Here for the Vibes: Why the Soundtrack to Your Book Could Make All the Difference

I am a self-proclaimed “vibes girlie.” I can tell you the vibes of a story better than I can explain the comp titles. I can tell you the feeling a book gives me more easily than I can tell you a synthesized version of a story an author took years to write.

(20 Best Songs for Writers and About Writing.)

I can also tell you the songs I connected to while I was reading.

One of the first books I ever offered on was entitled Soulgazer. The author, Maggie Rapier, sent me the playlist as an afterthought. Yet it was through that playlist that I found myself falling into the story. It wasn’t just that the characters came alive through her writing—there was a soundtrack that blended seamlessly to the pages.

When I sent that manuscript out on submission, I sent it with that same playlist, and the book subsequently sold in two weeks. The editor couldn’t stop listening. There is power in the premise, but there’s an untold power in the music too. I rarely send submissions without them now.

That is not to say that this is the norm for everyone—I’ve certainly sold books without playlists before! What it does show us though, is that the notes, cadence, and audio connect characters on a cellular level who wouldn’t otherwise feel as if they were from the same world. It’s transcendent.

Take the Academy Award-winning movie Sinners for example. In that film there were many people from different races, religions, backgrounds and even other beings (depending on how we categorize vampires). However, despite the countless differences between the onscreen characters, what connected them all—or what brought them all together—was the music beneath the juke joint’s roof. It was the constant which grounded them all in the same universe.

Music breaks down barriers we didn’t even necessarily know we had. The playlists I receive with submissions allow me to connect to the mind of the author far beyond the pages and become a part of the process in a way I might never have imagined. I get a glimpse into a writer’s inner motivations through music because it is one of the constants which continues to link us through culture and time.

So of course, I request playlists when I take submissions. Nine times out of ten it will turn off the buzz in my otherwise very busy, ADHD brain, and allow me to become a part of the story.

Now you’re probably thinking, well that’s a weird one, why does a playlist even matter if I want to find representation? Like all art, the story is subjective. One person may love a story while another can’t see a vision for it. The thing about music though, is that we don’t have to have context. We don’t need a synopsis. We just need to feel—and that feeling might push an otherwise forgettable story into a new realm.

Writing a story with a specific agent in mind or with a market trend in your back pocket is easy enough to do, but my philosophy for this work is that you should write what sets your soul on fire. A playlist shows me that you were so fired up and passionate about how immersive your story could be that you curated an entire narrative using songs to match the vibes. That type of detail and intentionality might seem small, but sometimes it can be the difference between an agent passing versus requesting because they see the whole vision for the concept you created.

Maybe you imagined a specific lyric when writing dialogue, a swell when your character set out on a journey, a beat when danger is near, or a soundtrack for characters to fall in love to. Whatever the reason, you want to make sure whoever you’re querying is right for you and your vision—and a well-matched playlist might just be the perfect way to do that.