On the Cusp is a regular series I do on this blog, comprising an interview with another writer who’s about to become a debut novelist. I send them the standard list of ten questions and ask them to please pick five, and to also answer the bonus question, since it always leads to unexpectedly interesting answers.
This week we have Jules Arbeaux, who is based in the US midwest and who I know through an online group for debut authors. Their scifi/fantasy novel Lord of the Empty Isles will be out in June. Pre-order it here.
Why this genre? Why this age group? Why these characters?
For better or worse, I wasn’t thinking too much about audience and genre when I started writing. Instead, I wrote the book I needed. Lord of the Empty Isles is for adults who are still waiting to feel like adults and people for whom trauma or isolation or later-in-life discovery or understanding of their own identities meant that some of the milestones of “young adulthood” got delayed for them. It’s for the weird ones, the queer ones, and anyone for whom healing is a declaration of war on the forces that tried to break them.
What’s surprised you the most during this whole pre-publication process? What have you enjoyed the most?
The sheer amount of work that goes into making books book-shaped! There are so many people whose hands a book passes through before it meets readers. An agent, an editor, a copyeditor, at least one proofreader, editorial assistants, and plenty of hardworking people in managing editorial guide the author toward a polished final product. An illustrator and/or designer work to make the whole package visually appealing. Marketing and publicity and sales teams, audio editors and narrators, printers—the list goes on.
My favorite part of drafting books is sharing them with friends and critique partners (and, if I’m lucky, future readers). There’s nothing more awe-inspiring than realizing that words I wrote mean something to someone. So, naturally, I’m fascinated by how many people are in an author’s corner in the lead-up to publication, trying to make sure their books find the readers who need them.
And readers! I firmly believe that authors are weird little people throwing words into the world in hopes that they find readers hungry for their precise brand of weird. I’ve been incredibly lucky to find a few already! A few readers have tagged me in kind reviews, and it blows my mind that this little book is already out there finding its people. I’m so grateful for everyone who’s helped guide it along.
Was it a long road to get here? Do you have drawers full of previous manuscripts?
Lord of the Empty Isles is actually the third project I queried! I started querying in 2020, which was an interesting time to dip my toes into publishing.
I sent my first-ever query in late summer of 2020 (for a project I only sent seven queries for before pulling back because my second book had been accepted into a mentorship program).
I learned so much with that second book and still love it with my whole heart, but it was definitely not the right time to query that genre-blendy, risky little story. (In other words, I suffered.)
When I finished drafting the book that became my debut, I almost didn’t bother querying it. After all, it was a book that dealt with loss. It was a book that sat on the crossover line between age categories. It was a strange blend of sci-fi and fantasy. I couldn’t easily fit it into any box. Despite the lessons I thought I’d learned from my previous book, I’d written yet another very risky story. Soulbonds and space-ships and pseudo-moons—I knew it was weird. I still loved it, though, and a few friends convinced me to send it out. I did it in a large-batch, rip-the-bandaid-off flood of queries, and through a wild rollercoaster of events (I’ll tell the story sometime!) that book ended up longlisting for a really cool unpublished novel award and, not long after, finding its perfect agent match.
Two years after I sent my very first query—almost to the day—I received the offer from my current agent! Querying was a rough addition to two very rough years, but it was worth the wait. And those shelved books? I can’t say much yet, but not all of them will be shelved forever.
What do you wish you’d understood better beforehand, about the business?
I’m lucky to have had some great guidance and mentorship going in to publishing, and I’m also an inveterate hyper-focused devourer of every resource I can find about things that interest me, so I rarely find myself surprised by twists and turns, even now. But one thing that changed my entire life and outlook on publishing was this: publishing doesn’t change you.
The crushing self doubt and anxiety, the feeling like a fraud, all the miseries and majesties authors experience while drafting—an agent and a book deal won’t magically make any of those feelings go away forever. They still come knocking, and the stakes are higher than ever. So I made an active choice to hold onto joy wherever I could find it. That probably sounds sappy, but it was necessary.
Another thing that changed everything for me: it’s dangerous to conflate dreams and goals. We are in control of very little in this process. The only thing we can affect is the quality of our own work. Everything else is out of our hands. We can dream of selling a certain number of books or getting pretty special editions or getting any of a thousand indicators that we’ve somehow “made it,” but the moment authors make those things into goals, they’re pinning their confidence and sense of worth on things they can’t actually change, and that can be draining and harmful. I won’t lie … I have a whole bunch of silly, unreasonable dreams. I think most authors do. I even wrote them down! I have well over a hundred things on that list of dreams. But I’ve made it my goal to learn and grow a little with each book. Luckily, that’s something I can achieve.
How nervous are you, on a scale of 1-10 (I’m currently sitting at 4) and how are you dealing with that?
Oh, an eleven, constantly. Luckily, my coping method for anxiety has almost always been writing. I deal with stress by writing about it … even stress about writing. My book comes out in less than a month now—listen; can you hear that? That sustained wail? That’s me—and I am simultaneously excited (it’s going to be real! I can hold it! It might even find people who love it and will pay actual money [???] for it? Like, I could potentially sell some books and officially be a Real, Proper Author?) and terrified (what if no one reads it? What if they do read it but they hate it? What if)—
Bonus question: Any plans yet, for publication day?
I have every intention of buying the most massive ice cream cake and absolutely feasting on it. The way I hear it, debut day can be a bit nerve-wracking, and ice cream makes everything better, so I’m confident in this decision.
Lisa Tirreno 