AMA with Author Diana Urban: January 2025
Diving into my editing process, what's inspired my writing, how I've promoted my books, playlists, my characters, and more!
Welcome to this AMA, and thanks to everyone who sent in these fabulous questions! In case you’re new here, I run periodic AMAs in which paid subscribers can ask me anything about my books, publishing journey, writing process, what I’m watching/reading/playing, or whatever you’re curious about. I’ll choose 1-2 questions to answer publicly, and the rest will be exclusive to paid subscribers, who will also be able to ask a question for the next AMA.
✨ Note: this is a special AMA where every answer will be public! ✨
Before diving in, to my readers impacted by the LA wildfires: I hope you’re doing well and staying safe, and I’m so sorry for the absolute hellscape the past week has been. You’re in my heart. And if anyone would like to help, you can find ways to donate here.
What got you started as a writer? Did you have a specific inspiration or person that led you to this awesome profession?
Honestly, I never imagined this would be my profession until I had a lightning-strike idea. I’d always been a bookworm—R.L. Stine was one of my favorites growing up and I think he ultimately did inspire my craft—but world building, red herrings, character development, tension, pacing… it all seemed like rocket science. I envisioned authors plopping down at their desks and writing a polished book from start to finish without understanding all the steps that usually come in between. Since it seemed so impossible, I didn’t even bother to try. I was too afraid to fail.
Then one day while on a business trip in Paris in 2012, something terrifying happened right in front of me on the métro that pretty much dropped a whole story, fully formed into my brain. The desire to tell that story overpowered my fear of failure, and it poured out of me in a month—years of repressed creativity unleashed! I haven’t written a book that fast since. It took me two more months to revise it, and the following month I signed with my first literary agent. That novel never sold to a publisher and is now trunked. But once I started writing, I couldn’t stop.
I think about that moment in Paris a lot. If I hadn’t been on that exact train car at that exact time, would I have started writing? I like to think so. But sometimes there are those singular moments that tear your reality in half and set them on alternate paths, a la Sliding Doors. So who knows?
When did you first visit the Paris catacombs?
I first visited the catacombs in 2015. My first two times in Paris, I was there on business, so this was my first time vacationing there with more time to explore and do touristy things.
Do you ever make playlists (music) for the book you are currently working on?
Yes, but they tend to be just 2-4 songs that represent key moments in the book. I’ll listen to them on loop and visualize the book like a movie trailer in my head, which helps me grasp the most dramatic moments and gets me inspired to write. Most of the time while I’m actually writing, I need to work in complete silence unless I’m playing white noise to block out construction or café noises. Here’s the specific white noise clip I play on loop.
I like to expand on these playlists afterwards to share publicly! Here are playlists for each of my books on Spotify:
All Your Twisted Secrets (Amber’s favorite film/TV scores)
I’ll share these track lists and explainers in upcoming newsletters, which will be especially helpful if you don’t have Spotify. So stay tuned! 🎶
How long does it take you to edit one of your novels?
It’s varied a lot, and depends how much each book needs to be revised. My edit letter for Lying in the Deep wasn’t that extensive, so I had one round of developmental edits lasting six weeks, and a round of line edits lasting four weeks, then copyedits (2 weeks?), then one round of pass pages (5 days?)—that’s when your manuscript a PDF in its final, pretty formatting, and you’re doing one last proofread.
Under the Surface was another story. I had to rewrite that book TWICE during developmental edits, so I got 2-3 months per round, and then still had to complete line edits, copyedits, and four rounds of pass pages. So that took a good chunk of a year.
What do you do when you run into plot trouble and have to revise a completed draft significantly, or does that never happen to you?
OH YEP that’s exactly what happened to me with Under the Surface.
My first step is always to panic. Full-fledged panic. GOTTA LET IT OUT.
My second step is to reread the edit letter multiple times, then let a few days pass so my brain can subconsciously work on the jigsaw puzzle of everything that needs to change.
Next, I put together my own edit letter, where I write down what I plan to change based on my editor’s feedback, organized by plot point or character. I’ll share that letter with my editor, and we’ll have a Zoom call to discuss and brainstorm wherever I need more help.
Then I get to work revising, using my own edit letter as a checklist! Just like drafting, with massive revisions you need to get your butt in the chair and take one day at a time, and have faith that in the end, you’ll get there. So far, it’s always worked out.
What is the best and worst part of being an author? (Especially being a writer for a living)
Okay so here’s the thing… I wrote out the answer for this and it wound up being so long it’s going to be its own newsletter. Keep an eye out for that in the coming weeks.
You’ve had notoriously bad timing in publication - how has that impacted the way you approach writing?!
Well now I’m extremely determined to bust my butt writing more stories so one of them will be my legacy instead of this!! 🤣🤣
For context for any newcomers, after years of trying to get my first book deal, my debut launched March 17, 2020, five days into shelter-in-place when bookstores were closed and Amazon was only shipping essential items (not books). Sadly, you only get to debut once, and it was a major blow to my career just as it was starting. Plus, book two launched at the height of the omicron wave, book three launched on one of the most crowded YA launch dates of 2023—ANYWAY. Yes, bad timing all around lmaooo.
To answer your question, I don’t think it’s actually impacted my writing much. I’ve never been one to write to market and tend to write whatever I’m excited about at the moment. If I’d prioritized sales over my muse, I might’ve switched to a hotter subgenre or incorporated popular tropes in the hopes it would blow up on social media. But… honestly? There’s so much of the publishing process out of my control—cover design, retailer buy-in, etc.—it might not have worked anyway.
What did you do to help publicize your books starting out, and how long did it take for your books to get noticed?
I first started promoting All Your Twisted Secrets in 2019, and the landscape was so different. There was no TikTok yet (or it was early days; I didn’t join until late 2021), no Instagram Reels, and Twitter was still, well, Twitter.
If I were to pick three things that made the biggest impact at the time:
Wrote a short story, Off the Trail, to start growing my mailing list. I still give that away today in exchange for subscribing, though I’ll be swapping it out in September 2025 once I get the rights back to another (better!) short story I wrote for an anthology.
Got 40 print ARCs from my publisher to run frequent giveaways on Instagram on Twitter. They initially wanted to give me only three copies, but I had a contact at my publisher who was willing to send me extras. This is super rare, I got lucky.
Screamed about EVERY. BIT. OF. NEWS. I still do this today. I’ll make a graphic for everything—a foreign deal, a trade review, a blurb, an editor’s pick (e.g. at Amazon or Apple), whatever—with lots of AHHHHHHHHHs and excitement. I knew early on I’d be my biggest hype person, so I use every little bit of news as fodder to create buzz.
My debut got noticed quickly; it was well-positioned to break out in a big way until the pandemic tore across the globe like a record scratch.
I will say, it’s been much harder to make my subsequent books stand out. I’m no longer a shiny debut, and in the era of TikTok (until the US ban, anyway) and Instagram Reels, the big retailers make their stocking decisions and table displays based on what goes viral. Success these days involves more luck than ever before. I was late to TikTok since I’m camera shy, so I missed out on the early opportunity when the algorithm was ripe for frequent virality, and even when I’ve gone viral on Reels, views haven’t always translate to sales. And now, with the US TikTok ban, who knows what will happen next? IT’S WILD OUT HERE, Y’ALL.
What has been your most effective marketing strategy?
Over the years, nothing stands out as the #1 most effective thing; it’s more a combination of everything.
But one thing I want to note here—assuming an author is asking this—is that for traditionally published authors, NOTHING will be as effective as your publisher’s distribution efforts and retailer support.
Although it was devastating my first publisher dropped me for not being a bestseller (thanks to the pandemic), they had the strongest distribution arm behind any of my books—maybe one sales person there was excited about it; who knows?—and that made by far the biggest difference. In my experience, no amount of hustle an author can do can make up for limited distribution. Not even going viral several times over! I hope, if anything, that takes some of the pressure off. Write your next book.
After being traditionally published, would u consider self-publishing? (From your question below, it sounds like yes. Why?)
For context, later in the survey in which I solicited these AMA questions, I asked if anyone would be interested in being an early ARC reader if I self-published a thriller.
To answer the question, YES. 😁
I think I’d enjoy having more control over the publishing process—everything from the cover design and retailer marketing copy to pricing and running promotions like BookBub deals. And since I’d get a higher royalty rate by self-publishing, I’d need to sell fewer copies in order to maintain writing as my full-time career.
That also means I’d also be able to run advertising campaigns that could potentially achieve a positive ROI and reach more readers. Running ads is always risky and potentially costly, but when you’re traditionally published, your publisher keeps such a large % of royalties it doesn’t make sense to invest in ads because you’ll almost never see a positive return. (Unless you’re already wealthy and are gunning for the bestseller lists. Which happens, BTW! I just can’t do that myself!)
That being said, I’m not quite ready to make the jump since my agent and I have plans for [redacted]. But yep, I’m 100% open to it; the timing just depends on how the next year shapes up.
If you could write one other genre other than thrillers, what would it be?
Well, first I’ll be branching out from YA thrillers to adult thrillers. But I’m also slowly working on a YA fantasy, so that’s the other genre I’d choose to write!
Of all of the books and stories you've written, do you have a personal favorite that you're the most proud of; regardless of sales or how other people feel about it?
Under the Surface. That book was nine years in the making, and after three complete rewrites (two while working with my editor) and years of feeling that claustrophobic sense of being trapped in the catacombs, I’m SO DANG PROUD of all the accolades it received. I guess that’s a reflection of how other people feel about it… but since it was an incredibly challenging project, it felt hard-won.
At the same time, it was the book I genuinely had the most fun reading over and over during all the rounds of copyedits and pass pages, and the one I thought readers would enjoy most. So there was a lot of joy in that part of the process.
If you had to pick one of your characters to bring to life here in the real world, who would you choose and why?
Oooh great question. I’d have to pick Amber from All Your Twisted Secrets because I’d love to hear the music she’ll compose for movies and TV shows, and maybe even video games, someday. (Assuming she’ll get the opportunity, of course… 😜)
What’s next for you?
Lying on the floor and sobbing— Writing, of course! When and how the book I’m writing now will release is still a mystery. But more stabby stabby stories are coming from me, and I can’t wait to share them with you!
If you have a question you’d like me to answer in my next AMA, leave a comment below! If you’d prefer to ask anonymously, you can do so here.
You were in freakin Paris?
W ur freakin book?
And ur beautiful?
I’m gonna pass out over here.
Wait, were their croissants?
If there were croissants I’m gonna die.
Holy smokes. It’s like Deadpool says.” She’s the whole package!”