261. Creativity, Business, Anxiety, and Celebrations – An Interview with Bea & Leah Koch of The Ripped Bodice

[music]

Sarah Wendell: Hello, and welcome to episode number 261 of Smart Podcast, Trashy Books. I’m Sarah Wendell from Smart Bitches, Trashy Books, and with me today, from an interview that I recorded at RWA, are Bea and Leah Koch from The Ripped Bodice bookstore. We look back on their work together after being open a little over a year, and we take a look at them as Booksellers of the Year award recipients. Most of the time we talk about creative projects, as there are art installations in the bookstore that are truly stunning, and I wanted to know how they decide which projects to do. We talk about their flying books project and people’s reactions and how art in the store helps welcome visitors to the store. We also discuss the reality of being a small business owner and how much to share of the tough parts of being a businessperson, along with the public joys of being bookstore owners. We talk about managing anxiety, and of course we talk about Fitzwilliam Waffles. We had such a good time talking to each other about everything, but we also meander a lot, so I almost titled this episode “Wait, Wait, What Were We Talking About Again? I Forgot.” Also, very important, stay to the end of the episode, because I have a special bonus announcement from Bea and Leah that we recorded right before I did the final edit on this episode.

Today’s podcast is sponsored by Hollywood Scandal by Louise Bay. If you enjoy books by Vi Keeland, Lauren Blakely, or Kendall Ryan, you will love this hot, contemporary, Hollywood romance. When Matt Easton moves in next door, Lana Kelly has no idea he’s Hollywood’s hottest superstar. He’s used to women falling at his feet, but Matt’s neighbor isn’t just any woman. She’ll take a porch swing over a red carpet any day, and while he’s used to being the center of attention, she hates the spotlight. Lana is running from a scandal of her own, and her worst nightmare is becoming tabloid fodder. There is no way she’ll fall in love with Hollywood’s biggest star. Matt’s trying to clean up his image and needs to avoid temptation, but that’s easier said than done when the girl next door is the only woman he cannot have. Number one New York Times bestselling author Rachel Van Dyken described Hollywood Scandal as “Flawless writing, incredible storytelling, and believable characters that you want to root for. I loved every word!” Hollywood Scandal by Louise Bay is on sale now wherever books are sold, and you can find out more at louisebay.com.

Now, I also have compliments, which is really fun. It’s, like, my favorite part of doing the intro. This compliment is for Alyssa M.:

Your kindness and sense of humor are 67% of the reason why fluffy animals are so fluffy.

Now, if you’re thinking, well, that was cool; I would like one of those, you should totally have one! Have a look at our Patreon at patreon.com/SmartBitches. For as little as one whole dollar a month, you can support the show and help keep it becoming more and more gooder, as I like to say, and there’re different levels of Patreon support that you can check out with different rewards for each level. If you’ve had a look or you’ve passed the link along or you’ve become a patron, thank you for that!

And if you have reviewed the podcast – I was recently on iTunes, because we have an iTunes page at iTunes.com/DBSA – we have, like, sixty-something reviews, which is so cool! So thank you; that’s so awesome! I had no idea. You know, generally speaking, I don’t read reviews of my work, but podcast reviews are really awesome! So thank you for all of the reviews you left. It really helps people find the show and find the podcast when they’re searching for things that they might like.

The music you are listening to is provided by Sassy Outwater, and I will have information at the end of the podcast as to who this is.

I will also have links to all of the books that we discuss, and there are several. We make a lot of recommendations; I’m sorry in advance. And I will have links to all of the different things we discuss, including their events calendar, the bike ride that their dad is doing, the museum in Amsterdam that they mention. There’re a lot of cool things that we’re going to talk about, so I will link to all of them; do not worry, and don’t feel like you have to pull over the car or stop cleaning or working out or whatever. And if you’re on the treadmill, or you’re on the thing with the, with the steps where you’re going up the stairs forever, or you’re on the elliptical? Keep going. You can totally do this.

And now, without any further delay, on with the podcast!

[music]

Leah Koch: This is Leah Koch.

Bea Koch: And this is Bea Koch.

[Laughter]

Sarah: Hello, my favorite Koch siblings! How are you?

Leah: And we’re the owners of The Ripped Bodice bookstore!

Bea: And we are the not-evil Koch siblings.

Sarah: So –

Bea: [Laughs] Yeah.

Leah: And we’re super young.

Sarah: We’re, like, twelve years old!

Leah: Yeah.

Bea: I know I look young; I’ve been told my whole life.

Leah: Yeah. Now I’m just used to it. I don’t know; you look like a person to me – [laughs] – not a child.

Sarah: [Laughs]

Leah: You’re a person.

Bea: On the airplane, if I’m sitting in the exit row, they still –

Sarah: Will ask you –

Leah: ‘Cause you have to be twelve.

Bea: I think it’s, think it’s twelve. I thought it was fourteen. It embarrasses me more to hear it’s twelve. [Laughs]

Leah: I don’t know. We’ll pretend it’s fourteen.

Sarah: But you will always get carded.

Bea: Always.

Sarah: Even when you’re sixty.

Leah: Always.

Sarah: And, you know, every now and again, if somebody cards me I’m like, oh, thank you! Thank you so much!

Leah: It’s a nice boost!

Bea: Yeah.

Sarah: So you guys won an award! Congratulations!

Bea and Leah: Thank you!

Sarah: Were you guys super excited when the RWA told you?

Leah: Yes! Yes, I was!

Bea: You got the call.

Leah: I, Bea, yeah, I told Bea. I was at the bookstore –

Bea: Leah.

Leah: Leah, this is Leah; sorry, I forgot. See, this is weird ‘cause normally we’d talk to Sarah on Skype or the phone –

Sarah: Right.

Leah: – but now I’m staring at you –

Sarah: Yep.

Leah: – so I’m, like, going to forget to identify myself.

Sarah: But you know what? Once you guys start talking –

Leah: You can do it?

Sarah: – we can tell you apart –

Leah: Okay.

Sarah: – and also, garlicknitter can tell you apart when she’s doing the transcript –

Leah: Oh, great!

Sarah: – so just do not feel like you have to in, in, totally –

Leah: Okay, great. I would say, as a general matter, my voice, Leah’s, is a touch lower.

Bea: Yeah. I talk a lot faster when I get going, too.

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Leah: Anywho, I was at the store – this was, I don’t know, I’m going to say March, but that might be wrong – and the phone rang, and I’m pretty sure it said RWA on the –

Sarah: Caller ID?

Leah: – caller ID. I feel like I knew who it was when I picked up.

Sarah: Yeah?

Leah: And she said, hi, this is Leslie Kelly; I’m the president of RWA. And I said, hello.

[Laughter]

Leah: I think I literally said, like, uh, hi?

[Laughter]

Leah: Like, did, am I in trouble?

Bea: What did we do?

Sarah: What, wait, what’s the problem?

Leah: Yeah! I was like, uh, I feel like we did something wrong. She said, you have been – I think ‘cause it was right after their board meeting when they, like, choose all this stuff – I don’t know when that is – and she said, you have been chosen as this year’s Booksellers, blah, blah, blah, and the exciting thing was, we’re going to fly you to RWA, and – ‘cause we weren’t originally going to come, just ‘cause it’s so far from LA. Like, Denver next year is a little more doable. It’s very far away, yeah. But then they’re like, we’ll bring you. Okay! And then Bea showed up later that day –

Bea: No, Leah texted me. It was like, I have something really exciting to tell you.

Leah: That’s mean of me.

Bea: It was really mean! And –

Sarah: Even meaner would be, listen, I have news.

Leah: Yeah, no. I made sure I –

Bea: Thank God, she was like, I –

Sarah: [Laughs] It was good.

Leah: No, no, no, it’s something good. I don’t do that.

Bea: We don’t do that, ‘cause, not in our family –

Bea: We have health –

Leah: We know. Don’t mess around with bad news –

Bea: No, we get scared.

Leah: – ‘cause of health stuff.

Bea: If my, if our dad calls at, like, not between the hours of, like, 9:00 a.m. and 9:00 p.m., we answer the phone with, like, who died?

Leah: Yeah.

Sarah: Right? Oh, yeah.

Leah: We believe he’s –

Bea: And he’s always like, no one. I’m just, I just wanted to say hi. And we’re like, why are you – ?

Leah: It’s like –

Sarah: After nine o’clock –

Leah: – yeah, it’s six in the morning.

Sarah: – the sun is down; what is happening?

Bea: Why are you calling us?

Leah: Or if you wake up and you have a missed call, you, like, call back and you’re like, okay, somebody’s dead. Yeah, no.

Sarah: Oh, yeah.

Leah: He just butt-dialed us, which he’s capable of doing on an iPhone –

Sarah: Oh, he –

Leah: – which really takes some skill.

Sarah: My mother-in-law can butt-dial us –

Bea: On an iPhone!

Sarah: – on her phone, in her purse, and all I –

Bea or Leah: It’s –

Sarah: It’s wild.

Bea: He calls, and we talk, and then he hangs up, and then he calls back six times by accident?

Sarah: [Laughs]

Bea: This, does it happen to you? This happens to me all the time. I’m like, hi, dad. Oh, I’m sorry.

[Laughter]

Bea: Okay –

Leah: Also, he calls his children in immediate –

Bea: Yeah, so we –

Leah: – one after the other, so the phone will ring in her room; twenty minutes later, it rings in my room, which is next door.

Sarah: [Laughs]

Leah: Or if we’re, like, if, if one of us is, like, driving home or something, and he immediately after I’m like, I talked to dad; oh, yeah, I talked to him ten minutes ago.

Bea and Sarah: Yeah.

Leah: And I’m sure – way off the topic; you were saying I texted you.

Bea: Oh, you texted me. So I, like, show up, and she was waiting for me in the back room of the store. She was, like, looking all excited, and I, I didn’t, we –

Leah: Well, I should preface this by saying, we knew this award existed –

Sarah: Right.

Leah: – and we were sort of like –

Sarah: Ooh!

Bea: In the future –

Leah: – this is the only award, like, we might ever –

Sarah: This is cool!

Leah: – win? Like – [laughs]

Bea: Right, and I think, I think we were both thinking, like, maybe five years from now. Maybe once we’ve established ourselves and really proven ourselves.

Leah: But, like, this is the award we want to win. Like, we knew it existed, and we’re like, there aren’t that many awards for – [laughs] – independent romance booksellers.

Bea: No.

Sarah: There aren’t that many independent romance booksellers.

Leah: Mm-hmm.

Bea: Yeah!

Sarah: It’s funny how that works out.

Bea: Isn’t that funny?

Sarah: Yeah!

Bea: So, she told me, and I was so excited, and we were both, like, very emotional –

Leah: Mm-hmm.

Bea: – about it. It felt really  –

Leah: Yeah. It felt like a really strong vote of confidence.

Bea: Yeah.

Leah: And it was right around our one-year anniversary –

Bea: Yeah.

Leah: – so it was like –

Bea: I think that was almost right.

Leah: Oh, okay. Like, we’re on the right track, and people are seeing what we’re doing, and it was, it was really meaningful.

Bea: And we both have been trying really hard this entire process to stop and take a minute and acknowledge all the milestones as it goes, because it does go so fast. So I think I, I texted Leah right afterwards. I was like, I’m so proud of us!

Leah: Yeah.

Bea: And she texted back, like, take a minute and really, like, feel that, and, so it, it was really –

Leah: Yeah, and yeah, I mean, it’s something that our dad can email around to our family members.

Sarah: You know that’s on Facebook.

Leah: Yeah.

Bea: Oh, yeah!

Sarah: I actually have a link, if you want it, to the YouTube livestream –

Leah: Oh, yes, we do!

Sarah: – where, that starts specifically at your award.

Bea: Oh!

Leah: Yes, we do want it.

Bea: Well, I had, we had somebody –

Leah: Oh, someone filmed our speech so I could text it to him. That’s, like, three minutes, but I’m sure that’s better quality.

Bea: Yeah.

Sarah: Well, I, I videoed it.

Leah: Oh, amazing.

Bea: Complete with me going, holy shit!

[Laughter]

Bea: Because we said Sarah’s name, because she’s so wonderful.

Leah: Yeah!

Sarah: Yeah, I was not expecting that.

Leah: Well, because, I’ll tell you why: because, I mean, we could spend frigging five minutes listing every single person who has, you know, done something wonderful, but for us it was really, let’s look at the journey as a whole?

Bea: Yeah.

Leah: And the people who’ve really – not to say people who haven’t found us later aren’t great, but the people who’ve really been on board since the beginning.

Sarah: This is an awesome idea.

Bea and Leah: Yeah!

Sarah: Like, the first thing I heard, I received from you was from your publicist. It was an email, and I was like –

Bea or Leah: Yeah.

Sarah: – oh, cool!

[Laughter]

Sarah: Oh, cool, ‘cause I’ve been to Rosemary’s in, in Melbourne.

Leah: So jealous!

Sarah: And it’s, it’s, like, itty-bitty –

Leah: I’m so jealous!

Sarah: – but it’s so fun!

Bea and Leah: Yeah.

Sarah: It’s like, you walk in and, like, all of this is for me.

Leah: I, I, we have got –

Bea: We have to get there.

Leah: – to go to Australia. It is, I hate flying. It is such a long plane ride.

Bea: Our mother also taught us to move in –

Leah: Oh, yeah!

Bea: – on airplanes.

Leah: Oh, yeah. Like, we, and we still, we do that anywhere –

Bea: Anywhere we go.

Leah: – we are. Like, come up to our hotel room: we are moved in! And we –

Sarah: [Laughs]

Leah: – we’ve been here for ten hours!

Bea: And people always comment on it. It’s so funny. Like, flight attendants are always like, you look so cozy!

Leah: ‘Cause, like, we have all our –

Bea: All the gadgets and all the stuff.

Leah: I was sending an, I was texting Bea, I switched to a bigger bag right before I left. I would never describe myself as a low-maintenance person. I’m not!

Bea: No.

Leah: And that’s fi-; I’m not a low-maintenance person. I see all your travel things about traveling in a backpack. I’m like, oh. My. God. ‘Cause I’m the kind of traveler who wants to have all my things with me. My things are crucial.

Sarah: [Laughs]

Leah: I like my things! And I, that’s what gives me a sense of security, is the things?

Sarah: Right, having your stuff.

Leah: So I see what, traveling around Europe with your backpack, and I was like, Sarah’s a –

Bea: Never.

Leah: – Sarah’s a maverick.

Bea: Never. Could never do that.

Sarah: I love it.

Bea: All right, we veered way off topic.

Sarah: Sorry.

Leah: What were we talking about?

Sarah: Something.

Bea: Australia.

Sarah: So, so, you had to really take a moment and be like, okay, look –

Bea: Oh, yeah.

Sarah: – this is, this is what we did.

Bea: Yeah!

Leah: Yeah, but –

Sarah: I really, I really appreciate being thanked, so thank you.

Bea and Leah: Oh –

Sarah: That was completely unexpected.

Bea: – thank you again!

Leah: I mean, that’s a tiny token of our appreciation –

Bea: Yeah.

Sarah: Well, thank you!

Leah: – for the supportive people.

Bea: Yeah, I think the romance community in general is so supportive, and that’s so lovely, but there are people who have gone above and beyond –

Leah: Yeah.

Bea: – and it’s important to acknowledge those people, and ack- – we, we wouldn’t be here alone, you know. It’s not –

Leah: Yeah, no. No.

Bea: – not possible, to open a bookstore by yourself, even though we tried!

[Laughter]

Bea: Stupidly. So, all the people who have helped and, like, our family. Leah was telling a story earlier about when they all flew out for the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books.

Sarah: Yes.

Leah: Yeah, they don’t live in LA.

Bea: They don’t live in LA.

Leah: Our dad lives in Chicago, and our brother and his wife live in New York.

Bea: And they come to us.

Leah: Yeah.

Bea: They’ve helped whenever we need it.

Sarah: Aw!

Bea: And it’s just really –

Leah: Yeah!

Bea: – special to have them there.

Leah: And, ‘cause someone was commenting on this picture, which you can see on our Instagram, we had baseball jerseys made, hot pink ones, with all of our names on them, and I’m, you know, it’s, obviously it’s a family business with the two of us –

Bea: Yeah.

Leah: – we’re family – but it’s exciting and special –

Bea: Yeah.

Leah: – when everyone’s there, and, and customers really like that. They like getting to meet other members of our family.

Bea: It’s also so cute; our dad is so proud of us, and –

Sarah: Aw!

Bea: – when people, like, come up and compliment him on, on us –

Leah: [Laughs]

Leah and Sarah: Yeah.

Bea: – on his daughters, I, I do think, like, he always says, like, his kids are the things he’s proudest of –

Leah: Yeah.

Sarah: Aw!

Bea: – and he is quite an accomplished man, so –

Sarah: [Laughs]

Leah: Yeah.

Bea: – for us to be the thing he’s proudest of is special to us.

Leah: Yeah, he, yeah, and he really likes, like, watching us do our thing.

Bea: Yeah.

Leah: And, and helping. He’s very, he’s a very good, he’s a, he’s a very aggressive salesman?

Bea: And it’s so funny!

Leah: I’m like, Dad, like – he, he, he, honest, ‘cause he wants us to make money, so someone’ll be, like, browsing, and he’s like, he’s like, yeah, yeah, get it, get it! And we’re like, Dad, that is not how we do things. Like –

Sarah: [Laughs]

Leah: – we don’t do the hard sell, like.

Bea: And then our sister-in-law is, like, the schmooziest person you’ve ever met. She’s from LA, and she is just like a dyed-in-the-wool –

Leah: She can talk to anyone.

Bea: – movie industry – she can talk to anyone. For as long as they will talk to her, she will talk to them, and she –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Bea: – they will leave the conversation smiling ear-to-ear and just feeling like they are –

Leah: Feeling like they are the most accomplished and beautiful person.

Bea: – important person! [Laughs] She’s very free with the compliments.

Leah: She’s delightful.

Bea: Yeah, she’s great!

Leah: So her style works better. [Laughs]

Bea: Yeah.

Leah: She’s like, you look so beautiful! I love your hair, love your outfit. You should really look at this book; I really think it would suit you.

Bea: Yeah! She always says, like, I think this is the book for you! [Laughs]

Leah: And then they’re like, okay, great!

[Laughter]

Bea: I’ll do anything you say!

Leah: So, it’s funny to see their –

Bea: Yeah.

Leah: – selling styles. Jacob doesn’t really – that’s our brother – he doesn’t really sell.

Bea: No, but –

Leah: He cleans. He has serious OCD –

Bea: He cleans everything.

Leah: – so within ten minutes of him walking in the store, it’s, where’s the broom?

Sarah: [Laughs]

Leah: He goes, he sweeps the front, and he’s like, um, are these boxes arranged this way?

Bea: Can I just go into your back room and change everything?

[Laughter]

Leah: Yeah, whatever, go ahead.

Bea: I guess, ‘cause you’re going to do it anyway.

Leah: Yeah. He just, like, mo-, like, all the, like, shipping envelopes and, like, jewelry boxes, he moves it all around.

Bea: Yeah.

Leah: That’s his job.

Sarah: [Laughs]

Bea: He loves – but he is one of the biggest readers –

Leah: Yeah.

Bea: – we know. He just reads so much in everything, and he loves bookstores, and he, he knows, visits a lot of bookstores, knows a lot about bookstores, so his, like, approval is also very –

Leah: Yeah.

Bea: – meaningful.

Leah: And he’s, he is the one who’s always send-, he sends us, like, an article a day that –

Bea: Yeah!

Leah: – like, has bookstore in the headline. Like –

Bea: He wants to be involved! It’s so cute!

Leah: And, yes. It’s, you know, he’s always sending us things like, I don’t know, Portuguese bookstore has a cute cat.

[Laughter]

Leah: Have you seen this?

Bea: And, Books Are Magic, which is a brand-new bookstore in Brooklyn, opened August.

Sarah: Oh, nice!

Leah: Have you been yet? It’s –

Sarah: I have not.

Bea: It’s right around the corner from their –

Leah: Yeah.

Bea: – apartment, from our brother and sister-in-law’s apartment, and –

Leah: So they were very excited, and now that we, I think it’s the first bookstore – and I’ll revisit another thing in a minute – that we really watched their whole opening process while, the entire time we’ve been open, ‘cause the Queens bookshop, we’re Internet friends with the wonderful women who are going to open that, but they’re not open yet?

Sarah: No.

Leah: And –

Sarah: Is the Astoria bookshop still open, or did it close?

Leah: [Whispers] I think it closed!

Sarah: Shit! Did it?

Leah: I’m not, is that, that’s in Queens, right? ‘Cause I think –

Sarah: Yeah, Astoria is, is in Queens.

Leah: Well, it might be the only one or – they just, they, they got a space, ‘cause they did their Kickstarter pretty soon after us?

Sarah: Right.

Leah: But they, I think it was really hard for them to find a space, so they’re not open yet, but so both of those bookstores in New York, owned by women, I feel like we have this, like, Internet relationship with them where we kind of, like, tweet at each other and –

Bea: Yeah, I mean, Emma Straub is such a, like, I don’t know, amazing –

Leah: I know, and we get, like, really excited –

Bea: – figure in the lit world.

Leah: – when she, like, tweets at us, like –

Bea: Yeah, we –

Leah: – ‘cause to us she’s, like, really famous. [Laughs] I don’t know if she is famous to other people –

Bea: Yeah!

Leah: – but, like, so we get excited when she –

Bea: And, and Jacob and Olivia always go there and are like, remember us? Our sister’s – [Laughs]

Leah: Yeah, they know, like, we, ‘cause we sent them, like, a little opening – we sent, we sent them a customized box cutter.

Sarah: Okay, that’s adorable.

Leah: For their –

Bea: Leah painted it.

Leah: – for their opening, ‘cause I was like, this is what they need! You can never have – so I, like, painted it, sent it to them. And then we, Jacob and Olivia went on their opening day and were like, our family’s in the bookselling business too!

Bea: Yes.

Sarah: Aw!

Bea: I feel like being in the bookselling business was always in our future –

Leah: Yeah.

Bea: – in some way. Like –

Leah: And it’s honestly kind of surprising that we did it before Jacob.

Bea: It’s really surprising!

Leah: I told, our dad is – not retiring; I don’t know what he calls it. He’s leaving his current job and looking for his next life project.

Bea: But before he does that –

Leah: Oh, yeah, we should actually, we should plug this. We should –

Bea: We’re going to plug something.

Leah: Yeah!

Sarah: Oh, good, ‘cause that’s what we do here.

Leah: Steve –

Sarah: Go for it!

Leah: Steve Koch –

Sarah: Yes.

Leah: – father of the owners of The Ripped Bodice –

Leah: Yes.

Leah: – is riding his bicycle the entire length of the Mississippi River –

Sarah: Dude.

Leah: – to raise money for the Greater Chicago Food Depository. The goal is to raise one million dollars, which is three million meals.

Sarah: Wow.

Leah: And he, for the past five years, has been the Deputy Mayor of Chicago. He’s worked really, really, really hard for the city, and right before he took that job, he rode his bicycle east to west across the country to raise money for a Chicago hospital. Now he’s been working. He’s leaving the job, and this is how he recharges, ‘cause he’s a lunatic.

Sarah: [Laughs]

Leah: And –

Bea: He’s so excited about it, and we’re like –

Sarah: Okay!

Leah: Yeah.

Bea: Cool!

Leah: So they’re leaving pretty soon –

Sarah: Wow.

Leah: – August, like, 18th or something?

Sarah: Will you send me links?

Bea and Leah: Yes.

Leah: So, the website is ridetheriver2017.com.

Sarah: Uh-huh.

Leah: There –

Sarah: Is it just him, or are there other people too?

Leah: It’s him and our cousin Chris are doing the entire thing, and then they have friends that come meet them.

Sarah: For legs of it.

Leah: Yes. I’m doing the last two days.

Bea: I’m not, ‘cause I don’t ride a bike.

Leah: Bea’s scared of bikes.

Sarah: [Laughs]

Leah: Like, I’m not exaggerating. Like –

Bea: I am, I am scared of them.

Leah: There was a, there was a meltdown –

Bea: Yeah.

Leah: – last time she was on a bike.

Bea: Yeah.

Leah: It was, like, ten years ago, but –

Bea: We were in Amsterdam, and my family was like, we’re renting bikes and riding around. I was like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, and they made me go, and they made me get on a bike –

Leah: Yeah.

Bea: – and I threw my bike down in the middle of the street and just said, FUCK IT!

Sarah: [Laughs]

Bea: NO!

Leah: And how old were you when this happened?

Bea: I don’t know, but I was not, like, six.

Leah: No, like, old.

[Laughter]

Bea: It was, like, a, an adult person doing this. Like, and I, like, took my helmet off and, like, threw it, and I was like, I’m not doing this anymore! And they continued biking, and that meant I had, like, a, an hour, basically, on my, on my own in Amsterdam, and the thing that I did? I went to the Bible Museum.

Leah: [Laughs] Really!

Sarah: Okay, as you do.

Bea: ‘Cause I’m the nerdiest.

Leah: I didn’t know that.

Sarah: [Laughs]

Leah: Really?

Bea: It was amazing. If you’ve never been to the Bible Museum in Amsterdam, I highly recommend it. [Laughs]

Leah: Anywho, Ride the River 2017 –

Bea: Yes.

Leah: – give a couple bucks –

Sarah: That’s amazing!

Leah: – for Chicago’s food depository.

Bea: Yeah!

Leah: The, it’s a really great – like, we have, it’s a really great food bank, ‘cause they really, it’s the entire city –

Sarah: Yep, networked.

Leah: Yeah. It’s really, it’s not, we don’t, I mean, there are other ones, but they are really connected across the city, and they do really great work. I completely forgot how we got onto this topic. [Laughs]

Bea: I have no idea.

Leah: We were talking about –

Bea: Some-, you were saying something about Jacob.

Sarah: That you were booksellers before he was.

Bea: Yeah, he was going to be a bookseller.

Leah: Yeah, but what did that, how did we get to talking about dad’s bike ride?

Sarah: You told your dad –

Bea: You said, yeah, you said, I told Dad, and then you were like, wait, we should talk about the bike ride.

Leah: I don’t remember.

Sarah: Something!

Bea: This is how it goes –

Sarah: That’s okay.

Bea: – with us.

Sarah: Well, I have questions.

Bea or Leah: Oh, yeah.

Leah or Bea: Yes, go ahead! [Laughs]

Sarah: Can I ask you all the questions?

Bea or Leah: We like questions.

Leah or Bea: Of course you can!

Sarah: So I-, okay, first question: when people follow you on Instagram –

Bea or Leah: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: – you do a lot of shit.

Bea or Leah: Yeah.

Sarah: You do a lot of things.

Bea or Leah: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: Like, you are constantly building a thing –

Bea: She is.

Sarah: – or buying a tool to build a thing –

Leah: [Laughs]

Bea: She is.

Sarah: – or buying another tool to go with the first tool to build a thing.

Leah: Yeah, that happens.

Bea: [Laughs]

Sarah: It does.

Leah: ‘Cause you need, like, attachments.

Sarah: Right.

Leah: Or, like –

Sarah: And accessories.

Leah: Yeah!

Bea: Oh, yes.

Sarah: Oh, yeah. And –

Bea: [Laughs] What was the end of the question?

Sarah: – and you are, are, are looking at exhibits and building new ways to display things, and you’re gluing things to the walls and the ceiling that always have really cool, creative ideas –

Bea or Leah: Yes.

Sarah: – and I think part of what makes you guys very successful as bookstore owners is that you focus not only on the part where you sell the book part, but that there’s a place to hang out, that there’s a community, and then there’s a space to explore things that aren’t books, and that you really welcome creativity. So what inspires you when you have new ideas for things? Power tools and Home Depot? Is that  about right? [Laughs]

Bea: I, I mean, this has been one of the coolest parts about owning a bookstore together is we see, like, new sides of each other –

Leah: Yeah.

Bea: – and I, Leah is responsible for almost all of that, and I think our dad is really proud of it too, because he taught her to use power tools, and now he gets to see, like, in practice.

Leah: Yeah.

Bea: I, I’m in awe. She’ll be like, oh, I’m going to design a new seating area for the back room, and I’m like, o-, o-, okay.

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Bea: What?

[Laughter]

Leah: For me, if I ask you first before I do these things, and I was like, yeah, but she doesn’t, like, say no.

Bea: I would never say no, because she’s never not followed through. I am not the not-follow-through-er. I’ll have an idea and then Leah will execute it.

Leah: Yeah, no, that’s true. I mean –

Bea: Like the flying books, Leah was like, you can do this project. It’s just, come up with something. And I spent, like, four days on Pinterest, and I had all these things pinned, and I was kind of like, OK, and Leah was like, okay, we’re buying this, this, and – I have a lot of trouble pulling the trigger. Like, we’re going to buy these things, and they’re going to come together. I was like, well, we could do this maybe…

Leah: Well, I think I’m a lot more willing to fuck it up and fix it?

Bea: Yeah! Well, you have the ability – I don’t have the ability to fix it. If I fuck it up, it’s –

Sarah or Leah: [laughter]

Bea: That’s true.

Leah: But I do think it, it’s really, that’s something that’s really evolved since we opened –

Bea: Mm-hmm.

Leah: – and has really changed within myself. I don’t know, I think Bea has more of, like, has always had the more, like, interior design. If you look at the way we dress, Bea has better style –

Bea: Not right now.

Leah: – so when we were opening, it, it was very much like Bea was picking out all the furniture.

Bea: And I have the historical background in that. Like, I’ve studied the history of furniture, history of –

Leah: Right.

Bea: – design of textiles, all that stuff, so when we were picking the furniture, it was really important to me that it actually was as close to Regency looking as possible and –

Sarah: Hence the chaise in the window –

Bea: The chaise in the window –

Sarah: – couch.

Bea: – which is actually a chaise; it’s a little later, but that’s fine.

Leah: [Whispers] Oh, God, it’s fine!

[Laughter]

Leah: Do you know how often people try to buy that off us?

Bea: People try to buy that thing all the time!

Leah: And we’re like, let me tell you how long and where – we bought that sofa in Utah.

Bea: In Salt Lake City.

Leah: You can have it for ten thousand dollars.

Sarah: [Laughs]

Leah: We went –

Bea: ‘Cause we went to Utah, we picked it out, and then they drove it to LA. It was a whole thing.

Leah: Because, yeah, it, we’d been looking – I’ll get back to the question in a second, but – we’d been looking and looking, and we’d look on, they’re really expensive on eBay, and we’re like, this was two Christmases ago, we went to see our family in Utah. We were shopping at an antique store, they had this amazing chaise in perfect condition at crazy cheap price, and we’re like, it is worth it for us to pay them to drive it to LA.

Bea: Well, crazy cheap, cheap price after Leah bargained down.

Leah: That’s true; I do like bargaining.

Bea: Leah’s a bargainer! It’s another thing that –

Sarah: That’s a good skill.

Leah: Yeah.

Bea: It’s a really good skill because she does it in such a, like, subtle – like, when we’re buying, like, a lot of flowers, she’ll be like, oh, can you just throw in the manure? Or, like, something like that. Like, she’s just very –

Leah: That is the key. You get them to throw, it, it’s the throwing-in of stuff –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Leah: – I think people like better than a discount?

Bea: Yeah.

Sarah: Oh, yeah.

Leah: So this is like, okay, we’re going to pay you this much for the chaise, and you’re going to deliver it for free.

Bea: Right.

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Bea: But that was kind of built in. Anyway, so –

Leah: We veered off topic.

Sarah or Leah: Really?

Bea: Yes. We got the chaise in Park, in Salt Lake City.

Leah: Yes. Very cheap antiques in Salt Lake. [Laughs] Anyway!

Bea: And lots of them.

Leah: So once we were open – and, and this is the thing: it felt like such, this incredible, crazy race to open –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Leah: – once you decide on an opening day and tell people?

Bea: Oh, we were like, okay! Now –

Sarah: [Laughs]

Leah: Now you’ve got to do it, so it was this crazy race to open –

Sarah: That works for me.

Bea: Yeah.

Sarah: Once you tell people you’re going to do something?

Bea: You’ve got to do it!

Leah: And then, so then you start being like, okay, we’re doing this, we’re doing it. Like, this is, this is how it’s going to be when we’re open.

Bea and Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Leah: And then, I think, the books were probably, like – and the reason we did the flying books is because we used to have plants there and they died, because we can’t keep anything alive.

Bea: I can keep things alive if I have help.

Sarah: [Laughs]

Leah: Oh, what?! Wait!

Bea: No one else was watering anything.

Leah: ‘Cause you were in charge of it! Wait, no, this is some serious revision. I said you could have my plants, but you’re in charge of them.

Bea: I can keep other things alive. Those were, they were poorly suited –

Leah: I call the problematic on this. Anyway, the plants died –

Sarah: This has been Plant Gaslighting.

Leah: Yes.

Sarah: Your friends –

Leah: You said that you were going to keep them alive!

Bea: They were, they’re right –

Leah: They didn’t have enough light, I think.

Bea: – past the skylights –

Sarah: Yep. So not enough light.

Bea: – so it was no light, and they were really delicate, which, well, ferns.

Leah: We have a lot of fake plants now. Anyway, the plants died. The plants died.

Bea: So we needed, there was a big hole.

Leah: And we had talked about doing this flying book project, and I was, so I’m just going to go for it.

Bea and Sarah: Yeah!

Sarah: What’s the worst that happens?

Bea: Yeah.

Sarah: It falls out of the sky.

Bea: Yeah.

Somebody: It happens.

Leah: I fall off a really tall ladder.

Bea: It happened. Not, you didn’t fall off the –

Leah: Stuff has fallen off the ceiling, but no, it’s fine. No, the worst thing that’s happened is that bookcase fell on my head once.

Sarah: Ow!

Leah: I survived. It was right before my brother’s wedding.

Sarah: Ow!

Leah: Yeah. I had a black eye.

Bea: Yeah. It was cool.

Sarah: Awesome pictures!

Bea: Yeah.

Leah: It, it most-, it was, it was healed before the wedding, but it was –

Bea: Kind of. It’s like one eye is just a little – [laughs]

Leah: It was pretty funny. But that was like, that was, like, a freak accident. I wasn’t even on a ladder. Like, I, it was just – anyway. And then I think the thing that really motivated me was people’s reaction –

Bea: Yeah.

Leah: – to the flying books? ‘Cause I was like, oh, yeah, this is cool. And then people –

Sarah: People walk in like, whoa!

Leah: – really started getting excited and taking so many pictures of it –

Sarah: Yes.

Leah: – and getting really excited and –

Bea: The pictures are an important part –

Leah: Yeah.

Bea: – because we wanted to compete with non-genre bookstores at that point. We were like, let’s compete with The Last Bookstore.

Leah: And we alway-, yeah, we always wanted to be a really, not to sound stupid, but, like, a really Instagrammable place?

Sarah: Oh, no, I was just thinking, I did an interview with author Sara Ramsey –

Bea or Leah: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: – who’s location independent and lives in different places around the world while she writes, and she was talking about her –

Bea or Leah: Cool!

Sarah: – six weeks in Indonesia. One of the things she noticed was where she was staying, all of the cafés there are, like, set up to be Instragrammable. Tag us on Instagram!

Leah: Yeah.

Sarah: Take your pictures! Pin us here! And so you invite people –

Leah: Yes.

Sarah: – to record the visual of your store?

Bea: Yeah.

Sarah: It’s like a very –

Leah: And that’s a very –

Sarah: – personally involved form of –

Leah: – it’s a very LA thing.

Sarah: – promotion. Yes.

Leah: You see all these, you know –

Bea: Also, people visit us as a destination, so we wanted to make it more than just buying the book.

Sarah: Yes. Yeah.

Bea: You, you also get a lot from the experience, including really special pictures.

Leah: I was a visual art major in college.

Bea: Yeah.

Leah: I lot of people ask me –

Sarah: Power Tools and Textiles: –

Leah: Yeah!

Sarah: – The Koch Sisters’ Story.

Leah: Yeah! A lot of people are like, oh, did you major in, like, literature or whatever? No. I was a visual art major, and that kind of got set aside for the year I was much more focused on the business aspects of it, and then when all that was up and running and sort of all the systems were in place, and I did this flying books thing, I was like, oh! This is, like, there’s a lot of ways –

Sarah: This is my playground.

Leah: Yes!

Bea: But it feels like, I mean, Leah still does most of the business stuff. I don’t really have a head for numbers.

Leah: She means numbers, not business. She means I do the accounting.

Bea: Accounting.

Leah: She hates numbers.

Bea: So, during the week she’s, like, doing stuff like that, and then on the weekends, it’s like, this is my time –

Leah: Yeah.

Bea: – to really play creatively.

Leah: Yeah, and it’s –

Bea: And, and I think everyone needs a creative outlet, no m-, even if you’re in a very creative job. You, you still need something –

Sarah: You need, and you need space from your work to be creative in your work. That was very hard for me to learn.

Leah: Yeah.

Bea: Yeah! And, yeah! That’s a really –

Leah: That’s a really –

Sarah: That’s really hard.

Bea: Yeah.

Leah: It’s really hard, and it’s –

Bea: Oh, my gosh. You know, taking a day off feels like a failure because there’re so many things you could be doing –

Sarah: Yep.

Bea: – but it’s, it’s actually, you can’t do those things unless you take the day off?

Sarah: You have to, and after I’ve taken time off, I realize, wow, I really like doing fuck-all! It’s really relaxing –

Bea and Leah: Yeah!

Sarah: – to do fuck-all! I’m a big fan of fuck-all.

Bea: And then it’s also –

Leah: It’s great to, like, lie horizontal for a little while.

Bea: [Laughs]

Sarah: Oh, yeah!

Leah: It’s really a different, it’s a different job, like –

Sarah: It’s a different replenishment.

Bea: Yeah.

Leah: – with the tool belt on, and especially, I mostly do that stuff on weekends because both of us are there –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Leah: – ‘cause I can’t really work while my hands are covered in glue? I try sometimes, but, like, when I’m papier-mâché-ing something, it’s not the best time?

Sarah: Let me wrap you book for you with my elbows.

Leah: Yeah. [Laughs]

Bea: For a customer to come in, I’m like –

Leah: Sorry!

Bea: – I’ll get you a receipt with my teeth.

Sarah: [Laughs]

Leah: I’ll be with you once I scrub my hands for five minutes. Anyway, so that’s why I do most of the stuff on the weekend, ‘cause she’s able to work the register, and then it becomes a very different job, that I’m in the store, but I don’t have to deal with customers –

Sarah: Yes.

Leah: – although that’s not true, ‘cause they’re like, what are you doing? [Laughs]

Bea: Yeah.

Leah: Don’t touch that!

Sarah: [Laughs]

Bea: But you’re going in and out. She, it gives her the freedom to go back to Home Depot as many times as she needs to.

Leah: Yeah, ‘cause I go to Home – I mean, every Saturday I go to Home Depot, probably at least twice.

Bea: Yeah.

Leah: But anyway, the original question was, like, inspiration, creativity, and I, it’s, I always want to find new ways to highlight the books –

Bea and Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Leah: – ‘cause that’s ultimately what we’re doing, and there’s, you know, I think it’s basically, like, two things: there’re window displays, and then there’s, like, stuff I do in the store. So the window displays are really about highlighting whatever it is. It’s usually either a season or a holiday or, like, a subgenre of books, depending on my mood. Currently it’s Pride; we actually left it up for –

Sarah: Your window is really beautiful –

Leah: Oh, thank you.

Sarah: – and I’m glad you left it up.

Leah: We left it up for June and July. It was one of my favorites and also we’re traveling, and I was like, I’m just going to leave it up for July.

Bea: And everyone loves it. Talk about Instagrammable. So many – I see it –

Leah: Yeah.

Bea: – every time I take Fitz for a walk, I see someone stopping and taking a picture of themselves –

Leah: Yeah.

Bea: – with it. And we also, we have this great, what is that called? Like, a lea-, a leaderboard or whatever? The –

Leah: Oh!

Bea: – church board –

Leah: Letter board.

Bea: Letter board; I don’t know.

Leah: I don’t know. The thingy you put letters on.

Bea: Outside.

Leah: Like, the little one.

Bea: The, the wood one. And we –

Leah: It’s had the same thing forever!

Bea: We’ve had this thing up forever, but I, like, every two days, it pops up that someone’s tagged us on Instagram with, it says –

Bea and Leah: – LOVE IS LOVE/BOOKS ARE MAGIC/WE’LL BE OKAY.

Leah: And we just, like, put it up this, like –

Bea and Leah: – a long time ago.

Bea: And it seems to be a message that people really –

Leah: Like.

Bea: – respond to.

Sarah: Well, one of the things I think that’s so gravitating about your story and about you, both of you yourselves is that you are unabashedly and unashamedly yourselves.

Leah: Yes.

Sarah: And you’re not afraid to take a position, and you’re not afraid –

Leah: No, that’s very true.

Sarah: – to be like, no, we are standing in this place for this reason with these emblems, and you, you look at the store and you know exactly where you guys stand.

Leah: That’s very true.

Bea: I, I think it’s really important for us as business owners to be that kind of authentic space.

Sarah: Because you’re already starting in a, in a semi-defensive place? Or a place that needs defending.

Bea: Yeah, exactly!

Leah: Yes.

Bea: So if we’re going to have to speak defensively, we want it, the store to not feel defensive. We want it to feel really open and, like –

Sarah: This is for you.

Bea: – you come in here –

Leah: Yeah, and – I don’t know. It’s, when you have a business that two people do everything –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Leah: – it’s sort of impossible not to –

Bea: Yeah, ‘cause every once in a while we’ll be like –

Leah: Should we not say this?

Bea: Should we not say this? Should we not share this personal thing? Or should we – and we almost always fall on the side of yes, we should, because –

Sarah: Yep.

Bea: – it’s really important to us to show every aspect. I mean, we talk a lot – we’re so lucky, so many people give us press, and that’s so important, but – and we talk a lot about good things –

Leah: Yeah, and –

Bea: There’s, there’s a lot of tough stuff.

Leah: Yeah, it’s really hard, and it’s like –

Bea: It’s exhausting some –

Leah: It’s, whenever –

Bea: Like, we had a breakdown last week. [Laughs]

Leah: Oh, should we talk about that?

Sarah: Sure! What happened? Are you guys okay?

Bea: No, we’re fine!

Leah: Yeah, do you want to know what happened?

Bea: We had our periods!

Leah: The two female employees –

Sarah: Had your periods at the same time!

Leah: Both of us had our periods –

Sarah: It was only last night, and you were just lying down on the floor going –

Leah: – at the same time!

Sarah: – we are done.

Leah: And this is a real fucking problem! And you know what I said to Bea after we had recovered, I was like, why the fuck do female employees not get more sick days? Because we have a guaranteed thing –

Sarah: Yep.

Leah: – that’s going to happen every month. I mean, okay, so, yeah, we live together. Our uteruses are synched.

Bea: [Laughs]

Leah: We both happened to be having really rough periods, and we were just like, we cannot do this anymore!

Sarah: [Laughs]

Bea: And a lot of times –

Leah: It was really hot!

Bea: – there’s a, like, there’s a great thing about owning a business with your sister: a lot of times one of us can pick up the slack –

Leah: Right! You just pass the ball to the other one.

Bea: – for the other person.

Leah: I think that’s the only time we’ve ever both –

Sarah: That’s how partnership works.

Leah: Right.

Bea: Yeah!

Leah: And we were both just like, ah, this is the end times.

Bea: No, ‘cause I was going to be like, Leah, you go home, and then I was like, no, I have to go home too. We both have to go home.

Leah: Yeah, no, I was like, we need to go home, and do have a wonderful part, part-time employee. We were like –

Bea: So lucky.

Leah: – can you come in and –

Bea: Yeah.

Leah: – work, ‘cause we’re dying? But, yeah, I, I mean – so, what were we talking about before that? Oh, hard things, yeah. So people come in and say, I love you guys, watch you on Instagram all the time, and that’s so amazing, and we love that, but we do get worried that –

Bea: We’re presenting –

Leah: – right, that you’re, like –

Bea: – a false image of what it’s like to be a small business owner.

Leah: Right, that everything is sunshine and roses all the time.

Bea: The truth of being a small business owner is just that it’s all, it’s all-consuming.

Leah: Yeah.

Bea: No matter what small business you’re in, it’s –

Leah: And you’re worried about money all the time.

Bea: It’s always –

Leah: And it’s like, what are you going to Instagram that’s like, today I’m worried about this? [Laughs]

Bea: Yeah! Yeah. There’s a lot of worry; there’s a lot of, like –

Leah: And there’s no, you know, there’s no reason we want to burden other people with that, but we, we like people to understand the realities –

Bea: Yeah!

Leah: – of this. We get –

Sarah: Yep.

Leah: – we get a letter probably every other month saying somebody wants to do something similar, and we say, please, God, do, but –

Sarah: Be aware.

Leah: – please understand the realities of what you’re talking about.

Bea: Yeah, because a lot of times the email we get starts from a place of, this is all sunshine and roses.

Sarah: And I want to do it too, and it’s going to be easy.

Leah: Yeah.

Bea: Right.

Sarah: No, nonono.

Bea: And I don’t, I don’t think we should downplay how much we’ve given up to do this.

Sarah: Can I be honest with you guys? If you, if I would be, if I could be audacious enough to give you advice?

Bea: Please!

Leah: Sure!

Sarah: I say, be honest, and you know what?

Leah: Yeah, it’s –

Sarah: Set a time, a – I would say, set a time and space where you’re going to talk about it –

Bea: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: – and you can frame it as honest small business talk or whatever.

Bea and Leah: Yeah.

Sarah: So, you remember when The Toast announced they were closing –

Bea and Leah: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: – because revenue is down.

Bea: Yeah.

Sarah: I got so many email messages from people saying, oh, my God, The Toast is closing and I love them, and I love you, and please tell me you’re not closing. And I was like, that was actually at a time when I, my, you know, ad, web advertising, banner ads, is on the decline –

Bea and Leah: Yeah.

Sarah: – and I understand it, and I see all of these corporations, including publishers, pivoting to video, which I find baffling ‘cause I cannot and do not want to watch video?

Leah: Yeah.

Sarah: My theory, as far as text is concerned, is that if I buy a car, it has a terrestrial radio. Text is a permanent institution, much like the radio in my car. It doesn’t have a cassette player any more, and I have, like, five choices of satellite radio.

[Laughter]

Sarah: And I can listen to the same song for, like, nineteen hours straight on whatever device I plug in, but when I buy the car? Terrestrial AM and FM radio is built in. It’s not going anywhere. The same thing –

Leah or Bea: That was a very interesting point, Sarah.

Bea or Leah: Yeah!

Sarah: Well, the same thing with, with text.

Bea: Yeah.

Sarah: It’s, it has value.

Leah or Bea: It does.

Sarah: I have a podcast, and podcasts are so hot right now! Sure, but one of them –

Leah or Bea: We’re on one.

[Laughter]

Sarah: I know, right?

Leah or Bea: What?

Bea or Leah: We’re in it!

Sarah: Check out my, check out my –

Leah or Bea: This is so meta!

Sarah: I know! But the, the, the vehicle of the podcast that I pay the most attention to is the transcript, not only because it makes it accessible, but it makes the content Google-accessible –

Leah or Bea: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: – and it helps people find the show, and not everyone knows or has the ability –

Leah or Bea: Sure.

Sarah: – to listen on a smart phone, ‘cause not everybody has a smart phone. So my feeling is that it helps to be honest about the parts that are hard.

Leah or Bea: Sure.

Sarah: Because on one hand, like, nobody guaranteed me that this would be my job, but it’s been my job since 2010, and I constantly have to adapt, ‘cause Internet, like, changes on the Goddamn hour.

Leah or Bea: Yeah.

Bea or Leah: Sure.

Sarah: So after The Toast announced they were closing, I started the Smart Bitches Business Update.

Bea or Leah: I love that.

Sarah: And part of that is, okay, I’m super nerdy into, into the business of my site. I love it, and I have made all this shit up as I go, ‘cause I don’t, I don’t – I have a degree in English and Spanish.

Bea: Right, you’re like –

Sarah: I’m super fluent in bullshit.

Bea: By the seat of my pants. [Laughs]

Sarah: That’s right. I’m really lucky that I’m married to somebody who does the math, because I can’t remember numbers. You know how I remember phone numbers? The pattern on the phone!

Leah or Bea: Really?

Sarah: But – oh, yeah, the pattern on the buttons, or I associate them with words. I, number, it’s –

Leah: I can’t remember numbers.

Sarah: It’s like a weird form of dyscalculia. They literally dissolve in my head.

Leah: Yo voy a la biblioteca.

[Laughter]

Sarah: Yo voy la biblioteca porque hay palabras alli.

[Laughter]

Sarah: No ay numerous no me gusta.

Bea: Le-, Leah taught Spanish in our, to our first graders –

Leah: To first –

Bea: – at our school. It was –

Sarah: Aw!

Bea: Yeah, it was really cute.

Leah: I just, uno, dos, tres.

Sarah: Quatro.

Bea: [Laughs]

Sarah: So I started the Business Update as a way to say – okay, well, first of all, everyone asked, are we closing?

Leah: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: No, we’re not closing, but here is how this site makes money, and if you want to support the site, here are ways in which you can do that. We have affiliate linking; we have advertisement; we have sponsorships. We have all of the, we have Patreon; we have all these different places.

Leah: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: But just showing up is support, and if that is what you are able to do, that, eyeballs are brilliant and lovely –

Leah: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: – because the fact that you come and hang out with us is why we exist. But being able to say, here are opportunities to buy a thing if you wish to buy a thing. Here is swag that I’ve designed that you might like to, you know, buy for yourself to, you know, proclaim how awesome Smart Bitches is, and that honesty, like, I was nauseous before I put that up. I was like, I am (a) talking about money.

Bea and Leah: Oh, yeah.

Sarah: And, and that goes – ‘cause it’s never, like, as all those advice shows say, it’s never just money.

Bea or Leah: No.

Sarah: It’s never just money, and you can’t have a figure without it having meaning for everyone around you –

Bea or Leah: Yeah.

Sarah: – and you can’t talk about, you know, your, if you’re an entrepreneur, that comes with both negative and positive assumptions, and I was sort of like, okay, I’m ready, I’m ready, and my –

Leah: We’re nodding vigorously.

Bea: Yeah.

[Laughter]

Sarah: – my, okay, so my, my, one of my major pieces of life advice, it comes from Pretty Face by Lucy Parker, where the character from the first book says to the heroine of the second book, Play to the audience, not the critics. The people who’ve paid for their seat are there to see you. They’re out for a good time, and when the curtain goes up, they’re in your corner. Play to them. And it helps me remember –

Leah: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: – the people who don’t like what I do are very vocal, but the people –

Leah: Yeah.

Sarah: – who do like what I do, people understand that business is hard, and being a businessperson is hard –

Bea or Leah: That’s so true.

Leah or Bea: That’s very –

Sarah: – and they’re already –

Leah or Bea: Good job, Lucy Parker!

Sarah: That whole quote just changed my life. But the, the people who are on your side want to support you –

Leah or Bea: Yeah.

Sarah: – and want you to succeed, and so if you talk about what’s a good way to support the store or what’s a good thing that people can do –

Leah: Okay, so here’s the problem with that.

Sarah: Uh-oh.

Leah: It’s not, I mean, it’s just we’ve hit this reality before: there’s only so many ways you can say you need to spend money at the store.

Bea: Yeah. And it’s also really tough to say that.

Leah: Right, so if you want the store to still, to stay around, you need to come spend money at the store, or online. There’s not much else beyond that. Of course spreading the word, getting other people in, but that’s the thing.

Sarah: Yep.

Leah: And so people are like, oh, I want you to succeed! And I’m like, okay, well, come back!

Sarah: I mean –

Bea: Oh, we have –

Sarah: Oh, yeah.

Bea: – full international shipping. I just shipped to Australia!

Sarah: So do I!

Bea: We will ship to –

Sarah: Australia.

Bea: – any country you want, but –

Leah: Yeah, we’ll also, by the way – this is off-topic, but people ask – the way our website works, we can add countries. So, like, I’m not going to put every country in the world, but if you’re like, you don’t see Yugoslavia, just, like, ask, and we’ll put it on the list.

Bea: It happens all the time.

Leah: Yeah.

Bea: People just ask.

Leah: I just, I think I just added, like, Slovakia or something. So just ask.

Bea and Sarah: Yeah!

Leah: Unless you live in –

Sarah: Telling your, telling the people who already support you some of the more challenging parts, if you frame that as, okay, let, you know, here’s, let’s talk about being a small bookstore. Everyone knows, I would hope, who reads a book that running a bookstore is hard! I mean, Barnes and Noble can barely manage to do it, and they’ve been doing it since I was like, I don’t know, twelve? Eleven?

Leah: Yeah. It is interesting, the disconnect in rhetoric and action.

Sarah: Isn’t it though?

Bea: Yeah.

Leah: Which is just an uncomfortable thing to talk about, but the amount –

Bea:  Right, it’s –

Leah: – of people who say, I love independent bookstores; I want to support independent bookstores, and buy all their books on Amazon. We love –

Bea: Which is –

Leah: – Amazon, like –

Bea: – fine, but, you know, then –

Leah: – ‘cause there’s an access- –

Bea: – go around saying that you are a –

Leah: And there’s an acc- –

Bea: – big supporter of independent bookstores.

Leah: There’s an accessibility issue –

Bea: Right, and we’re –

Leah: – which is totally legit.

Bea: Absolutely, and we’re never going to –

Leah: No.

Sarah: And it’s hard for you guys to sell eBooks.

Leah: Yeah.

Bea: Yeah, and, and –

Leah: It is.

Bea: – we – yeah, we talked about this last time we were on the show –

Sarah: Yep.

Bea: – and –

Leah: And we’ve looked at so many different things and –

Bea: And we will, we never begrudge people for reading eBooks.

Leah: No.

Sarah: It’s also an accessibility issue.

Bea: Yeah.

Leah: Exactly.

Bea: And that’s very different.

Sarah: Yeah.

Leah: But we have lots of other things other than books.

Sarah: Oh, store shirts, bags, jewelry, swag.

Leah: Yes.

Bea: Candles, body, beauty products.

Leah: Yes.

Sarah: Have you guys considered doing a subscription box?

Bea and Leah: Yes.

Sarah: Those are logistically frightening.

Leah: That is what we have decided.

Bea: We, it’s a whole other –

Sarah: We did our research; that was my research as well.

Bea: – business.

Sarah: It is, it is –

Leah: It is an entirely other business.

Bea: We quickly abandoned – we, we offered that as one of our Kickstarter rewards, ‘cause we were going to do it, and we ended up fulfilling it through –

Leah: Ever After Box.

Bea: – Ever After –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Bea: – and Fresh –

Sarah: Fresh Fiction.

Bea: – Fresh Fiction –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Bea: – because it’s a whole freaking other business.

Sarah: Oh, it’s logistically, it’s a logistically overwhelming –

Leah: It is!

Bea: And so –

Sarah: That was my discovery. I was like, I could set aside –

Bea: To be –

Sarah: – an entire room and an entire –

Bea: To be honest –

Leah: Change everything.

Bea: – we’ve been saying that we might do it eventually. We’re not going to. Go find another; there’s great one – I mean –

Leah: Well, yeah, there’s other really good ones.

Bea: Check out OwlCrate; check out Uppercase –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Bea: – check out Fresh Fiction; check out, oh, Bawdy Bookworms, which I’m –

Sarah: Oh, she’s –

Bea: – considering subscribing to. [Laughs]

Sarah: Okay, they’re so great. She –

Bea: ‘Cause I read the reviews on your site!

Sarah: – she has sent boxes –

Bea: I know.

Sarah: – to Redheadedgirl and Elyse –

Bea: I know, and I read the reviews! They get –

Sarah: – and Dewey – and his cock ring – and, and then Amanda, and they are so well curated –

Bea: Yeah, so –

Sarah: – and she’s, she’s, like, in the next town over from me?

Bea: Yeah.

Sarah: And so I know –

Bea: There’s some great –

Sarah: – how much logistics are involved.

Leah: Right.

Bea: If you want, there are some really great ones out there.

Sarah: Bawdy Bookworms is the –

Bea and Leah: Yeah.

Leah: So, to be honest, the answer is no.

Sarah: No.

Leah: Yeah.

Sarah: Because subscription income is something that I’m constantly told is, like, a new thing. Like, Patreon models and subscribing –

Leah: Yeah.

Sarah: – at different tier levels and –

Leah: No, it’s –

Sarah: – you can go behind a paywall, which I do not want to do. It’s, it’s very hard to adapt –

Leah: Yeah, it is.

Sarah: – a very –

Leah: Which is why –

Sarah: – simple business model.

Leah: Which is why you will see us doing things at trying things out, especially in our events model.

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Leah: If something pops up that you’re like, this seems out of left field, it’s frequently us trying different things to bring revenue in.

Sarah: Have you seen my series on packing?

[Laughter]

Sarah: That has absolutely fuck-all to do with romance novels!

Leah: Yes, I have, actually!

Bea: We have!

Sarah: That’s, that’s a whole other side project.

Bea: We watched the whole thing –

Sarah: I made my side hustle –

Bea: – and we’re like, we’ll never do this. [Laughs]

Sarah: I, I, I made my side hustle my business, so you know what I’m going to do? Start another side hustle.

Bea: Yeah.

Sarah: No, I’m starting Organization Academy; I’m going to do online courses on how to organize your time with Google Calendar –

Leah: Oh, my God.

Sarah: – and physical organization –

Leah: [Whispers] Yes!

Sarah: – because I’m, I have to be organized.

Leah: Sarah has all these amazing tips.

Bea: Hacks, hacks.

Sarah: I have a lot of shit to manage –

Bea: Life hacks.

Sarah: – and, and there’re things that I love to do, and then there’s, there’re the things that, I forget who it was, but a psychologist calls it the red sock in your load of whites? It’s that little tiny red thing that’s going to fuck up the whole load of whites.

Leah: [Laughs] No.

Sarah: It’s that one shit task that you hate that bleeds into everything else –

Leah: Yeah.

Bea: Yes!

Sarah: – and you either have to minimize it or get rid of it, and, like, I figure out –

Bea: Can we get rid of Leah having to do QuickBooks?

Leah: Shout out to Allie @RamenGrrl, a really nice customer that I send questions to on Twitter. [Laughs]

Sarah: Aww!

Leah: She’s so nice! ‘Cause I was, like, literally struggling one day when she was in the store, and she was like, you know, listen, I do this for a living; can I help you? And I was like, yes!

[Laughter]

Leah: So now I take screenshots and I Twitter message them to her. Thanks, Allie!

Bea: Yeah.

Leah: She’s so nice!

Bea: I, we’ve talked about this in the past: I have anxiety –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Bea: – and it’s really difficult to be a small business owner with anxiety, be- –

Sarah: The devil you say. [Laughs]

Bea: Isn’t that shocking? It just –

Sarah: Oh, my goodness.

Bea: – is designed to trigger a lot of my anxieties, and –

Sarah: Lots of horrible mental questions?

Bea: All of the questioning, everything, and when Fitz is in my lap and just – everything is okay.

Leah: I honestly, like, I cannot believe the connection that this human and this dog have.

Bea: We love each other!

Leah: And it’s, it’s, I’m, it really blows my mind sometimes. Like, I mean, it’s funny and cute, but, like, in a really serious way, like, it’s amazing!

Bea: Yeah. We found each other.

Leah: It’s amazing!

Bea: And it’s really funny because he thinks he’s my boyfriend? He, he does not like my, my actual human boyfriend?

Leah: [Laughs]

Sarah: Story checks out.

Bea: Yeah. He is like –

Leah: Well, it’s not like he doesn’t like him; it’s that he objects to the space he takes up.

Bea: Yes, the, exactly!

[Laughter]

Bea: He, he, Fitz is next to me at all times –

Sarah: Yep.

Bea: – so when Charlie, like, sits, Fitz’ll come and get right in between us.

Leah: Yeah.

Bea: ‘Cause he likes it, like, when Charlie’ll play with him, he, like, likes it –

Leah: Yeah.

Bea: – or if he holds him, that’s not the problem. It’s, it’s that when Charlie –

Sarah: Excuse me, human, you do not seem to understand the order of importance.

Bea and Leah: Right!

Leah: He takes the spot next to her; he also doesn’t seem to understand that she has two sides.

Bea: Yeah. [Laughs]

Leah: He wants Bea on the other side.

Sarah: Ohhh, that’s not the point.

Bea: No. So he likes to sleep with his head on my shoulder –

Sarah: Aww!

Bea: – and his butt in Charlie’s face.

[Laughter]

Bea: And his tail, he’s got this really long, fuzzy tail, smacking Charlie back and forth, just so Charlie knows who’s in charge.

Leah: Yeah.

Bea: And he is so funny.

Leah: I do not like to sleep with this dog. Bea left for Orlando a day before me, ‘cause she actually went to visit Charlie’s family on the east coast, and I, as soon as I got in bed I was like, I, every time this happens, I remember: I hate sleeping with this dog!

Bea: The dog –

Sarah: He needs, he needs to be attached to your kidneys, right?

Bea: I love sleeping with the dog.

Leah: The dog weighs eight pounds and hogs the giant bed –

Sarah: Oh, yeah! I know!

Leah: – because he has to sleep exactly – the dog snores.

Sarah: Dogs and cats both become large ponies at night.

Leah: I mean –

Sarah: Both in noise and in size.

Leah: – and I, I honestly feel like I look up and I’ve, like, contorted myself –

[Laughter]

Leah: – and, like, the dog is the size of a loaf of bread. How have I –

Bea: Fitz –

Leah: – somehow –

Bea: Okay, so, Fitz and I sleep like –

Leah: He likes the exact center of the bed.

Bea: – we spoon, and he’s the little spoon, and I’m the big spoon, and when Charlie’s there, he loses his spoon space, ‘cause the –

Leah: But couldn’t he be – then there’re three spoons!

Bea: So then, that, that’s what we’ve tried. Charlie and I have had to change the way we sleep –

Sarah: [Laughs]

Bea: – to accommodate.

Leah: As you should!

Bea: So now Charlie’s big spoon, I’m middle spoon, and Fitz is –

Leah: Yeah!

Bea: – littlest spoon on the edge! [Laughs]

Leah: That’s how, that’s how it should work.

Sarah: One, my smaller dog sleeps and would like to be fused to one of my kidneys.

Bea and Leah: Yeah.

Sarah: One or the other.

Leah: Yeah. When I sleep with Fitz, he, like, likes, like, the middle of my stomach –

Sarah: Right against your kidneys!

Bea: He likes to be close to you!

Leah: – and that’s, like, not a, I’m like, come, just come sleep by my head! Like, there’s plenty of room!

Bea: No, he doesn’t care about room.

Leah: I care about room! [Laughs]

Sarah: He cares about making sure you understand that that’s not your bed.

Bea: Right.

Leah: Yeah, I know! And making sure that I understand that I am the second choice –

Sarah: Oh, obviously.

Leah: – that he’d rather be with Mom –

Sarah: Of course!

Leah: – and Second Mom is a poor substitute.

Bea: Well, Second Mom isn’t his devoted servant.

Leah: That’s true.

Bea: I will do anything that dog wants. He makes a tiny peep, and I’m like, [gasps] all right! Let’s figure it out.

Sarah: [Laughs]

Leah: Okay, but –

Bea: What do you need?

Leah: – I will say, when Fitz was in the hospital and had a bladder stone, like, he would have died if Bea hadn’t been like, there’s something wrong. I was like, he’s fine, and Bea convinced me and was like, we’re going to the vet, and they were, they looked at him and sent us to the hospital, so, like, and –

Sarah: Wow.

Leah: – I mean, the thing that happens if it doesn’t get treated is that –

Bea: Your bladder explodes.

Leah: – his bladder explodes, and I don’t think you live through that, so.

Sarah: Not very well.

Bea: No.

Leah: Devoted human servant saves his life. Okay! So remember how we weren’t going to talk about Fitz, and now we’ve talked about him for, what do you think, like thirty-five minutes?

Bea: I can talk about that dog.

Leah: But also, people come in and are like, I heard you on the podcast and I like how you talk about Fitz. I’m going, all right.

Bea: Well, the funny thing now is that –

Leah: We, I don’t think we, we’ve mentioned one book. Like, we could talk about books if you want! [Laughs]

Bea: We can talk about books, but the funny thing now about Fitz is that sometimes he’s not in the store, because Fitz is –

Leah: Oh, yeah, can we say this?

Bea: He’s a living, breathing animal, and sometimes he can’t be in the store –

Leah: And we, we totally –

Bea: – especially when we have events.

Leah: – understand that, like, people are fans and they want to see him, but, like, unfortunately –

Sarah: Some people are afraid of dogs and can’t, he can’t be in a space when it’s full of people who you don’t know.

Bea: And, and –

Leah: It’s not even that. It’s –

Bea: – it, there’re a lot of unknowns, like, ‘cause in the store, people come in and say, can I pet your dog? And I say, absolutely! He’s super friendly; just, you know –

Sarah: Right, this is how you do it.

Bea: – come on up –

Sarah: Introduce yourself.

Bea: – and say hi. When there’re that many people, I can’t –

Leah: Right.

Bea: – give that permission anymore.

Leah: So especially at events, and what happens, he doesn’t, you, you can’t tell that he’s scared, but he needs to be held?

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Leah: And that sort of makes it difficult –

Bea: To do our jobs.

Leah: – for us to do our jobs.

Sarah: ‘Cause you need your arms for bookselling –

Leah: I mean –

Bea: Oh right, and –

Leah: – kind of!

Bea: – putting chairs away.

Leah: But, and, and, and, you know, it’s, we feel really bad when someone is visiting from a different state, country, whatever and Fitz isn’t in the store, but he is an animal, and he has need –

Sarah: Can’t always be –

Leah: – he has needs.

Sarah: And you have to take care of him!

Bea: Yeah.

Leah: Yeah. It does say on our website, he is never there on Tuesdays. That’s his day off, he and Bea. They’re living it up!

Sarah: [Laughs]

Bea: We’re out.

Leah: Yeah. He’s never there on Tuesdays –

Bea: [Laughs] Sleeping.

Sarah: So when you’re doing a new project, what are the things that really make you go, yes, we’re doing this!? Is it a visual thing, is it a discover-, discovering books thing? Like –

Leah: Are we talking, like, visual stuff in the store?

Sarah: Yeah, in the store.

Leah: That’s a good question.

Bea: That’s a good question. I feel like it’s always something different.

Leah: Yeah! It’s, I mean, it’s generally space-driven. [Laughs] This is something that has just occurred to me. In high school, a wacky art teacher offered an elective, Installation Art, that I and a couple of my friends, like, took and had a great time, and we’ve since made a lot of jokes about it since, because the shit that we did was, like, insane –

Sarah: [Laughs]

Leah: – and we called it installation art, but it has just occurred to me that I am now an installation artist. [Laughs]

Sarah: Pretty much!

Bea: You are!

Leah: Because everything I do is attached to the ceiling, and that’s what an installation artist does, so I’m an installation artist. So, for stuff in the store, it, it’s driven by where it is. It’s always going to be, like, I’m not, I mean, for now, like, the bath that I’m working on that’s almost done, like, I’m not satisfied with the way this space looks. How can I improve it? How can I show off the books better? How can I make it more atmospheric? Blah-blah-blah. I mean, I think the answer to the question is, is it possible? [Laughs]

Sarah: Does it fill in a space in the store that doesn’t have anything in it? Like the books up the wall by the front door –

Leah: Right, let’s take that –

Sarah: – that you were filling in an area that you couldn’t really do anything –

Leah: That’s, that’s a good example because it –

Bea: Marketing.

Leah: Right. It’s a good example because it doesn’t have to do with, like, selling stuff really –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Leah: – so I don’t, I was literally just staring at this wall, and I was like, I can’t believe how lame this wall looks.

Bea: It’s very empty.

Leah: [Laughs] And I texted Bea, as somebody asked if I did, and I was like, do you care if I do something to the front wall? She was like, nope. I was like, all right, it’s going to look different tomorrow. This was like, I was like, I want to do this.

Bea: No, the only time I ever say no is if I think she’s taking on something –

Sarah: Yeah?

Bea: – too big –

Leah: She does say that.

Bea: – and, and she’s going to stress out about finishing it in a certain amount of time –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Bea: – or something like that.

Leah: She’s like, don’t start this now before –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Leah: – this happens.

Bea: Right, like if we have an event, like, don’t paint the wall right before an event, ‘cause then it’ll be wet.

Leah: [Laughs] And I’m like, no! Okay, fine, that makes sense.

[Laughter]

Bea: Yeah. So, like, changing the window right before we came here.

Leah: Right. I was, like, really stressing out, and she was like, just wait till you get back.

Bea: Yeah.

Leah: Like, who cares?

Sarah: Way to be!

Bea: But sometimes you need to give someone permission to do, to do that.

Leah: Yeah.

Bea: Like, it’s okay not to.

Leah: But with the front wall, it’s – okay, so, is this possible? Is it in our budget? Most of these projects, especially – anything that’s made out of books costs very little money because we already have thousands and thousands of used books?

Bea: We have a garage full.

Leah: Yeah. So there’s a whole room of used books, and then there’s, like, that amount of books in our garage at our house.

Sarah: Where did you acquire them?

Leah: A used bookstore –

Bea: It’s a great story.

Leah: – in Costa Mesa that had a really significant focus on romance closed –

Sarah: And you were like, hello.

Leah: – and they gave all their books to us –

Sarah: [Gasps]

Leah: – for, like, pennies?

Sarah: Glorious.

Leah: We just had to –

Sarah: Go and get ‘em.

Leah: – take them away, so we rented a U-Haul and –

Bea: Leah drove.

Leah: Yeah, Bea wouldn’t drive it.

Bea: [Whispers] I can’t drive a truck.

Leah: But I did. We did, we did, took three trips. We took three trips, ‘cause first we tried it, we each drove a car, we did two cars twice, and then the last time we did a U-Haul.

Bea: Yeah.

Leah: But I think they gave us approximately five thousand.

Bea: Yeah.

Sarah: Books? And then you had to weed through that, put some in the store –

Bea or Leah: [Massive sigh]

Sarah: – some in the garage.

Bea: We didn’t even really do that, to be honest.

Leah: It’s still not done to our satisfaction –

Sarah: But it’s a lot of physical merchandise to manage.

Leah: – ‘cause it’s so many –

Bea: It is.

Leah: – and we try, like, we try to make the upstairs books we don’t have downstairs, so it’s older titles.

Sarah: Right.

Leah: Also, we have six of some books. Like, this is how, and people are always like, how do you decide what books you’re going to destroy? Well, generally it’s the books that I have six of.

Sarah: Uh, yeah!

Leah: Or the one that the cover’s fallen off.

Sarah: Yeah.

Bea: Yeah.

Leah: Or, I don’t know, other –

Sarah: This one clearly was spilled on by somebody –

Leah: Water damage –

Sarah: – with the wavy pages.

Leah: Yeah. But frequently it’s, I mean –

Bea: There’s a good amount of silverfish damage.

Leah: Yeah.

Sarah: Gross!

Bea: Yeah.

Leah: It’s frequently, I mean, they gave us, I would say –

Bea: We cleaned out their, like, shed.

Leah: Yeah.

Bea: It was not in the best condition?

Sarah: So some of those books become –

Leah: So some of the books are not in good shape –

Sarah: – art!

Leah: – yeah.

Sarah: But they become –

Bea: Which is a great second life!

Leah: Right, and it depends, when I’m – you’ll see when you’re looking at different things. Sometimes you only see the spine; sometimes you see the whole thing; sometimes you only see the cover, so that lends itself to, like, okay –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Leah: – if the cover’s damaged, well, it doesn’t matter if I can use the back or whatever.

Bea: Yeah.

Leah: But how do you decide to do something? Is it possible? Is it in the budget? Is it something that’s going to enhance the store? I mean, I feel like that’s the main question.

Sarah: Mm-hmm. Is it going to be something that people go, oh!?

Leah: Right.

Sarah: Because I know, for, when we did a, in a previous interview, you were talking about shoppable installations –

Leah: Yeah.

Sarah: – of art, like handkerchiefs –

Leah: Which we still are going to do.

Bea: We’re still going to do.

Sarah: So you’re, you’re doing something similar. Your, your store is shoppable art.

Bea and Leah: Yes.

Bea or Leah: Exactly.

Sarah: You can’t buy the stuff off the wall, but –

Bea or Leah: Well, we’ve –

Sarah: – you can go and see the creativity and the art while also looking at books.

Bea: And we’ve talked in the past about trying to figure out a way for Leah to sell kits of some kind?

Leah: If you want to hire me –

Bea: Yeah.

Leah: – to install flying books in your house, I’ll do it. No one’s ever asked, but –

Sarah: Well, that’s not true! People have asked.

Bea: People have asked.

Leah: But no one’s ever followed through. I’ll do it!

Sarah: So I have to ask you:

Leah: Yeah.

Sarah: What are you reading?

Leah: Oh!

Sarah: ‘Cause I have a book I want to tell you guys about; it’s going to blow your damn mind.

Leah: We’ve finally gotten to books! After spending –

Bea: [Laughs]

Leah: – a lot of time talking about our dog! Great question. Okay. You go first; I’m getting my list.

Bea: Okay. On the airplane, I read an advanced reader copy of my old professor from Yale’s, Lauren Willig, who wrote the Pink Carnation series –

Sarah: Uh-huh.

Bea: – has a new book coming out in January, I don’t know?

Leah: What?! Not till then?

Bea: [Whispers] I don’t know! [Normal voice] It’s called The English Wife, and I loved it. I, I love the Pink Carnation series. If you like the Pink Carnation series, if you like Deanna Raybourn, if you like these kind of, like, historical fiction – but there’s something else. This one has mystery. There isn’t really paranormal, except the whole thing kind of feels, like, magical. There’re flash forwards and flashbacks, and you’re told this story in a, it’s such an amazing way, and it’s in Newport in the earl-, the end of the 19th century. So, it’s such a time period that I just adore and I think has so much potential for this kind of thing, and it’s not at all light. It’s, like, a fucked-up story –

Sarah: [Laughs]

Bea: – but it’s fan-fucking-tastic. I loved it. And I’m also reading Victoria Aveyard, who lives very close to the store, and we adore, and we adore her dog Indie.

Leah: Maybe you shouldn’t say on the radio that you haven’t read her book. [Laughs]

Bea: Oh, I guess –

Leah: No, I’m kidding!

Bea: No, I, I, well, I haven’t because I kind of had stopped reading YA for a while, and I’ve recently really been just needing that lighter, fluffier kind of –

Sarah: Hopeful-er.

Bea: Yeah! And actually, I don’t know, it’s just like it, it just feels like a different world. So I loved When Dimple Met Rishi; I loved –

Leah: No, don’t talk about it; I’m going to talk about it.

Bea: Oh, okay. Fine, Leah’s going to talk about it. And then, so, I was, like, looking at our YA shelves, and Victoria, who I adore, I have never actually read Red Queen. It’s this great YA series, so I brought that along. I’m, like, ten pages in, and I am really intrigued.

Leah: [Laughs] Only ten pages!

Bea: I was reading The English Wife the whole flight. It took me two hours to read The English Wife. You can buzz through it. But now I’m reading Red Queen.

Leah: She reads fast.

Bea: Yeah.

Leah: You read faster than I do.

Sarah: Longer than two-hour flight. Were you sleeping the rest of it?

Bea: Well, I was flying from DC to Orlando.

Sarah: Oh, right, right, right! It wasn’t from, from –

Bea: No, my flight –

Leah: I had time to read a book, watch a movie, watch a TV show.

[Laughter]

Bea: Wait, this is really funny: my flight –

Sarah: Run a whole season –

Leah: Yeah.

Bea: – my flight from LA to DC, I was with my boyfriend, and he likes to watch movies on airplanes – he’s a big movie guy – and it took us an hour to decide on –

[Laughter]

Bea: It was an endless thing, ‘cause we have very different tastes, so it took us an hour to decide that we were finally going to watch Deadpool, which he had never seen and I loved. We watched a little bit of Deadpool, he fell asleep in my lap –

Leah: There’s, like, so many guns in that movie!

Bea: – fell, boyfriend asleep in my lap, trapping me there, and I was like, all right, well, do I watch the movie I’ve already seen without you? I, like, can’t really get to any books or anything, but I was on Virgin and they have whatever –

Sarah: Screens.

Bea: – so I turn on CNN, and I watch the healthcare –

Sarah: [Gasps]

Leah: Boo.

Sarah: Bad, bad –

Bea: – motion to proceed vote –

Leah: Boo.

Bea: – getting increasingly more agitated and upset, and I couldn’t do anything or – my boyfriend is asleep; I can’t talk to anyone. I’m just sitting there, like, pulling hairs out of the side of – just, like – [agitated panting] – so, it was not a great flight, but then the flight down I read The English Wife and it was delightful.

Leah: The book I stopped her from talking about, ‘cause I was going to talk about it, is The Gentleman’s Guide to Vice and Virtue –

Sarah: Ohhh –

Leah: – by Mackenzi Lee.

Sarah: – yes?

Bea: Have you read this?

Sarah: We have a review of it!

Bea: It’s terrific.

Leah: I think I saw it. It got a very good grade, right? ‘Cause I frigging loved it.

Bea: Yeah.

Leah: We both read it. I don’t really read much historical, and it takes a lot to make me like it –

Bea: Yeah.

Leah: – and it’s so – I’ve never met a book that more embodies, more fully embodies the word “romp,” R-O-M-P.

Sarah: Yep.

Leah: They’re just romping.

Sarah: Road trips and, you know, goofy travel is the best.

Leah: Yeah, it’s so good! And it has a really modern feel without feeling anachronistic.

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Leah: I really enjoyed it.

Sarah: Did you?

Leah: And then I think the book probably I’ve, another book I’ve been recommending a lot – this isn’t super recent; I think I read it, I don’t know, June or something? – is The Idea of You by Robinne Lee, which is –

Bea: Not a romance.

Leah: Okay, not a romance –

Bea: Just so we say.

Leah: – I guess. I’m hoping there’s going to be a sequel.

Bea: There is a –

Leah: Yeah.

Bea: The ending is –

Leah: I would say the ending is ambiguous-ish, not – [sighs] – I feel like it’s such a spoiler to say that, but, like –

Sarah: No, people want to know.

Leah: Yeah.

Bea: Yeah!

Leah: Anyway, it’s great. It’s about a, a, I think she’s forty-something woman who takes her teen, twelve-year-old daughter to see her favorite boy bands and, through extenuating circumstances, becomes involved with one of the members of the boy band who is, I don’t know, twenty-one? Huge age gap. It’s really good.

Sarah: Ooh.

Leah: Yeah.

Bea: We, I think we’ve booth been enjoying, or I’ve really been enjoying the rock star/normal girl thing that had – I loved –

Leah: Yeah, but this is such a new take on it –

Bea: Right.

Leah: – and it’s such –

Sarah: That much of an age difference? Yes.

Leah: – it’s such a new take on the boy band meets regular girl, such a new take on the rock star romance. It, it, it’s really good. The writing is really excellent. It happens to take place in Culver City, and the heroine owns an art gallery, so I just, like, pretended that it was, like, right down the street, and she –

Bea: There are two art galleries right down the street from us. [Laughs]

Leah: Yeah. Very enjoyable. And then while I was on vacation last week or the week before, I reread Tiffany Reisz’s entire Original Sinners series. [Laughs]

Sarah: Whoa.

Leah: ‘Cause it’s the best, and if you haven’t read it, you should.

Sarah: Awesome.

Bea: Yeah. Good stuff. What else do I have with me? I have the new Sabrina Jeffries.

Leah: Oh, yeah, I brought stuff with me. Oh, I brought – so, yeah, I haven’t read this yet – I brought Club Deception by Sarah Skilton?

Sarah: That is tomorrow’s Covers & Cocktails.

Leah: Really!

Bea: Ah!

Sarah: Yeah.

Leah: No kidding! So she –

Bea: It’s got a great cover.

Leah: – she will be, depending on when this airs, she wrote this book about magicians –

Sarah: Yep.

Leah: – and her husband is a magician –

Sarah: Yep.

Leah: – and she and he are coming to our next comedy night, and she’s going to read from the book, and he’s going to do magic –

Sarah: [Gasps!]

Leah: – and I’m really excited!

Bea: I, I am too.

Sarah: That’s awesome!

Leah: I know. I love magic, so I’m really excited. That’s August 17th.

Sarah: Very cool!

Leah: Yeah. So I haven’t read it; I have it with me.

Sarah: So you ready for the little extra bonus part? Here is the extra bonus part:

All right, so, tell me: what’s your news? Fitz is pregnant, right? That’s the news?

[Laughter]

Bea: The news is that Fitz got a haircut.

Sarah: [Laughs]

Bea: And he looks like a smart and handsome boy, and he wanted to tell everybody about it, and –

Sarah: He needs his own podcast! He needs his own, like, video, video channel.

Bea: That would be amazing. Well, okay, if you would like a personalized video from Fitz, you can sign up for our brand-new Patreon!

Sarah: Yay!

Leah: That’s the actual news.

Bea: The actual news –

Leah: But Fitz did get a haircut. [Laughs]

Bea: Fitz did get a haircut; he looks very handsome. The actual news is that we’re launching a Patreon, and if you’re a fan of Fitz, I would definitely sign up for our Patreon, because there will be a lot of Fitz content over there.

Leah: Yeah, and you get at, like, I think at, like, ten and fifteen – I’d have to double-check – you get a personalized Fitz video. He’ll say whatever you want, as you heard earlier in this episode.

Bea: People are always asking how they can support us if they don’t live here or if they mostly read eBooks, so this is what we have, this is what we’re doing! This is what we’re trying out, and we’re really excited about it! There’s a lot of cool stuff you can do on Patreon, as the patrons of the Smart Bitches podcast well know –

Sarah: Aw.

Bea: – and we have launched this in conjunction with a brand-new, I’ll say T-shirt, but you can also get it as a tank top or a sweatshirt, and if you join the Patreon, you then get ten percent off of the new swag, which is really cute, and it looks like a little vintage postcard, and it says “Greetings from The Ripped Bodice!”

Sarah: That is so awesome! Way to go!

Bea: Yeah. That’s what’s happening!

Leah: Yeah!

Sarah: You know, that, that makes a lot of sense, because if you can’t get to LA because it’s, like, a seven-hour flight if you’re going against really bad wind? It’s easier to just make a monthly pledge and be like, I want you guys to be awesome and to keep being awesome, so.

Leah: For us, it’s not that weird because we were born on Kickstarter, so –

Sarah: Yes, of course!

Leah: – you know, crowdfunding’s always been, that’s why we’re here, and I think a model like Patreon is confusing to people like our father, but –

Sarah: [Laughs]

Leah: – to other people it makes sense? And we, and we have always, I think, taken very seriously anybody’s decision to give us money, so we will put a lot of time and energy into what we’re giving you back, and we’re super excited about it.

Bea: Yeah! I mean, I think we’re, like Leah said, we’re really excited about all the possibilities here. We think that Patreon might open up some new stuff for us and, like we talked about in this podcast, and Sarah, we talked about so much, it’s difficult to be a small business and grow. It –

Sarah: What?!

[Laughter]

Sarah: The devil you say!

Bea: Shockingly enough! Well, we found it very rewarding and easy to kind of maintain our current, where we are currently, but, you know, like any good company, we need to grow, and we need to kind of shift it as we go, so we think Patreon will really help us do that, and we’re very excited!

Leah: Yes.

Sarah: And it gives people who are, who are involved in the community and big fans of yours a way to continue to support the store, even if you can’t –

Bea: Yeah!

Sarah: – show, you know, show up and, you know, shop there.

Bea: That’s exactly – I think we are in such a unique position in this community as we have this brick-and-mortar space, but we also have – you know, we, we want to have a voice in the larger community, and we want to make sure that everyone feels like they’re a part of what we’re doing here –

Leah: Mm-hmm.

Bea: – so we hope this’ll be a way for us really to, to share what we’re doing here and people feel like they’re really a part of it in, in a financial way, which is important to us. You know, if you gave us to us at, from, from the Kickstarter, we really consider you a financial backer of this store, and patrons will be considered the same and treated in the same way. So we’re thrilled, excited, all the adjectives, all the words.

Leah: Yeah, we wrote, ‘cause we, like, wrote the newsletter thing, and it literally just said –

Bea and Leah: – we’re excited! We’re excited!

Bea: So excited!

Leah: We’re excited about this! We’re excited about that!

Bea: Yeah.

Sarah: You know, I, when I, when I launched our Patreon, I was so nervous? Oh, my gosh. Oh, boy.

Bea: It’s really nerve-wracking, and I, I think, I’m sure there will be questions. You know, we are an established business, and Patreon is a, a new thing for established businesses to utilize, so –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Bea: – we’re really, this is a test for us; we’re seeing if it works. We’re seeing how best it can work and how best we can use it. We’ll, we’ll see how it goes, but we’re very excited at the prospect, as we said one hundred times now.

Leah: Yeah, you said that, like, a hundred times now. For instance, in the future, something like Fitzer Upper might be on the Patreon, or we just got, in our newsletter, everybody in the newsletter got a free short story from Sherry Thomas, but in the future that might be something that just our patrons get.

Bea: Yeah, so if authors listening to this are interested in helping out with our Patreon –

Leah: – you can give us stuff to give –

Bea: – to give to –

Leah: – to our patrons –

Bea: – people.

Leah: – which is a great – ‘cause authors are always asking what they can do, which is fabulous and amazing. W-W-W dot –

Sarah: Nonononono, you’ve got to start it with H-T-T-P-S colon slash slash. [Laughs]

Leah: www.instagram.com/therippedbodice. Yeah, it’s on the home page of our website, and you can see the new shirt there as well. Don’t forget you get ten percent off, but that, it only lasts for two weeks because we’re using the same model we did with our feminist T-shirts, which is that somebody else prints them and ships them, so they all have to be ordered at once.

Bea: Which if you zoom in real, real close, you can see little Mr. Fitzy –

Leah: Yeah, little Fitzy! He’s reading under the palm tree!

Sarah: Aw!

Bea: I think he’s waiting for his person to be done reading, so he can receive his belly rub.

Leah: Okay, well, the person is reading, whatever.

Bea: [Laughs]

Leah: What, he’s reading; he can read!

Bea: He can read.

Leah: How did he become a lawyer without being able to read?

Bea: He’s a genius; he can read. And he’s excited; he wants everyone to be a patron so that they can see all the fun stuff that his crazy moms do for him.

Leah: He also talks in the intro video for –

Bea: Yeah.

Leah: – our Patreon. Wherein we dress him in a variety of outfits around our store.

Sarah: Well, as you should!

Bea: A blog could definitely become a thing.

Leah: Oh, my God! He should have a fashion blog; that’s a really good idea.

Bea: Also, it gives me an excuse to buy all the outfits I want. Yeah.

Leah: All right, that’s happening.

Bea: Fitz’s, Fitz’s Fashion Blog!

Leah: You heard it here first: Fitz’s Fashion Blog, here it comes.

Sarah: Yeah, we should really not talk to each other, because we have a lot of ideas.

Bea: I know; it’s dangerous.

Leah: It’s a problem!

Sarah: It’s like, it’s like, you know, you, we’re already expensive people to know because we can tell you about books to read, and now we just made it each other broke with ideas. This is a problem.

Bea or Leah: Yeah.

[music]

Sarah: And that is officially the end of this podcast episode. I recorded the little extra bonus part the week I was doing the editing, so you can actually hear the difference, right, between recording on Skype and then recording live in person with microphones? So I have to say a big thank-you to my Patreon supporters for helping me upgrade equipment, because it makes your eardrums happy, I hope. It makes my eardrums happy. [Mine too! – gk]

I will have links to everything, like, literally everything on the Internet. I’m just going to link to all of it at this point, ‘cause I’ve got so many things to link. I will link to their Patreon campaign. I will link to the new shirt, which is really super cute! I will link to different things that we talked about and all the books we mentioned, never fear.

And speaking of books, I have a book to tell you about, because today’s podcast is sponsored by Hollywood Scandal by Louise Bay. If you enjoy books by Vi Keeland, Lauren Blakely, or Kendall Ryan, you will love this hot, contemporary Hollywood romance. When Matt Easton moves in next door, Lana Kelly has no idea he’s Hollywood’s hottest superstar. He’s used to women falling at his feet, but his new neighbor is not just anyone. She’ll take a porch swing over a red carpet any day, and while he’s used to being the center of attention, she hates the spotlight. Lana’s running from a scandal of her own, and her worst nightmare is becoming tabloid fodder. There is no way she’ll fall in love with Hollywood’s biggest star. Matt’s trying to clean up his image and needs to avoid temptation, but that’s easier said than done when the girl next door is the only woman he can’t have. Number one New York Times bestselling author Rachel Van Dyken says that Hollywood Scandal has “Flawless writing, incredible storytelling, and believable characters that you want to root for. I loved every word!” she says. Hollywood Scandal by Louise Bay is on sale now at all major retailers, and you can find out more at louisebay.com! And big, big, big thank you to Louise Bay for sponsoring this episode!

The music you’re listening to is provided by Sassy Outwater. You can find her on Twitter @SassyOutwater. This is Caravan Palace. This is “Star Scat,” which could either be a really cool name or a slightly gross one, depending on how you interpret it, but I really dig this song. You can find it on their two-album set, Caravan Palace and Panic, on iTunes and Amazon, and you can find Caravan Palace at caravanpalace.com!

Future podcasts will include me talking about romance novels, and if you have recommended the show or left a review on iTunes or on your podcast app, had a look at our Patreon campaign, or even sent me an email to ask me a question at [email protected] or [email protected], or if you’re listening right now, thank you! You are incredibly awesome, and I am deeply appreciative, and I will see you here next week.

And in the meantime, on behalf of Bea, Leah, Fitzwilliam Waffles, Orville, Wilbur, Zeb, and Buzz, myself, and everyone else here, all the mammals wish you the very best of reading. Have a great weekend.

[the good kind of scatty music]