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What’s the story you can’t stop telling? Fran and Bethany are here to help you write, sell, and launch it.
Literary agent Bethany Saltman and bookstore owner Fran Hauser—also both critically acclaimed authors—host Bookbound, the podcast for non-fiction writers who want to learn how to transform their ideas, expertise, and obsessions into successful books and publishing deals. Fran and Bethany interview accomplished authors who share the strategies and surprises behind their bookbound journeys. These how-I-did-it conversations will inspire listeners to claim their own “author-ity” mindset and turn the story they can’t stop telling into a book the world needs to read.
To connect with the hosts and more, go to www.bookboundpodcast.com/
Ruth Whippman [00:00:00]:
Many books seem to have quite a lot of moral certainty about them, and the feelings that I was feeling were more about uncertainty and chaos and mess and conflict and inner contradiction. And I just wanted to write through that. I wanted a book that was messy. I wanted a book that was honest and vulnerable. And so that's what I set out to write.
Bethany Saltman [00:00:21]:
My name is Bethany Saltman, and I am an author and a best selling book coach.
Fran Hauser [00:00:27]:
And I'm Fran Hauser. I'm an author, a keynote speaker, and a publishing strategy. These how I did it conversations will inspire listeners to claim their own authority mindset and turn the story they can't stop telling into a book the world needs to read.
Bethany Saltman [00:00:43]:
This is Bookbound, the podcast created in partnership with Share Your Genius.
Fran Hauser [00:00:49]:
Welcome to the show, everyone. I'm so excited to introduce you to our guest, Ruth Whippman. Ruth is an author, essayist, and cultural critic from London living in the United States. A former BBC documentary director and producer, her writing has appeared in the New York Times, the Guardian, and Time magazine. We're talking to Ruth today about her second book, Boy: Reimagining Boyhood in the Age of Impossible Masculinity. Ruth talks with us about her storytelling and writing process, which is heavily inspired by her time working on documentaries. She also shares the very iterative process of coming up with the title and subtitle, and why she opted to go with clear over clever. I also loved hearing about the single most important part of her platform, which may come as a surprise to some of you.
Fran Hauser [00:01:43]:
It was such an interesting conversation. You're really in for a treat.
Bethany Saltman [00:01:48]:
Hey, Ruth, thank you so much for joining us.
Ruth Whippman [00:01:51]:
Thanks so much for having me on the, on the podcast.
Bethany Saltman [00:01:54]:
We're super excited to dive into you and your Bookbound journey. So we're going to start with something that you talk about, explicitly, write about explicitly in the book at the beginning, that this was a book that you wanted to read, and so you decided you needed to write it. This is something a lot of writers talk about, but we'd love it if you could kind of slow that process down for us a little bit, because as writers, we often are seeing our lives through the lens of like, oh, that could be a book. That could be a book if you slowed it down a little bit. Talk us through that process and how you finally figured out, like, actually, this really is a book.
Ruth Whippman [00:02:31]:
Yeah. So I think that came from a moment when I was about to give birth to my third boy, and it was right at the time that the hash metoo movement was just going crazy online. We were about a year into the Trump presidency, so everything was, like, pussy grabbing, and it was school shooters, and it was incels and it was Harvey Weinstein, and it was me, too. And, you know, here I am, like, heavily pregnant, hormones going crazy. I'm about to be a mom to three boys. You know, I had two already, and I hadn't really given it that much thought or examination, but there was this huge conversation about toxic masculinity. And meanwhile, in my own home, my own boys were going sort of slightly crazy and were physical and wild, and I just didn't know how to handle them. And I was thinking, you know, what was available to me were parenting books, which were tended to be quite, you know, these sort of simple, bullet pointed piece of advice, which would be like, do these five things, and then your child will respond in the exact way that you are hoping, and this will happen.
Ruth Whippman [00:03:33]:
And that didn't seem to cut it for me. You know, my kids just didn't do the thing that they were supposed to do. That was in the book. And I didn't really want to write a parenting book. I'm not a parenting expert at all. So my sort of expertise, I guess, or if you can call it that, or my area of interest is more in the culture and in talking about gender and talking about feminism and talking about what's going on in the wider culture and bringing that into my home. And what I found was there just weren't any books that covered those pieces. So there were books about toxic masculinity.
Ruth Whippman [00:04:06]:
There were books about the sociological part of it and the cultural piece of it, but there was nothing that kind of tied it all together in the way that, like, there's this big conversation going out in the world. There's this sort of slight nightmare happening in my own home. Everything's bouncing off against each other. Nothing seems simple. You know, I felt like many books seem to have quite a lot of moral certainty about them. And the feelings that I was feeling were more about uncertainty and chaos and mess and conflict and inner contradiction. And I just wanted to write through that. I wanted a book that was messy.
Ruth Whippman [00:04:43]:
I wanted a book that was honest and vulnerable. And this stuff isn't easy. You know, the answers I'm getting are way oversimplified for what I need. And so that's what I. That's what I set out to write.
Fran Hauser [00:04:54]:
So did you start writing right away, or did you pause and say, all right, I got to write the book proposal. I need to get the agent.
Ruth Whippman [00:05:05]:
I already had an agent. I have a previous book called America the anxious, which came out in 2016. And I had a great agent, Steve Ross, who I love, and he's extremely supportive. So I emailed him and I said, I have this idea. You know, I want to write about boys. I want to write about boys in this particularly fraught cultural moment that brings in both the personal and the political and the cultural and looks at all the ways that we're socializing boys and sort of brings together all the pieces. And he emailed back straight away and was like, yes, do it. I want this.
Ruth Whippman [00:05:39]:
And very generously, he was like, I want this story, and I want it in your voice, which was lovely. I want to read it in your writing voice, which I think, you know, he's incredibly supportive and a wonderful mentor, and it's such a lovely thing to hear. But it was like, he knows that I try and approach things with a mix of kind of humor and honesty and vulnerability and analysis. And he was like, yes, bring it all in. I want everything applied to this topic. So once I had their kind of go ahead from him, I didn't want to start writing a book that he was not going to like or not going to get behind. So once I had the go ahead from him, I started writing a proposal which took a very long time and coincided with the pandemic and all of that and coincided with me parenting three extremely challenging, very lovely, but extremely challenging boys through a very difficult time. So, yeah, it took a long time.
Fran Hauser [00:06:36]:
And how involved was he with Steve in the proposal process?
Ruth Whippman [00:06:42]:
So, Steve, he doesn't get super involved in the line by line stuff at all. I'm sure your listeners know how a book proposal is constructed, but basically, it's sort of a few main sections. So there's, like an overview section, which is, like, what this book is about, what the big idea is, why it's needed, and then there's, like, usually a sample chapter or two. I just did one for this proposal, and then there's some sort of marketing type information. And so each chunk I sent him to, and he made very light comments, you know, very, very light edits. Like, oh, I'd like to hear a little bit more on this point, or perhaps you could include x or whatever, but it was pretty light edits. He will if I need him to, or if I want him to get really involved in the nitty gritty, then he's very willing to, and he's got a good editorial eye. But luckily, I think we were on the same page and so, you know, I sent it to him chunk by chunk.
Bethany Saltman [00:07:35]:
Amazing. So how long did it actually take? Soup to nuts.
Ruth Whippman [00:07:38]:
So the proposal, I started, like, I literally opened a word document. I would say it was the summer of 2019. Okay. And then I sold the proposal in May of 2021. So two years. Just under two years. But, you know, that coincided with homeschooling and the pandemic, so it wasn't like I was doing this full time for two years, but, yeah, it took a long time.
Bethany Saltman [00:08:02]:
Well, most of us don't have the luxury of working on a proposal full time. Like, I don't.
Ruth Whippman [00:08:07]:
Anybody who does that who can do that. Right? Exactly. Yeah.
Bethany Saltman [00:08:10]:
So two years is about right. I'm really glad you shared that. For our listeners who are feeling like they've been working on it for three months and it's not done.
Ruth Whippman [00:08:19]:
I know. Three months. It was like. I think at three months, it was just this kind of pile of notes that even I couldn't really understand. And I'd read back, and I'd be like, what on earth was I thinking? It would be these, like, fragments of sentences, and it'd be like, boys, important. Yes. Now do this. And I'd be like, what? What does that mean to.
Fran Hauser [00:08:40]:
What was the response from publishers? Like, did they get it right away? Did they get the idea?
Ruth Whippman [00:08:45]:
Yes. So I think everybody got it. So my last book was really a book that was hard to articulate. There were a lot of different things going on in the idea. It was about happiness and anxiety, and it was about being a british woman moving to America, and it just had too many kind of things in it to be able to say it in a couple of sentences. This book, you know what it is. You know, you know who it's for. You know who wants to buy it.
Ruth Whippman [00:09:06]:
It's very clear. And that was always the case, and it's something that I felt like I really benefited from, which was great. So selling a proposal is extremely nerve wracking. We got a lot of, like, great. Love it. Just going to send it to my boss or my editor or this and that. There were a few that were like, we already have something like this in the mix, or some, which were like, we tried a book like this, but it didn't really work in the market. But they were often not really.
Ruth Whippman [00:09:32]:
They would say a book like this, but it wouldn't really be a book like that. It would be one of the pieces, you know, a parenting book about raising boys or a book about teaching kids about consent or those kinds of things. And we got some nos, some rejections and then some interest and some sort of faffing around. And then harmony, who were the publishers who eventually bought it, made a preempt, which was really great. And my agent, who knew the kind of head of that label pretty well, he used to work in publishing, so they were former colleagues. And he was like, I think this is a really great fit for you. I think you should accept it. They did.
Bethany Saltman [00:10:10]:
Can you explain to our listeners what a preempt is?
Ruth Whippman [00:10:13]:
Yeah. So it is an offer that is the sort of maximum that that publishing house are able to offer and is. Well, actually, I say that I don't know if that's even true. But what it is is that they're offering more than they perhaps normally would to kind of secure it and take it off the market. So it's kind of this moment where you're like, early on in the process, they want to say, okay, we're prepared to give this much. It's our final offer. And then you don't offer it to anybody else at all. And there are advantages and disadvantages to taking that.
Ruth Whippman [00:10:46]:
But in this case, it just seemed like I loved the editor. I loved the team. I thought their vision for it was great. We had this really great meeting online and there were still other people considering it and who were in the mix. And after, there were other people who came back and said, oh, we were going to make an offer. But I'm so thrilled with the team that I have at Harmony. My editor, Michelle Anna Clerico, is brilliant and she's young. And I think sometimes that works really well because she has a boy herself.
Ruth Whippman [00:11:14]:
So she became pregnant with a boy during this whole process. So she was always invested and behind it. But then I think she became even more personally invested. And just the whole team has written, the publicist has been great, the marketing team has been great. And I am very aware how lucky I am in that and how that isn't always the case.
Fran Hauser [00:11:34]:
Yeah. To have that true partnership. Right. Bethany and I were saying before you hopped on how much we love the title. And so we'd love to hear your process around the title. And as a boy mom myself, this subtitle is one of the best subtitles I've ever seen in my whole entire life. So the subtitle is reimagining boyhood in the age of impossible masculinity. It's like this, like, visceral.
Fran Hauser [00:11:59]:
It's like she gets me. Like, it's exactly what I'm going through. Because, like, you ruthenous. I'm a feminist, and my books are all about women's leadership, and I've always struggled with, okay, but I have these boys at home, and am I doing right by them?
Ruth Whippman [00:12:12]:
And it's such a conflicted space. I'm really grateful that you said that. So just to talk about the subtitle first. So, obviously, as you can imagine, we went through a million iterations of every single thing.
Bethany Saltman [00:12:24]:
You can tell us some of the iterations. We would love that.
Ruth Whippman [00:12:28]:
Maybe I should just talk you through the whole thing from the actual title. Book was sold under the title. So the proposal was not boy mom at all. It was called raising the patriarchy. And it was supposed to be this, like, lover clever play on words, where it was, like, raising with a r a z I n g, as in, like, crushing, and also raising, as in raising boys aising. And so it was, like, raising crossed out. And then the other type of raising written. And I think it was, like, clever, but it was just like, it's too much to ask of people when they're browsing a bookstore, and they're just like, what? You know? And then it took me having these really awkward conversations, being like, no, no, no.
Ruth Whippman [00:13:09]:
Raising, you know, like, people would be like, oh, God. You know? So pretty early on in the title process, my editor was just like, this isn't going to work. And I had some, like, sadness about that. I was like, but my glove. A title that I came up with. And she was like, no, nobody likes it. You know, deal with it. And then it went through, like, 50 iterations of, it was going to be the new boyhood at one point, or it was going to be modern boyhood, all these quite stodgy kind of titles.
Ruth Whippman [00:13:39]:
And I remember once, actually, I had this funny moment where I was. I sent, like, we had, like, a list of four or five titles, and I was sending them out to, like, a mom's group of, like, a few moms that I knew and, like, friends and friends. And I was like, which one of these do you like? And one of them was the title, it's a boy. As in, you know, it's a boy. And I kind of liked it, too. But what I. The way I'd written it out on the text message, I had written it's a boy. And then I'd written, like, colon and parenthesis and then some other piece of information that I was going to think what they had read it as was, like, it's a boy, sad face.
Ruth Whippman [00:14:13]:
Do you know what I mean? Like, they read the colon and parenthesis. It was just like. And I didn't realize it was that at all. So people thought that I was sending the title, you know, it's a boy sad face. But what was really funny was that people were coming back going, I love the sad face. It makes me feel so seen. You know, I didn't want a boy. I want, you know, all this outpouring of, like, gender disappointment on this text thread, which was not what I had expected to open up at all.
Ruth Whippman [00:14:39]:
And it really was just a typo. And I was like, you know, it sort of made me realize that there was this sort of sadness and discomfort around boys that I was sort of tapping into. And we didn't go for that title. I don't think that would have been the right title. And so many people would really push back on that and be like, well, I was delighted to have a boy, or, you know, and I don't want to feel like my child is disappointing or whatever. It was just this weird moment where people, you know, to see sort of what I was tapping into. So we were going over and over and over, and we wanted something that, like, conveyed that this was from a mom's point of view that isn't just a parenting book, that it had a memoir aspect, but it was, like, had some thinking in it. And it was actually in the middle of the night that the boy mom title came to me, and I was like, oh, why don't we just call it boy mom? Because it evokes such strong feelings in people.
Ruth Whippman [00:15:28]:
There's a reason why that hashtag has gone viral. I think it speaks to something very primal in us, this idea of mom and boy. And it goes back to Oedipus, and it goes back to greek tragedy. It's about conflict, it's about love, it's about pain, it's about loss. And it's almost got this whole story arc just inside that one hashtag. And I think that's why it's so compelling to people on TikTok in the same way. And actually, at that point, it hadn't gone viral in quite the same way that it has subsequently. And I think I've benefited from that.
Ruth Whippman [00:16:03]:
But at the time, it was just like, oh, yeah. And so I said it to the publishers. I was like, what about boy mom? And they were like, yes, we love it. Great. And in a way, it was a risk because it does sort of cut your audience down to a specific demographic. But actually, what's been so weird, I worried that it would mean that, like, men wouldn't read it or non parents wouldn't read it. But I think the boy mom title works well because it's very clear. It's very zeitgeist.
Fran Hauser [00:16:29]:
We always know that. Clear over clever, right? Clear over clever.
Ruth Whippman [00:16:32]:
So true. It's clear over cute. Clear over. You know, and I think it's kind of cute in a way, but it is like, we know what it is.
Bethany Saltman [00:16:40]:
Is that trying to be cute, and it's more clear than it is cute.
Ruth Whippman [00:16:44]:
Right. I think that's so true. And I think that's such a. Like, a great title is so important, as, you know, obviously. And just, I think this one, the title, I think, was probably, like, a really big piece of why it got the kind of level of interest that it has had. But then the subtitle, you know, Reimagining Boyhood In The Age Of Impossible Masculinity. So my friend Alyssa Strauss, who's a great author, she came up with the idea of impossible masculinity because we were playing around with, like, toxic masculinity or this masculinity, and it's like, it's off putting to people. I think people are like, well, my son's not toxic.
Ruth Whippman [00:17:21]:
It sort of evokes this conversation, and it sort of feels like the language of the left, and, you know, which is fine, but it's also, people have so many feelings about words and tribal feelings about which word belongs to which group and who can read what. And she was like, impossible masculinity because it's impossible from all sides. It's, like, impossible for the boys trying to be this tough, invulnerable, stoic. You know, it's impossible on that side. But then it's impossible in the sense of, like, growing up in this shadow of this conversation about me, too, and toxic masculinity, and nothing they do is right. And, you know, it's impossible for moms to navigate who are feminists. I think it just captured a lot of different things.
Bethany Saltman [00:18:04]:
Hey, Bookbound ones, if you're loving this interview as much as we are, we think you'll want to join us for this very special first of its kind. Read like a writer book club. What the heck is a read like a writer book club? I'm so bad you asked. This idea came to us after working with so many aspiring authors who are still reading books like a reader liking this, not liking that, instead of studying successful books for lessons and how to weave their own stories into clear structures or develop frameworks that really changed people's lives. And we thought, hey, why leave so much learning on the table? Then we realized that we have this incredible archive of author interviews. Yes, this very podcast. And so we put it all together and said, hey, let's host a read like a writer book club. This is how it works.
Bethany Saltman [00:18:51]:
For the low price of $175, we'll meet once a month over Zoom for seven months. Our meetings will take place on Wednesdays at noon eastern time. We'll give you a list of related podcast episodes to review and a simple reading guide. We'll meet up and discuss together and in small groups. Fran and I are so excited to get started. We love reading. We love you guys. And we love studying books with other women.
Bethany Saltman [00:19:18]:
Sign up at bookboundpodcast.com/club. We can't wait to see you there. Yeah, the word impossible is we were just talking before you get on what we call a power word.
Ruth Whippman [00:19:32]:
Yeah. And funnily enough, in the UK version, they went with toxic. They said raising. They called it raising boys in the age of toxic masculinity. And I don't know why they did that, actually, but people have noted it. And so, you know, I didn't have a huge amount of say over it, but I do prefer the american title.
Bethany Saltman [00:19:49]:
Wow, so many questions. So one of the things that's coming up for me, I have two questions. First, I want to talk about your ideal reader. And I also want to ask you about the balance of the memoir and the research and all that in the book. But you just mentioned that someone was going to charge you $10,000 to come up with your ideal reader after the book was written.
Ruth Whippman [00:20:10]:
Yes, after it was written, but before it was marketed, actually, that service would have been really helpful for my last book, actually. It's like, who is this book for, and how are you going to find them? And imagining, and I think it would have been helpful to me to do that before it was written and after it was written. This one. It's pretty clear who your main market is.
Bethany Saltman [00:20:32]:
Yeah. So we talk about finding your muse when you're writing a book. Who is the one person whose life will change after reading this book?
Ruth Whippman [00:20:40]:
I think it's one of those questions which, it's great to have it in your mind and you don't want it to control you either. Totally. Do you know what I mean?
Bethany Saltman [00:20:48]:
Absolutely.
Ruth Whippman [00:20:49]:
Sort of like, you want to know who this book is for and write it for a purpose and make it clear. And I. So it doesn't just become for everybody or nobody, but also, yeah, you don't want that person, like, sitting in your head and, like, judging you. And do you know what I mean? You want to be able to have the freedom. But I think the ideal reader for boy mom. And there have actually been many different kinds of readers, but I think the reader I was imagining was a person similar to me who is a feminist, who sort of probably from the kind of progressive left broadly, is conflicted about what it means to raise a boy in this moment who's sort of maybe defensive about her own boys and doesn't want to label them as harmful or toxic or whatever, but also wants to do better, but sort of wants to unpack all the culture. And I think you're probably somebody who's interested in feminism generally and how this fits in, how the piece about boyhood fits into that program rather than feels excluded from it. And I think a lot of women I know are like, we're feminists.
Ruth Whippman [00:21:50]:
We want to be, you know, we don't want to feel like we're working against the feminist project by raising our boys or by sympathizing with our boys or advocating for boys, you know? And so I think it's speaking to those kinds of people. But what I've been really surprised is that how many men have really loved this book, and not just fathers, but, like, people who are, like, this is speaking about my childhood. This is speaking about all these things that I feel that I didn't get as a kid. This I feel very heard and seen by that, which has been great. And, you know, also people who aren't parents, who just are interested in, like, what is going on with this generation of young boys?
Fran Hauser [00:22:26]:
Well, I have to tell you after I read the book, because I'm totally your primary. Like, I'm your muse, Ruth. For sure. Like, I checked.
Ruth Whippman [00:22:34]:
I wish I knew. It would have been such a delight having you sitting in my head for this.
Fran Hauser [00:22:38]:
Oh, my gosh, Ruth. I wish we had met earlier, but. Right. Like, as soon as I finished the book, I texted my husband, and I said, you need to read this book. And it's very rare that I make nonfiction recommendations to him. I'm making fiction recommendations all the time. But there is definitely a secondary market for you with men, for sure. He's gonna love this book.
Ruth Whippman [00:23:02]:
Oh, that's so lovely to hear. I really appreciate that. And also, Ina, my own husband, I think he felt, like, quite alone with a lot of this stuff as well. And maybe in a way that wasn't quite as articulated as many women feel it or are able to express it or have the vocabulary to talk about it. But I think he was, like, read it, and we talked about it, and obviously he's lived through it with me, and I think he was like, oh, yes, I wish, you know, I wish I had known some of this stuff, and I wish I had a vocabulary to describe it. And so I think he found it validating. So that was my first inkling that. That men might, you know, want to read it, which is lovely.
Ruth Whippman [00:23:37]:
Well, yeah.
Bethany Saltman [00:23:37]:
I mean, the title is boy mom. It's not just for moms of boys. It's for boys who have a momentous.
Ruth Whippman [00:23:43]:
Right. That's a good point.
Bethany Saltman [00:23:45]:
Yeah. So, in terms of, you know, another thing I was thinking, when you were talking about the muse that you were imagining, I was thinking it's also a woman who works with her anxiety or, you know, discomfort through learning. Right.
Ruth Whippman [00:23:59]:
Not every woman. That's true. Right. Yes. Because I think, for me, that's very much me. I feel like knowledge is safety. Like, the more I can know that, the better I feel, and the more it kind of calms my anxiety. Sometimes it spins off too far, and then I know too much, and it makes me more anxious.
Ruth Whippman [00:24:15]:
But in general, I think that was how I grew up, and that was the values of our family that, you know, the more you know, the better you know.
Fran Hauser [00:24:23]:
And so the more in control you feel.
Ruth Whippman [00:24:25]:
That's it. It's exactly that, yeah. Control and sort of safety and just. I think there was just this feeling of, like, I'm at sea with all this. I don't know what to do. I don't know how to think. I don't know how to describe this problem. And I think I wanted these guardrails on it for myself, so I sort of assumed that other people would want them.
Ruth Whippman [00:24:45]:
And it was finding that line between being too prescriptive.
Bethany Saltman [00:24:48]:
That's sort of the big topic, like, how prescriptive. Some women prescriptions, others want to understand the science.
Ruth Whippman [00:24:55]:
Yeah. And I think publishers, there's this sort of self helpification of every genre, you know, which makes sense because it's like, it's harder to sell a book that is just a cultural analysis of something, and they're like, well, where's your tips section? Where's your advice? And I feel very grateful to my editors for not making it too much like that. I think maybe a different publisher would have been more like, you have to put in your ten tips and tricks, and there is advice in there, and that is a way of saying it. But it was I tried to keep it very much like the advice part of it. I tried to keep it as more like general principles. Rather than say this, say that, because I think you're trying to work within the actual authentic relationship you have with your actual child, who, I don't know, a human being. And you are a human being. And so it's more about sort of naming the problem, finding the vocabulary to describe it, and correcting for it, rather than, like, very specific advice.
Bethany Saltman [00:25:55]:
That's great. That's great.
Fran Hauser [00:25:57]:
I'd love to hear about your writing process. You know, we always talk about there's planners and there's pantsers and, like, yeah, right. And so are you more of a planner? Like, do you outline everything and say, okay, this week I'm going to work on this story or this research or this chapter. How do you approach it?
Ruth Whippman [00:26:17]:
So I think I'm probably a bit of both, actually. So I usually go chapter by chapter, but I went in a completely nonsensical order. The first chapter I wrote was chapter nine, and then I wrote four, and it was just all over the place. But within each chapter, what I usually do is have a week or two of just, like, utter, just dumping every possible thought with no self censoring. So I just, like, dump down every single thing, however dumb. So it's sort of the equivalent of the, like, no bad ideas in a brainstorm thing where I really try not to, like, second guess myself or be mean to myself. You know, I think there is a room, a place for being hard on yourself or for me, there is, but this isn't it. So I just, like, dumped down everything, and then I usually do a post it session.
Ruth Whippman [00:27:06]:
So I found this brilliant researcher, sort of editor person that I work with, and she used to help me post it these ideas by post it, I mean, like, we'd write each, like, key idea when I post it. And, like, some of them would be sort of, like, sub ideas that were under another heading, and then we would just, like, lay them all out on the floor and make them, make them move and, you know, what's the storyline? And I probably would do that, like, two or three times during the process of writing a chapter because it's hard. And I would have different colors. So one color for, like, memoir pieces, one color for, like, interviews with boys, so you could sort of see it visually, like, what you have a lot of, and one color for experts, and one color for just analysis.
Fran Hauser [00:27:46]:
It's so cool. That's like, your editorial. That's your editorial mix right there.
Ruth Whippman [00:27:51]:
Yeah. And I think you can, there's software that, you know, like Scrivener, you know, people use to do that same thing. For me, I prefer to just do it the old school way. I used to work in tv documentaries and that was what we used to do. So it came really naturally to me to do it that way. You need to do that kind of storytelling, and then you find connections between things that you didnt think. So this one interview that you had, say, with this boy, which you think is about this one point actually, like, oh, but he said all this stuff about this other thing, and then he goes into a different chapter or he goes into a different section of that chapter. There was a lot of shuffling around.
Ruth Whippman [00:28:26]:
So I would do that and then I would take that document with all the, like, dumping down of all the notes and all the everything, and I would try and just move the blocks into the same blocks as the post it outline. So just, like, literally just cut. And some of them at this point, you're like, okay, that can go, you know, this 19th century poem that was about, you know, whatever that is, like, okay, bye bye. But then I would just move the blocks around and then I would just start writing it. But it was, I'm very haphazard, you know, often just, like, write a bit in the middle that feels compelling and then go back to the beginning and, but I do have that outline that I'm kind of working towards, I guess so a bit of both.
Fran Hauser [00:29:05]:
That's so cool. That's never come up before. The posted process has not come up before in any of our interviews. So I love that.
Ruth Whippman [00:29:12]:
And I love doing it with somebody else, like, so Bonnie, who is brilliant, and anybody listening to this Bonnie Alexander, hire her. She's a genius. She would help me think it through. And that process of, like, talking about it, you know, we are just like, talk through an idea and then you realize that it just, some of them just kind of crumble into dust. You're like, when you're really like, is it this? And then you think this is this really robust analysis and then it just kind of isn't. Or like, and she would really push back in a good way, you know, in a very encouraging, very supportive, but be like, yeah, this isn't cutting it for me or this is boring or this is like, whatever. So we would, like, really thrash it out. And I love that because I come from this documentary background.
Ruth Whippman [00:29:53]:
I'm used to working in teams. And so I like her team. You know, I like her. I like her process.
Fran Hauser [00:29:59]:
Yeah. Can we talk a little bit about the author platform, which is like such a huge barrier for people. It's so scary. It's such a struggle. They're like, I'm not even going to bother putting a book proposal together because I don't have a big enough platform. Like how? Tell us a little bit about your platform, how you think about it. Are there certain parts of it that you really lean into?
Ruth Whippman [00:30:22]:
So when I sold this book, I would not talk about myself as someone with a huge or even really a substantial platform at all. I had maybe I had zero platform when my first book came out. I mean, really? So when boy mom came out, I probably had like 1000 followers on Instagram and maybe 3000 on Twitter. But I didn't really use Twitter at all. And I just started a substac. I started a substack three or four months before the book came out, which I think is great. I love substack.
Bethany Saltman [00:30:52]:
I love you on substack. I love the title of your sub stack. Can you tell everybody?
Ruth Whippman [00:30:56]:
Yes. My sub stack is called I blame society, which is just this kind of ridiculous, like tongue in cheek. But thank you. I appreciate that. And, you know, I use it to write about. At the moment, I'm writing a lot of stuff about boys and boyhood, but, you know, in the future and in the past, I'll write about other things as well and, you know, to keep that. And I think substack is this great way that you can just publish your writing whenever you want. You can make it long, you can make it short, you can make it polished.
Ruth Whippman [00:31:21]:
You can make it haphazard. You can communicate with people. You can use it more like a social network or more like a publishing platform. There's so many ways, and you can get paid for it. So I started that sort of three or four months before the book came out, and I was really ambivalent about it. I was like, oh, God, another thing. You know, there are so many ways to, like, not make money as a writer. And I was like, God, is this just another one that I'm setting myself up to do? But I did it, and I'm really glad that I have.
Ruth Whippman [00:31:51]:
And actually, people have responded really well, which has been great. It's validating and fun, and it's a good way to share these ideas along the way. And, you know, actually, in a way, I wish that I'd been doing it all along through this whole process.
Bethany Saltman [00:32:05]:
We hear that a lot. We hear that a lot that people, they start doing something and then they wish they'd done it all along, but you might not have had the time and space to do other things.
Ruth Whippman [00:32:15]:
That's true. Yeah. And there's only so much you can do. And also, I think there is a way in which you can let your ideas become stale after a while. So if you're publishing them, there is a way that you can send out too much. And then people are like, well, I've heard this all before, but, yeah, I think I'm a good. I love hearing a examples of people who sold books when they didn't have a platform or who had a terrible failure and then great success. You know, I think all writers like this because we've all been all of those things.
Ruth Whippman [00:32:42]:
I think, well, maybe not the great success part, but they're like, I feel like we've all been in these moments of just, like, anonymity or failure or rejection or whatever. And so it's really great to hear, and I feel like every single writer has these stories, and it's great to share them. But, yes, I did not have a big platform. And one of the things I know you guys talk about a lot, which I love, is, you know, this thing about owning your expertise. It's like, I felt confident to write this book. I was never pretending to be some kind of, like, parenting expert or psychologist or boyhood, you know, masculinity scholar or anything. I authentically am this mom going through this messy situation, and I am authentically writing about it. And there are many other people who are in that situation.
Ruth Whippman [00:33:29]:
But, you know, I felt like I can own this. You know, I can step into this. Whatever I am pretending to be or saying, you know, whatever my, like, public facing identity is with, this is also real. You know, this is who I am. I'm not trying to be something I'm not. And so I think that was a part of it.
Fran Hauser [00:33:47]:
It's brilliant because it's not a crowded space, you know, like this. Boy, mom, like, you really. You can own this space. You do?
Ruth Whippman [00:33:55]:
Yeah, that's something. And I think that was part of the luck of, you know, that feeling, which was just like, I'm at sea with this, and I can't find the thing I want to read. And so I'm sure everybody else is, or not everybody, but other people are feeling this.
Fran Hauser [00:34:09]:
Yeah, absolutely. As we're wrapping up, I'm curious, now that you have, like, all this hindsight, is there anything that you would do differently, like, with this whole entire process around this book?
Ruth Whippman [00:34:22]:
I think start the substack earlier is a big one. I got really into the sort of platform building stuff at the end, and I've seen like, and, you know, part of that is like, you know, I've got a book out in the world, so people, and it's been really well covered. So I'm getting more Instagram followers. I'm getting more. But, you know, I wish I'd sort of done more of that along the way. But also, I don't want to beat myself up about it either because there really is only so much you can do. But no, I don't think there's anything major that, yeah, I think it's more platform stuff that I probably would have. It's just about that incremental.
Ruth Whippman [00:34:56]:
If you're building it over three years as opposed to over three months, then obviously it's going to be. And it's like, it really is this incremental process where you just do a little bit and a little bit and a little bit and some things work and some things don't. There's no sort of great mystery to it. And then certain things will give you big boost. Like if you, you know, whenever I published an article in the Times, you know, something's gone viral, then you get a big jump up. But like, really it is just these little steps.
Fran Hauser [00:35:22]:
Yeah, step by step. Well, thank you so, so much, Ruth. So where can people, what's the best way is a sub stack in terms of people just staying connected with you?
Ruth Whippman [00:35:31]:
My substack is called, I Blame Society, and you can just find it by searching my name, Ruth Whippman, with two p's in it. The book is, Boy: Reimagining Boyhood in the Age of Impossible Masculinity. So you can buy that wherever you buy your books. And you can also go to my website, which is ruthwhippman.com. so it's got all my social media. I sort of, I'm more active on Instagram at the moment than anything any other social media. So find me there. Come say hi, message me.
Ruth Whippman [00:35:56]:
Tell me what you think, any of it. I love hearing from people.
Fran Hauser [00:35:59]:
Amazing. Thank you so much.
Ruth Whippman [00:36:01]:
No, it's been such a joy. It's great talking to you. Thank you again.
Bethany Saltman [00:36:07]:
Thank you for joining us on Bookbound.
Fran Hauser [00:36:09]:
If you like what you heard, please subscribe and rate and review us on your favorite podcast listening platform.
Bethany Saltman [00:36:16]:
Please visit us at bookboundpodcast.com for more on us and how we work with authors.