Ghostwriter Charlee Hoffman joins us to discuss her career in publishing, from her days working at New York literary agencies to her current gig ghostwriting in the self publishing world. We talk about the value of story, the enduring value of the book, niche marketing lessons that traditional publishing can take from self-publishing, and rambunctious ginger cats. Also, Emily and Corinne read Jeff Bezos's embarrassing text messages.

I mean, I don't want him to love me with his eyes.

I mean, of all the things, I want him to love me with

Porsches. Yes, yes, yes, yes. I know what you like, and it's

Porsches

Sure. I mean, I'm, I'm,

you're Italian. Come on and yes, they are. They're Italian, yeah,

yeah. Why they called Porsche? I don't know. Oh, God, I hope I'm

right. Now I'm saying this, and I'm like, maybe I'm wrong, but

I'm pretty sure they're Italian. I think they are. I mean, we'll

look it up, but I'm pretty sure I'm right. I'm almost positive,

if you're wrong, This is our colder okay, you

foreign Welcome to the hybrid club scouts podcast with me.

Emily einerlander

and me. Corinne kalafty,

hello, hello. We're mapping the frontier

between traditional and indie publishing. And yes, this is my

voice. Today I had colds, yep, the desperate cold, yes, the

same one everyone else has right now. Yeah, exactly, yeah. But in

my iteration, it means I completely lose my voice, uh huh

at the end, but I feel great,

yeah, but she sure does sound sexy, doesn't she? Yeah?

So sexy, yep, yep. You know. You know who else

is sexy, not the person we're about to talk about. We have a

great interview coming up with a traditional publishing Pro

turned indie ghostwriter. But first, we would be remiss if we

didn't refer to the amazing drama that's going on with the

founder of amazon.com indeed, we would be Mr. Jeff Bezos. So

yeah, why don't, why don't you start us off?

Oh, all right story. Well, I mean, unless you've been

hiding under a rock this week, you know that Mackenzie and Jeff

Bezos announced their divorce in tweet form on Wednesday morning.

JPEG, yeah, exactly, yeah. So that was kind of weird, but, I

mean, not really, I guess it's not really that weird,

considering we're in it. We're in a tweet kind of generation

these days.

Well, yeah. And it also, a lot of the

comments were like, Oh, he's married, yeah. That's yeah, I

do. But like, a lot of people apparently did it, yeah, yeah.

And there was a great like the the tweet responses were amazing

because there was one that was like, all it said was hashtag,

pick me, daddy challenge. There was another one that was like,

Alexa install Tinder. Then the first one was, Who fucking cares

pay your workers a decent wage. You Gargoyle, which, when I

think about it,

yeah, he kind of looks like a car. He totally looks

like a gargoyle, or like an ogre, or something a small,

small, but

not small.

No, apparently not. Oh, God.

Do you want to read this article dropped from

Yeah, inquire. I would be happy to that same afternoon.

So this is from the National Enquirer, which is, you

know, the most reputable, reputable publication I can

think of all the best breaking all the best breaking news.

Okay, here goes. The marriage of the world's richest couple is

set to explode. It all out war after billionaire Jeff Bezos was

caught cheating on his wife of 25 years with the spouse of a

Hollywood mogul. Whoa, yeah. The National Enquirer can reveal

that for the past eight months, the hot blooded founder of

Online retail giant Amazon has two timed novelist wife,

Mackenzie Bezos with busty beauty Lauren Sanchez, whose

husband, Patrick Whitesell, is one of Hollywood's most powerful

talent agents. Bezos, a self described family man, has been

whisking his mistress off to exotic destinations on his $65

million private jet, sending her raunchy messages and erotic

selfies, including one steamy picture too explicit to print

here, and having secret rendezvous at palatial private

estates.

Can I practice my National Enquirer voice to

read some more? Okay, yes. During a blockbuster four month

investigation, the inquirer tracked Bezos, who turns 55 on

January 12. Oh, happy birthday.

Who turns 55 on January 12 and secret lover, Sanchez, across

five states and 40,000 miles, tailed them in private jets,

swanky limos, helicopter rides. Ro. Romantic hikes, five star

hotel hideaways, intimate dinner dates and quote, unquote,

quality time and hidden love nests. Our reporters snapped the

braggadocious billionaire and his Raven haired lover, 49 doing

the dirty on their spouses together, no fear than six times

in 14 days. Wow. On one occasion, they even enjoyed a

secret tryst at the very Boston, Massachusetts Hotel The Bezos

family stayed in when in town for Parents Day at his son's MIT

campus. Keep going. Okay, I need a break.

Okay. It is the real reason why Bezos, one of the

world's most powerful men, took to Twitter on Wednesday to

announce his shock divorce. We wanted to make people aware of a

development in our lives as our family and close friends know,

after a long period of loving exploration and trial

separation, we have decided to divorce and continue our shared

lives as friends, lives as friends. The tweet said we've

had such a great life together as a married couple, and we also

see wonderful futures ahead as parents, friends, partners and

ventures and projects and as individuals pursuing ventures

and adventures. The Inquirer also has learned that the

innocent spouses were recently made aware of the fling for more

shocking photos of the pair and all the details about the

largest investigation in Inquirer history, pick up a copy

of a special edition of the magazine, blah, blah, blah,

which we tried to do. And, yeah, it's all lies. We can't find it,

yeah, so that's too bad they had, like, an old one, or unless

they all got grabbed up already. Oh, maybe everybody's

interested, I don't know. Maybe, yeah.

Also, this is the first time I've ever been to

the National Enquirer website. Yeah, and they still have in

their menu bar just the heading, OJ, Simpson still. Anyway. So,

Lauren, Mrs. Lauren. Beauty in question, the Raven haired

lover, yes, um, she sent all of his text messages to her friend.

Oh, and not because at first I was like, Oh well, maybe she was

trying to stir up trouble. Then it's like, oh no, yeah, she

wasn't. No, she thought that was a good idea.

Yeah, oh, Lauren. Source

is close to the investigation. This is a

page six article, by the way, sources close to the

investigation say Sanchez sent the text to a friend to show off

about her relationship with the world's richest man, and then

the palace lipped the text to the Inquirer, wow, friend, yep,

Lauren's over the moon about their relationship, said a

source, meanwhile, a source who has been who has seen the

raunchier text messages, which the tabloid didn't publish, but

that include explicit selfies, says Bezos has more to boast

About than his bank account. Oh, god, he's big. Says yeah, big,

real, big. The biggest.

Oh, my God. Well, do you want to read some examples

of his text messages?

Well, we do have wine, so I say you do one.

I do why we drink in between?

Okay, I'll do this is rough. This is, yeah, this is

gonna take a lot.

Well, I mean, it's partly rough because, like,

I don't know. I don't know. Just yeah, the whole thing's

terrible. Okay, normally, I wouldn't do this, but I'll tell

you why I am afterward, if you haven't already guessed,

yes, I mean, I think it's pretty obvious. Okay, oh,

the first one I which I think is the most famous one by now, for

good reason. I love you alive, girl. I will show you with my

body and my lips and my eyes very soon.

Did you see that tweet? I retweeted that was

like, everybody's making fun of Jeff Bezos for calling her a

live girl, but if you said dead girl, you wouldn't like it

either. So what do you people want? It's a good point. Okay,

my turn.

Oh, this one's really

okay,

like, red sugar. She is, yeah, she is unable to read.

I want to smell you. I want to breathe you

in. I want to hold you tight. I want to kiss your lips. I love

you. I am in love with you.

Okay, so the next one goes, I miss you. I want to kiss

you right now and tuck you in slowly and gently, I don't know.

And maybe in the morning, wake you up and not be quite so

gentle with you. That's disgusting. That's the first

time I've read that one that's disgusting.

Oh, my God, your energy and ideas and

competence and spirit. That's no caps. I. Turn me on. You make me

better. You're meant for me. Oh, my God, please make him better.

What if she does?

Maybe she would, if he, like isn't turned into a

socialist. Now we don't know. What if

he just, like gives everybody all of his

money, and like stops treating people like animals? Yeah, it

could happen. Maybe she is the the key she might be or strange

things to people. Maybe when Mackenzie gets half of she's

going to fix it.

Maybe I wouldn't put it past her. Okay, your turn. Okay.

I am so full of love for you. My heart is growing, just so it can

have room for you. It's bigger than it's ever been and still

swelling. Also sounds like it might not be about as hard

entirely, but sorry, I'm sorry. I just, I feel like that was

like an obvious also,

is he the Grinch he might be? I think he

is. Yeah, he's stealing all the children's toys. I want to hold

you tight. I want to kiss your lips. I love you. Wait, no, that

was one. Oh, that means I have to read the last one, yeah, oh,

well, okay, this is for you. Corinne, thank you so much. You

know what I want. I want to get a little drunk with you tonight,

not falling down, just a little drunk. I want to talk to you and

plan with you, listen and laugh. I basically want to be with you

then I want to fall asleep with you and wake up tomorrow and

read the paper with you and have coffee with you.

Oh, great. Okay, who is he having you?

Oh, I mean, to be fair, like, I've sent

terrible, terrible text messages,

yeah, so is everybody like, yeah, I don't know. I feel

like

he is in love with her. I think that's the

most uncomfortable part. If it were just filthy, like sex text

messages to his mistress, it would be like, right, right, but

it's like, oh, this is uncomfortable, yeah. It really

is shit, yeah.

There's like, a weird human element at play here, and

he is not really known to be human.

He's not allowed. Oh, speaking of which,

yes, all right, so if I know we sound like we're being total

jerks about about Jeff Bezos, yeah, everyone deserves to find

love. Yes, that's true. And how cruel that we would begrudge

this man his feelings, right?

Yeah, but, but fuck this guy for so many reasons,

aside from him, like, holding Do you

remember that? Like sinners in the hands of an angry God? Oh,

yeah, from like, the 1800s Yes, where he's

like, That guy's name? Yeah, yeah, John, Jonathan,

something, something, I want to say Swift, that's wrong, but it

was like three names. Oh my god, like a serial killer? Yeah,

exactly, yeah, yeah. I totally remember this.

Anyway, all of you screaming at us at home,

yeah, look it up, lady. Now you know what it is anyway. So he

was talking about, like, how God is hanging you over a fire and

you're like a spider on a spider's web, yeah, deciding

whether to throw you into the fire or not. That is Amazon,

yeah, with everyone who is, like, tangentially related to

books, related to books, or just ordering anything, or shipping

anything, or being surveilled, yeah, anything. So I don't feel

sorry for him. I never read gossip magazines. No, neither do

I. So I'm sorry, like, if you're a terrible person who, like,

ruins a bunch of people's lives. Yeah, and people die on your

watch, right? You kind of deserve to get raked over the

coals. Yeah, yeah, for whatever reason. Yeah. And here, if

that's not good enough, yeah, here's the final nail in the

coffin. All right, the biological dad of scandal hit

Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos died without ever reuniting with

his son. Page six is learned Ted Jorgensen, a bike shop owner in

Arizona, was stunned to discover Bezos was the son he last saw

when he was barely one year old, after being approached by a

writer working on the biography of the CEO. However, despite

reportingly being sent a letter by Bezos, Jorgenson died in 2015

age 70, without ever meeting his son. And a family source told

Us, Ty was just a teenager when Jeff was born, he was good and

bad, just like everybody else. But the sad part is that he

never met Jeff. After he found out he was his biological

father, he went to his grave, never having spoken to him. He

would never talk about it, but I know it was hard for him, so

that's he let this old man die, yeah, without ever meeting him,

without ever meeting why bother? Yeah, that's true. Yeah, true. I

don't know if you'd like, been a deadbeat dad and left the family

and it had been, like, a teenage pregnancy issue. I kind of be

like, I get it, yeah, totally, yeah. But otherwise, it's like,

so I ain't sorry for making fun of his stupid,

no, I don't feel like I'm sorry either. Okay, so, oh,

it's just kind of depressing, like the whole

thing is depressing too. Yeah, it is, it is. It's a sad story.

I don't really I like to, like if a, if a politician has a

scandal, kind of thing. Yeah, I'm you. Usually, like, let's

just judge them on the fact that they've, you know, murdered

millions of Iraqi civilians, right, right? Like, who cares?

Yeah? Like, let's judge them on the fact that they like, shoot

people with drones. Like, yeah, let's, let's look at their

policies and how terrible they are. Oh, they like, had sex with

this person. Great, congratulations. Yeah, but I

don't know this feels more personal to me. Yes, I maybe

it's because I'm in publishing, and that probably

has something to do with it, yeah, but I agree with

you, because I don't really usually care about this stuff

either. It's like, oh, wow, shocking. A celebrity cheated on

their spouse with another person. Like, who cares?

Well, and I also kind of still feel that

way. Yeah about it, but on the other hand, yeah, anyway, yeah

to the interview, yeah, let's do it. Okay, so we've got Charlie

Hoffman here. She's a USA Today, best selling ghost writer of

more than 25 books. After working in traditional

publishing for five years, she recently moved from New York to

Montana, and is loving the change of base. She's a full

time writer, and there's rarely a time where she doesn't have

either a cup of tea or an orange cat next to her, or both, I'm

guessing, yeah, a lot of times. Thanks for coming on, Charlie.

No problem. Thank you for having me. All right, so I guess we

should just get right to it. So what kind of work did you do in

traditional publishing, and how long did you do it?

I worked in traditional publishing for about five years.

I did mostly agency work. I did a couple of agency internships,

and then I became an assistant at an agency as well. I also did

a small editorial internship, and I worked at a lot of

bookstores. Yay, of course, but yeah, my primary experience was

in agency, working and going through the slush pile and

queries and all that good

stuff. Oh, that's fun, isn't it? Well, it

can't be. Was it mostly fiction or nonfiction, or just

everything,

mostly fiction for me, I love nonfiction, but I yeah, I

the queries for nonfiction are hard.

They are Yeah. So what brought you into the

book world?

It's kind of weird. I was actually, I went to school

for theater and drama, and then I went and I got a master's in

Dramatic Writing, and I had kind of become a book blogger. Even I

know book bloggers are kind of a taboo at this point, after the

way it's turned but I did that for a while, and in the middle

of my graduate degree, I realized that I was having more

fun online with my book friends than I was in my classes, and I

thought I was like, This is not a thing that should be

happening. So I kind of looked into publishing, and I had been

writing at that point for a while, and I really liked it,

and I applied for some internships and joined a writing

group of people who were in publishing in the city, because

I was at Long Island University. And, yeah, I had an internship

within two weeks and started doing editorial work. And then

once I graduated, I kind of just like, took a right turn and

didn't look back.

Nice. Yeah, have you written any place or

my graduate degree, I wrote a play for my thesis, which was

premiered and directed by a fellow graduate student at the

end of my tenure there, which was really fun. Do you

think you'd ever do it again?

Yeah, I really enjoy writing plays. I'm actually, in

two weeks, I'm going to Italy to collaborate with a friend of

mine on a device production of Medusa, so which is pretty cool.

But, you know, I love the the theater and stuff like that.

It's just as an actor, the internal politics weren't just

they were. It wasn't a right lifestyle for me, and I applaud

all the people who can do it, but I'm much happier now.

Yeah, no, I understood I was training to be,

was training to be a classical singer. So you know what I'm

talking about, exactly what you're talking about. Also, my

voice does this for two weeks every year. So that's not good.

You don't get hired. But, yeah, just all the the personality

clashes, it's a lot more chill with book people, isn't it?

Yeah, we've got our fair share of drama, but it's

always at least a little bit more chill,

and it's always happening to somebody at

least online, at least online, yeah? Well, yeah, that's totally

not true. What am I talking about? All right. Cool. So did

you ever have any ink like when you were like a kid, that you

wanted to work with books, or was it just a very sharp right

turn, as you referred to it?

I wrote some really angsty poetry as a young

teenager, but I never really. About writing fiction until I

did that thing with, like, when I was like 13, I had a friend

who's like, we should write a book, and, you know, we'd like,

did that thing where we kind of CO wrote a book, but it was more

just like an excuse to

hang out, like in a Mead notebook. Yeah,

I think it was actually a Mead notebook. And then in college, I

kind of turned back to that story that we had written as a

manner of stress relief, like going back and stripping it and

changing it, and I found that I really liked it, and I kind of

fell into it and just kept writing from that point on.

So do you think so you moved around a lot as a child, right?

So do you think that kind of influenced your interest in

being like a book person,

maybe yes and no. I honestly think like moving around as a

kid, I definitely in few influences your view of the

world, because as a very young person, then you you understand

from the get go how small the world in our country really is,

and it gives you a very unique perspective on life, which I

didn't value until I was much older. But I honestly think the

book person was more to do to my parents, who read to me a lot as

a kid, and like always provided literature for me to read when I

was in countries that I didn't speak the language and stuff

like that. I was homeschooled all the way through high school,

so, yeah, that contributed a

lot I see. Okay, okay, yeah, gotcha

All right. Well, that's upside down. Okay,

so you moved out of traditional publishing and into indie

publishing. Was there, was there a crossover you do, sorry, you

do ghost writing. So was there some traditional ghost writing

before the indie ghost writing? Like, how did that work out?

Well, before I transitioned into my job at the

agency I worked for, I had gotten an offer to do ghost

writing. And this is kind of like an interesting situation

where it's a publishing company, but it's kind of published

indie, so it's, it is kind of crossover. And I, when I went to

work at the agency, I knew I wasn't going to have the time.

And so I was like, you know, I don't want to do this right now.

And then, when I left that job, I knew I didn't want to

immediately move back into corporate publishing. And so I

was like, this is a really good way to kind of balance the

skills that I like. Let me give it a shot. And so I've been

doing it ever since, and it's really fun, and it's great

because the reviews don't matter.

They're not about you. Yeah. I

mean, it's actually really been really great training to look at

bad reviews and just let them roll off your back because

nobody associates it with your name. So it's, it's, it's fine,

and you can learn to laugh at it if it's ridiculous.

Well, that's good. It doesn't sound like the

repercussions are too bad, are there? Are there, like,

professional repercussions for bad reviews or

No, not really. I mean, in general, my reviews aren't

bad, but everybody gets those one stars that makes you laugh,

yeah? You know so. But just learning to moderate yourself in

looking at public opinion of your work and being able to let

that go in terms of my personal writing has been really

valuable, yeah,

what? What kind of books do you ghostwrite?

I go straight roast, mostly romance. Can't talk

today. Roast, man, that's a completely different kind of

book. No, I mostly go straight romance. And I have done a few

thrillers, okay, so are those? Tell me more

about the thrillers, just because that's a personal

interest of mine. Are they like police? Are they

the ones that I worked on were serial killer type

thrillers. Oh, fun, yeah. Do you like get into

the head of a killer?

Yeah, it was interesting. I was asked to

develop the kind of Mo for this killer, so like, diving into the

rules that he would use and kind of the justification for his

actions was really interesting. Be able to create that kind of

twisted logic and then apply it to a plot was kind of fun,

awesome. It's really fun to get in there. So I

know that there's a lot of sub genres of romance. We've talked

to many breeze come in and talk to us about it on the show. So

have you written all across multiple sub genres of romance,

or do you

mostly it's in consider the contemporary niche, but,

like, there's so many sub genres in that, and I've I would say

it's probably mostly like just pretty traditional, contemporary

but, you know, there's a few here and there. Whatever they

asked me to do, that's what I

write. You're like whatever you say, boss at

the ready, typing fingers clickety clacking, 1935, that's

right. Yeah. Yeah, okay, okay, well, you already kind of told

us why you went into the that realm rather than traditional

publishing. Were there other reasons that you would like to

talk about that you prefer to be where you are now? Is it like

less stress or

Well, I mean, I've been with the same kind of

contracting with the same company for most of my work, and

that's kind of nice, just because, you know, it's a sure

thing, but ghost training is because of the nature of it.

It's very inherently kind of hush hush. And so it's actually

harder than one would think to find those gigs. So when you

find a good one, it's nice to stick with it, because you never

know if it's there's going to be, like, if you branch out, is

there going to be another one, you know?

So it's all pretty secret, yeah.

I mean, yeah, it depends on the genre again, and it depends on

the contract, and it depends on, like, the type of ghost writing,

because you could, def technically, consider the people

that write with James Patterson as ghostwriters, and, yeah,

they're credited so and so it it depends upon the situation.

It depends on whether you're a real ghost or

not. Yeah,

clearly I am.

All right. So what overlaps Do you see between

traditional publishing and indie publishing? And so what are some

similarities and then differences that you see?

Well, I mean, the, as facetious as it sounds, the

obvious similarity is that they're just trying to get books

to people, yeah, but the, just the overall approach is so

different that I understand why there's a lot of friction

between the two communities in general, just because there's

such different mindsets. One is just very self driven, and the

other is, like, kind of what I would consider legacy, like,

this is the way we've always done it. This is the way it's

been proven to work. Let us do our thing, and then the indie

people are kind of on the cutting edge, and they're

they're always trying new things. Not that traditional

publishing doesn't try new things, but they're actively

reaching out, and, you know, they're connecting with readers

on a greater level, right? And they're pursuing their audience

instead of letting their audience find them.

So can you go into that a little bit more

about how, like one would pursue an audience?

Well, speaking to the romance market, there's

obviously within romanced all of these sub genres and tropes that

are pretty codified and based on sales. The writers in the

community kind of see what works, and they choose to create

stories that they know these people are going to like. And so

instead of, I mean, there are, there's exceptions to every

rule. So whatever I'm saying, obviously there's going to be

somebody who disagrees with this, but like, there's a lot of

Romance Writers who take their stories and they write to

market, they write what they know sells, and they kind of let

the content that they create be driven by their audience,

instead of in traditional publishing. I feel like it's

more extolled to write the book you want to write, regardless of

audience, and we'll find it for you. Both of those approaches

are valid. They're just they just take very different paths.

So how do the authors get the feedback from

the readers that show them how to write to the audience?

I think reviews are really important in that. And I

think there are a lot of romance blogs and and the Twitter sphere

and the Insta Bookstagram sphere where, and even especially,

actually in the romance community, Facebook is hugely

active. And they're these, these women who love and read romance.

They breathe it like oxygen, and they love to communicate with

their authors, and they like to tell people if they like and

they want more. So it's just, it's a very open communication

between author and reader more so I feel than a lot of other

genres,

well, that's good to have that kind I don't

know if, like traditional authors really get that kind of

feedback. Corinnes in marketing, and so I what do you think?

I think, no. You think, no, yes, my short answer and my

long answer is no, I don't think so.

Would you say? Because I see authors, even in

indie authors, as being like sometimes they're extroverts,

but a lot of time introverted people. Would you agree? Or

would you say that the online persona is different?

It takes all types, you know, and I've seen

conversations with people where, like I I am definitely an

introvert, so I understand the struggle that a lot of people.

People who are also introverts and writers need when they

present themselves on social media. But I think it doesn't

matter too much, because everybody's going to find a

strategy that works for them, you know, and they're they're

going to find their audience where they're at. If you're an

introvert, maybe that means you don't do like, Facebook Live

stuff, you know, it maybe you just do more posts that you can

schedule and not have to do a lot of face to face interaction,

maybe just more text interaction. Whereas I know

there are a lot of romance authors who'd love to do

Facebook Live and Instagram Live and like, have that real

visceral connection with their readers, because that's what

they thrive on,

right, right? They feed off of the energy,

yeah, but, like, in a good way,

they're not vampires, yeah?

Oh no, no, unless, unless the sexy kinds,

which someone, someone must still like that, right?

Oh, yeah, definitely. I think I just saw my feet. My

Facebook feed is just like, like, I swear every third post

is like an advertisement for a romance novel. And I see vampire

ads all the time. Oh, good. Yeah.

Just a little bit of nostalgia from yeah, I've

gone

by, I think vampires are coming back. I've seen a few

book deals for them lately.

Yeah, it's about time. I've seen a few

zombies, even, too. So like, I guess we're looping around, not

in romance though. God, yeah, it

would be a hard one to pull off, unless you said it on

the backdrop of zombies, or

unless it's like a comedy, like whatever,

that one with Aubrey, Aubrey Plaza.

Oh yeah, right, we'll say warm bodies.

Oh, yeah. Oh, that was a romance, though,

right? Yeah, and that was a book first, wasn't it? It was a book,

yeah? Well, there you go. It's possible, yes, if you can dream

it, you

can be, go for it.

Do follow your hearts. So what do you think

traditional publishing can learn from people who self publish,

I think, I think the the finding and distilling of

the audience is something that they can definitely use there.

I've seen in the past, when I have observed marketing and

sales tactics among big chains and stuff like that, they they

opt in favor of being the same across the board, instead of

serving individual communities and what those needs are. For

example, when I used to work at a bookstore in New York City,

and I worked on the Upper West Side, where there's a lot of

affluent people who live in that neighborhood, most of the sales

in the bookstore were nonfiction and like high end medical books

and psychology books and, you know, graphic novels, of things

of that nature. Whereas if you take a look at bookstores in the

Midwest, where people aren't necessarily as influenced by the

New York Times, you would want to see displays of like mass

market romances or genre books, but they don't do that. They

just kind of have the same displays across the board and

treat all audiences as if they're one thing, instead of

like paying attention to demographics.

Right? The right targeting for right? Yeah, they're not.

I feel like they could target better. Okay, definitely.

Yeah, that's a really good point. I

totally agree with that. And I think it's, I mean,

I think that's also just the mindset of, like, the big five

too, you know, it's like, this is the way we've always done it,

so we'll just keep doing it this way, you know. And even if it's

not really effective, it's just like, well, you know, Legacy

thing you were talking Yeah, that's exactly,

yeah, yeah. And I've seen it time and time again, where I've

interacted with certain publishers and seen what their

employees do. And like, there'll be employees who know that

things could be better, but because of the like, the

decision ladder, it doesn't get done in a way that would benefit

both the company and the book. It just gets done the way it's

always been done. So that's I think, I think there should be a

little bit more flexibility and maybe nimbleness in the

traditional publishing mindset to to take advantage of

opportunities. Book sales have been going up since 2013 like,

so like, take advantage of it. Like, ride the wave.

One of my questions was, actually, tell us everything

about your cat, because, oh, do you want to do that

now? Or do you want to do that? We could, we

could go back to the other stuff. So let's talk cat right

now.

He His name is Darcy. Full Name cat, William Darcy. He

does have an Instagram at cat, William Darcy, everybody follow

at cat. He's a rescue I got him when it was about a year old,

and like, actually, his rescue story is one of my favorite

things, because I was living in New York and I my childhood pet

had passed away about. Six months earlier. And so I was

down at my parents house visiting them in the summer, and

I was in no way planning to adopt a cat. I just decided to

go to the pet store to get some cat love time. You know how it

goes. And I walked in, and there were several cats in there, and

there was one that kind of fit, quote, unquote, the bill of what

I was looking for. She She was like a female. She was about six

months old. She was pretty gray. She had green eyes. She was very

similar to the cat that I had lost. Yeah, and then there was

this little guy, orange, rambunctious, and I'd never,

ever seen a cat try to get it the human the way he was trying

to get at me. He was reaching through the bars. He was

grabbing my hair. He was meowing. He just He wanted me.

But it was late at night, and I was like, yeah, no, maybe this

is a fluke. Maybe you just want, like you're in a cage. Maybe you

just want attention. So I came back the next morning, and there

were workers there, and I took him out of the cage, and he

wrapped his arms around my around me, put his neck into or

his face into my neck, and just hugged me. Oh. He just, he

absolutely hugged me. And my mom was there, and she, she, she

will attest to the fact. And I was just like, Okay, well, yeah,

so I took the other cat out, the gray cat, just because I was

like, I just want to see how she reacts. And she freaked out, and

it wasn't her fault. She was really young and really scared.

And I was like, Okay, well, I guess you little orange guy

here, you're coming home with me. Yeah, no, he's, he's just

the best. He's he's totally rambunctious. He's three and a

half years old, and he still acts like a kitten. And, yeah,

he's just such a people cat me and my roommate, we always joke

about the fact that he has the biggest FOMO of everybody we've

ever seen. Because if she gets up to go to the kitchen, and

then, like, for whatever reason, I had to fill my glass of water

and I go to the kitchen, he has to come to the kitchen. Yeah, he

has to be where the people are. He's Ariel. I so he's pretty

great. He's He's great. But, yeah, no, I just started the

Instagram for him about like a month ago, because I used to be

really against pet Instagrams, but I got tired of flood

flooding him his pictures on mine. So it's like you're

getting your own.

Oh, I live for pet Instagram.

I kind of draw the line at the, like, the I was seeing a

lot of pet Instagrams that just seemed really over the top,

like, just like, dressing them up and doing stuff. And I was

like, Okay, that seems like a lot of work for

that. But now I'm just, I mean, the more organic, yes,

pictures of him hanging out. So

that's good enough. He's great. All right,

so circling back to our last question regarding publishing

is, how do you view the future of publishing based on the

synthesis of both traditional and where indies going and self

publishing,

I think there is a future. I know that. So, yeah,

skeptical of that. I think the music industry went through

restructuring with the advent of digital music, and I feel like

publishing is going through that same restructuring, but in a

much slower form, and I am the last person in the world who

wants to see brick and mortar stores go down. I don't want

that to happen. I don't think it will happen with the resurgence

of independent bookstores and stuff, but it's just going to be

a lot harder. There's, you know, society treats books like

luxuries now, and that's a historic thing, based on the

fact that publishing used to be considered a almost noble

profession, and we the with the economy the way it is, it's

harder for people to spend money on stuff like books for

entertainment, especially when they're viewed as such a luxury.

So I don't know. I think, I think we're eventually gonna

come to a balance of, probably mainly digital with a limited

selection of print books. I imagine that, oh, what were they

called? A while ago, an idea was floated about, like, showroom

stores, where you go and you look at the book, and you'd

like, there's a copy of a book, but then you order the copy from

the from

the now, like with their mortgage stores,

yeah, I think that's what they do. And I think that

might be a good model for some bookstores to follow, maybe not

just Amazon. I don't know. Um, if that would keep the overhead

down, it would keep stock prices down, perhaps,

yeah, what I've been seeing on like,

Publishers Weekly, it's the stores are all closing because

of rent. Like, yeah, they're just too high,

yeah, um, and I think, I think the main concern that I

would have about the future. Future is like I competition

always benefits the consumer, so if I don't really have that's a

lie, I can't say that. I do have some beef with Amazon. I mean,

they are keeping independent publishing alive in a very

vibrant way, so I can't necessarily complain about that.

However, if Amazon becomes the monopoly in publishing and the

only major retailer to be selling books, I believe that

could create some problems, just because then they're dictating

everything. They have the ability to dictate, like whether

or not they like the cover of a book. They have the ability to

basically control the careers of authors based on how many books

they decide to purchase from the publisher. So I'm hoping for a

future where there are still enough brick and mortar

bookstores to create the competition that we need for a

lively and not

I'm thinking the word imperialist, the word that's

popping into my head,

no, like, like, so it's not a monoculture, is Oh yeah, yeah,

yeah, the word my head was monogamous, and I was like,

that's not right.

That's too positive. No.

So that the the competition will create, like, more creativity.

That's what I'm hoping for. Nobody can really predict the

future, though, so who knows?

Yeah, that's true. Well, I feel like they're

already, I mean, controlling a lot of our traditional

publishing companies, schedule and stuff like that. So I mean,

so here's a question. I know that self published authors have

a lot of control, or are completely responsible for most

of their marketing and their SEO and their choice of keywords. So

do you as a ghost writer have any responsibility for that sort

of thing, or is that done by someone else? No, that's done by

someone else, thankfully.

But even in that, there's a lot of especially for

published or self published writers, there's a lot of

bullets to dodge in terms of Terms of Service for both Amazon

and Barnes and Barnes and Noble and Facebook, especially when

you're advertising. So it's,

yeah, Bri was saying it's one of their terms

of service thing is like, don't do exactly what you would

expect,

or something like that. Yeah, I'm not, I'm not

sure. It's like, this is a this is

forbidden. This is forbidden. The things that are forbidden

are exactly what you might expect. That's what she told us.

Everyone's like, Oh, I think that

some of the problems that I've seen from self

published officers of mine is that the terms of service, or

the guidelines, rather, are very inconsistently followed. So you

can get a slap on the wrist for doing something wrong,

innovativeness, technically not something that you thought was

wrong, and then somebody else could do the same thing, and it

will be totally fine, yeah, yeah.

Well, I guess that's like probably a lot of

people doing subjective things and controlling it subjective.

I mean, and especially when you have big sites like

Amazon who are like, they're managing a massive flow of

information, and algorithms aren't perfect, right? You know?

So like, that's a source of like, I think that's going to

get better in the future. I think that if they want to have

a more detailed filtration process, they're going to have

to bring on more human bodies because there's only so much a

robot can recognize when putting guidelines up, you know? So I

think that's gonna but I'm hoping that in the near future,

we'll see a nice marriage and integration of the digital and

the print world, but in a way that's not as contentious as it

sometimes seems to

be right? Like, it doesn't have to be a

war, right? Yeah, right,

yeah, let's hope not well.

And I know that the popularity of print,

but maybe this has to do with, like, millennial 90s nostalgia

or something like that. But there's a lot of people who are

like, I only read print books now, and it kind of took a

little bit of a like, boost, not a very big one, but just a

little bit of a boost in the last couple of years. But what

I've also seen is the trade war is causing the price of paper to

rise a lot. Yeah, so I can totally see it going toward a

more digital thing, just for the reason of scarcity,

even it's an interesting thing that the price

of materials also dictates the kind of books that people want

to publish, like when the digital market happened,

people's the maximum length of books that people wanted to

query or that. Agents wanted to accept went drastically down.

You know, no longer were people expect accepting books that were

like over 100,000 words. It was like hard cap for most genres.

You do not go above that number, yeah, it's a little. I mean,

obviously there's always outliers, yeah, but yeah, it

impacts stuff like that. So if the price of paper is rising,

perhaps will compensate with shorter books, right or or maybe

instead of the traditional, always hard cover than paperback

model, perhaps we'll just go like to have more straight

paperback books, which a lot of readers would probably prefer. I

love my hardbacks, but I know plenty of people who, like,

always wait to paperback. Oh, yeah, so yeah. I mean, there's

so many different ways that it could go. Like, if you do

straight to paperback, do you give the author a little bit

more royalties? Like, what? Just where do you go? I hope that

with the potential integration of these things, that maybe

people will come to value books more and like, not think that

it's only worth 99 cents. Yeah, right, right, yeah, yeah. That's

a whole thing. I could talk forever on that social

man, I yeah, I feel because I've been doing

some editing, I've taken on some some editing clients for self

published books, and I'm just, like, this money shit, which,

like, I'm not gonna charge more than market price, obviously,

but like, yeah, it's, it's, it's that whole race to the bottom

thing. Like, people aren't paying a lot for the book, so

you can't, like, charge a lot for it's

that sense. It's the myth of the the starving artist

that is so prevalent in our society that we venerate and

honor these people who are not in a healthy place and not able

to live because they're not making money, when, in turn,

like, that's not that's not cool. I've been the starving

artist thing. It's not fun, like and I, I hope that myth goes

away.

Do it first exposure. Yeah. So fun question.

Less depressing than our our money,

making optimistic about the future of publishing? Oh,

sure, talking about

money, well, yeah, you know, isn't

everything,

right? True? Yes, well, yeah,

okay, but no, I, I'm, I'm optimistic too. I

mean, we're always gonna love books that's that's pretty much

stayed the same. I think, do you listen to any of the Book Riot

podcasts

I have occasionally not as much as I would like to.

There was

one, I think it was annotated, and I might be

getting it completely wrong, but they did that whole like, oh,

are people not reading books anymore? And they've talked

about how people have been asking that question for, like,

over 100 years every time a new technology comes out. So it's

like, oh, there's radio. Now, are people gonna stop reading

books? Oh, there's TV. Now, are people gonna stop reading books?

And it never happens. It just stays, like the people who read

books read books.

Yeah, there are very few sources of media like that

that have been so prevalent through the entire age of

humanity.

Why do you think that is?

I think it's the power of story. I think it's I saw something

online the other day that I can't attribute because I don't

remember where it came from, but it was basically like, books are

made up of scenes, and scenes are made up of words and words

and words are made up of letters. And isn't that weird

how it adds up to a movie in our head? And that's the that's the

amazing thing. I think actually, that was on ve Schwab's

Instagram, now that I think about it, and she's amazing, and

I love her, but that's the fact that you can be looking at

something on a piece of paper, and it can transport you to a

place that you've never been, right? That's an experience you

can't have with anything else,

and you get to choose what that looks like to

you. Yeah, yeah.

It's like time travel and imagination. It's just, it's

so powerful. It's like the the greatest form of escape that we

have as human beings,

yeah, yeah. And while maintaining some

control and some artistic license, I would say yeah,

because it I mean, how many times do you watch like a movie

and go? That's not how I pictured that. How dare you?

Yeah.

That's why I oftentimes, when I go to see

movies that are adaptations of books that I really like, I have

to see it twice once to, like, get my feelings out about like,

Oh, that wasn't that wasn't the way I expected. And then the

second time I go, I know what's coming and I can actually enjoy

the movie for what it is.

I think that's a really healthy way to do it.

Yeah,

it was like that with the Hunger Games movies. Even

though I think the Hunger Games movies are amazing adaptations,

but yeah, I still had to, like, go in there and unclench my

shoulders a little bit and then go and see it again and be like,

Oh, okay, this movie is actually really

good. Okay, so what are you reading right now?

Right now? I just finished the poppy warp by Rf

Kuang. I don't know. I doubt I'm pronouncing her name correctly,

and I apologize. It was a really very interesting book there.

It's not an easy book to read. It's a fantasy book, adult

fantasy. I should clarify. It's not ya, even though some people

have built it as that is very much not ya based on one of the

wars between Japan and China, and is brutal, and it's an

amazingly written and it's there's magic and fantasy and

and really cool relationships and stuff. But it is also like

an A unflinching look at the horrors of what war can look

like. And it's it was, I still kind of haven't sorted all my

feelings out about it, and now I just started the book I am, I am

I am by Maggie O'Farrell. I believe her name is. It's more

about near death experiences. So 17 near death experiences, I

believe, is how it's built, or 17 brushes with death,

wow, oh yeah, that's one of the ones that was

in the trades, right? Oh, oh, I don't

even know. I don't know. Maybe

I don't know. I feel like I've heard of it,

yeah, I feel like I've heard of it, yeah, I feel like I've heard

of it, and looked at it and went, that

looks scary. And then I just, I just bought the wicked

king by Holly Black because I it just came out yesterday, for a

couple days ago.

Okay?

Karen, yes. Oh, you want me to say what I'm reading, what I am

still reading, the road to Jonestown by Jeff Quinn, I am

also reading that. We are reading it together.

Sorry, what was the title? It's the road to

Jonestown. By Jeff Quinn, so it's a Yeah, about Jones,

yep. Oh, wow, yeah. That must be heavy.

It is. You're 150 pages.

And, yeah, yeah. I mean, he's already doing really weird

things. He's I mean, for weird, he did that weird things from

birth though. I mean, there's something about him that's like,

normal

well. And remember how I was complaining I

read the I was listening to the Parker Posey memoir, and I was

complaining about how I always think that childhood sections of

people's memoirs are kind of boring. Oh, yeah. But then I

read this one and adore literally, one of the sentences

is, and then came the animal funeral.

That's amazing and sad, but amazing. Oh, my

God. But what else are you reading? Anything

else right now? I'm still

trying to get through that Court and Spark book, but

it's written very is that the No, that's the 33 and a third,

are you three? And yeah, it's about the Joni Mitchell album of

the same name. Oh, yeah, so, but the author is, he's kind of one

of those authors who just, like, throws big words around to show

that he knows what they mean, which is very annoying to me.

Okay, yeah. So it might be slow going. But anyway, that's what

I'm reading right now. So are you reading the incendiary

still? Yes, I'm still reading that I forgot. Yes, yeah, still

in the middle of that, yeah, yeah, but I love it so far.

Yeah, yeah.

Emily, what are you reading? I'm also

reading the road to Jonestown. I'm reading I always have to

have a Kindle book going, so if I can't fall asleep, but I can't

turn the light on because my husband's sleeping. I can read

on my phone. So I started reading. Started reading the

second sex by Simone de Beauvoir, no, it's, it's 750

pages, and I'm like, it will put me to sleep, baby. Yeah. And

then the Obelisk Gate, part of the Broken Earth trilogy

I've seen. I've seen that cover, and it looks super

interesting to

me, because so NK Jemisin, as I have talked

about on the show before. The first one is the fifth season.

Second one is the Obelisk Gate. So after the fifth season, I

cried inconsolably for an hour, wow. And my husband was very

frightened, and I was pacing the room and talking about it a lot,

and, but, yeah, we went out and bought this when I finally

started again and or not again, yeah, I guess it's the same

author, right? I've heard such great things about

that series. I just I do have a tendency to stray away from the

giant books like the the big fan of these, just because I know

that they take me a while to get through. And I have so many

books that I want to read. Oh, yeah. So I gently smile, yeah.

So, I mean, it's like with the Outlander books. Or the Song of

Ice and Fire that those kind of things like, I would like, I do

want to read the fifth season. I just have to work my brain up to

it.

Sometimes it helps to get an e book, because

you trick yourself. You're like, I can't see how thick it is.

That's true.

Very true. And then you can make the text size bigger,

exactly.

I did that to myself with Jonathan strange and

Mr. Norrell. I got it on ebook, and I was like, This just keeps

going, but I'm having a great time. So good. Okay. Is there

anything else that you want to say about publishing? Any

thoughts? Closing thoughts?

I don't know. I feel like my big gun was kind of the

value of the artist, yeah, but no, I just, I think publishing

is such an interesting and strange career to have fallen

into, and I really like it and value it, and it's so it's such

a mysterious place to be. And I think that's why people are

still kind of confused about what publishers and authors and

agents do, because, you know, the in the movies and stuff,

they never get it right. But that's

Facebook is coming out tomorrow.

It's kind of like, it's just, we're in a little bubble.

Everybody knows everybody. And it's like, it's like, New York

City, it's the smallest town in the world, you know, and it's,

we've all got our own little rules and stuff, but, yeah, I

just, I'm glad that I'm here, because I enjoy it so much.

And you're in Montana. You said, yeah, yeah, I

am in months, yeah. It's not, is it snowy there right now? It is

actually

been a shockingly mild winter. I mean, it's been, it's

only my first winter living here, but I've visited before,

and it's, we've got a little bit of snow, but it's been pretty

warm. It's been like in the 30s and 40s, which is pretty warm

for this time in Montana. So, I mean,

it gets it gets there, here, so it must be

warm.

Yeah, yeah. It's pretty warm.

Is there? Oh, good. Is there anything other

than cat? William Darcy on Instagram? Is there anything you

would like to plug?

Um, you can follow my Instagram? Yeah, at Charlie,

underscore, NYC, even though I don't live there anymore. Okay,

people constantly asked me if I was going to update my three

letters if I moved and I was like, No, I lived there for a

long time. I'm going to be I'm still going

to be there own it you don't know anybody in

explanation, never apologize as Julia Child says, Okay, well,

thank you so much, Charlie for coming on our show for having

me. Yeah, and we appreciate your insights.

Thank you. Great. Oh

yeah. What a week.

Yeah. What a week. Truly, what a week. And don't forget that

tomorrow is Jeff Bezos his birthday. Yeah? So everybody

send him happy birthday wishes. I mean, it won't be tomorrow

when I put this out, but now, but it January 12, yeah, January

11, yes, right, according

he's a Capricorn. Can't say I'm

surprised.

No, I'm neither, neither surprised. Not

surprised, either.

Neither is she surprised. Yeah. So go to our

website, hybrid pub, scout.com, uh, sign up for our weekly news,

bi weekly newsletter. Yes, maybe someday we, I don't know. I

don't know Sure, someday, yeah, whole new year, 2019 Yeah,

anything could happen. It's true. So that's under, join our

troop. Just put your email address in there and you're

you're in and yeah, you get a preview of currents, bi weekly

rants, yeah, whatever the hell she

wants to talk about. Sure, it's great. It's the best

writing job I've ever had.

Yeah, yeah. She doesn't get shit for it. No, no, yeah, nope.

Exposure, exposure. I am being paid an exposure.

All right, yeah, follow us on Twitter at

hybrid pub Scout, and then Facebook. Hybrid pub Scout also,

yep, and we are on Apple podcast. Please. Rate review,

yes. Give us as many stars as possible. If you

want to give us five stars, please rate and

review us. If you don't, then you just don't, yeah, just don't

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Player FM, SoundCloud, that's it. You got anything else to

sacred?

I don't think so. I'm just excited to be reading

again. Yeah, we're all so proud. I'm very proud of myself,

frankly.

So yeah, well, thank you all for giving the rip it

back. You. You.