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Genre Disrespect—It's Just a Cozy Mystery · Reality Writes

• 0:05
  SPEAKER_00: Hey, hey, hey, and welcome to another episode of Reality Rights.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_00: I am author Ellie Alexander and I'm here with Let's Check Down Eye.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_02: Hello, how's it going today?
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_00: Pretty good.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_00: How are you?
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_02: Doing all right.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_02: Doing all right.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_00: Just all right.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 0:21
  unknown: Yeah.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_02: Got a run in.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_02: Feeling good vibes.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_02: It's good.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_02: Sunny.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_02: It's not too hot, not too cold.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_00: Check, check, check.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_00: Uh well, this is the podcast where we talk about all things writing and pull back the curtain a little bit.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_00: And today we're gonna tackle a pretty important subject, and that is this idea that it's just a cozy.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_00: Like what an utterly dismissive thing to say about an entire genre of books.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, there's a lot of dismiss dismissive stuff going around these days, isn't there?
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_00: There really is.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_00: And I think it's an important topic to discuss because um a lot of readers, obviously, a lot of our darlings are cozy fans.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_00: I myself clearly am a cozy fan.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_02: Some of them are cozy writers, too.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_00: Some of them are cozy writers, exactly.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_00: And um, we have to stop belittling any kind of reading.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_00: Like the stats on reading are just so troubling.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_00: Every year, fewer and fewer and fewer people are picking up books.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_00: So there's just this whole level of like reading shaming that's going on, which I'm not here for.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's uh I mean, I think I've made my my feelings clear on uh what people can do with their opinions on this uh podcast before.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_02: Um you know, read what you want to read.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_02: Uh what you want to read.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_02: And and you know what?
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_02: Anybody who wants to tell others that what they're reading isn't good enough, isn't it you know, whatever.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_02: It just like yeah.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_02: I well, I'll save I'll save my real feelings for the after party.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, okay.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_02: So I don't so that that way I don't have to flag the yes, this podcast episode includes explicit content box on uh Spotify.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_00: So this is the we're getting the PG version here.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_02: This is these episodes are always tech guy PG, uh, for those of you listening.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_02: Um if you want to hear the real uh the real thoughts, you gotta you gotta join the Patreon and listen to the after party.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_00: It all comes out in the after party.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_00: Um okay, but I want to I want to share a few statistics because um these are new statistics that came out for 2024 on um a survey that went throughout the US asking about reading habits.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_00: And um over half of the respondents haven't read any books, have not read a single book in over a year.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_00: 48.5% of respondents said that they had not read a single book in a year.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_00: Um, which I just think is devastating, obviously, right?
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_00: So one of the problems that I have with this idea of the cozy getting written off as uh, let's say fluffy.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, me and my friend Ellery Adams did a whole um little fun Instagram reel about like you can call the cozy a lot of things, but for the love of God, do not call it fluffy or just write it off like, oh, it's just a cozy.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_00: So I think for starters, we should go back and talk about what makes a mystery a cozy.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I think that that'd be a good place to start because I think a lot of people um have misconceptions about it.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_02: Uh and I think a lot of people would be surprised, uh, not only book genres, I mean books that are in the genre, but um also TV shows that fall in the say the cozy mystery genre as well.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so you know, if I'm gonna take the breadth of the category of mysteries as a genre, you have everything from like true crime, dark, noir, um, all the way on the dark end of the spectrum to the lighter side, which would be a cozy.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_00: But they all mysteries have the same key elements that are involved: a certain number of suspects, a body, a victim, a detective, an amateur sleuth, somebody who's gonna solve the crime and put it all together.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_00: So that's the like big umbrella version of mystery.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_00: But then these subcategories within mystery fall into, you know, tighter reading groups, perhaps.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_00: Like a lot of readers who enjoy the cozy are unlikely, not always, um, but unlikely to love something that is like super dark, true crime, like full CSI.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and there's a market for those too.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_02: I happen to enjoy those a lot, but I love the cozy.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_00: I threw that out for you.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I know.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, all all the all the CSI flavors, too.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_02: Um CSI, CSI New York, CSI Miami, CSI Vegas, yeah, all of them.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_00: And what you love about that is that those shows follow a formula.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, totally, totally.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, every single episode is it's the same formula.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_02: Every single episode, just different subcharacters, you know, different crimes, different victims, but every single episode is the same formula.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_00: It's the same formula, and you know at the end that um the perpetrator is gonna be caught and justice is gonna be served, and all is right with the world, and you move on to the next episode.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_02: The difference in um the like the CSI world from the cozy world is main characters die.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_02: Like it is it's it's there's a lot more violence, um, and main characters die, which uh doesn't often happen in cozy's.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know if it, I mean, maybe it does.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_02: I don't think it I don't it hasn't happened in your cozy's anyway.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_00: It has not happened in mine, although you never know.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_00: You know, Richard Lord could Yeah, wow.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_00: Um yeah, so the cozy is more about uh the focus on the puzzle on solving the crime.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_00: It is about the sleuth taking all the clues, piecing them together, going and talking to suspects.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and the actual crime tends to take place off the off screen, basically is what we say.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_00: So there's not so much focus in terms of the body and all of the crime scene piece of things, and it's more about the puzzle of the mystery.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_02: But that well, that I mean, there's not as much of a focus on that, the the actual crime itself piece, because um a pastry chef isn't going to be collecting evidence in evidence bags with tweezers and you know, latex gloves and um all of that, right?
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_00: She probably she does have tweezers to adhere like sprinkles to the top of the cake.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_02: So totally, totally she's not running, she's not running DNA analysis uh next to the muffins that are baking uh in the kitchen, right?
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
• 7:02
  unknown: Right.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_00: And that's another difference with the cozy.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_00: There's also uh a bigger focus on sort of the the sense of community.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe sometimes you will weave in a hobby or another layer for readers, so to speak, um, which is one of the reasons I think that it gets written off.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_00: And what I mean by written off is globally, if we kind of break this down in terms of publishing, which is one of the reasons that I think it's important for writers of the genre and also readers of the genre to kind of take back some ownership and power over it and not let it be so dismissive.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_00: But one of the ways that this shows up is that uh many bookstores won't carry cozies.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that's weird.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_02: That's weird, especially, especially in destination towns, like anything like um, well, even Ashland, uh, but you know, beach towns, what you know, any anywhere tourists are coming, I feel like the cozies, the romance, um, those, those genres of books are the books that people want for an escape uh when they're you know, when they're on vacation, when they're having fun, when they're relaxing, right?
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and I think uh calling it escapism is great.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_00: That's one thing that I actually hope readers are taking away from my books, that if you're picking one up, you have this moment of just getting to go in this beautiful, joyful, sweet little world of Ashland, Oregon, and um eat these delicious treats and then of course stumble upon a murder, right?
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_00: So um I don't think that it needs to be uh taken to the level of like pretending, or not pretending, but like expounding that cozy are like literary fiction, let's say, right?
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_00: That's in a category all of its own.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_00: But within the mystery genre, they get the least amount of attention.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, they get the least amount of investment from publishing houses.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_00: And then um, on a sort of a broader scale, they also just get ridden off because they tend to be read and written by women.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_02: Ooh, now we're now things are gonna get heated.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_02: Um yeah, I well, okay.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_02: So I have a question about that because the the what I what I've noticed.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_02: Well, first of all, I know that there are some cozyes, um, some very successful cozy series who look like they're written by women, but they're really written by men using a woman's name as a pen name.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but there are also cozy's out there written by men, and those books aren't in like the mass market format.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_02: They are in the trade paperback format all the time.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_02: Like they've never been in the mass market format.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_02: Why is that?
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_02: Like, why is is that the patriarchy?
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_02: Are we gonna that is yes, we don't, we we can't afford the the licensing for Taylor Swift, but I know we'd be playing that right now, right?
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, yeah, no, I mean there's still uh there's still a major wage and gender gaps.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_00: Women in publishing make 80 cents to the dollar what men make today in 2024.
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_00: The way that I know it's ridiculous.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_00: Um, the way that cozies are promoted oftentimes, even by publishers, is that same kind of like, oh, they're fluff.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_00: And so, you know, this is part of kind of like our broader mid list that we're gonna push, but we're not gonna spend a whole lot of time putting much attention to it.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_00: And then even within the house, an author like me, let's say, that has been in the business for 12 plus years now, it's always like, well, we should try to find a way to break you out of the cozy.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_00: Like, let's get you out of the cozy.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_00: Like, well, wait a minute.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_00: Um, why don't we spend more attention on promoting the cozy?
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_00: And to your point, there are a number of books within the last year or two that have hit big that are fantastic, um, that have been written by men that would be what you think of as a cozy.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_00: They hit all of those notes that we've talked about, right?
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_00: And they are marketed differently.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_00: The covers are different, they're in trade paperback.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_00: Um, their marketing budget is ginormous.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and I think that's just such a holdover in terms of there being this kind of stigma and shame about reading that primarily falls to women.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_00: And that would the two key categories there would be the cozy and romance.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so uh okay, so I mean that's a bunch of crap uh that it happens that way, but um uh that's as that's as far as I can go on the the uh cursing scale.
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_00: Is that acceptable?
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_02: Um but um it so uh the uh because I don't I mean uh I know this will shock a lot of people, but I don't read a lot of cozy mysteries.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_02: Um I I've read uh like your books, and I'm an early reader of your books and everything, but I tend to read more uh science fiction and fantasy, which can get lumped into the same thing in terms of not being you know as serious uh when it comes to people who are literary fiction readers.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_02: Um, you know, I uh but for the what was it called?
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_02: The Thursday Murder Book Club?
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_02: Is that the title of that?
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_02: Uh Richard something Osman, yeah.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_02: So I've had I yeah, I've had uh I had a coworker tell me, Oh, you should like your wife writes cozies, it's great, you would love this book.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_02: Um, it's awesome.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_02: But my question is so obviously we just talked about how men writing in the same genre, their books are different, their co their covers are different.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_02: I'll get into the covers in a minute, but but I want to know, is the audience supposed to be the same?
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_02: Like, is the Thursday Murder Book Club audience the same as like the Bake Shop Mysteries or Ellery's books or it, you know, it um Joanne Fluke's series?
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_02: Like, are are they going after the same?
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_02: Like, there's not like a I don't know, I'm gonna get hate for this.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_02: There's not like a men's cozy mystery genre, is there?
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_02: I'm just I'm asking for a friend.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_00: No, you know, you know, this is gonna fire me up.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_00: Uh there's not even a men's fiction category.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_00: I don't, I don't skills of this day inflames me.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_00: There's women's fiction, but women are reading on par like double what men are reading, too, which is so ridiculous.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and one side at end, even your your style of reading, like fantasy or and we're not throwing like I've I loved the Thursday Murder Club.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, I'm picking it for the October book, but my my beef is in general with publishing, how there's such a disparity in terms of the way that these books get presented and marketed to readers.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_00: But um, same kind of thing.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_00: Like if you're reading something that's just like sci-fi and fast and fun, that's the same thing as a cozy, right?
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_00: Just in a different genre.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but you don't get the same sort of um pushback, let's say, because it's just fiction then.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_00: It's not men's fiction, right?
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_00: It's just fiction.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_02: Well, and there's yeah, there are, I don't know, big, big awards for sci-fi books and everything too that uh and I know there are awards for cozy mysteries and stuff as well, but um they are uh not as well known uh across the you know publishing industry, I guess.
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_00: But to your point, like what what the publishing houses will do with um, you know, let's say a title like the Thursday Murder Club is yeah, the audiences are the same.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_00: And then that's the whole like, oh, let's break out, let's just make it a mystery.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_00: Like that's gonna be called a mystery.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_00: It's not gonna be in the cozy section.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and so then hopefully the readership of that gets, I don't know, tripled, doubled 10 times over because their marketing budgets are going after a much broader base.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_00: Um and I think the writing is on the wall for the mass market too, which is what cozy's have predominantly been in in terms of a size.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_00: If darlings aren't familiar, mass markets are they're called that because traditionally you could find them at grocery stores, at Target, at bookstores.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_00: Um, they're small, they're like made to tuck in a bag or you know, your backpack as you're running errands and waiting at the dentist or whatever it is.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_02: And they're sold at at a like variety of store types.
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_02: So everything from bookstores to Costco, you know, that's like and grocery stores like in the checkout aisle sometimes, even and they're just small so they can fit all these spaces.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_02: Airports.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and that space is dwindling.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, I have a lot of friends who in the last year or two have had series completely canceled, and it's because uh, you know, their books are going into maybe hardcover or trade paperback, and um it's a different price point.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_00: It's um it's a much harder sell, there's not shelf space.
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_00: But what that's doing then is it's it's inching out such a big part of the population, too.
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_02: Well, and and they they didn't experiment with like trying to come up with that size that was in between mass market and trade.
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_02: What they call max max market, max market, yeah.
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_02: A couple of the big shop books are that size, right?
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, two of them.
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_00: Uh-huh.
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, the two taller ones on the shelf behind you.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know if you can see them.
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, pick them out, pick them out in the lineup.
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_02: Oh it's painful.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_00: And um, then I just think it's for readers, if you're reading something that's cozy on the beach or on the plane or whatever, you shouldn't be in a position where it's like, oh you're just reading a cozy, oh, you're just reading something fluffy.
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_00: Uh because reading is an escape.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_00: Reading is uh an important piece of self-care these days.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_00: And to have any sort of stigma around it is just absolutely ridiculous.
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_02: Well, and reading, like there's scientific proof, and I know I'm I'm hoping all the darlings out there believe in science.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_02: I know there are people who don't, which is ridiculous, but there's scientific proof that reading is actually good for your brain.
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_02: Um it's like you you can learn new words.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_02: Um uh yeah, it's it it's it stimulates all the the little gray cells, as a famous cozy mystery detective would tell you.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_00: It stimulates all the little gray cells, it is good for your mental health, it brings down your blood pressure.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, the the statistics go on and on and on.
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_00: It's incredible for your own creativity if you want to write.
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_00: The number one thing you can do is read, uh, which is the first piece of advice I always give writers in my author academy.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, go read.
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_00: Like go to the bookstore and peruse the cozy section and be like, yes, my book is gonna be like this and like this and like this.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_02: That one, that one's always uh that that always surprises me.
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_02: Or it surprises me that people are surprised by that.
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_02: That that if you want to be a good writer, you should you should be a good reader.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_02: Um seem seems like it would be something that'd be obvious, but I know it is a like it's a big lesson for people to learn when they're starting out in the writing world.
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_00: It is a big lesson, yeah.
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, but so we also you don't read cozy so much, but we watch a lot of cozy's.
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_02: We watch a ton, yeah.
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_00: We watch a ton of cozy, all of which, same thing, follow this formula.
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, yeah.
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_00: Um, they have the same recurring cast of characters, there are always secondary plots, you get to know the entire cast, you're in the village.
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_00: I'm thinking of like Death in Paradise.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_02: Beyond Paradise, the speed beyond Paradise.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_00: Midsummer Murders.
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, could I I will say this that the entire reason that uh streaming services and TV stations like uh Brit box and acorn TV exist is because of the cozy mystery genre.
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely, right?
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it just wouldn't it would not exist if it wasn't for and the these series run forever too.
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, it is like if you if you like um the cozy mystery genre and you you like to take a break from reading and watch some shows or even film or TV app adaptations of your favorite cozy mystery series, like you there are thousands of episodes out there of of all these series, you know.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, you've got you've got priests as detective, you've got bruns as detective, you've got, you know, you've got retired detectives who are now like private detectives, you've got, you know, and and even even the people who are uh like actual detectives, they always get help from people who uh have nothing to do with law enforcement.
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, not a thing, but they help solve the crimes.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_02: So it's uh it's a community effort bringing the the bad people to justice.
• 20:17
  SPEAKER_00: It's a community effort and it's a comfort show, it's easy watching, right?
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_00: Um, which is the same thing.
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_00: I would also argue to your point that the reason you know cozies do so well in streaming services, they also do really well in the independent bookstores.
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_00: I'm thinking about um vintage books in Vancouver, Washington, where I got my start.
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_00: We did a whole bookstore love episode a while back.
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_00: So if you want to listen in, darlings, go back and listen to that.
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_00: But um they had, I don't know if they still do, but when I was first starting out, they had a customer who would come in once a week and buy a stack of whatever new cozies had come out for his wife because she wasn't able to uh leave the house due to medical issues.
• 20:57
  SPEAKER_00: Every week he would come in and buy a new stack because she would read through them in a week.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_00: And I mean, talk about like a loyal customer supporting all of the genre.
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_00: That that happens too.
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, yeah, yeah.
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I don't know if you remember, but uh back uh when I was working in advertising, I uh had to go to Houston.
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_02: And so I went to Murder by the Book, which for for the darlings out there that don't know is just an absolutely amazing uh mystery bookshop in Houston, Texas.
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_02: Um very, very cool.
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_02: They get really big name authors like Ellie Alexander uh to visit sometimes.
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_02: But but before before you got you even got started, I remember I was dropping off.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_02: I I was going to Houston and you said, Hey, can you you take an arc out to Murder by the Book?
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_02: And it was like on the complete other side of that.
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_02: It was like an$80 Uber ride, but um, but I I went out there and I I was nervous because we were just getting started.
• 21:59
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, This was your first book.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_02: And so, like going in there to um hand this over, uh, I was just like, Oh, wow, this um, you know, what are they gonna say?
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_02: And they're like, Oh, yeah, this is great.
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_02: We'll we'll take we'll take a look, and oh, that's so great that you're getting into it and everything.
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_02: While I was there, a a woman, probably in her late 70s, early 80s, barely five feet tall, like walks walks by, and she has a stack of like 14 books, and she sets them down and they greeted her.
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, hey, Martha, you're you know, back for a new round.
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_02: And oh, this one's great, and oh that, oh yeah, oh, you found this series, this is great.
• 22:41
  SPEAKER_02: And she and they're like, Okay, here you go.
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_02: They bagged them up for her and everything, and she was she just looks so excited.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_02: She's heading out, and they're like, Okay, we'll see you in a couple weeks.
• 22:49
  SPEAKER_02: And she's like, Oh, I'll be back in a couple days, these will last till Thursday.
• 22:53
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I'm like, What?
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_02: You know, like she's just gonna blow through 14 books or whatever in like four days.
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_02: It was all I I was impressed.
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_02: Um, because I don't care, like, I don't care what you think of the cozy mystery genre.
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_02: If you're reading that many books in a week, like tip of the hat, right?
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_02: That's that is that is a lot of reading.
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_02: Um, that's impressive.
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_00: And I I find that, you know, I hear that from readers all the time.
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_00: I think I'm writing at a pretty fast pace these days, and I will hear at least once or twice a week from a reader being like, I need more soon.
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_00: I've already finished, I've read everything you have.
• 23:25
  SPEAKER_02: I'm drawing, I'm trying to I know, yeah, yeah.
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_02: I've I've it's been so funny to see comments from readers who are like, six months until the next book, you know, because these are people who get the book and they read it on release day.
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm just like, whoa.
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_02: Oh yeah.
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and that's real well, that's one of the ways that I got my start.
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, obviously, I've been reading cozy for decades, thanks to my mom and grandma getting me started on them as a kid.
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_00: But um, you and Sky Guy, every birthday, every Christmas holiday special occasion, you'd go through.
• 23:58
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_00: And like he would say, like, oh no, she's read that one, dad, get that one.
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_02: I needed his help because there were, I mean, that like that, and you, you know, to your earlier point, the mass market uh space is dwindling even at like, you know, bigger stores like Barnes and Noble.
• 24:16
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but uh he would always remember, like, no, I remember that dog, or I remember that cat on the cover.
• 24:23
  SPEAKER_02: I was just like, that's how he that's how he figured out um which ones you hadn't hadn't read.
• 24:28
  SPEAKER_02: Um actually that brings up a good another question.
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_02: Um, for any of the men out there writing in this genre, do any of it did any of their covers have uh animals on them?
• 24:38
  SPEAKER_02: I I I don't I or is that exclusive to uh to the the women because the reason I ask is because you you brought that up about the the covers being different, and it is really like the cozy mysteries, it they've gotten better, but it they're you know, maybe over the last 10 years, it they look like books that were marketed at a very specific demographic.
• 25:05
  SPEAKER_02: Um and and so with the with the few examples of men's books that we brought up, their covers do look dramatically different from like the standard, I'm using air quotes here, standard cozy mystery covers, but I don't I don't think I've seen animals on any of them.
• 25:22
  SPEAKER_00: I know I can't think off the cuff of anything that's coming to mind, but probably not.
• 25:27
  SPEAKER_00: Um which, you know, just speaks to that point too.
• 25:32
  SPEAKER_00: One thing talking about bookstores early on, and this is something that I have become so self-aware of and I fix anytime, but I early on in my career, and even up until the last few years, if I went into a bookstore, I would often find myself being sheepish too, or being like, oh, I write a cozy, it's just it's just a cozy, like no, I I wrote these, like I love this genre.
• 25:59
  SPEAKER_00: And I so I think that's one of the reasons that I'm passionate about this topic and wanting readers to feel the same way.
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_00: Because I remember I went into a bookstore in San Francisco when we first moved down here.
• 26:11
  SPEAKER_00: So this was only a few years ago, and I did the same kind of thing, and the bookstore owner stopped me and he's like, What are you saying?
• 26:18
  SPEAKER_00: Like, you have a series with 19 books, like this is fantastic.
• 26:22
  SPEAKER_00: This, I mean, he was amazing, he was incredible, but like, no, stop dissing on your own genre.
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_00: Like, even the fact that you're being sort of sheepish about this idea of like, oh, you know, I don't know, like it's a cozy.
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I think speaks to the pervasiveness within the genre that tends to happen.
• 26:42
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, it is, it it definitely well, and it's like that with uh a couple of the uh because I know I've I I've heard you talk about this before, but some of the um the bigger like mystery conferences, right?
• 26:55
  SPEAKER_02: The reader and writer conferences where it's like, oh, you know, cozy just gets kind of pushed over here in the corner, and yeah, that's too bad.
• 27:04
  SPEAKER_02: Um because we're changing that here.
• 27:07
  SPEAKER_00: We are we're taking the cozy back.
• 27:10
  SPEAKER_00: I'm stomping my foot, darling.
• 27:11
  SPEAKER_00: We're taking ownership of it back.
• 27:13
  SPEAKER_00: Ellery and I have been on a mission for the last couple of years to like take away this myth, too.
• 27:19
  SPEAKER_00: And the thing is, like, even with mass markets, of course, the the way people read has shifted too.
• 27:26
  SPEAKER_00: So many um readers are reading online.
• 27:29
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, ebooks outnumber paperback by and audiobooks.
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_02: Audiobooks too.
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's taken a big, big increase over the past couple of years.
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah.
• 27:39
  SPEAKER_00: So I mean, um, I think I think the shift is going to continue.
• 27:43
  SPEAKER_00: I think things come in trends and waves in publishing too.
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_00: But my takeaway for darlings who love this genre is like, make sure, and this is not this isn't about me.
• 27:53
  SPEAKER_00: This is about like any cozy author that you love, especially if it's an author who is newer in their career and they're trying and starting to build a series, because the publishing house doesn't always give an author that long.
• 28:04
  SPEAKER_00: It might be two or three books.
• 28:06
  SPEAKER_00: And if if they're not hitting right away, then um, you know, that series might get canceled.
• 28:11
  SPEAKER_00: So I want the darlings out there, if you're loving a cozy, to do all of the things that we talked about in a previous episode in terms of how you can support writers who you love.
• 28:23
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, no, that that's that's a great point.
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_02: Um, because they it's all it's all driven by money on the publishing end.
• 28:32
  SPEAKER_02: And so even if uh series has a like loyal following, if that following is not big enough and people aren't buying enough books, they're just not gonna continue it.
• 28:42
  SPEAKER_02: Um thankfully, the uh indie publishing is yeah really strong now.
• 28:51
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it is really strong, and so a lot, I mean, Sloan Krause is a perfect example, the Sloan Krauss mysteries, right?
• 28:57
  SPEAKER_02: Um, where you know the publisher decided, okay, we're gonna end it with five books.
• 29:01
  SPEAKER_02: They were all hardcovers um for whatever reason.
• 29:06
  SPEAKER_02: Um they were all hardcovers, and um and then you were like, no, I want to keep writing this, and and we've kind of continued that on, and and people have been ecstatic about that.
• 29:18
  SPEAKER_02: So that that's been great.
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_02: Uh the to see that how far indie publishing has come that allows authors, you know, that's an option to keep a series going, but absolutely it's even with that, it still requires readers to like support the cozy.
• 29:35
  SPEAKER_00: Love the cozy, spread the cozy love.
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_00: That's what we're doing here all the time.
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_00: Well, um, and Sloan's also a great example of early on.
• 29:41
  SPEAKER_00: I had I had written a pitch for that like four or five years earlier that I sent to my agent, and my agent was like, eh, beer in a cozy.
• 29:48
  SPEAKER_00: That's yeah, that's oh no.
• 29:49
  SPEAKER_02: Well, that was like crossing the line, crossing the line, crossing the line.
• 29:54
  SPEAKER_00: No one's gonna want to read about beer.
• 29:55
  SPEAKER_00: That's just like again, like boxing in this idea of what can be cozy.
• 30:00
  SPEAKER_00: So I was like, all right, and kind of tabled it.
• 30:03
  SPEAKER_00: And then lo and behold, four or five years later, my editor was like, Hey, I want, I want to do something else with you.
• 30:09
  SPEAKER_00: Have you thought of any other ideas?
• 30:11
  SPEAKER_00: Of like, well, I've been sitting on this for a long time.
• 30:13
  SPEAKER_00: It so happened that my editor is also a huge fan of craft beer and was immediately like, yes, yes, I want to do this.
• 30:20
  SPEAKER_00: Um yeah, but um, and what I what I think is exciting, and this this has um sort of been led by indie publishing, is there are there's kind of this like in-between that's happening.
• 30:31
  SPEAKER_00: Like there's the great series um Legends and Lattes that's blending like fantasy and cozy.
• 30:38
  SPEAKER_00: Gigi has an amazing.
• 30:40
  SPEAKER_02: I've thought about picking that one up, actually.
• 30:41
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, do you I yeah, you should.
• 30:43
  SPEAKER_00: Gigi has an amazing uh secret uh staircase series that are like locked room mysteries with this touch of cozy.
• 30:51
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, so I think there's a lot of cool, fresh stuff that's happening in the market.
• 30:56
  SPEAKER_00: And then the other thing that I adore is that there's this new generation of book influencers who have completely highlighted the cozy in so many new ways.
• 31:06
  SPEAKER_00: I'm thinking about Cortagonist, Beach Bum Bookworm, intentionally bookish.
• 31:11
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, they're gonna do a um a panel together at Ashley and Mystery Fest to talk about um their love with the cozy and um how they feel like the market is shifting, which is so cool.
• 31:23
  SPEAKER_02: That's awesome.
• 31:24
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I think that that's a really important point, though.
• 31:26
  SPEAKER_02: That um I think I think one of the one of the reasons, and this was not the fault of the authors or the readers or anybody, it was the publishing industry, the the man.
• 31:37
  SPEAKER_02: The man someone who kind of pigeon like they they kind of like uh cozy mystery got like it was your grandma's book, right?
• 31:46
  SPEAKER_02: Right now, that it was it was about like rhubarb pies and uh knitting, uh you know, and somebody that there's nothing wrong with either of it, no, there no totally, totally.
• 31:57
  SPEAKER_02: There's not, but what I'm saying is that that is the only thing that that that's what Cozy Mystery kind of got, you know, I think kind of got a reputation for.
• 32:09
  SPEAKER_02: Um right.
• 32:10
  SPEAKER_02: See, I see how I'm weaving Taylor Swift back into the story.
• 32:14
  SPEAKER_00: Um you know something about special announcement that's an album dropping.
• 32:18
  SPEAKER_02: I um it no, but I I think and I think that it unfairly got got stuck with that.
• 32:26
  SPEAKER_02: So, you know, going back to well, you can't do anything with beer in the cozy mysteries genre.
• 32:31
  SPEAKER_02: And it's like, why not?
• 32:33
  SPEAKER_02: You know, like why can't why can't cozy mysteries be about any subject?
• 32:37
  SPEAKER_02: It doesn't have to be about these, and again, I'm not saying there's anything wrong with those things, I'm just saying that maybe those things don't resonate as much with today's reader of Cozy Mysteries, like the the newer, younger audience as they did with the original reader audience of Cozy Mysteries.
• 32:56
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, there's it's been fun to see all the different subjects that have come up.
• 33:02
  SPEAKER_02: Um, the number of uh of uh professions that the um the amateur sleuths have is is just been it's been just wildly expanded over the last 10 years.
• 33:15
  SPEAKER_00: Which is what's so exciting, and another reason that you know instead of having this like, oh, it's just a cozy or oh it's so fluffy, like yeah, it is.
• 33:22
  SPEAKER_00: Let's go.
• 33:23
  SPEAKER_00: It's a cozy.
• 33:24
  SPEAKER_00: Like that's uh that's my that's my soapbox for the week.
• 33:31
  SPEAKER_02: So, what can readers do to uh help um uh kind of champion the cozy?
• 33:38
  SPEAKER_02: What can the darlings do?
• 33:40
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, darlings like me.
• 33:42
  SPEAKER_00: Uh let's stop making excuses.
• 33:44
  SPEAKER_00: Like, let's just fully embrace the we love cozies.
• 33:47
  SPEAKER_00: Um I think we need shirts, tech guy.
• 33:49
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know what they're gonna be, but like for the love of the cozy or something.
• 33:53
  SPEAKER_02: It'd be really cool shirts.
• 33:54
  SPEAKER_02: Like right now, I'm wearing a shirt with uh nar whales on it, and their their horns are lightsabers because it's it's narwars.
• 34:02
  SPEAKER_02: Um it tells you the kind of books I read, and I I I honestly don't care what anybody thinks about what I read.
• 34:08
  SPEAKER_02: I love what I read, and so yeah, I think I think we like you should be like intensely proud of you know what what you're into reading and just the fact that you are reading and don't let anybody tell you otherwise.
• 34:23
  SPEAKER_00: Um exactly.
• 34:24
  SPEAKER_02: I have other words, like other names for the people who tell you that uh this genre of books you're reading isn't good enough, but uh I can't use those here.
• 34:34
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, and then um, you know, like I like I said before, we we did just recently do a whole episode of ways that you can support your favorite author.
• 34:43
  SPEAKER_00: So a quick recap of that might be like sharing about their books, requesting them at the library, leaving a review.
• 34:51
  SPEAKER_00: That's just that's a that's a quick little like few.
• 34:54
  SPEAKER_00: But um really I think the main point that I want to drive home today for myself and for all of the darlings is that um the cozy can be whatever you want it to be, and you should be loud and proud that you love it.
• 35:07
  SPEAKER_02: Definitely, yeah.
• 35:09
  SPEAKER_02: Um uh there are just there are so many options out there, so many authors.
• 35:15
  SPEAKER_02: Like I've always been uh I the thing that I've been impressed the most about the cozy mystery genre is just the number of series that are available.
• 35:23
  SPEAKER_02: So, you know what?
• 35:24
  SPEAKER_02: If you love this genre, there are more books than you'll be able to read in your lifetime.
• 35:29
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, there just are.
• 35:30
  SPEAKER_02: Like it is, it is incredible how prolific uh this genre is.
• 35:36
  SPEAKER_02: And that's super fun.
• 35:37
  SPEAKER_02: Um uh there are there are many long-running series, and like we said earlier, just a the gamut of subjects is just incredible.
• 35:46
  SPEAKER_00: That's right.
• 35:47
  SPEAKER_00: So as we wrap up another episode of Reality Rights, darlings, this is your excuse to uh run over to your closest bookstore or your library and go grab yourself a stack of cozy.
• 36:00
  SPEAKER_02: Wait, is there a is there a cozy series that involves like a a like a techish guy that is it is the salute that ends up solving like mysteries?
• 36:11
  SPEAKER_00: Are we just are we coming up with a new series right now?
• 36:13
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, so I actually think I thought of one.
• 36:15
  SPEAKER_01: Um we'll have to talk about it later.
• 36:18
  SPEAKER_00: Ooh, okay, all right.
• 36:20
  SPEAKER_00: Loving it.
• 36:22
  SPEAKER_00: All right, well on that note, until next time.
• 36:25
  SPEAKER_02: Until next time, maybe we'll talk about uh new ideas.
• 36:30
  SPEAKER_02: All right.