Podcasts about Goodreads

Iris spent her twenties sure she didn't want to spend her life in a bakery. She's opened the same one before dawn every day since. You can get my new book, Awaken Your Myth, at https://awakenyourmyth.com/book/. Please leave a review on Amazon here: https://www.amazon.com/Awaken-Your-Myth-Discover-Purpose/dp/1797235257/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0#averageCustomerReviewsAnchor To leave a review on GoodReads, click here: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/238747993-awaken-your-myth#CommunityReviewsYour support is the cornerstone that allows me to continue crafting tranquil stories and meditations for you. For less than the price of a cup of coffee, you'll unlock an oasis of over 500 ad-free Listen To Sleep episodes, including 8 subscriber-only full length sleepy audiobook classics like Winnie the Pooh and Alice in Wonderland. To pledge your support, visit⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://listentosleep.com/support⁠⁠ or subscribe right in Apple Podcasts and get a 7 day free trial. Want to change your story? Take the free Path Assessment at https://jointhecabin.org. In two minutes, you'll see your personalized journey and know exactly where to start. To join my email group and get a bunch of goodies, go to ⁠⁠https://erikireland.com Sleep well, friends.

Christine Riccio & Natasha Polis talk all things nerdy in the book, tv, movie, pop culture, fandoms, and how they integrate into their adult lives. Today they're talking writing advice with special author guest, New York and Sunday Times bestselling author Roshani Chokshi!!! Plus they chat the How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days sequel, Taylor Swift, Not Suitable for Work being canceled, Vera Stein is Fine, and more!The main discussion with Rosh is first today!Find all Roshani's books: https://www.roshanichokshi.com/If you'd like to jump to Snap Crackle Pop-culture news it starts at: 57:40Today in Fangirl Tea Time : Join Christine and Natasha for more stories about their recent life escapades. Support the pod by joining the Forking Fangirls Patreon community: http://patreon.com/thoseforkingfangirls TEAM EDWARD: The first five Heated Rivalry episode commentaries are up now! Follow the visual show on our Youtube: http://youtube.com/@thoseforkingfangirls  Get Christine's new book THIRTY, FLIRTY, & FOREVER ALONE: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1662532156Add Thirty Flirty & Forever Alone on Goodreads:https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/230393104-thirty-flirty-and-forever-aloneCheck out Natasha's sewing classes: https://www.natashapolis.com/Join our patron to get 10 dollars off the classes!Website: https://thoseforkingfangirls.com/ Email us feedback: thoseforkingfangirls@gmail.com Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thoseforkingfangirls/

National Treasure Hunt co-hosts Aubrey Paris and Emily Black sit down with National Treasure director Jon Turteltaub for an in-person discussion about the franchise's legacy and his memories of filming in Philadelphia. | "You deserve to have the scoop: it's finally real." | During their conversation, Turteltaub EXCLUSIVELY reveals to National Treasure Hunt the news that fans have anticipated for nearly two decades: National Treasure 3 has a script and "it's happening." | If you've been following media coverage of this major entertainment news, check out this full interview for additional details related to the big announcement. Which cast members are anticipated to return? Why has it taken so long to get here? And will National Treasure 3 address page 47? This episode was recorded in front of a live audience at the Liberty View at Independence Visitor Center on August 21, 2026, as part of Philadelphia's first National Treasure Weekend. National Treasure Weekend is a collaboration between National Treasure Hunt, Philadelphia Visitor Center Corporation, and Independence Historical Trust. • The New York Times recently published a feature on National Treasure Hunt! Read the story here: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/25/arts/national-treasure-hunt-philadelphia.html • Sign-ups are OPEN for the fall 2026 National Treasure Hunt Tour in Philadelphia happening on Saturday, September 19th. Register here before all spots are filled: https://forms.gle/FmRjbHwbUU73r7rd7 • Sign-ups are also OPEN for the fall 2026 National Treasure Hunt Tour in Washington, D.C., happening on Saturday, October 17th. Register here before all spots are filled: https://forms.gle/Xnhd5d3mJLDXqG8J9 • Order our new book, "Riley Poole's Book of Secrets: History for National Treasure Hunters," from Tucker DS Press or on Amazon at https://www.amazon.com/Riley-Pooles-Secrets-Aubrey-Paris/dp/1959748394/, and leave a rating and review on Goodreads (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/246259636-riley-poole-s-book-of-secrets). • Order our first book, "National Treasure Hunt: One Step Short of Crazy," from Tucker DS Press or on Amazon at https://www.amazon.com/National-Treasure-Hunt-Short-Crazy/dp/1959748009. • National Treasure Hunt is now available as a video podcast! To watch video versions of this and future episodes, plus supplementary short- and long-form video content, subscribe at www.youtube.com/@NTHuntPodcast. • Join the hunt on X and Instagram using @NTHuntPodcast, and find new episodes of National Treasure Hunt every-other Wednesday on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen. More information about the National Treasure Hunt podcast, walking tour, books, and events can be found at www.nthuntpodcast.com. • To support our show and access even more exclusive National Treasure Hunt content, including bonus episodes, watch parties, and a book club, subscribe to our Patreon at www.patreon.com/NTHuntPodcast, and visit our merch store to find designs that celebrate your love of National Treasure: http://tee.pub/lic/nthuntpodcast.

Marlon and Jake take on violence in fiction: what makes it effective, what makes it gratuitous, and whether “gratuitous violence” is even a useful distinction. Tune in as they discuss the difference between violence on the page and on screen and why extended cruelty can be harder to stomach than violence itself. Subscribe to our River-herd digital newsletter and our print newspaper, The Eddy, for sneak peeks of our upcoming books, free giveaways, and exclusive content: https://sites.prh.com/the-eddy-newspaper. Lord of the Flies by William Golding All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque Cities of the Red Night by William S. Burroughs Naked Lunch by William S. Burroughs Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy The Godfather by Mario Puzo The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess 2666 by Roberto Bolaño Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel Titus Andronicus by William Shakespeare The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas Hamlet by William Shakespeare King Lear by William Shakespeare Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck A Distant Mirror by Barbara W. Tuchman Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

Do you know how to share the truth in a way that's bold but not belligerent?  Host Tina Yeager sits down with Christian business leader and author Peter Demos at the National Religious Broadcasters Convention in Nashville to discuss how to be "bold, not belligerent" when sharing your beliefs. Discover insights on standing for truth without being overbearing, the power of forgiveness, how self-protection and entitlement can get in the way of our faith, and the difference between cultural and biblical love. Peter Demos shares wisdom from his personal journey, equipping you with tools and encouragement to speak truth with love, shift your mindset and heartset, and trust God more deeply as you fulfill your purpose. Stay tuned for inspiration that will empower you to move from surviving to thriving in all areas of life. Highlights from the Conversation 1. Prepare Your Heart First According to Peter Demos, true boldness begins with spiritual disciplines like forgiveness, repentance, and prayer. Before you stand for the truth, check your own heart for unresolved anger or unforgiveness that may distort your message. 2. Approach with Redeeming Love Love isn't always "sweet and flowery." Real love means wanting the ultimate best for others. Speak truth motivated by a desire to help—not to shame or "win" an argument. 3. Distinguish Meekness from Weakness Meekness is strength under control. Peter Demos reminds us that we don't have to contribute to the cultural noise or respond with anger. Instead, we should act with wisdom and grace—even when we must correct a fellow believer. 4. Trust That It's Not About "Winning" We're not single-handedly responsible for changing hearts; we're called to add "water to the bucket" by planting seeds in each conversation. Trust God with the results. 5. Check Your Motives Ask yourself: Am I motivated by love or by self-protection, fear, or insecurity? Peter Demos urges us to ground our identity in Christ, not in our roles, accomplishments, or safety nets. Stay Connected For practical encouragement and wisdom, subscribe to Peter Demos's podcast and follow his work at peterdemos.org. We're thrilled to accompany you on this journey of faith, growth, and transformation. As always, we appreciate your support! Please subscribe and share this episode. We can't wait for you to join us for future episodes of Flourish-Meant. To book Tina as a speaker, connect with her life coaching services, and more, visit her website: https://tinayeager.com/ Optimize your mind and body with my new favorite, all-inclusive supplement, Cardio Miracle! I love the energy and focus this health-boosting drink mix provides without toxins, caffeine, or sugar! Get a discount on your purchase with my link: http://www.cardiomiracle.com/tinayeager Live your healthiest life with Sustainable Healthy Weight Loss! Tina Yeager's unprecedented whole-person program is bundled with profound insights and tools to help you embrace the revitalized, slimmer you that you might never have dreamed possible! OR Manage stress and anxiety in 10 minutes a day with the course presented by 15 experts, Subdue Stress and Anxiety https://divineencouragement.onlinecoursehost.com/courses Connect with Tina at: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/tyeagerwriting/ Linked In: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tinayeager/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tina.yeager.9/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/TinaYeager Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/tyeagerwrites/ Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/3865622.Tina_Yeager

Most people only check one thing on their dashboard: feelings. That's like covering every other gauge in your car with a Post it note and driving by only watching the check oil light. Sure, you'd know when to change your oil, but you'd rack up speeding tickets, run out of gas, and probably rear end somebody at the grocery store. In this episode, I'm sharing the other data points you need to review besides your emotions, including truth, time, commitments, numbers, and your original dream. I'll walk you through how I used this exact framework to finally deal with my insurance policy, a task I'd been avoiding for way too long. You don't need to check every gauge every time. You just need to know which ones matter for the situation you're in. Drive with your whole dashboard, and you'll actually end up where you want to go.In This Episode:Order Procrastination Proof!You can grab a copy of my new book Procrastination Proof from your favorite bookstore or at my website!Make sure to follow me on Instagram and share with your friends!Sign up for my newsletter, Try This!Book me to speak at your event or to your team!Sign up for the Remarkable You Community today!Keep up with my book list on GoodReads!Have me speak at your next event!

The best hunter in her family rarely stops moving. Then, for one golden afternoon, she does. You can get my new book, Awaken Your Myth, at https://awakenyourmyth.com/book/. Please leave a review on Amazon here: https://www.amazon.com/Awaken-Your-Myth-Discover-Purpose/dp/1797235257/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0#averageCustomerReviewsAnchor To leave a review on GoodReads, click here: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/238747993-awaken-your-myth#CommunityReviewsYour support is the cornerstone that allows me to continue crafting tranquil stories and meditations for you. For less than the price of a cup of coffee, you'll unlock an oasis of over 500 ad-free Listen To Sleep episodes, including 8 subscriber-only full length sleepy audiobook classics like Winnie the Pooh and Alice in Wonderland. To pledge your support, visit⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://listentosleep.com/support⁠⁠ or subscribe right in Apple Podcasts and get a 7 day free trial. Want to change your story? Take the free Path Assessment at https://jointhecabin.org. In two minutes, you'll see your personalized journey and know exactly where to start. To join my email group and get a bunch of goodies, go to ⁠⁠https://erikireland.com Sleep well, friends.

Christine Riccio & Natasha Polis talk all things nerdy in the book, tv, movie, pop culture, fandoms, and how they integrate into their adult lives. Today they're talking about the cover and title reveal for ACOTAR books 6 & 7 - A Court of Splintered Harmony and A Court of Forgotten Melody by Sarah J. Maas! Plus they chat Sterling Point, Moody's Point, Adversary to the Villian, Vera Stein is Fine, Taylor Swift, and more!The Main discussion start at: 53:16Today in Fangirl Tea Time : Join Christine and Natasha for more stories about their recent life escapades. Support the pod by joining the Forking Fangirls Patreon community: http://patreon.com/thoseforkingfangirls TEAM EDWARD: The first five Heated Rivalry episode commentaries are up now! Follow the visual show on our Youtube: http://youtube.com/@thoseforkingfangirls  Get Christine's new book THIRTY, FLIRTY, & FOREVER ALONE: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1662532156Add Thirty Flirty & Forever Alone on Goodreads:https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/230393104-thirty-flirty-and-forever-aloneCheck out Natasha's sewing classes: https://www.natashapolis.com/Join our patron to get 10 dollars off the classes!Website: https://thoseforkingfangirls.com/ Email us feedback: thoseforkingfangirls@gmail.com Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thoseforkingfangirls/Twitter: https://twitter.com/forkfangirlspod TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@thoseforkingfangirlsGet Christine's novel Attached at the Hip: https://a.co/d/grmPeVy Check out the Selkie Collection and get 10% off your order with code TASHAPOLIS https://selkiecollection.com/collections/all

How can you get your books surfaced when readers ask an AI what to read next? What are the hallmarks of authors and businesses that last more than a decade in the indie author industry? Ricardo Fayet gives his marketing tips after more than a decade at Reedsy. In the intro, Expanding Your Book's IP through Merchandising [Wish I'd Known Then]; Guide to writers conferences [Kindlepreneur]; Rick Rubin and Stephen Pressfield on resistance and the muse [Tetragrammaton]; Pulitzer Prize winners disclose AI usage [Nieman Lab]; My new rebuilt fiction site JFPenn.com. Today's show is sponsored by Draft2Digital, self-publishing with support, where you can get free formatting, free distribution to multiple stores, and a host of other benefits. Just go to www.draft2digital.com to get started. This show is also supported by my Patrons. Join my Community at Patreon.com/thecreativepenn Ricardo Fayet is the co-founder and chief marketing officer of Reedsy, a marketplace for writers to find vetted freelancers, author training courses, and lots more. He's also the author of How to Market a Book and Amazon Ads for Authors. You can listen above or on your favorite podcast app or read the notes and links below. Here are the highlights and the full transcript is below. Show Notes How AI search actually finds and ranks the books it recommends Why keywords and search volume are disappearing as marketing metrics Building an internet footprint so your book is worth recommending Why Claude leans on Goodreads while ChatGPT and Gemini lean on Reddit Product is more important than marketing, and how to find your comp titles Passion, business sense and resilience in the authors who last You can find Ricardo at Reedsy.com. Transcript of the interview with Ricardo Fayet Jo: Ricardo Fayet is the co-founder and chief marketing officer of Reedsy, a marketplace for writers to find vetted freelancers, author training courses, and lots more. He's also the author of How to Market a Book and Amazon Ads for Authors. So welcome back to the show, Ricardo. Ricardo: Thank you, Jo. It's been a while. Jo: It has been a while. As we were saying, it's been a decade, which is crazy, because you and I see each other at events and things. For anyone who doesn't know you— Tell us a bit more about you, where you're from, and also, what is Reedsy these days and how have things changed? Ricardo: Yes, sure. I think I'm hard to dissociate from Reedsy because my only background really is Reedsy. We started Reedsy right after business school for most of the founders. There are four founders, and I'm one of them. We've been going since 2014, so it's been 12 years. We started around the same time, and you started even earlier than we did, but we've had the chance to meet at quite a few conferences since. I think the main thing we're still known for is our marketplace. Since the very beginning, Reedsy is a curated marketplace where authors can come in and look for editors, cover designers, marketers, ghostwriters, literary translators, author website designers, pretty much any freelancer you would ever need to hire throughout your writing career. That's how we started. That's our main source of revenue and our main business. Since then, as you mentioned, we've also added courses, live events, so we've got a membership under Reedsy Learning. The main thing we're proud of right now is our writing tool, Reedsy Studio, because we've been pouring a lot of engineering talent into it over the past five, six years, and I think it's a really cool writing tool that is 90% free. It also does the formatting, so it's a good alternative to Vellum or Atticus for those who haven't purchased those tools. So there's a lot of things that Reedsy does at this point, which always makes it hard for me to describe what we do. Jo: But you generally serve writers. That's probably the crux of it. Ricardo: Exactly, yes. We're mostly at the production stage. The thing we say is we help authors make beautiful books, right? That's a little bit the tagline that applies to 90% of what we do, though we also help a little bit with the marketing side of things. Jo: And then just tell people where your accent is from. Ricardo: So I'm half French, half Italian from my parents, and I was born in Spain. So depending on my mood and the moment, it might be anywhere from French, Italian, Spanish. It's anyone's guess, really, at this point. Jo: Yes, exactly. You've been part of the indie author ecosystem, as you said, since 2014. You're often at the author conferences, and you stay abreast of everything that's going on. So what are the biggest changes you've seen in the industry since you started out? Like you said, you guys came from business school. You chose to come into the industry at a particular point, and yet things have changed. So what do you think are the biggest changes, and how have you seen authors adapt? Ricardo: It's crazy, the amount of things that happened in the past 10 years. Obviously we came into the industry as a result of Amazon launching Kindle Direct Publishing, and then the Kindle Store becoming one of the number one places where people buy books. That's what enabled self-publishing in the first place as an industry, and obviously we wouldn't exist without self-publishing being a thing. But then I think probably one of the biggest changes that happened was the introduction of Kindle Unlimited and various other subscription models. Perhaps as a response to that, afterwards, I would say direct sales is the other massive change that happened in the industry. The ability for authors to sell direct to their readers via their websites, or running Kickstarters, or basically the ability to reach your customers directly. Now, obviously, artificial intelligence is probably the biggest change of them all, not just in publishing, across every industry, but of course it's going to affect publishing very strongly, or it has already started making big waves. So I would say those are the three main changes that we've seen happening in the industry. Jo: Just interestingly, given that you're French, Italian, Spanish, European— Has the pace of change been the same in mainland Europe? Because you and I have also met up at European conferences, but I just get the sense that each individual European country, the UK included, as I include the UK in Europe, goes at a different speed. Ricardo: No, they definitely do. Our market at Reedsy is all in English. We only have an English website, and I would say 70% of our market is US, then 15% UK, and then Australia, New Zealand, et cetera. We do have clients in continental Europe, but they're mostly going to be American or British expats. A lot of retired people who write books and use Reedsy services. I think the main reason for that is that self-publishing as an industry hasn't really grown in Spain, France, Italy the way that it's grown in the US and the UK, probably because these are countries where book buying habits are a lot more traditional. So all my friends from high school and university in France, they all buy books, they all buy paper books. They all buy from bookstores. They don't really buy from Amazon that much. They love the smell of paper, all these sorts of things. So obviously that makes it harder for indie authors in those countries because they cannot place their books in the places where people buy them, which is traditional brick-and-mortar bookstores, or at least it's much harder. So there is an indie movement in those countries, but it's much smaller. I would say Germany is maybe the exception in Europe, where I've seen more and more full-time indie authors, but I don't think it's a market that's comparable even to the UK. Jo: Interesting. Okay, so let's go to marketing, because you love marketing, you have a newsletter about it, and you have a book, How to Market a Book, same title as mine, and we've found each other in our Also Boughts over the years. You have, however, updated yours several times. 2025 was your last update. Mine was 2016, so yours is definitely the most up-to-date one. So what are your thoughts on how authors can reach readers now? And let's split this into two. Let's start with some tips for new authors who just have maybe one book and are really just starting out. Ricardo: Yes, first of all, sorry for stealing your title. Jo: Oh, you know, it's never been a problem. Ricardo: We were trying to come up with something… I know, I know, I know. But still, we wanted something more original, and then we realised that for SEO purposes, that's the title we should really go for. The good thing is, if you search “how to market a book” on pretty much any retailer, you're going to find your book or mine in any order really, but those are going to be the top two books to this day, thankfully, so I'm good with that. I think in terms of marketing tips for new authors who have just the one book, I'd say, despite all the changes in the industry, the basics of marketing still stay the same. One of my big mantras when it comes to marketing is that product is more important than marketing. So having a great book is going to be more important, in my opinion, than being a great marketer. Having a great product. By that, I generally don't talk about literary value or prose or anything like that, just because I'm not a book critic. I'm not an editor. My opinion on whether a book is good or not is worth zero. From a marketing standpoint, for me, a good book is one that resonates with its intended audience. So the first step for newer authors is to basically figure out who they wrote this book for, right? Have an idea of who their target market is. A great way to do that, without entering into marketing jargon like proto-personas and stuff like that, is to think in terms of comp titles, comparable titles. I think that's probably the base of any marketing, whether traditional publishing houses or indie authors, to think, “Okay, which other books out there are similar to mine?” If your book is completely unique, you have, I would say, 99.9% chance of not selling, because your market doesn't exist, and 0.01% chance of creating your own market and completely dominating it, right? So being unique is not necessarily a bad thing, but I would say 99% of the time, it is. Obviously being unique within an existing niche, within an existing market, that's completely different, but you need to work on some comparable titles. So I would say that's where I would start, and that's one of the things that AI is great at. If you even just plug in your book into an AI chat that has enough context, if you're comfortable doing that of course, or if you plug in a synopsis, like a long synopsis, you can basically ask the AI chats, “Okay, what would be some comp titles?” Either you'll have heard of those books, and you'll think, “Okay, they're good comps,” or you may not have heard of them, in which case I would really recommend buying them and reading them and seeing whether they're comps or not. I think that's where marketing starts. Jo: Yes, and we might come back to that for book discoverability. Well, let's just talk about it now, because I now pretty much use Claude for discovering books as well. I just find that the Amazon search, for nonfiction it works really well, right? As you said, if you want to learn how to market a book, you just search “how to market a book”, and our books are very well titled for that. But for fiction, it's so difficult to find new books and comp titles, especially if you don't write in a clear genre, which I don't. I know lots of people do. So we're writing cross-genre. So in terms of book discoverability, I know you've been looking into SEO for books and all of that. What are your thoughts on how authors can more effectively have their books surfaced if people are using the AIs for finding books? Ricardo: That's a very big topic. That's one of my favourite topics right now. That's what I talk about in my marketing newsletter, and I want to start a Substack on the topic as well, because I think it is the future of book discoverability. As you say, search on Amazon isn't great, and if it's not great on Amazon, you don't even want to imagine on Google Play, Kobo, all these sorts of places, right? If you search on Kobo or Apple Books or Google Play for witch cozy mysteries, the top 10 books are going to have exactly “witch cozy mystery” in the title or the subtitle or the series title, right? Jo: Yes. Ricardo: Search is very simple on those sites, so it's very easy to game, but it's terrible as an experience for readers. So I do think that a big part of search is going to move to AI, and now you have Rufus within Amazon itself that appears as a chatbot and encourages you to talk with it, to ask for recommendations. In the beginning Rufus was really terrible, but now I recommend authors play with it. In general, I recommend when it comes to AI discoverability that authors play with all the AI search tools. So it's going to be Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini, Google's AI Overviews and AI Mode, Rufus within Amazon. Just like we talked about comp titles, right, ask for something like, “What would you recommend for fans of this book? Which other books would you recommend?” Or if you're looking for something specific that describes your book, what books would you recommend on… I think one of your examples was fiction around masonry or something like that, right? Jo: I always say, for example, if you ask for action adventure thrillers on pretty much anywhere, you're going to get 20 books by male authors. For those of us who are female authors, but also who have female main characters, you can then be far more granular. That's just not something that necessarily works on Amazon. So, action adventure thrillers with female protagonists written by female indie authors, which is very specific. That will work in AI, whereas that definitely won't work on Amazon. Ricardo: Exactly. So one of the great things about AI search, and terrible things at the same time, is that the concept of keyword is lost, right? So we title our books How to Market a Book because the keyword that people would search for is “how to market a book”, or “book marketing for authors”. Those were the two keywords that had the biggest search volume if we looked at Google Keyword Planner, or any search tools that give you keyword volume. When it comes to AI search, since it's conversational, and it's very personalised, and it can go as niche as you want, keywords are going to disappear, and search volume as a metric is going to disappear. The search you just told me about, maybe there are 10 people who are going to run it exactly. Most people are going to run variations of that. Since you can go as granular as you want, it's going to be very long phrases, very long sentences. So the whole concept of keywords, search volume, SEO, is going to disappear in favour of what some people call GEO, generative engine optimisation, AIO, AI optimisation, AI search optimisation. There's a bunch of names for it, but it is a different discipline. It still works on the basis of Google SEO because what most of these search engines will do is they're going to search the internet, right? They've been trained on a lot of information, but not all of that information is current. Most of these models have been trained on documents and web pages before 2021. That's why when you used the very early versions of ChatGPT, and you asked it about current events or current books, it didn't find it. It didn't have that information. Now all these models have the ability to search the web, and they do that really effectively. So the first thing they're going to do if you run a search like that is they're going to run dozens of different searches on Google or a similar search engine. Action thriller books with female protagonists. Action thriller books with female protagonists by indie authors. Action thriller books by indie authors. They're going to create what I call a corpus, so a massive document of information with candidates, books that probably meet those criteria that they have found through regular web searches. Then they're going to go through all those books and determine which are the most relevant to recommend, and they'll return with that. Then they'll usually have a verification layer as well, which is, okay, I have these five books that I want to recommend to this user, but I just want to make sure first that they are written by indie authors, that they do have a female protagonist, et cetera. And if I'm not able to verify that, I'll flag it in my answer to them. So there are these three layers. Web search, then ranking of the book candidates, and finally a verification layer, and then they serve you the answer. Obviously, that's really powerful. If that's the way that search is headed, which I firmly believe, then we as authors need to learn how to get our books in there. Jo: Yes. It's so interesting, and I do this all the time. Really niche stuff, like a thriller about anatomical Venuses, which are these models from anatomy museums and stuff like that, with an edge of the supernatural. What is brilliant is that you can find the books that come up. I actually got one that I read and reviewed, and it was fantastic. So I love the more granular thing, but we're really in the very long tail now, right? It feels like you can write a very nuanced book, and it will be surfaced, but only by a few people. So do we have to write our books and then try to not even retrofit them in the way that we used to? We used to try and figure out the seven keywords and all of that kind of thing, and now I almost feel like we just get to be grownups, where you just get to write the book and put it out there, and these things are more intelligent than the search terms. Ricardo: Yes, absolutely. I think in terms of the variety of books that are going to be read and discovered, that's amazing. A little bit like the whole indie publishing movement was amazing, because if you remove the traditional publishing gatekeepers, then suddenly zombie books aren't dead anymore. Zombies are alive again. They've… Jo: Come to life. Ricardo: They've come alive, and so you get a bunch of zombie books again. It's not a small niche audience. It's actually a pretty big niche audience that loves zombie books, and suddenly they have those to consume. This is a little bit similar on a much, much bigger and more granular scale, because anyone can find exactly the kind of book that they're looking for, with the tropes they want, with the type of characters they want, with the type of author they want, and you can basically use any kind of filter. So for discoverability on the side of the reader, that's great. For the authors, it doesn't mean that you can just write whatever you want and then rest, and readers will find them. Because your books still need to have generated a certain internet footprint and a certain review footprint in order to become interesting or recommendable to AI search engines, right? Unless you're the only book that an AI search engine can recommend for that specific search, and yours was very specific, so it might have been the only one. If there are other candidates, the AI search engines are pretty smart. They're going to recommend the candidates that have more reviews, better reviews, or are more famous, that have more, when I talk about internet footprint, more pages talking about them on the internet. That's for me the big finding I've seen. The more pages you have on the internet talking about your book, so that could be book review sites, that could be Goodreads lists, Listopia lists, anywhere on the internet where your book is mentioned, that creates a footprint for it. The more footprints, the more famous your book looks to AI search engines, and so the more worthy of recommendations it is to them. Jo: Yes, and this is one reason why I now ask people, especially when you sell direct, or say you have a Kickstarter and you want reviews, I ask people if they can review on Goodreads. Obviously Goodreads is owned by Amazon, but it is far more searchable by the bots than Amazon is. I sometimes find that Amazon gets blocked. Or Amazon blocks some of the bots, let's put it that way. They might change over time. They own 15% of Anthropic or something. But Goodreads I feel like does get indexed, and I'm not willing to engage on Reddit. I know Reddit is another popular one. Just be very clear on social media, because some people think, oh, I just need loads of influencers to talk about my book, and that will impact the AIs. But I find that social media just almost isn't even there. Ricardo: It depends on which social media. For me, Reddit is a social medium, right? It's a very weird one, but it's obviously the number one social medium used by AI search engines, and it's pretty dodgy stuff with lots of conflicts of interest, because Google has a paid partnership with Reddit. I think Sam Altman has shares in Reddit. So both OpenAI and Google Gemini heavily rely on Reddit for their AI answers, right? If you ask anything from ChatGPT or Gemini, I'd say there are very high chances that in the sources and the citations of the answer, you're going to find Reddit, right? That goes for books as well. Every time you ask for book recommendations, Reddit is going to be big for those two AI search engines. Claude, it's a little bit different. They do have a little bit of a relationship with Reddit, but I don't think it's as big. I found that Claude relies heavily on Goodreads, not Reddit. To me, Goodreads is another social medium at the end of the day, right? It's not the kind of social medium we think of, like… Jo: It's not TikTok. Ricardo: It's not TikTok. TikTok is surfaced a little bit, but not that much. It might become more surfaced in the future, but right now what I've found is, it's really Reddit and Goodreads. Facebook, LinkedIn, but LinkedIn is big for nonfiction topics more than fiction, because there are just not a lot of fiction readers, sorry, talking about their favourite books on LinkedIn. They usually go to other places for that. Jo: Yes, it's really interesting. So obviously TikTok has its own BookTok thing, so some people are finding books on BookTok, and some people like me are finding books through asking Claude, and that's just my overwhelming feeling about the industry. We talked earlier about what's changed. When I started, so 2006, there wasn't even KDP, and then KDP arrives, then you came in 2014, and probably until maybe a few years after that, there was one way to self-publish. Then what's happened since is this kind of splintering. There are so many ways to self-publish. There are so many ways to reach readers. There are so many ways to market. So someone, for example, could sell direct on TikTok Shop, only market through TikTok, and you wouldn't even know that they existed over in another ecosystem, right? So do you feel like that's happened too, this total splintering? Ricardo: Absolutely. I think there are so many different ways in which you can reach your audience now and monetise it as well, that it's absolutely possible. We both know examples of authors who are only visible to their TikTok niche, right? I think the big difference is also monetisation, because earlier you also had different ways of becoming well-known. Like you had Facebook, you had potentially Twitter, back when it was Twitter. Various social media, word of mouth. But where people bought books was Amazon. So that was your monetisation. It was either selling your book on Amazon, or potentially getting KU reads after that when KU launched. Now you can sell on TikTok, you can sell direct, you can run Kickstarters, you can start a Patreon or Substack and make your money through there. There are pretty much infinite ways through which you can monetise your content as a creator. Most of those places will also have a discoverability engine built in, so you can not only sell through there and make money through there, but also grow an audience there. That's probably the biggest competition that Amazon has ever had to face, is this sort of splintering. For us authors and content creators in general, it's amazing, because it's a bunch of different opportunities. Jo: Yes, and I think probably that's circling back to marketing. As we've said, some things have changed, some things stay the same. Is the email list still the number one way to market, do you think, for authors who want a long-term career? Ricardo: I think so. It's just the one thing you really own that allows you to communicate with readers, right? Because even if you build a following on TikTok, TikTok can change. The things we said about Facebook 10 years ago, if you build your Facebook group, Facebook can change, and Facebook changed. Facebook destroyed the reach of pages, and now groups also aren't amazing, et cetera. So the same thing that happened to Facebook can happen to TikTok, can happen to any other social media. Substack is a bit of a hybrid because it is a newsletter, it is a mailing list, but it also has a discoverability engine built in. So I still wouldn't really go all in on Substack. The great advantage there is that you do own the emails, right? So you can move away from it at some point. For me, the email list is the one thing that you are completely in control of. Personally, the main thing I check is my emails every day. I spend more time in my inbox than anywhere else, and I think that's probably the case for most people. So I do think, despite the influx of mails that readers are getting in their inbox, I still think it's one of the most important marketing tools for authors. Jo: Yes, and I still remember when I started my list in December 2008, and I still have people on the list who've been with me that whole time, and have moved email list services several times as well. So I think that's important too. The care of that list too is so important. One of the things that I am annoyed about with Substack, I don't have a Substack, but when I follow some people's, it's always constantly trying to get you to sign up to other people's lists, trying to subscribe you to this or that or the other. I'm like, “That's so annoying.” Now I've found on all these email services they're trying to pair you with other creators and cross-promote and all of this. So it feels like even the email list is becoming a difficult place unless you really protect it. So just protecting your list, I think, and remembering that those are people. Those are people who've bought your books, or people who read your emails. Like people listening to this, these are humans. Sure, some bot might be looking at the transcript, but humans listening to this are individual humans with individual email lists. We tend to forget that, don't we, as you get a bigger list. You think about it as a big number, whereas it's still individual people. Ricardo: Yes, it becomes a number, it becomes metrics, the open rate, the click rate, and all that. But the great thing about email is that you get replies in your inbox. There you remember that they're actual human beings who write you back. I think for readers, the ability to write back to an author and get a response is just amazing, right? If you write to your favourite author and they write back to you, that's the best feeling ever as a reader. So I think email is still one of the best ways to turn your readers into fans and into super fans of your brand, by just interacting with them and answering them. Because yes, you can answer comments on TikTok, Facebook, and all those places, but it doesn't feel the same as an author answering you in your inbox, I feel. So you do get that ability to create a real connection with readers directly through email. Jo: Yes, and I think that trust and the reputation is so important. Just in terms of seeing the authors that you've seen over the years, like I said, you've been going to a lot of the author conferences. You know a lot of the authors in the industry. A lot of people will know you from events. But you've also seen authors come and go, and you've seen vendors come and go. Both of us have seen people arrive, and we'd be like, “Oh, yes, I wonder how long they're going to last.” Then some people do and some people don't. So what are some of the elements that you've noticed about the businesses that last more than a decade? Ricardo: I think they need to solve a genuine problem, or offer a genuinely better solution than one that already exists. I see a lot of businesses come in and they do what another vendor already does, without doing it necessarily better. Those businesses tend to disappear, or linger there, but you don't really hear about them again. When they solve a real need… I still remember when BookFunnel came out, and they've since become massive with one very, very basic thing, which is, “We will take care of delivering your ebook files to readers.” That's how they started, and that's how they became massive. To me at the time, I was like, “That seems like a very small problem,” because I can just email an ebook file. I didn't realise that it was so complicated for a lot of readers to upload files to their Kindle or other devices, and that having a service that takes care of that for you is just massively helpful. I realised that when I published my books, actually. So businesses that solve even micro or apparently very small problems, but they really solve them effectively, they stay. Others that surf on trends, they tend to disappear when the trend disappears. When there's a new marketing trend, and that trend stops working, then those businesses tend to go. Jo: Yes, and what about the authors who last? Because let's face it, most of us don't solve a problem in a different way. Maybe you could say we solve your entertainment problem in a different version to your last book. What about the authors who last long term? What have you noticed about them? Ricardo: Two things. So the first one… Maybe three things. First one is passion. I always say to people who are looking to start self-publishing, I always say that publishing in general is probably one of the worst ways to make money. It's awful. You can pick up any other occupation and it's probably going to be easier to make money. So writers who make a career do it because they need to write, because they have a passion for writing. So a lot of people who come into the industry thinking, “I've heard about all these self-publishing success stories. Surely I can write a book and I can market it. It's not that hard. So that's going to be a great way to make quick bucks,” those generally don't last, because they don't have that genuine passion. The first hurdle they're going to face—and there's going to be a bunch of them along the way—they're going to quit. The second thing is business sense, or business education, the basics of business, right? Thinking in terms of marketing, thinking in terms of who's my reader, unit economics. If I'm selling my books at $3.99, I shouldn't be spending a ton of money. If I just have one book at $3.99, I cannot afford to pay $5 on ads to generate a sale. So those kinds of basic economics or business knowledge, I think, if not a requirement, it's a massive plus. The third thing is resilience. The industry has changed a lot, as you mentioned. There are a bunch of ways now to reach an audience. There are a bunch of ways to make money. It can also be distracting, because you go to one of these conferences and you go back thinking, “Oh, I've got to create my own website, sell direct. I've got to launch my Substack. I have to use Claude Code for my ads,” and three more things, “and I have to set up my TikTok Shop and do TikTok Lives to sell books,” right? Jo: All of those by next week. That's why we go to the conference. Ricardo: Exactly. All those by next week, right? And during that one week after the conference, you have the energy to start implementing all those things, but afterwards you lose that energy and you go back to, “I just want to quit.” So you need to have some sort of resilience, and the business sense of, “Okay, I'm going to try this for the next six months, and I'm going to stick to it, and I'm going to see whether it works or not. And if it doesn't work, I'm not just going to despair. I'm going to try something else.” That goes for marketing tactics, but also goes for books. Most authors I know who make a living writing, they didn't get there with their first book or even their first series. A lot of times I see authors who write a couple of series, and those series do okay. They sell a little bit, but not much, and it doesn't afford them to quit their day job. Then suddenly, based on what they've learned with those first two series and what they've learned potentially going to conferences or listening to podcasts like this, et cetera, they write a third series that's a hit. That's a hit, and that's instantly much easier to market, and that's when they can afford to go full time and write full time, because they've found that sort of product market fit. And product market fit for me is the main thing for marketing in general and for authors in particular. Until you find that, everything is really difficult from a marketing perspective. But finding it usually requires writing more than one book and more than one series, because you're rarely going to get the big lottery ticket on the first try. Jo: Or ever. I think it's really important. I've never had a breakout book, but I've made good money every year. I think, and Hugh Howey said this, that the real story of self-publishing is not the people who make seven figures a year, it's the people who can go on a holiday once a year, or the people who can just put a bit towards their mortgage or whatever. So you may never have a breakout series. I think that's really important, too. Ricardo: That's true. Jo: That's true. You can just keep writing and make all right money and be what we call in the mid-list. Ricardo: Yes, but you've got to keep going. You've got to have that resilience to keep going, probably because it's your passion. Exactly. You're not chasing that seven figure series. You're writing because you need to write. Jo: Yes, and you can't stop, and you get the bug. I think when you're writing that first book, I'm not sure if people understand that you either get the bug or you don't, I think. You've written a couple of books now. Do you think you have the bug, or is it more about the business? Ricardo: I don't have the bug. I definitely don't have the bug. I would've kept writing otherwise. Jo: You're a technologist, right? Ricardo: Yes. I'm more of a technologist, more of a marketer. To write my first book, How to Market a Book, I actually had to write newsletters, because that I can manage, right? One newsletter a week. Now I don't even manage that. I send it once every two weeks when I can even manage that pace. But back then I did one newsletter a week, and that's how I wrote my first book. I then put all these newsletters together, and that was before the age of AI, so I couldn't just dump all that into ChatGPT and tell it, “Create me a book based on that.” I had to do it myself. Jo: Oh, terrible. Ricardo: Terrible, I know. The days when we had to work. No, but that was a really good experiment. The second book, Amazon Ads for Authors, I actually wrote it from scratch, and I didn't love the experience. I loved the finished product, I'm very proud of it, but I didn't enjoy the experience of writing it. Amazon Ads is not the most exciting topic in the world. Even for people like me, who actually enjoy Amazon Ads, it's not super exciting to write about. The fact of having to write that whole book from scratch, I didn't love the experience. So now I do want to write a third book at some point, but I think it'll probably be in the format of the first one. Like, when I finish my series of newsletters on AI search and AI discoverability, I might do a booklet or something around it, but we'll have to see. It's not my favourite thing. It's a good thing I don't need to. Good thing I'm not an author, basically. Jo: No, but I think that's really great to recognise. You actually have written books that support your business, and that is very common for nonfiction writers. That's completely normal for nonfiction authors. So I think that's another important thing for people to recognise, is that the reasons we write are different, the reasons we market are different, and we all have different approaches. As we wind up, and obviously you talked a bit there about how easy it is to generate books with AI, and that is probably one of the biggest things that people are worried about. Now, those of us like you and I have been talking about AI at conferences and things for years now. Neither of us are afraid of it, I think basically because both of us use it, and we're technologists, so we just get on with it. There is so much fear in the community. There's so much negativity. You mentioned Substack, and now they've integrated Pangram, which is renowned for false positives around what is written with AI, and so people are very worried. If we look forward and we look at the next decade, this is not going away. This is going to change a lot of things. So how should authors be thinking about AI, do you think, if they want to prepare for the next decade? Ricardo: I think they need to play around with it, because you and I know that until you actually use it, you don't realise what it's capable of. We've both had these moments of “Oh my God, I'm going to be out of a job,” or “Oh my God, this is incredible,” the kind of things it's able to do. You also realise by using it the things it's not great at, or the things it can be good at but needing a lot of human input. There are courses out there, there are books, there are a lot of things, but for me, the most important thing is to start playing around with it. So you can pick one specific topic to play around with. Either something that you've been meaning to get into for years and haven't done, or something that really annoys you. Looking at the results of your Facebook ads, for example. If you run Facebook ads in the first place, and when you log into your Meta dashboard you cannot make sense of it, take screenshots or download the data, feed it to an AI chat, and talk with it. One of my biggest tips when talking to AI chats is asking them questions rather than asking them for things to do. Because if you just feed it your advertising data and you tell it, “Tell me what I should do,” the chat has no context about what your ads are about, what your goal is, et cetera, et cetera. If you feed it just a screenshot and you say, “Here are my ads. I would like you to help me make sense of them. What do you need to know from me in order to help me with this?” Then it's going to start asking you questions. “Okay, what are you advertising?” They're books. “Okay, what kind of books? Where are you selling? Are your ads going straight to Amazon or retailers, or are they going to your website? If you sell direct, okay, are these conversion ads?” Et cetera, et cetera. So you build that context, and they can help you with it. So that's just one example, but I would pick one thing that you want to test AI with, with zero expectations. Don't expect that by the end of the week you'll have a full system for understanding your Meta ads thanks to AI. You might get to that or you might not, but at least you'll play with it and you'll understand its capabilities, and have a sort of understanding of how it works and how you can potentially use it for other things. I think that's the best way to adapt, because once you play with it, you start thinking. You're walking the dog and you're just thinking, “Ha, I could maybe use it for this thing or that other thing,” and that's how you progressively become more familiar with it. I think there are a lot of worries around AI, but as you say, it's there to stay. So far, I think I was looking at data this morning, and the unemployment rate in the US has stayed stable ever since ChatGPT was introduced two years ago. So there are a lot of narratives out there around how it's going to replace humans, it's going to replace jobs, et cetera, which it might do. I'm not great at predictions usually, but so far it hasn't. What it will definitely do, however, is completely change the way we work. Obviously AI was one of our big reckonings at Reedsy, because we run a marketplace. Our main business model is the marketplace, where authors come in and look for editors, for marketers, for cover designers, for translators, and some of these domains and services are being transformed by AI, right? AI translations are massive right now. We haven't really seen a decline at all on the Reedsy marketplace, but we're prepared for it. It might very well happen, but what we think is happening, or is going to happen, is professionals using AI tools to provide a better output or a faster output or a cheaper output, or all three of these things. So for example, we now have literary translators who say they're open to editing AI translations, right? So you can come in, you can have your book translated with AI, whichever tool or method you choose for that. Then if you want a set of human eyes on it, you can hire a literary translator who's open to working on an AI-translated manuscript, and that's obviously going to be much, much cheaper than paying 10 cents per word from scratch for a literary translator. I'm not necessarily recommending you completely bypass literary translators, or that you go this way, but you have options, right? You have options for different sets of budgets. I think all these human editors, narrators, translators, designers, et cetera, they're not going to disappear, but they might have to reinvent the way they work in the future. Jo: As we all are doing. As you say, for me mostly it's the business side, getting Claude to help me with business stuff. Like even bookkeeping. There are bills that we've all been paying for years that we can now maybe reduce, and reducing costs as well as increasing profit is obviously good business sense. So, interesting times. But just as we wrap up, what are you excited about in what's coming? How do you see Reedsy shaping up in the next decade? What is coming for you and Reedsy? Ricardo: We're really excited about the decade to come, because obviously 10 years for a startup is a long time. I think most startups after 10 years, the founders are gone. Jo: Yes. Ricardo: Or they've exited or they've sold or whatever. We've stayed, we're the same founders, and we're still as excited because I think we have new products, right? We're working on new things. As I mentioned at the beginning of the episode, Reedsy Studio, our writing tool, is probably one of the things we're most excited about, because first, it's getting adopted very fast. It has startup-like growth that we hadn't seen for other products in a long time, and it has very cool technology built in. We probably have a team of 10, 15 engineers now working full time on it and adding a lot of things. So we've added templates for plotting your book, with relationships within different characters and places and magic systems and things like that. We've added writing goals and writing statistics. We still have the free exports. One very cool thing we've added is real time collaboration. So just like Google Docs, you can write in real time with a co-author, or you can get an editor to work in there live with track changes. So you could have an editor working on chapter one while you're writing chapter three, for example. That kind of thing. It's really powerful technology, and that's one of the things we're really excited about for the future. A business, just like authors, we've got to reinvent ourselves. We've got to find ways to keep things exciting and keep motivated, and that is definitely one of them. When adoption goes along with it, then that's obviously super satisfying. Jo: Brilliant. So where can people find you and Reedsy online? Ricardo: So Reedsy you can find at reedsy.com, R-E-E-D-S-Y.com. And there you'll find the whole suite of tools and services. For me, you can find me mostly by email, as I mentioned. That's the one place I check consistently every day, and my email address is ricardo@reedsy.com. So again, R-E-E-D-S-Y.com and ricardo@reedsy.com. You can email me any questions you have about this episode, about AI book discoverability, about marketing, about Reedsy. I always try to answer every email I get, because I think when we started Reedsy, I really appreciated people like you, and some other agents and editors and authors we contacted who were influential in the industry, who actually answered us and took the time to do that. So now I try to answer every email I get, because I feel like we've been very lucky in the beginning to have those people answering our emails, so we should do the same. Jo: Oh, well, thanks so much for your time, Ricardo. That was great. Ricardo: Thank you, Jo. Thanks for having me again.The post Book Marketing, AI Book Discoverability, And Resilience, With Ricardo Fayet first appeared on The Creative Penn.

In this "National Treasure in Real Life" episode, co-hosts Aubrey Paris and Emily Black review The Curse of Oak Island (Seasons 5 and 6) on the History Channel. Have the Lagina brothers and their team found proof that Europeans visited Oak Island before the time of Columbus? How might the plight of the Gates family in National Treasure foreshadow challenges between the Laginas and the respected historical community? • Join National Treasure Hunt for the first-ever NATIONAL TREASURE WEEKEND in Philadelphia from August 20-22, 2026. Here's where tickets are still available... • LIVE recording of the National Treasure Hunt podcast featuring National Treasure director Jon Turteltaub: Friday, August 21; 6:00-7:30 PM; The Liberty View at Independence Visitor Center. Limited capacity; get tickets here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/national-treasure-hunt-live-a-conversation-with-director-jon-turteltaub-tickets-1994606658208 • Two opportunities to participate in National Treasure Hunt's HEIST NIGHT event: Thursday, August 20, 6:00-9:00 PM, OR Saturday, August 22, 5:00-8:00 PM; Carpenter's Hall. Limited capacity; get tickets here: https://secure.qgiv.com/for/vpbqfa/event/heistnight/ • FREE screenings of the National Treasure movies including special introductions by Jon Turteltaub: Friday, August 21, 8:00 PM for National Treasure; Saturday, August 22, 8:00 PM for National Treasure: Book of Secrets; Independence Mall. Walk-ups welcome. ~~ • Sign-ups are OPEN for the fall 2026 National Treasure Hunt Tour in Philadelphia happening on Saturday, September 19th. Register here before all spots are filled: https://forms.gle/FmRjbHwbUU73r7rd7 • Sign-ups are also OPEN for the fall 2026 National Treasure Hunt Tour in Washington, D.C., happening on Saturday, October 17th. Register here before all spots are filled: https://forms.gle/Xnhd5d3mJLDXqG8J9 • Order our new book, "Riley Poole's Book of Secrets: History for National Treasure Hunters," from Tucker DS Press or on Amazon at https://www.amazon.com/Riley-Pooles-Secrets-Aubrey-Paris/dp/1959748394/, and leave a rating and review on Goodreads (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/246259636-riley-poole-s-book-of-secrets). • Order our first book, "National Treasure Hunt: One Step Short of Crazy," from Tucker DS Press or on Amazon at https://www.amazon.com/National-Treasure-Hunt-Short-Crazy/dp/1959748009. • National Treasure Hunt is now available as a video podcast! To watch video versions of this and future episodes, plus supplementary short- and long-form video content, subscribe at www.youtube.com/@NTHuntPodcast. • Join the hunt on X and Instagram using @NTHuntPodcast, and find new episodes of National Treasure Hunt every-other Wednesday on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen. More information about the National Treasure Hunt podcast, walking tour, books, and events can be found at www.nthuntpodcast.com. • To support our show and access even more exclusive National Treasure Hunt content, including bonus episodes, watch parties, and a book club, subscribe to our Patreon at www.patreon.com/NTHuntPodcast, and visit our merch store to find designs that celebrate your love of National Treasure: http://tee.pub/lic/nthuntpodcast.

Marlon and Jake explore the power of setting in novels—and why the best stories feel like they couldn't have happened anywhere else. They discuss settings that become characters in their own right, fictional worlds they'd love (or absolutely hate) to inhabit, and books that made unexpected places fascinating. Plus: why a modern-day Captain Nemo might just be a tech bro. Amerika by Franz Kafka Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson Mutiny on the Bounty by Charles Nordhoff and James Norman Hall Moby-Dick by Herman Melville Master and Commander by Patrick O'Brian Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe The Long Ships by Frans G. Bengtsson The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson Masters of Atlantis by Charles Portis Wise Blood by Flannery O'Connor The Last of the Mohicans by James Fenimore Cooper Steppenwolf by Hermann Hesse Gormenghast trilogy by Mervyn Peake Dubliners by James Joyce The Ballad of the Sad Café by Carson McCullers Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy by John le Carré Journey to the Center of the Earth by Jules Verne Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne The Bridge of San Luis Rey by Thornton Wilder One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler by E. L. Konigsburg The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood by Howard Pyle The Swiss Family Robinson by Johann David Wyss My Life in the Bush of Ghosts by Amos Tutuola The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien Ragtime by E. L. Doctorow A Room with a View by E. M. Forster Macbeth by William Shakespeare Dune by Frank Herbert The Last Man by Mary Shelley Little House in the Big Woods by Laura Ingalls Wilder

We rank all the Hugo nominees, plus tell you about seven more amazing books that deserve to be in contention for the best speculative fiction novels of the year.  No spoilers at all in this episode. Join the Hugonauts book club on discord Or you can watch our episodes on YouTube if you prefer video If you want to jump around, here are the timestamps for the episode: 00:00 Intro 01:03 6 The Death of the Author by Nnedi Okorafor 02:37 5 The Raven Scholar by Antonia Hodgson 05:20 4 The Incandescent by Emily Tesh 07:30 3 Shroud by Adrian Tchaikovsky 14:40 2 A Drop of Corruption by Robert Jackson Bennett 16:56 1 The Everlasting by Alix E. Harrow 19:05 Thank you for 100 episodes! 20:11 The Devils by Joe Abercrombie 23:05 The Buffalo Hunter Hunter by Stephen Graham Jones 24:37 Sour Cherry by Natalia Theodoridou 25:21 Slow Gods by Claire North 29:02 The Goodreads miss list 30:44 The Dream Hotel by Laila Lalami 33:32 There is No Antimemetics Division by QNTM

How do we overcome personal brokenness? Acclaimed author, professor, and theologian Sandra Glahn draws from her own ten-year journey through infertility, loss, and identity crisis, and invites us to reconsider our understanding of pain, faith, and the roles we play as women in the church and society. Together, we delve into the challenging questions that rise in times of crisis—grappling with mystery, the search for meaning, and discovering how trust and community can pave the way from surviving to thriving. Whether you're wrestling with loss, struggling with your identity, or simply seeking encouragement, this episode offers compassionate wisdom, spiritual insights, and practical resources for hope on the journey toward healing. Key Takeaways: The mystery of suffering: Sometimes there's comfort in embracing mystery instead of striving for answers. Sandra Glahn reminds us to shift from asking "Why is this happening?" to "Is God good? Will I trust Him?" Thriving beyond expectations: We are not defined by roles or circumstances, but by our character—embodying love, joy, and faithfulness even when life looks different than planned.  Healthy community and support: It's okay to seek new, non-triggering relationships during times of loss, and genuine comfort often means simply being present and weeping with those who weep. We all need a safe network—not just advice. Resources to Help You Flourish Visit Sandra Glahn for blog posts, articles, and guides on infertility, loss, and women in Scripture. Explore visualmuseum.gallery, tracing the story of women throughout church history. Read "When Empty Arms Become a Heavy Burden" for spiritual and emotional support through infertility and The Infertility Companion for ethical insights. Subscribe to Sandra Glahn's Substack for ongoing essays on gender, identity, and thriving in faith. We're thrilled to accompany you on this journey of faith, growth, and transformation. As always, we appreciate your support! Please subscribe and share this episode. We can't wait for you to join us for future episodes of Flourish-Meant. To book Tina as a speaker, connect with her life coaching services, and more, visit her website: https://tinayeager.com/ Optimize your mind and body with my new favorite, all-inclusive supplement, Cardio Miracle! I love the energy and focus this health-boosting drink mix provides without toxins, caffeine, or sugar! Get a discount on your purchase with my link: http://www.cardiomiracle.com/tinayeager Live your healthiest life with Sustainable Healthy Weight Loss! Tina Yeager's unprecedented whole-person program is bundled with profound insights and tools to help you embrace the revitalized, slimmer you that you might never have dreamed possible! OR Manage stress and anxiety in 10 minutes a day with the course presented by 15 experts, Subdue Stress and Anxiety https://divineencouragement.onlinecoursehost.com/courses Connect with Tina at: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/tyeagerwriting/ Linked In: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tinayeager/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tina.yeager.9/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/TinaYeager Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/tyeagerwrites/ Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/3865622.Tina_Yeager

 Procrastination loves vagueness. "I'll get to that eventually" means nothing gets done. In this episode, I'm sharing the exact system I use to steal back an hour from my own procrastination, starting with your phone's screen time settings and treating your apps like a restaurant menu. You'll learn why making a list of everything you're procrastinating on actually makes things worse, and why I had to become a phenomenal salesman just to get myself to write. I'll walk you through the four techniques I used today to sell myself on finishing a chapter, including scheduling appointments with myself, using countdown timers, wearing noise canceling headphones as a focus cue, and why writing in a notebook instead of a laptop kills distraction dead. Instagram didn't steal my hours. They sold them to me. It's time to out sell them right back.In This Episode:Order Procrastination Proof!You can grab a copy of my new book Procrastination Proof from your favorite bookstore or at my website!Make sure to follow me on Instagram and share with your friends!Sign up for my newsletter, Try This!Book me to speak at your event or to your team!Sign up for the Remarkable You Community today!Keep up with my book list on GoodReads!Have me speak at your next event!

An old beaver who built the biggest dam in Canada finds a new way to be useful once his teeth can no longer do the work. You can get my new book, Awaken Your Myth, at https://awakenyourmyth.com/book/. Please leave a review on Amazon here: https://www.amazon.com/Awaken-Your-Myth-Discover-Purpose/dp/1797235257/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0#averageCustomerReviewsAnchor To leave a review on GoodReads, click here: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/238747993-awaken-your-myth#CommunityReviewsYour support is the cornerstone that allows me to continue crafting tranquil stories and meditations for you. For less than the price of a cup of coffee, you'll unlock an oasis of over 500 ad-free Listen To Sleep episodes, including 8 subscriber-only full length sleepy audiobook classics like Winnie the Pooh and Alice in Wonderland. To pledge your support, visit⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://listentosleep.com/support⁠⁠ or subscribe right in Apple Podcasts and get a 7 day free trial. Want to change your story? Take the free Path Assessment at https://jointhecabin.org. In two minutes, you'll see your personalized journey and know exactly where to start. To join my email group and get a bunch of goodies, go to ⁠⁠https://erikireland.com Sleep well, friends.

Christine Riccio & Natasha Polis talk all things nerdy in the book, tv, movie, pop culture, fandoms, and how they integrate into their adult lives. Today they're talking Spiderman Brand New Day and ranking every Spiderman movie!! Plus they chat Taylor Swift, the Cruel Prince series getting a tv series, season 2 of Heated Rivalry, and more! The Main discussion start at :40:45Teatime starts at:Today in Fangirl Tea Time : Join Christine and Natasha for more stories about their recent life escapades. Support the pod by joining the Forking Fangirls Patreon community: http://patreon.com/thoseforkingfangirls TEAM EDWARD: The first five Heated Rivalry episode commentaries are up now! Follow the visual show on our Youtube: http://youtube.com/@thoseforkingfangirls  Get Christine's new book THIRTY, FLIRTY, & FOREVER ALONE: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1662532156Add Thirty Flirty & Forever Alone on Goodreads:https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/230393104-thirty-flirty-and-forever-aloneCheck out Natasha's sewing classes: https://www.natashapolis.com/Join our patron to get 10 dollars off the classes!Website: https://thoseforkingfangirls.com/ Email us feedback: thoseforkingfangirls@gmail.com Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thoseforkingfangirls/Twitter: https://twitter.com/forkfangirlspod TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@thoseforkingfangirlsGet Christine's novel Attached at the Hip: https://a.co/d/grmPeVy Check out the Selkie Collection and get 10% off your order with code TASHAPOLIS https://selkiecollection.com/collections/all

Send us Fan MailIn this episode, I'm joined once again by John Michael Greer, this time to discuss his newest Aeon Books volume, The Magical Writings of W. B. Yeats.Together, we discuss Yeats as a poet, magician, and highly-trained occult philosopher, with a special focus on the original 1925 edition of his great work, A Vision. We talk about George Yeats and the automatic writing that helped shape the system, as well as the works of Tolkien and Jung, the nature of Imaginal Realms, creative masks, and much more. It's always a true pleasure to have JMG back on the show, and I hope you enjoy this conversation as much as I did.--Find John Michael Greer online -JMG's works on Bookshop: https://bookshop.org/shop/jmgBuy 'The Magical Writings of W.B. Yeats': https://spirit.aeonbooks.com/product/magical-writings-of-wb-yeats/95401JMG's Dreamwidth page: https://ecosophia.dreamwidth.org/JMG's website - Ecosophia: https://ecosophia.net/---Upcoming Events with JoAnna:Aug. 15, 2026 - 10am-2pm:The Diviner's Path Book Event at The Serpent's Key in Hanover, PA   - https://serpentskeyshoppe.com/Aug. 20, 2026 - 6pm:Free Workshop and Talk at Barnes and Noble in Park Slope, Brooklyn, NY.  - https://stores.barnesandnoble.com/event/9780062217464-0September 4–7, 2026:TempleFest at Prindle Pond Conference Center in Charlton, MassachusettsSupport Coffee and DivinationJoAnna's book, "The Diviner's Path: A Nature-Led Approach to Divination with Tarot, Runes & Pendulums", is now available, from Llewellyn Publishing:https://amzn.to/4e6EXH9Thank you so much for the support the book has already received. If you've read and enjoyed it, even a brief, honest review on Amazon, Goodreads, or the site where you purchased it can make an enormous difference in helping other readers discover the work.Coffee and Divination:https://www.coffeeanddivination.com/Instagram:https://www.instagram.com/coffeeanddivination/Patreon:https://www.patreon.com/c/coffeeanddivinationYouTube: The Coffee and Divination Podcast - YouTubeThank you for listening, and, as always, see you between the worlds...

Co-hosts Aubrey Paris and Emily Black pitch their "ABCs of National Treasure: Edge of History." In the process, they reflect on what they liked and disliked about the Disney Plus show, as well as which characters, scenes, locations, and clues they found most memorable. How did they justify their picks, and whose list resonates most closely with your impressions of Edge of History? • Join National Treasure Hunt for the first-ever NATIONAL TREASURE WEEKEND in Philadelphia from August 20-22, 2026. Here's what's in store and where you can get tickets... • LIVE recording of the National Treasure Hunt podcast featuring National Treasure director Jon Turteltaub: Friday, August 21; 6:00-7:30 PM; The Liberty View at Independence Visitor Center. Limited capacity; get tickets here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/national-treasure-hunt-live-a-conversation-with-director-jon-turteltaub-tickets-1994606658208 • Two opportunities to participate in National Treasure Hunt's HEIST NIGHT event: Thursday, August 20, 6:00-9:00 PM, OR Saturday, August 22, 5:00-8:00 PM; Carpenter's Hall. Limited capacity; get tickets here: https://secure.qgiv.com/for/vpbqfa/event/heistnight/ • Special summer installment of our Philadelphia National Treasure Hunt Tour: Saturday, August 22; 10:00 AM-3:30 PM; tour route available at https://nthuntpodcast.com/tour. Limited capacity; get tickets here: https://forms.gle/TcAMm1KQsm4FQBfU7 • FREE screenings of the National Treasure movies including special introductions by Jon Turteltaub: Friday, August 21, 8:00 PM for National Treasure; Saturday, August 22, 8:00 PM for National Treasure: Book of Secrets; Independence Mall. Walk-ups welcome. ~~ • Sign-ups are OPEN for the fall 2026 National Treasure Hunt Tour in Philadelphia happening on Saturday, September 19th. Register here before all spots are filled: https://forms.gle/FmRjbHwbUU73r7rd7 • Order our new book, "Riley Poole's Book of Secrets: History for National Treasure Hunters," from Tucker DS Press or on Amazon at https://www.amazon.com/Riley-Pooles-Secrets-Aubrey-Paris/dp/1959748394/, and leave a rating and review on Goodreads (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/246259636-riley-poole-s-book-of-secrets). • Order our first book, "National Treasure Hunt: One Step Short of Crazy," from Tucker DS Press or on Amazon at https://www.amazon.com/National-Treasure-Hunt-Short-Crazy/dp/1959748009. • National Treasure Hunt is now available as a video podcast! To watch video versions of this and future episodes, plus supplementary short- and long-form video content, subscribe at www.youtube.com/@NTHuntPodcast. • Join the hunt on X and Instagram using @NTHuntPodcast, and find new episodes of National Treasure Hunt every-other Wednesday on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen. More information about the National Treasure Hunt podcast, walking tour, books, and events can be found at www.nthuntpodcast.com. • To support our show and access even more exclusive National Treasure Hunt content, including bonus episodes, watch parties, and a book club, subscribe to our Patreon at www.patreon.com/NTHuntPodcast, and visit our merch store to find designs that celebrate your love of National Treasure: http://tee.pub/lic/nthuntpodcast.

What happens when one of Greek mythology's greatest warriors becomes the center of a deeply personal love story?In this spoiler-lite Fantasy for the Ages review, Zach takes the lead on Madeline Miller's acclaimed novel The Song of Achilles—a retelling of the story of Achilles and Patroclus set against the gathering storm of the Trojan War.Jim hasn't read this one. In fact, it isn't even on his mountainous TBR! So Zach has a challenge: explain what makes this award-winning novel so beloved—and determine whether there's any chance of convincing his dad to add yet another book to the pile.We discuss:

Welcome to Hot Topics! In this episode, host Gabrielle Crichlow engages with guest Axay Shah to challenge conventional eating habits. They investigate the compelling argument that if a food item does not originate from Mother Nature, it has no place on our plates. By intertwining ancient wisdom with modern nutritional insights, they provide a roadmap for cultivating a lifestyle that prioritizes living foods and actively avoids harmful substances.Who is Axay Shah?Axay Shah is a dedicated raw foodist and researcher with nearly two decades of experience studying the intersection of nature and human biology. His work, recognized by the Library of Congress and supported by leading medical professionals, including Dr. Shrenik Shah, is driven by his mission to help one million people reclaim their vitality. By bridging the gap between ancient dietary wisdom and modern nutritional science, Axay draws on 16 years of personal practice and research into raw foodism to provide a “biological backbone” for the plant-based community, demonstrating that living foods are the ultimate fuel for the human body.You can find Axay Shah:On Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/RawFoodiestGuruOn Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/rawfoodiest/On X: https://x.com/RawFoodiestOn YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@RawFoodiestOn GoodReads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/19980619.Axay_ShahAxay Shaw's book, "In Nature We Trust: A Raw Food Manifesto for Energy, Healing & Longevity," is an #1 Amazon Best Seller in the The Scientific Manifesto for Energy, Healing & Longevity category. Purchase his book here: https://a.co/d/0hriRnKxHere's his book on Kirkus Star Review: https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/axay-shah/in-nature-we-trust/= PROMO =The giveaway is hosted on Goodreads. Listeners simply visit the link below and click "Enter Giveaway" to be entered to win one of 100 FREE Kindle copies of "IN NATURE WE TRUST."GIVEAWAY LINK: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/250233293-in-nature-we-trustDETAILS:

How can we build a meaningful life no matter what your gifts or trades might be?  In today's episode, Tina Yeager is joined by Dave Hataj—author, skilled labor advocate, and founder of Craftsmen with Character—to discuss the often-overlooked value of blue-collar work and craftsmanship. Together, they unpack barriers that keep generations from recognizing their God-given dignity, purpose, and potential, especially in trades and manufacturing fields. From Dave Hataj's personal journey through addiction and preconceived limitations to his calling as a champion for craftsmen, this conversation reveals how every gift and vocation—including working with your hands—has a unique place in God's kingdom. Discover how to embrace your work as worship, why character matters beyond skill, and how true fulfillment comes from seeing yourself and your labor through God's eyes. This is an episode for anyone searching for meaning in everyday life and longing to move from merely surviving to truly thriving—no matter your trade or calling. Key Takeaways: All Work Has God-Given Value: Whether you're in manufacturing, tech, teaching, or any other field, your unique skills matter and contribute to the world's flourishing. As Dave Hataj shared, "God himself is a worker. He's the creator. And so, as his kids, we are co-creators meant to join him in that work." Your Work Is Worship: Partnering with God in your daily tasks transforms routine jobs into sacred opportunities. Dave Hataj prays each morning to see his business—and his team—through God's eyes, making his machine shop not just a workplace, but a place of worship. Building Character Transforms Lives: Developing character isn't just about discipline; it's about embodying excellence, goodness, and dignity. Dave Hataj's Craftsman Code helps people of all ages discover their purpose, self-worth, and a sense of calling, especially for those who may have been overlooked.

The end of a series comes with PRESSURE. After six books of soldiers, aliens, interstellar politics, conspiracies, and John Scalzi's trademark sarcasm, could The End of All Things actually stick the landing for the original Old Man's War story arc?In this spoiler-lite Fantasy for the Ages review, Jim dives into the sixth Old Man's War novel and looks at how well Scalzi brings together the pieces established throughout the series—especially those set up in The Human Division. We'll talk characters, pacing, humor, the interconnected novella structure, the resolution of the massive conflict, and whether the finale delivers a satisfying payoff.And yes, we know: “The End” wasn't REALLY the end! Ten years later, Scalzi returned to the Old Man's War universe with The Shattering Peace in 2025. Fortunately for Jim, waiting this long to read the series means there's no decade-long wait required. That review is coming soon!

My favorite one star review calls my books too simple. Guilty as charged, and I did that on purpose. But I wasn't always this way. In this episode I tell you about The Muskrat Incident, the true story of how I chose an impossible taxidermy extra credit project over simply studying for biology class. Spoiler alert, it did not go well. We'll talk about why procrastinators love complicating projects (hint, it gives us someone else to blame when things fall apart), how to avoid becoming what I call a chaos monster, and I'll share the simplest planning system you will ever use. It's four words. No spreadsheets required. If you're ready to stop making life harder than it needs to be, this episode is for you.In This Episode:Order Procrastination Proof!You can grab a copy of my new book Procrastination Proof from your favorite bookstore or at my website!Make sure to follow me on Instagram and share with your friends!Sign up for my newsletter, Try This!Book me to speak at your event or to your team!Sign up for the Remarkable You Community today!Keep up with my book list on GoodReads!Have me speak at your next event!

 Anyone who knows me knows I love a good heart-rending story, and To Fly on Broken Wings by Fayla Ott sounds like the best kind--one with hope even in the difficult things. Listen in and see why it reminds me of Patti Paige! note: links may be affiliate links that provide me with a small commission at no extra expense to you.  Oh, boy. No way can I not read this book ASAP! To Fly on Broken Wings by Fayla Ott Mississippi Delta, 1941 Lila Rose never expected life to offer her more than the quiet rhythm of cotton fields and small-town whispers. Raised in poverty and caring for an alcoholic father, she's learned not to hope for much. Then she meets Graham, a young pilot from one of Mississippi's wealthiest families. Their unlikely love changes everything. But when war tears them apart and Graham is reported killed in action, Lila believes the future she'd dreamed of has died with him. Determined to move forward, she remarries and begins building a new life. Until Graham comes home. Now the man she buried in her heart is standing before her, and the life she's fought to rebuild hangs in the balance. Faced with an impossible choice between the love she lost and the promises she's made, Lila must discover whether faith can guide her when every path leads to heartbreak. To Fly on Broken Wings is a moving Christian historical novel about love, loss, impossible choices, and the quiet courage to trust God when the path ahead is anything but clear. Learn more on Fayla's WEBSITE and follow on GoodReads and BookBub. Like to listen on the go? You can find Because Fiction Podcast at: Apple Castbox Google Play Libsyn RSS Spotify Amazon YouTube and more!

Kurt Russell has been a staple of science fiction, fantasy, and horror for DECADES—and somehow, whether the movie is a masterpiece or a mess, Kurt Russell is almost always great. But which of his genre movies is the BEST? And how many have you actually seen?In this Fantasy for the Ages Jim solo episode, I'm ranking EVERY Kurt Russell SFF & horror movie from worst to best! Along the way, I'm also giving Kurt a separate letter grade for his individual performance—because sometimes Kurt Russell is MUCH better than the movie he's in.We're talking iconic roles and cult favorites from across his incredible career, including:

Michael and Ethan discuss The Seven Strings of the Lyre, by George Sand (also known as A Woman's Version of the Faust Legend), while drinking Craigellachie 13yo Speyside Single Malt..In this episode:Strong start claiming to do a chiasmus but APPARENTLY, ACTUALLY doing an Antimetabole.A lot of sports talk from two guys who know nothing about sportsInappropriately asserted man mid-life crises; unenthusiastic Masters thesesWe gotta talk about the lyre, and the seven strings thereofAlastor; or, the Spirit of Solitude, by Percy Bysshe Shelley (in case you also couldn't/can't help yourself)The Divided Soul, by Heidi White (it's literary criticism, but also life criticism)Worry about what the Capital T “Truth“ isWe do finally talk about the Lyre and its stringsMan has to bottom out somewhereShakespeare references Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade and Sand references ShakespeareRockstar gnosticismNext time Michael and Ethan will discuss two comics: Justice Leage of America #10, by Gardner Fox, and Captain America #107, by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby! Join the discussion! Go to the Contact page and put "Scotch Talk" in the Subject line. We'd love to hear from you! And submit your homework at the Michael & Ethan in a Room with Scotch page. Join us on GoodReads!Get on our Substack!Donate to our Patreon! MUSIC & SFX: "Kessy Swings Endless - (ID 349)" by Lobo Loco. Used by permission. "The Grim Reaper - II Presto" by Aitua. Used under an Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike License. "Thinking It Over" by Lee Rosevere. Used under an Attribution License.(Links to books & products are affiliate links.)

In this episode, I speak with Nigerian Science Fiction writer Wole Talabi about his first science fiction novel, The Fist of Memory.The Fist of Memory didn't disappoint; the best way I think to describe it might be John Woo meets Arthur C. Clarke in Africa. It is certainly one of my favorite books I have read this year. A bullet opera that manages to combine a first contact story, noir, African cyberpunk, and hints of African magic.We talk about growing up as a SF reader in Nigeria, getting into writing and the construction of this amazing novel.•You can find my books here:Amazon-https://www.amazon.com/David-Agranoff/e/B004FGT4ZW•And me here:Goodreads-http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/2988332.David_AgranoffTwitter-https://twitter.com/DAgranoffAuthorBlog-http://davidagranoff.blogspot.com/

A painfully honest young man arrives in a small coastal town and befriends the one person everyone else has agreed not to see. You can get my new book, Awaken Your Myth, at https://awakenyourmyth.com/book/. Please leave a review on Amazon here: https://www.amazon.com/Awaken-Your-Myth-Discover-Purpose/dp/1797235257/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0#averageCustomerReviewsAnchor To leave a review on GoodReads, click here: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/238747993-awaken-your-myth#CommunityReviewsYour support is the cornerstone that allows me to continue crafting tranquil stories and meditations for you. For less than the price of a cup of coffee, you'll unlock an oasis of over 500 ad-free Listen To Sleep episodes, including 8 subscriber-only full length sleepy audiobook classics like Winnie the Pooh and Alice in Wonderland. To pledge your support, visit⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://listentosleep.com/support⁠⁠ or subscribe right in Apple Podcasts and get a 7 day free trial. Want to change your story? Take the free Path Assessment at https://jointhecabin.org. In two minutes, you'll see your personalized journey and know exactly where to start. To join my email group and get a bunch of goodies, go to ⁠⁠https://erikireland.com Sleep well, friends.

John Gwynne knows how to go BIG—and his Of Blood and Bone Trilogy takes readers back to the Banished Lands for another sprawling adventure packed with warriors, monsters, massive battles, ancient powers, and plenty of bloodshed!In this spoiler-lite Fantasy for the Ages review, Zach makes the case for why epic fantasy fans should read A Time of Dread, A Time of Blood, and A Time of Courage. What does this trilogy do especially well? How does it build on the world Gwynne created in The Faithful and the Fallen? And are there reasons some fantasy readers might want to skip it?Jim hasn't read Of Blood and Bone yet—but he HAS read and enjoyed all four books of The Faithful and the Fallen. So the big question is: Will Zach's review convince him that this trilogy needs to move up his mountainous TBR?Join us as we discuss:⚔️ John Gwynne's return to the Banished Lands

Heat madness descends upon the pod once again as we settle in for another cultural committee. Have you ever wondered what it would be like if you combined geopolitics, Rube Goldberg machines, and some of the worst accent work since Rob? Well find out right here, right now, as we watch a bunch of Hollywood titans at the top of their game. Follow Lilah on Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/180864377-lilah Cast: Very Special Guest Lilah - https://bsky.app/profile/palebloodstasi.bsky.social Jamie - https://bsky.app/profile/reobinwagon.bsky.social David - https://bsky.app/profile/sanitarynaptime.bsky.social Rob - https://bsky.app/profile/trufflehog.bsky.social Alasdair - https://bsky.app/profile/ballistari.bsky.social

 Edwardian England? Yes, please!  Listen in as Chelsea Bobulski and I chat about her book, Deal with a Debutante. Is it a marriage of convenience... or not? note: links may be affiliate links that provide me with a small commission at no extra expense to you.  I don't think there are enough Edwardian novels out there, so when I heard this one wasn't Regency but Edwardian... EEEP! Add to that an American heiress and an Earl?  Double eeep! A Deal with a Debutante by Chelsea Bobulski She's running from London's marriage mart. He's running out of time to save his estate. Neither planned on falling in love--but their hearts have other plans. American heiress Calliope Hart is thrust into London's high society against her will, all because her mother is determined to marry her off to an aristocrat. Despite being named "the debutante of the season" back in New York, Calliope wants nothing more than to avoid becoming another pawn in the social game. Edward Chase, the Earl of Hayward, is on the brink of financial ruin. To save his estate, he must marry, and Calliope Hart is his last hope. When he boldly declares his intentions, she swiftly rejects him, making it clear she has no interest in marrying for convenience. Undeterred, Edward offers a deal: He will escort Calliope to all the best sights of London that she's been dying to see if she agrees to visit his estate and consider what they could accomplish together. What begins as a business arrangement soon sparks something much more complicated--an undeniable chemistry neither can ignore. But as their hearts begin to soften, both must confront their fears: Can Calliope trust Edward with her heart, and can Edward truly win her love when she's convinced he only wants her fortune? Learn more on Chelsea's WEBSITE and follow on GoodReads and BookBub. Like to listen on the go? You can find Because Fiction Podcast at: Apple Castbox Google Play Libsyn RSS Spotify Amazon YouTube and more!

Send us Fan MailThis film is another one on my personal list of films to commentate on the show and now's a time better than ever to elaborate on one of the most underrated divided stories with a “true” story that has some rabbit holes that your media queen has gone though. Enjoy this second episode of ALIEN AUGUST -SQ Part 1: A Controversial PickPart 2: Beginnings Part 3: D.B. SweeneyPart 4: Robert Patrick Part 5: The REAL thoughts of Travis WaltonPart 6: THE TRUTHPart 7: The terrifying scene Part 8: Could Fire In the Sky WORK as a remake (Final Thoughts)Part 9: What's next?Support the showMy Inglorious Ink series! - https://www.amazon.com/stores/Samantha-Parrish/author/B0BNQ2D7D1?ref=ap_rdr&store_ref=ap_rdr&isDramIntegrated=true&shoppingPortalEnabled=trueI'm on Goodreads! - https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/20042112.Samantha_ParrishHow To Support The Show! - https://ko-fi.com/queenofthescreen#linkModalArticles I've written - https://vocal.media/authors/samantha-parrishMy Linktree https://linktr.ee/themysticalspacewitch Cover art by Emily Whitacre (https://teenytinycoffeebean.carrd.co/) S 1-2Miriam J - S2

Christine Riccio & Natasha Polis talk all things nerdy in the book, tv, movie, pop culture, fandoms, and how they integrate into their adult lives. Today they're talking BOOKISH NEWS! Plus they take a question about the evolution of sibling relationships, chat Lights Out,  Adversary to the Villain and more!The Main discussion start at : 42:00Teatime starts at: 1:03:00Today in Fangirl Tea Time : Join Christine and Natasha for more stories about their recent life escapades. Support the pod by joining the Forking Fangirls Patreon community: http://patreon.com/thoseforkingfangirls TEAM EDWARD: The first five Heated Rivalry episode commentaries are up now! Follow the visual show on our Youtube: http://youtube.com/@thoseforkingfangirls  Get Christine's new book THIRTY, FLIRTY, & FOREVER ALONE: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1662532156Add Thirty Flirty & Forever Alone on Goodreads:https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/230393104-thirty-flirty-and-forever-aloneCheck out Natasha's sewing classes: https://www.natashapolis.com/Join our patron to get 10 dollars off the classes!Website: https://thoseforkingfangirls.com/ Email us feedback: thoseforkingfangirls@gmail.com Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thoseforkingfangirls/Twitter: https://twitter.com/forkfangirlspod TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@thoseforkingfangirlsGet Christine's novel Attached at the Hip: https://a.co/d/grmPeVy Check out the Selkie Collection and get 10% off your order with code TASHAPOLIS https://selkiecollection.com/collections/all

Top authors are not successful simply because they write good books or have bigger marketing budgets. The strongest authors understand something many writers overlook: readers are constantly deciding whether a book feels worth their time, attention, and money—and those decisions often happen before the first page is ever read.In this episode, we unpack what top-performing authors understand about reader choice and how newer, midlist, and independent authors can apply those same lessons without trying to imitate a celebrity bestseller's career. From Amazon and Goodreads to BookTok, newsletters, podcasts, social media, subscription platforms, and AI-powered recommendations, readers now discover books through more channels than ever. But the core question remains the same: when a reader sees your book alongside dozens of others, what makes them choose yours?We break down the practical signals successful authors use to build reader confidence. That includes clear genre positioning, covers that immediately communicate the right reading experience, compelling retail descriptions, consistent series branding, strong author presentation, and messaging that makes it easy for readers to understand exactly what they are getting. The most successful books are rarely confusing. They are clear about their audience, their promise, and the emotional or entertainment experience waiting inside.We also talk about the smartest way to study successful authors. Instead of comparing yourself only to household names with decades of visibility, legacy media coverage, and enormous reader bases, look for your true market neighbors: rising authors, successful midlist writers, and indie authors who are steadily gaining traction with readers now. Their categories, cover choices, series pages, pricing, descriptions, reviews, and reader conversations can reveal valuable clues about what is working in your genre today.You'll learn why readers often need familiarity before they are willing to take a chance on originality, why clarity consistently outperforms cleverness on a retail page, and how professional, cohesive branding reduces the perceived risk of trying a new author. Readers are not only choosing where to spend their money. They are choosing where to spend their time.The takeaway is not that you need to become a copy of a top author. It is that you need to understand the reader-confidence strategies top authors use so you can make better decisions about how your own book is positioned, presented, and marketed.Send us your feedback!Order Penny's latest book, Think Local Sell Global and start building a book sales strategy you have more control over!

Could an Alien TV series actually live up to one of the greatest sci-fi horror franchises of all time?I'll admit it—I was skeptical.I've been an Alien fan for years. I own most of the films, I've even enjoyed the Alien vs. Predator entries for what they are, and I've always believed that Ridley Scott's original Alien remains the gold standard because it embraced horror first and science fiction second.So when Alien: Earth was announced, I wasn't convinced a television series could capture that same atmosphere.After waiting until every episode had been released, I finally sat down and (mostly) binged the entire first season—and I came away genuinely impressed.In this spoiler-lite review, I discuss:

Questions form the very basis of inquiry. They can be philosophical or mundane. You've probably asked a dozen questions of yourself, already, today. In this episode, we explore the symbol of the question, itself, contemplating what questions allow us to do. A question can be an initiation, contain a secret password, or show us the map of our future quests. Without the question there is no discovery. We hope you love this episode as much as we did. Don't miss Cristina's next class: Healing the Centaur, starting August 13th! This five part immersion in the mythology, astrological impact, and healing power of Chiron starts soon. It may be of extra interest to our listeners, as this class is part lecture, part dream incubator. Find all the details, and save your seat, here: https://www.cristinafarella.com/healthecentaurOur books are out and in the world! If you do pick up a copy, leaving us a review on Good Reads or wherever you purchased the book, is so helpful and so appreciated! Divination for Dummies, by Cristina FarellaTarot and the Psychology of the Soul, by Mariana Louis

The 2000s launched some of the most influential fantasy, science-fiction, and horror authors of the modern era—but which debut novels have truly stood the test of time?In this episode of Fantasy for the Ages, Jim selects one fantasy debut, one science-fiction debut, and one horror debut for every year from 2000 through 2009—thirty winning novels in all.Every selection follows one strict rule: the book must be the author's first complete novel ever made publicly available, including earlier self-published or online releases. Original worldwide publication dates also govern, rather than later American editions.Which winners did Jim get exactly right? Which runner-up deserved the top position? And what overlooked fantasy, science-fiction, or horror debut from the 2000s belongs in the conversation?If you enjoy fantasy, science fiction, horror, rankings, deep dives, and reading recommendations, please like the video and subscribe to Fantasy for the Ages.#FantasyBooks #ScienceFiction #HorrorBooks #BookTube #DebutNovels #FantasyForTheAges #ReadingRecommendations #HouseOfLeaves #JonathanStrangeAndMrNorrell #TheBladeItself #TheNameOfTheWind #TheWindupGirl⸻Want to purchase books/media mentioned in this episode?Agent to the Stars: t.ly/XqAc6Altered Carbon: t.ly/Cb2jkArchangel Protocol: t.ly/h8wHmThe Atrocity Archives: t.ly/Gkr9_The Blade Itself: https://t.ly/LSDn2Breathers: A Zombie's Lament: t.ly/9fYw4City of Bones: t.ly/UPuBuCity of Pearl: t.ly/7NlL-Counting Heads: t.ly/MNnOtCovenant: t.ly/pBl9CThe Coyote Kings of the Space-Age Bachelor Pad: t.ly/dfc_zCrystal Rain: t.ly/08sZ_Damnable: t.ly/qgmlcThe Darkness That Comes: https://t.ly/aDLrIDeadliest of the Species: t.ly/Mh1evEragon: https://t.ly/nxt-RThe Etched City: t.ly/t1ehRThe Eyre Affair: t.ly/xfhlAThe Gentling Box: t.ly/XTg1wGhost Road Blues: t.ly/34qfjThe Ghost Sister: t.ly/s5MonThe Gone-Away World: t.ly/1braxGraceling: t.ly/INRDoHammered: t.ly/v4gE3Harbinger: t.ly/pz75VHeart-Shaped Box: https://t.ly/XBPTiHis Majesty's Dragon: https://t.ly/BrOkWThe Historian: t.ly/Ji8lxHouse of Leaves: https://t.ly/H1z_WJonathan Strange & Mr Norrell: https://t.ly/8MoJBThe Keeper: t.ly/pPrC-The King's Peace: t.ly/TuSKVKushiel's Dart: https://t.ly/28SIoThe Licking Valley Coon Hunters Club: t.ly/cRCwKThe Lies of Locke Lamora: https://t.ly/1UV3hThe Lovely Bones: t.ly/YDUBHThe Manual of Detection: t.ly/s9uRVMars Crossing: t.ly/5Z5ijMove Under Ground: t.ly/qzKAsThe Name of the Wind: https://t.ly/ndJbgOld Man's War: t.ly/Q_CogOne for Sorrow: t.ly/lJJoMOne Jump Ahead: t.ly/BKJWeThe Painted Man: t.ly/QoSG6Pandemonium: t.ly/l9yFlPlague Year: https://t.ly/fj7QEThe Red Church: t.ly/JYnKJRevelation Space: t.ly/1GyXCThe Rising: t.ly/2hRB3Riverwatch: t.ly/pGZhgScarecrow Gods: t.ly/9fHjiA Scattering of Jades: t.ly/hX7rqSingularity's Ring: t.ly/PeF15Soulless: t.ly/2wX3bSpin State: t.ly/q2SymThe Suicide Collectors: t.ly/ezklGSummer of the Apocalypse: t.ly/wE0zjThe Time Traveler's Wife: t.ly/SJIfyTransformation: t.ly/MoqvgTwilight: t.ly/yMEi-Vellum: https://t.ly/welYgVeniss Underground: t.ly/TN31qThe Windup Girl: t.ly/nBoh1The Year of Our War: t.ly/E1FqMWays to connect with us:Follow Jim/Father on Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/13848336-jim-scriven Join us on Discord: https://discord.gg/jMWyVJ6qKk Follow us on "X": @Fantasy4theAges Follow us on Blue Sky: @fantasy4theages.bsky.socialFollow us on Instagram: fantasy_for_the_ages Follow us on Mastodon: @FantasyForTheAges@nerdculture.de Email us: FantasyForTheAges@gmail.com Check out our merch: https://www.newcreationsbyjen.com/collections/fantasyfortheagesJim's Microphone: Blue Yeti https://tinyurl.com/3shpvhb4 Jim's Camera: Razer Kito Pro https://tinyurl.com/c873tc2n 0:00 - Opening 1:52 - Episode Explanation3:35 - Best Debuts of the 2000s39:21 - What the 2000s Changed41:48 - Jim's Personal Picks43:31 - Wrap-up & Conclusion

Dive beneath the waves into one of the most imaginative indie science fiction worlds I've explored this year!

How can content marketing in a tight niche build the audience that launches your book? And how do you decide whether to hand your self-published bestseller to a traditional publisher. Suzanne Smith shares what she learned in four years of going from blog to book deal. In the intro, how to stand out as a writer in the age of AI [Nathan Barry Show; Interview with Nathan Barry]; thoughts on asset maintenance; Goodreads giveaway on Bones of the Deep (Aug 5-20, 2026) This episode is sponsored by Publisher Rocket, which will help you get your book in front of more Amazon readers so you can spend less time marketing and more time writing. I use Publisher Rocket for researching book titles, categories, and keywords — for new books and for updating my backlist. Check it out at www.PublisherRocket.com This show is also supported by my Patrons. Join my Community at Patreon.com/thecreativepenn Suzanne Smith is the founder of The Independent Landlord, and the bestselling author of The Good Landlord Handbook. You can listen above or on your favorite podcast app or read the notes and links below. Here are the highlights and the full transcript is below. Show Notes How a free blog in a tight niche built the audience for the book Rewriting the book from scratch when the law changed Why speed made self-publishing the only option Building a paid membership after one audience member asked for it Negotiating a Penguin Random House deal with no agent Using AI as a business sidekick, with a control room and an engine room You can find Suzanne at TheIndependentLandlord.com. Transcript of the interview with Suzanne Smith Jo: Suzanne Smith is the founder of The Independent Landlord, and the bestselling author of The Good Landlord Handbook. So welcome to the show, Suzanne. Suzanne: Thank you. Jo: Oh, there's so much to talk about today. But first up— Tell us a bit more about you and your background, and how you got into property and writing after a legal career. Suzanne: Well, I've always loved reading books. In fact, I recently did a French literature degree as a mature student. Being an author was never in the game plan at all. It's not something that I even thought about. I was brought up in New Zealand, so shout out to all the Kiwis and those across the pond in Australia. The thing about it is, Jo, you've lived there yourself. Kiwis are independent, self-reliant and have this great sense of fair play. So that was a very formative experience for me. We moved back to England when I was 16, and I have become thoroughly anglicised since then, but a Kiwi at heart. I always wanted to become a lawyer. New Zealand in some ways on television is quite American, and there was this American programme called The Paper Chase. It was about all of these students at Harvard studying law, and the professor said, “You come here with a skull full of mush and you leave thinking like a lawyer.” I thought, “Oh, I like the sound of that.” I didn't really know what a lawyer was, but everyone seemed to be very happy that I wanted to become one, and then that was it. Jo: So you went into law, and then how did you get into property? Suzanne: So I worked for 25 years as a solicitor. That's like an attorney if you're American. Started off in a law firm, and then I went into pharmaceuticals and I worked for big companies like what is now GSK, GlaxoSmithKline, and small companies as well. When I started out, it was before the internet, before Google. When you're in house, you're very much a generalist. You do a bit of everything. So you help companies grow their business. You're not business prevention, but you're still bound by the code of conduct for solicitors. You've got this role of keeping the company on the right side of the law. Then I had twins, who were born about five years after I became a lawyer, and I decided to work part-time for a while and did an MBA when they were little, part-time through the Open University. I know Jonathan is doing one at the moment. Jo: Yes. He's finished, so that's exciting. Suzanne: That was transformational for me, because I had probably been thinking a bit too much as a lawyer, and it helped me to broaden my view of the world and understand all sorts of things. Sso I continued going up the greasy pole, and then for my last job, in 2015, I joined a biotech company in Cambridge, England, as general counsel and company secretary. It was a long way from home, about two, three hours' drive from home. So I decided to buy a flat, an apartment, and to stay there in the week. I thought to myself, “Well, when I leave this company, I can let it out as a buy-to-let,” but actually as a landlord. So I stayed there for five years, and then when I left, I let out the property. The reason why I decided to leave law after 25 years, I had what I call a sliding doors moment, like in the film. I was 50. I was on holiday with my husband, and we'd probably had one too many rum cocktails. And he said to me, “Well, what do you want to be doing with your life? What would you do if you could do anything?” I was thinking, “Well, I've done law. I want to do something else now.” I didn't really know what that was, and I'd always been thinking about studying French properly, and that's when I left. So I decided, 18 months later, I left to do a French degree at King's College London, full-time. I was the only old person there with lots of 18-year-olds. When I did that, I was able to cash in my share options because I was a good leaver. I retired, and so I started buying properties to let out and became a landlord, without really thinking too much about it, and I used letting agents. They were fine to begin with, but I didn't really have a game plan or anything like that. What I realised is that when I tried to research things online, I couldn't really find anything that was terribly helpful. It was either quite general or it was very legal. So after a while… I became a landlord in 2019. I had the idea, why don't I set up a blog? And this is August 2022, so just four years ago. My husband came up with the idea of the name, The Independent Landlord, because it's that Kiwi spirit, being very independent. I thought, “Right, I'm not going to charge anyone for it. It's a hobby. It's not a business. I'm going to pay it forward and help, use my legal training, practical legal approach, and practical common sense, by doing this blog.” Almost exactly four years ago, I sent my first newsletter to 13 people. Jo: Woo-hoo. Suzanne: And I sent one last week to over 18,000. So it's been quite a journey. Jo: Wow, this is so great. I love this. There's so much in there. The turning 50 and then doing a degree. My master's in death is a little different to your French literature, but I like it. So I love this, and buying properties, starting it on the side, not a business at first, and growing the audience, and obviously you've put so much work in. Then you decide to write a book. So talk about that, because an online blog, although I'm sure your articles and everything were super useful, it's very different to write a blog than a book. So talk about your challenges in writing. Why did you decide to do a book in the first place? Suzanne: Again, I was an accidental landlord, is what they call it when you let a property when you didn't intend to buy it as a buy-to-let, which I did with my Cambridge flat. And I became, in many respects, an accidental author. So I was having a conversation with my husband again and I was saying I'd done this lead magnet to get people to sign up to my newsletter, and a big new law was going through Parliament at the time, called the Renters Reform Bill, that was going to completely transform the way landlords operate. I was saying to my husband, “Oh, I need to update my lead magnet, a little ebook, to explain the new law.” He looked at me and said, “Well, why don't you do a proper book? Write a book.” This was on the 29th of September, 2023. The reason why I mention that is that I thought, “Wow, what a great idea,” and my head was bursting. I went onto Google, and guess what I downloaded on the 1st of October? Jo: My blueprint? Suzanne: Exactly. I found you immediately, the Author Blueprint, and I downloaded it. I checked: on the 1st of October, 2023. Then I listened to almost… well, I think I went back several years on your podcast, just trying to understand. I'm like that. When I try and do something, I just try and learn everything that there is to know about it. So I started writing the book, and I guess the first challenge was I write quickly, and I'm used to writing for people who aren't lawyers, being in-house. So I thought I needed to have a structure. The structure was easy in many respects because, a bit of business at the end, and then you can go through a tenancy. I thought it was important to have a narrative thread all the way through it, just to bring it together. This is the literature degree coming in here. I thought that the mission for everything I do, the reason why I started doing this, is to help landlords, but also to help the experience of renting that people have in England. It's very specific for English law. And to help improve the private rented sector. So that's why I originally set up my blog for free, and I wanted, when people went onto Google, they could find something sensible and very detailed from me. My blog posts were… Well, I've now got over 400,000 words on my blog, so it's a substantial piece of work that is out there free of charge. So what I decided to do was to bring this narrative thread, I call it the good landlord ethos, to the book. Then I wrote very quickly, and I had a pretty good draft by April 2024, because we were all thinking that the law was going to change very soon. But then there was an election, and in the end the government changed and the legislation changed completely, so I had to rewrite the book and start again. So I think that my biggest challenge was that my subject matter, the new law, changed. Because I wanted to publish this book that explained to people practically what they have to do, and make it really straightforward, keeping out of politics, because it is a very politically charged area. I wanted to write it so it's a manual, somebody could literally follow it. So I used an editor, and I did write the book twice. I had a beta reader who is another lawyer, and a landlord as well. Then I got to the get-the-damn-thing-done stage. The really tedious bit of all the typos at the end. Jo: Yes, the finishing energy to get it out there. So at that point, obviously you'd found my blueprint, so you were learning about the indie way of doing things. Did you always decide to self-publish? How did you think about publishing? What were your challenges in publishing? Suzanne: It never occurred to me not to self-publish, because the new law came into effect on the 1st of May, 2026. The law and the details that I needed for the book were finalised in January, and I published on Amazon on the 5th of March, so I had to go so quickly. Even though I'd got a lot of it written, the last bit came in January, and so I needed speed. I knew that for landlords to be able to have something that they can use straightaway to help get them ready for it, and then use as a manual afterwards, I had to be first. Jo: Sorry, just on the year. Was it '24? You said '26. You meant May— Suzanne: 2024? No, no, because I actually published it this year. What happened in 2024, I had the first draft ready, but then I had to do another draft because the law changed when the Labour government came in. Jo: Right. Suzanne: The Renters Reform Bill turned into the Renters' Rights Bill. So I had to rewrite the book. So I finished however many drafts at the end of January 2026. Then it went to an editor, et cetera, et cetera, and I managed to get the book ready for a proof, to get the proof printed, towards the end of February. So it was really quick to go from the law being sufficiently finalised for me to write a book in January, and then having it ready in just over a month. There is no way that I could have done that if I'd gone to a traditional publisher. It didn't even occur to me to go, because I didn't want to be going touting around my book and, “Please publish me,” et cetera. It's just not me. I'm the independent landlord, and that moved very easily to being the independent publisher. So I learnt how to do all the publishing. And a huge thanks: I joined your Patreon and I was a very good student. I went through everything systematically and followed your playbook, and used Vellum and BookFunnel and all the other tools. So I decided to go on Amazon as well as have my own Shopify store, which just about killed me. Jo: I was going to say, you are an excellent student. You really like learning, but you also put this into practice, which is why I also wanted to talk to you. You haven't just talked about all this. You've literally done everything. Suzanne: Sometimes it was like my head was going to burst. Luckily, Claude upped his game earlier this year when we got the Opus 4.5. I didn't use AI really until this year. I decided I need to do exercise all the time, and have that as a have-to-do, because my head was spinning all the time with all these different things. So I would go to the gym, go to a spin class, and then I would walk out with my phone on, with the Claude app, and dictate a stream of consciousness into it. “Oh, I need to do this, or what about that? Oh, I just remembered about this. Oh, I've had this idea, blah.” And then said, “Make sense of it for me, Claude.” So it was very much as a thinking partner, because when you're writing your first book, it's bad enough, but when you're learning how to publish… Even, like, when I got the first proof of the book back from BookVault, I realised that all the footnotes—I have 114 footnotes in my book, and that, again, is the recent degree there—and the formatting had gone skew-whiff. Apparently it was an issue with Vellum, and they were really lovely and they sorted it straight out for me. So it shows: always get a proof of the book. They were able to sort that out very quickly, and BookVault were very quick in getting me another proof, because you can shortcut it and just pay to get a very quick delivery. Amazon, on the other hand, was really slow. It took a week. So I actually published earlier on my Shopify store for my members, of my membership, and I gave them a discount. Then I finally got it onto Amazon on the 5th of March. There are all these different skills you're having to learn. The Shopify store I found very hard, and there was all the tax, because I'm VAT registered. So I think I'm still recovering. Jo: You're still recovering. I wouldn't normally recommend a Shopify store for someone with their first book, doing first of everything. But, as you say, you're someone who learns a lot, puts it into practice, and— I think you were pretty determined to do that because you had a community as well, right? Suzanne: Exactly, yes. The big subscriber list. I think that's why the book did so well. So in the first week, because I met you at the Indie Author Lab put on by— Jo: Yes, London Book Fair, yes. Suzanne: Yes, the Alliance of Independent Authors. I met you there, and it was just my first week, and I had 1,000 sales in the first week. That was because of my audience. I'd been going on about the fact that I'm writing this book for two and a half years, because that's how long it took me to do. So I had a wait list for it, and I had a thing on my website, a landing page on my website, saying how good the book was and why it's the best thing for the Renters' Rights Act. Then I went onto Google, and I think I sent you a screenshot of this at the time. I put into Google, “What's the best book for the Renters' Rights Act for landlords in England?” And it came up with me as a featured snippet, and I hadn't even published it at that time. It was just about there. So the blog really helped, because I'd become an authority on the Renters' Rights Act. Even though I'm not a practising solicitor any more, I spent all my time reading the damn thing, and it is a very complicated bit of legislation. Funnily enough, I have ruffled a lot of feathers. People have even said about me behind my back, “What does she know? She's only got four properties.” But I just took no notice. I thought, “I'm going to try and use my legal brain and my understanding of what it's like being a landlord, there with the rubber gloves cleaning an oven when people have moved out, and try and write something that's not trying to sell anything else, and to help people.” And then it got picked up. Jo: Yes. Wait, let's just slow down. Slow down, because we will get onto that in a minute. But let's just come back to that launch. So as we talked about, you've had a blog for five years— Suzanne: It was three and a half by then. Jo: Three and a half years you've been blogging, but hundreds of thousands of words of useful information. So you've essentially done content marketing. You've attracted people. You had a lead magnet. You got them on your email list. You told them that you were writing a book. You got a sort of pre-sales list up. So that's an email list. You've got a blog. Did you do anything else in terms of marketing? Suzanne: I had YouTube, a big YouTube channel. I'd only set it up at the end of 2024, and I'd had half a million views. And again, just very straightforward advice, and without all the scaremongering and politics. I deliberately keep out of it all. A lot of people joined my newsletter as a result of that. Also a year ago, exactly today, I was running a Facebook group, which was a lot of hard work. There were a few thousand people in it, but there are often a lot of people going in there trying to sell things: insurance, eviction specialists and things. And there was also a lot of people just being unpleasant to other people. I was getting fed up with it. It was taking me a lot of time, and I was doing a lot of speaking events and trying to explain what this new law was doing, and wearing myself out. I'm an extrovert, but even I find speaking events absolutely exhausting, because it's like everything gets sucked out of you. It's strange. Then somebody came up to me in July last year and said, “Suzanne, can you set up a membership?” I said, “Well, landlords aren't going to pay for that.” And they said, “Yes, they will. You build it and they will come.” I asked ChatGPT and thought about it. I asked ChatGPT, who I was dating at the time, now exclusively with Claude, but I know Claude has other people in his life. But I'm very much set with Claude Fable at the moment. So I asked ChatGPT, how can I go about setting up a membership? And I mentioned your one and said, “Should I do it on Patreon?” And then he came back with: go for Circle. So I set up a membership on Circle, exactly a year ago. In fact, it's the anniversary of my first member yesterday. hTe rules I had were, no selling. So I don't sell, no affiliate links, no one else can sell anything, and we have to be supportive. No negativity, no politics. So what it's become, it's like the senior common room of the private rented sector, with landlords, lawyers, letting agents. There's a fantastic forum in there. It's not me doing it, it's peer-to-peer. I have twice-monthly live streams where people can ask me questions. I wonder where I got that from. No, I very much modelled it on your Patreon, but on a different platform. I have courses in there as well. So that has really grown. I launched it in July, and by September, October, I'd gone past the VAT threshold, which has complicated everything, but it means my business now is this membership. I really enjoy doing it, and there hasn't been all the negativity that you have in a Facebook group. So I had them as… talk about your thousand fans. There are about 1,500 in the membership, and their support really helped the launch of my book, as well as the wider people who get my free newsletter. Jo: Yes. Suzanne: So it's all different types of content marketing. Jo: Y, but I do love this. And of course, if people are wondering, I joined Patreon back in 2014, I think it might have even been before that, and there weren't too many places back then to run communities. It wasn't even really a community at the time, it was a sort of, almost a “give me a bit of support for the podcast.” So things have changed a lot in terms of communities, and obviously you went with Circle, which is great. Patreon is slightly different now, and some people are using Substack for something similar. So that's just on the platform, but on the business: early on in our conversation you said, “I wasn't going to have a business. It wasn't a business. It was just putting stuff out there, helping other people,” and then your audience asked for this membership. And so now it is a business, right? Suzanne: Yes, it is. Jo: And you've got a book and all of this. So are you happy with the change to a business? Because obviously you have to treat it quite differently. Suzanne: Yes, I am, because I think to begin with, I was just doing it one or two days a week. I was actually studying a master's in French literature part-time, and I then found that I was enjoying the blog more than the master's, so I dumped the master's after the first year. But after getting 88% for one of my dissertations, which interestingly was on the translation of a Simone de Beauvoir book into English, and the publisher who's got that now is Random House, but that's another thing. Anyway, so I decided to give up my master's and double down and work full-time on the blog. People were paying to help me with all the big fees and things, the big tech stack, Buy Me a Coffee. I was doing a little bit of consulting and things. I was working six, seven days a week. I was treating it like a business in terms of quality and my effort, but it wasn't a business in terms of revenue. Then it just all came together, and this person said, “Set up a membership,” and I thought, “That's what I'm going to do. I'm now going to put it on a business setting.” I've got an MBA, I know how to do it, and people thought I planned it, but I didn't. It just happened. So now I do very much treat it as a business, but I still don't advertise. I don't allow people to advertise with me, because I want to be independent. If I recommend something, I want people to believe it's me recommending it, not just because someone's paying me, which can be a big issue in the landlord area. Jo: Oh, in any industry. I get pitched every day with loads of random things that people are like, “Oh, a dollar a click or whatever, if you send this to your list.” And it's like, seriously? Just stop it already. I did just want to add there: somebody asked you, they said, “You should have a community,” and that sparked that idea. I just wanted to acknowledge that my Patreon came from Jim Kukral. Some of you will remember, who've been around a long time. Jim Kukral came on my blog around sort of 2013. Amanda Palmer had just put out a book called The Art of Asking, and I was doing a lot of unpaid work on the podcast at the time, and I was either going to give it up or I had to fund it somehow. Jim said, “You should do a Patreon.” And I was like, “Oh, no, I hate asking for money.” So at the time I just felt, oh, weird. Then I was like, “No, I do all this work,” as you were saying. Now the Patreon has changed so much in terms of what it is, but it is the backbone of my business, too. So I love that you listened to one of your fans who said what they wanted, and I love that I've listened as well. Sometimes we just have to listen to those urges, don't we, to take things on? Suzanne: Yes, absolutely. In some ways I didn't really back myself before. I thought, “No one's going to pay for this.” Then the more you give, the more they want. Jo: Yes. Suzanne: What I've been really working on now is having boundaries, because there were two big kind of mottos that I picked up when I was working in pharmaceuticals. One was from a head of the business. He was Canadian, and he was always saying, “You've got to skate to where the puck is heading.” Jo: That's Wayne Gretzky, is it? Suzanne: Exactly. Yes. He would always say it, and so that's what I've done with my blog and my book. When I write things, I don't pay for any tools. I don't do keyword searches and all that. I just think, I do one blog post per topic, and I'm going to guess what people are going to be searching for soon, and I build up all this content around it. That's why most of my blog pages are top five. I've had no advertising. I haven't asked for any backlinks. I don't do it. People backlink to it because it's useful. So that was the first thing, is skate to where the puck is heading, and that was my approach with the book. I knew people would need this book from around May, and they'll need it forever, because it is so complicated and regulated, the rules for being a landlord in England. So that was the first one. The second thing was: when you take something on, you've got to let something go. One in, one out. I found that I was taking on so many different things, and I've just been cutting back, because I can't be doing all the speaking, I can't be answering people's emails. So I now don't do emails. If people want my advice on something, they ask me in the hub, at the twice-monthly live streams. Sometimes I answer in the forums, but I don't have time. When there are 2.4 million landlords in the UK, and even with our 18,000 on my newsletter, I could spend, and I did, I used to spend all my time replying to emails. So anyway, there are the things. Oh, and there was a third one, which is: attract, don't chase. One of my friends gave me that advice and that's exactly what my approach has been. I just don't chase for anything. I just put the stuff there and then build it and they will come. Jo: Yes, and I think another thing is the power of the niche. It's so clear that what you write about, the people you are aiming at, you have an extremely tight target market. That is both a strength and obviously a weakness, because they're the only people. But as you say, there's more than enough of those people for a community, for the book you have. From my own perspective, that's the same for me, the power of the niche. That's how I have a successful podcast, for example, because of that reason. I think you're like a poster child of what a non-fiction author should do. What I like is that you didn't go, “Oh, where's a niche where I could make money?” and then jump in. You've gone about this in a kind of slightly accidental way, but now you're leaning in and this uses all your skills. So this really is a great example of the power of the niche and then making the most of it. But let's move on to what then happened, and— What happened with the book deal? Suzanne: Wow. So you and I met each other on whatever day that was in March at the Indie Author Lab, and the following day I got an email, via my website on a contact form, from Penguin Random House saying, “We love the book. We love the mission, its values,” all this kind of thing. And I was thinking, “Oh, it's another one of those. Must be an—” Jo: AI spam bot, right? Suzanne: Yes, and I remember I sent you a screenshot of it, and then I checked her out on LinkedIn and thought, “Okay, there is somebody with that name there.” You're always saying, and Orna Ross and everyone are always saying, “Watch out for scams.” And in fact, Penguin Random House even this weekend on Instagram put out something saying, “There are lots of people impersonating us.” So I didn't take it too seriously, and it was something like, “Oh, would you be interested in us publishing your book?” And I thought, and I laughed. It was like, no, this is too good to be true. So I replied and said… Oh, I said, “Well, thank you so much. The Renters' Rights Act…” And so this is like the second week in March. “The Renters' Rights Act comes into effect on the 1st of May. If you want to publish it, you're going to need to get your skates on.” I literally did say that. Then she arranged a meeting with me the next day, on the Friday. I still was very dubious about it, and I had a think about it. What helped me, and I have the little booklet here: at the Author Lab, we did some work at the beginning, and Orna said, “Put your phones away.” And it was like, “What? Put my phone away?” Then we had to do this definition of success, and our passion, and our mission, and our purpose. I wrote down things like, I want to help landlords, and in so doing, help improve the private rented sector. I get pleasure from helping people. I want to improve standards and use my legal and practical skills, et cetera. So I thought, “Okay, what is my purpose of doing this book?” It isn't really to make money, because going with Penguin, you wouldn't do that for financial reasons, because you'd make very little money. So I thought, what is my why? My why is I want as many people to read this book as possible. And I've managed to sell a few thousand copies, but there are 2.4 million landlords, and they all need to understand this book, and the only way that I can get it out there, apart from doing ads, is to get it out in bookstores. So I thought about it, and then said, “Yes, I will do it, because I want to get the book out there.” So it's distribution. It's going to be published on the 6th of August, which is really quick, bearing in mind they contacted me in the middle of March. It's exactly the same book, it's just got different copyright wording and different blurb, different paper. Same cover, because I managed to find a fantastic cover person to do it. So they've kept everything the same. So we negotiated that book. I have no agent. They came to me. It's the attract, don't chase. I just put my lawyer hat on, and because one licence is very much like another one… I did turn down their first offer. Jo: Well done. Good negotiation. Suzanne: My daughter said to me, who's an adult daughter, she said, “But it's Penguin.” And I said, “Well, no, but it doesn't work for me.” So I had a call with them, and then they came up with something that worked for me a bit more. I did have to concede on a few things, like I can't sell it in my Shopify store. But in some ways, that was a blessing in disguise, because it means I don't get any more “Where's my book?” emails. Jo: Yes, exactly. Pros and cons of everything, basically. Suzanne: I have very clear rights to get it back. If I want it back, I can get it back and I don't have to give a reason. They're lovely. They have been really very wonderful. When I went up there a month or so ago, they gave me this book bag, and it's got on it, “I'm published by Penguin,” and I burst into tears. Jo: Aw. That's nice. Suzanne: I don't know, it just seemed like such a big deal. Because up until then I was just being all very lawyerly and task-orientated. Then I thought, “Oh my goodness,” and then it dawned on me. So I'm now in this interim period where I've taken it off Amazon and off my Shopify store, and I feel very maternalistic towards the book because, you know, it took me two and a half years, which is longer than a pregnancy. Obviously it's not a child, but it's like my book child. I've sent it off with a backpack and a drink and some snacks, and I hope that they look after him, my book. The day I took it off Amazon it was still number one. And a big shout-out to Publisher Rocket, by the way. Jo: Yes. Very, very useful for niche publishing. Suzanne: Very. It helped me choose the right niche categories. So it was number one on at least one category, often six, all the way through. I thought, “Well, it's over to them now.” They're very lovely people. They've given me some marketing assets, as they call it, some swanky graphics and things to use. We'll have to see what we do in terms of marketing. I don't mind doing marketing. I'm on LinkedIn quite a bit, and my whole blog is marketing. What I've been doing is updating my blog to include one of these graphics and to mention the book, and I got Claude to help me draft the code so it looked right. So I've been going through all of my blog posts and sending people to Amazon rather than to my Shopify store. It is mixed feelings, because I care about my book. I put a lot of effort, a lot of love, a lot of tears. No, not tears, but I put a lot of effort into it, and it's out of my control now. Jo: Yes, you said it's over to them, but obviously you will still be creating content around this topic, so you'll probably still be the biggest driver of book sales. Suzanne: Yes. Jo: Are they also suggesting, for example, a podcast tour, like pitching for podcasts? Are they going to assign you some PR? Because, also if people don't know, as we are recording this, we have a new prime minister who wants to do various things. You said no politics, but this is obviously a political thing. So you have the potential to go on a lot of different podcasts, media, talking about this, becoming almost a talking head in this kind of area. So are you angling for all that, and is that in your contract, or is it literally just going to be whatever you want to do? Suzanne: That's not in the contract. What's in the contract is very minimal. I think I've already done what I'm supposed to do. They are pitching for me to go on podcasts and things. I'll tell you a really funny coincidence. So we now have a new Prime Minister, Andy Burnham, and when he was Mayor of Greater Manchester, he set up something called the Good Landlord Charter. I actually talk about it in the book, and I quote him in my book saying that good landlords mean people trying to do the right thing, or something like that. And I coincidentally came up with the same name, The Good Landlord Handbook. I'd already had the book title for a long time. So this idea of good and landlord coming together, the adjective good as opposed to criminal or rogue, and the cover being green. I'm wanting to change the narrative so it's the norm to have a good landlord, and to help people become good landlords. Or if they're good landlords, help them to understand the new rules, because the new rules are very complicated. So what I don't get involved in is this right or wrong. Is it right that landlords can't do this or have to do this? Because as an in-house lawyer, it doesn't really matter what I think about the law. GDPR, goodness me. Jo: Oh, dear. Let's not start on GDPR. Suzanne: No, exactly. Because we've just got to suck it up. I liken it to the grief cycle, that people have been going through so much change and you have the anger, the depression— Jo: Denial. Suzanne: Bargaining, the denial, and then you get to acceptance. For some people, the acceptance means they want to stop doing it. If you want to accept it and stay, you need to understand the rules. So I've deliberately just kept very practical and have kept out of all the politics of it. I have, funnily enough, become involved because I'm now seen as an expert on the Renters' Rights Act. I've worked behind the scenes with the government to help, and give comment on government guidance for landlords. I was even invited to a reception to mark the passing of the Renters' Rights Act at Downing Street with the previous prime minister, all whilst staying apolitical. I won't let anyone make me be a mouthpiece for their political view. It's more, we just have to do this if we want to continue doing it. I've been very clear on that. Jo: It's interesting you mention the grief cycle there, and you've also mentioned Claude and ChatGPT. I wonder if you might also just comment on use of AI for authors and for marketing and all this. Also with legal stuff, because for me now, if I'm looking at a particular legal thing, I tend to ask Claude. I'm like, “Can you just explain this?” or upload a contract or whatever. Although it is not legal advice, it can be quite useful. So give us your thoughts on using AI as a sidekick in your author business and also for wider life. Suzanne: I now struggle to think what life would be like without Claude. I don't use Claude to write, at all, because I have a very particular voice and a turn of phrase, and if ever Claude writes something for me, it doesn't sound like me. It flattens me, and it makes me sound a bit American. So I don't do that. I've used it in the back end of the business. For instance, my blog was down, and there was something called a recursive bot, which I don't even know what it was, and Claude helped me fix it for free. I went through, I did screenshots. When I did an ElevenLabs audiobook and did it all myself, I was literally, for every screenshot, showing it to Claude. Claude said, “Do this, press this, press that.” So I have all these different projects set up. One is the control room, where it's for my strategic thinking. If I have an idea, I want to think about something, I put it in there. I have the engine room, which is for everything techy. Like when I had the recursive bot, or if I'm wanting to have some code on the website to make it look a particular way. Then I have other things for different subjects, and I put all the resources in there, and I use it a lot as a thinking partner. I've noticed that Fable doesn't hallucinate as much, but the Opus used to. There's something called rental discrimination, and it was proofreading and said, “No, it's not rental discrimination, it's rental income discrimination,” and that was just a load of rubbish. So I would never let it go and change things without me looking at it. I went on one of your webinars a month or so ago about MCPs and all the connectors, which is fantastic. It can go into my community and pull out all the questions for one of my live streams and put it into a document in order, by theme, for instance. It can look at my MailerLite, because that's where my newsletter is with, and analyse the different open rates and click rates and things. It's so good for analysing everything, all the book sales. It helped me with my negotiation with Penguin, and it is pretty good on law. It has sometimes hallucinated things, but not so much now. I think with anything, you've always got to go back to the primary source, and this is what we learn in academia: you have to check the primary source yourself. I have a bit of a magpie brain. I'm very much a discovery writer, like you, and things occur to me as I'm doing it. I think that Claude, at the moment, is incredible. I've been quite open about it on social media that I have Claude as a business partner. I'm a solopreneur, or whatever the word is. I have quite a big business now, and lots of different things, and it's just me doing it, because I can ask Claude how to do this, and how to do that. Claude can go and check my emails and tell me, is there somebody I've not replied to, which helps a lot. Jo: Yes. I think it's empowering as a solopreneur as such. You talk there about the fixing the tech stuff. I have my web host come to me and say, “Look, you're getting so much traffic and bot stuff, and we need to put this thing in, and it's going to be $120 extra a month.” I was like, “Can you just give me an hour? I'll get back to you.” And then I just had Claude code up, and I was like, “Analyse this and tell me what we can do.” It was like, “No, you just need to flip this switch and do that.” And I'm like, “Okay, fair enough.” Then the guy said, “Oh, no, okay, actually you don't need it.” Just stuff like that. As a solopreneur, you're either going to pay somebody technically quite a lot of money, or you can get Claude or ChatGPT. We should say, the ChatGPT Sol is very good, like the Claude Fable, for example. So, yes, using it as a sidekick. I love your control room and your engine room projects as well. That's a great way of doing it. Suzanne: I wouldn't be without it now, and I would have published the book a lot later without Claude, because Claude was helping me with the Shopify store and all the many steps of things. It saved me real time. It is just fantastic. I think, like now when I'm updating my blog, I have a connection between Claude and my blog. Claude can go in, I can give it my Google Search Console results for the page: what should I change, are the headings right? All this kind of thing. And it will give me a view on every single page, which is incredible. Jo: And YouTube, and just everything. Just super useful for that business sidekick. That's what I want authors to think. I feel like authors get so obsessed with the creative side with AI, whereas actually, people like you and me, we're using it as that engine room for the solo business, which is what I love. So we're out of time. I did want to ask one more thing, which is, one of the biggest issues with a specific book like yours is when they change the law again. So do you have a plan in place for if, say, a new government changes the law again? Will you just be updating the book over time? Suzanne: I think that there'll need to be a new edition of the book in three years' time, and I've spoken to Penguin about it. Not all of this new law has been implemented, and there's going to be case law and things. So I expect that I will update the book every few years. I have some other ideas for books as well, but for the moment, I'm just taking a bit of a break. You always say we've got to refill our creative well. I really feel like that at the moment. Recently I've just got myself a personal mobile phone so that I can turn off my work one when I'm on holiday and actually take time off. Because for all the time that I was doing the book, basically from Christmas until May, I didn't have one day off. That is not good. So I'm just trying to be a bit more balanced. I had an idea to write another book for summer, but I've just decided not to, and I'm going to leave it until I feel the urge again. Jo: Oh, well done. Suzanne: Which will come. Jo: Yes, well done. Suzanne: I think there's nothing wrong with that. We just need to think what's right for us. I'm 58. So I want to be able to have time to enjoy things and not be working all the time. Jo: No, that's great. It's a sustainable business. So where can people find you and the book and your community online? Suzanne: The easiest way to find me is theindependentlandlord.com. Or if you put Suzanne Smith and landlord into Google, you'll find me as well, and there's a link on there to the book, The Good Landlord Handbook. In the community, there's a link to that on my website as well. Jo: Brilliant. Well, thanks so much for your time, Suzanne. That was great. Suzanne: Thank you.The post From Blog To Community To Book: A Non-Fiction Author's Journey With Suzanne Smith first appeared on The Creative Penn.

If a reader Googled your name right now, what would come up? An abandoned LinkedIn profile from a career you left behind? A neglected Goodreads page? An insurance agent in Albuquerque who happens to share your name?There's only one number-one spot on Google,  and if you don't claim it for your name, someone else will. The good news is that your most powerful tool for winning that spot is the one piece of the internet you fully control. It's your author website.In this week's episode, you'll hear from Jason Barnard, digital marketing expert who has spent more than a decade teaching Google and AI who people are.You'll learn:The overlooked page on your website that Google checks first.The Wikipedia alternative that is easier to write and curateHow you can get Jason's robust SEO audit of your site, for freeWhether your website needs a little fine tuning or you're building one for the first time, listen in or check out the blog version to find out what you should prioritize and what you can stop stressing about.Blog link: https://www.authormedia.com/seo-for-author-websites-the-only-guide-you-need-in-2026/AuthorMedia.social link:YouTube Link: https://youtu.be/PNpmOklWm8MSupport the show

Being a spy in WWII must have been harrowing--being responsible for a network of them?  Listen in as Roseanna M. White and I talk about her newest release, The Spy Keeper of Marseille. note: links may be affiliate links that provide me with a small commission at no extra expense to you. One thing that always surprises me is how much the German invaders supported the arts.  It's not what you expect during a time of war.  I love how Roseanna shows faith flourishing and growing in times of trouble as well as triumph. The Spy Keeper of Marseille by Roseanna M. White In occupied France, a woman becomes a spy for the Resistance and rises to lead the largest intelligence operation in the country in this propulsive new World War II historical novel by bestselling author Roseanna M. White. Marseille, France, 1941. Zelie Bellerose never fit the mold of an army officer's wife. She was too passionate in her convictions, too indifferent to societal expectations. After her husband is killed in the war, Zelie focuses on securing a brighter future for her children, hoping to help free her country from the Nazi regime by joining the Resistance. She is soon one of the most trusted operatives in Alliance, and when their leader is imprisoned, she takes command, hiding her identity from all but a few. With enemies closing in, Zelie must earn the trust of her network and prove herself to those who doubt a woman's place at the helm of France's largest spy ring. Marcel Laurent was a renowned concert pianist before joining the French army and being sent to a POW camp. Freed in a prisoner exchange by a wealthy businessman with ties to the Resistance, Marcel agrees to spy for Alliance by conducting a youth orchestra, gathering intelligence from patrons who are loose-lipped Nazi sympathizers. Marcel's weekly radio broadcasts introducing the orchestra's performances give him the perfect cover to send coded messages over the airwaves. As Zelie and Marcel grow closer through their shared love of music, she begins to rely on him. But betrayal from within Alliance puts everything they've fought for at risk. When a double agent infiltrates their ranks and the two are captured, their bond faces its greatest test . . . and any misstep could jeopardize not only Alliance but the very outcome of the war. A thrilling, propulsive novel based on the real life of a female spy during World War II Perfect for fans of WWII historical fiction by Ariel Lawhon, Lynn Austin, Martha Hally Kelly, and Kristy Cambron A captivating romance featuring a strong female heroine and a musician hero Includes discussion questions for book clubs Learn more about Roseanna M. White on her WEBSITE (with all the bookish merch) and follow her on BookBub and GoodReads. Like to listen on the go? You can find Because Fiction Podcast at: Apple Castbox Google Play Libsyn RSS Spotify Amazon YouTube and more!

Marlon and Jake dive into one of literature's trickiest subjects: sex. Why do some writers capture intimacy with honesty while others veer into the unintentionally hilarious? Along the way, they discuss why writing about sex is really writing about people, the differences between American and French attitudes toward sexuality in fiction, ghost stories as a vehicle for taboo desires, and the delicate balance between telling the truth and keeping readers engaged. Tune in for a conversation about why the best writing on sex is rarely just about sex. Subscribe to our River-herd digital newsletter and our print newspaper, The Eddy, for sneak peeks of our upcoming books, free giveaways, and exclusive content: https://sites.prh.com/the-eddy-newspaper. Portnoy's Complaint by Philip Roth  “The Diamond Mine” by Nadine Gordimer The Late Bourgeois World by Nadine Gordimer Death of Venice by Thomas Mann The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde Kiss of the Spider Woman by Manuel Puig Miracle of the Rose by Jean Genet Maurice by E. M. Forster The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton Ernesto by Umberto Saba Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller London Fields by Martin Amis The Best of Everything by Rona Jaffe Sex and the Single Girl by Helen Gurley Brown G. by John Berger  Flashman series Lucky Jim by Kingsley Amis The Old Devils by Kingsley Amis The Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens The Bloody Chamber by Angela Carter Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel The Godfather by Mario Puzo Jaws by Peter Benchley

Are you prepared to learn the truth about UFOs and God? In today's episode, host Tina Yeager sits down with award-winning filmmakers Wes Llewellyn and Amanda Llewellyn to delve into their compelling new documentary, "UFOs and God." Together, they challenge prevalent cultural myths about UFOs and so-called non-human intelligences, unraveling why such beliefs can be spiritually dangerous. Drawing on science, scripture, and personal experience, our guests reveal the surprising truth behind spiritual deceptions—and why it's crucial for Christians to discern fact from fiction. Tune in for eye-opening insights on how to stay grounded in faith and truth while being compassionate to those searching for answers in a world full of conflicting messages. Many in our culture—and even in the church—are fascinated by UFOs, aliens, and the possibility of life beyond earth. But what's really happening when people encounter these phenomena? Wes Llewellyn explains: "They are real, but the question is, what are they?" He points out the astronomical improbabilities of extraterrestrial life and reveals a different dimension—literally—behind these encounters. Amanda Llewellyn adds, "Their lives are not improved with having an experience with NHI (non-human intelligence)" and urges us to hold every experience up to the light of God's truth.

We can't get coffee together, but we could take a walk. And on that walk, I'd tell you something that might surprise you: your mission in life is sales. Not the kind you're picturing. From the moment you wake up to the moment you fall asleep, you're selling the most important product that's ever existed, a remarkable life, to the most important person you'll ever meet, yourself. In this episode, I'm breaking down why owning your life feels so overwhelming, why blaming your parents, society, or even cavemen for your problems keeps you stuck, and why no one, not a politician, boss, celebrity, or friend, has more power over you than you have over yourself. It's time to stop pointing fingers and start recognizing the influence you've had all along.In This Episode:Order Procrastination Proof!You can grab a copy of my new book Procrastination Proof from your favorite bookstore or at my website!Make sure to follow me on Instagram and share with your friends!Sign up for my newsletter, Try This!Book me to speak at your event or to your team!Sign up for the Remarkable You Community today!Keep up with my book list on GoodReads!Have me speak at your next event!

Jeff and Rebecca talk about Emily Wilson's pan of Nolan's The Odyssey, before checking in on the Booker longlist, Obama's summer reading picks, and the most troubling AI/publishing story yet. Follow the podcast via RSS, Apple Podcasts, and Spotify. Join The Book Riot Podcast Patreon for bonus content and ad-free listening. Subscribe to The Book Riot Newsletter for regular updates to get the most out of your reading life. The Book Riot Podcast is a proud member of the Airwave Podcast Network. Discussed in this episode: Emily Wilson hated The Odyssey, actually, and her unedited remarks to the AP Joyce Carol Oates has entered the chat And everybody wants to learn Greek Booker Prize longlist Obama summer reading list The most read books on Goodreads this year A viral BookTok hit might be largely AI-generated This content contains affiliate links. When you buy through these links, we may earn an affiliate commission. Go to quince.com/bookriot for free shipping on your order and 365-day returns. Now available in Canada and the UK, too. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A quiet bedtime story about four unlikely companions who build a home together by learning to lean on each other. Follow a horse, a goat, a goose, and a fox as an early winter carries them out of a familiar valley, over a swollen river, and into an abandoned mill that slowly becomes home. You can get my new book, Awaken Your Myth, at https://awakenyourmyth.com/book/. Please leave a review on Amazon here: https://www.amazon.com/Awaken-Your-Myth-Discover-Purpose/dp/1797235257/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0#averageCustomerReviewsAnchor To leave a review on GoodReads, click here: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/238747993-awaken-your-myth#CommunityReviewsYour support is the cornerstone that allows me to continue crafting tranquil stories and meditations for you. For less than the price of a cup of coffee, you'll unlock an oasis of over 500 ad-free Listen To Sleep episodes, including 8 subscriber-only full length sleepy audiobook classics like Winnie the Pooh and Alice in Wonderland. To pledge your support, visit⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://listentosleep.com/support⁠⁠ or subscribe right in Apple Podcasts and get a 7 day free trial. Want to change your story? Take the free Path Assessment at https://jointhecabin.org. In two minutes, you'll see your personalized journey and know exactly where to start. To join my email group and get a bunch of goodies, go to ⁠⁠https://erikireland.com Sleep well, friends.

Christine Riccio & Natasha Polis talk all things nerdy in the book, tv, movie, pop culture, fandoms, and how they integrate into their adult lives. Today they're talking all things COMIC-CON 2026! Plus they chat Obsession, the Odyssey, the latest updates from Taylor swifts, Marvel, the Children of Blood and Bone trailer, and more!The Main discussion start at : 59:00Teatime starts at: 2:23:00Today in Fangirl Tea Time : Join Christine and Natasha for more stories about their recent life escapades. Support the pod by joining the Forking Fangirls Patreon community: http://patreon.com/thoseforkingfangirls TEAM EDWARD: The first five Heated Rivalry episode commentaries are up now! Follow the visual show on our Youtube: http://youtube.com/@thoseforkingfangirls  Get Christine's new book THIRTY, FLIRTY, & FOREVER ALONE: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1662532156Add Thirty Flirty & Forever Alone on Goodreads:https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/230393104-thirty-flirty-and-forever-aloneCheck out Natasha's sewing classes: https://www.natashapolis.com/Join our patron to get 10 dollars off the classes!Website: https://thoseforkingfangirls.com/ Email us feedback: thoseforkingfangirls@gmail.com Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thoseforkingfangirls/Twitter: https://twitter.com/forkfangirlspod TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@thoseforkingfangirlsGet Christine's novel Attached at the Hip: https://a.co/d/grmPeVy Check out the Selkie Collection and get 10% off your order with code TASHAPOLIS https://selkiecollection.com/collections/all

How can building an audience in advance help your stories reach the people who make movies? And how can you prove there's demand for your book or screenplay before you've written it? Brooks Elms shares his advice after more than 20 years as a WGA screenwriter. In the intro, what doesn't work for book marketing and what does [Amy Chan SubStack; Unsingle; Rephonic]; Goodreads giveaway for Bones of the Deep; FutureVision XPrize. This podcast is sponsored by Kobo Writing Life, which helps authors self-publish and reach readers in global markets through the Kobo eco-system. You can also subscribe to the Kobo Writing Life podcast for interviews with successful indie authors. This show is also supported by my Patrons. Join my Community at Patreon.com/thecreativepenn Brooks Elms is a WGA screenwriter with over 45 scripts, over a dozen sales, and he has directed two indie features. He is the creator of the Answer the Call system and has trained over 1,000 writers. You can listen above or on your favorite podcast app or read the notes and links below. Here are the highlights and the full transcript is below. Show Notes How to see the opportunity in AI when others only see the threat How to test a story with samples, and what a 16-second movie can do Building the trailer before you write the screenplay Letting your audience finance the film once they have validated the idea Why Hollywood still wants existing IP, and what makes them pay attention Feeling safe enough to write the truth, and finding a concrete path forward You can find Brooks on LinkedIn or email him at brooks@brookselms.com. Transcript of the interview with Brooks Elms Jo: Brooks Elms is a WGA screenwriter with over 45 scripts, over a dozen sales, and he has directed two indie features. He is the creator of the Answer the Call system and has trained over 1,000 writers. So welcome to the show, Brooks. Brooks: Thank you. It's awesome to be here. Jo: Fantastic. So first up— Tell us a bit more about you and how you got into screenwriting. Brooks: I started filmmaking first. A buddy came up to me in high school and said, “Hey, we're making a karate movie, do you want to help us?” I was like, “Oh my God, yes, that sounds amazing.” So next thing I know, I had this karate outfit on, and we were just making this completely ridiculous and totally fun movie, and it was amazing. It was so fun. Then it went to a whole other level when we shared it with a friend, this guy Jay Sharon, and he watched the movie and he laughed so hard he literally fell out of his chair. I was like, “Oh my God,” the fun I had making it could actually transfer to somebody else. I was hooked. So from there I went to NYU film school, and then made a few independent feature films which were good but not great in terms of how they were received. They were great for me in terms of enjoyment, but I knew I needed to iterate faster at that point. So then I was like, “Well, it's expensive and it takes a long time to make a movie,” at least back then. So I pivoted to screenwriting, and pumped out two, three scripts a year, got signed at UTA, got writing assignments, and basically launched a screenwriting career. Then I still tried to get some stuff going, but it's hard when movies are so expensive. It's not hard, it's just that it takes a lot of precision in the marketing, and a lot of conversations to find the right matches to finance something, and you're either interested in doing that or you're not. I just was like, “Well, I'll just mostly write screenplays.” Then I started teaching at UCLA Extension and then coaching after that, along with writing. Then all the way up to the future. What's great about moving forward is that with AI, shot-making is becoming very close to cinematic quality. You can actually match cinematic quality in moments in some genres, but probably by next year. Right now you could actually do a really good horror movie all AI for 10, 20,000 bucks, depending on how much you're doing yourself or getting other people to do. So the economics are going to absolutely explode. So I'm sitting on dozens of scripts that didn't get through the Hollywood packaging bottleneck because they're too expensive, and I now have this giant slate that's ready to go, and I'm just absolutely thrilled. It's been a lifelong dream for me. Jo: Oh, so much to come back on there. Where to start? I do want to talk about what you just said there, sitting on dozens of scripts and now seeing the opportunity. I actually wrote down in my journal about a year ago, I see what's coming with AI, and I think that the best thing I can do is create as much original IP as possible, so that I can make the most of the opportunity ahead. So let's just get into the AI, because a lot of people feel it's a super bad thing. Talk about the opportunities and the attitude that you've got [around AI], and that you've seen others have around this, for what is ahead in a positive way. Brooks: It's fascinating to see how people respond to AI. I wonder, when the printing press rolled around, if there was some sort of backlash. Books must be handwritten. They can't be mass-produced. Here's one of my theories. At a deep psychological level, it's so profoundly powerful that I think the default setting is, “Oh, crap.” When I was a kid, some things were hard, and that power imbalance, when something big, new and powerful comes along: I'm going to get screwed, and so this is somehow a bad thing. I think that's the base psychological thing going on with most of the noise. Obviously there are some legit problems, in terms of copyright infringement from learning models, or from some of the environmental situation. So I'm not saying it's all rainbows and butterflies, but I think 90% of the noise around it comes from a fear of change. Here's the other one—a fear of, “Oh, yikes, I'm going to get taken advantage of somehow by either robots, or the corporations are going to use the robots against me,” or something like that. I have real empathy for me when I feel that way a little bit, but I don't feel it much, and for other people that do feel it. The other thing is, you know what it is? I think they fear their own empowerment even more. I had a therapist who was really good. He said, people aren't so much afraid of failing as they are afraid of succeeding. Because if we fail, we're stuck in act one and we don't go anywhere. The fear is answering the call and going to act two, when everything effing changes in the new world. So I think people are afraid of how goddamn powerful they're going to be when they can have a team of AI agents helping them do everything they want in business or life or whatever. I think it's the same thing with the internet. People are like, “Oh, I don't like social media, blah, blah, blah.” And I get it. There's a lot of noise and a lot of crap. Yet we have access to billions of people, and the algorithms in social media right now I think are level three out of 10. They're just going to get better and better. Even as it is now, if I do a post about something and it gets ignored, that's on me. The algorithms are trying to match me to my people. So if I'm not unique enough and authentic enough and aware enough of how virality works, that's on me, and it's a learnable skill that I can embrace and then change and then get better at. So I think people then resist that change. They resist the empowerment of learning the art of virality, or learning the art of some sort of social media stuff or whatever. The last thing I'll say about this rant is, I don't want to act like I'm the guru on the hill that has all the answers. I refuse calls all the time. I'm scared about all sorts of things. I'm certainly not perfect. I feel frustrated when I'm trying to put my big ideas into action and I can't get this technology thing to work or that one, and I throw tantrums. I'm trying to come at it from a real human perspective, but by and large, I've got stars in my eyes. I'm like, “This is amazing. This is going to be so powerful.” For so many people, you just have to be ready to embrace it and just go along for the ride, because there's going to be some big-ass changes. There already are, and that's going to accelerate. Jo: You mentioned there learning the art of whatever it is. One of the things is, I've spent 20 years, and so have you, learning our craft and our art, and now it can be done very easily. I'm generating video, as you mentioned, which is a craft I haven't spent 20 years on, but now I can generate. So things have definitely changed in that way. Just coming to the screenwriting side. Probably about a decade ago now, I did my first screenwriting course. I've written screenplays. Then I looked at the game you have to play and, like you said, the conversations you have to have, the events you have to go and network at, all the things that you have to do to put a screenplay in front of the right person at the right time. I was like, “I cannot do that. It's just not going to happen. I can't do that along with everything else.” So I put it aside, but now I feel maybe it's time to bring it back because things are changing. So can you maybe talk about, if someone has a screenplay now that they've written, or some IP like a book that they have now— What would you recommend people do in terms of wanting to get that [IP] in front of somebody, or doing something with it themselves? Brooks: It's such a good question. By the way, not even a screenplay—you could do the same things with a novel. Let me try to be succinct here, which is a good challenge for me. A simple way to look at it is, you're giving samples. Let's say it's a lemonade stand, and you give out a little shot of your… maybe you have cayenne pepper lemonade, some sort of fun lemonade. If you give out a sample and people are into it, they're going to come back and they're going to tell friends. If you give a sample of the lemonade and they're not into it, then you go back to the kitchen and you mix up a different flavour. So that's some basic business, but the internet allows us to do that at scale. So what I like to encourage people to do when I coach them is come up with the minimum viable material. It can be a 10-second clip. There's a writer in my community who made a really beautiful 16-second movie. It's one shot. I love it so much. It's two wine glasses. There's a lipstick smudge on one of the wine glasses. They're half full, and it's just that shot. It's sitting there, and all of a sudden you hear this thundering, thumping down these stairs, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun. Then you see out of the corner of the frame one person runs by, and then the other person behind her runs by and goes, “Wait.” That's it. That's the whole movie. It's 16 seconds. He did that with his phone. So there's so much going on. There's a couple of basic elements, but he just did it with his phone, and you can evoke enormous emotional impact on people through social media, whether it's just words. You guys have a big advantage as novelists because you're so good with words. Whether it's a little bit longer, like sudden fiction, that's a couple of pages or whatever. Even just copywriters are really in a good position for the future because they're super potent with two words or three words or 10 words. Then novelists are probably really advantageous because it doesn't cost anything to just put some words out on the internet. The point is, if you put something out, it's a signal, and you're talking about billions of people who could find that signal. If you do it and then you look at the response, and then you try again, you look at the response, we can do this iteration infinitely for free. So you can do it already. You've been able to do it for 10, 15, 20 years, just with words. But now you're going to basically be able to do that with movies or clips or trailers. So the thing that I'm leading in my community of writers is having people build trailers in advance, or clips. When a book or a movie is done, how the heck do we get people to see it? One way is a trailer or some sort of behind-the-scenes material. You can just do that stuff now before even writing the screenplay. I saw that you were doing this project, a trailer for this competition. And then you mentioned, “Oh, I've got to write the screenplay.” Not really. You have to develop the story enough to know what you're referring to, and then it's about studying the craft of either trailer construction, or whatever the clips are, or viral clips. They all have a structure, and then you just test it. If you enjoy that testing process, which I find absolutely thrilling, it feels like the filmmaking version of a stand-up comedian. If I did stand-up, I say a joke, they laugh or they don't laugh. It's really beautiful feedback from the universe. Nerve-wracking, right? But we can do that now as storytellers. We put a story out there in any format, and the audience responds. Just like you have to read any room, you have to learn how to read the engagement on social media. What do likes mean? What do shares mean? What do comments mean? How do you deal with trolls? All that is just part of the new art. Once you get good at it, holy smokes, that's the key to the kingdom. You can build audiences in advance, and for movies you could even have them finance your movie in advance, if you've built an email list of 20,000, 30,000, 40,000 people because you kept putting out all these viral clips around your story, novel, or screenplay. Then you go, “Okay, now 30,000 people are on my email list and I tell them about me and my perspective and my world. We're going to make this darn thing with AI for 20,000 bucks. You guys have got to pony up some money. Put in a dollar, five, 10, or you get the VIP $500 experience.” It's like crowdfunding, but much more sophisticated, because most crowdfunding was like begging friends and family to donate to your crazy dream. What I'm talking about is going to the audience directly, developing enough of the story, then going to the audience second, and then only when they validate the idea, to the extent that you're happy with. You could do a crazy idea that's going to have a small audience, and you don't have to have a blockbuster audience. You get to pick the audience size that you want, and then put the samples out there and see if you have a relevant audience size for this next project. Once the audience tells you, “Yes, we want this,” then you go make it. So you're ultimately reducing risk to almost zero. It takes time and you have to learn how to do this stuff, but it's thrilling to me because we just have the capacity to test the material and listen to the audience upfront. The last thing I'll say, and I've rambled a lot, I'm sorry. When I made a movie in 1994, a feature film right out of NYU, it took me three years to find out what the audience thought about that movie. I had to make the damn thing, and then I ran out of money, and that took me years to edit it, and I finally got it, blah, blah, blah. And again, I loved it. I loved every facet of it, and it was fine, but it was super inefficient. Today, I could take those same elements, create an AI trailer this weekend, put it in front of hundreds of thousands of people, and they could tell me right away, “This sucks,” or, “This is interesting,” or, “Holy smokes, this is amazing. I want this.” If it's not, “Holy smokes, this is amazing, I want it,” I can go ahead and re-edit the whole damn trailer, and just keep reiterating at almost no cost. Then once the demand is there, I can take that demand and that audience and go to Hollywood, and that's when they're going to want to work with me. Then it doesn't take a million conversations and finding the needle in the haystack, because Hollywood sees the numbers and they go, “Oh, you're the people we do want to do business with. You've proven demand. We want to do business with you.” Jo: Yes, it's so interesting. I can hear people listening and they're like, “Easier said than done, getting an email list of 40,000 people.” And in fact— It's exactly the same as building up a career as an independent author. This is as a filmmaker, as a visual person, and the industry is visual, so doing a visual trailer is the obvious thing. And as you say, the tools I use just to do this one, I use Midjourney, and I've used Seedance as the main video model. It does take a while, but it is pretty fast now, if you have a visual image of what you want in your head, which obviously you're a visual person as well. But is it… Brooks: Hold on. I want to push back on that a little bit, because I think it's really important. So yes, that's true, but underneath that, my friend, it's a relationship. It's the relationship, and the media is secondary. You have been prolific in connecting with your audience, and that's why I think a lot of people like you, because you share and they get to know you in that sort of cadence. I saw you in another podcast, you mentioned Seth Godin, who just said, “Hey, I want to be the type of person that has this relationship with my audience. I'm going to share some of my thoughts every day.” He happened to do it with words, with his background in marketing, but you could do the same thing with still images. You could do the same thing with a five-second movie clip once a week. It's the relationship you want with your fans. I'm not saying you snap your fingers and you have 50,000 people on your email list. What I'm saying is, what else are you doing? If we're artists and our impulse is to create and share, and if you do it in this way, if I can create and share and inspire trust in this relationship with a stranger because they like my genre thing and they like the way they felt when they experienced my media, words, images, movies, it doesn't matter. They just like the feeling, and they go, “Ooh, I want more of that feeling. How do I get more of that? Oh, this person has this email list or community.” If I can do it with one, then I can scale it out. So getting the first one, or the first 5 or 10 samples, that is a whole process. But then once you do that, scaling up is more of a mechanical thing. It's not even that hard, especially when you can do paid ads. So you can scale up very quickly if you have the sauce. If you don't have the sauce, it doesn't matter who you're related to, you've got to get the sauce right. Jo: Yes, and again, it's so parallel to the indie author community. I've just got to ask you, in the olden days, an author might write a screenplay, or a screenwriter write a screenplay, and then they would send it. They'd find an agent. They'd pitch an agent, and I guess then they'd hope that someone would turn that into a movie. So is that just dead now? Is it realistically that you need to get yourself out there, build the audience in the same way that it often is for authors? Brooks: So, no. I've got two screenplay deals going right now. So here's how it's going to work. Think about Broadway, or the theatre district in Britain. It's like West End or East End or whatever… Jo: The West End. Brooks: Sorry for my American ignorance. West End, okay. So every town on the planet has a stage, but there's only one Broadway, there's only one West End, right? And every town has its own festival, but there are a few significant tastemakers. There's Cannes, there's Sundance, there's Toronto. Hollywood is always going to be a tastemaker in our lifetime, for sure. What they don't have anymore, what they enjoyed for the first 100 years of the industry, is that they had a stranglehold on basically the equipment, the financing, and the audience, and that's all going away. Do you want to hear a fun story about the birth of cinema? Do you know why Hollywood started in Hollywood? Jo: No. Brooks: So Thomas Edison invented the camera, or the type of model camera that they were using in, I don't know, 1910 or something around there. They didn't want to pay his patent. They didn't want to pay the patent to make these movies, so they went all the way across the country, a bunch of outlaws, and they set up shop in California because he couldn't enforce his patent that they were basically stealing. And reason number two, LA enjoys amazing weather almost all year round. The weather here is either nice or really nice. You have mountains, you have beach, you have desert, you have all these different locales. So when it was really important to be on location, LA was the perfect place. Anyway, that is all going away. For many decades, more people could make movies. In the early '90s, Robert Rodriguez made a movie for 9,000 bucks. There was a book in the '80s that I bought that I loved, it was Feature Filmmaking at Used-Car Prices. This guy, Rick Schmidt, I think his name was. There were the independent filmmakers really in the '60s and the '70s. So the cost has been going down and down and down, and now it's less than ever. Once social media came along, now you have access to the audience, so why do you even need Hollywood? That being said, there are tons of people. There are 400,000 people already working in the movie and the TV industry here. And they're voracious. We have a voracious demand. Humans need stories. We need big stories, long stories. We need stories, and Hollywood is so good at giving them stories. And so they have a need for these things, and they're still spending a lot of money on those budgets. So yes, there's still a demand for turning books and optioning them and turning them into movies. Books are great. Any sort of existing IP is great because there are marketing efficiencies there. People already know that stuff, know the vibe of it, and so it's easier to market than something that's totally creative and new. When you're spending that much money, you want those marketing efficiencies. They're really important. So the point being, the power is shifting away from Hollywood. Hollywood will still be a tastemaker, but you and me can reach anybody on the planet now. Almost. Billions of people. If it's making a movie, right now you could make a movie that most people wouldn't realise is an AI movie. If it was a horror film, I know a handful of people that could make a feature-length horror film right now with AI and 99% of the audience couldn't tell, if it was professionally written. Jo: I think the point here though is, I'm an author, the people listening are authors, and we don't want to make movies. We want to license our IP to people who want to make movies. Brooks: Yes. Great. Okay, good. So then you could, if you wanted, build an audience. Hollywood loves when something's already proven, so that's that IP thing, right? So if you just have a great book, then it's all about the sales. You guys have Dragons' Den, we have Shark Tank here. And what's amazing about that show is these are people or entrepreneurs pitching an idea, and there's an amazing rhythm that happens. They say, “We've got this great idea. It's this sort of company.” And the sharks, or the dragons, will listen. And there's a huge turning point when they reveal sales. They're either really excited about the idea and then they go, “Well, how are the sales?” And the person goes, “Well, we don't have any sales yet.” And they go, “Uh,” and they're not interested. Or they might even be like, “Eh, it doesn't seem like a good idea.” And they're like, “Well, how are the sales?” And they're like, “Oh, well, we've sold through the roof.” And then all of a sudden they perk up. So it's all about the sales. So step one is writing something that you want. Step two is making sure other people in your target audience are also loving it as much as you do. Step three is proving in some way at scale that there's real demand for it. So you could do that with trailers, you could do that with clips, you can do that as an indie publisher. There's all sorts of things that you can do. Humans are much more persuaded by concrete data than they are by just vibes. So if you can bring Hollywood concrete data of any type, like viral videos, like audience, like obviously bestsellers. Awards mean something, but not quite as much as sales. Then you're going to get Hollywood's attention because that reduces risk for them. So even now, when Hollywood's definitely shrinking and contracting, there's still very significant money being spent because it's a huge demand. If you ever walk around a studio lot, those things are opulent places. It's stunning. Like, how are they paying for all this stuff? These lots are enormous. It's because humanity is voracious for stories, and movies are one premium type of storytelling. The demand for stories is steady if not going up. It's just that we have a wider variety of types of stories that we can do, whether we're an indie author. So anyway, did I answer the question? You get me too excited with these questions, Jo. It's a problem. Jo: Yes. I think there's a lot of opportunity and a lot of ways in, but the parallels with being an indie author I think are quite clear. One of the things I found interesting about your profile and what you do is that you help clients who are already accomplished but not quite breaking through, and that sounds like a lot of mid-list indie authors, probably a lot of mid-list screenwriters, mid-list filmmakers. This is a hard place to be because, on the one hand, we are grateful for what we have achieved and what we can do, and yet wanting more, wanting that big Hollywood deal or the Netflix deal, or wanting the massive bestseller or whatever. So if someone wants to get to that next level, what are some of the ways that they can perhaps try and get there? Brooks: It's a great question. Coaching is a really wonderful way to learn anything of this sort of complexity and challenge, especially if it's a hyper-competitive business. We need two things, I think, to write a great novel or screenplay or both. A, we need to feel profoundly safe in our space. If we can't really feel deeply authentic about the things that are embarrassing, or that we feel shame about, or just our shadows, or anything that we don't feel completely comfortable saying and sharing in public usually. We need to be able to touch those things, and be articulate about those things, and that's one part of it. Then we need a concrete path forward. Maybe you're thinking about some tragedy that you had in childhood, and how you dealt with it and how difficult that was. So you need to be able to be real precise in those observations about what it felt like, and how you tried to compensate for it, and that didn't work and it made it worse. Whatever your observations are about your life journey, you need to be really specific and really deeply felt. A good coaching relationship allows you to be in that space, to be really honest with yourself and authentic. g Aood coach will push you back and say, “You know what? That sounds interesting, but maybe not quite as true to you deeply.” So that's one piece of it. Then there's a concrete path forward. You need to have the emotional access to that truth, and then you need to know what to do with that truth in a step-by-step way. Because most people, the ones that you're talking about, they're accomplished in something else. What happens is when we first start writing, and maybe this happens with novelists, but for sure it happens to screenwriters, you just start typing words. But you haven't really thought through the theme, the concept, the structure, the character, all the deeper questions that really matter. The milestones, like a North Star: winning a major award, or getting a publisher. That's the direction that we're heading towards, and then you set it and forget it, but you want to keep checking it every week, every month or whatever. But you want it very specific. “I would like to sell a book, or sell a book to Hollywood, or write a screenplay, or get a producer attached to a screenplay.” Whatever the milestone is, make it really specific, really concrete, and then reverse engineer. This is what I do on the concrete path. I reverse engineer every step to get there, starting with a really tiny one we can do today, and I make sure they feel really safe, and then we just walk through. Then what happens is, if you do that, if you feel safe, if you're showing up authentically and you have a process that's repeatable, not just willy-nilly, it's got to be something that's proven to work. It wasn't an accident I wrote 45 scripts. I've got a whole system. But by the way, the first five scripts took me forever. The last movie that I made took me three years to write that script. I can write a better script with those same elements in three months now, because I know I have a concrete path. So if you want to do something new, whether it's playing the piano or getting six-pack abs or writing a screenplay, work with somebody who's got a system that's already proven, and make sure you relate to them, and then just follow the system. Then when the doubts come up, and they will, that's where the feeling safe is really important. Because, oh, I want the six-pack abs, but I don't feel like going to the gym. I want the extra donut. If I'm working with a really good trainer, they go, “Dude, do you want the six-pack abs or not?” And then you go back and forth, and I go, “Okay, now I can make peace with myself and say I can take one tiny bite of the donut and then still do my workout,” and then I'm moving towards that North Star. Does that make sense? Jo: Yes. I think, like many independents, I resist anything that is systematised. I'm a discovery writer, and I follow the muse, and all of that kind of thing. I think I would say something in a similar vein, which is sustainable creativity for the long term, because your 45 scripts are also years of work, and my books are years of work, and we get better at what we do. So my system, I do have a system really, because— My system is that I do the work, and I write my stories, and I get them out there, and I do the marketing. So even if it's not as systematised as such, it's still a process that I have repeated over and over again. Brooks: That's fascinating to me. Would you consider yourself a pantser? You're like, “I've got an idea,” and you just start writing? Jo: I don't use the word pantser. I guess I call it discovery writing, which is… Brooks: That's a better term. Jo: Yes. What I'm writing for this prize, for example, I know the characters, I know now what's happening. When I had the idea, it was very much a vision and a theme, and the competition has a theme: a positive future with AI and technology. But the things that came around that, I then started playing with ideas around the treatment. I haven't written the screenplay yet. I don't do a plot, or I don't follow Save the Cat or any of that kind of thing. When I write a novel, I just explore and I never write in order. Then at some point I stop and then I have to think about the structure and putting it all together, so the edits are quite big. But my fun is in that discovery, really. Brooks: Oh, that's awesome. Okay, so let me ask, that's really fascinating. And by the way, that doesn't, to me, negate the system that I use. The one that I use is ultimately… the thing is, these questions, the audience is wanting your unique answers to. You don't necessarily need to do it in a certain order. I think that's actually really cool that you write out of order and you have a few elements in mind. All that stuff sounds awesome. The only thing that then makes me curious is, how's your pace? Are you actually completing novels at a pace that feels good, or do you feel like you go too fast, too slow? Jo: I do one or two a year at the moment. Well, two a year, really. But I would say I'm not as successful as I'd like to be, so I'm not saying that my system is the best. I'm saying I want to be better. It's just that my fun is this sort of creative chaos, which I then try and control later. One of the things I really like about screenplays and treatments and doing this kind of thing for film is that it is much more structured, I think, than a 70,000-word novel. You can go in all kinds of directions, whereas with screenwriting you do have to be more disciplined really. Brooks: Yes, so this is going to be fun probably, to hear my view for your audience, and the differences as I see them. For starters, you're talking about what, 10, 20, 30 hours reading a novel sometimes, or maybe less, whereas a movie's a 90-minute experience, right? So that's different. Or if it's a TV series, you might see an hour and then an hour. So that's a very different experience. What happens is when it's condensed like that, you're loading up layers. So every scene is stacked with exposition beneath the drama, and done in a certain way. So specifically, movies are only what you can see and only what you hear. Whereas novels, if you can think it, you can write it, it can be in there. So you don't need to have a plot, but if you want to sell your book to Hollywood, it helps. So I was very resistant about structure. I went to NYU film school, where we really just made short films. It was funny, I had friends that were in the dramatic writing department, and I was like, “You guys are wasting your money. You're just learning to write scripts. We learn to write the scripts and make the movies.” What I hadn't realised is it's a different skill set to hold somebody's attention across an hour-long play, or a 90-minute movie, than it is to make a movie that holds their attention for two minutes or five minutes. I found out years later when I made a feature that was like a lot of shorts patched together, and people were not… They liked it, but they didn't love it. I was like, “Well, what's going on?” And so then I learned to really love Save the Cat in particular. It completely changed me. What happened was, I got a big old slice of humble pie. I had made my second feature, and I put everything I had into it, and it had loose structural beginning, middle, end, blah, blah, blah. But I was still, “Eh, Hollywood BS. What do they know? It's all fake.” So I was very anti-Hollywood structure. Then I was like, now I've got two independent films out there, people saw them, liked them, whatever, but it wasn't getting me consistent work. It wasn't really advancing my career in the way that I wanted. And I was like, “Well, maybe there is something to the Save the Cat.” So I went to the Save the Cat workshop with Blake when he was still alive, and he was delightful, a really awesome guy. He's got this kind of cutesy style, for people that don't know. For context, Blake Snyder was a working Hollywood screenwriter, and he had this system called Save the Cat, which actually has some really interesting ideas. He's got this very light, breezy sort of style. A lot of people don't like him and some people really love him, and everything in between. But I took his weekend seminar, and it completely changed me, because at that point, like I said, I took three years to write a script. Then once he had a process and he had a way of thinking about craft that was just much more screenwriter-friendly, I was like, “Oh my God.” It was so much easier, because I was just focused on the right thing at the right time. So it just sped everything up. After that, I was banging out two to three scripts a year, and better and better quality. So for me, because I went from winging it and wrote five scripts in 13 years, and then wrote two to three scripts every year, I became a huge proponent of system and process. Then my own system really came from that, but it's modular. I have a nine-step system, but you don't necessarily have to go in that order, other than the last three steps, but I won't get into the details. Sometimes you kind of jump from two to three and then back to two and then back and forth. So I love that you get the feel for those elements, and then you just felt your way through. But writing screenplay pages doesn't make sense until you really understand concept, you get a deep sense of beginning, middle, end, character arcs, and these other threads. There are just way better tools for those jobs than screenplay format, because it's a really weird format. It's got these weird slug lines at the top that are all in caps, because a screenplay is a blueprint for somebody else to make the movie. It's not an end-user document like a novel. I don't let my clients even go to that format because it just gets them focused on the wrong things. What they really need to know is, what is your perspective about this theme? What happened in your life that you're fascinated with, that you'd even want to write about this? And tell me what your real life lessons are. So we go into… again, I go back to relationship. What's your relationship to the universe? And what's your relationship to your best friends, or where you got your heart broken, or whatever you want to write about. And then we get that clarity, and then I show you how to express it in terms of developing a screenplay. It's really long-form storytelling, and then the structure just makes it build on itself. But with the structure, because you're talking about so much money and people involved to make it, at least traditionally, what ended up happening was narrative structure that was not so much rigid. Because here's the thing, you can look at 50, 100 years of European cinema and you can look at Hollywood cinema, and Hollywood laps them. When I taught at UCLA Extension, I had lots of foreign students. Let's say there'd be two or three students… if there were 12 people in the class, two or three people would be from America, and everybody else would be from other countries. I would go around, I'd be like, “What movies and TV shows have you been watching?” Almost in every single country, they watch half from their own country, half from Hollywood. So Hollywood storytelling works, that's just the data, and they're dominant. The reason it works is what Aristotle was saying thousands of years ago.. There's a way of thinking about beginning, middle, end that just deeply speaks to the psyche, and you can ignore it if you want. I think Godard said, “You need beginning, middle, and end, but not necessarily in that order,” right? Which is great. Just the way we experience life, there's a beginning, a middle, an end to this podcast interview. There's a beginning, middle, end to the day, a beginning, middle, end to me eating lunch. So if you don't lean into the beginning, middle, end psychological aspect of your story, you're going to bore your reader. But to your point, you don't necessarily have to sort that out in the beginning. It's more efficient probably if you do, but you don't have to. Go into it wherever the muse tells you to go, and then at some point, like you do, then you go, “Okay, now I go back and I edit.” If you're saying there's another level, you have another gear in you, then yes, I'd be curious to slowly go through how you're making those decisions. Because what's happening probably is there are ways you're holding back a little bit. There's maybe something you're afraid of being vulnerable about. That's usually where me or other writers are holding themselves back, and we can take a look at that. There are different ways I show writers to do it. Then you can go, “Oh, I was doing it here, and now I can do it there.” And it could be with process, or just a certain creative choice. With story, it's clear and compelling. Those are the simple things. So, is this clear enough? Is it compelling enough? And there are almost always ways to up-level on any facet, whether it's one sentence, or a sentence that describes the whole concept of the book, or a chapter. Each one of those can be looked at with that lens and we can just say, “Hey, this is 70%, 80%,” whatever, and then we say, “Well, how do we get a little bit more?” And then when you do that enough, it piles up. Then especially if you bring in an audience and people are flipping out for your work, they'll tell you. Jo: Yes, I love a challenge, so thank you for everything you've shared today. So where can people find you and everything you do online? Brooks: Well, one way you can find me—if anything I said seemed helpful for you, if you have questions about Hollywood or you have a screenplay in your heart—you can just email me, brooks@brookselms.com. You could look me up on LinkedIn. I'm at Brooks Elms. I also have a Skool community called Screenwriter Marketing, but it's really for any sort of storyteller, and it talks about my favourite way to engage an audience and get through it. So anybody can jump into that if you like my vibe. If you really think anything I've said, or the way I said it, seems like it could be helpful for you, just reach out. Let me know what you're up to, and maybe there's a way I can help you. Jo: Fantastic. Well, thanks so much for your time, Brooks. That was great. Brooks: You're welcome. It was a total pleasure. It was lots of fun, and I really appreciate you.The post How To Prove The Demand For Your Stories And Get The Attention Of Hollywood With Brooks Elms first appeared on The Creative Penn.

Marlon and Jake tackle the writers they have no interest in revisiting, asking when it's worth giving a beloved (or notorious) author another chance and when it's perfectly fine to walk away for good. Tune in as they debate literary canon, books that simply aren't for them, the difference between a difficult author and a difficult book, and why sometimes the most honest review is, "Nobody needs to go back to that" Subscribe to our River-herd digital newsletter and our print newspaper, The Eddy, for sneak peeks of our upcoming books, free giveaways, and exclusive content: https://sites.prh.com/the-eddy-newspaper. The Executioner series by Don Pendleton Hotel by Arthur Hailey Airport by Arthur Hailey Wheels by Arthur Hailey The Moneychangers by Arthur Hailey Advise and Consent by Allen Drury Shōgun by James Clavell Tai-Pan by James Clavell King Rat by James Clavell Whirlwind by James Clavell Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S. Thompson The Rum Diary by Hunter S. Thompson Light in August by William Faulkner Absalom, Absalom! by William Faulkner The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner Pylon by William Faulkner In Cold Blood by Truman Capote Music for Chameleons by Truman Capote Answered Prayers by Truman Capote “Where Is the Voice Coming from?” by Eudora Welty The Ballad of the Sad Café by Carson McCullers The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers Tess of the d'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy The Return of a Native by Thomas Hardy The Golden Notebook by Doris Lessing The Summer Before the Dark by Doris Lessing Children of Violence series by Doris Lessing Pentimento by Lillian Hellman Scoundrel Time by Lillian Hellman An Unfinished Woman by Lillian Hellman The Blithedale Romance by Nathaniel Hawthorne The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne Appointment in Samarra by John O'Hara Butterfield 8 by John O'Hara A Rage to Live by John O'Hara Sophie's Choice by William Styron Grendel by John Gardner October Light by John Gardner The Art of Fiction by John Gardner On Moral Fiction by John Gardner The Water Babies by Charles Kingsley The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett Giant by Edna Ferber Soul on Ice by Eldridge Cleaver A Distant Mirror by Barbara W. Tuchman Once Is Not Enough by Jacqueline Susann Burr by Gore Vidal The Godfather by Mario Puzo In the Hand of Dante by Nick Tosches Delina Delaney by Amanda McKittrick Ros Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl Stuart Little by E. B. White The Railway Children by Edith Nesbit Flowers in the Attic by V.C. Andrews Jaws by Peter Benchley

What thoughts are running through your mind on repeat? In this episode, I'm sharing five powerful soundtracks that will help you build bravery in your life. You'll discover why nobody is for everybody (vegan restaurants don't care about BBQ fans), how to beat imposter syndrome by being better today than you were yesterday, and why some beats none when perfectionism tries to stop you. I'll also reveal the four words that get me through every hard run in January ("I'll feel awesome after") and the most powerful question you can ask to rediscover your purpose: Who am I doing this very difficult job for? From hospital CEOs doing it for the donor walk to teachers showing up for the person they used to be, this question clarifies everything. Thoughts turn into actions. Actions turn into results. Let's make sure you're playing the right soundtracks.In This Episode:Order Procrastination Proof!You can grab a copy of my new book Procrastination Proof from your favorite bookstore or at my website!Make sure to follow me on Instagram and share with your friends!Sign up for my newsletter, Try This!Book me to speak at your event or to your team!Sign up for the Remarkable You Community today!Keep up with my book list on GoodReads!Have me speak at your next event! Have me speak at your next event!