#22: How To Get Seriously Good At Writing Action Thrillers - Allen and Brian Manning

Want to write books that actually sell?

In this episode, Las Vegas authors Allen and Brian Manning reveal the secrets behind their success - from writing for your ideal reader to turning brutal reviews into artistic fuel.

Their John Stone action thriller series doesn’t just perform—it dominates, with standout indie sales and an impressive 4.2/5 average on Amazon.

If you want to write fast-paced, addictive fiction—and make it work in the real world—this is one you can’t miss.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Hello and welcome to another episode of What the Haze. I am your host, Hayes Wolfenden, author of the Jack Swong series of books and a poetry collection made in China. My guests today are Alan and Brian Manning, two action thriller writers from Las Vegas. Welcome, guys.

SPEAKER_01 0:20

Hey. Hey, how's it going? Thank you for having us.

SPEAKER_00 0:23

So can you tell me a little bit about yourselves and in your books, please?

SPEAKER_01 0:27

Yes. We're the Manning brothers, the original Manning brothers, not like those other two that do something else. I don't know. I don't know what they do. I'm Brian Manning. American football. American football. I'm Alan Manning. Yeah. So basically, we've been writing since 2015, 2016-ish. Uh we started with like a superhero thriller trilogy, but we moved into action thrillers like almost immediately, and that's been our bread and butter since then. So actually, Brian was the first one to write. He started with short stories and was really excited about it. He wanted me to join, and I was just kind of resistant, like, oh, I'm not really a writer. You know, I don't like, you know, I don't know if because I never did any kind of writing in school. Or and when I did, I struggled. And then he ended up doing uh the the first superhero 2% power, the superhero one. And then when he was doing the second one, I helped him write that one, and then we started working together from from there on.

SPEAKER_00 1:23

Right, excellent. Yeah, you mentioned about not writing at school, but when I've been interviewing people on these podcasts, it's that's not unusual. I didn't write at school. I I I wrote when I was at you know primary school, junior school. Loved it, loved reading, loved writing. And then like secondary school just killed it, to be honest. Like you know, you know it's so at the end of the day. And is it an assignment? Yeah, well, it wasn't just assignments, it was like it was like very formalized assignments. It wasn't really about writing for fun, it wasn't about creativity. I wrote a story called my first ever story was called The Color Red, and I wrote a war story about the Falklands War, and it opened up with like the sounds of machine guns and stuff. The teachers thought I was crazy. I was like 12 years old.

SPEAKER_01 2:10

I remember yeah, that's if I could do that, I I'd be I'd have been writing a lot more when I was younger. I remember I used to overthink it, just when there would be like a creative writing assignment, I would always do the cliche one day or once upon a time. I didn't, you know, I didn't I feel like I didn't have enough the imagination to to write a story, and then just random people in the class would write these things that were like, This is really cool. I'm not that, so I won't try anymore. So it took years to start again. For me though, oh yeah. I'll say about say for me though, I I didn't really write like I didn't really enjoy writing in school as well. But like while we were in high school, we played a lot of like tabletop role-playing games, and I wrote full detailed backgrounds for the campaigns and for characters that the players never even heard or saw. It was just so I knew like the flavor of the stuff I was writing. So we just carried that into the the books we've been writing.

SPEAKER_00 3:05

Yeah, cool. I think as well when when you're teenagers, at least for me, I wanted to make friends and I struggled enough at that, and I wanted to get a girlfriend, and I sucked at that. And that's your focus and like I don't know about America, but in the UK, when it comes to reading, you're forced to read a lot of like culturally important texts, which are all very good. I'm not saying they're not, not they're not good, but they're really for adults. And and I'm a big believer that when you're at school, the books you should be reading should be designed to get you to love reading, not reading what we've decided the this imp important cultural text is like Shakespeare, for example. I love Shakespeare, but it's not really for 14-year-olds, and Shakespeare didn't write for 14-year-olds either. You know. So yeah, guys, I I know you're you're writing the is it the your main character's called John Stone in your action action thriller series, is that right?

SPEAKER_01 4:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 4:05

So can you tell me all about those books, please?

SPEAKER_01 4:07

I will I'm gonna start and then I'll hand over to Alan because it this is basically his creation. So when I wrote the the uh superhero trilogy, the first book of the superhero trilogy, I was trying to convince him to join me in that path. And he was helping with the second book, but he said, I want to write an 80s action book that just takes place today, and I want the main character to be Arnold Schwarzenegger, but not him. I was like, Oh, okay, we'll do that then. And I just thought nothing of it. I just said, Yeah, let's do it. And then he just had this idea that just carried on. So yeah, so yeah, the obviously the idea was just we're we were huge fans of action movies, especially the classic 80s, 80s, 90s action movies. And then that's why I told him I want to do something like that, but I don't want to set it in the 80s, you know, because we don't want to just say, oh, if you're not from this time, you know, you won't appreciate it. So we set it to, you know, present-day stuff. But we kept a lot of just ridiculous 80s movie sensibilities like cars blow up when you shoot 'em, and you know, the bullets knock people off their feet when they get hit. Just little things like that. But we wanted to keep it pretty modern, and then we just we do a lot of research on, you know, just guns and tactics like that in general. So I think we while we have a lot of the over-the-top cinematic stuff, I think we have levels of realism that our readers really appreciate and they let us know that too. Yeah, they they fall in line with like a lot of the modern day like John Wick kind of stuff as well. So it's on the topic that uh Arnold Schwarzenegger is literally the like the visual we wanted to have. We just we want people to say this is Arnold Schwarzenegger with a big mustache, but no Austrian accent. You know, just he's an American action hero, basically.

SPEAKER_00 5:55

Yeah, do you have any like any like favorite like 80s movies?

SPEAKER_01 5:59

I mean any of Schwarzenegger's movies that like Commando, Predator, Terminator. Yeah, basically his original stuff is the 80s action movies are really, really influential. Also, you know, other characters like we have we have characters from other books too that are based on like Jean-Claude Van Damme or Michael J. White, you know. Yeah. When he and Alan pitched his idea for for John Stone, which had a very 80s feel, we decided we also wanted one that felt like the 90s, one that felt like early 2000s, one that at the time felt like the 2010s. So we had these four characters that in our minds they would each get a trilogy and then come together like the Avengers, but the John Stone book started selling so well that we're just like, let's just continue John Stone and see where that goes. Right. We moved all those characters into that series. By the fourth book, we're like, we're just gonna bring everyone in this point by book five. So that that was how we did that. But they the other characters still have their origin story, it's just they're all part of the John Stone series, so the rest are technically spin-offs.

SPEAKER_00 7:05

Excellent. Yeah, you mentioned as well that like your readers have been in touch with you saying how much they like the book. How do the readers get in touch with you? How do they let you know their feelings, that kind of thing?

SPEAKER_01 7:16

Uh we have a mailing list, and every time we every time we send them an email about any of our other books, they talk about John Stone. So uh we see a lot of the they they'll mention it in uh book reviews on Amazon. Right. They'll tell us what they love and they tell us what they hate, and we actually do appreciate those one and two-star reviews where they go into detail about what they actually really hate about our stuff. Because it kind of it informs other readers that they see, hey, this is this is supermarket fiction where the bad guy has a gold-plated MAC 10 and that's just ridiculous. I'm never gonna read that. But then someone else will see that and go, that's exactly the type of story I'm looking for, and they'll pick it up and give it a chance. And also, people won't waste their time if they don't want what we're writing, you know. So, yeah, we we see a lot of from the reviews, they tell us what they do and don't like.

SPEAKER_00 8:08

Okay, I I think it's we're brave of you to to read reviews in Amazon that are negative. I I've got my book in Amazon, and it was a few years ago I was it wasn't a really negative review, but it was like three out of five, and the guy annoyed me because he was trying he was giving away, he was giving away stuff that's happened in the book. Yeah. Do I think that's they do that?

SPEAKER_01 8:31

Yeah, yeah, we've seen that in our books too.

SPEAKER_00 8:33

Yeah, and and I wanted, you know, I have this policy, my own personal policy. I'm sure most writers do. I'm not gonna reply to any comments on Amazon.

SPEAKER_01 8:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 8:41

Otherwise, you have to do that, it doesn't look good.

SPEAKER_01 8:44

Exactly. You look you start to look petty and defensive, but we don't interact with the one-star reviews, but we absolutely put them in some of our ads. You do read them. Well, we've used one-star reviews in our advertising. Yeah, we actually read them because originally they were actually pointing out stuff we were missing. Not the one, not just one-star reviews, but all reviews in general. That the a lot of them will, because a lot of readers like to flex their knowledge so they'll point out inconsistencies and we're like, oh, okay, well, let's fix that. But now it's just yeah, now it's just we're using them to so that we know we're on the right track for our intended audience, like our ideal reader. Yes, but who is your ideal reader? Action movie junkies that like to read books. It's we I mean you know, like uh Stephen King in his book, he mentioned having your ideal reader, like an individual person as detailed as possible, and you write for that person. But the thing is, Brian and I, we have such similar interests that we I just write for Brian. Yeah, and Brian would write for me. So we our ideal reader is literally just us.

SPEAKER_00 9:47

Yeah, that's so funny. That's so funny. Yeah, I think it's real. I think yeah, I remember that Stephen King saying that having the ideal reader in in your mind is really good. I was gonna say as well, like you mentioned about your reviews. Yeah, I I checked on on Amazon, you know, you're really well reviewed. You know, how you yeah, how do you go about like selling your bucks and how do you go about like marketing? Because it it is it is still unusual for a lot of like indie indie like riders to to be to sell so many bucks and to be so well reviewed, to be honest. So I think it's really impressive.

SPEAKER_01 10:20

Yeah, well what happened was like in l when we did the trilogy for John Stone, we chose John Stone specifically because that individual book was selling a little bit better than the others. So we're like, we'll just continue this. So we were we wrote book two and three at the same time, where Alan was writing two, I was writing three, because like we knew how it ended, obviously. So we had both available for pre-order, and I think that helped build up a little bit of a buzz because then what by the time we had book four for pre-order, we saw this this sharp rise, and then by book five, it was just like it was an avalanche of just Kindle Unlimited borrows, page reads, and and sales. So yeah, I think Amazon just the Amazon algorithm, they like rapid releases. So I we were fortunate enough to be able to have books two and three released very close to each other, yeah. Within a month of each other, I believe. And then that with the the already slight success of book one, it just helped give us the momentum we needed. And but it's just uh that that book specifically, John Stone specifically, was that we went with that because it was outselling the other books we'd written. And I think by writing, we wrote ended up writing nine John Stone books. And then we finished that years ago and we're finally getting back to book ten because people have always told us when is the next John Stone coming out. Right. But we I mean, and then we we've written almost 30 books right now, we have released. And I think what helps is just having a big catalog when people see a book you like, they tend to go, what else have they written? You know, so I think a lot of our other books that might not sell as well benefit from being in the same, you know, in our catalog.

SPEAKER_00 12:00

Oh, yeah, definitely. Absolutely. I would I would definitely say so. Okay, that's interesting.

SPEAKER_01 12:05

Oh, but getting back to also marketing, we we're trying we're using Amazon ads, we're using meta ads, and it's just it's rough out there. You know, we're just uh I think a lot of it, just the momentum of we get as many people as we can into one of our series, and then if they wait, we just count on the read-through of it, and then then they see what else do they have. But getting momentum in getting any kind of traction in meta right now is tough. Even on Amazon. For us, we really struggle with Amazon ads. Right.

SPEAKER_00 12:34

Yeah, how's you you think you struggle with Amazon like ads ads, ads. Sorry. In what way? Like, you mean you you put an ad out there and people don't necessarily then buy the book, anything like that?

SPEAKER_01 12:46

We put an ad out there and it won't even spend sometimes. Like it's hard to get impressions and clicks on Amazon ads because we don't know the secrets yet. We've been spending so much time with Facebook ads, it's like we've we got a good grasp on how to get those to not blow the budget. But on Amazon, it's like we're trying to tweak these dials, and next thing you know, it just blows the entire budget in like an hour. But then the next one. Yeah. For the clicks, and then we just never bid as high as everyone else. And to to get a click from someone, we have to set the bid so high that it'll just burn through the budget. We don't get you know a significant amount of clicks and not enough to justify an actual sale. Yeah. You know, so it's just that's we're just still working on that. That's really tough.

SPEAKER_00 13:32

Yeah, I've heard other people that have said something similar, not like not specifically about price, but like about they'll put ads out and nothing will happen. Or the ads will only appear appear in places like Malaysia and stuff like that, and and it doesn't really get much traction. So I is it's not the first time I've heard of that issue, to be honest, unfortunately.

SPEAKER_01 13:54

Yeah, I mean, there's groups of people, there's like entire groups dedicated to one or the other, like people that just solely advertise on Facebook only, and then companies that will only advertise on Amazon. We tend to do Amazon, I mean uh Facebook ads only, but then we tried to do the Amazon stuff as well, because uh we figured if we can get that to work, it's doubling our chances, but even though it's double the budget, but it's it's you gotta spend so much time learning the system. Oh, yeah. And we've spent so much time learning Facebook, it's like and it keeps changing every three months.

SPEAKER_00 14:28

Right. Yeah, just keep learning curve for sure. This business, I gotta say. But to be fair, like you mentioned Facebook. I hadn't thought about advertising on Facebook, and the people that I've spoken to that have had negative experiences, they're talking predominantly about Amazon. Um again, for someone like myself, it's something to consider, maybe placing an ad just to see what happens, you know, something like that. I mentioned at the start of the episode, Jack Strong series. I'm currently just re-editing it, just you know, just reading it again, just familiarizing myself with it, to be honest. And then I might yeah, I might just put a few ads out and just see what happens.

SPEAKER_01 15:05

Are you are you on you in Kindle Unlimited? Yes or is it yeah. We pulled our books out a couple years ago and then just recently had to put them all back in because of how bad just Facebook ads has been this past year. So that's why that's another reason we tried Amazon again, was because our entire catalog is back in Kindle Unlimited. But we also we don't want to say that that Facebook is not working for anyone because there's clearly people that have benefited from it. It's just in our case, our specific case, and you know, others that we've heard, we're just currently struggling, and it happened very recently, like last year, middle of last year. That was why we started advertising on Facebook basically, because we were selling the books on our own website, and it was, you know, obviously we didn't want to advertise on Amazon if we're trying to get them to our website. So it was working very well for like two years, and then we saw like this drop off. We I know a few other authors have seen it as well, but a lot of them are still saying reporting that they're doing good on Amaz on uh Facebook still, selling their books on their own site, but we've dialed back.

SPEAKER_00 16:12

So okay. Yeah, one of the best like marketing things I heard recently, it's something I've not done it it's something I've thought about. Could I copy it or could I like twist it to suit my own purposes? They had a writer on here called Curtis Chin, and he'll he's traditionally published, and the the the publishing company must have organized these talks, but he was he was giving book talks in Chinese restaurants because the book was growing up in a Chinese restaurant. And all he did was when he went to the Chinese restaurants, he just talked about food. He didn't talk about the book, and he said that he he sold just as many bucks at those events as when he only talked about his books at a bookstore or a coffee shop or something.

SPEAKER_01 16:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:59

And I heard that and I was like, uh, but I I couldn't do that here. I couldn't take my book to a Chinese restaurant and just talk to you.

SPEAKER_01 17:09

That's a cool idea though. Well to start talking about it and look like crazy people.

SPEAKER_00 17:15

Like take a bunch of books and but but where would you go? I don't I don't know. But it's something I've thought about in it. Maybe at some point I'll be like sleeping on a wake-up middle of the night and go, ah and do it. I don't know. But I'll have to think about it. Yeah. What else is gonna say as well? Um Oh, that was it. Can't read my own writing. Yeah, so what's it like you two writing together? Like and working together. How's that like?

SPEAKER_01 17:40

I thought it was gonna be like like I said, when we wrote the the two the second and third Johnstone books, I thought he was gonna handle a first draft, I was gonna handle a first draft, and then we switch. We both thought that that's how we started that process, but then it has evolved where I will write like the entire well, we'll we'll come up with the actual like plot and and outline together, and then I'll start on the first draft and hand it off to him, and he'll usually do like a pass and like a developmental edit. And that's like the flow that we've we've fallen into, and it works better for us now. It's like a lot smoother because usually I was writing the whole first draft, handing it to him, and then taking like his half first draft and then finishing and that. So it was like because I was writing faster than him at the time. He still does. I know, but you're not writing full draft. Oh, yeah, you just tried to write a draft. Yeah, so that that's really the reason why we're doing it the way we're currently doing it, where I act more as a developmental editor and I just do I help him with uh like a second draft. It's just he writes so much faster than I do. And also my first draft is a lot wilder, so we just need him to rein it in as far as like how many scenes and how like how long the book is, and like not the not the page count, but like the the timeline of the book. Like we he compresses it down to where it feels like more like an action movie and then removes like a lot a lot of chapters that I think are i important until I read it, read the draft and say, Yeah, you're right, that had to go. It messes with the flows. Right. So now that's the process we've got where it's it's a lot smoother. We're both in our more we're using our strength more.

SPEAKER_00 19:24

So is that okay to deal with if if you know you you really like a scene or a chapter or pages, and then your brother says, no, this is not good, it's gonna go. Like how do you deal with that?

SPEAKER_01 19:36

I argue with him all the time, but I will remove it. I'm not gonna fight him on it. I'll argue, but I do remove it.

SPEAKER_00 19:44

So that's fair enough. I I just wonder, I mean, like, because like the you know, the dynamic of maybe it helps that your brothers, you know, because there's not many like, you know.

SPEAKER_01 19:53

Does that make it worse for some brothers? I don't know. No, it makes it better. For us, it's yeah, we we both had scenes that we've written that the other one has said it should go. And it we yeah, while we might argue or put up a little fight, we don't it always goes. We there there's never a strong enough reason to keep it. There's always a good enough reason to to remove it or edit it. The book is just as good or better with the scene removed, so it it's not not really worth fighting. And like I said, oh yeah, go ahead. If I could just say one time we wrote a book where we got all the way through the first draft, and then as I was looking it over, we we just had this discussion. We're like, this story as it is isn't going to work. And we had to scrap the book, the entire book, and start over. It was one of the John Stone books we wrote. It was the one where all the other characters join in, so it had to be a spectacle. And the story we're telling was like way too small for it. Wow, okay, just a small story.

SPEAKER_00 20:47

Um I've been thinking about recently.

SPEAKER_01 20:50

Yeah, just having to get rid of a first draft was like we we weren't like, is this a good idea, all this work we put in? And ultimately when we saw that the newer version, we just never, like we just said, that was the idea. There was no I can't imagine it being better than dumping that first draft in writing. I thought maybe we could shuffle in that fur parts of the first draft into the new book, but we took maybe one scene and then everything else was scrapped. So and we still haven't even found a place to use the rest yet. Like we've been trying, but it's like maybe it's just not gonna be used. That's fine.

SPEAKER_00 21:24

Well, that's fair enough though. If you you've still got it and you're thinking about using it in the future, or you could use it in the future. Um it's gonna be tough though. Scrapping it.

SPEAKER_01 21:39

We've actually gotten used to the idea of just uh Brian like Brian well, we write fast in general, but Brian writes fast specifically. But the idea that we're like if we we can always do it again, or if we lose it, we can rewrite it. We don't get so hung up on losing something or not using it that that it we don't get paralyzed with any kind of indecision about that. We just cut it quick and move on.

SPEAKER_00 22:00

Sure. You say you you write fast, like how fast are we talking here?

SPEAKER_01 22:03

Like novel or I mean I know a lot of people write like five thousand, ten thousand words a day. I don't do that, but I write in the mornings before my day starts. So I'll write like two thousand twenty five hundred words a day like every day, like seven days. Yeah. Although I've taken like the last week off because we were just finishing the last John Stone book. Right. So I haven't been writing as much, but that's fine. That's fine. I need a break.

SPEAKER_00 22:35

Yeah, that's it. When I first started writing, I was writing like yeah, easily 2,000, 3,000 words a day. But as my like my day job just got more demanding and that time shrank, I settled on like I I'd say to I probably average about 500 a day, but it's anywhere from like 300 to 1,000. Um I've I've settled on that.

SPEAKER_01 22:58

Yeah, so writing at least a full page a day, which is progress. It's a step forward. So that was like because when I got down to like, you know, like two or three hundred words a day, I found it discouraging and just basically stopped for a while. And then a friend of mine was like, no, you have to set a new goal. It's 50 words a day, and you can't leave. I was like, 50? That's like nothing. Yeah, but you're gonna keep writing though. You know, no one's gonna stop at 50. You just set the goal small, and then 300 feels like a marathon, and then next thing you know, you're back up to like 1200,000. So if you have time anyway, if you have time.

SPEAKER_00 23:32

Yeah, I mean it's a great piece of advice, like 50 a day.

SPEAKER_01 23:35

Yeah, I think sitting down to start each day is the most important part, but more important than how many you get in the day. Yeah. Because I I'm in the same 300 to a thousand word daily thing, but I just writing every day is is sometimes not doable for me, or I just I just don't get it done. I don't make the time when I really should. Way early for years. So I've been writing at like starting at like 5 30 or 6 in the morning before I start my day doing anything else. So I just got into that habit because no one else is up. And like my wife gets up around that time, but she's not gonna be like, stop working. So she supports that.

SPEAKER_00 24:12

Yeah, that's always hard sometimes balancing writing and and reading. Because like for me, yeah, it write to write, I have to read. So together, that's a minimum two hours a day. That's like a part-time job.

unknown 24:25

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 24:26

That's that's a decent shift at Starbucks every day. And you've already got a full-time job and you've got a family. I I find at times it's like it's not I don't find it difficult. I don't have time to think about it being difficult or not, but sometimes I step back and I'm like, whoa. Like this is why other people don't do it.

SPEAKER_01 24:47

Yeah, because it's like it's it's a very intensive task, even though you're only doing like two hours a day, it's it's a lot of work in that in that two hours. So as for reading, we I listen to audiobooks in on drives and walks, and then sometimes I'll spend my lunch reading, and then usually I unwind by reading. So we're trying to read a lot more, but it's like you said, it's getting a lot more difficult. Like last year and the year before, I was reading like 50-70 books a year, but I don't think I've read a single book yet this year. I'm I'm almost exclusively audiobook right now. I just I listen to it on my drive and then when I do chores around the house. Uh I tried to read at night and then I would always do it in the bed and read until I get tired, and then it's like I started to train myself that laying in bed reading means sleep. So I I was kind of training myself to sleep while reading, and so I had to break that habit. And now I just trying to find a different times during the day to read. It's been tough.

SPEAKER_00 25:52

Yeah, I mean, me personally, I find like reading and writing uh I started out set time today, especially for writing. And as my especially now I've got a family, I find that these set times, it's like they just move around. Yeah. And every day I've got to think about I'm gonna write here at this time or I'm gonna read at this time, and but I have to get it done. I can't not do these things, you know, all these things, you know.

SPEAKER_01 26:17

Yeah, but that's the thing. I was fortunate because when I started writing more seriously, my sons were in high school. So that it was a lot less demanding family-wise. So yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:27

I was gonna say as well, like you mentioned about writing 50 words a day. It's something I I mean I don't do, but I always recommend to like when I see writers, especially online saying that they stop writing or they're struggling with writers' block, I just say, right, just minimize your goals. Like Hemingway mentioned he could sometimes he would struggle to write a paragraph a day. And he doesn't mean one of his two-page paragraphs, he means four or five sentence paragraphs. That's what he means. And it's like, and he was doing that all day. And it's like just just shrink your goals. And I think Alan said, you you will always go beyond them, but you take the weight off your shoulders a bit. I do that sometimes, like if I'm tired and I realize, oh, it's just a bit of a grind. And I say, hey, you don't have to write loads, just write a little bit. And I always go way beyond it, to be honest.

SPEAKER_01 27:18

Yeah, yeah, because you're not gonna stop. I read like a friend of mine and I, we basically talk about the book Atomic Habits so much that everyone's sick of hearing about it. And in that book, he talks about like to build the habit to go to the gym. Sometimes you just put your shoes on, and then by the time like some days you'll put your shoes on, just drive to the gym. And then you're supposed to drive home, but no one's gonna drive home after they drive to the gym. So like it it it's the same thing, just writing 50 words is basically sitting in front of the computer.

SPEAKER_00 27:50

Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. Do you guys write on computers or do you write in like notebooks or something?

SPEAKER_01 27:55

Uh computers, yeah. Just we we write in Scrivener now, but I originally we were writing on like Word and OpenOffice, which is the the open source version of Word.

SPEAKER_00 28:08

Yeah, I thought you I still do Word.

SPEAKER_01 28:11

I I have a laptop I write in, but I don't like the keyboard on it, so I bought myself a nicer like a wireless keyboard with those with the keys that feel really nice, the little thalky sound when you type. And that has actually made a difference in how often I write and how long I write, just the idea that I'm enjoying hitting the keys. Because I used to just dread the way the laptop keyboard was set up. And um it's then I realized one day it was like it's the keys. I just don't like hitting these keys. You were also dictating earlier, too. I tried that too. I used uh voice dictation, but I don't know, something happened where I when I'm writing the words, I can come up with what I want to say, but when I'm saying it, I feel like I d I I just have like a mental block when I'm trying to get the story words down. I can have a conversation with people, but when I'm trying to dictate what I want it to be in a story, it's just I I just freeze. It's like a different skill.

SPEAKER_00 29:07

Yeah, I think I think writing I'm I I think I'm echoing Stephen King here. It it's crafting. It it's when you're writing on the page, you're thinking about maybe how the words look, sound, what's happening with the story, you know, what are you trying to achieve. When you're talking, you're just talking. I need to see the words on the page as I'm as I'm talking to you now. I need to see it on the page.

SPEAKER_01 29:30

Yeah, because you can just look up real quick and see if you said something already. I also I get obsessed with uh the word selection and the word order when I'm crafting sentences, and it's hard to do when you're talking it, talking it out.

SPEAKER_00 29:42

Yeah, but yeah, just out of interest, you know you obviously you guys you write your books and stuff. How how would you go about getting like like book designs? Do you do any kind of editing? I mean, do you pay any kind of editors? Again, book designs, who does that? How do you organize that?

SPEAKER_01 29:58

We do the layouts and cover design, and currently we're doing all of our own editing, but we were I still highly recommend hiring at least a copy editor. But everything else we're doing on our own. Because we're we're lucky. We're we have a graphic arts and illustration background, so yeah, we do our own covers. Yeah. But as far as editing goes, some of our early books were getting some comments, and I think a lot of indie publishers just get it in general, where they say, Oh, this book needs an editor, or you know, there's mistakes. Yeah, we had mistakes in there, but then there were times when we were hiring editors and we got more complaints on those books that this book needs an editor. There's it was like, you know what, if we're just gonna get the same amount of grief and we could do it ourselves, and we're, you know, we've we've that's happening a lot less now. We're we're improving. I think we're improving as self-editors. Don't don't do what we do though. I I don't know how to it's it feels irresponsible to say you don't need an editor. I mean, we all do need editors. Hire professionals if you can. But we we do have uh graphic arts backgrounds, so we we create our own covered and the yeah, layouts for print editions, we do all that as well.

SPEAKER_00 31:08

So yeah, when it comes to editing, I mean I'll be honest, I I edit and re-edit, and I think I think you can do that, and I I do I I encourage other writers to do that, but I take your point as well. Yeah. It's like a bit of I I I think if you're gonna self-edit your books, you have to really edit them and you have to be prepared. I think you've said this, you have to be prepared to go back. You have to send out your books to many people, and it could be as I'm I'm editing my Jack's Wrong series again, 10 years after the first book was written. And I'm not finding issues like typos, I'm finding like, oh, I've got a lot of run-on sentences here, and I just gotta correct that.

SPEAKER_01 31:50

Yes, yes. Well, we're what we're trying not to do is we're not trying to do that George Lucas route where we make major changes when we edit older books. Yeah, we're not making special editions, it's just like you said, cleaning up the flow of of the sentences and stuff. Which is it's hard to resist sometimes when you're looking at some of your older writing, you're like, I can do this better, but like it the the book already has good reviews, let's just leave it alone and move on. That's a good point though, actually.

SPEAKER_00 32:18

Yeah, I think I was trying to be Hemingway with some of my sentences. Yeah, yeah. You know when you you read like The Old Man in the Sea and he has a paragraph, like a long paragraph that's one sentence, and he and he does it so well.

SPEAKER_01 32:34

Yeah, and I was I think I'm in it. You're following along. Yeah, so you don't get lost when he does it.

SPEAKER_00 32:42

Yeah. Yeah, I know it's interesting. I was gonna say as well, like again to anyone else head there, I do think if you edit your own work, you do get better at writing, though. There is this major pain. I think so too. But yeah.

SPEAKER_01 32:54

I think uh we also sometimes Oh, go ahead. Uh I think we have kind of that little built-in advantage of since we're passing the work back and forth to each other, it's easier because it's easier to spot mistakes when you're reading someone else's work because you often look overlook your own mistakes. So uh this work constantly passing back and forth between us, I think that might help a little bit.

SPEAKER_00 33:15

Yeah. Definitely.

SPEAKER_01 33:16

I I I can imagine so.

SPEAKER_00 33:17

Yeah, I was gonna say as well, I think when you're editing your own work, it helps your craft. But I think sometimes the payoff is later as you write subsequent books. Yes, you'll start to get first drafts. You'll you'll have written the first draft and you get to the second draft and you'll notice, hey, I'm not making major changes here. Yeah. And it's just that that editing is feeding into your work so that when you're doing the first draft, you just your brain's thinking or better for a better way of saying it, to be honest.

SPEAKER_01 33:47

Yeah, like all the wiring, it's understanding, like your brain knows what you're trying to say, and then it gets on the page a lot easier. You don't have to do like three or four passes to to mold it. Like it's pretty close now, so yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_00 34:03

I was gonna ask you guys as well, how do you feel about like AI, whether it's AI in writing, or or artwork for the for for for you know publishing and writing? What do you think about that?

SPEAKER_01 34:14

I think I don't wanna I don't wanna get all angry here. I am of the opinion that if I see or know that you're using AI, I feel like you you're taking the shortcut. Like if you didn't want to actually write it, why are you expecting the readers to actually pick it up? Because it comes down to like you were saying, if you're writing draft after draft and editing, you're only going to get better. But if all you're doing is tweaking the flow and sentences of what generative AI is doing, then you're not really understanding how it got there. You're just kind of like tweaking stuff. And when it comes down to like your voice and your story, it's basically your voice is just a mix of every other author's stuff that a computer just handed to you. So as far as like editing, like I we use Grammarly, and I know it's got like generative AI tools in it. I don't use any of that stuff, and I hardly even take their the suggestions of Grammarly. I'm only looking for misspellings and and like yes, you know, because some of their suggestions look good, but it's like it it changes the the actual meaning of the sentence. So we still have to read everything though. So I don't mind AI as a tool to help finish the book, but I don't think it should be used in the creation of it. Because I feel like it's not you're not uh growing your strength and and skills. So yeah, I I like AI, the idea of AI as an assistant, where you know, where it doesn't really help with the process of creating any of it, but it helps keep you on task, or you know, it's uh uh for things like, hey, help me create a schedule for social media posting or things like that. You know, and but my main concern about AI is just the ethical, environmental, and economic concerns where you know how how did AI learn? It scraped a lot of data basically illegally from already created works. So there's a huge class action lawsuit against Anthropic for doing that, for stealing authors' published works. So it's just like it's already been proven that it's illegal. And then the ethics of it, you know, are I mean the that's the ethics of where they got the data from, then the environmental impact of all the data data centers being created, you know, how much land they take, how much power they use, how much water they use. And then there's also the economics of just when all this when AI gets into everything, and you just see all these mass layoff, just companies just laying people off because, hey, look, we don't need you anymore. We have the AI doing the work. So just as a greater in the greater scheme, I I don't like that part of AI at all. So just uh I guess we come down basically negatively against AI. I wish it would be a friendlier assistant to help people create. I wish it would let us do the fun parts instead of doing all the fun parts for us. Yeah. But we're also like coming from the art side as well, like you're seeing a lot of AI-generated covers as well, and it's frustrating to see that. And I'm like, I pour in 20, 30 hours to do just the artwork for the cover before we even do any type layout, and to see people just like cranking out this AI slop that you know the inside's probably the same, but those books are just flooding Amazon, so it's like we're not only competing against other like uh authors like our peers, but like just this flood of like low effort books that that it's it's not like they're probably gonna do better than everyone and make all this money, but it's making everyone else's book harder to find. And it's getting frustrating in that because I was on like Audible searching for books, and there's so many virtual voice books as well. And it's like those aren't what I want. And you just automatically assume if it's virtual voice, it was virtually written too. I understand the uh idea that that there's people that just they need a book cover done and they just can't afford it because it's expensive to get a really nice book cover. So and I I wish there was an easier answer. There is pre-generated covers. Okay, they're okay.$30 to$80. Pre-generated covers. You're right. But no, I wish I wish there was a it's it's it's a difficult answer, you know, a difficult topic to say, you know, how how you how I feel about people using AI generated cover are in general. No, I'm against it. But I understand why they would want to do it. I'm not gonna get in their face and yell at them. Yeah. I'm not gonna read their book. We don't want to be that guy. Because if we if we to be fair, if we wanted to get in people's faces and complain about stuff they're doing, they have so many things they can complain to us about what we're doing, like gold-plated MAC 10s and you know, our villains.

SPEAKER_00 38:54

Yeah, with AI, yeah, I I think for the writing process, I I don't think I say you'd be hard to find writers in favor of it, but I I've I've listened to podcasts.

SPEAKER_01 39:02

There are. Like Joanna Penn is is pro AI because she has like a hybrid approach and she loves AI. But I'm like, Joanna Penn, she's like, she writes like 10,000 words a day and she's talking about using AI. It's like why you don't even need to do that. Like you've already gotten this skill and talent. You're telling people to take a shortcut and they're not gonna be as good as you.

SPEAKER_00 39:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 39:24

I've read I've got to be a good thing.

SPEAKER_00 39:25

I don't mean to call anyone out, I'm sorry. No, it's okay. There's a podcast called Dave, you know, I don't know if you heard of David Perrell. David Perrell, David Perrell.

SPEAKER_01 39:34

No, uh no.

SPEAKER_00 39:34

It's like it's a big writing podcast. He interviews writers like sales, but like in a studio, it's really high budget. I I do enjoy like it it it depends on like a lot of podcasts, the guest it's really good if the guest is really good, you know. So if you get on someone like Lee Child, wow, it's fantastic. But then you you'll you'll sometimes get on, and I suppose he can't help it, he has to get people on that are like business writers. Like they write a book once every six years and they say, I'm a writer. I'm like, no, you're not. But they will they will typically come out and say, Yeah, I just I wrote a manuscript, it's 120,000 words, I gave it to you know chat GPT, and I said, Hey, drink this to 60,000. And they just do. And I'm like, Well, really? Yeah, like that aside from the ethical issue, I'm like, right, so you're not learning how to get it down to 60,000. Which is I get the idea that that's the hard part for real. And it's the time part, I get it. It it takes because that's what that would be their defense. Hey, it takes a lot of time. I'm like, yeah, I know, but it's also the fun part, in my opinion. Like this is the bit where you you get it's like let's go back to action movies. This is Rambo three, right? And he's climbing up the rock face. That's editing sometimes when you've got a manuscript that's too large, maybe even sometimes too short, and you've got to write you know new new things, new parts. But that's what you have to do, and like I said before, you do get better at writing. So if you take that shortcut, just to make let's be honest, a few quick books. In the end, I think it it it it damages your writing, not not to mention credibility, to be honest.

SPEAKER_01 41:17

Yeah, I'm just wondering like if an author has written complete books that they're very proud of, and they've also used AI to generate, or do they have the same amount of pride in that AI generated one? Because I feel like you don't you don't know what you would have gone through to get to that point. Because we're super proud of all the books we've written because we know how it got there. It's not it's not easy. It's a lot of arguing, but actually a lot less arguing now, but yeah. So we have this pride, like at you when you're in that final stretch and you're just putting all these pieces together and stuff starts clicking and starts connecting the rest of the book, and you're like, wow, that that this really came out much better than we're uh thinking it was gonna be originally. I mean, we always hope it's hoping for the best, but sometimes the book ends up better than what we were expecting, and it starts tying not just one book, but like the John Stone series. We were tying stuff into book like seven or eight to like all the way to book one, and that feels fantastic.

SPEAKER_00 42:17

I don't think AI's doing that. I don't I don't think AI will. I I was talking to somebody about this, and I said that when you write, you you might be thinking consciously, John Stone. John Stone goes into a room, does this. That's you thinking consciously. There's this subconscious self that's also there and is also maybe, you know, why do you choose that word and not another word? Sometimes you might I just felt it.

SPEAKER_01 42:41

Yeah, that gets into that idea. I'm sorry, yeah, that gets into that idea that that writers say sometimes their their characters tell them how they want the story to go rather than I feel the authors say they kind of lose control of the story because their characters have actually taken over. And a lot of that comes from just the subconscious idea, always you know your character so well. You think you're going in this direction, but like, no, you're you're right. You're right, character. You're right, you would do this, you know. I used to think authors were kind of whimsical or nuts when they said their characters were speaking for them. Until we have this one character, Ty Octane, who I'm just writing dialogue for it, and he and I'm just typing out stuff I would never say. I was like, how how do you how can you get away with that? And it's like that was him, basically him speaking is his voice. I get it now, I understand. Because it like you said, it comes from the subconscious, how you want this character to be and to act. So you're putting uh like every character, you're putting their voice in their not just their dialogue, but in the and the way they act as well.

SPEAKER_00 43:42

Yeah, I think AI, robots, tell them what you will, don't have I and I should won't have subconsciousness. Yeah, I think but listen, I I I think they would be able to knock out maybe a pretty good, maybe a Three three stars out of five, maybe even touching four, maybe three point eight out of five, like you know, popular fiction book with characters that we've all kind of read before. I think not original, but people might pick up at the airport. I think that's maybe possible at the top of the three.

SPEAKER_01 44:19

But I think it's just gonna be yeah, I think it's just gonna be standalone, so I don't know if they can continue like AI can continue a series and see like character growth or like the evolution of like the world. So I think it's just it's so easy to to just crank it out just for like a I don't want to say money grab because some people think they can't actually write, so they lean on AI when they can write, they just don't want to put in the effort. Yeah, true. Same with art, pick up a pencil, everyone. Pick up a pencil. Yeah, true, true.

SPEAKER_00 44:50

I mean, editing, like I was once I I remember I wrote a blog post, just a one-page or two-page blog post, and I was like, should I give it to ChatGPT for editing? And I was like, slippery slope. I was like slippery slope. I didn't, I didn't do it. Yeah, and I was I would I was reasonably tempted. I was like, no, because I I was worried that it would, and I would never, I would never, I wouldn't have given it to it and say change things. I would ask for recommendations.

SPEAKER_01 45:15

Right.

SPEAKER_00 45:16

But I was worried that it would, you've got to be careful because it because I use Microsoft Word, you you use Grammarly, you you know it makes suggestions that sometimes are completely wrong, but other times they're not completely wrong, and it's just a different way of thinking. And you yeah, I think as a writer, you have to be prepared to consider it, but also go, nah, like on my Microsoft Word, you know, like if there's a spelling mistake, it's red, and if it's grammar or word choice, it's it's blue.

SPEAKER_02 45:48

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 45:49

My the last part of my editing phase, I go through the book and look at all those. Yeah. And I probably fix maybe 50%, 75%, where yeah, I'm I'm being a bit too wordy, you know. But then the other 25%, I'm like, no, well, no, no, I'm not changing that.

SPEAKER_01 46:08

Yeah, a lot of times, a lot of times the suggested changes, the ones I completely ignore in grammarly are dialogue. Like that's how the character said it. Yes. Unless I type something wrong, that's fine. But like you're it's always asking me to change the way stuff is being said. And it's like they're not talking like stuffy professors. They're you know, they're just they're action movie thugs. They're not gonna They dudes. Yeah, they're just dudes, guys being dudes.

SPEAKER_00 46:35

So Yeah, it's I mean, dialogue's an interesting thing alone. I was talking to a guy last week, Hayden Croft, and he I think he made a good point about like like Tarantino, you know, in Tarantino's movies. People don't talk like Tarantino's characters in real life, but that doesn't mean don't enjoy it. You know, so what you know, so when people say you should have your characters speak like normal people, and I've said this before, but then that doesn't make any sense when you think about that as well. So, you know.

SPEAKER_01 47:07

They should just talk like themselves, and I don't mean like be yourself. I mean the character should already have or the world, if you're talking about Tarantino, their world, everyone's got that style of talking. Like I watched like two or three Tarantino movies uh like back to back, like multi multiple weeks in a row, and I started thinking about using the phrase in point of fact all the time because they say it a lot in those movies. And I was like, should I be saying that? I'm gonna call you out on it if if I see it. Nah. But like as far as like editing, learning to write slightly better from Grammarly, it's like I learned a lot more like the just the grammar rules that I either forgot or never knew, but at the same time, improving my writing comes more from reading other authors. Like my writing improved way more from reading Elmore Leonard books than it did from using Grammarly to edit anything.

SPEAKER_00 47:59

Oh yeah, that's a really good point. I I find just writing alone actually just helped improve my grammar so much. Yes. You know, being honest. And yeah, you write reading? Yeah. Yeah, read or writing. What kind of books do you guys read? We read or listen to or audio books, whatever.

SPEAKER_01 48:16

Yeah, I read way outside of what we normally write, and not because I don't want to write sci-fi. I listen to like sci-fi or read and listen to sci-fi fantasy, non-fiction, a lot of stuff that we don't normally write, is because we're trying to get into those spaces. Like we're trying to write more horror and sci-fi, but it's hard to get in there. But I listen to way more horror and sci-fi than I write. And I do listen to a lot of like thriller stuff, and it's not because we're just trying to like learn what everyone else is doing. It's just we just genuinely love action thriller stuff. Because I think our dad like got us hooked on a bunch of Tom Clancy. Yeah, Tom Clancy Stephen Hunter. Stephen Hunter, like the Bobby Swagger stuff. And it was I was reading those and Lord of the Rings at like the same time in like the early 2000s, 90s and early 2000s. It just car those are the kind of books I always read. I wanted to write those, but we're just in this this on this road for action thrillers. So my my current favorite genre, it's been this for years, is prepper fiction, like apocalypse stuff, where the world ends, but this guy has a bug out bag and he's ready. He knows how to live in a world without power and you know, he knows how to protect what's his. It's it's I get really into that idea, the whole prepper bug out of the way. Where some of his favorite parts is when the guy goes over his indent inventory. Yeah, that kind of stuff. Like, oh, he he has a lot of food and a lot of guns, and then something happens where he loses all his stuff, and like, oh no. And then when he gets the smallest things back, you just you celebrate the little wins. Yeah, I'm just obsessed with the prepper fiction stuff, even though we don't write anything like that. Soon. Soon. Soon.

SPEAKER_00 50:02

Yeah, I I I write that. I write like dystopian fiction, but it it's typically young adult dystopian or new adult dystopian fiction. And yeah, I do I read a lot of it. I you know, you mentioned Stephen King before. I loved his book, The Running Man. I read it twice. The Long Walk's another one. These are the best dystopian fictions out there. And most people would know the Hunger Games. I'm like, Running Man's way better than the Hunger Games. Way better than Human.

SPEAKER_01 50:28

I like having read both Running Man and Hunger Games, I agree, but I did enjoy the Hunger Games trilogy. I thought it was I understood why the movies were so popular after reading that.

SPEAKER_00 50:39

So yeah, I was very lukewarm. I I liked the first but, but I think I gave it three out of five stars. I I like I like the character Katniss. I really like Katniss. And I like the world, the world of the Hunger Games, that was it called the the districts, really good. Yeah, I really liked that. I just thought like elements of the story, like Katniss doesn't kill anyone that's good. I found just a bit obviously young adult, and and I think it needed to be worked on. And I was always thinking about like say the running man at the time, and I was like, yeah, you need to just you know, and and like the trilogy, I I didn't like how like I don't know if I'm gonna spoil anyone, but I don't want to give away the ending point.

SPEAKER_01 51:18

Oh yeah, I was about to think about it, but you're right.

SPEAKER_00 51:20

Yeah. The narrative progresses in a very linear way. It's very right, she's gonna fight against I forgot the name of the the the bad guy and the bad was it a district kind of it was the capital? I'm not gonna use District Nine, am I not? Yeah, fantastic movie, by the way. Yeah, yeah. And the the she's rising up against them, and that's it. Yeah, she just she wins every battle and then it's over. Yeah. And I was like, oh, the there wasn't a twist, there wasn't like something happened unexpectedly that you know things don't go as you planned, and and and the the other district get the upper hand. Because that's what happens in life, I I tend to find. Yeah, you know, uh and I I that that disappointed me a little bit. I was that's why I wasn't completely on board with it, really.

SPEAKER_01 52:08

Yeah, the trilogy absolutely leaned way too much into the actual hunger games, not the the system behind it. I get that, I get that. Yeah, yeah. It's like a video game in that regard. It's like, yay, we're doing the hunger games again. So you you mentioned earlier you said you you write dystopian fiction, but you generally don't read as much as you write of that particular genre.

SPEAKER_00 52:32

I I read around a lot. I read around I read like young adult young adult fiction. So I I sometimes I'll write young adult sci-fi, sometimes young adult fantasy, sometimes young adult dystopian. So I'm always trying to get and I I do think I need to read more young adult fiction generally, but I mean I do read it. Yeah, I think we should be reading more.

SPEAKER_01 52:53

Yeah, I I don't read the straight action thriller stuff as much, probably as much as I should. I when I do read it, it typically involves apocalypse themes. Like uh there's a zombie book called Arisen, a whole series, where it's just this military group. So it's like military action in a zombie apocalypse. And another one, what's that one called? The remaining the Lee Harden series? The Remaining. The Remaining. That one is it's just a very prepper fiction set in a zombie type apocalypse. We thought we beat up John Stone in our books. Oh man. That dude, he hates Lee Harden, his main character. I know he can hate him, but like that guy goes through so much.

SPEAKER_00 53:35

Like he gets I think as a writer, you're gonna lay it on thick, you gotta really push that main character and go, What are you made of? Are you really that tough? Because we're gonna put you in some situations, you know.

SPEAKER_01 53:49

Oh we yeah, we've done our fair share of that to John Stone.

SPEAKER_00 53:51

Yeah, I was gonna say, I think my favorite genres are fantasy and sci-fi. That that's what I try to read a lot of. And I was gonna say, Alan, as well. I think sometimes when you're writing, it it's I know how to write young adult. I think I do. But I want to get ideas in there. I'm trying to get ideas, and I feel like if I just read young adult fiction, you know, the the the young adult fiction tends to be pretty good at character, very good at character, good teenage characters. But I think sometimes world building, other times plot, maybe the ideas and the themes, maybe not as developed or as provocative, that's probably a better word, than what they should be. So in order to kind of dress that with my own work, I tend to read around and you you read something, you're like, oh man, this is so good. This gives me an idea, you know?

SPEAKER_01 54:40

Yeah, yeah, I get that. I I read a lot of fantasy and sci-fi when when we were younger. And I think actually that a lot of the sci-fi elements kind of make their way into our action thriller stuff because we like to put near future tech stuff like stuff that either is very early in development or doesn't quite exist yet in some of our books, even though we they're set as action movies. Because of that, Amazon categorizes the John Stone series as techno thrillers because there's lots of you know mechanical, like technical devices, hacking and computer-related things like that. And I think uh ours, the the interest that we had in sci-fi, especially uh Shadow Run books like that, yeah, have just kind of found their way into our writing, just like what you're saying. You know, you grab grab elements from other genres and put them into your work.

SPEAKER_00 55:25

I've listened to podcasts of some writers saying they read the Bible, and that's that inspires them. And these are not religious people either. Maybe it's the language, maybe it's the you know these old school ideas, epic tales. Um, I really do believe in reading around, I really do. Okay, guys, I think we can end it there. It's been an absolute pleasure talking to you both, and Ellen, I've got to say. I'm looking forward to reading. I'm gonna start with the first first of your books. Oh, nice. So I'm looking forward to that. Thank you. John Stone, can't wait. Thank you for having me. Yeah, no, you're perfectly welcome. It's been an absolute pleasure, absolute pleasure.

SPEAKER_01 56:01

Yeah, this is a lot of fun.

SPEAKER_00 56:04

Yeah, and I I think I learned a ton again as a writer as well. It's good to meet people like yourselves from like, you know, all over the world, but obviously, you know, America as well, and fantastic.

SPEAKER_01 56:14

So, yeah, if you have a Kindle Unlimited account, all of our books are there. You could just borrow and read them. Maybe I should, maybe I should, I don't, but I am actually if you read a lot, I would recommend it because there's just so many books available to read on Kindle Unlimited.

SPEAKER_00 56:30

Yeah, because I'm I'm reading more indie authors now. As a result of the podcast, I I when I have guests on, I uh or there's people in my groups that I try to check out their work and you know if I like it, you know, I I buy it and I read it, and you know, so I I read the sample first and and then go from there, really. And yeah, maybe Kindle Unlimited save me a ton of money, to be honest. Because I've already downloaded a load of books that you know traditionally published. Yeah, you should look into it. I would I'm gonna, yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_01 57:01

I don't I don't have any I don't get any affiliate income from that anyone. I'm just just uh if you're a fan of reading the lot of bang for your buck from uh unlimited account.

SPEAKER_00 57:09

I should have thought about it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So okay, guys, until until next time, if you want to come on again, more than welcome. Oh, absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 57:16

Definitely, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 57:17

Especially if you know you if you're doing a book launch or something, I think that might be kind of cool until you can you know expressly talk about that book, you know.

SPEAKER_01 57:24

We do have a book launch. Friend, you want to tell them about it? Yes. Uh John Stone Book 10, Violence of Actions, is coming out Monday in two days. We had the pre-order going for like three months to give Alan time to write it. It wasn't enough time for Alan to write it, so I had to finish it. So uh throw me under the bus. You said you write slow, not me. So yeah, that book comes out next next week on Monday. Is it Monday or Tuesday? Sorry. Monday. Or Tuesday, I don't know. Monday or Tuesday. Next week, it comes out next week. Next week. If you're there Monday and it's not ready yet, you could always pre-order it and get it the next day.

SPEAKER_00 58:02

Yeah, so everybody go out to John's John series, Alan and Brian Manning, all over Amazon. Can't miss it, to be honest.

SPEAKER_01 58:10

Yeah, if you go to Amazon.com and you type in the Manning Brothers, we show up above the other Manning brothers. Above Peyton and Eli Manning.

SPEAKER_00 58:21

That's that's fantastic. Okay, guys. Like I say, it's been a blast, it's been a pleasure. Until next time. Enjoy the rest of your weekend. Okay. Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 58:30

You too. Thanks a lot.

SPEAKER_00 58:31

Okay, see you later.

SPEAKER_01 58:32

See ya.

SPEAKER_00 58:33

See ya. Bye.