In this episode of Shooting the Shit, Carly and CeCe tackle some of publishing’s messiest realities with their usual mix of honesty and humor. They dig into the alarming trend of agents offering representation with 24-hour decision windows—and why that’s predatory. The conversation then shifts to the world of blurbs: pre-written pitches, the hidden economy of “I’ll blurb yours if you blurb mine,” and whether blurbs actually help sell books. They also break down the Anthropic settlement, explaining what the $1.5 billion deal really means for authors, AI, and copyright. From there, it’s a hard look at what’s selling, what’s not, and why memoirs and essay collections remain so tough to place. With insights from top editors, they emphasize that it’s not just about having a story—it’s about telling it in a way that stands out. Writers, consider this your publishing reality check and pep talk.

Note: Cece Lyra is a literary agent at Wendy Sherman Associates. If you’d like to query CeCe, please refer to the submission guidelines at www.wsherman.com. Carly Watters is a literary agent at P.S. Literary Agency, but her work on this podcast is not affiliated with the agency, and the views expressed by Carly on this podcast are solely that of her as a podcast co-host ​and do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, policies, or position of P.S. Literary Agency.

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It’s Beta Reader Match Up time again where you can be matched up with those writing in a similar genre and/or time zone, so they can critique your work as you critique theirs.

For more information and to register, go to: https://www.biancamarais.com/beta-reader-match-

up.html

Sign up for CeCe’s Fall Course: 

Writing Tension Creating Tension, Conflict and Stakes in a Story

Read additional insights on Alia Habib’s’ Substack:

https://aliahabib.substack.com/p/tough-categories-five-top-book-editors

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