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Page Chewing
Page Chewing is where books, comics, and conversations collide. From in-depth chats with authors and artists to lively discussions with fellow readers, we explore the craft of storytelling, the worlds we love, and the ideas that stay with us long after the last page.
Page Chewing
Friday Conversation Ep 100 (Part 1/3) Celebrating 100 Episodes: Reflections on Podcasting, Writing, and Creative Exploration
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As we hit the 100-episode mark, it's time to pop the champagne and reminisce about the roller coaster ride of podcasting. My buddies Dan, Joe, and I, alongside some of the most charismatic voices to have graced our show, are getting together for a centennial saga that's as much about looking back as it is about peering into the future. We're peeling back the curtain on our personal evolution in the world of content creation, diving into Dan's unfiltered book critiques and Joe's literary foray with 'Wistful Ascending' and 'Grimdworf'.
This episode is a colorful mosaic of topics—a true smorgasbord for the curious mind. From weighing the ethical scales of enjoying creations by controversial figures like H.P. Lovecraft to dissecting the nuanced portrayals of heroes and villains in today's media, we've covered it all. We even take a moment to geek out over the emotional depths of "Berserk" and what it teaches us about the human spirit. The art of writing and self-publishing becomes a confessional booth as we share our own trials and tribulations, admitting that the journey to captivating storytelling and finding our tribe is fraught with as many challenges as there are rewards.
But it's not all serious business; humor finds its way into our conversation as we swap stories about the peculiarities of nicknames and the quirks of cultural differences. And let's not forget our candid discussion on the intricate dance between channeling creativity on YouTube and putting pen to paper. We close out this centenary episode with a nod to our fellow content creators, acknowledging the courage it takes to carve out a space in the ever-expanding universe of stories and the dynamics that keep our community thriving. Here's to another hundred episodes of explorations, laughter, and the unbreakable bond of friendship through the love of storytelling.
Guests:
Dan (The Black and Blue Collar Reader): https://www.youtube.com/@blacknbluecollarreader
JCM Berne: https://jcmberne.com/
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Co-Hosts:
Thomas J. Devens (author)
Intro and Outro Music by Michael R. Fletcher (2024-Current)
Hello friends, my name is Steve and welcome to the Friday Conversation, episode 100. We will be at the long recording today. We're going to do two hour blocks, so we'll wrap up every two hours and then later all of at least in two hour blocks and see if anybody shows up. We'll see. So far, we have Dan and Joe here. Dan, will you start us off?
Speaker 2:Yeah, my name is Dan, aka Hanukkah Harry. Actually, harry is my first name. I've gone by my middle name my entire life. So there you go. You're getting a whole story in my introduction. But my name is Dan. My channel's name is the Black and Blue Collar Reader and I read lots of. I'm going to be nice. This is your first couple seconds on the channel, so I'm not going to curse. I read a lot of stuff and I review a lot of shit and, yeah, check me out if you haven't already, go ahead, joe.
Speaker 3:I'm Joe JC M Byrne. I wrote Wristful Ascending, three other books in the Hybrid Helix Partial Function, and I have an ongoing weekly free magazine called Grindorf, of which two issues are currently out. That sounds like a lot, and if I'm at JCM Byrnecom Twitter and my Patreon is actually how I'm trying to organize the release of the magazine, because you can join with a free tier and get every link, so you don't have to give me money.
Speaker 3:But it's just a way for me to track who's actually getting it and so far we'll see. But that's me, I'm super excited to be here and congratulations, Steve, on 100.
Speaker 2:Yes, so that is a phenomenal achievement. It is A little wild.
Speaker 1:A little wild, that was really something.
Speaker 3:It was a year ago on this show where I told my favorite ever joke. Tell us again yes please Well, joe Carroll, who was supposed to be here, was talking about. We're talking about genres and happy endings and the romance genre. It's expected to have a happy ending and I say books are like a massage parlor. You don't always want to admit it, but everyone who's in there probably wants a happy ending. Oh yeah.
Speaker 2:I was originally admitted. I had no qualms telling you. I want a happy ending, Dan.
Speaker 3:We got the books going, but the books ended up with it. So that was unplanned. Joe just set me up perfectly, and I was well lubricated with tequila.
Speaker 2:So that always helps the humor rolls, doesn't it?
Speaker 3:It makes me I think I'm funnier when I'm drunk. I don't know what I actually am, joe.
Speaker 2:There's very few. I consider my humor in a top level tier. I think I got it. Joe, you're one of those guys I think got it. It just comes to you and I love it. At times you don't fucking apologize for it, and I don't think we should, unless we really stepped over a line or something.
Speaker 3:I try to be. There are places I won't go out loud, there are things I won't make fun of. I'll have thoughts and I'll be like, no, don't say that one, joe, but that's because I'm 50, something, right, you see? 20? Years ago 25 years ago. You don't say yeah.
Speaker 2:Very different. You're like maybe I shouldn't say it Right now. I'm almost 45. I'm telling you, if something's bothering me and it's a matter that I have an opinion on, I'll let you know it. And I think Joe definitely doesn't tiptoe, but he'll let you know if something's bothering him. I like that. I think that's real. That's just my opinion. Yeah.
Speaker 1:It is tough, right, because what you could say 10 years ago you just really can't say. Well, you can, but you're going to offend somebody.
Speaker 3:Expectations were different and it's appropriate. I'm sorry If you go back in time to someone in the 90s and go okay, you knew a trans person and you didn't ask someone their pronouns.
Speaker 3:That just wasn't a thing you did, I'm sorry. No one did that, it's just the culture, and maybe we all should have been. If you want to say we should have been doing that in the 90s, I'm not going to argue. Yes, I agree, but no one did and I still have trouble with it. I called another author him and then I didn't even realize. I went on his. I did it again. I went on their Twitter yesterday because someone else called them. They and I was like oh, mother, mother, can I knew this. This person presents his mail as a mail first name and wants to be called and I'm like I should have done better. They weren't mad at me. As far as I can tell, they never said a word. We're Twitter buddies. You know how that is right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, but you like to, I do not want to offend anybody. As much as I'd like to be funny and things like that and I am now interacting with a larger community than I used to, and I always want to be proper I never want to offend anyone. Listen, these are habits that are ingrained in us for centuries Him, her, you know. This is just. It's not going to be something that's very easy to just, you know correct.
Speaker 3:Just fix it right, it's not. It's not. We're not a computer. I can't just load a new app and all of a sudden I use pronouns the way I should. But I will say almost every trans person I've known and I'm like, oh my God, I'm so sorry. You almost always will be okay. We, you know they will get it Like you're. You're a pretty sincere effort. I've known very few people are going to be like still pissed yeah.
Speaker 3:If you say all right, I didn't mean to do that. My bad, and we get right Like I've never run into a trans person who was a jerk about it. So kudos, but, but I it's definitely one area where I'm like I need to fix this.
Speaker 7:Yes.
Speaker 3:I can't just be like all right, grandpa here's Joe, you know like racist grandpa here's Joe, yeah.
Speaker 2:And I do. I never want that, that, you know, to somebody. Tag me that way and you know that's not even where I'm, I'm even close to that. But you know these things are changing.
Speaker 3:You know, hang around with like 20 something year old women is so hard. Now I'm just like, okay, I can't be the creepy dude Like, yeah, I just can't, I can't, I don't want to be that guy. So because I kind of like I'm at like a writer thing and there's like a bunch of, like you know, young women there and I'm like, okay, I'm going to be like really extra careful here, because anyway, it's all good People are sensitive these days. And.
Speaker 2:I had to apologize to all the people because you know I'm generation X. I grew up with George Carlin, eddie Murphy and and who else? Who's my man? Richard Pryor, yeah.
Speaker 2:And like these guys step online constantly. And you know, and it was, it was a comedy thing as well, but they were addressing social issues as well. You know, george Carlin with religion, obviously, eddie Murphy, richard Pryor with race, they didn't care, you know they, they would say whatever was on their minds and they did not tiptoe and unfortunately, you know, I picked that up. But you know, we always try to at least better ourselves as as we grow, you know.
Speaker 1:Try to yeah, try to yeah, yeah and it's. It's tough now because you can say something just top of you know, just something just flows and you post it on social media somewhere and you know it's.
Speaker 2:Absolutely.
Speaker 1:Give you a stupid thing. You're saying like Joe's having some tequila and he says something silly and and then it's over. I got a couple of bankers on Twitter this month.
Speaker 3:I've become the drama. Now people ask him for Twitter drama. I'll start something.
Speaker 2:There's a lot of plotter drama though, isn't there? I mean, I, I didn't go, so I've never had Twitter. I did Facebook and then I got booktube and I was like you know, all my Facebook friends are people I grew up with. None of them are huge readers. So I created my Twitter account and I was just like, maybe I'll just get all my writer and reader friends in this area which is good, because there's really not that much drama, but that there also is, and you just want to be like let's just let it go, you know. You know the main thing is you know this person did a disgusting thing and you know we have people that can. You know that will continue to to bring it up and talk about it, but it's, you know, it's a decent space, at least in the in the writing and the reading community, from what I found out.
Speaker 3:So a substantial number of writers will remain apolitical on Twitter. Not all but I have not read into too many indie writers who are like posting much about, because then that's my thing, and that's my thing about my Facebook page is I will post ball. That's my Facebook page, so I will not friend request anyone in the book community on Facebook. I'm like, if you want to friend me?
Speaker 3:you can, but that's at your own risk, because I may say something about an election and if you don't like it, I understand. But then you can different you on Facebook. But Twitter is a very apolitical space and booktube is a reasonably apolitical space for almost everyone, almost to your point.
Speaker 2:I can confirm that for Joe. I did send him a Facebook friend request and he was like fuck this guy. He did not respond back. I am gonna you know what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna go old school, I'm gonna poke that fucker.
Speaker 3:I just don't send any because I'm like well, if you're a positive person on the other political spectrum for me, we don't. You don't want to be my Facebook friend. It's just going to piss you off. That's all I'm saying to everybody.
Speaker 2:That's the you know, when we get into politics, there is nothing that will turn me off more, even with writers, and yeah, it's a, especially in America, after these last five years. Man, just these last five years, has affected me just because I thought I knew people and it turns out I don't. That's just my opinion, but yeah, you really, especially if you're an indie author like you, better not say nothing on social media, because that is how you grow. You know to get, at least from what I see. You know these authors. They start getting out there and you know one person will get there and it'll, it'll, it'll start. The snowball will start getting bigger and there's nothing you know, unfortunately.
Speaker 2:You know I heard about obviously there's nobody that I've run into like this, but you know Lovecraft, you know HG Lovecraft or HP Lovecraft. I didn't know about his backstory. And then you know I heard everybody talking about him and then I went and I listened to the book and I picked the wrong one. Because I picked Call of Cthulhu, because that was the name I've heard my whole life Cthulhu, right, and I get into it. Or I looked him up and, oh shit, he doesn't like me because of my religion. He's long gone guys. But that is. There's no way. I mean any ism. If you have any ism sexism, racism, and I've run across it that that's tattooed in my brain for good and I'm sorry. But then I read Call of Cthulhu and I started reading and boom, you know his views you could definitely see are on the page as well. But yeah, there's nothing that'll turn me off, more than if an author has an ism. You know, going on that that'll really bother me.
Speaker 2:And I started reading Call of Cthulhu. Yes, it kind of bled into the page and I want to try the mountains of madness, Is that what it's called? But I liked his writing. But it it was. It was bothering me because that is just how I was bred. You know, I was raised by a feminist hippie, a Jewish feminist hippie, who you know pounded equality into me my whole life. I have a photo of my great grandmother I told Joe this the other day. I have a photo of my great grandmother being arrested for opening her Jewish bakery on a Saturday. So that's just like it is ingrained in me and it is something that that I can't let go sometimes and I would love to. I'm going to try again with HP, lovecraft, but it is something that will really resonate with me and your words, unfortunately, may not even matter to me.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think they just renamed some trophy. The World Fantasy Award was the Lovecraft. Hmm. Yeah, they changed the name. Oh, that was 2015. Okay, I knew it was something like that. I'm like I'm trying to remember it. I'm like I've got a freaking computer. I can Google this in five seconds and I did. But yeah, they changed it because he was.
Speaker 5:he was even the funny thing about Lovecraft is like he wasn't just racist.
Speaker 3:Everyone in his, every white person in his era was pretty racist by our standards, Right. Some people might have been like well, black people deserve equal opportunities, but they're not going to make as much of them as white people would, but they still deserve them, like that was the best you were going to get.
Speaker 3:But he was even racist by like contemporary standards, which is right, so I'm like all right, you know, I'm not going to. I'm not going to criticize anyone for reading Lovecraft or liking. Lovecraft, I don't I haven't read his stuff in a long time, but but there's a very tricky like like thorny like little nest of questions around that right, like you know.
Speaker 3:do you do? You? Are you going to? Are you going to? Are you going to? You know, shun the author for for having these views? Are you going to not read their stuff? Are you going to read their stuff but take it into? You know, like maybe, look, look a little bit down on it because of what they say outside the work. You know it's all very tricky. I don't have answers, I just have questions.
Speaker 1:You kind of feel like some authors get a pass though right, it's kind of like Lovecraft got a pass for a long time. It wasn't exactly a secret, so I wonder why that is Like, why did he get a pass when other authors were shunned, right or wrong? But Lovecraft seems to have kind of people kind of ignore that Like yeah, he was the Nazi, that's okay, he's Lovecraft. It's kind of weird, I don't know.
Speaker 2:Has any any of you guys read Weaveworld by Clyde Barker? I read Clyde Barker.
Speaker 3:I can't remember if I read that I went through like a phase or I read a bunch of Clyde Barker.
Speaker 2:Oh, I think he's great. At least I'm on damnation game and it's it's up my alley. But yeah, every time there's a character in Weaveworld called Shadwell and I I like to picture faces in my head and I don't know why his face was that Lovecraft black and white photo and it was just perfect. It was so the whole time. Lovecraft's face is Shadwell for me because he is a villain in the, in the story, and it just works so well. You know he was English. I don't know, I don't even know if Lovecraft was English, to be completely honest, but you know he just his face really matched the villain Shadwell in Weaveworld and if you guys haven't read Weaveworld, I highly suggest doing so, damn it, lovecraft was American.
Speaker 5:Yeah, lovecraft. Yeah, you know, either I just looked it up.
Speaker 3:Good Thank you for making me feel a little bit better.
Speaker 2:I appreciate that.
Speaker 3:No, no, I had no idea. I was wondering myself.
Speaker 1:Oh, it looks like they're actually producing a Weaveworld TV series for the bed.
Speaker 2:Oh, I think that might work On.
Speaker 1:CW. Oh, never mind, this is from 2015. Sorry.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, okay, I said it worked out.
Speaker 3:I like the CWDC shows like the Flash Green Arrow, at least early seasons. Some of that was good stuff.
Speaker 1:The first couple of seasons of Arrow were okay and then it got a little weird Competitive yeah.
Speaker 3:I hate the superhero trope where the all of the villains are just people getting revenge on the heroes. So like all the things that threaten the city are indirectly caused by the heroes themselves. Like they get into that a lot in the Flash and in Arrow or just like every season. It's like the city's in peril because someone wants to blow it up, because they're pissed at the green arrow, and I'm like you know, if you guys were in the air.
Speaker 3:all these people would be a lot safer, and to me that's the content of what a superhero should be. It happens in uh suit my man of steel like the you know, he. Basically they come to the plant, to earth because of, because of.
Speaker 1:Superman, you know so and they made everyone into a hero. Everyone well, every one was a hero. Eventually, everyone has some kind of superpower. It's like when everyone has it it's not as. It's like they're all superheroes and then they shouldn't be, then they're just goofy, like these goofy heroes that nobody gets a shit about. Like I just have the flash and then I have his team and that's good enough. Like yeah yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:I like the flash.
Speaker 2:I've been really disappointed in TV lately. Um, have you guys watched, uh, blue Eye Samurai?
Speaker 3:I loved the Netflix.
Speaker 2:Oh, it was so good, so good it it's the only thing, only TV show this year. You know, one piece is not bad. I'm watching that. I didn't read the manga, um, but um, yeah, blue Eye Samurai is. It is exceptional. Go ahead, jeff. What do you got? Agree?
Speaker 3:100% one piece I really like, but it's definitely uh, it's definitely a shonen story, right, it's like it's it's like got got like a very like four younger audience, like a YA type of, but it's really good for that. Like the main character is like, I don't want to say one dimensional, but a little bit like every like. Everyone's a little like inflated, everyone's a little larger than life and their personalities none of no, none of the characters are realistic.
Speaker 2:They're all bigger, right yeah, they're telling this line between absurdity, you know, and, and there's a fine line there, and I think, um, one piece live action show is doing a good job of not going overboard, because for someone adult which these are some adult themes going on within this, you know, um, for an adult, nothing will turn me off more than than going overboard on absurdity, um, and I think with the show they're telling the line very well with it but they're going there, right, they're in that, they're definitely.
Speaker 3:It's definitely not like okay it's not gritty realistic right everything is on the in that direction. It's not too far. I agree with you, and I thought they did a really good job with the show and they really captured the spirit of the manga. And it's not, it's not a scene for senior production, but it is this it is the feeling of the, of the, of the.
Speaker 2:I would say the actor that is playing Luffy is exceptional. I mean, that guy is killing his role more than anyone else on that screen and they, whoever cast this person, should win an award because, honestly, luffy is my favorite character and I really did not think he would be that for me. And, um, I went in completely blind. Uh, for whoever doesn't know what Luffy's superpower is, please close your ears. This man stretched for the first time and I was like what the fuck is happening? I thought that was awesome and I, because I was getting surprised you know, there are some people who know what's going on and this is a pirate world I went in completely blind and I was actually satisfied with the outcome.
Speaker 2:I am on episode six or seven right now. I got my wife to watch it. Are you kidding my wife? Any absurdity? She's like this sucks. And she's like this is kind of funny. Um, I can rock with this.
Speaker 2:Last night I'm reading um, something wicked, this way comes all right. And oh, my god, don't, don't get me started on that book. We don't have enough, goddamn time. Um, and I turned over to my wife and she's like dude, you want to watch one piece? She's like yeah, I, I was shocked. I was like all right, and like we put it on and uh, we're in episode six and it you know we're, we're taking it as it comes. We understand that it's an absurd world. It's um a magical world. Um, my interest is how these people are going to pull it off. Uh, because this is among this is not something easy to pull off. Your camera angles have to be exceptional and unfortunately, I think they're doing some of these younger actors a disservice by their camera angles. Um, because some of these young actors are not hitting it. Um, but if they got them in a different way, I think they might have done a little better. Um, but yeah, that the show as a whole. I was actually quite impressed with it that's really good.
Speaker 3:I watched you you hawker show this week the live action remake and I would recommend it if you were a diehard fan of the anime and nobody else, what was it?
Speaker 2:I'm sorry, I missed it you hawker show.
Speaker 7:So uh, you, uh it's from the guy who did Hunter Hunter, but he did it before.
Speaker 3:Uh, and it was one of the. It was an anime that was popular and making the rounds when Dragon it's before your time, but when Dragon Ball was first making the rounds and the anime community here in the US, it's another like tournament, fighting like high high and you know, high magic, martial art type story and if you love the anime you're gonna love the live action show. But if you didn't care about the anime, don't watch. It wasn't that good you.
Speaker 2:You said before my time, but I'm a, I'm a fist of the North Star fan, my man, isn't that like one of the first ones? Am I right or no?
Speaker 3:that's early, that's early, that's early that that's.
Speaker 2:That's like the beginning, right there.
Speaker 3:I thought you know I watched a whole bunch of those not too long ago and it's like, uh, it's so bad, it's so bad.
Speaker 2:This is the most when you first experienced it, when we were. Whatever age we were, then it was something new years.
Speaker 3:I always wanted to find a move where I could walk away and go.
Speaker 2:You're already dead and have a little timer 10 9, never learned it.
Speaker 3:I kept asking all my teachers when do I learn that technique?
Speaker 2:the uh like the one and kill bill huh at the end three steps three, that's it. Oh god, what a great, what a great freaking movie delayed death.
Speaker 3:Touch is so such a good literary uh move yeah, three steps.
Speaker 2:You have so much time to talk about those three. Second put good stuff.
Speaker 3:I haven't done one of those in any of my books. Now I'm now upset at myself. I've never put in a delayed death. Touch thing, I gotta.
Speaker 2:I want to give you my uh thought on the grim dwarf. Uh, uh thing I wanted to write, but I am not a writer, joe. But you had me. You're like, dude, go go submit it. That night my wife is like what have you been doing? I'm just over there talking to myself because I don't know why. I just sit there and I mumbled to myself like my story the whole time, as I'm thinking about what you know the grim dwarf and and my savage story I had put it in there and then, um, you know you don't lose the rights, you can use it for something else rights.
Speaker 2:Listen I, I know the anthology right.
Speaker 3:You can do whatever you want.
Speaker 2:I've never I've written a school note.
Speaker 3:That that is the extent of my writing experience uh, you know, with someone parks badly, right, you can yeah you know, though you know my past um relationships.
Speaker 2:They'll tell you I had a way with words, but uh, we won't get into that now, okay, because, I. I am definitely a married man and, uh, we won't talk about what a ladies man and what a swab talker. I was back in the day.
Speaker 3:I put all my swabs talking in the books that's, yeah, that's what I'm gonna.
Speaker 2:You know what I? I loved entering this community because at least it is making me think about I have a story in my head, uh, but for me, I want to go to school. I'd rather go back, um and learn, you know, maybe English 101, whatever it is. But I, you know, go back and learn the um you know, try to learn structure and character work, things like that watch sannerson's lectures on youtube.
Speaker 3:It's a really good start.
Speaker 2:I will do. You know what I'm gonna do that you know.
Speaker 3:You know I'm talking about the, the, the brand. Sannerson does the his course on writing genre fiction. He basically recorded it one or at least one year and just puts on, put it on youtube like every lecture front to back and I'm not always.
Speaker 2:It always comes up in my uh suggestion feed.
Speaker 3:I can't recommend those highly enough because they're very basic, but they and he's got a. Really I love the way he thinks about writing, because for sannerson it's never this is how to do it, it's always okay. If you do this, you gain x and you move. Why, like, if you're a p o v, you gain this but you lose this? If you have first person, you gain something, but you and he's always thinking about in terms of the trade off. So for the story you want to write, it's not one answer, but it's. If you do it in this p o v, if you do it in this tense, if you use this kind of start, send structure, you're going to gain this but lose that.
Speaker 1:You know the, the and and that's the way you have to think about writing.
Speaker 3:You can't think about the right way to do it. You can think of your right way, but, but you have to.
Speaker 3:You know there's no one answer, right there's lots of people love all kinds of different books, but the choices you make are gonna are gonna come with prices and they're gonna bring you so so. So you watch his stuff and it's it's, and he's thought about this a lot. He's thought about people who write differently than him and he's not just a guy who only thinks about how do I make the best brain in sannerson book clearly he has, but he's also thought a lot about how do other people write, how is it different? And I and he can talk to those people and make like meaningful senses. You know, so I love those lectures been a huge because I don't have time to go back to school. Well, when I started writing, I have a full-time job and kids and you know yeah stuff.
Speaker 3:I wasn't gonna go back to college like those is never on the on the table but I could watch those videos and the first like six seasons of writing excuses are really worth listening to. When sannerson was the host and um, dan dan wells and taylor I forgot taylor's first name the cartoonist who was on writing excuses.
Speaker 3:He was like the, their friend and like the. And then the third host thing I married rabbit a koal to host, co-host. Those first six or eight seasons of that podcast are amazing and they're short of like 15. And episodes these punch a topic um huge amount of value in that. Then it got a little repetitive and the later stuff isn't as good.
Speaker 3:But anyway, and it's free, like that's the thing. Like people like I know a lot of people like, well, I don't want to invest a ton of money in doing you know, and although every indie author I know it seems to be like deeply in the red, not every other, but a lot of us.
Speaker 2:So that's another side of it you know, what was really interesting that came up on a youtube commercial was that master class. Uh, I saw a writer you know, talking about their experience and what you know how they write. I caught one for free. I want to say it might have been, uh, atwood, um, but she just. It was so cool to hear her speak about writing, um, and then I was like, oh, I'm gonna go sign up.
Speaker 2:And they're like, oh, you need to pay money. I'm like, fuck you, master class, seriously like why'd you do that? Why don't you give me a clip of this writer telling amazing stories about what got her into writing and how she does this and that? And then, all of a sudden, not you, you need money. Bud, give me a credit card. Fuck out of here. Just let me give me her secrets. Damn it. You know, but you know I, they charge for everything these days. I had to buy fucking an extra McDonald's barbecue sauce the other day for 75 cents. They said 75 cents. I said, screw you, I'll go home and crack open the um, the raise, the raised barbecue sauce.
Speaker 1:That's good stuff 75 cents for barbecue sauce yeah, it was.
Speaker 2:It's fucking ridiculous. Maybe it was 35 cents I like to over exaggerate to make it funnier, but still 35. I bought 20 nuggies. Bro, did you just give me two sauces for 20 nuggies? Like, look at, look at my stomach.
Speaker 1:Obviously I like a lot of sauce and you know, I don't know that is harsh that's rough, that's rough it's not okay it is not it is not okay not okay so, joe, for for someone who who comes to you and says I really want to publish a book, um, how much money should I have ready to invest in a book? Get for a decent cover for a decent editor, top to bottom, what would you tell them? How much do they have in hand ready to spend to do that?
Speaker 3:if you want to be competitive okay, there's all different corners of the indie market. Part of the indie market that I know is what I call the spiff boat corner, or which is, like the people who enter spiff bow, the people who the booktubers talk about. If you look at, like, the top 10 lists, you have, like, um, the people who are spiff bow finalists and semi-finalists, their community all their own. They're hitting a certain market. They're typically not writing 10 books a year. Right, they're, they're, they're um it it's a corner and it's not the most looking of corner of the market. Right, the military sci-fi people who've released 10 books a year have never heard of spiff bow and they're making a lot more money. Right, that's a whole different deal and I don't know how their stuff works. But if you want to enter, like if you want a book, that you want to make a splash in the spiff bow world I say spiff bow just because it's like these are people who tend to enter that contest or there, or the judges, like the spiff bow judges, know who they are. Right, that's who we're, we're trying to hit up and that's the crowd I ended up in then almost by accident. I love those people.
Speaker 3:You might complain, um, if you want to make a splash in that market, I'm gonna say you're best off at eight grand up front. That does not count. Advertising, wow, two, two to three for a, for a cover that people will remember, which means it's like a philx or tease or a handful of others. You can do better right. Partial function had like a thousand dollar cover, uh, which people loved, but those philx or teases and people will pick up that book because of the cover and that's a cup, two or three, I don't know what he charges, but it's like two or three. And then for editing, that's another two grand.
Speaker 3:You can, you can, you can go higher, but that's assuming you're doing your own dev editing with your friends, and then you really want an audio book and it's got to be decent because a lot of the the whale read the jala of the, the influencers in the community, are whale readers but they read a lot and they do it with audio.
Speaker 3:So a lot of the big influencers if you want to get on their list and you're an unknown see, I'm not trying to, it's going to sound like I'm a shitty person. I'm not trying to brag, I'm saying like I can reach out to people who have booktube channels and say I've got a new book coming out and a lot of them will say, well, send it to me, I will read it soon because I have, they've read four books of minor radio, five books of minority, right, but I couldn't do that a year ago or a year and a half ago, right. So if you're new, you don't have that. You don't have people who answer your dm, um and audio will really help you jump the list because they're gonna have a certain number of books they listen to and a certain number of books they read physically or on kindle. You know, physically just needs either either on the other, the print and um, if you have audio, you're gonna jump lists.
Speaker 3:Audio got me into so it didn't make me any money but it got me on a ton of people's like booktubers, um, and reviewers and bookfluencers. I call them. You know the people, the people like, like Bo. Kelly.
Speaker 3:Bo Kelly doesn't actually have like a, like a, um, he doesn't have like a, uh uh, a YouTube channel.
Speaker 2:I know that channel?
Speaker 3:he doesn't. I think he reviews on like Goodreads but he doesn't have like a blog. But he has a discord yeah, but he, he's not even the sole owner of that discord. Right, I'm on that discord. I'm on there all the time, but it's not just his. He does a lot of the work.
Speaker 3:Yeah, but it's not just his yes, but here's the thing if Bo Kelly reads your book and likes it, he'll talk to a bunch of other people and some of those people do have platforms. So like he's, like the people, like that. So I don't know what the there's no one word for those people, but the people who know the people. How much do I depend on beta readers for dev editing a ton, a ton so I'll make an outline.
Speaker 3:I'll make an uh, um, um, a rough draft. My rough drafts are very clean now, so they're almost done when I finish it and then I'll send it to beta readers and they'll help me fix things, but it's almost always well, it's always always tone. I kind of really can't why this person did this in this scene. I'm like, okay, I need to add like one sentence where they go oh I, I know how to speak the bad guy, we just have to get that statue or whatever. Um, so the number changes I'll make after my beta readers are small, but that's a huge amount of it. I don't hire a um, I don't hire a dev editor. I trust myself and my beta readers between us to come up with, uh, with that stuff. I do hire a line editor and a proof reader, because that I do not trust any of us. And you learn that by hiring one. And then you go oh my god, there's a mistake on every page. After I read it 12 times, how did that?
Speaker 1:how, how is?
Speaker 3:that even possible and yet it is. So I, I'm a big believer in a line editor and a good proof reader between those to help you catch all your um mistakes.
Speaker 3:But I and I, I hired uh, I'm paying Sarah Charnow to help me do series level editing, a dev editing on my hybrid elix, because at book five I want to make sure I'm not introducing changes too quickly and at book five, I started going I'm not sure I can do this because there's literally no one else in the world who knows the story except for me and Sarah, who knows what I'm trying to like, get with it because there's a storyline, but it's like I have to dribble it because it's a series of stand-alongs. So I was like at some point after writing book four I was like I need help because I wanted ideas for book five. So I did. I am paying Sarah to help me with a very big picture view, so I was like please read the first four and then this is my rough plan for book five.
Speaker 3:And you tell me if I'm being stupid. Then also, she's just telling me I wasn't being stupid. We'll see if I can pull it off. It's always tricky with a series because you don't want to. You don't want to rewrite the first book over and over again. But, um, you know, if you change too much, then it's different and your readers who love book one are going to go. I don't like this anymore because you change too much.
Speaker 1:So you got to total line or just say screw them so that's gonna be tough, though, right to to hook somebody in your series and then want to take it, want to kind of make a take a turn and take it a slightly different direction.
Speaker 3:Do you worry about that, about losing fans of the series because you've changed very you yeah, but she started with one, with this guy who's like a retired, you know military dude who just wants to be left alone and live a quiet life. But I'm not going to write 25 books about guys who just wants to be left alone, live a quiet life. At some point he's going to say things there needs to be conflict.
Speaker 2:Yeah, things are.
Speaker 3:There needs to be a conflict, yeah, it's not just that, but the conflict can't always come to him. I can't do a monster of the week where every, every book, something comes to the station and he's got a. He's got to f it up to like save everybody, like. That to me doesn't ring true. I'm like at some point he's like why don't we live in a world?
Speaker 3:where I've had 10 straight books where our monsters come to f up all my friends. I've got to do something to change the global picture, because that's the guy he is, so he's going to have to start being proactive and start gathering resources and taking a proactive approach to this stuff, like this scenario is creating problems again after 10 books or five books, or whatever it's like.
Speaker 3:I need to fix the situation. So I mean, it's still the same guy. It's just the guy who has gone from having sort of given up in the face of this overwhelming, you know sort of difficult situation, saying I'm going to change the situation, I'm not just going to run, I'm going to stick my heels in and go for it, and that's a switch.
Speaker 3:You know there are people who call Wisfil sending a slice of life book and I'm like I'm not going to keep up slice of life life for for 20 books, like, like that doesn't. That doesn't appeal to me. I might sell better like like that's the thing.
Speaker 3:Right, I will Wisfil is sending in book book two, I could have had the same set of characters and the same stuff happening in the same place and just something else comes to the station and he has to deal with it. I could have made the second book that book, and I didn't. Instead, I took him away from all the friends. Now, the people everyone love, put him on earth so he could explore a different corner of the setting. And you know was that a risk.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it was a risk. A lot of people didn't like that. But you know the trick is, if after 12 books are out, people go. Oh, that was great.
Speaker 5:You know you don't get an answer to whether that was worth it.
Speaker 3:Now you get it when you're on, like the Dresden files, and you're in book 17 and people like that thing he didn't book for was really great, right, that's, that's the goal.
Speaker 1:Wow, book 17.
Speaker 5:I mean I don't have a strict number for the hybrid.
Speaker 3:I've been telling people 25 books. I don't know if I'm going to have 25 books, but I have a storyline and I have an end and it's going to be a lot Like I'm not getting there and book eight. I can tell you that for sure because I know it has to happen between now and then and it's not going to fit. So, yeah, that was always the plan. It's crazy and that's that's. The other beautiful thing about indie publishing is you can't go to tour or orbit with that plan. They will not publish you. You know, like Jim Butcher could do it now Right. Like Stephen King could say, I want to publish a 20 book series. They'd be like, yes, sir, right, but like no new writer can go to like orbit and say I want to publish a 20 book series, they're going to. They're going to laugh. You know it will never happen. But India can do whatever the hell I want, as long as I keep paying cover artists and keep putting books on.
Speaker 3:Amazon.
Speaker 1:Yeah, one of the things that here is like a big pain in the ass is formatting. Is formatting difficult?
Speaker 3:If you have a picture book, then yes. So if anyone wants to write a book, my books are just text Right. And then if you get a, and then you got to do two things. One is you've got to go to use software, you got to pay. There's two that are popular. One is called Atticus. It's web based. Anyone can use it. One is called Bellon, which I believe is Mac only. They're both un-published, I think. At least, I'm not sure about Bellon. Atticus is a one time fee. It's like 150 bucks. Super easy to use. You write your stuff up, make it a word document, imported and all the formatting is ridiculously easy. And then you need to talk to someone about your, your, your basics, cause if you're someone like me, I don't know what font size is legible.
Speaker 3:And most of these programs. Don't tell you look, just use. You know this is a, this is a, this is a, this is a, this is a, this is a. Look, just use. You know this font, use like 1.4, use this line spacing, you know 11 point, and it's going to look good Like they won't give you that Right. So you've got to find someone who will tell you start with this. And then, if you don't like it, it just did a little bit up, up or down, and then you can print stuff out in a PDF and you actually put it a hundred percent on your computer screen and you hold an actual book up next to it and you squint real hard and can I read this on my screen? Cause you don't have to actually print the book, and I spent quite a bit of time figuring that out the first time, but it wants you to figure it out. It's really easy. Like I use all the same settings.
Speaker 1:So, um, uh but you have to use that kind of stuff you try to use it.
Speaker 3:If you try to save the money and do it from a word file, it's a lot of hours of like putting in page breaks and getting your chapter titles to look right before to look good on Kindle. I mean not, not, not, I mean like look good in print. Hmm. Use a software Atticus or Valom. Both are very popular, they're both very easy, and I'm not a graphic designer, I mean, I definitely hired someone to do my covers. Yeah.
Speaker 3:Right, it was like I wasn't going to even try. I don't mean to do it. Do it on their own and they're good at it. That's great, but I wasn't going to spend. I don't know how many hours it would take to make a serviceable cover. I'm trying to be a better writer, but I'm not trying to learn art, you know when did the idea of hybrid helix and Rohan come to you? There you go.
Speaker 2:Oh, invincible, okay, Okay. So you read that and all of a sudden a just story started blossoming in your head, or? So, I'm a.
Speaker 3:I'm a. I write out of spite, Okay.
Speaker 3:That's what motivates me, um, so I'll read something. I'm like this is really cool. So there's something that they did that's like in my. That doesn't work for me. It's like in my opinion, a mistake, even if it stays not the right word. It doesn't work for me Like there's something missing and I go it would be better if that's how I write all my stories. So there's a particular plot twist in invincible towards the end. So I don't want to tell people what it was because I'm ruining the storyline, which hopefully people are reading. The particular tough plot twist that annoyed me because I felt like there was this way of gaining power that someone else should have used earlier on. You know, whatever game.
Speaker 2:It's, it's. Sorry.
Speaker 2:Hey guys, I got to, uh, I got to go, um, I got to get back to work. Um, I really appreciate you having me on Steve Joe, always a pleasure. I hope we get, uh, we get together again. Guys, go check out Joe's books.
Speaker 2:Man, um, joe actually reached out to me on my channel. He took a risk because he saw somebody that probably doesn't what might not, might not like what he wrote and what he writes. He reached out to me and he's like listen, I want to get your view on this because you're kind of the guy that I think it might not land with and I want to see what you think. And, uh, you see, you know, he, he, he reached out to me, he sent it and I got on it and good thing he had an audio because I, I kind of I'm getting into immersive reading now and, man, what I hate to keep saying fun, uh, because it was definitely, it was definitely that, but it, it, there's, there's deeper things going on. I loved his character work I, you know, and I'm enjoying the story. And, uh, if you're on a diet, don't read that book, okay, because his, his food descriptions are excellent.
Speaker 2:Say hi, wife, hi, this is my wife Kelly. All right, I'm going to get her to read your books too. We'll see what she thinks. Um, but uh, I got to get back to work. Gentlemen, thanks for having me. Yeah, steve, congrats on uh 100, uh episodes. You were one of the first uh booktube channels to reach out to me and ask me to be on your show. Uh, I will always remember that and I do appreciate it, man. Thank you.
Speaker 1:Well, we'll be here for another five hours, so if you want to pop back in, oh yeah, I might come back.
Speaker 2:We'll see. I only got two more hours of work. I'm going to beg them to let me out early. They're going to be like you didn't do work all day. You've been out all day, but anyway, uh, let me get going, guys. You, uh, you have a wonderful new year If we don't touch me before. Thank you, gentlemen, thank you.
Speaker 1:You too have a good one Dan.
Speaker 2:Bye guys.
Speaker 3:Yeah, take it easy Parmeet.
Speaker 1:it's her. Hey, parmeet there.
Speaker 8:Hello, can you hear me?
Speaker 1:You can. Glad you could hop on.
Speaker 8:Yes, I'm awake. So I was like and I was listening to the YouTube. I mean, I was listening to it on YouTube. So I was like might as well join you.
Speaker 1:Oh nice, we'll make it. Uh, we were just talking to Joe about publishing and, uh, all the pitfalls, but I was curious uh, joe, what Do you if someone's, if someone asks you do I need social media to sell books? And if I don't, then how do I find an audience? I guess is. Is social media necessary? Is it one of those things that you just have to do, or is it an option? Are there other ways to to find an audience without social media?
Speaker 3:All right, I'm going to. I'm going to. Okay, I started selling books when I started getting like booktube action Like I've had a number of book reviewers mention my books and that definitely pumped my sales up to where I was earning a certain amount every month. But I made a much bigger leap when I started running Amazon ads.
Speaker 3:Hmm, so, it's hard to say, um, you need a way for people to find your books. So I think if you had, if you had a book, you know, if you had a really good cover and pitch, that might be good enough with good clever ad work, you can have to know what you were doing. I don't know how you would learn what you were doing If you didn't already know what you were doing, right, like I mean, if you you know, like then, who are the people who are very successful?
Speaker 1:I think, yeah, I mean we'll have some kind of audience, right.
Speaker 3:Like that, and there's all different kinds of ways to do that, like, uh, like how did Larry Korea become, uh, become a big, uh, a big name, right? I think he was active in like the gun forums, like about like firearms stuff, like that was his, and so he had a whole bunch of people who knew him, from people who discussed guns cause he's a gun guy, which is not my thing I mean nothing but respect for gun people, right, like that's a hobby.
Speaker 3:I'd be into if I lived somewhere else. My guys don't live in an area conducive to shooting a lot, but I did as a kid I love gun.
Speaker 3:Anyway, point is he had a built-in audience, right, so he started writing books about people killing monsters with guns and they're like hey, larry wrote a book, so that was how he got his start, my understanding, and he needs something like that. I don't know if it has to be social media, you might be able to get away without it, but like, when I see the writers, who's the guy? I think we were talking about no Man's of the Sea. Yeah, I was.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I was named Pind somewhere, forget his name. But yeah, he kind of yeah didn't have much of a presence.
Speaker 3:I can't see that he's very active anywhere on social media that I've noticed. I don't know anything about, I think it's a guy, I'm not even sure about that, but the book's not getting a ton of traction and I think and maybe I don't know if they're running ads or not but you can see like that book was getting like some people who really like Wistful Ascending also really liked that book and around the same time both got reviewed by like Andrews Wistely Reeds, and then now that book didn't take off and I have to assume now if that person had a really good like ad campaign, that might have been good enough. But I think you would need like a really good cover, really good pitch and really good ad game. You could probably do without social media, but you need one of those Like either those things, because there's some books that just pitch well, you know, like in one sense everyone's like oh, that sounds great, like.
Speaker 3:I don't think Wistful Ascending is one of them, but like my favorite example is Gideon the Ninth. Oh yeah Right, Lesbian Necromancers in Space.
Speaker 3:Something about that. People just like, oh what, and they want to read it. You know, like that sells so many books that forward and it's also a great book, like if it was a crappy book it wouldn't have done well. But man, that pitch, that's cold. You know, that's just. I don't even know. That's what I tried to do with partial function. I had to make a really pitchable book, which so far hasn't worked, but that's okay.
Speaker 1:For well, I guess, for the investment in Amazon ads. Is there a return on your investment For the amount you spend? Is it worth it?
Speaker 3:I mean, I've never lost money on a day, or maybe once, wow. I've been running ads this whole year. I started January 1st 2023. And I've never had a losing day. I've had days where the bulk of my revenue was paid out in ad money, like maybe I made 10 bucks and I spent nine. You know I've had days like that, but I don't think I've lost money on a day, not that I've noticed.
Speaker 3:So if it's happened, it's been rare, but I definitely saw it, and it's weird. Like Amazon will tell you oh, you got this many clicks and had this many sales from your ads, but then your actual sales go up, your revenue goes up more than you would think. So something's wonky in there that I can't quite figure out. When I started spending a lot of money on ads, I started getting a lot more sales. I have not figured out how the whole thing works yet, like I've been playing with it all year and it's definitely not. I have not figured it out. The problem with ads, though, is you really can't. The general feeling is you can't really make money on ads with one book out, right, like you know in theory if someone you know if I run an ad and I get a sale.
Speaker 3:It could turn into four sales or five sales. That's where I make my money. I never made money on Wispel ascending. I'd charge 99 cents for the e-book. Yeah.
Speaker 3:But I made a lot of money on KU and a lot of money on since I started running Amazon ads and the ads seemed to spike a jump Like. My sales went up like a lot when I first started running ads and then it dropped steeply after the whole year. It spiked when I started running ads and then it all tailed off. So maybe a way to write new ads that everything stays high. I don't know what that is yet. Excuse me that was my experience.
Speaker 1:Part of me said where do you find books that you're, I guess, newer books? Where do you find them? Where do you find the most success finding what you enjoy?
Speaker 8:Asking people on Discord is probably on page chewing. I mean, it's probably the most successful. Other than that, usually read it. Oh.
Speaker 3:If you can be, if you're like, if you're like one of the people on our fantasy that people trust, you can make a career Right. So you ask about social media. Like you just know that person. You can make a writing career out of that. If you can get your book in, like Patrick Leo's TBR, you can make a career out of that. Wow.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's why I've had my books on here. I send books in Indonesia. They've been sitting on a shelf for a year now. I keep hoping come on, patrick, read them. Well, there's different kinds of reviewers, right. There's some where I want them to read them because I like the reviewer and there's some where I think the reviewer really liked my books and it's not the same set. Dan was the same, right, I sent him a book. I actually didn't think I was going to be Dan's favorite book. Yeah, based on his taste, like I just didn't think I was going to. I don't like Dan, I'm like what the?
Speaker 1:hell.
Speaker 3:I'll send him a book, all right. But then there's people where I think they really like like you know, they really like it. So it's a different thing. Like anyone who's really into like a lot of shonen manga, I'm like please read my book, cause I think you'll appreciate some of the stuff that's going on in there.
Speaker 1:Wow yeah. What subreddits do you find the most success on? Is it our fantasy, Parmita?
Speaker 8:Our fantasy is helpful, but like I run the search through Google and that gives me like older threads on our fantasy, I should clarify that even in fantasy and science fiction, 75 to 80% of the works that I read, the authors are dead.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's true.
Speaker 8:It's old, old stuff. Old old stuff. So our fantasy. Sometimes R suggests me a book is good. Sometimes it can go really off. R print SF is not bad for science fiction. R weird lit is good for weird fiction sometimes. And then classics I mostly get from R slash literature or R slash true lit, which are can be very snobby, but there are people who know what they're talking about. What was the one after R literature? Sorry, what was?
Speaker 3:the one after R literature.
Speaker 8:R slash true lit.
Speaker 3:True lit. Thank you, I missed that Sorry.
Speaker 8:So those are the good ones. R fantasy is the one I check almost daily because there will be even if it's not for recommendations, there will be some post and then if you scroll down, the one with the lowest down I mean lowest up, sorry sometimes will be a book which sounds interesting, and so then I look it up and try to read it. Like R fantasy is a good place, you just have to like, move, to like, not the what do I say? The top thread. And like you have to get over that thing that Stormlight, malazan and first law will get recommended no matter what your prompt is. So once you get over that, then the little bit more offbeat recommendations will come at the bottom.
Speaker 1:That's interesting. Overall, would you say that Reddit is generally a good place for readers to find recommendations.
Speaker 8:It has been when I did not have any community participation, like I did not have any discord or didn't know about booktube, reddit was the main place where I found recommendations like Jonathan Strange and Mr Noirell, or even the Books of Bebel. That was actually. That was, I think, a Reddit darling, because Mark Lawrence promoted it so much and Josiah Bancroft was active at that time. So, yeah, I think Reddit is actually most helpful. If you search through Google and if you have a bit of patience and you know keep tailoring the key words, reddit is actually most helpful for finding recommendations. Especially if you do prompts like, for example, today I was searching authors like Borges, like the main Google page will give you very, very dodgy recommendations. They'll push Gabriel Garcia Marquez and I'm like no, that's, that's not right. But in Reddit you'll have a bit more thoughtful, like I'm suggesting this book, not because it is like Borges, but it gives the same vibe as this story that Borges wrote, and those kind of thoughtful posts will be there by some posters.
Speaker 8:Yeah, I mean, I made up this statement where I say that one does not it's inspired by Nabokov, where I said that one does not read Tokian, one just rereads Tokian. And when I read Borges this year I finally finished the completed, the collected fictions and then I read the select non-fiction. I kind of feel the same way about him, like one does not read Borges, one just rereads Borges. He's just, he's. He's percolating slowly and very, very quietly with his little little thought experiments and he's not leaving my mind, which is a very, very beautiful feeling to have as a reader.
Speaker 3:Yeah, books that require some reflection to appreciate.
Speaker 8:Yeah, and he, he does not. I don't think there is at least I did not find any bombast in his language. It's all very, very direct language. Here's a thought experiment. Here's an interesting character sketch. So it's quite marvelous how much he can achieve with such brevity.
Speaker 1:Speaking of things you've been reading, it's a good time to bring it up or to ask you, but Parami, to start a reading Berserk over the holidays. I wanted to get your thoughts because Joe, and you know, reads with us and he's been reading for a long time. So what are your? What are your? Because I'm really surprised.
Speaker 8:I am as surprised as anyone else I'm. I was speaking to this person on discord and we were talking in DM and he mentioned Tokyo as an all-time favorite. And when someone mentioned the toys.
Speaker 1:Don't open it, joe. Don't open those toys.
Speaker 8:Those protect toys when someone, when someone says Tokyo is their all-time favorite, when they talk about not just a lot of the rings and the hobbit but the simerillian and the mythos, so immediately I'm interested. And then they said that along with Tokyo and and some other things that they mentioned, like Edgar Allen Poe and HP, lovecraft and Conan, I think, dune and Elric the bottom shelf they they shared their bookshelf and they were like it was full of the buzzer, the hardcover deluxe volume. And so I asked this person in DM I said that you see, you are espousing a philosophy which at least Tokyo, and it's all about doing good to the best that you can, at least in my reading of Tokyo. So how do you reconcile that with loving Berserk so much, which I have been told by multiple people is the grim, darkest of grim dark thing? And this person said that the people who are saying that it is grim dark have either not read Berserk or not understood it, because and he didn't say this in any sort of condescending manner he said that Berserk is noble dark, which means that while grim things happen throughout the story and it is terrifying at times, the sense of striving against that to do something, to fight, to resist is actually quite ennobling, and that's where he said this perception of noble dark games. So I mean, I must admit that of all the manga that I have ever heard about, the one that I have gravitated towards most is Berserk, and the only reason I never picked it up is because I didn't like first law, I didn't like Prince of Nothing, and people have pitched Berserk as like tougher version, like the darkest thing you can imagine.
Speaker 8:But anyway, I went in with an open mind and, honestly, volume one was all right. But even by the end of volume one I can tell I mean I hope it's not a spoiler, just to mention the main one of the main protagonist named Guts. He's not he, it's not grim dark, like if you read Elrik, then I have read Elrik. So it's not grim dark, he's. He's a deeply troubled soul but he's fighting against himself to not give in to those inner demons throughout, like even at the end of volume one. You can see that. So I was uh. By volume two I was hooked. But now the fun part is because I have zero self-control, I started on Christmas I think, and by middle of 27th December I was done wow.
Speaker 8:I could not put it down like this person. There was a people on this call who were like what are you doing? Who bear is parameda? And I was like you cannot put this down, like you cannot put this down, uh, beyond uh, I will say the storytelling and the character arcs, which are very nice, just the artwork it's um in.
Speaker 8:I used to watch this reality show in a very old season in which one person, one of the judges, he listened to the styles performance or an audition and he said I will speak in Hindi and then I will give you the translation. So he said so. He said a song is not one which will elicit the reaction wow, a song which is truly great is the one which was elicit the reaction like seeing this, my life is complete, or listening to this, my life is different. Now, so that is what Bursa elicited from me Murad's art in those panels, it like wow is almost, like you know, like a sort of fact. For somebody who's a maestro like you don't do that.
Speaker 8:I feel like that is almost disrespectful. I don't have the words to express how someone can accomplish this level of detail in some of the panels that he made. It's whether it's golden age, whether it's conviction arc, whether it's millennium falcon, and every time in, like you know, in the beginning of millennium falcon arc, I was feeling okay, it's going to, you know, slog a bit, he would immediately bring it back, not in the next volume, within the next few panels. So I just, uh, mesmerized, mesmerized wow, I'm surprised, he was like shocked.
Speaker 8:He was like is this far away?
Speaker 1:no, I'm surprised that you flew through it that fast. I guess it's. I guess when you compare you know like word counts and it's not that much. I mean, you can spend a lot of time on the on the art, but you don't really have to.
Speaker 8:I want to. I want to like when I reread it. One of the things I'm really looking forward to is, you know, spending my time with the panels and appreciating all the details, but here it was more like ah, what happens, oh, what happens, and uh, sorry, where are you in the read along, steve?
Speaker 8:and 30, 31 something like that I need to be careful. So, uh, I think you know this, that, uh, volume 41 was the last Miura was able to pen before his tragic demise. So when I reached the end of the panel I won't talk about the panel that you will see but then there was a note that you know. Thank you for all the messages and everything and thank you for being with all of us for all this while. And so I read that note and then I went back to the panel and then again went back to the note and I just choked up because it was beautiful. It was beautiful. I don't know how you will feel when you reach that point, but it is obviously. I don't think Miriam knew that he was going to, his life was going to be cut short so tragically. But you know, artists are prescient, I don't know. They have some vision.
Speaker 3:Uh, what a finale to go out on well, joe, you you recently read, you you read the rest right, so you're when we got to like 25 or so, I gave up and I reread the ending through through to the whatever's been published, I think. I think you can see it as being grimdark if you only read the first 18 volumes, like if you read it only through the eclipse. There aren't a lot of characters who are clearly heroic. Pretty much everyone is terrible, pretty much right the first 18 think about fuck.
Speaker 8:Like every time guts wants to give into the darkness, there's fuck, and fuck is delightful.
Speaker 3:I don't know if puck is enough to make it not grimdark, especially because in the first 18 volumes he's only in three of them he's only yeah, I mean, and I mean there's Casca, there's Judele I don't even know why I'm pronouncing this name and they all end up there's. Richard and they don't know, things don't work.
Speaker 8:Yeah, okay, that's, that's kind of true, except they're also all hired killers yeah, I guess I mean this goes to the heart of the question none of them are what we would consider classically good characters.
Speaker 3:Right, none of them are acting to make the world a better place. They're hired mercenaries who are happy to go out and kill other people for money and they're good to their friends. But I would count any of them as morally gray at best. None of them are like I'm going to make the world a better place. They're all like I'm going to kill that guy so I can get gold in my pocket. They're nice to each other so we like them, but I wouldn't call them heroic. And guts is very much portrayed in a mixed way in those first 18 volumes and most we can say he's. He wants to kill the bad guys because he's angry at them, but it doesn't seem particularly concerned about protecting the innocent either in those first 18 volumes, like through the eclipse, but then after. That is when we start getting more legitimately heroic in the traditional sense, heroic characters who are trying to make things better.
Speaker 8:I don't want to spoil too much hmm, yeah, like I'm very aware of the fact that Steve is on this journey, and so I mean part of the magic is, uh, experiencing the journey on its own, but Steve knows shirky and even stupid.
Speaker 3:Isidro is a decent guy at his heart.
Speaker 8:I love it, so it's like awesome no, no, you don't like it oh my god, steve, you don't like isidro.
Speaker 3:We can't be friends oh no, no one on that call. You've got a different Steve and Varsha yeah, varsha too, and Dan, no one likes isidro why?
Speaker 8:what did he do? His lines are the best, like what was the best.
Speaker 1:I think. But I'm not a fan of of, really, of, like dark worlds like that, and then having kids, like having funny kids, is just I just put on my jars.
Speaker 8:Okay, fair enough yeah, for me, it was like a relief. It was like a relief and whether it's shirky, whether it's a lady farney, so many delightful characters like. I think that the moment when this sort of rough fellowship starts to uh how do I say come together, is where it becomes very beautiful. I don't know, like I didn't expect, where the way people talk about, but there's a lot of violence and there's a lot of sexual violence and there's a yes, there is a lot of that. But given that he has the graphic medium, he has a graphic art, the graphic novel medium, manga medium, and he does he choose, he, this is an artistic choice that he makes to not fade to black. Uh, I don't think it was, as I don't.
Speaker 8:I have read far, far worse things in fiction, especially under the label of science fiction and fantasy, where it has seemed totally gratuitous or porous to me. To the point I've been like help, why I? I didn't have that, why within me, yes, I will say the eclipse, one or two panels, but ultimately this is a male author who is like how many authors? I will say none. To date, none have managed to depict. It's not. I don't think it's possible and I'm including female authors in this to depict, uh, the true horror of sexual assault. I'm choosing not to fade to black within those parameters. It was did not make me want to throw up, which is usually what happens in a lot of Steve. Is like Steve, which is your favorite arc so far, if you don't mind me asking, um, it's the one after the golden age is pretty good.
Speaker 1:It's the one after the golden age. I forget the name.
Speaker 8:Yeah, same same conviction arc is mine. I mean, it was straight five stars all of them wow. I do not like. I know it's so funny. Every single person I've been like who's been seeing my goodreads ratings and stuff is just like what is happening. It hasn't nice.
Speaker 1:Uh, I will say I agree with you that I'm not a fan of first law and I don't think it's that dark at all. I don't think it's. I think on the darkness scale this like a three or four, I don't, I don't know, I don't think it's very dark at all. I think it's when you compare it to other darker books. I don't, even for my money, I don't. I mean, I don't really consider it even like a good entry to grim dark. I think it's fine, I think it's. I don't like, dislike it. But I don't think it's like the grim dark series to read, to have an idea for the, for the genre. I don't think it's a rep, I don't think it represents, but well, well, it depends.
Speaker 1:Everyone has a different definition of grim dark, but I don't think it's yeah, exactly you know it's hard to say, but for me I don't think it's really like a, a gateway drug to grim dark. Maybe I don't know but interesting.
Speaker 8:But personally for me, like whatever little limited I have read of grim dark, I avoid it a lot. Um the two with, by my personal definition of grim dark, the two series which are actually grim dark are. I mean, I've only read the first trilogy in full, so the two series are first law and prince of nothing like those are the two which I would say are truly grim dark what makes them grim, dark um, doesn't matter what the characters want to do or not do, essentially the world is nihilistic to the extreme.
Speaker 8:It doesn't matter what they do because ultimately it doesn't matter. I mean, that's what I got from the end of last argument of kings and okay, I'm at the. The prince of nothing, read along is still going on, so I'm not going to talk too much about that. But essentially, yes, it is that sense that nothing really matters and I don't think it's explained why. Enough for me personally.
Speaker 8:Like I accept this as a worldview which the author is trying to espouse, though it is completely at odds with mine. Like I'm totally in Tokyo, in Tokyo, in school of thought, where you do your best, even if you don't live, to see the result for the next generation, that kind of feeling. But um, even that, suppose as an interesting thought experiment. I, I can see the subversion where they are taking on certain aspects of the hero's journey or even personality, heroic personalities, and twisting them. But then what? Like that's the part that I didn't get from first law and I didn't get from prince of nothing. I appreciate the subversion, I, I think the subversion is clever, especially for first law. But then what? You have to do something after that.
Speaker 8:What is your proposed solution, given that the heroic trope or the heroic quest does not indeed work or is not feasible, and I think a song of ice and fire actually depends? It's a wound in our heart, but I think it might try to give us an answer, which is why I don't think a song of ice and fire is grim dark at all. I mean, it's not grim dark at all in in in like. It is a very dark world, it's deeply misogynistic and all those things, but it's it's not grim dark, it's not nihilistic, for me at least you thought there was hope in a song of ice and fire sure oh, I didn't see it, but I read it a long time ago.
Speaker 3:I like to. I identified with who was getting somewhere, who was making moves. They just got killed.
Speaker 8:I understand, yes me that's nihilistic.
Speaker 3:It's like, oh, you can try as hard as you want to be the hero, but you just end up with a sword in the eye and I'm like, well, after so many times of seeing this happen, I felt that was just as nihilistic as anything I'd ever read, having read it when they came out, no, that's totally fair, and the last 20 years of fantasy didn't exist when I read those books um so that's the context I'm working from. I read them as they were published um, that's I.
Speaker 8:I mean, I can totally uh, see your viewpoint and I think, like this is what Steve was saying, that we each have a very, very specific and almost, I would say, a very personalized definition of grim dark so, which is why our reading of the books and the way we categorize them is quite different. I love this comment.
Speaker 8:This is so true, uh, but uh there was hope that it actually someone might survive but, uh, alex, the the sad part is that one of my favorites, I have a very bad, I have a very strong suspicion she's not going to make it. That's Daenerys. I'm, I'm, I'm very, very like almost 80% sure that she's not going to make it. I don't know who, who are the ones who are going to survive. But, yeah, depends on why. Somebody's writing the series, I guess, but and we'll never know.
Speaker 8:I mean, this is why we are so frustrated, I guess, because we can't guess authorial intent. It's not possible to extrapolate. We could not extrapolate a storm of swords from a game of thrones and nobody could extrapolate, I'm guessing, feast and dance from storm of swords to the point where, when it came out after five years, people were like whoa, what is this? Because he, he doubled the POVs. I think he doubled the number of POVs and the plot progression slowed to quite a bit of a grand grinding halt. So the experience of someone who, like me, who read, who had the luxury of sort of reading them back to back and then rereading them back to back, might be a bit different from somebody who read them as they came out and naturally it's uh, yeah, I mean, it's the only way to sort of see this as if you have ever had times or the inclination to reread the books at some point and then you don't. But what is win? What is wins comes out.
Speaker 3:George R R Martin convinced me of something. He said I can make his first three.
Speaker 3:I read the first three and then I stopped and he's like oh wait, I don't like these and I realized he can convince me that he can make me care about a character and then he can ruthlessly kill them. And I said you are right, george, you can do this. I agree, I do not want this in my life, real life. Don't do this to me. I've had enough people I care about actually die, that I'm like I don't do this in fiction, I don't get catharsis from it, I just get upset. So I write books.
Speaker 3:I write books where if there's a kid that you like who's funny, I guarantee that kid will never be in danger in my books if there's like an innocent that you would care about right, they are going to be fine and I'll tell people out up front. I'm like I tell you what. You're going to read my book. I'm not going to tell you what's going to happen, but the hero's going to win and the kids will survive. They'll never be kidnapped by the bad guys and used as bait. It's not going to happen.
Speaker 6:There's no sexual violence in my world it doesn't exist, just doesn't for no reason by construct, by construct of the author, sorry, by construct of the author.
Speaker 3:Yeah, um, yeah just no, no, carry. No female warrior in character in my books has a history where she was raped as a teen and learned how to fight to get revenge on her attackers. That will never happen, right like I. Just I'm not making a part of my series, that's just the choice I made, right because I can do that absolutely absolutely.
Speaker 8:I wish there were more series out there, like because, uh, it's. It's one of the things which is so painful sometimes to read. You know this. As you said, this, this very casual sexual violence as a background throwaway plot point, and then it's a bit, it gets painful. Um, if you don't mind, mr, so should I call you mr burn, or is Joe? Okay, steve is laughing. Um, joe, I wanted to ask you. So what are some of the books or works that you keep returning to in your mind? Um, things which motivate you or inspire you? You mean other people's work, yeah, maybe foundational things that made you want to tell your own stories uh, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm a.
Speaker 3:There's, there's a. I take things from many places yes right. So there are many, many worlds that, uh, and not all of them are good right. Like some of some of that, my favorite series are things I read when I was young and when I've gone back to them. They're terrible but they're just poorly written and they're. They have deeply flawed but they excited.
Speaker 3:Some aspect of them excited part of my imagination mm-hmm at the lensman series by doc Smith, which is like what are the really foundational space opera and had characters who are over the top, uh, uh, uh, uh. You know, um uh, uh, you know, overpowered main characters who are flawless. We would call them Gary stews. You know I love those books, but I was, you know, I was 10 or 11 when I read them. Like if I'd read them for the first time at 40 I probably would have thought they were pretty bad.
Speaker 3:But you know, so I like a lot of stuff, lensman, I'm motivated hugely by, uh, south South Asian cinema, mm. Oh yeah, give me a, give me a good, uh, give me a good Hollywood movie. Uh, uh, tell the go films, especially, and inspired uh uh, my, my, my series, which is why I made my main character, uh, half Indian, although it doesn't really have any effect on the story except because it takes place on a space station. You know the inside of the galaxy, but his mom's, telegu, and you know when he goes to visit her, she says we're going to find you a wife now which is a very scary typical thing to say about like an Indian mom, but all my Indian friends are like no, no, keep that.
Speaker 3:That's accurate.
Speaker 8:Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 3:So it's a stereotype, but all the Indian people I know are like no, no, no, don't, don't, don't take that out Like that. You have to leave that in there, because that is what would happen.
Speaker 8:Yeah, that's really funny.
Speaker 3:Yeah. I watch a lot of. I watch a lot of of Bollywood and Hollywood movies, so but a lot of comics. Nice. A lot of Marvel and a lot of other stuff. Anyway, hey, susanna, hello.
Speaker 1:Glad you can make it.
Speaker 3:Is, ben of the weird, the name of the office you're in, or is it something else?
Speaker 4:The name of the channel, but yeah, it could be called then of the weird as well.
Speaker 3:Double use there. That's great.
Speaker 4:It's. It's technically it's a library, but it's filled with records and board games instead of books. So, yeah, yeah, nothing wrong with that Nothing wrong with that.
Speaker 1:Well, since you came in, will you give us an introduction? Hello, my name is Susan Imaginario.
Speaker 4:I'm a writer and I run the YouTube channel channel called then of the weird, and I hang around the page showing forums a lot. That's good, you can make it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'll do half and half, I'll stay.
Speaker 4:Stay for about an hour. That's all right.
Speaker 1:Of course, yeah, as long as you, as long as you want to, we'll be here for a while. So it's like you feel like it. But but, parmeet, they had a question for Joe. I just permitted you Pass your question on to Susanna.
Speaker 8:Yes, so I, since Joe is also is a story teller and a creator of worlds, and you are as well. I asked Joe what are some of the foundational works that made you want to tell your own stories? And I know you've done a video on Susanna, but please tell us again. I'll let Joe go first.
Speaker 4:You know my story. I'll summarize it afterwards.
Speaker 1:Oh, he just, he just went, he was finished oh it's finished, oh, thanks.
Speaker 4:Well, let me go through the books. I always love mythology and, yeah, it started as, as an exercise for my Portuguese class, one of these assessment things, they asked her to write a story and I wrote this dialogue between older than Zeus and it didn't go very well, but the teacher liked it and she encouraged me to write and I did, and then when I learned English, I decided I wanted to write in English, and it's hard to pinpoint one book. I selected five for the video, but there's a lot more. So, basically, american Gods, a game of Thrones, weathering heights, 100,000 kingdoms that influenced me to find, to refine my own voice more than anything, and yeah, I'm missing one, I just realized. Basically every mythological tale of the, especially Greek mythology, inspired me to write. I always wanted to know what the story was, so just needed to figure out how. So hard part right? Hmm, since you enjoy both here and you both have YouTube channels as writers, how do you balance your time Between your writing your and your channel and creating content.
Speaker 1:I mean, I can't even imagine. I mean, just one or the other is plenty to keep you busy throughout the day. But how do you do both? I don't. My channel is failing.
Speaker 4:It's been abandoned for almost two months now Because I prioritized my writing and I've been writing, so I don't have time to create content. I mean all my plans of you know, weekly schedule and monthly. They say that, no, that, completely that's not going to happen. I'm just going to, I'm going to create, whenever I have the time, that I have something to say and I want to share, and that's it, with no pressure. Writing comes first, always, and then reading and then discussing the things that I read, and the the channel is like the last thing. So not a good example. What about you, joe? Yeah, my writing is my priority, so that that's what I like. Work.
Speaker 3:Forced myself to do my YouTube channels only when some topic comes to my mind that I'm not going to be able to do. You know the old expression angry man yelling your clouds that's my. Something usually ticks me off. I try to be too angry about it. But or some topic and like people are talking about this the wrong way, they should talk about it this way and it, and that makes the video very easy Because it's something I really want to talk about. So, like the prep time is almost zero.
Speaker 3:It's not that I'm sitting there going. Okay, it's Thursday. What am I going to talk about this week? So I might go through two months without releasing a video which is why I have like you know, not that many subscribers, which is fine, but the channel was.
Speaker 3:I used to do this with a blog, but no one read the blog and almost no one watches my channel, so it's better no one to almost no one. So that's much, you know, far superior. And then I like the idea of putting all these things on YouTube, where they're there forever. So if someone I'm hoping someone five years ago goes, what is the difference between something that's not going to? Be a good thing.
Speaker 3:And then someone five years ago goes what is the difference between science fiction and fantasy? They can watch my video and go to very coherent answer and maybe they'll use it, which they should, because people use my genre definitions. We all be better off. I can't make them, I can't force it on people, but I can hope I'll have to go and watch that one. I can hope that everyone starts using my meanings of words. Everyone else should just use them and we'd all have an easier time conversing.
Speaker 3:But you know, in the meantime, in the meantime I've gone to yellow clouds about the dance between science fiction and fantasy for my 30 minutes and I don't do a lot of editing. My production values aren't high. My goal is not to be a successful booktuber That'd be cool, right, but you know I'm not Philip Chase. Philip Chase really works on his channel In addition to his books, so you can tell it puts a lot of effort into the editing and the lighting and the setup and the content and really thinks about what he's doing to gain subscribers. I'm not doing any of that stuff, so I'm deliberately leaving things on the table, like with the, with the YouTube channel. What do I need to do so that I can vent and feel satisfied that I vented and anyone wants to hear that I can say I wrote a video about this, or you know, and then and then no more, because more than that would take a more time or money that I could be spending on editing or covers, or my wife.
Speaker 4:Exactly, and it was something that I I learned while running the channel because I had all these ideas and plans and because I love doing this. You know I love talking and I'm fine on camera at such a subtle, I definitely can do that. But I've learned that even though I have no trouble talking about, say, a book or a movie, you know, say a book, and I'm rent about it for hours. You know, in this pressure, If it's just me talking about it to the camera, I know I'm terrible at it. It doesn't inspire me to to. I can't just sit down and, you know, even if something that I like or don't like, not even in a in a renting mood to just talk to the camera about something, there's needs to be someone on the other side and then I'll talk. It's very hard to create content.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:I tried to write a state of burn, state of the burn. You know, you know the Sanderson does this state of the Sanderson like blog post every year. That's apparently a big yes.
Speaker 8:I read it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so I was like oh, I should do that, because why not right like even though nobody cares? So I was going to do this video and I recorded the whole thing and I'm like I couldn't stand myself after recording.
Speaker 3:I just talked about me for like 22 minutes. I'm like I can't, I can't, I can't put this out there. So I think a are with him and I are going to do one where he interviews me about the state of the burn and I can invite him at the state of the with him and we'll do it as a lot, probably tomorrow. Yeah, it really helps, right, having someone as people, having that format, that back and forth is just makes it easier to converse.
Speaker 1:Has the have the YouTube channels when you were active? Have they? Have they helped your, your book sales?
Speaker 4:Clearly for me to say but so far, no, I have not seen anything significant. The people who are what, if anything, probably made it worse. I do a very good job. I write better than I sound.
Speaker 3:I mean people who don't know me aren't watching my channel. I don't think, or, or or you know they would have heard of my channel from some other booktuber or from Twitter. They'll know me from there, if they. It's possible. Some random person has checked out the videos and then said, oh, this guy sounds like I should read his books, maybe, but it can't be like it's not 100 people, it might be two, but I. That doesn't. That's not a measurable impact on sales. Yeah, no, I highly doubt it. I mean, it's fine, it wasn't my goal. My goal was really just have a place to vent. What did I meant? I remember that. That's why people, people who review books incorrectly.
Speaker 8:Please elaborate.
Speaker 3:I have a problem with ratings and reviews that don't understand what the book was trying to do. So let's say, for example, you read, let's say I read a YA book.
Speaker 3:I don't like YA. I don't like the themes, I don't like the characters. I find teeny, whiny teenagers insufferable. I just I'm never going to like a YA book. So if I pick up a YA book, that's a really good YA book, and then I go and I give it two stars. So I'm like, yeah, this is fine for what it is, but I don't like YA books. I'm skewing the average rating on Goodreads or Amazon down because I picked up a book that I shouldn't have read, that the marketing said with the YA book, but because it.
Speaker 1:I shouldn't be reading. Why books I?
Speaker 3:don't like them. But what really what the rating should be is is this a good example of a book of the type that people want, that people think it is? You know the rate. You have a YA book. The ratings should be like 4.7 means this is a great YA book, 3.0 means it's a bad YA book. It shouldn't be. Did a bunch of people who don't like YA read my book? Then my rating is low. That doesn't help your new reader. Your new readers like okay. It says in the description it's a YA book. If a bunch of people who don't like YA read it and gave a low ratings.
Speaker 3:It's going to make it make doesn't mean it's worse for me.
Speaker 3:So I think it's a mistake and if you read a book that you realize wasn't your kind of book, as long as the marketing was clear, that's your fault Shouldn't give it a little rating. Just don't rate it or say you know, this is a five star YA book that I hated, and write that I don't like YA books. I didn't like this book, but for what it was, it was really well written or was really put. You can also say this is a poorly written YA book that I don't like because it was YA. But even if I did like, why I still wouldn't have liked it Like you can. You can figure that out.
Speaker 3:I read books all the time because I read a lot of books that I shouldn't read because my friends wrote them, because I know a lot of authors, like why you're in the authors, and I read a book and I'm like this isn't the kind of thing I normally pick up, like this is kind of hard Right or YA. Those are my big things. I don't like those books, ever the best examples I won't like, it's not my thing, but I can say this is this is well done, like objectively for what it?
Speaker 3:is. It's just not what it is, isn't what I want. That's my feeling about reviewers and ratings especially, and it's a very it's a very vulnerable situation. Right as a writer. I you know reviewers can hurt me, hurt me financially and with and I have no recourse or you know, it's a very weird one sided thing happens like people can write. People have written very nasty things about my books, very hurtful things and there's like nothing I can do about it.
Speaker 3:I can't comment on it, right, then the whole Twitter world will come down on my head like a sledgehammer, right, but like you just have to sit there and be like, okay, that is what it is. It really aggravates me and people make like factual mistakes, like when they really read your books, like the reviewers, which aggravates the crap out of me, like what it would have.
Speaker 3:So I have a lot of different species that that are very similar biology and someone's like oh, this is just lazy and I'm like it's, it's world building. Like I explain it, there's a reason that all these different people from different planets have like very similar biology. Like there's a story there. There's a reason for that. It's not lazy, Because I don't understand evolution. You didn't bother reading it carefully enough. Like that, don't play me, but that's my pet peeve. That's one of many. So yeah, so reviewers can make mistakes and do bad reviews in that sense.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I have a few of those. I don't understand one star. This book made me feel dumb to stars.
Speaker 3:Maybe, maybe it wasn't the book, maybe.
Speaker 4:I have a few like that. Maybe that is one start on Reddit. I only found that out like months after while I was googling myself and I almost felt sorry for that reviewer because she claimed that she read it twice and still didn't get it. She went on on the rent and I was reading the review and I could tell that she read the book because you know, but she really didn't get anything. I don't. She read it completely literally, like word by word, with no abstraction whatsoever. She just, yeah, it must have been a horrible experience, but you know, just a whole post rent about it. No wonder it's not selling. It is very.
Speaker 4:That's my issue. I mean, people are allowed to have that opinion and rent and not understand and whatever you put your work out there, it's just going to happen. But I would like that we were able to have a bit more communication. Like another example of a review, I'm pretty sure that review was probably copy paste. No, there was some mistake because the blurb it started with all the the pro forma blurb and auto introduction etc. But then everything else, apart from the name of one character that was actually wasn't spelled correctly but might have been the audio book.
Speaker 4:I don't know. It didn't match the story. It didn't match then anything. No matter how you interpreted it didn't match anything. That happened and I really wanted to reach out and ask the person you know, because it was a reviewer, a blogger reviewer and it could have been a mistake, because I know they have many books and probably they just copied the review of another book or it could have happened, but I didn't know how to even ask that question without it. Imagine what it could trigger. If I asked are you sure that review was for my book? I couldn't ask that question.
Speaker 4:And that and that is wrong, you know. Then it should be able to be more communication. I mean, there is, I have good relationships with several reviewers we talk about, you know, any book, including my books, and no problem, but it's it's an exception. The vast majority you can say anything.
Speaker 3:I also think that reviewers often have like idiosyncrasies, like there's this thing in a books that bothers me and then there are things in there that happens in, that happen in books that are bother a lot of readers, but not just me, and they often don't distinguish between those two. And you need to if you're going to be a reviewer with like a YouTube channel with like 2000 subscribers or whatever you should have sort of understand.
Speaker 3:I have this personal thing that this bugs me, but it's not normal and most people won't bother them and you shouldn't rate books down for that if it's just you. There was this one book and it wasn't mine but it was in a contest and one of the judges said it really bothered the judge that the book, which was the point of view, is a past tense, so it's being written by an adult talking about their experiences as a child and the language was adult language. It wasn't like simplified five year old verbiage. But normally when you tell a story about yourself as a kid, you're not revolving, you're not like devolving to the grammar of a five year old when you speak. Like that it really bothered this person and they like knocked the book down for him, like that's your problem.
Speaker 3:That's how normal stories are written, most stories about children. If you're writing a story when I was a child, you're not going to use a five year old vocabulary to tell the story of what happens. You said five year old, right, the dialogue, maybe what you said, but not the story. So I'm like don't, don't make that as if the person screwed up the book, that's if it's a flaw, like you have a weird hang up that's not normal. Own it, that's fine. Think really broadly, because I have this weird hang up, but don't pretend this author messed up, you know, by doing a very completely normal thing as a writer. That ticked me off, especially because it's a contest. You know there's there's stakes, you know this person might have not made it to the next round because this judge had this very to me, very strange Dislike of this then I would have done the same thing if I, if I was with us.
Speaker 3:I'll say about what happened to me when I was five. I don't speak like a five year old when I tell the story. It's just not how we do things.
Speaker 8:So there are other examples it's a prohibitively difficult thing to pull off. I mean that particular prompt flashback to childhood while as an adult and recreating the thoughts of a child from an adult perspective, my general reading sense is very, very few authors pull it off. One brilliant example is, for me personally, is Ocean at the End of the Rain by Neil Gaiman. That's pretty much what is perfect. You're right, it's not the verbia, just not. He's eight, he's thinking about the time when he was eight. The verbia is not eight, but it's the slight change in reflection and in language and you can tell that this 40 year old is reverting to that era where he was a different person, and some of it is through a lens of nostalgia, but some of it is also through a lens of profound loss.
Speaker 8:It's a very difficult thing to write. I mean I do not envy the author who tried to attempt, who attempted it. It can usually backfire because I know people who have said Ocean is a terrible book, that that that happens to like They've said. Or 10,000 of 10,000 Osos, january by Alexi Harrow, where the author herself is an adult but she's trying to write a 10 year old, 10 to 12 year old girls perspective. And then there's a bit of a time. I don't think it's a good word and I won't spoil anymore, but I think she wrote it very well. But again it's that thing like I see so many people who have written that it was badly done, and I don't think that it's what they said was wrong, but like it worked for me and it didn't work for them. So like it's more like different perspective. I don't think there's a right or wrong way to do it and I also must clarify that I'm very much like a general reader, like I'm not a reviewer in any sense. I have a Goodreads account to just log what books I read and read them, and I write reviews very, very rarely and I have like Goodreads friends who I met on the spot or from page doing and so like maybe some of them like my updates and all, but it's like like nowhere is anybody going to take like note of my review or my rating. I think so I can revel in the anonymity, as I say, and not be too worried, because I actually, joe, I have done the thing that you said, that I picked up a book which is not for me let's say what is not for me horror and for romantic to big one and I've read it and tried to read it with an open mind and at some point I've just gotten disgusted and been like no, like who likes this, I'm out, so like. I think that, like reviewer spaces I mean readers understand that that when somebody has a visceral reaction to something, it's a personal opinion.
Speaker 8:I do tend to be very, very careful when it comes to the number of ratings, like, as you said, when a single rating can bring down or skew the average, like I'm talking about book, if I'm talking about ocean of the end of the lane or American gods, which has like 800,000 ratings, nobody cares what I rated, it's not going to affect the average. But when anything below 500, I usually, if it's not higher than if it's not a four star or high, I don't rate it, I just believe it. That's the maximum I can do. But if it's something above 1000 ratings, then I've checked. Like even if I give a two star, it will not drop the average that much. In the second decimal place, however much I see thousand ratings and above, I can be honest. I will say I'm honest even with the ones below, like with very low ratings as well, but I just prefer not to record the rating, in case readers just look at the average rating.
Speaker 3:I'm safe. I don't have a book with more than like 310 ratings, so I feel better now. Part was fluttering bit. I've got several years before I have to worry about getting a one-star bond by Paramita.
Speaker 8:But, joe, I must confess I have like I mean I have like too many unpopular opinions to the point where it's a meme. Now, what can I share from my wall of shame? One-starred Six Malazan book oh my god, is that a favorite series of yours? Damn, why on earth do I always pick the worst examples that?
Speaker 3:is my favorite series. No One-starred Six of them. Why did you read Six? Why did?
Speaker 8:you. This was a mistake.
Speaker 3:I was totally admitted, read one one-starred and then go oh, you know what I'm gonna do I'm gonna pick up the next book. Why, how does this happen?
Speaker 8:to you. I can't really explain. I can tell you what it was. It was a sheer mistake out of pure stubbornness. One of the things that I have faced in online communities is you didn't like Malazan because you're stupid.
Speaker 3:Okay okay, I don't like that you once starred one of them and then you said you know what, I'm gonna pick up the next one, yep. And then you once starred, like another one.
Speaker 8:No, then I'll guess it was a two-star.
Speaker 3:You still said, I'm gonna pick up another. You did this six times.
Speaker 8:No, I read the whole series. I read all ten books.
Speaker 3:I am. I am stunned at people who will like two-star my second book and then read the third book and I'm like, please, just stop, just stop. I don't want you to leave. Just go away. These are not for you and that's fine. It's fine that my books are not for you. I'm not bad at you, dear reader who's just starring all my books, but could you please just stop and move on to someone else and torture them with your ridiculous ratings, please? I can't handle it.
Speaker 3:But I mean like readers can read whatever they like and also can write whatever they write, whatever they want, like unless you love to hate Malazan, why read six of them that you once starred?
Speaker 8:Because I needed to read all ten of them to say well, now I can say that my conclusion at the end of book ten is exactly what I had at the end of book three, which is exactly the same as a plan at the end of book one. Okay. Nobody can tell me now that you didn't go to the end, where it all pays off. I'm stubborn that way.
Speaker 3:That's true, jared.
Speaker 1:What's up? How's it going? Hey. And who says here too oh, you're on mute. Hello. Hello. Well, we'll blow a few. Both of you give us an introduction.
Speaker 6:Everyone alright, yeah, I'm Jared at the Fennesey Thinker YouTube channel and at here at Page Chewing having a blast today.
Speaker 7:Yes, Hi, I'm Jose. I run the Jose's Amazing Worlds channel and I love to take part in these conversations, still amazed that Steve has me around.
Speaker 1:I'm amazed you keep coming back, so let me just like her piece, isn't it?
Speaker 2:Okay. Happy New Year.
Speaker 4:Congratulations on 100 episodes, by the way. Yes. Thank you for having me on a few episodes already. I wish I'd found it sooner or found the courage to join in sooner. I think it's not to the point because I was listening to them for months before I even dared to. You know, say hello in the forum. It took me a while. I'm glad I did. Really good times.
Speaker 7:We're pretty scary over there, I was called.
Speaker 4:I didn't say anything online for a very long time. I was just lurking, as like I can't speak. I can't talk about books. You know, it's just gonna get in control, thank you for it, it was therapy.
Speaker 8:I want to echo Susanna's statement because I think I've been listening since episode two and it took me like first of all it took me ages to master the courage to comment, because then it was on YouTube to comment on this channel. Then it took me months to master the courage to sign up on page chewing forum, but once I signed up it was such a nice community that I mean I post a lot. Frankly, I'm surprised people have not DMed the mods to say we are fed up.
Speaker 7:So I've got two questions then. The first one is straightforward enough how long has it taken to get to a hundred episodes, steve? And the second question is what is it that you're doing that all these women are scared and takes a month to work up the courage to say hello? What's wrong with the community?
Speaker 1:I don't know what to add.
Speaker 4:The community? Nothing. It's the internet, it's people in general, the communities is great, we just need to be sure.
Speaker 8:It's teasing, but I'm just too shy. I'm scared of everyone by default. Then when I join and I get to know them or listen to them, then I get less scared. That's how I am, that's fair. By default I'm scared of everyone. I was scared of Susanna, I was scared of Jose, I was scared of Jared. Then when I saw them and I talked to them, I wouldn't be scared of Joe. But I mean, I've seen your posts in the forum a bit and I've seen you around, but initially I was scared of you, definitely in the first few minutes when I joined.
Speaker 7:You're scaring me On behalf of Jared. I'm going to take offence on his behalf. He's probably no offence man, quite the opposite. The least scary person that you could sort of On first meeting it's like yeah, that's like a cool guy. Oh, should I put on my other face.
Speaker 1:Interesting. I think the first episode was almost two years ago. I think it's been about two years. Wow, a hundred episodes in two years. That's pretty spectacular.
Speaker 3:You've done one every Friday, or did you miss a stretch?
Speaker 1:No, I missed a few months because I stopped doing it because of work stuff and then thought I restarted it several months later. I think it's been about every week. I think it took another month or two off, but it's been fairly consistent.
Speaker 6:Very cool. I never heard of it until back in March or something like that, when Varsha twisted my arm to join. So she does. She's good at that. I immediately signed up.
Speaker 3:When does not say no to. Varsha Nope.
Speaker 1:Jose, I'm hoping you have a happy update about the bike.
Speaker 7:We're hoping that there's no, no, no, it was last week, it was Sunday morning. We live in a block of flats. We live in the fourth floor. There's the left, the landing, and then there's the stairs. So we keep my kids' bikes in the landing on the stairs side. So when you come out of the lift you don't see them. You have to go around to the stairs.
Speaker 7:So Sunday morning, that Sunday morning, I worked with the kids and as soon as they closed the door, like 10 seconds later they're knocking on the door. I was like what have they forgotten now? And she was like, oh, did you move Santiago's bike? And I was like, no, it's there. She was like it's not there. So we lived and it's like, yeah, it's gone. Literally, someone came out to the fourth floor to steal well, it's obviously a kids' bike, it's a mistakenly an eight year old's bicycle, and they took one but not the other. So maybe they come in next week for the other one. But then you know what are you going to do Start ringing on people's doors and start looking on people's doors asking where's my bike? You little piece of so-and-so.
Speaker 1:So anyway, yeah, Good, you could hire Joe to beat someone up.
Speaker 7:If anyone is available. Yeah, I'll be honest. There's a couple of suspect people in the building where we are, but even though I've got my suspects, I've got no evidence. So yeah. I'm not quite there yet.
Speaker 6:Yeah, I had my bike stolen when I was about eight or nine years old. It sucks. Some guy was walking by. He was walking by in the street and he was like it was an old guy and I was on a bike in the street and he said, hey, can I borrow your bike? I'll give you five bucks. I'm like, you know, I'm a towhead. I'm like okay, never saw it again.
Speaker 7:Yeah, but like who steals a kid's bike on the week of Christmas, like you have to be a rotten character, you are condemned to hell and you're never coming out of that.
Speaker 1:And Alex commented. I'll say you have a nickname, what's your nickname? Me.
Speaker 2:Yeah. I don't know.
Speaker 7:Have I got a nickname? Yeah, I'm not sure I've been called many things in my life, but actually I do.
Speaker 7:But you know what? I don't want to say it because it's taking me 25 years to get rid of a kid. In my family, everyone called me by my nickname, which is what they used to call my grandfather. For some reason I inherited it Out of the 15 grandchildren and the one that inherited it. So whenever I went and my family always called me by that nickname, and at school, even the teachers, everyone. So I was that person and to the people that know me from when I was a kid, that's still what they call me. So I literally had to move countries when I was 18. I had to go to the UK and oh, you're muted, it wasn't me.
Speaker 7:Sorry. So I had to move countries to start using my proper name for people to meet me for the first time and start calling me by that. So I literally had to change lives. And still annoys me. When I go back to my parents they still call me by that nickname. My friends from childhood do, but at work so my wife she knows me by my actual name. Yeah, it's funny, really irritating.
Speaker 4:What is the nickname I?
Speaker 7:think. I'm not saying. Sorry, Joe, I'm not saying I wouldn't mind saying your case. You're Susanna. Someone calls you Susi. It's very much of your name. I could live with that. I'm assuming that Joe is Joseph, so if I was called something along those lines I'd be okay. But it's nothing to do with that, it's a totally random thing.
Speaker 3:This is a cultural thing that's funny, that I don't see enough of in fantasy. So my wife's from Bangladesh and everyone in her family has like, first of all, everyone has a nickname that's different than what's on their driver's license.
Speaker 3:So no one in the family will call my wife by the name that's on her birth certificate. Half of her cousins don't know what that is. So she has got the name on the driver's license, which is what white people have to call her, and she's got the family nickname and then they have very specific names for every different relation. So if you're like in English we just have an aunt, uncle, cousin, but there are many more words for the individual derivations. So every person in her family gets called something different by every other person in her family. And whenever I'm there I'm just like so lost and I know everyone, but I'm like I'm just going to call you all a clinic and we're going to all. Forgive me because I had no idea, but I feel like in fantasy novels we don't do enough nicknames.
Speaker 3:So nicknames have nothing to do with what Joakim was saying. It's not like short. Her name is Monika. Her family doesn't call her like money or nicka, nothing like that. It's completely different. It's very weird. Well, not weird, it's completely normal. It's just not my culture and they all just call me Joakim and there's no second name. I didn't get a nickname after being in the family. Maybe 10 more years and they'll give me a nickname.
Speaker 7:I'm sure it's a little structured.
Speaker 3:I'm regimented and you have to go up for some kind of process and make certain I have a shot at being an old person in this generation from a certain perspective, and that gives you a certain authority that I don't deserve over a lot of stuff. It's very funny, but we'll see what happens when I get there. I'm getting there.
Speaker 1:And Alex commented it was a reference to the like herpes comments from a while ago.
Speaker 3:Oh, we'll call Jose that herpes guy from now on.
Speaker 7:Oh no, I'm kidding, it's a party. I'm totally cool with that. This is a story there, right, I just got to that stage in my life where you know it, does it, does it, does it, that's it. You know whatever.
Speaker 3:You need to explain it right, Like why do they call you that herpes guy? Well, you see, You're gonna stop.
Speaker 1:So for what? We were just discussing reviews and reviewing and Paramita, one star in Malazan books. But we'll get to that here in a second. If you're watching or if you're here, just nothing's gonna change. But I'm just going to cut the audio so we'll start the second part. So if you're listening, then just hang on and the second part will be available to you. You.
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