Through her popular Substack, Agents and Books, veteran literary agent Kate McKean has become something of a Baedeker for the book business–curious, unpacking the often perplexing particulars of the trade for more than 31,000 subscribing authors and aspirants twice a week. This week, the VP at Howard Morhaim Literary Agency puts a book on the shelf herself with Write Through It: An Insider’s Guide to Publishing and the Creative Life, published by Simon Element. We spoke with McKean about seeing the biz from the author’s-eye view, what’s changed in the publication process since she got her start, what advice she has for those with publishing ambitions, and more.

First things first: who was your agent for this book? What was it like going on submission alongside an agent who wasn’t you?

Michael Bourret of Dystel, Goderich & Bourret, and fantastic. I didn’t want to send my friends and colleagues an email that said, “Hi, do you want to read my book?” That would have been very, very weird and awkward, and I love that Michael did that for me. I got my agent just like everybody else does—I sent him a query letter, years and years ago, for a different book. I specifically wanted an agent because I did not want to submit my own book to editors.

Were you ever worried about your friends in the business giving you guff for “telling all the secrets?”

I do think that there are some people who might think that, but the point is to tell all the secrets! The secrets aren’t actually that secret, or interesting. The more people know about the publishing industry, the better they can navigate it, and the better books we get.

I started the newsletter six-ish years ago because I wanted to talk specifically about the nuts and bolts of publishing. I liked doing that at conferences, getting up and saying, “This is how you write a query letter,” doing workshops, things like that. I had been teaching at NYU off and on, about publishing and agents and how to write a book proposal—things like that. I enjoyed watching people's faces being like, “Wow, I did not know that. Why isn't anybody telling us this?”

Mine is not the first book to do any of this. I just wanted to put my stamp on it. I wanted to show authors that editors and agents are not terrifying. People are so scared of agents. I like to walk into a room and be like, “I'm not scary! I'm not going to ruin your life for fun!” But I'm also not going to bring out my magic wand and say, “Boom! You're published.” I don't have that power either. I wanted to even the playing field as much as I could by dispelling this myth that publishing is this evil monolith that is just wants to chew writers up and spit them out. It's not fun or easy, publishing as a business, but it's...well, almost less interesting than people make it out to be.

The industry has changed a lot over the past two decades. What advice do you offer in Write Through It that would have been different had you put it out in the mid-aughts?

There would have definitely been different advice about online platforms. When I started, we had had no iPhones. I remember getting one and being like, “Why would I ever need a camera on my cell phone?” Which is not the smartest tech take I've ever had in my life. That was during the last gasp of sending paper manuscripts in boxes to editors via messenger around town. There were times when we had to call an editor to say, “Hey, can I email you this file? Is there room in your inbox?”

Obviously, the internet has changed everything, and I think for the better. With increased exposure in technology and communication, there is a chance for more information. Even when I started, there was still a little of the stuffiness and over-professionalization of query letters: “Please find enclosed this blah, blah, blah.” Back then, query letters still had to say, “This is a simultaneous submission” if they were being sent to more than one agent. Now, I assume that it's a simultaneous submission. Everyone should be sending to all the agents they want, not just me. It's my job to stay on top of that!

At the same time, I've been working with Howard Morhaim for 20 years almost, and the advice he was giving me when I first started working with him is the same that I use today: send a good book out to the people you think will like it, and don't sell anybody a bill of goods.

As you mentioned, there are many books on the craft of writing, and even on navigating book publishing, including a pair that got quite a bit of attention a few years ago. What makes yours different?

I think it's good at hand-holding. Writing a book is hard, and nobody wants to actually write most of the time. We all sit down at a blank page and go, “Why do I have to do this right now? I would rather be doing anything else.” I wanted to normalize that feeling and all the others—the fear, the anxiety, the self-doubt—so writers know that literally everybody else feels the same way. Even people who have been agents for 20 years. I also did not want to write my book! I did not want to read it for the fifth time after copy editing. I was like, “Wow, this is the worst book I've ever read in my life. I don't want to read it again.” But I had to, and I want you know, in the end, I'm glad I did.

Can you share a moment during production when someone on your publishing team did something that made you thankful for the process?

My copy editor saved me so many times. I don't know how to use a comma, apparently. And the first time I had a video meeting with Stephanie Hitchcock, my editor, Michael Bourret and I were on Zoom before Stephanie got on. He was like, “Don't forget, you're the author.” And I was like, “Oh, crap!” Often, in an author-editor-agent Zoom, the agent is in the background, making sure everything’s going OK and putting the two cents in when they need to. It's really a time for the editor and the author to talk and connect and hash out whatever needs to be done. So Michael reminded me that I was not the agent, I was the author. And I was like, “Oh no, I'm gonna have to remember what I put in this proposal!” That little nudge was very useful in helping me recalibrate.

In your book, newsletter, and column in Poets & Writers, you explain to writers what they don’t know about publishing. I’m going to ask you to try doing the opposite. What’s a piece of advice from the author’s perspective that you would ask publishing professionals to keep in mind during the publication process?

My being so aware of the process made my team very straightforward with me, I think. When they were extra nice, I was surprised. Not that they would ever have been mean! But when I read Stephanie's edit letter for the book, which was fantastic, I was like, “Oh, wow, I need to be nicer in my edit letters to my clients.” Because she was so nice! I don't consider myself a harsh person, but it made me more aware of what I need to do for my clients, which was unexpected. And going through the the marketing and publicity process myself has given me new perspective on how to better help my clients with it.

For editors talking to writers, I think directness is so valuable, even if it means you have to explain a bunch of stuff. It's always disappointing when, say, a book doesn't get into Barnes & Noble, and it's hard news to deliver. And of course, every writer is going to vary. But I always value directness, being like, “Hi, this is what happened. This is why we think it happened. We're all mad about it too.” Couching things in too much explanation or obfuscation or emoji isn't useful.