Latest / The Book Deal / Bookselling behind the scenes: author tips and advice with bookseller and writer Charlotte Guest

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Bookselling behind the scenes: author tips and advice with bookseller and writer Charlotte Guest · The Book Deal

• 0:09
  Madeleine Cleary: This is the Book Deal podcast where you will discover the inspiring stories, the authors behind your favorite books.
• 0:15
  Tina Strachan: No matter what sage of writing you are at, we've got you covered.
• 0:19
  Tina Strachan: I'm Tina Strachan.
• 0:20
  Tina Strachan: And I'm Madeline Cleary,
• 0:21
  Madeleine Cleary: and join us as we pull back the curtain of published authors
• 0:25
  Tina Strachan: one deal at a time.
• 0:29
  Tina Strachan: The book Deal podcast acknowledges the traditional owners, the land and waters, which it's recorded on and pays respect to their elders past, present, and emerging.
• 0:43
  Madeleine Cleary: It's Madeline here.
• 0:45
  Madeleine Cleary: Tina and I normally have our catch up episode this week, but instead, we invited fellow writer, Charlotte guest to join us to answer all our questions about book selling.
• 0:54
  Madeleine Cleary: Charlotte is a writer and bookseller on Wadawurrung Country in Geelong, Victoria.
• 0:59
  Madeleine Cleary: Her writing has been published in National and International Literary Journal.
• 1:02
  Madeleine Cleary: And in 2023, she received her PhD in creative writing from Deakin University, and she was awarded a UNA fellowship in 2025 for her currently unpublished manuscript.
• 1:14
  Madeleine Cleary: The Kookaburra Charlotte manages an indie bookshop, the Book Bird in Geelong, the.
• 1:19
  Madeleine Cleary: And was shortlisted for the 2024 Bookseller of the Year Award for this work.
• 1:24
  Madeleine Cleary: I met Charlotte at the Sorento Writers Festival and over some spontaneous drinks.
• 1:28
  Madeleine Cleary: It didn't take me long to form the opinion that Charlotte is a fast rising star in our industry, so enjoy this conversation.
• 1:37
  Madeleine Cleary: Hi Tina.
• 1:38
  Madeleine Cleary: How are you?
• 1:39
  Tina Strachan: I'm really good.
• 1:39
  Tina Strachan: Thanks, Madeleine.
• 1:40
  Tina Strachan: How are you?
• 1:41
  Tina Strachan: Another Friday night.
• 1:42
  Tina Strachan: Uh, recording and another wine list Friday night as well.
• 1:46
  Tina Strachan: I know.
• 1:46
  Tina Strachan: I have tea.
• 1:47
  Tina Strachan: Yep,
• 1:48
  Madeleine Cleary: I have water.
• 1:49
  Madeleine Cleary: That's okay.
• 1:50
  Madeleine Cleary: We need to, we need to get some, our Friday wines back.
• 1:52
  Madeleine Cleary: I think.
• 1:53
  Tina Strachan: I know it could make it a bit more funnier.
• 1:56
  Tina Strachan: Um, I, but it's still an exciting night.
• 2:00
  Tina Strachan: It is, it's exciting night.
• 2:01
  Madeleine Cleary: We have a special guest, don't we?
• 2:03
  Madeleine Cleary: We do.
• 2:03
  Madeleine Cleary: Mm-hmm.
• 2:03
  Madeleine Cleary: Um, who is also, um, a guest?
• 2:07
  Madeleine Cleary: And people will realize that soon.
• 2:10
  Madeleine Cleary: We have Charlotte Guest on the show.
• 2:11
  Madeleine Cleary: Welcome, Charlotte.
• 2:13
  Madeleine Cleary: Hi, Charlotte.
• 2:13
  Charlotte Guest: Thank you.
• 2:14
  Charlotte Guest: Thanks for having me.
• 2:15
  Madeleine Cleary: Oh, we're so happy that you are here with us on our Friday night.
• 2:19
  Madeleine Cleary: Do you have a wine?
• 2:21
  Charlotte Guest: I don't.
• 2:21
  Charlotte Guest: At least we all match in our wine.
• 2:25
  Madeleine Cleary: We, we bonded over wine, didn't we, Charlotte?
• 2:27
  Charlotte Guest: When we, we did.
• 2:28
  Charlotte Guest: It's very strange to be speaking and we, neither of us have a wine if we like.
• 2:32
  Charlotte Guest: I know you.
• 2:33
  Madeleine Cleary: Actually, yeah.
• 2:33
  Madeleine Cleary: Every other occasion, I think, well, at Willie Lit Sorento, it's what you do at writer's festivals,
• 2:38
  Charlotte Guest: even even texting.
• 2:40
  Charlotte Guest: We've said, do you have wine?
• 2:41
  Charlotte Guest: I've got a wine Not every combo needs to be fueled by wine, so that's fine.
• 2:49
  Madeleine Cleary: That's right, that's right.
• 2:49
  Madeleine Cleary: I'm just like.
• 2:50
  Madeleine Cleary: Putting my hand on my head, I'm just like, oh my gosh.
• 2:53
  Madeleine Cleary: Yes.
• 2:53
  Madeleine Cleary: We, we must sound like winos, but I know,
• 2:57
  Charlotte Guest: but tonight we're bucking the trend.
• 2:59
  Charlotte Guest: That's right.
• 3:00
  Madeleine Cleary: That's right.
• 3:00
  Madeleine Cleary: Exactly.
• 3:01
  Madeleine Cleary: So we, we thought we'd invite you on Charlotte, and we really appreciate you coming because um, we.
• 3:06
  Madeleine Cleary: We often, as writers have a lot of questions, I think for booksellers and we wanna work hand in hand with you, and I think it's an important part of our industry, but we thought it's a really good opportunity to talk to someone like you'cause you were shortlisted for Bookseller of the Year, which sounds amazing, and I wanna talk to you all about that and what that means.
• 3:25
  Madeleine Cleary: Thank you.
• 3:26
  Madeleine Cleary: Um, which is, yeah, just an incredible thing.
• 3:28
  Madeleine Cleary: But you are also a, an amazing reader, a huge a writer as well in your own right.
• 3:34
  Madeleine Cleary: Um, and you are.
• 3:36
  Madeleine Cleary: An excellent facilitator and interviewer of authors too.
• 3:39
  Madeleine Cleary: So you've, you've,
• 3:40
  Charlotte Guest: I appreciate that.
• 3:41
  Madeleine Cleary: Yeah.
• 3:41
  Madeleine Cleary: You have such a diverse background.
• 3:43
  Madeleine Cleary: So I'm really interested, and I actually did see that it was announced that you're gonna be interviewing Jane Harper on her tour in October, which is amazing.
• 3:51
  Charlotte Guest: So excited for the Wheeler Center regional programming in Geelong, which will be amazing.
• 3:56
  Charlotte Guest: Yeah.
• 3:57
  Charlotte Guest: I've been really thrilled to be asked.
• 3:59
  Madeleine Cleary: How does it feel to be, um, an interviewer of such incredible, um, high profile writers?
• 4:04
  Madeleine Cleary: You are a.
• 4:05
  Madeleine Cleary: Definitely I think an an interviewer in demand.
• 4:07
  Charlotte Guest: Oh, thank you.
• 4:09
  Charlotte Guest: I, I don't know about that, but I mean, it's, I mean, it's just such a joy to be able to ask questions directly from the horse's mouth.
• 4:17
  Charlotte Guest: I mean, you know, how many people get the opportunity to read a book and, um, quiz the author on everything and anything that occurred to you during the reading experience.
• 4:28
  Charlotte Guest: I mean, it's just, it's a real privilege.
• 4:30
  Madeleine Cleary: Mm-hmm.
• 4:30
  Madeleine Cleary: Have you always been a reader and a writer?
• 4:33
  Madeleine Cleary: Charlotte?
• 4:34
  Madeleine Cleary: Um.
• 4:35
  Charlotte Guest: Surprisingly, no, I, when I was a child, I, I didn't actually read as much as people might think.
• 4:42
  Charlotte Guest: I was really an outdoors and athletic and sporty kid.
• 4:48
  Charlotte Guest: Um, I spent most of my time outdoors.
• 4:50
  Charlotte Guest: We lived on a sort of bush property growing up, and, um, I spent most of.
• 4:56
  Charlotte Guest: The day climbing trees.
• 4:58
  Charlotte Guest: I used to climb a tree and keep a logbook of my neighbor's movements when I was a child, so they was like, that was gold.
• 5:06
  Charlotte Guest: Yeah.
• 5:06
  Charlotte Guest: I built this platform, which was not structurally sound, and, um, it was so that I could look to the driveway of the neighbor's house.
• 5:14
  Charlotte Guest: And then I had a little log book that was wrapped in plastic so it didn't, you know, curl in the rain.
• 5:19
  Charlotte Guest: And I would say like 10 0 5.
• 5:21
  Charlotte Guest: Left for the shops, 10 15 returned from shops.
• 5:26
  Charlotte Guest: It's really, I mean, I was clearly an only child, like no one else to occupy.
• 5:32
  Madeleine Cleary: Oh, did your neighbors know this?
• 5:34
  Charlotte Guest: I have no idea.
• 5:35
  Charlotte Guest: I mean, I couldn't have been that discreet.
• 5:36
  Charlotte Guest: I was like, I was just
• 5:37
  Madeleine Cleary: like, there's Charlotte again in the tree.
• 5:40
  Charlotte Guest: Better do something interesting, not kill.
• 5:43
  Madeleine Cleary: Did you feel, did you feel like you were a detective?
• 5:45
  Charlotte Guest: Maybe, I don't know.
• 5:47
  Charlotte Guest: I mean, I never came upon anything, any spectacular crimes in my time as a detective.
• 5:52
  Charlotte Guest: But, um, the thing that was sort of a literary touchstone as a, as a child was because I, we had this sort of big backyard.
• 6:03
  Charlotte Guest: My dad got really into the fire away tree more than I did.
• 6:07
  Charlotte Guest: He was really into it and he.
• 6:10
  Charlotte Guest: Made this topsy-turvy land at the top of the trees.
• 6:13
  Charlotte Guest: Wow.
• 6:13
  Charlotte Guest: So he had, yeah, it was beautiful.
• 6:15
  Charlotte Guest: He had passageways and platforms, not the one I built, which was dangerous, but the ones that he built and all these little figures in the trees like sauce man and, you know, moon face.
• 6:27
  Charlotte Guest: And that was beautiful.
• 6:29
  Charlotte Guest: So he sort of brought that book to life for me and I never forgot it.
• 6:33
  Charlotte Guest: So I remembered it when I came back to reading a little bit older, um, that he.
• 6:39
  Charlotte Guest: Brought that to life in that way, which I think isn't, I don't know.
• 6:43
  Charlotte Guest: It's, it's, it's over the top, which is typically my dad.
• 6:46
  Charlotte Guest: But, um, it was meaningful.
• 6:49
  Charlotte Guest: It was a really meaningful experience where the book was no longer confined to the page.
• 6:54
  Charlotte Guest: Mm-hmm.
• 6:55
  Madeleine Cleary: It's beautiful.
• 6:56
  Charlotte Guest: Mm-hmm.
• 6:58
  Charlotte Guest: It was.
• 6:59
  Madeleine Cleary: Um, I'm curious then what, what drew you back to reading?
• 7:02
  Madeleine Cleary: I mean, obviously your dance created this wonderful, magical, far away tree lived experience is what, what brought you back?
• 7:11
  Charlotte Guest: I remember as maybe about 14, I was reading again.
• 7:17
  Charlotte Guest: Sort of casually, but when I was 14 I read a Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess.
• 7:23
  Charlotte Guest: What a book
• 7:24
  Madeleine Cleary: to read to get you back.
• 7:25
  Charlotte Guest: I don't know how, I mean, for a kid that wasn't a reader, I really don't know why I picked it up.
• 7:30
  Charlotte Guest: 'cause it was, it was really challenging and it is challenging for, for every reader I think because half of it's written in like gibberish.
• 7:39
  Charlotte Guest: Um, and.
• 7:41
  Charlotte Guest: That idea of what you can do with language and how you can expand the mind because you know the books, sorry, the, the words used throughout are derived from some Russian words.
• 7:54
  Charlotte Guest: Some gobby go, some, you know, complete neologisms.
• 7:58
  Charlotte Guest: And the addition that I had didn't have a glossary.
• 8:02
  Charlotte Guest: 'cause a lot of the modern additions come with a glossary.
• 8:05
  Charlotte Guest: And the effect of it not having a glossary is that you are.
• 8:09
  Charlotte Guest: You worked it out for yourself and you had this palpable sense of grammar and, and, um, meaning making and, and contextual learning of words.
• 8:19
  Charlotte Guest: Because, you know, if you have a sentence like, we were making up our sucs what to do with the evening, then you can, this, you know, you can figure out that sucs must be, we were figuring out our, you know, making up our minds what to do with the evening.
• 8:33
  Charlotte Guest: But you, you had to, you had to infill that yourself and figure it out.
• 8:38
  Charlotte Guest: From the paragraphs and the sentences, and it was just such a incredible experience.
• 8:43
  Charlotte Guest: And then I thought, wow, there must be more like this.
• 8:46
  Charlotte Guest: And then off we went.
• 8:49
  Madeleine Cleary: What about writing?
• 8:50
  Madeleine Cleary: Because you are also a writer.
• 8:52
  Madeleine Cleary: You've written for multiple journals.
• 8:54
  Madeleine Cleary: You, um, have a PhD in creative writing.
• 8:56
  Madeleine Cleary: Um, you, you, you know, you've written a novel as well.
• 9:00
  Madeleine Cleary: Um, unpublished.
• 9:02
  Madeleine Cleary: Unpublished.
• 9:03
  Madeleine Cleary: Well, soon, soon
• 9:04
  Charlotte Guest: to be published, perhaps.
• 9:05
  Charlotte Guest: Okay.
• 9:06
  Charlotte Guest: One, one Hope.
• 9:07
  Charlotte Guest: We'll, we'll see.
• 9:09
  Charlotte Guest: Um, writing I came do, you know, I really don't.
• 9:14
  Charlotte Guest: I I kept, I kept that logbook.
• 9:18
  Charlotte Guest: Of my neighbor's movements, and that morphed into.
• 9:22
  Charlotte Guest: A di a vicious diary of like, um, you know, a 7-year-old being like, mom took me to Toys R Us and we couldn't get both the jumping beans and the this or, and the, what were those little fish things that you could have that, that turned into like monkeys, sea Monkeys.
• 9:40
  Charlotte Guest: Yes.
• 9:41
  Charlotte Guest: I was desperate for Sea Monkey.
• 9:43
  Charlotte Guest: There was a lot of entries on seam monkeys and, um, whether I'd obtained them or not, which was always, I hadn't.
• 9:48
  Charlotte Guest: And, um, and those, those, you know, those dinosaur things that were like, they absorbed water mm-hmm.
• 9:55
  Charlotte Guest: And you put them in a, in a, yeah, this is like nineties and early two thousands nostalgia.
• 10:00
  Charlotte Guest: And you put them in a tank and they would crack open and then they would become a dinosaur.
• 10:05
  Charlotte Guest: So I kept a diary a lot and it was just a, a lot of complaining about.
• 10:11
  Charlotte Guest: The toys I didn't have.
• 10:13
  Charlotte Guest: Um, and then that was kind of this, I don't know, it just, I really apart your creative writing.
• 10:20
  Charlotte Guest: I'm not really sure, but I know that I was always.
• 10:23
  Charlotte Guest: Complaining in the written word.
• 10:25
  Charlotte Guest: Yeah.
• 10:26
  Charlotte Guest: I mean, that's not, that's not entirely true.
• 10:28
  Charlotte Guest: There were other things in there, but, um, I remember going through, you know, you hear about writers who have always journaled and then they, you know, revisit those journals decades later and it's like this really beautiful walk down memory lane and, or like, or just, you know, discovering how that seed of writing was.
• 10:50
  Charlotte Guest: Planted, et cetera.
• 10:51
  Charlotte Guest: And I thought I'll do that because I've still got them.
• 10:54
  Charlotte Guest: And I opened them and they were dreadful.
• 10:56
  Charlotte Guest: Like they were just, they were boring and I don't know, they were slightly dark.
• 11:01
  Charlotte Guest: Weirdly nasty, but like, not about anyone, but just about like, I don't know, they were just honest.
• 11:06
  Charlotte Guest: Yeah.
• 11:07
  Charlotte Guest: Sea monkeys.
• 11:09
  Madeleine Cleary: Well, that, that was clearly, um, something that was very important to you at the time.
• 11:14
  Madeleine Cleary: But do you think, I wonder if, did you journal Madeleine as a child?
• 11:18
  Madeleine Cleary: Um, I, I was.
• 11:19
  Madeleine Cleary: Pretty sporadic journal.
• 11:21
  Madeleine Cleary: I I can imagine that Madeleine's journal, if you looked back on it, would be beautiful and had this wonderful trip down, made down, um, memory lane.
• 11:28
  Madeleine Cleary: I'm certain of it, it's more like, oh, I complained about my brother.
• 11:31
  Madeleine Cleary: Or, yeah.
• 11:32
  Madeleine Cleary: At school.
• 11:34
  Madeleine Cleary: Do you think it's because, um, uh, we're clearly writers and we're writers at heart that, but as.
• 11:40
  Madeleine Cleary: As a six and a seven and a eight and a nine and a 10-year-old.
• 11:43
  Madeleine Cleary: That's, we don't know what that means.
• 11:45
  Madeleine Cleary: And we dunno what that writing is.
• 11:46
  Madeleine Cleary: We just know that we wanna write, so we write about whatever, how boring and terrible.
• 11:50
  Madeleine Cleary: And I, I, I feel like I probably use dot points to, to write things'cause that's just how I do.
• 11:57
  Madeleine Cleary: So not much, um, creativity there.
• 11:59
  Madeleine Cleary: But yeah, maybe that's our first step, right?
• 12:03
  Charlotte Guest: I, I do remember, um.
• 12:06
  Charlotte Guest: I used to make this family magazine, um, called the Family Focus as a, as a child.
• 12:12
  Charlotte Guest: How old are you?
• 12:13
  Charlotte Guest: Very precocious Charlotte?
• 12:14
  Charlotte Guest: No, I was just, I was just like, there were no siblings.
• 12:17
  Charlotte Guest: I like, cannot stress how only this was, this experience was, um.
• 12:24
  Charlotte Guest: So, and, and you know, we lived way, way outta town, so like friends, it, I mean, it, it felt way outta town to me.
• 12:31
  Charlotte Guest: It really probably wasn't, but it felt ages, you know, there was a, there's no bus stop or there's no this or that.
• 12:37
  Charlotte Guest: Um, so I wrote and published as if.
• 12:41
  Charlotte Guest: Printed off, um, this magazine called The Family Focus and there would be like family member of the week, but there was only two to choose from.
• 12:52
  Charlotte Guest: It was only mom or dad.
• 12:54
  Charlotte Guest: So, um, and then like creating a, a crossword where all the clues related to whatever we'd done that week or things to do with the pets or whatever.
• 13:06
  Charlotte Guest: I don't know.
• 13:06
  Charlotte Guest: So I mean, that was.
• 13:09
  Charlotte Guest: Was something, I think it was probably about 10 when I started doing that.
• 13:13
  Charlotte Guest: That's great.
• 13:13
  Charlotte Guest: Um, yeah, it was, it, it occupied the, the weekend.
• 13:18
  Madeleine Cleary: Yeah.
• 13:18
  Madeleine Cleary: So how does one go from, um, writing a family focused magazine to getting a PhD in creative writing at Deakin University and then becoming a store manager at Book Bird Geelong?
• 13:31
  Madeleine Cleary: Tell us about that journey.
• 13:34
  Charlotte Guest: Well, um, it all feels very like one natural.
• 13:38
  Charlotte Guest: Progression.
• 13:39
  Charlotte Guest: Um, I, before I did the PhD, I used to work at a university press in Perth, uh, Western Australia.
• 13:47
  Charlotte Guest: Um, and that I started doing straight after finishing honors in literature.
• 13:54
  Charlotte Guest: I mean, I dunno, it was always just sort of a follow, follow your interest, follow your, your passions type pathway.
• 14:02
  Charlotte Guest: Um.
• 14:03
  Charlotte Guest: And working at the press was such a great experience in terms of how the books actually get made from submission acquisition, um, you know, assessments as to what, who's the intended reader, what's the intended market, the funding, you know, different funding streams and how, um, you know, what, what roles are done in house, what roles are done out of house, uh, particularly in a smaller press.
• 14:30
  Charlotte Guest: Um.
• 14:31
  Charlotte Guest: That was just such an incredible snapshot of the entire production line or lifespan of a book.
• 14:38
  Charlotte Guest: Um, because my role at that press was a lot of the marketing and the publicity.
• 14:45
  Charlotte Guest: So the, the end part of that process when you have a physical product to market, uh, and things like author care, which is, you know, stepping say a first time author through that whole process.
• 14:57
  Charlotte Guest: 'cause it can be so, um.
• 15:00
  Charlotte Guest: And difficult to, to grasp when it's your first time.
• 15:04
  Charlotte Guest: And it's such a, it can feel a very closed industry.
• 15:07
  Charlotte Guest: Mm-hmm.
• 15:08
  Charlotte Guest: Um, which in many ways it is.
• 15:12
  Charlotte Guest: And then I moved to Victoria to do the PhD.
• 15:18
  Charlotte Guest: Uh.
• 15:19
  Charlotte Guest: Because it presented an opportunity to have really dedicated time and space to write a full length work of fiction.
• 15:26
  Charlotte Guest: And it was, except that it coincided with COVID, like, like almost exactly.
• 15:32
  Charlotte Guest: Um, which made a already isolating experience.
• 15:38
  Charlotte Guest: Even more so because you do hear PhD candidates, um, say a lot of the time about how, you know, when it's self-driven research and you don't necessarily have coursework or that contact period, contact time with other classmates, that it is different to say, doing your undergraduate or, um, your masters for example, where you do have that core component of coursework and that contact time.
• 16:03
  Charlotte Guest: Um, so that it was, it.
• 16:06
  Charlotte Guest: Was not quite what I envisaged it was because that time, that time wasn't what anyone envisaged or expected.
• 16:14
  Charlotte Guest: Of course.
• 16:15
  Charlotte Guest: Um, so that was three, four years and that whole time I was there, I was still working at the bookstore.
• 16:23
  Charlotte Guest: And then, um, just.
• 16:25
  Charlotte Guest: I've just sort of stuck around.
• 16:27
  Charlotte Guest: So being the, um, the veteran of the bookstore, I'm now managing the bookstore.
• 16:33
  Charlotte Guest: Um, and it's just, I don't know, I just love it.
• 16:36
  Charlotte Guest: It's a really small but mighty little space in Geelong.
• 16:42
  Charlotte Guest: It's the only independent in Geelong.
• 16:46
  Charlotte Guest: Um, which is a bit of a strange badge of honor to have because Geelong really should have the population to support more than one independent bookstore, and I'm sure it, it does.
• 16:58
  Charlotte Guest: It just so happens that at the moment we are the only one.
• 17:01
  Charlotte Guest: I'm sure that won't always be the case along the surf coast is.
• 17:07
  Charlotte Guest: A network of amazing independent bookstores.
• 17:10
  Charlotte Guest: So the Surf coast and the ballin, uh, is sort of our community of independence.
• 17:16
  Charlotte Guest: Um, and yeah, I mean, it's just such a rich and varied.
• 17:22
  Charlotte Guest: Job, I, you know, anything from buying, which in itself is fascinating because there's so much that gets published from the major, you know, the multinationals down to the independent presses.
• 17:35
  Charlotte Guest: Um, things that are indent titles or import titles and locally published works.
• 17:42
  Charlotte Guest: And when you only have however many square foot.
• 17:45
  Charlotte Guest: Shelf space.
• 17:46
  Charlotte Guest: There's a whole, there's a whole raft of things that you have to think about before you decide what you can stock.
• 17:53
  Charlotte Guest: And it's that whittling down process that I find really fascinating.
• 17:58
  Charlotte Guest: Well, let's
• 17:58
  Madeleine Cleary: talk about that.
• 17:59
  Madeleine Cleary: Yeah, sorry, I'll, we are very fascinated about that and I think there's a lot of discussion at the moment.
• 18:05
  Madeleine Cleary: And Tina and I had a quick chat before this as well.
• 18:07
  Madeleine Cleary: A lot of chat from particularly debut authors about, um.
• 18:12
  Madeleine Cleary: You know what, what happens when your book no longer is in that new release window and then it moves to the shelf?
• 18:20
  Madeleine Cleary: And what decisions do books sellers make when, um, you know, looking at their window and, and it all starts, I think, with the buying.
• 18:29
  Madeleine Cleary: So really interested to hear, yeah.
• 18:32
  Madeleine Cleary: What are you looking for?
• 18:33
  Madeleine Cleary: What are you looking at?
• 18:34
  Madeleine Cleary: How do you make those, how do you whittle that down?
• 18:36
  Madeleine Cleary: There's such a huge breadth of books being published.
• 18:40
  Charlotte Guest: It's so.
• 18:41
  Charlotte Guest: Tough.
• 18:42
  Charlotte Guest: I've like, I really feel for, um, uh, I'm not sure how to put it.
• 18:50
  Charlotte Guest: It's, it's, it's so cutthroat and in a way that doesn't always feel good because it's this awkward marriage of art.
• 19:01
  Charlotte Guest: Commerce in this space, which is not, you know, necessarily unique to book selling, but you know, how much time and love and effort has gone into this piece and the cycle of releases and the cycle of returns and, um, managing your stock levels and all the sort of monetary stuff that goes into that means that it, it is quite, um, cut.
• 19:27
  Charlotte Guest: Cutthroat.
• 19:28
  Charlotte Guest: I keep coming back to the phrase cutthroat, but um, yeah, because you are looking, I mean, particularly in our store, which is very, very small, it's all about real estate, shelf real estate.
• 19:41
  Charlotte Guest: And, um, you know, what's getting the, uh.
• 19:47
  Charlotte Guest: Marketing and publicity budgets versus what is really powerful by word of mouth.
• 19:52
  Charlotte Guest: And those two are not necessarily the same things.
• 19:56
  Charlotte Guest: Um, you'll have your staff, uh, taste and their interest areas, which you will stock more of because you know that the hand selling aspect of book selling is huge.
• 20:08
  Charlotte Guest: You know, you could have.
• 20:11
  Charlotte Guest: A book that's out there with all the marketing budget in the world.
• 20:13
  Charlotte Guest: But if you have another book from a small independent press that one book seller has adored, you'll probably end up selling more units of that.
• 20:21
  Charlotte Guest: Mm-hmm.
• 20:22
  Charlotte Guest: Um, but it really.
• 20:25
  Charlotte Guest: You know, there's a, a returns window that not everybody knows about.
• 20:30
  Charlotte Guest: Um, where once you tick over that window and you haven't sent it back for credit or you haven't swapped the trade or the larger format down to the B format, um, you are stuck with that, that stock and it does take space.
• 20:45
  Madeleine Cleary: Could we talk about sale or return?
• 20:46
  Madeleine Cleary: 'cause that is not something that's commonly known.
• 20:49
  Charlotte Guest: Yeah, it's funny because, um.
• 20:53
  Charlotte Guest: New Zealand, for example, unless it's changed in recent years, doesn't have this system.
• 20:57
  Charlotte Guest: And I'm really glad I'm not a buyer in New Zealand's market.
• 21:02
  Charlotte Guest: If this is still the case, it may well have changed, but it certainly didn't used to be whatever they would order that is, is a, is a firm sale order or an order that you can't return.
• 21:15
  Charlotte Guest: I'm really glad that we have it here because it means that you can experiment with things.
• 21:20
  Charlotte Guest: It means you can trial things that might be a little bit more unusual because the, the way that sale and return or return works is that you order in an item and you have to keep it for at least three months to give it a chance to sell, um, a chance to be discovered, reviewed, et cetera.
• 21:39
  Charlotte Guest: After that three months.
• 21:40
  Charlotte Guest: You then have up to 12 months to send it back to the distributor and you will get a full credit for that item that goes against your account that you can then reallocate to order something else.
• 21:52
  Charlotte Guest: So we are constantly doing returns because it means that we can, we can change, and I know a lot of bookstores do returns in batches.
• 22:01
  Charlotte Guest: They'll do them every three months or whatever.
• 22:03
  Charlotte Guest: But you know, I found it easiest to do it as a, um.
• 22:09
  Charlotte Guest: Sort of constantly evolving thing because space is at such a premium.
• 22:14
  Charlotte Guest: Um, but it just means that your inventory can constantly evolve and almost breathe.
• 22:20
  Charlotte Guest: It gives it this organic feel, and when you are ordering, it means you don't have to.
• 22:27
  Charlotte Guest: Really stress over the fact that if I get five copies and I only sell two, you know, I, I've got this much, I'm holding up my fingers here.
• 22:37
  Charlotte Guest: I've got this much real estate that I've allocated to this book on the shelf that I'm not sure if I can move it or not.
• 22:43
  Charlotte Guest: So yeah, it encourages more risk taking, I think, in the ordering side of things, which is good for authors, but it does mean that.
• 22:52
  Charlotte Guest: Three months down the track, you might start to see some books come back, but that's very, that's very normal.
• 22:59
  Madeleine Cleary: Yeah.
• 23:00
  Madeleine Cleary: Can I ask Charlotte, so what is a.
• 23:03
  Madeleine Cleary: Normal amount of books for you to order in the first instance.
• 23:07
  Madeleine Cleary: And I'm sure it depe, I'm sure it changes depending on genre and, you know, an author.
• 23:12
  Madeleine Cleary: But for a, for a standard debut, say, so it doesn't have, um, a history.
• 23:18
  Madeleine Cleary: How many books generally are you, would you be looking at?
• 23:23
  Charlotte Guest: Bear in mind that we are a very small store, so, um, it might sound really minuscule, but we are such a tiny shop, um, for a debut.
• 23:33
  Charlotte Guest: That, that, you know, um, you are trialing the book.
• 23:38
  Charlotte Guest: You love the sound of it.
• 23:39
  Charlotte Guest: You, I would probably usually start with three units.
• 23:42
  Charlotte Guest: Mm-hmm.
• 23:42
  Charlotte Guest: And the.
• 23:42
  Charlotte Guest: The reason for that is because, um, if something has been selected through the big group buy, which is from a lot of places, this place called Book People, which is the newly rebranded Australian Bookseller Association, so the national body, they will often do, um.
• 24:04
  Charlotte Guest: Scale discounts for items that are new that the publishers want to promote or get you to pay attention to.
• 24:11
  Charlotte Guest: And the minimum for that do for you to get an extra trade discount is usually three and three.
• 24:18
  Charlotte Guest: Gives you enough to make it look really good on the shelf, plentiful, the way that we've designed the layout anyway, but it doesn't overcommit you.
• 24:28
  Madeleine Cleary: Mm-hmm.
• 24:29
  Madeleine Cleary: I think that's a good point.
• 24:30
  Madeleine Cleary: Thank you.
• 24:30
  Madeleine Cleary: Because, um, I think a lot of people don't realize that it can be so low four, like not low, but you know, three's a good number like you said.
• 24:38
  Madeleine Cleary: But, um, yeah, I think a lot of authors don't realize that that's, that can be quite common for a lot of indie booksellers anyway, that, that three's the standard number and sometimes less.
• 24:48
  Charlotte Guest: Sometimes less.
• 24:50
  Charlotte Guest: Um, because the beauty of it is that, you know, for the publishers that have distribution through the national.
• 24:57
  Charlotte Guest: Distributors, their, their delivery time is, you know, maybe only three business days.
• 25:03
  Charlotte Guest: So you can get your initial order of three, you, it can be a bit longer, let's say, let's say seven days on average.
• 25:09
  Charlotte Guest: But you can get your initial order of three.
• 25:11
  Charlotte Guest: And if you start to see this is something that people are paying attention to, you can immediately do your next top up of six within a week.
• 25:19
  Speaker 4: Mm-hmm.
• 25:20
  Charlotte Guest: Yeah.
• 25:20
  Charlotte Guest: So it's flexible like that.
• 25:22
  Charlotte Guest: It's not, um, set in stone.
• 25:25
  Madeleine Cleary: I wanna talk about the power of indie bookshops as well, because there is a, I think a power, and you mentioned it before that, um, uh, you know, while a book could have so much buzz around it, lots of marketing budget, a lot of publicity, hype, there are those books that.
• 25:41
  Madeleine Cleary: Particularly indie bookshops can champion.
• 25:43
  Madeleine Cleary: Um, and these perhaps don't have that same buzz and hype and spend, and a lot of debut authors often do fall into that category because often publishers will just see what sticks.
• 25:54
  Madeleine Cleary: They'll give you a go and see what happens.
• 25:56
  Madeleine Cleary: And so there is a lot of power behind that hand selling.
• 26:00
  Madeleine Cleary: How do you think authors can work with indie bookshops to, I suppose, rise above the pack?
• 26:06
  Charlotte Guest: If you're a local to an area and you have the opportunity to introduce yourself to your independent bookseller, um.
• 26:15
  Charlotte Guest: Absolutely do that.
• 26:17
  Charlotte Guest: To have a face to a book is so powerful and to know that they're local to your area.
• 26:22
  Charlotte Guest: 'cause a lot of independent bookstores want to champion their local authors.
• 26:27
  Charlotte Guest: Um, often we get sent arcs, which are advanced reading copies of books so that booksellers have the opportunity to read something pre-release.
• 26:37
  Charlotte Guest: And that is really important as well.
• 26:40
  Charlotte Guest: Um, that's part of the marketing and publicity budget.
• 26:43
  Charlotte Guest: Um, to actually print those arcs because, you know, that's not cheap.
• 26:47
  Charlotte Guest: Um, a really good example of a book that has been beloved in our shop and is really like odd is.
• 26:59
  Charlotte Guest: There's one that came out through Raimondo called, it Lasts Forever and then it's over.
• 27:04
  Charlotte Guest: And it is a literary zombie novel and it is the strangest read, but it is so incredible.
• 27:13
  Charlotte Guest: It won the Novel Prize, um, which was first won by Jessica Owl called Enough for Snow a few years ago.
• 27:19
  Charlotte Guest: This was, I believe, last year's winter.
• 27:23
  Charlotte Guest: Um.
• 27:24
  Charlotte Guest: And it is a strange bird, but we have really taken it under our wing to extend the metaphor clumsily.
• 27:34
  Charlotte Guest: Um, and it had practically no, I mean, it did get reviewed because it is excellent, but in terms of that marketing machine, like it just wasn't one that you were gonna see advertised everywhere or on social media everywhere.
• 27:50
  Charlotte Guest: But we have sold so many copies because.
• 27:53
  Charlotte Guest: It's a little gem.
• 27:55
  Charlotte Guest: Mm-hmm.
• 27:55
  Charlotte Guest: And it's something that we've championed, um, in terms of what authors can do.
• 28:03
  Charlotte Guest: I think that communication and being approachable and being open and also, um, I guess being aware of.
• 28:13
  Charlotte Guest: Things like, you know, an opening order of only three is, is, is not unusual.
• 28:19
  Charlotte Guest: It's actually, it's quite normal.
• 28:21
  Charlotte Guest: And yeah, just the, being aware of the context of, I suppose, of how many books there are contending for shelf space.
• 28:30
  Charlotte Guest: It's, it's really tough, but, um, it's tough, but not impossible.
• 28:35
  Madeleine Cleary: Yeah, what are some things that authors shouldn't do?
• 28:40
  Madeleine Cleary: Like there's a few, give us some do's and don'ts of, you know, um, approaching a bookstore as well, because, um, this is, you know, something that we talk about in a debu crew a little bit as well.
• 28:51
  Madeleine Cleary: Uh, how do we go in there and, and say hi?
• 28:53
  Madeleine Cleary: Because no one, um, wants to look like they're just coming in to say hi.
• 28:58
  Madeleine Cleary: So it helps.
• 29:00
  Madeleine Cleary: Sell their book, say, but they, but to try and make that genuine connection.
• 29:05
  Madeleine Cleary: And what, what some tips, and I'd add to that too, there's a few schools of thought that's going around, like theories as well.
• 29:10
  Madeleine Cleary: Like some Oh, are there?
• 29:12
  Madeleine Cleary: Yeah.
• 29:12
  Madeleine Cleary: That we, we get advice that, um, we should only do the official book tour, that that's been organized by our publishers.
• 29:19
  Madeleine Cleary: That bookstores know that we're coming, whereas others are saying no.
• 29:23
  Madeleine Cleary: If you are in the area, drop in, say hi.
• 29:28
  Charlotte Guest: From my perspective, um, I, I think that probably the best approach.
• 29:37
  Charlotte Guest: Is to have an email contact first so that the book seller can prepare for your visit.
• 29:42
  Charlotte Guest: As in ha make sure that they have copies of your book for starters.
• 29:46
  Charlotte Guest: 'cause there's nothing that makes you feel worse if they just happened to have come in and maybe you sold the last copy.
• 29:53
  Charlotte Guest: You didn't realize that they were coming in two days later and you haven't had a chance to reorder it.
• 29:57
  Charlotte Guest: Um, so that, that.
• 30:00
  Charlotte Guest: Pre-warning is really valued'cause it just gives you a chance to get organized and make sure that you can welcome them warmly and in the fashion that you'd like to.
• 30:09
  Charlotte Guest: Um, something that was, uh, was a really interesting thing when you do email, uh.
• 30:18
  Charlotte Guest: A bookstore is to just highlight who the publisher or the distributor is because say for example, you have a publisher that may be a smaller press, but they are an agent or agented by a major distributor.
• 30:37
  Charlotte Guest: Um, sometimes if you don't highlight that.
• 30:40
  Charlotte Guest: It looks like it, it, it does appear that it's independently published and that would therefore have to be a consignment arrangement.
• 30:48
  Charlotte Guest: Mm-hmm.
• 30:48
  Charlotte Guest: Um, whereas say for example, you have, I'm trying to think of an example.
• 30:52
  Charlotte Guest: Um, so like,
• 30:53
  Madeleine Cleary: for example, I think it's a Freeman Press is distributed by Harper College.
• 30:57
  Madeleine Cleary: Harper.
• 30:58
  Madeleine Cleary: Well,
• 30:58
  Charlotte Guest: they their penguin.
• 30:59
  Charlotte Guest: But yes, that, that's a good example.
• 31:02
  Charlotte Guest: Like, um, Freemantle Press most booksellers would be familiar with, but there's, um.
• 31:07
  Charlotte Guest: There's some smaller outfits.
• 31:09
  Charlotte Guest: Say for example, a new press called, um, pink Shorts Press in Adelaide, who are doing some really interesting books at the moment.
• 31:16
  Charlotte Guest: Um, they're a new publisher on the blog, but they are distributed by Simon and Schuster.
• 31:23
  Charlotte Guest: So if you are an one of their authors and you're just alerting your local bookstore or bookstores, um, about your book, uh, if it, if you happen to mention that, it's through Simon and Schuster.
• 31:36
  Charlotte Guest: And pink shorts press, that bookstore will know that they can get it through the main easy clicker button channel, which is just an, it's just appealing to a bookseller or a book buyer to know that it's an easy order.
• 31:50
  Charlotte Guest: They can experiment on it, and it is able to be returned if it doesn't happen to sell, rather than a consignment arrangement that requires paperwork, individual ordering through.
• 32:03
  Charlotte Guest: An independent supplier, which is not to say that bookstores don't do that, particularly independents do, but it's, you wanna make it as easy as possible for them to take the book.
• 32:14
  Madeleine Cleary: Hmm.
• 32:14
  Madeleine Cleary: And how early should, um, writers engage with bookstores?
• 32:18
  Madeleine Cleary: Should they do this after the books come out, or should they,'cause I know your buying probably three to four months in advance.
• 32:25
  Madeleine Cleary: When's the, the perfect time to, to have those conversations?
• 32:29
  Charlotte Guest: Oh, look, I mean, I'm sure other book buyers have, um, some real preferences.
• 32:36
  Charlotte Guest: I, I really, I mean, when it comes to us, it's either myself or the owner, Anna, um, who, who is placing those orders.
• 32:43
  Charlotte Guest: I really don't mind if you're going six months out, that's possibly a bit early because it's not really on the radar yet.
• 32:50
  Charlotte Guest: Um, even if it's post-release, it's easy to get.
• 32:57
  Charlotte Guest: Things in pretty quickly, like I said.
• 32:59
  Charlotte Guest: But, um, I'd say as a, as a general rule, maybe a month before release just gives, um, particularly the smaller bookstores who may be sort of dealing with, you know, however many multiple tasks a day, it allows them to sort of flag it, sit it, attend to it, and they can still order and get it in time for release if they wish.
• 33:18
  Charlotte Guest: Um, so maybe a month, I'd say.
• 33:22
  Madeleine Cleary: Perfect.
• 33:23
  Madeleine Cleary: That's very good.
• 33:23
  Madeleine Cleary: Tangible of advice.
• 33:26
  Madeleine Cleary: And, and, uh, what about signing your book, Charlotte?
• 33:29
  Madeleine Cleary: There's been, um, some people, uh, like to just go into the bookshop and pick up the book and sign it regardless.
• 33:38
  Madeleine Cleary: Um, what's your, your.
• 33:40
  Madeleine Cleary: Shaking your head my without asking.
• 33:43
  Madeleine Cleary: So, um, yep.
• 33:44
  Madeleine Cleary: So that sounds like not the, not the way to go,
• 33:47
  Charlotte Guest: not the way to go, only because it makes you panic for a second that someone's just vandalizing a book.
• 33:54
  Charlotte Guest: Uh, I mean, obviously people don't tend to do that, but I think, uh, introducing yourself, I don't know, just in terms of the ex that exchange or that encounter, it's.
• 34:06
  Charlotte Guest: Probably best not to just pick something off the shelf and start scribbling in it.
• 34:10
  Charlotte Guest: Um, I know it can, it probably can be really daunting to, to go into a bookstore and, and introduce yourself in that way.
• 34:19
  Charlotte Guest: Um, but I think that would be practicable then to just sort of go undercover and try and scribble and get out quickly because the other part of that.
• 34:28
  Charlotte Guest: Uh, interaction is that usually the bookseller will wanna have an opportunity to take some photos and promote on their social media channels.
• 34:36
  Charlotte Guest: Um, and it just makes it incredibly awkward if they're like intercepting you mid, mid scribble saying, just checking.
• 34:43
  Charlotte Guest: You're the author.
• 34:45
  Charlotte Guest: Um, yeah.
• 34:46
  Charlotte Guest: So I, I probably would make it apparent, but that's what you're doing.
• 34:51
  Charlotte Guest: Yes.
• 34:51
  Charlotte Guest: And they, oh,
• 34:52
  Madeleine Cleary: sorry.
• 34:52
  Madeleine Cleary: You go Tina.
• 34:53
  Madeleine Cleary: I was gonna say, they often have these really nice little stickers that they put on the front too that says signed by the author, which is
• 34:58
  Charlotte Guest: exactly, yeah, and anything you can, anything that sets your book apart from its neighbors on the shelf, you know, whether that's a glossy sticker, which is what we have, if it's been signed, that stock will normally go face out, and you'd be amazed at the difference it makes if something is face out versus spine out.
• 35:16
  Charlotte Guest: All those little things do make a difference.
• 35:20
  Madeleine Cleary: Exactly.
• 35:20
  Madeleine Cleary: No, I think that that's some really, really good tips and I, I think, um, being able to, um, if you are just popping into store, say you don't plan it, you haven't had time to email.
• 35:30
  Madeleine Cleary: If you are walking into a store, if you go and find your books on the shelf, so it's not like you're going up saying, oh, I'm the author.
• 35:35
  Madeleine Cleary: Do you have my books?
• 35:36
  Madeleine Cleary: And then having that awkward interaction.
• 35:38
  Madeleine Cleary: If the bookstore doesn't, you could go if you find your books on the shelf and then take it up.
• 35:43
  Madeleine Cleary: That's a really good way to introduce yourself and say, I'm absolutely would like me to sign
• 35:47
  Charlotte Guest: it.
• 35:48
  Charlotte Guest: Absolutely.
• 35:49
  Charlotte Guest: Yeah, of course.
• 35:50
  Charlotte Guest: Um, you know, there's no real hard and fast rules, but yeah, if you happen to be in a bookstore and you see your book, come up to us and tell that that's such a beautiful moment.
• 35:59
  Charlotte Guest: We love that.
• 36:01
  Madeleine Cleary: There you go.
• 36:02
  Madeleine Cleary: You've heard it on the book deal podcast.
• 36:03
  Madeleine Cleary: 'cause we have a few authors being very anxious and nervous about doing that.
• 36:07
  Madeleine Cleary: So put that aside.
• 36:09
  Madeleine Cleary: Go and introduce yourselves to the booksellers.
• 36:11
  Madeleine Cleary: And booksellers are very nice people as well.
• 36:14
  Madeleine Cleary: Everyone likes books, so Of course.
• 36:16
  Madeleine Cleary: Mm-hmm.
• 36:16
  Madeleine Cleary: Of course.
• 36:16
  Madeleine Cleary: They're great people.
• 36:19
  Charlotte Guest: You have to say that I'm sitting right here.
• 36:22
  Charlotte Guest: Although you used to be a bookseller as well, didn't you?
• 36:24
  Charlotte Guest: Madeleine,
• 36:25
  Madeleine Cleary: years ago.
• 36:26
  Madeleine Cleary: A decade ago.
• 36:27
  Madeleine Cleary: Yes.
• 36:27
  Madeleine Cleary: Yes.
• 36:27
  Charlotte Guest: Were you a bookseller as well, Tina?
• 36:29
  Madeleine Cleary: No.
• 36:30
  Madeleine Cleary: No.
• 36:30
  Madeleine Cleary: I am the only one here that has not been a bookseller.
• 36:33
  Charlotte Guest: Maybe one day.
• 36:34
  Madeleine Cleary: Maybe one day.
• 36:41
  Speaker 5: Hello, lovely listeners.
• 36:43
  Speaker 5: My name is Kasey Whitelaw and I'm thrilled to tell you all about my debut picture book.
• 36:48
  Speaker 5: Flute, A Dolphin's Wild Journey home.
• 36:51
  Speaker 5: It's illustrated by the super talented Jenny Goodman and published by the wonderful team at Wombat Books.
• 36:57
  Speaker 5: Flute, a playful dolphin is separated from her dolphin party alone and in danger.
• 37:03
  Speaker 5: She begins a wild journey back to the safety of her family and friends.
• 37:09
  Speaker 5: But will she make it home?
• 37:12
  Speaker 5: Flute is an inspiring story about friendship, support, and determination.
• 37:17
  Speaker 5: It also raises vital awareness about the threats dolphins face from boating and noise pollution worldwide.
• 37:24
  Speaker 5: This story was actually inspired by my seven years working at Monkey Meyer in the stunning Shark Bay world heritage area in Western Australia.
• 37:32
  Speaker 5: This is where I had the privilege of working alongside the real flute, her family, and all her wonderful friends.
• 37:39
  Speaker 5: I was able to watch their busy lives full of mischief and mayhem, and this is actually where I discovered their deep need for friendship, community, and support.
• 37:50
  Speaker 5: Inspired by these true events and real friendships.
• 37:52
  Speaker 5: Flute takes readers on a fun and wild ride.
• 37:56
  Speaker 5: You'll journey along with her as she makes her way through a seagrass maze, slips and slides off a sandbar, dodges stinging sea jellies, and fends off a tiger shark.
• 38:06
  Speaker 5: Plus the storyline is full of fascinating facts about dolphins.
• 38:11
  Speaker 5: The back matter tells you more about the real Flute and provides practical ways to help dolphins.
• 38:17
  Speaker 5: Thank you to Tina and the Book Deal podcast for this opportunity to share flute with you today.
• 38:22
  Speaker 5: Flute is available now.
• 38:30
  Madeleine Cleary: I wanna talk about events, author events.
• 38:32
  Madeleine Cleary: Um, how, so there are some bookstores that do a lot of events, others don't.
• 38:37
  Madeleine Cleary: Can you talk perhaps a little bit about, um, how important are bookshops to the community, firstly, and also how you think authors should go about perhaps approaching a, a bookstore, about doing a running event.
• 38:51
  Charlotte Guest: I love events.
• 38:53
  Charlotte Guest: They are, we are yet to find the magic.
• 38:56
  Charlotte Guest: Formula because they perhaps are more difficult than they would seem.
• 39:03
  Charlotte Guest: Not, not difficult in a prohibitive way, but for a small bookstore like ours, um, we have a really small team.
• 39:12
  Charlotte Guest: And so doing events in the shop, um, there's all sorts of hidden costs involved that may not, um, sort of immediately pop to mind.
• 39:22
  Charlotte Guest: One of the ones that no one ever thinks of that.
• 39:26
  Charlotte Guest: Is really significant is the fact that in order to do events in the store, we have to move all of the displays, which are heavy blocks full of books, and that means we had then have to close the shop early, which means you then potentially, you know, you've closed the shop at.
• 39:46
  Charlotte Guest: Three instead of five.
• 39:48
  Charlotte Guest: You've got two hours where you would normally have been open, where you are actually just paying a staff wage to do setup.
• 39:55
  Charlotte Guest: Um, and so it's all sort of finicky things like that.
• 39:57
  Charlotte Guest: We have done, um, plenty of events offsite and we'll continue to do that.
• 40:04
  Charlotte Guest: Um, we've got things coming up in a couple of months, but for our shop at least, it's mostly one or two people who are doing them.
• 40:14
  Charlotte Guest: So it's really just a.
• 40:15
  Charlotte Guest: Personal capacity thing, I think as well.
• 40:18
  Charlotte Guest: Like, you know, what do you feel you have the energy to do this month?
• 40:22
  Charlotte Guest: Um,'cause if they are, they can be one or two man band type, um, efforts.
• 40:30
  Charlotte Guest: So there's that.
• 40:33
  Charlotte Guest: We, I love what.
• 40:35
  Charlotte Guest: Events bring to a town, though, particularly a regional town.
• 40:39
  Charlotte Guest: We're uncomfortably classed as regional even though we're sort of a city, but sort of not.
• 40:45
  Charlotte Guest: Um, but I know that our readers and community love them, which is why we're constantly trying to find different ways of doing them, whether that's a offsite event space.
• 41:00
  Charlotte Guest: And then the issue there is do you have a venue, higher cost, et cetera, et cetera.
• 41:04
  Charlotte Guest: Mm.
• 41:04
  Charlotte Guest: Um, or do you do them in the store where your capacity to be comfortable is about 30, therefore your potential sales are limited, therefore, et cetera, et cetera.
• 41:15
  Charlotte Guest: Um, so yes, we love them, but they may are not as straightforward as perhaps it seems for.
• 41:24
  Charlotte Guest: Tiny shop like ours.
• 41:27
  Charlotte Guest: I know that other stores just have it down to a really well oiled machine, and we will hopefully get there.
• 41:33
  Charlotte Guest: Mm-hmm.
• 41:35
  Madeleine Cleary: Yeah, some stores do multiple in a day and an evening and just amazing roll one after the other.
• 41:39
  Madeleine Cleary: Yeah.
• 41:40
  Madeleine Cleary: I'm so jealous.
• 41:41
  Madeleine Cleary: But they're big.
• 41:42
  Madeleine Cleary: They're big.
• 41:42
  Madeleine Cleary: They're big, big stores with lots of space and staff.
• 41:46
  Madeleine Cleary: Yeah.
• 41:46
  Madeleine Cleary: Mm-hmm.
• 41:46
  Madeleine Cleary: Mm-hmm.
• 41:47
  Madeleine Cleary: Yeah.
• 41:47
  Madeleine Cleary: Yeah.
• 41:47
  Madeleine Cleary: And they can stay open.
• 41:49
  Madeleine Cleary: Like I think about readings, you know, they can stay open Yes to, to customers while also running events
• 41:55
  Charlotte Guest: that is ama.
• 41:56
  Charlotte Guest: Isn't that just the most ideal scenario where you can have your doors open at the same time as having a dedicated event?
• 42:02
  Charlotte Guest: I mean, that's just the dream.
• 42:05
  Charlotte Guest: Yeah.
• 42:05
  Charlotte Guest: Yeah.
• 42:05
  Charlotte Guest: Absolutely.
• 42:06
  Madeleine Cleary: Absolutely.
• 42:07
  Madeleine Cleary: Um, I wanna also, um, talk about the, the shortlist, the Bookseller award.
• 42:13
  Madeleine Cleary: Um, let me get that right again.
• 42:15
  Madeleine Cleary: Bookseller of the Year Award.
• 42:17
  Madeleine Cleary: You are shortlisted for last year.
• 42:20
  Madeleine Cleary: What makes a good bookseller, Charlotte?
• 42:21
  Madeleine Cleary: And tell us about that Shortlisting.
• 42:23
  Charlotte Guest: Well, I wanna talk about who won, who was my amazing colleague down at the Queenscliff Bookstore.
• 42:30
  Charlotte Guest: Matt Davis.
• 42:31
  Charlotte Guest: He is the co-owner of the Queenscliff Bookstore with Jane Tuttle, who is also an author and they are incredible.
• 42:38
  Charlotte Guest: So if I was gonna lose to anyone, I was really happy to lose to match because I mean, the.
• 42:48
  Charlotte Guest: The kind of work that, that Matt and Jane have done for the Queenscliff community.
• 42:53
  Charlotte Guest: For example, they did a competition or, or an initiative with a local school as a writing competition and then bound and published that into a book for the kids who are contributed to be sold in the bookstore.
• 43:07
  Charlotte Guest: Wow.
• 43:08
  Charlotte Guest: Um.
• 43:09
  Charlotte Guest: Community focused, things like that.
• 43:11
  Charlotte Guest: They do an enormous amount of events and initiatives.
• 43:16
  Charlotte Guest: They do, you know, fundraising.
• 43:19
  Charlotte Guest: Um, it's something that is really the spirit of what independent bookstores and booksellers should be.
• 43:28
  Charlotte Guest: I think so, um.
• 43:32
  Charlotte Guest: That's, I guess, kind of the idea of the award.
• 43:35
  Charlotte Guest: I mean, every year you have just these incredible people who don't go into this line of work for the money, let's be honest.
• 43:44
  Charlotte Guest: Mm-hmm.
• 43:44
  Charlotte Guest: You know, they go because they, they love words, writing, literature, community, um, and.
• 43:52
  Charlotte Guest: The connection.
• 43:53
  Charlotte Guest: I don't know all of those incredible things, but also are aware of the enormous work that goes on behind the scenes.
• 44:01
  Charlotte Guest: Um, so yeah, that, I don't know what makes a good bookseller.
• 44:06
  Charlotte Guest: I mean, every, yeah.
• 44:07
  Charlotte Guest: Uh, I think maybe just a sense of openness or curiosity, maybe Curiosity is what's.
• 44:14
  Charlotte Guest: Possible within the confines of a small business, um, that deals with stories and voices and championing the voices that should be championed and all that sort of stuff.
• 44:28
  Madeleine Cleary: Mm-hmm.
• 44:28
  Madeleine Cleary: I love that.
• 44:28
  Madeleine Cleary: What have been some of your favorite moments as a bookseller?
• 44:33
  Madeleine Cleary: Mm-hmm.
• 44:34
  Charlotte Guest: Um, well, at Christmas we have this one family who come in every year and they have a spreadsheet and.
• 44:43
  Charlotte Guest: The spreadsheet is sort of the central place like that.
• 44:47
  Charlotte Guest: We have to say, oh, don't get that because Susan's already bought you that.
• 44:52
  Charlotte Guest: And, but, or not, not Susan's already bought you, that, that would be a spoiler.
• 44:55
  Charlotte Guest: But as in, um, we manage, you know, one particular family's all their Christmas buying and it's so gorgeous and wholesome.
• 45:02
  Charlotte Guest: Um, things like.
• 45:07
  Charlotte Guest: Meeting people at very specific intersections of their lives and the reasons that maybe a non-reader would turn to a book, um, at a specific point or for a need.
• 45:21
  Charlotte Guest: Um, often that can be at a time of grief and you.
• 45:27
  Charlotte Guest: Get these insights into people and what they're going through that you sometimes wonder, like maybe close friends or certain family members do, but there is a real intimacy sometimes to being somebody's bookseller, um, because they will disclose to you what they're seeking in a story or what they're seeking from a book or how, or what ways in they would like to be surprised by something.
• 45:55
  Charlotte Guest: That tells you a lot about what people are grappling with.
• 46:00
  Charlotte Guest: Um, that's always been very special to me.
• 46:04
  Charlotte Guest: Uh,'cause it's a sense of trust, I guess, that they entrust you with that information and that privacy I suppose, as well.
• 46:12
  Charlotte Guest: Um, yeah, and just, um, celebrating different, I don't know, stories and yeah, it's quite.
• 46:23
  Charlotte Guest: I'm, I know often being a bookseller can be overly romanticized.
• 46:28
  Charlotte Guest: Um, but when you are cherry picking the highlights that they, they are the romantic moments because that's why you're there.
• 46:38
  Madeleine Cleary: Yes.
• 46:38
  Madeleine Cleary: And of course, you know, there are the less romantic moments.
• 46:41
  Madeleine Cleary: Yeah, yeah.
• 46:42
  Madeleine Cleary: The dusting.
• 46:42
  Madeleine Cleary: Yes,
• 46:43
  Charlotte Guest: the dusting.
• 46:44
  Charlotte Guest: I wrote the endless dusting.
• 46:47
  Madeleine Cleary: It's amazing how much dust can gather just over a few days, isn't it, on those shelves.
• 46:51
  Charlotte Guest: And the funniest thing is, you know, just, um, not speaking of the dust, but you know, when people go into bookstores and they go, oh, I love, I love the smell of a bookstore.
• 47:00
  Charlotte Guest: And people say that to us like a lot.
• 47:02
  Charlotte Guest: I've literally never smelled that smell.
• 47:04
  Charlotte Guest: I dunno what it is.
• 47:06
  Charlotte Guest: You're so used to it.
• 47:06
  Charlotte Guest: I'm used to it.
• 47:07
  Charlotte Guest: Well.
• 47:08
  Charlotte Guest: No, but even like, like I've never, I've never smelt it.
• 47:11
  Charlotte Guest: I was just like, people come and they go, Ooh, like that paper and that ink and you know, book smell.
• 47:17
  Charlotte Guest: And I always agree as if I know what they're talking about.
• 47:19
  Charlotte Guest: I have no idea what that smell is.
• 47:21
  Madeleine Cleary: Do you know, in the bookstore that I used to work to, when I work at the, the shop next door was a schnitzel shop.
• 47:27
  Madeleine Cleary: Oh.
• 47:27
  Madeleine Cleary: When I associate book selling, I associate with the smell of schnitzel fried chicken.
• 47:32
  Madeleine Cleary: Oh.
• 47:33
  Madeleine Cleary: Yeah, I about that smell.
• 47:35
  Madeleine Cleary: No, I must admit, I, yeah, and every time people would walk in, they'd go, Ooh, way
• 47:41
  Charlotte Guest: expected.
• 47:43
  Charlotte Guest: Yeah.
• 47:44
  Charlotte Guest: Well, the, the shop next to us is a shoe shop, so maybe it's like a combination of paper and like boot polish.
• 47:50
  Charlotte Guest: Yeah.
• 47:50
  Charlotte Guest: It's a
• 47:50
  Madeleine Cleary: leather.
• 47:52
  Madeleine Cleary: Oh, well, it's a very important job.
• 47:55
  Madeleine Cleary: Charlotte, I think, and booksellers are we?
• 47:57
  Charlotte Guest: We like to think so.
• 47:58
  Charlotte Guest: People's lives,
• 47:59
  Madeleine Cleary: it truly changed people's lives, I think.
• 48:01
  Madeleine Cleary: Yes.
• 48:01
  Madeleine Cleary: But for the authors and the people who are purchasing the books.
• 48:05
  Madeleine Cleary: Yeah.
• 48:06
  Madeleine Cleary: And without, you know, without the bookstores, you know, we as authors, we wouldn't be able, and us as a publishing industry really couldn't.
• 48:13
  Madeleine Cleary: Publish the breadth and diversity that we have.
• 48:15
  Madeleine Cleary: Because if we're always looking online for our books, if there's something so different, like you said about seeing a face out book and shelf, or even as, as kids coming into a store, being able to peruse, um, all the different picture story books.
• 48:28
  Madeleine Cleary: Like you don't get that, that same thing online that you get in a physical bookstore.
• 48:34
  Charlotte Guest: You don't, and I think cultivating that.
• 48:37
  Charlotte Guest: Point of difference is really essential to our survival.
• 48:41
  Charlotte Guest: I think.
• 48:42
  Charlotte Guest: Um, just the experiential nature of walking into a physical space.
• 48:47
  Charlotte Guest: Um, so shifting emphasis from, um, the product alone and the price point.
• 48:55
  Charlotte Guest: 'cause you just can't compete on price.
• 48:58
  Charlotte Guest: You can't compete with the online retailers, and you can't compete with the d Compete with the ddss, the discount department stores, which is a.
• 49:07
  Charlotte Guest: Ongoing challenge to communicate why those outlets are a problem.
• 49:14
  Charlotte Guest: Um, but that's a whole other conversation.
• 49:16
  Charlotte Guest: But being able to create a physical, an offline experience, um, within a space is what will keep us open.
• 49:28
  Charlotte Guest: You know, whether it's the decorations, the smell, apparently, um, the.
• 49:36
  Charlotte Guest: The lighting.
• 49:37
  Charlotte Guest: I don't know, just the whole setup of the space.
• 49:40
  Charlotte Guest: We have kids who form rituals around the store as a destination.
• 49:46
  Charlotte Guest: Like, you know, every Saturday morning there'll be these two little pink bikes out the front because they've chucked their bikes on the balcony before coming in to sit in the kids section for half an hour.
• 49:59
  Charlotte Guest: And it, it, you know, it creating those.
• 50:03
  Charlotte Guest: That living, that sense of something that's being lived in or a living thing, I don't know.
• 50:08
  Charlotte Guest: It's, it's the thing you have to use because the other, the other aspects of it, you can't beat the prices that you are facing.
• 50:19
  Charlotte Guest: So yeah, it's a tricky balance.
• 50:22
  Charlotte Guest: Hmm.
• 50:23
  Madeleine Cleary: Yeah.
• 50:24
  Madeleine Cleary: You're creating a space, I think.
• 50:25
  Madeleine Cleary: Well, I think that's a good then, um, segue to talk about the future.
• 50:29
  Madeleine Cleary: How do you see the future?
• 50:30
  Madeleine Cleary: You attend lots of different conferences on the book industry.
• 50:33
  Madeleine Cleary: You are, you very much have your finger on the pulse of it.
• 50:37
  Madeleine Cleary: What, what do you think is the future?
• 50:39
  Madeleine Cleary: And, and I know there's a lot of talk about trends and, and writing to trends and considering trends in your writing, so I'm interested in your thoughts.
• 50:47
  Madeleine Cleary: Or we close.
• 50:49
  Charlotte Guest: I always find trends really fascinating.
• 50:51
  Charlotte Guest: I must say.
• 50:52
  Charlotte Guest: I am not chronically online and I always feel like I'm late to the trend party.
• 50:57
  Charlotte Guest: The way that I get trends is, or when I pick up trends, is through the ordering.
• 51:02
  Charlotte Guest: And by the time you're ordering something, the trend has probably already been around for I, um, so I do feel like a little bit of a dinosaur sometimes'cause I'm not on book talk or anything like that.
• 51:12
  Charlotte Guest: Um, but I get that information otherwise, um.
• 51:17
  Charlotte Guest: Trends in, I, I'm not sure if trying to write to a trend is the best advice because trends can change so quickly and they, you just see them change so quickly, and by the time you've written a book, which is a long, you know, gestation, that trend may have passed.
• 51:37
  Charlotte Guest: So I think simply writing what.
• 51:40
  Charlotte Guest: What keeps your attention and what is the question?
• 51:43
  Charlotte Guest: I think sometimes writing to a question can be more engaging because it seems that it would sustain you for longer than trying to write to a market and a market that can be, you know, so changeable.
• 51:56
  Charlotte Guest: Um, but I mean, don't take my advice as a writer'cause you know, I'm more of a bookseller.
• 52:02
  Charlotte Guest: Um, but the future I think.
• 52:08
  Charlotte Guest: People have always rung the death now of bookstores and that it's been ringing for decades.
• 52:13
  Charlotte Guest: And some, it was
• 52:13
  Madeleine Cleary: ringing when I joined book selling 15 years ago as well.
• 52:17
  Madeleine Cleary: This is new.
• 52:17
  Madeleine Cleary: Yeah,
• 52:18
  Charlotte Guest: it's not, it's not new.
• 52:20
  Charlotte Guest: The idea that, you know, bookstore and when you look at the stats, you know, there are fewer bricks and mortar bookstores in some ways, you know, uh, in other ways.
• 52:31
  Charlotte Guest: There are more dedicated specialist bookstores like the romance bookstore that you mentioned, Tina, and that.
• 52:37
  Charlotte Guest: That is a really emerging thing.
• 52:39
  Charlotte Guest: There are a number of dedicated romance bookstores, um, that are doing really well in our, in our opening.
• 52:45
  Charlotte Guest: Um, I think grit is necessary and just an unwavering belief in the bookstore because yeah, when I, I mean even before being in publishing, I was back in book selling.
• 52:59
  Charlotte Guest: I used to work in a DIMMs, um, and everyone was really panicked about eBooks and.
• 53:06
  Charlotte Guest: You know, digital books of what the, what the online space was gonna do for bookstores.
• 53:12
  Charlotte Guest: And that's not to diminish how hard it can be because you're constantly trying to, um, adapt and change in order to stay relevant and stay open.
• 53:24
  Charlotte Guest: Um, but in other ways you flourish because there are, there are elements to your bookstore that.
• 53:32
  Charlotte Guest: Is, um, nowhere else.
• 53:35
  Charlotte Guest: It's, I think focusing on the bookstore as a, as a destination and as a place that is only our place.
• 53:42
  Charlotte Guest: There's only one book Bird in Geelong and there's only one physical place you can go that is that place, even though you can get the books elsewhere.
• 53:54
  Charlotte Guest: That's what's kept us.
• 53:56
  Charlotte Guest: A live 10.
• 53:57
  Charlotte Guest: I mean, we are 10 years old this year.
• 53:59
  Charlotte Guest: Mm.
• 53:59
  Charlotte Guest: So we are reaching that milestone and I've been there for seven, uh, of those 10.
• 54:05
  Charlotte Guest: So, and that's, I mean, that's a testament to the really hard work of our owner as well.
• 54:10
  Charlotte Guest: Anna, who had, who opened the bookstore in 2015, um, and opening a bookstore in 2015.
• 54:17
  Charlotte Guest: I mean, what are you doing?
• 54:18
  Charlotte Guest: Kind of thing.
• 54:19
  Charlotte Guest: But it worked because, you know, there's a lot.
• 54:23
  Charlotte Guest: Smarts and hard work to make.
• 54:26
  Charlotte Guest: Keeping it going.
• 54:27
  Charlotte Guest: I don't know.
• 54:28
  Charlotte Guest: I dunno what the future is, but I hope it's bright.
• 54:30
  Madeleine Cleary: Mm-hmm.
• 54:32
  Madeleine Cleary: Oh, I feel optimistic with you as a book seller, Charlotte.
• 54:35
  Madeleine Cleary: Oh, thanks.
• 54:36
  Madeleine Cleary: It sounds wonderful.
• 54:37
  Madeleine Cleary: And you know, for those, um, listeners who are in Victoria or visiting Victoria, visiting Regional Victoria, even though Geelong is a city, I don't wanna upset any of our Geelong listeners.
• 54:48
  Madeleine Cleary: Do, do definitely go down and, and visit Charlotte at the book, at the book Bird.
• 54:52
  Madeleine Cleary: Um, it's, um, it sounds like a very special place.
• 54:56
  Madeleine Cleary: Now to finish, we always ask our guests one final question, Charlotte, and I probably didn't prep you for this as well.
• 55:02
  Madeleine Cleary: Um, could you give us, you've given us so much already, but could you give us one last top tip for, for emerging writers?
• 55:11
  Charlotte Guest: I thought you were gonna ask me what am I reading?
• 55:13
  Charlotte Guest: And I was all prepared to give you my book recommendation.
• 55:16
  Charlotte Guest: You can also
• 55:17
  Madeleine Cleary: give us your book recommendations.
• 55:19
  Madeleine Cleary: I would love to know your book recommendation.
• 55:21
  Charlotte Guest: I might, I might pivot to that because I dunno if I have any writers.
• 55:24
  Charlotte Guest: I have tips for booksellers, but I dunno about writers.
• 55:27
  Charlotte Guest: I mean, writers.
• 55:27
  Charlotte Guest: I feel
• 55:28
  Madeleine Cleary: like you've got a lot of tips, Charlotte.
• 55:29
  Madeleine Cleary: I'm sure we've talked writing before and I feel like you definitely do.
• 55:33
  Charlotte Guest: We have, I don't know if I can, um, claim to have any really great tips, but I'll tell you what I'm reading do, which is, um, a couple of things that I would recommend.
• 55:44
  Charlotte Guest: Um, I am Nana Ook by SMA Walton was.
• 55:47
  Charlotte Guest: Incredible.
• 55:49
  Charlotte Guest: Um, a new book.
• 55:51
  Charlotte Guest: It's her second novel by Bun Wang, writer and actor.
• 55:55
  Charlotte Guest: People might be more familiar with her as an actor, um, but you should absolutely read her novel.
• 56:01
  Charlotte Guest: It is a really generous, um.
• 56:06
  Charlotte Guest: And harrowing portrayal of her ancestor, Nana Ook on, um, BIR and Country who was, uh, kidnapped by, uh, sealers during that violent period in Australian colonial history.
• 56:20
  Charlotte Guest: The element of the novel that I really loved sort of relates back to, um.
• 56:28
  Charlotte Guest: What I loved about a clockwork orange, which is that throughout the prose, uh, SMA weaves, um, bud Wang language through it.
• 56:38
  Charlotte Guest: So a, a non-speaker can pick up words and learn language within the context of fiction, which is a very different way to learn language than say, in a classroom.
• 56:50
  Charlotte Guest: Um, it's a, it's like you, you start.
• 56:54
  Charlotte Guest: Absorbing it by osmosis and it's so beautiful.
• 56:58
  Charlotte Guest: Um, so I would highly recommend.
• 57:00
  Charlotte Guest: That novel.
• 57:01
  Charlotte Guest: It's, um, it's, it's been out for maybe a month.
• 57:05
  Charlotte Guest: I saw TAs at
• 57:06
  Madeleine Cleary: Walton, at the Sorento Writers Festival, actually on a panel with Anita, um, Hy.
• 57:11
  Madeleine Cleary: And it was just in a fantastic and, uh, extraordinary story.
• 57:16
  Madeleine Cleary: And it's on my two be ride pile.
• 57:19
  Madeleine Cleary: Um, so I'm going to, you must,
• 57:21
  Charlotte Guest: you must read it.
• 57:22
  Charlotte Guest: Yeah.
• 57:23
  Charlotte Guest: And I think.
• 57:24
  Charlotte Guest: It's by a new imprint that is published by Anita Heis.
• 57:29
  Charlotte Guest: Um, so that's really one to watch.
• 57:31
  Charlotte Guest: The other, uh, book that I would recommend is by her Hand, by Marian Taf, um, that I just adored.
• 57:40
  Charlotte Guest: Uh, another example of historical fiction, but 10th Century Mercy this time.
• 57:45
  Charlotte Guest: Uh, which is England.
• 57:47
  Charlotte Guest: Before it was England, looking at old English poetry.
• 57:49
  Charlotte Guest: Again, really interested in language and the way we form and un formm ourselves through words and, and writing really one for writers, uh, and the history of writing and scriptoriums.
• 58:01
  Charlotte Guest: Uh, just so much I could say about it, but I know that we are running out of time, so I'll just let people find it for
• 58:06
  Madeleine Cleary: themselves.
• 58:07
  Madeleine Cleary: And we actually do, we've interviewed Marian on our podcast.
• 58:10
  Madeleine Cleary: Oh, fabulous.
• 58:11
  Madeleine Cleary: Which is, yes, I've read.
• 58:13
  Madeleine Cleary: Um, I've read by her hand twice now because we did an event together and it is an extraordinary novel in Incre.
• 58:18
  Madeleine Cleary: I can't believe it's her debut.
• 58:20
  Madeleine Cleary: I know, I know.
• 58:22
  Madeleine Cleary: Isn't that crazy?
• 58:23
  Madeleine Cleary: When, when we first, uh, so we, we've known Mari and Tina and I now for what, a couple of years now, wouldn't it, Tina?
• 58:29
  Madeleine Cleary: And.
• 58:30
  Madeleine Cleary: I remember when we were all talking about our practices and, and, um, and the way Marian was describing her depth of research in terms of the, um, old English and how she interrogated the, the in history and, um, and even her writing practice.
• 58:46
  Madeleine Cleary: She said that she didn't write chapters, she just, she just wrote, um, and got the story and the flow.
• 58:53
  Madeleine Cleary: And so we always knew it was gonna be an extraordinary novel, didn't we, Tina?
• 58:57
  Madeleine Cleary: Yes.
• 58:57
  Madeleine Cleary: But that story has always horrified me of going of just writing it in one continuous flow and then having to put chapters in it at the end.
• 59:05
  Madeleine Cleary: But didn't, Tina's a very good plotter and planner.
• 59:07
  Charlotte Guest: Oh my goodness.
• 59:08
  Charlotte Guest: I didn't realize that's how she wrote it.
• 59:09
  Charlotte Guest: That's incredible.
• 59:11
  Madeleine Cleary: Yes.
• 59:12
  Madeleine Cleary: Yes.
• 59:12
  Madeleine Cleary: And so she had to manually try and work out the beats where she would put chapters in, in insert chapters.
• 59:17
  Madeleine Cleary: So
• 59:18
  Charlotte Guest: that sounds like, oh, that's in, yeah.
• 59:21
  Charlotte Guest: Sorry, Tina.
• 59:21
  Charlotte Guest: No, I was just
• 59:22
  Madeleine Cleary: gonna say in instinctual writing though, she knows where everything needs to go and it's just about tidying it up at the end, so, mm-hmm.
• 59:28
  Madeleine Cleary: Whatever you've gotta do to get the words out and on the paper.
• 59:31
  Charlotte Guest: Well, it's obviously working.
• 59:32
  Charlotte Guest: Mm-hmm.
• 59:32
  Charlotte Guest: So I hope she writes all her novels that way.
• 59:34
  Madeleine Cleary: Yeah.
• 59:35
  Madeleine Cleary: Yes, we agree.
• 59:36
  Madeleine Cleary: Well, Marian is a, is a podcast friend, so hopefully, I'm sure she'll be listening into this.
• 59:41
  Madeleine Cleary: Um, and, uh, we can, we can tag her.
• 59:44
  Madeleine Cleary: Thanks for that recommendation.
• 59:46
  Madeleine Cleary: Welcome.
• 59:46
  Madeleine Cleary: Alright Tina, is there anything else?
• 59:48
  Madeleine Cleary: No, I was just gonna say, I'm sorry.
• 59:50
  Madeleine Cleary: I, I feel like I was a bit quiet because I at times forgot that I was here and was, I thought I was,
• 59:56
  Charlotte Guest: I'm sorry.
• 59:57
  Charlotte Guest: I feel like I spoke in a great big rush for most of that.
• 1:00:01
  Madeleine Cleary: No, you were perfect.
• 1:00:02
  Madeleine Cleary: What I do is I actually, when um, I'm on camera, I actually move my screen so I can't even see myself because I find that really distracting.
• 1:00:09
  Madeleine Cleary: So I've just been watching YouTube and I felt like I was just listening to a podcast every episode.
• 1:00:16
  Madeleine Cleary: It was very interesting.
• 1:00:18
  Madeleine Cleary: And then I'd be like, oh, I should ask more about that.
• 1:00:21
  Madeleine Cleary: I can, because I'm here.
• 1:00:22
  Madeleine Cleary: So anyway, it was very, you guys were great.
• 1:00:26
  Madeleine Cleary: Thank you.
• 1:00:28
  Madeleine Cleary: All right.
• 1:00:29
  Madeleine Cleary: Well thank you Charlotte guest so much for joining us on the book Deal podcast.
• 1:00:33
  Madeleine Cleary: We know that writers, readers, booksellers will just find this podcast very fascinating and I feel like we have to come back in a few years and see what the future of the industry's gonna look like, and I'm hoping it'll be a very positive one for I hope so too.
• 1:00:48
  Madeleine Cleary: Thank you.
• 1:00:49
  Madeleine Cleary: Thanks so much for joining us.
• 1:00:50
  Madeleine Cleary: Thank you so much, Charlotte.
• 1:00:53
  Tina Strachan: Thank you for listening to the Book Deal podcast.
• 1:00:55
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• 1:01:04
  Tina Strachan: You can also find us on Instagram.