Shooting the Shit About Memoirs That Sell and The Publicity Delusion
The Shit No One Tells You About Writing
Bianca Marais, Carly Watters and CeCe Lyra
4.8 • 842 Ratings
🗓️ 2 March 2026
⏱️ 48 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Carly and CeCe are back! This week they chat about audiobook double-dipping stats, the behind-the-scenes “fires” agents constantly put out (covers, contracts, timelines, leverage), and whether traditional media still moves the needle—or just feeds our very human need for validation. They also dive into buzzy memoirs, literary-agent characters in fiction, and why AI submissions are getting spotted instantly and what that means for writers who don’t trust their own voice.
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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Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Welcome to another episode of Shooting the Shit with literary agents Carly Waters and Cece Learro, |
| 0:08.0 | where we dissect publishing gossip, discuss book industry trends, and the overall state of the book business. |
| 0:14.0 | If you've ever wanted to grab a coffee with two literary agents, grab your mug and pull up a chair. |
| 0:28.5 | Hello, Cece. How are you? |
| 0:34.9 | Busy and well, how are you? How is your weekend? Has your week been so far? |
| 0:39.0 | It's been good. This weekend was kind of nice and quiet at home, which was good. |
| 0:40.3 | I went skiing with the kids. |
| 0:41.3 | I've had a bunch of hockey. |
| 0:43.9 | I feel like I've been on the go a lot this year. |
| 0:45.8 | I was in New York, which you guys knew about. |
| 0:49.7 | And then I went to see the backstreet boys in Las Vegas right after that. |
| 0:51.9 | So that was really fun with my friends. |
| 0:55.0 | We did five couples, so like five guys, five women. |
| 0:56.4 | The five women went to the backstreet boys. The five guys went golfing. Anyway, it was great. But this was a very nice quiet weekend at home. I cleaned up my closet, which I was very proud of myself about. I love cleaning out closets. I'm going to drop off at the consignment store. And yeah, it was good. How about you? I'm such a nerd. |
| 1:10.3 | I love cleaning out closets. |
| 1:11.8 | It's like it brings me joy. |
| 1:13.5 | Yeah. |
| 1:13.8 | Like I love it. |
| 1:14.6 | I love orthophic. store and yeah it was good how about you i'm such a nerd i love cleaning out closets it's like |
| 1:12.0 | it brings me joy yeah like i love it i love organizing i don't like cleaning but i love organizing |
| 1:17.0 | i was in new york and let me see i worked on slides for my class wait when does this air so if this |
| 1:23.4 | airs on monday it airs on march second that that's so i'm speaking Cecee in the future. Today, since you are. You are. You are starting your class on March 2nd. So I worked on slides and as usual, the slides are out of control. Obviously. Not something that I'm surprised about. Writing interiority is a big enough subject. Now I'm doing interiority and psychological acuity and you just have so much to |
... |
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