Catch-up episode after a long gap! Sunyi and Scott both discuss career momentum, cheerfully losing at the Hugos, and the pushback they've had from Reddit / the internet. Sunyi explains why she'd turn down other nominations in the future, while Scott talks about why he was happy to sign a smaller deal for his UK rights. They also cover future plans, and what happened to previous author guests.

And finally, they each get to give the pettiest hill they'd die on. Hint: Sunyi's hill starts with "J" and ends in "owling".

Link to the Guardian article that Sunyi talks about in her Petty Hill at the end: https://www.theguardian.com/books/1997/jul/08/booksforchildrenandteenagers.danglaister

Authors are expected to juggle many different demands on their time and energy--from social media and self-promotion, to side projects and live events. How do we decide what is or isn't worth our efforts, and where do we set boundaries to prevent burnout and overwhelm?

Award-winning author and professor, Suyi Davies Okungbowa, discusses how he makes the writing life work for him, by balancing his original fiction and his prolific IP work against his academic career.

Among many other topics, he outlines the crucial role of a personal assistant (especially how they can supplement publisher marketing), his criteria for accepting or rejecting IP projects, his very unique approach to social media, and how he sets certain boundaries with publishers.

After years of mostly existing in indie space, Romantasy has finally burst onto the trad pub scene where it now reigns supreme, especially in SFF. Today, we talk to Nisha J Tuli, who spotted romantasy's trad potential early and whose career took off as a result. Her career trajectory is a microcosm of what is happening with romantasy more broadly, and gives us the chance to explore what it is like to catch the crest of a publishing wave. Nisha also shares with us specific tactics she employed as an indie author, and how they could be useful for trad, indie, and hybrid authors alike.

Other topics: Sunyi comes out in defense of writing to market, Nisha stresses the importance of still writing what you love (even when writing to market), and how they intersect. There are different types of readers, and different types of writers, and they have different goals with regard to books. We also discuss the amount of money to be made in this particular subgenre, why Nisha chose to go trad/hybrid after seeing indie success; and the longevity of romantasy overall.