BONUS EPISODE!! Elin Hilderbrand Interviews Zibby!
[0:02]Welcome to Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books, hosted by me, Zibi Owens.
[0:07]It's an award-winning podcast with over 1900 episodes, all featuring authors of Books You Love, and those you have yet to discover.
[0:15]Listen daily five times a week. Then go to zibimedia.com and learn more about what the LA Times called the Zibiverse.
[0:22]Zibi Media includes Zibi's bookshelf, an independent bookstore in Santa Monica, Zibi books publishing, Zibi retreats, Zibi's book club, and more.
[0:31]Go check it out at zibimedia.com and follow me on Instagram at Zibi Owens. It'll take you where you need to go.
[0:38]Thanks for listening.
[0:39]This is a special bonus episode because last week I was in Nantucket and did an event at the Nantucket Athenaeum with the one and only fabulous wonderful
[0:53]Ellen Hildebrandt whose books one song I just finished and was absolutely obsessed with. Oh my gosh. She's the most generous author ever.
[1:03]And in our conversation, which I thought was going to be an interview with me interviewing her, it turned out she did a lot of asking questions about me.
[1:11]And we ended up just having this fabulous conversation where we talked about publishing and what it means to be an author and how to be successful and so much other stuff.
[1:22]And it was one of my favorite conversations and I think the audience liked it and I hope you all like it.
[1:28]So I decided to release it as a bonus podcast so you can learn more about her and me and everything else.
[1:33]I feel like you were in Nantucket in August. We can just stop for tent. I hope you enjoy.
[1:38]And by the way, if you don't know, Ellen Hildebrandt is one of America's top authors and a New York Times best selling author of I think 30 plus books.
[1:49]Anyway, she's been on the podcast before and this is not an official bio but more of an introductionist to why you are listening.
[1:55]Oh, come on, you all know Ellen Hildebrandt. Bye.
[1:58]Hello, Zibi. Welcome to Nantucket.
[2:01]Thank you, Ellen. So fun to be here.
[2:03]It is so fun to be here. We've had this on the books for months and months and months and I've really been looking forward to it.
[2:08]So Zibi is a force in the book world in general, but specifically in New York City.
[2:14]Now, the way I met you is trying to, I'm going to get, I'll get it wrong.
[2:22]I noticed a post on your Instagram possibly about Jane Rosen's novel, Eliza starts a rumor.
[2:29]And in this novel, there is a scene that makes fun of Upper East Side Moms and Jane was slated to do a book group in on the Upper East Side and they canceled her because they heard it was somebody read it and thought it was snarky.
[2:44]So I was so outraged that I immediately followed Jane, bought her book, read it, posted about it and then I started following Zibi and I'm going to say that was January of 2020 before the pandemic.
[2:54]Does that sound right?
[2:55]I think so. I was also outraged by that and immediately offered to host a book club for her instead of the snarky Upper East Side group.
[3:03]So did it working out really well.
[3:04]And it got me here apparently. So yeah, exactly. But tell the audience like how you got started with this monumental sort of project life that you have going on, everything you have going on.
[3:18]It sounded so funny to hear my bio being read because I've just gotten back from a week long family vacation with those four kids who just escaped already from here.
[3:26]And we've been like living out of suitcases and I feel like I'm only mom and I'm like wait, they're actually other adults here and I do have a job and anyway, so it was nice to hear.
[3:37]I got into this after I had stayed at home with my kids for 11 years prior to that I had been writing my whole life and always wanted to be an author and had gone to business school and my background.
[3:49]To also start a business and I didn't know how anything was going to mesh, but somehow eventually it did.
[3:54]I ended up getting a divorce from my first husband and had all this extra time every other weekend where I could get back into reading and get back into writing and remember sort of who I was after all that time.
[4:05]So I did and I got back into all of it I tried to sell a book that I thought was so clever because I was going to call it moms don't have time to read books the book, but nobody thought that was funny except me or maybe other people who weren't in publishing at the time.
[4:19]So I didn't have a platform at all and it's very hard to sell a book for those who are authors out there want to be authors without a platform and a girlfriend suggested that I started podcast.
[4:30]That name of my rejected novel moms don't have time to read books and I said okay a friend said start a podcast I was like why not what's the worst that can happen.
[4:39]So my first episode I sort of hunkered down in my bedroom and just recorded it into my phone after I googled like what's the easiest way to start a podcast.
[4:46]So it started with that I interviewed we have a mutual friend here tonight but I my first guess was Lee Carpenter who I went to business school with and I interviewed her about her book and I realized oh my gosh I love this more than anything.
[4:57]I'm going to ask all these questions of authors that I always want to know and I used to go to book events I mean I still do but I used to go to Barnes and Noble I would have the calendar on my fridge and I would always go but then I would leave sort of wanting more like somehow the questions asked weren't what I wanted to know.
[5:12]So now I can ask like okay so where do you get your hair done I mean they're not all superficial but like things like okay well seriously how did you come up with that or what is it like being famous or
[5:23]whatever I feel like asking I can ask and usually people are curious about those things too.
[5:28]So it's ended up working out well that inspired the rest of it and one thing has just led to another over the last six years and everything that seems like a good idea I test out and try.
[5:38]Not everything has worked but this is what's led me to become a publisher which was designed to make the author experience better and have my own bookstore which has been amazing.
[5:47]So let's dig in a little bit on the podcast so you Tim told me this I did not believe it because Tim and I have a podcast and we have how many episodes we have 12 per season 13 you interview a different author every day.
[6:02]Is that true.
[6:03]So for four straight years I interviewed I had I released seven episodes a week then I thought okay maybe I should go back to five a week.
[6:12]But now I that's very frustrating because I keep interviewing more people so like we just did a huge blast with like 30 minutes this month so it all even that basically the answer yes I interview everybody somebody every day although I don't interview them every day I interview like five people in a day and that is just so crazy to me now there's no way.
[6:31]you're reading everybody's book is there is that possible I can't read them all start to finish okay but I've learned how to prep everybody's book okay how do you do it because I want to know.
[6:42]Okay let's get into it so first I have to schedule it all and then I schedule it so that I can pace out like how much time I'm giving myself to read each book and then some books I know I'm going to want to linger on every page and those I give like two weeks of time to.
[6:57]Okay and I read them at night and I'll read them like for an hour at my desk during work day, but I speed read a lot of them okay I can't always like relax with the book some books I'm more interested in the author so all we the first 50 pages and then get into a conversation about the author.
[7:13]So it depends on if it's a novel or if it's a memoir if it's self help sometimes I have to throw in a children's book because I'm like oh my gosh I can't I can't do my week I have to do a children's book to make the make it all work but.
[7:24]Sometimes like your books one song I had this whole week that I allocated to read the whole thing and I read every word and actually my daughter it was just here was like you guys don't bother mom she hardly ever gets to finish an actual book.
[7:37]So I do different amounts but if I know I'm going to love it which I can kind of tell you know you can kind of tell if the first page or two then I give it extra time and I read really quickly and.
[7:49]I read every night at least for an hour before bed so it all adds up and how long does the how long does your podcast conversation last 30 minutes and what are your favorite questions to ask.
[7:59]So if you have some standard questions that I ask you know tell the audience about your book blah blah blah but my favorite ones I just.
[8:06]I come up with them as I'm as I'm going the way you would at a conversation with a girlfriend or something like yeah I don't have prepped questions I started when I started out doing it I was very nervous and I was over prepared as if it was like a school final and I would.
[8:19]type out like 12 to 15 questions for episode including quotes with like the page numbers and parentheses and I did that for like two years until finally an author was like why do you send everyone the questions ahead of time and I'm like oh you know because I'm prepared and I would have like seven printed out things on the floor.
[8:35]Next to the books and everything and then I realized wait I don't have to do that and once I got good enough at doing it and practice enough and relax enough I realized wait I don't need these questions I can just be prepared and then see where it goes so that's what I do now.
[8:48]one or two authors that have stood out of all these I mean I my mind is blown but is there because that's a lot of authors you guys are we all agreeing that's that's a lot of authors like how do you remember their name or remember 1900 okay 1900.
[9:04]back there okay 1900 we are so slacking chop chop has that have there been one or two that have stood out like sort of above the sea of 1900.
[9:13]I mean there's some where I've been particularly nervous and such as like Matthew McConaughey where I was okay sweating almost as much as I'm doing right now and like Andre Agassie who is actually my second guess.
[9:25]Oh my gosh Alicia keys but to be honest for me the more exciting thing is interviewing people I've had sort of author crushes on forever.
[9:33]Right and then I finally get to talk to them like someone like Jojo Mois or Mary Keys or Sophia Stella or you and that's so exciting to me yeah it's like oh my gosh they've been in my life for so long and they've just been a flat name on a cover and now they're like a 3D person and it's so exciting.
[9:51]I know I totally agree because Tim and I we've had a lot of slip well we've had a lot we've had you know a handful of celebrities on our podcast and but the people.
[9:59]the people.
[10:00]Well, I think the person I was most excited about was Maggie O'Farrell, who's one of my,
[10:03]I think is the best writer in the English language, and we had her on at the end of
[10:05]season one.
[10:06]And we're having Aina Garten on at the end of season two, and that will also be so exciting
[10:11]for me.
[10:12]How do you prep for your podcast?
[10:13]Oh, Tim does that.
[10:14]I obviously do nothing.
[10:15]I just show up.
[10:16]I don't have time.
[10:17]Mom's don't have time to prep for podcasts in my house, so Tim does the prepping, and I do
[10:23]nothing.
[10:24]Mom's don't have time to brand is so ingenious, and I was so drawn to that after our initial
[10:32]introduction.
[10:33]How, I mean, I know how, but can you talk about how you came up with that idea?
[10:37]I came up with it because I had started writing a lot of personal essays, which I used to
[10:41]do.
[10:42]I started writing for 17 magazine and I was 16, but then I was deep in mom life, and I started
[10:47]writing for scary mommy and the today parenting team and all these outlets all the time,
[10:52]and after a while I had a lot of essays, and my husband Kyle, who's here tonight, said,
[10:57]you know, you should really turn all those essays into a book.
[10:59]And I said, Mom's don't have time to read books, and I was like, that's so funny.
[11:04]That's what I'll talk about.
[11:06]So that's how I came up with it.
[11:08]Okay, that's amazing.
[11:09]I'm just like, and then what you did was you took the idea that mom's don't have time
[11:15]to, and then you did an anthology.
[11:17]So can you tell us some of the chapter titles of the essays in that book?
[11:21]So during the pandemic, when the pandemic hit, I had started the podcast, but I started
[11:26]with one a week, and at the time that felt almost insurmountable, like how was I actually
[11:30]going to do one a week?
[11:31]So I had started with that, and I had also started doing these pop-up book fairs and salons
[11:37]in my apartment in New York City where I would just invite everyone to come over, and I
[11:40]would have an author to kind of like this, but it would be at home, and they would talk
[11:44]and everything.
[11:45]And so that was sort of an informal book club, if you will, and a precursor to the bookstore.
[11:50]So I had been doing all that, and when the pandemic hit, I felt like I was in a really
[11:54]good position to quickly pivot, whereas the bigger publishing houses and organizations
[11:59]needed to like think about it and make strategic decisions, and I was like, oh no, I'm just
[12:03]going to start interviewing anybody who needs help.
[12:06]I couldn't believe what was going to happen to all these authors with their book releases
[12:09]after I'd gotten to know the whole thing so well.
[12:12]So I started this Instagram live show where I would interview four authors a day, and
[12:16]I started this online book club, and did all these other things to sort of draw out
[12:22]the authors and give a platform to them when the world was so unpredictable.
[12:26]And one of the things that I thought would be fun is getting them to write original content,
[12:32]which I had sort of thought about before the pandemic, but then when it hit, I was like,
[12:36]well, come on, they're not really doing anything else.
[12:37]Like, I can ask these authors for us, it's like, what are they going to say?
[12:41]I have two of the events, but anyway, basically I guess prayed on these authors because
[12:45]that and said, would you mind writing for this website?
[12:49]I'm going to put an essay up every week so that people have things to read in original
[12:53]content.
[12:54]So I did, I put them on my website, and then after the first three months, I was like,
[12:59]gosh, I've released a lot of books by these authors, which was so exciting when I had like
[13:04]a word document in my email from Lily King, I'm like, oh my gosh, no, it's even read
[13:09]this except me.
[13:10]It was cool.
[13:11]So I realized I really loved that, and I loved working directly with the authors.
[13:15]for three months, I was like, I have a lot of these, so I copied and pasted them all into
[13:18]one big document, and I was like, oh my gosh, it's a book, it's allowed me to be a book.
[13:23]So then I went out to this one publisher I had met with before the pandemic who said
[13:28]that they could get a book out in like two weeks, and I was like, no, wait, that's awesome,
[13:31]which of course is not true, but they did get it out in about eight months, which was
[13:36]not bad.
[13:37]Right.
[13:38]So in that I asked authors to write about the first one was about five things moms
[13:42]didn't have time to do.
[13:43]So one was like moms don't have time to read, moms don't have time to work out, moms
[13:49]don't have time to have sex, moms don't have time, I mean, we don't, anyway, I thought
[13:52]these would all be really funny to hop eggs that would inspire moms don't have time to
[13:56]sleep, moms don't, anyway, and they wrote essays inspired by these topics.
[14:01]So I got that whole anthology together, but I didn't mean it for it to be an anthology.
[14:05]So then I thought, well, now I want to do one on purpose.
[14:08]So I went out to another group of authors, picked another five things moms didn't have
[14:11]time to do, and released that as a second anthology, amazing, yeah, absolutely amazing.
[14:17]And then after that, you called me and said that you were starting your own publishing
[14:24]company, company imprint company house, house, your own publishing house.
[14:28]So tell a little house, how are audience about that?
[14:31]Yeah, it seems crazy looking back, but I loved working with the authors so much and I kept
[14:38]hearing about author dissatisfaction and how disappointed people were and people would
[14:43]show up at my apartment and show up really nervous and like nobody is, I don't even know
[14:47]what I'm doing and I only have a couple things or I'm so disappointed or this out of
[14:52]the other thing.
[14:53]And I felt so bad because me and all at the same time, I still was trying to be an author
[14:56]myself and had not succeeded in that.
[14:58]And I've been writing forever.
[15:00]So I knew what that feeling was like and wanting to get to the end of the road and then
[15:04]the idea that they would then be sort of dropped or not celebrated when I feel like
[15:10]every book is like a cause for celebration, sort of devastated me and everybody was like,
[15:15]oh, what was me the state of the publishing industry?
[15:18]Like enough already.
[15:19]There must be something we can do which is sort of my attitude towards most things.
[15:22]Like, come on.
[15:23]Like, what can we do to fix this?
[15:25]So I started gathering information, talking to lots of people, thinking about it, is there
[15:30]another way?
[15:31]Why is it insurmountable?
[15:33]And because I hadn't been in publishing, I didn't see as many roadblocks probably as
[15:38]someone who had worked in a publishing house, who at the time, by the way, all those people
[15:42]were like, you cannot do this, like, that's hilarious that you want to start your
[15:46]own publishing house.
[15:47]And I was like, no, maybe I can.
[15:49]So I sort of tested it out.
[15:50]I spent a year doing a fellowship with just a couple authors because I thought, well, maybe
[15:55]instead of a publishing house, I'll just work directly with authors and mentor them
[16:00]and I'll like pair them with editors and see how that goes.
[16:03]But it didn't quite scratch the itch because it didn't address the biggest problem,
[16:06]which was sort of author treatment, if you want.
[16:10]And I actually had a call with this distributor at the beginning of that year of fellowship.
[16:15]And I had a call with them.
[16:16]They were like, hey, well, what about this?
[16:18]And what about this?
[16:19]And what about this?
[16:20]And I was like, I have no idea what I'm doing.
[16:21]Obviously, I cannot start this publishing house.
[16:23]So I spent the year working with the authors, getting more information, getting really
[16:28]well educated on everything, partnering with really smart people and coming up with the
[16:33]whole business plan.
[16:34]And then I just did it.
[16:36]And I was like, what's the worst that can happen?
[16:38]I fail at trying to help authors.
[16:40]I fail in celebrating the great work of people I think are amazing and deserve to be celebrated
[16:44]and that doesn't work.
[16:45]Okay.
[16:46]Well, if I fail at that, that doesn't sound too bad.
[16:49]I'll try.
[16:50]So for those of you out there who are thinking like what kind of terrible treatment
[16:53]are the authors undergoing, I will tell my own personal story.
[16:57]Okay.
[16:58]So my first novel to Beach Club, which is bought, I'm pregnant with Max.
[17:02]So it's bought in 1999 and I get an advance of $5,000 and I'm like, okay, my agent promised
[17:09]me lots and lots of money.
[17:10]I didn't think $5,000 was lots and lots of money, but we did not have any other authors.
[17:14]So I took at the advance for $5,000 and then they would send me out on, it came out
[17:20]my son was six months old.
[17:21]They would send me out on like to a book event, but they would not pay anything.
[17:26]So I'm on Nantucket.
[17:28]I have a six month old.
[17:29]I had to fly.
[17:30]This is back in the day of Islander.
[17:31]I would pay my own ticket for me and my lap child to fly to Haines, then I'd have to
[17:36]rent a car, get the baby, put the bucket seat in it, drive Max to the bookstore where
[17:40]they would not have advertised in like three people would show up.
[17:44]And this happened, you guys, for five years, for five books.
[17:48]And I would cry, call my agent and cry and my publishing house just did not care about
[17:53]me or my Nantucket books or any of that.
[17:56]And then you're saying to yourself, why are you sitting here, Ellen?
[17:59]And it's because after book five, I switched publishing houses.
[18:02]I was sitting on a novel called Barefoot and they deemed that my breakout book and my agent
[18:06]moved me to a different publishing house who then took over and really said we're going
[18:11]to make it was superstar, which they did.
[18:13]Now it did not, it was not overnight because they took me on book six.
[18:17]I did not hit number one and the best I'll listen to book 23.
[18:20]So it was a 17 book, very, very slow climb, but for five books and the years when the kids
[18:25]were very little, I mean, I was just treated terribly like so mid list.
[18:30]It was bottom list.
[18:33]Really bad.
[18:34]I didn't realize that publishers picked like, okay, we're picking this is the book we're
[18:39]going to make into a bestseller.
[18:40]And the other ones, by the time they get to bookstores, it's been predetermined.
[18:43]Yeah.
[18:44]Maybe bookstores don't even take that big of quantity.
[18:47]The whole system is sort of not rigged, but predetermined in a way.
[18:50]It is predetermined.
[18:51]It's not because of the people who work in publishing.
[18:55]This is nothing personal.
[18:56]I really do believe that most people I've met who work in publishing love books and want
[19:00]the best, but structurally the organizations are not set up for success.
[19:04]Right.
[19:05]And a lot of times they'll take too many books.
[19:07]So when I was at my first publisher, they had a list of like, I don't know, 53 books.
[19:11]I don't so many, maybe 200 and then little brown would have only 50.
[19:16]So they had more assets to allocate to each author.
[19:19]So it really depends where you end up.
[19:20]But a lot of it starts with the agents and the hype and, you know, how much money the
[19:26]advance is.
[19:27]I got a $5,000 advance.
[19:28]They're not going to spend a ton of money on my book.
[19:30]So why did you not give up?
[19:33]Well, John Irving, when I was at Iowa and John Irving came to speak and he said, if you
[19:38]can do anything other than write, do something else.
[19:42]And I realized that I just could not do anything else.
[19:46]I was going to write, regardless, that was just what I wanted to do and what I was driven
[19:49]to do.
[19:50]And so I just kept doing it.
[19:53]And I would love, I would love to say like, I was so ambitious and I was so driven.
[19:57]It wasn't that.
[19:58]It was just like, I.
[20:00]Second nature like I was just going to keep writing books and then if they sold great and if they didn't great
[20:04]But I mean I was so happy obviously the book six broke out
[20:08]But think about I have a lot of authors come to me with one book and they're like I can't sell it
[20:12]And I'm like you have to write a second book dude
[20:16]Like you have to and they don't want to because they're so attached to the one book
[20:20]But my best advice for somebody like that is write a second book write a third book because it took me
[20:25]Six books to get
[20:27]Not even launched but this is what happens in swan song too is that someone writes a screenplay and finally gets up the courage to show it
[20:35]And the man said who she shows it to says
[20:39]You know good job way to go, but no like this is going nowhere and it's too small
[20:44]She's like my life is too small. It's based on my life like I thought I was mining my pain for
[20:49]You know having some end result that's great and he's like, no, no, just keep writing maybe in five years
[20:54]You'll be better and she's like five years
[20:57]And that's true. Yeah
[20:59]So I want to turn our attention to your novel blank which I thought was absolutely
[21:04]Phenomenal so many
[21:06]So many things to talk about in this novel
[21:08]So it's about a mom
[21:10]A wife a writer who has had a very successful first novel that was made into a film and now she's on the hook
[21:16]For the second novel and she has no ideas you guys you cannot imagine like for me. This is a thriller is she gonna get it done?
[21:25]And I'm like sweating and like turning the pages as fast as I can and thinking oh my god
[21:31]She doesn't have any ideas and literally like this is me up at night
[21:34]She starts ideas. She leaves them, you know, one of them gets stolen and I don't want to give too much of a book away
[21:39]But for me, it's a complete thriller and I'm like oh my god, oh my god
[21:42]And it really it addresses a lot of the issues that we just talked about in the publishing industry
[21:48]But tell me how you came up with the idea for blank
[21:51]I don't know how much you want to give away
[21:53]About this so you you you say I'll say okay
[21:57]So as I mentioned I kept trying to sell books all all the time that I was launching the podcast and then doing the book club
[22:04]And all these other things and I kept getting rejected
[22:07]So I would get a rejection letter
[22:09]Close my email and then like click over to zoom and interview somebody about their book
[22:15]And which is great. I was so happy for them
[22:17]But I was like okay, well
[22:18]I know everybody says don't give up don't give up but like maybe it's just not going to happen for me
[22:23]Like maybe I'm just never going to have a book sale and that's okay
[22:25]And I'll just be like I'll just write for fun and I'll be the reader that I am and that's okay
[22:30]I guess I'll have to come to terms with that
[22:32]But I kept trying because every time I would give up
[22:35]I would like pick myself up off the floor and be like what
[22:38]This is really what I still want to do like even if it doesn't work
[22:40]So I kept trying different ideas. I sold eventually
[22:46]So a lot of luck in it different attempts book ends and memoir of love loss and literature
[22:51]Which is when I told my life story about a lot of losses that I had gone through
[22:55]I lost my best friend on 9-11 who had worked in the North Tower
[22:58]And she had been my college roommate and my best friend came out all our family vacations
[23:02]And I'm Stacy which sort of bifurcated my life forever
[23:06]And there was a before and an after and I just couldn't get past wanting to tell the story of what that was like
[23:13]Because it happened two weeks when I was two weeks into business school
[23:16]And just even the juxtaposition of like all my classmates caring about the section group deals for fleeces
[23:23]And yet I was like bringing DNA strands to the armory to try to identify her
[23:27]Which no one ever did by the way
[23:28]So it was not to bring down the mood of this discussion
[23:31]But I just I felt compelled I had to get the story out
[23:35]I had to tell the world about her
[23:37]And just like process the fact that someone you love so much can just disappear
[23:42]In a puff of smoke like all that was left
[23:44]It was like a strand of her hair on a sweater I found in a box
[23:47]Like how is this possible?
[23:48]We were 25 years old
[23:50]So and then I had a lot of other people I love dying a short period of time
[23:54]And all while I was struggling to like figure out accounting
[23:57]Which on a good day I can't figure out how to do
[24:00]So I wanted to tell that story
[24:02]And I kept going back to it finally I woven books
[24:05]And I told it through the books that it had been in my life forever
[24:09]Something everybody could relate to
[24:11]So I saw that in my mark which was thrilling and amazing
[24:13]And I felt so good to finally get that story out for many reasons
[24:17]Mostly personal but just very excited
[24:20]But then all of a sudden I had this editor who was wonderful named Carmen
[24:24]And I told her that like my lifelong dream was really to write and sell a novel
[24:28]And that I had written several novels that hadn't sold
[24:30]I wrote a book after business school called Off Balance that didn't sell
[24:33]And many others I wrote a book called Forty Love about falling in love
[24:37]Again at 40 with my former tennis pro
[24:40]But who's not my husband scandal?
[24:44]Read all about it in book ends. Anyway, so I kept pitching the whole time
[24:50]We were doing gearing up for publication of book ends
[24:53]I would pitch Carmen all these different novel ideas like
[24:56]Okay, what about lovers leave a book set in the competitive backgammon world
[25:01]About which I thought was so clever and still do by the way because lovers leave is a move in backgammon
[25:05]You know when you get a six and a five, but anyway, it doesn't act
[25:08]So I kept pitching her ideas that she didn't like and I kept going and kept going and then finally
[25:13]She was like, okay
[25:13]Well, book ends is about to come out
[25:15]And if you're gonna do a novel with me
[25:17]I'd really like to be able to announce it
[25:19]So you can talk about it on your book tour and all this
[25:22]And I was like oh my gosh
[25:23]And so I went to my family dinner with my you know my family every night
[25:27]We have dinner or whatever
[25:28]And I was lamenting this and being like you guys
[25:30]What am I gonna do like I have to come up with a good idea
[25:33]And I just like keep looking at this blank page
[25:35]What other ideas can I come up with?
[25:37]And my son was like well why don't you just hand it in blank just like
[25:41]And I was like wait, that's such a good idea
[25:44]That's what I could write my book about I can write a book about someone who hands her book in blank
[25:49]Is a commentary on the publishing industry
[25:51]And how it's all about marketing
[25:53]And it doesn't even matter what the book is
[25:55]You could make a bestseller out of nothing
[25:57]And that'll be the book
[25:58]And so that's the book I wrote
[26:00]And that's the book my character in my book wrote
[26:02]So it's very meta. It's very meta
[26:04]Yeah
[26:05]And also I'm thinking to myself I wish I could get away with that just hand it a blank book
[26:09]Yeah, nothing in it
[26:10]Just it's just yeah
[26:12]It's empty
[26:13]The character did think about contractually the 60,000 words
[26:17]Copying pasting the word blank 60,000 times
[26:19]But ultimately she just handed it in blank
[26:22]Yeah, so one of the interesting things about this novel
[26:26]Is that it does mention like the marketing and the advertising and the and the publicity
[26:31]I do a well this year most every year as I do 14 or 15 events in 12 days
[26:37]And I just get it out of the way
[26:39]Now there is an it is unreasonable for publishing houses to expect that someone like myself
[26:46]Who is sitting in a room or in my case out by my polar at the beach writing a novel
[26:51]For a year to be also able to go out and talk to people and meet and have events with you know
[26:57]Three or four or five hundred people because those skill sets are so so different and yet that is what every author is expected to do
[27:04]So can you talk a little bit about that?
[27:06]I've never had the 300 people in room problems
[27:10]This is the big crowd for me. Let me just say okay, well, I'm happy. Thank you. You can't take it out
[27:14]Yeah, he makes me feel really good. Thank you
[27:17]No, but it's true. You do have to and actually this is one of the things I really like about it because I am comfortable and
[27:25]I am almost more comfortable in the marketing of the thing as I get having worked in marketing and doing that
[27:31]And I feel less sort of vulnerable than I do when I'm trying to like put my heart and soul on the page and and like you know
[27:38]Hand show somebody
[27:39]That but you definitely have to put on two hats and it's you know today
[27:44]I was say I flew home from Dublin, which I have never been able to say in my life
[27:48]But there you go if I can say it I must so anyway
[27:52]I was like this is great. My kids will be on their iPads
[27:54]I'll have like eight hours. I'm gonna just get like 10,000 words done on my next novel
[28:00]Whatever it's gonna be made. I did like nothing
[28:02]I read 60 pages to try to figure out what I was writing and then I fell asleep
[28:06]But it was much easier for me to then go to my emails and think about the marketing of it
[28:11]Another anthology that I have coming out in October and making those plans and emailing those authors and making visuals and whatever so
[28:19]I think it helps when you have that when you think that part is fun
[28:24]But most authors not I would say half-and-half do not think that's particularly fun
[28:28]And you have to because even the best publishers like all it does is help if you are willing to go the extra mile
[28:35]I mean for my for blank. I went to like what 45 cities or something crazy
[28:40]It's crazy now. It's crazy
[28:41]But I thought that was so fun and I'm like when am I ever gonna get to do this again?
[28:45]I'm gonna go to Minneapolis and it was great
[28:47]Okay, because that's not how I see it because I also went to Minneapolis and I think I probably texted Tim
[28:51]And I'm like I have to go to Minneapolis
[28:54]Then I'm going to Denver and then I'm going to St. Louis
[28:58]You've been to these places a lot like some of these places I've never even been to and I'm like I'm all with America
[29:03]How fun and also like I mean, I don't know
[29:05]You maybe have a little bit more time because I'm on such a tight schedule that people will be like you know
[29:10]I'll have friends that live in Minneapolis and they'll be like oh do you want to go to dinner and I'm always like I
[29:14]Cannot I can't do one single thing. I can only go to the event
[29:19]Like sometimes I'll get my hair done get my hair done go to the event go to
[29:23]To the hotel and do room service and then
[29:26]Yes, I don't ever do my hair so that seems I don't have the energy
[29:29]But I don't ever have energy I'm my hair in five minutes and I have lunch with someone
[29:33]So they're good. So you do like to do that. You like to go see your friends and like all these different cities
[29:37]I mean, I did not candidly spend the night in Minneapolis. Okay. I flew in that morning
[29:42]And then I was like four o'clock. Yeah, that's a lot. It's a lot. Okay. So let's talk. How do you feel about the marketing of it?
[29:48]I mean you barely need to market anymore, right? But like how do you feel about having like I mean
[29:53]I mean yeah, let's sell them you have a built-in audience, which is like the holy grail of publishing like become an author where you just
[30:00]announced you have a new book and it immediately sells.
[30:02]Right. But I do a fair amount of like a ton of marketing. So like this year,
[30:06]I mean, of course out of proportion because it was my last day on target book, but I did
[30:09]all kinds of interviews, all kinds of podcasts. I had CBS come to my house. That was an all-day affair.
[30:14]You know, I'm always on CBS this morning, which is so nerve-wracking. I don't know how you feel
[30:18]about good morning America, but you're I'm on live and they never tell you what they're going to ask you.
[30:22]And that's so nerve-wracking. I have a lot of people do send me Q&A's. I mean, I'm constantly
[30:26]me and then you have to do extra content. Like if you're me, you have to do extra content for
[30:30]the big retailers. So this year was Walmart. And we also had to do extra content for it. I can't
[30:35]remember, but Walmart has its own addition. Oh, Nantucket book partner says its own addition.
[30:40]So I was doing extra content for that. So it's like this whole other job. So it doesn't end. It doesn't
[30:45]end. No, I mean, does Stephen King tour? Probably not. But I mean, I'm not Stephen King.
[30:50]You got that too because it's like Nicholas Sparks's person is always like, okay,
[30:55]have you booked the pot? I'm like, Nicholas Sparks does it really needs meat? It's still
[31:00]in Nicholas Sparks. Like the biggest deal authors in other words, still want to get on a podcast,
[31:05]right? You think that it's like in the bag. I'm going to say this and this is probably going to
[31:09]be really scandalous, but this is true. The very big authors, and I'm not saying it's Nicholas
[31:14]Sparks. I'm not saying it's Stephen King. Their advances are so enormous. And they have to earn
[31:20]them out just like we do. So they have to sell millions of bucks or hundreds and hundreds and
[31:27]hundreds of thousands of bucks to even make a dent into their advance. So they need, because a lot
[31:32]of times I think, and also when you're looking at a next sparks, what do you guys do? You go to
[31:36]the bookshelf and you're like, I think I've already read this, right? Because you've, they're all
[31:39]exactly the same. And you not his necessarily, but like, let's say they're my books. I think I've
[31:44]already read this. Like you have to make the effort with each book to make it different. And
[31:50]you know, I'm friends with Jim Patterson. He puts out a book every nine weeks. And he does,
[31:55]he puts out a book every nine weeks. That is, that is a true fact. And yeah,
[32:00]he's been on my podcast like six times. And I just got another pitch. And like wait, seriously?
[32:04]Yeah, he's always wanting. He's, he's still, he always wants to promote the book, whatever it is
[32:09]that's in his nine week window. He's always out there promoting because people will look at it and
[32:13]say, I can't remember if I read this or not. They just see his name. And they don't really
[32:17]pay attention to the book. So I think that most authors are out there. Tim and I had Emily Henry
[32:24]on the podcast yesterday. And she's an introvert. And she does not, she does not go on tour.
[32:31]And I'm so envious. But she, I mean, she sells a bajillion copies. What do you think about,
[32:36]this makes me wonder, what do you think about like social media and book talk?
[32:41]Yeah, I am grateful that whole new generation of people are reading. I think that's amazing.
[32:48]I think that, although now I feel there's a backlash. There was something recently,
[32:53]I guess a lot of people, well, I won't get into it. But now people are saying book talkers and
[32:58]book fluencers think of two highly of themselves. And really you have to be deeper into the book.
[33:04]Now there's some sort of backlash happening. But in general, I think it's great that there is a new
[33:10]way for books to get a lot of attention because it is virtually impossible to stand out in a
[33:14]crowded bookstore with like thousands and thousands of books. How do you do it? So the fact that
[33:19]people are being so creative. And this one book talker, who I interviewed Betty Kayut for instance,
[33:26]like she acts out every book and she'll like even put on like little hat and crossjammers sunglasses
[33:32]and like pretend to be a character and like she did blank. And I thought, I thought that was the
[33:36]the coolest thing. She's like, I'm Pippa Jones and here I am typing. And I was like, that's so fun.
[33:41]So I don't know if it sells books. I think it's great. Yeah. I mean, I think, I mean, whatever,
[33:45]I don't think, I don't look at any of it. And I think that the titles they pick are sometimes
[33:49]strange. But by strange, I mean, random, like you don't, you don't know what's going to catch
[33:55]their fancy. And these are people that are way younger than me. But they move a lot of copies,
[34:01]which is like super exciting. Like Emily, like Colleen, first Colleen Hoover was like an enormous
[34:06]recipient of book talk love and look at her. She's and I love Colleen so so much.
[34:10]Are you on TikTok? I'm like, oh God, no. I'm way too old for that. Wait, wait, wait.
[34:15]Wait, wait, wait. My kids have not forgiven me. No, I know. That's definitely not happening.
[34:20]Can we talk a little bit about owning a book store? So then on top of all this, to be open to book
[34:24]store in Los Angeles. I did. Crazy town. Crazy. Particularly crazy because I live in New York City.
[34:30]But I don't like anything to be easy. So the reason I even did that. Well, I've always
[34:37]won. I mean, every book lover like well, not every many book lovers always think wouldn't it
[34:41]be amazing to own my own bookstore? I think that I used to think that all the time. But I didn't
[34:46]actually think that one day I would have my own bookstore until the moment basically that I had
[34:50]my own bookstore. But I had told my husband about it over and over again. And I had looked at spaces.
[34:56]First, I looked at some spaces in New York City just to like dream with this even work. And then
[35:01]I like found out the rent. And I was like, this will not work. And then I thought, how was any
[35:05]bookstore in business in New York City? Like this is crazy. There's just no way. But anyway, so I put
[35:10]the idea away. And then we spent a lot of time in LA. My husband's a producer. My brother's out
[35:15]there. He's also a producer. So that's like our happy place. And when I don't have my kids,
[35:20]when they're with my ex, we go out there a lot and have like all of our friends. And I live
[35:23]there after college. So when I'm there, I'm like a different relaxed person, even though I'm
[35:28]working all the time. But anyway, there was an Amazon bookstore like in the Pacific Palisades where
[35:33]we have a place and it's been a lot of time. And Amazon closed all their bookstores. So
[35:38]cows like, hey, now's your opportunity. There's no bookstore there anymore. Why don't you just take
[35:42]over this space and open a bookstore? And I was like, oh, that's really funny. And I barely even
[35:46]had time to call the broker. But it was like a Saturday. And I was like, just for fun. I'm just
[35:51]just going to call and just see how crazy it would be to like operate that space. Anyway, the broker
[35:56]laughed me off the phone. It became an eave cellar on. So anyway, it wasn't going to happen.
[36:00]He said, but I do have this really cute place in Santa Monica on Montana Avenue. And the owner is
[36:06]dying to have a bookstore there. And I was like, no, no, no, it's too far. I mean, when I lived in New
[36:10]York City, but it was too far from the Palisades, which is 20 minutes away. But anyway, so I refused
[36:15]to look at it. And I was like, no, no, no, it's forget it. And then he kept following up with me.
[36:20]And then finally, I was like, well, I'll just go see the space. Like, what's the harm? And I went in
[36:25]and it's this, it's 823 square feet. It's like the size of the stage practically. It's not that big.
[36:30]Oh, a little bigger than the stage. And I walked in. There's windows like the corner location,
[36:35]windows everywhere. And I could just see it. And I was like, this is amazing. It's like out of a movie.
[36:40]But I have to renovate the whole place. Because at first, I thought, oh, I'll just do a pop up. But I was
[36:44]like, well, I can't do a pop up because I've got to deal with these walls. And like, you know,
[36:47]the ceiling is terrible. And I'll just, and I'd love like renovation. Anyway, so I just added,
[36:53]I'll try it. I'll do a short term lease. And I'll do it. And also I wanted to address another
[36:59]part of book discovery, which is that it's so hard because finally I did have these books of my own.
[37:04]And I'd have one book like on a very high shelf in a giant Barnes and Noble, which by the way,
[37:08]is like a miracle that aren't when Barnes and Noble even takes your book. But I was like,
[37:13]I can't find my book in Barnes and Noble. How is anybody going to just like
[37:17]happen upon it and think this looks great if it's completely hard to find. So for my books or
[37:23]and I do a lot of roundups like these are books that are great for this. These are books that are
[37:27]great for that. So I thought I'll just have the shelves be based on mood or based on fun
[37:32]theme. So when I'm not even here, people can walk in and instead of having 18,000 books,
[37:38]it'll be curated for them. So there's one book, like one book shelf called Reeling From Divorce
[37:42]because so many people were coming in being like, I have a friend and I'm like, yeah,
[37:47]and you know, books that make you laugh, books that make you cry, motherhood, melez,
[37:52]feeling really anxious. So all these fun shelves so that you have a tiny place where you can start
[37:57]out. And then you end up finding the right book for you. So I thought it would be really fun.
[38:01]And it is. It's really fun. And is it really fun? And it's not a headache.
[38:04]No. I mean, I have a great manager. We have a fabulous team. We have like seven part-time
[38:09]book sellers and our manager used to work in an H&M, but is an author. Actually half our team
[38:15]is authors. And we all just love books. And it runs really well now. And it's great. I'm going out
[38:22]in a few days. Oh my gosh. That's so awesome. I'm so I'm so happy. Okay. One more question,
[38:26]but then we're going to take questions from the audience to start thinking of your questions.
[38:29]You're obviously a working mom at this point. Your kids are younger than mine. My kids are grown
[38:33]up. They still live at home. But um, well, two are two are in college and two have graduated
[38:37]in all of back at home. It's so great. There was such a funny line, by the way, in Swan song,
[38:43]where there was a retirement party. And yet the daughter Casey was home. And he's like,
[38:47]I never thought that like we couldn't have our moment because the kids are home at my retirement party.
[38:52]At my retirement party. Yeah. I mean, that was a good one. That's also me.
[38:58]How do you manage the life work balance? No, I also want to preface this by saying that a lot
[39:04]women writers don't like this question because it's not asked to men. And I do agree.
[39:09]It's very annoying that this question is no one asked John Gersham how he manages his work
[39:13]life balance with his kids because what's the answer is wife does it. But I will ask you,
[39:19]how do you manage your work life balance? I'm not offended in the slightest. I was a stay-at-home mom
[39:24]for 11 years. It's fine. I'm very, very invested in the kids and I'm around them all the time.
[39:29]I still plan my work days around the kids. So my team knows like I leave at 230 every day and I
[39:35]go pick up the kids and then I work from home in the afternoons. I'm online all the time. I'm
[39:38]working until after they go to bed. But my appearances are like what I try to do is around their
[39:44]schedules. And I was just invited to do an event like the second day, like their second day of
[39:49]school at six o'clock. And I was like, oh, that sounds like fun. And I was like, you know what?
[39:52]I think they're probably going to do me at home. I'm like, I can do it at an event another time.
[39:56]Like I don't have to go do that. So I try to plan everything around.
[40:00]them and what I anticipate their needs being that said they're on there. I've had
[40:05]a lot. I try to involve them and everything. So like for your book for instance like the
[40:09]whole time I was reading it I was sharing things with them like oh my gosh like this is happening
[40:13]this is happening and then they get into it like well what happened did he die who did it like
[40:17]what happens you know so they so they feel like they're experiencing it with me also they've
[40:22]become really huge readers particularly my younger two kids my older kids I don't know I lost causes
[40:27]but the younger kids are you know they we on our trip every night they would like bring a book
[40:31]to dinner and I'm like maybe this is a bad thing but I kind of think this is an awesome thing so
[40:37]I involve them with everything I try to make them see that what I'm doing is not like random
[40:43]work call like I would never say that I'm like I'm going to interview the author of you know
[40:48]whatever book and this is what it's about so I think transparency and inclusion and you know
[40:56]I'm stressed out a lot I won't lie like I'm always doing something but also I have two kids who
[41:01]are in boarding school so that helps because they're 17 and my two younger kids happen to be very
[41:07]self-sufficient well not very a little well okay fine they look I'm anyway and I'm divorced
[41:13]and remarried so I have every other weekend without the kids so essentially for most the time
[41:18]at home there are two kids part you know it's 80% of the time or something like that okay
[41:25]so that does that make it matter it does it makes it a little it makes it a little bit easier
[41:28]but it's still hard and you know the famous line that when you're working mom when you're
[41:31]at work you always want to be at home and when you're at home you always want to be at work so
[41:34]you can't win but yet we're doing okay and you're doing great you too thank you all right you
[41:40]guys join me in thanking Zibi Owens this has been so great thank you thank you thank you
[41:48]thanks for listening to momstone have time to read books if you love it please leave a review
[41:53]and follow us on social at Zibi Owens and at Zibi readers