What is a woman equally enamored of romance novels and women’s studies to become? A bookstore owner, of course! In this episode, we talk to Lori Carroll, owner of Jan’s Books in downtown Beaverton—a suburb of Portland—who wants you to know that being a feminist and loving bodice rippers are NOT mutually exclusive! She tells Emily why she thinks it’s important to make bookstores inclusive, community-oriented places (which she hopes to accomplish with a handy assist by wine) and why she doesn’t mind if you come in and don’t leave with anything. JUST COME IN (please)! Lori is also a rare jewel in the book trade, a book lover AND an extrovert. Which begs the question: how could she have ever considered becoming anything BUT a bookseller?? She and Emily also talk about the life-changing magic of book clubs, romance trends, and the RIGHT way to recommend a book to someone.

Yeah, I do tend to laugh, ha, so that's good too,

because then I won't be right, because I laugh loud. Oh, I

laugh super loud. I used to get in trouble for it all the time.

Sometimes I still do at work. Oh yeah, yeah. I do with, like,

friends and family, like, they're like, and I'm like, No,

I'm gonna live out loud.

Like, can you not? And I'm like, No, I can't, not. This is who I

am. Have you met me? Have you? Do you know who I am?

Please, the only instance where it's okay to say that

so true. You

foreign

Welcome to the hybrid pub Scout podcast with me. Emily

Einolander Corinne is not with us today. I think she's hanging

with Groucho, the kitty cat that we have posted about before, but

today we have Laurie Carroll with us. Oh, by the way, mapping

the frontier between traditional indie indie publishing is what

we do. And yeah, Lori, hi, hi, thanks for having me,

absolutely. Why don't you tell us a little bit about what you

do and what your deal is. So I'm Lori. I own Jan's. It's a

bookstore in downtown Beaverton in Oregon. It's actually just

celebrated its 38th year, although I have only been with

it since August. So yeah, that's what I do. Okay, wait, so you've

only been there since August? Yes, whoa. I know. Is this your

first like book world venture? It's not. My very, very first

job at a bookstore was when I was in college in Long Beach,

California, at a used bookstore. So that was kind of started me

in the world. And then when I moved up to Oregon, I found a

book club at borders who's been meeting since 1998 and the

person that ran that book club was really big in the romance

world. And so she kind of, she knew about the conferences, she

knew about the cons, she knew about all that. So I started

kind of getting into the world and getting to know authors and

going to the cons and getting into that world. And I became a

beta reader, and then I became a reviewer for a review site

called rake Hill, which did Regency romances. And then I

started working at a used bookstore in Hillsboro. And so I

kind of got to know, sort of the publishing world, the pnba, all

that kind of stuff, how to buy books. And then, and that's

where I really got to know Debbie, who was the previous

owner of the bookstore. And so then that's where the friendship

sparked and kind of morphed into this. So was there ever a real

Jan? There was a real Jan. Jan opened the store in 1981 which

actually is older than me, so that's very interesting. And

then Jan retired in 2000 Okay, so I walked in, I had seen you

on Instagram, making Instagram videos, which was really fun.

And so I walked into Jan's one Saturday morning, which you

probably saw if you're if you're a friend of the pod.

I was like, Hi Jan.

She was like, Lori,

tell everybody you can call me whatever you want, as long as

you come to the store. But yeah, and you said Jan number three.

I'm Jan number three. Jan number three and I, and people are I

actually had somebody yesterday. Their husband wants me to

legally change my name to Jan, not change the store name.

Change my name to Jan. Her husband wants you to do that.

Yep, that's a weird thing for him to have an opinion about,

right? He's been at the store once, so like this will make

things more convenient for me to remember.

Change yourself for me to understand your name. Oh, my

God, it's like your name spelled wrong. You should do it like

this. Oh, you changed your name and I'll do it like this. I

mean, like, it's not your business, right store, I get to

do whatever.

So, wow, you have years and years of book, yeah, experience,

yeah, fantastic. It has been a crazy journey to get to this

point. And it's one of those journeys that you you don't know

you're on it, and then when you get there, you're like, oh, all

these things that you've been doing with your whole life all

feed into this thing that you because I did marketing for

small businesses, and I did admin stuff, so bookkeeping and

another job of mine, it's just like, everything's just perfect

into a bookstore owner. So it's been great, dang. Okay, so Well,

let's start from the beginning. Okay, you were in Long Beach and

you worked at a on a used bookstore. Was that something

you always like sought out as a kid zero, I did not start

reading until I was in senior in high school, 17 years old, I had

to do a book for a book report in senior English. And my friend

handed me a book she was named after Shawna by Kathleen e

woodowitz classic 1970s bodice Ripper. And so I did the book

report on that. And.

Sparked the reading, and that was the first crazy so then I

was looking for bookstores, and I went to college, and there was

one right next door to the college, and so off I went. So

I

was a romance reader, and I was going to school for women's

studies, which is not two things that go together. Oh yeah. So I

guess not, it doesn't, and it was really hard to maintain

being a romance reader, but I figured it out, and then just

moved up here. I think it's evolved a bit. Yeah, it's

evolved quite a bit from the original where, like, I can't

even go back and read some of the 70s stuff now, even though I

read it at the beginning too rapey, oh my god, it's so rapey.

And like, and I think about some of the books I read, and I'm

like, Wow, no, she literally said no until the end.

I have a long list of books I can't reread because I know I

will hate them in my heart, and I still have love for them,

because they were part of my growing to be a love of reading.

Yeah. So, yeah. So there's that. And then moved up here and 2004

and I had, like, no friends, because I didn't know anybody

here? Cool, just Yeah, decided to do a new thing. It was the

cheapest department in the country.

I was,

I was

sorry,

the very idea no longer the case. But in 2000 early, 2004

when I was desperately needing to get away from family and

history so that I could grow personally, I looked everywhere

across the country. I was originally going to be a

bartender in New Orleans, which was an interesting life

decision, but they were more expensive. Portland had the

cheapest one. So here I came, wow, and yeah, and then you

started going to bookstores to make friends. Yeah, I went and

met Marcy, who was the bookstore buyer at borders for romance and

that. And then found the book club, and then went to the, I

mean, it just sparked this whole thing. It was pretty crazy. So

are most of your romance author con connections in the

traditional publishing vein, or are you getting more into Self

Publishers? Or how's that work? That's, well, you, since you're

mapping it, that's, that's what I should know. In 2005

when I first got into the world, it was all

mass produced publishing. It was, there was no self published

people then, and it's been a very interesting as I'm sure

most people listening to this podcast know, it's been very

interesting to watch the transition of opportunities,

yeah, for authors now, and especially when self publishing

first came out, when it was first a thing, and then it was

kind of a dirty word, right? And I was like, Yeah, I'm not a self

publisher. I published with the big five. And it's like, you

know what? However you want to get your book out there, honey.

Like, do it so. So at the beginning, it was all the big

publishers, and then slowly transitioned over the last, I

don't know how many or 14 years that. It's probably more self

publishing now than than before. Oh, for sure, we've had a couple

of self published author, ghost writer, Wrangler, editors on

maybe I'll send you those episodes to go back and listen.

Yeah, definitely. I think I saw a couple of the names and I was

like, Oh, I have to go, Listen. Let's just say episodes. I think

it was 14. I had to cut an hour of Oh, and not because it was

super filthy, because we kept in a lot of fun. It was just too

much laughing. Yeah,

I can understand that. It's, I mean, so there are many sub

genres of romance, like, what? What are your favorite? Well,

for various reasons, the reasons and not tell us why. Well, I can

absolutely I talk about this all day long, because I am one of

those people that has no shame, like there is no like, when I

started reading romance that was still considered naughty, and

that was the basic romance, and I was the one that was like, No,

here's my cover of my half naked woman Women's Studies thing

comes in Exactly, yeah, it ties together, eventually, completely

sex positive, no judgment on whatever you choose to do. It's

your life. Be happy. So that was my sort of thing. So I, when I

started reading, I had a whole 40 year history to catch up on,

and I typed in, and I did I did my historical, I did my

contemporary, did all of that, and then I kind of got tired of

all of it, and I needed to go outside of the mainstream. And

this is where most of my authors these days are, self pub,

because I am not a mainstream reader.

I moved into the male, male romance, okay, which is.

Fascinating. And I tell everybody the reason is because

most contemporaries nowadays, and this could sound really bad,

and I hate if it sounds judgy, but most contemporaries, if

there are two white people that are in a semi white, middle

class environment, why aren't they together? I don't have any

reason for them not to be together in that book. So

everything just becomes this really forced plot device.

Everybody's just being petty, yeah, or they're not talking,

and I'm like, if it's two people that aren't talking, I don't see

this relationship lasting. Or it is. It's like, super petty,

like, you said this really wrong thing before I even knew you to

somebody that I don't even care about. Like, why? This doesn't

make any sense. It was really so I had to, like, leave all that

behind, and I went into male male, because there are still

really relevant reasons why they aren't together, right? Yeah. So

there was that, obviously, yeah, and it's getting and that genre

was really new when I stepped into it. And so it was, it was

rough, but, but it's a lot more mainstream now, and you can find

a lot more. So that's been fantastic. But at a certain

point I've read most of what's out there, and then I had to

kind of go into the erotica, BDSM, all that kind of stuff to

kind of get my stuff. And then I went into the young adult, new

adult, because then that was angsty, fun stuff. And currently

I'm into reverse harems. Oh, like all of us, yeah, right.

And so say we all Yeah. But again, now I've come to the

point again where I'm having a hard time finding something to

read. So I was just having this conversation with a friend the

other day that I'm looking for that next thing that's going to

interest me. It sounds like you took a when you started out, you

took a very organized approach to reading. You're like, I

started with historical and then I moved on to this and that,

like, that's that's not how a lot of people read. It's just

like, Oh, here's a book. Yeah. I think

it was probably lucky that within the first year of me

reading, I found a bookstore to work for, and so, like I had all

the options so, and they were all categorized for you already,

exactly, there you go. So, all right, well, okay, so you were

in a book club at borders. You said, yeah, so that was for

romance. That's a romance book club. They were together today,

okay, so 1998 till now. So it's been 21 years. Do you still hang

out with them? And so what's like? The uniting factor there,

other than romance, there's so much to romance. Like, yeah, who

decides what to read and what to do? And we, we all bring

recommendations, and we vote on them, and we're in, we're in

this like, slump of really horrible pics, really awful, and

we actually have this offset. The group has been meeting for

so long that at this point it's almost family, right? So it's

not at this point, it's less about the books, right? But

there has, there's a small subset of people that we wanted

to read the trash or we wanted to read the offset, we wanted to

read something different. So we actually created this kind of

other book club, and we call it the book club, AF, because why

not? And real hardcore, real hard clubbing, total hardcore

book clubbing. We our rules are, there will be wine, there will

be cussing, and we will be reading some very difficult

reads. So this last one we just read was a Peter Pan retelling

with trans, homeless youth and bdism.

Wow, so that's challenging. I enjoyed it, but they not most,

most of them did.

Like this doesn't make me tingly. No, oh,

no, I'm sad, yeah.

Well, so that so you have, like, a sub genre of book club, even,

yeah, yes, we created a sub genre book club. How many book

clubs have you been in your life?

Oh, um, it started with, I lived with my grandma for a little

while, and she had a book club that was doing the Oprah books.

Oh yeah. So I did that one, and then this romance one, and then

we started a YA one at the bookstore. And we have the

offshoot one, and then we have, so how many am I in right now?

Three. I'm in three. There's a fourth one at the store that I

don't join. Wow. You have four at your store, yes, or four at

your store for for you, for at the store, okay, three. I'm in

one of them. I know them because I'm there, but I don't read

their books. Okay, yeah, wow. So it sounds like you've made, I

mean, I want to come back to some of these romance book

things, yeah, let's talk about your store. Let's talk about the

store. Okay, so it sounds like you've made it into a really,

like, community, community oriented space. Can you talk

about, like, how and why you've done that? Yes, and I can talk

about that for very long.

So I me as a person. Love people. I'm an extreme

extrovert.

Art, and I am, yes, yeah. It's rare to find that with book

people, right? And then you end up taking over everything, and

then you're like, I'm sorry, shy people, yeah.

So just in general, in life, I'm always like, the kind that's

bringing people together. And the thing with bookstores. So

this is the tangent of what bookstores in general, is like,

used bookstores are actually increasing in their numbers. We

are going back in a world where people aren't as happy with

eBooks as they are with just physical books. So that's great,

but that's not necessarily enough to keep a bookstore

going. So the bookstores that are surviving are the ones that

are creating a community or creating a niche. So in Southern

California, you have, like, the Ripped Bodice, right? Is the

romance I was gonna ask you, yeah, have you been there? I

haven't been there, but

there's also, there's, like a mystery bookstore, I think

there's a sci fi bookstore, and so, like, California has done

this where it's really niche bookstores, but everywhere else,

it's just like they do like open mic nights and comedy things.

And so it's creating an environment where people come

for reasons outside of books and buy things besides books. So I

knew that going in one I love events, I love people. I love to

be surrounded by people all the time. So I was like, I want to

have events five nights a week, and that is what I want to do.

And I want everybody to feel there's another thing coming

from a background where I was not always having the money. I

wanted people to feel that they could come to the bookstore even

if they couldn't buy anything. Oh, that's nice, yeah. So just

like, hang out. I have my coffee of the day that I do. So I just

do so there's always cup of coffee. I have water, I have a

bathroom, I have chairs, I have chairs, I have all this stuff.

And it's like, just come and hang out

and just feel comfortable. That's nice. Yeah, so that was

the that was the hat, the why, and then the How was. I have

these really two comfortable chairs at the beginning, at the

front of the store. And that seems to be that everybody just

comes in. I'm usually sitting there with a cup of coffee, and

they come and they sit down, and they talk to me, yeah, and hang

out, yeah, yeah, so. And then events. I have ton of events,

yeah, if you follow the bookstore, you see that I do

events like every weekend, and you had a Yeah, and you had a

local publisher today, right? Were they local? They are

Washington. Tell me a little bit about so they are clockwork

dragon publishing. And I don't know the backstory of why they

started this publishing house, but a friend of mine was at a

game convention. Board game convention, okay? And she met

him and found out he was an author, and then so she tagged

us up, and I had him come down, and they do, oh,

their tagline is so great. I wish I had their card with me,

Curious Science Fiction and Fantasy for the and I can't

remember the way they finish it, but okay, I'll look it up. Yeah,

it's,

there's a steampunk series, there's a Goss series, there's a

young adult fairy series. There's, they do a literary book

every year where they put in different it's an anthology, and

the proceeds go to pause up in Washington. Oh, yeah. And so

they do like a they'll take a literary figure. Their first one

was Shakespeare, and just goes punk. So everybody takes a

Shakespeare story and turns it punk. Then they did Edgar, Allan

Poe goes punk. And then they did, oh, I don't remember the

next Horatio, maybe, I don't know. But anyway, so a bunch of

different types of but all science fiction and fantasy,

nice and so, yeah, so they do that, and that's who we had down

at the store today. So if you you're having a lot of

publishers, or mostly self published people, or, like,

what? What is your strategy for getting people to do events at

your space? It has been interesting, because I have a

lot of you know, people have reached out, and of course, I'm

very open to that. And so I've had authors, publishers, all

kinds of stuff. And I also do a paint night. And I do, like I

did a wine night. And are you doing wine paint night? I like

those things that people do, or they're like, Look, we all drew

a sunset, or we all drew kittens with sunglasses. Yes, that is

what it is without the wine, because I brought wine a few

times and Nobody drinks it. So we just do it without the wine.

It's too hard to paint, right? It's too hard to paint. So yeah,

and then book clubs and all kinds of stuff. So that's great,

yeah, and I'm, I am happy with anything. So I'm like, you want

an event? You just call me. We'll pick a time. We got you

Nice. Well, you heard You heard her. Local people doing things,

doing the things, even if you're not local. Are you coming to

Portland? Reach out. Yeah, for sure. We'll give we'll give your

info in the show notes, etc. Yes, my detail.

So are you there every single day, every day, every day, seven

days a week. You love it. I do love it. So we the backstory of

the story, right? 37 years in one location, last August, well

last May, we found out. We.

Losing our lease, and so we had to move in August. So I moved

into the new space in August, and what that meant was any

information we had for sales, anything was out the window

because we were in a new location. We were three miles

away. So October 1, I opened up Sundays, and we were doing seven

days a week. The previous owner was working Wednesdays for me,

but now she's ready to transition to the next part of

the life, but I wanted to have one full year of data, right? So

I'm only doing me personally seven days a week till October

1, so I have one full year of data. Okay, are you? Are you

looking forward to?

It's hard because, like, I want to have a day off, but then,

like, somebody will offer to give me a Sunday off or

something, but I'll have an event, or I'll have things I

need to do. So it's not really like, so it's just in my head.

I'm just like, no days off, right? So that I can be prepared

and I can survive, right? But you have that, you have that

light at the end. I have that light. I'm like, I will have a

day off every week.

I will it'll be nice. Well, and I bet people are looking for you

too, because you are very active on Instagram. Yes, I like walked

in, I was like, I'm Emily from Instagram,

so I have to tell everybody my story of seeing Emily on

Instagram. She I don't even know how I followed you, but I

followed you, and then all of a sudden, she was on a road trip

through roads that I was on last summer. I was like, I know that

m, I know that F in a hill. There are so many of them.

Though we went, we went through Idaho and Montana and Wyoming

and back through Idaho and in Montana, there's just a letter

on every hillside over a city, just like to tell airplanes

where you are. I guess, I don't know, it's like the Hollywood

sign in rocks, except Right? Like more chill. And I still

don't know why there's a letter on a hill, but it's fascinating.

So anyway, so I started messaging her, and that's how I

became aware of him. Yeah, I just assumed that you followed

me because I was like a local person who was into books. I

wish, I wish, I wish that was my story. I like hashtag the book

thing, or like hashtag PDX books or something.

I am I tend to everybody that follows me. I tend to look at

their profile, and if they're local, I follow them, yeah, and

so that's probably why I originally started following you

Montana. Letters were what caught my eye well. And, you

know, you called it like you have good instincts. Yeah, I

did, because I was like that. Whatever. This is my friend. I

need to know her. I mean, we've made so many like IRL friends

through social media. Like he was on these My husband was on

these forums for weightlifting, and we've met some of our best,

best friends through Him, knowing someone there. And it's,

it's insane. It is crazy. And when I had, I had somebody, I

was sitting there late at night at a knit night, I do a knit

night too, with people.

And somebody came in and they're like, I follow you on Instagram.

I feel like I'm meeting a celebrity. And oh, my ego was

like, Oh, hi, let me put my crown on. I'm looking you up

right now. But keep talking. You should so, yeah. So like,

Instagram people come in and they're like, I follow you.

You're so funny. And I was like, That's amazing, because I don't

think I'm funny. And so now I tell everybody, you should

follow me on Instagram. I hear I'm funny. Oh, you're way more

modest than me. Because I'm like, Oh, I'm really funny. Are

you so funny? No, I just lied it like, I mean, I don't lie I am

funny, but I'm just not modest about it at all. I'm like, you

guys should follow me. I'm pretty funny.

I do, I do. I do find that entertaining? Because to me,

it's just me talking, which is kind of, when you're a super

extrovert, you want to talk to people all the time. And I found

that basically Instagram is, I'm just talking to people all the

time, yeah? And if enough words come out of your mouth,

sometimes they're good, yeah.

That's not the best way to approach life. It's true. You

have to be able to listen to Yeah. My best post so far has

been I had a baby goat in pajamas come to the store.

Excuse me, yep. How I had, one of my customers has goats, and

she had just gotten some baby goats and,

well, she had saved it, and it was starved. So it was cold.

Yeah, it was cold. And I had just done a photography shoot

that day for a Business Spotlight, and the goat got a

bath, and she's like, I think Laurie needs to have a picture

with a baby, that goat that had just had a bath. So she ran him

down there. And, yeah, and so that video went crazy. It was so

much fun. That's, that's some brilliant that's some good

friends. Yes, she's brought another one. But I'm like, we

need to have all five of the goats at the store. I mean, as

long as they don't eat the books, right?

So how do you organize the books that you have in the store?

Like, how do you choose what to put up? Like, are they mostly

used? Like, tell me about your curating process.

This is fascinating, because I inherited, inherited the

curating process. So again, I have a long history, and we have

an inventory system, and so it tracks how many times it's sold,

how many times it's gone out, if anything. So

most, about 95% of the store is used, and that is all based on

what people bring in versus what we think we can sell. So things

that we have learned can sell are like cookbooks, gardening,

that kind of stuff. And it's very individual to each store,

because I've talked to other book owners, and they have

completely different people than me. Our number one is suspense,

our number two is romance, and then from there, it's like

historical romance, cozy mysteries, fiction, that kind of

stuff. So when somebody brings in books, we just check it

against inventory and we put all the books out. We don't keep

anything in stock. Now, the new books that I actually physically

have to pick is very stressful, because I'm always trying to

figure out, what is somebody going to buy? Because that's an

impulse buy, right? That is something was on a shelf and

somebody wanted it. So I have to, like, think through into the

future of what customer is going to come in and want this book,

and how many copies Should I have? Instagram's good for that

too.

Okay, so I'm not for your not for your buyers. Yeah,

customers, my Instagram followers. I love them all. They

are the younger generation, and they tend to just send me a

message when they want a book.

My majority core group of people are

retired, elderly, and I love them all, but they are not on

Instagram, and they're not going off of buzz. They're just going

off, yeah, like this looks good, exactly, Hmm, I'll take that.

Oh, that's hard. It's very hard, yeah, because you're not being

told by the companies, like, what to get out on your shelves.

Like, I will give you this. You don't have, like, I'll give you

this much money to put this on your front shelf. It's just,

like, who will like, this book? Yeah, it is. It is a hit and

miss kind of situation. So I it's been a lot of learning.

Yeah, yeah. Do you feel like you're you're about to hit it

better than you were before? Yes, I think I'm getting closer.

I have a lot less sitting on my shelf for a really, really long

time. I'm still, I still miss sometimes really big, and then

that has to go back to the publisher. But do they listen to

NPR? No. Oh, my God, that's so hard.

It's like, you can't even do Terry Gross.

No, there is 00, things I can, and they might have impulse

bought it at Fred Meyer, yeah. So even, like, the ones that I

know will buy, like Lee Child is gonna go if it's on the show,

Oh, for sure. But like Dean Coons, fifth book in the Jane

Hawk Series, huge series, but his, I've had it sitting there

for a while because they impulse bought somewhere else and then

bought it. So they just aren't they also aren't used to me

having them, right? So they're not going to you for them

exactly. So,

yeah, so it's interesting.

I I have been since with the things we have in the new area,

poetry, which we didn't, nobody used to buy it at the old store.

So that's coming back. Yeah, yeah, because it was, I mean,

even, like with big bookstores, it was really unpopular for a

while, and now it's starting to, starting to come back in people.

I think there's one younger poet who just became fairly famous,

and he's been getting the younger crowd into it. So it's

kind of nice Instagram poet, I don't know, because I should

know these things. It's okay. Corinne is not here to get mad

about it. Okay, sorry. She's our she's our crotchety host.

She's like, whippersnappers doing Instagram poetry. And my

day poets were real.

I'm like, it's well, Corinne, listen to this. Should we not

absolutely, I'm gonna make a right contest.

Sorry. Corinne, I totally wasn't laughing at you. I was with

laughing with you. I'm laughing at you. Okay, I'm loud. Though

she's you are

I've never met her. Well, you will when we're friends, I will

laugh at her. Okay, great. I'm gonna take a little pause here

to complain about you guys, because

I'm I'm hurt because it sounds like you guys really hated my

Irish accent because nobody left me another review.

It was like, Okay, well, if you leave me a review, then I'll do

it in the accent of your choice. And I was like, Oh, they really

hated that last one, because nobody's doing it. So if you

hated it, I understand, but if you don't

hit me,

somebody was like, somebody on social media was like, do Sean

Connery? And I'm like, you gotta write something for me. I need

material. Gotta be able to read. I'll read Sean Connery. Like,

that's all you gave me. That's it.

No, do Sean Connery, that's what you got to read. Well, I mean,

Sean Connery, that's what I'm saying. Three words, you didn't

do. Sean didn't do the dude. It's just one. Oh, dude, no, he

didn't say, do he just? Sean Connery just said, Sean, yeah,

I'm like, that's, that's no help.

That's zero help. Yeah, I'm really glad I don't have to do

voices, because I don't do well. I'm not very good at it either,

and that's okay. I mean, to me, that's that's me humbling myself

before you listeners, is doing something I'm terrible at, but

it's fine.

One of them asked me to do like, a Chinese accent, because that's

racist, like, you know, yeah, yeah, that'd be really awkward

for me. Irish knowledge, no, because I'm Irish. Okay, solid,

solid, yes. And if anything that I have a, like, some, some

heritage tie to, which is basically all of Europe, is

fine, okay, yeah. Or if I don't know it, I'll just make it up,

because you can do that. That's true too. I mean, prove me

wrong. That's true. It's like, you come on and do this accent.

Show me what I've done wrong.

JT was listening to it, and he was like, Wow, you're so

inconsistent. Like, I'm sorry I didn't realize you were a Radio

Star.

Except you should go listen to our JT Reed series, where he

reads a reverse hair and Dragon romance. Love it. You should

read that. It's fun. Okay, yeah, I saw that. JT read something,

and I was gonna listen to it, but it's Marie Robinson. She is

also a local author. I will Marie Robinson. Marie Robinson,

not Maggie Robinson, no, that is also a local but she's

historical romance. There's, I know, another local author that

does a reverse harem Dragon series, but I don't remember her

pen name that that's under, so I can't say, oh, you just know her

real name, yeah. And I will talk about that. Okay,

it's fine, yeah. All right. So, um, but you should leave

reviews, because in this day and age, reviews are what make they

break everything. So where, if you like this podcast, leave her

a review. Thank you. You're welcome. Where can people leave

you a review? I love all reviews I have. Am on Yelp. I am Google

reviews are great. Facebook recommendations are also

wonderful. So the places that I know to look, if there is a

place out there that has reviews of me that I can't see, I would

love to know about that, also ping me. Please, please. I will

leave you a Google review tonight. Nice, yeah, all right,

yay, yeah, oh, I'm going to go back now from the bookstore side

of things, we're now, we're talking about you again.

Is there a segment that I can ask you questions? Sure? Why

not? Okay, but to that later. But first, I would like to ask

you about beta reading and cons like, I would like to know as a

reader of romance, like, what your role in going to a con was

first, and which ones did you go to? Oh,

so RC, Rw is the Rose City Romance Writers. Did they still

do that? They used to do a luncheon. They don't do it

anymore. And I went to that luncheon for several years.

Obviously, was local. It was easy to go to then

there was celebrate. Romance existed for about 10 years, and

I went to that.

I've never been to RT or RWA,

although I have wanted to, and RT is now gone. What did that

stand for? Romance? Romantic times. It was a magazine, oh,

and it was around for a really long time. It was pretty much

the name in romance reviews, like they were, yeah. So they

ended up closing up last year, and this year,

book lovers con was in New Orleans, and it was some of the

people that had created art too did that. So okay, I have one

I'm going to in February that I'm excited about. But it's not,

it's interesting. It's just an author signing. So okay, yeah,

yeah. And so, so you just go and, like, find new authors and

make friends. And, yeah,

I am. I am not necessarily always going for the author

portion of the event, because I am a social creature, and

basically I just want to go to hang out with people talk about

books. Oh, and I went to Emerald City, that's right, I did that.

Oh, okay, so I love people. Emerald City Comic Con, right?

No Emerald City romance, right? Oh yeah, see, that's why you

need to tell me, yeah, because I was like, that's the only

Emerald City I know. But that's just my, my circle. I should

know that. I should know that

romance events are basically

you have.

The one, one big signing day. You know, all of them generally

have where all the authors are there signing, and then the rest

of the time are little breakout sessions, where you can have a

panel of authors talking about their writing process. You can

have a panel of authors talking about

research or something like that. You can also have, like with the

RT event, they had reviewers panels and stuff like that. But

I never really cared about the panels as much as I should care.

I cared about going meeting people that were like minded.

It's incredibly powerful to be in a room of people that all

enjoy the same thing. Oh, man, yeah. You know, nobody is

judging anyone for reading romance. Note, when you go to a

Comic Con, nobody is judging anyone for cosplaying. They're

just judging how good it is, right? How are her stitches? I

don't know if that's the right color on the shape. Yeah,

makeup, you know, like, that kind of judgment is not the same

as the rest of the world. So it's just one of those things

that I just love doing, to be around and then that

environment, yeah, if I'm around like more than one person who

likes horror movies, I lose my mind, right? Like I found out,

like, I was hanging out at a friend's house, and I found out

that the other friend who had just come over for the first

time also liked horror movies. So I'm like, there are three of

us. There are three of us in one place right now,

I know a very, very small version of what you're talking

about, nice. I am. I have a friend's mom who was in a horror

movie with machete. Who's that guy? Daniel Danny Trejo, yeah, I

used to play I played D and D with his son a couple times,

nice, but I hate D and D, so I went and got a job so I didn't

have to play it on Sundays.

He's very good at it. I have avoided ever having to play DND,

even though I do play

role playing board games, I just don't do magic or DND. They are

different. They're fun, but I'm just not DND and magic, I have

avoided having to play that. I think it's because it's the

length of time I have, like, a four hour window. Oh, no, that's

just making your character, yeah?

And I and I'm done after four hours, yeah? But give me a

Zombicide or sentinels, and we're good to go. Oh god. I know

some people love it, though, like, which is great, you know?

Yeah, I just have a short attention span, and I would

really just rather be sitting there drinking and talking to

people, which is why I have a podcast so

well you can come play games with us sometime, because we

make the husband run the game and do all the pieces that none

of us like, and we sit and talk and drink while he's putting it

all together the husband, the husband whose husband? A friend

of mine,

the one who thinks you should change your name,

that's a customer's husband. Literally, a customer's husband.

It's interesting. No, we have a group of friends. There were

four girlfriends, and we used to get together and just hang out

and talk. And so then we started transitioning into playing

games. And so for a long time, he was the only male we let in

the world. So he was the husband. So he was the husband,

okay, but so that's we, we talk and drink while he does

everything. I mean, you're, you're a romance fan, so like

that could mean any number of things

I do, reverse harems. I just usually, but it's reverse, it's

reverse of that.

Yeah, what kind of reverse harem like? What fantasy

or all of it, all of I've read a space opera one, I've read

witches, I've read demons, I've read currently I'm reading, oh,

it's a witches one, it's Coven one,

there was one that was magic and they were assassins. That was

awesome. Yeah, that's cool. Yeah, yeah, oh, I had a question

there. I've read some young adult ones too, which are

interesting. Yeah,

16 year old to be dating nine guys, and she's in a secret spy

Academy. I don't know I was. I mean, that almost seems more

appropriate. Sure they don't do anything. So I guess that's

okay, yeah, because they're gonna do That's enough. You're

not doing anything and you're dating nine guys. That just

sounds like a successful like that sounds like Quinn from

Daria.

Yeah, I don't like, Have you read any bully reverse harem

like no bully Academy romance is apparently the thing right now,

because I'd been reading it when it was like fantasy, urban

fantasy, enjoying it. But now the big thing is, like, girl

goes to an academy and a bunch of hot boys are really mean to

her, and she sleeps with all of them. I don't like it. Some

people really. It's really popular right now, though. And

you hear all of these people going like, this sucks. I hate

it. And I'm like, but everyone's doing it, yeah, they must be

doing it for a reason.

I feel like maybe one of them that I read had where the guys

started out.

About not

liking her, but it never turned into bullying. Yeah, it's rough.

I don't know. Maybe it's sort of a revenge sort of thing or,

yeah, like, Oh yeah, well, you were so mean to me, but you now

you want me. Hahaha, yeah, I don't know. I'm not a

psychologist. I'm sure someone's written, going to write a thesis

on that. There's something for everyone in the world, right?

Yeah, yeah. We're not about kink shaming. No, no. It's just not

my kink Exactly. Yeah, there's quite a few you go into the BDSM

world, and there's quite a few storylines, and I'm like, That's

not for me.

I'm not everything has to be exactly. I'm really glad that

there's somebody out there that wants this. That's okay. Well,

on the other hand, I think it's okay. I think it's important to

read things that aren't for you with the understanding that

they're not for you. You know it's true. Yeah? Like the Peter

Pan, yeah. And that was one of the comments that we had in our

book club was just like

that. You know, this was definitely written for somebody

else, and we are just witnesses like this was not written for

mainstream, to now be educated. This is written for that, for

them to actually enjoy them, to have a book that they are

represented in, and them to just be able to enjoy it. Yeah, and

you don't have to go out and be like, Hello. I'm here to make a

speech about how this is valid. It's like,

no, no, zero thoughts on that. Join yourself.

Just enjoy the book. Just let people enjoy things.

Okay, beta reading. Tell me about how you got started in

that and what it means. How did I get started in it? That's

really interesting, because I think it was when I was

reviewing.

I feel like I had a friend, a local friend, that was a regency

writer, and she reached out to me and asked if I would read her

books for her. And then I had a couple others, and I met one of

the friends through the book club too, that she was writing

her first book, and she was just looking for people to give her

some feedback. And so that's kind of how it started. Is

literally just friends that I had. I know other people that

have actually reached out to authors or been a fan group, and

then then they're brought in, but mine's always been friends

that I've had. Okay, yeah, that makes sense, yeah? Because I

think when you write the book, you're not just gonna give it to

strangers. I mean, some people do,

I hear

like, I mean, you have to really have quite a bit of trust to

just literally send somebody your work. Yeah, that's

unfinished, yeah? And say, Here you go. And every author is

different on what they want from their BETA readers. But I

always, for me personally, beta reading, my thing is to point

out any really big plot holes or anything that really, really I

think that, like it's not working, or a question is

unanswered or whatever. But for the most part, I'm like, This is

what I liked. This is what I didn't like. This is what I'm

taking away from this situation. Is this what you meant? This

what you meant? Because if it's not, if it's what you meant,

then all is great. That's what I got. But if it's not what you

meant, I'm not sure you did. Yes, yeah, yeah, wait. I mean,

like, what do you have? An example? No, it's been a very

long time, okay, for a while. Yeah, I haven't had that moment

in time, but that was one of my big things, growing into it,

because I'm like, I am not the author, and so what I want these

characters to do is not necessarily what needs to

happen. So I'm not going to tell them how to fix it, yeah. But

fine line, yeah, and I edit. Editing is a lot like that too.

Yes, yeah. So you can't. I never wanted to be heavy handed, and

so I always just wanted to say,

you know, you have to change it if you wanted something else,

because it's not how it came across, right?

Yeah, but I haven't done it. Haven't had that specific thing

where I'm like, reading it, and I'm like, Is this really what

you wanted to come across? Typically, at this point, it's

now like, I really liked this point. I didn't like this point.

I liked this point. I feel like this isn't answered, and it's

usually pretty easy, yeah, I try to, I try to be like, as as

uninterfering, or like, as light of a hand as possible when I do

self published romance editing, which I haven't done for a

little while, just because I wanted a life and I wanted to

focus on the

podcast. We don't have all the time in the world, yeah, but

every once in a while, you just see something, and you're like,

Don't compare people's skin tone to food like,

like, but, but, you know, that's as much as I'm willing to be.

Like, I'm going to tell you how to think,

yeah, don't do that. That's a bad plan. People will be angry.

I'm doing this for you. This is for your own best interest.

How do you find new authors to read, to read?

Yes, in romance in particular. So I have cultivated a group of

friends over the years, and we've been reading together for

a really long time. Is this your book club? Or is this a

different this is different, okay? And not all of them are

friends, like, there's just different people that I've been

reading with, and they will recommend to me somebody that

they it's been tested, right? Like, I don't just take

recommendation because I this is another thing. Everybody wants

to recommend the book they love, but very few people understand

how to process what you like and recommend books specifically to

you that that's your job. It's my job and and I think I do a

pretty good job at it, but unfortunately, not everybody

does. I have a great story about that I will get back. Okay,

great, that literally just happened today. So, but no, I

have a handful of friends that we've just been reading together

for so long that they know the books that I'm not gonna like.

So they don't tell me about those, but they tell me the

books they think I will like,

and then I follow a couple of authors, and so every now and

again, they'll just have a recommendation feed. And I yeah,

it used to be really easy to find new authors.

Now, yeah, when it's out there in

the digital world, oh, yeah, and you read ebooks, yes, yeah. I

mean you have to, right, especially in my genres. I My my

my I'm going to give my 32nd ebook non lecture. So here's

what ebooks did. They allowed any book to become large print

for people with seeing problems, they most digital readers allow

for a text to speak option, which allows any book to be

audible for people that have dyslexia or can't sit

physically, sit and read that long so they can actually still

hear. And there's a lot of books that aren't printed right now.

So I am a fan of literally anything that gets somebody to

read preach. So that's my 30 seconds. But so yeah, so I do

ebook read, but I only read ebooks if I can't get them in

print. Okay, because I can still read print. So, yeah, yeah, and

it's important for you, because you sell print exactly so

support print. You had a funny story about I did

recommendations. So today I get a lot of customers that, bless

their hearts, come in and tell me about this great book that I

should read. And I very, very politely. Usually just say,

Well, I only like romance, and

then they will go on to tell me about how it doesn't matter,

because this is the most amazing book ever. And today, I said,

Well, you know, I only read romance. And she said, Well,

it's not a romance, because she heard me say that she doesn't

read romance, is what she heard me say. And so her response was,

it's not a romance. And I was like, no, no, I only read

romance. And then she literally said, well, it has a romance.

I'm making a face, right? Yeah,

exactly. I had to, I had to delete that face from my face

because, yeah, because you're a customer facing. Said it. And I

so appreciate when somebody loves a book that they want to

tell me about it. But I was laughing because you just said

it was a romance, and then you said it wasn't like, you'll do

anything to make me read this book. Won't you just want me to

read this book? And I that happens to me pretty much every

day, and I love people that are so excited a book that they want

me to read it, so I can't really, like, tell them it's not

going to happen, but it's not that's how I feel when people

tell me to watch TV shows. Yes, yes. Because I'm like, I

literally just watch the same TV shows over and over again, and

every once in a while I might watch a new one, yes, but

probably not. I am like, if my brain is open enough to, like,

accept new material, it's gonna be a book, yeah? And I or a

comedy, right? I have a handful of TV shows that I watch, but

people are all the time telling me about TV shows that I'm just

going to love. And I'm like, You do understand I read? Yeah,

that's what I do. Yeah, I've been watching more TV, and I'm

like, I haven't I'm so behind on my Goodreads challenge. Yeah,

I'm seven books behind. I know you need to hole up for two

days. You'll get those seven books done. I mean, I read half

of a thing this weekend. I started reading. Oh, we will

have that conversation later. We have to What are you reading?

Okay, we'll do that later. Did you want to ask me a question?

Is that what you said? I did. I had several questions, but we

were talking about something that I was like, Oh, that

reminded me, and now I can't remember.

It's okay. So we were talking about, we went through my

recommendations, talking about, then we went into beta reading.

I thought that was, that was, that was what sparked it TV

shows, but it's gone now. So it's fine, because that's what

happens in the brain. Were you going to recommend a TV show?

Well, I was going to ask if you watch shits, Greek, no, oh,

should I watch it? We can talk about that a second. This is,

this is my, I was gonna give you my.

Recommendation on how to recommend books to people? Yes,

great. So this is, I have this conversation all the time in the

store, because everybody's like, well, what would you recommend?

And I'm not going to recommend what I read to everybody, no.

But so the question is, well, what do you like about the books

that you read, that you enjoy, and it's so is it? Is it the

suspense? Is it the relationship? Is it the world

building? Is it the characters? Is it and then, usually, so if

somebody liked Jack Reacher, this super spy guy that's going

out to save in the world an instant that you can go to a

Stewart woods, because he has a stone Barrington character

that's very the similar archive Custer, Derek Pitt. So you have

these ones that you can learn from everybody. You don't have

to read them. You just You just, you talk to all your customers,

and you find out things that they like similarly, and then

you can recommend them versus somebody came in and they were

talking about,

she needed a book for a friend for a birthday, and she likes

thought provoking literary fiction. And I was like, wow,

that's narrows it down very so I'm going through the store and

I'm pulling books in, you know, Frederick Bachman, Anthony doer,

she's like, Yeah, we read that, yeah, we read that, yeah. And

literally 10 books in, they had read every book that I thought

you recommended. I was like, well, at least, you know, I'm

recommending the books you like. She's like, you're hitting it.

That's like a nightmare.

I finally landed her on coyote blue by Christopher Moore, so JT

has read that. There we go. That's, wait, wait, that's hard

hitting literary

fiction. He's witty, he's sarcastic. And again, I've never

read him, but I've talked to people that have and so he I

guess it's kind of literary, yeah, yeah. So that's your

question to ask. If anybody wants a recommendation. Well,

what do you enjoy about the books you enjoy? So if you

haven't read these books, how do you know how to you just read? I

talk to everybody, oh, oh, I talked to hundreds of people a

week. And so as I talk to them, I store what they've bought. How

many people come into the store? Like, hundreds of people a week.

Like, yeah, we're 20 ish on average a day. So nice, yeah,

yeah, yeah, cool. That's fun. It is.

How? Why? Yes. Who got you into publishing or interested in

publishing? Um, gosh, it's kind of hard to say. I mean,

obviously I'm gonna go for the like, cliche. I always loved

reading books, and I thought I was gonna be a writer for a

while. I don't know. Maybe I still will, like, it's everyone

is, I think, to a certain extent, a storyteller.

I was kind of more interested in helping other people tell

stories. I'm sort of, I mean, I'm interviewing people for a

hobby, like, I'm kind of naturally a hype person. I pay

to read because I don't write exactly. It's like, Tell me

more. Tell me more about that. I love that. Keep going. So I

wanted to be in, like, social, you know, public service and

that kind of thing for a long time, and then I am very

empathetic. So it was hard to do,

yeah, I was like, I'm very good at writing. I'm very good at

editing. Like, if I do so myself, I like to see the new

developments in storytelling that are happening. I am, I am

pro ebook as well. I am pro digital publishing. And so I

thought,

books can be extremely helpful in making the world better. They

can also, for the record, make the world worse. I am going to

boldly say that not all books are good, and some of them are

very bad, but

I want to do be part of the good team. Yeah.

So I just thought that because of my skill set and how my brain

works, that publishing was probably a good place for me to

go.

And, you know, I learned some business too while I was at it.

Like, I don't want to be just, there's this big, like, idea of

editing, where you go and curl up in a chair with your red pen

and your cat and your cup of tea, and I'm like, Well, I mean,

that can be fun, but also I want to learn business, and, like,

how to sell things. And, well, because that's the part of

editing, most people don't know. It's not just correcting

manuscripts, it's knowing what will sell. Yes, yes. Well, and

you were talking about how to recommend books, and it just

made me think of like I do.

I write pitches for manuscripts for for our partner, so they'll

want to, you know, yeah, and comp titles, like when you were

explaining how to kind of make that like flow chart to what the

person might like. It's it's the same thing. It's just like,

Okay, well, it's like this, it's like this. It's like this. These

books sold, this book has a good chance of also selling. So, you

know, a little A to B stuff.

Stuff, but, yeah, that's probably that's never been an

answer. I've given someone for that before, but I think it's

more accurate. Like, I don't like being super romantic about

things, yeah, because I don't think for me, it's very

accurate. But, I mean, I do love books a lot. I mean, if you walk

into my living room, you will see,

I think you walked by it pretty quickly, but you can take a

closer. Well, if you didn't love books, publishing would not be

the way that learning all those things would be well, because

you certainly don't make money.

I mean, some people do. This

is not the industry that a bunch of people are making money. No,

this is, this is a thing that you do because you have some

semblance of sentimentality, yes, or, I don't know, you watch

too many movies and think you're going to be able to afford a

brownstone.

Yes, I left school and became an editor. Now I can live in

Brooklyn in my own apartment with with exposed brick,

lots and lots of exposed brick.

It's my lesson a no

of the new economy and the old economy, and all of the economy,

every economy that's ever been

I mean, otherwise we'd just be relying on patronage, right?

Yes, I think that's where we're going. It's but, you know,

extroverts will do well in that world. It's

if, if my patrons could physically support me, I think

they would. They love me so and I love them. Well, yeah, it's

good to have all those connections, and that makes it

all the more fun. And I really do like that. The reason that

independent bookstores are making a resurgence is because

of the community aspect. Yes, we've just all got so lonely

that people came through and, like, we got to the point we

were so into just our computer screens, and that's all we were

doing. And, like, No, we need, we need to connect, yeah, and

that's let's do, like,

paper and friends. Yeah, that's the, if I ever saw a book store,

it's going to be called paper and friends. I love it.

All right, um, why don't you give all of the actual like

information and plugs where people can find you. Oh, come

and find me. So if you are an emailer, you can do

contact@janspaperbacks.com

j, A, N, S, paperbacks with a plural.com,

if you are a facebooker, it is Jan's paperbacks. If you are an

Instagramer, it's Jan's Beaverton. Because I did drop

paperbacks when I purchased the business, in the hopes that it

is more than paperbacks, but it is a transition. And if you just

want to come see me, the address is 12320,

Southwest First Street in Beaverton, 97005,

and if you want to call me, it's 503-649-3444, 649, 3444,

all right. Well, thank you for giving us your phone number. It

is a landline. Oh, my God, you are so analog, I know.

And you can find us@hybridpubscout.com

Join our emailing list. We'll make it worth it for you at some

point, I promise.

Facebook at hybrid pub Scout, Instagram at hybrid pub Scout,

pod and Twitter at hybrid pub Scout, and please leave us a

five star review rating and review us and humiliate me with

your suggestions of impersonations or accents to do,

and if you're not going to do five star, do a one star because

she's got such a sexy voice or something great. So that people

that read the one stars only have fun reviews to read leave

me a five star

that was very convoluted. I do like a one. I like restaurants

that have only fives and ones, yes, because that's how you know

they're good. And the point is that the one should be something

that's good, yeah, yeah. I don't understand that, because people

like me only read one stars. So if it's if it's still good,

then your one star is negated.

Oh, my God. Oh, we're gonna have to talk about that more, because

I'm out of wine. We need wine. So I'm calling it. I'm calling

it. Thank you for coming. Thanks for having me. Lori slash jam

the third Yes,

and thank you all for giving a rip about those.

Bye, bye, you.