From Writer to Author: Nora Neus on chasing scary ideas, and figuring it out as you go
"If you are even remotely interested in writing a book, you can actually do this. It's actually possible."
Today’s newsletter is the first of what will be a mainstay here at The Prologue: Showing you examples of writers and journalists who became authors—and digging into how they did it. First up: Author extraordinaire Nora Neus.
Nora Neus and I became online friends a couple years ago when I stumbled upon one of her articles and emailed her to say how much I liked it. Since then, we’ve become IRL friends (and even briefly business partners!)
Today, I’m sharing my conversation with her about how she became an author, and what she’s learned long the way.
TLDR: Key Takeaways
The world of publishing is intimidating for everyone. Nora: “Even though I understood how the process worked, it still felt like kind of impossible.”
Your first book idea—even the one that gets you an agent—might not be the one that sells and ultimately gets published.
Working with a small publisher can have a really different feel than a big publisher. A smaller publisher might give you less money, but more personalized attention.
Related: Your advance is probably going to be smaller than you want it to be.
“Nobody knows what they're doing. … We're all just kind of trying to figure this out as we go.”
Mike: What made you want to become an author?
Nora: I've wanted to be an author for my entire life, since I can remember discovering books as a little kid and realizing that there was a person whose job it was to actually make those books happen. My elementary school had a really incredible program of visiting authors, and so at a young age, I had a lot of exposure to authors coming in and talking about how their process worked and how they got jobs, what it was like to work with an illustrator, what it was like to get a publishing deal. I mean, I can remember, in fourth and fifth grade, sitting on the floor of our library on the rug, learning about what the publishing industry was, and so that was incredibly helpful.
Wow. That is wild. Here I was, a 25-year-old being like, “How does this work?” And you're being taught in elementary school!
Yeah, I was very, very privileged in that way.
So being an author was on your radar from a young age.
As I got older, I felt like I needed a “real job,” and I always wrote for fun, but I really never thought that I could be a full time writer and that I could actually, like, be an author. It just felt so out of reach, and even though I understood how the process worked, it still felt like kind of impossible. And it wasn't until I moved to New York and was working at CNN and was surrounded by all these people who had also written books, that I kind of let myself dream about that [again].
You did eventually make this happen for yourself. Tell us about your first book.
My first book is a middle grade graphic novel called, “Muhammad Najem, War Reporter.” It's based on a true story and some reporting that I did at CNN about a teen journalist in Syria who started posting YouTube videos about what it was like to live in rebel-held Syria during the civil war. And I found his videos and found him and wrote this big CNN article about him that led to him going viral and becoming famous around the world, but also then becoming a target of the Assad regime, and his family was targeted in an airstrike. Some of them survived, including him, and so the book is his story.
How did this go from article to book? Did you seek out an agent? How did it come together?
Before “Muhammad Najem,” I was working on a children's book, a picture book, and I found my agent with that picture book, because I figured it would be easier to publish my first book if it was short and like a little picture book. Spoiler alert: It's not easy! Writing a picture book is incredibly difficult. It's like poetry. It is like economy of words and economy of space, and incredibly difficult. And I've still never successfully published a picture book.
I found my agent, we went on submission and it didn't sell. And I was really devastated, because I was under the wrong perception that once you got an agent, and everything from there was smooth sailing.
One day my agent and I were at lunch, and we were bouncing around a lot of different ideas of what would come next. At the very end of the meal, like the check was coming, I said, “Well, you know, I do have this crazy idea for this wild book that I want to write someday when I'm older and wiser and a better writer and have the skills to execute it, and it would be the true story of this kid, Muhammad,” and I told my agent a little bit about it. She was like, “You have to write that.” And I was like, “No, I'm not ready to write that yet. That's for someday.” And she's like, “No, that's a phenomenal idea. And if your idea doesn't kind of scare you, then maybe it's not big enough.”
Scary, indeed! I know the feeling. What ended up being the most challenging part of writing and publishing that first book?
This is pretty like niche specific to my situation, but the hardest part was taking this sprawling, epic story of the Syrian civil war and this family’s story over a decade and figuring out how to tell it, not only in a graphic novel format, but also for young readers to understand.
👋 Hey! Brief interruption: Did you know I have a free community space for subscribers? 💬 It’s kind of like a group chat or live hangout. 🤗 I’ll post questions and updates, and you can jump into the discussion.
Since that first book, you’ve published two nonfiction books. Tell us about those.
So “24 hours in Charlottesville” was my first adult book and first prose book. It's an oral history of the 2017 White-nationalist uprising in Charlottesville, Virginia. And my next adult book is “24 hours at the Capitol,” which is an oral history of the January 6 insurrection.
What was different about the publishing experience of the graphic novel versus the oral histories?
I have two kids books and two adult books, and my kids books are with Hachette, Little Brown Books for Young Readers. And my adult books are with Beacon Press, which is a smaller, independent press.
There were some things that were really different just because I was working with a small publisher versus a big publisher, there were a lot less people on my team, and I felt like I had way more say over the final product. I felt that with my first book too, but just in a different way. And just frankly, there’s way less money from a smaller publisher, but way more personalized help and personalized conversations.
It’s unique to have the experience with both types of publishers, big and small. I've only had the small publisher experience. I think it's worth underlining that those are different experiences—not necessarily better or worse.
There are definitely pros and cons.
What's something you would want an aspiring non fiction author to know really early on in their journey?
The bad news is that you're probably not going to make a lot of money, and you probably are not going to make enough money to live on. At the same time, there absolutely are ways you can make a living from writing, it just often won't come all from one book advance. Most likely, your advance is not going to be as much as you would want it to be.
The good news is that you can actually do this. It's shocking and incredible still to see my book on the shelves at a bookstore. It is still crazy to me that I actually was able to stick with this project enough to finish it, for multiple books. I have ADHD, I often don't end up finishing projects, although I've gotten a lot better at that as an adult with systems. But if you are even remotely interested in writing a book, you can actually do this. It's actually possible, which is still just kind of wild to me.
Last question: What’s your rapid-fire pep talk for someone who’s in the thick of their first book and feeling overwhelmed or hopeless?
Nobody knows what they're doing. Everyone is figuring this out. And there's no secret that published authors have. There's no secret that industry people have. We're all just kind of trying to figure this out as we go.
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