Shooting The Shit: "AI Slop" affecting books, what summers in publishing look like and hustle culture in the year 2025

This week on Shooting the Shit, Carly and CeCe are back with a no-holds-barred convo on everything rocking the publishing world. They dive into how hustle culture is burning us all out, why summer feels like a weird limbo for book launches, and what it really means when authors get assistants. Plus: AI is creeping into publishing (yep, we’re talking about it), romance novels are sparking cultural shifts, and the kid lit market is facing big changes. It’s all about adapting, evolving, and surviving in a rapidly shifting industry.

Note: Cece Lyra is a literary agent at Wendy Sherman Associates. If you’d like to query CeCe, please refer to the submission guidelines at www.wsherman.com. Carly Watters is a literary agent at P.S. Literary Agency, but her work on this podcast is not affiliated with the agency, and the views expressed by Carly on this podcast are solely that of her as a podcast co-host ​and do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, policies, or position of P.S. Literary Agency.

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It’s Beta Reader Match Up time again where you can be matched up with those writing in a similar genre and/or time zone, so they can critique your work as you critique theirs.

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Writing Tension Creating Tension, Conflict and Stakes in a Story

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