Episode 58: Adam Vitcavage, Founder of Debutiful
Embrace your weird! Literary tastemaker and Debutiful founder Adam Vitcavage talks about championing debut authors and working to demystify the cloak and daggers publishing ecosystem. Listen in as we juggle topics like dealing with the pressures of early pitching cycles, the importance of independent booksellers, and the rise of influencer culture. As we hustle for connection in an attention-fractured culture competing with streaming, games, and AI, reading remains a vital art form for making people feel seen.
transcript for episode 58 with Adam Vitcavage
Mary Kole (00:23):
Welcome, welcome everybody. My name is Mary Kole. This is Thriving Writers and with me I have Adam Vitcavage who is the founder of Debutiful. Adam, why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself and the project?
Adam Vitcavage (00:43):
Yeah, definitely. Thanks for having me here, Mary. Super excited. I always love talking to people in the writing community. Since 2011, I have been a freelance writer. I used to write about pop culture and TV and music. I've interviewed Grammy winners, Emmy winners. And then around 2015, I started writing about books mostly for Electric Literature, Lit Hub, The Millions, The Literature … the very literati scene. And then in 2019, I launched Debutiful, which is a place where I can just shout out good debut books, talk to debut writers. And then I've done a lot of debut events across the country. I was at Center for Fiction. I host things at AWP every year. And that's really Debutiful. It's just a place for people to discover debut books and emerging voices.
Mary Kole (01:37):
Fantastic. So you come at it from sort of a culture curation perspective.
Adam Vitcavage (01:44):
I come at it from a taste maker perspective. I don't read other reviews ahead of time. I'm really trying to read everything that gets sent to me, at least a few pages. And then I want the best books to be discovered. Yeah.
Mary Kole (02:11):
Fantastic. And you have identified some big breakouts.
Adam Vitcavage (02:17):
Yeah. I think it's interesting because I don't pay attention to really what Kirkus or other people are saying. I think some books are going to be breakouts and then they're not. But then there are people ... I think the biggest example I always use is kind of Brandon Taylor who has four books out in four years type of thing. Was he going to be discovered without my help? Yes. But I was on top of it. I was there. I was one of his first interviews that were out in the world.
Mary Kole (02:50):
Why the pivot from music to literature?
Adam Vitcavage (02:53):
Yeah, it was more of a personal ... Freelance wasn't for me, like full-time freelance. I didn't want to move to LA to write about ... That's where all the big music magazines and TV magazines were. I didn't want to do it. I had a full-time career that I've done ever since outside of the book industry. And in 2015, I hadn't read a lot since graduating in 2011 from college. And I read 55 books that year and was like, "Oh, this is really cool. I like reading again. I want other people to like reading." And I think if you know anything about the book industry, it's like writers interview writers. It's very insidery and I'm not a writer. I purposefully tell people that. I don't write, I'm not trying to publish a book. So I come at it from a, what do readers want perspective as opposed to, "Oh, what can this interview get me in terms of getting an agent or whatever?"
Mary Kole (03:54):
And I bet a lot of that is endemic in the music business and in LA, not to draw on stereotypes, but there are analogs in publishing, but a lot of it is, "Oh, name dropping and how can I connect with this person, that person?"
Adam Vitcavage (04:10):
Yeah, exactly. And I think in the book industry, it very much is that everything's still cloak and daggers, things are behind curtains. I talk about that all the time with people and I am an outsider. I mean, I think now I'm kind of an insider, which is an interesting transition. But yeah, when I first started, I was just a guy on the internet and this is before the book curation boom that's out there with podcasts and book content creators, which there's a whole industry of, but I come at it from a journalism perspective of, okay, I'm going to cover these seriously and afterwards maybe we become friends, maybe I get to know them. But for the most part, I don't talk to the writers I cover after I cover them.
Mary Kole (04:53):
Yeah. So a couple of questions. First of all, why go from zero to 55 books in a year? Do you remember what you overtook?
Adam Vitcavage (05:04):
Yeah, I remember this is like a ... My mom works at a grocery store, doesn't have a lot of money. So for Christmas in 2014, she asked what I wanted and I gave her three books and she gave me all three books and I was like, wow, she really couldn't afford $70. So I was like, I have to read three books. I have to. So I read them all in that January and I was like, "Oh, okay. I could read books fast again." And yeah, it was just like, what do I like? So it was a lot of going back and looking at National Book Award winners that I missed, up and coming books that were just on the bestseller list over my shoulder, there's a bunch of Stephen King. I fell in love with Stephen King. Yeah. So it was just like, what do I like?
(05:43):
And when I started writing about books, I was also trying to be like, "What do I like? I don't know if it's like zeitgeisty or the hot new thing." And then eventually my taste became that kind of, but yeah, I was just down to read and talk to anybody. And I think we talk about books in a way that I wish we didn't talk about them sometimes where we talk about video games and binging TV shows and going to the bar are all things you just do. But books is like, "Oh, I have to sit down and read." But it's like, no, you can just do it. They can read five pages. You don't have to sit down all day to read. You can just do it in between things. I just wish people viewed reading and I think they do now or more so as a fun hobby instead of an intellectual hobby and it is intellectual, but it could be fun. I could play a video game where I'm playing soccer or shooting something up or whatever and I could also read about that too and that's just as fun.
Mary Kole (06:42):
Yeah, no, that's really interesting. So you say that you've developed your taste and earlier you mentioned I'm really looking for what readers want. So talk to me about how you evolved your own taste and what you started learning about ... We don't want to necessarily say everything is the zeitgeist, but you feel like you align with it in some ways. So how did you start to zero in on what you like, what your readers really tended to respond to and what ended up being kind of the market?
Adam Vitcavage (07:22):
Yeah. I discovered—I would not get in arguments with people, but the arguments I got in with about books were like, "Oh, I didn't like the ending." And I was like, "Oh, sure." But that's what the ending was. So there it is. I discovered I don't care about plot, which is I think interesting for a lot of people. I care about how I feel and the voice and I'm very writerly driven. My favorite books are about people hanging out. The sitcom. Friends, Cheers, things happen, but it's really just about the people and things may or may not happen in the background. So that became what I looked for is like, "Oh, does it sound good when I'm reading it? Does it make me feel something?" And I didn't care if the murderer was a dumb twist or they broke up when they should have stayed together.I've discovered I don't care about that. And so I talk about in my taste, it's like the intersection of sad, weird, and horny.
(08:21):
And I discovered I like sad books. I like to feel like someone punched me in the stomach. I like a little bit of sexy in the book, not like romance or soft core Fifty Shades of Grey or whatever, but I think what drives us is pleasure and I like when there's pleasure in books and weird, doesn't have to be sci-fi or fantasy. I just like something that's doing something different. And what I discovered with newer writers, they're willing to make those leaps of faith of like, "Oh, okay, this is a book about a brother and sister, but the brother is a robot, but we're never going to talk about the brother's a robot. The brother is just a robot." And so I like that. I like just being thrown into worlds that are just weird. And going back to who reads what, I look at my links at Bookshop.org, people can click on it.
(09:18):
I look at what books people click on the most and it is like the weirder books. So I'm like, "Okay, people like them." And the New York Times or Lit Hub or Book Riot or book bloggers don't always cover them because they're not going to be sellable, I guess. I don't know. I don't know. So that's why I like to cover the books that interest me and I don't care if others really do, but it turns out they do care about these weird books.
Mary Kole (09:45):
I have been personally pushing writers to find, tease out, and embrace their weird because I feel like so much of the market is trope-based and heavily plotted. And for example, how do you stand out if you want to debut in the mystery-thriller-suspense space? That is a crowded space and a lot of the influencers in that space, they do talk about the plot, the twist, all of these kind of external markers rather than the vibes.
Adam Vitcavage (10:20):
What's interesting, I was just hung with a lit agent who's been in the industry for 20 years. She's like the vice president of one of the biggest lit agents. She does picture books, kids' books, middle grade, adult thriller. And it's the idea of like thriller could be anything, right? It could be a police detective, it could be a mom who saw a murder and it's finding how to do it interesting, interestingly and being willing to break the tropes or lean full into the trope, right? That's another way to stand out. I think a lot of people are like, okay, most detectives are sad old men who are former alcoholics lean into that and that is actually ...
Mary Kole (11:04):
Or get alcoholics.
Adam Vitcavage (11:06):
Yes, exactly. Yeah. So I think it's interesting just seeing what's out there. I don't cover straight mystery, thriller, romance, sci-fi. I do like the more literary stuff, but when I do read Stephen King or the new Stephen King, whoever the newest one is, it's cool when they do lean into tropes a little bit or like they're writing a sci-fi novel masquerading as a mystery novel or something.
Mary Kole (11:35):
There's a lot of genre blending right now. Is that something that you've noticed where there is that kind of speculative element, the robot brother that is just normalized in the story. Is that something that you've noticed?
Adam Vitcavage (11:49):
Yeah. I think in the literary space there's a few books that come to mind, but it's a lot of that. The robot brother—Sylvia Park has her book came out Luminous, which is my favorite of the year right now. And yeah, it's very literary. It's about siblings.That's what I would pitch it as. And then I would slide in, "Oh, and then one of the siblings is a robot." And I think you look at Station Eleven from years ago, it wasn't a dystopian novel, but it was a dystopian novel, but it wasn't like a thriller, but it was thrilling. And I think there are more speculative literary books now than ever. I mean, last year my favorite book was a short story collection called Mouth by Puloma Ghosh, and they were short stories about very real, sad, weird things, but they had monsters kind of in it and things like that.
So I think that's one way to stand out is to figure out what you're doing, plus you don't have to mishmash things together just to get published, but every story's been written, every plot has been told and how are you telling it differently is I think what lit agents are looking for. Not that you need a lit agent necessarily, but yeah.
Mary Kole (13:00):
And also your focus is very much on how you internalize the story, how you experience the story. So that element of reader connection, are there any books specifically that you really resonated with or any strategies that you've seen writers use kind of foster this character engagement or at least in a way that kind of made you rise to the occasion and kick in?
Adam Vitcavage (13:28):
Yeah. I think a lot of what I like are, I reference sitcoms where the plot needs to be moving, but there could be a page or two where nothing happens. And I know that's probably not what editors say. And so maybe writers are doing things to trick me into thinking nothing happens, but I like a coffee scene or whatever. Something's obviously happening in the background to make that coffee scene be worth 150 words or whatever, but I do like to feel, okay, we're slowing down a little bit to just be in their slice of life. And so I guess I like slice of life novels. I think I referenced two of my favorite books. Another one is All Night Pharmacy by Ruth Madievsky, which is about a sister trying to find a missing sister in LA. And it was pitched as David Lynch-type, so weird, surreal and that's great and all, but what made it stand out was like the sister, the main character was worried about the plot, but you can also feel the baggage in her life that wasn't even on the page and seeping in a 360 view of the characters are, I think, what really stands out to me.
Mary Kole (14:38):
Why focus on debuts? I mean, you're talking about, "Oh, maybe these books wouldn't necessarily get the spotlight I'm platforming." It makes a lot of sense, but I want to hear why that became such a mission.
Adam Vitcavage (14:52):
Yeah. So part of it was when I was writing freelance a lot, a lot of the publicists that were pitching a lot of the books just happened to be debuts and I think it's because I was not a writer, I was willing to read most things. So it happened naturally. Debutiful, the website, started because I thought of the name on December 16th and then I reached out to writers I had interviewed previously that happened to be debuts and I said, "Hey, can I do a catching up with you? " And this was December 16th, it was the week of Hanukkah, Christmas, everything. A few writers responded and I launched on January 3rd. So there wasn't much thought put into it. When I started, a friend who works in publicity is like, "Oh, this is very specific. You should interview the bestsellers." I was like, "Yeah, if I want to clicks in advertisers, sure I would.”
But it became the answer now is like thousands of pitches. The past seven days, I have 150 pitches and I don't know when those books are coming out necessarily, but there's thousands of books that come out and debuts at the time I feel were more often overlooked. Now everyone likes the shiny new thing. It's just like the market has changed, but what I discovered ... So I started just because I thought of the name and I wanted to do it and fit. But this past seven, eight years I've been doing since 2009, six years, I'm terrible at math. I realized these people-
Mary Kole (16:24):
That's publishing. Don't worry about it.
Adam Vitcavage (16:26):
Exactly. With books, with writers, they work 10 years on a debut, right? It's like that can happen and the book comes out and it may sell 12 copies, it may sell 1,200 copies, but I want to be part of why their story was told and someone read their book. I always say, if I just sell one copy through my website that's linked, I've done my job. One person has found joy in someone's book. Yeah, I just like to uplift new voices because my original slogan, I know I like Stephen King, but was like, Stephen King has enough money, buy a debut book, which obviously is like whatever. But yeah, I'm rambling. I just want to tell people's stories, help tell their story.
Mary Kole (17:14):
What are some of the things that have maybe surprised you or really been memorable in various interviews with some of these authors?
Adam Vitcavage (17:22):
Yeah. I think what stands out and so if you're an up and coming writer who hasn't published a novel or story collection, everyone feels like they're going to throw up before a publication. Even if you get the agent, even if you have Good Morning America Book Club, even if you don't have an agent, you're self-publishing everybody, there's that cliff of you don't know what's going to happen. And I find that interesting. I talked to a person who had a million dollar advance and they're like, "I don't know if this is going to ... What if people hate it and what if no one reads it? " So I don't think that's interesting or exciting or anything, but it is just, I like to put that out there because I think a lot of people think once you get the book deal, once you get the Good Morning America pick or whatever, you've made it.
(18:08):
It's still a struggle. What excites me the most is hearing the different journeys. I talk to a lot of people who go through, I knew I wanted to be a writer, my third grade teacher got me involved. I went to an MFA program right after college and I worked so hard to get this published, but then I also hear I never knew I wanted to write. I was a lawyer for 30 years. I thought of the story on the subway and now I wrote it. And just knowing there's different paths to publishing and there's not one answer is I think invaluable. Most of the reader or listener feedback I get, like the little notes of emails are, "I'm so glad I heard someone's story like my own because I don't have an MFA and I sent in three books to agents over the past 10 years and they were all denied, but I finally have one coming out.”
So that's what excites me. And I think that's what the overarching thread of Debutiful is and where I see Debutiful evolving is how can I help writers? What you're doing, not exactly what you're doing, but that excites me. That part of the publishing industry, which is so cloak and daggers, I want to demystify it as much as possible.
Mary Kole (19:19):
Yeah. But it sounds like you said even today I was an outsider, now you are kind of a publishing insider and you said it was a weird transcend. Tell me more about that.
Adam Vitcavage (19:33):
Yeah. I think when I started, I didn't know what books were coming out. I was working at a bookstore one day a week, so I kind of did have access to like ... I knew how to look for books that were coming out the next month, but now it's like I get a thousand emails a year, get a stack of books delivered to me, whether or not I ask or not, like I get books I don't even want to read, but I will read or at least a little bit. So it's just interesting now the demand for my, not that everyone knows who I am and people on this call probably never heard of me, but the demand of, oh, coverage, coverage, coverage. And if I don't like something, I now have to tell the publicist, "Hey, this wasn't for me, " as opposed to no one cared about my taste.
(20:22):
And a big part of it is writers are now following me years before their books are out. We interact on social media and it's like, how do I maintain that? Oh, you are interesting and I would probably hang out with you if you lived in Denver, but if you're going to have a book come out, I want to judge it on your writing and not how close we are. So it's just interesting. I host parties at AWP, the degrading conference there and people come up to me and we hang out and it's like, "Oh, my book's coming out next year." I'm like, "Cool. Was this because we wanted to hang out or because you wanted to get something out of it?" And again, I don't think anyone necessarily knows who I am or I'm not that important. That's just how my outlook on life is, but it is interesting. It's interesting seeing how the sausage is made to being invited to talk to publicists about books that are coming out in late 2026 and it's 2025. Yeah, it's just interesting.
Mary Kole (21:21):
So you get outreach, it sounds like some enterprising writers take it upon themselves to grease your palm a little bit, go to your DMs, but you're also having conversations with, like you said, publicists, agents, editors. What is your role in some of those rooms?
Adam Vitcavage (21:41):
Yeah. I mean, I think it's a publicist at an independent press told me, and this is a fact of marketing like, "Oh, it takes someone five times to see something before they're willing to buy it. " And that could be like a chapstick, right? "Oh, I recognize the name. It's legit. "So I think a lot of what publicists and agents and editors are doing with me and everyone else in the media are, " Okay, it doesn't matter if it's the New York Times, Jenna Bush or Adam at Debutiful, we need five things to land on this day and it doesn't matter if it's a bookstagrammer, a BookToker or a blogger or anyone. So I think a lot of it is just handshakes of like, "Hey, do you know this book is coming out? " And I often say, "No, I didn't know it was coming out.”
(22:28):
Writers will reach out to me, "Hey, my book comes out this week. Can you cover it? " The answer is no, because I'm already thinking about November and December, it's July 14th. So yeah, I think that's where I'm at in the media cycle of people are pitching me early because they know someone just said, "You're good because you're consistent. You don't cover things that aren't good because you actually read things." I try to read 10, 15 pages of everything that comes to me. I can usually tell on page one and I'm not going to cover it, but I'll give people the chance. Yeah, that's where I'm at. I don't know if I answered your question.
Mary Kole (23:02):
No, perfect. A follow-up on that. So publicity has been in flux, right? Traditional print outlets, review coverage down, down, down. It's just a blood bath, book sections falling left and right. Influencer culture is up. The book clubs play a role. What are some of the challenges that you see of getting the word out, about especially a debut book unless the author has existing platform, but a lot of people don’t?
Adam Vitcavage (23:35):
No, I think that's it. I think five years ago there were numerous places like The Millions, Lit Hub, Electric Lit, The Rumpus, Bomb. Those are five off the top of my head, but there used to be 20 at least that you can pitch to. They were that mid-level that people were doing. But now there's someone I know who's a freelance writer. They write for NPR Books and they're like, "I am dried out. I don't have money coming in because I'm not writing freelance reviews for all these sites, which I used to. " I think the best thing a writer can do, publicity matters, but it's like outreach to the local independent bookstores and local could be within two hour drive of you, right? Be like driving there, getting your book, being like, "Hey, I would love to talk to the buyer or the event manager. Here's the book, here's the pitch." And some stores may not like that, but I think who sells book is in me and isn't really NPR or the New York Times, it's booksellers. So I think publicity matters, but I also think making sure you know your community, whether that's a bookstore, a reading series, a writing workshop, that's where I think publicity is now. It's letting booksellers do word of mouth selling for you and that's super vital.
Mary Kole (24:54):
Yeah. So when you are reviewing a book, meaning just taking a peek at the first five pages, what bounces you versus what pulls you in?
Adam Vitcavage (25:08):
I mean, it really is sentence level writing at this point. That's who I am as and where I see myself in the literary industry is like, is it good writing? I talk to writers all the time where they're like, "I'm editing on the sentence level." After I get the first three plot or drafts out, excuse me, it's like, "Does this sentence sound good?" And I think a lot of people and a lot of emerging writers just want their story to be told like, "Oh, this is a story about a sister and a brother who's a robot." But they don't think of how it sounds and how they're presenting it because like I said, I don't care about plot. That kind of matters if it's interesting to me, but what drives it is like, "Oh, is this voice good and did they really break down the poetic sentence flow and whatnot?" I mean, for other people it's like a murder on the first page, but for me it's yeah, this sounds like I could spend eight hours with this voice in my head.
Mary Kole (26:07):
How do you define voice just for you? I ask a lot of people these questions so you don't have to nail the one description.
Adam Vitcavage (26:14):
I think if it's first person or third person, I want to feel like I'm in a room with someone telling me the story. That doesn't mean ums and likes and slang, but I want to forget that I'm reading and I think voice and tone, that's where it comes out. It comes out of this feels conversational even if it's very high literary. Yeah. I honestly want to be reading something and forget that I'm reading it for quote unquote work. I want to just feel like, oh, this is something a friend sent me like a crazy email and I'm ready to hang out with it for ... Again, a book is eight hours of my life, right? So that's how I define voice. Do I feel like I'm going to hang out with the third person or first person narrator?
Mary Kole (27:02):
And how do you define literary? Because that is probably the broadest brush and the one that has the most kind of individual variation for the person using that term. So there's no consensus, but …
Adam Vitcavage (27:18):
Yeah, you're right. It's a made up term by people who want to sound highbrow, including myself. I get on my high horse too. How I define literary is would the bookstore shelve it next to Stephen King, Mary Higgins Clark, or I'm trying to think of another, or the hottest sci-fi writer who I can't think of, like Jeff Vandermere, right? Yeah. Or can they not define it by those three writers and then it's literary, right? Everything's literary. I think it's just a publishing marketing term to be like, "Oh, this book will make you look smart." Not that genre books don't, but I think that's the secret thing people won't publicly say and I know I come off that way sometimes. I have been told my picks are pretentious and I get it. Hey, I get it. That's just who I am as a person, but literary fiction is just a made up term.
Mary Kole (28:18):
Yep. I always like to kind of hear ... It sounds like in your view it is a little bit of an abstract made by subtraction, right? Oh, sci-fi, if it fits better on the sci-fi table, that's where it goes. But once we whittle down our options, what we're left with is a shrug and literary.
Adam Vitcavage (28:44):
Yeah. I think for a long time literary meant realism and then people started making literary fiction speculative, right? They did the Station Elevens of the world, Swamplandia! by Karen Russell. It got okay to be like, "This is weird and speculative, but it's still literary."
Mary Kole (29:03):
Family Meal really surprised me from where it started to where it went by Brian Washington.
Adam Vitcavage (29:09):
Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Things like that where it's like, yeah, I think there's people like me who are part of the problem and I do know I do this, but it's like literary means good writing, but then that makes people say, "Oh, genre fiction isn't good writing." But I think what genre fiction does care about more than literary fiction is plot. Again, it's all mumbo jumbo out there. I think it breaks down to there's editors, publicity, then marketing. Can marketing sell the book to bookstores? Which means can the bookstore seller say, "This book is about zombies eating dinosaurs."That's all that matters. You have the one sentence you can pitch it as.
Mary Kole (29:51):
So I wasn't going to ask you this because you say that it doesn't matter to you as much, but what you have just described that kind of shelf-talker or one sentence is high concept.
Adam Vitcavage (30:03):
Yeah. I mean, but it could be, I'm trying to think of a low concept book I like. I mean, it could be as simple as a brother and sister move in together and they explore their relationship. That's not a good pitch, but something like that is. And that does interest me. I love sibling stories. I just them as examples all day today. Yeah. I think shelf-talkers, when it comes down to it, I ask every writer, I read their publicity copy or their marketing copy and I say, "That's what the back of the book says about how do you pitch it? " And it's never that. That is what will make it sell, but to them it's like, "Oh, it's just about blah, blah, blah." Yeah. It's about losing someone, but that's not a hook. You can write a book. This book is about losing someone. That's okay. But if it's like the actual plot or hook is someone went paragliding and got lost, that's the hook that may want shelf-talkers to get ... Wow, that wasn't a sentence, may get people to pick books up off the shelf-talkers.
Mary Kole (31:16):
I love it. But you're not a writer. So there we go. The bar is low on sentencing structure. That's really interesting that you sort of compare the marketing, the outward pitch heavy, like we're really swinging for the fences with maybe the more intention-driven or the more personal backstory of a novel.
Adam Vitcavage (31:41):
Yeah. And I just asked this, I referenced this lit agent because I have an interview coming out with her, but it's not edited yet, so I don't want to say her name. But I asked her, what makes you want to pick up a book to become their agent and get 10% of their sale because it's all about money in the end. And her response was, "I want to lean forward and go, oh." And she's like, "It doesn't have to do with plot. It doesn't have to do with writing, but it has to do with ... " I think it's what I said earlier. I want to spend time in this book because at the end of the day, a book is $30 now. So I think if anyone gets anything out of this is there is no answer to anything in publishing. Some people really love high concepts. Some people want the plot hooks. Some people want a good first sentence and that'll keep them reading. So I think the answer for emerging writers is stay true to yourself and make your writing the best it can be and don't try to be anybody else.
Mary Kole (32:41):
What's the point of this whole crazy enterprise to you? You know a lot of writers all of us are mentally ill in that way that says we must do this. What do you think is the bigger point of all of it?
Adam Vitcavage (32:57):
Yeah, I think I said books can be the same as video games, which could be mindless or not mindless, but I think at the end of the day, it is an art form that turns into a business. But the art form of beautiful language, Christopher Nolan is doing an adaptation of The Odyssey, which is an oral story from 2000 years ago and that story is super basic. Chronicles of Narnia, those books are super basic plot, but something about the art of how it's written, the emotion people get. People want to connect with that. And at the end of the day, I think writers want to connect with the world and that could mean sell books, but it just means they want their story out there and readers want to feel seen and they can feel seen in these characters. We're all just lonely people and books and paintings and photography and music make us connect to one another.
Mary Kole (33:53):
I love that.
Adam Vitcavage (33:56):
But then it's also just sell books. Let's sell books, right? Let's become millionaires, which no one ever will.
Mary Kole (34:01):
With my bad day job, no. Millionaire thing is a pipe dream. So Debutiful, you spotlight debut projects. Do you follow people's careers either officially or unofficially after you have sort of platformed somebody's debut?
Adam Vitcavage (34:24):
Yeah, I think I pay attention to the trades and whatnot or social media. Like I said, Brandon Taylor's an example. He has two novels and two short story collections out by the end of next year and his first book was 2020. Someone like Chelsea Bieker and Kimberly King Parsons are two writers I interviewed in 2019, 2020. They've had two or three books out, but they also have a writing business now where they teach writing. So there are people like that I pay attention to and I do read more than debuts when I can, which is like three to five books a year that aren't debuts. And there are writers who I will make sure I read their books, Jesmyn Ward, Michael Chauvin, Garth Greenwell. There are people I know and I like. Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah is someone I covered and now maybe his third book's coming out soon. Who knows? But there are writers that I'm like, okay, I really like their book as a editor, whatever you want to call me, a tastemaker, but I also want to hang out with them when I'm not getting clicks or whatever.
Mary Kole (35:31):
So I think part of your approach is execution because it's the idea-execution dichotomy. We have the idea we have how it's done. The high concept would be the idea, the sentence level stuff would be the execution. Are there any other things that you can think of that really make somebody just a worthwhile producer of fiction who you will follow story to story?
Adam Vitcavage (35:59):
Oh, that's interesting. I don't know. I don't have an answer to that because I almost said if they seem like interesting people, but a lot of the people I talk to aren't that interesting, but their writing is and they can talk about writing and that interests me. Yeah. I think if someone has a unique point of view and they tell that sibling story interestingly, I assume they're going to be able to tell whatever they want to tell interestingly. And that's how I kind of hook on with writers. Yeah, I don't have a clear cut answer. I talk about a lot of times it's all vibes and so sometimes it's just like, does this make sense? And with art, sometimes it doesn't make sense why it's good, but it is good, right? Why is the Mona Lisa the most famous painting in the world? I'm sure art scholars can tell you, but the average person lining up in France cannot tell you why it's good. They just want ... Well, maybe now they just want to see it because they were told to see it, but ... TikTok. Yeah. TikTok told them.
Mary Kole (37:00):
TikTok told them. But no, there's something I think with the Mona Lisa specifically is that mysterious smile. We call it the Mona Lisa smile, right? But there's something about beholding it where you're like, wow, there is a whole layer underneath for me to extrapolate, for me to feel connected to, potentially. I think her reputation obviously precedes her at this point, but it’s there.
Adam Vitcavage (37:27):
Exactly. And I think there's things that happens in books. There are books that you'll see on every single list because once a book gets listed, they're listed everywhere. And sometimes those books do stand up to the test of the hype, but sometimes it's like, oh, this just got listed because it was listed here and then this person felt they needed to list it and then it blew up on TikTok and then it eventually got a book club pick. So sometimes that's the thing with writing the industry, you can trust it, but you also can't trust it. Everything is such cloak and daggers.
Mary Kole (38:02):
Does that ever become a little bit discouraging for you though, where it seems like the dominoes are falling for this title over here and maybe it's Taylor Jenkins Reid who can write a good story. She's not a bestseller for no reason. You're over here and you're like, wow, here are 20 stories that if each of them sold one 20th of this one bestseller, for example. So does the inequality and the sort of feedback loop of publicity generating more publicity, does it ever get to you?
Adam Vitcavage (38:39):
Yeah, kind of. But then at the end of the day, no, because I just want people reading. I'm not the hugest Sally Rooney fan and she's one of the biggest names out there. Mini series are adapted from her books. I like her. I think she's great and I'm so happy that she's like a household name in the community. I just want people to read. I used to be really like, "Oh, you are reading whatever. Yeah, Taylor Jenkins Reid, I don't think she's good.” I don't have anything against her. I've actually never read that many Taylor Jenkins Reid, right? But I used to be like, "Oh, you should read this instead of this. " And now when someone tells me they like something, I'm like, "Hey, that's so cool. What did you like about it? " I just want people to be excited about reading because at the end of the day, it's a dying art form literacy is down.
(39:32):
So if people are reading Stephen King, who is great, one of my favorite writers, but if people are reading only him, good, because then their kids are hopefully going to read him and then maybe find other people and then their kids are going to keep reading, but it's so easy not to read now that I don't care what people read.
Mary Kole (39:49):
Yeah. There was an article either in New York Magazine or The New Yorker, of course, that came out a little while ago about just the role that reading occupies in our lives. And you seem to be a bit of a doom and gloomer.
Adam Vitcavage (40:08):
I'm a doom and gloom about most things in life, but yeah.
Mary Kole (40:12):
Because when you make the point about Netflix, when you make the point about video games, all of these wildly diverse platforms and experiences that are designed to suck up our attention, they occupy the hours in a day that we can devote to entertainment and media along with TikTok, along with social media. And books are fighting not just among other books, they're fighting for space in your brain with all of these other things too.
Adam Vitcavage (40:45):
Yeah. And I saw Superman, the new movie yesterday at 9:40 AM and I was back by 1:00 or whatever. And to me, that is a morning, right? That's what some people are like, "Let's go get breakfast, let's go do that. " I saw it by myself, which is the same as reading, right? Reading is insular. And I think that's what it comes down to is you also can't be on your phone while reading necessarily and you could be while you're watching the newest season of whatever. Yeah, I just think we need to rebrand reading and books that they are fun rather if they're sad and weird. I think we're at a cliff where AI and everything fighting for our attention is making the next generation whatever's after Gen Alpha, like two year olds right now might not ever read a single book because something else is going to be fighting for their attention. I don’t know.
Mary Kole (41:42):
But isn't the sloppification of AI kind of ... Do you ever see it going the other way? There's so much crap out there that people will crave something more quality. Would that be a counterargument to-
Adam Vitcavage (41:58):
Yeah, in theory, hopefully that people see it. But yeah, I think AI is a whole nother thing that I'm not qualified to talk about. But yeah, I hope there are people out there that come to Debutiful and are like, "I'm looking for good books regardless of what they're about or whatever website they're using." And there are people out there, but again, I do think readers are in the minority of every single demographic. We are the biggest minority in culture readers. Everyone watches movies, not everyone plays video games, but it is huge, but reading is hard. It takes your brain. I don't know. I think audiobooks need to, people need to get off their high horse and be like, "Audiobooks are reading and people just need to read audiobooks." Yeah, I'm doom and gloom. I think we're all going to become illiterate. No, I'm joking, but I am stressed.
Mary Kole (42:58):
That's why you are just out there doing what you can to further a good cause.
Adam Vitcavage (43:05):
Yeah. I just want people to read and I want writers to be able to tell their story. That's at the end of the day of who I am and what I do.
Mary Kole (43:11):
So you were mentioning kind of the next iteration potentially of Debutiful. Is there a direction you're heading anything you can share at this juncture?
Adam Vitcavage (43:22):
No. I mean, I think the big thing is in the publicity cycle, I do think book podcasts, there's an oversaturation. Debutiful has one and I think people equate Debutiful to the podcast, which is fine, but it's only like 30%. Actually, I happen to have my numbers up right now. Right now the podcast is 17% of my traffic. At its highest, it was 24, or sorry, 33. And so I think less podcasting is in my future. The list dominate people like to ... I mean, SEO just in general, things on the website live longer than podcast episodes. So there's ways I'm trying to figure out how to cover more books, but I'm only one person. I don't take advertising money. I don't want to have other people involved. Mostly that's just ego. But I think I'm trying to find ways where writers can have publicity that lives on forever as long as the internet lives on.
(44:25):
But podcasts, if you're on a podcast, for yourself, for your book, or whatever, it lives for a week and then people may discover it, but people will discover if you Google your name, book, whatever interview you did online, that lives longer. So I'm trying to find ways to do more online.
Mary Kole (44:46):
Although SEO is changing a lot of the AI summaries now, people don't leave the Google page too.
Adam Vitcavage (44:57):
Exactly. So another reason AI is terrible, it's just becoming a monolith and it's wrong. Go Google something. The summary's probably wrong. You might get some of the right information, but it's not there yet. But yeah, you're right. And that's just something to talk about. It's AI. Google AI, for example, you're right. They're not going off the Google website. So then what's the point? Yeah. But I guess the point is, I don't know, my numbers on the website are higher than ever. So hopefully AI doesn't take over and kill me.
Mary Kole (45:29):
I responded to your email, you emailed and you said, "Oh, what are we going to be talking about? " And I said, "Oh, it's totally casual." And then we're talking about existential the future of reading and what even is the point. So you're welcome.
Adam Vitcavage (45:47):
Yeah, everyone. You're welcome. No, write your books though, because if you don't write your books, then AI will win. So please write your book.
Mary Kole (45:57):
Yeah, I will write them for you.
Adam Vitcavage (45:59):
Exactly. Yeah, it's interesting. I think what I've seen over the past seven or 10 years, my first ever author interview was October 2015 with Angela Flournoy, who has her second book coming out now, 10 years later. And back then there were so many websites I could pitch to and now there's not. And I think if there's anything people take away from this is write your book, be true to yourself and don't stress if you don't get coverage. Just know people will find your book as long as you keep hustling in some way. And I hate the word hustle, but some of it is like the author hustle, handshakes, doing street team type stuff, like going to the grocery store with flyers. You're like, "Oh, I always have it. Here you go.”
Mary Kole (46:48):
Fantastic. I mean, how dare you do a nice little button up on the interview for me, but I appreciate it.
Adam Vitcavage (46:54):
I'm always ready for a button up.
Mary Kole (46:57):
Yeah. You brought us in for a beautiful landing. Adam Vitcavage of Debutiful, proponent of literature, fighter of the good fight, pessimist.
Adam Vitcavage (47:08):
That’s basically it.
Mary Kole (47:08):
Where can the people find you?
Adam Vitcavage (47:10):
Yeah, I think the best place is debutiful.net is the website. It's a WordPress website, so you can subscribe to it and get every article I write in your email. Debutiful.net/email is my actual email subscription that people could sign up for. I'm on the internet @debutiful on all the social medias. That's the best place, the internet, before AI takes it over.
Mary Kole (47:35):
Thank you so much, Adam, for joining us and thank you to all who are listening. My name is Mary Kole and this is Thriving Writers. Have a good day.
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