Shooting the Shit About Your Deepest and Darkest Book Money Questions PART TWO
The Shit No One Tells You About Writing
Bianca Marais, Carly Watters and CeCe Lyra
4.8 • 842 Ratings
🗓️ 5 January 2026
⏱️ 38 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The money talk continues. In Part Two of this no-BS publishing deep dive, Carly and CeCe tackle what really happens after you sign a deal—from how advances are actually paid (spoiler: it takes a while), to whether two-book deals are a smart move, how much authors should spend on marketing and PR, and if believing your book has million-dollar potential is confidence or delusion. They break down genre trends, celebrity “promotions,” agent income realities, and why publishing is equal parts strategy, risk, and skin in the game. Candid, sharp, and full of industry truth bombs—bookmark this one.
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 | Hi there. We've got a lot. We're really excited to tell you about, but I'm going to make this real |
| 0:04.9 | quick so you can get to the episode. The deep dive is coming up at the end of January. The lineup of |
| 0:10.9 | speakers is incredible and the range of topics is mind-blowing. You do not want to miss out on the last |
| 0:17.3 | deep dive ever. Then the beta reader matchup is open once again |
| 0:21.3 | with the matchups going out early in February. |
| 0:23.9 | Sign up to kick your creative year off with a bang. |
| 0:27.2 | Lastly, there's an amazing writer's workbook available |
| 0:30.0 | which will make the perfect gift for you |
| 0:32.3 | or the writer in your life. |
| 0:34.4 | Head to our website, The Shit About Writing, to find out more. |
| 0:40.0 | Welcome to another episode of Shooting the Shit with literary agents, Carly Waters, and |
| 0:45.4 | Cici Lira, where we dissect publishing gossip, discuss book industry trends, and the overall |
| 0:50.9 | state of the book business. If you've ever wanted to grab a coffee with two literary agents, |
| 0:55.5 | grab your mug and pull up a chair. |
| 1:04.3 | All right, welcome back to our part two of our money episode. |
| 1:07.6 | If I could sing, I would sing that like, |
| 1:09.4 | money, money, money, money, that type of song |
| 1:12.5 | would be our little, like, theme song for this one. So this is part two. Who knows? Maybe we'll |
| 1:16.7 | have a part three someday if you guys still have burning questions. But I hope this is a series of |
| 1:21.6 | episodes that you guys can kind of come back to or bookmark or find a way to save so that you |
| 1:26.6 | have access to all this good information because |
| 1:28.7 | this is one of those super curiosity-inducing topics. And we're going to kind of go through a new |
... |
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