Episode 128: *Special Episode* Women’s Fiction Day 2023
For Women’s Fiction Day, a discussion that tackles the difficult questions surrounding the term “women’s fiction” .
With host Lainey Cameron and guests Charlotte Dune, Maggie Smith, Paulette Stout, and author and book coach Kathryn Dodson.
Plus, don’t miss our giveaway from the podcast for Women’s Fiction Day.
Find all the special offers for Women’s Fiction Day on the Women’s Fiction Writers Association website! Including Lainey Cameron’s 3 giveaways.
In a world recognizing a wide gender spectrum, and after Publishers Marketplace dropped the term, does a gender specific genre like women’s fiction still make sense?
Our panel discusses where they see the women’s fiction label going forward and why an author may (or may not) wish to position their writing within the women’s fiction genre
Plus, these award-winning authors, each part of the weekly Writer Support Group hosted by Lainey and Charlotte Dune, have expert advice to share ––how to choose what to write, find your process, and understanding the importance of genre as a promise of value to readers.
Authors & Resources Featured:
Women’s Fiction Writers Association
Hear Us Roar Debut author podcast, hosted by guest on this episode, Maggie Smith
Writer Support Group (all genres), hosted by Lainey Cameron and Charlotte Dune
Lainey Cameron, author of The Exit Strategy (Bookshop.org / Amazon.com )
Charlotte Dune , author of The Psychedelic Love Series (Cactus Friends and Mushroom Honeymoon) by (Amazon.com )
Charlotte Dune’s Lagoon (Substack)
Instagram / Facebook / Twitter
Tequila Midnight: A Jessica Watts Southwest Suspense Novel by Kathryn Dodson ( Amazon )
Kathryn’s Book Coaching Services
Truth and Other Lies by Maggie Smith (Bookshop.org / Amazon.com )
Also watch Maggie’s podcast episode on Best of Women’s Fiction
What We Never Say by Paulette Stout (Bookshop.org / Amazon.com )
Full Disclosure: We are part of the Amazon and bookshop.org affiliate programs, which means Lainey or Ashley get a tiny commission if you buy something after clicking through from link on this website.
Transcript:
** Transcript created using AI (so please forgive the typos!) **
Lainey Cameron
This is Lainey Cameron. I am here for a very special episode on the Best of Women's Fiction Podcast. As you know, we specialize in highlighting the best women's fiction authors. And this week has a very special day. There is a day this week on Thursday called Women's Fiction Day. It's sponsored by the Women's Fiction Writers Association. And we thought it would be really fun to do a special episode and talk about the genre that is women's fiction.
Lainey Cameron
And we might even get a little controversial here we're going to talk about, is there still space for a genderized term to refer to a category of books these days? Should we still call it that? Should we call it something else? Why would we as writers choose to position our work in this category called women's fiction or not that our work in that category and so I am so excited. I've invited four guests, each of whom are part of the Thursday night writers support group that Charlotte Dune who's here with me and I host, I really wanted to pick people who are experts in the field. And I felt like these four folks really know what they're talking about and have lived this question of this category from the inside as authors and from multiple different perspectives. Let me just give them a chance to introduce themselves one at a time. Tell us a little bit about you about what you work on. Let me kick it off with Maggie Smith. Thanks for joining me, Maggie.
Maggie Smith
I'm Maggie Smith. I've released one book so far my debut truth and other laws. And it was clearly a women's fiction. I have been a member of WF WA, which is women's fiction writers association for about five or six years. And I also host their podcast. I'm in the middle of querying my second novel, which I call a suspense, but it does have some women's fiction aspects to it. So I'm, I'm kind of seeing it from a different genre at this time,
Lainey Cameron
Maggie, for folks who are listening, because we have a lot of podcast listeners who maybe haven't heard of your podcast yet. What's the name? And where would they find it?
Maggie Smith
As a podcast is called Hear Us Roar. You can find it on Apple, Spotify, Google, I heart, radio, etc. My interview debut women's fiction writers, so on their first book, and we talk about what they've learned, and what they would suggest as tips for other people.
Lainey Cameron
Awesome. Let me pass it off to Kathy Dodson. And, Kathy, you're coming at this from multiple angles. Talk to us a little about your different projects and what you do in this world.
Kathryn Dodson
Absolutely. Thanks for having me on this morning, Lainey. I am a writer, my debut novel comes out this June. In addition to that, though, I'm also a book coach. So I help people with their novels. And I founded a company called The Good Book Collective, which gives readers influence over book choices by letting them review pre published writers books, and that's specifically in women's fiction and romance. So I do come at this from several different angles.
Lainey Cameron
Paulette Stout, I'm so excited you could be here with us. Tell us more about you and your work.
Paulette Stout
Paulette Stout, I write what I call fast paced and empowering women's fiction, I have two books out to date Love Only Better and What We Never Say. I like to write stories, not only about transformation, but also about the human side of social topics that don't get discussed a lot. And I try to empower our readers to step into another person's body and choose and experience a person's life and hopefully at the end of the book, which will come to a greater appreciation understanding for whatever that topic is. My next book will be coming out February 2024.
Lainey Cameron
And I love love your writing. And I love that you write about what I would call difficult topics like you don't take on easy topics.
Paulette Stout
But I like to do it in a fun way. So the prose is really, you know, visible and readable. But the message I think, is more weighty. That's kind of my vibe.
Lainey Cameron
And Charlotte, Charlotte and I get to see each other almost every week because together we host a writer support group on Thursday nights. Everyone on this podcast today has been part of that group and has joined us at various points. And so Charlotte tell us more about how even how you and I met and what you do in the world.
Charlotte Dune
So I'm Charlotte Dune. As Lainey said, I co host the Writers Support Group with her every Thursday at 8pm on Zoom. And I'm also a writer of fiction and nonfiction. I have two books out I call them psychedelic fiction, but they're actually the first book actually hits a lot of tropes in women's fiction. So I'll talk more about that later. And then I also write fiction and nonfiction on substack at Charlotte Dune's Lagoon.
Lainey Cameron
Cool. So I think what the listeners and watchers here on YouTube will have heard a little is we've got a mix of people who are positioning as women's fiction, or for example, with Maggie clearly women's fiction with the first maybe not positioned as well as women's fiction with the second and then we've got like with you, Charlotte, where you made a conscious choice with your book that you could have positioned it as women's fiction, but you didn't feel like that was the best choice for you. So I'd love to talk about just a little bit like why did you choose to put your book in the genre it's in, or to position or to write in that genre and maybe let's kick off with Kathy this first time.
Kathryn Dodson
So actually, my new one is suspense. And it is very much women's fiction with suspense if you're in the industry, but if you're not in the industry, I am positioning it as suspense. In fact, as an Amazon category, it's under kind of women's detective fiction or women's sleuths. And the reason is, is that it's a book that should have appeal to men, as well as women and men are not going to read a book called women's fiction, especially guys who like to read suspense, right?
Kathryn Dodson
So it very much deals with the character's journey, in essence, big themes, but at the same time, it is definitely a suspense novel. So I'm bridging that gap, but not calling it women's fiction. Now I'm going to publish my second book will be straight up women's fiction, there's not really much else I can call it unless we wanted to go into something like book club fiction or friends fiction, there's some other names that people use, it's a really rough decision. And I think everyone needs to make to decide how they want to position it based on their goals based on how they're going to publish and a variety of other things. Because I don't think readers know what women's fiction is.
Lainey Cameron
Really good point, right? There's no section in the bookstore. It's really interesting that women's fiction is actually the highest selling categories on Amazon. So if you go look in the Amazon categories, and you go into the different categories, the subcategories and the major women's fiction, it's among the highest selling books out there. If you go to the top 10 books on all of Amazon and you click down into the categories, eight or nine out of 10 of those books will be categorized as women's fiction.
Lainey Cameron
And so, Maggie, what about you? Your first one was clearly, squarely positioned as women’s fiction. And if people haven’t read Truth and Other Lies it is fabulous. It is subtle and clever, and one of my favorite books last year, and you could actually see Maggie’s episode on the podcast. But Maggie, what’s going on with you and genre decisions?
Maggie Smith
Well interestingly, when I've been to book clubs, they oftentimes Tell me Truth and Other Lies is a mystery. So it's kind of like, okay, I don't know. And Truth and Other Lies, although I did market it as women's fiction, it was workplace, women relating to each other rather than the more typical family issues. So that made it a little bit unique as kind of Lainey's is, The Exit Strategy is a little bit like that too. The one I have just finished and I'm querying is more strongly suspense. It's got a stalker, it's got a murder. So I feel like I'm always looking for what does the reader look for? I think if a reader was looking for a suspenseful, not really thriller, but mystery suspense, that would be where my second book would go. And so I think it's, it's more to meet reader expectations, not disappoint them. And also, you know, have them hone in on, I would like this book.
Lainey Cameron
And Paulette, talk to us more about, you’ve got a series here.
Paulette Stout
Like, for me, I really feel my book fits within, though, the true definition of women's fiction as defined by WFWA, which is really that emotional journey of a character to the like a more fulfilled self. And I feel like that's really at the heart of all my stories. And I usually include some romantic relationships in my stories, because I feel like that's part of the human experience is having these, you know, romantic relationships, but it's not a romance.
Paulette Stout
And I love women's fiction because it lets you explore deeper themes and lots of other journeys the character can go through beyond the relationship thread. So initially, I mis-categorized my first book as romance and the romance readers were super not happy with me, they were like, what's all this stuff? You know, they just really don't want that. So, you know, both Maggie and Kathy's point, it's about reading meeting reader expectations. So if someone is reading women's fiction, I feel like they have signed up for a deeper journey. And they're open to kind to what comes and that's what I'm looking for with my readers.
Lainey Cameron
I love that. And your first book tackled a really challenging question around sexuality. So I can see why it would like get slotted into romance.
But then to your point, romance readers have a very specific set of things they expect, you must meet both characters by or however many love characters you have, you know, a certain number of pages in and there must be a happy ending and like.. it’s got some very specific rules and not a lot of flexibility to go outside those rules.
Paulette Stout
It feels pretty freeing to me. As an author you have lots of ideas, and you want to explore these ideas, and certain genres have pretty tight guardrails. Like, you got to stay within this specific expectations or readers will, you know, throw they'll pull a red card. So women's fiction kind of is, is more flexible. And that's what I really like about it.
Lainey Cameron
And I positioned my first book as women's fiction, like like Maggie said, The Exit Strategy is positioned squarely as women's fiction, but it was an interesting choice, because like Maggie said, I was doing women's fiction set in the workplace. And actually, there weren't a lot of women's fiction novels that looked like that book. And so I did have a debate about is this helping or hurting me? Will people assume it's more like domestic fiction, because that's what they're expecting from the category? And in the end, I said, No, this category is big enough. And I think like you say, stay Paulette, it has a lot of space to do new things and to be innovative, but it was an interesting debate.
Lainey Cameron
When you look at a category and you don't see a lot of books that look exactly like yours. Does that mean it's the right or wrong category? And what do you do with that? And so yeah, It's a really good question. And I love what you said about reader expectations, which I think is the key. And we're going to talk about more as you know, why does genres even exist, genres exist because they're a promise to the reader that they have some concept of what they'll get when they pick up a particular type of book, right. And so I’m excited to talk more about that, but let’s not But let's not forget, that we should talk about Charlotte, because Charlotte, you made the decision to position in this category called psychedelic fiction. Talk to us more about that.
Charlotte Dune
So that’s what I call my work. I have two books, Cactus Friends, a psychadelic love story, it’s in the psychedelic love series, and Mushroom Honeymoon, which is a followup to that book but stands alone, And then, I’m also working on a third book right now, which I haven't titled yet.
Charlotte Dune
Amazon actually doesn't have a category of psychedelic fiction. My books have a lot of psychedelic components in them and a lot of spirituality. So I initially positioned the category as metaphysical fiction and multicultural romance because there's also a romantic component to it. I've lived all over the world, I used to work in the Foreign Service. And so I have a lot of multicultural characters in all of my books.
Charlotte Dune
So multicultural romance felt like a category that I could continue in, I also have the protagonists switch between the books. So in the first book, Cactus Friends, the protagonist is the female lead. And she does go on a very transformational journey. But in the second book, the protagonist is a male lead. And he's on a transformational journey. And then in the third book, I'm exploring more the transformation of a couple and a relationship. So it's going to be more of a family drama.
Charlotte Dune
I also kind of tried with my covers to make a promise to the reader that this is a book that mashes up genres. This is a more experimental book. This is a mind bending book about psychedelics and plant medicine. And I have Iwasca and magic mushrooms. So I want my readers to know what they're getting into. And I think a lot of readers in the women's fiction category may not be interested in books with more of an overt spirituality component to them. So that's the reason that I chose to use metaphysical, metaphysical fiction. It's also a smaller category. So that has its pros and cons and multicultural romance. But I say psychedelic fiction outside of the industry.
Lainey Cameron
I like psychedelic fiction, because it's very clear if you know what psychedelics are. And I it's interesting, because it's also a promise of value, right? So back to what you just said, of women's fiction is a very big category, right? So that I'm sure there are people who would love that. And people who would not like that within the world of readers who read women's fiction. And so clearly positioning it so that someone doesn't get halfway through the book and go, Whoa, this person is on a trip, I didn't know that we're going to be drugs on this in this book, some people are going to pick it up and read it because of that, and other people are going to be like, Don't give me that that's not what I want to read, I do think it's much more effective for you positioning it so clearly in a smaller or it's not even a smaller, it's a clearer category of what it is right versus women's fiction is such a big category.
Lainey Cameron
And that's kind of what I want to talk about. Next I'm going to read a little bit of before we go into this of WFWA's Women's Fiction writers Association's definition of what they view as women's fiction. And then I'll just share how we did it for the podcast for the Best of Women's Fiction podcast, which most people probably haven't noticed. But it's not the same, I did not pick up the same definition that WFWA is using. So the Women's Fiction Writers Association says that women's fiction from their perspective is layered stories in which the plot is driven by the main character's emotional journey. And it can be contemporary or historical, it can have magical mystery thriller or other elements within it. But the driving force has to be the protagonist journey towards a more fulfilled self.
Lainey Cameron
Now, one of the things that people have held against this description or complained about relative to this description is is very broad, you could take a lot of books in this world and say that they are driven by the main characters emotional journey, you could take a lot of books in different genres and say they are driven by the main character's emotional journey. And the other thing that people have taken issue with sometimes is that there is actually no gender associated with Women's Fiction Writers Association's description of women's fiction. So it is neither read by women or written by women, or has a female identifying protagonist, there is actually no gender in the way that WFWA describes it. Now that's good because it's inclusive, right?
Lainey Cameron
It was a very deliberate move on WFW's part not to use gender in the description. But it's also kind of strange to say it's not genderized, but the title is "women". So it's a bit strange to say, you know, we're not going to hold you to a gender, but it's called women. And so what we did on the podcast, we went a slightly different direction. And we said, a female identifying protagonist. So that was just a decision I made because I had to draw the line somewhere on what would kind of to not count for the podcast. But that's just a personal choice. It's our podcast, Ashley and I host together so we get to make that call.
Lainey Cameron
But I want to talk about, you're all really close to this space. And there are pros and cons to those descriptions. But also, it's even the existence of a genre, which is defined by a genderized term, right? We're all trying to become more understanding of, of kind of Gender Spectrum and a lot of people which are non binary, and then we've got this term which is very gendered.
Lainey Cameron
Gosh, what the heck do we do with this? Let's talk a little bit about the pros and cons of having this kind of category. I think I'll lead off with Charlotte on this one. What do you think?
Charlotte Dune
So I have very mixed feelings. In one sense, I think we should have, we should be able to have women only spaces and women focused things just like their men's focus things just like their trans focus things just like their non binary focus things. But to me itself, that category feels a bit limiting, because it does insinuate that only women are going to read your books, it just has a bit of a dated feel, to me, if I think about like women's writing in the past, and for example, I have a degree that is was women's fiction, I mean, sorry, women's studies. But that degree doesn't even exist anymore at the university I went to I got that in 2004. Now they call themselves the Department of gender studies, sexuality, and Women's Studies. So I think these terms are just changing collectively for society.
Charlotte Dune
And women's fiction, to me feels like it's in more of a second wave feminism, where they were very focused in the 70s, on breaking down gender norms, but also getting more women in male dominant dominated spaces. And publishing is very male dominated, especially at that time. Now, it's still traditional publishing is still 67% male authors, I checked that step today. So it's changing, but it's still male dominated. So I think there is value in promoting women's writings. But it's, it's a confusing topic, because I think it does turn off younger generation of a younger generation of women who wants to have more inclusivity or who may be non binary. And then they feel that this is kind of a very closed space. I actually liked the term book club fiction. But that's a topic all in itself. I think those are my feelings about it. It has value, but it also feels a bit dated. Yeah, I'll just add that it, it does feel to me a bit stuck in the second wave feminist movement. And it needs to come into the third wave, which is more about intersectionality and inclusivity. And I think this is even, like present in the readers and the authors in women's fiction and more born in the 70s. Or born in the 60s. I could see it definitely evolving and going away and taking on a different term.
Lainey Cameron
Yeah. And I think one of the one of the biggest challenges as been, you brought up book club fiction, right? What is that other term? Right? If it's not women's fiction, and I think women's fiction Writers Association, has been doing a lot of work that even hired some consultants to help with this. Because yeah, it's like, okay, if it's not this, what is it?
Lainey Cameron
And just some background on why this is such a big conversation right now, like you say, I think the world around us is changing. And there's a new generation that is thinking about things differently. But also some things in the literary world Publishers Marketplace got rid of the term last year. So they said, they're no longer going to use women's fiction. And they're using, I think, a commercial fiction, literary fiction, I'm not sure if they have general fiction. And so that's causing causing some question marks, right? If you're going to query a book, but Publishers Marketplace no longer believes there is a category. But then Amazon still has a category? It's a very interesting kind of morphing moment, right now. Let me pass it off to Kathy and ask what you think on this whole term. And you're actually specializing in a community right, of readers of women's fiction? So like, how are you dealing with this question around the category and the names and where it goes?
Kathryn Dodson
Right? Well, it's a great question. And like you, I kind of made up my own definition, because here I am trying to bring in readers to help evaluate Pre published books. But if readers don't know what women's fiction is, you know, how do you do that? So I did use for good but collective, I use the category women's fiction and romance, but I made my own definition. And so the definition I used is that there are stories that revolve around the journey and evolution of one or more main characters. That's very broad. But I'm trying to let readers know what kind of book it is, if they're not familiar with the term women's fiction,
Kathryn Dodson
And it’s funny because in my own mind, I have a definition that I kind of use. It’s not a defintion but it’s a comparison. I’ve read a whole bunch of Lee Childs Jack Reacher books. That character I mean, they're fun books to read, great airport reads, but they they show Jack Reacher and some books as a teenager is and you know, in his 20s 30s 40s, and even 50s, he never changes. Not once does he change, right? And then what I consider to be women's fiction, it is about the main character really undergoing changes that goes through their character art throughout the book. And that's the difference to me. And what I consider just plain old commercial fiction, and what we're calling women's fiction, but I do think there needs to be a better term. I think that the women's term is outdated today, and it's beginning to become more outdated in the future. So this is a real struggle, what do we call it? And how do we get everyone, readers industry and the writers who are often stuck in the middle on board with something different and what should that be?
Lainey Cameron
I'm kind of torn in that the biggest value for me of women's fiction has been the community of authors and writers in that genre, right? All of you are people I met through that community through kind of being active in that community. And so I'm a little torn in that I have a huge emotional tie to the community known as the community of women, women's fiction writers, and I have so many friends and so many people have helped me each step in my own author journey.
Lainey Cameron
I do think there is a promise of an experience that a book gives when it's cast classified as this genre that is women's fiction. It's a it's an emotional, it's a type of experiential thing that you have certain expectations of the experience of reading a book, and I'm not sure that book club fiction or market fiction or commercial fiction or general fiction… how do you show reader the type of experience other than the description of the book itself? I will say that it occurred to me this morning, as I was thinking about, I was rereading the WFWA description. And I was reading that remembering that it has no, you know, gender term in the description. So it could be written about a man, it could be a man's journey. It could be written for a male audience. I mean, there's no, there's no women in it.
Lainey Cameron
But then I kind of thought of an example and I said, Well, what if you had a club called the big boys, men's club, and you said, we're going to open it to everybody, you can come to the big boys, men's club, even if you're non binary, even if you're a woman, but we're still going to keep calling it the big boys men's club doesn't really work. Right? Like it's still exclusionary, if the title is exclusionary. And so I don't know, I'm really torn on this one, because I am so tied to this community of amazing authors of all genders. Who write in this world, but it does feel a little like it's time has come and gone and we need a new name, but I don't know what it is. So Paulette, what's your thinking?
Paulette Stout
Yeah, I 100% think the name needs to change. I think, too, you know, I think Kathy mentioned it. And Charlotte, it's too limiting.
Paulette Stout
My most recent book, someone I knew got it. And you know, her ex husband was over with the kids and snagged the book and ran off with the book. And because, you know, part of my book has like a male character going through a very emotional journey. And he snagged the book and read it. But I don't know that he would go searching on Amazon or in, you know, in a bookshop for a book categorized as women's fiction. So I feel like we need to exist, we need our own space, because otherwise our stories will be lost among the rest of the publishing industry. And I believe that these are important stories that need to be told their unique and distinct stories, but with 37% of books, traditionally published books written by women, I just feel like if this goes away, then we we just we get lost. So I do want a space for us, we just need a new branding. It's interesting.
Lainey Cameron
I love that Charlotte brought up that statistic, because I was looking at statistics this morning. And I was looking back at The Guardian article from a few years back that said that 80% of all novels, so fiction novels, are read by women. So it's really interesting if women are 80% of the market for novels, yet the rest of the statistics in the world don't quite line up in terms of the percent of the publishing industry, or the percent of the books that are chosen to be published, etc, etc. So, and that certainly plays out on our podcast here. That's what we see in our podcast audience.
Lainey Cameron
Maggie, you are so close to this. And I love the fact that your book actually has when we talk about waves of feminism, truth and other lies has a major secondary character who has kind of a feminist character who is dealing with the way the world has changed around her. It's what's your thinking on this?
Maggie Smith
I think it does probably need to change. But I'm kind of like Paulette in saying, Hey, we've made some progress. And now we're going to just undo it all. Because as I'm querying with agents, they are listing women's fiction is what they're looking for. So if we lose that term...
Maggie Smith
For the first time, I've heard a term that I think maybe could be a possibility. And that's change fiction, which is what Kathy was saying, I kind of liked that term. I think it may be has some legs there, it reflects what is going on in women's fiction journeys. It isn't gender based, I kind of like change fiction. So now I'm an advocate for that name. I don't like book club fiction. I don't like general, I don't like commercial. All of that sounds very generic to me. I think the idea, as we talked about earlier, was to let readers know what they're in for. And none of those terms do that for me.
Maggie Smith
I think it also has a bit of industry speak in that when you talk to readers and the world in general. They don't even know what women's fiction means. And they would never talk about it that way. So I think it's also kind of a little in-group talking about something that's very in groupie. Nobody in the wider world much cares about it.
Paulette Stout
They dowhen they buy the wrong book.
Lainey Cameron
I have one last question that I want to ask all of you, which is I know a lot of writers who listen to the podcast and you're all very talented authors. What is your best advice that you give to people and let's kick off with Maggie, why don't you go first this year?
Maggie Smith
For my best advice, I think you just write the book that sings to you and your heart, and that you want to write, and that you feel like you have something to contribute to the conversation. And then later you figure out where it gets, gets shelved. I think if you write to trope or write to something that you're going to slot it into, it's not going to be the book that you want to be proud of.
Lainey Cameron
I completely agree. I didn't know that my first novel, The Exit Strategy was women's fiction until I'd written it. And then I went out and tried to work out what the genre was. And that's how I found the community of women's fiction writers, because I was like, This is what I wrote, where does it fit? What is this thing I just wrote, I know there is a whole philosophy of write to market and write rapid and write to market, but I actually am 100% with you, Maggie.
Lainey Cameron
I love the quotes that say you're going to, you're going to be with this book that you're writing for a period of time, in my case, it's years, some people, it's less than a year. But you know, if you were going to spend, you know, let's say, in my case, three years with a person, you better should make sure you like that person enough to spend three years with them. And, you know, writing to trope is less likely to get you to that scenario of like write the thing you're excited and passionate about because you're gonna have to be passionate about it for like revision after revision after revision. And so..
Maggie Smith
It's also interesting to me, the second book I wrote has two primary female characters. And the the protagonist does go on an emotional journey. And underneath, it's a mother and daughter love story, just like the first one that I wrote. But it's much more in the suspense genre in terms of expectations. So it could be slotted as women's fiction suspense.
Lainey Cameron
I think the commonality is we're trying to find a way to connect the readers with the books they will love, right? Like to show them this is this is what this book is. So if you like that kind of read, you will love this book, and this is what it's not. And so if you're looking for different kinds of read, this is not the book for you. And so, you know, we're all coming at it with that goal of connecting readers to the right book that they're going to really enjoy and helping them avoid the wrong books.
Lainey Cameron
Kathy, you're actually very active in that trying to connect readers with the right books. So what advice do you give to folks who are trying to work out where to go as as authors and maybe related to genre? Maybe not?
Kathryn Dodson
I think it's a great question. And I, I really believe it depends on two things. The first is where you are in your journey. And the second is what your goals are. And so where you are in your journey is so important. The first thing is just to write, to write a book to write a novel to do it's a big task. And so beginning writers really need to focus on that.
Kathryn Dodson
But I think the more you write, the more books you have, under your belt, you learn about the industry, you learn about genres, and you learn that it's a promise to the reader as Paulette was talking about. And so you really do need to understand genre. And I'm not saying write to market, but I am saying understand what promise you're making the reader and make sure you deliver that. And then also what are your goals, if your goals are traditional publishing, women's fiction is a term still used in traditional publishing, by the majority of the industry. If you intend on self publishing, when you're looking at genre, you're looking at much more specific things you're looking at Amazon categories, right? So it really depends, what are your goals? And, so use the tools you need to use to meet those goals.
Lainey Cameron
Smart,very smart. Paulette?
Paulette Stout
I think one of the big things I've learned, the more books I've written is how much emphasis for getting writers placed on their first draft, and they put so much pressure on themselves to get that perfect, they go over that first chapter like 1000 times before reading the rest. And really what I've learned is just get it out, get it on the page, things you can edit, what's not there, it doesn't exist. And then you can just throw away. The magic comes in the editing. So don't put so much pressure on yourself to get the first draft, right, because you know, I call my first draft, you know, garbage, vomit, whatever word you want to use. It's just like, it's just not where it ends up. So be open to the journey of the first draft is just the beginning.
Lainey Cameron
Charlotte, what about you? And I have two questions for you here. Tell us your best writing advice. And then tell us a little bit about the writer support group after that as well.
Charlotte Dune
Okay, um, well, I think my best writers advice is to first thank yourself for even trying because writing a novel is not easy. People may make you think that it is easy, it is not easy, and it's going to take hours of your life and it's hopefully going to be extremely fun. So I echo what the other folks are saying make it fun, find the joy in it, but also realize that it is difficult so learn as much as you can study the habits of other writers that you love. Read across genres, read as much as you can, and experiment experiment with the habits of other writers see if they work for you. I've tried different processes on different books and each one yields a different result but it's just a out, overcoming the resistance getting at it and keeping going and the closed off nature of the traditional publishing industry doesn't have to affect you.
Charlotte Dune
And, you know, we said that traditional publishing is still publishing more male authors. But the gates are wide open. Now you can self publish, you can indie publish, you can find just as much, just as many readers as a traditionally published author, if not more.
Charlotte Dune
And then for the writer support group, we take a very similar attitude, it's open to all types of writers, we just ask that you be a serious writer. And most of us have already written at least one book, but others are starting their writing journey. And maybe they've published articles, or maybe they're writing a blog, there's so many ways now to deliver writing to readers that we meet every Thursday on Zoom.
Charlotte Dune
It's not a critique group, we do not read each other's work or critique each other's work unless like you make a friend in the group and you want to become critique partners, but our time on Thursdays an hour and a half, and we spend the time talking about whatever comes up for members. So whatever topics our members have, in their minds, sometimes we're talking about changes to the publishing industry. Sometimes we're talking about writing craft, sometimes we're sharing tips on how to write the first sentence of your book or how you keep the writing momentum going when you're feeling blocked. And other times a person will come with a very specific question like how do I find a person to format my book or what's drafted digital are very detailed questions, and the members will help them do through the process.
Charlotte Dune
And we have self published members and traditionally published members and small press publish members and we have members who have gone through the process and found an agent and we have members that just straight up our, you know, self publishing for free on substack or wherever because they just want readers and they don't care about selling the work. So it's really all types and I invite everyone to join if you're interested in you're a serious writer.
Lainey Cameron
Great. Well, this has been so much fun. And I have kind of one last two part question for you all, which is, is there anything you didn't say that you know you're burning say or you want to share before we wrap up? And where can our listeners find you online?
Lainey Cameron
And I will just remind everybody that if you go to the website at bestofwomensfiction.com I'm going to have on the episode page, we'll have links to everything we talked about today, links to the books by each of the authors who are here links to their websites. So that's the easiest way if you're trying to find wait, who was that? Paulette? Where was her book? Just go to Bestofwomen'sfiction.com . Look for the latest episode, it's gonna have all the links to let social media for example, saying that let's start with you. Paulette.
Paulette Stout
I think we covered most of it, especially the how, because these stories are important, and so many so often women's voices are ignored. So I'd hate to Maggie's point to go back to where we were before. But in general, yeah, you can find me on my website, PauletteStout.com . I'm all over social media way more than I should be. I'm at PauletteStoutauthor author on Facebook, and on Tik Tok and on Instagram and @stoutcontent on Twitter.
Lainey Cameron
And Maggie, what about you?
Maggie Smith
I guess I would say send the message to anybody that's wanting to write, to find a community of some kind, because as Charlotte said, writing a novel or writing period is hard. And there is a lot of rejection, not just for women's fiction for everything that says the woman that's in the querying trenches right now. So I think it's important to have friends in the community and associations and people you can turn to for support, and encouragement and knowledge and all that. So find that and it'll really help you. And then where people can find me, I have my own website. I am easily confused with Dame Maggie Smith, haven't won an Oscar yet. And lately, Maggie Smith, the poet, who is got a new memoir out. So I'm neither one of those people. But I'm on Instagram, @MaggieSmithwrites is primarily my hangout.
Lainey Cameron
Awesome. And Charlotte, what about for you,
Charlotte Dune
I would just add that far more people are watching movies and reading books. So I think for the genres, maybe we just need to look to the movie industry, and kind of classify in those terms. Because I read that of the top 10% movies on Netflix, they were watched 68 million times, whereas under 300 books sold more than 500,000 copies last year. So we're looking at audiences that are much more familiar with movie categories.
Charlotte Dune
So maybe something like transformational fiction, or life changing fiction, emotional journey fiction, social fiction, even progressive fiction. There's so many different words that could be chosen. But maybe we do stick with women's fiction for a while. I'm not sure. But I think the movie industry is a good place to start to look at what audiences really understand in terms of genre. And then where to find me is CharlotteDune.com, you can go to CharlotteDune.com, and find my substack, my Instagram, my Twitter, and my Facebook.
Lainey Cameron
And Charlotte has a great substack. On Charlotte's Substack talks about all kinds of fascinating ideas, I have learned more about kind of new technologies, but not just psychedelics, but new technology, new tech that's coming and how to use it and how not to use it an AI from Charlotte substack than almost anywhere else. So if you're interested in kind of opening your perspective on the world, on writing on how things are changing around us, I would encourage you to follow Charlotte substack. It's really great. And I think I haven't asked Kathy, I think you're going to be our last one here.
Kathryn Dodson
Fantastic. Well, Charlotte, I have to say I love the term life changing fiction, because that's how you feel when you read a good book. terms of advice, I just say embrace the change, the industry is changing faster than we can keep up with. The world is changing, nomenclature is changing. It's going to happen. So let's just find the best path forward. In terms of where to find me, you can find my writing at KathyDodson.com. And if you're interested in either reviewing books, or if you're a writer, and we'd like to have your books or cover or marketing blurbs reviewed by readers in your genre, you can go to GoodBookCollective.com
Lainey Cameron
Awesome. Thanks, Kathy. And this is Lenny Cameron, this has been an absolute pleasure. As you can tell if you've been listening, this is a question that's kind of under consideration, right?
Lainey Cameron
None of us really know what's going to happen in this category going forward. But we're all trying to work out how to do the right thing. And so it's a very timely and topical conversation here on women's fiction day.
Lainey Cameron
So I hope you go out and pick a fabulous categorized women's fiction book, possibly for women's fiction day and enjoy it and we'll put all the information like I said on the writing of each of the authors here with us is on the website at bestofwomensfiction.com . Thanks so much everybody for joining me !
Everyone
Thank you!