AMIE KAUFMAN & MEAGAN SPOONER: Building a Healthy and Successful Collaboration as Co-Authors

If you'd love to keep 88 Cups of Tea going strong, please consider supporting us through our Patreon membership. We added EARLY ACCESS TO INTERVIEWS for our Super Storyteller patrons in the $8.88 tier. Your kind support at any of our tiers is so helpful. A heartfelt thank you in advance. https://www.patreon.com/88cupsoftea --- We have co-authors Amie Kaufman and Meagan Spooner on our show today! Meagan is the author of "Hunted" and the "Skylark" trilogy, and Amie is the co-author of "The Illuminae Files". Amie and Meagan are longtime friends and they've traveled quite a lot together and have even lived with each other. They're the epitome of friendship goals. In today's episode, we discuss how traveling has directly impacted their writings both individually and together as they co-authored their newest book "Unearthed". In our conversation, we dive into all the details of "Unearthed", how the idea came to fruition from their travels, and what it was like writing the book together. "Unearthed" is the first in a duology and the film rights have been optioned by the production company "Cross Creek Pictures", the same company that produced "Black Swan", and has Doug Liman from "The Bourne Identity" attached to direct. For our listeners who are especially interested in co-authoring, you'll want to pay special attention to Meagan and Amie when they walk us through why mutual respect is the key foundation to their successful and healthy partnership as co-authors, how they stay aligned with their book's main goal by assigning primary responsibilities, and how to productively and efficiently work through disagreements as co-authors. They also share really helpful advice on finding writing partners for yourself and what to look out for. We also talk about how Meagan landed a literary agent and how Amie became represented by the same literary agency. We deep dive into some real talk about finding your fit when it comes to literary representation, and what to be aware of when you're figuring out which literary agent to work with. In case you missed our announcement last week, we added Instagram story takeovers for many of our upcoming episodes! Be sure to follow us on Instagram to catch Amie and Meagan's story takeover where you'll get a fun behind-the-scenes glimpse at their writing life. Say 'Hi' to Amie on Twitter and Meagan on Twitter! Click here to check out their shownotes page.  Happy listening! Xo, Yin PS. Do you know anyone who would love our conversation? Please share this episode to help spread the word! --- If you enjoyed this episode, I'd really love your support in growing our community by subscribing to us on iTunes, and leaving a rating and review. These specific steps help to increase our visibility on iTunes which really helps new listeners discover us. A huge heartfelt thank you for your time and support! You can click here to go directly to our iTunes page! --- Meet fellow members in our community and check in about your work-in-progress, and join in on other bookish talks and 88 Cups of Tea related things, join our private Facebook group! You can really feel the love and support in our community. You also get the opportunity to submit your questions for upcoming guests on the show. Click here to join our private Facebook group! --- Warm welcome to our new listeners, be sure to check out our archive of episodes by clicking here! ---  "You want to make sure that you have somebody with you who's there for the whole journey, who wants to see you succeed, rather than just sell one book."  -Meagan Spooner (Click to tweet!) "You have to be prepared to stand by your work the whole way through." -Amie Kaufman (Click to tweet!) "Traveling, for me, is the one surefire way to get over writer's block." -Meagan Spooner (Click to tweet!)  --- WHAT YOU'LL LEARN IN TODAY'S EPISODE:  How traveling directly inspires Meagan and Amie's writings How Meagan landed literary representation and how Amie became represented by the same literary agency Why it's crucial to find your fit when it comes to literary representation and what to look out for when figuring out which literary agent to work with Why mutual respect is the key foundation to Amie and Meagan's successful and healthy partnership as co-authors How to stay aligned with the book's main vision as co-authors by assigning primary responsibilities How to productively and efficiently work through disagreements as co-authors Why it's important to continue writing your story even if you see a similar story being published Amie and Meagan share advice on finding writing partners