MTiH #5: Amy Spalding on what is and isn't in your control.

“When you have a book that’s about anyone marginalized, and it’s queer and fat, and someone says ‘unrelatable,’ and they’re like thin and straight, you are like, ‘Okay. Maybe to you.’"

Hi! In today’s Making Things is Hard, I’m talking with wonderful all-star Romance/YA author Amy Spalding. Amy and I met at the Texas Library Association Conference in 2016 when we were on the same humor panel. Then we bumped into each other at the airport afterward and had a lovely time together at a Chili’s. It’s what friendship dreams are made of, folks!

Photo credit: Robyn Von Swank

Amy writes funny, relatable, heartfelt books, often foregrounding queer romance, as she did in her fantastic 2018 YA novel, The Summer of Jordi Perez and the Best Burger in Los Angeles, which we talk about a bit at the beginning of this interview. Her other YA novels include No Boy Summer, We Used to Be Friends, and Kissing Ted Callahan.

Meanwhile, the third book in Amy’s Out in Hollywood queer romance series, On Her Terms, comes out in February 2025, hot on the heels of the first two acclaimed books, For Her Consideration and At Her Service. Below, Amy shares a publishing story about this third book that’s…a real doozy! It’ll remind you that not everything in this creative life (or life in general) is really in our control, and sometimes you just gotta ride those waves.  

Amy and I talked over Facetime. I’ve condensed and edited our conversation for your enjoyment.

What are your favorite parts of being an author, especially now that you’ve been doing it for over a decade?

I really feel lucky that I will hear from people that books I’ve written, especially The Summer of Jordi Perez and the Best Burger in Los Angeles—

Amazing book.

Thank you. But that is the kind of book where people will seek me out and talk to me about it. And that was a book that meant a lot to me to write but was not easy to get published. My publisher basically dropped me over that book, they hated it so much.

Ohmigod.

And it obviously turned into—it’s my most beloved book by readers, and one of my best-selling books, and it has a lot of accolades that I haven’t gotten for anything else. It’s my only starred review. It feels, first of all, as a Scorpio, like the pettiness I have has been vindicated. That [it turned out] that was the book, that I was right to fight for it, is great.

But, on a serious level, at the time I was reading a lot of really serious, depressing queer books. And, by the way, this is not a problem anymore. That book came out in 2018, and I wrote it in like 2015, 2016, so we’re doing a lot better. At the time, all the queer books were like: somebody died, somebody got bullied, somebody’s religion said you have to choose between your religion and your love, and then all the books about straight kids were like, I had a misunderstanding! And I’m like, “That’s the book I wanna write!” Like, queer kids deserve to have dumb fights and low drama, too.

So, knowing how much that book connected with people, it just means a lot to me. Knowing how the books I read and connect with, how I feel about them, to have even a small fraction of that in someone else’s life feels really amazing.

That’s beautiful. So you were dropped because of Jordi Perez, which turned out to be your most acclaimed and beloved book.

I didn’t have a two-book deal or anything, so it was my option book. [Note: that’s when your publisher has exclusive rights to see a proposal and some pages for your next book and decide if they want to buy it.] So, my agent sent it, and it was taking a long time to hear. And my agent’s really optimistic—I think that’s even in her bio or something—so I was like, “Why do you think it’s taking so long?” She’s like, “I think they’re going back and trying to get more money.” [Note: meaning the editor would be talking to the acquisitions team in the publishing house and trying to get a higher advance number to offer Amy to buy her book.]

That was not what they were doing. What they were doing, I think, was finding a way to be like, “No no no, we really— I hate this book.” So my editor hated it. Like, wrote back, “No, this is just like everything else you’ve written. We need something big, we need something better. This is weak and, like, unrelatable.” Which is always like— When you have a book that’s about anyone marginalized, and it’s queer and fat, and someone says unrelatable, and they’re like thin and straight, you are like, “Okay. Maybe to you.”

My agent asked what I wanted to do, and I was like, “I just really believe in it. I want to go wide with it. I don’t care.” [Note: meaning Amy and her agent would submit widely to many editors at many different publishers.] But a lot of people were just like, “I don’t know the point of a book where the whole point is that it’s really fluffy. Where is the drama? What is the big deal?”

And then the editor I ended up ultimately going with was like, “No, that’s the point! It’s fun. It’s fluffy. It’s a swoony love interest. It’s like any other romcom except it’s queer. I’m so excited to work on it.”

And it was a really small publisher. But they took a chance on it. They kept doing new print runs because it kept selling out. It was so validating. I’m sure you also have situations where you write something, and you love what you’ve written. When you get rejected, you’re like, “Hm. Okay, maybe? Okay.” And there’s other times where you’re like, “No. This is good. You’re missing the point of it. I don’t know how to explain to you that you’re wrong.”

Totally. “There’s no way for you to get the point because the framework of your brain is not allowing this to land in the way that obviously it can.” So in terms of a creative struggle to talk about, we’ve already dipped into one! That was a struggle with the business side, at least. Did you have another you wanted to talk about?

So, this is like a half creative struggle and a half publishing business struggle that I went through in the past year. I sold my third adult romance as an option book, as a two-book deal, to my editor who’d acquired me there and was initially really excited about it. And I sold it based on the first 40 pages and an outline, and it looked great, and I was excited to write it.

And it was one of those books that, when I sat down to write, it was harder than I expected. I was struggling. There were a lot of characters in this book. Like, so many. I was trying to balance everything and also make sure it still had a plot and not just some shenanigans. Which is my weakness. Too many shenanigans, not enough plot.

So I thought, “The good news is I have an editor who’s now worked with me on two books. She knows me, she likes me, we’re in this together. She’s not gonna let me down.” So I was actually on a call with my agent and my publicity team, and my agent was like, “Hey Amy, how’s that book going that you’re going to turn in soon?” I was like, “It’s good! It’s actually really messy. I’m going to turn it in, in like a pile of loose thoughts, but I have this editor, and we’ve worked with each other for so long, so I feel good.”

And then we literally hang up the zoom, and I had an email in my inbox that my editor was leaving.

Ugh. I knew that was coming.

Yeah, you knew. And so I just sat there like, “Oh my gosh, what am I gonna do?” And then I thought, “Okay, let’s see what happens.” I liked so many things about my editor. She was the most enthusiastic person I’ve ever met with. It felt like having a fan in my corner who also had pull. But she wasn’t a super heavy editor, which for the first two books I’d done with her wasn’t a big deal.

But I was like, “Oh is this an opportunity?” Because like, “This is going to be a pile of loose thoughts and shenanigans. I maybe want someone to dig in more. Maybe it’s going to be great to have a new editor.”

So I get introduced to my new editor, and she is amazing. She’s like, “I love to really get in there. I like doing a hard edit.” I was like, “Hell yeah! This is the book that needs it. I need you to know, though: I don’t always send in loose thoughts. I draft really clean. I like to be someone who’s ready to go. But I’m just not going to be.”

And she’s like, “Yeah, it’s an option book. No option books are gonna come in the same way a first book would. Amy, I’m an editor. Don’t even worry about it.” I’m like, “Okay. Okay.”

However, it was stuck in my head all messed up. Because I couldn’t turn off the idea that I’ve never met this person. I think she skimmed through For Her Consideration to be like, “This is the author I’ve been assigned. I should have a passing familiarity with her.” But she didn’t pick me. I know some of the other authors she’s edited, I really admire a lot of them. So that’s intimidating! It’s good, but it’s intimidating. 

And so, as I’m working on this book, despite that conversation, I could not let go of this feeling like…I was writing a pile of shit that someone was going to see. And I was polishing and trying and working, and it wasn’t there yet. I knew I was missing something, I couldn’t figure out what it was.

And you do the thing—I’m sure you’ve done it too—where you text friends and you’re like, “Hey, you just turn in, like, crazy things, right? And it’s fine?” And everyone’s like, “Yeah, yeah, keep going. Don’t even worry about it. It’s probably better than you think. Don’t worry!”

But my deadlines recently have always been in December, so I somehow was giving myself the most stress of my life during the holiday season. And also my day job is in film marketing, and I work on indie studio accounts, which also means it’s Oscar time! So I’m going through, like, Phase 1 FYC campaigns, and trying to buy presents for people, and be relatively jolly or whatever. And then I’m also tearing my hair out trying to get this first draft ready for someone I’m really trying to impress. Despite that she said don’t worry about impressing me.

And here’s the big mistake I made. That’s why I thought about talking about this on here. Because I was like, “Let others learn.”

Which is that, for some stupid reason, in the midst of panicking about this, looking at the clock and seeing how many days are left till Xmas, I open social media, and somehow— I know. I love that your eyebrows shot up that quickly. This is why it’s great to do this on a call and not just via email.

Yes. Ha, it’s really nice.

I found a whole thread on the hellscape known as Threads that started with someone saying, “You guys don’t actually send rough first drafts to your editors, do you?”

Oh no! Hahaha.

And I was like, “WHAAAT?” By the way, this is like my tenth book. The people talking were like one and two books deep.

I know, but suddenly that insecure voice is like, “But I’m reading these words and they must be true!”

It was like the literal worst thing to read. So I’m reading through it, and they’re like, “It’s disrespectful to waste someone’s time!” “You don’t want to let someone into your brain and see how messy it is!” Just all these things that I’m like, “Nooooooooo!”

But plenty of people were like, “Yeah. I’ve worked with my editor. She knows how sloppy I am. I send it. It’s not a big deal.” Or, like, timing when you have a multi-book deal does not allow you to perfect it before they see it.

Yes, this is context. This is not like submitting to agents, querying with a rough first draft.

Yes! But of course it was this weird situation where it was a first impression. So I’m like, “Well, but are they right??” I just remember I closed my laptop, and I sat at my table, and I cried. And I was like, “I mean, I think you have to finish it. I don’t know what else to do. You just have to finish it. You have to not worry about Threads—A PLACE YOU DO NOT LIKE TO SPEND TIME, WHY ARE YOU TAKING ADVICE FROM IT?”

But it was like: how did the algorithm literally figure out the very worst conversation for me? There are so many stupid things I could have seen that would not have affected me emotionally. But it did.

I will say, I was kind of proud of myself because by the time I turned [the book] in there was a chapter that just had brackets and was like: I think a chapter should be here. I do not know what will be in it. What do you think? So, I did it. I was really proud. And my editor was so graceful when I turned it in. Like, “We’ll get there together. Don’t even worry.”

And then, I was sort of like, “What lessons can I take from this experience?” And I was like, “Well, I think there are certain times where maybe social media’s bad.”

Correct. Great lesson.

And the other thing is: it feels like having a deadline for me in December is bad. Maybe for a lot of people. So I was going to work on something not under contract for a bit, and then get back to my final contracted book [in December]. And I was like, “Why don’t you switch the order, and at the end of the year be working on something that’s just for yourself with no deadline? That you can put down or just stay with if you’re having fun? And just work on the other one a little sooner in the year?”

Trying to take an actual, actionable piece of advice from how bad it was. Stay off social media when you’re already about to cry AND what can you actually do in your physical life to not go through this again?

Very smart. You know how you work, and it’s within your power to shift this, so…yeah. Shift it!

Yes! So, I was like: great, lesson learned. I felt like, “I trust the universe, the universe will trust me.”

And then one week later, that editor emailed and said she was leaving too.

Noooo!!! Ohmigod, that’s not where I thought you were going with that.

No, right??  And I told my friend a short version of the story, and she was like, “What is the universe telling you now? What are you supposed to get from this?” And I was like, “Honestly, I don’t know.” 

That nothing’s in your control. Right?

Yeah, I think that’s it. I just don’t have control. And ultimately, my agent and I agreed that we did not just want to take whatever editor was still left in the building at that point, ‘cause it felt like maybe not many. And the publisher agreed. So they said they were going to hire a new senior romance editor, “we’re going to assign them to you. And we’re going to be interviewing them with you as one of the authors in mind that they’ll be working with.” Apparently, every editor they interviewed talked about queer romance and it being important to them.

And, ultimately, the editor they hired is great. She read my book [Note: the first draft that Amy had agonized about sending to the previous editor] before we even met because I did not know that this was all happening. So by the time I met her, she was like, “Yeah, your book’s great.” I’m like, “What? That was a really messy first draft that I didn’t want anyone reading, much less a stranger!”

Oh wow, so she read it. And she was into it.

I didn’t even have the call where I could say it’s messy. And she was like, “It’s not that messy, it’s really close. Let’s talk about what we’re gonna do to take it all the way there now.”

Amazing.

It ultimately felt like— It was so weird. I was like, “You were the right person I was supposed to work on this with. After all this time.”

I love when it can land somewhere like that. Somewhere good.

Because it doesn’t always! As we know.

No, it doesn’t. We want to think everything happens for a reason, and you can bend the events of your life to believe that, but sometimes it really doesn’t feel like that.

The part that I’m trying to take to heart is less that— Yes, it worked out well, but I think that’s lucky. But while I was waiting to get assigned that new editor, and everyone was like, “Are you stressed out?” And I was like, “I’m weirdly not. It is so out of my hands at this point, it’s almost like I can’t be.”

So have you started rewriting that book?

I just turned in copy-edits yesterday actually.

So that’ll come out…

February 2025.

Oh, that’s the book you’ve announced! Look at these sparkling blurbs, it came out great! That’s so exciting.

It worked out so well. It was a good lesson. And I’ve talked to people about this before, but—I don’t know about you—I have to keep learning my same lessons over and over.

Oh, absolutely.

When I wrote The Summer of Jordi Perez, it felt great. Every day was a joy. I basically would have to stop writing because it would be late or I had to go somewhere, never because I wanted to stop writing. And then there were bits of We Used To Be Friends that were like that, and there were bits that were really hard. And then when I wrote No Boy Summer, so much of it was just a slog to write. It was hard. It was really, like, forcing it out. And then when I read it, I was like, “It’s beautiful! I love it. I wrote a book I’m so proud of.” The process does not equal the actual art.

Yes. How you feel making it is not a reflection of how the reader will feel reading it. It’s just what the process is for that book. And people can pre-order the very book we’ve been talking about! It’s called On Her Terms, out in February.

I’m so proud of it. Going through this really made me want to level up in a major way. I really wanted it to be extra-sharp, extra-funny. I will say my friends who have read it—and look, it’s all friends and loved ones at the early stage, we know it—but I’ve gotten a lot of feedback that it’s their favorite of the series and one of their favorites of what I’ve written. So I’m excited-slash-vomity that within a few months it’ll be out there for other people to start reading it early. Because I was so thrilled at how it came together after all that.

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Thanks to Amy for sharing not one, but TWO, deeply relatable stories of struggle-while-making-things. Please read her books and pre-order On Her Terms, out in February!

And while you’re at it, here’s another reminder to pre-order The Queen of Ocean Parkway, the new Middle Grade novel from MTiH #2’s Sarvenaz Tash!

Hope you’re having a wonderful week and trusting your creative gut and taking naps when the opportunities present themselves.

See ya next week.