Transcript: Podcast 79 An Interview with Jill Myles, Jessica Sims, and Jessica Clare - Part 2

Here is a text transcript of DBSA 79. An Interview with Jill Myles, Jessica Sims, and Jessica Clare – Part 2. You can listen to the mp3 here, or you can read on! 

This podcast transcript was crafted by hand – really, all typed by hand – in artisanal old world fashion by Garlic Knitter. Many thanks.

 Here are the books we discuss:

  

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[music]

Sarah Wendell:  Hello, and welcome to another DBSA podcast!  I’m Sarah Wendell from Smart Bitches, Trashy Books, and with me is Jane Litte from Dear Author, and…Jillessica!  Or Jessica Sims, Jessica Clare, Jill Myles, all the same person.  This is part 2 of the interview that we started last week, and after this I have some email from readers and listeners, which is always a cool thing.

The music that you’re listening to is provided by Sassy Outwater.  This is brand-new music, and I’m so excited!  I’ll have information at the end of the podcast as to who this is.

And this podcast is brought to you by Before You Break by Christina Lee, a brand-new eBook New Adult romance about a bad boy on the edge and the girl who’s about to fall hard.  I’ll have information at the end of the podcast about that too!

And now, on with the podcast interview…

[music]

Sarah:  You were talking earlier about sort of light comedy, Katy Perry romances –

Jess:  Yes.

Sarah:  – and we did an interview with Lisa Renee Jones, and her prediction for what was going to be the next big thing was contemporary comedy because, in her opinion, the, the trend has been so dark and so emotional and so angst-y and so much uglycry that the next sort of popular arc will be comedy.

Jess:  No, I disagree.

Sarah:  You don’t think so?  What do you think?

Jess:  No, I think, I think romance is going to branch out, and it’s going to become [sigh], I think dark is going to stay around for a while because I think people are really into the villain-hero, and I think the, it is going to spread out a bit more, and we’re going to see a lot more different genres get sucked in.  Like, I think paranormal is tired, but I think science fiction romance with diff-, and maybe fantasy romance with a darker sort of storyline is going to be pulled in.  Like, there’s one particular author – I love fantasy romance.  Nobody writes enough fantasy romance, and I’m, like, the only person that keeps asking for it.  But there’s one author that writes fantasy romance, and I can’t stand it because it’s not the kind of fantasy romance that I want.  It’s very light and fluffy and happy, and I want the dark, the gritty, romance-y, sexy, dirty, George R. R. Martin type romance.  Maybe not the one where everybody dies, like George R. R. Martin, but you know what I mean, just really dark, really gritty, really down to earth, and I think that is where we’re going to see romance heading, because I think, like, books like The Last Hour of Gann, which is my favorite book ever now, I’m re-reading it for, like, the fourth time right now.  I think the romance genre is really missing those huge, meaty, dark, gritty stories with a very different sort of hero and heroine in it, and I think that is where the genre’s going to go.  It’s going to get even weirder, I think.  I don’t think it’s going to go towards happy, because I think happy is, it’s too expected.  I think we’re going to keep going in unexpected directions, and I think that’s really exciting to me as a reader, because I love picking up a book and going, Holy shit, I can’t believe that just happened.  So, I –

Sarah:  Like, I didn’t expect to like this book, but I did!

Jess:  Thank you.  I can’t, I did not expect to fall in love with the lizard hero, but I love that book so much I sent my mom a copy.  I was like, Mom, please read this.  I’m like, I know it’s kind of weird, but I have to talk to somebody about this book.  It’s amazing.  And she loved it!

Sarah:  We talked about this, we talked about this book last time, and I told, I told Jane that every time we talk about this book, I keep picturing Jar Jar Binks as the hero –

Jess:  No!  I –

Sarah:  – and it’s not doing it for me.  [Laughs]

Jess:  I played Everquest for, like, years –

Sarah:  Yeah?

Jess:  – and I keep picturing one of the lizard heroes, the lizard guys that were in – Iksar!  That’s who I picture when I picture the hero.  So all you Everquest nerds out there, if you want an Iksar hero, The Last Hour of Gann, best book ever!  Yes, look up Iksar, I-K-S-A-R.  So…

Sarah:  Okay, I can totally see what you’re saying here.  He’s even got man-titty!

Jess:  Yes!  And he’s got the little, the little panty thing like she mentions in the book.  He’s wearing the man-panties!

Sarah:  Do you guys think this is Iksar fanfic?

Jess:  I think so!

Sarah:  [Laughs]

Jess:  But, you know, I’m such a fangirl of this author, like, I read Cottonwood, and I’m like, it’s clearly District 9 fanfic, and I don’t even give a shit!  So…

Sarah:  [Laughs]

Jess:  You know, it’s just awesome, and I read all of her other books, and I’m looking for, like, okay, what is this fanfic of?  And I don’t even care!  I love fanfic, as long as it’s good fanfic.  If it’s boring, shitty fanfic, I don’t want to read it, but if it’s good fanfic – That’s how I got started, is I used to write fanfic when I was a teenager, because I would fall in love with, like, the secondary characters, and the secondary characters never had enough going on on the page, and so I would write the stories in between.

Sarah:  Right.

Jess:  And so, I love fanfic.  I’m all for it.  You know, there ain’t no shame in writing fanfic.  Even if you tell me it’s fanfic of something, that’s like a selling point for me.  So, I would be fine with that, but I read all of her other books trying to figure out, you know, what exactly is this a fanfic of?  And so far I haven’t figured it out yet.

Sarah:  It’s Iksar fanfic!  [Laughs]

Jess:  Swear to God, I bet it is!  And you know what?  I think the world needs some MMO romances out there.  I would love to write one if I had the time, but anybody else who’s written, like, some Everquest MMO type romance that has actually played an MMO for long periods of time, because I’ve been looking for an MMO romance, and maybe this is entirely too nerdy for this conversation, but most of the books that are out there about MMOs in romance, this, like, I feel like nobody’s played a game.  It’s like, let’s talk about, like, respawning and, like, people going up in classes and shit, you know.  So, I don’t know.  Maybe I’m just looking for too specific things.

Jane:  What did your mom think of the lizard man?

Jess:  You know what?  She liked it.  She thought, you know, the whole part where, with the extruding was a little odd, but she was with it.  She didn’t like Cottonwood as much, which is ano-, which is the District 9 book, because –

Jane:  Why don’t you explain why she didn’t like the book?  [Laughs]

Jess:  Because the hero is a bug –

Sarah:  [Laughs]

Jess:  – and, like, like, a big praying mantis type bug, and he had, like, a hard chitin pecker, and he would prop the heroine on it and, and fuck her.  And my mom was like, I, I can’t do it.  That’s, that’s just gross.  And actually, she liked the story, but she didn’t like the sex.  She did not like the Taryn books, and the Taryn books are, because there was centaur sex in those, and I guess mom draws the line at centaurs, so I thought that would be fairly normal, ‘cause, you know, there’s zoophiles and there are people that, you know – and he’s half human!  But apparently, you know, that was where my mom draws the line.  But my mom reads all of my books, so, you know, I have a pretty good meter of what my mom will like and what she won’t, so…

Jane:  So what does she think of your sex, extra-sexy stuff, like – [Laughs] Yesterday, I was doing the deals for Dear Author, and I included the Sherry Thomas novella, which is down to 99 cents, and one of the negative reviews was the filthy talk and the inclusion of back door action, which –

Jess:  Yes.

Jane:  – you know, I knew immediately then that everybody at Dear Author would want to read it, but –

[Laughter]

Jane:  – what would your mom say?  What would her review be of a book that had dirty talk and back door action?

Jess:  So, I don’t think she’s really commented on the dirty talk before, but she does read all of my books, and I didn’t tell her about one where I included back door action, and so whenever she finishes one, she calls me, and she’s like, oh, I love the book!  You know, mom, she’s my mom, she loves everything I write, but she was like [whispers], I can’t believe you wrote that in there!

Sarah:  [Laughs]

Jess:  I was like, wrote what?  She was like [whispers], the, the anal sex.  Ewwww!  And she said it, she went ewwwww!  I was like, Mom –

[Laughter]

Jess:  I was like, somebody dared me to put it in there, so I did.  And it turned out really sexy, I thought.  It’s not in all of my books.  But, you know, I’ll write anything once!

[Laughter]

Jess:  She, she really loves my Billionaire books, and she started my dad reading them, too, which is a little weirder for me, because –

Sarah:  I was going to say, that’s a little strange.

Jess:  Yeah, yeah, but my dad likes my books!  He, thankfully, doesn’t ever bring up the sex scenes.  I told my mom she could give him a book once upon a time but she would have to black out all of the dirty parts, but she didn’t, so –

Sarah:  Ahhh.

Jess:  He actually read the lizard man book.  He enjoyed it.

Sarah:  He read The Last Hour of Gann?

Jess:  He did.  [Laughs]

Jane:  So, like, when you have family get-togethers, do you talk about, do you have family, do you have the Jessica Clare book club, the family book club?

Jess:  I do.  It’s at bingo.  So, my parents go to bingo, and when they’re at bingo, they pass out bookmarks.  They had shirts made of my very first cover, which is, I like to call it Fabio Jr., because they guy has this long, flowing blond hair, and he looks like Fabio’s younger son.  So they got shirts made of that, and they wear that out to bingo, and they pass out bookmarks, and any time a book comes out, they bring copies that I sign, and they sell them to people.  So, it’s kind of like I’ve got this whole bingo cult going on.  I have, like, about, I want to say –

Sarah:  [Laughs]

Jess:  – at least ten different people, where, you know, they bug my mom, they want to know when my next book is coming out and if this is going to be in paper or not, and I, whenever I go over to visit my parents, there’s always a stack of books for me to sign, so –

Sarah:  Aw, that’s so cute!

Jess:  They’ve been really big supporters!  I love them!  They’re great.

Sarah:  That’s adorable!

Jane:  What do you have going on next, then?

Jess:  Ohhh –

Sarah:  Jessica, Jill, are you going to invent a new name?

Jess:  No, I actually want to get rid of one.

Sarah:  Jill, Jillica.  Jillica is not taken.

Jess:  Jillessica.

Sarah:  Jillesica.

Jane:  [Laughs]

Jess:  There you go, it’s exotic.  I’ll just go with one name.

Sarah:  [Laughs]

Jess:  No, you know, I would really like to get rid of my Jill Myles name, because I feel like my Jessica Clare has been more successful, but I don’t know that I would be able to, but right now, I’m working on copyedits, no, line edits for a Jessica Sims book, I just did two sets of copyedits for Jessica Clare books, and I have edits that I just got back from an editor on a self-published bear-shifter novella that I’m doing for Jessica Sims.  I’m also working on two independent, self-published projects, and then I need to keep working on the next Games book, so I’ve got a few things going on.  It kind of gave me a headache just thinking about all of it.

Jane:  So why don’t you tell us what your next book is that’s coming out?

Jess:  Okay, for sure, April 15th, Once Upon a Billionaire.  It is Griffin, who is the viscount of a European country, and if you read those books and you don’t really remember who Griffin is, he is the stuffy asshole of the group, which, you know, that doesn’t really narrow it down in a group full of assholes, but –

[Laughter]

Jess:  – he’s the really stuffy, stuck-up one who’s really into archaeology, and his heroine is going to be Maylee Meriweather, and if you read book 2, Maylee is a really terrible, country girl assistant that Hunter gets later on in the book, so I stick the country girl with the stuffy guy, and it was a lot of fun, and I sent them to Europe for the wedding of the century, because Griffin’s cousin is getting married, so…It was a lot of fun.  And it comes out April 15th, but between now and then, I’m going to probably have at least one self-published project coming out, so…

Is there anything you wanted to ask me about self publishing or whatever? 

Jane:  Sure, sure, what, to what faction do you belong, because you can’t belong to both.

Sarah:  I was just going to say, you, you have to fall on your sword for one.  You can’t, you can’t have a diverse portfolio like a mature adult.  You actually need to fall on your sword for only one method, and there, there’s still the big traditional pub, the small digital press, and then the self publishing, and if you –

Jess:  You know –

Sarah:  – if you, if you don’t fall on your sword for one, you’re not good.

Jane:  Yep.  Pick one!  Pick one!

Jess:  I hate that, too!

Jane:  No, pick one, pick one!

Jess:  I, no, I don’t want to pick one because I feel like there’s a lot of shaming on both sides, like – and it always comes up on the self-publish boards.  They all think you’re an idiot if you’re traditionally published, and if you are traditionally, if you read the traditionally publish loops, they’re all like, I can’t believe all these liars are making money self publishing!  And I’m like, you know, I like to do all of them because I am very risk averse, and I don’t believe in putting all your eggs in one basket.  I feel like, you know, if one avenue disappears, I want the other avenue open for me.  I leave all the avenues open.  I love self publishing because I think it allows me to put out all the weird shit that I write that my editor or my agent are like, no, no, we don’t want that, we don’t want a book with dinosaurs and a hero that’s a conquistador.  Which I wrote.  Or, you know, we don’t want reality TV books, but I still want to write it.  But traditional publishing, I think, it gives you different aspects.  It lets you work with an editor who can be really excited about your work.  It lets you see how they do things, and it gets you into different avenues.  Like, it gets you into Target.  It could get you, it could get you on the New York Times bestseller list!  So…

Sarah:  You don’t say!

Jane:  I know!  So, I think, I don’t know, I wouldn’t – Like, if one left tomorrow, and, like, all the New York publishers shut down, I would be really sad, but I would keep self publishing, and if all the self publishing went away, I would be really sad too, but I would go back to traditional publishers and say, “Hey!  Do you want a book with dinosaurs?”  You know.  So, I don’t know.  I don’t – [Sigh] I, I don’t feel like I belong to either group, and so I feel like the dorky kid that sits in the back and kind of makes fun of everybody, so – I don’t get to pick a group.  I choose me!

Sarah:  Probably a good choice.

Jess:  Probably so.

Jane:  Sounds like something one of your Games characters would say.  [Laughs]

Jess:  Yeah, no kidding.

Jane:  If, if, if it was a reality TV show and there was a self publishing team –

Jess:  Oh, no.

Jane:  – and a traditional publishing team, what team would you want to be on to win the million dollar prize?

Jess:  Oh, no.

Sarah:  And this better be a book very fucking soon.

[Laughter]

Jess:  It would be very boring, ‘cause everybody would just sit around.  It would, they would, nobody would wake up ‘til noon, they would drink some coffee, they would check their email for, like, four hours, and then they would all sit and write.  I just, I don’t understand, like, you know, people talk about, like, go Facebook, you should Facebook every day.  I have got nothing going on.  “Yeah, I’m still writing.”  I mean, that’s not a good Facebook update, you know, so…

Jane:  [Laughs]

Jess:  “Still writing over here.  Haven’t gotten out of my pajamas in four days,” you know.

Jane:  So what are you wearing?

Jess:  I’m still avoiding the question, aren’t I?  I’m wearing yoga pants and – [Laughs] and a sweat jacket.  Yoga pants are, like, my total author uniform now, so…I’m not on a team.  I –

Sarah:  You’re team, you’re team Jillelica?

Jess:  That’s right, team Jillessica.

Sarah:  [Laughs]

Jess:  Like how I say that?  Jillessicaaah.

[More laughter]

Jess:  I can’t pick.  I don’t want to pick.  I like ‘em both.  I just wish they both liked me better instead of thinking I’m stupid for being with each one, so…

[More laughter]

Jess:  They do!  Seriously!  I get so much crap.  Or, I guess I don’t necessarily get crap, but I take it all personally when I see it on message boards, ‘cause everybody’s like, och, can’t believe anybody signed with this publisher!  But I’m like, but it, they’re really good to you, and they treat you nice, I promise, you know.

Sarah:  And the, and the money is totally fuckin’ real.

Jess:  Yes!  You know –

Sarah:  Like, it’s not like one money is more money than the other money.  It’s all the same currency; put in your bank.

Jess:  Yeah, everybody assumes that, like, if they hear bad contract terms, they assume everybody’s getting horrible contract terms.

Sarah:  Nooo.

Jess:  And it’s like, I guess they assume that, you know, you must not be smart enough to get good contract terms or have somebody, you know, treat you really well.  I love working with my publishers.  They have treated me very well, you know, I have no complaints.  I just – [Sigh] I just wish she, you know, people would realize that just because you're with a traditional publisher doesn’t mean that you’re not smart when it comes to business and that you’re not signing away your rights just because you want to be at the traditional publisher, and, you know, and also, on the other side, just because it’s self published doesn’t mean that it’s crap and that nobody wanted it.  It means that sometimes, you know, I write stuff specifically just to self publish because I don’t want to send it out to anyone, or I want to market it myself, or I want to get it out sooner than, you know, than waiting a year and a half, so I think there’s really good sides for both of them, and I think that, you know, one path does not equal the right path for everyone.  That’s still not an answer.

Jane:  There’s only one right path.

Jess:  [Sigh]

Sarah:  And everyone has to be on it.

Jess:  Yes.

Jane:  Or, or you’re going to be left behind.  I’m sorry, you’re going to be left behind.

Jess:  I guess.  I guess.  The only thing I haven’t done is gone directly through an ePublisher.  I’ve, I’ve gone through Berkley InterMix, but I’ve never gone through, like, Samhain or Elora’s Cave, but I just haven’t, you know, I guess, had the right opportunity yet.  I’m still busy enough with everything else, so…And I wouldn’t turn it down!  I would, I would check it out.

Sarah:  And writing –

Jess:  ‘Cause I think everything’s worth checking out.

Sarah:  Totally.  And writing is your full-time job now, right?

Jess:  It is!  So, I guess I’d been writing since about 2000, 2002, and I had a full-time job in finance up until November, and –

Sarah:  Congratulations!

Jess:  Thank you!  And what allowed me to go full time was not only New York contracts but the fact that I get a check every month from self publishing, so I need both, and I think it’s very smart to do both.

Sarah:  I will never, ever, ever understand the, the idea that – and this has been true, like, I remember my first RWA, which was in San Francisco in 2007, that was the year that, right before the conference, RWA kicked out all the digital pubs because of Triskelion being dicey –

Jess:  Oh, yeah!

Sarah:  – and then, like, everyone was like, but, but Samhain is awesome, and Samhain is awesome!  And they were just sort of like, yep!  Business as usual; we’re still going to do what we do, and it was like the biggest deal that if you published digitally it wasn’t a real publisher, and you weren’t getting real money –

Jess:  Right.

Sarah:  – and that was, and there are people who make a perfectly decent living doing that.  But these are also people who publish with more than one place.  If you get basic, I mean, you worked in finance!  If you get basic –

Jess:  Yes!

Sarah:  – finance advice, is it wise to put all of your money in one location?  No!  This is why Bernie Madoff fucked up New York, because everyone gave all their money to Bernie fuckin’ Madoff!  Including the Mets, for God’s fucking sake.

Jess:  Yeah.

Sarah:  So, you know, if you’re, if, if, if a basic level of retirement fund wisdom is don’t put all your money in one place, why shouldn’t that also apply to publishing?  Like, Jesus Christ, people!

Jess:  Yeah!  And, you know, I guess my thinking is that, like, some people are like, oh, you know, you don’t want to sign your rights away for this book, and I’m like, well, you know, it’s, it’s always worth a shot.  You never know what’s going to happen, and my thinking, I can always write another book.  So if this one doesn’t sell well, I’ll just write another.  You know, it’s not like that’s going to be the end-all, be-all of that particular book’s life, or that particular, you know, career.  And there’s certain people that are making so much money in self publishing, like Courtney Milan has made a rock star out of herself self publishing.  But it’s like her experience is not necessarily my experience.  I do extremely well.  I don’t do Courtney Milan well, but that doesn’t mean that, you know, everybody’s going to have Courtney’s path, or it doesn’t mean that everybody can’t have Courtney’s path, but I just think that, you know, one person’s experience is not necessarily everybody’s experience.  Yeah, it just gets me down when, like, everybody’s kind of blame-y about, I don’t understand why anybody would sign with so-and-so, and it’s like, ahhh, because there’s reasons.  There’s always reasons.  There’s reasons to self publish.

Sarah:  Especially because when you’re writing something that’s really unique and doesn’t have an obvious market in the, in the print and Walmart and Target world, well then, absolutely!

Jess:  Yes!

Sarah:  Why not self publish?

Jess:  And that’s one reason why Jen Frederick and I decided to self publish Last Hit was because – we never really entertained the thought of going to a publisher because, you know, it was a hitman hero, and it was also very New Adult, written in, you know, dueling first person point of view, and we were like, you know – this is fairly timely at the moment.  It was the first hitman hero that we’d run across.  We were like, you know, this needs to be out on the market sooner rather than later, cause we could miss our window.  And so we pushed it out, and I think it turned out really well, and we have people excited for the sequel, but it’s like, who knows how that would have done if it would have gone traditional publishing?  Maybe it would have taken 18 months to come out, and by that time, there’d be like, you know, 900 hitman heroes out there.  So you never know, and there’s reasons to do either.  There’s always good arguments for both paths.

[music]

Sarah:  I hope you enjoyed both segments of our interview with Jillessica, or Jessica Clare, Jessica Sims, and Jill Myles, conveniently in one person-shaped container, which is really a relief in terms of mixing audio.  If I had to do five people, I would lose my mind.

But before we go, I have a couple email messages I wanted to share with you, because they’re fun!  Because also, awesomeness! 

So, first we have an email from Catherine  – actually, both of these emails are from Catherine.  That’s really confusing, right?  So, this is Catherine C.  Catherine C. says:

Dear Sarah and Jane,

I love the latest podcast.  I discovered Jessica Clare after reading Beauty and the Billionaire’s review on SBTB.  “Beauty and the Beast” isn’t my favorite storyline, so I was a little skeptical, but male virgin is my catnip like whoa, especially when there is trope overturning like Gretchen being the one to initiate things.  So, I read it, and I absolutely loved it, and I am so hooked on the Billionaire series.  I love all three.  I was skeptical about the first one because of the secret society exposition and bratty roommate took up the entirety of the Amazon sample, but I got a copy from the library, and it got so much better after that.  But Hunter is still my catnip.  I’m very much looking forward to more in the series.  I also read Wicked Games because it was free, even though I don’t like TV that much, let alone reality TV, and I’m glad to hear I wasn’t alone.  So, yay, I enjoyed this interview!

As for your questions at the bottom of the page, I don’t do uglycry or cycling.  I know this is not helpful.  I like to be entertained, I like to laugh, I like books that are engrossing, witty, hot, et cetera, but I don’t do sad stuff.  I’m a huge crier, and almost anything can set me off.  I cried when somebody celebrated their 40th wedding anniversary at church last week, so uglycry books would break me.  As for cycling, bikes terrify me.  That being said, I loved Ruthie Knox’s Ride with Me.  It was kind of like Wicked Games; I had zero interest in the subject matter plot, but I enjoyed the author’s work, so I decided to check it out, and it did help that I enjoy tropes of enforced proximity and uptight planner/not so much, which Ride with Me has in spades.

From Cat C.

Cat, I know what you mean.  Although I do like outdoors and travel, I’m not crazy about bikes, but I like travel and outdoors, but I really, really love forced proximity.  Next week, I’m actually going to have a thread, or in the new two weeks on the site, I’m going to have a thread about what your catnip is, and that’s definitely one of mine, forced proximity through travel.  If you have to go somewhere together and you can’t get away from each other and you’re not really sure you like each other, if that goes on for a couple hundred pages, I’m so in.  And I’m glad you liked the Jessica Clare interview, because it was really fun to do!  And I split it up into two parts, ‘cause there was too much awesome for one!

I have another email.  This is from a different Catherine. 

This is Catherine T., who is not to be confused with Catherine C., ‘cause these are two totally different Catherines.  It seems the topic of uglycry books created a great deal of discussion, both on the site and through email, and Catherine wanted to address that as well.

This was a fantastic episode of the podcast.  I enjoyed hearing your opinions on these topics, and it gave me a lot to think about.  I just wanted to throw in my two cents as someone who rarely – and I want to say never, but I try to avoid absolutes and extremes – rarely cries when reading.  Movies can get me to tear up, even if I’m not that invested in the story – I’m pretty certain I’m responding to the manipulative music cues – and I don’t cry much in general.  I pretty much save everything for one or two big cries each year. 

I personally believe that the reason I don’t cry while reading is that I’m not one of those people who pictures anything in my head when I’m reading.  I connect to books more on the level of language and how I feel about the way the characters are written.  I might find them realistic, but I never think of them as real people, if that makes any sense.  I’ve heard people talk about imagining a little movie playing in their mind when they read – actually, in a conversation on crying while reading, now that I think about it – and it’s completely different from my own experience.  I also don’t really laugh while reading romance or fiction, though I’ll cackle like a maniac over Let’s Pretend This Never Happened by Jenny Lawson, which I highly recommend if either of you haven’t read it yet.  Your reading of Divya’s story was wonderful, and thanks for doing what you do.

From Kat

Yes, I am the one who pictures everything going on in my head and have it in my mind being read to me while I’m reading.  I sometimes picture people, I sometimes have a full movie, but most of the time what I’m doing when I read is telling myself the story in my head, and sometimes there are voices and sometimes there are various characters and sometimes it’s all one narrator.  My brain, I guess, is like an audiobook, and I’m fascinated by the idea that there are different ways that people read and whether or not the way in which you read influences your physical or emotional response to what you’re reading.  It’s really fascinating!  If I could go back and do grad school over again, maybe that’s what I would study.  But in the meantime, I’ll just be a blogger and talk about it a lot.

I am interested, though, in the number of people who do cry while reading and don’t cry while reading.  And I wonder if that’s, if that’s a pretty even divide among readers.  It’s an interesting question, and heck, if you’re an author who’s got books that make people cry, you know, those little packets of tissues would be a great promo item!  Just saying!

Thank you for emailing us, though, Cat, I really appreciate your email.

My last email here is a request.  This is from BookJunkie, and she says,

Dear Sarah and Jane,

Please, please, please, please interview Moira Rogers and Kit Rocha/Donna and Bree at RT.  They hardly ever go to cons, so this is the perfect chance to catch them.  They write some of my favorite series with rich worldbuilding and politics, not to mention romance and hot sex, such as the Southern Arcana series as Moira Rogers and the Beyond series as Kit Rocha.  They’ve written for digital publishers, currently Samhain, and are self publishing as Kit Rocha, and they write together.  I’d be so interested in hearing about their process, the way they experiment with the series and worldbuilding, and whatever you can think to ask them.  Also, they don’t always, maybe hardly ever, enjoy the same books when they read for fun.  You should ask them about that, too.

Girl, are you going to be at RT?  ‘Cause you need to help me out with this interview, because you’ve got all the good questions.  I’m just going to show up and read your email.  If you’re going to be at RT, BookJunkie, you need to do this with me, so email me.

Another Twitter friend who I’d like you to interview is Lillie.  She recently gave up her day job to do series bibles and edit after beta reading and such more unofficially for years.  She’s been reviewing for years at Novel Thoughts, though from what I understand, at Novel Thoughts they don’t review authors once they develop friendships and/or business relationships with them.  Anyway, like authors, she gets to work from home in her pajamas.  I would so be interested in hearing from these ladies, and I hope you can make it happen.

BookJunkie, if you’re at RT, you need to come and find me, and we need to do this together, because it would be really fun, and yes, these are awesome suggestions.  Thank you for emailing me.

[music]

Sarah:  And that’s all for this week’s podcast.  I hope you enjoyed the conversation with Jillessica.  Future podcasts are going to have discussions with Elyse from my site, Kati D. from Dear Author, and all the other reviewers who work with us.  We thought we’d give them a chance to introduce themselves and talk about what they like, ‘cause we’re all very different, and we all like very different things.  Elyse, for example, really likes romantic suspense, which is about my least favorite genre, so I’m glad she likes it.

If you like the podcast, you can subscribe to our feed.  If you want to give us suggestions or tell us we’re wrong or you want to tell Jane she’s wrong, ‘cause she really likes when that happens, our email address is sbjpodcast@gmail.com, and you can leave us a message at our Google voice number, 1-201-371-DBSA.

The music that you’re listening to was provided by Sassy Outwater, and this is awesome!  We have new music!  This is “Mackerel & Tatties” by Michael McGoldrick.  I will have information about where you can find this song, the album, more of it, because it’s awesome!  I love it when we have new music.  And thank you to Sassy for providing it!  I have new music for the next podcast as well.  It’s so cool!

This podcast was brought to you by NAL and InterMix.  They would like you to know about Before You Break by Christina Lee, a brand-new eBook, a beautiful and emotional New Adult romance about a bad boy on the edge and the girl who’s about to fall hard.  This book will be on sale February 18th, which will be already on sale by the time you hear this, wherever eBooks are sold.

Thank you again for listening.  I know that many of you have been discovering the podcast and going, oh, my gosh, there’s like 70-some episodes!  Yay!  I hope you like them.  Thank you for listening, and wherever you are, Jane and I wish you the very best of reading.

[awesome new music!]