Jo Piazza, EVERYONE IS LYING TO YOU: A Thriller
[0:00]Hi, this is Zibi Owens, and you're listening to Totally Book to Zibi.
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[0:44]Joe Piazza is the author of Everyone Is Lying to You, a Thriller.
[0:48]This is Zibi's book club pick.
[0:50]Joe Piazza is the international best-selling author of 12 books, including the Good Morning
[0:54]America Book Club pick We Are Not Like Them, with Christine Pride.
[0:57]She is also host of the critically acclaimed Under the Influenced Podcast.
[1:01]Her work has been featured in The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal, among other
[1:04]publications.
[1:05]She lives in Philadelphia with her husband and three feral children.
[1:09]Welcome, Joe.
[1:10]Thanks so much for coming back on my show this time to talk about everyone is lying to
[1:14]you.
[1:15]Congratulations.
[1:16]But thank you.
[1:17]I'm so happy to be here.
[1:18]I always love talking to you.
[1:19]This was the highlight of my week.
[1:20]Oh, you too.
[1:21]And by the way, I think this might be my one of my favorite books of yours, so good, but
[1:26]not put down.
[1:27]No, seriously.
[1:28]I mean, not only is the plot fun and all that, and I am deep in the influencer world.
[1:33]So I feel like very interested in all of this stuff, but also just all the ways you talk
[1:38]about marriage and the day-to-day life of like motherhood and just the things that you
[1:44]don't necessarily talk about.
[1:45]I don't know.
[1:46]You scatter that about in such a way that I feel immediately understood.
[1:50]Anyway, I really loved it.
[1:51]It's really good.
[1:52]Thank you.
[1:53]Thank you.
[1:55]This was so fun to write, I got to say, and I told myself going into this because I read
[1:59]it really fast.
[2:00]It was like, you're just going to have a blast, okay?
[2:03]You were just going to, you were going to write the most bananas influencer thriller you
[2:06]can think of.
[2:07]Go.
[2:08]That's your project.
[2:09]And I wrote it in about four months, I think.
[2:13]Oh my gosh.
[2:14]Well, it's really, it's really good.
[2:16]And I think there's that sense of listening to you talk, like you're just talking, like
[2:21]you're just explaining what it was like to go to mom, mom or whatever it's called and
[2:24]like, you're just explaining, you know, how embarrassed you are to be scrolling Instagram
[2:29]and like, buying on someone and wondering if they're spying on you.
[2:33]Like this whole thing, we just, we all are doing it alone.
[2:36]And so the expose of it all is really kind of funny.
[2:39]Okay.
[2:40]Back up.
[2:41]Tell everybody what everyone is lying to you is about.
[2:43]Yes.
[2:44]Yes, absolutely.
[2:45]So I, I've been covering influencers for five years now.
[2:48]I'm a podcast under the influence and I never thought I was going to come some kind of weird
[2:52]influencer expert.
[2:53]But here we are.
[2:54]Here we are.
[2:55]And I became fascinated with the trad wife phenomenon, you know, the kind of domestic
[3:00]goddesses that whose lives always look perfect.
[3:04]And they've got the gorgeous white flowing dresses and white houses and nothing is covered
[3:08]in dirt, even though their kids are running barefoot through a yard filled with chickens
[3:11]all of the time.
[3:12]And I wanted to kind of straight legged goat and whatever.
[3:16]And a three, yeah, I did include a three legged goat.
[3:18]Like I said, with this book, I was like, can you just make it crazier?
[3:21]And I'm like, there's a, there's a three legged goat and there's an AI baby at one point.
[3:26]Yes.
[3:27]You never know what you're going to get.
[3:28]Well, kind of like with the world of influencers, you never know what you're going to get.
[3:32]It just seems to get crazier and crazier.
[3:34]And I truly believe that influencers are our new celebrities.
[3:37]I mean, our attention is so focused on this small screen in our hand that it is just
[3:42]a perfect world for a thriller.
[3:45]And I wanted to pull back the curtain on this beautiful life and show what's really behind
[3:51]it.
[3:52]Like who is lying to you?
[3:53]And what do we believe about people's lives?
[3:55]So we have two best friends from college.
[3:58]One of them has grown up to be a journalist, Lizzie, the other one, Bex Rebecca has grown
[4:04]up to be a very beautiful, very famous, like multimillion follower, Tradwife influencer.
[4:12]And she lives on this gorgeous ranch somewhere out west.
[4:15]We are very, it's very hazy, they're, they're out west somewhere.
[4:20]And with her husband, Gray, and then someone from the east coast, yes, yeah, someone
[4:25]out somewhere out where, well, because also it's not anyone influencer.
[4:29]I mean, it's kind of a combination of so many different influencers that this could be
[4:33]Wyoming or Idaho or Utah, we don't know where it is.
[4:37]Rebecca is living on this ranch with her very handsome, but you know, we never really
[4:43]see him cowboy husband, Gray, and her many, many children raising chickens, raising kids,
[4:50]homeschooling, homesetting, all of the things that we see on our Instagram feeds all the
[4:53]time.
[4:54]And she writes to Lizzie and they had, they've been estranged.
[4:57]They haven't talked in 15 years, they had a big falling out.
[5:00]She writes to Lizzie and says, Hey, I want to give you this big interview, this big exclusive
[5:03]and Lizzie writes for a women's magazine.
[5:05]She's kind of struggling, like a lot of people in media and Bex invites Lizzie out to
[5:10]a mom influencer conference called mom, mom.
[5:12]And the two of them reconnect, they have this great night together.
[5:16]And then suddenly the next morning, Rebecca's husband ends up dead and Rebecca is missing.
[5:22]And Lizzie has to solve the murder to perhaps, you know, save her best friend and her friends
[5:29]kids.
[5:30]And also to figure out what the hell is happening in the spananas influencer world.
[5:35]And I got to say, you and I were at mom two, I was going to say that is the last time
[5:41]we were together in person was at mom two point out.
[5:43]And now here we are with mom, mom in your book.
[5:47]Yes.
[5:48]Yes.
[5:49]And so we were on that panel at mom two point out, and I actually, I love influencers
[5:52]and influencer culture.
[5:54]I respect the hell out of female influencers.
[5:57]They've created a multi billion dollar business for women by women that is completely
[6:01]disrespected by most of the world because it's by women for women.
[6:05]But there's also a lot of hilarity in it.
[6:08]And like there are some things that end up in the book, like I literally saw or overheard
[6:13]and then maybe enhanced for everyone is lying to you.
[6:16]Oh my gosh, well, we might need an offline debrief of who said what and all of that.
[6:22]Oh my gosh.
[6:23]So the two of them are estranged in a way that backs had sort of abandoned this best
[6:29]friend, best friendship.
[6:31]And those are kind of the wounds when you have such a close friend, especially in the
[6:35]college years, and that is your whole life where it's hard to just get over.
[6:38]And so not only is she in her trying to cover this for the magazine, which she feels is
[6:46]like sort of on its last legs anyway, but she has to get over her past her, which is
[6:51]so hard.
[6:53]And you have a line early on where you say, I'm wounded in ways I can't possibly explain,
[6:59]which I love because aren't we all like isn't that like the most universal line in the
[7:05]book?
[7:06]Right.
[7:07]Yeah.
[7:08]So talk about how to get over all those past hurts because in this case, it has to be
[7:13]both personally and professionally and kind of all at once.
[7:16]Well, I don't think that we have enough language to talk about friend breakups, to be
[7:22]honest.
[7:23]And my friends are the background backbone of my life.
[7:26]And I've had many friend breakups that I still think about more than I think about the
[7:31]breakups with my romantic breakups.
[7:34]They haunt you and they wound you and they stay inside your soul.
[7:38]Because I think most of the time, I mean, for the majority of our relationships, our friends
[7:42]mean more to us than those romantic attachments.
[7:45]And yet we live in a culture that talks about break romantic breakups constantly.
[7:50]And I don't know about you, but I have been been ghosted by a friend before.
[7:55]And that also, I mean, it just sticks with you, it sticks in your gut in a really particular
[8:00]way.
[8:01]And so this friend that ghosted Lizzie isn't just any friend.
[8:05]She's someone that she can watch her life on the small screen because she is an influencer
[8:10]now.
[8:11]She sneaks peaks at this, she doesn't know how she feels about it.
[8:14]And then all of a sudden when she reappears in real life, Lizzie wants to do this for professional
[8:19]reasons, but also to heal really.
[8:23]And so she has all of these confusing motives going out west to mom, but then they also
[8:31]fall into a very particular, very comfortable pattern.
[8:35]Because even with old friends, I think they are almost always a soft place to land,
[8:40]even if we've had really difficult issues with them.
[8:43]And you and I are recording this a little bit early, but the white lotus finale just happened
[8:48]with the very toxic friendship.
[8:50]I did not read the finale yet.
[8:52]Okay.
[8:53]No spoilers.
[8:54]No spoilers.
[8:55]But we've watched this friendship all season and watched the ups and downs, how they love
[9:00]each other, how they hate each other.
[9:02]And yet in a lot of ways, they fall back immediately back into their own patterns and
[9:06]they are very comfortable with those patterns.
[9:09]So we see something really similar with Lizzie and Bex.
[9:12]And by the time that Bex disappears and Lizzie finds out that she may have actually murdered
[9:17]her husband, who might not be as perfect as the internet has lead us to seem.
[9:23]She's very invested in both saving her friend and saving this friendship.
[9:29]And I think that we can all relate.
[9:30]I think we've all had a friend like that, a friend that we've lost or a friend who's just
[9:34]kind of changed over time because the friends that we make in college.
[9:38]I say this all the time.
[9:40]I love my friends from college so much.
[9:43]Most of them I would not have chosen now because we're very different kinds of people.
[9:48]And yet when I see them, they are almost like my siblings because we came up in such a
[9:53]formative time together.
[9:55]Even younger.
[9:56]I mean, I just reconnected with somebody I went to grade school with who I hadn't seen.
[10:00]like you have to like fast forward.
[10:01]I don't know, almost 40 years, and now she's like,
[10:04]all over the, and I just keep like looking and I'm like,
[10:06]oh my gosh, how can I reconcile this person with the one
[10:09]who like I totally remember like hanging out
[10:11]in this part of my house with, and I don't know.
[10:13]It's just, it is crazy that we get these time warp views
[10:16]of people.
[10:17]Well, that's exactly what I was gonna say.
[10:19]It's almost like time folds in on itself, right?
[10:21]And I had a similar thing recently.
[10:23]We're cleaning out my mom's house because, you know,
[10:25]we're squarely in the same much generation.
[10:26]So much fun to move her closer to us.
[10:29]And I found all of my pictures from grade school
[10:32]and middle school.
[10:34]And it feels like it's yesterday.
[10:36]And I look at these people.
[10:37]I'm like, I haven't spoken to you in 40 years.
[10:38]I have no idea what you're even doing now.
[10:42]And yet it still feels so visceral
[10:44]and feels like it's yesterday.
[10:45]And I thought about that a lot
[10:46]when I was writing Lizzie and Backs.
[10:48]Oh my gosh.
[10:49]Well, the clues that you give us, even early on,
[10:51]so I feel like I'm not spoiling things too much
[10:53]when we see like a makeup covered black eye
[10:56]or we see like a text that she happens to see.
[10:59]And she's like, who could this possibly be from?
[11:01]And maybe it's from the husband, right?
[11:03]We're getting little glimpses into what can be something
[11:07]quite sinister.
[11:09]And when you start feeling that,
[11:11]what do you do with that information?
[11:13]Like at first, ignore?
[11:15]I don't know.
[11:16]I don't know.
[11:17]Well, you know, this is a question
[11:19]that I think comes up a lot in influencer culture.
[11:21]We actually, we see people have become obsessed
[11:24]with influencers.
[11:25]and tire Reddit threads devoted to dissecting
[11:28]their actual lives to saying, oh my gosh,
[11:31]I actually think that this relationship
[11:33]isn't going as well as they're saying it is.
[11:36]Like what is happening beneath the surface?
[11:38]We all like of that desire to see these things.
[11:42]And so I really, I wanted to play with that.
[11:44]I'd be like, what do you,
[11:45]if you see something, do you say something?
[11:48]Do you do something?
[11:49]What do you do with that information?
[11:51]And also to play with the perfection
[11:54]that not just influencers present,
[11:57]but that we all put forward.
[11:58]I think a lot about what I put on my own social media feeds.
[12:01]And I try to, I hate the word authentic.
[12:03]It's like the worst word in the world right now.
[12:06]And I talk about that in the book.
[12:08]But I try to put out real life.
[12:10]But at the same time, you're not putting out
[12:12]the fight you had with your husband
[12:14]or the fact that you're two year old this morning
[12:18]had to be wrestled to the ground like a crocodile
[12:20]because she wouldn't take off the bathing suit
[12:22]she slept in before she went to school,
[12:25]which is a thing I'm still getting over from a half an hour ago.
[12:29]On the other hand, is it really so bad
[12:31]to wear bathing suit to school?
[12:32]Think about it.
[12:33]It is 30 degrees to die.
[12:36]And actually, here's the thing,
[12:38]I would have allowed it except the bathing suit
[12:41]doesn't have diaper snaps.
[12:42]So it would have been hard for diaper changers.
[12:45]Otherwise, you'd be like, you go,
[12:47]you walk to school and that bathing suit will roughly
[12:49]joke and I believe you have diapers.
[12:52]Like they'll have diapers.
[12:52]I can't believe you still have diapers.
[12:54]Oh my gosh.
[12:55]I know.
[12:55]And they're so little, they're so little.
[12:56]But yeah, I think about what we present to the world
[13:00]on Instagram and social media
[13:01]and how we see other people's lives.
[13:03]And I think it's a big kind of mind fact from moms
[13:07]because we think we're seeing people's perfect lives
[13:10]all the time, but they're just curating it.
[13:12]They're just putting a glossy filter on everything.
[13:14]Well, I guess the question is like,
[13:16]is it entertainment and do you have to show?
[13:19]I mean, if this was a TV show,
[13:21]you wouldn't say, oh, this isn't fair on, you know,
[13:25]three's company or like one of these shows
[13:27]that we used to watch growing up.
[13:28]Like we wouldn't expect to see,
[13:30]I know that influencers are not actors and actresses, right?
[13:33]It's like reality TV in a way.
[13:36]But it's also complete entertainment.
[13:38]And who says you have to, like maybe people don't want that.
[13:42]Like if I were to put all the like annoying moments
[13:45]with my family, like I don't know who that,
[13:48]like what is that giving the world?
[13:49]Why do we need to put that out there to begin with?
[13:52]True, I don't know.
[13:53]It is entertainment, but I think the big butt here
[13:56]is that it doesn't always feel like it
[14:00]because the scroll of social media is social media.
[14:03]It's also right next to pictures of your friends,
[14:06]new baby or their poodle.
[14:08]It seems like this is often real life.
[14:12]And like that is kind of the fun house mirror situation
[14:14]of this.
[14:15]If we were able to view it just as like pure media,
[14:18]like we're looking at a digital magazine.
[14:20]We are looking at a TV show.
[14:22]I think there would be a lot less mom guilt and shame
[14:26]involved in it.
[14:27]But we still haven't evolved to look at it like that.
[14:31]Interesting.
[14:32]I feel like I kind, I mean maybe because there's a lot
[14:35]about influencer culture in this book
[14:37]that when I first started like getting on Instagram,
[14:39]I was shocked by and I'm wondering if your readers
[14:42]are gonna be surprised by.
[14:43]Like I consulted a social media person
[14:45]really, really early on, like I don't 10, seven years ago.
[14:48]I don't know something.
[14:49]And she's like, okay, the first thing you have to do
[14:51]is you have to do a photo shoot
[14:52]and you have to bring like 10 different outfits
[14:55]and you have to pretend that you're filming this
[14:57]all throughout the day.
[14:57]And I'm like, what?
[14:59]So I did this one photo shoot.
[15:01]Turns out I ended up using this photos for years.
[15:02]In fact, sometimes I still use something.
[15:04]Like that was actually kind of a good idea.
[15:06]Of course it was.
[15:07]In the book, you know, Beck says every Thursday is her time
[15:10]to have the kids put on all their beige clothes
[15:13]and like appear in all these different scenes.
[15:16]And is that real?
[15:19]I mean, because that is patently not real.
[15:21]Presenting as if it's, I mean, I don't know.
[15:24]I don't know where the line is of what you have to say
[15:27]is true or not.
[15:28]Like this would be better if Beck's was like this.
[15:31]Well, I don't know.
[15:32]You know, like where is the line?
[15:35]There is no line.
[15:36]That's the thing.
[15:37]It is all a gray area and we're all kind of grappling with that.
[15:39]And that's what I discovered about influencers
[15:41]five years ago too.
[15:42]When I first started reporting on them
[15:44]that they do hire professional photographers
[15:46]and videographers to shoot a ton of content in a single day.
[15:50]I was fascinated by it.
[15:51]I tried to do it.
[15:52]My whole family ended up crying and screaming by hour too.
[15:55]Like it was done.
[15:56]I was, that was the moment I'm like,
[15:57]you can't be an influencer girl.
[15:58]Your family will hate you.
[16:00]But I, and I also still use those pictures to this day.
[16:03]Right.
[16:04]Yeah. I really do.
[16:05]There was a really, it was a really nice photo shoot.
[16:07]Yeah.
[16:08]But I talked to a lot of the big influencers.
[16:11]And this is how they love their life.
[16:12]It's like, okay, one day a week, two days a month,
[16:15]you're gonna shoot all of your reels, all of your content.
[16:19]And maybe you don't have to disclose that.
[16:22]But there are a lot of your followers and fans who think
[16:25]you're just shooting this in the moment
[16:28]that this is your real life.
[16:31]And I think they feel very betrayed by that.
[16:33]I mean, I have interviewed a lot of the people
[16:36]who run like the Reddit threads,
[16:38]kind of trying to dissect all of these influencer accounts.
[16:41]And they're obsessed with finding out what is real
[16:44]and what is fake.
[16:45]And so I think there is so much curiosity about it.
[16:48]And I get that.
[16:49]One of the things that I only learned
[16:52]at an influencing conference last year
[16:55]before I wrote this book,
[16:56]was that you can actually rent influencer spaces,
[16:59]influence our houses in order to film your content.
[17:03]You don't have to own the perfect kitchen.
[17:05]Wait, you could get it.
[17:06]So it sounds like a film set.
[17:08]and you pretend it's an Airbnb
[17:10]that you pretend is your house.
[17:11]I wanted one when we were in Cleveland for the eclipse too.
[17:15]Cause we looked around and we're like,
[17:16]I saw these inspirational quotes on the walls.
[17:19]We're like, oh, it's an influencer rental house.
[17:21]You rent it by the hour.
[17:23]Oh my God.
[17:24]And so it doesn't have to be your space.
[17:26]And it's not just kitchens.
[17:27]It's also like bathrooms for like get ready with me routines.
[17:30]You'll never see a toilet.
[17:31]They don't have toilets in there.
[17:32]Whereas if I were to put a phone in my bathroom,
[17:35]like the mirror would reflect a toilet at some point,
[17:39]and like bedrooms for like, you know, wake up with me
[17:42]and even kids in our trees.
[17:43]So I decided to take that a step further in this book.
[17:46]And I'm like, what if there's a whole shadow house,
[17:50]which is a very fun thing.
[17:51]But again, like the book just kind of teeters
[17:53]on the edge of satire because everything in it
[17:56]really is influenced by something very, very real.
[18:00]That's crazy.
[18:01]I feel like we need to do a field trip to
[18:03]to an influencer house.
[18:05]Our influencer ranch out west.
[18:08]So we can feel like we're not milking the cows or whatever.
[18:12]Well, I gotta say, I just ordered one of those influencer dresses.
[18:16]I ordered the Eevee magazine milk made dress in order to,
[18:20]I'm gonna wear it to all of my book events.
[18:21]I'll wear it to your party.
[18:22]If you have a party in Junite or house,
[18:24]and I'm gonna go milk a cow in it.
[18:26]Be wise, I'm sure I'm all in.
[18:29]I'm all in on this, this promotion.
[18:33]Oh my gosh.
[18:34]Well, back to what you were saying for a second
[18:36]about sort of the masks that we all wear.
[18:38]I mean, to get through the day,
[18:40]we have to pretend that we're fine, right?
[18:43]Just so I get through drop off or whatever.
[18:45]Nobody wants to necessarily hear the dirty laundry.
[18:49]Like hear about all the inner most things until later.
[18:53]So how do we marry staying close to people,
[18:56]being authentic, and yet not just like constantly
[19:00]sort of purging?
[19:01]Like what is with the masks?
[19:03]And do they actually serve us well?
[19:04]Or do they do us all a disservice?
[19:07]And we should all just throw them out.
[19:09]You know, again, it's a gray area.
[19:11]I gotta say there is something to faking it
[19:14]until you make it, right?
[19:15]Especially when you're a parent,
[19:16]because it's like, okay, I can't let my kids know
[19:19]when I'm totally falling apart.
[19:21]So there is something to having to put on a mask.
[19:24]What I do truly believe though,
[19:26]is that we need to take those masks off
[19:28]a little bit more often with friends and also acquaintances.
[19:32]I've tried to get a lot better with,
[19:34]when someone asks me like, how are you doing?
[19:36]Being really honest about it.
[19:37]Being like, you know what, not great.
[19:39]I just wrestled a child to the ground.
[19:41]And it was terrified there, like, shoulder was gonna get
[19:44]dislocated from trying to get this ballerina bathing suit
[19:48]off of her, which it was rare,
[19:49]which could be like, it's my ballerina.
[19:51]I'm like, God, you're so cute when you're so terrible.
[19:55]But I do think that there is something
[19:57]to admitting the high.
[20:00]is in the lows and talking about what's working,
[20:03]oh, it's not working.
[20:04]Because when we believe that everyone else's life is perfect,
[20:07]then our expectation gap gets really uncomfortable.
[20:11]And we feel like we're doing something wrong.
[20:13]And that's not right, because we are all struggling.
[20:15]I mean, you're so good at talking about it.
[20:17]You've been talking about it for so long and in your books
[20:20]with mom, moms don't have time, right?
[20:23]Being a mom is, and I keep thinking about what travel,
[20:26]around and said about being a mom on the collar daddy podcast
[20:30]recently that all of her friends are in hell.
[20:33]And it's just a very narrow view,
[20:35]because being a mom is terrible in literally one moment
[20:41]and amazing 30 seconds later.
[20:43]And I think we could talk about that dichotomy,
[20:47]that it's constantly changing.
[20:48]And I wanted to talk about this in everyone is lying to you,
[20:52]which is, I mean, it's a thriller, it's so fun.
[20:55]You can read it if you don't have kids,
[20:56]but I want to do inject some of this motherhood stuff.
[20:59]Like her kid is literally under the covers in the morning
[21:02]and wakes her up by biting her big toe,
[21:03]which is something that has also happened to me.
[21:06]And I was like, that is too specific to be fiction.
[21:08]Like, it's really, it's highly specific and specific.
[21:11]And she thinks it's they're like dying Basset Hound
[21:13]named those and it was because I've always thought
[21:15]that I'd be really funny to have a dog named after
[21:17]like a 90s teenager, like Bethany or Kimberly.
[21:22]And so I didn't appreciate all the 90s references.
[21:26]And then a second later, she's like hugging
[21:29]and kissing this baby's belly because it's so cute
[21:31]and you just can't not do that.
[21:32]Or she loves her husband and he's awesome,
[21:35]but also he's not working and that's freaking hard.
[21:38]Yes, right.
[21:39]Full disclosure, my husband got laid off last April.
[21:42]And so we've been dealing with that switch
[21:45]to who is the primary parent.
[21:47]And what does that look like in your household,
[21:50]which I actually think a lot of women are going through
[21:51]right now as we see the rise of the woman breadwinner
[21:54]and trying to co-parent through the world being so crazy.
[22:00]So I wanted to get all of that stuff in there.
[22:02]But then on the next page,
[22:05]someone gets murdered in a really grisly way.
[22:07]Well, there is a line when you talk about that,
[22:10]that you say about the husband's lay off.
[22:13]Like we're not going to acknowledge
[22:15]that this has all shifted and yet it has.
[22:19]Because there's something about like airing it
[22:21]and saying like, okay, well, I do have to go to this conference
[22:24]because I am supporting our family.
[22:25]In fact, I feel like in the book,
[22:28]like money is a big through line, right?
[22:30]Because both girls in college
[22:32]were working in the cafeteria and they used to,
[22:35]I think you said something like adding street cred
[22:37]to the sorority, like to the dry delts
[22:39]or something like that.
[22:40]In fact, so much so that Lizzie asks back
[22:44]when she's talking about like how she's so rich now.
[22:46]She's like, okay, like what are we talking?
[22:47]You know, like how much are you getting paid?
[22:50]Like they can ask each other this.
[22:51]And so like money is something that I feel like
[22:54]they're both wrestling with, whether struggling
[22:57]or just seeing the effects of like what can money get you
[23:00]and then actually since it's Bex who has gotten all this money
[23:04]but is not necessarily so happy.
[23:07]Like it doesn't bring happiness.
[23:08]So to speak, like you can get what you've been missing
[23:11]and yet it can destroy everything as well.
[23:14]Yeah, exactly.
[23:16]Well, no, it's not really like at all
[23:18]because I think that what we also don't talk about
[23:20]when we talk about influencers
[23:21]or I don't think that we talk about this nearly enough
[23:24]is class and money generally.
[23:27]And so what I have learned about influencers
[23:30]over the years is that it is a very, very rare thing
[23:32]for an influencer to be making Gonzo bananas money.
[23:35]Okay, I mean, that is like,
[23:36]it's almost like comparing it to the top 1% in the country.
[23:40]The majority of influencers or people aspiring
[23:42]to be influencers are kind of just getting by.
[23:45]And then you have a group of kind of like
[23:47]upper middle class influencers who are doing really well
[23:50]and have turned this into a media business.
[23:52]And then you have the Gonzo bananas ones
[23:54]who were like celebrities.
[23:56]But we just don't, we don't talk enough about
[23:58]actually how they make their income,
[24:00]what are they actually getting paid?
[24:01]Or even amongst our friends, like what do you make
[24:04]and how do you make your money life work?
[24:07]There's a great sub stack out there called the purse
[24:10]where they dissect people's,
[24:12]just their savings accounts, their income,
[24:15]like what they spend.
[24:16]And I'm so obsessed with it
[24:18]because I'm just dying to know how other people live
[24:21]and how much makes someone else's life move and work.
[24:26]And that's what I wanted to express with Bex and Lizzie
[24:29]because also, even though they've been estranged
[24:32]for so long, they do fall right back into that pattern
[24:34]where they're very comfortable.
[24:35]It's like, I'm gonna ask you the uncomfortable thing.
[24:37]How much money are you making?
[24:37]And what does that feel like?
[24:39]There was a book because I had this author on my podcast
[24:42]and because it's early in the morning
[24:43]and my brain is not working right now,
[24:45]I can't bring it back.
[24:46]But there were receipts every day of how
[24:49]like the fictitious character was like spending
[24:51]all her money and, okay, I'll think of it now.
[24:54]I'll share it.
[24:55]Yeah, I wanna know.
[24:56]I wanna know because I'm fascinated by money.
[24:59]My friends and I actually in the past,
[25:00]this is something that's changed in the past like two years.
[25:02]We're very open about money.
[25:03]It's like, what is your new salary?
[25:05]Like how much are you spending on this?
[25:07]And I think that's really healthy
[25:09]because I don't think that money should be a taboo topic
[25:12]especially among women.
[25:14]Well, part of author life essentially
[25:17]is also becoming sort of mini influencers, right?
[25:21]All authors now are required to quote have a platform,
[25:25]talk about other people's books,
[25:27]post about their own books, figure out how to make content.
[25:29]It's not so easy.
[25:30]I feel like a lot of authors feel very intimidated
[25:33]by this new demand because of course
[25:34]this is a different skill set than writing
[25:38]which is completely different.
[25:39]And yet it's now part of the job.
[25:41]It's fully required.
[25:43]I hustle my butt off on social media
[25:46]to promote these books and through a sub stack
[25:49]and through my own podcast.
[25:50]And if I didn't do it, I don't think I'd sell books
[25:53]to be honest.
[25:54]I don't think that there is enough tradition,
[25:56]except for very few rare books that are kind of
[26:00]anointed by the publishing world.
[26:02]There is not enough marketing and publicity space out there.
[26:05]It's just not gonna happen
[26:06]unless you are shouting from the goddamn rooftops.
[26:08]I mean, we talked about Sicilian inheritance last year
[26:11]and it just came out in paperback.
[26:13]Congratulations.
[26:14]Thank you.
[26:15]And we've sold 100,000 copies of that book.
[26:18]Oh my God, good for you.
[26:19]That's amazing.
[26:20]Good for you.
[26:21]That's amazing.
[26:22]We just hit that number,
[26:24]but it is because I have been a massive media
[26:28]or hustle machine for it.
[26:29]And I just, I wanna share that with other writers
[26:32]and other authors who are like,
[26:33]this is so exhausting, this is really hard.
[26:36]And I'm like, I know, I see you and I am you
[26:38]and I'm doing this on a daily basis
[26:40]and I don't necessarily like it either.
[26:42]But if I want my book and reader's hands,
[26:43]I know this is what I have to do.
[26:45]Okay, but that is a lot of copies to sell.
[26:48]That is not normal just because you get on social media
[26:51]to anyone listening.
[26:52]You will not sell 100,000 copies necessarily
[26:54]on your book.
[26:55]That is like wildly successful.
[26:56]So, and you are uniquely great at this
[27:00]and have a lifetime of media connections and whatever.
[27:02]So I just don't have people
[27:03]keep hearing it.
[27:04]No, no, no one should compare.
[27:06]Also, I mean, I'm totally burnt out from it too.
[27:09]But I've also been like, I've been a journalist for 25 years.
[27:13]I can play stories myself.
[27:15]I can get podcasts guests.
[27:17]I know how this machine works.
[27:19]And still, I do more on marketing and publicity
[27:22]than I do actually writing my books.
[27:25]And I wish that I wish that it were the opposite,
[27:27]but I think it is a rare, rare small group of authors
[27:30]that it can be the opposite for.
[27:32]Sad, sad, sad, but I mean, that's why what you do,
[27:35]I think is so remarkable with your books.
[27:37]You are a massive marketing and publicity machine
[27:41]for your authors.
[27:42]And that that means so much.
[27:44]And I think the traditional publishing houses do try, right?
[27:47]But there's so many books.
[27:48]You're publishing so many books, there's only so much space.
[27:51]I know.
[27:52]I feel like they weren't all so good.
[27:54]There's so many good books.
[27:55]There's so many good books.
[27:56]There's also so many good books out there, right?
[27:58]So it's really, it's really hard to find books.
[28:00]Which is why I love promoting books that I love,
[28:03]given on my platforms, just to help people find them.
[28:06]Yep, a great, well, I really enjoyed this book.
[28:09]I truly did.
[28:10]It's, again, one of my favorites.
[28:12]And I've read, I think almost every book of years,
[28:14]have I read every book, I think so.
[28:15]I think so.
[28:16]And I get to see you in July.
[28:18]I'm coming to the bookstore.
[28:19]Oh, amazing.
[28:20]Oh, I hope I know.
[28:21]Oh, yeah, yeah, my big LA event is with you.
[28:24]Oh, yay.
[28:26]Oh, so excited to have you.
[28:28]Joe, congratulations.
[28:29]I can't stop thinking about this.
[28:30]I love these characters.
[28:32]And I really want this to be a movie.
[28:34]So I'm hoping that that is in the works.
[28:36]We're working on it right now.
[28:37]Okay, good, good, good, good.
[28:39]Okay.
[28:40]All right, thank you so much, Joe.
[28:41]Thank you.
[28:42]Okay, bye.
[28:43]Thank you for listening to Totally Booked with Zibi,
[28:46]formerly mom's don't have time to read books.
[28:48]If you loved the show, tell a friend, leave a review,
[28:52]follow me on Instagram at Zibi Owens,
[28:54]and spread the word.
[28:56]Thanks so much.
[28:57]Oh, and bye the books.