Debuting in community—a conversation with Big Five authors about what publishing is really like
A video conversation with a Simon & Schuster author cohort - plus a summer fiction giveaway!
Hello and Happy Wednesday.
When my first novel came out with Simon & Schuster in 2014, I was new to the world of publishing. I didn’t have an MFA, had lived outside of America for nearly all of my twenties, and was coming into the whole publishing thing without a lot of knowledge or savvy industry-type friends. Trickier still, I was living in an extremely rural town in southern Massachusetts, cut off from physical outlets like bookshops or reading series that might have patched the gaps in my publishing education. I was also pregnant and extremely overworked, freelancing for like 30 different clients. Frenzied, somewhat isolated, and without a lot of confidantes, I managed to debut, but I made a lot of mistakes.
Suffice it to say, I would have killed for the supportive cohort that the authors I interview in today’s video established for themselves pre-publication. In the winter of 2025, Simon & Schuster author Debbie Urbanski used her publisher’s catalogue to get in touch with S&S authors with 2025 summer pub dates to see if they’d be interested in joining a support group for their debuts.1 They vowed to be transparent with one another, but also discreet and positive. Since their founding, they’ve been meeting every other week on Zoom and maintain an active Slack group. One of the group's first collaborative projects was to create this reel that captures the positive energy the authors craved (editor was Daria Lavelle):
Given that I’m a Simon & Schuster author myself and wrote a guidebook to demystify publishing, Debbie got in touch with me this spring to see if I’d host their cohort for real talk about publishing. Spoiler: I said yes!
I’m super excited to share the video of my conversation with this S&S cohort. We had a lot of people join us live (thank you!), and I know even more will benefit from this group’s advice after the fact. In terms of what you’re in for, we cover these topics and more during our 90-minute chat:
How to deal with feelings of competitiveness and jealousy toward fellow writers.
What the authors did or didn’t know about publication timelines (but what they sure as heck know now!)
Ratio of publicity/marketing efforts they had to tackle themselves versus what their publisher handled.
For those whose books have already published, are they launching straight away to something else? How will they help keep their first book alive in the world when they do move on to a second— or to another project entirely?
Are pre-order campaigns still a thing and is there any way for them to be fun?
Here’s a little bit about the authors you’ll meet during the talk:2
Debbie Urbanski, Portalmania, 5/13/25, IG handle: @debbieurbanski, Genre: cross-genre speculative short stories. In this collection, portals appear in linen closets, planetary gateways materialize in boarding schools, monsters wait in bathroom vents, and transformations of women’s bodies are an everyday occurrence in this collection of cross-genre stories that questions our current definitions of love and intimacy.
Madge Maril, Slipstream, pub date is 5/20/25, IG: @madgemarilwrites Genre: contemporary romance. In the high-speed world of Formula 1, documentarian Lilah teams up with racing driver Arthur Bianco for a whirlwind of revenge—and perhaps something more.
Daria Lavelle, Aftertaste, 5/20/25, IG handle: @daria.lavelle.author Genre: Upmarket speculative fiction. When grieving dishwasher Konstantin discovers that his food can resurrect ghosts for one last meal, he sets out to open an NYC restaurant serving closure, never expecting to fall in love—or to wreak total havoc on the Afterlife.
Julia DeVillers, Meet Me at Wonderland, pub date is 5/20/25 @juliadevillers on IG and Tiktok, Genre is upper middle grade. A girl with a summer job at her family’s amusement park crushes on a coworker who’d rather be working anywhere else in this fun and flirty middle grade rom-com.
Lucas Schaefer, The Slip, pub date 6/3/25 IG handle: @lucaseschaefer (also on X, Threads, Bluesky). Genre is Literary Fiction. A haymaker of an American novel about a missing teenage boy, cases of fluid and mistaken identity, and the transformative power of boxing.
Christopher Tradowsky, Midnight at the Cinema Palace, pub date 6/10/25 @tradwowsky (IG & Threads) Genre is literary fiction. Three queer cinephiles explore gender and sexuality in this love letter to San Francisco in the 1990s.
Rose Keating, Oddbody, pub date 7/1/25 Genre: story collection. Ten stories take you on a bold journey through the intricacies of sex, shame, and womanhood.
Libby Buck, Port Anna, pub date 7/1/25 IG handle: @libbybuckwrites. Genre is Women’s Literary Fiction. In this modern fairy tale of hope and second chances, Gwen, forty and weighed down with regret, restarts her life in a haunted cottage by the sea.
Lidija Hilje, Slanting Towards The Sea, pub date 7/8/25, IG: @lidijahilje, Genre is literary fiction. A hypnotic debut that sets a decades-long love story against the wild beauty of an emerging Croatia, exploring desire and longing, the fragile nature of potential, and what it means to come of age in a country younger than oneself.
Kerry Cullen, House of Beth, pub date 7/15/25, IG handle @kermichele (also on TikTok and bluesky) Genre is literary/contemporary gothic, queer. A haunting and seductive tale of a young career woman who slides quickly into the role of stepmother, in a life that may still belong to someone else.
Joe Pan, Florida Palms, pub date 7/22/25, IG handle @joepanwrites (also on TikTok and bluesky), Genre is literary crime thriller. The Outsiders for our cultural moment, a coming-of-age tale where boys without heroes become men without dreams. After three young friends are coerced into running drugs to make ends meet, their brotherhood quickly spirals out of control.
Catherine Dang, What Hunger, pub date 8/12/25, IG handle @dangitcat (also on TikTok as @dangitcatt). Genre is literary, horror/coming of age. A haunting coming-of-age tale following the daughter of Vietnamese immigrants, Ronny Nguyen, as she grapples with the weight of generational trauma while navigating the violent power of teenage girlhood, for fans of Jennifer’s Body and Little Fires Everywhere.
Antonio Michael Downing, Black Cherokee, pub date 8/19/25. Genre is literary fiction. Betty meets Queenie in this courageous coming-of-age story about a Black girl fighting for recognition in a South Carolina Cherokee community that refuses to accept her ancestry as legitimate.
Without further ado, let’s get to our talk!
This discussion was recorded live on Tuesday June 3rd at noon EST. Thanks to all who joined, and thank you so much, Debbie for helping me with all things tech-related before and after the call.
If you enjoyed this conversation and are looking for a supportive community like this wonderful cohort, consider subscribing to Before and After the Book Deal if you don’t already, or buying the book this newsletter is based on. We’ve got support in spades for you!
It’s giveaway o’clock!
Like what you heard? Want to read some fiction?
Simon & Schuster has kindly put together a giveaway of the cohort’s books—including my own debut, I AM HAVING SO MUCH FUN HERE WITHOUT YOU, which came out with Simon & Schuster in 2014. Here is the link to enter—the giveaway ends June 9th.3
And that concludes our talk!
Thank you so much—panelists and attendees—for joining our “Debuting in Community” chat.
Did you learn something new? Were you inspired? Frustrated by something you learned about the publishing experience? Have questions that didn’t get answered by our panelists and are hoping that they’ll answer them now? Let us know in the comments— we’ll try to get some Q’s for your A’s.
And let’s give these authors a round of applause as they head out to publish— or recover from a pub date just behind them. I’m wishing them the best.
Tune in next Wednesday— we’ll have the publicist and events manager at Creature Publishing, Will Roth, talk to us about publicity at indie presses. You’ll love his tips and advice—he doesn’t use the P word once during our talk!4
xoxo
Courtney
Two of the writers in this group had published previously, but were debuting in a new genre. Affiliate links to Bookshop.org are used in the bullet point list of featured S&S titles— I use any funds earned on Bookshop to purchase books there, myself.
If not everyone was present on the Zoom call it is because life lifed.
The giveaway is being run by Simon & Schuster, not by me. I don’t know what S&S will do with the emails they collect—please read their giveaway fine print.
The “P” word is: Platform.
I so appreciate the thought each of the authors put into their responses to the questions. Courtney, you're a wonderful facilitator, balancing context and personal anecdotes with warm responses to the panelists and still moving everything along. Well done. Thank you for sharing this with us!
What a warm, optimistic but realistic conversation. Thank you so much!