Hello and welcome to The Thriller Zone with Dave Temple. On today's 244th episode you're in for a real treat, as we dive into the wild side as we chat with Joel Dicker, the brilliant mind behind the pulse-pounding thriller, *Wild Animal*.

This episode is all about survival instincts and the dark corners of human nature, and trust me, it’s a ride you won't want to miss! I just wrapped up Joel's book, and let me tell you, it had me on the edge of my seat—I couldn't put it down!

We explore what makes this story tick, from its thrilling twists to the characters that feel like old friends. So grab your favorite snack, settle in, and join us for a chat that’s sure to be as captivating as Joel's writing!

Takeaways:

• In this episode of the Thriller Zone, we dive deep into survival instincts and the darker sides of human nature, revealing insights that make for an unputdownable thriller experience.
• Joel Dicker's book, Wild Animal, blurs the lines between man and beast, civilization and chaos, making it a gripping read that keeps you on the edge of your seat.
• Dave Temple shares his thoughts on the thrill of reading, emphasizing how a good book can feel like a safe space even when it explores dark themes.
• The conversation touches on the creative process of writing, highlighting how authors like Joelle navigate the challenges of storytelling while maintaining reader engagement.

Keywords: thriller podcast, Joel Dicker, Wild Animal book, survival instinct thriller, human nature in literature, character-driven stories, blurring lines between man and beast, chaos and civilization, gripping thriller novels, best books of the year, writing process for thrillers, engaging storytelling techniques, suspense and mystery, authors interviews, literary themes in thrillers, book recommendations, emotional connections in storytelling, creative writing advice, publishing industry insights, reader engagement strategies

Hello and welcome to the Thriller Zone.

I'm your host, Dave Temple, and on today's show, we are diving into the wild side, literally.

My guest is Joelle Decker, author of Wild Animal, a raw pulse pounding thriller that blurs the line between man and beast, civilization and chaos.

We're going to talk survival instinct in the dark corners of human nature that make this story impossible to put down.

And as you will quickly learn, I. I could not put it down.

Anyway, folks, stay tuned.

This one's got teeth.

Please welcome Joelle Decker on the Thriller Zone.

Nice to see you.

I'm happy to be here.

I'm sorry for the background.

That's the best that I can get you because first of all, summer school from Harper Collins told me it will be only the audio.

And so it's 6pm In Geneva, the kids are home, and so that's the only quiet place I can get.

And as it was a very late notice, she told me, no, no, it's going to be on video.

So here is my kitchen.

I hope it's.

It's lovely.

It's lovely.

Joelle.

Sorry.

No worries whatsoever.

We have a piece of tape because we have to paint this thing and they come tomorrow, so I cannot remove it.

Well, actually point the camera so we can.

That'll add a little character to the background.

You're in Switzerland.

I am.

I'm in.

I'm in Geneva.

Geneva, okay.

Yeah.

And it's nasty gray.

It's fall in Geneva.

Let's see, let's.

Let me take a peek outside our window.

Oh, it's San Diego.

It's sunny.

It's 72.

It's kind of perfect.

Yeah.

I'm moving in.

I'm coming, I'm coming.

It's so funny.

One of my favorite things to do is to sit down face to face with people who, on the show and, and they're like, why don't you come out and see me?

I'm like, where do you live?

And they're like, you know, Toledo, Kentucky.

I'm like, why don't you come to paradise where it's kind of fabulous?

I. I so agree with you.

You know, more.

And I used to be this kind of people, convinced that the Four Seasons weather was the best.

Uhhuh.

But it's not.

It's just.

Why?

What am I trying to convince myself of?

You know, I know, it just sucks.

Yeah.

It's funny.

My wife and I were heading to the gym this morning at about 5:36 o', clock, and it was, you know, it was 64 degrees.

And I'm like, this is as cold as I ever want it to be.

Oh my God.

Well, while my friends up in the mountains right now, Lake Tahoe, it's snowing like three feet.

Anyway, well, welcome to the show.

Thank you.

I'm very happy to be with you.

We're going to be talking about this book, Wild Animal.

Oh, okay.

I have to start with this and it.

And I'm getting this right, It's Joelle, right?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Okay.

Like Noel, Merry Christmas, Noel.

Or Joel if you want to do it.

The American good for you.

Whatever.

You can call me Dave, David, dt.

It's all good.

But I wanted to say out of the gate, I got this book probably a week, maybe a week and a half ago, and I just gotten back from vacation, which I'm going to share with you here in a minute.

And I didn't get a chance to sit down and read it until yesterday morning and I finished it 35 minutes ago.

My wife looked at me, she goes, oh, we've got a good one, don't we?

I'm like, I cannot put this friggin thing down.

Wow, thank you.

I'm telling you, it's so, you know, there's a phrase we use hot off the press.

And this is.

And I gotta say this, and I'm not saying this because, well, I don't have to blow any smoke because we just met, but this is one of the best books I have read this year.

Oh, wow, thank you.

And then I, Yeah, and then I think about it, I'm like, I've been at this show for, we're at four years, four and a half years now, and I'm going to put it in my top 20, 20 favorite books.

Well, thank you very much.

I'm very honored and I'm going to tell you why.

And then we're gonna, we're gonna drill down on you and just have some fun, if that's okay with you.

But it's.

First of all, I remember the very first subtle hint that you drop.

And I'm not gonna spoil it, I promise.

But.

And it's, and it's hard to, it's hard to surprise me because I'm reading two books, three books a week for this show.

So I'm clocking about 300 books.

I've this show, I guess, something like that.

And I thought, oh, he, he got me.

I didn't see that coming.

And, and so it's between the, the little hints, the time compressions and the time jumps, the, the way you go forward and backward in time.

At first I thought it was going to be confusing, but you.

You get it right away.

But it all comes together for that perfect read that is full of character driven, luxurious, crafted, elegantly voiced whodunit.

Like I have not read in a while.

Wow.

Thank, Love.

My wife and I were just in Europe.

We have not had a vacation in forever.

So we went.

We spent a week in London.

Nice.

Then we went to Corsica and then to Sardinia.

Now, the reason I bring that up is because as I'm reading this book, I'm seeing little elements of, oh, we were just there, or we weren't far from there, or, oh, my goodness, blank.

Right.

Plus, I'm working on a novel that takes place in Geneva.

No way.

Yeah.

Of all places.

I've been working on this thing for about a year and a half, and it's Switzerland and Geneva and Zermatt and la.

Yeah.

And so I'm reading this book and, like, all these tiny little things I'm getting all geeked out about, which kind of feeds to the whole enthusiasm for it.

I love it.

So as I was making notes to myself, I'm like, I can't wait to tell Joel about this, because this is kind of cool.

Anyway.

And the book you're working on is a.

Is a thriller.

It is a thrill.

It's a neo noir thriller.

Yeah.

And it's set in.

It takes.

It starts off in.

In the Shadow of the Matterhorn and then it ends up in Vegas.

But this is about you, so I'll come back to that another time.

Another quick thing, too.

I'm a. I'm a fanatic for covers.

And this cover, I don't know what it is.

It's a combination between color and.

What's the word?

Volume and structure.

The way there's this little photographer.

Little photography trick you can call that creates kind of a miniaturization.

Yeah.

Which this alludes to because you're like.

Your eye goes, is that miniature?

No, it's not miniaturization.

But it.

Anyway, it's just so striking.

And they did a fantastic job because I agree with you.

It's very intriguing.

And it's.

You know, what is this?

And it's exactly, I think, the feeling you want to go and you want to.

You want to have to.

When you start this book is what is going to happen there?

What is this?

And you want to look closer.

You know, you want to get a closer look.

Yeah.

And this is exactly the story the way it starts.

A guy is watching a Woman is talking.

A woman.

She's drinking a coffee.

It's early in the morning, and he's there in the woods.

Exactly the same position as we are looking at the COVID And we just want to go closer.

That's what he want to do.

And great, great job.

From the.

From the.

From the publishing house.

So, so good.

And I mean, and who.

Who hasn't stalked their neighbors, right?

I mean, anyway, yeah, really fantastic cover.

Joelle, there's an interesting thing that happened.

I got a copy of one of your books, maybe a.

It could have been your last one.

It could have been two ago.

The word Alaska sticks in my head.

Yes, the giz.

Alaska Sender.

Alaska what?

Alaska Senders.

That's the title of it.

That's the name of the girl.

And I remember that being a striking cover.

And for whatever reason, our schedules didn't work.

So when I.

When your name came across my desk this time, I'm like, I'll have to speak to him.

I have to, because there's so.

I mean, sure.

You're a New York Times bestseller.

Bravo.

Thank you.

But I mean, golly day.

I don't want to sit here and geek out too much, but I'm kind of good at geeking out, so if.

If you'll just bear with me a little bit.

There's a few things I want to.

I want to get into.

A few things I want to get down to some nitty gritty.

And.

And if it seems elementary, just bear with me.

It won't be too painful.

Gone.

Gone.

If I say to you, what's your secret sauce?

And you take a second to think about it, because everybody has a secret sauce, and everybody who has it knows what it is.

So you can't go, well, I don't know what my secret sauce is, Dave, because, you know, and I want to.

I want to try to figure out.

And I know you seem like a pretty humble guy, so you're not a guy who's just going to be, you know, slapping off at the mouth with ego.

But if someone.

I'm asking you now, do you know, can you define what that is?

Yeah, I think as.

And of course, let's start with this.

If there were a recipe to write the perfect book, all the.

All the writers in the world will be very happy, and all the producing house in the world will be very happy.

But I think, and I like this word of secret source because it means something very personal, and that really belongs to the.

To the art craft of writing a book.

I think mine is the Pledge to the readers to take them by the hand and get them through sometimes complicated story.

But it's going to be easy or it's going to seem very easy.

And I think that's very important, too.

It needs to seem very easy.

Like, and I'm not comparing myself, but when you see a great football player or a great basketball player or a great tennis player, you look at them in action like, wow, it seems very easy.

Me too.

I want to do that.

And I think that's what the emulation of Michael Jordan or Roger Federer or any great sportsman is.

You want to do what they do because it looks so easy.

And like, me too, I can do that.

It doesn't seem like when you see Roger Federer playing tennis or Michael Jordan playing the basketball, you just like, oh, my God, it looks so exhausting and tiring.

Now you're like, oh, wow, it seems so easy.

So maybe I can do this.

What I'm trying to say is, like, what is very important for me and my secret sauce?

It's to tell my readers.

Don't worry, it's going to be easy and enjoyable, whatever happens.

And when you feel it's going to be sometimes tricky, or if you feel you're going to get lost, don't worry because I'm right there.

I'm going to take you by the hand and it's getting.

It is going to be okay.

That is so perfectly put.

I knew you'd.

I knew you'd rise to the occasion because it is that.

And I said.

I said in a moment ago, and when you first start out, I want to.

I want to do this one thing.

So.

You start off with a prologue, the day of the robbery.

That's not giving anything away.

But then you go into part one, the days before her birthday, and then you give a little timeline.

And at first I'm like, oh, what is this?

And is it going to be complicated?

But to your point, I'm like, don't worry about it.

I have faith in this guy because this guy knows what he's doing.

And as I started reading, which is why I read it in two sittings, which I haven't read a book that fast in quite some time, is that you did exactly that.

You delivered exactly what you just said.

You made it easy for me.

I didn't worry about it.

I didn't get confused.

And anytime that I thought you took me right back, it's almost like you were sitting there leading the way.

So bravo.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

And I was trying to think Now, I'm going to say this, and it's going to sound like I'm blowing smoke up your skirt, and I'm not.

But as I finished reading it, I said, I'm going to put that book that I've been working on for the last year and a half, I'm going to put on the shelf.

I'm not going to finish this thing.

I can't.

I can't possibly.

This guy is absolutely magnificent.

And then I heard that inner dialogue, and we all have this.

I don't know what that thing is.

God, I don't know what it is, but it's like, oh, God, he's so good.

I can't compete with this.

And then I thought, hold on a second.

It's like, I'm going to use your tennis thing.

One guy can be great at tennis.

He can have a great overhand, but maybe his backhand sucks.

Whereas I'm like, you know what?

My backhand is really good.

So I'm going to have fun with playing with Joel, right?

So I got to get rid of that thing.

I think we all have a little bit of that.

It happens to me all.

All the time.

All the time.

And the thing.

That's the thing that I need to remind myself, first of all, I think that every time we have doubts, it's the best thing that can happen to us.

Because doubts is really what is going to build the story and build a book.

Because if we are, no doubt it's just a bright or it means that we're not wholeheartedly committed to this book, to the book we're writing.

So doubts are very important.

First of all, this is.

This is the best thing that can ever happen to someone worth writing a book, is to have doubts.

And the second thing that I tell myself when I have these kind of doubts is I'm trying to go back to the reason I'm writing a book is for my own pleasure.

What I'm trying to say is, of course.

Of course I want this book to be published.

Of course I want to have readers, as many readers as I can.

Of course I want to.

I want to be with you and talk about.

There's many things I want about this book, but those things, the success, the public success of the book is not really in my hands.

It's in the hands of the journalists, of the readers, of the booksellers, of the publicists, of everybody but me.

What I do have in my hands, and that's, for me, the success of the book, to me, is the pleasure that I'm having or that I had writing this book.

Yeah.

And when I'm getting.

When I have anxiety about the process, when I feel the book is not good enough, when I'm like, When I read just this fantastic book and I'm like, oh, mine sucks, I need to stop it.

I go back to, yeah, wait, wait, wait.

I'm writing this book, I'm working on this novel because I'm enjoying it.

And even sometimes it's difficult.

It's like we go to the gym.

We don't want to, but we go there.

I did it.

You know, and there's.

At some point, we enjoy it, but we have to get there.

We have to.

We have to warm up.

We have to finally.

We have to overcome ourselves.

It's a challenge, right?

It is a challenge.

And pleasure can be a challenge, too.

Sure, sure.

Very well put.

And as my dad used to say, if you aim at nothing, you're going to hit it every time.

That's a good one.

Yeah.

And I. I also wanted to find out what inspires you.

And I'm not talking about, hey, Joelle, where do your ideas come from?

I'm not talking about that.

That's.

That's a.

That's a boring question.

What I want to find out is what inspires you?

Do you.

When you start a story and when you come up with an idea, okay, this one is a robbery, do you start off with, I don't want to do robbery, but I want to do robbery differently than anyone else has.

And it's clear that you are a man of travel, because this book takes place in all different kinds of cities in Europe, and it's quite delicious that way.

And having just traveled, it was extra delicious for me.

But back to this.

Examples of inspiration are there things that feed that as you prepare a story?

So I don't really have a plan when I start a book.

This one, and the authors, I don't really know what is going to happen, but I know a few things that I would say are all the same in my different levels.

First of all, and that's very personal, I want an atmosphere.

Wherever it is, it needs to be enjoyable.

Yeah.

I want the reader, because I want this as a reader, I want to feel safe even though there's a robbery, even though there's a murder.

Whatever happens, I want to feel safe.

Why?

Because I feel so unsafe when I'm on my screen, when I am watching the news, when I'm on Instagram, when I watch a movie.

There's nothing worse than for me, reading a book or watching a movie and I'm like, oh, no, I can stop.

I can.

It's too.

It's too horrible.

It's too hard.

It's too violent too, because RT became very, I think, very violent.

So what I want is the atmosphere to be enjoyable.

Like, I got a Christian.

I'm not convinced myself.

But I mean, like back in, you know, it's.

It's a nice place.

It's a.

It's a nice hotel, it's a nice house.

It's nice people.

You want to be with them.

Because the feeling I want my readers to have is when they're going to go back to this book.

Wherever they're at work, they're on the bus, they're on the subway there.

And in the living room or in their bed, whatever, it's night or day.

Oh, yes, I'm going back to this place.

I enjoy whatever happens.

Even though if it's something difficult or murdered.

I said before, it needs to be, ah, I cannot wait to go back there.

It's such a nice place to be.

And so that's the first thing then the characters, they need to be.

The character need to be like friend or become like friends to you.

Yeah.

And you know what is a friend is someone that we know very well and we like anyways.

Even though he has his own struggle and he's the way he is and he has his own fault and whatever.

And so it needs to be people that you are going to connect with so they're not.

The book just to serve the plot is not just a victim or a cop or whatever they're going to have.

Yeah, you need to have an interaction with them.

I mean, you need to create an interaction between the readers and the characters.

Yeah.

And then finally, because we live in a world where we have these so many ways to entertain us ourselves.

And there's Netflix, there's all these platforms, there's all this tv, all these screens, all phones, the WI fi.

You need to have a good plot to make sure that whatever it is, when the readers will have the option between putting the boot down to watch a TV show or watch the news or play on their phone saying, ah, no, I want to know what's happened here.

I want to go back to this atmosphere and I want to go back to these people.

And, And I think that's.

That's the mix.

You know what?

I couldn't have said it better.

Cause it's funny.

Last night now my wife and I love to watch a lot of Streaming, Apple, Netflix, you name it.

And so we've been watching a number of different series, and last night it was, you know, we always have dinner, and then it's like, oh, what's our Entertainment Tonight?

And I asked her, and she said, well, I think I'm going to catch up on that series.

And I.

She goes, how about you?

And I said, I'm picking up wild animal.

Wild animal here?

Are you kidding me?

I'm going to go back and finish it.

And as I was just ripping through it last night, and here's an interesting observation, and folks, once again, I'm not going to spoil it for you.

You know that something bad is coming.

You know something bad is going to happen.

You know, there are bad players in the story, however, and, you know, there are moments of tension, however.

And to your point, Joelle, you don't have moments of like, oh, shit, something really bad is going to happen.

I mean, you.

You don't really have that feeling, which is interesting, because I kept thinking, as a wild animal, something's going to really wicked happen.

And as you're going along, you're like, I feel kind of safe in this story, which is an interesting thought.

I'm like, I. I feel like I'm okay.

I don't even know where that came from.

It's like, it's safe.

And so.

But you.

You.

You cannot wait to peel that next layer back, because you.

You reward us as you proceed through this timeline, and you reward us with appeal back.

And then you give us another peel back, and you're like, okay, I know where this is going.

And then you peel it again.

You're like, okay, okay, little left turn.

And it just keeps doing this over and over.

And I just.

I mean, that is mastery.

Now go ahead, clap for yourself.

How long did it take you to write this book?

I am just dead on curious about that.

It's always a difficult question because I'm not sure exactly when I really started to really commit on writing this book.

Yeah.

Because there's always an idea.

You know, there's always ideas that are around, and not a few of them.

You say, oh, yes, but.

So I'd say a year and a half.

Okay, A year and a half.

Ish.

Yeah, that.

That would make sense because.

And, you know, to be able to build.

Build the time back and forth.

And again, I don't want to belabor this point because I don't want people to.

I don't want to ruin anything because I want people to pick it up and go, dave was right.

So I'm just going to leave on that now.

I want to jump to a question that I used to ask all the time and I haven't asked it in a while and it's just, it's a writer thing.

So folks, if you're not a writer, bear with me.

I like to know where and when and how do you prefer to work?

Like do you, do you like to work in the day or at night?

So change because.

So I love to work early in the morning.

So I have an office.

First of all, where do I like to write?

It's not at home because home is the place where I have my kids, my wife, a lot of good reason not to work and not to write.

So I have an office where I go to.

But what I used to love doing, but it's tough now with the kids, it's to write very early in the morning.

So to wake up three or four in the morning and to have already by eight, you already have like four or five hours of writing.

And it's really, it's a special time of the day because nobody bothers you.

There is no phone, there is no emails, there is no one.

And everybody sleeps around you.

And when I'm riding and I look at the window and I look to the window and I see it's pitch black and everybody sleeps around, there's not one light.

And I like this feeling.

I don't know why, I don't know.

I love.

It became difficult for the kids, especially when they realized I was waking up very early in the morning.

They will woke up at four in the morning and go to my bedroom and wake up my wife and say it's time to work with daddy.

And so I had to risk it all that a bit for now.

They're young, they're four and six, so they're still young.

But I know that later on I'll go back to this kernel because I just love it.

Yeah, you brought up a good point.

I tend to write exactly where I work.

This, this is a stand up desk and I do my, I work for my clients here, but I also write here.

And I have learned just recently that doesn't really work.

And here's why.

I am too tempted to at any moment because I have two screens here.

So at any moment I'm, you know, oh, there's email, there's a client begging for some attention, but I'm in the middle of a story.

Oh, but I got to answer that.

So it, I'm with you.

It's far better to go distance yourself.

And I love that.

I love that morning.

Because your brain is also unspoiled.

You don't have, you don't have all that monkey mind bullshit that is hammering at you.

Do I need to do this?

Who I've got?

Oh, don't forget that it's usually real quiet and it's just a fertile place for imagination.

And you feel so fresh.

Yeah, your brain is fresh.

Yeah.

And then it's fried.

There is something I kept looking for, and it's completely a ridiculous thing.

There is a tattoo in this story of a panther.

And I kept expecting somewhere, Joelle's going to hide an Easter egg somewhere.

And somewhere in the makeup or maybe on the book cover, he's going to surprise me.

And indeed you didn't.

But that's just me.

No, no, but that's a very important point that you raised.

Do not or don't even really describe the characters.

I give a few informations about them, but I don't really give information, precise information about the way they look, the way they are.

And I think for me, something very important, because this belongs to the readers.

Same thing.

This is why you will never see the face of the character or the way it should be on the COVID Or I will not put like the tattoo on the picture of the tattoo or drawing of the tattoo in the book, because it will be.

This is, this is the job of the reader.

This is up to them.

And this is the beauty of books is it is yours.

You can see it the way you want to see it.

And this is so precious because when you read a book, you as a reader, even though you're, I would say, just a reader, you actually, you actually do maybe probably 50% of the work because you're building the story.

You're picturing these people.

You, you see them very accurately.

And it's very funny because sometimes I have readers coming to me and asking me to validate, like, oh, but this character is like this, or she's like that.

No.

Or she looks like this.

And I always answers, if you saw this person this way, it's the way she is or he is.

Because it's up to you.

You know, it's so funny.

You made me think of something and people are always saying this.

You've heard this your whole life.

Oh, I read the book.

Oh, the movie.

The movie was good, but the book was better.

And I always say, do you know why that book is better?

Because the film spoon fed you, but the book, you were the casting director and the Cinematographer.

And you made all those choices right here in your mind.

That's why it's so much more vivid and powerful and sustainable in memory.

You're so right.

You're so right.

Imagine all the.

When you watch a movie, not only you have the, the image and the, the actors are playing and that you also have the music and the sounds and the effect and everything that makes you angry or sad or afraid or all these feelings come from so many different ways in a movie.

When you read a book, there's nothing you just created by yourself.

All these feelings.

And this is so strong.

Yeah.

The visceral power of our imagination.

And it's so funny.

I didn't think about that until you just said it.

That you do.

The only description you have is you refer to a man's height, beast, and then you refer to Sophia's beauty, but that's it.

And it's so funny because I fill in the blank myself.

I, I'm, you know, it's a brunette with this kind of curves and he's this kind of height.

And the cop, Greg, you know, he, he must look this way.

And it's so funny, as you just said, I'm like, oh, yeah, he didn't describe that at all.

I love that.

I love that.

I'm curious when you were crafting this timeline and this is, folks, when you pick this book up, which you will, trust me on this.

Did you write it front to back in, like chronicle chronological and then go back and displace it, or did you write it?

And I'm jumping ahead here because you said you don't often remember, you don't often decide where you're going to go with the story.

So did.

Or did you.

Or did you write it in this back and forth way?

Because that's, it's quite masterful how you did it.

Thank you.

No, I, I wrote the book the way you read it.

Oh, okay.

But because for me, it's, it's easier to do it this way, I want to say, because every time I go, every time there's a flashback in the story is because myself, as I'm writing the story.

Okay, now we need.

Or I need, as I'm the author of the book, but also the reader of the story.

Sure.

It's like, okay, now I need more information about this person.

Now I need to know what happened there.

Or now I need some feedback.

Or now I feel like, you know, that I'm going on with the plot, but I need to know more about the characters come and not I don't really get attached to them.

So I'm, I'm trying to trust my feelings and I'm trying to follow my guts in terms of what I need to do.

Now when I write this story.

I got, I gotta make a note here, so.

Because there's, I have more thoughts coming at me faster than I can remember them.

One is, has, has this story been optioned yet for either series or.

Yeah.

Film.

Yeah, there's a, there's a TV show, Amazon prime that is going to be on that should be.

Holy moly.

That's amazing.

Yeah, it's going to make a stunning film, especially if they shoot it in the real locations or even a proximity.

Yeah.

Yeah, I hope so.

Now I'm guessing your agent happened to manage that little deal, right?

So I don't have an agent.

I actually have my own tradition house in French.

So I, as you can hear, I'm French speaking.

And I didn't really.

I didn't catch that.

And the original version of the book is in French and I'm my own publisher in France.

Oh, wait a minute.

Okay.

Because it's, it's Harper Via, which is an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.

So Harper Collins is the publisher in the United States.

Got it.

And so then I sell the rights myself to different countries or for a TV show or what, whatever.

So you're basically self published in Europe.

In French.

In France.

Okay.

Yeah.

And then I'm my own agent and I sell the rights to the foreign countries.

That is a bold move, young man.

Thank you.

That takes a lot of savvy.

Well, the reason and the story behind is I had a fantastic.

In French and he was a fantastic man.

He actually built my success in Europe.

His name was Bernard de Felois.

So he was 60 years old.

60 years older than I am.

And I had a fantastic relationship with him.

He taught me so much about publishing, about dealing with the friend rights, with everything.

He was very old, though, and he's like, wait, what am I going to do now?

Because I cannot go to another publishing house.

Because, and I'm making this story short, but he, he did so much to me that going to another publishing house for me would have been like a Trajan.

You know, I wanted to be loyal to this guy.

I wanted to.

I wanted Bernard to be my only publisher.

Sure.

And I was like, ah, he's been.

He told me so much about the publishing world.

I should create my own.

My own publishing house.

And I did, and it was a bargain, but here I am.

Wow.

Well, good for you.

And again, bravo, Goliath.

That.

That explains why your website is in French.

Yeah, but it should be in English, too.

Now.

Well, here's an interesting thing, and it could be my ignorance, so before anybody jumps down my throat on it, because usually when I open a browser I was using I'm Chrome.

In this particular case, it allows you to click a button that says, would you like to translate it?

And I always go, yes.

This time it didn't translate.

So I'm sitting here and I.

Look, I know.

I mean, I don't know.

You know, I mean, these are little.

Little.

So that'll tell you something.

Well, I'm.

I'm not.

I'm missing.

When.

When I tell you at the end of the show to come, and you see it in French.

If I'm not mistaken, it's in French, English, Spanish and Italian.

Okay, well, I will check this out and I will fix it.

If not, it could be a hitch in my giddy up.

That's all I know.

Either way, looked like.

Now, again, forgive me if I'm not seeing this right there looked like some books on there that were children's books.

Is that.

Would that be fair?

Yes.

So my very last book in French was published.

Was published last year, and it's called the Disastrous Visit at the Zoo, is a book that is kind of for kids, but also for adults.

Okay.

Because I'm.

I'm lucky enough to have such a wide range of readers.

I have people who read one book a day and people who read one book a year.

And I was very.

For the last 10 years that I'm doing this, I was so mesmerized and so happy and so humbled to see this mix of people that probably will never get together in the streets or never get together on the social environment, but here they are all together, queuing together in the bookstore to get their book signed.

And I think that for me, it's such a strong feeling because I really feel that in a world where we're so divided, books is really what can put us together.

Now when we go somewhere, we go to a dinner, there's someone we don't know, and we're like, ah, what should I talk about?

Maybe not like the news, not politics.

Like, I was like, okay, did you see what is the Last TV show that you saw.

And what last TV show did you enjoy?

Well, if you do that with books, it's even stronger.

Oh yeah, because you can, you can really debate.

You picture this like this.

No, she's not brunette.

She's blonde.

No, she doesn't like this album.

And I love this.

And so all to say that I decided to write a book that you can read as of 7 years old, because my readers, the youngest for the others book, they're, they're like 14, 15ish.

I was like, listen, I want a book that you can put people from the age of 7 till the age of 97 and they can read it together at the same time and talk about it the same way.

We have, you know, we used to have this story, we have less this kind of movie, but we used to have in the 90s, these great movies, you know, that we will all watch together.

Home Alone, for instance, that we will all sit and watch together.

And wherever you're at, you're 7, 10, 20, 40, 60, whatever, you're enjoying this moment together and the disastrous visit of the zoo.

It's what I tried to do.

And it was a fantastic success in Europe and I'm very happy about that.

And I have now readers as of 7, and I love it.

And they read this book with their parents, their grandparents.

They read it together.

Sometimes I receive pictures of the book with two bookmarks in the book, one for the kid and one for the parent.

And I laugh because I'm like, yes, reading.

We need to remind people that reading is fun.

Reading is cool.

Reading is something that is in the air.

It's not something old and boring.

It's something that is so entertaining and we want entertainment.

Let's look at all these streaming platforms and then TikTok and Instagram and everything we do with our phones.

We want to be entertained.

Well, guess what?

The best possible entertainment in the world are books.

Because mix makes you work as an entertainer, you as a reader.

You're not only a reader, you're entertaining yourself.

Yeah.

One of the fears I have for in the world of AI and I won't belabor this too far, is the fact that AI is doing so much of the work for you.

And what I fear is that we won't take the time to formulate those ideas ourselves.

I mean, and I look, we're, we're all guilty of doing this one thing, that whole, you know, you're somewhere and you're just doing this.

And I, I, I predict that this is going to be the constant deterioration of our attention spans as time goes on.

One thing I want to notice too, when.

When I was told you that we were in London recently, it was amazing.

We.

I have this addiction with bookstores.

I gotta stop at every single bookstore I see.

We went in and literally every bookstore was packed full of people, every one of them.

And they're all cozied off into a corner reading or you know, sharing a story with a friend.

And I'm like, man, you don't.

I don't see that very often in the States because we're.

You'll see 50 people outside the store on the curb scrolling through their phone, but you'll see three inside and it's Converse in other places.

But anyway, not harping on anybody's reading habits for crying out loud.

I wanted to go back to.

Since we're on the topic of publishing and now that I know you're a self publisher yourself is what do you think of this current state of affairs?

And I don't.

I'm sure it's much different in Geneva than it is in New York.

I mean you remember the days, the big seven, then it became the big six and the big five and maybe it's the big three by now, who really knows.

But what is your feeling and your interpretation of the world of publishing in general?

If you have one, listen.

What I saw from my point of view is a lot of small publishing house, dependent publishing house getting bought by big groups.

And I know a lot of people are worried about that.

And I can see that sometimes in France, which is my main market, I'm in Switzerland, but my main market is France where people see this from a very worried eye.

What I witness is actually really helped those independent vision hours because going with a big group, not then getting the tools for all the back office everything that was for them loss of time and loss of energy because something they were able to delegate and then they were able to focus on what they were doing and the group that acquired them.

The reason why they acquired me was because they were very accurate, great prestigious small publishing apps and this is the thing that they want to touch.

So my experience in this big like merging is.

And it's really only my little point of view is an increasing of quality because it works easier, it works better and the publishing house are as sharp as the wares.

That's for me something that does not really worry me as long as the groups are not trying to intervene in the politics in the way of the publishing houses work, working.

But for what I Witnessed again from my small point of view.

I never really saw that.

And while we're on publishing.

So if you're self published, you have to handle all your own.

You have to find the book cover designer, the interior designer, the developmental editor, the copy editor, the right.

You have to.

Oh, you have it.

Of course.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

People.

We are four people are employees of the publishing house and they're.

That's their job.

Okay, got it.

Well, and so the gal who.

Did you.

Did you say it was a gal who did your cover?

So this cover in your hand is the publish the American publishing house.

It's overcolitz.

Okay.

Just.

I'm gonna hunt down the COVID of France.

I'd love to see that cover, but I'm just.

I'm wild for this one.

Note to self here.

Oh, you.

You mentioned genres.

So you love to write for a wide variety of people.

So you have children's books that are also read by adults.

You have murder mystery, suspense thrillers as you have here with Wild Animal.

Do you branch out beyond that?

Do you things.

Do you do things like hist fiction or romance or dark romance or do you do rom coms?

Anything like that?

How do you.

No, no, no.

My very first novel that is not in English is a historical novel set in World War II in the between the UK and France.

But the rest of the books are mainly who donates fan stories who don't it suspense treating.

I'm not sure what's the right adjective to use but in the same gender.

And of course I have to ask because I'm.

I'm.

That guy is what's on the horizon next.

I mean I know that you wrote this probably a year plus ago, so you're having to come back out and.

And promote this, but what's.

What's next for you?

I'm now in the middle of a new novel and I'm exactly where we discussed this before.

I'm like, this is not good enough.

And I just read this great book.

I'm like, oh, what a good book.

Mine is worth nothing.

I should just throw it away.

And I'm filled with bouts and anxiety and it's part of the process.

Yeah, well, you know, it never changed.

The only thing you know, I wrote many, many books before my first success.

And I realize now that for me and the big, big help of all the groups before is the fact that when the success happened, I'm not sure what I did differently.

I'm not sure why this group was a success and not the other So I cannot really explain, but what was appeasing for me in the middle of the second, like, oh, what am I supposed to do?

What am I supposed to like, okay, I did this six times before, I'm just going to do it again.

And I realized that it's the same feeling, same anxiety, same doubts, same moment of joy, same amount of excitement where this is such a great book and the devil like, oh, this is such a piece of crap and, and this is the life of, of an author, whatever, whatever, it is going to be a big success or not.

It's always the same kind of feelings.

It's so funny.

And you just made me think of something.

I don't think I have ever had this thought before, but I was listening to you very int.

I remember when I was a kid, I was 13, 14, I wanted to be on the radio.

I mean, my voice changed really early.

I knew I wanted to be in a radio.

And by the way, for the listeners who have heard this story before, just bear with me.

Joel has not heard this.

And that's all I wanted to do.

I didn't worry about how to do it.

I just wanted to know that's what I wanted to do.

So I just pushed ahead.

Well, because I work so hard at it and I probably just have a natural inclination toward it, I just kept bouncing up in market size.

You know, I would start in little town in Virginia, then it would go, then I went to Detroit and then Chicago and then Los Angeles and then New York.

And each time I would escalate.

I never stopped to think about, oh, how will I do my job differently in this city outside of the fact that you got to be able to pronounce everything in the city the way the locals do.

I said, you know, if I'd ever stopped and got really sidetracked on all that, I probably would have scared myself out of it.

Whereas I did basically what you just said, Hey, I, I found success at that station doing what I do already.

So all I got to do is go to a new city, learn the streets and the townships and so forth and do the same thing, do the same.

And I just kept doing that and I just kept doing, getting more and more successful.

So it's a great way, and I say as we start to close, a great way to look at it.

If you love what you do.

And you said you wrote for yourself.

So if you're writing for yourself and you're getting enjoyment and pleasure from it, you know, intrinsically, viscerally, you are in the sweet spot of where you should be, so just.

So just keep doing it.

Sensual.

Yeah, dad gum.

We're smart in our old age, aren't we, Joelle?

Number one podcast for stories that thrill the Thriller Zone.