It’s essentially a love letter to female entrepreneurs who are working their tails off, dealing with the gross inequities of VC funding, and creating profitable, disruptive, meaningful, and important companies and products – especially in the world of women’s health, a category long neglected by male founders.
Susie Orman Schnall – 4 June 2024
The Back Flap
The Dropout meets Inventing Anna in this cinematic and page-turning read! A ripped-from-the-headlines story set in the glossy offices of Silicon Valley startups and NYC new media that explores our fascination with female founders breaking barriers—and sometimes behaving badly in the process.
Nobody knows Anna Bright is committing fraud. Not the board of her multibillion-dollar company, not her investors, not the public anticipating the launch of BrightSpot, and not the media—including Jamie Roman, a journalist for BusinessBerry. But when Jamie learns about Anna’s misconduct, she embarks on a bicoastal journey to expose the crimes and make a name for herself. It’s not long before Anna learns what Jamie is up to—and she’ll do anything to stop her. Especially now that BrightLife’s IPO is days away.
About the book
When did you start writing the book?
I approached my agent with the idea in November of 2021. This was after a significant amount of plotting and research. Once she gave me the go-ahead, I started writing a messy first draft.
How long did it take you to write it?
I write a pretty quick first draft – it took me only a couple of months (of full-time writing). But then the rounds of edits were another four or five months.
Where did you get the idea from?
When I was trying to decide what to write my next novel about, I was fascinated—still am—by news stories about female founders. Then I read Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup about Elizabeth Holmes from Theranos, and well, there was no turning back. My novel took off from there. I still have the email I wrote to my agent, proposing the idea to her. I wrote, “I want to embrace the energy of this topic, and its orbiting topics, through fiction.”
Were there any parts of the book where you struggled?
Yes! Coming up with the idea for my main character’s invention. My first idea was in the smart home space but it wasn’t innovative enough. Then I landed on an intraocular lens implant that would interface with a subdermal microchip implanted below the eye. Like a next-gen Google Glass because it was all embedded in the body. Writing this now, I have no idea how I came up with that idea. Lots of googling to see what inventions were still out of reach.
What came easily?
I had done a lot of research into the world of female founders so I was eager to share the challenges they face getting funding, having their companies be taken seriously by the mostly male world of VCs, etc. It’s essentially a love letter to female entrepreneurs who are working their tails off, dealing with the gross inequities of VC funding, and creating profitable, disruptive, meaningful, and important companies and products – especially in the world of women’s health, a category long neglected by male founders.
Are your characters entirely fictitious or have you borrowed from real world people you know?
The story features two main characters. Anna Bright is my morally-questionable female founder. She is entirely fictional but inspired by Elizabeth Holmes, the (currently imprisoned) founder of Theranos, the blood-testing company that was found to be lying to investors and committing fraud. My other main character Jamie Roman, an ambitious young journalist, is also entirely fictional but inspired by Vivian Kent, the character Anna Chlumsky plays in Inventing Anna. (Vivian Kent is loosely based on Jessica Pressler, the journalist at New York Magazine whose article was the basis for the Netflix show.)
We all know how important it is for writers to read. Are there any particular authors that have influenced how you write and, if so, how have they influenced you?
I feel like I have been inspired by so many writers both past and present. Inspired by their actual writing, by their storytelling techniques, and also inspired by their dedication to craft and the process. I read voraciously in a number of genres outside the ones I typically write in. In fact, my favorite genre is speculative fiction.
Do you have a target reader?
My readers tend to be female and span age groups from 18 to 88! But men have loved my books too.
About Writing
Do you have a writing process? If so can you please describe it?
Yessss I very much do. It has evolved with each novel I wrote and is now very extensive. I start each new project by making my way through Save The Cat Writes a Novel by Jessica Brody and The Story Genius by Lisa Cron as if they were writing workshops. Plotting and outlining help me shape a story but I don’t make my outlines too specific so they are not confining once I actually start a draft.
I plot longhand on paper because I need to make arrows and underline things and write some words really large. 😉 Eventually I might go to index cards to identify my beats. Once I have plotted and replotted I open a fresh Scrivener page and get to work.
My first drafts tend to go pretty quickly because I have been thinking about the story for so long by then it kind of spills out of me. But unfailingly, my plot changes halfway through because the writing always takes me in directions I hadn’t anticipated.
Once I’m done with the first draft, I reverse outline it to make sure I hit the important beats and then the editing begins!
Do you outline? If so, do you do so extensively or just chapter headings and a couple of sentences?
Ha, see above. But not too extensively. I liken my process to a cross country road trip. Some people (not me) start their books by saying they’re going from NY to LA and they have no other info than that. Others say they’re starting in NY and know every highway they’ll drive on, every hotel has reservations, and they know the time they’ll pull into every rest stop, tourist attraction, etc. I’m somewhere in the middle. I know I’m going to LA, I may know some of the cities I’m stopping at on the way and a few attractions it would be nice to hit, but undoubtedly I’m going to meet up with some unexpected fellow travelers, find an out of the way hotel that I want to stay at longer than I had planned, and end up going through the northern states instead of the southern even though I had anticipated the opposite. That’s where the unexpected happens!
Do you edit as you go or wait until you’ve finished?
Both. I always edit lightly as I go. And I read the previous day’s work before I start on the current day’s. But my heavy edits wait until the first draft is done.
Did you hire a professional editor?
I hired a developmental editor before I queried for agents with my third novel The Subway Girls. I wanted to make sure it was in the best shape it could possibly be. But since then I count on my agent to do a thorough edit and then it gets edited multiple more times by the editors at the publishing house.
Do you listen to music while you write? If yes, what gets the fingers tapping?
I’ve tried, but I find it too distracting.
About Publishing
Did you submit your work to Agents?
I submitted my first finished manuscript for On Grace to agents, but I wasn’t able to secure representation. I tried again with my third novel The Subway Girls and received an offer of rep from the wonderful Carly Watters at P.S. Literary. She and I have been working together for seven and a half years.
Did you get your book cover professionally done or did you do it yourself?
Professionally done by the designers at SparkPress.
Do you have a marketing plan for the book or are you just winging it?
This is my fifth published novel and I’ve honed my efforts over the years with each book. So I have a pretty extensive marketing plan that encompasses publicity, social media, bookstore outreach, ARC mailings, paid advertising, and good old fashioned hustle.
Any advice that you would like to give to other newbies considering becoming Indie authors?
Make sure you’re very clear with yourself what your goals are for publishing and then go after that goal with determination and dedication.
About You
Where did you grow up?
Los Angeles, CA
Where do you live now?
In the suburbs just north of NYC
What would you like readers to know about you?
When I’m not writing fiction, I love spending time with my husband and our three sons (ages 19, 20, 22), playing around on Canva, doing crossword puzzles, organizing themed dinner parties, and hiking to the tops of mountains.
What are you working on now?
I’m co-writing a contemporary novel set in the publishing world with an author friend, and I’m deciding between two ideas for my next novel – both are dual timeline historical fiction.
End of Interview:
For more from Susie Orman Schnall visit her website and follow her on Instagram.
Get your copy of Anna Bright is Hiding Something from Amazon US or Amazon UK.