Podcast appearances and mentions of julie dillon

In this episode, I'm joined by eating disorder dietitian, podcaster, speaker, and writer, Julie Dillon.Julie's food and body story The origin of "finding your food voice"The 3 universal qualities of a food voice "Dear Food" letters and the value of personifying foodWhy weight loss won't "cure" PCOS Evidenced-based treatments for PCOS Resources Mentioned:Episode mentioning how research is just one way of knowing with Dr. Lizzy PopeMore From Leah:Apply to The Embodied Method, my 1:1 coaching programJoin my self-paced course, The ReturnSubscribe to Leah's Youtube ChannelSubscribe to my personal SubstackFollow me on Instagram for more intuitive eating content @leahkern.rdVisit my website to learn more about my coaching offeringsSubscribe to my weekly newsletter to get a nugget of intuitive eating inspiration delivered straight from my heart to your inbox each week.Send me a voice message on SpeakpipeEmail me: Leah@leahkernrd.com

Do you have PCOS? Why should people with PCOS be mindful of diet culture myths? How can you treat PCOS without falling prey bad medical advice that's been influenced by diet culture? In this podcast episode, I speak with Julie Dillon about what you need to know about treating PCOS while avoiding diet culture narratives. Sign up for the FREE e-course to understand your eating disorder and embark on the road to recovery. We reflect on the harm caused by mirrors, comparing ourselves, and wearing the wrong clothing sizes.  SHOW NOTES: Click here Follow me on Instagram @behind_the_bite_podcast Visit the website: www.behindthebitepodcast.com

Do you have PCOS? Why should people with PCOS be mindful of diet culture myths? How can you treat PCOS without falling prey bad medical advice that's been influenced by diet culture? In this podcast episode, I speak with Julie Dillon about what you need to know about treating PCOS while avoiding diet culture narratives. Sign up for the FREE e-course to understand your eating disorder and embark on the road to recovery. We reflect on the harm caused by mirrors, comparing ourselves, and wearing the wrong clothing sizes.  SHOW NOTES: Click here Follow me on Instagram @behind_the_bite_podcast Visit the website: www.behindthebitepodcast.com

What happens if you struggle with diet culture, but also need to be on a specific diet for health reasons unrelated to body weight (think: eating gluten-free to manage Celiac disease)? Registered dietitian and PCOS expert, Julie Duffy Dillon talks to us about ways that we can keep from adopting a diet culture mindset even when eating for health is far from intuitive and may require some restriction.Links from this episodeJulie's site, where you can learn more about her PCOS power course + communityJulie's podcast Find Your Food VoiceJulie on Instagram @pcosbodyliberation Our episode, What Anti-Diet Gets Wrong With Jessica Wilson Bri Campos on Instagram, @bodyimagewithbriGet 50% of your first box of The Farmer's Dog at thefarmersdog.com/DIJFY Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Our drivers are becoming more keenly aware of taking care of their health. February is National Heart Disease Month. Heart disease is the leading cause of death in the United States. Sadly, many drivers are at risk. Shelley Johnson spoke with Julie Dillon, Health and Wellness Manager for St. Christopher Truckers Relief Fund on how to keep our hearts healthy on the road and at home. Be sure to tune into this great episode and subscribe to our podcast. It's free. https://truckersfund.org/ https://tncradio.live/  #HealthyHeart #HeartHealthy #HeartDisease #Heart #Cardiac #AmericanHeartMonth #NationalHeartDiseaseMonth #February #Health #JulieDillon #StChristopherTruckersReliefFund #ShelleyMJohnson #TheTruckersNetworkRadioShow #TNCRadioLive

Diabetes is a silent killer that can be prevented. St. Christopher Truckers Relief Fund is launching its annual Driving Down Diabetes Prevention Program for commercial drivers in January, 2023. It is a free program. It has been highly successful for drivers who have participated. Shelley Johnson interviewed Julie Dillon, the Health & Wellness Manager for St. Christopher along with Mark Dury, a driver with Cal Les Trucking who has had great success after just one year in the program. Learn more about what the program can do for you. Find out how you can sign up. Tune into this episode of The Truckers Network Radio Show. Be sure to subscribe to our podcast. It's free. https://truckersfund.org/ https://truckersfund.org/diabetes-prevention-program/ https://tncradio.live/  #DiabetesPrevention #Diabetes #StChristopherTruckersReliefFund #DrivingDownDiabetes #TruckerFundOrg #JulieDillon #ShelleyMJohnson #TNCRadioLive @TNCRadioLive

ABOUT THIS EPISODE In this episode join Meg and Julie as they discuss the challenges and weight bias that folks with PCOS and other chronic illnesses face, especially when living in a higher weight body. In this episode you will learn about the anti diet approach to managing PCOS and the importance of prioritizing your eating disorder recovery. ABOUT OUR GUEST Julie Duffy Dillon is a registered dietician, eating disorder specialist and food behavior expert. She is a speaker, writer and the host of the podcast Find Your Food Voice. For more than two decades Julie has helped people take back their power over their relationship with food. She fights against diet culture in her writing on her podcast. Julie's Website: https://julieduffydillon.com/ Julie's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/FoodVoiceRD/ ABOUT OUR HOST Meg is a CCI certified Eating Disorder Recovery Coach and Founder of The Recovery Collective. She is the host of Full and Thriving: An Eating Disorder Recovery Podcast. Meg is now accepting 1:1 coaching clients and offers free consultations on her website. Meg's website: www.meg-mccabe.com Meg's Instagram: www.instagram.com/meg_mccabe/ The Recovery Collective Instagram: www.instagram.com/the_recoverycollective/ Join The Recovery Collective https://bit.ly/3RdyqgE Listen to these free eating disorder recovery affirmations: megmccabe.lpages.co/200-recovery-affirmations/ Support the show by purchasing anti-diet merchandise here: www.etsy.com/shop/RecoveryCollective

On today's episode Dooner and The Dude are talking to Rolling Strong president and creator Steve Kane about his journey from driver to Ironman. Find out how he got on this highway to health and how you can meet your new year's resolution to turn your body into Tony Stark's Mark 1 Ironman suit. Our highlight on health doesn't end there. Julie Dillon, Health & Wellness Manager at St. Christopher Truckers Relief Fund joins us to talk about putting the brakes on diabetes. Their diabetes Prevention program kicks off Jan 10th and we'll learn how you can get involved.Aaron Terrazas, Director, Economic Research at Convoy Inc takes us through their latest freight insights report. We'll find out just how important both freight data and a driver's time are becoming.Vipul Shah, Chief Product Officer at NEXT Trucking talks about the drive for increased collaboration between federal agencies and the private stakeholders at the port. Is it a good thing?Plus, electric truck production cutting in line ahead of diesel orders; truck driver killed hauling a load of steel sheet piles; feds fast-tracking controversial trucker pilot program; new bathroom bill aims to give drivers relief; the cat came back and more. Visit our sponsorSubscribe to the WTT newsletterApple PodcastsSpotifyMore FreightWaves Podcasts

On today's episode Dooner and The Dude are talking to Rolling Strong president and creator Steve Kane about his journey from driver to Ironman. Find out how he got on this highway to health and how you can meet your new year's resolution to turn your body into Tony Stark's Mark 1 Ironman suit. Our highlight on health doesn't end there. Julie Dillon, Health & Wellness Manager at St. Christopher Truckers Relief Fund joins us to talk about putting the brakes on diabetes. Their diabetes Prevention program kicks off Jan 10th and we'll learn how you can get involved.Aaron Terrazas, Director, Economic Research at Convoy Inc takes us through their latest freight insights report. We'll find out just how important both freight data and a driver's time are becoming.Vipul Shah, Chief Product Officer at NEXT Trucking talks about the drive for increased collaboration between federal agencies and the private stakeholders at the port. Is it a good thing?Plus, electric truck production cutting in line ahead of diesel orders; truck driver killed hauling a load of steel sheet piles; feds fast-tracking controversial trucker pilot program; new bathroom bill aims to give drivers relief; the cat came back and more. Visit our sponsorSubscribe to the WTT newsletterApple PodcastsSpotifyMore FreightWaves Podcasts

Eric Harley interviewed Julie Dillon, Health and Wellness Manager for the St. Christopher Truckers Development and Relief Fund. She is promoting this year's Diabetes Prevention Program See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Intro regulars: Schumann Resonance News for 1 place on Earth! Sun activity, cosmic radiation news, solar wind news. NASA's all sky cameras fireball news for the USA. Intro: I discuss several significant memes on Instagram in the past 7 days that point to several things that we might consider as blind spots in our shadow work and this is necessary to contemplate to make sure that we are going in the correct direction towards being our healed and whole selves. Also how to recognize manipulators and toxic people is included. The Knowledge Ravenspell Familiar report is brief but funny tonight. Tonight's Topic: Tarot Tuesday: Full Moon Card Reading For The Collective! Using the beautiful Mermaid Tarot by Leeza Robertson and Julie Dillon, I navigate through 10 cards in a Celtic Cross spread. This is a really incredible read and I'm quite happy with the cards that were plucked out of the deck by Archangel Gabriel himself under the direction of prime creator of course. It looks like we have gotten rid of the last bastion of our shadow side and we are going forward fast and swiftly in the direction of our dreams as we have settled into a comfortable spiritual self.

Julie talks to Eric about the Rigs with Cigs program.  They also discuss the diabetes prevention program and health challenge.  Catch up on the St. Christopher Fund's driver and fleet facing campaigns and all that this organization provides to the trucking industry. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Intro regulars: Schumann Resonance News for 7 places on Earth! Sun activity, cosmic radiation news, solar wind news. NASA's all sky cameras fireball news for the USA. Intro: How to pay compliments towards people that will benefit them in a way in which they learn to value appreciate themselves and know their own worth and we hope people to see their own true worth by really seeing them. How to build other people up. And when it is appropriate to do so and how it is appropriate to do so. Tonight's Topic: Tarot Tuesday: February Love Reading For Everyone!! doing a Celtic cross reading from the mermaid tarot by Lisa Robertson and illustrated by Julie Dillon, I read the cards with the help of heavenly father and divine mother and the goddess Aphrodite who is the famous goddess of love. She plucks the cards as I shuffled them and we dive into the depths of love in this case the ocean filled with mermaids.. what did we leave behind? What is our foundation (hint: it's ego versus humility..) and I relate this to Mercury retrograde and what is in the next 3 weeks for us which is frozen observation and giving ourselves time to heal and time to think and reflect and to really take a decent look through the mirror and what we need to do to go forward in the direction of our love dreams. This is a reading appropriate for single people that do or do not want relationship, people that are married, any kind of relationship or especially those that are waiting for are one true love, soulmates or our twin flames.

Hi everyone, and thank you for tuning in to another episode of the We Make Books Podcast - A podcast about writing, publishing, and everything in between! We Make Books is hosted by Rekka Jay and Kaelyn Considine; Rekka is a published author and Kaelyn is an editor and together they are going to take you through what goes into getting a book out of your head, on to paper, in to the hands of a publisher, and finally on to book store shelves. We Make Books is a podcast for writers and publishers, by writers and publishers and we want to hear from our listeners! Hit us up on our social media, linked below, and send us your questions, comments, concerns, and tell us your favorite novel covers! We hope you enjoy We Make Books! Twitter: @WMBCast  |  @KindofKaelyn  |  @BittyBittyZap Instagram: @WMBCast  Patreon.com/WMBCast   Episode 45: Formatting Cover Art for Publication transcribed by Sara Rose (@saraeleanorrose)   [0:00] R: Welcome back to another episode of We Make Books, a podcast about writing, publishing, and everything in between, and this episode definitely leans more toward the publishing end of things and cement boots and everything. Right down, drowning you in information.    I’m Rekka, I write science fiction and fantasy as R.J. Theodore and Kaelyn’s making a face at me.   K: I’m Kaelyn and, uh… My job is to make sure that Rekka maintains her sanity a little bit while trying to explain very, very complicated things here.   R: I’m totally sane. The question is, am I making myself understood?   K: Yes, this is sort of rounding out our discussions on cover and book art. We’re getting into the technical nitty-gritty of how you now take a lovely picture, that someone has done for you, and actually get it on the cover of a book so that it looks right.   R: We are going into the weeds! A wild book-cover template has appeared!   [K laughs]   R: How do you make it become your friend?   K: So Rekka is particularly disposed to talk in great detail about this because Rekka is a designer. This is one of the things that Rekka does. Beyond just knowing how to set up and lay these things out. Rekka knows a lot about color and composition and accounting for how things look on a screen versus how they look in print, and how all of these terrifying details actually work.   R: There’s so much information that I wanted to communicate. I hope I do a good job. I hope it’s clear, I hope it’s not overwhelming. I feel like this is important, because there’s a lot of stuff that, just generally, people don’t understand about the process and when they have a cover illustration that they’ve commissioned, the now what? This is the episode for the, “Now what?”   K: I think the key takeaway from this cover art and artwork series we’ve been doing, is this is way more complicated than you ever thought it was. I’ll leave it at that. [K laughs]   R: Yeah, and I struggle to allow the word complicated. It’s just, it is a specialty.   K: Yeah.   R: I mean, every step of this process is a specialty. You, the author, are exercising your specialty in writing, and then an editor exercises their specialty in editing, and then a copyeditor does theirs, and then a cover artist creates a cover with their specialty, and then a designer uses their specialty to lay out the book and the cover. And these are all specialized parts of a process that, in the past, have been teams of people. In this day and age, where we expect to be able to self-publish and Do It All Ourselves has become less of a specialty-based thing and more of a I Can Do This Myself, I Am Empowered, therefore I should do this myself. Which, you know, should you? It’s… ehh. Listen to this episode, I dunno, you decide.   K: As we say many times here, it’s not easy and there’s a lot more that goes into this than you would think. So, Rekka, takes us through all of that. I think this is a really good resource episode. So take a listen, hope you enjoy, and we’ll see you on the other side of the music.   [into music plays]   K: Speaking of looking at things—   [R and K burst into laughter]   R: That’s tenuous at best.   K: Not all of my transitions are good ones, Rekka.   R: Maybe the worst ones are the prize ones, though.   K: Hey, look, radar displays images in certain ways, we’re talking about displaying images in certain ways today. No… alright.   R: It’s so weak. It’s so weak.   K: Come back to me.   R: No, don’t. Can we just move on?   [K laughs]   R: So we spent September talking to you—well, August and September, a little bit, with one small deviation, talking to you about cover art. So one thing that I’m always good for is a long, droning episode about how you would formal something. So we thought about, maybe, for people who have received cover art that they’ve commissioned, how do you now turn that into a file that you can upload and provide to a printer, to create a book cover?   K: This is kinda the last step, if you will. You’ve got this file and you’re ready to have a book printed. Now, there’s a few things here.   R: The first point is, you’re not ready to have a book printed. Not yet.   K: All of the real fun, especially difficult technical stuff, really comes from, then, trying to figure out how to get this on a cover where it’s not accidentally zoomed in on a square of a hundred pixels and all you can see is the corner of one of the letters from the title.   R: This is why we don’t let Kaelyn format the covers.   K: Look, stuff happens sometimes, Rekka. [Both laugh] So, Rekka, as we’ve—hopefully, if you listen to this show regularly, you know by now Rekka is a designer by trade… is it by trade?   R: I am technically a designer by trade. Yeah. I chose this on purpose.   K: And knows how to do all of this stuff. And you will notice that I said Rekka is a designer. Rekka has a degree in this. I am saying this because this is not easy to do.   R: At the very least, it is easy to mess up.   K: Yes! Yes. So, Rekka, I am a cover artist. I have sent you files. Probably multiple files, actually.    R: Um, well, that depends on our contract.   K: Yup.   R: You’re going to get a file, either with or without your cover lettering already in place. As we’ve talked about in past episodes, in the past few weeks, the cover artist may also do text treatment for you, or you may need to find a designer to do that for you.    The file format that you receive is going to be dependent on what was agreed upon, and part of why I started with whether or not it has text in it is because if you need to manipulate that text in the future, you really hope that you have a layered file from your cover artist. And by layered file, I’m talking, probably, about a .psd file or a .tiff with layers. More likely, you’ll get a .psd. I think, unfortunately, Adobe’s got the stranglehold on the market and their filetype with layers, by default, is .psd.    If you’ve got a .tiff I would find a way to open it and check really, really soon because you do wanna make sure that that text treatment is on its own layer. Because every time I’ve received a file from a cover artist with text in it, it’s not in a good position for the final layout file.   K: And just to be clear, and part of the reason I was asking this is, if you’re planning to do stuff to this and mess around with this, and you don’t have Adobe, and it’s a .psd, you’re not really gonna be able to do a whole lot with this.   R: Right, you’re still gonna need to be able to open the file and that means Adobe. And if you only open Adobe files when you’re preparing your cover for the final, live version that’s going to go on the cover, you can subscribe to Adobe and get Creative Cloud for a month and then cancel after you’ve gotten what you needed to and then come back the next time you have a cover.   K: Mhm.   R: If you are an author who’s releasing ten books a year because you self-publish, you probably are going to need to have a running subscription with Adobe. I would definitely suggest that you, well, okay, so here’s the thing. If you know that you don’t know what you’re doing with this, pass it on to a graphic designer.   K: Yeah, so let’s be clear right from the start here. This is coming from me, who, I have very limited experience and ability, with Photoshop, with .psd files. Dealing with this, even just sometimes I had opened files for books just because I needed to check something, and I have never been more afraid to click on things before in my life.    R: You should be afraid. Definitely be afraid. If you don’t know what clicking on something will do, be afraid.    K: I just wanna emphasize, you know, for Rekka, she looks at this and she knows everything that she’s looking at. The widgets, the buttons, the gloopity-globs, and what they do. I look at this and just see lines on top of lines on top of objects, that if I move something now and the entire thing is ruined.   This is not easy. I think we think like, “Oh, it’s Photoshop, whatever. I do that and make memes all the time.” This is not the same thing.    R: Um. Depends on how lovely your memes are. I mean, if you really get complicated you might be already half-way to doing your own title treatment.   So when you get a file from an artist, anybody else who’s created it, they’re probably going to have done so in their own mannerisms. The way you would create a .psd file is not necessarily the way someone else will create a .psd file. So you have to take a minute to acclimate yourself to their thought process. So you have to find where they hide the layers that have text on them. You have to hope that they labeled layers with filters so that you understand what that filter was trying to do for the image itself.   K: And, by the way, if you’re going, “What the heck are layers?” Do not try to do this by yourself.   R, giggling: Yeah.   So you’re probably not going to get a lot of layers, like all of the artist’s layers, because again, they might be illustrating digitally and so they do a little bit of touch-up on one layer and when they got what they wanted and it looks the way they wanted it to, then they flatten it to the layer below so it’s not just like a tiny little glob of whatever color they were working in that could accidentally be removed from the other thing if you start moving elements around.   [10:00] R, continuing: So, the file you receive from your artist is likely going to be a flat illustration, unless you arranged otherwise, like I said in the episode with… Colin, I think. When I commissioned Julie Dillon to do the Flotsam cover, I did specifically ask for certain things to be on their own layers so that I could use them as elements in a video and move them around a little bit, just for some subtle motion.K: I’ll jump in here with the non-designer take on this. For those of you listening at home, and you know I joked earlier if you’re going, “What the heck are layers?” If you are wondering what this is, in an Adobe Photoshop file, certain—whether they be colors, images, objects, text they’re on what’s called layers. And they’re literally images or, well images primarily, stacked on top of each other. And—    R: Think of them like transparency sheets. So if there are colored pixels on that transparency sheet, that layer, then you will see something, and if there are no colored pixels on that layer you won’t see anything, unless it is the background, in which case it is the background color that’s set for that document.   K: Yeah, so each of these—so these layers, when they get stacked on top of each other and, as Rekka said, when they’re flattened, what that means is you’ve taken all the layers and pressed them down into one new layer altogether, at that point. Now those objects are bonded together for the rest of their lives.   R: For life, yeah.   K: And there’s no separating them.   R: So the artist probably has a version of that file with layers, and what they sent you was flattened because you asked for an illustration, you didn’t ask for the entire process. It’s not show-your-work, it’s please-provide-me-with-an-illustration. So if you did get lettering on it, if you’ve got your title treatment from the artist, it’s probably on its own layer, one hopes, and you hope because the artist isn’t working with your cover template and they don’t know your final spine width and they don’t know all the text that you might need to put on there.   So, hopefully, they’ve put it on a layer so you can move it around a little bit after the fact. Because, like I’ve said, I have gotten many covers from clients where the text was already in place and it was too close to the edge when I sized things up for the final print version. Because you need some space to be able to trim off the edge. Because if you don’t have image past the edge of the paper, then you get a white like around the edge rather than a nice, crisp end that comes in the middle of the image. So you want your trim to be smaller than your image size, and you also have margins around the outside and you want the title, usually, to be centered on the front cover. But if it’s too close to the outside margins, then the only thing you have left to do is make sure that you have enough resolution that you can enlarge it so it centers, but then it might be too big—   [K laughs]   R: So if you’re stuck with an image where the lettering is on the same layer as your illustration, you’re probably going to run into trouble. So, when you open up your file that you get from your artist, that’s one of the things to check. Make sure that the titling can be edited separately from that background illustration. And, if it can’t, write them back real quick. Hopefully it was in your contract. I bought a fifty-dollar premade cover, just as a placeholder for something, that I wanted to deal with later. And the text was provided and it was eBook shaped only. It was vertical, it wasn’t a full wrap-around cover. And the text was not editable in my file and I was like, “Oh. Now I know why it was so cheap,” because I wasn’t getting a file I could really work with.   Colin also mentioned, in that episode, make sure you are allowed to edit that file as you need to.   K: That’s exactly what I was gonna say is, Rekka, some people are probably wondering, “Okay, well, why wouldn’t they just send me the layers and, if I know how to do this, let me flatten everything myself?” And you know, the thing is, as we talked about in the real cover art episode, this is this artist’s work. They don’t want to give you something that you’re going to mess around with to the point that they’re not okay with their name being on it anymore.   R: Right, right. You know, if you have an illustration that’s on one layer and then you’re just messing around with the text that you probably—   K: Wrote anyway.   R: Yeah, well you were slightly involved in picking the font or whatever. Then, chances are they’re going to give you that title treatment, at least. Now the text might not be editable, so you might not be able to say, “Whoops, I gave you a typo and now it needs to get fixed.” You might have to go back to them for that, and then pay them more because that’s your fault.   So, you hope that you get to at least move the text around so that you can make small adjustments later. The next thing that I would check is your print size versus your resolution because it is possible to get a 300 dpi image, 300 is standard printing high resolution, but it’s also possible for that image to only be four inches across, which is smaller than you need for your wrap-around cover.   It’s still 300 dpi, so if you only specify 300 dpi, who knows what you’re getting? You need it to have a certain print size. So it’s probably going to be 8 ½ - 9 inches, 10 inches, depending on your cover size. If you have a 6x9 cover, you need to make room for the spine, you need to make room for the back cover, you need to make room for the trim size and the bleed. So your 6x9 cover is probably going to be something more like 13 ½ x 9 ¼ overall.   K: Rekka… you just threw out a lot of terms there. All of which—   R: Nah, it’s fine. Everyone understands what I mean.   K: No, well, all of which seemed to relate to the anatomy of a book!   R: Yeah.   K: So, backtracking to that, this is something—you’re not getting an image that then you just slap on into a template and then it prints the book. As, Rekka said, there’s the back cover, the spine, the front cover, there’s bleed. I’ll let Rekka talk more about what bleed is. But then, you have to think about, you have to line up everything that—Okay, I want this on the front cover, I want this on the spine, I want this on the back cover. Then, of course, there’s also: Is this a paperback or hardback book? And then that starts to get tricky. R: Hopefully, you’ve made all of these decisions before you hired your artist so that you could give them this information.   K: Yes, yes.   R: Because, as we’ve mentioned in the past, if you have a dust jacket with a wraparound inside flap on both ends, now suddenly you need an extra six inches on your landscape image that your artist is giving you. And that’s a much bigger image and they might charge you extra for it, and that would totally be reasonable because you’re asking them to create more. And it’s almost another back cover, so it’s like a wraparound around.   K: But there was another word, Rekka, that we talked about—one of my favorites—the bleed. What’s that?   R: Um. Sadly it’s not about blood...letting.   K: Yeah, sort of disappointing—I mean, it is actually, in an abstract way, kind of some blood-letting.   R: Well, there are blades involved. Basically, you don’t want your image to only be exactly the size of the cover, you want the cover image to extend past the area you’re actually going to use, and then they trim off the extra. And what they trim off is considered the bleed, and that’s usually a standard amount of extra image that they require and, typically, it’s about an eighth of an inch all the way around.   K: So let’s say this is a paperback book—   R: Mhm.   K: —and they’re getting, they’re printing whatever is sent to them.   R: Yeah.   K: This is, assuming that a human looks at this before somebody takes it out of a box to read it—    R: And these days, with POD, there’s probably not a human looking at it.   K: Yeah, exactly. Printing presses, yes, they’ve changed a lot, but really they haven’t changed all that much because it’s stacking up pieces of paper, putting them in this cover. The edges are not going to be uniform on a lot of these. They’re gonna be close, but maybe not exact, so you’ve got this giant cutting device coming down and slicing the edges off.   R: Three edges, not all four.        K: It’s gonna be like, “Listen, I know you wanted a book, but here’s a pile of loose paper that’s kind of in the same order, I guess?” Pick up a paperback, or even really a hardback book, if you look you’ll see marks on the side of it where you can tell where the paper was cut.   But what this bleed is providing, extra background essentially. Nothing that is central focus to the cover, be they pictures, people, or words, should be in the bleed area.   R: There’s a safety area away from the edge where things are going to get trimmed off because there is no guarantee that the trim is going to be perfect every time, so you want to make sure that if it wiggles, and I think they allow for, like… they promise you a hundredth of an inch but it’s really more like a tenth of an inch and the wiggle is different every time.   K: Yes.   R: Especially for POD. You want to make sure that your text is well-enough away, not just so that it doesn’t get trimmed off, but that it still looks like it's in the position you wanted it in when the whole book is assembled and trimmed and standing free.    K: And this is exactly why I’m terrified of this. There have been times that I’ve had to order short runs of advance copies of books and I’m messaging Rekka like, “Is this right??? Is this right??? It doesn’t look right!! Why is there so much black around the side??” “No, that’s supposed to be there, Kaelyn.” “Are you sure????”   [R laughs]   It was very stressful.    R: Yeah, if you saw the flat file for an ARC copy where we have the ribbon across the top in a special color to make it stand out as an ARC and it has the date and everything like that. When you’re looking at the flat file, it looks like that text is not centered because of the bleed above it and around the edges.   K: Yeah, it’s very disorienting and I was a little worked up. So, Rekka, let’s say you either know how to do this, you’ve done it yourself, or you’ve hired a designer to do it for you. You’re gonna send these files to a printer. Let’s say you’re gonna do print-on-demand. What are some things you need to know about the files? Before you’re sending them and then when you’re getting something back?   R: Right, so if you’ve already checked that you can move your stuff around and maybe you’ve already positioned it so you can, I definitely recommend, if you know how you’re doing your print-on-demand, that you use that same service to get a proof print right away.   K: Mhm. Yeah.    R: And it’s trickier with Amazon because I don’t think you can do it until you submit your final files because they don’t want to spend a whole bunch of time correcting things in the printing process for you. So if you’re sending through KDP, before you publish your book, it’s covered with Do Not Sell or Print-Proof or Author Copy Only, or some kind of text. And it’s very sad looking. It’s hard to get excited about looking at your print proofs from Amazon.    You can go through IngramSpark—   K: Or Lulu.    R: You can go through Lulu. So IngramSpark is actually a book distributor, so if you go through IngramSpark, you can get those books into Barnes and Noble, libraries, whoever orders it from a catalog, they’ll go through the Lightning Source catalog and they will get the IngramSpark version of your book. If you upload to Amazon, nobody else is gonna buy that book because they know Amazon’s profiting from it.   K: Yep.   R: What I do, is I distribute for Amazon through KDP and I distribute everywhere else through IngramSpark. So, if you go through IngramSpark, you know that’s how it’s going to get printed when it goes out to other bookstores. If you go through Lulu, unless you decide that you’re gonna set up a Lulu storefront and actually sell your books through Lulu, you are getting an idea of how it’s going to look. But Lulu’s printers are not Lightning Source’s printers are not KDP’s printers.    So the colors might not be exact. So if you have a really exacting eye for color, you’re gonna want to get as close to the final printer as you can. And that’s what it is. But there is something that you do want to be looking for, and this is why I suggest you send it off, even if you send it off to Lulu at first, and that’s how the colors are going to shift from what you see on your screen to what comes out on paper, because your screen is backlit. So all the colors on your screen are built using red, green, and blue (RGB) light.    K: Yes, and this is exactly what I was going to say, is Rekka, why is it so important to see what this looks like once it’s actually printed?   R: Because everything you’ve seen on your screen, on your devices, everything backlit is subtractive light and everything you see on paper is additive light. So paper is made with cyan, magenta, yellow, and black ink (CMYK). Sometimes you have two different shades of yellow and two different shades of magenta, to get extra rich depth of color. It depends on your printer. When you look at light coming out of your screen, the light is the image coming into your eye.   K: Yes.   R: When you look at paper, the image is the light reflecting off that paper into your eye. And they are not perceived the same way.   K: Think about if you have a smart TV or even a digital picture frame and you put, you know, pictures up there. You’ll notice that they look different than if you printed them.   R: Mhm.   K: Let’s say, not even just you got the pictures printed at CVS.   R: But even a print from a photo shop is going to look different than the version you see on your screen. The colors. The darker colors might be more dark, but the neon colors might not be as neon. So it’s not like colors get more by being printed. Some colors look better as backlit and other colors look better as printed.    K: In my experience with this, what I found is that if you want colors to be very vibrant printed, you need to over-vibratize them before they go to print.   R: So certain colors just will not print in a four-color process. So when you get your file and if you’ve either hired a designer who has Photoshop, or you have Photoshop, you want to take this file that they sent you and look for the gamut warning. And the gamut warning will emphasize the image areas where the colors are out of gamut. And what this means is like, “ink ain’t gonna do that. Now, a gamut’s not gonna tell you how they’re gonna shift. It’s just gonna tell you which colors just aren’t gonna happen.   K: There’s a reason that we have so many animated movies that are meant to look like traditional, flat animation but are actually done by computers. Because you can get a richer color and texture in there. You can emphasize—you can brighten and emphasize certain things, as opposed to, there is a certain limit to what you can do with a piece of paper and a paintbrush. Or a printer, in this case.    R: You think about Batman: The Animated Series. The reason that that animated series looks so different from so many of the cartoons that were happening at the same time, is because that was done on black paper—  K: Yes.   R: —versus everyone else who started on white paper. So these are just things to know that, you know, understand how light and color and reflections versus projections, and all this kind of stuff, how they work. It doesn’t really help you if you have a color out of gamut, though.    K: Yeah.   [25:53]  R: The only thing you can do is take that back to the artist and say, “This color. I love what you did,” make sure you’re complimentary, “I love what you did, but this color isn’t going to work. How do we push this so that we get the same effect without changing the color entirely?” I mean, sometimes the only thing to do is change the color, but sometimes you can shift things.    So if it’s supposed to be a neon green, but you’re not gonna get that neon green out of a print press, what you can do is darken the areas around it and try to make it look more neon than it actually is by contrast. This is stuff the artist is gonna know. You don’t have to tell them the solution. Just say, “Hey, this area’s out of gamut, if I print this, it’s not going to look as good as you made this look on screen.”   Because chances are, if you get a file from your artist, they were working in RGB because you want them to work in RGB. Even though this print book will be printed in CMYK, the colors on screen for CMYK mode are not accurate, so when you work on screen, adjusting colors, you adjust them in RGB.   So this artist probably sent you an RGB file. So you can go back to them and say, “I need this to work in print, please.”   K: A good cover artist will know what this is and what they need to account for, when creating this stuff—   R: Or an experienced cover artist, you know? Someone might be an amazing illustrator but not really understand how a printing press works, if they haven’t worked with printing things themselves. Now, if they’ve ever worked printing posters of their work, they’ve probably run into this before. It’s incredibly frustrating. But it can be adjusted.    So you work with them and, frankly, you get your final cover art and sometimes it’s the first time you’ve seen these colors in this image. So it’s not out of the question to come back and say, “These colors are a problem because, as we’ve described in the contract, this is for print as well as eBook. I need this to look good in print,” and they’re not gonna want it to look crappy in print, either.   K: Yeah, of course not. Their name is on it.   R: Yeah, they might have asked you for a copy, you know? And they want to put it on their shelf and they wanna be proud of it. But one thing you can do, to improve the way color looks, is choose the finish on your paper when you are setting up your cover. That’s something that you can sort of do to brighten colors or adjust colors based on an effect that you want. I think you’ll see spot lamination sometimes on offset printing presses and such because it can do this and it looks really nice.   So we’ve looked at resolution and print size, and we’ve checked for gamut warnings. Hopefully now your image is all set, you know it’s the right size. It’s going to print out without pixelating and it’s going to print out without color-shifting too much. And now you want to actually set it up for layout because during this process you’ve also been working on the book.   You’ve probably gotten your copy edits back. You’ve been making adjustments. You had to add a chapter. You realized your glossary wasn’t in the file. You’re finally getting to the point where you’re like, “Alright, this thing’s ready to go.”   K: Ha. I am… coming close to being maybe done with this.   R: I sure hope.   [K laughs]   R: So you have your final page count and now you can get your final spine width. And once you have your final spine width, then you can really make this cover done. Because up until the point where you know your final spine width, everything is just guessing or adjustments or whatever. You might have sent it off to print through Lulu and you had a slightly less done version of the manuscript that you wanted to see in print, and sort of see what this might look like, even if it wasn’t the final. Now you have the final manuscript and you know this is gonna be 495 pages.   K: Yep.   R: This is what it’s going to be, because I am so done with this.    And now you go to your printer and you say—   K: “Hello, here is this thing that I am sick of looking at. Can you give it physical form so I can look at it all the time?”   R: Well, yes, but you do need to know that spine width. So the way that you calculate spine width is by taking the pages per inch of the paper stock that you’ve selected. Now, this is… I’m starting with the nitty gritty and I’m starting with the off-set printing method where you actually have a relationship with the printer and you have chosen a paper stock.   K: Yes.   R: And they tell you it is this many pages per inch. You take your total page count and you divide it by your pages per inch.   K, exhausted: Rekka, you didn’t tell me there was gonna be math involved in this.   R, sympathetic: I know, I know. I was a graphic designer. I wasn’t supposed to have to do math. But I have to do math with alarming frequency. I’m gonna pull up some actual specs. How’s that sound?   K: Uh, while Rekka’s looking up some… some specs here. So when we went to the Nebulas last year, we wanted to get some advance copies of Salvage to hand out there, except that the printer that we normally go through was not going to be able to have them finished and shipped directly to the hotel in time. So instead, what we did was we found a local printer in Los Angeles, had them print it and then they actually just delivered it right to the hotel. They didn’t even need to ship it. Except that they used a really, really nice paper.   R: It was so nice.   K: Beautiful. It was gorgeous. The book ended up about an inch thicker than the actual finished book because the thickness of the paper was so much bigger.   R: I’m pretty sure we have photos of this on Instagram somewhere already.   K: Probably. We have joked about this a lot, yeah.   R: So, a sixty-pound paper, and I’m not even gonna go into how they determine what’s a pound of paper, that is listed on these specs, is 435 pages per inch. So your 495 page book is divided by 435 fo the pages per inch, and the resulting spine width—I go for the thousandth—so 1.137 and that will give you your spine width. So in the center of your page layout is your 1.137 inch-wide rectangle which represents your spine. (This is in your template.) And to either side of that, you’re going to add the width of your total trim size.    So my books are 5 ½ inches by 8 ½ inches, so the width is 5 ½ and you add that to that number twice, and now you have your total width of your cover, if it were flat and had no pages inside it.   K: So what you’re getting, then, is if I pulled the cover off a book—   R: Don’t you dare.   K: I would never. But if I did. If I was a soulless monster and I did that and I laid it out flat, that is the total measurements of what this is.   R: From right to left.   K: Okay.   R: Okay. So that is the spine width, plus the cover of the trim size. In your image itself, or your layout file, you’re going to have to crop out parts of the image that don’t fit because most artists don’t give you exactly the right size. Because you don’t know your spine width. They’re just going to give you a roughly book-shaped thing from their experience. I’ve gotten final cover art from people, as I said, from clients, and they give me the final cover art from the artist, and they give you too much space. And you want too much space, but you are going to have to decide where that space is coming off from in your final layout.   So what I use is a program called InDesign, and I set my InDesign layout to the trim size, 11.758 and I’m just giving you these hard numbers—if you’re trying to follow along and you actually try to create the file, you’ll see what I mean. So that’s the width, and the height is the height of the book trim size, for my books like I said. They’re 5 ½ wide by 8 ½ tall, trimmed. So my trim size is 8 ½ tall.   K: It’s funny because we’re throwing out all these measurements and there are people probably sitting at home going, “Oh, okay, so that’s a book size.” If you own a lot of books, like I do, I want you to go to your bookshelf and try to figure out how many of those books are exactly the same size.   R: Right.   K: There really isn’t a standard size for books. And some of them—I’ve seen books that, sometimes the book is a little taller than what I would normally expect of a book and I imagine that’s because it was a really big book and they wanted to maybe have to minimize some of the pages because those start to get expensive to print after a while.   R: I mean, that’s where the 6x9 trade paperback size came from, is an attempt to reduce the paper needed to fill a book.   K: Mhm.   R: If you have large print books, you’re going to find that they’re generally also larger-sized because that reduces the need for paper once you increase the font size and it takes more pages to tell the story.   [35:06]    K: That said, though, that’s the reason why they’re more expensive.   R: Yeah, and you don’t want it to feel cramped just because you got a larger font size. So, yeah, you pick your book size by going through your bookshelves and finding a book that feels like you want your book to feel. In your hand, what size, and all that kind of stuff.   I picked 5 ½ by 8 ½ and the process that I’ve described is how a layout for that size book, with this thickness of paper that we’re discussing, is how that would work. And it’s going to be different the more of these elements that you change and go with, you know, different options.   Just to finish setting up this file, the trim size is the size of the file layout. I also specify in my file set-up that I want an eighth of an inch, .125, bleed all around the edge.   K: Mhm.   R: Then, when you output the file, you can specify that you want to include the bleed and add crop marks and all the things that the printer needs. And that will be in their specifications, so you want to pay attention to the specifications for the printer you are using because they’re all different.    Some are very similar, but they’re also all different.   K: They’re not all—it’s snowflakes.    R: Yeah. So if you’re using a printer and you know who they are, I would definitely suggest you just go and see if they have a template. If you’re using an off-set printer, then that printer will help you set up a file. If you are going with IngramSpark or KDP or Lulu, they will all provide you with a cover template. There’s usually a form and you put in what paper you choose, what binding size you’re going with, and how many pages you have and they’ll give you a file that you can use to set this up.   K: Yeah, they’ll do the calculations for you, essentially.   R: Yeah, and they you can take that and you can either use those calculations in a custom file that you set up, or give it to your designer and they will either use that or set up their own file the way they like it set up.   Now you have this layout and, let me tell you, the spine should be centered in it. If your spine is slightly off-center, then your spine is going to be slightly off-center, and I don’t mean the part of the book that folds, I mean where your title in the spine shows up will be off-center. So, the easiest thing to do is just start from the spine and work your way out.   K: Books and people, we want the spines to be nice and centered.   R: And then, again, go to your books on your shelf and take a ruler and measure how far things are from the edge of the book. How far they are from the edge of the folds. How wide the title is across. How far away the byline is. Stuff like that. Use that to guide you if this is your first time doing it—but if it’s your first time doing it—   K: If all of this sounds really complicated to you, it is. And maybe consider paying someone to do it for you. R: There is nothing wrong with recognizing that the amount of time it would take to learn to do something properly is worth a certain amount of money to you.   K: Absolutely.   R: It’s absolutely true.   K: And by the way, if you decide, “Hey, you know what? I’m gonna do this a lot, I really just wanna learn this,” there’s online classes. There’s ways, there’s tutorials, there’s resources out there to do this. That said, you can watch all of the tutorials and YouTube videos you want, if you can’t draw a straight line using a ruler, maybe this isn’t the right thing for you to be doing.   R: I’ve always said that somebody shouldn’t make the first website they build a website for a client. And I don’t think you should make the first cover you print, the launch of your debut novel. You know?   K: Yeah, well. R: There are other things to consider for your cover, such as—we’ve already mentioned what if it’s a hardcover with a jacket?   K: Mhm.   R: Then there’s something to consider, which is the stamped cloth underneath that jacket. What is that going to look like? Are you going to go for foil printing? Are you going to go for UV printing? Are you going to go for embossing? What other treatments are going to happen to your cover? And then you need to pick a printer who’s capable of doing them. And you’re also going to need to be able to provide them with any of those stamps they need, you need to give them a guide of what that’s going to look like.   Now, if they are a very full-service, off-set, traditional art house printer, they may include all of these kinds of decisions and such in their pricing of their package to you. But you need to know what’s on you to come up with and what’s on them, if it’s print-on-demand, they expect you to provide everything.   K: Yeah, and just to be clear, when Rekka’s talking about an off-set printer, this is somebody who you’re going to, in theory, do a run of books with. You’re not doing one here, you’re doing like five hundred.   R: At least.   K: At least. Minimum. Yeah. And in that case, you’re gonna have somebody at the printer who gets these files and looks at them and checks and goes, “What about this? What about this?”   You’re gonna have sort of a consultant there, if you will.   R: Yeah, they’re gonna give you paper samples and you’re gonna feel them and you’re gonna go, “Oh my gosh! That paper manages to feel like leather, how did you do that?” Those aren’t options you’re going to get from even IngramSpark who will do a hardcover with a jacket wrap for you, print-on-demand, but print-on-demand is not going to give you these bespoke, very luxurious options that you can get from an off-set printer. Like, Saga Press has some amazing covers and they also do amazing things with the print treatment of them.   So if any of the books on your shelf are Saga Press, just go hold them, you know?   K: Yeah, just to be clear. I apologize, I think we didn’t quite define this at the start of this episode. If you’re unaware, POD is print-on-demand, it is the most expensive way to generate a book because what’s happening is someone is going online and saying, “I want to buy this book. I want it in paperback.” And if it’s set up for print-on-demand, it’s just going into a computer, essentially, where it’s saying, “Yes, one of Book ABC,” printing it, going into a box, and being mailed to someone.    It is very possible the first person to physically handle that book will be the person that bought it.   R: Right.   K: There’s no quality check there, there’s no control, there’s no consultation with a printer.   R: I mean, there’s supposed to be, but let’s be real.   K: There’s not. So, just be aware. Look, print-on-demand is a fantastic thing that’s really made it great for a lot of self-published and small prints.   R: Indie, yeah.   K: Indie. To get paperback, and even hardcover in some instances, books out into the hands of their readers. But it is not the same as going for making a large print run where you actually sit down and talk with someone and design this and figure out what the book is gonna look like.   R: You could always take this to an off-set printer. A printer in your area will happily print your book project for you, and any time in the future, past, present. But POD meant you could list it on Amazon and not have to pay upfront for warehousing and printing for this book. Because if you keep the book at a distributor, you’ve gotta pay that distributor to hold onto your book because that’s precious space they could be filling with New York Times Bestsellers, you know?   Print-on-demand meant you didn’t need to pay for warehousing for copies that may or may not ever sell. And you’ve heard the stories of people who had their own books printed and then they sat in the garage for years until they’d discovered they’d gone moldy and they threw ‘em all out, or they just moved and threw ‘em all out because they weren’t selling.   There was a time when printing your own book meant you were hand-selling out of the back of your car, or taking them to events and trying to sell as many copies as you could, just to get rid of them basically, to get your life back, get your house back kinda thing. So POD has made all of that a luxury. People who can afford it might still do that, but you don’t have to anymore.   So, yes. A copy of your book might suddenly jump from $1.36 to print, to more like $5.46 to print and that all comes out of your cut, but it still gives you a share of the profit, as opposed to, “Well, my garage still has 736 more copies. I haven’t profited on this book yet.” You know?   K: Yeah.   R: Obviously, there’s a lot more to this than I’ve described. I apologize, it’s hard for me to describe it because I do a lot of it automatically these days. And a lot of it also depends on the book itself. So the page count, the trim size, the treatments you’ve decided on and how late in the game you’re doing all of this.   K: Yeah.   R: But what I do recommend is that at any point that you are stopping and waiting for the next stage, as I said, it might only cost you six bucks to print the thing, send off for another proof if you’ve changed anything. Don’t be surprised. Because you don’t wanna find out when you order your first ten author copies that your title is off-center. Because you forgot about trim size and safety zones and all that kinda stuff.   I definitely recommend, as many times as you make what you think are the final change, that you send off for a print proof. And then track the changes because you’re probably gonna keep fiddling with the thing. Track the changes you make so that when that print proof arrives, you know what you might have already changed, so that you’re not adjusting your more recent file based on what you see on that cover, forgetting that you already fixed that your title was off-center or whatever.   K: So, you know, this is another theme of this show. Read the contract. Track your changes.   R: And get proofs often.   K: Yeah. But there’s one thing we didn’t really talk about that is still relevant to formatting and displaying covers, which is what if you are just doing this digital only or what if you need digital images?   R: So, the eBook cover is essentially a crop of your print book on the front side of it. But there are things to consider beyond just, “Okay, I cut off the spine and the back cover.” You also want to make sure that it’s legible.   K: Yeah.   R: So, in this digital age there are a lot of different thumbnail sizes that are out there and you can look up the various—You can basically just go by Amazon because they have like five different thumbnail sizes, depending on where it’s going to appear.   K: Exactly, just scroll through. There’s a big difference, now. We’ve just spent all of this time about, talking about making your print book look beautiful and everything so somebody will see it in a store and pick it up and go, “My goodness. I find myself attracted to this book. I think I am interested in it.” Now it’s one of however many thumbnails are splashed across a computer screen.   R: Yep.   K: You’re trying to make the cover look appealing in a different way now.   R: Not only appealing, but legible.   K: Yes. Legible is important, yes.   R: The smaller you go, the more of your tiny details are handed over to pixels to try to render them. And if you’ve ever seen pixel art, you know how roughly things get translated as you shrink down in size. You want to, potentially, come up with a slightly different version for your digital product than you might even include in your eBook itself.   And I’ll use the anecdote from Parvus is that Annihilation Aria, which came out from Parvus this summer, has a different print cover than it has for its digital product image in the online stores.   K: Speaking of neon and trying to make sure it shows through well.   R: Speaking of gamut warnings.   K: Yeah.   R: We had to deal with that. But also the cover for the print book, the text is outlined.   K: It’s meant to look like neon sign, yeah.   R: But on the thumbnail size, it almost completely vanished.   K: It was very difficult when we were putting covers up for advanced purchases. It was funny because I knew what it said and was supposed to look like, and your eyes start playing tricks on you because you’re seeing exactly what you expect to see. But then—yeah.   R: And that’s a lesson for you, as the person who’s been staring at this for a really long time, is: show it to someone else. Chances are you already know what you think you want it to look like, and you might not notice the things that are either mistakes or not translating to that size as well as you want them to. So you can get a list of the different sizes that Amazon will reduce your image to and that’s all from the product image, which is the eBook cover you upload to KDP, for example.   K: Okay.   R: Or to Draft to Digital, or if you directly to Barnes and Nobles, to their publishing service for eBooks. But it’s not the cover that’s going to be in your eBook when somebody loads it up on their eReader. So you can set the eBook cover to look as close to the print cover as you want, and keep that in your eBook file, associated with that package of files that you’ve created for your eBook. We have a whole episode about that, go check that out.   But your product image that you upload separately is going to be the one that gets reduced to those thumbnail sizes. So you can control how that image displays. Now, granted, when somebody goes to your product page and they’re now looking at the big version of your image, yeah, now you’re getting an image that might not look like the version that’s on your print cover or inside your eBook, but it’s worth it if it brings people to the page because they are attracted to that thumbnail size in their search results.   K: Just go on Amazon and look through, go on the top bestsellers and just scroll through. And I want you to think about how many of those, even though those ones are probably a decent size, you’re having to stop and squint at.   R: Right. So in the case of Annihilation Aria, what we did was we filled in the outlines with the color and we just made it a solid block neon text.   K: Much easier to read.   R: It worked out much, much better. It looks great as a thumbnail, it still is beautiful on the print cover, when you’re holding it you’re like, “That’s a nice cover!” But the thumbnail is doing its job and the cover is doing its job and you don’t wanna confuse or conflate what those jobs are.   K: Yeah. It’s, um… tricky is a word for it. No, it’s, what I was saying is I was looking at this, “I don’t know what you’re talking about, this looks fine.” I knew what this cover was supposed to look like, my brain was filling in the gaps. So, as Rekka said, get somebody else to look at this and make sure that these are things that, to somebody who doesn’t know what they’re looking at, are legible, are getting across the message or the image that you want it to.   R: Right. Exactly. Also, there’s the audiobook version. And your titling from your artist being on a separate layer is definitely going to come in handy now because the audiobook preview, as set up by the tradition of printing these on CDs, not even the cassettes.    K: Yeah.   [50:33]   R: I mean, you could go back to cassettes, but it was the CD that sort of set the standard.   K: And they were square.   R: And they were square.   K: I remember that audiobooks sometimes had different covers, if you will, than the actual book itself. If you went to the library, I remember it was like the paper cases with all the CDs in it?   R: Mhm.   K: So then they’d just take that image, that was set up for the CD case, and put that as the thumbnail online.   R: A lot of the time, our first audiobooks that we played digitally, were getting played in an .mp3 player or in iTunes. So they were already set up for square images. Because, again, CD covers.   K: Yes.   R: So, part of the reason that a lot of audiobooks have different cover artwork, just completely different, is because of rights management. So, if a different company made the audiobook than printed the book, they might not be very friendly and share the rights to the cover art, as Parvus did.   Dreamscape is the audiobook publisher for Annihilation Aria and Parvus was happy to share the artwork because it looks more professional if everybody’s using the same artwork.   K: But that’s not always the case. Or, sometimes, maybe the publishing house says, “Well, we’ll license this to you, but it’s gonna be a ridiculous amount of money.”   R: Right.   K: And then, you know, the audiobook production side of things go, “Oh, well. That’s cool. We don’t feel like paying that.”   R: “We’ll make something that’s kind of similar,” you know, and then they go off and they do it themselves. To better or worse effect.   K: Yep.   R: And other times you’ll see an audiobook where, clearly, they didn’t have a wrap-around cover art or they didn’t have the layers, so you get this weird blurry effect to either side. Or I know The Aeronaut’s Windless, if you look really closely at that audiobook cover, somebody went in with the Photoshop stamp tool and made the cover art as square as they could. It survives a brief glance, but it’s not ideal.   So, if you have your cover and the spine copy isn’t already in the way, or whatever, you can just move the text to somewhere a little more central. SOmetimes the central figure on your cover, if you want it to be in there, now has to be off to the side, a little bit, of your title. Or some things gotta move and that’s fine. You can do that, make those adjustments, do a hundred iterations until you find what works, but only if you have layers and your text treatment isn’t flat on your background illustration.   K: Yeah. So, well… I can’t say that’s everything, because that is not everything. That is not even close.   R: It’s really not. I mean, we didn’t even get into back-cover copy placement and all this other stuff, but…   K: Yeah, but, this is sort of to give you an idea of how this happens. Print books don’t just magically manifest after you finish writing it. There are a lot of people that go into putting together a book and making sure that it looks good after it’s done.   R: I mean, there’s sometimes a very small, very hard-working tiny team of people. It’s not always a ton of people and, if you’re a self-publisher, don’t think that you can’t do this by yourself—   K: Yeah, absolutely.   R: —but you do want to get some experience before you commit to saying that you are good at this and you should continue to do it.    K: “I am making a good decision.”   [Both laugh]   R: Yes.   K: But, no, and it’s true and the thing is that someone like Rekka can do all of this, you know, on her own. But, again, Rekka went to school for this. This is something that took her years of time, experience, and learning to master.   R: I mean, and I didn’t go to school for book cover production—   K: Well, no, but yeah.   R: I mean, I made book covers as part of my college education, but it was more about understanding what makes things legible and what makes thing attractive to the eye. What makes a person’s eye move across the page the way you control. And all those things are now instinctive and go into what I do when I set up these files, which is why I can’t even describe, sometimes, what my process is. Which is kind of like, you know, you walk up to an artist and you say, “How do you draw like that?” Well, they can’t answer that question.   K: Yeah, yeah.   R: So there’s a lot that goes into it and, yes, if you are willing to put the time in to learn, you can do this. Just like I could have illustrated my own book cover, but I knew the time that it would take me to develop a style that I wanted for my book cover, was not worth taking that time away from my writing.    K: Mhm.   R: This has always disappointed my mother, that I didn’t draw my own book cover illustration.   K: Eh, there’s still time.   R: And—But! The point was, the style I wanted was not my inherent style.    K: Mhm.   R: And so I would have to spend months and years developing the style that I did want, or I can make an investment to have a professional whose style already was what I wanted do the cover for me and allow me to go back and do what I was good at. It’s okay to not be amazing at everything.   K: Who said that?   R: I dunno, I just did.   [Both laugh]   K: So that’s kind of rounding out book cover production. If you take away anything, I hope it is that this is not the easy part of this.   R, laughing: No.   K: I think everybody goes, “I’m just gonna have the cover and it’s gonna be so awesome and it’s gonna be on the book.” … Yes. But there’s a lot of steps to get to the part where it’s on the book and you can actually hold it in your hand.   R: And there’s a lot of steps to get to the part where it’s awesome.   K: And that, yes.   R: Yeah.   K: Well, I think that’s our episode.   R: I think it’s gotta be our episode, because we’re now running a little bit long. So, yeah! There’s a lot here and if you were trying to take notes, I apologize. But I wanted to get in this habit of, every now and then, let’s just get real technical about this.   K: I think we think about a lot of making books in very non-quantitative terms. Where we’re like, “Yeah, and then you have to figure this out and you’ve gotta decide about this character and this plot point,” and there are some parts that are technical about this. Where it’s like, “Listen, you have to do this,” and this is how you measure it.   R: You know, unfortunately, some things just, if you want the book to not look like a pile of messy paper glued into a vaguely book-shaped thing, then you want to follow this process because that’s the way that it’s all set up. That’s how you get that result. There aren’t too many ways to be extra creative about this aspect of things.   K: Yes. You know, this was more of a technical episode, but hopefully it was, as always, educational and informative. And entertaining.   R: And slightly overwhelming.   K: And overwhelming, yes.   R: It’s important that I sound like what I do could only be done by me. I mean, that’s how I keep food on the table.   K: And hopefully this hasn’t scared you off from trying to do this.   R: I mean, play around with it! Like I said, Lulu’s there, you can order one book at a time. See what happens.   K: And if you do, let us know how it goes.   R: Yes! Show us your books, if you’re a publisher. What covers have you put together and formatted and, you know, sent to fulfillment yourself? We’d love to see them!   K: Yep, and you can find us…   R: Oh, you can! Can’t you? We are @WMBcast on Twitter and Instagram, and you can find us at wmbcast.com for all our old episodes, and you can also find us and support us at Patreon.com/wmbcast, where you can thank us for all our technical, helpful, overwhelming knowledge.   K, laughs: Or you can just scream at us.   R: Yes. And you can share these episodes or any episode that you think would help a friend out and leave a rating and review, please, on Apple Podcasts, because that is just how this apple pie is made.   K: Feeeeed the algorithm.   R: Yep. Absolutely. Oh, speaking of which, we are now on Amazon podcasts.   K: Oh.   R: Did you even know that was a thing?   K: I didn’t, no.   R: Well, we are there. We got listed.   K: Okay!   R: So wherever you go for your podcasts, please feel free to listen there. But, when you leave ratings and review, at least for now, Apple podcasts is still where we want them. Once Amazon gets in the game, you know how it goes, but…   K: I’m looking forward to an Apple-Amazon Deathmatch.   R: It’ll be like the Fast Food Wars only it’s just like the Algorithm Wars.   K: Yeah, I think that is where we’re going. Yeah… Well, everyone, thanks very much for listening and we’ll see you in a couple weeks.   R: Take care, everyone.   [outro music plays]

*HAPPY PCOS AWARENESS MONTH!* Perhaps you weren't even aware that September is, in fact, PCOS (Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome) awareness month! AND THATS OKAY! It's a subject that we aren't giving enough awareness to!! We were lucky enough to speak with the incredible Julie Dillon (anti-diet, fat-positive. registered dietician) and Laura Burns (creator of Radical Body Love Yoga and badass living with PCOS) allllllll about PCOS diagnosis, treatment, and most importantly - the stigma around fat bodies and PCOS. I've got to be honest, I LEARNED A LOT! AND I HOPE YOU DO TOO! Check out Julie & Laura's movement here: https://www.pcosbodyliberation.com/ http://www.instagram.com/pcosbodyliberation Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/confidently-insecure/donations Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Jill begins this episode with a client's letter to her ED. A letter of "goodbye."  How do you know when to discharge a client or decrease frequency of appointments. Do you use your gut feeling? What behaviors are you hoping to see?  Often in the ED field, clients are seen for a longer length of time. Now this may be more known from a therapist point of view. In particular to a dietitian, a dietitian may see a client for several years which is different for the "traditional" nutrition field.  Listen on as Meredith and Jill discuss timelines, what to look for and why some clients need support longer than others before it's time for discharge.  Haven't heard of Julie Dillon's podcast, Love, Food? Click here to enjoy those episodes!  

It's Thursday and that means it's A Daily Dose of Hope and today I have an amazing guest on with me - Julie Dillon from St. Christopher Truckers Fund and we have a FUN announcement that we want everyone to join in on! Tune in to find out Chrome and Steel Radio Website: https://chromeandsteelradio.com/ Chrome and Steel Radio Merch: https://chromeandsteelradio.com/shop/ Chrome and Steel Radio Anchor: https://anchor.fm/chrome-and-steel-radio Chrome and Steel Radio Twitter: https://twitter.com/chromeandsteelr Chrome and Steel Radio Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chromeandsteelradio Chrome and Steel Radio Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/chromeandsteelradio --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app

How is your relationship with food? Do you struggle with eating disorders or body image issues? Women with PCOS tend to worry a lot about which diet to be on and what would work for them without bringing awareness to their individual bodies. Julie Duffy Dillon is a Anti-Diet Dietitian, PCOS Specialist, and Food Behaviour Expert who partners with people along their Food Peace journey. Julie hosts the weekly podcast Love Food. It is a Dear Abby show for those with eating concerns hoping to rewrite their fate. Julie also works with people with PCOS individually and in her online course and teaches how diets harm PCOS and that there is another way. Julie speaks internationally on PCOS management and trains future anti-diet dietitians. She was the featured expert dietitian on TLC's documentary My Big Fat Fabulous Life. Learn more about her work at JulieDillonRD.com --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/nourishmel/support

Hi everyone, and thank you for listening to the launch episodes of the We Make Books Podcast - A podcast about writing, publishing, and everything in between! We Make Books is hosted by Rekka Jay and Kaelyn Considine; Rekka is a published author and Kaelyn is an editor and together they are going to take you through what goes into getting a book out of your head, on to paper, in to the hands of a publisher, and finally on to book store shelves. In this final episode of the launch, Rekka and Kaelyn switch tracks and get real about how an author might worry what a publisher will do to their book after they get the rights. We Make Books is a podcast for writer and publishers, by writers and publishers and we want to hear from our listeners! Hit us up on our social media, linked below, and send us your questions, comments, concerns, and any theories you may have about the new Continental streaming series, based on John Wick. Thank you for taking the time to listen to this introduction, the first batch of new episodes drops on May 14th, so be sure to subscribe so you don’t miss it. A transcription of this episode can be found below. We hope you enjoy We Make Books! Twitter: @WMBCast  |  @KindofKaelyn  |  @BittyBittyZap Instagram: @WMBCast  Patreon.com/WMBCast === Transcript === Rekka: 00:01 [laughing] Hey everyone, welcome back to We Make Books–Kaelyn: 00:04 [laughter]Rekka: 00:04 –a podcast about writing and publishing and everything in between. I'm Rekka, I write science fiction as RJ Theodore.Kaelyn: 00:12 And I'm Kaelyn, I publish science fiction and fantasy at Parvus press.Rekka: 00:17 And in today's episode, we are taking a different tone from the last two episodes of this launch.Kaelyn: 00:24 We get heavy here, guys. This one's, you know–Rekka: 00:26 I was couched, I was, I was definitely like, you know, "tell me about how you feel about your publisher."Kaelyn: 00:33 She's having some flashbacks, you know, and there wasRekka: 00:35 A bit of shaking.Kaelyn: 00:36 And how did that make you feel?Rekka: 00:38 There was a little bit of that.Kaelyn: 00:40 Yeah. But you know, so after the first couple of episodes where we really just kind of threw a lot at you with "this, then this, then this" kind of format, um, we wanted to take a step back and do something that was going to be a little more in line with what we're going to be doing down the line. So we were talking, we were trying to come up with what we thought would be a good third episode of this batch for the initial launch and uh Rekka, you know, said, "Well publishers can be scary."Rekka: 01:12 Well, and, that was kind of the whole concept of the podcast. So I was like, all right, so how do we talk about this? Like what do we want to ask the publishers?Kaelyn: 01:23 And at the same time from the publishers, what do we want to know about the writers and what they're thinking about this? So we kind of came to this agreement of let's talk about relationships between publishers, editors, writers, and what's scary, what each side wishes the other one knew about them or–Rekka: 01:41 like how did you approach the relationship? What was your expectation?Kaelyn: 01:44 Yeah, the things that when, especially writers, because they're new at this, whereas editors have done this multiple times previously, going into it going, "What do I do now?" And you know, that is the theme for this podcast, but we thought this would be kind of a good, good jumping off point for the rest of it. So, I mean we're going to have lots of different episodes about different topics coming down the line, which we're really excited about. Um, you know, we'll plug it in at the end of the episode, but you know, please do feel free to interact with us. You are encouraged to do so.Rekka: 02:12 Yeah. And I think this one will let you know that there's really not anything we aren't willing to tackle.Kaelyn: 02:18 Yes, we are... I mean, there is like, I joke in the episode, there is the publishing guild's cabal is probably sending an assassin after me as we speak.Rekka: 02:29 Yeah. Yeah. And if we don't have them, you know, sending an Uber out with their assassin every episode that we record, then we're not doing it right.Kaelyn: 02:38 We're not doing a good job. Yeah. Spilling all the deep dark secrets.Rekka: 02:41 The deepest and darkest.Kaelyn: 02:42 You know, so, um, anyway, so that's, you know, the episode, like I said, it's a little, you know, there's a little more emotion driven and uh, some of the other ones and what we're going to be doing in the future.Rekka: 02:52 But do me a favor and try not to analyze me.Kaelyn: 02:56 [laughter] Yeah, Rekka really laid at all, laid it all out there.Rekka: 02:58 I mean, these are all things I've about before, but not in this context and not so directly related to like this relationship.Kaelyn: 03:07 Yeah. So anyway, I think it's great. I think it'll, uh, kind of, I think a lot of it will resonate, a lot of people will identify with this. So, uhRekka: 03:15 Here it comes.Kaelyn: 03:15 Yeah. Here it comes. Hope you enjoy.Piano: 03:17 [music]Maybe ghosts?: 03:38 [muffled speech and laughter]Kaelyn: 03:38 The one in control of the button.Rekka: 03:39 I do like control, speaking of which–Kaelyn: 03:45 We're recording now aren't we?Rekka: 03:45 We are recording, and speaking of control that is an excellent segue.Kaelyn: 03:46 It is an excellent segue. Yeah. That wasn't even intentional.Rekka: 03:49 Mm-hmm. Good job.Kaelyn: 03:50 So, uh, you know, as we said in the introduction, what we're talking about here today, it's a little bit of a hard left from the previous two.Rekka: 03:57 Yeah. The previous two were sort of like the top down view. It was safe. It was, um, a little dr– I don't wanna say dry, but you know, it was–Kaelyn: 04:06 I think we're entertaining enough.Rekka: 04:07 more on the functional side,Kaelyn: 04:11 Yeah. But today we're talking about relationships with editors and taking care of your book; entrusting your book.Rekka: 04:20 Who's going to take care of your book. If not you?Kaelyn: 04:24 This is, you know, big hangup that a lot of authors have. And it's scary and it's–Rekka: 04:29 Even authors I think, who have dreams of getting a publishing deal.Kaelyn: 04:34 Yeah. And then it's in front of you and it's like, "Oh my God, wait–"Rekka: 04:37 "Is this the right choice?"Kaelyn: 04:38 "This person I just met has so many opinions!"Rekka: 04:41 And it's a partnership. It's, um, it's a marriage of the efforts of the author and this team and there's– [thoughtful exhalation] I don't know if it's media representation showing that they are at odds or if it's just the loud experiences of people who've had less than stellar, you know, interactions.Kaelyn: 05:05 I'd imagine it's some combination of the two. You know, it's, I think, you know, saying like this depiction of being at odds with your editor is like very detrimental.Rekka: 05:16 Yes.Kaelyn: 05:17 You should not be at odds with your editor. But it is, regardless, you could be thrilled to death and it is scary because you don't, you've spent so much time on this, this is your blood, sweat and tears and now someone else is going to come in and you are contractually mandated to pay attention to and take their opinions about your work. And that's terrifying. Yeah.Rekka: 05:44 And, and there's more to it than– I mean, we're talking partially about editing, but we're also just talking about the publisher. Yeah. As an entity that is now going to gather your book under their wing and you have to be okay with that.Kaelyn: 06:00 Yeah, no, that's–Rekka: 06:01 You really have to be okay with that. And if you aren't okay with that, when you're facing down the contract, maybe consider – What did we say was going to be repeating theme? Take a step back, and now, audience, take a shot.Kaelyn: 06:20 [laughing] That should be in the name of this podcast. "Take a step back."Rekka: 06:24 Nope. I already have the domain name. Um, the um, the feelings that you have are valid.Kaelyn: 06:34 Yes.Rekka: 06:34 Emotions are always valid.Kaelyn: 06:35 Yes.Rekka: 06:35 We're not saying you, your fear is wrong, but it might be founded in an absence of understanding of what's going to happen, which is again, the entire point of this podcast as a whole is to make that absence of knowledge.Kaelyn: 06:53 Yeah.Rekka: 06:54 The pool a little bit shallower.Kaelyn: 06:56 Pull the veil back. Make this a little less scary.Rekka: 06:58 Yeah.Kaelyn: 06:59 So I'm obviously coming from the publishing side. Rekka is coming from the writing side. So we have, you know, different perspectives on this. Um, one of the things we were talking about before we got started here is: does anyone care about your book as much as you do?Rekka: 07:18 No.Kaelyn: 07:19 The answer is no.Rekka: 07:20 No, no one does, no one ever could.Kaelyn: 07:24 It's not possible. But your editor is probably a close second.Rekka: 07:28 And we brought up the discussion like, maybe a parent?Kaelyn: 07:32 A spouse?Rekka: 07:33 The argument would be, yeah, they care about you as a person, and they care about your experience.Kaelyn: 07:40 Your success.Rekka: 07:41 And your success, and that you're happy.Kaelyn: 07:43 Yes. But your book as a product,Rekka: 07:47 Yeah, and what it's about and the world building that went into it and whether people like your character as much as you do like tha– that's probably not forefront of their mind.Kaelyn: 07:59 No, it's, I mean, as we said, you know, in our previous two episodes, this is a deeply personal thing.Rekka: 08:06 And aside from the readers and fans that you will hopefully eventually get to meet and get to see them express their experience with your book, there isn't going to be that sort of passionate caring about your book on this end of the process, except with a publisher who's monetarily, emotionally and you know.Kaelyn: 08:35 Spiritually. [laughter]Rekka: 08:39 Spiritually invested, by the powers invested in...Kaelyn: 08:42 Well I mean your pu-, your publisher – really it's your, it's your editor. Your publisher is the one responsible for getting the book out the door and making sure everyone makes money off of it. Um, know obviously they've got an interest in, you know, making sure it's successful, not just for monetary reasons but because publishers want books to be successful, because they want to publish successful books. Um, like at Parvus for instance, we've been really working hard to cultivate and maintain a good reputation because we genuinely care about our books and our authors and that's so important to us. And that's not just us. That's a lot of publishing houses that you want to put a great book out there and you want to hear people talking about it and you want everyone to be excited about it. So, everyone involved in the process wants, [laughter] they want what's best for the book. [laughter] We only want what's best for the book. You? Eh. The book, however.Rekka: 09:50 Well, and there is a line drawn.Kaelyn: 09:53 There is, but um, you know, so I'm on, I'm on the publishing end of things, but Rekka you're on the writing end of things. So you actually have some unique perspective and experience in how you came to a traditional publishing situation.Rekka: 10:08 Yeah, especially the traditional part of that, um. I think it's, it's not going to be secret for long if it's still a secret, but my plan was to self publish Flotsam–Kaelyn: 10:18 I just assumed everyone knew that at this point.Rekka: 10:22 I think anyone who knows anything about me, has listened to my other podcasts, or followed me for any amount of time, probably understands that I–and here's going back to the segue that led into the episode–I like to have control of everything. And for me, um, the best way to have control over the content of my book, the presentation of my book, the marketing of my book, the longterm success of my book... was going to be, if I was in complete control of my book. I wanted to accept the responsibility for every step of the process so that I could be proud of it.Kaelyn: 11:04 Of course, yeah.Rekka: 11:04 And that it would be the vision that I have from the get go.Kaelyn: 11:07 And I think that's important is authors really wanting to hold onto their vision. Because I'm uh, you know, we actually discussed this very briefly in the previous episode of like, cover art and that is the true embodiment of an author's vision for the book.Rekka: 11:21 And funny you should mention that because–you and your segues today! We need a gong.Kaelyn: 11:27 I've really, I'm nailing it.Rekka: 11:28 Um, I brought–I mean we're skipping ahead to the part where I decided to go ahead and submit this, but I commissioned...Kaelyn: 11:36 Well no, because this is, this is one of the hangups that you had.Rekka: 11:39 Um, I commissioned a cover artist, um, and I didn't just go to, I mean like I don't want to disparage anyone on Fiverr. I'm sure there are very talented people on Fiverr, but I went, um, to the person whose vision matched what I felt the inside of my book–Kaelyn: 11:56 And you did research.Rekka: 11:57 and I did a lot of research and I thought I wanted a different artist.Kaelyn: 12:01 Yeah. So going back to, you know, some of the hang ups you had, some of the worries, one of them was that you already commissioned this beautiful piece of art from Julie Dillon for your cover.Rekka: 12:11 Yes. So obviously this wasn't a hangup that prevented me from submitting to Parvus. This was a hang up, like once I had submitted, I was like, "[nervous inhale] they're not gonna want to use this. Like I just spent all this money, invested it, in a gorgeous piece of artwork, but I'm not going to be allowed to use this."Kaelyn: 12:27 So now it's like, that's another thing. Is this worth it?Rekka: 12:30 Is it like, yeah, like this cover is perfect for my book. Luckily Parvus agreed. But that was–Kaelyn: 12:36 Well, I mean, have you seen it? What do you think someone's going to be like, "No, that's no good."Rekka: 12:42 "That's no good at all." Um, uh, I actually have gotten a comment from, from somebody who was like, "I didn't really get it at first, but then I read it and I'm like, Oh yeah, no, that's totally perfect." And anyone who had read any draft of Flotsam, when they saw the cover art was like, "Oh, that is so good."Kaelyn: 12:59 It's perfect. Really. It really is.Rekka: 13:01 It captures it, all the, the strangeness of it, the the, the whimsy of it too, and all that. All right, so [laughter]. I'm trying to stay on track here.Kaelyn: 13:09 No it's just like, because it's so, it's so beautiful and eye-catching that like you just want rant about it for a while.Rekka: 13:15 I just wanna talk about it forever. Yeah. I haven't gotten to talk about it like it's a new cover in a long time.Kaelyn: 13:18 It's true. Yeah.Rekka: 13:20 So I, um, I had other hang-ups about going with a traditional publisher and a lot of them came out of this track that I was on to,Both: 13:29 To self publish.Rekka: 13:30 Because, once I decided that, I had podcasts that I could listen to about self publishing, and there was definitely a bias of um, you know, "a traditional publisher does not care about your book as much as you do," which as we started off the episode like, is not quite fair on anyone's part to say.Kaelyn: 13:51 No, it's, I mean I would, you know, granted–Rekka: 13:54 The interest is different.Kaelyn: 13:55 –yeah. Granted I'm coming from the other side of things here, but, um, there I, I lose sleep over books. So, um, to say no one cares about it is, I mean, to me false.Rekka: 14:09 Right.Kaelyn: 14:09 Um, but I think there is this fear – and it's an understandable fear – that, "Okay, my dreams have come true. My book has gotten accepted for publication. Oh God, they're going to make me change all of it."Rekka: 14:25 And not only that, but, "I am a single, small author with no experience. And here comes a team of people who know what they're doing and they have the authority–"Kaelyn: 14:35 Oh it's so intimidating. Yeah.Rekka: 14:35 There's, there's definite position of authority that can be abused, if it were desired to be abused.Kaelyn: 14:42 It's very intimidating. And you know, again, this is part of the reason we want to do this is maybe, you know, you find yourself in this position when you go in with a little bit of knowledge and you know, a little bit goes a long way.Rekka: 14:51 And just knowing what's coming up and not feeling like, "Well, how do I know that what they're telling me is the process is supposed to be the process?"Kaelyn: 15:04 Well because Kaelyn and Rekka said so.Rekka: 15:04 And what we say goes! (Speaking of position from authority).Kaelyn: 15:10 Yeah. So there's definitely like a fear over the creative side of what's gonna happen. And it's understandable. It's scary. Um. Something that you have spent so much time on and now this person, who you have maybe had a couple conversations about, who you probably never met in person is going to go, "and this and this and change this and move this here." Now, hopefully you never actually have a conversation like that, cause that's awful.Rekka: 15:36 That was detached and cold and not like–if someone's going to request that you change something in your manuscript, you want some like, explanation of how it's going to improve it.Kaelyn: 15:49 Well, so... And again, the qualifier: everyone works differently. Every editor's process is a little different. But so I'm going to take it kind of over to my side of things now. I very much believe in a collaborative process in writing. Um. I think most editors and publishers do, because if everyone's miserable then you're not going to make a good book. Um. If there, I am very, you know, have open conversations, talk about your concerns. I'll talk about mine. Let's come to an understanding. Um. There's a, there's a movie, Once Upon a Time in Mexico. [chuckle] Have you seen that?Rekka: 16:32 YesKaelyn: 16:32 Okay. You remember Johnny Depp's character's like the CIA agent everywhere he goes, he likes, he sits down and orders the same thing.Rekka: 16:38 Yeah.Kaelyn: 16:39 In the beginning, he's meeting the informant and he gives him the information and asks him, "Uh, you know, you only asked for $10,000. You knew we would pay a lot more for it." And the guy's like "Yeah, I'm not a greedy man. $10,000 is reasonable. It's a civilized number. It's a number we can both live with. You're not going to kill me over $10,000." And I always kind of look at this as we need to get to a civilized number. [laughter] Um, that's what I always, sometimes I say number, but like "we need to get to a civilized answer here."Rekka: 17:13 Somewhere in the middle.Kaelyn: 17:13 "Where we can both walk away feeling good about this." But that's the thing you, your editor is not your opposition. Your editor is your partner in this process. They are the ones who, they are going to spend so much time on your book, thinking about it, mulling it over, isolating areas that could use some work, maybe punch them up a little bit, tighten it. I personally, my favorite part of this whole process is getting on the phone with my authors and talking about their book and talking about the world it's set in. And like, I always ask, are there any parts that you think are, weak? You know, I like to know what their, their mentality going into it is. Um, but that part is so much fun. And for my end, if there's a part of a book or a manuscript that I'm like, "Look, this is not working," and the author is really resisting and it's very important to them, my next question is, "Okay, why is this part's so important?" And it's fascinating because a lot of the times there's a reason and it's like, "Well why didn't you tell me that?" You know, like, "Oh this is important for a later book, or this is setting something up down the line, or there's this character arc that you know," and it's like, "Okay, well, tell me that because then we can work on that. We can flesh these things out." Being up front with your editor is really important, I think.Rekka: 18:39 Mmm-hmm, and not shutting down emotionally or verbally.Kaelyn: 18:42 Yeah. Like, I mean, don't take criticism badly. Cause here's the thing: they would not have bought your book if it was a bad book.Rekka: 18:50 Right.Kaelyn: 18:50 People don't buy bad books, they buy good books, great, books turn them into awesome books. And I mean, so you have, you know, you went through quite a process with Flotsam, a little back and forth with, you know, to self publish or traditional publish. So what was it like when you were working with an editor then?Rekka: 19:09 Well, as I said, I hired a contracted editor, um, before I made any sort of such decision. I mean the book wasn't ready yet. I knew it wasn't ready. I did not know why. So most of the heavy lifting with my editor – who turned out to be my editor at Parvus once I signed, [laughter] that's a long, convoluted story. So let's just pretend that I was working on the book with him the entire time in, in the capacity that was the Parvus Press capacity cause it, it blended, really see, you know, like I didn't have to be introduced to my Parvus editor before he worked for Parvus.Kaelyn: 19:46 Yeah, you were in a little bit of a different spot there.Rekka: 19:48 I'm like, I am an outlier as far as this goes. Um, so I knew the book wasn't great – or I'm like, I knew the book was great. I knew the concept was great. I knew there was something there that I had to get out in the world. And working on the drafts over four years, I just kept shoving in stuff to fill what I felt was missing.Kaelyn: 20:13 Okay.Rekka: 20:14 And I would add stuff and never take anything else out. I would change stuff but make it, I would shoe horn it in around the other things that were already there.Kaelyn: 20:24 Ah! Classic author move. [laughter]Rekka: 20:26 And so what my editor said after we met for the first time, um, through Skype, I said, "Well, I've been working on this for 12 years." And he said, "I know, it's all in here. I can tell." And so like that freed me up to realize like, okay, every word was still precious to me.Kaelyn: 20:44 Of course.Rekka: 20:44 But that started to help me see that like, every draft was not supposed to be an additive process. [laughter] Sometimes removing stuff is important.Kaelyn: 20:57 Yeah... yeah... Culling is important.Rekka: 20:59 So, um, so working with an editor, one, like sort of helped me let go of all these years of work that I'd been putting into this story because I realized, "Oh, so what you're saying is it doesn't all fit in one book." [laughter]Kaelyn: 21:18 Yeah. And you actually bring up a very good point here, which is, um, I think one of the hardest things for authors to hear right off the bat, when they start working with an editor, is the editor unsheathing the metaphorical machete. Where it's like, "okay, we're going to take care of all of this extraneous stuff." And, "No, no, it's not extraneous, it's important!" And understanding that here's the thing, it's not, and it doesn't mean you're a bad writer.Rekka: 21:47 It just doesn't belong in the draft, because it is important. It's important pre-work, but not all of that belongs in the final story.Kaelyn: 21:55 I should say it's not important to the final story. The work you did is important. But that's the big difference is, I'm interested in the work you did to this point in just terms of your process. But for the final product of the book, it doesn't–Rekka: 22:12 it doesn't mean the book better. The book is not richer because you have layers and layers and layers.Kaelyn: 22:18 Yeah. So, and I think that's a hard thing for especially first time authors working with an editor to, to in.Rekka: 22:24 And prior to that I'd been working completely alone on it. You know, I had people who'd read it, some friends who, bless their souls, read it three or four times and various versions. And then I got to the point where I was like, "Everyone I know who's willing to read this has already read it and they know all the other versions and I need fresh perspective on this." And then I had this epiphany, you know, event where I realized like, "I need to move forward on this. And I've been putting a lot of my time into this because I have time for free. Time doesn't cost me any money to invest in the story and rewrite it and rewrite it and rewrite it. I need to stop treating this like I will eventually get there if I just work harder.Kaelyn: 23:12 Yeah. And you know, we're getting, we're getting very heavy with this conversation. It's, you know, it because, but it does deserve some, um, some gravitas becauseRekka: 23:22 It's a big decision.Kaelyn: 23:23 It's a big decision. Um, I know from, you know, when I meet an, introduced myself to a new author and I'm in a little bit of a unique position because I'm also the acquisitions editor. So chances are even, you know, you've probably already had a conversation with me probably more than one. Um, and I know how nerve wracking it is. And part of my job, what I see my job as an editor is, I need to put you at ease and reassure you so that you can write the best possible version of the book I can get out of you. And trust me, I will get it out of you. You're going to hate me by the end, but I will get it out of you. [laughter]Rekka: 24:05 But it's, it's the effort that you're going to draw out of the author.Kaelyn: 24:10 Yes.Rekka: 24:10 It's not going to be hated because you're going to change all the fundamental things that make this book the author's own book.Kaelyn: 24:16 Yeah. When I say, you're going to hate me by the end of it. I mean, because I know what you're capable of. And –Rekka: 24:23 You're not going to settle for anything less.Kaelyn: 24:24 – I am not going to let you get away with anything. So, and I mean it's, you should want an editor that does that.Rekka: 24:32 You should want an editor that is compelled to draw every last drop–Kaelyn: 24:37 –But here's the thing, I'm doing it because I care about your book a lot. So do I care about as much as you? I can't imagine I do because no one else cares about it as much as you, but I care about it a lot. Um, so you know, having an open and frank relationship with your editor is important. And this was one of the things we were kind of batting around when we were trying to do, figure out what to do with this episode and that was relationships with your editor. Um, it's tricky.Rekka: 25:10 Yeah.Kaelyn: 25:11 Because it is a professional relationship, right? But at the same time, it's–Rekka: 25:18 Fraught with emotion!Kaelyn: 25:20 –and it's a very vulnerable relationship. Um, I always say, you know, like if you wake up at 1:30 in the morning and you're like, "Oh my God, this idea!" Text me, email me, I want to hear about it. Um, but you know, maybe don't call me. That's, we're not, we're not quite there yet. Um, but it's, it's a tricky relationship to navigate because this is a person that – I won't say they're in a position of authority over you because that's not the case at all. But they are in a position –Rekka: 25:53 They're serving two parties here.Kaelyn: 25:55 –Yeah, there's you, and then there's also their publishing house. So it is, it is a difficult relationship to navigate, but at the same time, then, you're going to have absurd conversations with this person. [laughter] And here's the thing, I love them, but like, I definitely get some people that are like, I'm like, "Okay, well this part's not really clear. Can you explain what's going on?" It's like, "Oh, well this person's from here so they can do water magic." "Okay, great. Um, what about this guy?" "Oh, he's from here. So that's that tree magic." It's like, guys, you don't sound stupid to me. And I know that like everyone else that you talk to about this–Rekka: 26:33 This is the concept we're selling!Kaelyn: 26:35 Yes! It's like, "I want to hear about this stuff. Tell me about, you know, your armored rabbits charging into battle! Like, I want to know about this." No matter. I mean, did you ever feel like, you know, like, "Oh well, and then–"Rekka: 26:51 I am always an outlier. I have never felt apologetic for – Like, I wrote Flotsam. [laughter] Like have you read Flotsam?Kaelyn: 26:58 A couple of times. Yeah. [laughter]Rekka: 26:59 Yeah. How am I supposed to feel bashful about that book?Kaelyn: 27:04 It's true. It's definitely true.Rekka: 27:06 Um, there's not a lot in there I can even pretend is normal.Kaelyn: 27:10 Especially if you're shy. You're not shy.Rekka: 27:14 I have been shy in my life. I think I'm done.Kaelyn: 27:16 I don't believe that for a second but let's keep going. You know, and that part can be intimidating and there's a lot of little things that you know, factor into your relationship. Um. But I think it's good and important to have at least a friendly relationship with your editor.Rekka: 27:35 Mm-hmm.Kaelyn: 27:36 Because it's different from– I mean, I think you'd agree it's different from a lot of other regular jobs. Oh yeah. Like making a widget. This isn't going into the office and you know, going, "Steve, you were supposed to get me this by tomorrow. Why isn't it done?" Like it's, you know, it's like, "Okay, so you're stuck on this thing. Let me help you with it."Rekka: 27:59 Mm-hmm.Kaelyn: 27:59 And that's great. That's my favorite part. Yeah. So, yeah. Um. It is a little hard, you know, balancing the personal professional.Rekka: 28:07 Mm-hmm. and you'd have to sort of decide where you're going to put your boundaries before you run into them or over them or through them.Kaelyn: 28:13 But with social media now it's so much, you know...Rekka: 28:16 Boundaries fall away all the time.Kaelyn: 28:18 Yeah, pretty quickly and like, you know, interacting with the people in your writing community, and by extension, your publisher is great. You know, it's, it's a lot of fun and it's a good way to kind of like, you know, have a funny exchange that builds some awareness.Rekka: 28:32 Yeah. But in in the same sense of like opening boundaries, like if there's a boundary that someone sets, you just respect it. Absolutely. And um, yeah, like my current editor at Parvus doesn't want text messages. Okay. Like that's not going to help him work better on my book, you know?Kaelyn: 28:50 [laughter]Rekka: 28:50 So while Kailyn may accept text messages from authors in her stableKaelyn: 28:56 Kaelyn encourages text messages. I, I'm fine with all forms of communication, just, you know, communicate with me.Rekka: 29:01 Yeah. I always prefer to have it in writing. So like if someone calls me up and has the conversation and I have no written record of it, 20 minutes later I'm like, "Oh, what did we say we were going to do? I have no record of it."Kaelyn: 29:15 I just blacked out for that entire thing. Did I just agree to do a podcast?!Rekka: 29:17 How does that happen?Kaelyn: 29:19 Yeah. So boundaries and communication standards are important to establish.Rekka: 29:23 And working together in the way that works best for everybody.Kaelyn: 29:25 Yes. And again, this is, you know, the every editor works different. Um. I, I like to get a sense of how an author works well because if I'm doing something and it's just completely going over their head, that's not helping anyone.Rekka: 29:42 Right.Kaelyn: 29:42 And I, I can be more flexible. I'm pretty good about that kind of stuff. So like, yeah, you can tell me "Here's how I work best and it's reasonable." No problem.Rekka: 29:53 Right.Kaelyn: 29:55 So. Um. Editors are not that scary. I'm not supposed to say that. I'm sure you know the secret cabal of publishing is sending an assassin for me as we speak, so it was nice doing these episodes for everyone, but I think we think that, well, writers kind of have this impression that editors are going to go, "No, nope. Cross this out. Get rid of this. What the heck is this?" If your book needed that much work–Rekka: 30:28 Or that much vehemence.Kaelyn: 30:31 Vehemence, yeah. No, they wouldn't have bought it. They buy books, we buy books because we're interested in them and we liked them. And even if it's a little rough, we can sand it down and polish it and make it like amazing.Rekka: 30:45 Mm-hmm.Kaelyn: 30:45 You know, we take it to that, like, I am going to get the best book possible out of you because I know you're capable of doing it. That is the core of this. We would not buy a book that we thought like, "Eh, I dunno. I guess it's, it's fine."Rekka: 30:59 Yeah.Kaelyn: 31:01 You know, going back to look again why we started this podcast, I really, it's, it's a little bit interesting for me when I go to conventions because you know, a lot of times I'm there by myself mostly, or with a very small party like, you know, I know people, I have friends there and stuff, but like I introduced myself and "Oh, are you a writer?" "Oh No. I work in publishing, I'm an acquisitions editor." And it is like amazing. Like people sit up a little bitRekka: 31:26 It's like a wall or something that comes up.Kaelyn: 31:28 No, it's just kind of like, "Oh!" And I understand, you know, it's like you're not.Rekka: 31:35 You're a cryptid, you're a mythological figure.Kaelyn: 31:37 Yeah. It's like "A wild acquisitions editor has appeared!"Rekka: 31:40 What did I say in the last five minutes that they might've overheard?Kaelyn: 31:44 Did I summon them? How did they appear here? But it is very funny where I will like, you know, it'd be talking to a group of people and introduce myself and then there is a massive shift in the conversation. Like I can just sense it where it's like, "Oh, we're not surrounded entirely by our own kind." But that's what I kind of want to dispel a little bit. We are also lovers of stories and the craft of writing and spend a lot of time thinking about and working on creative processes and um, you know, addressing the best ways to write and tell stories because we love stories,' were just on the other end of the stories.Rekka: 32:30 But you are a big part of making them happen.Kaelyn: 32:33 We Make Books.Rekka: 32:33 Yes. We Make Books.Kaelyn: 32:36 We all make books.Rekka: 32:37 Yes. Together.Kaelyn: 32:38 Together as team. But, it's true. And that's part of the reason we really wanted to do this.Rekka: 32:46 And something else that you bring to it. And I mean, I know this, this episode is primarily focused on relationships, uh, with the publisher and the author. But there is the benefit, and a reason that you might choose to seek a publisher for your book, is that they have relationships with lots of people.Kaelyn: 33:03 We do.Rekka: 33:03 And those people are probably not accessible to you on your own without a lot of just elbow-rubbing at conventions and stuff. Like eventually you might meet all those people on your own, but the, the publisher has this, um, it's not an army because they, they're mutuals and their peers and stuff, but like they have, they have a reach that you don't necessarily have and they want to leverage that to help you.Kaelyn: 33:31 We have people that we work with outside of what you would normally encounter because that's just our day-to-day. Like, I mean, do you know a guy who does lay out?Rekka: 33:44 [indistinguishable noise]Kaelyn: 33:44 Well, I mean, well you [laughter] You the hypothetical author that I'm running into.Rekka: 33:49 Oh sorry, yes, not Rekka. The other one.Kaelyn: 33:49 I mean, do you know a guy who does layout? Do you know? I mean, you can go online and find a copy editor, but I know one that does a good job and that we trust.Rekka: 34:01 And if I, if I want to put a cover on a space opera and then a cover on a steampunk book and then a cover on a high fantasy book, like do I have a Rolodex with names and numbers of people who do different genre books particularly well? Or–Kaelyn: 34:16 I mean, part of it, it is, you know, the resources and the information that we collected as sort of like an archive.Rekka: 34:22 Everything you learn can be use for the next author.Kaelyn: 34:24 Oh yeah, no, trust me, it's, it's definitely a compounding knowledge situation. Um. So that's, you know, that's another thing that's important in the relationship is what you're getting out of the publisher and you're getting our experience, our resources, our knowledge, our creative teams, and people that we can introduce you to and help you, have them help you with things. And that is really the core of not just your editor but with your publisher. They are there to help you. Their job is to help you get a book published. When I say that, I don't mean like, "oh, maybe" like, no, they're going to publish your book. When I say help you, I mean get you to that step.Rekka: 35:05 Yes. And they're not reluctantly sharing all this.Kaelyn: 35:09 No. We're excited about it. You know, like, oh, okay, well you need...Rekka: 35:12 You get the contract and you're like, "Yes! We can. We're going to do this. This is going to be amazing!"Kaelyn: 35:16 Yeah. And we're already planning and you know, thinking about what we're going to do for you and you know, we try to keep authors in the loop about these things. It's important that you know what's going on with your book and your work and everything. So it's, it is a relationship. It's a symbiotic relationship and it's important to have a good one. You should have more than one point of contact beyond your editor probably, but that is going to be your primary point of contact. Um, and you know, your author should be – "your author," *my* author, *your editor* is hopefully someone that you have a good working relationship and a good rapport with, and they understand what you're trying to do because that's how you're going to get a good book.Rekka: 36:00 And you're comfortable enough to ask the clarifying questions. If you're not sure what's going on and you don't just nod and say, "Uh huh, uh huh."Kaelyn: 36:06 Yeah, and I mean, you know, and this is a touchy subject, I really shouldn't be bringing this up, but I'm going to. If you're having problems with your relationship with your editor – and I am going to qualify all of this by saying, be VERY careful about what you consider to be "insurmountable problems" because "they don't like this scene" is not one.Rekka: 36:34 Right.Kaelyn: 36:35 I'm talking about real problems, like you're not getting responses back from them. Like there's a deadline approaching and you haven't heard anything. You can't get in touch with them. Be very careful about what you consider to be irreconcilable differences.Rekka: 36:54 We're talking like publishing war crimes.Kaelyn: 36:56 Yeah, pretty much. We're talking about like anything that is potentially a violation of the contract is kind of the thing. But if that happens, you do need to consider, "okay, what do I do here?" And if you have an agent, the first thing you do is go to your agent. If you don't have an agent, then you got to take steps beyond that. You're not. If you just end up in a bad relationship with your publisher – or your editor, excuse me – you're not in a completely helpless position, but again, this is like we're talking again like use, "does this viol– potentially violate the contract" or "is this putting me in a position where I'm going to end up violating the contract?" That should be like –Rekka: 37:41 The number one concern because that's the piece of paper you signed.Kaelyn: 37:44 Because if you go to the publisher and you're like, "Well they're making the change this sentence, and I like that sentence the way it is." That's not a good thing to do.Rekka: 37:56 "Are we seriously having this conversation?"Kaelyn: 37:58 Yeah, and this is like I said, this is not, you know, it was a little hesitant to bring this up because I don't want to put ideas in anyone's head about this, but I do want to put out there that, you know, like you could be in a position where that happens.Rekka: 38:12 Yeah.Kaelyn: 38:12 I'm not saying that never happens because of course it does.Rekka: 38:15 But it's not the default.Kaelyn: 38:18 No, no. I don't think it is. Do you? I mean...Rekka: 38:21 Nothing I've seen. Everyone I know loves their editor.Kaelyn: 38:27 Good. We're very lovable. As I say, like a robot: "We are very lovable creatures."Rekka: 38:34 "Be Convinced." [laughter]Kaelyn: 38:36 Um, yeah, so I won't say there's never a situation in which you are going to have a major problem with an editor. They, they happen, they are rare, few, and far between because people that don't care about these books...Rekka: 38:51 Don't last long.Kaelyn: 38:52 Don't – stop working on them, because I mean, can you imagine if you didn't like this?Rekka: 38:59 it's a lot of work for something you don't like.Kaelyn: 39:01 Yeah. It would be torture. [laughter] So it's just something you know to keep in mind that the person you're working with. We wouldn't be doing this if they did an enjoy it.Rekka: 39:13 and chances are the suggestion, even if you don't agree with a proposed solution, the suggestion is valid and the problem area they're identifying is, is something that you need to take another look at anyway.Kaelyn: 39:27 Yeah. I mean, I always use an example of, um, there was a book, there was a manuscript I was reading and I read it and I came back with a note that I was like, look, this is a huge problem. Um, it was a sensitivity issue and it was like, this is like, "You gotta fix this." And I got back from the author, "Well that's not what is happening in that scene." And my response to that was, "Okay, good. Second, I read it and I didn't know that."Rekka: 39:56 Yeah. So we need to address what you're communicating in that scene.Kaelyn: 40:00 "First. Great. I'm really glad to hear that."Rekka: 40:04 "You cannot understand how relieved I am."Kaelyn: 40:06 Yes. "Second, let's make sure that no one else ever possibly thinks that because I read it a few times and I'm going, uhhhhhhh," so yeah. Um, yeah, as we said like, if an editor comes back to you with something, even if it's not, um, you know exactly what you're thinking needs to be changed, but they're bringing it up, is valid.Rekka: 40:31 But I can't tell you how many times I get comments from an editor and I go, "THAT's what was wrong with it! Oh my god! That is what I needed, someone to tell me."Kaelyn: 40:45 It's an outside fresh set of eyes.Rekka: 40:47 But it's, it, and trained eyes.Kaelyn: 40:49 Yes.Rekka: 40:49 And that is so key and so important and it's not just a trumped up proofreader, you know? And it's not just somebody who's pushing whatever the trends are on the market that the publishers trying to follow.Kaelyn: 41:04 They don't have an agenda.Rekka: 41:05 Their agenda is to make your book as good as possible.Kaelyn: 41:09 Sometimes there's a thing you just can't quite put your finger on, you're like –Rekka: 41:13 ALL the time there's a thing you can't just put your finger on.Kaelyn: 41:15 – I know there's something here and –Rekka: 41:16 It's like, "I love this scene but I know I'm doing it wrong or I know it could be stronger." Or like, "I just read through my book and like there's this part that's like, all these things are important but it's not coming together." And your editor sees that. And probably without even knowing that it's torturing you, can say like, "Hey, just so I know, I noticed in this scene like [plot] and like what if you bring that thing that happens later and you combine those scenes," and then all of a sudden the book is more clear, it's more succinct, things are connecting and like, you know, rockets are going off and lightning is striking.Kaelyn: 41:54 Yeah. It's a nice feeling when it's nice feeling.Rekka: 41:57 [whispers] so nice!Kaelyn: 41:57 It's a nice feeling on the editor side when things come together and like you get a draft back and you're like, "Yes! Nailed it! Kick ass author, this book's gonna rock!Rekka: 42:06 Play The A-Team theme right here.Kaelyn: 42:08 Get up, do a little dance. And I'm like, this is the thing that I get just as excited about this when I get a draft back and I'm like, okay, I want to see what they did this thing. And I'm just like [whispers] "Nailed it! Awesome!" [laughter]Rekka: 42:18 I have comments in my, um, and one of my recent drafts, as all caps. "YESSS!!!!!!!!!" With multiple Ss and many many exclamations points.Kaelyn: 42:29 [laughter] I have sent stuff back to authors that was like, "You kicked this punk ass paragraph's ass back to–" just incoherent.Rekka: 42:38 So happy.Kaelyn: 42:39 "Nailed this! Totally nailed it. Go get a beer, do celebration dance! You earned it!"Rekka: 42:45 So don't ever let anyone tell you that the publisher's editor does not care about your book.Kaelyn: 42:49 Oh God, I get, I get so worked up about this stuff. I think I scare people sometimes. [laughter]Rekka: 42:54 Trust me, you cannot yell loud enough for your author.Kaelyn: 42:58 [laughter] "You kicked this paragraph's ass showed it who's boss. It's over there in the corner crying about how good it is right now."Rekka: 43:05 "It just can't take how awesome it is."Kaelyn: 43:07 Yeah.Rekka: 43:07 All right, well, we are about out of time...Kaelyn: 43:08 We are?Rekka: 43:12 I think we like... Like, we covered a lot. And I looked at the time and I was surprised to see that we were already at the target length and we were going for, I was thinking like, "oh, what else are we going to talk about?" I'm like, no, but I think that is.Kaelyn: 43:22 Yeah, I mean, so this was a little bit, we wanted to do a little bit more of a free form...Rekka: 43:28 Touchy feely.Kaelyn: 43:29 We still love everyone even though we just kind of like did a litany of...Rekka: 43:34 Well yeah. And, and so this is a pacing issue. [laughter]Kaelyn: 43:40 The whole point is, at the end of this, both parties –Rekka: 43:44 –want a book they'll love–Kaelyn: 43:44 –love this book and are excited about it and would not be working on it if they weren't. So trust your editors, writers, and editors, trust your writers.Rekka: 43:55 Yes.Kaelyn: 43:56 And love each other and you know, write good books together.Rekka: 44:00 And set healthy boundaries.Kaelyn: 44:01 And set healthy boundaries. Um, so yeah, that's a, that's the episode. Um, This is the end of our, you know, initial batch of rel–Rekka: 44:10 Launch.Kaelyn: 44:10 Yeah, Launch, that's the word, right?Rekka: 44:11 Yeah you'd think the editor would know the term "launch."Kaelyn: 44:14 Okay, I–you get. You get one of those every episode.Rekka: 44:17 [cackles] I enjoyed that one.Kaelyn: 44:17 You get to throw– you get to throw "God, you're an editor" once. I will give you one an episode. Um, so yeah, this is the end of our launch episodes. Um, we hope you enjoyed them. We really enjoyed doing them. Um, but there's going to be more like this to come. This one was like a said a little more free form then we're going to be doing. But we both were kind of like, "oh that was, that was a lot of listing things."Rekka: 44:44 We put a lot into planning these out so that we could make sure that we addressed everything. And obviously those first two episodes about, um, before acquisition and after acquisition, there was a lot that we wanted to make sure that we covered and didn't forget anything. So we had to really plan those episodes out before we got started.Kaelyn: 45:02 So there will be, you know, coming somewhere a little more balanced between those. This one was a little, like, "What's a good way to round this out? Okay. Let's talk about writers and editors and publishers."Rekka: 45:15 Well, it was more of a like, "Okay," you said to me, "Rekka, what did you want to ask?"Kaelyn: 45:24 [laughter]Rekka: 45:24 And my question was, "What are your intentions toward my book?"Kaelyn: 45:28 [laughter]Rekka: 45:29 But with all the gravitas and um, and like threat and–Kaelyn: 45:33 Of a father with a shotgun in Oklahoma.Rekka: 45:33 – Ominous portent. So we wanted to make sure that like, yeah, we are going to address the things that you're asking about. We're going to address the things that you're worried about, that you're unsure about. So this is the, this episode represents the promise that we intend to fulfill. That you're going to find out these things that you don't feel like you can ask.Kaelyn: 46:00 Yeah. And you know, no question is off limits.Rekka: 46:04 Yeah. Um, we might, we might be tip-toeing around the way we answer it because you know, we are trying to maintain a level of professionality and we know that maybe you want us to go on a screaming, cursing rant about something.Kaelyn: 46:16 I mean I will occasionally if it's a –Rekka: 46:17 We are capable of it.Kaelyn: 46:18 Really good paragraph.Rekka: 46:21 Yes. Thank you. And um, but like, do ask us, don't be afraid to ask us. Like we said, you can direct message WMBcast on Twitter if you want to be anonymous. Like we are happy to, to hold your anonymity and um, you know, there's Patreon, you can ask there if you just want it slightly more private, on a comment.Kaelyn: 46:44 You can email us.Rekka: 46:44 Or you can email us feedback@wmbcast.com and that's the most super anonymous way to get in touch with us and a long form question, if you're really not even sure how you want to phrase it.Kaelyn: 46:59 So we really want to hear from everyone.Rekka: 47:01 We absolutely welcome your questions, your comments, your anecdotes.Kaelyn: 47:05 Concerns.Rekka: 47:05 Um, and if you could, if you're just reacting on like a thank you so much level, we would love a review and a rating on iTunes.Kaelyn: 47:13 Go do it on iTunesRekka: 47:14 Please make sure you're subscribed so that you get our future episodes and um, follow us on Twitter. You can find WMBcast on Twitter and Instagram. You can find our individual profiles and you can just interact with us. Let us know what, what nerves we're hitting here and um, what else is on your mind.Kaelyn: 47:34 Yeah, I know we keep saying this, but we really envision this as: we want to be, want to have any engaging conversation with the people that listen to this.Rekka: 47:42 Absolutely.Kaelyn: 47:44 You know, so hopefully, we're gonna have some listeners who want to know some things and want to interact with us.Rekka: 47:49 And in the future, if you leave a rating or review or a question, we will probably read it out loud on the air.Kaelyn: 47:54 Yeah, we'll shout it out on here.Rekka: 47:56 Obviously this is launch day, so we don't have any of those yet, but we will get to a point where we do.Kaelyn: 48:00 No, but you know, I mean hit us on the socials and the keep in touch. We really, really want to hear from you.Rekka: 48:05 And we hope that you know, this is a super valuable resource that you come back to again and again.Kaelyn: 48:11 Yeah, and I promise after this we'll stop ram– every episode we're going to cut down the rambling at the end a little bit.Rekka: 48:17 Maybe a touch.Kaelyn: 48:18 Maybe a touch, eventually.Rekka: 48:21 Someday.Kaelyn: 48:21 Yeah. It's a wave beating against a rock.Rekka: 48:24 Wear us down.Kaelyn: 48:24 Yes.Rekka: 48:25 Eventually we will run right up against the start of the game of Thrones episode that we're recording up until. Then, it would just be like, okay, we're done. Put down some questions.Kaelyn: 48:32 Okay. All right. Thanks everyone so much for listening andRekka: 48:37 we'll talk to you in two weeks.Kaelyn: 48:38 Yeah. Two weeks.Piano: 48:39 [music]  

Protein is important for everyone’s diet. But are you getting enough plant-based protein? Here is a quick take on why plant-based protein could be your new best friend and where to find it, from Host Mary Purdy, RD. MENTIONED ON THE SHOW: What is a plant-based protein? Why should I care about plant-based proteins? Nutritional benefits Environmental benefits How do I take advantage of plant-based proteins? The vast array of options out there Meal options—breakfast, lunch, and dinner   "Love, Food” - Podcast from dietitian Julie Dillon  juliedillonrd.com   NEXT TIME It’s that time of year when some of us start thinking about our resolutions for the new year. And some of us will be making resolutions around our health. Join us next time for a special rebroadcast of our episode: “2 Days to a New You.” Even if you’re not looking to jumpstart your health, you’re bound to pick up some helpful, heathy tips. ABOUT THE SHOW Mary Purdy, MS, RDN, dishes out easy-to-digest info, tips, and advice about nutrition & lifestyle, backed by over 10 years of clinical experience and a healthy sense of humor.  iTunes Please Subscribe, Rate, and Review on Podcasts App (or iTunes) https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/marys-nutrition-show/id1245983321   ABOUT MARY Mary Purdy is a Registered Dietitian with a Masters in Clinical Nutrition from Bastyr University. Past experience: • Private practice (8 yrs) • Adjunct professor at Bastyr University • Clinical Supervisor at Bastyr Center for Natural Health. Mary currently works as a Registered Dietitian Coach at the Scientific Wellness company, Arivale. Mary takes an integrative/holistic approach to diet, health & wellness and believes that food is medicine!   Mary’s Nutrition Show is on Amazon’s Alexa You can say: “Alexa — enable Mary’s Nutrition Show.” https://www.amazon.com/Wizzard-Media-Marys-Nutrition-Show/dp/B07BSW4JQ8/   Mary has a new website! http://marypurdy.co/   Mary’s (free) Quick Start Guide to Nutrition http://marypurdy.co/quick-start-guide-sign-up/   MARY’S NEW BOOK:  http://marypurdy.co/book/ MARY’S VIDEOS:  https://www.youtube.com/marypurdy   DISCLAIMER This podcast is intended for entertainment purposes only. Please consult your doctor before following any information you hear here. The opinions expressed here are those exclusively of Mary Purdy, the Show’s producers, and guests, and do not necessarily represent the views of Arivale, Bastyr, Dietitians in Integrative and Functional Medicine, or other entities.

Have you ever been made to feel like you are to blame for a medical condition like diabetes, PCOS, high blood pressure or gestational diabetes? More specifically, have you been told that your body size has caused you to experience a particular condition? If so, you are not alone. Listen along as Julie Dillon helps unpack the unfair stereotypes often associated with being in a higher weight body. Episode's Key Points: The label of "obesity" as a disease is problematic. Being at a higher weight is unfairly associated with many stigmas and misconceptions. For example, anorexia nervosa at a higher weight is actually the most common way to experience it. Weight is just one anthropometric measurement like blood pressure, temperature, etc. It doesn't mean it causes any condition/disease but rather could indicate that we need to dig deeper for a root issue. No one is to blame for their body size nor is one's body size something to feel shame about. Simply being alive means we are valuable and worthy. Intuitive eating can be utilized by everyone, no matter their body size or any conditions they may be experiencing. Show Notes: Julie Dillon RD blog Link to subscribe to the weekly FREE Food Peace™ Newsletter. It is sent out every Tuesday morning. By signing up, I will also send you Love Food's Food Peace™ Syllabus. Megrette Fletcher, registered dietitian and diabetes educator's website and interview on the Love, Food podcast ->This week's Food Peace Syllabus additon #1 Julie Dillon's PCOS and Food Peace podcast--Chapter 2-->This week's Food Peace Syllabus addition #2 Eating Disorder Dietitians can help your Food Peace™ journey. Get access to one near you here. Do you have a complicated relationship with food? I want to help! Send your Dear Food letter to LoveFoodPodcast@gmail.com.  Click here to leave me a review in iTunes and subscribe. This type of kindness helps the show continue! Thank you for listening to the Love, Food series.

Julie Dillon’s focus is on helping her clients develop a more intuitive and joyful relationship with food. She is a passionate proponent of the non-diet movement. In response to her clients’ fears that without dieting they will be “giving up”, she responds, “It’s not letting yourself go, it’s letting yourself be.” Julie blogs, podcasts and presents widely on intuitive eating, self-compassion, and confronting fat phobia. You can find out more at JulieDillonRD.com. Find out more about the Zestful Aging Podcast at NicoleChristina.com. You can become a patron of the Show at Patreon.com.

How many times have you read about someone curing their diabetes or PCOS with food? Feel frustrated you can't too?? Listen to latest Love Food Podcast episode for ways to move forward while healing your relationship with food and your body. Subscribe and leave a review here in just seconds. This episode is brought to you by my online course, Your Step-by-Step Guide to PCOS and Food Peace™. Enrollment is now open! You CAN make peace with food even with PCOS and I want to show you how. Check out the whole Love, Food Podcast store here. All T-Shirt designs have at least one with size range options from XS to 5X. All proceeds go to funding this labor of love to keep it as a free resource for you. Product links may be affiliate. If you click and make a purchase, there's no extra cost to you. The transcribed episode can be found here. Episode's Key Points: Do you have a long history of dieting in your efforts to control or cure a medical condition or to just feel like you fit in within our society? Many of the medical conditions we experience are blamed on ourselves. You are not to blame! Food is not to blame! These conditions are often genetically-based and incurable. The "Shoulds" imposed on us by society lead to guilt, shame, and distrusting our innate wisdom that we all have for identifying our body's needs Diet seduction/"Should Eat Fantasy Compliance" is commonly experienced upon embarking on a new diet as we feel like we are moving towards meeting societal body standards. However, this distracts us from the destructive nature of dieting. Research shows that diets do not work long-term and they predict weight gain and exacerbate many of the markers of medical conditions. So, why do diets continue to be sought out? Fat Phobia, White Supremacy, and Misogyny. We want to feel accepted, safe, and at home in our own skin. This is completely understandable. However, we don't need to be fixed and our bodies don't need to be fixed. Rather, society needs to be fixed. Connecting with fat activists is an important step in dismantling the "Should Eat Fantasy Compliance" and fat phobia. Show Notes: Julie Dillon RD blog Link to subscribe to the weekly FREE Food Peace™ Newsletter. It is sent out every Tuesday morning. By signing up, I will also send you Love Food's Food Peace™ Syllabus. Meredith Noble Instagram ---> This week's Food Peace Syllabus addition #1 Julie Dillon and Kimberly Singh blog posts---> This week's Food Peace Syllabus addition #2 Eating Disorder Dietitians can help your Food Peace™ journey. Get access to one near you here. Do you have a complicated relationship with food? I want to help! Send your Dear Food letter to LoveFoodPodcast@gmail.com.  Click here to leave me a review in iTunes and subscribe. This type of kindness helps the show continue! Thank you for listening to the Love, Food series.

# Fleeting Podcast 002 | Julie Dillon - Through Time (Single, December 2017) • Fleeting's 2nd release, a single by San Francisco-based singer/songwriter Julie Dillon • The song is a tribute to the great Joni Mitchell, a big influence for Julie. In our chat she shared her experiences moving to SF in the 90s • This short episode ends with the song itself ("Through Time")

THURSDAY 6PM ET 347-826-9170 Trucker Health at GATS- Rig without Cigs-MATS2GATS-GutHealth Once against the Great American Trucking Show, #GATS, focuses on "the driver". A key element of the focus continues to be truck driver health.  Along with the well know Health Pavilion which offer free screenings and mammograms for drivers, comes an emphasis to aid drivers with many of their health issues and difficulties, including, smoking, weight, physical fitness, emotional wellbeing, and the all-around importance of Gut Health. Our first of 3 guests tonight is Julie Dillon, Communication and Wellness Manager at St. Christopher Truckers Relief Fund /  This year Julie brings to drivers the "Rigs Without Cigs" program offered to drivers and their families to help them kick the nicotine habit. So many drivers need help from the habit and addiction and St Chris is offering all kinds of help to them! Pre-registration begins August 1st. - register online at  Rigs without Cigs Registration. Tom Kyrk of Road Tested Living is the Chairman of the MATS2GATS fitness challenge this year and will also be on stage at the Health Pavilion performing his popular cooking demos. Carolyn O'Byrne of LifeCoachService.net makes her 3rd appearance. Carolyn is truckings' Live Coach and is the author of “Gut Instinct”. Carolyn will be unveiling “Gut Instinct” on Audio CD at GATS 2017. She'll also be presenting at the Health Pavilion Julie, Tom and Carolyn continue to be a driving force at GATS when it comes to Truck Driver Health.

St Chris Driven to be Healthy Challenge 2 at GATS Thursday June 16th  6PM ET 347-826-9170 Once again Julie Dillon and the St Christopher Truckers Fund puts Trucker to the forefront as they bring the St. Christopher Fund 2nd Annual Driven to be Healthy Challenge. This is a 6-month challenge for ALL current CDL holders with 2 categories for both monthly and overall winners! Registration will start on July 1st. The challenge kicks off at GATS (you do not have to be present) on August 25th in the GATS  HealthPavilion. You may register at the Driven To Be Healthy Page on truckersfund.org. Anyone preregistered for the health challenge will be automatically entered to win a SCF Blue Tiger headset to be given away at GATS! The 2 grand prize winners will win a 3 day, 2 night trip! One of the trips is to Las Vegas and the other is a fishing trip in Minnesota! So, If you are a current CDL holder, join us for the St. Christopher Fund 2nd Annual Driven to be Healthy Challenge. This is a 6-month challenge for ALL current CDL holders with 2 categories for both monthly and overall winners. The challenge runs August 29, 2016 February 2017 . We will be kicking off the challenge at GATS in August. The categories are Greatest % of Weight Loss and Most Active Minutes Walking/Running. You can join in at any time!  After registering, please join our Driven to be Healthy  Facebook group to get weekly tips, see winners, and get up-to-date information.  If you have any questions, please contact Julie Dillon at julie@truckersfund.org.  

I recently received this question from a listener: "I have really been enjoying the change of thought from good food and bad food to just food.  I'm just wondering how to start good habits with my 8 year old daughter now without it being too 'strict'" -Nancy In this episode, I talk to Juile Dillon, a 'weight neutral' registered dietitian and food behavior expert who helps her clients enjoy eating again.  She's also the host of the Love Food Podcast.  Julie says "You can raise a healthy eating adult, or you can have your child be a healthy eater today.  But you can't have both".   Using her own specialized method of nutrition counseling, Julie Dillon considers the specific needs, unique lifestyles and health concerns of her clients. She then customizes a comprehensive program that best addresses their eating difficulties.  Julie's clients enjoy a positive, nurturing and goal-focused environment where they find invaluable resources to heal their relationship with food and enjoy the benefits of healthy eating. In this episode we talk about:     How to foster a positive body image in your kids     Which 'food rules' to follow when feeding kids     Your real job as a parent when it comes to feeding your children

Audio from the 2016 Campus Ministry United Workshop held as part of the Tulsa Workshop in Tulsa, OK. For more like this visit campusministryunited.com

Thursday March 9th 2016   347-826-9170 How to Defeat Challenges and Celebrate Victory for Better Trucker Health More than most other professions, OTR drivers face numerous obstacles when it comes to maintaining a healthy lifestyle. Their Irregular schedules, long hours, lack of physical activity, stress, and limited access to healthy foods on the road, make healthy living a challenge … to say the least! This lifestyle, as well as this difficult nature of the their profession, has led to many health risks, including heart disease, high blood pressure, obesity, diabetes, fatigue. Tonight however we celebrate victory for professional drivers who are seeking better health.  Drivers are a witness that, no matter how big the challenge or how many obstacles, “where there is a will there is a way” Join us and our guest Julie Dillon of the St Christopher Truckers Fund as she and drivers share the victories of OTR truckers who completed the six month long “Driven to be Healthy" challenge created by the St Chris Fund.  Calling in will be drivers who entered and completed the challenge and who are now quickly becoming an inspiration to other drivers Join us as we hear how these truckers overcame the many obstacles of OTR trucking, and have not only lost weight, but have significantly increased their daily activity!  Drivers, YES YOU CAN! Call in # 347-826-9170 press “1” on your keypad to join in the conversation

Join us Saturday 8/8/15 6PM ET as we unveil some of the best highlights going on at the Great American Trucking Show going on in Dallas Texas Aug 27-29 at the Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center. This years Truck Show displays much of its focus where it should be, around the professional driver! Here are few of our scheduled guests who will be calling in to share their highlights with us; Rick Ash, chairman of the Trucking Solutions Group (TSG), who leads the charge over at the Landstar Fit for the Road Health Pavilion. Listen to the details of the FREE Health Screening offered to drivers.  Read more   Also scheduled from TSG is Linda Caffee, owner operator with Landstar, and Les Willis, Owner of God Speed Expeditors. Tom Kyrk, founder of Road Tested Living will also share his extensive involvement. We are thrilled to also have on the show this year, Julie Dillon, of The Saint Christopher Fund who will discuss the “Driven to be Healthy Challenge” This is a 6-month challenge with 2 categories for both monthly and overall winners. The challenge runs August 27 – February 27 and it will all begin at #GATS. If you’re directly involved with GATS this year and would like to share your participation details with us, we invite you to join in on the conversation. 347-826-9170