Welcome to writer/publicist Jessica Cozzi’s world. This is her pub week for her YA romance, We’ve Hit Turbulence, and, in her words: “I want to soak in every moment of this.”
Writers, we’ve never interviewed anyone who was at once so practical and realistic about this industry—she is a publicist for a Big Five publisher, after all—and delighted to be a part of it.
We adored her ultimate message, as both the writer and a pro: you have to tell everybody it’s the best damn book in the world and they need to read it.
You’re going to be inspired to do just that.
Aaaaand: it’s Blueprint season! If you want to be shouting about your book from the rooftops—but you have not exactly finished it yet (or maybe even started), the Blueprint for a Book is for you.
Regulars around here know we offer the Blueprint for a Book program once or twice a year. This time, we’re doing a Blueprint Sprint: 6 weeks to build a guide for the book you want to write. (As opposed to drafting a hundred thousand words in the wrong direction. Ask me how I know.)
It starts January 12, 2026, we talk fiction, non-fiction and memoir, and it’s open to all paid subscribers. Community, weekly assignments, weekly lives with me and Jennie Nash, plenty of information for your reading and listening pleasure. More details below and to come.
Transcript Below!
SPONSORSHIP MESSAGE
Hey, this is Jennie. Happy New Year. If you're a subscriber to the Hashtag AmWriting Podcast, you can join us in our Blueprint Challenge, which is starting on January 12. We're going to be working on new book ideas, books where we're stuck, and books that we're revising, and using the Blueprint framework to help us get unstuck, get clarity, get confidence, and move forward. KJ is leading the charge this time with some write-alongs, some Ask Me Anything sessions, and all kinds of good stuff to help you on your way. I'll be jumping in as well, and I'll be cheering you as you get your books into shape and get ready to write forward in 2026. Details are in the show notes, and we’d love to have you join us.
EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
Jennie Nash
Hi, I’m Jennie Nash, and you’re listening to the Hashtag AmWriting Podcast. This is a Write Big session, where I’m bringing you short episodes about the mindset shifts that help you stop playing small and write like it matters. Today, KJ is joining me, and we’re talking to Jessica Cozzi about the shift in identity from being a book publicist to being a writer, which is a Write Big moment for sure. Thanks for joining us.
Jessica Cozzi
Thank you so much for having me. I’m excited to be here.
Jennie Nash
So this is just the coolest situation. You’re a HarperCollins publicist. This is your day job, and you just shared with us that you’re talking to us on your lunch hour.
Jessica Cozzi
Yes.
Jennie Nash
So can you tell us a little bit about what you do? What is your job?
Jessica Cozzi
Sure. So I am a publicist for HarperCollins, specifically for their William Morrow imprint. So we do adult fiction and nonfiction across everything, romance, cookbook, celebrity, like fantasy, we do a little bit of everything. And so my job as a publicist is to pitch podcasts like you, and TV and newspapers and media, and to get our authors to book interviews, to book review coverage. So I like to tell my family, when I try to explain my job, that whenever you, like, turn on the Today Show, and Jenna’s talking about a book, that was the work of a publicist. Or if you open The New York Times and you see the “10 Best Mysteries to Read This Month”, that was the work of a publicist. So that’s the kind of stuff I do in my day job, and I absolutely love it.
Jennie Nash
All right, so you have to tell us, did you dream of being a book publicist? Like, how did you get into this?
Jessica Cozzi
I did. So when I was younger, you know—
Jennie Nash
I love that. I was going to—I thought she was gone be like, nobody dreams of being a book publicist.
Jessica Cozzi
Actually, that’s so—that’s part of the story, is I was always a big reader and writer as a kid, and I knew when I was, like, in middle school, I knew I was going to go to college for English. But at the time, the only things that I really could think of that you would do with an English degree were to be an editor, which I hate the revision stage of writing. My editor is a gem because she does it. I don’t like that part. I love the blank draft. That’s actually my favorite part. But I didn’t really want to be an editor, and I didn’t really think I had the patience to be an English teacher. So I knew I wanted a degree in English, but I didn’t know what I wanted to do. And so when I was in middle school, I started a book blog with one of my really good friends, and we just started reviewing books for fun. There was no—none—no ambitions behind it, just talking about books we liked. And then at the time it was—that was back when blogging was big, and at the time it was one of the bigger YA book blogs. So publicists started reaching out to us to send us review copies and things like that to cover, and that—
Jennie Nash
When you were in college?
Jessica Cozzi
No, I was in high school, because I was a freshman in high school.
KJ Dell’Antonia
This is high school me’s dream.
Jennie Nash
High school?!
Jessica Cozzi
Yes. I was a freshman in high school when we got, I think, our first pitch from a publicist. I believe it was St. Martin’s, if I remember? And that kind of—
Jennie Nash
Did you even know what it was?!
Jessica Cozzi
I did not until that moment, because that’s kind of when, like, the whole road opened up in front of me, and I was like, there’s a whole new avenue to loving books that I can do a whole new career with. And I was a freshman in high school when I told my parents I wanted to be a book publicist. And they were like, how do you even know what that is? Like, how did you even figure that out? So that—
KJ Dell’Antonia
That is amazing.
Jessica Cozzi
That is when it started. So since I was a freshman in high school, like, 13 or 14, I knew I wanted to be a book publicist, and I knew specifically that I wanted to work at HarperCollins. I loved all their books.
Jennie Nash
What?!
Jessica Cozzi
It is the running joke. I’ve been at HarperCollins for four years, and it’s the running joke that I still skip into work every morning. I love my job. I’m very, very grateful. I love—I’m truly working my dream, not just being a publicist, but being a publicist at the company I dreamed for. So it makes even the long days good days, because I absolutely love what I do.
KJ Dell’Antonia
This is amazing.
Jennie Nash
How did you get your job? Yeah, how did you get the job?
Jessica Cozzi
So that was—I graduated college in 2020, so we know how that went for everybody involved. So I had had a few different internships, not at HarperCollins, but at other publishing houses. And then right when COVID—right when I graduated into COVID—all of the publishers were having hiring freezes because, you know, everything that was going on with the pandemic. So I figured, like, I need to do something in the meantime. And so I actually was the admin assistant for the Brooklyn Book Festival, which was not my dream job, but it was in the field of books, and it really helped me. I made a lot of connections with book publicists through that, when we booked the authors for the festival. So I did that for a while, and I really, really loved it. And then after I—one of my internships, I actually had interned at HMH, which HarperCollins owns now, but—and they folded it in—but they didn’t at the time. And so I actually ended up getting my dream job, because my former boss at my internship at HMH got folded into HarperCollins when we purchased them. And then so she was the one who actually reached out and said that there was an opening, not in her department, but in a different one in HarperCollins. And then I applied, and I got very lucky. The rest is history.
Jennie Nash
That is an incredible story.
Jessica Cozzi
Thank you.
KJ Dell’Antonia
Okay, so many people are more on the side of, well, I always wanted to be a writer, so I knew I would do something with books, and this is what I fell into. And you know, then it was hard to write because—so now I’m wondering, and I’m just totally seizing this from Jennie, sorry, but do you think that made it easier to also be a..? Like, so many people are like, oh, I use all my writer-y energy in my job, but you actually use your—your job energy—
Jessica Cozzi
Yes.
KJ Dell’Antonia
—in your job. So the writer energy is maybe different. And now I’m wondering if it made it easier for you.
Jessica Cozzi
I think it made it easier in the way that, because I know how the sausage gets made, I actually know how hard it is to get published. I mean, I know many authors that don’t work in publishing do know that, but having a first-person glance behind the curtain, I do know how difficult of a road it is to get there. And I think that kind of helped me in a way, like, temper my expectations. Like, I had my MFA, and I had been working on books, and we were out on submission for a while, and I had really gotten to the place—actually, the night before I got my book deal, I was talking to my boss, and I had gotten to the place where I had said to her, listen, like I’m not hearing back from any editors. And I’m like, maybe it’s just not meant to be, and that’s okay. I know how hard it is. Maybe one day it’ll happen, and then 12 hours later, I got the call from Penguin Random House. So I think it helped me in a way that it fueled me, because I see how difficult it is. I know how lucky I am to be in the position that I am, and I don’t want to, like, waste any second of it. And I really want to, like, soak in every moment of being an author, because I know how difficult that road can be to get there.
Jennie Nash
So you said you know how the sausage is made, and how big a role luck can play in it. Did that ever stop you from thinking, yeah, no; I don’t want to be on the other side? Or did it—did you think, well, I see it happen to all these people, so maybe it can happen to me?
Jessica Cozzi
I think it was a bit of both. I am a very stubborn person, in the sense that when I said—like, when I said I want to be a publicist at 14, I said I want to be a book publicist at HarperCollins. I was very specific about that. That did not waver in all the years I was in high school and in college and in grad school. Anybody that asked me, that’s what I would say. And I didn’t waver. And similarly, I did say to people, like, I am going to be a published author one day. How I get there? How the road curves to get me there? I don’t know. But I think in a lot of ways, because I saw people’s dreams come true every day, even though I knew how hard it was, I knew it’s not impossible. You know, we publish books from super established writers that have really long, long careers, but we also publish books from writers who started writing a story on Wattpad that they didn’t think was going to go anywhere, and then it blew up and they got a book deal. So I think in a lot of ways, like, even though I knew it was hard, I was seeing that magic happen for people every day. So I would tell myself, like, even when we got a rejection from an editor, or I didn’t hear back about a book, I’d be like, listen, like, maybe this is not the time, but there will be a time. I don’t know when, but there will be, even if this is not it. So it kind of kept my hopes alive, I think, too.
Jennie Nash
Wow. Such an interesting story. It is. So we’re talking in these episodes about the mindset shift and the identity shift that it takes to be a writer and to step into your full power. And I’m wondering if there were things that you knew from your publicist work that you thought, all right, if I’m going to do this, it’s going to be in this genre, or it’s going to have these tropes, or it’s going to have—like, was there any—you know how we—KJ and I are always saying you can’t write to the market—
Jessica Cozzi
Yes! I agree.
Jennie Nash
—that doesn’t work. But knowing what you know, how could you not react to the market?
KJ Dell’Antonia
You’re allowed to write things that people want to read.
Jessica Cozzi
Yes.
KJ Dell’Antonia
You just can’t write for the market.
Jessica Cozzi
Exactly. I think for me, I always knew I wanted to write romance, and I just happened to get lucky that romance has been, and probably always will be, the best-selling genre of all time. It keeps the lights on at every Big Five publisher. Like, that’s just the facts. Writing romance keeps publishing alive. And I knew that that’s something that I really like. I always was a big rom-com reader. My dad is really into rom-com movies. Ironically, my dad is like this big, gruff, like former detective, like serious man, but he is obsessed with, like, Mamma Mia and Ever After and Crazy Rich Asians. So I grew up really having a love for romantic comedies. Like, 50 First Dates is my favorite, because I used to watch it with my dad. Like, that was like something that meant a lot to me. And I think for me, I always knew I was going to write about love, because I just—first of all, the well is never empty. There’s always a new love story you can tell. And I just think, like, I love “love.” I love writing about people falling in love, especially when it’s for the first time. Love is very scary the first time you fall in love. You also don’t know what the hell you’re doing or what you’re supposed to expect. So I knew that that’s always what I wanted to do. And I think working in publishing, it didn’t make me want to do that, but it helped fuel me, because I knew how important writing is in the publishing sphere, but I already knew I wanted to do that beforehand.
Jennie Nash
How did you choose to go in the YA direction for your first book? And is that where you think you’ll stay?
Jessica Cozzi
I do. My MFA is specifically—my creative writing MFA is in young adult fiction. That’s what I chose to specialize in. I think, to me, I read young adult and adult, but I love writing young adult because the stakes are so much higher for teenagers. They’re going through everything for the first time. Everything feels like the end of the world. Like, I remember when I was 15 and I failed my road test the first time, and I came home and it was like my world was over. Like, locked myself in my room, didn’t pick up the phone and talk to my friends. I was like, mortified. And now looking back at 27, I’m like, that was ridiculous. Like, you passed again the next week. Like, you were fine. But in the moment, it feels like everything—everything feels so much higher stakes when you’re that young and you have no life experience yet. And I think that’s what makes YA—what makes writing YA a little bit different and a little more exciting for me, is that you’re not just—everybody goes through love and heartbreak and loss and grief, but as a teenager, a lot of that is the first time you’re experiencing that, and that adds a whole other layer to the writing.
Jennie Nash
So your book is called We’ve Hit Turbulence, and it’s coming out from a different Big Five publisher than the one you work for, which is so interesting. Did you ever think, oh, I want my own company to publish it? Or did you think, no, I got to—I got to go elsewhere? Did you not care?
Jessica Cozzi
I didn’t care. We did submit to all of them. So we did end up submitting to HarperCollins too. Penguin is the one that ended up biting first and offering the best offer. I think for me, like, I really didn’t care where I landed in terms of, like—I wasn’t either way, like, I need to be with Harper or I don’t need—I don’t want to be with Harper. But now that I’m not, I think, in a way, it kind of did work out, because I think it’s better to keep, like, my work and my writing life separate, because working at Harper, you know, I have access to a lot of databases and things that our authors don’t see. Maybe I don’t need to see every individual stat about my book, like looking it up, like the nitty-gritty, like details of my book the way the staff can see it. So I think in a lot of ways that separation has been good. It’s been interesting to be an author for a different company and see how things are done there and how things are similar and how things are different. And I do think—
Jennie Nash
Ooh. What’s the—what’s the worst? Like, like, what do you know that none of us could know? Like, you know what I mean? Like, what?
Jessica Cozzi
Yeah.
Jennie Nash
What’s the worst part about what you know now that you’re on the other side?
Jessica Cozzi
I mean, it’s not something I know for my books, but something from my job is that, like, I’m able to see exactly how many copies of a book every indie and major bookseller in the country is carrying. And I can see when there are authors that want to pop into their local stores and sign copies, and I can see that there are none there. We do, obviously—like, if they give us a heads-up in advance, we reach out to the store and we try to organize things. But I think, like, I have access to—I can see, like, down to the decimal, like, exactly how many copies of a book have sold, how many have been returned by bookstores. I think that’s information I don’t need to know about my books. I think—I’m fine not knowing that.
Jennie Nash
Wait, so are you actually having to actively hold yourself back from going to look at that?
Jessica Cozzi
No, because it’s—I can’t see it, because I don’t work—it’s for Penguin Random House. They can see it.
Jennie Nash
Got it. Got it. Got it.
Jessica Cozzi
Just for myself, like, I can see it for the authors I work for.
Jennie Nash
Yeah.
Jessica Cozzi
Not that I’ve really ever checked that, but that is information that is at my fingertips if I wanted it to be. And I feel like if my book was in there too, I might, like, feel compelled to look at that. And I’m like, I don’t—I don’t think for my mental health I need to know that.
Jennie Nash
KJ, you look like you’re burning to ask a question.
KJ Dell’Antonia
No, it was more that—PRH does a dashboard that’s different than other publishers, and you can—but you can’t see that, so—
Jessica Cozzi
Yeah, you can see your sales. Yeah, you can see the sales. But I don’t need to see every…
KJ Dell’Antonia
Don’t look at that.
Jessica Cozzi
No. I don’t look at—I don’t look at my reviews either. I actually appointed my boyfriend to check Goodreads, like, once a month and send me, like, the good reviews of my book that would make me happy. But I’m like; I don’t need to go see the things that people didn’t like, because I will just beat myself up over that. And that’s just, like—listen, not everybody’s going to like it, and that’s totally fine. My writing won’t be for everybody. I don’t need to know who it’s not for, though. They can—they can talk amongst themselves. I don’t need to see that.
Jennie Nash
So I’m curious, because you pitched us your own self directly. You have a publicist at your publisher. How are you behaving as an author differently, because you know exactly what’s happening?
Jessica Cozzi
That was definitely an interesting switch. A lot of the authors that I work with at HarperCollins don’t have this type of experience, so they’re very—they usually like, I’m usually taking the lead and I’m coming to them with these opportunities and things like that. And I am so grateful for my team at Penguin Random House, because they all do know my background. And so when I got introduced to my team, I said very early on, like, listen, I’m happy to, like, take a back seat. Like, I don’t want to be, like, the backseat driver here. Like, you guys know what you’re doing best, and I trust you. But I do have some contacts and people, like, you know, I work with you guys at HarperCollins. And they said, there’s some people that I work with pretty regularly at Harper that I think, like, if you’re okay with it, I can reach out, because I feel like that little personal connection can also kind of help push something over the finish line. And they were super great about it. They’re very much like, listen, we trust you. You know what you’re doing. Just keep us, like, posted as things progress. So they’ve been really, really great partners. They’ve been doing a lot of their own fantastic work, but they’ve also given me the room to kind of let them know things that I was interested in doing, and kind of letting me take the lead there too, because I do know how to do it.
Jennie Nash
And has it been successful? That approach?
Jessica Cozzi
Yep. It has. I think, like, tag-teaming that way has really helped, because they’re handling a lot of the stuff—like, I don’t pitch YA at work. I work on adult books. So they’re handling a lot of things in the YA market that I’m not familiar with. And I’m able to reach out to a lot of the people that I work with pretty regularly at Harper, and I’ve gotten a lot of great responses from people, because it’s not just a pitch about a random book. It’s somebody that you know and I’ve worked with pretty regularly. And I think that’s—that’s been a really great approach, is we’ve kind of been dividing and conquering on what each of us knows best.
Jennie Nash
Yeah. So you’re so positive about the selling of books. Is there anything in this experience that has been awful or hard or difficult that you’ve had to really work to step up over?
Jessica Cozzi
I wouldn’t say anything’s been awful. I’m an eternal optimist, if you can’t tell. But I think something that surprised me, of being more difficult than I expected, is I thought I would be a lot less nervous as we got closer to pub day. Because, you know, I work on 18 books a year at HarperCollins. Like, I see pub days at, like, pretty much every other week one of my books is on sale at some point. Like, I’m very familiar with that, and I know it’s not scary, and I know what’s going on behind the scenes. And I know when—when I don’t talk to one of my authors for a few weeks, I know, like, I’m still pitching and stuff. Like, I know what’s going on behind the scenes. As we’ve gotten closer to pub day, though, I have been very nervous. I thought I would be very not nervous, because I’ve been around this block so many times. But I think being on the other side, there’s something about it that’s so intimidating. I think before my first podcast interview—which I do media training for my authors before podcast interviews—I know how to conduct an interview. And still, before my first one, I called one of my writer friends, and I was like, I’m having a panic attack. I can’t do this. I’m so nervous. And then, like, it ended up being fine. But I think I was surprised at how nervous I felt, because I thought I really didn’t think I was going to, because I was experienced in publishing. But I think even—even working in publishing doesn’t save you from the nerves of your first book coming out in the world. I’ve learned that now. So that’s been a difficult thing to learn.
Jennie Nash
Yeah, yeah. So for our listeners who are in what I’ll call writer-adjacent fields—so that’s so many of us out there, because it’s hard to grow up and say, I want to be a writer and make my living as a writer. And we all go into PR, or communications, or we’re a librarian or a book reviewer or, you know, whatever the thing is. What would you say to them about approaching that moment where they’re going to step to the other side? Do you have any words of wisdom?
Jessica Cozzi
I think definitely finding writer friends that have been through it has been really helpful. I’m really, really good friends with K. L. Walther, who is a New York Times bestselling romance writer for YA romance. She’s actually moderating my launch event, which I’m very excited about. But so she had published several books before, and I think it was really helpful, because as I was getting things—as I was moving through the publishing process and getting my edit letter, and getting the first pass pages to look at, and getting—doing my first podcast interviews and stuff like that—like, she was one of the people I called. I think having somebody who’s been down the road beforehand that, you know, in a friendly setting, that you can just send a text like, hey, I’m nervous, or, hey, how did this work for you? How did—how did your launch event go? Were there things you would do differently? Like, having somebody you can kind of bounce those questions off of, I think, has eased a lot of the worry. Because, you know, your team can be great and give you a lot of advice, but having someone who actually did it before, I think, has helped me considerably. Like, when I got my edit letter and I was like, oh my god, this is overwhelming. And she was like, well, here’s how I approached it, and here’s tips that helped me with my edits, if that helps you. Like, talking to somebody that did it before, I think, really eased a lot of anxiety.
Jennie Nash
That’s awesome.
KJ Dell’Antonia
Was there a wall for you when it—so, like you said, your publicity team at the publisher does some of the pitching, but you’ve done some of the pitching. You pitched us. And when you pitch a book you did not write, you are free to heave all the laudatory comment and talk about how much you love it. Was it hard to do that for your own book?
Jessica Cozzi
I think it was. I think for me—I know I wrote a good book. I’m proud of the book I’ve written. But I think there’s always that, like, level of imposter syndrome. Like, I’m listening to the audiobook of my book right now, and Shannon Tyo—she did an excellent job. Like, it’s nothing against her. But I’m reading it, I’m reading it, and I’m like, oh my god, is this book bad? Like, is it just like—but then it’s like I have to remind myself, and I talk to my writer friends who tell me that is very normal. Like, I’ve read this book probably 50 times. You’re tired of hearing it, yeah. So, like, I think that kind of ties back to what I was saying of, like, it’s helpful to have somebody who’s been through it. Because then when I text my friends and I say, oh my god, like, I feel like a sham. I don’t know how I got a book deal. Like, this book is terrible. And they’re like, you’re just feeling that because you’ve read the book 50 times, and everybody feels that way. That’s totally normal. So that was kind of, like the wall I—when I did pass pages for the first time, I felt the same way. I was like, oh my god, this book is so boring. And they’re like, no, it’s boring because you know exactly what happens already. You—you created it. Like, but then when I see reviewers reading it and tagging me in posts like they’re so excited and they really, really loved it, it makes me realize that maybe, like, that is just imposter syndrome, and it comes for everybody, no matter—no matter who you are. I think everybody starts to doubt themselves a little bit as it gets closer.
KJ Dell’Antonia
But we all have to jump over that in order to ask our friends to share it. And in your case, to ask podcasts to have you on. We have to put that aside. So absolutely. Just wondering if you have anything useful to say to all of us who are also doing that, about just like going, okay, just know all those feelings are here. Here’s a box. We’re putting them in here, and we’re pitching. How did you do that?
Jessica Cozzi
I tried my best to compartmentalize, which I know is, like, so much easier said than done. But I will give myself, like, okay, you have one day—one day—to sulk about this and think it’s terrible. And then tomorrow you’re going to wake up, and whether or not you believe it, you’re going to tell everybody it’s the best damn book in the world and they need to read it. So even, like, the fake it—honestly, like, the fake-it-till-you-make-it approach, like, I know that that is cliché and people say that a lot, but it is true. Like, I will say, like, all right, I don’t care. I might not think this book is great right now, but I’m going to pitch it like I think it’s the best thing since sliced bread, because that’s what people pick up on in your pitches. Is that they can tell when you’re excited about a book, whether it’s yours or somebody else’s that I’m pitching. People respond to that. They can tell when—when you’re going to somebody and saying, this is something exciting that you don’t want to miss out on. So if I have to just, like, paste on a smile and make myself say it, eventually you do start to believe it.
Jennie Nash
I love that so much, and I think—I think it’s a great place for us to end this Write Big session. Thank you for joining us, Jessica, and letting us see behind the scenes. And until next—for our listeners, until next time, stop playing small and write like it matters.
Narrator
The Hashtag AmWriting Podcast is produced by Andrew Perrella. Our intro music, aptly titled Unemployed Monday, was written and played by Max Cohen. Andrew and Max were paid for their time and their creative output, because everyone deserves to be paid for their work.
