give, you know, I say something like, you know, this is fantastic, this, this, and this still need to be fixed. And then there's sort of a minor rewrite and then like the third one is just the final little odds and ends. And that's usually how it goes. And then as you're rewriting, I'm pitching it to editors. So like I have lunch with editors or I have another book with them and then I say at the end of the call, hey, by the way, I'm sending this other book. So like I'm doing my job, climbing the pump for the editors as you're rewriting because it's so important that they're excited about it when they get it and they've been waiting, you know, for it. - How do you build your list of who to submit the book to? - It's usually a mixture of people I know and new editors. I like to think there's the perfect submission list where it's the exact right editors that you should be sending to. Sometimes I'm wrong, but I like to think that I get very close each time. You know, you have long term relationships with these editors and you sort of know their taste. And also like the publishing house positions them in the way that like this is the right editor for this kind of material. So it feels fairly easy to me to make the list. And I like to mix it up with some young editors 'cause there's some people I don't know. And one of the good things about submitting to younger editors is I get to know them. And there's a few editors, sometimes I submit. And I know that they'll probably won't offer for this book, but it's a little bit about relationship building for the next book too. So I sort of factor all those things in. And sometimes it's real life. People are on vacation, people are on maternity leave, people are away. There's editors who like in theory would buy the book, but they just bought a very similar book the week before so they can't, or their boss secretly told them don't buy anymore books, but they can't tell me, you know, stuff like that. So those are the facts. - Wow, that happens. I think so. I still don't know for sure. (laughing) I think they sometimes write, some of the publishers sometimes run out of money or like towards the end of the year, like they have the yearly budget. 'Cause sometimes editors go like, maybe you should submit that to me in January. (laughing) So the budget started over. - In the new fiscal year. - Yeah, exactly. - When I have my news thing. - Exactly. - So then when you were building my list and we were talking about being ready to go on submission, you were adamant that we had to go in May, which I think while we worked so quickly, because you didn't want to let the summer come when like publishing allegedly shuts down for the summer no one's working. Until they come back in September for the fall and then everybody's working on like the big books for a word season. And building my list and going on submission, we went on a Tuesday and we had our first editorial call came in for like the next week. What is the general timeline that you give for that is like ideal for a book to be on submission before you know if it's going to be picked up or not? - I would say two or three weeks, you start getting a sense of the dynamic of the submission. It goes faster than it used to because I think editors get so many submissions from agents. I think like on average they're getting like 30 submissions a week from agents. So just be, imagine being that editor. And these are like real submissions from like real agents. And I think there's a little bit of like, you have to sort of like decide quickly and move on. I was hanging out with some editors and they were just sort of talking each other. I heard them say that they decide like right away. Right when it's admitted basically, like they read my cover letter and they're like, of course they have to read the material if they like it, but they sort of like make that decision very quickly, whether they're into something or not. And it's just sort of like that's what they have to do to survive. But yeah, it's usually two or three weeks, I get a sense of stuff after three weeks and there's no interest. I start getting a little bit nervous because what happens is editors think if no one is interested, why would I be interested? You know, so like there's a bit of a herd mentality. And you know, I use that to my benefit when there is interest. And I say like to other editors, look, these two editors are interested. Aren't you interested too? You know, but like it can go in a negative way where there's no interest. And then it breeds even less interest because they're just assuming that it's not good because no one's interested. But what happens is it's annoying to me. Sometimes editors wait for other editors to be interested. So if all editors wait for other editors to be interested and everyone's just waiting on everyone else. So I love the editors who just sort of like don't wait for anything and just say like, I love this because then they're a little bit more like me where I sort of, you know, you take a chance on something. You don't wait for the group to affirm it. You just are moved by it and then wanted to work on it. - Would you say my editor, Alison Callahan, at Scout Press at Gallery Simon and Schuster, was an editor who didn't wait and just was like very, I love this. - Yeah, it's one of my favorite stories ever because no editor had ever done this to me. I was sitting on my couch like, I think it was like nine, 30 and I ate or something just looking at my phone or whatever. And then she like, I think she emailed me and said like, oh my God, this book is incredible. I have to have it or something. Are you free for lunch tomorrow? So like I was really taken aback because I don't think an editor has ever asked me to lunch during the submission process. - Really? - Yeah. So that was, it's really unusual. And I've been told the story to other editors and they're like, I should do that. But I could tell she'd like read the last page of your book like 30 seconds before she sent me the email. I could just tell like she put it down and then just emailed me. And I just happened to be free the next day. Like I didn't have a lunch. I didn't have a meeting. And I was like, so I just look at my calendar. I was like, yeah, I can have lunch. So we went to lunch while it was on submission, which I was just excited about it. 'Cause basically what she was doing is putting her cards on the table. She wasn't playing the game of like pretending she kind of liked it to like give you less money. She was like saying like, I have to have this. Well, it cost. So that's a great thing. As an agent, that's what you dream of. That editors will do that. And they will avoid it. - As a writer, that's what you dream of. Even if you didn't know that that's what you were dreaming of. - Exactly. So we went to lunch the next day and she's like, Peter, I'm literally shaking right now. I have to have this book. It's like the best thing I've read in years. And so we just talked about like, she was dying to, you know, like when you read a good book, like you want to talk to your friend about it who was also read it so you can like break it down. It was the same kind of thing where we just, she had no one, she knew had read it except me. So like we just talked about the content and story and what was working and stuff and why it was so good. So like that lunch really influenced me. It was smart of her 'cause like it made me want to give her the book and sort of like have it go in her direction. I wasn't sure what was going to happen, but I could tell that she would do everything in her power. to get the book. So yeah, I remember we spoke that next week. So like the second week of May on a Monday morning because I had my first editorial call that Tuesday. And I remember we spoke early that morning. You told me about Allison emailing you and that you guys were going to lunch. And then I think by the end of that Monday, I went from one editorial call on the Tuesday to like nine set up for the week. And I was like, oh my god, the inbox is full. Like there's a whole post on my Instagram page about it. Like I don't say specifically, but that's what was happening. And then I get the first call on the Tuesday. And then I talk to Allison on Wednesday. And I want to say maybe a couple of hours after we hung up, she offered a preempt. Is that normal? No, it's not normal. I mean, it's what you hope. But it was going much faster than the way things usually go. Usually, you know, you work towards an auction, meaning you have a few editors interested and they bid against each other, which can be advantageous. But like I said, because Allison like put her cards on the table and said, I will have this book no matter what the cost. The game was put aside. And I just like, I just focused in on her. But then there was another editor Simon Schuster, who was also interested. And what happens there is you have to decide they make sort of a house bit meaning like each publishing house has imprints. So like if there's more than one imprint, a lot of the times they make a house bit. So it's like one offer from the publishing house. And you have to decide which editor you want to go with. And I know that was a bit of a fraught decision for you. Yes, that's exactly what happened to me. Peter earned every bit of his commission and his percentage on this deal with the negotiating. And I think at the end of that Wednesday, like you were like, your money is not going to change. You just have to decide who you want to work with. You have one more call tomorrow with the other Simon and Schuster team. And I didn't know what to expect. Like I'm doing this podcast and having talked to so many authors, Indian traditional big five and independent presses. I'd heard people who have been on submission for a year, other people that have been on submission for months. And so this was happening like within the space of like a week. You went on submission on a Tuesday and then Wednesday the next week the offer was done. And I just had to make a choice. And I was like, what is my life? And that call with the other Simon and Schuster team, it wasn't just like a phone call. It was a Zoom call and we were all there on camera. What was your impression of that again? Is that normal? Because I don't know. That's unusual that like multiple people at the same house are sort of like vying for your book. And it's a great place to be in. It doesn't happen that often. But it's like, I don't know, it's really sexy. It's like, it's like what you dream of happening. And you know, it happened to you. And I think I said at the time, like, you can't really make a wrong decision here because both Allison and the other editor are both amazing editors. So it was more about your personal feeling, your intuition, the vibe you feel towards the person and what your instincts say. And do I have this right that you picked Allison in part because of her name? Yeah. So that story is after we met with the other team on that Thursday, you said to me, so who do you want to work with? And I was like, I don't know, like what kind of question is that we just got off the phone. We just got off the zoom. I have no idea. And you're like, well, you need to make a decision. I was like, okay, it was Thursday. So I was like, I'll tell you by Friday at noon. And all which I loved because like you gave me a little deadline. Like it'll and I think you told me at noon or like at 1159. It was so dramatic. Because that Friday, I had a meeting for my job at 12. So I was like, well, I definitely need to make a decision before I go into this meeting. Otherwise, I'm not going to be able to work. So I was like, all right, I'll tell you by Friday at noon. And so like that Thursday, what did I do? I don't remember with the rest of my work. They look like it was a Thursday. So my children were with my co-parent. And so I had the date of myself. And all I did was think and then way options. I called Jen Baker to help me home. I found a friend I called Jen. She helped me think through it. I called another friend who helped me think through it. I did yoga. And when I did my editorial call with Allison, she told me that she did yoga. So like that was in my mind. But the other thing that I did was everyone knows I'm a big gen to Jackson fan. I was watching old concert videos of her on YouTube because I had gone to her show like in April of that year when she had gone back out on tour with the Together Again tour. That was kind of like how I celebrated, you know, getting an agent and also being divorced. And so I was in deep in my Janet rabbit hole watching videos. And one of her dancers is named Allison. And the dancer is a beautiful dark skin black woman who's also full figure. So she always stood out on stage. But she also was always dancing her ass out. But her name is Allison. And then doing yoga in the morning, Allison was in my mind. And I remember sending you the email hedging because I still hadn't made a decision. And then something just was like it's Allison. And I think that's how I ended the email to you. You know, honestly, I would have been fine with any decision because it's your decision to make. But I was sort of secretly happy when with Allison because like the whole like taking me to lunch story works better if you go with the publisher. So like I just wanted her like move there to work on us. You know, and I think it didn't. I you know, I think that we did go with the right editor. And you know, I think it's worked out for the best. And that was also the thing in my mind just as an author deciding because you had told me about her taking you to lunch. She was very effusive on our call when we did the editorial call. And then she was the one who made the pre-emptive offer. And I was like, we're only here because of her. So it has to be her. And so like that was kind of like my. Yeah, exactly. And she was very dramatic. She would say stuff to her boss like, I will die if I don't have this book. I don't know. She's just like very dramatic. She went there. I appreciate it. You know, me too. Do you have any questions for me about the process? How has it been different than what you thought it would be? Like before you worked with the big publisher, did you have certain sort of expectations of what it would be like? And how is it different than what you originally thought? Oh gosh. I think when I was trying to get an agent and be with the big publisher, when I self published my first novel, the experience that I had now is what I had always dreamed of. But by the time I got to it with the seven daughters of Dupree, I had been indie for so long. I had done the university press book with Maddie Gry Indians. And then doing this podcast, having heard so many different kinds of stories, I didn't know what to expect. I honestly did. And I was like, you know, it could sell in a day, it could sell in a week, it could sell in a year. Who knows? Like my big win was like getting the agent because that was all I had wanted for so long. And then signing with you was such, it wasn't necessarily bittersweet, but it was like very significant just of how it happened coming out of my marriage. And then, you know, all the dreams that I had ever wanted to come true that I thought would save my marriage happening on the other side of it. And so it was like this experience, especially as it was happening, was like life was happening to me in so many good ways. And I was just trying to hold on to it because I didn't know what was going to happen next. And so yes, it was like all the dreams that I had ever had from like 2015, but having them happen when I'm a bit older, I've had more experiences in writing and around publishing, even though it wasn't at this level has just made it like, oh, these things really do happen. They don't happen to everyone. And so it is special. It is rare. And that's regardless of race and that's a whole other kind of conversation, but that it does happen and it can happen. So someone like me, that makes sense. Yeah, yeah. And that's not uncommon. A lot of my fiction writers say like my first few books that I wrote, I thought they should be publishing a big way. I thought I should be very successful right now at the gate, but I'm so glad that I wasn't, because like it took me a little while to become a great writer and it took me a little while to have life experience to have things to write about, you know, it's a bit of a catch 22 with fiction, because it's like you have that desire to write about things, but sometimes you're not quite mature enough or have lived enough of a life to be able to sort of accomplish that. And it's sort of, I think it does sort of come to you when you're ready in a lot of ways. And I think with the same thing happened for you. I had another question. Can you like, when you read seven daughters of Dupri now, first of all, do you read it? Second of all, can you see it? Can you, you know, when you write something for such a long time, you sort of lose the thread a bit and you can't tell if it's good, you can't tell if you like it anymore. What's your relationship with your book right now? It's a little distant. The last time I read it was when I got the bound manuscript. And so I want to say that might have been November, December of 2024, reading it for me. I remember writing it, but it also feels like a fever dream. just because there was so much happening in my life at the time. I remember getting an email from our UK team because we have the US and the UK deal. Thank you, Peter. And Lucy over at Curtis Brown. But I remember getting an email from the UK team and it's the assets for. I think the galley, but it might be the hardcover. And on the back, they have like a quick sentence from the book. And I know it's from like one of the final three chapters with the character who no one knows her name. And reading it and seeing it excerpted and like standing out like that, I was like, I wrote that. I was like, I guess I did. And so it's a distant kind of relationship. I can think more about the process of writing it and how the story came to me and how I put it together. Like the craft of it. But sometimes I can reading it and I'm like, damn, I was on one or like I was really in my bag. But it doesn't seem real almost. I don't know if that makes sense before I'm explaining it right. Yeah, no, I get that. Like I can see the characters. I remember hearing their voices, seeing them in my mind, writing their stories and really crafting it. But when I go back to read it as like a reader and not the author, it's like, oh, this is, this is really good. Like I get the feeling like, okay, I really did have something. It wasn't just in my mind because for a while, it was like, I don't know if I have it. Like I don't know if this is the book that's going to do what I've always wanted to do. And then also it being in my mind that you know, if this doesn't work, if you know, trying to get the agent or going on submission, because I had gotten to the submission place before with my first self published novel, it was always in my mind. You can always do this yourself. Not that I want it to, but like that's how it's like tempering my own expectations. And so now that we're here, it's like, no, no, no, this is really happening. And it feels very, very surreal. Yeah, and I think time helps with fiction like being able to see it. Like time passing, you can sort of see things with fresh eyes and it's kind of cool what time does to the writer and to their own material. And that was also another thing that I forgot to say. It was very impressive with you that you were like, I love that you had published other books. And you didn't wait for anyone. You were like, I'm going to do this myself. And I just found that incredibly impressive and just made me want to work with you even more. Because there was this sort of a nothing's going to stop me vibe to you. And I want to work with people like that, you know, and it just made me feel that much more excited about working with you. That is a very accurate description of me. So that's a question I have because you hear debates in literary social media communities about if you have self published books, then that can look bad on you in the eyes of editors or agents. Or if you don't have a social media following just all these things from people who really don't know. So what does it that writers should know when they're approaching agents, whether they have a bunch of publications behind them or not? I think that for fiction, we're talking about fiction here. For fiction, the social media stuff doesn't really matter very much. Like social media and platform and those sort of buzzwords apply much more to nonfiction. So if you're a fiction writer listening to this, I wouldn't worry so much about your social media. That's the most important thing. And also going from like a thousand followers on Instagram to 1,500, it's not going to matter to the publisher. It's small numbers because they're dealing with celebrities that have millions of people. So I wouldn't worry about the social media aspect of it or the platform. I do think publications are good. Like if you can get short stories in journals or pieces somewhere, even if you're a fiction writer and you're writing nonfiction pieces for outlets, it just shows the agent that you're sort of out there, getting rejected. And I like that because then I know you've been rejected and you know what rejection is like. So we're sort of simpatico and like because of my job, you know, it sounds on the surface that like "Agenting is all sexy and fun," but like I'm being rejected constantly. Like it's, you know, even these huge books that we sell or huge successes, everyone should know that like I submitted to 20 editors, 17 of those editors pass. So I'm getting like multiple passes a day like basically publishing is a chain of passes. Like the boss passes on the editor, the editor passes on me, I pass on the writer. But then you have success within that, you know? So that's sort of an important aspect. And then the other part of your question was about self-publishing. I think there used to be a stigma against writers if they had self-published their books. And it was sort of looked upon a negative way that has completely gone away. Like now it's almost a plus that you've self-published, you know, that you have other books out there. Because I think it's mainly because a lot has to do with Amazon in the sense that you can sell your book. And there's lots of clients that I've taken on who have self-published their book to great success. I mean, I just did a huge book called Inter Excellence that was in the Super Bowl last year. And you know, AJ Brown was reaching on the sidelines. I'm sure many of the people know the story. But that was self-published and that, you know, was an extraordinary deal I did at the beginning of the year. I'd have a YA book called Nightweaver that was also self-published and I saw the woman on a local news station in Texas and I reached out and it was fantastic and resold it to Little Brown. So that happens all the time. So the stigma of self-publishing is long gone. This is very validating for my 2017 self when I self-published my first novel and then reached out to all of my friends who worked in television asking them if I could come on there morning show or their newscast when they got to the fluff part of the newscast and talk about my book and to all of them who said yes to the agent that I now have who was watching local television can pick up an author from one of those interviews. Oh, this has been a joy. Thank you so much Peter for joining me. Any last words that you want to say? I wouldn't be your agent if I didn't say like please buy Nikisha's book. It's extraordinary. It's called The Seven Daughters of Dupree. It's like one of the my favorite novels I've worked on in my career and I guarantee you will love it. All right, you hired Peter. If you haven't pre-ordered The Seven Daughters of Dupree, please do. I'm two weeks out from publication. All pre-orders count toward first week sales which do factor into the best settle list which I hope to make. But on a more serious note, pre-orders signal to a publisher real interest in a book which may then determine support as well as an author's longevity and sustainability. So again, please pre-order the Seven Daughters of Dupree. If you order from Mahogany Books, you can get a signed copy of the novel for the first 200 and 10% off your first purchase using the code BlackPub at checkout. That's B-L-K-P-U-B. And don't forget, you can also see me on tour. It kicks off January 24th, 2026, and Jacksonville, Florida where I live. You can find information about the tour, dates, locations, and time on my website, www.newrights.com. And right is W-R-I-T-E-S. Or on my Instagram or threads page at Mekisha_elis. That's our show for the week. If you like this episode and want more Black and Published, head to our Instagram page. It's @Black and Published and that's B-L-K-A-N-Published. There, I've posted a bonus clip from my interview with Peter about the difficulty in navigating both sides of the industry between authors and editors. Make sure you check it out and let me know what you think in the comments. I'll highlight y'all next week when our guest will be my editor, Alison Callahan. The work is the authors. It's not mine. I didn't write it. It's my job to come in and take what you, the author or the other authors that I've worked with, has written and just make it as strong as it can possibly be. If I've done a good job, no one will ever know I was there. I'll talk to you then. Peace. What's going on, family? This is Derek Young and Ramanda Young. Ones of both Mahogany Books and the Mahogany Books podcast network. We really want to thank each and every one of you for listening to this episode and if you enjoyed what you just heard, drop us a review and write us on whatever platform you download podcasts on. We truly appreciate each and every one of you for supporting us and making us your go-to for Black books and we look forward to connecting with you all sometime in the future. Thank you again, fam, and always remember Black Books Matter Matter.