(sound dinging) (typewriter tapping) (gentle music) - [Rea] Hi, I'm Rea Frey.

And this is "The Other Year."

(gentle music) "The Other Year" is about single mother, Kate Baker, who takes her nine-year-old daughter, Olivia, on a beach vacation.

And her daughter vanishes beneath the waves on the very first day they're there.

The book splits into two parallel journeys.

One in which Olivia pops back to the surface, everything's great and the other in which she doesn't.

And we have to follow Kate for a whole year of her life with these two different scenarios and see does she end up in the same place no matter what or does this tragic, this other tragic trajectory put her on a different path entirely?

(gentle music) - I was reading this.

And as a parent, it does make your throat tighten when you get to those points, but then you also know as you're reading along, there are two paths.

- Two paths.

- In one path, everything's okay.

And so even as you're going through the perils, you're stuck in that, but you're also knowing all along it's gonna be okay.

You think it's gonna be okay, but then even on the path that everyone says, "Oh, everything's gonna be okay," there's twists and turns along the way.

- Yes, definitely.

And I wondered, as a mother of a girl of that same age,- - Ooh.

- how tough was this to write?

- This was so tough.

So this was one of those books that came to me in a single moment.

The whole book came to me.

I was standing on the beach.

My daughter was nine at the time.

And it was the first day of vacation.

There was a red flag rippling in the wind.

We had just gotten there.

She was so eager, she just darted into the water.

And I was standing on the shore and I just said, "Hey, there's a red flag, be careful."

And she popped under a wave.

And I just thought, "What would I do if she didn't pop back up again "and how would that change my life completely?"

And as I was just stalking the beach back and forth, it just hit me, and literally in a download, just from start to finish.

So I was like, "Oh, I'm gonna write this book."

But being a mom to a nine-year-old, I don't usually write something so close to the vest.

I never use my child, but I did pluck a lot of my daughter's traits for this book.

And I played out Kate's journey.

Like, what would I do if I'd invested...

I'm not a single mother, but if I were, and I lost her, I lost the one person who I've lived the last nine years for.

So I was bawling.

I'm not someone who cries easily.

I was just bawling while I wrote this book.

And my daughter, I would talk to her about this.

And she was like, "Well, "this is gonna be one of those books I can't ever read "because it's makes me so sad."

(laughs) - But she'll also see how much her mother loves her too.

- Yes, it's like a love letter to her.

(gentle music) - What would you say is an essential ingredient for a Rea Frey novel?

- Things that scare parents to death.

(laughs) - Yes, yes, thanks so much for that, by the way.

- You're welcome.

Emotional, I think, just having that emotional piece and that question.

I always like the question, the what if question.

"What would I do if I was in this situation?"

Or "What if this happened?"

As a reader, I want them to really think beyond just a really juicy plot and figure out what they might actually do if they were in that situation.

- Remember when we were kids and there was the "Choose Your Own Adventure Books?"

- (gasping) Yes.

- So I think about this when I read your books because I think, a lot of times it is about someone's choice.

You're gonna do this or you're gonna do this and what are the ramifications of that?

- Can I tell you something fun?

The second book that I am working on with this publisher, I am trying to get them to do a "Choose Your Own Adventure Book" for adults.

(laughs) - I love it!

- Just because I think it's so fun.

I love those books.

- It would be!

And like, "Okay, if you want 'em to go here, do this."

And I kind of try to work that in anyway.

And just, yes, which way do you go?

Which path do you walk down?

(gentle music) - I remember reading your first book, which is phenomenal.

- Thank you.

- And you're really tapping into your worst fears.

So are your worst fears explored in your books?

Because this one obviously is the worst fear.

But why you keep- - I know.

- bringing up your worst fears?

- It's like my own form of therapy to kind of play out my worst fears as a parent.

I actually have an author's note in this book that I, it's a very honest note.

I never planned on being a parent.

I didn't want kids.

I mean, my daughter knows this.

It was not on my path.

When I met my husband, I was like, "Cool, if you want kids, go do that, "but it is not in my plans."

I'm a writer.

I wanna be free, and travel, and do all these things.

So I really grappled with becoming a mother and stepping into that role.

But since then, I mean, parenthood has just been the biggest journey I've ever taken.

So I think, exploring some of my worst fears on the page is just a way to work through all of that.

(gentle music) - Why are you a writer?

- I grew up with my father who was a writer.

He has never written anything professionally, but he was always journaling, writing poetry.

And he also, though, taught me that writing is a hobby and that writing might not make money.

So I grew up loving to write.

I found it very early, but in my brain, I was like, "Oh, well, this is something I might wanna do on the side, "but can I ever make money at it?

"Can I make a living at it?"

And I ended up getting a scholarship to go to Columbia for fiction writing and got a novel published when I was 22 that I don't even like to talk about 'cause it was so terrible.

No one should write a novel at 22.

(Jeremy laughs) But I think, I always knew that writing in some capacity would be part of my life.

And I just didn't realize that it could become also a business, and that I could be a novelist, and make money at it.

(laughs) - But I gotta ask you, I mean, most young people dream of being published at 22.

Do you wish it hadn't happened?

- No, I'm glad that it did happen.

It was not a real, it was what we call a vanity press.

They were just kind of a print-on-demand publisher.

I never saw a dime from that book.

And I was so desperate to be published, so desperate that I didn't know anything about the industry.

I was going to school for the craft, but they didn't teach us about the business.

They didn't teach us, "This is how you pitch."

"This is how to read a contract."

"This is what questions you need to ask."

"This is how to advocate for yourself."

So I actually took that as a learning experience to go out and figure out what I didn't know.

And I didn't return to fiction for almost 10 years after that book because I wanted to get a real education first and figure out how to make all of this work.

Because I wanted to understand the inner workings of the publishing industry.

Because as you know, no one is giving us a play-by-play on how to do this successfully, especially if you're writing fiction.

It's not set up as a business.

We aren't taught about the money.

We don't really know how to approach it as a business, and our book as a product to sell.

So I started just working with writers on the side because I wanted to explain what I was learning about and make sure they had that information as well.

Because I don't know, I feel like part of my purpose on this earth is to advocate for other authors.

And so as I just kind of kept learning, and learning, and learning, I did kind of create this side hustle that really grew organically.

I mean, on my third year with having my business, Writeway, and I primarily help nonfiction authors, but it has been all word-of-mouth, referral-only.

I've helped over a hundred first-time authors land agents, and book deals, and become bestselling authors.

And it's just been amazing.

But it has been hard to balance the two; myself as the author, and then myself as an entrepreneur, and working with other writers.

- So what do you say to writers who will approach you, and I know they do, and they're so frustrated about not getting published?

- Yeah, exactly.

So here's the cool thing.

I think, we're in 2023.

It's so amazing that if you wanna be published, you can.

But where we don't start is figuring out what our goals actually are for being published.

So that's where I always start.

Like, "What are your goals for being published?"

If you're not getting picked traditionally, there's usually a reason why.

So I start with the goals and then we think about the two publication paths.

There are really three, but I really focus on self-publishing and traditional publishing.

And we kind of like dig into the ins and outs of that.

And then we figure out how to get your book out into the world.

And for a lot of people who try to get traditionally published and don't, there's usually an issue with, they've sent out a query letter that is not the perfect query letter or the perfect pitch to 50 agents that aren't the right agent for them.

There's usually a reason why you're not getting any traction, or maybe your book isn't edited.

You've had your mom read it.

You haven't had it professionally edited.

So there's actually a protocol and a way to get past the 99.9% rejection rate, which is what this industry is- - It is very real.

That's right.

- to get your one.

Yes, it's possible.

- And I think, what you're doing is so vital to speak honestly about this because it takes so much of us as writers to put it out there.

- Yes, it is.

- Even just to get it on the paper and to get it to where we want it to be.

And I think, there's a point where you're like, "I'm so spent that I don't wanna talk about the business part of this, (Rea laughing) But your message is, "Look, you gotta talk about the business part of this."

- I think, that's where you start.

I mean, before you even have a book to write, I mean the craft, telling a great story, 100%.

It's so important, but that's the least of it.

I mean, in my experience, it's what comes after.

It's all about creating that sense of urgency that we often don't have with novels as fiction writers.

Nonfiction, sure.

You're solving a problem.

You need to buy the book for a certain reason.

With fiction, there's not really that.

Like, "Gotta buy this today "or it's..." So- - Well, and I also think about this book, "The Other Year," it is really simplistic in what the question is, What would you do?

- What would you do?

- And how would this change your life?

And do you agree with what this character decided to do?

Do you blame her?

Do you sympathize with her?

There's a lot of questions that come from it, which I think is important.

Last question I have to ask you.

Has your feelings about the beach changed in writing this book?

(Rea laughing) Because I know for me, they have.

Thanks.

- No, they haven't.

I mean, the place that's in this book, we go every year for my daughter's birthday.

So we're going in May.

And I've been back a couple times since I wrote this.

So I'm always aware at the beach.

But no, I still love the water.

- Rea, thank you.

- Thank you so much.

- It was such a pleasure of you being here.

- Loved it.

- And thank you for watching A Word on Words.

I'm Jeremy Finley.

Remember, keep reading.

(sound dinging) - [Rea] I think, authors forget, there is no industry without our work.

We are the creators, and the creatives, and this is our work.

And I think, we need to really talk about it and be honest with what's working and what's not.

(gentle music)