Elizabeth Eulberg

First Draft Episode #278: Elizabeth Eulberg

November 12, 2020

Listen to episode

Elizabeth Eulberg, author of YA novels The Lonely Hearts Club and Better Off Friends, and the acclaimed Great Shelby Holmes middle-grade series. Her next MG, The Best Worst Summer, comes out in Spring 2021.

---

Today's episode of First Draft is brought to you by Sips By. Is there any better fuel for writing than a hot cup of tea? Mmm, I don't think so. Sips By makes discovering tea fun, personalized and affordable. The Sips By box is the only multi-brand personalized tea subscription box. Each month Sips By matches you with delicious teas from over 150 global tea brands, big and small, based on your unique preferences. Gift cards and subscriptions are available @SipsBy.com. That's S I P S B y.com.

Subscribe and you'll receive four new teas each month chosen just for you. Each Sips By box includes loose teas, bagged teas, or a mixture of both, based on your preference. And it makes 15 or more cups of tea. I'm not a scientist, but I'm pretty sure that's at least half a month. Sounds pretty good to me! Sips By accounts for your caffeine tolerance, your flavor preference, and even your dietary needs.

Okay, so real talk, I've been in the coffee game for a minute, but I was a little bit of a tea novice. But like a lot of people, I've started to realize that coffee after, I don't know, noon, probably not a great idea. So I've been looking to get into tea world, but it's really intimidating. There's a lot of things to learn, and people have very specific ideas about what tea you should be having. So Sips By was perfect for me. I took the quiz online, which was super easy, and here's just a couple of things that Sips By sent me for my November batch.

Each month's box comes with this kind of guide to the teas that they sent you. It says 'Made for Sarah' and it's got four teas for me this month and it lists out what they are. One is Orange Rooibos - this is how much I need Sips By, I'm sure that I'm saying that wrong - Black Gunpowder, that's got high caffeine, that sounds fantastic. And every single one that they sent me comes with instructions on how to brew it, at what temperature, for how long, which is really great. I am a very new person in tea world, so that's extremely helpful for me. And it tells me not only who made the tea and what it is, but if I like it, it looks like I get 15% off of one if I use their Sips By code. 20% off another Sips By. So if I find something through Sips By that is perfect for me, I can keep getting it at a discount because they introduced it to me, which is so fantastic.

Follow Sips By, that's @S I P S B Y on Instagram for weekly giveaways and more. And good news for listeners of First Draft, you can use the code firstdraft, lowercase, all one word, for 50% off your first Sips By box @Sipsby.com. Again, that's S I P S B Y. So make sure you're following Sips By on Instagram, go to the website, take the quiz, it takes two seconds. You get 50% off of your first box if you use the code firstdraft, all lower case, all one word. So there's so little to lose for everyone who's doing NaNoWriMo and everything as well. This is the perfect fuel for the writing month. Get after it.

---

Welcome to First Draft with me, Sarah Enni.

This week, I'm talking to Elizabeth Eulberg author of YA novels The Lonely Hearts Club, and Better Off Friends and more. And the acclaimed Great Shelby Holmes middle-grade series. Her next middle-grade, The Best Worst Summer, comes out in spring 2021.

Elizabeth got her start in publishing as a publicist, so she shares tons of insights from that side of the industry, which was so interesting. And she shares the challenges that she faced when she made the transition to being a full-time writer. We also talk about outlining mysteries, her devoted Spanish language audience, and what she learned from writing retellings.

You can support First Draft by subscribing to the podcast wherever you're listening right now and by leaving a rating or review on Apple podcasts. You can also go to the website @FirstDraftPod.com to check out the show notes for this and every episode, which has links to everything we talk about.

First Draft is an affiliate of bookshop.org. So that means when you shop through the links on the website, it supports the show and independent bookstores at no additional cost to you. A really great way to support First Draft, while getting tons of great bonus content, is to sign up for the weekly Track Changes newsletter. Every Friday, subscribers get exclusive interviews, publishing industry analysis, writing tips, and more. Information that's useful for both new writers and seasoned vets.

I don't run a Patreon or anything like that for First Draft, so the Track Changes newsletter is the best way to support the show while getting useful and cool stuff in exchange. The newsletter is just $5 a month, but you can try it 30 days for free, learn more and sign up for the free trial @firstdraftpod.com/TrackChanges. And hey, if you want to skip all the hullabaloo and just donate directly to First Draft, you can do that too @paypal.me/FirstDraftpod.

Okay, now please sit back, relax and enjoy my conversation with Elizabeth Eulberg.

---

Sarah Enni:  Okay. Hi, Elizabeth. How are you?

Elizabeth Eulberg:  Good. How are you?

Sarah Enni:  I'm doing so well, thank you for having me over. I'm so excited to meet you and chat with you.

Elizabeth Eulberg:  I know I cannot believe this is the first that people are getting the joy of hearing us meet each other for the first time.

Sarah Enni:  It's so real. Okay. I can't wait to chat. Let's dive in. As you know, I like to start at the beginning, so I'd love to hear about where you were born and raised.

Elizabeth Eulberg:  So I'm from Wisconsin and I always joke because David Levithan (editor at Scholastic and author of Boy Meets Boy, Every Day, and more), who is a dear friend and also has been my editor, always jokes with people that, "Oh, how do you know Elizabeth from Wisconsin? Talked to her for 10 minutes and she'll end up bringing it up." But yeah, so I am from a very small town in Wisconsin, my mother was a librarian, she's retired now. And fun fact, I'm actually named after Beth in Little Women.

Sarah Enni:  Amazing. And you have a sister named Meg as well? Is that what I read?

Elizabeth Eulberg:  I do. And I just saw that movie and I always laugh because, you know, Beth's the youngest, the beloved sweet child and musical, as was I. And then spoiler alert, she dies. So I always give my mom crap for that. "Why'd you name me after the one who dies?"

Sarah Enni:  Thanks mom! Well, speaking of your mom being a librarian, I would love to hear about how reading and writing was a part of growing up for you.

Elizabeth Eulberg:  So it's really funny, when I first started writing young adult books and I would always kind of talk about my high school experience, because when you're talking to teenagers, that's what they want to know about. And then when I started working on my Shelby books and thinking about reading as a younger age, it was a very different experience because I actually struggled with reading when I was younger.

I was put in the lowest reading level in first grade and I just couldn't read, and I really struggled with it. And I got very frustrated because all my friends were reading, and I just couldn't. Finally, second grade, it wasn't getting better and it broke my mom's heart that her favorite child couldn't read. So they took me to a center and I had to take this test. And this is before reading disabilities were something that people knew about, like dyslexia.

My mom knew I got Brian and brain confused. And in my letters I got D and B confused a lot, but I don't think they knew the word for it. They just knew I mixed things up. So I took this test and I remember, it's one of my earliest memories, being in this center and taking this test and just feeling dumb. Like I just thought, "Well, I'm here because I'm stupid." Right? But then they found out I had dyslexia and I have an auditory processing issue.

So I'm better at directions being read instead of verbal directions. Luckily for me, I was becoming a better reader. I found books I really liked. And the funny thing about my story is that I was saying to kids, "Oh, by fourth grade, I was fine." Because I remember in fourth grade reading The Betsy-Tacy series and I loved to read. But I recently went through a bunch of my old report cards and I was still failing reading in sixth grade.

Sarah Enni:  Whoa!

Elizabeth Eulberg:  And getting all my report cards, It wasn't until, for whatever reason, halfway through eighth grade that I started becoming a better student. And I was a great student in high school. I was in the honor roll, I was Dean's list. And I graduated from college magna cum laude. So I always say, especially to parents and teachers, do not pigeonhole your child so quickly. Some people just have a very different, longer journey. And if you would have probably told anybody when I was in second grade, fourth grade or sixth grade, that she was gonna be a writer, they would be like, "No, no, I'm sorry. You must be confused."

Sarah Enni:  I want to talk about when creative writing came to you, but I also want to talk about how music was a form of expression when you were a kid.

Elizabeth Eulberg:  Well, it was both, actually. Look at this, you must do this a lot! So they both kind of go hand in hand. I mean, the thing with music is, I love music so much and I'm very appreciative for it because it was the thing I was good at when I couldn't read. So my mom always talks about how my sisters, my older sisters, were playing piano and I was the one banging at the piano more than they were practicing.

And music made me really good at math because when you learn music at a young age, you have whole notes and quarter notes and half notes and 16th notes. So you're taught um... fractions! I'm so good at math, "What's that word?" So when we got to that part in school, I remember being like, "Yeah, I know what a quarter is. One fourth. I know what a third or two thirds is." It was just ingrained in me. And it was just something that was good for my confidence cause I was good at it. Because I was, again, not good at school or reading.

But the first time I wrote creatively is I wrote a song lyrics.

Sarah Enni:  Yay. Oh my God. I love that.

Elizabeth Eulberg:  Which, I have them. We'll see how much I want to make a fool out of myself because they're amazing. But yeah, every night, this is now, I'm gonna age myself, but this is like back when like Debbie Gibson was a thing. And so for me to see that there was a young girl who was a singer songwriter, I was like, "I love music and I want to be a singer. I want to be a Debbie Gibson." And so every night before bed, I would write one or two songs. So that started my writing.

Sarah Enni:  I'm so interested in your story of discovering publicity. And that that was what you wanted to study. Do you mind sharing that with us?

Elizabeth Eulberg:  Yeah, cause it also has to do with music. So I was really into music. I thought career-wise, I'd want to do something with music. And not, again, for someone to be like, "How old is this person?" But the internet did not exist. So I couldn't Google careers in the music industry. So luckily my high school librarian got a book, cause it was my mom, with careers in music industry and I read about them. And there were two careers that sounded interesting.

Because as much as I loved music, I was pretty good for Porters, Wisconsin, okay? But I wasn't gonna be a classical pianist. I wasn't gonna be, you know, I guess that would be it. Or first clarinet in like the New York Philharmonic. I wasn't that good, but I just wanted music to be part of it.

And so one of the careers I liked was public relations because it was being behind the person, being involved in that person's career, and also not like a boring job. I got to be creative. You get to be involved and work with media and book events. And so I went to college for public relations and then got a job out of school. And Scholastic Entertainment was one of our clients cause it was an entertainment firm.

And then it was this weird, you know how things happen for a reason? I was doing a follow-up on, Scholastic Entertainment had Clifford the Big Red Dog and Magic School Bus and Goosebumps. But the journalist I was following up with said, "Oh, I have a question about the Teletubby books." And I was like, "Oh, that's Scholastic the publisher, not entertainment."

And my boss said it was one of his biggest mistakes. I said, "Oh, who should they talk to?" He's like, "Well, why don't you call the head of publicity at Scholastic?" So I did. And I said who I was, and that there's a reporter, and the director of publicity at the time said, "You know, I'm just asking everybody while I have you on the phone, we're looking for a publicist. Do you know of anybody?"

And mind you, I had been working now for maybe 10 months out of college, and I was an assistant. But go big or go home. I was like, "Well me." And that was a Wednesday. I had the interview on Friday. I got offered the job on Monday. And I always joke with them, I never would have hired me as a publicist, because that's a higher level than I was.

But yeah, I got to work at Scholastic. And when it's such a great time, because my very first day, my boss was like, "Here, read these books." And I was like, "Okay." She's like, "This one we're really excited about it's doing really well in England." And I was like, "I don't want to read about wizards at boarding school." And that was Harry Potter.

So don't come to me for what you think is going to be big! Until I read it. And I remember reading this book and being like, "Oh my God, this book is amazing." Now just for listeners, no one knew what this book was. This was not anything. And I come running into the office. I was like, "I hope she writes a second one!" And my boss is like, "Well, the second one's already out in the UK. It's number one there." Again, "We hope it does well here." And that, just for reference, that book took a while. It was not an instant hit.

Sarah Enni:  Right. I'd love to just hear from you, what does a publicist do and also were you able to express yourself creatively in that role?

Elizabeth Eulberg:  So basically what a publicist in publishing does is they're the ones who get your books reviewed. They are the ones who book events, pitch you to conferences. Well, usually library conferences is someone else, but to book festivals like the LA Times Book Festival, North Texas Teen Book Fest, they're the ones who do the public face.

Now, one thing I once said in front of a bunch of authors that made them go, "Oh my God, I never thought about this." Is that publicists, I think, have some of the hardest jobs because in marketing, if a marketing person says, "We're going to do this ad here. This ad will get placed because they have the money and it's gonna be made." A publicist requires someone else to say yes. So we're the ones who are told 'no' the most. Or just not responded to at all.

I would send out a hundred pitch letters, and if you got one, yes, it was great. I need a book seller to say, "Yes, we want to have this author." I need a festival to say, "Yes, we want this author." And it's not always as easy as you think. And again, my boss, who worked on the Harry Potter series, had a file folder of all the rejections she got from media to interview J.K. Rowling. It was large.

Because no one cares that something's big in the UK. That doesn't mean anything. There it does. In the UK, "This book's huge in America," has cachet. Here, it just doesn't as much. And so it wasn't an automatic 'yes.'. And it took a really long time for people to get on board with it. And a lot of that had to do with indie booksellers.

So a publicist is the person who tries to book reviews and it's hard because there's less outlets. So back in my day, there were a ton of magazine outlets. And you did long-lead, which long-lead means that you have to usually send out the materials four to six months ahead of time, because that's how long it took for magazines to get printed. It doesn't exist... that doesn't happen anymore. But yeah, and doing events and booking tours. And that was also based on what I was told, "We had the money to do that for."

Sarah Enni:  What do you mean?

Elizabeth Eulberg:  So being told we have the budget for this author to go to three to five cities. Because a lot of times authors will be like, "I want to go on a tour," and I'm like, "Great, but there's no budget for it." And it's hard. I remember once, a woman wanted me to do a bunch of tours and she just wrote, I shouldn't say just wrote, but she wrote a tie-in to a Scholastic TV book or something. And I remember thinking, "What is she thinking?"

But then I think, you know, this is probably someone who's always wanted to be an author and she now has a book. And so I understood in that way, but then looking at it from the publisher perspective, it was a $2.99 I Can Read book. If she wanted to do local stuff, great. But it's just not what my priority had to be.

Sarah Enni:  And that's been the key to my understanding of it is marketing is, like you say, buying ads. And if you invest in something marketing-wise, it's gonna happen. And publicity is like, "We're gonna try everything we can, but ultimately other people have to want to book you on their show," or whatever. I do want to talk about your time as a publicist because it was, like you said, a really wild, amazing time to be doing your job. And you did that for 10 years, is that right?

Elizabeth Eulberg:  Yeah, a little over 10.

Sarah Enni:  I don't know which order you want to tackle it in, but I heard that you met J.K. Rowling a bunch of times, Suzanne Collins, (author of The Hunger Games series and the middle-grade Gregor the Overlander series) you knew well enough that she was at your book launch, and that you were director of publicity for Stephenie Meyer (author of Twilight).

Elizabeth Eulberg:  Yeah! [Laughs].

Sarah Enni:  Holy shit! Okay. That's like a pretty great pedigree.

Elizabeth Eulberg:  No big deal. Super famous. The funny thing is, out of all of this, the author who's responsible for me being an author is actually Dav Pilkey, the Captain Underpants author. Because when you talk - and I didn't get a chance to, because I go off topic - about being creative in publicity, my Captain Underpants press materials are probably the greatest things I've ever written.

I have to write these pitch letters and press releases about books. And I'm working on books called like The Talking Turbo Toilets, I don't know, I have them all right there. The Plot of the Professor... Oh my gosh! I'm now embarrassing myself. The Wicked Wedgie Woman was a series, that was one and two. But yeah, my press materials, everybody knew when I was writing Captain Underpants stuff, because I would come back with a Cherry Coke and a Snickers bar in my hand, get hopped up on sugar. And then write.

It got to the point where my boss was like, "I feel like legal should read some of this stuff." Because I once made fun of Harry Potter in the materials, and I was told I had to take it out because, at the time, it was Harry Potter, 1; Captain Underpants, 2. So I just kind of wanted to be like, "It's the second bestselling book series in America behind a funny looking kid with glasses," you know? And they're like, "Maybe don't make fun of Harry Potter."

Sarah Enni:  [Laughing] That's so good though!

Elizabeth Eulberg:  And so I was with Dav Pilkey one night, we became really close, he is the nicest human being to ever exist. And he just said, "You know, Elizabeth, you're so smart and funny, and you're a really good writer." And he said, "Have you ever thought about writing books?" And I had, but I didn't want to tell anybody. But part of me just said, "Just tell him, tell him, tell him." And I said, "I've been thinking about it."

And then a couple days later he was like, "Nope, no more thinking." And he, famously, had a bet with me to see who could write a first draft of a book the quickest. And that's when I started writing. So he always says I give him too much credit, I would have eventually got there, but he was the one to finally push me there. So I'm very appreciative of him.

But witnessing the craziness that ended up coming with that was really [pauses], my boss was the head person. But when she was on tour for Azkaban, I was the one in the office who basically had to just tell everybody 'no'. And that was when I got to see how people with series can feel that they're entitled to things. And I mean, it was just crazy.

And it was like a lot of media people like, "I hear J.K. Rowling is in town. I want five minutes to interview her." I was like, "Sorry, sir, she's not available." "It's only five minutes!" "But you're the 400th person today to ask for that." But I will never forget this woman in the Atlanta area, a mom, called, "My daughter loves her books. I would like her to come to her school." I said, "She's unavailable." She's like, "But I see that she has this event here and this event here, what else is she doing?" And I was like, "It is private. I'm not going to divulge her schedule." And the woman called me four times. And I finally said to her, "Ma'am you can keep calling me. It's not gonna change the answer, but the tone of my voice is going to."

Sarah Enni:  Ooh, I like that.

Elizabeth Eulberg:  Because I just didn't know it was just whole thing of, "Well, but I..." And it's like, "But millions of people do." And I think witnessing that prepared me for the Twilight craziness.

Sarah Enni:  I do want to talk about this, and I want to be clear that I'm not asking you to divulge behind-the-scenes, or whatever, cause I know that you can't. But I do, from what I've read, not to tell your story to you...

Elizabeth Eulberg:  No! What are people saying about me?

Sarah Enni:  From what I've read you were reluctant to jump into writing, for a lot of reasons, and I'm wondering if the fact that you saw this massive success up-close maybe, in some way, raised the stakes in your mind of what it meant to be a writer?

Elizabeth Eulberg:  So The Lonely Hearts Club I started writing before I knew who Stephenie Meyer was. It was before I moved to Little Brown, so it was before that. I think one of the reasons why, I know one of the reasons why, is because I was that person. I worked with a lot of picture book people, especially at Scholastic, David Shannon (author and illustrator of Caldecott Honor book No, David!, and illustrator of How I Became a Pirate) and Mark Teague (author and illustrator of Fly!, the Dear Mrs. LaRue series, and illustrator of the How Do Dinosaurs… series) and Brian Selznik (author of Caldecott-winning The Invention of Hugo Cabaret and Wonderstruck), and I would be at events with them and hear so many people go, "My kids love the stories I tell them at bed, I could write a book." And I think I heard so many people just think that writing a book is so easy and that they can do it, and I remember thinking, "Well, why do I think I'm any different?"

And here's the thing, anybody could write a book, but you have to actually sit down and do it. And I think the idea of writing a book is a lot more romantic than actually writing a book. And I mean, even as a publicist, I was thinking, "Oh God, how great it must be for these authors." Like, "They're just at home working."

And then I think about, this is back when you called people all the time, I was constantly calling and interrupting their workday, but never thinking about it until now, I'm like, "Oh God." And I can choose when to go on and like look at email, right? So I think it was more, that. Because I already had written Lonely Hearts Club before I was with Stephanie.

Sarah Enni:  Okay. So that's how the timeline works. And we're gonna talk about Lonely Hearts Club very specifically, but before that, I have to hear a little bit about, so you went to Little Brown as that was ramping up? Or what was the timeline?

Elizabeth Eulberg:  So I started at Little Brown a year before the book came out. So they were like, "This is gonna be our big book." So I wasn't there when it was acquired, I just remember being like, "Vampires? Okey-doke." And so the joke was, I go there, I hadn't read the book, everybody who read it, liked it. And they were like, "Oh, this is gonna be big."

And I knew they paid a lot of money for it. And I was head of publicity, so I knew that a lot of the pressure was gonna fall on me. But then I knew it had an interesting story about this Mormon mom who got a dream and then wrote it, and all this stuff. So as a publicist, you want a good backstory. J.K. Rowling had one; single welfare mother with a kid and wrote by hand in a coffee shop.

So you want that story. And so I was flying to visit a friend in Telluride and I missed my connecting flight in Houston and there was only one a day. And I had the Arc of Twilight and I was like, "Oh God, I guess I'm gonna read this book now." And I was like, "I really liked it!" Which was good, cause I was worried. Cause believe me, you don't like all the books you work on.

But yeah, Twilight hit at the right time. It came at a time where first of all, social media was starting to become a thing, My Space and blogging. So people were able to have a voice about what books they liked to an audience. Also everybody was wondering, "What's next after Harry Potter?" And so the timing was really good.

And also the rabid fan base was really good. And that was something where, that first year I kept saying to Stephanie, "You realize this isn't normal, right?" So many things were happening where I kept saying, "This is not normal." And she was like, "No, I had a feeling." Cause a lot of stuff happened.

And the first book, which I would just like to point out, that first book got a lot of starred reviews and a lot of acclaim. People seem to forget that now, but that first book did. And industry-wise people really liked it. And also, look, I did a lot for that book, but also so did marketing, so did sales. Just one cog in the wheel is not gonna get a book to become a phenomenon. And then it just kind of grew and it just got to be the point where I'm very glad I got to witness Harry Potter things to get me prepared.

Sarah Enni:  Right. I'm interested in, to whatever degree, you can talk about it.

Elizabeth Eulberg:  I think just knowing about when signings were going to get out of control that you had to be really strict, and you had to start off being really strict. You couldn't all of a sudden, one event, have something and say, "Well, now the rules have changed." And there were a few times, certain people were like, "You might be too strict." And then they're like, "Sorry, sorry, sorry." And I was like, "Yeah, no, I know what I'm talking about."

But also the timing of things and knowing how to place everything. And when I say place everything, knowing how you want things to land, Where you want to make sure you get a TV, a radio, and also how to play all them off each other. I mean, as a publicist, I was used to not hearing anything back.

And so it was very different to have multiple big media outlets, who never talked to me before, wanting things from me and having to decide, "Well, who's gonna get the exclusive? Who's gonna come first?" And then realizing I do have some power. "Okay. So if you want this, then I'm gonna need this coverage, this cover."

But it was also very, you know, a lot of times the fans would find my phone number and call and leave me messages and say things. And um, yeah.

Sarah Enni:  That's intense.

Elizabeth Eulberg:  Yeah. 2008 was a really interesting year, I'll just say that. I had a friend once was like, "I never see you anymore." I'm like, "Don't take it personally. I haven't seen me either." I just remember looking at her like, "Do you not understand what I've been through?"

Sarah Enni:  It's just so fascinating to me that you timed it so interestingly to have experienced the Harry Potter surge and then the Twilight surge.

Elizabeth Eulberg:  Yeah. It was a fluke.

Sarah Enni:  That is just so fascinating.

Elizabeth Eulberg:  And the Suzanne Collins thing... so the funny thing about Suzanne Collins is when I left Scholastic, I'd been there for almost seven years, I was very fortunate that a lot of the authors that I worked with by the time I had left, had grown and had become very successful. And I feel like I was like, "I'm okay. Brian Selznik's gonna be okay without me." Like, "Dav Pilkey's gonna be okay without me." But the one author that I was like, "Oh, she's so close and I feel bad leaving," was Suzanne Collins because I was the publicist for her first series, Gregor the Overlander, which is a really great book series.

And the funny joke about that, is at Scholastic, I got to a point where I got to choose which books I wanted to work on, but that book was assigned to me. And I remember being like, "I don't want to read this book." And the marketing person said, and Suzanne knows this story so I'm not like whatever, and I was like, "I don't want to read this book." And the marketing person said, "It's really good." And I was like, "Ugh!" So one weekend I'm like, "All right, try to read like 50 pages." Oh my God!

So Gregor the Overlander is about this kid, Gregor, who lives in New York City who him and his younger sister fall down a chute. It's like Alice in Wonderland, but it's Alice in Wonderland in New York City. So when they go down below, it's not like gardens. It is giant rats and cockroaches and bats. It is delightful. I loved it so much that my pitch letter for that was, "Read the first three chapters, and if you don't want to continue reading it, then you can throw this away."

And journalists knew me enough to know that me saying that, they would read the first three [chapters]. Most of the time they wouldn't read anything, but they would read the first three chapters, and that first book got a lot of review coverage because of it. But yeah, I worked with Suzanne. She's so nice and sweet and we still keep in touch. And so then Hunger Games happens and I've got an Arc and I remember loving it.

I went to Books of Wonder, which is a bookstore in New York City when Mocking Jay came out and there were like a thousand people and it was great. And then a few months later, my second book came out and I was at Books of Wonder and Suzanne walks in. I go, "What are you doing here?" She goes, "Well you came to my event." I'm like, "A thousand people came to your event, Suzanne. But thank you."

But she was so sweet because she was like, "If anybody asks who I am, I'm your cousin, Susie. I'm in the back." Like she was very much, "This is not about me." And she just stood in the back smiling and it was really nice. I had a couple people be like, "is that Suzanne Collins?" And I'm like, "Just be cool."

Sarah Enni:  Yeah. "Keep it under wraps." That's very sweet. I love that. I just love that you had such intense, wild, amazing experiences.

Elizabeth Eulberg:  Yeah, I'm like the Forrest Gump of children's publishing [laughs]. Someone once said that about me and I go, "Yeah, fair enough. Fair enough."

Sarah Enni:  Let's catch back up to Dav Pilkey is helping to encourage you to write Lonely Hearts Club. I also heard it took you 17 drafts.

Elizabeth Eulberg:  Oh yeah. Yeah. So I always love saying this in front of kids cause they all know who Dave Pelkey is, specially Dog Man's huge right now, too. So I always say to him, I took the bet, even though it wasn't fair, because it was Dav's sixth Captain Underpants book, I had never written before, I had a really demanding job, this was his job. And I actually only lost the bet by three days. He turned something in on Friday, I was done Monday, cause I could only work on weekends.

But I always say that his book came out September, 2006 and my book came out December, 2009. And the reason of those three years, and also I wasn't doing illustrations, was just my first draft was pretty bad. Pretty bad. I, yeah, 17 drafts before it was a draft to go to publishers, basically.

And I always think, and I like to share this a lot when I do events cause I think it's important. Because it's easy now for people to look on my website and see all my books and go on Insta and see me traveling, or whatever.

But there was one night where, because I could only work on the weekends, I hadn't had any time off in like four months. I was working on draft number 17, actually. It was Sunday night, I just wanted to order Chinese food and watch Amazing Race. I was done and I thought, "I can't do this anymore. Why did I think I could write this book? It's never gonna happen. I've wasted all this time."

And I called a friend sobbing and I remember I was in a different apartment, but sitting on my couch and being like, "All right, you have two choices right now, Elizabeth, you can just give up. Toss the last four years out the window and order Chinese food and watch Amazing Race. Or you can just get up, put your butt in the chair and just finish it."

And I did. I just was like, "Let me just do it one more time." I turned it in. And usually when I turned in a draft, I would like dance around to the Beatles Revolution and celebrate. This time I was kicking things, I was like, "What's the point?" Sunday night. Wednesday morning, my agents said, "Congratulations. We have a draft to send to publishers."

And the reason why I tell that story is cause I was saying like, "I legitimately almost gave up." And I say that, "I almost gave up on mile 26 of a marathon, which is 26.2 miles. Because I didn't know I only had 0.2 miles left." Right? I had no idea.

And when you're stuck in the middle of something hard, it's very hard for you to see the other side of it and to know you're gonna get past it. And when I think about all the things I've accomplished, the proudest I am of myself is the fact that that day I was like, "Just finish it."

Sarah Enni:  That's a great story. And you did your own Amazing Race.

Elizabeth Eulberg: I did. I did. Same amount of tears and stress.

Sarah Enni:  It was sitting right there. I don't want to skip over getting an agent. I'm really interested in hearing about your process as someone who's been in the industry and then was able to participate in the industry from another angle. Because I do think actually a lot of people are able to do that, but also it's great for people to know how this works. So I'm interested in you're writing, and then you're thinking about getting representation. You're surrounded by book people all the time. So how did you navigate that?

Elizabeth Eulberg:  So I was doing this in secret because I was surrounded by so many people, and the good and the bad about being someone who works in publishing writing a book is, I am not anonymous. So that can be good because, "Oh, everybody knows Elizabeth," right? The bad is, everybody knows me, so the rejection is gonna be by someone that I'm gonna see.

Sarah Enni:  Socially or in a work environment.

Elizabeth Eulberg:  No one, like no one knew I was working on a book. Only very, very close friends. Like David Levithan again, one of my closest friends, didn't know I was writing a book.

Sarah Enni:  Your mom didn't.

Elizabeth Eulberg:  No, my mom didn't, and my parents did not know until I had an offer. And the reason why, cause when you talk about people who don't know, is I knew they would ask me every time they talked to me, "How's the book going?" And the reason why it took four years was because there would be six months I couldn't work on it because I was too busy. So I waited until I knew it was gonna be an actual thing.

So the agent thing is funny. First of all, I'm no longer with my first agent, which is common. But I will say Dav Pilkey is responsible for my first agent, because he told on me! He's with Writer's House, and he told an agent at Writers' House I was working on a book. So she called me and was like, "I hear you're working on a book." And I was horrified. I was like, "Oh my god. I can't believe." And so then the next thing she said was, "You better show me it first."

So I'm very grateful to him, and I always used to say to people, "You can hate me for the fact that..." I think getting an agent's one of the hardest parts.

Sarah Enni:  Agreed. 

Elizabeth Eulberg: Because I always say to people like, "Once you get an agent, and you just need one 'yes'..." And that's a lot of publishing. I always try to remind people I'm currently on submission for something right now. And I'm always like, "You just need one 'yes'." It just is true. You need one agent to want to represent you, one publisher to want to publish your book. And everybody hears 'no's'. And so I'm very fortunate that the beginning of my career, I had an agent who wanted to read my books.

Now she made me do, several of those drafts were because of her before she was satisfied. But then things happen. Then I had to actually do the query, the agent query, which was interesting. It was, you know, doing my research. And so for people who are like, "But how do I find an agent?" Jennifer Weiner (author of Big Summer, In Her Shoes, Good in Bed and more), the adult author, has some of the best advice. Is that she talks about us authors write acknowledgements. And those acknowledgements, if they don't include an agent, there's a reason why.

So if you are writing high concept, fantasy romance, when you read those books, look at the agents in the back. Right? So look at the agents who represent books that are similar to yours. Like if you're writing historical fiction, do not look at someone who represents - not that agents don't represent a breadth of material - but I also know a lot of author friends.

So when I was looking, I just made a list, I talked to people. But I also talked to people who were represented by those agents, because I am very fortunate that I can be like, "Hey, talk to me about working with your agent." And knowing what questions to ask.

And the questions I asked were like, "How long does it take to get a response?" Cause I feel like that's really important to know. Agents have a lot of clients, it doesn't mean that they should get back to you within an hour, but within a day or two. “How many revisions are they gonna make you do?" There are some agents who, "Everything's fine!" There are some who will make you do many drafts. Now Lonely Hearts Club did require all those drafts. So that is on me.

And I always say like, "Now I've been through it." Of doing the research. And it's a hard thing, but also it is stressful. But I know a lot of authors who are on not their first agent.

Sarah Enni:  Yes, very many.

Elizabeth Eulberg:  It is a business. And if it gets to a point where it's not working for whatever reason, then you move on.

Sarah Enni:  Yeah. You can move on and it's pretty normal and understood by all parties. Be professional, but if it's not working, it's not working. And it's like a job, then you also do your research, apply to jobs where, you know what I mean? So just approach it that way. And I think it takes a lot of pressure off. Getting an agent is not a superhuman feat. It's just another kind of business you have to go about doing.

Elizabeth Eulberg:  A hundred percent business. You need someone who is going to look after your interests and be involved. And also there's one agent I was thinking of, and an editor friend was like, "Oh my god no. Anybody, but this person." And you want an agent who's tough, but not someone that editors completely dread hearing from. Cause it's going to make them not want to work with that agent, regardless of who they're representing.

Sarah Enni:  Yes. I've been talking to a lot of, I'll just speak for myself because I don't obviously know who you're talking about, but I've been talking to a lot of editors lately. And yeah, some agents make their lives harder and they don't like that. And I don't blame them for that.

So I always tell people, "When you're talking about an agent, you're talking about someone who's speaking for you out in the world and you really want to be aware of what the person who's speaking for you is like." It was important to me that my agent was very upfront with me about that. She was like, "If you want a shark, that's not me. That's not how I conduct myself and my business. And I ask for your trust cause I treat everyone like we're all a part of the same team."

Elizabeth Eulberg:  And I worked with agents back when I was a publicist as well. And so, there was one agent who was horrible to not only me, but pretty much anybody at the publisher, and would just yell. And here's the thing also, authors to know, is if you yell at your publicist, your publicist is the one who has to then be the one to be excited about your book.

I once had an author call me an idiot, and for not a good reason. Not that there's ever a good reason to call someone an idiot, but I remember then a very prominent journalist called and said, "What are you excited about this spring?" "Do you think, sir, your book is going to be the first one out of my mouth?"

And so I always try to be... thank you. I was on a plane with an author who had her debut adult novel. She goes, "Oh, you used to work in publicity. Tell me what should I do?" And I was like, "Say, thank you." Like you're coming back from a festival where they had to do an itinerary for you. You thank them for sending you.

I always, which is just because I used to be a publicist. I always tell them how it was and I give feedback. I also think it's helpful for them to know. Like, "Oh, this was well attended. It was great. I sold, I think this many books." I just feel like it's helpful for them as well. So it's not just, I get sent somewhere and then they don't hear anything.

So it's a thank you and report. I also give gifts at the holidays. I always do it right after Thanksgiving because the week before Christmas is when they all come, you want to be the first one in, when they're still like, "Ooh, chocolate!" Instead of, "Oh God, more chocolate." I'm telling you, be the first one in, that's what I do.

Sarah Enni:  That's great advice.

Elizabeth Eulberg:  But it's more just being appreciative because there is a lot of work involved, and a lot of work you don't see. And also, read your schedules. I can't tell you.

Sarah Enni:  Ooh! This is really good advice.

Elizabeth Eulberg:  This is hilarious. So I was at a book festival and my publicist from Scholastic was there and there was another author from Scholastic. So we're getting ready for this day of conferences, speaking, this whole thing. And this guy comes down and says to the publicist, "So, I have to be honest, I don't really know what this thing is." Like, "What am I doing today?" And she goes, "Oh, well, I gave you an itinerary that said everything." He goes, "Yeah, I didn't read that."

So what do I do? I get in there and I go, because I can, because I'm not a publicist now, I'm an author. And I turned to the guy - and also we had dinner the night before, so he knew that I was jovial joker - anyways, I go, "I'm sorry. Do you think she wrote that itinerary for her amusement?" I was like, "It's not her fault you didn't read it. It is your job. You are here. All the information you need is there. So you should open it up and read it. Instead of having her explain something she already gave you."

And he was like, "Oh, I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry." And then later, apparently she went back to Scholastic, and I was like a figure, like an urban myth. They're like, "Did you once hear about the time?" Because it's true. I've had authors be like, "What's happening today?" I'm like, "Did you get a schedule?" "Yeah." "Well, read it! Oh my god!" You know? I do, I read. I make sure I know where everything's happening and it's good to be prepared.

Sarah Enni:  Okay. Let's talk about your book.

Elizabeth Eulberg:  Oh, okay. Yeah. That!

Sarah Enni:  Let's talk about The Lonely Hearts Club. If you don't mind pitching that book for us?

Elizabeth Eulberg:  So The Lonely Hearts Club is about a girl named Penny Lane Bloom - her parents are big Beatles fans - who gets her heart broken and then realizes that all of her friends, all the stuff you give up to be in a relationship. So she basically decides to stop dating boys in high school cause they're not worth the trouble.

So she starts a club, originally for herself, called The Lonely Hearts Club. And then other people are like, "Wait, wait, what's this? I wanna get in on the no dating and not dealing with boys and being female-focused." And then a boy comes along who may be worth it. I don't know.

Sarah Enni:  I'm interested in hearing about when you started writing in earnest, though you were keeping it on the down-low. How did you structure that time for yourself and commit to it?

Elizabeth Eulberg:  It's like so long ago when I started writing, but I do remember, all I knew; Penny Lane, stop dating. And I sat down to write and I was like, "Ugh!" I was like, "Why? Why does she? Who are her friends?" I didn't have a notebook. I don't know what. But it's a first book, everybody doesn't know what they're doing for their first book.

So I struggled a lot, so much so, that I can't even remember. I just knew that weekends were when I could write. And so that's kind of what I did. And Thanksgiving weekend was always big for me because it was extra, cause I don't go home for Thanksgiving because that flight is just too expensive. So then I'd be like, "I have four days."

Thanksgiving was always like a big weekend for me, just four days to get work done. And a lot of times I traveled a lot in the fall and spring, so then it would be the summer. But yeah, it was pretty much weekends.

Sarah Enni:  Wow. Which is great. And the reason I ask is, cause I know there's a lot of people who are working full time and trying to make it work, and make time for it. So it's good to hear from someone who did it.

Elizabeth Eulberg:  And then as I became more disciplined, when I started having contracts and having time, I would give myself word count goals every weekend. And it was usually 10,000 words on the weekend. 5,000, Saturday, 5,000 Sunday. However, during the week when I was commuting to work, I would start making notes and writing down.

So when I would sit down on Saturday, I knew what I was writing. And even though that seems a lot, I would do 2,500, eat lunch, 2,500. And if I did it, there is a cupcake place. They would see me stroll in Sunday night and I would get a cupcake. That was my reward. And I'm very good with that, I still do that now.

I'm in the middle of doing an edit. And so I break it down by the chapters. "You have to do three chapters a day." Because when you look at it that way, it's easier instead of, "I have to edit a 50,000 word middle-grade novel in three weeks." Like, three chapters a day. Also I struggled when I became a full-time writer because Monday through Friday was my thinking time, my time to jot notes and leisurely think about it. And I didn't realize that I was allowed to give myself that now during the week.

I remember the very first Monday as a full-time writer, I sat down and was like, "You need to write! You need to start writing this book. But I don't know what I'm doing. No, this is your job now!" I didn't give myself like a week to just think and make notes.

And so it, yeah, it was really funny. So, I mean, that's the thing, if you're, "Oh, I have this job. I have this long commute." Use that commute to think. When you're just forced to think, for me, it doesn't work. If I'm stuck, I will go for a walk. I'll put music on and go for a walk. And generally, when I'm not thinking about it, I'll go, "Oh, you know what?" But I feel like I'm appreciative for that commute into Manhattan every day on that bus cause that's when I just figured stuff out.

Sarah Enni:  So once you started writing, you really started writing. You had a book come out in 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014. And then you started doing two a year. I'm just so interested in this. Were you really focused on that? Was it like your goal to do one a year?

Elizabeth Eulberg:  I think I kind of just felt that I had to, in a way. So the funny thing is it got to the point where weekends, for me, were all writing. And even now I always joke with a friend, when we make plans, I go, "Oh, we could go out on a Saturday." Still now, I have this thing where I have a tendency to book my social things during the week and not on weekends. Just because that was me for so long, weekends are for me to write, maybe I can go to dinner, but the weekends were my time to write.

And so with the other books, I had my outline. I mean, I think one of the greatest things was I had my second book written before my first one came out.

Sarah Enni:  Yeah, that was gonna be part of what I asked about.

Elizabeth Eulberg:  And I remember knowing, as a publicist, this was a good thing. The fourth book was the first one that I wrote without having a job, and then at that point, it just became, "Well, this is what I do now." And then with doing middle-grade, middle-grade you kind of need to come out pretty regular.

Sarah Enni:  That's an even smaller window of age group. Let's talk about the decision to become a full-time writer. What made that a possibility for you?

Elizabeth Eulberg:  I was super burned out.

Sarah Enni:  You mean working for the global publicity for Stephenie Meyer was hard?

Elizabeth Eulberg:  That was dying down. It got to a point, I was only working four days a week. Then a few things happened and I had enough money saved to do it for a year. So I was like, "You know what? I'm gonna take a year off to just write and then we'll see what happens in a year. We'll see what's sustainable." Knowing that I could fall back to going into publicity if I needed to.And that was nine years ago.

I mean, little like last year, I go to Trader Joe's and I'm like, "Hmm, you guys seem happy to get health insurance." Every once in a while, you know, it's not the most stable of jobs, but I am very fortunate I've been able to even do it this long. And it is, it's a job, so it's still stressful, but it's great. But I just remember always thinking, "I'm gonna do this for a year."

Sarah Enni:  When you really committed to being a writer, what, if anything, did you bring from your time in publishing and apply to either your actual writing or to how you conducted yourself as an author?

Elizabeth Eulberg:  I don't think being a publicist or working in publishing has affected the actual book, the writing. But I will say it has affected how I am on social media. You think before you tweet. I've read books I don't like, I will never say anything bad about a book or an author. It's very rare for me to say anything negative about any kind of media thing.

That doesn't mean I won't make a fair criticism about something, but I'm not gonna say, "Oh, I hate this TV show." Because you don't know if that producer is gonna read one of your books in a of couple of years and be like, "Oh, I might want to produce this. Oh, wait, she once trashed my show." Also, I think there's way too much negativity online and there's no place for it.

I mean, I just don't want to be part of it. I've been unfortunate to have some of that directed to me, as I think anybody does. I also try to be very engaging with readers, but also, because of the experience I had with rabid fan bases, I have a tendency to kind of sometimes do a little step back. I won't say like where I'm having dinner. And also, writing can be frustrating, right? But I will never be like, "This book's a pile of garbage." Even if there are times I think that. I think it's good to be honest about being frustrated about writing and that it's not easy.

Sarah Enni:  You can be frustrated with the process.

Elizabeth Eulberg:  Yes. But like, saying anything, or about your book cover, or about your publisher. Look, we all have things to complain about, but publishers see that and they'll be like, "Oh, so you know, Jane DOE over here is complaining about her marketing. So if we have her, is she gonna complain about ours?" That's what you have your agent to do, to have conversations if you're not happy. And taking it to a public area is not good.

So I was always more aware of that, but things have also changed because social media was not, I mean, there was My Space. That was it. I am grateful though that Twitter and Instagram weren't around because I think I'd be like mad at my authors for something.

Sarah Enni:  So your first few books, The Lonely Hearts Club, then Prom & Prejudice, Take a Bow, Revenge of the Girl with a Great Personality, Better Off Friends, We Can Work it Out. Oh wait, yeah, and We Can Work it Out was then in 2015 and is a sequel to Lonely Hearts Club which came out in 2010.

Elizabeth Eulberg:  Yeah. Yes. I know!

Sarah Enni:  So my first question is about the books in between, they have a similar vibe, like young adult, a lot of friendship stories, and a lot of music, still, throughout. I'm just interested in, was it conscious? I'm interested in finding your voice, I guess.

Elizabeth Eulberg:  Yeah. I mean music, as I mentioned, was such a big part of my childhood and high school experience that I always wanted music to be part of it. And Revenge of the Girl with the Great Personality was the first book that didn't have any kind of music component, if I'm remembering correctly. And I remember being like, "Well, cause I can't have every book be about music in a way."

And when I wrote We Can Work it Out, it did feel very much like phase one is done. Not in a conscious way, but I actually have Easter eggs for all of my books in that book. And it just started that I made some references and I didn't have one. And then David Levithan, in the line edit, was like, "Well, we gotta put this in." And I forget which one he put in.

Then we just decided I should have little things. The character Macallan, in Better Off Friends, appears in that book, she has like a cameo. I think because I always wanted to write a sequel to the first book. And it finally got to a point with either I'm gonna do it now, or it's not gonna happen. Because five years is a very long time between sequels, between books.

And one of the reasons why I wanted to do it was because I did feel that there was another story to tell. But also that book, in particular, had done really well in Spanish language. It had ramped up in popularity there.

So it got to a point where I was like, "Well, I'm gonna write a sequel. Is it gonna come out in the United States as well?" Kind of a thing.

Sarah Enni:  And I want to be really clear on this because I was listening to your wonderful conversation with Yin on 88 Cups of Tea, and I'll link to that conversation, so I don't want to repeat everything you said there. But I was totally compelled by you talking about just how massive your fan base is in Spanish language. And for you, it's something you need to think about career-wise.

Elizabeth Eulberg:  Yes. Yes.

Sarah Enni:  I'm just interested in how you discovered that and then how you manage that.

Elizabeth Eulberg:  Social media is how I discovered, like I knew, "Oh, your book's coming out. You have a Spanish language publisher, your book's coming out." And then I started getting notes on Twitter, mostly on Twitter, like, "Kisses from Mexico. Kisses from Spain." And I kept seeing a lot of stuff and I remember thinking, "I think my book does really well in Spanish language." Only because of the notes and emails I got from Spanish language readers.And then the royalty statements came in and I was like, "Oh my goodness. Hello!"

Sarah Enni:  Some numbers.

Elizabeth Eulberg:  Hola como estas? it's funny because passionate readers can be very loud. And so you can sometimes think that they aren't as big as you imagined. It could be the same 20 people. And people kept saying, "You should come to this Guadalajara book festival," which is in Mexico. And I really wanted to go, but I'm like, "I don't know."

And I finally got to a point, I said to my agent, "Hey, I really want to go to this festival. If it is a matter of the flight, I will pay for my flight down there. If they do everything else." And the response we got was my publisher being like, "Oh my god, she wants to come. Of course! We'll have her, here are the dates. She doesn't have to pay for anything."

And it was so surprising that they thought like, "Wow!" Like, "I'm sorry. Do I want to come somewhere where people really like my books?" But I remember going down there and not knowing what to expect, because I did a bunch of media. These book festivals in Latin America, there are always a ton of media there. Like just days of just media of interviews, which just doesn't happen here.

And then I was getting ready to do my big panel and I was having lunch with the marketing person. She said, "Oh, you know, people have been lined up for hours." And I was like, "Really? Okay." And then walking out to like 400 people screaming, I was like, "I don't know what to do." And they don't understand that this doesn't happen here, is my favorite. They're like, after that event, in this crazy signing, they said, "Are you... was this okay. Was this okay?" And I'm like, "This was like the greatest day of my life." Like, "Yeah. This was more than, okay. Can I do this every day?"

And I'm very fortunate. I've gotten to do some events, but in talking about my publishing, I do get a little nervous now that I don't have a YA book out anytime soon. And I do think a lot about my Latin America, my Spanish language readers, being like, "I gotta make sure I have stuff for them."

Sarah Enni:  Right. I would love to talk about deciding to try middle-grade. How did this come about?

Elizabeth Eulberg:  I had some friends start writing middle-grade and saying how much they liked it. And also publishing can be, you know, not the most reliable, like you just don't know what's gonna happen. You don't know what's gonna be big. And contemporary was having a bit of a slump. And I'm very fast if I know what I'm doing. It's very important for me to say, if I know what I'm doing.

So I thought, "Well, let me see." I needed to come up with an idea first. I knew I wanted to do something that was gonna be a series, which I had never really done before. And then I came up with an idea to do a retelling of Sherlock Holmes. But in my version, Sherlock Holmes is a nine-year-old girl named Shelby. Watson's an 11 year old boy.

And it was so much fun to do the research, because I read all the Sherlock Holmes books. I read all these like nonfiction - oh, I put them over there - but I read all these nonfiction books about not only Sherlock Holmes, but forensics, forensic psychology. I'd watch Forensic Files. And writing the books were a lot of fun because now I'm writing a detective story and mystery.

But, writing for middle-grade, you have to keep the plot going so quick. There's no time to luxuriate in feelings that in YA is expected of you. And it does force you to be a better plotter. And yeah, it was fun. I have to say my favorite about doing middle-grade is going to do the school groups. And I was told, "You're gonna do so many school visits." And I was like, "Ugh."

Now I'm like, "Okay, throw me up in front of how many kids, how many kids can I talk to?" Because high school kids are great and they're wonderful. But when you are forced upon them in English class, they just don't care. Right? Maybe they do, but they can't pretend like they're interested because the person next to them, not always, but a lot of times there's just not this enthusiasm you get. And I remember I would have been the same way.

Sarah Enni:  Yep. Earnestness is death in high school.

Elizabeth Eulberg:  And you go in front of these kids who will look at you, third, fourth, fifth graders, and be like, "You wrote a book?!" I'm like, "I did." "That's so cool!" I'm like, "It is!" Right? We get so tied into deadlines, paying our rent, doing all this stuff, that to see this kid look at you like you are the most famous, most important, biggest Rockstar they've ever seen, because you wrote a book.

And also, they're not gonna sugar coat things. So when a kid has read your book and tells you, they love it, they actually do. Because someone will be like, "I don't like this part," and I'm like, "Pfft. Well, you didn't read..." [laughs]. So, I'm very glad I now write that in addition to YA cause it's just fun.

Sarah Enni:  It's so great. And you mentioned it, and we should say the first book is The Great Shelby Holmes. Not only were you shifting age category but, like you said, mystery. Which, I can only imagine. So you were already a planner, it sounds like. How did you shift? How did this change how you wrote?

Elizabeth Eulberg:  It's funny, when people ask, "Are you a pantser or a plotter?" And I would always say, "Well, I have like an outline." But my outlines for my young adult books are like a page or two. With the Shelby Holmes books, I have to know every single thing before I sit down to write, because you're dealing with the mystery. And so I need to know what the crime is, who did it, who I want readers to think who did it, the motivation of everybody involved, the clues that Shelby and Watson are gonna find, and how it pinpoints to everything.

And so I use index cards. And I've used them before to map out books. But this is like, I know every clue that is found, every red herring. Because if you change one thing, it'll just house of cards collapse. And I don't tell my editor anything because I want to know, when they're reading, when they figure it out.

Sarah Enni:  I love that for Shelby Holmes, you're sort of repurposing some Sherlock Holmes tropes or structures. And I can imagine that's a handy thing to be able to turn to, which you do before in Prom & Prejudice as well. So when you're looking at a book that sort of is inspired by, or maybe borrowing some structure from, how do you approach that?

Elizabeth Eulberg:  So I always say Prom & Prejudice changed how I wrote because when I sat down to write Lonely Hearts Club, as I mentioned earlier, I didn't know what I was doing. But when I sat down to do Prom & Prejudice, I had an outline. Again, the outline was the basic stuff, but I knew who the characters were. And I didn't know any of that stuff before I sat down to write Lonely Hearts Club.

So while Lonely Hearts Club was 17 drafts, Lonely Hearts Club was 27 total drafts from me sitting down to write the first book to it getting published. Prom & Prejudice was four. And a lot of that was, I had an outline that was approved by a publisher, but again, it wasn't like it gave into details. But I always say to people who are intimidated to write a book is just take your favorite book, break it down, and do a retelling. Because I learned a lot about pacing, about character development. Because for that book, I took all those characters, these beloved characters, and I made them my own.

So in mine, Jane is Lizzie's roommate, not her sister. Jane does have her sister, Lydia, the other sisters do not exist. There's different relationships involved, but I made them my own, I made them modern. And then I broke down the main beats of the story. And then I changed them because if you're gonna do a retelling, there's no point in doing it exactly the same.

So if you pick up my book going, "Oh, it's a girl and guy who ended up going to prom because clearly they go to prom date," whatever, like how is that...? You want to give people enough beats that they recognize that it makes people who are looking for that Jane Austin fix to get it, but to surprise them along the way.

And then Shelby's different because Shelby is very much based on Sherlock Holmes in terms of being rude and bossy and unfriendly and a know-it-all. And because this is an adult audience, I can say that I gave Shelby a sugar addiction because Sherlock is addicted to drugs, but when kids are like, "Why do you have Shelby be addicted to sugar?" I can't be like, "Well, because it's better than being addicted to heroin, young child, and cocaine."

So she, I did first. And then I wanted Watson to be his own person because the original Dr. Watson just basically reports what happens. I didn't want that. So I purposely made my Watson very different from Shelby in terms of just not gender and race, but that like he's super chill; she is not. He's friendly; she is not. People like him; people don't like Shelby.

But also I made him diabetic. And it ended up being something that ended up coming into one of the stories. I was like, "Oh, you know, this is a person who has a legitimate condition and that if you don't get certain things, it could be a problem. So, let me almost kill someone." Why not? So I just kind of play off of them.

But as far as the stories themselves, I get inspiration from just one of the stories. Like, for instance, when I say Hound of the Baskervilles, it's just that it's a haunting. So it's always just like a little kernel for me to decide, and then I have to come up with a mystery.

Sarah Enni:  Okay. I want to make sure we talk about Past Perfect Life and The Best Worst Summer. So the reason I want to talk about Past Perfect Life, in particular, is because it's a bit of a different...

Elizabeth Eulberg:  Very different for me.

Sarah Enni:  Do you mind pitching that?

Elizabeth Eulberg:  So Past Perfect Life is about a senior named Allie who lives in a very small town in Wisconsin with her widowed father. And she really likes her small life and is nervous about the change of college. Things are going good. And she goes to apply for college and there is a flag of her social security number and she finds out her entire life has been a lie.

Sarah Enni:  And it's based on a story that you read about.

Elizabeth Eulberg:  Yes. So I was watching the news one night and it was November, 2015. And I was just watching the news, as I do, and there was a story about a missing boy who was found alive and well in Ohio. And he'd been missing for like 15 years. And those kinds of stories generally do not have the happy endings of a person has been found. But this teen did not know that he was missing. Did not know that his name was not his name.

And in the real version, and I don't use his name because in all the reading I've done, first of all, I know what his legal name is. The name he goes by now was kept secret. And still, I cannot find a picture of what he looks like now. If you Google the case, you only see the picture of the age rendered photo from his missing poster. And I think this is great though, because this person wanted to continue living his life instead of being this poster child.

But this person was 18 when he found out. So he got to say what was gonna happen to him. So in my version, the girl is not 18. And so not only is everything she thought she knew about herself a lie, she is now turned over to people she doesn't know, but who know her. So it was one of those, when I saw this story on the news, I was like, "Oh my god, this is crazy." And then the local sheriff said, "Can you imagine finding out your entire life is a lie?" And I was like, "Oh my god, oooh!" Right? You get that tingle.

And I thought, "Oh, that's, uh, we'll see." And then it was a story the next night and I was like, "Okay." And then I was like, "Well, let me think about this." And I was working on two books at the time, I don't know. I probably was working on Just Another Girl and a Shelby book. But I just kept thinking about it. And by the time I was able to sit down and decide what I was gonna write next, it was post the election, and I think there are a lot of people who I didn't want to write. I was not in the mood to write a fun romantic book. I just wasn't.

And so I was like, "I want to write this. It's different." And also with how publishing is now, it might be good to try a little something different instead of, "There's another Elizabeth Eulberg novel." It being just a little bit different. So it was a challenge. It was a very hard book to write just in terms of the fact that, as writers, you generally know what your character wants and how you're going to get that to them, eventually. I knew my character, more than anything, wanted her life to go back exactly the way it was. And I could not give that to her. And I was writing from her point of view and she's very confused and very hurt.

And a few times, I'm like, "I don't know what you want." Like not knowing, writing from that point of view, was challenging.

Sarah Enni:  Did you enjoy it?

Elizabeth Eulberg:  I did. I mean, it's hard to say like, "Did I enjoy writing a book where I was miserable the entire time?" But I'm very proud of it, it stretched me in certain ways. When I was told that like, "Okay, the editing is done." I was like [sighs], "Okay. I'm gonna go sob in the corner now. Don't mind me."

Sarah Enni:  I feel you on that.

Elizabeth Eulberg:  I was very excited. I think I wrote... was I writing the forth Shelby book after that? Or the third? I just remember being like, "Shelby! Yay! Candy!"

Sarah Enni:  "Hijinx! Almost murder! Hooray!" Let's talk about The Best Worst Summer, not gonna be out until 2021, but let's get people ready for it.

Elizabeth Eulberg:  I'm so excited. So, you know what's funny is, when people ask like, "Where do you get ideas?" Right? I'm not that person who's like, "I've got to come up with an idea for a book!" But I was actually in a scenario where my publisher wanted a stand-alone. And I was like, "Uh... okay." The funny thing is I was in London and I had read two books in a row in which, one was a short story in a Jojo Moyes collection about a present day woman going to look at a painting in Paris. And it goes back and forth to the painting getting made.

And then the next book I read called Muse, which was a big book there, I don't know if it is here. But it's about a woman in the sixties who works at an art gallery in London and this guy she's dating brings a painting and you find out the history of this painting through flashbacks. And when I say I love books being told through multiple points of view, I love finding out that kind of different timelines. So I felt like, "I want to do that, but I can't do it with a painting cause kids today will not care about a painting." I'm like, "What, what could be a past and present?"

So Best Worst Summer is about a girl in present day whose parents move to a very, very small town. She's miserable. Her name's Peyton and her dad puts her to work in the backyard, she's bored and has nothing to do. And she hits something when she's digging out weeds, and it's a box that was buried. It was a time capsule that was buried in 1989.

And when she opens it up and examines the contents, there's a thing that says, "Please forgive me. I'm sorry." And there are a bunch of items in the box, but one is a Polaroid of two girls wearing best friends necklace, and that half of that best friend necklace in the box. So she's like, "What happened in 1989?"

And this is also a girl who just left her best friend behind. So she's like, "What happened to these seemingly best friends? I want to make sure I don't do it." So the book goes from present day to 1989. So you see her trying to figure out things and then you see the girls in 1989 and you find out what their story is.

Sarah Enni:  I love that!

Elizabeth Eulberg:  It was so much fun. But also, I do note cards, but I had to do color coded to try to figure out the different timelines. And I just got my edit letter and what I was worried about, and thankfully this didn't happen, was because of how I have what you find out in each timeline, like there's a purpose to you discovering certain things in present and past that if something majorly changed, it would be really bad. But fortunately the actual plot structure is fine.

Sarah Enni:  Oh good!

Elizabeth Eulberg:  I know! I was like, "Oh gosh. One thing is gonna just like... there's like a reason why they go to this one cafe when they do."

Sarah Enni:  Oh my gosh. Yeah. That's a high-wire act when you're there which you know from writing a mystery. But that's so interesting. And this is also a middle-grade, right?

Elizabeth Eulberg:  Yeah. So it is middle-grade, so the characters are like 10 and 11.

Sarah Enni:  And it's cool to get to do a middle-grade stand-alone.

Elizabeth Eulberg:  Yeah, it's fun. And also what I think is really fun with this book is I think parents will like reading it too, because there's a lot of 1989 references. And I'm not great at description, that's the thing I'm the weakest at. So one of the things that was hard for me is to try to be in the point-of-view of a current 11 year old girl - present day 11 year old girl - looking at a cassette tape and properly describing what it is. So people would understand visually what it looks like and those who know what a cassette tape is, would know what it is, cause she does not know.

Actually, one of my friends said, "Oh no, my kids know what a cassette tape is." So I actually posted a picture of a cassette tape on Facebook and said, "Parents, teachers of kids this age, do they know what this is?" And most didn't. It was probably like 40% who did know, were because of Stranger Things or like Guardians of the Galaxy, where you see a cassette tape.

But a lot of the parents said, "I said, 'Do you know what this is?' And the kid would say yes." And then they said, "Well, what is it?" And they would be like, "It plays movies? Or it's tape." "Well, what do you mean by tape?" It says Scotch Tape, cause the cassette tape I have is made by Scotch. So it does say Scotch on it. So the kid just thought it was Scotch, like sticky tape.

Sarah Enni:  Oh my gosh.

Elizabeth Eulberg:  It's funny, cause I'm just like, "Okay," So I'm not good at describing things anyway.

Sarah Enni:  And also imagining how you describe what that looks like is really wild. Like it's just, it's a cassette tape.

Elizabeth Eulberg:  Yeah, yeah, that's the thing. And when she finally asks her dad, he's like, "It's a tape." And she's like, "I don't...what?" "You play it in like a boombox." "I don't know." And the dad's like, "Stop making me feel old!" She's just like, "I don't know what you're talking about." And film, like having film have to get developed, cause she finds not just a roll of film, but a disc film. Remember disk cameras?

Sarah Enni:  Yes. A hundred percent.

Elizabeth Eulberg:  So that takes seven to 10 business days nowadays.

Sarah Enni:  Wow. Okay. So interesting. I actually have a character discover similar stuff in my book, so I'm like, "Oh shit. I need to make sure I'm describing that well."

Elizabeth Eulberg:  And your readers will probably... like some of the kids are gonna know. It's gonna be interesting. I'm actually gonna have a friend who has a ten-year-old daughter read an early manuscript, just making sure I'm not totally confusing [her] besides her being like, "Who's Joey McIntyre from New Kids on the Block? And why does this one character really like him a lot?"

Sarah Enni:  Like, "Don't worry about it." Oh my gosh. I love that. As you know, I like to wrap up with advice. You have given amazing advice so far, tons and tons of it. But I guess maybe let's hear from you as someone who has for the last few years been juggling YA and middle-grade. Releasing sometimes two books a year. How have you found a balance there? How do you approach doing those two things at once?

Elizabeth Eulberg:  I'm very rarely in the same place with a book. There was one time I had three deadlines going, which is not good, but I was like, "You know what? It's actually fine." Cause one was a first edit, which requires a certain part of brain. One was a copy edit. And then one was page proofs. And with that, I just kind of said, "Well, what's the quick and down and dirty that I can get done first? What's gonna not take the most brain?" And I'm just really good at scheduling things.

And right now I'm working on this edit for Best Worst Summer, but I have another edit that was due. And I said to the editor, "I can't have it until I'm done with this. So you can give it to me anytime, but know that I'm not looking at it until April 1st." But I'm fortunate that the deadlines make it that way. She had more time. So it was fine for me to say that. But knowing I can't work on two things at the exact same time. Even when I had three things due, it'd be like, "Okay, so three days a week, I'm gonna work on this. And then two days a week, I'm gonna work on that." It just makes it easier.

But also, it's all stuff I want to work on, for the most part, you know? And so it's exciting. But I do have to say this, I'm sure you get this a lot too, and even when I worked in publishing before I started writing a book, I can't tell you how many people would come up to me and say, "I have an idea for a book." And I'm like, "Great. What can you do about it? Nothing. You got to write it first."

So anytime someone says they want to write a book, I always say, "The thing that you and I both have in common with Shakespeare, and Jane Austin, and J.K. Rowling, and Jason Reynolds, is that you just have to sit down and get it done. That's the only way a book is gonna get written." There's no other magical way. Cause if there was I'm sure J.K. Rowling would have figured it out, right?

The only way to get any of this stuff done is to sit down. And when I get overwhelmed, and I think this is why I like to think in pages or I have to do these many pages or this many chapters, is that just get it step-by-step. I never think, "Oh, I have to edit entire novel. Today I have to edit three chapters." And I take that a chapter at a time, a paragraph at a time, a sentence at a time. And it just makes it more manageable.

Sarah Enni:  I think that's really, that is great advice. Elizabeth, this has been so fun. Thank you for spending the morning with me. Let's chat again sometime.

Elizabeth Eulberg:  Happy to do it and good luck to everybody. Just keep your butts in the chair and write.

Sarah Enni:  Love it. Yes, do it!

---

Thank you so much to Elizabeth. Follow her on Twitter @ElizEulberg and Instagram @ElizabethEulberg. Follow me on both @SarahEnni (Twitter and Instagram), and the show @FirstDraftPod (Twitter and Instagram). Thanks to our sponsor Sips By which you can follow on Instagram @Sipsby, that's S I P S B Y, for weekly giveaways and more. And remember for First Draft listeners, use the code firstdraft for 50% off your first Sipsby box at Sipsby.com.

Hayley Hershman produces First Draft and today's episode was produced and sound designed by Kallie Wright. The theme music is by Dan Bailey and the logo was designed by Collin Keith. Thanks also to transcriptionist-at-large Julie Anderson. And as ever, thanks to you, sugar addicts for listening.

---

I want to hear from you!

Have a question about writing or creativity for Sarah Enni or her guests to answer? To leave a voicemail, call (818) 533-1998 or send an email to mailbag @ firstdraftpod dot com!

Subscribe To First Draft with Sarah Enni

Every Tuesday, I speak to storytellers like Veronica Roth, author of Divergent; National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature Jason Reynolds; Leigh Bardugo, author of Ninth House and the Grishaverse series; Creator of Sex and the City Candace Bushnell; YouTube empresario and author Hank Green; Actors, comedians and screenwriters Jessica St. Clair and Lennon Parham; author and host of NPR’s Pop Culture Happy Hour podcast Linda Holmes; Bestselling authors and co-hosts of the Call Your Girlfriend podcast, Ann Friedman and Aminatou Sow; Michael Dante  DiMartino, co-creator of Avatar: The Last Airbender; John August, screenwriter of Big Fish and co-host of the Sciptnotes podcast; or Rhett Miller, musician and frontman for The Old 97s. Together, we take deep dives on their careers and creative works.

Don’t miss an episode! Subscribe in Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Track Changes

If you’re looking for more information on how to get published, or the traditional publishing industry, check out the Track Changes podcast series, and sign up for the Track Changes weekly newsletter.

Support the Show

Love the show? Make a monthly or one-time donation at Paypal.me/FirstDraft.

Rate, Review, and Recommend

Take a moment to rate and review First Draft with Sarah Enni in Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts. Your honest and positive review helps others discover the show -- so thank you!

Is there someone you think would love this podcast as much as you do? Just click the Share button at the bottom of this post!

Thanks again!