215. Erotic and Emotional Intensity and Contemporary World Building: An Interview with Julie Kenner

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Sarah Wendell:  Hello, and welcome to episode number 215 of Smart Podcast, Trashy Books.  I’m Sarah Wendell from Smart Bitches, Trashy Books, and with me this week is bestselling author Julie Kenner.  She also writes as J. Kenner, but conveniently, they are the same person.  Her latest book, Sweetest Taboo, was released this past week on October 4th, so it is release week for her.  We talk about theories about the romance genre; why the strongest tropes continue to endure; what it’s like writing very, very big taboos; and writing hot versus really, really hot.  We also talk about how Google and real estate listings help all writers and how your writing routine might change when you’re writing different genres.  We also talk, of course, about what books she’s reading and enjoying.  All of the links to the books we discuss, as well as television shows and movies, will be available in the podcast entry at smartbitchestrashybooks.com/podcast.

The podcast transcript is being sponsored by Kensington this month, publishers of A Change of Heart by Sonali Dev, the highly acclaimed author of A Bollywood Affair and The Bollywood Bride.  Delving beyond the surface of modern Indian-American life, A Change of Heart is an extraordinary story of secrets, danger, and Bollywood glamour.  Dr. Nic Joshi had it all until, while working for Doctors Without Borders in a Mumbai slum, his wife Jen discovered a black market organ transplant ring.  Before she could expose the truth, Jen was killed.  Two years after the tragedy, Nic is a cruise ship doctor who spends his days treating seasickness and sunburn and his nights in a boozy haze.  On one of those very blurry evenings on deck, Nic meets a woman who makes a startling claim:  she received Jen’s heart in a transplant, and she has a message for him.  With starred reviews in PW, Booklist, and Kirkus, A Change of Heart has also been praised by Shelf Awareness, which raved, “A Change of Heart cements this author’s standing as not only one of the best but also one of the bravest romance novelists working today.”  A Change of Heart by Sonali Dev is available now everywhere books are sold, and more info can be found at sonalidev.com.

The music you’re listening to was provided by Sassy Outwater, and I will have information at the end of the podcast as to who this is and where you can buy it.

And I will also have some compliments for some fine, fine, excellent folks who have supported our podcast Patreon campaign.  So many of you have supported the Patreon in the past few weeks, and I want to say thank you.  If you are curious or would like to help keep the show going, please have a look at our Patreon campaign at Patreon.com/SmartBitches.  For a dollar a month or more, you can make a monthly pledge that helps support the show and helps me commission transcripts for all of the episodes.  Most of all, your support means a lot, and I am deeply thankful for everyone who has made a pledge to support the show this month.  Thank you very, very much.  You are all awesome.

I am really excited about this interview, and I hope you enjoy it, so now, without any further delay, on with the podcast!

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Julie Kenner:  Hey, everyone, I am Julie Kenner.  I’m most well known these days as J. Kenner.  I’ve been writing for forever.  These days I’m mostly writing super sexy romances with really damaged heroes and heroines.  There’s lots of angst, lots of drama, and I am having so much fun doing it!

Sarah:  [Laughs]

Julie:  So that is me!

Sarah:  That’s excellent!  I remember your earlier Julie Kenner books –

Julie:  Mm-hmm.

Sarah:  – and they were, like, soccer mom books, right?  They were about women who had kids and, like, weird stuff happened to them.

Julie:  I had, yes, I’ve done a lot of different things as Julie Kenner.  I was kind of all over the map.  Everything I wrote under that name was much lighter.  This, the Demon-Hunting Soccer Mom books are still alive and kicking, and in fact, the seventh book is coming out in December.  I don’t have a pre-order for it up because I’m just going to do a live drop, but it is coming!  And we’ve actually, this hasn’t been officially announced yet, but there’s some new media stuff happening, so hopefully there will be a visual interpretation, shall we say –

Sarah:  Whoooa!

Julie:  – of the series coming, coming very soon.  We’ve, we’ve got, you know, a story outline, and we’ve, you know, anyways, it’s, it’s a thing, so I’m super excited, because I’ve, I really, really love that series.  It’s not romance.  It’s, there’re romantic elements –

Sarah:  Yes.

Julie:  – but it’s not romance.  It’s very much, I call it paranormal mommy lit.  I mean, I think –

Sarah:  [Laughs]

Julie:  – I pretty much, you know, I like saying, I invented paranormal mommy lit, so that’s, there you go.

Sarah:  Well, it’s, it’s weird, especially because in romance, even inside the parts of the romance genre where there’s something else happening that’s much more primary, like paranormal romance –

Julie:  Mm-hmm.

Sarah:  – or romantic suspense, like, there’s a thing that has to happen in addition to the sexytimes?  There aren’t a lot of stories about heroines once they’ve had kids or been married or divorced or, you know, had any of these life experiences.  That’s a lot smaller of a list of books.

Julie:  It really is.  I think, in the context of romance, my little theory about that is, is that romance is so much, it doesn’t have to be, but it tends to be so much about that, that first time, or the first time that, shall we say, counts.  The one that’s going to be the one forever.  So then that’s usually before kids, you know.  Most, most of the time, the one where you find the person that you’re going to, like, spend the rest of your life with, you hope, is, is before the kids come, or it’s a, you know, it’s a later romance, where sometimes there’ll be kids in the background, but, you know, they’re kind of, they may not be a, play a big part in the part.  So I think that’s a lot of it, is that so much of the emotion that you put into a romance novel is that, pulling up that, those, those first feelings, those, those, you know, and, and so I think that that tends to limit, kind of, the family element of romance?  Although certainly it’s there in real life.

Sarah:  Right!

Julie:  But, you know, novels aren’t always a reflection of real life.  They’re sort of a, you know, they’re a slice of, a piece of life that we want to look at.  So –

Sarah:  Yeah, they’re a sliver.

Julie:  Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

Sarah:  I think you’re definitely right about that, because that would also explain why in many novels you have previous relationships that are diminished or vilified or, oh, I thought it was really good with him, but wow, you are the best!  Like, there is –

Julie:  Exactly, yes.

Sarah:  – that, that whole, like, this is the one who is better than all the others, which sort of eliminates the possibility that people can have more than one great love in their life.

Julie:  I did a cover quote for a book recently, and I’m so embarrassed, because I cannot for the life of me remember the name of it, but –

Sarah:  [Laughs] You’ll remember at three in the morning.

Julie:  I know.  I, I’m sorry, whoever you are!  I’m so sorry!  And I don’t know what it, when it released it, but it’s, I’m sure it’s out now, because it’s been probably about a year now, I think.  But it was wonderful, because the premise was that – I mean, it was sad, because the premise was that the, the, the first husband passed away – but it was wonderful because it wasn’t vilified at all –

Sarah:  Mm-hmm.

Julie:  – and in fact he was sort of part of the story, because he was, through leaving her messages – you know, not paranormal, but messages –

Sarah:  Right.

Julie:  – about getting on with her life, he was sort of encouraging the future romance, and I thought it was real-, it was really sweet and charming and lovely, and I, and, and also very hot.  It was a great book, and I’m so sorry that I cannot remember the name because I would love to pimp it, but find it; it was good.  Anyway.

Sarah:  You’ll remember it at, like, three in the morning.

Julie:  I will, and then I’ll call you at three in the morning.

Sarah:  Sit up, I remember it!

[Laughter]

Sarah:  There is an older Harlequin Blaze that I love by Kathleen O’Reilly called Sex, Straight Up, and –

Julie:  Oh, my God!  I love Kathleen!  She’s, like, my bestie.

Sarah:  She’s, okay, she’s such a great writer –

Julie:  She is.

Sarah:  – and in this particular book, the hero is a 9/11 widower.  His wife was, was killed on 9/11 –

Julie:  Mm-hmm.

Sarah:  – and so he’s moving on with his life.  I think he’s a forensic accountant, and he gets involved with the heroine’s business for forensic accountant-y reasons –

Julie:  Mm-hm.

Sarah:  – but it’s not as if his, his late wife wasn’t a real relationship or that he didn’t love her.  The, the conflict is more that the entire country, once a year, will not let him forget her.

Julie:  Yeah.

Sarah:  Because he’s being told constantly, you can’t forget, you can’t forget, and he’s kind of like, I would like to move on, but I don’t know how, and I so appreciated that the, the new relationship wasn’t a replacement or a one-up or, or a bettering of his life.  It was, this was, this was a thing that happened, and now I’m moving on, and I, I wish there was more of that in romance.

Julie:  Mm-hmm, yeah.  It’s a, it’s, I, I think it would be fair to call it a subgenre almost –

Sarah:  Yeah.

Julie:  – and it’s a very, it’s a very limited subgenre, which is a shame, and, and frankly, I would like to see more books from Kathleen, but she won’t do that for me.  It’s really very, it’s very sad.  I want her to get back into writing –

Sarah:  Maybe if we, like, if we, like, tag team email her –

Julie:  Ooh!

Sarah:  – like, once a day, every other day?  Hi!  It’s us again!

Julie:  There you go.  There you go.  Yes.

Sarah:  We’d like to, we’d like to read your books ‘cause they’re so good!  [Laughs]

Julie:  I know, I know.  I love her to death, and I’ve – we, we critiqued together for many, many years, and she’s –

Sarah:  Really!  I did not know that!

Julie:  Yeah, yeah!  She’s, she’s literally one of my, when I said she was my best, one of, my bestie, she’s literally one of my best friends.  She and Dee Davis and I started critiquing together in Austin years ago.  Kathleen and I were critiquing first, and we all got published within, I guess, about a year of each other, tag teaming around, around, and we, and we, Kathleen and I used to, she worked downtown, and I worked downtown, and we would, like, you know, oh, I’m going to go for coffee!  And we’d sit there in Starbucks and grab thirty minutes here and there going over each others’ pages, so, yeah!  It’s great!

Sarah:  Wow!  Of, of all the books and authors I could have mentioned, I think it’s so funny I mention the one –

Julie:  I know!

Sarah:  – who’s your critique partner!  That was completely coincidental!

Julie:  [Laughs]

Sarah:  So I want to ask you about this, this series that you’re writing and the, the very dark, very angsty, and very taboo-laden sort of backstory you’ve created here.

Julie:  Ooh!

Sarah:  Yeah, there’s a –

Julie:  Yes, I, I, I love, this, this trilogy is a lot of fun.  I’m having so – well, it’s down now.  I mean, it was, it was intended to be a trilogy, it is a trilogy, and so the last book came out, in the trilogy, came out today, so –

Sarah:  Yay!

Julie:  – while, while Dallas and Jane will undoubtedly appear in other stories because I, I, I have a hard time letting go of anything?

Sarah:  [Laughs]

Julie:  So, you know, they, they, they’re in the world, so they will be in the world, but their arc is over, so, you know, happy but sad.  But I do, I love their story, and I, and I love kind of playing with that taboo element.  It was really a lot of fun, and it’s, I mean, certainly I’ve written angsty heroes and dark things that have happened in people’s past, but this, this one is definitely the darkest, and it has the most, you know, taboo element, although, you know, some readers, honestly, say, you know, it’s not as, as taboo as I thought it was going to be.  I’m like, you know, they’re not allowed to be together!  It’s, like, a felony, so I figure that that’s, makes it kind of taboo, so, but that’s just me.

Sarah:  Just a little.

Julie:  Just a little.  [Laughs]

Sarah:  Well, there are so few boundaries anymore in romance –

Julie:  There are.

Sarah:  – in contemporary.  Like, there are very few reasons why two adult people who are both consenting can’t just go bang.

Julie:  Mm-hmm.

Sarah:  Like, there’s –

Julie:  It’s true!

Sarah:  – no obstacle here!  I don’t want to give away the whole hook of the story, so I’m trying not to ask a specific question, but what can you say to someone who hasn’t read this book series about –

Julie:  It –

Sarah:  – the, the major boundary here?

Julie:  It is, it’s a hard question because I’ve tried –

Sarah:  No pun intended.

Julie:  [Laughs] Yeah.  It’s a hard question, because if you haven’t read the first book and you don’t know what the, the secret is – I mean there’s, there’s certainly, there’s actually a couple of things going on in this book that I –

Sarah:  Mm-hmm.

Julie:  – I thought one was going to be about his character and kind of some – [hums] – issues that he has that I thought was going to be much more in readers, the forefront of readers’ minds, that, that there’s, his whole persona is sort of – God, I’m just like, how do you talk around these things and not give it away?

Sarah:  Right?

Julie:  I’m sort of, I was, I really thought that readers were going to be like, oh, wow, you know, how ironic that he’s got this moniker as, you know, the King of Fuck, and, and he’s got these other issues.  But that’s, and, and I kind of thought that was really cool and that it was going to be a thing, and, and it’s really not, which I think is also very interesting about kind of what women want in reading a romance novel.  You know, what is the part that’s the, when you’re reading a really sexy romance, what is the part that makes it really sexy?  But as for why he and Jane can’t be together – oh, golly gee whiz – it’s, you know, it’s familial, it’s, you know, there’s, there’s a – it, it’s not, it’s not a stepbrother romance, but it’s in that genre, shall we say.

Sarah:  That illuminates a lot.

Julie:  [Laughs]

Sarah:  Because I can – and, and that’s a very particular, for lack of a better word, that’s a very particular kink, and I can picture listeners going, yes, give it to me now!  And other, other listeners going, yeah, no, not my thing.  It’s, it’s, it’s, it must be a challenge!

Julie:  And, and it is, it isn’t that he, is a DNF for a lot of, a lot of readers, and I know that, and I knew that tackling it, you know?  And – but at the same time, my, the challenge, my editor was the one who suggested it.  She’s like, I really think it would be fun for you to write a taboo romance, and I’m like, really?  And she’s like, no, it’ll be fun!  And I’m, and so then the little bug is in my head, and I’m like –

Sarah:  Of course.

Julie:  – going, okay, and so I, I had this idea.  I’m like, well, I don’t want to write a stepbrother romance because there are a lot of them out there, so I kind of wanted to put my own twist on that genre, ‘cause I think it is kind of a subgenre now.  And so, when I came up with the idea, it, it just started growing about what, what the taboo was and why it was fascinating to me to, to go there, honestly –

Sarah:  Mm-hmm.

Julie:  – because my first instinct was, eh, maybe, maybe not, but then when I started really digging into the concept, there’s something very compelling about writing a taboo, because the thing about romance novels now is there are so many of them, and we’ve all been reading them for so long, and you know, you, you kind of know how it’s going to end.  I mean, that’s part of the definition!  There’s going to be a Happily Ever After!  And so one of the things that is a challenge, because readers are smart, is, well, how are they going to get their Happily Ever After?  How are they going to get over these stumbling blocks?  And when you set up the taboo that I set up, where, literally, they, they can’t get married, you know, they can’t get married, they can’t have that life together, they just can’t, then the challenge for me was, well, how do I get them there?  How do I get a Happily Ever After, and how do I get the Happily Ever After that I want them to have?  It’s, it’s not just them going, well, we’re just going to be happy together, you know, but to actually let them have the full meal deal, and so it was really fun building all of that, and then also building Dallas’s persona, because he’s a very complex, layered character with a lot of secrets, and so it just kept layering on as I was thinking about this, and it just kept getting more and more fun to, to, to plot out and to think about and, you know, then to get the words on the page and develop the relationship, so I had a lot of fun with it.  I had a lot of fun with this series.

Sarah:  It’s more than just the taboo boundary, because that has to create other problems.  It can’t just be –

Julie:  Mm-hmm.

Sarah:  – here’s this one thing we need to fix, and then once it’s fixed we can go, you know –

Julie:  Exactly.

Sarah:  – live wherever we want, and, and the answer can’t be, well, let’s just fake our deaths and come up with new identities, and that’s our Happily Ever After.  Like, you have to have a reason for them to achieve their happy ending –

Julie:  Mm-hmm.

Sarah:  – but it can’t just be that one obstacle, especially not over three or four books!  That’s not going to work!

Julie:  Exactly, no, that would be, that would be very – yeah, that wouldn’t work.  No, which is, which is where so much of the layering and the development of the two characters came in.  Jane I knew pretty well.  She was, a, a very horrible thing happens in their past, and –

Sarah:  Right.

Julie:  – and, and it’s revealed in the first book, and it’s, it’s, the horrible thing happens, but at the same time, it, it really connects these two characters, so you have this, this push-pull of, like, the worst possible thing that you can imagine happening also being, like, one of the best moments of their life, you know?  So it’s, it kind of makes for some really screwed up people, so they have to get over the fact that they’re screwed up, or at least come to terms with it, but then they also, Dallas also has, and I don’t know that this is really a, a secret-secret.  It’s, it’s certainly a, a revelation at some, but it’s, it comes out very early in the first book that he’s leading a double life.  He’s not the man that he presents to the public, and so –

Sarah:  Mm-hmm.

Julie:  – you’ve got all of that going on as well, and, and that was actually my challenge, because he originally was not going to be a hero.  He was a character in another trilogy that was originally a walk-on, and then he just kind of started waving his hands and screaming, I want my SAG card; give me a few lines –

Sarah:  [Laughs]

Julie:  – and then suddenly he was, like, you know, the dude, and I had planned for my next trilogy to be a completely different character, but Dallas jumped up and down and screamed and ranted and, you know, did his thing, and so suddenly I have this guy, and I didn’t know his secret until I was really trying to figure out what, how he was reacting to the bad thing that happened in their past.  I knew that it happened, but, but he had this persona as a playboy, and I didn’t want to write a guy who was just a playboy, ‘cause that’s not interesting to me, and I was in an airport in a layover, and I’m like, oh, my God!  He’s, he’s Batman!  And, and then sort of all the pieces just kind of fell into place.  And I called my editor.  I remember, I, I think I was in New Jersey.  I think I was in Newark, and, and I call my editor, and I’m like, oh, my God!  He’s Batman!  And she’s like, oh, my God, yes!  And so it, and it really, it’s really nice as a writer when you find the thing that sort of is the streetlamp, you know, along the path, so suddenly you’re like, yes!  I knew it was there!  There it is!  There’s the path!  I found it!  And then, and then it sort of all falls into place, and it’s a lovely feeling.  And if you, when you don’t have that feeling, it’s just like, you’re just, like, floundering in the woods, tripping over branches and stones and going, please, where’s the path?  It’s here somewhere!  I know it’s there!

Sarah:  I know there’s a reason I did this!  There’s got to be a reason!

Julie:  Yeah, exactly.  [Laughs] Exactly.

Sarah:  One of my favorite quotes from a writer is Lisa Kleypas, who once said that in a no-, in a romance, a sex scene has to solve as many problems and cause just as many.

Julie:  Yes.

Sarah:  Do you think that’s true as well?

Julie:  Absolutely, I do, and I, I think that is, I think that’s true in, in any romance, but I think it’s especially true in erotic romance or books that, you know, you would con-, that, that are super sexy.  The, this is what I consider erotic romance in that if you take the sex out, you don’t have a book, because –

Sarah:  Mm-hmm.

Julie:  – so much of the character development, the plot development, is tied to their sexual relationship, and so absolutely, it is, it is true, and I think that, and, and sometimes you run across romances where you, you have a, a sex scene that’s really just there for fun, and that’s, you know, that’s lovely, but it needs to – if you can pull out a sex scene in any book –

Sarah:  Mm-hmm.

Julie:  – including – then, then you have to question why – if you can pull out any scene in a book and have it not affect the story, then you have to question why is the scene there, you know?  So –

Sarah:  Exactly.

Julie:  – so, and, and sex scenes are no different, and that, that’s such a – I mean, one of the reasons that I have found that I am enjoying – ‘cause I, I, as Julie Kenner, I wrote hot, but I didn’t write this hot – and one of the things that I’m finding that I really enjoy about kind of taking it to the next level and taking the heat level higher and getting more intense in the characters is that you’re so, that’s a moment that these characters are so vulnerable, you know?  That’s, you really don’t get more vulnerable than that –

Sarah:  Right.

Julie:  – and so it’s just really, it allows you to get so deep into the character, so, which is a very long way of saying that, yes, I agree with Lisa.  Absolutely.

[Laughter]

Sarah:  And also you –

Julie:  In my very long-winded way!  [Laughs]

Sarah:  That’s fine; it’s not like we’re running out of room of, of, on the Internet for audio or words.  It also means that you have to sort of balance the growing erotic intensity and the growing emotional intensity, that you, that you have to keep each one sort of in a state of either parity or imbalance and tension, so you’re, like you said, it’s not just the sexytimes, and that there is a reason for the sex to be there, and that it affects them emotionally.

Julie:  Yes, exactly.

Sarah:  Does that –

Julie:  And that’s oft- –

Sarah:  Go ahead.

Julie:  I was going to say, and that’s often hard.  I mean, it’s a challenge, you know.  It’s not –

Sarah:  I was just going to say, that sounds really difficult and kind of exhausting.

Julie:  Yeah, it, well, you know, it’s interesting that you say exhausting, because one of the things that I complain about, you know, not really complain, but that I will comment on, that I will mention to my friends, my family, you know, anyone who will listen, is that – you know, like my Demon-Hunting Soccer Mom books, right?  You’ve got fight scenes, and they’re choreographed!  I mean, you know, I have to, like, stand up with, like, you know, and for, you know, like, take Swiffer handles and pretend to swordfight, and I’m sitting here thinking, okay, well, if this guy comes in, he jumps in here, and those would take me a long time to write –

Sarah:  Mm-hmm.

Julie:  – because, you know, you want to get the choreography right; you want to make sure you don’t have, you know, four arms somehow in there, you know, and a –

Sarah:  Yep.

Julie:  – gun that comes out of nowhere.  It is ex-, and it is so much more exhausting to write the sex scenes now.

Sarah:  [Laughs]

Julie:  Seriously!  I have actually gotten to the point where I, I used to be very, very anal about writing straight through.  I would start on page one, and I, I, I’m an editor-as-I-go.  I, I, I rewrite as I go along, and that’s my comfort zone, and I would –

Sarah:  Mm-hmm.

Julie:  – by the time I wrote The End, my book was pretty much done.  I mean, I would go back and tweak it, but it’s pretty much where I want to be because I’ve gone in and I’ve fiddled with stuff.  I, I can’t do a whole first draft and just have in the back of my head, I’ll fix it later.  It just doesn’t work for me.  But when I started writing the really intense sex scenes, I found that I wouldn’t get any words done if I went straight through, because it would be so exhausting that if I needed to get X number of pages done that day, it was almost physically impossible, and so what I’ve, what I do now, honestly, is I will write the book, and then I, it’s almost like, like planning a screenplay.  I will beat out the scenes –

Sarah:  Mm-hmm.

Julie:  – so it’s like I’ll have the emotional points put there, and I’ll have a little bit of the choreography put in, and I’ll move on to the next scene that’s maybe dialogue or something afterwards that, that can be written a little bit faster without that emotional UGH.

Sarah:  Yeah.

Julie:  And then, you know, and then the next day I’ll write a little bit more, and then I’ll go back to that scene, and I’ll fill it in, and fortunately I write in Scrivener, so I’m like, I can highlight those scenes in a color, and, and it’s, it, it took a couple of books to really be able to do that without wanting to literally pull my hair out because it was so counter to the process, and I’ve been writing for many, many years now, so it was so counter to a process that I’d gotten so used to, but it ends up working really well, because if I try to do it in one sitting, the scenes wouldn’t have the depth that they have, and I –

Sarah:  Right.

Julie:  – and I like that.  I want that depth to be there, and so it’s really, it’s like, I don’t know, I guess it’s like painting, where you have to, you know, put on a coat and let it dry, and then you put on another coat and let it – and you keep layering and layering and layering, and so they, they tend to be very massaged by the time the book is over.

Sarah:  [Laughs] And that’s, I mean, that’s very scary as a process.  I mean, it’s almost like breaking up with your autopilot and, and learning –

Julie:  It’s true, yes!

Sarah:  – how to write a whole new way!

Julie:  Yeah, and it, and it used to be that I would, would know exactly when I was going to finish a book, ‘cause I could look and see kind of how far I was, and after you write for a while you start to get a sense of, you know, well, this is going to be an eighty-thousand-word book, so I kind of know how I tend to write, how the chapters will be broken, so I, you know, I’d have a sense of when I was going to finish –

Sarah:  Right.

Julie:  – how much I could reasonably do a day.  Yeah, no, not with this.  Uh-uh.

Sarah:  [Laughs]

Julie:  My editor would be like, so, you know, when’s the book, and I’m like, well –

Sarah:  I-uh-oh [“I don’t know” without the consonants].

Julie:  – I think it’ll be this week, and then the end of the week’ll come, and I’m like, you know, I thought it was, but I forgot, you know, I have all the end – no, yeah.  So it, it definitely can throw you off kilter there, trying to – you, you, you lose the exact sense of when you – I’m getting better.  I’m learning my –

Sarah:  Yeah.

Julie:  – I’m learning my own process again, but for a while there it was, it was weird.  But kind of new, too.  I mean, you have to, you have to shake things up, so it’s a good thing.  It’s all good.

Sarah:  So, what is compelling for you about writing characters through multiple books?

Julie:  [Deep breath, blowing noise] You know, I guess it’s really just me.  I, not all –

Sarah:  You don’t like to let go.  [Laughs]

Julie:  It, well, but it, but it’s interesting, because I’m, when I say it’s just me, I mean, it’s, like, me just across the board.  I, I’m that way as a reader as well.  I, like, J. D. Robb?

Sarah:  Mm-hmm.

Julie:  Huge fan!  Biggest fan in the whole wide world!  I love those books, and I have re-read that damn series, and I mean, what, there’s, like, eighty-seven million books in the series now?  So, I mean –

Sarah:  That’s not a small task, no.

Julie:  No, it’s not a small task, and, but I have literally, I think, not more the recent ones, but I think up to – oh, golly – I mean, definitely in the twenties –

Sarah:  Oh, yeah.

Julie:  – I’ve, I’ve, like, read them two or three times.  I mean, I like – and I, and I do this with television shows too.  I will not even tell you how many times I’ve watched Buffy and Alias.  I mean, it’s a scary, scary number, and people are like, check, have you checked out this new show?  And I’m like, well, I can’t because I’m re-watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer.  You know, I mean, it’s like, I, once I’m in a world I like to stay in it, which is why I’m, you know, I enjoy short stories, but they’re not my thing because they’re so short.  I want to lose myself in a world, and there’s a series of mysteries that I really love that Anne Perry writes, the Inspector Pitt mysteries.  I would get lost in those for years.  I did it as a kid; I read Nancy Drew and checked them off – this is how old I am – I checked them off in the little checkbox at the back of the books, you know.

Sarah:  [Laughs] I did that too!

Julie:  So this is, this is – so, yeah, I, I loved that, you know?  This is not something that I just do with books, but I do like to, I like, I like to stick with them, and I also think that I, I like to visit the characters after the HEA, so, I mean, I think that’s sort of, we were talking about Demon earlier, but I think that’s one of the reasons I have so much fun with the Demon-Hunting Soccer Mom books is ‘cause you’re right, it is kind of like what happens after in a romance novel, and –

Sarah:  Mm-hmm.

Julie:  – and, you know, some of them I like to stick with more than others, and some of them just feel like there’s a bigger world there.  Like, I really enjoy writing my original erotic romance couple, Nikki and Damien Stark –

Sarah:  Mm-hmm.

Julie:  – and, you know, I mean, I’ve written three books in the trilogy, I’ve got the – ‘cause I’m apparently Douglas Adams at heart – I’ve got the fourth book in the trilogy coming out in April –

Sarah:  [Laughs] Yes!

Julie:  – and I –

[Laughter]

Julie:  I know!

Sarah:  Fourth book in the trilogy.  Yeah.

Julie:  Hey, you know?  And there are no dolphins and – [laughs] – no restaurants at the end of the universe in it, but it’s in a grand tradition.  You know, and they have a lot of novellas that take place, and I –

Sarah:  Mm-hmm.

Julie:  – I really enjoy revisiting that world.  It’s just something that makes me happy, so.

Sarah:  I don’t think you’re alone in that.  I think a lot of people, especially people who are discovering creative works now –

Julie:  Mm-hmm.

Sarah:  – are more likely and better able, because, especially, of the, because of the Internet, you’re better able to not only find a world that you want to immerse yourself in, but then you can go find the fandom and immerse yourself in that world as well, so you can be in the world of the story and then in the world of people who are just as passionate about that story as you are –

Julie:  True.

Sarah:  – and there’re more and more opportunities to find worlds that you can really take a deep dive into.

Julie:  I completely agree.  I think it’s just, you know, it’s, and, and I think it’s also, it’s kind of human nature, too.  There’s something about just being caught up in and being told a story, and being told –

Sarah:  Oh, totally.

Julie:  You know, so when you get into a, you know, a story that you can really lose yourself in, there’s something very compelling about that, so.  Yeah, so I guess I’m pretty normal.

Sarah:  [Laughs] It’s also a function of, of good worldbuilding, and, and one thing I think that isn’t appreciated in, especially in contemporary romances, is how important worldbuilding is, because you have to convince a reader, if it’s a contemporary, you have to convince a reader that it’s happening right now –

Julie:  Mm-hmm.

Sarah:  – that it’s possible that it’s happening right now, but it’s just enough of the, the fantastical and the, and the, and the compelling that you can both suspend your, your disbelief and yet not want to put the book down because it could possibly be happening!  It, there’s enough realism and fantasy in the same place, and I, and I think that, that, I think that it’s difficult to really describe how technically difficult that is when you’re writing a contemporary, because that’s the world everyone’s in!

Julie:  Exactly.  You know, you go and you, you see, like, worldbuilding workshops or you just think about worldbuilding and –

Sarah:  And it’s fantasy here.

Julie:  It’s, it’s almost always fantasy.  It’s like, okay, you know, Game of Thrones.  [Laughs]

Sarah:  Yep.

Julie:  And it’s like, you know, at, that, that’s great, but, you know, no, it, it, it does get short shrift, and it’s a shame, because you’re absolutely right.  You have to create this world for your characters to populate, and, and that is their world, and, and it’s layered onto our world, and so it is very, it, it’s a very interesting challenge.

Sarah:  Are there any, are there things that you do to help build your world, to, to populate these characters with all of their angst?  Are things that you try to do deliberately in your own worldbuilding?

Julie:  That’s a hard question because, you know, I, I tend to not, I’m not a pre-planner.  I get bored when I’m planning a book, so –

Sarah:  Mm-hmm.

Julie:  – I tend to be a, have a barebones outline of the plot, and then I dive in, and then I discover the world as I’m writing it, so to prepare to do that, not so much, but I certainly think about it.  I mean, I, I, one thing I really like to do, and I’m not even sure if this is actually what, exactly what you’re asking or if I’m sort of just skirting around the topic, but I’ve, I like to mix and match the real with what I’ve made up.  So I almost always, in my books there are, you know, restaurants and, and architecture and things that are the real world totally mixed in with some completely made up location or, or house or something that’s, that’s there, and then, you know, I will populate it with a mix of people that I may want to pull from other stories who work in that world, and then because of, you now, I tend to, I’ve been writing, you know, very, very wealthy people in the Los Angeles area, you know, I, I tend to make up the celebrities they’re working with, but there’ll be references to, say, real-life reality channels, because my people get, you know, chased by the paparazzi, so TMZ will be there, but they’ll be looking at, you know, you know, Lyle Tarpin, who’s, you know, or Gareth Todd, who are big Hollywood stars, you know, in my world, but not in our world, if that makes sense.  So it’s –

Sarah:  No, that totally makes sense.  It’s like building a fantasy and embedding it in the real world –

Julie:  Mm-hmm.

Sarah:  – just enough that there’s a reference point of reality for the fantasy to take off.

Julie:  Well, like, for example, when I did the third book in the Stark trilogy, the, we’re in Germany, and I had them staying at a real hotel –

Sarah:  Mm-hmm.

Julie:  – the Hotel Kempinski – I’m not sure if I’m pronouncing that right – but anyway, a real hotel, and it was really fun because I, I’ve never seen it since, I think they took it off their website, but they had a, for the penthouse, they had a, one of those 360 cameras like they do in real estate, and so I was able to write the description of their hotel room, Nikki and Damien’s hotel room, in great detail.  I only changed a little thing for a, for a sex scene against a window.  You know, it’s like, ah, there’s no railing there, ha-ha.

Sarah:  [Laughs]

Julie:  You know, but it’s, but I actually got, I actually got an email from a fan who asked me if I’d stayed there, because she stayed there for her honeymoon, and she said I described it spot on, and I’m like, yay!  Go me!  Thank you!  You know, thank you, Hotel Kempinski for your awesome website.  And then I, you know, managed to, to describe their, their lounge and stuff, so a lot of that stuff, so that, and I named it.  It’s really named in the story –

Sarah:  Right.

Julie:  -but then when, when Nikki goes shopping on – and it’s been long enough that I’ve forgotten the name of the street that the hotel is on, but it’s one of the major streets in Munich –

Sarah:  Mm-hmm.

Julie:  – she passes a lot of the real stores that are there.  It’s like Munich’s version of Rodeo Drive.

Sarah:  Right.

Julie:  But then I have a scene where she and Damien have a little, mm, you know, private time in a lingerie shop.  Well, I didn’t want to use a real lingerie shop for them to be, you know, fooling around in a dressing room, ‘cause that just seemed not cool –

Sarah:  [Laughs]

Julie:  – so I made up my own, you know, little lingerie shop, so now I’ve got that, but now that same lingerie shop has appeared in, I don’t remember which story, one of the novellas.  It’s, it has its, you know, Rodeo Drive counterpart, so now it’s become a chain store that lives in my world, but it doesn’t really live in the real world.  So, you know, so it’s like, it just kind of mixes and matches the real stuff with the, with the fake stuff, and, and the, Jane’s townhouse in the Dirtiest trilogy is  based on an amazing townhouse that I saw that was completely refurbished, museum quality, it’s in the same neighborhood, I think I put it two streets over.  I found it in, when I was Googling the Internet on, you know, like, really amazing townhouses, and I think it was for sale at Sotheby’s.  It was, like, some insanely well-done place, and so I modeled her townhouse completely on that, but I didn’t want to use the exact place, for obvious reasons.  But –

Sarah:  Of course.

Julie:  – but, but I know exactly what it looks like because I’ve seen it on the Internet, thank you very much!  [Laughs]

Sarah:  You know, I think all luxury places that you can stay in, like hotels, should just have 360 cameras so writers –

Julie:  They really should.

Sarah:  – and nosy people can go take a look!  [Laughs]

Julie:  They really should.  I will tell you, I’ve been in this business for a very long time.  When I was trying to write my first book, so this is before I was published, but I was trying to write it, and my first attempt at writing a romance was a historical romance that will never see the light of day, but this was back in the day when, hello, you know, the Internet was a DOS prompt, you know, and –

Sarah:  Mm-hmm.

Julie:  – so I was not doing any research on the Internet, and I was practicing law, so I was doing very little research at the library, and I was like, I don’t know how anybody does this stuff.  I mean, my research for this book that I was trying to write was literally Ken Follett’s The Pillars of the Earth.  It’s like, if it wasn’t in The Pillars of the Earth it wasn’t going to be in my romance novel.

[Laughter]

Julie:  And Google and, you know, and other search engines, as far as I’m concerned, is just the best thing ever for a writer, especially a shy writer who doesn’t want to, like, you know –

Sarah:  Call people on the phone?

Julie:  – call the research department at some university?  Exactly!

Sarah:  Yeah.

Julie:  Yeah, no, it’s great.  It’s, I’m, I am all for the Internet.  Go Internet!  Yay!

Sarah:  [Laughs] I know that for, for readers, I remember having been at one of the Nora Roberts signings in Boonsboro, and –

Julie:  Mm-hmm.

Sarah:  – you know, she wrote the hotel into a trilogy, and the, and different businesses in the town are in one of her trilogies, and I remember meeting some of her readers who were just awestruck that the places that they had read about were real and that they could, like, go into them and touch them, and it just made a huge, huge impression on them, and I think this means that you could theoretically open an online lingerie store with the name of that chain.

Julie:  Ooooh!

Sarah:  Like, you could, you could start your own line of lingerie and make that real too?

Julie:  Well, I’ll, I’ll get right on that!  [Laughs]

Sarah:  Yeah, sure!  I mean, ‘cause you know, you’ve got so much spare time, right?

Julie:  In my, in my spare time, I know!

Sarah:  Right, ‘cause, you know, you, you have, you have writing and kids and family and responsibilities and people and, yeah, it’s a piece of cake to start one more business.

Julie:  But I think you’re right, you know.  I actually think that those kind of things really, really do work nowadays in our, in the world that we’re in, because you can do that kind of thing –

Sarah:  Totally!

Julie:  – and it’s really kind of cool.  You know, it really is.  I think that the crossover potential for that kind of thing, for someone with, you know, enough time and enough energy and enough ability to kind of figure out a way to put it all together, I think it could be great.  It’s just the possibilities nowadays for doing different cool things are just, you know, unlimited.  It’s just really, it’s really fun.  It’s, you know, my, I have a squirrel personality, so I always have to, like, tell myself to back off a bit and, you know, not, not go do that, because, you know, this thing over here is, is needing to be done, and that thing over there would be really cool, but, you know, it’s, it’s hard!  It’s hard when you want to do everything and, and sadly, I do not have one of Hermione’s Time-Turners; I wish I did.

Sarah:  Right?!

Julie:  I know!  It’s very frustrating.  I bought one at Dragon Con, but it doesn’t work.  I’m going to take it back.

Sarah:  Ugh!

Julie:  I mean, seriously.  I know!  What’s up with that?

Sarah:  That’s, like, my, my third-favorite game.  My favorite game is When I’m Queen.

Julie:  [Laughs]

Sarah:  My, my second-favorite game is Where’s My Venture Capitalist?  And my third-favorite is When I Repeat Time Over and Over Again, What Will I Do?  Like, when I have a Time-Turner, here’s what I’m going to do.

Julie:  See, it would be so handy, ‘cause, I mean, people will say, well, you’d get tired.  It’s like, nonono, for one, a couple of the turns you take a nap!  I mean, you know –

Sarah:  Totally!

Julie:  – it’s totally doable!  It’s totally doable!  Did you ever see – totally off topic – years ago, there was a, a movie.  It was a book, but I never read the book, but the movie was, Pam Dawber was in it, and some guy whose, I used to know at the time, called The Girl, the Gold Watch & Everything?

Sarah:  No!

Julie:  This – oh, my God, it’s, it’s a, it’s, I think it was from the ‘70s.  It’s totally schlocky.  I can’t watch it now, because I would probably hate it, and when I was little, I loved it.  I just thought it was the best thing ever, but this uncle dies, and all he leaves, like, his favorite nephew is this, like, a crappy watch, and so the nephew’s like, thanks a lot, favorite uncle.

Sarah:  [Laughs]

Julie:  But it turns, but it turns out that it, it stops time, and so I’m, I’m sure J. K. Rowling watched, read this book.  It was a, or watched this movie, but I loved it!  It was like a caper.  It was, you know, someone, there’re bad guys, and I don’t even remember the plot anymore, but I just thought that was the coolest thing, and I wanted that watch so badly as a kid.  I still do.

Sarah:  I wish there were movies like that still being made.

Julie:  There really aren’t, are there?

Sarah:  Not, not movies like science fiction capers –

Julie:  Mm-hmm.

Sarah:  – and there aren’t romantic comedies.

Julie:  No, there really aren’t.  I was talking about that recently, what a dearth there is of romantic comedies these days, and I think part of the reason is, is that there were a lot of bad romantic comedies because –

Sarah:  Yep.

Julie:  – people don’t realize, because comedy is light and funny, they don’t realize that it is so incredibly hard to write.

Sarah:  The devil you say!  You mean, like –

Julie:  Yeah.

Sarah:  – romance is hard to write too?

Julie:  I know!  Isn’t that shocking?

Sarah:  Oh, my gosh!

Julie:  I know!  I know!  It’s not something you just sit down in a weekend and do!

[Laughter]

Sarah:  You mean you don’t just, like, sit down and, and whip one, whip one out in a re-, in, in a weekend?  Just crank it out and have it ready to go on Monday?

Julie:  Well, yeah, with bonbons!  I have them on my desk.  I mean –

Sarah:  Right!

Julie:  – there have to be bonbons.  Yeah, totally.

Sarah:  Right.  In, in a very pink tulle office with –

Julie:  Absolutely!  Yes.

Sarah:  Yes, with those slippers with feathers on the toes.

Julie:  Yes!  Yes!  Yes!  Except that toes are, you have a little bit of a cutout at the toes so you can see your pink toenails, too.

Sarah:  Oh, yes, ‘cause your pedicure is always perfect.

Julie:  Of course!

Sarah:  It’s never, like, a month old or anything.

Julie:  No.  No.

Sarah:  [Laughs]

Julie:  Takes a side glance at her – I’m sitting here going, okay, yes, my manicure has grown out about seven millimeters already here.

Sarah:  Oh, yeah.

Julie:  Yeah, it’s pretty, yeah.  Yeah, we need to not be seeing that in public.  [Laughs]

Sarah:  I’ll be, I’ll be honest with you:  after RWA in mid July, I kind of take, like, a month off of, of paying attention, but before RWA, like, I will schedule on my calendar, okay, eyebrows –

Julie:  [Laughs]

Sarah:  – pedicure –

Julie:  Uh-huh.

Sarah:  – pedicure, is all of my makeup okay?  Do I need to replace anything in my makeup?  Okay.  I have to be, like, fully ready –

Julie:  Oh, yeah.

Sarah:  – and, like, prepared.  Haircut three weeks before.  You know, like, I have all of this scheduled, and then afterward it’s like, eh, I don’t care.

Julie:  So that’s what we should do.  We should all, like all two thousand of us should make a pact that no one is going to, to do any prep work for RWA, and we just go as we are.

Sarah:  Show up as we are?  Oh, my –

Julie:  Go as we are!  Yeah.

Sarah:  – gosh, I would love it!  Like, I always, I always think, you know, one year, I’m going to throw, like, a pajama party, and I’m like, no one’s going to come!  They’re going to wear, like –

Julie:  No one’s going to come!  [Laughs]

Sarah:  – really nice pajamas and makeup, and I’ll be like, who are you people that sleep in makeup?  Are you the people that go to the gym in makeup?  I don’t understand!

Julie:  That is exactly what you would get.  I am –

Sarah:  Like, don’t pretend like y’all don’t wear yoga pants ninety percent of the day.  Come on.

Julie:  Oh, yeah.

[Laughter]

Sarah:  That’s why you become a writer!  For the elastic-waist pants!

Julie:  Oh, yeah, and then someone comes and delivers stuff to your door, and you’re like, seriously?  I have to open the door and sign for something?  Are you kidding me?  Really?  Nonononono, you don’t understand!  I’m in no condition to open the door and sign for something.

Sarah:  So, one of the questions I also wanted to ask you about was being a former attorney.

Julie:  Mm-hmm?

Sarah:  There are a lot of recovering attorneys, as Alyssa Day likes to call all of you, recovering attorneys –

Julie:  Oh, yeah.

Sarah:  – in romance, and I have a theory as to why that is, and I want to know if you think my theory holds any water.

Julie:  Okay.

Sarah:  So, I know that in just about every case, anything that you, that you write in the legal field has a structure that you have to follow.  So if you’re submitting a brief or you’re writing a particular kind of document, there are expectations of how it’s going to be structurally built.  And then once you have the structure in place, say, for example, you’re engaging in some sort of litigation, you can make whatever crazy argument you want to in the middle there, but you’ve got to have the, the correct structure, and then you fill in with all of the stuff that is relevant to what you’re doing, and you make your argument, or you explain what’s happening, and I see a lot of similarities with romance.  There are people that are going to meet.  They’re going to have a problem, and then it’s going to be solved, but however they get from point A to point B is totally up to you; you can do whatever you want inside that structure, but the structure is expectation.

Julie:  I actually think that that is a really good theory!

Sarah:  Yes!

Julie:  I’m, I’m, I’m going to go with that.  I, I think that you’re right, and I, I think that’s one component of it.

Sarah:  Mm-hmm.

Julie:   I think the other component of it is, that’s the part that’s the fun part of, of practicing law, for me it was at least, is, is telling that story –

Sarah:  Mm-hmm.

Julie:  – in the brief.  But then, I at least wasn’t satisfied doing that because you have to balance that against the other part where you’re not telling a story, where you’re answering discovery questions –

Sarah:  Mm-hmm.

Julie:  – or interrogatories or something, and it is mind-numbingly horrible –

Sarah:  Mm-hmm.

Julie:  – and so you’re going, ooh, can I get over here and tell the story, please?  And they’re like, no, you need to go over here and object.  You need to set out ninety-seven objections and not provide documents.  And so you want to get back over to telling the story, and you’re like, you know what?  I’m just going to go tell my own story, thank you very much.  Goodbye!  And –

Sarah:  Yep.  And, and there are so many attorneys who write romance for various reasons!

Julie:  There are!  I know!  It’s like, we should form a little Facebook group or something.  [Laughs]

Sarah:  Yeah, you guys should have your own RWA chapter.  It would be fearsome.

Julie:  There you go!

Sarah:  Former Attorneys Writing Romance.  It would be like, oh, my God, do not ever email that chapter.  It is not going to go well for you.

[Laughter]

Sarah:  The reply will be, like, nine thousand words.  Like, seriously, just don’t do it.  But even then, if you’re, if you’re, you know, if you’re practicing law and you’re telling the story and you’re dealing with the other side, for example, in litigation, you have to anticipate their story.

Julie:  Mm-hmm.  ‘Cause you’re –

Sarah:  You know, you have to try to guess what their story’s going to be, and then you have to make a better story, so it’s like competitive storytelling.

Julie:  It is!  It is!  It’s, you’re totally right!  That’s so fun!

Sarah:  So –

Julie:  And you know, it’s, it’s, there, there are so many professions in, represented in romance writing.  I mean, you, you know, it’s, you go out in the public and they’re like, oh, those little girls writing those little stories –

Sarah:  Mm-hmm.

Julie:  – and it’s like, mm, yeah, you’re just not paying attention, are you?  ‘Cause you’re clueless, but that’s okay!  We’ll just laugh all the way to the bank. 

Sarah:  I, I did a podcast interview very recently with a writer from the UK named Rhoda Baxter –

Julie:  Mm-hmm?

Sarah:  – and she is a scientist, or a former scientist who now writes, writes romance full time, and her pen name is named for the bacterium that she did her dissertation and her studies on, Rhodobacter.

Julie:  [Laughs]

Sarah:  And I’m like, you know, we’ve got microbiologists writing romance, and we’ve got, you know, attorneys and doctors and former lawyers and, you know, crazy, crazy, crazy high-level career paths where people are adding on this incredibly creative and entrepreneurial aspect, and yet of course it’s all, oh, those silly women writing their silly novels.

Julie:  I know!  It’s –

Sarah:  So annoying.

Julie:  – absurd.  Yes, it is, it is.

Sarah:  And it’s sad, because, I mean, I’ve been writing about romance with the website since 2005, which is a really long time for the Internet –

Julie:  Mm-hmm.

Sarah:  – and you have been writing for a very long time –

Julie:  Mm-hmm.

Sarah:  – and while the, I think the coverage in the media has gotten better, the underlying assumptions are still the same!

Julie:  Yeah.

Sarah:  Like, how have they not gone away yet?

Julie:  I know!  It has gotten better, though, I think.

Sarah:  Yes!

Julie:  I, I, so that’s something.  You know, it definitely has.

Sarah:  I think, like, at, at every major outlet there’s one writer who I know gets it.

Julie:  Mm-hmm.

Sarah:  Right, like, if Kelly Faircloth at Jezebel is going to write about romance, I am two thousand percent there for it –

Julie:  Yeah, exactly.

Sarah:  – because I know she gets it, you know?

Julie:  Mm-hmm.

Sarah:  But then you’ll, you’ll, you’ll see an article on some other site, and it’s like, oh, you referenced Fabio.  Okay!

Julie:  Yeah.  Yeah.

Sarah:  Yeah.

Julie:  Yeah.

Sarah:  Good try.

Julie:  Interesting!  There’re a lot more men writing romance now too, which is, you know, at, I think is not a direct correlation, but I think it’s some evidence that –

Sarah:  Mm-hmm.

Julie:  – you know, at least out there in the bigger world, kind of the, the impression that, you know, it’s, oh, just that girly thing –

Sarah:  Mm-hmm.

Julie:  – is, is going away.

Sarah:  Well, I also think that it helps to have a growing and wider sense of what gender is and isn’t?

Julie:  Mm-hmm.  Yes.

Sarah:  And we’re more aware of and accepting, I hope, of variations in gender, that it’s not just a binary, either/or –

Julie:  Yes.

Sarah:  – and that, that also helps, I think – I hope, anyway, as someone who is raising two boys – that it moves people away from what I think people call gender panic?

Julie:  Mm-hmm.

Sarah:  Like, oh, my God, it’s girly, and so it’s bad!  Like, we’re moving away from that?  That’s awesome.

Julie:  I think so as well, and we do seem to be moving away from it.  A lot of things, you know, are, it, it, we’re in a time that things are very much shifting, which is great, so.

Sarah:  And you’re, are you self-publishing the, the Soccer Mom books?

Julie:  I am, yeah!  I got my rights back, oh, golly gee, 2011 or 2012, and so I put them out and added book six after, sadly, a long gap.  The, the, there are, there’s a long gap between these books, unfortunately, because I just, you know, I just, they’re, as we talked, I don’t have Hermione’s Time-Turner.  It’s very frustrating –

Sarah:  Right.

Julie:  – not to have every hour that I want every day.  So, yes, I am self-publishing them.  So, yeah!  And that makes, it’s fun, too.  I, I really enjoy doing that, so.

Sarah:  Have you, have you enjoyed that whole process, or is it sort of like, okay, I’m going to do it for this series, but this is, whoo!  This is a lot.

Julie:  No!  I do, I really enjoy it.  I, I, I, I think that, I think self-publishing is just one of the best things that has, that has ever happened to – I mean, it’s like, you know, it’s like Guttenberg inventing, you know, the printing press.  It’s, it’s, it’s something that is so beneficial to authors.  It has its downsides.  There is, like anything, when any sort of new market opens, there is suddenly a flood of –

Sarah:  Mm-hmm.

Julie:  – everything, and we’ve certainly seen that, and it, and it, you know, it happened.  I think it’s starting to slow down a little bit?

Sarah:  Mm-hmm.

Julie:  And it makes it very hard for, for books to, to get attention, because when you don’t have to deal with the brick and mortar store, you have unlimited shelf space, you know, and if you have unlimited shelf space, how do you find anything?  You know.

Sarah:  Right.

Julie:  The, the, the curating process becomes much more difficult, and so that’s why we, you know, we’re seeing such a shift away from, you know, the bookstore buyers to, to, you know, bloggers and, and readers being their own curators.

Sarah:  Yep!

Julie:  I’m totally getting off topic, but, no, I think it’s fascinating.  I love that, that, that an author has the ability to control pricing, to control marketing, to control their cover.  I mean, you know, let’s face it, it’s, with New York, it’s very difficult to get a cover replaced if you really, really hate it.

Sarah:  Mm-hmm.

Julie:  Sometimes you can, sometimes you can’t.  It depends on, you know, kind of the, you know, the team that’s behind that particular book, the author’s clout, how much money they’ve already put into the cover.

Sarah:  Yep.

Julie:  It’s a little bit easier now that so much of the covers are Photoshopped –

Sarah:  Yep.

Julie:  – but back in the day –

Sarah:  Oh, yeah, that was an artist!

Julie:  – when they were doing original art, it was insane, yeah.  So, no, I think it’s, I think it’s an amazing, amazing time, and, and frankly, you know, this is one of the few times in my career that I’ve not had – I started out with two publishers.  There have been times when I had three in my career –

Sarah:  Mm-hmm.

Julie:  – and because, you know, this is my living.  This is, you know, I’m, this is, my husband works for me, so we’re, you know, I, you know, you want that backup plan, and with –

Sarah:  Yep.

Julie:  – with the fact that – and back in the day, there was no backup plan.  When they –

Sarah:  No!

Julie:  – the Demon, when the Demon book was dropped, Demon series was dropped, they – which was weird, because it was still selling, so I’m not even sure why it was dropped, but that’s another thing!  It was dropped; I had no choice.  The only option I had at the time was, you know, basically to go to Kinko’s, print books, and drive around the country selling them from my trunk, and you know, while that worked for the guy who wrote Eragon, I didn’t really think it was going to work for me, so.

[Laughter]

Sarah:  Different case.

Julie:  Yeah, different case.  So, I think it’s great; I really do.  I am a huge, I’m a huge believer in the power of indie publishing.  I think it’s, I think it’s, I think it’s incredibly beneficial to authors.

Sarah:  The thing I love is that you can take a, a series or a book in a genre that major industry voices will say, oh, that, that genre is not selling.  That’s not selling, I can’t sell that, that’s not, that’s not popular, and you can find readers who are like, medieval romance?  Yes, please!  I buy, like, ten a day!  You can find the, the specific readers who are looking for the genre that you write, even if that genre isn’t the super popular one anymore.

Julie:  And, and that’s the key.  That’s the thing that I think a lot of people don’t really understand, or they, they start to get angry about it.  It’s like, well, what, New York says that’s not selling!  But what, the point they miss is that it’s, from New York’s perspective, it’s not selling, because –

Sarah:  Right!

Julie:  – they have, they have a lot more of an investment going on behind those books because of just their overhead and the level of sales they have to reach to be profitable, so –

Sarah:  Mm-hmm.

Julie:  – so they’re turning it down, and it’s an economic decision, you know.  It’s not –

Sarah:  Totally.  It’s business –

Julie:  – it’s not personal!

Sarah:  – it’s not personal!

Julie:  It’s business; it’s not personal!  You know, but that, but back, you know, in two thousand and, you know, ten, really, because I think indie really took off in what, 2011, 2012, right?  I’m, if I’m remembering?

Sarah:  Mm, roughly, yeah.

Julie:  So let’s say 2010, 2009, someone says, I’ve got this great medieval romance, and New York says, well, that’s not publishing, and that’s end of the story!  There is no more conversation to have.  Now it’s like, well, you know what, I think there is a market for it, and I think that with my seventy percent indie percentage versus, you know, twenty-five percent, you know, or actually seven and a half percent for a trade paperback, you know –

Sarah:  Mm-hmm.

Julie:  – or twenty-five percent or whatever it, it tends to be for an eBook, depending on what the publishing platform is, whether it’s profit-sharing or not –

Sarah:  Right.

Julie:  – you know, I think I can find enough readers to make it profitable for me, and so many authors are, and that’s a, that’s a great thing.  It’s a, it’s a great thing.  Now, what it does do is it makes it, you have, you have a lot more pieces of the puzzle you have to deal with, so you, you have to, you are responsible for all of the decisions.  It’s not like –

Sarah:  Yep.

Julie:  – oh, well, New York said they were going to do this.  Darn it, I don’t agree with that.  Now it’s like, you know, you’re the, the indie author is the one saying, should I do this?  Should I approach my marketing this way or this way or this way –

Sarah:  Mm-hmm.

Julie:  – or this way?  They have to make the decisions, and the decisions might be wrong!  And you don’t have anyone you can blame.

Sarah:  Nope, it’s all you.

Julie:  You know, you can’t go, oh, well, they said they were going to do that and, you know.  And, you know, you, you have to get the covers out there if you’re not graphically oriented.  You know, you, everything is on you.  So much of the marketing, though, was already shifting to the authors’ shoulders.  Certainly, some publishers were better than others, and still are better than others, about promoting the books?

Sarah:  Mm-hmm.

Julie:  But still, there’s, there’s been, for many years now, it’s not like it was back – I mean, it never was for me, really.  I mean, it’s always been, you know, we never had, I, we never really lived in the day that you read about when the publishers really did everything for you, you know, including, like, you know, put you up in a hotel to finish your book!

[Laughter]

Sarah:  Those days are –

Julie:  Those days are long gone!  [Laughs]

Sarah:  Yeah, that’s a very different industry right there.  [Laughs]

Julie:  Yeah, yeah.  You read some of these, you know, books, biographies and memoirs from back in the day, and it’s like, oh, wow, that’s a world I’ve never seen!

Sarah:  Uh, yeah.  [Laughs] I don’t know too many authors that have!

Julie:  No.  But I do think, I do think that, that you have to have a certain personality in order to – I think anybody can do indie, obviously, because it, they make it very easy, you know, to actually get the book out there.  I think that –

Sarah:  Mm-hmm.

Julie:  – you have to have a certain personality to actually, you know, enjoy it and want to, you know, dive in actively.  And I really do like it.  I think it’s, I think it’s, it’s, it’s a lot of fun and fascinating to look at all the different pieces of the puzzle.  And, and overwhelming at times, but, you know, I, it, it, it’s cool rather than terrifying, if that makes sense.

Sarah:  Oh, no, I completely understand.  So, one question that I always ask every, every person I interview is about the books that you’ve read and would really like to tell people about.

Julie:  Oh!  Golly, golly, golly.  Okay, well, I read in genre and out of genre, so let me see.  I will – you know, my mind goes blank – for, in erotic romance, I just cover quoted a book called Marriage Games by C. D. Reiss, and I –

Sarah:  Mm-hmm.

Julie:  – absolutely loved it.  It’s not out yet.  It doesn’t come out ‘til October 24th I want to say?

Sarah:  Mm-hmm.

Julie:  But I’m pretty sure it’s up for pre-order.  Awesome book!  And Burn Down the Night by M. O’Keefe, Molly O’Keefe writing as M. O’Keefe, M. O’Keefe.  That’s been out for a while.  Loved that book.  And I’m also sitting here looking for my little list of books.

Sarah:  [Laughs]

Julie:  Oh!  What else did I really, really, really love recently?  This is a nonfiction book, but I really liked it, and I think it’s also really relevant for anyone who’s trying to write as an indie author, because, it’s called Essentialism by Greg McKeown?  Mc-Cow-an?  I’m not sure how you pronounce his last name.  But it was really good.  I think it’s a lot like The ONE Thing, but I haven’t read The ONE Thing, so I couldn’t say that for sure, but I really enjoyed it.  It was a, it’s sort of a, you know, kind of, you know, it’s a self-help, you know –

Sarah:  Mm-hmm.

Julie:  – business-y type book, you know, just sort of on how to drill down into your focus, and I thought that was really an excellent book, and I could go on and on, so you can just tell me to stop.

Sarah:  What did you get out of the, the book about essentialism?  Like, what were some of the things you took away from it?  ‘Cause it’s about essentially reducing all of the things you do to focus on fewer things.

Julie:  Mm-hmm.  Have you read it?

Sarah:  No, I have read books, I’ve read, I’ve read articles about it.  I haven’t read it yet.  It’s on my list.

Julie:  It, that’s, that’s exactly what – well, for me, I saw a lot of myself in it.  I mean, certainly the, just the concept of, of saying no is important, because I –

Sarah:  Mm-hmm.

Julie:  – I do have a tendency to take on more than I probably should because I’m just that way.  I’ve always been, you know, able to get stuff done and, and, you know, you want to give someone a cover quote, you want to read their book, you want to, you know, give them feedback if it’s a friend on a project that they’re working on.  You want to, you know, volunteer for your kid’s whatever, you know, and so there – but, but ultimately, if you do all of those things, are you going to be able to get the key things done that are ultimately driving you towards whatever your ultimate goal is?  And, you know, if you sit down and, and look at it, or if I sit down and look at it, it’s like, okay, what is my goal?  My goal is to write the best book that I can so that I will sell it to the most readers that I can –

Sarah:  Mm-hmm.

Julie:  – so that I will have an income –

Sarah:  Mm-hmm.

Julie:  – and so that I can feed those children – [laughs] – who want me to go to that particular activity.  So anything that is going to take me away from that, like extra travel – I’ve been traveling a lot lately –

Sarah:  Mm-hmm.

Julie:  – and so I’m really starting now to really look at it, and it’s like, okay, does this conference, does this event really promote my business?

Sarah:  Does this help me?

Julie:  Or – yeah – or is it something I’m doing just for fun, and if it’s just for fun, that’s not bad, but then I need to make the decision, is it still worth it?  You know –

Sarah:  Mm-hmm.

Julie:  – it’s, it’s where you, where you, it’s – I, I hate using this word, because it’s become such a buzzword lately, but is, I, I want to be mindful about it, you know –

Sarah:  Mm-hmm.

Julie:  – about what, the choices that I make.  And I like to think that I was before reading the book, but I think it’s always good to just kind of have that, you know, that little reminder every once in a while about making sure that you’re focusing on the things that are important, and, and also getting through your day.  I mean it’s very, very easy for writers especially to get very distracted.  I mean, I know very few writers who go – I, I mean, I think Nora is one of them, and because that’s how she’s managed to write 475 million books, you know.

Sarah:  Mm-hmm.

Julie:  She sits down at her desk and writes for eight hours and then goes and leaves and does –

Sarah:  Mm-hmm.

Julie:  – you know, the rest of the stuff.  It’s very easy, most of the writers I know are like, okay, you have tricks to keep you at your computer writing, you know.

Sarah:  Right.

Julie:  Going to write for, until the buzzer goes off, or I’m going to do sprints with my friends, or –

Sarah:  Right.

Julie:  – you know.  I, for a while there I had Post-it notes on my, around my computer, and I every time I wrote, you know, five hundred words, I’d rip off a Post-it note –

Sarah:  Yep.

Julie:  – and I could stop when the computer had no Post-it notes on it, you know.

Sarah:  Yep.

Julie:  So you had these little tricks, and, so I think that it’s very easy to get distracted by other stuff when that is, the writer’s mind is always trying to do this other stuff, and, you know, you’re suddenly like, suddenly it’s the most important thing in the whole entire world to, you know, input, you know, your tax information for the month.  When, you know, it’s, it’s, you know, it’s May, you just paid your taxes –

Sarah:  Mm-hmm.

Julie: – you can probably wait a few weeks to do that, you know.  Get past your deadline and then spend it.  You know, that kind of thing.

Sarah:  Yep!  What are you doing?  Why are you doing it?

Julie:  Exactly.  Exactly.

Sarah:  And it’s, it’s, it is a kind of mindfulness, but it’s also a kind of choice, because in a lot of ways, especially as a, when you’re, when you’re writing and you’re embarking on a creative enterprise, stuff happens to you –

Julie:  Mm-hmm.

Sarah:  – and you’re processing it, and it can be challenging to make the switch to, I’m going to make deliberate decisions as to what is happening and what I am doing and how I am spending my time.

Julie:  Mm-hmm.  It’s true!  It’s true.

Sarah:  And that’s a very big diff-, that’s very big difference.

Julie:  And also, there’s also the other sort of – like, I will clean my house, so you can usually tell when I’m on deadline, ‘cause my house is clean, and it seems like it’s avoidance, but it’s really not, because that’s when things just sort of gel in your head, you know –

Sarah:  Oh, yeah.

Julie:  – so it’s, you know, so it’s – on the one hand it looks like, well, you know, I’m on deadline; do I really need to scrub the sink?  And it’s like, well, maybe actually I do, because that’s when –

Sarah:  Mm-hmm.

Julie:  – I’m going to figure out this story problem is, is, you know, when I’m doing that, so –

Sarah:  Sometimes it’s letting your brain percolate, and sometimes –

Julie:  Yeah.

Sarah:  – I think it’s – somebody, somebody on Twitter called it combing your yak hair.

Julie:  [Laughs]

Sarah:  Like, I’m combing the yak right now, and I need to stop.  I notice that, it’s not cleaning for me, but it’s cooking.  If I’m super stressed or I can’t figure something out or I’m, like, overwhelmed, I go cook something?  Or while I’m cooking dinner, that’s when my brain, like, the, the sort of Crock-Pot in the back of my brain’ll be like, oh, oh, oh, oh!  I know exactly what to do!  Quick, write this down!  And it, and it, it’s like this –

Julie:  [Sighs] Sadly, that is not me.  You know, it’d be great.

Sarah:  You know, it’s like distracting your brain –

Julie:  Mm-hmm.

Sarah:  – and then you come up with the solution to the problem.

Julie:  Yes, exactly.  Mine, alas, is not cooking.  My family would probably appreciate it if it was ‘cause –

[Laughter]

Julie:  I’m like, sorry, guys, y’all are on your own tonight.  [Laughs]

Sarah:  Well, I’m, I’m always ending up making something that is, like, you know, full of carbs and, and I shouldn’t eat it anyway, but, oh, well.  Are there any other books that you want to make sure you mention?

Julie:  Oh, I’m sure there are, but I probably should have made a list –

Sarah:  [Laughs]

Julie:  – given that my, my brain just goes poof.  I do love the, I do love the In Death series, and I read Apprentice in Death recently, and I just thought it was wonderful.  I mean, I just, I love all those books.  I love – but don’t, don’t start there if you haven’t read the series.  Start with Naked in Death and read all 875 of them, because they’re that, they’re awesome.

Sarah:  Well, it’s a, it’s a really good, long story.

Julie:  Mm-hmm!  And you know, I’ll tell you the thing I really admire about those too, that is, that I find so compelling, because I, I won’t say which series, but popular series by popular authors, I, I became disappointed in, and I, and I dropped out of the series, you know, after five, six books because there really was no character development.  The character that existed in book one was the same character that existed in book, you know, whatever, whenever I stopped, with the same, the same problem, the same character quirks that they, that were a problem for them in the first one, and they know it’s a problem, and they don’t fix it.  And, so that’s one of the things I really find that I, that I really enjoy about the J. D. Robb books and why I’m so into that series, and frankly why, you know, I, I, I hope that I do the same thing over time, is that the characters really change.  The Eve Dallas and the Roarke and the Peabody and the Mavis, all these characters that existed in, say, the first five books – ‘cause they weren’t all in book one –

Sarah:  Right.

Julie:  – have changed!  I mean, if you read book one and then you read, you know, if you read Naked in Death and then you read Apprentice in Death, you’re going to be like –

Sarah:  Who are these people?  Yeah.

Julie:  – what the heck?  Yeah, exactly, because, because the, the shift is so subtle and so real, and I just think it’s, it’s just in, it’s just, it, it, I really find these books to be very compelling in that way.  I, I really enjoy them.  And, and it’s interesting, too, because while I’m, you know, I, I don’t dislike Nora Roberts’ books.  I read them, and I enjoy them.  I’m, you know, I’m not, they’re not, you know, I have not one-clicked every single one of them, you know.  The –

Sarah:  Mm-hmm.

Julie:  – the In Death ones, I’m like, they are there, they feed to my Kindle, like, four and a half seconds after, you know –

Sarah:  Boom, boom, boom.

Julie:  – they release, and you know, I have been known to read them all night, too, so it’s, it’s just interesting what, what, what resonates with a reader.

Sarah:  Mm-hmm.  And continuity is a, is a, is a growing art, I think.  Like, my –

Julie:  Mm-hmm.

Sarah:  – children love a, a cartoon called Steven Universe because what happens in one episode influences the next episode –

Julie:  Mm-hmm, that’s fun!

Sarah:  – and you have to watch them in earl-, in ep-, in order because that means that, you know, if something happens and these two characters have a fight, you’re going to know why in the next one they’re still mad at each other.

Julie:  Well, you know, it’s interesting that you mention the continuities, ‘cause Dee Davis, the other critique partner that Kathleen and I had, and I did this series recently – in fact, we just put out season two – it was an idea that I had, that I wanted it to be a soap opera you read, so it’s a series of novellas, and we, we planned it out, and then we got write-, other writers to write all the episodes.  I mean, we wrote a couple, but – so, last year we did season one of Rising Storm, and then this year we did season two, and it’s really interesting because you, it’s the same thing.  It’s a series of books, but you have to read – you don’t have to, but it’s most fun if you read all of them, because everything builds along the story.  I mean, it’s a, it’s truly a soap opera that you read, and it was so much fun doing that because you, you are, you’re pulling from things that happened in the previous book or maybe two previous books and then just going all the way –

Sarah:  Mm-hmm.

Julie:  – down the line, and it’s really cool, so I’m, I mean, that, obviously, that’s the kind of thing that I just get off on.  I love that kind of connectivity in books and –

Sarah:  [Laughs]

Julie:  – everything.

Sarah:  Well, it helps if you’re writing trilogies, too.

Julie:  True, it does!  It does.  I’m actually going to start writing some single titles, though, so that’ll be interesting to see if I can do that.  I may end up writing, you know, let’s see, about, you know, eighty thousand, two hundred and forty thousand word single titles, just so that they –

Sarah:  Right, of course!

Julie:  – they really are a trilogy – [laughs] – they’re just in one cover!  But nonononono, I’m totally a –

Sarah:  It’s a trilogy!  It’s just a really mammoth book.

Julie:  That’s right.  It’s, like, we’ll see, we’ll see.  It’s been a long time since I –

Sarah:  You can read it and then use it to block the draft in the windows.

Julie:  That’s right!

Sarah:  [Laughs]

Julie:  Nice to have a dual purpose for your books.

[music]

Sarah:  And that is all for this week’s podcast.  I want to thank Julie Kenner for taking the time to hang out with me, especially during release week, which is, you know, a really, really busy time.  Sweetest Taboo is on sale now, along with the other two prior books in this trilogy, wherever your fine books are sold!    I will also have links to all of the books, movies, television shows, and different things that we talked about in this episode in the podcast entry at smartbitchestrashybooks.com/podcast.

This podcast transcript is sponsored by Kensington, publishers of A Change of Heart by Sonali Dev, the highly acclaimed author of A Bollywood Affair and The Bollywood Bride.  Dr. Nic Joshi had it all until, while working for Doctors Without Borders in a Mumbai slum, his wife Jen discovered a black market organ transplant ring, and before she could expose the truth she was killed.  Two years after the tragedy, Nic is a cruise ship doctor who spends his days treating seasickness and sunburn and his nights in a very boozy haze.  On one blurry evening, Nic meets a woman who makes a very startling claim:  she received Jen’s heart in a transplant, and she has a message for him.  With starred reviews in PW, Booklist, and Kirkus, A Change of Heart has also been praised by Shelf Awareness, who said, “A Change of Heart cements this author’s standing as not only one of the best but also one of the bravest romance novelists working today.”  A Change of Heart is on sale now everywhere books are sold, and you can find more information at sonalidev.com.

And now, it’s time for one of my favorite things:  I get to give compliments.  Yay, compliments!  As I mentioned in the intro, so many of you have supported our Patreon campaign in the past few weeks, and thank you so much for that.  You can have a look at Patreon.com/SmartBitches.  For different pledge levels, there are different rewards, and you can support the show and help me commission transcripts and upgrade equipment and keep the show going.  Your support means an enormous amount, and I am so, so grateful for it.  And now it’s complement time, yay!  Okay.  This is so much fun.

For Kathryn G.:  You are more impressive than a bird and a plane and Superman and all of them combined, which is either a Birplaneman or Superbirplay, but either way, whatever it is, you are incredibly impressive.

To Shannon C.:  Without you, the world would be a lot less fun, certainly not as cheerful, and you make everything so much better.  Thank you for being you!

And for Kristen W.:  All the songs that are about looking for a hero at some point somewhere?  They’re all about you.  All of them.  Every single one, including that one where that woman with the big hair that I used to sing when I was in first grade.  All of those songs are about you.

If you are thinking, what just happened?  You can have a look at Patreon.com/SmartBitches, and some of the answers to life’s questions will be answered, at least the question as to why am I doing all these fun and random compliments?

The music you’re listening to is provided by Sassy Outwater.  You can find her on Twitter @SassyOutwater.  This is a band called Sketch, and this is called “Shed Life” from their album by the same name.  You can find it at Amazon and iTunes and wherever you buy your fine music.

Speaking of iTunes, did you know we have our own iTunes store?  We totally do.  iTunes.com/DBSA has all the latest episodes and links to books in the iBooks store if you are an iBook store if you are an iBook store book shopper.  All of this is there; it’s super rad.  We kind of have our own, like, totally designated page?  It’s all so cool.  So cool!

And if you would like to email me or call and leave me a message or ask me questions, I think that’s an awesome idea.  You can find me at [email protected], or you can call our voicemail number at 1-201-371-3272.

And on behalf of Julie Kenner and everyone here and myself, we wish you the very best of reading.  Have a great weekend.

[rad music]