312. How I Became a Traditionally Published Author with Suja Sukumar

Author and physician Suja Sukumar talks about her experiences being traditionally published, what the journey entailed, and gives tips on how to do it yourself.

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Visit Suja's website:
https://www.sujasukumar.com/

Grab a copy of her books:
https://www.sujasukumar.com/books

Follow Suja on her socials:
https://www.instagram.com/sujawrites/
https://www.threads.net/@sujawrites
https://www.facebook.com/sujasukumarwriter
https://www.tiktok.com/@iamsujas?lang=en

Transcript

Jennia: Hello, I'm Jennia D'Lima. Welcome to Writing and Editing, the author-focused podcast that takes a whole-person approach to everything related to both writing and editing. There are almost as many paths to publication as there are authors. And each story offers us insights into what it takes to get published. One author is with us today to share what her path looked like. This is, "How I Became a Traditionally Published Author" with Suja Sukumar.

Jennia: Well, first, I am so pleased to have you here today!

Suja Sukumar: Thank you so much, Jennia, for having me! It's really an honor, actually, to be here. Thank you.

Jennia: Aww, thank you! Well, I'd love to have you start by telling us a little bit about When Mimi Went Missing and even then, just how you decided which route you were going to look for when it came to publishing this book.

Suja Sukumar: So this book actually started as an idea probably about 10 years ago.

Jennia: Mm!

Suja Sukumar: So it started as an idea at that point. And I knew even then that I wanted to do traditional publishing. And a large part of that was because of the time crunch with, you know, marketing and things like that. I had no clue of any of those things, actually, at that point. And at that point my focus was actually just mainly getting the story written. And my inspiration at that time to start writing the story was I know I've always loved mysteries and thrillers, and my kids were young at that point so I would tell them bedtime stories—

Jennia: Mmm.

Suja Sukumar: —which had usually siblings trying to go on adventures and find treasure and beat villains up and things like that. I would see that. And then they would go to the libraries to try and find books similar to those. But they never actually found a lot of YA books which had characters in there—main characters in them who looked like my kids.

Jennia: Ahh, yeah.

Suja Sukumar: Yeah, so there wasn't many books out there at that time. So that was when I thought of writing a YA suspense with South Asian main characters. You know, I wanted to have these characters up front on the cover so when a kid walks into a library and is looking for a YA thriller or a mystery, they can see the cover and they can relate. They can feel that they are being represented, you know, in the center, not as secondary characters.

Jennia: Exactly, yes.

Suja Sukumar: Yep, and that was very important for me. So that's why I stuck with this story, to tell the truth. So my story is—it's called When Mimi Went Missing. And this is, actually, it's about two Indian-American cousins whose relationship goes from sisterly to estranged to murderous. So a very short blurb for the story: after a party that kicked off the new school year, popular teen Mimi goes missing. And the next day, her cousin Tanvi wakes up, and she's covered with bruises and a bump on her head and has no memory of what caused her injuries. And she also finds that her cousin is missing. So now she has to return to the worst night of her life and the dark parts of her past to find out if she is capable of murder and the truth of what happened to Mimi. So that's a blurb. The story has changed over the years. I did find a lot of good critique partners and buddies, writing buddies, who, you know, stuck with me and helped me edit the story. Yeah, so they basically helped me edit the story and a lot of the—So I'm not sure if you know my background. I'm a physician. I've been in medicine. I was working as a doctor—

Jennia: Mhm.

Suja Sukumar: —for a while now. And my entire training and work experience has been within medicine. Working as a doctor. So I didn't—

Jennia: Ahh.

Suja Sukumar: Yeah. So right—So basically, I did my schooling in India. My basic high school in India. And after 12th grade, you go directly into med school.

Jennia: Oh!

Suja Sukumar: Yeah. You go directly into med school. And then, you know, from med school, I did my residency here, and then I started working right away. So there's really no experience in anything else.

Jennia: Mhm.

Suja Sukumar: So once I had the plot down, it was quite a mess, actually (Jennia laughs), because there was all my ideas, and I had all these twists and things in my mind, and I wanted to get all of that down on paper. So I needed help, and I joined an online critique group called a critique circle.

Jennia: Okay!

Suja Sukumar: And there I found three very good critique partners. And they stuck with me for years, actually. They helped me polish the story. They helped me—actually, even helped me with things like certain sentence structure. You know, the rhythm of a paragraph. How to plot a story. The formulaic pattern behind it, not just the creative nature behind it. They suggested craft books. So I read up on those craft books. I applied the technical parts to my own creative aspects of the story, and that's how I was able to get an actual story done properly.

Jennia: Yeah, do you think that critique partners were helpful and even that you were able to get a traditional publishing deal later that is because they also gave you all this advice? So it helped buffer what was already going to be a compelling story and just helped it take it up that extra notch?

Suja Sukumar: Exactly. Because of the three critique partners I had at that point, one was an editor—

Jennia: Ahh.

Suja Sukumar: —the second one was a teacher, and one of them had already had a published deal. So they were able to help me with a lot of things at that point. They helped me a lot with all of that stuff. Yeah. So they definitely helped take it to that more refined level, more polished level. That was actually in 2018, when I finally got the story done and I started looking for an agent. But I had a ton of rejections at that point. And a large part of the rejections was because many of the agents couldn't relate to the story. Because see, YA suspense at that point did not have many South Asian main characters. So the agents couldn't relate. They didn't know exactly where to place the story.

Jennia: Mhm.

Suja Sukumar: So they liked the plot, they liked the plot twists, but they just couldn't relate to the story. So then I went ahead and took part in these competitions, but one of them was called Author Mentor Match.

Jennia: Mmm, mhm.

Suja Sukumar: Yeah. So Author Mentor Match, when I took part in it, and my story got selected by them. And my mentor was Dana Mele, and she wrote People Like Us. So she is a YA thriller author too. And she is excellent. I mean, she actually is an excellent mentor, and she helped me polish my story. But, you know, she helped me with the submission process because that itself was a whole thing.

Jennia: Oh, yeah, exactly. That can be really daunting.

Suja Sukumar: Exactly.

Jennia: And I think, yeah, just having someone by your side who's already been through it or even understands what to do, which steps to take, that sounds like it would be incredibly helpful too.

Suja Sukumar: Exactly. Because the submission package, getting the query, getting the first three chapters done and polished, getting the entire synopsis—because, you know, we all dread synopsis.

Jennia: Oh, yeah (Suja laughs). I've heard that a lot. You know, the (laughs)—That the book was easier to write than the blurb or the synopsis or the query letter, yeah.

Suja Sukumar: Exactly! Yeah, because you have a 300 page book and you got to put it into two pages in the entire story. So she helped me with that, and that's what actually got me my agent.

Jennia: Oh, nice!

Suja Sukumar: So, yeah, so we found the—I found my agent in 2018, and then in 2019, we went out on submission.

Jennia: Mhm.

Suja Sukumar: And at the end of 2019, we had gotten through about a couple of rounds, but COVID hit.

Jennia: Oh, yes.

Suja Sukumar: Yeah. So many of those, especially the smaller publishers, were not accepting. So one of the publishers, she emailed us and told us she loved the story, but she's unable to accept it.

Jennia: Mmm.

Suja Sukumar: And eight months later, she came back with another email and said that she cannot get the story out of her mind.

Jennia: Ahh!

Suja Sukumar: So she wanted to know if the story was still available. So that's how I got my book deal. That's how I signed with her.

Jennia: Very nice. So did you look into some of these publishers and agents yourself? Or because you had a network, were you able to just ask them for their recommendations? Or sort of vet some of these people before you submitted to them?

Suja Sukumar: Yeah, I did vet them. I did vet them. Especially after a ton of the earlier rejections.

Jennia: Oh.

Suja Sukumar: So the first—When I first started sending out my queries itself, I made sure that I checked the genre.

Jennia: Mhm.

Suja Sukumar: I made sure that the agents accepted those genres. AgentQuery is a good website.

Jennia: Mhm.

Suja Sukumar: And that offers a lot of information about agents and so is QueryTracker. So QueryTracker has a lot of information as well, and it's genre specific, but it also gives you information like, "How soon does this agent respond to your queries?" So I did, like, a mixed bag. What I did was I had, like, a couple of my dream agents. Then I would have people in the agents in there who have a very fast response time.

Jennia: Mhm.

Suja Sukumar: Because that would give me an idea of, "Do I need to work on my query a little bit before I send the next batch out?"

Jennia: Is that something that you ever did? Did you ever go back and revisit the query letter or the synopsis and maybe edit them a little bit or reframe how you presented something?

Suja Sukumar: I definitely did. That's the whole part of it. So that's why you want tond send your queries out in batches. And I also took part in, again, online competitions where other writers, you know, said that, you know, "I can read through a query." You know, these are all just writers helping writers.

Jennia: Yeah.

Suja Sukumar: So, yeah, I worked on my queries quite a bit. But I think the most important thing for me was learning to accept rejections because there were so many of them, es—you know, from the agents especially. So not taking it personally is a big thing.

Jennia: Yeah, so true.

Suja Sukumar: Yeah. Yeah. Because, you know, the responses—I mean, just having them send a response itself is—it takes time from them. And that initially, since I was not really used to a ton of rejections in my field, so it was hard to actually get over the rejection. So I just learned to give in to the feeling of sadness for a bit.

Jennia: Ohh, yeah.

Suja Sukumar: So I wouldn't look at my emails until the end of the day and then I would just read all the rejections and I would just give in to my sadness at the end of the day. And the next morning just wake up with a new set of optimism and send out another batch of queries.

Jennia: That seems like a very healthy way of going about it. And I like, too, that you said you waited until a certain point because I can just imagine the difficulty. While I'm sure most of us have experienced that where we've gotten news that maybe wasn't something we were looking forward to, but then we still had to go to a meeting, or drop our kid off at soccer practice, or something and pull ourselves together ahead of time, and that can be extremely hard.

Suja Sukumar: Yeah. Yeah. So learning to accept rejections and then learning to forget the negative parts of it.

Jennia: Mhm.

Suja Sukumar: Because right now, I don't remember the agents who sent rejections. Actually, I don't. But I remember the agents who actually offered to help.

Jennia: Ahh, yeah.

Suja Sukumar: Yeah. So once the story got polished a lot more, there were agents who actually responded with advice on how to fix the chapters, even though they were not to offer.

Jennia: Mhm.

Suja Sukumar: You know, even though they were not able to offer, they still took the time to read and critique and send me emails with how I could, you know, polish things up.

Jennia: When you first started sending the manuscript out, how did you decide that it had reached a point where it was ready to be queried?

Suja Sukumar: Oh, that's a tough thing. That's a very tough question. I don't know if I've ever reached that point. Even now, even though the book is out (Jennia laughs).

Jennia: Well, now that it's out and released into the world.

Suja Sukumar: Yeah, yeah, I know. I don't think an author can ever reach that point, you know, because you always feel like there could be something else you can polish. I had to have writer friends tell me to stop it.

Jennia: Ahh.

Suja Sukumar: Like, they would say, "Stop it. This is enough." You know, "Let's go ahead and just send it out now," so.

Jennia: Yep. Another reason why we need that network to help support us.

Suja Sukumar: Yeah. I mean, staying in the writing community is so important, and that's why it's important to pay it forward.

Jennia: Mhm.

Suja Sukumar: You know, for all the help people paid me. For all the help people gave me ahead. I mean, these were published authors who did not need to step in and help an unpublished, you know, unagented author. But they did. And so I owe it to them to, like, help people coming, you know, we need that, so yeah.

Jennia: Well, so switching to when you did have your agent, how did the querying process differ after that compared to when you were searching on your own for someone?

Suja Sukumar: It was so much different. I mean, there was—Because I really had an ally on my side. I had somebody who was advocating for me.

Jennia: Mhm.

Suja Sukumar: And my agent is actually even more fiercely committed to this book than me (Jennia laughs). You know, so he would get upset for me, you know?

Jennia: Aww, yes.

Suja Sukumar: So it's almost like before he sends me the email, he's already ready with all the, you know, explanations and why we should not feel bad about this and . . . So he was very supportive. That was a big thing. So I didn't actually feel bad. I don't remember any of those rejections and the submissions affecting me badly.

Jennia: Ohh, okay.

Suja Sukumar: I mean, I—actually, I don't even remember feeling bad, sad about many of those. There was only one rejection, which struck me as odd because the editor said he liked the story, but he just did not know where to place it in a bookshelf. And that struck me as odd because it's clearly a YA thriller.

Jennia: Yes. I mean, all you have to do is read the summary and that's pretty apparent, yes.

Suja Sukumar: Yeah. I have a feeling—and I'm not sure—you know, that it could be related to the main characters, because they were not—even at that time, this was in 2020. '21, actually. There were not many YA suspense with brown main characters. And maybe he did not know where to place it, so.

Jennia: Yeah, I can see why that one would stick out just, again, yeah.

Suja Sukumar: Yeah.

Jennia: So when we were just chatting before recording, you'd said that you'd had all these other things come up in your life that had been part of the reason why this took as long as it did. So I wanted to know if you were comfortable talking about that, sharing a little bit, maybe, about how it did impact the timeline from querying to publication?

Suja Sukumar: Yeah. So one of the main things, one of the main life events, was, in 2015, I was diagnosed with breast cancer.

Jennia: Mhm.

Suja Sukumar: So I was about 47 at that point. So now you know my age (both laugh). Yeah. So, yeah, that was a shocker. I wasn't expecting it. And then, so that sort of put things in perspective. And, again, during that time, I had to take a few months off because I had to go through the whole process of surgery and, you know, radiation and chemo treatments. And the chemo treatments lasted for several months, so I took a few months off work. But the writing is what helped me during that time.

Jennia: Okay.

Suja Sukumar: Yeah, even though, you know, I was quite fatigued, so I didn't really have much time to write. I was basically sleeping most of the time.

Jennia: Mhm.

Suja Sukumar: But that did, maybe, I would say cause a delay a little bit. But it was also a really good experience in the sense that gave me a new set of perspectives on what's important.

Jennia: Ohh.

Suja Sukumar: And I, you know, before that—I think before that, what happened was my work was pretty much my center.

Jennia: Mhm.

Suja Sukumar: And then my kids, you know, my work and my kids.

Jennia: Right.

Suja Sukumar: So I used to write when I was waiting for the kids. Like, waiting to pick them up from their dance, or their Taekwondo classes, I'd be writing in the car. But what happened when I got diagnosed with cancer, I realized that nothing happened to my work during that time. Meaning all my patients were fine.

Jennia: Mhm.

Suja Sukumar: I could finish my treatment and go back to work, and everybody was fine. My colleagues stepped in, they took care of my patients, they took care of everything. And the world did not stop just because I got diagnosed with cancer. Everybody else could continue. They could do their own things, they could handle everything. So I realized that I got to put my priorities first as well. That things—which I like to do, I need to do, because, you know, time's not going to wait. So then—

Jennia: True.

Suja Sukumar: —Yeah, so then I decided to cut down on my work schedule a bit.

Jennia: Mhm.

Suja Sukumar: And the clinic helped step in quite a bit with that too. And so now I have more free—

Jennia: Oh good.

Suja Sukumar: Yeah, I have more free weekends now. And I can actually write during my weekends. So that gave me a new perspective that actually helped focus my writing more, so I would start looking for an agent and all of those things.

Jennia: Right. Yeah. I mean, obviously it's terrible that you had to go through that at all, but I can see it's sort of like when something else happens to us—maybe not to us necessarily, but to a loved one, someone we're close to—that it does lead to that sort of perspective shift about what we're going to prioritize and how much we've decided that this means to us. And is this something that we're just going to end up saying, "Maybe it's not for me," or are we going to decide to, like you did, rearrange maybe what our schedules look like in order to pursue it?

Suja Sukumar: Exactly, exactly. Because I couldn't give up on it. And, you know, I wondered why I stuck to writing. Because I didn't start writing until I was in my 40s. So why I stuck to writing, and I think it's just the joy of writing.

Jennia: Yeah.

Suja Sukumar: That's the best part of it. It's not the—I mean, the publication, that's beautiful, of course. But just being able to get up in the morning and grab my cup of tea and sit down and write, even if it's for 15, 20 minutes, it gives me so much peace of mind.

Jennia: Yes! That's so beautiful. And I really think that's what so many of us are striving for, even if we haven't pinpointed that as the reason. Because you hear all the time about, like, this is difficult. Finding a publisher is hard. Finding an agent is hard. But people continue writing. So there clearly has to be something in it that's also intrinsically motivated beyond just the accolades or being able to say, "My book was put out by so and so."

Suja Sukumar: Exactly.

Jennia: Yeah. Well, going back to when you had an agent, what was the timeline like after you had an agent and then once your book was picked up for publication?

Suja Sukumar: So that was actually a pretty—a bit of a long time too. Because I signed with my agent end of 20—so December of 2018.

Jennia: Mhm.

Suja Sukumar: And then the book, actually, I signed the contract for the book deal August of 2022. There was that time of three years in between.

Jennia: Mhm.

Suja Sukumar: But a large part of that is because of COVID too.

Jennia: Right, yeah.

Suja Sukumar: Yeah. Because COVID hit, I think, in early 2020. In 2019, we had sent that—So basically, agents, what they do is they send it typically out in three batches. So that they do a first round of editors, and then they do a second round, and then they do a third round. So he did my first round. He started that, I think, in June or something of 2019. And then he gives it about three, four months. A lot of editors might ghost you, so he gives it about three months, and then he starts the next round.

Jennia: Mhm.

Suja Sukumar: And it was in the middle of the next round, I believe, when COVID hit.

Jennia: Oh, no.

Suja Sukumar: Yeah. And then my—like I said, my publisher, who—my current publisher—had actually—the editor had passed on the book, I think, in that second round, and then she came back. So then we actually gave up on the book because—

Jennia: Oh no.

Suja Sukumar: —Yeah, it was right in the middle of—Then the third round fizzled out, too, because no one was really even responding. You know, people—

Jennia: Right, yeah.

Suja Sukumar: Yeah. Everything sort of fizzled out at that point. So then I started writing my next book.

Jennia: Mhm.

Suja Sukumar: And he was—my agent, was working with me on polishing that second book when we got an email from my now editor.

Jennia: Oh okay! So that sounded like it was pretty unexpected then if you guys were already thinking, let's switch gears and move to the next book.

Suja Sukumar: Exactly. Because she had—We had given up. I mean, so we basically put it to rest. And we were thinking, maybe after COVID, a couple of years later, we can try bringing the first book back again.

Jennia: Right.

Suja Sukumar: And then we were actually getting ready to send the second book out when he sent me her email. And he said, you know, she wants to know if the book is still available because she can't get it out of her mind.

Jennia: And then did he help you go over contracts and everything else that came along with it after that?

Suja Sukumar: Yeah, yeah. There was a lot of negotiating and things, and, you know, I didn't know any of that, whatever was going on in the back, because they would—Often it's, like, just, what do you call that? You know, they let you know what you need to know.

Jennia: Mhm.

Suja Sukumar: So initially, after she sent me the email and I said, "Yeah, of course we want to do it," and then he was also in favor of it. And then we did one of the Zoom calls where the editor came in on the Zoom call, and the three of us talked. And then she gave me her big picture idea about the book, like, what did she like about the book and, you know, why she loved it so much. And she was completely in praise of it. And she wouldn't stop talking about it.

Jennia: Oh good!

Suja Sukumar: So I was completely fine with her. And then my agent said he'll let me know. And then he came back, I'm not sure exactly how long later, saying that, yeah, they're going to work on a contract.

Jennia: Mhm.

Suja Sukumar: But it did take a while for them to iron out all the details. By then, I was still writing my second book and getting it, you know, working on that thing.

Jennia: Mhm.

Suja Sukumar: The editor had already sent me her, developmental edits. So the contract was signed in August, but I had already started working on the editing process with her.

Jennia: Oh, nice.

Suja Sukumar: That was, I believe, early '23. I had already started working on the developmental edits with her.

Jennia: Yeah, then it just came out this month, right? So that's a little more than a year in between. Just for people who wonder how long publishing takes.

Suja Sukumar: Oh, yeah. So typically, it can take—It takes two years. So if you say August '22—My book was supposed to come out, actually, in June of '24.

Jennia: Oh, really?

Suja Sukumar: Yeah, it was supposed to come out in June of '24, but then the editor came back and said they wanted to pull it to November—

Jennia: Mhm.

Suja Sukumar: —because that's supposed to be the bigger season for books to come out.

Jennia: Yes (laughs).

Suja Sukumar: Yeah. See, all of these things were new things I learned. But they said that November is a better season, I believe, for books to come out. Especially thrillers and suspense, because it's around the spooky season.

Jennia: I'm even thinking about people who like to stay inside when it's cold and they're reading a thriller with that hot cup of tea or coffee or hot cocoa. There's just something about being trapped inside that lends itself to the thriller atmosphere.

Suja Sukumar: And that is so true when you're reading that and it's snowing outside and you know you cannot go out and (laughs)—

Jennia: Yes. Especially when it's people that are isolated in a cabin somewhere (laughs).

Suja Sukumar: Oh, yeah. That's a mystery in itself (laughs). Yeah. So that's how it worked out. So then when she said November of '24, you know, I was fine with that, so. But the entire process of those two years, actually, there's a lot of work because after the developmental edits—The developmental edits, which I did, was almost a complete rewrite, actually.

Jennia: Oh, really?

Suja Sukumar: Yeah. And then the amount of edits—Again, they're still developmental edits, but The number of edits get smaller and smaller and smaller with each round.

Jennia: Mhm.

Suja Sukumar: Until you finally go to more of, like, line edits and more minor developmental edits. And it took several months because she—During the summer there was a bit of a break, I think, in '23.

Jennia: Mhm.

Suja Sukumar: So it took several months for me to finish the complete developmental edits. And then after she was done with me, with the line edits and everything, I believe we went to more of the proofreading. And I worked with a different side of editing for that, for the proofreading. And then I had to approve all the design for the book, like the cover, the cover artist, who is excellent, though.

Jennia: Oh, I agree that is a great cover.

Suja Sukumar: Yeah. I mean, I owe so much to that cover artist. He did such a beautiful job with that cover. So approving the cover artist, then approving the fonts in the book.

Jennia: Okay, yeah!

Suja Sukumar: Because when you do that, you got to—Yeah, because the fonts change, especially in YA, there's so much texting. You know, and there are different modes of communication, not just the narration, so.

Jennia: Right. And then how you're going to visually represent that depending upon the book or even the tone you're setting.

Suja Sukumar: Exactly. So that took a bit of time. And then sometimes I would get these emails in the middle of my work day. So I'd been the clinic seeing patients and I'll get an email saying, "Hey, Suja, can you finish this by 5PM today?" (both laugh)

Jennia: Sure, no problem (both laugh). Go take a quick bathroom break, answer it in there.

Suja Sukumar: Yeah. So once I was really happy when everything, all of those little nitpicky things got done. I think that was like six months ago.

Jennia: Mhm.

Suja Sukumar: And then the book went to printing and that was the final warning (laughs). You know, you can't change anything in this book after it's gone for printing. It was all in there like blaring sirens and stuff (Jennia laughs). So I was nervous about it. I haven't read my book since then because I don't want to find any typos (both laugh).

Jennia: They happen! They happen to everyone. Don't (both laugh)—it's fine.

Suja Sukumar: So I was scared about that. But then, yeah, so the last six months, I mean then it's all—they've been doing all the background stuff, you know, so.

Jennia: Yeah, but that's just so helpful, too, knowing that you have all these people to even know to think about these things or that they even are going to give you options. It's not just here's how text messages are going to look in your book. But that they're letting you pick and choose and see what feels right for you and the way you see the story.

Suja Sukumar: I think that's the best part of working with this publisher, is I had a choice in pretty much everything.

Jennia: Mhm.

Suja Sukumar: You know, if I said no to this, they would definitely respect that, so. And I like that. I like the fact that they gave me that choice.

Jennia: I do think that's a fear that a lot of authors have, especially when they're looking at maybe a small press or a traditional publisher where it's, well how much of this is going to be taken out of my control? Am I going to be just given a cover or will I be allowed to have input on the cover? And if I am given input, how much input is it going to just be I get to design the cover almost from scratch myself, or am I going to pick between two choices and then not have any decision-making capabilities after that?

Suja Sukumar: Yeah, I know, I know. And I've seen that in a lot of authors. I really lucked out with the people I had to work with—you know, I worked with. I don't have anything bad to say about anybody, any of them. And the publicists, too, because, you know, that's—See, that's the thing with traditional publishing, because we don't see a lot of the work they do.

Jennia: Mhm.

Suja Sukumar: They do a lot of work behind the scenes. By the end of last year they had already gotten a recommendation from Teen Vogue.

Jennia: Oh, nice.

Suja Sukumar: Yeah. So they came out with this article on Teen Vogue where the book was, you know, listed on that. And then in February, there's a magazine called CrimeReads.

Jennia: Ahh, yeah.

Suja Sukumar: Yeah. So CrimeReads did a cover reveal of the book, and that was a big thing for an unknown author, you know?

Jennia: Mhm.

Suja Sukumar: Somebody who's never been published before. So the primary—

Jennia: Yeah, it is a big deal!

Suja Sukumar: —Yeah, so they did a cover reveal for the book. So all of that, the publicists put together for me. So that was—I really owe them a lot for that.

Jennia: Yeah, I definitely feel like you had a really amazing team. I mean, just all around.

Suja Sukumar: Yeah, I did. I did. Definitely did.

Jennia: If you had to leave listeners with one last piece of advice, what would it be?

Suja Sukumar: That's what I've been telling everybody: Trust yourself and trust your stories. Because there'll always be critiques. There'll always be, you know, people coming in saying that this might not work, but don't give up on your optimism.

Jennia: Mhm.

Suja Sukumar: Be willing to accept constructive criticism, but know when it is constructive and when it's not. And don't take anything personally.

Jennia: All wonderful advice.

Suja Sukumar: Yeah, that's what I would say (laughs).

Jennia: Well, thank you again so much! I'm so glad you were able to come on the show.

Suja Sukumar: Thank you. Thank you, Jennia, for having me!

Jennia: And thank you for listening, and be sure to check out this show notes for additional information, including a link if you'd also like to buy a copy of When Mimi Went Missing. And please join me next week when Dr. Stacey Simmons will explain why it's time to rethink the traditional hero archetype. Thanks again!