60 - Author Interview with Emilia Emerson

Today, Emily & Rachel talk about indie publishing and the author journey with Emilia Emerson.

What you’ll learn from this episode:

• what it's like to be an indie author
• the chaos writing process
• writing characters with mental health issues

EMILIA's WEBSITE: https://www.emiliaemerson.com/
Pre-order His Tesoro now: https://a.co/d/inaF4wj

Ready to make readers so in love with your characters they can’t stop biting their nails in anticipation?  Grab The Magic of Character Arcs free email course: https://www.goldenmayediting.com/arcsmagic

Join Tenacious Writing! With the perfect combo of craft, mindset, and community resources, you will build a writing life that feels sustainable, fulfilling, and fun—without any prescriptions or rules. Learn more: https://www.tenaciouswriting.com/

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Join us on October 5th and 6th for Character Development Decoded! In this two-day LIVE virtual workshop, we'll teach you how to develop your character's life before page one and then teach you how to show it your story (without flashbacks!). Breathe life into your characters and bring their humanity to the page. All you have to do is register at https://goldenmayediting.com/character! See you there!

Transcript

[00:13] Rachel: Hey, writers.

[00:14] Emily: Welcome back to Story Magic, the podcast that will help you write a book you're damn proud of.

[00:18] Rachel: I'm Rachel.

[00:19] Emily: And I'm Emily.

[00:20] Rachel: And today we are interviewing author Amelia Emerson.

[00:24] Emilia Emerson: Yay.

[00:26] Rachel: I'm really excited for this call because obviously we are. Well, not obviously, but we are close friends. All three of us are close friends, and Amelia is, in particular, my alpha reader writing buddy. So I'm really excited for this conversation so all of you listeners can get to know Amelia a little bit better. But, Amelia, before we jump into some interview questions, will you tell us about yourself and your books and give us a snapshot of who you are?

[00:56] Emilia Emerson: Yeah. I'm so excited to be here. So I am now a full time author, indie published author. My debut book, forbidden part one, and then forbidden part two, released last year in May. Sorry, March and April. And then my third book came out in January of this year, and then I am starting a new pen name, and that book will be out this summer. So I write romance. My first three books are, why choose omegaverse books? And this one that's coming out this summer is a mafia romance, and my history is in mental health. I'm a trauma therapist, and I left that job last month, and now I'm doing this whole time. Yay. I know.

[01:45] Rachel: Has it been.

[01:47] Emily: It's been so fun to watch you on this journey. So we didn't mention this yet, but Amelia is one of our longest standing tenacious writing members. I honestly can't remember when you joined us. It's been so long, and so it's been really fun. I'm pretty sure you were part of tenacious writing before your first book came out, right?

[02:05] Emilia Emerson: Oh, for sure. I think I joined. And towards, like, the fall of 2021, does that sound.

[02:13] Rachel: Yeah. Like, when it was.

[02:15] Emily: It was like our old version.

[02:16] Emilia Emerson: Yes. Uh huh. Yeah.

[02:19] Emily: So it's just been so fun to watch you, like, put your first book out in the world and then your second and your third, like, back to back, and now you're full time, and it's just. I'm celebrating. I'm clapping very quietly so it doesn't interfere with the. With the mic. But it's just been. It's been so fun.

[02:37] Rachel: Yeah, it's been a lot of fun to watch you, and it's also been, like, a lot of fun to read with you, write with you. That's been a blast, too.

[02:44] Emilia Emerson: Yeah, it's awesome. Yeah.

[02:47] Rachel: So you went, how's it been transitioning to full time and at the same time, making a transition to different genre, different pen name. Lots of change.

[02:59] Emilia Emerson: Yeah, I love change. Doesn't everyone? It's the best, I say. It's so funny. I really agonized about the change to go full time for so many months. It was actually about a year ago, it was may of last year that I had the moment. I was looking at my sales I had made in, you know, the first few months, and I had this realization that, like, I could do this, you know, like, this could be a viable thing. So for almost, like, a full year, I was, like, thinking about this, maybe, maybe not agonizing about it. And I've had a lot of health issues. So, like, as my health was deteriorating and my job was getting more stressful and I was getting more burned out, I was like, maybe I need to. Maybe this isn't just a desire to be full time. Maybe it's a necessity. Like, I have to make a change in my life. But it was really, really scary. But once I actually committed and, like, put in my notice and made the decision, it, like, eased a lot of the stress. And it's been genuinely so much fun so far. I love it. Every day feels like a weekend.

[04:15] Rachel: I feel like from the time that you were thinking about it to the time that you put in your notice to the time that it was your last day just, like, flew by.

[04:24] Emilia Emerson: Well, maybe for someone on the whole year. For me, well, and I gave a seven week notice, so that was one of the toughest parts, too, because I was like, this is going on forever.

[04:41] Emily: Yeah.

[04:42] Emilia Emerson: Yeah.

[04:44] Emily: Long notices are so rough.

[04:46] Emilia Emerson: Yes. I was like, wow, this is why people don't give long notices. I mean, it was for the sake of my therapy clients. So, like, absolutely no regrets. I'm so glad I did it. But it was like, every day I was like, okay, my life is going to change some sometime here. Yeah.

[05:01] Rachel: One day.

[05:02] Emilia Emerson: One day.

[05:04] Rachel: Here we are. And it is changed constant. So I have so many questions for you about your process and your characters and just, like, what it has been like to write four books, because your newest book is you're in editing, and we know how much we love editing, you and I, but you've written four books. So what was it like writing forbidden part one versus your last book, this latest book that's about to come out. What's the difference? How have you changed? How's your process changed? I guess in all regards, in, like, the day to day of showing up, writing it, and, like, building your characters, I think.

[05:53] Emilia Emerson: I consider my writing process pretty chaotic. I think as I've written more books. It's gotten maybe slightly less chaotic, but I still embrace just the chaos of it. So before, I'd always wanted to write a book and even in high school had a romantic fantasy book that I started writing. And I always thought you had to know what happened and you had to have things plotted out. And I could just, I never knew what was going to happen. I'm like, I have no ideas for the plot, like, what's going to happen next. And that really stopped me from being able to write. And so finally I just realized I needed to just start writing. And it was fine if I didn't know where things were going, but just to do it. And so that's what I did for forbidden. I just started writing and I had genuinely, okay, if you've read forbidden, it's an omegaverse book. So that they're humans, but they have some, like, wolf like biology. In the very first iteration, it was a shifter book. And, like, the guys turned into wolves. This is, like, such a brief iteration. Like, if you've read the book, one of the guys is Ben, and there's a scene where, like, the main character is distressed and she's in a bathtub. And so, like, the original version of that scene, Ben's like a wolf, like, sitting by the bathtub. That makes me so happy. I love Ben, and it's, why choose? So it's multiple guys. So it's three guys and forbidden. Originally, there were fourth guy miles. He got eliminated pretty quickly. So I just started writing. And once I got about 25,000 words in, it clicked. I'm like, okay, now I understand the story that I'm writing, sort of, because then I got to 80,000 words and realized, oh, I can't wrap up this book because I actually need a whole second book. And so I had to just, like, the structure of that was really hard. Like, I didn't understand, like, how long the plot was going to be, how to structure, how to pace. And that part's gotten a lot easier, I think, for my third book, cherished and this fourth one, his tesoro. Like, I had sort of the structure and the major plot points down to some extent. And then I discovery wrote within that. But I think, like, the more you write, the easier it is to sort of fall into that structure and understand your own pacing. So it's gotten easier, even though I don't think writing is easy, but still chaotic. And actually Rachel. So I write not in order. I write. I'm a mood reader, mood writer. I write whatever scene I want to write. But having you as a writing partner, I'm like, I have to have some coherent chronological order to scenes, and so it's forced me to write, like, to write scenes a little bit more in order. I still don't write in order completely, but I'm like, if I want feedback on these pages and how this story is working, it needs to be somewhat coherent for this person to give me feedback on it. So that's also affected my process, too.

[09:17] Emily: Has that been difficult? I'm curious.

[09:20] Emilia Emerson: Yeah, it totally is. And, you know, Rachel still will get something where it's like, here's the end of the book, and you haven't read anything that happens in the middle. But, yeah, it's definitely been challenging to be like, oh, I can't just skip that scene. I have to actually figure it out and write it and, yeah, so it's some good accountability there, but it's definitely affected the process a little bit.

[09:49] Rachel: I remember, like, a couple weeks ago or a month or two ago, you were asking me for some feedback, and I was like, can you put them in order so I can bring them in order?

[09:58] Emilia Emerson: Yeah. I don't know. Yeah.

[10:02] Rachel: Yeah. But I do think, though, that you have found this way to. You're still able to articulate to me, like, what you're aiming for. So even though you're writing out of order, I can still pick up, like, oh, these are where our flaws are at. These are where our character goals are. And you and I also had. We tend to have a lot of conversations about, like, what are our characters doing? And, you know, the bigger picture. And I only say that because if you're, like, a person that's writing out of order and you're thinking, oh, I can't have a writing buddy because they're never gonna get it, it's like, no, that's not true. It just is communication. It's just like talking about your vision and where you see things. And I feel like you and I have done that a lot. So even though I was reading really, lately, chapters in the chronological book, I still was able to give you some valid feedback or some hopeful direction.

[11:03] Emilia Emerson: I hope so. Yeah.

[11:06] Rachel: So I'm so curious.

[11:08] Emily: Amelia, you are one of the, like, we like to talk about the plotter pants or spectrum, right. And I feel like you are probably the person that I know who's the furthest on that panther side.

[11:20] Emilia Emerson: Right. So I'm so curious.

[11:22] Emily: Like, do you use craft resources? Like, you're part of tenacious writing, so you have tons of exposure to our. Our craft resources. And I'm just so curious, as a pantser, like, how do you use craft in general? And, like, how do you use the craft resources that are in our community? Like, how does our community serve you as a pantser? I'm. I'm, as everybody knows, a plotter.

[11:42] Emilia Emerson: So I'm just like, I'm just like, how does. How does this work?

[11:46] Emily: I'm so, so curious.

[11:48] Emilia Emerson: Yeah. So I think, like, some of our early, like, coaching calls, I would be like, save the cat is, like, calculus to me. Like, I cannot understand it. And I would read all these, like, examples of, like, three act structure and four act structure, and they'd be using things like the Hunger Games, which is a series I'm so familiar with. And they're like, here's how Hunger Games is a four act structure. And I'm reading this, and I'm like, I still don't understand this. Like, I don't understand this at all. And so in terms of, like, that side of craft, like, following certain beats and your catalyst should happen at this percent. And, like, people will be like, oh, it's the Hightower surprise. And I'm like, I have no idea what this is. Like. That stuff is just not helpful to me. And I think the great part about being a romance reader is when I read often, like, a book a day, and so, like, the beats that are in a romance are just, like, in my head, it feels a lot more instinctual. But where Tanisha's writing has helped me with the craft side of things is the stuff that doesn't necessarily have to do with the structure. So don't tell. And how do you understand what's the internal obstacle and what's your story point? Things like that. And sometimes I'll even listen to the story structure. Things like the dark night of the Soul. I'm going to maybe get it wrong, but it's like, the main character should have made a mistake that got them to a bad place. And so, like, even just knowing, like, okay, like, I have to allow my main characters to make mistakes. Like, they, like, the plot should be somewhat driven by their choices and not just what's happening around them. Like, things like that. That are just helpful for me to absorb. But, yeah, I have never done any of the, like, lovely charts or worksheets that you all have. I've never once filled one out. But, you know, I still get so much out of. Out of the workshops and master classes. Just not that side of it.

[14:11] Emily: No, I love it. I think you're such a great example of, like, how you can use our community to whatever purposes serve you, because, yeah, if the church don't serve you, don't use them. Love it.

[14:25] Rachel: Yeah. But I think when you were. When you had first started talking, the first thing that came to my mind was how voracious of a reader you are and how. How much I feel like you absorb. Like you said, you absorb that knowledge, and it becomes instinctual, because I feel like pantsing. Like, successful panting is, like, trust in your gut, riding on instincts, you know? And I feel like all of the heavy reading, all of, like, practicing the on page skills, and, I mean, in your pages, even though you wouldn't call it, like, a specific beat, I can. I can still see, like, that beat shining through. And I. And I think that's just because you've absorbed from everything else, like, what speaks to you, what is the emotional ebb and flow of the books that you read that you also want to put into your own books. I think you do a good job adapting to that.

[15:21] Emilia Emerson: Thanks. Yeah, I think I had messaged you that whatever the big final drama conflict in my latest book starts right at 70%, and I didn't know that until I had finished it and put it on my kindle to proofread. And I'm like, look at that. Like, I know something's supposed to happen at 70%. Like, there we go. There we go.

[15:44] Rachel: Yeah. I was also looking at, like, I'm not. I'm not going to spoil anything, but I was looking at the. The completely finished draft that you sent me, and, like, the midpoint is, like, really where the midpoint would be, you know, like that.

[15:57] Emilia Emerson: Do I know what a midpoint is supposed to be? No. I have absolutely no clue. No.

[16:03] Rachel: But I think, like, going back to trusting your instincts and trusting your gut is, like, you, number one. I think when you approach the page, you know, okay, I'm gonna figure it out. I'll get it down. Because at the beginning of this, of histosorro, you were like, I don't know what the plot is at all. I have no idea what the plot is. But you had, like, a pretty good idea of these characters goals and the relationship between them, and. And you needed more detail in specifics, but you filled in those blanks as you went because you were able to, like, allow yourself the breathing room to rely on your instincts. That's my point. I think you were able to.

[16:43] Emilia Emerson: I think that's so true, because. Yeah, with his tesoro, I had literally one scene in my head, and that's why I wanted to write the book. And I had no idea what was happening around that. And on my. I was done with the entire draft except for one scene. And it was like a big climactic action. Like, everything culminates in this moment. And I was just sitting there, like, I don't know what's supposed to happen. This is like, the last scene left to right in the book. And then, like, it just clicked. Like, right before I started writing it, it just clicked. And I could not have anticipated that it. How it would have fallen into place. That it would have fallen into place. I just trusted that, like, it will happen. And, like, I want to finish my draft today, so hopefully my brain will conjure up whatever it needs to.

[17:34] Rachel: Yeah, I love that. I think. I think that's such a critical skill for anybody on. On here. Like, anybody. I'm waving my hand as if there's a spectrum, but nobody can see that. For anybody on this spectrum, I think the ability to trust yourself is really important. But I also feel like this is such a cool. Like, you and Emily are on two sides of the spectrum, but still write amazing books. Any point of any process is so valid. I don't want people to be thinking, I have to do it this way when maybe just embrace your chaos. Or if you're like, chaos gives me cold sweats, like, okay, maybe try. Maybe try some flooding.

[18:18] Emily: Okay. So, Amelia, you decided to indie publish. And I remember back when you did forbidden, I think you were, like, determined to do as much of it diy kind of as you could. And I'm so curious, where did you get started? Like, what was that process? Like, has it changed, per. You know, as you've put more and more books out there? Just walk us through how you decided first, I guess, to do indie publishing and then where you went after you decided to do that.

[18:47] Emilia Emerson: I mean, I was thinking about this, and I'm like, for me, it wasn't even a decision. So my debut, it's a duet. Total about 1100 pages. And it's a y two s or reverse harem omegaverse. There is absolutely no agent publishing. No one would take that on. It's not even, like, a question. So that wasn't really a choice. If I wanted my book out there, I had to self publish.

[19:15] Rachel: But I would also argue your audience.

[19:18] Emily: Is looking for indie published books.

[19:20] Rachel: Right?

[19:21] Emily: It's not just that traditional. Won't take it. It's more like, that's where your readers are, right? That's my understanding, yes.

[19:27] Emilia Emerson: And it's funny, I have, I'm not against tried published books, but I don't really read them anymore because, well, I'm a big Kindle unlimited reader. When you read a book a day, like I don't have unlimited money to just, you know, even like trad ebooks sometimes they're like $1015. I'm like, that would be a really big budget. But I also just like enjoy indie romance. I think you have the freedom to do a lot that you can't do in trad because no one is telling you you have to cut this back or like this is too extreme or you shouldn't do this. You do have that freedom. And omegaverse is something that started in fanfiction and then moved over to indie. And like sort of trad is dipping its toes kind of a little. But like even bride, right? I mean, like even bride, which is like this is omegaverse or fate or what's it called? The, there's another one. It's like a doctor one, the mate game, the fates. I don't know, it's like omegaverse megalite, right? So if you want to really own it, like this is from a fanfic and indie space. But I've also found that, well, I haven't found, I always knew I was a control freak, but I think what I have found is I love having full control over my books and the publishing process. So even now, I mean, I have, I have one book idea that I think would do really well, Trad. But I don't even know if I'd be interested in pursuing Trad because I love having control over the process. And I think a lot of indie authors find that really stressful. And it is a ton of work. But like I was a professional photographer for about a decade. So like making graphics and editing things and doing my own covers, like that stuff's really fun for me. And then, yeah, with forbidden, I diy'd a ton of it because I didn't have money to pay anyone. And when you're paying for an editor by the word and you have like 250,000 words or something, I mean, it's just like I did not have the money for it. So I had to do a lot of things DIY. But then I found again that I really enjoy that process. I like being involved every step of the way. Even doing social media and managing my own arc team and all this stuff. I genuinely enjoy it. So indie has just been great for me.

[22:16] Emily: I love that. I think that people think that they have to invest a ton of money if they want to do indian publishing. And I think it's just a great example that you can have huge success without doing that.

[22:29] Emilia Emerson: Yeah, I mean, my biggest investment was joining tenacious writers. Like, beyond that, I mean, for forbidden part one and part two, I think total I spent dollar 25 on my cover. I bought like a month long subscription to Grammarly and that helped me do some editing. I mean, it was done incredibly affordably. And then once I had more money, I did hire out some things and found that that did not quite suit me either. I hired a line editor and was honestly really disappointed with the quality of the work for this book. I hired a cover editor and then decided, no, actually I'm going to do my own cover. You know, these expensive lessons that I'm like, okay, I'm not ready or willing to let some of these things go. I like being the one who, who does it, so.

[23:29] Emily: Yeah, yeah, I love that.

[23:31] Rachel: And you did also. I mean, we talked earlier, like, it's only recently that you went full time, so you were still able to do all of this stuff with a full time job on a timeline. I mean, I think you also are. I know to you it rarely probably feels this way, but to me I feel like you're fairly confident in your decisions. You know, like you're, you're ready to decide when something is, you're happy with it, and you're ready to move on and do the next thing. Do you agree?

[24:08] Emilia Emerson: I actually do. And it's funny, I've always kind of had this where like, I'm a pretty confident person, but I'm also horrifically self critical. And so, like, nothing I do is good enough that somehow within that I've managed to like, have like, this assertiveness. And I can't really explain that, but I do think there is just a time where you have to decide to let go. So, you know, at a certain point, I just stop reading my book. Like, I'm like, this has to be as good as it can be. And one thing that has just given me a lot of relief, and I can't remember who said it. It was a TW member who was talking about potentially shelving one of their books and they had just said, I think I've learned or done as much as I can with this book and in order to learn a new skill, I need to do it with another book. And like, that gave me so much relief because I'm like, okay, the forbidden duet is absolutely the best thing I possibly could have done. And it's not perfect, but I could not have perfected that book anymore. I needed to release it, let it go, and then on a next book, learn a new skill, and then on the next book, I learned new skills. And so, like, every new book as an opportunity to learn something new and get better at my craft, and just honoring that, each project can only take you so far.

[25:44] Emily: Yeah, I love that. That's really beautiful.

[25:48] Rachel: Yeah, that's a really big lesson. I think a lot of people not just saying, yes, this is done where I am, but also shelving. There's lessons to be learned on both sides. And I think able to make that decision really only serves you positively if you're able to say, like, yep, I've done everything that I can do and I'm ready to move on. Whether that means shelving it for now or whether that means proceeding in a publishing route, like being able, having the self awareness to make that decision, but also realizing, like, you still have more to learn from other challenges is really important to the journey.

[26:27] Emilia Emerson: Yeah. And I think that somewhere, actually, I was talking to my grandma last night, and she's traditionally published a few books. And she was just saying, she was like, I just think it's so great. Once you finish a book, you just put it aside for a while, because then when you get back to it, you look at it with fresh eyes, and I'm like, you know what? I totally agree. However, it's all publishing. You don't make money until the book is published. And so, like, and especially now that this is my full time job, I don't have the luxury of saying, I'm going to set this book aside for three months, and when I come back to it, I'm going to have fresh eyes and new skills and be able to improve it. And so I think, like, that is where self publishing does influence my process of, like, I finish a book immediately, goes to beta readers, immediately start developmental edits, then the second that's done, line edits, proofreading and publish. I mean, like, I'm not sitting on a book for a long amount of time. And so that's one of the things too. It's like, okay, what's more important to me? Having a quote unquote perfect product or, like, having enough money to pay my bills? So, like, at some point you just have to say, like, I have to be practical about this, and this book has to get out there for me to, like, yeah, earn money.

[27:46] Rachel: Yeah, that makes sense. One of the other things I wanted to ask you is you mentioned at the beginning of the call, and I think you also talk about this a lot. So anyone familiar with your work knows of your background in therapy, but can you tell us about your. The characters that you write and the struggles that they have parallel a lot of your own life and what you've struggled with? So can you tell us more about, like, you know, what. What is important to you in developing your characters? What do you. When you're sitting down and you're like, I want to tell a new story. You know, what are you thinking of when you're thinking of that brand new FMC or MMC, and, like, how do you want to bring them to life?

[28:29] Emilia Emerson: It's funny. One of my friends beta read histosoro, which has an FMC with Ehlers Danlos, and she uses mobility aids. And my friend was like, she was not. She was like, I'm not asking this in a critical way. She's like, but, like, is this part of your brand that, like, all your characters have this, like, body dysmorphia, mental health, physical issues? And I was like, you know, I'm not gonna say it's part of my brand. Like, it's not. You know, I don't have, like, a motto that's like, I don't even know what that would be like. It's not necessarily part of my brand, but it is something that's important to me. And I think, you know, one of the things I love a lot about tenacious writing is this idea of story point of, like, what's your why for writing? And writing is so hard, and I devote so many hours to these books and these characters. And so it's like, how would I be able to do that and push through if I didn't feel a strong, like, why? That's, like, compelling me to keep going. And so, for me, you know, I've had a lot of mental health issues. I've had ptsd and eating disorder. I've been chronically ill since I was little. A year and a half ago, got diagnosed with cancer, and then that. So that's just my personal life. And then in my professional life, being a trauma therapist, working with people who have experienced things. Like, if I wrote them in a book, people would be like, this is a little over the top. Like, the things I have heard from my clients are so horrific, and, like, the things they've struggled with are so extreme. That part of me is like, how do you write a book that feels real, that doesn't have a level of, like, struggle in it. And one of my favorite tropes is hurt comfort, where hurt is, you know, someone is hurt physically or mentally, and then, you know, they get comforted often in, like, a romantic setting. And I'm like, if no hurt, how comfort? You know, like, if you don't have the, like, if you don't make your readers suffer through, like, pain, how are you going to then, like, give them this really compelling, like, comfort? So maybe it is my brand as a writer. I would like to try writing something a little cozier at some point, but in my head, I'm just like, and what if they have this trauma that we can explore, too? I think it's just, like, the reality of my life and my profession that leads me to want to tell those stories. And then the romance, almost fantasy element of it is that everyone does get happily ever after. And for many of my clients and the people I know, they don't get that life doesn't turn magical and they don't meet some wonderful person who comforts them. You know, bad things still happen and they don't deserve that. And so getting to write a book where it's like, and everything is okay and everyone loves each other, you know, there's something I think really healing for me in getting to write that, too.

[31:44] Rachel: Yeah. I think you have your books, like, from what I see online, and I feel like I'm going to say, like, five things at once. But I think when I see your readers, like, your readers are, like, fans, like fanatics kind of readers, and they, like, go feral for your books, really. And I get that view as one of your readers. But you see the reviews that you get where people are like, this book changed my life. I've never felt so seen. I've never seen a protagonist like me. You know, I think. I think what makes your books so successful and powerful and resonant with your readers is that I don't think you shy away from the really tough topics to talk about and from the very real part of the human experience that is struggle. And your readers see that and feel that, and it lights something up in them. And I think all great books do that. But I think that's what makes your books, like, so powerful, is that you don't shy away from it. And like you said, like you have said, and you have said to me as well, that's hard. Like, it's hard to write books that contain so much emotion. And so if you did choose to write, like, a cozier book, full support you know, ten out of ten. But, I mean, I can tell that that's important to you. And I think your readers, it means a lot to them too.

[33:16] Emilia Emerson: No, thank you.

[33:17] Rachel: Yeah. I'm one of your biggest fans.

[33:25] Emilia Emerson: Love it.

[33:26] Emily: So speaking of fans, how can people find you?

[33:30] Emilia Emerson: Well, I'm Emilia Emerson, so. Emilia Emerson, author on Instagram and TikTok, and then my new pen name is author Amelia Rossi, because we're embracing the italian mafia vibe with that last name, and that's on Instagram. And my website, Emilie emerson.com, and all my books are on Amazon and Ku and all of that.

[34:02] Rachel: I love it. And his gesooro is coming out this summer. Summer 2024, right?

[34:08] Emilia Emerson: June. June.

[34:11] Rachel: So everyone needs to be on your email list or follow you on social to get all the updates because you haven't announced a release date yet, but it's coming, coming soon.

[34:22] Emilia Emerson: All right.

[34:22] Rachel: Well, thank you so much, Amelia, for being here with us.

[34:25] Emily: It has been so fun. We can't wait. Can't wait to read your books.

[34:31] Emilia Emerson: Yay.

[34:31] Rachel: If you want to build a successful.

[34:33] Emily: Fulfilling, and sustainable writing life that works for you, you've got to get on our email list.

[34:37] Rachel: Sign up now to get our free email course. The magic of character arcs. After seven days of email magic, you'll have the power to keep your readers flipping pages all through the night.

[34:45] Emily: Link in the show notes. We'll see you there. Bye.