How A ’90s Book Became A CW Phenomenon And Taught Us To Pivot As Creators

A fog machine, a crow, and a five-episode rule—how did a moody ’90s paperback morph into a CW juggernaut and a masterclass in pivoting to audience taste? We dive into The Vampire Diaries’ messy magic, the Originals’ elegant brutality, and the character shifts that made fans argue, swoon, and stay. Damon’s chaos vs. Stefan’s martyrdom, Elena’s empathy switch, and Caroline’s stealth climb from annoying to indispensable—every arc reveals how trope, timing, and tone drive obsession.

We pull back the curtain on the business, too. LJ Smith’s work-for-hire deal meant the publisher owned the characters, shaping what could be told once the TV machine demanded “more commercial.” That twist didn’t end the story; it rerouted it. From Kindle Worlds to modern Patreon strategies, there are playbooks for creators to keep earning from the worlds they build—even when platforms vanish. We share hands-on tactics: serializing short fiction on Patreon, bundling stories into anthologies, and using newsletters to deliver mainline plots while gating bonuses. One idea becomes multiple products without burning yourself out.

There’s plenty of fandom spice along the way: the New Orleans mythology that made Elijah irresistible, why the witches deserved better, and how a morality switch gave the writers license to go gloriously off-leash. We talk representation gaps and set drama, comfort rewatches and aging immortals, and why gratitude loops—between cast and fans, writers and readers—are the backbone of long-running IP. Whether you’re here for the blood bags or the business model, you’ll leave with sharper instincts about storytelling, rights, and sustaining a creative career.

Love this kind of deep dive into vampires, villains, and the creator grind? Follow the show, share with a friend who still argues Team Damon, and leave a quick review to tell us your endgame.

Transcript

Welcome And Today’s Topic

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Other people's opinions about me are none of my business. Yeah. Hey everybody, welcome to the Feral Fandoms Podcast. I'm only James. I really had to think about that for a minute. Gay romance author or author of gay romances. Just romance. Why do we have to clarify it? I don't know. But I'm here with Shannon, who apparently isn't getting enough attention from me.

SPEAKER_02 0:35

Yeah. I am very greedy with attention. Give me all your attention. And that's my intro. I'm just a greedy little whore.

SPEAKER_01 0:45

Today we are going to be talking about something we actually both know a lot about this time. The vampire diaries. The vampire diaries has been a big topic in our family since the 90s because we both read the actual original four vampire diaries books in 1992. I didn't read them in 92. You read them. Well, I must not have read them in 92 either, because I read them, gave them to Kim, and then I gave them to you. So you were what, a teenager?

SPEAKER_02 1:23

I was in, I think, sixth grade. So I was 11, so that's gonna put us at like 99.

SPEAKER_01 1:29

Yeah, that makes sense. That tracks, yeah. So I didn't read them probably until all no, I didn't read them until all four were out because I binged them.

SPEAKER_02 1:37

And they were so good.

SPEAKER_01 1:38

They were like crack cocaine. They really were. And it was like for the time, it was exactly like that juicy, like I mean, it had everything.

SPEAKER_02 1:48

There wasn't the arc at the the three, the well, for me, because I was 11, it was my first like will they, won't they? Which one and I like Damien straight out of the gate, me too, straight out of the gate. We've been villain lovers for a long time. It's true, but like they're not too villainy. I think we've talked about that before.

SPEAKER_01 2:08

Yeah, I mean, well, Damon in in the books he was not as bad as he is in the show.

SPEAKER_02 2:15

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, which one was the Confederate soldier? Uh Stefan.

SPEAKER_01 2:19

Was he a Confederate? I thought he was a Union soldier.

SPEAKER_02 2:23

One of them, they were on the opposites.

SPEAKER_01 2:25

Well, they're supposed to be in Virginia.

SPEAKER_02 2:28

And I think Virginia was a very good idea. One of them was a Confederate soldier.

SPEAKER_01 2:32

Well, Damon never goes to Damon never goes to war, does he? Because I know Jasper Hale from Twilight was definitely a Confederate soldier.

SPEAKER_02 2:49

I wanted it to give me. Was Damon Salvatore a Confederate soldier? Yes, Damon was a Confederate soldier in the American Civil War. He joined the Confederate Army to please his father before being turned into a vampire in 1861.

SPEAKER_01 3:03

That's right. Okay, that's right. Because Damon's older. I knew one of them was. I wanted it to be Stefan. I wanted it to be Stefan. I know. I know. But after Damon killed Lexi, I was like, not Lexi, bro. Come on. Like, talk about like everybody hates a party girl.

SPEAKER_02 3:21

They've I know she was just so cool, though. I'm I was Lexi in the early 2000s, and you know what? I'm glad no vampires killed me. Because look at me now in my cul-de-sac with my babies. You can turn a whore into a housewife. You can, okay? Producers, writers, directors. You could do a little coke, give a BJ in a bathroom, and then still end up on the golf course. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 3:44

Did you see that TikTok? Fuck off. Where it's like your mom used to be a hoe and she's like she's dancing with the broom. I was like, my kids will never know.

SPEAKER_02 3:57

Oh, they will. Trust me. My husband doesn't even know the half of it. Thank God he doesn't listen to this podcast. Good thing he doesn't support me in all my endeavors. But the show versus the book, right? The book is so good. I should reread them.

SPEAKER_01 4:17

I think if we reread them, we would realize that they're probably really hokey.

SPEAKER_02 4:21

Not that good.

Damon, Stefan, And Morality Switch Lore

SPEAKER_01 4:22

Yeah, they're probably not that good anymore. I used to watch that stupid teen witch movie from like the 80s, and I was obsessed with it when I was a little kid. I went back and I watched it and I was like, this is literal trash. This is the worst thing I've ever seen in my life. And so I'm afraid that if I went back and I read the vampire diaries now, I would just be like crushed by how not great. It was more simpler times. It was simpler times. But I did find out. So because I was talking about how LJ Smith lost the rights to her characters or whatever.

SPEAKER_02 4:58

Yeah, yeah. We brought that up last.

SPEAKER_01 5:00

We were talking about a different we were on a different episode when I mentioned it.

SPEAKER_02 5:04

On a tangent.

SPEAKER_01 5:05

Yeah, on our one of our usual tangents. And but I learned that she actually didn't create those characters. She was work for hire, which back in the 90s basically meant they handed you the stuff and were like, write this series.

SPEAKER_02 5:20

Oh, and then you write it. Yeah, I do. I have I've heard about that in other books.

SPEAKER_01 5:24

So she apparently didn't have the rights to those characters. Alloy, who hired her, did. Hence the reason why they gave her the opportunity to keep writing the stories once it got picked up by the CW. But I guess they didn't like her version. They decided that they wanted something more quote unquote commercial. And she wanted more spiritual, more like mystical.

SPEAKER_02 5:52

It was more, it was more, I wouldn't call it like gothic because it wasn't gothic. It was like modern gothic.

SPEAKER_01 6:00

Because they had like the ravens and the fog and all the things the first four episodes of Vampire Diaries had before everybody was like, What is a crow?

SPEAKER_02 6:09

A random crow.

SPEAKER_01 6:10

That's why I have my five-episode rule because of the vampire diaries, because the first five episodes are so embarrassingly bad. We were gonna watch it no matter what, though.

SPEAKER_02 6:20

Because one thing about us, we like to be the people that if we read the book, we're those assholes that even if it's trash, especially actually, especially if it's trash, we we love talking shit.

SPEAKER_01 6:31

It's true. It's true. We love talking shit during a movie. You people would hate to see us come. Watching movies with us.

SPEAKER_02 6:41

Hate it. But what was that? What was that thing with the sci-fi theater?

SPEAKER_01 6:46

Oh, Mystery Science Theater 3000. Yeah, that's us.

SPEAKER_02 6:51

We're the silhouette sitting in front of you just talking shit, and we don't care. Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 6:56

Sometimes you get a good movie theater though, and you're like, everybody's talking shit. Those are the best nights, like everybody's in on the joke. It's so great.

SPEAKER_02 7:05

Movie theaters are so dead now. Oh, yeah. When I went to see uh what did I just Did you see Sinners in the Theater? I did see Sinners in Theaters, but that wasn't the last movie I saw. Must not have been that good because I don't remember. Sinners was great. Sinners was amazing.

SPEAKER_01 7:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 7:18

All right, vampire diaries.

SPEAKER_01 7:20

Yes. So yeah, so I found out she didn't actually own the rights to those characters. So she didn't lose them. But I will say she was great at monetizing it anyway because when they basically kicked her to the curb and Julie Pleck started writing the novels as well as directing the show, uh, she just went on Kindle Worlds and started writing fanfiction of her own characters the way she wanted it to go. So she was still monetizing her work.

SPEAKER_02 7:48

She just How do you get money from fanfic? I thought you can't get money for fanfics.

SPEAKER_01 7:51

Okay, so Kindle Worlds, which is now gone, it's defunct, but basically Amazon made deals with certain like one of them was the vampire diaries. I'm trying to think of like I can't remember the others, but say, like if somebody wanted to write like Avatar fanfic or whatever, they would go to the publishing house and be like, we want to license the ability to basically pay people to write fanfic for this world or whatever.

SPEAKER_02 8:17

Then then they have to pay them for it, right?

SPEAKER_01 8:18

Right. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 8:19

No. You have to pay the publisher for it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 8:21

I'm sure what was happening is that like Amazon gets a cut, you know, of my royalties. I'm sure Amazon was getting a cut, the publisher was getting a cut, and then the author was getting whatever pennies were left over, essentially. Yeah. You need to pick it up with your butt cheeks. So I think that's how they managed to get away with it. But honestly, I don't know why they just I think they got rid of it when they decided they were gonna do Kindle Vela, which is like their serial platform, was their serial platform that's gone too now. But like where you would release like an episode a week like I do with like um the night movers and natural bonds.

SPEAKER_02 8:59

But that makes sense to me because you're the author, right?

SPEAKER_01 9:01

So well, yeah, no, these were all these, yeah, it was all like original stuff.

SPEAKER_02 9:05

But that's the thing about you being indie. Nobody can just tell somebody they can do that. I think that's because you own your your people, which is good because you made them up in your brain. Yes. I did, which is crazy. One of the moms asked me because she knows, oh, I don't know. I told her I'm a uh I do author services. I don't even know what I do. And she goes, Oh, are you a writer? And I was like, No, girl, I can barely put together a text message. I don't know the plot from the beginning to the end of my text message.

Show Pivots, Fog Machines, And Five-Episode Rule

SPEAKER_01 9:44

I'm so burnt out after doing like that whole 13 Nights of Halloween and like the They loved it though. They loved 13 Nights of Halloween. Well, I've added like six stories for the release for the villains and vigilantes anthology, which is all the stories kind of like bundled together, which means I've written 80,000 words in the last three weeks, which is an entire book, and I'm so tired. Back to the vampire daries.

SPEAKER_02 10:08

Oh shit. Is it canon that most people hate the main character of Vampire Daries? Because I did not hate her in the books.

SPEAKER_01 10:15

I didn't hate her in the books either.

SPEAKER_02 10:17

Fucking hated her in the show. I was like, this whiny, sanctimonious, high horse bitch.

SPEAKER_01 10:23

And what's so funny is I know that it wasn't Nina Duv that I didn't like because I loved her as Catherine.

SPEAKER_02 10:30

I like, yeah. Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:32

So it's like sometimes you get an actress playing a part, and you're just like, I don't like her, not the part. I think it wasn't that at all. Like, I think Nina Dubrov was great. I think she did an amazing job. Like, she speaks like what was it? Pol what was she speaking in the show? Polish? Like, she's no Czechazolakian. Like, she's like, she actually speaks the language.

SPEAKER_02 10:56

Um, and I thought all of the backstory and the lore was fantastic, but yeah, I'm just like, she was so she was so whiny in the show, so whiny, and so she was like the morality police. You're surrounded by vampires and werewolves and witches.

SPEAKER_01 11:15

That's funny and other shit is that Matt and her were the exact same person, except Matt got so much shit. Everybody openly hated Matt, like as a character, they just hated him.

SPEAKER_02 11:29

If she didn't want vampire dick, she would have been a fucking vampire hunter. Yeah, that's she was racist against him, but then she kind of wanted to fuck them. She fetishized them. Wait, I'm making connections here. Who would she have voted for in 2016?

SPEAKER_01 11:56

Yes, than non-Vampire Elena.

SPEAKER_02 11:59

Vampire Elena was better, especially when she turned off her uh her empathy, right? What is that thing?

SPEAKER_01 12:04

Yeah, when her her switch, when she yeah, when her and Caroline were both peak vampire, like when they went on that binge, I was just like, this is great. This is like the real girl bonding, right? This is weird girl bonding slutting it up, and eating them.

SPEAKER_02 12:20

This is literally girlhood, yeah. Killing men, fucking them, and then murdering them, like praying mantises. As God intended. As God intended, as God she would want this. I think so.

SPEAKER_01 12:33

I think she would.

SPEAKER_02 12:35

But but and then uh okay, so another thing about this show, and another thing, they were orphans, right? Oh yeah, because of the car accident.

SPEAKER_01 12:45

Theoretically, they were orphans, but both her parents were still alive, remember? Her uncle was her father, and then her mother Oh, I forgot her mother was yeah, because they went way out of game.

SPEAKER_02 12:55

Okay, so they went way, yeah, they went way out. Fuck Alaric all all the way forever. But okay, to be fair, Alaric was a great fucking character.

SPEAKER_01 13:04

I loved Alaric until I realized that the guy who plays Alaric is a fucking monster. Yes. Now he's ruined Alaric for me. So whatever.

SPEAKER_02 13:13

Yeah, because he was a decent character. Also, Vampire.

SPEAKER_01 13:17

Top tier. Top tier. Yeah, oh I'm just saying. Like, ah, also you're not I'm not above the incest of Damon and Swords. That's all I'm saying.

SPEAKER_02 13:30

Also, I feel like vampire diars made a lot of shit up, like the switch, the morality switch, or whatever. I've never heard of that in any other vampire lore. They're just like we need a reason why all of a sudden we're just killing people.

SPEAKER_01 13:42

We need them to have a berserker mode.

SPEAKER_02 13:47

I need them to go turbo slut on these bitches.

SPEAKER_01 13:51

I need, but we need a reason. We had to have the morality switch because it was the only way to justify why nobody murked Damon in the first season.

SPEAKER_02 14:02

Yeah, and and for Alina to go, Stefan, please, please, Stefan, it's me. And I'm sorry, it's me.

SPEAKER_01 14:10

The most unbelievable storyline in the vampire diaries is Stefan as like some sort of just like monster. Because I'm sorry, I just cannot picture him to it at the time.

SPEAKER_02 14:32

Also, them being together doesn't make any sense either. Sorry. It doesn't make any sense. What's the name of the originals guy that I like? Her why they abandoned that, I will truly is it because she didn't want to do originals? I don't know, because that would have been so cute. Yeah. No, I think Grumpy Sunshine. I love Grumpy Sunshine.

SPEAKER_01 14:55

It's the best trope, but also it's like the good girl, bad boy, like turning him into a kind of thing.

SPEAKER_02 15:05

So hot. And his brother, too. Okay. Elijah's my at the same damn time.

SPEAKER_01 15:11

Elijah was like chef's kiss. Like Klaus, I get it. I get why people think like he's hot. I would Eiffel tower them. But Elijah.

SPEAKER_02 15:20

I would take him to Paris, baby.

SPEAKER_01 15:22

There's something so hot about a guy who's just like super restrained and looks so put together all the time, but then just like will flip that switch and murder 18 people because you like must his girlfriend's.

SPEAKER_02 15:35

Or like when he's mean to his brother, and then like, but someone else is mean to his brother, and he's like, ah, I'm gonna murder 200.

SPEAKER_01 15:40

Yeah, he's like, this is not hard. I really didn't want to get blood on this shirt, but this is what I gotta do.

SPEAKER_02 15:49

I think I just like the setting of like New Orleans, and I like my vampires old as fuck. I like my vampires like I need the I need the CEO of vampire. You know what I mean? Take me to the top. Yeah, I think that's what I like. I think like the Voltaire, I would in Twilight, I would have been in the Volteri. I'm like, who's the VIP in this bitch? That's where I'm trying to be at.

SPEAKER_01 16:10

I think Rebecca got the short end of the stick as far as the vampire diaries goes, and and the originals. Talk about somebody who just was kicked constantly while she was down. I don't know what class. They put that bitch to sleep.

SPEAKER_02 16:22

They were like, you know what? You're going back to sleep.

SPEAKER_01 16:24

They they staked Rebecca was almost comical by the time. Like, did she go to maternity? I just want the people just like I just want to go to prom and they're like, Fuck you, back to sleep for you.

SPEAKER_02 16:38

She even rolled her eyes. Should that be this time to go night night for a hundred years? It's rude. It's so rude. It's the patriarchy, and she had to live it over and over. And she just wanted to have a little good time.

SPEAKER_01 16:51

Finding out that Stefan gave her necklace to Elena.

SPEAKER_02 16:56

Remember? Stefan is the actually Stefan is the villain. It really is. And and then how they ended Vampire Diaries. What?

SPEAKER_01 17:06

When they tossed Stefan into the the river, like still alive in that box. I was like, good read.

SPEAKER_02 17:17

I need a little more closure than that. Like, what? I thought they ended it so sloppily. They're like, and then we threw Stefan in the river. And we Stefan shed its hair in the woods. Do they kill Stefan in the end of him? They put him in. No, they think they put him in the the cave. I don't remember. The witch dies. The witch dies.

unknown 17:37

Wait.

SPEAKER_02 17:38

Blocked it. Wait. The people the people are screaming. That's not out. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 17:42

No, that was definitely like the whole kicking him into the ocean didn't last because they went and got him, but which is also how do you find okay?

SPEAKER_02 17:51

The vampire diars ended with Stefan's sacrifice to kill Catherine and destroy hell. I don't remember that. Elena waking up from her magical slumber. Damon and Elena returning to live a long human life. I remember that together before finding peace in the afterlife. Other characters also found their own happy endings, such as Bonnie traveling the world and can't wait. I thought Bonnie died.

SPEAKER_01 18:14

No, Bonnie didn't die.

SPEAKER_02 18:15

Enzo died. Okay. Which pissed me off. Traveling the world and Caroline and Alaric opening a boarding school for young supernatural beings. Which was the spin-off. I never watched it.

SPEAKER_01 18:28

It was actually it was pretty decent. It was I mean, it was more what do you call it? Like a little hokier. Definitely felt like it was more for kids than it was like Hogwarts?

SPEAKER_02 18:42

Like Hogwarts, but for vampires.

SPEAKER_01 18:44

Kind of, it wasn't quite that, like I don't know. It definitely had that young adult boarding school vibe that like you like we used to love as kids to read about. Yeah. It definitely had that.

SPEAKER_02 19:00

But I'm still reading about schools, but now they're like magical dragons and they be fucking. So I don't know. I I still like a school vibe.

SPEAKER_01 19:07

I think I think it's just a universal thing. Like I think girl, I think girls specifically really loved the idea of a boarding school. Like get together It's true.

Kindle Worlds, Fanfic Monetization, And Vella

SPEAKER_02 19:19

You're writing a series about a boarding school, aren't you? For for assassins.

SPEAKER_01 19:23

No, I do write a book about a school for assassins because Hey, what's it called?

SPEAKER_02 19:27

Where could they find it?

SPEAKER_01 19:29

It's very gay. Shocker, I know.

SPEAKER_03 19:33

Shock, shock, shock.

SPEAKER_01 19:34

Yeah, no. The watch, but the watch didn't come from my love of boarding schools. The watch came because I was obsessed with the graphic novel Deadly Class.

SPEAKER_02 19:43

Oh, just so you know, I bought a month of Peacock on your account with my with my money. You should watch. I don't want to make my own account because I was already logged into yours. But uh all her fault. No it's just show, and I had to I had to turn it off yesterday because I couldn't stop watching it. It's so good. I haven't liked a show in years. Uh Vampire Diaries? Vampire Diaries.

SPEAKER_01 20:06

Are you guys doing this care? They know. They just know. If they're still tuning in, they know that this is they are tuning in because I get the emails. Yeah, exactly. The emails that are like, you hit a new milestone. And I'm like, holy shit. Like, I can't believe people actually listen to us. Why?

SPEAKER_02 20:22

Thanks, guys. I can believe it because we're hilarious. Anyway, like I said, originals better than Vampire Daries. But I I watched it all. The WB was such a loved it. I don't know what happened with their or what happened, My Little Dancing Frog. Where did we go? Well, it became the CW.

SPEAKER_01 20:40

As soon as it became the CW, then it like things were definitely different. I mean, we still had we had supernatural. Yeah, you know, like it was a good time for paranormal stories, you know. And it was like you were coming off that post-Twilight, like you know, we're Vampire Diaries was before Twilight for me. Well, it was for me too, because we read the books, but yeah, I don't know, guys.

SPEAKER_02 21:06

We're gonna be hipsters right now. Like I I knew about it before it was cool. So before before before it was a TV show.

SPEAKER_01 21:16

The Vampire Diaries is a good is a good indication of like how you do have to pivot though, like when it comes to because you have to think about the fact that the vampire diaries came out in the 90s, the early 90s. So when they rebooted uh in like 2006, like it's a whole different time. Hence the Ravens and the Fog Machines did not work in the first five episodes. And I'm sure they saw the ratings and were like, all right, we gotta regroup, we gotta regroup, we gotta, we gotta figure this shit out.

SPEAKER_02 21:45

Steve, get the fog machine out of here. What? We still have 30 days on the rental. Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 21:51

So I think that especially like as an author, you kind of have to follow your audience a little bit. So much of my stuff has come from my actual readers versus my own brain. Like they'll make connections that I didn't, and then I'm like, oh shit, okay, well, now they're expecting it, and now they think that I'm the one who actually engineered this. Like, I'm just so And we let them believe that.

SPEAKER_02 22:16

And I'm just and or she'll comment things and she'll be like, maybe in the future. And I already know this bitch is like, open my notes app.

SPEAKER_01 22:25

Oh, please be so desperate mid book because I don't plot anything. Like, I'm a I'm a pantser, as they call it. Like, I get so that's what they call it.

SPEAKER_02 22:35

I'm calling the police.

SPEAKER_01 22:36

Are you a plotter or a bit? Lying by the seat of my pants. Um but yeah, so like I don't pre-like plan anything. I just write and whatever happens, happens. Sometimes I get stuck and I just go into my Patreon group and I'm just like, hey, if you guys could write the book yourselves, what would you want to see happen to these characters?

SPEAKER_02 22:57

I mean, I already know what I'm gonna do.

SPEAKER_01 22:58

Yeah, but I'm just curious. I mean, I've already written it. I'm just curious.

SPEAKER_02 23:01

Like, quick pull, quick pull.

SPEAKER_01 23:04

Yeah. Well, and like I they begged me to write this short story about these two characters that will eventually have their own book. And now they're like, okay, well, that was too good. Now you need to just put your other stuff on hold and write these two books first. And I'm like, but that's that wasn't that wasn't my plan. Like, I have two other books that I have to finish first. Yes, Daddy, no problem. But now I'm seriously contemplating, like, okay, do I just put the watch on hold, put a pin in it, finish the last three books for Jericho's boys, and then go back.

SPEAKER_02 23:37

Well, what are they what are they liking?

SPEAKER_01 23:39

I I I get more I think Jericho's Boys is uh They like Jericho's Boys because it still has a huge tie to the Mulvaneys, which is of course like my most popular series. So there's a lot of cameos, there's a lot of tie-in, not so much with the watch. The watch is almost kind of like its own entity that just kind of has a spin-off aspect.

SPEAKER_02 24:00

Why why don't you pluck one of those Mulvaney?

SPEAKER_01 24:02

They are, they are like two of the Mulvaneys literally are in the watch.

SPEAKER_02 24:07

Teachers over there or something?

SPEAKER_01 24:09

Okay, okay, but it's just like it's not the enough family interaction. They like that that the banter. Anything our Thanksgiving is basically every day at the Mulvaney house. Like Okay, gotcha.

SPEAKER_02 24:23

Are their kids old enough to get some books now? Are they grown up? Are they assassins?

Elena, Katherine, And Character Hate-Love

SPEAKER_01 24:27

No, they're definitely not old enough, but they will be. I will age their ass. Do whatever you want. I will age the ass.

SPEAKER_02 24:32

You you're like me and The Sims. Age up, bitch. Time for a book. I just gotta finish all the books that I'm currently finishing in the anyway. Uh this is good for editor back to vampire diary. Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 24:45

But we I think as authors, you definitely have to be willing to kind of pivot and change direction. But also, I think that you have to be able to take things as it comes, like LJ Smith writing her own fanfic when she lost the rights to the characters. That Patreon is great for that. I think it's a good way to re-monetize your own IP without having to do the whole work of writing a whole other book. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_02 25:12

Like, yeah, the short stories and stuff they love.

SPEAKER_01 25:15

Yeah, exactly. And I was actually talking to another author last night about how you can take like one thing and repurpose it in four or five different ways. You know, like I do my short stories and then I bundle them all and they become anthologies, and then like so it's Patreon content and then it becomes a book, and then it's like family and felonies. They love yeah, family and felonies. Now it's villains and vigilantes. There's a murder and mistletoe one that's gonna be done at Christmas time.

SPEAKER_02 25:43

I was just gonna say, are you gonna do a Christmas one? Oh my god, we're like me.

SPEAKER_01 25:48

It's almost like we're related.

SPEAKER_02 25:49

Oh my god, hive brain, hive brain.

SPEAKER_01 25:52

But yeah, so like the whole like the idea of it is is like, so I'm you getting Patreon content by releasing the stories on Patreon first. I'm getting newsletter content because I'm doing the main story in my newsletter and then bonus content on Patreon, and then I'm bundling it all and I'm doing it as an anthology. So like I'm making money off of that in like three separate ways. So I think that at least that's one thing that LJ Smith got to do was that she literally got to still make money off of because I mean she might not have created the characters, but she definitely made them. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_02 26:29

Like she's the one who they gave her a shell and she breathed like exactly, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 26:34

Like, and I guess that used to be super popular in the 90s, like this work for hire thing.

SPEAKER_02 26:39

I've heard of it, I've heard of it where they give you like an idea, and then a lot of them end up being like hallmarky type.

SPEAKER_01 26:46

Yeah, I hear that there's a whole there's like writer groups, like secret writer groups, where people sell their like outlines for stories, yeah, you know, and they like are like I can't write this. I heard about it in uh Yellow Face.

SPEAKER_02 27:01

Yeah, Yellow Face by RF Quang is about a writer. It's a very good book if you haven't read it. But yeah, she she was a top writer and then she kind of falls from grace from doing from doing some shady shit, and that's what she ends up having to do.

SPEAKER_01 27:13

She has to be like not a ghostwriter, but and that's the thing, because it's like it's somehow different than being a ghostwriter. Because I think being a ghostwriter is kind of like a lot of times it's for celebrities for some like somebody who has like a memoir type story they want to tell. Yeah, you know, or even like a lot of times celebrities will have ghostwriters for fiction novels that they like have an idea for because they know their name will sell, even if they don't have necessarily the talent to write story. But like work for hire, I guess, was more just really common. Like it's like, oh, you're a good writer, here's a whole story outline, just write that for us.

SPEAKER_03 27:49

And if it's an easy check.

SPEAKER_01 27:51

Yeah, and that's the thing, it's a one-time check. Like it's a you know, and that's why she didn't have the rights to the vampire, because it was just a work for hire. Here's your check, thanks for your time, have a nice day. But I think that the problem with that is I get too attached to my characters. Like if somebody had handed me also, you're too controlling.

SPEAKER_02 28:12

Could you imagine? That's why you could never be with a publisher. She, you for whatever you don't like being the boss, you do like being the boss of your own shit. Like, no one's gonna tell you what to do with your boys.

SPEAKER_01 28:28

Of course, I it's always an A plus or an F, full stop. So if I'm getting that F, it's gonna be because of me.

SPEAKER_02 28:37

You know what I mean? I don't want to have the boys And then she's gonna hermit, and then you're gonna hermit for a month. It's true, yeah. So everybody tell her what a good job she's doing, please. That's why I don't read my reviews. Like, I like nobody should somebody's who's getting in trouble right now. Someone's getting canceled for doing that. Tell us in the comments if there's comments. Can you comment? I don't know. I mean you can't okay. On Spotify comment, I will figure out how to check it. There's somebody, there's an author right now who's getting canceled for going to reader spaces and and commenting on critiques and reviews. And it's a it's a traditional, it's a traditional well-known author.

SPEAKER_01 29:15

And that's crazy because you would think the publisher would have just been like, shut your fucking mouth.

SPEAKER_02 29:19

Don't shut up, just shut up, shut up.

SPEAKER_01 29:22

Yeah, you're just readers are allowed to talk. But somebody once said other people's opinions about me are none of my business, and that's that's what I live by.

SPEAKER_02 29:32

Like also, they're not writing books. There's books that I've read that I thought were dog shit. Okay, and I'm allowed to think they're dog shit. I think we we just talk so much shit about 50 shades of gray for a full hour. Yeah, I don't think she's gonna listen to our podcast and cry into her billions of dollars silk pillowcase, her silk pillowcase padded with hundred dollar bills.

SPEAKER_01 29:54

Well, I mean, the thing is is like books are subjective, like you know, I always used to like. Like go and look at my favorite books, one star reviews, to make myself feel better. Because I'm like, that's an amazing book. And if somebody looked at it and was like, that's shit, then like you can't please everybody, you know? You just you just can't. You can't please everybody. So you just have to make and not every genre is for everybody.

Originals, Klaus, Elijah, And Endgames

SPEAKER_02 30:17

What are you comfort dark romance? What do you call dark romance?

SPEAKER_01 30:21

My very first book that I wrote as an MM author was Daddy Kink, right? So I Where the Devil Don't Go? Uh no, that Intoxicating, the first Elite book.

SPEAKER_02 30:32

Oh, is that the first book you wrote?

SPEAKER_01 30:33

Yeah, that's the first book I wrote. And then Well, in this genre. Well, yeah, and then I switched and I did disciplinary action as a standalone for a short story that I eventually expanded. And then I went back and I finished the Elite series. But yeah, Intoxicating was Daddy Kink. And I remember getting a two-star review, and it was it started out with I don't know why I agreed to read this. I'm just not in the mood for Daddy Kink right now. And I was just like, I don't know why you agreed to read it either then.

unknown 30:59

What the fuck?

SPEAKER_02 31:00

Sometimes you don't know you're not in the mood for Daddy Kinks.

SPEAKER_01 31:03

You're in a bad mood.

SPEAKER_02 31:05

Like, I don't really like I don't like gays and I don't like Daddy Kinks, but I'm gonna read a Daddy Kink roman.

SPEAKER_01 31:12

Yeah. So like you and you get a lot of that. Like, especially when there's like reviewers, um, you know, like NetGalley, you can ask to read an art copy and make and leave a review or whatever. And some of these people on NetGalle, they're like, I hate romanticy, and then they sign up for romanticy and then they trash it. And I'm just like, what do you get out of this?

SPEAKER_02 31:34

Like, and what's to hate about romanticy? We're just having a good time as a romanticy girl.

SPEAKER_01 31:38

But you saw did you see that girl who literally tagged the author in a horrible review? And she's like, Your book is trash, and she's like, it belongs in the garbage. Like she was nasty for no other reason than to be nasty. Was it an indie or was it a big author? I want to say it's an indie author, but I'm not sure. That's terrible. I just thought fallout from it on threads, like everybody was freaking out. Because at first people were like, Oh, well, it sucks to tag the author in a bad review, but this was not a critical review. This was just being mean for the sake of being mean and then being like, I can do whatever I want, I can say whatever I want. And I'm sorry, but if you tag me in a shitty review and you talk to me like that, then yeah, I'm probably going to post something saying something back to you. Yeah, it would be the only time I ever did something like that because I just post it.

SPEAKER_02 32:32

I'm just gonna repost.

SPEAKER_01 32:33

But if you're asking me, like you're asking me to look at it, you're asking me to listen to your opinion. So then you're gonna listen to my rebuttal, and it's gonna sound a lot like, hey kids, why don't you eat my ass? Write a book, come exactly.

SPEAKER_02 32:48

Can't wait to read your novel. What's your what's your good was your great American novel coming out? Charity.

SPEAKER_01 32:54

Some people just are so mean for the sake of being mean, and I don't really understand that. Like I get critiquing some people.

SPEAKER_02 33:02

I actually don't even do bad reviews on goodreads. Oh, nope, there was one, and I don't ever write words. I'm not a writer. I was like, what you you do write words. I've seen that. I don't. I on my uh on my on my reviews, it was a it was a thriller, but really it was just torture porn. And I could barely get through it. And I and I get through the pedophile stuff, and like I read a lot of the not I mean like thrillers because my characters it yeah, bad things, but it was like on and on and on. I think it was called Oh, All the Pretty Girls. I've heard of that book. Yeah, people were raving about it. I like a thriller, it was crazy, but as you expect, okay. Like I I'm down, not down for it, but like I I'm not new to it, I'm true to it. Like I've been here in the genre before, you know. But they went into too much detail for no reason, right? Like, there's I don't need to know how this sounded and like all the that's Stephen King shit. I'm not a Stephen King shit.

SPEAKER_01 34:03

I don't that's part of the reason I think that I don't go too into detail with like the bad stuff. Like, I give you just enough information for you to understand why somebody is messed up. I don't do torture porn, I don't like trauma porn, I don't like people who who seem to like get off on the details of that. Yeah, but like if I think I see something that's really toxic or that might trigger somebody, but there's no warning about it, I might leave a bad review. But it's rare. I well now it's rare because I never fucking read. But back when I was like reading, you know, 10 books a week, like it was it was definitely more prominent that I was.

SPEAKER_02 34:43

You should just move on, but yeah, like you know, you close it, you go, and then you move on.

SPEAKER_01 34:48

And I'm on my way.

SPEAKER_02 34:49

You already got my$20. You got my$20.

Underused Witches, Set Drama, And Representation

SPEAKER_01 34:52

I didn't steal it because I don't do that because I'm a good person. Yeah, and you know, and that's what kills me. It's like I get some like people who return books, ebooks after they read them. That makes me so mad because there was never a time before e-readers where you could just bring a book back and be like, this book was shitty. I want my money back.

SPEAKER_02 35:10

So come on, stop it. Cut it out. So being cut out of the book. Stop reading the e-books and telling me you thought it was an audiobook. We can see it there.

SPEAKER_01 35:21

She said her piece.

SPEAKER_02 35:23

I doubt that anybody that's listening to this would do that. No, they definitely wouldn't. They're definitely not. You guys are for the curious things. These are my diehards. But anyway, bad. Vampire Dires.

SPEAKER_01 35:32

The Vampire Darius. I'm trying to think. Like, because I I think they I I'm probably the only one who watched all three, like the Vampire Darius, the originals, and then Legacies kind of afterwards.

SPEAKER_02 35:45

Yeah, because I think I even I think I even ditched the originals. I don't think it was because of the originals. I think I just got busy or something and didn't come back to it.

SPEAKER_01 35:53

What I did was I ended up watching Legacies, like the first two episodes, and then going back and finishing the originals because I realized that I had missed like the whole last season because I didn't understand how Klaus had died. And I was like, wait, how is everybody dead? Like, what do you mean everybody's dead? And I was just like, This is fucking bullshit. What?

SPEAKER_02 36:15

And how is she she was a baby five minutes ago? You took you took a nap and you woke up and you're like, everyone's fucking dead!

SPEAKER_01 36:22

It literally was like that. I was like, Elijah dead, Klaus dead, all of the uncles dead, Rebecca dead. It's like, what the fuck is happening here? Rebecca's so beautiful. Like that actress should have been more popular.

SPEAKER_02 36:36

She was so beautiful, Rebecca.

SPEAKER_01 36:38

Oh, yes, gorgeous. And the girl who played Haley was beautiful too. And they were both in and they were both in H2O. They both played mermaids and H2O.

SPEAKER_02 36:46

Well are they Australian Australian? Oh, I didn't know that. I Kaylee, my former stepdaughter, she used to love that show. Mick used to love it. Oh, Mikaila liked it, yeah. Like where they get like a little bit of water on them and then they have to be, but then didn't they work somewhere where there was water? I don't know. There was a lot of fear of getting sprinkled with water.

SPEAKER_01 37:07

I only remember parts where they were like on the dock and that it was kind of homoerotic between Rebecca's character and Haley's character. Like one thing we're gonna do is make a Well, there was just a lot of weird tension between the two of them. And then when they they're I uh from what I understand, they're actual friends in real life now, probably because they've been doing shows together for so long.

SPEAKER_02 37:27

Yeah, they're force proximity.

SPEAKER_01 37:29

Exactly. Nothing check off. Write them fanfics or fanfics.

SPEAKER_02 37:33

Write themselves, baby. But yeah, like write that down, readers or you know writers.

SPEAKER_01 37:40

These people are writers, but yeah, like so they they knew each other for a long time, I guess, but there definitely seemed to be some. As far as I'm concerned, there wasn't enough gay in the vampire diaries. I will say that.

SPEAKER_02 37:56

It was the time. There wasn't gay. It wasn't enough gay anywhere. Who was gay in that show?

SPEAKER_01 38:00

Not until season like five or six when the twins do you remember when Kai shows up? He gets Bonnie and Damon get trapped in that world with that fucking evil, crazy dude Chris Wood plays him. I don't remember. I don't know, it's been so long since I watched the show. You want to talk about a perfect villain. Chris Wood, sexy as fuck, absolutely unhinged in every conceivable way, nothing redeemable about him, stabbed his pregnant sister when she was pregnant with twins. Like he did not give a single fuck. Okay, but was so sarcastic and so unintentionally funny that you couldn't help but kind of get excited when he showed up on the screen. Because you knew it was gonna be chaotic and bloody, and you were probably gonna be mad when it was over. But he just had such great presence that, like, the minute he showed up, I was like, Oh no, here we go. But he's and he's gay. Um, he's not, but his brother is like so he has twin siblings, one's a girl, one's a boy, and they go to school with Elena, and that's kind of how like she gets involved in the whole thing. But damn, they went to school for a long ass time. They were in high, they were in college at this point. This was uh that's how long it was. That's why I'm saying it's probably season five. It was after she became a vampire. Um still go to college, but yeah, exactly. You can still be a vampire and go to college as long as you have a special magic ring, yeah. A special magic ring and you don't mind using like caprice on blood bags.

SPEAKER_02 39:47

They use that trope in every vampire thing. They're like, uh, how do we get it so that they're not actually eating people blood bags?

SPEAKER_01 39:54

But it's so funny to watch them just like stab a straw into that blood bag, like it's a caprice and it makes me laugh.

SPEAKER_02 40:00

Like how they don't eat food, but they're they always find a way for these vampires to get a little drunk. Always.

SPEAKER_01 40:05

Well, yeah, because like drunk vampires, who wouldn't love that?

SPEAKER_02 40:08

Drunk, sexy vampires? But I like them a little androgynous, you know, a little more like uh interview with a vampire type dude.

Comfort Shows, Aging Vampires, And Fandom

SPEAKER_01 40:16

That's my biggest beef with with the vampire diaries, is it was not gay enough for me. And I'm sorry, but if you've been on this planet 200 years, don't tell me you didn't try a dick at least once. Or listen, they'll say they did. These men are Damon they're trying to Damon and Enzo, like okay, first off, Damon and Alaric, like I said, a little too much tension there. But Damon and Enzo, there was very much a wink wink, like nudge nudge, like like implying that they had something more going on than they were saying. But Enzo and Bonnie were supposed to be endgame, and I think that's where they lost me.

SPEAKER_02 40:54

Is I didn't like their uh storyline with Bonnie really at all.

SPEAKER_01 40:58

Well, because Julie Pleck allegedly hates Cat Graham, and some people say it's race related, some people say they just never got along, but it was like her personal mission to make sure that Cat Graham's character was miserable all the time. Interesting. And she was completely underutilized because Cat Graham speaks like seven fucking languages, and she's a singer.

SPEAKER_02 41:27

Yeah, and I liked the witch vibe that they did, like but they underutilize like she what she's the only witch, her and her mom. That doesn't really make any sense.

SPEAKER_01 41:38

Once you hear about the beef Julie Pleck had with Kat Graham, then you kind of like go back and you watch the show with a whole different like Yeah, you know, and obviously Kat Graham and uh the guy who played Alaric did not get along. Yeah, um yeah, he always had beef with her, and he was apparently very, very hostile to her on set all the time. Which is awful.

SPEAKER_02 41:59

Well, that makes sense. Well, it makes perfect. Well, yes, it makes sense as far as like I'm not justifying it. I don't think it's good, but it makes sense. It definitely makes I believe girl, I believe you. I know you're listening, I believe you.

SPEAKER_01 42:11

It's just crazy because I loved Alaric's character, and then it turned out he was more like when he played Warner and Legally Blonde.

SPEAKER_02 42:18

Oh, yeah. What, like it's hard?

SPEAKER_01 42:21

He played such a douche in that movie. Yeah, just fucking person. That's why I stopped watching Legacies because I heard all of this stuff about him and I saw how he was behaving. I'm not gonna support that shit.

SPEAKER_02 42:33

Yeah, you know who's so funny online is the guy who plays uh Stefan. Oh, what the hell is his name? Paul not Walker. I don't know why I was gonna say R P R I P R P. He's so funny. Yeah, nobody takes was it Stefusy? Like he takes in Paul Wesley so hard.

SPEAKER_01 42:58

Paul Wesley. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, no, he definitely he he's in on the joke. And him and Dame, uh him and Ian Summerholder have a whiskey company. They do, which I think is they're just goofy boys, they're just silly goofy boys, and and they don't they don't mind being hippy-dippy trippy, like very yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, he used to be with the Elena chick. Oh, yeah, no, him and Nita DeBro. I think a lot of that obviously is why they're like the sexual tension between them. It's really hard to pretend you're in love with somebody else when you're literally your boyfriend's right there.

SPEAKER_02 43:35

And he and that's and that's your boyfriend, and that's also your boyfriend. I just want two boyfriends, and I want my boyfriends to be boyfriends. Um, is that too much to ask?

SPEAKER_01 43:45

But Paul Wesley's wife also played in the show.

SPEAKER_02 43:49

Which one?

SPEAKER_01 43:50

She played the doctor in later seasons, a doctor who knows about vampires. I remember that. There's probably it should be the blood bag supplier. Yes, exactly. There were so many episodes of that show, and I used to like it used to be my comfort show, like it used to be the one that just played all the time in the background. And then, like, I don't know, I just woke up one morning and I was just like, I can't do it. And then I found another comfort show, which turned out to be Buzzfeed Supernatural. Yes, I know. So I don't know, but yeah, for the longest time, I would say probably three years the Vampire Diaries was running in the background of my life, like 24-7.

SPEAKER_02 44:28

That was me with Parks and Rec. I don't know why.

SPEAKER_01 44:31

Oh god, I know, because I used to sleep in your bed and you had that shit blasting like you were my mother.

SPEAKER_02 44:36

Like I have never heard somebody who can sleep with a I'm the type of person that like don't let my dreams don't leave my dreams up to chance. Put a plot line in there, because this shit, this should be this too too much, too too much. Don't let it do too much. Yeah, no shit.

SPEAKER_01 44:55

But I just I don't know, I think that Damon and Elena were actually like that perfect couple because it's what every girl kind of like secretly loves, is just like you know, the bad boy, but also like the one who's only nice to you, just you. He would literally burn down the world just for you.

SPEAKER_02 45:15

Yeah, just for you. We all love it.

Author Life: Pivoting With Reader Demand

SPEAKER_01 45:19

Yeah, you can't get enough of that trope. It writes itself, and then also Stefan was such a martyr, he was such a so was she, so was she, though. So is she. Oh my god. But imagine how inseparable the two of them would have been as a like a long-term couple, they would be the couple you avoided at every fucking party. Stefan and Caroline? Come on, that was silly. Stefan and Caroline were like such good buddies, you know what I mean? Like, I wish they had just left it as a friendship, but yet again, because it means a guy and a girl can't be friends without one of them wanting to fuck each other, apparently. Like, so when when that whole thing went down, but honestly, MVP is Caroline. She bagged, she banged every single guy in that show. She fucked every single guy in that show, and honestly, true, fucking good for you, girl. I would too. I would too at the same damn time, at the same time. And I remember just sitting there one day going, wait a minute. She's literally fucked everyone. She's the good girl.

SPEAKER_02 46:25

Yeah, don't forget, she's the goody too.

SPEAKER_01 46:27

But you know the best thing about Caroline is she's such a type A personality, right? Like, if you needed shit done, Caroline was the one that everybody called.

SPEAKER_02 46:34

I loved Caroline. I loved her. I hated her. I wanted her to my yeah, yeah, yeah. She was hella annoying in season one. They were all a little bit annoying in season one. They were all a little bit annoying.

SPEAKER_01 46:43

Caroline had the most the best redemption arc for sure.

SPEAKER_02 46:47

Her be when she first found out she got turned into a vampire was one of my favorite reactions. She was so fucking annoyed.

SPEAKER_01 46:55

Yeah, she really was so annoyed by that people thought that she couldn't like control herself.

SPEAKER_02 47:02

Yeah. And she was annoyed.

SPEAKER_01 47:05

She was different.

SPEAKER_02 47:06

Yeah. Yeah. She she wanted to do high school like to the most.

SPEAKER_01 47:11

Yeah, she would be a Cullen. She would be the one who did high school over and over and over and over again. If she just had she could do it with all of her friends over and over again, exactly. She had her built-in click, she would have literally just done high school forever.

SPEAKER_02 47:25

Yeah, 100%. Yeah, she's one of my favorites. Yeah, and Klaus, obviously. Call me. I liked Vicky, Matt's sister.

SPEAKER_01 47:33

I wish they had kept her around a little bit more.

SPEAKER_02 47:35

Yeah. Well, I I saw Vicky as a real person. You know, she was more real than the rest of these. Who's that fucking up tight in high school? Yeah. Like these kids were walking around like they were 40 years old, like, drugs, don't do drugs, like, do some drugs, grow up, come out.

SPEAKER_01 47:54

It was weird that she was hooking up with Matt, because I think he or not Matt, Jeremy, because like what he's supposed to be, what, 15 in the show? And I think she's supposed to be 17, which is not a huge age gap, but still, 15 and 17 when it comes to a boy and a girl. Might as well be 30 years. But Jeremy was another one who was like insufferable, and then he became like one of my favorite characters, and then he became insufferable again.

SPEAKER_02 48:21

He's like, Oh, I want to hunt them. Yeah, I was like, What?

SPEAKER_01 48:24

For what do you mean you're a vampire hunter now? Like, just just just go to algebra.

SPEAKER_02 48:30

Yeah, it's okay.

SPEAKER_01 48:31

He's an he got jacked in one of those seasons, like when he became like the quote.

SPEAKER_02 48:35

He was hot. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He was hot. They're all hot.

SPEAKER_01 48:39

I mean, they're all hot. He's older than Elena, which is funny as fuck to me that he played the little brother.

SPEAKER_02 48:45

They all by the end of the show, they all looked 48 years old. Yeah. Like, graduate. Yeah. Go.

SPEAKER_01 48:51

Yeah, there was there was no. I thought vampires don't age. There's no age or Damon off as high schoolers.

SPEAKER_02 48:58

Well, because they put the show on a little too long for them to not be aging. Yeah. Because by the end, you're like, yeah, you guys look hella different. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 49:05

Also, Ian Summerholder has one of those faces where it's like, you can tell early on in his life he was like a construction worker where he was outdoors all the time. And then he built like that whole habitat thing for like animals and stuff. So yeah, he's definitely aging like somebody who was a big thing. We were not passing off a moral. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 49:24

Which is fine. Neither am I, baby.

SPEAKER_01 49:26

Okay, neither am I. I mean, Ian Summerholder is aging like wine. He's great. He looks fantastic. I I also like the fact that he kind of just looks homeless when he's not working and he's just like, yeah, this is just yeah, they both kind of look homeless.

SPEAKER_02 49:41

And I also like that they both interact with the fans and they don't care that that's all they're really known for.

SPEAKER_01 49:46

Well, and that's the thing. I think it's the same thing with supernatural. I think they both they were all just kind of like, we make a lot of money to hang out with our friends and do this job that we love. Why are we acting like we need more than this? Like most people would kill DNR shoes. And they love their fans because they get to do the same thing. You know, like because of them. They're the reason like the show lasted as long as it did. And I think and I think that that's kind of like K-pop is the same way. Like K-pop stars love their fans, they are extremely possessive, extremely like loyal, very protective of their fans because they know how easily they can disappear. Like they call it the seven-year curse in K-pop because that's how long the contracts last. And most don't get renewed. So like they know that at best they have seven years to do this, and then hopefully their fans will follow them into solo careers or whatever. So, like, you you gotta you gotta be grateful for what you have. And a lot of these people, especially in movie acting, I think they're just always just like, okay, I'm not Hermione anymore.

SPEAKER_02 50:57

Yeah, look at my tits. You know, I don't know if she did that. I don't know if she did. I'm just saying stuff.

SPEAKER_01 51:02

Actually, the only person I know who did that was uh what's his name? The one who played Harry Potter. He got naked on stage. He like almost immediately He is he's like an actor. Yeah, no, he definitely was on the stage. That's the nice thing, is like he has so much money that he can just do weird indie films for the rest of his life, you know. But he has a face for it. Yeah, he does, he definitely does. He has one of those character faces, you know.

Repurposing Content And Patreon Strategy

SPEAKER_02 51:26

Character face. If you ever say that's me, I'm gonna cry. You know, Shannon, you have a face for character acting. Really? What character would that be?

SPEAKER_01 51:35

A beautiful woman, they say no, they say a beautiful woman, but there's just certain actors that never got like top tier. But like, I mean, Daniel Radcliffe obviously is an A-list actor, but like there's just certain actors you see in all these movies, and they always do like these epic roles, and you're just like, why do these people not get more recognition?

SPEAKER_02 51:56

They're like, I am a heroin addict who traveled the world and babies children. Yeah, yeah. And then you're like, wow, and it's a true story. What? Wow. Unless it's not and then you had to lose 75 pounds to do it. Whoa! Yeah, that that's the other and then you never hear about that movie ever. Yeah. It just like it got shown at the cans, and yeah, exactly. And they won a bunch of awards, and people were like, What is Yeah, some guy in Manhattan's talking about it somewhere and in a coffee shop because he saw it.

SPEAKER_01 52:30

Well, I think we've exhausted this topic. I think we had a few good points for authors in there, hopefully, somewhere along the way in our long rambling, whiny leave the shop talk in there. That's for authors too.

SPEAKER_02 52:50

You guys like that? You want to hear about like her?

SPEAKER_03 52:55

You guys wanna sell books? This is what it takes. You gotta be dedicated, you gotta fucking talk about that shit. It's Christmas, motherfucker. Load up that Shopify. You got this, authors.

SPEAKER_01 53:08

I will say that I am reloading my Patreon course onto the pay onto our Burned Out Muse Patreon. So if you are an author and you're looking to finally jump off the cliff of Patreon, I have an entire course that I'll be dripping through our$25 tier on Patreon. Um starting today. I'm gonna put the first course up. It's an older course that I did last year, but I'm gonna repurpose it because it's got a lot of good information in there. Um but yeah, so you can find us patreon.com slash the burned out muse. You can find us anywhere at slash the Feral Phantoms Podcast or slash the burned out muse, depending on what you're looking for. Um, but yeah, so we will, I don't know what we're talking about next week. I haven't decided yet. It'll be a surprise to all of us.

SPEAKER_02 53:56

Uh it's always a surprise to me. Yeah, I know. I'd love to surprise you with topics. Like, oh I just show up. I'm just the straight man here, I think.

SPEAKER_01 54:06

Never has that been more true. Wait, am I a straight man?

SPEAKER_02 54:12

No, that's my nightmare. Does it sound like a nightmare? I mean, in this economy, it would be nice.

SPEAKER_01 54:18

No shit. All right, guys, we will see you next week. Bye. Bye.