Episode #89: The Midlist!

Welcome back to another episode of Book Friends Forever! Grace and Alvina catch up on each other’s lives, talk about what’s on their minds, and share with each other what they are grateful for. On today’s show, the book friends discuss what it means to be a midlist book and a midlist author.

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“But first, how have you been?”

Alvina just had a nice “staycation” in Vermont where she took some day trips with Stephen, did some hiking, and a little TV show binge watching. There was a celebration of their six months of dating! She also worked on clearing her work email inbox. Alvina tries to get her inbox down to zero by the end of the year. Just to give you an idea, she had 7,000 emails! After her staycation, she had it down to 70.

Grace too had a “shredding and shedding” experience at her house. She talks about how good it can feel to get rid of old paperwork but some of it’s hard to let go of as it’s a stroll down memory lane. This reminded Grace of the book, ‘The Life-Changing Magic of Tiding Up” by Marie Kondo and “A Perfect Mess” by Eric Abrahamson and David H. Freedman.

What is a midlist author?

By definition according to Wikipedia, “midlist is a term in the publishing industry which refers to books which are not bestsellers but are strong enough to economically justify their publication (and likely, further purchases of future books from the same author).”

Grace agrees that technically that is the true definition. From an author’s point of view however, she thinks there is so much emotional baggage when you’re a midlist author. “Being on the midlist is tough because that’s when all your neuroses are fed all the time,” she explains. Grace thinks it’s hard because you work so hard to get published but then once you’re midlist, it’s hard to know where to go from there. “There are the big stars…and then there’s the rest of us.” Grace wonders if a bestselling author can have a midlist book, can it be the other way around? She considers herself a midlist author that can once in a while hit the bestseller list, but does not consider herself a bestseller that can hit the midlist.

Alvina chimes in from a publishing standpoint. She says that it’s better to be midlist than be at the bottom. Midlist authors should be very consistent. That’s the type of author that publishers are looking for; profitable authors that have the potential to be bestsellers. For example, author Wendy Mass was considered midlist. After she had many books published, Candymakers became a bestseller.

Alvina goes on to talk about franchise authors like James Patterson and Stephen King. There are authors that have bestsellers but aren’t necessarily a franchise author, like Kwame Alexander and Jason Reynolds.

Grace asks about trying to get books published by using author pen names and pseudonyms after many failed attempts to get published. “Would this be considered sneaky?” Alvina describes it all as tricky and complicated.

“What are you grateful for?”

Alvina has been reading all the surveys that have been answered and she is really grateful for all the listeners of this podcast.

Grace is grateful for all her Where the Mountain Meets the Moon calendars being sold out at the Eric Carle Museum! She’s also grateful for the special moment when her family went to get their Christmas tree and the rain turned magically into snow….just what her daughter had wished for.