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SMNTY Interviews: Genevieve Nierman · Stuff Mom Never Told You

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Hey, this is Annie.
• 0:06
  Speaker 2: And Smitha.
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: And welcome to Stuff Mom Never Told You, a production
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: of iHeartRadio. And welcome to our guest, Genevieve Nierman, editor, writer,
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: and interviewer, and senior books content manager at PIX Media,
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: who is behind things like Book PIX and Worth the Read.
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: Thank you so much for being with us, Genevieve. We're
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: so excited.
• 0:35
  Speaker 2: Thank you.
• 0:35
  Speaker 3: Thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited too. Yes.
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: I think this is going to be a really fun conversation.
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: Can you introduce yourself to our audience, please?
• 0:44
  Speaker 3: Yeah. So hi, I'm Genevieve.
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  Speaker 4: As you said, I'm the Senior Content Manager for Books
• 0:50
  Speaker 4: at PixMedia. And if you are wondering what is PixMedia,
• 0:55
  Speaker 4: I can give you a little... a little information. We're
• 0:58
  Speaker 4: a modern media company for entertainment discovery. We are helping
• 1:02
  Speaker 4: our audience find what's worth watching, reading, listening to. And
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  Speaker 4: we're trying to do it with editorial taste and a
• 1:07
  Speaker 4: point of view that makes every pick worth their time. Basically,
• 1:12
  Speaker 4: there's so much out there in terms of entertainment now.
• 1:16
  Speaker 4: And there's so many different places where people are trying
• 1:19
  Speaker 4: to curate it or algorithms are trying to curate it.
• 1:21
  Speaker 4: It's really, really hard to actually find what you want
• 1:25
  Speaker 4: to spend time with. So we're trying to solve that problem.
• 1:28
  Speaker 4: And I am very lucky that I get to do
• 1:31
  Speaker 4: all of our books content. I started my career in
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  Speaker 4: traditional publishing. And then I moved into the startup email
• 1:39
  Speaker 4: marketing space. And then this job allowed me to marry
• 1:42
  Speaker 4: the two together really beautifully.
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  Speaker 1: That is a very useful thing to have curated a
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: list of entertainment because there's so much out there. How
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: did you get into this line of work?
• 1:56
  Speaker 4: So I kind of fell into it. So like I said,
• 2:00
  Speaker 4: I started in book publishing. I was an English major
• 2:04
  Speaker 4: in college. And I knew I wanted to do something
• 2:08
  Speaker 4: with books and writing. But it's, you know, it doesn't
• 2:14
  Speaker 4: seem like there are that many options. It kind of
• 2:16
  Speaker 4: felt like either go to grad school or go into
• 2:19
  Speaker 4: book publishing and become an editor.
• 2:21
  Speaker 3: I was like, I want to be an editor. Let
• 2:23
  Speaker 3: me do that.
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  Speaker 4: And I did that for about five, six years. And
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  Speaker 4: I was very unhappy. There were parts of being an
• 2:37
  Speaker 4: editorial assistant and an assistant editor that I was very,
• 2:40
  Speaker 4: very good at. And then there were parts that I
• 2:41
  Speaker 4: was very, very bad at. And overall, it was just
• 2:47
  Speaker 4: not a match. So I left and I kind of
• 2:53
  Speaker 4: wandered around a little bit. I worked in retail. The
• 2:56
  Speaker 4: pandemic happened. Great time to be working in retail. And
• 3:03
  Speaker 4: then I got a position doing email marketing copywriting for
• 3:07
  Speaker 4: a software marketplace. And I always wanted to try my
• 3:13
  Speaker 4: hand at proper copywriting. because you do a lot of
• 3:16
  Speaker 4: copywriting when you are in editorial and publishing, you know,
• 3:20
  Speaker 4: like I was the one writing the flap copy, the
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  Speaker 4: Amazon description, you know, you're helping to craft marketing materials.
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  Speaker 4: And I really, really liked that, but I did miss
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  Speaker 4: working in books or I just missed working with books.
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  Speaker 4: And I actually truly like the way that I got
• 3:38
  Speaker 4: this job is I got a message on LinkedIn from
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  Speaker 4: a recruiter that was like, Hey, are you interested in this?
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  Speaker 3: And yeah, I was like, sure, why not? Let me
• 3:47
  Speaker 3: do some investigation.
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  Speaker 4: And I ended up in this awesome niche job that
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  Speaker 4: married my two work experiences.
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  Speaker 2: That's awesome. I will say like your career and where
• 4:04
  Speaker 2: you ended your path, this is how my mind thinks.
• 4:07
  Speaker 2: I think you might too. It's like you are the
• 4:09
  Speaker 2: main character for a rom-com coming in. Like, your career,
• 4:13
  Speaker 2: your job.
• 4:14
  Speaker 4: Man, I hope so, because I'm still looking for love.
• 4:17
  Speaker 4: So hearing that it sounds like I'm at the beginning
• 4:20
  Speaker 4: of a rom-com is exactly what I want to hear.
• 4:22
  Speaker 2: Girl, it started. Like, I see you walking down the
• 4:25
  Speaker 2: sidewalks of somewhere, New York, and, like, holding your books
• 4:28
  Speaker 2: or whatever, and you drop something, and this dude's going
• 4:30
  Speaker 2: to come pick it up and be like, oh, what
• 4:33
  Speaker 2: is this? And then y'all go for coffee, like.
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  Speaker 3: From your mouth.
• 4:38
  Speaker 4: To the universe's ears, please.
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: It's just in my head. It's like, this is how
• 4:43
  Speaker 2: I'm seeing it. It's got to be a crisp autumn day, too.
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  Speaker 3: Perfect. It's September 1st.
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  Speaker 1: Come on, it's coming.
• 4:49
  Speaker 3: It's happening.
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  Speaker 4: We'll be back on for the wedding special in a
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  Speaker 4: couple of years.
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  Speaker 2: Yes, when you come talk to me about this. Okay,
• 4:57
  Speaker 2: but back to, can you tell the listeners a little
• 4:59
  Speaker 2: bit about book picks and worth the read? I know
• 5:01
  Speaker 2: that's a part of your resume as well.
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  Speaker 3: Yes.
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  Speaker 4: So Book Picks is our flagship books newsletter. We have
• 5:09
  Speaker 4: three flagship newsletters, TV Movie Picks, Podcast Picks, Book Picks.
• 5:16
  Speaker 4: Pretty self-explanatory, but, you know, they specialize in. And Book
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  Speaker 4: Picks is really supposed to be a fun, quick digest
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  Speaker 4: of what's happening in the book world this week for readers.
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  Speaker 4: My goal, we go out on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Sundays.
• 5:37
  Speaker 4: And my goal is always, okay, if somebody doesn't have
• 5:40
  Speaker 4: a lot of time, but they want to know what
• 5:43
  Speaker 4: are the big books that I should be aware of?
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  Speaker 4: Who are the authors that have new books out? You know,
• 5:48
  Speaker 4: what are people talking about? What are the interesting adaptation,
• 5:52
  Speaker 4: like casting news that's happening? They should be able to
• 5:56
  Speaker 4: just read this newsletter, skim it, have that information and go.
• 6:01
  Speaker 4: hopefully they find a book that really intrigues them and
• 6:05
  Speaker 4: they end up reading it. Um, we have done a
• 6:08
  Speaker 4: lot of surveys with our readers and people do say
• 6:13
  Speaker 4: that they find great recs. I've heard people, I mean,
• 6:17
  Speaker 4: even like really, really big authors. Um, I've had people
• 6:21
  Speaker 4: who love them be like, Oh my God, I didn't
• 6:22
  Speaker 4: know that they had a new book out.
• 6:24
  Speaker 3: This is awesome. It always makes me feel happy. Um, uh, Yeah,
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  Speaker 3: so that is that.
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  Speaker 4: You'll always find, like, a couple of brand new books
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  Speaker 4: out that week that we think our readers will be
• 6:39
  Speaker 4: excited about. Every week we try to feature, you know,
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  Speaker 4: the biggest adaptation that's coming out. Some weeks there's a million,
• 6:46
  Speaker 4: some weeks there's not. We always try to do, like,
• 6:49
  Speaker 4: a little game because everybody likes a little game. And
• 6:53
  Speaker 4: then Worth the Read. So the kind of crossover into
• 6:57
  Speaker 4: that is... In doing book picks, my goal is to
• 7:01
  Speaker 4: create something that is for as wide a reach of
• 7:06
  Speaker 4: readers as possible. We feature all types of genres. There
• 7:10
  Speaker 4: are sometimes authors that I don't particularly like or books
• 7:13
  Speaker 4: that don't seem exciting to me, but I know that
• 7:16
  Speaker 4: our audience is going to love them. For instance, I'm
• 7:21
  Speaker 4: going to give maybe a hot take here. I hope
• 7:23
  Speaker 4: it doesn't upset anyone. I really don't like Fourth Wing.
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: Deafening silence.
• 7:31
  Speaker 2: No, I don't know what that is. I'm not going
• 7:33
  Speaker 2: to lie. This is for me of like, I don't
• 7:34
  Speaker 2: know what that is. Oh, okay.
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 7:37
  Speaker 3: All right.
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: I'm sure it's a hot take for some listeners.
• 7:40
  Speaker 4: It's a huge romantic series about like a dragon college.
• 7:45
  Speaker 4: A college?
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  Speaker 2: Like a college, like a war college with dragons and,
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  Speaker 2: you know. I'm assuming this is really big in the
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  Speaker 2: book talk world.
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  Speaker 1: Yes. Okay.
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  Speaker 2: That's just where I would understand.
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  Speaker 3: Yes.
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  Speaker 2: This is probably where, okay. Yes.
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  Speaker 3: Huge.
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  Speaker 2: So yeah, you're, you're definitely stepping in it then. I, yeah.
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  Speaker 4: And I just like, it's not for me and I
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  Speaker 4: love fantasy. It's just, it's not for me, but I
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  Speaker 4: know when there is fourth wing news, like we are
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  Speaker 4: featuring that because that's what people want to see. Now
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  Speaker 4: worth the read is, is much more opinion-based, what I
• 8:24
  Speaker 4: want to talk about. It's very much from my voice.
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  Speaker 4: My name is in the header. And really, okay, so
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  Speaker 4: we had this issue of curation. How do you solve that?
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  Speaker 4: And one of the things that we were missing was
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  Speaker 4: that opinion-trusted personal voice. So we launched this suite of
• 8:47
  Speaker 4: newsletters that was addressing that. And my coworker Meredith does
• 8:54
  Speaker 4: our like pop culture. She's a housewives aficionado. She does
• 8:59
  Speaker 4: our reality TV pop culture. My coworker John does our
• 9:03
  Speaker 4: kind of more serious TV movies. And then my coworker
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  Speaker 4: Steve does our podcasts. And here I get to just
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  Speaker 4: write about what I want to write about. Obviously, I'm
• 9:16
  Speaker 4: trying to write about things that other people are going
• 9:18
  Speaker 4: to be interested in, too. But I can I mean,
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  Speaker 4: I did. It's really fun because I get to.
• 9:27
  Speaker 3: Be weird.
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  Speaker 4: I get to be a lot weirder, you know, for instance.
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  Speaker 4: So I studied I studied English in college, but I
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  Speaker 4: also studied ancient Greek and classics.
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  Speaker 1: What?
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  Speaker 2: I know.
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  Speaker 1: I saw on your LinkedIn, you got an award.
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  Speaker 4: I got, not to take away from myself, but I
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  Speaker 4: got an award for the first year with the highest
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  Speaker 4: proficiency in ancient Greek, which I'm sure when it was
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  Speaker 4: created in like 1850 was a huge.
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  Speaker 3: Deal because everybody had to take it.
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  Speaker 4: But I think there were like five of us taking
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  Speaker 4: ancient Greek and I had taken it in high school.
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  Speaker 3: So like.
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  Speaker 1: A win's a win, I say.
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  Speaker 2: A win's a win. I don't know if I've ever
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  Speaker 2: met anyone who has actually studied Greek. So thank you
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  Speaker 2: for being that person in my life, first and foremost.
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  Speaker 2: I'm excited to have this.
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  Speaker 3: It was very fun. I liked it. I was not Honestly,
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  Speaker 3: I was not really good at it. I had a
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  Speaker 3: few friends who were like really unbelievably excellent. I was okay.
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  Speaker 3: But so obviously with the Odyssey coming out.
• 10:28
  Speaker 2: I was like, it's my time to shine. Yeah, this
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  Speaker 2: is your moment.
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  Speaker 4: So I got to do a whole newsletter about, hey, okay,
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  Speaker 4: you saw the Odyssey. You loved it. You want more.
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  Speaker 4: Here's a bunch of recs. And I'm not just going
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  Speaker 4: to give you some contemporary recs. I'm also going to
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  Speaker 4: give you some ancient wrecks that I think are accessible
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  Speaker 4: and fun and, you know, what you're looking for. If
• 10:50
  Speaker 4: you want more mythology, if you want more, you know,
• 10:53
  Speaker 4: family drama. And then like a couple of weeks later,
• 10:57
  Speaker 4: I did an entire edition about sentient object smut because
• 11:05
  Speaker 4: everybody was losing their minds over the wicker.
• 11:07
  Speaker 3: The wicker trailer.
• 11:10
  Speaker 4: And that's a very real, romance subgenre. And so I
• 11:14
  Speaker 4: was like, wow, look at... I couldn't do this in
• 11:17
  Speaker 4: book picks.
• 11:20
  Speaker 2: I do love this. And I'm not going to lie,
• 11:22
  Speaker 2: I feel like you and Annie may need a moment
• 11:25
  Speaker 2: to have some serious conversations because her love for fanfics
• 11:29
  Speaker 2: as well as all of these... Yes, all of these
• 11:33
  Speaker 2: things that I don't know about. She has to teach
• 11:35
  Speaker 2: me about fanfic lore.
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: Oh, we're doing an episode on Omegaverse today. It's going
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: to be fascinating.
• 11:41
  Speaker 2: No clue.
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: You're going to be... Mind blown.
• 11:45
  Speaker 2: Okay. I'm excited. But like this level of conversation, I
• 11:49
  Speaker 2: love this. And I think you really tap in on
• 11:51
  Speaker 2: something that has been really powerful and like has kind
• 11:56
  Speaker 2: of had a resurgence, I feel like, in the world
• 11:59
  Speaker 2: of social media platforms and such, which is that newsletter.
• 12:01
  Speaker 2: Like the newsletter, how big it is, it's kind of
• 12:04
  Speaker 2: just stayed strong. People who felt like TikTok was going
• 12:07
  Speaker 2: to go away or like social, like Instagram is too, um,
• 12:12
  Speaker 2: What's the word? Spinal?
• 12:15
  Speaker 3: Whatever.
• 12:16
  Speaker 2: But that newsletter has kind of had that resurgence, but
• 12:21
  Speaker 2: been lasting, though. So with that, what do you think
• 12:24
  Speaker 2: is this lasting power of the newsletter?
• 12:29
  Speaker 4: Well, I think, because I've thought about this, I think
• 12:34
  Speaker 4: perhaps the root of it, speaking as a younger sister, is...
• 12:41
  Speaker 4: like there's nothing better than reading somebody's diary. That's like
• 12:46
  Speaker 4: the first like forbidden reading that you do as a,
• 12:50
  Speaker 4: at least a younger sister.
• 12:53
  Speaker 3: I'm so sorry to my, my older sister. I was
• 12:56
  Speaker 3: going to.
• 12:56
  Speaker 2: Say, did she know this?
• 12:58
  Speaker 4: I mean, you know, she knows, she knows and she
• 13:00
  Speaker 4: didn't deserve it. But I think there's something like when someone,
• 13:05
  Speaker 4: you feel like someone is like writing to you about
• 13:07
  Speaker 4: their thoughts, whatever it's, it's, this like access to a
• 13:12
  Speaker 4: side of humanity that makes you feel less alone. And
• 13:17
  Speaker 4: it's also like usually more casual, easier to read. And
• 13:22
  Speaker 4: then obviously there was the whole like blog moment in
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  Speaker 4: the 2010s that I loved. Like I had my bloggers
• 13:32
  Speaker 4: that I would check in on every single day and
• 13:36
  Speaker 4: get really attached to them. And then that kind of
• 13:37
  Speaker 4: died with like Instagram and and Facebook and also like
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  Speaker 4: social media has become, I mean, I could, there's a
• 13:48
  Speaker 4: lot that's wrong with social media now.
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  Speaker 3: Um, but another issue is like, you're, you're constantly being sold.
• 13:56
  Speaker 4: You're constantly being sold something and it's, it's nonstop ads.
• 14:02
  Speaker 4: And I think a written ad is just a, it's
• 14:03
  Speaker 4: a different experience than a video ad. But yeah, I
• 14:07
  Speaker 4: think newsletters are kind of that return to blogging, to
• 14:11
  Speaker 4: having that like one-on-one connection with someone.
• 14:14
  Speaker 3: I think that people like.
• 14:16
  Speaker 4: That in a world of like hot takes and people
• 14:19
  Speaker 4: posting things on Instagram and then being like, actually I
• 14:21
  Speaker 4: thought about it and I was wrong. A newsletter kind
• 14:24
  Speaker 4: of assumes that there was a little bit more time
• 14:27
  Speaker 4: and a little bit more space, a little bit more thought.
• 14:29
  Speaker 4: And you see like there's a lot of really interesting
• 14:31
  Speaker 4: reading coming out of Substack. I think also like, It
• 14:37
  Speaker 4: kind of itches that, or it kind of scratches that
• 14:40
  Speaker 4: old-timey newspaper itch.
• 14:42
  Speaker 3: You're like, oh, I got my delivery. Now I'm going
• 14:44
  Speaker 3: to read it.
• 14:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it kind of does. It just brought me back
• 14:48
  Speaker 2: to my love for my old Zynga site. Zynga!
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: I desperately want to find this.
• 14:53
  Speaker 2: I feel like I might be out way older than y'all.
• 14:55
  Speaker 3: I remember Zynga.
• 14:57
  Speaker 2: Man, the poetry I had on there. It would haunt
• 15:00
  Speaker 2: me forever.
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: This is like my dream is to find Samantha Zynga.
• 15:06
  Speaker 2: My five-sentence thought as I'm sitting at UGA.
• 15:10
  Speaker 3: No, no.
• 15:12
  Speaker 2: Anyway, moving on.
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: One day, one day. So as you were saying, you
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: have worked in a lot of different parts of the
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: book and publishing world. And some of it stood out
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: to me because of the crossover it has with podcasting.
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: So for instance, when you're talking about writing kind of
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: the flap copy, I know you've discussed like that's important
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: to sell the book to people. Like they have this
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: amount of space to read it and get hooked or
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: not hooked. And I often feel that way when I'm
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: writing the title and description, all of that stuff. It
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: can feel kind of overwhelming. And I don't think people
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: think about that a lot, like unless that's your job.
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: So are there aspects that you think that a lot
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: of people in this book and publishing world maybe don't
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: know about or overlook?
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  Speaker 3: Oh, yeah, there's a lot. There's a lot. I think
• 16:13
  Speaker 3: what you brought up is probably the biggest one. And I.
• 16:19
  Speaker 4: Hope that I'm not phrasing this in a way that
• 16:21
  Speaker 4: makes it sound like it's malicious, but there's a lot
• 16:25
  Speaker 4: of psychology at work in the packaging of a book.
• 16:33
  Speaker 4: And people don't, I mean, I didn't realize this until
• 16:36
  Speaker 4: I was doing it. People don't realize that so much
• 16:39
  Speaker 4: of what you go into a book expecting has been
• 16:43
  Speaker 4: set up for you. That ideas have been planted, you know,
• 16:50
  Speaker 4: kind of like this is what the genre is. This
• 16:51
  Speaker 4: is what you should expect. This is what you should
• 16:53
  Speaker 4: be thinking of. You're not coming into it as a
• 16:56
  Speaker 4: blank slate. Everything from the cover to the copy is,
• 17:00
  Speaker 4: I had a boss once who was like, yeah, I'm
• 17:03
  Speaker 4: always pleased when I see specific words I put in
• 17:05
  Speaker 4: copy show up in like reviews and stuff because.
• 17:08
  Speaker 3: They don't, they're not realizing it.
• 17:11
  Speaker 4: I can think of one book that I worked on
• 17:13
  Speaker 4: where we were being told to package it like a thriller.
• 17:16
  Speaker 4: So we did, and it was not really a thriller.
• 17:20
  Speaker 4: And there were a couple of reviews that was like,
• 17:22
  Speaker 4: I'm a little bit confused.
• 17:23
  Speaker 3: And I wanted to be like, you're right. Listen to your, yeah,
• 17:26
  Speaker 3: you're right. Listen to your gut.
• 17:28
  Speaker 4: The only time that I've had that completely like unaltered
• 17:31
  Speaker 4: reading experience is I've done some work reading manuscripts for
• 17:35
  Speaker 4: a agent. And that's really cool because that is like,
• 17:38
  Speaker 4: you are just getting a manuscript. Sometimes it doesn't even
• 17:40
  Speaker 4: have the author name or a title. And it's just like,
• 17:44
  Speaker 4: here's the story.
• 17:46
  Speaker 3: What do you think?
• 17:47
  Speaker 4: But yeah, like it's like all marketing. People want you
• 17:51
  Speaker 4: to think a certain thing and sometimes it works.
• 17:52
  Speaker 3: Sometimes it doesn't.
• 17:54
  Speaker 4: I mean, I think you see that like on book
• 17:56
  Speaker 4: talk too. There are a lot of people who talk
• 17:58
  Speaker 4: up and go bananas, you know, like fourth wing. Like
• 18:01
  Speaker 4: when you search up fourth wing, you're going to see
• 18:03
  Speaker 4: a lot of people that are like, this is my
• 18:04
  Speaker 4: favorite book I've ever read. And then you might read
• 18:08
  Speaker 4: it and be like, yeah, I agree. Or you might
• 18:10
  Speaker 4: read it and be like, I hate this. I can't
• 18:13
  Speaker 4: finish it. But there will probably be a little voice
• 18:18
  Speaker 4: in your head that's like, well, what's wrong with me
• 18:19
  Speaker 4: if everybody else loves this?
• 18:22
  Speaker 3: So that's definitely one. Another publishing.
• 18:27
  Speaker 4: demands so much of the people working on the books.
• 18:33
  Speaker 4: Besides the fact that it's just a tremendous amount of work.
• 18:36
  Speaker 4: But the people who work in publishing, for the most part,
• 18:39
  Speaker 4: genuinely love books and genuinely care about the books they're
• 18:42
  Speaker 4: working on.
• 18:43
  Speaker 3: And they want it to succeed.
• 18:45
  Speaker 4: If you read a book that you really love, you
• 18:50
  Speaker 4: want to write a letter to the author or you
• 18:53
  Speaker 4: leave a great Amazon review, that actually does matter. And
• 18:56
  Speaker 4: that's going to make somebody happy. And like, people do care.
• 19:00
  Speaker 3: So that's kind of cool. I think like readers need
• 19:04
  Speaker 3: to know.
• 19:04
  Speaker 4: That they have a little bit more power to impact
• 19:08
  Speaker 4: people's days, especially authors, like authors love to hear anything nice.
• 19:14
  Speaker 4: You know, like this is their baby. I always say that, like,
• 19:18
  Speaker 4: you absolutely should judge a book by its cover so
• 19:20
  Speaker 4: much work and thought. goes into the cover that is
• 19:25
  Speaker 4: trying it's trying to communicate so much to you like
• 19:27
  Speaker 4: yes yes judge it judge.
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: It yeah the cover when we were publishing our book
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: and step on never told you book the biggest like fight.
• 19:38
  Speaker 2: We were yeah i was obnoxious.
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: Wild like not not what we were writing about cool
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: this cover.
• 19:46
  Speaker 2: Though honestly though like we had a whole experience with
• 19:51
  Speaker 2: our co-workers too who had such a big fallout that
• 19:54
  Speaker 2: they ended up not publishing the book because the cover
• 19:57
  Speaker 2: was like such a big.
• 19:58
  Speaker 4: Deal oh my god so you couldn't you like you
• 20:00
  Speaker 4: couldn't even get past it no.
• 20:01
  Speaker 2: They couldn't even like they're like no we're not doing
• 20:03
  Speaker 2: this so like well damn wow so our people who
• 20:07
  Speaker 2: had worked with them, like the publishers that we were
• 20:09
  Speaker 2: working with were like, oh no, we have to work
• 20:12
  Speaker 2: this out.
• 20:14
  Speaker 3: Oh man.
• 20:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 20:15
  Speaker 4: No, the covers are, you can get some like knock down,
• 20:20
  Speaker 4: drag out fights.
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: Yep. Certainly can. Well, this is really, that's, that was
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: a really fascinating answer about the marketing, especially because it
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: reminded me of, we did an episode on Jennifer's body.
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: And like the marketing about Jennifer's body was so not
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: what it was. But when people like the cult following
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: came later after they'd seen it and they were like, actually,
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: I understand what this is. And it was not whatever
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: this marketing campaign is. But I do think there's a
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: space if it's done well, where you can have that
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: kind of inversion of, oh, this is not what I thought.
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: But if it's, you've got to stick the landing on
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: that though. You've got to stick the landing.
• 21:05
  Speaker 3: Definitely.
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: Well, on the opposite end of the flap cover and
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: writing that, there is this aspect in the publishing world of,
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: you know, an author has to write a pitch, usually,
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: sends in a pitch. Do you have any, like, tips
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: on what you think makes a good pitch?
• 21:27
  Speaker 4: Oh, well, so I, for the most part, authors are
• 21:31
  Speaker 4: going to be pitching agents. And I was never in
• 21:34
  Speaker 4: the agenting side. So by the time I was seeing
• 21:37
  Speaker 4: a manuscript, it was coming from the agent and they
• 21:40
  Speaker 4: had their, you know, perfectly polished, like they know what
• 21:43
  Speaker 4: they're doing.
• 21:44
  Speaker 3: So their pitch letters are great.
• 21:47
  Speaker 4: Um, I'm trying to think of a few friends who
• 21:50
  Speaker 4: were authors and kind of what's, what's worked for them.
• 21:53
  Speaker 4: I think comparative titles are always really helpful. Everybody, you know, you,
• 22:03
  Speaker 4: a lot of people want to be like inventing something
• 22:05
  Speaker 4: brand new. That's actually very hard for publishers to sell.
• 22:11
  Speaker 3: And it's hard for them to even sell to each other.
• 22:14
  Speaker 4: Like if you have like, you know, you're an editor
• 22:18
  Speaker 4: and you have a book that you read and you love,
• 22:20
  Speaker 4: you have to convince other people in the publishing house.
• 22:22
  Speaker 4: It's not just a one person decision at most places. Um, yeah,
• 22:26
  Speaker 4: you have to convince other people. You have to convince
• 22:28
  Speaker 4: people in marketing, publicity, the publisher, uh, there are usually
• 22:33
  Speaker 4: like big meetings where people discuss a book that somebody
• 22:35
  Speaker 4: wants to acquire. And I saw multiple times where an
• 22:38
  Speaker 4: editor had a book that they really wanted to acquire,
• 22:41
  Speaker 4: but everybody else was like, I don't really see like, what,
• 22:45
  Speaker 4: what is this like?
• 22:48
  Speaker 3: Which is.
• 22:50
  Speaker 4: Sometimes the answer is nothing, but they want to be
• 22:53
  Speaker 4: able to say, Oh, well, this is like, you know,
• 22:55
  Speaker 4: remarkably bright creatures meets the correspondent meets the, And then
• 23:00
  Speaker 4: you know, okay, this is the audience.
• 23:01
  Speaker 3: This is how we're going for it. You have a
• 23:03
  Speaker 3: clear picture.
• 23:04
  Speaker 4: So being able to compare what you're doing with popular
• 23:09
  Speaker 4: authors and books, I think it's very helpful. And not
• 23:15
  Speaker 4: withholding the goods. Really pitch what's great about what you've written.
• 23:22
  Speaker 3: Don't muck it up.
• 23:23
  Speaker 4: Nobody really has that much time. Get to what's good
• 23:27
  Speaker 4: and interesting and intriguing about it.
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: Yes. I think I was interested in pitching a book
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: for a while, and I remember reading, like, they're not
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: interested in, like, being surprised. Just tell them the surprise.
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: Don't do that. So you've been in this industry for
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: a while. What are some things that you have seen
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: change or some things that maybe have stayed the same
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: for better or worse?
• 24:01
  Speaker 3: Yeah. Well, I.
• 24:05
  Speaker 4: Mean, I definitely feel like in recent years, there's been
• 24:09
  Speaker 4: a lot more respect for romance and fantasy and romanticy,
• 24:15
  Speaker 4: which is very cool, especially for romance, because that is
• 24:20
  Speaker 4: a woman dominated genre. It is overwhelmingly women writing for women.
• 24:29
  Speaker 4: And It has historically been treated like trash and you
• 24:38
  Speaker 4: have prolific romance authors that don't get nearly enough praise
• 24:45
  Speaker 4: just because people think that the genre that they're writing in,
• 24:49
  Speaker 4: it's not serious. And you know, that serious fiction is
• 24:53
  Speaker 4: a serious man talking about depressing serious man things, you know?
• 25:00
  Speaker 4: And the past few years of really seeing people like,
• 25:03
  Speaker 4: you know, Emily Henry blow up is really cool.
• 25:08
  Speaker 3: I've personally really enjoyed that. Same with fantasy.
• 25:11
  Speaker 4: I mean, seeing like Sarah J. Moss be such a
• 25:14
  Speaker 4: formidable force in the book world when she is writing
• 25:20
  Speaker 4: Romantasy is very cool. And when I was younger, fantasy
• 25:27
  Speaker 4: was not cool. Like I've always liked fantasy. I kind
• 25:30
  Speaker 4: of fell away from it for a long time because
• 25:31
  Speaker 4: it was not cool. And the fact that now you
• 25:34
  Speaker 4: can like be obsessed with a fantasy series and it's
• 25:37
  Speaker 4: not necessarily the most embarrassing thing ever is awesome. Within
• 25:43
  Speaker 4: the publishing industry, it seems like there's been a lot
• 25:45
  Speaker 4: of movement towards unionizing and fairer pay for more junior employees,
• 25:53
  Speaker 4: which is amazing.
• 25:54
  Speaker 3: I support that so much.
• 25:55
  Speaker 4: The pay issue in publishing is.
• 26:03
  Speaker 3: An issue.
• 26:05
  Speaker 4: And it's very encouraging to me to see people who
• 26:09
  Speaker 4: are really fighting for a better work environment and that
• 26:14
  Speaker 4: some people are succeeding. I think they are making efforts
• 26:20
  Speaker 4: to be more diverse. I don't know exactly how that
• 26:24
  Speaker 4: is going. But I think the efforts are there, and
• 26:28
  Speaker 4: that is good.
• 26:32
  Speaker 2: I like how you answered that. You're like, it's there.
• 26:37
  Speaker 2: Thinking about the romance genre, we actually did an episode
• 26:40
  Speaker 2: about the timeline and how the romance genre is the moneymaker, essentially,
• 26:47
  Speaker 2: in the book world, publishing world. And obviously, it's kind
• 26:51
  Speaker 2: of blowing up again. with a book talk. So it
• 26:54
  Speaker 2: was really fun to see because it was so like
• 26:57
  Speaker 2: disrespected in so many ways for something that was like
• 27:01
  Speaker 2: amazing and like formative for several women and young girls.
• 27:05
  Speaker 2: I'm hand-raising right here. And one of the things that
• 27:09
  Speaker 2: we do on our show is we do a feminist
• 27:11
  Speaker 2: book club every month. And I will say it's difficult
• 27:15
  Speaker 2: to try to narrow down the choices because I want
• 27:17
  Speaker 2: to do like, we want to do the perfect thing,
• 27:19
  Speaker 2: the perfect theme, really good entertainment and So I know
• 27:22
  Speaker 2: it's really hard to go through the process of picking
• 27:25
  Speaker 2: the perfect book. How do you choose which books to
• 27:30
  Speaker 2: focus on with your... Yeah, you're just.
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: I.
• 27:33
  Speaker 2: Love that you just went, oh, Lord, automatically. But how
• 27:38
  Speaker 2: do you do that?
• 27:40
  Speaker 4: Oh, it's really hard. I'm not the fastest reader. I'm
• 27:44
  Speaker 4: always trying to get faster. But so I do get
• 27:48
  Speaker 4: a lot of anxiety about what I'm going to read because...
• 27:51
  Speaker 4: I know some people who say that they can read
• 27:53
  Speaker 4: a book a day, which.
• 27:57
  Speaker 3: Share the magic.
• 27:58
  Speaker 4: How do you do that? I physically can't do that.
• 28:04
  Speaker 4: So there is a little bit more of an anxiety.
• 28:05
  Speaker 4: I'm like, okay, this is the book for the week.
• 28:07
  Speaker 4: It better be a good one. Sometimes it's not. This
• 28:11
  Speaker 4: is a very unsatisfactory answer, but I just try to
• 28:15
  Speaker 4: listen to my gut.
• 28:15
  Speaker 3: If there's something in a description....
• 28:19
  Speaker 4: Or a cover that's calling to me, then I will
• 28:24
  Speaker 4: follow that call. You know, there's a lot of hate
• 28:29
  Speaker 4: for things that are popular and the idea that things
• 28:32
  Speaker 4: that are popular are less than. And I just don't
• 28:37
  Speaker 4: believe that. Like things that are popular, they're popular because
• 28:41
  Speaker 4: they're popular. And like, I love Taylor Swift. And the
• 28:46
  Speaker 4: reason why she's so popular is It's because so many
• 28:49
  Speaker 4: people love her because there's a lot in her work
• 28:52
  Speaker 4: to love. And I think that's the case with a
• 28:55
  Speaker 4: lot of really popular books too. I mean, like, I
• 28:58
  Speaker 4: don't know if you've heard about this series, Dungeon Crawler Carl.
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: I've heard about it and I'm really curious about it.
• 29:06
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 29:07
  Speaker 3: I kept hearing about it. I was like, this is
• 29:09
  Speaker 3: not my type of book. I kept hearing about it.
• 29:12
  Speaker 3: I kept seeing it.
• 29:12
  Speaker 4: I had a couple of friends who read it and
• 29:14
  Speaker 4: were like, this was so fun. But friends that I
• 29:17
  Speaker 4: didn't really expect would be into this either. And I
• 29:19
  Speaker 4: have been totally sucked into it. I just finished the
• 29:21
  Speaker 4: fourth book. There are eight out so far.
• 29:23
  Speaker 3: And they're long.
• 29:24
  Speaker 4: And I'm excited to jump into five. And it is
• 29:29
  Speaker 4: a new genre of sci-fi called lit RPG, which is
• 29:35
  Speaker 4: lit role-playing game, like a, like video game RPG games.
• 29:39
  Speaker 4: And it's basically like, okay, if you took an RPG
• 29:42
  Speaker 4: video game and you made it a book, and this
• 29:44
  Speaker 4: is a guy who has to survive a.
• 29:48
  Speaker 3: Video game reality.
• 29:51
  Speaker 4: Competition being put on by aliens that have taken over earth.
• 29:59
  Speaker 3: It is, so weird. It is so wacky.
• 30:02
  Speaker 4: The main characters are our hero, Carl, and then his
• 30:06
  Speaker 4: ex-girlfriend's cat, Princess Donut, who is just like, everybody falls
• 30:12
  Speaker 4: in love with Princess Donut.
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: Of course.
• 30:14
  Speaker 4: I was looking at Princess Donut shirts on Etsy yesterday.
• 30:16
  Speaker 4: Like she is everything.
• 30:20
  Speaker 2: Great name too.
• 30:22
  Speaker 3: Great name.
• 30:23
  Speaker 2: Great name.
• 30:25
  Speaker 3: It just totally, totally sucked me in. And I was like, oh,
• 30:27
  Speaker 3: that's why this is so popular. Because it's really fun.
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: I love that. I'm going to have to look into
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: that because that has a very Dungeons and Dragons coded name.
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: And there's a character, there are two sci-fi characters that
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: are kind of like really Easter egg characters that are
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: named Carl. And I'm just very curious about this whole thing.
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: So I'm going to investigate.
• 30:52
  Speaker 4: Please, please read it and then report back. I promise
• 30:56
  Speaker 4: it's weirder and wilder and more addictive than.
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: Yes, when we do the check-in about your rom-com and wedding,
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: I'll have the review ready.
• 31:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm not going to lie. Like, lit RPG. You
• 31:10
  Speaker 2: don't do... Like, the story is established. It's not like
• 31:13
  Speaker 2: a pick-your-adventure at any point. You're not really role-playing. Okay,
• 31:16
  Speaker 2: making sure I understand.
• 31:17
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that's a little confusing. It's more like he is
• 31:22
  Speaker 3: now active in a video game.
• 31:24
  Speaker 2: Got you, a part of it. All right, all right.
• 31:26
  Speaker 2: I'm there now. I'm there. Sometimes it takes me a minute.
• 31:30
  Speaker 2: Y'all are young.
• 31:30
  Speaker 4: No, it's hard to explain. And I'm not like a
• 31:35
  Speaker 4: big video game player. Like I love, you know, like
• 31:38
  Speaker 4: Mario and Zelda. But outside of that, not really. So
• 31:41
  Speaker 4: I also was kind of like, oh. know what I'm
• 31:44
  Speaker 4: getting into, but then.
• 31:45
  Speaker 3: You pick it up.
• 31:46
  Speaker 2: Okay. Well, Zelda, I feel like that's, I know it's popular,
• 31:49
  Speaker 2: but I think it's still very much a video game,
• 31:51
  Speaker 2: video game. I can't get into it.
• 31:53
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, I, oh, this is totally off topic,
• 31:57
  Speaker 4: but the two Zelda games for the Nintendo Switch, 10
• 32:03
  Speaker 4: out of 10.
• 32:04
  Speaker 3: Oh, Breath of the Wild will change your life.
• 32:07
  Speaker 2: My partner has it on Switch, and he's played it
• 32:10
  Speaker 2: a few times. I'm like, okay.
• 32:11
  Speaker 3: It's Do you watch?
• 32:13
  Speaker 2: Yes, I will watch.
• 32:14
  Speaker 3: The music is beautiful. The story is beautiful.
• 32:17
  Speaker 2: That's what I've heard. My problem is I am an angry,
• 32:22
  Speaker 2: not good video game player. So if there's a possibility
• 32:25
  Speaker 2: that I die or I have to fight things, I
• 32:27
  Speaker 2: will immediately fail. So the frustration level.
• 32:32
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 32:33
  Speaker 2: Anyway, I've definitely gotten into my woes with this. But
• 32:38
  Speaker 2: it's exciting to know because you're correct. Just because it's popular,
• 32:41
  Speaker 2: just because it's mainstream does not make that a bad thing.
• 32:45
  Speaker 2: They got there for a reason. And it should be
• 32:48
  Speaker 2: appreciated just because maybe I'm late to the game. I mean,
• 32:52
  Speaker 2: that's what they try to say about Twilight. And look,
• 32:54
  Speaker 2: it's the lasting power. I'm just kidding. I just wanted
• 32:57
  Speaker 2: to insert Twilight here. With all of that, because you
• 33:02
  Speaker 2: have to read for your job. We also, like I said,
• 33:05
  Speaker 2: we kind of read for our job. Every now and then,
• 33:06
  Speaker 2: it feels like it's just work. For you, have you
• 33:12
  Speaker 2: had a hard time separating work from pleasure or making
• 33:15
  Speaker 2: something that you love into work? Has that changed any
• 33:19
  Speaker 2: of that?
• 33:20
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 33:22
  Speaker 4: When I was working in publishing, it absolutely killed my
• 33:25
  Speaker 4: ability to read for pleasure. I had to read so
• 33:29
  Speaker 4: much already, and it all felt like work. And when
• 33:32
  Speaker 4: I was reading... a book that I wasn't working on,
• 33:35
  Speaker 4: it was like, okay, well, how would I have done this?
• 33:39
  Speaker 4: Or why is this working? What like, you're, you know,
• 33:41
  Speaker 4: kind of like picking it apart. And it felt like,
• 33:45
  Speaker 4: you know, when I was going to read, I needed
• 33:47
  Speaker 4: to read things that were impressive sounding, not necessarily exactly
• 33:52
  Speaker 4: what I wanted to read. Yeah, it absolutely impacted my
• 33:55
  Speaker 4: ability to read for pleasure and kind of like, killed
• 33:58
  Speaker 4: it for a little.
• 33:59
  Speaker 3: Bit, which is so sad.
• 34:01
  Speaker 4: Now I feel very fortunate that my love for reading
• 34:06
  Speaker 4: is back. And because I have a lot of control
• 34:10
  Speaker 4: over what I read, it's a non-issue in this role,
• 34:13
  Speaker 4: which is awesome.
• 34:15
  Speaker 2: Do you read like a book a week or a
• 34:17
  Speaker 2: book every two days?
• 34:19
  Speaker 3: I try to read, I try to read a book
• 34:22
  Speaker 3: a week. Yeah.
• 34:25
  Speaker 4: I don't always succeed, especially, you know, it's, it's, Hard
• 34:31
  Speaker 4: because certain books, yeah, you can fly through them.
• 34:33
  Speaker 3: But other books you want to savor. Yeah. And they're longer.
• 34:37
  Speaker 3: They're more difficult. I do like audiobooks for certain things.
• 34:43
  Speaker 2: Hey, I've become a pretty big fan of audiobooks. I'm
• 34:46
  Speaker 2: not going to lie.
• 34:47
  Speaker 3: What's your favorite?
• 34:48
  Speaker 2: Okay, there's too many. Because we, like I said, we
• 34:52
  Speaker 2: read them month to month. And the ones that last
• 34:55
  Speaker 2: and linger with me that I think on, like we've
• 34:58
  Speaker 2: talked about Mexican Gothic. And that haunting level of books
• 35:04
  Speaker 2: where you just remember the scenes and come back to it.
• 35:08
  Speaker 2: And the way that it's read to you and the voices,
• 35:10
  Speaker 2: I do adore that.
• 35:12
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 35:14
  Speaker 2: Do you have a favorite? What's your favorite? Can you
• 35:15
  Speaker 2: tell us your favorite?
• 35:17
  Speaker 3: My favorite audiobook?
• 35:18
  Speaker 4: I mean, a guilty pleasure of mine is I love
• 35:21
  Speaker 4: to listen to Frida McFadden books on audio.
• 35:26
  Speaker 3: She is a.
• 35:28
  Speaker 4: thriller writer who, I don't know how she does it.
• 35:33
  Speaker 4: She publishes like three books a year.
• 35:34
  Speaker 2: Really?
• 35:36
  Speaker 3: Like three new ones.
• 35:37
  Speaker 4: But then she has a backlist of self-published titles that
• 35:39
  Speaker 4: they're republishing. So it'll be like five new Freedom McFadden
• 35:43
  Speaker 4: books in a year. They're not like highbrow literature. They're
• 35:53
  Speaker 4: very twisty, but like the formula of how it unfolds
• 35:57
  Speaker 4: is pretty.
• 35:58
  Speaker 4: You kind of get used to it. You can listen
• 36:01
  Speaker 4: to it while you're doing other stuff.
• 36:03
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 36:04
  Speaker 4: I like listening to those. Although I wouldn't say that's
• 36:06
  Speaker 4: my favorite audio book. My favorite audio book. I love
• 36:12
  Speaker 4: the audio book for Daisy Jones and the Six by
• 36:14
  Speaker 4: Taylor Jenkins Reid. Really, really recommend that one. It's a
• 36:19
  Speaker 4: full cast. And the way that the book is written
• 36:23
  Speaker 4: is like it's a rock documentary.
• 36:28
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 36:29
  Speaker 4: So everything is interviews with people talking about stuff. So
• 36:33
  Speaker 4: having it be a full cast, it feels like you're
• 36:36
  Speaker 4: listening to something that's real.
• 36:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 36:39
  Speaker 4: It's really fun. The story is really beautiful. I really
• 36:42
  Speaker 4: like Taylor Jenkins reads books in general, but really, really highly.
• 36:46
  Speaker 3: Recommend that one.
• 36:47
  Speaker 2: Let's put that on our list. I love good recommendations.
• 36:51
  Speaker 2: Just out of curiosity, because you were talking about self-publishing
• 36:55
  Speaker 2: and I know it was specific to the author. But
• 36:58
  Speaker 2: what are your thoughts with the new, like, because there's
• 37:02
  Speaker 2: been so many who have now been able to use, like,
• 37:05
  Speaker 2: their own Amazon accounts to self-publish. Controversies with self-publishing with, like, AI.
• 37:12
  Speaker 2: How has this affected your world in literature and in reading?
• 37:16
  Speaker 4: Oh, I mean, it hasn't affected me directly. I still
• 37:23
  Speaker 4: very much kind of stick to, for my own reading,
• 37:26
  Speaker 4: to traditionally published books. books um i think there are
• 37:30
  Speaker 4: some publishers that are doing really interesting things where they
• 37:34
  Speaker 4: purchase and repackage.
• 37:36
  Speaker 3: Self-published books sourcebooks does this a lot.
• 37:39
  Speaker 4: Uh which is really really cool and generally if i'm
• 37:44
  Speaker 4: gonna encounter a book that was originally self-published it'll be
• 37:48
  Speaker 4: through like that kind of avenue so it's kind of
• 37:50
  Speaker 4: like someone has already vouched for it yeah um I mean,
• 37:55
  Speaker 4: I think it's awesome. I think anything that lets people
• 37:59
  Speaker 4: put their ideas out there and find their audience is incredible.
• 38:05
  Speaker 3: I really support that.
• 38:06
  Speaker 4: I think especially because so many of the people who have...
• 38:09
  Speaker 4: I mean, Dungeon Crawler Carl was originally self-published. So many
• 38:14
  Speaker 4: of the big romance authors now were originally self-published. So
• 38:19
  Speaker 4: lowering that barrier of entry for especially like young women who...
• 38:24
  Speaker 4: want to write what they want to write. And then it,
• 38:28
  Speaker 4: it resonates with people. Like, I think that's really cool. Um,
• 38:31
  Speaker 4: obviously the AI, oh, I mean, that's a whole, that's
• 38:35
  Speaker 4: a whole can of worms. I, it's really tricky.
• 38:40
  Speaker 3: I've, I've, you know, I.
• 38:43
  Speaker 4: Think the scarier part about it is that I've heard
• 38:46
  Speaker 4: some editors or people say, you know, well, if something's AI,
• 38:50
  Speaker 4: then I'm going to reject it because I can always tell.
• 38:54
  Speaker 3: No, you can't. Right.
• 38:55
  Speaker 2: Which has been a big controversy right now.
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: Uh-huh.
• 38:58
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 38:59
  Speaker 4: There was just that book deal that was, it was
• 39:02
  Speaker 4: like a huge auction. It sold for like, I don't even,
• 39:05
  Speaker 4: like $ 2 million maybe. It sold for a lot of money.
• 39:08
  Speaker 4: And then they like immediately canceled.
• 39:10
  Speaker 3: It because they.
• 39:11
  Speaker 4: Had reason to believe there was AI. I don't really
• 39:13
  Speaker 4: know the truth of the story or what's going on.
• 39:16
  Speaker 4: I think the author is like fighting back.
• 39:19
  Speaker 3: Yeah. I need to follow up on that.
• 39:21
  Speaker 2: No, there's definitely been a lot of conversations and who
• 39:24
  Speaker 2: is affecting is disproportionately affecting. Like it seems women of color,
• 39:27
  Speaker 2: black women. Yeah.
• 39:28
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 39:29
  Speaker 2: And this, seems to be purposeful again, a different issue.
• 39:32
  Speaker 2: I know that, but like, that's so hard to navigate
• 39:35
  Speaker 2: in this seemingly in this industry in general.
• 39:39
  Speaker 4: And I heard this once at a, like a event
• 39:45
  Speaker 4: where someone was giving a presentation on AI and He
• 39:48
  Speaker 4: was like, just remember that every time you see AI output,
• 39:52
  Speaker 4: this is the worst it's ever going to be. And
• 39:55
  Speaker 4: that's like fascinating and also terrifying.
• 39:57
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 39:58
  Speaker 4: But like, it's just going to keep getting better. So
• 40:02
  Speaker 4: this idea that like, well, I can always tell because
• 40:04
  Speaker 4: I read for a living.
• 40:06
  Speaker 3: Don't be so sure.
• 40:07
  Speaker 2: Right, right.
• 40:18
  Speaker 3: Yeah. And then did you see the whole Hank Green story?
• 40:21
  Speaker 2: Yes. Oh, the amount of like, well, like it's not
• 40:24
  Speaker 2: only him, but like book talk in general. I've seen
• 40:27
  Speaker 2: like this explosion of conversation because there's been a back
• 40:30
  Speaker 2: and forth of like who is using it, who isn't
• 40:32
  Speaker 2: using it, what is used, what is considered AI. You
• 40:36
  Speaker 2: know what I mean? Like spell check. I know that's
• 40:39
  Speaker 2: been a whole thing. Like technically it is AI, but
• 40:41
  Speaker 2: obviously they're not using AI to write their stories. They're
• 40:46
  Speaker 2: editing stories. So what is that conversation? And then Hank Green, yeah,
• 40:50
  Speaker 2: talking about, he kind of just fell into the trap
• 40:52
  Speaker 2: of like, oh, this is kind of easy. Let me
• 40:54
  Speaker 2: try this.
• 40:55
  Speaker 4: That, I mean, yeah, the Hank Green story is wild
• 40:59
  Speaker 4: because he really, it went from like zero to 60,
• 41:03
  Speaker 4: all kind of all because of him. And personally, I
• 41:06
  Speaker 4: think there are ways for creative people to use AI
• 41:11
  Speaker 4: to assist them that it's not in creating the, you know,
• 41:15
  Speaker 4: if you need to help get your ideas in order,
• 41:18
  Speaker 4: or I think it's great if you need to help
• 41:20
  Speaker 4: find sources, right? Obviously, like, sometimes it makes things up.
• 41:23
  Speaker 4: But you know, to help you get that entry point
• 41:25
  Speaker 4: into finding the sources. I think that's all right.
• 41:30
  Speaker 3: You know, excellent.
• 41:31
  Speaker 4: But yeah, when Hank Green was like, I used it
• 41:33
  Speaker 4: to like, I think he said to like, combine two chapters.
• 41:35
  Speaker 4: I don't want to speak out of turn because I
• 41:37
  Speaker 4: don't remember exactly.
• 41:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah, his people were not happy. His people were like,
• 41:43
  Speaker 2: the reason we trusted you is because you did your
• 41:46
  Speaker 2: own research.
• 41:47
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 41:48
  Speaker 2: And was kind of an expert in all the things.
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: Also the topics he was covering was kind of like, hmm.
• 41:55
  Speaker 2: Lord.
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. We, once a month we have a wonderful
• 42:01
  Speaker 1: guest on, Bridget, who is like our tech person. We
• 42:05
  Speaker 1: ask all the questions too. And she just released a
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: book about AI. And I am so excited. I want
• 42:13
  Speaker 1: to ask her because there has been a big controversy
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: about AI in the fan fiction world. And everybody knows
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: it's Claude. And so Claude has now become like a
• 42:25
  Speaker 1: term you use to say, like, this is a bad guy.
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: If his name is Claude, he's like the villain. I'm like,
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: how did we know it was Claude? I just want
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: to know. Can you tell the difference?
• 42:38
  Speaker 3: Cool. I mean... Wow, that's a good question. I don't know.
• 42:42
  Speaker 4: I mean, I have personal thoughts about, like, I think
• 42:45
  Speaker 4: ChatGPT is a little bit of a better writer than Claude.
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: Oh, interesting.
• 42:50
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: I'm so curious.
• 42:53
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't know.
• 42:53
  Speaker 1: We usually have more serious questions to ask Bridget when
• 42:59
  Speaker 1: she's on, so I haven't asked her yet. But I
• 43:01
  Speaker 1: want to know.
• 43:02
  Speaker 3: I want to know, too. Please ask her.
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: Another thing to report back.
• 43:08
  Speaker 2: Something else, so kind of the flip side.
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: Before we went on this AI tangent about turning reading
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: into work and what that looks like, I read a
• 43:17
  Speaker 1: quote from you that was about being the most annoying
• 43:22
  Speaker 1: person to go into a bookstore with because you always
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: have opinions or like, I was involved with this. And
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: this was from a while ago. But having a sense
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: of pride of like, oh, I know this book and
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: I know this author and all, I kind of contributed
• 43:34
  Speaker 1: to that in some way. What has that, what is
• 43:37
  Speaker 1: that like for you? What has that process been like
• 43:39
  Speaker 1: for you that in like things that give you that feeling.
• 43:43
  Speaker 4: Oh, I mean, it's thrilling to see a book that
• 43:45
  Speaker 4: you worked on in any capacity at a bookstore. Like that,
• 43:49
  Speaker 4: that never goes away. It's so exciting to be like,
• 43:52
  Speaker 4: you see that? Yeah, I worked on that. And then
• 43:54
  Speaker 4: to like have your name in the acknowledgements is, it's so,
• 43:57
  Speaker 4: this is, please, everybody listening, please always read the acknowledgements.
• 44:02
  Speaker 3: When you read a book, read the.
• 44:03
  Speaker 4: Acknowledgements because the people who are named in there really
• 44:06
  Speaker 4: matter to that book success, whether it's, you know, people
• 44:09
  Speaker 4: in their personal life or people that.
• 44:11
  Speaker 3: They worked with.
• 44:12
  Speaker 4: And you also might be surprised to like see certain
• 44:15
  Speaker 4: names pop up or, you know, you'll learn things about
• 44:19
  Speaker 4: the person's process. I just always read the exaltments. Yeah, no,
• 44:24
  Speaker 4: it's very exciting. Or even, I mean, books that like
• 44:28
  Speaker 4: my friends worked on.
• 44:30
  Speaker 3: I'm like, oh yeah, I remember that.
• 44:32
  Speaker 4: Obviously, since I haven't been in publishing for like over
• 44:36
  Speaker 4: like six, seven years now, you know, I, I'm seeing
• 44:40
  Speaker 4: that much less, but yeah, when I, when I do see,
• 44:45
  Speaker 4: even if it's like a new book from an author
• 44:47
  Speaker 4: that I worked with, you know, a decade ago or whatever,
• 44:49
  Speaker 4: that's always very exciting. Like it was really, really exciting
• 44:54
  Speaker 4: when the finished copies of the books would come in
• 44:55
  Speaker 4: and it didn't matter. Like you could be at the
• 44:59
  Speaker 4: end of your rope. You're like, I have hated working
• 45:02
  Speaker 4: on this book. This is just like, I'm so ready
• 45:05
  Speaker 4: to be done with it. Like I just can't, deal
• 45:09
  Speaker 4: with this anymore like I needed to just hit show
• 45:11
  Speaker 4: so I could move on and you'd get the finished
• 45:13
  Speaker 4: book and you're like oh this is exciting like I'm
• 45:15
  Speaker 4: gonna put it up at my desk.
• 45:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah that makes complete sense I think my version of
• 45:24
  Speaker 1: this being the like annoying friend we have bingo cards
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: for all of our close friends in this one group
• 45:34
  Speaker 1: and mine is well I did an episode on that
• 45:36
  Speaker 1: and here's the fact that you need to know I
• 45:40
  Speaker 1: try not to, but it is difficult.
• 45:43
  Speaker 3: You're probably a great person for trivia. You've got all the....
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah. So, you have done... You do a lot of
• 45:55
  Speaker 1: very niche lists. And as you mentioned, you did one
• 45:59
  Speaker 1: after the trailer for Wicker came out, which seems like
• 46:01
  Speaker 1: a very sensual, kind of women-centric movie. And like, And
• 46:09
  Speaker 1: you were talking about that and smut. So what are
• 46:13
  Speaker 1: some places that you've found that really surprised you and
• 46:16
  Speaker 1: were maybe eye-opening?
• 46:19
  Speaker 3: Like for my personal taste or just in general?
• 46:22
  Speaker 4: I mean, sorry to keep bringing up Dungeon Crawler Carl,
• 46:25
  Speaker 4: but I'm really surprised by how much I like this series.
• 46:31
  Speaker 4: I really was not expecting it. That has been such
• 46:35
  Speaker 4: a treat of this year. And then also, I know
• 46:39
  Speaker 4: I mentioned this before, but like re-falling in love with
• 46:42
  Speaker 4: fantasy has been very surprising. You know, when I think
• 46:45
  Speaker 4: back to the books that I really loved when I
• 46:48
  Speaker 4: was like 10, they all had some magic in them.
• 46:53
  Speaker 4: Like I loved Harry Potter. That was a little bit later.
• 46:56
  Speaker 4: But like Ella Enchanted, I don't know if you ever
• 46:58
  Speaker 4: read that.
• 47:00
  Speaker 3: I love that book.
• 47:01
  Speaker 4: She came and spoke at my, like to my class
• 47:04
  Speaker 4: and I got my book signed.
• 47:06
  Speaker 3: I still have it.
• 47:07
  Speaker 1: That's so cool.
• 47:08
  Speaker 3: I still have it. It's a prized possession.
• 47:11
  Speaker 4: I loved like magical realism, like holes in Stargirl. And
• 47:16
  Speaker 4: then as I got older and, you know, you're an
• 47:19
  Speaker 4: English major and you want to be cool and you
• 47:22
  Speaker 4: work in publishing and it's like, okay, well, I'm going
• 47:24
  Speaker 4: to read literary fiction. I'm going to read more serious stuff.
• 47:29
  Speaker 4: And I just like kind of forgot how much I
• 47:33
  Speaker 4: enjoyed Magical Worlds. And the fact that fantasy and romantasy
• 47:39
  Speaker 4: is so big right now, I kind of had to
• 47:43
  Speaker 4: like go back into it because I needed to kind
• 47:45
  Speaker 4: of see like what everybody was so excited about. And
• 47:49
  Speaker 4: having that re-spark and be like, oh yeah, wait, I'm
• 47:52
  Speaker 4: really into magic too, was very surprising and delightful. Like
• 47:56
  Speaker 4: last year for the very first time I read Lord
• 47:59
  Speaker 4: of the Rings and life-changing. I'm obsessed. It was all
• 48:05
  Speaker 4: I talked about for like four months. Loved it. I
• 48:10
  Speaker 4: don't think that I ever would have read it if
• 48:14
  Speaker 4: I hadn't been forced to go back into fantasy for
• 48:17
  Speaker 4: this job.
• 48:21
  Speaker 2: I love that. That was me in college.
• 48:24
  Speaker 3: With Lord of the Rings?
• 48:25
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because, you know, it oh, dating myself,
• 48:28
  Speaker 2: all the series was coming out. And so I was like, well,
• 48:31
  Speaker 2: I need to know what happens next. I can't wait
• 48:33
  Speaker 2: for three years.
• 48:36
  Speaker 3: And those movies are great too.
• 48:37
  Speaker 4: I mean, it's just like discovering that you enjoy the
• 48:41
  Speaker 4: world of Lord of the Rings is such a gift
• 48:44
  Speaker 4: because there's just so much.
• 48:46
  Speaker 2: It keeps going.
• 48:48
  Speaker 1: You can learn as much as you want to with
• 48:50
  Speaker 1: Lord of the Rings.
• 48:51
  Speaker 2: I mean, there's so much.
• 48:53
  Speaker 1: You can learn Elvish if I would like.
• 48:55
  Speaker 2: Yeah. The people who are dedicated to do that, they
• 48:59
  Speaker 2: impress me, I'm not going to lie. Same. So with
• 49:02
  Speaker 2: all of that, you also write a lot about culture,
• 49:05
  Speaker 2: including pieces where you examine things that you maybe think
• 49:08
  Speaker 2: differently on now. What are some experiences in this process
• 49:13
  Speaker 2: that you've changed your mind or learned something that really
• 49:15
  Speaker 2: impacted you?
• 49:17
  Speaker 4: I mean, I think you're probably talking about the one
• 49:20
  Speaker 4: that I did about Fame Sick by Lena Dunham. That
• 49:24
  Speaker 4: was a really interesting reading experience because, so I'm 35.
• 49:30
  Speaker 3: So I was in my 20s at Lena Dunham's height.
• 49:35
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 49:37
  Speaker 3: And....
• 49:39
  Speaker 4: You know, like up until recently, like if you had
• 49:42
  Speaker 4: talked to 24 year old me, I'd be like, I
• 49:44
  Speaker 4: hate Lena Dunham. She's so annoying. She is not as
• 49:49
  Speaker 4: smart or funny as she thinks she is.
• 49:51
  Speaker 2: I'm like, blah, blah, blah.
• 49:52
  Speaker 4: Why is everybody falling over themselves? And you know, Oh,
• 49:56
  Speaker 4: she's gross. Every, all the nasty things that everybody has
• 50:00
  Speaker 4: been saying about her for her whole career. And yeah, reading,
• 50:06
  Speaker 4: you know, but I, but I did always think that
• 50:08
  Speaker 4: she was a really good writer, but you would also
• 50:12
  Speaker 4: hear that a lot. You would hear people say like,
• 50:15
  Speaker 4: especially women be like, well, I can't stand Lena Dunham,
• 50:18
  Speaker 4: but she, she is a good writer.
• 50:19
  Speaker 3: Like I'm going to read her book.
• 50:21
  Speaker 4: Um, they could give her that we could give her that.
• 50:25
  Speaker 4: And reading same sec was really illuminating and, Because I mean,
• 50:36
  Speaker 4: like I've identified as a feminist since I was like 19.
• 50:42
  Speaker 4: So then, you know, at 35 to be realizing that
• 50:45
  Speaker 4: my distaste for this other woman really came from just
• 50:48
  Speaker 4: a lot of like, I know this is like such
• 50:52
  Speaker 4: like a buzzword term, but like internalized misogyny and things
• 50:56
  Speaker 4: that I felt really insecure about and things about womanhood
• 51:01
  Speaker 4: or who you're supposed to be in your twenties and
• 51:04
  Speaker 4: this and that. It was all of this internal stuff
• 51:08
  Speaker 4: that I was pushing onto her. And I think like
• 51:10
  Speaker 4: as a society we were doing and how she had
• 51:14
  Speaker 4: to weather that and the fact that she has come
• 51:17
  Speaker 4: out of it and is still funny and open and
• 51:25
  Speaker 4: willing to share herself with us. I mean, I think
• 51:28
  Speaker 4: she's like, she kind of has to, It's like in
• 51:31
  Speaker 4: order for her to exist in this world, she has
• 51:33
  Speaker 4: to share her life. I was very moved by that.
• 51:37
  Speaker 4: I really thought that was a beautiful book. And I
• 51:40
  Speaker 4: hope that... I mean, I know it was like a
• 51:43
  Speaker 4: big bestseller, so I'm sure they already did. But I
• 51:44
  Speaker 4: hope a lot of women who are around my age,
• 51:47
  Speaker 4: maybe like a little older, read it. I think that
• 51:50
  Speaker 4: like Gen Z seems to like her more. And they
• 51:54
  Speaker 4: see girls... They see girls kind of as like a
• 51:57
  Speaker 4: period piece, which is like so.
• 52:04
  Speaker 3: We all just had a moment.
• 52:09
  Speaker 4: But they don't see her reflecting like exactly themselves back
• 52:13
  Speaker 4: the way that I think those of us who are
• 52:16
  Speaker 4: a little older did.
• 52:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah.
• 52:22
  Speaker 1: That makes sense. I mean, it's true. You never know
• 52:24
  Speaker 1: what is going to resonate with you that you weren't
• 52:29
  Speaker 1: In that way that you were kind of resistant towards.
• 52:32
  Speaker 1: I was like that in my 20s as well. I
• 52:34
  Speaker 1: was like, I'm not going to give this a chance.
• 52:37
  Speaker 1: I've already made up my mind. But sometimes if you
• 52:41
  Speaker 1: give something a chance that you really didn't want to,
• 52:42
  Speaker 1: it can have an impact on you.
• 52:46
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 52:54
  Speaker 1: What's your opinion on book to movie TV update adaptations
• 53:00
  Speaker 1: and how loyal they should be to the source material?
• 53:05
  Speaker 4: Oh, I, well, first I really like them. I get
• 53:11
  Speaker 4: excited when there's going to be an adaptation of a
• 53:13
  Speaker 4: book that I like, or even there are sometimes there
• 53:15
  Speaker 4: are books where I'm like, I'm not going to read that,
• 53:17
  Speaker 4: but I'm, I'm going to watch the movie.
• 53:19
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 53:19
  Speaker 4: Like I can give it, you know, two hours. Um, Also, like,
• 53:25
  Speaker 4: they help introduce... Okay, I never would have read Project
• 53:28
  Speaker 4: Hail Mary if the movie hadn't come out. But I
• 53:31
  Speaker 4: saw the movie was coming out. It was doing really well.
• 53:34
  Speaker 4: I had friends and co-workers who loved it. I was like, well,
• 53:37
  Speaker 4: I do want to read it before I see it.
• 53:42
  Speaker 4: That book is so good. I read it on vacation
• 53:45
  Speaker 4: with two of my friends. And it was, like, all
• 53:48
  Speaker 4: I talked about.
• 53:49
  Speaker 3: Like, we're, like, in.
• 53:51
  Speaker 4: Palm Springs, like having a nice time. And I'm like, okay,
• 53:54
  Speaker 4: so Rocky, just like, I don't know who that is
• 53:57
  Speaker 4: and I don't care.
• 53:58
  Speaker 3: Yeah. Loved it.
• 54:01
  Speaker 4: And I only read it because of the adaptation. And
• 54:04
  Speaker 4: then I went and I saw the movie and I
• 54:06
  Speaker 4: loved the movie and it was just great overall. How
• 54:12
  Speaker 4: faithful they should be. That is a question that I
• 54:17
  Speaker 4: think about too. I don't really know because I, Like
• 54:24
  Speaker 4: on the one hand, I want them to be completely
• 54:26
  Speaker 4: faithful because if it's a book that I love, I
• 54:30
  Speaker 4: want to see the scenes that I love on the screen.
• 54:35
  Speaker 4: But I also understand that sometimes things don't necessarily work
• 54:39
  Speaker 4: or I don't know, it's a different piece of art.
• 54:46
  Speaker 4: It's its own thing. And I've gotten to interview a
• 54:49
  Speaker 4: few authors about their adaptations and they the ones that
• 54:54
  Speaker 4: seem to have the best experience are the ones that
• 54:56
  Speaker 4: are able to say like, this is its own thing.
• 55:01
  Speaker 4: So let's make it the best that it can be.
• 55:05
  Speaker 4: And we want it to also make the fans happy,
• 55:07
  Speaker 4: but it's going to be its own.
• 55:09
  Speaker 1: Work of art.
• 55:11
  Speaker 3: And then the book is its own and they like are,
• 55:13
  Speaker 3: you know, they're sisters.
• 55:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 55:17
  Speaker 4: But yeah, like, I mean, I don't want to, I
• 55:20
  Speaker 4: can do this spoiler free. When I went in to
• 55:23
  Speaker 4: go see Project Hail Mary, I was waiting for the...
• 55:28
  Speaker 4: I really wanted to see the final scene on screen.
• 55:32
  Speaker 4: And the fact that they did made me so happy.
• 55:37
  Speaker 4: I think I would have been really upset if they
• 55:40
  Speaker 4: had changed that final moment.
• 55:42
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Oh, I'm with you. I have this new... I
• 55:47
  Speaker 2: had this thing where I needed to watch the movie
• 55:50
  Speaker 2: before the book because oftentimes if I read the book
• 55:53
  Speaker 2: and the movie was not what I expected, I'm going
• 55:57
  Speaker 2: to be upset. I remember, I don't know, Where the
• 56:02
  Speaker 2: Heart Is. Do you all remember Natalie Portman?
• 56:04
  Speaker 1: I remember, yeah.
• 56:05
  Speaker 2: The big scene is a Walmart scene where she gets
• 56:07
  Speaker 2: left at Walmart by her boyfriend while pregnant. This whole thing. Yeah.
• 56:14
  Speaker 2: I've just dated myself. Don't worry about it. Don't look
• 56:16
  Speaker 2: it up. But I remember I had read the book
• 56:19
  Speaker 2: and loved the book. I loved like what it was.
• 56:22
  Speaker 2: And then I went to see the movie and I
• 56:23
  Speaker 2: was so mad. Like even now I have feelings. I
• 56:27
  Speaker 2: don't even know what the differences are. I barely remember
• 56:29
  Speaker 2: the name of everything. But I would remember being how
• 56:32
  Speaker 2: upset I was that it was so, the adaptation was
• 56:37
  Speaker 2: so different. But I have learned like trying to separate
• 56:42
  Speaker 2: it out A, again, I need to watch the movie
• 56:44
  Speaker 2: before the book. But, like, some things don't translate well. Like,
• 56:48
  Speaker 2: it would be hard to do. And I get that, like,
• 56:50
  Speaker 2: fantasy level. I know, like, Project Hail Mary, like, I
• 56:55
  Speaker 2: know that they had to take a lot of stuff
• 56:57
  Speaker 2: out mainly because, like, they didn't have the time. They
• 57:00
  Speaker 2: didn't have the full time to do that entire book.
• 57:02
  Speaker 2: Some of the science stuff that was in there was, like,
• 57:04
  Speaker 2: a little too intricate and did not translate well. They
• 57:07
  Speaker 2: had to combine characters, you know, stuff like that. I
• 57:10
  Speaker 2: get it. So to me, that made more sense. That
• 57:13
  Speaker 2: makes more sense. When they change things outright, like I do,
• 57:16
  Speaker 2: like if they change endings, if they take out big,
• 57:19
  Speaker 2: important characters, I get a little annoyed. I did love
• 57:23
  Speaker 2: Lord of the Rings for the extended version because at
• 57:26
  Speaker 2: least they gave you a little more. I needed that
• 57:30
  Speaker 2: more for the Lord of the Rings. But yeah, it's
• 57:33
  Speaker 2: interesting to see how these adaptations come out and like,
• 57:36
  Speaker 2: try to figure it out but it's also interesting to
• 57:38
  Speaker 2: see like controversies about um of blood and bone is
• 57:41
  Speaker 2: it children of blood and bone like how big the
• 57:44
  Speaker 2: divide is right now and like how do you work
• 57:47
  Speaker 2: that out when like they're so at odds.
• 57:50
  Speaker 4: I don't think you do i mean we don't know
• 57:53
  Speaker 4: what happened as far as i know i have not
• 57:58
  Speaker 4: read anything we just.
• 57:59
  Speaker 2: Know it was so much speculation you know a.
• 58:02
  Speaker 4: Terrible experience for the author of that series. And she
• 58:07
  Speaker 4: has like said, I'm not going to watch it. I'm
• 58:09
  Speaker 4: not going to be a part of it. I'm removing
• 58:12
  Speaker 4: myself from this, which is so sad. I, you know,
• 58:18
  Speaker 4: this should be like a exciting, wonderful time for her
• 58:21
  Speaker 4: and the world that she created. And that breaks my
• 58:24
  Speaker 4: heart again. Like we don't, we don't know what happened. Um,
• 58:30
  Speaker 4: And also, from the trailers, it looks incredible. It looks gorgeous.
• 58:34
  Speaker 2: It's interesting. It's interesting because you see that level, especially
• 58:41
  Speaker 2: on a movie book like this, the success is pretty important.
• 58:44
  Speaker 2: It's got some really big cultural significance, a big statement
• 58:49
  Speaker 2: in what's happening with the government and even the world
• 58:53
  Speaker 2: when it comes to Black writers and artists and actors.
• 58:57
  Speaker 2: So it's really sad to see this. And maybe that's
• 59:01
  Speaker 2: part of the conversation. I know there is a real divide,
• 59:04
  Speaker 2: but maybe it's whatever. But again, that is definitely a
• 59:08
  Speaker 2: conspiracy theory. that would roam in the back of my head.
• 59:12
  Speaker 2: But when you see the divide in that, when you
• 59:14
  Speaker 2: see the authors, it's interesting because this, again, you were
• 59:17
  Speaker 2: talking about how this is their baby. It's got to
• 59:21
  Speaker 2: be a heartbreaking moment for her to have to be
• 59:25
  Speaker 2: like that, whatever the reason may be, to have to
• 59:27
  Speaker 2: step back.
• 59:28
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I.
• 59:30
  Speaker 4: I think it would probably already be really weird and
• 59:32
  Speaker 4: really hard. I mean, exciting, but like weird and hard
• 59:35
  Speaker 4: to see a world and characters and stories that have
• 59:39
  Speaker 4: up until now really only existed.
• 59:40
  Speaker 3: In your mind and in your words be interpreted by
• 59:44
  Speaker 3: other people.
• 59:47
  Speaker 4: But for a lot of authors, that can be a
• 59:51
  Speaker 4: really joyful, exciting experience. And then for other authors, it
• 59:54
  Speaker 4: can be like the worst experience. thing that's ever happened
• 59:57
  Speaker 4: to them and they hate it and it makes them sad.
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 3: And yeah, that it's just, yeah, it's heartbreaking. Sorry.
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 2: I just went down that tangent. I was like, huh? No,
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 2: it's a conversation of like others and such.
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 3: You did.
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 4: You did remind me though, that there was, Oh, what
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 4: was it? I can't remember what it was now, but
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 4: there was an adaptation that I saw where they, completely
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 4: changed something.
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 3: And I was furious.
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 4: This is like a pointless story now because I can't
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 4: remember what it is. But I remember I was furious.
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 4: It was like, how could you do that?
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 1: What is this?
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 3: Who do you think you are?
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 2: Getting attached to a book, it's a wild ride. Because
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 2: Annie also has this conversation where she gets attached to
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 2: the book or the characters and this loyalty. And she's like, ooh,
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 2: we have to see. Because we did The Last of Us.
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 2: We did a whole series where we did a watch
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 2: And like, but she was really worried. Like, are they
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 2: going to do this justice? Because I'm speaking for her.
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 2: I love I'm speaking for you, Annie.
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 1: My thing is, I agree. I completely agree that I
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 1: understand different mediums. It just won't translate well, as we've
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 1: been saying. If it sticks to the heart and core
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 1: of the story and the characters, like I hate when
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 1: they do character assassination. I'm like, why did you, this
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 1: is not what this character was about. But the interesting
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 1: thing about that is, you know, that's assuming everybody interpreted
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 1: it the way I did. And usually that's true. Like
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 1: there's a general accepted interpretation. But every now and then
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 1: a piece of media comes out and I'm like, I
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 1: interpreted this completely differently. And I hate what the audience
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 1: is in general interpreting it as. So it's complicated. That's
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 1: why I was like, I'm just curious what your thoughts
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 1: are about this, because I don't think there's a simple answer,
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 1: but if they, if it's like, that's just not what
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 1: the heart of it was. That's what really gets me.
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 1: That's the thing that I can't, I can't stand by that.
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 3: I do.
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 4: And also sometimes, especially when you're doing like really big, like,
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 4: like lengthwise, really big books, they have to leave out
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 4: so much.
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 3: Like I, I liked Dune. I liked the movies. I
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 3: will be watching the third one.
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 4: But I was, like, very confused by a lot of
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 4: stuff in the first movie. And then when I, you know, like,
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 4: fallen down rabbit holes afterwards and I was like, oh,
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 4: there's all this and there's this backstory and there's this
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 4: reasoning and all this stuff that they couldn't or they
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 4: didn't incorporate. I was like, this gives me a lot
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 4: more context. It kind of makes me be able to, like,
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 4: get with this world a little bit more.
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 3: Mm-hmm.
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 2: Have you had any of your readers or followers disagree
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 2: or have a strong opinion in what you have written
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 2: in regards to books?
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 3: Like my personal opinion on something?
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah, your personal take or recommendations even?
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 4: No, I feel very fortunate that so far nobody has
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 4: written back being like, I can't believe you loved this.
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 3: This was garbage. That would be distressing, but.
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 4: Also it would probably, you know what, if anybody who
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 4: is reading it does feel that, like, please do.
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 3: I would like to hear that. Like, let's have that conversation.
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 4: No, the only thing that I can think of that's
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 4: really gotten some.
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 3: Heated responses is uh, is, which is, is fair.
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 4: And I actually recently, uh, in one of our book picks,
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 4: I asked people to write in on this topic because
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 4: I'm very curious. And I think it's an interesting, important conversation, uh,
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 4: which is the new Harry Potter series that's coming out
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 4: from HBO. If people were planning to watch it or not.
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 4: And you know, what is their relationship to the books?
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 4: And there were a lot of people who said, I'm
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 4: not going to watch it. Um, I love the books.
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 4: I grew up with them. It'll always have a special
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 4: place in my heart.
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 3: I cannot continue to support new ventures from this author.
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah, we did a whole episode on that and I cried.
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 3: Aww.
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 1: I cried in the first 12 minutes. It's horrible. It's embarrassing.
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 3: Aww.
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 1: I love it because they hurt me so badly.
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we had this moment of understanding this was a
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 2: heartbreaking moment for so many, especially like y'all's age, like,
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 2: you were in your childhood, and I say y'all because
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 2: it's a little bit younger, like, and loving and attaching
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 2: to this as if it was a sibling or a
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 2: part of your family. So to have that, like, heartbreak,
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 2: it's a big topic. And it is interesting how you
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 2: have to approach this and, like, conversation because the darkness
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 2: that it has today is, does not necessarily translate to
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 2: the light that it brought to so many people. But
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 2: to try to mesh that together as a whole, as
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 2: an adult, it's a hard place to navigate.
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 3: It's a hard place to navigate.
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 4: And I think people are just, I think a lot
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 4: of the theory is like, I shouldn't be having to do, like,
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 4: I don't think anybody who loved Harry Potter or loves
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 4: thought that they would have to then contend with like bigger,
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 4: broader conversations about it. for a lot of them for
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 4: who they are, like, you know, how do I, how
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 4: do I deal with loving what's in this book when
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 4: I feel like the person who wrote them hates me? That's,
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 4: that's wild for a reader to have to deal with.
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 1: And, and kind of related right now, we are seeing
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 1: a lot of things around a lot of, um, pushes
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 1: to ban books from conservative forces, a backlash against things
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 1: like CRT, queer topics. Is there anything you would recommend
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 1: that we do to combat that?
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 4: Oh, I am definitely not an expert on this. I
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 4: think there are certain organizations like PEN, their amazing First
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 4: Amendment treatment speech organization. Banned Books Week is coming up
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 4: in October. I think it's the week of October 4th. Honestly,
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 4: one of the biggest things that you can do is
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 4: support your local libraries. Like I'm addicted to Libby, but
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 4: I also have like my little physical library cards.
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 3: On my key chain, you know, make me happy. Yeah.
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 3: Support your libraries, support authors.
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 4: Like I can't imagine how it must feel, especially for
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 4: people who are writing books. books for younger readers to
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 4: have your book banned and being told that it's like
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 4: you know it's dangerous it's so dangerous that we need
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 4: to remove it um so supporting those authors following their
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 4: social media buying their books like you don't obviously buying
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 4: books is a great thing to do but also like
• 1:07:26
  Speaker 4: it is very expensive like there are a lot of
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 4: ways that you can support authors and libraries and organizations
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 4: that are fighting book bans with just your time and energy.
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 2: We love libraries big fans libraries are right up our
• 1:07:42
  Speaker 2: alley so there's so many things you can do there
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 2: you can even record podcasts in some of them i
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 2: didn't know that they have some recording studios in a
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 2: lot of.
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 1: Them they do a lot more than people realize i
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 1: think yeah they.
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 2: Do oh good good library You know what? We kind
• 1:07:59
  Speaker 2: of already mentioned book talk, and I'm not going to lie. Like,
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 2: I get thrown into book talk, and then I go
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 2: down rabbit holes because, like, the tea is there. The
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 2: tea is there. And one of the things I also
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 2: know is if you can find that big book talk
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 2: influencer and get your book out there, that might be
• 1:08:23
  Speaker 2: the best way. to really advertise your book. So what
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 2: are your thoughts on things like book talk or just
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 2: the role of social media in general in this realm?
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 4: Oh, that's really complicated. I have a lot of complicated
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 4: thoughts on social media. I mean, I used to be
• 1:08:41
  Speaker 4: on it all the time. And then the past few years,
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 4: I kind of stopped because I was like, oh, this
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 4: doesn't feel like it's super great for me. Personally, I
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 4: might get back on it in a more professional sense,
• 1:08:54
  Speaker 4: but in terms of just my personal posting stories and whatever,
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 4: I don't need to be checking to see who watched it.
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 3: That's whatever. That's its own thing. And BookTok, I mean, I.
• 1:09:12
  Speaker 4: Think to some extent it's been great. It's made reading
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 4: a much more communal activity online than it was before.
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 3: It's absolutely helped.
• 1:09:29
  Speaker 4: Books that otherwise I think would have died on the
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 4: vine or been forgotten. Like they're like, you know, older
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 4: hidden gems that somebody latches onto on book talk and
• 1:09:41
  Speaker 4: then it blows up, which is really cool. I do
• 1:09:46
  Speaker 4: think that a lot of the time I see people
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 4: recommending the same books over and over and over and
• 1:09:51
  Speaker 4: over again, which is something that I'm trying to remedy
• 1:09:58
  Speaker 4: over in Worth the Read of giving people some deeper cuts,
• 1:10:03
  Speaker 4: some books that they're not going to see all over
• 1:10:05
  Speaker 4: the place.
• 1:10:11
  Speaker 3: I think....
• 1:10:14
  Speaker 4: I think the, like, influencer space is just really interesting
• 1:10:18
  Speaker 4: in general. Like, what does it mean to be, like,
• 1:10:21
  Speaker 4: a book influencer? It's such a, like, a wild new
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 4: identity for people to have. But, I mean, overall, it
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 4: seems like it's really helped excite people about reading, bring
• 1:10:35
  Speaker 4: readers together.
• 1:10:37
  Speaker 3: You know, it's changed a lot of authors' lives. I
• 1:10:40
  Speaker 3: think on the whole, it's probably a net good. I
• 1:10:43
  Speaker 3: just hope that people... use BookTok as.
• 1:10:46
  Speaker 4: A jumping off point, but then still find other ways
• 1:10:53
  Speaker 4: to get book recommendations because there's such a huge world
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 4: of books out there and BookTok is only a little slice.
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:11:02
  Speaker 1: Obviously, we could just go on and on and on,
• 1:11:05
  Speaker 1: but we do know that you are busy. So before
• 1:11:10
  Speaker 1: we say goodbye, are there any... projects on the horizon
• 1:11:14
  Speaker 1: that you have that you want to shout out?
• 1:11:17
  Speaker 4: Oh, um, really just, just our newsletters, just book picks
• 1:11:24
  Speaker 4: worth the read. Uh, book picks is completely free. Worth
• 1:11:28
  Speaker 4: the read is subscriber based, but yeah, book picks three
• 1:11:34
  Speaker 4: times a week for free. I mean, we are in
• 1:11:36
  Speaker 4: the process of trying to launch some other new, exciting
• 1:11:40
  Speaker 4: little things, but I don't know. I don't think anything
• 1:11:43
  Speaker 4: is there yet. I mean, like, I would like to
• 1:11:45
  Speaker 4: have some kind of a book club for book picks
• 1:11:48
  Speaker 4: are worth a read at some point.
• 1:11:50
  Speaker 3: That'd be really fun. Yeah, I just just those two.
• 1:11:57
  Speaker 1: Well, and it's great, because as you said that you
• 1:11:59
  Speaker 1: also have, like podcast and movies, TV to on these sites.
• 1:12:04
  Speaker 1: So yeah, there's just And I love like the very
• 1:12:06
  Speaker 1: specific niche list. I think that's fantastic. Yeah, we have.
• 1:12:10
  Speaker 4: So, I mean, we do have those like flagship ones,
• 1:12:12
  Speaker 4: but we also have a bunch of niche newsletters too.
• 1:12:15
  Speaker 4: So whatever somebody, we have a sci-fi fantasy one. We
• 1:12:20
  Speaker 4: have a food one. We have a wellness.
• 1:12:23
  Speaker 3: We have travel.
• 1:12:25
  Speaker 4: We have a interview series that we do called Insider
• 1:12:28
  Speaker 4: Picks that goes out every Saturday. We, are trying to
• 1:12:32
  Speaker 4: give something for everybody. And if you love to consume
• 1:12:35
  Speaker 4: culture like I do, then I.
• 1:12:38
  Speaker 3: Like them all. I'm biased, but also I like them all.
• 1:12:42
  Speaker 2: Yes, yes.
• 1:12:44
  Speaker 1: Well, this has been such a delight. We definitely want
• 1:12:46
  Speaker 1: to do this check-in episode later. I think it's going
• 1:12:49
  Speaker 1: to be great.
• 1:12:51
  Speaker 3: At the wedding.
• 1:12:52
  Speaker 1: Yes, I can't wait. I can't wait. All of the
• 1:12:55
  Speaker 1: rom-com tropes must be there. Yes, but while we wait
• 1:13:00
  Speaker 1: for that, where can the good listeners find you?
• 1:13:02
  Speaker 4: Yeah, so you can find us at pix-media.com.
• 1:13:10
  Speaker 3: That's where you can subscribe to all of our newsletters.
• 1:13:13
  Speaker 4: And if you're interested in specifically our paid opinion-led ones.
• 1:13:19
  Speaker 3: That is, let me make sure I have it correct.
• 1:13:25
  Speaker 4: This one's a little tricky, but it's newsletters.pix-media.com slash Pix Plus.
• 1:13:33
  Speaker 4: And there you can read a couple of them. You
• 1:13:35
  Speaker 4: can sign up for a seven-day free trial. You can
• 1:13:39
  Speaker 4: learn more about me and our other authors.
• 1:13:43
  Speaker 1: Yes, and that's Pix, P-I-X.
• 1:13:46
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 1:13:47
  Speaker 1: Yes. Listeners, definitely go check it out. Thank you so much, Genevieve,
• 1:13:52
  Speaker 1: for being here. It has been truly wonderful.
• 1:13:55
  Speaker 3: Thank you. This was so fun.
• 1:13:57
  Speaker 1: Yes, it was. We'll definitely have to do it again.
• 1:14:01
  Speaker 1: In the meantime, listeners, if you would like to contact us,
• 1:14:03
  Speaker 1: you can. You can email us at hello at stuffonevertoldyou.com.
• 1:14:06
  Speaker 1: You can find us on Blue Skype, also podcast, or
• 1:14:08
  Speaker 1: on Instagram and TikTok at stuffonevertoldyou. We're also on YouTube.
• 1:14:11
  Speaker 1: We have some merchandise at Cotton Bureau, and we have
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  Speaker 1: a book you can get wherever you get your books. Thanks,
• 1:14:15
  Speaker 1: as always, to our super producer, Rima, and our executive,
• 1:14:17
  Speaker 1: Bruce and Maya. And thanks to you for listening. Stuff
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  Speaker 1: I Never Told You is a production of iHeartRadio. For
• 1:14:22
  Speaker 1: more podcasts from iHeartRadio, you can check out the iHeartRadio app,
• 1:14:24
  Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.