Latest / The Two Authors’ Podcast / Keys to a sustainable long series with Lisa Regan

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Keys to a sustainable long series with Lisa Regan · The Two Authors’ Podcast

• 0:00
  Nick, do you have six ideas ready?
• 0:01
  - Not good ones.
• 0:02
  (laughing)
• 0:07
  - Welcome to the Two Authors podcast,
• 0:09
  an entertaining chat show hosted by best selling mystery
• 0:12
  and thriller authors, Douglas Pratt and Nicholas Harvey
• 0:16
  in lively, humorous and informative conversation
• 0:19
  with distinguished guests who share their thoughts
• 0:22
  and experience about forging a successful author career.
• 0:28
  - Welcome to the show everybody.
• 0:30
  I hope you're doing fantabulous.
• 0:34
  How are you Doug?
• 0:35
  - I'm doing fantabulous.
• 0:37
  So fantabulous you wouldn't believe.
• 0:38
  - Wait, speaking of fantabulous.
• 0:40
  Oh, I don't have it here.
• 0:41
  Dang it.
• 0:42
  I was gonna play a couple of chords on the uke.
• 0:45
  - So sorry.
• 0:45
  - I've been warming it up.
• 0:47
  - Oh.
• 0:47
  - Warming it up.
• 0:48
  - At least three people were reaching for the skip button
• 0:50
  and they went, oh, there's no ukulele in their finds.
• 0:53
  I like the ukulele.
• 0:55
  So don't let them ride you, Nick.
• 0:57
  Just keep playing your heart out.
• 0:59
  I can't play it with the shit, but I like it.
• 1:01
  All right, the show brought to you as always
• 1:03
  by the fabulous, fantabulous, Velom, as we all know now.
• 1:08
  - That's right.
• 1:08
  - The best formatting solution in the world.
• 1:11
  - Absolutely, and hey, thinking about going wide
• 1:14
  with Velom Storlinks. - About Storlinks.
• 1:16
  - But you could. - No, I'm not really.
• 1:18
  (laughing)
• 1:19
  One day, in some way, we probably will.
• 1:22
  But anyway, with Velom Storlinks, you're also by,
• 1:26
  meaning the books also by you can use different links for each store.
• 1:31
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• 1:42
  and you can individualize those store links so they're correct for each of those stores.
• 1:48
  That's a pretty nifty feature, huh?
• 1:50
  That's really awesome.
• 1:52
  Yeah, it's pretty nice.
• 1:53
  And I like that they do that.
• 1:55
  It makes it so easy.
• 1:56
  And I do, while I do not really go wide,
• 1:59
  I do put all my books out wide for pre-order.
• 2:02
  And I do use that and it is nice
• 2:04
  because Apple's pretty specific.
• 2:06
  You can get by with the Kindle
• 2:07
  and the Drafted Digital one to be the same,
• 2:09
  but the Apple one's gotta be a little bit different
• 2:11
  if you're uploading it directly.
• 2:13
  So it is very, very easy to use.
• 2:15
  And so, and if you don't want it,
• 2:18
  all you gotta do is just to click,
• 2:19
  you go in there and click it off
• 2:20
  and just click, I just want paperback in Kindle
• 2:22
  or I just want, you know.
• 2:24
  - Yep, you get selected.
• 2:25
  So nice. Yeah. Oh, it's just cool. All right. And a big thank you to our patreon supporters. Thank you so much guys
• 2:32
  We've been we've got some great stuff going on in there
• 2:36
  They would so we do a bonus question with every guest so an extra question and we try and pick something that's pretty
• 2:43
  Detailed or the centric kind of kind of question to ask them and we bung that in so for our and it's three bucks a month
• 2:49
  To spread out. It's really cheaper at this point
• 2:52
  You can buy like two gallons. You can't buy a gallon of gas for that. So you might as well just spend it on us instead
• 2:58
  You can only drive your truck like four miles on the petrol
• 3:01
  Yeah, for sure. Yeah, for the cost of our patreon. It's totally worth it. Coffee. You can't even get a coffee at Starbucks for $3
• 3:09
  And yet you could get our lovely melodic voices and potentially some ukulele playing if you're
• 3:16
  I mean for $3 for $4 we don't play the ukulele
• 3:22
  - Fair's extra, we won't talk and we won't play.
• 3:24
  We'll just have a guest talk.
• 3:25
  All right, head on over there, take a look.
• 3:27
  If you haven't been there before,
• 3:29
  there is some good stuff in there.
• 3:30
  All right, I'm excited.
• 3:32
  Our guest today is our returning friend of the show,
• 3:34
  USA Today and Wall Street Journal,
• 3:36
  best selling thriller author,
• 3:38
  the one and only Lisa Reagan.
• 3:40
  - Oh yeah, she just had a release that's been awesome too.
• 3:42
  - Oh, yes.
• 3:44
  - Skied, it did so well.
• 3:47
  All right, we'll chat with her in just a moment.
• 3:48
  First, a list of the question from our lovely friend,
• 3:51
  Sarah Rosette?
• 3:54
  This is bonus, bonus, bonus, bonus.
• 3:57
  'Cause Sarah just came up with what she says.
• 4:03
  We'll find out.
• 4:04
  She says it's the best question ever to ask the two of us.
• 4:08
  So this is an extra bonus listener question from Sarah Rosette.
• 4:11
  Thank you for sticking around.
• 4:12
  Even longer, Sarah, what you got for us?
• 4:15
  Let it on us, what you got?
• 4:16
  - Well, this is typical for me.
• 4:18
  It takes me longer to come up with my question.
• 4:20
  So if you were a private detective in a TV show,
• 4:25
  what kind of car would you drive?
• 4:26
  'Cause you know, they always have a signature car.
• 4:28
  - 1970s Land Rover.
• 4:30
  - Land Rover.
• 4:31
  - Ah. - Land Rover.
• 4:32
  I love Landies.
• 4:34
  It's a very English thing and it's gotta have,
• 4:37
  it can be the short wheelbase, they ride like shit,
• 4:39
  but they, I guess they're such a short wheelbase.
• 4:42
  They're like the short way where it's cheap, right?
• 4:44
  It's like, it's like rattling your brain box out.
• 4:48
  you go, but they're brilliant and it's got to have the little window along the back,
• 4:53
  the little top spy window for looking up. Always loved them. One day I'm going to have
• 4:59
  one. Actually, our friend Cunningham has one and he was selling it. He had one in Virginia.
• 5:05
  Johnny Cunningham was a brilliant author and friend of ours, great guy. He had a landy.
• 5:10
  It was a long wheelbase, I think four-door, but it was a beautiful one and he was selling
• 5:14
  it. Right before we were moving here, I showed Cheryl the post he put about it, and she
• 5:20
  immediately said, "No."
• 5:23
  She said, "No."
• 5:25
  You shipped your car in anyway, didn't you? You could have shipped that.
• 5:28
  We did, but we paid, I think, about half what we paid for a brand new car that I would
• 5:32
  have had to pay for his restored Landy. And they're not the most convenient vehicles,
• 5:38
  or there's lots of things they're not, but that would be mine. All right, Doug, what
• 5:41
  you got?
• 5:42
  That's a good question. I actually have an idea that I've sketched out for a series set in the 90s
• 5:48
  And if I were gonna do it I wanted to do something like a what was those little like Honda?
• 5:55
  Not the Dell soul like we did but there was a little like a little Honda that had a like a sound like a motorcycle engine that kind of raced
• 6:02
  You know I'm talking about you know thing about a fear 500. I mean that no the fiero. No, it was a fiero
• 6:07
  That's what I wanted was a fiero. That wasn't a Honda. Yes, as soon as you said that there wasn't a Honda
• 6:12
  - It was a Pontiac Fiero.
• 6:13
  - It's a Pontiac, I understand that now.
• 6:15
  - Those things spontaneously ignited.
• 6:17
  I think that's what it got back.
• 6:17
  - I know, that was the whole thing.
• 6:18
  I wanted it to be a piece of shit car
• 6:20
  that he was driving around.
• 6:22
  Now, if I were gonna pick one for me,
• 6:23
  I was always partial to Rockford's Camaro,
• 6:26
  so I would probably lean towards something
• 6:28
  with the-- - Old school classic America.
• 6:30
  - Yeah, a little classic one, but--
• 6:32
  - What about you, Sarah?
• 6:33
  You write stuff from the 1920s,
• 6:35
  so I hope it's gonna be like a Rolls Royce.
• 6:37
  - Yeah, like a Phantom.
• 6:38
  - Oh, that, like the ghost.
• 6:40
  - Oh, like a ghost, yeah.
• 6:41
  That would be cool. Yeah, I do like in the mentalist Patrick Jane had a car. Oh, yes
• 6:47
  He's a nice look on it was do you remember what it was a little vintage?
• 6:52
  What is a little British car when it was I had to be with him. He was so cool
• 6:58
  Yeah, I love I always liked his little car. I thought that was cute, but yeah, I would oh no, it was it was a Citroen. Oh
• 7:05
  My god, okay. It was a cute all those things are brilliant. They had like an air ride
• 7:11
  suspension thing on those Citroens. I'm pretty sure that model had them too. And they had
• 7:15
  the weirdest floaty ride to them. They were bizarre things. When you stop, they were like
• 7:19
  a truck with airbags. They like sunk down when you pop.
• 7:23
  I've got my answer now. I'm going to change my mind. I want a Corvair, like a convertible
• 7:27
  Corvair. Yeah. That way, when I have a wreck, it kills me instantly, but that's neither
• 7:31
  here nor there.
• 7:33
  Better than exploding in fire.
• 7:35
  Right.
• 7:35
  That's true. It's probably safer vehicle. All right. Well, if we're just changing and
• 7:39
  throwing out extra ones. I'm going with the Jetsons hovering car.
• 7:42
  Oh, the just that it exists.
• 7:44
  We're OK.
• 7:45
  It's fine. Little futuristic there.
• 7:47
  Yeah, I'm going with that.
• 7:48
  All right.
• 7:49
  He says that he'd be more like the Flintstones car where he's like
• 7:53
  and like
• 7:54
  I just took to dug an ice in side by side in a little Flintstone car.
• 7:59
  Which paddling along the road.
• 8:01
  I assume that I'm Barney and your friend.
• 8:03
  That's about right. So.
• 8:07
  We're definitely ending there. That's it. Sarah, thanks again.
• 8:10
  You're a joy to have on. Thank you.
• 8:16
  Welcome to the show, Lisa Reagan. Thank you so much for coming back on. You're
• 8:22
  our regular annual... A regular gullet for punishment? Is that what it is? She's like her.
• 8:27
  A regular sucker. Absolutely. She's my regular.
• 8:30
  It's at our age, my dear. It's always good to be regular.
• 8:35
  I love coming on here to chat with you guys. It's so much fun.
• 8:38
  It's always fun to have you here.
• 8:40
  Thank you. Well, I dropped the ball completely and didn't have you on last year because you did
• 8:44
  season one, season two, and now season four. So we'll keep it up in the future. And normally,
• 8:50
  this is the point where we ask you, give us a little bit of your background and everything
• 8:53
  else. But because you're returning in the short third time, we're going to skip that bit so the
• 8:58
  folks can go back and listen to the previous two episodes to get that background information.
• 9:02
  But what I want to say is book 24 just came out in the
• 9:07
  Josie Quinn series about as we're recording this about three or four weeks ago
• 9:10
  I think stolen family it released into the top 25 overall on Amazon Kindle
• 9:17
  That's not like the top 25 of mystery like that
• 9:21
  You are a frothy bit at the top of the cappuccino that's where you are right now Lisa
• 9:26
  Which is amazing. It's amazing. Yeah, all you've got on top is that cinnamon layer. That's it
• 9:35
  Indeed. And what's even more impressive is the book's not in Kindle Unlimited, right?
• 9:41
  It's wide. So, released wide and hit the top 25. That is super impressive. Last year,
• 9:48
  you surpassed four million sales in the Joe's Quinn series. And that was before this release.
• 9:55
  So it's gone way up over that. And at that time, you had five million overall sales throughout
• 10:01
  your other books too. Yes. Yes. These are insane numbers, Lisa.
• 10:06
  In the same. I keep waiting for the email just like somebody to
• 10:09
  be like, Hey, we got this wrong.
• 10:14
  Turns out it's 50, not 5 million. Sorry. Somehow our math was
• 10:20
  not math. The decimal is in the wrong spot. Right.
• 10:23
  So I just want to say congratulations. That is awesome
• 10:26
  thing. It is quite a feat. And I'm sure even after 24 books,
• 10:29
  you're still pretty stoked about it.
• 10:31
  - Oh my God, yes, yes, yes.
• 10:34
  I can't even wrap my head around it.
• 10:36
  It's just, my readers are just the best.
• 10:39
  They're the best in the world.
• 10:40
  They stick with me no matter what,
• 10:42
  and I'm so grateful.
• 10:44
  Every day, so grateful.
• 10:46
  - That's cool.
• 10:46
  Well, I mean, you also give them a fantastic product
• 10:49
  every time, guaranteed.
• 10:50
  So there's a reason why you're doing,
• 10:52
  having this success, my dear, there's a reason.
• 10:55
  So this kind of leads into the first question that I had,
• 10:57
  that is it daunting or comforting to know
• 11:00
  that you're in a contract now for 35 books in that series?
• 11:04
  Which I think you agreed to a little while back,
• 11:06
  but you're at 24, you're gonna do at least 35 of them.
• 11:10
  Is that a daunting prospect or quite comforting?
• 11:12
  - The contract is comforting.
• 11:14
  (laughs)
• 11:14
  - Yeah, right.
• 11:16
  - Each book is a little bit daunting
• 11:18
  because when I only had a two book contract
• 11:21
  or a three book contract,
• 11:22
  my goal has always been to write a better book
• 11:24
  than the last one.
• 11:25
  So I feel like the bar gets higher every single time.
• 11:29
  And I have these amazing readers
• 11:32
  and I never ever want to disappoint them.
• 11:34
  So sometimes coming up with stuff that I feel is fresh
• 11:38
  and new and coming up with things that I think
• 11:41
  that they'll really, really love can be daunting
• 11:43
  because you just want so badly to get it right.
• 11:46
  - Yeah, yeah.
• 11:48
  And then we'll ask you a little bit more
• 11:50
  about that as we go on.
• 11:52
  - Yeah, so like, I mean, you do have to keep coming up
• 11:55
  new ideas, more developing arcs. I guess it is a lot of pressure. They just keep applying
• 12:00
  on to you. What do you do to kind of keep up with these ideas and keep these arcs with
• 12:05
  your, I don't know, keeping them across multiple books is a challenge for me anyway. So I don't
• 12:08
  know how you do it for 24 of them. Do you have the ideas ahead of time? Like you already
• 12:12
  got these primary cases kind of set in stone, like I know these are the killings that we're
• 12:16
  going to have.
• 12:17
  I've got premises. So I've got ideas. So and I tend to work in chunks. So say, you know,
• 12:23
  I think from book like 14 to 19, I knew what was generally what the premises would be.
• 12:29
  We shuffled some of those around.
• 12:32
  So I think book 19 was supposed to be 20 and 20 was supposed to be 22.
• 12:38
  So we shuffled them around depending on what we think.
• 12:42
  My publisher and I, what we think that readers will enjoy most at that time coming off the
• 12:46
  last book.
• 12:47
  And then I've got so with 25 now, we're starting a new chunk.
• 12:51
  I've got six ideas all in the queue ready to go.
• 12:55
  And I couldn't tell you the exact order that they'll be in,
• 12:58
  but they're there.
• 12:59
  - The fact that you have six ideas,
• 13:01
  I mean, I don't think I've got that going right now.
• 13:03
  Nick, do you have six ideas ready?
• 13:04
  - Not good ones.
• 13:06
  (laughing)
• 13:08
  Oh, if we got six bad ideas, I'm loaded with those.
• 13:12
  (laughing)
• 13:14
  - So this is interesting, 'cause this process, right?
• 13:16
  'Cause I know when you've been on before,
• 13:18
  you've talked about the relationship with your editor
• 13:20
  and you go back and forth and you set kind of out for,
• 13:23
  I think when you talked about it before,
• 13:24
  you were kind of doing three book kind of arcs of things,
• 13:27
  right?
• 13:27
  So now it's, you're looking at like six out,
• 13:30
  but at some point you have to decide,
• 13:33
  yeah, I think you've got that list of six main case topics
• 13:36
  that they're gonna be about,
• 13:37
  but at some point you have to sit down and come up
• 13:39
  with what those six will be, right?
• 13:41
  Now, whether it's a year or two out of when they'll
• 13:44
  actually be written, or whether it's five minutes
• 13:45
  before they're written, a decision has to be made.
• 13:48
  So how does that all work?
• 13:51
  Do you just come up with this big list of stuff,
• 13:53
  of ideas and then jumble around and then pitch them to them
• 13:55
  and they bounce them back or how does that all go about?
• 13:58
  - It's a very messy process.
• 14:01
  To be perfectly honest,
• 14:03
  my husband helps me with a lot of this stuff.
• 14:05
  He's got a lot of great ideas
• 14:07
  and a lot of times it'll just be like,
• 14:10
  he knows a ton of stuff.
• 14:11
  So he'll just be like,
• 14:12
  "Hey, this would be really cool to use in a book one day."
• 14:15
  I just have this little like vault
• 14:18
  of notes that I keep and when he comes to me
• 14:22
  with something like that, I'll jot it down for later.
• 14:25
  And then sometimes I can build a whole premise around,
• 14:28
  you know, one creepy thing that he's come up with.
• 14:31
  He helps me with a lot of plot stuff.
• 14:35
  - My wife would love all the creepy things
• 14:36
  I come up with, I'm just saying.
• 14:37
  So, I mean. - No, no, it's better.
• 14:39
  - I don't even know some of them.
• 14:42
  - Sometimes I come up with an idea and I go,
• 14:44
  I could tell her about it.
• 14:45
  And then I'd be like,
• 14:46
  "Michelle, give me that look that's a little judgy
• 14:48
  Think about that.
• 14:50
  Think about what you're saying.
• 14:52
  Makes her reevaluate her life decisions.
• 14:55
  I mean, granted, how do you start off with like,
• 14:58
  if I wanted to kill a hooker, you know,
• 15:02
  then she's like, "Uh, you know, I might want to clarify."
• 15:07
  I love the fact that Lisa's husband, we know two things now.
• 15:10
  He has creepy thoughts and he knows things.
• 15:14
  He does. He knows. You wouldn't believe.
• 15:16
  T-shirt, Lisa. I want to see a T-shirt with Mr. Lisa knows things.
• 15:23
  Yeah, he's like an inside. Well, I actually do call him Fredopedia. That is literally what we call it.
• 15:30
  Fredopedia.
• 15:30
  And you come up with some obscure fact or fascinating thing and I'll be like, Fredopedia strikes again.
• 15:38
  OK, so Fredopedia comes up with some ideas. You have a few. You build yourself a list.
• 15:44
  Yeah, I build it myself a list and then I do this document where I try to organize all my thoughts into
• 15:51
  some semblance of, you know, order. I send that to the editor and then she will make notes in the
• 15:57
  margins and then we kind of go back and forth and then we'll pick like if I have six ideas we'll pick
• 16:03
  three and she'll say, you know, try to develop like a very short outline and see if it has legs.
• 16:10
  And in that phase, and I'm talking like four to eight pages, maybe just real quick beats
• 16:17
  of the story.
• 16:17
  And in that phase, I can generally tell the premise sounds awesome, but it's going nowhere.
• 16:24
  And then if I can get two or three pretty firm outlines in that stage, then she'll say,
• 16:33
  pick the strongest one or pick the one that's the most interesting to you at this point
• 16:37
  in time, or that would be the most entertaining for you to write.
• 16:41
  And then we go with that one.
• 16:43
  And then I write a much longer outline
• 16:45
  to see kind of where the weak points are.
• 16:47
  And even then, I will often, almost always,
• 16:51
  get between 50% and 75% through the book
• 16:55
  and hit some major plot problem, like a just roadblock
• 17:00
  or a hole.
• 17:02
  Or I'm always just like, I know where I'm going.
• 17:05
  at this point, I don't know how to get from here to there.
• 17:08
  And so that's always a lot of work for me,
• 17:12
  for Fred, for my editor.
• 17:14
  (laughing)
• 17:15
  - That's fair, that is a challenge when you get
• 17:17
  to that point where you can see the,
• 17:18
  it's like looking across a chasm.
• 17:20
  - Yes!
• 17:21
  - I know where the story's gonna be
• 17:23
  on that top of that mountain over there,
• 17:24
  but I gotta get from here to there and how do I do it?
• 17:27
  Yeah.
• 17:27
  - Yeah, and the three ideas I had make no sense whatsoever.
• 17:32
  So now you've, I mean, with all these books you've written
• 17:36
  and you kind of, some of these bumps in the road,
• 17:40
  you kind of know they're coming, right?
• 17:41
  You kind of expect to hit that.
• 17:43
  Have you found a system apart from just screaming Fred
• 17:48
  at the top of your lungs?
• 17:49
  Have you, maybe that is the system.
• 17:52
  Have you come up with another way?
• 17:53
  You kind of know it's coming, right?
• 17:54
  So do you go, okay, I've hit that point now.
• 17:56
  Here's what I need to do.
• 17:58
  - Yeah, yeah, it's just the solution kind of changes though.
• 18:02
  You know, so like with book 24,
• 18:05
  I got to a point where I was very, very close to deadline
• 18:09
  and I was very, very close to finishing the book
• 18:12
  and I just could not, I could not get there.
• 18:15
  I mean, I just, I was completely blocked
• 18:18
  and I had conversations with the editor
• 18:19
  and I would go and write and then it wouldn't,
• 18:22
  you know, what we came up with wouldn't pan out.
• 18:24
  And so one night it was like midnight,
• 18:28
  my husband was still awake
• 18:30
  And I came downstairs from my office with my laptop,
• 18:34
  and I said, I need to figure this out,
• 18:36
  and I don't know how.
• 18:38
  So he developed this kind of storyboarding system,
• 18:43
  and we stayed up all night that night,
• 18:46
  and he made me mozzarella sticks.
• 18:48
  (laughing)
• 18:50
  - Dang, I wanna marry Fred.
• 18:52
  - I know, he's the best.
• 18:54
  And yeah, so we worked through it together.
• 18:57
  He's very organized, very meticulous and systematic about the way he does things.
• 19:03
  And I'm not, I'm just like a hot mess.
• 19:05
  So he just took me through all the last beats of the story to the end.
• 19:09
  And we whittled them down to basically 11 storyboards, if you will, like components.
• 19:16
  And then he like rolled it out, put it up in my office.
• 19:20
  And I just wrote.
• 19:21
  I went from panel to panel to panel, and I finished the book.
• 19:25
  And so that 24 books in and that was brand new.
• 19:28
  (laughs)
• 19:29
  - And now a quick word from this episode sponsor.
• 19:32
  - Yo, Nick, did you know that you and I
• 19:33
  are on a panel at Alternation this year?
• 19:35
  How about that?
• 19:37
  Last Vegas, November 10th to the 13th
• 19:39
  through Orthonation, 13th and 14th for Reader Nation,
• 19:42
  where we're both gonna be signing as well.
• 19:45
  And who do we have on the panel with us?
• 19:46
  - Oh, we're on the panel with Mary Stone, Cheryl Bradshaw,
• 19:49
  and then me and you.
• 19:50
  Gonna be great.
• 19:51
  Make sure you come check us out.
• 19:52
  - Now we'll get back to the show.
• 19:55
  So you said something, I kind of made,
• 19:57
  when you're looking at all these little different plot lines
• 19:59
  you've got, what is it that triggers that thing in you
• 20:02
  that says, hey, this is one that's gonna resonate?
• 20:04
  I mean, you've got, you know, it doesn't matter
• 20:06
  what stage you are, I guess, in writing it,
• 20:08
  it's gonna, eventually this is gonna come to that point,
• 20:11
  but how do you decide this is the thing that triggers?
• 20:14
  Is there something that, I guess, is there a trigger
• 20:16
  that you read this plot line and you're like,
• 20:17
  ah, that's perfect.
• 20:19
  - To get me over the chasm or just general?
• 20:20
  - Yeah, just to get you over the chasm
• 20:22
  or just in general, you're kind of a both question.
• 20:24
  Yeah, just to decide, like this book, when you're doing that list of your six, what is
• 20:28
  the trigger that goes, "Yeah, yeah, this has got to be on the list."
• 20:31
  It has to be something that I want to tell everyone that I know about and talk too much
• 20:39
  about.
• 20:42
  For example, in '24, I found this really obscure manner of homicide called Birking, and I was
• 20:50
  like this is the best thing ever. I'm going to tell everyone about this." And nobody wants
• 20:56
  to hear about it unless you're going to read a crime book. So that was like, if I'm this
• 21:01
  excited about it and I can incorporate it here and it works and it moves the plot forward,
• 21:06
  then that's what I'm going to do. That's where I'm headed. So I just have to find something,
• 21:12
  put something in there that I'm super excited about or that's fascinating to me that does
• 21:17
  more work than just a cool fact.
• 21:20
  For the people who are less smart than me and Nick, what is Birking, just so I know?
• 21:24
  Birking is when it's a cause of asphyxiation, but it's two forms. It's manual where you're
• 21:32
  actually strangling someone, and then I think the other one is called traumatic, where someone
• 21:38
  sits on the chest. So one person can do it, but it was actually coined in the early 1800s in
• 21:46
  Scotland, these two gentlemen, one of them was called Burke, find victims and one of
• 21:52
  them would cover the victim's mouth while the other one sat on their chest until they
• 21:56
  asphyxiated and then they would sell the bodies to this local doctor who was starting to do
• 22:04
  autopsies as a form of research.
• 22:07
  And so the term sometimes means a manner of death and sometimes means killing people and
• 22:13
  giving their selling their bodies to medical research to keep the money.
• 22:17
  Either way, it sounds like it's a two person deal and it's like something
• 22:20
  you can do with friends. So.
• 22:25
  Birking clubs. Birking clubs. We have a local chapter.
• 22:32
  We can do it. Just get together. It takes two of us. One of us.
• 22:35
  I'll probably be the one that's still in the chest, Nick. You'll have to do
• 22:37
  the show come out. Only three thriller writers.
• 22:42
  sit around talking about this horrendous act.
• 22:46
  - Also love about it.
• 22:47
  - Is it bad that I'm a little jealous
• 22:48
  that this guy named Bert gets an act named after him?
• 22:52
  Like don't you want to have something done
• 22:53
  that you're like, "Hey, I'm Harveying this guy"?
• 22:55
  (laughing)
• 22:56
  - I dug this guy.
• 22:57
  - I dug.
• 22:58
  Well, I do get dug.
• 22:59
  Like you do dig a grave and have to dug it.
• 23:01
  So yeah, that's true.
• 23:02
  But, and I got Pratt, as you remind me often,
• 23:06
  Pratt's already named after something.
• 23:07
  So you got Harvey, we got to come up
• 23:09
  with something good for Harveying.
• 23:10
  - Yeah, large invisible rabbit.
• 23:12
  But it's ultra funny to the English because Burke is also a term that means like an idiot.
• 23:16
  If you're a Burke, you're an idiot.
• 23:17
  So it's got an extra layer for the English crowd.
• 23:21
  You name everything.
• 23:22
  Every word means you're an idiot in Britain, isn't it?
• 23:26
  Most of them.
• 23:27
  Yeah.
• 23:28
  We have lots of words.
• 23:31
  We invented them, you know.
• 23:34
  My favorite one that I just learned was Numpty.
• 23:36
  Am I saying it right?
• 23:37
  Because I never...
• 23:38
  Numpty is a good one.
• 23:39
  I like that.
• 23:39
  Numpty.
• 23:40
  Yeah.
• 23:40
  Numpty is a very polite way of saying you're an idiot.
• 23:42
  Yeah, if you're a numpty, just like a bit of a silly--
• 23:45
  That doesn't sound polite.
• 23:46
  It sounds--
• 23:48
  Well, it depends how you say it.
• 23:49
  If you go, you're freaking numpty, then yeah,
• 23:52
  it's a bit more than, oh, you numpty,
• 23:54
  like your auntie would say to you.
• 23:56
  [LAUGHTER]
• 23:57
  I was thinking in terms of, look at this numpty.
• 24:00
  See, look at all this.
• 24:03
  Yet we digress.
• 24:04
  How does that happen on the show?
• 24:06
  All right, so let's ask you a sensible--
• 24:09
  Well, it's a relatively sensible question.
• 24:11
  So this far into the series,
• 24:13
  are you conscious of balancing the stories
• 24:16
  for newcomers to the series
• 24:18
  and the faithful returning, right?
• 24:21
  Because when you're, this many books in 24, 25,
• 24:25
  there's a lot of people that'll see,
• 24:26
  oh, look, there's a new book coming out.
• 24:27
  Oh, that looks fancy.
• 24:29
  Oh, it's number 24.
• 24:30
  Some will go back and take a look at one,
• 24:32
  but most of them will dive in and go,
• 24:34
  if I like 24, then I'll go back and read through
• 24:36
  and I'm excited I got a series.
• 24:38
  - Yeah, 100%.
• 24:39
  I've always been conscious of that
• 24:41
  because I, as a reader, have sometimes found a book
• 24:45
  that looks really good and then realized it was, you know,
• 24:47
  in a very long series and then I felt like,
• 24:49
  I felt exhausted just thinking about.
• 24:51
  (laughs)
• 24:52
  - Yep.
• 24:53
  I gotta start at one?
• 24:55
  - Yeah, so I remember I read Dennis Lahane's
• 24:59
  Kenzie DeNaro series, which is one of my all-time favorites.
• 25:02
  I've read it like at least a dozen times.
• 25:04
  I started with number five, which was "Praise for Rain."
• 25:06
  And it was great. I didn't have any trouble keeping up or, you know, understanding it.
• 25:11
  And then I loved it so much, I went back to the first book and read the whole series and
• 25:15
  I got so much enjoyment out of it. And so when I started this series, I consciously made
• 25:21
  an effort to try to keep each book independent of the others so that you really didn't have
• 25:27
  to go in order if you didn't want to. Now that said, the lives of the series regulars,
• 25:34
  There's more and more and more backstory with each book.
• 25:37
  There are more developments with each book, and it's getting more difficult because there's just so many people now.
• 25:42
  They're just clamoring for more of that. I think they would be happy if like 60% of the book was the regular characters,
• 25:48
  and 40% was just like, you know, like some mystery.
• 25:51
  So, you know, it's so funny because you can tell the regular readers, when they do reviews,
• 25:56
  they spend a lot of time talking about, you know, developments in the characters' lives that really don't necessarily have any bearing on the plot.
• 26:03
  So, it's much more difficult at 24, 25 to get that balance.
• 26:09
  But I do everything I can to keep the catch up on the backstory as short as I can for
• 26:15
  new readers and give a little bit more for my regular readers.
• 26:19
  It's tricky, right?
• 26:20
  You don't want to info dump and then, you know, it's like for your character, you know,
• 26:25
  I forget what book it was, but she's married.
• 26:28
  So you don't need to go back and explain that she wasn't married before that because obviously
• 26:32
  She wasn't married for the new readers.
• 26:33
  That's how she is now.
• 26:35
  All right.
• 26:35
  It's, it's tricky when you've got, when your characters have something really
• 26:39
  quirky about them, it's like you've got to kind of explain that a little bit.
• 26:44
  And it's like that drip feeding in the early chapters to satisfy the newcomers
• 26:48
  without the regulars going, oh my God, we've got to read this, this again.
• 26:53
  Also, yeah, with a, with a 25 books, I mean, that's like a, that's a massive arc.
• 26:57
  You get already multiple arcs.
• 26:59
  you got to have, you know, like I just can't even imagine
• 27:03
  thinking back to book one going, okay, let's remember what I
• 27:07
  did there. So but now you did talk about your side characters.
• 27:10
  And I think you're I think a lot of our readers do love the side
• 27:13
  characters. So I mean, I know we know Josie carries the stories,
• 27:16
  but when you started developing them, how much of that emotional
• 27:20
  weight that you put into them in your series, how much of that is
• 27:24
  organic and plan and you're outlining it along the way and
• 27:27
  how much of it is kind of like, oh, I should put this person into this situation.
• 27:31
  Or, you know,
• 27:32
  I would say like 80% of it is organic.
• 27:35
  I kind of just let them play and, and then I see what, what happens.
• 27:41
  Kind of like what I, what I'm getting back from them.
• 27:43
  I know that sounds like woo, but it's true.
• 27:47
  You're in a safe space.
• 27:49
  We understand that.
• 27:49
  Yeah, we get it.
• 27:50
  You're in a safe space.
• 27:52
  They talk to us.
• 27:52
  They tell us what they're, yeah.
• 27:54
  Exactly.
• 27:55
  Yeah.
• 27:55
  So I put them on the page and I let them do their thing and sometimes they surprise me.
• 28:00
  Oftentimes though I'll be in like 25 I'm writing and because the last book was so focused on
• 28:07
  one of Josie's colleagues Turner, I'm now in I'm 25 and I'm just including him in all
• 28:12
  the scenes and I had to stop myself and say, "Hey, wait a minute, I think readers are
• 28:16
  going to want to see a little more Gretchen or Noah in this book because we haven't heard
• 28:21
  from them as much."
• 28:23
  So I'll switch them out and try and give everyone a little more screen time to kind of balance
• 28:28
  it out.
• 28:29
  With this many books too, like your notes and your Bible and everything has to be pretty
• 28:36
  thick.
• 28:36
  How often do you like going, "Oh crap, did I give Janet a baby and I have to flip back
• 28:41
  and look at what the name of the dog is?" or something like that?
• 28:43
  Yeah.
• 28:43
  It's every minute.
• 28:47
  I do feel like the one I'm writing right now, I keep going back going, "Did I name somebody
• 28:51
  I had to go back and look.
• 28:53
  Did that, you know, as constant right now?
• 28:56
  - I had a conversation with my editor the other day
• 28:59
  and we were talking about, you know, a character in 25
• 29:02
  and she was like, "I can't, you know,
• 29:03
  "I keep forgetting his name."
• 29:04
  And I said, "It's Louis."
• 29:05
  And she's like, "We've had one before."
• 29:07
  And I was like, "I don't think we have."
• 29:09
  But, and it's just like this whole,
• 29:11
  we need to go back and forth.
• 29:12
  And then I, you know, the Bible,
• 29:14
  when I'm writing a first draft, especially,
• 29:15
  is always open.
• 29:16
  That document is just always open.
• 29:18
  And, you know, I had to go back in and look
• 29:20
  because there are so many moving parts
• 29:22
  and so many little details.
• 29:24
  And I tend to be extremely elaborate.
• 29:27
  You know, there's even minor characters
• 29:28
  that really come to life for me.
• 29:29
  And then I probably put more than I really need
• 29:34
  into some of the books.
• 29:35
  So I really have to have a reference.
• 29:37
  - And do you have a chart since you said you obviously
• 29:40
  kept up with names too,
• 29:41
  'cause I do the same thing, trying to remember,
• 29:42
  did I use this name before?
• 29:43
  Because I made the mistake in two different--
• 29:45
  - Names are the hardest.
• 29:46
  - Yes, I did at least in two different series
• 29:49
  I had the same character name, which was Amanda and my wife's like, do not use that name in another book.
• 29:54
  So she's like, stop doing that. I was like, I'm gonna forget who's who. But yeah, because how many names
• 29:59
  can you possibly come up with before you like, we know tons of nicks. And I know a couple of dugs,
• 30:04
  probably plenty of leases. So it's not like we can't have multiple names.
• 30:07
  Right. Yeah, especially with minor characters. Yeah. If I've had like a Doug in book two, and then I'm like,
• 30:14
  okay, well, by book 19, I can,
• 30:15
  You can rotate back to a Doug again.
• 30:17
  That's about how it has about how long of a span you need of a break for Doug's anyway.
• 30:23
  About 17 books is about right.
• 30:26
  I realized the book I'm writing right now, I realized I already used the same first name
• 30:31
  and I used it again for another like a really small character.
• 30:34
  When I was looking back through a chapter, I'm like, oh, wait, they weren't in that.
• 30:37
  Oh, I already used it.
• 30:39
  It's like, oh, shit.
• 30:41
  Menu. Same book.
• 30:42
  Yes, at all. You did the same book.
• 30:44
  OK, that's bad.
• 30:44
  I like to sit in the same series. You could probably do it like longer, but
• 30:48
  Yeah, well, you just type down your little side character
• 30:50
  They're talking to somebody in this convenience store who's got some CCTV or something and you're like I need a name
• 30:54
  Okay, I'll use that name and it's in the back of your head, right?
• 30:57
  So you just carry on and I then I found later
• 31:01
  I used it twice do either y'all have a list of names or how do you come up with the names nowadays?
• 31:06
  I do but when I first started I just like I need a name and look around going for something
• 31:10
  Oh, you know here's this but
• 31:12
  Nowadays, I've got like more of a list of who I can use. So do you have a way of
• 31:17
  Grabbing names out of the thin air my method is very inefficient
• 31:21
  I I have a document that has all the names that I've used
• 31:25
  And whether they're a minor major character and which book they were in and then I have a 20 year old baby name book
• 31:33
  like literally a paperback baby name book and it's got 35,000 names. I'm really getting down to the last thousand I think but
• 31:41
  Yeah, I and then I flip through that and then I then I have to if I find one I like I have to check it against my document and see if
• 31:48
  I've used it yet. So really I should just be looking for names and then write a list of names that I can use but that never
• 31:55
  happened.
• 31:55
  My wife suggested it. So we started like looking at we've always been the ones that sit through the credits. So like you sit through
• 32:01
  the credits of a movie and there's tons of names right there. We just got to start taking that especially hard to spell
• 32:07
  names and you can remember those.
• 32:08
  Yeah, that's a great idea.
• 32:10
  I know. Yeah. That's my wife's idea. She, much like Fred, full of good ideas.
• 32:15
  I had, I pulled names from different places that for a long time, and I still do this
• 32:20
  occasionally, is I will search if they're like from Spain, I will search online for
• 32:27
  the Spanish soccer team or the Spanish baseball team.
• 32:31
  Oh, nice.
• 32:31
  Run through the roster and you've got loads of Spanish names and you can go find one. So
• 32:37
  and stuff like that.
• 32:38
  I remember Wayne Stinnett telling me once
• 32:40
  that he would go on Facebook and he would look at his feed
• 32:46
  and he would scroll down to like the 10 back posts
• 32:49
  that somebody had put there and whoever it was,
• 32:51
  he'd use their name.
• 32:52
  It was something along those lines.
• 32:53
  It was like, that's pretty random.
• 32:55
  - Somebody told me they used,
• 32:57
  I think it was Kevin Tomlinson who said that he pulled
• 32:59
  anybody who would send him a spam,
• 33:02
  like one of those spam friend requests.
• 33:04
  He goes, "That's fine."
• 33:04
  You know, the single girls in my area, you just got,
• 33:08
  you just became a murder victim.
• 33:09
  That's what you just became.
• 33:10
  So.
• 33:11
  - Yeah, I was gonna say for victims and nasty people,
• 33:14
  that's the perfect way of--
• 33:15
  - That's great idea.
• 33:15
  - Perfect idea when that comes.
• 33:17
  - This is what writers think about so easy.
• 33:19
  - Yeah, yes.
• 33:20
  - Things we think about.
• 33:23
  So you have audiobooks for the whole series
• 33:26
  and it's been the same, the early ones,
• 33:29
  they switched into A3, I think, is that right?
• 33:31
  - They switched after book three.
• 33:33
  So the first three are a different person.
• 33:36
  And then from four on, we have Kate Hanford.
• 33:38
  And she's fantastic.
• 33:39
  I love her.
• 33:40
  Yeah, she's done them all.
• 33:41
  So when you really started rolling on audiobooks
• 33:45
  and the more you did, did you start hearing the narrator's
• 33:49
  voices for your characters in your head or your own?
• 33:53
  No, not my own.
• 33:54
  I don't know.
• 33:54
  They're just in my head.
• 33:55
  But I can tell you this, that whenever
• 33:57
  I'm feeling bad about myself, I will put on one of the audiobooks
• 34:01
  and listen to Kate narrate it because she makes it sound so good that every single time I'm like,
• 34:09
  "Did I write that?" That sounds really good. This seems so cool. That's great. And a good narrator,
• 34:20
  boy, does it make a difference, huh? I mean, when they, oh gosh, when they sell that story. I know
• 34:25
  I know what you mean.
• 34:27
  My wife Cheryl now does the QC on our audio
• 34:30
  'cause I sucked at it.
• 34:32
  I would be listening through and I would either get,
• 34:37
  I'm really super blessed to have some great narrators
• 34:40
  doing the stuff.
• 34:40
  So I get lost in them telling the stories.
• 34:43
  The same thing, it's like, oh, I'm getting into this story.
• 34:46
  And by the time you're listening to that,
• 34:47
  you're writing the next book,
• 34:49
  which is probably for me, it's a different series.
• 34:52
  So it's like, oh boy, this is months ago I wrote this.
• 34:55
  I'm just remembering it again. Oh, that was all right. And then the flip side of it is I'm like,
• 34:59
  oh boy, I used the same word in two sentences in a row. Damn, how did I that slip through?
• 35:04
  My wife started doing my QC. And when I sent it to my narrator with all the notes, he was like,
• 35:10
  he looked at the notes because she was a lot more detailed than I was because I'm kind of the same
• 35:14
  way I'd be like lost in what's going on. Ash's got this huge long list. I sent it to him. He's
• 35:25
  Enjoy.
• 35:27
  Ashley's more thorough than you and organized.
• 35:29
  It's a shocker in there.
• 35:30
  Unbelievable.
• 35:31
  It's a shocker, I know.
• 35:32
  Didn't see that coming.
• 35:35
  And now, let's hear from this episode's sponsor.
• 35:38
  Hi, I'm Jamie Davis, fantasy author and show manager of the Author Nation Conference this
• 35:42
  November in Las Vegas, Nevada.
• 35:44
  I thought you might want a little pick me up for your day, so here's another dad joke
• 35:48
  for you to enjoy.
• 35:49
  I heard there's a restaurant out there run by Halflings and they put an advertisement
• 35:53
  on indeed looking for a new chef. They asked for a short order cook. And now let's get back to the show.
• 36:02
  All right, so here's a doozy for you. So this far into the series, is there anything in the series
• 36:09
  that you're like, "God, I wish I'd done this differently because I'm stuck with it now?"
• 36:15
  I wish I had made the town bigger. It's supposed to be a small city, but, you know, I didn't really
• 36:22
  believe that the series would go on this long.
• 36:24
  You're running out of places.
• 36:26
  And so now the crime rate is just absolutely astronomical.
• 36:29
  [LAUGHTER]
• 36:31
  Hey.
• 36:32
  And yeah, I'm like, wait, could two or three killers really
• 36:36
  live in the same development?
• 36:37
  I mean--
• 36:38
  [LAUGHTER]
• 36:40
  They're right there.
• 36:41
  Well, you know, at some point you find out it's a big--
• 36:43
  it's where all they go to retire.
• 36:44
  And that's just this little town that the serial killers come
• 36:47
  to hang out in.
• 36:48
  Well, I live on an island.
• 36:50
  There's only 80,000 people here.
• 36:53
  They have like three or four murders a year.
• 36:56
  And when I started my Nora series,
• 36:58
  I'm like, their murder rates gonna go up a lot.
• 37:00
  I hope I don't damage the tourist industry.
• 37:03
  - But yeah, you do that in the small towns
• 37:05
  and people are like, huh, a lot of people die in here.
• 37:10
  - Yeah, it's a fictional town.
• 37:11
  You can start adding on stuff.
• 37:13
  I'm writing one of my cat Cromwells right now
• 37:14
  at a certain Dana point,
• 37:15
  which is a fairly decent size,
• 37:17
  Southern California town.
• 37:18
  I mean, that same problem.
• 37:19
  I'm like, okay, we had a scene there.
• 37:22
  We had a chase scene there.
• 37:23
  I'm trying to find like new little parts of neighborhoods
• 37:26
  to go set something.
• 37:27
  Where you can have, you're inventing it.
• 37:29
  You can have this whole like, you know,
• 37:31
  extension of the town that just got built.
• 37:33
  - Yeah, yeah.
• 37:35
  Yeah, I tried to come up with new stuff.
• 37:37
  I realized, so when I went to high school,
• 37:39
  I lived in Danville, Pennsylvania,
• 37:41
  and there was a state mental hospital
• 37:44
  right behind my development.
• 37:45
  And I realized that I had never used that.
• 37:48
  So I put one in 23 and I was like, well, I'm just gonna put that in there.
• 37:52
  And maybe it'll come in handy later.
• 37:54
  Yeah.
• 37:55
  Yeah.
• 37:55
  You wait a second.
• 37:57
  It was a band.
• 37:59
  I did not escape from there.
• 38:01
  Just just clarifying when you said you grew up next to that would be a standard
• 38:06
  for I managed to get out and take over somebody's house nearby.
• 38:10
  Look, I want to just volunteer because I know that Nick puts you in one of his
• 38:14
  books, Lisa.
• 38:15
  So I feel that you could make him the person escaping from the mental hospital if you'd like to
• 38:21
  He'll give you
• 38:26
  So we know also you you actually have a great social media presence
• 38:30
  And I know you with the help of your assistant Maureen have really I love because I see your name pop up on my Facebook feed
• 38:37
  All the time. So what are some of the strategies that you're employing?
• 38:40
  So this is something that we've talked about a lot is what kind of strategy you're employing around your launches and your releases and
• 38:47
  Then in those periods of time when you have no books coming out because you just keep that thing going all the time
• 38:53
  So and my wife who runs my social media is always she's like oh
• 38:58
  She'll share these posts and go I need to do something like this. So yes, you guys have got it figured out
• 39:02
  So yeah, and I mean I I have to you know hats off to Maureen because she's constantly looking around
• 39:09
  you know at other authors platforms at not just authors but any
• 39:15
  Platform that is doing something fun or cool or you know has a lot of engagement and she'll come to me and say hey
• 39:21
  What maybe we should try this we actually the title we gave her as multimedia coordinator because she is
• 39:27
  She's everywhere and she's you know picking up things and trying things and so but the rule
• 39:34
  The rules that we kind of like informal rules that we've kind of laid out are one it cannot be a
• 39:41
  Constant feed of by my book by my book by my book, you know, nobody's gonna show up
• 39:46
  I certainly wouldn't so
• 39:49
  We like to keep the another rule is this we like to keep it focused on books on reading sharing
• 39:55
  Other authors that kind of thing. I mean basically if you're here on my page or in my lounge, you're a reader
• 40:00
  So let's talk about books. So and then you know, the third rule is that we try to
• 40:06
  Make as many recommendations as we can we encourage readers to do that too. I always say like as a reader
• 40:12
  Never in my life was there a point where I was like, that's enough books
• 40:20
  And the readers that come to my social media are the same there there's never enough
• 40:26
  And so they love that I
• 40:29
  I frequently will poll them and say, you know, what do you want to see more of?
• 40:33
  And that is always number one is, you know, recommendations for other books so that they
• 40:37
  can read, you know, between my releases and that sort of thing.
• 40:41
  So sharing about other authors, other books is one of the things that's like top priority
• 40:47
  for us.
• 40:48
  And the other thing is just general, like general engagement.
• 40:51
  We want to hear from the readers.
• 40:54
  It's not just about me being like, hey, guys, I'm over here doing this.
• 40:58
  We want to hear from them.
• 40:59
  We want to engage with them.
• 41:01
  So anything, like we do Mindful Monday, where we post, you know, it's usually a picture
• 41:06
  Maureen and I have taken of, you know, just like flowers or something pretty outside or
• 41:12
  if she went to the beach, she'll do a sunset, that kind of thing.
• 41:15
  And we'll post that and we'll just ask people to kind of tell us what they're looking forward
• 41:22
  to for the week and that sort of thing.
• 41:23
  Something positive.
• 41:25
  Yeah, or we'll ask them to post pictures of their pets.
• 41:29
  You know, my dog, Mr. Phillip, is a huge part of the social media presence.
• 41:33
  And I'm a dog person and, you know, he's become just, I mean,
• 41:38
  the fans are absolutely insane over him.
• 41:40
  So a lot of pictures of him.
• 41:42
  And then, you know, people will respond, they'll tell us about their pets.
• 41:45
  And every time we see like kind of a cool question that we can pose,
• 41:51
  you know, this or that post, or, you know,
• 41:53
  if you had to eliminate one of these four Halloween candies, which would it be?
• 41:57
  Fun stuff like that. We will do that. So we just try to engage the fans as much as we can
• 42:04
  so that they're a part of it. It shouldn't be just like, I'm up here being the author.
• 42:10
  They're a part of this.
• 42:11
  It's engaging with them. I think it's important. It's kind of making them
• 42:15
  feel invested in you as a writer.
• 42:17
  Yeah. Yeah, well, nothing without those folks. I mean, they are what may turn us into enthusiastic
• 42:22
  writers to actually making a living doing it.
• 42:25
  Right. Yeah. So that's really important to me,
• 42:29
  that they become a part of the process,
• 42:32
  a part of the journey of what I'm doing,
• 42:36
  what we're doing together.
• 42:37
  You know, we're all kind of like in this book together
• 42:40
  every time another one comes out.
• 42:41
  We're in this world together that I made up.
• 42:44
  And so any time that I have an opportunity
• 42:47
  to hear from them in any way, then I will do that.
• 42:52
  And it's pretty fun.
• 42:53
  I mean, it's pretty fun.
• 42:56
  - It's really cool.
• 42:56
  And big shout out to Maureen,
• 42:59
  'cause she is an absolute sweetheart
• 43:00
  and she does a brilliant job.
• 43:01
  - And Mr. Phillip.
• 43:03
  - Well, Mr. Phillip, it's,
• 43:06
  Miss, the reason I asked Lisa,
• 43:09
  if she wouldn't mind being in one of my books is
• 43:11
  'cause I wanted Mr. Phillip in the book.
• 43:13
  And he wouldn't do it unless she was in it.
• 43:16
  That's really the only way it came about.
• 43:17
  It was a lot of negotiation with his agent,
• 43:20
  But we came up with a contract to pull it off.
• 43:23
  - I'm just his caddy, so.
• 43:24
  (laughing)
• 43:25
  - He's his caddy.
• 43:26
  (laughing)
• 43:29
  Yeah, and if you haven't been to Lisa's social media sites
• 43:33
  and seen some of the pictures,
• 43:35
  you do yourself a favor and come and have a look
• 43:37
  at the pictures of Mr. Phillip,
• 43:39
  'cause he is a character, unbelievable character.
• 43:42
  But so Maureen does a killer job
• 43:44
  and you have your main page
• 43:46
  and then you have your private reader group
• 43:49
  that people can join.
• 43:50
  You've got several thousand readers that are in there.
• 43:53
  And I think that the proof that you're doing it all right
• 43:56
  is how much interaction the readers do have
• 43:59
  with each other in there.
• 44:00
  And that's the goal, right?
• 44:01
  Is so that you're not just putting stuff in,
• 44:03
  you want them to be putting stuff in,
• 44:05
  and there's so much going on there.
• 44:07
  - And it's a community, and that's what I want.
• 44:09
  And they do, I don't often have to do very much.
• 44:14
  They're in there chatting to each other
• 44:16
  and sharing memes with each other,
• 44:18
  and new books and reviews and anything they see
• 44:22
  that is relevant to this kind of like bookish corner
• 44:25
  of the internet we've created.
• 44:28
  And they're invested in each other,
• 44:31
  they're daily and they're kind and respectful.
• 44:35
  That's one of the things that really is just amazing to me
• 44:40
  about them and this space.
• 44:44
  I mean, of course, you open up readers' lounge,
• 44:46
  you want people to be kind and respectful.
• 44:48
  You know, it's, you don't really know what you're gonna get,
• 44:51
  but my readers are fantastic.
• 44:53
  I mean, we've never had an issue,
• 44:55
  they're supportive of me, they're supportive of each other.
• 44:58
  They just show up, they show up in there as readers
• 45:02
  and as fantastic human beings.
• 45:04
  I just, it's just amazing.
• 45:05
  It's one of my favorite things
• 45:08
  that not only are they just engaged as fans and readers,
• 45:11
  but they're just, they show up for each other.
• 45:14
  And for me, and they are just conducting themselves
• 45:16
  as excellent human beings.
• 45:18
  I just think it's amazing. It's just amazing to me.
• 45:21
  Very, very cool. Very, very cool. You know, there's so much talk about fandom and all this stuff that we do.
• 45:26
  And there's a certain amount of deliberate nature that comes sometimes with that.
• 45:32
  And it feels, your groups, it feels so organic and easy.
• 45:37
  It's fandom, but it wasn't a marketing strategy that it started with.
• 45:41
  It started as a community, and I think that's...
• 45:43
  You did and like I could tell you like they're I know that a kind of I like to hear from them
• 45:49
  I like like these are the people that are reading my books. They're spending their money on on my books
• 45:53
  And so I like hearing from them. I like hearing their thoughts. I like seeing them
• 45:59
  interacting with each other and what they're recommending and I've had readers invite me to their weddings and
• 46:07
  That's what and I and I love it. I think it's wonderful that they're so
• 46:11
  They're just they're so engaged and there's there. Yeah, it's amazing
• 46:16
  It's just seemed like you foster them and that makes that something I think that that helps too
• 46:20
  Like it seemed like you're keeping that kind of going. I mean otherwise
• 46:23
  Why would they just drop it enough an invitation to a wedding for you?
• 46:27
  Unless they don't like you they might just not like you and they're like
• 46:32
  A new Lisa Reagan Birking Club thing going on in there, but
• 46:39
  Avenue Lisa Regans Birkin Club
• 46:44
  Yes, and another t-shirt
• 46:48
  When the wine bar wasn't enough it just
• 46:53
  Well, that was we have as we mentioned earlier we've had you on a couple times before so we've asked this question
• 46:58
  About your superpower, but we're gonna kind of twist it a little bit for you now and ask you
• 47:02
  What you think your author kryptonite might be kryptonite. I have to just pick one
• 47:09
  (laughing)
• 47:12
  - Well, self doubt it is, okay.
• 47:14
  (laughing)
• 47:14
  And we're moving on.
• 47:16
  (laughing)
• 47:17
  - It's overthinking.
• 47:19
  It's overthinking.
• 47:20
  - Overthinking, okay.
• 47:21
  - Yeah.
• 47:21
  - Same answer, right?
• 47:22
  That's perfect, yes.
• 47:23
  - Yeah, one of the books that I wrote very recently,
• 47:28
  I had multiple video calls with my editor,
• 47:31
  and I was just going round and round and round
• 47:33
  with the plot, and she kept saying to me,
• 47:35
  You know, like the thing that you are fixated on doesn't matter.
• 47:40
  Like just move past it, you're thinking way too much about this.
• 47:44
  And so I would say definitely I tend to overthink things big time.
• 47:49
  Creatives are never like that.
• 47:50
  I think that's so strange.
• 47:54
  All right.
• 47:54
  So last question, maybe we have a wheel of questions and we'll give
• 47:59
  that to Dougie.
• 48:00
  Dougie has it with him there.
• 48:01
  I do have it with me.
• 48:03
  Give it a spin.
• 48:04
  I'm going to tighten it up a little bit while I got you here.
• 48:06
  OK, ready?
• 48:07
  And I just put some new questions on here.
• 48:13
  Background.
• 48:14
  It's very faint background noise.
• 48:15
  You know, it's got a little wobble to it still.
• 48:17
  This thing is like four years old now.
• 48:19
  I know it's hanging in there.
• 48:20
  It really is.
• 48:21
  It's it's I'm in worse shape than it is.
• 48:27
  OK, so if you could attend any one sporting event anywhere in the world,
• 48:33
  What would it be? Oh, it would be the Phillies in the World Series.
• 48:39
  Have a no-hitter. Yeah.
• 48:43
  Yeah. With a minimum of like 12 home runs on the Phillies.
• 48:48
  Yeah. And on a day that they let dogs in.
• 48:52
  And free nachos would be nice too. If we're gonna go ahead and go all in.
• 48:59
  $1 dog day. We got we got you know punished and that was taken away. I think last season and I think they're slowly phasing it back in
• 49:09
  That's they should I say should how about you Doug? Ah sporting event. Um, I have done a couple of cool ones
• 49:16
  I'm not that big of a sports guy
• 49:18
  So I don't really care that much but I would probably lean toward like I think do in one of the summer Olympics
• 49:24
  We kind of cool not the winter. That's too cold
• 49:26
  Some Olympics where they do like the sailing and stuff like that. So the scuba diving races would be fun to watch
• 49:36
  Kind of goes against a lot of the principles of scuba diving
• 49:41
  You got race in the bottom of the top it's off
• 49:44
  Another one's been oh well, I
• 49:47
  Actually think the like the Kentucky Derby have not done that it's been on my list of places
• 49:51
  I'd like to go do I think the Kentucky Derby would come I want you at the Kentucky Derby
• 49:55
  I want to see the hat.
• 49:56
  Have a hat. See. No.
• 49:59
  You've got to have a big hat with feathers and shit.
• 50:02
  That's not the way that's I think.
• 50:04
  I will have the mint julep and I'll probably have a nice little white hat
• 50:08
  with a white suit and look very southern at that point.
• 50:13
  All right, Nick, what's yours then?
• 50:15
  Honestly, I've never been to the Monaco Grand Prix.
• 50:19
  So I've been to many, many, many race tracks around the world
• 50:22
  and I've been to a lot of Formula One races a long time ago, but it's been a while.
• 50:27
  But I never went to the Monaco Grand Prix.
• 50:29
  My brother's been there.
• 50:30
  He's worked at the event.
• 50:31
  My dad been there, worked at the event.
• 50:33
  So it's a horrible place to watch a Formula One race,
• 50:36
  because you only see them like short little bits.
• 50:38
  It's proud.
• 50:38
  Wait till you get to Vegas and you see the same thing.
• 50:40
  You have one little strip.
• 50:42
  There they go.
• 50:44
  Well, yeah, fair enough.
• 50:45
  All right, Lisa, thank you so much for joining us again.
• 50:48
  It's always great to have you with us, Lisa.
• 50:50
  Always a pleasure.
• 50:50
  Thank you so much, Jess.
• 50:51
  Keep doing what you're doing.
• 50:52
  Don't overthink it. Don't second guess yourself because you're freaking killing it girl. Keep it up. Thank you so much
• 51:04
  Thank you so much Lisa love having her on the show she is a delight and why she puts up with us
• 51:12
  Yeah, really cool and all fair we got to meet Fred
• 51:19
  - Fredopedia. - Fredopedia.
• 51:20
  - So that was awesome. - Yeah, yeah.
• 51:22
  Now she's an absolute sweetheart and she's so genuine
• 51:25
  and that comes across and that's why her social media stuff
• 51:29
  is so good and Maureen does a great job with her.
• 51:32
  And the thing is like Maureen,
• 51:34
  they know each other, they're friends, right?
• 51:36
  And so Maureen knows how to present Lisa
• 51:39
  when she's putting up posts and doing the stuff
• 51:41
  that she handles.
• 51:42
  It's an amazing community that she's built
• 51:44
  And it's quite an example of fandom.
• 51:49
  - She's a perfect example of someone
• 51:51
  you should try to emulate if you're trying.
• 51:53
  I mean, you should always try to do your own thing
• 51:56
  to get your fandom, but when you look at people
• 51:58
  who are doing it well, Lisa's doing it really well,
• 52:00
  so looking at how she's doing things
• 52:02
  and trying to take some of that into practice
• 52:04
  is probably a smart thing to do.
• 52:06
  - Yeah, not what she's doing, how she's doing it.
• 52:08
  - How she's doing it.
• 52:08
  - Yeah, 'cause you can repeat.
• 52:10
  - Do you.
• 52:10
  - And trust me, I've been doing this since 2011.
• 52:13
  I have repeated plenty of people and it has yet to work for me.
• 52:16
  It's been weird how that is.
• 52:18
  I try to do it just like this.
• 52:20
  Doesn't always work.
• 52:21
  So really, really plays out.
• 52:23
  Does it?
• 52:24
  Yeah.
• 52:24
  You kind of get it's best to figure out how people are doing it and be.
• 52:27
  And I think you nailed it in that she's genuine.
• 52:30
  It's not faked.
• 52:31
  It's not something that she's trying to put out there.
• 52:33
  She genuinely loves her readers.
• 52:35
  She loves that community and that comes out.
• 52:38
  So absolutely, absolutely.
• 52:40
  But if you think you get value from the show, we'd love it.
• 52:43
  If you support us on Patreon,
• 52:44
  if it's a couple of bucks a month, there's a free tier,
• 52:46
  but for a few bucks a month,
• 52:47
  you get the bonus questions
• 52:48
  like the one we just recorded with Lisa a few minutes ago.
• 52:51
  - Which was a bonus bonus question.
• 52:52
  We had a long one. - Bonus bonus.
• 52:53
  - Three, yeah.
• 52:54
  - Yeah, you better grab that one.
• 52:56
  - Yeah, so head over to Patreon and support us over there.
• 52:59
  We'd really appreciate it.
• 53:00
  It helps keep the show running.
• 53:02
  Huge thanks to our friends at Valem for all their support.
• 53:05
  Valem.com or you can go do tryvalem.com/twoauthors
• 53:10
  And then they know that you arrived there via us.
• 53:14
  And we appreciate that very much
• 53:16
  'cause they give us a little shout out.
• 53:18
  And you'll find Lisa's links and our links
• 53:21
  and all that good stuff in the show notes.
• 53:23
  We'll be back in a week with a new episode
• 53:25
  of the Two Authors podcast.
• 53:26
  Until next time, be cool to each other.
• 53:28
  - The fair winds and follow the seas.
• 53:31
  - You've been listening to the Two Authors podcast
• 53:34
  with Nicholas Harvey and Douglas Pratt.
• 53:37
  Subscribe on your favorite platform
• 53:39
  for new shows coming every week.