We recently had the chance to connect with Patricia Moosbrugger and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Patricia, thank you for taking the time to reflect back on your journey with us. I think our readers are in for a real treat. There is so much we can all learn from each other and so thank you again for opening up with us. Let’s get into it: What do the first 90 minutes of your day look like?
When I get to my desk each day I like to take a half hour to just take stock of everything. I read emails, look at our social media handles and then decide where to go from there. Running a website, and a book review site at that, requires a lot of administrative work. We have to upload lots of data to our website as well as update the landing page which showcases favorite books we have reviewed and themes we want to focus on. We also want to provide indie authors with writing and marketing tips and resources to help them promote their work. So, I take all of this into account and get going finishing up my admin tasks so I can get busy promoting great indie books.
Can you briefly introduce yourself and share what makes you or your brand unique?
I and my partner, Patti Thorn, launched BlueInk Review in 2010. At that time, self-publishing was really beginning to take off and starting to gain recognition as something more than vanity publishing. Lisa Genova self-published Still Alice which was then picked up by a major publisher and Amanda Hocking was gaining huge recognition for her books and was soon after also signed by a major publisher. Patti Thorn had been the book reviews editor for many years at the Rocky Mountain News which had recently gone out of business and I had moved from NYC and a career in publishing. We realized that what self=publishing authors could use was a professional book review source that would be taken seriously by book professionals and readers. So, we started signing up book reviewers from major review sources such as The Washington Post, Publishers Weekly, The Chicago Tribune as well as senior editors from major NYC publishing houses like Random House, Simon and Schuster and Penguin. And, because we had to pay the reviewers and maintain a website, we needed to charge for the reviews. But, unlike companies that were charging $100 for 25 reader reviews on Amazon, we offered only one professional, honest and credible book review. The reviews were eligible for placement on the authors’ book pages as editorial reviews and were taken note of by librarians and booksellers. Soon after starting we partnered with Booklist Magazine which wanted to represent self-published titles in their magazine but didn’t have the band width to get the books reviewed. 15 years later, we’ve reviewed over 10,000 books.
Great, so let’s dive into your journey a bit more. Who taught you the most about work?
My first boss in publishing was Marilyn Marlow at the Curtis Brown Literary Agency. She was the first literary agent to exclusively represent children’s books. Before she arrived on the scene, representing children’s books was not taken seriously by major literary agents. From Owl Moon to The Outsiders, she discovered and represented dozens of bestselling children’s book authors. She mentored some of the biggest children’s book authors in the publishing world. From her I learned the value of working hard, of taking chances on things that seemed out of reach and setting goals for success.
Was there ever a time you almost gave up?
In the early development phase of BlueInk Review we faced some real challenges. It was expensive to have a website built, hire designers and produce and pay for marketing materials and branding. But what was really disheartening was the conversation that was going on about paid book reviews. There was a lot of media about all of the vultures taking advantage of authors by selling them book reviews. We had to convince people that what we were doing was different than that. Add to that the fact that there were authors who received unfavorable book reviews and decided to publicly rail against our company because they had paid for an objective book review yet didn’t like the product they received. So, there were some tough moments in the beginning.
I think our readers would appreciate hearing more about your values and what you think matters in life and career, etc. So our next question is along those lines. What are the biggest lies your industry tells itself?
In book publishing, I think there is an idea that if you can only get picked up by a major publisher you’ll be a successful author. The truth is though, that these days, even the majority of authors at major publishing houses need to be the architects of their own destiny. They need to promote their own books. Find ways to move books off the shelves. Get active on social media and develop their own audiences. In that sense, many traditionally published authors are not so different than independently publishing authors. While traditionally published authors get all of the editorial and design services taken care of for them, they won’t get very far if they just sit back and wait for the sales to roll in.
Okay, so let’s keep going with one more question that means a lot to us: Are you doing what you were born to do—or what you were told to do?
I always wanted to work with books. When I was in college, I saw a newspaper story in the Minneapolis Star and Tribune about a literary agent. I hadn’t even known that was a job. I couldn’t believe how wonderful that sounded: getting to discover authors and represent them. After college I moved to New York and quickly found a job working for a literary agent. From there, I worked at major publishing houses selling paperback book rights and translation rights, eventually circling back to becoming a literary agent myself. I still work with a number of authors as an agent. And, I still love it. I really do seem to have been born to work with books and have been extremely fortunate in being able to have a career completely devoted to books.
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