[SPEAKER_07]: and welcome to our show.
[SPEAKER_07]: The shit no one tells you about writing.
[SPEAKER_07]: I'm best selling author Bianca Marie, and I'm joined by C.C.
[SPEAKER_07]: Lira of Wendy Sherman Associates and Carly Waters of PS Literary.
[SPEAKER_07]: Everyone, today's guest is the author of The Novels asking for a friend waiting for a start to fall and midsea bites, an editor of the M-word conversations about motherhood.
[SPEAKER_07]: A national magazine award nominated essayist, an editor of Canadian Books website, 49thShelf.com.
[SPEAKER_07]: She writes about books and read at her long time blog, Pickle Measers.
[SPEAKER_07]: She loves interronto with her family.
[SPEAKER_07]: Kerry, welcome back to the show.
[SPEAKER_07]: Thank you for having me back.
[SPEAKER_07]: It's wonderful to speak to you because Kerry, for those of you who are listening, is one of my favorite literary citizens.
[SPEAKER_07]: You cannot go to a book launch a book signing a library event without Kerry being the in support of other authors.
[SPEAKER_07]: So Kerry, thank you for setting such a good example for the rest of us.
[SPEAKER_07]: I don't know, you do
[SPEAKER_07]: Alrighty, so let's go into the book itself.
[SPEAKER_07]: I'm going to read this in Upsis.
[SPEAKER_07]: I'm holding up the book for those of you who aren't watching on YouTube, the book is called Definitely Thriving.
[SPEAKER_07]: My copy is really battered, which is always a good sign because when I love a book, I love inside of this book.
[SPEAKER_07]: So generally when the book looks really pristine, it's like it, but when it looks like shit, you know, I really enjoyed it.
[SPEAKER_07]: So here we go.
[SPEAKER_07]: Let me read the flap copy for you.
[SPEAKER_07]: After accidentally on purpose, exploding her listless marriage by being discovered in bed with the next torn neighbours, Kevin's letter, where you returned to her hometown, resolved to build the life for herself that is good and substantial to become the kind of sensible woman who won't be distracted by frippery and romance.
[SPEAKER_07]: It's supposed to be it pre-love without the love's path.
[SPEAKER_07]: But no woman is an island, and soon Clemens finds herself embroiled in neighborhood drama, beginning a crusade at the local bookshop, becoming adopted by a well-groomed one-eyed cat, and being forced to admit her attraction to two very different men.
[SPEAKER_07]: Each romantic lead in his own right.
[SPEAKER_07]: but how to choose and never mind the complications of her quirky family.
[SPEAKER_07]: A novel about friendship, community, and church jumble sales.
[SPEAKER_07]: Definitely driving is a celebration of people who are perfectly imperfect and all the love and support that's required for one woman to make it on her own.
[SPEAKER_07]: So there we go.
[SPEAKER_07]: All right, let us dive in because I have a turn of questions for you.
[SPEAKER_07]: and I want to make sure we get to most of them.
[SPEAKER_07]: I am always fascinated by the genesis of the idea for a book, because to me, it's like what Julia Roberts said in Pretty Woman that it can be a slippery little sucker.
[SPEAKER_07]: In terms of you listed a whole bunch of things in your acknowledgements, and I'd like to break them down.
[SPEAKER_07]: So you spoke about how the novels of Barbara Pum were inspired for comments.
[SPEAKER_07]: Can you speak a bit about that?
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, so I love Barbara Pim, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: Are you familiar with Barbara Pim Bianca?
[SPEAKER_02]: No, so now if somebody's that I've had to add too much to be redness.
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, lucky you though.
[SPEAKER_02]: So yeah, she's a mid-century British novelist.
[SPEAKER_02]: She writes about spinsters pretty much.
[SPEAKER_02]: She never married.
[SPEAKER_02]: She had her biography came out a few years ago.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's wonderful.
[SPEAKER_02]: She had bizarre relationships.
[SPEAKER_02]: She had like strange fixations on really an appropriate men.
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't really know what was going on beneath the surface, but her personal life was quirky and bizarre.
[SPEAKER_02]: So the,
[SPEAKER_02]: The characters in her books have arrangements that are just as unconventional and they're just so interesting.
[SPEAKER_02]: She has a really subtle touch.
[SPEAKER_02]: Sometimes it can seem like not a lot's happening in her books.
[SPEAKER_02]: She writes about communities.
[SPEAKER_02]: She writes about little English villages, London Parish Church communities, and then also workplaces.
[SPEAKER_02]: And it was a lot of it was informed by her own biography, the settings, not necessarily the story, so though some of them.
[SPEAKER_02]: And they're just about really mundane things.
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean that as such a compliment.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's the stuff of this world.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's the little details.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's like how annoying it is when someone steals your coffee in the office.
[SPEAKER_02]: Or how you want to drink out of that specific mug.
[SPEAKER_02]: She writes about communities and how difficult communities are and how weird and irritating people are.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's a story that I think she never ran out of material for.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I wanted to write a modern day Barbara Pim.
[SPEAKER_02]: heroine and so that's what I attempted to do in this book.
[SPEAKER_07]: You've sold me on hook because I'm actually quite a mercenapist.
[SPEAKER_07]: So people think I really like other people but I I really am a mercenapist.
[SPEAKER_07]: So which of her books do you recommend I start with?
[SPEAKER_02]: excellent women is my favorite of her books and it's sort of the one that yeah is the best gateway.
[SPEAKER_02]: And that's about a woman in post war London who moves into this flat and she doesn't have her own bathroom.
[SPEAKER_02]: She has to share a bathroom with this
[SPEAKER_02]: Crazy family that lives a couple that that moves into the same unit and a lot of her books are about other people living in close proximity to us And about how uncomfortable that could be but also interesting people are fascinating and Barbara Pim died in 1980 So she never got to see the internet, but in her own life and in her books her characters are so nosy and they're always going to the library to look up characters and Directors because they just want to know everything they want data
[SPEAKER_02]: and so that also is something that's really resonant for me.
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean other people are irritating but they're also fascinating and we always want to figure them out and so that's a thread in her book as well.
[SPEAKER_07]: Yeah, hell is other people but man we've lost without them.
[SPEAKER_07]: Okay, so you also wrote about how the notion of artfully refusing the question of how to be a woman comes from Rebecca Solnitz is say the mother of all questions.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes, so I love Rebecca Solnitz's books and she's published these little volumes by HeMarket Press and that's what the mother of all questions was and I just love the idea of refusing the question of how to be a woman and that specific essay is about motherhood and the conversation about whether or not to have children is something that
[SPEAKER_02]: gets hashed out all the time and I have to say I very rarely see anything new in it, you know, like it's just it depends on where where the person having that conversation is at and we all have different points of view, but there's something kind of reactionary about it no matter where you're falling and Rebecca Solnick just shuts the whole thing down and she's just refusing those questions and making her own narrative and I found that really refreshing.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so I wanted to write about a character who's also refusing the question of how to be a woman and you know I have children I've been married for 20 years I've had kind of a very conventional trajectory in some ways, but I can relate to a character like Clements who just.
[SPEAKER_02]: throws out the baby on the bath water.
[SPEAKER_02]: She never has babies.
[SPEAKER_02]: She doesn't throw out a baby, but you know what I mean?
[SPEAKER_02]: She doesn't, she's not concerned with that.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I kind of relate to that.
[SPEAKER_02]: I always knew I wanted to have children.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I feel like that certainty gives me a commonality with people who always knew they didn't, like we know our own souls.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so I was able to relate to Clements' point of view quite easily that way.
[SPEAKER_02]: I know what it's like to know what we want and who we are.
[SPEAKER_02]: And even though her choice is different than the one that I've made, like
[SPEAKER_02]: That that beautiful certainty about certain things is is really it's maybe the only stability that she has because her as the cover shows her whole life's been turned upside down, but there are some things she knows for sure.
[SPEAKER_07]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_07]: So CC always says on the podcast that writing is seduction and you need to surprise your reader.
[SPEAKER_07]: They need to expect something and then they get something completely different.
[SPEAKER_07]: Have you got your book?
[SPEAKER_07]: Are you able to read that excerpt?
[SPEAKER_07]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_07]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_07]: So let me tell you it's from six weeks of past from the bottom of page four to she hoped which is at the bottom of
[SPEAKER_07]: Absolutely.
[SPEAKER_02]: Six weeks have passed since Clements' marriage exploded, or, or accurately, since Clements exploded her marriage accidentally on purpose.
[SPEAKER_02]: By being discovered by her husband, Tode, in bed with Larry and Lisa, the couple next door with a fondness for tending beds and leopard print.
[SPEAKER_02]: And afterward, a normal person, a good person, would have been able to explain to Tode that
[SPEAKER_02]: except that it had been happening for months.
[SPEAKER_02]: Clements had even orchestrated Toad's discovery, timing it right down to the minute after she knew she'd hear his key in the door.
[SPEAKER_02]: A good person, afterward, would also have been able to promise her husband, it's not you, it's me, to tell him that she just been looking for something different, something to spice up their lukewarm love life.
[SPEAKER_02]: except Tod was the problem in its entirety.
[SPEAKER_02]: Clements hadn't even liked being a bad with Larry and Lisa, which in its physicality was basically overwhelming and confusing, like having sex with an octopus, but having sex with Tod was so much worse.
[SPEAKER_02]: And maybe she'd always known.
[SPEAKER_02]: This is the part she feels guilty about.
[SPEAKER_02]: Clements still remembers the first time she'd gone at with Tod walking down the street, arm and arm, listening to his grating voice and thinking, at some point I'm going to have to find a way to get out of this.
[SPEAKER_02]: but she never did, because it was easier not to, because their body's fit, because Tod was tall enough for her to lay her head against just just when he wrapped his arms around her, and she'd listened to his heart beat.
[SPEAKER_02]: Her fondness for its solid consistency more than making up for the fact that he never made hers leap at all, or so she thought.
[SPEAKER_02]: She hoped.
[SPEAKER_07]: that made me laugh so hard.
[SPEAKER_07]: Actually, it's really weird.
[SPEAKER_07]: Again, it was just, this whole book is just hilarious, Kerry, but there were certain spots that I was just highlighting.
[SPEAKER_07]: So in terms of surprising the reader, we so used to these narratives of a husband blowing up a marriage and the wife is the hard done by party and then she has to pick up a
[SPEAKER_07]: the pieces of her life and put it all together that this comes as such a surprise not only that she's the one who's been sleeping with this couple but she doesn't really enjoy sleeping with this couple but that she also orchestrated her husband's arrivals so that he could see this so that the marriage could blow up
[SPEAKER_07]: So is this something that you had seen the scene playing out as all along?
[SPEAKER_07]: Was it something that you planned it that way specifically?
[SPEAKER_07]: Or is it something that was one of the things that perhaps surprised you about your encounter?
[SPEAKER_02]: I think it did surprise me.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I wrote this book in pretty much the order that it appears.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I began with Clements' home.
[SPEAKER_02]: She moves into this new apartment that she expects to be like a cell.
[SPEAKER_02]: And she expects to kind of pace and pay a penance for the error that she's made that she orchestrated.
[SPEAKER_02]: And it turns out to be a beautiful, light-filled room.
[SPEAKER_02]: And that's where the story began for me.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I went from there.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I was really under the influence of Katherine Heine.
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, I was writing this book.
[SPEAKER_02]: I love Katherine Heineys, novels and short stories, and what she taught me is that anything is possible in fiction.
[SPEAKER_02]: And that's why her husband is called Toad.
[SPEAKER_02]: In my book, anything is possible.
[SPEAKER_02]: People can be called Toad, and you don't even need to explain it.
[SPEAKER_02]: And you know, the world is like that.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like if you've ever walked down the street and looked around, like there are some bizarre characters walking about, and some even banal bizarre characters, which is what Toad is.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so I just was like, you know what, anything can happen.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so as I wrote, like, yeah, plenty of things surprised me.
[SPEAKER_02]: And that was one.
[SPEAKER_02]: And like, why not do something a little bit over the top?
[SPEAKER_02]: She's exiting this marriage.
[SPEAKER_02]: And yeah, she orchestrates a really dramatic exit.
[SPEAKER_07]: it was excellent and it was surprising.
[SPEAKER_07]: So again, for our listeners, you know, set something up, have the read the expecting something, and then completely subvert the expectations, and this is what happens.
[SPEAKER_07]: And it happens on page four.
[SPEAKER_07]: So you know, okay, whatever I'm expecting from this novel, I am going to be getting a lot of different things from what I'm expecting.
[SPEAKER_07]: and and that is what Kerry does so brilliantly in her writing.
[SPEAKER_07]: So something I want to talk about as well is we're hearing all the time now these days.
[SPEAKER_07]: Hooks, hooks, hooks, hooks.
[SPEAKER_07]: In query letters there has to be a big hook.
[SPEAKER_07]: This meets that you know it's like an elevator pitch in a few seconds.
[SPEAKER_07]: And you look at the back of your novel and pretty much it says a novel of friendship community
[SPEAKER_02]: That's the trick of all.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's the huge plot line.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think this is going to be next.
[SPEAKER_02]: Church jumble cell novels.
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, yeah, I'm not saying you're good.
[SPEAKER_07]: OK, so you're going OK, this is not like a huge hook.
[SPEAKER_07]: Although they are crochet needles and they're knitting in jumble cells.
[SPEAKER_07]: quiet by all accounts but also not quiet because life is not quiet.
[SPEAKER_07]: Life happens in those moments like you say where some bastard steals your coffee mug at work and you just want to beat the crap out of him with it.
[SPEAKER_07]: And life happens when you run out of toilet paper and there's no one there to scream to you to get the toilet paper.
[SPEAKER_07]: Life is not always.
[SPEAKER_07]: Right, it's not always these big plot, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't.
[SPEAKER_07]: So can we speak a bit about this because you do it so incredibly well that your novels never feel quiet.
[SPEAKER_07]: They feel loud.
[SPEAKER_07]: How do you do that?
[SPEAKER_02]: It's the only way I know how to write.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, I've tried to write novels that are a little bit more conventional.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like this novel was my attempt to write romantic comedy.
[SPEAKER_02]: But then she starts like masturbating on page 55 because I'm incapable of following the way we're supposed to do these things.
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't know.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's the only way I know how to do it.
[SPEAKER_07]: I was waiting for you to say, because I'm incapable of not masturbating, but it's somewhere else.
[SPEAKER_07]: So, okay.
[SPEAKER_07]: This interview's already gone off the rails, carry out.
[SPEAKER_02]: So yeah, it's the only way I know how to do it, and it's hard to sell novels like this.
[SPEAKER_02]: And it's hard to market them.
[SPEAKER_02]: I've had my previous books be marketed as something a little bit more packaged and conventional, and then people read them, and they're like, what is this?
[SPEAKER_02]: One star on good reads, so that's not the best.
[SPEAKER_02]: But I am very happy with having found a home for this book at House of Anancy Press.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I feel like they've done a nice job of dressing up my weird quietish novel as exactly what it is which I appreciate so much because you don't want to sell a reader I mean we want to surprise our reader as you say, but you don't want a reader to be thinking they're getting something really formulaic and then and then you know there's there's told in the octopus sex on page four I mean they're it's not going to end well for anybody.
[SPEAKER_02]: So it's the only way I know how to write, but I'm grateful that I have had editors and my agent sort of see the goodness in that and readers as well like you.
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't know.
[SPEAKER_02]: I just think that sometimes we get a lot of advice about how to write, but we have to
[SPEAKER_02]: be true to our real voices and write the stories we are meant to write, although I will say that the threesome with the next door neighbors is like kind of like a hook.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's happening on page four but it's on the back of the book and all along people have said you need to write books with hooks and and I haven't really and this is the first one that sort of has that and I have noticed that that has caught people attention.
[SPEAKER_02]: There is something to hooks after all.
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean maybe
[SPEAKER_07]: What you've said about packaging is so important, because we as writers, what we have control over is writing the book of that we want to write, telling the story we want to tell, but then we hand it over to our publisher and then it becomes a product that has to be sold.
[SPEAKER_07]: And it's so frustrating, like you say, when the book is...
[SPEAKER_07]: marketed as something that it's not and then the reader feels cheated and like my last book was a murder mystery but it also had fantasy in it and so many readers were pissed off about this magical family.
[SPEAKER_07]: Again one star reviews they were like I was expecting a close to murder mystery I was not expecting mad.
[SPEAKER_07]: And you just like, it actually was there.
[SPEAKER_07]: It did say a magical family, but you just probably not reading a properly.
[SPEAKER_07]: But it should be put, friends and center what this book is, because it will find it's readers who don't want regular plot lines, who don't want conventional characters.
[SPEAKER_07]: Who are looking for this kind of character who reminds us why we're alive, the quirkiness of being alive.
[SPEAKER_07]: And I think it's wonderful that your publisher has done that for you.
[SPEAKER_02]: I have, and I really happy with my publicity team like in, because it's hard to market books that don't fit into the conventional boxes, and I really feel grateful to be working with a team who've been kind of creative about situating the book in a slightly different way and letting it shine.
[SPEAKER_02]: But yeah, it's tough.
[SPEAKER_07]: And I must warn you, people get very upset about masturbation scenes, but maybe it's just because my masturbation scene was an 80-year-old woman.
[SPEAKER_07]: In the witches of München men, people lost their minds.
[SPEAKER_07]: People were like, I've stopped reading this book because that's the most disgusting thing I've ever seen.
[SPEAKER_07]: And I'm like, listen, if I could be 80 and not have such bad arthritis, that I could actually be masturbating, I think that's a great thing.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I mean, I don't know, living readers are thinking.
[SPEAKER_07]: Yeah, so come back to me and let me know because maybe it's just an ageous thing.
[SPEAKER_07]: Maybe they don't mind chemist masturbating because she's not 80.
[SPEAKER_07]: Let me know.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's terrible, but yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: Everyone.
[SPEAKER_07]: There was an article that was written for our sub-steck.
[SPEAKER_07]: And it was a term that I've never heard before, which was very interesting.
[SPEAKER_07]: It actually wasn't an article.
[SPEAKER_07]: It's a video by Danielle Gerard, who wrote the book Pinky Swerve.
[SPEAKER_07]: The deep marriage between plot and character, and she uses examples from normal people, the goldfish, gone girl, a little life to the road, and never let me go, to show why the most powerful stories unfold the way they do, because of who the characters are, not what the author, what wants or needs to happen.
[SPEAKER_07]: And this feels like this sums up your books.
[SPEAKER_07]: Have you heard
[SPEAKER_07]: No, but is it cleric?
[SPEAKER_07]: So it's P-L-A-R-A-C. Is it cleric to raise it?
[SPEAKER_07]: I'm not pronouncing it long.
[SPEAKER_02]: But I understand.
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay, no, that is a term to something that I like know so fundamentally, but I didn't know there was a word for it.
[SPEAKER_02]: So
[SPEAKER_07]: Yeah, the marriage between plot and character because so much of who clements is drives this plot.
[SPEAKER_07]: It's not the other way around.
[SPEAKER_07]: It's not carry decided on the plot and popped clements in.
[SPEAKER_07]: And there we go.
[SPEAKER_07]: Clements had to run through the obstacle course of this.
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, and sometimes too, there, I read books by, get our development, by authors who also don't quite know what to do with their author.
[SPEAKER_02]: You can sense that they're like kind of trying to
[SPEAKER_02]: Occupy them keep them busy.
[SPEAKER_02]: Clements I really had her own momentum.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like she wasn't doing anything that was especially monumental beyond her threesome with the next door neighbors, but and climbing into cupboards with weird men
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, yes, but she knew she just was very directed.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so I identify with that term a lot.
[SPEAKER_02]: I almost think about like comics with little dotted lines with people wandering around a neighborhood.
[SPEAKER_02]: And that's I could draw the map for this book.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so yeah, she her character is the plot.
[SPEAKER_02]: And if she wasn't someone who was artfully resisting questions about how to be a woman and just doing her own
[SPEAKER_07]: Yeah, but also isn't it insane, Kerry, that we're in 2026 and we're still having to defend our choices as women.
[SPEAKER_07]: We're still having to write books like this in which a woman has to say, no, I don't want this.
[SPEAKER_07]: And this is kind of what I want.
[SPEAKER_07]: And if I want this, then I'm seeing as the weirdo or as the other.
[SPEAKER_02]: And that's what I actually, what I like about the novel is that she's not defending it like that just it goes without saying because I've read that book before when someone's making a case for their life choices.
[SPEAKER_02]: She's made that case and so she's she's not making a case for that now she's just living her life on her own terms and I think that is fresh and interesting and I hope that appeals to readers.
[SPEAKER_07]: No, definitely.
[SPEAKER_07]: My point is that that we need the counter to that story, that we need a book like definitely thriving to counterbalance all those other stories.
[SPEAKER_07]: It's yeah, you know, and it's just so refreshing.
[SPEAKER_07]: It's like a real palatina.
[SPEAKER_07]: Okay, so
[SPEAKER_07]: your launch.
[SPEAKER_07]: Unfortunately, we cannot advertise your launch because this is airing after your launch.
[SPEAKER_06]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_07]: But those of you who follow on the sub stack will see that we are advertising carry launch there and they are hoping after the fact that a lot of the T-snortial community will be there for the launch because we love coming together and celebrating the literary community and we love seeing each other.
[SPEAKER_07]: Now, you are having your launch at a special 25th anniversary showing a Bridget Jones' diary.
[SPEAKER_07]: And something you've written there is all the love and support that's required for one woman to make it on her own.
[SPEAKER_07]: We see women making on her own and we forget about the love and the community support that it takes a village almost for a woman to be able to make it on her.
[SPEAKER_02]: So Clements is, you know, that she's trying to live a sensible life, and that's a Barbara Pim Hero, and they were the excellent women in the church who made everything happen, who did all the labor that made the world turn.
[SPEAKER_02]: And she resolves to become a woman like that instead of somebody who's in bed with the next door neighbors.
[SPEAKER_02]: And she thinks that if she doesn't engage with other people, if this woman remains an island, her life will be sensible and straightforward,
[SPEAKER_02]: And it turns out that that is just not possible and other people keep creeping into her purview and some of them are very attractive men and some of them are less attractive, but somehow still oddly appealing men.
[SPEAKER_02]: And yeah, she just can't get away from community and connection.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so that's really fundamental to the book.
[SPEAKER_02]: And you know, I thought I was writing against Bridget Jones when I was writing this.
[SPEAKER_02]: There's a line where she says my Bridget Jones
[SPEAKER_02]: Because in my mind, I remember Bridget Jones was going down the fireman's pole and doing foolish things and making an ass of herself.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then I re-watched the movie last year, and I couldn't believe how wrong I was.
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, she does silly things, but she has such a fundamental sense of her own worth.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I had thought that,
[SPEAKER_02]: Mark Darcy call in first who liked her just as she was.
[SPEAKER_02]: I thought that was such a poultry offering like and at the time I'd seen that movie And I was like, oh, maybe someone will one day love me and that was such a revelation and I just thought that was pathetic And then when I was older reflecting and then I rewatched it and I realized it wasn't that he loved her just I mean he did and that was great But she loved herself exactly as she was and she doesn't want to compromise
[SPEAKER_02]: she ends up getting together with Hugh Grant's dashing character.
[SPEAKER_02]: But when he treats her like crap, she's finished with him.
[SPEAKER_02]: She doesn't want to lower herself and I realized that that sense of her own value was really what was so beautiful about that movie and why it resonated with me and that it actually was the kind of story I was writing with definitely thriving.
[SPEAKER_02]: So
[SPEAKER_02]: it's definitely connected and I wasn't writing against it at all and I'm so grateful now to look back and realize that I had that movie because in the environment it came out of, it came out in 2001 which was just a dreadful time in women in media and pop culture and so it was really refreshing.
[SPEAKER_02]: And the movie had less about her weight and the sort of self-deprecatingness.
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, the book's wonderful, but it also, there's some elements of self-loving that got edited out of the movie, and it was really refreshing.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so, yes, I'm very excited to celebrate the book with that movie, which, I mean, she has so many friends.
[SPEAKER_02]: I love Bridget Jones' friends.
[SPEAKER_02]: They are her family.
[SPEAKER_07]: And that cost of characters is just incredible.
[SPEAKER_02]: And her cute little apartment.
[SPEAKER_07]: And the blue, what was it?
[SPEAKER_07]: Is that what it was?
[SPEAKER_07]: Super blue, super blue, she was trying to make it and they still ate it.
[SPEAKER_07]: Yeah
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, it's a great movie and I'm very excited that this event has come together.
[SPEAKER_07]: It's going to be a last question before we run out of time.
[SPEAKER_07]: Is I think you said you started writing this at the beginning of COVID?
[SPEAKER_07]: So how do you think that like the COVID years and the bleakness of the COVID years sort of seeped into this novel or either didn't seep into the novel were like completely pushed to the outside because you were like, I've had enough of COVID.
[SPEAKER_02]: I started writing it in 2021 so, you know, we'd been going through it for some time and I think I just wanted to write something that would make me happy and, you know, thinking about the character's pro close proximity to other characters is maybe something that I was putting a stoichiic for at that point like I hadn't been inside a closet with anyone for ages.
[SPEAKER_02]: in 21.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so yeah, thinking about the way that our lives intertwined and overlapped, I was missing all that.
[SPEAKER_02]: So that definitely is reflected in the book.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then as COVID went on, everyone, including myself, began to lose our minds a little bit.
[SPEAKER_02]: And some people got very hard to be around.
[SPEAKER_02]: And notions of community became really complicated to deal with.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I think elements of that realism.
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, the realism isn't in the book.
[SPEAKER_02]: The book is, there's no COVID in my book, but just acknowledging how much friction there is when we're engaging with other people and how that is like a reality, that found its way into.
[SPEAKER_02]: People aren't always easy to connect with.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I think Clements comes to sort of accept that.
[SPEAKER_02]: In a way that I was a hard road, but you know, came to realize, just because there was friction in a community, that didn't mean we were doing it wrong,
[SPEAKER_02]: people and community are.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I think that is also an underlying message of the book.
[SPEAKER_07]: Yeah, as someone who's like a chronic people, please, uh, there was something so liberating, reading about her because she also just walks into a book stop.
[SPEAKER_07]: She's storing.
[SPEAKER_07]: It's just like, well, this is crap.
[SPEAKER_07]: You know, this is how we're going to do it.
[SPEAKER_07]: And she just, it's just like, well, this is how I think we should do it.
[SPEAKER_07]: And so everyone's just like, well, okay, if that's the way you want to do it.
[SPEAKER_07]: And it's just so refreshing.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I want to be a bit like that.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think all the
[SPEAKER_02]: Protagonists of books I write are people I want to be like a little bit to have that kind of boldness although the older I get I mean the more the more true it's becoming so So okay holding up the book again Definitely thriving we're putting it on a bookshop.org affiliate page get it there.
[SPEAKER_07]: Please support carry.
[SPEAKER_07]: Hi
[SPEAKER_07]: Truly truly there are there are some literary citizens that I've met who deserve so so much support and I don't feel like that always get it and Kerry is one of those people So I'm gonna be judging you if you're not getting this book and if you aren't deeming me to tell me how much you love it Kerry thank you so much Thank you.
[SPEAKER_02]: This has been a lot of fun
[SPEAKER_07]: amazing.
[SPEAKER_07]: How do everyone welcome to today's author interview?
[SPEAKER_07]: Now today's author, Summer and England.
[SPEAKER_07]: Is he in a real name?
[SPEAKER_07]: And yes, you are allowed to poke fan at her for this.
[SPEAKER_07]: She holds not one, nay two degrees in Shakespeare and performance.
[SPEAKER_07]: and is an actress or the musical director and digital content creator.
[SPEAKER_07]: When not blabbering on stage and writing off stage, summer can be found doing quite literally 17,000 different ADHD motivated projects around her house.
[SPEAKER_07]: Watercolour painting, playing the decidedly evil pirate to her kids morally great pirate reading while walking and not sitting still while watching when Harry met Sally
[SPEAKER_07]: As my pleasure to welcome Summer, Summer, welcome to the show.
[SPEAKER_10]: Hello, I am so thrilled to be here.
[SPEAKER_10]: This is honestly a dream come true.
[SPEAKER_10]: I'm a huge podcast head.
[SPEAKER_10]: And this podcast in particular was so paramount in the beginning journeys of my writing.
[SPEAKER_10]: So it feels very full circle.
[SPEAKER_10]: Thanks for having me.
[SPEAKER_07]: Thank you so much for that.
[SPEAKER_07]: And thank you for being on social media.
[SPEAKER_07]: You are one of the people I love to watch when I'm just having a really shitty day which happens a lot of the time and you just you have this effort basins and it doesn't matter what you're talking about because for those of you who don't follow some are please follow her because there will be times that she is speed knitting like the kind of speed knitting that you imagine only demons can do while she is like
[SPEAKER_07]: going off on some man who really needs to be taken, you know, in hand and sorted out and while she'll be painting and all kinds of things, it's insane to watch, but it is so it's the kind of content that we need right now.
[SPEAKER_07]: Summer, so thank you for that.
[SPEAKER_07]: Of course, thanks for watching, and I feel like this book is a warm blanket of you.
[SPEAKER_07]: I feel like if we took you and made you into the fuzziest, warmest blanket that you probably would have knitted yourself.
[SPEAKER_07]: We would come up with this book, I'm holding it up.
[SPEAKER_07]: The impossible garden of Clara Thorne.
[SPEAKER_07]: Here we go.
[SPEAKER_07]: Beautiful cover.
[SPEAKER_07]: This is just an arc, obviously the finished one would look even better, but this was just an absolute delight.
[SPEAKER_07]: Let's start at the beginning.
[SPEAKER_07]: As we always like to sound the show, there are so many different roads and journeys to publication.
[SPEAKER_07]: How did yours come about?
[SPEAKER_10]: So mine was sort of like everything else in my life.
[SPEAKER_10]: I kind of felt asked first into it and was like, okay great, I need to get my feet.
[SPEAKER_10]: Let's do this because I started telling stories on TikTok from my journal entries and I had no intention of ever making it into a book or anything at all.
[SPEAKER_10]: and from there I had several literary agents reach out to me and I will be completely honest with you.
[SPEAKER_10]: I come from an acting world so I knew what the essence of an agent meant.
[SPEAKER_10]: I did not have one.
[SPEAKER_10]: And when I was looking at these messages and these emails, I was like, I don't even know what this is for.
[SPEAKER_10]: I don't know what the process of a literary agent does.
[SPEAKER_10]: And I kept passing on a lot of them because I just had no intention of doing that and then I had my agent sort of changed my life.
[SPEAKER_10]: She slid into my deans and the way that she spoke about storytelling really resonated with me because it was the same way I felt about storytelling of it wasn't necessarily because a lot of the other agents were like, let's strike while the iron is hot.
[SPEAKER_10]: I think that you have a big following.
[SPEAKER_10]: We can get this and I was like, I don't really want to write a book because of money.
[SPEAKER_10]: I'm as an actor in the creative.
[SPEAKER_10]: In the creative, I know that that's a shallow pursuit.
[SPEAKER_10]: And my agent was just so earnest and we met and I signed with my agent having not written a query letter whatsoever.
[SPEAKER_10]: And when I signed with her,
[SPEAKER_10]: Originally what it was for was we were going to sort of work on this like rom-com memoir, which is what I was doing on TikTok.
[SPEAKER_10]: But from there, I sort of knew, okay, I have a deficit in my knowledge.
[SPEAKER_10]: I didn't have imposter syndrome because everybody in the world is like, I did not have time for that.
[SPEAKER_10]: Other people will expect me to fail.
[SPEAKER_10]: I don't need to expect myself to fail.
[SPEAKER_10]: I did know that I was like great.
[SPEAKER_10]: I just scored a literary agent with a great agency and I don't
[SPEAKER_10]: The typical process, which is where this podcast came in, and I learned about query letters, and I learned about book proposals, and so that was what my agent and I first worked on together was sort of putting together a book proposal for this rom-com memoir, but as I was writing that
[SPEAKER_10]: It was sort of like something unlocked in my soul and I always had stories and scenes and as you have seen on my social media, my brain is working eight million miles per hour and writing became a way in which so many stories began flooding out of me.
[SPEAKER_10]: And so even as I was writing this other thing, I was dreaming up another book and that's actually where the impossible garden of Clare Thorne was born.
[SPEAKER_07]: I love all of that.
[SPEAKER_07]: Okay, so firstly, I want to break down something because I don't want our followers to hate you because here's the thing.
[SPEAKER_07]: What happens is we have people who have been writing for like 10 years, have been querying agents for as long have never gotten anything and I don't want them to be like we already hate summer.
[SPEAKER_07]: So tell us how long were you doing those
[SPEAKER_07]: TikToks.
[SPEAKER_07]: And I also want to speak a bit here by platforming terms of starting a platform for the sake of enjoyment as as catharsis as just doing something you enjoy as opposed to doing it to try and attract a literary agent because that is not what you were trying to do.
[SPEAKER_07]: So take us through that a bit.
[SPEAKER_10]: Yeah, at the precipice of beginning social media, it was really just an outlet for me because I am somebody I am an autistic person who struggles like unmasking in front of people.
[SPEAKER_10]: It just is something that I do and posting online was sort of a form of really fun storytelling for me.
[SPEAKER_10]: I had no, I just like filming a video.
[SPEAKER_10]: I had no care about engagement or followers.
[SPEAKER_10]: I still don't.
[SPEAKER_10]: And on top of that though, the TikTok was sort of my entire life has been storytelling.
[SPEAKER_10]: I went to school for Shakespeare and performance.
[SPEAKER_10]: I've taught at the collegiate and the graduate and undergraduate level.
[SPEAKER_10]: Everything from, you know, English comp classes to Shakespeare and pedagogy.
[SPEAKER_10]: So,
[SPEAKER_10]: So TikTok is sort of just the tip of the iceberg for the years I have sort of put in two storytelling as a craft.
[SPEAKER_10]: And it's when you brought up, oh no, the followers will hate you.
[SPEAKER_10]: I always feel very, because people are always asking, how did you get into this?
[SPEAKER_10]: What do you do?
[SPEAKER_10]: And I'm not gonna grift off of my own success.
[SPEAKER_10]: It's not a replicatable situation.
[SPEAKER_10]: I'm not gonna be like, and this is how you get a literary agent.
[SPEAKER_10]: And I think,
[SPEAKER_10]: One of the reasons that was always important for me to know is like the social media was always something that I happened to enjoy if it went away the next day.
[SPEAKER_10]: I would be done but it was really just sort of fate and timing that I got the
[SPEAKER_10]: Agent, now you've been telling stories for about or posting a TikTok for maybe like a year or two.
[SPEAKER_10]: I would do Hobbit videos and storytelling and such, and that was the chaos that brought me to Clara.
[SPEAKER_07]: So, for our listeners, Summer has paid her juice.
[SPEAKER_07]: I want us all to be very clear on this, so it may not be a traditional root to publication, but it is years of learning storytelling as an acting, and...
[SPEAKER_07]: And I love that the tiktok came from just this place of self-expression of joy and then it happened to lead to this.
[SPEAKER_07]: Okay, so once we got to the point where you knew which book you were wanting to write, it wasn't your rom-com memoir, how long did that take you from start to finish?
[SPEAKER_10]: So I began drafting the impossible garden.
[SPEAKER_10]: November, I did it for the nano-rimo.
[SPEAKER_10]: I was like, OK, I'm going to cheat on my project.
[SPEAKER_10]: I'm supposed to be working on right now, which is this wrong come and more.
[SPEAKER_10]: Because the last thing I wanted to do was write about myself.
[SPEAKER_10]: I was like, I really find myself not an interesting subject.
[SPEAKER_10]: I can't imagine.
[SPEAKER_10]: I'm like, I'm not.
[SPEAKER_10]: myself.
[SPEAKER_10]: And so I started drafting it in November and then I finished the draft.
[SPEAKER_10]: I was like sort of 75% done with the draft by February because another publishing company was interested in because I had posted on social media that I was writing this sort of like cozy situation.
[SPEAKER_10]: And so I wanted to get that draft into them.
[SPEAKER_10]: I believe I got that into them by February.
[SPEAKER_10]: And then we went through edits with them.
[SPEAKER_10]: And it just wasn't the right fit.
[SPEAKER_10]: And then I edited through the summer.
[SPEAKER_10]: And then we went on submission in August and it went to auction after that.
[SPEAKER_07]: Wow, that is incredible.
[SPEAKER_07]: So it's the it's the very tale that every writer wants.
[SPEAKER_07]: Yeah, okay.
[SPEAKER_07]: So you just call your book sort of the cozy, you know, and what I found so interesting about this book and this is what we see now so much more with genre blends because it's kind of it's sweet, it's cozy,
[SPEAKER_07]: It's hell as spicy and I know you've spoken before on socials on your idea of spiciness and other people's ideas spiciness and I've killed myself laughing as you think of as one of your knitting things where you were like this is not spicy This is actually spicy.
[SPEAKER_07]: So I was I was getting at that and we've got fantasy and we've got romance So this is like
[SPEAKER_07]: And it's difficult to pull off really.
[SPEAKER_07]: So tell us how, I mean, did do agent even have to pitch this to this publisher who was interested or they just like, we really love you.
[SPEAKER_07]: We want this book whatever the hell it is.
[SPEAKER_10]: So my agent did get reached out to directly by editors and
[SPEAKER_10]: The first acquisitions editor that had reached out to her was actually at a different imprint with the publishing company that I ended up landing at with his hat and forever, it was a different editor entirely, and I think she worked with children's books and then it just sort of like,
[SPEAKER_10]: So editors were reaching out and then we submitted the book proposal to the editors that had reached out and then from there it's yeah, grew into an auction which I didn't know about except through your podcast and so I was I was on stage.
[SPEAKER_10]: I was performing like we were opening a show and
[SPEAKER_10]: I was on stage getting emails back and forth from my agent of like, oh, here's, here's this imprint who's in the auction now and I was like, I'm, I'm, I'm not supposed to know about this.
[SPEAKER_10]: I, I, I, I, I, I need to fade into anonymity.
[SPEAKER_07]: God, and was it based on the proposal alone?
[SPEAKER_07]: that they were all busy arguing over the book or was it, I mean, because you said you wrote it from the first draft again, and then you walked away from that and then you revised.
[SPEAKER_07]: So what were they looking at at this point?
[SPEAKER_07]: Just a proposal or what the pages you'd written are written.
[SPEAKER_10]: It was proposal and the pages I'd written.
[SPEAKER_10]: The proposal also included, I had like water color art in there and I had marketing ideas.
[SPEAKER_10]: So it was sort of like the proposal was a book package
[SPEAKER_10]: me package as well because I sort of have my own, you know, weird thing about social media and being in the public eye that I can pitch and then I also sent my the pages along with it.
[SPEAKER_07]: Okay, all right, so that's very, very interesting.
[SPEAKER_07]: Okay, so that answers the question because I was going to be like, are you someone who's always written?
[SPEAKER_07]: I mean, did you use to write for the stage?
[SPEAKER_07]: Did you ever write short stories or anything
[SPEAKER_10]: No, I only wrote academic papers.
[SPEAKER_10]: My first publication was about research between the symbiotic nature of a pregnant actress in the 1800s and the audience.
[SPEAKER_10]: So then there was never, you know, and I I would doodle here in there.
[SPEAKER_10]: I had always been a storyteller in my family, so instead of like acting outplays, I would be the person sort of tasked with, okay, tell the scary story around the campfire,
[SPEAKER_10]: I was like, well I can't be doing that.
[SPEAKER_10]: I'm I'm look at me.
[SPEAKER_10]: I can't write a novel.
[SPEAKER_10]: That's not in my wheelhouse and the but then it was so
[SPEAKER_07]: Yeah, I feel like everything's in your will house.
[SPEAKER_07]: You've just got to figure out where about in this house it is.
[SPEAKER_07]: Right.
[SPEAKER_07]: So, okay, how much of this was plotted, how much of this was penced?
[SPEAKER_07]: When you sat down to write this, you knew exactly where we were going.
[SPEAKER_07]: You were like, shit, I don't know anything.
[SPEAKER_07]: Let's see how this comes to be.
[SPEAKER_10]: So, the things, the two things that were crystal clear in my mind
[SPEAKER_10]: was Clara and Hesper, and then a tertiary, was Wordy, who was the hedgehog in this.
[SPEAKER_10]: And I have always, and even, I mean, I wrote this book now two years ago, and even in drafting my other novels, it is always the same.
[SPEAKER_10]: I'm a very character forward writer.
[SPEAKER_10]: And the only thing I really did was Rebecca Thorne's Five Sentence Method, which is an amalgamation of different types of plotting versus pantsing.
[SPEAKER_10]: And it's really just guide posts of,
[SPEAKER_10]: This beat needs to happen at the 50,000, this beat needs to happen.
[SPEAKER_10]: And so I just sort of I didn't even have those written out.
[SPEAKER_10]: I just knew pacing lies once I was getting to the 28 to 25 because I'm a chronic overwriter, still I can linger for a long time.
[SPEAKER_10]: And so that was my that was my main bit was to just keep myself on track with the pacing but other than that I was really just sitting out in every day I really like discovering and writing through the scenes and because I had an idea a strong idea of the character.
[SPEAKER_10]: I was never really asking the question of what would make the most sense in the plot next, but rather what would Clara do?
[SPEAKER_10]: What makes the most sense for Clara to be doing next and to be discovering next?
[SPEAKER_10]: And that really helped be my guide post throughout the entire writing process.
[SPEAKER_07]: Yeah, I couldn't help but wonder if your experience has an actor, how do you shape out Clara?
[SPEAKER_07]: You know, in terms of backstory and childhood and all the race fit, because she was so fully formed, but not just all the other characters.
[SPEAKER_07]: And so, you know, I don't know if acting actually helps with that kind of thing or if it hinders it, what was your experience with that?
[SPEAKER_10]: Acting helps, I mean, it is a, it is a priceless tool in my kit as a writer because acting, you know, every rehearsal process, you are building stories with people that you do not know.
[SPEAKER_10]: And writing as the author, whether I'm writing from first person POV or not, I am building a story with a reader who does not know these characters.
[SPEAKER_10]: And I don't know these characters.
[SPEAKER_10]: And so,
[SPEAKER_10]: in some respects, especially, you know, the supporting characters and such and what they mean to the main character and, you know, I would say that it's almost like a one to one of the rehearsal process and then.
[SPEAKER_10]: And even in the, I think one thing that is so great for me as a writer that I'm really grateful for is that acting.
[SPEAKER_10]: It's so transient, it's in the moment.
[SPEAKER_10]: Audiences are going to take away some people are going to like it, some people are going to hate it.
[SPEAKER_10]: And no matter how much I care or how much I've worked towards this production, at the end of it, it is the act of creating and then letting it be somebody else's story that I think has sort of uniquely prep me to be like, great.
[SPEAKER_10]: And now the book is other peoples now.
[SPEAKER_10]: And I'm really, I'm really grateful for that experience.
[SPEAKER_07]: So that's the part that I hate the most because I'm an eight-type Capricorn control freak and the part where I have to hand the book over and go it's no longer mine.
[SPEAKER_07]: It's in the hand of my readership.
[SPEAKER_07]: It's there's now that is really, really tough.
[SPEAKER_07]: But I've also heard from actors that they were primed for writing and the rejection because there's so much more rejection with acting and you've got to learn to not take a person
[SPEAKER_10]: Yeah, yes.
[SPEAKER_10]: Yeah, well, and it's so because you care so much.
[SPEAKER_10]: And I think in talking and being around actors, we all hope that you really like what we've done.
[SPEAKER_10]: We're not out here being like, yeah, I hope you hate it and had a very middleing time.
[SPEAKER_10]: And then writing, you know, it's so I think the thing, nothing I'm necessarily sensitive about, but the I think I'm set because I'm a character person.
[SPEAKER_10]: Anybody who doesn't like the character.
[SPEAKER_10]: It's like, oh, that's like a real person in my brain Rather than just like my work or the voice like you don't love my imaginary friend as much as I love my imaginary friend
[SPEAKER_07]: There were these hilarious attempts so I'm going to read just a few of them that was so funny, they added so much humour, so each chapter begins with an opening line attempt, so one is the squirrel, one the war, and the wench ruined the carrots.
[SPEAKER_07]: Then she goes to most stories end with a happily ever after, but mine well it begins with one.
[SPEAKER_07]: Then it crosses up, fire blazed in the sky, thousands of murky shadows flew overhead, breathing death into the
[SPEAKER_07]: And so each chapter begins with this, you know, here's another one, with a crack head in a broken heart, a hero found herself rocky, lightless, and a little hungry with zero soul re-applications.
[SPEAKER_07]: So I just really love the, the, the, the humour throughout the book, the banter was so incredibly funny.
[SPEAKER_07]: And that's where an ensemble cast can come in to kind of balance all those things out.
[SPEAKER_07]: I mean, it's the
[SPEAKER_07]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_10]: If you had experiences with hedgehogs, no, not at all.
[SPEAKER_10]: What was weird was I was working I was in between accent contracts and so I was working at a garden.
[SPEAKER_10]: I was working on a farm.
[SPEAKER_10]: And I thought to myself, it would be so great if I had like a hedgehog companion.
[SPEAKER_10]: I don't know why.
[SPEAKER_10]: All that I knew of hedgehogs was that they were adorable, but they were solitary creatures.
[SPEAKER_10]: And I've always related to that sentiment.
[SPEAKER_10]: And so that first chapter and sort of Clara, you know,
[SPEAKER_10]: because her life is somebody else's hobby, her hobby is writing and she can't even do that well.
[SPEAKER_10]: That mesh together with Morty was sort of just I had this first scene in my brain while I was at the garden.
[SPEAKER_10]: Other than that though, I have yet to see a hedgehog in real life and I can't wait for that day to happen.
[SPEAKER_07]: need to hedgehogs and raccoons I'm living I'm living for that okay so some other questions to ask so this isn't like typical romance so it's fantasy romance what we're finding in like typical romance is that authors are being told that the love interest has to be on the page by page five or by a page 10 or you know it has to come in as early as possible yours we stretched it out
[SPEAKER_07]: was there any pressure put on you by the publisher in terms of we need this early on?
[SPEAKER_07]: Or is it a case of, you know, what writers are being told isn't necessarily true?
[SPEAKER_07]: You can bring in the love interest later.
[SPEAKER_10]: Yeah, I mean, I think one of the reasons why I was very...
[SPEAKER_10]: I'm just so happy to be working with the editors that I am working with, is that they saw from the beginning what was important to me and to this story was
[SPEAKER_10]: and establishing the world that she was going to have to leave.
[SPEAKER_10]: And so I did sort of like a semi-introduction of the love interest, but you know, I think that I think that this is a fantasy with a romance, but what it's really about is a fantasy and a cozy setting where in a woman is kind of going through a big self-discovery.
[SPEAKER_10]: She happens to fall within love during that process.
[SPEAKER_10]: And I think that that was something that my editors were, it wasn't even really a conversation.
[SPEAKER_10]: If anything, when we were doing that, in process, it was even more time establishing Clara, even more time spending time with her or with these other developed characters so that the love felt earned instead of forced.
[SPEAKER_10]: And I really, really enjoyed that process.
[SPEAKER_07]: Yeah, that is amazing when you end up as an editor where you just have that synergy, right?
[SPEAKER_07]: As opposed to constantly trying to write to specs that they're giving you.
[SPEAKER_07]: Okay, so let's talk about creating the town of Moss.
[SPEAKER_07]: Did you, I mean, you said that the original thing had water color pictures of was that of the town was of the of the of the characters.
[SPEAKER_07]: What did that look like?
[SPEAKER_10]: So I, and the watercolors are actually available that they're in pre-order incentives and such.
[SPEAKER_10]: So there were two watercolors that I had and one was Clara's cottage, which I just had in my mind.
[SPEAKER_10]: And, you know, I wanted to create a place that would break my heart to leave if I were a reader.
[SPEAKER_10]: Sort of very, very much like, you know, I think as anyone, the Lord of the Rings had a huge impact on me as a kid and as an adult
[SPEAKER_10]: trauma.
[SPEAKER_10]: And so I wanted to create this feeling of home and this feeling of never wanting to leave this place because it is so special.
[SPEAKER_10]: And then the secondary watercolor was the town of Dwindle, which is the place that she ends up going and you know redefining what it means to have these feelings of home in multiple places.
[SPEAKER_07]: Yeah, as she was talking about her cottage, I thought about the scene where she has the thought and she's in her room, which is essentially the attic and then she's head down and bumping the air, she's trying to figure out if somebody's broken into the house and it made me realize how well you write physical comedy and I feel again that that comes from acting, like understanding movement and the intentionality of movement.
[SPEAKER_10]: Yeah, I mean, acting is a huge part of it.
[SPEAKER_10]: And also, I think it's like autism and neurodivergence of superpowers and writing as well, because I understand the world kinesthetically.
[SPEAKER_10]: And I see, you know, that I just am seeing bit by bit.
[SPEAKER_10]: and writing was a very similar situation.
[SPEAKER_10]: And I think as a reader, I always like setting.
[SPEAKER_10]: I like understanding where people are living and moving and that comes echoes for me as an actor and to somebody who my brain processes the way that it processes.
[SPEAKER_10]: And so writing the physical comedy and writing the logistics of a spicy scene.
[SPEAKER_07]: We're getting to that.
[SPEAKER_07]: We are getting to that.
[SPEAKER_07]: We are building up to that.
[SPEAKER_07]: I first want to just the logistics of writing chasing a squirrel is hilarious because after my golden retriever died two years ago, I missed going to the park every day.
[SPEAKER_07]: And so I went there and I made friends with all the squirrels.
[SPEAKER_07]: So now I bring them hazelnuts and walnuts and we've become really good friends on days that they don't bite me.
[SPEAKER_07]: or her rabies from squirrels because they've bitten me so many times and just you know I could see myself running through the park trying to get this damn squirrel of my hand is pissed off because I have not given him more nuts and then I was reading yours in and it was just hilarious how important that physicality is in a scene because we're always talking about
[SPEAKER_07]: You know, really making something come alive on the page and for our listeners, you know, if that's something you struggle with, please, please, please get this book to just see how the action unfold and you can imagine every action, like it feels very cinematic.
[SPEAKER_07]: Yeah, I'm so glad to hear that.
[SPEAKER_10]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_10]: I think that was one thing I really, because I love cozy fantasy.
[SPEAKER_10]: I love the genre and writing in the genre.
[SPEAKER_10]: I still wanted it to feel visceral, like when you're reading a really high impact fantasy, high world, high magic is there's such an urgency and visorality, but what if that was with a squirrel and a tulip ball?
[SPEAKER_10]: What happens?
[SPEAKER_10]: How how can I do that?
[SPEAKER_10]: And so I really enjoyed writing those.
[SPEAKER_10]: Hi, hi, stick seemed for the, for Clara and us as the reader being like us, so it's a squirrel.
[SPEAKER_10]: It's a squirrel going after them.
[SPEAKER_10]: And they are, as you say, they're nutty.
[SPEAKER_10]: They can really come after you.
[SPEAKER_07]: They are predictable little baths with.
[SPEAKER_07]: Oh, yeah.
[SPEAKER_07]: So, okay, so let's come back to the physicality of writing a sexy.
[SPEAKER_07]: Okay, anyone who's listening with their kids in the car, now's the time to, you know, put in your earphones, whatever you have been want.
[SPEAKER_07]: So, just from hearing you speak online, what is the difference between, say, spicy and some muddy, like, you know,
[SPEAKER_07]: I don't understand the different levels of all of these, so I'd like you to take us through this and then also to discuss the writing of it.
[SPEAKER_10]: Sure, sure.
[SPEAKER_10]: I mean, great question.
[SPEAKER_10]: And I feel like this is it's like a sliding scale like everybody's good read scale.
[SPEAKER_10]: So to me, if there is a book that says that it has spice, I am expecting a sex scene.
[SPEAKER_10]: It's not just going to be like a closed door situation.
[SPEAKER_10]: If there is a book with romance, that could mean spice or it might be closed door or, you know, that all of the sensations and the imagination is there, but they don't we don't get to see it on the page.
[SPEAKER_10]: Smot I would say is it's here above wherein if you take out the spice.
[SPEAKER_10]: then you lose a lot of the plots because the plot is building towards this moment, this smart moment, this spicy moment.
[SPEAKER_07]: Does that make sense?
[SPEAKER_07]: Yeah, that makes sense.
[SPEAKER_07]: It makes, it makes completings, but then also thinking about like taken by the T-Rex.
[SPEAKER_07]: I mean, what the hell is that?
[SPEAKER_07]: Is that?
[SPEAKER_07]: Can I can buy the teary?
[SPEAKER_07]: Because again, I'm assuming that's what like dinosaur smut.
[SPEAKER_10]: Yeah, 100% and then there's more than glory milking farm, which is miniatar smut, which again, it's you don't really have a plot without the spice, which is where you really get.
[SPEAKER_10]: And I see a lot of smut featuring monsters or parings that would otherwise not make sense because there's not a lot of questions about the plot.
[SPEAKER_10]: There's not like,
[SPEAKER_10]: Gaping plot holes, there's just other gaping holes where in we're hoping it's filled sometime in the book by these improbable duels, and that is that's what This is hilarious.
[SPEAKER_07]: Okay, so before we have to go please give us some advice on writing something
[SPEAKER_07]: that is really spicy and sexy, and with physicality, et cetera.
[SPEAKER_07]: So that the reader is swept along, feels all hot and bothered afterwards, and is not sitting there trying to figure out where this hand came from, or whatever.
[SPEAKER_07]: Because I remember my book club once, we actually acted out the scene.
[SPEAKER_07]: on a grand piano to see if what this couple was supposed to have done on the grand piano if they were able to do it and we like or like no there's no way considering their heights it's such that they could have done so so take us through something where the reader is not even wondering where
[SPEAKER_07]: you know, where they are on the screen piano.
[SPEAKER_10]: I love this question so much.
[SPEAKER_10]: So first, I would say one of the biggest tips to writing a spicing is the build-up to it.
[SPEAKER_10]: One is I like to do by the rule of three, so a miss a kiss and then the thing.
[SPEAKER_10]: So we get that tension.
[SPEAKER_10]: So when we get there as the reader, there's the emot, it's like, oh my God, thank God, please, please, all ready.
[SPEAKER_10]: Touch each other.
[SPEAKER_10]: And so I write, I write Saphic, I write in the, so it is, it is women loving women's by scenes.
[SPEAKER_10]: And in first person POV, knowing where everybody's hands are, where the hands just were, what slipping and where, making sure that depending on where the two bodies are at that they could, if their hands are reaching towards somewhere that they're not doing a Twitter version of it, I would say the biggest thing is keeping track of the hands.
[SPEAKER_10]: and wear and wear those are at and just, you know, tracing whether it's through the hair or through the neck or, you know, sort of gradually making your way down from, from tip to the toes, if you will, which is sort of where I, where I kind of lay in regards to writing smart is we start with the kiss we start with the face and then slowly we inch down the body and that helps me keep track of where things are and also.
[SPEAKER_10]: editor's help a lot a lot of just making sure there is a there was a moment I still have it screenshot it on my Google Docs where my editor was like and how many fingers are inside right now and it looks exactly like this.
[SPEAKER_10]: Because I just kept saying like and another and another and another into the point where it was like wow
[SPEAKER_07]: Wow, that's one editorial note.
[SPEAKER_07]: I have never gotten and I feel sad about that.
[SPEAKER_07]: I feel really sad.
[SPEAKER_07]: I feel like I need, I need, I need this kind of editorial note to some point.
[SPEAKER_07]: They're still time, they're still time, but I like what you said about the, because I think it's for women especially so much about the spice and that is psychological right it's building up to the thing what did you say the kiss the miss the the miss the kiss and then the spice right so it is it's working up to the point where your reader is like for the love of God is these two don't start hopping on top of each other we're going to have problems yes so it's yeah it's building up to that.
[SPEAKER_10]: Yeah, I hope the greatest compliment anyone has ever given me when they have read an arc of this book is that they were sexually frustrated, and I was like, thank goodness, I'm glad, I'm glad, because I mean, we know our main character is from the beginning, and so I, you know, sowing that emotion, I think, makes the spice, I think, I think, I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think
[SPEAKER_10]: Even better because it's not as much about the the spices while you know I've there's not T-Rex's kidnapping people in the middle of the night, which of course I think is great.
[SPEAKER_10]: I would law that is literary amazing this, but anyhow It's instead like we get this emotional catharsis that we've been waiting for so any touch at that point anything is like Oh my god, thank god.
[SPEAKER_10]: You know, it's the hand flexing the pride and prejudice That's what we all want is what I want at least
[SPEAKER_07]: And it's also part of the character development, right?
[SPEAKER_07]: So, you know, we know who this character is at the beginning and who she then becomes at the end is so different.
[SPEAKER_07]: And that's part of that journey for her as well.
[SPEAKER_07]: So it's not like, well, here she is Lala.
[SPEAKER_07]: Okay, boom, we're going to throw some smat at you and then she carries on.
[SPEAKER_07]: It's part of all of that.
[SPEAKER_10]: Yeah, yeah, I definitely wanted it to be, you know, that the spice wasn't just forced in, but it definitely, there was, it was, it moved the plot ahead, at least internally for Clara, while also being, you know, fun.
[SPEAKER_10]: to experience.
[SPEAKER_07]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_07]: Yeah, very fun.
[SPEAKER_07]: Read is very fun.
[SPEAKER_07]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_07]: We're at the end of our time.
[SPEAKER_07]: I'm holding up the book again.
[SPEAKER_07]: The impossible garden of Carathon really, really lovely.
[SPEAKER_07]: Summer, it's been so wonderful chatting with you.
[SPEAKER_07]: This book covers us absolutely gorgeous.
[SPEAKER_07]: Where did you say we could get those?
[SPEAKER_07]: Where did you say we could get the water colours from?
[SPEAKER_10]: So, if you pre-order from an indie book shop in Richmond, Virginia called Fountain Book Store, you're pre-order will come with two watercolour renderings that I had of the town of Moss and the town of Twindel.
[SPEAKER_07]: And for our listeners on bookshop.org, you can choose which independent bookstore you would like to benefit from your pre-order.
[SPEAKER_07]: So you can still order through there, what's the name of the bookstore again?
[SPEAKER_07]: Fountain bookshop.
[SPEAKER_07]: Okay, there we go.
[SPEAKER_07]: So let's support that at the same time.
[SPEAKER_07]: Thank you so much for joining us.
[SPEAKER_07]: Some of this was wonderful.
[SPEAKER_10]: Thank you so much for having me.
[SPEAKER_10]: It was a delight.
[SPEAKER_07]: Everyone today's guest is a former bookstore manager who has worked as a bookseller for Coles, regional marketing manager and events coordinator for chapters and as national marketing manager for Indigo.
[SPEAKER_07]: Then moving into the publishing side of the business he worked in the marketing and publicity departments.
[SPEAKER_07]: publishes such as Stuart House and Scholastic Canada.
[SPEAKER_07]: As a marketing director, Penguin Random House, he managed all Canadian marketing and publicity for DK publishing, as well as rough guides and alpha books.
[SPEAKER_07]: Most recently, you were so responsible for sales and marketing at Dungeon Press as Vice President and CEO.
[SPEAKER_07]: And now, he runs the idea shop.
[SPEAKER_07]: It's my pleasure to
[SPEAKER_05]: Thank you so much, we're excited to be here.
[SPEAKER_07]: I'm so excited to have you here.
[SPEAKER_07]: So those of you who pay attention will have seen an article by Chris in one of our recent substacks.
[SPEAKER_07]: It was a wonderful article.
[SPEAKER_07]: We had such excellent feedback on it and so we wanted to have Chris back on the podcast so that we could ask him your most burning questions.
[SPEAKER_07]: Before we get into all of that,
[SPEAKER_05]: My great love is publicity.
[SPEAKER_05]: It's like playing the lottery, but other people win.
[SPEAKER_05]: And it's a great opportunity.
[SPEAKER_05]: I've worked for big publishing houses.
[SPEAKER_05]: And at one point, I was living with an author.
[SPEAKER_05]: And I'm going to reveal to your entire audience, I am super big on eavesdropping.
[SPEAKER_05]: So, listening to the conversations happening in the other room is my author girlfriend at the time, was so frustrated with publicity and tours and marketing and book jackets and blurbs, it was just kind of just soaking it in.
[SPEAKER_05]: I was soaking it in and so I thought it would be great.
[SPEAKER_05]: I love doing positive things and helping authors get their audience.
[SPEAKER_05]: Find the audience.
[SPEAKER_05]: It's hard.
[SPEAKER_05]: to the shelf, and it's spying out.
[SPEAKER_05]: It's even more challenging to find the book.
[SPEAKER_05]: I want the blue book that was here on the table last Christmas.
[SPEAKER_05]: Anyway, so it's a great use of all of my energy and talents to work with authors and try to find their audience.
[SPEAKER_05]: Increase their profile, help them with their manuscripts, social media, whatever they need, idea shop.
[SPEAKER_07]: amazing.
[SPEAKER_07]: And yeah, you know, it is so frustrating because as all those we sit here in our darkened rooms, maturing darky to our imaginary friends and we do this for her ever long and then we hand it over to someone who will hopefully give us money for it and then it becomes a product.
[SPEAKER_07]: And then for somebody like me who is a a type control freak capricorn, that's when I really
[SPEAKER_07]: or very little control after that.
[SPEAKER_07]: And so, our workers are into the world.
[SPEAKER_07]: And what's terrible is that they have been books out there that are some of the best books I have ever read in my life.
[SPEAKER_07]: And yet, I never knew about these books.
[SPEAKER_07]: If it wasn't for one little person who was like, this is my favorite book, I would never have heard about it.
[SPEAKER_07]: So this is why we need people like you to get our books into the right hands and hopefully for the longest time possible,
[SPEAKER_07]: The clock ticks and, you know, I am quite fascinated by the fact, I just want to tell you one thing before we dive in, is that because my latest book, a most puzzling murder, because people have to email for clues and for bonus content, I see who's reading the book in real time.
[SPEAKER_07]: and I see who's still emailing.
[SPEAKER_07]: And so this has been my book with the longest longevity.
[SPEAKER_07]: It came out in June, and we are now this interview's happening in February, and it's still having quite, yeah.
[SPEAKER_07]: I mean, that's just quite a long time for a book, right?
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, and that's the thing that the things that though ironic is books are pretty much forever, you know, because way back when I was managing the coal store, there was an exciting moment where we went from big binders full of information.
[SPEAKER_05]: So the younger, younger listeners will not know about this, to computer, computer, very exciting.
[SPEAKER_05]: So I said, before you tear up all the 15, 20 years of info in the binders, just riddle me this, what was our top selling book from 1977 to 1995?
[SPEAKER_05]: And then this was great detail work.
[SPEAKER_05]: Number one book, I'll save you time.
[SPEAKER_05]: Catch you in the right.
[SPEAKER_05]: Now, that book had sold more copies than the Stephen Kings and the Donnie Brascos and the, you know, the, the, the, the A'slam cartoon books, everything hands down by such a huge barge.
[SPEAKER_05]: But, you know, it's hiding there in plain sight.
[SPEAKER_05]: There's three or four copies in the store, but it's just churning away, churning away.
[SPEAKER_05]: It's paying for the lights.
[SPEAKER_05]: It's paying for the power.
[SPEAKER_05]: And books have a really long lifespan.
[SPEAKER_05]: DK, we would design a $60 coffee table book called, they're great at titles history of science.
[SPEAKER_05]: You know, that book was meant to sell for a minimum of seven years, if not ten.
[SPEAKER_05]: It was built like your car was meant to last.
[SPEAKER_05]: So books should have a much longer life span and you can.
[SPEAKER_05]: Someone buys your new book because they've seen some publicity.
[SPEAKER_05]: That's why it's worth investing in publicity.
[SPEAKER_05]: They go back, they discover the back, had a lot of the book you won't talk about.
[SPEAKER_05]: You know, these kinds of things and it's such a big win for an author to build that audience.
[SPEAKER_07]: Yeah, well, I mean, let's dive into all of this now because a lot of our supporters keep hearing that the publicity industry has changed their traditional book publicity models are failing authors, what do you think the biggest drivers of those have been and then I'm definitely going to ask you what kind of publicity actually moves the needle with book sales.
[SPEAKER_05]: Great, question.
[SPEAKER_05]: Well, I've been on the other side, so I know the biggest problem is time.
[SPEAKER_05]: So one thing, even if you have all the money in the world, you can't buy.
[SPEAKER_05]: The hardest working people, other than authors in publishing, are the publicists.
[SPEAKER_05]: If you see a publicist, buy them a drink, give them a hug.
[SPEAKER_05]: It's never a great day for them.
[SPEAKER_05]: No one, no author ever, has said, wow, that was too much publicity.
[SPEAKER_05]: They can't win.
[SPEAKER_05]: bed publishing house at one time would be reasonable to expect seven to ten publicists working around the clock.
[SPEAKER_05]: You can imagine the cartoon version of this page is flying phones, telexes, faxes.
[SPEAKER_05]: Anyway, now it's half that or less and there's still publishing as many books.
[SPEAKER_05]: So you have one publicist who has 50 books to promote and they're going to love your book.
[SPEAKER_05]: So that's great.
[SPEAKER_05]: But they're going to be distracted.
[SPEAKER_05]: by 49 other books that they have to do in the course of a year.
[SPEAKER_05]: I mean, it's basically that.
[SPEAKER_05]: So there's this dreaded expression that no author ever wants to hear.
[SPEAKER_05]: Active publicity period.
[SPEAKER_05]: As the author, your active publicity period is your whole life.
[SPEAKER_05]: You know, as soon as that book comes out, it's there, it's part of, you know, it makes it to Wikipedia, you're done.
[SPEAKER_05]: The active publicity period though, I had a publishing house, they have to move on.
[SPEAKER_05]: Other books are coming.
[SPEAKER_05]: So, so, you know, if we get a request, great, but we're not going to be actively.
[SPEAKER_05]: So, so this is really changed in the last few years.
[SPEAKER_05]: The active publicity period since I've been doing this work has just shrunk to like three months.
[SPEAKER_05]: You know, and three months is quite potent.
[SPEAKER_05]: You can get a lot done in there, but everything's speeding up, you know, social media has spent everything up.
[SPEAKER_05]: So such great questions you sent me ahead of the interview, and I thank you so much.
[SPEAKER_05]: It's like getting the cheat sheet for a testing.
[SPEAKER_05]: I know I'm going to pass now.
[SPEAKER_05]: I had just enough time to email 10 publishers and publicists that I truly respect for, you know, for the big five to the small five,
[SPEAKER_05]: and ask them very quickly anonymously what moves the needles for sales just to see what I get because I gotta be honest I think I know but this is now serious because I'm talking to you and you're listening to this and viewers so I want to make sure I have useful information for the day so surprisingly or not so surprisingly the top two things were CBC and a variety of shows and still the global mail.
[SPEAKER_05]: Now, that would have been the answer 10 years ago, over 15 years ago, bubbling under.
[SPEAKER_05]: It's things like TikTok, Instagram, social media.
[SPEAKER_05]: I know that's a big interest.
[SPEAKER_05]: A lot of authors, especially I do a workshop with authors, preparing their manuscript for submission.
[SPEAKER_05]: It's very important to have a profile, because
[SPEAKER_05]: I was an acquiring editor at Dundern Press, I acquired a couple real, it was very particular acquiring a couple of gems, but acquiring now is like this.
[SPEAKER_05]: You get a manuscript and then we're super lazy people addicted to computers.
[SPEAKER_05]: We turned to the computer and we go, oh, this Bianca person, what's she look like online?
[SPEAKER_05]: You know, what's chugging through their mind is obviously if they have a lot of
[SPEAKER_05]: followers, that's great too.
[SPEAKER_05]: But what am I seeing on this thing?
[SPEAKER_05]: Is this, is this someone I want to have tea with?
[SPEAKER_05]: Good news.
[SPEAKER_05]: You are.
[SPEAKER_05]: She likes recruits.
[SPEAKER_05]: Okay, but everything else is looking really, really solid.
[SPEAKER_05]: We could promote this person.
[SPEAKER_05]: That Instagram could be framed.
[SPEAKER_05]: Think about it like this.
[SPEAKER_05]: Can we take your Instagram page and put it up on the wall and want to know more?
[SPEAKER_05]: You know,
[SPEAKER_05]: And I think this is overlooked because we're all, you know, especially here in Canada, we're very low-key about our achievements.
[SPEAKER_05]: You know, should we be posting while the Olympics are going on?
[SPEAKER_05]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_05]: We need us people who thrive on culture and new things.
[SPEAKER_05]: We need the post from the author.
[SPEAKER_05]: We need to know you're working on something.
[SPEAKER_05]: We may not see it for two years.
[SPEAKER_05]: This buildup is very key.
[SPEAKER_05]: When I was a buyer at chapters, there was a very exciting book in the Penguin Random House catalog called No Logo.
[SPEAKER_05]: And it was by this young lady Naomi Klein, who lived in Montreal and I knew her mother and I'm so excited.
[SPEAKER_05]: I was like, yes, we'll do a window for this.
[SPEAKER_05]: And every time the sales rep would come across that page of books not ready.
[SPEAKER_05]: three seasons go by every time I'm like hey what by the third season I'm like no logo no logo you know I said great news it's ready you know I'll take 10,000 copies you know the the build up is key and your social media should kind of work the same thing even if you don't have a publisher we want to know that the creatives is the world are working on septic and they're making a mess please show us messy pictures I asked one author as
[SPEAKER_05]: You know, it's perfect.
[SPEAKER_05]: Everything's this every there's no way.
[SPEAKER_05]: I'm not even going to show you that God the camera's facing it below camera.
[SPEAKER_05]: It's sharks and dirt and dust, but you know, we want to see.
[SPEAKER_05]: this activity.
[SPEAKER_05]: And we want to get you ingrained in the minds of readers.
[SPEAKER_05]: This is some of what I want to know more from.
[SPEAKER_05]: I bought books simply because I like the person's social media feed and they seem like this sounds interesting.
[SPEAKER_05]: They've been posting about sanatoriums for for three years.
[SPEAKER_05]: I'm ready.
[SPEAKER_05]: Give me the book.
[SPEAKER_07]: hilarious.
[SPEAKER_07]: So okay, so that's what's moving the needle currently for for book sales.
[SPEAKER_07]: So then I mean, I must be honest, I think I've pressed somebody off at the CBC because I don't think I've ever been covered by the CBC ever.
[SPEAKER_05]: It's right news, you have something to look forward to.
[SPEAKER_05]: That's, that's not what you've got anymore.
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, well, so the CBC, I mean, you know, presumably the CBC would love to answer this question.
[SPEAKER_05]: But since you haven't invited them today, I'll give you my two cents of this.
[SPEAKER_05]: The CBC are a bunch of people who literally can, they're all experts, they're fantastic.
[SPEAKER_05]: They're very passionate about what they do.
[SPEAKER_05]: But someone can come along and say,
[SPEAKER_05]: Bianca, it's Tuesday.
[SPEAKER_05]: Today, now you're working on this show, but I really like the book person.
[SPEAKER_05]: I like the book show.
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, I know, but we need you over here in room number seven, working on the Olympics or something.
[SPEAKER_05]: I mean, it's, it's very shufflely.
[SPEAKER_05]: So the continuity that, you know, Sheila Rogers was great because she stayed in one place and we knew we could trust her.
[SPEAKER_05]: And if Sheila, when I get to know from Sheila Rogers, I'm just as excited
[SPEAKER_05]: as I am with a yes because it means a lot of publicity sending emails.
[SPEAKER_05]: We don't want authors doing this.
[SPEAKER_05]: We don't want Bianca sending emails and not hearing back because it's going to make it very, very hard to face the blank page in that state because why am I doing this?
[SPEAKER_05]: CBC, you know, to get an author on Q.
[SPEAKER_05]: I don't know, 30, 40 emails, seven producers, one producer says, oh, this sounds intriguing.
[SPEAKER_05]: Let me go talk to the other kids on the bus, you know, and it goes around for, you know, and sometimes it's an instant, yes, we like that Anthony Daniels who see three people in Star Wars, that took them about six minutes to say yes too, but, you know, if I'm pitching Bianca, I've got to find Bianca may not be the best person to pitch Bianca.
[SPEAKER_05]: I'm picking on you because you're the only other person who came today.
[SPEAKER_05]: You know, the alchemy and I'd be the ideal person to recognize why she stands out in the crowd.
[SPEAKER_05]: And she may be reluctant to bring up a couple of side stories because you may think they're not relevant.
[SPEAKER_05]: But based on my last email from CBC, who say, well, right now we're really interested in people who have affection for critters.
[SPEAKER_05]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_05]: I know someone.
[SPEAKER_05]: You know, so the next pitch gets that much better.
[SPEAKER_05]: So it's great to have the continuity of doing this for really long time because you know, there's certain people, I, not to freak you out and I know what you like and I'll get you more of those guests, if you answer my, you know, even though, to say no, I'm good.
[SPEAKER_05]: Just prove that you're alive and you're answering your emails.
[SPEAKER_07]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_07]: So don't go back.
[SPEAKER_07]: I've been talking about the actual shows.
[SPEAKER_07]: I think I think last, I think last May, they said,
[SPEAKER_07]: 60 Canadian mysteries coming out this summer by Canadians.
[SPEAKER_07]: And I didn't even make that list on their Instagram page.
[SPEAKER_07]: And it was mysteries coming out by Canadians.
[SPEAKER_07]: Yeah, anyway.
[SPEAKER_07]: I have pissed off at the CBC.
[SPEAKER_07]: I apologize for whatever I did.
[SPEAKER_05]: You cannot take it personally.
[SPEAKER_05]: For years, I wondered why every, you know, DK publishing holiday books go or big.
[SPEAKER_05]: And books you'd never buy for yourself to too expensive, but you'd buy them for your nieces of nephews.
[SPEAKER_05]: And, you know, I couldn't understand why the national post wasn't reviewing them.
[SPEAKER_05]: I'd send them three boxes of books, the global mail, three boxes of books, just in November, it didn't bother them all year round.
[SPEAKER_05]: Finally, I run into someone back when they had cocktail parties.
[SPEAKER_05]: You know, I said, hey, you know, I'm curious.
[SPEAKER_05]: nine thousand dollars for some beautiful books.
[SPEAKER_05]: You haven't reviewed a single one the guys like I never got any books.
[SPEAKER_05]: You know, and it didn't even occur to me that like, you know, the people the mail were using them to keep warm or you know, you don't even know.
[SPEAKER_05]: So guarantee it's not you.
[SPEAKER_05]: It changes on a dime.
[SPEAKER_05]: I've had no one day for one producer on a show at a yes the next day.
[SPEAKER_05]: And, you know, pandemic times people aren't necessarily, I'd love to have all of this
[SPEAKER_05]: The feast is so easy and less time-consuming, but luckily they don't have to live with these.
[SPEAKER_05]: So you've got to just keep trying, and even if you don't have a publicist, if you have a handy teenager and he's not a few, because if anyone other than you just have them send the email, and it never hurts all of them.
[SPEAKER_05]: She's got people working for her now.
[SPEAKER_05]: We'll be afraid that food court downstairs at the CBC is like, you know, just people
[SPEAKER_07]: And shout out to Marissa Stappley, who got me on Mail and Guardian.
[SPEAKER_07]: She chose my debut as one of the top 100 books.
[SPEAKER_07]: And that really shifted the needle.
[SPEAKER_07]: So thank you to other authors who support other authors as well when it comes to these things.
[SPEAKER_07]: That's so important as well.
[SPEAKER_07]: OK, so how long before a book pubs shouldn't author already be working with you on their campaign to stand any chance of success?
[SPEAKER_05]: This is a great question because often I'm called in like a dramaturge, you know, the book's been out for three months, author is unhappy, active publicity period is ended over to you Chris, either the publisher's paying me or the author pays me directly fine, but it's a lot harder to work after the books, you know, everyone's sense of new and many times with comedy email I get is, well, this book came out in November, you know,
[SPEAKER_05]: So why, you know, promoting your book from last June or July, I would have to use my magic to make it seen current, not by lying, but just by saying, well, right now, of course, every human being on earth is reading this kind of book.
[SPEAKER_05]: And this is this is your spokesmobile for this for this topic.
[SPEAKER_05]: So why don't even give it a shot?
[SPEAKER_05]: You have to kind of, you know,
[SPEAKER_05]: So ahead of time is best, especially great news of where I think I've worked for most publishers and can't have the now.
[SPEAKER_05]: I play very nice with publishers because I've been in their position.
[SPEAKER_05]: So often I'll have a meeting with the author, with the publisher, and we try to isolate some unique points that are worth capitalizing on.
[SPEAKER_05]: To be honest, publishers won't sign you unless they can see they've got to explain to many people how this book will sell.
[SPEAKER_05]: So they usually have a pretty good idea.
[SPEAKER_05]: Great.
[SPEAKER_05]: I get, I get a sheet of paper saying, get to work, press.
[SPEAKER_05]: And I just double the efforts that they're already spending.
[SPEAKER_05]: But ahead of time is best, especially if there's a chance to affect things like a blurb, cover, cover is very important.
[SPEAKER_05]: You know, I work with a lot of self published authors and, you know, there's so proud I wrote the book and I took the picture of the cover.
[SPEAKER_05]: It's a great picture.
[SPEAKER_05]: like for Instagram, but it's not necessarily the book cover that's going to fight against, you know, Bianca's book on the shelf.
[SPEAKER_05]: So, so if I get involved at that point, even better, you know, cover designs, blur, let's go, you don't want to be chasing your own blurbs.
[SPEAKER_05]: That's painful, you know, Stephen King didn't answer me again.
[SPEAKER_05]: If you're upset about the CBC, imagine if you're trying to get a blur from John Fowls.
[SPEAKER_05]: He's not answering any of my evenings.
[SPEAKER_05]: So, so when there's a third party involved, it tends to be like, hey buddy, I'm actually really busy say something nice or, you know, write it yourself attached by name to it.
[SPEAKER_05]: You know, you get a much more human response, because no one wants to upset and often they're angry and vengeful and they hold grudges.
[SPEAKER_05]: So, I'm like the guy in the red shirt on Star Trek.
[SPEAKER_05]: You know, like, you know, I'm not coming back into ships, so they're just kind of like, I'm done.
[SPEAKER_07]: But, okay, okay, so, but just going back to our first question because we said we said TBCM, we said Mal and Guardian, but that's obviously for Canadian writers.
[SPEAKER_07]: We have a lot of U.S. listeners for them in terms of moving the needle, who would that be for them?
[SPEAKER_05]: Ah, the number one answer for the U.S. was New York Times, New York Times New York Times.
[SPEAKER_05]: I have my media list for the New York Times.
[SPEAKER_05]: I think it's about 200 names.
[SPEAKER_05]: Now, I don't know what it is culturally.
[SPEAKER_05]: There's a lot more people in the United States that explains part of it.
[SPEAKER_05]: It's much harder to get answers from the US.
[SPEAKER_05]: They feel a little bit special if it's clear that Canada's asking.
[SPEAKER_05]: All of the sometimes it has worked in my favor.
[SPEAKER_05]: Television is great.
[SPEAKER_05]: The wish, if you asked one of the questions I asked in my request for information is what thought
[SPEAKER_05]: let's you sleep well at night regarding publicity and this is to publicists as well as publishers and they all said pretty much the same thing celebrity book club.
[SPEAKER_05]: If you can get into, so as you make that leap into the popular culture and you have to think about why that is.
[SPEAKER_05]: People are looking for things to be curated.
[SPEAKER_05]: You've mentioned like hundred best lists, things like that.
[SPEAKER_05]: If we walk into a bookstore and you don't have a
[SPEAKER_05]: Clube, browsing can be a migraine-inducity experience, unless you have some idea of what you're looking for.
[SPEAKER_05]: So, America, you want national, they've got great national TV programs, but you want someone really breaking through, you want to be on a show that people are watching and they're not expecting a book.
[SPEAKER_05]: You know, if you tell people, hey, let's go watch the book show on TV, you and I will be like all over it, but our cool friends will be like, actually the voice is on, you know, so it's this idea that it's been curated by Reese with her spoon or or Oprah, you know, or someone has said, hey, I read this and it's really good.
[SPEAKER_05]: That's very compelling.
[SPEAKER_05]: That's the problem with publicity is
[SPEAKER_05]: I read every book I promote and I have to be able to stand by it, say, actually this is really good and the good news is I like to read and like books and I like a lot of different things so it works at, but New York Times TV and PR.
[SPEAKER_05]: kind of like their CBC.
[SPEAKER_05]: I got one book on PBS, which was great because PBS they they're immune to this thing.
[SPEAKER_05]: I said about how great a zoom is because you can do interviews.
[SPEAKER_05]: They want the author in person.
[SPEAKER_05]: Sitting still don't move, sir.
[SPEAKER_05]: Madam, don't touch the palm tree and we're going to talk for two hours.
[SPEAKER_05]: We're not editing and you just tell us what you're thinking.
[SPEAKER_05]: That really lets you if you're a kind of literary type person.
[SPEAKER_05]: PBS and NPR for
[SPEAKER_07]: Okay, okay, perfect.
[SPEAKER_07]: So we did get that answer for our American friends.
[SPEAKER_07]: Okay, so I've seen authors want to hire a publicist and just be like, okay, I'm paying you, you do this now and I'm not going to do anything.
[SPEAKER_07]: You need to go out and make my book a success.
[SPEAKER_07]: Now obviously, how can you work with the author in a way that makes it a very successful partnership.
[SPEAKER_05]: Well, it's a bit like those reality shows where the person is jumping off a bridge.
[SPEAKER_05]: I've never done this before, and then the person pushes the boss to the bridge in a nice way.
[SPEAKER_05]: There's a bunch of you attached, just wanted to be clear.
[SPEAKER_05]: So we need authors who are going to do the work.
[SPEAKER_05]: Now, some authors just can't wait to get out there.
[SPEAKER_05]: Please give me all the interviews that you can't actually be fair.
[SPEAKER_05]: Someone's a promotion, but they're much more comfortable like sitting at their desk.
[SPEAKER_05]: Maybe we could do Zoom, maybe it's an email interview thing like that, but there's going to be requests on their time and energy.
[SPEAKER_05]: Also, the time we worked this out ahead of time, you know, I'll ask.
[SPEAKER_05]: You know, Bianca is good morning.
[SPEAKER_05]: She likes 9 to 12.
[SPEAKER_05]: Rest of the time.
[SPEAKER_05]: She's busy Tuesdays and Wednesdays.
[SPEAKER_05]: And we just decide you're going to do Tuesdays and Wednesdays.
[SPEAKER_05]: If it's a CBC or the New York Times or
[SPEAKER_05]: You know, if Reese with her spoon is calling all bets are off, but generally we stick to a bit of a plan and you have to trust me.
[SPEAKER_05]: Sometimes it'll be like, well, I don't think this is a great show.
[SPEAKER_05]: I said, I'm going to use an eye great show.
[SPEAKER_05]: You don't like it.
[SPEAKER_05]: I'm going to get you.
[SPEAKER_05]: bigger show because they're going to send the link and see say, you know, so it all kind of works intended and so I'm I'm like the person at the top of the best saying ice burger and the left let's go let's go right and you have to be going if you're not if you're hoping to just sort of write a check.
[SPEAKER_05]: and take three months and work on your next book.
[SPEAKER_05]: I can do a couple things with that, but it's better if you're going to be actively engaged and you're going to be busting to do something because you've submitted your manuscript.
[SPEAKER_05]: There's a terrible period where offers seem to really lose their mojo.
[SPEAKER_05]: After the manuscript and all the edits are done, there's like three to six to eight months of
[SPEAKER_05]: waiting, waiting, waiting.
[SPEAKER_05]: You know, you can't really focus on the next book.
[SPEAKER_05]: What's happening with this one?
[SPEAKER_05]: They changed the jacket.
[SPEAKER_05]: You know, that's a great time to get me involved.
[SPEAKER_05]: I keep your company and I can help interact on a like the new cover.
[SPEAKER_05]: Okay, let me send the event of the cause with that.
[UNKNOWN]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_07]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_07]: And loving your cover is is so important and it is such an awkward conversation to have because I find publishers will now, especially with Zoom, they'll have you on a Zoom with the with the editor and people in marketing and publicity and everything and they'll be like, we think we have the best cover and we all love it and we're about to show you and then they flash it on
[SPEAKER_07]: What the hell is that thing?
[SPEAKER_07]: You like doing small, but your eye starts twitching, so yeah, it is important to have people on your side who could be like, that's a nice first version.
[SPEAKER_05]: Oh, yes, yes, you've done this before.
[SPEAKER_07]: Yeah, yeah, that's the right first version, which we have to do.
[SPEAKER_07]: no?
[SPEAKER_07]: Great start, but let's move on from there.
[SPEAKER_07]: Okay, we don't have much time so I've got to dive in more here, Chris.
[SPEAKER_07]: So some people say platform doesn't matter.
[SPEAKER_07]: Others say it's essential.
[SPEAKER_07]: So what can an author be doing now while they're still writing their book that might make your job easier working with them down the line?
[SPEAKER_05]: get that social media together, start having those conversations.
[SPEAKER_05]: You know if you're looking for work, the number one way to get a job is to tell people you're looking for work seems obvious.
[SPEAKER_05]: I've ruined an entire KPMG weekend and giving that away.
[SPEAKER_05]: But people need to know you're working on a book.
[SPEAKER_05]: They'll say things like, oh, let me know if you did a hand, or I know someone who could do a great blurb.
[SPEAKER_05]: You don't know them, but I do, like, you have to sort of let people know.
[SPEAKER_05]: So platform, get those sanitarium posts.
[SPEAKER_05]: there, you know, ahead of the book.
[SPEAKER_05]: So people go actually this person's been on this for while we want to know research has been done.
[SPEAKER_05]: We want to know you're getting your hands dirty.
[SPEAKER_05]: And we kind of like being, uh, most of us book nerds, we like being teased a little bit of but, oh, what's the next one?
[SPEAKER_05]: Especially if that you've got people who've already, you know, my wife will often say to me, well, why are you buying another book?
[SPEAKER_05]: You have a book by that author.
[SPEAKER_05]: She's totally missing the point.
[SPEAKER_05]: I want all of the Bianca books, you know, but it's the teasing of what's coming next where this one's gonna be different because it's clues, you know, or whatever.
[SPEAKER_05]: Even if you're not revealing much, it keeps the interest going.
[SPEAKER_05]: If you're fanning a little flame and that's what you do while you're working on the book
[SPEAKER_05]: crazy time that six months where you have nothing going on in your obsessive should I really maybe I'm going to change this maybe it should be third person every character yeah you know those terrible thoughts let's apply that exact same banic crazy capricorn energy let's put it into
[SPEAKER_05]: some social media posts, you know?
[SPEAKER_05]: Nothing, nothing heinous.
[SPEAKER_05]: I will advise that the rule for the rule for social media that will never do you wrong.
[SPEAKER_05]: Is it enthusiasm?
[SPEAKER_05]: Even if you're enthusiastic and put the wrong thing, people will go, at least she has a heart and it's beating still, you know?
[SPEAKER_05]: So, so these are the kinds of things to do during that event.
[SPEAKER_05]: The platform is is
[SPEAKER_05]: build your brands however you feel comfortable or call me but you know build your brand and get it solid so that book comes out everything kind of clicks into place like oh goodness she's been she's been talking about this for two years I better buy your book
[SPEAKER_07]: Yeah, yeah, geez, it does, and it feels like an eternity as well.
[SPEAKER_07]: Okay, so two more questions.
[SPEAKER_07]: So so many authors right now feel like the world is a dumb stuff higher.
[SPEAKER_07]: I mean, you just look at the news every day and you want to weep.
[SPEAKER_07]: It's just awful.
[SPEAKER_07]: And they are on social media and they are trying to promote this book and they, and they say, I feel so bad trying to promote my book when they are wars and bad thing are happening in the world.
[SPEAKER_07]: What do you say to that?
[SPEAKER_05]: I'm going to use the genius of Lord Michaels, the producer of Saturday Night Live.
[SPEAKER_05]: After 9-11, he had an enormous problem of, you know, we have a show schedule.
[SPEAKER_05]: It's terrible, world changing events tragedy at the largest scale.
[SPEAKER_05]: What do we do?
[SPEAKER_05]: And just like,
[SPEAKER_05]: All of us, he crowdsourced answers that he talked to different people and performers and artists.
[SPEAKER_05]: And they said, you got it, we need this right now.
[SPEAKER_05]: More than ever, more than before this terrible is that we need stuff that takes our minds off in or lets us laugh at life for just help us get through this.
[SPEAKER_05]: And that's what books that aren't in music and so an author having an extremely bad day.
[SPEAKER_05]: It could be the most fun post I read all day because, well, when I read the other day, I just burnt 76 pages of my manuscript and I'm like, well, guaranteed it's going to be better and it actually inspires me like I have a whole thought.
[SPEAKER_05]: process because you're the you're the creatives and and you're not properly compensated for what you're doing of course, but you're doing it you're driven people I know because I spent time with some of you and this is important to share so even if you're having the worst day, you know, one one author, you know, posted a picture of the sea and tower and fog.
[SPEAKER_05]: without any comments.
[SPEAKER_05]: But that was told me a lot about whether or not to show up that day and ask for money.
[SPEAKER_05]: You know, like it's clearly not having a good day.
[SPEAKER_05]: The next day was better.
[SPEAKER_05]: Then you could look back and go, wow, I really, I want to look at my own post.
[SPEAKER_05]: I'm a moody sort of character.
[SPEAKER_05]: I'm tired.
[SPEAKER_05]: So it's very important to keep it going.
[SPEAKER_05]: Even if you don't, don't be put off.
[SPEAKER_05]: What's happening over there is happening over there.
[SPEAKER_05]: You, this is your, your, your own verse, the Bianca verse is yours to own, whatever author is working, please share.
[SPEAKER_07]: Okay, perfect.
[SPEAKER_07]: And last question, why is it worth paying for publicist in both the short term and the long term?
[SPEAKER_05]: The great news about publicity is it helps build you and your brand and who you are and it helps get a narrative out there that because you're paying me the help is kind of tailored to your
[SPEAKER_05]: your wishes.
[SPEAKER_05]: You know, a publisher could do that too, but they do have to move on.
[SPEAKER_05]: Like the publisher could only stay in business.
[SPEAKER_05]: So we have a very period of time together where what we're done, more people will know about your book more people will know about you.
[SPEAKER_05]: I do have some curatorial skills that I think people really need to know about this part of your.
[SPEAKER_05]: your background, you know, where you, where you're in a, where you're in a punk rock group, produced by Billy Bragg in the, in the 90s, that, that could be kind of interesting for the people at Q, you know, even though you're not, that's not what you're talking about, though.
[SPEAKER_05]: So it really helps build your brand and it is an investment.
[SPEAKER_05]: So when you go to get your next
[SPEAKER_05]: I understand publicity is fortunate.
[SPEAKER_05]: I do it for free if I could, but it costs money, but it's an investment towards an entire career because someone's going to go back and say, well, look what happened for this person's upper last book, an agent or even an author can say, well, you know, that was that publisher, imagine what you could do or look at all the time and money.
[SPEAKER_05]: I put in a look at where I got it left to have even more of an advance even more support even more publicity time.
[SPEAKER_05]: because I think we could really rock this out.
[SPEAKER_05]: So you're at a better starting point.
[SPEAKER_05]: You're at a place where you could do even more.
[SPEAKER_05]: So it's an investment for the future as much as keeping your book on the front table of the store as long as possible.
[SPEAKER_07]: Okay, so for listeners who want to be in touch with you, where can they reach you, where should they follow you?
[SPEAKER_07]: How do they find you?
[SPEAKER_05]: Well, I wanted to grab IdeaShop Canada.
[SPEAKER_05]: It's the IdeaShop.ca and it's very easy to remember my email Chris at the IdeaShop.ca.
[SPEAKER_05]: It's like, you know, or, you know, email you directly.
[SPEAKER_07]: And you said earlier that you also work with independent with indie authors as well, what hybrid publishes pretty much all of this.
[SPEAKER_05]: it's a full range and it's quite interesting because the opportunities have never been richer for everybody because the walls have come down and it's a lot easier for people to access what they're looking for.
[SPEAKER_05]: They just need to find it and have someone say this is really good.
[SPEAKER_05]: Or wow, I didn't know that was going to have that in it.
[SPEAKER_05]: Let's buy it.
[SPEAKER_07]: amazing.
[SPEAKER_07]: Thank you so much for joining us, Chris, really, really appreciated.
[SPEAKER_07]: For our listeners, we will link to Chris's details in the show notes, so you don't have to be writing those all down.
[SPEAKER_07]: Thank you so much, Chris.
[SPEAKER_05]: Thanks so much.
[SPEAKER_05]: Best of year.
[SPEAKER_07]: Hi everyone, welcome back to another Comps segment in which the incredible Emily Summer from East City Bookshop, comes in and answers all your burning Comps questions.
[SPEAKER_07]: Now, if you would like to record a request for future months, just go to the Shutterbot Writing website and go to ask a question.
[SPEAKER_07]: You get a minute there to tell Emily as much as you can about vibes and tone and everything else.
[SPEAKER_07]: and then we'll see what magic she comes up with.
[SPEAKER_07]: Welcome, Emily.
[SPEAKER_07]: Thank you for having me.
[SPEAKER_07]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_07]: Yes, we just want Emily wants to tell us about her dog in the background.
[SPEAKER_04]: So I specifically gave him a toy to distract him so that he would be quiet while we record this and of course he's been even louder than ever because of his toy.
[SPEAKER_04]: So that's why I have to it's going to give our editor the brilliant Alicia who will work to do while I and actually I'm going to go.
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm gonna go, I'm letting out right now.
[SPEAKER_04]: Okay, I'll be right back.
[SPEAKER_04]: This is podcasting folks.
[SPEAKER_04]: And in addition to Phil insisting on being led out at the most in opportune times, it is also snowing here in Washington, D.C., yesterday it was 85 degrees.
[SPEAKER_04]: So, that's the little thing.
[SPEAKER_04]: That's how things are going.
[SPEAKER_04]: But we're ready for comps.
[SPEAKER_07]: Yeah, we're ready for comps.
[SPEAKER_07]: People, we are here to do it.
[SPEAKER_07]: Okay, here is our first one.
[SPEAKER_13]: Hello, I'm seeking comms from my Urban Fantasy novel Ember Markt, which is written in third person.
[SPEAKER_13]: Ember, a fire cadet, at the Chicago Citadel, once one thing, to become a fire keeper and protect the city from demons.
[SPEAKER_13]: When a supposedly extinct demon appears, the elemental council sends an investigative squad to uncover where it came from.
[SPEAKER_13]: and revolves here's to help driven by a deep distrust of the council after they sent her parents to their deaths on a routine mission nine years ago.
[SPEAKER_13]: She immediately clashes with the squad's discipline leader, Wade, a waterkeeper who's con-controlled water magic creates against her fire.
[SPEAKER_13]: In a rigid society where elemental power dictates status, social standing career prospects and even marriage contracts, mixing elements as taboo.
[SPEAKER_13]: But when they get caught in the crossfire of magic, it triggers a fusion bond between Ember and Wade, the two of them becoming unwillingly tethered.
[SPEAKER_13]: Force to work together, they must uncover who is opening the rifts to the demon realm, survive metaling matrix, verbalist ball, and uncover the truth behind her parents' murder.
[SPEAKER_13]: Thank you so much for your help.
[SPEAKER_04]: Okay, so if I am not mistaken, I think that you sent in,
[SPEAKER_04]: This comp last month, and it just was in under the like too late for us to include it.
[SPEAKER_04]: So if I'm correct about that.
[SPEAKER_04]: Thank you so much for recording again and sending it in again.
[SPEAKER_04]: I had one immediate thought, and I think it's because of the the fire imagery and that is pin coals, Kendrick curse saga.
[SPEAKER_04]: The first book in that series is called The Spark of the Ever Flame, which sort of reminded me of the Imbermarker.
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm similarly, I thought about Jennifer Armin Trouts from Blood and Ash.
[SPEAKER_04]: And there is another fantasy novel coming out on March 31st that has been getting some buzz called Empire of Flame and Thorns.
[SPEAKER_04]: So those are the first three that I thought of as possible cops.
[SPEAKER_04]: They are all, as I understand it.
[SPEAKER_04]: lots of danger like avenging past wrongs it or trying to protect the world from future danger, lots of world buildings, all of those feel like solid possibilities.
[SPEAKER_07]: Wonderful, thank you so much.
[SPEAKER_07]: It sounds like full of wants to come back inside.
[SPEAKER_04]: Once it comes back inside, so I'm gonna go let him back in and we're gonna keep our fingers crossed.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, he doesn't have any cops to add those to me.
[SPEAKER_04]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_04]: We've definitely had the dogs participate before but not quite to this degree.
[SPEAKER_04]: Bianca, thank you for your patience.
[SPEAKER_04]: Now my little one is growing at the big one.
[SPEAKER_07]: Love the pictures, love them.
[SPEAKER_04]: OK, here is number two.
[SPEAKER_04]: Love our pets and our books.
[SPEAKER_01]: Hi, my name's Amy.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm looking for recent confitals for my book proposal.
[SPEAKER_01]: My memoir is entitled Replacement Child, how I'm covering my family's secret, set me free.
[SPEAKER_01]: The Chronicles, my having replaced a child, my parents adopted and then relinquished when they learned that she was vibrational.
[SPEAKER_01]: I was the replacement child and was raised in an all-white community outside Chicago without exposure to a diverse population or different cultures.
[SPEAKER_01]: I argued that growing up in the segregated, unclave, warped my world view.
[SPEAKER_01]: there are themes of race and segregation, a fraught father-daughter relationship.
[SPEAKER_01]: And obviously family secrets, I would appreciate any help.
[SPEAKER_01]: Thanks.
[SPEAKER_04]: For number two for replacement child, you know, I love a family memoir.
[SPEAKER_04]: And my first thought is it's too old, but I do think it isn't appropriate comp and it that's Jesus land by Julia Sheers,
[SPEAKER_04]: So it is older, but I feel like it's a classic of the genre, and it is a marvelous family memoir, specifically about race, because it deals with the white authors' relationship with her adopted black brother.
[SPEAKER_04]: So I think that one's right here.
[SPEAKER_04]: Another one that normally I would say might be too old, but I also think it is just too right on the money, not to mention it, is the glass eye by Jeannie Vanasco.
[SPEAKER_04]: She's a wonderful memoirist.
[SPEAKER_04]: I think that she is in Baltimore.
[SPEAKER_04]: And this is about her relationship with her father specifically.
[SPEAKER_04]: And the key here is that her father had a daughter who died before the author was born.
[SPEAKER_04]: And her name was Jeannie too.
[SPEAKER_04]: So he has a daughter who has died.
[SPEAKER_04]: Then he has another daughter and names them the same name.
[SPEAKER_04]: So I think this is very much a comp for your replacement child title and theme.
[SPEAKER_04]: I will also shout out a brand new memoir.
[SPEAKER_04]: I think it just came out Tuesday.
[SPEAKER_04]: I don't know if it's really a comp here, but it's so good that I want to mention it.
[SPEAKER_04]: And it's called in the days of my youth.
[SPEAKER_04]: I was told what it means to be a man by Tom Jnod and I just started reading it and it's excellent so far.
[SPEAKER_04]: So again, it might not be exactly right for this memoir.
[SPEAKER_04]: but it is about a son who is reckoning with his father's life, his father's secrets, and what that means for his legacy as his father's son.
[SPEAKER_04]: And it's just excellent.
[SPEAKER_04]: It's one that I can't wait to get back to every time I put it down.
[SPEAKER_07]: Amazing.
[SPEAKER_07]: Thank you.
[SPEAKER_07]: I'll listen as always appreciate all the books you're at today to be read pals.
[SPEAKER_07]: So, okay.
[SPEAKER_07]: But I'm here for your number three.
[SPEAKER_07]: Hello, Emily and Bianca.
[SPEAKER_11]: I'm seeking prompts from my psychological thriller about a 50-year-old crisis-blind volunteer, who puts herself in danger when she crosses the line to help a troubled caller.
[SPEAKER_11]: I'd like a comp that captures the main character's stage in life.
[SPEAKER_11]: She's a single mom struggling through menopause, having devoted her life to raising her now 19-year-old son, who's leaving for university.
[SPEAKER_11]: After breaking protocol to visit a caller who really seems to need her help, she finds out the caller has disappeared.
[SPEAKER_11]: The main character teams up with a missing person's mother-in-law, who is taking over custody of the caller's young daughter to try to find her.
[SPEAKER_11]: From there, the story takes a few twists and turns with an escalation of missing to murdered, similar to a
[SPEAKER_11]: These digital or Karen's slutter are also potential comps, but I haven't found the perfect title.
[SPEAKER_11]: Thank you in advance.
[SPEAKER_11]: I love every part of the ship podcast, especially the comp segment.
[SPEAKER_11]: It always adds to my want to read part.
[SPEAKER_04]: Okay, this sounds excellent to me.
[SPEAKER_04]: This is exactly the kind of psychological thriller that I like.
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm also more and more interested in books about women in their fifties who might be menopausal for no specific reason.
[SPEAKER_04]: I like the mention of Sherylapinia and Karen Flatter, you know, Karen Flatter is one of my favorites if you've ever heard one of these segments before.
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm thinking to of the out of Alice Vega in Louise Aluna's Alice Vega novels.
[SPEAKER_04]: I can't remember how old she is.
[SPEAKER_04]: I don't think she's not 50, but she does.
[SPEAKER_04]: If I'm remembering correctly, she's a little older than our like, like a very scrappy young protagonist.
[SPEAKER_04]: And there are actually some good mysteries out there that feature older women, but they skew a lot older in most cases.
[SPEAKER_04]: So I'm thinking of like, you know, the Richard Osman or Deanna Ray borne, Jesse Sutanto, so those aren't right.
[SPEAKER_04]: The Karen slaughter title that might be the closest.
[SPEAKER_04]: could be pieces of her because that protagonist is older and has a young adult daughter who's getting out on her own.
[SPEAKER_04]: I would also look maybe it can really mocrites like mother like daughter.
[SPEAKER_04]: It is Sherylapinia Esk.
[SPEAKER_04]: It's a mother and her adult young adult daughter domestic suspense.
[SPEAKER_04]: And then I would also look at the author's joy-fielding and Chevy Stevens and see if any of their particular titles resonate.
[SPEAKER_04]: So those are my suggestions.
[SPEAKER_07]: Thank you.
[SPEAKER_07]: I know Samantha Downing also came out of the book recently called Two Old For This.
[SPEAKER_07]: That's a good idea.
[SPEAKER_07]: I did not think of that.
[SPEAKER_07]: That's a great idea.
[SPEAKER_04]: That's a great suggestion.
[SPEAKER_08]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_08]: All right.
[SPEAKER_08]: Moving on to number four.
[SPEAKER_08]: Dear Bianca and Emily, thank you in advance for helping me find some camps for my debut novel.
[SPEAKER_08]: Put your hope in this guy.
[SPEAKER_08]: A single POV, single timeline, women's fiction story about Eleanor Aldrin, the second favorite child.
[SPEAKER_08]: who desperately seeks her father's approval and attention.
[SPEAKER_08]: Eleanor has been away from home for seven years, but after a family emergency, she moves back home to help on the family farm.
[SPEAKER_08]: In the story, Eleanor grapples with her aloof mother who seems sad and depressed and her beloved twin brother who is obviously her father's favorite child and discovers long hidden secrets about her father.
[SPEAKER_08]: that changes everything she thought she knew about him.
[SPEAKER_08]: So far, I have the accidental favorite by Fran Littlewood as a comp, but please help me identify a few more.
[SPEAKER_08]: Eleanor is in her late 20s and most father-daughter stories I find are with a much younger daughter.
[SPEAKER_08]: Thank you, Sarah.
[SPEAKER_04]: I am so glad you mentioned the accidental favorite by Fran Littlewood because that would have been my first suggestion otherwise jumped out at me right away.
[SPEAKER_04]: And there's something about the title and the way that you describe the book that makes me think about the books of Linda Holmes.
[SPEAKER_04]: Her books don't deal with favoritism or like a father-daughter relationship specifically that I can recall at least not in a major way.
[SPEAKER_04]: But in terms of like the time of life,
[SPEAKER_04]: And starting over returning home dealing with family dynamics.
[SPEAKER_04]: All of those things do feel appropriate here.
[SPEAKER_04]: And they in plus her books are just wonderful.
[SPEAKER_04]: They're funny.
[SPEAKER_04]: They're smart.
[SPEAKER_04]: They're a real bomb.
[SPEAKER_04]: So they are perfect for right now, even if they're not a great, but I would take a look because they might be there might be something that's resonant there that makes sense.
[SPEAKER_07]: Thank you so much.
[SPEAKER_07]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_07]: He has number five.
[SPEAKER_09]: I would appreciate your thoughts on comps for my speculative novel and which a grieving family has cloned their deceased teenage daughter, only to discover a second clone was created for the purposes of InURA Research.
[SPEAKER_09]: Set on a maple farm in Vermont, this multiple POV literary leaning novel follows a husband, wife, and the remaining twin daughter through the repercussions of their decision, including the wife's rise to celebrity and the impact on the family business.
[SPEAKER_09]: The husbands fight to maintain his sobriety under the financial stressors, and their daughters crusade to bring about justice for their family and others like them.
[SPEAKER_09]: My current comps are never let me go as well as, and again, by Jessica Chiaraela, but I would appreciate hearing your thoughts and others I could explore.
[SPEAKER_09]: Thanks so much.
[SPEAKER_04]: I love it when we get a literary speculative novel because that is my, that is my favorite type of speculative fiction.
[SPEAKER_04]: I would say I totally get where you're coming from, with never let me go.
[SPEAKER_04]: I think it's too big.
[SPEAKER_04]: I think once an author has won the Nobel, then they're out of our league for query purposes.
[SPEAKER_04]: And all of the other like medical speculative fiction, I can think of is really too big and too old.
[SPEAKER_04]: And it also I think even maybe more importantly than that, it's the things that I'm thinking of right away are too commercial, I think, like Michael Crichton or Robin Cook or Test Garrison.
[SPEAKER_04]: Maybe look at Karen Thompson Walker,
[SPEAKER_04]: and Helen Phillips and Kate Hope Day.
[SPEAKER_04]: None of them are perfect hamped, but those are, as I've said in past episodes, they are my go-to for very literary speculative fiction.
[SPEAKER_04]: Maybe even you might consider, let's see if any of Emily St. John Mandel's books are right, again, she's probably too big, but she's not as big as Ishigura.
[SPEAKER_04]: So
[SPEAKER_04]: So with an improvement there and again, very literary and she often has some kind of speculative angle that could make the tone and the content and the reader feel right it might be the same reader.
[SPEAKER_07]: Yeah, I think that's the last one like that was C of tranquility, right?
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_04]: And that a new one that's coming out later this year exit party.
[SPEAKER_04]: So add that go ahead and preorder it from your local independent bookstore or request it from the library.
[SPEAKER_04]: So you'll be first in line when it comes out.
[SPEAKER_07]: I have tried to get on the podcast so many times.
[SPEAKER_07]: So I'm going to be reaching out to a public assistance if we can make it happen finally.
[SPEAKER_04]: And yours cross.
[SPEAKER_07]: Okay, here's number six.
[SPEAKER_03]: Hi, Emily.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm looking for a comms for my debut work of Domestic Suspense.
[SPEAKER_03]: It has themes of a morally ambiguous love triangle, betrayal, found family and friendship.
[SPEAKER_03]: Blindsided by her husband's mysterious death and devastated because she can't have a baby.
[SPEAKER_03]: Abby has escaped to a small town.
[SPEAKER_03]: a place where she's separated from her husbands overbearing family, and has the freedom to do, and be whatever she wants.
[SPEAKER_03]: In Miami, she was a nurse married to a doctor, but here in Keystone, she's a waitress at a cafe, sleeping with a sweet young mechanic who's eight years younger than her.
[SPEAKER_03]: Her newfound family are the Kathy owners, a married couple who were due to have a baby any day now, and she lives vicariously through them until the husband mysteriously disappears one day.
[SPEAKER_03]: My current comps are a killing cold by Kate Alice Marshall and a likable woman by May Cobb.
[SPEAKER_03]: But both of those authors have recently gotten a little bit big, so I'm looking for something fresh.
[SPEAKER_03]: I also really love Megan Miranda and Stacey Willingham.
[SPEAKER_03]: Thank you so much.
[SPEAKER_04]: Again, I love domestic suspense.
[SPEAKER_04]: I always love to hear about a debut.
[SPEAKER_04]: I feel like most of us here are probably most of y'all not me.
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm only here as an advisor and a reader.
[SPEAKER_04]: Most of us are probably debuts, but I love domestic suspense since that is what I read the most.
[SPEAKER_04]: I really like your suggestions of a killing cold and a likable woman.
[SPEAKER_04]: You're right that the authors have gotten bigger.
[SPEAKER_04]: But I don't think those particular titles are that big.
[SPEAKER_04]: And I will say in the store, those don't feel too large to work for me.
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm also glad that you mentioned Megan Miranda and Stacey willing him because I think those are really good cops and that tells me like what lane you're in.
[SPEAKER_04]: And so honestly, Kate Alice Marshall may Cobb.
[SPEAKER_04]: Megan Rand and Stacey Williams, all of that works for me.
[SPEAKER_04]: And I think those are great suggestions.
[SPEAKER_04]: I got really frustrated with this one, not because of the call, only because of my own faulty memory because there is a book coming out this summer.
[SPEAKER_04]: It's on my radar, it peaked my interest when I saw it in the publisher's catalog.
[SPEAKER_04]: It had a great cover.
[SPEAKER_04]: It is about a woman who has had it sort of, she seems like she's kind of a mess.
[SPEAKER_04]: She's having an affair with a much younger man.
[SPEAKER_04]: I feel like he was, I know in your synopsis, she said she's sleeping with a young mechanic.
[SPEAKER_04]: I don't know if he was a mechanic in this situation, but she's sleeping with a younger guy who's kind of outside of her social circle.
[SPEAKER_04]: And then someone goes missing or is murdered.
[SPEAKER_04]: So it sounds very similar, and I cannot find the title for it.
[SPEAKER_04]: So if anybody knows the book that's coming out later this year that fits that description,
[SPEAKER_04]: Please tag me on Instagram and tell me what it is because it is driving me crazy.
[SPEAKER_04]: I really want to read it.
[SPEAKER_04]: I thought I had already downloaded the digital galley, couldn't find it.
[SPEAKER_04]: So anyway, I spent my time researching this one, trying to jog my own bad memory.
[SPEAKER_04]: And in the meantime, I think your suggestions are perfectly on the right track.
[SPEAKER_04]: So hopefully we'll come up with that, that perfect one that I can't seem to name.
[SPEAKER_07]: Okay, for number seven.
[SPEAKER_12]: Setry 900 is a contemporary sci-fi novel I'm currently describing as the Mandalorian meets Hollywood homicide, stole point of view following a huge Hollywood actor who's anxiously anticipating the renewal of his hit TV show and the space vigilante character who he plays.
[SPEAKER_12]: The space vigilante finds himself in a real world just as the actor is facing unexpected allegations about cheating on a past girlfriend and the media is deciding there's a sex take to prove it.
[SPEAKER_12]: While the actor tries to clear his name and understand why these allegations came up with the first place, we're also trying to say the TV show he stars in, space vigilance he's showing up at his doorstep determined to find his way home with his doppelganger's help.
[SPEAKER_12]: I'm honestly unsure about the genre.
[SPEAKER_12]: I don't know if contemporary sci-fi is actually a thing, or how else am I better describe it since it takes place largely in our present-day real world.
[SPEAKER_12]: For comps, I want to find something that better matches with the plot rather than character archetypes and vibes.
[SPEAKER_12]: This book has huge nannigans as well as the major self-plot about one of the main characters discovering that he's a romantic.
[SPEAKER_12]: I appreciate your help.
[SPEAKER_04]: So you really, this one really challenged me in part because it's already out of my wheelhouse.
[SPEAKER_04]: And in part because you specifically said, I want something that matches with plot, not character or vibes.
[SPEAKER_04]: So that tells me you have listed it this segment before because I am often suggesting based on vibes and character.
[SPEAKER_04]: Which is what I would have done in this instance for some reason I'm hearing these are not literary or not half not literary comfort I'm hearing like once upon a time in Hollywood meets like the air affair by Jasper Ford although Mandalorian meets Hollywood homicide I think is better, but I am going purely on vibes.
[SPEAKER_04]: and character.
[SPEAKER_04]: So I do not have a great suggestion for a plot of this type.
[SPEAKER_04]: So if anybody has a great suggestion for an actor playing a space vigilante who is struggling with real world allegations and trying to save a show and then the character shows up, tell us, please tell us.
[SPEAKER_04]: I can think of a lot of things where fictional characters come into the real world.
[SPEAKER_04]: but not in a similar situation.
[SPEAKER_04]: It's always like literary characters or like, so on from a painting, excuse sort of historical fiction.
[SPEAKER_04]: So again, we're crowdsourcing.
[SPEAKER_04]: And that's also a very good time that the author might be onto something truly unique.
[SPEAKER_04]: Absolutely, because if I hear something where I'm like, that reminds me perfectly of this, then maybe it's already been done.
[SPEAKER_07]: Yeah, okay, here's our last one.
[SPEAKER_00]: Hello, my name's Paolo, and I need to help find a new comp title for my Philosophical literary novel Living by Numbers.
[SPEAKER_00]: The protagonist, Adam, is a quantified self-refer.
[SPEAKER_00]: The narrator is his therapist.
[SPEAKER_00]: Not that he's seen a therapist because anything is wrong of course, he's just super open and checking for blind spots.
[SPEAKER_00]: Adam's carefully calibrated existence collies with an immediate and inexplicable Disney magic true love at first sight connection with a singer, Rhea, which draws him into a world that makes no measurable sense, and yet seems to matter all the more because of that.
[SPEAKER_00]: The narrative is a vehicle for a philosophical inquiry, engaging with the current conversation around the meaning crisis, optimization culture, and psychedelic therapy.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's an exploration of what happens when love exposes the limits of the language and metrics that increasingly shape our relationships with ourselves, others in the world.
[SPEAKER_00]: Theomatic comes easy, but at all non-fiction, with a key McGill priest pollen, older comps are also easy, sending the automotive cycle maintenance when Nietzsche wept and Alan DeBotton's essays in love triangulate pretty well.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I get why these sorts of titles aren't ideal and could even put publishes off.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yet most model fiction seems to express the very meaning crisis I'm trying to offer an amtodoke for.
[SPEAKER_04]: Okay, so I think I have a good idea for what you're trying to get up here.
[SPEAKER_04]: My first thought was Sophie's world by Jostine Garder.
[SPEAKER_04]: Too old, but that's always when someone says like a philosophical literary novel.
[SPEAKER_04]: I think about that because that is a book that explicitly uses the novel to teach
[SPEAKER_04]: I don't think, however, that's what you're doing here.
[SPEAKER_04]: I don't think, I think you're, you mean it's philosophical and that you're trying to answer large questions about life and love.
[SPEAKER_04]: So I thought maybe Matt Hague, although it's possible that he is not literary enough.
[SPEAKER_04]: And I also can't quite tell if there's anything speculative to the novel, or if it's just the unexpected,
[SPEAKER_04]: force of true love that opens at it up to like a metaphorical new world in new space.
[SPEAKER_04]: So I'm I'm grappling with those questions as I'm trying to come up with perfect comps.
[SPEAKER_04]: I will say I'm always a slightly hesitant when someone says that modern fiction isn't doing what you're trying to do or is failing at it, which is not exactly what you said, but it's kind of what I heard, because really there is so much
[SPEAKER_04]: excellent modern fiction out there that is asking really important questions and not maybe not answering the questions but asking them really carefully.
[SPEAKER_04]: So I do think that it's possible that there are some really good things out there that you could find.
[SPEAKER_04]: One book that is jumping out at me as a possibility and I would say this might not seem literary enough, but I think it might be doing what you are thinking about doing.
[SPEAKER_04]: And it's coming out soon.
[SPEAKER_04]: It's a gorgeous love story.
[SPEAKER_04]: And in that, the male main character also lives a very prescribed, very carefully organized life for reasons that become clear later in the book.
[SPEAKER_04]: There is a sci-fi series at the heart of this book.
[SPEAKER_04]: But what the book, I think, argues and posits is that what really like bends the space time continuum, what really is this supernatural force in the world
[SPEAKER_04]: and true connection.
[SPEAKER_04]: And that is what sort of transcends all these things.
[SPEAKER_04]: So it's not a speculative story at all, but it does talk about true love that sort of mind bending love it first side connection how it feels otherworldly.
[SPEAKER_04]: So because this character experiences that kind of.
[SPEAKER_04]: shocking connection that opens them up to all kinds of things.
[SPEAKER_04]: I think it's a possibility.
[SPEAKER_04]: I would look out for it, also it's just really, really good.
[SPEAKER_04]: And I want people to read it.
[SPEAKER_04]: So into the blue, my Emobrody is my suggestion.
[SPEAKER_04]: Maybe Matt Hague, maybe Sophie's world.
[SPEAKER_04]: I don't think we are explicitly as philosophical as that.
[SPEAKER_04]: And let us know on the Instagram if there are other things that you think about.
[SPEAKER_07]: one from earlier that I've been trying to get a hold of who is the kind of blanking on the name.
[SPEAKER_07]: She'd the author who owns books are magic.
[SPEAKER_07]: Emma Straub.
[SPEAKER_07]: Emma Straub, and she wrote a book about a relationship with the daughter and a father that was speculative.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yes, it's time tomorrow and it was excellent.
[SPEAKER_07]: Yes, so there might be one for one of our earlier ones as well.
[SPEAKER_07]: That might be one for one of our other ones.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_07]: Thank you so much, Emily, and it was lovely seeing full and the gang as well.
[SPEAKER_04]: Listen, thank you to everyone for their patience.
[SPEAKER_04]: This is this is recording from home.
[SPEAKER_04]: So thank you all.
[SPEAKER_04]: We love the dogs and we'll have you back next month.
[SPEAKER_04]: Thank you.
[SPEAKER_04]: All right.
[SPEAKER_04]: Thank you Bianca.
[SPEAKER_07]: And that's it for today's episode.
[SPEAKER_07]: I hope you'll join us for next week's show.
[SPEAKER_07]: In the meantime, keep at it.
[SPEAKER_07]: Remember, it just takes one yes.