Susan Dennard Puts Readers First

Anytime anybody's like, "Hey, would you like to talk to Susan Dennard?" I'm like, "Yes." She could just call, but yes.

[laughs] So when it comes to, like, working with different publishers, though, I, I have noticed that, uh, one of, one of my friends who works at Owl Crate, Sophie, who used to lead-

Yes

... our social media, and she's now head of, uh, romance.

Sophie, love you.

But, uh, she mentioned that The Luminaries, like, blew up in the UK.

Yes.

Did much better in the UK.

She said that she couldn't go anywhere for a year without seeing your book splashed everywhere.

[laughs]

It's been fantastic.

Like, I'm not complaining.

It's been fantastic.

It's done very well for me.

All of my books have done very well for me, and since The Luminaries over there, Executioner's Three as well.

I've been really lucky to be supported by Waterstones in a way that I wasn't for The Witchlands.

I think there's a, the readership is different.

There, there's still plenty of people reading steam, but YA is not nearly as dead over there as it is in the US.

YA as a market has just completely collapsed in the US, and publishers are really struggling to know how to reach the readers, and all anyone seems to want, or at least where everyone in traditional publishing is moving in the US, is toward that romantasy, very steamy stuff, which is fine, but not for me.

I understand.

It's gonna get over...

It's already, I think, oversaturated.

And that's not to say that I don't love romantasy.

Of course I do.

A- absolutely.